Tips or Tricks – Brainstorm & Deck Refresh

Hello! Today is another Q&A day!
Brainstorm is one of the most used abilities in Weiss and with abilities that take cards out of the deck doubts could arise with timings of deck refresh. So, like in the other Tips or Tricks articles I’m going to show you some possible situations, showcasing some of the cards with this ability.

1.
Question: I have 4 cards left in my deck. I activate a brainstorm ability that “for each climax revealed search a character with some <trait> in my deck”. Do I refresh the deck first or am I unable to search ’cause the deck is empty? When do I take the refresh penalty?

(The answer is the same for all types of brainstorms, but here are all  brainstorms that exist as of writing this article in English that let your search the deck without discarding any card – usually called a “search brainstorm”)

Answer:
– You reveal the 4 cards one by one and you put them in the resolution zone (a temporary zone for holding cards).
– The deck runs out so you shuffle it with your waiting room leaving the 4 cards out.
– Check the number of climaxes in them, put the 4 cards into the waiting room and search for the same number of characters in your deck (shuffling your deck afterwards).
– Then, in the end, you take the refresh penalty.

Explanation:

10.7.1. Brainstorm is a collective keyword which has the effect, “Reveal a specific number of cards from the top of your deck, and put them in your waiting room, and refer to the specified card information”. Independently, the keyword itself is not an ability, nor does it hold any special meaning for an effect.

10.7.2. “Brainstorm (effect)” is stated in event cards, while “ ACT Brainstorm [（cost）] （effect）” is stated on activated abilities, all containing the keyword “Brainstorm”.

10.7.3. The cards are moved from the top of the deck by an effect from a “Brainstorm” ability, should the designated cards be put to the waiting room, put them to the resolution zone in order, then put all of them to the waiting room at the same time.

 3.13.1.4. When cards are put to the resolution zone by a Brainstorm ability (refer to section 10.7), they are put to the resolution zone temporarily before they are put to the owner’s waiting room.

9.2. Resolving a Reshuffle
9.2.1. Resolving a reshuffle occurs when either player has no cards in his deck. This is an interrupt type rule action.
9.2.2. When there exists no cards in a player’s deck, that player moves all cards in his or her waiting room and put it to his or her deck and shuffles it. After doing so, the player gains 1 refresh point.

2.
Question: What if the brainstorm salvages a character from the waiting room, and I have 4 cards left in the deck?

 
(cards that let you get  cards from the waiting room with specific traits – also called “salvage brainstorm”)

Answer: It’s the same as before, except you’ll just have 4 cards in the waiting room to choose from. Don’ t forget the 4 cards from the brainstorm are in the resolution zone when the deck runs out and that’s why they aren’t reshuffled with the deck.

3.
Question: What if I want to activate a brainstorm ability and there’s just 1 card left in the deck?
   
(cards that let you get cards from the waiting room with specific traits and discard the same number of cards)
   
(cards that let you get cards from your deck with specific traits and discard the same number of cards)

Answer:
– You reveal the first card
– You shuffle your deck with that card outside (it’s in the resolution zone)
– You reveal the additional 3 cards
– You check how many climaxes you got and put the 4 cards in the waiting room
– You search your deck for that many characters (or in the second situation you search in the 4 cards in the waiting room)
– If you have to discard cards like in the cards above, you discard cards equal to the number of climaxes you revealed.
– You put the top card of your deck in your clock as your refresh point resolves.
Explanation:

3.2.3. When multiple cards move from the deck zone to another zone at the same time, move cards one by one.
3.2.3.1. For any reason, should the current number of cards within the deck be less than the number required to be moved from the deck zoneto another zone, move all cards in the deck at present to the designated zone, resolve a refresh (refer to Section 9.2), and continue to move the remaining number of cards required to the designated zone.

There are a lot of different effects in brainstorms besides this search ones: search in the clock, give more power, more soul, draw cards, etc. These 3 first examples are valid for all of them. 

4.
Question: In the following brainstorms where I have to discard cards, what happens if I get two climaxes in the brainstorm and I just have 1 card in my deck? (considering it’s a searchable card per the effect). Do I get just one card? Do I still discard two?
  

Answer: Here, it’s important to notice that the wording on the “Sinon” is different from all other brainstorms of this kind:

【ACT】 Brainstorm [(1)] Reveal four cards from the top of your deck, and put them into your waiting room. Search you deck for up to X 《Avatar》 or 《Net》 characters, reveal them to your opponent, and put them into your hand. Shuffle your deck afterwards. Choose X cards from your hand, and put them into your waiting room. X is equal to the number of climax revealed among those cards.

【ACT】 Brainstorm [(1)] Reveal four cards from the top of your deck, and put them into your waiting room. For each climax revealed, search your deck for up to one 《Magic》 character, reveal it to your opponent, put it into your hand, choose a card in your hand, and put it into your waiting room. Shuffle your deck afterwards.

In Sinon’s case, you search all the cards (number of climaxes) at the same time. You just have one card to search, so you get only one. You must then discard two cards.

In the other cases you repeat the action separately for each climax: So you get the first card, your deck runs out, shuffle the deck, discard a card and then you repeat the action for the second climax. You search your whole deck for the second card, discard the second card and in the end you take the refresh penalty.

5.
Question: What if the brainstorm is on an event card or the number of cards to reveal is not 4. Is it the same?

  
Answer: Yes. It doesn’t matter if it’s 4 cards or not, or if it’s a character or an event card. It still says “Brainstorm” so the process is the same.
Explanation:

10.7.2. “Brainstorm (effect)” is stated in event cards, while “ ACT Brainstorm [（cost）] （effect）” is stated on activated abilities, all containing the keyword “Brainstorm”.

 There were some counters that I didn’t mention in the Counters article, ’cause I was saving them for this article:

6.
Question: What if it isn’t a brainstorm? What happens if a counter says to put the top 3 cards of my deck into the waiting room, and a just have 2?

Answer: You put the top 2 cards into the waiting room, then you refresh your deck. Then you put the third card into the waiting room. Don’t forget to take the refresh penalty in the end.
Explanation:

3.2.3. When multiple cards move from the deck zone to another zone at the same time, move cards one by one.
3.2.3.1. For any reason, should the current number of cards within the deck be less than the number required to be moved from the deck zoneto another zone, move all cards in the deck at present to the designated zone, resolve a refresh (refer to Section 9.2), and continue to move the remaining number of cards required to the designated zone.

In this case, ’cause the card says “put the top three cards of your deck into your waiting room”, they’re not going to the resolution zone: they are changing the zone from the deck directly to the waiting room. So in this case the cards are reshuffled with the rest of the deck.

7.
Question: These are counters too, but now it says “Brainstorm”. What’s the difference ?
 
Answer: The big difference is, if you just have 2 cards in your deck, they’re not in the waiting room when you interrupt to refresh: they are in the resolution zone, so they aren’t reshuffled with the deck.

8.
Question: What happens when the cards say “Reveal the top card of your deck”, and the last and only card of my deck is a climax?
 
Answer: In these cases you reveal the card to your opponent but the card still counts as “in the deck”. There isn’t a refresh when you resolve it, ’cause the deck didn’t run out.

Explanation:
When revealing cards from the top of your deck, the card becomes visible to both players, and is still part of the deck. They also don’t move to resolution zone.

This is kinda tricky here because of the use of the word “Reveal” in these kind of cards and the same use of the word “Reveal” in brainstorms. If we refer to the rules in the Heart of the Cards site, we find a little nugget of information:

Cards that are shown from the Library Zone via effects that move them to the Resolving Zone (“flipped over”) cause them to leave the Library Zone. (Translation note: While Heart of the Cards does, English edition does not distinguish between “flipped over” (‘mekuri’) and “revealed” (‘koukai’) cards. Both are translated on English Edition cards as “reveal”. Flipped over cards move to the Resolution Zone. Revealed cards do not move)

So, in the japanese cards, the brainstorm has the words “flipped over” instead of “Reveal” to differentiate that cards go to the resolution zone. The important thing here is noting that the ability “brainstorm” indicates that the cards go to the resolution zone. It’s not the word “Reveal” that does that.

9.
Question: What about this next card? If I don’t have the 5 cards, do I refresh and then add the other cards too?

Answer: Yes. The cards are put into the memory temporarily. This is to make the cards change their zone, so that if your deck runs out in the middle of the process, you still add the cards after the refresh until the 5 cards are put into the memory.

Explanation:

3.2.3. When multiple cards move from the deck zone to another zone at the same time, move cards one by one.
3.2.3.1. For any reason, should the current number of cards within the deck be less than the number required to be moved from the deck zoneto another zone, move all cards in the deck at present to the designated zone, resolve a refresh (refer to Section 9.2), and continue to move the remaining number of cards required to the designated zone.

This is exactly like situation 5 above. You’re moving cards from one zone to another: in situation 5 it’s into the waiting room and here it’s into the memory.

10.
Question: I have a card that says “Look at up to X cards from the top of your deck”, for instance: “Look at up to four cards from the top of your deck”.
If I have just 1 card left in the deck, can I refresh my deck to look at the other cards?

         
Answer: No. You just look at the cards you have left in the deck. Don’t forget it says “up to”, so even when you have more cards, you don’t need to look at all 4. These cards are just examples of this situation and there are much more like them in various sets.

Explanation:

4.8. Looking at the Top of the Deck

4.8.1. “Look at (cards) from the top of (player’s) deck” is an action for a player to look at the information of his or her card(s) from the top of his or her deck.

4.8.2. “Look at [number] cards from the top of (player’s) deck” are actions that do not occur when [number] is 0 or lower. Should [number] be 1 or higher, the specified player must look at N cards from the top of his or her deck. In the case when the player looks at one card, it is written as “Look at the top card of (player’s) deck”.

4.8.3. When an action is to “look at up to [number] cards from the top of your deck, this action is done in the following order

4.8.3.1. The specified player can end the process.

4.8.3.2. The specified player looks at the Xth top card of his or her deck, where X is equal to the number of times he or she has proceeded to 4.8.3.3. plus one within this sequence.

4.8.3.3. Within this sequence, should you perform 4.8.3.3 [number] times, this action
ends. If not, return to 4.8.3.1..

In this case the cards never leave your deck: you’re just looking at them, and you’re not even showing them to your opponent. The deck doesn’t run out, and you won’t reshuffle in the middle of the process.

So don’t forget:
– Cards revelled with brainstorm abilities go into the resolution zone.
– If you’re moving cards from one zone to another and your deck runs out, you refresh the deck, you carry on resolving the ability, and then take the refresh penalty.
– If you’re just looking at cards from the deck, you’re limited to the number of cards your deck has at the moment. The same happens if you’re revealing cards from the deck (outside of brainstorm abilities), as they don’t change zones too.

In the official site you’ve got an article about this too if you still have some doubts, so check it out.

Remember to check out the other Tips or Tricks for more tips on resolving tricky situations!

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