The Overlord's Deck
If the Overlord cycles through his deck twice in the same
dungeon level, the heroes are ejected from the dungeon
and are forced to flee it. Note that the Overlord's Keep is
not subject to this rule.

So we beat the first 2 levels of the dungeon without the overlord going through his deck (despite him having evil genius.) However going into the 3rd rumor level he had only a few cards left. So when the level 3 rumor started he cycled his deck on the 2nd or 3rd turn. Then later in the dungeon he cycled one more time. Should we be ejected even though he really only went completely through his deck once on that paticular level?

Thanks.

Technically, yes, the heroes should be ejected. However, the rule only exists to prevent the heroes from staying in the dungeon forever, waiting for the OL to get enough conquest to trigger the final battle (which the heroes may want to do if they're about to lose via plot, but it's a very cheap tactic). So if the heroes are actually trying to progress through the dungeon, many groups ignore this rule. (It's also fairly common to just ignore that first time the deck cycled if there were almost no cards left at the start of the level.)

I believe that current ruling is that you need to recycle deck thrice in the same dungeon, not twice in the same level.

D.

Dheran said:

No, that was the previous ruling.

(current) FAQ pg12
The Overlord's Deck
If the Overlord cycles through his deck twice in the same dungeon level, the heroes are ejected from the dungeon and are forced to flee it. Note that the Overlord's Keep is not subject to this rule.

Even if you start a level with only 1 card in the OL deck, the OL should only cycle a second time if the heroes are getting crushed, in other words, only when smart heroes would be fleeing in the first place. Knowing when to cut your losses in an important part of the hero team, even though running can be hard (mentally) to do.

Badend said:

+1. The overlord's deck ha a minimum of 32 cards (or a little fewer if I'm missing something besides Focused). It's probably more, since most people seem to get other sets before they get RtL. With Evil Genius that's 13+ turns to cycle the deck twice. If you can't finish a small RtL level in 13 turns you probably shouldn't have gone there. If it's going to be a large level (Legendary Area or Rumor), it's a good idea to wait a turn or two if the OL is about to cycle when you're finishing up the next-to-last dungeon.

Thanks for all the responses. In the end we kept playing mainly because the rule is only there to prevent abuse and that was not the reason the extra deck cycle happened. It happened cause it was a 3rd level and it was a rumor. We all made the decision as heroes that the prize of ironskin was worth dying a few times for. Of course we tried to mitigate this but were confused between us which strategy to employ. We had a cloth with divine retribution and wanted to rush down the narrow corridor and challenge the overlord to kill him and lose 80% of his forces. The issue was we were rolling really bad on the ice squares getting stuck like everytime. Plus we had somewhat of a dispute over how to approach the dungeon. We had no blast card so we could not clear the hallway easily other than inch our way up. I thought our tanks could take the abuse but with rage and other abilties that did not go as well either. =(

Anyway we understand the rule and i think we will keep it in mind but like someone said earlier probably ignore it as we are not attempting to abuse the game in that way and force it to end. Actually it was the first time we had the deck cycle twice anyway so i think it will be very rare.. Especially if we conform to a set strategy and don't dispute over what to do to much.