Ruling Claiming your decksearch failed

[AmishEskimoNinja]

If I understand right, you always have the option of claiming your deck search failed, and not pulling anything, even if there is something there. This is the case because your deck contents are not known to the game state, so your opponent can't confirm or disprove. What if both you and your opponent know it can't fail. Here's two examples:

PT Delcatty uses power circulation to get two energy back from discard. SF Bronzong puts a card back and searches for energy. Player claims there are no energy and shuffles deck without pulling anything.

Case two (more extreme because it is one card) Player uses pokemon communication to put a pokemon back on top of his or her deck. Then the player claims there is no pokemon in the deck and shuffles the deck without pulling anything.

Is this allowed?

 

[King Arceus]

The deck contents still aren't known so in both scenarios, you are allowed to fail the search.~Mark

 

[rage780]

Discard pile is considered public knowledge and therefore you cannot failed a search. Thus, you cannot fail Delcatty's Power Circulation if there are any basic energies in your discard pile.

 

[PMJ]

You're not reading his question. He's asking if you are allowed to fail a search if both players know you are lying about failing the search (using Cycler for 0 when Power Circulation just put 2 on top of your deck).

I would say yes because the game has no record of your deck's contents, but I'm not completely sure on that, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[King Arceus]

This actually came up on the professor forums and it was ruled you could fail the search if I recall correctly. Sorry I don't have the link handy.~Mark

 

[PMJ]

How convenient. I do:

== POKEMON COMMUNICATOR (GS:Heart Gold/Soul Silver)

Q. If I use Pokemon Communicator to put a Pokemon into my deck, am I allowed to voluntarily fail and choose to take no Pokemon out of my deck?
A. The contents of your deck is not public knowledge so the deck search can fail, even if you've just put a pokemon into the deck. (Feb 4, 2010 PUI Rules Team)

So yes, this is allowed!

 

[DNA]

The contents of a player's hand and deck are not public knowledge, yes. Even if you know for a fact that he just put a card back of the type he's looking for, he can still fail the search (usually this is done to conserve cards left in the deck, to prevent deck-out).