Order of resolution of creatures abilities triggered by combat damage

Every player puts the abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order that player chooses, starting with the player whose turn it is.

Since you control both triggers from your creatures, you may put them on the stack in any order. The ability you put on last will resolve first.

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


Must a "target creature" be on the battlefield?

Yes, it does.  The rules say:

  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.

i.e., "creature" can only mean a creature permanent on the battlefield.


Is it possible to respond to a "part" of a triggered ability? (with multiple sentences)

No, this is not legal, but it isn't because it is a multi-part ability with separate sentences.
The key is that choosing the token you want everything to become a copy of is something you do when the ability resolves, not something you do when you put it on the stack.
When you cast a spell, or in this case when you put a triggered ability on the stack, you choose things such as any targets it requires, and what mode you are using if it is a modal spell. But other choices such as "choose a token you control" are not made at this time.
When the player is choosing the token they control, the ability is already resolving, and no player gets priority to do anything until after the entire ability has resolves.
Contrast to this alternate wording for Brudiclad:

At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a 2/1 blue Myr artifact creature token. Then each other token you control becomes a copy of target token you control.

If Brudiclad were worded like this, then you would choose your token to copy when you put the ability on the stack, because it uses the word "target". In that case, your choice could be responded to.

Resolving Spells and Abilities

608.2d If an effect of a spell or ability offers any choices other than choices already made as part of casting the spell, activating the ability, or otherwise putting the spell or ability on the stack, the player announces these while applying the effect.

Casting Spells

601.2b If the spell is modal, the player announces the mode choice
601.2c The player announces their choice of an appropriate object or player for each target the spell requires

This applies to triggered abilities the same as spells:

603.3c If a triggered ability is modal, its controller announces the mode choice when putting the ability on the stack.
603.3d The remainder of the process for putting a triggered ability on the stack is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2c–d.


Is Lighthouse from Dominion: Seaside overpowered?

If there are tons of attacks, sure, it's pretty useful. But setting aside the defense (which often isn't relevant), the coin it provides isn't really terribly powerful, so no, it's not at all overpowered.

It's basically a copper that gives you one more coin the next turn. In order to get that extra coin you had to add a copper to your deck - the turn you play Lighthouse one of your five cards only gets you one coin. A silver generally does more for you.

So you don't really have to do anything to keep people from abusing it. Just buy bigger better cards. You can do a lot better than +1 coin.


What's the difference between Puerto Rico and San Juan?

Game Play Differences
While the games are thematically the same, and San Juan was designed as the "card game version" of Puerto Rico, the gameplay is actually quite different.
Role Selection

In Puerto Rico your choice of role has many implications. You need to consider how the role will affect your success, how it will affect the other players, and every bit as importantly, how your success and that of others will be affected if another player chooses it. You're commonly making a choice that, for example, hurts you the least, or hurts the leader the most, etc.
In San Juan role selection has minimal affect on others. You do want to choose the role that's best for you, but that's about as far as it goes.

Strategic Play

Puerto Rico strongly calls for selecting an overall strategy near the beginning of the game and sticking to it, very broadly the "shipping strategy" or the "building strategy." There are clever things you can do within each strategy, tactical stuff that requires good decisions every turn, but if you don't decide on a strategy early or switch strategies mid-game you're very likely to lose.
San Juan is much more tactical, with very little in the way of strategic play. There are a few cards that call for trying to push the overall game in a certain direction, especially the game-end bonus cards, and some cards complement each other better than others, but it still hard to call it real strategy.

Newbie Forgiveness

Puerto Rico isn't kind to new players, but worse, new players can easily throw the game to a certain player without realizing they're doing it. Sitting to the left of the newbie is an easy way to dramatically increase your odds of winning; seen from the other players' perspective it means the newbie can give you the game.
San Juan isn't a game you're likely to win the first or second time you play if the others are experienced, but you're not going to "give" the game to anyone due to sub-optimal play, and you'll likely score within 20% of the winner no matter how poorly you play.

Seating Order

Seating order doesn't just affect the possibility of a new player giving the game away in Puerto Rico, it also has a strong affect on how easy it will be to achieve your goals. If after a few rounds you decide that your game strategy is to grow and ship as much tobacco as possible, if the player to your right starts growing tobacco you're screwed. The same holds true for the shipping/building strategy lines in general: if the person to your right is using the same broad strategy as you, you're going to have a much tougher time.
Due to San Juan's general lack of interactivity, you're much less likely to be affected by seating order. I've yet to hear a compelling case for it mattering.

Teaching the Game
San Juan is definitely easier to teach to new players, though I wouldn't say massively so. However, it is much easier to teach how to play well than is Puerto Rico, and so is more forgiving.
Is It Worth Buying?
I absolutely consider it to be worth buying. If it's like any game, it's really most like Race for the Galaxy (see below for inside scoop), but a much lighter version. It's much faster to play than Puerto Rico, and is actually quite fun with just two players, something that can't really be said of Puerto Rico. The two games are so dissimilar in play style and feel, you'll never mistake one for the other in any way, even if you played them back-to-back.

Just a short bit of gossip about San Juan and Race for the Galaxy: the story goes that when Alea Games saw the (comparatively) great success of Puerto Rico, they started hinting around that they were interested in a card game version. One submission was a game very much like Race for the Galaxy, though many years earlier. The Race-like game wasn't selected as the winner, but the eventual game, San Juan, turned out to have incredible similarities, including the cards-as-resources, cards-as-money, and cards-for-their-face-function game concepts. Whether any ideas were copied or not, in the end Race needed a fair bit of redesign to make it less like what San Juan turned out to be.


Can I buy an "underneath" Major Improvement without paying for the top one first?

No, you have to buy the Major improvement that is above first. This isn't explicitly defined, but it is implied on p.2 of the rules:

  An advantage of placing 12 of the 14 new Major Improvements underneath others at the start of the game is that the use of the cards does not need to be explained in detail at the start of the game. The only two new Major Improvements that need to be explained are the Peat-charcoal Kiln and the Forester's Lodge.

There are also Minor Improvements which change the order of the stacking, again implying that the order is significant. For example, the Pastoral Letter (p.30):

  If the Well has not yet been built, you can immediately place it under the Village Church. (The Well and the Village Church swap places.)...

Finally, this is confirmed in a response on BGG by Hanno Girke, a game designer who founded Lookout Games along with Uwe Rosenburg (designer of Agricola):

  Major Improvements are now stacked. There are 12 stacks of 2 cards
  each. Only after the top card is bought, the other card is revealed
  and available for purchase.


How to use the promo roles in the resistance?

Rules found on the Coup kickstarter page which included these promos:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/coup-bluff-and-deception-in-the-world-of-the-resis/posts/694256


How can we play Game of Thrones as a league game?

In simplest tournament form
In each round winners advance to next round, losers do not. If an alliance wins, they advance together for that round only. 2nd place matters not...
For a longer format
Everyone gets to play up to X games of Y game opportunities. Winners (individual or alliance) get 3 points each, losers get 1. After the Y
th opportunity has been played, count up total points. Top 4-6 players by points advance. If more than 6 are tied, have two tables, and divide the tied players between them, and then take the winners from both, and if needed the 2nd place players from both, to make a 3-6 player final.
In each of the x games, randomize from those present - I recommend using 3x5 cards with player names on them, and tracking of wins and losses.
2nd place - why not?
awarding points for non-victory is a complication that, while it can advance consistently passable players to finals, doesn't actually select for the best players. THe best players are good and consistent.
What If I want to push for solo wins?
In that case, Solo victory is a 3 point, alliance victory is a 2 point, and anything less is still 1 point
Why do losers get a point?
Because it pushes them up the rankings for being consistent in showing up. This is a benefit for league play.
Example
A 13 player league, players A-M, has 6 weeks and enough sets for 3 tables per week. The option to endorse solo wins over alliance wins is in place. Week 6 will be "finals"
Week 1, Everyone's present, and so the tables are 5, 4 and 4. AFGHM, BCIL, and DEJK are the table layouts. A wins solo, BC win as an alliance, and J wins
Week 2, A is sick. Tables are thus 6 each for two tables. BDFHJM and CEGIKL. KL win alliance, BD wins shared.
Week 3, D, K and M are stuck at work.  2 tables, 5 each. ACEIJ BFGHL. AC win shared, G wins solo.
Week 4,  N joins the league (late but enjoys play). there's a storm. Only ADGHN make it. H wins solo.
Week 5, Everyone shows. 5-5-4 tables. ADIKN BEGJM CFHL. A wins shared. BG win shared. H wins solo, as does N.
Final is H (with 9) G (with 8) A B (with 7), C & J (with 6).
    Wk  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N
    1:  3  2  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  3  1  1  1  -
    2:  0  2  1  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  2  2  1  -
    3:  2  1  2  0  1  1  3  1  1  1  0  1  1  -
    4:  1  0  0  1  0  0  1  3  0  0  0  0  0  1
    5:  1  2  1  1  1  1  2  3  1  1  1  1  1  3
  Tot:  7  7  6  5  4  4  8  9  4  6  4  5  4  4

Now, if run without the penalty for shared, the numbers look like this:
    Wk  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N
    1:  3  3  3  1  1  1  1  1  1  3  1  1  1  -
    3:  0  3  1  3  1  1  1  1  1  1  3  3  1  -
    3:  3  1  3  0  1  1  3  1  1  1  0  1  1  -
    4:  1  0  0  1  0  0  1  3  0  0  0  0  0  1
    5:  1  3  1  1  1  1  3  3  1  1  1  1  1  3
  tot:  8 10  8  6  4  4  9  9  4  6  5  6  4  4

The finals would be B (10), GH (9) AC (8). we don't go to the 6's because that would trigger a second table.
Note that the longer the league plays, the more important consistent play is.


Would Pot of Extravagance be too unfair if you use a deck that doesn't use an Extra Deck?

If you use one of these types of decks, could you just put "useless" cards in your Extra Deck that you don't plan on using so there is no cost to using Pot of Extravagance?

Yes you can.

You can build your deck and extra deck the way you want, as long as you stick to the current Banlist (on an official game, that is) and the game rules.


There is not much written about 9x9 Go games, but you can find a few videos about them on Youtube.  I would recommend the following series of videos 'Crazy Nines', by Go content creator xhu98:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGTqST4O93ERWgQkCroFSCg4UiOgmL4Mq

The series features Dan level amateur players discussing 9x9 strategy.  This is the best 9x9 analysis I have been able to find.


What happens when destroying something that gives flash to a spell on the stack?

Player 2 can't really stop player 1 from casting an artifact as if it had flash, outside of destroying Shimmer Myr while player 1 is tapped out.

At any given time, one player has priority. If player 2 has priority first and casts Naturalize, player 1 can respond by casting an artifact. If player 1 has priority, they can cast an artifact. Once they do so, it's on the stack and it doesn't matter if player 2 casts Naturalize; the artifact has already been cast and will eventually resolve unless it's countered.

That is, Shimmer Myr's ability only matters while they're casting the artifact. (Same goes for flash.) You check whether you're allowed to cast a spell as part of casting it, not later, and timing restrictions are part of that.


There are two questions here:

(Terminology) Is making a bid over an opponent still called an overcall if your partner has already bid?

There are two competing uses (from Merriam-Webster):

  Definition of overcall

  transitive verb
  :  to make a higher bid than (the previous bid or bidder) in a card game

  intransitive verb
  :  to bid over an opponent's bid in bridge when one's partner has not bid or doubled

The first sounds a bit old fashioned, and the second is what I'd expect in modern bridge books, which tend to (cf. this lesson by Larry Cohen) use the names:

West, Partner (Opener): 1 Club

North, TD (Overcaller): 1 Spade

East, You (Responder): 2 Hearts

South (Advancer): [to call]

Did your partner need to alert your bid, regardless of terminology?

No, at least not in the American Contract Bridge League. See the Alert Procedures:

  Definition of expected length for natural bids for the Alert Procedure

  Suit bids:
  
  Three or more in a minor suit
  (Also: An opening bid of 1♣ is natural if, by agreement, it may be exactly
  4=4=3=2 with two clubs, three diamonds, and four cards in each major.)

   Four or more in a major for opening bids, rebids and responses

   Four or more for an overcall at the one level, five or more for higher levels

   Five or more for a weak two-bid

   Six or more for a weak three-bid

Side Note: It doesn't matter to the result, but I couldn't find the definition of overcall that the ACBL Alert Procedures are using. I would expect from experience that it is the second one.


Can I combine Exploding Kitten decks to allow for more players?

Absolutely. From the website, Exploding Kittens is a:

Party game for 2-5 players (up to 9 players with 2 decks)

I often combine the Original and NSFW versions, to play with more than 4 players. You just have to make sure that there is always exactly 1 Exploding Kitten card less than the number of players.


Priority during declare blockers and attackers step

All phases and their respective steps happen even if players take no action during them. The declaring blockers step and combat damage steps are skipped if there are no attacking creatures, but the beginning of combat and declare attackers steps still happen. All players gain priority during both the beginning of combat and declare attackers steps.

500.1. A turn consists of five phases, in this order: beginning, precombat main, combat, postcombat main, and ending. Each of these phases takes place every turn, even if nothing happens during the phase. The beginning, combat, and ending phases are further broken down into steps, which proceed in order.

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

Beginning of Combat Step

507.2. Second, the active player gets priority. (See rule 117, “Timing and Priority.”)

Declare Attackers Step

508.2. Second, the active player gets priority. (See rule 117, “Timing and Priority.”)


When first prototyping a new board game idea - how do you start?

This may be too niche of an "answer" but I occasionally go to a Beer & Board Games event at a local pub where people in the group bring their games and it's like there's a mini board game library running for the night.

Anyhow, sometimes someone shows up with a "prototype" game and advertises that he's developing his board game and would like to play test it. It's basically small scale closed beta testing to help test and polish game mechanics. It also helps that he can rotate through pools of play testers rather than reuse the same group each time.

So basically, get your game into a "sort of playable" state and take it out to board game events or get friends to come play it then iterate based on how that goes. What you change and why is, of course, the tricky part. :p

Also, don't worry about NDAs or people "stealing your idea"... you have more important things to focus on.


I believe you have slightly misunderstood the explanation in the video, and you misunderstand how priority works and the difference between instants and noninstant spells (from the Comprehensive Rules: "A player may cast an instant spell any time he or she has priority. A player may cast a noninstant spell during his or her main phase any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty"; what happens next is the same for both types).

In the video, Reid is explaining how to draw a card before losing your Kor Spiritdancer to any creature destruction effects (such as Doom Blade, which he mentioned by name). Your opponent may not cast any creature destruction effects until 1) the creature exists (i.e. the spell has resolved) and 2) the opponent has priority.

The mtgsalvation wiki has the text of the priority rules; here 116.3 and 116.4 are particularly important:

  116.3. Which player has priority is determined by the following rules:

  116.3a The active player receives priority at the beginning of most steps and phases, after any turn-based actions (such as drawing a card
  during the draw step; see rule 703) have been dealt with and abilities
  that trigger at the beginning of that phase or step have been put on
  the stack. No player receives priority during the untap step. Players
  usually don't get priority during the cleanup step (see rule 514.3).
  116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
  116.3c If a player has priority when he or she casts a spell, activates an ability, or takes a special action, that player receives
  priority afterward.
  116.3d If a player has priority and chooses not to take any actions, that player passes. If any mana is in that player's mana pool, he or
  she announces what mana is there. Then the next player in turn order
  receives priority.

  116.4. If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the spell or ability
  on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or
  step ends.

The sequence Reid is describing works like this:

Cast Kor Spiritdancer and pay its costs; it is now on the stack.
You still have priority (116.3c); pass it to your opponent (116.3d).
Your opponent may do something, e.g. counterspell. Let's say that they don't do anything. They pass priority (116.3d again).
Kor Spiritdancer resolves (116.4). You now have priority again (116.3b).
Cast an Aura; it goes on the stack and Kor Spiritdancer's triggered ability (whenever you play an Aura spell card, you may draw a card, goes on the stack).
You may now pass priority, and now your opponent may cast some instant or activate some ability that removes the creature from play, but you still got one card draw.

Note that if you have some way to play auras at instant speed (e.g. the aura has flash, you have a card like Vedalken Orrery in play), you can cast multiple auras in succession without passing priority, although of course none of them will resolve before your opponent has a chance to play creature removal.


Have you looked into foam core?

There

are

a lot

of solutions

available

on BGG


How much of AlphaGo's success is due to novelty?

I would argue that AlphaGo's advantage cannot be significantly attributed to the novelty of its moves.

The original public AlphaGo games were those against Lee Sedol, the second ranked player in the world, in March 2016. At that time, as mentioned, several of AlphaGo's moves were novel, and surprising to Lee Sedol and observers.

Then, after players had had nine months to study AlphaGo's play style, in December 2016 it played 59 unofficial online games under the names "Magister" and "Master", including against several of the top ranked players. It won every game. I haven't seen much commentary of those games, but my understanding is that some of the players used moves that had first been observed in the original AlphaGo games. So, at this point I think they were less novel, because they were becoming parts of human players' strategies.

Finally, in May 2017, AlphaGo played a variety of games in the Wuzhen Future of Go Summit, including a match against Ke Jie, the top ranked player in the world. The commentary of those games did not indicate that AlphaGo made a significant number of surprising or difficult-to-answer moves, but rather that its sizeable advantage came from its ability to accurately determine the values of moves, trades, and territory, and its ability to play across the whole board instead of concentrating too much on the currently active area.


What is 5/5/2 variant of the Machi Koro?

This variant seems to have been introduced with the Harbor Expansion and I'm not sure it would work well with just the base game. It's a way to avoid having only low (resp. high) numbered buildings when using the draw cards rule (instead of having all the buildings available at once).

The idea is apparently to split the deck into 3 decks :

one with the buildings 1-6 (except purple ones)
one with the buildings 7-14 (except purple ones)
one with all the purple buildings.

Now, when drawing the cards to prepare available buildings, you draw from the first deck until you have 5 different buildings, from the second one until you have 5 different buildings and 2 different purple buildings.

During play whenever someone depletes a pile, draw from the corresponding deck until you reach the wanted number of buildings in this category (5, 5 or 2).

I didn't know about this variant and this made me curious... I found about it in this forum thread on BGG.

I might as well give it a go myself ;-)
Thanks for a good question!


Can you sacrifice Corpse Hauler to its own ability and return it to the battlefield?

No, because Corpse Hauler won't be in your graveyard yet at the time you need to choose the creature you return.

The process of activating this particular ability goes like this*:

Announce you're activating the ability and put that ability on the stack.
Choose the ability's target.
Determine the cost, then pay it.

The problem here is that in step 2 we have to choose a creature already in the graveyard, but we don't actually put Corpse Hauler in the graveyard until step 3.

It also says “another target creature”, where “another” means the target must be something other than this object. That doesn't change anything (since you couldn't target Corpse Hauler even if didn't say this), but helps make things clearer that the target must be something else.**

However if you have two Corpse Haulers—one in the graveyard and one on the battlefield—they could loop each other back and forth.

* Rules section 602 tell us how to activate abilities, and specifically 602.2b tells us to follow steps 601.2b–i which are the rules for casting spells in rules section 601.

** Thanks GendoIkari.


Do Fireplaces and Cooking Hearths count as a Bake Bread Action Space?

During the Work Phase your family members perform Actions that are selected from those currently available on the board.

Stage 1 has the Sow and/or Bake Bread Action which will show up sometime during the first four rounds (Other bake actions are also available depending on how many players there are). To use the Bake Bread part of this action you must have an Improvement that bakes the Bread like the Fireplace, Cooking Hearth or an Oven.

These Improvements are not Action Spaces themselves, they are just the tools you will use to make your Actions more efficient. You will put your worker on the Action space that bakes bread, then use an improvement to determine the outcome of the baking action. You may use every baking improvement you have as many times as it allows per Bake Bread action.

Note that the fireplaces and hearths can convert multiple grain while the ovens are limited to 1 or 2. The Clay Oven and Stone Oven, and some others like the Baker's Oven, allow you to Bake Bread immediately when they are purchased. Some Improvements, like the Windmill, allow you to convert grain to (more than one) food at any time without using a Bake action.


For master rule 4, why can't I occupy two extra monster zone?

For balance reasons, Konami introduced a special rule for the second extra monster zone.
It is possible to occupy both, but only under certain circumstances. Just having a link monster point there is insufficient.
To occupy the second extra zone you need what is called an extra link. This means having monsters co-linked from one extra monster zone all the way to the other.
You can find this illustrated here:
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Extra_Link


Be careful. Usually tinkering with houserules, if you overlook something, you can make it up on the spot. If there is real money at stake, suddenly the game becomes much more serious and the ability to quickly tweak something which might be in one player's favor or another is gone.

From your initial idea, I see several dramatic flaws. First is that Risk is designed as a winner-take-all game. You propose to have the ability to end the game short by unanimous-save-one consent. This will not work. One player, for instance, might have relatively few territories, but be well-fortified, well-positioned and have cards prepared for a powerful game-winning strike. Will this player be considered to be in the lead? If not, he will never agree to end the game. If so, he will lose out, controlling many fewer territories although the favorite to win.

You would need to make careful rules about when the game is allowed to come to an end. Can it be ended before a powerful attack? After an unlucky turn? Before whose attack--because the last attacker can just spread himself thin, without any regard to defense, and collect an unfairly large share of the pot.

With directed attacks, you may face accusations of favoritism or collusion that are much more venomous than in a non-stakes game. In this case, I think that playing Risk for money is a questionable idea, and playing with house rules to allow any stakes other than winner-take-all would be potentially disastrous.


What are the dragon die sides in Vast the Crystal Caverns?

You can find the faces for the dragon die in the public print and play punchboard file the Vast developers have up.

It also has a useful d6 conversion chart so you can just use a standard d6 instead of trying to make your own die.


EDIT: Except for the solid base (no leg split), as The Chaz 2.0 noted in the comments, it looks like a farmer child from the Wooden Farmer Set for Agricola.

See image at https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1841766/agricola-wooden-farmer-set


Yes, assuming he chose to use his ability to steal the other players equipment instead of doing damage to them as he would then meet his win condition of having 5 peices of equipment.

He would also win if the damage to the other players was enough to kill them as you gain a piece of equipment from a player when you kill them so in either case Bob would immediately  win the game

From the rule book

Bob Neutral Robbery: If you inflict 2 or more points of damage to another character, you can take an Equipment Card of your choice from that character instead of giving him/her the damage.

As a player takes damage during the game, they move the HP piece onto the number on the board corresponding to how much damage they currently have. HP pieces are used to show the damage levels of all players. A player's character dies when they have accumulated damage equal or more to the HP listed on their character card. When a character dies, the player must flip their character card face up if they have not already and remove their HP piece and Player piece from the board. If a player has killed another player, they are allowed to take one Equipment card from the dead player and discard the rest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Hunters


If you give Ochran Assassin trample, does it destroy all creatures my opponent controls?

No, trample has no effect on how an attacking creature deals damage to defending creatures.
With or without trample, an attacking Ochran Assassin can destroy any number of blocking creatures, up to its power. So if the Assassin has 3 power, it can destroy up to 3 creatures. This is because Deathtouch only has an effect if at least 1 damage is dealt, and any amount of damage with Deathtouch is lethal. So the Assassin can assign its total damage as power, split into one per blocking creature, and each creature it deals damage to that way is destroyed.
The only effect trample has is to allow you to assign excess damage that is not needed to destroy any creatures to the defending player. For example, if the Assassin has 5 power and the defending player only controls 3 creatures that can block, the Assassin can damage and kill all 3 creatures and also deal 2 damage to the defending player. But if the Assassin only has 1 power, it can still only destroy 1 creature.


Can you confirm these DEFCON verbs for Twilight Struggle?

You've got them straight.  The rule book uses all of those terms.

The rules are pretty clear on improve, decrease, degrade, and lower:

4.5 A. Improve DEFCON Status: If the DEFCON level is lower than 5, add one to the DEFCON status (towards Peace).
6.3.4 Any Coup attempt in a Battleground country degrades the DEFCON status one level (towards Nuclear War).
8.1.1 DEFCON status measures nuclear tension in the game. The DEFCON level begins the game at its maximum ‘peace’ level of 5. It can go down and back up due to events and actions by the players, but if, at any point, it decreases to , the game ends immediately.

The Extended Playthrough uses increase:

TURN 2
(DEFCON increases to 3, Mil Ops requirements met by both players, no lost points)

[Emphasis added to rule citations]


Does Phytotitan return to the battlefield when it first died and then was exiled?

No, it won't return. When Phytotitan dies, its ability triggers, and then when that ability resolves, it sets up a separate, delayed triggered ability that will automatically go off at the beginning of the owner's next upkeep. That delayed triggered ability is "watching" the Phytotitan card in the graveyard. If the card changes zones (such as by getting exiled), then the delayed triggered ability loses track of it, so when the delayed ability resolves, it won't find the Phytotitan and thus won't return it.

This applies even if Phytotitan is removed from the graveyard and then put back, by the way. The delayed triggered ability only tracks the card as long as it stays put in the graveyard, and if the card is moved elsewhere, the ability stops tracking.

  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.)


What does it take to play a Battle of Wits deck successfully at a tournament?

Three minutes is your time limit for sideboarding, shuffling, and presentation.

  2.3 Pregame Procedures

  The following steps must be performed before each game begins:

  Players may exchange cards in their decks for cards in their sideboards. Players may only do this after the first or subsequent
  game of the match and not for games that are restarted or games that
  are drawn before any game actions are taken.
  Players shuffle their decks. Steps 1 and 2 may be repeated.
  Players present their decks to their opponents for additional shuffling. The sideboard (if any) is also presented at this time.

  Players may not use more than three minutes to perform steps 1 through
  3.

Additionally, there is a specific definition that is used for "shuffling"...

  3.9 Card Shuffling

  Decks must be randomized at the start of every game and whenever an
  instruction requires it. Randomization is defined as bringing the deck
  to a state where no player can have any information regarding the
  order or position of cards in any portion of the deck. Pile shuffling
  alone is not sufficiently random.

Taking the above two into account, the official rules state that you have 3 minutes to completely randomize your deck. There is no standing consensus for how to achieve this with a massive deck. Combining two methods, such as a pile shuffle followed by a quick riffle shuffle of ~80 card stacks is generally the accepted method. A 250-card pile shuffle should take a bit less than 2 minutes for a dexterous player, so time is really tight when sideboarding.

Another technique I have seen for shuffling massive decks is to do something similar to the following:

Split the deck into 4 piles (a,b,c,d).
Shuffle pairs of piles together (a+b, c+d)
Repeat 1-2, but shuffle the resulting 4 piles in a different combination to not arrive at the same 2 piles again.
Repeat 3 a few times, throwing an overhand shuffle or two in between.

The real danger becomes when you must shuffle during the game, since shortcuts such as only shuffling the top half are not acceptable for randomization. Presenting an non-randomized deck for your opponent to cut is an easy way to rack up warnings.

There will always be times when a particularly rules-lawyering opponent will attempt to call you on slow play at 181 seconds or for taking too long to shuffle in-game, but such is the danger of having a massive deck. Just play your fastest and you should have little trouble.


Where are the various Krosmaster Arena tokens supposed to go?

If your looking at the box with the token slots closest to you. Figs on the far side. From left to right its: dice, bag of (mp/ap/damage/coins), demonic rewards(gold and 1/2 of granite), demonic rewards (jade and 1/2 granite) (each slot holds 1&1/2 colors), round tokens(mobs,traps,bombs), gg tokens,
The character cards have an obvious spot in the bottom and the terrain stacks on top.


How does stealing a creature's text box work with copies?

Phoebe will steal the (cloned) Badger's text box.

Clone states:

  You may have Clone enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.

According to rule 706.2, one of the "Copiable values" is, in fact, Rules Text.

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

So, that means that Clone's text box will be the same as whatever creature it's copying1 (in fact, Clone will be the creature it's copying), which in turn will be stolen by Phoebe's ability.

If the copy has added abilitites (such as Dack's Duplicate), Phoebe will steal those abilities as well, so for the Duplicate, Phoebe would also gain Haste and Dethrone.

1: Except for flavour text and watermark, naturally2

2: Unless it's a silver-bordered game, in which case it will include those after all. Kudos to @murgatroid99 for pointing that out.


Should the Hare nap when in the lead among remaining racers?

While you are right that the hare moves more frequently than the other animals, its up to the players not betting on the hare to win to make sure to not let someone just play 1 card per turn, (as this would be the most effective way to win with the hare). If you are playing with new people you will see that this is a clear tale on when someone is betting on the hare.
Usually when this happen all the players not betting on the hare(assuming there is no other player betting on it) can easily horde hare cards and only play them when there will 4 on the board, or when a howl is played.

If no one has willingly picked the hare the game has a total of 76 cards(since each player bets 5 cards out of the deck), and out of those 18 are hare.  Now each player holds 6 cards so the chances that a player has a hare card is 23% this is almost guarantees that the non betting players will have a combined total of 4 hare cards. Since they aren't betting on the hare to win then if played correctly they should be able to throw away 4 cards at least in one turn. Combined with the howling wolfs cards this means that you can at least throw away 7 cards at minimum.

If you assume all players are betting on the hare (including the guy who is dealt the hare) the card total goes from 18 to 13. The more ppl bet on the same animal the less chance that animal has to win statistically, but since more ppl are going for it, it will most likely move more often. (If everyone is going for the hare no one will play more than one hare per turn as there is no benefit).

Overall the game is very well balanced i have played this game probably over 200 times now, (this is a great game to play with anyone, and my friends and family love playing this game for how simple it is to pick up but how hard it is to master) and the outcome of the game now comes down to being able to read what each person is betting on.

Opps forgot to copy and paste the paragraph on answering the question, I interpret the rules as only when the hare is First place (or tie since technically they are tie for first place), so how can the hare be in first place if someone already won the race, and you are racing for second, and third? This is my interpretation and I have found out that this does not make the hare place second automatically. I would not make the hare sleep as I feel that it would significantly lower its chances of even placing at all.

As I pointed out earlier its fairly easy at the beginning to tell what people are betting on if they do the optimal play every turn so this game starts turning more into a meta game of how people play rather than people doing the optimal play because when you end up losing 4 cards of your animal it becomes basically impossible to win.

I would most more statistics on the game but I'm at work currently and this response has gone on longer than it should already(I will try to update it with more numbers on how things play out assuming you have 5 players because with less players the game starts to become more about getting lucky to draw the right cards at the right time).


The game is solved. The "tactic" for playing the losing side is to hope the other player makes a mistake. With perfect play, there are no moves that are better than others for the losing side : they all lose.
If the winning-side player fails to play optimally, then your move should attempt to restore the position to one it could have reached if you had been the winning-side all along.
For instance, on a 3x3, if your opponent goes first and takes a side square instead of the center, then you should take the 2x1 region of the center and the opposite side square.
Note though that the winning-side player has other equally-winning moves beyond what the winning algorithm prescribes, it's just that the algorithm reduces it to a sufficient move. On a 3x3, for instance, the first player could take the whole center row and still be winning.


From the rulebook:

No. "Ship units may move into friendly connected port areas or into adjacent sea areas, but may never move into a land area." (p. 15) So a ship alone cannot attack or conquer land. It can support a land attack, though, although the reverse is not true (p. 18).
As indicated above, this cannot happen.
You can capture the ships. "If the land area connected to a Port is successfully attacked and taken control of by another player, that player may immediately replace any enemy Ship units in the Port with an equal number of his own available Ship units (or as many Ship units as he has available, he desires, or is allowed by supply limits). Excess enemy ships are simply removed from the board." (p. 25)


Canfield solitaire: moving partial sequences

Bicycle cards lists the more restrictive rule.

Building
Any movable card or cards (from tableau, reserve, or stock) may be placed only on a card next-higher in rank and of opposite color in the tableau. Example: The  8♥ may be placed on  9♣ or  9♠. An entire pile of the tableau must be moved as a unit.

Boardgames.about.com also lists the more restrictive rule.
To move cards from one tableau pile to another, you may only move the entire pile.


Where can I download The Resistance rules?

I found the publisher's page..

The link to the rules is a tiny button right under the red navigation menu on the left hand of the screen.


Will a copy of a flashed-back Increasing Vengeance still make two copies?

No, it will not make 2 copies. See the ruling on Increasing Vengeance.

  When Increasing Vengeance resolves, it creates one or two copies of a spell. You control each of the copies. Those copies are created on the stack, so they're not "cast." Abilities that trigger when a player casts a spell won't trigger. The copies will then resolve like normal spells, after players get a chance to cast spells and activate abilities.

The copies were not cast from the graveyard, so the replacement effect doesn't apply.


Certainly -- the trick is do all the prep work after you finish a game.  Once you are done with the game, sort everything out for the next game.

These instructions all assume you will want to take into account the 2-Player variant when sorting; if you want to ignore the 2-player variant, ignore the bullets flagged with two stars (**).

Personally, I play a lot of the 2-player variant because I have a hard time finding a third, so I have plastic bags labelled 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players, and 5 Players.

** For the 2-player variant, I have sorted out 2 of each production building and 1 of each purple building into one of the trays, and have the remaining buildings in a separate tray labeled "3+ Player Buildings".
** I have removed three of each type of plantation, and placed the remainder of the plantations in one of the tray spaces.
** The 2 Player  bag contains:  65 victory points, 42 colonists.  It also contains all the barrels of goods except for 2 barrels of each type (per the 2-player rules).
The 3 Player bag contains 10 more victory points, 13 more colonists, and the remaining plantation tiles and goods barrels.

Alternately, if you don't ever plan on playing with only 2 players, the 3 Player bag should contain the base 75 victory ponits and 55 colonists.  You won't need to sort out plantations or barrels in this case.

The 4 Player bag contains 25 more victory points, and 20 more colonists.
The 5 Player bag contains the last 22 victory points, and the last 20 colonists.

If you write the contents of what the 3, 4 and 5 player bags should have, you can fill those up, and the remainder goes into the 2 player bag.

Now all you'll have to do is fish out the necessary corn and indigo plantations to determine who goes first, and you're all set.


What distribution of ICE should I have in my deck?

This is more of a 'How I pick my ICE/General ideas' than anything else, but here goes:

Generally, corp decks will run anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of their deck as ICE (most decks landing somewhere in the middle). When I build decks my starting point is 18 ICE out of 49 cards with 6 of each type. That's basically my boilerplate average deck idea. Then that'll change depending on which corp I'm building. In faction, here's what you're looking at for ICE:

Haas lacks an early game barrier and a late game code gate but is pretty solid everywhere else.
Jinteki has a late game barrier [Wall of Thorns] and...yeah. A fair amount of early game ICE but none of it has stopping power.
NBN has a good barrier [TMI] (as long as the trace succeeds the first time), a good sentry [Data Raven], and a great code gate [Tollbooth].
Weyland's ICE is cool in that you can advance a number of them to increase their strength [Shadow, Ice Wall, Hadrian's Wall], so early game ICE is potentially useful later as well, but completely lacks code gate ICE.
The neutrals Wall of Static, Enigma, and Chimera are all useful early game ICE as well.

Generally I try to have an early game and late game (ie. cheap/expensive) ICE of each of the three types, but I think early game ICE are more important. Tollbooth doesn't do you any good if it's your only code gate and you can't get it on the table. And a single Wall of Static can work wonders if the runner just isn't pulling t[heir barrier breaker. Chimera is a really good piece of ICE early game as it's whatever you need, but can get expensive quickly.

You can cover for the various ICE deficiencies inherent in corps by adding in neutral cards and pulling from other corps. Not having ICE of a specific type will hurt since the runner no longer has to care about playing one of their icebreakers. Tollbooth is a popular code gate to pull in, and Archer is a popular sentry if you think you've got the ability to sacrifice an agenda (NBN) or stand a good chance of rezzing it for free (Haas).

Other than that, you can play to your corp's strength/keep their weaknesses in mind!

NBN loves traces and tags but remember that all the traces in the world won't help if you can't stop the run & the runner removes the tag before your turn
Haas has a good economy and strong ICE, but bioroids can be bypassed very easily by runners with extra time on their hands. E3 Feedback is your worst enemy. A single bioroid on a server is significantly less dangerous than three bioroids on one server.
Weyland also has a good economy, but needs to spend a lot of time to bump up their early game ICE, if that's the route you're going.
Jinteki has a weaker economy and a more tricksy playstyle, so it's hard to give more definitive advice other than cheap ICE is your friend.

You can also take a look at what it takes for the various runner to break through ICE and compare that to a particular piece of ICE's cost, but that's less helpful since runners can pull icebreakers from each other to mitigate weaknesses.

Anarchs: Hard to analyze. Either they can get through for very cheap/free (using Ice Carver + Datasucker + Parasite) or they can't get through at all.
Criminals: Have to bump up strength in >1 increments and have the only breakers that cost 2 credits to break 1 subroutine. So consider what levels of strength could be most inconvenient. ie. A strength 1 Draco is just as annoying as a strength 5 Draco to Ninja. Ninja is arguably the best sentry breaker in the game.
Shapers: Pretty balanced, especially with Personal Touch and Modded. Gordian Blade is a great Code Gate breaker.

So as an example, if I were building a Weyland deck I know I'll have easy money, so I'd pull in my big hitters [Archer, Hadrian's Wall, Tollbooth]. These also cover the three types pretty well for late game play. After that I'd pull in Chimera since Weyland can feed it pretty easily. I wouldn't really care about having another Code Gate since Enigma is pretty weak and I'd personally prefer to spend the influence somewhere else rather than pulling in Viktor or Viper. For remaining sentries I'd want to avoid relying on traces since I'm already looking at spending most of my money in other places. Maybe a Data Raven. Possibly a Shadow or Caduceus if I think the runner would let me get money from those subroutines. Wall of Static is my go-to barrier, so that would get included easy. At this point I'm sitting on 16 pieces of ICE (assuming you don't have multiple base boxes) and would probably include one more 'thing' that would totally vary depending on how I'm feeling. Probably some piece of ICE that's cheaper for me to rez than it is for them to break once.

But this is all just my .02! I've never won any tournaments, etc. etc. but hopefully that'll give you some idea of what goes through other people's heads when building decks.


Neutralize All Threats - Am I required to trash the second card accessed if I was not able to trash the first one?

No, it doesn't force you. Neutralize All Threats triggers "the first time each turn you access a card with trash cost..." and whatever you did with that card is irrelevant for next accesses same turn.


Evaluating an opponent in a game you're familiar with?

Reading people like this is something that takes years of practice and experience.  there are no easy answers.  However, to get you started, here's something:

One common personality trait that distinguishes people, fairly 50/50, is risk-aversion.

In such a game as you describe, ask yourself which of two strategies is more based on chance.

More risk averse people will choose a strategy that minimizes chance (variance), even at the expense of overall win percentage.  For example, in a dice game, a certain strategy might win only 40% of the time, but the decision of win/lose is more based on a player's positioning than the rolls of the dice.  Likewise, the 60% winning strategy can lose spectacularly, if lady luck isn't on the gambler's side.

In such a situation, a risk-averse personality will choose the 40% strategy more often because in the case of a win or lose, they can 'blame' themselves instead of luck, and a win feels more sweet, and a loss doesn't feel uncontrolled.

Determining risk-aversion is fairly simple before the game starts.  Everything from dress to occupation to speech patterns can betray one's temperament.  Salesmen tend to be gamblers, accountants risk-averse.  Suits: risk-averse. Flashy or colorful clothes: gamblers.  Tentative soft speakers: risk averse.  Loud, fast, highly social speakers, gamblers.

Enjoy!


Does Doubling Cube's ability affect the mana used to activate it?

No, Doubling Cube does not copy the mana used to activate it.
When you activate an ability you pay costs before the ability takes effect. Specifically, rule 602.2 describes the steps for activating an ability:

602.2a The player announces that he or she is activating the ability. [...]
602.2b The remainder of the process for activating an ability is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2b–i. Those rules apply to activating an ability just as they apply to casting a spell. An activated ability’s analog to a spell’s mana cost (as referenced in rule 601.2f) is its activation cost.
...
601.2h The player pays the total cost in any order. Partial payments are not allowed. Unpayable costs can’t be paid.
601.2i Once the steps described in 601.2a–h are completed, the [ability becomes activated]. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time. If the spell’s controller had priority before casting it, he or she gets priority.

Normally, players would get a chance to respond before the ability resolves, but Doubling Cube's ability is a mana ability, so 605.3b says

An activated mana ability doesn’t go on the stack, so it can’t be targeted, countered, or otherwise responded to. Rather, it resolves immediately after it is activated. (See rule 405.6c.)

Then, rule 608 describes how spells and abilities resolve. Specifically, rule 608.2g says

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

This means that the Doubling Cube checks the mana to be doubled when the effect resolves, which is after you spent the 3 mana on the ability's cost.


Alternatives to the Sympathiser in Battlestar Galactica

FFG actually have a variants document posted on the Support Page for BSG: Optional Rules PDF

Whilst the humans do start with slightly reduced resources, it should be noted that this still makes it quite a bit easier for the humans to win. Your Cylons will have to be very good if they're to stand a chance!

Alternatively, you can pick up the Pegasus Expansion which provides a new "You are a Sympathetic Cylon" (that replaces the original Sympathiser loyalty card) and changes up the rules a little to keep things interesting for whomever happens to draw the Sympathiser card.


Reordering Static Effects with Dependencies on a Changing Board State

Yes, the existence of an object with no abilities can change the order in which effects are applied.

In the section about dependencies, rule 613.7a says

  An effect is said to “depend on” another if (a) it’s applied in the same layer (and, if applicable, sublayer) as the other effect (see rules 613.1 and 613.3); (b) applying the other would change the text or the existence of the first effect, what it applies to, or what it does to any of the things it applies to; and (c) neither effect is from a characteristic-defining ability or both effects are from characteristic-defining abilities. Otherwise, the effect is considered to be independent of the other effect.

The highlighted section clearly indicates that the dependency order of effects depends not only on the effects themselves and the objects those effects are on, but also the full set of objects that those affects could apply to. So a change to that set can change how effects are applied.

So, your description of how that example would play out is correct. The existence of the Saproling token changes the dependency order between Life and Limb and Blood Moon, which results in Gingerbread Cabin ending up with different characteristics.


How does Over My Dead Bodies interact with combat-related abilities of creature cards in my graveyard?

During combat, all creatures in your graveyard are treated as if they were on the battlefield. Anything they could do at this time while they were alive, they can do now even though they are dead.
This is covered in the Unstable FAQAWASLFAQPAFTIDAWABIAJTBT:

Do the graveyard creatures cause attacking or blocking triggered abilities to trigger?
Yes. Remember that they're treated as permanents on the battlefield while in combat, so a graveyard creature attacking will cause anything that triggers when a creature attacks (including its own abilities) to trigger.

With further confirmation that "on combat damage" abilities work on Mark Rosewaters Blogatog

wretchedor30 asked: I have out Over My Dead Bodies and attack with Phage the Untouchable. As she is in a graveyard, would it still cause game loss, or is the ability only relevant on the field?
MR: Her ability still works.

In regards to your specific examples:

Raving Dead's ability triggers at the beginning of combat (which is during the combat phase), so you will need to attack a random player. If that player doesn't block Raving Dead (perhaps they have no creatures in their graveyard) they will lose 2 life, and then half their remaining life rounded down.
If you control a Brutal Hordechief in your graveyard, when you attack during your turn each creature you attack with both alive and in the graveyard will cause the defending player to lose 1 life and you to gain 1 life. You also may use Hordechief's activated ability during combat, before blockers are declared.


Can I save a creature from dying by exileing then returning it

Yes you can save your creature, if you cast your spell at the right time.

When you exile a creature and return it to the battlefield it becomes a new object (except in special cases) as per the comprehensive rules:

  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. There are nine exceptions to this rule:...

However in order to save your creature, you must cast exile and return the creature before damage has been done to it.
For example if your creature is targeted by a removal spell:

You have a Dire Fleet Hoarder and your opponent casts Shock targeting it.
If you respond to the Shock with Siren's Ruse, your opponent has no responses.
Once the stack starts to resolve, the Shock will lose track of your Dire Fleet Hoarder and fizzle (since it no longer has any legal targets).
Your pirate has survived and is free to pillage another day!

An example of your creature about to die in combat (see: Combat Phase for more info):

You have a Dire Fleet Hoarder that is attacking and your opponent has a
2/2 Forest Bear blocking it.
Before the Damage Step you cast Siren's Ruse targeting your Dire Fleet Hoarder, your opponent has no responses.
When Siren's Ruse resolves your Dire Fleet Hoarder is removed from combat. It will no longer be dealt any damage by the Bear, and it will no longer deal any damage to the Bear.

If however the damage has already been marked on the Dire Fleet Hoarder, for instance you let the the Shock spell resolve without responding or you let combat damage be dealt, it is too late to save it. This is because it will have already died due to state-based actions as per the comprehensive rules:

  704.1.: State-based actions are game actions that happen automatically whenever certain conditions (listed below) are met. State-based actions don’t use the stack.

and

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

Since the creature is killed as a result of a state based action, it doesn't use the stack. Since it doesn't use the stack, you can not respond to it and can not save your creature.


How does doubling of life work when you are at negative life?

You would go to negative 6 life.

When calculating or comparing numbers, the game uses the actual value of whatever is involved in the calculation. Usually the result of such a calculation can't be negative, but doubling a player's life is one of the few exceptions:

  107.1b Most of the time, the Magic game uses only positive numbers and zero. You can’t choose a negative number, deal negative damage, gain negative life, and so on. However, it’s possible for a game value, such as a creature’s power, to be less than zero. If a calculation or comparison needs to use a negative value, it does so. If a calculation that would determine the result of an effect yields a negative number, zero is used instead, unless that effect doubles or sets to a specific value a player’s life total or a creature’s power and/or toughness.


Do summoned units count towards victory points?

No, they do not.

As you said, they did not cost anything to inlude in the army so are worth zero (unless the unit has a rule that states otherwise).

In addition to which, many summoning spells explicitly state this.

For example, Raise Dead:

  Units summoned by this spell cannot be dispelled, and do not award
  victory points under any circumstances. (Vampire Counts 8th Edition, pg 60.)


The rules state:

At the end of the game, each mask allows the controlling player to copy the scientific symbol of a green card present in one of the two neighboring cities.
If a player possesses multiple [mask] symbols, he or she can only copy a given card once, and must thus copy as many different cards as they have [mask] symbols.
A player can copy two identical cards (if they have enough masks) if both neighboring cities have a copy (copy a Workshop card in the left city and a second Workshop card in the right city).

Example: At the end of the game, Alex has 2 cards with the [mask] symbol. The player to his left only has one green card, with the compass symbol. The player to his right has played no green cards. Alex’s first [mask] therefore counts as a [compass] symbol, but his second [mask] is useless as there are no other symbols to copy. If the player to the left of Alex had had 2 green cards with a [compass] symbol each, Alex’s 2 masks could’ve counted as [compass].

So the wording is pretty clear. For each mask symbol you control, you may copy the symbol of a single green card owned by either adjacent player. Hence,

You may not copy the same building, even if you have more masks than buildings.
You may not copy the symbol on a leader, since they are not a building / green card.


Does the longest road need to have settlements/cities at endpoints?

It is 8, the relevant rules are exactly what you quoted.

  The Longest Road is a continuous road connecting two intersections, which consists of at least 5 individual road pieces and is not interrupted by game pieces belonging to other players. It has more individual road pieces than any other connecting road of this type.

The bolded part tells you what "connecting road" refers to, in this case 2 intersections. It doesn't matter if they have settlements/cities or not.


Eclipse ship parts - infinitely stackable?

As long as you're obeying the basic rules of shipbuilding, you can put as many of any ship part (Ancient ship parts notwithstanding) on your ship as you wish.

While the effects of ship parts are cumulative (e.g. two power sources would provide twice as much power as one), ship parts themselves can not "stack" infinitely.  Each ship class has a very finite amount of space, which is printed on the player card.  A typical (e.g. Terran) Interceptor, for example, only has four slots available for ship parts, one of which must be used for a drive.  If you want to put a new ship part into one of the spaces, you have to remove the old one (or cover up the pre-printed one).

In other words, only four ship parts can be active on the Interceptor at any time.

So between the drive and (presumably) a power supply, you could have at most two Ion Cannons on an Interceptor.


Under IV: How to strike in the official rules

  Any hand may be used in play.

Hand in this case is singular. This is somewhat clarified further down...

  The elbow of the playing “hand” shall not come within the playing surface nor shall extend beyond the imaginary lines of the arrows. The “hand” may, however, cross the arrow.

This indicates that there should only be one hand in use.

The rules also indicate what the other hand could be used for

  While making a stroke, taking support of the Stool or Chair, Stand or Table of the C/B or keeping the legs on the rim of the stand or table by the player is not permissible. However, hands may rest on his body and legs or on the rim of the stool or chair on which he sits.

Furthermore, if you wanted to make an analogy with cue-sports, there is almost always a rule against double stroking or push strokes, as the concept of a "stroke" is one single instantaneous point of contact. Carrom's definition gives some more leeway because we're using fingers instead of cue sticks, but the concept is still the same. Using two fingers undoubtedly results in striking the striker twice.


I'm the creator of https://werewolv.es which is an in-browser version of werewolf. The games are more like individual chat rooms or slack/irc channels than the usual forum/message board variants you find online. Most of the games on the site take place over several days, but plenty of 'speed games' are played where the rounds a few minutes.

I decided to embrace the online aspect of this version of the game and added features that would be difficult or impossible to simulate in face to face play. Each game is played with a distinct theme (usually taken from a film or tv series) and players are given a random avatar in addition to their role. This gives a degree of anonymity (at least at the start) to the game.

The anonymous avatars also allow for additional avenues of play. For example, the Puppetmaster has control of 2 extra identities in the game, and can freely talk as them, allowing the Puppetmaster to counter claim and cause confusion in chat.


The rules (which are available online) do specify that hands are secret. This is within the setup section:

Shuffle the remaining deck and deal 4 cards face down to each player.

Deal 1 Defuse card to each player so that everyone has a hand of 5 cards total. Keep your hand secret

The draw step is part of the normal turn order:

Finally, end your turn by drawing a card from the Draw Pile into your hand and hoping it’s not an Exploding Kitten.

So the game tells us that hands are secret and cards drawn are added to our hand - at no point does it tell us to reveal the drawn card.
The exception for an exploding kitten being revealed immediately is covered under the specific rules for exploding kittens:

EXPLODING KITTENS

You must show this card immediately. Unless you have a DEFUSE CARD, you’re dead. Discard all of your cards, including the EXPLODING KITTEN.

So yes, you trust people to admit when they have a kitten. Cheating is possible (i.e. hold a kitten, then steal a defuse and pretend the next card was a kitten), but apart from that specific case it won't stop them being found out by the end of the game.


Blackjack: Why use a Suit Aware card counting system?

After doing a lot more research and sometimes even stumbling across answers for this while looking up other topics, I found a few good reasons why someone would use a suit aware system. I had way better results found when looking up the more well-known Red Seven counting system rather than the KISS II and KISS III methods which are not as commonly known as the Red Seven.

The Red Seven System

For those interested, most guides explaining how and why you should use Red Seven makes a point of boasting about its ease of use combined with its professional edge you would usually only see in more complicated systems.

Red Seven Card Value Assignments:

2,3,4,5,6 = +1
T,A = -1
Red 7 = +1
Black 7 = 0

Effects of Removal

To appreciate what a Suit Aware system is trying to accomplish, I'd like to introduce EoR or "Effects of Removal." This table represents the effect each card has on the player's advantage if it is removed from the deck. The table values represent how the player's advantage % is affected in a single deck game of blackjack. (It will be a little different in an 8-deck shoe game but this single deck chart can be used for example). The values of this table was taken from the online book, Modern Blackjack (https://www.qfit.com/book/)

2 = +0.38
3 = +0.44
4 = +0.55
5 = +0.69
6 = +0.46
7 = +0.28
8 = 0
9 = -0.18
T = -0.51
A = -0.61

The most common and easiest card counting systems such as Hi-Lo and KO tend to assign a value of 1, 0, or -1 to each card. This is mainly for ease of use and are known as level 1 systems.

Hi-Lo's card values are:

2,3,4,5,6 = 1
7,8,9 = 0
T,A = -1

Aimed more towards simplicity, the easier level 1 systems ignore the fact that a 5 taken out of the deck gives almost twice the advantage of a 2 being taken out of the deck. Level 2, 3, and 4 systems exist that take these ratios into consideration and assign point values that have more correlation with the effect of removal value each card has. For example, Revere RAPC is a highly complicated system that focuses more on the accuracy of EoR card values at the risk of having more player errors.

Revere RAPC Values:

2,7 = 2
3,4,6 = 3
5 = 4
8 = 0
9 = -1
T = -3
A = -4

You can imagine that human error tends to be much higher in this system, especially when compared to something easier such as the Hi-Lo.

Advantages of Red Seven or other Suit Aware Systems

Now with a firm understanding of Effects of Removal(EoR), we can see how a Suit Aware system may help. The goal of a Suit Aware system is usually to keep things at a level 1 difficulty level while adding in a bit of advantage that only more complicated systems would use. In fact, all suit aware systems I've found online claim to be level 1. Another interesting trend is that they are all Unbalanced systems which tend to be easier for many players because it does not use division to find a true count of the cards remaining. By using a Suit Aware system, you keep the simplicity of only adding and subtracting 1 to the count, but get the advantage of not adding +1 for every 7 in play. (More relevant to the 7's EoR value).

Another interesting bit I found on some Blackjack forum posts, is that using 0.5 for a value of 7 instead of +1 or 0 depending on the suit actually decreased the accuracy of the Red Seven system. I believe these tests were run using simulations in the CVData app but can't say for sure.

Personally, in conclusion, I would still prefer a level 1 or level 2 balanced system. I'm just more comfortable with starting at 0 and having to divide rather than starting with a large negative number that unbalanced counting systems have to use. Nearly all famous Blackjack experts strongly suggest its not about which counting system is the best but about which system you are most comfortable with.

If I find any other helpful or interesting information, I'll be sure to update my post here. Thanks everyone.


Is there an equivalent of gatherer for Duels of the Planeswalkers?

I don't think there is a searchable database like Gatherer that lists DotP cards, because most places that allow you to search for cards either get their info from Gatherer or MagicCards.info (or a thrid party that gets their info from one of those sources like MtGJSON) and neither of those sites allow you to search for DotP cards. There are however places that list all, or most of the cards from each expansion.

DotP 2015 + Expansion
DotP 2014
DotP 2013 + Expansion
DotP 2012
DotP (2009)


Should I get $200 for passing "Go" if I then get a card that says "don't collect $200"?

Yes, they would still gain $200 from passing GO then landing on a square that makes them draw a card like this.

You collect $200 immediately when you land on or pass GO, then the player would continue their move and land on Chance/Community Chest, then draw that card.

The text on the card specifies that you cannot collect $200 if you pass GO (again) in the process of moving around the board from a Chance/Community Chest square to the Jail square.


Does a Geologist get their gold if they're locked up?

I believe the answer lies in the description of the Trapped card (which is used to lock someone up). This comes from the official rules of Saboteur2:

  Play this card face-up in front of another player of your choice. This
  player is trapped and cannot play any more path cards. If a player is
  trapped when the round ends, they don‘t get counted as one of the
  winners and don‘t get a cut of the treasure

The Trapped card does not specify this status only applying to certain roles. So if a Geologist is trapped, that player would not get their gold.

I also found a post on a BGG forum for Saboteur 2 from Frederic Moyersoen, the game designer who states that a Trapped Geologist gets no treasure.


At the end of the game, can you play a route that is longer than your number of trains?

No, you are limited to the 45 trains you started with.

From the rules, under Claiming a Route (emphasis mine):

  The player may claim a route on the board by playing a set of Train Car cards that match the color and length of the route and then placing one of his colored trains on each space of this route

If you do not have the trains available to place on each space needed then you may not claim the route.

This is also how Days of Wonder's electronic implementation works.


Can I Mindslaver my opponent and then cast his Panglacial Wurm and have it come under my control?

No.

You seem to misunderstand what controlling another player does. It doesn't allow you to take their turn, or use their cards. It instead allows you to make all decisions they would make. This means that if they have a Rampant Growth, you can force them to play it. You do not actually get to play it; you would not get the land. They would still be the controller of Rampant Growth.

Similarly, any creature they cast (because you forced them to) would be under their control just like normal. Panglacial Wurms is no different. Its ability lets your opponent cast it at a time other than normal, from a place other than normal, but it still is just like any other creature spell once cast, and would enter the battlefield under the control of the player who cast it (which would be your opponent, even if your opponent is controlled by you).

  Controlling Another Player

    714.3. Only control of the player changes. All objects are controlled by their normal controllers. A player who’s being controlled during his or her turn is still the active player.

    714.5. While controlling another player, a player makes all choices and decisions the controlled player is allowed to make or is told to make by the rules or by any objects. This includes choices and decisions about what to play, and choices and decisions called for by spells and abilities.

And from the rulings on Mindslaver:

  You don’t control any of the other player’s permanents, spells, or abilities.

and

  You choose which spells the other player casts, and make all decisions as those spells are cast and when they resolve. For example, you choose the target for that player’s Shock, and what card that player gets with Diabolic Tutor.

From a strategic point of view, the reason you want to control a player isn't that you get to steal any permanent spells that they could afford to cast. It's that you could do things such as attack with creatures that will easily die, cast harmful instants and sorceries targeting themselves instead of you, maybe sacrifice all of their good creatures if they have an ability that allows them to do so, etc. So you can still do a lot of powerful things with the ability, but you can't just take their creature spells as your own.


Did Wizards ever write a followup for the 2003 card face redesign?

The references section of the Card Frame article on the MTGSalvation Wiki refers to a large number of articles published by Wizards about card frame changes. The ones about the Eighth Edition change that you're asking about are:

Card Frame Redesign FAQ, by the magicthegathering.com staff.
Frames of Reference, by Mark Rosewater
A Scary Card Frame Story, by Randy Buehler

The article most relevant to your question is Frames of Reference, because it is where Mark Rosewater explains why exactly they made those changes.


Ugin's Condition Tokens & Doubling effects

This is addressed by one of the Gatherer rulings for Ugin:

  If an effect such as that of Doubling Season causes Ugin to create two Spirit tokens, you still only exile one card from your library. You’ll put that card into your hand the first time that either of the tokens leaves the battlefield.


Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Imprisoned in the moon

Your description has the correct result. This looks like the interaction with Magus of the Moon.

The steps are different though.
 1. In the layer 4, Dryad becomes a land. Then its ability gives it all basic lands types (and the associated mana abilities). Dryad's ability is applicated second because it depends on Imprisoned's one.
 2. In the layer 6, Dryad loses its printed abilities and its additional mana abilities but gains "{T}: Add colourless".

No timestamp order is involved.
As a bonus, if you care about land types, Dryad still has all of them.


Yes you must end a turn in your origin city before you may end your turn in any other. Your interpretation is correct, this game does not care about the spaces you pass over as you move (aside from the movement speed, though that's between spaces technically), only the spaces you end your turn on.


No, you do not win the game if your opponent somehow controls 6 Trap cards. There are only three ways to win a game of Yu-gi-oh (page 26 or 30 in pdf):

Winning a Duel
Each player starts a Duel with 8000 Life Points. You win a Duel if: you reduce your opponent's Life Points to 0; if your opponent is unable to draw a card; or if a card's special effect says you win. [...]

There are no "glitches", or other ways of winning a game.


How difficult is Eldritch Horror with differing numbers of players?

The jump from 4 players to 5 players seems to makes the game tougher. While stronger monster surges start at 3 players, it's easier to cover the entire world with a 4 player team. I find gates spawning is the most dangerous issue that needs to be dealt with since leaving gates open will help advance doom. Having extra monsters is also bad, but some monsters will sit quietly until you go deal with them. A few cards look at how many monsters are on the map, so you don't want to let the total number of monsters to get to hight. That being said, monsters that move to expedition locations often don't have retribution effects and tend to be ignored in many of the games I've played.

If you have Akachi as one of your investigators, she can control where the next gate spawns by using her ability to look at the top two gate locations and putting one of them on top of the stack and one on the bottom. I'm not sure how powerful this strategy is, but it certainly is an option in a four player game. Once you get that second gate spawning, it's no longer an effective strategy.

If you want to alter the difficulty of the game and make it easier, I suggest altering the mythos deck and removing the hard mythos cards that have tentacles. Then build your mythos deck from the remaining cards. To make the game harder, you can remove all of the easy mythos cards. The mythos cards that come up heavily effect the difficulty of the game.


Is there a way to play Twilight Imperium's "age of empire" variant with Shattered Empire's strategy cards?

As it says in the rules for Shattered Empire, if you're using the Age of Empire variant, you have to use the Imperial II strategy card rather than Bureaucracy.


In Last Will is property purchasing broken?

There are a couple of observations that can be made about property purchasing in Last Will:

They don't get rid of as much money as you think. Sure, they cost a lot to buy, but the house is still an asset and part of your funds, and this is something you might be tempted to forget. Right up until you sell it and the money cascades back into your pile. If you spend the whole game focussing on just a couple of properties, you'll find that the total outlay isn't that much. Even with a fully favourable market, total decay, and an estate agent or two, you might only manage to sink 30 cash into a house at the most, and that's not a great return if you've spent a lot of turns on it (and nothing else; which brings me to my next point...).

Make sure you have a finishing strategy. If you learn only one thing from this answer, learn this. Properly done, houses can get rid of a lot of money, but it's actually impossible to get rid of ALL your money exclusively through property because you have to sell said property, which leaves you with a small pile of remaining money and no way left of efficiently spending it. I've seen games of Last Will in which a player has absolutely hosed his money away on properties, sold them at the end for a crippling loss, but has still been forced to crawl over the finish line because they're relying entirely on event cards and the "theatre" board action to get rid of their remaining pennies. Invariably another more balanced player will cross the line first (or at least go further into debt) because when it got to the end, they could still spend a decent amount with each action.

The most obvious player interaction is on the property market. There's very little interaction in the game. Actions on player's individual boards are totally independent. There's a little competition for good cards, or the wild-card companions, and there's competition for spaces in the turn order, but fundamentally, this does little except to change turn order for chasing the good cards. (If you don't care about turn order, there's pretty much always somewhere you can go that gets you close to what you want for cards/errands/actions balance.) But there's only one property market space, and it will affect everyone in the property business, and this can have a profound effect. The best time to dip into the property market will often be when most other people aren't interested. As always, you'll do better with no competition. Your opponent probably found that he could get decent helpers from the board (while everyone else fought over property-oriented cards) and largely play his own game, unconcerned with other players.

TL;DR:

Don't plough all your actions into maintaining properties and playing/activating helpers that only affect properties.
Have an escape plan. Play a couple of helpers that work well together and will still be able to spend money once your properties are gone.
As in all games, take the path of least resistance. Go for the strategy that the fewest other players are going for and you'll find less competition for the cards that suit that strategy.


Am I allowed to shortcut two abilities that allow me to search my deck?

In general yes you can do both searches, and only shuffle once. You would do this by proposing a shortcut where you resolve both abilities without them responding in between. Assuming they accept the shortcut you can shorten search, shuffle, search, shuffle to search, search shuffle. Since if nothing happens between the two abilities resolving the first shuffle is pointless and a waste of time. This is supported by a ruling on Green Sun's Zenith, which technically tells you to shuffle your library twice.:

  In most cases, if you own Green Sun's Zenith and cast it, you'll shuffle your library twice. In practice, shuffling once is sufficient, but effects that care about you shuffling your library (like Psychogenic Probe, for example) will see that you've shuffled twice.

Obviously if there is a card on the battle filed like Psychic Surgery, that triggers on the shuffle and alters the cards in the library, or Future Sight that reveals the top card of the library you cannot use this shortcut as the game state would be changing in meaningful ways that you aren't able to account for with your shortcut. Some other cards that trigger on a shuffle like the Psychogenic Probe would not prevent you from using this shortcut however since their results are the same so you can account for them in your proposed shortcut.

And remember even if you only actually shuffle once the game still sees both shuffles, so anything that triggers on shuffling will trigger twice.


When a land becomes a creature, is it untapped?

The creature will still be tapped because nothing has untapped it.
Tapped vs untapped is one of the four categories of statuses that a permanent has.  Status is not affected by permanent type, and changing permanent types does not make the permanent a new object.  See the relevant rules:

110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. A permanent remains on the battlefield indefinitely. A card or token becomes a permanent as it enters the battlefield and it stops being a permanent as it’s moved to another zone by an effect or rule.
110.6. A permanent’s status is its physical state. There are four status categories, each of which has two possible values: tapped/untapped, flipped/unflipped, face up/face down, and phased in/phased out. Each permanent always has one of these values for each of these categories.
110.6c A permanent retains its status until a spell, ability, or turn-based action changes it, even if that status is not relevant to it.


Balancing Creature battles in a new card game

Forget fixed stat blocks decided by the type. They're too deterministic! Nobody wants to remember all those different number triplets! What should you do instead?

Use non-transitive dice

Each creature has a colour for attack and one for defence. When a creature is attacking, it rolls a die of the same colour as its attack marker, and similarly for its defence. The higher result succeeds, whether to hit or to block. A five-year-old could learn this game in five minutes.

How do types fit into this?

You could set each type to a unique colour, and each colour to a unique type. Then you have guaranteed a balanced competition in which every type has advantages and disadvantages in the same measure, and in a way that is determined by simple rules, but provides some chance of winning despite the disadvantage or losing despite the advantage.

I'm sure finding or creating a seven-member set of non-transitive dice is easy with Google available. You're definitely not the first person to investigate these amazing quirks of probability. Problem solved!

Or you could make this game interesting...

Who says Type X has to use red dice for boh attack and defence? Why can't they roll a red attack and a green defence, or a yellow attack and red defence?

By mixing and matching different colour combinations, you can simultaneously make your game simpler in mechanic by reducing the number of colours (from seven to say, four) but deeper in strategy (because there are now sixteen possible combinations, and they will all interact differently with the others).

Now creatures may be perilously weak against some enemies, but immensely strong against others. They might be their own worst enemy or their own easiest target.

But wait, there's more. Include colours that are always weaker or always stronger (like a white one rolling five 2 and a single 7, or a black one rolling a single 1 and 10 otherwise). Now you can build the type that fails spectacularly but carries useful benefits, or the type that will always win after striking first but always lose if forced to wait, or the type that is expensive but virtually unbeatable once it gets involved.

So how do I count damage done, when both need to inflict it?

You roll both creatures making an attack, and both creatures making a block. Successful attacks knock off a health point, or even just knock off the opponent.

You should not be aiming to guarantee damage for or to either side - again, deterministic and boring. The result otherwise is a MTG-style arms race where only the players who spend hundreds on cards and the encyclopaedic knowledge to tailor decks specifically to an opponent can win effectively at a high level, or knowing the only rules technicality that the opponent has failed to protect against.

This game has a simple mechanic, that everybody knows. The rest is all down to what you can do with what you have, and that's the same for everybody. The best player isn't rich or connected or a lawyer-in-training; they're a thinker who can take efficient risks for effective rewards no matter what situation they find themselves in.

This mechanic can be easily modified for expansion or depth. Bonus dice for surviving a certain number of turns?  Mirror effects that mean always using the same colour as the opponent? Rainbow marks that allow choosing the colour when you play it? Allowing weak creatures to band together and combine results?


Can the Herald put itself on top of your draw deck?

No, Herald cannot put itself on top of the deck by overpaying.
From the designer, Donald X. Vaccarino on BGG.

Q: OK, so when the "when buy" effect kicks in, is the herald you just bought in the discard pile yet? Or would it have to be a "when gain" like Inn to do that? i.e., can you pay 5 to buy a herald and put it on top?
A: When-buy, which includes overpay, triggers before gaining, so you can't buy a Herald and use its overpay to put that very Herald on top of your deck.


What is the box size of this very valuable 1957 French Monopoly set?

Probably the easiest way would be to find additional images of the same box, which is a little difficult, but not impossible:

Based on that we can surmise that the box is square.


Does removing a token from play trigger effects that happen when a dude is discarded or aced?

If you assign 2 casualties to a dude (token dudes are still dudes!) they're considered aced unless they're Harrowed in which case it'd take 3 casualties!  Per the FAQ:

  When a Token Dude is aced or discarded it is removed from play instead of going to the discard pile or boot hill.
  It will still trigger events like collecting a bounty or the Undertaker giving its controller 2 ghost rock.


Can i get infinite mana from Krark-Clan Ironworks and Welding Jar?

No, for several reasons:

Regeneration doesn't prevent sacrifice. Only death due to damage or a "destroy" effect.

Here's a quote from the MTG basic rules:

  Sacrifice

  To  choose  one  of  your  permanents  on  the  battlefield
  and  put  it  into  its  owner’s  graveyard.  You  can  sacrifice
  only  permanents  you  control.  Sacrificing  a  permanent
  is different from destroying it, so the permanent can’t be
  regenerated. You can sacrifice a permanent only if a spell
  or ability tells you to, or if it’s part of a cost.

Timing. I know what you're thinking here: triggered and activated abilities (except mana abilities) use the stack. But their costs (the stuff before the ":") are paid when you put the ability on the stack, not when you resolve the ability. So sacrificing the Welding Jar to the Ironworks or to itself isn't something you can interrupt or preempt in any way. (Though an existing replacement effect, such as Rest in Peace, might change what happens.)

Thus, there is no way to "respond" to the sacrifice after you've initiated it. Nor can you sacrifice the Jar to activate two different abilities at the same time, since each cost must be paid in full independently.

(If you'd like a rules reference, look at page 9 of the basic rules: to cast a spell or activate an ability, you pay the costs, then put it on the stack, allowing for responses.)


Why is chasing the low considered a trap in Omaha Hi/Lo?

The reason that "chasing the low" is discouraged is because too often, you have a shot at only the low side of the pot.

Let's say you have a low hand draw, and a "high" draw to a straight or flush. Very often, you will make the latter, only to be beaten by a higher straight or flush. At the same time, you may fail to make your low because the card that made the straight or flush is "high."

Ideally, you will have a hand that can go "both ways." Something like K-K-2-3 can make both a high and a low hand, especially of the kings are "double suited" with the 2 and 3. But the best starting hand is A-A-2-3, especially if "double suited." That's because the aces can help make the best possible high hand and the best possible low hand.

If YOU don't have these advantages, someone else may, and you don't want to be playing against that "someone else."


Identify game with ~30 pegs and 30 holes

Dara would fit. You'd only need 12 pegs each. Extra could be just in case you lost some. From Board Game Geek-Dara:

A game from Nigeria that may be played by two players or teams. Traditionally the game was played on an area consisting of 5x6 spaces using sticks or stones for pieces.
The game begins with the players taking alternating turns placing one of their twelves pieces in an empty space. Once all of the pieces have been placed, the players alternate moving one of their pieces into an adjacent empty space. Diagonal movement is not allowed.
When a player moves a piece to cause three of their pieces to be in a row, that player may remove one opposing piece that is not part of a row of three such pieces. Players are not permitted to make a move which results in more than three of their pieces being in a row. A player wins the game when the opposing player is unable to make a a row of three pieces.


I know the Dragonrage's affect will trigger Heroic...

Actually, it doesn't. The word "target" doesn't appear anywhere on Dragonrage, and it's not an aura, so it doesn't target, and so it doesn't trigger heroic.

As an alternative example, Dragon Mantle is an aura, so it does trigger heroic when you initially cast it.

  the "R: This creature gains +1/+0" wouldn't affect Heroic if used correct since it isn't technically a spell right?

Right. This is an activated ability, not a spell. Additionally, it doesn't target, so even if it was a spell, it wouldn't trigger heroic anyway.


In Canasta, may I discard a card of a rank I have melded?

There is not, in my copy of Hoyle's Rules of Card Games, a requirement to meld any particular card. Nor is there a requirement to meld at all in a given turn, either. It is usually better to meld what you can, but it's not a requirement.
Looking at the Hoyle Gaming website's Canasta Rules, it says the following:

How the Game Is Played
At the beginning of the game, one card is flipped to the discard pile. If that card is a 2, joker, or red 3, another card is flipped on top of it and the pile is frozen. Before play begins, any red 3s in players’ hands are automatically played to the 3 pile on the board and replaced with new cards.
On your turn, you either draw a card from the draw pile or pick up the discard pile. See “Picking Up the Discard Pile” earlier in this chapter. If you pick up the discard pile, the top card of the pile is automatically played to the appropriate card pile. If the pile was frozen, you must then also play two natural cards to that pile; if you don’t, you won’t be able to take the pile.
Next, meld cards to the table, if you want to. (The first play your team can make is the initial meld.) You may be able to undo melds, if you need to; see the in-game help for details. At the end of your turn, discard a card by dragging it to the discard pile. You must always keep at least one card in your hand at the end of a turn, unless you are going out.

Melding is explicitly "if you want to"... The only compulsory behaviors are the draw, the discard, and that after discard, one must retain one card in hand.
Later, it notes:

Going Out
Your team is qualified to go out (ending the current hand) if you have at least one canasta on the table. To go out, either you or your partner must play all of the cards in your hand to the table. The last card in your hand can either be melded or discarded; this is the only time in the game you are not required to discard at the end of your turn.

This provides that one need not discard when going out.
Bycicle's Rules Page for Canasta says of melding:

A player may meld as many cards as he pleases, of one rank or different ranks, forming new melds or adding cards to previous melds. (But see restrictions on "Going Out".) All the melds of a partnership are placed in front of either partner. A partnership may meld in a rank already melded by the opponents, but may not make two different melds of the same rank.
A player may add additional cards to a meld by his side, provided that the melds remain valid (having no more than three wild cards). He may not add cards to the opponents' melds.

No compulsion to meld is listed.


What happens if Combat Celebrant is killed during combat?

Yes, the second combat phase will still happen.

Abilities are completely separate from the source of the ability.

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

In this case, Combat Celebrant has a triggered ability that causes the additional combat step. Once that ability triggers (upon exerting it), that ability is completely separate from the Celebrant itself.