I'm hoping someone here can guide me towards a correct answer with another edge case situation...

I'm playing Mandy Thompson and have "Practice Makes Perfect" in my deck. I wish to commit it to a skill test on an investigate action to "search the top 9 cards of my deck for a Practiced skill and commit it to this skill test". There are only 6 cards left in my deck, which means I know I have a Deduction in there that I'm looking for.

Question 1:

Do I

a) Search only the remaining 6 cards, resolve the effect of Practice Makes Perfect committing the found Deduction to the test and pulling a chaos token.

b) Take the top 6 cards, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck, take the top 3 of the newly formed deck, add it to the six and search those cards for a Practiced skill to add to the test, taking one horror for cycling through my investigator deck.

c) Something else that I've not thought of.

I've previously played this as though b) were the correct way to play. Is this the case?

Question 2:

Possibly something of an edge case, but I'm curious how this would play out;

I'm playing Extracurricular activity and have Beyond the Veil in my threat area. (I don't know how to do cover with spoilers here, but the overview is that it is a treachery card that has a negative effect that will activate "If your deck has no cards in it".

Does this mean

a) I can't play Practice Makes Perfect without triggering the "If your deck has no cards in it" condition of Beyond the Veil and therefore must accept the negative effect of the card.

b) Beyond the Veil somehow "misses the timing" of my deck having no cards in it, and I can recreate my deck from the discard pile as it is happening mid-action.

c) Something else that I've not thought of.

I'm going to play this as option a) for now as it seems likely the correct interpretation, but it was curious enough that I thought I'd ask to see if any of you more seasoned players could provide clarification.

Again, thanks in advance for your guidance.

1. a. You do as much as you can, so if there are less than X cards you just search X.

2. b. It doesn't miss the timing, your deck is never actually empty. Cards you're searching are still in your deck.

Note that Practice makes Perfect is an Event. If you commit it to a test, you’re just committing it for the willpower or intellect icon (and don’t search your deck). So I assume you mean you are trying to Play Practice makes Perfect (which also costs 1 resource).

52 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

1. a. You do as much as you can, so if there are less than X cards you just search X.

2. b. It doesn't miss the timing, your deck is never actually empty. Cards you're searching are still in your deck.

This is completely correct; if you need a reference from the rules themselves, for the first question, see the third bullet point under "Effects" in the Rules Reference (p. 10):

Quote

When a non-targeting effect attempts to interact with a number of entities (such as “draw 3 cards” or “search the top 5 cards of your deck”) that exceeds the number of entities that currently exist in the specified game area, the effect interacts with as many entities as possible.

And for the second question, the third bullet point under "Search" in the Rules Reference (p. 18):

Quote

While cards are in the process of being searched, they are not considered to have left their game area of origin.

Clear and helpful once again, thanks!

And yes, Faranim, you are correct - I meant "play" not commit. (Though it does occur to me now that I have included the intelligence pip on Practice Makes Perfect when I have played it, which I obviously shouldn't).

Is the only way to force the discard pile to be reshuffled into the deck by drawing a card when the deck is empty?

59 minutes ago, dropkickweasel said:

Is the only way to force the discard pile to be reshuffled into the deck by drawing a card when the deck is empty?

Generally speaking, yes, although there are a few abilities or cards which will do it - Quantum Flux and Patrice's elder sign ability are the only two I can think of.

2 hours ago, Allonym said:

f you need a reference from the rules themselves

Thanks for that, I was being lazy about it