How to handle dummy's revoke due to a hidden card?

I am not a TD, but I am a qualified Club Director, and this situation is actually a fairly clear one. Under the Laws of Duplicate Bridge , laws 61-64 govern revokes. It is a common misunderstanding that there is no penalty if the dummy revokes. There is no automatic adjustment in such cases, but the Director should attempt to restore equity, and a proper rectification should be made.
I quote only the relevant sections of the laws below, for reasons of space. Please see the full laws linked above (2017 version).
Law 61 A defines revokes:

Failure to follow suit in accordance with Law 44 or failure to lead or play, when able, a card or suit required by law or specified by an opponent when exercising an option in rectification of an irregularity, constitutes a revoke.

The situation described is indeed a revoke.
Law 63 A provides:

A revoke becomes established:

when the offender or his partner leads or plays to the following trick (any such play, legal or illegal, establishes the revoke).
when the offender or his partner names or otherwise designates a card to be played to the following trick.
when a member of the offending side makes a claim or concession of tricks.

The revoke described in the question has indeed become established.
Law 64 B provides:

There is no automatic trick adjustment following an established revoke (but see Law 64C) if: ...

the revoke was made in failing to play a penalty card or any card belonging to dummy.

Law 64 C provides:

When, after any established revoke, including those not subject to trick adjustment, the Director deems that the non-offending side is insufficiently compensated by this Law for the damage caused, he shall assign an adjusted score (emphasis added)

Such an ADJUSTED score would be appropriate and required in the case described.
Law 12 A provides:

On the application of a player within the period established under Law 92B or on his own initiative the Director may award an adjusted score when these Laws empower him to do so.

The Director may award an adjusted score in favor of a non-offending contestant when
he judges that these Laws do not prescribe a rectification for the particular type of
violation committed.
The Director awards an artificial adjusted score if no rectification can be made that will permit normal play of the board (see C2 below).
The Director may award an adjusted score if there has been an incorrect rectification of an irregularity.

Law 12 B provides:

The objective of score adjustment is to redress damage to a non-offending side and to take away any advantage gained by an offending side through its infraction. Damage exists
when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favorable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred.

Law 12 C1 provides:

(a) When after an irregularity the Director is empowered by these laws to adjust a score and is able to award an assigned adjusted score, he does so. Such a score replaces the score obtained in play.

(b) The Director in awarding an assigned adjusted score should seek to recover as
nearly as possible the probable outcome of the board had the infraction not occurred.

(c) An assigned adjusted score may be weighted to reflect the probabilities of
a number of potential results, but only outcomes that could have been achieved in
a legal manner may be included.

(d) If the possibilities are numerous or not obvious, the Director may award an artificial adjusted score (see C2 below).

and 12C2(a) says:

When owing to an irregularity no result can be obtained [see also C1(d)], the
Director awards an artificial adjusted score according to responsibility for the
irregularity: average minus (at most 40% of the available matchpoints in pairs) to a
contestant directly at fault, average (50% in pairs) to a contestant only partly at fault, and average plus (at least 60% in pairs) to a contestant in no way at fault.

The director could attempt to go back to trick 2 and determine what would have happened had the revoke not occurred. Presumably the declaring side would have then lost trick 2. But it may not be at all obvious what the defense would have led or how the declarer would have played on such a lead. If the declarer has the remaining winners such that they can be cashed no matter what the defense does, the director could simply transfer trick 2 to the defense. But if there is significant uncertainty about the result in such a case law 12 C (1) (d) would most likely be applied, and the director would assign an artificial adjusted score.
Both sides have a degree of responsibility for the dummy, but the declaring side has the primary responsibility. Specifically, under Law 41 D the dummy player is responsible for properly displaying the dummy's hand. I would, in such a case, assign the declaring side an average minus, but assign the defense an average, not an average plus. There is an argument for giving both sides average, and for giving the defense average plus, but I think the defense is at least "partly at fault" here. So that would be my ruling on the facts stated above, if the outcome with the diamond loser were not rather clear-cut.


When does "at the beginning of the next end step" trigger?

The phrase "at the beginning of the next end step" means "the next time an end step begins." So, after you play a creature with Dash, when an end step starts, the creature returns to your hand. Usually, this means that it returns to your hand at the beginning of the end step on the turn when you played it. However, if you somehow play it during an end step, it won't return until the following turn's end step because that is the next time that an end step begins after you play the creature.

Note that it doesn't say "your next end step," so if you play it during your own end step, it returns to your hand at the end of your opponent's end step.


Can a Cloister be scored if one tile is an all-city tile in Carcassonne?

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

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

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

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

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


Will Elesh Norn kill creatures if I don't pay the extra cost for Flash?

No, Elesh Norn's static abilities have no effect on the battlefield in that case.

Bringing Elesh Norn into play with Flash and deciding whether or not to sacrifice it is all part of Flash's resolution. Killing creatures with her -2/-2 would require state-based effects to be checked, but that only happens after Flash has finished resolving, at which point Eles Norn is already gone.

If you sacrifice a creature brought into play with the spell Flash, basically all you get are "enters the battlefield" and "leaves the battlefield" effects.


What other games can I play with the zombies from Zombies?

What can't you do with a giant pile of zombies?  If you do the table-top RPG thing regularly, the zombies make great generic bad guys.  Some friends of mine created a variant of Frag called Frag Zombies that used plenty of the zombie figures during the game.  Pretty much any board game that uses miniatures is a potential use case for the zombies.  Imagine playing a zombie in Monopoly.  You could build a Zombie army in Risk.  How about using the glow-in-the-dark zombies in a game of Last Night on Earth?  The possibilities are endless.


It depends on which rulebook you follow.

Most commonly, Canasta rules say that a legal meld cannot contain more than 3 wild cards:

  A meld is valid if it contains at least two natural cards of the same rank - aces down to fours inclusive - and not more than three wild cards.

Melds must be valid at all times, whether during the initial meld, or when adding to an existing meld:

  A player may add additional cards to a meld by his side, provided that the melds remain valid (having no more than three wild cards).

You can find these rules here and here.

However, some rules teach a variation on this rule, and say that rather than being limited to 3 wild cards, a meld cannot have more wilds than naturals:

  It is possible to add a wildcard to a column of cards of any rank on the table. The wildcard is then seen as a card of that rank (but the value remains unchanged). However, there may never be more wildcards than natural cards within one meld.

Under this rule, a meld with 4 naturals and 4 wilds would be a valid meld.

Under most circumstances, these 2 rules function the same; they prevent a Canasta from being made with 3 naturals and 4 wilds; and prevent melds such as 1 natural and 2 wilds.

Note that if you need to meld an extra wild in order to go out, you can always just add it to any meld you already have; it seems like it would be a very rare situation that a Canasta is the only place you have to add it to.


When a model is armed with multiple separate ranged weapons, you only have to follow the restrictions of the ones you use.  So if you choose to fire your Bolt Pistol instead of the Bolt Gun you are free to charge in the same turn.  Pistols have no restriction against assaulting after using them.

If you choose to fire the bolt gun at either its full or rapid fire range you cannot assault.


Can one search action advance multiple search parties?

Unfortunately, no.

  The rules state (emphasis mine):"Discard one or more cards to advance one search party token along a search track."


In Phase 10, what happens when a skip card is played by the only person who hasn't been skipped yet?

It is not possible to have all the other players under pending skips when you take your turn. Someone may have been skipped (and are no longer under a pending skip) and can therefore be skipped again, though. There's always a valid target.
For example: the player to your right is a valid target. Even if they had just lost their turn to a skip, having lost their turn, they're no longer under a pending skip, so you can play a skip and select them to lose their next turn. They still will only lose one turn that round, as well. That is: no one else can play another skip on them until they pass their turn in the play order.
Wiki confirms this reading:

A player cannot be skipped twice in the same round; they must lose turn in the round before being skipped again. (They can be skipped twice in a row but not until they miss their turn.)

As do the rules on the designer's page

If a player uses a “Skip” card against another player,
no other player can use another “Skip” card against that player until that player’s turn has
been skipped.


Does Giant Killer get destroyed with Warstorm Surge? or is it able to destroy my creature with it's instant ability?

You seem to be misunderstanding how Adventure cards work.

Once Giant Killer is on the battlefield; the Chop Down instant/adventure does not do anything. Adventure allows you to cast the Adventure part from your hand like a normal instant/sorcery. When that spell resolves, it is exiled, and while it is exiled, you can cast the creature from exile.

  715.3. As a player casts an adventurer card, the player chooses whether they cast the card normally or as an Adventure.

    715.3d Instead of putting a spell that was cast as an Adventure into its owner’s graveyard as it resolves, its controller exiles it. For as long as that card remains exiled, that player may cast it. It can’t be cast as an Adventure this way, although other effects that allow a player to cast it may allow a player to cast it as an Adventure.

So your friend cannot do anything with Giant Killer's adventure; your Warstorm Surge triggers when you play Gisela, and if you choose to target Giant Killer, it will take 10 damage (5 which is doubled by Gisela) when the triggered ability resolves.


You do everything on the card in the order it says:

Draw one card.
Add one to the number of remaining actions you have for the turn.
Add one coin to the amount you have to spend this turn.
Discard a card.

And then you can move on to other Actions or your Buy phase. So you'll discard a card before you play any other actions. (But it's during your Action phase, of course - it has to be since you played Oasis!)


The "0 crystal" you see is the summoning cost, not the activation cost, though since it's 0 it makes no difference: you can summon this card for free and also use it for free. Yes this means you can get 2 crystals for "free" every turn, though there is a cost: you have to work with totally random die rolls instead of the ones you chose. Unless you really think all 6 sides have the same net value to you (or you think the dice you were forced to choose from were on the low end of the value scale), this is a real cost.

I'm not a great Seasons player myself but note that this kind of cost/benefit tradeoff may affect new players and experienced ones differently. While you are less familiar with the strategy and hence which side of the die you should be picking anyway, you'll take the 2 free crystals every time and it will seem very powerful. An experienced player however may be more likely to have good reasons for needing a particular side of the die right now and so will not want to take those "free" crystals as often.

(There is also the same "opportunity cost" as with any power card: If you kept this card then in many cases you didn't keep some other card, and if you played this card then you have to increase your summoning gauge again to play some other card.)


Why isn't Selvala, Explorer Returned's ability restricted from being used as a mana ability?

The rules about ability speeds were standardized with the 6th edition. No more mention of speed was necessary on the cards after that. Some older cards were rewritten, some weren't. The 10/4/2004 ruling makes it clear that this wasn't an oversight (as the ability, despite being a mana ability, changes the board's state, while Selvala's doesn't - I'm guessing).


Pandemic Legacy Season 1 September: Where to search if the conditions can’t be met?

From the Compiled FAQ on BGG, taken from the July spoiler:

What if there are no research stations in faded cities?
You will need to build one (or use Field Hospital ) if you wish to attempt the search.

So similarly, in September you'll need to build a military base in one of your faded cities.
I don't know what the thematic explanation is, but I'm sure you could retcon something - building a military base is actually commandeering an existing facility, or it just gives you the necessary infrastructure to find the soldier in the region, or he congregates to the base, or something.


When Purifying the World, can you keep or track monsters you don't usually return to the drawing pile?

As luck would have it there is an official answer on this from the game designer:

  The Purifying the World Unique Asset as well as the Hunting the
  Thousand Mystery allow investigators to “keep” defeated non-Epic
  Monsters. Both of these effects will function whether the Combat
  Encounter was premeditated or an ambush and even if the Monster is to
  be set aside.

  It works like this: A Monster ambushes an investigator. He defeats it
  and instead of discarding it as normal, he places it on the Mystery or
  his TASK. While on that card, it is not available to be spawned, but
  its attributes may be referenced to resolve another ambush in the
  future.

  If another investigator were ambushed by a Monster, and the only
  available reference for that Monster has been placed on another card,
  that investigator would not be able to “keep” that Monster on his own
  Purifying the World; that specific token is already claimed.

  Finally, if a Monster that was previously set aside has been placed on
  a card, it will return to being set aside instead of being discarded
  when that card is discarded or otherwise removed from play.

  Thanks for playing!
  ~ Nikki Valens
  Fantasy Flight Games

Summary: yes you can place such monsters on Purifying the World. Once you eventually turn that card over (or lose it for some reason), those monsters go back to being put aside.

It seems it is an intentional secondary effect of this asset to enable you to remove monsters from the game! (At least until you flip over or lose the card)


Does "sacrifice those creatures" happen all at once?

The sacrifices happen all at once. You cannot sacrifice them sequentially and use the death of the other creatures to flip Liliana.  But it works a little differently than you think.

First, the sacrificing happens all at once (similarly to how board wipe cards like Wrath of God destroy all creatures at once).  However, rule 603.6d applies here.

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

This means that Liliana's ability will trigger and go on the stack!  However, when the triggered ability resolves and tries to exile Liliana, she no longer exists on the battlefield and does nothing.

For reference see these other questions:

What happens when a creature with “Whenever a creature dies” dies simultaneously with multiple other creatures?
Does the 2nd ability of Teysa, Orzhov Scion trigger with mass destruction?
When a permanent has a “When a creature dies” ability, and gets destroyed at the same time as creatures, does that ability trigger?


Interaction of Pyxis of Pandemonium with Altar of the Brood

If Altar of the Brood enters the battlefield at the same time as other permanents, it would trigger for each of those permanents.

  603.6a Enters-the-battlefield abilities trigger when a permanent enters the battlefield. These are written, “When [this object] enters the battlefield, . . . ” or “Whenever a [type] enters the battlefield, . . .” Each time an event puts one or more permanents onto the battlefield, all permanents on the battlefield (including the newcomers) are checked for any enters-the-battlefield triggers that match the event.

That means all of your Altars (both you already have on the battlefield and those entering it due to Pyxis of Pandemonium will trigger.

Basically what would happen: Pyxis's ability resolves, and a lot of permanents (possibly including other Altars) will enter the battlefield. There will now be a lot of triggers from all the Altars you have on the stack. They will start resolving one by one, sometimes triggering Undead Alchemist's ability (which then goes on stack and resolves). The zombies entering will also trigger all of the Altars and will be put on stack.


How can I find games based on Caesar's campaigns in Gaul and Britannia?

One great way to find similarly themed games is to consult the GeekLists on BoardGameGeek.

Find your game on Boardgamegeek
Scroll to the bottom, look for the "GeekList" section
Check out GeekLists that sound interesting.

For Caesar's Gallic War, I found this GeekList, Bellum Gallicum (58-51 BC) - Caesar Against the Gauls which appears to be a well curated list of 20 games dealing with Caesar and the Gauls.


Does Illusory Gains make someone else's Commander my own forever?

You control that player's commander until another creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control. At that point, Illusory Gains moves to that creature, and the owner regains control of their commander.


I think that your adjustment to HCP is perfectly fine for your own purposes, but it's not within the technical definition of "high card points" (which solely include the 4/3/2/1 point count, or whatever other numbers you want to assign each honor) and exclude distribution points.  You're well within rights to consider distribution; but many automated programs will solely focus on HCP, including the link you sent, as far as I can tell - so when they say that two balanced hands with 25 points are optimally in 3NT, they mean the hand above to be in that collection.

I'd also say that those two hands look fine in 3NT.  They're both solid hands with dense honors yet still largely controlling the suits; little wasted value ("Jxxx" type stuff) and lots of T/9/8s also to round out the hands.  North can count 4 tricks in their hand even with basically nothing of value in South, and South similarly can count 3.5 tricks at least in theirs again with absolutely no help from North - 4 if you consider the diamond length to make the K fairly safe.  Each expecting the other to have 4 solo tricks plus one trick from fitting honors seems reasonable, don't you think?


Is there WSOP (or other organisation) Texas Hold-em chip and blind schedule?

The blind structure depends strongly on too many factors to have a standard structure. Most importantly it depends on the chip values you use.

You can look at the offical WSOP structure on it's site: http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/ (The "Structure Sheet" links)


I play regularly with my kids.  The energy card count depends heavily on the pokemon you use.  I have gone as low a 8 in a deck where all the pokemon had effective attacks at 1 energy and a retreat cost of 0 or 1.  I have gone as high as 28 or 30 when the deck was based on pokemon that discarded energy to attack and/or took 3 or 4 energy to have an effective attack.

When building a new deck we usually start at 16-18 energy adjusting up or down by a few as outlined above.   Then we tweak after some playing games.  My kids, who have more time than I do, will often build a deck then "goldfish" it.  ie play out a game solo to see if the needed energy arrive as fast as they can be played.


Chores

When we went on holidays we'd often play card games in the evening to determine who had to get up in the morning to get fresh bread from the bakery.


Explorers and pirates: Where can roads be built near undiscovered hexes?

There is no contradiction. A road is built between two hexes, hence it is adjacent to both these hexes. You can't build a road if one of these two hexes is undiscovered. You can build a road between two discovered hexes such that at the end of the road is an undiscovered hex; it's just that building this road doesn't "discover" the hex.


What is the name of this game where you place colored cubes on a tiled grid?

Tracked it down... Mykerinos.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21441/mykerinos


Pick up the not frozen discard pile having a Canasta meld

Yes you can; this is one of the main differences between the discard pile being frozen or not.
Source:

When the discard pile is not frozen against their side, a player may take it: a) with a natural pair matching the top card as above; or b) by melding the top card with one matching natural card and one wild card from his hand; or c) by adding the top card to a meld they already have on the table.

Source 2:

But first let us consider the case where the discard pile is not frozen against you. In that case, if the top card of the pile is a natural card (from four up to ace), you can take the pile if either:

you play two cards from your hand that make a valid meld with the top discard: these could be either two natural cards of the same rank as the top discard, or one such natural card and one wild card,

or

the top discard matches the rank of one of your partnerships existing melds, and you add it to that meld.

If the pile is frozen; then you must have 2 naturals in hand.


No you can't attack with it immediately.

To be able to attack with a creature or pay {T} (tap) costs on its abilities, one of these two things must be true:

You must have controlled the creature since the start of your turn, or
It must have haste.

Since neither are true you can't attack with it straight away; you'll have to wait until your next turn.

Gaining control and haste is generally the domain of red theft cards such as Act of Treason: they take control of a permanent and give it haste so you can use it straight away. In exchange, those same effects usually aren't permanent, and the red player has to give it back at the end of their turn. Blue trades that "use immediately" upside for a "use forever" upside.


Who decides which of the "or" effects is applied?

When a card says "target [something] or [something else]", the "or" is part of the target description. While you are casting the spell, you choose the target, and the chosen target can be either one of those things. In the case of that specific wording, that means that you can choose either a creature or a player as the spell's target.

Note: The specific card you referenced, Searing Spear, has had errata as of the release of the set Dominaria. It now says

  Searing Spear deals 3 damage to any target.

And "any target" just means "target creature or player or planeswalker". Many other cards had similar changes.


From rummytalk about the importance of keeping under the count:

  reduce the point total in your hand so that even if your opponent
  should go gin, your total point count will be low enough so that he
  will not win the game.


The limit stays:

Page 5: Movement:

  At no point may more than two meeples, of any color, be in the same region

No exception is made for alliances.


How do you resolve black cards in quests you haven't started in Shadows Over Camelot?

The rule book under Progression of Evil a.) Drawing a Black card (page 10-11)

Yes, you follow the instructions on the card Special Black cards or Standard black card or place the card in its respective quest, regardless of whether any Knight has begun a quest. The instructions are on the card, or detailed on the pages listed here. Excalibur cards move the sword towards the evil side of the river. Grail cards like Despair can fill up the quest before you even start, and if it does you lose the Grail Quest and turn it over, further Black Grail cards place siege engines outside Camelot.

The very end of section a). explains that a quest immediately ends when you place the final black card (or Saxson/Pict) to fill a particular Quest, and tells you to consult the particular quest for win/loss conditions. In general, you will add a number or White(win)/Black(lose) Swords to the round table, add a number of Siege Engines/Draw White Cards, and whether the particular quest is flipped over or not. This information is usually printer on the Quest cardboard itself, but is explained in detail within the rule book.


Was a bridge column "resulting" when it criticized an opening lead?

Yes, it would have been resulting had it criticized the opening lead. As @PieterGeerkens noted, the article neither terms the lead an error nor implies it.
Thanks, @Aryabhata, for posting a link to the actual column.


What's the name of the type of expansion set "packs" that MTG players can buy at release events?

The format of the pre-release and release party events is a tournament type called 'sealed deck' where you get 6 packs of cards to make a 40 card deck out of.

For recent sets wizards has been printing special "event packs" where one or two of the six boosters you get is custom tailored to a specific colour, colour combo, or deck archetype.  This is to make it easier for new players to build a half-decent deck, since looking at 6 totally random packs and figuring out which two or three colors are best takes some practiced skill!

It comes in a little box with a spindown d20 life counter also.  I think this is probably the product you're talking about.  Some event hosts will sell leftovers after the tournament.  As far as I know this doesn't violate any of their distribution agreements with WOTC.

This is a description of the most recent one:
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/events.aspx?x=mtgcom/events/prerelease-facts


Limiting the number of silver and gold cards available in Dominion

Personally, I don't think this seems like a good idea.  The game is balanced around the availability of these treasures.

The Kingdom piles change from game to game, so the only reliable element for your deck is treasure at 3 and 6 coins respectively.

The first player to buy a Gold already has a statistical advantage in Dominion, but this would enhance that advantage even further, since late-peaking players might not be able to GET any Gold.

It seems to me that, depending on how MUCH you limit, this change would have one of two effects:

No effect, because there's still more Silver and Gold than your players buy anyway.  In many of the games my group plays 5 Gold per player would seldom run out, for example.
An overly punishing effect.  You got 6 coins this turn, but there are no decent 5-cost Kingdom cards and the Gold is gone!  You just got screwed.

You say "This would create a little more competition in getting treasures into your deck" but when I play Dominion I'm always competing to get treasures into my deck.  If an opponent lands 2 or 3 Gold before I get one, I know I'm in trouble and had better pull off something amazing if I'm going to have a chance.  Making the piles run out won't make me any more competitive, it'll just harm everybody later.  I'm already always keeping other players' treasure levels in mind, because that determines how soon the Provinces may run out and whether I can even count on being able to afford Provinces or should just go for Duchies.

If the intent of this change is merely to discourage players from playing Big Money, I don't think this is the way to do it.  Big Money is not an optimal strategy and will lose frequently to even relatively simple Action-based strategies once players figure them out.  Play the base set a few times buying one Smithy or Laboratory+Chapel and see how long they keep playing Big Money!

It also feels like this change would bog down the middle-to-end game of every game as you would be unable to keep the treasure and victory levels of your decks balanced.  Even if everybody got exactly the same amount of Gold during the build-up, your decks will all get slower and slower as you start buying the Provinces, since you won't be able to offset those with more Gold.

All in all, the game was definitely designed so that Treasure is not expected to run out - the Intrigue rules even say "these cards are intended to be in abundant enough supply to not run out".  I think there are good reasons why Silver and Gold are effectively unlimited, and I don't think limiting those piles would make for much more fun in the long run.  Experienced players will already be competing for Gold regardless of the supply, and will already be tracking their opponents' treasure levels to adjust their strategy.


You are correct that Cowardice is of no benefit vs. Progenitus.  Declaring Progenitus to be the target of something is an illegal action so you back up to just before it was done, it doesn't "Happen but fizzle."

The easy way to keep track of protection is the acronym DEBT.

D - Damage, the thing you have protection from cannot damage you

E - Enchant and Equip, the thing you have protection from cannot enchant you or be equipped to you

B - Block, the thing you have protection from cannot block you

T - Target, the thing you have protection from cannot target you

So, for example, Day of Judgment can remove Progenitus because it does none of those things.  Fleshbag Marauder could also get rid of Progenitus if you have nothing else to sacrifice, etc.


CGoban 3 doesn't ask for saving a review!

KGS has a lot of quirks, and this is one of them. The review is lost.

KGS will ask only the playing starting the review.

Also note that KGS does also not offer to save any games which were started by loading a local file. This bit me in the butt far too often...


Lazav, Dimir mastermind, copying Growth-Chamber Guardian, and wearing spy kit

No, the "Search for a card named Growth-Chamber Guardian" is not self-referential, you are not searching for the card itself, but that ability is naming the legal targets for your search. Just because the targets have the same name as the original card does not make it self-referential, in fact if it were you would only be able to find the copy of Lazav already in play.


Using the turn order described in base Catan, each player places a harbor settlement first and a regular settlement second on the starting island (each without a road).  Your harbor settlement must be placed on one of the intersections marked with a circle (page 9). The regular settlement may be placed on any intersection, including those marked with a circle. You must of course observe the distance rule when building all harbor settlements and regular settlements.  Your starting resources are 1 card from each terrain hex adjacent to your starting settlement (not harbor settlement).
The last player to place a settlement is the first to place a road adjacent to that settlement.  That same player then places a settler ship (ship + settler) on one of the sea routes adjacent to his or her harbor settlement.  The other players follow clockwise.  Once everyone has placed their pieces the starting player begins the game by rolling the dice.

I read that first line to mean you play like the base game, you place your harbor and then everyone else does too.  Then the last person to place a harbor, places their settlement, with a road and then places a settler ship, back to the original player.


What's the best Power Grid expansion for a beginner?

For a beginner, I would say no expansion is necessary at all.  Vanilla Power Grid is an incredibly deep game.  I have found that it can be a bit overwhelming and introducing additional complexity will only make it harder.

Personally, some of my favorite games (Agricola and Dominion being two examples) I grew bored with the base game quickly and vastly prefer playing with the expansions.  Power Grid is not one of those games.  I have played it for years, and often still play just the base game even though I do own one of the expansions (Robots).

Disclaimer: I take a very analytic approach to board games.  More casual players might not find it as overwhelming as I do.


If Dealer is dealt an ace, and then dealt another card, will he bust?

An Ace has a value of 11, unless it would bust your hand, at which point it becomes 1

Quoting from Wikipedia (due to lack of an official online source for blackjack rules):

  If a player holds an ace valued as 11, the hand is called "soft", meaning that the player cannot go bust by taking an additional card; the value of the ace will become 1 to prevent the hand from exceeding 21. Otherwise, the hand is "hard".

In your example of an Ace an a 2, that's a Soft 13. If you draw another card, and that card would push you past 21, you don't bust because your Ace will now count as a 1.

A common rule for casino tables is that the dealer must hit on a Soft 17 (meaning a hand with a value of 17, containing an Ace valued 11) - if they were operating under rules as suggested in the question, that would make the Ace the worst draw for a dealer (and therefore the casino), as a 17 containing an Ace would mean only a 2, 3 or 4 would not make them bust. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that casinos wouldn't blow themselves out in such a manner.


Does Blood Sun keep me from turning my Zoetic Cavern face up?

There is a ruling on Zoetic Cavern that states:

  If Blood Moon is on the battlefield and a player controls a face-down Zoetic Cavern, it can’t be turned face up since it won’t have a morph cost.

This ruling comes from rule 702.36e, which states among other things:

  If the permanent wouldn’t have a morph cost if it were face up, it can’t be turned face up this way.

So the Sun stops your Cavern from being turned face up.


Players have access to the Red 'Wild' Die and need not play anything.

From the Elder Sign revised rules (page 12, Adding Dice to the Dice Pool)

  Unique Item cards often show a red die icon. During his turn, a player may discard one of these items to add the red die to his dice pool.** [...] A die that is added to the dice pool stays in the pool until the player either uses it to complete a task or discards it after a failed roll. Unless dice are locked or secured by a spell, the player returns any dice granted by common or unique items to the supply at the end of the Resolution phase.

and (page 13, Securing Dice with Spells)

  Many spells allow a player to secure a die result for later use. These are signified by the securing icon. [...] When a die is secured on a Spell card, it remains there until any player chooses to use it to complete a task, removes it from the spell to roll it (see “Removing Secured Dice” on page 14), or until another effect locks that die (see “Locked Dice” on page 12). [...]

the breakout box on (page 14, Removing Secured Dice)

  Dice secured by focusing or assisting can only be removed by the player who secured them, and they return to the dice pool at the end of his Resolution phase. Dice secured by a spell can be removed from the spell by any player during his turn for use in a roll.

From the Elder Sign FAQ

  Spells and Held Dice

  Spells that secure dice are cast after a player’s roll, not before. The player looks at the roll results. Then, if he wishes to secure a particular die, casts the spell and places the die on the spell. The secured die remains on the spell card until a player uses it to complete a task or until it is otherwise removed (as described below).

Barring any of the reasons below, the secured die is available to complete a task. (Like your aforementioned playing a unique item)

  • Dice may have their results modified by items/abilities before being placed on a spell, but not afterwards.

  • Before any roll, a player may remove some or all of the dice held on spells in order to roll them.

  • Any spell that has no dice remaining on it is discarded.

  • New dice cannot be added to a spell to replace those that
  were removed from it.

  • If a die becomes locked while it is on a spell, the die is removed from the spell and locked. If the spell has no dice remaining on it, the spell is discarded.


Position of new words when adding to existing words

It can be somewhere in between. The rules are that the tiles placed must be in a straight line (horizontal or vertical) connected to the existing words, and there cannot be any empty spaces between tiles placed.

For more information it may help to know that this is called 'hooking': https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scrabble/Rules#Gameplay


Viable, alternative, first round role orders in 5-player Puerto Rico

I doubt there's a significantly different first round order.  Certainly at the beginning there are very few options that are of use.  We often see a prospector in fourth and fifth, the rational being:

If the fourth player produces then the fifth player may take prospector (or trader in the unlikely event they managed to get a small market).
A player on corn wants to save up for a more profitable good.

So in short the five player first round sequences that we tend to see are:

[Settler/Builder], [Builder/Settler], Mayor, [Craftsman/Prospector], [Captain/Craftsman/Prospector/Trader].


Which expansions should not be used together in Carcassonne?

I made games with this expansions.

Base Game, Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, Princess and the Dragon, The Tower, Abbey & Mayor, Count, King & Robber; Bridges, Castles & Bazaars and wheel of fortune.

And all worked fine together, the most important are: 1. the game can have 4 or 5 hours long and 2. beware when the fields with barn are unexpectedly joined under some bridge.


How does Terraforming work in Eminent Domain?

The Terraforming action states:

  Add this card to a planet as 2 colonies. If that fulfills the printed Colonize cost, Settle that planet.
  Note: Ignore Colonize discounts in your Empire.

As far as I understand, the following occurs:

Firstly, you can play it onto an unsettled planet to count as two colonies (much like playing a Colonize counts as one).

In addition, if once you've played it the planet has sufficient colonies to settle, you can settle it immediately (discarding the Terraforming and any other Colonizes and flipping the planet).

e.g. If you have an unsettled planet with a Colonize cost of 3 and one Colonize card already on it, you can play Terraforming to double-Colonize and then immediately settle that planet.

For Terraforming, all discounts are ignored, mostly for game-balance.

i.e. In the same example as above, if you had an unsettled planet with a Colonize cost of 3 and NO Colonize cards on it (but a discount to Colonize from, say, another planet) then you could double-Colonize, but you would NOT be able to immediately settle, since you do not reach the requirements while ignoring discounts. You COULD however settle it later without further Colonizes required, since the action remains on the planet and still counts as two colonies.


Dragon Ball Z TCCG (old style before GT came out) collectors sales costs

I’ll borrow an answer from The Street.

  The collectible market is a tricky one, and a lot of what people believe will be valuable winds up becoming completely worthless (remember that '90s Beanie Baby craze?). The sector evolves over time, and interests -- and generations -- change.

The basics of supply and demand. You unfortunately selected a collectible that has little demand.


What, functionally, is the difference between the effect on Rooftop Storm and cards like Omniscience?

The ruling on Omniscience states:

  If a spell has Variable Colorless in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.

This implies that the alternative casting method allowed by Omniscience is identical to casting with a cost of 0, which is what Rooftop Storm does. Trinisphere still functions on cards cast with Omniscience.

It seems like the difference in wording is mere flavor, and not the difference between cost=0 and cost=null.


How can I tell how replayable a cooperative game is?

It's tricky to evaluate a game's replayability before buying it, as the primary question I ask to assess this is:

"Does the game support multiple viable paths to victory?"

My thinking is this: If a game has one optimal path to victory, repeated plays will likely become boring (since you're just doing the same thing over and over again).  To figure this out, I typically need to play a game at least once, carefully assessing the opportunities and tools that the game presents during play.

If I couldn't play the game, I'd try to read the rules and look over any primary game components (like card decks, character roles, etc.).  I'd also check out reviews, of course.

The second question I ask is:

"Does this game use one or more modular/randomizing components as a core component?"

Do you lay out tiles to form a different board each game?  Is the game driven by one or more decks of cards with critical goals or events shuffled in at semi-random spots?  Is there a character creation system, or are the characters the same from game to game? -- All of these things contribute to replayability.

Again, it's nice to play the game to see all the components interact with each other.  However, this is a bit easier to assess from just looking at the box or reading the list of parts.  It's also easy to assess from reading the "set up" portion of the rules.


How should one handle miscommunication being abused?

Technically Andrew cannot act at step 3 because at step 2 targets and modes were not fully defined so Subtle Strike wasn't technically on the stack.

So, since Andrew acted without priority, the steps should be rewound to Subtle Strike being cast.  It would then need to be fully cast before priority is regained by either player.

Now, assuming that there were no modes and only a single target, I would actually say that Nick implied that he chose the thopter as his target, and since Andrew accepted the shortcut (by acting like it was on the stack and casting his spell) that Nick's choice is set. There's an old article from Wizards about "false information", but there might be something more recent.


How slippery are the Fantasy Flight Sleeves?

Fantasy Flight sleeves are quite thick, durable and good quality. They're quite comparable to Ultra Pro sleeves for Magic: The Gathering.

Straight out of the packet, they are very slippery when you first sleeve your decks. Over time, or with some extended shuffling, they will become much less slippery.

The decks in Arkham aren't that tall, so I haven't found the slipperiness to be a problem in practice. Personally, I quite like sleeving in general as it makes the decks easier to shuffle. But if you really don't like slippery decks, and don't have the patience to break them in, then you might want to skip the sleeving.

A few other points to consider.

Buying sleeves for all your cards is fairly expensive, especially if you have lots of expansions.
Storage in the Arkham boxes is already quite tight. Sleeving the cards makes the decks significantly thicker, so that may be an issue.
Consider how much wear the decks receive in practice. If cards aren't shuffled often or aren't being held in-hand for extended periods of time, then sleeving may not be worthwhile.

If you do decide to get them, you'll need the "Mini American" (colour-coded yellow) for the small decks (items, etc.), and "Standard American" (colour-coded green) for the full size decks (e.g. Mythos cards). FFG's sleeving guide will also tell you how many of each pack you'll need, per Arkham expansion.


In Carcassonne, how does the Bazaar play and count in different situations?

Yes,

Per the Carcassonne Annotated Rules, the Bazaar ends a road, although it is not directly stated.

  It seems clear that a bazaar ends a road in the same way as a crossing or bushes

The Bazaar itself is not a feature that a meeple can be put on.  It does not count as a cloister.  It doesn't change farm or city scoring.


Can a single player have all nine potential queens in one game?

Yes. This thread contains a set of sample games.


"Whenever you draw a card" - does that include the beginning of each turn?

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


Can House Arryn be used under the rules of the base game?

Pypok made objective cards to play 6 player feast of crows style game of thrones:

http://enter-there.com/expansions/dance-with-dragons/


Just to clarify, this is the 2020 version of 7 wonders, in which some of the wonders are a bit changed compared to the original version. Olympia is one that's heavily changed.
Here is a nice video explaining the differences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXZND4aG1Lk.
Now to answer you question.
This is not an official answer, as I have none. But I am curious and as soon as I find out I will come back and post a link here.
But this is how I interpret it and how I play it.
I have the Romanian version, so not sure if stuff got lost in translation.
This is what my rule book says about the alpha symbol (translated by me).
"After this symbol comes into play, you can build the first era card for free in every era."

Is Olympia wonder ability void for first age?

No.
There are cases in which you can benefit from it.

you build the wonder stage with the first card in era 1. This means the second card you "play" is the first card you build. So it's free. I still have doubts that I'm right here.  Anyway, this cannot happen with only the regular game because it would mean that both your neighbors have to produce stone on their wonder. And there is only one wonder that produces stone in the regular game (Gizah) and you would need 4 coins to pay for them but you start with 3. But it is possible if you play with the wonder pack extension or with the community extensions and extensions that give you extra money when you start.
you play with the leaders extension and you build the first stage of your wonder using the leader you should play before stage one. Since a leader is not an "era card", the first card you play in the first era is free. This is more plausible but still highly improbable for the same reasons as above (you need 2 stones around you from the beginning). If you play with the leaders extension you start with 6 coins, that's why it's theoretically possible.


This thread at Play Diplomacy points to the main problems:

  You're going to need redundancy

You're likely to need to leave units behind your desired front lines to serve as tripwires.

The early game is just going to be a crapshoot as aggressive players either shoot ahead through lucky coups or get clobbered by walking into traps. You can either try to be one of the lucky agros or play defensively and hope you don't end up too far behind and look like a trustworthy partner for the survivors.

  You're going to lean heavily on your friends

Assuming you're working with someone to maintain short and mostly offensive lines, you're going to need to depend on them not coming around behind.

  Really heavily

It'll also be possible to pull your allies off balance by claiming attacks that don't really exist, exposing their position to yourself or your 'real' ally.

  It's also rather unrealistic

As fun as it is to strengthen the importance of diplomacy, it is rather silly that you wouldn't be able to get any reports from anyone of actions within your own territory, units or not.

  It's only really possible online

It would be difficult to partition the board to do that last bit; it'd be impossible to play your 'trojan' game on an actual board.

Given the importance of lies and backstabbing in this version of the game, you'd probably only want to play with people online, lest it negatively affect your real-life relationships.


What is the statistically favorable amount of lands for Yennett?

I think you're missing few key aspects of Yennett's ability.  Rules text (emphasis mine):

  If that card’s converted mana cost is odd, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. Otherwise, draw a card.

This means that lands would go to your hand even if they didn't have 0 CMC because you can't cast lands as spells.  But you're also overlooking the fact that you would still draw the land into your hand even if you miss.  Drawing free lands is still good.  Less good than most free spells, but still good because you can guarantee your land drops.

  What should I do to compensate for the lack of mana?

Don't do this.  You should not ever have a lack of mana.  Making sure you hit your land drops is important in Commander so that you can actually play the game.  I would not got below the typical advice of 35-39 lands for a 3 color deck depending on what you your curve looks like.  It's really hard to get to 5 mana with all three colors running much fewer than that.

I would not focus exclusively on 3-mana rocks even though you could get them for free with Yennett.  Mana rocks are at their most useful in accelerating your gameplan.  Once you already have Yennett on the field, does getting a free 3-mana rock really help you more than just guaranteeing your land drop for the turn?  And playing a pair of 2-mana rocks could help you get Yennett out on turn 4 instead of turn 5.

Also keep in mind that if you have a bunch of odd CMC spells, casting cards naturally out of your hand could leave you with awkward amounts of mana left over.  A few quality even CMC spells can fill the gaps and let you get more efficiency out of your mana.  For example, drawing a 2-mana counterspell is still useful, even if your opponents know you have it in your hand.


Uno: With a last card power card, are you allowed to play it after you draw a card?

According to these rules

  If the player has no matches or they choose not to play any of their
  cards even though they might have a match, they must draw a card from
  the Draw pile. If that card can be played, play it. Otherwise, the
  game moves on to the next person in turn.

You need to play the card you just drew. So you can not use the power card.


What happens if a player enchanted by cruel reality has Tamiyo, Collector of Tales on the board?

The player will lose 5 life.
As Tamiyo states, effects controlled by an opponent (such as Cruel Reality) cannot make you sacrifice permanents. Cruel Reality also specifies what happens if a player can't sacrifice a permanent when the ability resolves. It doesn't matter for what reason the player can't sacrifice a permanent, whether they have no permanent left to sacrifice, or another effect prevents the sacrifice.
With different wordings of Cruel Reality, the Tamiyo player could get around both the sacrifice and the life loss. Cruel reality could read:

At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, that player chooses one:

Sacrifice a permanent

lose 5 life.

The player could choose to sacrifice a permanent, but can't because of Tamiyo.
It could also read:

At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, if that player controls a permanent, that player sacrifices a permanent. Otherwise that player loses 5 life.

In that case, Cruel Reality would also try to make the Tamiyo player sacrifice a permanent and not cause 5 life loss.


What cards were never allowed in Commander?

According to this MTG Salvation forum post, the very first EDH ban list that applied to the very first decks that were played in the format is as follows:

Collector's Edition, "Promotional cards", poker cards and silver-bordered cards are banned. (I'm assuming poker cards are the 52-card, Magic-backed standard playing-card decks given to early DCI members.)
Unique Portal and Starter cards are banned. (This means Portal and Starter cards that don't share a name with "standard" Magic cards.)
Vintage-illegal cards are banned.
Test of Endurance is banned.

Later in that thread it says that Test of Endurance was unbanned in 2008. I'm not really sure what Portal and Starter cards it's referring to, but no such cards are listed in the current Commander banlist so either they were unbanned at some point or they were never Vintage-legal anyway. Based on the information in this article, it looks like the only cards banned in Vintage at the time were Shahrazad, Chaos Orb, Falling Star, and ante cards.
So, the list of cards that have never had a chance to see play is just the Vintage banlist.


Why do so many people play out of turn on the last lead?

It's common in all trick-based card games; since your 'move' is forced (you have to play the only card you're still holding), you're not giving away information to your opponents (or your teammate). By just playing your card the very moment the second-to-last trick is taken, you speed up the game.

Players who do this know who is in the lead; the player who took the second-to-last trick, not the one who throws his/her card first. They assume the other players know it, too. Even more: most of the times they probably already know who is taking the last trick, which can often be deduced by remembering cards played during previous tricks. E.g. it might be clear that there is one trump card left and only one person can have it.

If it's confusing you or one of the other players, e.g. because you/they are relatively new to the card game, just ask the out-of-order-throwing players politely not to do so. Card games are a social activity and if you ask nicely, they're likely to comply.


Can you sacrifice a creature to pay the cost of its ability?

Yes.
The only implicit limit to Sacrifice is that the object being sacrificed must be permanent you control.
Since you control the Whisper, Blood Liturgist with the ability you are activating, and since it's a creature, it can be sacrificed. A ruling confirms this:

Whisper can be one of the creatures sacrificed to activate its ability.

The ability will continue to exist on the stack after Whisper's demise, and will go on to resolve. If anything needs information about the source of the ability (e.g. if the target of the ability gains Protection), last known information will be used.

Note that the creature you sacrifice will be sacrificed as part of paying the cost. This happens after the target is chosen, so they won't be in the graveyard when the target is chosen. Therefore, they can't be selected as the target.

Neither sacrificed creature can be the target of Whisper’s ability.

701.16a To sacrifice a permanent, its controller moves it from the battlefield directly to its owner’s graveyard. A player can’t sacrifice something that isn’t a permanent, or something that’s a permanent they don’t control. Sacrificing a permanent doesn’t destroy it, so regeneration or other effects that replace destruction can’t affect this action.
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.


Lone Rider will not transform this turn.

If several abilities go on the stack at the same time (such as at the beginning of end step), their respective controlling players, in turn order, decide the order in which they resolve.

However, this does not matter for your actual question, because the beginning of end step happens only once each turn. All applicable abilities check whether their conditions are fulfilled at that time, and if they aren't, they won't trigger this turn. At the beginning of the end step, you did not gain the necessary 3 life for Lone Rider to transform, so it won't happen, even if you gain life during the end step because of Soul Warden triggering off the Crested Sunmare horse token.


Calculating the probability of a combo hand

The name of that sort of problem in probability is 'draw without replacement'.

When you do this sort of problem, it's easier to first figure out the probability of not getting what you want, then subtracting that from 100% to get the probability you're interested in.

First, we'll find probability of finding H alone.  We start by finding the probability of having a hand without H. If we draw 5 cards, then the probability of the first one not being H is 39/40, then, if that happened, the probability of the second one not being H is 38/39.  We want the probability of all draws not being H, so we multiply the individual probabilities with each other. The probability of all 5 cards not being H is (39/40) * (38/39) * (37/38) * (36/37) * (35/36) if you multiply that out, you get .875, so that's a 87.5% chance of not getting H in a hand of 5, subtract the percentage from 100 and you have 12.5% chance of getting that H.  If you do the same thing with 6 cards, you get 85% of not and 15% of getting it.

Did you follow all of that?  I hope so, because combinations of 2 cards will get more complicated.

Doing the same thing we did for H, we can find that the probability of getting at least 1 A is 33.75%.  The probability of getting at least 1 B is the same, but getting at least one of each together is a little harder.

To find the probability of drawing an opening hand with A and B (P[A and B]), we need to find 3 probabilities first, the probability of drawing just A but not B (P[A and ~B]), the probability of drawing just B but not A (P[~A and B]), and the probability of drawing neither A or B (P[~A and ~B]).

For P[A and ~B], take P[A] * P[~B].  That's 0.3375 * 0.6625 = .2235.
(NOTE: This is technically incorrect.  It's an approximation that works okay when A and B are a lot less than the total number of cards)

Since the number of As is the same as the number of Bs, P[~A and B] is the same.

The neither part is similar to the 'not H' problem.  Same as last time we do cards-in-deck-that-are-neither/total-cards-in-deck. Again for a hand of 5 cards: (34/40) * (33/39) * (32/38) * (31/37) * (30/36) gives you 0.4228 for drawing neither A or B.

Then we do P[~A and ~B] + P[~A and B] + P[A and ~B] = 0.4228 + 0.2235 + 0.2235 = 0.8698.  That's the probability of drawing 5 cards without the A and B combo.  So, you'll have a 13.02% chance of having that combo.

I hope that's enough info for you to calculate the other combinations you're interested in.


What's the number of cards per rarity in a regular set of MTG?

Modern Masters contains 229 cards (101 commons, 60 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythic rares).

The Scars of Mirrodin set contains 249 cards (101 common, 60 uncommon, 53 rare, 15 mythic rare, and 20 basic land).

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/218


Sure, that's how computer engines work.

For instance, if you start up ChessMaster and hit ctrl+m ("mentor"), it will give you a list of all the moves, and how the chess engine rates each of them.

How it works is that the engine looks as far as it can for every move, assuming best play for both sides, and rates the final position.  That final position's rating is the value of the move.

To rate the position, the computer looks at material, space, pawn-structure, king-safety, known patterns and endgames, etc. etc. - basically, all the same things a human looks at, but the computer's not as good at it, because this is pattern matching, something computers are notoriously bad at.  The only reason computers can beat humans is that the computer can see so far ahead so fast, and never makes mistakes.

Thus, looking a computer's rating of different moves might help settle an argument, or help point out mistakes in your games after-the-fact, but learning how computers rate positions is not going to help you get better.


There is no rule against a single checker hitting two blots in one turn. At backgammonrules.net (emphasis mine):

Hitting blots
If a player moves to a point occupied by only one of his opponent's checkers, the checker is hit. Hit checkers are forced to re-enter. This slows their owner down. The opponent proceeds - and a player ahead in the race home is more likely to win.

Keep an eye on points occupied by a single checker, since these checkers are blots and can be hit.
Hit when you can, but weigh the risk of thereby leaving a blot yourself.
Opt for a two-stage move to throw out two blots at once or hit one and move on to a safe place.
Place the hit blots on the bar.


Yes, there is. I was looking into how I could catalogue my own collection at a decent pace, and manually typing in card names just wasn't going to cut it. I have a Windows + Android device, so I went searching too.

Since you're using TappedOut, it would be remiss of me to not mention that TappedOut has its own Android app: the TappedOut MTG Companion which includes a "visual collection updater": in theory, it lets you lay out your cards nice and neatly, photograph several of them at once, then add them to a collection. I say "in theory" because I've not yet been able to use it successfully — I've just gotten an error when I try.

The app I went with to scan my own collection was Delver Lens. Out of every Android app, it is the only one that scans cards and lets me output the list to TappedOut. (In fact, it's even got a custom export format prepared just for TappedOut!) It does one-by-one card scanning, and it's a little finnicky but easy enough to get the hang of. Overall I was able to catalogue ~140 cards in a few minutes using this, then export them to my TappedOut inventory just fine.

All Windows and other Android applications I'd found didn't give me an exportable list, or only existed to check market prices. Accordingly, I have zero other apps to mention that perform this purpose.

I have no affiliation with any of the products I've mentioned beyond being a ordinary user, and I do not gain anything from recommending them.


I follow the same procedure for organization that my LGS does.  I have a big 4 row box. In each row, I have a set.  So, right now one of my boxes has (in order): Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, M13.  What do all of these sets have in common?  They rotate out at the same time.

Now, for organizing each set, I follow WoTC's number system, and I put like cards together in penny sleeves (clear sleeves that generally cost $1 per 100). This way, they are organized by color, and then alphabetically.  This makes searching for cards much faster, at least for me.

Now, the order that WoTC does things is Colorless/White/Blue/Black/Red/Green/Gold/Hybrid/Artifact/Lands.  Also, if you look at the bottom of each card, there is a number associated with it.  For instance, the One Thousand Lashes you linked, is card number 183.  So, it would go 183rd in my box.

I hope that this helps.


No, attacking has nothing to do with "fighting"; the only similarity between the 2 is that they both involve creatures dealing damage. A creature is only considered an "attacking" creature if it is declared as an attacker during the combat phase.

  508.1j Each chosen creature still controlled by the active player becomes an attacking creature. It remains an attacking creature until it's removed from combat or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first.

Therefore, your opponent was not allowed to do this.

Note also that neither creature in this situation is "initiating" anything. You as the player who cast Savage Punch initiated the "fight", but there's no difference between your creature and your opponent's creature in terms of one of them being the "attacker" and one the "defender". They are simply both creatures that were targeted for the fight.

Also note that even though a fight causes creatures to deal damage to each other, this damage is not "combat damage":

  701.10d The damage dealt when a creature fights isn’t combat damage.


You can activate full control mode.

MTG arena has policies in place to speed up the gameplay considerably. This auto pass of priority is an attempt to remove the slow gameplay that has plagued MTGO.

You can deactivate this feature temporarily by pressing CTRL, you can turn it off permanently by pressing CTRL + SHIFT. Take note that when I say permanently, I mean for that game only; it will revert back to the default of setting when you start a new game.

Read more here.


In magic, if a attacker attacks with a 2/1 and I defend with a 1/2 who dies

Both creatures will die.

When one creature blocks one creature, each will simultaneously deal combat damage equal to its power to the other. Thus the 1/2 will receive 2 damage from the 2/1, and the 2/1 will receive 1 damage from the 1/2. Whenever a creature has total damage on it greater than or equal to its toughness, it dies immediately (technically, it dies when "state-based actions" are checked, which basically happens right before each time that any player is allowed to do anything).

There are many effects and abilities that could change this result, including:

If exactly one of the creatures has First Strike or Double Strike, it will deal damage before the one that does not, so it will survive while the other will die.
Since players can cast instants and activate abilities between the time blockers are declared and the time combat damage is dealt, either player could make their creature survive by e.g. pumping up their creature with a Giant Growth.


Why does Diregraf Colossus see itself in the graveyard?

Diregraf Colossus's ability has a replacement effect.

  614.1c Effects that read “[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ,” “As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ,” or “[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . ” are replacement effects.

This particular replacement effect requires information about the game (the number of zombies in your graveyard). This information is determined only once, when the effect is applied.

  608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the battlefield), the answer is determined only once, when the effect is applied. [...]

So, when is the effect applied? In the case of replacement effects, they are applied when the event they are looking to replace would occur.

  614.1. Some continuous effects are replacement effects. Like prevention effects (see rule 615), replacement effects apply continuously as events happen—they aren’t locked in ahead of time. Such effects watch for a particular event that would happen and completely or partially replace that event with a different event.

And finally, for completeness, the event actually happens when the spell or ability resolves, as you follow the instructions written on the card. The following rule is a subrule of "resolving a spell or ability".

  608.2c The controller of the spell or ability follows its instructions in the order written. However, replacement effects may modify these actions. [...]

Armed with these rules, let's walk through a scenario step by step to see what happens. Assume Anthony has Diregraf Colossus in his graveyard and no other zombies.

Anthony casts Dread Return, targeting Diregraf Colossus.
Both players pass priority, and so Dread Return begins to resolve.
The first instruction says "Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield."
This instruction is modified by Diregraf's replacement effect. After applying the replacement effect, it reads "Return Diregraf Colossus to the battlefield from your graveyard with a +1/+1 counter on it for each Zombie card in your graveyard." At the same time that we apply the replacement effect, we must determine how many zombies are in our graveyard. Currently Anthony has one zombie in his graveyard,
Now that we have applied the replacement effect, we can actually move Diregraf from the graveyard to the battlefield and put 1 counter on it.
There are no other instructions to follow, so Dread Return is done resolving.


It seems to exactly fit the rules of the French game Rami, which must be one of the variations of the Rummy, i guess. I did not even know there were different kind of Rummy.


The cheat! card specifically says:

"You may have and use any one item that would otherwise be against the rules"

However, monsters are not items (they are an entirely different type of card, falling under the door category) so they are not valid targets for the cheat! card.

If, instead, you're asking if Monsters can use items when you use the cheat card, I would still say no, as the card specifically says "you may have and use any one item" rather than something more broad, such as "Disregard all rules for this item"


Stopping a CounterSpell with Aurelia's Fury it's possible?

First of all, your spell hasn't been countered yet because Counterspell hasn't resolved yet. The most recently cast spell on the stack resolves first.

Secondly, countering a spell doesn't retroactively prevent it from being cast. It simply moves it from the stack to its owner's graveyard, which prevents it from resolving.

Thirdly, while Counterspell hasn't resolved yet, it has already been cast.

  601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. [...]

To respond to a spell means to cast a spell or activate an ability after a spell has been cast but before it resolves.

Aurelia's Fury prevents a player from casting noncreature spells. It has no effect on spells, especially those that have already been cast (e.g. the Counterspell on the stack).

Instead of casting Aurelia's Fury, say you had cast Counterspell targeting the earlier Counterspell. This would have worked because the newest spell on the stack (i.e. your Counterspell) resolves first (i.e. before your opponent's Counterspell), countering the opponent's Counterspell (preventing it from resolving and having an effect).

Instead of casting Aurelia's Fury, say you had cast Autumn's Veil. Autumn's Veil prevents spells from being countered. This would have worked because the newest spell on the stack (i.e. Autumn's Veil) resolves first (i.e. before the Counterspell), preventing the Counterspell from affecting your spell.


Use of Executive Order in Battlestar Galatica

Much of this is covered in the FAQ and Errata, which you can find a link to here.

You can't play 2 Executive Orders on the same turn.  Under Errata:

  The “Executive Order” Skill Card should include the following
  text: Limit of 1 “Executive Order” card may be used per turn.

Revealed Cylons can't play Executive Orders on each other (though un-revealed Cylons, sure!). Under Cylon Players:

  Q: Can a revealed Cylon player be targeted by the “Executive
  Order” Skill Card or Quorum Cards?A: No.

Yes. Under The Brig and Sickbay:

  Q: Can a player in “Sickbay” move out of that location if
  targeted by an “Executive Order” Skill Card?A: Yes. If the player moves out of “Sickbay” before the start of
  his turn, then he will not be restricted to drawing a single card.

I read it that a player may not move out of the Brig voluntarily, not even due to an Executive Orders free move. I don't think anything explicitly states this rule, but I generally feel that "You may not move" from the Brig trumps the "You may move" from Executive Orders.

As for your house rules, the first rule is good (and in the Errata).  The second rule seems to be not strictly in the rules, and I personally don't think it's a good idea - it would make Executive Orders more powerful than it already is (which is already quite powerful!) and the Brig less bad.  The Brig is supposed a scary place to be and hard to get out of; being able to Executive Order someone out of it seems like it diminishes that too much for my tastes.


Can I ask for Wastes like basic lands in Limited?

No, you cannot.

From the MTG Tournament Rules:

  7.2 Card Use in Limited Tournaments

    Players may add an unlimited number of cards named Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, or Forest to their
    deck and sideboard. They may not add additional snow basic land cards (e.g. Snow-Covered Forest, etc)
    or Wastes basic land cards, even in formats in which they are legal.


Phase 10 - Can you hit on the same turn as playing a phase?

I don't have the rules in front of me but I have always played that you could play on other players right away.

I could see that argument in a 2 player game that going down second would have an advantage but if both players are playing that way it is more likely that your opponent will just go out when they put down their phase and therefore stopping you from playing your phase and sticking you with a lot of points.  I would argue it better to move on to the next phase and get a small amount of points then not to go down at all.


Lord Windgrace; Resolving the First Loyalty Ability

Neither of your interpretations are correct. The order of events is discard, draw, [draw]. Look at the way the ability is ordered "+2: Discard a card, then [...]" The very first thing you do while resolving this ability is discard a card, then you draw either one or two cards. There is no replacement effect involved, and the first draw is unconditional. This means that even if you fail to discard a card (no cards in hand) you will draw that first card, but the discard definitely happens first if possible.


The morning action and evening action are done consecutively. The case of the card you're describing is discussed in the Continent section of the rules at the very bottom:

  doubloons obtained with the gold-gold card cannot be combined and placed in a single hold


In Monopoly, what happens if we run out of houses and/or hotels?

Building shortages are part of the strategy of the game and it is intended that players might not be able to buy houses because of a lack of them in the bank. It is also intended that when a player has to sell a hotel they also have to sell all all houses as well if there are not enough in the bank.

  BUILDING SHORTAGES
  When the Bank has no houses to sell,
  players wishing to build must wait for some player to return or sell
  his/her houses to the Bank before building. If there are a limited
  number of houses and hotels available and two or more players wish
  to buy more than the Bank has, the houses or hotels must be sold at
  auction to the highest bidder.


Citadels: Circus (German edition, 2012): how to interpret "Cash point" ability?

You've got the gist of it - I would translate the card as follows:

  Each player may place one piece of gold per turn on this card while he/she is the active player. He/she may then draw 2 cards and keep 1 of them. Immediately after that, you may decide to take all the gold from this card and discard the Kassenwagen.

So it looks like to me, that anytime anyone uses the Kassenwagen, the owner may choose to take the gold immediately after their card draw resolves.  There are no rules stating that you must wait X rounds or X uses before doing so - you are limited by how often players wish to use it.  Similarly, barring any specific mention, it can be used as any other district card in the game.  I can't find a specific reference to any activation delay for any other districts with paid abilities (The Smithy coming to mind) - they are simply available for use as soon as they are built.

To me, the balance seems somewhat obvious - it's a risk/reward game.  It is a temporary haven from the Thief, Abbot, Tax Collector, and Emperor, but the longer the owner hangs onto it - the more likely he/she is likely to be targeted by the Assassin, Warlord (or even worse, the Diplomat), or by the Thief on the turn following the discard.  By holding onto the card, the player paints a very large "PAY ATTENTION TO ME" sign on him/herself.  Additionally, the other players may be wary of providing resources to another player, and may choose not to use it - limiting the effectiveness.  All in all, while it can turn into one amazing payoff, there seems to me to be an equally likely chance that the other players see what you did there and stop you from cashing in.


they did away with the rule that first claw damage point enters, correct?

It certainly appears that way. From the manual I'm looking at, there's a note on page 5:

  NOTE: No Monster starts the game in Tokyo. The first player must enter Tokyo City during this step.

  Does this also mean that if you damage the monster in Tokyo during the "Resolve Dice" phase, and they leave Tokyo that you MUST enter Tokyo?

Yes. On the previous page, under "Smash", "If you are outside of Tokyo":

  These Monsters can then decide to Yield and leave Tokyo or stay[...]

Plus the rule from "3. Enter Tokyo" on the next page:

  If no one is in Tokyo, you must enter and place your Monster in Tokyo City.

If you roll a Smash, deal damage to a monster in Tokyo, and that monster decides to leave, when you get around to the Enter Tokyo phase of your turn, there won't be a monster in Tokyo; as a result, you must enter Tokyo yourself.


Statistical Approach to Winning Monopoly

Here are the (quite extensive!) results: http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml

The first part of that page is the long-term probabilities for ending up on a particular square. The last column tells you the ranking: you will end up in Jail most often, Illinois second-most-often, then Go, then the B&O Railroad, etc. This is neat, but you'll need to figure out whether those most-frequently-hit squares are profitable in the short and long term; the next part is about the expected income per roll, and after that is how long it will take you to recoup the cost of things. (Fun fact: buying the third house is the fastest thing to recoup. That doesn't mean you should buy straight to three houses, or that you should stop there; it just means that you'll earn the money-for-the-third-house back fastest.)

The problem with that page is that it doesn't point you to The Best Strategy. Do you want to earn back your initial money fast? Do you want to earn the most money overall, even if you'll have less money in the early game? Do you just take a hedonistic joy in getting people to hand you money, and want that to happen as often as possible? You'll go far by picking up the properties that recoup your costs quickly, but those properties are the light blue and orange properties - they're nicely profitable and quick to set up, but they don't rake in the gobs of money you'll want in the end-game.


Character Specials Triggering on Non Bang Cards?

In the copy of the rules I've consulted, El Gringo's rules text begins:

  Each time he loses a life point due to
  a card played by another player...

I think it's pretty clear from that that, as long as a card was played that can be held responsible for damaging him, El Gringo's special power will trigger.  Whether or not the damage was "direct".


This "Detailed Play Sequence" helps clarify this.

Destroying a room isn't something you can just "do".  During the build and adventure phases you can take actions either through playing a spell or using a room's ability, and the cost for those actions might involve destroying a room.  This means that any time you can take an action, you might end up destroying a room.  This "Detailed Play Sequence" helps clarify this.

  You may play a Spell or Room Ability when another player is active,
  but they can react with their own Spells and Room Abilities, and those
  resolve before your effect.

  The Build phase ends when Rooms are revealed. Build effects ("When you
  build this Room...") and Level Up powers take place immediately, in XP
  order. No Spells or activated abilities may be played until the
  Adventure Phase begins.

Actions can be used on any player's turn during the build or adventure phases. If multiple players want to take an action at the same time, the current player always has their actions take priority, and then the rest are resolved in XP order.

In the build phase, you generally take actions when it is your turn to select a room.  At this point you are the current player, so nobody else can interrupt your action (except to counter it).  You are not allowed to use build phase actions after rooms are revealed, so you can't play a room and then immediately destroy it before the bait phase.  The only thing that happens after rooms are revealed is "Level Up" and "When you build this room" effects, followed immediately by the bait phase.

In the adventure phase, each time the heroes move to a different room, there is an opportunity for any player to use an action. The player that owns the dungeon the heroes are in is the current player, so their actions will have priority.


How many times can I activate this Lotleth Troll and Basking Rootwalla combo?

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


Does being targeted with Moonlight Hunt allow my creature to return damage?

No.

The only thing that Moonlight Hunt does is specifically what it says: each wolf or werewolf that your opponent controls will deal damage to your It That Rides as One. Your creature will not deal damage in return because the spell doesn't say it does.

Note that Moonlight Hunt does not cause creatures to fight each other. "Fight" is a keyword that causes creatures to deal damage to each other; which may be what you are thinking of. But Moonlight Hunt doesn't use the word "fight"; so it doesn't have anything to do with "fighting".


What is the significance of the coin and gem spaces on the board?

From Page 24:

  When a player builds a camp on a space with a coin or a gem symbol, the player gains gems or coins equal to the number of search symbols in the player's active party.


Is it valid to bid on a cargo with zero coins?

No, a zero coin bid is not valid. This was asked on BGG, and the clarification "no you cannot" is from Eric Hautemont, one of the game designers at Days of Wonder (who produced the game).


Dream Eater leaves battlefield before Surveil

No, having the Dream Eater become a new object does not affect its ability on the stack.

A reflexive triggered ability follows the same rules as a delayed triggered ability:

  603.12. A resolving spell or ability may allow a player to take an action and create a triggered ability that triggers “when [a player] [does or doesn’t]” take that action or “when [something happens] this way.” These reflexive triggered abilities follow the rules for delayed triggered abilities (see rule 603.7), except that they’re checked immediately after being created and trigger based on whether the trigger event occurred earlier during the resolution of the spell or ability that created them.

This just means that the second half of the ability ("When you do...") is triggered by actually doing the first half ("surveil 4") instead of something happening later as with regular delayed triggered abilities. Delayed triggered abilities can potentially never trigger if its trigger event happened before the ability was created. This can't happen for reflexive triggered bilities. For reflexive triggered abilities, the second half can only not trigger if the first half never  happens, for example if the first half was replaced.

Either way, Dream Eater's ability does refer to the Dream Eater that created it, but it doesn't affect it, so 603.7c does not apply.

  603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However, if that object is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at the time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won’t affect it.

Therefore, removing the Dream Eater does not affect the ability it created. Once it has entered the battlefield and triggered the ability as a whole, removing it won't do anything.

  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.


Does "target Merfolk" imply "target Merfolk creature"?

Yes, you can target either a Creature - Merfolk or a Tribal - Merfolk, and put +1/+1 counters on them. Rule 109.2 says

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

And rule 308.2 says

  Tribal subtypes are always a single word and are listed after a long dash: “Tribal Enchantment — Merfolk.” The set of tribal subtypes is the same as the set of creature subtypes; these subtypes are called creature types. Tribals may have multiple subtypes. See rule 205.3m for the complete list of creature types.

So, any spell that refers to an object just by a creature subtype is talking about a permanent of that subtype. And since the Creature and Tribal types share the same set of subtypes, an object that is referred to just by creature type can be either a creature or a tribal permanent.


Can the Ronin use its ability when defending?

Yes.

Root rules are very literal. They even say in the FAQ section:

  Q3. It seems like something should happen, but the
  rule doesn’t tell me to do that thing. What do I do?

  A3. Follow the literal word of the Law, not your instinct.

Here is the latest version of the rules as of the time of writing.

So in the rules "defending" only ever mentioned in the battle context, which indicates to me, that there could be no "defending" while not in battle. And since we just established that we are, in fact, in battle when the Ronin is defending, the rule should apply.

After rolling here is intended to convey that you are allowed to see the roll result before you decide whether to use the ability, not to imply any kind of agency. That would be too far fetched for the very literal style of the rules.

Here is what section E.8.2 has to say about the Ronin rule:

  Special Action: Swift Strike. You may exhaust a  to deal an extra hit in battle (after rolling).

Note, how "after rolling" moved to the end of the sentence, compared to the card, and how it is in italic now.

The overal battle rules are given in section 4.3.

Some "while defending" rules to compare with your case are given in 8.2.2, 10.1, 10.2.3, 13.2.5, but I admit they are not very relevant here.


Does anyone recognize this monster family board game?

The game is called Creepy Towers.

The box was shaped like a creepy castle or house and there was a
laughing skull piece
and you had to go through the house (which may
have been the box)

From the publisher's description:

  Includes light-activated laughing skull

and all your player pieces were tiny brightly colored skulls
I think there was a rubber spider too…

From the publisher's description:

  Includes ... two rubber creatures

It would have been between 1993-1999

The game was published in 1995

Actually came with a book

From the publisher's description:

  as kids read Creepy Towers

And from the BoardGameGeek entry (linked above)

  Within Creepy Towers there is a board game, short story


Is there a reference sheet I can print for the characters?

Good rule of thumb: when looking for a reference for a board or card game, always check BoardGameGeek. Here's the most popular Citadels reference available there:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/18772/universal-head-citadels-reference

And you can find a ton more in the Files section of the Citadels detail page.

(I believe you have to sign up for an account to download files off BGG, but if you're into board games it's totally worth it.)


When my opponent plays several spells at once, can I counter them all together?

No, it doesn't work like that, not unless you're doing something very unusual (which I'm not even sure is actually possible).

For starters, your opponent can't actually cast multiple spells at once. When they put all their cards down on the table as you described, they're proposing a shortcut where they cast all the spells, one by one, and you decline to respond to any of them (i.e. you decline to counter them or whatever). You do not have to accept this shortcut. In other words, your opponent cannot deny you the opportunity to respond to their spells.1 If you do want to respond, you can tell your opponent something like "wait, back up, I have responses" and then they have to take the cards back into their hand and cast the spells one at a time, passing priority to you after each one1, and you tell them when they cast each of those spells whether or not you want to play something in response.

The other issue is that, even if your opponent did have multiple spells on the stack at once (as in the situation described in the footnote2), Counterspell and similar cards only counter a single spell. Just because there are a whole bunch of spells to choose from doesn't mean that you can actually apply Counterspell's effect to all of them at once. There are a few cards that can counter multiple spells, like Counterflux (when overloaded) or Summary Dismissal (which technically exiles rather than countering), but they can only do this because they say so on the card. Note the difference in wording compared to a standard Counterspell.

1 Except when split second is involved, but that's very exotic these days.

2 If you were asking about instants or cards with flash, then things would be a little but more complicated. Your opponent could cast a spell, then immediately cast an instant or flash card without passing priority, and then could cast another instant or flash card without passing priority, and so on for as many as they want to cast. But that only applies to instants and cards with flash, not to typical artifacts and creatures (which don't have flash), as it seems you're asking about here. And even in this case, none of these spells could resolve without you having a chance to respond to them first. Your opponent can never take that away from you.1


In Broadside, what methods are most effective for probing and/or circumventing the fixed defenses?

As I remember, the British had several ships with a "mast" of 1. These ships are the best for. first, scouting the cannon, and if they survive, hitting a mine, because you lose the least sail.

The British have something like 25 sail to 20 for the Americans. Basically, the task of the British is to "figure out" the American defenses while losing less than 5 sail.

(I last played the game over 40 years ago, yes, I'm that old.)


Does a hero suffer wounds from new minions as Darkness Spreads?

This question has been asked before. Luckily, the designer has clarified the answer. You suffer wounds at the end of your heroic actions when minions are in your location, not during the Night when new minions are placed.

Wounds are suffered at the end of your actions - the end of the Daytime Phase of play and prior to drawing Darkness Spreads cards. If Minions appear on your location by a Darkness Spreads card, you do not suffer wounds to them.

You will also note that the rules regarding wounds suffered in this manner are covered within the Daytime section of the rule book, and not near the end of the rule book covering Night.


What happens when I draw cards if I've built the Library and the Observatory?

Q: What if a player has both Library
and Observatory in his city? How do
their effects combine?
A: If this
player draws cards, he draws three and
keeps two.

(Source)
That's straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.


Can dummy claim points for honors in contract bridge?

Yes. Either hand, by either side, may claim honors. The only restriction is that the honors claimed must all be in the one hand. This has been the rule since before I first learned the game in 1963.

From The Laws of Rubber Bridge (2014):

  PART VII - The Score*

  Law 72 - Points Earned

  A. Trick Points ...

  B. Premium Points Either side or both sides may earn premium points. Declarer’s side earns premium points ..., by holding scorable honors in either of their hands, or ....  The defenders earn premium points ... by holding scorable honors in either of their hands. (see Law 81)

  ...

  Law 81 - Scoring Table

  ...

  HONORS

Scored above the line by either side

For holding four of the five trump       100
honors (A, K, Q, J, 10) in one hand

For holding all five trump honors        150
(A, K, Q, J, 10) in one hand

For holding all four aces in one hand    150
at a no trump contract


What happens if I play Quagmire/Bear Trap on myself on AR 7?

Quagmire/Bear Trap don't go away at the end of the turn !
From the FAQ:

46
Q. Does a Beartrap or Quagmire end when the turn ends or will it continue into the next
turn?
A. The end of a turn will not end a Beartrap or Quagmire. Only the required die roll will
do so. Remember that neither card affects headline phase.

So, if you play it in AR7 you will not play AR1 of the next turn (except you played it in TURN10), you just discard a card and try your luck.


What are the restrictions on picking up locomotives?

It varies by which Ticket To Ride game you're playing.

In USA, Europe, and Asia, you may do any of the following on your turn:

Draw a face-up locomotive
draw two face-up non-locomotive card
draw two cards off the deck
draw one face-up non-locomotive and one card off the deck, in either order.

In Switzerland and Nordic Countries:

draw two face-up cards
draw two cards off the deck
draw one face-up card and one card off the deck, in either order.

The difference has a lot to do with how they are used - the Switzerland and Nordic rules don't allow engines to be used for plain routes, only for tunnels and ferries.


How do "Run" Events interact with effects that change the server you're running on?

As CrystalBlue commented, the latest copy of the FAQ (PDF) addresses this (page 2):

  “If successful...”

  Whenever there is an “If successful...” effect tied to the outcome
  of a run, the run itself must have been successful against the
  specified server(s), if applicable. If the Runner initiates a run
  against the specified server but ends the run on a different
  server, the “If successful...” effect does not resolve when the run
  is successful.

  Example: The Runner plays Demolition Run on HQ. During the
  run, a Bullfrog moves the Runner to a remote server. Even though
  the run is successful, the Runner cannot use the “If successful...”
  effect on Demolition Run because the run was not successful
  against R&D or HQ. If the Bullfrog moved the Runner to R&D,
  the ability would trigger when the run was successful.

  If the “If successful...” effect does not specify a server, then it
  does not matter if the attacked server is changed during the run
  ,and the ability resolves as normal.

In summary, if a run ability specifies a server (or servers), the "if successful" effect only triggers if the run is actually successful on one of those servers. As the example in the FAQ mentions, it does not need to necessarily be the actual server the run was initiated on though.

For Account Siphon and Maker's Eye, if the run does not finish on HQ and R&D respectively, the special ability is wasted (and the run essentially just becomes a normal run).