I'm entering an event with a two-sided state
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Scry • $3 • Event
You may place a card from your discard pile on the bottom of your deck, then turn your deck face up. If you don't have "Warned" or "Twice Warned", take "Warned".
Warned • State
After shuffling or counting your deck, turn it face up. At the start of your turn, you may discard the top card of your deck. If you do, turn this over to Twice Warned.
Twice Warned • State
After shuffling or counting your deck, turn it face up. At the start of clean up, you may discard the top card of your deck. If you do, return this (and turn your deck face down).
"play with your deck face up" seems like fertile promo ground; unfortunately it also seems like it'd be a project most of the time. Pairing it with discard plucking and some weak sifting seems appropriate. This - one event card, six state cards - is still fewer cards than a typical kingdom pile, so i think it'd even be feasible to do with irl printing.
Points of pride: putting the "what about shuffling"/"what if i need to count my deck" complaints implicitly to rest.
So Scry by itself lets you see your deck for the rest of its current shuffle. Each side of Warned turns the next new deck over, or if you don't have it anymore the deck goes face down as normal. Do I have this right? Because turning it over after counting the deck seems unnecessary, it's all face up so you can look through all of it as you count. I guess it's all public knowledge as well, technically. What's stopping your opponents leafing through your deck? (A sensible rulebook instruction saying they can't.)
And the decision to discard the top of deck with Twice Warned is between moving a junk card on and losing the deck knowledge advantage so having to pay another $3 later to regain it. I suppose it's worth it sometimes, but most likely it's a $3 better saved.
after you buy Scry / have Warned or Twice Warned, you turn your deck face down for shuffling or counting; at all other times, it is face up. I suppose other players could look through it, but I think that falls under the same sort of table ettiquette as not looking at other players' hands.
As for price, consider it more that you can discard two pieces of green/junk until you buy it again.
So Scry allows you to look at your whole deck, not just the top card? That's an interesting concept, but seems very AP-prone to me...
Certainly not looking at opponents' hands is a hard rule, not just etiquette? So there should also be a ruling whether opponents can look through your face-up deck with Scry or not.
After all, all face-up cards in the game are generally public knowledge, and opponents are already allowed to count your deck, since deck size is public knowledge.
nope;
you (and everyone at the table) should only be looking at/able to see the top card.
it's a friendly game with an etiquette that shouldn't really be bringing out this level of rules lawyer. i figured "turn your deck over" was easier than a constant peeking at the top, or turning the top card face up all the time, but maybe i misjudged. It's certainly less text than other options.
if you need to count a face up deck, flip it face down first.
As for the rest of your post:
Like, for a thought experiment, let's say you're playing on a glass table. you count your deck, but leave them just fanned out enough to be able to see where everything is if they were face up; if you duck under the table (not technically in the rulebook) so that you're able to see what's coming up in your deck, that's against the etiquette of the game. Or unsportsmanlike or whatever. Yeah you might win, but it's a friendly game; why are you trying to cheat to win at a friendly game?
I guess, in short, try to win, but try to win only using the knowledge you're supposed to have; you can accidentally knock over a face up deck, or know the contents of someone's discard pile, and use that knowledge to "win" but if it's not in good faith, how's it a win?
edit: and, I looked in the rulebook, it doesn't specify whether or not you can look at other players' hands; I'd guess that's equal parts convention on how a "hand" works and etiquette. I certainly wouldn't want to play open handed all the time (only when teaching, really) but that's just me.