The text I've seen for this card (I don't have a physical copy yet) is
"Response: After you win a challenge in which The Golden Company participated as an attacker, return 1 random card from your discard pile to your hand"

Given that the order of cards in your discard pile can matter for several effects, I feel that if this wanted you to shuffle your discard pile it would say so. As we haven't required a die or other random-number generator before… I'm a little surprised by this wording.

Is there a precedent for picking a random card from a visible play area? I wonder if there are any similar cases from the CCG that serve as a guide…

I'm on board with you on this being confusing.

Based on the current text and the FAQ, I'd say as of now, do your best to keep track of the order of discards before you randomly select a card to return to your hand. Then, when this is done, put the discard pile back in the previous order without the removed card.

Let's just hope that this is not done while being against a mill deck. Haha. That would just not be reasonable if 30 cards are in your discard pile!

-Istaril said:

I played in the CCG era, and I cannot think of any instance of picking a random card from a visible area.

FFG has never had a rule or ruling saying "this is how you will do X randomly." They have always left it up to the players to determine how do anything randomly.

For example, the rules for intrigue claim say that the losing defender randomly chooses the card that is discarded from hand. Yet most players have developed the convention that the losing defender spreads the cards out some way so that the winning attacker can only see their backs, then lets that winning attacker just grab a card. FFG never told anyone to do it this way, but it is far and away the most common way to "randomly" discard a card from hand. It would technically be just as valid for the defender to roll a die, flip a coin, etc.

So in this case, I would not expect any guidelines from FFG anytime soon. I'd suggest that you take the discard pile in question, flip it face-down, fan it out, grab a card, then collapse it again (so the order is otherwise maintained) and flip the whole pile face-up again.

Considering I should well remember whether the card I wanted was the one I just played or the one I played on turn 1, that's just a slightly less guaranteed "choose". It seems like a card like this is best suited to bringing along a random number generator of some kind, or doing as Bomb suggests, praying you aren't up against a mill deck.

Ugh. What's wrong with a street-waif like system? Or the bottom card… so many other ways to word it without it being a headache.

ktom said:

But…that doesn't work, does it? The discard pile is open knowledge, right? What's to stop you from counting the cards and just taking the one you want?

IMO FFG will have to issue a rule that you'll have to shuffle the discard pile whenever you need to pick a card at random. That's the only practicable solution.

Ratatoskr said:

This was the method my wife suggested, but I see the same problem as Ratatoskr.

Ratatoskr said:

You could always take the "intrigue claim" solution, too - fan out your discard pile and let your opponent choose the hidden card.

Or you could just shuffle your discard pile, choose a card, and move on with your life without feeling the need to be so literal as to put the "correct" order back into the pile. There is nothing wrong with coming up with a solution that works, then living with the results. If you are THAT concerned with the order of your discard pile, don't trigger the effect.

ktom said:

Same problem there. My discard pile is open information for my opponent too, so he could count the cards and pick the one he wants me to return as well.

ktom said:

Sorry, but that's a bit too nonchalant for me. That would be breaking a game rule. If FFG publishes a card with an effect that requires me to break the rules of the game to implement properly, the onus to fix it is on them, not me.

I stand by my earlier suggestion. Just add a short sentence to the FAQ that says something like "whenever an effect requires you to pick a random card out of your dead or discard pile, shuffle the respective pile before picking the card". It's not that different from the "whenever you search your deck for any reason, shuffle it afterwards" proviso.

Ratatoskr said:

Ratatoskr said:

Ratatoskr said:

Handholding at such a degree just frustrates me. The fact that we needed an FAQ entry instead of a general understanding and agreement to "just shuffle the freakin' deck" in the search situation frustrates me, too. I understand why it's needed; I just wish it wasn't. I mean, we have seen people ask "why isn't there an official way to randomly determine the winner of initiative when scores are tied?" So I'm more bucking at the general trend we've been seeing over the last year or so of people generally needing - and wanting - everything spelled out for them here.

ktom said:

The discard pile lies face up, and that fact alone makes it impossible to randomly choose a card in the manner you specified. And sportsmanship issues? So once my opponent has the Golden Company in play I have to be wary of being called out on sportsmanship issues whenever I want to peruse their discard pile?

ktom said:

Oh, come on now. Cards break rules all the time, but to do it, they need to be explicit about it. If the card said "After you win a challenge in which The Golden Company participated as an attacker, shuffle your discard pile and return 1 random card from it to your hand", this would not be an issue. The FAQ tells me "You may not change the order of cards in your discard or dead pile", and nothing on this card or anywhere else countermands that.

Look, I don't want to blow this out of proportion. It is not a huge deal, but there is a design issue here. The whole thing's a bit messy, and in a game where exactitude in all things is as important as in this one, that bothers me. It's the same reason why Manning the City Walls and At the Gates bother me - you know, the matter that was discussed recently, how their effect is mandatory without the opponent being able to monitor compliance. It's all…imprecise, for the lack of a better term.

ktom said:

Ah, now you're talking. Now I get where you're coming from, and I agree completely. Things like Free Man actually ruled not to be a Wildling at an actual tournament. The new Archibald Yronwood and Gerris Drinkwater allegedly not working as written because allegedly no one knew what a "character agenda" was supposed to be before the latest FAQ update.

I'm with you there. It's just that I don't think the Golden Company is relly in the same category as those things. Here I have a very clearcut, totally unambiguous FAQ entry that is not overridden by anything else going against the only practicable way to resolve the card effect.

All those things aside, I just wanted to wish you a good time at GenCon. Hope you don't run into any problems enforcing the new tournament rules.

~Obviously, the contents and order of a discard pile must be kept recorded at all times. Then, the only reasonable thing to do with this effect is to tape the contents of the player's discard pile to the wall, and have him/her throw a dart to select one of those cards.

Just grab a handful of dice and do some basic math. Any type of dice will do (and even if you have only one, you can reroll it). Suppose you have 11 cards. If you have only a 6-sided die, you roll it, count it as 0 for 1-3 and 1 for 4-6, reroll it and add the result. That gives you a result between 1 and 12 (just as if you had rolled a d12). Repeat until you get a result other than 12.

Hell, you don't even need a physical die, you can get some app on your phone to do it for you.

Ratatoskr said:

Ratatoskr said:

But like I said, I'm more frustrated by the human nature involved than anything else.

Ratatoskr said:

ktom said:

Perhaps it is a good thing you're not listening to the 2C1C podcast then. When they were talking at length about how they had no choice but to rule Free Man was not a wildling at their tournament because nobody could be 100% sure FFG wasn't planning to introduce the Wilding trait at some point in the future, I wanted to grab them, shake them and scream at their faces. When they talked, again at length, about how Archibald and Gerris wouldn't work because nobody could be quite sure what a character agenda was supposed to be without an FAQ update, I was ready to apply black eyeshadow, put in an Evanescence CD and start cutting myself. I mean I love the show, but sometimes they drive me nuts.

ktom said:

~ Oh, I won't have any trouble enforcing them. People might not like my methods, but I'll be fine.

~I'm looking forward to the internet exploding with nerdrage when 40 players, including six former World Champions, get disqualified from the tournament for collusion, unsportsmanlike conduct and, well, scouting.

Ratatoskr said:

Words right out of my mouth. The Wildling/Wilding issue was such a no-brainer, really (just like Dohraki, Calvary, onborn, etc.), I wanted to smack my head against the wall.

Ratatoskr said:

The only issue with the scouting I have is if my game goes on longer than other players, then they were allowed to come over and watch our game. If I have to play them later on, then they have an advantage that I didn't have access to. At least, that's why I think they created this rule.

I don't know how tournaments are run, but I think if you had a friend there watching all the other games, then what he/she could be doing is a form of scouting. Not sure if 3rd party observation is allowed or not.

Ratatoskr said:

Seriously though, the closest we came to a problem at the melee today that I know of was the resolution of Player A's Red Wedding kill/claim power decision that would either let Player B win, or effectively let Players C & D play it out. The table "argued" about it for over 5 minutes (with 10 minutes left in the game) when I said "there's only one choice to make and you're starting to take too long to make it." I think it was construed as "I'm getting close to calling you for collusion" (since Players A and B were from the same meta) instead of the "I'm getting close to calling you for delay of game." I'll own up to being kind of indistinct there, but the collusion discussion is obviously on people's minds (perhaps overly so).

(Just because your move helps a friend does not make it collusion. "I'm tired and I wand this game over" is a valid in game decision as far as I'm concerned. The point is that you went into the game trying to win, but it didn't work out.)

To me, the scouting issue is more of a balance between the letter and spirit of fair competition, balanced against the fact that it's a game any you should be allowed to have fun. If the people still playing the tournament game are bothered by being watched, or by loud conversation in the next chair, it's just courteous to respect their wishes to move somewhere else.

ktom said:

Yeah, that's all nice, and I'll give it the consideration it deserves, but who made final table? What decks were they playing? Whon won? Tell us! Tell us!

Khudzlin said:

This seems the obvious, easy solution to me, too. I'll just make sure I have an app or a set of dice with me now that this card exists, roll as appropriate when the effect triggers, and count down from the top until I hit the number generated. Easy solution.