Trick Joseki? Shoulder hit after keima to 3-4-stone In a game I played, the following "Joseki" occurred:

I played the low keima against the 3-4-point, and Black responded with a shoulder hit. This move is not in the book by Takao Shinji.

In the game I attached under the 3-4 stone and created a living corner group, but Black's influence was tremendous. What should White do in this situation:

$$B
$$ ---------------------
$$ |..................|
$$ |..................|
$$ |..............1...|
$$ |..................|
$$ |...............2..|
$$ |..............3...|
$$ |..................|
$$ |..................|

Black's pincer is too close to White's stone (it should be at least one space lower). (This variation is not in the joseki books because it is not joseki.) That means that White can "lean on it while indirectly attacking Black's corner stone.

White should play Q15,Black plays p15, White cuts with P14, threatening to make a ladder to capture stone 3, Black extends from this stone, White ataris with P16, and quashes the corner stone with P17.

$$B
$$ ---------------------
$$ |..................|
$$ |..................|
$$ |..............1...|
$$ |.............8....|
$$ |.............542..|
$$ |.............637..|
$$ |..................|
$$ |..................|


What happens if I set up for a "29 hand" and miss? Inspired by an answer to "Why does a run of 4 in Cribbage score only 4?".

  The best possible hand in cribbage is 29, which involves the Jack that counts for nobs and all of the 5s. Now although hands with lots of fives are always good, often retaining just one or two will only result in a mediocre score where you count a few 15s, a pair, and are done.
  ...
  For example if you're drawing for the best possible hand failing to get that last 5 as the up card will cost you 14 points, as you'll only score 15-8, a pair royal for 6 and 1 for his nobs for 15.

Note: I think the count given is a bit off, or assumes something not explicitly stated - 555J on its own, with the J not matching any of the 5s - scores 14. Four 15s (8), plus trips (6). So, any up-card that doesn't add to that score in any way costs you 15.

As stated above, the best possible hand in cribbage is an extremely rare case. It first requires a player to be set up with a hand that happens rarely on its own (555J, all different suits). Then, it requires the up-card to be one specific card - the 5 matching the in-hand J.

Playing for this scenario, when dealt the proper hand, could be a very risky proposition. There's about 15 points of difference between the minimum and maximum possible values of this hand, depending on the up-card. Though the minimum score of 14 is still a fairly decent hand, there's many ways that the opponent could easily out-score this hand.

Additionally, keeping this hand sets the player up to have points pegged against him which might be more easily avoided with a different hand selection. If the player is forced to play a 5 when the count is zero, there's a very strong possibility their opponent has something to make 15 with.

Of course, the risk/reward scenario isn't just a matter of "I might score 14 or I might score 29". There's still a number of possibilities in between. So, what are the general odds that the final hand score might still be favorable? What possibilities exist between 14 and 29 here, and which are most likely?

Indeed, playing for 29 can be a very risky proposition - especially if you're in a late stage of the game and stand a good chance of losing if your hand scores no more than 14.

To simplify, I'm setting aside any human influence here. Yes, there are two other cards known to the player, as well as six cards known and controlled by the opponent. However, none of these are going back into the deck and no further cards are being drawn.

At best, a player might be able to use the two other cards in his hand to adjust his expectations of what the up-card could be. Of course, there's no chance at nailing 29 if you have all four 5s dealt to you along with a J and something else. But if your extra two cards each have a face value of 9 or lower, the odds that the up-card will substantially improve your score just went up a notch.

Still, setting aside all factors except the 4 mandatory cards in the starter hand simplifies calculations and gives a relatively solid baseline for our expectations.

Once you take out the rainbow hand of three 5s and a J, you have 48 cards left in the deck. Of these, the possible up-card scenarios are:

The 5 that matches the in-hand J (29 points, 2%) - This is the only way to score 29 and maximize this hand. And there's only one card that can do it.
Any remaining J (22 points, 6.25%) - This adds three more 15s and a pair to your base, for an 8-point boost. Counting out just the given base hand, there's three of these left in the deck.
T/Q/K matching the in-hand J (21 points, 6.25%) - Again, giving you three more 15s. Add on the knob and it's a 7-point total boost. Also, like the Jacks, there's only three ways to do this.
Any other T/Q/K (20 points, 18.75%) - Not matching the in-hand J, but still having face value of 10, means we lose the knob/pair points but keep the 15s. There's nine ways to do this though, so our odds here are relatively favorable in comparison to the previous scenarios.

Totaling the above gives us a one-in-three chance of scoring 20 or better. With a minimum possible score of 14, that's still a very nice hand!

However, as you'll see below, two-thirds of the possible scenarios will only bump your score by one point at most - and the majority of those don't add to it at all. If scoring 16 or more is absolutely crucial in the round where you get this hand, you might want to put off your dreams of hitting 29 for another day.

Any other card matching the in-hand J (15 points, 16.67%) - Anything other than 5/T/Q/K, which matches the in-hand J, only gives us one additional point for knobs. No extra 15s or pairs. This is where things start looking relatively bleak, since there's eight ways to do it.
Any card not categorized above (14 points, 50.00%) - This is the bare-minimum possible score with a hand that might otherwise score 29. We've got the three 15s for pairing each 5 with the J (6), the one 15 by adding all the 5s (+2), and a three-card match between the 5s (+6). Any up-card that's not a T/J/Q/K, and doesn't match the in-hand J, will not add to this. Having 24 ways to do this, out of 48 possible up-cards, gives us coin-flip odds of being stuck with the minimum score for this hand.


What happens when I cast a spell incorrectly? If I cast a spell which then turns out to be un-playable, what happens to my spell? E.G.:  Casting a spell on something that has Hexproof and can't be targeted in the first place. Do I simply place my spell back in my hand? Do I untap the lands used to pay for that spell?

If The Spell Never Had Any Legal Targets

You cannot cast a spell that requires a target unless there is a legal target for the spell.

If you try to cast a spell that requires a target, and discover that there is no legal target for that spell, it is considered an illegal action.

The comprehensive rules on handling illegal actions:

  717.1 If a player realizes that he or she can’t legally take an action after starting to do so, the entire
  action is reversed and any payments already made are canceled. No abilities trigger and no effects
  apply as a result of an undone action. If the action was casting a spell, the spell returns to the zone it
  came from. The player may also reverse any legal mana abilities activated while making the illegal
  play, unless mana from them or from any triggered mana abilities they triggered was spent on
  another mana ability that wasn’t reversed.

So, you would essentially "rewind" the game state, untapping your lands and returning the card to your hand.  Unfortunately, this misplay does mean that your opponent has earned some free information (i.e. they now know one of the cards you have in your hand).

If The Spell's Target Becomes Illegal After Casting It

In this case, your spell has already been cast, because you chose its target while casting it and at that time the spell had a legal target, but during the resolution of the spell, that target is discovered to no longer be legal.  This can happen, for instance, if the card Ranger's Guile is cast in response to your spell, giving the target of your spell Hexproof.

When your spell is resolving, it checks again to see if the target is still legal.  In this case, since the creature now has Hexproof, it will be determined that the target is not legal, and the spell will go to the graveyard and have no effect.  You will not untap your lands.  You simply lose that mana and that spell's effect; similar to if your spell was countered.

The relevant section of the comprehensive rules states (under the heading "Resolving Spells and Abilities"):

  608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that’s no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. If all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn’t resolve. It’s removed from the stack and, if it’s a spell, put into its owner’s graveyard. Otherwise, the spell or ability will resolve normally.


Are the cards in Zendikar vs Eldrazi standard yet, before Battle for Zendikar comes out? Is the new duel deck Zendikar vs Eldrazi considered standard before the Battle for Zendikar comes out? I have been playing it for a few days and I don't want to waste money buy more of those cards if I cannot play them in standard.

No, those cards are not all in Standard. Some already are, some aren't yet, some won't be.

Some already are Standard: Read the Bones and others have been printed in Standard sets. You can use those.
The cards we know will be in Battle for Zendikar aren't standard yet. They will be after that set actually comes out and enters Standard rotation. Dominator Drone and others aren't available in Standard yet.
Some are old cards that might not become Standard at all. Like other duel decks, Zendikar vs Eldrazi contains many cards from past sets no longer in Standard. Butcher of Malakir and Corpsehatch have not been seen in Standard since the original Zendikar block several years ago. There's no guarantee these cards will become Standard at all.

If you're expecting to buy exclusively cards usable in Standard, Duel Decks are not the product for you. Buy those to actually duel with, or if you play a more open format like Modern or Commander.


Catching an illegal move too late in Castles of Burgundy I was playing The Castles of Burgundy last night, and early in the second phase, one of the players realized that he had made a major error the round before -- he had placed two of the same building into an area.

We had a good 10-20 min talk about how we should handle the issue:

Scrap the whole game and start over.
Undo his previous turn, and make him take it over.  (but we weren't 100% sure we could remember his die rolls, and that may have affected what other people did since his turn (eg, he had taken the last available mine)).
Undo everyone's last turn.  (also problematic, as we'd have to remember what everyone did, and their die rolls).
Undo the last two rounds, re-roll and play from there (not a chance in hell of us remembering everything we'd have to back out)
Force him to move the recently placed building to another area (with a different die cost), and pay workers to make up for the difference.  (note that he offered to make it even by the end of the turn (by placing a boarding house); I wanted him to burn a die immediately to get the workers to make it even)
Allow him to move the conflicting building placed earlier (multiple rounds before) to a different area, as there was an available hex with the same die value on it.
Declare him to have automatically have lost (which would likely have him walk out, affecting the rest of the game).
Assign some sort of a penalty for it.  (points, or for our tournament, time)
Just let it ride, as there was no good way to reconcile it.  (I was told this is how PrezCon handled a similar situation last year)

We have a sort of tournament ranking going, with the top winners from a 'season' getting to select the games we play next ... so there were issues with setting a precident in scrapping a while game (someone could do it when they knew they were losing, so they didn't slip in the standings), or in assigning a penalty (as someone might decide the penalty was worth it if they got caught).

Are there any recommendations for dealing with this situation, or similar situations in other games?

We frequently play games for the first time and as a result often get the rules wrong. Our solution to this problem, when we realise a rules infraction too late to reasonably unwind it, is to continue the game allowing all players to repeat the error - so we're all playing on a level playing field.

I.e. in your case continue the game but let other players place two of the same building into an area for the rest of that game.


What happens when Annihilation is played in combat on a monster that is not the last played card? In Munchkin, what is the effect of Annihilation card when played in combat with multiple monsters, targeting a monster that is not the last played card? Will its power still count for combat resolution?

P.S. is there a centralised resource with card explanations?

If you target any monster in a multi monster combat situation that monster will be removed from the game. Since it was removed from the game it will no longer have any impact on the combat that is taking place.


Jenga: When does a player's turn begin? So in a hypothetical jenga game we have two players, let's call them player A and player B. Player A completes a turn, and the tower remains standing for the 10 seconds until player A's turn is over. But before player B touches the tower, it falls over. Does this count as it falling over during Player B's turn? Does player B's turn start 10 seconds after player A places a block, or when player B first touches the tower?

Thanks.

It is not necessarily any player's turn, but Player A would win. Not because player B caused the tower to topple - he didn't. But according to the rules:

  Your turn ends 10 seconds after you stack your block - or as soon as the player to your left touches one.

and

  If you're the last player to stack a block without toppling the tower,
  you win!"

It doesn't say that the next player's turn begins as soon as those 10 seconds are up, but it doesn't really matter. In this case, player A successfully stacked a block without toppling the tower. It wasn't that player B caused the tower to topple, it's just that player A met the win condition.


Do you need to complete both routes indicated on a destination card? In Ticket to Ride UK, there is a destination card from Glasgow to France that has two routes to France.  The points on the card are 19.  If a player completes both routes to France that are indicated on this destination card, would the player receive 38 points?  Or is the player required to complete both destinations for 19 points?  This is not clear.

You only have to make the required connection (Glasgow to France) once for 19 points. Like all destination tickets; a single ticket cannot be scored multiple times, even if you connect the locations via multiple routes.

The reason that the ticket shows multiple routes is because France is a country, as opposed to a city. In the base Ticket to Ride game, destination tickets are only between two cities. But in this expansion, some of them include a country instead of a city. The country behaves differently because there are multiple spaces within that country. So instead of having to connect a specific place to another specific place; you just have to connect a specific place to one of those 2 places within France.

This is mentioned somewhat in the Ticket to Ride: Marklin rules:

  Some Destination Ticket include the name of a city and a country name. Each route leading to a country
  is a dead end and cannot be used to link two cities.


Can I combo Dismiss Into Dream with Living Inferno or Cauldron of Souls? So, at the Prerelease this past weekend I pulled a Dismiss Into Dream from the packs I won.

I LOVE the flavor of this card and I think I could abuse it. I wanted to check on rulings though:

Dismiss Into Dream + Living Inferno: Would I be able to declare the targets and then they would all have to be sacrificed before they dealt damage to Living Inferno? And furthermore, could I choose any number and just have them all take 0 damage?
Dismiss Into Dream + Cauldron of Souls: Same sort of question: Could I target them then they have to be sacrificed before the creatures get Persist?

Yes, it is powerful, but for 7 that is to be expected.

Targeting a creature affected by Dismiss Into Dream will have them sacrificed before the spell/ability targeting them resolves. This is because the effect created by Dismiss Into Dream will go on the stack after the spell targeting the creature.

To address your specific questions:

No on your combo with living inferno, a ruling on gatherer prevents you from assigning 0 damage:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=96874

  You divide the damage among the target creatures as you activate Living Inferno's ability. Each target must be assigned at least 1 damage.

Yes, on your combo with Cauldron of souls.


When does Sarkhan's Unsealing check power? Suppose I have Sarkhan's Unsealing out, and exactly 7 cards in hand (including Tishana), and I cast Tishana, Voice of Thunder. Which mode of Unsealing will trigger?

My reasoning is that when you cast Tishana, you have to put her on the stack first, so she will be a 6/6 when Sarkhan's Unsealing checks her power. But I could see it go either way, so I wanted to get a more definite answer for clarity.

More generally, when precisely does the power get "locked in" for the purpose of determining whether Sarkhan's Unsealing triggers? For example, suppose I crack a bunch of Chromatic Spheres to refill my hand while casting Tishana. What happens then?

The creature spell's power gets locked in for Sarkhan's Unsealing immediately after you have finished casting the spell, which includes paying costs. The final step of casting a spell, described in rule 601.2i, says

  Once the steps described in 601.2a–h are completed, effects that modify the characteristics of the spell as it’s cast are applied, then the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time. If the spell’s controller had priority before casting it, they get priority.

Since this is the point where the ability triggers, it is also the point where characteristics are checked for the purpose of determining which ability triggers.

So, in the original scenario, Tishana will be seen as having 6 power, and the first ability on Sarkhan's Unsealing will trigger. If you refill your hand to 7 or more cards while activating mana abilities to pay the cost, then it will be seen as having that much power and the second ability will trigger instead.


Does the psychic abomination rule apply to an unmoving unit already within the effect radius? The Culexus Assassin and Sisters of Silence's psychic abomination rule states that blessings and maledictions are nullified as soon as the target unit moves within 12" of the model. Does it means that one can still target a model that is already within 12" of a Sisters' unit or of an assassin with a malediction like treason of Tzeench and have it work as long as the target model doesn't move?

No, Psychic Abomination basically creates a "null magic" zone where any psychic powers fail to manifest.


Are gates too slow for constructed play? Gates are of a cycle of dual lands coming out in Return to Ravnica. There's a gate for each guild (WU, BG, UR, BR, GW), but they always enter the battlefield tapped. These are in stark contrast to the shock lands that reappear in this set (which only enter tapped if you do not pay 2 life), the duals from the core set (which only enter tapped if you do not already have, for example, a swamp or mountain for the dual that taps for R or B (ironically, the gates would allow this to not come in tapped)), and lands from previous sets that came in tapped only you already have a few lands. The Innstrad lands work the same way, even though they aren't always aligned with the guild colors (They have BW, not WU. But they do have BG and UR, very nice.)

So that's the background. Is the entering the battlefield tapped going to be too slow? You're basically sacrificing whatever turn you're at to be turn - 1, which is a pretty hefty price to pay (apparently, it's worth 2 life!) Are these only going to see play in limited to facilitate mana fixing that otherwise isn't available?

Short answer: unconditionally entering the battlefield tapped leaves them at too great a disadvantage with respect to the other options, and these lands are designed for limited play.

More specifically, there's essentially no advantage to using Gates over the corresponding shocklands or core set/Innistrad duals; since there's virtually no land type specific LD, gates are for all practical purposes strictly worse than their corresponding shocklands, because the shocklands can be fetched with Farseek and otherwise have the option of coming into play untapped if you're willing to take the hit.  Likewise, the core/Inn lands are exactly like the Gates except for the possibility of coming into play untapped on turn 2+ (and note that the shocklands 'turn on' the core lands, which is another point in shocklands' favor).

Between these two factors, the only thing that Gatelands have to offer over the other choices is that little word: 'Gate'.  If there were cards that took real advantage of the gate type - say, something like a Rampant Growth/Farseek for Gates - then I think you would actually see them getting some play in ramp decks.  As it is, though, the only cards that interact with Gates are a couple of creatures (none of which is within constructed-stats range) that gain small benefits for gates in play and Gatecreeper Vine, which fetches a gate but - unfortunately - doesn't put it into play.  This means that the land type (at least for now) isn't offering any upside to offset the advantages that the other styles of dual have.

So why do they exist?  Well, pretty much for the reason that you noted; RTR limited is going to need quite a bit of manafixing since there are so many multicolor cards; this means putting fixing down into the common slots.  And while Rarity Is Not Power, WotC has a number of reasons for not having rares 'outclassed' in substantial ways by commons, and they've done very few powerful land cycles at common (or even uncommon) - you can generally expect that any land-based mana fixing that winds up in the common slot is going to be a little bit weak.


Carcassonne fairy - scoring with a fairy for multiple areas and at the end Here are the more in-depth rules for The Princess and The Dragon expansion:
http://www.modernjive.com/carcassonne/carcassonnefaq.htm

But it does not answer my questions (I assume the fairy protects a tile, not a follower):

Does the fairy score at the end of the game? Meaning: If i have a fairy on a tile containing my unfinished castle, friend's and my unfinished road and, say, two different farms which both belong to me, do I get 3 points for "scoring" a castle even though it is not finished, because one of its tiles contain a fairy, 3 bonus points for the unfinished road, with the same explanation as the castle (also 3 points for my friend) and 6 points for 2 farms containing the tile with a fairy? To simplify, does a fairy grant a bonus at the end of the game for the farms and/or unfinished objects (that are actually "scored")?
Can one player score multiple finised objects with one fairy? E.g. by placing a tile with a road and a castle (both mine) which finishes them both and immediately putting a fairy there grants me 3+3=6 bonus boints? Or does one get the bonus only once, no matter how many objects he owns on that particular fairy-occupied tile?
If my monastry neighbors a tile with a fairy and the monastry gets surrounded completely, thus scored, do I get the bonus 3 points or does the fairy have to be on the monastry tile itself?

As per the rules:

  When a feature (city, road, cloister, or farm) with the fairy is scored, the player whose follower stands on the tile with the fairy scores 3 points for standing there, and may score for the feature as normal. When scored, the follower returns to its owner, but the fairy remains.

Make special note of "When scored, the follower returns to its owner, but the fairy remains."
This means that you can only get the 3 bonus points by scoring something which will remove your follower from the tile. This can lead to multiple bonuses. The fairy is placed at the time you would place a follower, which comes before scoring (this should answer number 2).

As for the monastery, once again the rules state that you should return your meeple, and I don't see that happening with the monastery being finished (unless another feature is finished along the way).


Can troops and equipment abilities be used on another player's lane? In XenoShyft Onslaught, can Troop Card and Equipment Card abilities be used on another player's lane? For example, can a player use the "Stormtrooper" ability to deal 2 damage to a monster on another player's lane?

For references, the rulebook says that player can use card abilities during the "Reaction phase" after revealing an enemy, but nothing about restricting targets:

  At this time all players have a chance to react to the revealed
  Enemy. This includes using Special Abilities on their cards or
  playing Instant cards from their hand.

The "Stormtrooper" card:

I found the answer in the official FAQ (not included in the box published by EDGE) published on CMON website (game creator) : https://cmon.com/product/xenoshyft/xenoshyft-onslaught

  Q: Can I use effects on other player’s lanes (such as the Storm
  Trooper)?
  A: Unless a card specifies “this lane” or “your lane” it can be
  used on any player’s lane

Since the Stormtrooper ability is "Once per round, this troop may deal 2 damage to 1 revealed enemy", it can indeed be used on another player lane.


If your partner opens with a "pass," does that make you the "captain" in a bridge partnership? There are two instances: You are either third or fourth seat, and partner has passed.
In fourth seat, you are clearly the driver. After three passes, you are the one to decide whether the hand will be played or passed out.
Suppose you are in the third seat, after partner and one opponent have passed. You know that partner doesn't have an opening hand, and therefore has a hand that's no better than average. You, on the other hand, could have a passing hand, a minimum opening hand, or a powerhouse. In the first two instances, you may be worried about what fourth seat may have to say.
Does that fact give you extra liberty in bidding, knowing that your partner's choices are restricted? For instance, Larry Cohen suggests bidding strong four card majors in third and fourth seat, even though most people wouldn't do that in first or second seat.* Is it "less bad" to possibly mislead partner after s/he has passed?
*An extreme example of this is to bid "one spade" under the "rule of 15" as a semi-preemptive move.

You ask three or four different things here; and while Mycroft does a good job of discussing the concept, I wanted to directly answer your questions.

Are you the "captain"?
No, you're not the "captain" necessarily, if you mean the person who ends up deciding where you go.  Captaincy largely means one person has a well-described hand, and the other has a more wide open hand; "pass" describes a huge number of hands in first or second seat.  Sometimes you do end up captain - sometimes partner does; if you open 1NT, for example, partner is nearly always now "captain".
Can you mislead your partner? No, you should not try to mislead your partner.  You should, in every situation, make bids that are in keeping with your agreements (and convention card).  Those agreements can make accommodations here though - "Could be light 3rd/4th seat", or as Cohen suggests, open 4 card majors 3rd/4th seats. Those are agreements - they're not misleading anyone, hopefully.
Can you take liberties? By agreement, you can do things you wouldn't do in 1st/2nd seat, and those things do include being a bit more likely to make an opening bid.  Does that mean you should make bids that your partner doesn't expect or doesn't know what they mean? No, absolutely not.  It just means the range of things you can do is greater - by agreement.

Third or fourth seat openings can still lead to big problems - partner could have a solid 11 count with 4 in your suit and be just short of opening 1st/2nd seat, but then they see you opening and think "Game!" when you really only have 10 yourself and 4 cards as well.  Partner isn't passing permanently!  I've seen people who do make inconsistent calls in 3rd or 4th seat, and it rarely works in their favor - even really quite good players capable of winning regional-level pairs events.


Repeatedly targeting one creature with the same "target creature gains..." effect Main question
Is it legal to target the same creature with the same effect that would give it an ability over and over again?

Context
In my case, I run Broken Fall in my Omnath enchanter commander deck, and with some Enchantress's Presence effects on the field I like to return it to my hand by regenerating Omnath, then re-casting it to draw one or more cards over and over again. Is this a legal strategy?

You may continue casting Broken Fall to trigger Enchantress's Presence for as long as you have the mana to do so.
To break it down, in magic there are few cases where the game cares about what has happened previously (and when the game does care it is usually covered by the rules text on the card). So for your interaction the game sees it like this:

You cast Broken Fall paying its costs ({2}{G}) as per (601.2).
Enchantress triggers allowing you to draw a card.
Broken Fall resolves. You may now activate its ability.
You activate Broken Fall's ability, choosing a target and paying its costs (returning it to your hand). It should be noted that you can choose any creature for this not just your own, so no worries if you want to combo and have no creatures.
Broken Fall's ability resolves (or dosen't, if your opponent response is to either kill the target or stifle it) and the stack is now empty. You may now start again from the top.

Some things to note that your opponent might have had some trouble with:

Once a card enters a private zone (hand, library etc.) the game no longer tracks it. So from the games perspective it has no way of telling that Broken Fall is the same card once it enters your hand. So the game can't tell the difference between casting the same Broken Fall 4 times, or casting and returning to your hand four different copies of Broken Fall.

400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence...

A creature can have multiple regeneration effects applied to it. The regeneration replacement effects just queue up on the creature and are used up one at a time as needed and if not used disappear at the end of the turn. (Regneration 701.13, Replacement Effects 614.6-8)


If a creature is blocking and it has vigilance does it still tap? If a creature is blocking and it has vigilance does it still tap?

Declaring a creature as blocker never taps it, whether it has vigilance or not. Only attacking creatures will be tapped:

  508.1f The active player taps the chosen creatures. Tapping a creature when it’s declared as an attacker isn’t a cost; attacking simply causes creatures to become tapped.

(of course, Vigilance prevents this:

  702.20b Attacking doesn’t cause creatures with vigilance to tap. (See rule 508, “Declare Attackers Step.”)

Such a rule is not present for blocking creatures; only that they must be untapped in order to block:

  509.1a The defending player chooses which creatures they control, if any, will block. The chosen creatures must be untapped. For each of the chosen creatures, the defending player chooses one creature for it to block that’s attacking that player or a planeswalker they control.

If a creature with vigilance becomes tapped because of another spell or effect, it won't be able to block.


In Arkham Horror, what card is shown on the bottom right of the board display of the rulebook? The rulebook here shows a board layout on page 4.  At the right side are the various investigator items (common and unique items, skills, spells, allies, etc). There are 11 cards stacked there. What is the bottom one that stands alone (not in a neat row of 5)?

It vaguely looks like the bank loan card but the title and word spacing implies to me that it isn't.

The only thing I can come up with is that it's supposed to be a discarded bank loan.

The paragraphs aren't 100% the same, but they're close. Pretty much the only substantial difference is the title, and putting the whole title on one line seems like an obvious thing to do. Seems likely they just didn't go update the image in the rules.

I say discarded because it's face up, and because the bank loans are the third card in the right column there. You can see the Bank of Arkham image on the back. That's also consistent with it being set apart from the others. (Of course, discarded cards are supposed to be discarded back to the bottom of the deck they came from, but maybe they weren't careful about making that image.)

It's a bit of a reach to make that inference, but there aren't really other good options. It's definitely the only small card in the base game that looks like that, and even the expansions I have don't include anything else similar. Bottom line, if that's not a bank loan, it's not anything that matters. There's not something else that looks almost exactly like a bank loan that you're missing.

For what it's worth, unless you're lucky enough to have a really huge table, I wouldn't bother splitting up all the odd investigator-related cards (Retainer, Deputy cards, etc) like they do in that picture. They're the kind of thing that you'll use at most a few times in the entire game, and most often just one or none, so you can just keep them all in a pile and go fish one out when you need it. Spreading out the location cards and giving each investigator some space seems much more important.


How can I play around graveyard hate? Graveyard-based strategies are common in casual and tournament MTG. The graveyard offers players easy ways to cheat on costs (e.g. Reanimator), grind out incremental advantage (e.g., Sun Titan decks, Zombies with Gravecrawler), set up infinite combos (e.g. Melira Pod in Modern, Sharuum EDH), or short-circuit most of "normal" Magic altogether (Manaless Dredge).

However, Wizards of the Coast also prints powerful hate cards to hold graveyard decks in check, including Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Grafdigger's Cage, Jund Charm, and Scavenging Ooze.

Part of running a fun and powerful deck is making sure you don't just fold to hate immediately.

What are the most common and successful strategies for playing around graveyard hate, especially for decks with a graveyard-based combo element? I am interested in both deckbuilding solutions (including sideboarding, of course) and in-play tactics.

Depending on the format, you can

a) be faster than the hater (except against Leyline of course, only white control helps against that): The fastest combo is Swamp, Dark Ritual, Putrid Imp/Entomb, discard, Exhume.

b) control your opponent's solutions. Black is notoriously bad at dealing with artifacts and enchantments, so you probably need white (Disenchant) and/or blue (countering) as well. Google "reanimator control" for deck lists.

Unfortunately, control typically conflicts with Reanimator's strategy of bringing a fat guy on the table as soon as possible. You either need to spend a turn removing a hate card, or you need to keep enough mana open to counter one. Trying to be faster loses against Leyline of the Void, and possibly against cheap permanent or instant-speed graveyard removal.

Either way, you should always try to discard your fat guy and reanimate it in one go if possible. Give the opponent as little an opening as possible. But if you go against a dedicated graveyard hate sideboard, you're going to have a tough time either way, because as you already pointed out with your list of hate cards, all those cards are cheap and have either a static or an instant-speed activated hate ability.

On the positive side: when going the counter route, the hoser spells' low costs and specific type can be to your advantage. Cards like Spell Snare, Mental Misstep and Annul protect your graveyard for minimal costs.


Can you discard inactive jobs in Firefly When you deal during your action and you finish having more then 3 inactive jobs in your hand, can you choose 3 to keep from all of your jobs or no ?

Game rules are not clear about this and in something that looks like unofficial game FAQ it looks like you can do that.

Yes, you can end up with more than inactive 3 jobs in your hand after dealing, but you must immediately discard back to down to a maximum of 3.

Basically when dealing you consider 3 cards (these cards are not counted as being in your hand yet while you are considering them). You then select a maximum of 2 of these cards to keep depending on which ones you like (the selected cards, if any, are now placed in your hand). Then you must immediately discard back down to a maximum of 3 cards (so you would discard jobs you previously had that you didn't want to keep).

The FAQs hosted on flamesofwar.com are the official ones as they are linked to from this official page, although the version you linked to (v2) is outdated, the most recent FAQ is v4.1.


What first turn kill in multiplayer FFA provides the best ratios? People love to figure out first turn kills in Magic: the Gathering, and have been around since the beginning, when someone threw together a deck with Channel, Black Lotus, Fireball, Mountain. Pulling off a first turn kill in multiplayer is much harder, because you need to do much more damage to your opponents.

Assume the following:

You have 4 opponents.
Legacy Banned List.
You get to determine every card you draw (including starting hand).
Your opponents take no actions. (goldfish).

What is the maximum amount of total life loss that is possible? Not sure of the best way to rank submissions, perhaps fewest cards used, least mana used, most life loss, or least expensive cards. Perhaps an average of those values.

False Cure deck - I used to have a Vintage version of this deck, using proxies for all the expensive cards in the deck.

Play Overgrown Tomb ($14)
Cast 1xDark Ritual ($1)
Cast 1xFalse Cure ($1.50)
Cast 4xSkyshroud Cutter ($0.10) for alternate casting cost.

First Skyshoud Cutter causes opponents gain 5 life (25 life), False Cures and opponents lose 10 life. Remaining 3 Skyshroud Cutter's do the same.

7 Cards (AVG 22.9 life/card). Cheating a little since we are giving opponents life
6 Mana (AVG 55.3 life/mana), or using CMC instead 8.42
40 * 4 life = 160 total
$14 + $1 + $1.50 + 4x$0.10 (approximate $16.90 total, AVG 9.47 life/$) (Prices by TCGPlayer.com, 5th lowest Near Mint price)


Does a player always has to have uncompleted destination tickets on-hand? When you finish your routes, do you have to draw new ones?

No.

If you do complete all your routes, it is often a good idea to collect more since each route completed adds to your score, however this is very dependent on the current game situation (how many routes are free, how close it is to game end, how flexible your current rail system is) as you also risk drawing new cards that you can't complete and which would penalize you. However, there is nothing mandating that you always have tickets to complete: Since the contents of your tickets is not public information nobody should know that you've completed all your tickets until game end, so such a rule would be mostly unenforceable anyway.

According to the rules, the game turn consists of taking one (and only one) of the following four actions:

Draw Train Car Cards
Claim a Route
Draw Destination Tickets
Build a Train Station

However, there is absolutely nothing in the rules which tells you to take one of these actions over the others in any situation: It is entirely your choice as to which of the four actions to take.

Literally the only case I can conceive of where you'd be forced to collect more destination tickets (aside from the ones drawn during game setup) would be if the other three actions were, for whatever reason, unavailable to you. This would basically mean that there are (a) no train cards to draw, (b) you can't afford to claim any routes, and (c) you've already deployed your station. And if this does happen to you, you've probably already lost.


Axis and Allies 1941 :Can a submarine sneak attack a battle ship when there is an enemy sub in the same battle? No home rules please

So heres the scenario:
I attacked with one sub.

The enemy has one battleship and one sub.

Can I sneak attack the battleship if there is an enemy sub in the same battle?

Can I do so if I had a destroy in the battle? Is this possible at all?

Thank you!

A&A 1941:
If you have a sub and the enemy has a sub and a battleship, you can make a Surprise Strike, but the defender can take the hit with whichever unit he wants (and if it's the sub, it would still get return fire if your opponent also chose to do a Surprise Strike).  Having a Destroyer prevents your opponent from making a Surprise Strike, not yourself.

Rules:  http://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Axis-Allies-1941.pdf

Excerpt:
Step 2. Submarine Surprise Strike or Submerge (Sea Battles Only)
This step is specific to attacking and defending submarines.

Before the general sea battle takes place (steps 3–5), both attacking and defending submarines choose to either make a
Surprise Strike die roll or submerge. However, if your opponent has a destroyer in the battle, your attacking or defending
submarines cannot submerge or make a Surprise Strike. Combat proceeds normally, and your submarines fire along with your
other units in step 3 or 4.

Submerge: Attacking or defending submarines that choose to submerge are immediately removed from the battle strip and
returned to the game board in the contested sea zone, removing them from the rest of that sea battle.

Players on both sides have to decide whether attacking and defending submarines will fire or submerge before rolling any dice. The attacking player decides first.

Surprise Strike: Each attacking submarine conducting a Surprise Strike rolls one die, scoring a hit on a roll of “2” or less.
After the attacker has rolled for all attacking submarines, the defender chooses one sea unit for each hit scored and moves it
behind the casualty strip. (Submarines cannot hit air units.) Then each defending submarine conducting a Surprise Strike rolls
one die, scoring a hit on a roll of “1.” After the defender has rolled for all defending submarines, the attacker chooses one sea
unit for each hit scored and removes it from play.

Once all Surprise Strike rolls have been made, remove the defender’s casualties. This step is over for this round of
combat. Repeat this step during each round of combat as long as there are attacking and/or defending submarines and no
opposing destroyers. Any hits made during this step that do not destroy units (such as battleships) remain in effect until the
end of the combat.

Note: In both cases, attacking or defending, transports can be chosen as casualties only if there are no other eligible units.
You cannot choose submerged submarines as casualties since they have been removed from the battle.


Frigga's Protection multiple use in single battle The card says

  You may pay 1 rage to prevent a figure of yours from being destroyed.

Can I pay 3 rage to prevent 3 figures from being destroyed in a single battle?

Yes, in the game of Blood Rage, you can use the Frigga's Protection card to save multiple units in one battle as long as you have sufficient rage. See this post from Thiago Aranha, one of the three authors of the rules of the game:

https://boardgamegeek.com/article/20522706#20522706


"Best of the Best" and Heavy Raiders? There is a card in the Battlestar Galactica: Exodus expansion called "Best of the Best".  It says:

  Play before a piloted viper makes an
  attack.  Instead of rolling the
  attack, roll the die and destroy that
  many raiders in the viper's space
  area.

Question is:

Can this card be used to destroy heavy raiders in the viper's space area?

Can it be used to destroy heavy raiders in the viper's space area if a 7 or 8 is rolled on the die?

Can it be used to destroy heavy raiders in the viper's space area if Samuel T. Anders' "Longshot" ability is used to declare that the die result is an 8?

The card cannot be used to destroy Heavy Raiders. The word "Raiders" refers to normal Raiders only and not Heavy Raiders.

This is similar to the question about whether or not nukes can destroy Heavy Raiders (the card also only refers to Raiders). The FAQ's answer is that nukes only destroy normal Raiders, not Heavy Raiders.


Star of Afrika - Horseshoes confusion I'm a bit confused about the rules for horseshoes.In the rules it is said to put them aside.

What does that exactly entail?

Is it then so, that if you find them before the star is found....you just put them out of game. And when the star is found all other horseshoes found can now be taken by the player finding them instead of being put aside?
(which leads to the star player automatically winning in case no horseshoes are left?)

Or are the rules meant to work differently?

According to the rules on wikipedia,

  Before the star of Africa has been found, horseshoes are useless and are discarded. After the famous diamond has been found, however, they become effective substitutes for it. Taking a horseshoe to Cairo or Tangiers when another player has the star of Africa wins the game.

This does seem to imply that if all horseshoes are found before the Star, they will all be discarded and so the person who finds the Star has a guaranteed win.

Note that, according to the same article, the expansion changes this dynamic:

  In 2014, an expansion for the game called Retkikunnat ("The expeditions") was published, making the game more complex... As a new feature, it is now also possible to steal the Star of Africa from the player who found it.

Thus in the expansion, even if all horseshoes have been discarded, the Star can still be stolen so finding it does not guarantee that you will win.


When you get 2 sets of bad luck dice (6 total frowns), can you discard 2 cards from the same stack? The rules say

  For every 3 bad luck symbols which a player has .... he must choose and discard one active (lying on top) card from their CV

Does this mean he can discard a card, then consider the card underneath active, then discard that one? Or, does he need to discard only cards that were active before beginning the discard process (i.e. cards from different stacks)?

I have this game in French.

the rules say:

  Si un joueur possède 3 symboles Malchance sur un tirage de dés et/ou avec ses jetons, il doit immédiatement se défausser d'une de ses cartes CV actives.

This would translate as (emphasis mine):

  If a player has 3 bad luck symbols on his dice and/or tokens he must immediately discard one of his active CV cards

So, if you get your 6 bad luck symbols during the same turn but not on the same roll, I would say that you discard a card when you roll your third bad luck symbol and then a second one (from the same column if you wish) when you roll your sixth one. Assuming you get the 6 bad luck symbols at the same time (now that's real bad luck) I would appply the same rule and allow discarding twice from the same column...


Can I use chapter specific characters in a custom space marine chapter? I have made my custom space marine chapter, currently I have only a generic apothecary and captain as my HQ. What I wanted to know is if I could use specific HQ units like the imperial fists Captain Lysander or the Whites Scars Kor'sarro Khan in my custom chapter.

Yes, since your chapter has the Adeptus Astartes keyword, units with that or imperial keyword can be included BUT these HQ units will function as written, their abilities won't change to reference your custom chapter.

Using Lysander as an example, Icon of Obstinacy will ONLY affect Imperial Fists units, For the Khan! from Kor'sarro will ONLY affect White Scars. When talking about casual play, house rules can change this, you can agree with your opponent to allow these abilities to work on your custom faction, but not in tournament.


What is resolved first, an card when-player-summon effect or a summoned card effect? I'm playing with an Alien deck, and one thing I like to do with this is to activate Planet Pollutant Virus combined with Alien Mars and Alien Psychic.

My question is when my opponent summons a monster that has a effect, which resolves first? E.g.

My opponent plays a monster that can destroy another monster when summoned
My Planet Pollutant Virus places an A-Counter on it
My Alien Mars negates my opponent monster's effect

or

My opponent plays a monster that can destroy another monster when summoned
My Planet Pollutant Virus places an A-Counter on it
My opponent monster's effect is resolved so it destroys my Alien Mars before it's effects are negated

Chain activation 1: Opponent's monster summoned, and tries to destroy your monster. SS1 (SS2 if quick effect)

Chain Activation 2: Planet Pollutant Planet activates SS2

Where is Alien Mars? Because it is a SS1, it cannot be activated in this chain

Chain Resolution 2: An A-Counter is put on your opponent's monster.

Chain Resolution 1: Your opponent destroys your Alien Mars

Therefore, your opponent's monster destroys your monster, but you managed to put an A-Counter on it with your Planet Pollutant Virus.


Ensnaring Bridge and Cranial Plating Let's say that I have an Ensnaring Bridge in play, and no cards in my hand. My opponent has a 0/2 Ornithopter in play, and also a Cranial Plating (and some other artifacts to pump it up). Can he attack and then attach the Cranial Plating to the Ornithopter after announcing his attackers by using the "Attach" ability (The one for BB)?

Yes, he can attach then, and yes, this does circumvent Ensnaring Bridge.

Only the 'equip' ability is restricted to sorcery speed.

The '{B}{B}: Attach Cranial Plating to target creature you control.' ability can be used anytime you have priority. That's why it's more expensive to use even though it has the same effect as Equip.

Since the creature has already been declared as an attacker and correctly met the conditions needed to attack at that time (508.1c in the comprehensive rules), it has been declared as an attacker already, and suddenly failing to meet the conditions doesn't remove it from combat (506.4 and 506.4a). So all that mattered is the 'thopter was 0/2 when it attacked.


Where can I find the rules for the Roc Pattern Storm Eagle? I've seen that its rules exist, but not in which book or web supplement to find them. Where can I find them?

The rules for the Roc Pattern are in Imperial Armour Volume 12 - The Fall of Orpheus, from Forge World, p.151.

You can just about see this from the scanned table of contents (2nd image) on the FW page for the book. It's also referenced on the 40K Wiki.


How does Homeward Path work with cards that enchant to steal? How does the card Homeward Path work with cards like In Bolas's Clutches? Homeward Path would imply that you still get it back, but those types of effects continue as long as the creature is enchanted, at least from a surface level inpsection of the enchantment.

Even though Homeward Path looks to have an instantaneous effect, it's actually continuous:

  611.1. A continuous effect modifies characteristics of objects, modifies control of objects, or affects players or the rules of the game, for a fixed or indefinite period.

Since both continuous effects apply in layer 2:

  613.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.

you have to apply them in timestamp order:

  613.2. Within layers 1–6, apply effects from characteristic-defining abilities first (see rule 604.3), then all other effects in timestamp order (see rule 613.6). Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a layer. (See rule 613.7.)

If Homeward Path is activated after In Bolas's Clutches is cast, the owner will get the creature back:

  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.

(quotes are from the Comprehensive Rules)


Game of Thrones: What if we run out of all the order tokens and are compelled to use special order tokens? If a player is not allowed to use any special order token (tokens with star) and they still want to play an order token of a kind (eg. 3 march orders), can they play the special order token as a regular order token?

In an extreme case, what if all the other kinds of regular tokens are used and no special order tokens can be used?

No. You may not use them.

From page 22. on the 2nd Edition rules:

  In addition to 10 normal Order tokens, each House also have five Special Order tokens. A player may use any of his 10 normal Order tokens during the Planning Phase, but may use only as many Special Order tokens as he has stars on the King's Court Influence track position.

  ...

  While special orders are purely better than their regular counterparts, they have an additional subtle advantage: Having access to three instances of any order type (rather than two), can be of tremendous benefit to many strategies (such as launching a major offensive, quickly accumulating power, etc).

It's a key dynamic in Game of Thrones that you have less order tokens than you'd like. You need to choose wisely how to use them, and this rule also incentivises you to bid on the King's Court Influence track.

If you have run out of Order tokens that you'd like to play (such as march and support orders), then you need to fill your remaining spaces with the less useful tokens such as defence and raid orders.

The scenario where a player has used all of his possible order tokens is described on page 12, in the section 'Not enough order tokens?'.

  In very rare circumstances, a player will have fewer eligible Order
  tokens than he needs (ie. he is unable to assign an order to each area
  containing one or more of his units). In this case all players must
  take the Assign Orders step in turn order (rather than
  simultaneiously). The first player places all of his orders (facedown
  as normal) on the game board, followed by the next player in turn
  order, etc. The player(s) with insufficient number of eligible Order
  tokens must place all his eligible Order tokens during his turn,
  but as an exception to the normal rules, is allowed to leave areas (of
  his choice) without an order. A player may never, under any
  circumstance place more order tokens than allowed by his position on
  the King's court influence track.

The rules are very clear about this. It is by design that you don't have enough order tokens.


Rubber bridge: when must honours be declared in order to be scored? If you have four or five honors (or four aces in no-trump), when does it have to be declared?

The last time I played, I declared my four honors for 100 points after the hand was over. The bridge referee said that was too late, reasoning that the honors had to be declared before the hand was finished.

From Law 76 in the American Contract Bridge League laws,

  Honours may be claimed until the next hand has been dealt or the rubber has been completed and scored – whichever comes sooner.

Law 78 also states, with my emphasis on the specific relevant example,

  When it is acknowledged by a majority of the players that a scoring error was made in recording an agreed-up-on result (e.g., failure to enter honors or incorrect computation of score), the error must be corrected if discovered before the net score of the rubber has been agreed to.

Until the next hand is dealt or the rubber complete and scored, honours may be claimed.

The end of a hand is not the same event as the dealing of the hand after it. The rubber cannot be complete until it is know that a side has 100 points below the line, and it is not scored until the sides have both worked out and accepted the net scores from hands played in that rubber.

The referee appears to have made an error if they disallowed scoring honours before the next hand or before the rubber's net score was agreed to. The referee was correct if you or your partner had assented to either dealing the next hand or the complete rubber's net score.


Using train stations in other editions Can you use the train stations from the European edition with any other editions?.  Like with London or Pennsylvania.

I own or have played all versions of Ticket To Ride.
Ticket To Ride - Europe is the only version that I know of that uses stations.
As a house rule, there is nothing that will prevent you from using the stations with the other versions but you will then not be playing according to the official rules.


Playing with the characters from the base and the Dark City expansion for Citadels. In 3 player Citadels, each player chooses 2 characters. I've found I liked picking 2 characters so much that I've modified the game to be able to do it with any number of players. All I had to do was sleeve the all the characters and add my own in with the others. Picking 2 characters makes the game a little quicker, adds more strategy, and makes the game more interesting in general. I'm curious about how some of the characters from the Dark City expansion would work when combined with the characters from the original game instead of substituted. Cards with a star go after cards without, making the wizard kind of like a 3.5 while the magician is just a 3.

Here's what I've got so far for my analysis of the combinations:

Witch and Assassin: No problems that I've found, but this is one combination I'm not 100% sure about. Players get more options to attack their opponents, which keeps everyone on their toes. The assassin goes before the witch, who can't steal his power, so if the witch can always be assassinated if one player is afraid of having their power stolen.

Tax Collector and Thief: No problems, although I never play with the tax collector. Its a fairly good character, but it just adds a drag to the whole game and takes away the fun and intensity.

Wizard and Magician: The wizard is nice because you can steal a card without having to give up whatever is in your hand, but the magician lets you steal more and get rid of those districts you don't want. They don't tend to conflict much, and its interesting to watch the wizard steal back cards the magician took. Do they tend to balance well?

King and Emperor: literally can't be done due to the crown conflict.

Abbot and Bishop: This is where things start to really change. Having 2 blue characters makes blue districts more valuable, especially since there aren't 2 green or 2 yellow characters. I'm a little hesitant to combine them as it throws off the balance of districts. The abbot's actually pretty weak as well. Are there any issues with using both of these?

Alchemist and Merchant: No conflicts, but since the alchemist doesn't get money from green districts it will throw the balance off if you use both blue characters or both red characters. Its pretty interesting to play with both.

Architect and Navigator: No problems at all, fairly different characters that combine well.

Diplomat and Warlord: This was another big one. The diplomat tends to be a bit better than the warlord, even with the house rule that the Warlord gets to take the destroyed district into his hand. The warlord's only good if you don't mind wasting your gold to deter someone else instead of actually helping yourself. Do these combine well?

Would any of these combination have a detrimental affect on the game? How greatly would they change the game? Are my ideas anywhere near accurate?

I think that your statement concerning the combination of the cards is fairly accurate. If I had to do it, I think I would come up with the same result (except the last point that I will develop). But as it has been said, this variant has some drawbacks :

Increasing the chances of an attack by adding 3 offensive cards (Witch, Magician, Diplomat) out of 7. In my experience, I love Citadels for everyone want to avoid the dreaded attack at the wrong time that will ruin your game. Increasing the number of offensive cards is not a good point. Again, this is only my opinion, and I have never tried this variant. You may argue that this could be slightly compensated by adding the Artist and the Queen, but you then have to decide how you know that the Queen is next to the King (placement of characters in a player's own courtyard).
Modifying the balance between colors. Of course, if you have 4 red buildings, it will be very risky to choose the red characters, but if several players manage to focus on one of the two new "unbalanced" colors, the game will simply shift towards a game of luck : whoever manages to get a huge amount of coins then take the "cards" characters. This is like in the normal game, but will become slightly more hectic (which is not bad per se) and lose some balance in the colors.
The King/Emperor, according to me, loses all interest because of the combos for the other two colors (and the fact there are more green buidings). It may depend on the rule for distributing the characters on the next turn of course. As I see it, you have two options : you make players choose a first time for their first character and then a second time. What you can do to reinforce the power of the King is make players choose both characters at the same time, but I'm concerned about the general balance of this method.
To avoid the conflict with the King, one could propose that the Emperor picks in Second whatever place he's at. It would also help solving point 1 by adding a non-agressive card.

In conclusion, I would say this variant is certainly interesting but would create some minor balance issues that can be solved by some tricks that I mentionned. But it would be interesting to hear from people that actually have tried something like that.


Is "Fighting" considered "attacking"? When it comes to creatures under the influence of "Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control", are they, or the initiating creature, considered "attacking"?
In my specific scenario, I played a Savage Punch, targeting my Summit Prowler and my opponent's Longshot Squad. She then played the instant Kill Shot, which reads "Destroy target attacking creature.", targeting my Prowler and therefore the stack resolves making my Savage Punch null.

So I guess all in all, does the keyword 'attacking' change this at all or was this a correct resolution?

No, attacking has nothing to do with "fighting"; the only similarity between the 2 is that they both involve creatures dealing damage. A creature is only considered an "attacking" creature if it is declared as an attacker during the combat phase.

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

Therefore, your opponent was not allowed to do this.

Note also that neither creature in this situation is "initiating" anything. You as the player who cast Savage Punch initiated the "fight", but there's no difference between your creature and your opponent's creature in terms of one of them being the "attacker" and one the "defender". They are simply both creatures that were targeted for the fight.

Also note that even though a fight causes creatures to deal damage to each other, this damage is not "combat damage":

  701.10d The damage dealt when a creature fights isn’t combat damage.


What to do when all 3 diplomacy tokens are in use and you need a 4th? The Cities expansion comes with 3 diplomacy tokens.

In each game there could be 4 (5 with Manneken Pis) ways to get a token:

Age I City card: Residence
Age II City card: Consulate
Age III City card: Embassy
Wonder: Byzantium

side A: 1 token
side B: 2 tokens

(Wonder: Manneken Pis)

What happens when all three tokens are in use and now another token is needed?

Example scenario:

4 players:

Bob has wonder Byzantium (B)
Alice has wonder Halicarnassus
Susan (any wonder)
Dave (any wonder)

In Age III:

Bob builds both wonder stages → 2 tokens (1 left)
Alice builds a wonder stage and builds Residence from the discard pile → 1 token (0 left)
Susan builds Embassy from her hand → 1 token needed

Does Susan get a virtual diplomacy token or not?

I think it's pretty safe to say that there are only 3 Diplomacy tokens provided because the scenarios in which 4 or 5 Diplomacy tokens are required at once are so vanishingly rare.

As I discovered from previous discussions of the finer points of the rules terminology (and I went so far as to double-check with the game designer Antoine Bauza via Twitter!), 7 Wonders is not a game where you need to obsess about the minutiae.  In unusual corner cases, things probably work in a commonsense sort of way, no need to over think then.

There is no obvious reason why a player should be deprived of a Diplomacy token because 3 have already been taken already; and certainly no available justification for taking somebody else's Diplomacy token that has already been given out!  In the unusual event that more than 3 Diplomacy tokens are required at once, I believe the sensible course of action is just to use something else as a stand-in Diplomacy token for the turn.


Forbidden desert - how to play with the water carrier When playing with the water carrier do the player give water from his own cantina?

Yes, any share of water drops one player's canteen by one, to raise someone else's canteen by one.

The Water Carrier's special abilities are:

can share water with players in adjacent spaces, doesn't need to be in same space
can carry just a bit more (max is 5)
can draw water from already exposed wells, for one action

Nowhere in the rules does being water carrier change how sharing water works, just makes it easier for that player to do so.  Whenever you share water, it's a trade, not free water.


Can you interfere and help and win the game as an elf in munchkin? In the rules it says you can interfere with combat "use a one shot item to help another player by casting a potion against his foe"

My friend drew a lvl18 card and someone else helped him. I wanted to play a flaming poison potion to add +3 to their side and "help" them. Then by the wording of the rules, as an elf, do I go up a level?

According to the Munchkin FAQ under Important Note #2: Playing/Using/Switching Items During Combat:

  Playing/using a one-shot Item during a combat that aids the munchkins (and not the monsters) does not constitute "helping" in combat, as described in the rules. This means that in any given combat, any number of players can play cards to aid or hinder either side as often as they want, as long as they have the cards. Only one other player can actually join the combat as a helper, however.

So, no, this would not actually constitute "helping" in the combat to satisfy the Elf racial ability.

However, if through some other means you had actually been the helper in the combat, then yes you could have won or tied, as long as the card that allowed you to help did not specify that the level gained could not be the winning level, because according to the FAQ under Important Note #1: Reaching Level 10:

  Note also that ANY level gained as a result of killing a monster counts as the winning level.

And also from this post on the official Munchkin forum

  The level the Elf gains for helping in combat can be the winning level, because it's a level gained as the result of winning a fight.


Do I have to make a suggestion or can I just end turn? The rules are not clear. Every turn I can make a suggestion once I am in a room, but do I have to? Can I just end my turn?

From the rules here

As soon as you enter a room, make a suggestion.

It's very common in games rules to use the word 'may' when something is optional.  The rules use the word 'may' in other places.  This would mean that making a suggestion is compulsory on entering a room.
However you may not remain in a room on your next turn. (and thus make another suggestion)

You may make only one Suggestion after entering a particular room.  To
make your next Suggestion, you must either enter a different Room or,
sometime after your next turn remain in a particular Room.

Thats not how I was taught the game as a child and we just stayed in the same room making suggestions!  So I've learnt something new today.


In Pandemic, when does the discard-over-7-cards rule take effect? Scenario
Pandemic's excess card rule states that if you have more than 7 cards in your hand at any time, you must discard the excess (according to your preference, of course).
Let's say you're the Scientist, have 5 city cards and 2 special cards (like the airlift, or research center build card). The Researcher comes to town and gives you the remaining 1 color city card that will allow you to cure a disease as soon as you get to a research facility.
Let's also say there's only two players (Researcher and Scientist). And that this is the last color that needs to be cured.
This takes you to 8 cards - over the amount allowed.
Question
When do I, as the Scientist, need to play / discard my excess cards (in this case, let's take the two special cards as the ones to play) so I am not in violation of the excess card rule, but also so I maximize the value of the Researcher's endowment of city cards?

edited to reflect the limit of 7 vs 8, as noted by Gendolkari

First, note that the hand limit is 7 cards, NOT 8 cards!

You cannot hold more than 7 cards in your hand for any length of time. This means that while you are holding 7 cards, the researcher cannot give you 2 cards. Actions are one at a time, so first the researcher would give you a card, at which point you would be over the limit. Before any other action is taken, you must discard down to the hand limit. Once you are at 7 again, the researcher can give you another card now, at which point you will need to discard again.

You can play special event cards instead of discarding, however. So the answer to your question is that you need to play/discard your excess cards immediately, before any other action is taken.

From the rules:

  If you ever have more than 7 cards in hand (after first resolving any
  Epidemic cards you may have drawn), discard cards or play Event cards
  until you have 7 cards in hand (see Event Cards on page 7).

and under the Share Knowledge action details:

  If the player who gets the card now has more than 7 cards, that player must
  immediately discard a card or play an Event card (see Event Cards on page 7).


Is Ultimate Tic Tac Toe solved? Ultimate Tic Tac Toe is an interesting variant of Tic Tac Toe where in each of the 9 fields, a “regular” game of Tic Tac Toe is played; see the link for details.

Has this game been solved already? Would it be possible to solve it using a brute force mini-max strategy?

My co-worker found what I believe is a winning strategy for the first player, but now I find earlier evidence by others as well.

This is for the original version of the game, where you can send your opponent to an already won field and he has to place his mark there. It seems that the question is still open for the updated version where he can then choose freely.


Komoku-Oogeima joseki order variation In a game my opponent deviated from the joseki line I was familiar with.

$$W Actual game
$$ ------------
$$ -...........
$$ -.94........
$$ -.5128O.....
$$ -..X36...0,.
$$ -...7.......
$$ -...........
$$ -...........

Instead of B10, I expected this exchange first:

$$B Expected
$$ ------------
$$ -...........
$$ -.OX........
$$ -.OOXXO.....
$$ -..XOX1..3,.
$$ -...O.......
$$ -...........
$$ -...2.......

The result here appears to be even to me, white is a little better locally but she played first so it is to be expected.

Since black omitted the 1-2 exchange and played 3 directly, he seems to plan on letting the sole white stone die on a larger scale. Consequently it appears natural to use this stone to punish black's deviation.

I've got three basic ideas how to:

Tenuki and leave the bad aji. Omitting W2 as a securing move should be fine since black can't fight properly without swallowing the sole white stone first.
Play W2 regardless. Then black has 2 options: play B1 so it reverts to the known pattern, or tenuki - in that case white can move her stone out easily and fight, so black probably won't do that. However, since B3 is not joseki as far as I know, this would be too easy on black.
Move W2 out, splitting black's stones.

I'm thinking of either this attachment:

$$W Attachment and keima
$$ ------------
$$ -...........
$$ -.OX........
$$ -.OOXXO.....
$$ -..XOX..1X,.
$$ -...O....2..
$$ -.....3.....

or this shape:

$$W Attachment and sake bottle shape
$$ ------------
$$ -...........
$$ -.OX........
$$ -.OOXXO.12..
$$ -..XOX...X,.
$$ -...O..3....
$$ -...........

Option 3 seems to induce black to make white's left side group stronger, but at the same time, black's top stone gets stronger as well.

Is any of my ideas here reasonable? Or is black's "deviation" in fact a joseki, too?

W1 seems like a good move to me. B can't get a rhythm to fight well even if he ignores it to make something happen. I may be wrong but B's deviation looks like a gross overplay to me. I can't see W playing a "solid be get better result" so starting a fight seems good for W.

The only other option I can think of, other than W1, is the 5th line shoulder hit which is worth thinking about. It's much harder to control and more easily ignored though.

$$W 5th line shoulder hit
$$ ------------
$$ -...........
$$ -.OX........
$$ -.OOXXO.....
$$ -..XOX...X,.
$$ -...O...1...
$$ -...........


Killing Avacyn Before She Transforms During Upkeep? Long question short: Can I kill an un-transformed Archangel Avacyn during the upkeep she's due to flip, before she flips?

From how I understand it (copied by from a comment from murgatroid99):

A non-Angel creature dies. Archangel Avacyn's triggered ability goes on the stack.
Archangel Avacyn's triggered ability resolves, and creates a delayed      triggered ability.
At the beginning of the next upkeep, the delayed triggered ability goes on the stack.

Could I, for example, cast an instant like Lightning Axe at this point, and deal 5 damage to the currently 4/4 Avacyn? Thus preventing the transformation and the damage that is dealt on the flip?

Thanks for any help in advanced!

Yep, this works just like you think it does. Avacyn's delayed trigger goes on the stack, you have a chance to respond and kill her. If you do, she can't transform, so the triggered ability does nothing as it resolves.


How does Frenetic Sliver interact with the Unearth from Dregscape Sliver? If I Unearth a sliver with Dregscape Sliver's ability and then use Frenetic Sliver's ability, what happens when I win my coinflip? Does the sliver come back at the end of turn?

A ruling on Dregscape Sliver on Gatherer says

  If a creature returned to the battlefield by the unearth ability would leave it for any reason, it’s exiled instead—unless the spell or ability that’s causing the creature to leave the battlefield is actually trying to exile it. In that case, the spell or ability succeeds at exiling the creature. If the spell or ability later returns the creature card to the battlefield (as Astral Drift might, for example), the creature card will return as a new object with no relation to its previous existence. The unearth effect will no longer apply to it.

So say you have an unearthed sliver and you activate the Frenetic ability of that sliver. If you win the coin flip, the ability will, in accordance with the above ruling, succeed in exiling and later returning the sliver.

If you lose the coin flip, the sliver will be sacrificed according to the Frenetic ability, and go to exile instead of your graveyard as Unearth dictates, without coming back later.


Footlight Fiend vs. Rising Populace Trigger order While drafting WAR we encountered a situation we didn't know how to resolve. Imagine the following situation:

The opponent attacks with Rising Populace and a 1/1 creature.
I block the Rising Populace with Footlight Fiend and the 1/1 creature of the opponent with a 1/1 creature myself.

After the combat damage is dealt, the Populace gets a +1/+1 counter while I want to deal 1 damage to the Populace to kill it beforehand. Basically the triggers occur at the same time, so which ability resolves first? The Fiend's since I have priority? Will the Populace die or become a 3/3?

603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities they control on the stack in any order they choose. (See rule 101.4.) Then the game once again checks for and resolves state-based actions until none are performed, then abilities that triggered during this process go on the stack. This process repeats until no new state-based actions are performed and no abilities trigger. Then the appropriate player gets priority.

The attacking player is the active player, so Rising Populace's trigger is put on the stack first, followed by Footlight Fiend's trigger, which will resolve first. After the ability resolves, state-based actions will see a 2/2 with 2 damage, and kill the Rising Populace before its own ability can come to the rescue.


Can a single event trigger more than one triggered ability? Heart-Piercer Manticore has an ability that reads “When Heart-Piercer Manticore enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice another creature. When you do, Heart-Piercer Manticore deals damage equal to that creature’s power to target creature or player.”

If you cast two of these creature spells and then sacrificed one creature would that trigger the abilities for both creatures as they enter the battlefield?

Second example is two permanents say the same thing; “Whenever an opponent loses life, you gain that much life.”  So would the event the opponent loses life trigger both permanents so you would gain two life , or would the event only trigger one meaning you would only gain one life?

Yes, a single event can trigger more than one trigger, but you are misunderstanding how Heart-Piecer Manticore works.

Your second example is a good example of this. If you have 2 Soul Wardens on the battlefield, then each one will trigger when a creature enters the battlefield, and you will gain 2 life. Or if you control 2 Bloodbriars and find a way to sacrifice a permanent, both of them will trigger and they will each get the counter. Note that while both trigger at the same time, the 2 abilities are placed on the stack separately and resolve one  at a time.

However, your first example is a different thing. The "when you do" in Heart-Piercer Manticore's ability is not simply “when you sacrifice a creature”, but rather it is part of the “when Heart-Piercer Manticore” enters the battlefield.” ability. When that trigger resolves, you can choose to sacrifice another creature to create another trigger to deal damage; but you are only in the middle of resolving one "enters the battlefield" trigger.

You can only cast creatures one at a time, and you cannot sacrifice the same creature twice.

The sequence of events would be this:

Cast Heart-Piecer Manticore.
It resolves and enters the battlefield.
Its ability triggers and goes on the stack.
Its ability resolves, and you sacrifice a creature to trigger the when you do trigger. (Or chose not to, and the ability does nothing).
The when you do trigger resolves and you deal damage.
Cast another Heart-Piecer Manticore.
It resolves and enters the battlefield.
Its ability triggers and goes on the stack.
Its ability resolves, and you sacrifice a creature to trigger the when you do trigger. (Or chose not to, and the ability does nothing). The creature you sacrificed the first time is already dead, so you need to choose a different one this time. You could choose that first Manticore if you wanted.
The when you do trigger resolves and you deal damage.

So by the time you are casting a second Manticore, it is far too late to deal with the first one's triggered ability. That will have already finished, and you will have either sacrificed a creature for damage or not. If you want to do it again, you have to sacrifice another creature.

Note that even if you used some other ability to place both Manticores on the battlefield at the same time, that wouldn’t matter. Each one would trigger at the same time, and you would choose the order to put the triggers on the stack. They would still then resolve one at a time, and you would have to choose to sacrifice a creature for the ability one at a time.


Is it legal to use poetry elements/sound devices as hints like "alliteration 3", "assonance 3", and "rhyme 3" in Codenames? Poetry elements/sound devices include alliteration, assonance, consonance, and rhyme. An example of a clue would be "assonance 3" for "code", "control", and "candy". I checked the rules, and I'm unsure. This is the most relevant rule:

Your clue must be about the meaning of the
words. You can't use your clue to talk about
the letters in a word or its position on the table.
Gland is not a valid clue for ENGLAND. You
can't tie BUG, BED, and BOW together with
a clue like b: 3 nor with a clue like three: 3.

Unlike "b", "alliteration" actually lives up to its meaning as a hint that it's similar consonants at the beginning of words. However, the words "code", "control", and "candy" don't have anything to do with alliteration itself in the meaning. I suppose the line "You can't use your clue to talk about the letters in the word" makes it illegal, but it's fuzzy.

The rule is that clues must be about the meaning of the word. Alliteration, assonance, consonance, and rhyme are all about the construction and pronunciation of the word, and have nothing to do with the meaning of the word, they would very much fall under the quoted rule and be illegal clues.


How exactly do "start of turn" affects trigger This came up in a casual game with a friend last night. He is the runner with an economy based upon the The Supplier. One turn he hosted a Data Folding on it. At the start of his turn the "start of turn" effects trigger, and since it is his turn he picks the order. He claimed he could have the supplier resolve first, and then still get the money off the newly in play Data Folding. This didn't seem right to me as Data Folding wasn't in play when the "start of turn" effects triggered.

Who is correct?

What about a similar situation. He already has a data folding in play and wants to use the "start of turn" credit from it to pay for something else already hosted on the supplier. Is this allowed?

When the start of turn triggers happen at 1.2 every card currently in play which has a start of turn trigger tries to trigger. Since it's the runner's turn, their effects go first. The runner can choose the order of their own effects, so you can gain a credit from data folding, and then use that credit to pay to install something off The Supplier.

What you cannot do is install something off The Supplier / Personal Workshop and then have that newly installed card trigger a start of turn ability; it wasn't in play for the start of turn signal, and so has missed it's chance.

So you are correct, and the Data Folding wouldn't have given him any money for that turn.


Is it right to refrain from making a takeout double in borderline situations? In today's bridge column, this example was given:

North opened with one diamond. East doubled with (s) Qxx (h)AQxx (d) x (c) ATxxx.

This double technically met my 14 point requirement (12 for high card points, 2 for the singleton in the opposing suit). But I would have refrained from it for two reasons:

1) I have only Qxx in the spade suit. 2) My strongest suit is clubs, which partner would have to bid at the two level.

Upgrade the spade suit to Kxx, or Qxxx, and I would double. Or switch the diamonds and clubs, so that I was doubling with a singleton club and Axxxx in diamonds.

North and South bid to four spades. East West took the KA of clubs, and the ace of hearts. But then South's game depended on two "two way finesses" in spades and diamonds. From the double, he could infer that East did NOT have the Q of diamonds, and he DID have the Q of spades. Meaning that the double gave away crucial information (and the spade suit was too weak to withstand a finesse).

Here's another example of what I mean.

In Bridge, Do You Count Defensive Points In the Opponents' Suit When Making a Takeout Double?

In such cases, should one avoid making a takeout double using this level of "granularity"?

This is in part a matter of style, but I would happily make a takeout double with that hand.  In my experience (which I think agrees with prevailing expert opinion), it is better to be aggressive in competitive bidding at low levels, and get more cautious when the bidding reaches the 3 level.

Advantages to bidding:

You have the opportunity to find a contract for your side
You interfere with the opponents' bidding, giving them a chance to make a mistake and making it harder for them to use their conventions (though this is not a big factor for takeout doubles)
You give partner information which may be useful on defense

Disadvantages:

You may end up in an impossible contract and go down badly (perhaps doubled)
You give the opponents information which they can use if they win the contract (as happened in this case)

If your partner is good, he is less likely to push you to a crazy contract.  On the other hand, experienced opponents are more likely to double if you end up somewhere bad.

The most important factor, though, is the possibility of finding a contract where you can make.  RHO (North) is potentially no stronger than you, so there is a good chance that you have half the points or more.  You should have a shot at making something.  However, if you pass and LHO bids, your partner will likely have trouble bidding unless he has a good enough hand and suit to overcall, and he will likely need to bid at the 2 level or possibly higher if South jumps.  You are probably the strong hand in this partnership, so if you pass now, there's a good chance you are giving up any opportunity to win the contract.

Naturally, there are no guarantees.  Sometimes you make the right bid and it ends up hurting you.  Bidding well and playing well are both a matters of percentages -- you should make the play that has the best expected outcome.


Can you use the angel token in conjunction with the rabbits foot If I have both the angel feather and the rabbits foot in my hand can I make a roll, and then if I fail that roll use the rabbits foot to re-roll on die and use the angel feather to call an 8 on the re-roll?

I don't think you can but my friends say yes you can and I can't find any rule that states you can or can't either way.

I wouldn't expect the rules to say anything about this; the card text is intended to be the rules. There's also nothing in the FAQ about it.

Angel Feather reads:

  When you attempt a roll of any kind, you can call out a number from 0 to 8. Use that number instead of rolling the dice.

To me, that fairly clearly implies that you choose the number before you roll - you use the number instead of rolling. If you could use it after you roll, I'd expect it to say something more like "After you attempt a roll of any kind, you may choose a number from 0 to 8, and use that number instead of the number you rolled."

Rabbit's Foot says:

  Once during your turn, you may reroll one die. You must keep the second roll.

Once you've rolled, it's too late to use a number instead of the roll. Once you've gone pat that and rerolled a die, you're even more clearly past that point. It sounds like you're right - you can't use these things together.


Fleeing the Navy, in Pirate's Cove We were playing the Days of Wonder game Pirate's Cove earlier this evening; it's a lot of fun but the rules aren't exactly watertight, and more than once I felt there was considerable ambiguity in how they should be interpreted. Here's one that I remember:

If a pirate ship flees or is sent packing from combat, their opponents remaining in the fight get 1 Fame point for seeing them off. At one point two of us sailed to the same island and a third player sprang the Royal Navy on us. The Royal Navy crippled one ship, which was forced to set sail for Pirate's Cove. The question: does the remaining player get a Fame point, on the grounds that they have outlasted an opponent in battle? Our group majority-voted no, because at the time both ships were fighting the Navy together, so it didn't count as seeing off an opponent. But I wasn't so sure...

The remaining opponents get 1 Fame each.

(Quotations are from the rules (English, German))

The Scoring section is somewhat confusing in the English version:

  Pirates GAIN fame from each of the following actions

  Winning Battles (1 point per player that is defeated or flees after being hit)

The German version (note that the original game was German) translates to:

  Winning battles (one point per player whose ship has been destroyed or flees after being hit)

However, the emphasis seems to be on the action of a ship being disabled or a ship fleeing, not in the outcome being called "winning" a battle. The Forced retreat section follows this thinking:

  A crippled ship brings all remaining opponents on that island 1 point of fame.

And the German is even clearer:

  All opponents remaining on the contested island receive one fame point for a destroyed ship.

The fact that the word "opponents" is plural and that the German still calls it a "contested" ("umkämpften") island both refute the fact that a battle must be completely "won" by dispatching all other opponents.


Resources for Nine Men's Morris I just started playing Nine Men's Morris. I have tried playing with both the computer and on online multiplayer settings and have been doing abysmally. I tried finding some good resource on the net that could give me some in depth study of useful strategies for this board game but I found very basic guides that were basically just a rehash of the rules. Could somebody help me in my dilemma, I want to start winning at least a few of the games.

There's some information available in German. The game's called "Mühle" (= mill) in German,
and there exists at least one book on this subject.
The book can be found online here: http://www.hubbie.de/
Click on "Mühle", the book can be viewed in html or as an applet.
It's a beginner's book, but contains even some advanced strategies.

It should be possible to understand a lot of the strategies even without knowledge
of German, but with "Google translate", or dict.leo.org you should be able to make
sense of most of the text.

There's even an organization which organizes (European) championchips, see
http://www.muehlespiel.eu/
It might be possible to get information from there, too.


What happens if you reach the gold with both (blue and green) doors? If you construct a path from a ladder to an end card with a blue or green door in the path, the end card is flipped. If the card is the gold, all dwarves on that colored team (blue or green) win, as does the boss and profiteer.

What happens if you construct a path from a ladder to an end card while both doors are in the path?

The game designer, Frederic Moyersoen, discusses the answer to that question on BGG. Essentially, only the Boss wins

  If there is a path with a blue and green door, the boss is the only player who can win through this path (4 points). This can be a winning strategy for the boss.


Mannekin Pis A copying Stonehenge B We've had a disagreement on how to determine what color card to score when Mannekin Pis A stage 2/3 copies Stonehenge B's stage 2.

Rulebook on Stonehenge:

  Stage 2: At the end of the game, the player flips face-up the card used to build this Stage. Then, the player scores 1 victory point for each card of that color pre-sent in both neighboring cities

Rulebook on Mannekin Pis:

  Stage 3: The player applies the effect of the last Stage of the Wonder board to their left.

Does the Mannekin Pis player use the color of their own tucked card, or the color of card the Stonehenge player tucked?

Our assumption was that it was Mannekin Pis' tucked card. After all, MP does not require the neighbor's stage to have been built, so the other interpretation could lead to a poorly-defined state where there is no card to reference. However, "applies the effect" was vague enough that we weren't completely sure.

Mannekin Pis uses its own tucked card.

The ability copies the effect of the wonder to their left.  This essentially means it gains the text of the other wonder stage.  That text is: "At the end of the game, the player flips face-up the card used to build this Stage. Then, the player scores 1 victory point for each card of that color present in both neighboring cities."  Reading this text in the context of Mannekin Pis' 3rd stage, "this Stage" refers to  Mannekin Pis' stage 3.

Support for this comes from the rules for the expansion:

  The stages of the targeted Wonder do not need to have been completed by their respecitve ownes for the Menneken Pis to copy them.

For this to be true, the Mannekin Pis must copy the text of the ability rather than copy any of the properties of the other player's wonder board (including what card the other player did or did not use to build that stage of their wonder).


Are older copies of current standard-legal reprints playable again? As far as I know, standard format allows cards released within the last two year before the release of the current edition e.g. for now, Rivals Of Ixalan.

During the Ixalan edition, there was a new Duel Deck edition (Merfolk, Goblins) containing re-prints of much older cards. Are they legal in standard format although they were firstly released more than two years ago from now on?

It doesn’t matter if a card is a reprint or being printed for the first time. A simple and obvious example would be a basic land card; a Mountain would be a reprint of an old card; but it would be standard legal because it was printed in a recent set.

However, cards printed in Duel Decks are not necessarily standard legal. Duel Decks contain some cards that aren’t part of the current or recent block. Standard currently (in January 2018) consists of cards printed in Ixalan, Amonkhet, or Kaladesh block.

To determine if a specific card is legal, you can check Gatherer to see the listing.


Can the Bishop select a player who discarded the Handmaid? In the premium edition of Love Letter, the player with the Bishop gets a heart if they correctly guess the card another player is holding. This doesn't directly affect the player being guessed upon, other than that they may discard their card, and that others get some information about that player's hand if they decide to keep it.

Can the player holding the bishop guess the hand of a player who is protected by the handmaid?

No, the Bishop cannot guess the hand of a player who discarded the Handmaiden last turn.

This comes from the original rules:

  If all players other than the player whose turn it is are protected by Susannah, the player must choose him- or herself if possible.

This shows that the Handmaid doesn't only cause the player to not be affected, but it actually stops another player from choosing that player when choosing a player.

Also, having to reveal whether or not you hold a specific card is definitely being affected. If you are ignoring all effects from other players cards, then you would ignore the part where you must answer whether or not you have the guessed card.


Precondition costs for structures built with Halicarnassus "build for free"? When playing with Halicarnassus A side and I build a second wonder stage, is it possible to build a structure that in its precondition cost has another structure which a player controlling Halicarnassus doesn't have built?

For example, to build Haven, you need to have a Forum in play.

There are no building prerequisites. The building names next to the cost indicate that you may construct the building for free, without having to fulfill the resource cost. From the rulebook, p. 4:

  Free Construction (Chains):
  Some structures in Age II and Age III have, to the right of their resource
  cost, the name of a structure of a previous age. If the player has built the structure named there during a previous Age, that  player  can  build  the  structure  for  free,  meaning  without  having  to  fulfill the resource cost.

Since Halikarnassos allows you to construct any building in the discard pile for free, anyway, the "chained" card is irrelevant at that point. Nevertheless, you are still forbidden from constructing a duplicate card.


Does a creature's ability trigger while it's in the hand or graveyard? When a creature card like Agent of the Fates is not on the battlefield but for example in the hand or graveyard, will its triggered abilities still trigger when I play Animate Dead or my opponent plays Ostracize and chooses the Agent?

No.

Unless specifically stated otherwise in the ability text, or they could only function from another zone (such as in Flashback), abilities of creatures, lands, artifacts, etc., only work while they are permanents, i.e. when they are on the battlefield.

Also note that Ostracize does not even target creatures, it only targets opponent players, so it could never trigger the Agent.