Can devotion of just one colour satisfy a multicolored devotion condition?

Devotion to either color is fine. You don't need to have devotion to both. "Devotion to A and B" just counts all mana symbols of color A and/or B in permanents you control. (Notably hybrid symbols are just counted once.)

See a Gatherer ruling found on Athreos and all the other two-color gods, emphasis added:

  Your devotion to two colors is equal to the number of mana symbols that are the first color, the second color, or both colors among the mana costs of permanents you control. Specifically, a hybrid mana symbol counts only once toward your devotion to its two colors. For example, if the only nonland permanents you control are Pharika, God of Affliction and Golgari Guildmage (whose mana cost is {B/G}{B/G}), your devotion to black and green is four.

You do however have some devotion to white, from Athreos himself. As long as he's out he's giving you +1 white devotion and +1 black devotion; a god's own mana cost counts towards its own devotion. This also means Athreos actually only needs 5 white and black devotion from sources other than himself.


Open source programming toolkits for modeling table top games

If you're interested in testing the aesthetics and flow of the game (rather than fully automated simulation for balance purposes), then I'd look at Tabletop Simulator.

From their site:

  Tabletop Simulator is the only simulator where you can let your aggression out by flipping the table! There are no rules to follow: just you, a physics sandbox, and your friends. Make your own games and play how YOU want! Unlimited gaming possibilities!


Do spells continue to use hand(s) on following rounds of combat?

From the rulebook, page 16:
A spell or weapon that gives you a bonus (even one that says it lasts until the end of combat) only continues to give you the bonus while you devote the required number of hands to it. You can choose to switch weapons/spells in later combat rounds, but as soon as you “release” a spell or weapon, it stops working for you. Similarly, spells that are refreshed (such as at the beginning of each combat round in the final battle) cease to work and must be re-cast.


Can I attach Batterskull to a creature of my choice when I put it on the battlefield with Quest for the Holy Relic?

Your creature will briefly have Batterskull attached to it, but you will end up with the Batterskull equipped to the 0/0 token.

The effect of Quest has 3 relevant steps:

Search your library for an Equipment card,
put it onto the battlefield,
attach it to a creature you control.

After step 2, Batterskull's Living Weapon triggers and is waiting to go on the stack. You finish resolving the Quest ability, and Batterskull is now attached to Bob.

Once the Quest ability has resolved, Living Weapon goes on the stack. When it resolves, you follow its instructions normally - you create a 0/0 token, unattach Batterskull from Bob, and attach it to the token.

  704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; otherwise all triggered abilities that are waiting to be put on the stack are put on the stack, then the check is repeated.


We have some house rules to make is faster and fun:

Every time you ask if it's your turn you draw a card
If you play an invalid card, you draw a card
If the rest think you are taking too long, you draw a card.
If someone plays a card that you also have in your hand, you can play it as well, but you need to be faster than the next player.


What is "Playing For Top or Bottom" In Bridge?

This answer is specific to Matchpoints. In Matchpoints, playing for top or bottom means that if you succeed, you get a top, otherwise you get a bottom. (Note: I haven't heard of people talking about top/bottom in other forms of duplicate).

Any play could potentially be called this way, including safety plays.

To give a specific example of where a safety play might be considered playing for top or bottom, consider the following hand:

♠: AT8xx
♡: AKx
♢: AKx
♣: Kx

♠: K97x
♡: Qxx
♢: Qxx
♣: Axx

You are playing matchpoints and have reached the contract of 6♠. You also think that the rest of players in your direction will do the same. Say you get a club lead.

Now if this were rubber bridge, you could almost ensure 12 tricks by winning the club K and playing a low spade towards the 7. If RHO follows, you play the 7. If RHO shows out, you win the K and play toward the AT. LHO can only get one spade trick (barring really bad breaks in other suits).

Basically, ducking the first round of spades is a safety play to cater to QJxx spades with one of the opponents.

At Matchpoints, however, the normal play is to bang down the AK, making 13 tricks if trumps are 2-2 and still have chances for making 13 if they are 3-1 with a singleton Q or J.

Assuming the field will not take the safety play, by taking the safety play ("going against the field"), you get a top if QJxx is held by one opponent (and rest of the field goes down by guessing to cash the honour in the wrong hand first). You will get a bottom if trumps are 2-2, or there is a singleton Q or J (you make exactly 12 tricks, while the rest make 13).

We ignore QJx, as we expect opponents to split QJ and ensure a trick. You get an average in that case (everyone makes exactly 12 tricks).


7 Wonders: Why do resources on the board have colored background?

From the rulebook:

The resources a player can buy from their neighboring cities are:
• the resources initially produced by the city (as indicated on the board)
• the resources from its brown cards (raw materials)
• the resources from its gray cards (manufactured goods)
However, it is impossible to buy the resources produced by some commercial
structures (yellow cards) or by some Wonders: these resources are
reserved to their owner.

Since resources initially produced by cities behave identically to resources produced by brown/gray cards, it is good enough reason to color them same way, to distinquish them from non-buyable resources.


Stacking pieces on the same point is not necessary unless it would otherwise be unclear where those pieces are meant to be. There are no rules about how you place pieces on a point; it is only common sense that mandates clarity on exactly which point a piece occupies.

You could stack every subsequent piece on the first one on the same point, if you really felt the need. However, this is strongly discouraged, because it may disguise the number of pieces on that point, especially if the point has only two pieces.

You gain nothing from stacking them before you need to, and risk an accusation of poor gamesmanship. Why bother?


How does the addition of the Potion treasure from Dominion: Alchemy change the game?

Generally, if you're going to be buying cards with a potion in the cost, you will buy a potion right away on a 3/4 split. If you wait, then you won't have the potion shuffled into your deck early enough to get the potion-cost cards into your deck quickly.

Deciding whether to buy the potion-cost cards or not really depends on the setup. There are some situations in which a single card with a potion cost is worth purchasing (e.g., Golem in setups with poor +action, Vineyard in action-heavy setups). In other cases, it's better to ignore the potion-cost cards--if there's a Possession and Embargo on the board, lots of players will choose to embargo the Possession instead of dealing with that card.

Finally, whether to get multiple potions also depends on the setup. Setups with +buy and cheap potion cards like Vineyard or Transmute make it less painful if you draw multiple potions in one hand. If you have cards that are fueled by potions, like Alchemists, it may be worthwhile to have an extra potion in your deck.

Although it seems really complicated initially, and the strategy can end up pretty involved, my experience was that it was rather straightforward to actually play with Alchemy once I had a good grasp of the base game. I certainly made lots of bad strategic choices initially, but I was not really confused by the dual economy.

If you've played with Black Market, it's a similar kind of calculation to playing with potions: you need to have that card in your hand in order to get access to other cards (potion cost cards or the BM deck), and you decide how many to purchase based on your needs at the time and your current deck composition.


How does Tarmogoyf interact with changelings?

Nothing special would happen, because Tarmogoyf doesn't care about the Changeling ability at all, or anything Mirror Entity does. Unless it's in a graveyard, in which case Tarmogoyf sees there's a Creature card in the graveyard, and becomes at least a 1/2 from that.

Tarmogoyf's ability reads:

  Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1.

The card types are clarified in a ruling on Tarmogoyf you can see in Gatherer:

  The card types that can appear on cards in a graveyard are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal.

... which means Tarmogoyf's ability can make it an 8/9 at most. For {1}{G}, that's still a pretty big deal. (That clarification also shows up in the reminder text of Tarmogoyf's original Future Sight printing.)

Simply put, it doesn't care about creature types, or the changeling ability. Creature cards don't count as "card types", they are subtypes — the part after the dash in the type line — and Tarmogoyf doesn't pay any attention to those at all. Every creature card just counts for one type: Creature. (Unless, y'know, they're an Enchantment Creature or Artifact Creature or they're Dryad Arbor, in which case they count for two types.) Also, Tarmogoyf only cares about cards in graveyards, while Mirror Entity's ability only affects creature permanents on the battlefield.


How do bonus tiles and booty tokens work?

Having now looked over two different English translations, I'm better able to figure out some of the ambiguous wording.

Bonus Tiles have the same coloring system as gods: gold backgrounds mean "play immediately, then discard," and blue backgrounds mean "keep."

All bonus tiles are revealed immediately after the first Prepare-Civilization phase, and all gold tiles are immediately executed and discarded. (If you got the God bonus tile, and it's one of those gods that give you a bonus every turn, you don't get that bonus this turn; using that tile happens after the phase in civilization-preparation where you'd get the bonus in the first turn.)

The "Movement" Bonus Tile is kept permanently, and gives +1 Move on every movement action. (You're not required to use it each Movement action, though.) This can add up to a quite decent bonus over the course of the game.

This means that the single-most-useless tile is the one that upgrades a sacrifice tile, because you're required to use it immediately, and you can only use it to buy a Level 1 tile. This makes it worth one-gold-plus-the-buy-action-to-acquire-it, which isn't particularly useful because you're allowed to do many things during a normal buy action.


Can I use critical hits under the effect of "Greenskins Invade"?

When one rolls a 6, the die isn't technically re-rolled. According to the rulebook, the rolling a 6 causes an additional die to be rolled.

  In addition, every result of 6 EXPLODES, which means that the attacker rolls one additional battle die immediately (which causes an additional hit on a 4, 5, or 6, and which explodes again on a 6).

Which makes it clear that if the Old World card limits my dice to one, then I wouldn't be able to roll an additional die even if it would explode.


A revealed Cylon player must always pass the You are a Sympathizer and You are a Sympathetic Cylon cards to another player. The Pegasus rule you quoted is for "when a human player receives" the card. See page 7 of the Pegasus rulebook:

  Sleeper Phase: When a Cylon player receives Loyalty Cards during
  the Sleeper Agent phase, he looks at all of his facedown Loyalty
  Cards and gives them to one human  player of his choice. If the Cylon
  player receives a “You Are Sympathizer” or a “You Are a Sympathetic
  Cylon” card, he does not reveal it.  Instead, the human player he
  passes it to must immediately  reveal this Loyalty Card as if it had
  been dealt to him.

So the original rule in the base game hasn't changed. It's just been expanded to include the You are a Sympathetic Cylon card.


I have to assume that the core rules are not changed in some way by this expansion as I cannot find the rulebook online. The core rulebook has this to say on conflict resolution:

  Over the course of a game, there are situations in which multiple effects would occur simultaneously or have competing effects. In all situations, card effects that happen simultaneously occur in the order in which the card entered play.

Since Baahsto entered play first you should play each hero's top card first from his effect. Once that has resolved you should go through the effects (if any) of the hero cards in the order they were played (turn order).

EDIT:
In short: I was wrong, there is now an errata.

Relevant passage:

  Destroying a card before it’s finished

  When a card is destroyed before it can finish its effect, any remaining effect is cancelled.

  For example, Ra has his “Flame Barrier” out, and a villain target deals
  all hero targets damage. The players decide to target Ra first, and Ra
  immediately retaliates, dealing enough damage to destroy the
  attacker. With the attacking target gone, there is nothing to continue
  dealing damage to the rest of the hero targets.

So destroying Baahsto stops the remaining hero(es) from drawing a card from their deck.


Four.
For each instance of Parallel Lives (or Doubling Season) in play, double each instance of a token that would enter play.
Parallel Lives' effect is a replacement effect. It replaces "Put X creature tokens into play under your control" with "Put 2X creature tokens into play under your control."
Thus, two Parallel Lives' would quadruple tokens, three would be eight times, and four would be sixteen.  Effectively, for each token placement, replace every token with two tokens for each instance of Parallel Lives.
Appropriate comp rules:

614.5. A replacement effect doesn't invoke itself repeatedly; it gets only one opportunity to affect an event or any modified events that may replace it.
Example: A player controls two permanents, each with an ability that reads "If a creature you control would deal damage to a creature or player, it deals double that damage to that creature or player instead." A creature that normally deals 2 damage will deal 8 damage -- not just 4, and not an infinite amount.

EDIT: Relevant Oracle text mentioned by @AlexP:

9/22/2011 - If you control two Parallel Lives, then the number of tokens created is four times the original number. If you control three, then the number of tokens created is eight times the original number, and so on.


How does Lava Burst work with hexproof/shroud?

No, Lava Burst cannot damage a creature with shroud or an opponent's creature with hexproof. An opponent's creature with hexproof or shroud can't be the target of anything you control, period. The "cannot be prevented" text only means that prevention effects do not prevent or change that damage. The relevant rules here are:

615.1. Some continuous effects are prevention effects. Like replacement effects (see rule 614), prevention effects apply continuously as events happen -- they aren't locked in ahead of time. Such effects watch for a damage event that would happen and completely or partially prevent the damage that would be dealt. They act like "shields" around whatever they're affecting.

615.11. Some effects state that damage "can't be prevented." If unpreventable damage would be dealt, any applicable prevention effects are still applied to it. Those effects won't prevent any damage, but any additional effects they have will take place. Existing damage prevention shields won't be reduced by damage that can't be prevented.


It doesn't matter.

The section in the first page of the Rules Reference from FFG itself, titled Golden Rules says

  This Rules Reference is the definitive source of rules
  information. If something in the Rules Reference
  contradicts the Learn to Play booklet, this document takes
  precedence.

  If the rules text of a card or game component contradicts
  information from the Rules Reference, the component-
  specific rules text takes precedence.

Thus a hierarchy of correctness is established, so that the "most correct" statement is whatever the card itself says.

The card says two damage. Dracula takes two damage. End of story.


Are cards that interact with sacrificing rare, and why?

You said:

  I found no card with trigger effects when they are sacrificed to other cards

In a design article, Mark Rosewater said:

  Originally, Perilous Myr dealt 1 damage when it was put into the
  graveyard from play but 3 damage if it was sacrificed. And it wasn't
  the only artifact creature with this rider. As I explained in parts 1
  and 2, black and red had a sacrifice theme that was a little stronger
  in the design handoff. The biggest problem with the rider was the
  phrase "When CARDNAME is sacrificed" led many players to believe that
  they were allowed to sacrifice it whenever they wanted. The
  development team decided that having a death trigger was cleaner and
  still would be slightly better in a deck capable of sacrificing its
  artifacts.

So Mark Rosewater considers sacrifice triggers of that kind bad design. Not that it couldn't work, just that the benefit of putting them into a set is not worth the complexity. Triggering when a card goes to the graveyard is just close enough in most cases that the sacrifice effect is not worth the potential confusion.


How to replace Leatherback Baloth in the post-Zendikar environment in a deck of this type?

Well, assuming you're happy with how the deck was working up to now, the most important thing is to preserve the mana curve.  That is made extra important of course by the use of birthing pod.  Once you constrain to 3-cost green-only creatures, the list of options in standard is quite manageable.  Especially considering you can exclude the infect creatures.

http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3A%22creature%22+%28c%3Ac+or+c%21g%29+cmc%3D3+f%3Astandard&s=cname&v=card&p=1

I would say a fourth Dungrove Elder is an obvious recommendation.  I also like Sylvok Replica a lot for this deck.  The option to use him as an artifact removal is great, and he still finds Thrun for you if your opponent has no artifacts.


I asked the creator, Mike Gnade, on Twitter. His response was:

Goblin chief? No he’s an unhallowed.

Goblin Cave therefor does not boost Goblin Chief.


Can the "Gatling" be countered by "Missed!"?

Using the FAQ here the following question and answer says,

Q19. How many Missed! cards are required to cancel a Gatling played by Slab the Killer?
A. Only one. The special ability of Slab the Killer applies to BANG! cards only.

For reference Slab's ability is "Players trying to cancel his BANG! cards need to play 2 Missed!"
This would infer to me that a Missed card can be used against a gattling as the question says that one card is needed to stop it.
There is also This thread on BGG which goes into detail saying a Miss can be played.  It makes the distinction between a bang card and a bang action so whilst you can only play one Bang card you can play multiple cards with bang actions and any bang action can be missed.


Warhammer Age of Sigmar moving within 3" of enemy models

I think this is pretty clear, if you trim out some of the extra stuff in those quotes:

  you may not move within 3" of any enemy models

and

  has models within 3" of an enemy unit

It seems clear to me that you cannot avoid the charge phase - you can't move within 3", and you can't fight without being within 3".  At the very least, the intent of the rules are clear, and trying to avoid the intent would likely be looked down upon by your opponent.


What was the first Infinite Combo in Magic: The Gathering?

According to this Reddit post, the first infinite combo was Animate Artifact, Time Vault and Instill Energy.

By animating and untapping Time Vault and then tapping it would gain the player infinite turns.

This is the first infinite combo in Magic.


How does this Imperial Assault character 'Shoot First'?

The Shoot First card can be applied to any Imperial group, including villains, and that group will get a single activation through the use of the card, which translates to two actions.

Explanation:

Shoot First reads:

  Keep this card secret. Play it during any mission at the start of a round. An Imperial group may interrupt to perform an activation. Then, discard this card.

The card doesn't care about any special rules about its target in a specific scenario. It just does as written unless explicitly prevented elsewhere by mission rules or by the cannot keyword, which is an exception to the Golden Rules. (Page 2, Rules Reference Guide)

Phrasing which contains a finale spoiler:

   Instead of activating as normal, Darth Vader performs 1 action after each hero's activation. (Page 41, Campaign Guide)

Even though the mission rules prevent the gain of activations every round as normal, it does not prevent other gains of activations.  It instead reads as a replacement effect for the core rules which govern figures gaining activations during the Activation Phase. (Page 3, Rules Reference Guide)

Therefore, the card can grant one activation.

Activation is defined as:

  During a figure's activation, it performs up to two actions. (Page 3, Rules Reference Guide)

Thus, the group performs up to two actions.

Group is defined as:

  All figures that correspond to a single Deployment card or Hero sheet are a group. (Page 13, Rules Reference Guide)

So this works on both regular deployment groups and villains.


MTG Arena: Enter battlefield ability denied by killing the creature causing it?

It should have resolved. But a crucial part of that would be knowing how many creatures were in your party when it resolved. If the Acquisitions Expert was the only one and was dead when the ability resolved, the ability won't do anything useful (reveal 0 cards and discard 1 out of 0 cards means discard nothing).


It depends on a lot of context whether leading an Ace is a good idea.

When to lead an Ace:

Leading an ace when you have strong control of the suit is good.  For example, leading from A-K or a bare Ace is good.  Since you can win any follow up, you don't really lose much if your opponents playing low.  And it can also give your partner an idea of the strength you have in that suit.

You also may consider leading an Ace when your partner has bid nil.  This gives your partner an opportunity to get rid of problematic cards in that suit.

If you think your team underbid, you may also want to lead the Ace to actively weaken your hand to avoid getting too many bags.

When to lead another suit:

Leading an ace is not usually a good idea in the early part of the hand when other players are unlikely to be void in suits.  Assuming you don't also have the king, your opponents are twice as likely to have the newly promoted winner instead of your partner.

You can still play the Ace the first time the suit is lead if you're paranoid about the risks of voids, but you'll get extra value from your opponents playing ahead of you.  And you might even be able to win an extra trick due just to your positioning.

If your suit is long but weak like A-T-x-x-x-x-x you probably want to hold suit control instead of leading the Ace.  It's too risky to lead this Ace and then have your opponents get valuable discards while also winning tricks.

Additionally, if you can get trump control, you can run these lengthy side suits, so saving the ace to win important tricks can be very helpful.  Leading the suit outright negates this advantage.

Do not underlead your Ace:

There is almost no reason to underlead an Ace.  You put your Ace at risk of being trumped while also giving up the positional advantage to your opponents.


Can I use both of Grindclock's abilities at the same time?

When a card has 2 separate sets of "cost: effect", these are 2 separate abilities. You can choose to activate either the first ability or the second ability. Because the cost of both abilities is "tap", you will not normally be able to activate both in the same turn.

If you do untap the card using another spell or ability, then yes, you can use Grindclock's same ability again in the same turn.


Shipping goods on an empty vessel in Puerto Rico

Keep in mind that shipping takes place in several turns, going around the table starting with the player that chose Captain. On your turn, you must load a good if you are able. This means that you could choose to load all your indigo on the empty ship (provided that the third ship is not already carrying indigo--there can be only one ship carrying each kind of good), or you could load as much of your corn as you can onto the half-full corn ship. On your next turn, once each other player has had an opportunity to load, you must load the other good, if possible. Only once all allowable loading has finished and all players have passed does the Captain phase end.

If, for some reason, you wanted to not ship the corn, you would have to ship the indigo and hope that another player filled up the corn ship on their next opportunity. This happens more frequently when you have an expensive good like coffee or tobacco that you are hoping to trade rather than ship.

A couple points, summarized from the rulebook (p. 6)

Each ship can only hold one kind of good.
There can be only one ship of each kind.
On your turn, if you have any loadable goods (with a legal space on any ship) you must choose one of those goods and load as much of it as possible. However, you are under no obligation to make the choice that will load the most barrels.
If you have a choice of multiple empty ships, and enough of the good you are shipping to more than fill up the smallest, you must choose a ship that is large enough to load all the goods, if you can, or the largest empty ship otherwise.
You are not obligated to use a wharf to ship if you happen to own one. (p. 9)


Would it be viable to play pandemic with an "eradicate all diseases" win condition?

You can get a pretty good idea about the extra time needed just by looking at the board when you finish a normal game. How many cities still have cubes in them? How many cards are left in the player deck?

As an absolute lower bound, you'll need two actions per city (one to move, one to treat), or one for the medic. If you've got three players and one is the medic, that's 8 cities cleared per six cards drawn.

But usually you'll have more than 8 cities, you'll need a lot more than one action per city to get to all of them, and the infection phase will be undoing half your work. You'll also usually have 10 or fewer cards left in the player deck. The odds of being able to clear the board are really, really low - and worse, if you can do it, it's probably just because you're lucky about infected cities being close together.

As others have said, simply adding an expansion and varying the difficulty using the existing means is probably a better bet.


In Bridge, Why Do People Use "Transfer Bids" Over 1 NT?

A much more important reason is to allow the responder to describe their hand more fully. A 1NT opening bid describes both shape and point count and so it's usually up to responder to then set the contract - the 1NT opener will typically not bid again. However, responder with points for a 2NT raise and a five card major is in a quandary. Bidding 2NT may mean missing a 5-3 major suit fit, but bidding 3M may take them past the safe level of 2NT if opener is minimum. With transfers, responder gets two bites at the cherry. Holding five spades, responder bids 2H. Opener converts to 2S and now responder bids 2NT getting across shape and point count and leaving opener much better placed to set the final contract.


How to score the play of this Cribbage round?

3
3 scores 2 for the pair
3 scores 6 for the triple
3 scores 12 for the quadruple
4 scores nothing
4 scores 2
5 scores nothing
5 scores 2.
And then that last play also scores 1 for being the last card played to that series, since the opponent has no cards to play and must say "go" at that time.

None of the plays scores a run, as there are other (foreign) cards that interrupt the runs.
Bicycle rules:

it is important to keep track of the order in which cards are played to determine whether what looks like a sequence or a run has been interrupted by a "foreign card." Example: Cards are played in this order: 8, 7, 7, 6. The dealer pegs 2 for 15, and the opponent pegs 2 for pair, but the dealer cannot peg for run because of the extra seven (foreign card) that has been played.


When do I discard a card for Skeleton Key?

You draw the card first. You can even discard the card that you drew. In general, you always follow instructions in the order written on the card.

Interestingly, this doesn't appear to be specified in the basic rulebook or quick start guide. But here's the rule from the comprehensive rules for it:

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


I think of the greatest of this kind is Descent: Journeys in the Dark especially with Road to Legend expansion which makes carrying over your characters between sessions slightly easier.


Koi-Koi : does players score their points in case of tie game?

According to one resource (http://sloperama.com/hanafuda/koikoi.htm), if the last card does not complete a meld, no score is awarded to either player; and the deal remains with the same player.


What are the most busted cards in Agricola?

Field Watchman, Head of the Family, and Braggart.

In statistics gathered from about 2000 games that used drafting, these occupations were picked on average earliest by the player who won the game.  See this forum post for the full details, and a list of the first chosen minor improvements too.

Edit: It turns out that several occupations are not included in these results as they were voted too overpowered by the game participants.  These are:

Ratcatcher
Taster
Chamberlain
Lover
Wet Nurse


If you have all of those together and you tap a land for mana, Mana Reflection doubles the amount of mana produced by the land's ability, and then Zendikar Resurgent and Mirari's Wake each have an ability that produces 1 more mana, for a total of 4 mana with most simple lands.
Mana Reflection's ability says

If you tap a permanent for mana, it produces twice as much of that mana instead.

This directly modifies the mana produced by the land's ability.
On the other hand, Zendikar Resurgent and Mirari's Wake both have abilities that say

Whenever you tap a land for mana, add one mana of any type that land produced.

These are triggered abilities that triggers from activating and resolving the land's ability. These abilities produce mana separately from the land's ability, so they are not modified by Mana Reflection.


If the adventure specifies how many Healing Surge tokens you start with, that's how many you start with. (it overrides the default two instead of adding)

  Unless the adventure says otherwise … place two Healing Surge tokens.

If the adventure says to place three Healing Surge tokens, then "the adventure says otherwise" so you don't follow the default instruction. You'd just have three.


White and Blue don't have much in the way of mana ramp. However, since you're looking at everything but Vintage, you do have some options:

White cards dealing with land tend towards restoring balance, and as such there are several card which can only get you land if an opponent has more already.

Knight of the White Orchid
Kor Cartographer
Oath of Lieges
Planar Birth (if you can dump lands into your graveyard)

Blue can, of course, steal land. It also has several card which cheat permanents into play, and happen to include land as an option.

Annex (in addition to many other cards which can steal any kind of permanent)
Arbiter of the Ideal
Braids, Conjurer Adept
Dreamscape Artist (this is Harrow, both color shifted and turned into a spellshaper at the same time; Planar Chaos be wacky)
Eternal Dominion (of course, you don't need mana for casting spells afterwards, but you could still use mana for activating abilities)
Show and Tell

In addition to adding more land to the battlefield, you can get more mileage out of your lands. "Twiddle" effects are fairly common in blue, and Urza block had a slew of creatures and spells which would untap the same number of lands as their own mana cost, making the spell very nearly free, or if you had lands that tap for more than one mana, you could get more mana than you otherwise would have had.

Cloud of Faeries
Frantic Search
Great Whale
Palinchron
Peregrine Drake
Reset
Rewind
Snap
Time Spiral
Treachery
Turnabout

You can also reduce your costs; you don't actually have more mana, but you can do more with the mana you have. (Affinity for Artifacts in particular is on many Blue cards.)

Arcane Melee
Ballyrush Banneret
Council of the Absolute
Daru Warchief
Etherium Sculptor
Grand Arbiter Agustin IV
Herald of War
Hero of Iroas
Mistform Warchief
Stonybrook Banneret
Stormscape Familiar
Sunscape Familiar
Warden of Evos Isle

Finally, artifacts can do all of the above, from putting land onto the battlefield (Burnished Hart, Explorers Scope), to tapping for mana (Sol Ring, Darksteel Ingot), to making your lands tap for more mana (Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun), to reducing costs (Cloud Key, Helm of Awakening), and even Twiddle effects (Candelabra of Tawnos, Sword of Feast and Famine).

It ought to be obvious, but this answer is by no means an exhaustive listing of your options. You're not going to vomit a deck full of lands onto the table playing a White/Blue deck, but there are still ways for you to get ahead in the game.


Help identify the game that this board with marbles and a drawn pattern is used to play

It looks like it's a version of Awithlaknannai, or given the number of segments more accurately Fighting Serpents (which is a translation of the name "Kolowis Awithlaknannai" anyway). It's an abstract game with rules similar to Checkers but, as you've noticed, a slightly odd-shaped board.


Axis and Allies 2nd Edition: to Pearl Harbor or not to Pearl Harbor

What the Expert Says...
In his excellent essays, Don Rae says Japan should always attack Pearl Harbor on its opening turn (see Essay #1):

The Pearl Harbor attack (this should be obvious to all players) should be conducted, always, without exception.
If this U.S. fleet is not removed, it will be used against you in the Pacific (non-optimal), or it can be driven through the Panama Canal to assist the U.S. Atlantic invasion front (optimal). Any anticipation of anything less than the optimal response movement from the U.S. player is generally considered as weak play....
Because of this, you must always use enough forces to take out this sea zone area decisively.

Don then goes on to describe what units to use, which depend on whether you follow his suggestions for "basic" tactical play or "advanced" play. In the basic approach, he suggests throwing everything you've got at it except for your transports. That is, you're going to send two battleships, your sub, two fighters, and the carrier.
If you use the advanced play, Don suggests a more muted attack:

1 battleship (Japan)
1 submarine
2 fighters (one from Japan, one from the carrier)
1 bomber

With the carrier stationed off Solomon Islands.


How much replayability can I expect from a core set LCG

As with any growing Card Game (LCG, CCG, TCG), unless you want to play competitively, it's never required to get more cards. Since you don't need to keep up with changing metagames, new strategic ideas and new available cards, you can play with just what you have with your friends.

The question remains how much fun you get out of it after having played for a while.
To answer that, I'll point you towards card games with a limited card pool. If you're playing with a fixed set of 32, 52, or just any number of cards, you can easily calculate the maximum number of combinations of cards each player can have. Combining those into tactical clusters (in Poker, for example, it doesn't matter which Aces you have, 2 of them always have a specific strength) reduces that number to something in the 6 figures (more or less). Each of these cluster distributions gives a unique gaming experience and additionally, the fact there is private information involved (you don't know which cards the other player(s) have) further increases the complexity and diversity across several games.

Imagine having more cards. Many more cards.

The more cards you have available, the more complex situations can become. Deckbuilding really only becomes a thing when you have a big pool of cards available, but usually, LCG core sets already offer some number of different options. There are always several decks belonging to different factions you can choose from, sometimes even tweak. What this means is you're not simply dealt a few cards, but you can invest the effort to carefully decide which cards you want to have available in the first place. Then, when you're actually playing, you have a similar situation to the one I described with the fixed deck games, where you have a giant number of possible card distributions, which are reduced by tactical clustering (or several copies of the same cards being played), but diversified by the existance of private information.

So, conclusion time.
In my personal opinion, LCG core sets offer a lot of replayability and long-term fun, but if you really like the game and play a lot, strategy becomes such a strong factor that you quickly learn how each deck works and what its strengths and weaknesses are. At that point, the limited card pool leaves you craving for more options to surprise an equally educated opponent.
My advice is this. Play with the core set. If you really like the game and play a lot, you will reach a point where you get the feeling you've mastered all of that game and it doesn't offer you any more surprise. At that point (or earlier if you just feel like it), get an expansion set. Basically, expansion sets for LCGs are like new, but similar games, except they actually have the size of the core and expansion sets combined.

How long it takes until you should probably get an expansion really depends on how much you play and how long it takes you to figure out a game. If you have any decently complex game which you liked playing but at some point grew sick of, you can take that as a reference. But with an LCG, you can buy an expansion set at that point and revive the fun (and possibly even discover an entirely new aspect of the game in complex deckbuilding).


Pandemic--epidemics with eradicated diseases

Yes, you still move the infection rate forward and intensify by shuffling the discards. The only thing that eradicating a disease does is prevent you from placing more cubes of that disease on the board.


Can I choose the order in which these effects trigger in Yu-Gi-Oh?

In which order do I execute them? Can I choose?

Yes, you can choose.

Both effects are mandatory, so you have to activate them eventually.

As they both happen at the same time, and because it's your turn you chose which effect goes first, and each one goes in a separate chain (naturally you'll want Inaba to go first).

For reference, lets consider this wiki page, with my emphasis:

  ... effects that activate "During the […] Phase…" or "At the end of the […] Phase…", such as "Gladiator Beast" monsters. Instead, each effect activates as Chain Link 1 of its own Chain.

Furthermore, on that same page they indicate the following (which is based from the Official Rulebook p. 50, 3rd part):

  If multiple effects fall into the same category [mandatory/optional], the player that activates them chooses the order in which they are activated


Identify this grid placement/guessing game

Sounds like Battleship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game) You place your ships on the grid and you have to guess the positions of the opponent's ships.


Killer Bunnies Quest / Retrieval Card (Special)

"It’s just one." -- confirmed by Jeffrey Bellinger, designer of Killer Bunnies, in an email reply.

This is an interesting case where a revision of a card's instructions made it much less clear. The original description read:

  May be used once by a player to retrieve and immediately use any Run card from the top seven cards of the discard pile.

In a later series the OP draws their description from (the wiki speculates ZZ series), the description is revised to:

  May be used once by a player to retrieve and immediately use any of the last five Run cards played.

I find myself personally convinced by @GendoIkari's arguments, specifically based on the phrasing "any Run card" in the original description. This interpretation is also helped by the phrase "used once". Unfortunately, both descriptions are truly ambiguous. If my interpretation of the card's description is correct, this ambiguity could have been resolved by using the phrasing "any one" instead of "any". On the other hand, if it was actually intended that you to take all five (or up to seven) cards, the card description could have said something along the lines of "May be used once by a player to retrieve and immediately use or rediscard all of the last five Run cards played."

@Benjamin Cosman's argument is also compelling. It does seem overpowered to be able to play 5 (or potentially up to 7) cards: imagine retrieving multiple Choose a Carrot cards. However, using multiple run cards in a turn is not without precedent: W Is For Whammy allows you to launch all 5 weapons, but Retrieval's expanded form could be significantly more powerful than the sporadic 5-card hand nature of Whammy. Though one never can tell what "balanced" really means for a game like Killer Bunnies... EDIT: Turns out you were pretty spot-on in your analysis; Bellinger said it would be "[T]oo powerful that way!"

@BJ Myers point about how the phrase "any number of cards" would have been used if multiple draws were intended may be true, but I'm not sure how often I've seen that specific phrase in Killer Bunnies. I think most cards' effects are scoped, so they would be more likely to phrase it using "all" like "all Weapon cards in his five-card hand" (from "W is for Whammy"). The underlying point is the same, though.


How semi-cooperative games handle players who have nothing to lose?

The social contract does most of the heavy lifting

The social contract is an unspoken agreement between all the players of the game as to how the game should be played to maximize the enjoyment of all the players.  (Sometimes it's a spoken agreement, especially in tabletop roleplaying games.  Regardless, it's always present.)

The goal of a game isn't to win.  The goal is to have an enjoyable play experience.  That's why Cards Against Humanity is a much more popular game than Rock-Paper-Scissors, even though your odds of winning are lower.

Of course, winning generally contributes to the experience of a game.  For some people, in some games, it contributes a great deal.  But in other games, victory takes a back seat to the process of the game itself.

Semi-cooperative games are almost exclusively highly thematic, highly variable games.  These are not the sorts of games that attract players whose primary method of enjoying games is to 'win'.  Instead these games are designed to reward players who enjoy creating a narrative together, who want to do things just to see what will happen, and have a good story to tell at the end.

This means that players are less likely to feel dissatisfied because they aren't winning as much as one of the other players, and are still incentive to avoid the big loss conditions.

Also, even if a player does decide to tank the whole thing out of frustration, that doesn't necessarily mean a negative play experience for everyone else.  There's a reason that LEEROOY JENKINS! became the battlecry of the internet for a while.  Dramatic disaster can be just as fun as dramatic victory.

Which is not to say that a discontented player can't ruin the experience for other players.  The mechanical structures that Volker talks about are built in to reinforce it against this sort of behavior, and they're there for a reason.  But the bulk of the heavy lifting is done social contract, by making the focus of the game be about something other than victory.


How does Agricola Solo version determine the food at the beginning of each game?

This is in the rules here

On page 9

  To play a Solo game, start with 0 Food.

and later on the same page

  Because you have more permanent Occupations after each
  game, the goal score that you must reach goes up in each game:
  In the first game, your goal is 50 points, then 55, 59, 62, 64, 65,
  66 and 67 points. After the eighth game, the Solo game series is
  over. (You can of course play on with all permanent Occupation
  cards, in which case the goal score increases by 1 point per
  game.) At the start of each game in the series, you receive 1 food
  for every 2 points by which you exceeded the goal score for the
  previous game (rounded down).


What are some good strategies against land takeovers in Alexandros?

Disclaimer: I have never played Alexandros, but have read the rules and examined the board.

Try to be the player in second place during the early and mid-game. This is known as the bicycle race strategy. Occupy small to medium value provinces. Spend turns collecting cards to position yourself to occupy a high value province while appearing to just be coasting. To keep the leader from getting too much of a lead, break up his provinces with Alexander.

Let another player grab a province from the leader first. With any luck, they'll use their excess cards fighting trading land grabs. Then us all those cards you've been accumulating to grab a big province and levy taxes.


Can Relic of Progenitus be used to prevent a card being fetched from the graveyard?

Planeswalker abilities are activated abilities; they go on the stack and can be responded to with instants, or other abilities which can be activated 'at instant speed', like either of Relic of Progenitus' ones. So that would work to stop them from using the fetch land twice.
Note that returning the land to the hand is part of the resolution of the effect, not the cost. This is different from the situation where they would activate the fetch land and sacrifice it as part of the cost; then, instant-speed land destruction would not work.


Can Panic Spellbomb be returned to the library in response to its ability?

Your opponent can't do that. Sacrificing the Spellbomb is part of the cost, and you pay costs as part of activating the ability and putting it on the stack, and only once you're done with all that does anyone get priority. So by the time your opponent gets the chance to do anything, it's already in your graveyard. (This is just like how your opponent couldn't do something in response to you paying mana for a spell or ability.)

If the Spellbomb weren't being sacrificed, your opponent could cast Banishing Stroke on it, but it wouldn't really accomplish anything. Once an ability is activated, it exists on the stack independently of its source. (Yes, activated abilities use the stack.) You'd activate the ability, and your opponent could cast Banishing Stroke in response. The Banishing Stroke would then be on top of the stack, and resolve first. It'd put the Spellbomb on the bottom of your library, then the Spellbomb's ability would resolve as usual.

Side note: all spells and activated abilities use the stack, regardless of whether they're instants (or at "instant speed"). The important thing about instants and activated abilities is that they can be cast/activated any time you have priority, e.g. while something's already on the stack. That is, the bottom thing on the stack definitely doesn't have to be at "instant speed", just the things added on top of it (usually) - and the stack resolves top-down the same way no matter what's on it.


If I am Lost in Time and Space during a reckoning effect resolution, do I continue to resolve remaining reckoning effects?

I have changed my mind but I have no official ruling on this.

In general, you have to resolve all the reckoning effects and order should not matter.

However, during a reckoning: If you are devoured, that would end your turn right there. If you are either killed or driven insane, that does end your turn. Thus, it would seem logical that Lost In Time and Space would end your turn as well.

Thus you would not be doing any reckoning events after those ones.  You dodge those bullets for this turn.

Lost In Time And Space was added in an expansion, I am not sure if this is covered by the FAQ or not.

Even going by the golden rule of cooperative games: If a rule can be interpreted in several ways, the right one is the least helpful to the players, the reading would be that yes, you stop doing any reckoning events once you are Lost In Time And Space.


Pandemic and Forbidden Island - How similar are they?

While I have both and definitely notice the similarities, I don't regret the purchase.  Here's why:

1)  Forbidden Island is easier to teach.  Not that I think Pandemic is very complicated, but I've been able to teach Forbidden Island to my 8 year old where Pandemic was a bit too much.   Also, the fewer number of bits (cubes and such) has made the game less intimidating to spouses.

2)  Forbidden island is easier to vary.  Beyond raising the "damage coefficient" (number of infections in Pandemic, beginning water level in Forbidden Island), you can alter the tile layout to form a new challenge.

3)  Forbidden Island plays quicker.  Faster setup, faster game play, faster tear down.

Having said that, my usual gaming group prefers Pandemic with expansions to Forbidden Island because they feel it is a deeper experience.

So to sum up:  I would only get Forbidden Island if difficulty, approachability, or time is keeping Pandemic from hitting the table more.  Otherwise, I'd go for another coop game such as Ghost Stories or Castle RavenCroft.


How can I determine the value of very rare cards?

The only way to attempt to determine a concrete value for a card is to find it's price in a large market place where market forces (supply & demand) have determined the value of the listed cards.

Europe's biggest trading site, magiccardmarket.eu, is very comprehensive in the cards that it lists. They have one of the best listings of uncommon sets.
There the winter orb from the World Championship Deck's in near mint condition is ~2€

As my predecessor already mentioned, it is not tournament legal (only white and black bordered cards are).

Nevertheless, gold border cards are a cheap alternative for players building a draft-cube or for any other non-tournament use.


Still blocked *by that creature* if removed from combat?

Let's look at Venom's Oracle text, because that makes this a little easier to understand:

Whenever enchanted creature blocks or becomes blocked by a non-Wall
creature, destroy the other creature at end of combat.

That text sets up a delayed triggered ability.

603.7. An effect may create a delayed triggered ability that can do something at a later time. A delayed triggered ability will contain
“when,” “whenever,” or “at,” although that word won’t usually begin
the ability.

The delayed trigger for Venom is "at the end of combat" so when the end of combat happens, you destroy the creature that blocked the one enchanted with Venom.

603.7b A delayed triggered ability will trigger only once—the next time its trigger event occurs—unless it has a stated duration, such as
“this turn.” If its trigger event occurs more than once simultaneously
and the ability doesn’t have a stated duration, the controller of the
delayed triggered ability chooses which event causes the ability to
trigger.

Venom's ability doesn't state that the creature being destroyed must be a blocking creature, so it doesn't matter if it left combat (because of regeneration or otherwise).  Even if it did, it wouldn't matter because of rule 603.7c:

603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However,
if that object is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at the
time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won’t affect
it. (Note that if that object left that zone and then returned, it’s a
new object and thus won’t be affected. See rule 400.7.)
Example: An
ability that reads “Exile this creature at the beginning of the next
end step” will exile the permanent even if it’s no longer a creature
during the next end step. However, it won’t do anything if the
permanent left the battlefield before then.

So the short answer to your question is, as soon as the blocking happens, the other creature is going to be destroyed at the end of combat regardless of if it leaves combat.  Regenerating before the end of combat will not save it from being destroyed (an additional regeneration can save it from the delayed trigger's destroy effect though).  And yes, using something like Elvish Scout + Lure + Venom is a good way to make a one sided board wipe.
Also look at the rulings on Cockatrice (https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=108912) to see a similar type ruling about needing to possibly regenerate twice to survive combat.


In a 2-player game, you would lose the game and the Niv-Mizzet triggers would not resolve.
The Wheel of Fortune you played would resolve as the only object on the stack. After the Wheel has finished resolving, before the damage triggers would even be put on the stack, you would lose the game for having attempted to draw from an empty library.

116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
116.5. Each time a player would get priority, the game first performs all applicable state-based actions as a single event (see rule 704, “State-Based Actions”), then repeats this process until no state-based actions are performed. Then triggered abilities are put on the stack
704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions
704.5b If a player attempted to draw a card from a library with no cards in it since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game.


How can I clearly detail all possible destinations from every point of the map in my game?

I would suggest putting hexes on the map.  Players can then know how far one city is from another by counting the hexes.  As long as the numbers are small such as 4 or 5 it would not provide too much complexity.
This is how Railways of the World solves this problem, and it works really well

The advantage of hexes over any other shape is that they remove any problems with diagonal movement.  Cities are a natural distance apart from any angle.  Counting the smallest number of hexes to get from one stop to another is always accurate.


What Happens if I Manifest a Double-Faced Card?

This article explains that double-faced cards can be manifested and enter as 2/2's with no abilities.  The actual implementation of this stems from the fact that the double-faced card must already be unidentifiable in your hand and library.  As a result, you already have the card in an opaque sleeve or you have a checklist card in your deck as a placeholder, and either of these can be put on the battlefield face-down as a state distinct from transformed.

It should be noted that double-faced cards can't be turned face down if they are already a face up permanent (such as by Ixidron).  The relevant rules are the following:

  711.9. If an effect allows a player to cast a double-faced card as a face-down creature spell, or if a double-faced card enters the
  battlefield face down, it will have the characteristics given to it by
  the rule or effect that caused it to be face down. That card remains
  hidden, using either a face-down checklist card or opaque sleeves. See
  rule 707, “Face-Down Spells and Permanents.”

  711.9a While face down, a double-faced permanent can’t transform. If it is turned face up, it will have its front face up.

  711.10. Double-faced permanents can’t be turned face down. If a spell or ability tries to turn a double-faced permanent face down, nothing
  happens.


How to sell a new game, similar to chess

It's important to play test your game A LOT with strangers.  Watch people read your rules.  Things you think are easy to understand people will struggle with!
You may find play test groups local to you.  With global lockdown there are a huge number on online play test groups if you can make a digital version of your game.  Details are here. https://cardboardedison.com/playtest-groups.  I take part in these groups and they are extremely useful.
With regards to trying to find a publisher or self publishing there is an absolute mountain of information online particularly on the Cardboard Edison website.
I will say is there a huge amount of competition out there.  You are describing what is called an abstract game.   There are countless abstracts games on the market already so for it have a chance it would need to stand out.  I'm finding playing in playtest groups lots of game from people who have only played a few games,  if you're going to design a game I recommend playing as many different games as you can to learn what works.
I personally wouldn't bother with a patent, the industry is so interconnected that if anyone was going to steal an idea this would be widely known.  I also don't think you can patent a game mechanic anyway.
My friends who have self published via Kickstarter are doing so because they want to release a game, not because they want to make money.  Kickstarter is also a huge investment in terms of time and money upfront making prototypes, videos, marketing etc.  Self publishing friends have described it as doing a full time job as a hobby.
I'm currently talking with publishers about a game I've spent last 16 months working on and have been play testing online with strangers.  Through online groups I'm fortunate enough to have been able to speak with published designers, My understanding with talking to to them is that designers is that you would get about 5-8% of the wholesale price as a royalty.  So if a game has a retail price of about £50 the designer will get about £1 per copy sold.


Ulrich will be a copy of Civilized Scholar, so you can use Civilized Scholar's ability to transform it, repeatedly if you have some way to untap it. But the triggered abilities will not trigger.

First, in the rules section about Copying objects, rule 706.2 says

  When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics [...]. The “copiable values” are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by “as . . . enters the battlefield” and “as . . . is turned face up” abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics).

So, once the Mirrorweave targeting Civilized Scholar resolves, Ulrich becomes a copy of Civilize Scholar, which means that it has the name, mana cost, rules text, etc. of Civilized Scholar. Importantly, it no longer has Ulrich's values for those characteristics, and in particular it no longer has Ulrich's abilities.

Then, once you activate and resolve the ability, the card will physically transform and untap, but it will still be a copy of Civilized Scholar. This means that it still doesn't have Ulrich's abilities, so those abilities won't trigger.


Can I reorder the abilities of Hydra's Growth and Simic Ascendancy?

You can't do the specific sequence you are trying to do because if there aren't already 20 growth counters on Simic Ascendancy at the beginning of your upkeep, its last ability doesn't trigger at all.

Simic Ascendancy's last ability has what's called an "intervening if" clause, described in rule 603.4:

  A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn’t true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the “intervening ‘if’ clause” rule. (The word “if” has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an “if” that immediately follows a trigger condition.)

The text of Simic Ascendancy's ability says this:

  At the beginning of your upkeep, if Simic Ascendancy has twenty or more growth counters on it, you win the game.

So, if it doesn't have 20 growth counters at the beginning of your upkeep, the ability doesn't trigger at all, so there's no opportunity to reorder it so that it resolves after Hydra's Growth's ability. In fact, on Gatherer Simic Ascendancy has a ruling about this:

  If Simic Ascendancy doesn’t have twenty or more growth counters on it as your upkeep begins, its last ability won’t trigger. You can’t take any actions during your turn before your upkeep begins.

In general, if two or more triggered abilities trigger at the same time, you can reorder them. This is described in greater detail in this question.


Expansion//Explosion and Siren Stormtamer

MTGA handles the rules correctly in this case. Explosion is a valid target for Siren Stormtamer's ability when your opponent activates the ability. By the time the ability resolves, that is no longer true, so the ability fizzles for lack of legal targets. Explosion is not countered, it can resolve and, since it still has a legal target (you), it does as much as possible, namely draw you cards.
By the time your opponent activates the ability, Explosion is targeting his Stormtamer, so Explosion is a legal target for the ability. As part of the ability activation, your opponent has to sacrifice the Stormtamer, but only after declaring targets. Sacrificing the Stormtamer as part of paying the ability activation costs has no effect on Expansion's legality as the ability's target at this point.

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell includes proposal of the spell (rules 601.2a-d) and determination and payment of costs (rules 601.2f-h). [..]

(the rules for casting spells and activating abilities are the same as far as this question is concerned.)
When the ability resolves, it checks again that its target is still legal. Since the Stormtamer is no longer on the battlefield, Explosion no longer targets your opponent or a creature he controls. Therefore, Explosion is no longer a legal target for the Stormtamer's ability on the stack, and the ability fizzles.

Resolving Spells and Abilities

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. [..] If all its targets, for every instance of the word "target," are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn't resolve. It's removed from the stack and, if it's a spell, put into its owner's graveyard.

Explosion can then resolve because it wasn't countered and still has a legal target; it will do as much as possible with the remaining target (yourself), so it will draw you cards.


Does Exalted still apply if additional creatures are later included?

That is correct. Exalted triggers, and the creature that's attacking alone gets +1/+1 until end of turn. It doesn't matter whether that creature continues attacking alone for the rest of the turn (of course, it can't once the combat phase is over).

There's a Gatherer ruling on Angelic Benediction to this effect:

  10/1/2008: Some effects put creatures onto the battlefield attacking. Since those creatures were never declared as attackers, they’re ignored by exalted abilities. They won’t cause exalted abilities to trigger. If any exalted abilities have already triggered (because exactly one creature was declared as an attacker), those abilities will resolve as normal even though there may now be multiple attackers.


How many cards can I access in R&D / HQ?

It's in the official rulebook, under Access Phase in the section on Runs:

  • R&D: The Runner accesses the top card of R&D, and any upgrades
  in its root...

  • HQ: The Runner accesses one random card from HQ and any upgrades
  in its root...

  • Archives: The Runner accesses all cards in Archives and any
  upgrades in its root...

  • Remote Server:  The Runner accesses all cards in the server.


What are the chances of losing Pandemic on the first turn?

The hardest part of computing the probability is determining the best strategy for the players.  I have used a script to simulate games where players use a few simple tactics, and estimated the probability based on these strategies. Given that the strategies I implemented are not the optimal strategy, these figures provide an upper bound on the probability of a first turn loss.

Most of this answer assumes that the players are playing on "Normal" difficulty, that is with five epidemic cards.  To find equivalent probabilities for other difficulties, see the section below entitled "The player deck".

To summarise the results, here is a table showing my estimate of the probability of a first turn loss for different strategies.

Strategy        | Probability of first turn loss at Normal difficulty
Do Nothing      | 0.0018
Drive/Treat     | 0.0013
Drive/Fly/Treat | 0.0011-0.0012

The probability of losing in the first turn, given that the players do their best to prevent it, is therefore less than 1/900.

The Player Deck

To set up the player deck, some cards are dealt to the players and then epidemic cards are distributed throughout the deck.  The number of cards dealt to the players, d, varies with the number of players.  We either have d = 8 in 2 or 4 player games, or d = 9 in 3 player games.  The remaining (53-d) cards are split into e roughly equal piles, and an epidemic is shuffled into each, before they are restacked (with any larger piles on top).

We observe that to lose in the first turn an epidemic must be drawn.  The probability of drawing an epidemic as one of the top two cards of the deck is:

P(Epidemic drawn) = 2 / (ceil((53-d)/e)+1)

where ceil is the ceiling function.  This results in the following table:

d | e | P(Epidemic drawn)
8 | 4 | 2/13 = 0.154
8 | 5 | 2/10 = 0.200
8 | 6 | 2/9  = 0.222
9 | 4 | 2/12 = 0.167
9 | 5 | 2/10 = 0.200
9 | 6 | 2/9  = 0.222

During the rest of the discussion we assume e is 5 ("Normal" difficulty), but the above table can be used to compute equivalent probabilities for other values of e and d.

The "Do Nothing" Strategy

By far the simplest strategy is for the players to do nothing.  This is also a strategy that maximises the chance of losing in the first turn.

For the calculation I employed a python script to simulate a million games, assuming that an epidemic card is drawn.  It picks nine cities to infect for the set up, and then one more to infect for the epidemic.  It repicks two cities to re-infect, and counts the outbreaks and cubes used.

This gave the probability of losing, given that an epidemic is drawn is about 0.009245.

Combining this with the probability of drawing an epidemic card we get:

P(Lose first turn on Normal | Players do nothing) ~= 0.001849

The "Drive/Treat" Strategy

As a simple improvement on doing nothing, I assumed the first player would ignore their cards, and drive to the nearest city with three cubes, removing as many as possible.  If they couldn't remove any from three cube cities, they would try for the nearest two cube city, and finally they would try for the nearest one cube city.

This gave the following probability:

P(Lose first turn on Normal | Using "Drive/Treat" Strategy) ~= 0.001343

The "Drive/Fly/Treat" Strategy

Finally, as an improvement on the "Drive/Treat" strategy I considered trying to fly to a city infected with three cubes.  If anyone has the "Airlift" or "Government Grant" special event cards, then they can be used to get the first player to any city in 0 or 1 actions respectively, meaning that three cubes can be treated.  Similarly if any other player has the Atlanta card it can be passed, and the first player can charter a flight, leaving two actions to remove cubes.

I also considered the case where the player has the card of a 3-cube city, or Atlanta, and they use that to fly and remove three cubes from a city.

There are further variations on this that I did not consider in this tactic, such as moving to Washington, chartering a flight and treating two cubes.

Using this strategy gave the following probabilities:

P(Lose first turn on Normal | 4 players using "Drive/Fly/Treat" Strategy) ~= 0.001208
P(Lose first turn on Normal | 3 players using "Drive/Fly/Treat" Strategy) ~= 0.001145
P(Lose first turn on Normal | 2 players using "Drive/Fly/Treat" Strategy) ~= 0.001167

I don't think my simulation is evidence enough to say that the deviation between these three results is significant, but I think they're good enough to give a first-turn-lose probability between 0.0011 and 0.0012.

Potential Improvements

If you have played the game then I'm sure you can think of situations in which these strategies are not optimal.  Here are a few things that could be included, that I think would make a significant improvement to the strategies:

Treat more than one city if possible.
Target infected cities that are next to each other in preference to isolated ones.
Use "One Quiet Night" or "Forecast" to prevent the first turn loss (this is a big one - it's possible about one game in three).
Use "Resilient Population" to lower the chance of a first turn loss.
Take the researcher into account for passing cards.


Player draws a card before the previous player discarded

This isn't going to be covered by the rules of any game.

In all games players make mistakes, this is not the same as cheating, its simple human error and everyone does it at some point.

In all games it's up to the players to decide how to resolve this in as fair a way as possible without the need for 'forceably' making players do things which sounds like the enjoyment comes from being a rules lawyer and not actually playing the game!

In my regular gaming group we agree player can more or less undo anything provided that it doesn't affect anything another player would have done, and it hasn't involve drawing cards or rolling dice.  As soon as a 'random` event happens you can't really say, 'oh I didn't mean to do that' when they don't like the result.

In your situation a player who drew a card before seeing a new card put themselves at a disadvantage as they denied themselves an option.

You can't really make a player put a card back and shuffle the deck as they now have information about a card that other players are not holding.  Personally I would just let them keep that card but not let them take the discard as they played too early which is 'punishment' enough for a simple human error.


Under the Victory section of Encounter 1 it reads:

  If the overlord wins, he immediately receives “The Scoundrel” Corrupt Citizen card.

So the answer to the second question is no. If he won Encounter 1 he already has it.

The answer to the first question: they probably meant encounter rather than quest; otherwise your interpretation is correct and the “If” is redundant.


Sacrificing to regenerate from Supreme Verdict

Sure you can.

With Supreme Verdict on the stack, you respond by activating Varolz's regenerate ability.  This resolves.

Supreme Verdict now resolves, destroying all creatures. Varolz's regeneration shield protects him, and he becomes tapped and survives the Verdict.

Obligatory comp rules citation:

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

This is all pretty basic stuff of course.  Perhaps some confusion arises from the fact that Supreme Verdict "can't be countered".  This just means that it counterspells etc won't work on it, not that there is no possible means of escaping the Verdict's destructive effect.


Elder Thing - "This minion is not affected by opponents' cards."

It's quite explicit: "This minion is not affected by opponents cards." That means any cards, so it doesn't get shuffled to the bottom of the deck. It will stay in play.


How does Dig Through Time work with Courser of Kruphix?

The new top card is only revealed after you are done resolving Dig Through Time and the two cards are in your hand. This is because the cards you are looking at still count as being in your library while you are looking at them.


Yes and yes, assuming the aura enchants creatures, you couldn't attach say Abundant Growth to a creature, though you would be able to attach it to any land in the same way if you fetch it with Enduring Ideal.
Enduring Ideal searches for any enchantment, and aura is a subtype of enchantment. When an aura enters the battlefield with no target, you are able to attach it to any legal object.
It's worth noting that this means you don't target when you put an enchantment into play this way, so you can power up a creature you have with shroud using an enchantment, or Arrest an opponent's shroud or hexproof creature using this. This doesn't help when a creature has protection from that aura's color, as 702.16c prevents auras from attaching based on protection, it does not care about targetability like shroud and hexproof.
From the comprehensive rules:

303.4f If an Aura is entering the battlefield under a player’s control by any means other than by resolving as an Aura spell, and the effect putting it onto the battlefield doesn’t specify the object or player the Aura will enchant, that player chooses what it will enchant as the Aura enters the battlefield. The player must choose a legal object or player according to the Aura’s enchant ability and any other applicable effects.
702.16c A permanent or player with protection can't be enchanted by Auras that have the stated quality. Such Auras attached to the permanent or player with protection will be put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action.

This effect is a big part of how Zur the Enchanter EDH decks play, he grabs an enchantment and puts it on himself as soon as he attacks so the effects are there before blockers and damage.


What happens if I take damage with Worship out while at negative life?

You will get the 5 poison counters if you have Phyrexian Unlife, and lose 5 life if you have Platinum Angel.
The card Serra the Benevolent has an ultimate ability that creates an emblem with Worship's ability. It has a ruling that says this:

If you have less than 1 life and somehow haven’t lost the game, damage dealt to you reduces your life total further below 0 (as normal).

So, Worship has no effect if you have less than 1 life, so damage will be dealt to you as normal and Phyrexian Unlife will modify it as normal.


Monopoly Deal: My Bank Pile - Private or Public Information?

The "What The Game Looks Like" info graphic in the Monopoly Deal rulebook strongly implies that the bank pile is public information - the bank piles in the picture are quite carefully arranged so that each card is partially visible (in much the same way as Magic the Gathering players conventionally arrange their graveyards).

With that said, "strongly implied" is not the same as "explicitly stated".  If everyone in your playgroup enjoys the new element of strategy that playing in this way adds, then I say definitely go for it.  As you say, you trust your group not to cheat, so the potential major cheating problem you envisage is not a problem at all.  If there is such a thing as high-stakes Monopoly Deal tournaments, I imagine those would have to enforce the keeping of bank piles as public information.

In the end you just have to decide which of two different play styles your group wishes to subscribe to.  With hidden information, some very exciting play scenarios are created, where with a good poker face you may be able to trick people into believing you're not doing as well as you are.  With public information, you create a much more calculated game, where players have to find an objectively best strategy in the face of all dangers.  Do you consider yourself more of a poker player, or a chess player, that's the question?

Personally I'm not generally a big fan of concealed information for its own sake.  Having to count cards, watch other players' movements and demeanour carefully, and keep track of information in my head - that can turn into a lot of work for the player who wants to do well!  But of course your mileage may and probably does vary.  If the game seems boring to you when all the cards are on the table then you aren't wrong to want to spice things up with a house rule, and you almost certainly should do so!


How does Asmira, Holy Avenger respond to manifested cards?

Yes, you get the counter.

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

Because Asmira, Holy Avenger says "creature" and not "creature card", it is only referring a a creature permanent on the battlefield, not anything about the card type. Because a "creature" by definition can only exist on the battlefield, Asmira can only be talking about what object was on the battlefield that went to the graveyard. The object that now exists in the graveyard is irrelevant.

  400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence.


Can a Guildgate be tapped for colorless?

You can use a guildgate to help pay for Karn, but it doesn't involve colorless mana.

When you see a grey circle with a number mana symbol in a cost, like the {7} in Karn's casting cost, that's actually called a generic mana cost. You can spend any color of mana to pay for that cost. So you can, say, tap an Izzet Guildgate for red (or blue) mana and use that to pay for one of that seven mana.

Colorless mana, on the other hand, is what's produced when you see something like "add {1} to your mana pool", again with the grey circle with a number, for example on Tomb of the Spirit Dragon. You can use that to pay for generic mana costs too - so you could use colorless mana to cast Karn, but you don't have to. Any color will do.


7 Wonders: Do board resources (brown and gray) count for VPs when counting guild and commerce points?

No.
The guilds in question specifically award points for cards.

Workers Guild: 1 victory point for each brown card present in the neighboring cities.
Shipowners Guild: 1 victory point for each brown, gray and purple card in your city. Clarification: the Shipowners Guild counts towards this total.
Craftmans Guild: 2 victory points for each gray card present in the neighboring cities.

And the last sentence in the base game Rulebook makes it clear this only refers to actual cards. [Emphasis added]

Clarification: Resources produced by boards are NOT considered as cards (Vineyard, Bazaar, Guilds, ...).


Where can I find a copy of Starbase Jeff?

Currently Starbase Jeff is available for free on the Cheapass Games website. You'll have to print it out yourself but that sort of thing isn't super complicated and might be easier than locating a copy of the original version.


Does the game end immediately when one player reaches 0 life?

Player A loses.

Eighteen instances of Valakut's triggered ability will go on the stack.
Divine Deflection is cast and eventually resolves.
Trigger #18 resolves. It deals no damage and Divine Deflection deals three damage to Player A.
Trigger #17 resolves. It deals no damage and Divine Deflection deals three damage to Player A.
Player A loses the game for having non-positive life.
Player B wins the game for being the only player left.


Euchre - Calling a a renege after the hand is closed before the next deal?

Once the hand is closed the renege is much harder to verify, once the cards played that round have been returned to the deck. A renege should be called immediately when it is noticed. Taken tricks should be kept separate from each other, organised so the order they were taken is clear, this allows a renege to be verified and not rely on everyone's memory.


If the Joker has been replaced then there is no joker in the meld.  That would remove the condition of "If there is a joker in a meld..."

Maybe the key definition is that it says "is" not "was"

There are multiple different sets of rules for Rummikub, so it would be beneficial to link the rules being used if this answer does not suffice.


Side kicks only have one level and can not be spun up or down. It is in the official rules:

  Sidekicks are the .... character side. Sidekick characters have no powers, and only the one level.

(edited one word)


Magic: The Gathering - Are there behavioral rules for sanctioned MTG games?

Yes, there are behavioural rules, and yes there are consequences.

Chapter 5 of Wizards official tournament rules outlines Unsporting conduct.

  5.2. Unsporting Conduct — Major

  Penalty: Game Loss

  Definition

  Unsporting Conduct — Major infractions fall into three categories:

  Failing to follow a direct instruction from a tournament official.
  Insulting another person based on his or her race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.
  Aggressive or violent behavior that is not directed at another person or another person’s property.

  Examples

... snip ..

  D. After losing a match, a player throws his cards onto the table and knocks his chair over in anger.

... snip ...

  Additional Remedy

  The player must correct the behavior immediately, and can expect to be removed from the tournament venue upon further offenses. As with Unsporting Conduct — Minor infractions, if the offense occurs at the end of a game, it is acceptable for the judge to apply the penalty to the next game instead.

... snip ...

  5.5. Unsporting Conduct — Aggressive Behavior

  Penalty: Disqualification

  Definition

  A player acts in a threatening way towards others or their property.

  Examples

... snip ...

  D. A player tears up a card belonging to another player.

  E. A player intentionally turns over a table.

  Philosophy

  The safety of all people at a tournament is of paramount importance. There will be no tolerance of physical abuse or intimidation.

  Additional Remedy

  The offender should be asked to leave the venue by the organizer.

Depending on the ruling of the judge, your opponent could either be disqualified or assessed a game loss. I believe in this case, if he touched your cards and threw them on the floor, that would fall under 5.5 and he should be disqualified.

Edit:

AHA, just noticed you asked about REL events. Well this is what the Judging at Regular REL document has to say:

  There are also certain behaviours that will not be tolerated in any event. Any player engaging in the following must be disqualified from your event;

  Aggressive, violent or abusive behaviour (physical or verbal)
  Cheating, lying or intentionally making illegal game actions or trying to avoid penalties
  Influencing Match outcomes (by incentives, coercion or random methods)
  Theft (this includes things like replacing a chase rare in a draft with one from their binder)

  If you do have to hand out a Disqualification, let the players know that while your decision is final, the DCI would still like to hear their side of the story. Contact your WPN representative directly, and they will advise you further.

So they tournament organizers would be well within their rights to disqualify this person for aggressive behaviour, but they have more leeway. In any case, it certainly is grounds to call over a judge.


You should continue from the previous phase.

Travelling always occurs at the end of any phase in which either blip pile is empty, thus you finish resolving the current phase, then resolve travelling.

After this you would continue from where you were up to in the normal order of the game.

I do not have a specific rules reference for this, except that nowhere in the rules does it tell you otherwise. It never states that after travelling you proceed to a specific phase, or skip any phases, it merely says that travelling always happens after the current phase has finished.

This question on BGG also supports this order of action.


Aura Trample removed by High Priest of Penance

You can't stop your opponent from trampling over your High Priest this way. Although you are correct that trample damage is not assigned simultaneously between creatures and players, it is dealt simultaneously.

  510.2 Second, all combat damage that's been assigned is dealt simultaneously.

So both you and your High Priest are dealt damage at the same time. At that point, you may use your Priest's ability, but destroying the attacking creature or aura will have no effect on what already happened.


No Juragedo does not always cause a replay. A replay only occurs if the number of monsters on the field changes while an attack is being declared, but before the damage step. Therefore Juragedo can cause a replay, but does not always cause one. If Juragedo is summoned as soon as the Battle Phase starts, then a replay will not occur, but if it is summoned immediately after an attack, then a replay will occur.


Betrayal at House on the Hill, Haunt 52 question

The haunt you're inquiring about seems to be particularily bad in design, and having certain problems that, while not necessarily making it unplayable, seem to make it unenjoyable.

  You're correct in that the rules don't state that the traitor has to tell the heroes that they've found the exit room, so you really don't have to. Instead, it appears that the haunt intends the heroes to realize that only one room is not shifted around, which is the exit room. The sequence, while largely irrelevant, at least makes the heroes traverse through those rooms though, possibly coming to that conclusion in the end. However, with the traitor in the driver's seat, it's both easy (depending on the house's layout) to obscure this fact by cleverly choosing rooms to move, or block the heroes from reaching that room altogether.

This seems to be an issue unlikely to be resolved other than house-ruling on the spot, and has been brought up in other places as well, largely supporting the impression I've had of this.


In Crisis Mode, what do you do with cards that involve villains in your deck?

I have not seen any FAQs or other rulings regarding cards that involve Villains while in Crisis Mode, so it looks like they do not behave any differently, aside from the fact that their Villain effects will never occur.
In the case of "Canary Cry", you are simply forced to always choose the option that does not involve a Villain card in your discard pile. If it helps, you can think of the card being rewritten like so:

Draw a card.
Defense: You may discard this card to avoid an Attack. If you do, draw a card.

Not nearly as powerful as the original form, but for what it's worth, there are other cards that are more powerful in Crisis Mode than in the regular game, so it balances out I suppose.


Waiting until after the cost is paid to choose the target is the big difference here.
If the ability used "if you do", like on Throwing Knife, then an opponent who wanted to "save" their creature from the ability would have to do so before they even know if you are going to pay for it. That gives the ability the unintentional power of forcing your opponent to react to the possibility of paying the cost, without actually paying any cost. With the "when you do" wording, the opponent can react to your choice to pay the cost, making it more like an activated ability.


How do other auras interact with Gift of Immortality?

After a creature dies, but before triggered abilities are placed on the stack, State Based Actions are performed. The SBAs will cause both Rancor and Gift of Immortality to go the graveyard because they are not attached to anything [CR 704.5n].

Then, it's time to place on the stack the abilities that have triggered. Gift of Immortality's ability and Rancor's ability are placed on the stack in whatever order you choose.

When Rancor's ability resolves, it returns to your hand. When Gift of Immortality's ability resolves, it returns the creature to the battlefield and creates a delayed triggered ability, which puts Gift of Immortality back on the battlefield, attached to the creature at the beginning of the next end step.

Angelic Destiny's ability works the same way Rancor's does, so it would also return to your hand.


Can the Runner prevent resources trashing via the "The All-Seeing I" if there is no bad publicity?

Yes. Spending the bad publicity is a way to prevent the total effect of All-Seeing I, but it does not state that the trashing cannot be prevented by other means. Cards like Fall Guy and Dummy Box are still able to prevent some of the resources from being trashed, even though they are themselves resources; this ruling can be applied to this situation.

It's also worth noting that if you have a Jarogniew Mercs in play among other resources, it would be left standing after All-Seeing I resolves.


How does playing for "survivor" work in a Diplomacy tournament?

Not all tournaments are the same. But they all have some scoring system, which enables the various endstates of a game to be converted to a numerical score for the purposes of tournament standings. Here are some examples of scoring systems.
Most tournament games end in draws, either by agreement or time limit. Points are then scored by the players based on the supply centre distribution. In the event of a solo, under most systems the soloist gets a very large number of points and all other players score zero. Any exceptions to this rule are rare, and mostly occur in historical systems that are not in use any more.
Note that there are very few truly hopelessly lost positions in Diplomacy. The vast majority of those that are involve an elimination or a loss to a solo at the next Fall turn.
P.S. For Italy to go abandon the game and go into civil disorder in your example is rude to the other players. If this is happening in your games, you should find a place to play that has more reliable players (or at a minimum replaces players in civil disorder).


It could be a travel variant on a Go board. If you're not familiar with Go, it's an ancient game played by two players, usually played with white and black stones. While the standard size of a Go board is 19x19 lines, 13x13 is a common "beginner" variant.

The main objection to this theory is the number of stones: you usually have enough to cover the whole board between the two players, so I would have expected 84 black pegs and 85 white ones.


How much money would I have to spend to play in tournaments?

The easiest way to compile the information you're looking for that I know of is with tcgPlayer's deck search:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck_search.asp

Choose a "Format"

Choose "Places Finished" : 1st, 2nd, 3rd-4th, 5th-8th

Choose "Deck Origination" : Event and Article Decks Only

Only took me a minute or two to compile that for the most recent star city games legacy open the top 8 decks had a min price of $1100, max of $2500 and median around $1600.


What happens when Merfolk Trickster's ability targets Tempest Djinn

Yes, it's a so-called 'static ability':

  604.1. Static abilities do something all the time rather than being activated or triggered. They are written as statements, and they’re simply true.

The ruling under the card in Gatherer confirms that:

  Tempest Djinn’s ability that modifies its power applies only while it’s on the battlefield. In all other zones, it’s a 0/4 creature card.

(emphasis mine)

so it's affected by Merfolk Trickster.


What's the order of scoring when completing a city with a Princess?

The answer I found on BoardGameGeek.com divides the turn into three phases:

Draw and place tile.
Place and move meeple (place or remove follower, move dragon and so on).
Score points.

So that would mean that Alice doesn't get any points, because her knight is removed before she can get any points, and this city's points are lost.


Why it is important to make a delayed raise and not jump directly to 4-lvl? (System: simple SAYC)

A common bridge principle for SAYC is to bid up strong hands slowly, but jump to a high bid quickly with weak hands that have long suits or other preemptive features.

In the situation you describe with responder having 13 points, you'll want bidding space to communicate whether or not you should be in game or slam, because opener has promised 13-21 points (and therefore the combined hands have 26-34 points).

If slam is possible, most tables will bid it up slowly and find the right slam contract, while your hasty 4 bid lands you a mere game contract (which will give you the bottom score in duplicate bridge).

Therefore, in SAYC, the jump to 4 of the opener's major response is reserved for a weak bid that typically indicates a small number of points but good shape.

For example, with 6 low trump, a void, and a single Ace for high card points, that would be a perfect hand to jump to the 4 level because:

You have a great chance of making the contract
You may prevent your opponents from exploring game
You would have no interest in exploring slam with such a hand, even
if partner has 20-21 points.


Why is the Pandemic starting position always Atlanta?

Because Atlanta is the home of the CDC. And since we all live in America they are responsible for diseases everywhere...

EDIT: I just checked the English and German rules and now understand your confusion. The German rules explicitly say that this is why players start in Atlanta. For some reason the English rules skip that part.

  Danach nimmt sich jeder Spieler die farblich passende Spielfigur und stellt sie in Atlanta auf, wo sich das Zentrum für Seuchenkontrolle und -prävention (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) befindet.

Which roughly translates to:

  Then every player takes the matching pawn and places it on Atlanta - where the CDC is based.


What is the effect of the "1 for last card" score on tactics in cribbage?

I believe you are misreading the rules. As this set points out, the one for last card is just an alias for the minimum go guaranteed to Dealer for playing second.

Update:
Tactically, the guaranteed go for Dealer really only affects end-play as both players approach 121 points. at other times in the game, worrying about a single point is just not important enough.

For example: Consider a situation where Dealer is at 106 and Non-Dealer at 112 with 7 points in hand. Non-Dealer would like to peg at least two points to guarantee the win with first count, but must be wary of sequences that allow Dealer to peg a 2+12, followed by the guaranteed go. Non-Dealer should not lead with a low pair hoping for a triple, as the 6 is insufficient compared to Dealer's possible 2+12. Better to try to get a 15 and give up a possible 6 to Dealer, as that is enough with first count.


Computer Scrabble UI & communication protocol?

The most widely used interchange format for Scrabble games is documented at

http://poslfit.com/scrabble/gcg/

It's used for example by cross-tables.com, Quackle, (Mike Wolfberg's program) WHAT, and proprietary software for webcasts of national and world championships.

The so-called .gcg (for "generic crossword game") format is a human-editable
text file with one line per move played so far in the game, with a list of
pragmata for identifying players, current rack if game in progress, etc.


Chaos in the Old World: What happens to units in ruined regions?

Nothing special happens. The figures just stay there and can be moved to another region in the summoning phase, or by other means. To quote from the rulebook, page 25, "Ruined Regions":

  When a region is ruined [...] the following rules affect that region:

  • New Chaos cards cannot be played to that region.
  • New Old World tokens cannot be placed in that region (although existing Old World tokens are not necessarily removed at the time of ruination).
  • During the corruption phase, no victory points are scored for dominating that region (i.e., domination is not checked for that region).
  • During the corruption phase, no corruption tokens are placed in that region.

  All other normal rules for regions remain in effect for ruined regions. Battle still occurs in a ruined region each round [...]

(my emphasis)