Shuffle a card versus Shuffle a Random card (WotR)

[MSpekkio]

Query

The Cure spell and some others use the words "Shuffle X random cards from your discard pile into your deck", yet others use the words "Shuffle x cards from your discard pile into your Deck. Examples include Sacred Prism, Cathedral of St Clydwell, and Mythic Hierophant.

Is there intended to be a play difference between the two wordings? If so, how do you choose what cards to shuffle back, top of the discard pile?, or just pick.

When we first encountered the text on Sacred Prism we assumed it was a typo and treated it like the Cure spell, but once I started looking at the wordings on other cards I became less sure.

Thoughts?

[Andrew L Klein]

If it doesn't say random, I don't play as random and you could pick. Most say random. In those cases, I usually find a close die roll (if I recharge 3 random cards from a discard of 7 card, I'll roll 3d8 rerolling 8s and duplicates, then count down that many)

[Frencois]

At that point, as far as I knoiw, the order of the cards in your discard has no inluence on the game.

So when you have to chose cards just do it, and when you have to select some at random, flip the discard deck face down, shuffle, draw the needed cards, then put back the discard deck face up.

[jones314]

Frencois wrote:

At that point, as far as I knoiw, the order of the cards in your discard has no inluence on the game.

One location, the Apothecary, references the top d6 cards in your discard. So with that location in play you shouldn't change the order of your discards. But I think players probably ignore that and just play like Frencois describes.

[Nefrubyr]

Frencois wrote:

So when you have to chose cards just do it, and when you have to select some at random, flip the discard deck face down, shuffle, draw the needed cards, then put back the discard deck face up.

That is the official way to select cards at random:

WotR Rules p17 wrote:

Whenever you’re instructed to randomly choose cards, shuffle the cards you’re drawing from and draw from the top.

See also the comment in this FAQ entry: "Yes, this can indeed have major effects on the deck." So taking random cards from your discard pile will affect which cards are on top for the Apothecary; taking random blessings from the blessings discard pile using Holy Candle will probably change what the top blessing is.

[MSpekkio]

Sorry, if I was unclear (writing posts before bed unwise), Shuffle randomly (like Cure) is perfectly clear how you are supposed to process the effect, but those effects without the word Random are not since they lack any of the other magic words (draw, select/choose) that would indicate how you are supposed to "shuffle x cards from your discard pile into your deck".

What's the right way to process that text in the absence of a defined magic word, or should that effect be read to implicitly include the word random like the Cure spell.

[Hawkmoon269]

If it doesn't say random, you get to choose. So if something said "Shuffle 2 cards from your discard pile into your deck" you would look through your deck and pull out the 2 cards you wanted. No need to change the order of the rest of the cards, so don't. Then shuffle those 2 cards into your deck.