What are the odds of drawing a given card after discarding my initial hand? Let's say that I have 4 of a card in my 60 card deck.

What are my odds of drawing at least 1 of that card in my initial 7 card hand?

If I discard those 7, what are the odds of drawing 1 of the 4 in another 7 card draw?  (I guess you could think of a Wheel of Fortune type situation)

Since no one has provided the correct answer, at least not they current way you have it worded, I will take a stab at it.

What are my odds of drawing at least 1 of that card in my initial 7 card hand?

Answer: 1-Hypergeometric Distribution(population=60,successes in population=4,sample size=7,successes in sample=0) = 1 - .600500 = 39.95%

Everyone got this right. I personally like corsiKa's answer, because if your aren't interested in drawing at least 1 success then it is easier to do the calculation (especially by hand) by figuring the odds of not drawing any cards and subtracting from 1.

If I discard those 7, what are the odds of drawing 1 of the 4 in another 7 card draw? (I guess you could think of a Wheel of Fortune type situation)

This is where everyone mucks it up. First realize that this question is fundamentally different than any of the following

What are the odds of drawing at least 1 of the 4 in 14 cards? 66.54%
What are the odds of drawing at exactly 1 of the 4 in 14 cards? 43.58%
After discarding 7 cards that aren't successes, What are the odds of drawing exactly 1 of the 4 in 7 more cards?
What are the odds of drawing at least 1 of the 4 in 7 cards, with two chances? (This is what I thought you saying originally. You wanted to know how unlikely you were to miss, then mulligan shuffling the cards back into the deck, and then missing again) 1 - (.6005 * .6005) = 63.94%
etc.

What you actually asked for was the bolded question above. So, what that means is that at that moment, you have removed 7 cards from the deck that weren't successes, leaving you 53 cards. The odds of drawing exactly 1 card can easily be found, HGD(53,4,7,1) = 36.29% or of getting at least 1 is (1 - HGD(53,4,7,0) = 44.27%).

Now that you have finally clarified what it is that you want. The answer that you seek is above. It is the last answer, which is = all possibilities - (chance of missing first 7 cards * chance of missing again after replacement) = 1 - (.6005 * .6005) = 63.94%

In general, you either multiply probabilities (when determining how likely two independent events will occur in a row), or add them together (when determining if either of two mutually exclusive events will occur). As for when to "add" these probabilities together and when to "multiply" them, it is very difficult to know when to do which.

In your above question, you might realize that there are 4 independent mutually exclusive events for drawing 7 cards, replacing those 7 cards, shuffling and drawing 7 cards again. From the answer from the first question, you know that you have about a 40% chance of drawing at least one copy, and a 60% chance of drawing zero copies. (0.60 + 0.40 = 1 these mutually exclusive events equal 100%, so that makes sense)

Miss twice in a row. (0.6 * 0.6) = 0.36
Miss the first time, succeed the second. (0.6 * 0.4) = 0.24
Succeed the first time, fail the second. (0.4 * 0.6) = 0.24
Succeed twice in a row. = . (0.4 * 0.4) = 0.16

Your first and second (draw 7 cards and see if you succeed) events are independent of each other, because you are replacing the cards you drew back into the deck. Neither event has any effect on the results of the other, so you can multiply the first and second events together to see how likely it is to get a particular result twice in a row. Finally, because you are interested in the chances of succeeding at least once, you can either add all the mutually exclusive results above that succeed one or more times, or just subtract 1 from the chance of missing twice. (realizing that those two values should be the same)


What is the order of resolution of abilities during the damage step? I was curious how abilities resolve during damage calculation. I was playing a game last night where Lightning attacked and wasn't blocked. She has an ability that lets her dull a forward. The damage step caused an ex burst that gave a forward more attack power.

The question really is when do abilities like lightnings resolve, before damage? After damage? Or after or before the EX burst?

The official English rule states: Official reference guide

  When defending player receives damage and reveals their damage card, if the card is marked with an EX icon in the top right corner, the player triggers the card's EX Burst and may immediately apply the effects of the card. ...

Therefore here it goes:

Lightning is not blocked and produce damage.
The Ex Burst is triggered.
Then Lightning ability is triggered dulling a forward.

Note that you can't counter Ex Burst. However, auto ability or field ability can be countered.


Does proliferate give my creatures +1/+1 counters? So I'm using proliferate cards in my white/green deck. If I use the ability proliferate on, let's say, Pollenbright Druid, does it allow me to give a +1/+1 to my druid?

The reminder text of proliferate is:

  Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there

So if your creatures have +1/+1 counters already on them, you can add more with proliferate.
If they have no counters, proliferate will not add any.


Are you allowed to take three moves with a seven? A player rolls a seven, moves one pawn five and then one pawn one. Are they allowed to moved the first pawn the remaining one after taking a slide?

No, when you split the 7, you aren't allowed to split it into a 5 and a 1; you have to split it in a way that adds to a total of 7. So if you moved one pawn 5 spaces, landing on a slide, then the other pawn must be moved 2, not 1.


What's the use of blinking a creature out (such as with Essence Flux)? Essence Flux says:

  Exile target creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control. If it's a Spirit, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

So, say I have a 1/1 Sanctuary Cat cast onto the battlefield. According to above, I would exile it, then return it right back? Is that right? I don't see what purpose this serves unless it was a spirit. Could you clarify if I have this right and what the benefit is?

There are many uses for so-called "flicker" effects like from Essence Flux.
The namesake Flicker was the first card to exile and immediately return the target. This is where the mechanic got its unofficial name.
The creature that returns is a whole new object without any relation to its previous existence. That means that, for example:

The creature will trigger all applicable "enters the battlefield" and "leaves the battlefield" abilities.
If the creature you blink is being targeted by a spell or ability, then it will lose track of the creature and not affect it, or will fizzle if that creature was the only target.
Auras and equipments attached to the creature will fall off of it, and counters get removed.
It will return untapped.
All temporary effects, such as from Giant Growth or Death Wind, will be removed.
The new creature has no damage marked on it, so it's like an improved regeneration effect.
If you blink the creature during combat, it will be removed from combat and will neither deal nor take any damage, but (if it was already assigned as a blocker), the creature blocked by it will still be blocked.

Other blink cards such as Flicker can also target enemy creatures (though not at instant speed), which can be a very valuable play at the right time.
In short, blink effects are a powerful trick that can throw a wrench in your opponent's plans at a crucial moment. The +1/+1 counter for spirits is more of a bonus in most cases, but of course it allows you to get even more utility out of this spell.


Where should plot tiles go after choosing one to place? When draw 3 tiles to place one, should the 2 remaining ones go on the top or on the bottom of the draw pile? The rules only say that the player draw 3 and chooses one.

From the rules here on page 5.

The player draws three plots, chooses one and places the other two
back on top of the deck, face- down in the order of his choice.

The rules you quote above were on page 4 but it is explained in more detail on next page.


Activate Aura of Dominion's ability on a creature Island My Island becomes a creature which then I enchant with Aura of Dominion:

Can I pay the ability's cost of the Aura of Dominion with only the creature Island, because of some mana ability speed rules while declaring and paying costs?

We know that the deck KCI abuses this kind of trick to sack two artifacts simultaneously while declaring the payment:

  Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever can sacrifice to return each other.

So wouldn't it be possible to simultaneously:

Declare the Island tapped for the part Tap an untapped creature you control
Pay the mana cost (1) with that same Island

No, you can't untap an enchanted land creature with Aura of Dominion using only that enchanted land creature.
The process of casting a spell and activating an ability work basically the same way:

602.2a The player announces that they are activating the ability. [..]
602.2b The remainder of the process for activating an ability is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2b–i. [..]

The relevant parts of the process of casting a spell are:

601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. [..]

Tapping an untapped creature is an additional cost.

601.2g If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities (see rule 605, “Mana Abilities”). Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.

If you wish to pay the {1} cost with the enchanted Island, then now is your last chance to produce it. However, once you do that, the Island is tapped.

601.2h The player pays the total cost in any order. [..]

Now you have to spend the 1 mana and tap an untapped creature. If you already tapped the Island for the mana it can produce, you can't tap that Island again for Aura of Dominion's additional cost.

601.2i Once the steps described in 601.2a–h are completed, effects that modify the characteristics of the spell as it’s cast are applied, then the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time.  [..]

Note that the loops in the KCI deck work because the various "return to battlefield" abilities are triggered, i.e. they happen after the spell casting (or ability activating) process is finished, see 601.2i. That is a fundamental difference to the process you are asking about, because no triggered abilities are involved in that.


Are there any rules in Star Realms for when you have no deck? I play the Star Realms app (against a not-super-intelligent computer) periodically.

Today, I found an interesting situation. The AI has only Machine Base in play and I am forcing him to discard ~5 cards a turn. This means that the AI is consistently drawing/trashing a card, since apparently it will always use a base.

This means that they will systematically deplete their deck, until they have no more cards.

While in a PVP situation it's unlikely that your opponent would do this, and I could very easily win now, it's amusing to me to consistently gain health and deplete their deck - are there any rules for Star Realms about this situation? Can you buy a scout?

This can happen in an actual game if a person trashes all of their economy in order to get more damage efficiency.  A person with no money in their deck cannot purchase anything since the cheapest card in the market costs 1 (scouts are not in the market).  This is different from Dominion, where you can buy copper for 0.

Additionally, if you have fewer than five cards in your deck at the end of a turn (either because of trashing or because your deck is mostly bases and you have all of them out), you draw as many cards as you can (namely all the cards in your deck).


Should I "take out" a double, using a two card suit? In an earlier question, the consensus was that I should answer a takeout double of one heart with one spade (the cheaper bid) rather than two clubs. (I agree with that consensus.) The exact situation was: "Left hand opponent opened 1 heart. Partner doubled for takeout. Right hand opponent passed." I had something like (S) xxx (H) xx (D) Jxxx (C) Jxxx.
Suppose my major suits were reversed, so I had (S) xx (H) xxx (D) Jxxx (C) Jxxx? Would you still bid "one spade" with only two spades, or is "2 clubs" now the lesser evil?
Suppose one of my minors had five cards instead of four: e.g. (S) xxx (H) xx (D) Jxx (C) Jxxxx (three spades), or (S) xx (H) xx (D) Jxxx (C) Jxxxx (only two spades).
In the original question and answer, "one spade" was the preferred bid versus two clubs when I had one fewer spade than clubs. But the above variations hypothesize that I have at least two fewer spades than clubs. Put another way, where is the "tipping point" of spade-club distributions, where you would bid two clubs rather than one spade?

With xxx xx Jxxx Jxxx, the decision between 1S and 2C is very close. Any move that makes spades less attractive (eg holding only a doubleton) or clubs more attractive (eg a 5-card suit) breaks the "tie" in favor of 2C. Any of those three hands would be a clear 2C call for me.


Which tiles came with which Rallyman GT expansion? I managed to get the tiles from the base game and the different expansions mixed together before noting which tile came from which expansion. Is someone able to provide the range of tile numbers that came with each expansion?


Can you kill a Blessed Spirits with a Fiery Impulse in response to an enchantment being cast? Here's the situation: my opponent has a Blessed Spirits in play, and he he casts a Grasp of the Hieromancer targeting it.  I respond by casting Fiery Impulse, targeting the same card.  Is the Blessed Spirits destroyed?

I think that the answer is no, but I'm confused about the timing.  Does Blessed Spirits' ability use the stack?

It depends on exactly what you are responding to (and if you have Spell Mastery, I'm assuming you don't for purposes of this answer). The Spirits' ability does indeed use the stack, so if you respond to that you will destroy them, if you wait for the ability to resolve but before the enchantment spell resolves it will not destroy them.

The ability of the Blessed Spirits is what is called a triggered ability, and whenever their condition occurs they trigger and go on the stack.

What happens when they cast the Grasp is the Blessed Spirits ability triggers and goes on the stack. The stack then looks like  this:

Blessed Spirits ability
Grasp of the Hieromancer targeting Blessed Spirits

At this point you have to opportunity to respond with Fiery Impulse, if you do it will go on the stack on top of the Blessed Spirits ability. Since it is above the Blessed Spirits ability it will resolve first, dealing 2 damage to the Spirits. Since 2 damage is enough to destroy the Spirits they get sent to the graveyard as soon as State Based Actions are checked after the Impulse resolves. At this point the Blessed Spirits ability resolves, but does nothing since the Spirits are already in the graveyard, the the Grasp gets countered due to a lack of legal targets.


Which expansion to get for BSG Board game? I've got the Battlestar Galactica board game and I absolutely love it. I'm thinking of getting one of the expansions for it but I'm torn between the Exodus and Pegasus expansions.

How do these expansions change the game? and from people who have played both which do you think is a better expansion?

Note that since this question was written the Daybreak expansion has been added too.

The rules for both variants are available at FFG's site, so you can read them for the full details.  Both expansions contain an "alternate ending" which can replace the Kobol objective, kicking in when the fleet jumps to distance 7. Both have new character and skill cards.  Both expansions include the possibility that characters will be executed, not just brigged - it's a bigger feature in Pegasus.

Summary first, then discussion:

Pegasus

In general, this expansion adds a lot of "tweaks" to the gameplay; once you've got it, you'll probably use most of the new rules every game.

New characters: Admiral Cain, Ellen Tigh, Kat, Dee.
New cards: Lots of new and interesting crises, and most of the new skill cards are in this set.  There are an additional 1,2,3,4, and 5 card for each skill deck, with some useful new powers.  Compensating for this is the new "Treachery" skill, which only goes from 1-3 but is always negative, and has special text only usable by cylons.  Unfortunately it's not safe to discard either, as some booby-trap Treachery cards can hurt the humans if you do...  Anyone drawing treachery is good news for the cylons.  (And some new crises can force you to draw treachery.)
Major new rule: Pegasus.  The humans get an extra battlestar board with four new locations.  This gives the humans more effective guns against raider swarms, and another way to hurry up jumps.  It also adds the lethal "airlock" location - don't want to try to brig that suspect?  Just kill them!  Of course, a good cylon player can con people into executing other humans...

(This variant makes "destroy Galactica due to damage" cylon win nearly impossible, because the humans can soak 4 extra hits on Pegasus if need be.)

Minor variant: Cylon Leaders: Cavil, Leoben, Caprica Six.  These are playable characters, replacing one cylon loyalty card.  Effectively, they work like revealed cylons from the start, but can "infiltrate" and rejoin Galactica, playing cards as human crew.  They draw an "agenda" describing which team they have to support to win, but it also has a limitation - they mustn't win by too much.

(The idea was to replace the uncertainty of "I don't know who's a cylon" with "I don't know which side the cylon is on".  In practice implementation isn't perfect, and this variant reduces the uncertainty.)

Variant ending: New Caprica.  Instead of ending after a jump from distance 8, at distance 7 the fleet lands on a "New Caprica" board and is occupied.  They then have to take actions to release the civilian ships from lockup while waiting for Galactica to jump back, then defend them while evacuating.  Crises are drawn from a new deck of 'during the occupation' crises.

(This definitely favours the cylons, as it's harder than just making one extra fleet jump.  If the change from 8 to 7 even saved you one.  However, it's hardest if fleet attacks have been light, because there's more civilian ships left to protect, so it evens out a bit.)

Exodus

Fewer tweaks to the game, but several major new variants.

New characters: Sam Anders, Tory, Gaeta, Cally.
New skill cards: Some 0 cards for each deck, which have some other effect on the skill check when played.  (e.g. the 0 Tactics causes two extra Destiny cards to be played in.)  One 6 card for each deck, with special text so good you want to play it for that instead of the 6. (For example, Engineering 6 can be used to build a new nuke.)
New crisis cards: A lot of interesting crises that play off the new rules.  There are no new fleet attacks, so if you don't play the Cylon Fleet variant, you'll be sharply reducing the proportion of fleet attacks in the deck if you use them.
Major variant: Cylon Fleet.  There are no fleet attacks.  Instead, cylons build up forces on their own fleet board with it's own jump track.  When the cylons jump, they arrive en masse on the main board.  When the fleet jumps, surviving cylons move back to their board to build up for next time, but civilian ships are not removed.  They can be escorted off by vipers instead, but that uses up precious actions.  Humans get an extra title, CAG, which helps command unmanned fighters, as well as some better Vipers.

(This evens out the randomness of fleet attacks, but with competent cylons can make the buildup of raiders harder to deal with in the endgame... by the end most of the civilian fleet could be on the board.  Works better when used in conjunction with the Pegasus; otherwise the humans can be a touch outgunned.  You will need your nukes.)

Variant ending: Ionian Nebula.  This changes the game by making much more use of the cast of characters.  As well as the characters in play, you have random extra characters all over the ship, and a limited supply of "Trauma" tokens used to decide whether they do good or bad things when encountered.  At distance 7 you enter the Nebula and there's an extra round of personal crises (an extra random dilemma to face) and possibly executions, depending on how well you've done at getting rid of your 'bad' counters.

(So this variant emphasizes character interaction more, and gives you a whole new set of possible suspicious behaviours to indulge in.  Properly managed by humans it can result in a lot of extra fleet bonuses... but needn't.)

Minor variants: Conflicted Loyalties / Final Five.  Characters have additional personal goals that they have to accomplish to win.  Final Five Cylons, if used, also go in the "Not a Cylon" loyalty slots - they count as being on the human side and work like humans, but they make it much less safe to use 'peek at loyalty card' abilities.

(This variant makes life much harder for the humans, as they're wasting resources and suspicion dealing with extra side issues.)

Decision Notes

There's plenty to like in both sets. Which is "better" depends a bit on what you like most about Galactica, and especially on what you like least.

If you like the treachery/uncertainty, but play 4 or 6 player and think the weak "Cylon sympathiser" mechanic is a major flaw, get Pegasus.
If you dislike the random distribution of fleet attacks, and want to avoid games where there are very few or very many, get Exodus.
If you think the series cast should appear more, get Exodus.
If you don't play often, you'll get more out of Pegasus, as Exodus has fewer 'every game' rules changes and more major variants.


In Risk, what if territory cards earned by invading finish? We are playing Risk and after getting 60 extra troops, there are no territory cards left, so no one able to create new sets to exchange. Should we re-flush the cards and continue building sets?

This is not explicit in the rules. But common sense kicks in.

When:

The rules mention a trade in, no discard or remove from game.
The rules mention that each set has a higher unit value and there is no end mentioned of the set.

So reusing is more logical than the set ending. So you can safely assume that you can reuse the traded in cards.


Does the Lab Challenge make Pandemic easier or harder? We've tried out the Lab Challenge (from the new In The Lab expansion), and I can't quite tell if it makes the game harder or not.

All other things equal (#players, roles, # epidemics), is a game with Lab Challenge easier or harder than one without?

As with the original game, the more you play the In the Lab expansion, the better you get at it. When I started playing the original version with my friends, it was hard to win with 4 regular epidemics but, by the time we got the expansion pack, we were beating the game easily with 6 epidemics (or 5 virulent strain epidemics with the added mutation disease if you have the On the Brink expansion).  With the In the Lab expansion, we have almost never been able to win with 5 virulent strain epidemics and the mutation disease.  It seems like the more you add (such as virulent strain and mutation) In the Lab is harder than the regular game, but it will all depend as time goes by.


Is it possible for a 6-player game of BSG + Exodus to only ever have one Cylon? The revised rules for preparing the Loyalty deck when using the "Exodus" expansion say that in a 6-player game, we should build a deck with an additional "You are not a Cylon" card (compared to the core rules for Loyalty deck.

So, in a six-player game, after the first round of dealing the cards, we will have 7 cards, and one of them is the Sympathizer card. So in theory, it is possible that one of the Cylon cards (or the Sympathizer card) will never be drawn. Since one card is added to the Loyalty deck before drawing a new Loyalty after execution, it is possible that even after an execution there will only be one Cylon on the board.

Did I get the rules for this right? Is this indeed a possible situation?

You are correct it is possible to have only one Cylon.

This situation can occur if one player is dealt two You Are A Cylon or Sympathizer cards, and the remaining Loyalty card with that name is the last undrawn Loyalty card.

Using the standard Execution rules for Exodus, if you were human, you would add a You Are Not a Cylon card to the Loyalty deck when selecting a new character. This won't change the possibility of having only a single Cylon though, because the Loyalty deck will still have one extra card. If you were a Cylon, you just get moved to the Resurrection Ship, keeping both your Loyalty cards, which also doesn't change the situation.

The only exception to this, is if you were playing with both Exodus, and Pegasus expansions. Step 2 is revised to hand off the unrevealed You Are a Cylon card to another player. So you would have two Cylons in the game. This is covered on page 22 regarding Handing Off Excess Loyalty Cards

  Execution - The rules for execution are slightly revised for the Exodus
  expansion. Use the rules as they are described on page 7 of this rulebook, even when playing with the Pegasus expansion, with the following exception. During step 2, “Prove Loyalty,” a player with one or more “You Are a Cylon” Loyalty Cards reveals one and gives all his remaining facedown Loyalty Cards to a human player of his choice, as described on page 12 of the Pegasus rulebook.


Good General Strategies for Agricola? What are some good general guidelines for strategies when playing Agricola? I know it will depend on the exact games, but are there any typical dos and/do nots?

John

Pat Ludwig has mentioned some good ideas. In my opinion, the four most important things are:

Decide and work towards your food strategy early. You need a solid plan to get food. This is the foundation that gives you the breathing space to do everything else. The first couple of turns feel relaxed, because it's ages before the first harvest. Don't let that fool you! Time constricts sharply in later turns, and what you do here can make or break your later game. Getting something planted by first harvest is usually a good idea.
Don't obsess over Occupations. Most of them will theoretically help you. However you probably can't easily play more than 3 without impacting other areas. Come up with a straightforward plan (also considering your Minors), and then prioritise ruthlessly.
Have a baby as soon as possible. Extra family members are the key to getting lots done.
Be flexible. The best strategy depends heavily on what the other players decide to do. If everyone else is grabbing animals, prioritise farming. If lots of wood is available, consider a building spree. Sometimes the Occupation square is occupied for long enough to render your plan worthless. Move on. Most people have a preferred play style. But the key to winning is to realise that you often won't be able to play the game according to your desires.


Can ciphers be countered? Can a cipher copy be countered by a counter spell? Or, since the card has been encoded to a creature, does it act more like an ability, and can only be countered by cards like Stifle and others like it?

A spell created by a cipher is a regular spell, except that there is no physical card on the stack. You can counter it like you would counter the original. As the ability says:

  Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of this card without paying its mana cost.

All rules applying to spells also apply to copies of spells, for copies of spells are spells.

  111.1a A copy of a spell is also a spell, even if it has no card associated with it.


Starting out in MTG, but core sets are being phased out, so what to do? I've played MTG casually a couple times, built some starter decks, but gave all my cards away in a purge a couple years ago. I want to get back into Magic, but after reading about all of the upcoming changes at the end of this summer (so, a month from now?), I'm not sure how to pick it back up. Should I buy a core set anyways to start building decks, or hold off?

If you want to start with a core set, Magic Origins is fine to buy - it's going to be in standard another 18 months. The changes are all in the future: no more core sets after this one, two-set blocks, changed rotation schedule. But that doesn't change that Magic Origins is here now!

Even if nothing were changing, it'd still be another year until the next core set, and if you're going to actually get into the game, a year is plenty of time that by then you wouldn't be worrying about core set vs "expert" expansion anyway. So it doesn't seem like the changes are really taking any intro-level stuff away from you. Besides, Wizards knows they need to keep the game at least a bit accessible to new players; I'm sure they'll keep creating things like the Duel Decks that'll give you a way to pick it up even once the core sets are gone.


"Whenever you draw a card" - does that include the beginning of each turn? I'm new to MTG. I have Horizon Chimera which has "Whenever you draw a card, gain 1 life." Does that mean you gain 1 life at the beginning of every round, when you draw a card? (That seems over-powered.)

It means exactly what it says: every time you draw a card, you gain 1 life. This includes the card you draw at the beginning of your draw step every turn and any card that a spell or ability tells you to draw.


Can I freeze a tapped creature? Suppose I have a Sharktocrab and my opponent has a Cavalier of Thorns in play. They attack with the Cavalier, and it becomes tapped. On my turn, I Adapt my Sharktocrab, putting a +1/+1 counter on it and causing its ability to trigger.

Can I target their Cavalier with this ability, preventing it from untapping during their next untap step? Or is it an invalid target, because of rule 701.20a:

  To tap a permanent, turn it sideways from an upright position. Only untapped permanents can be tapped.

(Emphasis mine.)

Arena lets me do this, but it seems like it should be forbidden.

This is legal because Sharktocrab is applying two unrelated effects to the same creature.

Sharktocrab reads:

  Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Sharktocrab, tap target creature an opponent controls. That creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.

The first thing to note is the targeting restrictions. "Target creature an opponent controls" means that any creature your opponent controls can be targeted, regardless of its other characteristics.

Then you do two things to the target creature: you tap it, and you prevent it from untapping.  But the "freeze" effect isn't dependent on the tap effect.  They are just both applied.  In the case of the tap effect, it will have no effect on already tapped creatures.  But the freeze effect gets applied anyways.


Betrayal at the house on the hill movements/attacks If a hero walks through a room that has a monster in it does the monster get to attack or is the only penalty the reduce speed?
It seems so unlikely that a hero would be able to get in and out of the room without being swung at.

Monsters never automatically attack; they only attack based on the haunt-specific rules that traitor has. It’s possible for a specific haunt to have a rule such as what you are asking about, but it is a turn-based game; and normally characters only get to act on their own turn.
Since you brought up how it works thematically (it is a game based on theme after all), the -1 movement when you leave a room with a monster kind of explains it... think of it as moving extra slowly and spending time going the long way around the room in order to avoid the monster and sneak by it.


Open source engine / software for makruk? There are open-source engines for chess, shogi (e.g. gShogi), xiangqi (e.g. XiangQi Engine) and other strategy board games.

Are there any open-source engines for makruk? (I.e. not just freeware.)

Note: this is not a request for recommendations, but an attempt to find out whether any such open-source engines exist at all. I could not find any at the time when I posted this question.

The only open-source makruk engines I know of are:

fairymax
Sjaak II
Stockfish

The latter is my attempt of adapting Stockfish for makruk. Below you can find some recent test results. I can not give an estimate of how these engines compare to strong human players though.

Rank Name                          Elo     +/-   Games   Score   Draws
1    stockfish-mak-f364111         359     103      80   88.8%   15.0%
2    Bilis_v1.0                    127      65      80   67.5%   32.5%
3    sjaakii-1.4.1                 -61      60      80   41.2%   40.0%
4    fairymax-5.0b                -174      62      80   26.9%   38.8%
5    NebiyuAlien                  -185      55      80   25.6%   46.2%


Can I use Jegantha as a companion if I have an Apex creature in my deck because of the Alternate cost? I'm building a mutate deck and since the deck meets the conditions for Jegantha, the Wellspring I wanted to use it, but since I'm running a few of the Apex creatures and their mutate costs don't meet the requirement I wanted to know if Jegantha also looks at alternate costs or if it only looks at base cost for the requirement.

The mutate costs don't matter; you can still use Jegantha as your Companion. Jegantha states:

  No card in your starting deck has more than one of the same mana symbol in its mana cost.

Mana cost is defined in the rules:

  202.1. A card’s mana cost is indicated by mana symbols near the top of the card.

Costs of other abilities that may appear on a card, including mutate costs, are not the mana cost of the card itself, and that is all Jegantha is looking at.


How to effectively handicap a good player? Is there a effective way to apply a handicap to a good player in Race for the Galaxy (especially in a 2-player game)?

I would consider a good handicap as one that is not omnipresent (for example, a subtle starting bonus) and one that does not negate normal strategies (lest the weaker player rely on it and not improve their skills).

Some ideas that come to mind include:

Allow the weaker player to draw 8 (instead of 6) and discard down to 6.
Making the stronger player put their starting word in their hand instead of playing it automatically
Allowing the weaker player to have 2 of the starting worlds

Has anyone tried any handicaps and found one that is effective without drastically altering the game?

I usually give new players an Investment Bank (draw a card during the develop phase) in addition to their start world. It passively gives them extra cards throughout the game, without really changing strategic considerations (there is one less Investment Bank for anyone going for the Galactic Federation development superbuild).


Magic The Gathering: Where To Begin I've played TCGs before, most notably Yu-Gi-Oh and Hearthstone (aka Magic Lite), and now I'm looking to get into MTG with a few friends that already started.

In the past I've always preferred something like the Shaman from Hearthstone, or spellcasters in Yu-Gi-Oh. Styles of either aggressive-tempo or control (as far as I understand them). However I typically dislike things like zoo or extreme stall (read: Hearthstone Priest).

Looking around and doing a bit of research I'm primarily interested in either a red/blue counter burn, red/blue tempo aggro, or black decks in general (roughly in that order).

My question is, given that background, where should I begin and is there a particular way I should try to buy cards? Buying singles is the most cost-effective way to make a specific deck but I'm not that focused yet -- so should I buy a fat pack? Booster box? Etc etc.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions and input!

Hi and welcome to MTG!

So, Magic is a game with many formats, similar to how Hearthstone has Standard and Wild modes. I'll list the most common ones for you:

  Standard: Cards that were released within the last few "blocks". Right now this is every main set released until now since Battle for Zendikar, which came out October 2015. This format rotates cards out as they get older, kind of like Hearthstone's Standard.

  Modern: Every card that's ever been legal in standard since the release of Eighth Edition, in 2003. Cards don't rotate out of this format, but if a card does bad things to the game, it can be banned from tournament play.

  Legacy: Every card that's ever been printed, with some banned cards. Magic's been around since 1993, so that's 10 years worth of cards that aren't in Modern!

  Vintage: Every card that's ever been printed, period. Nothing is banned in Vintage, although you are "restricted" on certain powerful cards. Normally you can play up to 4 of any given card in your deck, but restricted cards you can only have one in your deck.

These are the "core" formats, where you play with a typical 60+ card deck. Vintage and Legacy are almost certainly too expensive to recommend to a new player (competitive deck prices reach into the thousands), and even Modern is pretty pricey (competitive decks are minimum a couple of hundred dollars, and some are much more). Standard is not terribly expensive, but since cards "rotate" out of the format you won't get to keep playing the same deck forever.

If you want to start playing, these competitive formats aren't the easiest way. The simplest route is to buy starter decks and just jam a few games with your friends! It won't line up with the deck archetypes you listed, but you can move on to building those later, when you have more experience. In the most recent set released, Kaladesh, the starter decks are called "Planeswalker Decks". Buy one of each and start playing with a friend, just to get a better grip on the rules. If you want, you can also buy packs (from Kaladesh or from whatever set looks interesting to you) and add/replace cards of the appropriate colour to your decks, to customize them.

Once you've played for a little bit and have a good grasp on the rules, you can start buying singles to build a deck for whatever format you choose (as yes, that is far more efficient than cracking packs), or if you want to play at a game store/more competitively, you can start playing Limited. In Limited, you crack packs and then build a 40 card deck out of the cards you got and play against other people. It's much cheaper (at least in the short term) than any other competitive format, everyone's on an even playing field because you're all opening the same kind of pack, and it's a very interesting, different experience to playing with constructed decks!

I hope this was helpful and I hope you have fun!


Will Karlov get multiple +1/+1 counters with Soul Warden when multiple tokens are created simultaneously? When I have Karlov of the Ghost Council and Soul Warden on the battlefield and I cast something like Lingering Souls, does Karlov get two +1/+1 counters twice since two spirits enter the battlefield or only once since I cast Lingering Souls once?

The same thing applies to beautiful cards such as Conqueror's Pledge - does Karlov get two +1/+1 counters six times or only once?

Soul Warden's ability reads:

  Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you gain 1 life.

When Lingering Souls resolves, there are two separate instances of "another creature" entering the battlefield, and so the ability triggers twice, and you gain 1 life twice in two separate events.  Thus, Karlov's ability will trigger twice, and he will gain four +1/+1 counters.  Likewise, using Conqueror's Pledge instead will net you 6 life and twelve counters.

Compare rule 603.2c and its example:

  603.2c An ability triggers only once each time its trigger event occurs. However, it can trigger repeatedly if one event contains multiple occurrences. See also rule 509.4.

  Example: A permanent has an ability whose trigger condition reads, “Whenever a land is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, . . . .” If someone casts a spell that destroys all lands, the ability will trigger once for each land put into the graveyard during the spell’s resolution.


Do "enter the battlefield" abilities trigger heroic? Do creatures that leave and reenter the battlefield trigger again? So, here's the play:

Player 1 has Staunch-Hearted Warrior on the field. They play Living Totem and target the warrior, giving the warrior a +1/1 counter.

Question 1: Would Living Totem's ability trigger Staunch-Hearted Warrior's heroic ability?

Back to the game now. Next turn, player 1 plays Invasive Species and returns Living Totem to their hand. On the following turn, they play Living Totem back onto the battlefield.
Would Living Totem's ability trigger again?

Question 1: No.

Creature spells (such as Living Totem) don't target. When you cast Living Totem, you do not pick any targets. Once it eventually resolves, it's ability triggers and you choose targets when you place it on the stack. But placing an ability on the stack is not casting a spell, so it doesn't trigger Staunch-Hearted Warrior's ability.

Aura spells, on the other hand, always target. Casting Messenger's Speed targeting Staunch-Hearted Warrior would trigger the latter's ability.

Question 2: Yes.

Living Totem was in your hand (not on the battlefield) one moment and on the battlefield the next, so it entered the battlefield. As such, it's ETB ability triggered.


Which words count for a double word score? In Scrabble, if you make a new word and one of your letters adds onto another word making a whole new word, but this letter falls onto a double word score and you want to count it for the higher word score (the word you added the letter to) can you do this?

My dad is trying to say you can only count the double word score for every new word you make but by adding this one letter to a previous word, I think I am making a new word so that should count as well.

You can do what you want here (score the modified word and the entirely new word).
All that matters is whether you play a tile on a premium square. If you do, you'll get the bonus, for that tile or the word(s) containing it, as appropriate.
For example, if someone plays CLOUD, with a double-word score square just after the end of it, and you play SWORD off of that, forming CLOUDS as well, you'll get double score for both CLOUDS and SWORD. You could also just add the S and score for CLOUDS, but hopefully you can do better!
You'll only get the bonus once, on the turn when a tile is played on the special square. Once it's covered, it's used and it might as well not be there. But it applies to everything relevant on the turn when you do play on that square.
From the rules (in the scoring section):

The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed or modified on that turn, plus the additional points obtained from placing letters on Premium Squares.
Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value.


Game stagnates if supply card not drawn I've played a couple of games where the game has been stifled because the supply card is never drawn. (What happens is that the 'winter is coming' card is drawn, and the deck reshuffled, and supply card isn't shuffled to the top).

The last game we played, a supply card was never drawn until round 7, and we had a scenario where mustering cards would come out, and no body was able to increase their armies due to already being at supply limits.

This problem can also apply to other game dynamics, like bidding on the influence tracks, and to a lesser extent, mustering (because people can always use a special consolidate to muster).

Is this a well known issue, and is there a house rule to mitigate it?

I was thinking you could create a house rule that says 'if supply hasn't been adjusted by round 4, and round 8, there will be a bonus supply adjustment then'.

Another suggestion would be that when the 'winter is coming' card is drawn, you only shuffle the already discarded cards and put them at the bottom.

First of all, yes. This is something that I have noticed happens sometimes in the game. I don't think it happens all that much, but it is definitely noticeable when by round 3 there has not been any supply yet.

I don't think this is a problem. Think about if no Clash of Kings would ever happen? Or if no Wildlings ever attacked? There are many such opportunities for the game to be "lacking" in something. I think it is part of the dynamic nature of the game. It does not require any of those things to happen, but if they do then it makes it interesting, but it also makes it interesting if it doesn't happen.

Saying that the game "stagnates" implies to me that you may not be playing the game entirely correct. Most of the times when I play the game, I barely have any armies with more than 1 soldier until mid-game. Since I rely on support and taking larger territories and having more actions.

It really depends also on what optional rules you are using. The tides of battle cards make supply less relevant, since the size of the army is not the most important factor. If you are using the rule where the seasonal cards are set out such that you can see the next 3 cards coming up that will also impact the game, you will know when a supply is coming, or if one is not coming and be able to play accordingly.

I would not say that this is a problem with the game, maybe only a problem with expectations. I do not think any house rule needs to be made for this. There are enough ways to "solve" this problem. Most of them come from your own strategy.


Do the vast majority of Rat-a-tat Cat rounds end very quickly? My son was gifted this game today. Given that we play a variety of complex games in our family (including Bridge), we're very surprised how much we like it and the various skills it brings into play (probabilistic assessment, poker face, memory, etc.). We're also surprised at how rounds usually end so quickly, as the rules provide for getting to the end of the deck. We have yet to go half way through a deck.

Is this typical, or are we missing something to the strategy?

Our probabilistic reasoning:

A deck consists of 4 each of 0 through 8, 9 9's, and 3 each of the power cards. So an average dealt hand has 20 points, with 10 points visible (I'm counting the power cards as 5's given that you'll have to draw randomly from the deck at the end for each of these).

A typical starting hand might have a low number and a high number known upon deal. If your first draw is a low number, you replace your high numbered card with that one and then you call for the end of a round. Why? Because you have, say, 5 points on your ends and an assumed 10 points (it's random) in the middle, for perhaps 15 total.

You have no knowledge of other hands but on average each will be 20, and with one more draw will be reduced by 4 points to 16 (on average). Not a huge edge, but definitely an edge. And this only widens as the sum of your two end cards drops further below 5.

Am I missing something? Or is it correct to call for the end of the round if the sum of your two end cards is 5 or fewer points after you draw the first card of the round?

The reasoning gets a little more complicated for subsequent rounds as other players' hands improve, but similarly if you know that 2 of your cards are very low, or better yet 3 within the first few rounds, then you call for an end, right?

Yes, you should call for and end or knock-out as it is commonly called.

Your reasoning is sound. With 54 cards in the deck, 9 of which are special non-point cards, and four cards each of 0-8 plus nine 9s, the average hand is 20 points. There in no way of knowing what your opponents hands are worth, except in the rare case that you draw 1 of 3 peek cards and then you draw 1 of 3 swap cards. (In the children's variant, all players two outermost cards cards are revealed).

Since you cannot know what your opponents have, it is best to call for the end of the round when you know that the sum of 2 of your cards is less than 7, or 3 of your cards are less than 12. (Edit: My initial calculations didn't take into account that your opponents get to look at one more card, and reduce there score as well.)

The only thing that might change this strategy slightly (and I am not certain if it does change the optimal strategy), is as the number of players increases the chances that one or more of your opponents draws a Swap card during the knockout round also increases. If your opponents know that you are using this strategy of only knocking out when you have < 7, or < 12 when you replace a hidden card with a drawn card, they will be sure to Swap cards with you (most likely they will swap with the card that you drew to replace your other card). They will know that they have a better chance of getting a '4' or less from you, then from drawing from the deck.

As for conclusion that each player would take less than six turns on average, I am not certain. I haven't worked out the math for it, but the number of turns on average would differ depending upon the number of players. If there are more players playing with the < 10 points sum total of known cards, then the chances that at least one of those players has a low hand increases.

This analysis was only performed for the first turn. I suppose you could calculate the AVG number of points that you would reduce your score per turn, and use that to figure out when to go out on later rounds. For the first round, with only looking at 3 cards, you will reduce your points on average by 2.63 points. This result was arrived at by looking at a million random 3 cards from the deck (with wilds removed, so the odds might be slightly different), and choosing the lowest 2 cards to keep for a single player. I did not examine what happens as the number of players increase, but my guess would be that as the number of players increase, the chances that at least one other player is able to reduce their score by more than the average increases (i.e. with two players, it is probable that one player reduces their score by more than 2.63 and the other by less than 2.63. For three players or more, the odds that someone is able to drop a '9' or other high number for a '3' or other low number increases, and that lucky person will have on average less than your total.


Who gets the tokens from Chasm Skulker? If a player takes control of your Chasm Skulker, then it dies while they control it, do they also get the tokens it creates?

Yes, they get the tokens.
Since they control the Chasm Skulker, they also control its triggered ability ("When Chasm Skulker dies..."). And then since they control the ability, they're the ones who follow the instructions to put tokens onto the battlefield.

110.2a If an effect instructs a player to put an object onto the battlefield, that object enters the battlefield under that player’s control unless the effect states otherwise.
112.8. The controller of an activated ability on the stack is the player who activated it. The controller of a triggered ability on the stack (other than a delayed triggered ability) is the player who controlled the ability’s source when it triggered, or, if it had no controller, the player who owned the ability’s source when it triggered.

In combination with 603.6d which is a bit long but essentially says that for death triggers like this one, you look before the creature died to see how the trigger works.

603.6d. Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions. Continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like. However, some triggered abilities must be treated specially. Leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a permanent phases out, abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library, abilities that trigger specifically when an object becomes unattached, abilities that trigger when a player loses control of an object, and abilities that trigger when a player planeswalks away from a plane will trigger based on their existence, and the appearance of objects, prior to the event rather than afterward. The game has to “look back in time” to determine if these abilities trigger.

Note that they also own the tokens, since the tokens entered the battlefield under their control. This doesn't generally matter, but just in case!

110.5a A token is both owned and controlled by the player under whose control it entered the battlefield.


Are some pieces better than others in Blokus? Obviously the smaller pieces are generally easier to get rid of than the larger pieces, but I'd be interested to know which pieces I should aim to get rid of first, and which pieces I should save.  I'm sure this largely depends on the gaps on the playing board, but are there some pieces that go better in the majority of cases?

For scoring purposes alone placing the pentominoes first is the optimal approach.

What you place first depends on your strategy.  Sometimes I like to go straight after another player to attempt to block them in.  Y, I, and L are good opening pieces for that.  For a more balanced to the middle approach, I like to open with F or W.  They give lots of corners to build off of and are not immediately threatening to the other players.

I, P, T and X can be difficult to place later in the game, so I like to get them out as soon as possible.  F, U, L, W and Z are all great for cutting other players off, so I like to save them for when I get close to another color.

Usually only 2 of the 4's give me trouble; the straight piece, and the perfect square. I tend to prioritizing placing them over all the smaller pieces and even some of the 5's.

In most games what you place becomes highly dependent on what the other players are doing.  Especially in later turns.  You need to give yourself room to grow while simultaneously denying space to your opponents.


What happens when a creature gains the Riot keyword ability twice? This new keyword ability from the Gruul guild in Ravnica Allegiance is bugging me. If I play a creature with Riot, like Rampaging Rendhorn, and I have Rhythm of the Wild in play, it has two instances of Riot. Do I have to choose to put a +1/+1 counter on the creature AND Haste or may I choose 2 instances of the same choice? Like two +1/+1 counters or Haste twice?

You can make any of those combinations of those two choices.

Riot is an ability that creates a replacement effect that modifies how a creature enters the battlefield. As the creature enters the battlefield, you apply each instance of Riot and make your choice of haste or a +1/+1 counter. Those choices are independent, and there is nothing wrong with a creature having two +1/+1 counters or two instances of haste.

A ruling on the card Rhythm of the Wild confirms this:

  If a creature enters the battlefield with two instances of riot, you may choose to have it get two +1/+1 counters, one +1/+1 counter and haste, or two instances of haste. Multiple instances of haste on the same creature are redundant, but we’re not going to tell the Gruul how to live their lives.

To clarify the last sentence, haste does not work any differently if you have more than one instance of it, and rule 112.10b says "Effects that remove an ability remove all instances of it." So, if you choose to give the creature haste twice, it's no different than giving it haste once.


What is a solid basic strategy for surviving Ghost Story Is there a solid strategy that you can apply to increase the chances of a win?

When you have the choice, put weak ghosts in the corner spaces. This allows the players the possibility of saving time and killing two ghosts at a time.
Use the Buddhas as much as possible. It takes two turns to set them up (with the double-action monk) but automatically kills two ghosts - even big ones that would normally take longer to kill.
Only engage with a ghost if you're sure to kill it or only need one die to come up to the appropriate color. If you rely on two dice coming up your way, you will likely be wasting an action that could have been used elsewhere.


What do you respond to a 1-of-a-Minor opening with 4-card support and no 4-card major? With 5-card support for the minor, I would always raise it and let opener decide if a game in notrumps would be preferable.
With exactly 4-card support, should you raise it or bid NT (probably with a balanced hand)? Is the response different when playing Inverted Minor Raises?

I'm assuming some form of Standard American/French/German with 5 card majors and strong NT.
Playing the most common form of inverted minors:
With <10 points, 1N (but I would consider a tactical 3D with S:x H:xxx D:KQxx C:xxxxx)
With 10+ points(*), 2D with diamonds and a small doubleton or singleton in a major, and usually NT otherwise(**).
Not playing inverted minors, I think any non-forcing raise with 4 cards is usually problematic, but if you're playing forcing jump raises, 3m with 4 works.
(*) Experts seem to be switching to 2m being game forcing, with invitational hands bidding an artificial 2S or 2N or 2D(for clubs) or 3C(for diamonds).
(**) There are some advantages to making 2N forcing, in which case you have to bid 2m with 4 card support and 10-12 points.


Why would you want to play with a deck that had 3 or more colors in it in Magic? (limited and constructed) Background: I'm currently writing a strategy guide for magic as my pet project, and I'm trying to explain decks with multiple colors. Here's what I have so far:

  Dual color decks are useful because they allow you to take advantage
  of the best of 2 different colors instead of just 1. This allows you
  to minimize the weaknesses a mono-colored deck might normally have.
  For example, red decks usually have trouble dealing with
  enchantments, blue decks tend to have pretty bad creatures, green
  decks tend tend to be fairly bad with removal spells, etc. When
  combined with another color, most of these disadvantages are
  drastically reduced as you can use cards from each color to compensate for the
  other's weaknesses.

  Some decks also have more than 2 colors, although they are much less
  common. With 3 colors your deck will have plenty of options to reduce
  the shortcomings of any individual color as odds are there's a card in
  at least one of the other colors you're playing that will fill that
  gap nicely. The downside of a tri-color deck is that it's substantially
  more difficult to get the mana you need to play the cards in your
  hand. This means you'll need to devote more of your deck to cards that
  can generate mana of multiple colors, which detracts from your overall
  focus of getting cards out onto the field that actually win the game
  for you. Tricolor decks often include green because it is the best color for generating
  mana in its own and other colors, making it great support for the rest
  of the deck. These decks often rely on tricolor spells for finishers as they are
  often extremely powerful to make up for the difficulty of casting them,
  to the point where some can almost win the game on their own.

  Decks with more than 3 colors are extremely rare as there is usually
  relatively little advantage a 4th color will add that couldn't be
  covered by the others, and it is VERY difficult to create a
  successful 4 color mana-base that will let you play all of the cards
  you need to in a timely fashion.

When I read this, it sounds like I'm saying "Tri-color decks are bad because they're so hard to get to work correctly and people only play them because of powerful gold cards." However, I'm pretty sure this isn't true and is stemming from my own lack of experience with tri-color decks.

Question: Why would you want to play a tri-color deck? What advantages does adding the third color often add that makes the deck better than if it only had 2? What should I add to this section of my strategy guide to make it a little more complete/useful?

Your mana base is the chief constraint, but it's not always as restrictive as you think.
This really depends on the format and your budget, but, sometimes, it's really not "substantially more difficult to get the mana you need to play the cards in your hand" with a three-color deck.
In something like 20 playtest games with Domain Zoo, which is (albeit nominally) a five-color deck, I never once got color-screwed. The fetches+shocks mana base was just that good. Why did the deck play a fourth color? Because Dark Confidant, by itself, was worth it. Why did the deck play "Islands"? To get 1 point of extra damage out of Tribal Flames.
How far you can push the color distribution in your deck depends on the particular mana base available to you, and the overall "speed" of the metagame (which determines whether you can afford to devote your early turns to playing tapped lands like Zagoth Triome or color-fixing spells like Farseek).
In Scars + Innistrad Standard, the distribution of multi-colored lands (one cycle of allied-color "fast" duals in Scars, one cycle of allied-color "buddy" duals in M12, one cycle of enemy-color "buddy" duals in Innistrad; Evolving Wilds as the only fetchland) makes a friendly-color three-color mana base comparable to an enemy-color two-color deck's. The reason most tournament decks are playing two allied colors instead is that this lets them cut colored-mana lands to run more utility lands like Nephalia Drownyard, Moorland Haunt, and Kessig Wolf Run + Inkmoth Nexus, which are some of the best ways to add depth and resilience to your deck.
Indeed, it's when you need your lands to do something special that you're most constrained on colors. Some examples:

Valakut requires lots of Mountains to operate. Valakut the deck, consequently, had a pretty awful mana base for a two-color deck, because most of the cards were green but the deck needed to max out on plane old basic Mountains to do get its combo.
A deck with Dungrove Elder will want copious Forests regardless of its color distribution. If you pick him in M12 draft but can't force mono-green, it still behooves you to play as many Forests as reasonable if you want to make use of the Elder.
Vedalken Shackles is, sometimes, considered reason enough to go mono-blue all by itself.
Tron devotes half its lands to the (colorless) Urza's lands, leaving it with very starved for colored mana. Balancing two colors and a ton of colorless lands is actually much harder than getting a working three-color mana base, because there's not a lot of flexibility in how you can pay for your spells.
Metagame-hater decks playing lots of non-basic-land hate (e.g. Back to Basics, Ruination) can find it limiting their own mana base.

The main benefit is, as you said, access to stronger and more varied cards.
Some prominent historical examples of very different applications:

Weissman's original archetypal control deck was a five-color deck. The majority of the cards were blue, but it used the other colors to cast "silver bullet" cards like Moat, meant to nullify entire strategies.
Many of the Alara-era Cruel Control decks you're probably thinking of when you talk about tri-color finisher cards were actually four- or five- color decks, in order to run cards like Wall of Denial, Oblivion Ring, Celestial Purge, and Cloudthresher -- not quite silver bullets, just efficient answers to the metagame.
In the Mirage era, World Championship winner Jakub Slemr played a black weenie aggro deck that used City of Brass and Gemstone Mine to play all the different-colored "ETB" creatures, which were some of the best weenies in the format. Of course, this also enabled him to stuff his sideboard with lethal hosers from all colors.

For a more recent (2012) example, consider control in Scars + Innistrad Standard. These days, blue-based control decks usually use other colors to supplement their counterspells with strong finishers and removal. Assume you're choosing between U/W, U/B, or W/U/B ("Esper").

Black offers a variety of instant-speed spot removal for creatures (Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Dismember, Tragic Slip, Virulent Wound) but only rather slow sweepers (Black Sun's Zenith, Life's Finale).
White has superior sweepers (especially Day of Judgment, but also Elesh Norn) and can answer any type of permanent (Oblivion Ring, Revoke Existence, Celestial Purge), but really can't match the efficiency of black's creature removal.
Three-color "Esper" control gives you the best of both worlds, and the ability to play a couple of good white-black effects (Sorin, Unburial Rites, Lingering Souls, Vault of the Archangel), but greatly curtails your ability to play utility lands -- in particular, Ghost Quarter, which is a critical answer to a class of cards you otherwise can't deal with directly.

In the Modern format, where players have access to Path to Exile, the strategic calculus changes: white is just as good, if not better, for powerful spot removal, while black's advantage is powerful targeted discard (Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek). At the tournament level, it only takes a few strong cards to effectively shift the color pie.


Can you tap land for mana without using it, specifically I am playing with Omnath, Locust of mana So I play with Omnath, Locus of Mana, and I've been looking in the rules, but I can't find anything that explicitly forbids generating mana without using it. But there is nothing explicitly allowing it either.

Also can someone definitively tell me if I can tap land in a similar fashion during my opponents turn? I'd like to use it in combination with Seedborn Muse. It has a lot of potential but I wanna make sure what I am planning is legal.

You may activate mana abilities (for example the mana abilities of lands) whenever you may activate other, non-mana abilities, in addition to when you pay a mana cost.

Most mana-generating permanents, including most lands, have an ability that says something along the lines of "Cost: Add mana", where "cost" is usually the Tap cost. Those are mana abilities:

  605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn't require a target (see rule 114.6), it could add mana to a player's mana pool when it resolves, and it's not a loyalty ability.

Activated mana abilities are a special case of activated abilities. You can activate a mana ability whenever you could activate a regular ability:

  605.3. Activating an activated mana ability follows the rules for activating any other activated ability (see rule 602.2), with the following exceptions:

One key difference between mana abilities and regular activated abilities is that you can activate mana abilities whenever you have to pay a mana cost.

In a nutshell, you may tap lands etc. for mana whenever you could cast spells and activate abilities, including during your opponent's turn.


Response to Selvala, Heart of the Wilds triggered ability Can you increase the power of a creature that entered the battlefield in response to the triggered ability of Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in order to draw the card? For example, suppose you have out Selvala and a 4/4, and you summon another 4/4 and cast Giant Growth in response to the trigger. Would that work and let you actually draw a card?

Yes, you can change the creature's size in response to the ability in order to draw a card.

Rule 603.4 says

  A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn’t true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the “intervening ‘if’ clause” rule. (The word “if” has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an “if” that immediately follows a trigger condition.)

The "if" condition in Selvala's ability appears at the end of the ability, so it is not an "intervening 'if' clause". This means that the creature's power is only checked when the ability resolves.

This is confirmed by a ruling about Selvala in the Conspiracy: Take the Crown release notes:

  The new creature's power is compared to the power of each other creature on the battlefield as the first ability resolves. If another creature has the same or higher power than the new creature's power, no one may draw a card.


May you choose *not* to use your own resources and buy them instead? May you choose not to use your own resources and buy them from your neighbours instead?

This is relevant for cases where you would earn money when "buying" from your neighbours.

The rules say about "Resource Cost" (English PDF, page 4):

  Some cards have a resource cost.
  To construct them, the player must produce the corresponding resources
  AND/OR buy them from one of his or her two neighboring cities.

And about "Commerce" (same page):

  Often, a player will want to build a structure requiring resources he or
  she does not produce.
  If these resources are produced by a neighboring city – players sitting
  directly to the left or right of that player – the player will be able to purchase the missing resource(s) through commerce.

It doesn’t seem to address this case explicitly, and I can’t deduce it from this wording. I guess the "AND/OR" was meant for different cases (e.g., that you can combine both ways).

As stated by the rules (English Rules, p. 4), you're required to use your own resources first and buy the missing afterwards.

  Often, a player will want to build a structure requiring resources he or she does not produce. If these resources are produced by a neighboring city – players sitting directly to the left or right of that player – the player will be able to purchase the missing resource(s) through commerce.

This is also confirmed by the "City" expansion rules (English City Rules, p. 10):

  A player must use their own resource before buying one from their neighbors.

This rule is stated under "Team Play", but it states "neighbors", instead of just "teammates", like other similar rules, so I assume it's a more general rule. In any case, the base-game rules are quite clear on that.


How can I play around targeted discard? Many decks in competitive Magic have access to targeted discard spells, like Duress and Thoughtseize.

Against counterspells, you can rely on a variety of tricks like baiting counters, bottlenecking your opponent's mana, and good old-fashioned counter wars. Targeted discard cards allow your opponent to attack your hand on the very first turn of the game, and go right for your key cards — and it can often be backbreaking when your opponent takes away a crucial card like a combo piece or a sweeper.

What tricks and tactics can you employ, either during deck-building or in play, to play around an opponent's targeted discard?

(I know that one of the answers is going to be Force of Will. That's excellent, but please also include approaches that work in formats without free countermagic.)

There are quite a few ways to play around discard decks:

Play Leyline of Sanctity to make yourself Hexproof.

Since all relevant discard effects (except combat damage effects) come from spells and abilities that require you, the player, as a target, this one card hardcounters discard decks and, incidentally, also burn and many combo decks.

Play a deck without cards whose loss would cripple your strategy/combo

Sligh comes to mind, or White Weeny, or Stompy. Anything but Combo, basically, preferably Aggro. If there are no key cards in your deck, you can't lose them to discard.

Play a deck that benefits from discard

Nowadays, there are many cards, keyword mechanics mechanics, and deck archetypes that benefit from you having few cards in hand or many in your graveyard. Cursed Scroll, Ensnaring Bridge, Crucible of Worlds, Tarmogoyf, Hellbent, Threshold, and the Reanimator archetype are examples.

Draw more cards than your opponent can make you discard

All card advantage strategies apply. While this does not directly counter targeted discard, it allows you to draw more cards and therefore more copies of your win conditions, overwhelming your opponent's capability to discard them. Of course, if you lose all of your win conditions to discard, with no way to retrieve them from the graveyard, no amount of card draw will salvage the game.

Tutor for key cards

Nearly all discard, and AFAIK all targeted discard has sorcery speed. Use instant speed tutor effects like Mystical Tutor to get you the cards you need exactly when you need them, without an opening for your opponent. That increases your flexibility and allows you to carry 1 or 2 each of a wide range of strong cards.

Use targeted recycle to get the discarded card back

Use cards like Regrowth or Noxious Revival to simply return the card you had to discard. Either you get the card back immediately, or, if you have to put it on top of your library, play the recycler at the end of the opponent's turn. If enough cards are in your graveyard, this even acts as a kind of tutor, since you may get to choose from a variety of cards. Recyclers are not wasted, either, when your opponent doesn't play discard, so they can be easily integrated into the main deck.


Multiple copies of planeswalkers I thought planeswalkers are legendary permanents and thus subject to the legend rule. While playing on Arena my opponent played three copies of Gideon Blackblade from their hand. Does this card become non-legendary during the owner's turn, or is there some other exception that makes this legal?

The simple answer is "no, planeswalkers are always legendary and the legend rule applies". However, that leads to the obvious question of what did happen in your case - given that this was on Arena and therefore Standard (or maybe Historic), by far the most likely explanation is that your opponent played Spark Double:

  You may have Spark Double enter the battlefield as a copy of a creature or planeswalker you control [...] it isn't legendary if that permanent is legendary.

(my emphasis). The explicitly stops the legend rule applying, so it is possible to have one actual Gideon Blackblade (which is still legendary) and any number of Spark Double copies (which aren't legendary) on the battlefield at once.


Can I play basic attacks of an evolved Pokemon? If I have evolved a Pokemon by placing a Stage 1 or Stage 2 card on top of it, can I play attacks from the basic form?

There are a few ways to do that, but not normally.  The easiest in standard is Memory Energy:

  This card provides Colorless Energy.
  The Pokémon this card is attached to can use any attack from its previous Evolutions. (You still need the necessary Energy to use each attack.)

Also, BREAK Pokémon do still have the attacks of their last evolution (so Raichu BREAK can use all of the attacks of whichever Raichu it evolved from, in addition to Grand Bolt).

However, the norm is that no, you may only use the attacks printed on the current Pokémon's card.


Game where you guess whether something is true Once at a board game café in Toronto, some friends and I played a game I really enjoyed. I can't seem to remember its name or find it by Googling relevant phrases.

The premise was: A card is drawn that has some item of trivia. Unlike most trivia games, this is intended to be unreasonably obscure, something the vast majority of players are unlikely to know. Each player puts down a chip to guess whether the statement is true or false, as well as an optional "certainty" chip that doubles their points gained or lost for the guess.

The idea is not to test the breadth and randomness of your knowledge, but to test your intuition about what sorts of things could be true of the reality we live in. You evaluate plausibility.

Can anyone who's played or seen this game identify it?


How can I defend against Pokémon Cinccino “Fluffy Tail” I’m trying to learn how to play the Pokémon tcg and can’t find an answer that makes sense online. My opponent used Cinccino’s Fluffy Tail attack, which does 30 damage, and also puts the defending Pokémon asleep.

Without a slew of cards that can wake up my defending Pokémon, I don’t understand how to defend against this kind of attack. They can just keep wicking 30 hp off my Pokémon, and I can’t attack back, turn after turn. It’s both frustrating and boring, as far as I understand the rules.

Is there any defense against this that doesn’t require me to have a very particular helper card handy?

You should be flipping a coin between every turn whenever a Pokémon of yours is asleep.
On Heads, it wakes up, so you have a 50%  chance of being able to use your Pokémon, and only on a Tails would you need any special items.

Asleep
Turn the Pokémon counterclockwise to show that it is Asleep.
If a Pokémon is Asleep, it cannot attack or retreat. Between turns, flip a coin. If you flip heads, the Pokémon wakes up (turn the card right-side up), but if you flip tails, it stays Asleep.

emphasis added

In a comment, it is noted that excess difficulty may arise from flipping a coin between "rounds" instead of between turns (i.e. after every second turn, not every turn). As Pokémon TCG has no concept of rounds, only turns, this should make it much easier to have an active Pokémon that is awake at the start of the turn, without using Trainer Cards or other effects.


Does anybody know of a list of color-appropriate effects for new cards in Magic? My playgroup has started to get into creating custom cards for our casual Magic: the Gathering games, but it's no fun if the cards aren't designed in a plausible way.

According to Mark Rosewater's second Nuts & Bolts of Design article, certain abilities (like flying or haste) are permitted to appear in certain colors at any rarity (or might only appear at a certain rarity). Creature size is predicated by color and rarity as well, and I can only assume that spell effects are subject to similar restrictions.

Has WotC ever published a complete list of color-pie appropriate effects and abilities, or has anyone ever tried to compile one from observable trends in card design?

My first instinct was that Mark Rosewater, the head of Magic R&D and the writer of the weekly column "Making Magic" on the official site, must have written a definitive account of the Magic colour pie.  And with ~50 columns a year under his belt for the past decade or so, I'm sure he's written a million things on subject, especially as the colour pie is one of his favourite themes.

Finding a definitive "MaRo tells the colour pie like it is" article is difficult though, especially as the colour pie morphs and shifts over time, through Mark's best efforts and despite them.  (I remember he spent quite a long time harping on about recent card Hornet Sting, as in his opinion it is an abomination to give green a direct damage spell of that sort.) However, I reckon if you read back through the Making Magic article archive, looking especially for pieces that are about defining the nature of the colours, you'll quickly start to understand how the people who make the game see their different roles, philosophies and abilities.

In the interests of providing a pat answer to your question though, check out this wiki article courtesy of excellent fan MtG site mtgsalvation.  It's a pretty good attempt to define and collate all the things about each colour that make that colour what it is.  And, oh look, it's got helpful links to some of the best Mark Rosewater articles on each colour at the bottom of the page.  Sorted!


Using Spells Effectively in Elder Sign I'm a little confused about how to use spells effectively in Elder Sign. I understand that you play the spell before a task roll and then you can set aside as many dice as the spell has icons, whether you succeed or fail at the task. When is the best time to use a spell?

Is it mandatory to place dice on a spell once you've used it? Do I have to place a die even if it doesn't help me on the task in any way? If you don't get any icons that help with the task, then it seems like you are 'locking' a die, which is a big disadvantage.

The way spells function was actually amended in the Errata and subsequent mobile game, such that spells are instead cast after a player's roll - so you cast them only when you need them.
Full text from the errata:

Spells that hold dice are cast after a player’s roll, not before. The player looks at the roll, then, if he wishes to save a particular die, casts the spell and places the die on the spell. The ‘held’ die remains on the spell card until used to complete a task or until removed (as described below).
• Dice may have their results modified by items/abilities before being placed on a spell, but not afterwards.
• Before any roll, a player may remove some or all of the dice held on spells in order to roll them. Any spell that has no dice remaining on it is discarded. New dice cannot be added to a spell to replace those that were removed from it.
• If a die becomes locked while it is on a spell, the die is removed from the spell and locked. If the spell has no dice remaining on it, the spell is discarded.


Will countering a spell that left the stack still trigger abilities? Situation
I control Baral, Chief of Compliance, a sufficient amount of mana, and have Mystic Confluence in hand. My opponent casts Grizzly Bears, to which I cast Mystic Confluence in response, choosing the first mode three times, each targetting the Grizzly Bears.
Question
If my opponent chooses to pay for the effect all three times, obviously, the spell won't be countered and Baral won't trigger.
However, if they do pay no mana and therefore having the spell countered, how often will Baral trigger?
In other words, will an effect that attempts to counter a spell still counter it if the spell isn't on the stack to be countered anymore?
Rules Background
I looked at the following rules, trying to determine what would happen. First...

608. Resolving Spells and Abilities
608.2b. If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that’s no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal. If the spell or ability is not countered, it will resolve normally. Illegal targets, if any, won’t be affected by parts of a resolving spell’s effect for which they’re illegal. Other parts of the effect for which those targets are not illegal may still affect them. If the spell or ability creates any continuous effects that affect game rules (see rule 613.10), those effects don’t apply to illegal targets. If part of the effect requires information about an illegal target, it fails to determine any such information. Any part of the effect that requires that information won’t happen.

Those rules clearly relate to determining whether the spell would resolve. Since in the example given, Mystic Confluence's targets are all legal, the spell isn't countered and will resolve normally, handling all three modes one after another, even though for the second and third time, the targetted spell will already be illegal and therefore the ability might do nothing.
To determine that, I looked at the keyword action's rules:

701.5. Counter
701.5a. To counter a spell or ability means to cancel it, removing it from the stack. It doesn’t resolve and none of its effects occur. A countered spell is put into its owner’s graveyard.

I noticed that there's no qualifier that states whether the countering will still occur, regardless of the spell still being legal - likely due to the fact that normally, a spell like Counterspell would be countered on resolution if that were to occur.
As a possibly noteworthy mention, other keyword abilities do have equivalents to such a qualifier, such as the rules about tapping an untapping stating that permanents that are already (un)tapped may not be (un)tapped again, clarifying whether abilities on cards like Reckless Racer would trigger.

Baral will trigger once. You cannot counter the same spell more than once.
As you already quoted the relevant rule 701.5a, countering a spell or ability means to remove it from the stack:

701.5. Counter
701.5a To counter a spell or ability means to cancel it, removing it from the stack. It doesn’t resolve and none of its effects occur. A countered spell is put into its owner’s graveyard.

Since spells can only exist on the stack, a countered spell will stop being a spell, and will no longer be a valid target for counter effects.

111.1. A spell is a card on the stack. As the first step of being cast (see rule 601, “Casting Spells”), the card becomes a spell and is moved to the top of the stack from the zone it was in, which is usually its owner’s hand. (See rule 405, “Stack.”) A spell remains on the stack as a spell until it resolves (see rule 608, “Resolving Spells and Abilities”), is countered (see rule 701.5), or otherwise leaves the stack. For more information, see section 6, “Spells, Abilities, and Effects.”

If you choose the counter option of Mystic Confluence three times, Mystic Confluence effectively reads:

Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3.

When Mystic Confluence resolves and the first ability already counters the targeted spell, that spell will immediately be removed from the stack and Baral will trigger. The second and third part of Mystic Confluence lack a valid target, and will not do anything.


What happens at the end of a players turn to a buffed creature that took more than its unbuffed base health? Let's say I have Blood Bairn and 3, 1/1 token creatures. An opponent attacks me with a 6/6 creature. If I use Blood Bairn's ability and sack all 3, 1/1 creatures and then block with Blood Bairn, after combat, the opponent creature should die and Blood Bairn survives. My question is this: at the end of his turn as Blood Bairn returns to a 2/2 creature, does it die because it took 6 damage from the previous combat?

Your Blood Bairn will survive.

This is because "Until end of turn" buffs and Damage are removed at the same time during the 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.


Is "this way" defined in the rules? I was looking at Etali, Primal Storm, and one of the rulings listed surprised me; the card didn't work the way I thought it would based on the wording.

The ability:

  Whenever Etali, Primal Storm attacks, exile the top card of each player's library, then you may cast any number of nonland cards exiled this way without paying their mana costs.

And the ruling:

  Any cards not cast, including land cards, remain in exile. They can’t be cast on later turns, even if Etali attacks again.

I expected "cards exiled this way" to mean "cards exiled by Etali, Primal Storm's ability". Meaning that if I exiled a card by attacking this turn, and exiled a second card by attacking next turn, then both those cards would have been "exiled this way".

However, based on that ruling, it seems that "exiled this way" means "exiled by the resolution of the current instance of this ability".

Either of the two readings seem like they are valid interpretations based on the English meaning of the words. So it there a comprehensive rule that backs up that ruling; where "this way" is defined?

It would be really nice if all Gatherer rulings included a citation for a comprehensive rule that backs up the ruling.

No, “this way” is defined nowhere in the comprehensive rules. This specific kind of interaction also doesn't get spelled out explicitly in the rules for exile, resolving spells & abilities, effects, zones, etc. (Though there are some relevant touchstones.)

However, understanding Etali's behaviour doesn't come down to that definition. Etali works the way it does as a result of being a one-shot effect: it exiles some cards, then allows you to cast them, and that offer doesn't apply in future. You may only choose to follow up on this one-shot effect during that ability's resolution.

For you to be able to access cards from prior turns, one of two things would have to happen:

The one-shot would have to reference all cards exiled with Etali so far, which would mean the following wording:

  Whenever Etali, Primal Storm attacks, exile the top card of each player's
  library, then you may cast any number of cards exiled with Etali, Primal Storm without paying their mana costs.

Alternately, you'd have to be granted a continuous effect to be able to cast those cards later.

In case 2, the effect would have to carry a duration. Kheru Spellsnatcher and Hostage Taker both exile a card as a one-shot effect, then immediately also set up a continuous effect that allows you to cast that card for as long as it remains in exile (that's the duration). Alternately, the continuous effect can be provided by a static linked ability, as found on Nightveil Specter or Hedonist's Trove.

This means Etali could also be written one of two other ways, which would let you cast its spells at any time:

A one-shot that sets up a continuous effect (like Kheru Spellsnatcher):

  Whenever Etali, Primal Storm attacks, exile the top card of each player's library. For as long as those cards remain in exile, you may cast them without paying their mana costs.

A one-shot with a static linked ability providing the continuous effect (like Nightveil Specter):

  Whenever Etali, Primal Storm attacks, exile the top card of each player's library.

  You may cast cards exiled with Etali, Primal Storm without paying thier mana costs.


Attacking someone that is using the Ring The person holding the ring was being attacked by a werewolf. They claimed that since they were holding the Ring, the werewolf and the hero have to roll for Sanity instead of Might. I thought that since the werewolf was attacking, they roll for Might, since that is the trait the werewolf is attacking with? Is this correct? Would the dice roll be for sanity or for might?

You were correct; the attacker determines the stat used.

The Ring reads:

  If you attack an opponent that has a Sanity trait, you can attack with Sanity instead of Might.

As it states, one can only use the Ring when taking the attack action. If someone is merely the subject of an attack, they may not use the Ring.

As usual, the attacker determines the stat used for both the attack and the defense. In this case, Might is used by both the attacker and the defender.


Where can I find scans of D&D:TFBG board game cards? My friend has bought second hand Dungeons and Dragons The Fantasy Board Game and about half of the cards is missing. He'd like to print the missing cards himself to be able to play the game.

Are the scans of the cards available anywhere for download and print?

I don't know where you can find scans to download and print, but you can use BGG to help out with things:

Full component list (with card names, but not full card text)
2013 Spare Parts Resource List entry for the game - He could post his wants there after seeing what is missing
Image gallery for the game (15 pages of images, there might be images of the cards)

Not a lot of scanning of cards for printing purposes because that leads to copyright issues, and since we're talking about WotC, they WILL go after people with C&D orders if and when they find that sort of thing. But the above links should help him in getting the actual cards.


Eater of Days, Hushwing Gryff, and the stack How does the stack work for this scenario?

Hushwing Gryff is already in play and the player goes to cast Eater of Days so the Hushwing Gryff will cancel out the loss of two turns. In response the opponent either casts Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile on the Hushwing Gryff while Eater of Days is still on the stack.

Does either the Bolt or Path remove the Hushwing Gryff, so when the Eater of Days resolves the player loses two turns?

The opponent can use either spell to target Hushwing Gryff while Eater of Days is on the stack.  In this case,

The spell resolves first, removing Hushwing Gryff from the battlefield.
Eater of Days resolves, and as there is no Hushwing Gryff on the battlefield the caster of Eater of Days loses two turns.


Can you break up your own full set when playing a Forced Deal? If all you have is one complete, unbreakable set, can you play a forced deal? The question is whether your own forced deal can be used on your own set, since the card just says: "Swap any property with another player. (Cannot be part of a full set.)"

The card text, as you quote, does indeed unambiguously prohibit trading away a card from your own full set, yes.

You might conjecture that this was not intended, but as it stands (with no errata or contrary ruling from an official source), card text prohibits the trade.

That said, Monopoly Deal is a lighter game, so I would certainly go with what feels right (obvious designer intent) over a strict adherence to card text. Just make sure that everyone at the table knows what the rule is and is happy with the change.


Triominos “take from the well” rules At Triominos, when you decide to take from the well; but you have a tile that fits on your board, can you decide to use the tile that you already had and therefore skip the second (-5) and third (-5) time to pick from the well including the extra minus points (-10)  as punishment if you cannot place your third pick from the well?

You have play the triomino that you bought, you can't use the triomino that you already had.

From the rules:

  YOU HAVE NOT PUT DOWN A TRI-OMINO?

  If you cannot or do not want to put down a matching Tri-omino, you MUST 'buy' a Tri-omino. You may then play this 'bought' tile in the same turn. (emphasis mine)


Is there an Eldritch Horror variant for playing against two ancients at once? Has anyone tried modifying the rules of Eldritch Horror so you can play against two ancients at the same time? How was your experience?

Mysteries

Do I solve alternating or in parallel?

Mythos

Do I take a sum or average of myths cards? (Mythos Deck Composition)
Do I buy one or two Mythos Cards?

Doom Token

Greater, average or lower to start?

Handicap combos

Extra Action?
Bonus for tests?
Acquire bonus?

No playtesting yet, but I was thinking about such variant.
Some initial thoughts:

I would sum up the doom of both AOs. If this total drops to 0, both AO's awaken.
The two respective mythos decks are shuffled: First stage of 1st AO with 1st stage of 2nd AO, and so on.
Each AO has one active mystery. "Advance the mystery" effects allow you to advance the either of these, but not both at the same time.
When having a Research encounter, you may choose from which AO's deck you'll draw.

The biggest dilemma for me is how to treat Cultists.