Take all items combo?

[Banban]

Hey, just registerred this account just to ask this question since I can't find a ruling on this. I believe every part of this is legal, though extremely overpowered.

I have 2 sets: Fantasy and Apocalypse. Just the core sets. If I mix them, the problem begins.

1: Late in a game, a player draws wand of dowsing after loot army surplus store has been played.
2: They grab LASS. They use it to grab the top 2 discards, including the wand of dowsing.
3: Rinse and repeat.

In otherwords, this repeating combo grabs all cards in the discard... Until hitting Hoard, in which case you begin to draw the entire treasure deck. But it becomes more of a nightmare if you are a thief.
*=optional
*4: You go through the treasures until you get steal a level. You use it to steal levels until level nine(remember, you can use wand of dowsing and LASS to keep getting it back).
*5: If you are a thief, you can start stealing items from other players, you either take an Item or lose a level... Which allows you to steal another level. If no levels can be stolen, use a go up a level potion. So it's either free stealing, or your opponent loses levels instead of you.
*6: As a kid, you never die. Just lose levels. So if you're a kid your pretty much indestructable.
*7: In the end, you always have wand of dowsing. This allows you to grab divine intervention as a cleric, and repeat these tactics if you need to.

Wow, that was a huge combo. Anyways, my question that arises, is this completely legal? Or am I missing a rule that stops this? Or maybe a ruling needs to be made?
Thanks!
-Banban

P.S. Remember, all you needed to pull this off was the wand of dowsing in your hand or being carried.

[Clipper]

There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with that, and it does appear almost impossible to stop, unless the other players can bury Wand of Dowsing with four Treasure cards that they are allowed to discard (which is very difficult outside of your turn).

If the presence of the combo is making the game less fun, then perhaps your best option is to just remove one of those two cards from your deck, or add in other sets to make it less likely that both cards would come up in the same game.

[Andrew Hackard]

Or add a house rule that "Dumpster diving" cards cannot pull other "Dumpster divers."

[Banban]

Hmm... Alright. We've never actually played a game with that combo(s) being made, but it just seems to be a nightmare if no player can stop it. If it does occur, I'm sure the players wil force the one doing this infinite loop to do something else. I could try to make a rule of limiting infinite loops, but that could get too complex, so I'll try to do the dumpster-diving rule.

Thanks, Banban

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, that rule(dumpster diving) could be also tricky, as both draws count as face-down, and therefore, without cheating and looking at someone's hand, you couldn't verify what card they take, and in the case of LASS, if you choose to take the top 2 discards, you wouldn't be able to tell if the wand of dowsing is the second card in the discards. So that rule would be hard to reinforce... Oh well. Like I said, if it happens, it will get nerfed.

[Clipper]

No, draws from the discard pile count as face-up. Everyone is allowed to know which card/s you take from the discards unless specified otherwise. That makes Andrew's house rule easy to enforce, although any further discussion might be better transferred to the house rules thread.

[Banban]

Originally Posted by Clipper

No, draws from the discard pile count as face-up. Everyone is allowed to know which card/s you take from the discards unless specified otherwise. That makes Andrew's house rule easy to enforce, although any further discussion might be better transferred to the house rules thread.

"Q. If I play a card such as Wand of Dowsing that lets me put Hoard in my hand, what happens?
A. It goes into your hand for a split second, then triggers the "play immediately" condition. It is considered to be face-down." -FAQ

And.. I'm not sure how to transfer the discussion... Or did you mean just bring up the question within that forum?

Anyways, my solution is a house rule addition to LASS.

• Drawing top 2 is face up. Drawing a card allowing you to immediately retrieve more cards(such as hoard and wand of dowsing) are immediately discarded before LASS resolves.
• Drawing 1/4 is face down.

I believe that can clear up the problem, but it's a wordy rule. Anyways, thanks for the help.

Sincerely, Banban

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Banban

"Q. If I play a card such as Wand of Dowsing that lets me put Hoard in my hand, what happens?
A. It goes into your hand for a split second, then triggers the "play immediately" condition. It is considered to be face-down." -FAQ

Let me explain that further, and maybe that will alleviate your confusion.

Cards taken from the discards are public information (as are discards themselves -- because the order sometimes matters, if you discard multiple cards at once and another player asks to see them, you should show them in order). Every player has a right to know what card (or cards) you're taking out of the discards with a card such as Wand of Dowsing or Loot Army Surplus Store.

Once you actually take the card, however, it goes into your hand. Hoard! is a weird case because how the card is played matters. I made the ruling that cards played from your hand are considered to have been "drawn" face-down because that closed a nasty loop that was otherwise possible in the original Munchkin game.

When you start to combine sets, you're going to run into situations where cards that were never designed to work together end up having a weird synergy. Unfortunately, we can't playtest every possible combination of cards (we'd never get any other work done), so these combos are going to crop up from time to time.

[Banban]

So Dumpster-dive cards are face up draws unless the card being drawn has an immediate effect? I always learned it was face up if the card specifically sais to reveal it to the other players or to draw it face up. I think I see now. Or... Is that logic not correct?

[Andrew Hackard]

Here's the sequence.

1) You pull some number of cards from the discards and show them to all the other players.
2) Those cards go into your hand.
3) If it's legal to play those cards at that point, you may do so (and it almost always IS legal). If it matters, cards played from your hand are considered face-down plays (but it almost never DOES matter -- it really only comes up with cards like Hoard!).

[Banban]

Ok, so it's a face down draw because of hoard, not the wand of dowsing. I follow now. Then that house rule could be applied, at least to the wand of dowsing. Thanks Andrew and Clipper!