Valadilene's keyword addendum on this card suggestion inspires my post here. However, I believe Sift Y For X (and any appropriate variants) would be yet more succinct. Between my lack of playing treasure hunts and trying to use the wiki to supplement my limited experience, here are all such cards that seem to actually be used in-game: Elven Maneuvers Trait. Attach to self. Duration 3. When you take damage from an enemy card, draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Move card. Repeat until you have drawn a Move card or drawn six cards. Pathfinding Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Move card. Repeat until you have drawn two Move cards or your deck is empty. Defense Skill Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Block card. Repeat until you have drawn two Block cards or drawn 6 cards. Inspiring Presence Every character within 3 squares of you, including yourself: Heal 5 and draw a card. Discard each such card drawn unless it is an Attack card. Unblockable. Attack Skill Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is an Attack card. Repeat until you have drawn two Attack cards or drawn 6 cards. Spell Skill Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Magic card. Repeat until you have drawn 2 Magic cards or discarded 5 cards. Now, replacing with Sift Y For X: Elven Maneuvers Trait. Attach to self. Duration 3. When you take damage from an enemy card, Sift 6 For 1 Move card. Pathfinding Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then Sift To End For 2 Move cards. Defense Skill Sift 6 For 2 Block cards. Inspiring Presence Every character within 3 squares of you, including yourself: Heal 5 and Sift 1 For 1 Attack card. Unblockable. Attack Skill Sift 6 For 2 Attack cards. Spell Skill Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Magic card. Repeat until you have drawn 2 Magic cards or discarded 5 cards. Look how that shortens everything so much! Spell Skill gets the long version because it counts discards instead of draws (unless that's a text bug?). Sift To End For X could just as well be Sift Until Empty For X. Uh-oh. Looking at Keywords.csv, it appears any X factor gets hardwired onto the end (and therefore Y probably can't even exist). $:^ [ Well, that shoots this suggestion down from being a simple text-simplifier to a more involved code-changer. Meh. Anyway, um, if this could somehow be implemented, I suppose the tooltips could read something like so, respectively: Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a listed card type. Repeat until you have drawn <x> such card(s) or drawn <y> card(s). Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a listed card type. Repeat until you have drawn <x> such card(s) or your deck is empty. (On that note, I wonder if "draw pile" would be better than "deck" since "deck" consists of a character's entire set of cards, or so I thought at least.) Regards!
I like the idea of adding a keyword, but to me "sift" seems rather obscure for general parlance - particularly since keywords are supposed to make things easier to remember - what's wrong with "search" as the keyword? I also wonder if the X/Y couldn't be simplified (math pun ) for those who panic when they see anything that looks like math. Maybe something like: Search: Draw a card; if this card is not the specified card type, discard it and repeat until you have drawn the listed "max," or until your deck is empty. Where it would play out like so: Elven Maneuvers Trait. Attach to self. Duration 3. When you take damage from an enemy card, search (max: 6) for a Move card. Pathfinding Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then search (no max) for two Move cards. Defense Skill Search (max: 6) for two Block cards. Inspiring Presence Every character within 3 squares of you, including yourself: Heal 5 and search (max: 1) for an Attack card. Unblockable.* Attack Skill Search (max: 6) for two Attack cards. Spell Skill** Draw a card. Discard that card unless it is a Magic card. Repeat until you have drawn 2 Magic cards or discarded 5 cards. It's not quite as tight as "Sift X for Y" but I think is a little more intuitively clear for the new player. *I'm not even sure I'd use the keyword for anything that is a single card draw. **I would guess this is a text bug, or at the very least should be changed to follow the convention of the others. But I don't have time to actually test it at the moment to see.
Thanks for the extra voice, Scarponi. I didn't like that mine was brief but sounded kind of technical. You've helped me see how to improve that, yay. Frankly, the reason I moved away from "Search" was that -- who knows what the future holds -- it'd be awesome if there were also a more thorough, manual search ability, more deserving (imo) of the keyword proper. More often used than the word sift (and carrying technologically consistent connotations), I originally wrote "Seek" because it's more grammatically accurate (assuming Verb X syntax), but "Search X for some card type" sounds good, and I can see why you chose the "max X" qualifier (which I don't believe even needs the colon). Also, reading through your edited examples, I'm thinking moving the max to the end (like BM already has) flows a little better since your proposed tooltip covers it anyway. Nevermind. Upon trying to write it out, I realized making the order "Search for some card type (max X)" could too easily confuse what the max refers to. Okay. So. After a good several tweaks, (including a similar but less technical sounding "Search (up to X) for" syntax), this is where I've landed so far: Elven Maneuvers Trait. Attach to self. Duration 3. When you take damage from an enemy card, Search 6 for a Move card. Pathfinding Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then Search for 2 Move cards. Defense Skill Search 6 for a Block card. Or, using Sift like I proposed above: Inspiring Presence Every character within 3 squares of you, including yourself: Heal 5 and Sift 1 for an Attack card. Unblockable. Attack Skill Sift 6 for 2 Attack cards. An alternate ending for Pathfinding could be "Search Deck" (or "Sift Deck") fwiw. Pathfinding Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then Search Deck for 2 Move cards. Pathfinding Discard all Encumber cards attached to you then Sift Deck for 2 Move cards. In this case, Search/Sift X's tooltip could read, "Draw a card. If this card is not a listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you've drawn <x> total, or until you've drawn [arg, what exactly goes here?], or until your deck is empty." Similarly, for Pathfinding and anything that would follow in its footsteps (badum *pssh*), Search/Sift Deck's tooltip could read about the same but missing the middle phrase about reaching the limit of the cards you're supposed to draw. The thing is, some of my wording in the OP (about listed card types) comes from Immunity's tooltip -- which also allows simple, forward-compatible flexibility in looking for more than one card type. However, by removing the combination of <x> and <y> components, we get a problem. How to easily describe in the tooltip the multiple conditions to stop the draws? Draw max, okay; empty deck, okay; now, how exactly to add in drawing all the card(s) you're trying to draw? Unfortunately, your suggestion, 'Draw a card; if this card is not the specified card type, discard it and repeat until drawing the listed "max," or until your deck is empty.' doesn't exactly address it. Maybe if it's just tweaked around where you said what's specified. My brain's rather sapped from work and whatnot, though, right now, hence my just knowing that I'm writing more and more technically right now, sorry. (Yeah, I said "right now" twice. $E^ J Anyway!)
Why not break the very first rule of definitions and be self-referential? Search X: Draw a card. If that card is not the listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you have drawn what you are searching for, have searched X cards, or until your deck is empty. Search Deck: Draw a card. If that card is not the listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you have drawn what you are searching for, or until your deck is empty. EDIT: Fwiw, while I present this somewhat jokingly, I actually think it is a viable solution.
Well, you could make a keyword out of Draw... Maybe it is too simple, but it could work. Draw 6 for move card, and so on.
Thank you, Wex. It's probably simplest on everyone that the word "draw" continues to simply mean "pick up the topmost card on your deck's drawpile and place it into your hand." I'm looking at a way to simplify (funny, Scarp!) the description of an oft-used mechanic for a more involved / more complex / more advanced /more specific drawing pattern. Scarp, yeah, I was very consciously staying away from self-reference. $E^ D heheheh Again adapting some of your idea, Sift X, Search X "Draw a card. If this card is not a listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you have drawn the listed number and types of cards, you have drawn any <x> cards total, or your deck is empty." Sift Deck, Search Deck "Draw a card. If this card is not a listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you have drawn the listed number and types of cards or your deck is empty." I remember another reason why I didn't really want to use Search, and it kind of goes with the reason of "who knows if we'll get a deeper manual search sometime in the future." From what I've read and watched of other battle card games (not that I've played them), they use an established convention of defining search as "to look through the entire deck (or discard pile or whatever) for whatever-card-you-want" (often shuffling afterward). I figured it be nice to not confusingly break long-standing tradition. (Breaking's fine, just not confusingly without reason.) I also considered "Scry," but it carries a different conventional meaning, too. Hey, I wonder if "Peek" would work? Nah, "Peek 6" just doesn't even make sense in normal language, and CH (fortunately!) tries to maintain normal language flow. Edit: You know what? It might seem a little odd ungrouping the two draw conditions like this, but I believe it un-muddies it. Check this out: Sift <x>, Search <x> "Draw a card. If this card is not a listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you have drawn the listed number and types of cards, your deck is empty, or you have drawn any <x> cards total." Sift Deck, Search Deck "Draw a card. If this card is not a listed card type, discard it. Repeat until you have drawn the listed number and types of cards or your deck is empty." Also in this edit, I apologize for mixing Verb X and "use <x> somehow" in my posts here. I started with Verb X because I guess I'd seen the wiki do that, but I typed the tooltips as "use <x> somehow" to strictly follow the Keywords.csv convention.
