Yes, you can do that.

This comes down to the same rulings involving this question:
Tri-Gate effect

Basically, the rule with once per turn effects is as follows:

If the cards simply says, "once per turn you can..." or any variation on this. It basically means once per turn, per card. If the monster is removed from the field and summoned again, this state resets because it no longer counts as the same card.

On the other hand if the cards states something along the lines of "you can only use this effect of "Monster Name" once per turn", then the effect can only be used once per turn for any card with that name. That includes any other physical copies of that monster you would summon.


Is it possible to have a full house and straight flush in same hand with only two players?

Certainly.

Player 1 : 5h 6h

Player 2 : 8c 9c

Community cards: 7h 8h 9h 8d 9d

Player one has 5h 6h 7h 8h 9h

Player two has 8c 8h 9c 9h 9d


If I claim a monster token from the cup, do I pick at random?

Yes, I believe so. I don't think there are specific rules, but:

Every other interaction with the cup is drawing randomly.
Other encounters with rewards like this instead say "Draw a monster from the cup and take it as a monster trophy, even if it has the Endless ability." or even "Draw one monster trophy at random from the cup."

If this were meant to be different and let you hunt through for what you want, I assume it'd explicitly say so.


Why is there no ruling to offset Mandatory Loops?

There is no reasonable way to eliminate all mandatory loops, so this rule would still be needed for loops that can't be eliminated. For simplicity, it's better to just have the one rule.

The biggest problem with trying to stop mandatory loops is listing what exactly stops happening, and putting the game in a valid state afterward. The simplest loops are the kind you describe, where one ability triggers, and the resolution of that ability causes another ability to trigger, and so on until the first ability triggers again and you end up in a loop. But there are other kinds of mandatory loops that are a lot harder to cut off.

One of the strangest mandatory loops in the game involves the card Lich's Mirror. If a player controls a Lich's Mirror that they do not own, and gets 10 poison counters, the Mirror's ability replaces the state-based action that would make the player lose, but the Mirror itself stays on the battlefield, so when state-based actions are re-evaluated, exactly the same thing happens. Stopping this loop would require either suspending the rule that causes state-based actions to be rechecked after they do something, or making the Lich's Mirror's replacement effect no longer function. In other words, that player either loses immediately, or becomes nearly unkillable, and both changes have other unpleasant implications. Ending the game in a draw is a reasonable compromise.

There are also several cards with "state-triggered abilities", which trigger on a particular game state, instead of an event. Some combination of those cards allow those abilities to trigger and resolve without changing the game state, so they immediately trigger again. There's no good way to change the game state so that those abilities stop triggering.

In addition to that, there are more technical issues with defining such a rule. In particular, it's not clear how you would define an "iteration" of the loop, or how you would determine what part of an iteration to end it on. For player-defined looping shortcuts, the player makes those decisions, but a mandatory loop can involve both players equally, leading to difficult-to-resolve disagreements about how exactly such a loop should end.


Can I activate abilities in response to spells?

Yes.  You can activate an ability (unless restricted) any time you have priority. Once the spell is on the stack, you place the ability of Caldera Kavu on top. That resolves first, so Kavu is black. Then Kill! Destroy! rechecks the targeting. Since it is invalid, it fizzles and is countered.

  112.3b Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]” A player may activate such an ability whenever he or she has priority.


Dead of Winter - Too easy with no betrayer/co-op?

Yes, Dead of Winter without a betrayer (especially without hardcore objectives) is easy, even extremely easy with 4 or 5 players. Even so, hardcore versions of objectives can be difficult if you play them with 3 players (and some are impossible with 2 players, literally impossible).

While it might not be the case for your group, I'd argue that Dead of Winter can be very easy if there is no betrayer but there is an alpha player. Without a betrayer the alpha player can easily convince the group what to do and essentially win the game solo. This is a problem that most co-ops have, and this is exactly why I always play with the betrayer.

You also might want to reread the rules, or at least watch a "Watch it played" video to make sure you aren't skipping any vital rules by mistake.


What is the appropriate way to snipe a king that castles through check?

When the king castled through check, your opponent made an illegal move. Call it, and you win.


Which cards should I sleeve for The 7th Continent?

The cards in your action and hand deck are used the most, and these are the ones the for which the sleeves were provided ("to protect all ACTION and STATE cards"). These include the following:

11 character cards
35 character-specific skill cards
35 skill cards
49 advanced skill cards, or 50 if you have the Path of Repentance expansion
11 curse cards (including the four "Death is Lurking" cards)
45 state cards. These are found at these numbers:

   100 to 108, inclusive (5 of each)

For a total of 186 cards, or 187 with the Path of Repentance expansion.

The following are other possible candidates:

10 saving-related cards
Satchel & Journal
7 clue cards
Card 777 ("Easy mode") and card 650 ("Hardcode mode")

For a total of 20 cards.

The counts are for the base Kickstarter reward. Cards from the add-ons are mentioned separately.


Do I take one card in a room or take all?

You resolved them one at the time from the top. Unless you fail a puzzle or is lacking an item this usually means that you take all the cards as one action.
If you find a puzzle in the top of the pile then you can resolve it in that turn and still take all the other cards on the pile, all in one action.


They appear to be an assortment of "math numbers" and "math operators" dice from Koplow Games. While they could be used for a game, they are sold as learning aids ("educational resources").


Can I make a space marine army and then have them ally with the tau?

If you mean can you use them in the same army, no, you can't.

Your army needs to share a keyword, your space marine army's keywords would be the name of the chapter, "Adeptus Astartes" and "Imperial". None of these keywords are on any tau units, so they cannot be included in the same army.

8th edition did away with the allies matrix, keywords are all that matter now, and they do not share any keywords.


What model is this, that represents Enslavers?

That pic/those models first appeared on BoS back in 2007 under the "Warhammer 30,000 League – Week 3" report. Other pictures in that report also show those figures.

With the description:

Balkus
Alpha Legion, Enslavers
The Alpha Legion under the command of Master Arkos, scored a hard fought victory for the Imperium upon the lost empire of Balkus. With its fate unknown for over 5000 years, the vile warp-spawned Enslavers have been cast out of this world forever. Captain Arkos has yet again done a service for the Imperium!
World Status: Compliance

The White Dwarf article in your link is apparently the only source for those rules. The models in the picture seem to have been original/custom.


What is the difference between Draughts and Checkers?

"Draughts" is a family of closely related games, so you need to be more specific about exactly which game you mean.

English draughts is exactly the same game as (American) checkers, the one played on an 8x8 board - and as someone brought up in the UK, I can confirm that is what people in the UK mean by "draughts".
International draughts (also called Polish draughts or international checkers) is the game played on a 10x10 board.

There is no "global" standard for these; in Italy, Latvia, Norway and the UK, the 8x8 version is the standard with the 10x10 version very rare, while in the Netherlands the 10x10 version is the standard with the 8x8 version being very rare.


Can I return a card from the graveyard that is active?

No, that doesn't work for no less than three reasons:

First of all, Deliver Unto Evil is a sorcery, while Salvager of Ruin's ability refers to permanents.
Secondly, Deliver Unto Evil resolves while it is on the stack, and is only put into a graveyard after it full resolves. But before that happens, it exiles itself, so it never reaches your graveyard.
Thirdly, you can't activate abilities while a spell is resolving (mana abilities are an exception in certain cases).


What is the timing of "you may pay" abilities?

112.2c Each paragraph break in a card’s text marks a separate ability.

  603.1. Triggered abilities begin with the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.”

Dromar's triggered ability is all one ability. It resolves all at once. "If you do" is not a separate trigger phrase.

Dromar's ability triggers.
Dromar's ability resolves. Follow the instructions of the ability in order:

You may pay [cost]. You may also activate mana abilities at this time.
If you do, choose a color.
Return all creatures of that color to their owners' hands. (If you didn't choose a color because you didn't pay the cost, no creatures match.)

  116.1d A player may activate a mana ability whenever an effect asks for a mana payment (even in the middle of resolving an ability). No player gets priority in the middle of a resolving ability.

Archangel's static ability functions when you declare attackers or blockers.  In other words, you declare and pay at the same time.

You attack with X creatures and pay {X}.

No player gets priority in between when you declare and when you pay. This is covered by rules 508.1 through 508.3, which are too lengthy to quote, but you can find them in the Comprehensive Rules if you want a more detailed explanation.


Why is there no black dragon in Mahjong?

The simplest answer is that the "Dragon" tiles are more of a triplet, and not a pair.

This is pretty clear when using one of their Chinese names 三元牌 or Three Fundamental Tiles,
the name "Dragons" was added by Joseph Babcock when introducing the game to America (he also mistakenly named the 索子 suit bamboo).
When translating the game Babcock should probably have stuck with the most common name, Arrow tiles.

The White Dragon was the first of the set added to the game, originally using replacement tiles (fully blank) as it's representative; it was only once the Red Dragon, and then later Green Dragon tiles (~20 years) had been added that the White received additional markings to differentiate it from other replacement tiles.


What card game is this? 4 cards per player faced down

It's an actual remake of "Golf" and it's name is Kabo!


Is there a limit to how many characters can be placed on a room space?

I can understand that it looked odd but no, there is no limit on the number of monsters or investigators in a space.

Double checked the manual and it says nothing in either direction. So while the manual doesn't explicitly allow for unlimited number of monsters in a space it neither disallows it.


What's a good counter for Immortal Iron Dwarves?

I think it's important to realise that it's not just your group: a lot of people have been grumbling about the Immortal Iron Dwarves combination.  I've seen plenty of suggestions that it should just straight up be banned.  You're not "missing something" about how to deal with it - it's just very, very good, definitely to the point of being too good.

Having said that, if like me you prefer to play games as printed, even if that means occasional sessions where the odds are seriously unbalanced... presumably a player will have to pay top dollar to grab the combo if it turns up, since everyone knows how good it is.  All the other players will (or should) team up to impede the Immortal Iron Dwarves' progress.  Keeping them out of Mines so that the Silver Hammers don't rapidly accumulate seems like a top priority, and I think "he could take any region he wanted no matter what the defence" is a little bit of exaggeration: stacking piles of defenders up on the Dwarves' borders is going to slow them down, at least before they've been able to secure their full complement of Silver Hammers.

Yes, it's tough when a player has a combo that's just streets ahead of everybody else's, and  what should have been a fun, balanced 4-player game turns into a three-against-one.  But this is a known hazard of playing Small World, and the options are really limited to either banning known broken combos as a house rule; or accepting that every so often an annoyingly unbalanced game scenario will arise.  But even so, think of the glory if the other three of you manage to destroy the Iron Dwarf tyrant against overwhelming odds!  It'll be the best story since some puny hobbits managed to make it to Mount Doom and take down Sauron!


How would it change the game play style if players can see each other's racks in Scrabble?

It would make gameplay more frustrating
There is very little to gain, and a lot to lose from this tweak.

Because players have more information available, it will take longer to decide what the optimal play is.

Because other players can see what you have, they are more likely to make moves that will block your best possible play.

Rather than encouraging strategic play, open information would instead encourage tactical play - you've added more information about what your opponents have right now, while adding comparatively little information about what will happen in the future.


If ants are better than spiders, why are there more?

The way Hive is played is that a lot of pieces end up trapped by the 'one hive' rule. Ants are very good at this. Once your ants are trapped, it's hard to win. Spiders are weaker pieces and get sacrificed easily. With too few powerful pieces, it would be hard to keep the game interesting. The boardgamegeek faq adds:

Aren't spiders just weak ants?
A spider is indeed strictly weaker than an ant. Some people are bothered by this and propose many variants to "fix" the "problem". Others are not bothered by it, and say "A rook or bishop is strictly weaker than a queen in chess, too." While more limited, Spiders are useful in many circumstances, particularly in the early phase while the hive is small. Learning to use your spiders correctly can give you an advantage, especially in a circumstance where you might have just used a soldier ant. If used correctly, you'll usually only use them once, and they'll give you the pinning power you need early on, without wasting your soldier ant pieces for when you'll really need them in the late game.


You can not bring the pawn with the ice token to your home

As you say in your question, a pawn with a fire token can move a pawn into home. It states that it can do it and a pawn that cannot be moved, can therefore not be moved into home.


Cities produce in Traders and barbarians of Catan

When it says you will receive only 1 resource for the city, it is talking about the initial resources that you start the game with, NOT the resources produced by the city whenever the adjacent numbers are rolled.

From the rules under Setup:

  Set up as outlined in the Catan base Settlers game, except that your second settlement is replaced by a city. You still only receive 1 resource for each terrain hex adjacent to your city.

Note that this is specifically talking about the setup; in normal Catan you start the game with 1 resource for each terrain hex adjacent to your second settlement; this rule is just clarifying that you still only start with 1 per hex even though it is a city instead of a settlement. The city acts the same as any other normal city throughout the game.


After failing the test on Dhol Chants, does the card stay in the room or get discarded?

If you fail the Test on a card, the investigator holding it still keeps the card UNLESS SPECIFICALLY TOLD TO DISCARD IT.

Your penalty with the tomes is that you've blown your action. The tome remains in your possession, so you can try again.

Reading the question, it seems like there's confusion. When you discover the tome by exploring, it's just equipment you pick up. You have to use another action (normally on another turn) to actually read it, but you can carry it around with you till you find a safe place to do so.


What tokens are endless despite having a limited supply?

Any token, other than Clues, Gates, and Monsters, is always available.
  If there are no remaining tokens of the specified type, track those
  tokens on paper or with a small object such as a coin.

Source: Reference Guide, "Component Limitations" (page 3)


In Ticket to Ride USA, does obtaining longest continuous path of routes highly correlate with winning?

Yes, obtaining longest continuous path of routes certainly does highly correlate with winning.  It's pretty simple to see why:

Multiple routes that "cooperate" by overlapping are obviously more efficient than short routes in different parts of the board that have nothing to do with each other.
Longer routes are vastly more cost-effective than short routes. A 6-length route takes you one turn to put down and earns 15 points. 6 1-length routes would take you 6 turns to put down and earn a measly 6 points.
As if the inherent advantage of playing long, complementary routes wasn't obvious enough, you even get an additional endgame bonus for having the longest continuous path!

As I suggested in my comment though, you don't have to roll over and let other players build long, efficient routes at their leisure. In my group, sabotage tactics are very common, and if someone  obviously has designs on a long, efficient chain of routes, then building obstructively, or just picking up the colours they have telegraphed they will be needing to collect, can really ruin their day.

I also mentioned what is possibly the strongest deterrent to building long, leisurely routes: the capacity for a player to speed up the end of the game by going out quickly.  The lucrative Los-Angeles-to-New-York mega-route in your hand becomes a huge liability if your opponents block a few key connections in the midwest and then play to run themselves out of trains as quickly as possible.

As such, it's not always good to have a hand of long, valuable, complementary routes at the start of the game: a couple of seemingly unambitious short routes may be enough to win the game, if you play to go out as fast as possible and are the only one to have completed all the routes in your hand.  Lumbering your opponents with big negative points can be just as good as working hard to score those points yourself: all's fair in love and trains...


Is Talisman the same as or associated in any way with Heroquest?

While both games are 1980s fantasy settings and they share a few similar elements (and were originally published or developed by the same company), the game play is quite different between the two.

With Talisman, players move around the edge of a board by rolling dice to determine movement distances. The player's choice in movement is limited to going clockwise or counter-clockwise. The player then follows the instruction on a location, often encountering and battling a monster for the goal of obtaining equipment or gaining Strength and Craft. The eventual goal is to complete a fixed sequence of events and obtain the Crown of Command. Expansions might add other victory conditions or opportunities for other exploration, but they do not really change this ultimate goal.

With HeroQuest, players are able to move around a board that defines a series of rooms and hallways, battling monsters represented by miniatures on the board. The game is more of a "system" than a fixed game, as it is intentionally designed so that players will play different scenarios using different maps and enemies each game, resulting in more of a board-game adaptation of classic fantasy pen-and-paper Role Playing Games (RPGS) like Dungeons & Dragons.

Talisman was most recently published by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) as the Revised Fourth Edition. While FFG has recently stopped publishing Talisman, it is still commonly available through many retailers.

HeroQuest was published by Milton Bradley, and while there have been several newer editions (including Advanced HeroQuest), it has not been republished in quite some time, so finding it for sale will be difficult (and expensive).

When researching HeroQuest, several different sources (Reddit, Board Game Geek forums, multiple game review blogs, etc.) frequently reference another FFG game for similar mechanics and play-style called Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) so if you're looking for a HeroQuest-like game, that appears to be a common answer.


Question 1A

Reconnaissance can in fact be activated after combat damage. The reason for this is because after damage is dealt, all players receive priority before creatures are removed from combat.

Question 1B

Berserk contains the text

  Cast this spell only before the combat damage step

So you wouldn't be able to cast it after the creature deals damage regardless. This seems self explanatory to me, so if I'm missing part of your question's intent, please let me know.

Question 2

The gathering ruling on Reconnaissance reads,

  Does not undo any effects that triggered on declaration of attackers or blockers.

I interpret this to mean that anything that triggers or depends upon a creature having attacked will still be in effect. Regardless of if the creature is no longer attacking, it still has been declared as an attacker, meaning that the creature would still be destroyed by Berserk. Maze of Ith WOULD follow the same logic, except that it doesn't actually remove the creature from combat. Instead, it reads,

  Untap target attacking creature. Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and by that creature this turn.

Maze will have no impact on Berserk whatsoever, although it is worth noting that even if it removed a creature from combat, it still would not save a creature targeted by Berserk.


Where does a card that is recast with Rebound end up after resolution?

The card will go to the graveyard if you cast it from exile with Rebound.

When a spell represented by a card has finished resolving, then by default the card goes to its owner's graveyard.

  608.2k As the final part of an instant or sorcery spell’s resolution, the spell is put into its owner’s graveyard. As the final part of an ability’s resolution, the ability is removed from the stack and ceases to exist.

Since Rebound only applies to a spell when you cast it from your hand, it does not apply when you cast it from exile, so it doesn't get exiled as it resolves. Since no other effect takes place, it goes to the graveyard as normal.


What if somebody used counterfeit/proxy basic lands in an official MTG tournament?

The tournament rules only allow official WotC product and make no distinction between basic lands and others. What would actually happen in a sanctioned event is ultimately the decision of the head judge, as there is no explicit penalty for using counterfeit cards that are indistinguishable from real cards.
From the MtG tournament rules, section 3.3 "Authorized Cards" and 3.4 "Proxy Cards", it is clear that only official, genuine cards are allowed in a tournament. A player can alter the card to a degree, as long as the card remains unmarked and essential information remains legible. When a card becomes marked/illegible during a tournament, the head judge may issue a proxy card.
However, the Infraction Procedure Guide only lists the penalty for using marked cards, the consequences for which range all the way from a simple correction to game loss, depending on the circumstances. There is no explicit penalty for using counterfeit cards that would be indistinguishable from the real cards, i.e. when they could not be considered marked.
Since using counterfeit cards is not allowed by the tournament rules, but the IPG does not cover that specific case, the head judge would have to decide on the penalty, depending on the circumstances, so a general answer cannot be given based on the official rules alone.


Can I respond to my infinite loop by casting a creature spell?

You may cast an instant spell to end the loop as you describe.

You may activate an ability to end the loop as you describe.

But you may not cast a creature spell (unless it has Flash).

The following is the loop in detail:

[You play a Forest or something]

Sporemound's ability triggers.

You place Sporemound's ability on the stack.
Player's get priority.
Sporemound's ability resolves.

You create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token that enters as a 1/1 green Forest Saproling land creature token.

Sporemound's ability triggers.

Goto 2.

In step 3, you get to cast a spell or activate an ability in response to Sporemound's triggered ability. These will resolve before step 4 (because the last thing added to the stack resolves first). Step 4 will still happen (since the ability was added to the stack in step 2), but step 5 won't happen if Sporemound's ability doesn't trigger (e.g. because it's not there, or because the created Saproling didn't enter as a land), thus breaking the loop.

Note that the stack isn't empty in step 3, so the only spells you can cast are instant spells and spells with Flash, so casting Acidic Slime is out. Activated abilities of creatures are fine, though, so activating Gobbling Ooze is possible.


If something is exiled and checked for simultaneously, does the check yield "true"?

Whenever you control sources that would put spells or abilities on the stack simultaneously, you control in which order they are placed on the stack. So at the beginning of your end step, you can place these abilities on the stack in such an order that the "You win" effect happens before the "Exile token" effect. From the comprehensive rules:

  405.3. If an effect puts two or more objects on the stack at the same time, those controlled by the activeplayer are put on lowest, followed by each other player’s objects in APNAP order (see rule 101.4).
  If a player controls more than one of these objects, that player chooses their relative order on the stack.

(emphasis added to highlight the relevant part)


MTG AER: Tezzeret's Touch and Audacious Infiltrator artifact interaction

'Artifact Creature' is not a thing by itself, it is two separate things. What it means is 'this permanent/card/spell is an Artifact' and 'this permanent/card/spell is a Creature'. Since the permanent is both a Creature and an Artifact it is effected by things that effect Artifact Creatures.

  205.2b Some objects have more than one card type (for example, an artifact creature). Such objects satisfy the criteria for any effect that applies to any of their card types.


Is it feasible to do a Yu-Gi-Oh! booster draft?

Yes it is feasible. It is not so different from other Card Game Drafts, and it is briefly described here.

However, from experience, it is not fully feasible to do with any booster pack, and is especially difficult with the "main" Card Expansion Sets that follow the Anime, which usually are 100-card sets or less. In fact, I have never seen a Draft tournament made on such "main" expansion sets in the community I play.

If you plan to do a Draft tournament I suggest you consider doing it with card expansions like Battle Pack 3: Monster League, its previous versions, or similar boosters. That link also describes on detail how to carry out such tournaments.

These Battle Pack sets are specifically made for draft or sealed pack tournaments, as they include a wide and balanced variety of cards. These are also bigger card set expansions (BP3 has 237 cards) which enable for a better gameplay. They also tend to be cheaper by the booster, something that makes it easily to afford and convince prospect duelists to join the tournament.


In solo play, can you play one Special Action every round in addition to placing family?

During your round, you must play all your people, one at a time, and you may also use one Special Action from the current face-up Special Action card. So you perform the following loop:
Each round:
As long as you have people still in your house:

Play a family member or
Play your Special Action if you haven't played it yet

So you choose to play the Special Action instead of a playing a family member. In multi-player, this distinction is important, because if you take the Special Action, someone else could respond by taking a key resource or board Action that you also wanted. In solo play, this doesn't matter, because no one is going to deny you any space on the board.
Just to be clear, in neither the solo or multi-player rules do Special Actions stop you from subsequently using a family member. You can still play a Special Action, and use all your people. It's just that you can only do one at a time, and then each other player gets a go, where they may play a family member or Special Action, and so on. The rules on p.3 are quite clear:

There is a distinction between a Person Action and a Special Action. To take a Person Action, place one Person marker on the game board. Instead of taking a Person Action, a player can take a Special Action card and carry out at most one of the Special Actions that are described on it.
This player's Person markers remain in her home, to be used for additional Actions later in the Round.

(emphasis mine)


Can you give an example why the active player wants to have priority in Beginning of Combat first?

I think the two different pieces here are in some sense independent. The opponent's floating mana makes you want to act in the beginning of combat step instead of the main phase, and holding a split second spell makes you want to act first in the beginning of combat step instead of waiting for your opponent to act.

Holding up mana here isn't necessarily about responding to the split second spell; it's more generally about having more options for actions to take, perhaps after the spell resolves. If you force the mana to empty from their mana pool, you cut off those options.

So, here is a scenario in which it matters that you specifically act first during the beginning of combat step: The active player has some mana available and Extirpate in hand, and two attackers with at least two toughness each. The non-active player has one floating red mana, two islands, Electrolyze in hand, and Feeling of Dread in their graveyard. The non-active player is better off casting Feeling of Dread, but they don't want to cast it during their main phase because then the active player could follow up with another creature, possibly with haste.

If the active player plays Extirpate during their main phase, the non-active player can use their floating mana to cast Electrolyze. If the active player waits until the non-active player acts in the beginning of combat step, the Feeling of Dread is no longer in the graveyard for the Extirpate to target. They get the best result if they act first in the beginning of combat step.


Can the Xxcha predict a special victory for Sol or Hakan?

From the rulebook on page 14 (emphasis in rulebook):

Xxcha victory
At the start of the game, the Xxcha player predicts a player and a game round. He records this prediction by choosing a race prediction token and a round prediction token. He places the chosen tokens facedown next to his race sheet and returns all unchosen prediction tokens to the game box (without revealing them).
If the chosen player wins (alone or as an ally, even as the Xxcha’s ally) with any victory condition during the predicted game round, the Xxcha player wins the game instead.

Both the Sol and Hacan Special Victories count as a victory condition. The Xxcha player could predict a Hacan win on turn 8, and whether they Hacan win by stongholds or they win because no one else has, the Xxcha could snatch victory away. This seems like a doable strategy, as long as alliances aren't working to get the game done as fast as possible.


Can I pay two different costs with the same payment?

No.

We might say "I sacrifice this creature to activate Altar of Dementia's ability", but that's not entirely correct. Sacrificing the creature doesn't activate the ability; sacrificing the creature is part of activating the ability. You must start to activate the ability before you pay the cost, so you must be in a position to activate the ability before you can pay the cost.

"[cost]: [effect]" denotes an activated ability.

Activating Viscera Seer's ability requires that you sacrifice a creature as a cost. That means the first thing you do is chose to activate the ability, then you sacrifice a creature to satisfy the cost of doing so.

If you also wanted to activate Altar of Dementia's ability, you will need to sacrifice a second creature since the one you sacrificed to Viscera Seer no longer exists. Like costs of real life, each needs to be payed separately.

  117.10. Each payment of a cost applies to only one spell, ability, or effect. For example, a player can't sacrifice just one creature to activate the activated abilities of two permanents that each require sacrificing a creature as a cost. Also, the resolution of a spell or ability doesn't pay another spell or ability's cost, even if part of its effect is doing the same thing the other cost asks for.

Note that you are free to use the either of the abilities again. Only a Planeswalker's loyalty ability can't be used more than once per turn (and those which explicitly forbid it on the card). Any other activated ability can be used as many times as you can pay the cost.

"{Whenever|When|At} [condition], [effect]" denotes a triggered ability.

If Viscera Seer's and Altar of Dementia's abilities were phrased "Whenever you sacrifice a creature, ...", then you would get both effects whenever you sacrifice a creature, no matter the reason it was sacrificed. You would need some external means of sacrificing a creature, though.

For example, attacking with a Fallowsage would give you to the option of drawing a card.

For example, tapping a land for mana while its enchanted by Contaminated Ground would cause its controller to lose two life (in addition to gaining mana). If that land was enchanted by two Contaminated Ground, its controller would lose a total of four life.


When you don’t have to move (bonus card), do you pick up your separated assistant or do you have to separate another one?

Act as if you would have moved your Merchant.

So if you play this card while an Assistant is separated (from your previous turn), you pick this assistant up and play the Place’s action.

The rules say "Your Merchant stays at his current Place but you have to use an Assistant again", however, "use an Assistant" does not necessarily mean to separate one. You also use an Assistant if you visit a previously visited Place and pick this Assistant up.

References

This question gets discussed in these threads on BoardGameGeek:

Some questions about rules

André Bronswijk confirms it
Grzegorz Kobiela confirms and explains it

Bonus Card, which lets you stay where you are
Need clarification about the "Do not move your Merchant" Bonus Card

Ralph Bruhn confirms and explains it

No movement card

Ralph Bruhn confirms it indirectly


What is the meaning of "count your losers" at no trump, and "count your winners" for a trump contract?

Typical advice is exactly the opposite. See:

https://www.google.com/search?q=count+winners+losers+trump+notrump

"In trump suit contracts, we count losers. (In notrump contracts, we count sure winners.)"

This is a simplification, but with a trump suit you can often ruff when you cannot win tricks with high cards or set up intermediate or long suit winners. Take for instance:

S 98765
H 2
D 32
C 65432

S AKQJT
H 5432
D 432
C 2

In a spade contract you have 1 heart loser, 2 diamond losers, and 1 club loser, so all being well you might come to 13 - (1+2+1) = 9 winners. If you draw too many trump, though, or your opponents realize that they should lead trump, you will come up short.

This might not be a realistic example since your opponents can take 12 tricks in hearts or diamonds...


What is the point in disclosure of the bidding system to opponents?

Bridge players hate guessing.

Allowing non-disclosure will basically turn the game into a pointless guessing game, with luck (and to some extent, the bidding system) becoming the predominant factor, rather than skill. This will surely drive away the good players, and all that will be left will be self proclaimed bidding theorists...

Just because you cannot achieve 100% full disclosure does not mean you get rid of it completely.

The current rules [of full disclosure, different systems] allows for (somewhat reasonable) innovation in bidding while trying to pit opponents on an even ground, making skill the predominant factor. Making skill the main factor, with the right amounts of luck, is what keeps people coming back.


Forbidden Island: Can the navigator move another player 4 tiles for 2 actions / 6 for 3?

According to the rulebook:

  The Navigator may move other players up to 2 adjacent tiles per action

As it states it's per action so yes you could repeat that same action 3 times. It's a very useful ability.


Consider this portion of the text on Blightsteel Colossus.

  If Blightsteel Colossus would be put into a graveyard from anywhere,
  reveal Blightsteel Colossus and shuffle it into its owner's library
  instead.

This text creates a replacement effect. A replacement effect "watches"
for an event to happen. For example, regeneration is a replacement effect that watches for the creature to be destroyed.

The rules for replacement effects neatly state that the event being replaced never happens.

  614.6. If an event is replaced, it never happens.

So, when Blightsteel Colossus starts to head for the graveyard, instead, he is revealed and shuffled into his owner's library. The event that got replaced never happens.

To die in Magic has a specific meaning:

  700.4. The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”

Blightsteel Colossus never went to the graveyard, and so Blightsteel Colossus never died. Therefore, Grave Betrayal never triggers.


Rune of spellbreaking on multiple runelords

I believe this is intended to mean "one use only" per rune item which has the rune.

I cannot find anywhere this is stated outright in the 8th ed rules, but this is how such items have always been played, at least in my personal and tournament experience.

It would be odd for them to let you take more than one  and then limit you to only using one of the Runes you paid for.

The term has been used in numerous previous editions, and in those cases you could buy multiple "one use only" Dispel Scrolls etc in your army and each scroll could be used "once", not one scroll despite how many you had.


Can I pump my blocker after the attacker has chosen their order, before damage assignment?

In response to the comment, it is true that combat damage no longer goes on the stack.  However, the fact that combat damage no longer goes on the stack does not affect the answer to your question.  Assigning the order of blockers is part of the Declare Blockers step:

  509.2. Second, for each attacking creature that's become blocked, the active player announces that creature's damage assignment order, which
  consists of the creatures blocking it in an order of that player's
  choice. (During the combat damage step, an attacking creature can't
  assign combat damage to a creature that's blocking it unless each
  creature ahead of that blocking creature in its order is assigned
  lethal damage.) This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.

After that, you get priority, still during the Declare Blockers step:

  509.5. Fifth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

So you can use Giant Growth to save all your soldier tokens.

(Unless the attacking creature has Deathtouch.  In that case, one damage is considered lethal, so a 4/4 can kill four blocking 4/4 creatures.)


What should I prepare for a Star Wars X-Wing tournament?

UPDATE: So I finished my first tournament last Saturday (1:3 W:L, Place 9 out of 14). Here is my experience regarding the things I brought:

Too much copies of the build, three are enough (one for the TO, one for the opposite player, one backup)
More bottled water
Pain killers (lack of oxygen after the third round got me head aches)
Pen is always useful
Marked my tokens on the evening before (there is some chaos on the table sometimes and I am sure I lost 1+ tokens regardless)

Additional things I should/could have brought:

One guy broke his K-Wing, so next time I will bring glue to help out

One guy forgot his damage deck, but I think that would be too much to bring more than one for these cases (he played with an old damage deck from somebody else's collection).

Additionally, there is a good collection on tournament things on reddit:

Tournament Prep
Tournament Etiquette


Do Interrupt cards work against players playing as the aliens?

I'm assuming by "aliens" you mean "intruders" as the rules define "Intruders" as "the name give to the alien organism by the ship AI".
If so then this is covered in the Nemesis FAQ

Can an Interruption card be played to stop an Action of the Intruder
player?
No, it can only be used against other Characters.


What are good strategies against counterspell decks?

Tactics in Play

Counterspells are powerful because they're a broad-brush answer to a lot of spells. Whatever spell type is central to your opponent's game plan, you can stop it on the stack. This versatility comes at a price, though: timing. If you've got a threat on the board, I can use Doom Blade to deal with it whenever is most convenient for me; with a Mana Leak, though, I have to cast my spell while yours is on the stack -- meaning I have to have the card in hand then and there, and the mana open to use my counter. Exploiting this weakness is the foundation of anti-counter tactics.

(Note that I'm assuming you're playing in a more "conventional" environment like Limited or Standard here. The dynamics of Legacy or Vintage are pretty different, but would require long digressions about a couple of particular cards.)

Play an aggressive early game. Most 1-drop counters are very situational, meaning they likely won't see widespread play in a control deck. So, right off the bat, you have 1-2 turns to establish an early board presence. Rush out permanents that will help you build board position or pressure your opponent's life total.

When you do this, be mindful of sweepers (like Wrath of God). A typical control-deck strategy against aggressive starts is to use just enough counters or spot removal to survive to drop a sweeper, and then clear the board and try to "take over" with raw power and card advantage. Generally speaking, early pressure is good, but disgorging your entire hand ASAP is not necessarily an optimal plan.
Exploit your opponent's limited mana in the mid-game. In the mid-game, your opponent will have enough land for counterspell mana, but you can still exploit the limitations of her mana base. Playing 1-drops and 2-drops straight into counters can put you at a mana advantage over your opponent. If you're both at 4 lands and she Dissipates a 1-drop, you still have 3 mana to pay for other spells. It helps if you have a key card that your opponent can't easily answer once it's on the battlefield: just holding enough mana open to cast your big threat creates pressure on your opponent to let your other stuff through.

Another trick is to save your instant-speed plays for your opponent's end step. This puts your opponent in a double bind: if she counters your current play, then she'll be tapped out on your turn, and you'll get to play a thing; if she doesn't, hey, you just got to play a thing!
Plan for the end-game. Your opponent has to play threats of her own to win. They're likely at the top of her curve (for a pure control deck) or at the bottom (for an aggro-control deck).

Against control or combo-control: Your opponent is using counterspells to slow down your development while she plays out lands to pay for her big stuff. Eventually she'll drop some big finisher or set up an engine that gives her ever-increasing advantage. Having an answer for it will help you avoid defeat (or at least force your opponent to wait a few more turns to play it, so she can have counter backup), but fundamentally you'll still want to win on speed.
Against aggro-control: Your opponent is trying to win on tempo. This involves setting up an early clock and then using counters and bounce spells to keep it going. Her undercosted threats become less and less powerful as the game wears on, though. Unless you can straight-up out-race her, you need to focus your efforts on stopping her clock. If you can do this, you can often grind out a win once her deck runs out of steam.

Deckbuilding Strategy

You can make deckbuilding decisions to beat counterspell-heavy decks, too.

Include counter-proof lines of attack. Even though they're highly versatile, counterspells still can't counter everything. So, just play offensive cards that are impervious to counters. Thrun, the Last Troll is a popular sideboard card for this reason, being immune to counterspells and most removal (as a regenerating 4/4 for 4, he's also awesome enough to maindeck). Cavern of Souls can make any of your creatures uncounterable. Cards like Inkmoth Nexus and Moorland Haunt allow you to play offense with your land drops even if all your spell cards are getting zapped with counters. This is probably the easiest way to deal with permission-heavy decks without spreading your deck too thin (though watch your color density).
Sideboard specific hosers. When all else fails, if you're having lots of trouble with any particular matchup, it's sensible to devote some space to it in your sideboard. Cards like Defense Grid or Vexing Shusher can restrict counterspells. Cards like Summoning Trap can punish them. Note that your hosers don't have to be focused on the counterspells themselves — if your opponent's deck is light on threats, you can disrupt them with cards like Slaughter Games; if they require lots of mana, try land destruction like Molten Rain to delay them.
Don't play midrange without disruption. "Midrange" is a term for archetypes that try to straddle the line between aggro and control. They try to beat aggro decks by being "a little bigger" and control decks by being "a little faster". The problem is that "a little faster" doesn't work all that well. Oftentimes you do beat aggro (by going "a little bigger"), but counterspells clobber your deck because you're playing most of your stuff in the midgame (when your opponent has mana for counters) but the spells in your deck generally aren't big enough that you can win the game just by getting one of them to stick. The most successful midrange-style decks typically use focused hand disruption (e.g. Thoughtseize) to clear an opponent's counters and removal.


Can you play Dixit cooperatively with only 2 players?

That doesn't sound too bad, except that the drawn cards could be really off.

Alternatively, you could try to play a cooperative variant.
These two are interesting:

  The game is cooperative. Each player is the storyteller five times for
  a total of 10 turns and you go for a high score. The highest possible
  is
  70.

  Neither player has a hand. Each turn, the storyteller makes up a story
  without seeing any cards, and then six cards are flipped over from the
  deck and arranged. Both players (must?) vote for two cards that they
  think best match the description, and color matters: use the red peg
  for your 1st vote, and the green peg for your 2nd vote. Then players
  reveal their votes.

  For a card where you both voted red, you get 4 points. For a card
  where you both voted green, you get 3 points. For a card where you
  both voted but the colors didn't match, you get 2 points. For a card
  where only one player voted for it, you lose a point.

Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/700350/2-player-cooperative-dixit

  How to Play

  Deal cards to each player as usual.
  Pick a scoring marker for the players (just one marker) and another as a failure marker.
  Pick a player to be Storyteller first. I'll refer to 'Storyteller' and 'Player 2'.
  The Storyteller picks a card from their hand and gives a clue or tells a story about it, then places the card face down.
  Player 2 picks a card from their hand to try to match the clue.
  Add 4 random cards from the deck to the chosen cards.
  Shuffle them out and places them on the table as usual.
  Each player now secretly makes a guess. The Storyteller wants to find Player 2s card. Player 2 wants to find the Storyteller's card.

  Reveal your guesses!

  If you both guessed the other player's card correctly, cheer and
  advance your scoring marker 1 space.

  If either or both of you guessed wrong, pout and advance the failure
  marker one space.

  Each draw a new card. If you still have 4 cards left in the deck, swap
  who is Storyteller and proceed to another round.

  Try to have more points than failures at the end of the game!

  What does this mean? When you are the Storyteller, you want Player 2
  to guess your card. This is easy. You could just say "A city made out
  of eggs", and your partner is sure to guess it.

  But...you also want to guess Player 2's card. Give a clue too
  specific, and your partner won't be able to play any card you can
  recognize!

  You need to give them enough room to play a card you recognize,
  without making it too easy to be fooled by a random card.

  Spirit of the game: No giving "double" clues that are meant to
  describe your card and the card Player 2 is supposed to play
  separately. ("My card is a scarecrow, but your card has plants").

  No setting up codes.

  No repeating clues.

  Remember, you are trying to play a 4+ player competitive game as a 2
  player co-op. Try to break the game and it will break. Go with it and
  have fun and it should provide some amusement. I've tried to make it
  resistant to "casual" abuse at least.

Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/676496/2-player-co-op-dixit-variant


Your assessment is correct.  The infinite squirrel deck revolves around the two card combo.  This leaves 52 cards of the deck open to design choices.  Consequently, there's a huge variety of infinite squirrel decks.  This variety is greatly affected by the local meta game.


In Le Havre, is it a good idea to feed with money?

It's entirely situational.  Sometimes you have more food than you need and are clearly better off spending the extra food.  Other times you don't have enough food and would end up spending more money for food at the end of the round anyways.  Often it is in between these two extremes, and then it can be a tricky decision.

When paying to another player, that player's situation may be relevant, but it's generally secondary to your position vis-a-vis food.

What you need to look at is how much food you have compared to how much you need at the end of this (and future) rounds.  If it will end up costing you more than one VP/money to get back the two food later (and you'll need), you should probably spend the money.  Otherwise not, but even this doesn't cover everything.

Concrete example:  You have 1 franc and 1 bread (and no other food), and want to use a building that costs one food.  Before your next action, the round will end and you'll need 2 food for support.  In this case, you can spend the money, and then the food at the end of the round, leaving you with no food or money for your next action.  Or you could spend the food, leaving you with not enough money for food at the end of the round, which will force you to take a loan.  So on your next action, you'll have 3 money, but also have an additional loan, a net cost of 2-4 VPs, BUT it may be worth it if you need cash to use a building on your next action and would otherwise have to sell a building to get that cash.  Of course, if another player has an action before the end of the round, they might screw up your careful plans by using one of your buildings and giving you a fish, so you no longer need a loan...


Where can I get good-quality boxes of custom sizes, so I can store my board games compactly?

Dixit expansions come in boxes of size 8.1 x 3 x 12.7 cm. The cards from the base set, Journey or Odyssey should fit in one of those exact same boxes. Get a box for each expansion that you own. You could make your own boxes, from sheets of cardboard using a box template like this one. You'll want to use 250 grams paper (g/m2, see grammage).

Just put your dimensions into a template generator.

The voting cards can go into a small bag, and you don't really need the bunnies and scoring track. Bring pen and paper.


Should I trash a program after "Test Run" and then "Scavenge"?

No, when you Scavenge the Magnum Opus and reinstall it, it's considered a new copy of that program, not the same one which was installed originally with Test Run, which no longer has a valid target for moving to the top of your stack at the end of the turn.

See 8.2.10 in the NISEI Comprehensive Rules:

  Whenever a card is uninstalled, there is no memory of its previous
  state, and it is considered to be a new copy of the card.


How to build cities in Catan without any ore?

Yes, those are good numbers and might be worth not having access to ore. It's hard to tell without seeing the rest of the board.

Convince other players to trade ore with you; even though they'll probably notice you don't have access to ore, you might hold other resources that they absolutely need.
Use a harbor to trade with the bank in better ratios than 4:1.


In Descent SE can you sell search cards after use?

Yes. That's why they're flipped face-down when used rather than being discarded--to keep track of how much gold you've earned. Conceptually, the card represents that your search uncovered a cache with both gold and a useful item.

From p. 10 of the rulebook:

Gold: When playing the campaign, this number shows how much gold the players have earned, in addition to the abilities listed on the card.


Adding additional weapons to rock-paper-scissors

Well, I think your need is probably satisfied by RPS-101: 101 gesture Rock-Paper-Scissors. There are apparently 5,050 possible outcomes to this game, which should keep you entertained for a while...

For something slightly less mindblowingly hardcore, the same author has also developed 7, 9, 11, 15 and 25 gesture variants. These get complicated quickly! As an example, the 15 gesture version looks like this:


Where can I find reviews of a set once it's established?

Channelfireball.com LSV makes a scaling from 1-5 after a few weeks the set is released gives his opinion to each card.


Arkham Horror -- multiple investigators assisting in a combat?

That is correct. With the exception of the Final Battle, all combat is one-on-one. Investigators cannot team up against monsters, and multiple monsters in a single location do not team up against an investigator.


I found a thread on BGG where the game designer answers this question.

Do traders work for the 1 to 9 + Inca gold victory condition? In other words, if I have 1 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 + Inca gold + trader 'X → 7/8/9', do I win the game?
Yes, traders work in that situation. Your trader changes the 1 into a 9.. and you win !
— when do I display the perfect combination? When it is my turn in the progression step (meaning that a combination I simply 'get' from the draw stacks has to survive the trading)? Or can I show it at any one time?
You have to display your combination on your turn during the progression step.

So, yes, you can use Merchants to achieve victory through the full set of resources. Your hand is shown in the progression step, after the trade step.


There are two different things in Scythe which are related here, Mines and Tunnels.
Mines are buildings you can build, they look like this:

And here's how they work, from the rulebook:

The Mine acts as a
tunnel that only you can use.
You may move units to and
from your Mine as if it is a
tunnel (even if an opponent
controls the territory the
Mine is on). Unlike the other
structures, this is an ongoing
ability associated with all
unit movement.

And then there are Tunnels, they look like this on the map:

And here's what the rulebook says about them:

For the purposes of the Move action for any unit, all
territories with the tunnel icon are considered to be
adjacent to each other.

So, in short, you can move:

From a tunnel to any tunnel
From a tunnel to your mine
From your mine to any tunnel

You cannot use mines built by your opponents for your movement in any way.


Are there games with board presentation similar to Talisman and Relic?

In that graphical sense a really wonderful game that strikes me as similar is Yggdrasil.  It is Norse mythology based, cooperative, a good challenge, and pretty enough to be a poster.


Do deathtouch and deathtouch-like effects stop trample damage?

Yes, a creature destroyed by Stinkweed Imp will still deal trample damage. Basically, the sequence of actions in combat goes like this:

Your opponent attacks with their creature that has trample.
You block that creature with your Stinkweed Imp.
All damage is resolved. This includes the damage dealt to and by Stinkweed Imp, and the trample damage to you. Because Stinkweed Imp dealt damage to a creature, its triggered ability goes on the stack.
If there is 2 damage marked on Stinkweed Imp, it dies. Then your opponent gains priority with the triggered ability on the stack.
The triggered ability resolves, and the creature with trample dies.

If you replace Stinkweed Imp with a creature with deathtouch (Deadly Recluse, for example), steps 3, 4, and 5 are replaced with this:

All damage is resolved. This includes the damage dealt to and by Deadly Recluse, and the trample damage to you. Because the creature with trample took damage from Deadly Recluse, it dies, no matter what it's toughness is (see rule 704.5h


Can attacking players use activated abilities after blockers have been declared?

Combat Phase

506.1. The combat phase has five steps, which proceed in order: beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat. The declare blockers and combat damage steps are skipped if no creatures are declared as attackers or put onto the battlefield attacking (see rule 508.8). There are two combat damage steps if any attacking or blocking creature has first strike (see rule 702.7) or double strike (see rule 702.4).

Declare Blockers Step

509.4. Fourth, the active player gets priority. (See rule 116, “Timing and Priority.”)

So there is room (for either player) to cast spells or activate abilities after blockers have been declared and before combat damage is being assigned.
But what you describe, "moving her to the command zone" looks like combat damage has already been assigned and dealt. Your opponent can still pump up their creature (in the general case; it looks like it should've already died, as @Arthur noted in the comments), but it won't affect the combat damage already dealt.


Order of players actions in Mansion of Madness 2nd edition

Player 1 has to take 2 actions before the other players can do something.

From the rules reference page 24:

  During the investigator phase, the investigators each take one turn in the order of their choice. During an investigator’s turn, that investigator performs up to two actions.

This means that when each player takes a turn they do two actions and they must do all of their actions before another player can take their turn. You can select the order of that each player takes their turns and change it each investigator phase.


Differences between Axis and Allies 1941 and classic edition

AA guns tend to reduce the value of "strategic" bombing. Hence you would do this more (and spend more researching heavy bombers) than in other versions of the game.

There are many players that believe that heavy bombers unbalance the game, and one should not be allowed to research them. If they are disallowed, AA guns would be less necessary, and can be eliminated from the game to simplify it.

The construction of factories is most important for Japan and Britain, who start with only one (everyone else starts with two). Hence, it makes these two countries harder to play.

There are some problems with the Factory Rule. The first is that one costs a "flat" 15 IPCs to build. But that doesn't reflect the fact that factories are easier to build in some places than others (e.g. in "real life," it's almost impossible to build factory in Sinkiang). Second, most countries would not "export" aerospace technology, meaning that realistically, it would be possible only to produce infantry, but not airplanes in a foreign factory.


Can I draw something on my card and play tournaments with it?

You may not change or make illegible a card's name or mana cost. Other restrictions also apply. A tournament's head judge is the final authority on anything that happens in that tournament, including what card modifications are acceptable.

Yes you can obscure and remove the rules text.
You cannot completely replace the art work, the card must still be recognisable by its art.
The manacost must still be legible.
The name must still be legible.

The relevant rules for this question can be found in the MtG tournament rules (pdf):

http://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/mtg_mtr_22jan16_en.pdf

  3.3 Authorized Cards

  Players may use any Authorized Game Cards from Magic: The Gathering expansions, core sets, special sets, supplements, and promotional printings. Authorized Game Cards are cards that, unaltered, meet the following conditions:

  The card is genuine and published by Wizards of the Coast
  The card has a standard Magic back or is a double-faced card.
  The card does not have squared corners.
  The card has black or white borders.
  The card is not a token card.
  The card is not damaged or modified in a way that might make it marked.
  The card is otherwise legal for the tournament as defined by the format.

  The Head Judge of an event may issue a proxy (see section 3.4) for a card that has become worn or damaged during the tournament.

  Any other cards that are not Authorized Game Cards are prohibited in all sanctioned tournaments.

  Unglued and Unhinged basic land cards are allowed in sanctioned Magic tournaments.

  Players may use cards from the Alpha printing only if the deck is in opaque sleeves.

  Players may use otherwise-legal non-English and/or misprinted cards provided they are not using them to create an advantage by using misleading text or pictures. Official promotional textless spells are allowed in sanctioned
  Magic tournaments in which they would otherwise be legal.

  Artistic modifications are acceptable in sanctioned tournaments, provided that the modifications do not make the card art unrecognizable, contain substantial strategic advice, or contain offensive images. Artistic modifications also may not obstruct or change the mana cost or name of the card.

  The Head Judge is the final authority on acceptable cards for a tournament

What constitutes "substantial strategic advice" is covered by 2.11:

  2.11 Taking Notes

  Players are allowed to take written notes during a match and may refer to those notes while that match is in progress. At the beginning of a match, each player’s note sheet must be empty and must remain visible throughout the match. Players do not have to explain or reveal notes to other players. Judges may ask to see a player’s notes and/or request that the player explain his or her notes.

  Players may not refer to other notes, including notes from previous matches, during games.

  Between games, players may refer to a brief set of notes made before the match. They are not required to reveal these notes to their opponents. These notes must be removed from the play area before the beginning of the next game. Excessive quantities of notes (more than a sheet or two) are not allowed and may be penalized as slow play.

  The use of electronic devices to take and refer to notes is permitted at Regular Rules Enforcement Level (see section 2.12 – Electronic Devices).

  Players and spectators (exception: authorized press) may not make notes while drafting. Players may not reference any outside notes during drafting, card pool registration, or deckbuilding.

  Players may refer to Oracle text at any time. They must do so publicly and in a format which contains no other strategic information. Consulting online sources, such as gatherer.wizards.com, is allowed at Regular Rules Enforcement Level. If a player wishes to view Oracle text in private, he or she must ask a judge.

  Artistic modifications to cards that indirectly provide minor strategic information are acceptable. The Head Judge
  is the final arbiter on what cards and notes are acceptable for a tournament.


Is "The Aristocrats" the first WBR deck to top 8 a Pro Tour?

There are at least several decks that almost qualify:

Nearly-pure WBR in a heavily-multicolor format: Takayuki Koike got to the top 8 at a 2007 Extended Pro Tour in Valencia with a Domain Zoo deck where Tarmogoyf was the only green card.
A true WBR deck in a team format: Tomoharu Saito played a WBR deck as part of the winning team at a 2006 Pro Tour in Charleston. It featured the red-green hybrid card Giant Solifuge but no green sources.

So, why is WBR rare?

Playing WBR means forgoing green and blue. What are you (typically) giving up when you do that? Mana ramp and color-fixing (G), countermagic (U), card filtering (U), card draw (both), and usually the biggest mid-sized creatures in the format (G) — basically a lot of the tools that help you cast big things faster or dig in for the long game. This implies that most WBR tournament decks will be on the aggressive side.

Top-tier aggro decks are all about consistency. Mono-red is the most enduring aggro archetype not because red somehow has all of the best and fastest aggro cards, but because this is a deck that just wants to curve out super-consistently in every game. When your whole strategy is to prey on decks that make themselves too slow or greedy or fragile in pursuit of raw power, you can't afford to slip on mana yourself. So multicolor aggro decks mainly appear when a format supports very consistent multicolor mana bases, above and beyond the level that enable successful multicolor control and combo decks, or in aggro-heavy environments where you're looking for some kind of special advantage in the mirror.

In some environments, such multicolor aggro decks are viable. However, WBR is a "wedge" color combo. Most seasons of Standard, Extended, and Block Constructed featured better support for "shards" (allied-color groupings, like WUB). Why play WBR when you can play Jund (black, green, red — black and green together give you removal as flexible as white's) with better mana?

In environments with even better mana, decks are more likely to just end up in all colors. Look at Koike's Zoo list above, or Jakub Slemr's five-color black weenie list from the 1997 World Championship. When it's so easy to splash for a powerful card like Tarmogoyf or Man-o'-War (1997 was a very different time), why not?

Martell's PT-Gatecrash list or Saito's 2006 list benefit greatly from mana bases that support all color combinations equally (since both Ravnica shocklands and the Innisrad/M13 "buddy land" megacycle equally cover ally and enemy color pairings). But they could just as easily have been very consistent two-color decks. After all, all three colors generally have a lot of overlap when it comes to aggro cards (cheap aggressive beaters and efficient removal of various kinds). So, why build three colors, especially WBR? I believe powerful multicolor cards like the eponymous Aristocrats or Lightning Helix and Hit are the main reason these decks ended up as three-color WBR. (How good is Hit? Apparently good enough to justify losing 8 life to a Dark Confidant flip when your deck can't even cast Run!)


Does Skirmish apply to both attacking and defending?

No, Skirmish is only active on attacking

You can only Fight on your turn. This means that Skirmish is only active when you select that creature to Fight as an action, negating any damage you would be dealt.
If a creature with skirmish is targeted with a Fight action by an opponent, it will still take damage.

From the official rules:

  Any ready creature of the active house may fight. When a creature
  is used to fight, its controller chooses one eligible creature controlled
  by the opponent as the target of the attack. Each of the two creatures
  deals an amount of damage equal to its power (the value to the left
  of the card’s title) to the other creature


Does the zombie lord from haunt 21 take damage from a sanity roll?

Yes, it would take damage.

Normally, you cannot damage a monster unless the specific rules for the haunt say otherwise). Under the normal rules:

  If a monster suffers
  any damage, it is stunned and misses its next turn.

However, the Haunt 21 rules makes an exception to this, it says that while holding the Medallion, you can damage the Zombie Lord. It does not specify anything about physical vs mental damage; so it will just be damage either way.

From the traitor's rulebook:

  The Zombie Lord can be damaged only by
  an explorer holding the Medallion. Instead
  of being stunned, you can take 7 points of
  damage before you are killed. Use the
  Turn/Damage Track to record damage.
  Damage does not reduce your traits.


Whisper's pilot ability is

After you perform an attack that hits, you may assign 1 focus token to
your ship.

As per usual combat follows the following ten steps from the FAQ (as of Dec 2016):

Declare target.
Roll your attack dice. (First using any abilities that modify the number of dice)
Modify the attack dice. (Defender always modifies the attack dice first)
Roll the Defence dice.
Modify the Defence dice. (Attacker always modifies the defence dice first)
Compare results.

The rules for step 6 include the following text

During this step, players compare their dice results
to determine whether the defender was hit.
To determine whether the defender was hit, compare
the number of hits and critical hits and evades in the common
area. For each evade result, cancel (remove) one hit or critical hit
result from the attack roll. All hit results must be
canceled before any critical hit results may be canceled.
If there is at least one uncanceled hit or critical hit result
remaining, the defender is considered hit (see page
13). If all hit and critical hit result are canceled, the attack
misses and the defender does not suffer any damage.

At this point, if there are uncanceled hits or critical hits, then Whisper gains a focus token.
If the attack is a miss, and is also the first attack from a secondary weapon with the ability "Perform this attack twice", then the second attack would occur now.

Deal damage.

If the attack isn't a miss and is also the first attack from a secondary weapon with the ability "Perform this attack twice", then the second attack would occur now.

Use any abilities that occur "after attacking", or "after defending". The player with initiative uses theirs first.
Use any abilities that occur "after attacking", or "after defending" that trigger an extra attack. The player with initiative uses theirs first.
Remove any destroyed ships, accounting for the simultaneous attack rule (ships destroyed by another ship with the same pilot skill, still get their turn to attack).

After all ships have had an opportunity to attack, you move on to the end phase, when all focus and evade tokens are removed.
Example:
Whisper with Veteran Instincts, Gunner and Advanced Cloak attacks at PS 9, before Tycho Celchu at PS 8.
Whisper has an evade token, from having taken evade as it's action during the activation phase. Tycho Celchu also took the evade action.

Whisper declares it's target as Tycho Celchu; Tycho is within Whisper's arc and at range 2.

Whisper rolls 4 dice, and gets Miss, Eye, Hit & Critical Hit.

No modifications to the attack dice are taken.

Tycho rolls 3 Defence dice, and gets Blank, Eye & Evade.

Tycho uses his evade token to add one evade to his defence dice.

We compare the total of two evades from the on the defence dice and evade token with the hit and critical hit symbols on the attack dice. Regular hits must be canceled before critical hits, but as all hits are canceled this doesn't matter.
All of Whisper's attack dice are canceled. The attack was a miss.

All dice were canceled and no damage is dealt.

Advanced Cloaking device triggers, giving Whisper the option to take a free cloak action, which Whisper doesn't take as it would prevent the second attack.
Whisper's pilot ability doesn't trigger, as the criteria wasn't met (this attack was a miss).

Gunner triggers, giving Whisper a second attack. That attack occurs now.

Whisper's second attack

We declare Tycho as the target again - still at Range 2.

Whisper rolls 4 attack dice and gets Miss, Hit, Hit & Critical Hit.

No modifications to the attack dice are taken.

Tycho rolls 3 defence dice and gets Blank, Evade & Evade.

No modifications to the defence dice are taken (Tycho no longer has his evade token).

Comparing the evades with the hits, we cancel the two regular hits on Whisper's dice, resulting in one Critical Hit symbol remaining.
The attack was a hit as there is at least one uncanceled hit or critical hit.

Tycho takes one critical hit, which either removes one shield or if he has no remaining shield tokens deals him a face up damage card.

Advanced Cloaking device triggers again, giving Whisper the option to take a free cloak action; the option is taken this time.
Similarly Whisper's Pilot ability triggers as this is a hit, and Whisper gains a focus token.

Gunner cannot trigger, both because this is a hit, and because it has already triggered.

We now check to see if any ships have been destroyed and remove them (unless they also had the same pilot skill and lower initiative than Whisper).

Whisper's turn to attack is now over, leaving Whisper with an evade token, a focus token and it's cloak active.
We proceed to any other ship's turn to attack in order of descending PS, with ties partially broken by Initiative as per usual.
If it had been Jake with Veteran Instincts instead of Tycho in the example (who would then have had the same PS as Whisper) but Whisper had initiative then even if Whisper had killed Jake, Jake would still get an attack, but Whisper would have his focus token and Cloaking device up. If Jake had initiative, then Jake would have attacked first before Whisper could activate his focus token and cloaking device, though Whisper would still have it's evade token.
N.B. This exact set up with Whisper is partly chosen here to highlight some interactions with the rules (such as 'hit' interacting with gunner), and also because this particular set up on Whisper has been a popular and successful set up in tournaments - at least prior to the nerf to cloaking - and could thus be considered a fairly likely situation (although I have no idea as to the presence or absence of Tycho or Jake in tournament lists).


No, you cannot choose for a creature to behave as though it did not have Flying unless a card specifically says that you can.

While Flying is an ability, it is not one that you "use". It is just a fact about the creature, like the fact that it it is Blue or has 3 power (for example).


Are there "established" systems where "Five Card Majors" isn't a strict rule?

When you open a five card major, you're not promising anything about the strength of your suit, you are simply telling your partner that you have five cards in that suit.

Remember that you do not win tricks only on strength, you win them on length as well.  Even if you open a raggedy five card suit, and end up playing in it after getting you're partner's support, you will win extra tricks because no one else will have trumps after you draw them. On the other hand, if you wind up in a 4-3 fit because partner raised your four card open, things can be difficult if one of your opponents also has 4 or more trump.

Also remember that just because you can't open AKQJ of a major doesn't mean you can never mention that suit.  Open a minor, and rebid your major.  That tells your partner that you have four of the major, and if he also has four then you've found your fit.

This can be hard to swallow, so I recommend building some example hands. Give yourself five lousy trump and an opening hand, give your partner three random trump and enough to raise you to game, and see how the hand plays out with random opponent hands.  Likewise, give yourself AKQJ of a major, your partner the same three random trump and game values, and get a feel for which hands are easier and which hands are harder to play.


alternatives for odd # of players in hand and foot canasta

I have a few ideas off the top of my head.

First, one thing we have done in the past is to have one of the "more experienced" players play multiple hands.  It is a little complicated because that person has to pull double duty.

If you go this route, you may also want to try and not have the person play their two hands right after each other.  This way there is no issues with the person discarding something from hand 1 that hand 2 desperately needs.

I have been the 2 handed person a few times, and the extra effort sometimes makes it seem like I am paying more attention to the game and not in having fun with the people around me.

Another option would be to have somebody sit out each hand.  Maybe two people can share one "seat".  This gives somebody (like the host) to get up and check on everyone and all of that kind of stuff.

Last, invite somebody new to the group.  The more the merrier!


"Guilty!" is the name of this game I'm looking for?

Colpevole! ( meaning Guilty! ) is an Italian-language boardgame, published in 1992. It is easy to find numerous copies of it for sale on eBay.it.
eBay Italy results for Colpevole!

The game's publisher was Editrice Giochi, literally Games Publisher. They published Parker Brothers games such as Monopoli, Cluedo, and Risiko!, a variant of Risk.

In 2016, Editrice Giochi was bought out by Spin Master Corp., «... a leading children's entertainment company.»
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/spin-master-expands-games-portfolio-with-editrice-giochi-purchase-566692661.html

I contacted SpinMaster Corp. by email and by phone, and spoke to a customer agent. This agent did some research and found that the game Colpevole! has not been translated to English.

So, the only alternative that I can see for you is to translate the game elements into English yourself.

Here are some screenshots of the games elements. Many more can be found of eBay-Italy.

Video of gameplay (in Italian)


Arkham Horror Put a Clue Token on this card?

They're just markers; effectively you have to draw three unique items to pass her story.

Rules-wise, there's nothing that explicitly says this, it's just that the tokens are on the card, not in your possession, and there's nothing that says you can ever gain them or use them. I wouldn't say they're "lost" when passed/failed; you never actually had them as clue tokens. They just go back to the supply once the card doesn't need them, their purpose served.

A lot of cards in Arkham Horror use tokens of various kinds as markers. Many of the rumors use clue tokens to keep track of "how bad is it" (for example The Great Ritual). When possible, they'll use an appropriate type of token for the function of the card, like the Golden Trumpet which prevents sanity loss and uses sanity tokens to track it. But most things don't have an obvious choice like that, so clue tokens are a nice generic choice that you're unlikely to be out of.


Bridge: Holding both 5 card majors which should I bid first in Jacoby transfers

This is mostly a matter of agreement.

The reason this is so, is that what you decide to do with a 5-5 game forcing hand would effect other hand types.

Here are some hand types the responder can have:

5-4 majors game forcing.
5-4 majors invitational

5-5 majors game forcing
5-5 majors invitational.

They are multiple ways of bidding:

For instance, some folks play 3H response to 1NT as invite with 5-5 majors and 3S response as GF with 5-5 majors. This allows them to transfer and bid the other suit to show some 5-4 hands etc.

So there is no one way to bid this, and is something you need to agree with your partner.


What are the differences between the Fluxx games?

Ecofluxx has a much bigger emphasis on "X eats Y" goals; where if you have X and anyone has Y, you win.  It theoretically makes it a little easier to win the game.  It also has a card named Extinction (I think?), to permanently remove any one keeper from the game.

Monty Python Fluxx has a lot of cards that say "Do this on your turn to earn extra rewards", e.g. Speak in a funny accent to pick up another card.  It makes the game more...  Interactive.  It also has a number of the 'knight of the round table' keepers - they are often interchangable for goals.  In the same way as "Food", sometimes it is one specific knight, but often it is "X plus any knight".

Stoner Fluxx has a number of cards that are meaningless unless you have marijuana available (e.g. "Everybody Toke!"); I suppose you could either remove them from the deck or have a house rule you can play them as cards when you really don't want to do anything else.

The upcoming Pirate Fluxx sounds like it will be awesome and different, with an emphasis on an incredibly strong keeper "The Captain's Hat", that provides the player with a number of bonuses, along with everyone else receiving +1 Draw / +1 Play.


If a creature with an effect is destroyed by blocking do other attacking creatures lose the effect?

I think I might have found my own answer writing this ask but I'll post it so others can comment if I'm wrong and learn if I'm right:

Yes given rule 510.2 which says:

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

If combat damage is done simultaneously then the damage is done to the Rageblood Shaman at the same time that the other creatures affected by the Shaman are dealing damage, thus it has not been destroyed yet and the effect still applies.


In bridge, what happens if a bidder makes a wrong bid that can't be corrected?

The Laws of Contract Bridge's Law 36 deals with inadmissible doubles. If the player in first seat takes a call before somebody realizes that the double was inadmissible, the double and all subsequent calls are cancelled, it becomes fourth seat's turn to call, and everything proceeds as normal.

If, on the other hand, the irregularity is called out immediately, the double is cancelled and the player may substitute any call. Their partner (in second seat) is forced to pass every time they make a call for the rest of the auction. In addition, there will be lead restrictions:

  Declarer may prohibit offender’s partner from leading any one suit at his first turn to lead, including the opening lead, such
  prohibition to continue for as long as offender’s partner retains the lead.


With Life and Limb do my forest's suffer from summoning sickness

They'll have summoning Sickness. So if your opponent is also in Green, you will set them back if all they have are forests to play.

From the Gatherer Rulings page:

  Forests that enter the battlefield while Life and Limb is on the battlefield will enter the battlefield as creatures. They'll have summoning Sickness.


Does Cycling a card to trigger an ability allow you to target a creature protected by the color of the card you're cycling?

No, the angel with protection from Blue cannot be targeted by the ability of Choking Tethers.

The relevant rule about Protection:

  702.16b A permanent or player with protection can’t be targeted by spells with the stated quality and can’t be targeted by abilities from a source with the stated quality.

In your case, the source of the ability, Choking Tethers, has the quality 'blue'.

Note that (as mentioned in the card's Gatherer rulings) it is allowed to cycle Choking Tethers even if there are no legal targets for the triggered ability (e.g. there are no creatures at all, or only creatures with protection from blue). This is because the Cycling activated ability itself does not require any targets to activate. The triggered ability that taps a creature will not successfully be put on the stack, but the Cycling ability will resolve just fine and you will draw a card.


What are the odds of being dealt particular melds in Double Deck Pinochle?

The odds of a given player being dealt hands with those melds in them are roughly as follows:

|  MELD TYPE  |   NONE   |  SINGLE  |  DOUBLE  |  TRIPLE  |   QUAD   |
| Runs        | 0.522113 | 0.476676 | 0.001211 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Marriages   | 0.055983 | 0.716652 | 0.221239 | 0.006113 | 0.000013 |
| Pinochles   | 0.528127 | 0.411803 | 0.058548 | 0.001521 | 0.000001 |
| Ace Arounds | 0.791536 | 0.206261 | 0.002203 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Roundhouses | 0.967973 | 0.032027 | 0.000000 |    [Not Possible]   |

These results are probably only accurate to one or two significant figures.

To understand the table - in each row the probabilities add up to 1. Taking the first row as an example - there is roughly no chance a hand will contain four or three runs in a single suit, 0.1% chance it will have a double run in a suit (i.e. ATKQJATKQJ in a single suit), 52% chance it will contain no runs, and 48% chance that it will contain a single run, but no double runs.  Note that if someone is dealt a hand containing exactly one of each of the 20 cards this would be counted as a single run in the above table, because it contains no double runs or better.

Method

Rather than calculate the exact probabilities (as the C program linked to in the question does), I simulated 1,000,000 deals and counted the number of each type of meld in the hand.  The script I used is here in case anyone wants to modify it.  1,000,000 hands took a few minutes to simulate.

To decide what to look for in the hand I used this double pinochle scoring chart.  I didn't calculate the probabilities of royal marriages because they are identical to the "Pinochles" row.  The other "Around" hand probabilities are identical to Aces Around.  The single deck probabilities contained an entry for "exactly 7 aces", which I didn't include as it's not a meld (and because it wasn't obvious what the analogous hand would be).

A roundhouse is a marriage in each suit, i.e. eight cards total.  Consequently it's not possible to get more than a double roundhouse in a twenty card hand.

Verification

To check the validity of the method I made some small changes in order to simulate the single deck 4 player game.  I ran it with 100,000 iterations and the results from this are very similar to the probabilities given by the C program:

|  MELD TYPE  |  NONE   | SINGLE  | DOUBLE  | TRIPLE  |  QUAD   |
| Runs        | 0.96159 | 0.03841 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 |
| Marriages   | 0.40970 | 0.57963 | 0.01067 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 |
| Pinochles   | 0.81385 | 0.18380 | 0.00235 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 |
| Ace Arounds | 0.97302 | 0.02698 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 |
| Roundhouses | 0.99973 | 0.00027 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 | 0.00000 |

Note that the triple and quad results are impossible with a single deck, and a double roundhouse is impossible with only twelve cards.

Suggested improvements

It would be interesting to calculate the exact probabilities, particularly for very rare hands.  The exhaustive search method of the original program has to consider about 5*109 hands for four players and 6*1010 hands for three players.  For twenty cards chosen from a deck of eighty it would need to consider 3*1018 hands. Since the original source said that the three player game was analysed in 12 minutes, we can extrapolate that double pinochle would be done in about 1140 years!

This doesn't mean that the probabilities can't be calculated exactly, just that a more clever method would need to be used. The symmetry of the deck should help with this, but the results above were enough to convince me that I wasn't going to get dealt a quad-run any time soon.*

* The chance of a quad-run is about 1 in 1018, as there are exactly four possible quad-run hands (one for each suit), and there are about 3*1018 hands in total.


It is the first option; all setup things are done at the start of a game. A card being in the Black Market deck acts just like a card in the Supply for this purpose.

Strangely enough, this rule is not listed in the official Black Market FAQ. But it is listed in several other places.

From the Cornucopia rulebook:

  If you are using the promotional card Black Market, and Young Witch is in the Black Market deck, put out a Bane pile for Young Witch.

From the Baker FAQ in the Guilds rulebook:

  In games using this card, each player starts the game with a Coin token. This includes games using the promo card Black Market in which Baker is in the Black Market deck.

From the Alchemy rulebook:

  Also add the Potion pile if you are using the promotional card Black Market, and the Black Market deck includes at least one card with [P] in the cost. If you do not have any cards with [P] in the cost in the Supply or in the Black Market deck, do not use the Potion pile in this game.

From the Trade Route FAQ in the Prosperity rulebook:

  If you are using Black Market and Trade Route is in the
  Black Market deck, put tokens on Victory card piles at the start of the game.

Although the Nocturne rulebook does not mention using an Heirloom when the appropriate card is in the Black Market, Donald X confirmed that you do:

  Everyone's favorite rules question: If these kingdom cards are in the Black Market deck, are the Heirlooms used?

    I recommend not putting them in the Black Market deck, but yes, you do all setup for Black Market deck cards.

Similarly, the Dark Ages rulebook does not mention Black Market, but if there are any Looters in the Black Market deck, then you include Ruins in the Supply.

Note that if Young Witch is in the Black Market deck; Black Market itself cannot be the Bane card; because the Bane has to be a newly added 11th pile.


Which city is the one being searched for the virologist?

Frankly, I don't see how you could entertain the second interpretation at all! From this picture: https://boardgamegeek.com/article/20687079#20687079

  ADVANCE 3 SPACES IF YOU DISCARD THE CARD MATCHING YOUR CITY

There is clearly a distinction between the [city listed on the] discarded card and the city where the active player's pawn is located. Furthermore, since you are able to discard multiple cards, it doesn't make any sense that the cities on those cards would be "yours".

"Your city" is the city where you are.


Do you have to select a zombie before you roll a d6 for Shamble?

According to the game designer's response to the question on Board Game Geek, you should pick the zombie before rolling.

  When playing Shamble you should choose the Zombie and then roll to see how far they get to move.


What if there are two paths connecting to the gold in Saboteur 2?

There's no such concept. The following are the win conditions for the red and blue teams from the rules:

A team wins if a dwarf from that team creates the connection to the treasure and the way there
isn't blocked by a door of the other color.
A team wins if a dwarf from the other team creates the connection to the treasure, but the way there for his or her own team is blocked by a door of the wrong color.
Both teams win if The Boss, The Geologist or The Profiteer creates the connection to the gold and the way there isn't blocked by a door of the other color.

A dwarf from the blue team created the connection, and there is a path that's not blocked by a red door, so the blue team wins, and the red team does not. That's it.

The only way the red team can win if a dwarf from the blue team creates the connection is if the blue team can't win (i.e. every path is blocked by red doors).


Are you allowed to bake bread in two different ovens?

Yes, you can use as many ovens as you want each time you take the bake bread action.

Unfortunately the rulebook itself is not completely clear on this point. But multiple answers on bgg agree.


In English, this game is called, appropriately enough, Dots.

There is a wikipedia page describing the game and showing an example of gameplay.


Can you target a creature with my creatures enter the battlefield ability if they both enter the battlefield at the same time?

Yes, you can do this.

All creatures will enter the battlefield at the same time; but even if they didn't that wouldn't matter here. Meteor Golem's triggered ability is only put on the stack after the Show and Tell is finished fully resolving.

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

and

  116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

So you do not need to choose targets for Meteor Golem's ability until Show and Tell is done resolving; and all chosen permanents are on the battlefield.

However, as pointed out by @John in a comment; all choices will be revealed simultaneously, so you cannot "respond" to your opponent's choice of Emrakul by choosing Meteor Golem. You would have already had to make your choice before you know your opponent's choice.

From the Gatherer rulings on Show and Tell:

  The current player chooses first, then each other player chooses in turn order. A player does not have to reveal the chosen card, so long as it is clear which card was chosen. After all choices are made, the cards are put onto the battlefield simultaneously.


Does the elephant get bigger when I bring in the ballista?

Yes, you get the counter on Trumpeter.

When an ability is looking out for counters being placed on an object, the game also counts cards that enter the battlefield with counters as having had those "placed" on it: it will trigger abilities like Trumpeter's, Hardened Scales would give the Ballista another +1/+1 counter, etc.

  121.6. Some spells and abilities refer to counters being “placed” on an object. This refers to putting counters on that object while it’s on the battlefield and also to an object that’s given counters as it enters the battlefield.


Use the dice themselves as a reminder of whose turn it is.  This avoids the need for any extra tokens or start player marker.

If players roll them in front of themselves and then they physically pass them to the next player once their turn is over. It should then be clear whose turn it is.

That way a player can't roll twice as dice are already in front of them.  A player can not be skipped as the dice are passed to them by the player ending their turn.


To expand on user1873's answer ever so slightly - they're both your abilities, so you can put them on the stack whichever way you want.  You want to put the Goldnight Redeemer's ability on the stack first, and then Angel's Tomb's ability on the stack after that.

The abilities then resolve in a Last In, First Out style: at the top of the stack, the Tomb becomes a creature.  Then we move on to the Redeemer ability and gain 2 life for each other creature - which now includes the Tomb-Angel.

Stacking triggered abilities correctly can be a bit difficult to visualise at first, so I thought it would be useful to provide a little walkthrough...