You are actually intended to get rid of cards that cost emotional. I wanted it to feel like an actual sacrifice when the cards were turned “dark”. But it would feel a bit like ripping the control away from the player to just remove them from the deck, that’s why we have them cost emotional instead. That way you will slowly erase the memories yourself, and that hits way harder. For the last stretch (black and white zone if you will) you are intended to pick up those cards, and just move to the top. It was probably not a great decision, since like you said it messes with the feeling of difficulty. So definitely something we’ll look over for a later version of the game.