Suzy Lafayette super power From the rules :

  Suzy Lafayette (4 life points): as soon as she
  has no cards in her hand, she draws a card from the draw pile.

So it looks like a recipe to have Suzy performs a suite :
draw card/play card => has 0 card in hand
draw card/play card => has 0 card in hand
draw card again
...

Doesn t it hurt the gameplay ?

It doesn't hurt the gameplay. It's a decent special ability, but not overpowered. Here are situations that discourage or prevent action chaining:

She can't play more than one Bang! card per turn (unless she has a Volcanic),
Dueling is dangerous when she holds no other cards,
Mancatos are not playable unless someone is shooting at her (so not on her turn),
Emporio, Dligenza, and Wells Fargo result in card draw, so do not trigger her ability,
She probably would not play a gun that is a downgrade.

Situationally, she might also not want to use a Gatling or Indians if it might kill a teammate, or a Beer if she and her teammates are at full life, or a Panico if seated next to teammates.

While I don't see it explicitly in the rules, my group has always played that you can't play a duplicate card. The rules do say

  There is no limit on the cards you can have in front of you provided that they do not share the same name.

so there is no reason to think she could play a Barrel, Mustang, or Scope if she already has one. For weapons, the rules say

  If you want to play a new weapon when you already have one, you
  must discard the one you already have.

which leaves a bit of ambiguity about whether Suzy could discard a Remington to play a new Remington. (Is it a new gun if it's the same as the old gun? My group says "no".)

Suzy with a Volcanic is a dangerous combination, but she is by no means overpowered. Calamity Janet and Slab the Killer are also particularly scary with a Volcanic.


Deep Space cannons: how many times can they shoot? In Twilight Imperium 3rd ed you may get a technology advance that lets your PDS fire to a system adjacent to the one that contains them: The Deep Space Cannons.

The rules of firing in their same system stand but there is one extra scenario not described in the rules:

If the enemy is at distance 2 and moves to an adjacent system, passing through an adjacent system  will the PDS fire once or twice? (Meaning, will they fire once the enemy enters the first adjacent system and once more once the enemy reaches the destination adjacent system?)

Of course, what if the enemy is moving to the system that contains the PDS, would they shoot twice?

I'm not claiming an authoritative answer, but when playing recently the rule we followed is the activation rule -- the adjacent PDS may fire into a system that has been activated. So, in your scenario, the PDS would fire only one time.

From the TI3 Rule book (page 29):

  When a player activates a system in range of an
  enemy PDS unit, the owners of any enemy PDS units
  in range may, after the movement step of the
  Activation Sequence, fire once per PDS at any units
  in the system owned by the activating player. Note
  that when firing your PDS units during another player's
  activation, you may only fire at the units controlled
  by the activating player. It is thus not possible
  to draw third party PDS fire at an enemy fleet by simply
  activating its system from afar.

Although I haven't sussed this out with my gaming group, I imagine a transfer action would invoke two opportunities for an adjacent PDS if the system holding the PDS is adjacent to both transfer-action-activated systems.


Is the Kansas flavor of Solitaire winnable So I have recently started playing a variant of solitaire called "Kansas"
https://politaire.com/help/kansas
and either I'm really bad at it (have lost dozens of times over past month) or it might just be very unlikely for a person to win the game.  I was curious to if anyone had experience with it or any references to why it might be "unwinnable"

I won 1 out of 9 games.  (I stopped with my first win.)
Note, that @LScottJohnson's comment is not quite true.  You can "undo" a card moving up to the foundation.  That was a necessary feature for the win that I got.
If you find Kansas very annoyingly difficult to win (I do), the website does offer the nearly identical game Rainbow which is easier to win.


What happens with two Pledges of Loyalty attached to the same creature? This is a similar question, but a slightly different situation, so no duplicate: What happens if I have two Pledges of Loyalty attached to a creature?

Now to my scenario:

Let's say I have two Grizzly Bears with one Pledge of Loyalty attached to each of them. Now my opponent casts e.g. Back to Nature, killing both of my Pledges. I would like to keep my Bears protected, so I cast Second Sunrise during the end step. Note that no other cards were put into any graveyard this turn, so it would revive only the two Pledges. While it is on the stack, my opponent decides to bounce one of my Grizzly Bears with a blue instant of your choice.

Now, the Sunrise resolves, I have to put my Pledges back and since the remaining Grizzlies are the only creature, both have to enchant it as per rule 303.4f. Now, I would think that they would enter the battlefield simultaneously, so no Pledge will be there "first" and prevent the other from attaching.

Is that correct so far?
What will happen afterwards? Will both Pledges be put into my graveyard again? Will one of them, or even both, survive?

For completeness' sake:

  303.4f. If an Aura is entering the battlefield under a player’s control by any means other than by resolving as an Aura spell, and the effect putting it onto the battlefield doesn’t specify the object or player the Aura will enchant, that player chooses what it will enchant as the Aura enters the battlefield. The player must choose a legal object or player according to the Aura’s enchant ability and any other applicable effects.

All cards returned by Second Sunrise are returned at the same time, so you can choose the Bears as the creature to attach them to for both Auras.
Right after it resolves, you will have a Grizzly Bears enchanted with both Pledges, two instances of Protection from White (and Green) that each don't remove the Aura that grants it.

Now, State-Based Actions are checked - simultaneously for each card, as per the following rule:

  704.3. (...) the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. (...)

Since both Auras are illegal at this time, they will both be put in your graveyard as a State-Based Action, even though a single one of them could remain on the creature (which SBAs don't check for).

  704.5n. If an Aura is attached to an illegal object or player (...), that Aura is put into its owner’s graveyard.


In Catan, should development cards be drawn one at a time? In Catan, multiple actions can be taken per turn, so multiple development cards can be drawn. However, I realized that if somebody has 9 VPs and the draw 2 development cards, they could get 11 VPs, but in tournament play where amount of VPs matter, drawing extra VPs would help. But technically, the person would have after drawing only 1 VP card, so the 2nd one was basically drawn after winning the game, which would be technically spending cards and getting an extra victory point after the game was won, so, my question is, should Development card be drawn one at a time to stop extra VPs?

Buying multiple Development Cards at once is a legal play.
The rules state this:

Build
Now you can build. Through building, you can increase your victory points, expand your road network, improve your resource production, and/or buy useful development cards. To build, you must pay specific combinations of resource cards (see the Building Costs Card). Take the appropriate number of roads, settlements, and/or cities from your supply and place them on the game board. Keep development cards hidden in your hand.

(Taken from this answer: In Settlers of Catan, are all actions on the same turn simultaneous?)
So, spending resources can be done in bulk, with no distinction between roads, villages/cities or development cards.
The Rules Almanac, an appendix to the main rules book, has some clarifications and additional limitations to playing Development Cards. These are that you cannot play development cards on the turn you buy them, and can only play one development card per turn. VP cards are an exception to both of these rules however, as you don't play them but reveal them when you get to 10VP.
Although the almanac states that buying your tenth VP ends the game, it also allows for buying in bulk.

The FAQ doesn't exactly clear things up either:

Victory Conditions
May I continue scoring points after having reached the number of victory points required for a win?
Answer
This could make sense in a private tournament where the scores from several games are added up. For individual games and official tournaments, the following applies: You have won as soon as you have reached the required number of victory points on your turn – and then the game is over.


Where are official changes announced by Wizard? At events and on conversation boards everyone is has stated that as Khans comes out M14 and the Return to Ravnica block is going to be rotating out of standard. I can't find any reason this would happen other than that "that is what happened in the past". As Magic has a very structured system I would imagine there is an official feed/site somewhere from Wizards that announces and clarifies such things.

The list of sets legal in any format can be found in The MTG Tournament Rules, Section 6. The sets legal for Standard, in particular, can be found at this rules page. Historically, a block rotates out when the block after the following one is introduced, and a core set rotates out when the block after the following core set is introduced. However, Wizards is changing this, and in the future, core sets will be removed, blocks will be two sets each, and the most recent three blocks will be legal.


Can joker be played with no other tiles? When playing Rummikub, if you have joker tile, no other tiles to play with it and nobody has gone out can you use it any where on the board?

There is nothing in the rules that prevents you from playing a joker as a single tile, as long as you had your initial meld. It can be advantageous if another player is about to win and you don't want the 30 points penalty.


Betrayal at House on the Hill, Haunt 52 question This question is about Haunt 52, and you really can't ask it without spoiling the haunt.

  The players have to walk through the house figuring out that the rooms without traps follow a number pattern. However, even if you find the room that is supposed to be the exit, the instructions say nothing to the betrayer that he/she must inform the other players. As the number in the sequence was chosen randomly by the betrayer, it is pure luck if you just happen to be in the correct room at the end, even if you figure out the sequence. Does the betrayer have to tell the players when they find the exit room? Even if everyone is standing in a safe room when the game ends, the exit room was random. There seems to be no way to figure out which room it is... or am I missing something?

The haunt you're inquiring about seems to be particularily bad in design, and having certain problems that, while not necessarily making it unplayable, seem to make it unenjoyable.

  You're correct in that the rules don't state that the traitor has to tell the heroes that they've found the exit room, so you really don't have to. Instead, it appears that the haunt intends the heroes to realize that only one room is not shifted around, which is the exit room. The sequence, while largely irrelevant, at least makes the heroes traverse through those rooms though, possibly coming to that conclusion in the end. However, with the traitor in the driver's seat, it's both easy (depending on the house's layout) to obscure this fact by cleverly choosing rooms to move, or block the heroes from reaching that room altogether.

This seems to be an issue unlikely to be resolved other than house-ruling on the spot, and has been brought up in other places as well, largely supporting the impression I've had of this.


Do outpost siege abilities stack? Say I ran four Outpost Sieges had two of them on the field, would the effects stack?

Moreover would the effect stack if I chose Khans/ Dragons twice?

Basically if I had two Outpost Sieges would it allow me to exile two cards and play them each upkeep/ deal two damage as opposed to one if a creature leaves the battlefield?

Each Outpost Siege will trigger at the beginning of each upkeep. Example:

You play Outpost Siege, naming Khans.
You play Outpost Siege, naming Dragons.
At the beginning of your upkeep, both Outpost Sieges trigger.
You stack the triggers in whatever order you choose.
You resolve the triggers in the opposite order.

As each trigger resolves, follow the instructions written on the card.

If you control three Outpost Sieges, then all three will trigger. If you control ten, then all ten will trigger. There's no rule that says, "Only one enchantment with the same name can trigger at the same time."


What is the proper way to set up a Jenga tower? I've always been rather confused about how to set up a Jenga tower. There is a cardboard piece that comes with it that covers two sides and either the top and bottom of a completed tower. It's clear to me that this is supposed to help in setup, since doing it free hand leads to a less stable tower.

But how do you actually use this insert? If you use the horizontal side is on the top, it gets in the way of placing blocks and doesn't help much with stability (you would obviously take it off before playing).

If it's on the bottom, it's more stable, but you can't get it out when it's time to play.

So how do you properly set up a Jenga tower with the cardboard piece?

You make the stack (without using the insert).
You put the cardboard insert over the stack, with the horizontal bit on top, and push all the blocks into the insert to make sure they're all straight.
You take the insert off and start playing.


Seafarers: The Fog Island -- discovering hexes with the Road Building Development Card Scenario 3 of the Seafarers expansion to The Settlers of Catan is The Fog Island, in which players "discover" the hexes in the middle of the game board by building a road or ship that connects to the intersection of an unexplored hex. The discovered hex may be a land or sea hex.

The Road Building Development Card can be used to build two roads or two ships or one of each. I had a situation in which I was in a position to build a single road/ship to discover an unexplored hex, or a single different road/ship to discover a different unexplored hex. I also had the Road Building Development Card, so I could build two roads/ships at once. The question is:

Must I build both roads/ships from Road Building immediately and then uncover hex(es), or may I uncover hexes as I build the two roads/ships?

Put another way, can I build one road/ship from the Road Building Development Card to uncover the first hex, and then use that information to make my choice on where to build the second road/ship from the Road Building card?

As the player with the Road Building card I would prefer to uncover hexes as I build roads/ships so that I can make a more informed choice for the placement of the second road/ship. If the first uncovered hex is a sea hex, for example, I will probably prefer to build the second road/ship to uncover the second hex. But if the first uncovered hex is a land hex with a high probability chip, I might prefer to build the second road/ship alongside it in preparation for building a settlement.

The text of the Road Building Development Card seems to imply that the placement of both roads/ships occurs at the same time, in which case I would have to build the roads/ships before uncovering hex(es):

  Place 2 new roads as if you had just built them.

However, the rules for The Fog Island scenario (page 14) states (emphasis added):

  If you place a ship or road that connects to the intersection of an unexplored hex, you must immediately draw the top hex from the pile and place it face up in the empty space.

My opponents and I agreed (before I placed any roads/ships) that I could uncover the first hex before placing the second road/ship, based primarily on the use of the word "immediately" in the scenario description.

Is this the correct interpretation? Is this specific question addressed anywhere else? The rules for Seafarers has a small section on the Road Building Development Card, but only to say that it can be used to build roads and/or ships as opposed to just roads. Similarly, the online FAQ for Seafarers does not address this situation.

There is a clear distinction between placing and building.

The road building card says you place them as though they are just built. The hex exploration is triggered by placement, not by building. So logically, you would explore the first road's adjacent hexes before you have to place the second road or ship.

How else could you build the second ship/road if you intend to cross the mist?


How long does Essedum's effect last? In the game Roma, the card Essedum reads:

  The defense value of the opponent's face-up cards is reduced by 2.

So the question is:

How long does this effect last?

Only for the current turn?

Or for the rest of the game?
If so, how are you supposed to keep track of the effected cards (since cards played later are not affected)?

The card has an action dice symbol in the upper right.  This means that it takes one dice to activate the card and it is only in effect while it has a dice.  I'm not sure why you say "Cards played later are not affected".  For example, the Turris does not require a dice to be active, so it adds 1 to the defense of all the player's face-up cards for as long as it is in play, whether they were played before or after the Turris.


Triggered abilities from multiple players. Whose resolves first? If triggered abilities from sources controlled by multiple players all trigger at the same time, in what order do they resolve?

For example, if I control Obzedat, Ghost Council and at least two other creatures on my side of the field and my opponent plays Archfiend of Depravity, can I use Obezdat's ability of exiling him to save him from Archfiend's ability at the end step? Since both abilities trigger at the beginning of the end step, whose ability resolves first?

Triggers controlled by your opponent will resolve first, so you cannot use Obzedat's ability to exile it before the Archfiend's ability resolves. Rule 603.3b says

  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. (See rule 101.4.) Then the game once again checks for and resolves state-based actions until none are performed, then abilities that triggered during this process go on the stack. This process repeats until no new state-based actions are performed and no abilities trigger. Then the appropriate player gets priority.

"APNAP" here means Active Player, Non-Active Player. When the abilities trigger, first the active player (the player taking the turn) puts abilities they control on the stack, then the other player does. This means that your Obzedat's ability goes on the stack, followed by the Archfiend's ability, so the Archfiend's ability resolves before you have a chance to exile Obzedat.


When do you have to decide whether or not to use a "May" effect? I am thinking of building a discard deck and was looking for some clarification on a interaction that might pop up with "may" effects. I would like to know exactly when I need to decided whether or not a "may" effect is going to happen. An example for when this would make a difference...

On my side of the board I have:

Waste Not
Geth's Grimoire

In my hand I have:

Duress

And on top of my library is (but I don't know that yet):

Dark Deal

My opponent has nothing on the board, and several cards in his hand including the Sorcery Lava Axe.

My plan is to cast Duress on my opponent and have him discard Lava Axe. It is my understanding that both the Waste Not and Geth's Grimoire triggers would go on the stack simultaneously, allowing me to choose which one resolves first.

Is it possible to resolve Waste Not first, draw a card, see Dark Deal and then decide not to draw a card off Geth's Grimoire's trigger? Or do I need to choose whether or not to draw a card for Grimoire before I see the result of the Waste Not draw?

This would be advantageous to me since I could then cast Dark Deal without having to discard the card I drew off of Geth's Grimoire, and reap whatever benefits from Waste Not and Geth's Grimoire from my opponent's discarded hand.

First of all, they only trigger simultaneously, but they're put on the stack in an order you choose the next time a player would receive priority. They will then resolve last-in-first-out.

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. [...]

This means that you choose the order of your abilities resolving, but you can't possibly know what card you'll draw yet. The only way you'll get to do what you want is to place Geth's Grimoire on the stack first so that it will resolve last.
Abilities, like spells, usually only do things on resolution, and Geth's Grimoire's is no exception. When it's its time to resolve, you will already have drawn a card from Waste Not, and you know what it is, meaning during resolution of the ability, you may decide not to draw a card.

603.5. Some triggered abilities’ effects are optional (they contain “may,” as in “At the beginning of your upkeep, you may draw a card”). These abilities go on the stack when they trigger, regardless of whether their controller intends to exercise the ability’s option or not. The choice is made when the ability resolves. [...]


How do Companion cards from Ikoria work in Commander? Today the Ikoria previews revealed a new mechanic: companion. From Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Mechanics, you can choose up to one companion card in your sideboard (or in your collection outside the game) and reveal it before the game begins. For example Umori, the Collector says:

  Companion — Each nonland card in your starting deck shares a card type. (If this card is your chosen companion, you may cast it once from outside the game.)

How do these work in commander? (Do they work at all, given they are outside the game?)

Does my commander count as part of my starting deck for the purposes of the companion condition?
Are these part of my 100 cards?
Does their color identity matter?
Can I have one in my main deck as well as one outside the game?

Companion cards will function in commander, and rather unusually at that.

Their behaviour in Commander is described by two key sources quoted below. To summarise:

Your Commander is counted as part of your starting deck and thus has to meet your companion's deckbuilding restrictions. (Even if you might remove your commanders from your deck before your game begins.)
A companion card is not one of your 100 cards. If you have a companion, it's essentially your 101st card.
Singleton and color identity rules still apply to your companion. This means your companion must be inside your commander's color identity, and you cannot also have another copy of your companion inside your 100.
Just to confirm: companion cards start outside the game in your collection, and are not in the command zone.

This means if you're using Umori, the Collector, your commander must share that card type (or your commanders, in the case of partners). For Keruga, the Macrosage, your commander (or commanders) must be converted mana cost 3 or greater.

Companions aren't necessarily an auto-include; they come with deckbuilding restrictions. On that note: Lutri, the Spellchaser is pre-emptively banned in Commander because in this format its restriction is not actually a restriction at all, making it basically a free auto-include in any UR+ deck. You can see Sheldon Menery's tweet here announcing the ban; the full explanation is currently on the MTGCommander.net home page (archive link).

Sources

The Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Mechanics article:

  Commander players, even though you don't have sideboards, you can still get in on the fun. Each Commander deck may include a chosen companion. It starts outside the game and doesn't count as one of your 100 cards. Just like the rest of your deck, your commander must follow the deck-building rule if you're going to use a companion.

Sheldon Menery on Twitter:

  All the other companion cards [except for Lutri] will be legal, and subject to color identity and singleton rules.  If a card is your companion, it is effectively a 101st card.


Does a multicolored green/blue spell count for abilities triggering on casting a blue spell? I have a short question that relates to some effects that tell about spells' colours. When I have for instance, Gadwick, The Wizened who has a triggered ability thas says "Whenever you cast a blue spell, tap target creature" and I cast spell that is green and blue, will it trigger?

Yes, it will trigger.

105.2. An object can be one or more of the five colors, or it can be no color at all. An object is the color or colors of the mana symbols in its mana cost, regardless of the color of its frame.
202.2c An object with two or more different colored mana symbols in its mana cost is each of the colors of those mana symbols. Most multicolored cards are printed with a gold frame, but this is not a requirement for a card to be multicolored.

So a green/blue spell is both a "blue spell" and a "green spell".


Do I tap a creature when it fights? Can a creature with summoning sickness fight? If a card has text: target creature fights (another creature), do I have to tap the target creature?
Can I target a creature, that has summoning sickness this way?

No you don't tap the creature; even tapped creatures can fight. If you had an instant fight card you could use it during combat as a combat trick. Summoning sickness only effects combat, and tap abilities; fight cards can certainly target a creature with summoning sickness.
The relevant rules from the comprehensive rule book:

701.10. Fight
701.10a A spell or ability may instruct a creature to fight another creature or it may instruct two creatures to fight each other. Each of those creatures deals damage equal to its power to the other creature.
701.10b If a creature instructed to fight is no longer on the battlefield or is no longer a creature, no damage is dealt. If a creature is an illegal target for a resolving spell or ability that instructs it to fight, no damage is dealt.
701.10c If a creature fights itself, it deals damage equal to its power to itself twice.
701.10d The damage dealt when a creature fights isn’t combat damage.

Also relevant, since it isn't combat damage, first strike doesn't do anything, but abilities like lifelink, or deathtouch do work.


What happens if Krosan Verge does not have a land of the specific type to pull? If I crack a Krosan Verge to search for a basic plains and a basic forest, and there is not a basic forest in the deck, what happens?

You can get just a plains from your library without also finding a forest.

If a card instructs you to search for something specific (in this case, "a Forest card" and "a Plains card"), you can "fail to find" and simply take nothing out of your library. If you are searching for two or more cards, as in this situation, you can find one but not the other, so in the specific case you describe, you can get just a plains from your library and put it onto the battlefield.

This is covered by rule 701.18b:

  If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if they’re present in that zone.


Can Beat Cop be discarded during another player’s turn? Can Beat Cop’s free triggered ability be used during any player window to incur 1 damage to an enemy at its location, even a player window occurring during another investigator’s turn?

Yes. Any player can use free actions, like the Beat Cop's ability, during any player window, including during another player's turn.

From the rules reference.

  Free triggered abilities ([free action symbol (squiggle)] triggered ability  may be triggered as a player ability during any player window.

and

  The red boxes are player windows. Players may use [free action symbol] triggered abilities in these windows.

See pages 23 and 26 of the rules reference for the timing of the player windows.


In a&a 1941 can tanks and infantry hit aircraft? The book does not specifically say anything.

If you mean the original rules, then yes. Only submarines are unable to hit aircraft.


Do wounds carry over between chapters (Mice and Mystics)? The rules are unclear, and the FAQ on the Plaid Hat website does not address this issue. Does anyone know if any wounds on the mice carry over between chapters when playing Mice and Mystics as a campaign?

No, they do not.  The campaign rules specifically state which items carry over between chapters, and wounds are not listed.  While they also specifically list a few things that are not carried over, if they had intended for wounds to be carried over they clearly would've called this out.  However, they do say that the guidelines are "suggestions", so you can feel free to carry over wounds if you think it would improve your experience.

The following guidelines are suggested for playing mice and mystics as
a campaign:

Mice keep their story achievements and abilities earned from previous chapters.
Mice can keep only 1 search card that they had at the end of the previous chapters. This 1 card is in addition to their starting
equipment cards. Mice will always begin a new chapter with their
starting equipment cards.
Mice do not keep any party items, individual achievements, or cheese from previous chapters.


Meaning of: Play at any time In the Monopoly Empire game, some of the Empire cards say

  Play at any time.

I'd like to understand the exact meaning of this rule.

Does it mean at any time during my turn and/or I am involved in someone else's turn?
Or does it mean at any time even during other player's turn who does nothing involving me?

Other Empire cards specify they are to be played during one's turn:

  Play at any time on your turn.

"Play at any time" means exactly that. Whenever the player wants to do it, they can.

"Play at any time during your turn" restricts the prior freedom in one way - it must be the turn of the person playing the card.

No other conditions are relevant.


Are there any tabletop apps to allow you to play warhammer 40k with friends in other cities? Pretty much as the title; I've looked at vassal 40k, but it hasn't been updated in a while and is missing units. I'm not necessarily looking for something for WH40k in specific - as long as it allows for moving units, measuring distances, and custom sprites/enough sprites to use "counts as" we should be fine.

As @Skeith mentioned, Games Workshop LLC is very vicious when it comes to protecting their Intellectual Property license, so it will be very hard to find anything designed for this on purpose.

That being said, Steam recently released a game called Tabletop Simulator, which, with a lot of work, could probably be used as a tool for this (right up until GW catches on and their lawyers destroy the life of whoever is supporting the mod).


Can Yahenni become indestructible after taking lethal damage, and does it die then? I cast Cruel Entertainment targetting both me and an opponent, who controls Yahenni, Undying Partisan and some other creatures. My own turn ends, and I take control of their turn, in which I attack with Yahenni only. It is blocked by a creature which deals lethal damage to Yahenni.

Now, can the activated ability of Yahenni ("Sacrifice another creature: Yahenni gains indestructible until end of turn.") still be activated after taking lethal damage, so that I can wipe the whole board of the opponent?
If so, does the fact that Yahenni then becomes indestructible negate the fact that it has taken lethal damage in that combat phase (in which the opponent will still have Yahenni on the board)?

There is no way to both use Yahenni to sacrifice all other creatures, and also have Yahenni die due to lethal damage.

Once the creature has actually taken lethal damage, you cannot give it indestructible and save it. It would die the next time state-based actions are checked; and state-based actions are always checked before a player received priority.

However, you can give it indestructible after blockers have been assigned, but before damage is dealt. You would do this in the assign blockers step of the combat phase, which happens before damage assignment. But if you do this, Yahenni will survive. Even if you could use Yahenni's ability after it has received lethal damage, it wouldn't matter, because Indestructible causes lethal damage to have no effect on a creature.

As per  monoRed's comment, to get the result you desire, you would need to have a way to kill Yahenni outside of combat. If you (or your opponent) have any direct damage or destruction spells that are instants or abilities, you could activate Yahenni's ability repeatedly to remove all other creatures, and then while those activations are still on the stack, before they have resolved, use the other spell/ability to kill it.

You can see the details of the combat phase steps here: Where can I find a chart or diagram explaining Magic's turn structure?.


In MTG what happens when you have multiple Aberrant Researcher in play? Aberrant Researcher:

  At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top card of your library into your graveyard. If it's an instant or sorcery card, transform Aberrant Researcher.

Considering I had two of these in play:

Two questions:

1) Would I put two into the graveyard at the start of my upkeep?

2) If an instant or sorcery is revealed do both flip at the same time?

All Aberrant Researchers trigger independently of each other. An instant or sorcery revealed by one does not flip the other.

If an object (for example, a creature) refers to itself by name in its card text, it only means itself, not other permanents with the same name.

  201.4. Text that refers to the object it’s on by name means just that particular object and not any other objects with that name, regardless of any name changes caused by game effects.

And yes, both Researchers' ability triggers at the beginning of your upkeep. The Researchers have no relation to each other, they just happen to have identical properties and abilities. They are also checking different cards - each one checks the card it put into the graveyard, not all cards put into the graveyard this way.


Clarification on the Royal Garden from Puerto Rico expansion 2 The Royal Garden states:

  At game end, the owner of the occupied royal garden takes 1 VP for each noble on his island.  As each noble is normally worth 1 VP (whether on a building, plantation or in San Juan), with the occupied royal garden each is worth 2 VPs to that player".

Puerto Rico defines "island" as the twelve spaces at the bottom of the board to place plantation tiles; the Royal Garden states that you get 1 VP for each noble on his island (which I would assume means "nobles on plantations") but then goes on to state that nobles in San Juan and buildings are worth 1 extra VP as well.

So... which is it?  Do nobles on island tiles get the extra VP, or nobles on your entire board get the extra VP?

In my opinion, a player's island is their game board, unless explicitly referring to plantations.  Its semantically tricky, as the island on the board contains San Juan which is implicitly the player's city.

I admit, that's kind of shaky reasoning.

With regards to the Royal Garden explicitly, an unofficial translation of the original rules was:

  At game’s end the owner of the Garden
  gains 2 VP for each Noble he owns
  instead of the usual 1VP/Noble. This
  is true wherever his Nobles are:
  building, plantation, San Juan, etc...

(source)

And it makes more sense in terms of design as the rest of the expansion clearly wants you to place Nobles on buildings.


Is Lighthouse from Dominion: Seaside overpowered? Lighthouse in Dominion:Seaside costs only 2 yet is a duration card that provides +1 Action on the first turn and +1 coin per turn it is active. On top of that it provides protection against any attack cards while it activated.

It seems to me this is an incredibly powerful card for being worth only 2. If backed up by a couple higher coin you could easily get 8 coin and buy provinces. All the while you are protected from any immediate threats. The main advantage IMO is gained from having +1 each turn. This adds a lot to a players buying power.

So what can you do to stop someone from abusing this card?

If there are tons of attacks, sure, it's pretty useful. But setting aside the defense (which often isn't relevant), the coin it provides isn't really terribly powerful, so no, it's not at all overpowered.

It's basically a copper that gives you one more coin the next turn. In order to get that extra coin you had to add a copper to your deck - the turn you play Lighthouse one of your five cards only gets you one coin. A silver generally does more for you.

So you don't really have to do anything to keep people from abusing it. Just buy bigger better cards. You can do a lot better than +1 coin.


Can I Nope a Defuse? If Alice draws an Exploding Kitten which she tries to Defuse, can Bob Nope that, making the kitten explode and eliminate Alice?

At the time of asking, I had only played it once, an hour before. As it wasn't my own game, I had no access to the rule book leaflet.

Nope.
From the rules

Nope
Stop any action except for an Exploding Kitten  or a Defuse Card.
Imagine that any card (or  Pair  or  Special Combo ) beneath a Nope
Card no longer exists

You can not nope a defuse card.


Why is there a bonus for holding honors in bridge? Isn't having 4-5 of the highest trumps privileges enough? After I read about honors in bridge, I quickly started wondering why they were added to the scoring system. Its obviously a privilege to be holding the cards required, so I can see why the scoring might want to reward that. But isn't holding the honors and having the power of playing them enough? Why was it necessary to add an additional bonus just for having them?

It feels like the rule is just adding luck to game that was designed to be about skill, in the sense of getting points for just getting the right cards, and not having to know anything about the strategy of how to play them. If you do hold the honors, you're almost definitely going to get more points because they allow you to take more tricks, which are the whole basis of how to get points anyway. Being automatically given points for receiving good cards that will help you win points during the actual game-play seems kind of paradoxical, almost like getting an extra $5000 every time you have a great idea that will let you make a lot more than that if you are able to develop it skillfully.

Does the rule do any more than just give you points for what you should be able to use to get points anyway?
When does it actually influence your decisions in the game?
How would bridge be different if it didn't have this rule?

(I'm a very novice bridge player, and I'm sure that my reasoning is incorrect, but I've been unable to prove these assumptions wrong on my own, and thought you guys would be able to help a noob like me understand. :)

Honours                 Points
All 4 aces in NT        150
5 top trumps (AKQJT)    150
4 out of 5 top trumps   100

The rule of honors applies to any side. So if you are defending hearts holding AKQJ of hearts, you get the requisite number of points.

It really does not matter that there is a bonus for this. In the long run, the luck factor will even out: as the points go above the line.

As to why this is there: Most of initial bridge (i.e. auction bridge) terms and rules (like rubber is two games etc) and initial scoring were derived from Whist.

Giving points for honors is no different. Doing a bit of research turns up this book on Whist: The Bridgewater treatise on Whist which details out when the honor sequences can be used to add points to your score.

In fact, I suppose some of the auction bridge rule makers felt like you did and made a rule for adding points for chicane: when you have a void in the trump suit. This seems to have been dropped from the current contract rubber bridge scoring though.

As to that making a difference, here is a story from the autobiography of Howard Schenken(Education of a Bridge Player).

Howard Schenken was playing auction bridge (note: weird scoring) and held a hand with four Aces and a Queen, when he heard his RHO bid 1NT. Without thinking, he bid 2NT and was doubled. He went down 2. So he lost 200 and gained 100 (for the honors) for a net loss of 100. He later realized that if he had just passed, he would give 10 for 1NT (remember auction bridge scoring) but gained 100 for honors for a net gain of 90!

I also remember there was a hand (possibly in Zia's autobiography Bridge My Way) where he was given a hand (as a wager) and asked "Play or Defend". After going through all the possibilities, Zia decided to defend, getting the contract down 1. At which point the puzzle giver claimed money from Zia, because declarer has hundred honors!

In contract rubber bridge, since the honor points go above the line, they ideally should not (drastically) change the way the game is played. Though, there will definitely be a difference, I suppose.

For instance, holding xxx,AKQJT, Kxx, xx  you could potentially gamble a 3H bid over opponents 2S, get doubled, going down 1 but yet come out ahead as compared to letting them play 2S, because of the honor points.


Trick-taking card game, where you aim to reach zero points? My family has been playing this card game for years but no one knows what it is called.

You start by dealing out 5 cards to everyone, then flip the next card, which marks the trump suit. The dealer can pick up that card and discard one from his hand face down. Then you go around the table and say if you are in or out, but the dealer has to be in.

Scoring: you start with 21 points and every trick lowers your points. If you get skunked you get 5 points added to your score. You want to get to exactly zero.

What is the name of this game?

This sounds like a trick taking game in the Rams group.

  Rams group: in these games players have the opportunity to drop out after seeing their hands, but anyone who stays in and fails to make their quota of tricks suffers a penalty.

None of these seem to match the rules you state exactly.

Raub starts at 21, with players trying to get to 0 points. But, it is played with 4 cards, when you fail to score a trick you add +4.

Loo: doesn't have the starting total, with players winning shares of the pot for the proportion of tricks they take, with players that take none having to pay into the pot.

Bourre: also isn't a perfect fit. It also has a pot like Loo, has players who fail to take tricks paying into the pot. It does have the first revealed card to indicate trump.


TTR: Destination ticket value changes in the America 1910 expansion The BGG summary for the expansion mentions this:

  a complete replacement deck of the 141 cards from the original game deck: 30 Destination Tickets (4 cards have a reduced value from Ticket to Ride)

What were these reductions and why were they necessary?

Which tickets were changed?

The following destination tickets received a decrease in value:  (Source: this post by Days of Wonder Forums user "Baron Von Schmidt original")

Sault St. Marie to Oklahoma City: now 8 points
Los Angeles to Miami: now 19 points
Los Angeles to New York: now 20 points
Seattle to New York: now 20 points

Tickets Probably Over-valued

It appears that the minimum number of trains required to complete a destination ticket was the starting point for assigning each ticket a point value. The claim is made  (in this post by Days of Wonder Forums user "Caboose")  that Alan Moon (the game's designer) said the ticket values were not supposed to be the shortest route between two cities. Lacking the context that this may have been said in, I believe the intent was to put to rest worries that some ticket values were mistakes or misprints, rather than to deny all connection between tickets' values and their minimum lengths.  (This post by Caboose from several years earlier shows (s)he had previously believed the issue was due to a misprint.)

Additionally, if the changes were to "fix" the tickets to match their minimum lengths, they didn't fix all of them. It's been pointed out  (in this post by Days of Wonder Forums user "DiscJet")  that the Los Angeles to Chicago ticket and the 1910 expansion's Las Vegas to Miami ticket are each worth more than their shortest length.

I conclude that Mr. Moon decided the four changed routes were somewhat over-valued, at least for the 1910 rules (if not in general).

Attribution Note: I got the idea to look through the Days of Wonder Forums from aramis' answer. I don't have access to my copy of Ticket to Ride and the 1910 expansion at the moment, so I can't verify the route lengths or values myself.


Has Ash ever appeared on any Pokémon TCG cards? Ash Ketchum is the star of the Pokémon anime. Has he ever appeared on any TCG cards to date? I know the cards tend to follow the game universe, but I'm wondering if over the 20+ years the lines blurred at some point.

As the Pokémon TCG follows the console games rather than anime, Ash was never a star in the TCG (because he was never in any console game). However, to commemorate few films in Generations III and IV, few promotional cards depicting Ash's Pokémon were released (along many other Owner's Pokémon originating from the films), although all are Japan-exclusive. No Trainer card named just Ash exists.

Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys (M07)

Ash's Torkoal

inserted in a children magazine

Ash's Treecko

Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (M08)

Ash's Grovyle
Ash's Phanpy
Ash's Swellow

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea (M09)

Ash's Aipom

Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life (M12)

Pikachu
Pikachu  LV.X
Staraptor

As @JonathanJ mentioned in comments, there is also a card named Ash-Greninja  depicting a Bond Phenomenon Greninja originating in Gen 6 anime. It was released in both Japanese and English, but only the second Japanese print features a picture of Ash.

As @Thunderforge mentioned in comments, in April 2017 a new Japanese-exclusive subset named Ash vs Team Rocket Deck Kit was released, based on Alolan episodes of anime. Some artworks of Pokémon that Ash owns also depict himself. The subset also includes the first Trainer card with Ash in its name.

Rowlet
Ash's Pikachu
Tauros
Ash's Friendship


Why cards installment mentioned on the Diversified Portfolio? The Diversified Portfolio says: "Gain 1 credit for each remote server with a card installed in it". I wonder why the installment is mentioned in the text? There is no a remote server without cards installed in it. Can I have a remote server without cards installed in it?

Yes, you can have a remote server without cards in it if it's an empty server, but has ICE protecting it. The server exists, but doesn't qualify for Diversified Portfolio


If I have no creatures in the graveyard, do I nevertheless have one Type of creature? I have a card called Solidarity, reading:

  If you have only 1 original Type of monster in your Graveyard, face-up monsters you control with the same Type gain 800 ATK.

In the case where the graveyard has two or more creatures of the same type then it's obvious we can use the effect; similarly, if the graveyard has precisely one creature in it, then it has exactly one type of creature in it (and so the effect may be applied).

But if the graveyard has no creatures in it, I would argue that there is exactly one type of creature in it (this is a vacuous truth). I wanted to use the card in this situation but my opponent absolutely refused it.

To me this truth is as valid as saying the Empty Set is Hausdorff.  I'm hoping there are mathematicians out there that also play Yugioh and are qualified to answer this; alternatively, I am hoping there is an official answer to this, not just some opinions.

The effect should not apply. You do not have one Type of monster in your Graveyard; you have zero. This would be different if the card said, say "all monsters in your Graveyard are the same Type" - that statement is certainly vacuously true with an empty Graveyard.

Further, it doesn't even matter. The effect only affects monster of the same Type, and obviously none of your monsters have the same type as... the null set. So even if the condition were satisfied, the card would do nothing.

(Disclaimer: I don't play Yu-Gi-Oh; I'm just reading what the card says.)


Is it possible for an opponent to have zero deadwood when I gin? While playing Gin on an app, I knocked with gin and my opponent showed zero deadwood. Given I had gin, my opponent was unable to play any cards on mine; so, is it possible for a player to have zero deadwood if the opponent knocks with gin?

Possible, but unlikely.  It means that your opponent chose to discard when he had Gin.  There is no good reason to do this.
Other explanations:

If both players are dealt a gin hand (very rare).
A misclick.
An opponent that do not know the rules.
A bad AI agent.
In games where the Undercut bonus is larger than the Gin bonus then in some rare cases it might be better to try undercutting instead of making a Gin.
The opponent run out of time, thus an auto-move was played.


In Ticket to Ride: Märklin, do Passenger cards allow you to complete Destination tickets? Based on my understanding of the rules, you can use a Passenger card to complete a route that a passenger is on.  So, if I have a route of red trains and someone places blue in my path I can use the passenger card when picking up tokens to complete my destination.

At the end of the game do I get to count that as a completed Destination ticket (even though there is a break in my trains)? OR

Is the destination ONLY counted when the Passenger travels through and picks up Merchandise tokens?

It is important to note that passenger cards are not used to claim routes. Although they are drawn like train cards, they are not played when claiming a route. They are played only when using the Move Passengers action to collect Merchandise tokens from cities. Each passenger card played allows you to move your passenger through one route belonging to another player.

Excerpts from the rulebook:

  [When Moving a Passenger] The player may move any one of his Passengers that is already on the board. The Passenger must move from the city he currently occupies along any or all of the player's continuous routes, picking up one Merchandise Token from each city
  he moves. The player can only use the same route once per turn, i.e., a Passenger may
  not backtrack over the same route. The player does not pick up a Merchandise Token in the city in which the Passenger starts. At the end of the turn the Passenger that moves is removed from the game.

And the role of the passenger cards:

  When moving a Passenger, the player can play any number of Passenger Cards and use one route belonging to an opponent for each Passenger Card played.

(p. 3-4 of the rulebook)

Passenger cards do not give you any ability to use opponents' routes for any other purpose, including completing tickets at the end of the game.


In Midway, how do I manage the "inferior" Japanese fleet on day 1? This is a reference to the Avalon Hill board game.

Historically, the Japanese fleet approached Midway in four waves. The first wave (a strike force of four carriers and supporting ships) was slightly inferior in power to the American forces (three carriers, cruisers, and a "fourth" carrier on Midway). On the second day, the Japanese receive two more waves of reinforcements of surface ships that give them a decisive superiority over the Americans at sea (but not in the air).

As the Japanese, how do I hide/avoid combat on the first day until my reinforcements arrive, given the Americans' full board "search" capabilities?  Or should I accept the possibility of combat, hope for a more or less even result, and then hope that my second-day reinforcements can overwhelm the Americans?

Would your answer change between the Basic game (air combat only, on more or less even terms) and the Advanced game (which allows ship-to-ship combat that favors the Japanese)?

The other answer got me to look up the game again, and here's what I found.

If the Japanese player is worried about the balance of power on Day 1, he should stay out of the range of planes based on Midway (about half of those of an American carrier, although Midway has a greater CAPACITY than any carrier). This means the normal 7-square "round trip" range, and even the 14-square "suicide bomber" range (the rules provide that if some of an attacker's planes are making suicide attacks, and he suffers combat losses, he can count those losses against the "suicide" planes first).

For the Japanese players, that means staying in columns "A" and "B" near the western edge of the board on Day 1, close to Day 2 reinforcements. If the Americans want to attack beyond the range of Midway based planes, they will do so at a disadvantage. This is particularly true in the advanced game, where Midway would have to send additional fighters to bring the American carrier groups to parity with the Japanese, meaning that the carriers would have room for fewer dive bombers.

On the other hand, the Japanese player may want to seek aerial combat on almost even terms on Day 1, in order clear the way for later waves. With their (future) edge in ships, "attrition," provided that it is balanced, favors them. On Day 1, they enjoy "draw odds," that is if they "draw" on the first day, their reinforcements make them likely to win.

On Day 2, the focus of the game changes with the arrival of the Atago, a cruiser whose importance is as the flagship of the transport fleet bound for the invasion of Midway. (The way to attack the transports is to attack the Atago.) The Americans can try to prevent the invasion of Midway by sinking the Atago. or follow the historically-based strategy of sinking the Japanese carriers, but they might not be able to do both.

One way for the Japanese to win is to "take out" enough American air power on the first day so the Americans can't prevent the invasion from the Atago. The other, safer way, is to concentrate forces on Day 2 in order to maximize the chances of a successful retaliation against a "first strike."


What is the box size of this very valuable 1957 French Monopoly set? The cover of a French 1957 Monopoly set (see picture) appears in two web sites.
It was evaluated at $2,456 on one website,
workandmoney.com and estimated for auction at £2,000 on another website dailymail.co.uk.

There are two types of Monopoly white box sets, a long one, and a smaller, square one, more in use in Europe, in which the board is folded in four squares; the long one was sometimes also used in France.

Is there a means of determing which of the box sizes is that of this very valuable 1957 French Monopoly set?

Probably the easiest way would be to find additional images of the same box, which is a little difficult, but not impossible:

Based on that we can surmise that the box is square.


Is there an API to find Warhammer 40K model pictures by name? I'm writing a roster editor and it would be very helpful if there's something like Magic the Gathering's Gatherer but for Warhammer 40,000 models.

Something like: http://www.site.com/?model=Ork+Boyz

I sincerely doubt there is, at least not officially.  I've been playing Games Workshop games for the past 15 years, and their protection of intellectual property has gotten pretty severe in the past couple of years.  Just do a Google search for "Games Workshop sues" and see all the fun that auto-complete brings up.

From their Legal Page, Bandwidth Theft and Mirroring Resources section:

  We do not tolerate deep linking to the pictures, images, PDFs or other downloads on our website. Such activity is bandwidth theft. Also, do not mirror the resources that we have on our websites. So, if you want other people to see the materials that we have produced, please use a simple HTML link to the relevant web page.

And from the Online Auctions:

  Do not use our trademarks in relation to products that are not owned by or originate from Games Workshop (see Making Terrain above).

Now, I am not a lawyer, but between Privateer Press, Chapterhouse Studios, the TalkFantasyFootball forums, etc., etc., I would be very careful in what you do.


Bridge Scoring and sacrifice optimization against slam bids? Suppose North and South go through Blackwood and decide on 6 Spades making a Slam of 980 points. Their opponents decide to optimize the points. So suppose East decides that he has 6 Clubs including King of Clubs and calls 7 Clubs. Even after Double if they manage to make 5 tricks, North and South get only 800 points. However it does not happen in tournaments. Why is that?

Kindly note that I am not too good with Bridge Scoring so I might be wrong above in the counts. And thanks for your time.

In duplicate bridge, 6 spades making 6 is 980 not vulnerable, and 7 clubs doubled down 8 not vulnerable (5 tricks made out of 13 contracted) is -2000. With nobody vulnerable, you'd have to make 9 tricks to come out ahead bidding 7 over 6, scoring -800 for down 4.

Not vulnerable, doubled undertricks score accordingly:

-1: -100
-2: -300
-3: -500
-4: -800
-5: -1100
-6: -1400
-7: -1700
-8: -2000

with additional undertricks being worth -300 each.


Does the "Alternate Reality" Crisis require each player to destroy 12 cost worth of Heroes? The Crisis Expansion (Pack 1) for the DC Comics Deck-Building Game introduced a new Crisis Mode, which allows for cooperative play and "Crisis Cards" that involve villains' plans. There has been one that has bothered me in particular, "Alternate Reality", which says the following:

  Ongoing: At the start of your turn, destroy all Heroes in your hand. Gain that many random Villains from the destroyed pile and put them into your hand.

  To Beat: Your team must destroy 12 cost worth of Heroes in their discard piles.

Does this mean that each player of the team must destroy 12 cost worth of Heroes in each of their discard piles? Or do they have to collectively have at least 12 cost worth of Heroes (say, 3 points in each of 4 discard piles)?

Turns out that this is actually answered in the Specific Card Clarifications section of the Crisis rulebook:

  Alternate Reality, Final Countdown: To beat one of these Crisis cards, the team acts together and chooses which cards to destroy. The burden is on the collective team, so each player does not destroy their own set of cards to beat the Crisis. For Alternate Reality, you don't have to destroy exactly 12 cost worth of Heroes to beat it.

As it clearly says, "each player does not destroy their own set of cards" and it's up to the team to pick and choose which cards from which discard piles to destroy so that the total is 12 (or more) points of Heroes.


Can you transform after declaring blockers, but before dealing damage? Let's say I attack with Duskwatch Recruiter, a 2/2, and someone blocks with a 1/1 token. After they choose their blockers, could you cast Waxing Moon to transform Duskwatch Recruiter to Krallenhorde Howler, and assign damage as Krallenhorde Howler, a 3/3?

Yes, there is nothing that prevents you from Transforming at anytime you could cast Waxing Moon.

There are no special timing restrictions when transforming a double faced card.

Lets break down your example step by step:

You attack with Duskwatch Recruiter, your opponent declares a 1/1 goblin token as a blocker.
After blockers are declared, but before combat damage is assigned, you cast Waxing Moon targeting Duskwatch Recruiter. Your opponent has no responses.
Waxing Moon resolves, Duskwatch Recruiter transforms into Krallenhorde Howler and gains trample.
You proceed to damage step. The goblin assigns 1 damage to Krallenhorde Howler, Krallenhorde Howler assigns 1 damage to the goblin token and 2 damage trample over onto your opponent.

Final Result: Token Dies, Krallenhorde Howler survives, Opponent takes 2 damage.


Pandemic Legacy: Question about missions (Spoilers) We just played a game where a mission card says : destroy it if you completed the mission. We completed the mission, but we lost the game.

For the second try do we have to do the mission again? Or does it count as 1 already finished task and we have to complete only 2 more? Or do we now have to finish all the other 3 missions?

The rules are not so clear: The mission card says we should destroy it once we found him, but in the rule book it says that we should start the second try for the month with exact same briefing and missions as the first one.

You must finish the other missions. You still need to finish 3 total, and because that one has been destroyed, there are only 3 missions remaining.

There is some discussion saying the same thing here.


Can I omit Advanced Missions in Star Fleet Battles? Do I still need the Advanced Missions box, if I have got the Advanced Missions countersheet, the accompanying SSD book, the Master Rulebook and Module G3?

Is there anything else in there I wouldn't get that way?

I've just found out that I won't miss anything ruleswise, but I will have neither the (sometimes necessary) ship descriptions (but those can also be found in the Master Starship books for the specific races/factions) nor the scenarios.


What is the board game in ‘Friends’ S05E11? Does anyone know the name of the board game visible on the following picture?

The image is taken from the eleventh episode of the fifth season of Friends ("The One With All The Resolutions"), at around 4/5 of the episode (17:53 is the exact timestamp of the frame from my version).
The things I thought might help to identify the game:

The game seems to have an oval board.
There are two small blue UFO-shaped parts (maybe dice poppers?): one on the table and one in the hands of Joey (second guy from the left).
There seems to be two different kind of cards involved - in red and blue colors.
The box features a cartoonish drawing of a woman and a man and the dominant color seems purple.
The game seems to support 5 players - but considering it's a tv show, this might not hold true. I recon yellow, red and blue figures on the board, and it seems that there are two from each color.

It is Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. You can recognise the loopy indigo board, the characters on the box, and the red/green card box in this image from the BoardGameGeek page:


When "an opponent" has to do something in a multiplayer game, who does it? In a multiplayer game of Magic: The Gathering, if a card requires an opponent to make a choice — like Fact or Fiction, which states an opponent separates the piles into two piles — who gets to pick which opponent makes that choice, e.g. which opponent separates them? Because in a tournament where four people play against each other and two of the people are friends it just seems unfair that the player can choose anyone to do it.

The player who controls the spell chooses the opponent.

There could be some political issues here, but no more so than if you had a friend in a 4-player game who refused to attack you because you were friends. He's still your opponent in the game, so he should be making the decisions that will give him the best chance of winning; not trying to help you.

From the comprehensive rules:

  601.3. Some spells specify that one of their controller’s opponents does something the controller would
  normally do while it’s being cast, such as choose a mode or choose targets. In these cases, the
  opponent does so when the spell’s controller normally would do so.

    601.3a If there is more than one opponent who could make such a choice, the spell’s controller
    decides which of those opponents will make the choice.


Arena, Triumphant surge without legal target Just playing Arena using the Workshop:Heroes of Theros - Devotion deck.

I tried to cast Triumphant Surge when there was only my Transcendent Envoy on the battlefield. The Triumphant Surge just hung in the air over the stack part of the screen, not doing anything for about 10 turns. occasionally it would light up blue but mostly it sat in the way, I couldn't read the cards on the stack and didn't gain my 3 life. Then later in the game, when there was a legal target, I could cast the card by clicking on it where it was suspended on the rhs of the screen; it destroyed opponent's creature (4/4) and I gained 3 life.

Can I cast Triumphant Surge without a legal target to gain 3 life? Is this just a bug in Arena, or am I mistaken?

What you describe was certainly a bug in Arena. You can't cast a spell if you can't choose legal targets for it. By the rules, the spell will not hang around until there is a legal target.
Spells and abilities that require one or more targets can't be cast, activated, or enter the stack if you don't have a legal target at the time of casting/activating/triggering it. A spell that was started to be cast would be returned to where it came from, usually the hand.
The process for casting a spell, activating an ability, and triggering an ability are mostly identical for the purpose of target selection, so I'll only quote those rules for casting spells.

601.2c The player announces their choice of an appropriate object or player for each target the spell requires. [..]
601.2e The game checks to see if the proposed spell can legally be cast. If the proposed spell is illegal, the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 722, “Handling Illegal Actions”).


What are the requirements for progress? I've lost galactic progress map for Twilight Imperium 2 edition. So now we can only play till one person obviously dominates all the others, which takes a lot of time. Each progress step requirements are not written in the rulebook.

If anyone has this edition of the game, can you please tell me, what the requirements are?

Galactic Progression Chart: If you view the original size it should be big enough to read, and maybe even print off as a replacement.


dominion adventures, using tokens on duration piles If a token from Dominion Adventures is placed on a duration pile, is the token applied only when you initially play (lay down) the duration card or both when you lay it down AND when you play the duration effects at the start of the next turn? The directions say "when a player... plays a card".  For duration cards, is the second use "playing" it again?
Makes a difference on whether I'd ever put a token on Hireling or not!

You only "play" the Duration once, on the turn when you, well, play it. The next turn it will just have an effect without you needing to play it.

So this means Durations don't work especially well with the +1 Card etc tokens. They'll still work okay, especially if your deck is reasonably big (so you don't often have Durations enduring over the reshuffle).


How does the Locket and Meenlock interact? There is some disagreement about how these items interact.

Locket:

Gain 1 Sanity
Any time you take mental damage, take 1 less point of damage.
Lose 1 Sanity if you lose control of the Locket.

Meenlock:

Gain 2 Speed
When you take physical damage, you must apply it as mental damage instead.
Lose 2 Speed if you lose control of the Meenlock.
This omen can't be dropped, traded or stolen.

My friend thinks when you take physical damage it's converted to mental damage and reduced by 1. I think the reduction only applies if the original damage is mental. Is there an official rule for this?

I agree with some of the previous comments here. Not everything is going to have an official ruling and even in the back of the original Betrayal at House on The Hill rules book it says:

  ...if the rules are not specified in the rulebook you and your group can decide what makes the game most fun.

Personally, I would take it at face value. Since they have both cards, they must convert physical damage to mental damage and by proxy minus one to any mental damage taken.

That's my preference but if your group comes to any different agreement go with that instead. The important thing is to have fun.


If my opponent tries to resolve a triggered ability out of order, did they miss their opportunity to do so? My opponent controls a tapped Nettle Sentinel, and has cast 1 copy of Glimpse of Nature this turn.

They then play an Elvish Visionary, and in response I do nothing.

The stack starts to resolve and my opponent draws 2 cards which is evidence the Glimpse of nature and Elvish Visionary have resolved.

They then move to untap their Nettle Sentinel. In this instance because the abilities on the stack would be resolving out of order, did they miss the Nettle Sentinel's triggered ability or is this covered by out of order sequencing?

Before examining the merits, let's keep in mind that it's a very natural out of order sequencing since he could end up doing draw-untap-draw otherwise.

The limit on out of order sequencing is:

  An out-of-order sequence must not result in a player prematurely gaining information which could reasonably affect decisions made later in that sequence.

If he hesitates after drawing but before untapping, he's clearly in error. Out-of-order sequencing is not an excuse for doing something you forgot to do earlier.

On the other end of the spectrum, if he says "I draw two and untap" and proceeds to do so, it's clearly ooos and not a problem.

So what if he silently proceeds to draw two and untap? It's undeniable that information is gained, but that's not sufficient to prevent ooos. It comes down to whether the draw reasonably affects whether Nettle Sentinel the player untaps the Sentinel or not, and there's no guidelines for determining this.

Drawing probably doesn't affect his choice — it's hard to imagine that he'd decide whether he'd untap or not based on what he drew — so it's probably ok.


How do you evaluate a building or plot quest? Some plot quests and buildings are clearly better than others. Is there a way to at least approximately quantify how much better?

Yes. In fact, it's a great way to learn the financial concept of return on investment (ROI).

First you must understand the game's currency:

4 coins = 2 oranges or blacks = 1 white or purple

The most obvious way to understand where this conversion comes from is by observing that on the first turn of the game, an agent can be placed to obtain 4 coins, 2 oranges or 2 blacks, or 1 purple or white. You can then plug in any of these conversions to realize that most intrigue cards and same-costed buildings are roughly equal when you convert them to coin-equivalents.

Completing a quest is the main way to gather victory points, and if you look carefully at quests (except plot quests), you will notice that there is a simple formula that calculates victory points for most of them:

coins + 2 x (oranges or blacks) + 4 x (whites or purples) + 2

To simplify the analysis, I assume that all cubes are consumed by quests, because any cubes left over are not worth as much.

Some of the higher value quests are slightly better. For example all the 25 point ones give you +5 instead of +2.

However, given that they are so similar, and given that there is a cost of essentially 2 VPs to get a quest, I will assume for the rest of this post that:

4 VPs = 4 coins = 2 oranges or blacks = 1 white or purple

In other words, if you gather 2 oranges from 1 action, that is a 4VP move. If you go on a building that converts 2 blacks into 3 whites, you just changed 4 VPs into 12 VPs, so that was an 8 VP move.

If you understand everything so far, then you can easily figure out values for buildings. Examples:

House of Wonder: This building costs 4 coins (4VP), but yields 2 coins every time someone places an agent there. It is a very good building to place an agent on, so it is safe to assume that at least one agent will be placed there each turn. If you take the building on turn 1, you spend 4VPs but get the one 1VP that was sitting on the building, so you've spent a net of 3VPs. In return you get 2 VPs per turn times 8 turns, so 2 x 8 = 16 VPs. So that is a 13 VP move. That is a very good move on turn one - an investment of 3VP gets 16 VP.

However, you get a lower return on investment if you play it later in the game. Let's say you play the building on turn 7 and it has 3 VPs sitting on it. You only have to pay a net of 1 VP, but you will get only 4 VP back, so it is a 3VP move which means is generally below average (unless you hold the lord that gets a 6VP bonus for every building).

It turns out that most buildings costing 4 follow that same formula. Buildings costing 8 generally yield 4 VPs per turn, so they are actually a higher VP move on turn 1 than a 4 cost building, if you can afford to get them.

One building stands above the rest:  Yawning Portal. For an investment of 3 VP (you won't get it for less as competent players won't let this go untaken), you get 4 VP per turn at the minimum. However, this is so good to put an agent on (one of the best) that you will typically get the income from it more than once on many turns, due to various intrigue cards, ongoing quests, or buildings that allow extra agent placements on the same space. If you manage to get it on turn 1, then a normal game might get 12 agents landing there for 48 VPs. In other words, this is a 45 VP move.

You can do similar types of analysis for the plot quests. One of the best plot quests is Bloster Griffon Calvary. If you can generate 2 bonus orange cubes each turn, that is the equivalent of 4VP per turn.

Obviously, the earlier you get a plot quest or building, the better the return on investment. To quantify, use the above math. You do have to make an estimate about how much the card or building will be used.

One last comment: The above math is oversimplified to at least enable comparing competing buildings. It's more complex however when you consider that introducing a building to the game also helps the players who place agents on it. Yawning Portal expands the economy for everyone. While the owner benefits most, other players also benefit with a similar total number of VPs introduced into the game, but divided among the players. I say this because the normal move is a 4VP move, but placing an agent on Yawning Portal is an 8 VP move. Therefore, while a player taking Yawning Portal may net out 45 VP over the course of the game, in a 3 player game the other players may benefit by 24VP each, so the relative benefit is 21VP. Still very good, but not as astoundingly good as indicated by the simplified analysis above indicated.


Is there an efficient use for a surplus of Insects in Standard, Kaladesh to Ixalan? Assuming the opponent has creatures in play, consider the following interaction:

Hour of Devastation + Soul-Scar Mage + Nest of Scarabs

This will generate 5 x (number of opponents creatures) insects.

Is there a card or set of cards that efficiently uses these insects to win the game? While it was previously directed to discard the damage done to your own creatures, an interaction that is reliant on a creature you control that would be killed by Hour of Devastation doesn't work; the creature is dead before the insects enter the battlefield.

Conditions and Limitations:
Standard Legal Cards, ranging from Kaladesh to Ixalan.
Supports a win either in the same turn or on the next one.
Understands that creatures in play will get 5 -1/-1 counters.

Aside from simply attacking for the win on the following turn, you have many options:

Grant them haste with Samut, Voice of Dissent
Play a huge Majestic Myriarch and Fling him at your opponent

anothe option, without green: have both Decoction Module and Fabrication Module on the board when you cast the Hour, put all counters on one of the tokens and Fling that

Arcane Adaptation naming Zombie and drain opponent to death with Plague Belcher and a sacrifice outlet (such as Yahenni, Undying Partisan)

You can also drain them with a Wayward Servant if you can make it survive the Hour (and can play white too)

There are probably many more, but these are the ones I came up with in a few minutes.


What can the dummy player do in Bridge? We're learning to play Bridge from Gramma, who played the game a lot ~40 years ago but doesn't really remember the rules (or, at least, the reasons behind some rules and conventions).

One of the things she's adamant about is that the dummy sits the hand out completely, not to touch the cards at all once they're face up on the table.  The rest of us newbies think this is kind of silly - while we know the dummy shouldn't be offering advice, we figure he could could at least handle the cards and play what the leader tells him to play, and (when there's no choice to be made, like when there's only 1 possible card to play), just do the mechanical stuff that requires no decision making.

What are the limitations placed on the dummy player?  Are there etiquette rules about what he can and cannot do?

From Laws of Contract Bridge 2014:

Law 42 – Dummy’s Rights   Dummy is entitled to give information as to fact or Law but may not initiate the discussion, and provided he
has not forfeited his rights (see Law 43), he may also
(a) ask declarer (but not a defender), when he has failed to follow suit,
whether he has a card of the suit led.
(b) try to prevent any
irregularity **by declarer.
(c) draw attention to any irregularity, but only after play is concluded.
** Note: He may, for example, warn declarer against leading from the wrong hand.
Law 43 – Dummy’s Limitations
Dummy may not participate in the play (except to play the cards of dummy’s hand as directed by
declarer) or make any comment on the bidding, play or score of the
current deal. If he does so, Law 16 may apply. During play, dummy may
not call attention to an irregularity once it has occurred.
Dummy forfeits the rights provided in (a), (b) and (c) of Law 42 if he
exchanges hands with declarer, leaves his seat to watch declarer play
or, on his own initiative, looks at the face of a card in either
defender’s hand. If, thereafter,
(a) he is the first to draw
attention to a defender’s irregularity, declarer may not enforce any
penalty for the offense.
(b) he warns declarer not to lead from the
wrong hand, (penalty) either defender may choose the hand from which
declarer shall lead.
(c) he is the first to ask declarer if a play
from declarer’s hand constitutes a revoke, declarer must substitute a
correct card if his play was a revoke, and (penalty) unless Law 64(d)
applies, one trick is transferred to the defending side.

Contrary to the belief of many, rules are intended to keep friendly games friendly, by providing a common understanding of the game. The above are the rules for non-Tournament bridge in regards to Dummy's rights and limitations.
It sounds like Gramma is a wise old woman, who has encountered cheats in her life and wishes that her grandchildren and other relatives are never accused of such or believed to be sharp at cards. Follow her advice, and give her more credit for wisdom possibly beyond even her years.


Could the Japanese player suffer anti-aircraft losses under the Midway reduction rules? One optional feature of the game, "Midway reduction," forces Japan to conduct an air (or sea) bombardment of Midway before the transports accompanied by the Atago invade it. There is a detailed table of the damage inflicted by Japanese bombers on Midway's firepower. But the rules don't provide for Japanese aircraft losses.
Could there be a house rule providing for some such losses? One might use the air to ship tables to estimate Japanese air losses. That would still result in "disproportionate" damage to Midway but the Japanese would not go unscathed.
Put another way, did Midway historically have anti-aircraft capability to inflict "some" losses on Japanese aircraft?

Historically, Midway had both fighter defense (although mostly older fighters) and anti-aircraft, both of which inflicted some losses on the Japanese.

Midway-based Marine fighters led by Major Floyd B. Parks, which included six F4Fs and 20 F2As,[64] intercepted the Japanese and suffered heavy losses, though they managed to destroy four B5Ns, as well as a single A6M. Within the first few minutes, two F4Fs and 13 F2As were destroyed, while most of the surviving U.S. planes were damaged, with only two remaining airworthy. American anti-aircraft fire was intense and accurate, destroying three additional Japanese aircraft and damaging many more.

(Source: Wikipedia)
(And they also had bombers that did attack the Japanese fleet, and after the first attack, would still have been able to fly bombers from Hawaii to hit any ships that tried to do seaborne gun assault though I'm not aware of any way the game models that part.)


What happens if Matter Reshaper reveals a land? When Matter Reshaper dies, it lets me reveal the top card of my deck. If it is a permanent with a converted mana cost of 3 or less, I put it onto the battlefield. If not, I put it into my hand. What happens if I reveal a land card? I assume it puts it onto the battlefield, but I just want to double check.

Lands have a converted mana cost of 0, since that is equal to or less than 3 you are able to put it onto the battlefield.

  202.3a The converted mana cost of an object with no mana cost is 0, unless that object is the back face of a double-faced permanent or is a melded permanent.


Carcassonne Bazaars and other expansions after the bid When you play a Bazaar and bid though the pieces do the pieces still cause their stuff?

To be more specific, lets start with Wheel of fortune, if one of the Bazaar pieces has a Fortune mark to move the pig, does that happen when the piece came from a winning bazaar bid?  I know extra Bazaars do not cause another.

and the Builder, I put my won piece on a feature with the builder, I get another turn right?  and when does that happen, immediately?

I guess this question is looking more like "Once the bidding is done for a Bazaar does play act like each placement is a normal turn (except for any won bazaars)?  And if so what happens if on a 'second' turn another Bazaar shows up before all the others are played?  Still ignore it until all original bazaar wins have been played and play goes back to normal?

In the rules for Bridges, Castles and Bazaars you can find the following text:

  Once all tiles have been claimed, the players will each place their tile (and a follower, if they
  wish) in clockwise order from the player to the left of the active player. No follower may be
  placed on the bazaar itself.

Later on it's said that there can be no chain reactions, that there can be only one bazaar round in one turn.

However, in the Dutch rules it says (translated):

  After all land tiles have been claimed, all players execute a normal turn where, instead of drawing a land tile, they place the recently acquired land tile in clockwise order from the player to the left of the active player.

This means something else entirely. By the English rules I would assume everything happens within the same turn. By the Dutch rules, suddenly you have many different turns triggered by the Bazaar.

I checked the German rules as well, they seem to be in line with the English rules. So I'm going with those.

The rules say you can place the tile you acquired, and a follower if you wish. Followers do not include builders, pigs and the like, so strictly I don't think you should be allowed to place those. Also, building onto a road or city that has the builder on it only gives you another turn if you are the active player:

  In a yet later turn, he places a tile that extends or completes the road with his builder on it.
  After completing his turn (placing a follower and scoring), he draws and places a 2nd tile as
  normal, including a follower if he wants.

I'm not sure about the Wheel of Fortune, haven't played it.


Is there ANY way to activate a planeswalker ability at instant speed? With the vast richness of magic rules on all the cards and the comp rules, is there any way at all to activate a planeswalker ability at instant speed?

Typically, per the rules, you can only activate them once per turn as a sorcery, but are there any ways around this? Since the "golden rule" of magic is that when a card and the comp rules conflict, the card text wind, I figured there might, possibly, be a way around the restriction.

Relevant rule we are trying to dodge:

  606.3. A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent he or she controls any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of his or her turn, but only if no player has previously activated a loyalty ability of that permanent that turn.

Since the other answers have been written, a card has been released that explicitly allows activating loyalty abilities any time you could play an instant: Teferi, Temporal Archmage from Commander 2014.

He's a planeswalker with a relevant ultimate:

  −10: You get an emblem with "You may activate loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control on any player's turn any time you could cast an instant."

So if you manage to get him to 10 loyalty and activate this ability, you will be able to play loyalty abilities of planeswalkers at instant speed. It's not an exciting combo or abuse of the rules, but it can still be a lot of fun in a slow multiplayer game—exactly what the whole Commander 2014 set is all about!

As for activating loyalty abilities multiple times in a turn, that is possible with The Chain Veil.  A card first printed in 2015, long after the question was originally asked.


Ivy Lane Denizen similar effects I feel like I have seen it before but I can't find it, I'm looking for a creature that is pretty similar to Ivy Lane Denizen but in a different color. I know about Cathars' Crusade but this is for a Marchesa, the Black Rose deck so green and white won't work (just my luck). If anyone know about a card that is similar to or to the same effect as these cards that would be awesome. Also the counter needs to be able to be placed on any creature, more like Bond Beetle, instead of Elvish Vanguard.

I'm not sure if any such creature or enchantment or artifact exists but if there is that would be spectacular.

While there are plenty of cards that have similar effects, I am looking for one almost functionally identical to Cathars' Crusade. The deck has a lot of tutors in the form of transmute and Night Dealings and I realized that in order to be able to do infinite with Workhorse and Animation Module I just need a way to replenish the counters. The deck also has a lot of sac outlets due to Marchesa's ability to recur the sacrificed creatures. Being able to place even one counter on any creature would be great because it could trigger other effects as well as protect the creature I just sacrificed. Again I'm not sure if this card exists but I feel like I have seen this effect before outside of green white.

Gatherer is quite a powerful search tool if you know how to use it.

Even a good search will probably pull up lots of useless cards, but a page or two of results is easily searchable (I recommend using Visual Spoiler mode, it makes it a lot easier to quickly scroll through, in my opinion), and some of the cards that don't do quite what you're looking for may be useful anyways.

Here is my search:
Colors: Red, Black, Blue or Colorless (exclude all other colors)
Text contains: "enters the battlefield", "counter", "creature", "+1/+1"
Text does not contain: fabricate, bloodthirst, devour, evolve, modular, sunburst

I chose my search terms to closely match what you were interested in, and filtered to avoid the +1/+1 counter related mechanics that were not interesting but cropped up frequently in the results.

This resulted in 89 results.  Most of them are not particularly useful, but it does pull up the Graft creatures in blue, and Sage of Fables, Oona's Blackguard, and Olivia, Mobilized for War which are all along the lines that you were looking for, albeit more limited in scope.  It also pulls up a bunch of creatures that enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters which may be interested although not what you were looking for.

The dangers of searching this way is that you get exactly what you ask for.  This search does not, for example, pull up Mikaeus the Unhallowed, because the wording of the Undying reminder text is "When this creature dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it." This text misses the "enters the battlefield" search term I was using, and therefore a new search would be needed in order to find it.


How to build MtG duel decks out of a set of older cards? I have some older Magic: The Gathering cards:

Lands
25  Island
14  Mountain
10  Swamp

U
1   Aura Flux
1   Balloon Peddler
1   Boucing Beebles
1   Buoyancy
1   Cloud of Faeries
1   Delusions of Mediocrity
1   Diplomatic Escort
1   Disappear
1   Fatigue
1   Fledging Osprey
1   Illuminated Wings
1   King Crab
1   Misstep
1   Port Inspector
1   Prodigal Sorcerer
1   Rebuild
1   Saprazzan Raider
1   Slow Motion
1   Weatherseed Faeries
2   Capsize
2   Frantic Search
2   Mental Discipline
2   Scent of Brine
2   Thieving Magpie
3   Counterspell
3   Sigil of Sleep
3   Thornwind Faeries
4   Hermetic Study
4   Horseshoe Crab
4   Rootwater Hunter
4   Vigilant Drake
4   Zuran Spellcaster

R
2   Incinerate
2   Kaervek's Torch
2   Lightning Blast
2   Shock
4   Anaba Shaman
4   Fire Whip
4   Goblin Medics
4   Mark of Fury

B
1   Bone Shredder
1   Cateran Persuader
1   Disease Carriers
1   Ghoul's Feast
1   Insubordination
1   Maggot Therapy
1   Phyrexian Denouncer
1   Plague Beetle
1   Rampart Crawler
1   Scent of Nightshade
1   Sever Soul
1   Slinking Skirge
1   Soul Channeling
1   Specter's Wail
1   Squirming Mass
1   Twisted Experiment
1   Undertaker
1   Unearth
1   Vendetta
2   Skittering Horror

Other
1   Junk River
1   Power Matrix

Some U/R little creatures with black one-ofs something.

I am a beginner. Now I'm researching a specific way to complement this set of cards so as to build fun and accessible duel decks(2) to play with a friend. Is it a good idea to look for common cards in competition Legacy and Standard decks for inspiration for hand picking cards in this duel deckbuilding context?

What is a good strategy to complement the cards I have to make duel decks while maximizing visual and content diversity and maintaining low cost?

It appears that what you have is actually two 60 card decks already, plus a few extra cards.

Make a Blue deck and a Black/Red deck with 24 lands and 36 spells in each using your existing cards. In the B/R deck make sure to split your colors in the same ratio as your lands are divided. In both decks try to have at least 2/3 of your spells be creatures.
I didn't take a close look at your cards to see if there are any synergies or obviously good/bad cards.

Following the above guidelines should get you to a good starting point for the decks. Play them a 5-10 times and then consider if there were any cards that were either far too good (you always win when you resolve it), too bad (you never wanted to cast it), or unfun (maybe Capsize later in the game). Take those cards out and replace them with ones that are more interesting.

After you've done that for a few play sessions then you might consider actually buying cards, either by increasing the count of the cards you like best to 4 (the limit), or by finding a theme or strategy that you like and moving the deck in that direction by cutting cards that don't fit and adding some that do. Searching the internet for "mtg {cardname} combo" or "mtg {cardname} deck" will often yield results that will give you some specific cards to look at. It appears to me that perhaps you are asking how to do this step, and really the answer is that you have to play the decks to find out what you like or don't like about them- there are thousands of cards that could be added to each deck, and each one will take it in a different direction. The one person who is qualified to determine what you like or don't about your decks is you.

Once you have selected some cards that you'd like to buy, you can find them lots of places online simply by searching for "buy mtg {cardname}". Do compare prices of the cards and shipping- online stores often have wildly different prices. Retalier aggregators like TCGPlayer can be useful in this regard.


What is the current state of the art in hearts AI? Occasionally I google around looking for the latest research into hearts AI, and I never find anything. As far as I can tell the best hearts AI out there is still far below the level of an expert human.

I'm wondering if anybody knows of any recent papers or results. I'm particularly curious if a Monte Carlo Tree Search based approach combined with deep learning and reinforcement learning has been attempted.

(Please let me know if there is a more appropriate Stack Exchange community for this question.)

Update based on your comment: I gather that you are more interested in research than making a game. In that case I'll point you to a couple of papers that might be helpful. This paper talks about what makes Go a unique challenge, and the introduction has a quote (and some references) you might find useful:

  Minimax search variants are particu-
  larly effective in Chess, Checkers, Othello and Backgammon, whereas Monte-Carlo simulation has proven most successful in Scrabble and Hearts.

Regarding hearts, the reference is to this paper which is unfortunately not free but maybe you have access through an employer or university.

I hope that helps. I still recommend the programmers.SE question I linked below; there's some good discussion there about Monte-Carlo methods as they relate to card games.

State of the art? Maybe Deep Mind. It's a general purpose AI that seems to excel at a great many games. Not sure if it's been applied to hearts, but I don't see why it couldn't be.

Realistically? Maybe Monte Carlo. You can read some discussion of it here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/213870/best-techniques-for-an-ai-of-a-card-game

If you want to make a Hearts game, as opposed to an AI research topic, remember this: Games are supposed to be fun. An AI that could beat practically any human player wouldn't be fun for practically any human players. Fun AI is what Søren Johnson focused on for Civilization IV, and he has some good thoughts on it in this video. Furthermore, it's usually easier to develop an AI that's kinda smart that one that's really really smart.


What is the reason for cards stating "Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end"? There are creature cards that allow for adding extra mana during a turn, such as Savage Ventmaw and Grand Warlord Radha. They state, respectively:

  Whenever Savage Ventmaw attacks, add {R}{R}{R}{G}{G}{G}.

  Whenever one or more creatures you control attack, add that much mana in any combination of {R} and/or {G}.

This is all clear to me. These creatures add mana if a specific circumstance is met, check. But then, both cards continue with the following final sentence, which confuses me:

  Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end.

What is the added meaning of this sentence? Doesn't mana by default stay "afloat" until the end of turn, making this sentence redundant? This is how (I'm pretty sure) I've played the game so far, with more experienced players. Or am I missing something here?

Related to this question, I wonder how cards like Llanowar Elves differ from the mentioned cards above when it comes to the "ending of steps and phases", while not stating that specifically in its text.

Note that this is a question regarding the rules, not designer intent.

In the Comprehensive Rules it says (emphasis mine):

  106.4. When an effect instructs a player to add mana, that mana goes into a player’s mana pool. From there, it can be used to pay costs immediately, or it can stay in the player’s mana pool as unspent mana. Each player’s mana pool empties at the end of each step and phase, and the player is said to lose this mana. Cards with abilities that produce mana or refer to unspent mana have received errata in the Oracle™ card reference to no longer explicitly refer to the mana pool.

So normally you do not keep mana across phases. Thus, for a card like Llanowar Elves, if you use its ability to tap and produce (G), but do not use it on that step, then it will vanish and you will have tapped it for no reason.