In that case, the player doesn’t scrap any cards and just draws 4 cards.
This was written in Rules Roundup 10/11/19:
“I play
Brainstorm. Using my 2 actions, I play
Ancient Wisdom first, then System Reboot. I draw
Unleash Potential off of System Reboot, do I get to play it for free now?
Both Brainstorm and Ancient Wisdom resolve “top to bottom”. When you play Brainstorm, then you play Ancient Wisdom, you must play Unleash Potential at that moment. In your case, you’ve moved past Ancient Wisdom and are continuing with Brainstorm, playing System Reboot. It’s now too late to play Unleash Potential with your previous Ancient Wisdom.”
Would this rule also apply to
Tech Research? You must play a Superior upgrade after playing Tech Research or else that Tech Research is not forfeit. Example: I play Brainstorm first, then I play Tech Research, then I play Medic. Can I play
Superior Jetpack?
[Source: WotC]
Superior upgrades only check to see if you have played
Tech Research at some point previously in your turn. Therefore, there is no issue with playing other cards between Tech Research and a Superior upgrade.
When my opponent plays
Decepticon Shockwave and plays System Reboots to make me discard, say, 10 cards, if I have a
Defensive Driving card attached to one of my characters, can I choose all 10 damage to be dealt to that character and make it all to zero since Shockwave ability reads as deal 1 damage to it?
[Source: WotC]
Yes, Shockwave’s ability triggers individually per card discarded, so each instance of 1 damage would be reduced to 0 because of
Defensive Driving.
I have 4 cards in my hand and my opponent has
Decepticon Shockwave in Bot mode. If they play
Brainstorm > System Reboot > System Reboot, do I take 4 damage after each System Reboot or 8 damage after Brainstorm is resolved?
[Source: WotC]
Shockwave’s ability will trigger a total of 8 times. Each of those abilities resolves separately, so essentially you have 8 damage counters to spread around as you wish.
Using the previous scenario, my character is
Nightbird in alt mode. What is the timing there? Does the
Decepticon Shockwave player take 1 damage each time an action hits the play area or after the
Brainstorm resolves?
I.E. My Nightbird is at full HP (11) and his Shockwave is at 3. Who wins?
[Source: WotC]
Here's what happens. Your opponent starts to play
Brainstorm, this causes
Nightbird’s ability to trigger, but that effect doesn’t resolve immediately. Continuing to resolve Brainstorm, your opponent then plays System Reboot. Another Nightbird trigger happens, which, again, doesn’t resolve immediately. The System Reboot resolves, causing Shockwave to trigger four times. Continuing to resolve Brain Storm, your opponent then plays the second System Reboot. This causes another Nightbird trigger. The second System Reboot causes another four Shockwave triggers. Now that Brainstorm has resolved, we start resolving triggers, beginning with the ones that triggered most recently and working backwards. The four Shockwave triggers caused by the second System Reboot happen one at a time. Next, the Nightbird trigger caused by the second System Reboot happens. Next, the Shockwave triggers caused by the first System Reboot happens. Next, the Nightbird trigger caused by the first System Reboot happens. And finally, the Nightbird trigger caused by the Brain Storm happens. At any point, if resolving one of these triggers causes a player to KO their last character, that player loses the game. If Shockwave was at 3 and Nightbird was at 8 at the beginning of this sequence, Nightbird is going to lose.
Let’s walk through this whole play. You play
Brainstorm and your first action is
Ancient Wisdom. Ancient Wisdom has you scrap the top two cards of your deck and put an Action and/or Upgrade from among the scrapped cards into your hand. At this point, you can play
Unleash Potential, if it’s in your hand.
Let’s say you do. You get a card with 1 star from outside the game and put it into your hand. This may not be a great idea, because you then play the second action from Brainstorm, which is System Reboot. You scrap your hand (including that fancy star card you just snagged) and draw 4 cards.
But instead, let’s say you don’t play Unleash Potential. That brings you to the end of Ancient Wisdom and now you System Reboot just as above.
In either case, your new hand is
Multi-Mission Gear, Brainstorm, and 2 Unleash Potentials. You’ve already played an Action this turn, so we’re guessing you’ll now play Multi-Mission Gear. This allows you to play an Action such as Brainstorm. Brainstorm will allow you to play 2 Unleash Potentials. You played Ancient Wisdom earlier in your turn, so you can get two 1-star cards from outside the game.
If I have Shockwave in play and my opponent has 2 characters with 1 damage left each (say
Optimus Prime - Battlefield Legend with 13 damage and
Nemesis Prime with 15 damage) and I play System Reboot forcing them to discard 2 cards, can they choose to put both damage on Nemesis Prime or must they put 1 damage on each?
[Source: WotC]
Each card discarded creates a new instance of 1 damage, so they will be forced to put one damage on each.
Both
Brainstorm and
Ancient Wisdom resolve “top to bottom”. When you play Brainstorm, then you play Ancient Wisdom, you must play
Unleash Potential at that moment. In your case, you’ve moved past Ancient Wisdom and are continuing with Brainstorm, playing System Reboot. It’s now too late to play Unleash Potential with your previous Ancient Wisdom.
Both players scrap their whole hand. You draw 4 and scrap none; your opponent draws 4 and scraps 1 card because
Snapdragon sees the act of drawing cards as one instance, regardless of number drawn.