What is the difference between the board game "Clue" and the card game "Clue"? Obviously with the card game, there's not a board or tokens, but is the card game version just as engaging as the board game version? It would be ideal to travel with just the cards, but I'm not sure I want to purchase it if it is severely lacking somehow.

The card game preserves all the same important features present in the board game. All the deductive elements are still present, and the core gameplay is still the same - each player has cards which they reveal as you make accusations.

There are small thematic differences. Instead of the murder in the house, you are on the trail of the murderer. Room, weapon and person are replaced with destination, vehicle and person.

Instead of a board, players each have a destination marker, representing their location. You can move between destinations in order to ask particular questions.

What you are able to do on your turn is dictated by the action card you draw, so there is a little more randomness than in the board game, but also more variety.

Overall, I'd say the card game reworks the mechanics without losing any of the deductive interest of the original.

If you want (a lot) more detail, one good comparison/review is this one on BGG.


Unusual Chinese Checkers Jump? I recently found out about a rule where if a marble is 2 spaces away, and the next 3 spaces after it is unoccupied, you can jump 3 spaces? So like your marble is on the board, and there's another one, and there is 2 spaces in between, so you can jump past it, so there is 2 in between you, but you are on the other side? Could anybody point me to an official source of rules to validate this?

Before The Move:

After The Move:

Please Note: In the pictures, the move is played by both players.

This appears to be the fast-paced or Super Chinese checkers variant described in Wikipedia.

While the standard rules allow hopping over only a single adjacent occupied position at a time (as in checkers), this version of the game allows pieces to catapult over multiple adjacent occupied positions in a line when hopping.
In the fast-paced or Super Chinese checkers variant popular in France, a piece may hop over a non-adjacent piece. A hop consists of jumping over a distant piece (friendly or enemy) to a symmetrical position on the opposite side, in the same line of direction. (For example, if there are two empty positions between the jumping piece and the piece being jumped, the jumping piece lands leaving exactly two empty positions immediately beyond the jumped piece.) As in the standard rules, a jumping move may consist of any number of a chain of hops. (When making a chain of hops, a piece is usually allowed to enter an empty corner, as long as it hops out again before the move is completed.)
Jumping over two or more pieces in a hop is not allowed. Therefore, in this variant even more than in the standard version, it is sometimes strategically important to keep one's pieces bunched in order to prevent a long opposing hop.
An alternative variant allows hops over any symmetrical arrangement, including pairs of pieces, pieces separated by empty positions, and so on.


If two people wanted to play, would each have to buy the cards? Would there be enough cards for two players to build adequate decks with only one copy of the base set and/or the Asylum Packs, or would each player have to have their own?

Thanks!

Absolutely, for a reasonable expectation of "adequate". While there aren't enough cards included to create single-faction decks, you could easily make several, viable, multi-faction decks out of nothing but the base set. When you add in a couple of asylum packs, you're set for quite some time.


Two Headed Giant - do I gain life when my teammate gains life? I'm playing Two-Headed Giant. I have Ajani's Pridemate, which has "Whenever you gain life...".
My teammate plays a card, that makes him gain life. As we share our life total, my life is also updated. Do I get to activate Pridemate's ability, when my teammate plays the card?

No, the Pridemate's ability doesn't trigger when your teammate gains life, because while your shared life total goes up it is not you gaining life.

Two-Headed Giant FAQ:

  How does damage, loss of life, and gaining life work with the single life total for the team?
  Damage, loss of life, and gaining life happens to each player individually. The result is applied to the
  team’s shared life total.


Anger of the Gods and totem armor When my friend has totem armor on a creature and I use Anger of the Gods, what happens? They are both replacement effects but which is applied first?

The creature will not die or be exiled, and instead the aura with Totem Armor will be destroyed.

Anger of the Gods says

  Anger of the Gods deals 3 damage to each creature. If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.

And Totem Armor is an ability defined in rule 702.88a:

  Totem armor is a static ability that appears on some Auras. “Totem armor” means “If enchanted permanent would be destroyed, instead remove all damage marked on it and destroy this Aura.”

Importantly, Anger of the Gods replaces a creature dying, and Totem Armor replaces a creature being destroyed. These are very similar, but not the same. Dying is defined in rule 700.4:

  The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”

And Destroy is a keyword action defined in rule 701.6a:

  To destroy a permanent, move it from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard.

In other words, destruction is an action that causes a permanent to go to the graveyard, and dying is the event of a permanent moving to the graveyard. By my reading, this means that destruction causes dying, so destruction happens first Therefore, the Totem Armor replacement would apply first and save the creature, and we never get to the point where the creature would die and the Anger of the Gods replacement would apply.


When does Skullcage have its effect activated? I am new to Magic, so forgive me if this is common knowledge.

Does the opponent's draw step happen before or after the Skullcage condition is checked?

Skullcage triggers during your opponent's upkeep step, which is before their draw step. The order of steps in a Magic turn is

Untap
Upkeep
Draw
Precombat Main
Combat
Postcombat Main
End


Good counter to Minion in Dominion: Intrigue I recently lost a game of Dominion where my opponent spammed Minion repeatedly. During this he racked up tons of coin while forcing me to discard my hand once per turn. I cannot remember the other cards on the board but during the game I was unable to successfully counter. Besides Moat or Lighthouse what are some good strategies to fight off Minion?

As you have seen, Minion is a powerful card that, unlike many other Dominion cards, "combos" well with itself: if you draw two you can play one for cash and one to get a new hand, possibly getting another Minion, and attacking the opponent as well!

Minion is a card that's difficult to ignore. There are several ways you might consider to handle it:

Probably the clearest way to handle it, and the one that is always available, is to pursue Minions yourself. The Minions are powerful and every one you buy is one that your opponent or opponents cannot. If you choose this route, you usually want to go all-out to buy as many as you can. In a two-player game, getting 6 of the 10 Minions while the other player is stuck with 4 is a big deal.
Cursing and junking attacks are powerful counters to Minion. By filling your opponent's deck with space-wasting cards, they make it much less likely that the Minions will "power up" by showing up in the same hand. Sea Hag, Witch, Ambassador, Cultist, Marauder, of of course Mountebank are a few to look out for.
"Draw-up-to" effects can be an okay counter to Minion's discard, although they're not as effective as they are against, say, Militia. Still, Jack of all Trades is a powerful card in any board and probably worth considering if you're not going with Minions yourself.
Of the Reactions, Tunnel is powerful on any Minion board, whether you're the one playing the Minions or not--all those discarded Tunnels turn into Gold! Horse Traders is another powerful choice if you can spare room for the terminal action, since it neuters the attack and gives you a free card to boot. Moat and Lighthouse blunt the attack, but aren't super powerful in their own right; Lighthouse is a bit easier to fit into most decks. Secret Chamber looks attractive (save your favorite cards for the hand you're about to draw) but if Minions are flying around, its ability to discard junk for cash might be worth very little.


Are there other sources of suggested sets? I have all the Dominion sets and really prefer to play the suggested sets of kingdom cards that come with the rules.  I find that these sets often are thought out really well and have several interesting strategies to explore.  When using randomizers (apps or just drawing randomly) I find that the sets seldom offers that many interesting strategies.

So:
I wonder if anyone knows of good suggested sets of kingdom cards?  Have you played with combinations that provide several strategy types?  Is there a source of suggested sets anywhere?  Somewhere where people can vote on sets?

I am sorry if the question is a bit vauge, but all I really want is to find some suggestions for good sets, not just random sets.  Thanks in advance!

One great resource is Dominion Deck Builder, a website that allows users to design and save kingdoms. They can be voted on, discussed, etc.

This is also a frequently-discussed topic at the Dominion Strategy Forum. Here are a few threads that each list several Kingdom setups that people have suggested, and in the latter 2 threads, voted on:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11251.0

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=6785.0 (Older, so does not contain Dark Ages or Guilds)

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11100


Does the Thorncaster Sliver's ability damage have to be assigned before or after blockers are declared? If I have 5 slivers and one of them is a Thorncaster, will I need to assign the "1 damage to target creature or player" before or after my opponent declares blockers?

My guess is that it is as I attack, but I would like it to be after blockers are assigned.

As with most abilities, you choose the targets as part of placing the ability on the stack. The damage is assigned and resolves before any blockers are declared.

I will cite ikegami's answer from another question related to Thorncaster Sliver.

https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/12644/3128

  Here's what happens:

  You attack with five slivers. Five instances of Thorncaster Sliver's ability triggers
  You place the abilities on the stack in the order of your choice: (Best order used)

  You place PS#1's ability on the stack targeting the 2/2
  You place PS#2's ability on the stack targeting the 2/2
  You place TS's ability on the stack targeting the Blood Artist
  You place MS#1's ability on the stack targeting your opponent
  You place MS#2's ability on the stack targeting your opponent

  MS#2's ability resolves:

  Deal one damage to your opponent.

  MS#1's ability resolves:

  Deal one damage to your opponent.

  TS's ability resolves:

  Deal one damage to the Blood Artist

  The Blood Artist dies. Blood Artist's ability triggers.
  Your opponent places Blood Artist's ability on the stack targeting you.
  Blood Artist's ability resolves:

  You lose one life.
  Your opponent gains one life.

  PS#2's ability resolves:

  Deal one damage to the 2/2.

  PS#2's ability resolves:

  Deal one damage to the 2/2.

  The 2/2 dies.
  [Move on the Declare Blockers]

The emphasis is mine.


Final Rules for Hand and Foot When counting the red 3's left in a persons foot can he deduct the value of the red 3's from his black books?

No. The red three played to the table counts for the player (100 points). The red three in the player's foot count against the player (-100 points).
When adding the score, a 100 added to a -100 will cancel out, of course, but that shouldn't be confused with deducting the 100 from the penalty, lest you confuse that for leaving the player with no penalty and just the 100 points.
From the rules:

Red threes count 100 points toward your score if they are on the table and 100 points against your score if they are in hand.

If your opponents ‘go out’ (get rid of all their cards) before you have grabbed your ‘foot,’ and there is a red three present, that three counts against you.


Is the Library strong in San Juan? The now-defunct magazine The Games Journal has this to say about the Library building in San Juan:

  Simply put, this card is too powerful, even in a four-player game. Even with a cost of 5, you should devote all your energies to building it the moment you draw one. Although it is (usually) not that useful when choosing Producer or Trader, the fact that it gives a 2-card advantage when choosing Builder or Prospector means that the other players must altering their actions to counter this advantage, much moreso than with any other card. In fact, the best way to address this, is to build your own Library but this requires that you actually draw one. Ultimately, this means that there's a great deal of luck in whether you draw one of them or not.

Is the library really this strong? You give up six cards to get the Library (the Library card itself plus the five other cards it costs to build it). If it gets you one extra card every turn, as you choose prospector or builder, it seems to me that it's generally going to take much of the rest of the game to pay for itself. I think that's not so different from other cards. For example, the Carpenter and Quarry cost three and four respectively and both give you one more card every time you build a violet building (in slightly different ways, much as the Library gives you one extra card in slightly different ways as Prospecter/Builder). Is the Library going to pay for itself so much more handsomely than those cards (or many other cards)?

For reference the rules are available here.

The Library is a strong card and it is far stronger than most of the cards that boost a single action type.  However, the Library also has disadvantages.  In the early game, you can buy a Silver mine for the same price, which can give you a massive resource advantage.

A player must remember that the most important resource in the game is cards.  A five cost building in the early game should give an immediate advantage that will help the player get more cards in the long run.  The Library does this, but so does the Silver mine.  A good question to ask is "what am I giving up to get the Library?"

Having played the game quite a number of times, the Chapel seems to be the most important card in the game.  Most cards give you a 2:1 ratio of card costs:victory points.  The chapel gives a 1:1 ratio for three cost and can accumulate points for the entirety of the game.  The earlier you can grab a chapel, the better off you'll be.  If one player grabs a chapel early game they can run away with the game quite easily as other players find it nigh on impossible to keep up without a chapel of their own.

It is the nature of card games that some are stronger than others.  The Library is strong.  However, I've seen many wins without it.


Is Bioshift affected by Doubling Season? I just want to know if Bioshift is affected by Doubling Season. The text states that Bioshift moves counters from a target to another, but is that the same as "putting them on" a target?

Yes it does. See the rulings on Bioshift:

  To move a counter from one creature to another, the counter is removed from the first creature and placed on the second. Any abilities that care about a counter being removed or placed on a creature will apply.

The ruling stems from the following rule:

  121.5. If an effect says to “move” a counter, it means to take that counter from the object it’s currently on and put it onto a second object. If the first and second objects are the same object, nothing happens. If the first object has no counters, nothing happens; the second object doesn’t get a counter put on it. If the second object (or any possible second objects) is no longer in the correct zone when the effect would move the counter, nothing happens; a counter isn’t removed from the first object.


What are the chances of shooting the moon in Hearts? In Hearts, we just want to avoid getting any heart card or the Queen of Spades. But if we can get all 14 cards, we shoot the moon and everybody else gets 26 points.

So, given a fair shuffle, what's the chance that we can actually get a shot to the moon?

There must be some probability, because if in a draw, we get 1 Ace of Clubs, and the hearts from 3 through Ace, we know there is no possible configuration where we'll ever NOT shoot the moon.

Whereas, if we get ALL the diamonds, we are doomed to "lose" every hand, because all our cards will always be different in suit from the first card. There is no possible configuration where we can shoot the moon.

If nobody can give me a number, what about a process of getting to this number? I imagine it has something to do with expected values, but I'm not very sure. But, it is an interesting question. I've managed to play a "perfect" game where I never took a single point, and some games where I've shot the moon once or twice, but never a game where I shot the moon 4 times in a row to win. Is this poor strategy, or a fault of bad luck?

It's certainly possible to calculate which hands can Shoot the Moon with 100% probability, but it's not going to be easy.

There are 635,013,559,600 different starting hands of 13 cards from a 52 card deck.

We know that if we are dealt all 13 cards of one suit, there's 4 hands out of  635,013,559,600 that will shoot the moon ;)

If we have 12 cards of one suit and one ace in another suit, there are 13 different ways to get 12 cards of one suit, times 3 different other ace cards in other suits, times 4 different suits so: 13*3*4 = 156 winning hands.

Of course if we have an ace and king of the other suit and the rest one suit, it's also a winning hand — wait it has to be an Ace-King in the long suit too because we can't risk an opponent having a king plus another card in our long suit.

Well, this is getting difficult soon. Thankfully, Bridge players have already figured this out for us. :) They have a concept called the Losing-Trick Count, a method of hand evaluation for counting the number of losing tricks held by a partnership. To "shoot the moon" we need a Losing-Trick Count of Zero.

According to this table I found on Wikipedia, there are 4,245,032 hands with a losing trick count of zero. As a check I summed up the number of hands in that table and it equals 635,013,559,600 exactly. Whew! Sounds right!

Therefore, your probability of Shooting the Moon with 100% accuracy is at a bare minimum .000668% percent.

HOWEVER… Trick points are scored differently in Hearts as compared to Bridge. You can lose tricks but still take all the hearts and the queen of spades. So Ace-King of Spades + AKQJT98 of Hearts plus 6 other losers is a winning hand. I expect about half of the 90,206,044 hands with a LTC of 1 are shoot the moon winners since if the losing trick is a club or diamond, at that point it doesn't matter. (Presuming the winning tricks have forced the Queen and hearts. Things get murky.)

So, I expect the number of perfect shoot the moon hands is significantly more than the .000668% percent of Bridge hands that are perfect. You can add at least .0071%, and then a bit more as you start chipping away at those losing tricks that no longer matter.

My brain is starting to hurt now.

I think I'll go lie down and hopefully this gives you an idea of how to start to get the answer. It's important to realize that the reason shooting the moon isn't as rare as you'd expect is because even a marginal hand has a decent chance of shooting the moon, for your opponents don't have perfect knowledge. If an opponent has a king-queen in one suit and a king-10 in the other, which king do they keep to stop your attempt?

And of course, at first most opponents don't expect players to go for the moon, and are trying to get rid of trick taking cards when they can. That's what makes Hearts so interesting in my view, the psychology of being wary of those greedy moon targetters. ;)


Are there cases where an Enchantment Aura effect remains on a creature when it is returned to owners hand? I had Lorescale Coatl on the battlefield, which has the ability:

Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on Lorescale Coatl.

In response to this threat, my opponent used the Enchantment Aura Frogify on Lorescale Coatl:

Enchanted creature loses all abilities and is a blue Frog creature with base power and toughness 1/1. (It loses all other card types and creature types.)

On my next turn, I cast the creature Roaming Ghostlight with its ability:

When Roaming Ghostlight enters the battlefield, return up to one target non-Spirit creature to its owner's hand.

I used this ability to return Lorescale Coatl to my hand.
This however created a discussion around which creature returned to my hand.  Should it be Lorescale Coatl with all its abilities or a blue Frog Creature?
What is correct in this situation?  Your advice is as always highly appreciated.

Comprehensive rules 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. There are nine exceptions to this rule [...]

and none of the exceptions apply here. Therefore the object in your hand is the card Lorescale Coatl, and if you successfully cast it then it will be a "regular" Lorescale Coatl with its normal abilities.
Related to this, Frogify itself will go into its owner's graveyard.


How many submarines do I need to take down an aircraft carrier? In Axis and Allies, how many submarines do I need to have a greater than 60% chance to take down a lone aircraft carrier?

Check out the Axis & Allies Combat Simulator/Calculator. You can choose which variant of the game you're playing (Original, Revised Edition, etc.), how many simulations to run, and a number of other options. (There's even a iPhone and Android versions!) The combat simulator then tells you the average IPC loss for both sides and the average winning percentage.

Presuming you play with the Revised Edition (a/k/a, the 2nd Edition), here are the odds. (Note that each simulation has a link to the combat simulator with the attacking and defending units already entered. The link sets the simulation runs parameter to 1,000, but the results I present here were computed using 5,000 runs.)

1 sub: 49.8% chance of winning, average IPC loss: 4 for attacker, 8 for defender
2 subs: 85.4% chance of winning, average IPC loss: 4 for attacker, 14 for defender
3 subs: 97.9% chance of winning, average IPC loss: 2 for attacker, 16 for defender

What about super subs (which attack at a 3 instead of a 2)? If so, here are how the odds unfold:

1 supersub: 67.1% chance of winning, average IPC loss: 3 for attacker, 11 for defender
2 supersubs: 95.0% chance of winning, average IPC loss: 2 for attacker, 15 for defender
3 supersubs: 99.6% chance of winning, average IPC loss: 1 for attacker, 16 for defender

Also, because a sub has the benefit of "first attack," there will never be a scenario where both the sub and carrier are destroyed. In this type of battle you know that one side (and only one side) will be standing at the end.


When will Arena's Workshop: Uncharted Paths be held? In MTG Arena: State of the Game — February 2020, Wizards introduced a three-part workshop series: Power and Glory, Heroes of Theros, and Uncharted Paths.

I see on the Arena events calendar that Power and Glory is scheduled for February 24–26, followed by Heroes of Theros for March 2–4. However I can't see the date for Uncharted Paths. When will it be scheduled for, or has it already happened?

The event is not featured on the Wizards calendar, but it is listed on the draftsim.com Arena schedule and will be March 9–11 2020. It follows on neatly in the schedule, but I don't know why it was missed on the official site.


Escape From Colditz (2 player): How do you deal with all your POWs being in Solitary? In the game Escape from Colditz, once a POW player has acquired an item, it seems like the guards can pretty much round all of that player's team up from the inner courtyard and dump them in Solitary.

From there, they only get released one at a time, and they still have the items, so relatively few guards can repeatedly keep them locked down.

I can see how you might manage this in a multiplayer game, with one player holding the items, and the others getting them back when they escape. But in a 2 player game, it just seems like you can keep restraining the POWs forever.

Do people have a house rule to cope with this? Or am I misreading the rules?

That is a known problem for which players usually agree to home rules.
I would suggest two such home rules:

Prisoners in confinement are automatically released after a few turns (this copes with the rolling doubles problem). Just put each prisoner piece on one side of the cell and move it each turn to the other side, when it should go through the wall release it.
When releasing prisoners in this way from Solitary, place them directly in the roll call spaces, where they cannot be taken again.

This way the Security Officer cannot mount a "capturing machine" that effectively blocks the prisoners actions. Also remember that the guards cannot block rooms and alleys entrances.


Anastasia "Dee" Dualla Once-Per-Game Ability Timing The text on Anastasia "Dee" Dualla's once per game says:

  Once per game, before making a Skill check, look at the top 3 cards of any Skill deck (even outside your Skill set), and add all of them to either the Skill check or your hand.

When is that ability meant to be played in timing?  Before Investigative Committee?  Before Reckless?  Before any players play any cards?  Before Dee plays any cards?  When is it too late to trigger her power in a given skill check?

The official sequence of events for resolving a Skill Check:

Read Card
Play Two Cards from Destiny Deck
Play Skills
Shuffle and Divide Cards
Total Strength
Determine Result

I've generally interpreted the "before making a skill check" phrase to mean the time between steps 1 and 3 (when the Destiny Deck cards come out usually isn't important). So things like Investigative Committee, Reckless and Dee's ability should ideally be used during this time. However, things sometimes happen a little fast and people start throwing in cards before someone has a chance to announce an action. We're usually pretty lenient and let people do things after step 3 starts if it doesn't seem like they're gaming.

I don't think there's any specific sequence between Investigative Committee, Reckless, Dee's ability, and the like. I think they could happen in any order. Generally we play it kind of loose and the first person to act goes first; normally it doesn't matter. Ideally, everyone that has something to do should indicate that they do. According to the rules, it's up to the currently player to decide the order.


Solitaire rules for Catan Card Game? I want to play the Catan Card Game more often than I can find someone with the patience to play it with me. I know there are some good solitaire rules for Settlers of Catan, but are there any for the Catan Card Game?

It has been more than a year since I've asked this question. So, here are the rule modifications that I've play-tested. It seems to balance well, though I would like the game to go a little longer.

Objective: Get 12 victory points before 3 years are up.

Remove the following cards from play: "Conflict" event, Merchant, Herb Woman, and all Attack cards.
Shuffle Event cards without the "Year End" card. Pick 4 random cards from the shuffled event card deck and shuffle those 4 cards with the "Year End" card. Put this (5 card) stack on the bottom of the event card deck.
5 commerce points earns you the windmill token.
7 strength points earns you the knight token.
When a tournament is rolled on the event die, if your number of tournament points is greater than or equal to the number rolled on the resource die, you get one extra resource of your choice.

Feel free to critique.


How does Jandor's Ring work with modern Magic rules? A 2004 Oracle ruling for Jandor Ring, above, states:

  If you do not have the card still in your hand, you can't pay the cost. There is currently no way to prove that it was the card you drew except to get a judge or 3rd party involved, or to put cards you draw aside until you decide whether or not to use this.

This sounds incredibly mimsy in an age where the Miracle mechanic exists and is (I would hope) watertight for tournament play.

How does Jandor's Ring work under latest MtG rules?

ETA: If you (say) just resolved  Divination, and wanted to use Jandor's Ring, could you discard either of the two cards drawn, just the last one drawn, or what? (Sorry to be so obsessed about the arcane workings of a card which presumably never actually sees non-casual play...)

Jandor Ring doesn't work under the current MtG rules. Luckily, it is too expensive in converted mana cost to see serious tournament play, but if it was your answer exists within the ruling you quoted. The current rules don't support a way of doing this, technically. (Edit: You added an additional question regarding which card could be discarded from a multi-card draw spell. If you examine the Oracle wording in the online Gatherer, you will note that you can only discard the last drawn card.)

  402.3. A player may arrange his or her hand in any convenient fashion and look at it as much as he or she wishes. A player can’t look at the cards in another player’s hand but may count those cards at any time.

Because the current rules don't support the card, because there is no easy way to achieve the desired behavior, the rulings tell you how to handle using the card.

  get a judge or put cards you draw aside until you decide whether or not to use this.

This is similar to the effect, but even more restrictive than a card like Sylvan Library (which has seen tournament play). With this card, you must keep cards you drew this turn separate from the cards that are in your hand if you intend on returning one of those cards this turn. (example: Brainstorm cast during your upkeep). The rules don't specifically tell you to keep your hand separate from the Brainstorm cards, but if you intend to return a Brainstorm card, you must keep them separate to preserve the game state.

You might be interested in this thread on the subject of cards currently not supported by the rules.


Power Grid : Start of game When player 1 has placed a house on a city, can player 2 place his/her first house on a city in the same coloured area as player 1's house, or must player 2 start in a different coloured area?

Players can put their starting house in any city that another player does not have a house, including one that shares a region with another player's starting house (as long as its in one of the regions that are in play for that game).

The rules state:

  Each player starts his network by choosing any city (not already chosen by another player) in the playing areas (chosen at the beginning of the game) on the map.

Players have to be able to play in the same region as another player because in a 6 player game, there are only 5 regions in play, and so at least two players will start in the same region.

Regions only matter for what areas are and aren't in play.  They have no other effect on game-play.


Who has the winning hand in Texas-holdem (different full house hands) The table cards were Q,Q,9,9,4

All four suits were on the board.

Player one had Q,3.

Player two had 9,8.

Which player wins?

QQQ99 wins over QQ999, so Player 1 gets it.

When comparing two full-houses, the higher triple wins; if both players have the same triple then the higher pair wins. If both players have the same triple and the same pair, then they split the pot.

Note that all suits are equal in Poker - the ranking of suits from games such as Bridge and Five Hundred have no bearing on evaluating Poker hands.


Does the Scythe of the Wretched + Crypt Rats combo really work, and how? I've searched this and everywhere it says the Crypt Rats + Scythe of the Wretched combo works. But the Gatherer ruling for Scythe of the Wretched says something I found incompatible:

  Scythe of the Wretched needs to equip your creature when the other
  creature goes to the graveyard for the ability to trigger, but it
  doesn’t matter whether the Scythe equipped your creature when the
  damage was actually dealt.

So if I equip the Crypt Rats with the Scythe, and use their ability to deal damage to all creatures, enough to kill the Crypt Rats themselves, what really happens when the Crypt Rats die? The ruling seems to mean that for this combo to work, the rats should be considered as both equipped and going to the graveyard. Is that possible?

How would this work if there are several creatures on the battlefield and the Crypt Rats have deathtouch (for example if I have a Ogre Slumlord in play)?

Say you have Crypt Rats in play, equipped with the scythe. You activate their ability (either for 1 mana and the rats have deathtouch, or just by spending lots of mana). Either way, lots of creatures receive lethal damage. Here is what would happen:

The rats' ability resolves, dealing lethal damage to several creatures
After the ability has finished resolving, but before anyone gets priority, state-based actions are checked, and many creatures are destroyed
As these creatures are destroyed, the scythe triggers once for each creature destroyed this way, because

They were dealt damage by the rats this turn, and
The rats had the scythe equipped immediately before the destruction occurred*

Again, before anyone receives priority, all the scythe's triggers are put on the stack.

You now have a stack full of scythe triggers, each one returning a creature from their owner's graveyard to the battlefield under your control, with the scythe attached. You controlled the scythe, so you decide which order they are put on stack, which means that you decide which order these creatures enter the battlefield.

The order of resurrection may matter because the creatures enter the battlefield one by one, and may care about how many creatures are on the battlefield when they enter or how many creatures enter after them. The order really matters because the last one will be the one which ultimately ends up with the scythe equipped and therefore get +2/+2 and the resurrection ability, meaning you probably want that to be the rats.

*The scythe will trigger as though it's attached to the rats and the rats are alive when all the creatures are destroyed because of the following rule:

  603.10. Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions, and continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like. However, some triggered abilities are exceptions to this rule; the game “looks back in time” to determine if those abilities trigger, using the existence of those abilities and the appearance of objects immediately prior to the event. The list of exceptions is as follows:

  603.10a Some zone-change triggers look back in time. These are leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a card leaves a graveyard, and abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library.

  Example: Two creatures are on the battlefield along with an artifact that has the ability “Whenever a creature dies, you gain 1 life.” Someone casts a spell that destroys all artifacts, creatures, and enchantments. The artifact’s ability triggers twice, even though the artifact goes to its owner’s graveyard at the same time as the creatures.

"Whenever a creature dealt damage by equipped creature this turn dies" is such a leaves-the-battlefield trigger, and it therefore looks at the board state immediately before the destruction happened to determine whether it ought to trigger. Immediately before all the creatures are destroyed, the scythe was equipped to the rats, and lots of creatures dealt damage by the rats this turn are about to be destroyed, so the scythe triggers.

The gatherer ruling you quote is a clarification of a different sequence of events. For instance, say you first activate the rats' ability for 1 (somehow making sure the rats themselves survive), then equip the scythe to the rats, and then play, say, Wrath of God, then the combo still happens, even though the scythe wasn't attached to the rats when the damage was dealt.

If, on the other hand, you equip the scythe on the rats, deal one damage, unequip the rats (possibly by equipping it on another creature), then play Wrath of God, then the scythe doesn't trigger at all. It doesn't matter if the rats die because you unequip the scythe (and the +2/+2 it brings with it), or if the rats survive the unequipping and die from the Wrath. Immediately before the rats die, the scythe is not equipped to them, and therefore does not trigger.


Can a Tenacious Z be Played After Drawing Two Cards? In the scenario where a player has 9 cards at the end of their turn and drawing two more cards gives them a Tenacious Z, can they discard it and play it if one hasn't already been played?

In step #5 of the rules, "Shut It Down", it states that:

  Anything that happens at the end of the turn happens here. Play passes to the player on the left.

Since Tenacious Z is a special card, it also states:

  Special: During your turn you many play this card from you discard pile as an extra minion. You may only use the ability of one Tenacious Z each turn.

Since a turn involves five steps, is this card still playable after drawing two more cards?

No.

From the Pretty Pretty Smash Up rules, page 10:

  On your turn: This means during the normal Play Cards phase of your turn.

The turn order is:

Start Turn
Play Cards (normal time for plays)
Score Bases
Draw 2 Cards (and then discard)
End Turn

By the time you're drawing and discarding, you've missed the window of opportunity for Tenacious Z's special. If it wanted to override this limitation, it would have to be explicit (e.g. "during any phase on your turn").


Creatures with Tribute and targeting Nessian Demolok, one of the latest creatures revealed in the Born of the Gods spoilers, reads:

Tribute 3 (As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place three +1/+1 counters on it.)
When Nessian Demolock enters the battlefield, if tribute wasn't paid, destroy target noncreature permanent.

My interpretation of this (and I presume this will be covered in the FAQ, but I figure it's good to get it 'on the record' here...) is that this would be covered by section 614 of the comprehensive rules, particularly sections 614.1c:

614.1c Effects that read "[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ," "As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ," or
"[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . " are replacement
effects.

and 614.12a:

614.12a If a replacement effect that modifies how a permanent enters the battlefield requires a choice, that choice is made before the
permanent enters the battlefield.

And that as a result, the choice whether to pay tribute or not is effectively made just before the creature enters the battlefield, and so in particular the choice of whether or not to pay tribute will be made before targets are chosen for the 'destroy target noncreature permanent' ability (which goes on the stack the next time a player gains priority).  Does this look correct?

Yes, this would be similar to Clone effects. Let's say you Clone a Nekrataal:

You cast Clone
Clone resolves
As Clone comes into play, you choose Nekrataal
Clone's triggered ability triggers and you choose a target for it

None of the logic changes when it's your opponent making the decision.


Lord of the Ring LCG: Gandalf and Expert Treasure-hunter When using "Gandalf" as a hero, one plays with the top card of the deck faceup. If I attach "Expert Treasure-hunter" to one of my heroes, does it mean that I automatically get a card in my hand after this hero quests successfully (since I am able to see the type of the card)?

If I attach one copy of "Expert Treasure-hunter" to each of my heroes, do I first turn the top card of my deck faceup before each guessing or do I have to guess 3 cards at the same times, seeing only the first one?

Gandalf (Hero)

  Play with the top card of your deck faceup. Once per phase, you may play the top card of your deck as if it was in your hand. [...]

Expert Treasure-hunter (Attachment)

  Attach to a hero. Limit 1 per hero.
  Response: After attached hero quests successfully, name a card type and discard the top card of your deck. If the discarded card is the named type, take it into your hand.

TLDR; Your assumptions are correct - you can 'automatically' draw three cards on a successful quest with three Expert Treasure-hunter attached to your heroes and a Gandalf (hero).

To answer your first question, yes. If have Gandalf (Hero) and Expert Treasure-hunter attached to a hero when you quest successfully on Expert Treasure-hunter's triggered ability activation you can name the type of the card on the top of you deck, then discard and draw it.

For the second question I think the key is Gandalf's Play with the top card of your deck faceup. This means that the top card of your deck (provided your deck has cards in it) is ALWAYS revealed as long as you have Gandalf's ability. Thus during each activation of the three Expert Treasure-hunters the top card of your library will be revealed and you can name its type, then discard and draw it. Id est you can automatically draw three cards on each successful quest with Gandalf and three Expert Treasure-Hunter's attached to your three heroes.

The source for my interpretation is the "The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Online Rules Reference" found on the Fantasy Flight Games website. In particular the second Golden Rule (page 2):

  If the ability text of a card directly contradicts the text of either the Rules Reference Guide or the Learn to Play book, the text of the card takes precedence.

implying that the top card of your deck is ALWAYS revealed if you have the Gandalf hero's ability. And the definitions of Response (page 14):

  Response:
  Response abilities are labeled by the word “Response” followed by ability text. Unlike action abilities, which are resolved during action windows, response abilities may be executed after the specified triggering condition occurs, as described in the response’s ability text.
   - It is possible for multiple responses to be executed from the same triggering condition.


Can a reverse follow a 2-over-1 response? This question is related to What Is a “Reverse” In Bridge?, but covers a different case.

I understand that reverses (17+ HCP, longer in first suit than second) apply to a 1-level response:

S    W    N    E
1D   pass 1S   pass
2H

But suppose the bidding has a 2-over-1 response from responder showing 11+ points (but not game-forcing):

S    W    N    E
1D   pass 2C   pass
2H

Is the 2H bid normally interpreted as a reverse? Or is this partner convention?

There are a few answers to this question :)

First, technically that is a reverse, though it does not necessarily show extras. The best definition of reverse I've seen is "A non-jump rebid by opener that would force responder to give preference at the three-level." So in the example you gave, if partner prefers diamonds to spades they would have to bid 3D, making it a reverse.

However, what you're really asking is: Does a reverse after a 2/1 response show extras? Here, it depends strongly on partnership agreements. You do not say what system you are playing, but I will assume that it is either Standard American or the related 2/1 Game Forcing.

If you are playing Standard American, the Yellow Card booklet says that a reverse still shows extras, but some partnerships modify this agreement.

If you are playing 2/1 Game Forcing, there's two different types of auctions to consider:

1D-2C: This auction bears special discussions since there isn't a particularly widely accepted standard treatment. As an example of the variety of opinions, see this thread on BBO about 1D-2C.
1M-2m: I'm going to sound like an echo, but partnership discussions apply. My sense is that most pairs play the reverse as not showing extras, although my preference is to play that it denies a dead minimum.

Rebids after reverses are in general a field where I find most beginners and intermediate players have a different idea of what is "standard"; I strongly suggest discussing this situation with any new partner you sit down with, or at least do as Marty Bergen suggests, and pray they don't come up.


How prepared will I be to play Arkham Horror after reading just the Rulebook? I noticed the faq files for Arkham Horror are very large and are partially incorporated into the revised printing, but will I simply be doing some things outright wrong unless I review the faq first?  Will it be sufficient to use the faq as a reference and expect certain aspects of the game will be confusing and prompt me to look up the appropriate section?

The best thing would be to learn the rules from someone who's very proficient in them, from their own experience playing. My experience, however, consisted of learning to play Arkham Horror with four friends who were all new to the game as well. In that case, I would suggest that anyone who has not played the game before at least attempt to read the entire rulebook and FAQ first.

If you don't have at least one person participating who's very conversant in the rules, then you'll probably be referring to the rulebook a LOT, not just checking the FAQ for clarifications. Note how long the "short" version of a quick reference guide in this answer is. It's pretty hard to explain the game concisely, and a lot of complications arise beyond the basic rules of the game. Naturally, the FAQ derives from those complications, and simply being aware of which characters, cards, etc have clarifications written about them will help you know whether to consult the rulebook or FAQ while playing. Don't expect to remember everything you read, there's just so much, but do everything you can to make it easier to refer to later.

If you consult some other questions on Arkham Horror, you'll see some comments about the importance of at least one player having the expertise to guide other new players. If you don't have that one expert player, then simply reading the rules AND the FAQ may not be enough to get everything right when first playing. So in short, you should read everything, and still be okay with the expectation that it may take a while to get it all right!


Does reach apply to Way of the Sarlacc's adjacent figures? The Way of the Sarlacc 4 XP Skill of Diala Passil states:

  For each hostile figure adjacent to you, perform 1 attack with a melee weapon targeting that figure

Does a weapon with reach allow her to attack all figures within 2 squares ? (as for a normal attack)

A Melee attack includes the ability to apply Reach. However, if they are Adjacent to you already (part of the ability requirements) you won't need Reach to start with.

Remember:

  For each hostile figure adjacent to you, perform 1 attack with a melee weapon targeting that figure

(Emphasis mine.) To initiate this ability, adjacency is first required. Reach does not grant Adjacent status.

It would only apply in this situation if you somehow where able to be Adjacent to a figure while still being 2 spaces away and not sharing an edge—against the standard rules. I'm not away of any cards or abilities that enables that though. (But I don't know all the cards by memory though.)

For reference:

RRG pg 4:

  A space is adjacent to each other space that shares an edge or corner with the space.

  • Spaces on either side of the diagonal intersection of walls and/or blocking terrain are not adjacent to each other

Just in case, if you do apply it for some reason, don't forget Reach still requires LoS.

RRG pg 21:

  A figure with [Reach] may perform melee attacks that target figures or objects up to 2 spaces away.

  • The attacking figure must have line of sight to the target in order to make this attack

In summary, no. You could apply Reach to a Melee attack but since you won't be able to initiate the attack without being Adjacent to start with, Reach won't need to be applied anyway.

(At least, this is my interpretation. Of course, the rules also doesn't explicitly state you can't do this. And it isn't super clear in the Reach rules the exact way it boosts a melee attack to enable it to not be adjacent anymore. So I totally get your confusion. And I wouldn't blame you if you disagree with me, because I can also see enough ambiguity in the rules to argue the other way. It might just come down to agreeing with the other players on a house rule about this one.)


Seal Away and Permanent control Most spells that exile a permanent temporarily, like Oblivion Ring or Fiend Hunter specify they return the permanent to the owner when the effect ends. Some of the newer ones like Seal Away do not say they return it to the owner.

Now I know if the permanent had been taken under temporary control from the owner, say Act of Treason or Word of Seizing the temporary effect ends, and it returns to the owner, but what happens if the effect was ongoing, say it was under temporary control then had Ghostly Flicker cast on it, or Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker's -2? Does the card return to the controller without the "end of turn" effect or does it return to the owner?

The Seal Away will return the creature under its owner's control: a permanent enters the battlefield under its owners control unless specified otherwise.

610 One-Shot Effects
610.1. A one-shot effect does something just once and doesn’t have a duration. Examples include dealing damage, destroying a permanent, creating a token, and moving an object from one zone to another.
...
610.3b An object returned to the battlefield this way returns under its owner’s control unless otherwise specified.


Auction of mortgaged properties during bankruptcy We have a house rule - No form of trade/deal is allowed between players. If someone wishes to sell anything - an auction has to be held always and the property goes to the highest bidder.

There are 3 players in the game. One player lands on my property and has to pay me rent but has no cash and all his properties have been mortgaged. Is he allowed to hold an auction for his mortgaged property to gather cash to avoid bankruptcy?
(officially I know under standard rules he could have made trades with the 3rd player to avoid bankruptcy but that is not possible)

I am inclined to think that since the bank bars us from collecting rent on the mortgaged properties an auction of mortgaged properties also doesn't make sense to me.

So to summarize - Can the player who is about to go bankrupt - legally put his mortgaged property card at the center of the board and hold an auction?

Since the "no trading/selling" rule is your own house rule, you're going to have to determine this yourself.
My own opinion is that you should probably allow the auctioning off of mortgaged property.
Why? Because the only thing the standard rules say you can't sell is improved properties (property with houses/hotels). It explicitly allows the selling/trading of mortgaged property, after which the "interest" on the mortgage comes due.
From the offical Hasbro rules book (pdf):

SELLING PROPERTY… Unimproved properties, railroads and utilities (but not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction for any amount the owner can get; however, no property can be sold to another player if buildings are standing on any properties of that color-group.

and later under "Mortgages":

The player who mortgages property retains possession of it and no other player may secure it by lifting the mortgage from the Bank. However, the owner may sell this mortgaged property to another player at any agreed price. If you are the new owner, you may lift the mortgage at once if you wish by paying off the mortgage plus 10% interest to the Bank.  If the mortgage is not lifted at once, you must pay the Bank 10% interest when you buy the property and if you lift the mortgage later you must pay the Bank an additional 10% interest as
well as the amount of the mortgage.

So since your "bank auction" is your house-rule substitute for selling directly, it only makes sense to maintain the same conditions, and allow auctioning of mortgaged property.


Smash Up - Treasure Card Question Treasure Card pictured.

If used as a special as noted.  A base is scoring off.  Can someone use this card to move a minion TO that base?   They currently do NOT have a minion on the base about to be scored but want to use the special on this card to move TO the scoring base.

No, the card is used to move minions from a base, not to a base.

If you use it as a special, then you must chose the base that is scoring. And, per the action text, you move a minion from the base, so the target must move the minion away from the scoring base.


In Axis and Allies, Can Infantry Building Lead to a "Stalemate" in the Early Going? Most has been made of the so-called infantry push mechanism. Specifically, infantry are awfully useful for shielding heavier pieces (tanks, planes) from losses. But could they be too much of a good thing, at least in the early going? Some examples:

Russia: Buys 8 infantry from at least 4-5 turns. With the possible exception of conquering Norway-Finland, and "strafing" the Ukraine, plays a strict defensive during that time.

Germany: Spends IPCs matching Russia's infantry build up in Europe. Except for sending 2 infantry each turn across the Med to Africa (which basically represents Germany's excess IPCs over Russia).

UK Build factory in South Africa in turn 1, 5 infantry in UK withe remaining IPCs. Turn 2, two tanks in SA, two transports. Turn 3, more tanks in SA, one transport in UK, remainder infantry, bound for Africa.

Japan: Build 8 infantry turns 1-2. Ferry 4 to China each turn using two transports, hold the rest for defense of homeland. Maybe on turn 3, build a third transport, ferry two more units to China (plus basic four).

U.S.: Move battleship and transport from Pacific to Caribbean first turn. Build factory in Sinkiang, 7 infantry. Turn 2, build tanks in Sinkiang, another transport off East Coast.  remainder infantry. Caribbean transport picks up two infantry from east coast, back to Caribbean. Turn 3, Caribbean transport takes infantry to protect Brazil, second transport takes infantry to West Indies and Panama, rest of infantry "dribbles" (from California) into Mexico and British Columbia.

Is this a static, defensive construct? Or are there dynamics that I'm missing?

Yes IPM can stalemate a game, but No, not in the beginning

Yes, the infantry push mechanic (IPM) can lead to stalemated games, but not in the early going. Rather, the game is dynamic and the board ever-changing en route to a stalemate after 5-7 turns. I've had this happen numerous times via two different playouts:

Traditional shuck-shuck

Both the Axis and Allies follow a basic IPM strategy.
Germany's objectives are to take and hold Africa as long as possible, maintain a solid front in Eastern Europe while occasionally trading the Ukraine with Russia and fending off a large-scale invasion of France.
The US and UK set up the shuck-shuck and try and take back Africa, plow infantry into Russia via Finland, and set up for an invasion of France.
Russia builds a fortress on their western front and slows Japan's inevitable advance as much as possible.
Japan goes full-bore in Asia: advancing as quickly as possible to Moscow to take the pressure off Germany.

If both players execute their strategies well this game can reach a stalemate in terms of it taking a very long time to decide the game; however, this should not be confused with the game being static. Germany steadily loses territory and Japan steadily gains it so the map is fluid; it's simply that no side can gain a edge.

If Germany can hold Africa for a reasonable amount of time, and if Japan expands quickly enough, the Axis will have IPC parity with the Allies. If this happens, both sides can stack up their infantry equally fast, which makes it difficult for either side to launch a successful attack because A&A combat is biased towards the defender.

Eventually the Allies will capture Germany, but a large enough stack of infantry and clever counter-attacking can make this very slow going for the allies. If timed right, Germany can give Japan enough time to capture Moscow just before Germany is eliminated. If this happens, Japan can sometimes expand so quickly into Europe that they alone are close to IPC parity with the US and UK. Japan is now effectively playing a Russian strategy in Karelia and German one in Africa and trying to keep it's IPC count high. If the US and UK can  get a solid enough foothold in Europe to start pumping out tanks from the German and Italian factories they will eventually win, but as long as Japan is able to counter and occasionally re-capture Italy (and/or harass the US in the Pacific) the game can keep plowing along with neither side gaining an advantage.

I've never seen Japan win if Germany falls, but I've seen it take 6 or 7 turns after Germany's fall before it was clear that they weren't going to pull it out, and I have seen the Axis win if Japan gets to Eastern Europe in time to reinforce the Fatherland.
Asia double factories.

The US builds a factory in Sinkiang and the UK in India so they can pump out five armor a turn.
Russian aids in the north with infantry
All three allies provide Asian air support

This three-pronged attack can effectively stop the Japanese advance in Asia. (I've even pushed Japan on the continent before using this strategy--although it didn't stick.) However, it obviously takes the pressure off Germany quite a bit and significantly delays both the start of and the magnitude of the shuck-shuck (two tanks per turn in Sinkiang is 3 less infantry in Europe; the UK has less income and one more tank to buy).

This game can stalemate with Japan unable to get a solid foothold in Asia and Germany able to keep and hold Africa (making up for Japan's failure) but unable to crack the Russian nut in Karelia (the US does reach 7 infantry a turn steady-state after all).

Both methods can reach stalemate if the IPCs are near parity because it is near impossible to attack large stacks of infantry without opening yourself up to a vicious counter-attack. Thus neither side attacks, the IPC balance doesn't swing, and the stacks of infantry get higher and higher.

Typically stalemates end with a victory in a secondary theater (e.g. Africa, South Pacific), which results in a small IPC advantage that builds slowly in time. It can also end with a clumsy move by one of the players, some exceedingly good (or bad) dice rolls, or by mutual agreement to end the game in a draw if everyone is too tired to continue.


When can Wookie Loyalty be applied? Wookiee Loyalty: Exhaust this card while you or an adjacent friendly figure is defending to apply +1 Block to the defense results.

An issue came up with in our recent game about the timing of using this ability. Do you need to declare it and exhaust it before the dice are rolled? Or can you wait to see the results of the dice roll and then choose to use it?

From the wording of the card, it suggests you can use it at any point during the defence i.e. after the dice results have been seen.

It seems a bit risky/useless to insist it happens before the dice roll. It would certainly be more fun to see the results first.


Can I special build after rolling the dice? This is during a 6 person game of catan with the fish. I am somewhat new to the game and when I was handed the dice I rolled them. At this point, one of the other players said this player wanted to special build. This player wanted to put a road right where I was going to put a road and in fact had the cards to do it prior to the roll.

I was told that because I had rolled the dice I had forfeited my opportunity to special build in that place, though if I had not rolled the dice I would have had the priority to build there. It seemed to me that the roll of the dice was not legitimate, as I had forgotten to call for the special building phase, and so should be disregarded and the special building phase should be called for.

How would you interpret this situation?

There are 2 possibilities of how to handle this here, and neither one would allow your opponent to build the road instead of you.

1) Have the special building phase; pretend like you never rolled. In this case, because it would be your turn next, you would get the first turn during the special building phase to build where you want.

2) Don't allow the special building phase; because it's too late for that. The special building phase would happen before your turn; now that you've rolled, it is your turn. People missed their chance to build. In this case, you can just build during your turn like normal.

The rules don't clearly state whose responsibility it is to ensure that people get a chance to build in the special building phase. However, they do state that the phase does happen. It's not optional (though each player building during the phase is optional). So you technically shouldn't have rolled the dice yet; because it wasn't your turn yet.

  The Special Building Phase occurs just after the end of your turn (i.e., between player turns).

But in a friendly game; we either do a quick check ("is anyone building in between turns?") or just assume that no one is unless someone speaks up ("hold on, I want to build before you roll").

Either way, I don't see any situation in which the rules would imply that you don't get a chance to build your road before your opponent; you have first chance at it.


If I block a creature with afflict and my blocker kills that creature, will I still take afflict damage? My opponent controls Neheb, the Eternal (a 6/5 creature with afflict 3), and attacks me with it. If I block Neheb with a creature that will kill it, will I still take damage from afflict?

Yes, you still lose life from Afflict

You even do so long before your opponent's creature dies - Afflict is a triggered ability that triggers when a player declares a blocker for that creature. What happens to that creature afterwards is irrelevant to this ability. Also note that it's not damage, but loss of life.

  702.129a Afflict is a triggered ability. “Afflict N” means “Whenever this creature becomes blocked, defending player loses N life.”

So, in your Declare Blockers step, Afflict triggers, eventually resolves, and causes you to lose 3 life. Following that step is the Combat Damage Step, in which your creature will deal lethal damage to your opponent's creature.


If I extend a word, do I get points for all the words, or just the straight line word? I'm having an argument that will determine the winner

Board looks like this:

S
AB
DE
 N
 D

If you add E to get:

S
AB
DE
EN
 D

Do you get points for just SADE and EN, or do you get AB and DE as well?
I think you only get points for the straight line word you extend, but I can't find a rule that says so.

You are correct (you get points just for SADE and EN, not for the other words still on the board that were on the board before your turn). Here's the rule from the official rules (emphasis added):

  The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed or modified on that turn

Perhaps an even easier way to resolve this doesn't even involve going back to the rules and finding the legal code that specifies it one way ot the other, but to consider what the ramifications of the other way of doing things would be.

Change your example a bit and the answer becomes clear:

If you add your E to

S
ABOUT
DENTISTRY
 N
 D

to make SADE and EN again:

S
ABOUT
DENTISTRY
EN
 D

would you attempt to score ABOUT and DENTISTRY? I think not.


Big or small team members in Heroclix? So, there seems to be two schools of thought when it comes to creating your standard team:

Go big or go home. Get all the biggest, most powerful guys you can to fit into your allotted points
Swarm them with small, efficient guys averaging about 50 points each.

What are the pros and cons of these methods? Is there anything to keep in mind for either scenario? Is one method significantly better than the other (in theory or practice)?

From my experience, I would lean towards the "Go big or go home" school of thought on this. Here's why:

Most of the expensive figures have a higher defense value. Most of the less expensive figures have a lower attack value. You may be able to direct 2 or 3 figures towards attacking your opponents costly Superman or Hulk, but they will have a harder time hitting it. It also works the other way: the higher cost figures will be able to hit your figures more often. Which leads me to...
Damage. The same idea applies for damage output, hit points, and defensive abilities. Your lower cost figures may have great stats on the first click, but as soon as they take any damage, their stats will degrade very quickly. The stronger figures will do more damage, making your figures less effective than you have bargained for. (This is especially true if your figures get hit before they have a change to attack.)
The higher cost figures tend to have higher damage output as well. If an expensive figure is doing 3 or 4 damage with a single hit, most 50 point characters will not last long.
Lower damage output also makes a costly figure's defensive bonuses better. If they are Tough or Invulnerable and you're only doing a couple of points of damage which each figure, you're not going to make much of a dent.

Swarming seems like a good strategy, but most of the time a higher cost figure will have enhanced defense or defensive abilities that keep you from doing a lot of damage to it and removing it from the game.


Blackjack Strategy Chart for only hitting and standing I'm try to program a blackjack strategy which makes use of a predetermined chart of moves given the dealer's upcard and the user's hand total. The version I'm implementing only allows hitting and standing — no doubling down, splitting, or surrendering. Furthermore I'm forcing the dealer to keep hitting until his total is greater than or equal to 17 — so no soft-17 rule. I've looked all over and haven't been able to find a chart that meets these specifications — could anybody help me get one? Thanks.

You shouldn't have much trouble at all finding a chart..

What you are looking for is known as Basic Strategy

Replace any double/split with a hit, surrender with fold if your simulation does not allow it.

Edit: As Hymie pointed out in the comments, splits are not always a hit.. in fact many splits you would stand on. A close approximation would be to use the same rules as if pairs (6,6 8,8 etc) were just treated as though they were their totals (12, 16 in those examples).

Generally speaking, if the dealer card is 7 or better, you draw to 17, otherwise you draw until 12 and stand otherwise (with some exceptions, notably 12 vs dealer 2,3)

Not sure if you allow soft-totals for the player..


For a given development strategy, how do you ensure enough secondary resources? This question could be asked for just about any strategy, but to make it "not broad," I'll specify my strategy.

Suppose I was planning to follow a development strategy. After placing my initial two settlements, I'll establish two more, and upgrade all four to cities, bringing me up to eight VPs. After that, I'll buy development cards and hope to get two more VPs directly, or possibly through the largest army. I've picked this strategy because it minimizes my need for brick and wood. With two new settlements, two new roads, and four upgrades to cities, my initial resource requirements look something like this:

4 wood, 4 brick, 2 wool, 10 grain, 12 ore.

If I concentrate on sites that will get grain and ore what is a good way of making sure I obtain "enough" of the others?

If I go for hexes that will get grain and ore with good numbers on the die such as six and eight, or at least five and nine, can I afford hexes where I get the others with fours and tens, or even threes and elevens, since I need proportionately less of them?
If I have one settlement/city at a harbor, am I likely to generate enough of my "good" resources so I will be able to trade for the ones I need?
Some development cards will give me two free roads. How helpful are these likely to be?
I'm assuming that if I take an early lead, others will be unwilling to trade with me. Am I being too pessimistic?

There is no sure fire path to victory in Settlers, since there will be some games where a six is never rolled and a twelve is rolled four times in ten turns.  Nevertheless there are some principles to follow when playing Catan.

Watch the resources you don't have. Know who is holding them and who is not holding them.  Often times the entire board will be short on a resource and at other times there will be an abundance of something you don't have.  Look for trades when there's lots out there.  Look to soldier when there isn't.  Managing your acquisition of your most limited resources is the most important skill in Settlers.
Don't waste soldiers.  Hold your soldiers and only use them when they can provide you with a big advantage.  If you have no need for the resource that the thief is sitting on then don't worry about it unless it's worth multiples for you.  Unplayed soldiers are valuable bargaining material. You may be able to get a good trade by threatening others.  Use your judgment though, some players won't take kindly to threats. Ignore this rule if another player may snipe largest army.
Try and create jackpots.  Having a jackpot number makes you less of a target when you don't have your number come up and allows you do almost always do something when your number does come up.
4-1 trades can be worth it, but only do so after exhausting diplomatic/military options.
Never hold the resources which are scarce to you.  It's better to burn the sheep on dev cards, the brick and wood on roads than to try and save them for another round to get a settlement.  Inevitably, if you risk holding them, you will be thieved or lose some other form of opportunity.

You will be short of resources in every game of Settlers.  You can't have good incomes of all the five resource types, so it's important to understand your current game situation and how to maximise your advantages, while minimising your weaknesses.  Development cards are excellent for papering over the gaps in your civilisation.  Brick/wood players are trying to out-expand their opponents.  Wheat/ore players are trying to advance their civilisations so quickly that they can out-produce their opponents.


Is giving resources away for free allowed? Motivation: I once had one surplus card on my hand, and knew the robbers would come soon. So I gave it to someone for free, to avoid losing more cards when they hit.
I was surprised by how badly this was received. Two of the three other players (the hosts of the game) acted upset, like I had tried to cheat. I had to take the card back, get robbed the next turn and 'giving cards away for free' was banned immediately. (Oh, how I hate mid-game additions to the rules. But that's beside the point.)

So now the question: Is this really illegal in Settlers of Catan? Is it generally considered underhanded in any way? If so, why?

My reasoning was like this:

  Consider players A and B.
  A wants to give B a sheep.
  A trades a sheep and one rock to B, in exchange for wheat.
  A trades the received wheat for the (formerly his) rock.
  A and B now both have the same resources they had in the beginning, only the sheep has moved from A to B.

Contrary to what mafu has stated in their answer, there is an official rule against this practice:

  You may trade with another player between your turns, but only if it
  is his turn and he elects to trade with you. You cannot trade with the
  bank during another player’s turn. You may not give away cards.

(from the Almanac section of the rulebook, near the top of p14)

I understand that you can "effectively" give away cards by cunning sequences of "legitimate" trades, but it seems clear that this isn't really in the spirit of the game, and players should feel free to frown upon such sharp practice!


How to combat Cascade in Commander recently moved from standard and began playing Commander last weekend using two of the new 2016 sets. Mine is Breed Lethality vs opponent's Entropic Uprising. So far I've lost 5 out of 6 games, and I'm not a bad player! Once he gets the cascade going, especially with multiple recurrences using Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, I'm essentially dead.

So then, what is the best tactic to combat cascade!?!? Especially given my deck. I really don't want to break up the deck, but if I have to. Perhaps these two are just mismatched.

Restating the above question, what is the best tactic to combat cascade? (I thought this was evident already...)

Thanks & happy holidays.

So cascade is good because it is a powerful card advantage engine. This is why Bloodbraid Elf is banned in Modern and Shardless Agent has made a tier 1 deck in Legacy.

There are a few strong counters to cascade. My favorite it Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Since they can only cast spells at sorcery speed, they can never cast the cascaded spell. Other spells like counterflux can counter all spells on the stack.

Considering it is commander, you will probably need a collection of cards like this to fight against cascade. However, considering the problem is the commander, honestly just packing more removal for it, such as go for the throat, swords to plowshares, flame slash, etc is your best bet


After failing the test on Dhol Chants, does the card stay in the room or get discarded? Cards like Dhol Chants state that if you pass the test, you discard the card and receive another one. It doesn't say what to do if you fail the test. Do I discard it also, or do I leave it in that room for the next action turn/next investigator?

If you fail the Test on a card, the investigator holding it still keeps the card UNLESS SPECIFICALLY TOLD TO DISCARD IT.

Your penalty with the tomes is that you've blown your action. The tome remains in your possession, so you can try again.

Reading the question, it seems like there's confusion. When you discover the tome by exploring, it's just equipment you pick up. You have to use another action (normally on another turn) to actually read it, but you can carry it around with you till you find a safe place to do so.


How to hook beginners on galaxy trucker by giving them an extra turbulent round one I want all my friends to love Galaxy Trucker as much as I do.

Unfortunately if not enough pieces fall off your ship, the game isn't as fun. Then people don't want to play again.  This is quite common in the base game; often I just happen to get a mostly planets/open space draw. Do people have more sophisticated methods for (pseudo-)randomizing the cards in order to make sure there's a generous collection of meteoric swarms and laser-blast-dealing cards.

After all, if no one's ship falls apart by the end of the first round, then what's the point?

Since your question says "often I just happen to get a mostly planets/open space draw" I'm going to assume that you're not doing the first time setup that the rules say to do:

  From the deck labeled “I”, take the eight cards marked with an asterisk in the lower left corner. Shuffle these eight cards and set them near the flight board.

You really should do that. It's basically one of every type of card, so that everyone sees how everything works. The goal is not to make it hard, it's to teach them how to play the game, so that they have some hope of building a ship that can do well in later rounds. The first round is deliberately short, and not terribly important in terms of your final score, so it's fine to use it as a teaching moment. There's plenty of opportunity for failure in later rounds, when people will have some idea of what they're doing.

I would definitely not recommend trying to make it more "turbulent". Sure, the point of the game is that things go wrong. But there's no need to take that to an extreme; if anything that's even worse for new players. Without any experience, they'll tend to have built ships that don't fare well, while you with your experience will tend to do better, so it's going to look like a really frustrating, punishing game, where they try to build a ship and the game destroys it and they end up with no points.

  After all, if no one's ship falls apart by the end of the first round, then what's the point?

If you really think this is important, make it your ship that falls apart. Build something under-connected, stick important things on the exterior, don't put a laser in the center, and so on. But don't deliberately make the game punish new players.

In general, I'd say you should give the game a chance to do what it's meant to do. If people don't like the game, don't play it with them. If new players have preconceptions, encourage them to have an open mind, be friendly about the game, and don't pressure them to have exactly the experience you think they should have, just give them the opportunity to enjoy it.


Self-publishing options for a card came with box I would like to self-publish my card game with a service that will ship the game to buyers.

The game would include 45 poker-size cards, 17 A5-size cards, 6 small cards carrying 1-6 numbers (as a replacement for a die), a game instructions sheet and a box.

I know two services:

TGC but I read they are expensive and not high quality for cards.
DriveThru Cards seems to be great but I believe they don't do boxes, am I right?

Are there any other services which could do this for me?

DriveThruCards now offers tuck boxes.

Daniel Solis gives a great review of them here.


Are there cards which turn life gain into damage instead? I was playing Hearthstone the other day and was intrigued by a card that causes healing spells to do damage instead.  I was curious if there was ever anything printed in MTG that would have a similar effect, i.e. every time you would gain X life you take X damage instead.

Yes, there's Rain of Gore.

  If a spell or ability would cause its controller to gain life, that player loses that much life instead

As well as False Cure.

  Until end of turn, whenever a player gains life, that player loses 2 life for each 1 life he or she gained.

There's also Sanguine Bond.

  Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life.


Computer Go algorithms applied to other games? Fairly recently, Computer Go programs became able to compete with humans using Monte-Carlo Search trees:

  A Monte Carlo (MC) go program plays random games and easily evaluates the terminal position (win or loss). A MC program searches for moves that have high win rates, calculated from playing out at least a few hundred random games.

(This is a very simplified description. In practice one want to explore interesting branches with higher priority, so the randomness has to be controlled in some way using collected results. To play go at a reasonable level several millions of random games still have to be played out. But, hopefully it's quite fast to play randomly…)

I feel like a lot more games could be “addressed” using this method, and that could include maybe a vast majority of board games…

Two questions:

Has the Monte Carlo method already been applied to other games? (Are there concrete implementations available?)
For which kind of games, among those that have clearly stated rules and won't rely on complex communication between players, this method can be expected to fail?

Has the Monte Carlo method already been applied to other games? (Are there concrete implementations available?

Yes. This Grad paper might be of interest to you. It covers Backgammon, Bridge, Go, Scrabble, and Clobber.

Backgammon, implementation TD-gammon.
Bridge, implementation Bridge Barron. Probably outclassed these days by other computer implementations.
Scrabble, implementation MAVEN.

For which kind of games, among those that have clearly stated rules and won't rely on complex communication between players, this method can be expected to fail?

Actually, Monte Carlo methods don't do very well with end games in general. You will find that many computer implementations that use Monte Carlo methods employ different algorithms when playing the endgame.

MAVEN uses B* search algorithms during the endgame (no more tile to draw).
MoGo uses 3x3 patterns to help identify "interesting" moves, and Upper Confidence applied to Trees (UCT) to help prune less optimal random moves from consideration and speed up searching.

While Monte Carlo methods are a useful tool in playing board games, they aren't a perfect solution. Computer Go programs using MCTS, are still unable to beat the best players on 19x19 boards without significant handicaps. Computer Bridge programs are no match for expert players. Monte Carlo methods will only approach perfect game with infinite time/space.


Does transforming a card trigger an enters the battlefield effect? When a card transforms to its back face, does it trigger an enter the battlefield ability?

In most cases (maybe all), when a card is flipped, it's exiled and returned to the battlefield so it triggers. But what would be triggered if card is just flipped?

For example, when Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh is flipped to Chandra, Roaring Flame, does it trigger Oath of Chandra second ability?

Transforming a card doesn't cause enter the battlefield effects to trigger.

Transforming a card is explained in the comprehensive rules under rule 701.26. More specifically:

  701.26a To transform a permanent, turn it over so that its other face is up. Only permanents represented by double-faced cards can transform. (See rule 711, “Double-Faced Cards.”)

When transforming a double faced card (Rule 711) it never leaves the battlefield in the first place.

The exception to this standard way of transforming are the 5 Planeswalkers from magic Orgins. In order to function properly they have additional rules text on each card that modifies how they transform, for instance Chandra has (emphasis mine):

  If Chandra has dealt 3 or more damage this turn, exile her, then return her to the battlefield transformed under her owner's control.

The Magic Origins Planeswalkers need to leave and Enter the Battlefield in order to get their Loyalty counters, as all Planeswlakers are treated as if they have "This permanent enters the battlefield with a number of loyalty counters on it equal to its printed loyalty number." in their rules text (306.5b). If they transformed normally they would never receive their loyalty counters and would then die.

In your specific example since Chandra the Roaring Flame is being exiled and then returning to the Battlefield transformed, Oath of Chandra's ability will trigger.


Why is the strong 1NT so prevalent in Bridge? Bridge is widely considered to be the queen of card games on both sides of the Atlantic.  However, there's one huge difference between the way that (most) Americans and (most) Britons play.  In American Standard, an opening 1NT bid signifies a balanced hand of 15-17 points.  In (British) ACOL, the same bid signifies 12-14 points balanced.

As someone who learned Bridge in the UK, it seems to me obvious that weak no trump is the better system.  A 12-14 point balanced hand comes up WAY more often than a 15-17, so you're getting a lot more use out of the bid.  Yes, you will proceed to game from a weak no trump bid a lot less often than from a strong, but that doesn't seem very important.  The amount of bidding space that you take away from your opponents by a 1NT bid where they have the balance of the points is a huge bonus, in my opinion.

Could it be that British players just prefer playing aggressive, interferential Bridge?  As well as weak no trumps, I also love weak jump overcalls, whose main purpose is to eat up large amounts of the opponents' bidding space, to prevent them easily making games and slams that they have the points for.  Do Americans prefer a "fair" game of Bridge, where you bid on the points you have, not to mess the opponents around?

I'm sure that the strong no trump would not have remained central to American Bridge for so long if it wasn't pretty robust and well-thought-through, though.  So can any aficionados of it explain to me what's so good about it?

I am no bridge historian, but wouldn't the underlying answer have to do with the underlying  "path dependence?" This is a standard: Most people in Britain use weak 1 NT, so people in Britain first learn weak 1 NT. Conversely, most people in the US use strong 1 NT, so most people in USA first learn strong 1 NT.

The main idea of path dependence is that there doesn't have to be some grand "reason" that a standard develops. A standard would only get undermined if it was radically inferior (e.g., people that play one system win way more often, ceteris paribus) . I'd guess that Truscott's book has some story... which gave a kernel of advantage to each system in different countries... which led to a "lock in" of each standard in each country.

It's not like the average player in the US plays often with people from Britain. And there's not this bias at the highest levels of bridge, right?


Stuffy Doll blocking 11/11 trampler. Phyrexian Obliterator blocks 11/11 trampler What my problem is when last night a Stuffy Doll blocked my 11/11 trampler, the result was me taking 11 damage and Stuffy Doll absorbing one of that damage from the defending player who took ten damage. We called mtg for a ruling and that was the one given. How is it that Stuffy Doll takes 11 damage, but at the same time ten of it gets through to opponent? I was expecting to take one damage from Stuffy Doll, seeing as how Stuffy Doll only really took one. I don't understand that in one case Stuffy Doll has taken one and in the other Stuffy Doll has taken 11. Sounds like a logical fallacy ie 1 = 11.

Second question is what if I block an 11/11 trampler with a Phyrexian Obliterator ? Will the opponent have to sacrifice 5 permanents or 11 permanents?  Would it be any different if the attacking creature didn't have trample?

You should have only taken 1 damage.  When damage happens, you choose how to assign your 11 damage. You must assign at least 1 to Stuffy Doll. Because your creature has trample, you can assign the other 10 to your opponent. Even though Stuffy Doll has indestructible, 1 damage is still considered lethal damage. So Stuffy Doll will take 1 damage, your opponent will take 10, and Stuffy Doll will deal you 1 damage.

Similar thing for your other question. Your opponent must assign at least 5 damage to your obliterator. He can assign as much as 11. So how many permanents he sacrifices depends on how much he chooses to assign. If his creature does not have trample, he must assign all 11 to the obliterator, and he will sacrifice 11 permanents.


How many missed triggers are necessary before you begin to have Game Losses and/or DQs? While reviewing the latest changes to the Magic Infraction Procedure Guide, I notice that a missed trigger is considered a Warning, but that,

Judges should not intervene in a missed trigger situation unless they intend to issue a Warning or have reason to
suspect that the controller is intentionally missing his or her triggers.

A conversation arose between a friend and I about what would happen if someone were to build a deck around purposefully forgetting his triggers. For the sake of the argument, let it be given that he's an incredibly good liar (20+ Charisma? What, wrong SE site? You mad?) and is able to convince any judge or other person at any time that it was unintentional, but that it was actually intentionally missed.
As the day progresses (and some of these tournaments have 14+ rounds) it is inevitable that a number of his opponents will notice his, err, forgetfulness. However, the IPG doesn't seem to indicate how these infractions begin to roll up into heavier sanctions. At what point does his forgetfulness warrant a game loss, and eventually DQ? Surely after a certain number of warnings, you start having serious consequences.

Kate: You were in default when we sent you delinquency notices.
Peter: I thought those were just warnings.
Kate: They were warnings.

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating such a strategy. Even without ethical concerns of trying to cheat and get away with it, I think this strategy would involve purposefully selecting corner-case scenarios which probably won't happen, and that you'd be better off finding solid strategies that don't require you to hope your opponent doesn't notice.

The same pdf referenced contains some text that shows the escalation of warnings on page 7 (2paragraphs before the start of the 'gameplay error - missed trigger' section):

  A third or subsequent Warning for a Game Play Error offense in the same category should be upgraded to a Game Loss. For multi-day events, the penalty count for these infractions resets between days.


Does shooting the second ship in the alert queue still cause an alert to take its place? This is the description of shooting ships in the alert queue, on page 12:

  While the External Scanners are online, you may shoot ships that are in the visible alert queue. If you shoot the first ship in the queue (the one that will be revealed at the end of your turn) then you do not need to draw an alert card at the end of turn. If you shoot the second ship in the queue, replace it at the end of your turn when you resolve the alert for your turn.

Shooting the first in the queue just brings the next ones forward, skipping the appearance of an alert this turn, as you could expect a conveyor belt of alerts to be handled, but the rules imply shooting the second alert does not behave that way but simply moves all the alerts behind it up a step.  It results in an alert still appearing every turn.  My guess is this design is to make it all the more 'expensive' to consider blasting an alert that is further away from the ship.  Do I have the interpretation of the rules here right (not the reason behind it, just how they are to be followed)?

What is happening here is that when you shoot a ship that is in the first slot of the queue you are delaying it appearing for one turn. However if you shot a ship in the second slot of the queue you are preventing it form appearing at all. The difference is if you are going to delay it or prevent it from coming at all.


If damaged by another player's Acid Attack, can I cede Tokyo? If I'm in Tokyo, and a player outside of Tokyo has Acid Attack, they will do one damage to me on their turn (even without rolling a claw). But will that damage from Acid Attack allow me to leave Tokyo (forcing the other play into Tokyo)?

Acid Attack reads

  Deal 1 extra damage each turn (even if you don't otherwise attack).

In general, damage from cards are not considered attacks. For Acid Attack specifically, a search of the net shows the unanimous result that Acid Attack is not considered an attack. Since it's not an attack, you do not have the option of ceding.


Rebound affecting Return to Dust (second main phase) The way Return to Dust is phrased is a bit confusing, does it see a difference between pre-combat and post combat main phases?  If I cast return to dust post combat and Taigam, Ojutai Master is under my control, will I have 2 targets to choose from on the initial cast?  When the spell rebounds, will I have one or two targets available to me?

No, Return to Dust does not differentiate between pre- and post-combat main phases. You get to exile 1-2 targets when you cast it during any of your main phases, and 1 otherwise.

Generally, when an effect asks about any property of an object or the game state (such as which phase it is), then as long as the wanted properties are fulfilled, the others can be what they want. Specifically, if Return to Dust does something else "if you cast it during your main phase", then it doesn't matter if it's your pre- or any post-combat main phase.

  505.1. There are two main phases in a turn. In each turn, the first main phase (also known as the precombat main phase) and the second main phase (also known as the postcombat main phase) are separated by the combat phase (see rule 506, “Combat Phase”). The precombat and postcombat main phases are individually and collectively known as the main phase.

If you cast the card again through Rebound, it will happen during your upkeep. The second cast is independent of the previous because it's a new object rather than a copy, so it looks at the current phase. It finds that it's not a main phase, so you get to exile only 1 target.

  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.[..]


How much bandwidth does Vassal consume? A friend of mine is designing a game, and I'd like to playtest it with him.  We have no possibility of meeting face to face; also, finding ±90 minutes to play through Vassal when I'm at home is quite difficult.  However, I travel quite often by train, and then I have much time.  The problem is, I have then only a very slow Internet connection (using my mobile phone).  Do I assume correctly that this should be enough to play through Vassal?  (I assume that it sends only info about my move - no graphics etc.)

Vassal is pretty low bandwidth - as you correctly guess, the graphics are all part of the pre-downloaded game files, so in play it only sends information about which pieces you moved and where to.  It's on the same order as using a text chat app, and pretty favourable compared to a web page.

Obviously you'll need to download and update the actual game files in advance, as those can be larger.

(There's still enough bandwidth usage that you could notice the cost, however, if you're on a pay-per-byte plan for your mobile.)


Can I use Lingering Souls' flashback ability the same turn I cast it normally? For Lingering Souls once the spell is played on my turn it is put into the graveyard. However if I have enough mana can I instantly play the flashback ability or do I need to wait until my next turn to take it out the graveyard?

If the card is in the graveyard, you have the mana to pay the flashback cost, and  priority to play the spell, you can play it. Note that you have to wait for the spell to resolve before you can play it again, because that's when you put the card in the graveyard.

There is no rule specifying that you have to wait until your next turn.


Beetle movement clarification I took an image from another question and roughly repurposed it in paint. Here's my question:

Can a beetle move through gaps that would otherwise restrict a queen/ant/spider?

That is, can the circled beetle get to the desired field in 1 move (yellow track), or would he need to first climb over one piece (as illustrated in the red).

If that is legal, it brings me to my follow up question. Could the beetle move in the following way, or would it temporarily break the hive in between transition (1 hive rule) ?

It appears that here, the beetle would be in constant contact with the hive, even though that beetle is clearly the anchor.

Here is a quote from book Play Hive Like a Champion: Strategy, Tactics and Commentary by Randy Ingersoll with foreword by John Yianni, Designer of Hive.

According to section 2.2, page 6:

  Note that the ability to climb on
  the hive can be thought of as a circumvention of the Freedom
  to Move rule, but while moving on the same level the Beetle
  is subject to the Freedom to Move rule.

It is pretty clear, that contrary to Steve's answer, the yellow route is not a legal move.

There is also a good discussion of beetle move rules here

See similar question answered here


Will Rings of Brighthearth + The Chain Veil let me use Chain Veil's ability more than once? I have a question in regards of using The Chain Veil's Activated Ability:

  {4}, {T}: For each planeswalker you control, you may activate one of its loyalty abilities once this turn as though none of its loyalty abilities have been activated this turn.

Can I use Rings of Brighthearth copying ability

  Whenever you activate an ability, if it isn't a mana ability, you may pay {2}. If you do, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.

to use Chain's ability more than once in one turn?

Yes. The sequence would/could be as follows:

You activate The Chain Veil, and put its ability on the stack.
The ring's triggered ability triggers, and is put on the stack.
(after all players pass priority) The triggered ability resolves, you are given the choice to pay 2 and copy the ability, and the copy is placed on the stack.
(players pass priority) The copied effect resolves.
(players pass priority) The original effect resolves.

A ruling from Gatherer confirms that The Chain Veil's ability can be repeated, i.e. each effect allows an additional loyalty ability to be played, on top of the single normal use.

  Each additional time The Chain Veil’s last ability resolves will allow you to activate a loyalty ability of each planeswalker you control an additional time. For example, if you activate The Chain Veil’s last ability, untap it, then activate it again, you can activate a loyalty ability of a planeswalker you control three times that turn.