Do I need to call Uno after swapping hands?

TL;DR: While there is some room for argument, it seems that according to a literal reading of the official rules you do not need to call "UNO" if you go down to one card by swapping hands (or by any other means that don't involve placing a card on the discard pile; see below).  However, to avoid any ambiguity, you may still choose to do so if you want.  In any case, as long as nobody called you out on it before the next player started their turn, you won fair and square.

The unorules.com site cited by Nij does not seem to be in any way affiliated with Mattel, the makers of the game, and the rules there do not seem to be official in any sense.  The official rules are available on the Mattel & Fisher-Price customer service site, under "instruction sheets".  The page for UNO® Card Game (Product # FFK04) there currently links to this set of English rules, which say (emphasis mine):

  When you play your next-to-last card, you must yell “UNO” (meaning “one”) to indicate that you have only one card left. If you don’t yell “UNO” and you are caught before the next player begins their turn, you must draw two cards.

In fact, the paragraph quoted above is the only part of the rules, except for some of the suggested custom rules in the "Using Customizable Cards" section, that says anything about calling "UNO".

Notably, the paragraph quoted above says that you must call "UNO" when you play your next-to-last card, not when you go down to one card for any reason.  So, according to a literal reading of this paragraph, you do not need to call "UNO" if you go down to one card by some means other than by playing your second-to-last card — e.g. by giving your hand to some other player and receiving only one card in return.  (Of course, if Swap Hands was your second-to-last card, then you would still need to call "UNO" when you play it.)

(As an aside, another edge case which the official rules cover only implicitly is what happens if you play Swap Hands as your last card.  However, the official UNO Twitter account — of course there is one — has explicitly confirmed that, according to the latest rules, in this case the player you choose to swap hands with wins.  Unfortunately, the official account never seems to have replied to this question in the same thread asking about the very case being debated here.  And this reply to what might or might not be the same question — the phrasing is kind of ambiguous about whether "the person" refers to "you" or "someone" — just repeats the official rules as written.)

A possible counterargument to the literal reading above is that one of the suggested custom rules in the "Using Customizable Cards" section reads (again, emphasis mine):

  Tell a joke. If someone laughs, discard down to 1 card (don’t forget to yell “UNO!”). If no one laughs, draw 4 cards.

Reading between the lines, one might claim the parenthetical note as evidence of the intent of the rules being that one must call "UNO" whenever going down to one card, regardless of how that happens.  However, there are at least two reasonable counterarguments to that:

While the rules do not explicitly define what "playing a card" means, the wording of the "Let’s Play" section clearly implies that one plays a card by placing it "on top of the DISCARD pile".  If one is willing to infer designer intent by reading between the lines, one could therefore also argue that, by extension, any placement of cards on the discard pile implicitly counts as "playing" them, and therefore that the instruction to "discard down to 1 card" necessarily means having to "play your next-to-last card" (at least unless you only had one card left anyway, in which case you would've already had to call "UNO" when you played the custom wild card anyway).
In any case, the quote above comes from a suggested custom wild card house rule.  There's no particular reason to assume that it reflects the intended standard rules in any way (to put it in context, the next suggested custom rule in the list requires the following player to play without bending their elbows until someone calls "UNO"), nor, in any case, that the suggested requirement to call "UNO" when that particular custom card is played is anything but a special exception to those standard rules.

Still, if somebody's going to argue that you do need to call "UNO" when receiving a one-card hand from Swap Hands, that suggested custom wild card rule is probably the closest thing to be found in the current official rules to support their position.

Anyway, it's worth noting that the UNO rules have changed over the years, and in any case many groups play with longstanding house rules that they may even believe to be official (because who reads the rules leaflet anyway?).  Some of the more common (and most blatantly non-standard) such house rules I know of include being able to play multiple cards with the same number (or even multiple action cards of the same type) at once, being required to play a card instead of drawing one if you can, having to keep drawing if you don't have a playable card until you get one (instead of just drawing once and then ending your turn if you can't or don't want to play the card your drew) and not being able to play an action card as your last card.

I'm sure the same goes for having to call "UNO" after swapping hands with someone with only one card in their hand, and if your group is used to playing with such a rule, insisting on following the official rulebook may not be the best or most tactful approach.

In any case, there's (officially) no penalty for calling out "UNO" at any time, even when you don't have to(!).  So the cautious approach may be to call "UNO" any time you go down to one card in your hand for any reason, no matter what the rules say — at least unless you're playing with a house rule that forbids you from saying "UNO" when you don't have to.

Ps. For the historically curious, the old official UNO rules from 2001 also used very similar wording regarding when to call "UNO":

  Before playing your next to last card, you must say “UNO”.

and even the 1983 rules from International Games, Inc. phrased it in pretty much the same way:

  As a player plays his next to last card, he must call out “UNO” (meaning “ONE”).

Of course, neither of those old versions of UNO had the Swap Hands card, or any other means of getting rid of cards without playing them, so this issue never arose with them in the first place.


Can you use the row the card is in as a clue?

No. First entry under "Firm Rules"

Your clue must be about the meaning of the words. You can't use your clue to talk about the letters in a word or its position on the table.

I agree with a comment on another answer to keep the firm rule in place; as position clues can be used on every board, the game will become repetitive if they're allowed.


Is there a rule change in more recent versions of Bohnanza?

Yes, the rules were updated sometime around 2011.

There is a discussion about the rules change at boardgamegeek here.

It seems it was done because purchasing a third field was almost always a mistake; so he option added no real strategic value.


Another aspect of regeneration in Magic the Gathering?

Yes, combat damage is dealt simultaneously.

510.1. First, the active player announces how each attacking creature assigns its combat damage, then the defending player announces how each blocking creature assigns its combat damage. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. A player assigns a creature's combat damage according to the following rules:
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.

Your regenerating creature will assign its combat damage if it survives to the Combat Damage Step in which it will deal damage (I.e. if the defending creature had First Strike, and your creature did not, it may receive lethal damage before getting to its Combat Damage Step. The Combat phase is divided into 5 steps.

Beginning of Combat Step
Declare Attackers Step
Declare Blockers Step
Combat Damage Step
End of Combat Step

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

If a creature is removed from combat before the Combat Damage Step, it will not assign or deal any damage. Setting up a regeneration shield is not one of the listed methods of removing a creature from combat.

it leaves play
it regenerates [CR 419.6b]
its controller changes
it stops being a creature
an effect removes it from combat


The abilities of these cards create continuous effects, so we're interested in [CR 613], "Interaction of Continuous Effects".

  613.1. The values of an object’s characteristics are determined by starting with the actual object. For a card, that means the values of the characteristics printed on that card. For a token or a copy of a spell or card, that means the values of the characteristics defined by the effect that created it. Then all applicable continuous effects are applied in a series of layers in the following order:

  613.1d Layer 4: Type-changing effects are applied. These include effects that change an object’s card type, subtype, and/or supertype.

  613.1e Layer 5: Color-changing effects are applied.

  613.1g Layer 7: Power- and/or toughness-changing effects are applied.

  613.2. Within layers 1–6, apply effects from characteristic-defining abilities first (see rule 604.3), then all other effects in timestamp order (see rule 613.6). Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a layer. (See rule 613.7.)

  613.3. Within layer 7, apply effects in a series of sublayers in the order described below. Within each sublayer, apply effects in timestamp order. (See rule 613.6.) Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a sublayer. (See rule 613.7.)

  613.3b Layer 7b: Effects that set power and/or toughness to a specific number or value are applied.

  613.5. If an effect should be applied in different layers and/or sublayers, the parts of the effect each apply in their appropriate ones. [...]

The timestamp order of effects is the order in which they were created.

If Living Lands entered the 'field before Living Terrain (as in your scenario),

Layer 4, It becomes a Forest Land Creature, then it becomes a Treefolk Forest Land Creature.
Layer 5, Its color changes to green.
Layer 7b, Its P/T is set to 1/1, then its P/T is set to 5/6.

So it's a 5/6 green Treefolk Forest Land Creature.
If Living Terrain entered the 'field before Living Lands,

Layer 4, It becomes a Treefolk Forest Land Creature, then it becomes a Treefolk Forest Land Creature.[1]
Layer 5, Its color changes to green.
Layer 7b, Its P/T is set to 5/6, then its P/T is set to 1/1.

So it's a 1/1 green Treefolk Forest Land Creature.

And the tie breaker,

  613.6g If two or more objects would receive a timestamp simultaneously, such as by entering a zone simultaneously or becoming attached simultaneously, the active player determines their timestamp order at that time.

It gets to keep its Treefolk subtype because its current (new) types support it.[CR 205.1].


Who is the male investigator on the cover of Arkham Horror, Elder Sign, and Eldritch Horror?

Honestly, I think it's just 'Generic 1920's stereotype'.  While I agree that he's got a tommy gun in both pictures, his facial structure looks wrong for being Michael McGlen.  He actually looks closer to Joe Diamond, if it wasn't for Joe Diamond having a blue suit.  Michael McGlen would be closest, without going over, but I think the cover art characters are just generic characters and no actual investigator.


I would say that player characters are capable of attacking twice. The rules state you have 2 Actions to spend each turn, spent on a list of actions that cost 1 Action each, with no further limitations beyond the cost.

This is reinforced when they explicitly state that this option is not available to Monsters, a case of "the exception proves the rule".

I.e., "no free parking on Sundays" implies parking is free every other day. Monsters can't attack twice (without stating otherwise for players) implies Player Characters can.


Can a spell keep track of its target if the target changes controller?

Yes. An object that changes controllers is still the same object, so a spell that targeted it will continue to target it.
Assassin's Trophy checks who controls the targeted permanent as the spell resolves, so in this scenario opponent B will fetch the basic land.


Under what conditions can I cast Panglacial Wurm from my Library when my opponent controls an Aven Mindcensor?

It is option 2, you can cast Panglacial Wurm if it is in the top 4 cards.

  701.18f If searching a zone is replaced with searching a portion of that zone, any other instructions that refer to searching the zone still apply. [...]

Because Aven Mindcensor uses the word "search" in the replacement, it is still searching. It is just now searching a sub-set of your library.

The regular event of searching your library never happens in this case, so a Wurm somewhere else in your library won't do anything:

  614.6 If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities. Note that the modified event may contain instructions that can’t be carried out, in which case the impossible instruction is simply ignored.

The reason number 3 doesn't work is that you don't have the Wurm available to cast. If you aren't seeing it while searching, you have no way of "knowing" that it is even in your library. You wouldn't be allowed to rely on having your deck list memorized to know that. And even if you do know for sure that it's in there, you aren't allowed to search the rest of your library to find it in order to cast it.

This was addressed and confirmed by a judge here.


You cannot forfeit

From the Season 1 FAQ:

  Is it legal to quit a game without finishing it because it's a lost cause, in particular, this would prevent additional panic stickers from being placed in case of outbreaks. Or, are we forced to sit there and see it through to the end?

    You are supposed to play until you actually lose.

So unless the Season 2 rulebook specifically states otherwise, it is reasonable to apply this rule to both seasons. The rulebook justification for this FAQ entry is that the rules for how the game can end do not include forfeiting as one of the ways it can end. The rulebook lists all possible ways for the game to end.


Commanders with at least four colors in their color identity

The four-color commanders in Commander 2016 were a big deal because there weren't any before. (People sometimes use the Nephilim, but they're not actually legendary.) So, there are the five-color ones you already know how to find, and the five from Commander 2016.

It's not too hard to go through all the possibilities to confirm this, but since there's only one result for each query, these searches all currently redirect right to the card:

WUBR
WUBG
WURG
WBRG
UBRG

If someday they print some more, those queries will find them! But don't hold your breath; there's not a lot of design space in four-color cards. Since they're good for commander but not for standard, if they ever do make more, there's a good chance it'd be in a commander set (but not too soon after the current one).


How can I make Dominion play better with 5+ players?

The biggest problem with extra players that I usually see is down-time. Dominion is partially a group solitaire game. There is some interaction between players with attack cards, but otherwise your opponents turns won't matter a lot besides keeping an idea on what piles are low and the game end. I find with 5 the main problem is "I know what I'm going to do, I just have to wait through 3 more people's turns to do it". You also might want to tweak the number of kingdom card piles to somewhere between 11 and 13.

The first and easiest thing you can do is lessen the cards that take longer to resolve. Spy, Throne room, Adventurer, Contraband, Counting House, Possession, and many others tend to make turns take a little longer. This doesn't mean that they are bad in any way, it just means if you are worried about long down-times with 5 or 6 people you might want to forgo them. Removing certain cards may annoy hardcore players who want a truly random layout, but my games usually aren't super serious and its worth it to fit in the extra person.

Another thing you can do if you are adventurous with 6 is play 3 teams of 2. Turns pass from one team to another. Both members of that team take their turns at the same time and have totally separate decks. Their attack cards only affect the players on the other teams. It helps to use attack cards that don't depend on order very much in case you both attack. What do you do if one of you plays a spy and the other a thief? What order do they go in? Instead of trying to make rules about this, just use attacks that don't clash with others too easily, like militia and witch. The team mechanism is mainly to allow some simultaneous turns; you can play as a team and do some minor collaboration, like who should buy what or who should focus on attacks vs. victory points, or still make it every man for themselves and have the player with the most victory points win.


Does Rupture Spire turn your Reflecting Pool on in time to pay for the Spire's ability?

Yes, you can use the pool to pay for the spire.

As the spire enters the battlefield, its ability triggers. That ability is then put on the stack, where it waits until all players have passed priority, just like anything else on the stack. Once it is time for that ability to resolve, the spire is definitely on the battlefield, which means that the pool can see it and the mana it could produce.

Note that the spire doesn't "turn on" the reflecting pool per se. When you want to tap the pool for mana, it is the pool that will look around and see what lands you have available. The spire takes no active part in this interaction. If the pool can see the spire, it will be able to use the spire. Thinking about it like that might make it a bit easier to see why this will work.


Multiple questions about Betrayal at the House on the Hill

When the haunt begins, the player to the left of the traitor always takes the first turn. It doesn't matter who had the last turn (the person to reveal the haunt will not always be the traitor). There are a couple scenarios that change this, but they will specify their own rules in the haunt description. Rulebook, page 11:

  Haunt Turn Order
  The first turn always starts with the player to the traitor’s
  left and goes clockwise (further away from the traitor).

The monsters get their own "monster turn" after the traitor's turn. So the traitor does not control both himself and the monsters in the same turn, but he does control all the monsters right after he's done with his regular turn. Rulebook, page 11:

  After each hero has had a turn, the traitor gets his or hertraitor turn. After the traitor’s turn, any monsters controlled by the traitor get a monster turn. (One player gets two turns: one for the traitor and one for the monsters.

All information always openly shared between the heroes. So it doesn't matter which hero found the clue and has the knowledge roll token; all that matters is the total number of knowledge roll tokens found by all heroes combined. From the FAQ:

  If someone in the house makes a knowledge roll to find out a particular piece of information (a mummy's name, a room that needs to be visited, etc.), do all the other explorers know this information automatically?

    Yes. Perhaps they all have walkie-talkies.


How can I estimate my chances to win a Risk battle?

All of the detailed probability calculations and Markov analysis posted by Eric P. and ire_and_curses can be distilled into a simple set of Risk attack heuristics:

Large battles favor the attacker but only very slightly.
For small battles, attack if you have more armies, stop if you don't.

The rationale for these guidelines is outlined below.

A large battle is 3 or more attackers and 2 or more defenders. For large battles the army count has nothing to do with the outcome of any single battle, which means you only need to remember a single number: the net attrition rate, defined as the expected value of the difference between defender and attacker losses. This rate can be calculated from data in Table 2 of the Jason Osborne paper in Eric P.'s answer:

The expected value of the defenders lost is 1.08. The number of defenders lost by events pi_32x weighted by their probability.
The expected value of the attackers lost is 0.922.
This means the net attrition rate is 0.158 (i.e. over 10 rounds of combat, the defender will lose 1.58 more armies--on average). Over 20 rounds 3.16.

Leading us to our first heuristic:

Large battles favor the attacker but only very slightly. As the attacker, it takes on average 20 rounds to make up a three army deficit. Whether you should attack in any given situation is a strategic not a tactical decision, but tactically the attacking advantage is on average very slight. Remember as well that past events have nothing to do with future rolls.

For small battles, the full probability matrix is supplied above, but our second rule distills this knowledge:

For small battles, attack if you have more armies, stop if you don't. When outnumbered your probability of winning is no more than 0.417 and probably less. Otherwise your probability of winning is at least 0.656 but as high as 0.916.


Are Summon - [insert-creature-type-here] cards creatures?

Yes, these cards are MtG cards with the type Creature. A cards official wording is what currently appears in the Oracle Online reference.

From the Comprehensive Rules

  108.1. Use the Oracle card reference when determining a card’s wording. A card’s Oracle text can be found using the Gatherer card database at http://gatherer.wizards.com.

  Summon (Obsolete)
  Older creature cards were printed with “Summon [creature type]” on their type lines. All such cards have received errata in the Oracle card reference to say “Creature — [creature type].” (Many of these cards’ creature types have also been updated.) See Creature.


Do train stations cause an opponent's route to count towards longest route?

No they don't.  The rules explicitly state it twice.

In longest route scoring it states "Stations, and the opponents’ routes they may provide access to, do not count for the purpose of computing paths and claiming the longest one."

In rules for stations it states "A Train Station allows its owner to use one, and only one, of the routes belonging to another player, into (or out of) that city to help him connect the cities on his Destination Tickets."  So stations are only used to help complete tickets and no other use.


Dungeons and Dragons Lords of Waterdeep: Which piece is the Ambassador and which the Lieutenant?

At the bottom of page 4 of the rulebook, it's indicated that the Ambassador is represented by the yellowish-white piece and the Lieutenant by the unpainted, brown, wooden piece, as shown in the image below:


What are some alternatives to using dice in Settlers of Catan?

The card system that you describe is not just a variant, it is an official expansion, Catan: Event Cards, which includes not only the rolls (in the form of the totals with the appropriate distribution) but also red dice for Cities and Knights and a selection of minor game events.


The Oracle text of Crystalline Sliver now says:

  All Slivers have shroud. (They can't be the targets of spells or abilities.)

It applies to all Slivers, not all other slivers. (Which, would be worded that way if that is what they meant.) It means precisely what the reminder text (or the cards old text) says, Sliver creatures cannot be targeted by spells or abilities that have target in the rules text. Fury Sliver still gives Slivers double strike, Muscle Sliver still grants Slivers a +1/+1 Power/Toughness bonus.

What it does prevent is Spells like Assassinate from targeting a tapped Sliver, or Slivers with activated or triggered abilities (or any other Activated or Triggered Abilities) from targeting Slivers with their abilities.


How many monster cards / what is the bonus value in the Alvin and Dexter Ticket to Ride expansion

There are 40 cards (20 for each figure) and the bonus cards are worth 15 points each.

I would strongly urge you to buy the expansion yourself though - it's not all that expensive really, Days of Wonder games always have above averagely beautiful components, and games designers need to eat too!


How does your opponent verify that you're able to cast a Companion card?

Presenting a card as your companion requires you meet the companion condition. Like every keyword in magic, there is a section of the comprehensive rules that cover the ability, and those rules are what really matter. I think what you're doing is reading the reminder text as if it were the entirety of the rules for companion (reminding that you could originally cast a companion from outside the game once, now can add it to your hand for 3 mana) Here are the sections, with my emphasis:

103.1b If a player wishes to reveal a card with a companion ability that they own from outside the game, they may do so after setting aside their sideboard. A player may reveal no more than one card this way, and may do so only if their deck fulfills the condition of that card’s companion ability. (See rule 702.138, “Companion.”)
702.138a Companion is a keyword ability that functions outside the game. It’s written as “Companion—[Condition].” Before the game begins, you may reveal one card you own from outside the game with a companion ability whose condition is fulfilled by your starting deck. (See rule 103.1b.) If you do, once during that game, you may play that card from outside the game.  Once during the game, any time you have priority and the stack is empty, but only during a main phase of your turn, you may pay {3} and put that card into your hand. This is a special action that doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116.2g). This is a change from previous rules.

These two connected rules, with one being a restating of part of the other with a different focus (one from the start of game rules section, the other from the companion section) explain how companion really works - that the deck MUST meet the companion restriction for you to reveal this card. The text in brackets on the card (the reminder text) originally told you what you can do with your companion, before the rules change, but the rules themselves say how a card can become your companion. Revealing a companion that your deck does not meet the conditions for makes it an illegal deck.
As for how you verify if a deck is legal under companion rules, this works the same way as any other deck construction rule, that is you assume the deck is legally constructed until you prove otherwise. If you see a 5th copy of any of the cards (other than the 16 that can legally have more than 4 copies of) you see the deck is illegal and act on that. So if you see a 2 drop in a deck with Keruga, the Macrosage as the companion, you know the deck rules have been violated. This is actually pretty hard to hide - You can't play that card, it can't be in your hand when you get hit with something like Thoughtseize, it can't be milled from your deck, and your opponent can't play any card that lets them look at your deck like Surgical Extraction. An invalid companion would be just as hard to hide as a 5th copy of a card to an opponent paying attention.
Any potential psychological advantage fooling your opponent about what your deck is by announcing a companion that couldn't legally be your companion really doesn't exist - now you're playing with a deck that doesn't have 60 useful cards in it, it has say 50 cards that match the restriction and 10 dead ones that show you to be cheating so you could never let your opponent see them. It's also just poor sportsmanship to try and cheat.


Do you look at the bottom card when you draw an owl as the first card in a gathering?

No, you don't do any special actions. You only do what the rules tell you to, which is to add tokens based on the number of flowers. From this version of the rules (IELLO's own link was broken):

The rules are ordered quite clearly. At the beginning of the game:

  In order to start, the youngest player flips over the first card of the Path card deck (and adds to it as many face-down Gathering tokens as there are flowers on the card). This will be the first card for Gathering. Then, this player takes the first turn of the game as explained below.

The final step for the "Stop Gathering" choice is:

  Reveal the first Path card from the deck in order to start the next player Gathering anew (add whatever Gathering tokens should be added). Now it is time for the player to your left to take her turn.

The rules for the special cards (Little Red Riding Hood and the owl) only come up within the "Continue Gathering" choice (and only if the number on the card is high enough), so you only follow them when you draw the card as a result of choosing the "Continue Gathering" action.

If cards resolved as normal at this time then you'd immediately lose your turn before you started with a wolf card, due to it having the number 0!


Doom: The Boardgame Scenario Guide for download?

I don't know a download site for this.  However, Fantasy Flight are extremely good about sending replacement components, so it may be worth just emailing their customer service and asking for one.


How would a "blocking" strategy play differently in Ticket to Ride than other strategies?

I think you have it mostly right already, and certainly it will vary based on the people involved, but in my experience the jump from players focusing on their own agenda to being more interested in disrupting their opponents means shorter tickets are better, there is likely to be a lot of hoarding up cards until someone has enough to actually pursue a route, the longest train will be shorter than in the first scenario, etcetera. In my experience if one player pursues a blocking strategy while the other tries to do their own thing, the "do my own thing" player will win more often than not. That may change when you get into higher numbers of players.


Grisly Spectacle has two parts if the first part fails does the second still happen

Yes, you can target an indestructible creature with Grisly Spectacle. If you do, the spell will try and fail to destroy the creature, and the spell will mill the creature's controller.

Be aware that you need a creature you can legally target with Grisly Spectacle in order to cast the spell, and the creature needs to still be around and legal to target in order for the mill to happen. You can't for example, Grisly Spectacle your opponents Carnage Tyrant, and if they were to use Blossoming Defense on a creature you would get neither the kill nor the mill.


From the manufacturing standpoint, a few thousand years ago it was easier to produce stones that were convex on both sides. Before the Tang dynasty, because of this, all the stones were convex on both sides (just like ishi stones).

During the Ming dynasty, crafting skills progressed and stones could be shaped with 1 flat side and 1 convex (good for stability).

Japan imported the game of Go during the Tang dynasty (at that time the stones were all convex on both sides) and since Japanese are attached to their traditions, it stayed like this until now. (Which doesn't mean that the quality is inferior, it's just to stick with the tradition.)

With the years it also became fashionable.

For some people, Japanese stones make a better sound on the board, are easier to manipulate or are just pleasing to the eye. For others, Chinese stones are more stable and can be used on both sides to make temporary moves.

source: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/265925385.html

PS: To answer your last question, the use of those stones is absolutely not in decline.


How do I activate Dauntless Cathar's ability?

In general, if a card's ability says to move it from a particular zone, then that ability can only be activated (or trigger, as the case may be) when the card is in that zone. On this particular card, part of the cost of the activated ability is "Exile Dauntless Cathar from your graveyard", so you can only activate the ability when the card is already in your graveyard.
Keep in mind that in general, activated abilities cannot be activated while the card is in your hand. Most activated abilities can only be activated while the card is on the battlefield.
The specific rule that covers this is 112.6:

112.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield. The exceptions are as follows:

[...]

112.6k An ability whose cost or effect specifies that it moves the object it’s on out of a particular zone functions only in that zone, unless that ability’s trigger condition, or a previous part of that ability’s cost or effect, specifies that the object is put into that zone. The same is true if the effect of that ability creates a delayed triggered ability whose effect moves the object out of a particular zone.


Does playing a "Double Rent" card in Monopoly Deal count against your card play total on a turn?

It counts as two cards out of your three for that turn. Taken from the FAQ monopoly-game.net:

  Q - IF I USE A ‘DOUBLE THE RENT’ CARD WITH A STANDARD RENT CARD, DOES
  THIS COUNT AS ‘PLAYING’ 2 CARDS, OR 1? A - This would count as 2 out
  of the possible 3 cards you can play per turn.

Additional sources that confirm this:

MonopolyDealRules.com on rules for Rent cards


At what stage does combat actually start?

Assuming you ask about 3rd edition rules. From rules reference:

  If a hunter is on Dracula’s current location during dawn or dusk, he
  must start a combat with Dracula.

And also:

  Dawn occurs before day, and dusk occurs before night.

So, combat with Dracula only happens between action phases, not immediately.

EDIT:
To clarify your scenarious:

Scenario 1: Other Hunters continue to do their actions for this phase, then combat occurs. Since movement normally only allowed during the Day, I assume combat would happen at Dusk, and night effects on combat cards would apply.

Scenario 2: Since it's just beginning of the Night, it means that combat at Dusk has just concluded (for described situation to arise Dracula already was in the city when Hunters moved in during the Day). So all Hunters carry on their actions. THEN it's Dracula's move, and if Dracula stays in the same city with Hunters or moves to city with another Hunter, combat at Dawn occurs.


What are some strategies to beat Rise of the Dark Realms?

So, first off, it's important to understand why Rise of the Dark Realms isn't a very powerful card in competitive one-on-one Magic: you're paying nine mana for an effect of highly variable power (since you don't always have perfect control of what's in the graveyard, especially an opponent's). It's a very slow spell that lacks most of the characteristics of a good "finisher."

That said, not every game of Magic is the same as one-on-one Constructed. So, what happens if you run into this in Commander, multiplayer, or even a "casual" duel?

Graveyards are fragile. Since the graveyard is a great zone for both cheating on costs and card selection, there are a lot of cards printed that specifically counteract graveyard strategies. Look at how cheaply you can get graveyard hate in the form of Rest in Peace or Grafdigger's Cage, for example. It's pretty easy to sneak graveyard hate into most decks, since many effective cards replace themselves (e.g. Relic of Progenitus) or do more than just attack graveyards (e.g. Rakdos Charm, Scavenging Ooze).
Nearly every strategy relying on a single powerful spell is weak to countermagic. Your opponents like to play big, powerful spells? Counter them! There are tons and tons of counterspells that can meet your needs, ranging from super-fast counters (Force of Will, Spell Pierce) to big value-generating counters (e.g. Cryptic Command, Draining Whelk) to just plain old Negate.
There are lots of spells that just kill ALL of the creatures. Magic has a lot of "sweeper" effects that can clear the whole board with one spell. A simple Wrath of God (or Damnation, or Terminus, or Rout, or Supreme Verdict, ...) will reset the board for a very minor cost.
Someone stealing your stuff? Steal it back. Someone cast Rise of the Dark Realms? Let them pass the turn and then cast that Insurrection you've been holding! Or just tap your Homeward Path and laugh.


Twilight Struggle: When are we allowed to do a Realignment Roll?

It sounds like you are reading "need not have any influence" as "must have no influence". Rather, it means "the acting player may take the action whether or not he/she has any influence in the target country."

When Ops points are used towards realignment, in a single "Realignment roll", both players roll a die and add their relevant modifiers. The winner removes the opponent's influence, if any, from the target country. So if you have no influence in the target country, you have nothing to lose, but less of a chance of affecting your opponent. You make one such "Realignment roll" per point spent, and you may target a different country with each roll (or the same country more than once).


Catan - Mixing German base game with English extensions and expansions

Per se it should be possible to mix german/english or in your case serbian/english editions. But you should have a close look which edition you're buying (also depending on which edition you already own) there are even (minor) compatibility problems inbetween english editions (this should apply on german editions too)
Also hava a look on this answer.

Besides the form factor english editions of the game have those (in my eyes ugly) white borders around their tiles. Additionally other graphics are used (in my opinion those are shrill compared to the german ones)

I hope I could help you slightly.


Does the leader get to look at the Plot cards before distribution?

I believe the leader not only looks at the plot cards, he also chooses what card to give which player.

I couldn't find a copy of the original rules online, but here is a summary of the rules. Also note the plot cards are public information once dealt to a player.


Parcheesi dice roll of double when all pawns still in nest

Depends on which rules you're using.
If you're playing with these Parker Brothers rules, you only get another turn if you used all of the double roll. If you can't use all of the roll, you don't get an extra turn.

Doubles
If a player throws doubles he has another turn and continues to have another turn as long as he throws doubles, excepting that if he cannot complete the total move on the dice he does not have another throw.

(emphasis original)
If you're playing with these Milton Bradley rules, you get another throw regardless, unless it is your third doubles in a row.

Doublets
A roll of matching dice is called doublets. [...]

If you roll doublets before all of your pawns are entered, take your turn as usual, and then roll again.
Doublets Bonus: If you roll doublets after all four of your pawns are entered, use the four numbers on the tops and bottoms of the dice for movement. [...] If you can't take all four parts of your move, don't move your pawns at all. Whether you move or not, roll again.
Doublets Penalty: The third consecutive time you roll doublets, you may not move forward. Instead, your pawn closest to HOME (even if it's on your home path) must be returned to your START circle and re-entered later. This ends your turn.


Nope.
From the rules

Nope
Stop any action except for an Exploding Kitten  or a Defuse Card.
Imagine that any card (or  Pair  or  Special Combo ) beneath a Nope
Card no longer exists

You can not nope a defuse card.


Should I shuffle the Visage tokens after an investigator gets devoured?

From page 9 of the Innsmouth Horror rulebook:

  Remember, leave visage tokens faceup after revealing them
  unless either Ghatanothoa’s face is revealed or there are
  four visage tokens faceup after revealing the new token.

So while it doesn't explicitly tell you to turn them facedown and shuffle them, I'd say it's clear enough. So yes, no freebie clue harvesting after your poor friend gets devoured!


Can we move the chair when we're playing?

No, you are not allowed to move the chair (nor the table).

According to this site:

  The players are not allowed to lift and move the chair or table to reposition themselves for strike. However, players can change their positions without moving the seat.


Which adventure should I start in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Card Game?

Paizo has actually admitted that Wrath of the Righteous ended up a little harder than intended. In particular, the B scenarios are considered by some to be harder than the #1 scenarios.
Fortunately, this is addressed in the FAQ:

Resolution: Make one or both of these changes only if you're looking for an easier time with Wrath B scenarios:
On the B and C henchman Tangle Trap, add the line "If defeated, you may immediately attempt to close the location this henchman came from."
Move some or all of the following cards from Set B and/or C to Set 1, and change their set indicators to 1: the barrier Arboreal Blight (B & C), the monster Carrion Golem (B & C), and 1 of the Demonic Horde barriers in B and/or the Demonic Horde barrier currently in C. Then move some or all of the following cards from Set 1 to Set B, and change their set indicators to B: the monster Accursed Priest and the barrier Poisoned Spiked Pit Trap.


do all players win star realms pirates co-op

By the nature of it being a co-op then everybody wins.  I can't anything specific in those rules to say an eliminated player doesn't win so I wouldn't rule that just those surviving are winners.  It seems very against the spirit of a co-op game to try and claim you won solo unless thats specifically in the rules such as Archipelago where everyone wins/loses and if players win there is a 'grand winner' amongst them.


Boggle Rules - Two same letters to make a word

I can find nothing in the official rules, nor in the Wikipedia article, that disallows using the same letter on different cubes. In fact, the Wikipedia article names some of the longest possible Boggle words and they include multiples of the same letter which would be impossible if that were the case.

It is definitely true that you cannot use the same cube more than once in a given word, nor can you spell the same word twice using different cubes. Where did you learn this rule - is it an official online implementation, or from someone telling you the rules, or elsewhere? It's likely that someone misinterpreted the rules, or was playing some kind of variant or house rule.


What happens if Merfolk Trickster taps Emmara?

You will still get the token.

Merfolk Trickster's ability does 2 different things, one after the other. Emmara's ability will trigger when the first one happens (tap target creature).

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

So at that moment, the ability has triggered (but it is not on the stack yet). Then, immediately after, Emmara loses all abilities.

Next time a player gets priority, the triggered ability goes on the stack:

  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.

This ability is not tied to Emmara at all; so it doesn't matter that Emmara doesn't have the ability anymore:

  112.7a Once activated or triggered, an ability exists on the stack independently of its source. Destruction or removal of the source after that time won’t affect the ability.


Can I sacrifice a creature that is only temporarily under my control?

Yup.

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

(Emphasis mine.)


Missed! symbol cards against Slab the Killer

You can play any card with the Missed! symbol against Slab the Killer, however you will need a total of 2 of them in order to miss. What the means is if you only have one card that you can play and it lets you draw card after you use it, you can play the card, draw your card and if it provide you with a second Missed! symbol you can then play it and miss the shot. If you do not get another card that lets you miss you will still take the hit even though you played one miss card.


This is correct.  Tiles are normally placed during the exploration phase.  I haven't found a time when they are placed any other time.

With this scenario, the first turn is, basically, "skip your hero phase", then explore, battle monsters and possibly deal with an encounter.


You turn the card over after using it.

While this isn't explicitly covered in the main rules, there's an example of play at the end of the rules that clarifies the issue. In the example, Gollum and Orcs are used for bonus gems, and then turned over.

The German rules can be found here, and have the example "Beispeil" on page 7. It ends with:

  „Gollum“ und „Orks“ werden umgedreht. ("Gollum" and "Orks" are turned around.")

This is also in the unofficial English rules translation.


When would you buy the Thief in Dominion?

Thief is a specialty card. It improves a lot with the number of players. That and opponent treasure-density are the big factors in deciding if you want a Thief. Almost never buy a Thief in a 2-player game, but there is potential in a 4-player game. (Though honestly, even then it's still rare to be useful.)

There are 2 major drawbacks and one minor drawback to thieving:

It can help your opponents by trashing copper.
The benefit to you is slow: you won't see stolen treasure until after a re-shuffle.
Cycling your opponents deck speeds up their shuffles, thus how soon they can use just-gained cards.*

Thief is a mid-game card, but due to the copper-trashing it's actually bad in the early-game. This is unusual, it's about the only card that can do nothing for you while helping your opponents. You must wait until other players have trashed most of their coppers to get a Thief. However, if you wait too long, your odds of hitting a treasure in a greened deck get slimmer (though stealing a Gold late in the game can make it hard for your opponent to get the last Provinces.) Furthermore, late in the game you might not get a chance to see any of the treasure you steal.

You don't want a Thief unless people have high treasure density: both trashed their copper already and started getting bigger Gold/Platinum. I don't really think it's worth it if Silver is the best you'll get. You also don't want a Thief if people are using action cards for money. Markets, Minions, Conspirator chains, etc. -- forget the Thief.

There's obvious synergy with cards that let you control the top of your opponents' decks (e.g. Spy/Scrying Pool). They can make a Thief much more effective. Additional treasures are also cards that could make you want a Thief. It's great to steal a Harem toward the end of the game, and Venture, Bank, etc. are nice additional targets.

We should compare Thief to Noble Brigand, which has been called in some forums a "fixed version of Thief". This isn't accurate; both cards were designed before the base set was released, they're similar but different, much like Laboratory and Hunting Party, or the different varieties of Village. Thief can steal/trash Platinum, Harem, Hoard, Fool's Gold, and all the other non-standard treasure, whereas Noble Brigand can only steal Silver/Gold. If someone is trashing coppers and buying Hoards, it might be time for a Thief. Mint/Fool's Gold is an excellent 5/2 opening, but a Thief could put a stopper on that. However, for general use Noble Brigand is better because it doesn't suffer from Thief's biggest drawback: trashing Coppers; it actually does the opposite, giving coppers if no treasure is revealed, which is nice for slowing engines.  And it gives you $1. And it activates on purchase. (I do wish Thief had some of those buffs. Even with the $1 and the instant activation it would still seem underpowered.)

If I were to pick a set of Kingdom Cards to make Thief as good as possible, I would want it to be a long game, so the Thief has time to steal and see the rewards, so it would definitely have Platinum/Colony, and probably a Curser (maybe Sea Hag?) to keep things slow. There has to be a trasher or 2 to get rid of coppers, but nothing too effective--again, keeping things slow. Moneylender would encourage trashing of Copper while allowing players to skip Silver and go straight to Gold. Spy is also a good enabler.  But we also want to be stealing interesting treasures! Thrown in some of the nice Kingdom treasures like Venture, Bank, Harem, and things start to look good. Maybe throw in Silk Road to make the Harems extra tempting.

*@Neal pointed out that it goes through opponent's decks, and thus they might miss a card they wanted. Going through someone's deck is usually seen as a con, because for most of the game they're buying cards that make their deck better, so reshuffling sooner gets those new cards in their hand sooner. I would consider this a con for Thief.


When using Talix's power in a two player game, do you return one or both cards to the turn deck?

As far as I know, there is no official answer on this, nonetheless, it's the last turn order card, as in, the active one. You've got a similar ability with Lash, he only gets one card. If you're playing a 3 player game, and got the wildcard to trigger your turn, I'd say you must put this one in the turn order, with no forced play on draw.


What Are The Key Features Of The "Fantunes" Bidding System?

Similar to MICS, all opening 2 bids are intermediate/preemptive.

2C = 10-16 4441, 4450 or 4432
2D = 14-16 5+,4+ in Minors
2H = 10-16 5+ Hearts and 4+ in Clubs
2S = 10-16 5+ Spades and 4+ Clubs
2NT = 10-13 5+,5+ in Minors
1NT = 13+ thru 16-


How would one model an Ork Warboss with a Kombi-Skorcha?

Since there are no pre-made "Ork Warboss Arm with Kombi-Skorcha" bits, I have decided to do a conversion myself. I will outline the steps I have taken below.

Cut both the Ork Warboss Arm with the Kombi-Rokkit Launcha and a Kombi-Skorcha for Ork Nobs from the sprue and remove any excess plastic and mold lines.
Cut off the front of the Rokkit Launcha, so that the magazine still remains. This way, you can prevent accidental damage to the Warboss Arm.
Cut off the right arm of the Ork nob, so that the hand is still attached to the grip of the Kombi-Skorcha.
Remove parts of the right hand, bit by bit, until only the index finger remains (until about to the knuckle), and the bottom tank of the Skorcha (below the hand). It's recommended to use a small saw to cut through the hand once thin enough, then use the hobby knife to remove the remains of the hand bit by bit.
On the side of the Warboss Arm, remove the remains of the Kombi-Rokkit Launcha bit by bit, until only the hand and the stock above the hand remains.
Cut away the part in front of the "bow" in the stock. It's best to hold the Skorcha in front of the Rokkit Launcha, to ensure not too much is cut away.
Cut part of the Warboss' index finger away. This will be replaced by the index finger still attached to the Kombi-Skorcha.
In order to put the index finger into the proper place, either part of the bottom of the Kombi-Skorcha's stock need to be cut out, or part of the hand of the Warboss need to be removed to create a "slot" in which the weapon slides into. Do either one of these things. I decided to cut part of the hand out.
Once everything is in place, the top of the Skorcha should be a little bit below the old shoulder stock of the Kombi-Rokkit-Launcher. You can either leave it like this to create a "thrown-together-from-parts"-look, sand down the stock or add some greenstuff for a better transition between the shoulder stock and the rest of the gun.
The tank down below will be a little too high to fit below the hand of the Warboss. Carefully bend the plastic down a little bit, so that the tank fits below the hand.
Glue the new Skorcha to the hand and ensure that the stock aligns with the barrel (unless you want the weapon to look slightly bent). Give the glue about an hour to dry enough.
Once the glue is dry, glue the bottom tank to the hand. You can either leave the old grip there and attach the tank to that, or cut the old grip away and attach the tank directly to the bottom of the tank.
Once everything has dried, you can begin to remove the remains of the left Nob hand, still holding the front of the Skorcha. To do this, you can either use a hobby knife to cut the hand away layer by layer, or use a rotary tool to sand the remains away.
Optionally, you can attach some leftover bits from other models (spikes, glyphs, etc.) to cover up the remains of the hand. Such bits can also be bought individually, for several cents per piece.

It should be advised that these instructions worked for me, they don't necessarily need to work for you. It depends on the standards that you set for your models. For example, the index finger looks a bit off, since the angle at which a Nob holds their weapon is different than the angle at which a Warboss holds their weapon. If it must absolutely be perfect, please be prepared to add some greenstuff to relevant parts to ensure the models match your expectations.

Here are some pictures, showing the final result:


What army are these Warhammer 40K Robots from?

These are from the bygone days of Rouge Trader, when you could field Imperial Robots.  GW's fluff and art direction where less mature at this point and you got lots of random stuff like this.

Fluff wise the technology has been lost and/or declared heresy by the Imperium for millennium. But Forge World brought them back.


Is it legal to use poetry elements/sound devices as hints like "alliteration 3", "assonance 3", and "rhyme 3" in Codenames?

The rule is that clues must be about the meaning of the word. Alliteration, assonance, consonance, and rhyme are all about the construction and pronunciation of the word, and have nothing to do with the meaning of the word, they would very much fall under the quoted rule and be illegal clues.


Sent from one Other World to another. Another encounter in the same turn?

Your character moves to the Dreamlands, no further encounter that turn.

As the card says "Move to the Dreamlands" the character is not delayed.  If it had said something like "A Gate Opens and pulls you to the Dreamlands" then the character would have been delayed.


How does trample interact with damage prevention effects and indestructible blockers?

Damage assignment ignores damage prevention and damage-modifying effects. Just look at toughness, previous damage marked, and deathtouch to figure out how to allocate trample damage (or damage in a group block).

Here's the most relevant bit of comp rules:

  510.1c ... When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures
  that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any
  abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s
  actually dealt.

In other words, you only have to assign damage that would be lethal -- based on the creature's toughness adjusted for any damage already marked on it, or 1 point of deathtouch damage -- without adjusting for other game rules like damage prevention, damage multipliers, or indestructibility. So my 4/4 can trample right over your Fog Bank as if it were any other 0/2; the Wall just won't die in the process.

As a side note, since there seems to be a bit of confusion about this in the question: protection is a damage prevention effect. So don't go blocking any Excruciators with your Kor Firewalker if you want him to live.


If I activate the effect of Hand Destruction but I send Kidmodo Dragon to the graveyard, can I activate Kidmodo Dragon's effect?

No you can't.
when you activate a card, you must resolve it's entire effect (or the entire chain if that is the case) before new effects can start activating. (In this case Kidmodo Dragon and Red-eyes will be sent to the grave simultaneously.
So here Kidmodo Dragon's effect will start a new chain after hand destruction has completely resolved.
If at that point you have drawn a new dragon type, you could summon that monster with its effect.


Games to learn a foreign language or to enrich your vocabulary in your native language?

In a Pickle (English). For up to six players.

  Can a giraffe fit in a phone booth? Does a sofa fit in a shopping cart? It all depends on how you size it up in this game of creative thinking and outrageous scenarios. Try to win a set of cards by fitting smaller things into bigger things — there's some juice in a pickle, in a supermarket, in a parking lot. Play the fourth word card to claim the set, unless one of your opponents can trump with a larger word. The player with the most sets at the end is the big winner! Includes 300 cards and instructions.

I can tell from personal experience that the game is quite fun, for native and non-native speakers alike. It encourages thinking outside the box, re-interpreting words and defending your interpretation. Someone puts a president in a jam, but then someone else puts that jam in a glass. Or someone plays the card with the word "universe", thinking that no one can beat that, but then the next person plays the card with the word "dictionary" and wins the set (after all, "universe" is a word in a dictionary).


When tunnelling, what happens when the cards drawn do not match those played?

If none of the drawn cards match the colour of the cards you chose to play, then you are in luck - the tunnel does not cost any additional cards. To put it another way, the tunnel costs 0 additional cards. This case isn't explicitly discussed in the rules, but I think it's quite clear.

  When attempting to claim a Tunnel route, a player first lays down the number of cards required by the length of the route. Then the three top cards from the Train draw pile are turned face-up. For each card revealed whose colour matches the colour of the cards played to claim the Tunnel, an additional card of the same colour (or a Locomotive) must now be played from his hand. Only then can the player successfully claim the Tunnel route.


Can a creature with summoning sickness be targeted?

Yes you can target a creature with Summoning Sickness. Summoning Sickness only prevents creatures that you haven't controlled since the start of your turn from attacking or using activated abilities with {T} (Tap) or {Q} (Untap) in their activation cost.

  *Summoning Sickness Rule *

  Informal term for a player’s inability to attack with a creature or to activate its abilities that include the tap symbol or the untap symbol unless the creature has been under that player’s control since the beginning of that player’s most recent turn. See rule 302.6. See also Haste.

  302.6. A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. A creature can’t attack unless it has been under its controller’s control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the “summoning sickness” rule.

  107.6. The untap symbol is {Q}. The untap symbol in an activation cost means “Untap this permanent.” A permanent that’s already untapped can’t be untapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability with the untap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.


Rule book: http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/Risk_2003.pdf
The 5 Territories Mission
There are three possible interpretations:

The player needs to have conquered all of the territories this turn.  This has the problem that a player who controls two or more continents cannot fulfill this mission.  I believe the rules do not support this interpretation.

The player can have conquered the territories at any point in the past and that's it.  This has the problem that a player who has fulfilled this condition at any point can claim this mission at any later point.  This has tenuous rules support.

The player can have conquered the territories at any point, but must still control them to claim the mission.  I believe this is the correct reading, but my argument for this over option 2 is weak.

This mission does not specify that the conquering all needs to be done in a turn.  It simply means you have to have conquered a territory on each of five continents at some point already.  It does seems like a bit much bookkeeping to me, but that's how the rules and cards read.
Here are the relevant rules:

Page 12: You win the invasion when you defeat the last defending unit from a territory.  You have now conquered this territory.   Take the units used to win the battle and move them from the battleground into the territory you have invaded.
Page 17: You may claim a mission once you have achieved what it says on the card.  But you cannot claim more than one mission a turn.

At the very minimum, we can conclude that you can claim a mission even if didn't take all of the actions required to complete it this turn.  This must be true, or else the mission "Control Europe - play at the start of your turn" would be impossible (as this is a mission where you need to have taken the actions to bring you to the state where you controlled Europe on a previous turn).
Given this mission does not specify whether the conquering needs to have happened this turn, then the conquering certainly could have happened in the past.  This rules out interpretation 1.
The question then is whether your status of having conquered a territory is an indelible event in history (interpretation 2), or if it's tied to the current game state (interpretation 3).
I prefer interpretation 3, so I'm going to try to create a rules justification for it, but I admit that this is a bit of a stretch.  The justification for this is a nuanced reading of the term conquer.  The rules for conquer require you to move units into the territory, so I argue that if you no longer have units in the territory, you lose your status as its conqueror.  If this is true, this mission says "conquer" and not "control" to prevent players from being credited with territories they claimed during initial setup (which are "claimed" and not "conquered").

The Continents Mission

Page 8: If you control every territory within a continent, you control that continent.

and

Page 7: territories you control [are] the territories with your units in them

Note that this is a deviation from classic risk which has the following:

To control a continent, you must occupy all of its territories at the start of your turn

In the rules supplied with mission risk, you may conquer the continents that turn and still have that count towards the mission.  In fact, it should be obvious from the fact that you claim that mission at the end of your turn that you can have conquered the third continent on the same turn.


Clarification about Azurite Channeler in Ascension: Deliverance

The way cards like that work in general is you place the card where the banished card came from. An example of this is Guide of Lost Souls from Dawn of Champions

  You may banish a card in your hand or discard pile. If you do, replace it with a Mystic or Heavy Infantry

When using this card in the iOS app the replacement card goes into your hand if the banished card came from your hand or into your discard if the card came from there. While most other cards specify placing them in your hand I think the replacement text means to put the new card in the same place as the other one came from.

I am unable to find anything in the rules or faq in regard to this but I can confirm this is how the iOS app treats the action.


Scoring Attractions in Ticket to Ride: New York

The rules say

  Finally, each player scores one point for each
  Tourist Attraction that is connected to one or more
  of the Routes they claimed.

In your example, there are three Tourist Attractions connected to at least one your routes, so you get three points from Tourist Attractions.


How to solve Free Cell games fast? (in under 2 min)

My best time in Expert in FreeCell in Microsoft's Solitaire Collection is 1:04.

I think I obtained that time in one of the "Daily Challenges", so it may not have been a "real game". That said, I have reached close to that time on other occasions. In fact, while trying to obtain a screenshot of the score screen to include in this post, I believe I have gotten my second best time ever.

(I play all games to completion now, but I abandoned some games early on. My goal is to get the win rate to 99%, which requires playing another 2692 games.)

Rather than spending time pondering my next move, I prefer to experiment and use Undo with impunity. Undo can be performed rapidly by pressing Ctrl-Z. (Holding allows to quickly undo multiple moves, and even reset the board.)

Additionally, the discovery of "Single Tap To Move" option has greatly sped up my game significantly (although my best time was made without it this setting off).

With this option, I regularly get times around 2:00, which I would have considered exceptionally good before.

As for my actual strategy? I really wouldn't know how to describe it.


What's the probability of having a combo on the first turn in MTG?

You can do this calculation using the multivariate hypergeometric distribution. The setup is as follows:
The deck of 60 cards consists of: 4 cards of type A, 4 cards of type B, 4 cards of type C, 4 cards of type D, and 44 cards of type E (other).

Your criteria are that a hand of 7 cards contains at least 1 card of type A, at least 1 card of type B, at least 1 card of type C, and at least 1 card of type D.

For a given hand arrangement, you can calculate the probability using the formulas in the link. As an example, the probability of the hand (1 card of type A, 1 card of type B, 1 card of type C, 2 cards of type D, and 2 cards of type E) is:

(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 2) * (44 choose 2) / (60 choose 7) = ~0.000941.

Note that this probability is for this specific hand, and there are many that meet your requirements. You will want to make a table of all realizable hands and sum up the probabilities. (or alternatively a table of all hands that don't meet the criterion, and subtract the sum from 1).

=== table of realizable hands ===

1,1,1,1 of (A, B, C, D), 3 of other

(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (44 choose 3) / (60 choose 7) = ~0.00879

1,1,1,2 of (A, B, C, D), 2 of other [4 variants]

4 * [(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 2) * (44 choose 2) / (60 choose 7)] = ~0.00376

1,1,2,2 of (A, B, C, D), 1 of other [6 variants]

6 * [(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 2) * (4 choose 2) * (44 choose 1) / (60 choose 7)] = ~0.000394

1,2,2,2 of (A, B, C, D), 0 of other [4 variants]

4 * [(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 2) * (4 choose 2) * (4 choose 2) / (60 choose 7)] = ~0.00000895

1,1,1,3 of (A, B, C, D), 1 of other [4 variants]

4 * [(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 3) * (44 choose 1) / (60 choose 7)] = ~0.000117

1,1,2,3 of (A, B, C, D), 0 of other [12 variants]
12 * [(4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 2) * (4 choose 3) / (60 choose 7)] = ~0.0000119

Total Sum of above = ~0.01307


Where does the phrase "MTG is not a game about reflexes" come from?

When people say "Magic is not a game about reflexes", they mean that you never have to react quickly to anything in the game. Beginners have frequent misunderstandings of the rules such has "Whoever announces that they're casting a spell first gets to have it resolve first.", which is incorrect because spells and abilities use the stack, and there is a turn-based priority system to ensure that only one player has the opportunity to take action at any one time. Similarly, people commonly believe some variation of "If you don't respond within five seconds, the spell resolves unopposed", which is simply incorrect: you have as much time as you need to respond to anything.

Brandon Burton has cerebral palsy. Brandon has competed at Worlds and the Pro Tour (two of the highest levels of competition in Magic). That goes to show that dexterity and reflexes are not a requirement to play competitively.


How do encounter card vampires work in combat?

From 3rd edition rules reference:

  Vampire Encounters

  Combat with a vampire can be initiated from
  Dracula’s “New Vampire” and “Reckless Vampire” encounter cards. The
  rules in this section apply only to vampire encounters; when the word
  “Dracula” is used, it is referring to the Dracula player.

  † If a hunter either resolves a search action or is ambushed in a hideout or
  lair and an encounter card is revealed that reads, “fight this
  vampire,” a combat occurs.

  † Combat against vampires uses the same
  rules as combat against Dracula with the following exceptions:

  “New Vampire” and “Reckless Vampire” encounter cards have their own health
  values. When one of these vampires suffers damage, it is tracked on
  the card using damage tokens. If a vampire has a number of damage
  tokens on its card equal to or greater than its health value, that
  vampire is defeated.
  When a vampire is defeated, its encounter card
  is discarded. If combat ends without the vampire being defeated, the
  damage it suffered remains on the card.

  † If Dracula plays “Escape as
  Mist” or “Escape as Bat” before he has played a number of combat cards
  greater than the number of despair tokens on the time track, the card
  is canceled.

  If Dracula resolves “Escape as Bat,” combat ends, but
  neither Dracula nor the vampire are moved from their current
  locations.

To summarise: combat is played out almost exactly the same, except fledgeling vampire tracks their own health and escape cards don't move it.

Also, if a combat ends and vampire wasn't defeated, it stays in location (retaining damage), and if revealed vampire reaches end of the Trail, it still can trigger its matured effect.


What is the exact size of all the Warhammer 40k bases?

These are the supported base sizes in 40K

Standard Infantry - 25mm round
Large Infantry - 40mm round
Monsters - 60mm round
Flyer - 90x120mm oval
Bike Bases - 25x70mm oval
Clear flight stands small - 30mm round
Clear flight stands large - 60mm round

For Fantasy:

Standard Infantry - 20mm square
Large Infantry - 25mm square
Monsters - 40mm square
Cavalry - 25x50mm rectangle


If the president in Secret Hitler believes the law passed to have been a force will the call of cards matter?

You are forgetting a key point. Lets say that the president passed 1 liberal and 1 fascist card there is still information to be gained. This revolves around the answers not only to this question but to previous ones as well.
Liberal president - fascist chancellor: Actual draw was 1 liberal, 1 fascist and one other and the pass was done to expose the chancellor as a fascist. In this case the president can use the fact that a choice was present to out the chancellor. However this can also be used by the chancellor to try and discredit the president and it all depends on how well you are keeping track of cards. It could also lead to people believing that both are fascist and the pass was done to get a fail rather than out one player.
Fascist chancellor - liberal president: 1 liberal, 2 fascist and passes both fascists. Learning the makeup of the cards (even if a lie is told) could help reveal the lies such as near the end of a cycle finding out that there are to many fascists cards drawn and that someone lied.
While it might not provide a lot of information it will still provide information and the act of not asking that question also provides information.


Exchanging control of creatures that have since left the battlefield

No, per the Gatherer Ruling:

  If one of the target creatures is an illegal target when Switcheroo resolves, the exchange won't happen. If both creatures are illegal targets, Switcheroo will be countered.

This is because in order to preform an exchange there must actually be something to exchange, you aren't allowed to exchange something for nothing.

  701.8a A spell or ability may instruct players to exchange something (for example, life totals or control of two permanents) as part of its resolution. When such a spell or ability resolves, if the entire exchange can’t be completed, no part of the exchange occurs.


Scrabble variation: use double and triple word scores (but not double/triple letter scores) twice?

I searched Changes to the Box Top Rules, 1949 - 1999 and found the following clarification was made in 1953:

  1953: If a word is formed that covers two premium WORD squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times letter count), or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times letter count) as the case may be.

Nowhere in the rules was there any mention of being able to use the same premium square twice.

The Diamond Anniversary Edition rules includes some interesting variations, but does not mention your scoring rules.

Personally, I would find your scoring variation confusing and prone to error, since Scrabble tiles are not transparent, and therefore a novice may have trouble realizing that they are reusing a premium word square.


When casting a spell, how can a mana ability be paid with another mana ability?

It used to be possible to do this by activating the Elf's filter ability during the process of activating the same ability, taking advantage of the fact that one of the steps of  casting a spell or activating an ability is rule 601.2g:

  If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities (see rule 605, “Mana Abilities”). Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.

But the rule 605.3c introduced in Eldritch Mood explicitly forbids the specific sequence in the question:

  Once a player begins to activate a mana ability, that ability can’t be activated again until it has resolved.

However, it is still possible to do essentially the same thing in a variant scenario where a single creature has two separate instances of the Skyshroud Elf's ability. For example, if you control Ashnod's Altar and Necrotic Ooze, and your graveyard has two copies of Skyshroud Elf in it, then you can accomplish the same thing by doing this:

Activate the Ooze's first filter ability. When you get to step 601.2g of the activation process, do the following:

Activate the Ooze's second filter ability. When you get to step 601.2g of this ability's activation process, do the following:

Activate Ashnod's Altar's ability by sacrificing the Ooze. Now you have {C}{C} in your mana pool.

Pay for the second filter ability with {C} and let the ability resolve, adding {W} or {R} to your mana pool. Now you have {C} and {W} or {R} in your mana pool.

Pay for the original filter ability with {C} and let the ability resolve to add another {W} or {R} to your mana pool.

By doing this, you end up with two mana in any combination of {W} and {R} to your mana pool.


Does a flush beat a straight in three-card poker?

No, it doesn't beat it.

Unlike 'normal' Poker, where a flush does beat it, a straight is much less likely with three cards and is ranked higher as a result.

The order of probability (least likely first) is:

Straight flush
Three of a kind
Straight
Flush
Pair


Can a Thallid create saprolings at end of combat phase and still kill attacker

You are not able to assign 10 points of damage and create the saprolings.

During the combat damage step, no player receives priority so there is no chance to activate Thallid's ability in between damage being assigned and the creatures being moved to their respective graveyards.

To break it down step by step.

Your opponent's 10/10 trample is attacking, and you assign a 10/10 Thallid as a blocker.
Combat Damage Step starts, Your opponent announces his creature will assign 10 damage to your Thallid. You announces that the blocking Thallid will deal 10 damage to his creature(510.1).
Combat damage is dealt as per 510.2 (emphasis mine):

  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.

State-based actions see that both creatures have damage marked on them equal to their toughness, so both creatures are destroyed.
After the creatures have been moved to the graveyard the active player (Your Opponent) will get priority. Once they pass priority, you may now cast spells and activate abilities, however you can see that Thallid is now in your graveyard so you may not create the Saprolings.

So, gameplay-wise for your specific example, you have two choices:

After you declare the 10/10 Thallid as a blocker (or anytime before I suppose) you activate Thallid's ability, removing 9 counters and creating 3 Saporlings. Your opponent's Creature will now be trampling over your (now) 1/1 Thallid.
Results: You will take 9 damage, your Thallid will die, your opponent's creature will survive, and you will have 3 fresh Saporlings.
After you declare the 10/10 Thallid as a blocker you do nothing.
Results: Both creatures will die, you will have no loss of life, you get no Saporlings.


You cannot dig unless you have at least 1 point of specialized knowledge in that region. From the rules, page 5:

  If the player fulfills the requisites below, he can execute an excavation.

  The minimum requirement

    • The player has a valid excavation permission for the area.

    • The player has at least 1 point of specialized knowledge for the excavation area, either from a researcher card or found item.


In my turn, can I just take an "accessible" card into my hand and not play it yet?

No, you may not keep the card for later use.
The rules say

On your turn, you must choose an “accessible” card in the card
structure and play it. An accessible card is a card which isn’t
partially covered by other cards.
You can play the card you’ve chosen in one of three different ways: •

Construct the Building • 2. Discard the card to obtain coins • 3. Construct a Wonder

There is nothing in the rules about keeping cards to play later.  You make an immediate choice from the 3 options listed.


Does drawing a card in the draw phase use the stack, and related Laboratory Maniac shenanigans

I wrote the question, and in the course of writing the question, I figured out the answer.  So, here's my stab at the answer.

S1)  Drawing during the Draw Phase does not use the stack, so you cannot win in this situation.  You must kill the Maniac before the draw phase, but with no maniac on the table, Abundance will keep them from losing the game.

This is covered in rule 504:

  Draw Step

  504.1. First, the active player draws a card. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.

S2) Abundance is a replacement effect, so the decision about whether or not to use the abundance is made at the time of the draw.  Thus, if you kill the Maniac at anytime before Nin's draw occurs, your opponent can just chose to use abundance, to avoid losing the game.


It sounds like you have yourself a Rummikub set, but with the blue and yellow sets missing their 12s and 13s. The indented circles are there mainly for the benefit of distinguishing the 6 and the 9 from each other. The racks are used for resting your unplayed tiles on - played tiles are placed on the table between the players.

The components of Rummikub

Numbered tiles coming in four colours: generally red, black, blue and yellow.
Each colour has two sets of tiles numbered from 1 to 13.
Two jokers. Normally these are black and red, and represented by a smiling face.
Four racks, since it's a game for up to four players.

All in all, you should have 106 tiles: 104 numbered, and two jokers.

That said, if you do have 104 tiles, you should only be missing two tiles, not eight! Have you counted correctly? Try laying them out and checking.


What is the most effective creature that can be resurrected from the graveyard in MTG?

The common name for this type of deck is 'Reanimator.' So a google for 'Legacy Reanimator' will get you what's popular for specific cards in the current metagame and from up to date sets.  I say that not to try to answer 'just google it' but that lists of cards can go out of date fast, so they're not great stack exchange answers.  Also the knowledge that the deck name to search for is 'Reanimator' is important :)

To try to make it an answer about the strategy/archetype more than a list that will go out of date with each new set:

1) Creatures with Shroud or Hexproof.  May be obvious but a lot of new players don't realize Shroud only functions on the battlefield and only applies to spells that say 'target.'  Creatures with Shroud are excellent entomb + exhume choices.

2) Creatures with an enters the battlefield effect that was at least a decent return on your mana even if they do get doombladed.  e.g., Bogardan Hellkite, Terastodon

3) Creatures that shut down your opponent's answers.  Iona, Shield of Emeria is the obvious go-to, but depending on your meta-game there can be more specific options.

4) Creatures that shut down your opponent's deck period.  Stormtide Leviathan doesn't have shroud, but lots of aggroy decks are counting on burn spells if they need to get rid of early creatures.  Even the Rubin Zoo variants usually only have 4 paths/swords so you've got ok odds game 1 when they don't know to mull aggressively for it.

5) Meta game choices.  You know your buddy is playing Stax?  How's he feel about Symbiotic Wurm turn 2?  Since you only need 1-ofs, you can have plenty of meta choices main deck.


Do supply limits apply when resolving march orders?

Yes, supply limits apply. From the rules, page 8:

  A player is never allowed to take any action in the game that would cause him to exceed his actual supply limit as dictated by his position on the Supply track (such as mustering, marching or retreating, all explained later).


In Arkham Horror, do 'leftover' successes after triggering a doom token removal still count?

Yes, left over success rolls do carry over, but the number of success required depend on the GOO that you are facing and the number of players. Also, if the GOO awakens, you always fill up the doom track if it wasn't already full.

The following is quote from the FAQ which you can find on the FFG Arkham Horror website:

  To defeat the Ancient One, the players must do a total number of
  successes equal to the number of players multiplied by the number of
  doom tokens on the Ancient One. So, if 4 players are facing Yig (doom
  track of 10), they need 40 successes to win. For every 4 successes
  they do, they remove 1 doom token to track their progress. If the 12
  investigators get 9 successes in the first round of combat, they would
  remove 2 doom tokens, and 1 success would carry over to the next round
  of combat.


When retreating from a compromised territory should you always leave one infantry?

In answer to your subquestion of "why does it make sense to leave one infantry in a territory you're retreating from?"

The core of the analysis around this hinges on the assumption that you will be trading back and forth over the contested territory with small numbers of units- that you have a large, constantly growing stack in A, your opponent has a large, constantly growing stack in C, and you keep trading off B between the two territories with as small stacks as you can manage. Each player has a steady supply chain providing new troops from the factory. The reason why you do this is because if you move your large stack into the territory, it will be missing the current turn's set of reinforcements, and be unable to use your planes for defense, and your opponent can attack with their whole stack and use all their planes for offense. This is the whole idea of Dead Zones. You want to control them because they're worth IPCs, but with as few units as possible because those units will be destroyed by a counterattack next turn.

So why leave a lone infantry there? Because if it's empty, your opponent can take it with the bare minimum of units, and their planes are free to attack elsewhere. If it isn't, they are forced to commit some of their planes to it, and it's economically in their interest to send 2 infantry. Even if that is a good trade for him (you will lose your 1 infantry for only a 33% chance of killing one of his) the next turn, you will be able to kill both his infantry, an even better trade for you!

So then what about the title question: Should you always leave one infantry?

No. Almost always, but not always. If your opponent will move in with his whole stack next turn (because it's big enough that yours is no longer a threat) the lone infantry is no longer economically in your favor. You will be trading an infantry for a 33% chance to kill an infantry, which is not effective. You might still do it to prevent a blitz but it's no longer automatically good.

Also, if the territory is only worth 1IPC. Generally, the territories you have these big-stack standoffs over are worth more than 1, so this doesn't come up. For a 1IPC territory, it no longer makes your opponent want to send in 2 infantry. The expected value for him attacking your lone infantry with 1 infantry + 1 fighter will be approximately 7/6, while the value he'll get from just waltzing into the territory uncontested will be 6/6. You might still do it to block a blitz or just to force the opportunity cost of him using his planes. But if he has more planes than he knows what to do with and no blitz threat, you wouldn't want leave the guy there.


From the rules:

  Share Knowledge Sometimes it’s hard
  for one player to get the cards
  necessary to discover a cure. The Share
  Knowledge action (while difficult to
  perform) can be useful in these cases.
  Transfer a card from one player to
  another. Every card transferred costs
  1 action. Both your pawn and your
  fellow player’s pawn must be in the
  same city, and you may only transfer
  the card of the city that you are in
  together. (For example, if you are
  together in Moscow, only the Moscow
  card may be transferred from one
  player to the other.) If either player
  holds more than 7 cards as the result
  of a transfer, the excess cards must
  be immediately discarded to the Player
  Discard Pile.

Special for the Researcher:

  The Researcher may give a
  fellow player any card from his hand
  when involved in a Share Knowledge
  action. He is not restricted to giving
  the card of the current
  jointly-occupied city, like other
  players are. is freedom only applies
  when the Researcher is giving a
  card—he always receives a card with
  the same restriction as other players.
  e Researcher can utilize this ability
  when involved in Share Knowledge
  actions on any player’s turn.

It does NOT matter what player's turn it is. Either play can initiate the transfer and either give or take a card from the other player. The Researcher only gets to use his special ability of transferring any card when the card is being transferred from the Researcher to another player. In order to transfer a card from another player to the Researcher, they must be in the same city as depicted on the card being transferred.

This will make the game a fair bit easier as you don't have to wait for the right players turn to transfer cards. You could play the other way if you wanted a bit more difficulty with 2 or 3 players, but playing it with 4 can be almost as bad as adding another epidemic card. :D


Do Mox Opal + Arcbound Ravager + Scrap Trawler make an infinite combo?

Mox Opal has a listed CMC on the gatherer page of 0.  So, since 0 is not less than 0, you cannot take Mox Opal back from sacrificing it.


If you are fourth seat after a third seat raise, can you make a takeout double with "intermediate" values?

This is a matter of partnership agreement!

The disadvantage of agreeing that you can jump in with 11hcp and a singleton is that opener could have a quite strong hand, and doubling gives opener the option of passing with it.  This gives opponents the option of doubling your partner, and they also gain information that is useful in the play.  Another disadvantage is that your partner knows less about your hand when you double.  (This is particularly disadvantageous when opener re-raises to 3 (note most experienced partnerships will play this as a minimum LOTT bid after the double, since they have a redouble/2N as well as help-suit/strong-suit/short-suit tries to invite with) and partner needs to decide whether to compete further.)

The advantage of agreeing that you can balance with 11hcp and a singleton is that, when you pass and opener passes, your partner now has less pressure to reopen with a marginal hand, because they know more about how unsuitable for competition your hand is.  Also, you have a slightly better chance in finding those 22hcp distributional games in the other major.  Agreeing to double weaker helps you find the game with the 11-11 split in your hcp at the cost of making it harder with the 14-8 split, and the 11-11 split is more likely.

There is a similar question when it comes to how strong you need to be to make a takeout double of a weak 2.  Some play that you can do it on about the same strength as a takeout double of an opening 1 bid, and others play you need a point or two extra.  Again you trade the ability to give more information to partner when you do double with the ability to give more information to partner when you don't double.

To some extent, this decision depends on whether you are willing to play Lebensohl (or some other convention achieving similar purposes) or not.  It may make sense to have different agreements over 2H than 2S, but most partnerships are probably not willing to have that memory load on their system.

It also depends on form of scoring and vulnerability, since getting to -100 (for say 3DX-1 nonvul) rather than -110 (for 2S+2 their way) is much more important at MPs than at IMPs.  (But it depends on form of scoring less than you might think, because conversely getting to +110 (for 3D+3) rather than -110 is worth much a lot more at IMPs than MPs.)


Accessible (and educational) deck building game for second grade primary school child?

If you're looking for simplicity, probably one of the easiest to learn would be Star Realms. It's the simplest deck builder I've played, at least for the base game, but still provides some depth.

One other game I've seen lots of kids enjoy is Quarriors. Your "deck" is composed of dice in a bag, but the same concept applies--you accumulate money to buy creature dice, and those creature dice deal damage to other creature dice. A lot of symbols to deal with, especially if you buy the expansions, but still very accessible.

Getting to math concepts of tens/hundreds and negatives might be difficult since deck builders tend to deal largely with single digit numbers and don't usually have "debt" systems or the like, but the money counting/addition/subtraction element should be present in almost any deck builder.


Cabal Therapy trick in response to Shock

That will not work. There are multiple issues with trying to do that.

First, once a player casts a spell, that spell is on the stack. Cards such as Counterspell and Redirect interact with spells on the stack. Cabal Therapy removes cards from an opponent's hand; it does not interact with the stack. So, if you were to cast Cabal Therapy in response to your opponent casting Shock and you name "Shock", you can make them discard every copy of Shock that is still in their hand, but it would have no effect on the Shock that they already cast.

Second, Cabal Therapy is a Sorcery. This means that in general, you cannot cast it in response to anything. There are some cards that change that, such as Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery.


Do cards not on the battlefield have their "conditional abilities"?

In general, conditional abilities are not copy-able if the creature is not on the battlefield because they are actually the result of granting abilities on those creatures, and these granting abilities don't work off the battlefield:

  112.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield.

Most of the examples given have either static or triggered granting abilities.  Triggered granting abilities are ones that read "when/whenever ..., [CARD NAME] gains ...".  Static granting abilities are ones that read "as long as ... [CARD NAME] has ..." or " [CARD NAME] has ... as long as ...".  Note that higher level abilities on a card with level up are shorthand for this text:

  710.2a "{LEVEL N1-N2} [Abilities] [P/T]" means "As long as this creature has at least N1 level counters on it, but no more than N2 level counters on it, it has base power and toughness [P/T] and has [abilities]."

For lack of a granting ability that says it works from a different zone, these granting abilities only work while the creature is on the battlefield.  Thus, a creature not on the battlefield won't have a conditional ability even if the condition for the granting ability is true or has been met.

For example, Necrotic Ooze will copy the ability to add level counters from any creature in a graveyard (since that's not conditional) but will not gain any of that creature's higher level abilities, even if the Ooze has an appropriate number of level counters.

Exception 1: if the condition is part of the activated ability (such as text like "activate this ability only if...") as opposed to a condition on the creature having the activated ability, then the creature has the ability in all zones.  For example, Vedalken Certarch's ability will be copied by Necrotic Ooze because the condition is part of the ability.

Exception 2: a creature that copies everything from a card not on the battlefield (such as Body Double) can gain conditional abilities, but that is because it copies the granting abilities (among other things).


How many poison counters warrant an EDH loss?

It is 10 just like in a normal game. The only format that changes the number of poison counters needed to cause a player to lose a game is Two-Headed Giant.

704.5c If a player has ten or more poison counters, he or she loses the game. Ignore this rule in Two-Headed Giant games; see rule 704.5u instead.
704.5u In a Two-Headed Giant game, if a team has fifteen or more poison counters, that team loses the game. See rule 810, “Two-Headed Giant Variant.”