Side Deck Randomized/Shuffled?

[Surge1000]

It is unclear in the rules whether the side deck should be shuffled and how exactly you put energy cards into play. It is clear that you shuffle and cut the draw deck, but all it says about side deck is "take your side deck of energy cards and place them in the area marked side deck."

So, do you shuffle the side deck and play the top card off that deck when putting energy into play?

or

Do you get to choose what energy card out of your side deck you want to play during your resource step?

[Turonik]

It is unclear in the rules whether the side deck should be shuffled and how exactly you put energy cards into play. It is clear that you shuffle and cut the draw deck, but all it says about side deck is "take your side deck of energy cards and place them in the area marked side deck."

So, do you shuffle the side deck and play the top card off that deck when putting energy into play?

or

Do you get to choose what energy card out of your side deck you want to play during your resource step?

Side deck is not randomized. You simply choose which energy you want and put it into play.

[soviet prince]

Side deck is not randomized. You simply choose which energy you want and put it into play.

thats correct

[Hatake-Kakashi]

thats correct

Can someone like PM me where you found out that you can choose?

When we were playing it seemed very unreasonable...

Here are the reasons we thought it made no sense:

In the demo the deck was placed face-down. This would make no sense if you can simply choose any one since your opponent can see what energies you have on your Gaurdian. Also, you can get all of your really good cards out really really early....

[Chronomaster]

Can someone like PM me where you found out that you can choose?

When we were playing it seemed very unreasonable...

Here are the reasons we thought it made no sense:

In the demo the deck was placed face-down. This would make no sense if you can simply choose any one since your opponent can see what energies you have on your Gaurdian. Also, you can get all of your really good cards out really really early....

Trust me. This works. If it were random, the game would be MUCH slower than before.

Plus, it doesn't say to randomize your side deck. On top of that, it says to play energy from your deck. I believe there was a line somewhere in the book which says your side deck is open information to you.

[Hatake-Kakashi]

Trust me. This works. If it were random, the game would be MUCH slower than before.

Plus, it doesn't say to randomize your side deck. On top of that, it says to play energy from your deck. I believe there was a line somewhere in the book which says your side deck is open information to you.

Well to me it seemed more like you set up your deck beforehand and then you play like that or something....if you can just choose then im actually having second thoughts about this game.....

[Turonik]

Well to me it seemed more like you set up your deck beforehand and then you play like that or something....if you can just choose then im actually having second thoughts about this game.....

From the offical rules guru.

No need to shuffle the side deck, you get to pick and choose your energy.


You shuffle your main deck which contains everything except for energy which is in a seperate deck. Trust me, being able to chose what energy you need is a good thing and not at all broken and makes play skill more revelant rather than relying on top decking and luck.

[soviet prince]

Well to me it seemed more like you set up your deck beforehand and then you play like that or something....if you can just choose then im actually having second thoughts about this game.....

I don't see whats the proublem with just choosing your energy cards, like Turonik said it's a good thing it takes luck out of the game and thats always a good thing, you should not let small stuff like that turn you down. This is going to be a great game.

[Surge1000]

Thanks for the responses. The rulebook is quite lacking in this discussion. I read it over and over looking for clarification regarding this but the only clue I found about it was when it said randomize your draw deck but didn't say randomize your side deck. Pretty vague IMO.

The demo certainly didn't help any either. Why would you play your side deck face down? Your guardian says what energy cards you have, and it's obvious what you have on the table. If the draws from the side deck are not random, then why have the side deck face down at all?

Lastly, what's the point of the different allowable energy sources on the guardians? They all seem to have at least 4 of any given energy allowable, and so far, I haven't seen any cards that require more than 4 of any one energy type to play. There might as well not be any energy pool numbers on the guardians. Everyone should just have the same side deck with like 10 of each. I don't really understand this part. If it were meant to be random, it would make more sense. Then a guardian with like 9 spirit and 4 mind would be more likely to play cards with higher spirit costs and less likely to play cards with higher mind costs because it would be less likely that the higher cost mind card would be easily playable. With the current system, it doesn't matter. Every guardian can play any card regardless of energy cost. So once again, what's the point?

[DanTheTimid]

Thanks for the responses. The rulebook is quite lacking in this discussion. I read it over and over looking for clarification regarding this but the only clue I found about it was when it said randomize your draw deck but didn't say randomize your side deck. Pretty vague IMO.

The demo certainly didn't help any either. Why would you play your side deck face down? Your guardian says what energy cards you have, and it's obvious what you have on the table. If the draws from the side deck are not random, then why have the side deck face down at all?

Lastly, what's the point of the different allowable energy sources on the guardians? They all seem to have at least 4 of any given energy allowable, and so far, I haven't seen any cards that require more than 4 of any one energy type to play. There might as well not be any energy pool numbers on the guardians. Everyone should just have the same side deck with like 10 of each. I don't really understand this part. If it were meant to be random, it would make more sense. Then a guardian with like 9 spirit and 4 mind would be more likely to play cards with higher spirit costs and less likely to play cards with higher mind costs because it would be less likely that the higher cost mind card would be easily playable. With the current system, it doesn't matter. Every guardian can play any card regardless of energy cost. So once again, what's the point?

Actually there are alot of rare cards with energy costs of 5-8. Characters that don't have high enough energy are thus limited from running characters and cards with energy beyond that amount.

Further it can limit the cards you can play a turn. For example lets say alot of the cards in your deck have 3 body cost and like 1 of anything else. Your character has 4 body energy. At most you can only ever play 1 of these cards per turn. Conversely chad with his 10 body energy could theoretically be playing 3 of them a turn in the late game. Its important to build a deck to your energy strengths or your deck will run much slower then a well built one. If your only running a cheap rush deck with lots of spread out low costs you can get away with it but thats a whole nother stratedgy and many themes have alot of the same energy costs.

[Surge1000]

I see. Thanks for the info. That cleared it up for me. I'll look through the card list on the Score site to see what some of the higher cost cards are.

[Turonik]

some Guardians can't play certain cards due to energy limitations. For example, Menos, Chad, and Ichigo can't play Uryu-Unrelenting. Four guardians can't play Keigo-Nerd Intimidator. There's some others but you get the general idea. It's just a way to keeping more of the guardians playable instead of just having only one getting played.