Evenly Matched and Cosmic Cyclone I had a question regarding a unique trap called Evenly Matched:

  At the end of the Battle Phase, if your opponent controls more cards than you do, make your opponent banish cards face-down until they control the same number of cards. If you control no cards, you can activate this card from your hand.

And a powerful Quick-play spell called Cosmic Cyclone:

  Pay 1000 LP, then target 1 Spell/Trap card and remove it from play.

Now the thing is. I was dueling a True Draco deck the other day with my Blue Eyes. I was trying to play Trade-In and my opponent activated Imperial Order. As he did so, I chained Cosmic Cyclone to remove it from play before it's effect resolved. Now basically it went like this:

Chain 1: Trade-In
Chain 2: Imperial Order
Chain 3: Cosmic Cyclone

Chain 3 resolves first, then chain 2 (but since it's removed from play it doesn't resolve), then chain 1.

So basically given that my Cosmic Cyclone was able to stop Imperial Order's effect from resolving, could Cosmic Cyclone also be chained to Evenly Matched and stop IT from resolving it's effect?

So basically given that my Cosmic Cyclone was able to stop Imperial Order's effect from resolving, could Cosmic Cyclone also be chained to Evenly Matched and stop IT from resolving it's effect?

No you can't

The thing is that you were able to prevent Imperial Order from resolving its effect because it is a Continuous Trap card. In Yu-Gi-Oh some cards need to remain face-up to resolve their effects; continuous spell and trap cards are one of those (field cards also).

This means that you can "negate" (do note that you are not negating, but instead preventing from resolving) cards like Fire Formation - Tenki with cards like Cosmic Cyclone or the classic Mystical Space Typhoon.

The thing is that Evenly Matched is not a continuous card so even though it is banished or in the GY when resolving it will resolve, as you did not negate it's activation.

A common example (and mistake) similar to this is when unexperienced players think they can "negate Dark Hole with Mystical Space Typhoon", when you can't as Dark Hole is not continuous and MST does not negate.


Does a Life Gain deck have any hope against a Stigma Lasher? Is there anything that can be done against a Stigma Lasher if you have a life gain deck?

This card seems quite broken.  2 mana for a 2/2 wither is a good card.  But to have it ruin any hope of lifegain for the rest of the game seems unfair.  (The rulings say that you still cannot gain life even if you kill Stigma Lasher.)

I was planning to build a life gain deck to counter my friends burn deck.  But that seems pointless now.

He can add a few of these and some cards like Soul's Fire or Power of Fire (letting a creature damage a player without a chance to block) and I will be done for the rest of the game.

Is there any way to remove the effect of Stigma Lasher once it has done combat damage?

Stigma Lasher's effect cannot be removed while the game is still going on — so, obviously, the only way around it is to abandon the current game and replace it with a new one by using Karn Liberated's third ability, which gets rid of the effect and also everything you've accomplished so far.


Multiple enchantments on a single player Can you place multiple copies of one curse, enchantment, on a single player? For example, can one person have multiple Curse of the Bloody Tome placed on them? The enchantment is not legendary but I wasn't sure of the ruling.

There is no limit on the number of Enchantments that can be attached to an object or player.

In the case of Curse of the Bloody Tome, the ability of both Enchantments would trigger at the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, after which both will be added to the stack, after which the enchanted player will be forced to mill two cards, then another two cards.


When resolving "destroy X when Y enters the battlefield", must I choose a target if the only available one is my own? Say that I cast a Viridian Shaman and there is only one artifact on the battlefield - my Sol Ring. Must I destroy my own artifact due to Viridian Shaman's trigger?

Yes you must destroy your own artifact if it is the only one on the battlefield. If it were optional it would have the word 'may' in the ability like Acid Web Spider.
When an ability triggers and it has a legal target it will always be put on the stack and a legal target chosen. Then when the ability resolves if it has a 'may' in it you can choose not to have its effect occur otherwise it does.

603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point.
603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority.
603.5. Some triggered abilities’ effects are optional (they contain “may,” as in “At the beginning of your upkeep, you may draw a card”). These abilities go on the stack when they trigger, regardless of whether their controller intends to exercise the ability’s option or not. The choice is made when the ability resolves.


Exchanging nearly all man in draughts (checkers) I haven't played draughts (checkers) for a long time, but I recall that exchanging 3-5 men into kings in a single game is quite rare and performing more than 5 exchanges in one game is very rare.

Yet, I found this piece of text in Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace":

  For Kutuzov this was mathematically clear, as it is that if when playing draughts I have one man less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore should not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have fourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged thirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am.

What kind of exchange or game move is he writing about?

He could possibly be talking about standard man-to-king promotion, because it is not practically possible (or very, very rare) to exchange thirteen pieces into kings, nor would doing so make my opponent three times stronger than I am.

He has 14 pieces and his opponent 16. So his strength compared to his opponent is 14/16 = 7/8.

The exchange is the trade. Trade 13 pieces for 13 other pieces. So he has 14-13 = 1 and his opponent 16-13 = 3. So his opponent has three times as much pieces as he. The exchange has nothing to do with the promotion to king.

When you are behind, it is often not advantageous to trade. Unless you get a better position.


"Sacrifice a Creature" cost on as an ability: is there a limitation to how many times you can use it each turn? Say I have a zombie knight on the field, as well as a Carrion Feeder(sacrifice a creature: put a +1/+1 counter on Carrion Feeder), Haakon, Stromgald Scourge (as long as Haakon in in play, you may play knight cards from the graveyard), and Rooftop Storm(zombie creatures cost 0 to cast). If I use Carrion Feeder's sacrifice ability to sacrifice the zombie knight, can I simply cast that zombie knight from the graveyard and continue to sacrifice an cast infinitely, or can you only use the sacrifice ability once per turn?

You can activate an ability as many times as you like as long as you can pay the cost.  The  only restrictions on activating an ability are listed in rule 602.5:

602.5. A player can’t begin to activate an ability that’s prohibited from being activated.
602.5a A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol ({T}) or the untap symbol ({Q}) in its activation cost can’t be activated unless
the creature has been under its controller’s control since the start
of their most recent turn. Ignore this rule for creatures with haste
(see rule 702.10).
602.5b If an activated ability has a restriction on its use (for example, “Activate this ability only once each turn”), the restriction
continues to apply to that object even if its controller changes.
602.5c If an object acquires an activated ability with a restriction on its use from another object, that restriction applies only to that
ability as acquired from that object. It doesn’t apply to other,
identically worded abilities.
602.5d Activated abilities that read “Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery” mean the player must follow the timing
rules for casting a sorcery spell, though the ability isn’t actually a
sorcery. The player doesn’t actually need to have a sorcery card that
they could cast.
602.5e Activated abilities that read “Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant” mean the player must follow the timing
rules for casting an instant spell, though the ability isn’t actually
an instant. The player doesn’t actually need to have an instant card
that they could cast.

So in the case you've listed above where you can recur and sacrifice a creature endlessly, go wild (note that you can't choose to activate something an infinite amount of times, you do have to pick a number, but that's a whole different discussion).


How many Diabolic Tutors is too many? Everyone loves the Diabolic Tutor:

But how many tutors is too many? If I'm running a mono-black or black-heavy deck, is there any reason to not just put in four Tutors? What are the possible downsides?

There are two basic reasons to use a tutor:

1) You have a card that you want more than 4 of, but there is no similar substitute available.

2) To be able to have a 'toolbox' of 1-of answers to different types of threats.

So what is the card in your deck that you wish you could have more than 4 of?  What are possible substitutes for it in the format you're building for?  Is using a turn and extra mana to get at it preferable to the substitute card?  The primary reason not to put in a tutor is if your deck can reliably deliver on its designed win condition without needing access to more than 4 of a particular card.

Toolbox decks are usually meta-game haterators, so it's tough to talk about them in the abstract.  Mono-black isn't usually known for it though.  Toolbox tutors are more often things like Birthing Pod searching up creatures with desirable enters-the-battlefield effects.

--

Diabolic Tutor specifically, your biggest challenge on that one is how it impacts your mana curve.  What are the 5-drop cards in your deck you're tutoring for that you must hit on T5 in order to win?  What 4-drop card are you giving up the opportunity to play on curve in order to tutor for something that comes out next turn?

Turn 4 is not a good time to be making a play that doesn't impact the board state.  Turn 4 is the kill turn for aggro decks in Standard/Modern that got a half-decent starting hand.  Tapping out for a tutor also communicates a lot of information to your opponent.  e.g., The only reason you tapped out for 4 in mono-black standard and played a tutor instead of an Obliterator, was to go tutor for an Obliterator.  They will do everything they can to be ready for it next turn!

--

In decks for big multiplayer games, go for it, play all the tutors you can.  When games regularly go over 10 turns, getting what you need late is more important than playing on-curve early.


How does the medic work in Pandemic - In the lab once a disease is cured? The In the Lab expansion requires you to move cubes into dishes in order to cure diseases and beat the game.

Once a disease have been cured, the "automatic" ability of the Medic is that all of the cured disease cubes are removed when he enters a city.

In the rule-set it is stated that the ability of the medic cannot move any cubes to the sample dishes.

I interpret this as once a disease is cured, the Medic can no longer move any cubes of that color to the dishes, because when he is done taking his move action, the city already has all the cubes removed, before the treat action could be taken.

Is this the correct interpretation of the rules?

Yes, your interpretation is correct.

From the rules for Pandemic In the lab:

  A cube removed from the board by Events, the Containment Specialist’s
  ability, the Medic’s ability to automatically remove cured disease
  cubes, etc. may not be placed in a sample dish.

From the rules for Pandemic:

  The Medic removes all cubes, not 1, of the same color when doing the
  Treat Disease action. If a disease has been cured , he automatically
  removes all cubes of that color from a city, simply by entering it or
  being there. This does not take an action

I could find nowhere in the rules that said the medic's ability was optional.


Alternating paths in Niagara Niagara (sometimes called Iguazu) has one of the most entertaining boards I've ever encountered. It's a shame that sometimes a river piece gets stuck, or two consecutive river pieces move down the same side of the waterfall instead of alternating.

When the latter occurs, are we supposed to 'fix' it (e.g. pieces are supposed to alternate) or not (pieces go where they happen to go when you push)?

We always went with alternating pieces, but sometimes it can be difficult to establish which way the last piece went to determine the direction of the next one.

The rules state - "players should push the disc by hand in the opposite direction of the direction the previous disc moved".

It shouldn't be to hard to know which way it previously went as it only happened a moment ago.  Also the rules do state that the river is "usually alternating, but not always".  If a group really can't remember which way the river just went then just randomly decide the next direction.

I find if a player gently holds the board down either side of where the board fold is and the river splits that prevents the river discs from getting jammed.

I use the fact the discs fall at the bottom of the river and leave a leave a disc there as a reminder which fell last. there are 3 spare discs so one pile always has 2 and the other always has one meaning the river should fall there next.


Can I pay a "when this attacks, you may pay energy" cost multiple times? So say I have an Aetherstream Leopard and I have 10 energy counters to spend, when I attack with it can I spend all 10 energy counters to give it a +20/+0?
And same thing with an Aether Swooper, spend 10 energy counters when attacking to create 5 servos?

What you have there are examples of triggered abilities. They say "Whenever [this card] attacks, ..." and this means that the moment you declare them as attackers, the ability triggers once and only once, and it's put on the stack.

When the ability resolves you follow the text of the ability: you either pay the mentioned energy cost or you don't. You don't have the option of paying it several times in a single trigger because the ability doesn't say you do. And it doesn't trigger multiple times because "Whenever [this card] attacks, ..." is specifically a simplification of "When you declare [this creature] as an attacker, ...".

You would have been able to pay an arbitrary amount of energy if either of the following had been the case:

If the ability were an activated ability. Activated abilities look like "Cost: Effect". So if the swooper had had "[2 energy symbols]: Create a 1/1 artifact servo token", you could've created an army at any time, provided you had enough energy.
If the triggered ability had explicitly let you pay as much energy as you wanted. If the leopard had had "Whenever Aetherborn Leopard attacks, pay any amount of [energy symbol]. Aetherborn Leopard gets +2/+0 for each [energy symbol] spent this way" you could've pumped it to be as large as you wanted, provided you had enough energy.


What are the restrictions on picking up locomotives? If, after drawing one of the five cards from the face up train cards, and after replacing that card, the second card is drawn from the top of the deck and is a locomotive card, is the player allowed to keep that card?

Likewise, if both cards are drawn from the the top of the stack and the second card is a locomotive card, is the player allowed to keep that card?

It varies by which Ticket To Ride game you're playing.

In USA, Europe, and Asia, you may do any of the following on your turn:

Draw a face-up locomotive
draw two face-up non-locomotive card
draw two cards off the deck
draw one face-up non-locomotive and one card off the deck, in either order.

In Switzerland and Nordic Countries:

draw two face-up cards
draw two cards off the deck
draw one face-up card and one card off the deck, in either order.

The difference has a lot to do with how they are used - the Switzerland and Nordic rules don't allow engines to be used for plain routes, only for tunnels and ferries.


Axis and allies 1942 edition Can a lone transport pass through an enemy submarine occupied sea zone with nothing happening or would it be considered a naval attack?

Sea units can safely enter or pass through territories occupied by enemy submarines only
As stated in its profile on page 30 of the rule book, a submarine has the characteristic "Does Not Block Enemy Movement" which in short allows enemy ships to ignore their presence. No combat is triggered if the player entering or passing through  the zone does not choose so.
Be aware that this has nothing to do with transports specifically, but is a characteristic of submarines and applies to all sea units.
Full text of the characteristic for reference:

The “stealth” ability of submarines also allows enemy ships to ignore their presence. Any sea zone that contains only enemy submarines does not stop the movement of a sea unit. Sea units ending their combat movement in a sea zone containing only enemy submarines may choose to attack them or not. Sea units can also end their noncombat movement in a sea zone containing only enemy submarines.


“Repeat this process” infinite loop rulings I am theory crafting a deck for the new legendary planeswalkers/commander Grist, the Hunger Tide and I was wondering how his first ability works in an infinite loop. The scenario occurs when I force all creatures become insects using a card like Maskwood Nexus and then reducing my library to be just Vigor. I then activate Grist’s +1 ability and as far as I’m aware what would happen would be vigor gets milled and then when put into graveyard either the ability tried to mill again and then fails and once it resolve vigor is shuffled back in or vigor is automatically shuffled back in and it becomes an infinite loop. If it’s the first scenario then would I be correct in saying that if I had somehow created a working infinite loop that having a wincon such as Ayara, First of Locthwain or Impact Tremors on the field would not result in a victory and would instead end the game in a draw due to an infinite loop? Thanks :)

No, you can't guarantee a win with Grist like that. Either the process stops after a finite number of steps, or you make the game a draw.
The specific example you gave does not work because Vigor shuffles back as a triggered ability. As long as a spell or ability "repeats this process", it's still resolving, and while it's resolving, no player gets priority and no triggered abilities enter the stack or resolve; they wait until the current item has finished resolving. So if your library consists of only Vigor, Grist's +1 will create a token, mill the Vigor, repeat once to create another token, and then stop resolving because there were no more cards to mill on the second pass. Then Vigor's ability enters the stack and resolves, shuffling it back.

117.2a Triggered abilities can trigger at any time, including while a spell is being cast, an ability is being activated, or a spell or ability is resolving. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”) However, nothing actually happens at the time an ability triggers. Each time a player would receive priority, each ability that has triggered but hasn’t yet been put on the stack is put on the stack. See rule 117.5.

117.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

If you use a creature that shuffles back as a replacement effect, such as Darksteel Colossus, you can indeed make Grist's +1 go infinite, because replacement effects don't use the stack and happen immediately. However, in that case, again, the triggers from your win condition won't enter the stack or resolve. More importantly, there is no way to stop Grist from repeating the process, and the game is a draw as per the shortcut rules.

722.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)

I can't think of an example off the top which card(s) might do that, but even if you could make both the re-shuffle and the damage-dealing a replacement effect, it would still be a draw. That's because players die to damage only when state-based actions are checked, which again happens only whenever a player would get priority.

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 117, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. [..]

The only ways to guarantee the win with Grist's +1 would be either to stack enough creatures on top of your library and get enough damage triggers, or to find a win condition in a replacement effect, and the latter are quite rare. Most win conditions require state-based actions, or a spell/ability to resolve, neither of which can happen while you are going into an infinite loop, as discussed. The only ones I can think of that are even theoretically possible are Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and Laboratory Maniac.


Which commanders benefit from being in the Command Zone other than Oloro? Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, gains its controller 2 life every turn it's in the command zone. Are there ANY other possible commanders that have abilities or benefits of being in the command zone or is he really the only one?

13 possible commanders interact with the command zone in an unusual way. 8 commanders have abilities that function in the command zone. All of them were created for the preconstructed commander decks or released in commander specific sets. They even eventually created the "Eminence" ability word for  abilities that function in the command zone.

Arahbo, Roar of the World has the ability "Eminence — At the beginning of combat on your turn, if Arahbo, Roar of the World is in the command zone or on the battlefield, another target Cat you control gets +3/+3 until end of turn." giving you a free boost to one attacker each turn.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician has the ability ": Put Derevi onto the battlefield from the command zone." This lets you play the commander without casting it, so it cannot be countered as a spell (but as an activated ability, with Stifle) and avoids the commander tax* so it will always cost 4 mana.
Edgar Markov has the ability "Eminence — Whenever you cast another Vampire spell, if Edgar Markov is in the command zone or on the battlefield, create a 1/1 black Vampire creature token." giving you creature tokens for playing tribal vampires.
Inalla, Archmage Ritualist has the ability "Eminence — Whenever another nontoken Wizard enters the battlefield under your control, if Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is in the command zone or on the battlefield, you may pay . If you do, create a token that's a copy of that Wizard. The token gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step." allowing you to get a token copy of your wizards for one turn, potentially triggering ETB effects or letting you use their tap abilities earlier.
Liesa, Shroud of Dusk - Liesa has the ability "Rather than pay  for each previous time you've cast this spell from the command zone this game, pay 2 life that many times." forcing you to use life instead of mana for the command tax when casting her.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Oloro has the ability "At the beginning of your upkeep, if Oloro, Ageless Ascetic is in the command zone, you gain 2 life."
The Ur-Dragon - The Ur-Dragon has the ability "Eminence — As long as The Ur-Dragon is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Dragon spells you cast cost  less to cast." effectively making him a Dragonlord's Servant on or off the field.
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow - Yuriko has "Commander Ninjutsu " functioning like ninjutsu from Kamigawa. This lets you bounce an unblocked attacker to put Yuriko into play. Like Derevi, this is not casting, so you will not pay commander tax.

Currently 5 other possible commanders interact with the command zone in an unusual way, but not through an ability that works there. None of them require the creature be your commander :

Captain Vargus Wrath - gives +1/+1 to all pirates (himself included) when he attacks for each time you have cast your commander from the command zone. He doesn't need to be your commander for this effect.
Jeska, Thrice Reborn - her starting loyalty is the number of times you have cast your commander this game. She does not need to be your commander for this effect.
Jirina Kudro - creates tokens when she enters for every time you have cast your commander this game. She does not need to be your commander for this effect.
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan lets you put counters on creatures when another creature with counters dies or when it is returned to the command zone.
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools - Puts all commanders onto the battlefield under your control, taking them from other player's fields or their command zones.

There are also many other cards that interact with the command zone but can't be commanders, most with effects that scale based on the number of times you have cast your commander or move your commander out of the command zone into your hand or onto the battlefield.

* This is the cost increase for casting your commander from the command zone again every time it is sent back to the command zone.
With a recent rules change, commanders die like normal creatures before being moved to the command zone. This means Reyhan's ability handles dying commanders like it handles all other creatures. Commanders being sent to the hand or deck will still work as before, those replacement effects are unchanged. A commander being exiled will not trigger Reyhan anymore, since they are sent to exile as normal and then they are no longer a creature you control when they are sent to the command zone. This is still true of Skullbriar, the Walking Grave who, while he keeps his counters moving between zones, is not a creature you control when in the graveyard or exile, and won't trigger the effect a second time.


How does Elemental Resonance convert a Mana Cost to a Mana Source? With the new updates to how mana is shown and displayed, someone pointed out to me that Elemental Resonance effectively converts the generic mana in its target's casting cost to colourless mana.

While I can see the gatherer rulings, is there anything more fundamental in the comprehensive rules about converting mana costs to mana sources?

Short Answer

As of Oath of the Gatewatch, rule 106.10 says

  106.10. If an effect would add mana represented by a generic mana symbol to a player’s mana pool, that much colorless mana is added to that player’s mana pool.

Old Answer

A couple of subrules of rule 106 concern adding converting mana cost to mana:

  106.8. If an effect would add mana represented by a hybrid mana symbol to a player’s mana pool, that player chooses one half of that symbol. If a colored half is chosen, one mana of that color is added to that player’s mana pool. If a colorless half is chosen, an amount of colorless mana represented by that half’s number is added to that player’s mana pool.
  106.9. If an effect would add mana represented by a Phyrexian mana symbol to a player’s mana pool, one mana of the color of that symbol is added to that player’s mana pool.

The last part of 106.8 is relevant, because it explicitly says that the generic part of a monocolored hybrid mana symbol (which it calls the "colorless half") is converted to colorless mana. Unfortunately, this only tangentially touches on the issue of how generic mana costs are converted. However, rule 107.4c arguably applies:

  Numeral symbols (such as {1}) and variable symbols (such as {X}) can also represent colorless mana if they appear in the effect of a spell or ability that reads “add [mana symbol] to your mana pool” or something similar. (See rule 107.3e.)

Combined with the subrules of 106 quoted above, we can interpret Elemental Resonance's ability to mean

  For each symbol in enchanted permanent's mana cost, add that to your mana pool.

If we look at it that way, then the conversion of generic mana cost to colorless mana is simply a consequence of moving the symbol from a mana cost context to a mana generation context. In other words, it adds colorless mana to your mana pool because that's what would have happened if we had inserted the mana cost symbolically into a mana generating ability.

The current rules don't indicate unambiguously how Elemental Resonance will interact with the new rules, but with the rulings we have and the information that Wizards has published so far, we can make some strong educated guesses.

First, in a Twitter Q&A session regarding the new colorless symbol, Wizards Community Manager Trick Jarrett tweeted

  There is no functional errata planned with this change.

This was in response to a question about cost reduction, but the wording seems to imply that there will be no functional errata to any cards because of the new symbol.

This implies that all of the current rulings will still be accurate. In particular, this means that when Elemental Resonance converts a cost with generic mana, it will add the corresponding amount of {C} to your mana pool.

We can also extrapolate from the existing rulings that if a cost contains {C}, then Elemental Resonance will add {C} to your mana pool for each corresponding symbol in the cost. In other words, Elemental Resonance attached to the new Kozilek, which costs {8}{C}{C}, will add ten colorless mana to your mana pool.


Why couldn't this hand win with ron? I have just started learning Japanese Mahjong and I am a bit lost as to why this hand failed.

I did several pons and chis over the course of a hand, having a total of three open melds (one set and two sequences).

Apart from these I had an incomplete bamboo sequence of II and III as well as a pair of dragons, therefore I was on a single wait for I or IV bamboo stick tile. When the IV tile appeared in one of the discards of other players, I was given a choice to do another chi and declare another open meld, but I couldn't win with a ron. Why was that?

Am I wrong that winning by ron guarantees a single needed yaku to win a hand, just like Closed Tsumo does?

After declaring the chi I was offered with, my hand was left with a single pair of tiles, one of which I had to discard.

Eventually the round finished with a draw.

Why couldn't I win this hand with a ron on the IV bamboo tile, and why was I given only the choice of chi instead?

Calling ron does not give you a yaku.  What it will do is increase the fu count of your hand, but only if the hand is closed.  However, winning from a ron on an open hand does not increase the point value at all; contrarily, you could instead claim a 2-fu bonus by winning on a tsumo.

Once your hand is opened, the only way to win is to have a yaku that does not rely on a closed hand.  Opening your hand before you have a guaranteed yaku, or a good chance of building one, is often a mistake; not only does keeping your hand closed increase the number of yaku you can potentially make (especially "easy" yaku such as pinfu and tanyao), but you also have the option of adding the needed yaku just by calling riichi on an otherwise worthless hand.

If you do decide to open your hand, some common open-hand yaku which can be built follow:

Yakuhai: A complete set (not pair) of dragons, seat wind, or table wind.
Chanta: Every set contains either honor tiles, or at least one terminal (1 or 9) tile.
Itsu: Three melds "123", "456", "789" of a single suit.
Honitsu: All tiles, except for honor tiles, comprise a single suit.
Toitoi: Every set is either three or four of a kind (i.e. no chi melds)

Some rulesets also allow a yaku for an open tanyao (no honors or terminal tiles).  There are of course others, but I find these listed above are typically the easiest to make on an open hand, especially if you open early.

Even if you can't memorize all of the yaku-bearing hands yet, it's worth it to at least memorize these ones for when you choose to go the open-hand route.

That said, given the (incomplete) description of your hand, your best bet would've been to wait for a third dragon so as to claim a yakuhai yaku, and hoping to complete a pair involving one of your two bamboo tiles (while tossing the other).  Calling chi on the bamboo actually harmed your hand, since you no longer had any reliable way to form any yaku.

Not knowing the makeup of your open melds, I don't know if calling chi on a I Bamboo (instead of a IV Bamboo) would've completed a chanta (or possibly an itsu) hand; even if it was possible, it would still be a risky wait as passing on the IV Bamboo (while waiting on the I Bamboo) would put you into furiten.


Cards that untap lands on opponents' turns I used to use Prophet of Kruphix in my commander deck, but it is now banned.

While giving all creatures flash is nice, but I really used it for it's land untap ability. Are there any other cards that let me untap my lands on other player's turns?

You can do a quick search for keywords like 'untap' + 'other player' to find some cards.

This'll put you on Seedborn Muse. She's the original Prophet of Kruphix, but hasn't been hit by a ban because she doesn't have that super-juicy "flash" clause. (And because being mono-green means she props up more diverse archetypes than a UG card does.)

Is that your only option? Not quite: try other keywords (maybe filter down to your colors and search 'untap' + 'land' or 'untap' + 'permanent').

Some highlights that you're likely to miss unless you try a lot of search permutations:

Awakening is a green enchantment that untaps everyone's stuff. (And allows heavily-instant-speed decks to double-dip mana on their own turn.)
Patron of the Orochi is a big green creature that you can use to untap all your green creatures and forests each turn. (And can also be used to double up your mana on your own turn.)


How can I speed up a game of High Frontier? I really like High Frontier, but it takes a long time to get going and can take several hours to play. Does anyone know of any house rules to make the game run faster?

I've found a few suggestions on how to speed up this game, both from the living rules and from users on Board Game Geek. I've also found a number of people who believe it is impossible to actually speed up a game of High Frontier. I'll explore each option below, ending with reasons that none of the suggestions may work. If you don't want to wade through the reasoning and arguments, skip right to the conclusion. It's what I think the best way to speed up the game might be.
Straight From the (Living) Rule Book
In the most recent version of the living rules for High Frontier (found here), there is a single rule suggestion for shortening games:

3.3 SET-UP FOR A SHORTER GAME
For a shorter game, after set-up per 3.1 or 3.2, each player draws one card from each deck at random into his hand.

This is meant to speed up the start of the game by allowing players to build rockets earlier.
Adding Extra Water to the Beginning of the Game
A user on BGG doesn't like the Living Rules suggestion because it a.) adds an element of luck to the game based on your initial deal and b.) eliminates early auctioning altogether. His alternative is to give all players extra water at the start of the game, discussed here. Initially he says 13 total for each player, but after some discussion, settles on 9. This takes out the randomness of dealing cards while leaving the initial auctions intact, but with slightly more resources to bid. This would potentially decrease game time because people wouldn't wait around as long before launching their first rocket. This leads another user in the same thread to think this is a bad option:

I think starting with more water is a mistake. It will disturb the [balance] between the strategy of A: "start flying as soon as possible with a tiny rocket" and B: "stay on Earth until you have a monster rocket".
...
If everyone starts with 13WT in the beginning, the balance between strategy A and B is disturbed, and it seems to me that pretty much everyone would want to do strategy A (except they would fly a medium rocket). Yes, this would get everyone in space sooner. But, the cost will be fewer paths to victory.

This user is probably correct in noting that this would reduce the number of strategies since everyone would be able to launch bigger rockets earlier, eliminating any attempt to launch a small rocket first to try and outrun the "big rocket" players. So the suggestion of allocating more water at the start is going to be dependent on your group's style. If everyone just wants to make huge rockets, this may be a good option. If there are players that employ a strategy of using smaller rockets, this will significantly impede their ability to do so.
Use a Quick Start
In the same thread, one user mentions that they used a "quick start" during a board game convention. They describe it like this:

I've only tried a "quick" start once, at a convention. We were dealt 6 cards (one of each) for the advanced game, keeping 3 and getting 9 water for the other 3. So we started out with scads of water, and a tech boost. But we did still see one person mounting missions earlier than others, and a fair diversity of destinations. I found it to be a nice way to cut down on the play time.

This is a mix of the above two ideas. Instead of only one card at random from each deck, each player gets two (I'm assuming there was a typo in the original post when they said "6 cards" and "one of each"). Each player can only keep three cards, and must sell the other three for water. This reduces the randomness of getting only three random cards while also increasing the initial starting resources for each player. This technique also falls victim to the critique about adding extra resources, but will give players cards so there isn't a bidding war over valuable ones. Of the suggestions I've seen, this seems like the best way to speed up the game because you get more resources and don't have to use them on bidding for cards.
Enforce Time Limits
In that same thread, a user suggests two things that enforce limits on the amount of time players take to play since a lot of slowdowns happen because of decision making (discussed in the section on why you can't speed High Frontier up). He suggests:

(b) impose a time limit on auctions; (c) have everyone prepare what they want to do during their turn while they wait for their turn, so when their turn comes up, they are all ready to go;

A lot of games slow down when people aren't prepared for their next turn or haven't thought about their potential actions ahead of time. One of my all-time greatest pet peeves in Magic: the Gathering is when a player takes an inordinately long amount of time to make a decision, especially when they decide to either take no action or ultimately don't do anything complicated anyway. The player playing mono-red isn't going to deal with the enchantment that's keeping everybody from attacking; stop wasting everybody's time while you pretend you might have an answer. Tangent aside, the inability for people to make decisions in a timely fashion will cause problems, so try to reinforce the idea that people should have some foresight and have a good idea about their next move. There's another question on B&CG that deals specifically with this problem here.
Limiting auction times will also help, although probably only marginally. It'd be worth doing if you feel like the auctions in your game go on longer than necessary. I would encourage the use of one or both of these with another option, as they don't guarantee a shorter game but may help a little.
Adding Resources Each Turn
A suggestion on a separate BGG thread is that each player receives water at the beginning of each round:

I am thinking about this after last session. At the beginning of each round (including the first round), all players receive an amount of water tanks. I am considering to try 2 WT/round -1 for each factory and Space Venture the player possesses (no negative WT as tax, though)
PROS: It doesn't direct a player's strategy like the default express setup and does not turn the initial players' turn into a spending spree. No book keeping needed beyong giving WTs at the beginning of each round (not each player turn). It benefits players who are behind the factory/venture race.
CONS: This is the slowest express setup.

I think they lay out the pros and cons nicely.
Why It's Possible No Alteration Will Speed Up Your Game
One user argues strongly they don't think a game of High Frontier can be realistically sped up. I've collected some comments below from this thread addressing this.

James Moore: Personally, I don't like any of these variants, and I'm dubious that they really speed up the game in any significant way. The slowdowns we see are when people need to think about what they're doing, and have to take extra time to make a decision. (And don't get me wrong, decisions are what makes a good game - this isn't a criticism.) None of these variants would change that. In fact, I think that having more WT might make the game longer since it's sometimes harder to optimize when you have more resources.
...
I think you're mistaking correlation for causation. HF does not have an unreasonably slow game start. HF has a steep learning curve, so it feels like it's got a slow start with inexperienced players.

Conclusion
If I were trying to speed this game up, I'd do the following based on the suggestions I've seen:

Give each player six cards at the beginning (two from each pile)
Each player may only keep three cards, selling the rest to get 9 water
Strongly encourage players to be thinking about their next moves so that decision making time is reduced
Start imposing auction time limits if it seems that people are taking too long to make decisions during auctions (find a sand-timer that matches the length of time you want to limit this to)

While none of this necessarily guarantees a faster game, it should help trim a lot. Good luck!


Which 40K army is this? A friend of mine has recently acquired some models from 40K that look like space marines/chaos marines.

Can anyone identify which army their from?

The ship in the back is a Dark Eldar Raider.  The big robot thing behind it is a Chaos Dreadnought.  The infantry also appear to be Chaos Space Marines.


Looking for a really dizzying boardgame Long ago, I think it was in the 1980s-1990s, I once played a game that really made me dizzy.

I think it was a game made by a German game maker. It was a 2 or 3 player game played on a round board, consisting of 6 concentric circles and connecting lines and spirals. The goal of the game  was to create certain combinations of stones, by which you could capture stones of your opponent.

Because you were constantly looking around circles and spirals, you just became dizzy, something you didn't notice while playing, but you noticed when you stood up...

I would like to buy this game , but I don't know the name.

This sounds like a variant of circular chess. There is a 1993 board game under the name of Noble Celts that comes close to your description. (There are 8 concentric circles instead of 6.) Here's the board:


Who wins? Painter's Servant or Mycosynth Lattice? Painter's Servant makes all cards the color of your choice. Mycosynth Lattice makes all cards colorless. What happens if they're both in play at the same time? Does the most recently played one take precedent?

The most recently played one takes precidence:

From the rulings on painter's servent:

  5/1/2008  While Painter's Servant is on the
  battlefield, an effect that changes an object's colors will overwrite
  Painter's Servant's effect. For example, casting Cerulean Wisps on a
  creature will turn it blue, regardless of the color chosen for
  Painter's Servant.

  5/1/2008   If something affected by
  Painter's Servant is normally colorless, it will simply be the new
  color. It won't be both the new color and colorless.

In general continuous effects are applied in time stamp order (rule 613. Interaction of Continuous Effects). More info here: http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1030


Cast Pitfall Trap after opponent attacked with two creatures An opponent attacked me with two creatures and kill one of them somehow (say, combat damage). Can I kill the remaining creature casting Pitfall Trap using its alternative casting cost?

Pitfall Trap checks how many creatures are currently attacking, not how many were declared as attackers. And creatures that are removed from combat are no longer considered attacking creatures. Therefore if there were two creatures declared as attackers, but one was removed from combat somehow you can cast Pitfall trap for its alternative cost.

  508.1j Each chosen creature still controlled by the active player becomes an attacking creature. It remains an attacking creature until it’s removed from combat or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first. See rule 506.4.


Use of Researcher in Pandemic? Can the Researcher transfer cards to another player on her very first turn, in other words, while still in Atlanta? Seems like this gives too much of a head start at beginning of game.

Yes, it is perfectly legal for the researcher to share cards on the first turn but it is still somewhat limited, as it is limited to the cards that the player starts with. While it does sound powerful at the start, it should be remembered that it does limit the amount of damage that can be controlled on the first turn if it is spent sharing knowledge. Not to mention that if you are in a 4 player game it would only change someone's hand by 1 or 2 cards, depending on which colors they match in the other players hands, which isn't that large of an advantage when you need 5 cards to do a cure.
2 players: 4 cards to give
3 players: 3 cards to give
4 players: 2 cards to give
Rules

When doing the Share Knowledge action, the Researcher
may give any City card from her hand to another player
in the same city as her, without this card having to match
her city. The transfer must be from her hand to the other
player’s hand, but it can occur on either player’s turn.


Phase 10- how to discard Me and my friends are playing phase 10 and we all grew up playing it two different ways and we don’t know what the correct way is. After you put down your phase and are trying to get rid of your cards do you just discard without drawing or do you have to draw and try to put it onto yours and other people’s phase that is down?

You still must draw like normal; the only way to reduce your hand size is to hit on existing phases.
From the rules about taking your turn:

On your turn, draw one card, either the top card from the draw pile or the top
card from the discard pile, and add it to your hand. End your turn by discarding any
one of your cards onto the top of the discard pile.

There is no rule listed under going out or making a phase that contradicts or changes this, so it still applies.


Is it possible to play two cards in the same field on the first step of a turn in Bohnanza ? Bohnanza Wikipedia is a card game where the goal for the player is to plant the maximum of beans in its two fields.

During the first step of a player's turn, it is possible to play the two first cards of his hand.

Is it possible to plant the two cards in the same field in order to get rid of these two cards without touching the second field ?
(I mean, you plant the first bean in the field that you harvest immediately to be able to plant another type of bean in it.)

Yes,

You may plant both beans in the same field on any turn.

The rules state that during step one you:

Must plant the first bean

If it matches a currently planted bean then plant the new bean there
If you have an empty field plant it there
Otherwise you must harvest and sell all beans in one field before planting the new bean in the newly empty field

You may plant the second bean using the same rules as the first bean.

When planting the second bean, it is legal to harvest and sell the bean you just planted.  It's often a very good move to do so.


How does the graveyard work in citadels? Does the graveyard/cemetery card allow a player to take any destroyed building/district (i.e. including other players destroyed districts) into their hand or can they only redeem their own detroyed districts?

According to BoardGameGeek, you can take any district that has been destroyed, so long as you were not the Warlord (you can't take a district you just destroyed), and the Graveyard was not the card destroyed.

  1) Can the player owning the Graveyard claim another palyer’s District just destroyed (e.g. Palyer A destroys Player B’s Observatory and Player C, who owns the Graveyard, spends 1 Gold to claim the Observatory for himself) ?
  Answer: Yes


How do monsters move on local paths to side boards? How do monsters move along local paths to traverse the side boards in expansion games such as when effects instruct players to move a monster toward investigators?
For instance, a local path connects space 17 and Cairo, and an investigator would effectively be able to teleport from one to the other at no action cost.
Would a monster on space 17 be allowed to, for the cost of 1 move, travel to Cairo (or would it cost no moves)?
The fire vampire moves two spaces toward the nearest investigator, so would an appropriate step count be to move him from Shanghai to space 17, then to Cairo for a total of 2 spaces?

Each location is a space, so regardless of what type of path exists, a monster moving from Shanghai to Space 17 and then to Cairo has moved 2 spaces.


How much time do I get to read a card before I counter it? My friend told me I only get 5 seconds to say if I'm going to counter a card in Magic the Gathering, even if I tell him to wait. Is that true?

Your friend made that up. There is nothing in the comprehensive rules about how long a player may retain priority. Once you've got it, you keep it as long as you like until you play a spell/ability or pass.

If you're in an official tournament setting, your opponent can call a judge if he thinks you're intentionally playing slowly. If you're playing at your friend's kitchen table, then anything goes. Of course, the host can always decide to kick you out of his house, so try to play at a reasonable speed.


2 Mayors in a city...how to score? We just finished playing a 2 person game of Carcassonne with the Abbey and Mayor expansion. We ended up with both mayors in one city. One of us was able to bring in an additional meeple. Does that one meeple break a tie in a huge city with multiple pennants? I know we can’t put two mayors in one city, but if they’re joined together it gets tricky. How does this city end up scoring?

If player one has a meeple and a mayor and player two has just a mayor, then player one will win, as player one will have N + 1 strength vs player two's N strength, where N is the number of coat of arms (i.e. pennants) in the city.
From the rules:

The strength of your mayor is equal to the number of coats of arms in the city it occupies. If two or more players have meeples in the same city, it is scored as follows:
●Each normal meeple has 1 strength.
●Each large meeple has 2 strength.
●Each mayor has strength equal to the number of coats of arms in the city. If there are no coats of arms, the mayor has 0 strength.
When scoring a city, each player adds the strength of their meeples in the city. The player with the highest strength scores the points for that city. In case of a tie, all tied players score full points.

Note that "coat of arms" is the 2014 rules term for "pennant".  See When was "pennant" renamed "coat of arms" in Carcassonne? for more.


What does Hallowed Moonlight actually exile? Hallowed Moonlight reads:

Until end of turn, if a creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead.
Draw a card.

This seems confusing, the creature was cast when it entered the battlefield. Unless this references tokens or something? Please clarify, thanks.

This is a good response to, say, flicker effects. If a player wants to make creatures go to exile and come back to get enters-the-battlefield triggers again, you can cast this so that they don't get them at all! Hah! This also applies to tokens, of course, along with Put a...onto the battlefield effects, meld... The list goes on. This is a fantastic card.


Do Race for the Galaxy expansions allow more players without changing the base game's rules? I just acquired the game Race for the Galaxy, and I plan to play it at work.  It would be nice to play with up to 5 or 6 players, though, and the base game supports only 4.

I see that two expansions to the game ("The Gathering Storm" and "Rebel versus Imperium") each add one player.

Since none of us has played the game before, I'd prefer not to add extra complexity to the game right away.  However, it would be nice if we could make use of the extra players provided by these expansions.

If I were to purchase these expansions, would I be able to play the "base" game with more players (as is the case with Pandemic's "On the Brink" expansion), or do the extra players promised come at the price of more complexity?

Yes. It's possible to just use the new player cards and take out the cards which use new mechanics.

I've also just left all the cards in and just simply ignored the Prestige rules, Goals and Takeovers; although that makes some cards weaker as they are costed with these additional mechanics in mind.


How to determine points costs of Tau unit enhancements? I have been trying to figure out which are the points costs for the several enhancements to tau units, but there is not a single comprehensive list for that. Sometimes model stats sheets have 'may take a markerlight and target lock (15pts),' while some other sheets just say 'may take two items from the support systems list' without specifying any cost. Does it means that I get those items for free (included in the unit price)? Another confusing case is that of Crisis Battle Suits: they 'may take take up to three items from the ranged weapons and/or support systems lists.' For some units different ranged weapons cost different amounts of points, so it sounds strange that crisis suits have access to all of them at the same (zero) cost.

Apparently the older codex had a table on page 95 with all the costs, but I only have access to the 2015 edition and such table is gone.

Am I correct in assuming that such enhancements cost points when a cost is mentioned but are otherwise free?

There still is a table for the Ranged Weapons and Support Systems on Page 74 of the 2015 edition of the book. The did clean up the locations of special rules/equipment in newer editions, but if you're used to the older editions this can be hard to find.

Generally Ranged weapons are 14 points and other support systems range from 5-25 points each. One nice thing about weapons all having the same points is you cna swap crisis suit builds very easily. None are free unless the rules explicitly state so, for exmaple: "X comes equipped with with a Burst-Cannon which you may upgrade to a Smart-Linked Missile system for 25 points" or something similar.


What's the odds of Selvala's parley granting 2 or more mana? I am trying to figure out what are the chance if getting 2 or more mana after parleying Selvala, Explorer Returned, assuming that using commander/EDH one third of the deck is land and that at least four people are playing. Mainly curious after my friends mentioned way to go infinite if I could reliably generate mana.

In the situation you describe, each player reveals their card independently, and you get mana equal to the number of non-land cards revealed. This is called a Binomial Distribution, with N = 4 and P = 2/3 in your particular case. So, the probability of getting exactly k mana is (4 choose k) * (2/3) ^ k * (1/3) ^ (n - k). You are specifically looking for the probability of getting at least a certain amount of mana, so you are looking for the Cumulative Binomial Distribution. To get the probability of getting at least a certain amount of mana, you simply add up the probabilities for each amount that is at least that number. So, to calculate that for your particular situation, you would calculate

The fully general formula for this, if you want to get at least M mana is

In the particular case of k = 2, we can instead simply consider the cases where you don't get at least 2 mana, and then subtract that total probability from 1. For each player, the probability of only that player flipping a non-land is 2/3 * (1/3) ^ (N - 1). The probability of every player flipping a land is (1/3) ^ N. So, the total probability of getting at least two mana is

For 4 players, this probability is 8/9.


How many times can you use a port in settlers of catan? The instructions don't say (from what I see) and I need to know for the game.

As many times as you want. Almanac, page 9:

  Example: Nick, the orange player, built a settlement at the ore
  special harbor. Nick may exchange 2 ore cards for any 1 other
  Resource Card. He can also trade 4 ore cards for any 2 other cards.


Do cursed investigators in the herald variant repeatedly fall unconscious? In the Herald variant of Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, cursed investigators lose stamina every upkeep. If they reach zero and become unconscious, do they wake at St. Mary's Hospital only to keep falling unconscious unless someone sends a blessing their way? Do they lose the curse when becoming unconscious? I didn't see any reference to losing or retaining blessed/cursed status but surely there is some means to keep investigators from being caught in this loop

Since an investigator gets to roll to see if they lose a Cursed or Blessed status on the upkeep after losing their stamina, they won't get stuck in an infinite loop.  If a person is worried about not being able to do anything because of their curse, they can use their Encounter at St. Mary's to simply heal one.  Their health will go from 1 to 2, then back to 1 next round.  At least with that, the person can make one move and go somewhere to do SOMETHING, rather then being bed-ridden.  There are ways around it, but I guess the solution really would be "don't get cursed".


Are there good ways to "handicap" Midway? In the Q&A section of the "rulebook," questions were asked about how to "handicap" the game in favor of either the Japanese or American player. The answers were to increase the "search" capabilities of the Japanese player, and to allow the American player one or two "B-17" (special bomber) attacks a day. I found these changes unsatisfying, because neither Japanese search capabilities nor B-17 attacks seemed to play a part in the real battle.

My "handicaps" include the following:

In favor of the Japanese: Start the game on June 4th rather than June 3rd. This allows Japan to bring three "waves" (out of four) ships on the first turn, with the remaining wave of five ships arriving at 5:00 p.m. the same day, thereby eliminating the "first day" disadvantage encountered by Japan's first wave. This was a plausible scenario that would be an improvement on the plan that Yamamoto actually followed, and would have been a clear "handicap" in Japan's favor, compared to the game.
In favor of the Americans: Triple (or at least double) Midway's plane complement (to 6 torpedo and 18 dive bomber squadrons in the basic game, add 18 fighter squadrons in the advanced game). This reflects the (superior) airpower actually available to the Americans at the beginning of June 3rd. The game totals were actually available on June 4th, after a day of Japanese bombardment, and were intended to create a "play balance" of both sides having similar number of ships and planes on the first day. But a restoration of the actual status quo ante would have been a "handicap" in favor of the Americans (relative to the game).
Use both changes to create a "matchup" of more Japanese ships vs. more American planes.

Do my "handicaps" improve the game by

following history closely
creating more variety and/or
creating a "good imbalance" of ships versus planes?

Edit: In answer to another question, one poster noted that because of the difference in cultures, the Japanese were more likely to launch "suicide" attacks (one way air attacks that did not have enough fuel for the round trip) than the Americans. While the original rules allow both sides to do this, maybe only the Japanese should have this privilege. Would this be a viable "handicap" that is also historically accurate?

Depending on the edition (60s or 90s), you can handicap for the Japanese by:

60s:

allow Japanese player to start a day (or partial day) sooner than the American player

90s:

allow Japanese player to bring forces onto the board closer to Midway (ie, shorten the time available to sink them)

Handicapping for the American player really isn't needed in the 60s edition, since all you have to do is kill the Atago (iirc). You might be able to add an additional search zone, but that'd be pretty minimal, in my experience. The only other thing I could think of would be to force carrier battle groups to not combine / join-up (or force them to all sail together).

In the 90s edition, you could handicap for the Americans by:

shortening the Japanese search distance
adding a searchable zone to the American side

The basic rules (ie, no CAP, no funky optional rules, etc) make it more-or-less impossible for the Japanese player to guarantee victory, unless they hide their "flag ship" very well and don't attack until they're right atop Midway (don't even search - just go full steam ahead).

When you add CAP, optional rules, and other variants, any form of "handicapping" is going to be pretty hit-or-miss, in my experience.

If both players have read the rules, the Americans are handed a whopping big advantage in that they "know" where the fleet is coming from - and while a game has to make some changes to make it playable, the historical battle didn't provide that much information (which makes the 90s version better (plus it uses hexes instead of squares (which means planes can fly more "realistic" paths, instead of having to convert 5 diagonal squares into 7 straight ones (the distance being nearly equal) for out-bound and in-bound operations))).


Do you need to be in the same region to attack Collossus? In Tiny Epic Defenders 2nd Edition the text on the Epic Foe Collossus says:

  When a Defender's card is drawn, that Defender is immediately placed inside the Collossus's mouth (only if no Defender is currently inside the Collossus's mouth). A Defender in the mouth on their Turn can only Fight, spending ❤ instead of .

Does the defender need to be in the same region as the Collossus to be eaten? I interpreted it as no. But when we played, we defeated Collossus relatively easily in one round because we all got eaten and had enough health to do 3 damage in one go.

Also, if you are not eaten, can you still attack Collossus using actions when you are in the same region?

As I understand it, the Defender can be anywhere. It is placed in the Collossus mouth when its card is drawn, if there is no other Defender in the Collossus mouth.
There are no restrictions on attacking the Collossus with other Defenders, the restriction is only on the Defender which is being swallowed.


Can a settlement disrupt roads in Settlers of Catan Let's say my opponent (o) has a road network:

o - - - - - o

       |
       x

as x, can I:

o - - -x- - o
       |
       |
       x

?

And break his already existing road?

My question is not whether or not this will break his road; my question is if it is legal for me to build there and break an already-established road.

At a previous game, there was considerable controversy as to whether this was a legal place to build a settlement.

If you build a settlement on his road, you disrupt it yes.

See also: catan-longest-road-clarification.

You can build on any place if:

You can reach it by road or ship
The vacant spot has no neighbouring settlements or cities. (There must be at least one empty spot between two settlements/cities)


How to calculate the probability to get all cards of Exodia, the Forbidden One by drawing them from my Deck during the Draw phase? In Yu-Gi-Oh!, there are some cards that allow to the duelist to win a duel automatically.

In this case, I'm focusing my question on Exodia, The Forbidden One. To win a duel using Exodia, you must have the five cards (parts of Exodia) in your hand.

These cards are (in no particular order):

Right Leg of the Forbidden One
Left Leg of the Forbidden One
Right Arm of the Forbidden One
Left Arm of the Forbidden One
Exodia The Forbidden One

I'm wondering:

How to calculate the probability to get all cards of Exodia The Forbidden One based on:

Parts of Exodia taken from the Deck during each Draw Phase with no additional card effects.

A Yu-Gi-Oh! deck has:

40 cards in total (35 monster, spell, trap cards and 5 Exodia cards).
There are only five Exodia cards (no copies).
Draw one card per turn.

I posted a question on meta about this subject.
The accepted answer should have a format similar to any of the linked answers.
I'm looking for a detailed answer that explains how to make those calculations and the obtained results as shown in this answer.

The above picture reflects the probability of drawing the full set of Exodia, dependent on the number of cards drawn overall. For example, there is a 0.000152% chance the player will draw Exodia in their opening hand, and a 87.5% chance they will draw it after seeing 39 cards out of their 40 card deck. If all 40 cards are drawn, there is a 100% chance the 5 Exodia cards will be drawn.

The Statistical Theory presented in the Question is best reflected as a Hypergeometric Distribution. Applied to this problem, the variables in questions are:

Variables

N = number of items in the population = number of cards in the deck = 40
k: The number of items in the population that are classified as successes. = number of Exodia Cards in the deck = 5
n: The number of items in the  sample = Variable through experimentation
x: The number of items in the sample that are classified as successes. = Number of Exodia Cards that must be drawn = 5

Narrative

There are 5 Exodia cards (k) in a deck of 40 cards (N). If the player draws all 5 Cards (x), the player wins the game. The interest of the Question is the probability of drawing all 5 cards via only the Draw Phase. The player will see five cards in the initial hand, and an additional card per turn from the draw phase, negating any external effects. From that, over the course of the game, the player will see 5 + number of turns cards in the game (x).

Equation

h(x; N, n, k) = [ kCx ] [ N-kCn-x ] / [ NCn ]
where [aCb] = a(a - 1)(a - 2) ... (a - b + 1)/b! = a! / b!(a - b)!

By applying the Known Variables above, the player can learn the probability they will draw the complete Exodia Set, dependent on how many cards they draw overall. In this, n ranges from 5 to 40.

Since doing a tedious calculation 36 times is tiresome, computational power is a treat. The Combination formula, [aCb], is available in Microsoft Excel. Setting up a worksheet, using the equations as in this chart:

Will support the evaluation of each step in the card drawing process, providing the resultant probability:


In Carcassonne, how does the Bazaar play and count in different situations? In Carcassonne, does the Bazaar in the farm play and count like a cloister in the farm? What about on the road and in a city?  We understand how to initiate the auctions but are not sure how to treat the Bazaar itself and for scoring purposes.  We assume it completes or ends a road.

Yes,

Per the Carcassonne Annotated Rules, the Bazaar ends a road, although it is not directly stated.

  It seems clear that a bazaar ends a road in the same way as a crossing or bushes

The Bazaar itself is not a feature that a meeple can be put on.  It does not count as a cloister.  It doesn't change farm or city scoring.


Which member of the Icelandic national football team designed a board game? I was just watching Argentina play Iceland in the football World Cup, and one of the ITV commentators mentioned as an aside that one of the players on the Iceland team had recently published a board game, but I didn't catch which player they were referring to. Does anyone know which player this was, and what the board game is?

I loath football but this seemed googleable.  I got the list of players from wikipedia and searched each one with 'board game' until it turned up  this BGG thread.

The player is Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson who designed a trivia game called. Beint í Mark.


When you return an evolved pokemon to your hand, and you put it back into play, do you have to evolve the pokemon again? For example, when amoonguss is returned to the hand, and you take it's stage one devolved form with it (foongus), and then you want to put it back into play, do you place amoonguss back in, or foongus?

You need to put them back into play the same as if they’d never been in.  You may return the Basic Pokémon to the field immediately if you want, but the Stage 1 must be placed on a Basic Pokémon that has been out since before the beginning of the turn.


Do Increasing Vengence and Swerve form an infinite combo? Okay, so say you play an instant or sorcery spell and then play Increasing Vengeance targeting it could you then play Swerve changing the target of Increasing Vengeance from the random instant or sorcery to itself?

If by "itself" you mean having Increasing Vengeance target itself, then no, you can't do that because rule 114.4 says

  A spell or ability on the stack is an illegal target for itself.

Even if you could do that, it wouldn't do much because no matter how many times an Increasing Vengeance were to resolve copying itself, you would still end up with a single Increasing Vengeance.

If, on the other hand, you mean having Increasing Vengeance target Swerve, then you can do that but it wouldn't do much because once Increasing Vengeance starts to resolve Swerve would no longer be on the stack so the Increasing Vengeance would be countered for having no legal target.


What is a "Small Area" when talking about Cluster Mines? When I was building a scout-heavy army, I noticed that cluster-mines could be taken by my scout-bikes to mark a "small area" as dangerous terrain. However, there is no actual measurement in how big this area is in either the Space Marine Codex and the Core Rulebook. So in light of this, Is a "small area" the size of a small-blast marker, (3 inches) or is it some other dimension?

From Codex Space Marines, under the Cluster Mine entry in the Glossary:

  ...may booby trap a single piece of battlefield terrain...

That reads as a specific, identified piece of terrain as placed during set-up. I.e. woods, ruins etc.

The only mention of "small" is the suggestion to place a small marker to remind both players of the booby trapped terrain.

I'm not sure where you have seen the "small area" - can you provide a reference (it could be a variation between printings perhaps?)


What's the difference between King of Tokyo and King of New York? We got King of Tokyo for Christmas and I just found out about King of New York. What's the difference between these two games? Is King of New York just King of Tokyo done "right"?

King of New York is essentially King of Tokyo with some modifications:

Victory points on the dice are less dominant, having a single VP result. The other 2 faces are replaced with buildings and skulls.
There are regions and things to do for people not in the middle.
Buildings are able to be destroyed, adding a risk/reward mechanic as destroying buildings adds military units. This also adds a potential way to heal in the middle.
The skull results allow you to target people you couldn't attack if they're in a region with lots of military units.
Staying in Manhattan is more rewarding than staying in Tokyo, and the rewards grow with time.

For me, the biggest difference is how the game encourages getting in and smashing things up. In King of Tokyo, being in Tokyo was very risky and offered little reward. In my experience, the dominant strategy was staying outside and rolling for points. In King of New York, with the improved rewards for being in Manhattan, the possibility of healing or taking other rewards, and the decreased value of rolling VPs, staying in is much more viable.


Can I save my spark trooper with a delayed flicker? What exactly defines the beginning and end of a specific step? Because I'm wondering if my logic seems solid enough.

I'm thinking of trying to avoid the sac requirement on my Spark Trooper by using Voidwalk or the ability of Mistmeadow Witch or the like. This way I hope that when he comes back to the field since all the initial actions that stated at the beginning of the end step resolve, it is thus no longer the beginning of said step meaning I can hopefully bypass the sac requirement when he re-enters and thus use spark trooper repeatedly without having to revive him.

It doesn't matter when the beginning or end of a specific step is. The rules state that any permanents that trigger during the End Step, do not trigger until the next end step. This means that if you exile Spark Trooper with Mistmeadow Witch in response to the sacrifice trigger, it will be removed until your opponents EOT, and you won't have to sacrifice it until your next end step. Voidwalk, due to it being a Sorcery, would require you casting it during the Second Main Phase, so you would need to save the targeted Spark Trooper at the end of your opponents turn as well.

  513.3. If a permanent with an ability that triggers "at the beginning of the end step" enters the battlefield during this step, that ability won't trigger until the next turn's end step. Likewise, if a delayed triggered ability that triggers "at the beginning of the next end step" is created during this step, that ability won't trigger until the next turn's end step. In other words, the step doesn't "backup" so those abilities can go on the stack. This rule applies only to triggered abilities; it doesn't apply to continuous effects whose durations say "until end of turn" or "this turn." (See rule 514, "Cleanup Step.")


How is the CMC of a spell obtained for Vial Smasher? Suppose I'm running a Vial Smasher the Fierce deck and I cast Blazing Shoal with X = 5. I've read in other answers to different problems that the converted mana cost of Blazing Shoal would be 7 while it is on the stack. I assume that then Vial Smasher's ability would trigger. Looking at Blazing Shoal, would the CMC be 7 or 2?

You cast the spell onto the stack. When the spell is on the stack x=5so the CMC would be 7 when Vial Smasher the Fierce ability triggers.


Can undying retrigger a second time if its +1/+1 is cancelled out by non-lethal infect damage? A 1/1 Glistener Elf and 1/1 Young Wolf are in combat. The Young Wolf has died before, but thanks to its undying ability came back with a +1/+1 counter on top of it.
Glistener Elf dies, Young Wolf receives a -1/-1 token. This, if I'm not mistaken, cancels out the +1/+1 token and the Young Wolf is now presumed not to have any counters on it. Does this mean that if I attack with another Glistener Elf and Young Wolf blocks, its undying ability will trigger again and cause the Young Wolf creature to come back a second time?
(For future visitors: I found a related question explaining why lethal infect damage wouldn't retrigger the ability a second time. My question is about non-lethal infect damage.)

Yes, if the Young Wolf loses its +1/+1 counter and later dies, its undying ability will trigger and it will return to the battlefield again.
The Undying ability is defined in rule 107.92a:

Undying is a triggered ability. “Undying” means “When this permanent is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a +1/+1 counter on it.”

It checks whether the creature had +1/+1 counters at the time that it died. It doesn't matter if the creature previously had any +1/+1 counters.
For completeness, the -1/-1 counters added by the Glistener Elf because of its Infect ability do remove the +1/+1 counter on Young Wolf, as mentioned in the question. This is specified in rule 122.3:

If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it as a state-based action, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it. See rule 704.


How much would Spelltwine add to cards that track how many spells were cast? If I cast Spelltwine and use it to cast two spells from my graveyard and an opponent's, how many spells were cast?

It does say I cast the two spells that I pick, so it should bring me up to three spells total (at least with how I am thinking). Would it count as three spells for Aetherflux Reservoir, Grapeshot, and Sentinel Tower?

Yes, Spelltwine instructs you to cast those spells, so you do cast them. This counts for things that check for spells being cast or count how many spells were cast, such as the cards linked in the question.


Star Trek: Deck Building - Experience and Stats Pool If an Exploration card requires experience to defeat does that mean that experience cannot be used for buying cards from the Starbase?  Since you can perform multiple buys I was treating the experience as a pool, played characters add to the pool, purchases remove from the pool.

What about 2 missions which say 'requires Attack +4', Can I complete them both with a total attack of 5?

No, you only need to meet the goals on an exploration card to acquire the card and move it to your Points Area. The rules clearly indicate that you don't have to spend experience to complete missions. You should treat experience as a pool though. When you spend experience to gain cards from the Starbase or to repair damage, that experience isn't available for purchasing any other cards or repairing other damage. The glossary doesn't define what it means by spend, but this is clearly the intent.

This is covered in the Rulebook.

  Q.The Mission I want to complete, has a goal of 6+ XP, do I have to spend 6 XP to
  complete it?

  A. No, you just need to have cards in your Bridge that combine to 6 or more XP. That XP
  can be spend for other things as usual.

Yes, you only need 4+ Attack to complete the goals of those missions. Normally, you only get one Explore per turn though.

  GOAL - This is the criteria that must be met to acquire this card and move it to your Points Area

  Perform 1 Explore - The Space Deck contains several different cards that you must
  obtain to gain Mission Points and win the game. To explore, you flip over the top card of the Space Deck and proceed based on the type of card flipped (See page 15 for Exploring the Space
     Deck). This can be performed multiple times if you get
  additional  explores.


Does March of the Machines make artifacts in hand creatures as well? I looked over the Gatherer rulings and it didn't mention anything about it, nor does it mention permanents on the card or in the rulings.

I ask because I wanted to know if I could use Æther Vial to summon any artifact from my hand with March of the Machines in play.

On any given card, a card that specifies a permanent type without explicitly saying 'card' only affects permanents in play (unless otherwise specified by the card).  If you have an artifact card in your hand, it is exactly that - an artifact card, and not an 'artifact'...

Relevant rule

  109.2. If a spell or ability uses a description of an object that includes a card type or subtype, but doesn’t include the word “card,” “spell,” “source,” or “scheme,” it means a permanent of that card type or subtype on the battlefield.

(https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Object)


Suburbia - what is the rule of Reputation? Introduction
In Suburbia you track your population, reputation, and income. The goal is to have the most population when the cards run out. Income is needed to purchase tiles to increase your population.
Question
As I understand from what the rules say about reputation is that in the event of a tie with population at the end of the game,  the one with the highest reputation is the winner. My question is, does reputation do anything else in the game other than that? If that's the only reason for it, and ties are pretty unlikely, I have no reason to keep it up.

Reputation = number of people that added to the total, at the end of the turn.
The relevant part in the rules:

ADJUST POPULATION (BASED ON REPUTATION)
Increase or decrease your Population on the Population Board by the amount where your Reputation Cube is located. If Population gets to 0, any additional movements backwards cost $1 per Population. If the player cannot pay this fee, nothing happens to the player...he just stays on the 0 spot.
As your borough grows, it will cost more to maintain and its “small town” quality will decrease --
this is represented by Red Lines on the population track. When a player’s Population crosses a Red
Line, then that player’s Income ◯ and Reputation █ are both reduced by 1 (moved to the left one
space) for every Red Line the player moves past. If a player’s Population dips below a Red Line (this
can happen if he has a negative Reputation) he moves both his Income Cylinder and his Reputation
Cube forward (moved to the right one space).


How can I mana ramp in a Commander game without helping my opponents? I'm working on a Commander deck and I'm looking at ways to ramp my mana that won't aid my opponents.  I may eventually use all the listed ramp cards, but, I'd like to keep the restriction for the early game at least (when the draw gods smile on me).  This deck will be a mono-red deck and one of the other players also plays mono-red (but not particularly effectively).

I want to avoid, where possible, handing the other mono-red player an advantage by playing cards like Gauntlet of Might or helping all the other players with something like Mana Flare.

An example of something I think will work is Extraplanar Lens with Snow Covered Mountains (SCM).  It would work since I can be the sole player using SCMs and it works by naming the land card to benefit.  I can also use Caged Sun since it's text specifically adds to my mana pool (presuming that tapping a SCM for red mana is "activating it's ability") and benefits creatures I control.

Gauntlet of Power is another obvious contender, since SCMs count as basic lands (they are, in fact of type "Basic Snow Land — Mountain" per Gatherer errata), but suffers the same problem as Gauntlet of Might with respect to aiding my red playing opponents.

If I pursue the Snow Covered strategy (they are very uncommon in this area) what other ramps can aid me without unduly aiding my opponents?

Are there other cards that might come to my aid if I dropped the snow-covered idea?

In Commander, it's typical for decks of all colors to run "mana rocks" -- artifacts that generate mana. Some of the popular ones are: Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Thran Dynamo, Darksteel Ingot, Worn Powerstone, Dreamstone Hedron, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt. Some of these help with mana-fixing, others just produce colorless mana; the former is often helpful in a multi-color deck, but for mono-color you can just go with whatever's got the best resource yield. These cards are less sexy than straight-up mana doublers, but they'll give you a consistent edge right out the gate -- and usually draw less hate, to boot. (Spectral Searchlight is a pet card of mine I'd like to throw in here. It lets you play "friendly" by fixing someone else's mana or letting them cast some big spell a turn early, if you wish.)

Beyond mana rocks, any color deck can use Solemn Simulacrum, Pilgrim's Eye, Expedition Map (use it to tutor for cheaty lands like Coffers), and Doubling Cube. You can play mana Myrs if you seriously need the extra juice, but be ready for them to die to board wipes (Plague Myr deserves special notice -- slap some big equipment on him and he turns into a major threat).

There are colored cards that can do ramp, too. While green is known for ramping, being able to access almost the entire Vintage card pool (and getting to play higher-cost stuff because the game's not over in just a couple of turns) means every color has access to its own brand of acceleration.

Black's acceleration is surprisingly strong in the format. Cabal Coffers is very popular in black decks (or multi-color decks running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth). Magus of the Coffers and Nirkana Revenant give you even more Coffers-like effects. Black also has fast mana with old-school ritual effects like Dark Ritual and Soldevi Adnate.
White has rather little, but you can get extra lands with cards like Land Tax, Weathered Wayfarer, and Knight of the White Orchid (get your land count lower than the rest of the table by using Ravnica bouncelands). Serra's Sanctum is strong in the right deck.
Blue's biggest asset is easy card draw. You can put a bunch of mana rocks in your deck without having to worry as much about them messing up your late-game topdecks. Drawing multiple lands per turn also combines nicely with Walking Atlas, Patron of the Moon, and Azusa (if you're blue-green).
Red has some pretty good fast-mana spells; for Commander, I like Mana Geyser and Brightstone Ritual. As far as more lasting options... Braid of Fire has already been discussed; Koth of the Hammer is solid, but will probably draw a lot of hate; Soulbright Flamekin is a quirky and underestimated dude who can buff your creatures and fix your colors at the same time. Red has something else going for it, though: plentiful land, artifact, and creature destruction spells you can use to knock out other players' key ramp component.

For a red deck, I'd look to artifacts for ramp first and foremost, just for efficiency's sake. Red's in-color rampy stuff is nifty but I find it difficult to use.

If you're looking to generate prodigious amounts of mana to power out X spells, you can also get more bang for your buck with damage doublers like Fire Servant, Quest for Pure Flame, and Furnace of Rath; and copy effects like Reverberate (copied spells have the same X values and kickers as the original).


Does moving the wagon after scoring stop you from taking the fairy? So I've read the online PDF rules and can't seem to find an answer for this.

After scoring points in a round with the wagon, if you move the wagon to another unfinished city or road as per the wagon rules, does this count towards deploying a new follower and stop you from taking control of the fairy from the "Princess And The Dragon" expansion?

No. Redeployment of the Wagon following scoring (at the end of a turn) is a separate step from the figure deployment step (for the next turn), so it has no effect on any of the actions you can take during the figure deployment step, including moving the Fairy.


Betrayal at House on the Hill: Do I have to pickup items that I draw? Do the rules specify that you must pick an item you draw? Since the amulet is a double edged sword I would rather not have to deal with it.

Yes you do pick up every item that you draw. However as long as the item does not say it can't be dropped there is nothing preventing you from dropping it.

In the case you mention the amulet (Amulet of the Ages is the full name) gives +1 to all stats when you get it and -3 to all stats when you lose it. Which is something to remember as there are plenty of cards you can get which do more harm to you then good. Als

Rules

  Drawing Omen, Item, and Event Cards
  If the room has an item symbol (a bull’s head ),
  draw an item card. Read it out loud. Place it face up in
  front of you; you now have the item in your possession.
  (You’re carrying or wearing it.) You can use the item once
  immediately and once on each of your turns, unless the card
  says otherwise.


If a player goes to "combat", and then activates an ability, what is the game state? My question is not a duplicate of When should I activate Man Lands and Keyrunes in order to attack with them?, although anyone answering this question would need to understand at least that much in order to understand this one. That question only explains when a player would need to activate. It doesn't cover shortcuts or illegal actions, which is what my question is primarily about.

Does activating an ability when you have already decided to move to the declare attackers step imply that you are declaring zero attackers?

  Anthony: Combat?
  Noah: Sure.
  Anthony: Animate Mutavault?
  Noah: Sure.
  Anthony: Declare attackers?
  Noah: Hang on. You're already in the declare attackers phase, right? I thought you animated Mutavault after you decided to declare no attackers.

Anthony offers the shortcut "Combat?". According to the Tournament Rules, that means he is offering to pass priority until Noah has priority in the Beginning of Combat step.

  A statement such as "I'm ready for combat" or "Declare attackers?" offers to keep passing priority
  until an opponent has priority in the beginning of combat step. Opponents are assumed to be acting
  then unless they specify otherwise.

Noah responds with "Sure." I believe this means that Noah is passing priority back to Anthony (don't get too hung up on this - it isn't the focus of the question). That means the game moves to the Declare Attackers step.

Anthony activates Mutavault, which is an action that could, if it is legal, only be taken after declaring attackers. Now the game state is potentially ambiguous.

  508.1. First, the active player declares attackers. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack
  ...
  508.3. Third, the active player gets priority

Assume the tournament level is Competitive REL, and that if a judge is needed, one will be called. What is the resulting game state? I believe the resulting game state would be one of the following, but I am not sure which is correct (if either):

The game is in the Declare Attackers phase, and Anthony does not have the opportunity to declare attackers.
Activating Mutavault was an illegal action because Anthony didn't have priority. That action is reversed. The game is in the Declare Attackers phase, and Anthony still has the opportunity to declare attackers.

As of the release of Amonkhet, the "Go to combat" tournament shortcut changed, and it now unambiguously supports Anthony's interpretation of the sequence of events. The game is in the beginning of combat step and Mutavault's ability is on the stack. Noah has priority.
The current wording of that shortcut is

If the active player passes priority with an empty stack during their first main phase, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in beginning of combat unless they are affecting whether a beginning
of combat ability triggers. However, if the non-active player takes no action, the active player has priority at the beginning of combat. Beginning of combat triggered abilities (even ones that target)
may be announced after any non-active player action has resolved.

The Amonkhet policy changes announcement describes the practical impact of the change to this shortcut:

What this does, in a bunch of words, is set the default case so that the active player moving to combat (usually) means that the non-active player is acting in beginning of combat, but the active player’s role there only happens after that. They haven’t missed triggers, and they can still crew. But, by offering to pass priority into combat, they can no longer claim to be in main phase for non-instant spells afterwards unless the non-active player took an action to prevent the trigger.

In the situation in question, activating Mutavault serves the same purpose as the ability to crew that they mention: it turns a non-creature object into a creature in preparation for attacking with it.
In addition, that same blog has a post that takes a more detailed look at the change, and it discusses a scenario that involves actions like those described in the question:

The Cryptic Command Problem
It’s not a problem with the shortcut, per se, but it’s a protection for the non-active player that’s been removed. There are various permutations of the “Phantom Priority Pass”, but here’s a simple one:
The active player has a two Bears and a Mutavault. The non-active player is at 5 life, but active player is worried about a Cryptic Command.
The active player wants to try to get a read on if the coast is clear. So, they say “Combat” in an attempt to imply that they’re ready to declare attackers. If the non-active plays the Cryptic, you activate the Mutavault and get in for 2. If they don’t, unless they’re a very precise player, it’s a strong sign that they may not have it and you should activate the Mutavault and go for it. The old shortcut precluded that baiting.
Of course, the correct time to play the Command if you have it is after the second priority pass (or interrupting the declaration). But now you need to be more careful if you’re the non-active player to not accidentally tip your hand.

The "if they don't [play a Cryptic Command]" scenario plays out exactly like the one in the question: the active player announces that they are moving to Combat, the non-active player takes no action, then the active player activates Mutavault and attacks with it.


If a weak creature with death touch attacks a tougher creature, does my own creature die as well? If a weak creature with death touch attacks a tougher creature, does my own creature die as well?

If I have a 2/2 with death touch that attacks a 4/4, the 4/4 will die but what will happen to my 2/2?

Yes it does.

The damage to them both happen simultaneously (footnote 1), so the big one receives 2 deathtouch damage, and the little one receives four regular damage. Both of these are lethal damage (footnote 2, 3) to the respective receivers, and they are sent to the graveyard.

This can be avoided by giving the little guy first strike (consider Glissa, the Traitor or double strike, which will cause the little guy's damage to be dealt first (unless the big guy somehow also gains it.) Other things like protection can mitigate the damage too.

I should point out that creatures can't attack other creatures in normal combat. You can only declare them as attackers to a player or planeswalker. The defending player (in this case, the player owning the 4/4) can choose to block or not block.

You can cause them to deal damage to each other with the "fights" mechanic (like Prey Upon, or with spells and abilities (Livewire Lash comes to mind.) If a creature deals damage to another creature, and the damage-dealing creature has deathtouch, then the receiving creature has lethal damage (causing it to be destroyed).

Footnote 1

  510.2. Second, all combat damage that's been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it's dealt.

Footnote 2

  704.5h If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and it's been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since the last time state-based actions were checked, that creature is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

Footnote 3

  119.6. Damage marked on a creature remains until the cleanup step, even if that permanent stops being a creature. If the total damage marked on a creature is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed as a state-based action

  704.5g If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and the total damage marked on it is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.


Firefly artful dodger starting drive core In firefly, the bonus ship (the artful dodger) available in more recent printings of the game has several differences, including a different drive core.

During set-up, the players are supposed to take a drive core from the set of starting drive cores, however there is no such card for the artful dodger. The same drive core is however available for purchase within the game.

Should the pilot of the artful dodger play without any card for their starting drive core, and take the effects as written? or should they claim the corresponding core from the purchase decks, removing it from the pool for other players?

The latter.

  To use the Artful Dodger, during set-up pull a "Modified Radion Accelerator Mark II" drive core from the Osiris Supply Deck to serve as the Artful Dodger's starting drive core. With its faster core and higher crew capacity, captaining the Dodger means working fewer delivery jobs and focusing on riskier, more profitable crime jobs.

That's from the product's BGG page. It looks like a quote from an official source.


Crazy 8s rules question I was recently playing a game of crazy. We had a dispute over the rules I said:

A 2 means that you have to pick up two more cards
A Jack means that you skip town

My friends disagree. So I was wondering if I was correct it was or not.

I have found some rules. They agree on the 2, but disagree on the Jack.

The problem with these games, is that there are a lot of house rules. So there is a high probability that there are some differences in the rules.

The best way to avoid problems is to discuss and fix the rules before play. So you can focus on the fun part.