Star Realms: scrapping a card in your hand

Question

Do I still get the actions of a card that I plan to scrap during that turn? For example, if I have the Brain World in play, I am allowed to scrap up to two cards from my hand or my discard pile. I have a Viper and a Scout that I want to get rid of. Do I still get to use their primary actions (1 Combat and 1 Trade) on that turn?

I have interpreted this as the primary actions immediately "fund" the resource pool, so that I do get the benefit of their actions. This would be a no-brainer (pun intended) if the Brain World was not already in play, but it's a base and can carry over from a previous turn. So exactly when does that scrapping action have to take place? At the beginning or the end of the Main Phase?

Answer 1

Your interpretation is incorrect. You cannot use the actions of a card that you scrap.

The rules state that during the main phase, players may perform the following actions in any order (among other actions):

• Play cards from your hand
• Use the Primary Abilities of in-play Bases

So the answer to your second question is that you can use the Brain World in whatever order you want during the main phase.

The rules go on to state

When a Ship is played, its Primary Ability triggers immediately.

That is to say, you must decide to play a card from your hand in order to gain the benefit of the primary ability.

Under "Playing Cards" they say that to play a card,

place it "in-play" (face-up on the table in front of you).

Later, in the Discard Phase,

Put all in play Ships into your Discard Pile. Put any cards left in your hand into your Discard Pile.

These quotes together make it clear that an "in-play" card is not in your hand, nor your discard pile. This demonstrates that using a Primary Ability and being scrapped by the Brain World are mutually exclusive (at least without some special ability to move cards from in-play to your hand or discard pile).