Is sealing a card considered drawing?

Thanks! This makes the game easier against a few entities, so I can see why they decided to rule it this way.

Thanks! This makes the game easier against a few entities, so I can see why they decided to rule it this way.

For people (like me) coming late to this thread and wanting an official response to the above, here's the latest official ruling I could find.

Reference from 15/1 2021, confirmed as official ruling by Etherfields group admin Jordan Luminais: https://www.facebook.com/groups/etherfields/posts/1217650415297154/?comment_id=1217663141962548

"[...] when your deck is empty you can't seal and you are not supposed to reshuffle in order to seal. So you cannot pay for actions that require you to seal a card, but you don't get penalized by entities that would make you seal any number of cards. Next time you need to draw you will reshuffle, suffer distress or seal 3, and just keep on as normal."

bumping

These two possible interpretations are both possible. The third is that you can pay a sealing cost with an empty deck and not seal or shuffle. We need a ruling from A/R. Please!

I would play it like When forced to seal with an empty deck - no reshuffle, no penalty, no sealing

When choosing to seal for own use or not choosing another possible punishment - shuffle, get penalty, seal

This is the only way to not break the game, nice to know that the game cant force a seal to also give you penalty

I think the simplest solution is to treat sealing like drawing and do a reshuffle if need be and take the associated penalty with it. Will it make the game slightly harder? I don't know, but this makes the most sense to me as sealing is a punishment and I don't want to game the system if I have an empty deck. Also, I am not locked out of any actions this way :)

I like @David Lewis's solution. It clashes with AR's first atempt at addressing the matter in the other post, but it matches their last answer in this one. It would be cool to have an official estatement to finally settle the question, though.

Bumping this thread as we are still waiting a new clarification clarifying the last clarification :D The first time it was asked what to do when sealing with an empty deck (https://www.etherfields-secrets.com/forum/other-cards/sealing-cards-with-empty-influence-deck) the answer was that you reshuffle, seal the cards, but don't take the reshuffling penalty as it happens out of the Draw step. Then, the Draw step ruling was FAQed to mean "when you have to draw a card". This seemed consistent with the previous answer, as sealing is still not drawing and you would reshuffle but take no penalty. But five days ago, AR wrote in this thread "In this case - if you should Seal cards, but you do not currently have cards in your Influence deck, you do NOT need to reshuffle, so you are NOT Sealing your cards. (We have very deliberately left out the term "drawing cards" here.)". So what is it? I think we all agree that when you need to seal cards to fulfill an action requirement, you cannot do it with an empty deck. But what about when you have to seal cards as a result of a penalty? Do you reshuffle without extra penalty as per the first answer? Or do you avoid sealing due to having an empty deck, as per the second?

From my understanding, this is how it goes:

- if Sealing is not triggered by the player (for example, an Entity effect), and you don't have in the deck the required amount of cards, you Seal the cards you have and remain with an empty deck. When you'll need to Draw, you will reshuffle and get the penalty.

- if Sealing is triggered by the player (for example, as ludevik said, an Action that requires you to spend X Intend and Seal X cards), and you don't have in your deck enough cards to Seal, I think that you cannot perform that action, since you cannot pay the cost in its entirety.

This is just a supposition, though. I'm sorry I have to repeat this but... let's wait for an official response (hoping that the guys at AR won't get mad at us) 🌻

From a discussion on FB, I came to the following conclusion: For effects: Seal up to the amount of cards you can, ending up with zero cards in your deck. Resulting in a reshuffle (with penalty) during your next draw phase.

For costs: You can't pay the full cost, so you can't play the effect/action If you still want to seal more cards, either because you really want to pay for and take that action or because for some reason you don't mind taking the game effect, you can still reshuffle your deck and seal the full amount of cards. Now this raises the same question: is this considered "drawing" and do you also take the reshuffle punishment after you do it? I say no, since "drawing" a card in technical terms means get a card in your hand, even temporarily, and sealing cards never really lands them in your hand (I believe "revealing" a card is not considered "drawing" it in technical terms). I mean, at the end of the day, if your deck is empty, you will eventually need to draw in your next turn so you will get that punishment, but I guess the timing of that punishment can be a matter of life or death, so this is an important question to answer correctly :)

> In this case - if you should Seal cards, but you do not currently have cards in your Influence deck, you do NOT need to reshuffle, so you are NOT Sealing your cards. (We have very deliberately left out the term "drawing cards" here.)

I agree with you John, this needs a clarification. Let's wait for an official response.

That thread originally said that you would not get penalized. Then afterward they added the explanation you quoted. The way I read it is they were correcting their original mistake.

That is the question. Is the “revealing” vs. “drawing” distinction intentional or is it a case of “of course you have to draw a card to reveal it”? I think the answer could be either but would like an official one. Thanks.

The clarification was added to this post (https://www.etherfields-secrets.com/forum/other-cards/sealing-cards-with-empty-influence-deck) in which they explain you don't get penalized if you have to seal cards with an empty deck. The rules for sealing (p. 14) don't mention drawing but "revealing", "placing" and "taking". So I don't think there is any reason to believe sealing is drawing. As per the errata, you only get penalized for reshuffling when drawing cards, so not when sealing.

And the question remains, does Seal require to Draw, and thus make you suffer the penalty, or do you just not seal the missing cards (i.e. Seal as many as you can)? Looks like the ruling is that you won't get a free reshuffle, either way, and I will continue to Seal the full amount (suffering the penalty for reshuffling if the deck runs out during the Seal).

This was kind of answered in another topic by the official Awaken Realms account.

Also you can check this thread (bottom of the page):

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2546937/article/36350105#36350105

> Well... We had a tough team meeting. In fact, the intention in the reshuffle penalty rule was different. The point is that we unfortunately used "Draw step" term as the name of the rules for drawing Influence cards (i.e. where are they drawn from, what happens when the Influence deck runs out of cards during Draw, etc.). However, in the rule regarding the penalty for reshuffle Influence deck, it was not supposed to be about a specific moment of the Dreamers phase, but about each drawing of a card / cards from the Influence deck. We have marked the changed fragments (from "Draw Step" to new excerpts) in green. It should be like this: RESHUFFLE Every time you reshuffle your Influence deck while drawing cards,, you suffer 1 Distress or Seal 3 cards (after reshuffling). To push away the menace of death, you will have to choose between suffering dangerous Distress or sacrificing cards from your deck by Sealing them. One way or another, you will have to find ways of curinging your Distress or Unsealing your cards in order to get back into shape. You will have to rest from time to time to regain your strength. The easiest way to do this is the special Delta Phase tile, hidden in the Slumber deck. Sometimes, the game allows you to reshuffle your Influence deck, even though you still have some cards in it – take all cards from your deck and Discard, reshuffle them, and make a new Influence deck , from them. Remember that when you reshuffle while not drawing cards, you don’t suffer the reshuffle penalty. So, it should be: - Every time you reshuffle your Influence deck due to any draw - you must consider a penalty. - If you perform a reshuffle not related to the draw card - you will not consider the penalty. We sincerely apologize for this inaccuracy and in addition we sincerely apologize for the related incorrect answer here. We will add a note to the errata and correct the Draw penalty responses in other threads!

From what I understand / have read. You should seal 2 the cards - shuffle without penalty and seal the other 2 cards. It is stated in in the rules on the last page that you only suffer distress or seal 3 cards, if you have to shuffle your deck during the 'draw step' of the dreamers phase.

That question occurred to me too. The example situation: You have 2 cards left on your deck and then you have to Seal 4 cards. Do you a) Seal the remaining 2 cards and then take a Suffering when it's your turn to draw more cards. b) Seal the 2 cards, reshuffle without penalty and seal the "missing" 2 cards?