Satchel of the Void View Details
Type: Support Faction: Silver Twilight
Cost: 2
Item.
Action: Pay X and exhaust Satchel of the Void to shuffle X cards from your discard pile into your deck.

The question arose today... Can you pay 0 just to shuffle your deck?

The two arguments were:

1) You're shuffling 0 in, so there's nothing to do.

2) It doesn't matter that X is 0, you still shuffle 0 in, and thereby shuffle.

This is tangentially related to card effects that are "Search your deck for <something>" which would cause you to have to shuffle your deck afterwards. Can you use this effect if you know for a fact that you have no cards that would match the search?

I am not sure how this will be ruled but...

Logically it would seem like the card's controller would have to shuffle something into the deck to shuffle the deck. If the card's controller does not choose anything to shuffle in then they should not be allowed to shuffle.

I admit I have an internal negative reaction against this sort of action. It smells like stalling even if a purpose can be argued.

Well, there have definitely been a lot of times I've wanted to shuffle my deck. For example, say you have some mechanism by which cards end up at the bottom of your deck and all of a sudden, three key cards to your deck are on the bottom. Yuck.

(note: When this one came up, I was arguing against this being a valid thing to do.)

Anyway, I submitted it to the FFG rules folks before I left work yesterday. We'll see what they come up with.

Hey folks,

Once again, got a very speedy response from the FFG folks. Seems like they've made an effort to answering rule questions in a speedy manner and I think that's an awesome response to the customer's previous complaints.

Anyway, here's the response with

You can always search your deck for a card. Failing to find the card does not invalidate the search for it. Search effects always have two components, looking for the card(s) and then what to do if you find the card(s). Searching is the first part of the effect and unless canceled will only fail if you have no deck to search. The second part of the effect is putting the card in your hand, in your discard pile, into play, etc. and that part will fail if you did not find the card you were directed to search for. Because you have searched your deck you must shuffle.

You may not shuffle your deck using Satchel of the Void if you pay 0. If I pay 0 their is nothing to shuffle into the deck. If the card read "Action: Pay X and exhaust Satchel of the Void to place X cards from your discard pile on top of your deck. Shuffle your deck." you would be able to. You would have successfully added 0 cards to the top of your deck, the secondary part of the effect then directs you to shuffle your deck. Having nothing to shuffle, means there is no shuffle.

And the biggest benefit of that response by FFG is that there cannot be any stalling due to pointless shuffling by paying 0.

Well, it might have been handy if you had some card in play that forced you to play with the top card of your deck revealed (can't remember which card it was, but there is something). You see the top card of your deck, you don't like it, you shuffle.

But I don't complain about the ruling, a lot of shuffling by one player would become really annoying fast.

This is great as a ruling for the game. It is even more awesome because of the general trend toward an elevated level of response.

Tokhuah said:

+1 to the second part of that. In the last week I've received a lot of responses from FFG from the "Rules Questions" link. I've always been very satisfied with FFG's customer support in terms of actual product (i've thrice recieved the wrong number of pieces in a game for example. contacted them and had replacements shipped out that day). It's nice to see them taking that same level for non-material support as well.

Agreed.

I havent sent any rules questions in a long time since I never got a response to any I ever sent. Not that I have many nowadays, but it is nice to know that the option is an actual option and not just wasting my time.