Foreword
I saw a question on the Epic Card Game Facebook page about how recycle works, and it motivated me to go into detail about it, mainly because I thought of some cool interactions with it.
Recycle Definition
Taken straight from WWG:
5.5.1 Recycle means: “You may put two cards from your discard pile on the bottom of your deck in any order. If you do, draw a card.”
In the 1st print rule book, recycle said you “banished” 2 cards, but it was updated for ease of play.
FAQ
I will add any other recycle questions received to this list.
- For cards like Blind Faith, can you choose itself as a card to recycle?
- What happens if I have less than 2 cards in my discard pile, and I play a card with recycle?
- Can I put just 1 card from my discard pile on the bottom of my deck with recycle? For example, it’s my turn and my opponent has an expended Necromancer Lord in play. I want to put the Kong in my discard pile on the bottom of my deck to prevent them from taking it later.
- Can I recycle an unbanishable and/or an untargetable card in my discard pile, like Thundarus?
- Will “when this card leaves your discard pile” triggers, like Ancient Chant, work when I put that card on the bottom of my deck with recycle?
Interesting Interactions
Warrior Golem
Warrior Golem can recycle itself to its own recycle trigger. This is because Warrior Golem‘s trigger resolves when it “goes into your discard pile from anywhere” (instead of while Warrior Golem is resolving in the Supplemental Zone). Due to this, it will be a legal target in your discard pile while the recycle trigger resolves.
Warrior Golem‘s recycle trigger will also occur if you have to discard it. This can either be because your opponent played a Thought Plucker etc. or if you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn.
**Edit: After checking with WWG, if anything triggers during the end phase, you start the end phase again. So, you would discard, recycle, draw to 8, and then discard again.**
If you are the owner of the card, you would get the recycle effect if it was under your opponent’s control when it breaks, since it goes to your discard pile.
Keeper of Secrets
Keeper of Secrets is interesting because it puts Recycle onto an Ally trigger. This means the recycle happens, after the 1-cost card that triggered it finishes resolving.
So, if you play an Ancient Chant with this in play:
- You would put the recycle trigger into a batch to occur after Ancient Chant resolves
- Draw 2 cards
- Put Ancient Chant into your discard pile since it is done resolving
- Resolve Recycle trigger
- Since Ancient Chant is already in your discard pile, you choose Ancient Chant and 1 other card to put on the bottom of your deck
- Ancient Chant‘s “when this card leaves your discard pile” trigger gets put into another new batch to resolve after the recycle trigger finishes resolving
- Draw a card from recycle
- Draw a card from Ancient Chant trigger
If you play Stand Alone with a Keeper of Secrets in play, as long as you don’t choose the Keeper of Secrets (causing it to break), your 2 chosen cards could actually be both the Stand Alone and the Keeper of Secrets that triggered the recycle.
Reaper, Final Task, Ogre Mercenary
With this combo, you can recycle 2 of the cards that triggered the recycle to themselves.
Reaper is in play, then play Final Task and target an Ogre Mercenary in your discard pile
- You would put the Reaper Ally trigger into a batch to occur after Final Task resolves
- Final Task puts Ogre Mercenary (or any other Tribute->Recycle) champion into play
- Ogre Mercenary‘s recycle trigger gets added to the batch to occur after Final Task resolves
- Ogre Mercenary gains blitz etc.
- Final Task finishes resolving and goes to the discard pile
- Resolve the Reaper and Ogre Mercenary triggers in any order
- Use Reaper trigger first to break Ogre Mercenary (put a demon into play)
- Resolve Ogre Mercenary‘s recycle trigger
- Since Final Task and Ogre Mercenary are already in your discard pile, they may be chosen as the 2 cards to put on the bottom of your deck
- Draw a card from recycle
All Of The Things
Scenario
It’s your turn and both you and your opponent still have a gold.
You
- In play: 2 untargetable Fire Shamans and an untargetable Drinker of Blood (The champions are untargetable due to Priest of Kalnor, Angelic Protector, or Kalnor’s Blessing)
- In hand: 1 card (Surprise Attack)
- In discard pile: 0 cards
- In deck: 26 cards (at least 1 Priestess of Angeline and 1 Flash Fire)
- Health: 2
Your Opponent
- In play: Warrior Golem and an untargetable The Gudgeon (Untargetable due to Kalnor’s Blessing or Angelic Protector possibly vanished)
- In hand: 5 cards (1 Angel of Death, 1 Necrovirus, 1 Draka’s Fire, 1 Corpse Taker, 1 Guilt Demon)
- In discard pile: 23 cards (2 Angel of Deaths, 2 Dark Assassins, 1 Demon Breach, 1 Drinker of Blood, 2 Final Tasks, 1 Necromancer Lord, 1 Necrovirus, 2 Soul Hunters, 1 Zombie Apocalypse, 1 Ceasefire, 1 Palace Guard, 1 Amnesia, 2 Ancient Chants, 3 Crystal Golems, 1 Muse, and 1 Sea Titan)
- In deck: 0 cards
- Health: 5
Quiz: Assuming you play Surprise Attack and draw a Priestess of Angeline and later a Flash Fire, who wins?
Why is The Gudgeon untargetable?
I made it untargetable so it couldn’t be targeted by the Fire Shamans. Without using Promo cards, it could be untargetable if your opponent played Angelic Protector, and then you played Vanishing on it so it isn’t in play as a target for this scenario. Updated the post.
If vanished player is a valid target. If untargetable, cannot play Vanishing.
I think untargetable and unbreakable would do it., and suspect that only unbreakable would be sufficient for the same conclusion, but would add a small side case to the analysis.
Regardless, nice scenario & analysis; very illustrative of some of the finer (imo in both degree and quality) mechanics of Epic.
*If [The Gudgeon is] vanished the [opposing] player is a valid target.
Whoops, meant to say that the Angelic Protector that gave the unbreakable, untargetable to The Gudgeon was Vanished. Poor use of pronouns in my comment, updated comment.
If it was just unbreakable, you could still target dump the Fire Shaman damage into The Gudgeon as opposed to targeting and breaking the Warrior Golem.
Thank you, I’m glad you liked the scenario. I tried to make it as crazy with the most number of additional batches/heaps as possible. I would be interested to see if anyone can beat 3 extra batches/heaps. I would happily post it and give credit to anyone who does.
I think I have a valid tie for 3 triggered batches. It assumes a basic board position & a good draw on a Mist Guide Herald, but has no separate constraints on the opponent.
Here is an outline, which hopefully is intelligible:
=====
Have Smash & Burn in discard pile
Have control of Drinker of Blood
Soul Hunter in play (or similar)*
Trihorror in play (or similar)**
Have Surprise Attack & Mist Guide Herald in hand
Have in deck in top 5 Kong (or similar)***
—–
Play Surprise Attack
~A1 Smash & Burn, on Wild 1-Cost
Put into play Mist Guide Herald
~A2 Tribute
—–
A1~ Deal 6 dmg to Soul Hunter, breaks
~B2 Soul Hunter, When this card is broken
~C2 Drinker of Blood, When a champion is broken
A2~ Draw & play Kong (or Reaper or Medusa)
~B1 Tribute
—–
B1~ Deal 13 damage to Trihorror
~C1 Trihorror, When this card is broken
~C2 Drinker of Blood, When a champion is broken
B2~ Deal 5 damage to opponent
B2~ Gain 2 health & Deal 2 damage
—–
C1~ Put three demon tokens into play
C2~ Gain 2 health & Deal 2 damage
=====
One could put two more Mist Guide Heralds in to (assuming lucky draws) stretch it out. The Complete Rules say multiple abilities go into a batch, but only explain how to resolve subsequent triggers in the context of arising from a batch, so…?
*** Kong can be swapped out for other cards that could break the second targets from tribute (or Loyalty 2 if you have it) such as Reaper or Medusa (also Angel of Death if single trigger batches count)
** Trihorror can be swapped out any targetable breakable card that has a trigger upon breaking, such as Soul Hunter and Winter Fairy, or upon going into the discard pile, such as Warrior Golem.
* Soul Hunter can be swapped out for any card meeting the criteria in ** that also has a difference of defense to current damage of no more than 6, such as Winter Fairy or Warrior Golem.
Let me know if I’ve missed or overlooked something or if you can extend it to 4 🙂
I should have proofed it for typos more; it should be:
—–
A1~ Deal 6 dmg to Soul Hunter, breaks
~B1 Soul Hunter, When this card is broken
~B2 Drinker of Blood, When a champion is broken
A2~ Draw & play Kong (or Reaper or Medusa)
~B3 Tribute
—–
B1~ Deal 5 damage to opponent
B2~ Gain 2 health & Deal 2 damage
B1~ Deal 13 damage to Trihorror
~C1 Trihorror, When this card is broken
~C2 Drinker of Blood, When a champion is broken
—–
Yeah, that looks solid and is significantly easier to follow formatting than what I used. Mist Guide Herald does seem the way to go to make it to 4 on an incredibly lucky draw which the most extreme circumstance would be. For single trigger batches, I just added the Surprise attack triple Mist Guide to my original scenario:
1) Suprise Attack -> 2) Mist Guide -> 3) Mist Guide -> 4) Mist Guide -> 5) Kong targeting a warrior golem -> 6) recycle an Ancient Chant -> 7) draw from Ancient Chant
To extend yours to 4 with multiple triggers, just replace Trihorror with a Warrior Golem and put a couple Ancient Chants/Wolf Companions into your discard pile.
These scenarios would be hilarious to explain to a judge if they ever arose in an actual game. Match would probably time out though.
If you run low on ideas for posts, ‘Who wins?’-type puzzles akin to your scenario here, would probably we well received (though I don’t know the complexity and time required for crafting such).
Thanks again for the blog content 🙂
Glad to provide it, and I will definitely think of some more puzzles. Thank you for the input, very much appreciated.