42 – Greetings. A previous ruling stated that if Defender of the Nine Realms empties the encounter deck and…

We appreciate your question. We have reviewed both rulings and believe one is more intuitive than the other, and more in line with our intentions for the game. Our current, updated ruling is this:

• When a cost in the ability of a player card prompts you to discard from the encounter deck and find a specific type of encounter card, you must find that type of card in order to successfully pay the cost of the card and resolve the effect after the cost arrow. If you can’t fulfill the entire cost upon emptying the encounter deck, the effect “fizzles.”
• In other words, in order to pay the cost of Defender of the Nine Realms, you must discard a minion from the encounter deck & engage it before you can remove 3 threat or remove Confused. If you discard the entire encounter deck and fail to engage a minion, you cannot remove 3 threat or discard Confused; you’d instead shuffle the encounter discard into a new encounter deck, add an acceleration token to the main scheme, and be done resolving the event.