Why does a Thunder hammer have Concussive? In the Space Marine Codex, the Thunder hammer has the Concussive rule, allowing it to force the model it hits to Initiative step 1 during that Assault Phase. However, it also has the Unwieldy rule, meaning that it hits on Initiative step 1 in the first place. Is this some sort of hiccup in the rules, or am I forgetting something?

It's not a hiccup, p48 of the main rulebook covers this. In short, it means that both combatants have their Initiative reduced to 1, which in turn means that they are striking simultaneously.

And to clarify, Concussive reduces the opponents Initiative to 1 for the next assault phase. So if a Thunder Hammer + Storm Shield terminator were attacking a model with Initiative 4, combat would go something like:

  Round 1:
  Initiative Step 4: Opponent Attacks, no wounds
  Initiative Step 1: Terminator Attacks and wounds (Initiative 1 due to Unwieldy)

  Round 2: Initiative Step 1: Opponent (Initiative 1 due to Concussive) and Terminator (Initiative 1 due to Unwieldy) attack simultaneously (which means that if the opponent rolled first and killed the terminator, the terminator would still have the opportunity to roll and attack before being removed).

Edit: From the BRB, Concussive:

  ...a model that suffers one or more wounds...is reduced to Initiative 1 until the end of the following Assault Phase...


Can I play a colored blank card in Uno? I was playing Uno then someone played a yellow blank onto a yellow 7, is this allowed?

The blank cards in UNO can serve a couple purposes. Their main purpose is to serve as a replacement for lost cards, just write the number on it and your good to go.

Alternatively, they can be used for house rules. So long as they made it clear that the card was wild it would be valid. The rules suggest writing any house rule on the card to make it clear what it may be used for.


Do I get cards from Rebel Cantina even if another player played Produce? The card Rebel Cantina gives you cards during the Produce phase for every rebel world in your tableau. But what if another player plays the Produce? Does it still count?

Yes. The only difference between the player who plays "Produce" and everyone else is the free good on a windfall world. Every other effect applies equally to every player - there's no difference between Rebel Cantina and any other world with a "Produce" effect.


What happens with two Sword of the Meek? What happens when two Sword of the Meek are in the graveyard while a 1/1 creature enters play? Do they both get attached to the creature?

Yes, you get to attach both Swords of the Meek.

When the state of the game changes (in this case, because a 1/1 comes enters the battlefield), all objects check if their triggers are 'tripped'. In this case, both the Swords notice the 1/1 entering play, and both will give you the choice to attach them.

The rules for this are in section 603. Handling Triggered Abilities. Specifically:

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

You control 2 sources that have this.

  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.

The 1/1 satisfies both the Sword's trigger condition.

There are no limitations on how many triggers a state-change can activate.


Can you announce that you are a character not in play in Mascarade As per the title - can you announce that you are a character that is not in play currently in Bruno Faidutti's Mascarade ?

ErroneousPlanet has the correct answer, and all of their points are right on. I did find a copy of the rulebook online and scanned it. Below is what I saw.

While the rulebook doesn't explicitly say that you must declare you are a character that is in your instance of the game, it does say at the top of page 7 (emphasis mine) "it is possible to use the power of any character in the game without being that character, even without knowing who you are." I would take this phrasing to mean the instance of the game you are presently playing, not the board game as a whole, so you cannot claim to be a character that is not currently in play.


Lifelink attacking a planeswalker A player told me that attacking a planeswalker with a creature with lifelink doesn't provide lifegain. It sounds strange to me since damage are dealt by the creature (whatever to who, what).

This player was a judge but since he was also my oponent, I query about this point of rule...

You will gain life by attacking a planeswalker with a creature that has lifelink. More generally, any damage source with lifelink will cause you to gain life if it deals damage to anything.

The definition of lifelink in rule 702.15b says this:

  Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes). See rule 119.3.


Strongest cribbage bots How good are computers at Cribbage? Are the best humans still better than the best computers? I can find lots of AIs online, but only in the context of selling computer and mobile cribbage games.

I've played literally hundreds of AI's... the strongest opponent cribbage games are all cheating.
The core Issues
Cribbage is focused upon 3 key priorities:

maximize points in hand
maximize points in play
minimize risk of giving points in the crib.

These boil down to two key skills:

Keeping
Playing

Playing is governed by a fairly easily coded set of rules. It's about 30 or 40 decision points, barring reading of the opponent's body language. Coded, it can be done convincingly hard in about 250 lines of basic code.
Keeping is much harder, because it has to balance all three priorities. My own decision tree starts with looking for certain combinations. This alone is several hundred lines of code. ANd then the exception seeking - which requires a good risk assessment protocol. And this is where it gets hard to code.
The AIs
The best non-cheating AI's I've played against (some 30 different programs, 10 of which I was able to examine the source, the others had a normal distribution of hands) are generally about as good as I am. I'm pretty good, but not great.
Now, I've played some 50+ different cribbage games - and I know for a fact that 3 of them cheat, and suspect about 20 more cheat.
The simplest cheat mechanism is to have the computer's hand use a different randomization than the player's hand. One such program was for PalmOS - In 30+ sets to 8 games, it never once had a hand less than 4 points, and never had a 19 crib, either. And it averaged over 6 points per hand.
Several others use similar, but I'm less certain of them.
One, I got hold of the source, and found the code actually gave the computer 8 cards, not 6, kept 4, put two in the crib, and two back in the deck. It was incredibly hard to beat, but occasionally got a 19 hand. I suspect many of using 1-2 extra cards like this.
The Third Key Skill
There is a 3rd key skill for Cribbage - one that AIs as yet have not implemented: reading one's opponent.
EG: In 2004, my buddy George and I played over 50 sets. We usually played  a set during the week, and almost always a set on the weekend, sometimes 2 sets on the weekend. Our play varied by whether we were watching TV or not - when not, we both knew what the other had by subtle cues of posture and reaction to cards. Cribs while not watching TV were usually 0-4 points, and hands typically in the 4-15 point range, with the occasional 2 or 19. When we weren't paying attention, cribs varied more widely, including a 29... I had 5-6-7-8-8-J, Geo had 5-5-7-7-8-8; turn was, of course, the missing jack, my crib. I knew he was throwing points because, while he threw down almost immediately, he also had an eyebrow twitch (a tell for a pair of pairs or a pair royal plus 15-complement). Had it been his crib, with the twitch I might have thrown the 8-J instead of the 5-J.
One of the reasons for including "Cheating" AI's is because that can simulate to a certain degree the reading of one's opponent and the effect upon scores.
Further Discussion
To date, I've seen little documentation of AI work in Cribbage - I've found one academic paper (Kendall & Shaw, 2002), and it is more interested in the development of their own AI. Further, it compares to an non-heuristic AI - Ultimate Cribbage - which I've played, and found a solid opponent.
Cheating AI's, however, are the hardest ones I've found to play against. Just be warned, however - some of those can train one to suboptimal play, especially those that cheat with the crib, as your own crib-risk calculations can become skewed.


Can I remove a creature someone's sacrificing for an Emerge cost? Here's a problem having to do with the proper resolution of the stack. My friend played Decimator of the Provinces for its emerge cost by sacrificing his Hooded Hydra. In response I played Disperse targeting his Hooded Hydra. This way he wouldn't have enough mana to play his Decimator of the Provinces.

Is that how it would resolve? And if so does the Decimator of Provinces return to his hand or go to his graveyard?

Unfortunately, you can't prevent him from saccing his Hooded Hydra.  What happens is this:

Friend declares he's going to cast Decimater
Friend determines the cost (in this case, Emerge)
Friend pays the cost, including sacrificing Hooded Hydra
Decimater goes on the stack
Decimater's cast trigger goes on the stack
Players now get priority, starting with your friend.


Is there an easy, web based, multi player board and card game prototype tester? Is there an easy, web based, multi player board and card game prototype tester ? Som that has stack and shuffle for objects?

let's say I wanted to mock up some cards or playing pieces as a jpg and upload them to this virtual tabletop. I would like to be able to turn, shuffle and stack pieces. maybe have some built in custom dice? no rules enforcement, just objects to manipulate.

An open-source boardgame engine, could be what you are looking for:

Vassal Engine
http://www.vassalengine.org/

It provides counters, cards, board and does not enforce any rules, it provides solely "component handling". You need to create your own module (a container which holds all components as images and text) and then you should be able to send that module to other players or designers to test your prototype.

You can even play together if the game is multiplayer and not solely solitaire. Play by Forum (PBF), Play by Email (PBEM), Peer-to-Peer (P2P) playing is supported.

Here is a direct link to the user guide to evaluate the features:
http://www.vassalengine.org/mediawiki/images/8/8c/Userguide.pdf

If you want to get started, you follow these tutorials:
http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Tutorials

Especially:
http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Card_Game_Tutorial
http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Board_Game_Tutorial

While VASSAL certainly is powerful, the initial steps for simple games are quite simple. Yet after a while, the options like automated game setup will be a blessing for you and your playtesters. The game logs will be important to evaluate the game, i.e. find too weak or too powerful strategies.

FAQ for module creation:
http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Creating_Modules


In monopoly, if a player owns all of a set of properties but one of the properties is mortgaged, is the rent still doubled for the other properties? In monopoly, if a player owns all of a set of properties (e.g. all three green properties) then the (unimproved) rent of those properties is doubled. Imagine now that one of the properties is mortgaged and somebody lands on one of the unmortgaged properties in the set. Is the rent still doubled even though one of the properties is mortgaged? On the one hand, the player still owns all three properties. On the other hand, only 2 of the properties are "active" in the sense that they aren't mortgaged.

Yes, rent is doubled even if some of the properties are mortgaged.
Rules

It is an advantage to hold all the Title Deed cards in a color-group
(e.g., Boardwalk and Park Place; or Connecticut, Vermont and Oriental
Avenues) because the owner may then charge double rent for
unimproved properties in that color-group. This rule applies to
unmortgaged properties even if another property in that color-group
is mortgaged.


In two-player games with perfect information, if both players play optimally, will the game always end in a draw? I've been running simulations of two strong agents playing Chess which always ended  in a draw.  Followed by this simulations, can we state that two-player perfect-information games like Go and Chess will always end in a tie when both players play optimally?

Accurding to Zermelo's theorem, in finite two-player games of perfect information in which the players move alternately and no affect of chance, one of those three possibilities is true:

First player can always win.
Second player can always win.
Both players can force a draw.

For example, Tic-Tac-Toe is known to have a strategy by both players that will force a draw.  In 4-in-a-row it is known that the first player has a winning strategy.  Chess haven't been solved yet, I think that the conjecture is that a draw can be forced.

A list of solved games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game
The field of this question is called Combinatorial game theory (CGT)
see: Solving Chess


Why is the ruling on Torbran the way it is? Someone today asked me about an interaction between Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and the newly spoiled card Fiery Emancipation.

I checked rule 616 and which states the "affected object's controller [or] affected player" decides the order in which to apply the replacement effects.  My interpretation of this is that the spell or permanent who's damage is being increased/tripled is the affected object and that they would chose the order to apply.

Then I was shown the ruling on Torbran which reads:

  If another effect modifies how much damage your red source would deal, including preventing some of it, the player being dealt damage or the controller of the permanent being dealt damage chooses an order in which to apply those effects. If all of the damage is prevented, Torbran’s effect no longer applies.

What am I missing in my interpretation of the rules? I've been looking at it for awhile and I just don't understand how they came to this conclusion.

616.1. If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object’s controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply, following the steps listed below. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same time, choices are made in APNAP order (see rule 101.4).

Affected here means the 'target' of the event, not the 'source'. This is confirmed by the example on 616.1e:

  Example: Two permanents are on the battlefield. One is an enchantment that reads “If a card would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, instead exile it,” and the other is a creature that reads “If [this creature] would die, instead shuffle it into its owner’s library.” If the creature is destroyed, its controller decides which replacement to apply first; the other does nothing.


How did makers of "Gwent" set scores for each card? I am curious about one thing.
In the game called Gwent the Witcher card game each card has its own score. And also these cards have some potential scores that they can enhance their own scores or the other card in the same line. Moreover these cards sometimes decrease the opponents scores.
I want to know how  they developed such a design that if two player comes face to face none of them is potentially stronger that the other because of scores and abilities of their cards.
Is there a math theory behind these card game? If so, what theory is that?

Playtesting. Playtesting. More playtesting. And then once you're done with that, some more playtesting.
Any TCG which is complicated enough to be interesting for human players is far too complicated to be able to be modelled mathematically, so extensive playtesting is the only way for the designers of Gwent or any other TCG to be able to design their cards. Of course, just as you as a player can look at a card and have (in most cases) a pretty good clue how good the card is, the designers can do the same and have a good starting point for the cost and abilities of any cards - and the designers are probably better evaluating cards than you, because that's their job.
On the other hand, TCG designers don't always get it right, and sometimes get it really badly wrong. For Gwent (or most other online TCGs), that's not too bad as they can easily tweak the power level of individual cards to ensure none of them are too busted, but that's not an option which is so readily available to paper TCGs because it's harder to change the text on printed cards - the biggest of them all, Magic: the Gathering, has a policy of banning overpowered cards rather than functionally changing them.


How can I store all of the cards for my MtG Cube? I've created my first cube during the last week. It's been fun and I'm eager to try it out. There's just one thing... How do I store it? The goal size is about 540 cards without basic lands. I guess I need about 200 basics too. For now I'll keep all cards except the basics in sleeves permanently but I might sleeve up the lands too.

Have you found any better boxes than those that comes with booster packs or shoe boxes (too big)? Do you keep all basic lands sleeved?

Probably, the best way to store a cube is in a properly sized corrugated trading card box. These boxes are fairly cheap, and with your local friendly game store's 100% markup, they shouldn't run you more than a couple dollars.

I wouldn't use booster pack boxes or shoe boxes. Booster boxes are too flimsy, because the are designed for display purposes. You might spill your cards everywhere. Shoeboxes do not have trading card dimensions (Each MtG card is approximately 63 x 88 mm in size), so it will be more difficult to keep the cards in order as you will have several stacks.

I would sleeve all your cards, including the basic lands. You will eventually need to play with the basic lands after the cube draft, so you will save everyone some time by having all the basic lands sleeved identically to the cube draft cards. As far as sizing your corrugated trading card box, that just comes down to some simple math:

(Note: I am using 288 microns for MtG card thickness, from mtgsalvation thread. The Wikipedia page says 305 microns, but the information isn't cited either. The difference is only 0.5" for 740 cards)

|                |Thickness|      | Total | Total  | Total  |
|Card/Sleeve Type|(microns)|#Cards| (cm)  | (inch) |Sleeved |
+----------------+---------+------+-------+--------+--------+
|Magic Card      |     288 |  740 | 21.29 |  8.384 |  8.38" |
|Unnamed (thick) |     110 |  740 |  8.14 |  3.205 | 14.8"  |
|Unnamed (thick) |     110 |  540 |  5.94 |  2.339 |        |
|Dragon Shield   |     100 |  740 |  7.4  |  2.913 | 14.2"  |
|Dragon Shield   |     100 |  540 |  5.4  |  2.126 |        |
|Mayday Premium  |      90 |  740 |  6.66 |  2.622 | 13.6"  |
|Mayday Premium  |      90 |  540 |  4.86 |  1.913 |        |
|"Penny" (thin)  |      40 |  740 |  2.96 |  1.165 | 10.7"  |
|"Penny" (thin)  |      40 |  540 |  2.16 |  0.850 |        |
+----------------+---------+------+-------+--------+--------+

If you don't sleeve the cards at all, you will need a corrugated box with 8.38 inches interior space. Depending upon what thickness sleeves you are using, your cube will fit somewhere between 11"-15" (sleeve thickness doubled, since there are 2 sides). You can get a box that fits your cube snugly, or a slightly longer box so it is easier to remove cards. You can always use deckboxes to pad the extra space, or split the cube from the basic lands.

I did some testing with some penny sleeves I had, to verify some of the above numbers. 100 penny sleeves were about 1/2", so sleeving 740 should be about 3.75", which is quite a bit higher than the 2.33" estimate (after doubling thickness). The largest corrugated boxes sold have just over a 14" interior length, so you might have to store your basic lands in a different box than your cube.


Should I use all actions before buying anything? For example, I have this hand. 3 coins, one market, one library. So first I play the market, then buy something with the coins (plus 1 coin from the market) and then play the library having nothing in my hand because I already used the coins and the market (so I draw seven cards or even more). Is that right?

From the rules:

  "The player must complete all of his Actions before
  he moves on to the Buy phase of his turn."


Does the Blunderbuss require you to use only the +2 strength bonus in order to use its roll effect? When resolving a Combat Encounter, you may gain +2 Strength. If you do, each 6 you roll when resolving a etc etc

If I have a +5 weapon, typically I take the higher bonus as my bonus (they are not added together), and I can use the non-bonus effects on all items I hold.  In this case, because it says "If you do", does this mean I must take the +2 Strength as my bonus and nothing higher, even if I have such an item, in order to use the blunderbuss rolling effect stated after?

If you choose to gain the bonus, then you must add 1 success for any 6 rolled (after the rerolls, if applicable) and substract 1 success for any 1 rolled (after the rerolls, if applicable).

But the bonus itself isn't special. As always, you apply the highest available bonus. If it's not the bonus provided by the Blunderbuss, that doesn't affect the other ability in any way.

The choice to gain the bonus activates the other ability, not the fact of applying the bonus.

The card could be as well written like this:

  When resolving a Combat Encounter, you may gain +2 Strength. If you do gain the bonus, each 6 you roll when resolving a etc etc

Edit:
I have asked Nikki Valens - Eldritch Horror's designer, for an answer.

Here it is, with emphasis added in the most relevant part:

  The blunderbuss has a potencial negative effect in that rolling 1’s will negate successes. It may be that an investigator does not wish to use this effect. For this reason, the bonus and the other effect are tied to an option on the investigator’s part. The investigator may choose to both gain the bonus and the other effects (6’s are two success and 1’s negates successes). Even if the investigator applies a higher bonus from another effect, the 6’s and 1’s will still be affected. Please note however, the choice to use the effects of the blunderbuss must be made before dice are rolled.


Do spells targeting Daring Thief follow it after control is exchanged? Suppose I have Daring Thief out. My opponent attempts to kill it via Doom Blade or another kill spell. In response I untap Daring Thief with Thassa's Ire, and attempt to gain control of, say, my opponent's 4/4 token. There are no responses, and the exchange happens. I now control a 4/4 token, and my opponent controls Daring Thief.

Does Doom Blade "follow" Daring Thief and kill it on my opponent's side of the board?

Yes, if you exchange control of Daring Thief with another creature while a spell targeting Daring Thief is on the stack, the spell will still be targeting the Daring Thief when the exchange completes. The Thief is still the same object when the exchange happens, it just has a different controller.


Evolutionary Leap Stack Ordering Using Evolutionary Leap to sacrifice a creature such as Pulmonic Sliver (or another sliver w/ Pulmonic on board), in which order does the stack happen?
You would place the sacrificed sliver on top, or do the triggers miss the sliver in question sending it to the graveyard?

Evolutionary Leap

  G, Sac a creature: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature, put that in your hand.

Pulmonic Sliver

  If this permanent would be put into the graveyard you may place it on top of your library instead.

Pulmonic Sliver's ability is a replacement effect and doesn't use the stack. That means that when you pay the activation cost for Evolutionary Leap, you may choose to put Pulmonic Sliver on top of your library, and as soon as Evolutionary Leap's ability resolves, it will find that Sliver. Most of the times, that is not what you want, but fortunately Pulmonic Sliver's ability is optional.


What Are The Key Features Of The "Fantunes" Bidding System? Zia Mahmood's Bridge column for the Guardian newspaper today tells of two players with world titles to their names, Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes, who apparently have an intriguing bidding system:

  They play a bidding system that is unique in top-level bridge: opening bids at the one level are forcing, while opening bids at the two level are not weak - they just show not enough points to open at the one level.

In the example deal, Fantoni and Nunes quickly jump to 3S with 11 points between them (!) as North and South, stymying poor old West who is holding 21 points, and ends up in an unmakeable 6H due to lack of bidding space (6C or 7C would have been much better).  Score one for the rogue system!

What are the key features of this interesting system?  According to a link kindly provided by Aryabhata, some people are wary of "Fantunes" because of its high amount of variance.  It must be possible to get to the very top using it, but could this be more down to Fantoni and Nunes' playing skill than the strength of the system?

Similar to MICS, all opening 2 bids are intermediate/preemptive.

2C = 10-16 4441, 4450 or 4432
2D = 14-16 5+,4+ in Minors
2H = 10-16 5+ Hearts and 4+ in Clubs
2S = 10-16 5+ Spades and 4+ Clubs
2NT = 10-13 5+,5+ in Minors
1NT = 13+ thru 16-


I killed myself, did I win? I played an odd game of Shadow Hunters the other day. There were five players: two Shadows, two Hunters and one Neutral. I was dealt the Neutral, Charles.

For the unaware, his win condition states:

  At the time you kill another character, the total number of dead characters is 3 or more.

His special ability is:

  After you attack, you may give yourself 2 points of damage to attack the same character again.

Partway through the game, the following situation presented itself:

It was my turn and I'd just attacked a player that was so damaged one more attack would surely kill them
I was within two points of death
One character had already died

I declared that I was going to use my ability, revealing my card, and electing to attack the wounded player again, given that I would take two damage in doing so. I rolled a good attack and killed the player in question. I then subtracted my two damage killing myself. Three characters were dead, as my win condition required. My group were happy to award me the win under such strange circumstances, but I'd like to clarify:

Was this a legitimate move in this scenario? Did I win?

Also, given that the already-dead character was a Shadow and the nearly-dead character was a Hunter, was this the only way I could have achieved a solo victory in this game?

I don't know of any official rulings on the game, but I would not interpret that as a win for Charles.

The sticking point is:

  At the time you kill another character, the total number of dead characters is 3 or more.

So what was the total number of dead characters when you killed the Hunter? Your interpretation is that it was 3, because a Shadow was dead, the Hunter was dead, and Charles was dead.

However, I don't think this works - at the time you killed the Hunter, Charles must have been alive; dead characters can't attack, after all. Thus, Charles would have died after killing the Hunter, which means that at the time you killed the Hunter the total number of dead characters was 2.

Fundamentally, the reason why this situation is confusing is because Charles should not have been able to attack at all. I'm not sure if it's an official rule (I'll check later), but a lot of other game mechanics assume that if you reach maximum damage at any point during your turn, your turn ends and your character is dead - for instance, if you have two health remaining and draw the Spider card, you're dead and your turn ends, you don't get to attack.

Since Charles' ability deals two damage to him first, and then allows him to attack, by triggering your ability you should have simply died without doing anything.

As for the last part of your question, I think there is no way for Charles to be the sole winner in a five player game. As soon as three people who aren't him are dead, the game is over; thus, he either wins a joint victory alongside the Shadows or the Hunters (by taking the last kill), or he doesn't win.


Who are "Johnny", "Timmy", and "Spike" and what do they do? Often times when browsing different Magic: The Gathering sites, I will come across certain decks or cards that are said to be favoured by a Johnny, a Timmy or a Spike. Also, sometimes certain people will identify themselves or others as being some mixture of Johnny, Timmy or Spike.

What is a Johnny, a Timmy, and a Spike, and what are the characteristics of cards or players that fall into those three groups?

The terms Johnny, Timmy, and Spike refer to the three player Archetypes that were outlined by Magic Card Designer (among other things) Mark Rosewater in a blog post, and later revised on the Magic the Gathering website. They are used to categorize players based on what their motivations to playing the game are, what types of cards they enjoy, and what encourages them to keep playing.

The archetypes are defined as follows:

Johnny/Jenny:

Johnny is often described as the combo player; he wants to carefully craft a plan and then execute it. Johnny players tend to gravitate towards niche cards with unique effects. Sometimes Johnnies will center decks around cards that others consider unplayable just to prove that it can be done. Johnnies are looking for a way to express themselves and their creativity, even if they don't win every time.

  The common bond to all the Johnnies is that they are on a mission to show the world something about themselves. What they're showing varies tremendously, but at the core of each Johnny is a similar motivation: “Look at me, world! Look at me!” - Mark Rosewater

Timmy/Tammy:

Timmy is described as the power player. If he wins, he wants to win big just barely scraping by doesn't interest him. Timmy players tend to gravitate to big cards with big effects: anything that will help them dominate their opponents. Though he wants to win big, he doesn't really care about having a finely-tuned and efficient deck; he just wants to have fun. If Timmy only wins a few of his games, but in those games he absolutely destroys his opponent, he can go home satisfied.

  Timmy plays with cards that make him happy; cards that create cool moments; cards that make him laugh; cards that allow him to hang with his friends; cards that cause him to have fun. Winning and losing isn't even really the point (although winning is fun – Timmy gets that). For Timmy, the entire reason to play is having a good time. - Mark Rosewater

Spike:

Spike is often described as the tournament player. Spike is in it to win it, and will play the best deck he can find. Spike players often look for any opportunity they can to improve their chances of winning and are considered the most competitive archetype. They are attracted to the most efficient cards and decks. They will often research what decks are currently powerful or performing well and either play them as is or analyze and tune them until they are perfect. Spikes want to win and to prove how good a player they are.

  Spike plays to win. Spike enjoys winning. To accomplish this, Spike will play whatever the best deck is. Spike will copy decks off the Internet. Spike will borrow other players’ decks. To Spike, the thrill of Magic is the Adrenalin rush of competition. Spike enjoys the stimulation of outplaying the opponent and the glory of victory. - Mark Rosewater

One thing to keep in mind is that players do not necessarily fit cleanly into one category. Often times you will have mixes, such as Johnny/Spike players who are innovating new decks to be seen on the pro-tours, or more casual Timmy/Johnny players who try to brew convoluted commander decks to play with friends. The Timmy/Johnny/Spike trio is not the end-all solution for categorizing cards and players, but it is useful shorthand for sorting or describing things.

Sources:
MTG Official Blog- Mark Rosewater, TIMMY, JOHNNY, AND SPIKE
MTG Official Blog- Mark Rosewater, TIMMY, JOHNNY, AND SPIKE REVISITED
GDC Talk- Mark Rosewater, Magic: the Gathering: Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned


Understanding: Why is Spark Double triggering enter the battlefield abilities of the copied creature? Spark Double reads:

  You may have Spark Double enter the battlefield as a copy of a creature or planeswalker you control, except it enters with an additional +1/+1 counter on it if it’s a creature, it enters with an additional loyalty counter on it if it’s a planeswalker, and it isn’t legendary if that permanent is legendary.

If I decide to copy a creature with an ETB-effect, like Dreadhorde Twins, why does Spark Double also trigger the copied ETB-effect? Its own ETB-effect is, that it may enter the battlefield as a copy of a creature, does that mean, its own ETB-effect is always resolved first?

Spark Double triggers the copied creature's ETB effects because its copy ability works as a replacement effect, not as its own ETB ability. On the battlefield, there is no time when the game sees the non-copied version of Spark Double, and copied creature's ETB's can trigger as they would on the original.

Spark Double's copy ability and the other modifications (counters, non-legendary) are replacement effects:

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

That means if you choose to copy a creature or planeswalker, the game does not see the non-copied Spark Double enter the battlefield, but only the copied creature/planeswalker:

  614.6. If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities. [..]

The event to be replaced is the Spark Double entering as a 0/0 creature, which is the consequence of a creature spell resolving. That means all applicable ETB triggers will happen, whether they are on the copied creature, or on other sources that apply to the copied permanent entering.

Hypothetically, the only way that the copied creature's ETB's would not go off was if the copy ability itself was an ETB. If Spark Double would copy a creature as e.g. an ETB or activated ability, it would be too late to trigger the copied creature's ETB's. Also, practically speaking, the copy ability could not be its own ETB, because if Spark Double entere the battlefield as a 0/0, it would generally die to state-based actions before it could assume its copied form.


Band of Misfits and Throne Room I found this ruling on Dominion Strategy Wiki FAQ for Band of Misfits:

  You first play Band of Misfits, then you play the card you chose to
  emulate. In this sense, Band of Misfits plays like a Throne Room
  variant, and one play of Band of Misfits with a successful emulation
  counts as two Actions played; this matters for Conspirator.

So my understanding of Band of Misfits is that it basically reads "Choose a card in the supply costing less than Band of Misfits.  Band of Misfits is that card until it leaves play.  Play band of Misfits."  Is this correct?

However, on the same page, I found this:

  If you use Throne Room, King's Court, or Procession to play a Band of
  Misfits card multiple times, you only pick what to play it as the
  first time; the other times it is still copying the same card.

These two rulings don't seem to make sense if Band of Misfits is copying Feast.  I would think it works like this:

Play Throne Room.  Choose Band of Misfits.
Play Band of Misfits.  Choose Feast.
Play Band of Misfits as Feast.  Trash Feast.
Throne Room loses track of Band of Misfits and can't put it into play, but it's still played from the trash.
Band of Misfits has reverted to itself, so the card you're playing shouldn't be Feast anymore.  From here I see two possibilities, and neither one seems completly right:

Since Band of Misfits isn't in play, it can't copy anything(?), so nothing happens.
You can play Band of Misfits as a new card, but it immediately reverts to being itself on resolution(?).

Why does Throne Room keep track of what Band of Misfits copied?  It seems like there's no reason for that.  And if this is the case, what exactly is being played the second time?  Is it actually a card?  Does Band of Misfits mean it's actually copying that exact card in the supply that you chose?

Found it.  They even use my exact example (I guess they're the canonical "play twice" and "one-shot" cards).  From the Complete and All-Encompassing Dominion FAQ:

  Regarding Band of Misfits no longer being in play, see 10.5 Atomicity
  of abilities. If you use Throne Room to play Band of Misfits twice, it
  will be the chosen card the second time you play it, so you will play
  it as the same card twice. However, if the card is removed from play
  (like a Feast), it will be just a Band of Misfits again the second
  time. You can then choose another Action card from Supply to play it
  as. The card will stay where it is, and the chosen card's abilities
  will trigger even as the Band of Misfits will immidiately revert back
  to being just Band of Misfits (since it's not in play), but you will
  resolve the triggered abilites of the card (link, link). This reverses
  a previous ruling.

So speculation #2 was actually correct.


Bridge the 3 card 7 club bid chair one opened 1 spade I was chair two and said 3 clubs,  saying , I have 7 clubs and a outside ace and not 13 pts to open? She says I would have to open 4 clubs for it to mean that, Who's right, of course SHE insisted she has played for 50 years and I'm wrong. Help!

You can bid whatever you like, as long as it is within convention agreed between you and your partner, and when the opposition ask your partner (not you) they can say what the bid means.

When you have a weak hand and a 7-long suit, bidding at the 3 level (i.e. jumping two bids) is called a pre-empt. The point of a pre-empt is to take away the bidding space your opponents would use to find their best contract; while making a bid that (if it becomes a doubled contract) you would not lose too many points over. ("Too many" being defined as more than your opponents would have got if you'd never bid and they'd made a contract themselves).

In the convention I play, 3c (i.e. jumping one club bid) would mean a strong hand. 4c would be a pre-empt (i.e. a weak hand). BUT in order to bid 4c over 1s you'd need a stronger hand than needed to bid 3c, as if the contract is doubled you're one trick further off the contract.

Without knowing how many picture cards you have (especially in clubs), I can't answer for certain, but I think your best bid would probably have been to pass.


What is the best way to print cards for my game? I want to print cards for my game, without using a commercially-available site.  Basically, I'm looking for materials I could find in a store.

How do I make these cards in a work- and price-efficient way, making sure that they look nice afterward?

The cards should be able to be shuffled, much like poker cards.

I am building a Print and Play game, but so far I am not satisfied with the cards I was able to make. I tried printing them on thin paper and mounting on poker cards, and printing them on thicker paper. However both of these methods make the cards pretty much unfit for shuffling, since the paper goes off while shuffling. I saw that the game "Twilight Imperium" printed their cards on thin plastic. Is it possible to buy something like that and print directly onto the material?

tl;dr:
Mounting paper-printed cards on playing cards does not work.
Are there any good material out there that you can print on directly?

You could use common card protectors like people use to protect cards from trading cards games (Magic, etc). What your stuff in there (printed cardboard, paper-glued-on-other-cards,...) then becomes pretty much irrelevant.

If not, what about photo printing services? Look for ones making postcards, you can probably easily fit 4 cards on a potcards and they ought to be rigid enough.


When are good times/circumstances to build harbor settlements in Settlers of Catan? According to this question, the opening phase is not the best time to do so, because you get too few resources.

Harbors are good for trade, so I would imagine that a good time would be when one has "many" resources, but not necessarily the right ones.

So would that be late in the game, or even in the middle game? Or could game "circumstances," rather than game "phases," be the critical factor?

There are 2 types of Habour (or port) in the game, and they have different best times.

The 3:1 ports are always handy, more so in the late game. However, there are few reasons to have one early.
The 2:1 ports are worth building if, and only if, you have an excess of production in a particular resource.  This may just develop late game (especially with brick and wood once you've got no expansion), or you may purposefully give yourself an excess with initial placement.  This is most common with sheep.

However, rarely is it worth starting on a harbour unless it has excellent numbers (5-8, for example).  In general, you should be able to build on a 3-resource hex and have an uncontested build to the harbour for your first settlement, which should give you more resources early on before the trade would be useful.


Can I sacrifice a creature that is only temporarily under my control? A creature is placed "under my control until the end of turn" through a sorcery spell.

Do I have the option of sacrificing said creature if I cast a "sacrifice a creature" instant, or have a creature or enchantment that has a sacrifice ability?

Yup.

  701.16a To sacrifice a permanent, its controller moves it from the battlefield directly to its owner’s graveyard. A player can’t sacrifice something that isn’t a permanent, or something that’s a permanent he or she doesn’t control. Sacrificing a permanent doesn’t destroy it, so regeneration or other effects that replace destruction can’t affect this action.

(Emphasis mine.)


Can people win at Diplomacy using a "Qin strategy?" The Qin was one of seven (yes, seven) "warring states" in China several hundred years B.C. During its rise to power, it often followed a policy of "ally with the three far states against the three near states."

Has anyone won (or lost) a game of Diplomacy using such a strategy? Does it work better using some countries than others (e.g. England, allied with Turkey, Austria-Hungary, and Italy against France, Germany, and Russia)? Or are there any good articles on such a strategy?

I have a hard time seeing this being successful.  The problem is that it doesn't mean much in the early game for England to be allied with Austria or Turkey.  So effectively you'd be playing EI versus FG, while Austria and Turkey teamed up on Russia.  The likely scenario is that the 2 v 2 battle doesn't go very far, and the 2 v 1 battle goes well, resulting in a stronger Austria and Turkey.  At that point, Turkey pretty much has to attack Austria or Italy, and either way doesn't seem to bode well for England.

In general, having an ally across the board is nice, but it isn't a replacement for having an ally that you can coordinate with directly, especially in the early game.  You'd need to look at it as more of a long-term alliance.  Perhaps as England you coordinate with Austria, Turkey, and Italy, but you start by getting Germany to help you take apart France quickly (with Italy's help), then activate your cross-board alliance to take out Germany.  It's debatable whether that really meets the criteria of a "Qin strategy" though.


Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV 8 and Return of the Dragon Lords A friend of mine is building a Horus the Black Flame Dragon deck. He had a question related to Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV 8.

This card cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. This card cannot be special summoned except by the effect of Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV 6. As long as this card remains face up on the field, you can negate the activation of any spell cards and destroy them.

So say he successfully summoned LV 8 and it gets in the graveyard. Can he still use Return of the Dragon Lords to resurrect it from the Graveyard?

Can he still use Return of the Dragon Lords to resurrect it from the Graveyard?

No.

Horus lvl 8 specifically indicates:

  This card cannot be special summoned except by the effect of "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV 6".

So the only way you can special summon it is with Horus lvl 6; once dead you can't bring it back with other cards.

On a further note, there are some cards that you can bring back after they are destroyed. If you see any card that says "Must be first special summoned by...", then those cards you can bring back after they die, but only if the first time you special summoned them was as the card specifies. After that you can repeatedly special summon it by other means.

One example is the famous Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning:

  Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must first be Special Summoned (from your hand) by banishing 1 LIGHT and 1 DARK monster from your Graveyard. [...]

This means you must first banish one light and dark monsters to summon BLS, but after that successful summon you can special summon it by other means (like Call of the Haunted).

Edit: As per @Kitsunezeta suggestion, one card that your friend could use to do ignore that special summon condition is [Level Up!]:

  Send 1 face-up "LV" monster you control to the Graveyard; Special Summon 1 monster from your hand or Deck that is listed in the sent monster's text, ignoring its Summoning conditions.

Of course this enables to pull Horus from the deck or hand, so still if it's destroyed its gone for good.


If I put down a draw 4 card and call uno out, can another player place a draw 4 ontop? My last card was a wild draw 4, I knew my friend had one but I had to put it down. I called uno out and he put his draw 4 ontop of mine. Can he do that?

Per Uno Rules, Once a player has no cards remaining, the game round is over, points are scored, and the game begins over again.
So, there's no placement once you are out, the round is over.


Hound of Tindalos tiebreaker? The Hound of Tindalos says that it automatically moves to the closest investigator.  Which investigator does it target in the case of two equidistant investigators in different locations?

Per the FAQ:

Q: Who determines where a Hound of Tindalos moves if two investigators are tied in being nearest to the hound?
A: As per the rules governing flying monsters, the hound will go after the investigator with the lower Sneak value. In case of a tie, the first player chooses.


Can you play 'After You' when Callous Guards is in play? The "Callous Guards" card states:

  Put this card in front of you.  Action cards that alter the line may not be played.  (This includes adding or discarding nobles.)  You may discard this card at any time.

If a player has the "Callous Guards" card in front of him/her, can another player play the "After You..." card which states:

  Put the noble at the front of the line into another player's score pile.

A couple of us could not agree whether the play was allowed or not.  I'm on the "it's legal" side because putting the noble at the front of the line into another player's score pile is not "discarding" the noble.  I understand "discarding" as removing the noble into the discard pile (i.e. no one gets points for a "discarded" noble).

Others argued that putting the noble into another player's score pile was "altering" the line.

Thoughts?

The consensus on this "Official Guillotine FAQ" thread is that yes, you can play After You... with Callous Guards in play.

  After you does not change the order of the line, nor does it "add" or
  "discard".  Ergo, you're fine to play it.

It's a consensus that no one has stepped forward to challenge for a couple of years, at the very least!


In Cosmic Encounter, where do my ships go when I pull them from the warp if I already have 4 ships on each of my planets? For example if i lose an encounter (as defense) my ships go to the warp. Say they get returned to me where would i put them? Because the rest of my home planets already have 4 and thought 4 was the max you could have on a planet. Obviously cant put them on the planet i just lost during the previous encounter just curious where i could put them.

When returning ships to your bases, you may put the token(s) on any bases where you currently have tokens.

Four is just the starting number, not the limit. You can have more than four.

(Note some rulesets call bases "colonies" instead. It's the same thing -- it just refers to your ships on a planet.)


Monopoly Development Card - before of after the dice? When do you use the Monopoly development card? Before or after rolling the dice? Please explain why using the official rules.

Assuming you're referring to the "Monopoly" development card in Catan (aka The Settlers of Catan), then the official FAQ at Catan.com answers this:

Development Cards in General - May I play Development Cards before rolling the dice?
Yes. Note that you may play only 1 Development Card per turn: if you have played this card before rolling the dice, you are not allowed to play another one afterwards.

So you may play Monopoly before or after rolling the dice. Strategically, it usually makes sense to play it later, since most of the time rolling the dice gives people more cards for you to take, and playing Monopoly before making trades will probably mean people won't want to trade with you. (And, of course, there's the classic move of making a large number of trades for a resource, then playing the Monopoly to take all of those cards back from everyone. It's a move that generally only works once.)


How do players remember all the various effects? As a new MTG player, I would like to know how do players remember all the various effects ?

For example, a spell could add copies of a certain card. How do you actually represent those copies ? Chandra, pyromaster has such power i.e.

  Exile the top ten cards of your library. Choose an instant or sorcery card exiled this way and copy it three times. You may cast the copies without paying their mana costs

How would I actually represent the copies in the game ?

Aside from this specific example, do players resort on taking extensive notes of all the events occurring during the games to remember the added cards, ... ? Or is there another way ?

As a general rule, the answer is token cards and dice.

Objects that don't physically exist in Magic tend to be token permanents, copies of spells on the stack, and abilities on the stack.

Tokens are often easy. Wizards produce token cards for non-copy token permanents within a set, so you can use these. If you don't have the appropriate token, you can use reminder tokens (e.g. I have 6/6 "Wurm" tokens for a deck that needs 1/1 "Worm" tokens), other objects, or relevant reminder cards from outside of the game. If your deck is sleeved, you can use unsleeved cards face-down. Dice are helpful as well - I can put a d6 on my face-down card to represent the power/toughness of the construct it represents.

Occasionally effects need to be remembered that aren't stored by the game on its own. Some examples of this are renowned/monstrous, "gain control" effects, or storm counts. Again, dice are helpful. At this point I have dice in a variety of colours. Simple +1/+1 counters will always be on white dice, but a renowned or monstrous creature will have its +1/+1 counters on a translucent coloured die.

If I've created tons of tokens for which I don't have the card, things can get more complicated. I might need dice to indicate the P/T of a group of creatures, the number of them, and additional counters on them. Again, different shapes/colours of dice can help you develop a consistent standard. I use d10s/d% to track numbers of objects, d6s for counters on an object, and d20s for life.

Copies on the stack tend to be of other things on the stack or of something held in exile, so you can refer to it. The stack doesn't usually get too deep, so it's not difficult to resolve it without forgetting what things are there. If it gets complicated you can put the exiled cards as reminders in a physical stack.

The reason it doesn't usually get too complicated is because you'll usually be able to refer to the effects that created stuff, and that there won't usually be too many different kinds of things at once. If I can't remember what your token creatures are, I can look at your "Raise the Alarm" in your graveyard.

Lasting effects can be tougher to remember as the board doesn't indicate the state for you. For example, if I play an instant or sorcery to gain permanent control of your creature, it's easy to remember because your card is on my side of the board. If you then gain control of it temporarily, we have to remember to give it back to me afterwards. I'll put reminder objects (rubber bands, bottle caps, etc) on relevant cards (e.g. exile at end of turn, or don't untap). I know people who have other objects (e.g. coins) that they put on their library to remind them to do something during upkeep, before drawing.

As you notice, Magic does have these moments where the board state can be complicated and not self-preserving. In general, players don't worry too much about it. As long as you've got techniques (as I mentioned, tokens and dice) to remember the more common details, you can improvise ways to deal with other situations. Most of the time you'll remember what's going on, and sometimes you'll forget but it won't matter too much. As you become more experienced with the game, you'll tend to remember details better and you'll know what you can infer from the board state. If you're playing in a deck or format where certain details matter, you'll choose ways to keep track of them.

If you come to a situation where these techniques are overcomplicated, insufficient or just don't work for you, you can write down notes as needed.


What is this "power enumerator" in Scythe? In the top right corner of Scythe gameboard is this "power enumerator".

However, I fail to find any information related to this "enumerator" in guide and automata guide as well.
Do you have any idea what is it for?

Note: This is from the standard "single" side, not the half-cut, extensible side.

Thank you

It is the number of each denomination of power card in the deck. This is the same as the table in the rules on page 22.


When is the winning condition checked in Fluxx? New Rule "Draw 4" is in play.

One opponent changes the Goal to "10 cards in hand".

I have six cards in my hand. It's my turn and I draw four cards.

I contend that the game is now over, as I have met the winning condition. (I don't have any Creepers.)

Another opponent says "no, you have to finish your turn".

Who is correct?

I don't see how he can be right. For one thing you can win on someone else's turn assuming you have the winning combo.

You won.
From the Fluxx rules:

Winning the Game
The game continues until one player meets the conditions of the current Goal. That player wins immediately, regardless of whose turn it is.

The word 'immediately' doesn't match with what your opponent was trying to tell you.


in monopoly do you collect 200 if you get sent to the nearest trainstation or fleet street but the card doesn't state collect or do not collect on it When you land on a chance or community chest card and it states you have to travel to a certain street/railway or Utility but do you collect 200 for passing GO as the card doesn't state if you should or shouldn't like some other cards do.

Found the actual card:

The next location always means in travel direction, and your figure will move along the board as if you rolled a number equal to the distance. If you pass GO on the way, you will indeed collect 200 dollars, as stated in the official rules:

  Each time a player's token lands on or passes over GO, whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card, the Banker pays that player a $200 salary.

This is true for all cards, except for the card that states "Go directly to Jail", meaning you don't traverse the board as normal. You can think of your figure being teleported there - so you don't get 200 dollars either.

  When you are sent to Jail you cannot collect your $200 salary in that move since, regardless of where your token is on the board, you must move directly into Jail. (...)


How often can I activate planeswalker abilities with Teferi's emblem? This question relies on Teferi's emblem which says

  You may activate loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control on any player's turn any time you could cast an instant.

Since I can activate 1 planeswalker ability per planeswalker per turn could I activate Jace's +1 draw a card ability on each player's turn as long as I have the emblem on board?

Since I can activite 1 planeswalker ability per planeswalker per turn could I activate Jace's +1 draw a card ability every player's turn as long as I have the emblem on board ?

Yes, you can.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage's emblem overrides rule 606.3, specifically the emphasized part:

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

Which means you can activate any loyalty ability of any permanent (usually a planeswalker) you control at any time you could cast an instant, as long as you have not activated a loyalty ability of that permanent that turn.


The interaction between Omniscience and Trinisphere If there is an Omniscience in play and a Trinisphere do I still have to pay 3 for everything?

Everything costs three mana or more.

The total cost to cast a spell
= mana cost or alternative cost
+ additional costs and cost increases
- cost reductions

Omniscience provides an alternative cost.
Trinisphere modifies the total cost, the only card to do so.

So start with the alternative cost provided by Omniscience. Then apply any applicable additional costs, cost increases and cost reductions. Then Trinisphere adjusts the total.

For example,

Lightning Bolt would cost {3}.
Cathartic Reunion would cost {3} and Discard two cards.
Apex Hawks kicked twice would cost {W}{W}{2} (since kicking is an additional cost).
Academy Journeymage costs {3} whether you control a Wizard or not.

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

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


What is the optimal mix of infantry, artillery, and armor in Axis and Allies Revised? Axis and Allies 2nd edition had two primary ground units: infantry (1/2/1/3 attack/defense/move/cost) and armor (3/2/2/5). Axis and Allies Revised increased the defense of armor to 3 and added an artillery unit (2/2/1/4) that has the special ability to increase the attack value of any accompanying infantry from 1 to 2.

Don Rae's famous infantry push mechanic was written for 2nd edition rules and argues that a good player will predominately purchase infantry, only buying tanks when they have established solid defensive lines.

How does the addition of the artillery unit and the increase in the defensive power of armor change the optimal balance of ground forces?

I have to go in the opposite direction of the other answers and say that artillery isn't very useful. If you run sims to try and flesh out what is the optimal mix, you will probably find that using artillery is better. However I found that when actually playing the game, tanks have at least 3 significant advantages over artillery.

Retaining their offensive power

When attacking a territory that is well defended, you can count on losing a lot of infantry. Since the third point for offensive power of artillery is dependent on having an accompanying infantry piece, your forces will lose significant offensive power when you start losing those pieces. Since tanks aren't dependent on the infantry, you will retain your offensive power longer.

While this is covered in the simulations, it is important to realize that the simulations favor artillery if you limit the size of the forces by IPCs. If you limit your forces by number of units, tanks fare significantly better than artillery because they retain their power.

Gauging power by IPCs makes sense if you are talking about land battles in Europe, Asia and Africa. However if you are doing amphibious assaults(or your supply of troops comes from the sea) you are going to be limited by the number of transports and therefore the number of ground troops. When you have a navy offshore worth 100 IPCs and another 50 IPCs of aircraft supporting the invasion, I don't think it makes much sense to decrease your ground power just to save 2 or 3 IPCs(especially if you are losing planes to keep the last ground troop alive).

Increased defense

In my experience the main challenge isn't taking a territory but actually holding on to it. While artillery give a boost to offensive power, that extra IPC doesn't do anything for you when defending. Since tanks defend on 3, they also give an added boost for defense.

Moving 2 Spaces/Blitzing

This is the most important advantage. While it is not very important in some theaters, it is critical in the Germany/Russia land war. Artillery will take 1-2 turns longer to get where they need to be than tanks. While the math may show artillery is optimal in these battles, they won't have any value if they're not at the battle.

When I'm playing that theater, I will often purchase a couple turns of infantry, then tanks then fighters and bombers. I try to time it so that when the main battle is fought, all the units from previous turns will be able to participate. If you are running with an optimized infantry/artillery mix, the player on defense is going to have several more turns worth of units in the battle.

While you may purchase a 15 IPC industrial complex in one of the 3 IPC territories to counteract this, it will still take 5 turns of purchasing artillery before you break even and those artillery will still have the above disadvantages.

Summary

I get the impression that you are looking more for a math oriented answer to what the optimal ground forces are. My general point is that there is no optimal mixture because everything is too dependent on the situation.

A math based solution isn't capable of taking into account:

the possibility(and costs) of the opponent's counterattack
how long it takes to move your forces into position
the added value of the territory you are conquering(and the loss of it from your opponent)
the time component(since territories generate IPCs, they are more valuable if conquered sooner than later)
and probably a bunch of others I haven't thought of


Are there any time limit per move in Ticket To Ride? Is there a time limit for each person to make their move?

My wife (a scientist) is very analytical, always strategising (which is why she beats me most times) but she can take upwards of 4 minutes to make a single move (deciding what cards to take or what or where to build) and it drives me nuts!

Is there any rule or etiquette that says people should be quicker about their moves, say 60 seconds or less?

There is no time limit for each turn and etiquette for turn length depends on the group that you are playing in. The best suggestion that I can make for you is to remind your wife that she can start planning her next turn while others are playing. While things will change based on other players move not every action they take is going to impact her choice.

But one thing to remember that based on the game the actions of the previous player can drastically change what you are planning to do and games can last 1-2+ hours so this is not a quick game.


What is the strategy called which forces opponents to discard cards? In MTG: Arena I've built a Rakdos deck with the main strategy of making my opponent discard one or more cards—each turn if I'm lucky. I'm using cards such as Burglar Rat, Fell Specter, Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage and Carnival // Carnage.

Decks that let opponents put the top cards of their library into their graveyard, are often referred to as 'mill decks' or 'milling'. Is my deck a type of milling, or does it have its own term?

First, I want to note that "mill" as a deck strategy name is just named after "mill", which is the common unofficial (now official) name for the action of putting cards into the graveyard from the library. Following that pattern, the name of a discard strategy would just be "discard"
Discard alone generally isn't a strategy because it doesn't actually win you the game. Once your opponent's hand is empty, they can usually play the card they draw each turn before you have a chance to make them discard it.
Decks built around effects like Davriel's triggered ability can be called "rack decks", after the original card with that kind of effect, The Rack, though that fits better with decks that actually play that card. For example, 8-Rack is a commonly recognized name of a deck archetype that plays 8 cards with that kind of effect.


Two Player Draft Formats My friend and I are buying an RTR booster box mainly in hopes of getting some chase rares, but also for some fun.
What are some Draft Variants for only 2 players?

The two player formats I know of are:

Solomon draft
Winston draft
Winchester draft

Wizards has some information about these 'casual' formats.
Common Setup
Each of these draft formats uses a similar setup:
3 packs per player (6 total)
Open all the packs, without looking at them, and remove any basic lands then shuffle all the cards together. You should have between 84 and 90 cards depending on the sets the boosters came from (14+basic or 15 cards in each).
Instead of using new boosters one can build a draft pool by:

Shuffle up an existing sealed deck pool.
Shuffle two sealed pools (12 packs total) together and draw off 90 cards.
Shuffle a Cube and draw off 90 cards.

Decide on a minimum deck size (30 or 40, see below.)
Randomly decide who drafts first.
Solomon Draft
Players alternate drawing 8 cards and separating them into two piles, then the opposing player chooses a pile and the separating player keeps the other.
The piles need not be even.
When there are less than 8 cards left in the draft deck/pool the draft is over, the remaining cards are not used.
Winston draft
Begin by dealing out 3 face down cards, these become the draft piles.
Players alternate looking through each pile in turn, they may either take the pile or look at the next. If no pile is chosen the player drafts the top card of the draft deck. Then deals a face down card to each pile the player passed on, plus one card to replace the pile they took. The draft ends when all the cards are drafted.
The piles have no maximum size.
Winchester draft
Begin by dealing out 4 face up cards, these become the draft piles.
Players alternate picking a pile, then adding a face-up card to each pile, including one to replace the pile they chose. The draft ends when all the cards are drafted.
The piles have no maximum size.
alternate setup:
Each player opens their 3 boosters and shuffles them together (removing any basic lands first.) Each player deals off 2 face up cards to create the piles, 4 total and players still choose from any pile. After each choice, both players add 1 face-up card to each of 'their' piles from their draft deck/pool.
Deck Building
Nominally a normal 40-card limited deck is suggested for these formats; this leads to rather low power/'bad' decks, bad mana bases, etc.
I would suggest 30-card decks for better game play (n.b. some people consider the low power-level of the 40-card decks very skill testing and part of the fun.)
You should decide the minimum deck size before drafting.
Players build a deck of the agreed size, using their draft picks and as many basic lands as they need.
Play
The player who drafted second gets the choice to play or draw in the first game of the match. A match is usually a race to 2 wins (nominally best 2 of 3, but draws can force additional games!)
Re-playability
When the match is over you can shuffle up and draft again, or try another format. Since the cards come off the draft deck in a random order, each draft will be different.
If new packs were used, these can be saved to draft again, or combine 2 or more draft pools to choose a random (90 card) subset for better re-playability.


Group of three tiles containing 2 Jokers Assume, that there is such situation:

Player A creates a group:

  [blue 8] [Joker] [Joker]

and declares, that it is a set of eights.

From this moment these Jokers should be treated as two eights, or is it possible to threat them as blue 9,10 or blue 6,7?

Also, if the declaration of eights is not valid, could these jokers be treated as blue 7,9, despite 8 is not in the middle position?

I'd have to look up the official rulebook, but if I'm not mistaken, Player A should not only declare it's a group of eights, but also specify the exact colors (e.g. 'red 8' and 'green 8').

This is further supported by e.g. this page:

  However, a player who has in hand the tile which is represented by a joker on the table, the player can substitute the real tile for the joker and then re-use the joker in some combination on the table.

(emphasis mine); there's only one tile it represents.

Since you've tagged it house-rules, there is room for some variation on the rules. Some of them are discussed in the linked page; when I was a kid, we played it in a more liberal way than you describe; during your turn, you could use the joker for whatever tile you want (i.e. you don't need to substitute it), as long as the final configuration consisted of valid sets only. That meant e.g. that if you had a blue run of 1, 2, 3, joker, 5, 6, 7, you could basically take out the joker and do whatever you want with it.


I can't find this game or remember the name I am looking for a game that is played with all the cards in the deck. The cards are placed in a single row, face up, one next to the other. The object is to remove as many as possible. However the rules state you can only remove the cards that are the same in suit or rank, and only if they lie next to the card or three cards to the left.

Example: if you have a 9 diamond, 6 spade, 4 club,  2 diamond, 2 heart, 3 club, K spade, etc. etc..

The 3 club can be moved to the 4 club and the 4 club is removed. The same with the 2 heart, and the 2 diamond. But it would be better to use the 2 diamond to remove the 9 diamond and then the 2 heart to remove the 2 diamond.

I have been looking for this game for years, used to play it all the time but now I can't find it anywhere.

Sounds like Accordion:

  Cards are dealt in a single row, from Left to Right [...]  The goal is
  to move cards onto each other, removing the lower card,  until a
  single card remains. A card may be moved onto a card on  its direct
  left, or third on left, if the card matches the [suit or value] of the
  destination card.

http://www.allgoodsw.com/sol_rules.html#accordion

And see the Wiki Entry for variants.


With Carcasonne crop circles expansion, which meeples count as followers? When deploying extra followers from a crop circle action, I'm not sure which meeple count as followers. The CAR states that players may take one of their own followers from their supply and deploy it next to another of their followers already on a landscape tile. It also reads that players must deploy the follower to a feature which already contains a follower of the same type (farmer to a farmer, thief to a thief, knight to a knight).

This would exclude the builder or wagon, I suppose. But not the big follower... But the mayor would count as a knight when it's in a city. Does it, however, count as a follower in your supply?

Which meeples can be placed onto the board next to another follower, as the result of an action from a crop circle?

There is a clarification on page 206 of the rules you link to.

Followers

Every normal follower, big follower, mayor, wagon, or phantom follower is just one follower.

Special figures

Builders, pigs, barns, and shepherds belong to individual players but are not followers."

So if you are adding a follower with crop circles you may add any of the followers. The only exception to this being a Mayor can only be placed as a Knight in a city.


Time Stories Asylum: Missing card 59 We are currently playing above game and card no. 59 is missing. Could anyone please post the text on the back?

The question is also asked on boardgamegeek. The back of the card looks like:

The text is: "You approach her, the young lady becomes totally absorbed by her strange painting and pays no attention to you."


Tzolk'in wealth card meaning What does this wealth card mean? My guess is: I get 10 corn, one less worker and... Maybe get 1 less corn per turn... The rules book doesn't say anything about it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1mkG201ZcEndGdKQy1hQTZZNFk/view?usp=docslist_api.

This Tile comes from Tzolk'in - the mini-expansion 1 a goodie from Spielbox magazine.

Here is how to use it:

  Bonus Starting Wealth - Cistern

  Your tribe has figured out how to draw water out of the surrounding
  soil and and store it in an underground cistern. The ecological impact
  of this feat of engineering harms the other tribes

  If you choose this Starting Wealth Tile, you get 10 corn. Each of your
  opponents starts with 1 less corn. (An opponent whose Starting Wealth
  Tiles provide no corn is not affected.)

  If you draw this tile when placing dummy workers, it indicates that
  you will play this game with one less dummy worker than usual (11
  instead of 12 in a two-player game or 5 instead of 6 in a three-player
  game).

  Help your culture grow and flourish, and the gods will smile upon you.

Note that this mini-expansion is also supposed to come with a monument tile: the Granary.


Is there any data on most common way to get to 10 VP in Settlers of Catan? Possible Duplicate:
  Settlers of Catan Data

I sometimes track this for myself when I play online, and almost half the time when I win, I have Longest Road and either 3 Cities/2 Settlements or 2 Cities/4 Settlements.

I rarely win with Largest Army, but I have noticed from reading online that one of the more common winning combos is 3 cities, Largest Army, and either 2 VP or 1 VP and 1 settlement.

Is there any data on this sort of thing? Have you noticed and 1 or 2 combos coming up most frequently in games you play.

(Of course I realize there are many possibilities, strategy often changes mid-game, etc.)

I've not seen any collected data released, but the online play sites may have done so.


Anyone know what game uses these six-sided dice with letters and a dart-like glyph on them? Does anyone know what these cubes are used for? Is it a board game?

The dice are all identical, with sides, [D,S,S,T,M,Glyph].

While trying to track this down, I found a patent that describes something very similar to this. This die may be a further iteration of the idea described here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2018/0021669.html


What happens in this infinite damage/infect loop? So I have an Exquisite Blood and a Sanguine Bond in play under my control, then I attack my opponent directly for 1 damage, but the opponent has a Phyrexian Unlife and a Melira, Sylvok Outcast in play. What happens after they take the damage? Do I win?

Depends on how much life your opponent currently has.

If your opponent has non-positive life

Your opponent would lose a life from the damage except for Phyrexian Unlife.
Instead, your opponent would gain a poison counter from the damage expect for Melira, Sylvok Outcast.
Instead, nothing happens to your opponent.
Exquisite Blood doesn't trigger since no life was lost.
Sanguine Bond doesn't trigger since you didn't gain any life.
The game goes on.

If your opponent has positive life

Your opponent loses a life from the damage.
Exquisite Blood triggers and gives you life.
Sanguine Bond triggers and cause your opponent to lose a life. Phyrexian Unlife doesn't prevent or replace loss of life, so it doesn't effect this.
Exquisite Blood triggers and— Oh my, we've entered a loop of mandatory actions. If noone has a way of ending it, the game ends in a draw.

  104.4b If a game that’s not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player game) somehow enters a “loop” of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw.

Note that neither of the players are forced to end the loop even if they could. For example, if your opponent could sacrifice Phyrexian Unlife (ending the loop by losing), he doesn't have to do it.

  716.5. No player can be forced to perform an action that would end a loop other than actions called for by objects involved in the loop.


Dictate of Erebos and Attrition If an opponent has Dictate of Erebos and Attrition and then activates attrition targeting one of my creatures in what order are the effects added to the stack?

I assume Attrition is added first targeting my creature and then Dictate of Erebos is added on top. Can I sacrifice the targeted creature and then the Attrition effect is countered?

You have it correct; Dictate of Erebos will be on top and resolve first.
In fact, Attrition's ability is actually added to the stack before any creature has even been sacrificed.

602.2a The player announces that they are activating the ability. If an activated ability is being activated from a hidden zone, the card that has that ability is revealed. That ability is created on the stack as an object that’s not a card. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. Its controller is the player who activated the ability. The ability remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, or an effect moves it elsewhere.
602.2b The remainder of the process for activating an ability is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2b–i. Those rules apply to activating an ability just as they apply to casting a spell. An activated ability’s analog to a spell’s mana cost (as referenced in rule 601.2f) is its activation cost.

602.2b is where the costs are paid; where your opponent will sacrifice a creature.

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.

It will only be added to the stack after Attrition's ability is on the stack and paid for; before a player gets priority:

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “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. If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; otherwise all triggered abilities that are waiting to be put on the stack are put on the stack, then the check is repeated.

So yes, you can sacrifice the targeted creature to Dictate; which will cause Attrition to do nothing when it tries to resolve.
Note that the Attrition ability won't actually be "countered". It will simply fail to resolve and leave the stack. This is a change to the rules introduced in  2018.

If all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn’t resolve. It’s removed from the stack and, if it’s a spell, put into its owner’s graveyard.


Don't the Planeswalkers in Commander 2014 that say they can be your Commander contradict the fact the Commanders have to be legendary creatures? Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath and the other Commanders in Commander 2014 say they can be your Commander. Doesn't that contradict the rule that Commanders can only be Legendary Creatures?

The very first of Magic's Golden Rules:

  101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that a player can concede the game at any time (see rule 104.3a).

So yes, they contradict, and it's fine. And this isn't really unusual; tons and tons of cards have text that effectively says "now the rules work a little differently, and here's how." For an extreme example, the rules say you lose the game when you're reduced to 0 or less life, but Platinum Angel says you can't lose the game, and it takes precedence.


In Monopoly, if your Community Chest card reads "Go back to ...." , do you move forward or backward? In Monopoly, if your Community Chest card reads "Go back to ...." , do you move forward or backward?

It says 'Go back to', so that definitely means backwards. There are no tricks involved, it's just plain English.
There are other cards for moving forwards, e.g. a (Chance) card which says 'Advance to Boardwalk'; they use a different phrase.


Armory Automaton and Dowsing Dagger/Sword of the Animist What happens if I cast Armory Automaton and equip to it Dowsing Dagger and/or Sword of the Animist that an opponent controls?

When Armory Automaton attacks while equipped with Sword of the Animist, will I or my opponent search for a land?
When Armory of Automaton deals damage to an player while equipped with Dowsing Dagger, will I or my opponent get control of Lost Vale

More generically, if the equipment says "When equipped creature attacks, do XXX" (where XXX is draw a card, gain life, put counters etc) - Who will do it, me or my opponent?

The term 'you' in an object's text always refers to that object's controller. Since your opponent remains as the controller of the equipments Armory Automaton attaches to itself, your opponent will continue to receive their effects.

The ability that triggers off Dowsing Dagger and Sword of the Animist respectively are on that equipment, not on the creature. Therefore, these abilities look for the controller of the equipment:

  109.5. The words “you” and “your” on an object refer to the object’s controller, its would-be controller (if a player is attempting to play, cast, or activate it), or its owner (if it has no controller). For a static ability, this is the current controller of the object it’s on. For an activated ability, this is the player who activated the ability. For a triggered ability, this is the controller of the object when the ability triggered, unless it’s a delayed triggered ability. To determine the controller of a delayed triggered ability, see rules 603.7d–f.

Note that there are equipments with different wordings that directly grant abilities to the equipped creature, such as Avarice Amulet. In that case, the granted ability would look at the Armory Automaton's controller, which would be you, even though the equipment itself is still controlled by your opponent.

Also note that if you attach e.g. Sword of the Animist as a result of the Automaton's "attack" trigger, the Sword's own "attack" trigger does not trigger in that same attack, because it had to be attached already.


Can I use a fetch land to shuffle my deck while the opponent has Ashiok, Dream Render in play? Ashiok, Dream Render prevents the opponent from searching their library. This neutralizes cards like the fetch lands (like Polluted Delta). Would the land's controller still be allowed to activate it in order to shuffle their deck, without searching for the land?

Yes, you can still activate the Delta's ability in order to shuffle your library, according to one of the rulings under the card in Gatherer:

  If an effect says “Search your library . . . then shuffle your library,” your opponents shuffle their libraries even though they can’t search.

Note that the Polluted Delta says "Search your library" and not the very similar "You may search your library" like Civic Wayfinder; in that case, choosing to shuffle is not possible.

  If an effect says “You may search your library . . . If you do, shuffle your library” or “You may search your library . . . then shuffle your library,” your opponents can’t choose to search, so they won’t shuffle.


Dominion: what happens when I play Throne Room on a Feast since Feast gets trashed when played? Throne Room: "Choose any action in your hand and play it twice"

Feast: "Trash this card and gain a card costing up to 5$"

So I use the Throne Room and play Feast twice. The first time it gets played it gets trashed and I gain a card up to five. The second time its played the Feast card is in the trash, and to play a Feast it needs to get trashed to gain a card.

I recall the rules say something like when you play an action you must follow as many of the rules as you can, so I assume you would just trash the one Feast and gain 2 cards up to 5$. Is this correct?

Gain two cards.

From the rules, pg5

  If you use Throne Room on Feast, you will
  gain two cards, even though you can only trash Feast once.
  Gaining the card isn't contingent on trashing Feast; they're just
  two things that the card tries to make you do.

As @MagRoader pointed out, the general rule is on page 6.

  The player may still play an Action card even if he is not able to do everything the Action card tells him to do; but the player must do as much as he can.

Therefore the gaining of a card is not dependent on the trashing of the Feast (obviously you can't trash one card twice).


How does Snare! work in Netrunner? Snare! says ,"If accessed from R&D the runner must reveal it". It then allows the corp to pay 4 credits to give 3 net damage and add a tag. It also mentions to ignore this affect if Snare! is accessed from Archives.

This confuses me a little because I am not sure what to do if the card is accessed from a remote server or from HQ. Do you still get the option to give damage and a tag if it is accessed? Why then would it specifically mention R&D if there is no difference than HQ or a remote server?

Normally the Corp doesn't get to see what cards the runner accesses from R&D. This would mean the corp wouldn't know they could spend 4C to deal the damage! When accessed from HQ or a remote server, the Corp already knows what the card is, and so can pay 4C to deal the damage.

By making the runner reveal the card when accessed from R&D, the corp gets a chance to choose to use the ability on Snare!

The effect triggers when accessed from anywhere other than archives.


Is this a win or loss? Does a player need to complete a full turn (i.e. 4 actions, pickup, infect) if during the action portion the final disease was cured? I only ask because there was only 1 player card left in the deck and I wouldn't have been able to complete a full turn, which in the rules, signifies that players have lost. However, I knew that I could cure the final disease in one action.

You won. The rules state that in order to win, you must discover the cure to all 4 diseases. The moment you discover the 4th cure, the game ends and you win.

From the rules:

  The players win as soon as cures to all 4 diseases are discovered.

And:

  The players do not have to eradicate all 4 diseases to win;
  just cure them. Once all diseases are cured, the game ends and players
  win immediately, no matter how many cubes are on the board.

(Emphasis mine)


Using the Deserter card in Catan Cities & Knights after realizing you can't place a knight instead Please help me to determine if the following move is legal:

The active player uses the Deserter card and chooses another's player knight to steal.
After revealing the card and asking to steal the knight, the active player realizes that he can't place a knight of it's own since he/she doesn't have valid spot for him.
The active player wants to build a road so he could place a knigh instead (after revealing the card earlier).

It is technically not legal; but how to handle this situation will depend largely on your playgroup’s style and friendliness.

Playing the Deserter card when you don’t have a space to place your new Knight is completely legal:

  Progress Cards: Deserter - May I play the Deserter if I can’t place a knight of the same strength?

    Yes

Also, the act of placing your own knight is optional; the card says you “may” place a knight.

So technically, as soon as the player revealed the card and chose the opponent, the card should be considered played, and now that the card has been played, it would be too late to construct a road before the card is finished getting played.

  During your turn, after you have rolled the dice, you may play any number of progress cards in any order. You may play them between other actions taken during your turn. When you play a progress card, resolve all of its effects, then place it, face down, under the progress card stack of the matching color.

However, with pretty much any playgroup I know, the players would allow this, assuming that the player did not get any extra knowledge by playing the card that caused them to decide to build a road. There are 2 possibilities here:

If the player needed to build a road in order place his own knight no matter what, then I and anyone I’d be likely to play with would allow the player to build the road first; basically temporarily undoing the move. Little mistakes like that happen often in board games, and we generally allow the player to fix it if he catches it immediately and before anything else has changed.
If the opponent's choice of which knight to remove affected the decision to build a road, then we would not allow it to be undone. For example, if the opponent had 2 knights; one was in a space where the active player could place a knight, and the second was not. The attacked player chose the second knight, which left the active player with no space place a knight. But had the attacked player chosen the first knight, then a new road would not be necessary. In this case, playing the card without building a road first would not be an obvious mistake; but could be seen as a gamble that the opponent would chose the first knight.


How many spins does it take to complete a game of Hi Ho! Cherry-O? I recently picked up this game for my 2-year-old daughter, who is learning how to count. I find this game fairly infuriating to play by the actual rules. It contains a spinner with the 7 following outcomes:

Gain 1 Cherry
Gain 2 Cherries
Gain 3 Cherries
Gain 4 Cherries
Lose 2 Cherries (x2)
Lose all Cherries

Play is to 10 Cherries.

Question: On average, how many spins will it take to finish the game?

(Edit: I had another question about "expected # of Cherries gained from a spin," but it turns out to be rather difficult to define due to that pesky "lose all your Cherries" option.)

Looking at the work that's been done so far, it seemed to me that this is basically just a Markov chain, and in looking for ways to calculate Markov chains, I found that someone has been there and done that.

The data from his work matches the simulations here, which should be no surprise given that the rules are very easy to code:

Minimum game length: 3
Expected game length: 15.8
Maximum game length: Unbounded
50th percentile (median): 12
95th percentile: 40
25th percentile: 7
75th percentile: 21

He also posts the Matlab code that he used to calculate the chain ... it's actually pretty simple, comparatively speaking.

The Markov chain transition matrix shown below lists the probabilities of transitioning from one state (i.e. number of cherries pre-spin) to another (number of cherries post-spin).

          # of cherries after spin
       0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10
     --------------------------------------------
  0 | 3/7 1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7  0   0   0   0   0   0
  1 | 3/7  0  1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7  0   0   0   0   0
# 2 | 3/7  0   0  1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7  0   0   0   0
  3 | 1/7 2/7  0   0  1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7  0   0   0
b 4 | 1/7  0  2/7  0   0  1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7  0   0
e 5 | 1/7  0   0  2/7  0   0  1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7  0
f 6 | 1/7  0   0   0  2/7  0   0  1/7 1/7 1/7 1/7
o 7 | 1/7  0   0   0   0  2/7  0   0  1/7 1/7 2/7
r 8 | 1/7  0   0   0   0   0  2/7  0   0  1/7 3/7
e 9 | 1/7  0   0   0   0   0   0  2/7  0   0  3/7
 10 |  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0


MTG: march of Multitudes and Early Harvest If cast March of the Multitudes and use most of my lands to pay the extra X amount can I cast Early Harvest to use the lands again?

Yes, if you do things in the right order. While you are casting a spell and paying the cost, you don’t have priority to do something like cast Early Harvest, so you cannot do this if you start to cast March of the Multitudes first. By the time you would be able to cast Early Harvest, March of the Multitudes would be finished being cast and couldn’t be changed afterwards.

However, you can tap all your lands first, producing some amount of mana; then cast Early Harvest; then tap all your lands again. This will let you use all of your lands twice to have double your normal amount of mana (minus the 3 you spent on Early Harvest). All of this mana will stay until the end of the current step; so you can use it to cast March of the Multitudes.


Is the unique asset deck reshuffled when cards are discarded? It is quite clear from the base game rules that normal asset cards are put in a separate discard pile when they are discarded, whereas condition cards and spell cards are shuffled back into the deck when discarded.

Mountains of Madness expansion introduces a new deck of unique asset cards, which have similarities both to normal assets and to conditions/spells. What happens when unique asset cards when they are discarded? Are they put into a separate discard pile, or reshuffled back into the deck?

The unique asset cards are still asset cards therefore they are discarded and not shuffled back in.

As Joey stated in a comment:

  Considering the reason they (the assert cards) are shuffled right back
  in is likely to retain the variety of these "double-sided same on one
  side different on the other" cards, the unique assets are likely
  handled like assets and artefacts.

Also, the unique assets are unique. Which means that, from a story telling point of view, you cannot get the same one twice within a game. It would make no logical sense.


Carcassone city score when tie The question is explicitly about a situation when two or more players have the same number of knights in a closed city.
The instructions say: "In case of a tie, the tied players each score the points.". So, the question is how many.
Let's assume the closed city is worth 10 points and is being closed during the game. Should all players get 10 points or should they get a split (5 points for each)? Or maybe any other way to count those points..

When multiple players score a feature, each player gets the full amount.
There is only one way to score a feature, and if the rule says that each player scores that feature, each player will get the full amount of points. Every feature that can be shared (city, road, farm) has the potential to have a number of points such that an even split would be impossible to begin with.
For example, finished cities with a cathedral triple its score, so you can end up with an odd score for that city, making it impossible to evenly split between two players.


Rummy version with a run of seven as last round I've been trying to remember the details on a gin rummy game I played when I was younger. This game had the last round require a "run of seven" and a set of three.  Looking at Wikipedia I see Contract Rummy which is similar but doesn't have this requirement for the last round. Does anyone know what flavor of rummy was represented by this type of last round?

Sounds like you've already found the answer: it's a form of contract rummy, just with a different final contract than the one listed on the Wiki entry.

From the contract rummy entry on rummy-games.com :

  The rules detailed below are representative of all Contract Rummy
  games, though there are numerous regional and local variations even
  among games with the same name.

Incidentally, that particular contract (7+3) appears as one of the contracts in Shanghai Rummy (but not the last).