If two fighter's dice all come up with the same numbers, but one character rolls fewer dice, who goes first? If Iago faces Changeling, and their results are:

Iago: 1, 1, 1, 1
Changeling: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

The rules say the following (emphasis mine):

  To Begin: Roll all of your fighter’s dice, and arrange your dice so they can be easily read. Players will now take turns. Whoever rolled the single lowest number will go first. If the lowest dice are tied, compare the next lowest dice, and so on until a starting player is determined. If all numbers are tied, the game is a draw.

What is unclear, is what happens when the characters have differing numbers of dice to compare.

Is it a draw? Since you can't compare a die number to a non-existent die.
Does Iago go first? Since an empty die (null die) has a value of zero.
Does Changeling go first? Since they are the only character with a next lowest die, and all numbers are not tied.

I am leaning towards it being a draw, because you can't compare dice with a character that doesn't have a, "next lowest die" to compare. Has there been an official ruling in a FAQ, or in Tournament Rules? Maybe no one has ever had this happen and the question has never come up (it only happens 1 in 100+ million times)?

It wasn't in the rules pdf, but it was within the online rule book.

  If all the dice are matched, the round is a draw. If one player has more dice than the other, and all the dice which can be tied for low are tied, then the player who has more dice goes first.


Can the hero who goes last push a monster off the end of the momentum track? On a test playthrough of Thornwatch, we had two heroes and a "Husk" on the Momentum track.

The Husk was in first position, and after it had done the actions for its 4 pawns, the Guard dealt it 1 damage, pushing it so the tracker was:

Guard (tapped)
Husk (tapped)
Sage

As I understand it, it is now the Sage's go, but even if their action dealt the Husk 8 damage, it would still only push the Husk to the end of the tracker, and everything would then reset, "wasting" the attack.

Thus I advised the Sage to "Plan" and go first next round. Was this good advice?

Is it correct that, unless the monster is "on the edge" on the momentum tracker, the final hero of a round cannot kill it?

That is correct. See page 15 of the rules under 'Getting Wounded'.

If its momentum card is not on the edge of the momentum track when wounded, it shifts a number of steps equal to the number of remaining hits; if it reaches the edge, ignore the remainder.

Tactically, if there is only 1 target left, and it is not next to the Edge, then the last player should strongly consider taking the Plan action after powering and slotting Action cards.

Your advise was sound.


What are “Outs” in Texas Hold'em Poker? What are Outs in Texas Hold'em Poker?

"Outs" are the cards left in the deck that could possibly make you win.  Usually these are discussed most when players are all-in and the cards have been revealed.

If the only way you can win is to draw one of the 3 Aces left in the deck, you have 3 Outs.


Coat Of Arms And Goblin Tokens I currently have a Goblin deck, it constantly racks up 1/1 goblin creatures. I now place Coat Of Arms onto the battlefield. I have 100 1/1 goblin tokens on the battlefield, a goblin warrior and a goblin shaman does this mean each goblin creature gets +3/+3? Do goblin tokens count?

Each of your creatures (including the token goblins) get +101/+101. I hope your opponent has a sweeper.

I think your confusion comes from misreading the things that are being counted. You don't count the number of different types: each creature counts the number of other creatures that share at least one subtype. (In the card's example, the two Goblin Warriors and Goblin Shaman share the subtype Goblin.)

And yes, the tokens count. They may not be cards (technically they don't count as cards even if you use token-cards), but they are permanents, creatures, and goblins.


Can Sacred Ground mitigate Annihilator? My understanding is that being attacked by a creature with Annihilator N, which would force me to choose and sacrifice N permanents while have a Sacred Ground on the battlefield means that if I sacrificed lands on resolution those lands would come back onto the battlefield since an opponent controlled the Annihilator ability. (Possibly even providing me with a benefit, due to ETB effects or sacrificing tapped Basic lands to get them back untapped.)

However, I understand that any intervening ability or effects including state based effects would interfere with the Sacred Ground's ability. For instance a Stalking Stones that's turned itself into an Artifact Creature should come back from an opponent's Shatter, but not a Lightning Bolt since the state based action of having enough damage to kill it puts it in the graveyard, not the Lightning Bolt itself.

Are there any intervening effects involved in making a choice of sacrifices, or other effects I've missed, that prevent Sacred Ground from bringing back a land sacrificed to an opponent's creature's Annihilator ability?
Or are there any issues in my interpretation of the abilities in question?

If I gave the opponent's creature the Annihilator ability through Eldrazi Conscription (or copy effects or other contrivance...) does anything change? (Not that I plan to do anything of the sort, just to be comprehensive in my understanding.)

Yes, this works as you describe.

Although Sacred Ground has no rulings in Gatherer; we can look at a similarly-worded card, such as Nephalia Academy.

  If a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card, you may reveal that card and put it on top of your library instead of putting it anywhere else.

This has the following ruling:

  If a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to make a choice and you choose to discard a card, Nephalia Academy’s ability will apply.

This should make it clear that even when you have a choice to make; if you choose the thing that the ability cares about, it counts as your opponent's spell or ability "causing" it to happen.

In the case of Annihilator; your opponent controls the Annihilator triggered ability which is what causes you to sacrifice a permanent.

This would be no different if you controlled an Eldrazi Conscription enchanting an opponent's creature; because your opponent's creature is still the object with the Annihilator ability. It would be different if Eldrazi Conscription said "whenever enchanted creature attacks; defending player must sacrifice 2 permanents". If that were the wording; then you would be the controller of the ability, not your opponent.


Does "next" in line-of-succession mean "first remaining" in line-of-succession? The rules for BSG state that "Should the President or Admiral be revealed as a Cylon, the next player in the line of succession for that title claims it".

However, because of the Administration ability, it's possible someone could be president who already isn't first in line of sucession.  If that person turns out to be a Cylon, do you really look at the "next" person on the line of succession list, or do you go back to the top and look for the "first" available person?

Page 28 of the rulebook says:

  Should the President or Admiral be revealed as a Cylon, the highest player in the line of succession for that title claims it.

so it will never go to the "next" person in line, always to the highest (non-Cylon).


What can I do with the Joker if I remove every tile from its meld? (Can I even do that?) I'm aware that one cannot move a Joker tile out of a meld except by replacing the Joker with the number it represents. However, I'm confused about one situation which I haven't found rules to clarify:

What happens if I move every other number in the Joker's meld, leaving the Joker on its own?

Am I allowed to do this, or must I somehow preserve its meld?
What happens to the Joker's value? (Does it remain exactly what it was before, or can I pick a new value?)
Where can it go now? (Can I move it to another meld that's already on the table? Can I create a new meld around it using tiles from my hand?)

Example scenarios

Just to make it clear how this can happen. Both scenarios only involve moving the tiles surrounding the Joker, never the Joker itself (or at least that's the way I see it).

There is a run of blue 1234, and a run of blue J567. I move the 567 to the other run, making a run of 1234567. The Joker is now all on its own.
There's a run of 1234 in each colour, except blue which has 123J. I take the 1's, 2's and 3's away and make four-colour sets for each of those numbers. I make a three-colour set out of the red, yellow and black 4's. The Joker is now all on its own.

Or the same scenarios, pictorially:

Board goes from 1234 / J567 → 1234567 / J
Board goes from 1234 / 1234 / 1234 / 123J → 1111 / 2222 / 3333 / 444 / J

Wow, they've really been messing with the rules of the game.
In every version of Rummikub that I've ever played (and I'm one for reading the rules before we start playing), this kind of thing is explicitly disallowed like this:

  A combination which contains a joker can have further tiles added to it, but nothing can be taken from it, nor can it be rearranged in
  any way while there is a joker in it.

Here's a link if you're interested:  http://www.pagat.com/rummy/rummikub.html

Obviously there are different publications of the game with different rule sets, but I far prefer this "joker melds cannot be split!" version.


Does removing the timer make Space Hulk significantly easier? I played the recent edition of Space Hulk with my brother, who insisted on playing the entire campaign as the Space Marines (bad idea - they tend to lose!)

He gave up the campaign about half way through, becoming frustrated with his 10 game losing streak.

I thought about how to make it easier. He consistently became distracted by his phone during his (timed) turn, leading to tactical blunders.

Does removing the timer element make the game much easier, or is it still likely that the space marines will lose?

Yes, removing the timer makes the game significantly easier, almost trivially so.

Why? Because the timer reduces the amount of information the board can yield.

For example, without the timer the marine player can count squares to determine whether it is useful to spend actions putting marines on overwatch/guard. Without the timer, actions are used much more efficiently to achieve the mission objectives and win. With the timer the marine player can be bottled up much easier.


Why don't ground-types (fighting) in Pokemon TCG have resistance to electric? I don't play the Pokemon TCG, and most of my exposure comes from collecting cards from the first three sets when I was a kid (which I've long since gotten rid of).  I decided recently to pick up a couple starter decks I saw in the store (the relevant one to this question being Mewtwo Mayhem theme deck) just to see, out of pure curiosity, how far the game has come and how much it has changed.  I was looking through the cards and I noticed something odd:  the Diglett, Dugtrio and Sandshrew don't have resistance to lightning, despite this resistance being a staple for ground-types.  Here's the Sandshrew card pictured for reference:

I could have sworn these cards once had resistance to lightning, and a simple Google image search confirms this (in addition to revealing the cards getting HP boosts, among other changes).  What gives?  Why don't the ground-types have resistance to lightning?  Or rather, why was their resistance to lightning removed?

Pokémon Trading Card Game follows original type effectiveness table only loosely. In each generation, there can be found some patterns, like originally Ground Pokémon having Lightning Resistance in earlier generations, but those usually change in time and also some cards can diverge. Some of those patterns were applied according to one of the types of dual-types Pokémon, without regard to the second type.

Let's have Gligar as an example. In the past, there was a pattern of Originally Ground-type Pokémon having Grass Weakness¹. Even though Gligar is damaged normally by Grass and is resistant to Bug and Poison² (types that were represented by TCG Grass type back then), it was printed with such Weakness:

In the past, there was also a pattern of Originally Flying-type Pokémon having Lightning Weakness³. Even though Gligar is immune to Lightning² in games, it was printed with such Weakness:

Later, Gligar kept its Water Weakness and Lightning Resistance for a long time, loosing the Resistance during 6th Generation, which is the same for Sandshrew as well. It's possible that card creators changed their patterns recently. You can compare Gligar from 2012 (5th generation) with Gligar from 2014 (6th generation):

During the 7th generation, Gligar's Weakness changed to Grass once again:

Officially, there is no information about how the conversion from game types to TCG Weaknesses and Resistances work.


If a permanent turns into a(nother) creature, has it entered the battlefield? I was playing a game last night with a guy who was playing a new Simic Gatecrash deck, and he claimed that if he made a land into a creature, it counted as entering the battlefield, thus triggering evolve (or other "enters the battlefield" abilities).

I thought this was incorrect, being that the creature didn't actually enter the battlefield, it was just created.

Which of us was right?

"Enters the battlefield" means moving from a zone besides the battlefield into the battlefield. As you say, it didn't actually enter the battlefield - it didn't change zones, it just changed from one thing to another within a zone. So no, it doesn't trigger evolve.
As for citations, well, there's a ruling explicitly for this land-becoming creature case on many of the lands that can become creatures (e.g. Celestial Colonnade):

When a land becomes a creature, that doesn't count as having a creature enter the battlefield. The permanent was already on the battlefield; it only changed its types. Abilities that trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield won't trigger.

I don't think the comp rules really say this explicitly; they say the battlefield is a zone, and "entering" a zone clearly means coming from outside the zone into the zone. For example, there's stuff like this:

110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. A permanent remains on the battlefield indefinitely. A card or token becomes a permanent as it enters the battlefield and it stops being a permanent as it's moved to another zone by an effect or rule.
603.6a Enters-the-battlefield abilities trigger when a permanent enters the battlefield. ...

Nothing explicit, but consistently "entering" a zone is used to mean changing zones into that zone.


What are great gamer games that are still great for uncompetitive groups. I play games almost exclusively with my wife and older children. They learn and enjoy playing games like Puerto Rico, Diplomacy, 7 Wonders and Dominion so I am looking for gamer games, not Apples to Apples.

However they don't play most of these games very competitively. Rather, they will often change plans just to be nice to another player.

I have read that some highly recommended gamer games, like Power Grid, really lose a lot if the group isn't playing in highly competetive mode. What are great gamer games that stay great even if the group playing is pretty generous toward each other?

Obviously all great cooperative games would qualify so I am asking about non-cooperative games.

Edit: Certainly having extra players is sometimes a factor (we have 8 children, though only our oldest 3 can play these games with us at this point - of course, that will change in time). However simplified rules is really a non-issue from what we've played so far (Puerto-Rico being the most complex so far). Also we have no qualms about editing a game for family (or for ourselves). e.g. some of the cards in 7 wonders.

Edit. I made part of the question bold just because people kept missing that part and I've noticed those that do are getting downvoted.

I'd assert that Settlers of Catan works just fine, even if you're not being very competitive.  There's lots of trading, which can actually work better if both traders are genuinely interested in "playing nice."  Similarly, there's nothing in the building of cities and roads that mandates competition.  The nature of the board does encourage confrontation, in that you're likely to eventually conflict for space to expand, but that's not necessarily a deal-breaker in this regard.


Interaction between Leonin Warleader and Divine Visitation I have Divine Visitation on the battlefield:

  If one or more creature tokens would be created under your control, that many 4/4 white Angel creature tokens with flying and vigilance are created instead.

Then I play Leonin Warleader:

  Whenever Leonin Warleader attacks, create two 1/1 white Cat creature tokens with lifelink that are tapped and attacking.

So the tokens will transfrom into 4/4 angles. But are they still tapped and attacking, or do the angles coming onto the battlefield negate the detail of "tapped and attacking"?

In other words, does the enchantment place the angles instead of:

"Cat creature tokens with lifelink", or
"Cat creature tokens with lifelink that are tapped and attacking"?

This is covered in the rulings for Divine Visitation (emphasis mine):

  The token’s characteristics are entirely replaced by a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying and vigilance. It doesn’t have any abilities the token would have been created with. Anything else specified in the effect creating the token (such as tapped, attacking, “That token gains haste,” or “Exile that token at end of combat”) still applies.

So you make two 4/4 Angel tokens that are tapped and attacking.


When does Devotion change & when does a god's type change? A friend of mine said that he was playing a game of magic when he went to use Suspension Field on his opponent's Keranos, God of Storms.

Keranos had enough devotion to be a creature at the time Suspension Field was cast, but in response to Suspension Field his opponent destroyed one of his own creatures to reduce his devotion and reverted Keranos to just an enchantment again, claiming to make Suspension Field fizzle on the stack.

Does devotion change at instant speed?

Devotion is continuously kept up to date based on the current board state. It will be kept up to date between two spells on the stack resolving. (I wouldn't even call that "instant speed", which is more appropriate for describing things that go on the stack. You just keep it up to date continuously.)

The Devotion ability of gods —

  As long as your devotion to {color/s} is less than {five/seven}, ~ isn't a creature.

— is a static ability that creates a continuous effect, and as the rules on continuous effects say:

  611.3. A continuous effect may be generated by the static ability of an object.

  611.3a A continuous effect generated by a static ability isn’t “locked in”; it applies at any given moment to whatever its text indicates.

The very moment a permanent that contributes to devotion enters or leaves your battlefield, your devotion is changed, and your gods on the battlefield1 may become creatures or cease to be creatures.

This means that if a spell or ability that says "target creature" is cast targeting only Keranos, and someone pulls this maneuver to de-creature-ify him, he will almost certainly not be a valid target at resolution time and the spell will fizzle. The same goes for other gods.

Your scenario itself is a little more complex. Suspension Field is not an instant or sorcery; it's an enchantment with an enters-the-battlefield ability. You don't choose targets while Suspension Field is on the stack — you just let it resolve. Then its ability triggers, and you choose targets for that. This maneuver would cause that ability to fizzle, then the Suspension Field would be left sitting uselessly on the battlefield.

For instants and sorceries though: an instant or sorcery like Burn from Within would lose its only valid target and fizzle. However Radiant Purge would still resolve fully and exile Keranos, because he still meets the targeting criteria (he's a multicolored enchantment).

1: Since this static ability is not a characteristic defining ability, it only functions on the battlefield. Gods who aren't on the battlefield are always legendary enchantment creatures.


When and Why did the Catan number distribution change I've recently had to replace my 3rd Edition Catan set and the new version has a different number distribution as shown in these two images taken from the respective rule books.

Is there a reason that the layout has changed? Using the 5th edition set up, we've had both nines touching, and looking at the layout below it seems possible to have a 6 and 8 together which is disallowed by the rules under variable set-up in the Almanac. These oddities never happened with the spiral A-B-C set up in the 3rd edition.

Having spent a bit more time with the rule book and the internet I've come to the conclusion this is a combination of two factors.

The image supplied above from the 5th edition rule book is a beginner set up that has no relation to the letters on the back of the number chits. It is purely a "balanced", and non-blocking starting point allowing new players to get into the game without too much trouble.
There's a printing error on the Chits in my copy (no idea how wide spread it is).

The printing error has two separate sources of verification.
This Distribution Question include a list of the Letter to number combinations that match my older set and (really tellingly) match this image from the Almanac of the fifth edition.

The numbers I have are in a slightly different sequence such that one 6 is swapped with an 11 (I and P), and one 9 is swapped with a 5 (M and O). Which leads to commonly paired 9s and 11s. Given the image Q above, this is probably a printing error.


Star Wars Armada: does a squadron command give a squadron an extra turn? When I move / fire one or more squadrons using the squadron command of a ship do the squadrons still get to move / fire in the squadron phase or is their activation over for the round?

TLDR: Squadrons only activate once per turn

Per the Armada Rules Reference on page 12, squadrons Activate when one of these happens:

In the Squadron Phase (with the limit of either Moving or Attacking, but not both)
In the Ship Phase when a ship resolves a [squadron] command (with the ability to both move and attack)

But at the end of any activation you toggle the Activation Slider for the squadron to indicate that it has been activated.

Further, you cannot activate a squadron if the color of its Activation Slider does not match the Initiative Token. This includes squadrons with the Rogue keyword as that keyword applies when they Activate.

The net result of this is that you can either activate during the Ship Phase or during the Squadron Phase, but not both.


Monopoly Deal - property wild card queries A completed set using one or two property wild card with a house and hotel.

Can we move property wild card to another set in such scenario?

Can we move house or hotel to another completed set?

In answer to the first part of your question: we have always played that you can't move a card from a stack with a house/hotel expect to pay another player. However, I can't seem to find a rule written down that says this.

For the second part of the question: my initial assumption was that you can't do this. However, the rules say you can rearrange your cards in any way you choose during your turn. It is worth reading the section below from monopolydealrules.com who are usually very good and as close to an official rules site as the game has:

  Can a House or Hotel card be on the table without being apart of a full/completed set?

  Yes, but you cannot lay down a House or Hotel card unless you can play
  it on a completed set. However, if a player charges you money and you
  decide to pay with some of the property from your completed set that
  includes a House and/or Hotel, the House or Hotel must be placed on
  the table next to your property section until you complete another set
  and it can be placed on top. You can also pay with your house or hotel
  card if you choose.

I hope this answer helps and if anyone has a better answer I'd be very happy to be corrected!


How well does the Axis & Allies Chess variant work? My curiosity in this variant was piqued by this comment in my 'Games that have no element of luck' thread.

I'd love to read an expanded explanation of the rule changes and peoples experience (positive or negative) with them.

Axis & Allies Chess Rules

Okay, I finally found the link to the website with the original A&A Chess rules. To be honest I didn't play this variant much, but it seemed apropos to the original post about luckless games so I mentioned it. From my limited experience I can concur with the inventor's comments: although it looks identical to normal A&A they really are very different games.

A&A Chess is about deciding how to position units to make them the most versatile: most able to contribute in an effective way on multiple fronts. It's about hiding your true attacking power by attacking with units based in multiple territories (i.e. using units your opponent didn't realize could reach) or by feinting one attack while intending all the while to make another (Calais v. Normandy?). In this way, the base strategies of Chess and A&A Chess are similar, although the mechanics have nothing in common except a board.

I've found that there are two main reasons why people don't end up liking A&A Chess:

They decided to play it because they'd been screwed by the dice too many times and are expecting this game to be normal A&A without bad rolls; it's not (see above).
Analysis paralysis. This is really a symptom of a certain style of player. Trying to understand the outcome of large, multi-round battles requires Rainman-like intuition or a lot of mental math. If you're playing with someone who's going to crunch numbers for 20 minutes before a battle then you're going to get bored.

My preferred answer to both issues is also suggested on the site and goes by the name Low-Luck Axis and Allies. This variant still grants a hit for every six attack or defense points, but allows players to roll a single dice against their remainders. In statistical terms, LL A&A tightens up the variance around the expected result (i.e. reduces the potential influence of the random dice rolls). For mathematical reasons best explained on another stack exchange site, LL's effects are most noticeable in small battles, where a couple bad rolls can make a huge difference.

My advice is that if you're frustrated with bad dice rolling and just want to smooth out chance, go for LL A&A. If you're looking for a complicated and well-nigh impossible to optimize luckless war game then go with A&A Chess.


Can a player swap more than 4 resources of the same kind with another player In one of the games I played recently, I was finally in competition with another player, the rest of the 2 players effectively having conceded. A 3rd player who I had a rivalry with swapped 8 lumbers for 1 sheep from the player I was in competition with, effectively helping that player win and finish the game in that turn itself. Is this kind of trade allowed according to the rules? I am sure it is something to be frowned upon, but I still wonder if it is possible to make the trade legally.

There is nothing in the rules that prohibits this move.

The following excerpts are taken from the 5th edition rules.

Page 7, "Domestic Trade":

  On your turn, you may trade resources with the other players (after rolling for resource production).  You and the other players negotiate the terms of your trades - such as which cards will be exchanged.  You may trade as many times as you can, using single or multiple cards.  However, you cannot give away cards, or trade matching resources ("trade" 3 or for 1 ore, for example).

Page 14, "Trade":

  After you roll for resource production, you may trade with other players (domestic trade) or with the bank (maritime trade).

  You may trade as long as you have resource cards.
  If you decide not to trade during your turn, no one can trade.
  You may trade with another player between your turns, but only if it is his turn and he elects to trade with you.
  You may not trade with the bank during another player's turn.
  You may not give away cards.
  You may not trade development cards.
  You may not trade like resources (e.g., 2 wool for 1 wool).

There is no mention of restrictions on the number of cards that can be traded in a single move.


House rule to fix vindictive behavior in Princes of Florence In Princes of Florence, the bugbear is this rule:

  A player may move his figure backwards
  on the fame track at any time during
  the game.  For each space moved
  backward, the player takes 100 Florin
  from the bank. (p.10)

What I've seen (and experienced...) a few times is a player sacrificing their chances of victory by spending ludicrous numbers of prestige points to deny other players auctions in the late game.

Basically, I'm trying to find a house rule that will prevent this "taking you with me" behavior.

An alternative to a house rule is often a good defensive strategy. In this case: try to create a situation where multiple of the auction options would be acceptable; if all the other players bankrupt themselves to outbid you, you win! I believe this is really the essence of the game: to manoeuvre yourself into a position where there is nothing that you absolutely need in order to do OK.


How to resolve illegal targeting that was allowed? I was recently playing Theros, and the set being new, was not familiar with the cards I was playing. Here is the situation that arose:

I had a Stormbreath Dragon out beating face, when my opponent played Chained to the Rocks, targeting my dragon. I, at the time, have forgotten that my dragon has protection from white (and so can't be targeted by Chained to the Rocks), and allow it to be exiled. A couple turns later, I remember about the protection from white.

What is the correct way to resolve this situation? Would the resolution be different if my dragon had not been exiled and instead enchanted by a card such as Pacifism?

(Note: this took place in a limited pre-release tournament, not in a casual game)

The correct answer (since this appeared in a tournament setting) is to call a judge as soon as you notice.

The judge is likely to act according to section 2.5 Game Play Error
— Game Rule Violation of this pdf: http://www.wizards.com/contentresources/wizards/wpn/main/documents/magic_the_gathering_infraction_procedure_guide_pdf2.pdf

If the error is discovered in a reasonable time frame one possibility outlined is a rollback of the game state.

If the error is not discovered in a reasonable time frame (likely you scenario as a couple turns have passed) the judge can leave the game in its current state after resolving state based actions.

From my interpretation of the pdf, your dragon remains exiled in the Chained to the Rocks example, but in the pacifism example the pacifism would be removed.


Use Mana twice for the same spell by untapping? If your commander has an ability to untap card and you use it for untapping Mana, can you use it to pay for 6 Mana while there is only five in your pool.it was Estrid, the Masked untapping an enchanted land.

Yes, you can tap a land for mana again in the same turn if it becomes untapped.
When you can tap a land for mana, it always has some variation of "{T}: Add ..." as its ability, where {T} is the tap symbol. That is an activated ability. Activated abilities always follow the "cost: effect" pattern. Generally, you can activate an activated ability as often as you want, as long as you can pay its cost every time.
When you tap a land for mana, the mana it produces goes into the "mana pool", a temporary storage for your mana. Then, when you untap that land, you can pay the cost of its mana-generating ability again (i.e. tapping the land), and you will get another mana.
That means, if you have 5 lands, tap them for mana, and untap one of the lands, you can tap that land again to get 6 mana total.

602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]”
602.1a The activation cost is everything before the colon (:). An ability’s activation cost must be paid by the player who is activating it.
106.4. When an effect instructs a player to add mana, that mana goes into a player’s mana pool. From there, it can be used to pay costs immediately, or it can stay in the player’s mana pool as unspent mana. Each player’s mana pool empties at the end of each step and phase, and the player is said to lose this mana. [..]


Adding money to a game of Risk A friend and I recently had a conversation around making a set of rules for a buy-in variant on Risk, and I wanted some help from experienced players to review them as they stand now. Risk is not a game that I know well, but well enough to ask some questions about.

The example we talked about splitting the pot on all 42 countries at $5 a piece; between 6 players, that's a $35 buy in. Players get their $5 bills (or chips that represent them) and must trade money upon losing/gaining territories at the end of each turn. As for quitting a game, a player can't quit unless they forfeit all of their money and walk away from the table, allowing for automatic defense rolls from the other players. To enforce fairness (and to avoid an annoying "winner take all" result each game), if all players from 2nd place until the current last place player all agree to "flag" their places and end the game, first place must then quit and take their money, as does all players.

With this approach, placing troops may result in one player taking all of their infantry on just a few territories; another may start with a larger amount of territories with less reinforcements. Would a French setup work better for this type of play? Are there other pitfalls that I may be overlooking? Anybody out there tried to add money to a game of Risk? What were the results?

Be careful. Usually tinkering with houserules, if you overlook something, you can make it up on the spot. If there is real money at stake, suddenly the game becomes much more serious and the ability to quickly tweak something which might be in one player's favor or another is gone.

From your initial idea, I see several dramatic flaws. First is that Risk is designed as a winner-take-all game. You propose to have the ability to end the game short by unanimous-save-one consent. This will not work. One player, for instance, might have relatively few territories, but be well-fortified, well-positioned and have cards prepared for a powerful game-winning strike. Will this player be considered to be in the lead? If not, he will never agree to end the game. If so, he will lose out, controlling many fewer territories although the favorite to win.

You would need to make careful rules about when the game is allowed to come to an end. Can it be ended before a powerful attack? After an unlucky turn? Before whose attack--because the last attacker can just spread himself thin, without any regard to defense, and collect an unfairly large share of the pot.

With directed attacks, you may face accusations of favoritism or collusion that are much more venomous than in a non-stakes game. In this case, I think that playing Risk for money is a questionable idea, and playing with house rules to allow any stakes other than winner-take-all would be potentially disastrous.


In Lords of Waterdeep, how is Accelerated Plans played? In Lords of Waterdeep the intrigue card Accelerate Plans says:

  Choose one of your agents assigned to Waterdeep Harbor. Return it to your pool, then immediately assign two agents.

Our resident "expert" says that this requires you to have one agent already in Waterdeep harbor before you can place an agent and play this card. Is this correct?

No, that is incorrect. On your turn, you first place an agent in Waterdeep Harbor, and then, as a result of doing so, you get to play an Intrigue card. So by the time you play that card, you automatically have at least 1 agent in the Harbor (the one you just played).

Now it is possible to play an Intrigue card in other ways, such as a reward for completing a quest. In this case, it's possible that you wouldn't have an agent in the Harbor.

See discussion on this same question here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/781681/question-about-accelerate-plans-intrigue-card


When casting a spell, how can a mana ability be paid with another mana ability? A situation was presented with Skyshroud Elf and Ashnod's Altar: apparently, you could generate WW or RR by:

Activate the Elf's filter ability ({1}: Add {R} or {W})
Activate the Elf's filter ability
Activate Altar to generate {2}
Resolve filter ability 1 (or 2?)
Resolve other filter ability

But, mana abilities don't use the stack, and once activated they resolve immediately. So, how can you "respond" to a mana ability in this way?

  605.3b An activated mana ability doesn’t go on the stack, so it can’t be targeted, countered, or otherwise responded to. Rather, it resolves immediately after it is activated

Credit to Pucatrade for the situation

It used to be possible to do this by activating the Elf's filter ability during the process of activating the same ability, taking advantage of the fact that one of the steps of  casting a spell or activating an ability is rule 601.2g:

  If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities (see rule 605, “Mana Abilities”). Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.

But the rule 605.3c introduced in Eldritch Mood explicitly forbids the specific sequence in the question:

  Once a player begins to activate a mana ability, that ability can’t be activated again until it has resolved.

However, it is still possible to do essentially the same thing in a variant scenario where a single creature has two separate instances of the Skyshroud Elf's ability. For example, if you control Ashnod's Altar and Necrotic Ooze, and your graveyard has two copies of Skyshroud Elf in it, then you can accomplish the same thing by doing this:

Activate the Ooze's first filter ability. When you get to step 601.2g of the activation process, do the following:

Activate the Ooze's second filter ability. When you get to step 601.2g of this ability's activation process, do the following:

Activate Ashnod's Altar's ability by sacrificing the Ooze. Now you have {C}{C} in your mana pool.

Pay for the second filter ability with {C} and let the ability resolve, adding {W} or {R} to your mana pool. Now you have {C} and {W} or {R} in your mana pool.

Pay for the original filter ability with {C} and let the ability resolve to add another {W} or {R} to your mana pool.

By doing this, you end up with two mana in any combination of {W} and {R} to your mana pool.


Simplest bidding system for introduction into bridge What is the best bidding system which can be used for teaching beginners (who never played bridge before)?

I suspect that showing any complicated system, or asking to learn some long manual would burn all "initial interest". I think it is better to start with real game, and after playing some time (if interest would not be extinguished), having real game experience, beginners would feel natural need by themselfs to improve bidding system.

I can develop some very simple system, but I am curious if there is any standard simple system for learning?

EDIT: After several answers I have to put additional emphasize on what I am trying to achieve. This question is not about mastering Bridge skill from very novice to beginner, but it is about introduction for players who never played bridge (though played some simpler trick-taking games).

I cannot imagine how I supposed to teach beginners rules, game mechanics + material of "first 10 chapters in Commonsense Bidding" or Stayman and Blackwood within 20 minutes just to have first time game. That would take hours without any gaming, and it would become boring and would kill any "initial interest".

Just imagine: "- Guys, let's play Bridge, it is fun and interesting game. But before playing you have to sit down and listen two hours lecture."

What I need is very simple (extremly simple) bidding system, where everything is natural, without any artifical bids. Again, I can develop some very simple system, but I am curious if there is any such standard simple system for learning game play first time?

2 sections to my answer:

How to get up and running in 20 minutes
Next steps to progress from the 20 minute version to solid Bridge beginner

How to get up and running in 20 minutes

It's simply not possible to play the full game of bridge itself after 20 minutes in a way that satisfies or even makes any sense. However, one can make use of a Gateway game which is similar to bridge to get such a quick start.

Spades is a terrific gateway to bridge. Apart from lack of dummy, trick taking play is identical to bridge. No Trump is not an option There is only one possible trump suit: spades. Eliminating choice in suits vastly simplifies bidding - you simply call out the number of tricks you think you can take. To make it feel closer to bridge, you could eliminate the "nil" bid and sandbags. Or you could keep them in as they keep the game more interesting.

Regardless of which spades rules you use, the play of the hand feels similar to bridge (though not identical due to no dummy, different scoring incentives, and much less information exchanged during bidding).

I taught my son to play Spades when he was 5, and a few months later taught him beginner level bridge, as follows:

Next steps to progress from the 20 minute version to solid Bridge beginner

Now that you've played a number of spades hands, you now have a good introductory feel for the play of Bridge hands. It's time to move on to the more time-consuming part for beginners: bidding.

I believe it's simplest to learn the most popular system in your area, for the following reasons:

There will be ample learning materials.
Learning materials will have different levels and you can start at the beginner level.
Most bridge players will know it even if they don't play it - so you can play other players in your area and they will usually by happy to help you learn.
You will be able to understand a substantial portion of the bidding of bridge players in your area.
Bridge learning software tends to do a good job of giving you practice hands for the most popular systems.

In USA, the most popular system is currently Standard American (5-card majors). It is so popular and well known in USA that at tournaments there is something called "Standard American Yellow Card" which is often used when two strangers are paired with each other.

I quite liked the pair of books I used to learn Standard American, 5-card majors, and the other most common techniques and conventions associated with it:

Commonsense Bidding by William S. Root
Modern Bridge Conventions by William S. Root & Richard Pavlicek

A real strength of this pair of books is how well structured it is for beginners. You can start by trying to master the first 10 chapters in Commonsense Bidding (and chapter 17) and that would be a very reasonable place to stop to enjoy a beginner level of bridge. This is exactly what I taught to my son when he was 5 (he did not read the books - I explained everything to him over the course of a few weeks while we played at least a few minutes every day). If you want to gradually learn more you can continue progressing through that book and then start on the 2nd book.

A real key to learning bidding that I wish I had known when I started is to start with just a very small number of the most common bidding techniques and conventions that will cover perhaps 60% or 70% of hands and concentrate on learning those well before going on to techniques and conventions that cover less common hands.


Sacrificing a creature with 0 toughness 1/1 goblin, with Skullclamp attached, making its P/T 2/0 so it dies. Could it be sacrificed using Goblin Bombardment to deal 1 damage?

No, you don't have the opportunity to sacrifice that goblin. Every time someone would receive priority, just beforehand, state based actions are checked and carried out. One of these state based actions is:

  704.5f If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it’s put into its owner’s graveyard. Regeneration can’t replace this event.

Priority has to be obtained to be able to activate Goblin Bombardment's ability. By this point, state based actions have already been checked and the goblin is in its owner's graveyard.

For all intents and purposes in this scenario, you might as well consider the goblin to have died instantly as soon as you put the Skullclamp on.


Who decides which of the "or" effects is applied? When playing a spell card such as Searing Spear. Where the card deals 3 damage to target creature "or" Player.
Who decides what the "or" effects?  The player casting the card or the opponent receiving the effect of the card?

When a card says "target [something] or [something else]", the "or" is part of the target description. While you are casting the spell, you choose the target, and the chosen target can be either one of those things. In the case of that specific wording, that means that you can choose either a creature or a player as the spell's target.

Note: The specific card you referenced, Searing Spear, has had errata as of the release of the set Dominaria. It now says

  Searing Spear deals 3 damage to any target.

And "any target" just means "target creature or player or planeswalker". Many other cards had similar changes.


What is the proper Algebraic Notation for a pawn being promoted? Are you supposed to use an arrow → or not.

Pe8→Q
Pe8Q

Where 'P' is the piece being moved (Pawn) , 'Q' is promotion to (Queen), 'e8' is the file ('e') and rank ('8')?

FIDE is not the arbiter of chess-notation.  By far the most common way to express promotion using algebraic notation is e8=Q (note that you do not write P for pawn, only the space it moves to).  This is also the only style supported by PGN, the most widely used format for recording games on a computer.

e8/Q and e8(Q) are also sometimes used, mostly by old-timers or old books.  I have never seen e8Q used (I guess I have seen it, I just never really noticed :) see below)

[Edit] By request, I did a small sampling of the literature I have available.

Of the 22 chess books I own, 14 use algebraic while 8 use descriptive (primarily because they are older books).  Of the 14 algebraic:

8 use the e8=Q style
2 use the e8/Q style
1 uses the e8(Q) style
1 uses the e8Q style

Another 2 use the related symbolic style e8♛

So it looks as those e8Q is not as unpopular as I originally thought, but e8=Q is still overwhelmingly the most popular.


Phase 10 - Who goes first? I've played Phase 10, the card game, for years, but recently I started playing the android app version. It has always been my understanding that the dealer role rotates to the left after each hand, but, in the app, I can't figure out how they're decided who goes first each round. I've played one-on-one games, and the same player will go first 3 or more times in a row. Anyone have an idea on this?

In most rules given for the game it is stated that one player is chosen to be the dealer (source 1, source 2, source 3.)
There is no mention of the dealer role going to another player in those.

Wikipedia says:
One player is chosen to be the dealer (alternately, the deal can rotate to the left after each hand).(source)
This seems to indicate that having the deal rotate is an alternate rule or houserule rather than an official rule.


How can the traitor win scenario 49 in this way? [Spoilers ahead for scenario 49]

Six players are playing Betrayal and the haunting has begun. It is scenario 49, "You Wear It Well".

One way the traitor can win is when the "Astral Spirit inhabits the soulless body of a hero". This occurs when the spirit makes six successful sanity rolls on a hero and places that many Sanity Roll tokens next to his or her body.

The good guys begin a haunting by taking six knowledge tokens and six sanity tokens and setting them aside. A hero can acquire one of these tokens by making a successful attack of that type against the spirit.

The game only comes with six sanity tokens.

The spirit needs six tokens to win by possession, but as soon as the heroes make one successful sanity attack, there are fewer than six remaining in the "set aside" pool.

Which of the following, if any, is the correct interpretation?

Once a hero gets a single sanity token, the spirit cannot ever win via possession. If he wants to win this way, he must make the possession before the heroes land a single attack. (this seems unlikely because he would need to fend off five attacks per round for a minimum of six rounds, with a printed sanity stat of 1)
Once a hero gets a sanity token, the spirit can return it to the "set aside" pool by killing that player.
If the spirit needs to acquire a sanity token and there are none left in the "set aside" pool, then he can take one from any hero of his choice.
If the spirit needs to acquire a sanity token and there are none left in the "set aside" pool, then he can take one from the hero whose body he is attempting to possess, assuming they have one.
Your game box is defective and was supposed to come with 12 sanity tokens. Make six more out of scraps of paper or similar.
You should treat the sanity token pool as if it were infinite. If it runs out of actual tokens, make new ones with scraps of paper or similar.

This Haunt is one of those that causes... issues and debate among the playerbase due to ambiguities in it, even after revisions (one printing of the haunt actually gave the astral spirit a Sanity of 1 instead of 6, which would prevent them from even possessing a body in the first place!). Liberal use of the rule on the inside front cover of the base rulebook is pretty much required here. The exact text of that is as follows:

  What If There Isn't a Rule for That?

  Many hours went into playtesting this game, but it's still possible you'll run into situations where the game rules or haunt books don't clearly answer a question about game play. Don't let that slow you down. In such cases, come to an agreement as a group for what makes the most sense and go with it. (If that doesn't work, flip a coin to decide.) Then continue your experience in the house.

There are a few potential house-rulings to fix the token shortage:

Given that the revised text is that the heroes must HAVE the tokens, not HAVE COLLECTED, the tokens they gained would be lost upon the destruction of the hero's soul or body and returned to the pool of tokens the heroes set aside. An immediate rebuttal is that the tokens are used to represent damage dealt to the Astral Spirit, and a second one is that in a 6-player game, you're still going to have the token limit problem even with this.
Given that the sole reason for marking the body the Astral Spirit is attempting to affect is to count the number of successes, there is no reason why an alternative marker (e.g. a standard d6) couldn't be used. Unlike the previous house-ruling, there is no obvious rebuttal to this, and this in particular completely bypasses the physical token limit. In addition, in a 6-player game, it is actually possible for the Traitor player to place down 20 Tokens without ending the game (which is more than the total number of attribute tokens the game comes with), and these tokens are never removed.

As for the six interpretations you provided:

erroneous sanity stat aside (Astral Spirit's stats are 3 Speed, 6 Knowledge, and 6 Sanity, go grab the revised traitor's guide), in a 5-player or 6-player game, this presents a problem as the heroes would only need to score two or one (respectively) Sanity attack successes against the Astral Spirit. Also, note that the Astral Spirit must have already destroyed the soul of the body it wants to affect before it can start affecting it, and if the Traitor (not the Astral Spirit) were to deliver the finishing blow, the body is destroyed instead of the soul [same effect from the Hero's perspective, but the Astral Spirit can't use the destroyed body].
See the first proposed house rule above.
This has the problem of basically cancelling the progress made by the heroes. A potential fix would be to swap out the hero's Sanity Roll token for a Knowledge Roll token if you were to do this, as this would preserve the hero's progress while also not allowing the physical token limit to stop the traitor from winning by the special victory condition.
This is even worse than the previous as if all 5 heroes were to have scored a Sanity Roll token, the traitor is still locked out of that win condition.
Not likely, given the traitor can place 20 tokens down in a 6-player game and the game only came with 18 attribute tokens total. If the Astral Spirit destroys 4 of the five souls and then affects each of their bodies 5 times each, the game still doesn't end.
See second proposed house rule above.

Of note is I think this is the only haunt in the game where the physical limit of tokens is a problem.


I have a 2 complete set red and yellow and 1 red/yellow wild property I have a red and yellow complete set my 3rd move is rent them my opponent give a red/yellow wild property card. Now in this scenario what to do..? I have to leave it as it is or I have to create it as second set of red...?

You are free to reconfigure your card sets any way you like on your turn.
Rules:

You can only reorganize your property collection on your turn.

You start a new set (since both of your red and yellow sets are already full), but you can start that with either the new red/yellow wild or one of the red or yellow cards from your existing sets (and put the wild card into that set to replace it).


Two space approach moves in igo In igo, when I plan dan-level players, they often make two-space approach moves like the one shown in the figure below:

I have many of the standard books on go and they generally only discuss one space approach moves, so I am not sure how I should regard two-space approach moves from a strategic point of view.

So, here if White had played at C, I would play at B or one space to the right of B, I know that from books. But after the two-space approach, how does that change things? Is it better to pincer now at D or play A maybe?

What is the direction of play when the opponent makes "soft" moves, like two-space approaches?

Look at this question and its answers for Joseki databases on the net.

Black has a lot of possibilities here, including tenuki. None of your marked moves is really bad, but C is the least favourable of them.

I'd just play tenuki and take the last open corner. Even with a double approach, the two space approach leaves a lot of room to escape or to create a good position.


Do I discard weaknesses when they are done? Does Roland Banks' weakness Cover Up get discarded when I've removed all 3 clue tokens from it, or do other weaknesses get discarded when they are done with the instructions on the card?  There is no mention of it so my thinking is that I do not have to discard it and potentially end up drawing it again once I've resolved a card such as Cover Up.

Weakness (or treachery) cards go to your discard after being completed. Page 20 of the RRG:

  When a treachery card is drawn by an investigator, that investigator
  must resolve its effects. Then, place the card in its discard pile
  unless otherwise instructed by the ability.

Further, on page 7 of the RRG (emphasis mine), pertaining to weaknesses that are enemies and can be defeated:

  if an enemy has damage equal to or higher than its health, it is
  defeated and placed in the encounter discard pile (or in its owner’s
  discard pile if it is a weakness).

Non-enemy weaknesses specifically say on the card what to do with them. For example, Cover Up says:

  When you would discover 1 or more clues at your location: Discard that many clues from Cover Up instead.
  Forced - When the game ends, if there are any clues on Cover Up: You suffer 1 mental trauma.

This means that Cover Up stays on the table (with no clues on it) until the end of the scenario.

In contrast, Daisy's weakness (the Necromonicon), says:

  ...if The Necronomicon has no horror on it, discard it.


Does land count as a colored permanent? If I cast All is Dust, does land count as colored permanents?

Lands are colorless:

  202.2b Objects with no colored mana symbols in their mana costs are colorless.


How often should I bluff in poker? Obviously bluffing is an important element of poker, and bluffing too often, or not often enough will negatively affect your winnings, but is there a rule of thumb for how often you should bluff? For example, if I bluff once or twice an hour, is that too infrequent? If I bluff about once in a button cycle, is that too often? What's the optimum bluff frequency?

EDIT: I found these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluff_(poker)#Optimal_bluffing_frequency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_odds#Bluffing_frequency

  According to David Sklansky, game theory shows that a player should
  bluff a percentage of the time equal to his opponent's pot odds to
  call the bluff. For example, in the final betting round, if the pot is
  $30 and a player is contemplating a $30 bet (which will give his
  opponent 2-to-1 pot odds for the call), the player should bluff half
  as often as he would bet for value (one out of three times).

and

  David Sklansky, in his book The Theory of Poker, states
  "Mathematically, the optimal bluffing strategy is to bluff in such a
  way that the chances against your bluffing are identical to the pot
  odds your opponent is getting."

So, if I generally bet half the pot, I should be bluffing 40% of the time; if I generally bet twice the pot, I should be bluffing 25% of the time. Sounds like a lot to me - how does this sit with everybody's experience?

A rough rule (from economics) is that you should bluff until the money you lose from getting caught approximates the money that you would forego from not bluffing. That is, you should equate the "marginal utilities" of the two activities.

If you "never" get caught, you aren't bluffing enough. That is, you are leaving money on the table with a number of bluffs that you could have "run" but didn't. You SHOULD get caught, partly for "advertising" purposes, and partly so that you "start" to lose money bluffing. Then bluff "a little more" and stop when you lose a little more. If you get caught "too often," you are losing more money than you're making with your last few or "marginal" bluffs.


Can you build the same building more than once in Puerto Rico? Is one player allowed to build the same building more than once in Puerto Rico? If so, do the bonuses stack, so that a player building both Large Markets would get +4 for trading? I wasn't able to find anything in the rulebook that specified this either way. My play group ruled that you can't build the same building multiple times, on the grounds that some of the bonuses seem overpowered if you can double up on them (e.g. Harbor), and other bonuses make no sense if applied more than once (e.g. Construction Hut). Is there any official rule on this?

According to the rules for the online version on BrettspielWelt, "no player may build a building more than once."

And you can confirm this by looking at the official rules from Rio Grande, page 8:

  For all buildings:
  - Each player may build each building only once.


Can you use an ability as you put the card on the stack? If I play Elixir Of Immortality for example, or any card with an ability, when it goes on the stack, can I activate its abilities before my opponent can respond?

And if so, if he counters the card after I use its ability, does the ability trigger?

No, you can’t (normally).

By default, activated abilities on cards can only be activated while the card is on the battlefield. The exceptions are abilities that either specify that they work from another zone, or abilities that don’t make any sense unless activated from another zone, such as abilities that return cards from the graveyard, or have you discard or reveal a card from your hand.

  112.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield. The exceptions are as follows:

The exceptions allow things such as Reassembling Skeleton to work.

Also, be careful not to say “does the ability trigger”, because Elixir of Immortality does not have a triggered ability; it has an activated ability. It will never “trigger”.


Can I turn a manifested God face up? Say I have an empty battlefield and use Cloudform to manifest the top card of my library. The manifested card is Heliod, God of the Sun. Can I turn this card face up for the mana cost if I do not have enough devotion to white for it to be a creature?

The rule of thumb I've been told is "it's a creature everywhere but on the battlefield" which would seem to indicate you can't, but I know this is a simplification of the relevant rules. If this can be done, what makes it possible?

Yes, you can turn it face up.

701.31a To manifest a card, turn it face down. It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost. Put that card onto the battlefield face down. That permanent is a manifested permanent as long as it remains face down. The effect defining its characteristics works while the card is face down and ends when it’s turned face up.
701.31b Any time you have priority, you may turn a manifested permanent you control face up. This is a special action that doesn’t use the stack (see rule 115.2b). To do this, show all players that the card representing that permanent is a creature card and what that card’s mana cost is, pay that cost, then turn the permanent face up. The effect defining its characteristics while it was face down ends, and it regains its normal characteristics. (If the card representing that permanent isn’t a creature card or it doesn’t have a mana cost, it can’t be turned face up this way.)

The type of the card on the battlefield is no secret. It's almost surely going to be a creature. ("It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card [...]"). That means "to show all players that the card represents a creature card" clearly refers to the physical card (rather than the game object), so "represents a creature card" means "would be a creature card if outside of the game".
As such, you only look at its type line, and any characteristic-defining abilities that alter its type (since those function everywhere, including outside of the game).
There's absolutely no chance that Heliod's second ability has any effect because it's an ability that only functions on the battlefield, and the object on the battlefield has no abilities ("It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card with no text, [...]")

Note that you'll lose Clouldform if you turn Heliod face-up without the devotion needed to make it a creature. Clouldform can only legally enchant a creature.

704.5n If an Aura is attached to an illegal object or player, or is not attached to an object or player, that Aura is put into its owner’s graveyard.


Go - How does one count territory in these two scenarios? (9x9) I'm learning to play Go and I was trying to develop a game in java, but I'm still not sure how to count territory in some cases.

  In the scenario below, which side belongs to White, Top or Bottom?

$$W Scenario1
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . |
$$ | X X X X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O O O O O |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | O O O O O . X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . X . . |
$$ --------------------

  Next one, White has the whole board divided in three pieces. Does Black get
  any territory here?

$$W Scenario2
$$ --------------------
$$ | . X X . . O . . . |
$$ | X . X . . O . . . |
$$ | X X X . . O X X X |
$$ | . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | O O O O O O X . . |
$$ | X X X X . O X X X |
$$ | X X X X . O . . . |
$$ | . X . X . O . . . |
$$ --------------------

You've misunderstood the scoring principle. White is, as you explained, diving the board. But that has no impact on scoring by itself. We often say, misleadingly, "divide the board in areas", but we should really say "stake out territory by surrounding it with walls". Only then can you count the score.

It is a bit tricky at first, but once you grasp it, it's very easy and natural.

$$W Scenario1
$$ --------------------
$$ | b b b X . . . . . |
$$ | b b b X . . . . . |
$$ | X X X X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O O O O O |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | O O O O O . X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . X b b |
$$ | . . . . . . X b b |
$$ --------------------

In your first picture, player 2 has surrounded the corners (I've denoted that with 'b'). However, the other area is not yet finished, because it is not completely inside one player's walls. It is wrong to ask which side belongs to white, because nothing belongs to white yet - she did not surround any territory at all yet!

This means that this area is neutral and does not add score for any player. Instead, the players should continue playing and trying to stake out a wall around this area, naturally as large as possible. Let us try that.

$$W Possible result
$$ --------------------
$$ | b b b X b b X O w |
$$ | b b b X b X X O w |
$$ | X X X X X X O w w |
$$ | b b X . O O O O O |
$$ | X X O O O X X X O |
$$ | . O w w O X b X . |
$$ | O O O O O . X X X |
$$ | w w O X X X X b b |
$$ | w w O X b b X b b |
$$ --------------------

This could be a result. You can see that the previously neutral area has been divided, and both players got a certain share. You can see that now, white also has some area for herself (she had nothing before).

You'll also notice that after resolving, there are still some points on the board which are not controlled be either player. Because these points are too small to surround them, it is not needed to include them. Any player could play a stone there to remove them, but he would not gain any points, because he is not surrounding new territory. (I assume you're using Japanese rules, it's a bit different in Chinese rules.)

In your second picture black has 3 solid areas (2 of them are split into eyes). White, similarly as above, has no definite territory at all yet.


Race for the Galaxy vs. San Juan and Puerto Rico I've seen these games compared very often, with steadfast advocates on each side (that thread has a lot of interesting stuff as well). I'm mainly concerned with:

depth of strategy
suitability for new players (length of time to explain, etc.)
overall feel of the game
what situations you'd recommend playing each of them in.
anything else you think should be included in regards to comparing and contrasting them

Puerto Rico vs. San Juan is discussed here. I'm more concerned about how RFTG compares to both of them. If it matters, Puerto Rico is the only one I already have.

RftG, in terms of gameplay, falls fairly in the middle of the two other games.  Similar mechanics of role selection, cards as money, 'big building' cards, victory points, shipping strategy (consume) vs. building.  There's slightly more relevance to role selection in RftG than in San Juan, but not as much as in Puerto Rico.  Seating order doesn't matter as much as in Puerto Rico.  In terms of learning, San Juan is easier to teach because it has a more accessible theme and RftG has an intimidating iconography.

Still, it's a game where it's hard to make real mistakes, just sub-optimal choices, so winning is usually determined by luck, game experience, and familiarity with the cards.

RftG has more luck than Puerto Rico, since it's based on card draws (even though this is mitigating by multiple reshuffles per game).  Still, all these games are 'group solitaire games' at their core.

I'd only suggest RftG to someone with some 'real' board game experience (i.e. not Monopoly or Apples to Apples), AND if they enjoy the space theme.  Rules take about 45 minutes to explain fully, but this can be done, in part during a first practice game.  Strategy isn't as important in RftG as it is in Puerto Rico, as the extra randomness tends towards good tactics being more important.  This is because it's a progressive build game where early decisions affect victory point 'velocity'.  Strategy comes in when you know the cards and can selectively optimize for one or more 'big building' cards, and usually is only relevant fairly late game.


What happens when I summon "Gameciel the Sea Turtle Kaiju" to my opponent's field by tributing their "Prank-Kids Battle Butler"? As many people are aware of, the removal of monsters by tributing them for Kaiju monsters, or "Kaijuing", is a relatively common way of dealing with threatening monsters that are hard to get rid of.

In this situation, Battle Butler has a relatively unique floating effect, however. A line in Prank-Kids Battle Butler's effect reads:

  If this card in your possession is sent to your GY by your opponent's card: You can target 1 non-Fusion Monster in your GY; Special Summon it.

This line is odd, because instead of saying battle or card effect, it just says "card".

When I tribute a Battle Butler to summon Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju (or any other Kaiju), does it's floating effect activate? It has been tributed by a card in my hand, but now that it's summoned to the opponent's field, it's "their card".

As far as I'm aware, there's no specific ruling issued for this sort of interaction yet, but to the best of my knowledge I would say:

No, the effect of Battle Butler will not activate.

So, there's a little bit of a distinction we have to make here to understand why this one works the way it does. It's a bit nuanced.

Gameciel is not sending Battle Butler to the GY in this scenario. The player who summons Gameciel is tributing it as part of a summoning procedure.

This is in important distinction; Gameciel itself is not tributing the card; you, the player are tributing it. Semantically, it's the same reason why the monsters used for a Tribute Summon, or tributed to summon something like Raviel, Lord of Phantasms are not considered to be sent to the GY by the monster they were tributed to summon.


Good Risk strategy suggestion? I'm looking for good Risk strategy suggestions. I tried a couple of things like conquering smaller and easier continents, going for territories which I have a card for but none of this yielded awesome results.

Any help from a guru?
Thanks

HistoryGamerDotCom has a 9 part YouTube tutorial on Risk strategy. To (grossly) simplify the content:

Aim for a non-isolated, not too large continent in the beginning of the game, e.g. South America
Know the chances of winning an attack. Three attackers to two defenders is my preferred ratio, as the chance of victory is high but without wasting resources
Keep an eye on people's risk cards, as this is an indication of when people are going to get a large reinforcement influx. As a general rule with many exceptions, try to delay cashing yours in, as the reinforcement count for cashing in risk cards increases over time. Note in the base game you do not gain anything extra from cashing in the risk card of a country you occupy, but I have seen computer versions that do this
Diplomacy is key! Regularly make pacts so that you won't be ganged up on. Be willing to give a little to get a little, e.g. you might want to under defend one country to keep one player on side
Use your reinforcement move to shore up your weaknesses
Don't try to expand too quickly, and don't feel you need to attack every turn. This may leave you vulnerable to a sweeping counter attack


Does "other" refer to that particular instance or all cards of the same name? For example Chief of the Edge has the ability:

  Other Warrior creatures you control get +1/+0.

So I understand that it would definitely affect Avalanche Tusker. But if I play another Chief of the Edge, do they mutually affect each other, giving each other +1/+0 (and my Tusker +2/+0)?

Other examples where "other" is used in this way include Adaptive Automaton and Armament Master.

"Other creatures you control" means "Creatures you control which are not this object." Chief of the Edge further restricts things by only affecting Warriors.

If the ability did not affect creatures with the same name, it would read something like "Creatures you control not named "Chief of the Edge"..."


How does DeGray's Pilebunker chip work when trashing Gems of size 2+? In Puzzle Strike, the "Pilebunker" chip says:

  Opponents reveal their hands, trash their largest [Gem chip], then you gain that many [1 Gems chip]s.

How does this work when trashing 2-Gem, 3-Gem, or 4-Gem chips?

More specific example: if it's a 2 player game and I play Pilebunker, and my opponent trashes a 4-Gem chip, which do i gain?

1 1-Gem chip, or
4 1-Gem chips?

Edit: As per @lilserf's answer, I had misread the tile completely.  A full list of tiles can be found here. And here is what the chip actually says:

You don't gain anything!

Pilebunker's actual wording is:

  Opponents reveal their hands, trash their largest [Gem chip], then gain that many [1 Gem chip]s.

Note that it's "then gain", not "then you gain" - each opponent gains the 1-Gems.
Pilebunker effectively splits their biggest gem in their hand into 1-gems, diluting their deck.


Why couldn't I win in this situation with ron? I was playing riichi mahjong with the gamedesign.jp Flash game and just before my turn when I would draw the last tile I got into this situation:

At last, it's mine! — I thought and clicked ron expecting to win the game as with the new 7 sou I would have the required 4 melds and a pair:

The two open melds: chii and pon.
Chii: 5 sou, 6 sou, 7 sou.
Chii: 7 sou, 8 sou, 9 sou.
Pair of green dragons.

But instead of winning, this message popped in front of me:

What are multipliers, and why the lack thereof impedes me from calling ron?

Then I tried the other option, chii and selected the tiles I wanted in it, resulting in exactly the same set of melds described above, but with another one of them open.

I expected at this point that I should have win... since I got 4 melds and one pair, and my hand looks like it has 4 melds and a pair, but the game disagrees and expects me to discard something.

Being left with no other option, I click in wathever tile, for instance the 9 sou and the match ends in a draw, with me and left player in tenpai.

What happened? Why couldn't I call ron? I am missing something or is it a bug in the game? And what about using chii instead?

In order to win with ron or tsumo, your hand needs to have a yaku, in addition to having four sets and a pair (except for 7 pairs and 13 orphans hands). You can think of yaku as a specific pattern in the hand or a specific way to complete the hand. For example, tanyao requires that all of your tiles are numbered tiles between 2-8 (inclusive). Dora does not count as yaku.

Not directly related but you might run into this issue sooner or later: another requirement for winning with ron is that you must not be in furiten. There are three types of furiten and they are a bit complicated, so I will let you read about it from your favorite rule guide. Note that furiten never affects your ability to win by tsumo.


Getting Carcassonne expansions 7 and 8 I have so far purchased all major expansions except expansions 7 (Catapult) and 8 (Bazaar), which I have not found anywhere (in any language).

Is the reason I can't find them because they are out of print?

At the moment (Feb 2018), the publisher lists the expansion 7 (Catapult) as not available anymore. So your option would be to find this 2nd hand.

Expansion 8 is available at the publisher's shop.


How are jokers colored in decks with more than two jokers? So, normally you have two jokers, a big joker and a little joker. The big one is sometimes distinguished by being red (or colored). How does it work with decks with 4 or more jokers? Is is supposed to alternate black, red, black, red, or is only one supposed to be red, or should the red thing just be avoided with > 2 jokers and some other scheme used to identify their rank?

There is no common convention for 4 Jokers.

According to Wikipedia

  There are usually two Jokers per deck, often noticeably different. For instance, Bicycle Playing Cards prints their company's guarantee claim on only one. More common traits are the appearance of colored and black/non-colored Jokers.

and other websites, there are normally only two jokers. The qualities of which, including appearance were probably borrowed from the Tarrot trump cards the Magacian/Juggler and (which is red in color, and outranks) the Fool (which is black in color), both of which have the apperance of a court jester.


Can I have more than four non-basic lands with the same name in my deck? Am I allowed to have 5 Bottomless Vaults in my deck?

No, the maximum allowed number of copies for each card is four. The only exceptions are basic lands (Forest, Snow-covered Forest) and cards which specifically mention they're exceptions (like Relentless Rats).

  100.2a In constructed play (a way of playing in which each player creates their own deck ahead of time), each deck must contain at least sixty cards. A constructed deck may contain any number of basic land cards and no more than four of any card with a particular English name other than basic land cards.

(from the Comprehensive Rules)

So in the rare case that you're playing a Fifth Edition draft (that's a Limited format) and manage to draft five Bottomless Vaults, then it would be allowed.


Identify this peg game? I'm looking for help with identifying this game. The pegs are lost but can be replaced. I can't find the directions or anything on the internet in shopping or otherwise.

The board sort of looks like tic-tac-toe with lines between connected holes, but it also has the seven peg holes on each side. There is also a reservoir cup for loose pegs or maybe dice.

I'd guess it to be a tic-tac-toe variant in which you can (re)move pieces. Players play normally with seven pegs, but three in a row or some other pattern allow you to capture an opponent's piece which goes into the hole.  Player with most pegs on board wins.

Couldn't find anything exactly like this at BGG.
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/16886/games-played-3x3-grid


Citadels: Does the crown switch hands if the king is killed? In Citadels, Ann has the crown and Bill chooses the king. The assassin kills the king. Who keeps the crown at the end of the turn?

The crown goes to the player that chose the King role card at the end of the round.
Fantasy Flight Rule book (page 14).

4) King
... If you are murdered, you skip your turn like any other character. Nevertheless, after the last player has played his turn, when it becomes known that you had the murdered King’s character card, you take the Crown (as the King’s heir).


What are the odds in Scrabble of not being able to make a legal move on opening turn I've been playing the game for 50 years and this happened to me recently:
I had the following rack
PBQZJDH

And so I could not  play a legal move.
I've been trying to work out the odds of this (no legal word on the first turn) happening.

(NOTE : Final revision of my original answer)
The odds of the first tileset not having a single valid word is exactly 91,595,416 / 16,007,560,800 or .5722%, with it occuring once every 174.76378 games.  This value is calculated by using the dictionary found in this answer, but can be adapted for any other dictionary.

This was brute-forced via python.  Code will be available at the end of the answer.

We start by noticing that any tileset that contains at least one blank tile can play a valid word.  The only letter that does not form a two letter word is the letter "V", and there are only 2 "V" tiles in a scrabble game.  Therefore, any tileset with one blank can form a valid word, because (?VV....) must contain 4 more letters, one of which will combine with the "?" to form a valid word.
We also discovered, after the fact, that all possible tilesets that contain the letter "O" are also, in fact, valid.  The only 6 tile tileset that contains "O" and cannot form a word is "OCCVVQ" and any other letter will form a word. "A" is the only other letter that doesn't form a two letter word with "O" but "AVO" and "OCA" are both valid words, and you can't include more than one O or one A or else you can form "AA" or "OO".
These observations remove 53.32% of all possible tilesets, and allows us to perform the rest of our calculations using a 90-tile scrabble set that has no blanks and no Os in it.
We then remove from the dictionary all words that satisfy one of the following criteria

Word is longer than 7 letters long (can't spell an 8 letter word on the first turn)
A subset of the tiles required to form that word can also make another word (we're just looking to see if we can form a valid word, therefore there is no reason to check to see if a tileset can form the word "AND" when "AN" is a perfectly valid word as well)
Word requires at least one blank tile to solve (any tileset with a blank is valid, therefore no reason to examine these words).  These are the words FUFF (3rd F), JUJU (2nd J), KECK and KUKU (2nd K), SYZYGY (3rd Y), ZIZ, ZUZ, and ZZZ (2nd/3rd Z).
Word requires an O to solve.  All O tilesets are valid and we've removed them from the bag.

By applying these three rules, we can reduce the scrabble dictionary down to 149 words out of the original 280k~.

AA
AB
AD
AE
AG
AH
AI
AL
AM
AN
AR
AS
AT
AW
AX
AY
BE
BI
BRR
BUB
BUD
BULK
BULL
BY
CH
CIRRI
CIVIC
CLY
CRY
CUB
CUD
CUE
CUFF
CULL
CUZ
CWM
DE
DI
DRY
DUD
EE
EF
EGG
EH
EL
EM
EN
ER
ES
ET
EUK
EW
EX
FA
FLU
FUB
FUCK
FUD
FY
GHYLL
GI
GRR
GU
GYP
HI
HM
HYP
ICE
ICY
IF
IN
IS
IT
IVY
IWI
JA
JEU
JIZ
JUD
JUKU
KA
KEG
KI
KUDU
KUZU
KY
LI
LUCK
LUD
LULL
LUV
LUZ
MI
MM
MU
MY
NTH
NU
NY
PA
PE
PFFT
PHT
PI
PLY
PRY
PWN
PYX
QI
QUA
RHY
RIZ
SH
SLY
SPY
ST
SWY
THY
TRY
TWP
TYG
TYPP
TYPY
UH
ULU
UP
UR
US
UT
UVA
VAC
VAV
VEG
VIE
VLY
WHY
WIZ
WRY
WUD
WULL
WUZ
XI
XU
XYLYL
YE
YIRR
YU
ZA
ZE
ZO

At this point, we are going to brute force the number of invalid tilesets to get the numerator.  We do this by examining tilesets that are in alphabetical order, but do not care if it's unique.  For example, we will examine (A1A2BCDEF) and (A1A3BCDEF) but not (A2A1BCDEF), where A1, A2, and A3 refer to distinct A tiles in the bag.
The first tileset examined is (A1A2A3A4A5A6A7), followed by (A1A2A3A4A5A6A8), then (A1A2A3A4A5A6A9), and then finally (A1A2A3A4A5A6B1).  We continue down that path in the way that only a computer can do to determine every single alphabetized combination.
(Note that in the final version of my code, we change the definition of "alphabetical order" in order to get a speed improvement, but the final solution is the same.  Also, for speed reasons, we would never actually examine (AA.....) because "AA" is a valid word, so we would skip all tilesets of the form (AA.....))
After running through all the tilesets, we end with a final count of 91,595,416 tilesets.  This is our numerator, and the denominator is very easily calculated

100! / ((100-7)! * 7!) = 16,007,560,800

This is the calculation for finding the number of combinations possible, without replacement, and not caring about order (which we don't because otherwise this problem would be an few orders of magnitude harder to brute force.

I'm going to be putting some interesting notes down here as I play around with the program.

There is exactly 1 distinct tileset that has an "A" in it and is still invalid.  This tileset is "ACCUUUU".  The proof is left as an exercise for the reader.
Of the 91,595,416 invalid tilesets found, there are only 22,308 that contain exclusively vowels.  This is a much smaller number than I originally thought, but from reading the valid word list it makes sense.  As previously discussed, A only has the invalid tileset "ACCUUUU" and all O tilesets are valid.  Combined with the fact that "EE" is also a valid word, all vowel only tilesets without a valid word have to be of the form "EI...U..." or "I...U...".
Tilesets with a mix of vowels and consanants takes up a slightly larger amount of invalid tilesets, at 106,201 possible combinations.
Shocking no one, the vast majority of invalid tilesets are consonant only tilesets.  Of the 91,595,416 invalid tilesets, 91,466,907 of them are consonant only sets, which makes up 99.86% of all invalid tilesets.
Once the dictionary is purged of words that contains the letters [AEIOUY] there are only 13 words that can still be formed.  These 13 words can be, in turn, checked by looking at the letters [HPMRS].  This means that any tileset that contains nothing but the letters [BCDFGJKLNQTVWXZ] is invalid.  This comprises 15 of the 26 letters and 38 of the tiles in the bag.  Tilesets that contain only these letters comprise roughly 12% of all invalid tilesets.

Code, if anyone wants to run it for themselves (WARNING: slow, running on a beefy computer it still about a half hour to spit out an answer)
words = []

words_in_dictionary = 0
words_short_enough = 0

def is_all_c(arr1):
   for c in arr1:
      if c in ['A','E','I','O','U']:
         return False
   return True

def is_all_v(arr1):
   for v in arr1:
      if v in ['B','C','D','F','G','H','J','K','L','M','N','P','Q','R','S','T','V','W','X','Y','Z']:
         return False
   return True

#basic function to check if an array, arr1, is fully within a second array, arr2
def i_in_j(arr1, arr2):
   for a in arr1:
      if a in arr2:
         arr2.remove(a)
      else:
         return False
   return True

#basic function to check to see if word can be made from the tileset passed in
def is_valid_tileset(tileset):
   for word in words:
      if i_in_j(word["sorted"][:], tileset[:]):
         return word["base"]
   return None

# we have a big dictionary, 270k-ish words long, we need to load it
print("loading dictionary")
with open("dictionary.txt", "r") as dictfile:
   for line in dictfile:
      words_in_dictionary = words_in_dictionary + 1
      base_word = line.strip()

      #we are going to parse out the words longer than 7 letters now because it's quicker
      #we are also going to get rid of words with "O" in it
      if len(base_word) <= 7:
         if not "O" in base_word:
            words_short_enough = words_short_enough + 1
            word = {"base": base_word, "sorted": sorted(base_word)}
            words.append(word)

print("total words in dictionary is " + str(words_in_dictionary))
print("words 7 letters or shorter is " + str(words_short_enough))

# now we need to build our dictionary of unique words
# any word where a subset of the letters in that word can be used to build another word will be discarded
# for example, "AND" will be discarded because we can make "AN" out of that word
i = 0
while i < len(words):
   temp_sorted_working_word = words[i]["sorted"]

   j = 0
   while j < len(words):
      if i == j:
         j = j + 1
         continue

      if i_in_j(words[i]["sorted"][:], words[j]["sorted"][:]):
         del words[j]
         if i > j:
            i = i - 1
            j = j - 1
         elif j > i:
            j = j - 1

      j = j + 1
   i = i + 1

# there are also 8 words from this list that cannot be built without blanks, and we know that any tileset
# with at least one blank is valid
i = 0
while i < len(words):
   if words[i]["base"] in ["FUFF", "JUJU", "KECK", "KUKU", "SYZYGY", "ZIZ", "ZUZ", "ZZZ"]:
      del words[i]
   else:
      i = i + 1

print("unique minimilized word combinations is " + str(len(words)))

# this is an array of all tiles in scrabble, minus the blanks (since we don't care about them)
# because we're pruning words from the dictionary, we've rearranged the letters to try and remove as many
# words as possible as quickly as possible, to make lookups run faster, this means that the vowels and
# R,S,T,L,N have been moved up the list, it doesn't really impact anything, as alphabetical order is arbitary
# and nothing from this point forward depends on us having a sorted list
letters = ['A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'Y', 'Y', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'H', 'H', 'P', 'P', 'M', 'M', 'R', 'R', 'R', 'R', 'R', 'R', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'W', 'W', 'C', 'C', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'S', 'S', 'S', 'S', 'B', 'B', 'F', 'F', 'G', 'G', 'G', 'L', 'L', 'L', 'L', 'D', 'D', 'D', 'D', 'J', 'K', 'Q', 'V', 'V', 'X', 'Z']

invalid_tilesets = 0

for a in range(0, 84):
   # if we've finished using a letter in the tileset, we're gonna remove the words in the condensed dictionary
   # that utilize those letters, this is more of a speed thing than anything else because those dictionary lookups
   # are expensive
   if a > 0 and letters[a-1] != letters[a]:
      i = 0
      while i < len(words):
         if i_in_j([letters[a-1]], words[i]["sorted"]):
            del words[i]
         else:
            i = i + 1

   print("invalid_tilesets = " + str(invalid_tilesets) + " | new_first_letter = " + letters[a] + " | words in dictionary = " + str(len(words)))

   for b in range(a+1, 85):
      if not is_valid_tileset([letters[a], letters[b]]):
         for c in range(b+1, 86):
            if not is_valid_tileset([letters[a], letters[b], letters[c]]):
               for d in range(c+1, 87):
                  if not is_valid_tileset([letters[a], letters[b], letters[c], letters[d]]):
                     for e in range(d+1, 88):
                        if not is_valid_tileset([letters[a], letters[b], letters[c], letters[d], letters[e]]):
                           for f in range(e+1, 89):
                              if not is_valid_tileset([letters[a], letters[b], letters[c], letters[d], letters[e], letters[f]]):
                                 for g in range(f+1, 90):
                                    if not is_valid_tileset([letters[a], letters[b], letters[c], letters[d], letters[e], letters[f], letters[g]]):
                                       invalid_tilesets += 1

                                       if invalid_tilesets % 10000 == 0:
                                          print("invalid_tilesets = " + str(invalid_tilesets) + " | " + str([letters[a], letters[b], letters[c], letters[d], letters[e], letters[f], letters[g]]) + " | " + str([a,b,c,d,e,f,g]))

print("invalid_tilesets = " + str(invalid_tilesets))


Opening bidder steals my bid What do I bid when the opening bidder bids my bid?
E.g. bids 1NT and that is what I want to bid and I don't have a 5 card suit.

There are several common situations with different handlings:

Opener to your right bids your best suit and you have 12+ points:
Pass and hope partner can make a balancing double, which you can then convert to penalty by passing. Update The rationale in this case is that opponents, if partner is bust or close to it, actually have sufficient strength to bid game and perhaps make it. Let them discover for themselves that the breaks are bad and that you are end-playable, hopefully too late to salvage a plus.

Opener to your right opens a weak 1NT and you have the same hand:
Pass; unless partner can act in the balancing seat you are more likely to be plus by defending 1NT then by attempting to make a higher contract.

Opener to your right opens a strong NT and you have the same hand:
It is common to double with this hand though many experts prefer to Pass as above. It is not clear to me that either approach is better in the long term than the other. The increased points held by you and opener make it much less likely that partner can reopen, but you may be able to make 8 tricks in partner's longest suit even when he has only 5 or 6 points.

Opener to your left opens your best suit, you have 10+ points, and you are put in the balancing seat:
Partner with likely shortness in opener's suit could not act, and so is weak. Either the opponents have underbid, or they are in trouble; either way you are best to let the auction die. The hand is either a misfit for both sides or opponents have failed to find their fit.

Opener to your left opens 1NT (either weak or strong) and you have the same shape and announced range:
Pass, especially if you have methods allowing entry over a 1NT opening to show various unbalanced intermediate hands. Nobody is getting rich on this hand, except by doubling over-aggressive opponents. Take your Average Plus result.

The fastest way to improve your scores is to become a better defender - by practicing your hand counting, your leads, your defensive signalling, and finally by practice. There is often much room for error by both defenders an declarer on these balanced low part scores. Taking one trick more on defence than your peers will often get you a very good score. Enjoy the opportunity of practicing your honed skills.
If the opponents are halfways decent they will declare as often as you and your partner, so you will be defending twice as often as you declare. Repeat that thought; again. Practice your defence, and practice your defence again. Any delusion that you can win at this game through constant sacrificing against their contracts is just that - a delusion.


In MTG, can you counter a spell that requires cards to be revealed after they are revealed? My friend and I had a very long (and incredibly close) Commander duel last night which I barely won, and one of many crucial moments hinged on a counterspell I used.

My friend and I both are basically out of creatures.  They cast Jarad's Orders, and search their library for two creatures.  They decide on Sheoldred, Whispering One and another creature, and want Sheoldred to enter the battlefield, so they can retrieve the other later.  I have plenty of swamps, so obviously I am displeased with this.  In response, I cast Countersquall  after they have chosen the creatures, revealed them, and decided where they were going.

Was this incorrect?  Was it too late at that point for me to do something about it?  Because honestly, were it not for that counter, I might very well have lost.  I got wrecked in the previous two matches we had so I don't feel too bad, but I want to be upfront with them.

Thank you for any help.

This was incorrect. When a player casts a spell, it goes on the stack, and then each player has a chance to respond to it by casting other things, such as Countersquall, before the spell resolves.

When both players pass, then the top spell of the stack resolves, which is when you follow the instructions on the card*. So by the time your opponent was searching for cards, you would have had to already passed and chosen not to respond to or counter Jarad's Orders.

*To add some details for full accuracy: There are some instructions on cards that come into play before a card resolves. Especially:

Additional or alternate costs - Some cards have additional costs for casting;  in the case of Draconic Roar, your opponent would reveal the card as part of casting the spell, before it resolves. This is because it's part of the cost.
Targets - You choose all targets for a spell as part of the casting process. So if your opponent casts a Lightning Bolt, you will know what he is trying to do damage to before you decide if you want to counter it or not. But note that the cards found with Jarad's Orders were not targets, because the card doesn't use the word "target".
Modes - For cards that have multiple options of how they can be used, this choice is made while casting the spell. See Healing Salve.


Revealing a card in Harry Potter Hogwart's Battle A dark arts event and villain abilities will have a player "reveal the top card and if value is X discard and [something else bad happens]".  What happens with the card if the outcome is NOT discarding, ie. the value is less than X?

We have been playing that it goes into the player's hand.

From what I understand, it just goes back on the top of your deck and you'll just know at least one of the cards you get on your next turn.

From boardgamegeek

  Musketeer84 wrote:

  If you don't need to discard a card, would the card sit at the top of the deck or move into your hand for the start of next turn?

  The standard interpretation of "reveal" in most deck games is that the card stays in its location, in this case on the top of your deck, unless an instruction says otherwise. The only purpose of a reveal is to make a hidden card public knowledge.