Is it possible to lose Forbidden Island on the first turn? My first time playing this game last night.  My friend that was teaching me had only played a couple times.  Despite a quick rules reading we wanted to verify this sequence that happened to us.

After the board was laid out, we flipped 6 tiles, among them Fool's Landing.
I took my turn, but was unable to Shore Up the Fools's Landing
Waters Rise!
Fool's Landing is drawn and discarded.
We lost.

With a quarter of the land cards drawn to start the game this seems like it would be a fairly common occurrence.

Did we miss a rule somewhere?  Are there ways to ameliorate this?

Starting off with Fools' Landing being flooded is certainly a set-back, but all is not lost!

Naturally, due to its crucial nature, if Fools' Landing does become flooded, shoring it up becomes a top priority. Your first option is to immediately move adjacent to Fools' Landing, if you can, and use an action to shore up. Failing that, any player can play a 'Sandbags' card to shore it up as a free action.

If, sadly, you can't move that far and no-one has any sandbags in their starting hand (as can happen easily in a two player game) - Fools' Landing is left somewhat vulnerable to a Waters Rise card, but even then it's not guaranteed that Fools' Landing is re-drawn and sunk.

Fortunately, it's pretty rare that you start too far away and have no sandbags and Waters Rise and Fools Landing is drawn - but if it does happen, take solace that your end was a quick one, and hope for better fortune next time.


How 'hard' is a Mindslaver lock? This is a Mindslaver Lock.

Mindslaver controls an opponent's next turn — all actions and decision-making, short of conceding outright — completely.
Ten mana (produced by the double-tower "UrzaTron", in this example) is used to cast and activate Mindslaver.
Academy Ruins (and 1U to pay for the activation) is used to put Mindslaver back on top of the library, to be drawn and activated again next turn.
Since resetting Mindslaver costs a draw step, no additional win condition is necessary: you'll eventually just deck your opponent (similar to how Stasis decks operate).

This is one of the more powerful locks in competitive Magic (used in the Modern format, to be precise), since it denies your opponent the ability to attack, access their lands' mana, or cast any Sorcery-speed spells.

But how absolute of a lock is it, exactly?

Assuming the player who set up the Mindslaver lock is using all of their resources to maintain it (as shown in the graphic above), what recourse does the player under the lock have for escaping it once it's already in place?

The primary threat to the Mindslaver player is a free instant that cannot be wasted. The simplest example is if the opponent starts out with no cards in hand, and then draws Temporal Mastery followed by Force of Will, and they have fewer than 12 lands. The Mindslaver player cannot afford to give the opponent an extra turn outside of the lock, and they can't waste the spells by countering the Temporal Mastery with the Force of Will. But even if they tap all of the opponent's lands, the opponent can still counter the Mindslaver on the following turn, and spend at least one turn outside of the lock.

Here, you can replace Temporal Mastery with any blue spell that either has no legal targets during the opponent's turn or cannot be cast without severely damaging the lock. Alternatively, Force of Will can be replaced with another free counterspell such as Foil or Thwart. If the opponent is very lucky, they could even draw Commandeer and two blue spells that the Mindslaver player doesn't want cast. If the Mindslaver player is using all of their resources to maintain the lock, even Daze can break it. Even Pact of Negation would work, because the opponent would be able to choose to pay the cost on their turn.

Note that of the spells mentioned, only Commandeer and Pact of Negation are Modern legal (along with Temporal Mastery, but that's kind of tangential).


Can Wheel of Sun and Moon go into graveyard from play? If Wheel of Sun and Moon is destroyed – for instance by a disenchant – does it go into the graveyard, or at the bottom of your library?

First of all, you'd often put Wheel of Sun and Moon on your opponent, in which case there's nothing to worry about. It's only affecting cards that'd be put into their graveyard, and when it's destroyed it goes to yours.

A more likely similar example is Rest in Peace, which says "If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead." The Gatherer rulings mention exactly this scenario:

  If Rest in Peace is destroyed by a spell, Rest in Peace will be exiled and then the spell will be put into its owner's graveyard.

That said, Wheel of Sun and Moon behaves in the same way.  If for some reason you use it on yourself, and then destroy it, it will go to the bottom of your library.

Wheel of Sun and Moon creates a replacement effect, which applies as long as it's on the battlefield. When it would be destroyed (i.e. moved to the graveyard) it is still on the battlefield, so the replacement effect changes that to putting it on the bottom of your library.

It's only once it's left the battlefield that the replacement effect goes away, but by that time the effect has already been applied. Note that this means that, if you destroyed it with Disenchant, the Disenchant will go to your graveyard, because when you finish resolving the spell and move it from the stack to your graveyard, Wheel of Sun and Moon is now gone.


Can i search a copy of a card in the battlefield in my library? If i use a Cackling Counterpart to create a token of a creature, can i use cards targeting that token (like Pack Hunt) to search my library for that same creature cards?

When you create a copy of something you copy pretty much everything about it including its name [706.2.]. And Pack Hunt only needs a creature to target, it doesn't care if the creature is a token or a real card all it care about is that it is a creature. So Pack Hunt will happily find more of whatever creature you happened to copy.

If the created token isn't a copy, the effect that created the token gave it a name. This name is either specified explicitly by the instruction that created the token, or it defaults to the creature's type(s). This name will usually not be the name of the cards in your library, so you will generally not be able to find any matching cards. There are a few cards like Llanowar Mentor that makes tokens named Llanowar Elves so if you had a token made by the Mentor you could find cards named Llanowar Elves. There is also an odd case with Splintering Wind which makes tokens named Splinter, which would allow you to find the card Splinter even though it isn't a creature card.


Skills as a Victory Tie-Breaker How are skills counted for the victory condition?

The first tie-breaker for winning the game is the number of statuses each contested player possesses, followed second by how many skills they possess.  When counting skills for this reason, are skill tiles counted as 1 skill regardless of level (Talent vs. Mastery), or do Mastery skills count as 2 skills each (similarly to how they are most commonly gained by receiving a skill twice)?

Master level skills still count as one. The rules don't cover this directly. However, page 13 says:

  Certain paragraphs will instruct you to lose a particular skill. If you have that skill at the Talent level, put it back in the Skill Bank. If you have the skill at Master level, turn it back to its Talent side.

It seems fairly clear that a Master level skill still only counts as one skill. The rules have special cases throughout for how you handle gaining and losing skills at different levels, with the result being that you can only ever have one skill token for a particular skill you have.

In other words, for each skill, you either have it or you don't. This is true regardless of whether you have the skill at Master or Talent level.

As extra evidence, the game is designed so that you have only one skill token and flip it. If being a Master was equivalent to having the skill twice, you'd represent it by having the token twice instead of the token having two sides. As such, the game designer didn't consider this interpretation and so the rules don't cover it.


Why has Mass Driver been banned from play? Mass Driver:

  You can tribute 1 monster to deal 400 points of damage to your opponent's life points.

I can sort of see why this card has been banned, because it deals 400 for every monster you tribute. But however if you were reduce your opponent's life points to 0, you'd have to tribute 20 monsters. Even if you have a full field of 6 monsters that would only do 2400. And if you used Soul Charge (which is limited to one) you'd have to pay 6000 life points to revive every one you tribute. But even then you'd still only do 2400 more.

So basically, what has landed this card on the forbidden section of the Yu-Gi-Oh ban list?

Short Answer: Frogs. They even managed to become the 2010 World Champion Deck.

Longer Answer: It was banned because of its relatively easy abuse on OTK and FTK Burn decks, that focused on continuously summoning frogs to sacrifice them and drain your opponent's LP.

Basically it consisted on "dumping" as many frogs as you could to your graveyard with the help of Substitoad, so you could then bring Ronintoadin to the field easily with them, and Mass Drive the f*** out of your opponent.

The key parts of the combo were:

Have Substitoad and another monster to tribute on the field
Tribute that other monster to summon a frog from your deck, with the effect of Substitoad
Repeat step 2 with that summoned frog, untill all of them (at least 18 or 20 as you correctly pointed out) are in your graveyard.
You can then bring Ronintoading to the filed as many times as you want (removing a frog from your GV each time), then use Mass Driver with it until you win.

As you can see this was a really broken combo. It was even supported by cards like One for One, Double Summon (to put Substitoad and another monster on the same turn), etc., which were other reasons why this Deck and its variants became too strong, hence the main reason for banning of Mass Driver (Substitoad was also banned FYI).

We can see that in the current format, this card would still be quite strong, as you could well do 2000 LP damage if you Pendulum Summon 5 monsters and then tribute them. You can even tribute tokens. You can further combo it with cards like Dark Room of Nightmare, in which case it would even take less than 20 monsters tributed to win the game.

Edit: Another posible abuse that occurred me (in a more general sense) is that it enables you to "just" tribute a monster when you please and the times you please. Any "when sent to the graveyard..." effect can be triggered this way, as well as any "when this card is tributed...".

It would be a shame if your opponent takes control of a monster of yours, and after using his effects/stats against you, tributing it for another -400 while preventing you form getting it back.

Also, good bye any pesky Ojama Trio tokens, Flying "C" preventing your XYZ, or any other monster card you have that don't need on the field. You can also turn a Dandylion into 1200 Burn damage. As well as one of my favorites: Reborn Tengu.

This could also be helpful to, say, Hieratic Dragon decks. Another really broken example I can think of is to use it with a Qliphort Deck, which heavily benefits from tributing like Qliphort Carrier, and happens to follow a Pendulum strategy (swarm, Mass Drive, Qli effects + Damage,...,GG).

Any other you can come up with? I am sure we can think of many more possible uses. So definitely a card that could unbalance the game if left unrestricted.


What is the win ratio of spies and resistant in The Resistance? I have been playing that game for a while now (mostly the wikipedia version), and I have the impression that the game is extremely imbalanced. In my circle of friend, the win ratio is about 80% for the spies. Is there any statistical data that gives a broader win ratio?

This thread provides the statistics you seem to be looking for, but with anything, correlation never implies causation. The OP came to the conclusion that your commenters did; the game is fairly balanced, and you really do need to assess the playstyle and strategies of your gaming group. Thing is, the best part of the Resistance is after the game itself is over.


Victory point counting and Sanguinary Priests Up to 3 Sanguinary Priests (Blood Angel Codex) count as a single unit choice, but how must we count the victory points for killing them?
Do all 3 must be removed for it to count as 1 VP? Or do each causality count as a single VP?

I don't know about this, but I had a look around for you and found this: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/261515-sanguinary-priest-spam/

in it, Xenith states:

  Individual models are each a kill point. KP is not based upon how many
  force org slots are taken up.

  Case in point being dedicated transports.

  Sorry

Hope this helps :)


In King of Tokyo, how does Mecha Blast interact with High Altitude Bombing? King of Tokyo: Powerup has an evolution card for Meka Dragon called Mecha Blast that reads:

  Discard this Evolution to deal 2 extra damage.

There is also a discardable card from the main game called High Altitude Bombing which reads:

  All monsters (including you) take 3 damage.

Can Mecha Blast be played after/during High Altitude Bombing to make it do 5 damage instead of 3 to everyone?

If the card doesn't specify that the damage has to come from you it's not considered an "attack". The rules state

  If a card deals damage when purchased (like Gas Refinery), this is not
  considered an attack. Monsters cannot yield Tokyo based on this
  damage, and cards that affect attacks do not affect these cards.

Since the Mecha Blast evolution does not specify that it effects an attack and since the rules also state that you can use your evolution cards at any time, then you should be able to add 2 damage to any damage that was dealt. In this case 5 damage would be dealt to everyone, including you.

Keep in mind that you must be alive at the end of your turn in order to win.


Model Decks for Game of Thrones The Card Game? I've recently bought the game of thrones card game, and a group of friends and I enjoyed playing the core game so much we've bought all the basic house expansions.

I don't think any of our players are going to be that much into deck building, but I'd like to  make it so that we have a set of decks (Maybe two for each house) that can provide variety while being balanced.

We didn't mind playing with the decks that came with the game out of the box, but that doesn't incorporate houses Greyjoy or Martell, and when I was playing Martell last night I noticed that quite a few of the cards in the deck that comes out of the box weren't house Martell at all so I would have had to pay extra to play them. (I just unwrapped one of the 3 sets in the expansion because we wanted to get started ASAP.)

Are there any lists of Model decks for each house using the core cards and the cards in the house expansions?

I did a quick search and came up with two good resources for this. First, some general guidelines for building cohesive decks that can work from ElitistJerks.com. The article lays out quite a bit of good information about this process that will probably help in determining how to create your decks.

Second, I found a website where players can post decks they have built. Other players can then rate the decks so you could get a feel for what people think is good (although most decks seem to go unrated as of right now). Each deck page has a list of cards in it, the description and how it is suppose to play, and other statistics on deck composition. The site is divided into each of the six houses, along with a list for neutral decks. This seems to be the best list for what you're doing, since you can focus on one house list and then move to the next when you're done.


Can I mill an opponent who has Emrakul, the Aeons Torn by comboing until opponent's deck is stacked in an exact way? Let's say I'm running a mill deck. I have some kind of infinite mill combo ready and available (e.g. Semblance Anvil imprinting a creature, Myr Retriever and Grinding Station - this lets me sacrifice Myr Retriever to Grinding Station, retrieve another Myr Retriever, mill opponent for 3 cards, and cast a new Myr Retriever for free). However my opponent has two copies of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in his deck. Since Emrakul shuffles back in to the deck each time it's put into the graveyard, this means I can't actually mill him out.

However, through repeated use of the mill combo I can in principle 1) figure out every card in his deck, and then 2) mill him until the last three cards in his deck are Emrakul, Emrakul, and [irrelevant card] (I assume here the number of cards in opponent's deck before I start the mill combo is divisible by three). This means opponent must hard cast Emrakul to win, and I already know (e.g. via Thoughtseize) that he doesn't have the resources to do this. So I win anyway by milling in three turns.

This kill will take a long time to execute, for obvious reasons, because each time I mill an Emrakul it gets shuffled back into opponent's deck. I'll need the deck to be stacked in exactly such a way that the two Emrakuls + an irrelevant card are at the bottom of the deck. This will happen eventually, just probably not for a very long time.

Question: can I actually execute this kill in paper, or will standoff rules kick in first?

You are not allowed to execute this entire combo, either using a shortcut or playing it out explicitly.

You cannot execute this combo with a shortcut because of the way shortcuts are defined in rule 720.2a of the Taking Shortcuts rules section:

  At any point in the game, the player with priority may suggest a shortcut by describing a sequence of game choices, for all players, that may be legally taken based on the current game state and the predictable results of the sequence of choices. This sequence may be a non-repetitive series of choices, a loop that repeats a specified number of times, multiple loops, or nested loops, and may even cross multiple turns. It can't include conditional actions, where the outcome of a game event determines the next action a player takes. The ending point of this sequence must be a place where a player has priority, though it need not be the player proposing the shortcut.

In the combo you describe, you determine whether to continue or stop based on which cards, and how many, are still in the deck. That in turn depends on when exactly the Emrakuls got milled and their abilities triggered, which means that your actions would fundamentally depend on those game events, making this an invalid shortcut. You can see a ruling here about a different combo that also involves an indeterminate amount of shuffling.

You also cannot execute this combo without using a shortcut. A fundamentally identical combo exists in the deck Four Horsemen, which involves milling its own library including Emrakul in order to eventually end up with a particular sequence of cards in the graveyard and the library. Previous rulings have established that this combo is slow play and it should not be played in tournaments. The basic reason for this is that the combo can take unbounded time to complete, and every time you shuffle Emrakul in you are starting all over without making any meaningful progress.


Ordering of triggered ability and ETB effect Suppose I have a Rhonas's Monument and a 1/1 creature token on the field and I play an Ornery Kudu, putting the -1/-1 counter on the token and giving it +2/+2 via the Monument trigger. Does the token die immediately, or can I choose to apply the monument first so that the token lasts until end of turn (as a 2/2)?

You have no choice: you must apply the monument ability first (and so the token will survive). This is because the monument ability triggers when you cast Ornery Kudu, and will resolve before Kudu can actually enter the battlefield at all to trigger its own ability.

If you do have two triggered abilities that trigger at the same time however, you do get to choose the order they'll resolve.


Do the sides reveal their goals when the haunt begins? On Betrayal at House on Hill, once haunt is revealed and everyone knows their parts do both sides then reveal what their ultimate goal is? Such as I , the traitor, have to release a demon and kill you all.  And do the players then say ok well we have to collect this item and do this to win?

When the haunt starts the new rules are only known by the side that they are for and not everyone.

The traitor generally leaves the room to read the rules that apply to them and it will give them some idea of what they need to do to win and what their former friends are going to do. At the same time the rest of the group will read their rules and it will give them some idea of what they need to do to win and what the traitor is doing.

The only time this changes is when a haunt lets a traitor convert other players then that player will also get to read the traitor rules and they will now know both sets of rules.


How long can the spells exiled with Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast be cast? The question is simple when does a creature exiled by Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's first ability lose "You may cast this card from exile as long as you control a Lukka planeswalker" ability? Is it when it is cast from exile? Is it when it gets put back in exile? Or is it when the game is over? On the off chance it is the last one then one could recycle a creature like "Farfinder" if it was one of the creatures marked by Lukka's first ability, right?
The thing tripping me up is that normally cards that give abilities like this state something like "until end of turn" or "until the beginning of your next upkeep" but this one doesn't which is throwing me off and making me feel like it must be something or that it must be affected by a rule I am that is along the lines of one that states something along the lines of "...when a card changes zones it is treat as a new copy of the same card...".

You can cast a card exiled with Lukka until the end of the game, but only once. As soon as you cast the card (or it leaves exile for any other reason), it loses that effect.
Lukka's ability creates a continuous effect that modifies the game rules for the creature cards it exiles. As you noted, it has no duration, so it lasts until the end of the game.

611.2a A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability lasts as long as stated by the spell or ability creating it (such as “until end of turn”). If no duration is stated, it lasts until the end of the game.

However, once you do cast one of these cards, it moves from exile to the stack. In that moment, it becomes a new object that no longer has that ability:

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

Likewise, if that creature is later exiled through other means, for example Eat to Extinction, it will again become a new object, and you cannot cast it again through Lukka even though it is exiled.


Can I pay kicker on a creature put into play with Kaalia's ability? I've attacked with Kaalia of the Vast and I decide to use her triggered ability to put Desolation Angel onto the battlefield. Do I get the opportunity to pay for the kicker and destroy my opponents lands? Or does it come into play and blow up my own lands?

Kicker is an additional cost that can be paid as you're casting a spell, which you an see from the reminder text on Desolation Angel:

  Kicker {W}{W} (You may pay an additional {W}{W} as you cast this spell.)

You can only pay it when you're casting Desolation Angel. If it's being put directly onto the battlefield, like with Kaalia's ability, it's not being cast, so you can't pay the kicker cost, and it'll destroy only your lands.


What kind of mechanics can make MTG fun for my opponents? I'm looking for a way to build an EDH deck that makes sure my opponents have fun while playing against me. In other words I'm less concerned with winning than with doing fun/creative/interesting things with my deck. I want the group to say "Wow, that's cool". I've never tried to build a non-competitive deck that focuses on something other than winning. So what are some mechanics that would be considered fun by the opponents?

This isn't mechanics specific, but theming is a good way to go. Themes can be based on Magic blocks with poor synergy or underpowered mechanics, like Kamigawa block (which likely will just make people laugh), or themes can be pulled from outside of the game, like trying to make a Lion King themed deck (or something else you like). Themes limit your options while being interesting to watch, especially if other players know the theme. Half the fun of out of Magic themes is in players trying to guess how specific cards fit into the theme.

As an example, I'm currently working on an Apocolypse deck (not the block, the out of Magic concept). The commander will be  Child of Alara, with the four horsemen of the apocalypse as  Iroas, God of Victory (War),  Mogis, God of Slaughter (Death),  Phiraka, God of Affliction (Pestilence), and  Phenax, God of Deception (Famine). After getting these five cards set, the next step of the deck was to find cards that included the name of the four horsemen, so things like  Sudden Death and  War Elemental. This doesn't quite fill up the deck, especially if you're avoided hated cards like  Death Cloud, so the rest of the deck is made up of mechanics that fit the four horsemen's mechanics. This included some mill for Famine, like  Glimpse the Unthinkable, and some extra sacrifice for Death like  Cruel Edict.

What you'll notice is that this deck isn't very synergistic and it will play differently every game. Competitive decks are tuned to play identically every time even though you only have 1 of every card. The theming will take away that consistency and will be fun to watch. And generally, you're going to have to put a decent amount of thought into the cards in a theme deck to make sure you're staying on theme, so it's going to take as much thought to produce as a well-tuned competitive deck. This process has the added benefit of causing you to think about Magic in a way you wouldn't normally, and maybe you'll find some playstyle or set of interactions you hadn't ever done before.


MTG Arena: Enter battlefield ability denied by killing the creature causing it? I played Acquisitions Expert in MTG Arena. My opponent reacted with Stomp adventure of Bonecrusher Giant and killed the Acquisitions Expert. Even though I saw my Acquisitions Expert's ability still being on the stack after Stomp resolved, Acquisitions Expert's ability did not resolve and opponent did not have to discard a card. Why did this happen? I just can't figure it out.

It should have resolved. But a crucial part of that would be knowing how many creatures were in your party when it resolved. If the Acquisitions Expert was the only one and was dead when the ability resolved, the ability won't do anything useful (reveal 0 cards and discard 1 out of 0 cards means discard nothing).


Agricola question about minor improvement and occupation cards Every time I want to play a minor improvement or occupation do I need to pay what is on the top right hand side every time i play that card? or is it just one time pay and then i can use it for the rest of the game?

You pay the cost a single time when you play the card. That is, you take an action that allows you to play an occupation or minor improvement, pay the cost, take the card from your (secret) hand and put it face up on the table.

Note that in your question, you seem to have conflated "play the card" and "use the card". In the rules, "play" is used as I have used it: playing the card from your hand. If you later use the card (i.e. take advantage of it) you're not playing it. You might have less confusion if you think of subsequent use of the card as using it, not playing it.

In any case, once you've paid and played the card, you're done paying. The card likely has some kind of ongoing benefit, and you don't have to pay again to get that benefit. For example, once you've played Field Watchman, which lets you plow a field when you take a grain, you get that field plowed for free whenever you take a grain.

To make this feel really obvious, just look at the major improvements. You definitely don't have to spend clay every time you want to use your fireplace!


Can I delay the $200 to avoid paying some of my taxes? Say you pass go in Monopoly and you land on a property stating to pay 10% of your entire bank. Is it against the rules to not pick up the $200 from passing go until after you pay the 10%?

You will get your $200 before paying the tax.

From the the rules:

  Each time a player's token lands on or passes over GO, whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card, the Banker pays himther a $200 salary.

So the $200 comes as a result of passing over Go, technically you would have that money before you even get to your final landing space of Income Tax.

Note that this is not really a question of cheating. Generally cheating means to intentionally break the rules to gain an advantage. If someone thought that you were not supposed to get the $200 until after you paid the tax, they would be playing incorrectly. But it would only be cheating if other payers were playing correctly and a player purposely paid too little tax.


Tony Morgan: Bounty Contracts during Setup During setup of the adventure my group was doing (Night of the Zealot II) caused several cultists to be placed on the map. Am I allowed to place bounties on them as a result of them "entering play" or am I not yet in play (and therefor Bounty Contacts isn't in play in order to trigger)?

Yes, you should be able to place bounties on enemies during setup

Setup instructions from Rules Reference, p.27 (Leaving out some unrelevant parts):

  Choose investigators. Each player chooses a different investigator,    and places that investigator’s card in his or her
  play area.

  2-3. [...]

  Assemble and shuffle the investigator decks.

  5-6. [...]

  Collect starting resources. Each investigator gains
  5 resources from the token pool.

  Draw opening hands. Each player draws 5 cards. Each player, in player order, may mulligan once at this time.  =Each weakness card
  drawn during this step is ignored, set aside (without resolving it),
  and replaced by drawing another card from the  deck. Upon completion
  of this step, shuffle each of these weakness  cards back into its
  owner’s deck.

  Read the scenario introduction in the campaign guide.

  Perform the scenario setup instructions indicated by the campaign guide. This includes gathering the encounter sets listed in
  the setup  instructions in the campaign guide, placing locations,
  placing  investigator mini cards at the location each investigator
  begins play  at, setting aside any listed cards, and shuffling
  remaining encounter  cards together to form the encounter deck.

  11-13. [...]

Now, rules for Permanent cards (RR p.16):

  Permanent is a deckbuilding keyword ability.

  A card with the permanent keyword does not count towards your deck size.
  A card with the permanent keyword still counts as being    part of your deck and must therefore adhere to all other deckbuilding
  restrictions.
  A card with the permanent keyword starts each game    in play and is not shuffled into your investigator deck during setup.
  A card with the permanent keyword cannot be discarded by any means.

And let's look at Stick to the Plan

  Permanent. Exceptional.

  Before you draw your opening hand: Search
  your deck for up to 3 different Tactic and/or Supply events, and
  attach them to Stick to the Plan. Shuffle your deck....[Continues]

and Indebted

  Permanent.

  You start each game with 2 fewer resources.

This implies that SttP and Indebted must be in play by 8th and 7th step of setup (since permanents are considered part of the deck, I believe they actually come into play during step 4); scenario setup happens during step 10, Bounty Contracts is a Permanent and already in play by then.


Can I trade a resource for a development card? Is it legal to trade resources for development cards another player is holding in hand?

No it is not. Development cards cannot be traded at all.

From the rules, page 7:

  You cannot trade or give away Development Cards.


Can I use a Planeswalker's ability when I took over its control this turn? My opponent controls a Planeswalker and uses its ability. End of turn.
I play In Bolas's Clutches and target that Planeswalker. It comes under my control (right?).
Can I now use this Planeswalker's ability or do I have to wait another "round" because its ability was already used this  "round" by my opponent? (by "round" I mean two turns)

  In Bolas's Clutches

  Types: Legendary Enchantment — Aura Card
  Text: Enchant permanent / You control enchanted permanent. / Enchanted permanent is legendary.

You may use one of the planeswalker's abilities during your turn.

In Bolas's Clutches does indeed allow you to control planeswalkers, and each player's turn counts separately. If your opponent ended their turn, your turn is separate from that, those two turns do not count as the same turn.

  606.3. A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent they control any time they have priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of their turn, but only if no player has previously activated a loyalty ability of that permanent that turn.

Please note that the game structure doesn't have a concept of "rounds". In order of decreasing scope, the structure of MtG is as follows:

Tournament (a series of matches)
Match (series of games)
Game (series of turns)
Turn (series of phases)
Phase (series of steps)
Step (some phases don't have steps)


Computer engines that play Mancala Are there any available computer engines that play the game Mancala? I know that there are many versions of the game but it would be interesting to know if there are computer engines that play the game, whether through AI or some form of alpha-beta pruning.

Note that this is different from the other question based on Mangala. I am asking specifically on the game of Mancala, not Mangala. As a result I am not sure why this question was flagged as a duplicate.

The Mancala variant Oware was strongly solved in 2002. This basically means they have a database with the best move and outcome of all possible positions in the game. The researchers made their database available via a Java applet, but unfortunately, it's offline now.


Do all expansions have to be bought in pairs to maintain playability for 3-4 players? I've read that Arkham Horror the Card Game can support 3-4 players if you purchase an additional copy, but does this mean that to continue to play with 3-4 players, every expansion would need to be purchased twice (including the mythos packs as well)?

Not necessarily. Post the core-set, expansions will be divided into scenario/encounter cards, and player cards. You only need one set of the scenario/encounter cards per play group; however, the expansions will only come with 1 playset of each player card.

So, if a new player card comes out and you and your friend both want to run a full playset of it, you'll need two copies of the expansion. But if you can play around that, you only need one.


May I choose a planet to attack in an opposing system where I already have tokens? Attacking a planet where you already have tokens would ordinarily make no sense, but I saw a player forced to do so recently because they already had tokens on all 4 planets (the 5th had earlier been blown up).

We did not see anything specifically prohibiting this in the rules, and we looked a little online, but could find nothing. So we decided that the player must choose a planet to attack, and if the defending player had no tokens there then the defender would have to defend with zero tokens, as usual. Winning obviously didn't help the player on offense, but the attack had to happen.

Is this the correct interpretation of the rules, or is a redraw of the destiny pile permitted in situations like this?

In this particular scenario, the player who was forced to attack under these unfavorable circumstances likely would have won if not forced to attack a system where gaining a base was impossible.

You played this correctly.

The only rule explicitly stating that the offense gets to change their Destiny card is when they draw their own system. The rule book is also explicit that the defending player must still defend, but with 0 ships (on page 12):

  As stated earlier, if a player has no colony on a home planet that he or she is defending, the player defends the planet normally except that his or her ship count is zero.

This section covers your problem. The offense drew a system where the defense had no colonies, so the offense picks a planet and attacks normally. The player whose home system is being attacked still gets to defend, but with 0 ships.


When does Urbanization occur in Age of Steam I am second in turn order, I select Urbanization.  Do I place the city at the start of my build track phase or before the first person who builds track?

You place the new city as your first action during your Build Track phase.

On page 2 of the rules

  Urbanization action:

  Implemented during the Build Track phase.  This action allows this player to place one of the New City tiles on a Town before they build their track.

This is from the Warfrog edition (2002).  It seems the rules haven't changed much at all despite the plethora of editions.


Do I "control" creatures in my graveyard? Cloudshift has

  Exile target creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under your control.

Are creatures already in my graveyard still under my control? Can I return one of them to the battlefield?

(No, I don't think that one answers my question. It's not "permanent", but "creature you control")

Rule 109.2 says

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

In its targetting clause, Cloudshift says "creature" without any of the specified words, so it's referring to a creature permanent on the battlefield.

In general, you don't control anything in the graveyard. Rule 109.4 says

  Only objects on the stack or on the battlefield have a controller. Objects that are neither on the stack nor on the battlefield aren't controlled by any player.

Effects that deal with cards in the graveyard would refer to their owner.


Do reserved cards get returned when gold token is spent? I am playing with my son and he reserves a card I wanted and gets a gold token. On his next turn he buys another card and uses the Gold token in his purchase.

What happens to the reserved card?  He now has no gold token, a card I want in reserve.

Does the reserved card get brought back in to the game?

From the rules here

  The reserved cards are kept in hand and cannot be discarded.
  Players may not have more than three reserved cards in hand,
  and the only way to get rid of a card is to buy it (see below).

and

  To purchase a card, a player must spend the number of
  tokens indicated on the card. A joker token can replace any
  color. The spent tokens (including any jokers) are returned to
  the middle of the table.
  A player may purchase one of the face-up development
  cards in the middle of the table or a card in his hand that was
  reserved on a previous turn.

It's entirely legitimate to reserve a card another player might want as long as they don't exceed the 3 card hand limit.

The rules do NOT say they gold token has to be used to purchase the reserved card.  The rules make it clear a reserved card can not be discarded.  The rules state nothing rules about it returning to the stacks at any point.


How can I make alternative characters for BatHotH? The people who I play Betrayal at the House on the Hill with are also the same groups that share my love of Supernatural. We'd love to make some Dean, Sam and John Winchester characters as well as some for Bobby, Jo etc...

How can I best do this? I found this article on Board Game Geek but it doesn't give me much of an idea as to how to make them on the pentagons (one aspect of the game I find very cool), just on how to replace the current ones with cards and paper clips (ugh!).

Is there a website/service where I can print cards or some such?

Getting custom printing of arbitrary shapes on arbitrary materials is hard to do, even in this internet age of CafePress and print-on-demand book publishing.

One thing that's easy, though, is making custom stickers: go and Google "sticker maker", and it will show you sticker-making machines. Those machines take any shape of cut-out paper, and make the back sticky. Print out your own custom character card with your favorite image-editing software (possibly scanning in the Betrayal at House on the Hill character boards first for a template?), cut it into a pentagon, cut out a pentagon of tagboard, then use the sticker-maker to make your print sticky and stick it to the tagboard. (For a better fit, make the sticker bigger than it needs to be, and don't cut the tagboard until you've put the sticker on it.)

This is morally equivalent to getting a Glue Stick and making the sticker yourself, but I've found that the glue in sticker makers is generally better than glue sticks, and sticker makers will apply the glue precisely to the edge of the paper. Depending on exactly what thickness of tagboard you find in your local art supply shop, you may need to layer them to get the right thickness for the clips that come with Betrayal at House on the Hill.


Can you removed crossfire cards in Extraction? The Crossfire mission allows players to remove crossfire cards when defeating all enemies and thus ending the scene. Does Extraction ever allow the removal of any crossfire cards?

No, in the extraction mission there is no way for a crossfire card to be removed. In all missions it will be clearly spelled out in the rules when a card can be removed. Part of the difficulty of an extraction mission is the ever increasing crossfire level which is balanced by the fact that you do not need to defeat all obstacles just survive for seven rounds.


Do scope take up a slot after being combined with a gun? I have recently began playing Zombicide and started with season 3.

There is a 'Scope' which can be combine with 'Rifle' to make a sniper rifle. No question about the effect of the weapon, just the number of slots it requires to carry or equip.

There is a molotov which works on a similar principle, combining 'Gasoline' and 'Glass Bottle', but there is a 'Molotov' card which you replace the combination with and it'll take up only 1 slot.

However even after being combined the sniper rifle is technically a 'Rifle' with a 'Scope', so should it take up 1 or 2 slots?

If it takes up 2 slots, does the Scope need to be on the other hand or can it be carried and still be in effect like 'Plenty of Ammo'?

No, if the scope is combined with the gun, it counts as one card.
You can see this in the rules:

  Specific  Equipment  cards  can  be  combined  to  build  im-proved
  weaponry.  Take  the  two  appropriate  cards,  which  must  be
  already  stored  in  the  Survivor’s  inventory,  and  combine them
  into the new weapon. This does not cost an Action, and the new weapon
  takes only a single slot in your Survivor’s inventory. When built,
  Survivors may immediately and freely equip improved weapons to their
  hands.

  Sniper Rifle: Combine a Rifle and a Scope to get a sniper rifle. Put
  the Scope card under the Rifle card. Now you can choose your targets
  when firing with this Rifle


In Backgammon, when can the dice be doubled? I basically understand the principle of doubling: using the doubling cube to double the stakes of the current game. I'm not sure when the dice rolled can be double for 4 moves. Is that only when the doubling cube is used? Or can it be done any time within a game?
Many thanks!

I think you are confusing two uses of the word double.  If you roll doubles (e.g both dice show 3) you move not two but four counters three spaces ('Movement, 3' here).

You can also use the doubling die to increase the stakes at certain times; this has no effect on the game unless your opponent chooses to resign the game rather than play for (and lose) the higher stakes( 'Doubling').


Does Gleam of Authority care if a creature gains extra counters? The rules text on Gleam of Authority is as follows:

  Enchant creature

  Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each +1/+1 counter on other creatures you control.

  Enchanted creature has vigilance and "{W}, {T}: Bolster 1."

If a creature were to gain more counters, would that enchantment also raise in power as well or just stay as it originally was?

Yes, the enchanted creature would grow more powerful.
From the Comprehensive Rules:

604.1. Static abilities do something all the time rather than being activated or triggered. They are written as statements, and they’re simply true.
611.3a A continuous effect generated by a static ability isn’t “locked in”; it applies at any given moment to whatever its text indicates.


Munchkin Booty Ships are 'items', but are Ship Enhancers permanently bound to the ship? According to the rule book:

Ships are Items, and follow normal Item rules.
There are also a few Items that specifically enhance Ships.
A Ship with an Enhancer has the Enhancer’s gold value added to its own.
Enhancers cannot be moved between Ships.

Reading this, I would expect enhancers to be permanently attached to the ship. So if the ship is stolen, the enhancers are also stolen with it. Also, enhancers cannot be stolen off the ship separately, as that would a) have no point (rule #4) and b) have their value now attached to the ship (rule #3).

Is that a correct read?

As Ships are big items, they cannot be stolen by any version of the rules I am familiar with (from Ships on page 5):

  The “Big” designation on Ships is to control
  what Traps and Curses affect them, and to keep Thieves in a
  blender game from pocketing them and walking off.

While I cannot find a specific rule or faq to verify it, my interpretation of the second query is the same as yours, for the same reason, as items that are ship enhancers have this text on them:

  enhancers cannot be stolen off the ship separately; ...

However, it is less clear to me whether ordinary item enhancers must obey the same rule. They do not have the standard text for steed/ship enhancers (from Ships on *page 5):

  ...; it follows the Steed[/Ship] if it is lost, stolen or discarded

In the absence of a FAQ stating otherwise, I would apply the same rule as for ship enhancers on the basis that the common text above from Steed/Ship Enhancers does not say "this enhancer"; it says the far more general "enhancers".


Female Go champions? Has there ever been a female European, East Asian, or other regional Go champion (or, before these titles existed, any woman who was widely regarded as the best Go player in her community or region)?
In particular, I'm asking about women who won games against male Go players; not about women who won games against other women.
If the answer is "No", it would also help me to learn from authoritative sources about how the best female Go players compare in quantitative rankings against the best male Go players.

Rui Naiwei has won the Guksu (the 43rd open Guksu title in South Korea, 1999) and the Maxim Cup (2004).
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rui_Naiwei
As for comparitive rankings, this article from 2016 may be of interest to you.

AlphaGo’s win makes it the only non-male player in the top 75 world rankings. Yu, the first woman, is number 79, as of Friday.

It also includes this insight:

Most matches are divided by gender, so women at the top of the game don’t get to play at a level that seriously stretches their abilities.


When should I add cards whose primary feature is drawing more cards to my MTG deck? It seems like cards that are based around scrying and drawing additional cards would be a nice addition to any deck. But what decks do they really shine in and what decks can safely forgo them? It seems like scrying cards would be better for combo decks where you really need to draw a specific card, whereas drawing cards would be good in almost any deck that could afford them. Of course, they don't actually do anything to help you win on their own, so you would need to carefully consider how they affected your actual strategy.

What decks should and shouldn't have cards that give no benefit other than card drawing? How can I tell if a scrying card would be better than a drawing card and vice-versa? What decks are card-drawing cards best and worst in?

This goes with my similar question about life gain cards.

Cards in hand are options. Having more cards in hand gives you more options. Having the right cards in hand gives you better options.

Card filtering (of which scry cards are a subset) is good any time you want a specific card. Your intuition about combo decks is correct, but it doesn't stop there. Consider a control deck that uses a mixture of counterspells, spot removal, and board wipes, for instance: if your opponent's about to burn you out, you need a counter; if your opponent dropped a Titan or a planeswalker you'll want spot removal ASAP (and it has to be the right kind, too); if your opponent has two Dungrove Elders or an army of Spirit tokens beating you down you'll want that sweeper. Card filtering makes it easier to have all of those when you need them; this is especially valuable with very specific hosers you keep in your sideboard.

Card draw implicitly has all the same benefits as card filtering (since you're likewise digging faster through your deck) but also gives you card advantage. Card advantage almost always matters. Any time you're actually going to get to play most of your hand before the game ends, card advantage will make a difference; if you're playing against, say, a very fast red deck that just throws its resources away to try to kill you as quickly as possible, then the loss of tempo from casting a card-draw spell might not be worth the benefit of extra cards in hand.

There's a third class of cards it's worth thinking about in the same discussion: cards that search your whole deck, also known as "tutors". Card-filtering cards conceptually occupy a middle ground between pure card draw and tutors; they're appealing because many decks have several cards which can acceptably answer a problem, and being able to dig up an acceptable card cheaply and quickly is often regarded as more valuable than finding just the right card at too high a cost or a turn too late.

The main price of all these advantages is tempo. Any time you're spending a turn's mana on something that doesn't immediately affect the board state, you're potentially losing ground to your opponent(s). Hand-sculpting is all about giving up something now to get a better hand for next turn. The decks that use it best are either those that can devalue tempo (using control techniques) or those that are willing to throw everything away to improve their next turn. That said, any time a duel comes down to attrition of cards in hand, card draw can power you through a finish -- every deck wants card draw as long as it can afford to pay the price (which is why, in its day, Skullclamp was all over aggro decks).

When weighing the value of different get-more-cards cards, pay attention to spell types and casting costs. Reactive decks are much better off with Instant-speed card draw/filtering, because being able to play your hand-sculpting cards on your opponent's end step allows you to keep mana open for responses during your opponent's turn. You also want spells that fit nicely into your mana curve -- ideally, ones you can cast before you'd be casting whatever it is you'd usually dig for, so they're not slowing you down. It's reasonable to run a few big splashy high-cost card draw cards to help you lock up the late game (Consecrated Sphinx or Blue Sun's Zenith, for instance), but card filtering is generally best on little cards you can use early to find what you need.

The other thing you should be on the lookout for is hand-sculpting cards with convenient side-effects. Forbidden Alchemy, for instance, dumps three cards into your graveyard -- to some decks, that's like three extra cards in hand. Brainstorm is a powerhouse in any Legacy deck that plays blue, but also powers up cards that interact with the top card of your library, like Counterbalance or Delver of Secrets. Preordain not only allowed Pyromancer Ascension decks to search for cards to trigger their combo but also served as a worthwhile trigger itself. Tezzeret's Gambit is choice card draw for decks obsessed with +1/+1 counters, poison counters, or planeswalker loyalty counters.


Do Crawlers get an extra activation, when all figures are in play and attack on Skinner has a 1? In Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue, you have Skinner zombies that turn to Crawlers, if the attack that would have killed them had a 1 in any of the dice.

However, if the Crawler can't be added, since all the figures are already in play, do the Crawlers get an extra activation as per the usual spawning rules? Or is this an exception, like splitting?

The rulebook of the Rue Morgue expansion, at page 25, includes crawlers in the extra activation rule when running out of miniatures.

The Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue box contains enough Zombies to invade a city. However, players may still run out of miniatures of the indicated type when required to place a Zombie  on  the  board  through  spawning (including  Crawler spawning!) or populating a building. In this case, the remaining Zombies  miniatures  are  placed  (if  there  are  any),  and then  all Zombies  of  the  indicated  type  immediately  resolve an extra Activation.

A few pages before, on page 12, the rulebook uses Crawler Spawning to refer the way Crawlers appear when killing Skinner zombies rolling "1s".

1 – Crawlers can appear each time Skinners are eliminated. After removing Skinner Zombies, whatever the type (Walker, Fatty,  or  Runner), and earning  experience points for the kill(s), add a Crawler for each “1” rolled on the attack roll. If you own Zombicide-themed dice, the “1” is replaced with a Zombie head. Read only the dice results: the +1 to dice roll Skills have no effect on Crawler spawning.

So crawler spawning refers to this way of adding figures. Anyway, when adding them through the bed card, extra activation rule activates too, as it's said in page 25, right above the "Running out of miniatures" section.


Are double rolls added when you land on the utilities? If you own both utilities and your opponent throws 1/2/3 doubles do they pay 10 times the total on all the throws or just the last throw.

Just the last throw, as shown on the deed card:

  If one "Utility" is owned rent is 4 times amount shown on dice. If both "Utilities" are owned rent is 10 times amount shown on dice.

"amount shown on dice", not "amount of all rolls this turn."

This is further reinforced on the Wiki:

  If ONE Utility is owned, rent is 4x the number on the dice which landed the player on the utility, but if BOTH Utilities are owned, rent is 10x the amount shown on the dice.

(and with the analysis that the rent paid if both are owned averages to $70 , also given on that wiki page).


What is the most balanced/competitive character set in Citadels? In Citadels, most versions that are currently available for sale also include the Dark City expansion.  Since those extra characters are available, what arrangement of characters do you find the most balanced and competitive?
Please clarify your response by indicating why you've chosen to add or remove these particular characters to balance gameplay.

I've found the default characters are the most balanced set of characters.  While I haven't played with all of the extra characters, some of them significantly change how the game plays.  Bruno Faidutti, the creator of Citadels, says he prefers the default characters on the game's Rules FAQ on his website.  Quote:

  Q: What is your favorite character mix?

  A:
  The 8 basic characters, plus the Queen or the Artist when playing with 6 or 7 players.

  Q: What's the best character mix?

  A:
  Many players prefer the Witch over the Assassin, but I disagree. The Assassin is simpler and naughtier. I prefer the original set, sometimes with adding the Queen, and sometimes with replacing the Merchant with the Alchemist.

For the extra characters I have played with, I have a few impressions I can share with you.

Tax Collector:  I found without the threat of the thief, people started hoarding money.  This reduces some of the tension in the game.  Since players can't get robbed, they can save to build up to build the most expensive district.  Players were also careful to not have money to pay the tax collector after building.

Emperor: Since you can no longer take the crown for yourself, most people gave the crown to the player to their right.  This gave them a better choice of cards in the next character draft, while benefiting the player to the right.  The Emperor does make it fairer though how the crown is distributed, but it's also the only character ability the benefits someone else in the game.

Alchemist: The ability to get all your gold back you spend is great, but the Alchemist replaces the Merchant.  Since the Merchant can tax green properties and the Alchemist can't, this makes green districts the most worthless ones in the deck.  They can't be taxed and provide no special benefit.  Green also happens to be the most common color in the district deck

Finally while i haven't played with it, the Diplomat seems to be one of the most powerful characters in the game.  It will definitely change the dynamic of the game and make it harder to hold onto powerful purple districts.  That doesn't mean that any of these characters are bad, and the opportunity to try them out was a bad inclusion in the game.  I just think the default set of characters is the most balanced.


Smash Up Question about Werewolves LET THE DOG OUT

  Destroy any number of minions at your minion's base whose total power is less than or equal to your minion's power.

Is this referring to the total power of all minions that are to be destroyed or is it referring to the total power of each individual minion to be destroyed?

If my minion is worth 6, does that mean I can destroy all minions who have power of 6 or less? Or am I only able to destroy a grand total of 6, such as a 4-minion plus a 2-minion?

The total power of a set of minions is the sum of their powers.

If your minion has a power of 6, you could destroy a minion of power 4 and a minion of power 2, but you could not destroy a minion of power 4 and a minion of power 3.

To get the other meaning, it would be phrased the same except for the removal of the word "total".


What if the queen is pocketed along with all remaining carrommen? Whilst playing carrom, if only one piece is remaining of each player, e.g. one white and one black and a queen, and I pot a queen, what happens in the following scenario:

While covering the queen with my piece, mistakenly I cover both the remaining pieces, and now there are no pieces on board.

In such a case, who wins the game?

You win and are awarded 3 points (or 1 point if the score is 22+)

This can be verified on the International Carrom Federation rule book, as long as you made a proper stroke.

  a) While covering the Queen a player pockets the last C/m of his own together with the last C/m of his opponent by a proper stroke, he shall be awarded 3 points. If the score is 22 or more he shall win by 1 point.

  b) While covering the Queen, if a player pockets the last C/m of his own together with the last C/m of his opponent by an improper stroke the opponent shall win by three points. If the score is 22 or more he shall win by one point. if demanded, an additional point for the improper stroke shall be awarded to the opponent.

This is of course assuming that you didn't pocket the Striker as well. In that case you lose.

  a) If a player pockets the Queen, his last C/m, the last C/m of his opponent by a proper stroke together with the Striker, the player shall lose the Board by 3 points. If the score of the opponent is 22 or more, he shall lose by one point. One additional point for the pocketed striker shall be awarded, if demanded by the opponent.

  b) ...improper stroke...


Athreos, God of Passage, and Martyr of Sands My opponent has Athreos, God of Passage on the field.  They then play Martyr of Sands and use her ability "{1}, Reveal X white cards from your hand, Sacrifice Martyr of Sands: You gain three times X life."  They sacrifice the Martyr, triggering Athreos's ability.  I choose not to pay 3 life, and they return the Martyr to their hand.

Does my opponent still gain life even though Martyr of Sands isn't in the graveyard as her ability resolves?

Your opponent does still gain the life. Nothing in the ability says that the Martyr has to be in their graveyard to gain the life. The sacrifice cost was paid, and once the ability was on the stack, it existed independent of the creature card (CR 112.7a).


Sequence of turns after two Emrakul, the Promised End Player A and Player B both have an Emrakul, the Promised End and Player A casts his Emrakul and on Player B's turn, that he now controls, casts Player B's Emrakul. Does Player B get to control Player A's turn or not as the card states "When you cast Emrakul, you gain control of target opponent during that player's next turn". Who is you in this case? And what would the sequence of the following turns be?

Player B will control Player A's turn.
The sequence is:

Turn 1 (A): A casts Emrakul, the Promised End.

Turn 2 (B): A controls B and casts B's Emrakul, the Promised End

Turn 3 (B extra): B can do whatever he wants.

Turn 4 (A): B controls A's turn.

Turn 5 (A extra): A can do whatever he wants.

Turn 6 (B): The game progresses as normal.

Player A is not Player B. Player A and B are always opponents of each other, no matter who controls whose turn. If A makes the decision for B to cast Emrakul, the Promised End, it's as if B had cast it himself for the purposes of "you" or "your opponent" in the card text of cards. Controlling another player only means that you make the game decisions for that player and use his or her resources:

712.3. Only control of the player changes. All objects are controlled by their normal controllers. A player who’s being controlled during his or her turn is still the active player.
712.5. While controlling another player, a player makes all choices and decisions the controlled player is allowed to make or is told to make by the rules or by any objects. This includes choices and decisions about what to play, and choices and decisions called for by spells and abilities.


In Descent, can you make an attack without an implement? In Descent each character has a number of dice representing their skill with melee, ranged, or magic.  There are also dice added for their weapons.

Can a character attack without a weapon?  Are there any special rules for this?

Yes, a character can attack unarmed.  "If a hero attacks without a weapon, he attacks with his fists.  This is a melee attack that grants one red die and has no special abilities."  (Descent rules, p19.)  So it's a base melee attack using the minimum melee dice - the red plus however many black.

Ranged and Magic attacks cannot be made without a weapon.

If you want to house-rule allowing weaponless attacks of all three kinds, I would argue strongly in favour of using the base red (melee), blue (range) or white (magic) die as well as the black; this is the basic die used for all weapons of that type and is important for game design in distinguishing the range/damage properties of each attack type.  These basic attack dice also carry the important one-in-six automatic-miss chance.


Convert Big Boggle to regular Boggle I have a 5x5 Big Boggle set (in English). Is it possible to play regular 4x4 Boggle with this set by removing cubes? I'd like to remove 9 cubes and get a letter distribution that's close to the distribution in traditional 4x4 Boggle.

Summary

The best sixteen dice to pick in order to produce the lowest Kullback-Leibler divergence from the (new) standard Boggle distribution are:

AAEEEE, ADENNN, AEEGMU, AFIRSY, BJKQuXZ, CEILPT, CEIPST, DHHLOR, DHLNOR, DHLNOR, EIIITT, EMOTTT, ENSSSU, FIPRSY, GORRVW, NOOTUW

The divergence for this set of dice is 0.0226, and it provides at least one of every letter.  This dice set provides about 10% more words than official Boggle, and about 13% more points (from an average grid).

Background

There are two different standards for 16 dice Boggle, and one for 25 dice.*

There are multiple ways to measure the 'closeness' of two sets of Boggle dice. A comment on the question suggests Kullback-Leibler divergence. Another simpler metric would be a count of the number of incorrect letters which I've referred to as the Manhattan distance.

The most interesting quality of a Boggle dice set is probably how easy it is to make words during a game, so I decided it was also worth investigating the average number of words in a grid, and the average score (if a player found them all).

* The BGG thread mentions another Big Boggle distribution that contains a AEMNNS die, but the set was incomplete, so I didn't include it here.

Method

I wrote a Python script to search through all combinations of sixteen dice from the twenty five provided in Big Boggle. For each set of dice I measured the Manhattan distance and the Kullback-Leibler divergence from both the new and old standard Boggle dice.

Once I had the optimum set of dice for each metric, I used a Boggle solver to simulate 10,000 games of Boggle with them, and counted the number of words and the total score available in each grid.

Results

Metric | Old/New | Best selection of dice                                                                                | Distance (using metric)
KL     | New     | 'AAEEEE', 'ADENNN', 'AEEGMU', 'AFIRSY', 'BJKQuXZ', 'CEILPT', 'CEIPST', 'DHHLOR', 'DHLNOR', 'DHLNOR', 'EIIITT', 'EMOTTT', 'ENSSSU', 'FIPRSY', 'GORRVW', 'NOOTUW' | 0.0226049400407
KL     | Old     | 'AAAFRS', 'AEEEEM', 'AEEGMU', 'AEGMNN', 'AFIRSY', 'BJKQuXZ', 'CEIILT', 'CEILPT', 'CEIPST', 'DDHNOT', 'DHHLOR', 'DHLNOR', 'ENSSSU', 'FIPRSY', 'GORRVW', 'NOOTUW' | 0.0403229165488
Manh.  | New     | 'AAAFRS', 'AAEEEE', 'AEEGMU', 'AFIRSY', 'BJKQuXZ', 'CEILPT', 'CEIPST', 'DDHNOT', 'DHHLOR', 'DHLNOR', 'DHLNOR', 'EIIITT', 'EMOTTT', 'ENSSSU', 'GORRVW', 'NOOTUW' | 12
Manh.  | Old     | 'AAAFRS', 'AAFIRS', 'AEEEEM', 'AEEGMU', 'AEGMNN', 'AFIRSY', 'BJKQuXZ', 'CEIILT', 'CEILPT', 'CEIPST', 'DDHNOT', 'DHHLOR', 'DHLNOR', 'FIPRSY', 'GORRVW', 'NOOTUW' | 16

It turned out that the optimum dice sets all contained every letter of the alphabet, which seems like it should be a requirement for a game of Boggle.

Simulating 10,000 games with each set, and using a Boggle solver, I found the following results.

Dice set      | Average number of words in grid | Average maximum score in grid
Original New  | 87                              | 113
Original Old  | 83                              | 105
KL New        | 96                              | 128
KL Old        | 92                              | 122
Manhattan New | 99                              | 132
Manhattan Old | 92                              | 121

Conclusions

We used four different methods to pick 'the best' sixteen dice from Big Boggle, and it seems that any of the sets of dice are reasonably suitable for playing a game of standard Boggle with. The old standard Boggle dice are slightly harder to play with than the new dice, and it follows that it is also harder to play with the Big Boggle selections which were optimised towards the old Boggle standard.

All of the Big Boggle dice sets produced more words and higher scores than the original Boggle dice sets, and this may be due to the presence of dice like AAEEEE, AEEEEM and EIIITT in Big Boggle, which help to avoid consonant-only grids.

As a side note, Boggle is a pretty popular game, and is not too hard to pick up a second hand copy from a charity shop. If you really want to play standard Boggle then getting a copy might be easier than separating out the right set of dice each game, and you'll also get a four-by-four box to shake the dice in!


Providing the spymaster with cues for clues in Codenames Toward the end of a game of Codenames, a team might find itself with two agents left to find and five cards still uncovered — say, APPLE, BASS, CAR, DARKNESS, and ELEPHANT.  (The numbers are by way of example. My question is about the general case that there are any number of correct guesses left and any number of cards left uncovered.)

Would it be legal, while that team's spymaster is trying to think of a clue, for his teammate to give cues like the following? "If our words are APPLE and BASS, clue 'edible': they're both edible." "APPLE and CAR are 'self-driving'."

It does not address this directly in the rules but based on my reading it is illegal and against the spirit of the game. The game is wanting you to convey information from the spymaster to the operatives with a single word. While it may be acceptable to take the deliberations that the operatives have after a clue is given into account having them give directions on what to say is different.

If you look at the Keeping A Straight Face section of the rules it goes into the intent behind how clues are given.

  The spymaster is expected to keep a straight
  face. Do not reach for any card while your
  teammates are considering the words. When
  a teammate touches a word, consult the key
  card and cover the word with the card of
  the corresponding color. When a teammate
  chooses a word of the correct color, you
  should act as though it was exactly the word
  you meant, even if it wasn't.

  If you are a field operative, you should focus
  on the table when you are making your
  guesses. Do not make eye contact with the
  spymaster while you are guessing. This will
  help you avoid nonverbal cues.

  When your information is strictly limited to
  what can be conveyed with one word and one
  number, you are playing in the spirit of the game.


In bridge, how much support do you need to raise a responder? Suppose I bid one of a (short) minor. Partner responds one of a major (one-over-one), showing at least four cards in the suit.

What do I need to raise his major to two? Some books say I need four cards, others say three cards to the queen  is sufficient.

Maybe a better way of asking the question is, which systems allow me to raise with Qxx, and which require four cards for my raise? Does it matter if partner's response is in spades or hearts? Using the "four card" raise method, what should I do if partner responds one spade and I have four hearts but only three spades?

This is a matter of partnership understanding and taste more than systemic; most natural bidding systems may be played either way.

First, you would never make strong raises of partner's major (splinter, jump to 3M or 4M, etc) with only 3-card support. This is exclusively for the auction 1m-1M-2M. 4-3 fits are much less fun to play at the 4-level than the 2-level.

Second, the reason that you're bidding this way is that you expect that 2M will play better than 1NT. Many partnerships will only raise on three with shortness in an unbid suit. Very few partnerships will raise with a 4333 hand. Remember, ruffing values in the short hand are good; if you're forced to ruff in the long hand in a 4-3 fit, you may find yourself losing trump control. On this note, I don't like Qxx as a minimum; if you have shortness, 3 small trumps are probably fine because some of them will be winners.

Third, remember that partner may have enough to invite or bid a game after your limiting bid. If partner doesn't expect you to raise on 3, they may bid inaccurately. Make sure that their second bid differentiates between a 4-card suit and a 5-card suit. A common agreement is that 1m-1M-2M-3M is invitational with 5+ in the major, while 1m-1M-2M-2NT is invitational with 4; similarly 3NT by responder asks opener to make a choice of games. There are conventional treatments that are probably better: this article on bridgewinners describes the spiral raises convention.


What happens if a double-faced card that is copying a different double-faced card transforms, without exile? We already have a similar question about double faced cards transforming, however there are two different ways a double face card transforms, exiling and returning transformed is covered by the similar question. Most often this exile transform happens for creatures that become planeswalkers, so they get the ETB loyalty counters, but many more creatures transform into other creatures without leaving the battlefield, like werewolves.

What would happen if:

A creature that would transform without exile, say Reckless Waif, enchanted with Metamorphic Alteration and copying something like Huntmaster of the Fells would transform without being exiled? (Bonus: What would happen due to Huntmaster/Ravager having an effect triggered by transforming)
A creature that would normally exile and transform into a planeswalker, say Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, enchanted with Metamorphic Alteration and copying something like Docent of Perfection would transform without being exiled?
A creature that would normally form part of a meld, say Graf Rats, enchanted with Metamorphic Alteration and copying something like Bloodline Keeper would transform without being exiled?

In the first 2 cases, you end up still having a copy of the same creature you were already copying.

You are able to follow the instruction to transform it normally:

  701.27a To transform a permanent, turn it over so that its other face is up. Only permanents represented by double-faced cards can transform.

With Meld cards, you would never actually perform the transform:

  711.1d Meld cards have a Magic card face on one side and half of an oversized Magic card face on the other. These aren’t double-faced cards and are subject to their own set of rules. See rule 712, “Meld Cards.”

So these are subject to 701.27c:

  701.27c If a spell or ability instructs a player to transform a permanent that isn’t represented by a double-faced card, nothing happens.

Nothing about transforming would cause the Metamorphic Alteration to fall off, so after it transforms, the enchantment is still there, and it would still be making your creature a copy of whatever was chosen.

  706.8. When copying a double-faced permanent, a face-up meld card, or a melded permanent, only the copiable values of the face that’s currently up are copied.

So the physical card would be transformed, but now instead of Reckless Waif being made into a copy of Huntmaster of the Fells, you have Merciless Predator being made into a copy of Huntmaster of the Fells.

If the card it was copying has a when-transform trigger, such as Huntmaster of the Fells, then that ability will trigger:

  701.27e Some triggered abilities trigger when an object “transforms into” an object with a specified characteristic. Such an ability triggers if the object transforms and has the specified characteristic immediately after it transforms.

So the object transformed, and it has the specified characteristic (name), because it is Huntmaster of the Fells. So you will create a 2/2 green Wolf creature token and gain 2 life, even though you transformed from Huntmaster into Huntmaster.

If the enchantment ever goes away, then you will suddenly have a Merciless Predator or a Jace, Telepath Unbound. In the second example, Jace will immediately go to the graveyard for having 0 loyalty tokens.

Also note that in this case, Metamorphic Alteration will be legally enchanting Jace, Telepath Unbound, even though it couldn't normally be chosen as a legal target for it. This is because the copy effect is making it a creature, not a planeswalker.


Can Ring of Ma'rûf call in cards outside of MtG? I’m building a completely casual deck with friends, and the the restrictions on Ring of Ma'rûf aren’t entirely clear. Could I, for example, use Ring of Maruf to gradually bring in a YuGiOh card such as Exodia The Forbidden One. Could the Ring allow that?

No, you can only get a Magic: the Gathering card.  The meaning of the word "card" is given explicitly in the rules:

108.2. When a rule or text on a card refers to a “card,” it means only a Magic card or an object represented by a Magic card.

Moreover, you can only get traditional Magic cards, so no Archenemy schemes, Planechase planes, etc:

108.2a Most Magic games use only traditional Magic cards, which measure approximately 2.5 inches (6.3 cm) by 3.5 inches (8.8 cm). Certain formats also use nontraditional Magic cards, oversized cards that may have different backs.
108.5. Nontraditional Magic cards can’t start the game in any zone other than the command zone (see rule 408). If an effect would bring a nontraditional Magic card into the game from outside the game, it doesn’t; that card remains outside the game.

So while you could choose your copy of All in Good Time with Ring of Ma'rûf, it would not be able to enter the game due to 108.5, and you effectively just waste your draw and exile the Ring for nothing.


Mansion Of Madness- Discarded combat cards specific type of combat(sharp,melee) When entering combat and flipping the correct combat decks for the creature type, we have already flipped all of the "sharp melee weapon" cards. I want to attack with the Axe again.

When we reach the bottom of the deck, do we shuffle the cards into the combat card deck or do I need to wait to attack with this weapon until all the combat cards have been flipped and then shuffle the deck?

If a deck of cards runs out, the players shuffle the discard pile to create a new deck.

Source: Mansions of Madness Core Rulebook, page 25 - "Component Limitations"


Simple games that involve psychological factors? I need to find a simple game in which several people need to interact with each other. The game should be simple for an analysis (it should be simple to describe what happens in the game, what players did). Because of this last reason, video games are not appropriate for my purposes. I am thinking of a simple, schematic, strategic game where people can make a limited set of simple moves.

Moreover, the moves of the game should not be conditioned only by a pure logic (like in chess or go). The behavior in the game should depend on psychological factors, on relations between people. In more detail, I think it should be a cooperation game where people make their decisions based on mutual trust. It would be nice if players can express punishment and forgiveness in the game.

Does anybody knows a game that is close to what I have described above?

ADDED

As requested, I would like to provide more details. I do want to use a game for experimental purposes. To elaborate, my hypothesis is that people play differently depending on who their partner is in the game. Or, in other words, a player's strategies depend on their interpersonal relations. It is a very general statement. At the moment I do not know what kind of interpersonal relations can exist. In the simplest case we can speak about "friends" and "strangers" (people who know or do not know each other). Another aspect of interpersonal relations I can think of is trust. People can play differently depending on the level of trust between them.

I am looking for a game that captures several aspects of interpersonal relations. The repeated Prisoner Dilemma game is close to what I need. But I am afraid that it is too trivial (people will just cooperate).

I cannot think of a better game to match what you describe than Diplomacy. It requires seven players, and it is lengthy. You can speed it up by having all the negotiation happen at the table in front of everyone, but that changes the nature of the game. However, there are plenty of places on the internet where you can play "by email" for free (for example, The Diplomatic Pouch) -- there, you can enter games all by yourself, but the time taken to play a game typically spreads out over days, weeks, or months (because you spend a few days emailing negotiation letters, before each time you "submit orders" for the next turn's actions).

Diplomacy's rules do include strategy, and the rules are quite simple. The game has been around for fifty years, so there are lots of online resources describing various strategies and tips and so forth.

Note that BoardGameGeek has a Negotiation style category for boardgames, and there are lots of other games listed in it; many would be suitable for fewer players and less playing time, but Diplomacy is pretty much the prototypical experience for what you describe in my opinion.


What happens if you cast a card that says "Target Opponent" in Two Headed Giant? Let's say I'm playing a game of 2HG, and I cast Tribute To Hunger, which reads:

  Target opponent sacrifices a creature. You gain life equal to that
  creature's toughness.

Do I get to pick which opponent has to sac a creature, or do I cast it at them (being my two opponents) and they pick?

A Two-Headed Giant game has 4 players, two of which are your opponents. When you cast a spell, you choose a legal target, in this case one of your opponents.

  810.1. Two-Headed Giant games are played with two teams of two players each.


Is cheating allowed in Munchkin? I have been disputing with my friends lately about the fact that the creators of Munchkin intended for people to cheat or not. By cheating I mean doing anything the rules say you can't do or that is obviously not allowed, e.g.: using more hands then you're supposed to, stealing cards from the deck when nobody's looking. I believe the game is all about being a jerk and a backstabber in every way. Who agrees that you should be allowed to steal and cheat in Munchkin but have it be punishable however the GM sees fit?

According to the very old rules from the beginning of munchkin you could cheat if the other players didn't catch you.

Likewise, you may also use only one headgear, one suit of armor, one pair of footgear, and two “hand” items (or one “two hands” item), unless you have a card that lets you cheat or the other players don’t catch you.

That was in an earlier version of the rules and doesn't appear in the newer rules, so probably a no. On the Munchkin FAQ the fifth question under General Questions is

Q. But don't the rules say it's OK to cheat if you don't get caught?
A. Not anymore, and even when they did, it was a joke. If you want a game where cheating is in the spirit and the letter of the rules, try Illuminati.

So again no.
Anyways, cheating is breaking the rules and makes the game not very fun, so I'd say no to cheating.
If you want to read those rules, I accessed them from https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/3069/rulespdf. You need a boardgamegeek account to download them. To find that specific passage, hit Ctrl+F then write "cheat" in the box that appears.
Also see this old cheat card:


Can the same player bid for Relics twice? At the end of a round when a Royalty has been eliminated, players can trade shards for a Relic Item.

If players have enough shards, can they buy into the Relic draw more than once?

Does not appear so.

The Acquire Relic rule (Looting Royalty pg 17, base rules), specifically say that players who chooses the Acquire action must spend 5 shards (-1 per previous other acquiring player). With no leeway on additional spending, this is a set amount.

You also can not "bid" a second time after everyone else has bid, as it stats
"Once all players have made a choice (Acquire, Exchange, Pass) ..."... move into the drawing portion of Acquiring.

  The first player then looks at the cards drawn, chooses a single relic to keep, and passes the remaining cards to the next player who spent Token Shards...

I agree that this is not as clear as it could be, and sometimes your relic choices just aren't worth losing that many shards. But the rules as written do say the that you many only spend an exact number of shards, and only acquire a single relic.

I am uncertain if any of the expansions change this rule, but I will update this answer if I find out.

Edit: The updated 2019 base rules on this are unchanged from the original.

Edit2: Just follow up, none of the expansions adjust this for the base game.


What happens when you procession an encampment without having a gold/plunder in your hand? What happens when you play Procession
on a Encampment with out having a gold or plunder in your hand?

Does procession lose track of Encampment therefore it not able to trash it and it ends up back in the supple?  Do you still gain a card and if so what value of card you gain?

The Procession plays Encampment for the first time. You don't reveal a Plunder or Gold, so you set Encampment aside. This does not prevent Procession from playing it a second time, but both Encampment's attempt to set itself aside again, and Procession's attempt to trash it, will fail because it's not currently in play. You gain an Action card costing $3 ($1 more than Encampment), then at the end of your turn you return Encampment to its pile.

Reasons for what happens:

Procession needs to wait for Encampment to finish being played twice before it can do the trashing. It can't find Encampment if it's set aside (because it has "lost track"), so it can't trash it.
Procession's "gain an Action card" effect does not depend on successfully trashing the played card (as noted in the FAQ).
"Lose track" effects only happen when an effect tries to move a card, but the card is in an unexpected location. So Procession "thinks" the Encampment is in play and tries to move it to the trash, but since it's not in the "in-play area" it can't trash it. But being set aside doesn't change Encampment's text or cost so it still does the same thing when it gets played again, and it can still be used to calculate the cost of the card gained by Possession.


Pandemic: "Resilient Population" card The "Resilient Population" card reads:

  Take a card from the Infection Discard Pile and remove it from the game.

When you play the "Resilient Population" card, what exactly are you allowed to do?

The "Resilient Population" card lets you remove one city from the discard pile.  If you are afraid you're about to get an Epidemic (or you have just gotten one!) and have the existing discard pile shuffled back onto the top, you can remove the most dangerous city so that there's no risk of an outbreak.


When does Chief of the Edge die? Lets say my friend attacks with Chief of the Edge and two other Warrior creatures, and I declare three blockers, one on each creature. If Chief of the Edge dies due to combat damage from blockers, when do the other Warriors lose the +1/+0? Is it instantly and now his 2 other creatures are normal again?

All combat damage happens simultaneously, and creatures who have taken lethal damage will die almost immediately after damage is assigned (before the next time any player could do anything else; when state-based actions are checked). This means that the warrior creatures will still do the 1 extra damage during the combat which causes Chief of the Edge to die, and will lose the +1/+0 immediately after that.


Can you create more than one of the same-colored grape at harvest? Say you already have a level 3 red grape. Can you harvest a field that has a 2-red-vine, and a 1-red-vine, and create a 1-grape and a 2-grape from it, as one harvest action?

No you could not create two red tokens from one harvest action.  From the rules here you create up to one white and one red tokens on the crush pad.

To harvest a field, add the total value of all red grape icons on the
vine to create 1 red grape token and then add the total value of all
white grape icons on the vine to create 1 white grape token on your
crush pad.

The rules are specific it is "1" and not 2 in smaller combinations.
In your situation you must try to create a value 3 red grape token and then devalue it.

If the grape icon already has a token on it when you harvest a grape
at that value, you must devalue the grape token to the next available
lowest icon.

In your example you would place a red token on the number 2 space.


Can I use more than one Theft card Can I use more than one Theft card in Saboteur 2?

No, you can't, because

  no player can have 2 action cards of the same type affecting them at the same time.

This is part of the passage that introduces cards like Theft, so while you're technically not "affected" by a Theft in front of you, it would seem that a loose interpretation is in order.

Hands Off uses wording that implies a player could have multiple Theft cards ("remove one Theft card from in front of any player"), but that's probably just more imprecise wording.

The following are the other restrictions on on playing actions:

You cannot break a player's tool when that player's tool is already broken.
You cannot fix a tool that's not broken.
You cannot play a Theft card while trapped.

Based on the above, it's conceivable one might be forbidden from taking following useless actions, but they aren't actually forbidden by the rules:

Playing a Hands Off card on someone who doesn't have a Theft card.
Playing a Free At Last card on someone who isn't trapped.
Playing a Trapped card on someone who is trapped.


When does Mardu Hordechief's raid ability trigger? I'm new to MTG and I'm quite confused about when exactly raid is triggered.
For instance, say I have Mardu Hordechief (which creates 1/1 tokens) and I tapped, let's say, 2 creatures to attack.

What exactly is his ability going to happen?
Is the raid ability triggered while/after the combat phase or even right after the declare attackers step?

I think what's tripping you up is that there are two conditional statements involved — one is the trigger and the other is a condition that limits when the ability can work.

  Raid — When Mardu Hordechief enters the battlefield, if you attacked with a creature this turn, put a 1/1 white Warrior creature token onto the battlefield.

The Raid ability is triggered "When Mardu Hordechief enters the battlefield." That's the only time you'll actually do any of the other stuff in that sentence.

The action, however, is conditional — you only do it "if you attacked with a creature this turn."

Intervening "if" clauses are checked both when the ability triggers and when it's placed on the stack[CR 603.4], so it goes like this:

Attack with some creatures.
Cast Mardu Hordechief on your second main phase.
When the spell resolves, it puts Hordechief onto the battlefield. This triggers its ability, but only because you attacked this turn. (If you hadn't attacked this turn, it wouldn't trigger at all.)
Its triggered ability goes on the stack.
As the triggered ability is about to resolve, you check the intervening "if" condition again. For this particular ability, this check can't fail, so it goes on to resolve, and you get a token. (If the check were to fail, the triggered ability would be removed the stack without resolving.)


Descent (Nerekhall expansion) bleeding mechanics The bleeding condition reads:

"(One action): Discard this card or token. For each other action you resolve while you have this card or token, suffer 1 (one fatigue)"

Should "each other action" be interpreted to mean that every 2 actions my hero takes, the effect of bleeding is applied? Or should "each other action" be interpreted to mean that the effect of bleeding should be applied once to every action that is not the above noted "discarding" action?

A bit of rephrasing may help clarify the intent of this condition:

  (One Action):  Discard this card or token.  For any action, other than discarding this condition, you resolve, suffer 1 fatigue.


What is this game with pegs in holes, jumping and capturing each other? The rules we've guessed so far are:

Each move is a peg jumping over another peg in its immediate proximity.
The peg that gets jumped over is removed.

The goal is to clear as many pegs as possible. Ideally, leaving just one peg at the end.

Here is a board before before first play-

And where does the empty hole start out at? Ive been playing with it at the bottom but it doesn't seem right, because every game can be the same, no?.

This is Peg Solitaire, also simply known as 'Solitaire'. The empty hole is usually located in the center of the board, but for variations and different shaped boards this is not always true. This size board makes it relatively easy to simply memorize a winning series of moves, but for larger boards a player may never find that series and will spend more time exploring possible games even from a single starting position.


Is Prismite considered colorless or all colors for the purpose of Brawl/Commander decks? Me and the person I'm playing with were making Brawl decks. And we got into an argument about if Prismite was colorless or all colors. So which is it?

It's colorless:

  903.4. The Commander variant uses color identity to determine what cards can be in a deck with a certain commander. The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204).

Prismite's ability says: "{2}: Add one mana of any color." and not "{2}: Add {W}, {U}, {B}, {R} or {G}." No mana symbols appear in the rules text, so it's colorless.

Note that Brawl uses the same definition of 'color identity' as Commander:

  903.11a Brawl is an option for a different style of Commander game. Brawl games use the normal rules for the Commander variant with the following modifications.


How does a Loyal Cathar react to Undying Evil? Loyal Cathar states:

  When Loyal Cathar dies, return it to the battlefield transformed under
  your control at the beginning of the next end step.

Undying Evil states:

  Target creature gains undying until end of turn. (When it dies, if it
  had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its
  owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.)

If I cast Undying Evil on Loyal Cathar and it dies, would it come back as a Loyal Cathar with a +1/+1, come back as its transformed self, come back transformed AND with the +1/+1, or some other combination that I'm not seeing?

It would come back as Loyal Cathar with a +1/+1 counter on it.

Undying Evil's triggered ability returns Loyal Cathar to the battlefield upon dying, Loyal Cathar's triggered ability sets up a delayed triggered ability that returns the card "at the beginning of the next end step".

Loyal Cathar's normal return-to-battlefield trigger won't find the card in the graveyard when it resolves, so will fail to do anything.

  603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However, if that object is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at the time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won’t affect it. (Note that if that object left that zone and then returned, it’s a new object and thus won’t be affected. See rule 400.7.)


In bridge, are "sequences" more valuable than non-sequences of similar point count? In backgammon, for instance, sequences of "points" are more valuable than the same number of points out of sequence. That is the 6-5, or 6-5-4 points, are more valuable than the 6-4, or 6-4-2 points respectively. In "hold 'em" (poker), a T-9 is more valuable than a J-9, even though the J is higher than the T (because of the greater potential of the T-9 to make a "two-sided" straight.

Similarly, are sequences of cards considered more valuable in bridge than non-sequences with similar higher HCP? That is, could KQJxx of a suit be more valuable than AQxxx of a suit, even though they both amount to 6 HCP? And could QJTxx be worth more than KJxxx (x being seven or less in both cases), even though QJT is nominally 1 HCP less than KJ?

Yes, it is possible, but it might vary when you are considering the offensive/defensive potential.

Consider your example KQJxx vs AQxxx

Suppose this was the trump suit and say partner has Txx.

With KQJxx, you likely have only one loser. But with AQxxx it is quite possible that you will have 2 losers.

offensively (i.e if that suit is trumps) KQJxx can probably said to be "better" than AQxxx.

Defensively (i.e when you are defending and this is a side suit), AQxxx tends to be more valuable. This is worth an almost sure trick, and is a reasonable chance that you can make 2 tricks.

With KQJxx, you might make one trick, but the second one might be unlikely.

So defensively, AQxxx is "better" than KQJxx.

Of course, I am yet to come across a hand where this difference seems relevant (perhaps we can construct an artificial hand where there is a choice of trump between two suits).


Cloning Mutated Creatures Mutate is a new mechanic in Ikoria. A lot has been said about how it works, but cloning is something I can't find mentioned on the net. Not sure if the comp rules have been updated yet, but my impression is that as it is one creature, a clone would get all of the mutated abilities. Is this correct?

Cloning a mutated creature copies all the existing mutations

This interaction has been put together by a modification of the first layer of continuous effect interactions and two new rules.

  613.1a Layer 1: Rules and effects that modify copiable values are applied.

Previously, this layer applied 'copy effects'.  Now it's been generalized to apply 'copiable values', of which includes the newly created category of "merged permanents"

  721.2a A merged permanent has only the characteristics of its topmost component, unless otherwise specified by the effect that caused them to merge. This is a copiable effect whose timestamp is the time the objects merged. (See rule 613.2.)

And mutate, the effect causing the permanents to merge, modifies the characteristics to include the rules text of the other objects.

  702.139e A mutated permanent has all abilities of each card and token that represents it. Its other characteristics are derived from the topmost card or token.