Replace the row marked 1 on the left with the row marked 1 on the right. Replace row marked 2 on left with column marked 2 on right. etc...
The problem is that you can either take into account changes from previous steps or you can use the original grids for each step when replacing. I tried both methods and ended up with basically nothing, or maybe I'm not noticing what I'm supposed to be noticing.

on the left:
its a waste

on the right:
here instead

It also has the word never and it says look here instead.

never ---- ---- ---. it's a waste. look here instead.

never ignore hints, it's a waste. look here instead.

It should be _go_ e___ ___ if it's split up as schizophoenix suggests, but there are not many four letters words with go in the middle and none of them match. I think the middle word is exit but that's all I'm getting.

never mind this box.

where to divide, especially since there's an odd number of letters

After having looked up what stacking the deck means, that the deck has been rifled and that we have to stack it by undoing the rifle shuffle and by doing that we'll get a sentence.

However, I have tried doing just that, assuming that the left pile gets 18 cards and reversing the shuffle 3 times, but nothing comes of it.

I've swapped the rows and columns, and I ended up with a message (which doesn't reveal the answer) followed by ten seemingly random letters. I've tried anagramming them and just entering them as they are, but I can't figure out anything.

Look for the words "Find puzzle Four..." and you'll notice you can spell it out by taking one letter at a time from the five rows in a repeating sequence. However, it's not clear where to go from there.

Incidentally, the same rows backwards have an "ING" that would make for a great ending to a word. I think you might have to do the second half in reverse.

Puzzle #3 does not involve a "ripple shuffle" (as described above).

Once you're done swapping rows and columns, if the text in the left box makes sense, then the text in the right box should make sense as well.

The puzzle was updated due to a typo fix--are you sure you're looking at the corrected version?

stack them correctly.

No, I don't see any such sequence because there's always a row skipped. For instance, I can see a pattern for UZZ, but then there's no L in the next row at the right place.

Are the 5 rows supposed to be the cards, or is each letter individually a card?

Imagine each row is a hand of cards, and each letter is a card. You must then pull the cards back to make the deck. You are un-dealing them to get the original deck.

The trick is that the hands are not in the correct order. You will need to switch their positions to make that phrase appear. The 'hands' are also not arranged in order, as if the players rearranged the cards after they were dealt.

HOWEVER I have not solved the puzzle yet. I could be making a terrible error here.

Actually, I would think of each row as a card because there is one step in which you must treat it that way.

This one's not so difficult, guys...you could probably figure it out while standing on your head!

I really don't see how it's possible to stack the cards. If it's not the river shuffle as mentioned in the review that has been used, then I can't possibly know how to undo the shuffle since I don't know what method has been used for shuffling them.

Also, if I treat each row as one card, I'll just get gibberish, the letters within a row also needs to be swapped, perhaps with letters from another row.

Obviously there's a way to figure out how to undo the shuffle, but I can't see it at all.

First off, treat the rows as wholes, not individual cards.

It's possible that you don't know the precise method, Themepark, and have to make some guesses based on deducation. That was my original thought.

I'm pretty sure I spotted the trick to the puzzle, but it doesn't seem to be guiding me anywhere.

I suspect that I must employ a method that loses a few letters to find the final answer.

Treat each row as a card, but sometimes when you're in a hurry, you might not stack the cards exactly on top of each other.

I've mentioned previously how to solve it.

Do I need to rotate the pieces as I stack them?

You're on the right track, but you'd be better off keeping them right-side up until you're almost there. When you realize what you're missing, you'll realize what to flip.

I stared at the last one for a long time--even ran it through an anagram generator (I was convinced that EPIC NONMETAL was a crucial clue)--but once I went back to the beginning, the cards all fell into place.

There are MANY eight letter words consisting of letters in that grid. The one you're looking for has a distinct pattern and the leftover letters have a pattern too. If you're missing a pattern, it's the wrong word.

I'm hoping the top half is what you would expect it to be, but after that, what's face down? Am I doing it or undoing it? How do I mind the jokers?

Maybe I'll just cut out some cards and physically shuffle them...

I feel so freaking dumb. I thought the clue was referring to card games, not anagrams.

Anyway, to quote the Doctor himself: "Look to your left."

I get it that it's possible to spell 4 birds names. But I can't see nothing further that.

ravenorioleostrichflamingo.gif

Unscrambling the bird names is only half the puzzle. Take a look at the initials.

According to ThemePark, the letters are ripple (or riffle) shuffled, but I can't figure out how to unshuffle them. Are we supposed to treat the entire 12-letter sequence as a deck to unshuffle? Or just certain letter groups as "cards"?

The middle row is upside-down. Not simply reversed, upside-down. Read it as "WIZOSNI" and the rest is trivial.

I've replaced row 1 from the right with row 1 from the left, and vice versa. And I have... a message that looks like it was written by a very drunk person. It goes, "meverminrthisboxitsa," which I take to mean, "nevermind this box, it's a." But after that it degenerates into unintelligible gibberish for a couple lines, then continues, "hereinstead," followed by more gibberish.

What am I doing wrong?

ravenorioleostrichflamingo.gif

That's not the right answer. Read the initials. It's a four-letter word.

How are you copying the letters? Note that the order is important - each transposition will change the letters that need to be exchanged in subsequent moves.

re. #4: No need to think backwards.

Once I read that something is different about one of the rows, I noticed that INSOZIM can be rotated 180 degrees.

I tried arranging the letters in each column alphabetically. Didn't see any pattern there.
I tried arranging the letters in each row alphabetically. Didn't see any pattern.
I can't seem to figure out how I can look at a row as one card. The letters don't seem to form any name of a number or any of the card symbols.

The solution reads in columns from top to bottom, left to right.

I noticed that others wrote that it spells out "puzzle four" so I looked for a way to arrange the rows in order to get it.
But without knowing what it is supposed to spell out how was I to know what order the rows should go?
Also, shouldn't the E be an F?

How am I supposed to split the letters? I take the top half in my left hand...that is, there's two ways I can split the grid, both mutually contradictory.

To your first question, "a sudden leap of Bruce Wayne-like logic." Really, the middle row being upside-down isn't a clever trick - it's just plain cheating. To answer your second, yes, it's even misspelled.

Each letter is a card, and you start out with a deck of cards, read from left to right, top to bottom. Now follow the instructions exactly (except for the face down part which is not important), and keep in mind that it's not a shuffle if it's only done once.

Thanks. I'd been doing it backwards. Bottom card in the left hand drops first... ^_^;

Thanks, I've got it now. I wasn't shuffling enough!

If you think you're doing the right thing, but you can't find an answer: check every single step. Making a small mistake at the start will result in gibberish at the end. (I'm talking from experience.)

Having a deliberate misspelling is not, in my eyes, a bad way to ensure players find the mechanic rather than anagramming their way to the next puzzle. This is a pretty common tactic for crypto masters! That paired with the OTHER trick, though, was one trick too many. Perhaps it was unintentional?

It took me a while, because I was ripple shuffling the sequence I had been given, instead of backwards shuffling it. Once I realised this, it was easy.

pinnacle, a misspelling of pinochle, the card game.

I've been trying to recreate the shuffle with real cards and then assigning them letters at the end, being very careful to shuffle exactly as the instructions say, but no matter what I do, it's the same jumbled nonsense every time. I've done this half a dozen times now and got the same pattern, so it can't be some stupid little mistake. There's something I'm fundamentally not getting about this puzzle.

It makes more sense to me if I deal from the bottom of the deck once the final shuffle is complete... wondering if I got something reversed somewhere along the way.

The anagram solver isn't the easy out this time - the extra four letters don't make a word, but they do have a pattern....

Did you see ThemePark's and Ryusui's comments about the order the cards go in?

Also, don't forget to lather, rinse and...

and wrote one letter on each card. Then I stacked them in the order given by the puzzle, cut them (6 in each hand), and riffle shuffled 3x.