This is just a curiosity to me, seeing as how many people want a ruling from Christopher on, what seems to me, something pretty basic.
How many of you, when setting up a game, shuffles their hero deck?
If you do, why? There's nothing in the rules about shuffling when setting up the game. The villain cards specify, sometimes, that you need to search out a specific card and then shuffle.
And yet, being a card game, it makes perfect sense to shuffle before you start.
So, is this something Christopher needs to rule on?
No need for a ruling. I have seen Christopher shuffle the decks before a game. He was also doing an rifle shuffle, but I can't bring myself to do that. I guess I have been playing wrong.
I don't think we need a ruling. If people want to stack the deck before playing the game they are free to do so. There will be no infringing on my rights to win.
Also there is no ruling that we can't look at and re-order our deck between turns. You could ask about that, because that could get a little out of hand.
Wow! It doesn't even mention putting the deck face down, meaning we can play with every deck face-up, that makes Infrared Eyepiece only useful when you do not like the card that is on top of the villain deck.
I like to shuffle every deck involved multiple times before starting a game. I like it when games turn out very different due to lucky/unlucky card draws.
I've had matches where I stomp all over Apostate in 4 rounds, barely taking any damage. I've had matches where Baron Blade absolutely destroys me due to some ridiculous chain events right at the beginning of the game that completely cripple my heroes.
I like the variability and I like knowing I shuffled enough times for it to be truly random.
Your conclusion and premises are backwards. We need rulings because the rules pretain to gameplay. Shuffling before or during setup or before the start of the game is outside of the game and therefore outside the rules themselves.
I shuffle before a game. Some decks I shuffle once or twice, while others, like Argent or Omnitron-X get shuffled multiple times, as people tend to sort their hands while playing, and don't always shuffle when they put the deck away.
So like once the game ends, heroes at 0hp are no longer incapacitated and are not limited in power use or card play/drawing.
My goodness, I'm gonna crush villains everytime they defeat me, They'll be all "I'm gonna win Hero turds!" And I'll be all "Just wait till this game is over, then you are going down Ambuscade!!" HA! Villains can't hide behind rules and legal loopholes anymore! Just have to wait till the "Game" ends, then I can crush them mercilessly.
I always suspect people of doing this in the online game, as the results often seem too pat to be truly random (which is a case of Reality is Unrealistic and I know it, but still, I get paranoid about it). Given that the game is co-op, cheating is self-defeating…if you only won because you let yourself, then the victory didn't really mean anything. Still, sometimes you want a gratuitous thrill (and/or not-properly-disclaimed bragging "rights"), so I do think an explicit instruction that the game is required to be random might be called-for. Though you could always ignore that rule just like anybody can ignore any rule ever, if nobody else forces their compliance.
It is really, really annoying that some of the rules are on the website rather than in the rulebook (especially since they're tucked away in a "how to play" section that you might never look at at all, if a friend taught you how to play the game using their own set and its printed rules.) I really hope that after Vengeance, we'll get a new Enhanced-er edition with a properly detailed (and spell-checked) rulebook.
But at least it's somewhere for anyone who might experience confusion about it.
Seriously, I kicked BattleCon: Devastation of Indines because I loved the print-and-play and Legacy was a Promo character. Their FAQs are awful. The rulebook constantly shows your hand down on the table and makes no mention of hiding it from your opponent. My group didn't find out how to play until we saw a Tom Vassel review that displayed him holding the cards in his hand.
Also, BattleCon's Tatsumi, a character with a 4 HP Panda sidekick, Juto, gains benefits from him in battle in the form of Soak, causing him life loss. The instructions specifically mentions that life loss cannot reduce a character to zero HP, yet discusses Juto being knocked out (though he cannot be targeted by opponents). The only reason I found out that his life loss effect even reduced him to zero (though nothing was mentioned in the FAQ in the booklet or online) was after I got a small amount of lip from the playtesting forum and the creator citing the wrong rule. He finally acknowledged my confusion and said "Right, my mistake! I'd better get on that!"
Greater Than Games is amazing about resolving rules disputes Before I was a member my group always found errata or topics that clearly explained what we were supposed to do in confusing situations. I'm happy that they can answer questions so fast (like how Ammo/Bounties with no legal targets are resolved when forced into play) or already have something posted online or in their rules (such as shuffling decks at the start of the game).
The reason the rulebook doesn't mention hiding your hand from your opponent is that you don't hide your hand from your opponent. Discard piles are also, as per the illustrations in the rules (and p.22), face up. The specific purpose of the reference cards supplied is so that your opponent can see what card effects you can play without having to ask to have a look at your hand.
So you can guess what pair your oppenent has every single time, then? What's the point of the ante phase if your opponent will always see your hand when you've laid your pair down on the table? You'd always know what your opponent played.
