What are good strategies for booster drafts? I know that doing a booster draft can be somewhat complicated, because to really be good you need to know a lot about the set you're drafting (or be really good at evaluating cards quickly) and to pay attention to signal cards.

Besides going into the whole complicated strategies of knowing the set and paying attention to signal cards, what are some relatively simple/basic guidelines for drafting?

Evan Erwin has an interesting article about learning to draft on Star City Games.

He uses an acronym BREAD to remember the order you should be picking.

Look for Bombs
Look for Removal
Look for Efficient spells.
Look for Aggro (1-3 mana creatures to get in the early damage)
Take the Dregs.

I'd modify his acronym and make E also stand for Evasion. It's good to find creatures with flying, or "cannot be blocked" abilities… even if it's Trample, to get through creature stalemates.

Pay attention to your mana curve. You generally don't want to end up with a deck of 4+ mana cost spells and no low mana spells or a bunch of aggro creatures with no finisher.
The 4th - 5th pick is likely the best pack to see what colours seem under-picked. If there's a card you're surprised to see still in the pack, you may want to go that way.


Precedent for creature tokens to exist in the hand without ceasing to exist? In MTGA, I used Callous Dismissal to return, to it's owner's hand, a Gemrazer that had been mutated over a Cat token (the Cat had been generated by Cubwarden). MTGA showed the token in my opponent's hand, and although they never cast it, it looked as though they could cast it for {0}.

What are the rules that allow this?

Is there a precedent for tokens existing in the hand before mutate existed?

If we were playing paper and using non-card objects to represent tokens, how would you represent it in the hand?

Does it count as a card in the hand?

A token cannot exist in your hand (or anywhere else other than the battlefield) long enough for anyone to do anything with it. It will cease to exist as a state-based action before anyone gets priority:

State-Based Actions

704.5d If a token is in a zone other than the battlefield, it ceases to exist.

Mutate does not affect this in any way. Once the mutated creature leaves the battlefield; each individual card or token is placed in the appropriate place, so you will have a token in your hand that will cease to exist.

721.3. If a merged permanent leaves the battlefield, one permanent leaves the battlefield and each of the individual components are put into the appropriate zone.

It’s possible that there’s a bug in MTGA with not handling mutate properly; but I can’t say for sure why it looked like the token was in your opponent’s hand.


What is the availability of the complete sets Wizards of the Coast is apparently selling? I recently found, what appeared to be complete sets made by Wizards of the Coast.  I had been contemplating buying a complete set of Dragons of Tarkir, with seemingly many vendors making offers, and now I find that (at least on Amazon.com) there are no vendors offering.

Are complete sets always offered?
When are complete sets offered?  Only as part of pre-release?  Or for longer?!

An example of what I'm describing can be seen in this picture

Here is a link to an ebay auction, for a "factory sealed" complete set of Khans of Tarkir:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Khans-of-Tarkir-KTK-Complete-Set-with-Mythics-MTG-Factory-Sealed-/181643375810?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a4ac9f4c2

Here is a link that may rot more slowly, pointing to all magic the gathering "complete sets" offers on EBay:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Complete-Sets-/19114/i.html

one week ago, there were at least 3 vendors providing "factory sealed" sets of Dragons of Tarkir on amazon.  Now I can't find any.

The picture, and eBay auction you link to is for a set that Wizards sends out as part of Magic Online set redemption. The way this works is if you have all of the cards in a specific set, and it is before the cutoff date for redeeming that set, you can have Wizards remove the set of cards from your MTGO account and mail you a set of physical cards. This video shows the boxes from a set redemption, and what the contents of that boxes look like. These sets are never sold by Wizards, though as this auction shows they can be resold by third parties.

Wizards of the Coast is not selling complete sets of cards. Third party vendors such as Star City Games and Channel Fireball however do. These third party vendors offer the complete sets by opening packs and putting the sets together themselves.

These vendors usually offer these products (the larger ones pretty much always do, smaller ones may or may not, it depends on if they think they can afford to or not), as for how long they offer it it depends entirely on how easy it is to keep in stock, and restock when they sell out. This means in general you can find newer sets for sale, but as you go farther back it is less likely that they will have a complete set in stock.


Master of Cruelties Spiteful Returned Combo If I enchanted Master of Cruelties with Spiteful Returned, would this create a potential one–hit combo?
If your opponent doesn't block it, then the Master of Cruelties would drop your opponent to 1, and then the Spiteful Return as an enchantment would deal 2 damage.

This would not work how you want it to. Because of the timing for the different triggers in this scenario.

There are 5 parts of the combat phase:

Beginning of Combat
Declare Attackers
Declare Blockers
Combat Damage
End of Combat

The trigger from Spiteful Returned triggers is "Whenever Spiteful Returned or enchanted creature attacks", this means that it will trigger during the Declare Attackers step. While the Master's trigger is "Whenever Master of Cruelties attacks a player and isn't blocked", this means that it will trigger during the Declare Blockers step long after the trigger from the Returned has been put on the stack and resolved.

  508.3a An ability that reads “Whenever [a creature] attacks, . . .” triggers if that creature is declared as an attacker. Similarly, “Whenever [a creature] attacks [a player or planeswalker], . . .” triggers if that creature is declared as an attacker attacking that player or planeswalker. Such abilities won’t trigger if a creature is put onto the battlefield attacking.

  508.3d An ability that reads “Whenever [a creature] attacks and isn’t blocked, . . .” triggers during the declare blockers step, not the declare attackers step.


CGoban 3 doesn't ask for saving a review! I just finished a game at GoKGS and the opponent offered me a review. When we ended, the opponent has left first, then I closed the window with the review in a good hope CGoban will ask me if I want to save it - but it didn't! The review got lost!

Is it because the other player had the control? Is CGoban asking only the player in control?

Is there any way to recover the review?

KGS has a lot of quirks, and this is one of them. The review is lost.

KGS will ask only the playing starting the review.

Also note that KGS does also not offer to save any games which were started by loading a local file. This bit me in the butt far too often...


Which city is destroyed if there are 2+ to choose from? The barbarians attack. The player with the smallest army controls 2 cities, neither of which is a metropolis. Can they choose which one gets destroyed, or is this chosen at random?

You're right, the rules only state that the player loses one of thier cities but not how to determine which city.

However, the mobile app comes in handy. I created the same conditions as you explained, and this is how they designed the game to handle the situation.

So the player decides which of their cities get pillaged.


Running out of cards with "Loss of Card" in Sequence Here are the rules of Sequence.

Loss of Card
Once you have taken your turn and placed your marker chip on the game board, you must take a card from the draw deck. If you fail to take a card before the next player makes a move AND takes his/her card, you lose the right to take a card and you must finish the game with less cards than the other players – a disadvantage.

If a player losses all cards during the course of the game via "Loss of Card", then what should that player do in his/her next turn?

P.S.: I encountered this seemingly unlikely scenario and suggested that the player should draw a card and immediately end his/her turn. The alternative would seem to have that player stop playing altogether.

I would say that you loose the game since you don't have any cards left and hence no longer are able to follow the rules.

The rules state that when it's your turn you should select a card from your hand and put it on the discard pile. It doesn't say that you are allowed to skip this and just take a card from the draw deck.

  ...each player selects a card of their choice from their hand and places it face up on a discard pile...

But I guess that a house rule allowing you to just draw a card is a good adjustment of the rules. All in favor of being able to finish playing the game.

SEQUENCE Rules


If I resurrect a previously enchanted creature, does it get its old auras back? If my enchanted creature dies, and I then bring the creature back to the battlefield does said creature come back with the same enchantment on it?

ConMan's answer is very good, but it goes explaining auras, their effects and characteristics but I think this rule is more important to explain the answer to your question.

  217.1c An object that moves from one zone to another is treated as a new object. Effects connected with its previous location will no
  longer affect it.

Answer to your question: No, it will not have any auras or equipment attached to it.

This is because every time an object moves from one zone to another, this is a new object. Whether this new zone is graveyard, battlefield, exile, library or hand.

A good and relevant example of this is a card by the name of Animate Dead with the following text:

  Enchant creature card in a graveyard When Animate Dead enters the
  battlefield, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature
  card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the
  battlefield with Animate Dead." Return enchanted creature card to the
  battlefield under your control and attach Animate Dead to it. When
  Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller
  sacrifices it.

Very convoluted text for a simple, return creature to the battlefield isn't it? The gatherer explains why:

  Animate Dead is an Aura, albeit with an unusual enchant ability. You
  target a creature card in a graveyard when you cast it. It enters the
  battlefield attached to that card. Then it returns that card to the
  battlefield, and attaches itself to the card again (since the card is
  a new object on the battlefield). Animate Dead itself never moves into
  a graveyard during this process.

As Animate Dead attaches to the creature and enters the battlefield, the creature is still theoretically in the graveyard, the effect from Animate Dead then brings the creature to the battlefield which means that as it is now a new object, Animate Dead has to attach itself to it again.


Why to use Kuikae rule in Riichi Mahjong? What is the reasoning beyond Kuikae (喰い替え) rule in riichi mahjong?

What exactly are the situations that this rule prevents?

Kuikae prevents the following:

People calling for a cheap defense against an opponent's riichi. If they have discarded a 6 and you have 789 in your hand, without kuikae, you can call the 6 to discard a 9 from an already complete run in your hand.
People scaling their hands towards tanyao/chanta by directly discarding the tile on the other end.
People scaling their hands towards sanshoku, trying to align runs like 456x, 567y, 678z by calling 7x and 5z to obtain 567x, 567y, 567z.
As well as some places (rare, but it does exist) that allow people to call and discard the exact same tile. 5+67, discard 5... or even 5+55, discard 5.

Standard penalty for breaking this rule is a dead hand, in most competitive leagues as well as in jansô environments.

EDIT: For those reading, we talk about kuikae, but in the sense the the rule is a restriction on what can legally be done (making these cases illegal moves), so an OFF setting, as opposed to an ON setting. Kind of like the kô snapback ban in go, or rules relating to repeated positions in chess/shôgi.


When can opponents react to the lifegain from the mana ability of Pristine Talisman? I have a Pristine Talisman on the board, alongside a Well of Lost Dreams. I activate the Talisman to add 1 mana and gain 1 life. Gatherer says

  01.06.2011    Pristine Talisman has a mana ability. Its ability doesn’t use the stack and can’t be responded to.

But is this true for the lifegain, too? Or can opponents react to the lifegain and e.g. destroy the Well before I can use the mana to draw a card?

605.3b An activated mana ability doesn’t go on the stack, so it can’t be targeted, countered, or otherwise responded to. Rather, it resolves immediately after it is activated. (See rule 405.6c.)
405.6c Mana abilities resolve immediately. If a mana ability both produces mana and has another effect, the mana is produced and the other effect happens immediately. If a player had priority before a mana ability was activated, that player gets priority after it resolves. (See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”)

Pristine Talisman's ability resolves immediately (including the life gain, which is part of the resolution), and triggers the Well's ability which goes on the stack. That will be the first time your opponents can do anything, and destroying the Well is too late by then; its ability will resolve even if it is destroyed (rule 112.7a).


How to handle handicap as white? I found it very difficult to handle the handicap when my opponent is given 6 or more stones. I don't really like to force something complex when I know it could be severely punished.

The right way to handle such handicaps must be to play opening moves that are very light and flexible. However, I have never found any books providing guidelines for playing white in handicap games. Are there any? Or is there any kind of general advice I should know about?

There are a few good books about handicap go.

Handicap Go is a really good one, but it's out of print.

Get Strong at Handicap Go has a lot of examples of good play by both White and Black.

Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go discusses handicap games played between two professional players of nearly the same rank. It also includes reviews of games with professionals giving stones to amateurs.

In a high-handicap game, avoid strengthening Black's stones. If Black plays correctly you won't be able to avoid this, but then you need to lower the handicap.  You need to keep your groups light, and think about sacrificing often.  Many times you can convince Black to capture a few unimportant stones in gote.  As long as you keep from making Black too solid, you should be able to exploit shape problems later in the game, and in the endgame you should be able to pick up 20 points or so.  Also, never resign.  You never know when Black will give you a gift :)


Power strength too important in Through the Ages In Through the Ages, there are some optional rules to prevent power is too important, e.g. by not ganging up on the weakest player.

However, still a lot of event cards affect the weakest and strongest player. So if one player is the weakest, he wants to increase his strength, but then another player will be the weakest, who increases his strength, so it is a neverending story.

Do I miss something here or should I use a different strategy?

Indeed military power is important (as in the real world).  Indeed the weakest nation suffer from Aggression/War and several events.  However having the most military power is not the safest way to win a game with 3/4 players.  Most often the best players keep their military strength somewhere in between, so they can stand an Aggression/War attacks and will not lose to events but not waste all their resources on military.  Note that two player game is much more about military strength since each point you steal from your opponent is 2 points swing.

If you don't like this arm race there are few ways to reduce it:

4 players games - more players means military strength is less important.
Peaceful variant - no War and Aggression cards - just a culture race.
Through the Ages: A new Story of Civilization - the new edition decrease the dominance of some military cards, most known is Napoleon which decrease from a 3-action-pick to a situational nice leader.

Experts can handle low Military: they have ways to neglect the negative affects of low military, so that they can focus on engine building and "change gears" when time seems right.
Examples: seeing but not seeding most of the 5 events that involve military at age I, or timely seeding Iconoclasm that can remove Napoleon on the right time.  Having a effective tactic card in hand + enough resources ready for countering a War.


How does PlayDominion´s rating system work? Does anyone know how the rating system on PlayDominion.com works?  I am familiar with the chess rating system, which is quite, but this is not the one used.

It's the Microsoft TrueSkill rating system, with some changes to how the value is displayed (mainly to stop the displayed value becoming negative, or going down after you win a game). It was reverse engineered back in April 2014.


When can cards/power ups be played in King of Tokyo (and Power Up! expansion)? I think these is how the cards can be used:

Keep cards can be played only during your turn.
Discard cards are to be played immediately.
Permanent power ups can be played only during your turn.
Temporary power ups can be played at any time.
All cards/power ups can be played in the turn you bought/acquired
them (unless stated otherwise).

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!

The King of Tokyo rules only define two types of cards, Keep and Discard. (Page 2). There is no such thing as Temporary or Permanent cards. Many cards seem to represent power ups of the Monsters, but this isn't a game term.

Card Description
How to play the card is indicated above the description of the effect.
KEEP: Monsters keep these cards for the remainder of the game (sometimes the card will indicate it is discarded under certain circumstances.)
DISCARD: Monsters immediately resolve these then discard them.

As the Card Description indicates, the cards themselves will indicate when they can be played, with the exception of DISCARD cards that are played immediately after being purchased. Unless a card notes otherwise, you may play it and gain its effects immediately.
Permanent/Temporary Evolution cards can be played at any time, barring a timing restriction printed on the card. From the expansion rules (page 2)

Evolutions - Monsters keep their evolutions secret until they want to play them – which can be at any time. There are two kind of Evolutions:
Temporary Evolution: They are discarded after being played.
Permanent Evolution: They stay in play like a Keep card from the base game.


Odds of this happening in euchre Last night in euchre, 4 times in a row around the table we all turned up the Jack of spades. All good shufflers and we had 2 splits and 2 no splits. I know there are many variances in determining the odds of a given situation in a euchre game, but, is there anyone whiz out there that can break it down? What are the odds of 4 different dealers flipping up the same card consecutively?

Assuming a Euchre deck with 24 cards (9, 10, J, Q, K, A of each suit, no joker) and perfect shuffling, the chance that the 21st card in the deck (the card that gets turned up) is a particular card is 1/24. Thus, if you play 4 deals, there is a (1/24)^4 = 1/331776 = 0.0003% that all four deals will turn up the Jack of Spades.
There's much higher chance of all four deals turning up the same card: (1/24)^3  = 1/13824 = 0.007%. That's because there's a 100% chance that the first deal turns up some card, and each subsequent deal has a 1/24 chance of turning up the same card as the previous deal.
If you play N deals over the course of the night, the probability that at some point all four deals turn over the same card consecutively is (N - 4) * (1/24)^3 (the sequence can start on any but the last 3 deals, and the probability of the sequence is (1/24)^3). This works out to about 0.1% if you play 20 hands and 0.7% if you play 100.


When a spell targeting a creature with heroic gets countered, does heroic still trigger? Tethmos High Priest has the heroic ability:

  Whenever you cast a spell that targets Tethmos, return target creature card with converted mana cost 2 or less from graveyard to battlefield.

Suppose Divine Favor is cast, targeting Tethmos. It is countered by Negate.

The last sentence of 601.2c is:

  Any abilities that trigger when those players, objects, and/or zones
  become the target of a spell trigger at this point; they'll wait to be
  put on the stack until the spell has finished being cast.

My interpretation of 601.2c is that Divine favor starts one stack, and when that stack gets resolved, another stack is processed that starts with the Tethmos heroic ability being triggered.

So in this specific case where only one instant is cast (negate), Divine Favor gets negated and has no effect. However, the heroic ability does get triggered.

Is this interpretation correct?

Is it the case in general that heroic abilities do trigger even when the enchantment is countered?

You are correct that the Heroic ability does trigger and successfully resolve, but your understanding about how and why it does is a little off.
Fist of all, there is only one Stack. The Stack is a game zone just like the Battlefield or Exile, it is always there even if there are no abilities or spells in it.
So what happens when you cast Divine Favor is you finish casting it targeting Tethmos High Priest and put it on the Stack. Then before either you or your opponent have a chance to do anything the priest's Heroic ability triggers and goes on the Stack. When you put the Heroic ability on the Stack you chose the target you want to return to the Battlefield. Once the ability is on the Stack and you pass priority your opponent has the opportunity to cast Negate, so the Stack now looks like this:

(top)

Negate (targeting Divine Favor)
Heroic ability (targeting something in the Graveyard)
Divine Favor (targeting the High Priest)

(bottom)

When the Negate resolves it will counter the Divine Favor, but as you can see the Heroic ability is already on the Stack, so it doesn't care that the reason it triggered isn't there anymore, it will still happily resolve.
This is a generic case for all Heroic abilities, they only care that they were targeted by a spell, what happens to the spell after that doesn't matter.


Is it possible to get a stalemate in Checkers? Possible Duplicate:
  What is the term for a stalemate in Checkers?

I was going to post this in StackOverflow, when I realized it really has nothing to do with programming. If it has a better home, please say so, so I can move it there.

I am making a basic Checkers game, and was setting up the game manager when I got to the method that gracefully ends the game. It would have taken in a boolean value, true signifying that player 1 has won, false signifying that player 2 has won. However, I realized that, in most games, there is the possibility of a stalemate, so I changed it to a byte, where x < 0 is player 1, x == 0 is a stalemate, and x > 0 is player 2. After that, i started contemplating whether Checkers can even have a stalemate. It seems like it's possible, but for the life of me, I can't come up with a scenario where the game ends and neither player wins. Is there any scenario, in the game of English Draughts (North American Checkers), where neither player wins the game, yet the game ends? Note that a forfeit on one player's part means that the other player wins.

If you do not force capture then it's very possible, trivial even, to have a stalemate.

Even without though:

From wikipedia:

English draughts (American 8×8 checkers) has been the arena for several notable advances in game artificial intelligence. In the 1950s, Arthur Samuel created one of the first board game-playing programs of any kind. More recently, in 2007 scientists at the University of Alberta[13] evolved their "Chinook" program up to the point where it is unbeatable. A brute force approach that took hundreds of computers working nearly 2 decades was used to solve the game,[14] showing that a game of draughts will always end in a stalemate if neither player makes a mistake.[15][16] The solution is for the draughts variation called go-as-you-please (GAYP) checkers and not for the variation called three-move restriction checkers. As of December 2007, this makes English draughts the most complex game ever solved.


Four stones is an enormous handicap on a 9x9 board. With perfect play by Black, White probably can't make a living group. If you're taking four stones, you presumably aren't going to play perfectly. The main thing to do here is stay out of trouble. Connecting below 5 is a nice solid move. Playing to capture the two stones is fine, too. As long as you keep one of the upper corners alive after that, there's no way for White to win. White has to play very unreasonable moves in a situation like this, so thinking too much about them won't teach you much.


Contract Bridge: Revoke first noted by dummy Declarer is awarded bid for 3 hearts.  Opponents double and declarer redoubles. He is not vulnerable and makes seven tricks. However, dummy looks at one of the defender's hands and during play and calls a revoke.  Should play have stopped at that time and the hand thrown in because of the dummy not following the guidelines of Rule 43.  Instead declarer and dummy invoke a two trick penalty on us and claim they made the redoubled bid.  How do I score that hand?   Help, someone, please

Citations in this answer are to the 2017 Laws of Duplicate Bridge).The Laws  of Rubber Bridge are very similar.
Relevant Laws
LAW 9 (PROCEDURE FOLLOWING AN IRREGULARITY) A 4 (page 13) says:

Dummy may not call attention to an irregularity until play of the hand is concluded
(This corresponds to law 13 for Rubber Bridge)

Under Law 43 (Dummy's limitations) (page 49 of the law booklet), Law 43 A (1)(b) and 1(c) says:

(b) Dummy may not call attention to an irregularity during play.
(c) Dummy must not participate in the play, nor may he communicate anything about the
play to declarer.

Law 43 A 2 and A 3 say:

2.(a) Dummy may not exchange hands with declarer.
(b) Dummy may not leave his seat to watch declarer’s play of the hand.
(c) Dummy may not look at the face of a card in either defender’s hand.

A defender may not show dummy his hand

Law 43 B 3 says:

If dummy after his violation of the limitations listed in A2 is the first to draw attention to a offender's irregularity, there is no immediate rectification. Play continues as though no irregularity had occurred. At the end of play
if the defending side has gained through its irregularity the Director adjusts only its score, taking away that advantage. The declaring side retains the score achieved at the table.

(This corresponds to law 43 for Rubber Bridge)
Law 63 A (page 70) msays
(This corresponds to law 43 for Rubber Bridge)

A revoke becomes established:

when the offender or his partner leads or plays to the following trick (any such play, legal or illegal, establishes the revoke).
when the offender or his partner names or otherwise designates a card to be played to the following trick.
when a member of the offending side makes a claim or concession of tricks orally or by facing his hand or in any other way.
when agreement is established (as per Law 69A) to an opponent’s claim or concession;

Law 64 (PROCEDURE AFTER ESTABLISHMENT OF A REVOKE) C (1) (page 72) says:

When, after any established revoke, including those not subject to trick adjustment, the Director deems that the non-o‘ending side is insufficiently compensated by this Law for the damage caused, he shall assign an adjusted score.

(This corresponds to law 64 for Rubber Bridge)
Analysis
It is not explicitly said in the question that the revoke was established. If it was not it should have been corrected and play should have proceeded.
If the revoke was established and dummy called attention to it during play, there should not have been an automatic two-trick adjustment, Instead, play should have continued. After play was complete, the damage done by the revoke, if any, should have been assessed, by the Director in a duplicate game, by the Arbiter in a club rubber game or any game that has an Arbiter, or by the players in any Rubber game without an Arbiter. The damage done by the revoke should have been restored. That is, if the revoke led to the offenders taking one trick more than they otherwise would have, the non-offenders would be awarded a one-trick adjustment, or whatever number of tricks difference the revoke caused. If there is honest doubt as to hoe much damage was done, it should be resolved against the offenders.In a duplicate game under Law 43 B 3 there would probably be different scored assigned to the two sides by the Director.
If the dummy called attention to the revoke after play was complete, the normal two trick adjustment should have been made. However, if the damage was more than two tricks, the adjustment should restore all damage, to result in the same score that would have been achieved if the revoke had not occurred.
In no case should the had be thrown in because of a revoke, or because of dummy calling attention to a revoke.
In a duplicate game the Director would, if there was doubt, and if feasible, conduct a poll of players of similar skill level to help determine the amount of damage.
In an informal friendly game, dummy might kibitz (watch) declarer's play, although this would violate law 43 A 2 in a duplicate or club rubber game. But even in a friendly game it is a bad idea fro dummy to be looking at the cards still in the hand of either defender, and if dummy does watch declarer, s/he should be particularly careful not to make any comment on the play, or call attention to any error or irregularity until play is complete.
Without the hands and the play up to the point of the revoke, I cannot independently asses the damage done by the revoke.
Background
I am a qualified ACBL club director who ran a small bridge club for a number of years, prior to 2010.


How often do you have to move the outbreak marker in a chain reaction? So if an outbreak occurs, I do move the outbreak marker one forward. If this triggers a chain reaction in one city, I move it forward once more. But what happens if I have several chain reactions? Would I have to move the outbreak marker up to 8 times? The rule book is a bit ambiguous about this.

You move it once per outbreak, chain reaction or otherwise.

The rules don't seem ambiguous to me:

  When a chain reaction outbreak occurs, first move the outbreaks marker
  forward 1 space. Then, place cubes as above, except do not add a cube to
  cities that have already had an outbreak (or a chain reaction outbreak) as
  part of resolving the current Infection card.

You have to do all of this - moving the outbreak marker, and placing cubes - for each city that has a chain reaction outbreak.

Also, it says "when a chain reaction outbreak occurs" - as in, one outbreak. If it meant you only moved the marker one step even when there are many chain reaction outbreaks, it would presumably say "one or more" or otherwise clarify.


Does casting a Partner commander add a the +2 mana cost to your other commander as well? Since some commanders have the ability Partner, letting you have more than one commander at a time, and to recast a commander, you need to pay 2 mana for each time you recast them, does the +2 mana cost count towards both commanders if one leaves or does it just count towards the one that left the field?

Each Commander will keep track of its own extra 2 mana separately.

  702.123d Except for determining the color identity of your commander, the two commanders function independently. When casting a commander with partner, ignore how many times your other commander has been cast. When determining whether a player has been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander, consider damage from each of your two commanders separately.


Can Jenny Barnes' enable someone to use acquire assets a second time? Can Jenny Barnes' use her ability to allow herself or another investigator to use acquire assets if the target investigator has already performed it? Typically you cannot perform the same action twice in one round, but would this special ability that induces an acquire assets action count as performing acquire assets twice? If so, one would think the same holds for disallowing a player to move spaces after they have moved before, counting it as a "travel".

No. This is similar to Charlie Kane's special action. The investigator must not already have performed the same action during the current round.

From the official errata:

  Can an investigator’s “additional” action be used to perform an
  action he has already performed in that round?

  No. An investigator may perform an action only once
  each round, even if he is able to perform an additional action,
  such as from the Ruby of R’lyeh Artifact or Charlie Kane’s
  action ability.

There is no reason to suppose that Jenny's ability overrules this limitation.

For reference, here is the actual text of Jenny's special:

  Action: You or another investigator on a City space may perform an Acquire Assets action and gain +2 Influence during that action.

However, if Jenny uses her special action to allow another investigator to perform an acquire asset action (and gaining the +2 bonus to influence), she can, herself, still perform the acquire asset action normally (no +2 influence bonus).


Can you use the Abort Switch option after seeing the other players' cards for that register? Do I need to declare I am using the abort switch card before we flip for the current register, or can I call to use it after seeing everyone's cards for that register? The description implies the latter.

  Once each turn, you may replace one of the Program cards you reveal with the top card from the deck. If you do, you must replace the Program cards for all your remaining registers the same way that turn.

It's not 100% clear, but I'd say yes, you can see the other players' cards.

The rules explicitly say that everyone reveals their cards at the same time, so if you reveal a card, everyone else's are visible too. (I'd probably try to avoid spending much time looking around at everyone else's moves and figuring out conveyor belts and so on, though!)


What is the deck and name of this card that gives extra food? I remember seeing a card once, but I cannot remember which deck it belongs to, or whether it was a minor improvement or occupation. I am also having trouble finding it on google. The text was similar to:

"When you use a minor or major improvement to convert building resources into food, you receive two extra food"

Thoughts?

There is a website that lists out all of the cards and effects here.

The card you are asking about is the Artisan:

  At most once per harvest, when you use an improvement to convert a building resource to food, you receive 2 additional food.

You can search through that list for things like "2 additional food" to find similar cards.


What happens when a player pays more than what they owe for rent? A player lands on your property and owes you $16. They hand you a $100 bill and ask you to pay them back $84.

Are you obligated to exchange their money to the banker for smaller denominations in order to pay them back?

Yes, you must give them the correct change.

This is not an issue of a specific rule, but rather just one of how "paying things" in general works, both in games and real life. If you owe someone $16, a valid way to pay that $16 is to give them $100 and ask for $84 back. If the person doesn't have $84 to give you in change; then the two of you work out how to get that change from the bank... there's no difference between you making change and giving the other person exactly $16, or the other person making change with your $100 and returning $84 to you.

In case a rules quote does help:

  PAYING RENT… When you land on property owned by another
  player, the owner collects rent from you in accordance with the list
  printed on its Title Deed card.

The key being that they can only collect the amount printed on the Title Deed card. They aren't allowed to collect any extra.


What happens when all your cards (the whole deck) are in play? I am particularly fond of going through my entire deck each turn. However while I like to do this, are there any actual rules for handling cases like "You just played a smithy, but there are only two cards in your deck which aren't either in play or in your hand"?

The rule is always that you do as much as you can of the card, in order.

So, if you play a Smithy, you would draw those two cards.

A case that is more illustrative of how the process works is Lookout. Lookout reads: "+1 Action, Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash one of them. Discard one of them. Put the other one on top of your deck." If you only had two cards remaining in your deck, you would do as much of the card as you can, in order:

+1 Action; no problem.
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. You only have two, so that's what you do.
Trash one of them. You can do this, so you must trash one of those two cards.
Discard one of them. You can also do this, so you must do it.
Put the other one on top of your deck. You can't do this because there is no other one, since you only had two to start with. So, you skip this step.


Should every Fatty still come with two Walkers? In Zombicide, whenever a Fatty is spawned, it comes with two Walkers as an "escort".

However, I couldn't pinpoint this rule in the Zombicide Black Plague manual. Is that still the case?

For further clarification, my question arose from a passage from the translated manual that came in my box. In the official english rulebook, on the end of page 24, there is the following excerpt:

  The Fatty joins one group of Walkers, and a second Fatty is added to the other group.

In the pr-BR translated version, published by Galápago Jogos, however, the same paragraph is phrased in the following form:

  O Balofo se junta a um dos grupos de Lerdos, e um segundo
  Balofo é adicionado ao outro grupo (esse novo Balofo não vem com
  Lerdos extras).

Which roughly translates to (emphasis mine):

  The Fatty joins one group of Walkers, and a second Fatty is added to the other group (this new Fatty does not come with extra Walkers).

Which implies on regular spawns it does come accompanied. But this is certainly a silly translation error, that always happens with pr-BR things. I should've checked the original manual first.

While explicitly pointed out in the Zombicide rulebook and extra attention called to the additional Walkers, there is no such note in the Black Plague rulebook.

Since no rule requires it, and these are distinct games with separate rulesets, you do not add the two Walkers escort.


Does Takenoko work as a 2 player game? I am wondering how well Takenoko plays with 2 players. What is the main problems only playing with 2, if any?

As far as the rules go the only difference is that the end of the game is triggered by one person completing 9 objective cards as opposed to 7 and 8 with 3 or 4 players respectively.

Takenoko works great as a 2 player game, there isn't much difference between the player counts. In fact, the game might be slightly less random with less people, but luck still plays a large role either way.


If a blocking creature leaves the battlefield, is the attacker still blocked, or will it damage the opponent? Suppose Player 1 has a Dragon on the table and Unsummon in hand, while Player 2 has two Spiders on the table.

Player 1 chooses to attack with the Dragon and Player 2 chooses to block with one of the Spiders.  Before combat damage is to be dealt, Player 1 uses Unsummon on the blocking Spider.

Does Player 2 take any life damage from the attacking Dragon?

No

The player takes no damage as the Dragon remains blocked. From the Comprehensive Rules for the Declare Blockers step:

  509.1h An attacking creature with one or more creatures declared as blockers for it becomes a blocked creature; one with no creatures declared as blockers for it becomes an unblocked creature. This remains unchanged until the creature is removed from combat, an effect says that it becomes blocked or unblocked, or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first. A creature remains blocked even if all the creatures blocking it are removed from combat.

An Exception is, when the attacking creature has trample. See the Comprehensive Rules for Keyword Abilities:

  702.19c If an attacking creature with trample is blocked, but there are no creatures blocking it when damage is assigned, all its damage
  is assigned to the player or planeswalker it's attacking.


Whisper tie phantom example For the "whisper" pilot of the tie phantom in x-wing, can someone please give an example of how the pilot ability works?

Whisper's pilot ability is

After you perform an attack that hits, you may assign 1 focus token to
your ship.

As per usual combat follows the following ten steps from the FAQ (as of Dec 2016):

Declare target.
Roll your attack dice. (First using any abilities that modify the number of dice)
Modify the attack dice. (Defender always modifies the attack dice first)
Roll the Defence dice.
Modify the Defence dice. (Attacker always modifies the defence dice first)
Compare results.

The rules for step 6 include the following text

During this step, players compare their dice results
to determine whether the defender was hit.
To determine whether the defender was hit, compare
the number of hits and critical hits and evades in the common
area. For each evade result, cancel (remove) one hit or critical hit
result from the attack roll. All hit results must be
canceled before any critical hit results may be canceled.
If there is at least one uncanceled hit or critical hit result
remaining, the defender is considered hit (see page
13). If all hit and critical hit result are canceled, the attack
misses and the defender does not suffer any damage.

At this point, if there are uncanceled hits or critical hits, then Whisper gains a focus token.
If the attack is a miss, and is also the first attack from a secondary weapon with the ability "Perform this attack twice", then the second attack would occur now.

Deal damage.

If the attack isn't a miss and is also the first attack from a secondary weapon with the ability "Perform this attack twice", then the second attack would occur now.

Use any abilities that occur "after attacking", or "after defending". The player with initiative uses theirs first.
Use any abilities that occur "after attacking", or "after defending" that trigger an extra attack. The player with initiative uses theirs first.
Remove any destroyed ships, accounting for the simultaneous attack rule (ships destroyed by another ship with the same pilot skill, still get their turn to attack).

After all ships have had an opportunity to attack, you move on to the end phase, when all focus and evade tokens are removed.
Example:
Whisper with Veteran Instincts, Gunner and Advanced Cloak attacks at PS 9, before Tycho Celchu at PS 8.
Whisper has an evade token, from having taken evade as it's action during the activation phase. Tycho Celchu also took the evade action.

Whisper declares it's target as Tycho Celchu; Tycho is within Whisper's arc and at range 2.

Whisper rolls 4 dice, and gets Miss, Eye, Hit & Critical Hit.

No modifications to the attack dice are taken.

Tycho rolls 3 Defence dice, and gets Blank, Eye & Evade.

Tycho uses his evade token to add one evade to his defence dice.

We compare the total of two evades from the on the defence dice and evade token with the hit and critical hit symbols on the attack dice. Regular hits must be canceled before critical hits, but as all hits are canceled this doesn't matter.
All of Whisper's attack dice are canceled. The attack was a miss.

All dice were canceled and no damage is dealt.

Advanced Cloaking device triggers, giving Whisper the option to take a free cloak action, which Whisper doesn't take as it would prevent the second attack.
Whisper's pilot ability doesn't trigger, as the criteria wasn't met (this attack was a miss).

Gunner triggers, giving Whisper a second attack. That attack occurs now.

Whisper's second attack

We declare Tycho as the target again - still at Range 2.

Whisper rolls 4 attack dice and gets Miss, Hit, Hit & Critical Hit.

No modifications to the attack dice are taken.

Tycho rolls 3 defence dice and gets Blank, Evade & Evade.

No modifications to the defence dice are taken (Tycho no longer has his evade token).

Comparing the evades with the hits, we cancel the two regular hits on Whisper's dice, resulting in one Critical Hit symbol remaining.
The attack was a hit as there is at least one uncanceled hit or critical hit.

Tycho takes one critical hit, which either removes one shield or if he has no remaining shield tokens deals him a face up damage card.

Advanced Cloaking device triggers again, giving Whisper the option to take a free cloak action; the option is taken this time.
Similarly Whisper's Pilot ability triggers as this is a hit, and Whisper gains a focus token.

Gunner cannot trigger, both because this is a hit, and because it has already triggered.

We now check to see if any ships have been destroyed and remove them (unless they also had the same pilot skill and lower initiative than Whisper).

Whisper's turn to attack is now over, leaving Whisper with an evade token, a focus token and it's cloak active.
We proceed to any other ship's turn to attack in order of descending PS, with ties partially broken by Initiative as per usual.
If it had been Jake with Veteran Instincts instead of Tycho in the example (who would then have had the same PS as Whisper) but Whisper had initiative then even if Whisper had killed Jake, Jake would still get an attack, but Whisper would have his focus token and Cloaking device up. If Jake had initiative, then Jake would have attacked first before Whisper could activate his focus token and cloaking device, though Whisper would still have it's evade token.
N.B. This exact set up with Whisper is partly chosen here to highlight some interactions with the rules (such as 'hit' interacting with gunner), and also because this particular set up on Whisper has been a popular and successful set up in tournaments - at least prior to the nerf to cloaking - and could thus be considered a fairly likely situation (although I have no idea as to the presence or absence of Tycho or Jake in tournament lists).


Can I Wish for a card outside my Commander's colors? I have been told that Wishes work differently in Commander than in normal casual Free-For-All (FFA) mtg. Do the comprehensive rules cover how wishes work in Commander? Do the rules for wishes differ from normal FFA multiplayer?

Wishes are non-functional in Commander, unless your group specifically allows them and defines where they work.

The comp rules define the basics of the format but mostly point you to mtgcommander.net for the up-to-date official definition. Per mtgcommander.net,

  Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma'ruf) do not function in Commander without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup.

Basically the Rules Committee's reasoning was that using wishes in their original, casual-play way (searching your entire collection) wastes too much time in play1. So they used to restrict you to searching your sideboard, which is how wishes work in competitive MTG. However, Commander's sideboards are "optional" and Sheldon has generally come out against them, so the default is that wish cards don't work at all.

Sideboards still have to follow all the normal deck-construction limitations, like in any other format; for Commander, this means you can't have break the one-of restriction or violate color identity just because a card is in the sideboard. Thus, if you group agrees to play with wishboards, you'll still be limited to your commander's color identity.

(Note also that the official sideboard size is 10 cards, not 15 like 60-card constructed.)

1 – Which is also why Shahrazad was finally banned after some time as the only Vintage-banned card legal in Commander.


What errata or house rules help balance occasionally-broken scenarios? Many of the haunt scenarios can be exceptionally unbalanced depending on precisely where all the players are standing (particularly the revealer and/or traitor) when the haunt is revealed. When my group was playing this game on a regular basis we simply opted to never play certain haunts (that list has since been lost). Are there any better solutions? Perhaps a large list of errata or special cases that fix some or all of these sorts of problems?

That's pretty much how the game is designed. It is a catch-22; sure, it's completely "random" and new every time, but that also means it's impossible to predict and balance accordingly.

Something me and my friends do when these "broken" haunts happen is tweak the conditions around a bit. An example would be haunts that require exorcisms: If we are all high sanity/knowledge characters, we may add 1 or 2 to the number of successes needed, or subtract them if we are dumb/insane. It helps to create an even playing field at the start of the haunt, but still leaves opportunity for game-changers as the game goes on.


Is there an easy way I can tell if a MTG card is "rare" just by looking at it? I don't always have an internet connection to research the rarity of a MTG card.  Is there an obvious indication of rarity on MTG cards themselves (other than foil)?  Some sort of insignia? Or a class of creatures that is almost always rare?

Yes, cards have a rarity indicator (at least in recent years). Each Magic card has an icon below and to the right of the picture called the expansion symbol, which indicates the expansion set that the card is from. The icon's color indicates the rarity of the card, with the following key:

Black: Common
Silver: Uncommon
Gold: Rare
Red: Mythic Rare

To get an idea of the relative rarity of these cards, we can look at a booster pack. Recent booster packs each contain about 11 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare, with about a 1 in 8 chance of the rare being replaced with a mythic rare.

A couple of things to remember: very old cards, like from Alpha and Beta, don't have expansion symbols at all. Other old (but not as old) cards have expansion symbols, but they're all black. And some cards have been printed in different sets, and have different rarities in those sets, so the icon on the card may not match the rarity in the most current set.


Paper thickness (weight) to use for card tabs/dividers? I'm planning on building a custom storage solution for my Dominion cards (to fit the expansions in the main box with the base set).  For part of this, I will need to cut some tabs similar to the ones in this photo.  What weight of paper should I look for?  I assume the thicker the better, but if the best a store has is, say, 60# paper, should I hold out for something better at another place?  Are there other issues to consider with this?

The main consideration in my experience (many, many Magic cards) is that the thickness/weight of the paper doesn't matter as much as the stiffness and the smoothness of it.  you'll want something that slides out easily, so the cards can be retrieved without losing the divider in the box.  The stiffness is important because anything too flexible will tend to fray the tab portion.  Since dominion is a standard card size, I'd highly suggest plastic dividers, which can be obtained for as little as $0.10 each at various stores.


Can Veil of Summer force an opponent to target their own creatures with Swift End when Lucky Clover is on the battlefield? Let's say my opponent has Lucky Clover in play. This card has the text:

  Whenever you cast an Adventure instant or sorcery spell, copy it. You may choose new targets for the copy.

Opponent targets my creature with Swift End (which is the adventure side of Murderous Rider). Here's my picture of what happens:

Opponent casts Swift End having chosen a target.
Lucky Clover triggers.
In response to the Lucky Clover trigger, I cast Veil of Summer.
Veil resolves, which draws me a card and turns all my permanents hexproof.
Lucky Clover trigger finishes resolving. Now there's another Swift End on the stack, and opponent has to choose their own creature/planeswalker, since all my permanents are hexproof.
Opponent's creature dies, opponent takes 2 damage (from Swift End's effect), the original Swift End is countered, and the Murderous Rider ends up in the graveyard.

Is this correct? I vaguely remember this not working out when I tried it on Arena, but I don't remember the precise sequence. If this is correct, it's possible I mistakenly let the Lucky Clover trigger resolve first, after which I won't be able to force my opponent to kill their own creature anymore.

Lucky Clover's trigger is not optional, your opponent has to copy Swift End. But they don't have to choose new targets, even if the original target has become invalid by the time they copy it.

  115.7d If an effect allows a player to “choose new targets” for a spell or ability, the player may leave any number of the targets unchanged, even if those targets would be illegal. If the player chooses to change some or all of the targets, the new targets must be legal and must not cause any unchanged targets to become illegal.

If they don't choose new targets, the copy will not resolve (because its only target is illegal) and they won't lose 2 life from it.


Can the same ability be triggered multiple times? Can abilities be triggered multiple times as long as the cost is paid?  The Physical Training asset card has a free triggered ability that says

  Spend 1 resource: You get +1 Willpower for this skill test

Does this mean I can spend 3 resource to get +3 willpower?

Can I assume that as long as abilities don't say "once per ___" that I can figure they can be used as long as the cost can be paid right then and there?

Yes, that ability is a "free triggered ability" (RRG, page 3) and may be triggered in any player ability window as many times as you would like, so long as you can pay the cost (in this case, 1 resource).

One aside is to note that it says "You get...", so you cannot use talent cards such as these to buff other investigators.


The charged unit dies before combat What happens if I charge an enemy unit and it dies before the first close combat after the charge? Suppose they die from my magic phase. Do they get any additional movement or anything?

No, they do not get any additional movement.

What happens is the unit is not engaged in a combat, so it does nothing in the close combat phase.

I assume you are thiking of the Overrun rule? Where if you wipe out a unit in close combat on the turn you charge you get to move another 2D6" forward afterwards.

The rules for Overrun (8th Edition Rulebook, pg 58) specify that a unit only gets an Overrun if "all it's enemies have been wiped out as a result of the combat". So if the opposing unit was wiped out before the close combat phase began, they would get no Overrun move.


What are Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger's abilities counted as? I have Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and my fried has Viper's kiss:

  Enchanted creature gets -1/-1, and its activated abilities can't be activated.

When Ulamog attcks is that an activated ability or or is it a creature spell that can be countered?

It is neither. It is a triggered ability:

  603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger condition or event], [effect].”

Ulamog has two triggered abilities — one for when he's cast, and one for when he attacks — and indestructible, a keyword ability.

Viper's Kiss has no effect on any of these abilities. It will give Ulamog -1/-1 making it a 9/9, but Ulamog will still exile cards.

Spells are only ever cards (or copies of cards) that are on the stack. Abilities never count as spells.

Activated abilities also have a specific formatting you can recognise them by:

  602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]”

An example of activated abilities is found on Elvish Mystic: note the presence of a cost (tap Elvish Mystic), colon :, and effect (add green mana). An activated ability has all three of these; an ability without these is not an activated ability.


What is forcing after opening a minor and partner bids a major, and I jump to 2NT? I open 1D, partner bids 1S, I bid 2NT, opponents have remained silent - partner bids 3D?  Is that forcing?

This is very system dependent. See this article for example for a long discussion of various options.
Standard, everything other than pass or a game jump is forcing. Remember you have 19 and partner has 5-6 at least usually, so you’re probably in a game.  I would at least play Gerber here (so 4C is not natural) but 3 level bids are forcing and usually natural, other than 3NT of course which is to play.
The most common conventions I see here are to play various puppet options - basically every bid by responder transfers to the next higher suit at the 3 level (3c-3D-3h transfer to 3D-3h-3s), and either that is the weakest option (responder passes the transfer) or the stronger (if responder bids on).  Jump to game is middle. But it really depends on your tolerance for various systems -  it can get very complex, as is appropriate for a circumstance where you could have anywhere from a part score to slam, and one partner knows which.
The question is why you’d want 3D to be nonforcing.  Responder is totally 100% in charge in the auction at that point, so it’s not a question of forcing or not - it’s responder either tells you to bid again or tells you to pass.  You could make 3 level bids sign off, but that takes up a lot of space; you’d rather not if you can avoid it.  That’s why you use puppet bids there - it lets responder double dip and have both signoff and exploration bids both available for the same bidding space.


Can a creature with protection from all colors be targetted with a damage spell when it is still on the stack? A friend of mine casts a card that has protection from all colors.

I know that I can counter it, but can I simply kill it by dealing damage to it while it is on the stack?

NO, you cannot.
From the comprehensive rules:

302. Creatures
302.1. A player who has priority may cast a creature card from his or her hand during a main phase of his or her turn when the stack is empty. Casting a creature as a spell uses the stack. (See rule 601, "Casting Spells.")
302.2. When a creature spell resolves, its controller puts it onto the battlefield under his or her control.

Only when the spell resolves is the creature actually on the battlefield. You can counter it, because while on the stack that creature isn't actually a "creature" but a "creature spell".

114.2. Only permanents are legal targets for spells and abilities, unless a spell or ability (a) specifies that it can target an object in another zone or a player, (b) targets an object that can't exist on the battlefield, such as a spell or ability, or (c) targets a zone.

You can only damage a creature when it is already on the battlefield. Because that creature has protection from all colors, you cannot target it or deal damage to it with colored spells.


How likely am I to have a key card in my starting hand in Brawl? I'm playing the Brawl format (a 60-card singleton format), and I really want one specific card in my starting hand.

I'm willing to take two mulligans (leaving me with a starting hand of 5 cards after putting 2 on the bottom of my library).

What are the odds of drawing the card in my opening hand within 2 mulligans?

The first mulligan is free in Brawl[CR 903.11g], so it's 3 mulligans leaves you with 5 cards. I shall reply accordingly.

After removing the Commander, 59 cards remain in the deck. 58 of those aren't the card.

The probability that the 1st card drawn isn't the card is 58/59.
The probability that the 2nd card drawn also isn't the card is 57/58.
The probability that the 3rd card drawn also isn't the card is 56/57.
etc.

So the probability that you don't have the card in your opening hand
= (58/59)*(57/58)*(56/57)*(55/56)*(54/55)*(53/54)*(52/53)
= (58*57*56*55*54*53*52)/(59*58*57*56*55*54*53)
= 52/59

Since you draw seven card from a freshly shuffled deck when taking a mulligan, the probably of not getting the card in a mulligan is the same as for the initial hand.

So the probability that you don't have the card after up to three mulligans
= (52/59)^4
= 60%

The probability that you do have the the card after up to three mulligans
= 1 - 60%
= 40%

Probabilities are easy to get wrong, so I like to verify through experimentation.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use List::Util qw( shuffle );

use constant NUM_TRIALS => 10_000;

my @deck = ( 1, (0)x58 );
my $successes = 0;
for (1..NUM_TRIALS) {
   for (7,7,6,5) {
      if ( grep { $_ } ( shuffle(@deck) )[0..6] ) {
         ++$successes;
         last;
      }
   }
}

printf("%.0f%%\n", $successes/NUM_TRIALS * 100);

Output:

$ ./a
40%

$ ./a
40%

$ ./a
39%

The current rules for mulligans:

  103.4. Each player draws a number of cards equal to their starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a player’s starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with their initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether they will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles the cards in their hand back into their library, draws a new hand of cards equal to their starting hand size, then puts a number of those cards equal to the number of times that player has taken a mulligan on the bottom of their library in any order. Once a player chooses not to take a mulligan, the remaining cards become that player’s opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. A player can take mulligans until their opening hand would be zero cards, after which they may not take further mulligans.

  903.11g In any Brawl game, the first mulligan a player takes doesn’t count toward the number of cards that player will put on the bottom of their library or the number of mulligans that player may take. Subsequent mulligans are counted toward these numbers as normal.

(Emphasis mine.)


Why would you not move pawn two spaces during first move in chess? My Question:

It seems like you'd want to make it across the board faster to take control of the board, so...
Why would you not move your pawn TWO spaces (instead of one) during your first moves in chess?

My Assumptions:

I'm a TOTAL rookie at chess (and I suck), but it's my understanding that these are valid reasons for moving your pawn two spaces:

to gain/maintain control of as much of the board as possible
because the player controlling the middle four spaces typically has the upper hand
white may have an advantage because they move first, which indicates advancing space on the board early-on is advantageous

Sometimes, center board control is not immediately the goal of a particular openings's strategy.  I'm referring specifically to two types, Larsen's Opening and regular Fianchetto openings.

Here, white is advancing each pawn only one square, 1.b3 or 1.g3.

As wikipedia states:

  The fianchetto is a staple of many "hypermodern" openings, whose
  philosophy is to delay direct occupation of the center with the plan
  of undermining and destroying the opponent's central outpost.

And regarding tactics:

  One of the major benefits of the fianchetto is that it often allows
  the fianchettoed bishop to become more active. Because the bishop is
  placed on a long diagonal (either h1-a8 or a1-h8), it controls a lot
  of squares and can become a powerful offensive weapon.

Regarding "regular" Fianchetto(vs long Fianchetto): Advancing the pawn two squares would deny it the protection from the rook's pawn and bishop's pawn.  Fianchetto would be a great  search term for finding openings making use of single-square pawn advancement.


What is the correct way to shuffle? What is the correct way in terms of damage to the card/have a deck well shuffled for competitive tournaments, since you can make piles; I personally consider that the best way, just one for the game.

The best way to shuffle a deck is to use multiple different methods of shuffling one after another. As the rules state pile shuffling can't be used except at the start of the game that is perhaps the best way to start your shuffle. After that the Overhand Shuffle, sliding a few cards at a time from one hand to the other so that the cards in each group stay in the same order but the group order is changed, effectively several small cuts. A Riffle Shuffle, taking two halves of the deck, bending them in the middle and letting them fall a card or two at a time onto eachother, does the best for reordering the deck, but since it involves bending the cards it also does damage to them over time, some people won't use this method because of it, and it should never be done to another person's cards for that reason. A similar effect to a riffle shuffle is the Weave or Faro Shuffle (not to be confused with mana weaving), where two halves of the deck are held with a little space between the edges of the cards for the other half's cards to slide into, this is easier with sleeves because the sleeves will create that space between the edges of the sleeves themselves. Washing the cards also does a pretty good job of randomizing, though it looks ridiculous and takes time to spread all the cards out face down and move them around randomly with your hands.

It's all a balance of the level of damage you're willing to accept to your cards, and the level of randomness needed. I will riffle my pauper deck but not my $1000+ EDH.


If you give Ochran Assassin trample, does it destroy all creatures my opponent controls? If I give an Ochran Assassin trample and attack with it, does it destroy all of the opposing creatures, which are forced to block it?

No, trample has no effect on how an attacking creature deals damage to defending creatures.
With or without trample, an attacking Ochran Assassin can destroy any number of blocking creatures, up to its power. So if the Assassin has 3 power, it can destroy up to 3 creatures. This is because Deathtouch only has an effect if at least 1 damage is dealt, and any amount of damage with Deathtouch is lethal. So the Assassin can assign its total damage as power, split into one per blocking creature, and each creature it deals damage to that way is destroyed.
The only effect trample has is to allow you to assign excess damage that is not needed to destroy any creatures to the defending player. For example, if the Assassin has 5 power and the defending player only controls 3 creatures that can block, the Assassin can damage and kill all 3 creatures and also deal 2 damage to the defending player. But if the Assassin only has 1 power, it can still only destroy 1 creature.


Do defeated keeps increase the hand size for allies? Defeated keeps increase the hand size by 1 for each keep owned when you end your turn adjacent or in a keep. Does it also increase the hand size for allies in the coop games?

If not, is there some coop situation where an ally's hand size is increased? I feel like I've read a ruling on this but can't find any documentation.

Yes. Each ally's hand limit is increased by the number of keeps they themselves own.

The general rules for drawing cards only refer to your own keeps, since cooperative rules are ignored in the general section. However, on Page 13, under Team Rules, the rulebook states:

  When in or adjacent to an allied keep, his
  Hand limit is increased, but only for the keeps he owns himself.
  That means, if close to an allied keep but he has no keeps of his
  own, his Hand limit is not modified.

Don't forget that a city hand limit bonus does not stack with this bonus, you simply get whichever is better. This also applies to your allies.


Are all events one-shot? I finally bought Betrayal in Baldur's Gate and gathered with some friends to play it. Before the haunt, we stumbled with a couple of event cards that seemed to suggest that a Monster should be placed on the board. But we weren't sure.

For example some cards, such as the Shambling Form, clearly have a resolution for the "monster" (it explodes).

But some other aren't as clear. The Zhentarim Opportunist is one such case. The event clearly mentions an opponent/monster but we don't know what happens with that monster.

Are all events one-shot actions (unless specified otherwise)?

I'm inclined to believe that the text in vent cards is mostly fluff/flavor. And the fact that a "monster" is indicated is just for ambience. That way, the Zhentarim is understood to have left/fled right after the event is revolved (regardless of the result from the attack).

All events are one shot and the "Monster" in the card is mainly flavor text to make it fit into the game more without just being a random mechanic.

Think of it this way, if the card removed the text would it take away from the game for you?

  You man discard this card and an item. If you do not the player to the right rolls a might attack of 4 against you defend with might as normal. If you take damage from this attack take the top 3 cards from the event deck and shuffle this back in.

In general event cards will inform you when they impact the game board in a long term fashion by instructing you to place tokens on the board.


How does Terrarion work? I am a bit confused of the artifact card Terrarion. Does this card allow me to gain 2 mana of any color forever when I tap 2 mana, tap Terrarion, and sacrifice it? Or do I only gain that mana for that turn?

What Terrarion basically does, is repaint the color of mana. If you have two blue mana, but need a red and a green one, you can activate Terrarion's ability.

Let's look at that ability: The cost to activate it are on the left side of the :, and he effects on the right. The costs are: pay 2 mana, tap Terrarion and sacrifice it.

The mana may be of any color, or even colorless
Why bother tapping it if we're going to sacrifice it anyway? Terrarion comes into play tapped, and once it's tapped you can't tap it again. So, in the first turn you can't activate this ability.
Sactifice it. This one's obvious. Note that Terrarion has a leaves the battlefield triggered ability, so you get to draw a card.

As for the effect: You can choose to add 2 mana of any color (though not colorless - Terrarion requires us to choose from the Colors of Magic: Red, Green, White, Black or Blue). They can be two different colors, or 2 mana of the same color, as per Gatherer:

  You can get either two mana of the same color or one mana each of different colors.

But didn't we just pay two mana. Yes, we've paid 2 mana of color XY, and gained 2 mana of color WZ. You have effectively repainted 2 mana to better suit your purposes.


Use of Jokers in Poker What versions of poker allow Jokers to be included in the deck?
Are they treated as wildcards / how are they scored?

To date I've only played with a 52 card deck (i.e. where jokers would only be used to replace a specific lost card to make up an incomplete deck).

I don't think you'll find jokers used in live poker (against other humans) in a casino. However, there are many variations of poker played in home games that use jokers and/or other wild cards. In home games, the rules are quite varied because usually the person suggesting the game (dealer's choice) gets to make whatever rules they'd like. Typically though, the Joker is treated as a wild card which you can assign any value you wish. Scoring (hand ranking) is done identically to without wild cards, except that now 5 of a kind is possible, and that is the best hand. (5 deuces beats a royal flush, and 5 Aces is the best possible hand.)

This page lists some home poker games that use jokers.


Sacrificing Spine of Ish Sah? Spine of Ish Sah's rulings appear to say it can't be sacrificed:

  Spine of Ish Sah’s last ability doesn’t allow you to sacrifice it. You
  must find another way to get Spine of Ish Sah into the graveyard.

Does that mean it can't be sacrificed to Breya, Etherium Shaper or
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn?

No, that's not how that ruling is supposed to be read. Though I admit they worded it poorly.

The card can be sacrificed like any other, what the ruling means is you cannot sacrifice because of the second ability, just because you want it back in hand, but you can sacrifice it to anything that would allow you to sacrifice an artefact. Doing so will cause the second ability to trigger.

The second ability doesn't allow you to sacrifice it, it doesn't give you a way to do that by itself, but it doesn't prevent you from sacrificing it either.


Can I use Bad Toys on other people's babies? In the rules for Evil Baby Orphanage, it says for Bad Toys that "you may discard the toy from your Orphanage to cause any Evil Baby to take it's Unsupervised Actions during your Activity Step." Does this mean that I can discard a Bad Toy to make another Time-Nanny's Evil Baby do their Unsupervised Action during my Activity Step? The people I play with have assumed up until this point that you could only do this to your own Evil Babies, but in rereading the rules, this isn't actually clear. In fact, the word "any" seems to indicate that this can be done to other Evil Babies. The ability to cause other Evil Babies to do their Unsupervised Actions seems like a very powerful ability and would drastically change the flow of a game.

Edit:

We discovered that we initially thought it only applied to your own baby because the player cards are worded differently than the instructions. They read: "you may discard the toy from your Orphanage to cause an Evil Baby to take it's Unsupervised Actions during your Activity Step." This was the original cause of our assumption; this doesn't seem to indicate that you could target other Time-Nanny's Evil Babies.

I finally took the time to ask directly on the Wyrd Games forums and someone from Wyrd responded:

  Yes, you may discard a bad toy to make any baby in play (including your opponent's babies) take unsupervised actions.

So the answer is yes, bad toys can be used to activate an opponent's Evil Baby's Unsupervised Action on your own Activity Step.


Discarding Damage Cards vs Discarding Upgrade Cards Does discarding an upgrade card in X-Wing miniatures behave differently from discarding a damage card?  The motivation for this question are two abilities: Chewbacca (crew) and Tomax Bren.  Chewbacca has the ability:

  When you are dealt a Damage card, you may immediately discard that
  card and recover 1 shield.

  Then, discard this Upgrade card.

There is the FAQ ruling on Chewbacca:

  If a ship equipped with Chewbacca is about to suffer its last damage
  before it would be destroyed, Chewbacca may be used to prevent that
  one damage and recover a shield.

Based on this, it appears that discarding a card means removing it from your ship.  Additionally, the core rules say:

  Some abilities may require the player to discard an  Upgrade card.
  Return discarded Upgrade cards to  the game box; they cannot be used
  for the remainder of the game.

However, then there is Tomax Bren's ability:

  Once per round, after you discard an Elite Upgrade card, flip that
  card faceup.

If discarding an upgrade card caused it to be removed from your ship, turning it face up wouldn't do anything.  It would be face up in the supply area, rather than something you can use again.

It seems pretty clear to me that Tomax Bren's ability is meant to be something along the lines of:

  Once per round, when you would discard an Elite Upgrade card, instead do not discard it.

Why does he not say this and how (given the rules on discarding cards) does his ability work?

The X-Wing rules reference overrides the Core Rulebook with the following:

  When an Upgrade card is discarded, it is flipped  facedown. The card
  is out of play for all purposes  except when determining the total
  squad point  cost of the ship to which it was equipped. If an  Upgrade
  card is flipped faceup by a game effect,  it returns to play equipped
  to the same ship.

So yes, discarding a damage card does behave differently from discarding an upgrade card.  In part, this is because facedown damage cards already have significant game meaning, where facedown upgrade cards do not.  Some critical damage cards have ways of turning themselves facedown, which is different from discarding them since they remain a damage but no longer have any special effect.


What game did these black and yellow dice come from? I found these in Australia: A set of six six-sided dice, black with yellow markings. The dice are identical. The sides are the numerals 1, 2, and 3; an unfilled pip and a filled pip; and a weird tentacle thing. (From different angles the tentacle thing looks like a witch's hat or a pitcher plant.) There's a certain gothic flair to the forms of the numerals: The "1" doesn't have a flat bottom, for example.

These are third-hand dice, so it's hard to say whether they're separated from other game pieces or somehow constitute an entire game on their own.

Well, that was an obscure one.

As seen in the below image, these dice are from the 2006-07 Collectable Miniatures game Dreamblade. As far as I can tell, the game was extremely popular in a very small niche, and without the miniatures themselves I don't think the dice have any particular intrinsic value. They look pretty neat, though.


In bridge, are the two "equal vulnerabilities" basically equal? To me, "equal vulnerability" means both sides vulnerable or both not.

In sacrificing against a major suit game, "down two" means -500 when vulnerable versus -300 when not. This compares against opposing games (plus bonuses) of 620 and 420 respectively. In either case, you are saving 120 points.

But if you go down one (undoubled) against a part score, it's -50 not vulnerable, and -100 vulnerable. Counting a part score bonus of 50, either result represents a savings against a part score of 60+50=110. But down one vulnerable represents a loss against a part score of 40 (plus the 50 bonus for 90).

So the two "equal vulnerabilities" are "equal" against a game but not against all part scores. Is this a large enough factor to bid differently when both vulnerable than both not? This question is probably more applicable at matchpoints and perhaps IMPS than rubber.

The equal vulnerability is only talked about at game level or higher. I haven't heard it being used for partscore battles, where it does not make too much sense, as you say.

Playing matchpoints, in partscore battles, the deciding factor is whether you are vulnerable or not.

-100 (down 1 double, non vul) might lead to a great score, but -200 (down 1 doubled, vul) is usually a poor score at matchpoints.


Bang! - Eliminating an outlaw with backfire The outlaw has only one life and bangs the sheriff. The Sheriff plays a 'backfire' card, eliminating the outlaw from the game.

Does the sheriff receive the 3 cards since the player was not eliminated with a bang card?

It seems that the Backfire card is part of the Valley of Shadows expansion...?

If that is correct, then this product description geeklist from boardgamegeek, states that the outlaw is now the target of a Bang! and thus eliminated by a Bang!

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/205880/item/4492671#item4492671

(And this question seems to have a duplicate : Bang! Elimination Award For Henry Block and Backfire
They seems to have been created almost simultaneously )


Is it practical for the visually-impaired to play in casinos? When I play games (causally) that involve face-up cards across a table (hold 'em, blackjack, etc), I usually have to either ask that the cards be placed closer to the center (toward me), particualrly at larger tables, in order to see them.  I can imagine that this would be an imposition, and perhaps even barred, in a casino setting.  And I imagine that even if I could ask that cards be announced when dealt (I don't know if that's possible), that I wouldn't be able to take notes to record them so I'd have to memorize the table every hand.

Are those impressions correct?  If so, what affordances are available to visually-impaired players?  Or is this just one of those cases of "sorry, don't try to do that"?

(I ask this question out of curiosity, not out of an impending desire to jump into casinos, for which I'm not good enough.)

If you play table games like blackjack, I don't think you'd have any trouble (although since only a card counter would want to know other people's cards, don't expect any help there. ;)).

In Hold-'em poker, some seats are definitely better than others; the cards generally go right in front of the dealer, so if you can get the seat directly in front of the dealer you'd probably be fine, and you might be able to make do with the seats on either side of the dealer depending on how small the tables are. I suspect that in the worst case you could tell the floor that you can only play in the center seat, and see how well they can accommodate you. If the room's even halfway decent they'll try to take care of you.


Can Gearseeker Serpent's cost be reduced below two mana if exiled by Gonti, Lord of Luxury? I see in the wizards rules explanation for Gearseeker Serpent that it says the cost cannot be reduced below {U}{U}. However, isn't this considered an alternative cost (because of Gonti, Lord of Luxury) and with any mana allowed to cast it, can now be reduced below two if I have more than 5 artifacts in play?

Could you help me understand how this works out?

The Serpent will cost at least {2} to cast
The effect of Gonti does not make anything an alternative cost. An example of a card that grants alternative costs would be Fist of Suns.

117.9. Some spells have alternative costs. An alternative cost is a cost listed in a spell’s text, or applied to it from another effect, that its controller may pay rather than paying the spell’s mana cost. Alternative costs are usually phrased, “You may [action] rather than pay [this object’s] mana cost,” or “You may cast [this object] without paying its mana cost.” Note that some alternative costs are listed in keywords; see rule 702.

All Gonti does is that it allows you to pay the non-generic part of the card's mana cost with any type of mana.

117.7a Effects that reduce a cost by an amount of generic mana affect only the generic mana component of that cost. They can’t affect the colored or colorless mana components of that cost.

Therefore, the Serpent's ability (which is equivalent to "Affinity for artifacts") reduces the amount of mana you have to pay for it to {U}{U}, and Gonti makes it so you can pay {2} instead. The mana cost of the Serpent remains {5}{U}{U}, and can never change, because it's a characteristic of the card. Gonti does not change the mana symbols on the card it exiled, only how you may pay for them.
The steps involved in casting a spell that are relevant here are cost reduction, followed by paying the cost:

601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If multiple cost reductions apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can’t be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.
601.2h The player pays the total cost in any order. Partial payments are not allowed. Unpayable costs can’t be paid.

601.2h is where Gonti's ability takes effect, whereas the Serpent's ability affects 601.2f


Is there a way to play Munchkin Quest with 5 people without the expansion? Given that there are 2 extra colors on the color die, and you can buy the pawns separately, is there a way to play Munchkin Quest without the expansion?

I realize there are no stands for the monsters, but would any of the rules be affected?

There is a rulesheet for expansion here.
I took a glance on it, there are some special expansion-specific things, but I found nothing concerning gameplay changes, so I suppose you can buy (or make your own) munchkins and stands for the monsters of the appropriate colours and enjoy the game :-)
I can't recall any rule prohibiting it, and, as rules usually say, "Like we could stop you" ;-)


Is declining to win to burn time on the clock punishable? Continuation of Is refusing to concede in the face of an unstoppable Nexus combo punishable?

Alice's board: Jace, the Mind Sculptor @ 5 loyalty, Counterbalance, 8 lands, bunch of counterspells in hand, Brainstorm in hand, Entreat the Angels on top of her deck

Bob's board: 3 lands

Bob is so locked out that he's effectively dead, but he refuses to concede, because Alice hasn't "won" yet. Per the linked question, he's allowed to do this. Meanwhile, Alice refuses to win: she can win quickly whenever she wishes to simply by casting Entreat the Angels for the miracle cost, but is continuously placing Entreat the Angels back on top of her deck with Jace's Brainstorm ability instead of casting it. It's not a hard lock like in the linked question, but if Alice ever feels threatened she'll cast Brainstorm at the end of Bob's turn, miracle the Entreat the Angels, and win.

It's game 1 and from Alice's point of view the best result is to wait until there's 2 minutes left on the clock, then miracle Entreat the Angels - she cannot lose the match then.

Is her behavior punishable? If the answer to this hinges on the fact that Entreat being on top of Alice's deck is not known to Bob, what if Bob already knew Alice had drawn Entreat earlier (e.g. via Thoughtseize), or perhaps even Alice had already made 6 Angel tokens, she's just passing the turn without attacking?

I would say that this is not in violation of any rules. By taking more turns than necessary, Alice is giving Bob additional chances to draw outs to this situation, so it is not unambiguously to Alice's advantage to draw this out. And Alice is drawing two cards per turn, so Alice only has 15 to 20 turns before she either decks out or plays Entreat and wins. If each player plays at a reasonable pace and takes few actions each turn, they could probably finish with more than that much time on the clock. If Alice slows down her pace of play to make the game last longer, then it becomes a clear case of slow play, and probably stalling.

In addition, each player has a fast way to resolve this situation if they believe it is not to their advantage. If Bob believes he would be better off if Alice won quickly, he can always concede. And if Alice believes she would be better off winning quickly, she can do so as described in the question.

Furthermore, there are perfectly valid strategic reasons to play slowly like Alice is doing here. For example, she may suspect that Bob has a Dovin's Veto in hand, and be trying to find a different spell to draw it out without risking the Entreat.


Do you look at the bottom card when you draw an owl as the first card in a gathering? For the IELLO game Little Red Riding Hood, any time you start a new gathering and flip the owl card as the starting card, do you get to look at the bottom card of the deck?

The rules state that you do the special actions (owl, riding hood) when you choose to gather and flip the corresponding card versus choosing to stop gathering. In the beginning section before this player choice the rules state to start the gathering by flipping the first card and placing path tokens according to the number of flowers (with no mention of the special action cards). A strict reading of the rules would mean we don't do the owl action. Thoughts?

No, you don't do any special actions. You only do what the rules tell you to, which is to add tokens based on the number of flowers. From this version of the rules (IELLO's own link was broken):

The rules are ordered quite clearly. At the beginning of the game:

  In order to start, the youngest player flips over the first card of the Path card deck (and adds to it as many face-down Gathering tokens as there are flowers on the card). This will be the first card for Gathering. Then, this player takes the first turn of the game as explained below.

The final step for the "Stop Gathering" choice is:

  Reveal the first Path card from the deck in order to start the next player Gathering anew (add whatever Gathering tokens should be added). Now it is time for the player to your left to take her turn.

The rules for the special cards (Little Red Riding Hood and the owl) only come up within the "Continue Gathering" choice (and only if the number on the card is high enough), so you only follow them when you draw the card as a result of choosing the "Continue Gathering" action.

If cards resolved as normal at this time then you'd immediately lose your turn before you started with a wolf card, due to it having the number 0!


Love letter handmaiden card play Playing with my 10 year old niece.  She ropes me into it without much info.  I read about 2 player game and 3 cards up and she insists the old love letter game was different and wanted to throw away the rule book in rage. I think she simply never learned all the rules. Most rage-inducing was the hand maiden card. I interpreted the rules as saying that she must target herself in a 2 player game when I had handmaiden out. Reading the above just confuses me more. Do I need to read the rulebook? How does handmaiden work if she must play princess or guard?

In Love Letter, can you discard a card instead of playing it?

You are correct: where appropriate you must target yourself if all other players in the game are affected by a Handmaid card, although the effect of this is not as intrusive as you would think.

The rulebook (pages 19-20) expands upon the Handmaid card, specifically stating:

  If all players other than the player whose turn it is are protected by Susannah, the player must choose him- or herself if possible.

However the rulebook also expands upon each other card in the deck (pages 15-23), and states that the only card that will (must) affect yourself in this case is the Prince:

  If all other players are protected by the Handmaid, you must choose yourself.

The rest of the cards either do not target other players, or are specifically expanded upon to say they have no effect.


Clarification on How Basri, Devoted Paladin Works I wonder how abilities on Basri, Devoted Paladin from MtG Core Set 2021 work.

Regarding the -1 ability -- am I right that every creature that attacks this turn gets +1/+1 counter?
Regarding the -6 ability -- am I right that +2/+2 is there until end of turn?

Yes to both, but that could use a little more clarification.

−1: Whenever a creature attacks this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

This means whenever a creature is declared as an attacker this turn, you put a +1/+1 counter on it. This means creatures put into play tapped and attacking won't get these counters, such as the tokens made by Leonin Warleader.
The effect also applies to every creature, not just yours. If you are playing a format like 2 headed giant, this applies to your partner's creatures as well. If you control Teferi, Master of Time or have Teferi, Temporal Archmage's emblem and use it on your opponent's turn, you will put counters on their creatures.

−6: Creatures you control get +2/+2 and gain flying until end of turn.

This one is exactly as you understood it, both the +2/+2 and the flying ability are connected to the "end of turn" part of the ability. If it had intended for the +2/+2 to be permanent it would likely have been written "−6: Put 2 +1/+1 counters on each creature you control. Those creatures gain flying until end of turn." This only applies to creatures that are in play when the ability is activated, anything played after will not get the effect, such as the tapped and attacking tokens from Leonin Warleader.


Getting priority after putting a spell on the stack I have a two questions connected with priority and stack:

It's my turn, during the combat phase, after the declaring blockers step. Blockers are declared. At the Combat Damage step, I get priority and I pass. My opponent gets priority and decides to put a spell on the stack. Can I respond to him, adding my spell to the stack?
And generally, do I always get a chance to respond after spell is put on a stack, independently from the situation?
Can I hold priority during opponent's turn?
By hold i mean for example when my opponent in his turn cast an instant, i decide to respond, and now basically he would get priority again, and my question is can i hold it by telling that i hold and cast second instant after first one. I know that there is possibility to do it.

Yes, you can always respond when another player casts a spell or activates an ability. Steps or phases where players get priority only end if all players have passed priority in succession and the stack is empty. You will also get priority on opponents' turns.
The active player is the player whose turn it is.

116.3. Which player has priority is determined by the following rules:
116.3a The active player receives priority at the beginning of most steps and phases, after any turn-based actions (such as drawing a card during the draw step; see rule 703) have been dealt with and abilities that trigger at the beginning of that phase or step have been put on the stack. No player receives priority during the untap step. Players usually don’t get priority during the cleanup step (see rule 514.3).
116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
116.3c If a player has priority when they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action, that player receives priority afterward.
116.3d If a player has priority and chooses not to take any actions, that player passes. If any mana is in that player’s mana pool, they announce what mana is there. Then the next player in turn order receives priority.
116.4. If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or step ends.


When you take a trick, you *take* a trick I played a hand of Hearts with someone who had not played cards in a while. When she took her first trick, she started to put the cards in her hand before remembering to put them down.  That gave me an idea.

Suppose, when you win a trick, the winning card goes out but the others go into your hand.  The goal is perhaps to be either the first or the last to run out of cards.

Is this an existing mechanism?

You've described something similar to Top Trumps and its many different versions.

When a player wins a trick however they add it to their deck rather than hand but the principle is similar to what you have described.


What are the limitations on pillaging and battling a region? How many times we can pillage or battle each region without using the Tyr's Challenge card ("As your action, you may pay 2 rage to repillage an already pillage")?
Is there a limitation?

The rules for Blood Rage describe the phases of play, in particular with page 17:

  To Pillage, choose a province that has at least one of your figures in it (or in a supporting fjord) and has not yet been successfully pillaged this phase (its Pillage token is showing the reward side up).

Ipso facto, each province may be pillaged repeatedly until a pillage is successful, and then it cannot be pillaged again.


Can I deal damage to the opponent’s health after I kill their creature trying to block my attack? I’m a new player to Magic the Gathering and I was confused about this particular situation. Can I deal damage to my opponent’s health after I kill their creature trying to block me? For example, I have a creature on the field that has 5/5 and the opponent has a creature on the field with 3/3. I declare attack but the opponent decided to let the 3/3 creature block my 5/5 creature. I kill the 3/3 creature because I have more toughness. Do I deal 5 more damage to my opponent’s health?

No, if an attacking creature is blocked, then it can only deal damage to the creature(s) that are blocking it. (Unless the attacking creature has trample.)

After attackers and blockers are declared, all attacking and creatures deal damage. Your 5/5 will deal 5 damage, and if it being blocked by a creature, then it must deal all 5 damage or that creature. So you will deal 5 damage to your opponent's 3/3, and at the same time your 5/5 will take 3 damage from the blocker. Then the 3/3 will die because it has more damage than toughness.

If your 5/5 had trample, then you could have assigned 3 damage to the blocker and the other 2 to your opponent; killing the blocker and dealing 2 damage to your opponent.

Also, you say “I kill the 3/3 creature because I have more toughness” but this is incorrect. You kill the 3/3 because your attacker has 5 power, which is more than the 3 toughness that the blocker has.

From the basic rules:

  Once all blockers have been chosen, each creature—both attackers and blockers—simultaneously deals damage equal to its power (the number on the left side of the slash in the lower right corner of the card).

    An attacking creature that isn’t blocked deals damage to the player it’s attacking.

    An attacking creature that is blocked deals damage to the creature or creatures that are blocking it, and vice versa.