MTG - Priority and timing between instants and instants -

It will kill the creature. After the Lightning Bolt resolves, state based actions will be checked:

704.1. State-based actions are game actions that happen automatically whenever certain conditions (listed below) are met. State-based actions don’t use the stack.
704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 117, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event.

One of those checks will destroy the 2/3 creature:

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

This happens before the +1/+1 instant can come to the rescue.


Let's start with the basic question: can you make your opponent lose the game by "giving" them Demonic Pact after all but the last mode have been chosen?

Short answer: yes.

Demonic Pact's ability includes several uses of the words "you" and "your," which always refer to its controller.109.5  Harmless Offering makes your opponent the controller of Demonic Pact, so they must now deal with the Pact during their upkeep.  This also means that "You lose the game" refers to them losing, regardless of who used to control the Pact.

Another question to ask at this point would be whether the previously chosen options are "reset" when the card changes controller.  The Gatherer rulings confirm that they do not:

  It doesn’t matter who has chosen any particular mode. For example, say you control Demonic Pact and have chosen the first two modes. If an opponent gains control of Demonic Pact, that player can choose only the third or fourth mode.

Putting all this together: if you can "use up" the first three modes of the Pact and then give it to your opponent, Demonic Pact's ability will require them to pick the only remaining mode and lose the game.

Note, however, that there are ways for your opponent to deal with your clever ploy.  They could, for example:

Use a Counterspell to eliminate Harmless Offering before it resolves.
Destroy Demonic Pact using Naturalize during your end step.
Stifle Demonic Pact's ability before it can resolve.
Use Angel's Grace to prevent the Pact from making them lose.

All in all, though, it's going to be tricky for them to get out of this situation.  After seeing you play Harmless Offering, they'll certainly be wishing they could ignore the Gatherer rulings and "refuse your generous donation!"


Does Mirrorworks still create a copy when the original has left the battlefield?

Yes, you will still get to copy the artifact.

This is covered in the special rulings on Mirrorworks Gatherer page:

  If the artifact that caused Mirrorworks’s ability to trigger has already left the battlefield by the time the ability resolves, you can still pay 2. If you do, you’ll still put a token onto the battlefield. That token has the copiable values of the characteristics of that nontoken artifact as it last existed on the battlefield.

This is because of the following rule:

  608.2g 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. If the effect requires information from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself, the effect uses the current information of that object if it’s in the public zone it was expected to be in; if it’s no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved it from a public zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the object’s last known information. See rule 112.7a. If an ability states that an object does something, it’s the object as it exists—or as it most recently existed—that does it, not the ability.


On chess what exactly is the "En passant" trick?

Not a trick. En passant is a rule of pawns in chess just as the rule for 2 square starting advance is. In fact its introduction to the rules came directly from the 2 square advance's introduction.

From Wikipedia:

  En passant (from French: in passing) is a move in the board game of
  chess. It is a special pawn capture which can occur immediately after
  a player moves a pawn two squares forward from its starting position,
  and an enemy pawn could have captured it had the same pawn moved only
  one square forward. The opponent captures the just-moved pawn as if
  taking it "as it passes" through the first square. The resulting
  position is the same as if the pawn had moved only one square forward
  and the enemy pawn had captured normally.

  The en passant capture must be done on the very next turn, or the
  right to do so is lost. Such a move is the only occasion in chess in
  which a piece captures but does not move to the square of the captured
  piece. If an en passant capture is the only legal move available, it
  must be made. En passant capture is a common theme in chess
  compositions.

  This rule was added in the 15th century when the rule giving pawns the
  option of initially moving two squares was introduced. It prevents a
  pawn from using the two-square advance to pass an adjacent enemy pawn
  without the risk of being captured.

Essentially the rule prevents an opponent's pawn from blowing past your pawn using it's initial 2 square advance. If your opponent moves their pawn 2 squares past the point where your pawn could capture it, then you may move your pawn to capture it anyway. Your movement is the same diagonal attack into the square that the opponent's pawn would have occupied had it advanced only one square.


Does a face down creature get the bonus from Muraganda Petroglyphs?

Yes, they do get the bonus. See the first ruling below the card in Gatherer:

  Muraganda Petroglyphs gives a bonus only to creatures that have no rules text at all. This includes true vanilla creatures (such as Grizzly Bears), face-down creatures, many tokens, and creatures that have lost their abilities (due to Ovinize, for example). Any ability of any kind, whether or not the ability functions in the on the battlefield zone, including things like “Cycling (2)” means the creature doesn’t get the bonus.

(emphasis mine)

For example, a morphed card:

  702.36c To cast a card using its morph ability, turn it face down. It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost.

One could argue that the ability to turn the card face-up is an ability of the 2/2 face-down card, negating the Muraganda Petroglyphs condition, but it's not.


What adjustments do you have to make if partner leads "third highest" instead of "fourth highest" to open?"

Yes, The Rule of 12 is used, except it is the Rule of 10 and 12. Third best is led only from a holding 3 or 4 cards and fifth best is led from holdings of 5 or 6 cards. Opening Leader's partner is expected to apply the result of subtracting from both 10 and 12, with the information available from seeing Dummy and hearing the bidding, to make an appropriate assessment on Opening leader's holding.
The rationale is:

Remove the ambiguity from leads of 3rd best from 3 and 4th best from 4;

More readily allow partner to identify holdings of 5 cards by Opening Leader; and

Combine more consistently from Coded 9's and 10's Leads (vs NT), where Opening Lead of Jack denies the Queen, and that of either the Ten or Nine is either top of a sequence or show the next higher card in a broken sequence, as any of: AJT, KJT, AT9, KT9, QT9.


Laboratory maniac and not being able to win the game

You neither lose nor win the game, and the game continues.

What would normally make you lose the game when drawing from an empty library is a state-based action.

  704.5b If a player attempted to draw a card from a library with no cards in it since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game.

Laboratory Maniac's ability creates a replacement effect. Replacement effects replace the original event - in this case the card draw itself - with something else. Since you never draw a card from an empty library with this card under your control, the state-based action will never apply.

With a Platinum Angel under your opponent's control, its continuous effect simply prevents you from winning the game. It does not, however, interact with Laboratory Maniac's ability in any other way, meaning its replacement effect will still replace the event of you drawing a card.

In the end, all effects combined could be summarized to something like this:

  If you would draw a card from a library with no cards in it, instead nothing happens.

The game will go on normally until either your opponent wins, you lose the game in another way, or either creature is destroyed/stripped of it's ability - in the last case, the next time you would draw a card, you either lose or win the game (depending on the remaining creature).


Can I make a planeswalker harder to attack by making it a creature with flying?

This doesn't work. The rule “you can’t attack something with flying” doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because you don't attack creatures: you just announce creatures as attacking a player or planeswalker, and then the defending player assigns blockers.

Flying only controls what can be declared as a blocker of that creature, and nothing else. Here's the rules on what flying means:

  702.9b A creature with flying can't be blocked except by creatures with flying and/or reach. A creature with flying can block a creature with or without flying.

Meanwhile the procedure for attacking remains unchanged:

You declare which creatures will be attacking.
You choose which opponents or opponents' planeswalkers they will attack.

No mention of flying. I can declare a creature as attacking your planeswalker if it's also a creature with flying, because I'm attacking that planeswalker under the rules for attacking planeswalkers. That it's a creature and has flying simply isn't factored into this process.

Your intuition around flying is in a reasonable place, but flying doesn't actually do anything for you here.

You do get to have Bolas as both a flying creature (that can attack!) and a planeswalker though, and that can be handy. However he'll be more vulnerable to removal: many more burn and removal spells can now target him. Also, any damage dealt to him, such as in combat or by burn spells, will result in him both losing loyalty counters and having damage marked on him. From the rules on Planeswalkers:

  306.8. Damage dealt to a planeswalker results in that many loyalty counters being removed from it.

Since he's both a planeswalker and creature, and creatures may still attack him, we also run into a rare fun situation mentioned in the rulings for Gideon, Champion of Justice: he can block on his own behalf, even versus creatures declared attacking him as a planeswalker. Let's quote that ruling but swap mentions of Gideon for Bolas:

  [Say Nicol Bolas, the Arisen is also a creature.] You may have any of your creatures attack [Nicol Bolas] (since he’s still a planeswalker). Then [Nicol Bolas] may block (since he’s a creature). He may block any eligible attacking creature, including one that’s attacking him! During combat, he behaves as an attacked planeswalker and/or a blocking creature, as appropriate. For example, he deals combat damage to any creatures he’s blocking, but he doesn’t deal combat damage to any unblocked creatures that are attacking him.


Does Small World's Dragon Master allow conquering non-adjacent regions?

The Dragon does not fly or give the race flying.  (Therefore you can normally* only conquer adjacent areas).

The Dragon does not do the conquering, only allow you to conquer an area with a single race token.  You place the Dragon after you conquer the area.

*normally used as I don't have all the expansions and for all I know there is an edge case out there!


Where do you go for the 'nearest railroad' in Monopoly?

Look closely at the card and it tells you exactly what to do.

Advance token to nearest railroad
Pay owner twice the rental to which he/she is entitled. If railroad is unowned, you may buy it from the bank.

Advance means you are moving forward on the board so this will always move you to the railroad that you run into. In your example it means that you would stop at Pennsylvania.
From what it sounds like you are reading way to much into a simple card. In the game of Monopoly, there is no way to go backwards, so you never look behind you when you are trying to calculate distance.
To break it down from the Chance spot that is in the light blues, the ranking of railroads in terms of distance is

Pennsylvania (8 spaces away with normal movement)
B. & O. (18 spaces away with normal movement)
Short Line (28 spaces away with normal movement)
Reading (38 spaces away with normal movement)

The only time you can pass go with that card is on the Chance spot right after the Short Line spot on the board.
Always need to remember that when playing a board game (unless specifically stated) you calculate distance based on the direction you move.
As for the comment about the Go to Jail card, it does not instruct you to advance to jail. That card is specifying changes to the movement rules on the card because it wants you to treat it differently than other cards that direct you to move to a location.

Go to jail
Go directly to jail
Do not pass go
Do not collect $200

There are other cards which break the movement rules and those cards fully describe the changes to the rules.

Go back 3 spaces

This card clearly describes a movement that is outside of the normal rules and does not use the word advance so it can't be confused with normal movement.
Official Tournament Rules where passing go a second time by this card is not mentioned even though it does mention passing go a second time from this space

GO Each time a player’s token lands on or passes over
GO, whether by throw of the dice or by drawing a card,
the Banker pays the player a $200 salary. The $200 is
paid only once each time around the board. However, if a
player passing GO on the throw of a dice lands 2 spaces
beyond it on Community Chest, or 7 spaces beyond it on
Chance, and draws the “Advance to GO” card, he/she
collects $200 for passing GO the first time and another
$200 for reaching it the second time by instructions on the
card.


Card interaction: Basilisk and draw then discard.

There's a comprehensive FAQ compiled from answers to questions from the game designer

Q: If a Villain blocks part of a card effect, can you or must you execute the rest of the action?
A: Yes.  For example, Lockhart says “Draw one card, then discard any one card.”  If the Basilisk is in play and you choose to play Lockhart, you would not draw the card but you would still have to discard.  Neville could thus use Lockhart to discard his Remembrall to gain two influence.
Source: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/24479506#24479506


How do I score this field in Carcassonne?

According to the rules:

  Each field is worth 3 points per adjacent completed city.

So the city must share a line with the field. It does this for three of the cities. The small vertical city is adjacent to two fields which does not connect to the field with the red meeple, so this one does not count.


Green Horde: Do Orc Fatties spawn with 2x Orc Walkers?

I think, you can safely assume that, because it is not in the rules (I checked all the instances of fatties and the relevant sections) they do not get an escort.

But if you think that is too easy, you can always add them.


Do multiple Gray Merchant of Asphodels trigger each others' enters-the-battlefield effects?

No, only the one entering the battlefield triggers.

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

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


Double strike and trample, dealt lethal damage during first damage step. Does the rest go through?

No, it does not. Your creature will not be alive during the second damage step, it will be in the graveyard and not able to deal damage.

Normally double strike would work this way, if all blockers of the double striking creature are dealt lethal damage in the first strike step, the regular damage step tramples onto the player completely. However in your case your double striker was also dealt lethal damage during the first strike step. Between these steps state based actions are checked, and rule 704.5g gets applied.

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

This causes your double striker to be destroyed and move to the graveyard. The regular damage step will begin and, assuming there's only those two creatures involved in combat, there will be no creatures on the battlefield attacking to assign any damage during this step, so no damage is done.

If the creature that was blocking your 6/6 was instead a 5/6 first strike, indestructible, your double striker would live through the first strike damage step and would assign all 6 points of it's power for the regular damage step to the defending player, as the blocker already has lethal damage marked on it, even though it didn't die due to indestructible. It wouldn't need to do any damage to the blocker again.


Spark Double copying my planeswalker - do I have to sacrifice?

You get to keep both. It would be a pretty useless ability if it didn't. The "legend rule" still applies to the original, but you need two legendary permanents with the same name for it to apply, and Spark Double (which isn't called Spark Double then) is not legendary itself.

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

Planeswalkers used to have their own "legend rule" checking their subtypes, which Spark Double does not provide for, but it's no longer in effect:

  306.4. Previously, planeswalkers were subject to a “planeswalker uniqueness rule” that stopped a player from controlling two planeswalkers of the same planeswalker type. This rule has been removed and planeswalker cards printed before this change have received errata in the Oracle card reference to have the legendary supertype. Like other legendary permanents, they are subject to the “legend rule” (see rule 704.5j).


Relative amounts of luck in MTG limited formats?

You pretty much answered this question already. While I haven't heard of 4-pack 30 card sealed yet,I would say this is the format that is the most dependent on luck. A single bomb in a 30 card deck has a much larger impact than in a 40 card deck, for 2 reasons:

1) With 4 packs, opponents have a lower chance to equalize a single bomb of yours with at least 2 solid rares of their own, simply because they only get 4 rares instead of 6.

2) Assuming the average game runs for at most 15 turns, you get to see 22 cards of your deck, ignoring cantrips and library/graveyard manipulation: That is ~75% of a 30-card deck, and only ~55% of a 40-card deck. So you have a chance of up to 75% vs. 55% to draw your bomb in a game. Or stated differently, to get your bomb with a 50% chance in any given game, you need to draw only 15 vs. 20 cards, again ignoring library/graveyard shenanigans.

Obviously, this applies to every participant, so it all averages out in the long run, and it comes down to skill again. But in the 4-pack format, I would expect the standard deviation in deck strength to be significantly higher than for 6 packs, or, to answer your question, the luck factor is highest in the 4-pack, 30-card deck sealed format.


You reshuffle the discards to form a new draw pile.

This is specifically stated in the rules (page 2, at the end of the section GOING OUT):

  If no one is out of cards by the time the DRAW pile is depleted, reshuffle the DISCARD pile and continue play.


Neither of those events happen. Discounting the illegal interaction between Cloven Casting and Grapeshot, instead reference Twincast or Howl of the Horde.

Simplest path: you've cast 3 spells this turn, then cast Grapeshot. When you cast Grapeshot, you create copies of it for each spell you cast before it.

There are 4 objects named Grapeshot on the Stack, 3 copies and 1 represented by the card.

You then cast Twincast, targeting a copy of Grapeshot on the stack. You create an additional copy, but since you didn't cast this Grapeshot, the Storm effect doesn't Trigger.

5 objects named Grapeshot are on the stack, 4 copies and 1 represented by a card.


Where can I find new map ideas for Settlers of Catan Seafarers?

There are no official "sequels" but there is some stuff you can find online.

CatanMaps.com is the largest library that I've found. They have about 50 Catan maps or scenarios (mostly for Seafarers), and they add to it regularly. The collection includes info on setting up official scenarios that didn't make it into the current handbook (Greater Catan, Enchanted Land, Desert Raiders, etc) as well as fun adaptations like Middle Earth, Westeros, World Map, etc.

EDIT: The site seems to have closed but the maps are saved on their Facebook page.

MenzGaming.com is another site with about a dozen Seafarers scenarios. I have only tried the Race to Cities of Gold one, but they all look fun.


What is the origin of the term "converted mana cost"?

The term started to be used in Classic Sixth Edition.

In Fifth Edition, Spell Blast says total casting cost. In Sixth it says converted mana cost.

Pyromancy also says total casting cost, and Urza's Legacy was the set immediately before Sixth.

Sixth introduced many major rules changes, including the removal of interrupts and the introduction of the stack. You can read more details here, but in general it was a major push by WotC to redesign the rules and wording to lead to a more consistent environment.

I don't know why they chose the exact wording they did, but it makes sense as a term. A spell's mana cost includes colours and generic mana. The word "converted" (as opposed to "total") makes it clear that you're not paying attention to the composition of colour symbols (and later, other symbols), and instead just want a single number answer.

This would be important for comparing two spells in different colours, or reducing a spell's cost by a number but still requiring coloured mana.


Does a Curse card count as a Victory card when playing the Bureaucrat?

No.  Curse cards do not have the type Victory.  They just have type Curse.

(You can see this in the rules or by reading the card closely - although they affect your VP total, they do not have "Victory" in the type line, just "Curse").


Can I build several connected roads on the same turn?

As stated in the Almanac under "Building":

  You can build as many items and buy as many cards as you desire - as long as you have enough resources to "pay" for them and they are still available in the supply.

So as long as you have enough resources in hand, and roads available to you, you can build out as far as you like in one turn, and then add a settlement wherever you want to place it (while obeying the Distance Rule, of course).

I'd note that while the Turn Overview says for building a road, "place next to one of your settlements or cities", that cannot be correct since then you would never be able to build a second settlement (since you could never build a second road out to satisfy the Distance Rule).


How many Corridor Monitors can I make with Blade Of Selves and Strionic Resonator?

If I understand the situation correctly you want to do this in a game with at least 2 opponents:

Attack with Corridor Monitor(CM) equipped with Blade of Selves, one copy of Myriad triggers and at least two instances of Exalted(CM, Sublime Archangel) trigger. Put Myriad on the stack last, so the token copies would enter first.
Use Strionic Resonator(SR) to copy the Myriad effect, the stack is now: Myriad, Myriad, Exalted, Exalted...
Resolve the top Myriad, creating (N-1) copies of CM, where N is the number of opponents.
Target SR with all copies of the CM trigger. Stack is now: CM, [CM...], Myriad, Exalted, Exalted...
Resolve first CM trigger, untapping SR.
Use SR to copy the myriad trigger. Stack is now: Myriad, [CM...], Myriad, Exalted, Exalted...
Repeat from step 2...

Yes, this will work, it's similar to Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Splinter Twin combos that have been played for some time, though it has more moving parts (2 cards minimum vs 3 minimum, 4 to guarantee infinite) and requires less colors (need to be in at least Izzet vs this in mono blue). The Kiki-Jiki and Splinter twin combos also let you attack all opponents with infinite token copies, letting you protect the original creatures by not attacking, this combo protects the one that you attacked first and risks your CM.
A possible addition to this combo would be Sol Ring, Everflowing Chalice, mana vault, etc. any artifact that can create at least 2 mana. This would, in a 4 player game (1 CR targets the Resonator, the other targets the mana source), guarantee that you have enough mana to continue the combo. It will then take 5 opponents (and a 3+ mana rock) to enable to you copy the exalted triggers also indefinitely, but this won't usually be much of a benefit, "infinite" small attackers are much more effective than one "infinitely" large attacker. This combo should be able to kill all opponents except for the one who you attacked originally.

To explain the mana rock addition (4 player game):

Attack with CM, putting Myriad on stack.
Tap mana rock(MR) to generate at least 2 mana, use that mana to pay for SR and copy Myriad. No mana floating, Stack is now: Myriad, Myriad, Exalted, Exalted...
Top Myriad resolves, 2 new CM enter the battlefield, one targets SR, the other targets MR, order on stack does not really matter, but is CM, [CM...], Myriad, Exalted, Exalted... With 2/3 mana floating.
CM resolves untapping MR.
CM resolves untapping SR
Return to step 2.

The reason combos like this are usually run off Kiki-Jiki or Splinter Twin is because they cost no mana to use, they just need Deceiver Exarch, Sky Hussar or Intruder Alarm to untap the enabler for free. It is mana neutral.
Most infinite combos need to be mana neutral or mana creating. Without some kind of infinite mana source, a combo like this that has a mana cost to repeat would only be able to go off a dozen or less times in most decks (that's 24 mana), powerful but not immediately game winning. By adding a 2 mana rock into the combo the combo becomes mana neutral, with a 3+ mana rock it becomes mana generating, either makes it as truly infinite as the rules allow.


The rule was added because, as the sides of the board get more and more crowded, the urbanist blocks access to tiles.

It then becomes a question of which is more important -- getting the specific tile you desperately want, or taking a less optimal tile that blocks your opponent from getting the tile he desperately wants?


If I am building a road and I use the same tile twice, do I count that tile twice in order to determine the length of the road?

No, just count them once.

From the rules at the bottom of page 2:

  The player who has a thief on a completed road scores one
  point for each tile in the completed road (count the
  number of tiles; separate segments on a tile count just
  once).

Also the Carcassonne Annotated Rules confirms that the King expansion uses the same definition for "longest"; IE, count the tiles.


How does Jandor's Ring work with modern Magic rules?

Jandor Ring doesn't work under the current MtG rules. Luckily, it is too expensive in converted mana cost to see serious tournament play, but if it was your answer exists within the ruling you quoted. The current rules don't support a way of doing this, technically. (Edit: You added an additional question regarding which card could be discarded from a multi-card draw spell. If you examine the Oracle wording in the online Gatherer, you will note that you can only discard the last drawn card.)

  402.3. A player may arrange his or her hand in any convenient fashion and look at it as much as he or she wishes. A player can’t look at the cards in another player’s hand but may count those cards at any time.

Because the current rules don't support the card, because there is no easy way to achieve the desired behavior, the rulings tell you how to handle using the card.

  get a judge or put cards you draw aside until you decide whether or not to use this.

This is similar to the effect, but even more restrictive than a card like Sylvan Library (which has seen tournament play). With this card, you must keep cards you drew this turn separate from the cards that are in your hand if you intend on returning one of those cards this turn. (example: Brainstorm cast during your upkeep). The rules don't specifically tell you to keep your hand separate from the Brainstorm cards, but if you intend to return a Brainstorm card, you must keep them separate to preserve the game state.

You might be interested in this thread on the subject of cards currently not supported by the rules.


Constricting Sliver + Hibernating Sliver interaction

The (attempted) exiled creature will never leave the battlefield.
This is because the exile ability only works if the sliver causing it is still on the battlefield when it resolves. As per the Gatherer rulings:

If a Sliver leaves the battlefield before its enters-the-battlefield ability resolves, the target creature won’t be exiled.

This is covered under One-shot effects in the comprehensive rules:

610.2.: Some one-shot effects create a delayed triggered ability, which instructs a player to do something later in the game (usually at a specific time) rather than as the spell or ability that’s creating the one-shot effect resolves. See rule 603.7.
610.3.: Some one-shot effects cause an object to change zones “until” a specified event occurs. A second one-shot effect is created immediately after the specified event. This second one-shot effect returns the object to its previous zone.
610.3a: If the specified event has already occurred when the initial one-shot effect would cause the object to change zones, the object doesn’t move.

Lets break down your interaction:

You control a Hibernation Sliver and a Constricting Sliver. You opponent controls a Runeclaw Bear.
You play a Sliver creature, Constricting Sliver's given effect triggers. You target your opponents Bear.
You then return that Sliver creature to your hand using Hibernation Sliver's given ability. The stack is now (hibernation) return effect on top of (constrict) exile effect.
Your opponent has no responses, the stack starts to resolve.
First your sliver leaves the battlefield. Next the exile effect checks to see if the Sliver is still on the battlefield, and fails to find it. The exile ability does nothing, the Runeclaw Bear is not moved and remains on the battlefield under your opponents control.


Cuba Libre: Is Cash Laundered by another player earmarked for a particular LimOp?

It's not explicit in the rules, but the way Operations are payed for is that the Faction chooses an Operation, pays the cost in resources and the follows the Operation procedure. So the Faction has the right to do an Op by the sequence of play order and the paying of the Op is done during the Operation, after the Operation type has been declared.

On the other hand, to Launder a Limited Op, the Faction needs to Launder the cash to be granted the free Lim Op. If there is no Launder there is no free Op. So it seems that if another Faction wants to Launder cash they should first spend the stash and then the active Faction could get a free Op... which could be anything (except Construct 3.3.5).

Also, the rules for Negotiation 1.5.1 are clear in that there are no binding agreements in this game, so there is that.


Does setting a new type clear the rules text for non-lands?

That rule you quoted right there is the one that makes lands lose all other abilities in that situation. There is no more general rule that applies to subtypes of other types, so your not-so-hypothetical "All creatures are [specific creature type]" would not remove any abilities (see Conspiracy). You wouldn't have to search the whole Comprehensive Rulebook to be sure that such a rule does not exist. The rule you quote is in the Type section, Land subsection of the rules. Logically, if such a general rule existed, it would be in the General subsection of the Type section. That list is pretty short, and it's clear that that rule is not there.

In fact, it wouldn't even make sense for that rule to be derived from a more general rule like the one you propose. The rule you quote specifically applies to setting a land's subtype to a basic land type (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest), so setting a land's subtype to another land type like "Gate" or "Locus" or "Urza's" doesn't do anything to the abilities.

More broadly, rules in the Comprehensive Rulebook are generally not "derived" from other rules. You can find some duplication in there, with specific rules listed under multiple numbers, but other than that each rule is there for a reason and does something that none of the others do.

Functionally, the rule you quote acts as a dual to rule 305.6:

  The basic land types are Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. If an object uses the words “basic land type,” it’s referring to one of these subtypes. A land with a basic land type has the intrinsic ability “{T}: Add [mana symbol],” even if the text box doesn’t actually contain that text or the object has no text box. For Plains, [mana symbol] is {W}; for Islands, {U}; for Swamps, {B}; for Mountains, {R}; and for Forests, {G}. See rule 107.4a. See also rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”

With rule 305.6, adding the type "Mountain" to a land makes it act like the card Mountain in addition to whatever else it does. With rule 305.7, setting a land's subtype to "Mountain" makes it act like only the card Mountain.


What are some good tactics for Khet 2.0?

I feel there really two things that need to focus on in Khet:

The first is overall board position. You want to create a situation where you have multiple pieces capable of attacking at any given moment, but haven't actually lined up the shot on the main pharaoh. For example, keeping two mirrors positioned on opposite sides of a target, so that when you're able to move an intermediate piece, you have a better chance at an opportunity.
The other thing I really look at is misdirection. Playing in such a way that an opponent can't determine what direction an attack is coming from is perhaps the easiest approach to this strategy, such as mixing your moves between defense, attack and a few "nonsense" moves (moving pieces that aren't part of your actually strategy in vaguely threatening positions).

There are a few articles on BoardGameGeek regarding this topic as well:

Beginning, Middle and Endame Thoughts
Opening Moves for Classic Setup


Is there an opposite for Guiding Ariadne?

I do not believe there is a card to your exact specifics.
There are some online tools though that might help you find cards relevant to your needs. You can use sites like:
https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/card_search.action
https://www.duelingbook.com

With these you can filter cards to find only pendulums with certain scales/types/attributes and search for keywords in the name and description (for example, you could look for the word damage to look for cards with a burn effect)


Can I combo Dismiss Into Dream with Living Inferno or Cauldron of Souls?

Yes, it is powerful, but for 7 that is to be expected.

Targeting a creature affected by Dismiss Into Dream will have them sacrificed before the spell/ability targeting them resolves. This is because the effect created by Dismiss Into Dream will go on the stack after the spell targeting the creature.

To address your specific questions:

No on your combo with living inferno, a ruling on gatherer prevents you from assigning 0 damage:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=96874

  You divide the damage among the target creatures as you activate Living Inferno's ability. Each target must be assigned at least 1 damage.

Yes, on your combo with Cauldron of souls.


Are there big differences in gameplay (not just theme) between Munchkin sets?

I have played the super hero, pirate, legendary, old west, and "normal" munchkin.  There is no significant difference between them wrt "Card Functionality", "Bad Stuff" and "surprising and interesting turnouts".  All 5 sets have similar card functionality, similar bad stuff, and lots of surprising, amusing, and interesting turnouts.

Really it does just come down to, "is there a genre you enjoy?"  Then, that's the variant you should play because you'll get the jokes.

ps. Tsuama534 mentions some very interesting rule changes in Munchkin Cthulhu and Munchkin Apocalypse in his answer.  There are no corresponding rule changes in the expansions I mentioned.


The card works in much the same way as other "Manland" type cards. You pay the activation cost, it becomes a 2/2 creature with all creature types, and for the rest of the turn it behaves exactly as if it was a 2/2 colourless Llanowar elves (NOTE: this includes summoning sickness. As long as its just a land you can tap it for mana as you could a regular land. If you turn it into a creature straight after playing it however, it has summoning sickness and you CANNOT tap it for mana).

You effectively play this card by utilising its attacking abilities at the right times, it is essentially a "free creature" at the cost (which can be a benefit) of turning it into a creature for 1 mana per turn.

The fact that it starts out and reverts to a land makes it safe from sorcery speed removal much of the time, the fact that it is all creature types makes it very potent in some tribal decks (legacy/modern merfolk), and the fact that it acts as a land until the point that you need it to be a creature makes your deck much more stable for casting expensive spells.

If it dies as a creature, it dies. Note that spells that say "target non-land permanent" can't target it, it may be a creature, but its still a land. It doesn't revert to being a land if it dies, it goes to the graveyard just like anything else.

The card is expensive because of it's proven track record, and it is a very powerful example of a man land due to its low activation cost and positive tribal interactions. Merfolk decks will commonly activate this as a 4/4 or 5/5 creature.


Can multiple copies of Fraying Sanity activate at once?

Regardless of the number, Fraying Sanitys will resolve sequentially.

In Magic, no two things can resolve at the same time, they must be put on to the stack and then resolve in last in first out order.

When multiple activities trigger at the same time, the active player gets to choose the order in which effects they control go onto the stack. This is covered in the Comprehensive rules here:

  603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses. (See rule 101.4.) Then the game once again checks for and resolves state-based actions until none are performed, then abilities that triggered during this process go on the stack. This process repeats until no new state-based actions are performed and no abilities trigger. Then the appropriate player gets priority.

So, when you have multiple copies of Fraying Sanity that you control (as in the example in your question), you get to choose the order in which they resolve each end step. One thing to note is that if you have multiple Fraying Sanitys on the same player, the ones resolving afterwards will take into account how many cards have entered the graveyard by previous Fraying Sanity effects. This is covered in the special rulings on the gatherer page:

  The value of X is determined only as Fraying Sanity’s triggered ability resolves. For example, if three Fraying Sanity Auras are attached to one player who had four cards put into his or her graveyard this turn, X will be four for the first ability to resolve, eight for the second, and sixteen for the third.


What can I sacrifice for Champion of Stray Souls' ability?

You can only sacrifice creatures that are on the battlefield and you control.
From the comprehensive rules:

701.14. Sacrifice
701.14a 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 he or she doesn’t control. Sacrificing a permanent doesn’t destroy it, so regeneration or other effects that replace destruction can’t affect this action.

A permanent is a card on the battlefield, such as creatures, lands, artifacts, etc.. A card that is not on the battlefield can never be a creature (land, etc), only a creature card (land card, etc.).


Is there a limit to a player's hand size in Summoner Wars?

No, there is no hand limit size listed in the rules, but remember that you will not draw cards at the start of your turn.

  Phase 1: Draw - Draw cards until you have 5 cards in your hand (Example: if you start your turn with 3 cards in your hand you will draw 2 cards). If your Draw Pile is empty, you can no longer draw cards and must finish the game with the remaining cards on the Battlefield (including the Magic Pile) and in your hand.


Do they go to the graveyard once spliced?

They don't, as nothing says they do.

Or do they stay in your hand?

Yes, as nothing says they leave it.

what mechanic stops them from being spliced yet again onto another spell?

Nothing stops them, but the splice cost limits them.

You reveal all cards you intend to splice at the same time. Each individual card can be spliced only once onto any one spell.

The above ruling does not give me much context... is this during any one turn? If so does this mean I can reveal it next turn and splice again?

It's a limit per spell. You can only cast a spell once and you only get one opportunity to apply any "as you play a spell" effects. This includes splicing.
If you would retrieve the card that represented that spell and cast it again, it will be a different spell with the same name and you could again apply any "as you play a spell" effects to it.
You can splice a given card onto something any number of times per turn, as long as you provide a new spell for each splicing and as long as you're able to pay the splice cost.


In Arkham Horror, can "Any Phase" actions be performed multiple times immediately?

The only reason that you would be unable to repeat the "Any Phase" ability on a card is if you must exhaust the card to use the ability (e.g. Dragon's Eye), or if it explicitly says that you can only use the ability once per turn (e.g. Mandy Thompson's ability). Since the Enchanted Jewelry meets neither of these conditions, it can be used multiple times per turn, including repeatedly from the same attack. The same also applies to the Shotgun.


Does the mission to conquer 9 territories in one turn require them to be occupied?

Based on the implications in the rules, in order to conquer a territory it needs to be occupied.

Conquering is only referred to on page 12 of the rules, which indicates that it is the action taken after successfully Attacking an occupied territory.

Occupying an empty territory is referred to as Expanding by the rulebook on page 10.


In Go, is there any aji left in this corner enclosure (3-5, 4-4, 6-3), and if so, how can it be invaded?

With the addition of the P17 stone, the enclosure is considered safe. The standard response to white R17 is black R16. R17 is a probe rather than an attempt to live, and in practice black's best answer will depend on the surrounding stones.

See these two links for more information:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?443563Enclosure

http://senseis.xmp.net/?4435Enclosure

Even without the presence of the P17 stone, the best white can get locally is a ko.

If you search this pattern on eidogo.com, you'll see that this enclosure usually ends up as black territory.


Your current approach to reviewing seems good and I recommend you continue this way. If you are not satisfied with a situation, find the reason that led to the situation. Sometimes it is an immediately prior move, sometimes a mistake in fuseki.

If you are having trouble to find the underlying reason, or a better solution to it, you should show your game to someone else who is as strong (more eyes see more) or stronger than you. In the past, there was the Go Teaching Ladder GTL (in which I participated, it was fun!), but it sadly shut down a while ago. You can still ask on KGS in the KTL room. Surely there are some other opportunities, too. One of the things that I find fascinating and enticing about Go is that many people really like to help.

I recommend strongly against using engines like CrazyStone. They always consider the whole board, and will recommend moves that are not helpful in understanding the problem. They might be more valuable when you are strong (definitely dan level, probably high dan level) - but when you are that strong, you can already find better moves yourself. Of course, This may change when stronger engines become available.

I also know of no Go engines that take future positions into account. (I believe it is different in chess!) That is to say, when you believe a certain move leads to trouble (much) later on, even in a sequence that can hardly be deviated from, then there is still not way to make the engine aware of that fact. It will happily suggest moves that are bad, only to notice its mistake a few moves later. It seems to be impossible to fix this in our current tools - search depth grows so quickly that letting it search longer often does not help.


Is it a players whole turn if they are chosen for a Showdown?

I've never played this but I've now read the rules pdf from here
Firstly I couldn't find anything in the rules that indicated when the next player would start there turn!  I can only assume this the same as [basic Uno rules] in that play passes clockwise after a player takes a turn.2
The rules for showdowns say

The player who played the card takes the Showdown unit and places it
between themselves and the next player in the current order of play
(unless they played a Wild Showdown Card – more on that later).

and later

When you play this card, you get to choose which player to have a
showdown with

There is nothing in these rules which indicates that taking part in a showdown is a players whole turn.  It seems to me that a showdown just happens with the. next player in turn order and then that player takes there turn after.
If it was that players whole I would expect the rules for wild showdown to suggest that play continues from the player chosen for the wild showdown, which. they do not.
As a general rule for games, if something is not stated clearly in the rules they it almost certainly is not a rule.


If damaged by another player's Acid Attack, can I cede Tokyo?

In general, damage from cards are not considered attacks. For Acid Attack specifically, a search of the net shows the unanimous result that Acid Attack is not considered an attack. Since it's not an attack, you do not have the option of ceding.


Has Counterspell always been able to target any spell on the stack?

Dark Ritual was printed as a 'Mana Source' rather than an instant from Mirage to Urza's Saga. Back then, Counterspell was an interrupt, which was something of an 'instant-but-faster'. You could not counter mana sources like Dark Ritual because they were 'too fast', just like you can't counter a mana ability under today's rules. However, creatures (back then, 'Summon [creature type]' cards) have always been vulnerable to Counterspell and its ilk.

Some more information about how the rules worked back then can be found in the 2002 article 'Rules, Interrupted' by Ben Bleiweiss on wizards.com.


As the first player, can I choose whether to perform a Special Activity after completing my Operation?

The rules as written of Cube Libre have no say in whether the Special Activities must be declared beforehand. The turn track is adjusted after the player completes its activities so it can be deduced that the player can choose to add a Special Activity if the rest of the involved rules are respected.

I have played several COIN games and only Pendragon comes to mind in that all Operations and Special Activites (Feats in that game) must be declared and marked on the map before executing any action.


What Dominion cards have artwork featuring different versions of the same object?

The vast majority of the cards feature unique artwork, which is great. However, there are some cards that indeed include other cards' artwork, like:

Scrying Pool (from Dominion: Alchemy) depicts the artwork from Village. Just turn the card upside-down to see the reflection in the pool.
Minion (from Dominion: Intrigue) displays a  portrait of a Minion. Self-reference.
If you put Island, Pirate Ship and Native Village (from Dominion: Seaside) next to each other, in this order, you shall notice that their artworks make up a greater panorama.
On the same token, most Split Piles from Dominion: Empires and the Sauna/Avanto promos feature continuous artwork.
Likewise, the two traveler lines, Page and Peasant (from Dominion: Adventures), illustrate the same person in evolving stages of their lives. (added by @Gendolkari)
Candlestick Maker (from Dominion: Guilds) is crafting the candle depicted on Masterpiece, from the same expansion.
As mentioned, Pillage (from Dominion: Dark Ages) depicts a Village under attack.
As mentioned, most Ruins depict destroyed versions of other cards: Ruined Village/Mine/Library/Market depict Village/Mine/Library/Grand Market respectively.
Overgrown Estate (Shelter from Dominion: Dark Ages) lives up to its name by depicting an abandoned version of the Estate artwork, as illustrated in the second version of the base game and in Dominion: Base Cards. (added by @Ned Strong)

Cards that pay homage to other games:

City (from Dominion: Prosperity) displays the box art from the game Carcassonne: The City.
Governor (Promo) displays the Governor role art from Puerto Rico: Limited Anniversary Edition. Its card symbol, a ship, is the same ship from the box art.
The Walled Village (Promo) card's symbol is a meeple from Carcassonne. The card itself supposedly depicts Carcassonne, as well.


Robb Stark house card. Need some help understanding what it can do

Normal retreat. No jumping rivers, no going two countries. Can use ships.

Optimal usage : Attack a big force with Robb to win, retreat them somewhere where you can attack them with one footman and slay the lot.


How to play AKJx opposite xxx for 3 tricks at matchpoints

The best line for maximum tricks is to cash the Ace and then finesses the Jack. This has an 18% chance of success and averages 2.87 tricks per occurrence (from hardcopy of The Bridge Encyclopedia). This is a losing play in Matchpoints; unless other considerations exist.

The real trick in Matchpoints is to make losing plays that work, and avoid winning plays that fail. Barry Crane is alleged to have been able, when he really needed a top, to incite a revoke from opponents. ;-)

However, making these subtle choices requires complete information on the hand. Not to be rude, but the fact that you are asking this question, a rather basic one on declarer play, without specifying the other conditions suggests that you actually have no idea how to judge if a contract is normal or not. There are several contributors on this site who can help you learn how to properly make those judgements, if you can provide more detailed information.

For this particular card combination, I would much rather be looking for a squeeze or endplay to get my extra trick. That requires an exact count of opponents distribution as well as our own, and a better than random guess at the high point locations. I also need to know how hard to try for the extra trick. Hence all the questions asked in my comment above.

Let's review some basic end game techniques to emphasize why full disclosure of the hand is necessary. Fundamental to all Squeezes is rectifying the count, meaning losing the desired full number of losers early. Fundamental to all Throw-Ins is losing the desired full number of losers late, possibly to a specific opponent. What are my prospects of doing so on a given hand? Only after that is answered does one even begin to think about taking optional random finesses.

More on Crane, for anyone interested, by Grant Baze, who was one of his regular partners.


Yes. Each of the Pack Rat copies will have a mana cost of 1B, which counts for devotion to black.

Most tokens (like Elspeth's Soldier tokens) don't have a mana cost because the effect creating them doesn't specify one.

Pack Rat, however, creates a token that is a copy of the card, meaning that it gains all of the original card's "copiable characteristics":

  706.2. When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The "copiable values" are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set characteristics, and by abilities that caused the object to be face down. Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, and counters are not copied.


Here's a deal that my double dummy solver says is parzero with North/South holding 24 points.

          S: KT9
          H: AK942
          D: QT97
          C: A
 S: 72             S: AQ864
 H: J87            H: T653
 D: K84            D: AJ6
 C: JT842          C: 7
          S: J53
          H: Q
          D: 532
          C: KQ9653

I haven't analyzed this deal to see how the sides defeat the contracts.

Note that North/South have their share of the tens, and all of the nines, as well. So this is a good 24.

For north/south declaring. the obvious problem is that north and south's hands have few entries.

I've currently got my dealer search for 25-point examples.

Deal is the dealer than I'm using. I wrote it. It has a double dummy solver built-in. This is the script I'm using for Deal:

main {
   # Require north/south have exactly 25 points and no fit
   reject unless {[hcp south]+[hcp north]==25}
   foreach suit {spades hearts diamonds clubs} {
       reject if {[$suit south]+[$suit north]>7}
   }

   foreach denom {notrump spades hearts diamonds clubs} {
      reject if {[deal::tricks south $denom]>6}
      reject if {[deal::tricks north $denom]>6}
      reject if {[deal::tricks east $denom]>6}
      reject if {[deal::tricks west $denom]>6}
   }
   accept
}


Is the CMC of a creature that is enchanted the cost of the enchantment and the creature combined?

The CMC of Filigree Familiar is always 3. The only time the CMC of a card changes is if it has {X} in its mana cost and it is on the stack (in which case it is the chosen value for X, other wise X counts as 0).

  202.3. The converted mana cost of an object is a number equal to the total amount of mana in its mana cost, regardless of color.


Can an imprinted spell be kicked when it is cast?

Yes you can pay for Kicker when you can a spell off of the Scepter. The Scepter gives your spell an Alternative Cost, and Kicker is an Additional Cost. These work together to make the full cost of the spell. So you pay {2} to activate the Scepter and then when you cast the Chant you can pay an additional {W} if you want to kick it.

  117.9. Some spells have alternative costs. An alternative cost is a cost listed in a spell’s text, or applied to it from another effect, that its controller may pay rather than paying the spell’s mana cost. Alternative costs are usually phrased, “You may [action] rather than pay [this object’s] mana cost,” or “You may cast [this object] without paying its mana cost.”

  117.9d If an alternative cost is being paid to cast a spell, any additional costs, cost increases, and cost reductions that affect that spell are applied to that alternative cost. (See rule 601.2f.)

  702.32a Kicker is a static ability that functions while the spell with kicker is on the stack. “Kicker [cost]” means “You may pay an additional [cost] as you cast this spell.”

Also from the rulings on Gatherer:

  You don't pay the spell's mana cost. If the spell has X in its mana cost, X is 0. You do pay any additional costs for that spell. You can't use any alternative costs.


Good ways to speed up a game of Ticket to Ride

It will speed up with a few additional plays. Honestly, I suggest starting with people getting more experience before modifying the game.

You asked about how your ideas will effect gameplay, so I'll tackle that, having been involved in balancing a lot of games. The game was playtested hundreds of times to reach the balance it's at now, so some things to consider:

  keep score on paper

You'll lose the easy checking to see who's ahead and who's behind, which should affect your play. On paper you'd either have to do without or keep asking.

  play the game when each player has 4 less trains

If I were playing I'd be much more likely to dump the long tickets because it's not at all uncommon that they're completed in the last couple of turns of the game, especially with 4 or 5 players.

  start the game with 7 cards

Probably wouldn't cause any problems.

  get a free route at the beginning

Tricky. They'd have to be the same length (or same maximum length), and if it's long it will help people with western tickets much more than eastern ones. It would also change the early game quite a bit, where people traditionally build up a pretty large hand of cards before laying down, so as to not give anything away to others about how they could block you. It will likely hurt ticket completion a bit.

  You draw 3 cards if you choose to draw train cards. Locomotives still cost 2 normal draws.

I think this will help longer routes more than shorter ones, again with the western/eastern division. Each card draw will be slower (draw, fill, draw, fill, draw), but it would still likely be a speed-up. The bigger problem is that drawing cards will help your game much more than playing them, so it will again favor longer routes, making the already-somewhat-imbalanced longer routes much easier to complete, so the luck of the ticket draw will have an even stronger effect on what many consider an existing flaw (the 1910 ticket replacement add-on is designed to fix it).

  For each turn you draw 2 cards AND get the opportunity to claim a route.

This won't speed the game up as much as you'd think: the cleverness in the current system is that after you draw cards you have the whole rest of the round to think about what you'll do with them. With this change after drawing players will have to think through what they'll lay down while everyone waits.

If they play first and draw second, they'll still need to weigh the cards on display with what route to claim, knowing they're about to draw from them. With the regular game there's no point in thinking about them because they'll likely be significantly changed before it comes around to you.

  You can substitute 3 cards of any one color for a locomotive when building. (stolen from the ferries in the other versions)

This should have no negative effect, though I don't know that it will actually speed things up, since yes, you'll finish that route, but the train car to played card ratio will actually go down. More tickets will likely be completed, though.

  7 cards stay face up instead of 5

This will also favor longer routes, exacerbating that problem. It will increase decision time a bit, but speed up route completion for everyone equally. You'll need to decide on a rule for how many locomotives have to be showing to wipe, likely 4 instead of 3.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to knock all of your ideas. I just see rippling balance issues that are worth considering. If you implement any of them, I suggest getting a few more games under your belt first so you can more clearly see the consequences, if any.


How should I approach teaching Magic:The Gathering to a new player?

Have to say, I hated Portal.  If someone can't cope with the word "block" (Portal used "intercept" instead) or the concept of playing a spell at instant speed, they're not going to get on with Magic in the long run.  So why even bother with a watered-down version?

Modern Magic Core sets, like M11, are pretty well designed so that they contain everything that makes the game great, while remaining pretty accessible to a beginner.  Sure, there are some moderately advanced concepts in the set... but they tend to be restricted to uncommon or rare cards.  The commons are pretty straightforward, and have important rules clearly reiterated on the cards, in the form of reminder text.  You don't have to worry about explaining at great length how Flying works: it says so on every common card.

Sure, Magic is a pretty complicated game. However, it's gotten a lot easier from the worst bad old days of interrupts, mana burn, damage on the stack and the subtle difference between "destroy" and "bury".  Anyone who can cope with Settlers of Catan shouldn't have a problem getting their head around Magic!  All you really need to explain is one land a turn, sorceries only in your turn outside of combat vs. instants at any time, and the fact that you have a window to do things after attackers are declared, and then after blockers are declared, and you've explained 90% of the "intricacies" of the game.

Don't sell your friends short - let them into the full and wonderful game.  If you must simplify it, then build some decks with only simpler cards in them, and play with those, gradually introducing more concepts as you go along.  But I really don't think there's any call for Portalizing the game.  Anything that is in a modern Core Set has been proven to be "grokkable" even by beginning players by extensive WotC market research.  I think people respond better, in general, to you giving their intelligence the benefit of the doubt, rather than patronizing them with a vastly reduced experience!


Is the Chancellor + Harbinger combo a viable Dominion strategy?

This doesn't work as you are thinking:

Harbinger has you draw a card before you look through your discard pile. This means that when you play Harbinger, the first thing you do is draw a card, which requires you shuffle your discard pile and make a new draw deck. So having played Chancellor first actually makes Harbinger worthless!
Harbinger doesn't put the card into your hand like you said, it puts it on top of your deck.
Because Chancellor is a terminal action, and would need to be played before Harbinger, this requires that you first play a Village or another action that gives +2 Actions.
Even if it did work as you were thinking; the end result would be the 1 best card in your deck gets to get played sooner in the shuffle rather than later; or maybe played multiple times within 1 shuffle. This same thing is accomplished with both Scheme and Scavenger by themselves; instead of requiring a multiple card combo.
A minor point, but as Chancellor was removed from the second edition of Dominion, which is where Harbinger comes from; these 2 cards don't both exist in the same "Dominion world". Of course in casual play they are still both available; but it's likely that online play and tournaments won't have them both.


Can other pieces capture a threatening piece and prevent a checkmate?

Yes, you can capture the attacking piece with any one of your pieces, as long as you get out of the check.

But in this case, the king is also attacked by the rook. So, you are checkmate.


How does adding Inquisitors to an army work, and can they form their own army?

Adding Inquisitors to an army works in one of two ways, according to this Goonhammer article:

If you have an inquisition detachment, you can only include one INQUISITOR. This is presumably intended to make a detachment represent a single Inquisitor and their retinue.
If your army has no INQUISITION detachments and every unit in your army is either IMPERIUM (excluding FALLEN) or UNALIGNED you can add a single INQUISITOR unit to any other detachment without using up a detachment slot. This does not prevent that detachment from benefiting from abilities like Chapter Tactics, and also doesn’t prevent your army benefiting from abilities requiring your whole army to share it (like the most important example, Combat Doctrines).

So you can either add an Inquisition detachment with only one Inquisitor, OR add a single Inquisitor to any number of your existing detachments.


Can I summon figures into a non-adjacent region?

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

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

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

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


Do Bloodreavers gain an extra attack from a Bloodsecrator's Rage of Khorne ability?

As with most rules in AoS the simplest solution is usually the correct one and rules stack.

Therefore if you have a unit of BloodReavers:

within 12" inches of a Bloodsecrator you get 3 attacks
between 12" and 18" of a Bloodsecrator you get 2 attacks
over 18" from a Bloodsecrator you get 1 attacks

The Chieftain gets an additional attack on top.

I actually wasn't 100% of this so I asked on TGA. Here's the quote directly from Killax:

  Frenzied Devotion gives them an additional attack if they are within
  12" of  Chaos Totem. This ability is not cumulative. The Bloodsecrator
  has the Chaos Totem Keyword but the Bloodsecrator is not the prime
  Keyword for Frenzied Devotion to be activated.
  - Rage of Khorne is an ability that the Bloodsecrator only has if he 'activates' Portal of Skulls. This is something you have to declare in
  the Hero phase and not something that continues once you do. This
  ability is cumulative because it adds 1 to all melee attacks.

  So depending on wether the Bloodsecrator has activated the Portal of
  Skulls or not the Bloodreavers will have two attacks instead of one if
  they are within 12" of the Chaos Totem (which can be a Bloodsecrator)
  and depending if the Bloodsecrator has used the Portal of Skulls or
  not you can add 1 attack in the Combat phase thanks to Rage of Khorne
  if they are within that range aswell.

  The common mistake I see here is:

  Frenzied Devotion does not look for Bloodsecrator Keyword but Chaos Totem Keyword.
  Portal of Skulls leads to the Bloodsecrator having the Rage of Khorne ability. It is NOT a permanent ability.


Asuming the other fields are not relevant, we have the following setup:

The fleet in ion can not moves to adr because it is blocked.
Both the french fleet in tys as the ottoman fleet in aeg try to move to ion, both with support. Equal forces block. So both fail. Leaving the previously blocked fleet in ion unharmed.

So no unit moves. Leaving the setup unchanged.

Note: if the move to adr did not fail both supported moves still block eachother and the single fleet in ion stays unharmed.

In that case, the result will be:


Who chooses what order to apply damage prevention and redirection effects in a fight?

When multiple damage redirection and prevention effects, or other replacement effects, are applied to the same object for the same event, the controller of the object decides the order in which they are applied. In this case, the controller of the Swans of Bryn Argoll decides whether the damage is redirected or the damage source's controller draws the cards. The exact process for applying these effects is described in the rules section titled Interaction of Replacement and/or Prevention Effects.


Does Oko, Thief of Crowns come in a planeswalker deck, or only as an individual card?

It's 'just' a regular Throne of Eldraine card, found in boosters and tournament packs – if you're lucky, of course; those cards are always random.

There is a preconstructed Throne of Eldraine deck with an Oko planeswalker, but it's Oko, the Trickster. You can find those decks e.g. here.


Can you select role which gives you money but you can't use it in Puerto Rico?

Taken from the rules:

  Implementing the action of a character is voluntary (exception: Captain)

Note: You can still choose Captain if you have no goods, the exception just means that if you pull Captain and have goods, you have to ship.


Can the Balrog be used before going into decline?

There's actually an official ruling on this very point by Days of Wonder in the SWU FAQ:

Q.If my active Race controls the Pentacle, may I move the Balrog, then
enter in Decline?
A.Yes, since the Balrog may be moved "at any point
during [your] turn".

Some people may not like this ruling very much, but I don't think its existence can be denied!


How do you determine the winner of a hand?

The first thing to mention is definitely that there are no extra cards. Poker hands are evaluated with exactly five cards. Sometimes you use all five community cards as your best hand, in which case your pocket is useless (bluffing aside, of course). So strike that right away: if you can't beat your opponent with five cards, you've lost (or tied).
This is true even if all players are using the community cards. In the extreme example, say a Royal Flush comes down in the community cards. Everyone gets a Royal Flush (in which case, obviously, you go all in hoping your opponent makes a mistake.) You're not forced to say "Well, I had an ace in my hand, so I break the tie between the two of us." No, no, and no, you all have the community cards, you tie, split the pot and move on to the next hand.
The next step is to evaluate the hands. It starts like this:

Does any single player have a straight flush? A straight flush is having both a straight and flush at the same time. A flush is all 5 cards being the same suit. A straight is having 5 consecutive cards, consecutive being defined with the order A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A. Ace is in the list twice, but you cannot overlap A. Thus, A, 2, 3, 4, 5 is a straight, 10, J, Q, K, A is a straight, but Q, K, A, 2, 3 is not. A Royal Flush (10, J, Q, K, A of the same suit) is sometimes considered a special straight flush, but in reality it's just the best straight flush.

If yes, that player is the winner.

Do multiple players have a straight flush?

If yes, the winner is the one with the highest card. (A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest straight, while 10-J-Q-K-A is the highest straight.)
If multiple people share the highest card (either in a different suit or because there is a straight flush in the community cards) they split the pot.

Does any single player have 4 of a kind?

If yes, that player is the winner.

Do multiple players have 4 of a kind?

If yes, the one with the highest 'set of 4' is the winner.
If multiple players have the highest set of 4 (which is not achievable with a standard poker deck, but is with a double deck or community cards), the one with the highest kicker (highest card not in the set of 4) is the winner.
- If this card is the same, they split the pot.

Does any single player have a full house?

If yes, that player is the winner.

Do multiple players have full houses?

If yes, then keeping in mind that a full house is a 3-set and a 2-set, the player with the highest 3-set wins the pot.
If multiple players share the highest 3-set (which isn't possible without community cards like in hold 'em, or a double deck) then the player with the highest 2-set is the winner.
If the 2-set and 3-set is the same, those players split the pot.

Does any single player have a flush? A flush is defined as all 5 cards of the same suit.

If yes, that player is the winner.

Do multiple players have a flush?

If yes, the player with a flush with the highest unique card is the winner.
This hand is similar to 'high card' resolution, where each card is effectively a kicker.
Note that a flush requires the same suit, not just color. While the colors used on the suit are red and black, two each, there's nothing to that connection. A club is no more similar to a spade than it is to a heart - only suit matters. The colors are red and black for historical purposes and so the same deck can be played for other games where that might matter.

Does any single player have a straight? A straight is 5 consecutive cards that do not wrap around the Ace. See full explanation in the Straight Flush description.

If yes, that player wins the pot.

Do multiple players have straights?

If so, the player with the highest straight wins. (A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest straight, while 10-J-Q-K-A is the highest straight.)
If multiple players share the highest straight, they split the pot.

Does any single player have a 3 of a kind?

If yes, that player wins the pot.

Do multiple players have 3 of a kind?

If yes, the player with the highest 3-set wins the pot.
- If multiple players have the highest 3-set, the player with the highest kicker wins the pot.
- If multiple players tie for highest 3-set and highest kicker, the player with the highest "second kicker" wins the pot. (For example, A A A K Q beats A A A K J - here, A A A are the 3-set, K is the kicker, and Q and J are the second-kickers.)
- If the players tie for the highest 3-set, highest kicker, and highest second kicker, the players split the pot.

Does any single player have 2-pair?

If yes, that player wins the pot.

Do multiple players have 2-pair?

If yes, the player with the highest pair wins the pot.
- If multiple players tie for the highest pair, the player with the second highest pair wins the pot.
- If multiple players tie for both pairs, the player with the highest kicker wins the pot.
- If multiple players tie for both pairs and the kicker, the players split the pot.

Does any single player have a pair?

If yes, that player wins the pot.

Do multiple players have a pair?

If yes, the player with the highest pair win.
- If multiple players have the highest pair, the player with the highest kicker wins.
- Compare second and third kickers as expected to resolve conflicts, or split if all three kickers tie.

At this point, all cards are kickers, so compare the first, second, third, fourth, and if necessary, fifth highest cards in order until a winner is resolved, or split the pot if the hands are identical.

Note that when comparing two hands, all suits are equal in Poker - the ranking of suits from games such as Bridge and Five Hundred have no bearing on evaluating Poker hands. Bridge order is, however, used for certain "bring in" tie breakers, such as 7 card stud.


Evaluating Agricola as a 2 player game: how long would it take, how competitive is it, complexity, etc.

Agricola is an excellent two-player game. In fact, I find that I prefer the two player version of the game to higher numbers of players. I originally bought the game so I would have something less aggressive to play with my wife, and it works brilliantly for that purpose, both because of the game mechanics and because the theme is quite peaceful - Agricola is about building, not destroying or dominating.

It does take about 30 minutes per player, so yes, around an hour to play once you've got the hang of it is a reasonable estimate.

Agricola would probably be 'occasional aggression' on your scale. You are mostly concerned with improving your own farm, but there's a strong strategic element where you consider what actions you need to perform before your opponent. Usually it's more about making sure you get what you want, rather than deliberately trying to make your opponent's game harder, but you can definitely play it several ways. I know one friend who likes to try and deny animals to the other players, and constantly picks them up, even when he doesn't need them. What you tend to find though is that this type of behaviour is sub-optimal for your own game. In other words, if you concentrate on making your opponent's lives harder, you will have a tougher game yourself, because in general you will make less productive actions.

Agricola is quite a complex game, if you play the full rules with the occupations and minor improvement cards. Your first few games will probably be quite overwhelming. I would rate it as a 5 on your scale without the cards, 6 with. It's as complicated as Arkham Horror, but in a different way. The rules are much more precise, in my opinion, so I found once I'd learnt the game I very rarely have to actually look anything up.

Agricola is a pretty deep game. There are many different strategies, and one of the best features is that the random cards you draw each game often mean you are incentivised to play a strategy other than your preferred one. I have played Agricola hundreds of times, and it's one of the very few games in my collection that I don't really get bored with. It's much more strategic than Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan. However, no game I know is as deep as chess, so I guess that makes it a 4 on your scale.

Summary: If you like interesting board games, I don't see how you could not like this. There's a reason everyone loves Agricola. And for the amount of replayability this game holds, I think it is excellent value for money.


Sea units can safely enter or pass through territories occupied by enemy submarines only
As stated in its profile on page 30 of the rule book, a submarine has the characteristic "Does Not Block Enemy Movement" which in short allows enemy ships to ignore their presence. No combat is triggered if the player entering or passing through  the zone does not choose so.
Be aware that this has nothing to do with transports specifically, but is a characteristic of submarines and applies to all sea units.
Full text of the characteristic for reference:

The “stealth” ability of submarines also allows enemy ships to ignore their presence. Any sea zone that contains only enemy submarines does not stop the movement of a sea unit. Sea units ending their combat movement in a sea zone containing only enemy submarines may choose to attack them or not. Sea units can also end their noncombat movement in a sea zone containing only enemy submarines.


Unable to play Agent P card in Phineas and Ferb Uno?

To me it seems pretty clear that the card can only be played in response to a draw two or wild draw four. It is not the only card you can't play when you want to though in the other case it won't prevent you from playing your last card.

  Agent P Card - Play Agent P Card whenever someone plays a Draw 2 or Wild Draw 4 on you and that person must draw the designated amount of cards from the discard pile. The Agent P Card is also a wild card where you choose the color that resumes play.

My reading says this card is played in response to but getting an answer from the publisher would help.

Update:

A representative of Mattel Consumer Services replied as follows, confirming this answer as correct:

  Regrettably this card can't be played unless there was a Draw 2 or
  Wild Draw 4 card played.  I'm sorry this is not the answer you wanted
  to hear.  You can certainly make a house rule to make any changes to a
  game, but they must all be agreed upon before play begins.


Can I use the Axe weapon more than once?

You can use it multiple times to pass any Lock Puzzle as long as you can pass the test of strength.

Note that the Axe cannot be used on Rune or Wiring puzzles.  (We played this wrong for several games before figuring it out!)


Which famous (board) games are unlicenced and royalty free?

No singular registry exists. Nor, particularly, is it needed. Copyright expires after some 20-90 years, depending upon country and current laws.

So, anything older than 1920 or so is fair game. (Pun intentional.) But note also, if you simply reprint a work with an expired copyright, you can't copyright it in most jurisdictions.

The name, however, is another matter. Those are trademarks. US and UK Trademarks don't have a duration. Monopoly is, in fact, still a defended trademark, even tho' the rules have been in the public domain for years.  Trademark laws vary widely; consult a lawyer for details of yours.

Trademarks are readily searched using various search engines by country.

There is compelling legal theory (and a little US caselaw) that says you can duplicate the mechanics of a game without license, provided you reword it. You cannot, however, use the trademarks nor original text/wording, original art, nor overly close art. In any case, the line s fuzzy, and varies by country.


Players can put their starting house in any city that another player does not have a house, including one that shares a region with another player's starting house (as long as its in one of the regions that are in play for that game).

The rules state:

  Each player starts his network by choosing any city (not already chosen by another player) in the playing areas (chosen at the beginning of the game) on the map.

Players have to be able to play in the same region as another player because in a 6 player game, there are only 5 regions in play, and so at least two players will start in the same region.

Regions only matter for what areas are and aren't in play.  They have no other effect on game-play.


How does Necromantic Selection work with Adarkar Valkyrie?

Player B will have the Sun Titan. Adarkar Valkyrie creates a triggered ability on the creature targeted that will trigger when the creature dies. Necromantic Selection will destroy the creature and return it to the battlefield all during its resolution. Only after that does the triggered ability created by the Adarkar Valkyrie go onto the stack. By this time the Sun Titan is already on the battlefield and cannot be returned to the battlefield so the due to this section of rule 603.6:

  During resolution, these abilities look for the object in the zone that it moved to. If the object is unable to be found in the zone it went to, the part of the ability attempting to do something to the object will fail to do anything. The ability could be unable to find the object [...] because it left the zone before the ability resolved ...


Mystic Mine only prevents the activation of monster effects for the player who controls more monsters.

Continuous effects, such as the effect of Denko Sekka, are simply active as long as the card is face-up on the field.

Moreover, Majesty's Fiend imposes the same restriction as Mystic Mine. In all three cases named, there are no activated effects. Therefore, yes - Denko Sekka and Majesty's Fiend will both be applying their effects in each of the three cases.


How Unethical Is A Purely "Blocking" Move In Ticket To Ride?

There seems nothing unethical about such a move - opposite to your example of pretending to want to trade (which in my book is clearly unethical because it involves active lying), this move is just one of two main winning strategies:

Get more points for yourself
Limit points of the opponents

There is no lying or obfuscation - you are making it harder to win for the opponent by legal game means without any metagaming (like looking at an opponent's cards or hustling opponents into telling you some information which you shouldn't know while playing by the rules, like in your Settlers example).

Basically this move could be similar to a situation in Settlers when you put a robber on someone and also yourself - you are losing something (a turn in TTR) but in certain situations limiting the opponent more.


How can I protect my tron deck against Crumble To Dust

You could go with regular black hand disruption like Thoughtseize or Duress then maybe have some Surgical Extraction to clean them up after that.

For Bogles, making the player sacrifice a creature would be good. Cruel Edict or Devour Flesh or Geth's Verdict are some low-mana options. You could go for a bomb with Liliana of the Veil

What's good about the hand disruption is that it's just good in general, against most decks, and might even be in you main deck. The creature sacrificing is a bit more situational, but for decks that ramp w/o mana dorks, or bogles it'd be good to have in the sideboard.


Whenever you buy a development card, it increase your options because:

Development Cards solve your problems.

Get a resource you couldn't otherwise, with Monopoly, Year of Plenty, or stealing using a Knight.
Get more resources by getting the Robber off your land. (Remember you can do this before you roll!)
Slow down an opponent by putting the Robber on their land.
Build roads quickly to cut someone off or reach a settlement first, with Road Building.

And they don't, on average, actually cost 3 resources. Monopoly, Year of Plenty, and Knight all gain you at least one back, which you can choose (even somewhat when stealing with the knight). Road Building is worth 4 resources. Even if you get a victory point, how many resources do other victory points cost? Settlement is 4, City is 5. Longest Road is a lot.

Because of the low effective cost of development cards, and the gains you get from them, buying development cards actually banks your resources in a fairly fluid way, yet out of your hand so you don't have too many cards.

In short, when should you buy development cards? Anytime you can and you don't have something else you'd rather build THAT TURN. Buying the card means all the better chance of building whatever you want next turn. I buy Development Cards whenever I can.

One last note, if you are richest in sheep, development cards are probably your shortest path to victory (combined with some expansion/cities).


In Uno, can you play a Wild Draw 4 Card drawn as a penalty, if you have a card the same colour as the draw pile?

Official Rules

"Official rules" do vary slightly from site to site, however all seem to agree (including the rules on Wikipedia) that being on the receiving end of a Draw Two or Wild Draw Four forces the player to draw 2/4 cards and forfeit their turn, therefore Player 2 is not allowed to use either card, and play continues to the next player after Player 2.

Under the official rules you are only allowed to immediately play drawn cards when, on your turn you choose to draw a card, and the card you have drawn is playable.

House rules

Otherwise there is a common house rule regarding not ending your turn after receiving a Draw Two and/or Wild Draw Four.

If playing with this house rule Player 2 must play the yellow card - if they were to play the Wild Draw Four they could be challenged by Player 1, and end up drawing more cards as a penalty for playing a Wild Draw Four while they have a card in hand that matches the current colour.


Can the ability, return target permeant to hand, be activated on the creature that uses the ability?

Since Ancestral Statue doesn't say "Return another nonland permanent, it is possible it will return it self if it is the only permanent you control when it enters the battlefield under your control.

"Another" is an important word; Invasive Species won't return itself.


Does a creature that has both double strike and first strike deal damage three times or only twice?

It will only deal combat damage twice.  First Strike and Double Strike create an additional combat damage step.

  702.4b/702.7b If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike or double strike as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step. The only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began, as well as the remaining attackers and blockers that currently have double strike. After that step, the phase proceeds to the end of combat step.

Only one extra combat damage step is created in which all creatures with first strike and/or double strike deal their combat damage.  Then it moves onto the "normal" combat damage step where double strikers deal their comabt damage again (along with anything that had neither first strike nor double strike)


Is there any bonus to a second Plague knife on Plague Marines?

You'll want to look for the Vectors of Death and Disease special rule which suggests that amongst it's other effects, having two plague knives increases the bearer's attacks characteristic.


Is it worthwhile to build a competive Standard M15 deck when a block is about to rotate out?

I would seriously consider waiting for the rotation. Two, possibly three of the major decks (namely U/W Control, Mono-Black Devotion and possibly Mono-Blue, whose competitiveness will depend on on the strength of red in Tarkir block) will be completely transformed or outright lost to rotation.

I would focus on getting the key cards from Theros block/M15 that are safe vet to be used in decks after rotation. Stuff like Hero's Downfall, Sylvan Caryatid, Courser of Kruphix, Stormbreath Dragon, Nissa, WorldWaker, Elspeth, Sun's Champion etc.


How much space do I need to play with all the Arkham Horror expansions?

The main board is 2'x3' and each expansion board is 2'x1' (1/3 the size of the main board), which lends itself to two different configurations if you want to use all the boards.

2'x6' and 3'x4'

Also, as the second picture demonstrates, you can make clever use of business card holders to hold the cards using less space. Make sure too keep in mind that you'll also need to have enough space for each of the investigators.

When I've played with all the expansions at home I use two folding tables. I'll use a 6' folding table for the boards (It's about 2.5' wide, so can semi-comfortably fit investigators with items around one side if you push the board to the edge), and then I employ the use of a 4' folding table off to the side for all of the decks. This could easily be an endtable or whatever, I just happen to have a second, smaller folding table. The smaller table allows space for more investigators as well though. Which you'll need if you play with 10 investigators! (Since each expansion board after the first 'reduces' your effective investigator count, you can use 10 investigators without any of the limits breaking).

So yes, completely possible to  use all the expansions at the same time!


Are there specific names for the signature images in the Ravnica guilds?

This Wizards.com article covers the aesthetics of the Return to Ravnica block, complete with an entire section ("Revisiting the Guild Symbols") on the changes made to each of the ten guild symbols since the original Ravnica block.  Nowhere in here are any names for the individual symbols given, and as this is the most in-depth official look at the symbols I've ever seen, it seems unlikely there are any official names.

EDIT: The only other official article I can find that really looks at the signets is this article from the end of the first Ravnica block (under "Ravnica's Best Guild Signets").  No names there either.


Why is "LGS" the standard term for a game store?

"Local" implies familiarity, and some connection specifically to you. It's a store near you, it's convenient for you, it's something from your area that you can be proud of, it's part of your community, it's a place you might see people you know. It also implies that it's not a chain. All of this adds up to a more warm and fuzzy emotional connection.

Brick and mortar, on the other hand, is really just about offline vs online. A brick and mortar store could still be a giant national big box chain store. The only important thing is that it's physical, so it still sounds pretty impersonal.

Note that this isn't just a gaming thing; for example LBS (local bike store/shop) is pretty common too.

You can also see a lot of other common "local * store" terms in the Google ngram viewer. "Local grocery store" is the most common, tying into the local food movement.


What happens when this situation occurs in Tsuro?

It's impossible to get into that situation.

Please review how to handle the situation when you run out of cards.


First off, though most often you get your mana from lands, it's not "when you use a swamp or a mountain" but "when you pay a black or red mana".

And yes, you can activate the ability multiple times, for example paying 2 red and 2 black mana to give it a total of +4/+0.

This is called an activated ability, as is anything else of the form "[cost]: [effect]" (note the colon). You can activate an activated ability as many times as you want, as long as you can pay the cost. Sometimes their cost is tapping (for example Cinderhaze Wretch), in which case since you can't tap something that's already tapped, you'll only be able to use the ability once at a time. But in this case, the cost is simply mana, which you can pay repeatedly.

Note that you are technically activating the ability multiple separate times, not just paying more for a bigger effect all at once. The difference doesn't usually matter, but in some cases it can be handy to do something in between activations.


In Gizmos, does blind picking from the energy dispenser count as a "Pick" action?

It does not count as a "pick". From the rulebook, page 3:

  IMPORTANT: Some abilities may let you draw a random Energy ( ). This is
  not a Pick Action. In those cases, you don’t take from the Energy Row. Instead, you
  draw blindly from the top of the Dispenser


Can an opponent make me discard a Miracle card before I cast it, after it is revealed?

Yes. Miracle triggers upon revealing the card when you draw it. You cannot cast the card until the triggered ability resolves and you pay the cost. Until that time, the card is in your hand and subject to the effects of discard.

702.93. Miracle
702.93a Miracle is a static ability linked to a triggered ability (see rule 603.10). "Miracle [cost]" means "You may reveal this card from your hand as you draw it if it's the first card you've drawn this turn. When you reveal this card this way, you may cast it by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost."
702.93b If a player chooses to reveal a card using its miracle ability, he or she plays with that card revealed until that card leaves his or her hand, that ability resolves, or that ability otherwise leaves the stack.


How many times per turn can a thief steal?

There's no limit on attempts per turn, but you do have to discard a card to attempt it, so you can't just attempt forever. From the FAQ:

Q. How often can a Thief steal?
A. As long as he has cards to discard.
Q. What happens to a Level 1 Thief who fails an attempt to steal? Does he die?
A. Nothing happens to him. You can't go below Level 1. (Beware the Level 1 Thief – he literally has nothing to lose!)


Double strike and Regeneration: Can the blocker die from combat after regeneration?

The answer is #2. Regenerate causes the creature to be removed from combat:

  614.8. Regeneration is a destruction-replacement effect. The word “instead” doesn’t appear on the card but is implicit in the definition of regeneration. “Regenerate [permanent]” means “The next time [permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage marked on it and tap it. If it’s an attacking or blocking creature, remove it from combat.” Abilities that trigger from damage being dealt still trigger even if the permanent regenerates. See rule 701.12.

As for the damage that the attacking creature would do, once a creature becomes blocked, it stays blocked no matter what happens to the blocking creature:

  509.1h An attacking creature with one or more creatures declared as blockers for it becomes a
  blocked creature; one with no creatures declared as blockers for it becomes an unblocked
  creature. This remains unchanged until the creature is removed from combat, an effect says that
  it becomes blocked or unblocked, or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first. A creature remains blocked even if all the creatures blocking it are removed from combat.

  510.1c. A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage.


Is an ability that can only be activated once per turn still considred activated if it gets countered?

Yes, the ability was still activated even if it gets countered.

Activating the ability is merely the process of paying its costs and putting it onto the stack, completely independent of what happens after that:

  602.2. To activate an ability is to put it onto the stack and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. ...

All that has to be done before anyone gets priority and is able to Stifle it. Countering it merely causes the ability to be removed from the stack without any of its effects occurring; it doesn't rewind the game and undo it being activated in the first place.

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

Similarly, once you cast a spell, it's been cast, even if it subsequently gets countered.