Manually Shuffle Deck?!

[Mstr Matt]

I'm trying to figure out how to shuffle my discard pile. From what I understand, the second edition changed the rules from only shuffling when you had to and allows you to shuffle strategically at any point. Am I missing something or is this just not available?

Love being able to play online!

Thanks-

[Ingix]

There was a change to the shuffle rules, but not as you suggest.

In 1st edition rules, when you played a Smithy and had 1 card left in the deck, you would draw that 1 card, shuffle your discard pile to become your new deck, then draw the remaining 2 cards.

Under 2nd edtiion rules, you'd count your deck before drawing for Smithy, find that it has not enough cards, shuffle your discard pile and put it under the card(s) left in your deck, then draw 3 cards.

As you can see, you always draw the 1 card that was originally your remaining deck, and 2 more from the shuffled discard pile. The differences are small (under 1st edition rules, you would see what the 1 card in your deck was before you chose which card to topdeck with Star Chart) and mainly relevant for IRL play.

The online game does this automatically. Shuffling your discard pile at any time is, to repeat, not what the change was about.

[Mstr Matt]

Gotcha! Thanks for the clarification.

I think what threw me off was the wiki page on shuffling. Under the strategy section they talk about shuffling at strategic times. I went back through my second edition rule book and found nothing on the matter.

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Reshuffle

We just discovered this online version a few days ago, and it's been really cool so far! There's been a few things like this, that we've learned we've been doing incorrectly!  :o
Thanks for the help!

Matt-

[Ingix]

When to shuffle can be important, but you need to do it inside the rules.

An artificial example is when you have a hand of 4 Victory cards and 1 Merchant (does +1 Card/+1 Action for our purposes) and your deck is empty. No matter what, you turn is not going to do much. Do you just end your turn, or do you play the Merchant, which in this case causes a shuffle of your discard pile because you draw 1 card?

The answer is overwhelmingly to play the Merchant, and that's not "because you might draw something good".

If you don't play any cards, during Cleanup you discard your hand of 4 useless (during the game) cards and a medium one, then you need to draw your next hand, so you shuffle your discard pile, including 4 useless (during the game) cards and a medium one and draw 5 cards from them. Even if you didn't draw the victory cards now, they are in your deck and you will draw them until you shuffle again.

If you do play the Merchant, you shuffle your discard pile now, and draw a card. It doesn't matter what the card is. Even if you can't play it, when you discard your hand now, your deck is already containing many cards, so the Victory cards will not be in your deck to draw until your next shuffle. That can be a big advantage.