If Plague Rat has to search his deck for an infection, but the only infections are in play or in the trash, do you shuffle the trash into the deck, or do you just not get an infection coming into play?
i have been playing that nothing happens, but now I am not sure. Thanks.
We've been doing the same - it just says to search the deck for an Infection card, doesn't it? So if all five Infection cards are all either in play or in the trash, there aren't any in the deck, so I just don't bother searching it as it doesn't specify to search anywhere else.
As you say, no shuffling of the trash into the deck, since it doesn't say to do that. There's just no Infection coming into play. However, I think it says to shuffle the deck after you search, right? If so, then you'd still shuffle the deck even if you didn't find (or didn't bother looking because you knew it wasn't there) an Infection card. That could be important if some hero or effect had allowed you to look at the top card of the villain deck, for example. Since you have to shuffle it, that card you were counting on being next would now be roaming freely in the villain deck again.
Hmm, good point - I hadn't thought about the factor of deck control "needing" to be messed up by the shuffle. I suppose that should be the case with any deck, for example if Ra has put a certain card (via, for example, Tempest's Reclaim from the Deep) on the top of his deck and then plays Summon Staff but all four staves are already accounted for (ie in trash/hand/play), you'd still need to shuffle the deck and lost whatever you'd put on top, right?
Thanks! That is what I thought, but I wanted to be sure.