When Noxious Bite is played, it says to “Search the villain Deck” for an Infection Card and play it. This was pretty confusing to us, since every search effect that I’ve seen before now specifies to search the deck OR the trash, which implies that they are 2 different things and that “Deck” does not include “Trash”. So, on to the questions regarding Noxious Bite:
If all of the infection cards are on characters do you ignore the part that has you search for an infection? (say a 5 player game where everyone is infected would it be correct to say that all this card accomplishes is shuffling the villain deck)
If all of the infection cards are in the trash, would this card cause us to shuffle his trash into his deck and then draw until we find an infection card? Or does it just result in the deck being shuffled since no Infection cards are found in the deck?
We had a similar question come up with the Operative in the Chairman deck. She reveals cards from the top of the villain deck until she finds an Underboss. If all the Underbosses are in the trash, do we shuffle the trash into the deck and then continue revealing cards from the deck until we get an Underboss, with all revealed cards then becoming the new trash or does it just result in us shuffling the deck after not finding one?
So I can infer from your response that the “Deck” and the “Trash” as game terms are distinct and separate entities. (i.e. even though both together comprise the “villain deck” in the physical world) This clears up a lot of oddball cases with the new villains and makes some villains harder (The Chairman) and some easier (Plague Rat).
I think if you’re supposed to search the deck and there’s no mention of the trash, then if you don’t find it, you don’t find it and stop. Likewise with the trash.
Also, the Infection card says what to do if all active heroes are infected – discard the Infection card and play the top card of the villain deck.
Yes, but if you can’t find an Infection card because they are all in the trash, then do you play the top card of the deck? I would think no, because you never actually “play” Infection, but does the attempt to play it trigger that part of it?
Deck and Trash are distinct entities. If you search the Villain Deck and do not find Infection, you simply shuffle the deck and continue as normal; if no Infection is found (and, consequently, no Infection is played), you do not play the next card of the Villain Deck even if all players are Infected.
Just to make sure that I’ve got it, this also means that if the Operative is to search the deck and there are no Underbosses left in it, that all it does is cause the deck to be shuffled. Correct?
There has been some debate about this in the BGG forums actually. The Operative doesn’t “search the deck”, she reveals cards from the deck until and Underbooss is found. There is some debate about whether or not revealing cards from a deck would result in shuffling the trash in the same way that drawing from a deck would. I have a question to Chris about this pending.