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[Wuscheli]

Hey.

We had these questions coming up last night, and didn't find satisfying information in the rule books yet:

• Can you count the number of cards in your draw deck? In other people's decks?
• Can you count the number of cards in your discard pile? In other people's discards? (The friends agreed that only the top card of the pile may be examined, but couldn't agree whether the number of hidden cards was.)
• Can you count the number of cards in any player's hand? (Probably only useful if the aforementioned piles may be counted.)
• Can you count the number of cards in the trash? Can you examine every trashed card at any time? (We figured it's the latter.)
• Can you count the number of cards in each supply pile? Can you examine all the cards in each supply pile? (I think you may count, but not examine knights/ruins.)
• Can you count the number of cards in the black market deck?

MtG explicitly states "A player may count the number of cards in any player's library/hand/pile at any time.", while not allowing examination. How about here?

These things came up in a Gardens game, but one guy is seriously pondering about running a small reallife tournament, where things like these must be agreed upon beforehand. We also don't want to houserule this.

[Mr Anderson]

1. yes, no
2. no, no
3. you propably should be allowed to do that, there is no rule regarding that, but you should know the number of cards if there are discard-based attacks.
4. yes
5. yes
6. I am not sure as I do not know the official FAQ

[Davio]

6. Yes

The thing with Black Market is that there are no official rules concerning the number of cards in there, the only thing the associated rule sheet says is that all players should agree on the number of cards in there.

Since all players have to agree, all players will know how many cards will be in there at the start.
This leads me to believe that you should be able to know how many cards are left as the purchase of BM cards is done openly.

If we use Iso's implementation which has always been as adherent to the rules as can be, then this will also leads me to believe it is public. You can press "info" and check all the BM cards that are left in fact.

You can't sneak a peek at the BM deck in real life, but knowing how many cards are left seems like open information to me.

[Tables]

1. yes, no
2. no, no
3. you propably should be allowed to do that, there is no rule regarding that, but you should know the number of cards if there are discard-based attacks.
4. yes
5. yes
6. I am not sure as I do not know the official FAQ

This, except for 5, you cannot examine the Knights/Ruins etc. And any other pile, they're all the same, so it's a moot point.

[Wuscheli]

Alright, pretty exhaustive answers so far, thanks!

It sounds like there are fixed rules especially for decks, discards, and supply, which are the most important cases.

I much agree on the ruling with the countable BM deck. A little problem could merely arise from the logic "it's open information at the start, and everything that goes in/out is also open information". Strictly from this idea, all deck and discard piles should be countable at any time.

[DStu]

A little problem could merely arise from the logic "it's open information at the start, and everything that goes in/out is also open information". Strictly from this idea, all deck and discard piles should be countable at any time.

Believe me, you don't want to go down this road.  Next thing is you are discussing point counters...

[Wuscheli]

Haha, yeah, I don't want to pursue this. I just want to avoid house rulings for anything that has an official rule.

[ftl]

Can you count the number of cards in your draw deck? In other people's decks?

• Can you count the number of cards in your discard pile? In other people's discards? (The friends agreed that only the top card of the pile may be examined, but couldn't agree whether the number of hidden cards was.)

The rationale with this one is that, I think, the way discard piles usually are placed, you can't really count them without accidentally/intentionally seeing the other cards in them besides the top one. And so the rule is that you can't even count them.

• Can you count the number of cards in each supply pile? Can you examine all the cards in each supply pile? (I think you may count, but not examine knights/ruins.)

Since everyone else just gave one-word answers to this one, I'll clarify that you're right on both counts. You're allowed to count the number of cards in each supply pile; however, for the Knights and Ruins pile, all the cards except for the top one are face-down, so you can't and aren't allowed to see what knights/ruins are coming up.

[pst]

Not sure how you didn't find the answers to most of these questions from the rules. It's pretty explicit:

A player is allowed to count how many cards are left in his Deck, but not in his Discard pile. A player may not look through his Deck or his Discard pile. A player may look through the Trash pile, and players may count the number of cards left in any pile in the Supply.

[Davio]

Concerning the Knights and Ruins pile.

It even goes as far as: When you return Ruins with Ambassador, the Ruins that is currently face up on top of the pile needs to be flipped face down before you returned any cards.

I.e. information that once was known like the top card of the pile may be hidden again due to Ambassador.
Only the top card of those piles may be visible. Ambassador could create a situation where multiple cards from these piles would be face up, that's not allowed.

[GendoIkari]

In regards to counting your opponent's deck size... Goko gives you that information, and Donald said he's fine with that. He said he didn't specifically allow you to count opponent's decks in the rules because it could slow the game down. So the correct answer is indeed no, you cannot count your opponent's deck sizes, it's also not something that was really intended to be kept secret.