Does Diffusion Sliver protect from boardwipe spells and sacrifice spells? If I have a Diffusion Sliver out, are my Slivers protected from Wrath of God? What about Chainer's Edict?

No, they are not protected

Diffusion Sliver's ability is only triggered when a Sliver becomes a 'target'. A creature is only targeted by spells or abilities that actually have the word 'target' on it. For instance, Giant Growth. From the Comprehensive rules:

  114.1a An instant or sorcery spell is targeted if its spell ability identifies something it will affect by using the phrase “target [something],”

(Note that rule 114 in its entirety describes 'targeting', this is just a specific excerpt for instants and sorceries.)

The Sliver needs to be identified as that 'target [something]' in order for this specific ability to trigger. On instants and sorceries, this is spelled out; casting an Aura (ie Unholy Strength) on a Sliver also triggers the ability added to it by Diffusion Sliver, as they have an implicit target:

  114.1b Aura spells are always targeted.

Casting an equipment would not trigger the ability, as they enter play unattached and not targeting anything.  Their equip-ability however would count as becoming a target.

To look a little closer at what spells do and do not target the Slivers:

Twiddle would target the Sliver and trigger this ability.
Turnabout wouldn't, because the card doesn't target a creature, it targets a player.
Call to Glory would not target the Sliver, as it doesn't target anything.


Place road card in between the Treasure cards If I have a continuous road to a Treasure Card, and that treasure card is not the Gold Card, can I place a new road card right in between the Treasure Cards and to flip the next Treasure Card, or do I have to build a new road starting from begining ?

Like gems, coal lumps due not bock the road. The path to the treasure may pass through a card with a coal lump.

If they wanted the path to be blocked, they would have used something like the existing 4-way dead-end.

Based on experience, starting from the original ladder would not be feasible.


Living End/Living Death (EDH) I have a Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and Yahenni, Undying Partisan on the battlefield and I cast Living End. Pretend every player has 5 creatures, and there are 4 players (including me).

Do the abilities of Mazirek or Yahenni trigger after the Living End resolves or do the abilities disappear?

For example:
I cast Living End and sacrifice five creatures including Mazirek/Yahenni my three opponents each sacrifice five creatures as well.

So do the abilities of Mazirek or/and Yahenni go on the stack and if so do they resolve and put counters on the appropriate creatures?

For Mazirek, your creatures that started in your graveyard, and are placed on the battlefield by Living End would get 19 +1/+1 counters after Living End resolves.  The gatherer page even says:

  If a permanent is sacrificed to pay a cost of a spell or ability, Mazirek’s ability will resolve before that spell or ability. Conversely, if a permanent is sacrificed during the resolution of a spell or ability, that spell or ability will finish resolving before Mazirek’s ability is put onto the stack.

For Yahenni, the ability will trigger (and be put on the stack after Living End resolves), but won't do anything since Yahenni is no longer there.

  If Yahenni and a creature an opponent controls die simultaneously (perhaps because they fought or were in combat together), Yahenni won’t be on the battlefield as its triggered ability resolves. It can’t be saved by the +1/+1 counter that would have been put on it.


How do emblems work? Jace, Unraveler of Secrets allows you to create an emblem that will cause the first spell to be countered every turn for your opponents.  Does this continue even if he is destroyed? Is there a way to counter or remove its effect?

The Emblem will stay forever, even if Jace is destroyed.

  Emblems

    113.1. Some effects put emblems into the command zone. An emblem is a marker used to represent an object that has one or more abilities, but no other characteristics.

    113.2. An effect that creates an emblem is written “[Player] gets an emblem with [ability].” This means that [player] puts an emblem with [ability] into the command zone. The emblem is both owned and controlled by that player.

    113.3. An emblem has no characteristics other than the abilities defined by the effect that created it. In particular, an emblem has no name, no types, no mana cost, and no color.
    113.4. Abilities of emblems function in the command zone.

    113.5. An emblem is neither a card nor a permanent. Emblem isn’t a card type.

There is nothing in the game currently that can remove an emblem. (Other than restarting the game with Karn Liberated). There shouldn't be any rule preventing the existence of a card that said something like "Exile target Emblem", but no such thing exists.


Didn't Say Uno Before Running Out of Cards So my family is having a disagreement on the uno rules. Here's what happened:

Player 1 completes turn by playing a regular numbered blue card

Player 2 has 3 cards left. Player 2 plays a blue skip, and plays a red skip. Player 2 has 1 card now. Player 2 plays their last card (a red numbered card).

They are out of cards, having played 3 cards really close together, with no chance for Player 1 to call them out on not saying uno. Player 1 calls it right after Player 2 has already run out of cards.

Here's the question - Player 2 is already out of cards, and never said Uno, and now Player 1 is calling them out on it. Has player 2 already won, or must Player 2 now take 2 cards?

From the rules, the hand is over.

http://www.wonkavator.com/uno/unorules.html

  When you have one card left, you must yell "UNO" (meaning one).
  Failure to do this results in you having to pick two cards from the
  DRAW pile. That is, of course if you get caught by the other players.
  Once a player has no cards left, the hand is over. Points are scored
  (see scoring section) and you start over again. That's UNO in a
  nutshell.

Further, you only have until the next player starts playing a card before it is to late to call them out. In this scenario once Player 2 started his 3rd turn (by starting the motion to play his last card), it was too late to call him out.

  A player who forgets to say UNO before his card touches the discard
  pile, but "catches" himself before any other player catches him, is
  safe and is not subject to the penalty. You may not catch a player for
  failure to say UNO until his second to last card touches the DISCARD
  pile. Also, you may not catch a player for failure to say UNO after
  the next player begins his turn. "Beginning a turn is defines as
  either drawing a card from the DRAW pile or drawing a card from your
  hand to play. If the last card played in a hand is a Draw Two or Wild
  Draw Four card, the next player must draw the two or four cards. These
  cards are counted when points are totaled. If no one is out of cards
  by the time the DRAW pile is depleted, reshuffle and continue play.

In order to call out Player2 and force him to draw cards for not saying 'UNO', Player 1 would have had to say it directly after his second to last card was played (touched the discard pile) but before he started to play his last card. Incredibly short, but possible.


Do the Elf creatures put into the battlefield by Planeswalker Nissa Revane suffer from summoning sickness? The 3rd ability of Nissa Revane Planeswalker is

-7: Search your library for any number of Elf creature cards and put them onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.

So the question is do the Elf creature cards put into the battlefield as a result of this ability suffer from summoning sickness?

Yes,

From the Comprehensive rules:

  302.6. A creature's activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can't be activated unless the creature has been under its controller's control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. A creature can't attack unless it has been under its controller's control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the "summoning sickness" rule.

Any elf with Haste ignores that restriction as usual of course.


Are there partnerships that win major events by using unpopular systems? There are some bridge combinations that most players shun, at least when possible.
One of these is the so-called Moyesian or 4-3 trump fit.

The result is that there are bidding systems that require "five card majors" just to avoid such Moyesian fits. But are there successful, world-class partnerships that court these, or other "unpopular" situations that everyone "knows about" but few want to play?

I remember reading that one backgammon player became a world champion by pioneering "back" games (which were originally unpopular). Has a similar thing happened from time to time in bridge?

Barry Crane (originally Barry Cohen, the Detroit Demon) dominated many aspects of North American bridge for decades playing a system of weak openings and early exits from the auction. This was the antithesis of the systems being expounded by teachers such as Culbertson and Goren, which revolved around sound openings to assist average players in making their contracts, even if they often underbid.

Wealthy enough to be a client and strong enough to compete against the best, Crane inspired strong feelings, pro and con, amongst the North American bridge elite; but few dared cross him because it was nearly impossible to win the McKenney trophy without his patronage.

Noted most for his superb match-point play, Crane's systems revolved around opening 4-card heart suits in order to buy as many contracts as possible in 2H, but opening 1Spade required 5 cards. In consequence he was probably an even more ardent exponent of Moysian fits then Alphonse (Sonny) Moyse was.

It is still possible to find compilations of Crane's bidding system and ruminations on the web.

The post of Grant Baze's memories of Barry., on that final link, are priceless. One oft repeated story is the following:

  Jeff Meckstroth went one better. He played with Barry in a two session
  regional event just because he thought he should play at least once
  with “Mr. McKinney.” At the end of the event Jeff tore their
  convention card into ribbons and threw the pieces at Barry, making it
  very clear that he would never play with Barry again.

Yes, that is the very same Jeff Meckstroth who has had almost as much influence on the bridge world, since Crane's murder, as Crane himself did.

And just for you Tom, because I know you love rulessuch as these:

  But back to the bidding dictums for a moment. Allegedly, among locals
  in SoCal, he[Crane] mandated “Double at match points (for penalty) in
  pass-out seat after an opening 2NT.”

  I rather doubt that but maybe others could shed more light.

  I have done quick and dirty simulations – finding about 52-55%
  conversion rate. Maybe others can chip in.

  Response:
  Ed: I think the statement is correct, but incomplete – after
  “pass out seat”, add “4 hcp's or less”, the rationale being that
  partner holds 11+ hcp behind declarer.


Is it impossible to pay off-color mana costs in EDH? In Commander, there is a rule that states:

  During the game, if mana would be added to your mana pool that isn't a color in your commander's color identity, that much colorless mana is added to your mana pool instead.

With that in mind, is it impossible for me to pay mana costs that are not in my commander's color identity?

For example, if my commander has a Red/Blue color identity, and I take control of an opponent's creature that has an activated ability with a Black mana-cost, is it impossible for me to pay the cost needed to activate that ability?

Commander used to have special rules about color identity and mana generation. As of January 18, 2016, these rules have been removed. Tapping lands for mana works just like regular Magic.

Note that the restriction on mana production and color identity in deckbuilding still applies. So your red/blue deck still can't include a Crumbling Necropolis.

You can, however, use all these exceptions to pay off-color costs:

Mana generators without mana symbols

Note that the deckbuilding restriction only applies to mana symbols, not "any method of generating other colors of mana."

The most common example is that cards that say "any color" aren't considered to have mana symbols in the card text. They may safely be included in non-five-color decks.

Borrowing your opponents' stuff

Say you're playing Ashling (red), and I'm playing Sen Triplets (white/blue/black). If I steal one of your Mountains (e.g. by playing it from your hand with my commander's special ability), I can tap it for red mana.

Changing mana's function without changing its literal color

Cards like Mycosynth Lattice allow you to spend mana "as if it were any color of mana" without actually changing the colors of that mana.

There's a really technical caveat to that, though...

I'm pretty sure that, even with Mycosynth Lattice in play, there are still corner cases where mana colors matter: for instance, Mycosynth Lattice will allow me to spend 5 blue to cast Torrent of Souls, but the spell still checks the color of mana spent on it (which, in this case, causes it to have no effect). This is based on the rulings text of Celestial Dawn:

  You may use a different color mana than the color required for spells
  and abilities that require a specific color. If you do, and the spell
  or ability checks the actual color of the mana, it can tell the
  difference.

Alternatives to mana

Some rules allow you to "pay for" mana costs without using mana at all. You can use it to pay off-color costs. For example:

Convoke cards, like Chord of Calling.
Phyrexian mana, like Phyrexian Metamorph.

(Note that color identity still applies: you can't put Chord of Calling in your Sen Triplets deck. But, if you've got some green creatures, you can cast someone else's.)


What is an example of a perfectly played checkers game? The board game American Checkers on an 8x8 board was weakly solved in 2007 and shown to be a draw (PDF link).  What is an example of a perfectly played game of checkers?

Checkers was weakly solved in 2007: it was proven that the Chinook algorithm could never lose a game. So to get a perfectly played game you could have Chinook play against itself, but I can't find the final version of Chinook online or a record of its later games. You can check out its earlier games against humans here - most of those are draws, though there's no guarantee they're "perfect" since it's a human and an earlier version of Chinook playing.


in Spades, when to bid such that the sum of bids equal 14? In the game of Spades, sometimes I see a strong player bid such that the sum of bids is 14.  This means that one of the contracts will be set.

In what conditions this "complete-to-14" bid is a strong play?

There are no hard and fast rules or heuristics for such a decision, but the following indicators will tend to be positive in such a circumstance:

When one is clearly the strongest player in the game.
Strong players play well and weak players play poorly, of course; but under stress of an overbid deal weak players can be expected, typically, to exaggerate their own worst tendencies: this is part and parcel of being a weak player.
When behind.
In an underbid hand there are potentially 130 points available to be earned. in an overbid hand there will never be more than 120, likely less, points available. Anyone making their contract is thus automatically gaining on the field in an overbid deal.

In the most extreme case, where the opponents win the game if they make their bid and it is thus essential to set them, one might as well bid for the set and overbid the hand to 14.
When the hand demands it
If one's hand clearly is strong enough for a 3 bid with a chance at 4 tricks, but as dealer the hand is already bid to 11, a bid of 3 to overbid the deal at 14 seems in order. Someone is in for a nasty surprise  and it doesn't look to be you.
When long in Spades
Holding five or more Spades in your hand, on an overbid deal, will definitely surprise someone expecting length tricks in Spades that are now vulnerable to your holding.


Is there a term for cards that have the same name in the same set (like basic lands) but are different cards? It seems "reprints" is used for cards that are reprinted. But is there terminology for cards that have the same name but are in the same set?

For example if there are 3 or 4 different "Mountain" basic lands, in the same set, I don't think the term "reprint" quite correct.

The term is variant. There are usually 3–4 variants of each basic land in a set. Promos offer an alternate art variant of the card. The term was also used to describe the Unstable cards that had alternate functional variants.


What if there is more than one doctor? In this game, when you land on the hospital space, you must pay half your salary to the doctor or to the bank.

There is no further clarification about this issue. So what if there is more than one doctor playing? they divide the amount received?

From the games instructions found here:

  When completing College, you do not draw an Experience Card; instead
  you score an automatic salary increase of $20,000, and select a degree
  as you leave. If you are the first player to pass through College,
  select any degree from the specialized degrees offered, and check it
  in the "Education" column of your score sheet. However, each degree
  may be awarded only once. Thus, if you are the second player to
  graduate from College, and the first graduate selected the Science
  Degree, your choice is limited to the remaining three, and so on for
  the first four players. If you are the fifth or sixth player to pass
  through College, you may not score any of the specialized degrees, but
  do score the regular College Degree and the normal salary increase of
  $20,000. Any College Degree, specialized or regular, may be used for
  entering Big Business. A player selecting the degree in medicine
  becomes the Doctor. He or she receives payments for players in the
  Hospital; the Doctor does not have to pay upon landing in the Hospital
  and may move out of this space on his or her next turn. (Note: If the
  Doctor is instructed to go to the Hospital he or she must go
  immediately even though they do not follow the instructions printed on
  the square when they get there.) No player may go to College more than
  once.

I'm not an expert at the game by any means, but I would infer from the sentences I've highlighted above that, in fact, there can only be one Doctor in any one game of Careers.


Do I draw a card if I enchant an opponent's Eidolon of Blossoms with Hypnotic Siren? The situation is just as stated in the title: my opponent controls Eidolon of Blossoms:

  Whenever Eidolon of Blossoms or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.

I target the Eidolon of Blossoms with Hypnotic Siren, gaining control of it:

  Bestow 5UU (If you cast this card for its bestow cost, it's an
  Aura spell with enchant creature. It becomes a creature again if it's
  not attached to a creature.)

  Flying

  You control enchanted creature.

  Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has flying.

Do I draw a card for Hypnotic Siren coming into play?  My instinct says yes, because of rules 603.6b and 603.6d:

  603.6b Continuous effects that modify characteristics of a permanent do so the moment the permanent is on the battlefield (and not before
  then). The permanent is never on the battlefield with its unmodified
  characteristics.

  603.6d Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions. Continuous
  effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger
  conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like.

but I'm not 100% certain.  (I had it ruled the other way at FNM this evening; at the time I agreed with the ruling, but now I'm less sure.)

First gatherer note on Hypnotic Siren:

  If you Hypnotic Siren for its bestow cost, and you gain control of a creature with a constellation ability, that ability will trigger when Hypnotic Siren enters the battlefield. You'll controll [sic] that triggered ability.

Looks like the answer is "yes".


How do the expansions for Race for the Galaxy alter the game - are they worth buying? Can someone give a good summary of each expansion for Race for the Galaxy, and explain how it changes the game? Is it worth it to buy the expansions straight out? Or is it fine to stick with the base game as long as you want? What's the compelling reason to expand? Just curious!

The expansions all have different themes to them, and they change up the game play in significant ways.  The first expansion, The Gathering Storm, is easily the most interesting in terms of changing up the game play.  It adds in the goals, which channels play in different ways in each game.  That, plus the new start worlds, provide enough extra variety that I'd suggest it's worth getting after playing roughly 25 games or so of the base game.  That many games allows you to see the different strategies that are available and become familiar with the approaches.

Rebel vs. Imperium has an excellent new start world mechanic, where each player gets dealt two start worlds with their opening hand and then gets to make a choice.  This, on its own, justifies the expansion I think.  The takeover mechanic isn't especially interesting, it just doesn't come up terribly often, so really here, you're talking about just beefing up the deck and providing more variety.

The Brink of War, honestly, I don't care for.  The prestige mechanics seem to tilt things pretty far back towards military being the most successful strategy.  Perhaps I'm just not very adept at it, but after about 15 games or so, I'm close to taking the cards out of my deck.

Alien Artifacts is actually the start of a new expansion cycle. It's designed to be played with just the base game, and it changes things in a very different way than the first three. It introduces a map that the players build, with the players moving around on the map to find new stuff. Explore becomes a first-class action with the expansion, which isn't really much true in the other ones. I only have four or so games with it, and I think some of the rules for building the map are kind of inelegant (although understandable why they are the way they are), but it's a fun experience. I'd still probably buy it third of the four expansions, though.


In Catan, if you roll a seven and move the robber, do you actually have to rob someone? Rolling a seven forces you to move the robber from its current position, to another hex.
Are you allowed to move the robber to a hex (other than the desert) from which no one is producing resources? Your blockage of production becomes "trivial," and you have no one to rob.
Are there times where this might make sense? One might be from a "political" point of view, perhaps if you don't want to disturb the current balance of power? Or might it make sense to block a hex where you don't want someone to build a settlement, rather than actually having one already?

From the game rules

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

The keyword here being any. So yes, you can move it to tiles without anyone on it.
Although I've never done this myself, I suppose there could be an argument made to do doing this for a couple reasons. One of them, like you mentioned, could be to appease other players. Another could be to try and allow someone to even the playing field. If player A is very ahead and has longest road, but player B is tied for longest road, you could place the robber on a unsettled tile as to not steal from Player B and allow them to try and take longest road which might even out the score a little bit.
However, an important distinction here is that this does not mean you cannot steal if you place it on a tile that does have settlements or cities on it. If you place the robber on a tile with other players cities or settlement, you must steal from one of them.


Is there a way to determine how much of a "fighting chance" I had? As a child, I was playing Monopoly in a local tournament against "Chuck" (the hero of some of my other game questions). Early on, he got a Monopoly of his namesake maroons: St. Charles Place, State Street, and Virginia Ave. After he acquired "stops" on all the other Monopolies, the game should have ended there except for one thing.

Toward the end of the game, a bystander, a girl named Martha, urged Chuck to give me a "fighting chance." He agreed to give me his defense to the Purple monopoly (Baltic and Mediterranean), in exchange for my defense to the orange Monopoly (St. James, Tennessee, New York). The other matters of note were that Chuck had hotels on the maroons, I had three railroads and one utility, and we each had about $1000 of cash.

Through what quantitative analysis (Monte Carlo simulation, perhaps), can I determine how much of a "fighting chance" I had at this point? I would guess that I would win less than one game in a hundred, perhaps less than one in a thousand, but in a million trials, I should have one or more wins.

A fat chance/A slim chance, whatever you wish to call it.

Even if you could get the last railroad AND the last utility AND get all hotels on your set for $0, you will still lose, unless a miracle happens, i.e. you never land on his hotels or on the set until his hotels are down.

There is a 7.54% chance (2 decimal places) you will land on his hotels (and pay at least $750) = equivalent to you losing $56.55 (2 decimal places) every turn (assuming you will land on his hotels at EXACTLY 7.54%)

There is a 4.29% chance he will land on your hotels (250 for Medit, 450 for Baltic) ($15.06/turn)

If you have the 4 railroads, 11.38% chance (gives $200) ($22.76/turn)

2 utilities: Average rent 7*10=$70, 5.41% chance = ($3.79/turn)

Total "gain": $41.61/turn

Total "loss": $56.55/turn

So this means that you may lose.

Note again that this is the most general case and I am only working with probabilities, that is, if the dice never or always leads to a space, this answer might be wrong.

Credits http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml for all the probabilities


What is Astrochain and how does it work? I just got into Netrunner, and I'm reading up about it, and I keep seeing Astrochain being mentioned everywhere, but I can't find an explanation of it. I know it involves AstroScript Pilot Program in some way.

"Astrochain" (or "astrotrain") is a term used to refer to the use of the scored ability of the "Astroscript Pilot Program" (APP) NBN agenda in Android: Netrunner.  When scored by the corporation, an agenda counter is placed on the APP that allows:

  Hosted agenda counter: Place 1 advancement token on a card that can be advanced.

This ability can be triggered during any subsequent paid abilities window, and is generally regarded as one of the strongest agenda abilities in the game.

The APP itself is a 3/2 agenda, meaning that it requires 3 advancement tokens to score and yields 2 agenda points when scored.  Because it can be scored so quickly, many NBN decks have been constructed around scoring these agendas in particular and preferably doing so out of hand (meaning the runner will never see them in a remote server, but will only be able to grab them from HQ or R&D) - this strategy is referred to as "Fast Advance".

In faction, they are often paired with SanSan City Grids, which allow for agendas to be scored one advancement token sooner than they would be otherwise.  If the Corporation has a SanSan City Grid installed at the beginning of their turn, they can pay 6 credits to rez it, install the APP, advance it twice (either via credits or with a Shipment from SanSan), and score it all within one turn.  The hosted agenda counter can then be saved to help advance subsequent agendas, which can be immensely helpful if your SanSan City Grid gets trashed.

This kind of deck typically is played as a "rush deck" - where you may install a few pieces of cheap, end-the-run ICE and hope to win before the runner has a chance to fully put together their rig and break through your defenses (typical ICE choices are things like: Chimera, Wraparound, and Quandry).  Once they can get in, you have to win quickly.

This strategy is so strong that the influence splashes in some decks also revolve around accomplishing this goal (scoring APPs out of hand).  The most typical of these is the "Astrobiotics" deck, which includes up to 3 Biotic Labours (splashed from Haas-Bioroid at 4 influence each).  With an APP and a Biotic Labour in hand, one can Biotic, then install, advance the APP three times, and score it within one turn.  Of course, if you do this and also have a SanSan rezzed, you can even do something else with your last click!

APP tokens are sometimes "chained" - which does indicate that you use one APP to score another, but as has been mentioned, it is not extremely common to draw them one after another in this fashion.  However, if you are able to score one or two of these agendas and sit on their agenda tokens, you are in an extremely strong position to score other agendas faster than the runner can deal with them.  For example, with 1 Biotic Labour, you could install a Project Beale and advance it three times.  This would typically score it for 2 agenda points, but if you had previous scored 2 APPs, you could spend their tokens to advance it twice more - yielding you 3 agenda points, and the win! (note: SanSan City Grids do not help with obtaining the additional agenda points from Project Beale)


Does "-5 on your next combat" include helping someone? So this was a huge dispute a while back and still is. If you play a curse or trap on someone that gives a “-5 on your next combat” would you consider your next combat to be the one on your next turn or could you help someone else in combat and then get rid of the curse? From my thinking, since you had to add that -5 to you combat strength when helping someone, it would go away but others think that since it says YOUR next combat it specifically has to be on your next turn. Please help us settle this!

The Official Munchkin FAQ states:

  Q. If a card that affects "your next combat" is played on you during a combat, does it affect THAT combat, or the next one you're in?
  A. If the combat is still unresolved (and obviously it is, because people are still playing cards on you for it), then that combat is the "next" one. Most Munchkin games say this explicitly in the rules, but it's true even if we left it out by mistake.

That seems quite clear. The next combat to resolve  in which "you are a participant".


Does a Junta during the Cuban Missile Crisis end the game? In Twilight Struggle, if the Cuban Missile Crisis is in effect and the targeted player takes a free coup using the Junta event, does that trigger the end of the game clause on the Cuban Missile Crisis?

The card texts are:

Cuban Missile Crisis*

  Set Defcon to Level 2. Any further Coup attempt by your opponent,
  anywhere on the board, will result in Global Thermonuclear War. Your
  opponent will lose the game. This event may be canceled at any time if
  the USSR player removes two Influence from Cuba or the US player
  removes 2 Influence from either West Germany or Turkey.

Junta

  Place 2 Influence in any one Central or South American country. Then
  you may make a free Coup attempt or Realignment roll in one of these
  regions (using this card's Operations Value). [2 Ops]

I guess the question boils down to what does "free Coup" mean.

does that trigger the end of the game clause on the Cuban Missile
  Crisis?

Yes. From the rulebook:

  6.3.5 Cards that state a player may make a “free Coup roll” in a particular region may ignore the geographic restrictions of the current DEFCON level (see 8.1.5). However, a “free Coup roll” used against a Battleground country would still lower DEFCON as per 6.3.4.

A free coup attempt event only negates the geographic location, not DEFCON status. This would still cause DEFCON to reach 1 and the phasing player would still lose the game after attempting the coup.


In Axis and Allies, Can Heavy Bombers Be "Tamed"? Most players of Axis and Allies understand intuitively that the original heavy bombers tech "unbalances" the game by being disproportionately good. My own research confirms this by valuing the two additional rolls as 30 IPCs (per bomber), meaning that the tech pays for its 30 IPC research costs in one turn.

Some players allow heavy bombers only two rolls instead of three. You basically get two bombers for the price of one, +15 IPCs. That's still higher than other techs (6-10 IPCs), but less of an outlier than before.

My own preference is for a 50% increment in the bomber's original powers. That is two rolls for heavy bombers but only THREE numbers hit (instead of four), six numbers instead of four or eight. For strategic bombing, take the die roll +2 for a range of 3-8 instead of 1-6 (average of 5.5 hits instead of 3.5). This gives heavy bombers an incremental value of about 8, squarely in line with other techs'.

Is there a heavy bomber tech, either the "two roll" rule, or my 50% increment version, or some other suggestion that allows people to use heavy bombers without throwing the game out of whack?

Over at this question about A&A variants I suggesting changing heavy bombers such that each bomber is worth two dice, choose the higher value. For attacking this means the probability of successful attack increases 33 percent: from 0.67 (4/6) to 0.89 (1 - 2/6^2). For strategic bombing the expected value of IPCs would goes up by 28 percent.
So my rule makes bombers about 33 percent better than they were before, which using Tom's methodology is worth about 5 IPCs, since each bomber is costs 15. This is a 6-turn pay-back with 1 bomber, or two turns with 3--not accounting for the time-value of IPCs. This seems much more in line with the increases in the other techs. (Also see the footnote at the bottom explaining how this rule reduces the likelihood of bad rolls in addition to increasing the average. This is additional value not included in the 5 IPC figure.)

Derivation of the increase in expected strategic bombing value
For 1-die the value is 3.5. For rolling two dice and picking the higher one, the math is much more complicated. From this paper on dice probabilities, the probability that the highest number rolled with n dice is k is given by (sorry, no tex formatting on the board game site):

(k^n - (k - 1)^n) / 6^n

which for n = 2 reduces to

(k^2 - (k - 1)^2) / 36

Now we calculate the probability that our two rolls will give us each value from 1 - 6.
Value  Probability Equation
1       1/36       (1^2 - (1-1)^2)/36
2       3/36       (2^2 - (2-1)^2)/36
3       5/36       (3^2 - (3-1)^2)/36
4       7/36       (4^2 - (4-1)^2)/36
5       9/36       (5^2 - (5-1)^2)/36
6      11/36       (6^2 - (6-1)^2)/36
       36/36  <--- just checking the sum

Now to calculate the expected value we have to weight these probabilities by the likelihood (i.e. multiple the value and probability columns and sum), which results in 4.47--a 28 percent increase over 3.5.
This table also makes clear that rolls are now going to be biased on the high side. Where as before the chances of getting a 1 were 1/6 = 17 percent, now they are 3 percent. And the probability of getting a 6 has increased from 17 percent to 30 percent. So the average has moved up and moved up in a way that makes it very unlikely you will get a bad roll, removing some of the luck from strategic bombing, further increasing their value above the postulated value of 5 IPCs per bomber.


In Robinson Crusoe Castaways Scenario, will the hatchet and snare keep after camp has been moved? In Robinson Crusoe, players can build a hatchet item in the Castaways scenario to add a +1 wood token to the island tile with their camp.  As long as the camp remains on that island tile, the players will receive one additional wood during the production phase.

Players can also opt to move their camp at night to an adjacent island tile.  There is no mention of what happens to the +1 wood token on the island tile of the previous camp after the players have relocated.

Another token, the shortcut token, that provides an additional resource during the gathering phase, does get removed when the camp is relocated, forcing players to rebuild it.  Do the players, after moving the camp:

a)  move the +1 wood token from the hatchet,
b)  lose the +1 wood
token but keep the hatchet,
c)  lose the +1 wood token and lose the
hatchet (forcing rebuild), or
d)  keep the +1 wood token on the
previous camp's island tile and let it as act an additional wood
resource for collection during the gathering phase?

On page 13 of the rules, under Moving the Camp, it states that

  If there are any +1 resource tokens (as an effect of a built Item) ... you can move [them] with the Camp.

The only limit is that you're only allowed to have a single token per "spot," so if you move your camp with +1 food and +1 wood to a place that already has a +1 food token, you lose the extra +1 food token.

So keep the tokens, keep your inventions, and move the tokens with the camp.


Putting cards into your hand while the top of library is revealed Anthony has Courser of Kruphix on the field. He begins resolving Dig Through Time.

While Dig Through Time is resolving, must the top card be kept separate from the other six?

I'm thinking that Anthony's opponent should know what happens to the top card because it is revealed. What I don't understand is how a judge could enforce this. Anthony could easily shuffle the cards around in his hand before choosing two of them (and in practice, most people who I've seen cast Dig Through Time do mix up the cards before finally settling on two of them).

What I think the rules allow for (emphasis on the part I made up):

Anthony leaves the top card revealed and separate while browsing through the other six, which remain hidden. He chooses two out of the seven and puts them into his hand. If Anthony chooses the top card, his opponent will know because it was kept revealed and separate.

I'm playing this deck at an invitational in two weeks and I need to know how to do this properly so that I can give the least amount of information to my opponents while not cheating.

Actually, I would argue that Anthony's opponent should not know where the revealed card ends up. When you manipulate cards in a hidden zone, what happens is not free or derived information. See rule 400.2 (emphasis mine)

  400.2. Public zones are zones in which all players can see the cards' faces, except for those cards that some rule or effect specifically allow to be face down. Graveyard, battlefield, stack, exile, ante, and command are public zones. Hidden zones are zones in which not all players can be expected to see the cards' faces. Library and hand are hidden zones, even if all the cards in one such zone happen to be revealed.

So I would think while resolving  Dig Through Time, and supposing X is on top of the library, the steps are:

(1) Look at the top seven cards of your library. [X is revealed at this point]

(2) Put two of them into hand and the rest on the bottom of the library in any order. [flip X over, perform this action, then reveal the new top card of the library]

Since the choices made for (2) above do not fall under the categories of free or derived info (library is still a hidden zone, see 400.2 above), I don't see why Anthony's opponent should know what happened to X.


What is the best way to clean dirty cards I have a few frequently played card games where the cards no longer feel "clean".  They aren't stained or anything, just a bit grimy.  Is there an effective way to clean the cards without damaging the graphics?

I've found that a slightly damp washcloth with a little bit of plain old bar soap on it works just fine -- don't use those goofy hand soaps with the beads or anything fancy in them.

Lightly rub the cloth on the card, dry it off with another washcloth, and let it sit for a few hours.  You definitely want to try this on one card first to make sure that nothing streaks on the card, and only do small batches at a time to make it manageable.

I wouldn't do this to any Magic cards that you find valuable; those should have been in card sleeves in the first place.  It might be safe, but I would hate to be responsible for damage to your Mox or Lotus.


Eclipse for nongamers I've been thinking about getting the board game Eclipse, but before I actually take the plunge and buy the game, I would like to get a better idea of whether or not I would actually be able to get my friends to play with me.  I have gotten them to play things like 7 Wonders and Settlers of Catan, and they seemed to have enjoyed it, but I would definitely not consider them "gamers" and I know they have a tendency to prefer games that are not overly complicated.

I have taken a look at the rules, and honestly, it seems quite complicated.  That being said, a lot of games I've played have seem complicated at first sight, but upon actually learning the game, are actually quite easy.  In the case of Eclipse, I'm having a hard time really learning the game without any actual pieces in front of me, so it's more difficult for me to decide.

Is Eclipse the sort of game you can convince nongamers to play and actually enjoy?  In particular, it would be nice to have a rough estimate as to the amount of time it would take to teach someone completely new to the game (and the genre) how to play (assuming I have already learned everything myself).

(Apologizes in advance if this question is too subjective or vague.)

Eclipse is a complicated game. If you have never taught the game yourself, expect a teaching game to take 4-7 hours.

It took me about 20-30 minutes to learn the game. I am an experienced gamer, had browsed the rulebook, and the player teaching me had taught others before. For a first-time teacher and inexperienced players, I estimate teaching will take at least an hour. While each one of the actions is relatively straightforward, there are a lot of them, and the way they interact is not always obvious.

As a small example of the complexity of the rules, consider the ability to take weakened Reaction actions after passing. First, players must remember that this is possible. They won't understand until they understand why you would want to do take these inefficient actions, and at least one player likely won't grasp why one player would pass before or after the rest. (The way the influence discs serve a dual purpose in choosing actions and controlling systems, while a beautiful mechanism, isn't like anything else your players are likely to have come across.)

Also consider, for example, the fact that every technology tile is referenced only by a name and icon. The icons provide a useful reminder of what the technology does, but in general the players will probably have to spend a lot of time referencing what potential technology purchases may do.

The fact that your players are relatively inexperienced at games in general may also mean the rules take longer to understand. For example, to an experienced gamer, the icon for a Reputation symbol outline and Ambassador outline clearly indicates "this is a spot that can hold either a Reputation tile or an Ambassador". To at least one of your inexperienced group, this will probably not be so intuitive and, like every other detail, it will have to be spelled out.

The BGG survey lists the best number of players as 4 or 6, and I agree; but I expect that a first game will take no less than an hour per player, plus teaching time. Expect it to take an entire evening or good chunk of a weekend day with a meal break. With experience the game can be made much quicker, but with entirely inexperienced players, it might even go longer.

Based on the tone of your question and your hesitance, I do not recommend that you purchase Eclipse with the expectation that this group will enjoy it. There is a good chance that they will not. If you can somehow borrow a copy, I would give it a try; I have also been told that the iPad version is quite good (and inexpensive). Playing on the iPad would not only let you know whether you like the game, but also give you familiarity with the rules which would make teaching much easier.


Do professional-level Go players memorize a list of endgame positions as part of their training? As in this question there were two questions, I extract the second question here.

I don't know if they spend a lot of time doing point-value memorizing, but I would imagine that there is a reasonable amount of time spent studying and memorizing endgame tesuji. Counting is important to properly evaluate when the tesuji are profitable.


Lifelink and multiple triggers I control Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and two 1/1 creatures with lifelink. I attack with these two creatures, my opponent doesn't block them and they deal combat damage to him. My question is if Vito's trigger ability triggers once or twice? I know that damage is dealt simultaneously, so maybe I gain 2 life as "one piece"? Or maybe it's separated? It doesn't make any difference, because in both scenarios my opponent loses two life, but I am curios what will happen here.

The ability triggers twice. Here's the relevant rule from the comprehensive rules, which also includes an example where it does matter whether it's once or twice:

702.15e If multiple sources with lifelink deal damage at the same time, they cause separate life gain events (see rules 119.9–10).
Example: A player controls Ajani’s Pridemate, which reads “Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on Ajani’s Pridemate,” and two creatures with lifelink. The creatures with lifelink deal combat damage simultaneously. Ajani’s Pridemate’s ability triggers twice.

The Gatherer pages of at least some of the cards where it matters also include this in their Rulings section, e.g. under Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose it says

Each creature with lifelink dealing combat damage causes a separate life-gaining event. For example, if two creatures you control with lifelink deal combat damage at the same time, Vito’s first ability will trigger twice and you may choose a different opponent for each trigger. However, if a single creature you control with lifelink deals combat damage to multiple creatures, players, and/or planeswalkers at the same time (perhaps because it has trample or was blocked by more than one creature), the ability will trigger only once.

As indicated in that ruling, this issue can matter even for Vito if you have multiple opponents; another way it could matter is if your opponent wanted to cast Disallow to counter Vito's ability.


Numbers after a draft format Most drafts that I have seen on MTGO use a set of numbers after the format. I think it describes what matches are played after the drafting portion. For example:

  Modern Masters 2015 6-2-2-2[1]

Modern Masters 2015 refers to the types of boosters that will be opened. What does the "6-2-2-2" mean?

I have also seen "8-4" as a common postfix. Are there others, and if so what do they mean?

You must be referring to MTGO (the online version of the game). You generally enter a draft with seven other players (for a total of eight). The postfix refers to how many packs you will receive when the tournament is over.

The postfix "6-2-2-2" indicates three rounds of Swiss. Swiss means that you will continue to play whether you win or lose. After three rounds of 6-2-2-2 are completed:

One player will have three wins. That player receives six packs.
Three players will have two wins. They will each receive two packs.

The postfix "8-4" indicates three rounds of single elimination. This means that when you lose, you are out. After three rounds of 8-4 are completed:

One player will be the winner. That player receives eight packs.
One player will be the runner-up. That player receives four packs.

This is described in more detail on the Wizards of the Coast website (which I just noticed you also linked to in the question).


Should I respond to 1 NT in a suit or NT holding 17 HCP and a void? My partner opened a "strong" one NT. I am holding:
♠ void
♥ KJxx
♦ AKQxxx
♣ KJx

What should I bid?

I would bid 4C (Gerber) to ask about aces. If partner has 3, bid 7D. If partner has only 2, bid 6D.

The weak point in this hand is if partner has, say, the KJ in spades; some other responder might have a fancier convention to pick out the specific high cards.


Are Hirelings Looted From Your Dead Body? At first we said that he simply loses his item, and sticks around until you're respawned...but then my friend changed his mind and thought that, given we were in a real dungeon/monster/treasure situation, he'd simply whistle over the hireling, who would be lost and afraid without a hero escorting him around. Listening to him, it almost seemed as if he had the hirelings best interest in mind while crafting his argument....hmmmmm.

I gave him points for originality, but told him I'd have to consult with the community here first.

Hirelings are just cards, like other cards. The rules for looting are quite clear - you lose all the cards you had in play. So not only do you lose anything he's carrying, you lose your Hireling too (he runs off somewhere)!

  Death

  If you die, you lose all your stuff.
  You keep your Class(es), Race(s), and Level (and any Curses that were affecting you
  when you died) – your new character will look just like your old one.
  If you have Half- Breed or Super Munchkin, keep those as well.

  Looting The Body: Lay out your hand beside the cards you had in play. Starting
  with the one with the highest Level, each other player chooses one
  card . . . in case of ties in level, roll a die. If your corpse runs
  out of cards, tough. After everyone gets one card, the rest are
  discarded.

  Dead characters cannot receive cards for any reason, not
  even Charity, and cannot level up.

  Your new character appears when the
  next player begins his turn, and can help others in combat . . . but
  you have no cards.


How many times can I activate this Lotleth Troll and Basking Rootwalla combo? If I have a Lotleth Troll and a Basking Rootwalla in my hand and I cast Lotleth Troll. How many times can you activate its ability? I'm just making a deck to troll my friends.

Without help from other cards, this combo will only work once; when you discard the Basking Rootwalla to put a +1/+1 counter on Lotleth Troll, and cast it for its madness cost, you'll end up with a Basking Rootwalla on the battlefield, so you can't discard it again unless you find a way to return it to your hand.


Best game for two couples, median age 20? I'm looking for some nonstandard board games that don't take more than two hours to complete and don't take less than thirty minutes. By nonstandard I mean other than monopoly, risk and cluedo.

I've been doing a lot of research on the internet the past two days and I've narrowed it down to four games which I think might fit the bill - Dominion, Agricola, Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan.

The primary idea is for me and my best friend to play this with our girlfriends, so the game shouldn't be too aggressive, but I also have to keep in mind that my friend is a huge Total War fan.

Now, I have almost 0 experience with real board games, and I'm pretty sure the other three have absolutely no experience, but all four of us are very enthusiastic about starting.

Personally, I feel Agricola might be the best for us, but I'm currently collecting opinions from all around, and I would like to hear the pros and cons of these four games (as well as any other you think might fit the bill), in regards to our gaming group. Replayability should be the highest concern.

No one can really answer your question directly, but I can give an overview of the four different games and their play styles.

Agricola

Complex rules and might be a bit heavy for a non-gamer initially.
About building a farm.  Everyone likes building a farm.
"Aggressive" play comes from resource denial
Most games will take 30 minutes per player to play.  During learning it'll probably take an extra 15+ minutes per player.
Lots of setup/packup work is required.
Plays best with 4 players.
Highly replayable and highly addictive.

Dominion

Rules are relatively simple.
Very little aggressive play.
Player interaction with each other is limited.
The game plays as a deck building game.
Most games will come in under half an hour.  Some cards will extend this but never more than an hour.
Plays best with 2 players.
There are a lot of worthless cards/card combos, which limits the combinations of possible games more than it seems initially.
Lots of replayability, but expansions are highly recommended to open up the possibilities.

Puerto Rico

Rules are moderately difficult - easier than Agricola, more difficult than Dominion.
Play is generally not aggressive, but has a high degree of player interaction.
Game time is rarely more than 1.5h.
Plays best with 4 players.
Moderate amount of setup/packup work.
Base game is slightly imbalanced, favouring players who start with corn.  This won't have too much of an impact though.

Settlers of Catan

Famous mainly as a "gateway game" into Euro-style games.
Lots more luck involved than the other three games.
Some games will last over 2 hours, depending on luck factors and how decisive each player is.
Plays best with 3-4 players.
Rules are relatively simple to learn.
Dice use will make new players feel more comfortable.
Pretty quick setup/packup time.
Probably has the least long term replayability.  Certainly without the expansions this one will not amuse as long as any of the other games.

My recommendation is actually Puerto Rico, based on what you have described.  I would then recommend Agricola after you have played Puerto Rico a few times and have mastered the mechanics.  I still regularly play both games despite having played them hundreds of times.  I very rarely play settlers and occasionally play dominion.  Dominion's a game I play to fill in half an hour to an hour of time. YMMV.

Certainly if you do not wish to buy expansions the best choices are Puerto Rico or Agricola.  Settlers becomes a lot more fun with the Seafarers expansion and Dominion really opens up as soon as you get at least one expansion.


In Chariot Race, do you incur a cornering penalty on being knocked back onto a numbered space after ramming? We came across a curious situation in a game of Chariot Race where our reading of the rules seems to be curiously non-thematic. The situation was like this:

The red chariot is going to use its last movement to swerve and ram the green chariot. The rules on ramming say that when you ram someone as the final movement of your go, place the red chariot in the first unoccupied space behind the rammed chariot:

  If the ramming chariot ends its movement on a space
  with a rammed chariot: the ramming is completed as
  described above and the ramming chariot is placed on the
  first unoccupied space in the same line behind the rammed
  chariot. The rammed chariot stays in its space

However, the first unoccupied space behind the green chariot is a numbered corner space (3, obscured by the caltrop - sorry!). We were unsure about whether being bumped back onto that corner space would incur the penalty for cornering too fast. (The red chariot was travelling at a speed above 3.)

The rules on cornering say:

  Cornering at a wild gallop is not really a bright idea! High
  speeds mean significant damage in corners. All numbered
  corner spaces indicate the maximum safe speed when you enter
  these spaces. Ending your movement in such a space counts
  as entering the space. For each point of speed exceeding this
  value you must take 1 point of damage. Adjust your Damage
  Track accordingly.

My reading of this is that entering the space even when being placed back onto the space after ramming another chariot would incur the penalty. This doesn't seem to me to make much sense thematically, though - the penalty on cornering too fast would seem only to make sense when you're careering through a corner making forward progress, rather than when being bumped back one place after ramming someone.

Does anyone know if there's any official ruling on this, or how the rules on this should be interpreted?

(As a side note, we were also assuming that the red chariot would take damage from the caltrop on being bumped back into it, which does make sense thematically to me.)

No, you do not take cornering damage when you're forced back into a corner space showing a maximum safe speed. You only need to do this when you enter the corner via normal movement.

Note, however, if there a string of chariots lined up around a corner and you had really bad dice, you might be forced to ram several of them in succession after taking cornering damage. You might then be forced back into an empty space before the corner such that on your next turn, you'd be forced to re-enter the corner again through normal means. In that case, you'd take damage from the corner again. I've never seen this happen, but it's theoretically possible.


How is a positive horror rating handled? What does a positive horror rating mean? For example, when a monster has -1 horror rating and my character's willpower is 7, it is reduced to 6. In the positive rating, when the monster has 1 for horror rating, should I add 1 to my willpower?

Yes,

Horror tests are an attribute test, which are defined on page 13 of the rules, emphasis mine.

  Occasionally, an investigator must make a modified attribute
  test. Such tests always list a positive or negative number after the attribute (for example: “Test Strength –1”). This number is always added to the investigator’s attribute before rolling the die. In this way, a skill test with a negative modifier is more likely to fail.


International Checkers - winning strategy for 3 [4] kings vs 1 king Is there any winning strategy in International Checkers for 3 or more kings vs 1 king?

I've reached a draw because the opponent was moving his single king on the diagonal from one end to another, and I could find no way to stop him doing so and made a trap for the king.

The answer by @RemcoGerlich is essentially correct. Some extra info below. For further reference see the Dutch book Drie tegen een is gemeen, that contains a mathematical proof that 3 vs. 1 kings is a draw (which predates the age of perfect knowledge endgame databases by almost a decade!).

The answer depends crucially on both the board geometry and the king movement.

For short-ranged kings (American checkers and Italian draughts) 2 kings can force a win against 1 king. The same applies for orthogonally capturing kings (Frisian draughts) and kings that need to end a jump immediately behind the last jumped piece (Thai draughts).

For long-ranged kings, on square boards larger than 8x8 (10x10 International and 12x12 Canadian draughts), 3 kings against 1 king is a draw but 4 kings can always force a win.

On an 8x8 board (e.g. American pool checkers and Russian draughts), it is a win if the majority side occupies the long diagonal, and a draw otherwise. The key position is called Petrov's triangle (in Russian, use a browser translator):

On rectangular boards of dimensions N x (N ± 1), N x (N ± 2) and N x (2 N - 1), there are two single corner diagonals that allow special tactics to enable a 3 vs. 1 forced win.

In International draughts, the 3 vs 1 drawn engame is seen as the main culprit for the >90% drawing percentage at grandmaster level matchplay. Many game tweaks have been proposed.


How does commander damage interact with cards that prevent you from losing the game? If you have take the last 21 commander damage from a single commander and play a card that prevents you from losing, what happens when that card stops protecting you? Example being Angel's Grace or Stunning Reversal.

The rule that makes you lose the game from commander damage is one of the State-based actions (specifically, rule 704.5v). These are checked every time any player gains priority. The two cards you mentioned interact with this in different ways:

Angel's Grace stops you from losing for a specific duration within the game (this turn). During that duration you won't lose the game for that reason or any other. As soon as that duration ends, the next time state-based actions are checked you will lose the game, because you still have 21 commander damage.
Stunning Reversal replaces a single time that you would lose the game. In that case, after you take the 21st point of damage the state-based action in question applies, and Stunning Reversal's effect replaces it and you follow its instructions, and then state-based actions are immediately checked again and you still have 21 commander damage so you lose the game.


What are on each of the faces of the dice in the US version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters? Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters was a spinoff of the popular trading card game, which used the same iconic monsters, but instead was a tactical miniatures game featuring dice. The Japanese versions and the American version differed in the dice that were offered:

In the Japanese version, you could snap together squares to create the six-sided dice with whatever combination of faces you wanted (Six Level 4 Summoning crests? Go for it!)
In the American version, the dice were all premade and non-customaizable, coming in four different colors with each color apparently having in a different combination of faces

I'm trying to reconstruct the game, but don't have the dice from the American set. What are on each of the faces of the different dice? I've seen a few images on BoardGameGeek, but so far can't tell what is on all of the faces of the American dice.

What are on each of the faces of the different dice?

I found this Dungeon Dice Monsters page on the Wiki. There, it is specified each of the possible symbols and their meaning. The specific term used in the game is 'Crest', and you roll the dice to gather specific kinds of Crests to interact with the game.

Edit: I also found the official ruling in case it helps as reference.

Worth mentioning that there are 4 kinds of dice, one for each possible monster level (1-4). Each dice has faces depending on the level they are (usually, the higher the level the less Summon Crests on the dice).

To summarize it here, the possible Crests are:

Summon Crest (star symbol): These crests are used to summon monsters. There are 4 kinds of monster levels, and thus Summon Crests for each level. The higher the level the harder is to achieve a summon. This is because Lvl 1 dice have 4 sides with Summon Crests, but Lvl 4 dice only has 1 side with Summon Crest.
Attack Crest (swords symbol): This Crest enables summoned monsters to attack. You need one Crest per attack, and a monster can only attack once per turn.
Defense Crest (shield symbol): This Crest helps monsters to defend themselves from attacks. Basically, the Defense Crest subtracts Attack from the attacking monster and then calculation proceeds.
Trap Crest (umbrella corp-ish symbol): Used to activate some monsters' effects when attacked.
Spell Crest (thunder symbol): Similar to Trap Crests, these are used to activate monsters' abilities.
Movement Crest (arrow symbol): Used to move your monsters across the board. One Movement Crests can move a monster one square (unless it is a Flying monster, which use 2 per square).

Regarding the content of the dice faces. On this wiki page we have, emphasis mine:

  No matter what version is played, the amount of summon crests is the same for all dice across a given level. Level 1 dice have four summon crests per die, Level 2 have three, Level 3 have two, and Level 4 have one. They all have other crests on the remaining sides.

Here is an image taken from the linked ruling booklet that specifies what is the content of each face of each dice level:

In text:

Lvl 1 Dice (Red): 4 Summon Crests, 1 Movement Crest, 1 (x2) Defense Crest
Lvl 2 Dice (Blue): 3 Summon Crests, 1 (x2) Movement Crest, 1 (x2) Attack Crest, 1 Spell Crest
Lvl 3 Dice (Yellow): 2 Summon Crests, 2 Movement Crests, 1 Attack Crest, 1 (x2) Trap Crest
Lvl 4 Dice (Green): 1 Summon Crest, 1 (x2) Movement Crest, 1 Attack Crest, 1 Defense crest, 1 (x2) Spell Crest, 1 Trap Crest.


When Oko turns food into an Elk, is the creature still food? When Oko, Thief of Crowns turns a Food token into a 3/3 elk, is the resulting creature still Food?

No, it stops being a food token and loses its self-sacrifice ability. You can't sacrifice it to its own ability any more, or use it for other abilities referring to food tokens.

We can expect a change to 205.3g that includes "food" as an artifact subtype:

  205.3g Artifacts have their own unique set of subtypes; these subtypes are called artifact types. The artifact types are Clue, Contraption, Equipment (see rule 301.5), Fortification (see rule 301.6), Treasure, and Vehicle (see rule 301.7).

When an effect calls to do something with treasure tokens, it refers to an artifact permanent with the treasure subtype. Expect the same for food tokens:

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

When you create a Food token, it's a token with type "artifact", subtype "food", and name "food".

  110.5c A spell or ability that creates a token sets both its name and its subtype. If the spell or ability doesn’t specify the name of the token, its name is the same as its subtype(s). A “Goblin Scout creature token,” for example, is named “Goblin Scout” and has the creature subtypes Goblin and Scout. Once a token is on the battlefield, changing its name doesn’t change its subtype, and vice versa.

Oko's +1 ability changes, among others, an artifact's type and subtype. Only the name remains unchanged. A food token affected by its ability becomes a green 3/3 creature token without abilities, with the name "Food", and with the only subtype "Elk". It loses the "Artifact" type, the "Food" subtype, and its self-sacrifice ability.

The Food token loses its "Food" subtype for two reasons. One, because Oko's ability directly overwrites the subtype without retaining the old value:

  205.1b Some effects change an object’s card type, supertype, or subtype but specify that the object retains a prior card type, supertype, or subtype. In such cases, all the object’s prior card types, supertypes, and subtypes are retained. This rule applies to effects that use the phrase “in addition to its types” or that state that something is “still a [type, supertype, or subtype].” Some effects state that an object becomes an “artifact creature”; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes.

And two, since the token loses the Artifact type, it also automatically loses its specific subtypes:

  205.1a Some effects set an object’s card type. In such cases, the new card type(s) replaces any existing card types. Counters, effects, and damage marked on the object remain with it, even if they are meaningless to the new card type. Similarly, when an effect sets one or more of an object’s subtypes, the new subtype(s) replaces any existing subtypes from the appropriate set (creature types, land types, artifact types, enchantment types, planeswalker types, or spell types). If an object’s card type is removed, the subtypes correlated with that card type will remain if they are also the subtypes of a card type the object currently has; otherwise, they are also removed for the entire time the object’s card type is removed. Removing an object’s subtype doesn’t affect its card types at all.

Whenever an ability or effect refers to an object by name, it will always explicitely say so ("card/object named", or "card(s) with the same name" and so on). Otherwise, it will always refer to the appropriate category of characteristic, such as color, type, or subtype. Therefore, if something refers to a "Food" token, it looks for the subtype "Food", which an artifact affected by Oko's +1 no longer has.


Predator's Rapport and counters Suppose Predator's Rapport's target has counters (for example, a few +1/+1 counters). Do the counters count when calculating the gained life? I thought power and toughness do not change after adding counters.

Yes. When a card refers to any creature's power or toughness, it always means the creature's current power or toughness, not what is printed on the card. This includes any +1/+1, -1/-1 or other counters that modify power and toughness; any equipment or enchantments attached to the creature that modify power and/or toughness, and any effects from cards such as Giant Growth, Glorious Anthem, or Bile Blight.

Note that damage on a creature does not change its toughness.


Marriages in Schnapsen/Sixty-six I'm not 100% grasping marriages/melding.

I'll run you through what I understand/think of it so far:

If I have lead, and a matching (trump, for this example) King/Queen, I can lead one of them, say "marriage", and reveal the other. Now, the opponent responds to the lead trick with a Jack and if I win, do I then receive the 20 (or 40) points PLUS 2 points for their Jack? Also upon winning would I put both the King and Queen and their Jack together as a trick and in my pile?

If the above is true (I'm guessing it's not), then that would bring my hand to 1 card smaller than opponent, and that makes no sense to me.

Surely I'm doing some of this wrong, heh. I've tried reading Pagat's rules, and any other sources. The only thing I'm certain about is revealing, must have lead, and also must win a trick anytime during that hand for points to count.

Thanks!

I received an answer on /r/cardgames. It's from David Parlett's Oxford A to Z of Card Games.

I recommend David Parlett's Oxford A to Z of Card Games. Here's my understanding from his book:
You lead one member of the happy couple, reveal the other (but hold onto it), and play the trick as normal. In your example, you would take the Jack, and also score for the King or the Queen you chose to play on top of the marriage points.

The key I was missing was the "hold on to it" part, even after the marriage happens and points are awarded (assuming you took a trick). This takes care of the problem I was having where my hand would have one less card than my opponent's.


What system is this expert using? You are at favorable vulnerability. LHO deals and passes. Partner bids one heart, RHO opponent passes. An expert (Frank Stewart) "surely" recommends that you respond 1NT with the following: (s)J954 (h)3 (d)T (c) KQ97632. This is the case even though you have four spades. (Stewart has major issues with "Standard.")
If you had (s)J954 (h)3 (d)T8 (c) KQ9763, he would "consider" bidding 1NT.

I did the same thing (bid 1NT) with a (somewhat) similar hand (neither vulnerable) and got into trouble when partner bid two spades, "reversing" with two spades, and only 13(!) points.

Under what system would Stewart's recommendation be a reasonable one? Or is it because the circumstances are (somewhat) different from mine in the above hands, where Stewart recommends running out to a "weak" 3 club bid if partner responds at the two level? Put another way, what might be the context of Stewart's remarks?

Stewart's recommendation is reasonable in any standard system, whether 1NT is forcing or not.

Unless your partner's hand was very unusually distributed, it sounds like your partner was at fault for reversing with only 13 points.

Reversing means bidding at a new level (here 2 spades over 1 NT) in a higher ranking suit (spades ranks higher than hearts) than your opening bid. In essentially any natural system this promises 16+ points.

Why is even a forcing 1NT not an issue?

The hand shown has a 7 card club suit and two singletons. Whether 1NT is forcing or not, this hand expects to play best in clubs. Two clubs directly shows too much strength. Bidding 1NT followed by Clubs (presumably 3 Clubs) typically shows this type of hand.

There is a decision whether to ignore the 4 card spade suit or not. Once the hand is this distributional it can make sense. You'll have a hard time getting to clubs after you bid 1 Spade because a second suit by responder usually shows extra strength (and is often artificial).

Notice that if you had had the same hand but with 3 spades and 2 diamonds, there would be no question that 1NT is the bid.


Holding a card by accident What happens if you did not realize you could have laid a card down, and used it later in the game?

For instance player one lays a 2, player 2 a Q, player 3 a 6, player 4 a 6, then four goes, so player four moves one; but then at the end of the game noticed on the last round player four could have put down another six that she had in her hand. How would you play that six? Would you be allowed to use it, or would it be a dead card?

According to the ACC's tournament rule 7.3, on reneging:

  Any cards played after the renege occurs or the pegging of a "go" shall be retrieved by both players, and any points pegged (or scored) are retracted. The non-offending player receives two points for each card that singly could have been played (judges confirm number of cards). The nonoffending player decides if the reneged card(s) will be dead or played. Play continues, and all cards in both hands and crib are counted.

In your example, the play would be brought back to the point of the incorrect go call, the non-offending team would peg two points, and then decide whether or not the remaining six would get to be played.  The scoring of the hands would be unaffected.


I think your calculations look roughly correct (my calculations disagree at 4 decimal places, but I doubt you're using that many in an actual game!)

Here's my calculated probabilities for a single defence die (plus bonus die):

Defender wins 4109/7776: 0.528421
Attacker wins 3667/7776: 0.471579

Here's my calculated probabilites for two defence dice (plus bonus die):

Defender wins 22218/46656: 0.476209
Attacker wins 10767/46656: 0.230774
Ties 13671/46656: 0.293017

Since the sample space is only a few thousand dice rolls I wrote a python script to loop through all of them.  Here's the code for the first calculation:

from itertools import *
a_score = 0
d_score = 0
for a1,a2,a3,d1,db in product(range(6), repeat=5):
    if max(d1,db) < max(a1,a2,a3):
        a_score += 1
    else:
        d_score += 1
print 'Defender wins %d/%d: %f'%(d_score, 6**5, float(d_score)/6**5)
print 'Attacker wins %d/%d: %f'%(a_score, 6**5, float(a_score)/6**5)

Here's the code for the second:

from itertools import *
a_score = 0
d_score = 0
tie_score = 0
for a1,a2,a3,d1,d2,db in product(range(6), repeat=6):
    a_dice = [a1,a2,a3]
    d_dice = [d1,d2,db]
    a_dice.sort(reverse=True)
    d_dice.sort(reverse=True)
    if d_dice[0] < a_dice[0] and d_dice[1] < a_dice[1]:
        a_score += 1
    elif d_dice[0] >= a_dice[0] and d_dice[1] >= a_dice[1]:
        d_score += 1
    else:
        tie_score += 1
print 'Defender wins %d/%d: %f'%(d_score, 6**6, float(d_score)/6**6)
print 'Attacker wins %d/%d: %f'%(a_score, 6**6, float(a_score)/6**6)
print 'Ties %d/%d: %f'%(tie_score, 6**6, float(tie_score)/6**6)


What is the optimal strategy in Quantum Tic Tac Toe? Quantum Tic Tac Toe is a variant of Tic-Tac-Toe with "entangled" states (there are even iPhone and Android apps).

In essence, a classic naught or cross isn't placed until the 'quantum state' of the board is measured and forms a closed loop.

Here the pieces X3, X7 and O8 are measured when placing the two O8 pieces are placed and forms a closed loop:

Upon measurement, the player placing the X marks, picks whether O8 collapses onto square 3 or square 5. After picking, and resolving entanglement, the board looks like this (O2 and O4 collapse in 7, and 8 respectively. X5 to square 4.)

Is there a winning strategy for either player? If so, what is it? If not, how can one guarantee a tie?

In Solving Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe, Ishizeki and Matsuura use a computer to search the game space to find solutions, but don't specifically speak to strategy. However, there are a few strategies we can glean from their results:

Go for a half-point victory, not a full point victory. In their search they found the first player, X, cannot guarantee a win by being the only player to get three in a row. But a win can be guaranteed where X and O both have 3 in a row, but X has the lower maximal subscript.
As player X, make your first marks split into opposite corners. If X plays perfectly, a half-point win can be guaranteed by playing the first pair of marks, X1, in opposite corners.
Don't play as O, the second player. Obviously this is not a fair strategy or one you're likely be able to follow in a real game. But since X can guarantee a half-point victory, it follows O can't guarantee a victory.

Since there is a guaranteed path to victory for X, the obvious strategy is to, after playing the first pair in opposite corners, always respond to a move by O by playing such that you are still guaranteed victory (or for O, always play the move that gives you the most options for victory, and hope X makes a mistake). Unfortunately the authors didn't include all of the paths in their search, so it would be necessary to reproduce their results to apply this strategy.

However, I have tried to glean some strategies from the one game they did include in the paper (see Figure 5. I've broken this out into each move in the image below):

Avoid entanglements. By not creating a cycle you avoid giving your opponent the advantage of choosing where your marks are fixed. Of course, if you can make a cycle such that either choice is a win for you, like the placement of X9, then you should do so. See both the resolution of X9 and the alternate resolution.
Play at least one mark of a pair in an empty square. This increases the chances of having the lowest maximum subscript in a tie breaker, as on each play you add another square where you have the mark with the lowest subscript. X does this up until the last move.
Play to increase the number of probable wins. For example on Move 3, after playing X1 in opposite corners, play one X3 in the middle and the other in a corner. When one X1 collapses, the other X1 that is now fixed will be in line with either X3. The same is true for X3 in relation to X1
Don't play on your own marks. X never does this until the final move when there is no other option.
Don't let your last mark be part of your three in a row. Of course your last move has the highest subscript, and can make you lose the tie-breaker. Making this actually happen may require some additional planning.


Protecting the surface of your board games... Is there something anyone knows of that you can apply to the surface of a board game to protect it against wear so that it lasts longer?

The usual recommendation is to get a sheet of plexiglass (known as Perspex® in the UK) and lay that across the board when you're playing.  It's an especially good solution for "board" games that don't actually have a board.

Well-made board-backed games don't really need any help, but many small-press games have the board printed on stiff card or even paper.  Paper gaming surfaces go back at least to SPI's foundation in 1969, and so do plexiglass coverings to prevent them getting ruined.


Which "end of round" effect resolves first: dealing in a dead player, or game end due to low honor? In Ninja Burger ("No matter how alert your guards, how deep your bunker, or how secure your office, we deliver in 30 minutes or less"), one possible game end is if the average Honor of all players at the end of a round is less than 4. The winner is the player with the highest Honor at the time.  Also, if a player has zero Honor at the end of a round, they "apologize to their ancestors," draw a new ninja and a new hand, and restart with 6 honor.

Which of these effects happens first, since both just say "at end of round"? If a player's zero Honor brings the average low enough to trigger the game's end, but their new character with 6 Honor doesn't bring the average that low, does the game end or not?

(Bonus complication if you say "the game ends": if 6 Honor is enough to win the game at this point, does that mean the player who had zero Honor - but restarted with a new ninja that has 6 honor - wins? Or does the game end before that player can restart with a new ninja?)

The game ends, the player with zero honor doesn't get a new ninja until just before a new round starts, and only if the round hasn't ended. In the rule book under Phase 8: Check Honor, besides the checks to see if the game has ended because a single player has 5 more honor than every other player, or the franchise honor is so high or low that the manager's position becomes open, it says this:

  If no one has won, a new round can start. Before the round starts, though, any ninjas whose Honor has gone to zero or less must make amends ...


In Mancala, can you pick up the stones if your last stone lands in a hole that isn't empty? The way I played when I was growing up was that if your last stone lands in a space that has stones  in it, you pick them all up and keep going until you land in an empty space.  Is there a version were these are the rules?  We also did no 'capturing' in our version and the game ends when there are no more stones on the whole board, not just one side.

I also grew up playing that way, and I was surprised to find out that the "standard" rules are different! I found a variant that fits that description: Kenyan Bao with laps.

"This version of Bao features "laps". When the last seed is sown, if it lands in a hollow with other seeds, the turn continues - the player picks up all the seeds from that hollow and continues to sow them."

I found it on this website: http://www.mastersgames.com/rules/mancala-rules.htm

There are so many variations of mancala; I'm sure this isn't they only one with those rules.


Inalla, Archmage Ritualist and Sage of Fables interaction? I'm curious, when you cast Sage of Fables and copy it with Inalla do both the original and the copy come in with +1/+1 counters? or does just the copy?

Reading this question about Inalla and Disciple of Bolas (note: not a SE link) makes me believe both get +1/+1 counters but I'd like a second opinion.

Only the token copy of Sage of Fables will get a counter

Sage of Fables works differently than Disciple of Bolas in several ways.

It has a replacement effect, rather than a triggered ability, and it 'looks for' other creatures rather than itself.

The difference between a replacement effect and a triggered ability is not actually relevant in this case.  It can be relevant - the biggest difference for these sorts of scenarios is that if multiple creatures enter the battlefield simultaneously (due to, for example, a kicked Rite of Replication), triggered abilities will 'see' all the other creatures that entered the battlefield at the same time, while a replacement ability will not.  So Rite of Replication on a Sage of Fables will only net you one counter on each copy, not 5 counters per.

But that's not relevant here, because the two Sages of Fables are not entering the battlefield at the same time.  In this case, the card enters the battlefield, Inarra triggers, and then the token copy enters the battlefield.

Sage of Fables' ability replaces the way a wizard enters the battlefield.  By the time the token copy has entered the battlefield, the original Sage is already there, and can't have its entrance replaced.

This is different from Disciple of Bolas, whose triggered ability triggers when it enters the battlefield.  Every permanent can see itself enter the battlefield.  The ability sacrifices another creature, but that choice isn't made until the resolution of the ability.


Why is the 19x19 board so much more common than other sizes? While there are probably some cultural reasons, are there any general reasons a 19x19 board may be preferred?  Also, if, say, 21x21 was suddenly found to be in some way superior and a large number of player switched, would modern go strategy need to be significantly modified to account for the changes in gameplay?

A 5x5 board is interesting because beginners very quickly encounter all the basic rules of go - living, dying, territory, corners, sides.

A 9x9 board is interesting because the size is just right to develop fighting tactics.

13x13 lets you get into the mindset of occupying corners and linking tactics together.

17x17 might have been the next logical step, until people realized things were still too linear.. And then they brought it up to 19x19 ?

A fun fact is that early 19x19 used to have two black stones and two white stones, on the corner star points, making diagonals (d4 + q16, d16 + q4), which is nowadays considered to be an opening for fighting games. It may have been a first step towards a fully empty 19x19 board, or a more spiritual yin/yang reason, who knows.

19x19 board, people usually say, is interesting because it is the largest board size on which there are more points on the sides (under the third line) than in the center (above the fourth line). A 21x21 board has many more points in the center, and therefore the focus of the game would shift to fighting and living in the center, instead of trying to make territory on the sides -- since that would, obviously, just not be as beneficial anymore.


Cauldron of Souls and Wickerbough Elder How many counters does Wickerbough Elder get when returned to battlefield with Cauldron of Souls? Assume that it died with no counters on it and was targeted by Cauldron of Souls. I can't tell if gets two -1/-1 counters or one when returned to battlefield.

Wickerbough Elder:

  Wickerbough Elder enters the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.

Cauldron of Souls:

  Choose any number of target creatures. Each of those creatures gains
  persist until end of turn. (When it dies, if it had no -1/-1 counters
  on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a
  -1/-1 counter on it.)

It enters with 2 -1/-1 counters.

  Wickerbough Elder enters the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.

is equivalent to

  As Wickerbough Elder enters the battlefield, place a -1/-1 counter on it.

Similarly, Persist is also an ability that redefines entering the battlefield (ETB) to add the placement of a counter on the card.

Both are replacement effects that modify the same ETB event, so you apply them in the order of your choice.

For the card in question, the first replacement effect applied redefines ETB to add the placement of a -1/-1 counter. The second replacement effect applied then further redefines ETB to add the placement of a -1/-1 counter. Two counters are now placed as it enters the battlefield.


A multiplayer board game catching eggs down a chute with a cart A multiplayer board game catching eggs down a chute with a cart

All of the information I can provide is from a very vague memory:

I believe the game is from the 90's. It is possible it's slightly earlier, or early 2000's.
From memory, it is a four player game.
Each player was assigned a chute/slide that were all colored differently.
(blue, red, green, yellow)
Attached to each player's chute was a cart (same colored) with a nest on top.
When the player would push their cart towards their chute, the chute would lift up and change it's angles, as the chute had hinges.
The chute had to move the correct angles to safely get their (plastic) eggs down their chute into their cart.
From there, the cart was tilted into the collection area beside the original position of the cart.

I think I've got it - is this Pickin' Chickens?


Is there value to my misprinted Magic card? I have a magic card with a unique misprint. The Red Mana symbol in the card text is in grey-scale print, but the rest of the card is in full, correct color, including the Red Mana symbol in the card's cost.

I looked for misprint values, and there is a market for it, but I couldn't find anything on this type of misprint.

Is this a valuable card, and where should I look at for selling it?

Is the card from a set in the 8th Edition - Fifth Dawn range? If yes then this is not a misprint.
(if no, then that is an interesting find indeed...)
This was when the Magic card frame was changed and it was decided to print "mana symbols in running text in black-and-white instead of color" for a number of reasons. This decision has since been reversed.
This question was asked and answered on Ask Wizards in May of 2003. See the May 20, 2003 question from Philip, answered by Randy Buehler.

May 20, 2003
Q: "I saw one of the Two-Headed Dragon promo cards that was given away
at E3 last week. What's up with the red mana symbol in the text box?
It looks black or gray instead of red."
--Philip R
A: From Randy Buehler, Director of Magic R&D:
"You're right -- the red
mana symbol that appears in the 'firebreathing' ability in the text
box on Two-Headed Dragon is black text, and it will be the same on the
actual Eighth Edition cards. "We looked at all aspects of our printing
process when we were putting together the new card frames and it
turned out to be much simpler if we did the mana symbols in running
text in black-and-white instead of color. We've had problems with them
in the past, especially on foil cards, and by changing them to black
text we will be able to minimize these mistakes. R&D was initially
concerned that they would be harder to read and gameplay would be
affected by this change, so we had some playtest cards printed up and
tested with them in our Future Future League. After playing with them,
we realized that you never really notice the difference. In fact,
since the text box itself is colored, it tricks your eye into seeing
the symbol as colored too. Based on this playtesting, we concluded
that the advantages of making our printing process more efficient and
subject to fewer errors outweighed the drawback of making the cards
slightly less pretty and so we made the change. (Note that only mana
symbols that appear in text in text boxes are affected by this change
-- mana costs in the upper right and basic lands will stay the same.)"


When should I open a particular envelope in Risk Legacy? Risk Legacy, oddly enough, has spoilers, so I'll go ahead and use the spoiler tags.

Description of the envelope:

   There is an envelope in Risk Legacy, hidden in the box, marked "Do not open. Ever."

This game is intended to be played 15 times over its lifetime, after which it gets (in theory) locked down in a playable, final state.  My question is about when to open this envelope.

Question about when to open it:

   Obviously I want to open it sometime.  I mean, they told me not to open it, so of course I want to open it.  The question is: when?
 Should we wait until after the 15 games are played?  Or should we open it sometime near the end, say after 12 or 13 plays?

Answers without spoilers as to the contents of the envelope are of course preferred.

It would be difficult to go into the reasoning without spoiling anything, but you should probably open it before the 15th signature. Waiting until after that will make some of the packet not matter.

The designer's opinion, RobDaviau wrote:

  I would open at least two envelopes and one pocket first.


Should you ever deploy your blank at a position other than an edge in Epigo? During the deployment step, should you ever place your Blank Epigon at any location other than an edge?

Ultimately, in this game you want to push off 3 of your opponents pieces and prevent your opponent from doing the same. Keeping your pieces off the edge just seems to be prudent. Is there ever a reason to place your Blank in the center of the board?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Unless I was playing a variant, I would never consider placing my blank epigon anywhere other than on a board edge.  Having 2 sides that can be attacked at the start of the game seems like a bad way to start things off to me.  I am sure there are some variants where it would be acceptable to have your blank somewhere in the middle, but not for the base game.


Can player floop Ancient Scholar when no Rainbow cards in their discard pile? In "Adventure time Card Wars Finn vs Jake" Ancient Scholar card has FLOOP ability

FLOOP >>> Return a random Rainbow card from your discard pile to your hand. If you control a Building in this Lane, gain 1 Action.

Is it valid to FLOOP him when there is no Rainbow cards in discard pile? If yes, what does happen in this case?

Yes, player can FLOOP Ancient Scholar even if there is no Rainbow cards in their discard pile
In this case they fail to return a random Rainbow card to their hand, but still can gain 1 Action (if control a building in the lane). This is explained in detail by Matt Hyra at boardgamegeek.com forum: Flooping without fulfilling ability?
According to the explanation, the general rule is

you may always Floop if the ability doesn't target anything. If it requires a target, you must have a legal target before you can Floop


If a flip summon (via attack) is negated, can I change attack target? I attack a face down monster (1900 atk to 2500 def) and when it is flipped face-up I activate Forced Back, which reads:

  Negate the Normal Summon or Flip Summon of a monster and return the monster to its owner's hand.

Does that mean I still take 600 damage, or do I get to attack again, directly this time. Could it be there is also the possibility that my attack was negated/used up for this turn, the moment the target got negate-summoned?

I know that in some situations when the number of monsters on the opponents side changes (like return from the grave) the turn player gets to change attack target, or stop the attack. What about in this case?

I attack a face down monster (1900 att to 2500 def) and when the defence monster is flipped face-up I activate Forced Back (a counter trap which negates the summon and returns it to the hand) does that mean I still take 600 damage, or do I get to attack again, directly this time

What you did there was not a legal move.

The monster was flipped face up by your attack... It was not flip summoned. Those are different things (the flip summon is an action done by the monster owner, flipping face up is a result of your attack and is not a summon).

From the wiki we have this, which clarifies the difference:

  A face-down monster flipped into face-up Attack Position by a card effect such as "Book of Taiyou" or "Ancient Forest" is not considered a Flip Summon.

So, technically you couldn't have activated that trap card, and should have taken the damage.

You are correct that when the number of monsters changes during an attack there is a replay, but this was not the case.


Tournament and League Rules For Dominion Where can I find official tournament and league rules for Dominion?

There are intentionally no official tournament rules for Dominion.

There is a long, meandering discussion of tournament rules for Dominion on BGG.

I was pretty happy with the tournament rules used for Dominion at the 2010 World Boardgaming Championship.  Two things that it got right were

An emphasis on game placement rather than points per game to determine advancers
Playing two games per round and reversing seating order between games

But don't expect anything near consensus on the best tournament rules for Dominion.


What happens to a destroyed creature with two totem armors on it? If I have a creature, with two different totem armors on it, and it's destroyed somehow (not sacrificed, not killed by -x,-x effects) what happens? Are both totem armors destroyed to save it, or just one? Can I choose which one?

Per the Gatherer ruling (for Bear Umbra, not that it matters really):

  If a permanent you control is enchanted with multiple Auras that have
  totem armor, and the enchanted permanent would be destroyed, one of
  those Auras is destroyed instead -- but only one of them. You choose
  which one because you control the enchanted permanent.


Can Dimensional Barrier be used on Link monsters? Dimensional Barrier:

  Call one monster type (Ritual, Xyz, Synchro, Pendulum, Fusion) For the rest of this turn neither player can summon that kind of monster. And any monster of that type already on the field have their effects negated.

With the new link format of Yu-Gi-Oh, can this handy trap be used to stop the summoning of link monsters?

No you cannot use Dimensional Barrier on link monsters as this is the current text.

  Call one monster type (Ritual, Xyz, Synchro, Pendulum, Fusion) For the
  rest of this turn neither player can summon that kind of monster. And
  any monster of that type already on the field have their effects
  negated.

Because it explicitly mentions monster card types, only the mentioned ones can be used. If the card didn’t explicitly mention certain types then you could have used it on link monsters (so taking out the part in brackets). So currently you cannot use dimensional Barrier on link monsters, unless Konami give the card an errata (rewording the card text).

Please see this reddit page for more information.