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[SixDaysShort]

I know everyone should learn this early on.  And, I thought I had control over it.  But, isotropic has given me some strange results.  For instance, I remember that if I didn't have any cards on top of my deck, swindler didn't have an effect.  Likewise, if I used lookout w/ only one card in my deck, i didn't get to reshuffle to look at 3.  However, sometimes, reveal effects make me reshuffle.

Is it card-specific?  Or are there general rules?

[rrenaud]

You are getting confused by the corner case of not having any cards left in your discard pile.  That explains both the immunity to swindler, and the stunted lookout action.

If you have cards in your discard, and none in your draw, a swindler will still effect you.  It will force a reshuffle.  If you play a lookout and have more than 2 cards in your combined draw + discard pile, you'll get the full trash, discard, put on top behavior. 

[DG]

I'll also mention another related feature of isotropic. When you play a card that uses cards from the top of your deck, such as a lookout, the cards are removed from the top of your deck while the action is in progress and put back on top of the deck at the end of the action. This may seem obvious, but I was originally confused by a wishing well that wasn't forcing a reshuffle when no cards were shown left in the draw deck. The last card, the guessable card, had already been taken from the deck even though it hadn't yet been revealed, and it was put back on the deck as soon as I guessed wrong.

[Kirian]

The very specific rule is this:  when you are required to interact with the top card of your deck, and your deck has no cards, you immediately reshuffle.  This may or may not be on your turn.  Interacting with that card includes:

Drawing cards at any time, including someone else's turn (e.g. Council Room, Minion)
Revealing your top card (e.g. Spy, Oracle)
Examining your top card (e.g. Cartographer, Navigator)

It does not include putting something back on top of your deck (e.g. Lookout, Ghost Ship).  Doing that requires no interaction with the top card.

Note that this refers to the top card at any time.  If you're to draw three cards and there are two in your deck, you draw those two, attempt to interact with the top card of your deck (which no longer exists), reshuffle, and draw the third card from the top of the shuffled deck.

In face-to-face play, it's not uncommon to pre-shuffle if you know you will be needing to reshuffle on your next turn... just don't turn the discard pile into the draw pile until you actually have to do so.

[Davio]

Yeah, a common mistake is to shuffle preemptively.

This happens for example when a player draws his next hand and notices he doesn't have anything left in his draw pile (and perhaps a Smithy in his hand). But you can always get a Curse from another player (although in practice this won't always happen) which needs to be mixed in with the rest.

[AJD]

The very specific rule is this:  when you are required to interact with the top card of your deck, and your deck has no cards, you immediately reshuffle.

Well, or with the bottom card, via Pearl Diver. So that's a little too specific.

[DStu]

The very specific rule is this:  when you are required to interact with the top card of your deck, and your deck has no cards, you immediately reshuffle.

Well, or with the bottom card, via Pearl Diver. So that's a little too specific.

And probably also with every other card in the draw-pile. Although it's unlikely that we get a card that requires us to do so...

[AJD]

The very specific rule is this:  when you are required to interact with the top card of your deck, and your deck has no cards, you immediately reshuffle.

Well, or with the bottom card, via Pearl Diver. So that's a little too specific.

And probably also with every other card in the draw-pile. Although it's unlikely that we get a card that requires us to do so...

"Reveal the 6th card in your deck. You may put it in your hand or put it back in your deck between the 11th and 12th cards."

[Jeebus]

I'll also mention another related feature of isotropic. When you play a card that uses cards from the top of your deck, such as a lookout, the cards are removed from the top of your deck while the action is in progress and put back on top of the deck at the end of the action. This may seem obvious, but I was originally confused by a wishing well that wasn't forcing a reshuffle when no cards were shown left in the draw deck. The last card, the guessable card, had already been taken from the deck even though it hadn't yet been revealed, and it was put back on the deck as soon as I guessed wrong.

Aha! That explains why I've sometimes been confused when looking at the graphic representation on isotropic. (This is actually wrong though, as revealing or looking at cards doesn't technically remove them from where they are, as explained by Donald somewhere on BGG.)