Can I use a program run ability (eg: Sneakdoor Beta) and an run event card (eg: Account Siphon) for the same run? If I use a "make a run..." event this cost me a click.  Is it possible to use a "make a run..." program with another click cost on the same run?

I'm sure there are more examples but Account Siphon and Sneakdoor Beta are the most attractive combination.

No.

Each of these are a single 'click' to actually play.  Sneakdoor Beta specifically lists that you are using a click to use it's ability.  That click kicks off a run, but the click starts at using Sneakdoor Beta's card ability.  Once the run starts, you can no longer user clicks to play cards, use card abilities, ect.  On the same token, to play Account Siphon, you must use a click to play the event card.  As you do, the event card kicks off a run, but again, the click starts at playing a card ability.  This is all by design so you can't stack up a bunch of 'run' abilities.  It would also make other cards broken, like the event card for Shapers that lets you consider one piece of ice as all three types.

Things that will work?  Security Testing and Dirty Laundry.  +2 credits the first time you succesfully run a chosen server and +5 credits for completing a successful run on a server.  You use the click to play the event card and, since it was the first successful run on that server, you get the security testing instead of accessing cards.  Add in Desperado for a +1 credit after every successful run and play as Ken to get +1 credits from playing a run event and you're looking at a net of +7 credits for one run.  But that's just an example of the synergy that IS possible.


An exiled planeswalker returned with loyalty higher than printed in Arena In Arena, I exiled enemy's Teferi, Hero of Dominaria using Banishing Light. Some time later Banishing Light was destroyed and Teferi returned to play. It had immediately 8 loyalty.
What allows this? I thought planeswalkers return with printed loyalty?

Your thinking is correct, when Teferi, Hero of Dominaria returns from exile as a result of Banishing Light being destroyed, it is a brand new object that should be exactly as if it was being played for the first time.

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.

There are several possible effects that could cause Teferi to have entered with 8 loyalty counters, but no way to know for sure what happened in your particular game unless you know the entire board state.
One simple possibility is that your opponent could have had Doubling Season or Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider or a similar card in play, which would cause their planeswalkers to enter with twice the normal amount of loyalty counters.
They also could have activated an ability such as Gilder Bairn as soon as Teferi entered play.


What decides whether a card is exiled or returned as a player loses? I came across this problem when writing this answer, and it's not addressed in this question, so I am left wondering here.
In the Comprehensive rules, 800.4a there are a few examples of what happens as a player leaves the game to permanents he / she controls but doesn't own. I am specifically interested in examples 2 and 3:

Example: Alex casts Act of Treason, which reads, in part, “Gain control of target creature until end of turn,” targeting Bianca’s Runeclaw Bears. If Alex leaves the game, Act of Treason’s change-of-control effect ends and Runeclaw Bears reverts to Bianca’s control.
Example: Alex casts Bribery, which reads, “Search target opponent’s library for a creature card and put that card onto the battlefield under your control. Then that player shuffles his or her library,” targeting Bianca. Alex puts Serra Angel onto the battlefield from Bianca’s library. If Bianca leaves the game, Serra Angel also leaves the game. If, instead, Alex leaves the game, Serra Angel is exiled.

So, clearly, we have two effects, both giving Alex control over creatures owned by Bianca. Then Alex loses, and the result is that Bianca gains control over the bears, while the angel is exiled. Clearly something is different between these two ways of gaining control over a creature.
Up until now I had thought that a permanent only tracks two players: its owner, and its controller. However, if this were the case, then both creatures would be creatures owned by Bianca, controlled by Alex, and they would both end up the same place after Alex loses. Clearly, this is not the case.
There are two differences between how these two permanents have come under Alex' control. The angel has been put directly into play by an effect owned by him, with permanent control, while the bears has been put into play by Bianca, and then Alex has taken control untilthe end of turn. So there are two differences that I can see:

The angel is subject to a permanent change of controller, while the bears are only temporarily under Alex' control
The angel was put into play by an effect controlled by Alex, while the bears were put into play by an effect controlled by Bianca

Both of these would require a permanent to not only remember who controls it and who owns it, but in addition either who put it into play or whether the control is temporary. Regardless of which one it is it goes against how I thought the game worked.
Which one is it? And why isn't it the other one?

There is a subtle difference between your two examples:

The Act of Treason'd Runeclaw Bear is under Alex's control because of a control changing continuous effect.
The Serra Angel is put into play under Alex's Control.

This is a subtle but important difference. Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, whoever controls it at the time is considered to be its controller. Usually this means that the person who owns the creature is also the controller but because of cards like Bribery that isn't always true. This is covered in the comprehensive rules:

  110.2.: A permanent’s owner is the same as the owner of the card that represents it (unless it’s a token; see rule 110.5a). A permanent’s controller is, by default, the player under whose control it entered the battlefield. Every permanent has a controller.
  110.2a: If an effect instructs a player to put an object onto the battlefield, that object enters the battlefield under that player’s control unless the effect states otherwise.

This is different from an effect such as Act of Treason that causes a creature to change controllers. These effects are called continuous effects and are treated a bit differently.

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

So to bring this together lets have a look at what happens when a player loses the game:

  800.4a: When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects are exiled. This is not a state-based action. It happens as soon as the player leaves the game. If the player who left the game had priority at the time he or she left, priority passes to the next player in turn order who’s still in the game.

So in your first example you can see that the Runeclaw Bear is under Alex's control because of a effect which gave him control. When Alex leaves the game this effect ends, so the Bears revert to Binaca's control.

In your second example Serra Angel doesn't have any control changing effects applied to it, so those effects can not end (they never started). Instead it is just treated as any other permanent that is controlled by Alex and is removed from the game.

Additional Notes: One thing I figure I should mention is that not all control changing continuous effects are temporary like Act of Treason. Cards like Beguiler of Wills will give you permanent control of the creature, but will still be treated the same as Act of Treason when the player leaves the game.

Secondly, you are correct in that the game only knows the controller and owner of permanents. That is why in your second example Alex loses the Serra Angel when Bianca leaves the game, she owns the card so it will leave the game with her.


American Five Card majors - using Jacoby to respond to a 2NT opening bid Playing Bridge last night my partner opened 2NT, showing 20-21 points. I had 11 HCP and a five card major. I used Jacoby Transfer, calling 3 hearts and my partner responded 3 spades (all OK so far) I then needed to show our possible small slam hand. I did not want to call 4 spades as she may only have had two spades. Equally I didn't want to call 3NT in case she passed. I therefore called 4NT and a big debate started about whether that was Ace asking.

What should I have responded? All Jacoby Transfer pages I find on the net only specify full responses after 1NT.

I agree with Aryabhata as far as general principle. Most beginners and even intermediate players greatly overuse Ace-asking bids -- their primary purpose is to keep you out of a slam when you have the tricks but lack controls in side suits; they shouldn't be used to get into a slam when you're not sure you have the values.

A decent agreement in this situation is to use Texas transfers as well as Jacoby. Now you can use the sequences like so:

2NT-3H-3S-4NT: Usually 5332, quantitative invitate to a small slam
2NT-3H-3S-4C: 5-4 or better in spades and clubs (this is mostly to find the best strain, but you can use the follow-on auction to look for slam)
2NT-3H-3S-4S: at least 6 spades, a faint invitation to slam (opener might look for slam with something like Kxx Ax AKQxx AJx -- rich in controls, a good source of tricks)
2NT-4H-4S-pass: at least 6 spades, no interest in slam
2NT-4H-4S-4NT: Whatever your normal Ace-asking bid is (Blackwood, RKC), with 6 spades at least.
2NT-4H-4S-5C: at least 6 spades, first-round control in clubs
etc


How does White survive in this corner? This is from a game between two high-ranking professionals I saw on TV.  Hopefully I copied it right.

There doesn't quite seem to be enough from after W1.  Let me show you [1]:

$$Wc
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . X . . . . . . |
$$ . O X . X . . . 1 . |
$$ . . . . . . X . X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . X . . X X X O X O |
$$ . . . X O O O O O O |
$$ . . . . X . . . X . |
$$ --------------------|

If Black moves first, perhaps there's not enough from after B2 and W3 ?

$$Wc
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . X . . . . . . |
$$ . O X . X . . . O . |
$$ . . . . . . X . X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . X . 3 X X X O X O |
$$ . . . X O O O O O O |
$$ . . . . X 2 . . X . |
$$ --------------------|

If White has just a little bit more time, we can put a white stone at A. Not even.

$$c
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . X . . . . . . |
$$ . O X . X . . . O . |
$$ . . . . . . X . X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . X . . X X X O X O |
$$ . . . X O O O O O O |
$$ . . . . X 2 . . X . |
$$ --------------------|

So what are they thinking?

To answer the original question: White's corner is unconditionally dead, it cannot be rescued even with White playing first. The points P1 and R1 are miai, when White takes one of them Black takes the other.

In the actual game White uses the aji left in the corner for some Ko threats, that's all White can get out of the local situation.


Does successfully opening the vault end your movement due to drawing the item cards? The inside of the vault has icons that draw cards, so once you've cracked it does your movement stop? (Obviously it has already stopped if you only just discovered the vault and drew an event card, so I'm referring to when it isn't newly discovered.)

I know movement is stopped when drawing a card from discovering a new room with a card symbol. The rules and the errata/FAQ mention stopping movement "upon drawing a card" (usually from room discovery) so I've been interpreting it to apply in this case as well on the merit that it's "drawing a card", and from a room icon no less.

Yes, drawing a card for any reason ends your movement.

As you pointed out, the rules (page 5) make it clear that drawing a room tile with a card symbol does this:

  The first time you discover a room with a card symbol, you must end your move in that room and draw the appropriate card.

The rules for movement (page 4) clarify this further:

  Whenever a game effect makes you draw a card, you must STOP moving for the rest of your turn.

So any game effect which makes you draw cards (and if you're not cheating you should only be drawing cards based on 'game effects'!) ends your movement. This includes things such as successfully opening the puzzle box item, so try that at the end of your turn unless you really need the item!


How does this interaction between Rustmouth Ogre and Padeem, Consul of Innovation resolve? This tricky interaction came up in the comments of the question When do artifacts lose hexproof when Padeem, Consul of Innovation dies? about the specific timing of when an artifact will lose hexproof when Padeem, Consul of Innovation dies. It was related to the original question but different enough that I was recommended to ask it as a new question.

The situation involves two players, Aaron (Active Player) and Nick (Non-Active Player), and the following board state:

Aaron's Board:

Rustmouth Ogre (Whenever Rustmouth Ogre deals combat damage to a player, you may destroy target artifact that player controls.)
Silverback Ape (5/5 creature)

Nick's Board:

Padeem, Consul of Innovation (gives all of Nick's artifacts hexproof)
Ornithopter (0/2 artifact creature)

During combat Aaron swings at Nick with his entire board, blocks are as follows:
 - Silverback Ape is blocked by Padeem (Padeem dies)
 - Rustmouth Ogre is unblocked (its ability triggers)

My question is, can Aaron use Rustmouth Ogre's ability to destroy Nick's Ornathopter?

In this situation, Rustmouth Ogre's ability can target and destroy the Ornithopter.
First of all, triggered abilities trigger immediately when their trigger event occurs, but don't get put on the stack until the next time a player would gain priority. The rules that describe this are in the triggered abilities section of the rules:

603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point.

603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. [...]

603.3d The remainder of the process for putting a triggered ability on the stack is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2c–d. [...]

601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires. [...]

As you can see, even though the ability triggers immediately, its targets aren't chosen until the ability is put on the stack. This is important because the State-based actions rules include this rule:

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; otherwise all triggered abilities that are waiting to be put on the stack are put on the stack, then the check is repeated. Once no more state-based actions have been performed as the result of a check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, the appropriate player gets priority. This process also occurs during the cleanup step (see rule 514), except that if no state-based actions are performed as the result of the step’s first check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, then no player gets priority and the step ends.

In short, the highlighted section of that rule means that triggered abilities are put on the stack after state-based actions have been completely evaluated. The state-based action that is relevant to this question is

704.5g If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and the total damage marked on it is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

So, in the situation described, the sequence of events plays out like this:

Combat damage is dealt. Rustmouth Ogre's ability triggers.
State-based actions are checked. Padeem dies.
Rustmouth Ogre's triggered ability is put on the stack. Its targets are chosen at this time, and Ornithopter is a legal target because Padeem is no longer on the battlefield.
Aaron gets priority for the first time after combat damage.
After Aaron and Nick both pass priority, Rustmouth Ogre's ability resolves and the Ornithopter is destroyed.


What does "cannot be countered" mean in MTG? Mistcutter Hydra says it "cannot be countered." What does that mean? Is it like saying that it cannot be blocked? Or it can not be stopped from being summoned this turn or what? I have no idea what this means.

Cannot be countered means that your opponent(s) will not be able to counter this spell. In other words: this spell will hit the battlefield no matter what(except for a very few very rare cases described in the edit).

If a card doesn't have Cannot be countered text, then a simple Counterspell can counter this spell, so that it will end up in graveyard instead of the battlefield

EDIT

As diego mentioned in the comment, there are some very rare cases when Cannot be countered can still get "countered"(even though it will not be countered as per definition(rule 701.5a), it can be returned back to the hand/exiled before it resolves). A couple examples would be Mindbreak Trap and Venser, Shaper Savant.

Mindbreak Trap can exile a spell before it resolves and Venser, Shaper Savant can return a spell back to its owner's hand before it resolves. Ruling of these 2 cards say:

Mindbreak Trap:

  If a spell is exiled, it's removed from the stack and thus will not resolve. The spell isn't countered; it just no longer exists. This works on spells that can't be countered, such as Terra Stomper.

Venser, Shaper Savant:

  If a spell is returned to its owner's hand, it's removed from the stack and thus will not resolve. The spell isn't countered; it just no longer exists.

So with these 2 cards your opponent may actually "counter"(read: prevent spell from resolving) your cannot be countered spells.

Rule 701.5a says:

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


Miniature wise what is the size comparison between a centurion and a crisis battlesuit? Size wise how different is the height of the tau crisis battle suit and the imperium centurions?

They are fairly similar in height, however several factors make it hard to give a single canonical answer.

First off there are several versions of Crisis Suit (CS from here on)... If we ignore "specialty" CS such as Commander/Coldstar/etc there are still two different versions. Add to that the fact that CS come w/ a flying stand and are fairly dynamically poseable which can change the height fairly drastically.


Munchkin: Tuba of charm loot If you have the tuba of charm, and you fight multiple monsters, do you take a loot for each monster escaped, or just one for the entire battle?

You draw only one treasure total if you manage to flee a battle with multiple monsters.

This question came up in the SJG-forum and was answered by one of the Munchkin editors:

  I'll admit that the wording is unclear, but the INTENT was that you got one Treasure as you fled the combat, no matter how many monsters you fought.

See: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=75522


X-Wing 'Overlapping' ships question Let's say that a TIE fighter moves first and his final position causes an overlap with a X-wing fighter. Then the X-wing fighter moves and in its final position is no longer touching that of the overlapping TIE fighter's first move.

Is this still considered an overlap for the TIE fighter?

Yes, this is an overlap.  Each ships move is completed in order without regard to what other ships may do in the future.

If the TIE fighter overlaps the X-Wing follow the procedure on page 17 of the rules to resolve the overlap before moving on to the X-Wing's move.

Reminder - the TIE fighter loses his Perform Action step as a penalty for causing the overlap.


What is the Best Random Card Setup Tool? In this question I received two different recommendations for iPhone specific apps to assist with Dominion setups.  My group uses a third (non iPhone specific).

Which is the best, and why?

Please, only one app per answer, thanks!

Zack Hiwiller's Dominion Card Randomizer is nice. It works fine on laptops and mobile devices, is free, has card images, and has some nice options.

http://www.hiwiller.com/dominion/

Downside: requires internet connection.


Does Dryad Arbor remain a creature with Blood Sun in play? Does Dryad Arbor remain a creature with Blood Sun in play?

This is a follow-up question to this one.

Yes, it's still a creature, because Blood Sun causes it only to loose non-mana abilities. The Creature subtype is not an ability.


What is the limit on selling during your turn? Bohnanza (known under different names in different countries)

Is a rather simple game intended to have a quick learning curve.

So, the rulebook is brief and  thus there are some gaps that are not covered.  One of this is the selling. Excluding the 2 players variant, according to the rulebook:

  you may sell crops at any point of the game

And:

  The limit on coins you get is 4 per sale

Combining these rules, I want to know how selling works during your turn. Consider it is your turn and you have two full plantations. Can you:

sell one of them for 4 coins, and plant in the emptied field
sell the other field for 4 coins, and plant a second card?

Basically, does the limit of 4 coins apply to your turn or to a single sale (in which case it's redundant, as no card gives more than 4)?

It is a redundant rule. This printing from Rio Grande Games doesn't even mention the 4 gold maximum per sale. Under Harvesting and selling beans (page 7), it only mentions restrictions on selling from a bean field with fewer than 2 beans only when both fields have exactly 1 bean. The other rule you mention is reiterated though. Therefore, you can earn 8 gold in the example that you gave.

  Players may harvest and sell beans at any time, even when they are not the active player. [...]


Is there a quick comparison list of the different Warhammer 40k Space Marines Chapters? As per the title, I'm wondering if there is a comparison list/tool somewhere that show the difference between the different Space Marines Chapter.

I'm starting Warhammer 40K with my son and I understand each chapter has different special abilities. Obviously we can't buy ALL the different codex to find out.

Space Marines are part way through a redux at the moment so a few chapters are still waiting for new books (Imperial Fists and Salamanders) which should launch shortly.

The tactics pages on 1d4chan can be useful but they are not family friendly! The go into a lot of detail but the pros/cons section can give a good overview. The space marines page covers most loyal chapters and then the Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights and Deathwatch get their own pages.


Who is the controller of an Aura when the creature it enchants is stolen? I have a Cockatrice enchanted with an aura, Celestial Mantle, which says:

  Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player, double its controller’s life total.

My opponent then enchants the Cockatrice with Control Magic. Next turn, they attack with it.

Who's the controller of the Celestial Mantle at this stage? Who will benefit from Celestial Mantle's ability to double a player's life total?

The player who put the Aura onto the creature, or
The player controlling the creature?

You're still controlling the aura.

  303.4e An Aura’s controller is separate from the enchanted object’s controller or the enchanted player; the two need not be the same. If an Aura enchants an object, changing control of the object doesn’t change control of the Aura, and vice versa. Only the Aura’s controller can activate its abilities. However, if the Aura grants an ability to the enchanted object (with “gains” or “has”), the enchanted object’s controller is the only one who can activate that ability.

However, in this case it doesn't matter. The aura says

  double its controller's life total

"its" refers to the enchanted creature, not the aura itself. So your opponent will get the benefits here.


How do Phenomenon cards work in the Eternities Map variant? In the Eternities Map variant of Planechase, players lay out Plane cards in a grid and get to choose a direction when they planeswalk:

Players see not only the current plane, but also adjacent planes they can go to.

Planechase 2012 introduces the new Phenomenon cards as part of the planar deck -- for example, Interplanar Tunnel and Spatial Merging.

How do Phenomenon cards work with the Eternities Map? Specifically,

Can you use them at all?
Are Phenomena resolved immediately when you reveal them from the deck, or do they go on the field and sit there (like adjacent Planes would) until a player visits one?
What happens to a Phenomenon card after it resolves?
How should triggers be stacked when resolving Phenomena?
Do any of the Phenomena require functional errata to work in this format?

I would like to see authoritative official rules, but house rules (with design justification) are also acceptable.

What I've been doing is to leave the Phenomena on the board and treat them as warp tunnels. When traveling to a phenomenal you encounter the phenomenal and then continue in a straight line to encounter a new plane (which may or may not have been visible).


World legacy Key Ruling I have my board completely filled with mekk-knights and world legacy key is face-up on the field. My opponent activates fiendish chain on one of my mekk-knights. Does the effect of fiendish chain resolve? I thought it wouldn't but my duel simulator let it resolve.

Let's start from the beginning, "World Legacy Key"'s effect stated:

Negate any opponent's Trap effect that activates in the same column as a "Mekk-Knight" monster you control.

Assuming this Continuous effect already took place, your opponent activates "Fiendish Chain" with this activation condition:

Activate this card by targeting 1 Effect Monster on the field; ...

Which will now be explained by this article: Activate

A card or effect can only be activated if that card or effect meets its activation conditions.
The activation cost for a card or effect must be paid in order to activate a card or effect.
It is not possible to activate a card or effect if the effect would fail to do anything when it resolved.
It is not possible to activate a card or effect if it has no valid target.

Number 3 does NOT actually stop "Fiendish Chain". It means fail to do anything by the game mechanic or does not change any game state if it resolved, not negated by card effects (for example, activating "Raigeki" or "Dark Hole" when there are no monsters in the field). It is perfectly fine to activate cards as long as the activation condition is met, regardless if it would be negated by even Continuous effects.
Additionally, "Fiendish Chain" continuously targets the targeted monster, therefore as soon as "World Legacy Key" is no longer active, "Fiendish Chain" will automatically negate the targeted monster at the time of activation.
Therefore, "Fiendish Chain" can be activated, but its effects are negated as long as "World Legacy Key" is active. "Fiendish Chain" will remain on the field.
According to Shinji's explanation below, "Fiendish Chain"'s Continuous Effect still negates according to this ruling about "Skill Drain", so yeah, my bad. Kudos to him for finding the ruling in Japanese. Sometimes Konami make everything more convoluted than it should be.


How does Unstable set's "The Grand Calcutron" work with cards that interact with a player's hand? The upcoming Unstable set features a card called The Grand Calcutron:

A particular part of the card seems to make it so that players no longer have hands, along with changing how draws work.

When The Grand Calcutron enters the battlefield, each player's hand becomes a program (an ordered row of revealed cards).
Players can only play the first card of their program.
If a card would be put into a player's hand from anywhere, that player reveals it and places it anywhere within his or her program instead.
At the beginning of each player's end step, if that player's program has fewer then five cards, he or she draws cards equal to the difference.

The way that it is written it seems like players will no longer have a "hand". I am wondering how this card will change interactions with other cards that look at, or modify, player's hands in some way.
Specifically I am wondering about:

Discard effects, (eg: Duress, or Thoughtseize)
Effects that modify a player's handsize (eg. Locust Miser)
Effects that ask you to make selections from someones hand (eg. Agonizing Memories)
Effects that try to count how many cards a player has in their hand (eg. Adamaro, First to Desire)

Note: As this is a card from an Unset, Official Rulings from Mark Rosewater would be word of God, failing that well reasoned answers that draw on existing card rulings or game rules are perfectly acceptable.

The program is your hand, and effects that affect or care about the contents of your hand affect or care about the program while The Grand Calcutron is on the battlefield.
Mark Rosewater answered this question specifically regarding discarding as follows:

What happens if an effect forces you to discard a card while The Grand Calcutron is in play? Do you discard from your program?
You discard a card from the program. With Grand Calcutron on the battlefield, your hands are the program so things that affect your hand affect the program.

Presumably, "things that affect your hand" includes the rule instructing you to discard to hand size in the cleanup step, so an effect that modifies your maximum hand size would affect the program the same way they would affect a regular hand.
Similarly, an effect that requires selecting a card from a hand would have you select from the program instead, and anything that wants to count the cards in the hand would count the cards in the program.


When is "end of turn" in Magic? I've been casually playing Magic with a friend, about twice a month, for the last 3 months, and the phrase "until end of turn" has always puzzled me, particularly on effects that give +1/+1 (for example, shades). Whose end of turn is meant by the ability?

For example, imagine I used a shade's ability to boost it from 2/2 to 4/4 during my attack phase, and it were blocked, taking 2 damage. Will its toughness drop down to 2, and its health respectively to 0, the moment the enemy turn begins, or will it remain at 4 toughness and 2 health until the end of my enemy's turn and thus undergo regeneration? What if the same situation occurred, except the ability used was not the shade's ability, but Giant Growth?

In modern-day Magic rules, every player's turn has a phase called the "end phase".

The last step of the end phase is to remove all "until end of turn" effects and all damage simultaneously. So your Shade will heal up and shrink down at the same time, allowing it to stay alive.

Here's the definition from the comp rules (with a summary below):

  512. Ending Phase

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

  513. End Step

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

  513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger
             condition “at end of turn.” Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the
             Oracle card reference to say “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next
             end step.”

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

  513.3. If a permanent with an ability that triggers “at the beginning of the end step” enters the
         battlefield during this step, that ability won’t trigger until the next turn’s end step. Likewise, if a
         delayed triggered ability that triggers “at the beginning of the next end step” is created during this
         step, that ability won’t trigger until the next turn’s end step. In other words, the step doesn’t “back
         up” so those abilities can go on the stack. This rule applies only to triggered abilities; it doesn’t
         apply to continuous effects whose durations say “until end of turn” or “this turn.” (See rule 514,
         “Cleanup Step.”)

  514. Cleanup Step

  514.1. First, if the active player’s hand contains more cards than his or her maximum hand size    (normally seven), he or she discards
  enough cards to reduce his or her hand size to that number.    This
  turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.

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

  514.3. Normally, no player receives priority during the cleanup step, so no spells can be cast and no    abilities can be activated.
  However, this rule is subject to the following exception:

  514.3a At this point, the game checks to see if any state-based actions would be performed and/or
         any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack (including those that trigger “at the
         beginning of the next cleanup step”). If so, those state-based actions are performed, then those
         triggered abilities are put on the stack, then the active player gets priority. Players may cast
         spells and activate abilities. Once the stack is empty and all players pass in succession, another
         cleanup step begins.

So, when neither you or your opponent(s) have any more actions to take during your post-combat main phase, the game goes to the end phase. First you deal with any "at the beginning of the end step" triggers, and players get a last chance to cast Instants and activate abilities -- so this gives your opponent one last chance to, say, Lightning Bolt the Shade, although if you have mana open you will be able to pump it up or Giant Growth it in response, as usual.

Then, you go to cleanup, which is like the real end of your turn. First, if it's your turn that's ending, you discard any cards above your maximum hand size (normally 7); note that you'll never need to discard at the end of someone else's turn. Then all damage is erased and all "until end of turn" effects expire simultaneously. In your example, this means the Shade would go from being a pumped-up 4/4 creature with 2 damage marked on it to its normal 2/2 self with 0 damage marked on it. There is never a time when your creature's "until end of turn" effects will expire with damage still on the creature.

(If you played a special card that says "end the turn", like Sundial of the Infinite, then "at the beginning of the end step" triggers won't take effect at all this turn, but you still do the cleanup stuff like discarding down to 7 and removing damage and "until end of turn" effects.)


When should I make an accusation in Clue? In Clue, I can usually use careful observation of my own and others' suggestions to gradually eliminate possibilities. But when should I make the final accusation? Should I wait until I am 100% sure I am correct, or eventually take a chance? How can I tell if the other players are close enough to making their own accusations that I should make mine first?

Since I only get to make one accusation in the game (if I get it wrong I get no further moves), I figure I should at least be 50% sure that I am correct, but I'm curious as to when suggestions should be made earlier or later than my general guidelines suggests.

I don't think your general guideline of 50% certain is accurate. When you make an accusation is more dependent upon how much your opponents know, and how likely you are going to be able to make another useful suspicion before the end of the game. BTW, there aren't that may possibilities for certainty at which you would make an accusation:

100% - Deduced all cards
50% - Know all cards except 2 of one type.
33% - Know all cards except 3 of one type.
25% - Know all cards except 2 of one type, and 2 of another (or 4 of one type).
16.7% - Know all cards except 3 of one type, and 2 of another (or 5 of one type).
... doubtful you would make an accusation at this point.

I have played quite a few games, and I am pretty sure that in most of them, a player that won made an accusation before they where 100% sure. It is very difficult to be so far ahead that only you know will be 100% sure before everyone else knows enough information to be 100% themselves, or close enough that they shouldn't risk a guess before you get your next turn. I will give some concrete examples below for illustration (when I can think of them).
How can I tell if other players are close to making an accusation?
There are multiple ways to determine what your opponents know (or should know).

A suspicion does not get disproved. If a suspicion goes all the way around the table, there are only two possibilities. The player making the suspicion has none of those cards in their hand, in which case that player is 100% sure and should make an immediate accusation and win the game. The player player making the suspicion has one or more of those cards in hand.

A suspicion for a particular Suspect, Weapon, or Room is not disproved by a player that previously disproved a suspicion with that element.

Imagine that you suspect: Col. Mustard, with the Candlestick, in the Billiard Room, and Player A immediately to your left disproved them.
At a later point, you suspect: Col. Mustard, with the Candlestick, in the Conservatory, and Player A cannot disprove them.

Your opponents should know, even without seeing Player A's cards that Player A has Billiard Room in their hand (and doesn't have Col. Mustard or Candlestick).

A player continually uses the same Suspect, Weapon, or Room. While this cannot be directly deduced from the process of elimination as in the above examples, it is highly likely that the player that is continually reusing the same Suspect, Weapon, or Room is their suspicions because, they are trying to make a suspicion that will go all the way around that will tell them with certainty one or more of the elements that they don't know. You know that either: 1) They have that card (or multiple cards) that they keep reusing, or  2) They don't have any cards of that type (Suspect, Weapon, or Room), and are using the card in the envelope because they have no choice.

I wish I could provide some concrete examples to illustrate when you might venture a guess at 50%, 33%, ..., but it has been ages since I played a game of Clue. It is difficult to envision a situation that doesn't sound contrived without playing a real game, and using a real world example in which you almost sure of the answer, and you know exactly which cards your opponents still think might be in the envelope. I might try to convince the family to play a game of Clue, so that I can edit the post to be more helpful.


How does Infect resolve in M:TG? I'm making a poison deck and want to check the Infect rules.

If a 2/2 creature with Infect is blocked by a vanilla 3/3 creature, what happens?

I know the 3/3 gets two -1/-1 counters instead of damage, but does it do 3 or 1 damage to my 2/2 infect creature?

Can anyone give reference to official rules on when the counters come into play?

if a 2/2 poison creature is blocked by a normal 3/3 creature what happens ?
I know the 3/3/ gets two -1/-1 counters instead of damage but does it do 3 or 1 damage to my 2/2 poison creature ?
can anyone give reference to official rules on when the counters come into play?

From the comprehensive rules, all damage is dealt simultaneously.:

510.2. Second, all combat damage that's been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it's dealt. This is a change from previous rules.

A creature with infect deals damage like this, according to rule 119.3d & e and 702.88c:

119.3d Damage dealt to a creature by a source with wither and/or infect causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature.
119.3e Damage dealt to a creature by a source with neither wither nor infect causes that much damage to be marked on that creature.
702.88c Damage dealt to a creature by a source with infect isn't marked on that creature. Rather, it causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature. See rule 119.3.

Therefore, since damage is done simultaneously and the counters come into play at the same time damage is dealt, your 2/2 creature with infect will be dealt 3 damage, and the 3/3 creature will get two -1/-1 counters during the combat damage step. Your creature with infect will therefore die.


Is killing an enemy scout considered a battle? The game manual says that if you conquer an enemy scout that is alone, you can take a loot as if you had won a battle. It doesn't specify that it is a battle.

The reason we need to know is for Code of Laws. Upon winning a battle, you can get a coin token to place on that research for future investing. So is conquering a scout that is alone considered a battle?

No. If you aren't drawing square unit cards, a battle isn't taking place

From the FFG rule book (page 23)

  Battle is the struggle of one civilization against another for dominance. When an army figure moves into a square containing a village marker, an enemy army figure, or an enemy city, a battle takes place.

If you had continued reading the section ENEMY FIGURES, you should have realized that.

  Scouts cannot enter a square containing enemy figures. If an army enters a square containing any enemy figures, its movement immediately ends. If the square contains only enemy scouts, the scouts are immediately killed and the attacking player collects loot as though they had won a battle (see page 25). If the square contains at least one enemy army, a battle occurs (see page 23). If the square contains a mix of both enemy armies and scouts, a battle occurs, but if the losing side in the battle has any scouts in the square, they are killed along with the armies; loot is then collected as normal.


flush on the board in texas hold'em poker Sherry:Q◇Q♧

Loren:7♡8◇

Board:10♤9♤2♤A♤3♤

Is this a split or does Sherry win and why?

Thanks Tammy

The pot is split.

In hold-em, each player is judged by the best 5 cards that they can put together between the board and their hand. In this case, for both players, that is just the five cards on the board. Sherry's queens cannot be used as kickers because they do not appear in the best five card hand.


Monopoly Deal: Fairest way of removing extra cards It is not explicitly specified how the remaining card(s) should be removed before finishing your turn.
The obvious option is to put it at the bottom of the deck, but in this way a player can manipulate the odds (for instance, if a player needs a red property to win then he can throw to the bottom of the deck a property of that color).
So, is there a better option than putting the remaining cards at the bottom of the deck?

There are two options:

The rules as written say that they should go on the bottom of the deck.
You could opt to have players put extra cards face up in the public discard instead.

The official rulebook says the following (my emphasis):

If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn (not including cards on the table) discard extras to the bottom of the draw pile so you only have 7.

This is an unusual way for games to handle discards; I think that this is an inelegant solution, and it sounds like you do too.  monopolydealrules.com is non-authoritative collection of rules clarifications and improvements sourced from the community, and suggests a discarding face-up to the discard pile.  Their "general rules" say:

At the end of a turn, a player cannot have more than 7 cards in their hand. If they do, they need to discard the excess cards into the discard pile in the middle.

This is only a meaningful difference if you actually go through the entire deck in the game, which is unlikely.  I'd recommend going with having discards go to the discard pile, as it's a more normal way to handle discards and it addresses the concern of players potentially manipulating the deck through discards.


How does Conestoga work? In BANG! Dodge City the Conestoga card has some ambiguous symbols.

The first symbol is draw a card, and the second refers to any player at the table. This seems to have two possible meanings:

Take a card from any player (i.e. a long range Cat Balou; Cat Balou uses the same draw symbol)
Draw a card [from the deck] for any player (like Tequila but a card instead of health; Stagecoach and Wells Fargo use the draw symbol in this way)

The first interpretation seems quite powerful (maybe too powerful), and the second seems pretty useless (unless you're a really generous Deputy).

There's an official answer in the Bang! Dodge City FAQ:

Q11. How Conestoga and Rag Time work?
A. Just read the symbols. They both allow you to draw a card (from the hand of among “in play” cards) from any one player, regardless of the distance.

Adding this to the base rules of Bang! regarding the "draw!" symbol:

Draw a card. If “any player” is specified (see that symbol), then you
can draw a random card from his hand, or you can choose one in play in
front of him. If no player is specified, draw the top card of the
deck. In any case, cards drawn are added to your hand.

EDIT: making an assumption about a potential typo in the Dodge City FAQ.
The wording from the FAQ is a bit iffy, so it might be possible the intended interpretation is "from the hand or among 'in play cards'".  If this is, in fact the case, Conestoga can be read as:
Take a card from any opponent at random, or take one at your discretion from the "in play" cards in front of any opponent.


In duplicate, is it ethical to base your play on other people's body language? In bridge, there are some times when you can assure yourself of x number of tricks (just enough for your contract) by making a safety play to guard against an adverse 4-1 distribution. If you don't make the safety play, and instead lead out three top cards, you will make an overtrick if the suit breaks 3-2, and go down one if it breaks 4-1 (because you can't get back to dummy to take the fifth trick. Most rubber players would make the safety play to maximize expected points, and most duplicate players would take the three tops to maximize expected tricks.

Suppose you are a member of a "traveling" duplicate pair. As you approach a certain table, you notice declarers looking glum as they leave the table. From this, you infer that one or more declarers caught a bad break. Sure enough, when you sit down and declare, you see the road fork between making a safety play and laying down three top cards.

Now it's unethical to peek at the score sheet to find out whether others made an overtrick, their contract, or down one. But is it unethical to make the safety play based on the body language of the two preceding declarers?

Suppose someone else was the only declarer to make the safety play. The tournament director observes this and accuses him of cheating. He defends himself by saying that he was dissatisfied with his position in the standings, was in a "top or bottom" mode, and earned a top on this one hand. How would these claims be resolved?

Under no circumstances is one entitled to draw inferences from the actions of a partner or teammate.
Under certain circumstances one is entitled to draw inferences from the behavior of the opponents at one's table, on boards one is playing against them. As you note, deliberately peeking at an opponent's scores is not one of these cases.
However, under no circumstances is one entitled to draw inferences from the behaviour of opponents at other tables, about boards not currently at your table. In this instance, there additionally seems to have been a conscious interpretation of forbidden knowledge, making the violation particularly egregious.  Other than for a novice, I would likely assess average-minus on the board in question, and a further procedural penalty of one additional full board if I felt there was sufficient evidence to establish a likelihood that the egregious violation occurred, other than from lack of knowledge.
If I felt that the offender had lied in order to hide the deliberateness of the offense, that is blatant cheating. If sufficiently established I would immediately eject the player from the game, consequences to the movement not withstanding; impose a lengthy suspension from the club; and file a full incident report to the ACBL describing my actions and the evidence I used to reach the decision..


Triggering "On Cast" Effects When Sacrificing I've been playing Magic 2015 and I noticed an interaction I didn't expect.

I had a  Young Pyromancer out and cast  Fling, sacrificing the Pyromancer. The game triggered Young Pyromancer's effect and put a token onto the battlefield.

I don't understand this. Since the sacrifice is part of the cost of Fling, shouldn't the Pyromancer already be in the graveyard before Fling reaches the state of "having been cast", meaning that the token shouldn't exist?

Is there something I'm missing, or is it a bug in the game?

You should not have gotten a token

  601.2h Once the steps described in 601.2a–g are completed, the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time. If the spell’s controller had priority before casting it, he or she gets priority.

601.2a-g are the steps of announcing the spell, choosing targets, paying costs such as sacrificing creatures, and so on. By the time the "casting a spell" occurs, Young Pyromancer is no longer on the battlefield and its ability would not trigger.


Are the counters limited in Wrath of Ashardalon? In the new D+D game Wrath of Ashardalon, suppose that you use a daily power that places counters (like Blade Barrier, Mirror Image, or Flaming Sphere) and then get the power refreshed (through an item, for example) while the counters are still on the board.

Can you use the power again, and if so, what happens (given that you don't have enough counters left to place more)?

This is not an official ruling, but the way I've seen it played is, when a daily power is used a second time, all related tokens are removed from the board and placed again by the player according to the rules of that power.


How does Applied Entropy (Control) and Sealed Scroll interact? We were playing Argent: The Consortium (with Mancers of the University Expansion) and one of the players ended up getting the Applied Entropy spell to third level.

He then proceeded to target a Sealed Scroll with the Control (third level) spell.
How does this interaction work?

Since he's already at his regular action, can he use the fast action on this treasure?
If he can, where does the Sealed scroll go? His discard or the original owner's?

No, the player can not target the sealed scroll.

The rules (emphasis from the printed rules) for fast actions State :-

  You may not use a Fast Action after you take your regular
  Action.  Also, you may not use a Fast Action in place of a Regular
  Action.

The Control spell, level 3 of Applied Entropy, says :-

  Action: use an opponents Treasure Card, exhausting it after use.

Sealed Scroll says :-

  Fast Action: Research a Legendary Spell of your choice, then place this into your personal discard pile.

So as the player is in his action phase he can not then go back and do anything that counts as a Fast Action from his own cards or that of another players.  As Control is 'Action' and Sealed Scroll is 'Fast Action' this is completely prevented.


How to balance Dixit? The rules of Dixit that the game ends when the deck runs out (leaving players with full hands at the end). Every time I have played, the players have commented that this means that some players have been the storyteller more than others, and it doesn't seem fair. The players have wanted to continue playing after the deck has run out, until everyone has been the storyteller the same number of times, either by playing with fewer cards to choose from their hands, or by reshuffling the used cards.

What is the reason for not continuing until all players have been the storyteller? Do these methods of balancing the game have any unintended side effects?

That particular rule isn't particularly balanced, and is included for convenience. However, playing with fewer cards in hand also imbalances the game, as storytellers have fewer cards to choose from to come up with a good hint, and other players have fewer options to play in.

Turns as the storyteller aren't the same value as other turns either; the storyteller is probably more likely to get their 3 points, but other players stand to gain more points by misleading other players and guessing the card correctly.

One way to fix this is, as you mentioned, to reshuffle cards until everyone has had an equal number of turns. When I play, we agree to finish at the end of however many more rounds.

Additionally, if you have extra Dixit card packs, you probably don't want to keep playing until you run out of cards.


Aspasia and Abu Simbel Imagine this: I build Aspasia at the beginning of Age 3. I then bury her for Abu Simbel wonder stage.

Does the diplomacy token stay or go with it?

(Quoting from the English rules, from the linked PDFs.)

Cities, page 5, about Diplomacy:

  A player who puts into play a card with the [Diplomacy] symbol takes a Diplomacy token from the bank and places it on their board.

Cities, page 8, about Aspasia:

  When Aspasia enters play, the player takes a
  Diplomacy token.

Wonder Pack, page 1, about Abu Simbel’s stage 3:

  The player can no longer benefit from the chosen Leader’s effect.

I’d say the Diplomacy token stays on your board. After bringing Aspasia into play, the Diplomacy effect gets exectued instantaneously, leaving Aspasia with

a now useless Diplomacy effect, and
2 VP at game end effect

both of which stop being active by burying it. But this doesn’t affect any benefits this Leader gave you before burying it, and it doesn’t require to rollback anything made possible by this Leader.

Think of the other Leaders: Many of them also have instant effects, like Caligula, which allows to build one black card per Age for free. If you’d use its effect and bury it afterwards, you wouldn’t have to get rid of the black card in retrospect.


Can I summon figures into a non-adjacent region? While reading the rules for Chaos in the Old World, I came across the following paragraph on page 12 under the Summoning Follower Figures under the Summoning Phase section:

Note that the placing player may count a given region as occupied by his own figure if he chose the last figure in that region to summon. For example, a player who picks up his last figure in Norsca in order to summon it to a different location may summon that figure to Troll Country, even if he has no figures in Troll Country or in any regions adjacent to Troll Country.

On the surface, this is rule is in place simply to allow you to 'move' a unit across the board so you can summon in regions you actually want to (if, for instance, there is a particularly debilitating Old World card in play that refuses to fall off the track). However, the first sentence caught my attention and got me thinking.

Note that the placing player may count a given region as occupied by his own figure if he chose the last figure in that region to summon.

Does this allow for more advanced play tactics? For instance, would the following play (in bold) be legal?

Khorne has one Bloodsworn in Norsca, but no units in Troll Country or Kislev

Khorne summons a Bloodsworn from Norsca into the Empire.
Nurgle summons a Plaguebearer into Kislev.
Tzeentch plays a Chaos Card in Tilea.
Slaanesh plays a Chaos Card in The Border Princes.
Khorne summons a Bloodletter into Troll Country.

My reasoning for believing this is legal is because Khorne was the last one to summon in Norsca - and no one else summoned into or out of Norsca during that cycle of summoning - Norsca is still counted as 'occupied by Khorne'; and therefore Khorne can summon a Bloodletter into Troll Country, as it is adjacent to a region he controls. Had another player summoned a unit into Norsca after Khorne removed his Bloodsworn, this play would not have been possible.

If this is a legal play, it leads to some follow-up questions:

If the Summoning Phase had ended with Slaanesh, would Khorne be able to summon his Bloodletter in the Summoning Phase of the next round?
If Tzeentch had played his Chaos Card in Norsca instead of Tilea, would Khorne still have been able to summon his Bloodletter?

Note that the synonymous nature of "move","place" and "summon" only applies to figures and not Chaos Cards.(Emphasis mine)

To "summon" a figure, "place" a figure or even "move" a figure are all equivalent terms.

While Chaos cards are "placed" or "played", the above rule does not seem like it applies to them as it is found under the Summoning Follower Figures section, not the Playing Chaos Cards section or even the general description of the Summoning Phase.

It's a clever loophole, but I think it is an unintentional one. You've pointed out most of the reasons it's probably not intended to work like that already:

The rule is intended to model the movement of troops from one region to an adjacent region. It doesn't make any thematic sense to summon multiple troops to an adjacent empty region that you used to have a presence in.
What about the round after? And potentially the round after that?
How does this interact with Chaos cards?

The last two points are not defined in the rules at all, which is significant.

Most compellingly, this violates the general game design principle that it's a bad idea to make key decisions pivotal on invisible board states, stored only in player's fallible and biased memories. Once Khorne has moved their Bloodletter, everyone at the table would have to remember that he used to be in Norsca. Potentially they would need to remember this over multiple rounds, if Norsca remained empty. Since this state is not reflected on the board, if there was any dispute about who was where, it can't be resolved by inspection. That's just bad design.


What activity is there in Computer Go tournaments? At the moment, the 17th TCEC superfinal is running, Stockfish vs. Leela. It is considered the unofficial world championship of computer chess, and games are frequently publicly commentated by professional chess players. TCEC runs tournaments continuously, 2-4 of them every year.

Given the advance of Go programs, I wonder whether there are well-organized computer Go tournaments. I found the Computer Go UEC Cup, but Wikipedia says it took place annually from 2007-2017 and has stopped; also, its website has not been updated for several years. There is slightly confusing further information about a follow-up tournament in 2019, which points to Japanese websites.

Hence my questions:

  1) Where can one get information in English about the UEC Cup? Do most state-of-the-art programs participate?

  2) Are there other computer Go tournaments?

The  Computer Go Server1 is currently a very active test bed for bots. The Computer Go page at Sensei’s Library refers, under Competitions, to various competitions including the Computer Go Server, with its own page at Sensei’s Library, which gives the URL1. On that site, you will find daily updated tables of bots for 9×9, 13×13 and 19×19, These refer to the Bayes ELO ratings pages (on the same site) where for example the 19×19 page as I write (2020-04-19 22:17) shows 1064 programmes ranging in strength from DunceBot at 538 to KG30b11_406_2x2060 at 3387. The non-Bayes page shows the date+time of the most recent game by each bot, showing that a game was played some two hours ago.

The page http://www.computer-go.info/events/index.html, though was described at Sensei’s Library as showing “all competitions” in fact covers the dates 1920–20172.

I know no more than you of what has become of the UEC Cup. Surprisingly, none of the AlphaGo variants appear although one convincingly defeated a top professional, Lee Sedol, in 2016; more recent bots such as LeelaZero (released 2017-10-25) and KataGo (released 2019) appeared after the UEC Cup apparently stopped.

1  The current URL is http://www.yss-aya.com/cgos/ . Sensei’s also gave the URL http://cgos.boardspace.net/, but this appears not to work, which I have noted in Sensei’s.

2 I have updated Sensei’s accordingly.


Does Cascade look at CMC or mana cost payed? When casting a spell with Cascade, does it use the CMC of the spell with Cascade for reference of what it is looking for? Or does it use the mana cost that was payed.

For example, if I am to cast Maelstrom Wanderer with commander tax applied to him, so he costs 10 CMC instead of 8 CMC, would I reveal until I find a spell that costs less than 8 or 10 CMC?

Cascade checks the converted mana cost of the spell, which doesn't include any additional costs or cost reductions.

The definition of Cascade is in rule 702.84a:

  Cascade is a triggered ability that functions only while the spell with cascade is on the stack. “Cascade” means “When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card whose converted mana cost is less than this spell’s converted mana cost. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Then put all cards exiled this way that weren’t cast on the bottom of your library in a random order.”


The Ancient One awakens fast! At the end of each player's turn, you draw a Mythos card. The Mythos card (among other things) opens a gate to an Other World. This increases the Doom counter on the Ancient One.

For two players, each round the doom counter will go up by two (assuming the players don't close any gates). If the doom counter goes up to ten, this means the Ancient One awakens. So if the players are slow to close and seal gates, the Ancient One will awaken in 5 rounds. Is this correct?

Unlike the other phases, only the first player acts in the Mythos Phase (check the first sentence about the Mythos phase in the rulebook page 9)

In your example you'd have 10 turns each before the GOO (Great Old One) awakens.  Some caveats:

10 is just a sample number, various GOO's have between 7 and 14 tokens allowed.
Not all Mythos cards open a gate (Rumors for example).
There may already be a gate there (no Doom token is placed).
Gates can open via other circumstances (these also generate a Doom token).

You can never be quite sure how many turns you have left.   That's one of the great things about Arkham Horror.

The terror track is completely different.  The main way that it advances is due to having too many monsters in the outskirts.  It is pretty rare to fill the terror track, but you will see a building or two close fairly often.

For two players, you are allowed 6 monsters in the outskirts; if there are any more, then dump them and increment the terror track.  (Note that 8 less the number of players is always the maximum number of monsters allowed in the outskirts.)


Trample and double strike I attack with an 8/8 double strike trampler.  My opponent blocks with a 3/5, and three 1/2 creatres.  How much damage does my opponent ultimately receive?  I said 5, he said 4. Who is correct?  Thanks

Your opponent will be dealt up to 5 damage

Damage doesn't wear off until end of turn, so it's irrelevant how much damage a creature is dealt in the First Strike or normal combat damage segment individually.

  119.6. Damage marked on a creature remains until the cleanup step (...)

Therefore, when dealing with a creature with Trample, you can simply add up the defense of all creatures blocking it, subtract that number from the trampling creature's total power (multiplied by 2, if it has Double Strike) and end up with the amount of damage dealt to the player. In this case, here's what the calculation looks like:

8 * 2 - (5 + 2 + 2 + 2)  =  16 - 11  =  5

Exceptions to this rule would be the creature with Double Strike dieing in the First Strike combat damage segment, for example when blocked by a Glissa, the Traitor. Since the blocking creatures in this case aren't capable of dealing lethal damage in the First Strike combat damage step, damage assignment order and combat damage segments are irrelevant to this specific example.

Note that you can assign more damage to a blocking creature than it has toughness, meaning you could assign all damage to the blocking creatures and none to the defending player. Because of that, the answer is phrased "up to 5 damage"


Benefits of not equipping skeletons with spears? The vampire counts skeletons can carry spears for free.

What would be the benefit for not carrying spears?

Just seems weird to me. I don't see any reason to not carry them.

A model with Hand Weapon and Shield can use the 'Parry' special rule to get a ward save.  A model with a spear cannot.  Since skeletons are weak and have poor weapon skill anyway, it may be beneficial to have better survivability rather than a few more attacks that are unlikely to hurt anything, depending on what role you see the unit filling in your army.


Overrun place locked in Dead of winter? What happens if a location is overrun. Can you go back to the location or is it closed forever since it is filled with zombies?

When zombies overrun a location each zombie that overruns kills a survivor that is at the location. What the means is that even if all the places for zombies are filled you can still go back there to try and do something but unless you kill some zombies any that get added will kill the survivors at the location.

Rules

  Whenever adding zombies, they are added 1 at a time until
  all zombies that need to be added have been added.
  When adding zombies to the colony, always place the first
  zombie on any empty space in entrance 1, the second zombie
  on any empty space in entrance 2, the third zombie on any
  empty space in entrance 3, etc. until all of the zombies that
  need to be added have been placed. When adding a seventh
  zombie, place it on any empty space in entrance 1 again, an
  eighth zombie on any empty space in entrance 2, etc. If there
  are no empty entrance spaces in the entrance the zombie
  would be placed but there is a barricade token in one of
  those spaces, destroy that barricade token and remove the
  zombie that would have been placed. If there are no empty
  spaces and no barricade tokens, the entrance has been
  overrun, remove that zombie and kill the survivor at the
  colony that has the lowest influence value. If there are only
  helpless survivors at the colony, kill a helpless survivor. If
  there are no survivors at the colony remove the zombie that
  would have been placed without further effect. Every time a
  survivor is killed (including a helpless survivor), decrease
  morale by 1. When adding zombies to non-colony locations
  follow all of the same rules, except there is only 1 entrance to
  place zombies in so all of the zombies are placed in spaces at
  that entrance. See Example: Adding Zombies to right.
  In the rare case that players ever have to
  add zombies and there are no more zombie
  standees left, use the zombie tokens included
  in the game to add the additional zombies


Can you play Summoner Wars with only the Second Summoner packs? If I want to play with the second summoner of a particular faction, do I have to use cards from both the original summoner pack and the second summoner pack, or can I use only the cards from the second summoner pack?

You can use cards from just the Second Summoner deck without mixing them in with the original faction decks. In fact, this is how my wife and I play; we keep each deck in its original form rather than deckbuilding. If you look at the descriptions for the packs on Plaid Hat Games website (emphasis mine):

  This Second Summoner deck is a full faction deck with its own Summoner, set-up card, Champions, Commons, Walls and Event Cards. It requires a Summoner Wars Master Set or Starter Set to play.

The part in bold is what you care about; it's a fully functional deck on its own. The part in italics might be your concern. The reason you need a starter or master set is to get the player boards/mats and the tokens. However, you can buy the board on its own, and you can use anything from pennies to Skittles for wound tokens, so even a base set is sort of optional.


Good opening questions for Adventurers in Are You the Traitor? Many people complain, when they first try Are You the Traitor?, that they don't know where to start; a lot of people will just sit there and think about it, without saying anything, or will accidentally reveal their role quickly by the questions they ask or fail to ask.

What are some good opening questions or strategies for getting the ball rolling, if you're a guard, traitor, or keyholder? While you have different goals in all of those cases, you're trying not to reveal that, so your opening questions or discussion should probably be the same regardless of which role you take. The same question could be asked for the wizards, but for the purpose of this question, lets restrict it to the Adventurers.

If you're an Adventurer, what are good ways to start the game and get the ball rolling?

There's the obivious one...

"Are you the Traitor?"

I find that newbies especially, will telegraph their own identity by their behaviour in the first 20 seconds.

Asking about the traitor ===>  Guard.
Asking about the wizards ===>  Keyholder.

etc.

So my suggestion for your own personal strategy is to form a habit (and importantly, be seen to form a habit) of always asking the same question (be it "Are you the traitor" or "Are you the keyholder") to all players in the same order.  This stops them from gaining information from your question or question ordering.  What you want to do is watch the reactions.  For example, if you ask if Alice is the Keyholder, and she answers with an uncertain no, and Bob lights up and glances at the 2 wizards, its usually safe to accuse Bob of being the traitor (because he knows the keyholder, and now needs to signal evil wizard).  The key to that game is not the question, or the answer;  its regulating the flow of information by amassing as much for yourself as possible without revealing any of what you already know.  Your goal is not necessarily to discover your target;  your goal is to possess the sum of the public knowledge, while maintaining your monopoly rights on your private knowledge.


Pokemon cards with the same name and different features I have noticed that some Pokémon have the same name but different features (be it hit points, attacks or abilities). How does this work? I am accustomed to card games where the same card, even with different art, has the same behaviour but here it seems that you can have variations on a theme. Do they count towards the "max 4 per deck" rule even if they are different? Does it change something at tournament/competitive play Vs casual play?

According to Rulebook, page 22:

DECK BUILDING
(...)
Also, except for basic Energy, you can only have 4 cards with the same name in your deck. This means you can have only 4 cards called “Pignite” in your deck, even if they all have different attacks. Finally, your deck must have at least one Basic Pokémon in it.
(...)

You can see that deckbuilding rules does not talk about cards, but card names.
There are also some parts of Pokémon's name that do not count toward this rule, that is outlined in Rulebook on page 21:

WHAT DOES AND DOESN’T COUNT FOR A POKÉMON’S NAME?
• Some Pokémon cards have extra information after their name, such as a Level or a symbol like GL. A Pokémon’s name changes how you can evolve or play certain cards. Level is not part of a Pokémon’s name:
    ◆ Gengar, Gengar LV. 43, Gengar LV. 44, and Gengar LV.X all have the same name
• Symbols at the end of a Pokémon’s name are part of a Pokémon’s name:
    ◆ Alakazam, Alakazam 四, and Alakazam ☆ all have different names from each other
    ◆ However, δ (Delta Species) is not part of a Pokémon’s name. Aerodactyl and
Aerodactyl δ (Delta Species) have the same name
• An owner or form name in a Pokémon’s name is part of the Pokémon’s name:
    ◆ Meowth, Alolan Meowth, and Rocket’s Meowth have different names
When you are building a deck, you can have only 4 copies of a card with the same name in it, except for basic Energy cards. If your deck has 1 each of Gengar, Gengar LV. 43, Gengar LV. 44, and Gengar LV.X, you can’t put any more cards named Gengar in your deck! However, you could have 4 Meowth, 4 Alolan Meowth, and 4 Rocket’s Meowth.
When evolving, the “evolves from” Pokémon name must match the Pokémon being evolved. So Graveler can evolve from Geodude, or Geodude LV. 12, but not Brock’s Geodude.

There is no difference in casual or tournament play, if they follow official rules. There might be some formats that change those rules, like Prerelease tournament that diverges from official rules such as:

40 cards in deck
only 4 prizes
no "only 4 Pokémon with the same name deck" rule

I strongly recommend to play using the official rules at all times so you are not surprised when you attend a league or a tournament for the first time.


Do multiple Gray Merchant of Asphodels trigger each others' enters-the-battlefield effects? If there is a Gray Merchant of Asphodel on the battlefield and a second Gray Merchant of Asphodel enters, do both cards trigger and opponent loses x life where x is devotion times 2, or does just the one card entering the battlefield trigger?

No, only the one entering the battlefield triggers.

Any time you see a card use its own name in its rules text, that means it is referring to the card that it is printed on; not other cards with the same name.

  201.4. Text that refers to the object it's on by name means just that particular object and not any other objects with that name, regardless of any name changes caused by game effects.


Does the Medic need to wait until their next turn to remove cubes when another player researches a cure? Say Medic got to Paris with 3 blue cubes but didn't have enough action to remove cubes, and a next player cures blue. Do we get to remove those blue cubes from Paris right away or do we wait till Medic's next turn?

The blue cubes in Paris are removed immediately:

From the Rules (Classic Pandemic p.5), emphasis mine:

  The Medic removes all cubes, not 1, of the same color when doing the Treat Disease action. If a disease has been cured, he automatically removes all cubes of that color from a city, simply by entering it or being there. This does not take an action.
  The Medic also prevents placing disease cubes (and outbreaks) of cured
  diseases in his location. The Medic's automatic removal of cubes also
  happens during other players' turns.


In Sorry, can I be forced to move out of my "safe zone"? For example, if I draw a 4 (move 4 spaces backward) and the only piece that could make the move is in my "safe zone", do I have to make the move?

Yes. From a PDF version of the rules, you are required to move if a legal move is available:

  ... if at any time you can move, you must move, even if it's to your disadvantage.

and from the description of the Safety Zone, moving backward out of the zone is legal:

  ... however, a pawn may move backward out of its SAFETY ZONE and on subsequent turns move back into the ZONE as cards permit.

Note that trading places on an 11 is an exception to this - you may decline to switch places with another pawn if you like - but yes, in your situation, you must move a pawn out of your safety zone.


Are production boosters limited to production dice rolls? The game include cards that double the production of resources in the neighbouring regions (Iron Foundry, Grain Mill, Brick Factory, Lumber Camp, Weaver's Shop).

Does the bonus apply every time we get a resource, or is it only limited to the production die rolls?

For instance, if I have a Lumber Camp next to a forest, and I trade 3 ores for lumber, do I get 1 or 2?

If I steal 1 lumber from my opponent (through Trade event, for example), do I get 1 or 2?

Did some Googling and I found an exhaustive FAQ on the Catan website. Here's the answer to this question:

  Production boosters - Do production boosters have an effect when events occur and actions are performed, e.g., when I may choose any 1 resource or take 1 resource from my opponent?

  No.


Should a judge assume that any triggers not mentioned have been missed when providing a ruling? Alice and Nathan are playing a friendly game of magic in a tournament run at Competitive REL. They run into a situation that they don't quite understand, and so they call for a judge. Jason arrives, hears the situation, and now needs to hand down his ruling.

Jason notices that a trigger was missed that would affect his ruling if it were noticed. Should Jason simply assume that the trigger was missed while making his ruling?

Actual Example

Alive controls a Bloodfire Expert. Nathan taps three Mountains and casts Lightning Strike (which only costs {1}{R}). Alice casts Stubborn Denial, thinking that Nathan has no mana to pay. Nathan pays for it, and Alice calls for a judge because Nathan forgot to announce that he had remaining mana in his pool.

Jason arrives, and notices that Alice did not mention the Prowess trigger on Bloodfire Expert. If she had remembered the trigger, Stubborn Denial would simply counter the Lightning Bolt because Alice would meet the conditions for Ferocious. What questions should Jason ask, and how should Jason rule?

Jason should feel free to ask questions that may reveal that a trigger was missed, or even to ask directly whether an ability triggered.
One kind of "free information" as defined in in section 4.1 of the tournament rules is

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

This includes abilities that created continuous effects that still affect the game state, like the Prowess ability in the example would have if it triggered. That section of the rules then makes the following statements about judges and free information:

Players must answer all questions asked of them by a judge completely and honestly, regardless of the type of information requested. Players may request to do so away from the match.

Judges are encouraged to help players in determining free information

If anything, the last sentence seems to encourage Jason to ask whether a triggered ability triggered, if it affects his ruling.
Of course, if Jason's questions do remind the player of a triggered ability that they had in fact forgotten, Jason may have to make another ruling about whether the trigger actually counts as missed. But neither the possibility of giving that reminder nor the possibility of having to make that ruling should deter Jason from asking any questions that are relevant to the ruling.


What is the name of this solitaire variant? I recently learned a new solitaire from a friend, but we have no idea what the name of it is. Can anyone help?
You use two decks of cards, and start by placing 14 rows of cards. The middle 4 rows are laid horizontal and are locked. The rest of the cards are placed vertical and are open. All of the cards are placed face-up. The rest of the cards are left in a pile with the face down and drawn one-after-one as you need them. (The bottom card is also open, but not sure if that's a rule my friend started with or not.)
The game is very similar to Klondike as you're supposed to build from kings down to ace with different color for each card (red on black or black on red). Then you gather all the aces and build up on them. The difficult part of this solitaire is that the locked cards in the middle have to be placed in one of the ace piles before you can use it up in the main game again.
I hope my explanation isn't too difficult to understand. If anyone knows the name, please tell me.
Thanks in advance.
Apologize for the bad picture, but hope you get it.

It looks like stalactites. ( Wikipedia, Double Deck Version )


What is the standardized format for Scrabble match annotations? I have seen graphical walk-throughs before of past Scrabble matches.  Watching the masters play is a great way to learn.  Is there a widely accepted manner in which to annotate games?  If so, is there anywhere a low-level description of such an annotation system?  I have looked at Go in ages passed and I know there is a very detailed specification for annotating Go matches.  I am looking for something similar with Scrabble.

Ok, I found one example of an annotation method used.  The gcg format seems to be allowed on Cross-Tables.

This format consists of a number of lines which can be divided into 2 classes:

Events
Pragmata

The former are moves by players, passes, exchanges, challenges, and end of game events (penalties or bonuses for tiles remaining at the end of the game).  They start with the character >

The latter are comments on the game, player names, the contents of player racks and a bunch of other options for future expansion or which have been made obsolete.  They start with the character #

The development of .gcg can be traced back to John Chew in August 2000.  I am not aware of its significance in the world of Scrabble nor of any competing annotation schemes which may be in place, particularly in Scrabble which is not TWL and especially for non-English Scrabble


Can you only buy one extra die with the The Calm Before The Storm destiny square? On the Board of Destiny for the Demon player, there is a destiny square that allows you to use any die to buy an extra die next turn. Can you only buy only one extra die with this ability, or can you use multiple dice to buy more than a single die?

You can only buy a single die, per Threat Phase.
The Destiny Board says:

Any Die Score: Roll an extra Die of Destiny during the next Threat Phase.

Rules page 8

(red) The Calm Before The Storm (red) allows the Demon player to roll an extra Die of Destiny during their next Threat phase.
Abilities printed in (red) can only be selected once per game Threat Phase (Errata: claustrophobia-theboardgame.com/fr/?p=441). There are no limitations for the Abilities printed in (black).


What's a good source of generic pieces/components? I'm interested in building up a decent collection of generic components that I can grab when I want to throw together a quick prototype of a game. I'm not aware of any "component collections" that you can actually buy (I guess there may not be much of a market for them) but if I'm wrong, feel free to link me to one.

I expect then, that what I'm looking for is a game that has good value-for-money for the components since that's all I'm interested in. For that reason, the actual gameplay or rules are irrelevant to me.

As for the components themselves, I expect I'd be looking at a Euro for plentiful generic pieces (more Ameritrash games tend to have components that aren't particularly generic; I'd rather they not be moulded spaceships, or treasure chests or animals or whatever). For instance, I'm looking for lots of cubes in various colours, maybe a few meeples in different colours too. Cards aren't so important to me since they can be easily prototyped from index cards etc. Agricola came to mind when I first thought about it, but that's quite pricey. (But who knows? Maybe the price-per-component value is actually quite good).

I'm aware that prices etc differ in different places, so I'm not looking for a game guaranteed to be available cheaply near me, but I'd be interested to hear how people have solved this problem in the past.

Update: Thanks for the tips guys! The online resources look really good, but are all based in the US and I'm based in the UK! If anyone knows of any online solutions that can cheaply ship to the UK that would be great. The cost of shipping from the US kind of counteracts the cheapness in the first place!

You have several options if you want to collect a large set of generic components so that you can throw your own prototype together.

Thrift Store games you buy just for the components

If you frequent thrift stores regularly, you can pick up cheap games ($2-$4 usually) specifially just to harvest the components from them. Some good examples from the list above are (with linked pictures of the components):

Scrabble : 100 Wooden Tiles. The backs are blank, or you could have the letters have some meaning within your game, or cover up the letters with stickers.
Risk : Colored Wooden Cubes/Plastic Stars. Old and Classic Editions come with wooden cubes.
Yahtzee Jr. : 1" indented Cubes. Useful if you want to make custom dice.
Advance to Boardwalk : 4 Colors of 20 stackable squares. Upwwords comes with stackable letters.
Trumpet : Cards numbered 1-11 in 6 different suits, when you want to design 5-6 player games and a standard deck won't do.
Bottletops : Hundreds of Wooden disks, most white, some red.
Bingo/Sequence : The $1 Store version of these usually come with red plastic "tiddlywinks", or numbered cardboard chits (useful for wargaming).
Pente : Colored glass beads in two colors.
Monopoly/Global Pursuit - Paper money.
Dicecapades : More dice than you will know what do do with.
Sorry/Pachisi : 4 Colored pawns in 4 colors.

Buy a Piecepack or similar game system

Piecepack is a game system that comes with some predefined generic playing pieces. It is an open board game development platform. Anyone can design and release their own games using Piecepack components, and there will already be an installed player base with the components to play it. The components are offered by different vendors, this one is $30, the components in a standard Piecepack are listed here.

There are other game systems like IceHouse (I am not certain of the openness of this game system. Looney Labs owns a patent on it, but it may have expired), and Orion. For more information, see this page.

Buy generic components from websites.

Print-N-Play productions offers a wide selection of colored wooden bits, meeples, dice, and other game accessories.

Educational Supply stores offer colored wooden/plastic cubes, colored tiles, and other tools that could be used to prototype a board game. I have purchased a tub of 1000 plastic 1 cm. cubes from a local educational supply store for about $22, although prices will vary by the size of the supplier.


Does Forbidden Words affect the character or player or both? In mansions of madness 2nd edition, there is an insanity card called 'Forbidden Words'.  The text specifies "You cannot speak.  You win or lose the game as normal."  There was some confusion as to if 'you' meant the player or the character.  That is, must the player stop talking or can the character no longer interact with person tokens on the map? Or is it both?

My take was that the physical player is not allowed to speak anymore, as else I think there would be specific instructions like you cannot use spells anymore. I think the goal is to create a more interesting interaction by forcing the player to communicate with gestures/pointing on the board.


Can I Negate an instant cast via Torrential Gearhulk? My opponent plays Torrential Gearhulk and chooses Vraska's Contempt. Can I use Negate to counter Vraska's Contempt?

Yes.

Torrential Gearhulk's ability says the following (emphasis mine):

  When Torrential Gearhulk enters the battlefield, you may cast target
  instant card from your graveyard without paying its mana cost.

From the comprehensive rules, casting a card means (in part) "to take it from the zone it's in [and] put it on the stack".701.4  After your opponent selects the card Vraska's Contempt, it is put on the stack as a spell.

Negate reads:

  Counter target noncreature spell.

Again, from the comprehensive rules, countering a spell means "to cancel it, removing it from the stack."701.5

Since Vraska's Contempt is on the stack, is a noncreature spell, and nothing else prohibits it, you are allowed to counter it using Negate.


How does Finn Edwards' passive ability affect the directive to discard Unique Assets? There is a specific faq item regarding Finn Edwards' passive ability as pertaining to Unique Assets, but I cannot make heads nor tails of it.

Q. What happens if Finn Edwards uses his passive ability to not discard a flipped Unique Asset when instructed?
A. After resolving the effects on the back of a Unique Asset, if the investigator was not instructed to “flip this card”, the Unique Asset is shuffled into the Unique Asset deck.
This occurs most frequently when Finn Edwards uses his passive ability to choose not to discard a Unique Asset, but it could occur in other ways. Regardless of how it occurs, the Unique Asset is shuffled into the Unique Asset deck.

First of all, my understanding of double-sided cards is that any time they are discarded, they are shuffled back into the deck (as mentioned under the Discarding section on page 5 of the Reference Guide).  If this is the case, how is Finn "using" his passive ability doing anything other than what would normally happen anyway? If the answer is implying that he cannot use his passive ability to any positive result, then I would expect the answer to start by saying "Finn cannot use his passive ability to change the outcome etc."
I have read other comments suggesting that any item that is discarded is not done so technically as part of the item 'effect' so the discard doesn't fall under the power of Finn to affect it.  The answer in the faq here still seems unclear to me.  What is it saying?

According to the Reference Manual for Eldritch horror, when Discarding:

  When a double-sided card is discarded, it is immediately shuffled
  back into its respective deck.

Nothing supersedes this rule in updated manuals or contradicts this anywhere else within the guide.  For instance, under the Discarding heading in the Reference guide:

  Whenever a card is discarded, it is placed in a faceup discard pile
  by its deck.

  Double-sided cards, such as Spells or Conditions, are immediately
  shuffled back into their respective decks when discarded.

This still indicates that while the general rule is a separate discard pile, double-sided cards as a whole are immediately reshuffled.

For how this works with Finn's passive ability, we need to look at the specific wording of his character sheet

  Effects cannot cause [Finn] to discard ...

Emph added.  So this means that a game effect (e.g. an encounter causing Finn to become delayed and lose an ally) can be ignored.  The natural consequences of using an item, however, cannot be ignored.

Thus, Finn's ability would prevent someone from stealing his Old Journal, but if said journal were aged and worn, he would be unable to prevent its falling apart upon reading it.


Can monsters use the mystic slide Can monsters use the mystic slide? In one of the rooms we had the slide that leads to the basement. The haunt was the one where the betrayer controls one zombie-lord and many zombies.

How we played it:
When a zombie enters the room with the slide, they can go to any room they choose from the basement. The heroes themselves played as normal - they roll dice in order to use the slide. Is this correct?

Yes, monsters can use any special room as they want.*

From the rulebook:

  Like traitors, monsters can ignore all nondamaging room features. They can use the Coal Chute, Collapsed Room, Gallery, Mystic Elevator, and stairs tiles, along with many of the special movement options described on cards (such as
  the Secret Stairs), unless those cards say that only explorers can use them. They ignore the effect of the Furnace Room and the Crypt.

And the official FAQ:

  Can monsters use the Secret Stairs, Secret Passage, Revolving Wall, and Mystic Slide to
  move around?

    Yes. It's their house, after all. (Besides, it's possible for these to create areas of the house that can't be reached any other way, and some scenarios won't work if monsters can't reach all rooms.) Ignore the section of the rules that states, "unless those cards state that only explorers can use them." Also, a monster wouldn't need to roll to use the revolving wall.

*Note that this does not include stat-gaining rooms such as Chapel, Gymnasium, Larder, and Library. From the FAQ:

  Chapel, Gymnasium, Larder, Library -- Can monsters use these rooms?

    No. Unless a monster is actually a transformed traitor (a werewolf, for instance), its attributes usually do not change.


If the room is dark, can I still move to a closet or explore? When I enter a room that is "dark", can I still move to a closet or continue exploring or do I need to complete a puzzle first?

Darkness has only 2 effects per the rules:

If you want to explore, it costs you an action plus a movement step
-2 to all attribute tests during combat


Why can an ability resolve even if I exiled the creature it came from? I just started learning magic a week ago and I've been playing duels of the planeswalkers 2014 to kind of get a hang of things.

I'm confused with something that has happened twice now. I'm playing against a campaign deck with a Goblin Fireslinger which has an activated ability that says:

  {T}: Goblin Fireslinger deals 1 damage to target player.

So this gets cast while I have the instant Path to Exile in my hand, which "Exile(s) target creature." So I cast that.

Now it is my understanding with the way the stack works that once the GF uses its ability and then I follow it up with the Exile, the exile is resolved first so the GF should be exiled before it can resolve. And that's what the game does, but it still resolves the GF's ability while that card is exiled and deals me one damage.

I tried looking for why this could have happened, but I haven't been able to find an answer myself. I can't find anything that says an exiled spell still casts... I'm just confused about the way this works.

Your understanding of how the stack works is correct: your path will resolve and exile the fireslinger before its ability resolves. What you're missing is rule 112.7a, which says that the fireslinger's activated ability exists independently of the fireslinger. Once you put it on the stack, the 1 damage is its own object and exists even if the fireslinger itself leaves the battlefield:

  112.7a Once activated or triggered, an ability exists on the stack independently of its source. Destruction or removal of the source after that time won't affect the ability. Note that some abilities cause a source to do something (for example, "Prodigal Pyromancer deals 1 damage to target creature or player") rather than the ability doing anything directly. In these cases, any activated or triggered ability that references information about the source because the effect needs to be divided checks that information when the ability is put onto the stack. Otherwise, it will check that information when it resolves. In both instances, if the source is no longer in the zone it's expected to be in at that time, its last known information is used. The source can still perform the action even though it no longer exists.

If you want to actually counter the ability, there are very few ways to do so. Less than 20 cards in all of magic can counter activated abilities.


Does Masquerade affect all players? Does a player who played the Masquerade card also have to pass a card or is it just all the OTHER players that have to pass a card?

Does the passed card go immediately into their hand or discard pile for all players?

The Masquerade card wording is (emphasis mine) -

  Each player with any cards in hand passes one to the next such player
  to their left, at once. Then you may trash a card from your hand.

The card says 'Each' which will mean every player including the one who played it.  It does not say 'Other'

Compare this with the wording on the Witch card

  Each other player gains a Curse.

In that situation it is very specifically the other players.  If Masquerade meant to refer to just other players it would use the word other.

The card is 'passed' to a player's hand.  Note if it used the word 'Gain', it would mean it goes into your discard pile instead.


Do my creatures get a boon from previously played spells? Suppose I am playing modern BW tokens and have a Hero of Bladehold on the field.

I cast Zealous Persecution in my main phase.

Do the tokens created my my Hero also get the +1/+1 bonus from the Persecution?

No, the token creatures aren't on the battlefield when Zealous Persecution resolves

  611.2c If a continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability modifies the characteristics or changes the controller of any objects, the set of objects it affects is determined when that continuous effect begins. After that point, the set won’t change. (Note that this works differently than a continuous effect from a static ability.) A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability that doesn’t modify the characteristics or change the controller of any objects modifies the rules of the game, so it can affect objects that weren’t affected when that continuous effect began. If a single continuous effect has parts that modify the characteristics or changes the controller of any objects and other parts that don’t, the set of objects each part applies to is determined independently.

  Example: An effect that reads “All white creatures get +1/+1 until end of turn” gives the bonus to all permanents that are white creatures when the spell or ability resolves— even if they change color later—and doesn’t affect those that enter the battlefield or turn white afterward.

Additionally, any of your opponents creatures that enter the battlefield after Zealous Persecution resolves don't get -1/-1 either.