Do I need to reveal a face-down card if it is put on top of my library? If I have a face-down card (such as a morph or manifested card), and an effect puts it on top of my library, do I need to reveal the card (as I would if it was destroyed or exiled)?

Example:

I attack my opponent with a manifest creature, and they cast Whisk Away to put it on top of my library, do they get to know what the card put on top of my library is?

Yes, you must reveal all face-down cards as they move zones or when you leave the game.

  707.9. If a face-down permanent moves from the battlefield to any other zone, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. If a face-down spell moves from the stack to any zone other than the battlefield, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. If a player leaves the game, all face-down permanents and spells owned by that player must be revealed to all players. At the end of each game, all face-down permanents and spells must be revealed to all players.

The other players must be able to check that you were able to cast those cards face-down. Making an exception for manifested cards (which are not required to have the morph ability or any other property) would needlessly complicate the rule, and if you have both manifested and morphed creatures on the battlefield, it might be obscured which was which, again making room for error or even cheating.


When you choose to engage an enemy, do they engage you too? If I'm engaging an enemy in the staging area that has an action that happens when they engage me, does that action occur when I engage them instead?

For example, if I engage Hummerhorns before my Threat hits 40 and they engage me, do i still have to deal 5 damage to one of my heroes?

Yes.  From page 16 of the rules

  Whether an enemy is engaged through an engagement check, through a
  card effect, or through a player’s choice, the end result is the same,
  with the enemy and the player engaging one another. In all cases, the
  player is considered to have engaged the enemy and the enemy is
  considered to have engaged the player.


Will destroying an enchantment attached to a permanent also destroy that permanent? I play Awaken the Ancient and enchant my mountain. My opponent plays Priest of Iroas and then activates its ability to destroy target enchantment and targets my Awaken the Ancient. Now I know that the enchantment will be destroyed, but does this destroy the mountain as my friend argues?

I was assuming not as it is only destroying an enchantment, and that when my mountain is enchanted with the card it only targets the enchantment not the card it is attached to, like if I had another card say, Truefire Paladin attached with Shiv's Embrace and he used it do destroy the enchantment Shiv it will not destroy Truefire just Shiv's.

An effect does what it instructs you to do unless there's a rule that has you do something, and there isn't one here. If you destroy an enchantment, the enchantment is destroyed and your mountain is no longer a creature. Nothing states that the mountain would be destroyed as well.


How does priority of triggered abilities and state based actions work together? So, my opponent and I have 5 life each.

My opponent is attacking with two 5/5 random creatures, and I'm blocking one with Spitemare.

What would happen next?

Will the Spitemare's ability trigger? Letting me redirect that damage to my opponent and winning

Or will I die before the ability is triggered? Losing the game beforehand?

The ability triggers, but you lose and the ability is never put on the stack. What happens as the damage is dealt is this:

Five points of combat damage are dealt to each of you and your Spritemare, and three damage to one of the 5/5's, reducing your life total to 0, and giving one creature lethal damage

The spritemare's ability triggers, but is not put on stack yet (cf. comprehensive rulebook, 603.2 "[...] The ability doesn’t do anything at this point." and 603.3 "[...] its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority", emphasis mine)

Your opponent is about to get priority. Rule 116.5 says what happens in which order:

116.5. Each time a player would get priority, the game first performs all applicable state-based actions as a single event (see rule 704, "State-Based Actions"), then repeats this process until no state-based actions are performed. Then triggered abilities are put on the stack (see rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities"). These steps repeat in order until no further state-based actions are performed and no abilities trigger. Then the player who would have received priority does so.

State-based actions are checked first. You lose the game for having $0$ or less life, and simultaneously the spritemare is put into your graveyard for having taken lethal damage. If there are no other players, the game ends immediately (cf. 104.1). If there are more players left, this is what happens.

You take all cards you own and leave the game. Effects that give you control over permanents and players end. If there are still objects under your control, they are exiled. (Here I am a bit uncertain, as according to the examples in the comprehensive rules a creature that got under your control with Bribery is exiled, while a creature you've taken over with Act of Treason is just returned to its owner's control. Memnarch seems to have a middle ground and I can't tell which way that will go.) Every spell and effect you own on the stack ceases to exist (there can't really be any in this specific case, considering that the last thing that happened in the game was that combat damage was dealt, and that can't happen if you had anything on the stack).

State-based actions are checked again (maybe you had an aura that was keeping someone else's creature from dying, for instance) until nothing more happens. Then all triggers controlled by players still in the game are put on the stack. Then state-based actions are checked again, then new triggers are put on stack again, and so on until nothing new happens.

Your opponent gains priority and may play an instant or a card with flash, or an activated ability. In other words, play resumes as normal, with all the triggered abilities going off the stack one by one, and letting players respond between each one. Since we are in the End of Combat step, even if there are no triggers, the active player can't play sorceries, creatures etc. until all players have passed priority and the game continues to the second main phase.


Can Aura of Dominion be used with Inspire Creatures? If I put Aura of Dominion on Arbiter of the Ideal, can I pay 1 mana and tap Arbiter of the Ideal (as the cost of Aura of Dominion's ability) and then have Arbiter untap (as the effect of Aura of Dominion's ability)?

If so, am I right in thinking that this will let me use Arbiter of the Ideal's Inspire ability as many times as I have untapped mana?

Yes, you can use Aura of Dominion to repeatedly trigger Inspired.

Basically, when you activate the ability, you tap the enchanted creature (and pay 1 mana) to pay for it. Then when it resolves, the enchanted creature untaps and the Inspired ability triggers. Then the game has basically returned to the state it started in, so you can do it until you run out of mana.


Pandemic: drawing player cards if already have 7 in hand In the game Pandemic, after completing your 4 actions the next step is to draw 2 player cards. If already holding 7 in hand, does the rule force you to draw additional cards and subsequently discard (or play event cards) to get back  to 7? Or do you so the draw?

You must draw, then discard.

  After doing 4 actions, draw the top 2 cards together from the Player Deck.

There's nothing about the draw being optional in the rules.


Mechanic, playstyle, or even particular deck, to counter multiplayer wipe/control deck In my playgroup, there is this guy who specialased in multiplayer matches. In fact, all of his decks are super-strong, but only in multiplayer.

He has wrath effects in every single one of his decks, and  counterspells/unsommon/disenchant too. He wins almost all the time by controlling the board by wiping it almost every game. I tried some of my one-shot combo decks on him but he always has a counterspell or destroy-creature spell to put me back to the ground.

It is becoming really annoying and I simply don't know how to handle it. I need tricks and maybe some deck ideas to avoid being controlled over and over, and having a win-condition that can stand a chance.

I'm not restricted to a budget as long as it is reasonable for casual. By this I mean no $1000 fetchland/dual-land manabase.

EDIT: I was asked which wrath effects. Mostly -2/-2 to -4/-4 to all creatures,  destroy all creatures, damnation and the disk (which shutdown my try on a enchantment deck...). He plays mostly green, blue and black.

A few general ideas:

The weakness of counterspell-heavy decks is dealing with all the important threats efficiently, and not tapping out prematurely. This is particularly tricky to pull off in multi-player, since controlling more than one player is much more work. On the receiving end, it might feel to you like he has a counterspell for everything, but that simply can't be the case. If the player to your left plays a couple of spells and gets countered, that makes it much more likely that you will be able to drop something safely into play.

One big limitation of creature removal is that it generally only works on creatures. An extreme way to screw with a powerful creature-controlling deck is to not field any creatures! Try direct damage, artifacts or enchantments instead. All of those kill spells become ineffective against your deck, and the resulting hand of dead cards can be crippling for your opponent.

An intermediate approach is to pick creatures that are exceptionally hard to kill. Your choices are many, and depend on the kind of spells your opponent uses most. Against powerful sorceries like Wrath of God, you could consider creatures that revert to some other type at end of turn (e.g. Mishra's Factory, Genju of the Realm), or ways to generate endless hordes of cheap tokens (Assemble the Legion, Kjeldoran Outpost), or just bounce with unbelievable annoyance (Blinking Spirit). Against direct removal, protection or regeneration can be extremely annoying. Or just pick creatures that either like going to the graveyard (Demigod of Revenge), or can easily come back (e.g. Ashen Ghoul, Pyre Zombie, any of the Phoenixes).

Another approach is to accept that your stuff is going to end up in the graveyard, and use that to your advantage. Returning creatures from the graveyard can be very efficient, or you can use a large graveyard to power effects like Threshold, or to give you access to spells that can be cast from the graveyard (e.g. anything with Flashback).  Or make filling the graveyard your win condition (Mortal Combat, Nefarious Lich).

A more aggresive idea is land destruction/mana control. You probably won't win your multi-player game, but you could easily make it impossible for this particular opponent to win. In a similar vein, you could go for counterspell/control yourself, and shutdown his nastiest spells to let the other players do their thing.

A final tactic is to make yourself an unappealing target. Don't be a threat, sit there and protect yourself, while building towards some late game win condition (Door to Nothingness, Test of Endurance).

Above all, stay positive, and be creative! You have many, many pleasant options for ruining your opponent's game.


Does Complete Disregard check a creature's power or base power? I've been playing Magic with my boyfriend and I wanted to cast Complete Disregard (CD) targeting one of his creatures, but my question is, does CD work with base power or with power after alterations?
Specifically: the creature I wanted to target was Impostor of the Sixth Pride acting as a Sliver creature, with Cleaving Sliver giving it +2/+0 and also with a +1/+1 counter on it. Now, I am pretty sure that the +2/+0 obtained from Cleaving Sliver matters more than the +1/+1 counter, still, would Complete Disregard work on it?

No, Complete Disregard won't work (and incidentally you can't target the Impostor, since it's not a legal target). Complete Disregard, like almost* all other cards simply cares about the actual power; the base power doesn't matter. Both buffs (+2/+0 from Cleaving Sliver and the +1/+1 counter) alone would be enough to raise the Impostor's power above 3, so that it ... wait for it ... completely disregards Complete Disregard.
*: the few cards for which this is not the case explicitly mention 'base power' and/or 'base toughness' (example), and as @murgatroid99 notes, they all change the base power/toughness, they do not check it.


What happens when two players are both trying to secretly choose the highest number? (Commander Legends spoilers) Consider the Commander Legends card Wheel of Misfortune:

Each player secretly chooses a number. Then reveal those numbers. Wheel of Misfortune deals damage equal to the greatest chosen number to each player that chose it. Then, each player who didn't choose the smallest number discards their hand, then draws seven cards.

Suppose that Alice and Norman are in a two-player game. Alice casts Wheel of Misfortune on her turn. Suppose further that each player would like to wheel, and also that each player is functionally immune to damage (e.g. can't take damage, can't lose the game, or life total can't change). Then each player wants to choose a higher number than the other.
The comprehensive rules state:

107.1c If a rule or ability instructs a player to choose “any number,” that player may choose any positive number or zero.

How may Alice and Normal specify their numbers? In what format?
I would presume that each player should write the number down on a piece of paper. The obvious way to do this is by writing the number out digit-by-digit. But the rules don't seem to require this. If a player wrote “a million”, would this be an illegal choice? If not, then what about “a googolplex”? What about “Graham's number”? What about mathematical notation, such as “10^100”?. (If Alice and Norman are both, say, theoretical computer scientists or set theorists, then things could get really complicated.)
And how long do they each have to specify a number? According to the rules, they choose consecutively in turn order. How long may Alice spend writing down a number? At what point would it become slow play? Then, how long does Norman have? He clearly has a legitimate in-game reason to take longer than Alice took (even though in a perfect world he shouldn't have any information at all about Alice's choice).
I'm interested in any of the following:

Concrete citations to the comprehensive rules, tournament rules, official rulings, and so on.
Real-world experience of how this has been handled in practice.
Opinions of judges or other official/semi-official sources about how such a situation might be handled.

There is precedent for making secret choices in the Conspiracy game mode, you make a secret choice by writing it on a piece of paper. Players are required to make choices understandable to each player; if a player chooses a number the other player doesn't understand by "obfuscating" it through a mathematical definition or similar, the opponent may demand an intelligible explanation, otherwise they can consult a judge. Slow play rules are well established in the tournament rules.
If a choice is to be made secretly, we can infer the process from Hidden Agenda:

702.105b To secretly choose a card name, note that name on a piece of paper kept with the face-down conspiracy card.

It seems obvious that a secret choice of a number would be kept track of the same way. As always with additional game materials, any method is fine to use as long as both players agreed to it, and as long as it serves its purpose of fixing a choice and keeping it secret until the reveal.
There are rules regarding choosing a number:

107.1c If a rule or ability instructs a player to choose “any number,” that player may choose any positive number or zero.

There is no specification in what form or notation the number is to be represented. However, the choice is free information as per the tournament rules once it has been revealed, and thus every player is entitled to knowing that choice. If one player, intentionally or not, obfuscates that number through a mathematical definition you couldn't reasonably expect the average player to know, then that player has violated the rules for player communication:

Free information is information to which all players are entitled access without contamination or omissions made by their opponents. If a player is ever unable or unwilling to provide free information to an opponent that has requested it, they should call a judge and explain the situation. Free information consists of:

Details of current game actions and past game actions that still affect the game state.

The following rules govern player communication:

Players may not represent derived, free, or status information incorrectly.

Players must answer completely and honestly any specific questions pertaining to free information.

Of course, if you have two opponents who know what a Googolplex etc. is, then there is no communication issue and either player may use such terms. The end goal is that both players know the other's choice and can agree on which choice is the higher number. How you get there is irrelevant, as long as it happens, and happens in a timely fashion.
Which brings us to slow play, the rules of which are well-established in the tournament rules. If there is a dispute in a tournament setting, a judge will be called to decide.

Players must take their turns in a timely fashion regardless of the complexity of the play situation and adhere to time limits specified for the tournament. Players must maintain a pace to allow the match to be finished in the announced time limit. Stalling is not acceptable. Players may ask a judge to watch their game for slow play; such a request will be granted if feasible.

Finally, the catch-all for tournament rule questions, in case it isn't clear what constitutes slow play, or what constitutes obfuscation of free information:

The Head Judge is the final judicial authority at any DCIsanctioned tournament and all tournament participants are expected to follow their interpretations.


Does sister Mary pass with rolls of 3-6 when Blessed and 5-6 when Cursed? The faq says

  Sister Mary and each other investigator on her space adds 1 to the result of each die rolled as part of an effect printed on a Condition card that has the BANE or BOON trait. This modification applies whether the die is rolled as part of a test or not.

(Yes I see the grammar error with "adds" in there.)

I know this applies to testing whether to keep or discard the cards on a reckoning, but do we get to add 1 also to all tests and effective nullify the Curse and boost the Blessed to allow rolls of 3-6 as successes? This just seems so powerful!

adds 1 to the result rolled as part of an effect printed on a Condition card that has the BANE or BOON trait

Not all tests in the game are printed on the Boon or Bane cards.


MTG Multiplayer—Card Control and Losing the Game I just need a bit of rules clarification that I'm confused about. If I Donate an enchantment to an opponent in a multiplayer game, and then lose the game myself, does the enchantment leave play with me or does it remain under the control of my opponent until they lose or the game ends?

When you leave a multiplayer game, all cards and permanents you own, including the ones that other players control, leave the game. Specifically, this means that the enchantment you Donated will leave the game. The relevant rule is 800.4a:

  When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects are exiled.


In MTG Arena, does your "rank" affect what cards you can draft? In Ranked Draft, does your own "rank", such as Bronze Tier 3, affect the general "quality" of the cards you can draft!?

If you're only Bronze, most of the cards you can draft is only Common and Uncommon, and if you're ranked Gold, more chances you got to get Rare, even Mythic Rare, cards!?

Not at all.

The cards you're shown in a draft on MTG Arena are a simulated version of what you would see in a paper draft of MTG cards.

This means that, for each pack, with some exceptions, there will always be 10 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare/mythic rare.

As the draft goes around, simulated players (these would be real players in a paper draft) pick cards, and so the next packs that you see will contain less cards.

If you need more of an explanation, see: https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Booster_Draft


Variety in competitive standard decks As you can see, I am a noob in MTG. I have been looking at the top standard decks in order to catch up some guidelines about the deck distribution (quantity of lands, spells and creatures; rares, uncommons and commons; types; colors; repetition of the same card). What I have seen the top of these competitive decks don't have to much card's variety, like having most of the time 3 o 4 cards of the same kind. So the question is: in order to be competitive, is it better not to have a variety of cards or is it easier to build a strategy when you decide to focus only on certain cards?

There are a lot of factors that need to be considered to make your deck competitive. I will address your concerns mainly in this answer though:

  "is it better not to have a variety of cards"

Yes in most cases your deck should have a direct purpose (decking your opponent with discard or mill spells/ burn for direct damage/ Ramp for big creatures and so on). To do this you need to take into consideration the synergy between the cards.  This means cards with the same effect or effects that compliment each other are majorly beneficial when creating a competitive deck. One example would be Pyromancer's Gauntlet in a burn deck then casting Lightning Bolt this is a synergy that gives you more direct damage to fire at your opponent.

  "is it easier to build a strategy when you decide to focus only on certain cards?"

It has become a sort of rule of thumb for a lot of players to stick with a "playset" of each card they want in their decks. A Playset is 4 cards of the same name. The purpose behind this is that if you have a combo that you want to build the deck around, or even if you want to be able to have access to a certain card a lot of the time, you would need to have the highest percentage of drawing that card possible. Having four cards of the same name gives you a 1 in 15 chance of drawing that card (with a standard 60 card deck). This also suggests that it is most effective to stick to the smallest deck possible of 60 cards.

Overall it comes with practice and an understanding of the game after playing many games and seeing other decks, you will learn where synergies are possible. it may also be best for you to look on deck builder sites such as Tappedout.net. this will let you browse decks without jumping blindly into a game.


How does removing +1/+1 counters during combat affect abilities granted from having that counter? If I block a flyer with a non-flying non-reach card granted reach by having a +1/+1 counter and the card longshot squad on battlefield and then remove the counter with retribution of the ancients before damage is dealt, is that card no longer able to block?  Or if the same creature attacks with abzan falconer and then has the counter removed after blockers are declared?  Would they be able to redeclare a blocker?

Once blockers are assigned, you do not recheck legality of assignments again. The creature is considered blocked and combat damage is exchanged between them normally. The same would be true if an attacking creature became unblockable after a blocker was assigned to it. It would still be blocked.

From the Comprehensive Rulebook:

  509.1g Each chosen creature still controlled by the defending player becomes a blocking creature. Each one is blocking the attacking
  creatures chosen for it. It remains a blocking creature until it’s
  removed from combat or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first.
  See rule 506.4.


Does Medomai the Ageless + Supplanter of Identity give me infinite turns? A few days ago a new card named Supplanter of Identities was spoiled and I was wondering if you would target Medomai the Ageless with the effect of the supplanter you could take infinite turns (if you get through).

A problem I could see with this theory is that Medomai might come back before the Supplanter changes back, making the legendary rule kick in, but I'm not sure if it works like that.

So my question is if this interaction works the way I think.

If you copy a legendary creature with Supplanter of Identity, the exiled creature will return first and the legend rule kicks in.

In the turn structure, the last two steps are the End step and the Cleanup step. The creature exiled with Supplanter of Identity returns at the beginning of the end step, but Supplanter of Identity itself will remain a copy of that creature until the Cleanup step, causing the legend rule to apply.

  Ending Phase

  512.1. The ending phase consists of two steps: end and cleanup.

  End Step

  513.1. First, all abilities that trigger “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next end step” go on the stack. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)

  513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

This is where the exiled legendary returns. The return trigger resolves, players would get priority, the legend rule (a state-based action) kicks in.

  704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions,

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

Lastly, the Supplanter returns to its original, if it's still on the battlefield.

  Cleanup Step

  514.2. Second, the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.

Note that if there is a Mirror Gallery in play, your combo would work. Medomai's limitation of being unable to attack during extra turns only means it can't be declared as an attacker. However, it is the Supplanter that would be declared, who has no such limitation. The act of declaring it as an attacker triggers the its copy ability. Only now would it become a copy of Medomai, and it would keep attacking and creating extra turns.


How to play order of cards and triggering effects in Harry Potter Defense Against the Dark Arts This question is for the 2 player Harry Potter Defense Against the Dark Arts dueling game and not the 4 play cooperative game.  It wouldn't let me add the new label for the dueling game.
How do we process the effects of additional cards we draw?
Meaning, do I need to be strategic with the order of how I play my cards or can I retroactively change my actions based on subsequent cards I draw.
For example, if I have these 5 cards.

Alohomora  -  Spell  Gain 1 coin
Diffindo  -  Spell Banish a card from my hand or discard pile
Wand  -  Item Gain a lightning bolt
Book  -  Item Gain 2 coins
Ascendio  -  Spell  Gain 2 coin/ Draw a Card

A) I use Diffindo to banish the Alohomora
B) I get a lightning bolt from Wand
C) I get 2 coins from Book
D) I get 2 more coins from Ascendio and draw an extra card
E6) Cat  -  (Drawn from Ascendio)  Ally.  If we play 3 spells, we gain a lightning bolt
I play my Cat as my Ally but I now take back banishing the Alohomora because I want to utilize the Cat ability to get another lightning bolt.
Is what I did legal, take back banishing the Alohomora because I drew the Cat?  If it's illegal, I guess that means I need to be more strategic when playing my cards.

Generally no, it's not allowed.
Once a card's effect has taken place, you can't reverse the decision. As L. Scott Johnson aluded to in his comment, this is something that friends at the table can allow, especially if the outcome hasn't changed because of something that was triggered by the effect.
For example, if you banish a coin to draw another card, and receive another coin. If you had kept the first coin and banished something else you could now have afforded buying a new card so you want to change your mind about what you banish. At this point you've cheated by looking at what will happen in the future depending on what you decide to banish. That's like looking at the top card before deciding what you want to do.
In your example however it more comes down to a gentlemans agreement since the card you banished doesn't affect what you were allowed to do while it was in play. So I wouldn't be surprised if your opponent allows it if you ask.
I would personally however say that this is a good lesson in tactics and use it to learn how to plan what you need to do in a turn to minimize mistakes like this.


Can a card copying a double-sided planeswalker transform? If I have a Dack's Duplicate  copying Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, can it transform into Jace, Telepath Unbound?

I imagine it would not — it would be similar to the rules for tokens right, it doesn't have the face to flip to, and in this case I would assume duplicate would just be exiled forever if it tried right?

You are correct about the outcome, but it is a different set of rules that deals with what happens here.

In the case of a Jace token, it can’t transform because tokens cannot exist outside of the battlefield, and can’t ever come back to the battlefield after leaving. With a non-token copy, we have this rule:

  711.8a If a player is instructed to put a card that isn’t a double-faced card onto the battlefield transformed, that card stays in its current zone.

So the Duplicate will remain in exile.


Timing/Stack question about abilities triggered during combat Helm of the Host states: at the beginning of combat create a creature token.  Is there a stack to put this on and resolve, or is there no way for your opponents to respond to this triggered ability, or cast some other spell? A similar question regarding Sigiled Sword of Valeron. That happens later in the combat phase: 'Whenever equipped creature attacks, create a 2/2 white Knight creature token with vigilance that's attacking.' Is there a stack where this goes, allowing your opponent to respond?

Yes, both are triggered abilities and can be responded to, e.g. countering them with Stifle. If the ability triggered, it's too late to counter the ability by destroying the source with e.g. Naturalize. Even though the artifact is gone before the ability resolves, the ability itself is now a different 'object' and won't be affected by this.

603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger condition or event], [effect]. [Instructions (if any).]”
603.2b When a phase or step begins, all abilities that trigger “at the beginning of” that phase or step trigger.
603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. See rule 117, “Timing and Priority.” The ability becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. It remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, a rule causes it to be removed from the stack, or an effect moves it elsewhere.


Does Avacyn, Angel of Hope's ability continue to work even if tapped? Avacyn, Angel of Hope has indestructible and gives the other creatures he controls indestructible as well. if it is tapped, are his other creatures still indestructible? Example, if he plays avacyn angel of hope and I play Claustrophobia on it, am I able to kill his other creatures, or do they still have the indestructible ability?

All creatures will remain indestructible.

The only things that being tapped means is that a creature cannot attack, cannot block, and cannot tap to pay for activated abilities. Other than that, tapping has no effect.


Can a Cloister be scored if one tile is an all-city tile in Carcassonne? I am a little confused about the scoring in the situations shown. It says the Cloister must be surrounded by land on all sides. In both cases illustrated, one of the six tiles surrounding the Cloister tile is technically an all-city tile. I thought since a solid wall was made that this is okay - the Cloister is still technically surrounded by grass. My partner thought it wouldn't count as no land exists on that tile. Any ideas here?

I believe "tile" and "land tile" are synonymous.  The rules for scoring cloisters states:

A cloister is complete when the tile it is on is completely surrounded by land tiles.

And the rules for drawing tiles is (emphasis mine):

Placing land tiles
First a player must draw a land tile from one of the face-down stacks.

As you can see, tiles are referred to as "land tiles" when drawing.  We can then infer that "tiles" and "land tiles" are the same thing.  So a cloister only has to be surrounded by tiles, not specifically tiles with grass on them.


Infinite loop where where both players choose to continue the loop Yesterday, I was playing a casual game and I had a Stasis, Kismet, and Chronatog, causing my opponent to have to keep drawing, while I kept skipping my turn, with the intent of decking him.

My opponent, however, had Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn in his deck, and he can discard that every turn he draws it to shuffle his graveyard back into his library.

Who, ultimately, is required to stop choosing to continue this loop?  Do I have to stop skipping my turn with Chronatog? Or does my opponent have to stop discarding Emrakul?

First, let's make it clear that the game doesn't force a draw.

  104.4b [...] Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw.

Let's also make it clear that the two players are individually doing something acceptable:

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

It's their combined actions that create a weird scenario, and boy it's a weird one. The closest rules for resolving this are:

  716.3. Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.

And from the Infraction Procedure Guide (used in tournaments with a REL above regular),

  It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.

In a casual setting, you should mutually accept a draw.

In a competitive setting, I think you'd be at the mercy of a judge. Neither of those is a rules is a perfect match, so a judge should probably do nothing at all, but they're close enough that he might decide to meddle (invoking either or both of those rules).

The latter rule was applied to a deck with Emrakul that self-milled. This of course, is a different situation, since both players are involved in extending the game.

The first rule is close enough that it might be enforced. The game state after the second graveyard shuffle is not 100% identical to the game state after the first graveyard shuffle because Chronatog's opponent has a different hand, but a judge might rule that it is close enough to enact 716.3, forcing you to stop Chronatog's opponent from discarding Emrakul. I doubt it, though.

Wizard's Rules Q&A forum has many judges, including one capable of giving official answers (Natedogg).


Proliferate and Bloom Hulk I'm new to proliferate and my friend was playing a proliferate deck. He had a creature with 3 +1/+1s on it and he played a Bloom Hulk. He said that his creature gained 3 +1/+1s because of proliferate and I thought that was weird.

We looked it up and it said you gain 1 for each kind of counter, so does that mean he gets 3 for each +1/+1 counter already on the creature or just 1 +1/+1 counter?

It gets only one +1/+1 counter. The creature has three +1/+1 counters, but each of those fall into the same kind of counter - the +1/+1 counter kind.

There are other counters. For example, Haphazard Bombardment places "aim counters". You could proliferate those too, although in this particular case it wouldn't have any practical effect. Other examples of counters are planeswalker loyalty counters, age counters (from cumulative upkeep cards), and so on.

MTG Gamepedia has a full list of all counters.


Is there a card similar to Lugia from Fates Collide that targets GXs instead of EXs? I've dabbled in the Pokémon TCG on and off for a few years now - the main reason why I buy packs is not for the cards themselves, but for the collectible pins some of them come with. Recently, I stumbled back into it thanks to TCGO and some old boosters I'd scanned in, and I'm having a lot of fun with a water deck I cobbled together based around Altaria EX, Seaking, and cards that heal such as Rough Seas and Healing Scarf to survive longer and hit harder at the same time. Now, I've been using Lugia because it's good at surviving hits with 120 HP and Pressure and at killing EXs thanks to Intensifying Burn, which does 120 damage against EXs and 60 otherwise.

Is there a Pokémon with a move similar to Intensifying Burn that targets GX Pokémon instead of EX Pokémon? The main problem I have with the deck (besides my own lack of skill) is that it stalls against GX Pokémon because I don't have a good way to damage a 200 HP card before it collects enough energy to attack faster than I can heal it away. The knowledge that there's a card out there that can take out GX Pokémon in 2 turns, especially if it only gives up 1 prize card, would be very helpful even if I don't end up trading for it.

A very similar card named Golisopod (9/145) was released in Guardians Rising expansion (released 5th May 2017), later reprinted with the same text as a promo (SM52) in Crimson Invasion Single Pack Blisters.

       Resolute Claws     80+
  If your opponent's Active Pokémon is a Pokémon-GX or a Pokémon-EX, this attack does 70 more damage (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

The card has similar, but better ability than your Lugia (Golisopod takes 30 less damage instead of Lugia's 20 and also Golisopod's Ability works on Bench too). The attack requires , making it hard to use in water deck. The bonus effect of the attack works against both Pokémon-GX and Pokémon-EX, making it the card you are looking for. Both base and bonus damages are higher than Lugia's ones (60+60 vs 80+70).

There is currently no other card that makes bonus damage to Pokémon-GX.


What is this card game called in English? What is the name of this card game?

you deal out cards between two players, the person that deals gets 8 and the other gets 7.
You then put all of the cards onto the side with the very last card of the deck facing up.
Player with 8 cards puts down first, it can be any card.
Second player takes a card and then puts down as well.

You have to take a card and put down every time it’s your turn.

In order to score points in the game you have to combine cards together of the same suit only if it’s for example, 345 same suit. Or you can do JJJ, QQQ.

The minimum you can put down is 3 cards.

Cards 3-8 = 5 Pts.
Cards 9-K = 10 Pts.
Card Ace = 15 Pts.
Card 2 = 50 Pts.

In order to take cards from where both players have put down you have to score at least 25 Pts. first.

The goal of the game is to score the most or if lucky to close the game up and catch the person with points in their hand. This game usually goes on for several rounds until one person scores 500 points.

There are more technical rules to this game but I’m trying to summarize. I know the name of this card game from a different country but I do not know the name of it in English (if it even exists).

Can anyone guess?

I believe you  are referring to Rummy or some variation of it

It has many different variants but the crux of the game is draw a card and put one down in order to make sets and runs.


How can I become a better Connect Four player? I am good player at Connect Four and I want to become better.

One suggestion I found is:

  The ideal position is to have two potential connect-fours that need a final checker on two spaces that are on top of each other. This will usually lead to a victory, because you can threaten in the first space. If the opponent fails to block, you win. If the opponent blocks, you play on top to win in the next space. A simple way to set this up is to make a "7" with your checkers, such that finishing the horizontal or diagonal connect-four on the right will be two spaces on top of each other.

Are there any other tips for improving my Connect Four play?

Connect 4 is a solved game.  Memorize the solution, and you should be able to win every single time.

Go to the following resource

http://www.connectfour.net/Files/connect4.pdf

I came to that link from The Wikipedia article, so in case the link ever breaks, you should be able to find another by searching for the "connect 4 solution"

That article has a lot of strategic analysis about connect 4, and Even if you can't memorize the solved strategy perfectly, you should be able to glean a lot of good strategic practices from section 3 which is titled Some Strategic Rules for Connect-Four


Can I block with a previously bestowed creature? When a creature enchanted with a bestow creature dies while blocking a creature, the bestow enchantment becomes a creature. Can that creature block in the same combat, even though all the blockers have already been declared?

No, as you've said in your question, all of the blockers have already been declared. There's not another opportunity to declare blockers, especially not after combat damage has been dealt!

The steps of combat are:

beginning of combat
declare attackers
declare blockers
combat damage
end of combat

Your creature presumably doesn't die until the combat damage step. You can't go back to the declare blockers step to declare a new blocker, and it wouldn't even make any sense to: by the time your blocker takes damage and dies, combat damage dealt to you by unblocked creatures has already happened too, so there's nothing left to accomplish by blocking.

And if your creature dies after blockers are declared, but still in the declare blockers step - destroyed by an instant, perhaps - it's of course still too late. If on the other hand it dies before blockers are declared, the bestowed-aura-turned-creature can certainly block.


In plain English, how does casting spells and using creature abilities work with the stack and priority? I'm a relatively new player to Magic: the Gathering. I was reading the expanded rules to try to understand exactly when it's okay to cast instants (e.g. Cancel) and use some abilities (e.g. Goblin Diplomats should be tappable sometime during other peoples' turns), but I don't seem to be making much progress: as I come to understand some things, others make less sense.

My confusion is boundless

For instance: to cast Instants one needs priority. Spells go on the stack, and priority gets passed at some points (I have no idea when), and effects on the stack are resolved when both players have passed priority. But when is that? I can't find any mention of when the other player gets the priority to cast an instant, except on their own turn. Furthermore, The Complete Turn states that during the Main Phase:

  505.4. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. The active player may play a land.

So players (plural) may cast spells, but only the active player has priority, so only the active player can cast an instant. The turn rules, and the rules on Casting Spells, never mention any point at which the other player gets priority, so when can they possibly Cancel?

In addition, you can only cast a spell when the stack is empty, so the entire stack must be able to be resolved in your turn at some point.

I need an explanation!

I could go on a bit more. There is also Counterflux which can be overloaded to "Counter each spell you don't control", which seems like it could only possibly work with an understanding of the stack.

Could someone explain, in simple English:

When can Instants be cast?
When can tap abilities be used?
What do Instants and abilities have to do with the Stack and Priority?

I am going to reiterate that the Basic Rules are sufficient for and a better way to learn how to play MtG rather than the Comprehensive Rules
When can Instants be cast?
Instants can be cast on your own turn, during your opponents turn, and in response to other spells. This differs from Sorcery cards, which can only be cast during your own Main Phase. (MtG Basic Rules, Page 6)

Instant - An instant is just like a sorcery, except you can cast it just about any time you want, even during your opponent’s turn or in response to another spell. Like a sorcery, an instant has its effect, then you put it into your graveyard.

When can tap abilities be used?
Anytime you could cast an Instant. There is nothing inherently different between an activated ability with the tap symbol in its cost and other activated abilities and their costs. Tapping is a cost, and just like any other cost, it must be paid before activating an ability.

Activated Abilities - An activated ability is an ability that you can activate whenever you want, as long as you can pay the cost. [...] Each activated ability has a cost, then a colon (“:”), then an effect. [...] Some activated abilities contain the {T} symbol in their costs. This means that you must tap the permanent to activate the ability. You can’t activate the ability if the permanent is already tapped. (MtG Basic Rules, Page 12)
Creature - [...] Unlike other types of permanents, creatures enter the battlefield with “summoning sickness”: a creature can’t attack, or use an ability that has {T} in its cost, until it has started your turn on the battlefield under your control. You can block with a creature or activate its other abilities no matter how long it’s been on the battlefield.(MtG Basic Rules, Page 6)

What do Instants and abilities have to do with the Stack and Priority?
Instants, Activated Abilities both go on the stack. The stack gives players the opportunity to respond to spells/abilities before they resolve. The stack is a First In Last Out (FILO) zone, where spells and abilities exist until they resolve or are countered. (Instants/Sorcery) spells have their effect and then go to the Graveyard, (Creatures/Enchantments/Artifacts/Planeswalkers) resolve and become permanents on the Battlefield, (Triggered Abilities/Activated Abilities) are not represented by a physical card, so they resolve and disappear into the AEther.
Priority is just the way MtG is designed to handle whose turn it is to do something. Players can cast Instants or activate abilities on other players turns, so the game needs a way to determine who goes first.

The Stack - Spells and abilities exist on the stack. They wait there to resolve until both players choose not to cast any new spells or activate any new abilities. Then the last spell or ability that was put onto the stack resolves, and players get a chance to cast spells and activate abilities again. (You’ll learn more about casting spells and activating abilities in the next section.) This zone is shared by both players.(MtG Basic Rules, Page 8)
Priority - Since players can cast instants and activate abilities during each other’s turns, the game needs a system that makes sure only one player can do something at a time. Priority determines, at any given time, which player can cast a spell or activate an activated ability.
The active player (the player whose turn it is) gets priority at the beginning of each step and each main phase—except for the untap step and the cleanup step. When you get priority, you can cast a spell, activate an activated ability, or pass (choose to do nothing). If you do something, you keep priority, so you make the same choice again. If you pass, your opponent gets priority, so now he or she gets that choice. This goes back and forth until both players pass in a row.
When both players pass in a row, if there’s a spell or ability waiting on the stack, it resolves. Then the active player gets priority again, and the system repeats. When both players pass in a row, if there’s no spell or ability waiting on the stack, that part of the turn ends and the next one begins.(MtG Basic Rules, Page 30)


Multiple games in same box using same components. What was it? Several years ago I was at a friends house and he had this particular item.

It was a box full of simple components, a board, and rules for multiple games. The idea behind it was the components were given to several designers (4 or 5 I think), and they each created a game using the components in the box. I don't remember the name of it, or the names of any of the game designers.

Things I remember about the games:

Some of the components were wooden pegs. The pegs were of various heights, and there were the same set of pegs for multiple colours (4 or 5?)
One of the games was about (or a major component of it was) holding elections
One of the games (I think) was about building stonehenge
One of the games awarded the title "Mighty Beard" to the winner. I believe in this game each player was a druid
The passage of Day and Night was relevant to some games. Things that were good at night were bad during the day, and vis versa.
I think the board had circles of various sizes on it, with smaller circles inside the larger circles

Sounds like Stonehenge: an anthology board game:

Stonehenge is an anthology board game, a new concept where five award-winning game designers, all using the same gaming components, create five very different games in one box. The ancient ruin of Stonehenge will never be the same. The five games are:

a magic game by Richard Garfield (Magic: The Gathering, RoboRally, The Great Dalmuti)
a political game by Bruno Faidutti (Mystery of the Abbey, Citadels, Knightmare Chess)
a battle game by Richard Borg (Battle Cry, Liar's Dice, Memoir '44)
an auction game by James Ernest (Kill Dr. Lucky, Diceland, Pirates of the Spanish Main)
a science-fiction game by Mike Selinker (Risk Godstorm, Pirates, Axis & Allies Revised)


Axis and Allies 1942 SE First Turn Builds I used to play Axis and Allies the original classic version a long time ago. I read Don’s essays about strategy and the infantry push mechanic here: http://donsessays.freeservers.com

But the game has changed so much since then.   With 1942 SE, there are new units, the map is different and the unit attributes and abilities are different.

Assuming standard rules and fairly standard opening moves, what would be the best first turn builds for each power?

Triple A First Turn Builds

I loaded up the game Triple A and tried a game with the Hard AI.  This is what the AI built:

Russia (24 IPC): 2 Infantry and 2 Artillery in Caucasus.  1 Infantry and 2 Artillery in Russia.
Germany (40 IPC): 7 Infantry, 5 Artillery.  1 Inf and 1 Art placed in Italy and the rest in Germany.
UK (30 IPC): 1 Infantry, 2 Artillery in India.  Carrier and transport in SZ7, Ireland.
Japan (30 IPC): 1 Armor in Japan.  1 Carrier and 1 Fighter in SZ60, Japan's East Coast.
USA (42 IPC): 1 Carrier, 1 Destroyer, 2 Fighters in SZ11, the US East Coast.

Are these the best generic builds?  I don't know.  Probably not.  I think a lot depends on the dice rolling in the first few rounds.  I would have expected both Japan and the US to build at least one transport.

Another Idea

After playing a few more times, this is what I would do.

Russia: Infantry and one or 2 artillery.  Always use all of your income.
Germany: Perhaps a sub or a bomber.  Perhaps another ship in the Med.  But mostly infantry and some artillery.
UK: If your fleet got annihilated, you may just want to build 3 ground units in India and SAVE the remainder for a giant fleet build on your next turn.
Japan: You need to get ground units into Asia.  Transports and maybe a factory on a 3 production territory that is as close as possible to Moscow.  Don't forget to build ground units to fill each transport.  You don't need more naval pieces yet, since you have superiority in the Pacific.
USA: Build a fleet in the Atlantic on the first turn.  Once you have naval superiority in the Atlantic, pump out transports and ground units on subsequent turns.


I open 1C -- Partner: 1D -- I bid 1S -- Partner bids 2NT - What 2NT means (System: Simple SAYC) I open 1C -- Partner 1D -- I respond 1S -- Partner bids 2NT - What 2NT means, and how do I respond to it with this hand: Kxxx-Kx-xx-AQxxx?

Note: since I'm studying simple sayc what concerns me is whether I can bid "pass" here (my considerations were: I don't have 5 spades so we don't have fit, and also since the partner didn't bid 3NT - he doesn't have enough points for game together with my 12 so, nothing left for me to show else here).

In this context 2NT is an invitation to game. Your partner probably has around 11-12 points, so he doesn't know if you have enough points between you to make 3NT (you haven't bid anything that shows more points than the bare minimum needed to open).

As your hand is pretty weak you should pass. If you had 14 or more points then you would bid 3NT.


What is the detailed token content of "Firefly: The Game" and its expansions? If you look in the game rulebook you'll see that it states that the game has "167 tokens". This seems quite unspecific to me. The Blue Sun- and the Pirates & Bounty Hunters-expansions are equally unspecific in what token content they have (88 and 41 respectively).

Indie Bard gives a more specific content list but only for the basic game, and without any reference to any official source.

Google searches of "... token details", "... token specification" and "... token content" has turned me down so far.

My questions are the following:

Is the Indie Bard list correct?
If not, what is the correct content list of the tokens in the game?
What is the token content of the expansions of the game?

After doing some more research, I found this table.[1]

|                      | Firefly  | Pirates  | Blue sun | Kalidasa |
|----------------------|----------|----------|----------|----------|
| Dino                 |        1 |          |          |          |
| Reaver/Alliance card |        1 |          |          |          |
| Disgruntled          |       20 |        4 |        7 |        6 |
| Parts                |       20 |        5 |          |          |
| Fuel                 |       44 |       10 |          |          |
| Warrant/Goal         |       13 |        5 |        4 |          |
| Passenger/Fugitive   |       28 |        5 |          |          |
| Cargo/Contraband     |       40 |        5 |          |          |
| Haven                |          |        7 |        7 |          |
| Alert Tokens         |          |          |       70 |       36 |
| Complete             |          |          |          |       18 |
| Higgins field        |          |          |          |        1 |
| Corvette card        |          |          |          |        1 |

It is not an official source but it corresponds well to those unboxing videos I've seen.[2][3][4]

The numbers for the Kalidasa expansion was counted during unboxing performed by post author.

So the answers to my original questions would be

Yes.
See table.
See table.

References

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/18195471#18195471, read 2015-02-18 20:00.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHS373VHmNk&t=0m48s, viewed 2015-02-18 20:02.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r95D01XO14&t=2m22s, viewed 2015-02-18 20:02.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BNFi0W6w0s&t=1m15s, viewed 2015-02-18 20:02.


Is there a list of races & powers that can't be used between smallworld and underground? I was wondering if there is an official list of races and powers that can't be used between small world and small world underground?  So which races/powers can't be used in Underground and which can't be used in the regular game?  I know there are rules comparing land types to make most of them work, but supposedly some still do not.

I am unsure about an 'official' list (i.e. from Days of Wonder), however I can list the races and abilities that would not be transfer as well to the other game. Page 10 of the SmallWorld Underground rulebook does offer some general advice if you are aiming to play with SWU races on a SW board or vice versa:

  Powers and effects that make no sense (because they were linked to a Terrain type that no longer exists, or because they are linked to Relics or Places when those are not in play) do not apply and must be taken out of the game before start.

  Where applicable, Powers and effects associated with the Seas and Lake region are transferred to the River Regions and vice versa.

  Last but not least, consider the following Terrain types equivalent:

  Black Mountain / Mountain Regions
  Muddy / Marsh Regions
  Mushroom Forest / Forest Regions
  Mining / Mine symbol Regions
  Mystic Crystal / Magic symbol Regions

There is also a SmallWorld Underground FAQ that covers compatibility

  Redundant or contradictory combos

  If useless combos appear, you may replace their Special Power with another one, drawn at random from the Special Powers stack.

  Known useless combos: Frightened Pixies, Immortal Elves, Seafaring Krakens, Tomb Ghouls, Tomb White Ladies, Underworld Spiderines, Vampire Kobolds, Vanishing Ghouls, Vanishing Priestesses, Vanishing White Ladies.

The following is my own list of Races and Special Powers that cannot be used on the other game's board and why.

Incompatible with SmallWorld

  Races

  All races are compatible.

  Flames: Conquer ANY Mountain region as your first conquest with the necessary tokens. The Volcano is then placed in that region. The region with the Volcano is immune to conquest as long as the Flames are active.

  Spiderines: Use the Underworld ability rules. Caverns may be conquered with one less token than normal. All regions with a Cavern are considered adjacent.

  Special Powers

  Adventurous (If not playing with Places and Relics)

  Magic (If not playing with Places and Relics)

Incompatible with SmallWorld Underground

  Races

  All races are compatible.

  Humans: The player who picks Humans as a race immediately receives 5 VCs.

  Special Powers

  Hill (There are no Hill regions on the SWU board)

  Mounted (There are no Hill or Farmland regions on the SWU board)

  The remainder of the races and special powers, from all the Race/Special Power expansions can be transferred on to the SWU board without issue.


How would one model an Ork Warboss with a Kombi-Skorcha? The current Ork Codex states that an Ork Warboss "is armed with a kombi-weapon with rokkit launcher". However, it also states

  This model may replace its kombi-weapon with rokkit launcha with a weapon from the Shooty Weapons list.

This implies that I can arm my Warboss with a Kombi-Skorcha instead of a Kombi-Weapon with Rokkit Launcha. However, the sprue only came with a Rokkit Launcha, not a Kombi-Skorcha for the Warboss. The sprue does include a Kombi-Skorcha, but it is intended for a regular Nob, meaning the part doesn't fit.

What are my options here? Do I need to buy a different part that would fit? Do I have to make one myself? Or am I completely out-of-luck and just need to say "By the way, my Warboss has a Kombi-Skorcha" every time I play?

Since there are no pre-made "Ork Warboss Arm with Kombi-Skorcha" bits, I have decided to do a conversion myself. I will outline the steps I have taken below.

Cut both the Ork Warboss Arm with the Kombi-Rokkit Launcha and a Kombi-Skorcha for Ork Nobs from the sprue and remove any excess plastic and mold lines.
Cut off the front of the Rokkit Launcha, so that the magazine still remains. This way, you can prevent accidental damage to the Warboss Arm.
Cut off the right arm of the Ork nob, so that the hand is still attached to the grip of the Kombi-Skorcha.
Remove parts of the right hand, bit by bit, until only the index finger remains (until about to the knuckle), and the bottom tank of the Skorcha (below the hand). It's recommended to use a small saw to cut through the hand once thin enough, then use the hobby knife to remove the remains of the hand bit by bit.
On the side of the Warboss Arm, remove the remains of the Kombi-Rokkit Launcha bit by bit, until only the hand and the stock above the hand remains.
Cut away the part in front of the "bow" in the stock. It's best to hold the Skorcha in front of the Rokkit Launcha, to ensure not too much is cut away.
Cut part of the Warboss' index finger away. This will be replaced by the index finger still attached to the Kombi-Skorcha.
In order to put the index finger into the proper place, either part of the bottom of the Kombi-Skorcha's stock need to be cut out, or part of the hand of the Warboss need to be removed to create a "slot" in which the weapon slides into. Do either one of these things. I decided to cut part of the hand out.
Once everything is in place, the top of the Skorcha should be a little bit below the old shoulder stock of the Kombi-Rokkit-Launcher. You can either leave it like this to create a "thrown-together-from-parts"-look, sand down the stock or add some greenstuff for a better transition between the shoulder stock and the rest of the gun.
The tank down below will be a little too high to fit below the hand of the Warboss. Carefully bend the plastic down a little bit, so that the tank fits below the hand.
Glue the new Skorcha to the hand and ensure that the stock aligns with the barrel (unless you want the weapon to look slightly bent). Give the glue about an hour to dry enough.
Once the glue is dry, glue the bottom tank to the hand. You can either leave the old grip there and attach the tank to that, or cut the old grip away and attach the tank directly to the bottom of the tank.
Once everything has dried, you can begin to remove the remains of the left Nob hand, still holding the front of the Skorcha. To do this, you can either use a hobby knife to cut the hand away layer by layer, or use a rotary tool to sand the remains away.
Optionally, you can attach some leftover bits from other models (spikes, glyphs, etc.) to cover up the remains of the hand. Such bits can also be bought individually, for several cents per piece.

It should be advised that these instructions worked for me, they don't necessarily need to work for you. It depends on the standards that you set for your models. For example, the index finger looks a bit off, since the angle at which a Nob holds their weapon is different than the angle at which a Warboss holds their weapon. If it must absolutely be perfect, please be prepared to add some greenstuff to relevant parts to ensure the models match your expectations.

Here are some pictures, showing the final result:


Are all jenga blocks of exactly same size? If you ever play the game it's easy to conclude that blocks dimensions vary, otherwise the occurrence of loose blocks would be symmetric/regular when the tower initially built.

However, I was unable to find any reference to that fact anywhere in internet (apart a vague mention in this paper).

Hence, the question. Are all blocks exactly equal, and if no, what are exact sizes? How many different sizes of blocks are used? And as importantly, how do you know this?

I do not believe that the block dimensions vary much, except because of manufacturing error. The Wikipedia page states that the blocks are:

  Each block is three times as long as its width, and one fifth as thick as its length 1.5×2.5×7.5 cm (0.59×0.98×3.0 in).

And the official website states:

  A classic Jenga game consists of 54 precision-crafted, specially finished hard wood blocks.

I disagree with your assertion that, "blocks dimensions vary, otherwise the occurrence of loose blocks would be symmetric/regular when the tower initially built." If the dimensions were the same, but the weight varied, the weight would not be evenly distributed throughout the tower. That aside, you are probably correct that the blocks are not all exactly the same size.

Only one size block is manufactured, but because machines that cut the wood have certain tolerances (probably in 10s or 100s of microns), you cannot get a perfect cut. Even if you could, the wood surface isn't flat anyway. The ridges of the grain are very deep, as can be seen in this scanning electron microscope images. Finishing the wood would make some of these differences disappear, but even that wouldn't be perfect.


Can tokens created by planeswalkers do commander damage I was playing a game with someone and they said they do because planeswalkers can't attack, so the tokens created by them count as commander creatures. Is that true? I can't find any rules that talk about this.

Rule 903.3 says

  Each deck has a legendary creature card designated as its commander. This designation is not a characteristic of the object represented by the card; rather, it is an attribute of the card itself. The card retains this designation even when it changes zones.

Only the cards that start the game as commanders count as commanders and can deal commander damage.


How does Rook compare in difficulty to other trick-taking games? How does Rook compare in difficulty to other trick-taking games?

It is commonly played by older people in my area, and so my siblings and I learned it as small children.

What games would be good to pick up, having that background?

Of all the other card games I know, Rook is most like partnership Whist, with only a few exceptions:

Tournament Rook uses the rook-bird card, which serves as the highest trump card (not a wild card: the rook-bird play still must follow rules of following suit)
Bidding in Tournament Rook is done by point counting, not by trick counting (as with Whist): fives are 5, tens and fourteens are 10, and the rook-bird is 20. (As with Whist, trump is not named until after the bidding has passed out.)
Tournament Rook sets aside a "nest" of five cards on each deal-out that is not used by the players to play the hand, nor are the cards visible. This gives each hand 10 cards. The winning partnership counts the points in their won tricks, plus any tricks in this "nest".

The two aspects of the game I like most (and which make it more interesting than Whist) are the "nest" and the separation of bidding and measure of "successful play" from the number of tricks captured.

There are plenty of other card games that assign point values to cards and both bid and measure success based on those cards (Mü, Skat, Tichu). However, I can't off the top of my head think of other games that also incorporate a kitty of cards taken out of play that get assigned to the winning partnership at the end of play.


What are permanents? What are the specific types of permanents in the game? Are lands included in permanents?

The Basic Rulebook answers this question.

  permanent—Lands, creatures, artifacts,
  enchantments, and planeswalkers are
  permanents. They enter the battlefield after you
  cast them. Token creatures are also permanents.
  Instants and sorceries are not permanents. They
  go to the graveyard after they resolve.


Will Open the Vaults let me return Bestow creatures as Auras? If I use Open the Vaults and there is a Bestow enchantment creature in my graveyard, can I bring it onto the field as an aura? Or just as a creature?

No, you can't use Bestow when you bring a creature with Bestow onto the battlefield without casting it.
If you bring creatures on to the field without casting it, you can't pay the Bestow cost, and you can't enchant another creature that way.

Bestow [cost]
You may cast this card by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost. If you chose to pay this spell’s bestow cost, it becomes an Aura enchantment and gains enchant creature. These effects last until one of two things happens: this spell has an illegal target as it resolves or the permanent this spell becomes, becomes unattached.


When using Alvin & Dexter with TtR:Europe what are the rules about cities with existing train stations? When using Alvin & Dexter with TtR:Europe what are the rules about cities with existing train stations?

Do train stations prevent them from entering a city?  Do they have to be moved to place a train station?

These questions, along with a few others have been officially clarified by Alan R. Moon on BGG. His rulings regarding your specific questions are bolded below:

  Here is a list of the official clarifications I'm keeping for Alvin & Dexter:

  A Station cannot be built in a city with a Monster.
  A Depot cannot be built in a city with a Monster.
  A Passenger cannot be moved out of, into, or through a city with a Monster.
  A Monster can be moved into a city with a Station, Depot, or Passenger.
  If a Monster is in a Country location, the whole Country, not just the specific space, is in Chaos.
  Cards cannot be added to or taken from a Depot in a city in Chaos.
  At the end of the game, a Station in a city in Chaos can still be used normally.
  If both Monsters are in the same city at the end of the game, Tickets that include this city are only halved (not halved twice).
  If the two Monsters are in the two cities named on a Ticket, this Ticket is only halved (not halved twice).
  When you move a Monster, you must move him at least one space, you cannot retrace steps (as in moving one city forward and then one city back), and you may not end the Monster's movement in the same city where it started the move (by moving in a loop).


If I play an action card and it is sabotaged, can I take another action? If I play an action card as an action and another player plays sabotage on it, can I take another action or is my action considered taken already?

From the FAQ here:
http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Twilight%20Imperium%203/ti3faq2-2-4.pdf

Q: Is an Action Card that has been sabotaged considered played?
A:
No. For example, a “play as an action” Action Card that is  sabotaged
does not use up its owner’s action.

So yes, you should be able to play another action.


Does marking a card affect its legality? I have a deck I am working on that I cannot find all the cards for yet. For use in casual play I have put in proxies that are land cards with the name of the card written on them. If I end up playing with the deck in an official tournament and forget to switch the proxies out will I still be able to use those as lands? Obviously they cannot be used as the card they are a proxy for, but does having them marked affect their legality as the card they actually are?

You can use those cards as lands, as long as they are clearly those basic lands. The tournament rules on acceptable cards says

  Artistic modifications are acceptable in sanctioned tournaments, provided that the modifications do not make the card art unrecognizable, contain substantial strategic advice, or contain offensive images. Artistic modifications also may not obstruct or change the mana cost or name of the card.

However, that rule also says

  The Head Judge is the final authority on acceptable cards for a tournament.

So, it's up to the Head Judge to make the final decision about whether you can use those cards as lands.

You cannot use them as the cards they are proxying in a tournament. The official proxy tournament policy says

  A proxy card is used during competition to represent an Authorized Game Card that has been accidentally damaged or excessively worn in the current tournament (including damaged or misprinted Limited product) as determined solely by the Head Judge.

and

  Players may not create their own proxies; they may only be created by the Head Judge.

Basically, you can't even use a proxy card in your deck unless it is replacing a card that was accidentally damaged during that tournament, and you can't use proxies that you make yourself.


Where are the various Krosmaster Arena tokens supposed to go? In the Krosmaster Arena board game box, there are a variety of tokens that come with the set. In the plastic "piece container", the eight original figures are already set in place, and there's an obvious spot for the eight character cards.

There are four other cardboard punch outs, and included on those are a large amount of tokens. Are those designed to go into a specific location in the plastic container? If so, where?

If your looking at the box with the token slots closest to you. Figs on the far side. From left to right its: dice, bag of (mp/ap/damage/coins), demonic rewards(gold and 1/2 of granite), demonic rewards (jade and 1/2 granite) (each slot holds 1&1/2 colors), round tokens(mobs,traps,bombs), gg tokens,
The character cards have an obvious spot in the bottom and the terrain stacks on top.


Word premium applies to 2 words? We had a family scrabble game that erupted into a debate.  I have searched these forums, and while I found several threads that seemed to apply to this scenario, it wasn’t quite clear.

The question is whether or not a premium word square (double or triple words) applies to all words created during the current play or not.  I’ll attempt to articulate the scenario.

First move:  TO was played vertically.

Second move:  FREES was played horizontally and the E of FREES created TOE.  The S of FREES landed on a double word square.

Question:  The current play resulted in two new words, TOE and FREES.  Does the double word on the S of FREES count for both words or just FREES?  If not, why not?

The rules don’t seem to address this scenario when two words are created or under what conditions thus applies or doesn’t.

From the Scrabble rules (emphasis mine):

  Premium Word Squares: The score for an entire word is doubled when
  one of its letters is placed on a pink square: it is tripled when one
  of its letters is placed on a red square. Include premiums for
  double or triple letter values, if any, before doubling or tripling
  the word score. If a word is formed that covers two premium word
  squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times the letter
  count), or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times the letter count).
  NOTE: the center square is a pink square, which doubles the score for
  the first word.

Double and triple word spaces only count for words which have one of their letters on that space.  In your example, TOE doesn't have any letters on the new double word square so it doesn't count.

 Side note: if it was meant to double all the points in a turn, I would have expected it to be labeled as "Double Turn Score" or some such thing.


If the person to my right plays a Skip card, can I still pick the top card off the discard pile? In Phase 10, if the person to my right uses their 'Skip card' to skip over me, can I still pick the top card off the discard pile?

No you cannot.

From the rules:

  Skip Card – This card enables you to force someone to skip or lose a turn for that particular rotation/round. Once you discard or play it down, you can choose anyone to lose their turn. The Skip card may not be picked up from the Discard Pile, only from the Draw Pile. If it’s the first card to be turned up at the start of the game, the first player to start will lose a turn.


Does the Cosumi Go site sometimes get the score wrong? Cosumi claims that I won this game by 37 points:

— [9×9, Level 0] Black(You) Wins by 37 Points - Go Browser Game COSUMI
But it looks even to me.
Am I missing something, or does the site sometimes get the score completely wrong?
EDIT:
Strange.  The next morning, the same URL shows the upper-right corner as captured:

That might account for the score but, as far as I can tell, White still owns that territory.
Something strange is going on here.  (Does Cosumi have a bug-reporting mechanism?)

You are right that the top right belongs to White with correct play, but according to the programme Sabaki White wins by one point (because they have a captive). It is conceivable, but somewhat unlikely, that White could make enough errors for Black to win.
The score
Sabaki calculates the score like this for area scoring:

and like this with territory scoring:

The top right
To be on the safe side, I plugged your SGF into KataGo (via Sabaki), and it showed me a ko in the top right that Black cannot win: not only do they have hardly any threats, even if they did, they could not finish the ko in their favour.
The sequence that KataGo found was this:
$$Bcm1 Trying for a ko
$$ +---------+
$$ |..XOO.a25|
$$ |.X.XO.O1c|
$$ |..,XXO4d3|
$$ |.XXXXXOOO|
$$ |..XOXOXXO|
$$ |XXOOOOX.X|
$$ |OOOOOX.X.|
$$ |....OX.X.|
$$ |.O..OOX..|
$$ +---------+

Unfortunately for Black, White simply has to connect with ➅ at a and Black has no way of finishing the ko to kill White. White can just wait for Black to run out of threats and then capture at c and d.
Black’s only chance is if White plays the ko wrongly, for example:
$$Wcm6 White messes up (9 retakes, 13 @ 7)
$$ +---------+
$$ |..XOO36OX|
$$ |.X.XO2OX1|
$$ |0.,XXOO.X|
$$ |9XXXXXOOO|
$$ |57XOXOXXO|
$$ |XXOOOOX.X|
$$ |OOOOOXxX.|
$$ |....OX.X.|
$$ |.O..OOX..|
$$ +---------+

capturing ➅ instead of connecting at ⓫,
threatening with ➉ instead of the deadlier threat at x,
missing x again after Black takes at ⓫ and therefore giving up the ko, so
Black wins by 27 (area) or 26 (territory).


Can I use multiple items and spells in one action? I was wondering if I could use multiple items and spells in one action. The rules say

  Although an investigator cannot perform a component action
  from a single component more than once each round, he can
  perform component actions of different components.

So I guess the question is: "what is an component?"

I have a few combinations I would like to clarify:

Start action phase:

Feed the Mind (ritual spell)
Blessing of Isis (ritual spell)
Dynamite (item - weapon)
Holy water (item magical)
Travel

End action phase

Start action phase:

Blessing of Isis (ritual spell - I gain an Blessing)
Holy water (I gain another condition)
then flip my first received Blessing and resolve it(since I can not have two conditions) and put the last received Blessing in the back of the deck
Travel

End action phase

Another question I was wondering about was "preventing". Bandages and Whiskey state you can prevent an investigator from losing health or sanity. It's not an action so I must (?) use this during the encounter phase but do I have to use it before the other investigator (or myself) starts the fight? (that seems weird). Or can I use it when an investigator on my spot loses a strength/will test even if it's not my encounter?

Same goes with the Flesh Ward spell, can I cast it during someone else's encounter phase to prevent them form taking damage? Example:

John is on the same space as me
John has 3 health and 4 sanity left and is on a space with a Goat Spawn and a Skeleton
In the previous encounter John did one damage to the Goat Spawn (leaving it with one toughness) and none to the Skeleton
This encounter John encounters the Goat Spawn first and rolls 1 success reducing the toughness of the Goat Spawn to 0.
Does John still take one damage because his damage was lower than that of the Goat Spawn allthought John did kill it
If John takes damage can I then use my Bandage/Whiskey/Flesh Ward spell on him negating the effects of losing health and sanity?
John then rolls 4 success during the fight with the Skeleton and kills it.
After the combat encounters John does a clue encounter in which he loses 1 health. Does the Bandage/Flesh Ward still work?

Or is it more like this

John is on the same space as me
John has 3 health and 4 sanity left and is on a space with a Goat Spawn and a Skeleton
In the previous encounter John did one damage to the Goat Spawn (leaving it with one toughness) and none to the Skeleton
I discard my Bandages and Whiskey so if John takes 2 damage or loses 2 sanity he actually won't. But I discard my cards none the less.
To make sure John won't die I also cast my Flesh Ward on him with a success of three.
This encounter John encounters the Goat Spawn first and rolls 1 success reducing the toughness of the Goat Spawn to 0.
Does John still take one damage because his damage was lower than that of the Goat Spawn allthought John did kill it. Obviously my Bandages and Flesh Ward spell prevent him from actually taking the damage.
John then rolls 4 success during the fight with the Skeleton and kills it.
After the combat encounters John does a clue encounter in which he loses 1 health. Does the Bandage/Flesh Ward still work?

This game has so many variables to combine that it's hard to keep track of what is possible and what isn't.

In the action phase you can perform actions that are prefixed with the text Action: or Local action: on any of the cards that belong to your investigator. "Component" is just a very general term for all these cards. There are so many of them, it would be tedious to list them all. These are items, artifacts, your investigator card, and so on.

The rule you quoted at the top is the explanation of how to handle component actions in the framework that you can do only two things in a round and cannot do the same thing twice. For example if you have a reusable artifact with an action to damage a monster on your space, you could use it only once per round. After that you will have one more action left.

In your post I don't know what you meant by this bullet point list in the action phase:

Feed the Mind (ritual spell)
Blessing of Isis (ritual spell)
Dynamite (item - weapon)
Holy water (item magical)
Travel

You can do any 2, and only 2 of these things in the same round.

As per preventing, you can use bandages to prevent damage right at the moment when the damage would be dealt. If the card says you can use it only in combat encounters, then you cannot use it while resolving a clue or other effect, it applies only in combat.

As for using something to help other players, you can only do that if the card says it's a local action or explicitly mentions. If it's a local action then you can only use it on players on the same space as yours.


In Arkham Horror, what are the two symbols at the bottom of location spaces? The location spaces have two icons, on the lower left and right. What do they stand for, what items you tend to earn in location encounters? And why are some inverted in color (white and black versus black and white)?

Yes, those are things that are more likely to come up in encounters there. It's no guarantee, though. This is described in detail in the rules in the section titled "Location Icons" on the last page of the rules, along with a lot of other helpful summary information. The key part is:

  Each location on the map also has several icons associated with
  it. These icons tell the players the most likely outcomes they can
  expect when they go to that location.

Note that they're just the most common. Other rewards are possible as well, as are all kinds of nasty stuff.

The inverted ones are things you can get by using the special encounter at the location. They're still more likely to come from encounters as well. For example, the Curiositie Shoppe has an inverted unique item icon, reminding you that you can purchase unique items there, and they're also possible to get from encounters.

  Some locations have special location icons that have their colors reversed, such as the Sanity icon on Arkham Asylum. These icons indicate that there is a guaranteed method of acquiring the described item at that location.


What is the purpose of "underruffing" in bridge? Sometimes declarer will lead a long suit from one hand, for a "ruffing finesse" in order to ruff with a void in the other. If the intervening opponent ruffs with say, the 9, the declarer might "overruff" to win the trick (and capture the opposing trump). If this opponent ruffs with the "master" trump, declarer might discard from a side suit instead.

If the declarer had ONLY trumps left, he would have to "discard" a trump (underruff) if the opponent ruffs with the master trump.

But there are times when the declare will "underruff" even when he can "overruff," or at least has a side suit card to discard. Why would that be? Would it be to "throw in" an opponent? Or might that side suit card have "strategic" value, such as for "transportation" to the other hand? How would that outweigh the value of the "wasted" trump?

Here are some situations where underruffing might be required.

1) Execute a Throw In

Consider the following situation, where spades are trump and south is the declarer. The lead is with West and he leads a diamond.

    -
    xxx
    -
    -

-         KQT
-         -
AKQ       -
-         -
    AJ9
    -
    -
    -

South holding the AJ9 of trumps needs two of the last three tricks.

West is on lead and leads a diamond and east holding the KQT of trumps ruffs with the Q.

Now South must underruff with the 9, forcing East to lead from the KT into the AJ.

If South overruffs with the A, then South has to lead from the J9 into KT, losing two tricks.

2) To avoid a Squeeze

On defense sometimes the defender is forced to underruff (discard a trump) to avoid being squeezed. This might well apply to declarer (but is probably unlikely).

For an example for defense, consider the following example:

          Txx
          KJxx
          xx
          KJxx

x                  xxxx
T9x                Qxx
KQJTxx             xx
T9x                Qxxx

          AKQJx
          Axx
          Axx
          Ax

You are East. South is declarer in small slam in spades after West preempts in diamonds (and showing 0-7 points in your system, just for the sake of this problem).

West leads the DK which declarer ducks and west continues with the diamond J which declarer wins the A. At this point declarer has 11 tricks, and knows you hold both the HQ and CQ.

Now declarer plays AK of trump, and then ruffs a diamond in dummy with the T.

At this point, you must now underruff! If you throw a heart, declarer can draw trumps throwing 2 clubs and 1 heart from from dummy, play A, K of hearts and drop your HQ, setting up the HJ.

If you throw a club, declarer can play AK of clubs, and ruff a club, dropping your Q, with the HK as entry to the good CJ.

So you underruff with a trump. Now declarer can draw trumps, but since you discard after dummy, you can just follow his discards and avoid being squeezed.

3) Executing a Trump coup

Then there might be trump coup situations where declarer/defender is trying to shorten the trump holding (to avoid being on lead at the wrong time) and might choose to underruff.

For an example on defense:

           xxx
           Qxx
           xxxx
           Kxx
Txxxx              -
xxx                Jxxx
Txx                QJx
xx                 QJxxxx

          AKQJ9
          AKx
          AKx
          Ax

You are west. South is declarer in a small slam in spades. You lead a heart which declarer wins in hand. He plays the trump ace, and gets the bad news.

It looks like declarer now has two unavoidable losers, a trump and a diamond, but declarer tries his best.

He plays one more round of trumps, cashes his hearts, and plays the A and K of clubs to reach this position.

           x
           -
           xxxx
           x
Txx
-                   Immaterial
Txx
-

          QJ9
          -
          AKx
          -

Declare now plays a club and ruffs it with the Q.

At this point, you must underruff!

If you throw a diamond, declarer can play diamond A,K and low diamond. You are left with nothing but trumps and are forced to ruff that (basically ruffing your partners trick), and then lead from the Tx into declarers J9, allowing declarer to make the small slam!

But, if you underruff, now when declarer plays diamond A, K and low, your partner can win it, and then your T becomes the setting trick.

So underruffing is not unheard of, and is sometimes required. There are probably more situations than described above, but I believe they(including 2 and 3 above) tend to appear rarely.


Why can a manifested creature be turned face up if it loses all it's abilities but a morphed card can't? This question is dedicated to a better understanding of a card: Wildcall.  The Gather entry has the following ruling.

  "Unlike a face-down creature that was cast using the morph ability, a manifested creature may still be turned face up after it loses its abilities if it's a creature card."

I would like to know its exact meaning, and possible use. Thank you!

Rule 702.36e describes how to turn a creature face up using a morph ability:

  Any time you have priority, you may turn a face-down permanent you control with a morph ability face up. This is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116). To do this, show all players what the permanent’s morph cost would be if it were face up, pay that cost, then turn the permanent face up. (If the permanent wouldn’t have a morph cost if it were face up, it can’t be turned face up this way.) The morph effect on it ends, and it regains its normal characteristics. Any abilities relating to the permanent entering the battlefield don’t trigger when it’s turned face up and don’t have any effect, because the permanent has already entered the battlefield.

Rule 701.33b describes how to turn a manifested creature face up:

  Any time you have priority, you may turn a manifested permanent you control face up. This is a special action that doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116.2b). To do this, show all players that the card representing that permanent is a creature card and what that card’s mana cost is, pay that cost, then turn the permanent face up. The effect defining its characteristics while it was face down ends, and it regains its normal characteristics. (If the card representing that permanent isn’t a creature card or it doesn’t have a mana cost, it can’t be turned face up this way.)

As you can see in the highlighted sections, a creature with Morph still needs to have the Morph ability to be turned face up that way, but the Manifest rules don't check whether the creature has any abilities. So, if the creature loses its abilities, it can't be turned face up using the Morph ability, but it can be turned face up using the Manifest effect. This is the difference that ruling is pointing to.

The reason for this difference is that Morph is an ability that the card has, and Manifest is something that is done to the card. So, turning a Morph creature face up uses the ability, but turning a Manifested creature face up uses an effect that was previously applied to the creature.

Face down Morph creatures are affected this way by effects that remove abilities because those effects are continuous effects, and if you turn a face down creature face up it is still the same permanent. As a result, a creature affected by an effect that removes abilities wouldn't have the Morph ability if it were turned face up, so it can't be turned face up using the Morph rule.


When Data mine is triggered, if the runner survives this ice, can (s)he/other still continue? Let's say we have the following setup in this order:
1) ICE: Data mine.
2) Asset: Melange Mining Corp.

That is I have a remote server, which consists of 1 ice and 1 asset.

The Runner encounters the ICE. The runner loses 1 card, and survives the encounter.

Since there is no 'End the run' subroutine, can the runner continue to access the asset once I trash the ice? ( according to the rule of this ICE, I have to trash the ice once the subroutine fires )

Thanks,
Suman

Core rules:

  After the Runner breaks all of the ice’s subroutines and/or any
  effects from unbroken subroutines resolve without ending the run, he
  has passed that piece of ice. He then continues the run by either
  approaching the next piece of ice protecting the server or proceeding
  to the Access phase if there is no more ice to approach.

Data Mine doesn't end the run, so the run continues.  In you example, the runner would go on to access Melange Mining Corp.

It trashes itself as part of its ability because trap ice cards are designed to be hard to break but only hit once.


What are the probabilities of getting any or all five cards of Exodia using a specified monster card effect In Yu-Gi-Oh!, there exists a monster effect card called Morphing Jar, which has the following effect:

  FLIP: Both players discard their entire hands, then draw 5 cards.

There are more (magic/trap/monster effect) cards that allow the duelist/player to draw a defined number of cards.

As an extension of my previous question, I'm looking for the probabilities of getting any or all five cards of Exodia using the quoted effect above.

This questions is substantially different from the first version. Given the mechanics of Exodia, each of the five parts must be collected in hand. To support that, 0 Exodia cards can be drawn prior to the use of Morphing Jar. In this, the situation is similar to the linked question with the emphasized difference.

Variables

N = number of items in the population = number of cards in the deck = 40
k: The number of items in the population that are classified as successes. = number of Exodia Cards in the deck = 5
n: The number of items in the sample = Variable through experimentation
x: The number of items in the sample that are classified as successes. = Number of Exodia Cards that must be drawn = 0

Narrative

There are 5 Exodia cards (k) in a deck of 40 cards (N). If the player draws all 5 Cards (x), the player wins the game. The interest of the Question is the probability of drawing all 5 cards After using Morphing Jar and with subsequent draw Phases. The player will see five cards in the initial hand, and an additional card per turn from the draw phase, negating any external effects. From that, over the course of the game, the player will see 5 + number of turns cards in the game (x). 0 Exodia cards can be present in those x cards, because Morphing Jar forces the hand to be discarded.

Per the image, the chances of drawing zero Exodia cards decays the longer the games go on. When the player uses Morphing Jar, assuming he or she has drawn zero Exodia cards, he or she has a chance to draw zero to five Exodia cards with the effect. While the math is similar to the linked question, each is a distinct case.

Equation and Additional Variables

d = the number of cards drawn so far = range (6, 35)
x = the number of Exodia cards drawn with Morphing Jar = range (0, 5)
n = the number of cards drawn by Morphing Jar = 5

h(x; N, n, k) = [ kCx ] [ (N-d)-kCn-x ] / [ (N-d)Cn ]
where [aCb] = a(a - 1)(a - 2) ... (a - b + 1)/b! = a! / b!(a - b)!

Again, these individual cases can be evaluated with Excel, to minimize the tedious nature of each combinatoric equation.

These images portray the probability the player will draw, zero through five, Exodia cards upon playing Morphing Jar, dependent on how many cards he or she has seen previously. The first graphs the data, the second is the raw data. The sum of the probabilities for each case, for any number of cards previously seen, is 100%.

The Rest of the Set

After playing Morphing Jar, the process for determining the probability for drawing the Exodia cards not seen is the same as described in the linked question.

d = number of cards drawn so far = range (6, 40)
e = number of Exodia cards in hand = range (0, 5)
N = number of items in the population = number of  cards remaining in the deck = 40  - d
k: The number of items in the population that are classified as successes. = number of Exodia Cards in the deck = 5  - e
n: The number of items in the sample = Variable through experimentation = range (1, N)
x: The number of items in the sample that are classified as successes. = Number of Exodia Cards that must be drawn = 5 - e

h(x; N, n, k) = [ kCx ] [ (N-d)-kCn-x ] / [ (N-d)Cn ]
where [aCb] = a(a - 1)(a - 2) ... (a - b + 1)/b! = a! / b!(a - b)!


What do you do with the Basement Entrance Exploration card if you choose not to discard it? The Basement Entrance card says after entering:

Add 5 cards from the Exploration deck to the Unknown deck.
Also, you may discard this card during this Scavenging to draw and resolve 2 Findings cards instead of one.

I do not understand this wording.  Are you supposed to be able to, by default, discard these cards to get 1 Finding?  The quote above seems to imply there is some base behavior allowing me to obtain 1 Finding.  Further, What do you do if you choose not to discard it?  Doesn't it get discarded at some point anyway?

The Basement Entrance gives you more time to search stuff (+5 cards) and you get to find more stuff if you find any (resolve 2 Findings).

When you find the Basement Entrance just set the card aside, add 5 cards to the Unknown deck and later, when you get to resolve a Finding, you can decide to discard the Basement Entrance to resolve two Findings instead of one. You don't need to discard the Basement Entrance on the first Finding, you can decide to hold the car for another Finding.


In Mice and mystics, Should party items be place in paw to use them? I just finished first chapter in mice and mystics. I had a quick clarification to make.
To be able to use the party item, is it okay to have that in the pack? Or are those cards not counted as item cards at all.

Those cards aren't counted against your pack limit at all.  You simply place the corresponding token in the party items area (the middle of the clock).  Page 18 states

  Party items are items that can be used freely by any mouse in the
  party. When a mouse receives a party item, place the card near the
  story control board and place any marker or token that might be
  associated with that item in the party stash area of the story control
  board.