What happens when Teysa Karlov is equipped with Helm of the Host? What happens when you equip Helm of the Host to Teysa Karlov? Do the Teysas trigger each other making infinite copies of the death trigger? My thinking is that it says: when a triggered ability is caused by death, copy it. Is that ability copied by the other Teysa or is the original ability just copied again? So instead of one Blood Artist trigger, would I get 3? Or would I just win the game doing infinite damage?

You get one more trigger for each Teysa Karlov you have. So if you have 2 Teysa Karlov, you get 3 triggers.

From the Rulings on the Gatherer page:

  1/25/2019 — If you somehow control two Teysas, a creature dying causes abilities to trigger three times, not four. A third Teysa causes abilities to trigger four times, a fourth causes abilities to trigger five times, and so on. This also means that if you control Teysa and cast a second one, an ability that triggers when it dies due to the “legend rule” triggers three times.

It works this way because Teysa Karlov's ability is a replacement effect, and replacement effects can only apply to an event once. When a death trigger occurs, one Teysa sees it and replaces it with two death triggers, then the other Teysa sees it and replaces it with three death triggers. Both Teysas have now applied their replacement effects to this one event and can't apply additional times, so they won't loop infinitely.


In Sorry!, do you have to move past safety zone or forfeit turn? In Sorry, if you are 7 spaces away from your Home and you draw a 12 (and your other pawns are in Start or Home), do you have to move past your safety zone like you're going around the board a second time or do you forfeit your turn?

You forfeit your turn.

From the rules (3 separate places):

  You must bring all four of your pawns into HOME by
  exact count!
  If at any time you cannot move, you forfeit your turn.
  When moving along
  the outside track, you may not move your pawn
  forward beyond your own SAFETY ZONE entry.

Also a note under the rules for the 11 card:

  You may forfeit your move if you do not wish to change
  places and it is impossible to go forward 11 spaces.


Can crackleburr respond to himself? Let's say my opponent has a Crackleburr, two red and blue useless tokens, and an infinite amount of red and blue mana. Crackleburr's card text is this:

  {U/R}{U/R}{T}, Tap two untapped red creatures you control: Crackleburr deals >3 damage to target creature or player.

  {U/R}{U/R}{Q}, Untap two tapped blue creatures you control: Return target creature to its owner's hand.

Now let's say that my opponent, on his turn, activates Crackleburr's first ability to kill a creature of mine. I respond with Path to Exile on Crackleburr. Can Crackleburr respond to that Path to Exile by activating his second ability? Then, assuming it can, can Crackleburr respond to his second activation by activating his first ability again? So, with infinite mana, can Crackleburr continually respond to itself?

A player could, in fact, repeatedly activate Crackeburr if the player had the mana to do so, as long as the player had two other creatures available that were both red and blue, because the tapping and untapping are costs and not effects.

Each time the player would have to pick targets for the effects - and could keep picking the same targets over and over again if desired. The effects with targets would go on the stack, so that you would have a stack consisting of the three-damage effect at the bottom, then the return-to-hand, then three-damage, then return-to-hand, etc. Instances of either effect would fizzle if they targeted creatures that were already returned to hand or destroyed via damage. (Bear in mind that damage doesn't use the stack, so as soon as a Crackleburr invocation is resolved because the stack unwound to that point, then if the creature has lethal damage, it will be destroyed.)

Presumably your opponent used Crackleburr's untap ability specifically to bounce itself. This would work, and yes, your opponent could tap it a third time to do three damage if there were mana and untapped creatures available. At that point these things happen in order as the stack unwinds:

Crackleburr does three damage to the second target
Crackleburr returns itself to its owner's hand
Path to Exile tries to exile Crackleburr but fails because the target is no longer on the battlefield
Crackleburr does three damage to the first target


Cows and bulls to allow duplicates So as all of you know, Cows and Bulls is a pen and paper adaptation of the popular board game Mastermind. I would like to design a game that would allow duplicate numbers for the code and assign perhaps a third variable called "milk" to ascertain the number of repetitions in the code.

We will be playing with five digits instead of four, so what exactly would be the guidelines we would have to follow in order to accommodate "milk" as an additional parameter? Please explain with examples as well.

If you are allowing 5 digits then you can have two different kinds of repetitions. That is, you could have a code like 11122, so this should probably be represented somehow such that the ”milk” is different from the 11111 case.

Since you can have at most two repetition groups, it seems like the easiest thing to do would be to have another variable, (cans of milk vs buckets of milk?) for the second repetition group, if any.

Another thing to consider is what values of the milk variable should indicate which amount of repetitions. 1 milk for 1 repetition, (11234 for example,) and two milks for two, (11123) makes sense from a certain point of view, but having two milks mean two values are the same, (11234) three for three values that are the same, (11123) and the milk being ignored otherwise might be more intuitive.


How many cards should be collected using the Mining Progress card? The Cities and Knights expansion to Settlers of Catan has two cards that have caused us a bit of disagreement.

Take the Mining Progress card for example.  It says "...collect two ore for each mountain hex adjacent to one of your cities or settlements."  If I only have one settlement and one city and they are both adjacent to the same ore hex, should I collect two cards or four?  If you are to count mountain hex then it should be two, but if you are counting cities/settlements it should be four.

The same questions exists for the Irrigation Progress card.

You only collect two ore.

The 4th edition cards(pg. 15) contain updated text which makes this clear.

  You may take two ore cards from the bank for each mountain hex which is adjacent to at least one of your cities or settlements.

You can purchase an updated card deck.  I think this is all you need to update your set to the latest edition.


Can I decide not to use all the power of a plant in Power Grid? Let's assume that I've got 10 cities connected in my network. I want to supply electricity to 6 of them and I've two power plants, each of them capable of supplying up to 5 cities. I've bought enough resources to use both power plants. Can I decide to use them to supply only 6 cities with electricity?

In this case, that would mean one plant would be using only 1/5 of its potential when it's perfectly possible to supply more cities with it - all 5 in this case. Is this allowed?

Sure - see page 5 of the rulebook, in the "Earning Cash" paragraph of the Phase 5: Bureaucracy  section:

  Earning cash: Starting with the first player, every player indicates
  how many cities in his network he wishes (and is able) to supply with
  electricity. He earns cash based on  the number of cities he powers as
  shown on the payment table. A player who does not supply any city gets
  10 Elektro (the guaranteed minimum). The players remove the  required
  resources from the power plants that produced electricity this round
  and place the used resources in the resource supply next to the board.
  A player may choose  (or only be able) to supply fewer cities than he
  has in his network. The player is paid only for the supplied cities.
  If a player produces more electricity than he has cities in his
  network, the surplus is wasted. Every player can choose how many and
  which of his power plants he uses, e.g. he does not have to supply all
  of his cities.

So you can very much power 6 cities with enough electricity for 10.  You just won't be able to store the extra electricity produced for future use (or save yourself any of the resources that it cost you to produce so much electricity).

See also the line "a player may choose to supply fewer cities than he has in his network. The player is paid only for the supplied cities."  It seems pretty clear to me that you can undersupply your cities if you want, strange though such a course of action might seem!


Can the Big Blind Player Post More than the Current Big Blind? In a Texas Hold-Em No-Limit Tournament, where the blinds are 200-400, can the big blind initially post more than 400 or does the Big Blind need to wait until it's his turn to raise?

For example we had a player who was the big blind and wanted to know if he could post his 550 chips (all-in) as the big blind instead of waiting for his turn to come around to raise 150 chips.

In a tournament, "blinds" are set by formula, based on the number of rounds that have elapsed. So the big blind amount in this instance is 400.

It's a LIVE blind, which means that the big blind can raise, but only after others have had a chance to do so. That's the disadvantage of being a big blind.

Essentially, he raises the little blind from 200 to 400, and then again at the end of the round (if no one else has raised 150 or more). But he can't "protect" his blind by raising the whole 550 the first time.


How can I make Kids of Catan less luck based? My almost-5-year-old is loving Kids of Catan, and to be honest I've grown to like this game too, even with just two players. It's all about luck, but it's fast and a really good foundation for more advanced games.

What rule would allow young players of this game to begin to exercise more control over their chances of winning, given that they are experienced and comfortable with the core rules?

Has anyone had success in transitioning children from Kids of Catan to a more strategic game by adding house rules to KoC?

In this thread on BoardGameGeek there's a house rule that the players can choose which direction to rotate the board.  In order to choose the direction, players should consider the resources they gain, as well as the resources their opponents gain (or lose).

Further down in the thread are several other suggestions for introducing more choice into how to rotate the board (e.g. roll two dice and pick one).

I also saw a suggestion that trading could be introduced to reduce the amount of luck, but I haven't seen any reports of whether that was successful or not.


How exactly is Tally Ho! imbalanced? In Tally Ho! one player plays the humans (hunters, lumberjacks) while the other plays the animals (foxes, bears). The Dutch rulebook states that since the game is imbalanced, a game is comprised of two hunts, with the players switching sides.

I have played it several times now, but while it's clear that the game is asymmetrical, it isn't clear to me which way the imbalance lies.

Can anyone enlighten me?

The game tends to be much easier for the Hunter player. They have 8 pieces that can kill animals, while the animals only have the 2 bears. Yes, hunters can only attack in a certain direction, but they can move as far as they want, while Bears have to creep up on the hunters.


In what order do single spells or abilities that target multiple targets trigger? When a spell (for example, Dauntless Onslaught) that targets more than a single target, if both of them have a reaction (Heroic, for example) to being targeted which happens first? The specific case I'm wondering about is if I have a Vanguard of Brimaz and a Phalanx Leader, the order in which they are triggered matters because the newly created creature token may or may not have the +1/+1 counter that Phalanx Leader could give it, though this is something that could happen with any spell or ability that has multiple targets, where there are multiple thigns that could be triggered in some way by the effect of the spell.

Vanguard of Brimaz and Phalanx Leader trigger on the spell being cast. There's only one spell being cast, so their abilities trigger simultaneously. The next time a player would get priority, you get to place the triggered abilities on the stack in the order you desire. (If the abilities of more than one player triggered simultaneously, each player starting with the with active player would place their abilities on the stack in the order of their choice.) They resolve in the opposite order (last in, first out), so you'd place Phalanx Leader's ability on the stack first.

You cast Dauntless Onslaught targeting Vanguard of Brimaz and Phalanx Leader. Simultaneously,

Vanguard of Brimaz's ability triggers.
Phalanx Leader's ability triggers.

Phalanx Leader's triggered ability is placed on the stack.
Vanguard of Brimaz's triggered ability is placed on the stack.
Vanguard of Brimaz's triggered ability resolves:

Put a 1/1 white Cat Soldier creature token with vigilance onto the battlefield.

Phalanx Leader's triggered ability resolves:

Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.

Dauntless Onslaught resolves:

Vanguard of Brimaz and Phalanx Leader get +2/+2 until end of turn.

  603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point.

  603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. [...]

  603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses. [...]

  101.4. If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player’s left) makes any choices required, followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the “Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order” rule.


Apostrophes, hyphens, or other tile-less characters in Bananagrams In Bananagrams, are words that require characters such as hyphens, dashes, and spaces (all of which do not have tiles) allowed simply by omitting the characters with corresponding tile? Or are they not allowed at all?

A couple examples that have come up in play:

'Twas
U-boat

Other examples would include

top hat
man-at-arms

Bananagrams has a pretty basic set of rules, compared to other games: it seems that the only guidance on this subject is "a legal word is one found in a dictionary (the volume should be agreed upon in advance)".

Obviously all your examples can be found in many reasonably good dictionaries.  However, I (and most other diehard Scrabble players I'm sure) would be extremely un-keen to allow them.  Essentially - all of those examples are not actually words, but multiple words, albeit abridged or conjoined in some way.  Additionally, all of them would look really weird played in a game of Bananagrams or Scrabble with their punctuation marks missing; to the extent where you'd have to wonder if they were the same words at all.  "Manatarms", "tophat", "uboat"?  They don't look right for a reason.  Now maybe if a hyphen tile existed in the game...

I do think, though, that this is exactly the type of game where house rules on acceptability are perfectly reasonable, and indeed a good thing.  If you and the people you play with think it's more annoying to have to rule out hyphenated, abbreviated and capitalised real words than it is just to allow them, then I can't see any possible reason not to agree amongst yourselves that they're fine.


Can Form of the Dragon be given Infect? I'm play primarily EDH and like to play jank ideas. One thing I've been thinking about is the card Form of the Dragon. Is it possible to give Form of the Dragon the infect mechanic?

Yes, you can, but it's not trivial.
While Infect works on objects of any type, you can generally only grant Infect to creatures. Therefore, you have to turn Form of the Dragon into a creature first. You can do that through e.g. Liquimetal Coating, then animate that artifact through e.g. Skilled Animator. Or you can turn it into a creature directly with Opalescence.
Then you can give the resulting creature Infect through e.g. Grafted Exoskeleton.


Where do the zombies move in this quest? My friends and I will soon play the Zombicide Black Plague Wulfsburg quests, starting with Welcome to Wulfsburg, which has the following setup:

My question is the following. Where do the zombies that spawn in 5R move before the characters make their way through the houses of 1V, 5R and 8V ?

I think I found the solution. This is from the Zombicide Black Plague rulebook, page 24:

  In case there are no open paths to the noisiest Zone, Zombies move
  toward it as if all doors were open, though locked doors still stop
  them.

Which means the zombies from 5R will go stuck themselves in the dead-end of 8V until a character opens the door (which also allows another character to snipe them from the tower 10V in the meantime).


Can I take a jack if I'm at the hand limit? When at the hand limit, I can always draw one card. Does this include a jack, or can I only draw a face down card from the deck?

The "Hand limit" is a soft limit.

You can take a card when at or above the hand limit. Including a Jack.


Will a copied spell trigger Prowess? If I cast Howl of the Horde and then cast a Collateral Damage, I know that I do not need to sacrifice additional creatures for the copies based on this question. However, does each new copy trigger Prowess?

Collateral damage says:

  As an additional cost to cast Collateral Damage ...

Comprehensive Rule 706.10 says:

  To copy a spell ... means to put a copy of it onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn’t cast. ...

Per 706.10, the copy of Collateral Damage isn't cast, so you don't have to pay the cost again.

Copying a spell does not trigger Prowess. Prowess triggers when you cast a spell, and, as we previously discovered, copied spells are not cast. A ruling on Howl of the Horde reiterates what we have concluded:

  ... Each copy is created on the stack, so it’s not “cast.” Abilities that trigger when a player casts a spell won’t trigger. ...

Some cards actually copy the card (not the spell) and have you cast the copied card. Panoptic Mirror is a good example. Just to be clear, this would trigger Prowess.


Calculating the probability of NOT drawing a traitor card in Dead of Winter If you're playing a 3 player game and hand out 1 card to each player, out of a deck of 3 ally and 1 traitor cards, how likely are the players all allies?

I think the math is you have a (3/4)^3 or approximately %32 chance of everybody being an ally. Is this correct? Thanks.

Deal out the four cards in a line.  How likely is it that the one on the far right is the traitor card?  1 in 4 right?  Now have the players pick up everything except the far right card.  What are the chances that they didn't pick up the traitor card?  It's the same question.  So your answer is still 1 in 4.


Would this potential Saint Petersburg house rule work? A friend mentioned a possible easy tweak of the Saint Petersburg rules: just pay out the buildings once again at the end of the game (perhaps disallowing observatory/debtor's prison except for taking the 1 VP).

This has two possible advantages:

It could enable a viable blue-heavy strategy to compete with the as-many-aristocrats-kinds-as-possible strategy.
The trading card phase at the end would actually matter for blues as well as aristocrats.

Can anyone shoot holes in the idea?  I'm curious for people to try this out and report how it goes.

I don't see any reason why this would fail to work, but it would change the strategy.  I'll give it a go next time I play, if I can persuade the other players to try it.


Gold Rush and Dynamite When using the Gold Rush expansion and the dynamite is triggered to explode, does the player who played the dynamite card gain any gold? If the player has 2 life and is dealt 3 damage, would the player collect 2 or 3 gold?

No one gets gold for damage caused by dynamite as the damage is done by the card and not by a player. Just like the sheriff would not be forced to discard all his cards if he played it when it killed a deputy. Or you would not draw cards if you played it and it killed an outlaw.


Does Breaker Bay Grid reduce the cost of ICE hosted on Awakening Center I have Breaker Bay Grid in a server, along with Awakening Center hosting a Janus 1.0.

Does Janus 1.0 count as "in" the server for the purposes of Breaker Bay Grid's cost reduction?  Equivalently, does Janus cost 8 credits or just 3?

Breaker Bay Grid has the ability:

  The rez cost of cards in this server is lowered by 5.

Awakening Center has the abilities:

  Awakening Center can host bioroid ice (each piece is installed
  facedown, ignoring all install costs).

  Whenever the Runner passes all of the ice protecting this server, you
  may rez a piece of ice on Awakening Center, lowering the rez cost by
  7 [credits], to force the Runner to encounter it. Trash that ice after the
  run is completed.

Normally Breaker Bay doesn't work on ICE because ICE is protecting the server rather than "in" it.

From the FAQ on Awakening Center:

  Ice on Awakening Center are in the server and do not count as ice
  protecting the server.

So, the ICE on the awakening center do get the cost reduction from Breaker Bay Grid.  Janus 1.0 would only cost 3 credits to rez in this situation.


Why is exile often an intermediate step? When card text says to place a card into exile, and then do something else with that card, what is the purpose of putting it into exile temporarily?

For example, cards often either let your draw from your library into exile, or remove cards from a graveyard into exile, and then cast them from exile. Dire Fleet Daredevil for example.

As someone who did not play for many years, this seems wordy and over complicated.  I find myself reading such cards 2 or 3 times before mentally connecting the trigger to the end result without the seemingly pointless intermediate step of exiling cards.

I assume this is a common practice now to avoid some overpowered combo or weird condition.  I'd like to have a better understanding of what the rule/card designers accomplish/prevent by having exile as an intermediate step.

Note, I am not asking for an explanation of what exile does in general, nor am I asking why a player would prefer to exile over destroy.

Exiling a card before allowing an action does a couple things:

It protects the cards from interactions until it is cast.  If the Dire Fleet Daredevil has targeted a card, you want it to be uninteractable by the owner until you decide to cast it (assuming it wasn't removed in response to the trigger). If it wasn't exiled, it could be removed from the graveyard (e.g. shuffled into library) before being cast, preventing you from casting the card.
It acts to remove the card from the game.  This is more relevant for graveyard exile than deck exile, where it's more a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Even in the Daredevil scenario, if you never cast the card, it's still exiled.
It makes the card public information.  This applies more to deck exile.  It would be "harder" (read "near-impossible") to keep track of which card you exiled if you got to put the card into your hand.  Even if the card is not face-up, it's still in a separate area.


Can you be visited by more than one Noble in Splendor? In Splendor, after you have collected enough bonuses to receive a visit from a noble, can you receive a visit from a second noble with the some of the same bonuses as the first, or do you need additional bonuses?

For example: say there are two nobles that both require 3 diamond bonuses, can you receive both nobles if you only have three diamond bonuses, or would you be required to have at least 6 diamond bonuses to receive them both (3 for each)?

Yes, you can, but not on the same turn.

From the rules:

  At the end of their turn, each player checks the noble tiles in
  order to determine if they’re receiving a visit from one of them.
  A player can be visited if they have (at least) the quantity and
  type of bonuses indicated on the noble tile.

So all that matters is that you have at least 3 diamonds for a noble that requires 3 diamonds; there's no requirement to have an additional 3 for an additional noble.

And the rule limiting it to 1 noble per turn:

  If a player has enough bonuses to be visited by more than one
  noble at the end of their turn, that player chooses the noble to
  be received.


How can I tell if these vintage boardgames are worth anything? My grandparents passed away recently, and my mother is cleaning out their house. They have some vintage board games (ca. 1960's, maybe?) in their house, and she's wondering what to do with them. I don't know if any of them are collectible or not; she sent me a rather low-res picture in which a few are identifiable: Mille Bornes, Barrel of Monkeys, Flinch, Contack, Yahtzee, a few card games like Old Maid and Crazy Eights.

How would I go about finding out if there's a market for any of these? I tried checking BoardGameGeek, which shows what's for sale there and on eBay, but that tells me nothing about whether anyone is actually buying those games (well, in some cases it tells me a little; if there are a bunch of eBay auctions, all with no bids, there probably isn't much demand).

Is there any good way for me to determine if there's a demand for any of these games? Is there a good place I should try and sell them? Or should I just give them to the local thrift store, as it probably won't be worth the hassle of storing them and listing them for sale?

If you look at who wants a game on BoardGameGeek, you can get an idea if there is any demand for the game.  (It's under the statistics section on BoardGameGeek.)   Unfortunately, for any item in a market, it's hard to know if people are actually buying that item.  While I haven't done it for board games, I've followed eBay auctions with active bids to see what they close at.  It can be difficult to see if an item will sell, without trying to sell it.  I'm skeptical of price guides for antiques cause just cause people say something will sell for X, doesn't meany anyone will pay that for it.

You could always donate them to a something like the Salvation Army or Goodwill if you'd just like to have them find new homes.  I'm not sure it costs money to put things up in the BoardGameGeek marketplace, but you could list them on their instead to see if they're interesting to general gamers.


Is rolling to escape a monster required? In some cases, the Bad Stuff of a monster may actually be beneficial, for instance dying to draw new cards, if you were dealt bad cards at the start.

But is rolling required to let the monster take you, or can you simply "lie down at the ground" and let the monster kill you?

No you can't choose to take the Bad Stuff, you must always attempt to Run Away first.

From the Munchkin rules (page 3 under Combat):

  If the monster’s combat strength is equal to yours,
  or greater, you lose the combat and must Run Away

Also from page 5 under Running Away:

  If nobody will help you . . . or if somebody tries to help, and your fellow
  party members interfere so the two of you still cannot win . . . you must Run
  Away.

Note that in both cases they use the word must - you do not have the choice to run away (or not) - you must make the Run Away check, and must include all bonuses from active Races/Classes etc.

However you could still play one shot cards against yourself to change the possible outcome eg. a loaded die to change the die result to a 1, or a lose your class card to remove a class that gives you a bonus to running away.


Can opponent trash a copper on my Governor if there is no one value card in play? Governor- relevant text- each player may trash a card from his hand and gain a card cost exactly 1(2) more.
My question is can my opponent trash a copper or a curse and gain nothing if there are no 1 value cards in play?  If so should I choose to use this option as it would allow my opponent to thin their deck?

Yes, they can.

You always follow all instructions in order, only skipping things that are impossible. If you choose this option, your opponent has 2 instructions to follow:

They may trash a card from their hand
They gain a card costing exactly $1 more

They follow the first instruction, and then the second one is impossible, so it is ignored.

Note that this is common to use as a benefit for yourself, with cards like Remake or Upgrade; where you can trash Coppers away.

Yes, this does mean that this option will help your opponent.. however, it would help in general anyway; that's the whole concept behind Governor. While they do have the ability to trash a Copper and gain nothing in return, they would still be better off trashing an Estate and gaining a $3 cost card. Or later in the game, trashing a $4 and getting a Duchy.

If they happen to have nothing in their hand that is worth trashing, then you lucked out and they don't get a benefit. But in general, any of the three options on Governor are designed to help your opponents a little, and help yourself even more.


How do the hand size rules interact with Share Your Nuts? In the game of Nuts the rules state:

Drawing Cards
Whenever you play a card, whether on your turn or out of
turn, immediately draw a card from the deck.  You should
always have five cards in your hand.

There is an Antics card called 'Share Your Nuts' that reads:

Pass one card from your hand to the
player on your left, chosen at random.

Do the hand size rules make the person playing the card draw up to five cards and force the player on the left to discard down to five?

Yes to both. You quoted the answer You should always have five cards in your hand. You would draw a card to bring your hand size back to 5, and your opponent would have to discard a card to bring their hand back down to 5.


Carcassonne Completed City What constitutes a completed city.
My son and I have been playing for a little while, and we can't agree if a city is complete when it has attached cities sections which aren't.

A city in Carcassonne is completed when their are no places you can possibly add any additional tiles to grow that city.

Three Cities, A, B, & C.
Three Tiles that can be laid down (1,2, & 3) in the Green Square..

So in this first picture; only city "B" is completed (3 tiles); as you cannot add any more tiles to that specific city; city A & C are incomplete as you can put at least one more tile on both of those cities (Green Square).

In this picture you will see if we use Tile #1 in the green square; we are actually merging Cities A & C; making a single city of 7 tiles.   City B is unchanged and is still considered completed.

In this picture we played tile #2, it completed both City A (4 tiles) and City C (4 tiles).  None of these cities can grow anymore so they are ALL considered completed.

Using tile #3, will actually keep both City A & C open as they both have at least ONE place to add an additional tile.

Also depending on what additional add-ons you have added to your base game, you could also play a tile like

that closes city C and leave city A open.


If I draw my Critical Miss card, can I apply its effect so as to mitigate it? I don't have the rules in front of me so I may be using different terminology to that used in the rules.

Suppose I am playing as the Scoundrel and have taken the perk that allows me to add "(draw another card and) +1" battle cards to my deck. Now suppose I make an "Attack 3" on a monster. I draw one of my "(draw another card and) +1" cards. I duly draw another card, and it is my Critical Miss card.

Am I allowed to apply the effect of the Critical Miss card first, then apply the +1 after that? In other words, in what order do I do things?

first multiply by 0 (for the Critical Miss), giving 0, then add 1, giving 1?
first add 1 (giving 4), then multiply by 0, giving 0?
my choice of the above?

Or is there no ordering to be done and it's a blank "if the Critical Miss card is drawn and it applies to the attack, then the attack deals no damage to the opponent, no matter what other cards were drawn"?

I've possibly already answered this in a roundabout way here.

The short answer is none of your options.  The attack did no damage.

There is no such thing as a "miss" or "critical miss" card in Gloomhaven. The word 'miss' does not appear anywhere in the rules.  It is a 'null' card.

from page 11 of rules

  A “Null” symbol means that no damage is done by the attack.

If you pull rolling modifiers and then draw the null card you did no damage.  If the base value of the attack and any other rolling modifiers do not come into play.

Its important to make the distinction between damage and effects.  if you attack added poison or you pulled a rolling wound these are still applied as these are not damage and the attack didn't miss as there is no such thing.


Warhammer 40k 8th: When using two allied factions what stratagems and warlord traits do you use from the codices Im playing Admech/imperial knights (seperate detachments) and I'm wondering, if my warlord is a knight, am I able to use admech strategems?/is the  trait in effect?

You can find all the information you need regarding the stratagems in your codex - right on the page with the stratagems. I'll quote from the Codex "Astra Militarum", p. 134 (of the german version):

  Wenn du eine Armee in Schlachtordnung hast, die beliebige Astra-Militarum-Kontingente enthält (außer verstärkende Unterstützungskontingente), hast du Zugang zu den unten beschriebenen Gefechtsoptionen; du kannst also Befehlspunkte ausgeben, um sie zu aktivieren [...]

Very Loosely translated:

  If you have an army that is battleforged and contains any Astra Militarum detachments (except whatever the english name for the detachment that allows you to just take any single unit you want for the price of one CP is), you gain access to the stratagems below. Meaning you can use Command Points to activate them

This text also appears in other codexes (I checked my codex Chaos Space Marines) and in the Psychic Awakening books (I checked Glaube und Zorn, which is the german version of Faith and Fury)

This means that as long as you have at least one full detachment from a specific army/keyword, you can use the stratagems. Note that most (if not all) stratagems are pretty much limited to be used only on the faction they come from (or even more specific units) - Your choice of Warlord is completely irrelevant for this, you have access to both AdMech and Knight Stratagems no matter which Warlord you choose.


Worldfire and Protection Let's say I have Progenitus on my side of the field, and my friend plays Worldfire. Would Progenitus still be on the field after Worldfire resolves or is he also exiled since he has "Protection from everything?"

Your Progenitus would still be exiled.
According to the Gatherer rulings:

2/1/2009: “Protection from everything” means the following: Progenitus can't be blocked, Progenitus can't be enchanted or equipped, Progenitus can't be the target of spells or abilities, and all damage that would be dealt to Progenitus is prevented.
2/1/2009: Progenitus can still be affected by effects that don't target it or deal damage to it (such as Day of Judgment).

Since Worldfire doesn't target anything, Progenitus will be exiled along with everything else.


What happens if you pass backwards over a red line? Quite often in games, you'll go into negative reputation, and move backwards on the reputation track.

What should you do here re: adjusting reputation and income? Should re-decrease your income and reputation when you pass forwards over the line again?

Yes, you increase income and reputation when passing backwards over it, and decrease them when passing forwards.

The rules are pretty simple:

  When a player's Population crosses a Red Line, then that player's Income and Reputation are both reduced by 1 (moved to the left one space) for every Red Line the player moves past. If a player's Population dips below a Red Line (this can happen if he has a negative reputation) he moves both his Income Cylinder and his Reputation Cube forward (moved to the right one space).


Can characters join units? In Warhammer Fantasy characters could join units to move and fight alongside them. In Age of Sigmar characters have different Warscrolls and there don't appear to be any obvious rules to allow them to do so. Is it possible?

The reason I ask is largely to do with battleshock, obviously if a character is part of a unit suffering battleshock then they have a higher bravery value.

So, in Age of Sigmar can characters join units?

First page under Warscrolls & Units heading.

"A unit can have one or more models, but cannot include models that use different warscrolls."

No.  No warscroll may ever join another war scroll.  Characters are always alone and may never join units.  The only exceptions would be if a specific character has an ability on their warscroll that allows them to join another warscroll.  Goblin fanatics (not a character) are the only example I can think of offhand, but they are actually hidden within a unit.


Is there any good cure in Midway for Japan's lack of search capabilities? In Midway, the Japanese player gets only three (airborne) searches per turn. What's worse, he only only gets to search "areas" within 12 zones of his ships, while the American's Midway based planes get four searches per turn, across the whole board.

That means that the Americans can track the Japanese player's progress from the beginning of the game (first day), while the Japanese player doesn't have a chance find American ships until the middle of the first day at the earliest. And only if the American player isn't any good at hiding his ships.

One proposal was to give the Japanese player a fourth search. A second rule of the game is to allow "ship" searches. That is to say, that the Japanese player can search any area in which he has ships. Late the first day, he receives a reinforcement of four weak cruisers that are almost useless for defense, but can be used the second day (and later) for ship searches. That's potentially four more areas that can be searched by ships, to complement airborne searches.

A house rule that I played with years ago was to allow area searches by combat squadrons, that is one torpedo or dive bomber squadron per area searched. These units had to be put in a separate group, and could not be used for combat the same, or the following turn. And they were subject to the seven square distance rule. Nevertheless, they afforded the Japanese player the chance to "blanket" a portion of the board with searches.

What means have players used to compensate for the problem of the Japanese player having so few searches? Or are the better players so good that three searches is "enough?"

There are some differences in play between the original (60s) and updated (90s) editions of Midway - not least of which is where ships come into the game from (the newer edition uses hexes instead of a uniform grid, too). Based on this question mentioning the 7 squares rule, I'll assume (and answer as if) you're looking at the older edition.

There's not really a "need" to compensate for the Japanese player's fewer searches. Using a T1 or D1 (or F1) to search, I suppose, could be done, but you should be able to extend those out to 14 squares (the limit of a plane's range) - and allow a kamikaze attack by that plane (or squadron, if you sent more than one) if they happen to find anything .. might even consider upping their AF by 1, reducing their die roll by one, decreasing the DF by 1 of the ship, or a combination of the three. Of course, if they find nothing, you've lost those aircraft.

You might cut the number of American searches to 3 from 4, but that's not a big difference either.


Can negative toughness effects kill a creature? There are some spells and abilities that subtract from a creature's power/toughness: for example, part of Ulcerate says "Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn."

If the target creature is only a 2/2, is that target destroyed (goes to graveyard) from the -3 toughness given to it? If not what happens, does it stick around with negative toughness?

A creature with 0 or less toughness will be sent to the graveyard immediately, so yes, getting -3/-3 can kill a creature.

Note that this is not technically being "destroyed", it is a different way of sending the creature to the graveyard. This matters for things like regeneration.

From the basic MTG rules:

  Your creatures go to your graveyard if the damage they’re dealt
  in a single turn is equal to or greater than their toughness,
  or if their toughness is reduced to 0 or less.


Is cycling a card from your hand considered a spell? My opponent has a werewolf transforming card in play, currently with the human side face up.

I have a sliver in my hand with sliver cycling. I cycle this sliver to find another in my deck. The one in my hand therefore goes into my graveyard. I end my turn after revealing my chosen sliver and placing it in my hand.

My opponent wants to transform his werewolf, claiming I cast no spells.

I payed mana, a card left my hand and entered my graveyard. Was that a spell?

No, Cycling is an activated ability that you can only use while the card is in your hand. Casting a spell requires that you pay a cards mana cost printed in the upper right of the card.

702.27a Cycling is an activated ability that functions only while the card with cycling is in a player’s hand. “Cycling [cost]” means “[Cost], Discard this card: Draw a card.”
202.1 A card's mana cost is indicated by the mana symbols at the top of the card. ...
202.1a The mana cost of an object represents what a player must spend from his or her mana pool to cast a card. ...


Are there any non-supply cards besides Black Market? According to the designer of Dominion, Donald X. Vaccarino:

  Bridge makes all cards cheaper, not just ones in the supply. This was to prevent problems in weird situations. I am not sure the kind of thing you'd need to get those problems will ever happen, but I knew that this way of doing it meant I was safe. This also allows some unusual combos to work.

Which non-supply cards does he refer to? The only example I can think of is the Black Market.

All cards not in the supply could include:

Cards in your hand
Cards in your opponents hand
Cards in play (including opponents)
Cards in your deck
Cards in your opponents deck
Cards in your discard pile
Cards in your opponents pile.
Cards in other locations (ie Village Mat)
etc.

Example Play from Intrigue cards:

Play a two Mining Villages, play two Bridges, play a Swindler.
Opponent turns over an Estate which is now valued at $0, replace opponent's Estate with a Curse.


Does a creature have its abilities while being on the stack? I have a question. When creature is on the stack, does it have its abilities? For example Syr Eleonora, the Discerning, has an ability that says that spells which target her cost 2 more mana. But when she is on the stack and I would like to counter her, does she have her abilities? And generally, do creatures have their abilities while being on the stack?

Syr Eleonora's ability is a static ability, and the general rule with these is that they only apply on the battlefield:

113.3d Static abilities are written as statements. They’re simply true. Static abilities create continuous effects which are active while the permanent with the ability is on the battlefield and has the ability, or while the object with the ability is in the appropriate zone. See rule 604, “Handling Static Abilities.”
113.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield.

13 exceptions to 113.6 are listed but this situation isn't one of them, so a Counterspell on Syr Eleonara costs {UU}, not {2UU}.
An example of a creature with a static ability which does function on the stack (and not on the battlefield) is Akroma, Angel of Fury. It's printed as "Akroma, Angel of Fury can't be countered." but the updated Oracle text is more clear: "This spell can't be countered." It's a static ability of the creature spell, not the creature itself. This is an example of exception

113.6f An object’s ability that states it can’t be countered functions on the stack.


When should a judge intervene in a match? I started judging at Regular last week, and one thing that made me uncomfortable was watching players break rules. Sometimes the opponent would look at me like, "Are you really going to let this happen?" I tried my best to educate the players without providing an unfair advantage or being a pesky judge who intervenes every thirty seconds, but I'd rather have a set of official rules that I can follow so that I know when to intervene.

For example, one player declared an attacker, the opponent declared a blocker, then the first player declared another attacker, and then the opponent looked to me for intervention. Not sure if I should intervene, I decided to ask the player, "Do you have a question?" He took the bait, and I was able to correct the situation and educate the players on how declaring attackers works.

When should I intervene in a match?

The Magic: the Gathering Tournament Rules (MTR) makes it clear that a judge should not intervene before a rule has been broken, but should intervene after a rule has been broken. In other words, a judge should be reactive, not proactive.

  Judges do not intervene in a game to prevent illegal actions, but do intervene as soon as a rule has been broken or to prevent a situation from escalating.

The Infraction Procedure Guide (IPG) states basically the same thing. Keep in mind that, as made clear by a recent rules update, the IPG is only meant to be used at Competitive and Professional REL.

  A judge shouldn’t intervene in a game unless he or she believes a rules violation has occurred, a player with a concern or question requests assistance, or the judge wishes to prevent a situation from escalating. Judges don’t stop play errors from occurring, but instead deal with errors that have occurred, penalize those who violate rules or policy, and promote fair play and sporting conduct by example and diplomacy. Judges may intervene to prevent or preempt errors occurring outside of a game

Judging at Regular (JAR) covers Regular REL. At Regular, the judge is allowed (but not required) to intervene for missed triggers. Again, this is optional, and you should intervene at your discretion.

  You should intervene if you see something illegal happen in a match, but beyond this you can exercise your discretion. For example, whether you step in when you see a player miss a trigger should be determined by the tone you want to strike for your event – it may be appropriate to provide this extra help in a more causal environment, but less so if your play group is more competitive.


is there card game prototyping platform to track, change, print? this
and
this
and
this
and this
all give good leads, but I'm looking for something with a few specific features:

I want a database that does all the basic database things--store cards, find cards, add cards, modify cards, etc.I don't need a rigid schema system, and I want the flexibility to add features to the (game) system more or less at will.
I don't need any evaluation or resolution features (just want to be able to track and edit the game in a quasi-sane manner, not play it on the computer).
I do want a collection of cards -> printable sheet feature. Nothing fancy, but I would like to be able to specify a group of cards from the database, and produce something that can be printed out, cut up, and stuck in sleeves
Bonus points for flexibility and extensibility, as usual, so that as I move out of pure prototyping I don't have to reinvest in a whole system. For example, at the moment, art is not critical, but I imagine that I'll want to handle that once I have mechanics of play working
GUIs are optional
Even more bonus points for Mac (or *nix) and open source

Thus far, the various systems I've seen all seem to address one or more of the problems but are missing another major component.

I'm a fair hand at programming and systems design, so I may end up building a simple(ish) command-line tool, but here's to hoping someone else thinks like me...

Card Warden for Ipad lets you keep track of many different card types and some metadata you've mentioned, but otherwise, you may be better off just setting up your own database with MySQL.


What to do when briefcases in the bag run out? Near the end of the game, when a price adjustment occurs 9 or 10 briefcases can be puled from the bag, but only 5 will be replaced.

I played recently where the bag ran out of cases except for these 5 that got added. In this situation, everybody knows exactly what will come out and the game loses the randomness which the stock market is meant to have.

Is there any rule for what to do in this situation, should a stalemate be declared, or is this normal and acceptable?

The rules say that if there aren't enough briefcases in the bag, you just take all remaining briefcases from the bag. So you're right that this could be a problem, but at least Friedemann Friese seems to think it's acceptable.

This situation never happened in any of my games, so maybe it's a rare exceptional case.


Are there online variants to "Path of Glory"? WH40K I've been watching a handful of this extended campaign type for a while now and I just saw a video where someone created an Ork war-band by using a dice-roll sheet prepared from custom rules. Can anyone tell me where to find such custom rules, or how to create a dice-roll sheet for a specific faction? I find Path to Glory more in-depth than the core game modes, but I only have regular space marines.

Mini War Gaming published a series of battle reports of Chaos vs. Orks.

You can find them here (half of them are free to view, the rest need a subscription).

Then, a user named Boff89 got inspired and shared this PDF on their forum. The introduction to the rules is signed by "Eric PB".

While these aren't the same exact rules used in Mini War Gameing's videos (I think), they look like what you're looking for.

I guess you can also try to ask MWG on their forum to share these rules, or make your own version using the videos and the PDF as a starting point...


When does "Targeting" happen in MTG? Here is a hypothetical situation I am wondering about:

  I have in play a Omnath, Locus of Mana and 500 Green mana in my mana pool.

  My opponent plays a removal spell on Omnath (Path to Exile, Doom Blade etc)

  In response I play a Vines of Vastwood on Omnath (Vines makes Omnath not targetable).

Rule 114.1 says that:

  targets are declared as part of the process of putting the spell or ability on the stack

So Omnath was declared as the target when the removal spell was played.  Is it too late then for my Vines of the Vastwood to save Omnath?

Or is there somekind of rechecking of the target before the spell resolves (I could not find it in the targeting rules section.)

As you said, you declare the targets of a spell while you are putting the spell on the stack. Then, when a spell starts to resolve, if it no longer has valid targets, it fails to resolve.

From rule 601.2c, the third step of casting a spell is:

  The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires.

and from rule 608.2b, as part of resolving a spell or ability,

  If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal... Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell... The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word "target," are now illegal... if any of its targets are illegal, the part of the spell or ability's effect for which it is an illegal target can't perform any actions on that target or make that target perform any actions.

So in your example, once Vines of the Vastwood resolves, the removal spell no longer has a valid target, so the removal spell fails to resolve and Omnath stays in play.


Resolution of two buffs that affect attacking creatures I have a creature, Wild Beastmaster, that increases all other creatures I control whenever it attacks (I assume that means the attack triggers this). However, since a card like Trumpet Blast only affects attackers that are already declared (as per the rulings at the bottom of that page), it only works if attackers have already been declared. Would the Trumpet Blast be able to effectively be doubled through the Wild Beastmaster, or would the specification of "attacking creatures" mean that it cannot be used before the Wild Beastmaster's effect is applied?

Yes, you can make these work well together.

The ruling on Wild Beastmaster actually answers your question:

  The value of X is determined when the triggered ability resolves. ...

So you can have this sequence of events:

Declare attackers including Wild Beastmaster (and maybe other creatures).
Wild Beastmaster's ability triggers and goes on the stack.
While it's still on the stack, you cast Trumpet Blast.
Trumpet Blast resolves, granting Wild Beastmaster (and others) +2/+0.
Wild Beastmaster's ability resolves, checking Wild Beastmaster's power. It's now 3 (with the +2/+0 from Trumpet Blast), so X is 3, and it grants +3/+3 to your other creatures!

I think the relevant comp rule is 107.3c (emphasis mine):

  107.3c If a spell or activated ability has an {X}, [-X], or X in its cost and/or its text, and the value of X is defined by the text of that spell or ability, then that's the value of X while that spell or ability is on the stack. The controller of that spell or ability doesn't get to choose the value. Note that the value of X may change while that spell or ability is on the stack.

Wild Beastmaster's ability does define the value of X to be its power, so that's the value of X the entire time it's on the stack, and it can change while it's on the stack - for example, when Trumpet Blast changes its power.


Helm of the Host on Rakdos the Showstoper I'm wondering if you put Helm of the Host on Rakdos, the Showstopper would his coin flip trigger when the copy enters the battlefield?

Yes, a copy retains all abilities of the original card except any modifications specifically noted on the source that created the copy.  In the case of the Helm, the copy is not Legendary if the original is.  When the creature token "enters the battlefield" it's ability will trigger.

Rule:

  706.5. An object that enters the battlefield “as a copy” or “that’s a copy” of another object becomes a copy as it enters the battlefield. It doesn’t enter the battlefield, and then become a copy of that permanent. If the text that’s being copied includes any abilities that replace the enters-the-battlefield event (such as “enters the battlefield with” or “as [this] enters the battlefield” abilities), those abilities will take effect. Also, any enters-the-battlefield triggered abilities of the copy will have a chance to trigger.


Does a Angel of Glory's Rise and a Fiend Hunter combo work like I think it does? The scene I envision is that I have a graveyard full of humans, one of which is a Fiend Hunter. I play Angel of Glory's Rise and put all my humans from my graveyard and onto the battlefield, and when the Fiend Hunter enters the battlefield I target my Angel of Glory's Rise to be exiled.

So, does that mean that when the Fiend Hunter who is holding my Angel in Glory goes to the graveyard, the Angel of Glory's Rise comes onto the battlefield and thereby returns Fiend Hunter to the battlefield again, triggering his ability to exile a target creature anew?

If so, how does spells like Cloudshift effect that Fiend Hunter? If I used Cloudshift on the Fiend Hunter that was keeping my Angel of Glory's Rise in exile, would order of events look like this?

Cloudshift targets Fiend Hunter
Fiend hunter leaves battlefield - Angel of Glory's Rise returns from exile
Angel of Glory's Rise "enters the battlefield" ability triggers
Fiend hunter enters battlefield - Angel of Glory's Rise goes to exile

Or would using Cloudshift not trigger the Fiend Hunter's "leaves the battlefield" ability, exiling my Angel of Glory's Rise forever?

Finally, what if I had two or more Champion of the Parish that entered the battlefield from the graveyard due to the Angel of Glory's Rise's "enter battlefield" ability? Do they both come into play at the same time, so that both of them get a +1/+1 counter because they are both "another Human" to one another, or do they enter the battlefield one at a time?

The first part of your combo does work. When the Fiend Hunter enters the battlefield, he can exile the Angel of Glory, and when the Fiend Hunter goes to the graveyard, he will already be there when the Angel returns, which allows you to repeat that combo indefinitely.

However, Cloudshift on Fiend Hunter is another matter. When the Hunter leaves the battlefield with the Angel exiled, he will indeed trigger the return of the Angel. However, the Hunter leaving and returning to the battlefield are all part of Cloudshift's resolution, so by the time the Hunter returns and you get to choose another creature to exile, the return of the Angel is still on the stack and is not yet back from its exile. You will have to choose another creature entirely, and if you don't happen to have a second Angel on the battlefield, the combo will end with the resolution of Cloudshift.

As for the Champion of the Parish question: The creatures enter the battlefield simultaneously. Creatures that enter the battlefield at the same time see each other enter the battlefield, so a Champion's triggered ability will trigger for each other Human entering the battlefield at the same time. For example, if you have 5 humans in the graveyard, and 2 of them are Champions, then each Champion's ability will trigger four times, so each would get a total of 4 counters.


Can fire cross walls into another room after an explosion? If you read the Flash Point rules, it says to place a fire marker on each adjacent spot after an explosion.  Does that mean place a fire on the other side of a wall?  For instance, if the fire is in a corner of a room, would you put fire in another room after an explosion?  The instructions don't say the wall becomes damaged, except from a shock wave.  But it seems confusing because if you read that, it seems like fire is placed on the other side of wall or door, without causing any damage.

Squares are not adjacent if there is a wall or closed door between them.  From Page 2 of the rules

  Any reference in the game to Adjacent spaces means those spaces that
  are up, down, left, or right from a space. Diagonal spaces are not
  Adjacent. Closed Doors and Walls prevent spaces from being Adjacent –
  unless the Wall segment is Destroyed. A Wall segment with two Damage
  Markers is Destroyed. A Wall segment with one damage marker is
  Damaged.

An open door or a destroyed wall (one with two damage counters) does not prevent adjacency.  So in each direction you will either find an adjacent space without fire (which you will add fire to) or run into a wall/door (doors are destroyed, walls are damaged) or reach outside (add fire but remove it at the end of the turn).


Can one search action advance multiple search parties? Question in spoiler tags

   The search action requires you to discard a card to advance the search party one or more spaces. From September at least, it's possible to have one city which matches the requirements for two searches: a rioting Faded city (immunologist) with a military base (paranoid soldier). If I perform a search action in such a city, can I advance both tracks?

Unfortunately, no.

  The rules state (emphasis mine):"Discard one or more cards to advance one search party token along a search track."


If an opponent's creature attacks my defense position creature and in response I destroy it with a trap or spell, do I still have to flip my creature? I have a creature in face down defense position. I also have a trap that destroys an attacking enemy creature at the time of its attack. If my opponent attacks my face down creature and I destroy her attacking creature with my trap, do I still have to flip my creature at all?

If my opponent attacks my face down creature and I destroy her attacking creature with my trap, do I still have to flip my creature at all?

If you destroyed it before damage step then you don't have to flip.

This you can do when the attack is declared. This is the first step of the attack action. If you don't prevent it here, then you will proceed to Damage Step and then Calculation, where you will then have to flip your monster.

As per my answer to your past question, there we can see an example of how a flipping may or may not take place during an attack. Again, it will flip if you let it continue to Damage Step, and then even though the attacking monsters dies your flip monster can still be destroyed by the attack if it's defense is lower.


What is the Card type of "Emblem Sorin, Lord of Innistrad"? What is the Card type of "Emblem Sorin, Lord of Innistrad"?

mtgmint lists it as Creature but I am not 100% certain.

It's not a real card. It's basically a token.

As a game object, it's an "emblem".

The relevant comp rules:

  113.1. Some effects put emblems into the command zone. An emblem is a marker used to represent an object that has one or more abilities, but
  no other characteristics.

  113.3. An emblem has no characteristics other than the abilities defined by the effect that created it. In particular, an emblem has no
  name, no types, no mana cost, no color, and no expansion symbol.

  113.5. An emblem is neither a card nor a permanent. Emblem isn't a card type.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad has an ability that creates these things (yes, multiples will stack). Dark Ascension booster packs contain an emblem token thingy to help you keep track of it. You aren't obligated to use the emblem card, just like you aren't obligated to use the official token cards to represent tokens.


Declarer play for a 4-4 trump fit Is there any theory or advice in how best to plan declarer play in a 4-4 trump fit. In what situations do you draw trumps, in what situations do you not draw trumps and any other advice?

Count, count, count; and when you are done counting, count some more. Count your tricks, count your losers, and count your winners; count the opponents' distribution and count your opponents' points and count your opponents tricks. When the cards have all been returned to the board you can start counting the next board. Until you are the best player in the world, and perhaps not even then, you can stop looking for more things to count.

In Notrump contracts you are advised to plan your play from the count of your tricks. Do this as Dummy comes down, as there is no point to a line of play that is not based on an expectation of sufficient tricks.

In suit play you are advised to plan your play from the count of your losers. Do not play from Dummy until you have a line of play for the entire hand that has an expectation of reducing your losers below 7 - (level of bid).

Contrary to the estimable Mr. Au, there is no magic formula for where to ruff or when. Esoteric plays arise from adjusting his rules to suit the need and count of a particular hand. There also is frequently a need to partially draw trumps when one needs to ruff, either for tricks or control. One particularly common scenario is to leave a single boss trump out and then cross ruff, forcing that opposing trump to over ruff a single trump of your own rather than a pair, leaving the other as counter to a loser elsewhere.


Necroskitter and creatures dying because of placing -1/-1 counters Necroskitter has the ability to return creatures your opponents control under your control if they die with a -1/-1 counter on them.
Sound perfectly fine to me, but I read here that when an undying creature with a +1/+1 counter on it dies through an effect which places enough -1/-1 counter on it, state base action is checked and the last information was, that it had a +1/+1 counter on it, so undying won't trigger.

Is this the same for Necroskitter? If there is a 1/1 creature and I play mtg:Black Sun's Zenith for X = 1 and place a -1/-1 counter on it, that state based action doesn't see a -1/-1 counter and Necroskitter won't trigger?

Tl;dr: If I place a -1/-1 counter on a 1/1 creature will I get it with Necroskitter? If yes, why does the game see the -1/-1 counters placed on the creature?

If it's a regular 1/1 creature, it will die and you'll get it back with Necroskitter, since when it dies it had a -1/-1 counter on it, so it qualifies.

If it's a 1/1 creature with a +1/+1 counter and 1 normal damage already, it will get a -1/-1 counter; that -1/-1 counter 'merges' with the +1/+1 counter, which would make them both vanish at the same moment the creature leaves the battlefield.

  608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the battlefield), the answer is determined only once, when the effect is applied. If the effect requires information from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself, the effect uses the current information of that object if it’s in the public zone it was expected to be in; if it’s no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved it from a public zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the object’s last known information. See rule 113.7a. If an ability states that an object does something, it’s the object as it exists—or as it most recently existed—that does it, not the ability.

The 'creature' referred to by Necroskitter is expected to be on the battlefield; creature cards in graveyards can't have -1/-1 counters on them. So last known information will be applied; it 'sees' a creature with a -1/-1 counter (and a +1/+1 counter) on it, so you'll get it back with Necroskitter.

It's essentially the same situation as Why doesn't Undying trigger if a creature with +1/+1 counters dies from -1/-1 counters?, the answer there explains the timing in great detail.


Kasmina's Transmutation vs. Gideon Blackblade If I were to attach Kasmina's Transmutation to an opponent's Gideon Blackblade (using Teferi's Time Twist to have it ETB on their turn, for example), what would happen?
Kasmina's Transmutation:

Enchant creature
Enchanted creature loses all abilities and has base power and toughness 1/1.

Relevant bit of Gideon's text:

As long as it's your turn, Gideon Blackblade is a 4/4 Human Soldier creature with indestructible that's still a planeswalker.

What happens?

Gideon stays a vanilla 1/1 creature since he was a creature at the time

Gideon loses the ability that makes him a creature, immediately stops being a creature and drops the aura

Gideon stays a 1/1 until opponent's turn ends, then stops being a creature and drops the aura

3.
From the card ruling on gatherer:

  If an effect causes Gideon to lose all abilities during your turn,
  he’s still a Human Soldier creature and a Gideon planeswalker.

and

  If an Equipment becomes attached to Gideon while he’s a creature,
  it’ll become unattached during the next upkeep that isn’t yours. The
  same is true of any Auras that become attached to Gideon that can’t
  enchant a noncreature planeswalker.


Hero Quest type games What other kinds of games are like Hero Quest...? In that, what other games are around with a degree of character development (although not the depth of something like D&D), items etc, that actually takes place on a board...?

I'm not chasing something like Munchkin Quest, as your character does not carry over from session to session.

I think of the greatest of this kind is Descent: Journeys in the Dark especially with Road to Legend expansion which makes carrying over your characters between sessions slightly easier.


Are there ways to handicap bridge as there are in chess and go? The games of chess and go can be "handicapped" by giving the weaker player a material advantage. That is, the weaker chess player gets extra pawns or pieces and the weaker go player extra stones. (Backgammon can't be reliably handicapped this way because one more or one less checker affects the dynamic of the game.) Another way to handicap go is to give the weaker player extra points (reverse komi) at the end of the game.

I have never seen any handicapping in bridge. One way is to start the weaker pair with say, an extra +300. That changes the scoring without changing the dynamic of the game. Another way would be strategic: E.g. the stronger pair has to bid and make game at the five level for all suits, not just the minors.

Has any player of note played a bridge session handicapped in some way even on a "propositional" basis? Or even proposed or discussed the possibility of such handicapping?

Certainly, you can.  Whether it's at all useful is another question, as others have been saying.

The ACBL has formulas for handicapping pairs and teams (based on Masterpoint total; there is another method available for handicap based on previous results, which works well in an insular environment like a club).  The grotty details are exactly that, but the TL;DR is "you get a handicap, and it's not enough".

I have never run a handicapped by masterpoint pair game; I have seen the records used to run a handicapped by results pair game, but the game they were keeping the records for stopped being handicapped at least 5 years ago.

Many ACBL Districts have a policy that if there is only one Bracket in a bracketed KO, that it will be handicapped.  I've played in these a few times, and needed the handicap exactly once (given +11.5, lost by 11, 12-board match).  I've had +29.5 on a 24-board match against the then World Women's Bronze Medal team (lost by 80, but have some cool stories), and I've seen higher two or three times.  My experience running the games is that "the handicap mattered maybe as often as one match in each event."

I also know that this is so well-loved by all teams (the ones getting as well as the ones giving handicaps) that we are replacing them with Day 1 RR qualifying 4 teams for Day 2 KO across the board.

So, yes.  And it happens.  And "something to be nice to the weaker pairs, but not so much that the stronger teams don't win" is basically what ends up happening.


One Night Ultimate Werewolf: If your card is moved, whose team are you on? I've been playing One Night Ultimate Werewolf (ONUW) for a few years, and I'm afraid we've been doing it wrong.

I play so that if you're a Werewolf at the start of the game, you stay on the Werewolf team even if your card is moved. Thus, if you discover your card was swapped with a Villager, for instance, you would want to convince people to vote for your card so that a villager is killed and you (the Werewolf) wins. Is this wrong?

It is very wrong.

The rules are clear that you act whatever you had, you are whatever you have:

  After the night phase, your role is the card that is currently in front of you, which may be different than your original role.

with emphasis added


Acquire Movement in A Crystal Cave Say you spend 1 boot to walk into a Crystal Cave. Then you buy a card from the Dungeon Deck that has the text at the bottom:

  Acquire: 1 boot

Can you use that to leave the Crystal Cave since Acquire happens immediately?

The rules are clear.

  Whenever you enter a Crystal Cave room, you become exhausted while wandering its maze-like passages and cannot use any more Boots this turn. You may still be able to move by Teleporting (described in Advanced Maneuvers), but you won’t be able to use Boots until your next turn.

(Emphasis mine)

A Crystal Cave doesn't cause you to lose unused boots; it prevents you from using any for the remainder of the turn. That means all boots on cards and Secrets played during the remainder of the turn are ignored, and so are boot gained on acquiring cards from the Dungeon Deck. You simply can't use them.


If effects happen at the same time, whose effect works? A Graydle card's effect says when it's destroyed by battle or cards and is sent to the graveyard, it comes back as a equipment card and I take control of an opponent's face up monster. My opponent has a card that says when he destroys a monster and it goes to the graveyard, it comes back to their side of the field. So which effect works first: my card or his? Both say they happen when the Graydle card goes to the graveyard.

It would depend on whose turn it is. The turn player has priority, which means that their effect goes onto the chain first. If the turn player has a Goyo Guardian for example, and they attack a graydle, then Goyo's effect is chain 1. Then the graydle's effect goes onto chain 2. The chain is resolved backwards, which means that the graydle effect happens first, which takes control of the Goyo, and brings back the graydle from the grave, which means that Goyo Guardian's effect would not trigger due to the target no longer being in the grave.It would be reversed if it was the graydle player's turn. The graydle would get chain 1, and goyo would get chain 2 which, again, resolves backwards. Goyo would revive the graydle, forcing the graydle to be on the field instead of the grave, so the graydle's ability would not be able to trigger.You can apply the example to cards other than Goyo guardian to get whatever answer you need.


Does Void Winnower prevent my opponent from casting X spells with even base converted mana cost? The part of Void Winnower's text that is relevant is

  Your opponents can't cast spells with even converted mana costs. (Zero is even)

I know that when checking the converted mana cost of a card with {X} in the cost, the X is considered to be 0 unless the card is a spell on the stack. So Black Sun's Zenith normally has a converted mana cost of 2. Does this mean that Void Winnower completely prevents me from casting Black Sun's Zenith, or that I can cast it if I choose an odd X?

Void Winnower does not prevent you from casting a spell with {X} in the cost as long as you choose an X that results in the CMC of the spell being odd.

Rule 202.3b says

  When calculating the converted mana cost of an object with an {X} in its mana cost, X is treated as 0 while the object is not on the stack, and X is treated as the number chosen for it while the object is on the stack.

In addition, the steps for casting a spell contain the following:

  601.2a To propose the casting of a spell, a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack. [...]
  601.2b [...] If the spell has a variable cost that will be paid as it’s being cast (such as an {X} in its mana cost; see rule 107.3), the player announces the value of that variable. [...]
  601.2e Based on the previous announcements, the game checks to see if the proposed spell can legally be cast based on applicable timing rules (including ones based on the card’s type) and other effects that may allow a spell to be cast or prohibit a spell from being cast. If the proposed spell is illegal, the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”).

So, you put the spell on the stack, then you choose X. At this point, the {X} in the cost is equal to the chosen X because of 107.3a. So, when you check whether the spell is legal in the later step, the CMC depends on X, so Void Winnower only prevents it from being cast if the total CMC including X is even.

Void Winnower's Gatherer page now has a ruling that says

  For spells with {X} in their mana costs, use the value chosen for X to determine if the spell’s converted mana cost is even or not. For example, your opponent could cast Endless One (with mana cost {X}) with X equal to 5, but not with X equal to 6.


What happens if no one wants to buy a property at auction in Monopoly? I was playing with my brother and after a few turns, my brother had 0$ due to tax.

Now it was my turn, and because I was in jail, I paid $50 to get out, which was all of my money. Then I rolled and landed on a property no one owned.

The rules just say that the bank would sell the property to the highest bidder, which doesn't help.

But you're also not allowed to do nothing, you must auction the property if you don't want to or can't pay for it.

Is someone allowed to get the property for free, e.g.: "auction" for 0$?
If so, who gets the property in a tie?

Philip Orbanes is the renowned master of all things Monopoly.
He is the author of 3 books on Monopoly :

The Monopoly Companion: The Players' Guide
The World’s Most Famous Game--and How It Got That Way
Monopoly, Money and You: How to Profit from the Game's Secrets of Success.

Kevin Tostado is Director of the movie
Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story,
a documentary about the Monopoly national and world championships that are held around the world every four years; the movie won 4 Emmy Awards, including that for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary.
Reference : http://www.monopolydocumentary.com/

Kevin Tostado answered the following question :

How do you properly hold an auction in Monopoly?

Reference : https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-properly-hold-an-auction-in-Monopoly

"The answer can differ depending on how you interpret the rules, since it's not clearly defined within the rules that Charles Darrow wrote when he first published MONOPOLY. But I'll describe how chief judge Phil Orbanes ran auctions at the 2009 US & World Championships.

When a player lands on an unowned property and decides that he or she does not want to purchase it at face value (either because they can't afford it, don't want it, or think they might be able to get it at a lower price), then that property immediately goes up for auction.

The banker conducts the auction and puts the property up for bid starting at $1, regardless of the original face value of the property. Any player, including the one who landed on it and declined to purchase it originally, can bid on the property. Any player can name a price, and there is no sequential order to how bids are offered. The auction continues until the banker concludes the auction with the highest bidder."

So, the chief judge, Philip Orbanes, at the Monopoly US & World Championship says bidding starts at $1.


How do multiple mana increasers stack? If I have a Zhur-Taa Ancient in play and a Dictate of Karametra, do I get 3 mana or 4 when I tap a land?

You get 3 mana. Neither of those cards actually double mana production, they both explicitly state that they add 1 mana per land tap, hence for each land you'll get 1+1+1 = 3 mana.


How can I protect my tron deck against Crumble To Dust So I made a really cool Mono-Black Eldrazi Tron deck. The only decks it has lost to are Bogles and an Izzet Control that was running a few copies of Crumble to Dust. The only thing I can come up with for Crumble to Dust is Memoricide and/or Cranial Extraction. Does anyone know another or better way? And what could I do about Bogles?

You could go with regular black hand disruption like Thoughtseize or Duress then maybe have some Surgical Extraction to clean them up after that.

For Bogles, making the player sacrifice a creature would be good. Cruel Edict or Devour Flesh or Geth's Verdict are some low-mana options. You could go for a bomb with Liliana of the Veil

What's good about the hand disruption is that it's just good in general, against most decks, and might even be in you main deck. The creature sacrificing is a bit more situational, but for decks that ramp w/o mana dorks, or bogles it'd be good to have in the sideboard.


What are the rules for saving people on the merchant ship map in Flash Point: Fire Rescue? The Merchant Ship map of the Dangerous Waters expansion for Flash Point:  Fire Rescue has a rescue position in each of the four corners. All of them are confusing to me. The bottom two look like they take up two spaces each because there's no definitive line separating the areas into halves, but the symbol is only in the very corner. The top two look like they also take up two spaces in a similar manner that can only be accessed from the 2nd and 7th columns. The written rules are very vague. Do the stairs to the corners have a function, or are they just for asthetics? Do I have to carry a person up the stairs to the rescue symbol?

The idea is that the stairs effectively split the top spaces into two - see the designer's comment at https://boardgamegeek.com/article/14049646#14049646 . On that basis I would regard the top spaces as accessible only via the stairs.

At the bottom I'd regard e.g. (6,0) as the rescue space and (5,0) as where you go on your way out of it. On the other hand explosions (or Chop actions) can connect the bottom spaces to the cabins (e.g. linking (6,0) to (6,1)).


I was the first to lose in a commander game, does Vorinclex ability still happen? It's a 3-man commander game and I have out Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, and my opponent had two flyers which dealt me enough damage to the point I was down to 2 life, and then he cast an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and dealt me the remaining damage while tapping out. Since I was still in the game when he tapped his mana (and Vorinclex was still alive), would his mana stay tapped on his next untap step, or since I left the game entirely would he be able to untap it. This question is relevant for the other two players.

The lands would not untap during their controller's untap step. This is a continuous effect on the land created by the resolution of an effect, and the rules relating to what effects end when a player leaves the game, notably 800.4j, imply that continuous effects created as part of the resolution of a spell or ability continue to apply, even if that player is no longer in the game. There's no rule stating that continuous effects with any timing other than "until your next [turn/phase]" should end, therefore if they're on legal permanents they would continue.

For future reference, however, if the effect where to kill you while the Vorinclex triggers were still on the stack, e.g. from a Lightning Bolt, the Vorinclex triggers would be exiled as you left the game from having 0 life, so they would NOT affect the lands.


When Exchanging Items Does It Have To Be a Trade? I tried to find the info on the wiki but it is difficult to find stuff there.  When heroes do their "Exchange" phase, does that means they have to trade items?  Or can a hero just give an item to another hero in their space?  Logic would dictate the latter in my opinion, but I don't believe the rules are explicit enough about that.

You can give an item to another hero in your space without receiving anything in return. This FAQ from the back of the rule book clarifies this:

Q3. - If you have four items including Gasoline or Old Betsy, and you gain a fifth item, can you immediately use the Gasoline or Old Betsy to avoid having to discard an item?
A3. - Yes. You could also immediately hand off an item to any other Hero in your space.


Am I technically allowed to look up cards during a Magic tournament match? Am I allowed to look up a card during a game, if it's being played with serious Rules Enforcement? Either to read the full card from the Gatherer, or to try to find the exact card I'm vaguely thinking of.

Two possible scenarios:

An opponent has revealed a card previously, and I want to remember the exact details. (Something like the exact wording of a sorcery, mana cost, keywords on a creature, subtypes, etc. etc.)
I have a "name a card and remove it from the opponent's deck" type card, and I want to, say, ask google for "Blue Gearhulk" to remember that it's that that one is called "Torrential Gearhulk".

Obviously, in casual or semi-casual games neither of these are a problem. Any reasonable opponent will just re-reveal the known card (assuming it IS still guaranteed to be known) or will accept "I name the Blue Gearhulk".

Also obviously, it seems unlikely that I (or anyone else) would get to the stage of playing at the REL without knowing the cards too thoroughly for this to be relevant.

But in principle... is it permitted? Or not? (and if not, is there a good reason, or just "we decided 'No'"?)

You can't lookup things on the Internet during a match per MTR 2.12:

  At Competitive and Professional Rules Enforcement Level during drafting, deck construction, and playing of matches, players may not use electronic devices capable of taking and storing notes, communicating with other people, or accessing the internet (with the exception of taking brief personal calls with the opponent’s permission).

As for the Torrential Gearhulk. I've asked a judge at a Standard PPTQ Tournament (Competetive REL) if it's enough to name a card by describing it as "Blue Gearhulk". His answer was that it's OK, because there is exactly one card that can be described as "Blue Gearhulk" in the sets permitted in the format we are playing. This is per MTR 3.6:

  A card is considered named in game when a player has provided a description (which may include the name or partial name) that could only apply to one card. Any player or judge realizing a description is still ambiguous must seek further clarification.

MTR 3.6 also clarifies that:

  Players have the right to request access to the official wording of a card the can describe. That request will be honored if logistically possible.

So yes, you can ask about the card.


How does stealing a creature's text box work with copies? Phoebe, Head of S.N.E.A.K. has an ability which says:

  {2}{U}{B}: Phoebe permanently steals target creature’s text box. (That creature loses all rules text, flavor text, and watermarks. This creature gains them.)

What happens when this is used on a Clone (or another creature) that is copying something, such as a Charging Badger? Does she gain the Badger's or the Clone's text box? (Does she gain both?)

Phoebe will steal the (cloned) Badger's text box.

Clone states:

  You may have Clone enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.

According to rule 706.2, one of the "Copiable values" is, in fact, Rules Text.

  706.2. When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The “copiable values” are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by “as . . . enters the battlefield” and “as . . . is turned face up” abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, and counters are not copied.

So, that means that Clone's text box will be the same as whatever creature it's copying1 (in fact, Clone will be the creature it's copying), which in turn will be stolen by Phoebe's ability.

If the copy has added abilitites (such as Dack's Duplicate), Phoebe will steal those abilities as well, so for the Duplicate, Phoebe would also gain Haste and Dethrone.

1: Except for flavour text and watermark, naturally2

2: Unless it's a silver-bordered game, in which case it will include those after all. Kudos to @murgatroid99 for pointing that out.


Can I steal a creature then block my own attack with it? My opponent casts a creature. During my turn, I attack and cast Temporary Insanity on the creature and want to force it to block my attacker.

My opponent claims that since I control the creature and it is my turn, I cannot force the creature to block, since when I am attacking, only the other player gets to designate blockers. That does not make a lot of sense to me, since it seems that the entire point of the card is to put the creature in a disadvantageous position (such as force it to block a creature you know will kill it), but we wanted to find out how this actually works.

Your opponent was correct. Only creatures controlled by the defending player may be declared as blockers. "Control" doesn't just mean "you decide what it does", it means you control it just like all your other creatures. It's on your side of the battlefield now (temporarily).

But there are still an awful lot of nasty things you can do with a card like Temporary Insanity. For example:

When your opponent attacks you, you can steal one of their creatures and use it to block another of their creatures. (Temporary Insanity is an instant!)
You can steal your opponent's creature and use it to attack them. (Even better if they have to block it and/or kill it to stay alive!)
You can steal your opponent's creature and sacrifice it, if you have a way to do so (for example if you have a Butcher of the Horde).

And plenty of other things - those are just among the most common.

The only way you can force your opponent's creatures to block your attack is with cards that explicitly affect how blocking works. For example, Lure forces your opponent's creatures to block a specific one of yours. Or Brutal Hordechief will let you entirely choose how blocks happen!


What would be a good set of topics for a quiz game? Suppose you wanted to design a quiz game in which knowledge questions are asked. What would be a good set of topics to subdivide all of human knowledge into?

Try to avoid bias towards academic or pop-culture topics; try to cover everything.

Also try to limit yourself to a reasonable number, let’s say around 20 topics.

Obviously this question has no correct answer, as it's completely subjective, but if you're just looking for an idea, I'd suggest making your categorical break-down theme based.

If you compare other popular quiz games, say Classic Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy, the first is trying to cater to being a family game that everyone can play, so it makes its categorical breakdown along typical areas of interest for different types of people Arts people, Sports people, Science people, etc.   Jeopardy prides itself on cleverness and wordplay, so its categories reflect that.

Keep in mind that the act of categorization isn't sorting things into existing buckets base don obvious differences, it's about creating a differentiating metric and categorizing things based on that metric.  For example, if you restrict your set of things to visible objects, you have an infinite set of metrics like color, weight, size, density, use, origin, lifespan, etc.  One you choose a metric there's often a continuum within that metric which you must create arbitrary points.  For example, you take color and break it into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.  Those categories now artificially group your world.  Of course, you could just as easily have chosen lifespan and grouped thing into "fleeting", "temporary", "normal", "durable", and "indestructible".  It's really unbounded.

So, what's your theme?  Is this about energy aliens, looking at a human world and trying to figure things out in terms that make sense to them?  Maybe the categories are "hairy" and "smooth".  With those terms in which category would you place "Key" and "Shoe" into?  Part of the fun is seeing how the category informs the question's answer.

One of the fun things about many board and card games with themes is doing just this trick.  For example, Magic the Gathering needs to thematically sort every spell and creature into a color, and does this quite well.