Changes to Realm of Madness, Corrosion

[halogenandtoast]

Rules Question:

Good afternoon, I'm helping someone understand the card "Realm of Madness", which says: Revelation - Discard cards from your play area and/or from your hand with a total printed resource cost of at least X, where X is the amount of horror on your investigator. If no cards are discarded by this effect, take 2 horror. The question came up concerning a Minh type character who would have a large quantity of no-cost skills in their hand. If you have less cost of assets in play, and only "-" cost and skill cards in your hand, does this treachery have the potential to discard your whole hand and play area? Thanks! Anthony

Response

We talked this over and are making the following rulings:

• Realm of Madness can be interpreted as, you should discard as many 1+ costing cards as possible from in play or hand in an attempt to reach X. If you cannot reach X by doing so, still discard as many cards as you can. As long as you discard at least one, you can avoid taking horror.
• You do not need to discard 0-costing cards for this effect, because these cards cannot count toward X. If all you have in hand or play are 0-cost cards, you may choose to discard one of those to avoid taking 2 horror—you do not need to discard all of them.
• You cannot discard a card with no cost at all (including a “null” cost, “-“) when resolving Realm of Madness