Am I allowed to take measurements before declaring an attack? During a Full-Thrust game, am I allowed by the rules to take measurements and check fire arcs before declaring an attack?

The rules don't specifically state this.

In the example on page 4 of the rule book it notes that you declare targets before rolling dice and specifically points to an example where multiple ships are in an arc and this rule is used to prevent players from determining new targets based on the effects of shots. Since it says nothing about range and arc calculations nor about choosing targets and then not be able to retarget if they are actually our of arc or range it would imply validity for arc and range are determined before declaring the attack.


Good set of cards for teaching beginners We have 1 or 2 new people who are interested in joining our lunch Dominion games where I work.

We'd like to teach them about the various rules unique to each of these sets: Base, Intrigue, Seaside, and Prosperity.

Can anyone recommend a card set that will teach all the important game rules?

Note: We've stopped using Alchemy's potions in our games and instead replace a card's potion cost with a 3-coin cost.

I would not recommend any one card set to teach all the important rules from each expansion.  That may be too much.

For brand new beginners, I recommend the "Big Money" set from the first game.  I use this before the one recommended by the base set rules ("First Play"?) because it teaches the trade off between money and actions.  First Play is really a preview of all the different card abilities, which may give the erroneous impression that the game is all about actions.

Otherwise, I'd play random sets (with some drafting) from the combined sets and teach the rules as they come up.


Can the robot play duplicate developments in solo-play? The base set rules state a player may have only one of any given development in their tableau yet the solo rules don't say anything about what happens when the robot attempts to play a development it already has in its tableau.

Can the robot play a development when it has previously placed the same development previously in its tableau?

As an example: Investment Credits.

Yes it can.

1) The robot treats the tableau as an abstracted stack, and ignores the abilities of cards it places. From the rules (PDF here):

  The robot's tableau is a stack of cards, without any goods, where only the number of cards and their VPs matter.

What matters is the robot's economic development, which is independent of what the cards do. There are therefore no in-game consequences to placing a card twice.

2) The description of how the robot searches for developments provides no specific way to handle duplicates.

  Develop action: draw 1 card and then flip to find a development.

  ...

  Flip to find: means to flip over cards one at a time from the robot's draw stack, discarding all non-matching cards, until either the desired type of card is found or the robot's draw stack is exhausted.

Note that "non-matching" here refers to the card type (e.g. discard non-development cards), not duplicates. Race for the Galaxy's rules are famous for both their terseness, and their exhaustive completeness. If it's not defined, it doesn't happen.

3) Although not definitive, the question has also been asked several times at BoardGameGeek, with the same consensus (e.g. 1, 2).


Can you use a clue that contains a word on the board within it in an unrelated way in Codenames? In Codenames, can you give a clue when the series of letters of one of the tiles on the table is contained within it?

For example, can you give the clue "barrier" when "bar" is on the table? Or "bandolier" and "band"?

To be clear, I'm not asking about cases where the words are clearly etymologically linked. Like "fire" and "firefighter" or "link" and "linkage". The confusion arises in cases where the words aren't clearly related, but one still entirely contains the other in an unrelated way.

Yes, you can.

While certain questions like this will be up to each play group to decide; this one is actually directly addressed in the rules.

At the bottom of page 6:

  England and island were originally compound words, but in this century, island is a valid clue for
  ENGLAND. Even land is a valid clue for ENGLAND. And anybody who says you can't say sparrow when
  ROW is on the table is just trying to cause trouble.


Prevent combat damages dealt with trample If a creature with trample attacks me and I block with a creature on which damages are prevented, will I receive extra damage over my creature toughness?

Examples: Undergrowth Champion, Wall of Shadows

Yes, the attacking player only has to assign enough damage to the blocking creature for the attack to be lethal, that means damage equal to all the blocking creature's toughness, whether the creatures actually die from combat damage is not strictly necessary. There may be a myriad of ways in which damage may be prevented, but that does not change how the damage is assigned.

  702.19b. The controller of an attacking creature with trample first assigns damage to the creature(s) blocking it. Once all those blocking
  creatures are assigned lethal damage, any remaining damage is assigned
  as its controller chooses among those blocking creatures and the
  player or planeswalker the creature is attacking. When checking for
  assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the
  creature and damage from other creatures that's being assigned during
  the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that
  might change the amount of damage that's actually dealt. The attacking
  creature's controller need not assign lethal damage to all those
  blocking creatures but in that case can't assign any damage to the
  player or planeswalker it's attacking.


Does Monopoly Follow Standard Auction Procedures? I am playing a game of Monopoly. One player lands on a property, but chooses not to buy it. I bid first. Another player bids for a higher amount. The rules state that the banker immediately gives the property to the highest bidder. Can I say a higher bid right now even though I've already bidded?
 There was nothing in the rulebook about it. Thanks!

If you can't bid more than once in an auction, then you would want to go last. But everyone can't do this.

The standard auction procedure is to sell to the highest bidder. So if someone tops your bid, you have the right to top their bid. Until one person runs out of money, or otherwise gives up bidding. Then the bank is supposed to give the property to the highest final bidder. This is in the interest of the seller, because they get the highest possible price.

If, however, you are using a "one bid" rule, then it should be a secret bid. Everyone writes down their bid on a piece of paper and exposes it simultaneously, so that no one has an advantage by knowing what others bid and reacting to it.


Name of a board game about American politics I can't remember the name of this board game I played many years ago. It was about American politics, the players voted on someone to become President, which lasted one round.
You could pursue different agendas like business, religion, environment, etc. When an event card was turned over, if it had the same agendas you were invested in, you got cash. The board had 4 spaces, Wall Street, Main Street, White House, and ?Campaign Trail?. In each round, the whole table visited each location.
You could spend the cash to buy new agenda cards or give it to other players to buy their votes.
President candidates could vie for votes by promising to pursue other players' agendas when they are in office, but were under no obligation to keep their promises.
That's all I can remember.
[Edit] I think the title was a pun about money in politics

Sounds like Corporate America.  Electing the prez, hoping the "correct" investment cards come up, 4 locations (i.e., draw decks) on the board. played it once at a con and I'm surprised the name stuck with me.  Corporations buying political favor certainly fits your recollected theme of "american politics" anyways


Is Codenames meant to played in American English, British English, Australian English, or any of them? I'm playing Codenames online in an iOS app called Codewords, but I do not know the demographics of the game in general. When someone gave me the clue "rob", I picked "nick" because in informal British, nick means "steal" or "prisoner", and it was wrong. I am not British; I'm American, but I assumed the game was meant to be played by all demographics. Unlike playing in real life where you should play it based on where you live like if you live in America, you should just stick to American definitions, this is online, so I was wondering if the game was intended for a certain type of English or it could be any.

Codenames was designed by Vlaada Chvatil, a Czech game designer, and in its original form was published by Czech games edition. So in that sense, the answer is none of the above.

More generally, the best clues in Codenames are the ones that will lead your team to guess the right words, which means you should assume that you are playing in whatever version makes sense for the players. This can include consideration of things like pop culture references (will your team understand that "Mine" is a clue for "Seagull" because if Finding Nemo?), but also deeper cultural associations.

If your team is all from the US, you should feel safe using American English as the baseline for your clues. If you don't know whether your fellow players speak American, Australian, British, Singaporean, Canadian, whatever English, then you have to use clues that are (to your knowledge) as common across them all and hope for the best.


What is a good way to make Water Effects in Terrain? I am working on some Terrain for Warmachine, and I am interested in making some water effects.  What is a good way to go about doing that?

I am planning on using Foam Core as the base of a lake, and some high-density insulation foam as the banks.  What is a good thing to use for the water portion?  I have heard that Woodland Scenics makes a product, but that is hardens as a Gel, and can be easily scarred from models.  Are there other resins that are easy to work with?

Paint the base blue/green etc for the base, and then use a two part epoxy resin like  what is used for bar tops. If you want waves, let it dry for a little bit, and then tease up waves w/ a paintbrush w/ a little thinned white paint on it..


Pokémon Trading cards, mix & match? Can Pokémon xy starter decks be mixed with booster packs from other series or other starter decks? I know you can only play 60 cards but if I buy two differnt starter decks, can I build a "unique" deck from the two, using the various types of Pokémon, energy cards, trainer cards, etc?

If you are playing casually you can mix any cards you want to as long as you have exactly 60 cards in your deck and no more than 4 of a given card (other than basic energy).

For tournaments there are a couple different formats that determine what is legal. The primary constructed formats that are played at tournaments are Standard (formerly Modified), Expanded, and Unlimited. For any of these formats if a card is legal in the format you can use copies from previous sets. The cards that are legal in each of these formats as of 4/19/16 are as follows:

Standard

XY—Kalos Starter Set
XY
XY—Flashfire
XY—Furious Fists
XY: Trainer Kit
XY01 and higher
Other sets 3 weeks after their release in the United States

Expanded

Black & White
Black & White—Emerging Powers
Black & White—Noble Victories
Black & White—Next Destinies
Black & White—Dark Explorers
Black & White—Dragon Vault
Black & White—Dragons Exalted
Black & White—Boundaries Crossed
Black & White—Plasma Storm
Black & White—Plasma Freeze
Black & White—Plasma Blast
Black & White—Legendary Treasures
BW: Trainer Kit
XY—Kalos Starter Set
XY
XY—Flashfire
XY—Furious Fists
McDonald’s Collection 2011
McDonald’s Collection 2012
McDonald’s Collection 2014
XY: Trainer Kit
Black Star Promo Cards: BW01 and higher, XY01 and higher.
Additional expansions become legal three weeks after they are released in the United States.

The card Shiftry (Next Destinies 72/99) is banned in Expanded

Unlimited

All cards from all expansions (including promo cards) are legal in Unlimited
Additional expansions become legal three weeks after they are released in the United States.


Does a gold field draw a resource and commodity, when combining Seafarers and C&K? Played Seafarers/Cities and Knights recently with someone new and they insisted that a gold field would allow a city to draw a resource and a commodity.  I may have missed something, but I checked my rules and the FAQ and didn't find anything specific.

His reasoning was that in C&K a city can produce commodities, so naturally a gold field would allow you to get one as well.  Additionally, that the rules say a city can't choose to take two resources instead of a resource and a commodity (for a city that produces a commodity) so the ability to take two wood/ore/sheep would also be against the rules.

My reasoning was that the Seafarers rules specifically mention resources only and the rules for combining the two make no mention of any changes, so the Seafarers rules should apply.

While we settled this amicably (after all, we play to have fun), for future reference, who was right?

Your are correct. I believe that the official Cities and Kights rules are clear enough for this:

  Commodities are produced only by cities, and only in forest, pasture, and mountains.

It might be different if Cities always produce commodities in C&K, but that's not that case. Cities on grain or brick don't produce commodities, and C&K rules specifically mention which lands produce commodities. Gold should be treated more like grain and brick; you get double resources.

Here is a link to an answer on the German FAQ: http://www.siedeln.de/faq/327_152_de.html

Roughly translated, it says no you cannot take commodities from the gold field; and it explains it by saying that every rule still counts unless it is specifically countered by a different rule; so the Seafarers rule about what you can get from a Gold Field still applies; because the C&K rules don't specify otherwise.


Can Uncontrollable Urges be used to force one Investigator to attack another? Uncontrollable Urges allows the Keeper to force an Investigator to do an action where the Keeper makes all the choices.

The attacks all seem to state "Attack a monster" but I'm wondering if Uncontrollable Urges overrides this and allows one Investigator to attack another.

It looks like the answer is no. From page 2 of the FAQ:

  Q: Can the keeper use Uncontrollable urges to make an investigator attack
  another Investigator with a weapon?
  What about spells?

  A: No. This only
  allows him to use a spell, equipment,
  artifact or tome card. If he forces an
  investigator to cast a spell, he must
  choose a legal target. To clarify, if
  a spell says “choose a Monster”, it
  may not be used against an
  investigator (even if playing Story
  5). As another example, the Keeper may
  not force an investigator to use the
  “Sedative” equipment on an
  investigator who does not have a
  Trauma card.


Generic player position names for five player matches I know in a four player game the standard terms for the players are:

North
South
East
West

Now that I think about it I can just drop South for three handed games:

North
East
West

Five handed games have that pesky extra player so I have:

Top
Middle Left
Middle Right
Bottom Left
Bottom Right

Those terms work, but they don't have the pizazz of the cardinal directions and feel slightly awkward. What are the usual terms for five handed matches? If there aren't any usual terms, what words can I use that clearly convey the location without sounding awkward?

If it helps the three handed players are positioned like points on an equilateral triangle, and five handed players are positioned like points on a pentagon. Four handed players are positioned like points on a + (plus sign) or diamond.

I've realized that I was ambiguous about the context of the question. What I'm looking for is generic terms used when diagramming play on paper. For an example of what I'm talking about from Bridge:

I don't know of an "usual" way of calling players in that case, but wouldn't a clock analogy do the trick, here?

You could have:

12 o'clock
2 o'clock
5 o'clock
7 o'clock
10 o'clock


Is it possible to play 2-player, 2-character Arkham Horror successfully? I've tried playing Arkham Horror with 1, 2 and 4 players. I've found that the game seems extraordinarily difficult with less than 4 characters. Simply put, you don't have enough gos to do everything. Gates keep opening, monsters keep appearing, and it only takes 1 curse, a bad monster, or a couple of delayed turns and it's all over. Adding any expansions simply kicks the difficulty up further.

After several frustrating games, I now don't play with less than 4 characters. In a two player game, each of us takes two characters, and plays the game as if there were 4 players. This seems to give a better balance, but is a lot to remember and keep track of.

Has anyone had success playing Arkham with less than 4 characters? In particular, have you managed a reasonable game with two players and two characters (i.e., one character each)? How did you manage it? Did you have to adjust any of the rules?

Yes, We've played this way many times and it works quite well for an enjoyable game.  I highly recommend it.  You don't need to make any adjustment to the rules to do so, just make sure that you keep each character's possessions separate!  Also remember that certain game elements are based on the number of characters, not players.

One variation you might try is to play two people with one character each.  Just skip every other Mythos phase.  Essentially each character gets 2 turns between Mythos phases.  If you do this, consider yourselves to be playing a 4 character game for all relevant settings.  This will ease your bookkeeping headaches although it will also make the game a bit easier.

To address your statement that you find the game difficult under 4 people, you aren't the only one!  Here are the stats from 5200 games taken from the Arkham Horror statistics report.  If your winning percentage doesn't quite measure up to the below, keep in mind that folks submitting their games to this collection probably have quite a bit more experience playing Arkham Horror than most.

Investigators   Win %   Close % Seal %  Combat % Games
1               38%     3%      6%      29%      100
2               52%     4%      25%     23%      606
3               60%     7%      30%     23%      767
4               65%     11%     39%     15%      2,941
5               69%     16%     39%     14%      378
6               67%     16%     43%     7%       387
7               68%     16%     39%     14%      44
8               73%     25%     42%     7%       60

As you can see, as the investigator count decreases from 5, the game gets progressively tougher.  Also you will probably find more success if you are open to the possibility of a combat victory with 1-3 players


Can a card effect make a creature block one that it otherwise could not? Nature Shields Its Own is an Archenemy scheme that creates a blocking creature (green plant) any time the Archenemy is attacked and the attack is not blocked. We ran into a few issues last night playing this scheme in a game. The Archenemy was attacked by a flying creature as well as one with protection from Green. Neither was blocked, and a plant was created blocking each. The part we did not understand was whether the plant tokens could actually block the attackers.

Do abilities that say "Create creature X blocking attacking creature Y." allow X to block Y even if normally X could not be declared as a blocker?

Yes, the creatures will still be blocked by tokens. See the ruling on Nature Shields its Own:

  The Plant token blocks the attacking creature even if the block couldn't legally be declared (for example, if the attacking creature has flying).

This is because things like flying and protection only affect the declare blockers step. The prevent a creature from being declared as a blocker. But Nature Shields its Own kicks in at the end of the declare blockers step; it is not affected by evasion abilities.


How do the new Dark Eldar interact with the Kill Team rules in the Battle Missons rulebook? The Battle Missions book, near the end, features a scenario called Kill Teams, wherein:

Your force org chart is:

0-1 elite
0-2 troops
0-1 fast attack
200 points.

Exact Rules:

  Every man For Himself: All models operate as individual units in this mission, even if they were chosen as part of a squad or squadron.  In addition, when a model shoots or fights in an assault, it may split its attacks up amongst any eligible targets if desired.

The issue:  The new Dark Eldar are very dependent on their Pain Token abilities.  These grant "pain tokens" to the squad at certain times (1 to start, and gain additional ones for wiping out other units).  Are the pain tokens now tracked 'per model'?  Or still shared among the whole squad?  Do you now gain pain tokens for each model killed, or just when you wipe out all the models that make up an enemy squad?

If there is nothign in the Kill Team rules that says individual models are considered to be a single squad of 1, then I would say the pain tokens are given to the entire squad (a squad being one elite, troop or fast attack choice) for wiping out an entire enemy squad.

However, if the Kill Team rules explicitly state that each model is conisdered to be its own squad, then I would say pain tokens are given on an individual model basis for each model they wipe out.


How do Mine and Watchtower Interact? When playing Mine while having a Watchtower in hand, can you put the upgraded treasure card on top of your deck instead of in your hand?

Yes, you can.  The card you get from Mine is definitely gained, therefore you can react to it with Watchtower and put it on your deck (or trash it!) if you like.

There's not usually much reason to do so, but the cards don't actually conflict - you can use them both in this manner if you really want to.


Remove roles based on number of players in Saboteur 2 I only played Saboteur 2 once, but I realize that it can very easily become unbalanced.

We have 6 players. In a round of the game, we have 2 gold diggers, 1 geologist, 3 saboteurs. The gold diggers stand no chance at all and are almost blocked (with broken tools) the entire game. Same for the geologist, since everyone else discards their road cards with crystals.

I find the game rule doesn't really make sense: choosing roles from the 15 dwarf cards regardless the number of players in the game. What if it was a three-person game, and everyone in the team is a saboteur? What fun do we have by playing that?

Should we remove some roles card depending on the number of players so that it is more balanced?

Honestly I would recommend removing none of the roles as the game is decently balanced for a game with random rolls and you just got bad luck.

From what you have posted it seems you are missing some of the rules for the game. First what you described to have played was not one game but one round of a game that lasts 3 rounds.

It also sounds like you had bad luck in that all 3 saboteurs where present in a 6 player game which is not all that common. I would also question why you would discard path cards just because they have a crystal on them since they can be critical to winning and you will win more then a single gold in most cases.

The last thing that I am wondering about is from the way you worded your question it seemed like everyone knew what role everyone was. If that is the case it would allow the saboteurs to have an advantage and target the miners and all players to have an advantage to discard crystals.

My advice would be to play at least 1 full game of 3 rounds where you will see different team balances for each game. Though to get a true feeling for the balance of the game I would suggest that you play more games so that a bad draw does not influence your opinion of the game.

It should also be noted that the roles in the game can change at any time as there are 2 action cards that cause a player to switch roles which could be good to get rid of an enemy or prevent someone from making a lot that round.

Update:

Based on your updates it definitely sounds like you where not playing it optimally

At the start of the game everyone should be acting like a miner regardless of their role. This is a hidden role game and you don't want to reveal to much information to start. Every game I have played has started with the saboteurs trying to make it look like they are miners before starting to cause damage to the mine. This is especially important in a larger game where there is only 1 saboteur so they don't become targeted and rendered useless early on. Note once you have more games under your sleeve and have a better understanding of the game and the roles then it is more feasible to come out with your role earlier in the game.
Miners and saboteurs should not be discarding path cards with crystals on them just to prevent the geologist from getting points because every discarded path card could mean the difference between them getting gold or no gold. Note this does not apply to cards that prevent you from reaching your goal.
You should also remember that in this expansion there are cards that prevent people from getting gold and cards that let you steal gold from others. This means that even if everyone ends up on the same team and wins not everyone will end up getting gold or the same amount in the end.


What is a good way to find information on previous ban lists? Many people say it's fun to go back and play previous formats of Yu-Gi-Oh, like the popular "Goat Format" from the mid 2000s. I have been having a hard time finding a resource to easily view every banlist since the beginning of the game (for the TCG). Is there a good website to look at that might have all this information in one place? The TCG NA website does not have easy ways to access previous banlists, which I was really surprised by.

Bonus points if there's also a way to find out what the available cardpool was for these periods, though you probably could work that out yourself.

Is there a good website to look at that might have all this information in one place?

Seems that the good ol' Wiki has a complete  collection of Historical Banlists.

It seems very exhaustive and complete.

I also found a Historic Limited/Forbidden Chart which displays the information regarding forbidden and limited cards in a graphical way (green, yellow, red color code). Perhaps that is a better way to see the evolution of bans of cards.


Can character abilities and upgrades be used through roadblocks? Question in spoiler tags

   Roadblocks prevent diseases from spreading during outbreaks, and also hinder movement. Do they also prevent or hinder usage of character abilities or upgrades which allow the character to interact with adjacent cities? For example, the immunologist can vaccinate an adjacent city, and character upgrades allow treat disease or quarantine (when on a military base) in an adjacent city. Do roadblocks affect these or other similar abilities?

Roadblocks have no effect in these scenarios. They do exactly what they say they do, and nothing else. Since they never mention affecting abilities, they don't.


In Puerto Rico If only one prospector is chosen during a round, does the other one get a coin placed on it? If only one prospector is chosen during a round, does the other one get a coin placed on it?

Yes.

Any role not chosen at the end of the round gets a coin placed on it.

I can't find the official rules online, but I can point you to the Universal Head rules summary, which says, under "Reset the Roles":

  Place one doubloon on each of the three role cards not
  chosen this round and then return all role cards.


Surveyor's Map in Agricola Farmers of the Moor In a game we just finished one player used the Surveyor's Map minor improvement.  When the field came up in round 11, he couldn't place it adjacently to his existing fields.  Should we have allowed him to place it elsewhere?

As far as I know there is no official ruling on this. However, most people seem to agree that the field should still obey the general rule for placing fields, i.e. it needs to be placed orthogonal to an existing field. This is for example the ruling for Surveyor's Map on page 28 of the unofficial Agricola compendium:

  Surveyor's Map M018

  Place a field tile on the space for round 11, a moor tile on round 12, and a forest tile > on round 13. At the start of the rounds, you must either place the tile on an empty space in your farm or return it to the supply.

  => Placing the field tile does not count as a ploughing action.

  => If you already have fields, you must place the field tile adjacent to an existing field.


Are these "temporary defense gained by discarding cards" markers? I just got the Race for the Galaxy: The Brink of War expansion, which I haven't played yet. It comes with some additional Takeover markers. These two markers look like "temporary defense gained by discarding cards" markers:

I can't find the card that gives this power. The rulebook states they are for Rebel Pact:

  Two counters are supplied to track a player’s total possible Military on
  defense (for use with Rebel Pact).

But Rebel Pact is part of the Rebel vs. Imperium expansion. In Settle phase, it gives

  +2 defense against a [takeover] for each... (Rebel military world) in your tableau; +1 defense for each other [military world]

and the Rebel vs. Imperium expansion already comes with markers for tracking Rebel Pacts defense:

  The Rebel Pact provides 2 Military for each Rebel military world
   and 1 Military for each non-Rebel military world in a player’s
   tableau at the start of Settle, when defending against takeovers.

What card are these markers used with? What do they mean?

According to the Rulebook, next to a picture of these markers:

  Two counters are supplied to track a player’s total possible Military on
  defense (for use with Rebel Pact).

These markers are for use on your military track to show you (and your opponents) your potential maximum defense if you count both your defensive bonus from Rebel Pact and all your sources of temporary Military (denoted by the discard symbol on the token).

Page 8 of the rulebook has an illustration.


Mirage Mirror - does copy suffer from summoning sickness? The card Mirage Mirror states:

  {2}: Mirage Mirror becomes a copy of target artifact, creature,
  enchantment, or land until end of turn.

If Mirage Mirror becomes a copy of a target creature that does not have summoning sickness until owner's next turn, does the copy suffer from summoning sickness becomes it becomes a copy of a creature?

No, summoning sickness is not a copyable value

Copiable values

The copiable values of an object are its name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and loyalty. These values are usually copied exactly as printed. However, copy effects do respect changes to those values resulting from other copy effects, face-down status, and some effects that set a creature's power or toughness. The last are only considered if they have the wording "as [the object] enters the battlefield" or "as [the object] is turned face up".

Additionally, for objects on the stack (that is, spells or effects that have not yet resolved), copies also copy any choices made while casting it, such as mode, targets, or additional or alternate costs that were paid. Many, but not all, effects that copy spells allow the controller of the copy to choose new targets for that copy.

Information not copied

Counters on the object being copied and objects attached to it, such as Auras or Equipment, are not copied.

The collective status of the original object is also not copied. Unless otherwise stated, the copy will be created untapped, unflipped, face-up, and phased-in. This leads to an important distinction and oddity regarding copies of face-down creatures. A copy of such a creature will acquire the copiable values of the original face-down creature, and become a 2/2 colorless, costless, nameless, subtypeless creature, but it will instead be face-up. Such a copy is unable to morph, and never acquires the face-up characteristics of the original creature.

source


Will my Dead of Winter game be abandoned if I buy Dead of Winter: The long night? I have Dead of Winter and I was wondering what would happen if I buy it's expansion The long night, because it's a standalone. I know you can mix some cards, but I wish to know if my current board and general cards will be unused or duplicated.

Things that are (mostly) duplicated in TLN: Colony and location boards (Colony board has different art, location boards are thicker), player boards, set of dice and tokens (TLN has two-sided tokens for barricades and helpless survivors because there are now different versions of those). Regular zombie standies have different art.

TLN also has all starting items and location decks, but their compositions are different - location decks have new items and some basic items have alternative uses there.

Other content: optional modules, characters, crises, crossroards, missions, objectives etc. are unique.

One point worth noting: there are rumors about new expansion Warring Colonies that allegedly uses content from both stand-alone boxes to create a new team vs team game mode.


When tunnelling, what happens when the cards drawn do not match those played? In Ticket to Ride Europe, when I plan to build on top of tunnels, what happens when none of the drawn cards match the colours I have in hand?  For example,

Tunnel length: 3 grey segments
Played cards: 3 red cards
Drawn cards: 3 blue cards

What additional cards am I supposed to play in the above case?

If none of the drawn cards match the colour of the cards you chose to play, then you are in luck - the tunnel does not cost any additional cards. To put it another way, the tunnel costs 0 additional cards. This case isn't explicitly discussed in the rules, but I think it's quite clear.

  When attempting to claim a Tunnel route, a player first lays down the number of cards required by the length of the route. Then the three top cards from the Train draw pile are turned face-up. For each card revealed whose colour matches the colour of the cards played to claim the Tunnel, an additional card of the same colour (or a Locomotive) must now be played from his hand. Only then can the player successfully claim the Tunnel route.


Double Double, toil and trouble I'm playing a Magic race AND I have picked up The Scepter of Avarice. If I put them both (and use the Magic Token as a second Scepter) in the same region do I get 4 coins? If I am the Shrooms and I put them both in a Mushroom Forest do I get 8? What if I control the Diamond Mines and they are in a Mushroom Forest as well? Is that 16?

There is no possibility of using 2 Scepter's of Avarice in the same area.
From the FAQ:

Q. May I use the Bag o'Many Things to duplicate the power of a Relic in a region where that Relic already is? For example, may I use the Bag on the Scepter of Avarice to quadruple my region's income?
A. No. The power of a Relic cannot be duplicated in a region where that power already applies.


When does showing a card in hand become free information? Say I'm playing a game, and I start to cast a spell at the wrong time (e.g. an enchantment when I could only cast an instant). As I reveal the spell, an opponent points out that it's an enchantment and I pull it back into my hand.

Now, if this was two-headed giant and one opponent player saw that it was an enchantment while the other read its name, it would be free information for them to check the effect of the card based on its name.

If, however, I pull the card back straight away and they know nothing about it (other than I want to cast it), am I obliged to reveal the card/provide details about it?

Additionally, is this different if I accidentally reveal a card from my own hand, which the opponents glimpse, without any intention of casting?

In a number of places in your question, it's not clear whether you are referring to the name of a card object or to the Oracle content for a card of a given name. These are very different things.

  When does showing a card in hand become free information?

The name of a card in your hand is private information, save for two exceptions:

If you are instructed to reveal a card (or all cards) in your hand, you must clearly communicate the names of the affected cards. Their names cease to be free information before anything else happens.
If you are instructed to play with a card (or all cards) of your hand revealed, the names of the affected cards is free information. Their names cease to be free information the moment the effect ends.

  As I reveal the spell, an opponent points out that it's an enchantment and I pull it back into my hand.

While the card was on the stack, it was in a public zone, and thus its name was free information. The moment the error was corrected, the card reverted to being in a hidden zone, and thus its name reverted to being private information.

  Now, if this was two-headed giant and one opponent player saw that it was an enchantment while the other read its name, it would be free information for them to check the effect of the card based on its name.

No. The Oracle content for a card of a given name is derived information (not free information) at all times. At Regular REL, though, derived information is considered free information.

  If, however, I pull the card back straight away and they know nothing about it (other than I want to cast it), am I obliged to reveal the card/provide details about it?

No, though the precise answer depends on what they asked.

If they ask "What card was that?", you need not answer since it's private information (as answered above). You may even be allowed to lie about it!

If they ask "What's a Giant Growth?", you need not answer since it's derived information. If you do answer, you must answer truthfully. They may request this information from a judge.

  Additionally, is this different if I accidentally reveal a card from my own hand, which the opponents glimpse, without any intention of casting?

No.


Go question about eyes I just learned how to play GO today, and I was stuck on one thing in particular. This was the board state:

As you can see on the south-west corner (close to A1), I tried to capture my opponent's (which is a computer, 25 kyu) group of pieces. But I found out that I couldn't place my pieces on those empty squares because that would be a suicidal move. How do I acquire those pieces?
I was black and the computer/AI was white.

In order to capture a group, you need to deprive it of all "liberties," the empty spaces touching the stones. In this case, the southwest group has two liberties, on A1 and C2.
However, as the rules don't allow you to leave any of your own stones without liberties at the end of your turn, you can't play on A1 due to suicide, and the same goes for C2. In order to capture that group, you'd have to somehow play on A1 and C2 at the exact same time, but you only get to play one stone per turn.
So how do you capture the southwest group? The answer is, you can't! Welcome to an important fundamental part of Go strategy: "Life and Death."
The southwest group is in a state where it is invincible, and nothing you do can capture it, so we refer to this group as "alive." On the other hand, a group which can't save itself from being captured is "dead."
How does a group become alive? In the exact way shown on your board here. Inside the group are two separate liberties (empty spaces), and since you can't play inside both spaces at the same time, capturing the group is impossible. Liberties inside a group are called "eyes," and if a group is capable of making two eyes, it is alive.
A group that can't save itself is a group that has no way of making two eyes. These groups are considered dead. Typically Go players do not even go through the process of capturing groups that are clearly dead, and instead just capture the dead stones once the game is over.
Though, playing out the position to check if the stones are really dead does not affect the final score, as each additional stone added to the dead group is worth a point for the capturing player, but each additional stone played to complete the capture fills up one point's worth of the capturing player's territory, so it all balances out in the end.


Can both monsters in Tokyo yield at the same time after an attack? In a 5- or 6-player game of King of Tokyo, there are two spaces in Tokyo: the city, and Tokyo Bay. Normally, if a monster is inside Tokyo, and a monster outside Tokyo attacks, the monster in Tokyo has the option to leave Tokyo, yielding to the outside monster.

How does this change if there are two monsters in Tokyo? If a monster outside Tokyo attacks while there are two monsters in Tokyo, can both monsters yield, leaving Tokyo Bay empty? Or is one of the monsters forced to stay behind and take another beating before they can leave?

Yes. From the rulebook:

  If the monster in Tokyo Bay is attacked it can choose to abandon Tokyo Bay. In this case the monster that attacked must move in unless it is moving into Tokyo City, in which case Tokyo Bay becomes temporarily unoccupied.

If both monsters yield, as this indicates, the attacker would move into Tokyo City and Tokyo Bay would become temporarily unoccupied.


Do my games in the GoKGS get deleted after some time? At this page (https://www.gokgs.com/help/tilde.html) I read:

  Your whole list of games (i.e. all those played in the last 180 days) ...

This kind of suggests that "my whole list of games" = "all those played in the last 180 days", which suggests that in my list there are never games older than 180 days, which suggests that they get deleted?

The mentioned list of games is the list that is displayed in your profile. It only displays games from the last 180 days and only the games in the last 180 days are considered for the rank graph. You can review these games directly (right click on a game in the list --> Load in ... or Load in (P)).

All games (even these which are older than 180 days) are listed in the archive. There you can access all games which are not private. Unlike the games which not older than 180 days you must download them first to review them. I just don't know if private games are just not accessible in the archive but accessible on demand or are even deleted.


What does it mean to be furiten? This book states that "a player who is furiten, is not allowed to win on a discard." What does furiten mean, and how does it affect the game?

Furiten is when you are unable to win on a tile due to certain circumstances. There are about 3 different circumstances.

One type of furiten is when you previously discarded a tile that you needed to complete your hand. Let's say if you go for a hand without honors, 1s or 9s(a hand called 'tanyao', worth 1 han), and you have a double wait of 3 or 5 circles to win. If you have previously thrown 3 circles, even if it was taken by someone when they did a chi/pong/kong, you are unable to take the tile if someone else discards it. You are, however able to take it from the wall yourself and win with it.

The second type is when you ignore a tile needed to complete your winning hand. Similiar to the previous situation, but this time you are waiting for a 1 or 4 circles to win. You have neither thrown the 1 or 4 circles previously. Let's say someone throws the 1. If 'tanyao' is your only yaku, you obviously are unable to win it. So you pass on it. However, this puts you in a state of temporary furiten. If within the same turn(before you get to take another tile), someone throws the 4, you are unable to claim the tile for your win. If someone does a pong/kong, you will remain in furiten until your turn comes again.

The third type is when you declare 'riichi', and ignore a winning tile. Since riichi is already a yaku, you are able to win even without any other yaku. Let's say you are waiting for a 1 or 4 circles(again). You have neither thrown either tile previously. Someone throws   the 1. If you don't claim it, you will be declared furiten for the REST OF THE ROUND. Same goes if you draw a 1 and discard it. In other words, your hand will be permanently declared invalid til the next round.

source: i love mahjong~ :D


Can the original Ticket to Ride (US) rules be applied to the Europe map? I am planning to get the Ticket to Ride: Europe and introduce the game to a new player. For a beginner, I was thinking of playing the European map with the original US rules. I will be ignoring tunnels, ferries and train stations.

Is the European map playable and balanced with just the original rules?

I would suggest that Ticket To Ride is fairly self-balancing.

What this means, applied to your question, is that the European map and destination tickets won't be as intrinsically balanced as if you'd played with the full rules.  Obviously routes involving lots of ferries and tunnels have suddenly become a lot easier to complete, and as such more attractive to go for.

Equally, though, we can assume all players know this to be the case.  If the game gains an element of competitive jostling to be first to obtain what appear to be underpriced routes, then that's a whole new layer to the game, and one which I imagine would be a lot of fun.

I wouldn't want to play Ticket to Ride: Europe with the US rules a lot of the time, but as a break from the norm there is no reason why it shouldn't be a great game.  Having to re-evaluate a "known" gameboard in the light of a dramatic change of the ruleset is an excellent strategic exercise in and of itself.


1993 collectors edition sealed box My husband found 2 of the 1993 collectors edition boxes (still sealed, but small rips at the seems on the top). I was hoping you could tell me how much they are worth and where the best places to go to sell them.

Here, it's sold for $3,800.00. I'm guessing yours will fetch a few hundred less (they are retail and try to sell for profit after all).

Things to know. Don't open them. The value is on being sealed. They all contain a full set of cards, so there is no chance of getting card X or Y, there is no gamble, they are all there. That means you also have 1 ultra rare "Black Lotus" in there, but here is the catch, all those cards have gold trims in the back, and square corners. This makes them possible to distinguish from "regular" magic cards. They can't be played with on tournaments (for example) and the black lotus is worth far less ($400.00) than the "real" one ($125,000.00)..

I'd sell them on eBay, although if you don't have a good seller's reputation, it'll be a hard sell.


Do obstacle abilities work until the moment they are defeated? The Trickster Initiate has the ability

  Obstacles ignore colorless damage applied to them

Does this mean if I play 3 colored and 3 colorless, could I then use the colored damage to finish killing him and then apply the colorless damage that very turn toward another obstacle?  Essentially, does the ability become nulled the moment he dies?

From the way I read the rules you will be able to use colorless as in the apply damage step it lists defeating an enemy and it does not state you have to apply all damage before this. Also it should be noted that some defeat effects also will provide bonus damage which would also lead me to believe that you can do more damage after defeating an obstacle.

  Defeating an Obstacle
  When you clear the last (far-right) level of an obstacle’s damage
  track, you defeat it. If the obstacle has a defeated ability,
  apply that effect.


In The Captain Is Dead Episode 2: Adrift, do all systems with any damage gain damage no matter where hostile aliens are? The instuctions here say

  At the start of any turn in which a hostile alien is present, add a damage token to any system that already has a damage token.

Does this mean if an alien is anywhere in the ship, that all systems with damage accrue damage, or only damaged systems in the same room that has an alien?

What that means is that if an alien is in a room with a system that is damaged such as engineering and the teleporter has damage then another damage token will be added to the teleporter. If the comm system also had damage to it but there are no aliens on the bridge then no damage tokens will be added to it when the aliens cause the teleporter to get another damage token. What is happening is that the aliens are just causing more damage in the area they currently are.


Developing Chess Game After 20 moves Suppose I start out a chess game in this manner: http://goo.gl/reCxP

From this advantage, I have a few questions:

Which item should I sacrifice so I can gain better ground position?
Should I advance the pawns on the right, or leave as protection for the king?
Any other advice?

Thanks.

First of all, and more important than anything else by far:  if you are a beginner, don't worry about positional stuff (yet) !  Learning chess theory (positional chess) will teach you how to form a correct plan, but that skill is completely useless if you can't execute it skillfully - a poor planner with good tactics will beat a great planner with poor tactics, every time.

Thus, if you are below 1800 USCF rating, or you don't know what your rating is, I would suggest focusing solely on tactics, and ignoring everything I'm about to say until you've improved more.

So, you're over 1800, you're satisfied with your tactics, but too often you end up with positions like the one shown above, and have no clue what to do next.  Now what?

Now you learn about the various imbalances in the game, how they work together, and how to take advantage of them.  This also means learning about endgames, as having the favorable imbalances will usually turn into having a favorable endgame.  These are book-length topics, far too large to explain in one post; fortunately, there are lots of good books out there.

The best books for learning the basics of both of these things are both written by the same person:  Jeremy Silman.  For chess theory, I would recommend How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition (make sure you get the 4th edition - it is vastly different from the earlier editions).  For endgames, check out Silman's Complete Endgame Course.  Both are very easy to read, and are geared towards players between 1400 and 2100 levels.

Now that you're comfortable with tactics, and have read the books I recommended above (right? :P), and know all about the various imbalances in different positions, let's take a look at your position in-particular.  What are the imbalances in your position?

Pawn structure: The first thing to note is that it's a closed center - this means, unless you can rip open the center, play will likely occur on the flanks (sides) of the board.
Control of important squares:  White has clear control of d5, while black has d4 - these are excellent outposts for knights.  However, white also temporarily has b5 and f5 available for his knights (temporary, because they could easily be pushed away by pawns), while black does not even have the option of knight-to-b4/f4, as they are guarded.  Both b4 and d4 knights would threaten Nc7+ (forking king and rook).
The move g3 has white committed to the push f4, but has left white with a glaring weakness at h3 - he should work quickly, or black will take advantage of it.
Development: Black is actually hindered in development, because he made the (poor) choice to bring his queen out in front of the rest of his troops.  This will likely come back to bite him, as white can push the queen around with his pieces, forcing black to waste time moving his queen, while white happily develops his own pieces in the process.
Bishops: White's light bishop is his poor bishop (ie. most of his pawns are on light squares), while black's dark-bishop is his poor one - so white would like to trade light-bishops, while black would like to trade dark-bishops.
King safety:  Black hasn't castled yet, but still has the choice of either king- or queen-side castling.  White already castled, but moved his g-pawn, leaving a weakness on h3.

So, what does all this mean in the end?  Here is my interpretation of the above (note that I could be completely wrong - I am a strong player, but no grandmaster):

Either player could still (hypothetically) have good play on either flank.  White could play the queenside by playing for a b4 push, or the kingside by Ne1, f4.  As white, I would prefer the queen-side play, simply because opening the kingside with black's queen and both bishops right there is ominous.

Black could play the queenside by a6, b5, or the kingside by playing for h5, h4, hxg3, bringing the rook into the attack as well.  As black, I would prefer the kingside right now, knowing that white will probably try to play the queen-side (or lose the fight if he tries to go kingside, due to black's better development, and white's king being there).

Unfortunately, due to black's poorly-placed queen, white has an immediate threat:  1. Nd5!, forking the queen and c7.  Then after 1.. Bxd5 2. cxd5 Nb8 (to answer white's next move) 3. Qa4+ Nd7 4. b4 White is quite obviously winning:  he has the double bishops, the initiative, better development, and his attack on the queenside if moving along while black's kingside attack hasn't even started.

It's black's move, but he doesn't have a good response to this threat; his best move appears (to me) to be 1.. O-O-O, but then after 2. Nd5! Qg6? 3. Nh4! Bxh4 4. Bh5 the queen is lost; thus after 1.. O-O-O 2. Nd5, black's only response is 2.. Bxd5, leading to a position similar to above, favorable for white.

So white has a way to force a highly favorable position, but the game is still not won.  As black, don't give up - you still have your kingside attack!  Make sure to deal with white's queenside-threats, but don't allow yourself to be lulled into playing defensively!

Note that this analysis would be very different if black's queen were still on d8 - in that case, I would probably say black has a slight-edge, since he can still choose to castle on the kingside, his strong side, and attacks in otherwise-even positions tend be slightly stronger when they are on the side the enemy king has castled.  So the real answer is, stick to your first-principles; don't move the queen out too early! :P


How does Sundering Titan handle snow lands? My doubt is about Sundering Titan; what happens when it enters and leaves the battlefield if there are snow lands in play? Does it destroy basic lands and snow basic lands and how much of each of them?

"Snow" is a supertype.  If you look at Snow-Covered Plains you will see that it's types are "Snow Basic Land - Plains".  Which means that it counts as a basic land and a plains.

So in the case of Sundering Titan, if there was both a regular Plains card and a Snow Covered Plains out, you could only choose one of them to destroy.

Relevant rules:
From the comprehensive rules glossary

  Basic Land Type There are five "basic land types": Plains, Island,
  Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. Each one has a mana ability associated
  with it. See rule 305, "Lands."

And

  205.4c Any land with the supertype "basic" is a basic land. Any land that doesn't have this supertype is a nonbasic land, even if it has a
  basic land type.: Cards printed in sets prior to the Eighth Edition
  core set didn't use the word "basic" to indicate a basic land. Cards
  from those sets with the following names are basic lands and have
  received errata in the Oracle card reference accordingly: Forest,
  Island, Mountain, Plains, Swamp, Snow-Covered Forest, Snow-Covered
  Island, Snow-Covered Mountain, Snow-Covered Plains, and Snow-Covered
  Swamp.

And from the rulings on Snow Covered Plains:

  “Snow” has no particular meaning or rules associated with it.

Also (emphasis mine)

  Since this is a basic land, you may have any number of it in a
  Constructed deck in any format in which the Masters Edition II set,
  the Coldsnap set, or the Ice Age set is legal.


Icy Manipulator vs Jayemdae Tome? I was watching this video of some old school magic: https://youtu.be/cEUBkHc36hE?t=911

During player A's untap phase, Player B used an Icy Manipulator to tap Player A's Jayemdae Tome.

I don't understand why this is effective. Why can't Player A use the Jayemdae Tome in response?

Player A could use Jayemdae Tome in response.  But doing so limits their options.

If I counted correctly, Player A has 7 mana sources on the field.  That means that using Jayemdae Tome would use over half their mana.  This will severely cut down their options for what they can do in their turn.  Even if everything in their hand is cheap or useless, this is happening before Player A draws their card for the turn, so they could potentially draw something useful... and then be unable to play it.

Doing so would also shut Player A out of one or more colors, so even if they have enough mana to play the card they draw, they could easily have the wrong mana to do so.

This is especially important if Player A is using a lot of reactionary spells, such as instant speed removal and counterspells, because there's a lot of advantage to be gained by forcing your opponent to play around what you might have in your hand, and that advantage is lost if your opponent knows that you can't play any cards.

Of course, it's also possible that two players are not as strategically observant as they could be, and are just forgetting that that is an option.


How to play Risk for office fundraiser? My office frequently raises money for charities holding lotteries or raffles. A coworker and I were considering more creative & entertaining ways to raise money, and we hit on the idea of playing Risk! Participants would be randomly assigned territories (most likely one territory per participant given the # of participants in my office) and could raise armies by donating money (say $1 per army token). Players would be free to form alliances & conquer neighboring territories as per the rules. Not sure if the Risk cards would be used in order to keep our rules as simple as possible. The winner of the game wins a prize, with runners up winning secondary prizes.

Questions: How can the rules of Risk be adapted to a fundraiser in order to maximize the amount of money raised? Once a player is knocked out of the game, how can she continue donating money in a meaningful way? How do we link # territories owned with # of armies you can raise without placing undue restrictions on donation amounts?

I would veer away from having to paying money to raise armies, which, depending on implementation, might be perceived badly (as either being able to pay money to buy huge armies, or requiring money to even make it to the end by having to pay ever-increasing amounts of money just to play.)

Instead, I would suggest allowing players to pay money to re-roll the dice used for determining battle outcomes. This way, you get a little bit of an advantage from paying money, but you may still roll badly and not win. (plus, it can incentive the other player in the battle to pay money to re-roll his dice, etc.) I might also try a staggered cost - so that for each player, the first 10 re-rolls cost $1, but the next 10 cost $2, etc.

As for players that have already been defeated, you could allow them to pay for re-rolls on one side in future battles. Depending on how competitive your office is, this may break friendships as people contribute money to their favorite faction, etc.

Also, note that the physical Risk game comes with a limited number of colors, so you might need to find some sort of work-around (have several independent "pods" where the winner of each goes on to play in a final game) or digital version.


Are movement trays legal in Warhammer 40k Tournaments? I play Tyranids and would like to make it faster for myself to move units of 30 termagants. I only ask this question for tournament play since in a casual game none of my friends would care. I was wondering if I am missing a ruling on this in the BRB or a FAQ and also generally how 40k tournaments handle this.

I am planning on playing in the next Adepticon so I will check with the tournament staff on the legality once the tournament gets closer but I wanted to know if anything in general would stop me from using them before I even pose the question to tournament staff.

From what I've seen on forums and general consensus on the web, there doesn't seem to be any rulings against Movement trays in Warhammer 40K. The only issue it may cause is with certain units with blast radius weaponry. This would possibly deprecate you game if your models are locked in a tray.

However, Termagants should be okay to place in trays as from what I can recall of 40K they don't have blast radius weaponry.
Check this page and this page that I found on the matter. They all seem to suggest its legal but not advisable as it could put you at a disadvantage.


Token copies with Scarab God If I control The Scarab God and I activate his second ability and target Consuming Aberration is the token copy a 4/4 or is it still equal to the number of cards in my opponents' graveyard?

It is a 4/4.

Because The Scarab God's copy ability sets the power and toughness, the characteristic defining ability of Consuming Aberration is not copied.

  706.9d When applying a copy effect that doesn’t copy a certain characteristic, retains an original value for a certain characteristic, or modifies the final value of a certain characteristic, any characteristic-defining ability (see rule 604.3) of the object being copied that defines that characteristic is not copied. If that characteristic is color, any color indicator (see rule 204) of that object is also not copied.

    Example: Quicksilver Gargantuan is a creature that reads, “You may have Quicksilver Gargantuan enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, except it’s still 7/7.” Quicksilver Gargantuan enters the battlefield as a copy of Tarmogoyf, which has a characteristic-defining ability that defines its power and toughness. Quicksilver Gargantuan does not have that ability. It will be 7/7.


Bidding in contract bridge I am not a bridge player. I have a question about bidding in contract bridge. The question isn't about the mechanics of bidding or what is the ”best” bid given a particular hand. My question is about  the ”communication process” in the bidding phase. I am aware that partners communicate information about the cards in their hands by bidding things like “1 Heart” or “ 3 No trumps” and hence to arrive at some “agreement” about how tricks they are likely to win in the playing phase . What I don't understand is all this information about bid is “public” so surely the opponents will make the same deductions as the partner as to the likely distribution of cards in the hands? So won't this end up with a sort of ”zero sum” where all players pretty much know what cards are held before the play starts and the playing of the hands is rendered pretty ”mechanical”? Also as I understand, bidding must be a fair representation of the cards held. Any attempt at “bluffing” or "misdirection" in bidding is considered at least “poor play” and at worst some kind of act against the whole ethos of contract bridge. Is that correct or an unfair characterisation?

Yes, you're right - there is no secret information shared by your partner but not with opponents, beyond the difference in ability of the two partnerships at deciphering the information.  When I say "One Heart", everyone at the table knows that I have 12-21 points and 5 or more hearts.
Bridge isn't Poker, or any other similar game, where hiding your hand from your opponents is the skill portion of the game.  In bridge, the skill is in deciding the best contract for your partnership, and then playing it correctly.
That's not to say you tell your opponents everything that is in your hand, though; in fact, this is one of the skills - knowing whether you should announce something that gives information away or not.  Your opponents could be bidding for a contract, and you have one opportunity to make a call other than Pass, say; you could make that call, which both tells your partner something (say, what suit to lead), but also warns opponents of that same information - or you might not make that call, just "pass" instead, and conceal the information from all parties.


Is Consume-Trade on Alpha Centauri always a good start? I've found that when I start with the windfall world Alpha Centauri, I always open Consume-Trade. If my hand is good, I probably want cards to pay for settling and development. If not, I need more cards.

Is that ever not the right opening?

Consume/trade is always a safe opening play with Alpha Centauri.  It's never going to be a bad thing to do.  More generally, trading when your hand won't overflow and you have a worthwhile good is often a solid play, regardless of whether it's the first turn.  But here are some situations in which you might want to delay the first turn trade as Alpha Centauri.

If you have a development that will let you place a military world and have no otherwise settleable worlds, you might want to call develop so you don't miss the settle.

If you have a pair of cheap worlds to settle in a two player advanced game, you might want to call settle/settle to try and get the worlds down and catch your opponents off guard.

With the first expansion, there is a goal worth 5 points that requires having the most developments, and there is also a new start world (Ancient Race) that starts with only 3 cards.  You might want to call a first turn develop to put card pressure on Ancient Race, so you can get ahead or make them flush their hand to keep up in the development race.


A Game of Thrones Feast breaking ties for objectives In A Game of Thrones the board game the player who holds the iron throne breaks ties. In the expansion A Feast for Crows, objective cards are introduced such as

  Control more land areas than any other house

If two players are tied for most number of land areas, is a player able to score this objective? If so does the iron throne player decide who has the "most" land areas?

Rulebook, p.8 (emphasis added):

The outcome of all ties in bidding is decided by the player holding the Iron Throne token. This player places the Influence tokens of tied players on the highest (i.e., left-most) available positions on the track, in the order of his choice.

Rulebook, p.11:

The Iron Throne Token
The player holding this token decides the outcome of all ties that occur in
the game, with the exception of ties in combat (which are resolved by a player’s
position on the Fiefdoms track) and ties in determining the winner of the game.

Of course there is no reference to the FFC objective cards in the rulebook for the base game (since the expansion came afterwards), but I think a strict reading of the objective card itself (control more X than any other House) combined with the normal use of the Iron Throne token in the base game (breaks all ties in bidding, but not in combat or determining the winner of the game) means that if two players are tied for the most X, the player holding the objective for having the most X cannot score it.
Edit: The only reference to scoring in the FFC rules that seems relevant is on pp.7-8:

In turn order, each player may choose to score one Objective card of his choice from his Objective hand (if the criterion described is fulfilled) ...

In my opinion, this doesn't shed any further light on the issue, but I included it for completeness.


King of tokyo: Using costumes in tokyo to prevent/heal damage Is it possible to regain a heart via a costume (e.g. the ghost) while being in Tokyo? I'm unsure because the rules state that you cannot gain hearts in Tokyo with the exception of power cards. But costumes aren't Power cards, are they?

Yes, they are power cards so, yes, you can use them to gain hearts.
From the rules:

Costume cards are a new type of Power card for King of Tokyo...

and

A Costume card is a Power card and is played, like Keep cards, in front of the player who bought it.


My game of Rummikub came with a die. Why could that be? My newly bought, first-hand game of Rummikub (from Philos) came with a die. However, the game doesn't seem to use a die. Is there any variant that uses a die, if so, what for?

There is a game called Dice Rummikub, which uses dice instead of tiles; while related, it is its own game and requires more than a single die.

Short of being mixed into the box accidentally, or tossed in as a convenient first-player randomizer (because "high tile goes first" is just so complicated :p), I can't think of any reason for its inclusion in the regular tile-based Rummikub set.


Are Bishops more valuable than Knights? Bishops and Knights are both traditionally considered to have a similar value, worth roughly three pawns each. However, I have heard arguments that under certain circumstances they are not so closely comparable. Are there situations where Bishops are more valuable than Knights, or vice versa? What factors should I weigh when considering a trade-off, for example?

There's a lot that can be said on this topic, but here are some of the factors that enter into my decision making process:

I have a personal preference for Bishops over Knights. This has nothing to do with their inherent value, but is simply because I tend to utilize Bishops better. It's worth considering whether you have a penchant for one over the other, because your personal play style may determine which is more valuable for you.
In general, Knights are better early in the game and Bishops are better late in the game. This is because, in the early game pawns tend to obstruct Bishops, while Knights can move more freely.
There can also be a difference in value between Bishops (the so-called Good Bishop and Bad Bishop). If most of your pawns are on black squares, your "white" Bishop (the one on white squares) has greater freedom of movement (Good Bishop), while your "black" Bishop's movement will be hindered by your pawns (Bad Bishop). Your Good Bishop probably has a higher value than your Bad Bishop at that point. A common tactic is to trade your Bad Bishop for your opponent's Good Bishop. This can create a slight advantage. You might also trade your Bad Bishop for one of your opponent's Knights.
Two Bishops is generally better than two Knights or one of each. Engineering exchanges that result in you keeping two Bishops and leaving your opponent with two Knights or one of each, may result in a small advantage for you. It's debatable whether two Knights are better than a Knight and Bishop. I tend to think so, but it's very situational.

Obviously, these are generalizations that may not always apply. Chess is a complex game and the situation on the board dictates what makes the most sense, but they are reasonable rules-of-thumb and worth keeping in mind. The real answer depends on your strategy, your opponent's strategy, and the current state of the board. That is what really determines the relative value of the pieces at that moment.


Tapping a creature with summoning sickness in an equivalent play situation This is a follow-up question to How do I handle a gameplay error when I have an equivalent play available in a tournament?. The answer to that question indicates that even though the play is equivalent, I still can't rewind that play + get a warning.

Now suppose I have two Dryad Greenseeker in play, one of which is freshly cast. I activate one of them. Opponent calls a judge. He says I tapped the Dryad Greenseeker that is summoning sick, and therefore I was breaking the rules and should get a warning. He says he knows which Dryad Greenseeker is summoning sick because he paid attention when I cast it, while I don't remember whether I put the new Dryad on the left or on the right.

Do I get a warning for game rule violation?
Does my opponent get a warning for unsporting conduct?
Do I get to activate my Dryad Greenseeker after all?

If the answer to #3 is "yes", I'm also curious why there's a difference compared to the situation in the linked question.

The answers to #1 and #2 will depend on the judge.  A judge may not give a warning at all if it's unclear any rule has been violated.  But if a judge does give a warning in this situation, it would probably be to you.  The reason is that you are responsible for maintaining a clear and legal game state (both players are responsible for this, but yours are the cards in question).  In the situation you describe, you can't remember where you put the newly summoned creature, which sounds like a failure to maintain a clear game state on your part.  Even if your opponent is mistaken about which one has summoning sickness, the statement "I don't remember" is insufficient defense on your part because the burden is on you to maintain the state of your permanents.

As to #3, you would, in this situation, be able to activate the other Greenseeker.  The reason is that the resolution to an illegal action is, whenever possible, to just rewind to before the illegal action.  In this case, if we undo the activation of one Greenseeker, the other one can be activated.  In the case of the linked question, the only illegal action was attacking with the Mountain, which is undone.  Targeting a Mountain with summoning sickness with Koth was still legal, and so that part of the play stands.


Does Oko, Thief of Crowns come in a planeswalker deck, or only as an individual card? I can't find anything about this on Google, Bing or Stack Exchange. Does Oko, Thief of Crowns come with a planeswalker deck, or separately? By separately, I mean in booster packs and stuff like that.

It's 'just' a regular Throne of Eldraine card, found in boosters and tournament packs – if you're lucky, of course; those cards are always random.

There is a preconstructed Throne of Eldraine deck with an Oko planeswalker, but it's Oko, the Trickster. You can find those decks e.g. here.


Can you sacrifice Corpse Hauler to its own ability and return it to the battlefield? The cost for Corpse Hauler's ability is to sacrifice it and pay 3 mana and then you can return target creature card from graveyard. Does that mean you can sacrifice the Corpse Hauler and then return it?

No, because Corpse Hauler won't be in your graveyard yet at the time you need to choose the creature you return.

The process of activating this particular ability goes like this*:

Announce you're activating the ability and put that ability on the stack.
Choose the ability's target.
Determine the cost, then pay it.

The problem here is that in step 2 we have to choose a creature already in the graveyard, but we don't actually put Corpse Hauler in the graveyard until step 3.

It also says “another target creature”, where “another” means the target must be something other than this object. That doesn't change anything (since you couldn't target Corpse Hauler even if didn't say this), but helps make things clearer that the target must be something else.**

However if you have two Corpse Haulers—one in the graveyard and one on the battlefield—they could loop each other back and forth.

* Rules section 602 tell us how to activate abilities, and specifically 602.2b tells us to follow steps 601.2b–i which are the rules for casting spells in rules section 601.

** Thanks GendoIkari.


Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and cards with cycling If I use Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's activated ability and hit a card with cycling, can I cycle it? And if so I assume I can't do so for free?

No, you can't cycle cards exiled with Golos.

As Golos says, you exile the top three cards of your library and then you may play them without paying their mana costs. Cycling requires the card to be in your hand rather than anywhere else, and "exile" is its own zone.

  702.28a Cycling is an activated ability that functions only while the card with cycling is in a player’s hand. “Cycling [cost]” means “[Cost], Discard this card: Draw a card.”

Also, "playing" a card, as Golos allows you to, means casting it as a spell or playing it as a land, whichever fits:

  701.13b To play a card means to play that card as a land or to cast that card as a spell, whichever is appropriate.

As you correctly noted, cycling a card means activating its cycling ability, not playing it as a spell, so you would have to pay the cycling costs even if you could play the card from your hand without paying its mana cost.


House rules for Crokinole? Any recommendations or variants for playing Crokinole? We say that you have to stay seated in your chair with at least one cheek touching to make your shot.

I believe that rule to be incorrect, but interesting. You must hit an enemy disc, but you can hit a friendly disc first to make a combo shot.  It's higher risk because you can lose multiple discs. Check the WCC webpage for official rules.  Also the one cheek rule is standard here in clubs in Ontario as well as not being able to move/shift your chair in any way once play begins.


What game is this d6 with a blank two for? All the other sides have numbers on them, except the side that would have a two, which is instead blank, as shown in the picture.

What game would this die be for?

Considering that that looks like a very generic die it might actually not be from a game but instead from a magic trick / illusionist kit.
I'd post a link to the various online stores that offer them, but none of them had a whole lot of information about how the trick would work.
It boils down to switching it out with a regular die though.

Of course it very well might be from a board game, but custom dice tend to have some flairs or branding or even a colour.


What rules are used in international events What rules are used during international events like the recent Samsung Cup?

There is no standardized international ruleset in Go.  Generally, a tournament will use the ruleset of the hosting country.

According to an article on Sensei's Library, at least in 2004 the Samsung Cup used Korean rules.

The Chunlan Cup is (again according to SL) the only international tournament played by Chinese rules.

The Ing Cup uses Ing rules.

I guess most other tournaments use Korean or Japanese (territory scoring) rules (?).


What is the no agressive variant (Peaceful Variant)? Yesterday I played on Board Game Arena a non agressive variant of the game. The only difference I saw was a lack of wonders of age A (that could be just luck) and no agression cards.

The game itself was very boring, with nothing else to do only a rush to tackle VP without any other interaction between the players.

That's the only thing that this variation do, or there is something else that I miss??

How does the military cards are arrange in this variation?

I assume this is the same as the "Peaceful Variant" from p19 of the rules:

  Remove all Aggression and War cards. You probably also want to remove the Pacts that lose their usefulness when no one can attack.

As the rules proceed to explain, this can be more fun for new players so they don't get crushed quite as badly. Military cards are acquired as normal - they are less useful without war but not totally useless (e.g. there's still Colonization). There is definitely less player interaction in this variant, but still some (e.g. competition for particular cards).


Does the Battlestar Galactica game spoil the TV series? I've watched the first few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and a friend recently got the game. We love The Resistance, and I'm eager to try a similarly deceptive game with more going on than just deception. But, I don't want to spoil the suspense of the TV show. Do I need to watch more before I play the game?

Absolutely

(Very) broadly speaking, the base game spoils Season 1, Pegasus spoils Season 2 (and the start of Season 3) and Exodus spoils Seasons 3 and 4.

At least one exception to this that I can remember is that one Pegasus character's card spoils an event in Season 4. (Spoiler follows)

   Dualla's disadvantage

Having said that, I've played with multiple people who were watching the series at the same time. As long as you're roughly half-way through the first season, you should be (mostly) fine for the base set (as long as you don't read too much flavour text!). I'd hold off on the expansions until you've seen a lot more though.


Which game do these dice belong to? I found these dice, but I dont know which game they belong to... any help is appreciated.

The red dice has only D's (in yellow) and 0's on it; The green dice has -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 on it and only one 3 with a circle around it (as shown); The black dice has two symbols on either end and the following numbers: 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60

This is Go Long, a game about (American) football.

The black die is for yards gained, if I remember correctly.

Here's an image of the dice from Go Long (from BoardGameGeek):


With which "non-trump" holdings is a 4-4 fit superior to a 5-4 fit? If a partnership has both a 4-4 and 5-4 holding on one deal, I could see why it would make sense to have the 4-4 holding be the trump suit. The 5-4 holding can take "long" tricks with the fourth and fifth cards (on the 5 side), while the only way to "lengthen" the trump holding is through ruffs.

But suppose that you have the 4-4 and 5-4 holdings in separate deals. And suppose that you have no other "long" (seven card or longer) suits in either deal, so that the eight card (4-4) holding is distributed 8-6-6-6 in the four suits, and the nine card (5-4) holding is distributed 9-6-6-5 in the four suits.

In this case, wouldn't it be better to have the 5-4 holding with the extra trump than the 4-4 holding? Especially since the ninth card guarantees a ruffable imbalance, e. g. 5-3-3-2 opposite 4-3-3-3, whereas the eight card holding could be 4-3-3-3 opposite 4-3-3-3? Or is there something I am missing?

This is sort of an odd question. The cards you get are the cards you get, and you should do the best you can with the cards you have. You don't get to decide whether you have a 4-4 fit or a 5-4 fit, so in a sense this information doesn't help you. But as a way to improve your hand evaluation, let's consider this.

One answer comes from the law of total tricks, which basically says, if you add up the tricks your side can get when declaring in your best trump suit to the tricks your opponents can get when declaring in their best trumps suit, it'll add up to the number of trumps you have plus the number of trumps they have. Of course, this isn't actually a law (it's easy to construct counterexamples), but it's a good rule of thumb. In this case, you're comparing 8+7=15 to 9+8=17, so it seems likely that your 9-card trump fit will have more trick-taking potential for the same number of high card points.

You can also look at this from the losing-trick-count point of view. If you move a spot in a 2- or 3-card suit into a suit that already has 4 cards, you're removing a loser from your hand (in losing trick count, you count the number of cards that will lose to an A, K, or Q not in your hand, so AKx, AKxx, and AKxxx all have one loser, while xxx has 3 and xx only 2).

Even good old high-card-point evaluation methods typically give some sort of value to distribution -- either adding a point for the fifth card in a suit, or adding points for having doubletons instead of tripletons, singletons instead of doubletons, etc.

So this is a lot of ways to say, your intuition is correct. All things being equal, in a pair of hands that only have one fitting suit, having more cards in that suit tends to increase the number of tricks you can take.


Can Breath of Life Put a Discarded Creature into Play? Original versions of the white Sorcery Breath of Life read "Put target creature card from your graveyard into play." In later editions, they changed the text to read "Return target creature card from your graveyard to play."

Was this a functional change that retroactively modified how Breath of Life works? Can I use new versions of Breath of Life to put a discarded creature card into play, or does it have to have been on the battlefield?

It was not a functional change, you can return a creature card from your graveyard into play even if it was never in play to begin with. Though I couldn't find an exact rule describing the word "return," there is this:

  400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence.

So a card in your graveyard has no possible way of knowing if it used to be on the battlefield or not, so it must be treated the same whether it was or not.

Note also that cards may say "return target permanent to its owner's hand", and these can be used on permanents that were never in the owner's hand, such as a land that was fetched with a fetchland.


In Bridge, should a defender "encourage" with a "stranded honor? In the example in Today's New York Post, the bidding went: S 1 spade, N 2 clubs, S 2 NT, N3 spades, S 4 Spades (East and West passed throughout).

West led the 9 of hearts, which as between these defenders, meant "top of nothing" in a two or three card suit,  probably looking for a ruff. With A732 of hearts, East signaled with the 7, got a heart lead to the ace when West came in with a high spade trick, and led back a heart for a ruff.

North's hearts were KJxx. Suppose East had the QUEEN of hearts instead of the ace, but the ace of DIAMONDs instead. With a supposed "stranded" honor (assuming West's top of nothing lead denied the ace), should East have DISCOURAGED on hearts and have West lead a diamond?

Yes I think hearts should be discouraged. Given West's lead is top of nothing then South must have the Ace and probably the ten too (if not its one of North's xs) so hearts are pretty disastrous, especially as West's lead has probably given declarer a free finesse.

Of course to really know we need to see the other suits in the visible hands (one would assume there either has to be a better suit to attack or defense has no chance)

It's also probably worth noting that top of nothing is usually a lead made when nothing better is available so we can probably infer that West has a poor hand to lead with.


If I gain control of my opponent's Hostage Taker, can I cast card it exiled? Hostage Taker says:

  When Hostage Taker enters the battlefield, exile another target creature or artifact until Hostage Taker leaves the battlefield. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.

Say my opponent casts Hostage Taker to kill one of my creatures. On my turn, I cast Control Magic to take the Hostage Taker. Can I cast the creature Hostage Taker exiled, or is that something only my opponent can do?

Hostage Taker's ability is a triggered ability that creates a continuous effect.

603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as "[When/Whenever/At] [trigger condition or event], [effect]. [Instructions (if any).]"
611.1. A continuous effect modifies characteristics of objects, modifies control of objects, or affects players or the rules of the game, for a fixed or indefinite period.

Just like any other ability, has no inherent ties to the permanent that created it unless otherwise stated. In this case, that means that the exiled card would return to the battlefield if Hostage Taker leaves the battlefield, but no other exceptions from the rules are stated by the effect.
As such, you as the player taking control of Hostage Taker don't automatically take control over triggered abilities of the past, the the continuous effects created by them, so if the ability still existed, you couldn't take control of it by taking control of the creature, as once created, abilities exist independent from their source.

603.3a A triggered ability is controlled by the player who controlled its source at the time it triggered (...).

You also can't take control of a continuous effect, for the reason that nothing in the rules about continuous effects state that continuous effects have controllers, or that those controllers may change.
The conclusion: You take control of the creature, but you don't take over the ability to cast the exiled card.


Wild card discard in Canasta I have 3 remaining cards in my hand. 1 Ace and 2 wild cards. At my turn, I place the Ace on the table to complete my second Canasta and then discard a wild card. The other players say I cannot do this, I must discard the Ace first. When I have only wild cards left in my hand I can then discard a wild card. Is this rule true?

This depends on which type of Canasta you are playing. Classic Canasta, which in my experience is the most common and what you will find rules for in most sources, does not have any such restriction. Discarding a wild card is a common strategy to freeze the discard pile, and there are no restrictions about when you can do so.
However, in Modern American Canasta, it is true that you cannot discard a wild card, unless you are either going out, or you have no choice. In this version of Canasta, you cannot freeze the discard pile.
Source:

It is illegal to discard a wild card, except in the following cases:

You may discard a wild card as your final discard, when going out.

In rare cases, you may reach a situation where your hand consists entirely of wild cards. If on your turn you then draw yet another wild card, you may discard a wild card of your choice. The next player is not allowed to take the pile (since there are no natural cards that can match your discard). If requested by an opponent, you must show your hand to prove that you had only wild cards.

There are many other difference between the two versions; so you need to be sure you and your play group are clear on which version you are playing.


Is "finesses wrong for declarer" a good reason to double a (bridge) contract? Suppose you have a hand like (s) KJx (h) xxx (d)Axxx (c) xxx, sitting "West."

The (Standard American) bidding has been S 1 spade, N 2 hearts, S 2 spades N 4 spades. You and partner have passed so far, and E and S pass to you. Vulnerability is equal.

A book I read opined that this is a good time to double because "finesses were wrong for declarer." You have a minor spade tenace behind declarer, declarer did not support dummy's hearts, meaning your partner has "some."

I count two trump tricks and one side trick in your hand; one heart trick and one other side trick for partner, a potential two-trick "set."

Is this, in fact, a good time to double? Or are there reasons against doubling that I've overlooked?

Good question. One caveat to what you mention is that with every losing finesse by declarer you are potentially endplayed. If the defensive strength is predominantly in one hand, best not to double; make declarer guess whether the endplay is on or not, as  he may have alternative lines that fail.

Also, there are only specific circumstances in which it is correct to double for a one-trick set. As a double is so informative that Declarer can often play the hand one trick better, double only when you expect to set the contract at least two tricks.

Further, only double when the correct opening lead is already obvious (to you or partner, as the case might be). Opponents who double and then agonize over the opening lead have put themselves in the pickling jar.

The best known (and most common) counter-example to this is in matchpoints when the opponents are vulnerable in a partial that rates to give you a bad board even if it goes down one. In that case one doubles to try and get +200, as the last hope to save the board.


Still blocked *by that creature* if removed from combat? I've read:

If a blocking creature leaves the battlefield, is the attacker still blocked, or will it damage the opponent?

My question is about effects which occur when a creature "blocks or is blocked by" another creature, but regeneration is in the mix.
Specifically, I'm looking at Venom plus Regeneration.  I know that regenerating a creature removes it from combat, and I know if the regenerated creature had been assigned as a blocker, the creature it blocked remains blocked after regeneration (i.e. it doesn't damage the defending player unless it has trample).
But, does the blocked creature remain blocked by the regenerated creature such that Venom's ability will trigger?  Or in the other direction, if I attack with a creature using Venom and Regeneration, if I regenerate it would the blocking creature(s) still be destroyed?
Follow-up: If the answer is "no" I would imagine that Venom plus Elvish Scout (plus Lure or Tempting Licid) would still work to destroy all blockers, since Elvish Scout doesn't mention removing from combat, only untapping...or does untapping remove from combat anyway?  Would vigilance make the combo work?

Let's look at Venom's Oracle text, because that makes this a little easier to understand:

Whenever enchanted creature blocks or becomes blocked by a non-Wall
creature, destroy the other creature at end of combat.

That text sets up a delayed triggered ability.

603.7. An effect may create a delayed triggered ability that can do something at a later time. A delayed triggered ability will contain
“when,” “whenever,” or “at,” although that word won’t usually begin
the ability.

The delayed trigger for Venom is "at the end of combat" so when the end of combat happens, you destroy the creature that blocked the one enchanted with Venom.

603.7b A delayed triggered ability will trigger only once—the next time its trigger event occurs—unless it has a stated duration, such as
“this turn.” If its trigger event occurs more than once simultaneously
and the ability doesn’t have a stated duration, the controller of the
delayed triggered ability chooses which event causes the ability to
trigger.

Venom's ability doesn't state that the creature being destroyed must be a blocking creature, so it doesn't matter if it left combat (because of regeneration or otherwise).  Even if it did, it wouldn't matter because of rule 603.7c:

603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However,
if that object is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at the
time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won’t affect
it. (Note that if that object left that zone and then returned, it’s a
new object and thus won’t be affected. See rule 400.7.)
Example: An
ability that reads “Exile this creature at the beginning of the next
end step” will exile the permanent even if it’s no longer a creature
during the next end step. However, it won’t do anything if the
permanent left the battlefield before then.

So the short answer to your question is, as soon as the blocking happens, the other creature is going to be destroyed at the end of combat regardless of if it leaves combat.  Regenerating before the end of combat will not save it from being destroyed (an additional regeneration can save it from the delayed trigger's destroy effect though).  And yes, using something like Elvish Scout + Lure + Venom is a good way to make a one sided board wipe.
Also look at the rulings on Cockatrice (https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=108912) to see a similar type ruling about needing to possibly regenerate twice to survive combat.


In Hogwart's Battle, do villain cards negate rewards from defeating a villain? The scenario we had was:

Dementor: reward is - gain 1 heart, remove 1 from location
Fenrik: heros can not gain hearts
Crouch: heros can not remove from location

So, if we defeat the Dementor first, is the reward essentially wasted, due to the other villains, or does the reward still apply since it is not a 'hero' triggering the effect?

You will not gain the heart or remove the control.

Andrew Wolf, the game designer from USAopoly, cleared this up over on BGG:

  ...  if [a Villain] has an ability preventing the Heroes from doing something, they do not gain the reward from defeating another Villain.