Discard Pile

[mardukra]

Are opponents allowed to look through your discard pile?

[Tbiesty]

From the rulebook:
"You may look through your own discard pile at any time, but you cannot look through an opponent's discard pile."

[Pepi]

But i suppose it's legal to take notes of which cards were discarded. If u'd rly like to keep up with it...

[Witchkingx5]

I'm just asking why such a rule was invented. A reason may be that during a game of LotR TCG, you see mostly the whole opponent's Deck, so if you could look through the opponents iscard pile, you could copy his Deck very easily. But besides that, I don't see any other points. In Yu-Gi-Oh, you look through yours and your opponents discard piles each turn...

[mardukra]

It'd be advantageous to be able to look through opponents cards to see maybe how many copies of a card may be left or to count the Freeps/Shadow ratio.

[Witchkingx5]

Yeah, it is, also in Yu-GI-Oh, but that's a point that makes the game more "professional". If you see 4 copies of a card in the discard pile, you know the opponent probably won't be able to use it; if you see 3 copies of a card, you can imagine how important that card is or how your opponent is playing so that you can guess if there's one more copy or not. Also good to know cu's of cards like Banners Blowing, if your opponent will be able to use it again or not. The game becomes a bit more psychological, not just guessing and hoping your opponent won't have any minions at his next site and several other points.

[Kev-La]

But i suppose it's legal to take notes of which cards were discarded. If u'd rly like to keep up with it...

I would not allow this in any of the custom formats my friends and I play. Except perhaps in a friendly training game. If there's a reason for not being able to look through an opponent's discard pile, there's a reason for not being able to sit there writing down his cards as they are discarded.

[Witchkingx5]

But i suppose it's legal to take notes of which cards were discarded. If u'd rly like to keep up with it...

I would not allow this in any of the custom formats my friends and I play. Except perhaps in a friendly training game. If there's a reason for not being able to look through an opponent's discard pile, there's a reason for not being able to sit there writing down his cards as they are discarded.

Isn't that allowed? In Yu-Gi-Oh, it's normal that you write down the cards in your opponent's hand whenever he has to reveal it... seems as I can still learn something of LotR TCG...

[Kev-La]

Isn't that allowed?...

As far as I'm aware, there has never been an official ruling regarding keeping notes during games of The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. However, there is a rule that you may not look through another player's discard pile (you can only see the card they have decided to leave atop this pile of face-up cards). I was talking about what I would allow in a game that I was playing with my friends (I've never played in an official tournament and have no interest in doing so).

[jdizzy001]

If I have a legitimate question regarding an opponents discard pile I usually ask, and they usually answer.  If your just trying to find out how many copies of saved by the fire they have played... well, you should have been paying closer attention.  4 is a small enough number to keep track of.  As far as minion count goes, just pay attention to how often they play minions.  If you've skated to site 6 or 7 and haven't fought much, I garuntee you they have a handful of minios with your name on it.  If you have fought heavy skirimishes all the way to site 7, and your opponent isn't playing minions from their discard pile (moria swarm) then odds are you are in the clear and you're only going to fight a few more minions and you'll be safe.  Gccg also has a deck counter on the corner of each players deck.  Watch that.  If your opponent has but 10 cards remaining you can bet there will be ~5 shadow and 5 freeps.