Can I include a card in my EDH deck that mentions another color? Is it possible to run a Repentant Vampire in a Grixis (Red Blue Black) Commander deck? I don't see anything in the official rulings, and the card doesn't have a white mana symbol on it. I'm leaning towards yes, as I see mono black decks running it, but the double faced card ruling makes me wonder.

It looks like it should be identified with just black:

903.4  ... The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204).
604.3. Some static abilities are characteristic-defining abilities. A characteristic-defining ability conveys information about an object’s characteristics that would normally be found elsewhere on that object (such as in its mana cost, type line, or power/toughness box) or overrides information found elsewhere on that object. Characteristic-defining abilities function in all zones. They also function outside the game.
604.3a A static ability is a characteristic-defining ability if it meets the following criteria:
(1) It defines an object’s colors, subtypes, power, or toughness;
(2) it is printed on the card it affects, it was granted to the token it affects by the effect that created the token, or it was acquired by the object it affects as the result of a copy effect or text-changing effect;
(3) it does not directly affect the characteristics of any other objects;
(4) it is not an ability that an object grants to itself; and
(5) it does not set the values of such characteristics only if certain conditions are met.

The last clause (5) indicates that since the color change is conditional, it is not a characteristic-defining ability, and hence is not part of the color identity.


How many Conspiracy Cards are allowed in a deck Can anyone tell me how many Conspiracy Cards are allowed in a single deck.

I am planning on using 3 of them in one game is that allowed, or is it only one per game.

Adriana's Valor

The rules for conspiracy cards are listed in section 313 of the comprehensive rules. Two of the relevant rules from that section are

  313.1. Conspiracy cards are used only in limited play, particularly in the Conspiracy Draft variant (see rule 905). Conspiracy cards aren’t used in constructed play.
  313.2. At the start of a game, before decks are shuffled, each player may put any number of conspiracy cards from his or her sideboard into the command zone. Conspiracy cards with hidden agenda are put into the command zone face down. (See rule 702.105, “Hidden Agenda.”)

So you can have any number, but only in a limited format like draft or sealed. Outside of a format like that, you shouldn't use conspiracies at all.


Does Skyward Eye Prophets get an extra use of its ability because it has vigilance? So I was playing some commander with a friend and lent him my Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck, which had Skyward Eye Prophets in it which basically taps to do a Coiling Oracle. He claimed that somehow because Skyward Eye Prophets has vigilance, he can cheat out an extra use with it while attacking, and I don't really understand how this works. Could someone please explain it?

I'm not sure if i'm just misunderstanding the vigilance keyword ability in general, but my understanding is the creature just doesn't tap when it attacks. I don't really think what he was doing works but he's much more experienced than me so I'm not really sure.

Your friend is either playing incorrectly or explaining things poorly. Something sounds seriously muddled up. I'm going to explain how things could legally happen here, then explain the mistakes that could be getting made.

Also, you're right: vigilance simply means "attacking doesn't cause this creature to tap." It doesn't do any untapping, it simply makes declaring an attacker not tap it in the first place.

The Combat Phase

As a quick reminder, let's go through how the combat phase works:

  Beginning of Combat Step. "At the beginning of combat" abilities trigger, then players have a chance to cast spells and activate abilities.
  Declare Attackers Step.

  The attacking player chooses any number of creatures they control that they wish to declare as attackers. Those creatures must be untapped at this point — you can't attack with a tapped creature. They choose which player or planeswalker those creatures are attacking, then tap all their declared attackers except the ones with vigilance.
  Any triggered abilities just triggered go on the stack (e.g. Territorial Hammerskull) then players can cast spells and activate abilities.

  Declare Blockers Step.

  The defending player(s) choose any number of untapped creatures to declare as blockers (including none), then assign them legally as blockers to specific attackers.
  Any triggered abilities just triggered go on the stack (e.g. Pride Guardian) then players can cast spells and activate abilities.

  Combat Damage Step. Players say how damage will be assigned, then all of it is assigned simultaneously. Then we do triggered abilities again (e.g. Daring Saboteur) and players can cast spells and activate abilities again.
  End of Combat Step. One last chance to cast spells and activate abilities before it stops being combat and creatures stop counting as attacking/blocking (e.g. Divine Verdict).

How this can legally happen

Let's call your friend Sam, and Skyward Eye Prophets just "SEP".

Sam has Derevi out on the battlefield already.
Declare attackers step: Sam attacks with SEP.
Declare blockers step: The defender cannot or does not block SEP.
During that step, Sam knows they're in the clear. Sam taps SEP for its ability and resolves it.
Combat damage step:

SEP deals combat damage.
Derevi's triggered ability lets Sam choose to untap SEP. Sam does so.
Sam uses SEP's ability again, tapping it.

You can see none of that involves "cheating out an extra use while attacking" exactly, and none of it has much to do with Vigilance (other than Vigilance didn't make Sam tap SEP as an attacker). Sam just entirely normally gets an extra use out of dealing combat damage if they choose to untap SEP.

In fact, Sam could get lots of uses out of SEP at that stage: for each creature of theirs that deals Combat Damage whilst Derevi is out, they can choose to untap SEP, and activate its ability each time. (Understanding how that works would require a good understanding of the stack & priority. If you're not familiar with those concepts, I recommend reading this answer, which helped me understand them when I was new.)

But none of those are "cheating out an extra use while attacking".

The mistakes that could be being made here

Your friend could be doing things 100% by the rules, just explaining things poorly.

Your friend could also be mistaken about how the rules work. If so, you and/or your friend could be thinking a combination of any/all of these.

✘ Incorrect: Vigilance causes a creature to untap.

✔ Correct: Vigilance just causes it to not tap as attackers are declared, as we covered earlier.

✘ Incorrect: Tapped creatures can be declared as attackers (which then untaps them if they have Vigilance).

✔ Correct: Only untapped creatures can be chosen as attackers during the Declare Attackers step.

✘ Incorrect: If you attack with a creature (and tap it), all of its abilities with a {T} (tap symbol) in the cost are also activated simultaneously.

✔ Correct: Doesn't happen. You usually have to choose between "tap for that ability" or "tap as an attacker" during your turn. Part of the beauty of a creature with Vigilance and a tap ability (such as SEP, or Vona, Butcher of Magan) is you can attack with it and then also use its {T} ability.
Some creatures (like Frenzied Goblin) have a triggered ability of the format: "When (this creature) attacks, you may pay (cost). If you do, (stuff happens)." These you can use as a part of attacking, because it's just a triggered ability (see step 2.2 above) and you can pay that cost to have the stuff happen.

✘ Incorrect: You can pay two costs with the same payment. If I'm tapping a creature to attack, I can also use that tapping to pay a cost of {T}! Also, I can activate the abilities of both Fathom Fleet Firebrand and Frontline Devastator with the same 2 mana: I am paying 2 mana, therefore I activate all abilities that involve paying 2 mana.

✔ Correct: You cannot pay two costs with the same payment. You choose one thing to do, then pay the cost for that one thing. Then you may choose other things to do, and pay those costs. But all the costs are paid separately to each thing. (Much like you cannot buy a $5 lunch from ten different shops with the same $5 bill.)

✘ Incorrect: Damage happens instantly as soon as I declare an attacker.

✔ Correct: There's a Combat Phase process to follow, and attackers don't deal their damage until near the end of that process.

In general, also bear in mind M:tG is a game with strict steps we move through one after the other: turn structure occurs in specific steps, so do the concepts of the stack and priority. We can't go wibbly-wobbly with the steps without breaking the rules, and those steps keep things pretty orderly.

When in doubt about something complex somebody's doing, ask them to explain about the sequence of events that allow them to do it, and make sure it makes sense to you at each step and that it isn't breaking any game rules. There's been several times someone's tried to do something that didn't seem right, and through asking for that explanation, I either learned how it worked, or we spotted that some part of the sequence meant they couldn't actually do that thing they were trying to do. (Not out of cheating, mind — this is a complex game sometimes, and when it does get complex we can all do with a hand keeping things working right.)


Yu-Gi-Oh!: Metaion the timelord vs Evilswarm Obliviwisp Metaion the timelord attacks Evilswarm Obliviwisp, nothing else in the field.

Q1- Does Evilswarm is returned to hand?

Q2- Is Metaion effect negated?

Q3- Is Metaion destroyed as result of battle?

Q4- Is Metaion's player loses LP?

Can you explain the order of effects?

Just posting to expand upon L_Church's answer.

Question 1: No, Obliviwisp will not be returned to the hand.

Let's look at the way Obliviwisp's effect is written:

  After damage calculation, if this card battles a monster: Negate the effects of that monster (including in the Graveyard).

As this is an activated effect, and does not specify any window of time during which it applies, the effect applied is permanent. I.e, Metaion's effects are negated for the rest of the time it stays face up on the field, neglecting outside circumstances - and obviously this includes "At the end of the Battle Phase".

Question 2: Yes, Metaion's effects are negated.

Note that Metaion can still activate its effects, just not apply them.

Question 3: No, Metaion is not destroyed as a result of battle.

The important part to look at in Obliviwisp's effect here is "After damage calculation". During damage calculation, not only is the damage calculated and inflicted as necessary, but monsters are also "marked" for destruction (they haven't been destroyed yet at this point, but it is determined that they will be). Because Obliviwisp's effect does not activate until after this set of steps, the window of time in which Metaion could have been destroyed by that battle is missed.

Question 4: No, Metaion's controller will not take damage from that battle.

For the same reason as in Question 3, Metaion's effect is not yet negated at the point where damage would be inflicted. Therefore, damage is not inflicted for that battle. Note that in subsequent battles, since Metaion's effects will have been negated by Obliviwisp, it would be destroyed, and damage would be inflicted.


Is the dealer's hand considered soft if he hits himself with an ace? In Blackjack, is the dealer's hand considered soft if he hits himself with an ace after dealing himself a hand which did not initially have an ace?

To clarify alternatively, is it only soft if his initial hand has an ace or is it always soft so long as he acquires an ace at any point in time (other than blackjack of course)?

According to this site:

  Any blackjack hand that contains an ace counted as an 11 is a soft hand.

So it does not matter when the ace entered the hand.


Playing spirit ghouls in decline Consider a scenario:

Round 1: I play spirit ghouls and dispatch them somewhere on the map.
Round 2: I make ghouls in decline.
Round 3: I choose the other race (X) and play them according to the rules.
Round 4: I make the race X in decline.
Round 5: I choose another race (Y) and play them.

Considering that:

I can play ghouls actively while they are in decline
I can have two races in decline thanks to spirit property
My spirit race are ghouls making them undead, as I always kill the other race in decline
None of my races (either X or Y) are stout

Questions:

What happens during the round 2? Can I play my ghouls actively when I'm making them in decline? As the rules say that I can do either one or the other I expect the answer would be negative.
What happens if during the round 2 one of my opponent would successfully attack the group of 4 ghouls occupying one of regions, killing one of them and making 3 others coming back to my pool of active troops? Can I dispatch them during the round 3?
The most interesting one: considering my ghouls are spirit and they just won't die, can I play them actively during the round 4? The situation is a bit different than in a question 1 as the rules say that I should play my ghouls before playing the active race so technically I could play them even if during the round 4 I would be wiping them out of the map, while making the race X in decline. However, in this case I won't as because they are spirit they would prevail, which makes the case even more complex.

(1) You are correct - if you Decline your active race, that's all you do in that turn.  There's no window of opportunity for conquering at all.

(2) I believe Declined Ghouls operate as a special case: normally only one token of a Declined race stays in a region, so it's very obvious what happens when that region is conquered (the token is obliterated).  Declined Ghouls however have all the characteristics of an active race, so I'd say that, as long as you still have Ghoul-occupied territories on the map, you can redeploy them in just the same way as you would your active race.

(3) A Spirit race never leaves the map, even when in Decline; Ghouls can still carry out conquests even while in Decline.  I don't any real contradictions going on here: as long as your Spirit Ghouls stay on the map, and it may be a very long time, they can still conquer territories and generally behave much like an active race.  Note however that you can't do some Conquering with your Spirit Ghouls and also put another race into Decline in the same turn.  It's one or the other out of Conquering or Declining on any given turn, that really is the golden rule! (unless the active race you choose to put into decline has the "Stout" power - In this case you could use both the Spirit Ghouls as well as your active race to attack, and after scoring still be able to put the active "Stout" race into decline, therefore reaping the benefits of both special powers)


How many iterations of the legend rule have there been? I remember hearing LSV talk about how back in Urza's block people would play Crop Rotation to tutor for a Tolarian Academy just so that with the old legend rule, your opponent could not play the legendary land.

That made me wonder how many versions of the legend rule have there been, and how has it changed over the years?

There have been three versions of the Legend rule.

From Legends to Champions of Kamigawa (1994–2004)

We had the rule you described: only one of a given Legend card could be in play. If any newer copies entered, they were immediately removed. Here's what the rule said in 2002:

  420.5e If two or more Legends or legendary permanents with the same name are in play, all except the one that has been a Legend or legendary permanent with that name the longest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called “the Legend rule.” In the event of a tie, each Legend or legendary permanent with the same name is put into its owner’s graveyard.
   (If two permanents have the same name but only one is a Legend or is legendary, this rule doesn’t apply.)

During this period there was both a Legend creature type and a Legendary supertype: creatures were Legends (the creature type) and other card types were Legendary (the supertype).

Legends to Ice Age (1994–1995): Legends initially also Restricted

Initially all Legends were also on the Restricted list, a deckbuilding restriction which meant you could only have one of a given legendary card in your entire deck. WotC did this for flavour reasons and to keep things simple, since you could only play one of them anyway. This change was lifted pretty soon in Ice Age; Mark Rosewater says it created trouble for R&D.

From Champions of Kamigawa until Magic 2014 (2004–2013)

The second version of the Legend rule was introduced for Kamigawa block in September 2004:

  420.5e If two or more permanents with the same name have the supertype legendary, all are put into their owners' graveyards. This is called the "legend rule." If only one of those permanents is legendary, this rule doesn't apply.

Note that unlike today, we don't reduce down to one copy — nobody gets a copy of the Legendary card. This change turned Phantasmal Image into an incredibly popular spell for removal: play it as a copy of any Legendary creature, and both head to the graveyard for just {1}{U}. This worked even if the target was indestructible because it wasn't destruction: it was just "put them into the graveyard."

With this change, the "Legend" creature type went away and just got absorbed into the "Legendary" supertype.

Magic 2014 onwards (2013–today)

The Magic 2014 Core Set Rules Preview article announced the new Legend rule we still have today:

  Let's dive in, shall we? The "legend rule," rule 704.5k for those of you following along at home, is changing. Under the current rules, any time two or more legendary permanents with the same name were on the battlefield, they would all be put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action. Under the new rules, any time two or more legendary permanents with the same name are controlled by a player, that player chooses one of them and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action.

This segregated the players' boards such that each had their own set of unique Legendaries available to them, and one person playing a Legendary card wouldn't make all the other players' copies disappear.

The actual rules text at current is:

  704.5j If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

Related: Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule (2007–2017)

Until 2017, there was a separate rule for Planeswalker uniqueness: you couldn't have two or more planeswalkers that shared a Planeswalker type: no two Jace planeswalkers, regardless of their name. (This is the type found in their type line, e.g. Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh's planeswalker type is Bolas.) Before 2013, this looked at the whole board (no two players could have a Jace out); the Magic 2014 update (enacted in 2013) also segregated the boards so that two players could have Jace out — but not two Jaces.

With the release of Ixalan's rules updates in 2017, the Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule went away, and planeswalkers became Legendary instead. You could have one of each Jace, but not two of the same Jace. (Except for Jace, Cunning Castaway due to the nature of his ultimate.)


How many Development cards can a player play on their turn? Is there a limit to the number of development cards one can play on their turn?

According to the Catan rules, you can only play one (1) development card on your turn.

  You may build roads, settlements or cities and/or buy development
  cards. You may also play one development card at any time during your
  turn.

Catan Rules


Pandemic 2012 or 2013 I can't understand what is the difference between the Pandemic 2012 and 2013!
And do 2012 awards winning edition compatible with the expansions, or have a misprint issue?.

The second edition came out in 2013, the first edition in 2008. There is no 2012 edition. If you see it anywhere, then it's probably a typo.

There are differences between the 2008 and 2013 editions—for that, see What are the differences between Pandemic and Pandemic 2013? .


Can monsters steal items and omens If a monster beats a hero in a battle with more than 2 physical damage, can they steal some of their items/omens? And what will the monster do with them, if they can do that, can they use them normally?

No, unless the specific haunt says otherwise, monsters can never carry items.

From the rulebook (first edition quote; though this did not change between editions):

  Monsters can’t carry items (unless the haunt says
  otherwise).


Where can I find the rules for "Deer Hunters Challenge"? I recently bought a copy of "Deer Hunters Challenge" at a rummage sale. While it looks like all the pieces are there, no instructions were included with the game.

Several Google searches with various terms such as "Deer Hunters Challenge board game rules" and "instructions deer hunters challenge board game" yielded only a small number of online sales of the game and similarly themed games.

I found several sites for board game rules by searching "board game rules" but none of them turned up results for this obscure game.

Where can I find the rules for this game?

To aid in identification, given the similarly themed and named games, here is part of the top of the box including the name and the maker:

I found the game for sale on a site called cauf.com that says

  Since we are located within the heart of Ohio’s Amish community, we have access to some of the most amazing and high quality products directly from the manufacturer, saving you money.

And there is a Six Mills Game Company in Ohio, or at least there used to be. Sites that list business information aren't always good at staying up to date. But since the game is still for sale, it seems like a good bet.

  Six Mills Game Co, 8076 State Route 241, Millersburg, Ohio 44654
  (330) 674-2541

You can try contacting them for the rules. And maybe the company name/location is just coincidence, because I couldn't find anything else about them.  Good luck!


In Seafarers of Catan, are there any special rules for ships or harbors in lakes? We just played our first Seafarer's scenario (New World random setup) that contained a lake - a water hex surrounded by 6 land hexes. Our Seafarer rules booklet (1999) did not discuss any special rules that apply to lakes. Questions I had were:

Can ships be relocated from lakes to oceans and from oceans to
lakes?
Can harbors be placed in lakes during the setup phase?

We assumed yes for the game we played but I'm wondering if that's right. In real life having a boat in a lake (that doesn't connect to an ocean via a river) does not facilitate trade or free movement of ships between oceans and the lake.

Does anyone know if there are any official errata covering this situation? If not, are there any unofficial rules about lakes that have been adopted by a large fraction of Settlers/Seafarers players?

From Combination of “The Fishermen of Catan” with “Seafarers” Scenarios

  If you include the lake, it should always be completely surrounded by
  land hexes. You must  not build ships at the lake. (Of course, if you
  use the lake as a coastal hex anyway, you may  also build ships on the
  sides facing the ocean.)

I suggest this ruling would also apply to the scenario that you described above.


Cast high-mana creatures quickly in Amonkhet Standard I'm looking for a Standard-legal version of the Dark Ritual + Entomb + Exhume combo. Basically, trying to get a 7 or 8 mana creature onto the board by turn 3 without casting it. There are lots of great alternatives in Legacy/Vintage, but so far I have not come up with anything for standard. This does NOT have to be Ahmonket, anything in standard will do. Also, by 'casting' I simply mean getting the fatty onto the BF, not necessarily concerned with anything else.

Fastest I can get is turn 3.

T1: Mountain,  Bloodlust Inciter

T2: Forest, mana dork (e.g. Servant of the Conduit)

T3: Forest, Champion of Rhonas (give haste from Inciter)

Alternate:

T1: Forest, Loam Dryad

T2: Island, Thriving Turtle, Aether Theorist (off first Dryad) (or anything that gives 3 energy for 2 mana)

T3: Aether Hub, Aetherworks Marvel


What the is frequency with which a bridge partnership is dealt hands suitable for bidding 2-over-1? A number of people that I play bridge with started learning 2-over-1; but found when they tried using it that the frequency with which hands suitable for its use is low. One of them even quotes 8% and, like many of the others, has stopped using 2-over-1, preferring other methods of showing strength when responding to partner's opening bid.

I've looked through the usual frequency and distribution tables for bridge hands; but have not been able to answer my question: is there a statistical method for calculating the frequency of 2-over-1 hands ?

i don't have access to hard stats, but based on my 4+ decades of playing competitive Bridge that figure rings true. If we consider a 26 Board Duplicate session as a typical evening, our side can be expected to open the bidding 13 times, with perhaps 6-7 of those being a Weak 1NT opening or 1 of a minor, perhaps 3 being opened above the 1-Level either weak or strong, and  the remaining 3-4 being opened 1 of a Major. For two of those to then employ  either the Forcing 1NT or 2-over-1 response, the two key system bids, sounds about right.

Remember that 2-over-1 is designed as a teams-of-four system that trades off weaker performance in part scores for increased accuracy in slam bidding. This leverages the IMP scale to best advantage, but can hurt MatchPoint performance. For a pair with specific aspirations in MatchPoint events only the switch you describe might be worthwhile - it certainly worked for Barry Crane, who shone in both team and pairs play with a system designed very much for MatchPoint (and Board-a-Match) events.


Survive Escape from Atlantis: whales and sharks setup In  Survive: Escape from Atlantis, are the whales and sharks left out of the map during setup? Do they only appear when flipping "play immediately" whale or shark tile?

Yes, those creatures only appear when you flip a tile with the aforementioned creature. This is different than the Sea Monsters, that begin on the board at the start of the game.

The nearly complete rules, which a BGG commentor stated have not changed says:

  Set aside the Shark, Whale, and remaining Boat tokens for now.


How can Munchkin Quest be played quicker? I love Munchkin Quest, but if you have more than 3 players you tend to get longer games.  I know one way to make games quicker is to reduce everyone's starting moves to 2.  That works ok, but I want to know if there are other ways of reducing the timeframe for playing with more people.

I've had this problem in the past as well, and the best solution that me and my friends have come up with is to play the game less like the rules say, and more like Betrayal At the House on the Hill.

Which is to say, when moving, you only get to explore until you have an encounter.  This could be fighting a monster or a trap or some such, but once you've had to resolve anything that isn't just drawing a card, you stop and the next person's turn begins. The downside is that your dungeon doesn't grow as fast, but the upside is you don't end up with each person having to go through the combat scenario 3 times each turn, and you'd be amazed how much that speeds things up (because you don't have as many people trying to play modifier cards).


In Bridge, What is the Merit of Taking a "Double" Finesse? Suppose I am declarer, and dummy has a "side" (non-trump) suit with AQx or AQxx, and I have xxx in my hand. I have been told NOT to finesse the Q (a 50-50 chance), except as a last resort, or late in hand. (And to "refuse" the finesse, probably taking the ace, if that suit is led in say, a NT contract).

Change dummy a bit to AQTxx. Now I'm told that I have a double finesse, because I am finessing against both the K and J. In such instances, I have been told that I SHOULD finesse (assuming that going twice to my hand to lead doesn't cause problems elsewhere). If the KJ are both with LHO, I win twice, if both with RHO, I lose twice, but most likely, I win one and lose one because the honors are split. If the opponents have a 3-2 split (a 68% chance), I can treat the lost finesse as a "ducking" play, and run the suit for four tricks after I clear it with the ace.

What makes the "double" finesse so much better than the "simple" finesse? Is it because the extra card in dummy might allow me to win a fourth (long) trick? Or is it because I have a second potential stopper in dummy if the first finesse fails? Is it in the double finesse I PROBABLY win once, whereas in the simple finesse I POSSIBLY win once?  Or have I been given the wrong advice about double finesses?

You have answered your own question in the last paragraph. The simple finesse gets nothing because you can only win the Queen if the King is onside, in which case you will come to it in the end anyway, and taking it may consume an entry, lose a tempo, and so forth.

In the second case you are, as you state, developing a possible long card, and (provided you put in the Ten) possibly the Queen as a winner if the Jack is right and the King wrong.


Does movement end when you land on an open gate? If you have 5 Speed and use 1 to move into a location that has an open portal does your movement end or do you continue on into the gate?

Similarly if you use your last movement point and land on an open gate are you unable to go into the gate until the next movement (and in this case have a separate Encounter on the Arkham location)?

There are two different forms of movement in Arkham Horror.  These are described on page 6 of the rulebook.

They are:

Arkham Movement
Other World Movement

Each investigator must choose which they will use based on where they are located at the beginning of their movement.

If you are using Arkham Movement, use your speed points to move as you will.  Of course you need to stop if you fight a monster.  Other than that, there are few limits.

You do not use speed points to go through a gate.  Going through a gate is typically done during Phase III: Arkham Encounters


Where can I find 'no limits' Texas Hold'em game logs? I've been looking at some papers about developing AI players for Texas Hold'em, and many of them have used betting history from expert human players as training data.  I have so far been unable to find a paper that referenced where they got that betting history.

Where can I find betting history for 'no limits' Texas Hold'em games?

I imagine the game history will be in the format of a log file containing the number of chips each player has, the cards dealt to each player, and all the bets made.

Here is an example of a paper I looked at:

Decision Generalisation from Game Logs in No Limit Texas Hold’em

Building a Poker Playing Agent based on Game Logs using Supervised Learning

I found this paper on creating a Hold'em AI that refers to two external log files on page 100 of that paper. One no longer exists. The other, from hhsmithy, costs a couple bucks. They offer logs from various sources, including Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and Party Poker.

They also offer a smaller, free set that you can use to build your setup.


When to make suggestions that include cards in my own hand in clue? One strategy I've heard of in clue is to name a card or two in your own hand when making a suggestion. I presume this is primarily so you can gain information about the other two factors that need to be determined (the three being murderer, location, and weapon), because if you name a place from your own hand, the player who disproves you must reveal either a weapon or a murderer.

When should I make a suggestion that includes a card from my hand? Would it potentially be advisable to make a suggestion that includes 2 or even 3 cards from my hand? Do I reveal extra undesired information to other players when I do so?

You should almost always make suggestions that include one or two cards in your hand, especially after you know one or two of the real murder components. (Though this might change with the number of players. I'm used to playing with 3 or 4 people.)

The end goal isn't to know who holds which cards, it's to know which cards are not held. The most efficient way to gather information isn't when someone shows you a card, it's when they pass; especially when all other players pass. This does give information to other players, but more to you.

Illustrative Example

Let's say the real solution is Prof. Plum with the Rope in the Conservatory. It's Player A's turn and he's in the Conservatory. If Player A makes a random guess of cards he doesn't hold, maybe Player A gets lucky and accuses Prof. Plum (correct) with the Revolver, and of course the Conservatory. What Player A learns is who holds the Revolver. If he's extra lucky, the person holding the Revolver isn't  the person on his left, so maybe A will see a pass or two before being shown the Revolver, learning a more. However, if A suggests Ms. White (in hand) with the Knife (in hand) in the Conservatory, everyone will pass, and Player A learns that the Conservatory is the room! The other players will know that Player A made a big discovery---they desperately need to check out Ms. White and the Knife and the Conservatory, because at least one of those is part of the solution. But they don't know which one. (Ignoring the unlikely possibility of a wasted turn gamble where Player A deliberately made an accusation while holding all three cards.)

Now, let's step into another player's shoes. Player B knows that Player A learned something big, so she runs to the nearby Billiard Room and suggests Ms. White with the Knife. If anyone shows her a card, Player A knows that it's the Billiard Room, because he holds Ms. White and the Knife. Great! Player A learned as much as Player B did on Player B's turn. If people pass until Player A, he shows her, say, the Knife, and Player A knows that either Player B or someone sitting to his left before B holds the Billiard Room. Player A will now preferentially show the Knife rather than Ms. White to anyone. Meanwhile Player C can guess that Player A has one of the Knife or Ms. White, but Player C still has to make their own suggestion to find out which.

Contrast this with Player B being a little more conniving: she decides to test Player A's knowledge more gradually. She accuses Col. Mustard (in her hand) with the Knife in the Billiard Room. Now if someone before Player A shows her a card, Player A can't be sure if it's the Billiard room or if it's Col. Mustard. If it gets around to Player A, he doesn't have a choice of what to show Player B, he must show the Knife, which is also better for B than if A gets to choose. So it's in Player B's best interest to make suggestions including cards from her hand too.

Other considerations

Suggesting 3 cards from your hand is a devious way to throw people off track, but you lose a turn of information gathering to do it. In my experience, the opportunity cost is too high for this to be worthwhile.

Your card distribution (especially what rooms you hold) can affect your ability to make suggestions involving cards from your hand. I try to make one of the first 3 rooms I visit a room I hold. It's especially nice if you hold two secret passage rooms to hop back and forth between the two (though pretty soon everyone will know what you're doing). It can be tough if you hold only one card (or worse, none!) of a category. I'll focus on that category first so that I can at least alternately suggest 2 items when I get to the other categories.

It does make sense to not be too consistent. If you always make suggestions that include 2 cards from your hand, your opponents will learn this habit. Then the player who shows you a a card can be reasonably certain you hold the other two. Vary your play to keep your opponents from being too sure.

In the beginning of the game, it's fine to make suggestions with only one card you hold, or the occasional 0-held-card suggestion. You'll stil learn something--maybe you'll get lucky and learn a lot. But as soon as you know one category there's no point in making a suggestion involving a card in that category that someone else holds. You already know somebody holds the card, but you shouldn't care who.

tl;dr: You learn more from people passing than showing your cards. People pass more often if you make suggestions that use some cards from your hand.


Which Experts Seem to Interchange Trumps and Points in Bridge Bidding? Most bridge players know that you can make a major suit game with combined partnership holdings of 26 points and eight trumps. (Plus the absence of "bad breaks" in trumps, finesses, etc.).

My observation is that one usually can also make such a game with 23 points and nine trumps and 20 points and ten trumps. Put another way, an extra trump is worth a king.
(Take 40 HCP divided by 13 tricks= 3 1/13 HCP per trick. One "long" trump is worth a trick, by definition.)

I believe this is the basis of Larry Cohen's "law of total tricks." What is (Larry Cohen's) the "Law of Total Tricks" In Bridge?. Which other experts have systems that seem to follow this principle.

Very few experts advocate, or use, the Rule of 20 as a primary guideline on bidding. Rather, it is used as a secondary measure to assist judgement on close calls, and to aid in discriminating between otherwise similar hands when making a call decision.

The reason for this is that it is rather indiscriminate, and lacks the precision and accuracy of other methods. It fails to consider other very important aspects of hand evaluation such as:

Distribution of the rest of the hand.
The degree of 'fit' in the 3rd and 4th suite.
Point location.
Point fit; how points reinforce each other in regards to the other information available from the bidding.

In this regards it is similar to the Losing-Trick Count. an essential member of the expert's tool-kit, but only one of the techniques regularly used for hand-evaluation.


Titania's Song and Mycosynth Lattice How do Titania's Song and Mycosynth Lattice interact? What happens if Song enters the battlefield first, Lattice enters first, or they enter at the same time? Is there any circumstances under which all the lands would turn into 0/0s and die?

Here is my current understanding, based on the Gatherer rulings for Opalescence

  This is the current interaction between Humility and Opalescence: The type-changing effect applies at layer 4, but the rest happens in the applicable layers. The rest of it will apply even if the permanent loses its ability before it’s finished applying. So if Opalescence, Humility, and Worship are on the battlefield and Opalescence entered the battlefield before Humility, the following is true: Layer 4: Humility and Worship each become creatures that are still enchantments. (Opalescence). Layer 6: Humility and Worship each lose their abilities. (Humility) Layer 7b: Humility becomes 4/4 and Worship becomes 4/4. (Opalescence). Humility becomes 1/1 and Worship becomes 1/1 (Humility). But if Humility entered the battlefield before Opalescence, the following is true: Layer 4: Humility and Worship each become creatures that are still enchantments (Opalescence). Layer 6: Humility and Worship each lose their abilities (Humility). Layer 7b: Humility becomes 1/1 and Worship becomes 1/1 (Humility). Humility becomes 4/4 and Worship becomes 4/4 (Opalescence).

According to this ruling, the fact that Titania's Song removes abilities from artifacts is irrelevant. The continuous effects still happen.

So starting with layer 4, we have Mycosynth Lattice turning things into artifacts and Titania's Song turning things into creatures. Since Song has a dependency on Lattice (because it changes the set of things that Song effects), Lattice is always applied first regardless of timestamps. So they're both artifacts, and then become artifact creatures in layer 4.

In layer 6, they both lose all abilities

In layer 7, they become a 4/4 and 6/6 respectively, despite the fact that they lost their abilities in a previous layer.

All lands will turn into 0/0s and die, regardless of timestamps.

This seems like a weird result, but it's the best I can determine based on the rulings I've seen.


What happens if a double-faced card that is copying a different double-faced card that is part of a melded creature tries to meld? We already have a similar question about double faced cards transforming, however, this covers a single card transforming. Meld exiles a pair of cards and returns them "transformed" into a single card.

Say a player controls Hanweir Battlements and also controls a Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh enchanted with Metamorphic Alteration to be a copy of Hanweir Garrison. What happens when the meld effect tries to create Hanweir, the Writhing Township but can't?

Hanweir Battlements and Chandra are exiled permanently. The Metamorphic Alteration goes to the graveyard.
As you already noted, only meld cards can meld. You can exile Chandra and the Battlements with Battlement's ability, but those two cards cannot return melded.

701.36b Only two cards belonging to the same meld pair can be melded. Tokens, cards that aren’t meld cards, or meld cards that don’t form a meld pair can’t be melded.
701.36c If an effect instructs a player to meld cards that can’t be melded, they stay in their current zone.

Note that 701.36b calls for meld cards, not meld objects. Being able to meld is a property of the card, not of the object represented by it.


Is it common to have too few resources for most cards in Age 3 of "7 Wonders"? I've only played one game so far and it was with 7 players so that might not have been a normal experience...

I got the feeling that most cards in Age 3 are simply not affordable because they need so many resources.

Is that a common thing, i.e., you'd have to deliberately focus on resource cards if you want to build a lot in Age 3?
Is it just bad playing on the part of me (and others)?
Maybe it's even an effect of having so many players?

EDIT to elaborate on my experience: I actually won the game so there's no complaint there. I had around 4 brown/gray buildings and my neighbors had roughly the same amount. I don't think I had one of those yellow free resources cards though. When Age 3 came I realized that about half my hand was impossible to build because neither me nor my neighbors had the necessary resources. I eventually relied on the few cards I could build and a lot of freebies from previous cards (I think I placed about 5 buildings for free). IIRC I never trashed a card in the last age but I did build my last two wonder stages...

First off, Seven Wonders is meant to be a 7-player game!  You got the "normal experience".  It's not as if resources are much less scarce in the 3-player game - you do remove more than half the cards from the mix in that game, after all...

I've never found the Age 3 cards to be "unaffordable", so yes, I would suggest that if you find yourself unable to take actions other than "discard for 3 coins" in Age 3, you're probably playing suboptimally to some degree.

Having said that, when I say I can "afford" an Age III card, I don't usually mean "pay the exact resources for" it.  I mean one of the following:

be able to pay for most of it, but have a big stockpile of cash to buy the extra resources I need from my neighbours.
use yellow cards providing "one free resource of any kind" to plug the gaps in my production.
use my Wonder's special power to get free resources or builds, if applicable.
keep a close eye on "upgrade chains" of cards from Age I that get me free cards from Age II that then get me free cards from Age III.

So in many cases I'm shortcutting cards into play instead of actually paying for them.  But I definitely think that if, more than once or twice in Age III, you're looking at your hand and thinking "there's nothing here I can play, at all", something has gone badly wrong with your strategy!


Official Diplomacy sets, variations and where to buy Diplomacy only seems to have one set available to buy widely that I am aware of, built by Gibson Games.

It's nothing special, an averagely constructed cardboard board with plastic pieces.

Are there any other officaly distributed boxes available? Preferably available to order online.

There also lots of variations of Diplomacy available online, have any of these made it 'into the wild'?

The original Hasbro Edition is probably the physically best edition ever made - much better than the current US version with cardboard counters.

The other highly recommended edition is the 1992 Deluxe Diplomacy by Avalon Hill, which turns up very occasionally and very expensively on eBay.

The only professionally printed Dip variants I know of are Colonial Diplomacy and Machiavelli.


If you're too Tough to die, do you still burn? In Warmachine/Hordes, there are many models which have the 'Tough' rule:

  TOUGH:
  When this model is disabled, roll a d6.  On a 5 or 6, this model heals
  1 damage point, is no longer disabled, and is knocked down.

There are also attacks which deal the 'Fire' continuous effect:

  FIRE:
  A model hit by this attack suffers the Fire continuous effect, which sets it on fire.  A
  model on fire suffers a POW 12 damage roll each turn during its controller's Maintenance
  Phase until the continuous effect expires.

There are other effects, all subject to the following:

  CONTINUOUS EFFECTS:
  Continuous effects remain on a model and have the potential to damage or affect it in some other way on subsequent turns.  [...] Continuous effects do not require fury points for upkeep and cannot be removed voluntarily.  Remove a continuous effect only when it expires, a special situation causes it to end, or the affected model is removed from the table.

If a model is hit with an attack that would cause it to gain the Fire continuous effect, and that attack kills it, that model is entitled to a 'tough' roll.  If it makes the roll, is it still susceptible to the Fire effect?  Being disabled means it is about to be removed from the table which would cause the effect to expire, but then it survives.  Does the fire go out before the tough roll or does the tough roll prevent the fire from going out?

Whenever you are reduced to zero hit points, you are disabled.  Before you get boxed and removed from the table you have to resolve any effects triggered by being disabled(I.e. Tough).

So during your maintenance phase you roll to see if the fire goes out.  If it doesn't you take the POW 12 damage roll.  If this reduces you to zero hit points, then you are disabled.  Tough is triggered.  If you pass the tough test you are healed back to 1 hit point.  Since your model never left the table, Fire remains In effect.


Exchanging items during movement phase In Arkham Horror is it possible to exchange items during the movement phase? What are the rules? (people on same place?)

Basically, if you pass through the same location as someone else, you can give up or receive items from them. As long as it's not combat, there are no timing requirements. This is described on page 23 of the rulebook. The rules for trading items are quite generous:

  Investigators have the ability to trade Common Items, Unique Items,
  Spells, and Money, as long as they are in the same street area,
  location, or Other World location. They can do this in any phase, and
  do not need to end their turn in the same area in order to do so.
  However they can not trade items during combat.

  Allies, clues, and trophies may not be traded.

Note especially that for gameplay reasons you can trade Spells, but not Allies or clues. From a thematic perspective this has always seemed a little counter-intuitive to me (You teach someone else the spell, and then... forget it? "But of course my friend can't go off with you!" "Yep, I have a clue, but I simply can't tell you about it.").


How to complete a district in Ticket to Ride London? The rule says:

To complete a District, a player must link each Location with each other Location in that District, in no particular order.

Therefore my understanding is that the white player has successfully completed District 5. Am I right?

Your understanding is correct. Completing a district means that you would be able to get from any location in the district to any other location in the district by traveling along your trains. Essentially the same as completing Destination cards; but with more than 2 locations on them.


How well do Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Island play with two players? I introduced a colleague to Pandemic. He liked it and asked if I could recommend a similar game that:

Plays well with two people, and
Will be a bit more approachable for his partner, who's new to games (and might find Pandemic a bit fidgety or overwhelming to learn).

The first thing that came to mind is Forbidden Island (which I own and like) or Forbidden Desert (which I've been been hearing great things about).

Before I recommend it though, I've never played either with just two players. Does does (one or both) hold up well with two players?

I would probably, between the two, suggest Forbidden Desert, as one thing it brings that Island lacks is specific balancing based on the number of players in the game.  Desert's analog to the "Flood Meter" from Island has different tracks based on the number of players.  Also, unlike Island, Desert supports up to five players as designed.


Can Haphazard Bombardment destroy something with two aim counters? Haphazard Bombardment says:

When Haphazard Bombardment enters the battlefield, choose four nonenchantment permanents you don't control and put an aim counter on each of them.
At the beginning of your end step, if two or more permanents you don't control have an aim counter on them, destroy one of those permanents at random.

Note the last line says "have an aim counter". It doesn't say "have at least one aim counter".
Does this mean that if a target somehow gains two aim counters (e.g. via proliferate, or because the creature gained more aim counters from Hankyu), it cannot be destroyed by Haphazard Bombardment?

Permanents with multiple aim counters can be destroyed by Haphazard Bombardment.

In standard English, "has an aim counter" means "has at least one aim counter", not "has exactly one aim counter". If someone asks "do you have a dollar?", you don't say "no" because your wallet is full of them.

I can't find any rulings that address this directly, but Gladehart Cavalry has this ability:

  Whenever a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it dies, you gain 2 life.

and a corresponding ruling that says

  You gain 2 life per creature, not per +1/+1 counter.

which is only meaningful if creatures with multiple counters can trigger it.


Multiple sources of damage prevention Let's say I cast two Healing Salves on a creature. Each would prevent the next 3 damage that would be dealt to that creature. Does this effectively prevent the next 6 damage that would be dealt? Or do they both try to prevent the same 3 points of damage?

It effectively prevents the next 6 damage.

Rule 616.1e says:

  Once the chosen effect has been applied, this process is repeated (taking into account only replacement or prevention effects that would now be applicable) until there are no more left to apply.

If the first 3 damage has already been prevented, the second prevent doesn't need to do anything until more damage comes in.


What is wrong with Escaped Shapeshifter's original wording? Escaped Shapeshifter has an interesting functional erratum.

The oracle text reads:

  As long as an opponent controls a creature with flying not named Escaped Shapeshifter, Escaped Shapeshifter has flying. The same is true for first strike, trample, and protection from any color.

The part in bold ("not named Escaped Shapeshifter") is not printed on the card.

I presume this text was added to avoid rules complications. So, what happens if it isn't there? Note, the added text can be circumvented by cards like Sakashima the Impostor that can copy creatures without copying the name (though this may not have been possible at the time the text was added).

I guess this is the problem case: both players control an Escaped Shapeshifter. One player plays a creature with flying. Now both shapeshifters fly. The flying creature leaves the battlefield. Do the shapeshifters still fly?

(I would also be interested in other problem cases that I might not be seeing.)

There are three situations that are affected in meaningful ways by this wording change, all of which had different behavior with the old wording.
In the first situation, two players each have an Escaped Shapeshifter, then one plays a creature with one of the named abilities (e.g. flying). Under the old ruling, both Escaped Shapeshifters would gain flying. With the new wording, only the Shapeshifter opposed to the creature that naturally has flying would gain flying. There is nothing really problematic rules-wise in this situation, but I suspect that the behavior with the old wording was a worse fit for the flavor of the card.
The second situation is the one you describe, where you start with the same creatures as in the first scenario, and then the creature that naturally has flying goes away. With the old wording and the current rules, both Shapeshifters would lose flying. With the new wording, it is pretty clear that the opposing Shapeshifter would lose flying. This is a problematic scenario, because under the old wording it's not obvious to most players what would happen.
In the third situation, two players each have an Escaped Shapeshifter, and one also has a creature with flying and the other also has a creature with first strike. With the old wording and the current rules, unintuitively, one Shapeshifter would gain only the ability the opposing creature has naturally, and the other would gain both abilities, and which one gets which depends on the order in which they entered the battlefield. With the new wording, each one only gets the ability that the opposing creature naturally has. This is the most problematic situation, because the old behavior is surprisingly asymmetrical and requires players to track an unusual piece of information: when the creatures entered the battlefield.

To understand why this ability behaves this way under the old wording, we have to delve deep into the rules regarding the interaction of continuous effects. In Magic, evaluating the outcome of effects like this uses what is commonly known as the "layer system". In this case, the layers themselves are less important because the ability in question only operates on one layer: "Layer 6: Ability-adding effects, ability-removing effects, and effects that say an object can't have an ability". When applying multiple effects in the same layer, two subrules of that section apply:

613.6. Within a layer or sublayer, determining which order effects are applied in is usually done using a timestamp system. An effect with an earlier timestamp is applied before an effect with a later timestamp.

613.7. Within a layer or sublayer, determining which order effects are applied in is sometimes done using a dependency system. If a dependency exists, it will override the timestamp system.

This dependency system is the way the rules rigorously represent the idea of "one Shapeshifter gains flying because the other Shapeshifter gains flying". The rule for deciding whether the dependency system applies is 613.7a:

An effect is said to "depend on" another if (a) it's applied in the same layer (and, if applicable, sublayer) as the other effect (see rules 613.1 and 613.3); (b) applying the other would change the text or the existence of the first effect, what it applies to, or what it does to any of the things it applies to; and (c) neither effect is from a characteristic-defining ability or both effects are from characteristic-defining abilities. Otherwise, the effect is considered to be independent of the other effect.

Using the old wording, we can see a difference in how this would be evaluated in the two situations:

Let's call the Shapeshifter controlled by the player with the flying creature Shapeshifter A, and the one controlled by the opponent Shapeshifter N. We can see that there is a dependency here: (a) they are both in the same layer; (b) if Shapeshifter N's effect is applied first then it gets flying from the creature that naturally has flying, which changes the outcome of applying Shapeshifter A's effect; and (c) the ability is not a characteristic-defining ability. The same is not true the other way around: applying Shapeshifter A's effect first will do nothing, which will have no effect on what Shapeshifter N's effect will do.

In this case, if you apply either Shapeshifter's effect first, it gains no abilities because none of the opponent's creatures have any of the named abilities (yet), which means that it doesn't change what the other Shapeshifter's effect does. So, this fails the second condition and there is not a dependency.

This case is similar to the first, except that the second condition is true in both directions. If you apply Shapeshifter A's effect first, Shapeshifter N also gains first strike. And if you apply Shapeshifter N's effect first, Shapeshifter A gains flying.

Once there are dependencies, rule 613.7b describes how to apply the effects:

An effect dependent on one or more other effects waits to apply until just after all of those effects have been applied. If multiple dependent effects would apply simultaneously in this way, they're applied in timestamp order relative to each other. If several dependent effects form a dependency loop, then this rule is ignored and the effects in the dependency loop are applied in timestamp order.

With this we can see how the effects actually get applied in each situation.

In the first situation, Shapeshifter A's effect depends on Shapeshifter N's effect, so we wait until after we apply Shapeshifter N's effect to apply Shapeshifter A's effect. Shapeshifter N sees an opposing creature with flying, so it gains flying. Then Shapeshifter A sees an opposing creature with flying, so it gains flying.

In the second situation, there is no dependency, so we use the timestamp order. Whichever Shapeshifter entered the battlefield first sees no opposing creatures with the listed abilities, so it gains no abilities. Then the other Shapeshifter does the same.

In the third situation, since each creature's effect depends on the other there is a dependency loop, so we end up using the timestamp order again. In this case, whichever Shapeshifter entered the battlefield first sees one opposing creature with one of the abilities, so it gains that ability. Then the other Shapeshifter sees two different creatures with different abilities that it can copy, so it copies both of them.


How are power plant discards handled in Power Grid? When a player purchases a power plant above the maximum limit, and must discard one, does the discard go under the stack of power plants, into a separate pile, or is it removed from the game?

They are discarded, which pretty much means they are removed from the game.  The only time a power plant is put back under the stack of plants is during Phase 5: Update the power plant market.

Once a plant is discarded (because of too many plants) or removed from the game (no one bids on a plant in a turn, or someone's house count is higher than a power plant number), they aren't coming back, so "discarded" and "removed from the game" are pretty synonymous.


King of Tokyo: Omnivore Omnivore states the following:

  Once each turn you can score [1][2][3] for 2[Star]. You can use these dice in other combinations.

Does this only trigger when you are finished rerolling or at any time during rolling the dice?

You only score dice at the end of your turn.  So if you had

1122233 (using extra dice from other cards)

You would score 2 points for the 123 (but only once), plus 2 points for all the 2s, for a total of 4 points.


Can you use trading to build a wonder in 7 Wonders Duel? In 7 Wonders Duel, one routinely purchases resources from the bank to build a Building. This is covered by these two rules:

  Resource Cost

  Some cards have a resource cost.
  To construct them, you must produce the corresponding resources AND/OR buy
  them from the bank via the trading rules....

and

  Trading

  Often, you will want to construct a Building while you’re missing one or more
  required resources. In that case, you can always purchase the missing resources
  from the bank....

EDIT (to add a rules statement regarding a comment):

The first sentence of the Overview & Object of the Game section

  In 7 Wonders Duel, each player is leading a civilization and will construct Buildings and Wonders. All of the Buildings constructed by a player together with their Wonders are called a "city". ... Each Age card represents a Building.

Then in the Game Elements ** section, the **Guild and Age cards subsection:

  In 7 Wonders Duel, all of the Age and Guild cards represent Buildings. The Building cards all consist of a name, and effect and a construction cost.

Wonders are described in a separate subsection:

  Each large card represents a Wonder from the Age of Antiquity. Each Wonder consists of a name, a construction cost, and an effect.

So, the rules are very clear in distinguishing between a Wonder and a Building in the definitions of the Game Elements.
 (end of EDIT)

Notice that the Trading specifically mentions Buildings and not Wonders. Is it the proper interpretation that Wonders cannot be built by Trading resources with the bank since Wonders aren't stated in this rule? Or is it allowed?

(For comparison, in regular 7 Wonders, the group I play with routinely purchase resources from neighbors in order to build Wonders.)

Turns out this same questions has been asked on BGG.  Thankfully the designer Bruno Cathala has responded to this question clear "just to confirm: yes you can !".

I can see from the question that a stretch it could be interpreted that Wonders are not buildings by wording of rules but the designer has clarified that trading is allowed for wonder construction.

BGG rules forum link.


Scion of the Ur-Dragon multiple transformation Consider this situation: I use the ability of Scion of the Ur-Dragon and put it in the stack. My opponent play  Rending Volley in response targeting Scion of the Ur-Dragon. In response I use it's ability again and put it in the top of the stack. First the dragon's ability resolves and I can choose any dragon that is not blue or white to avoid the volley(lets say Shivan Dragon). Then the volley resolves and it does not do anything because it has an invalid target. What happens next? The last ability in the stack says that Scion of the Ur-Dragon turn into a copy of a dragon, but it's name has changed to Shivan Dragon. Can I transform it again anyways with the last ability in the stack (if my first intention was to transform it in Oros, the Avenger for example?

It works. The following will explain the mechanics that you're asking about, passing over the parts you've identified.

Scion of the Ur-Dragon, after the second activation of it's ability resolves, will be a copy of Shivan Dragon. Now, the First ability will try to resolve, and looks for the Scion of Ur-Dragon, finding it as Shivan Dragon.

This is because of rules 109.1, 109.3, 201.4, and 201.5.

  109.1. An object is an ability on the stack, a card, a copy of a card, a token, a spell, a permanent, or an emblem.

Your Scion of the Ur-Dragon, now a Shivan Dragon, is an object.

  109.3. An object’s characteristics are name, mana cost, color, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, abilities, power, toughness, loyalty, hand modifier, and life modifier. Objects can have some or all of these  characteristics. Any other information about an object isn’t a characteristic. For example, characteristics don’t include whether a permanent is tapped, a spell’s target, an object’s owner or controller, what an Aura enchants, and so on.

Of the multiple Characteristics the object has, we care about its name: Scion of the Ur-Dragon.

  201.4. Text that refers to the object it’s on by name means just that particular object and not any other objects with that name, regardless of any name changes caused by game effects.

Specifically, we care about its name at the time the abilities of interest are activated, because that ability refers to it by name.

  201.5. If an ability of an object uses a phrase such as “this [something]” to identify an object, where [something] is a characteristic, it is referring to that particular object, even if it isn’t the appropriate characteristic at the time.

When the ability is activated and placed on the stack, though it said Scion of the Ur-Dragon at the time, it is referring to that card. Even after the effect of the second ability activation copies the Characteristics of Shivan Dragon, the ability on the stack still point at that card.


Which country's playing cards have CBR as the JQK? Once 'my friends' played cards with me using playing cards that had CBR as the JQK..

I've always wanted to know why and where the cards originate.

Does anyone know?

Thanks

Honestly I'm just guessing here, but could they be Irish?  Roughly an hour of Googling eventually brought me to these pages, which lists the names of the face cards in Irish Gaelic as follows:

King: [R]í
Queen: [B]hanríon
Jack: Laoch (also [C]uireata)


How to mitigate the intial luck factor in Race For The Galaxy? Background (feel free to skip):

My mom and I often play RFTG together (I am a very fortunate child to have a game-playing parent :), and we've noticed that there usually isn't as much luck in the game as we initially thought; there are few situations where you cannot find some favorable way to play out your cards and tableau. While the luck factor is definite present, as it will be in any game that involves powerful combinations of randomly drawn cards, but smart play can mitigate the effect. In fact, one of my favorite situations in the game is when I have a bunch of cards with no obvious strong combos and have to work with what I have to find some sort of strategy.

However, I've noticed that there is substantially more luck in the early parts of the game. If you get an initial draw that contains mostly high-drop cards, cards that aren't good in the early game, or no good combinations (tons of goods, but no way to actually do anything with them except trade ONE of them for 2-4 cards). Some luck later on can easily fix this if you get a nice card, but sometimes I feel like the game is decided after turn 4 when one of us has a killer initial combo and the other has had a bad start.

I understand that the luck factor is relatively small and will be minimal in a series of 5 or more games, but I would still like to reduce it since we purely play for fun and rarely get to play 2 games in a row. I don't consider myself anywhere near an expert player, and I'm sure we're not always playing our cards optimally. However, I am sure that there are some opening hands that are sufficiently worse than others to drastically effect the outcome of the game, and I'd like to adjust this in our friendly games.

Question:

Here's some ways I've thought to prevent players from getting screwed over by bad initial draws in RFTG:

Start with 7 or 8 cards instead of 6. Still discard down to 4.
Implement a mulligan system for initial hands. You can discard your 6 initial cards, reshuffle the deck, and draw 5 (still discard down to 4). I suppose this could probably be extended to allow players to discard those 5 to draw 4 and keep all of them, even though I don't think many people would go for the second mulligan.

Would these methods potentially be effective in reducing some of the initial luck in the game? How might I improve them? What other methods might be effective towards reaching this goal of a slightly more 'skill-based' RFTG by mitigating the effect of terrible initial draws?

In my experience, the most effective way to reduce luck at the beginning is to give players a choice of two start worlds. A world you know will be on the table the whole game is a much bigger deal than four cards, of which you'll likely only play one or two, and sometimes none. The implementation of Race for the Galaxy at keldon.net does this. (Side note: some of my friends think Rebel Freedom Fighters is overpowered. You can always just disallow a start world if you're in that camp.)

This said, I think you might be overstating the importance of the starting hand. It's not meaningless, but I can't reliably predict how well my game will go based on it. I've had scores over 100 when I started out with no clear path based on my start world and hand. You have to be willing to explore (+5) on the first turn sometimes. It really doesn't put you that far behind - at most one turn, and there's a good chance you'll get to piggy-back on someone else's develop/settle anyway. (Half the time you don't, it's because they explored too.) However it happens, each time you draw cards, it may completely change your game. Luck isn't just on the first turn, and I think that with a choice of two start worlds, the luck in the rest of the game will be more significant than the initial luck.

Finally, if you're not playing with the third expansion, maybe you should be. It adds the ability to do a one-time search for a chosen category of card; you can choose to search for a 1- or 2-cost windfall world (or 1- or 2-defense if you're going military). If you're really desperate to get going, it is more reliable than the +5 card explore on the first turn.

(Of your suggestions, I think mulligans are better - larger initial draws can improve average and good hands too. I think you'll probably be pretty satisfied with two start worlds, but if you do still want to allow mulligans, you might want to restrict it to "bad" hands by some definition, to keep from focusing too much on the mulligan decision, and possibly improving some okay hands.)


Is a robber laid a robber played? My wife and I were playing Settlers of Catan and she moved the robber onto one of the numbers where only my settlement was. She took her hand off of the robber and told me to spread my cards. I was out of cards and told her I had none for her  to steal. She then grabbed the robber, said "just kidding" and proceeded to place it on another player's settlement.

I believe that the robber should stay on the original settlement as "a robber laid or placed  is a robber played". My wife believes that because she did not take a card from me she has the right to move the robber again even though she had already placed it somewhere.

Who is right and why?

There is no real "correct" answer here, in terms of official game rules. It is going to depend completely on the friendliness/casualness of your playgroup. In a tournament setting, such a thing would need to be clarified in the tournament rules; otherwise a judge would need to be informed of the situation and make a ruling.

My game group pretty much always tends to follow this basic rule: If no other player has taken an action that revealed new information to you after you made your move, you are still free to undo your move. Note that this action could be as simple as a "whew, glad you went there!" or an actual game-action such as playing a card.

In your case, I think the rule would apply. Because the number of cards in hand is open knowledge in the game anyway, you did not take any action that revealed new information (showing that you had no cards shouldn't be considered new information).

Basically, you are free to enforce whatever rules you decide on... often if there's an uncertainty in such situations, we also just take a vote amongst the players, and see who is ok with allowing the take-back. There's nothing "wrong" with a rule that says "you took your hand off, therefore the play is finalized", but in my opinion it decreases the general friendliness and thus the overall enjoyment of the game.


If you disturb a Jenga block, can you push it back into place? In Jenga, when you are moving your block out and another block next to it moves, are you allowed to push the other block(s) back?

According to the official 2000 version of the rules:

  As play proceeds and the weight of the tower shifts, some blocks become looser than others and are easier to remove. You can touch other blocks to find a loose one — but if you move a block out of place, you must fix it (using one hand only) before touching another block.

Since this rule includes the proviso before touching another block I take this to mean that you can't touch blocks after you have started to remove your block.

I believe it would be within the spirit of the rules that you could try and replace the block you started to remove, then try and remove the block you disturbed.

The key is that you can only touch one block at a time with only one hand.


Controlled Creature returns to which hand? Opponent has taken takes control of my Metalwork Colossus. The card has an ability that states:

  Sacrifice two artifacts: Return Metalwork Colossus from your graveyard to your hand.

Who can sacrifice two artifacts to get Metalwork Colossus to his hand - me, the owner, or my opponent, the controller?

That ability can only be activated while the Metalwork Colossus is in your graveyard, to return it to your hand. Your cards in general cannot be be in any other player's graveyard or hand.
Rule 400.3 says

If an object would go to any library, graveyard, or hand other than its owner’s, it goes to its owner’s corresponding zone.

and the rules regarding abilites have these subrules that describe when you can activate that ability:

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:

112.6k An ability whose cost or effect specifies that it moves the object it’s on out of a particular zone functions only in that zone, unless that ability’s trigger condition, or a previous part of that ability’s cost or effect, specifies that the object is put into that zone. The same is true if the effect of that ability creates a delayed triggered ability whose effect moves the object out of a particular zone.


Can a player tap lands for mana, in response to Elder Deep-Fiend tapping those lands at the beginning of the turn? I have Elder Deep-Fiend, a creature which has flash and allows me to sacrifice another creature towards the cost of its mana. When the creature is played, it allows me to tap 4 target permanents.

I have been doing this during the upkeep step/beginning phase of my friend's turn to tap 4 of their lands so they can't use them. However, they say they have priority and add mana to their mana pool before I can.

As I am playing an instant creature which has an ability when it enters the battlefield, just after they have untapped, I think they shouldn't be able to tap their lands first as they are not up to that phase yet.

Basically, they are saying I can only use it to tap creatures before their combat phase.

Who is right?

When you cast your creature, its triggered ability goes on the stack. At this point, all players have a chance to respond to the ability, before it resolves and taps the lands. They can respond by tapping the land for mana. The mana that is produced will go away at the end of the upkeep step, however, so they would have to use it then; they can’t keep it to use later.

So you can use this to tap their lands, but they have a chance to respond with an instant effect during the upkeep. It will prevent them from using those lands during their main phase.


What are the major changes between Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization and the first game? Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization is described as a new edition of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization. What are the major changes between the two versions?

The new edition was released during Essen 2015. Information on it was readily available since summer 2015, although the game was still at a prototype state. In brief, the new version revolves around 3 major overhauls:

Complete graphic redesign. While the older game did work, the cards and the player boards were rather dull. All cards in the new version have their own unique, engaging illustration.
Card rebalancing: based on analysis of thousands online games, it was noticed that a couple of cards were very strong, while others were very weak or skipped. For instance, nobody was interested in building a new Mine/Farm in late Age II, or everybody was taking Napoleon with 3 Civil Actions. These issues have been fixed.
Streamlined rules: corruption was an unnecessarily complex phase, so it was moved forward, before production, reducing downtime. Military was also nerfed quite a bit, as sacrifices were completely removed from aggressions & wars and it's a bit easier to defend in the early game.

I would suggest further reading of two comprehensive articles:

List of rule changes; all rule differences between the two versions.
List of card changes; all rebalanced and tweaked cards in the new version.


What types go well together in a Pokémon deck? Which types combine well with water types in Pokémon? I have water types, so I need to know which types go well with them so I can make a good deck.

Check out the World Champion Decks to see which type synergies the top-ranked players are using

World Champion Decks have been released since 2004 and contain non-tournament-legal cards matching the decks of several high-ranking players in the Pokémon World Championships.

Regarding Water types specifically, the only Water decks released between 2004 and 2017 were:

Pure-Water decks (x7)
Water/Electric decks (x4)

Therefore, I think it's fair to say that Water and Electric go well together, possibly better than others.

Check out which type synergies are used in Theme Decks

You might also check out other Theme Decks that have been released to see other combinations that might go together. There isn't any guarantee that they'll be good, but presumably the deck synergies that are released will be functional, and types that work well together will probably get multiple releases.

For instance, there have been more Water/Electric and Water/Psychic decks released that Water/Fighting decks, and no Water/Darkness or Water/Fairy decks. Therefore, I'd infer that the former are probably more likely to go well together than the latter, since the Pokémon Company keeps producing decks with those synergies.


How can I practice my opening leads in bridge? After playing bridge for several months, I feel my declarer play and bidding have improved to a beginner-intermediate level. However, I think my skill at making an opening lead is that of a novice at best. I have memorized some basic rules about evaluating my hand and inspecting the bidding for clues (and plan to do plenty of additional reading), but I'm curious if there are any good ways to practice my opening leads. With bidding and declarer play I can get quick feedback on whether my choices were good or bad, but with opening leads I rarely have any idea if my lead was brilliant, average, or terrible even after the hand is over.

How can I tell if I made a good lead or a poor lead?

I could examine what gives the best score after recording the cards of all players, but I still won't be able to tell if discovering that lead would be possible without knowing everyone's cards.

Is there slightly more guesswork in opening leads than in the rest of bridge?

When I find two leads that seem to be equally good, sometimes I just pick one at random. Obviously professionals would be able to evaluate leads far better than I could, but do they sometimes encounter the same situation and do a mental coin-flip?

Evaluating opening leads objectively can be very difficult. In fact, it would be hard to do so without doing an extensive computer simulation in many cases (which in itself, is a hard problem). Of course, there will also be situations where one call tell what a good/poor lead is, without any simulations.

To answer your other question, yes there is more guesswork in opening leads, than in the rest of the play.

That said, when thinking of opening leads, you need to listen to the bidding, look at your hand, try to decide what might happen during the play and then come up with a general strategy before deciding what suit/card to lead. (Note: scoring might also change the way you think).

Some typical categories of the general strategy are:

1) Active Defense:

Do you think you need to get your tricks in a hurry? Then you might want to consider an Active lead, like underleading Kings/Queens in order to set up your tricks.

For instance you hold Kxx, Axxx, xxx, xxx. Opponents are in a small slam in clubs, after a normal auction. Many good players will consider leading a spade (from Kxx), hoping partner has the Q and setting up a spade trick before the heart A gets knocked out.

2) Passive Defense:

Does declarer need to work to make his tricks? Then you consider a lead which is less likely to blow away tricks.

3) Forcing defense :

In game or lower level contracts, if you know that the trumps split badly (like 4-1), you might consider a strategy where you lead your suits, forcing declarer to ruff and lose trump control.

4) Trump leads :

Does it look like declarer will use dummy's trumps to ruff out his losers? A trump lead might be called for.

There are lots of good books on opening leads which teach you to think in these general terms (the link in thesun's answer is good with examples, and overlaps with this answer partly).


Can Terminators Assault Through a Gate of Infinity? Suppose I have a unit of assault Terminators on the board, and they are joined to a Librarian who has the Gate of Infinity power.  Can he, in the movement step, use the power to deepstrike the squad, and then, in the assault step, can that squad assault as normal?

Gate of Infinity allows units to be placed as per the Deep Strike rules.  According to the Deep Strike rules you cannot assault the same turn you arrive via Deep Strike.  You are also subject to any other rules related to Deep Strike.  You scatter, are affected by terrain, and can mishap the same as if you arrived via normal Deep Strike.

Here's an example forum thread where the general consensus is that you can't assault through a Gate of Infinity.


How good is the AI in the iOS port of Haggis? I recently picked up the iOS port for Haggis. Although I own the physical version, and you can play it online at boardgamearena, playing versus the iOS AI has been my first experience with the game.

I generally beat the AI pretty handily at this point but I'm wondering if this is one of those games where the AI employs a strategy that can be successful against novices but cannot compete with even moderately experienced players.

My perspective is having never played Haggis until i played it on the ipad.  I have quite a bit of Tichu experience.
The AI offered competition to me for about 5 games.  After that i can beat it 4/5 of the time.

So overall i think it is a good way to learn the game, but will not help you get ahead online


Does your Death's Shadow become bigger if you are at negative life? Is your Death's Shadow a 16/16 if you are at minus 3 life and not dead due to something like a Platinum Angel.

No.

From the Gatherer rulings:

  If your life total is negative, X is considered to be 0. (This is a change from previous rulings.)

The actual comprehensive rule that supports this is:

  107.1b Most of the time, the Magic game uses only positive numbers and zero. You can’t choose a negative number, deal negative damage, gain negative life, and so on. However, it’s possible for a game value, such as a creature’s power, to be less than zero. If a calculation or comparison needs to use a negative value, it does so. If a calculation that would determine the result of an effect yields a negative number, zero is used instead, unless that effect sets a player’s life total to a specific value, doubles a player’s life total, or sets a creature’s power or toughness to a specific value.

So in other words, you can actually have negative life, and your life is treated as being negative, but not for the purposes of calculating an effect such as Death's Shadow.


In Dungeon Petz, what is the optimal round to pick the "Inviting new imps" action space? What is the optimal round to pick the "Inviting new imps" action space in a 2-, 3- and 4-player game, respectively?

First of all you want to do this action exactly twice a game.

First time early, it depends on your turn order and on your opponents move. Ideally it would be around second or third round, so that you get more then one new imp, but it is not too late in the game.
Second time is a trade-off between penalty from not getting all your imps and have them used more times, I would go for them in round 4. Make sure to get at least 2 new imps.

Consider going for imps additional time in last round if your opponents have lots of imps away to prevent opponents from getting them and so that they get penalty.


Can you attack/deal damage an ally? I played a multiplayer game of magic today that had a very interesting turn. The game was a five player game with your allies being the player to your left and right and your opponents were the people across from you. On of my allies ended up getting a Wall of Resistance and would gain +1 toughness at the end of a turn after damage was dealt to it. I decided to attack my ally with this ability with a 1/1 creature to strengthen it, but the other ally said I couldn't due to it being an ally. Right after that, the same ally used Rootwater Hunter's tap ability to damage that same 1/1 creature and kill it.

To me, these two action seem equal and if one action can't be allowed then the other shouldn't. Since this was the pivoting point of the game I would like to the actual rules and how they apply to each situation. So can you attack an ally and can you target an ally with an effect that deals damage?

It sounds as if you were playing something similar to the Star format (though it sounds like you didn't use the color restrictions). The comprehensive rules don't have anything about it, so we have to rely on the group just agreeing on an interpretation. Wizards did list the rules for many popular casual MtG formats in an article written in 2008.

Players sit in a star pattern identical to the one on the back of every Magic: The Gathering card. The player with the white deck takes the first turn and then play continues clockwise around the table.
A color, and the player representing it, wins when its two enemy colors have been eliminated regardless of who eliminated them. This means a player may be able to win even after being eliminated from play! Each player can attack any other player (even their allies), and each player can target any player, permanent, spell, or anything else in the game. Decks are usually built following Standard deck-construction rules, but players can determine for themselves if they'd rather use Extended, Legacy, Vintage, or any other format.

Based on the articles above, it seems like the typical way is no restrictions on targeting or attacking your allies. This makes sense, since your allies aren't your teammates as the rules define teams. I'd say you had every right to attack your ally like you wanted to.


Can I deal extra damage if I copy Booby Trap's ability with Strionic Resonator? Can I copy Booby Trap's ability that states if you sacrifice Booby Trap it deals 10 damage to that player with Strionic Resonator, or am I only able to copy the section that states when the target player draws the named card sacrifice Booby Trap? In which case I can't sacrifice another Booby Trap and it wouldn't go off a second time.

You can copy the triggered ability with Strionic Resonator, but after the copy resolves, the original won't do anything.

Booby Trap's triggered ability is

  When the chosen player draws a card with the chosen name, sacrifice Booby Trap. If you do, Booby Trap deals 10 damage to that player.

If the ability is on the stack and you copy it with Strionic Resonator, you copy the whole thing. So, once the copy of the ability starts to resolve, you sacrifice Booby Trap, then it deals 10 damage to the opponent. Then the original ability starts to resolve, but the Booby Trap is already gone, so you can't sacrifice it and it doesn't deal any damage.


Can I kill an indestructible creature with damage and -1/-1? If a indestructible creature is a 3/3 and I block that creature with a 2/2 then I give the indestructible creature a -1/-1 will the indestructible creature die?

Don't confuse reduced toughness with damage. Damage gets marked on a creature, but it doesn't reduce its toughness.
The 3/3 takes two damage, remaining a 3/3. then you reduce it's power and toughness with the -1/-1. It is now a 2/2 with two damage marked on it. However it is indestructible so this is not sufficient to kill it. You would have to give it -3/-3  for example (reduce its toughness by 3)

702.12. Indestructible
702.12a. Indestructible is a static ability.
702.12b. A permanent with indestructible can't be destroyed. Such permanents aren't destroyed by lethal damage, and they ignore the state-based action that checks for lethal damage.
702.12c. Multiple instances of indestructible on the same permanent are redundant.


When to discard with Oasis When do you discard? Immediately after drawing, and before playing more actions? Or can you start/continue a chain of actions, which might include drawing more cards, and then discard after? I understand that all unused cards get discarded, so doing so at the end of the turn would negate Oasis's penalty, but the card is curiously vague about when this discard occurs.

Oasis:

You do everything on the card in the order it says:

Draw one card.
Add one to the number of remaining actions you have for the turn.
Add one coin to the amount you have to spend this turn.
Discard a card.

And then you can move on to other Actions or your Buy phase. So you'll discard a card before you play any other actions. (But it's during your Action phase, of course - it has to be since you played Oasis!)


Mirror-Sigil Sergeant and Mirrorweave Can I cast Mirrorweave in response to my own Mirror-Sigil Sergeant's upkeep ability and turn all my creatures into Mirror-Sigil Sergeant for that upkeep / turn and cause all my creatures to duplicate themselves?

You can use Mirrorweave and make all of your creatures copies of Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, but you won't get any extra triggers.

Mirror-Sigil Sergeant's triggered ability triggers "at the beginning of your upkeep", which is before you have any chance to act during that turn. The first time you can cast Mirrorweave is, as mentioned in the question, in response to the triggered ability. By that point, the time for the triggered ability to trigger has already passed, so any new Mirror-Sigil Sergeants will have already missed their window for the ability to trigger. If you instead cast Mirrorweave at any time during the previous turn, the copy effect will end before the new turn starts, so you can't get the trigger that way either.

As a side note, if a creature becomes a copy of Mirror-Sigil Sergeant in some other way that does allow the ability to trigger, the tokens it creates would just be more Mirror-Sigil Sergeants, not whatever creature it would be otherwise. As long as those creatures are copies of the Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, they have its copyable attributes, so anything that copies those creatures just copies the Mirror-Sigil Sergeant.


Can you play 99 relentless rats in commander? Just a silly question, can you run 99 Relentless Rats in commander? Maybe that and Sphinx of the Chimes and some juicy commander that plays off creature types.

Yes, you can, for the same reason you can in other formats.

The first Golden Rule:

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

They'd have to ban or restrict the card to limit its use, but it's legal in that format.


Does exiling a creature after it has been destroyed or dealt lethal damage still count as if it "died"? I'm actually working on an alternative card set. While designing tribal mechanics, I have encountered a problem with a single thing: does a creature exiled after being destroyed (instead of being put into graveyard) still counts as if it "died"?

So, let's imagine a situation:
Sengir Vampire deals damage to target 3/5 creature. Then, to finish the creature I cast Pillar of Flame... so, instead of dying (being put into graveyard) the creature gets exiled.

If Sengir Vampire dealt damage to a creature finished with Pillar of Flame, will he get +1/+1?

No, Sengir Vampire does not get a +1/+1 counter.

A creature dies when it moves from the battlefield to the graveyard. So, there are two different possibilities here. If the creature goes to the graveyard and then moves to exile, then it counts as dying. However, if it goes to exile instead of the graveyard, then it does not count as dying.

In your particular case, Pillar of Flame says

  If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.

The use of the word "instead" indicates that this is a replacement effect. So going to exile replaces going to the graveyard. Specifically, rule 614.6 says

  If an event is replaced, it never happens.

The event of the creature dying is replaced by exiling the creature, so it never died.


Reducing the Imperial strategy's power in Twilight Imperium I've played Twilight Imperium (3rd edition) a couple times with friends now, and we keep noticing the same thing: no amount of fancy maneuvering, planet conquest, etc. gets people enough victory points to overcome the Imperial strategy card:

The 2 points from that card are massive, to the point where you can't afford to choose a different strategy card if that one is in the deck on your turn, or you almost certainly won't end up winning the game. Is there a way to deal with that? Are there any house rules that weaken it without messing up the game (e.g. only receiving 1 VP)? Or modifying some other part of the game such that the 2 VPs from Imperial aren't as game-deciding?

"Imperial" is Twilight Imperium's biggest design flaw (IMO, of course).  As you'll typically get the card about twice in a game, and 2 vps is a winning margin in almost all circumstances, it makes the mid/endgame entirely about being the first person to grab Imperial for a second time.  In turn, this forces choice of card 1 to get the initiative whenever possible, so you can take "Imperial".  Which eliminates a lot of the interest provided by the actual strategies.

Your opinion is widespread, and the official Twilight Imperium variants FAQ has an "Ancient Throne" variant designed to deal with this problem.  Play with the "Age of Empire" variant in the rulebook (i.e. face-up Objective cards), and replace the primary ability of "Imperial" with:

Imperial Claim

Choose either a) or b).

a) If you control Mecatol Rex, immediately gain 1 victory point. Also, regardless of your control of Mecatol Rex, during the upcoming Status Phase, you may qualify for any
number of Public Objective Cards (but must still meet the individually stated requirements of each card).

b) You may choose to execute the secondary ability of the Imperial Strategy Card (at no cost). No other player may execute this secondary ability this game round.

Play the secondary as normal.

This became such a popular solution that they printed an "Imperial II" card with this wording in the "Shattered Empire" expansion.

The expansion also contains a more complex solution: It has a variant completely-different set of strategy cards for an alternate style of play; obviously this avoids the problem entirely.


What is the Infinite Squirrel deck? I've heard of the Infinite Squirrel Deck, and it looks as though it revolves around Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest.

Is this the only distinguishing feature of an Infinite Squirrel deck?

Your assessment is correct.  The infinite squirrel deck revolves around the two card combo.  This leaves 52 cards of the deck open to design choices.  Consequently, there's a huge variety of infinite squirrel decks.  This variety is greatly affected by the local meta game.


Does Master of Cruelties survive being blocked by a creature with 4 or more power? Master of Cruelties is a 1/4 with first strike and deathtouch. If I were to attack with Master of Cruelties and he gets blocked by a creature with 4 or more power, would Master of Cruelties die or would the first strike and deathtouch combo cause the other creature to die before Master of Cruelties is dealt damage?

Generally speaking, the Master will survive the battle; the first strike/deathtouch combo is that powerful (but appropriate for a 5 mana multicolor card). First strike will make sure the Master deals combat before creatures without this ability; with deathtouch, even a single damage is enough to kill a creature. In the 'regular' combat damage step, when the blocker would deal damage, it's already dead.

Some exceptions are when the blocker has first strike as well (or double strike), or when it has protection from black or from red. In the first case both creatures die, in the second case only the Master.


In Catan, can you put the robber on the desert? In Settlers of Catan, we've always played that you cannot put the robber back in the desert.  But watching tabletop this week, they did exactly that, and in the youtube comments people have said that the 4th edition rules don't say you can't.

Is there a definitive ruling for this in the latest ruleset?

On page 5 of the "Base Game Rules" downloadable from catan.com/gamerules.html (describing what happens when you roll a 7, or use a knight card):

  (1) You must move the robber immediately to the number token of any
  other terrain hex or to the desert hex.

(Emphasis mine.)  This page was last updated in January 2012, so I would assume it's a pretty current version of the rules almanac!