What are "other" ways you can prevent your opponent from winning in magic the gathering, given the "right" decks?

I feel like this question is unclear; however, an explanation of why it's unclear could easily also answer the question, so I am writing this answer.

How do you prevent opponents from winning? It depends on how the opponent is planning to win in the first place. There are tons of Magic decks and tons of strategies, but broadly speaking there are four ways to win:

Reduce your opponent's life to zero.
Give your opponent ten poison counters.
Use a "you win the game" (or "your opponent loses the game") card.
Maneuver to a state where the opponent has to draw from an empty library.

Method #1 is by far the most common way to win. Virtually all the competitive decks in the current Standard (from MTGTOP8) primarily win this way. Some of them try to win quickly with a fast creatures and a low curve, others take it slowly and win on turn 20 with Dream Trawler attacks, but they all win by reducing the opponent's life total to zero. The corollary is they all cannot win against infinite life, and this is why the infinite life combo alluded to in the OP is effective.

To go a bit further here, there are different ways to reduce the opponent to zero life. Perhaps a deck attempts to win with creatures; in this case Ensnaring Bridge could stop it from winning. Or perhaps a deck uses ground creatures only; in this case Moat is just as effective. Or perhaps a deck is aiming to cast burn spells (e.g. Lightning Bolt, Skewer the Critics, Boros Charm) at the opponent; in this case Leyline of Sanctity stops it from winning.

Against Method #2, you can use cards that either remove poison counters or prevent you from getting them, such as Suncleanser, Solemnity and Melira, Sylvok Outcast. Or you can use the various creature removal / prison cards alluded to above, since poison counters usually comes from creatures.

Beating Method #3 will depend on what the exact card used is. Right now, in Pioneer, one of the top decks is Dimir Inverter. This deck wins by milling most of the cards in its library, then casting Thassa's Oracle with enough blue devotion to trigger the "you win" clause. In this case you can't prevent the win by removing Thassa's Oracle, since the ability is an enters-the-battlefield trigger, but you can prevent them from resolving Thassa's Oracle in the first place with a counterspell.

Other "you win" cards can be vulnerable to creature removal, e.g. one of the ways the Modern Ad Nauseam deck can win is by emptying its library and then attempting to draw a card while Laboratory Maniac is in play. In this case counterspells do nothing, but removing the Laboratory Maniac stops the opponent from winning (and most likely wins the game).

Method #4 is straightforward to attack by running a bigger deck. I vaguely remember reading that back in the day when Tolarian Academy mill was the dominant deck, someone calculated that the maximum amount they can mill for is about 400 cards. Therefore, if you have a 450-card deck, you cannot lose against that deck. You'll likely lose to everyone else, but you will beat this deck 100% of the time, even if the only cards in your deck are basic lands.

So why is this question unclear? Because Magic decks have insane variability, it's impossible to say "using this you can prevent your opponent from winning". Gaining infinite life means you beat many decks, but not all of them; having Solemnity in play guarantees you'll beat Infect, but it doesn't mean anything against an opponent trying to win with normal damage. Having an Emrakul against this deck attempting to win with method #4 stops you from losing, but does nothing against the Tolarian Academy deck mentioned above, and so on. Even taking infinite turns doesn't necessarily win, as you can see from the linked question.

The answer to the headline question relies completely on what deck the opponent is playing, and therefore, it's not really an answerable question.


In Axis and Allies, Should the U.S. Build a "Factory" in Brazil?

I can't imagine an instance where a US factory in Brazil makes much sense. Let's look at the supposed advantages one by one:

It can produce THREE units per turn - Yes, but the troops are not in a strategic position. The only territories to which you could move the units and not move your transports out the way is to: French West Africa; French Equatorial Africa; and Belgian Congo.

It is directed against the GERMANs (in Africa) - Yes, but unless Germany has some lucky dice rolls, you should have them hemmed into mainland Europe by turn 3 to 5. If you let Germany hold Africa for any significant amount of time, the Allies are fighting an uphill battle.

It won't be captured unless the U.S. player is extremely careless, not merely "unlucky." - True, that is a benefit over a factory in Sinkiang, whose sole purpose it seems is to help hold back Japan's march into Asia.

An American transport in African waters can go offshore Brazil, pick up two infantry, back to Africa and unload the infantry all in one turn. - True again: it only requires one turn to shuck troops from Brazil to Africa. However, it's also only one turn to shuck troops from Eastern Canada to Algeria (see the "shuck-shuck" from Don Rae's excellent essays on Allied strategy). The East Canada transport basing has the benefit of being able to attack Africa on turn 2 or 3 (just like best-case Brazil), but it also leaves the transports in position to support Finland or Western Europe instead. This is especially important because it allows the Allies to obfuscate their intended point of attack and/or change it on a whim based on Axis play. Once the shuck is set up troops hit the Europe or Africa every turn.

It seems to me that the sole advantage of a factory in Brazil is to take Africa from Germany. But it's a slow and costly way to do it.
My Approach to Claiming Ally Control of Africa
Here's my strategy to quickly secure Africa from Germany's grip:

On turn 1, the UK needs to sink as many German naval units as possible. If you're lucky, you'll have a sub, transport and/or battleship left that you can use to attack/as fodder, but even minus that you likely can use your Indian or UK fighters and UK bomber. The idea is to eliminate the German navy ASAP. This needs to be one of the Allies powers' early game goals.

Cede India and go into Africa hard. Depending on the Med. naval situation and how many troops are on the ground in Africa, as UK I'll typically reinforce (or retake) Egypt using my troop in Iraq and two in India.

Once the UK/USA navy has secured the Atlantic and are sitting in the UK sea zone, have UK move its transports into the Spain Sea zone and drop off at least four infantry. The US needs to follow suit on its turn to protect those transports from the German air force, dropping more troops into Algeria.

Everything hinges on eliminating that German navy sooner rather than later. If you let the German Med. navy sit around past the early game it can be difficult to combat Germany's growing industrial capabilities thanks to the extra 11 IPC they're getting per turn by holding Africa.
But What If the Allies Don't Take Africa Early?
But what if the Allies don't take Africa in the early game? What if the UK pulls her African corp to India? What then?
I still hold that a Brazilian factory is out of the way and not as logistically efficient as transports in the Spain Sea zone. For starters, you need to commit and move transports into the South Atlantic. This takes those transports out of the North Atlantic, where they can help protect the UK and USA navies that should be focusing on dumping wave after wave of infantry into Finland en route to Karelia.
US transports are ideally situated in the North Atlantic because it allows them the greatest range of options. From the UK sea zone the US can drop troops into:

Finland
Western Europe
UK

They can move to Spain Sea zone and still in one turn send troops to:

Western Europe
Spain
Algeria

The North Atlantic allows the most range of motion and allows the Allies to project their will into Europe and Africa. From Brazil, the Allies are limited to just Africa, albeit a with a wider choice of landing zones. But I argue it's best to keep the US/UK navies together in the Northern Atlantic so that they can project their will together and so that they present a less appealing target for the German air force.


What should happen if a player requests the floorman after an opponent deliberately exposes their hand?

I think there is a misunderstanding that 'the line' is a fold line.  I've played in many casinos where there is no line. Just because cards have crossed that line face up doesn't automatically make them dead.

The most important bit here is was there a verbal statement 'all in'.   If we look at Robert's Rules, which has been on display in most poker rooms I've played in, then

  A verbal statement denotes your action and is binding. If in turn you
  verbally declare a fold, check, bet, call, or raise, you are forced to
  take that action

If the player announced all in then the bet stands and other player can call or fold.

Two other rules worth mentioning here regarding 'dead hands'  Note the section on Dead Hands make no reference to 'the line'

You throw your hand away in a forward motion causing another player to act behind you (even if not facing a bet).

You say the player tabled his cards inside the line.  This to me is very different to throwing them away in a forward motion.  The rules on dead hands also say....

  Cards thrown into the muck may be ruled dead. However, a hand that is
  clearly identifiable may be retrieved at management’s discretion if
  doing so is in the best interest of the game. We will make an extra
  effort to rule a hand retrievable if it was folded as a result of
  false information given to the player.

In the situation you describe the cards never went into the muck.  They are also clearly identifiable. So it stands that the hand is live and they have not folded.  Of course by making this mistake they have disadvantaged themselves as the other player knows if they are winning of not thus denying the all in player extra value or loses a bluff.  This is punishment enough for the mistake and the rules don't punish them further by declaring the hand dead.

I did once witness this situation live once where a player went all in and tabled cards, admittedly pre flop.  It was ruled the players was all in and other other player was able to decide if they wanted to call or not based with the information of other players cards.


All of the Age of Steam map rules I have seen are only the differences between the base AoS rules and the map's rules and, as I mention below, sometimes they are not complete without knowledge of the features of other expansion maps.

I do not know of a unified Age of Steam map rules resource, although depending on the designer the rules may be on BGG or on the designer's web site.  At one point I created a fairly comprehensive and up to date list of Age of Steam maps which includes designers, that might be a good place to start.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArK4vAoucRR2cHpsb09IZG9Na3FzbE1zeFhqaXlyZkE&hl=en_US

It is fairly well documented that anything that John Bohrer retains the copyright to (including the base game rules) will not be made available online.

Paris being multicolored is actually the easiest rule to manage on the France map, it just behaves like all of the colors present.  The other rules, like engineer being required to build over mountains and the non-existence of bankruptcy are less obvious.

White lines over water almost always indicate a sea route or ferry that can be built as a single track tile build at a fixed cost (which can vary by map).  If the line is dotted, it usually means that one or both of the ends of the line are towns that must be urbanized before the link can be purchased.

One of the major challenges of AoS map rules is that they all assume a certain amount of familiarity with the rules of AoS and, in many cases, with the rules of one or more expansions for AoS.  For example, the New Zealand print and play map for AoS has sea links with town terminals but it does not spell out when they are allowed to be built.  I believe this is due to some sloppy thinking on the part of the designers, as they assume an accretion of knowledge about AoS that may or may not exist for a given gamer or group.


The resource track in Power Grid leads to some interesting decisions.  If you haven't played it, the resource track has costs increasing left-to-right while the resources are replenished from right-to-left.  This has a few interesting effects:

Resources in demand tend to cost more.
You can get resources on the cheap if you have a power plant type no one else is using.
You can hoard resources (up to a point) to make them more costly for everyone else.

Players have to make tough choices, especially since turn order is so important in Power Grid.  The player in the lead goes last when buying resources.  So a player can forego easy victory points in the short term to set up better prices for himself.  It adds another dimension to the decision-making process, and those decisions matter.


Does a Takeout Double Apply to a "Passed" Partner?

If you and your partner are playing standard takeout doubles, this double would certainly be for takeout.  The opponent's have not necessarily finished their bidding yet (the 1H bidder could still bid on), and you have not had a chance to bid before this.  Partner has passed, but you knew that and took that into consideration before you doubled.  Partner needs to trust you, and bid a suit that he has length in, or bid 2NT with the necessary stoppers and strength.  If he wants to pass, he does so at his own peril and should have a hand that can set 2H on his own nearly from the outset.

Given your options, the double is a good bid, and gives you the best chance of finding your best fit as cheaply as as possible.

One minor point: you really weren't balancing here.  "Balancing" refers to the person who, if they passed, would end the bidding.  Since LHO could have bid over the 2H if they had more strength, you were competing, not balancing.

(Edit: Expanded upon partner's responses)


The rule in all cases is the same.

A field is contiguous only if there is an unbroken path of green on the tile(s).

The large wooden bridge does not interrupt the green so it does not break the field.  Everything else you mentioned does except for the path around the well/pond.


Yes, you can use multiple Gatlings or beers in a turn. These cards are not played in front of you, they are played directly into the discard pile. They are also not "BANG!" cards, so you can play more than one a turn (only the card "BANG!" is a "BANG!" card).

You cannot, however, use multiple barrels. You can only have one of each blue (or green) card in front of you at a time.


What is the reason why the commentator said that?

He's talking about what Daniel is thinking. He's saying that Daniel is pretty sure that his pair of 2's is the best hand, unless Laak is holding a 9, which he could be (from Daniel's perspective).

So he's not saying that Laak needs another 9 on the river to win; he's saying that IF Laak were holding a 9, then he would be winning after that 9 on the turn.


Does a game recommendation website exist?

Board Game Finder ( https://www.boardgamefinder.net/ ) does exactly that.

From the "How It Works" section of that site:

  To provide the boardgame recommendations, we focus on collaborative filtering. In collaborative filtering, we have a set of items (boardgames) that have been rated by users. The main idea of collaborative filtering is to infer the preferences of each user based not only on the ratings provided by that user, but also on the ratings of all other users in the system. These preferences are then used to form the actual predictions. Thus, collaborative filtering makes use of the ratings of all users to make predictions about a given user. In other words, it recommends items that other users with preferences similar to yours rated positively. This is why it is called collaborative.


When is a card returned to the owner's hand?

It would return to your hand.

I don't have access to the MTG site to be able to cite the rulebook, but it's all down to the stack.

The stack is played out in order, so new items go to the top of the stack and then the stack resolves from the top down. In this instance Hand of Death was cast and went on the stack, then you activated the Merfolk's ability which went above Hand of Death on the stack.

When the spells and abilities on the stack resolve:

Darting Merfolk's ability resolves, returning it to your hand.
Hand of Death tries to resolve, but the card it targeted is no longer on the battlefield, and does not exist to be targeted.
Hand of Death is countered and has no effect. (It goes to your opponent's graveyard.)

I recommend reading up on the Stack, understanding it is vital to getting the most out of Magic: The Gathering: Guide to the Stack


Where can I find reusable white playing cards for prototyping?

While it doesn't directly answer your question of where to get reusable playing cards, I have helped friends play-test card games before, and we have always just grabbed a handful of junk Magic common cards (because who doesn't have thousands of those lying around?), put them all into sleeves, and then slipped pieces of paper between the face of the card and the sleeve.  One of my favorites is taking a stack of note cards, cutting them in half, and using each half for a card face.

Now you can just change out the slips of paper when you want to update a card, and you can just recycle the old slips of paper afterwards.  When we've been short of paper, we've even cut up grocery bags, or written on the backs of receipts or used envelopes, its all the same.

Once a card is nice and stable, you can print off a nicer version and slip it into a sleeve and card if that's what you want.


There is no expansion for the Family Edition.

From the Catan website:

  This version of Catan is not expandable and not compatible with the regular expansions of the Catan base game!

You will need to get a regular edition (not family edition) of Catan to play with more than 4 players.


Finales in Camp Grizzly - how do they work?

Any councelors not in the finale cabin wait for the finale to resolve. During the finale no normal turns happen (i.e. "follow the rules on the card, ignoring everything else"). If the finale is failed then they still have a chance to win.  From section 1.4 of the rules:

The players holding the objectives
must agree to start the finale during one of their
move phases (or wait for stragglers)

...and...

WIN - If the counselors complete the finale card
successfully, they win!
FAIL - If all counselors involved in a finale fail, that
finale card is discarded. Any survivors who remain in
the camp still have a chance to attempt a different
finale.

So if the finale is won then the game ends (and only the councelors who complete the finale win), but if no councelors survive the finale then any "stragglers" (players not involved) may carry on.


Dungeon! Quick opening strategy for wizard

After consulting this guide :
How about walking to level 5, and using teleport cards to get back from a level 5 chamber to a relatively close level 4 chamber and then to level 3? I managed to win a game or two like that.


What are the names for Magic's different colour combinations?

One color
In the most common environments, decks with a single color are not competitive in tournaments (due to the fact you're settling for the top ten cohesive cards in a color instead of two sets of the top five in two colors. The difference in power level between the top 1-5 and the top 6-10 can be massive and game deciding. The other colors also make up for each others weaknesses.) But they do exist, especially in older formats where consistency is required to win in a couple turns and where you have such a large pool of powerful cards to pick from, and are then referred to as "Mono X".

 Mono red
 Mono black
 Mono blue
 Mono green
 Mono white

Two colors
Each of these corresponds to a guild of Ravnica. Since the guilds were released (and especially now that we've returned) the color pairs have become common names for duo-color decks. Both allied and enemy color pairs are common to see, although allied more so (due to higher deck cohesion).

 White + Blue = Azorius
 Blue + Black = Dimir
 Black + Red = Rakdos
 Red + Green = Gruul
 Green + White = Selesnya
 White + Black = Orzhov
 Blue + Red = Izzet
 Black + Green = Golgari
 Red + White = Boros
 Green + Blue = Simic

Three colors
The first of these are the shards of Alara. They jive well because they give two sets of allied colors each. The less commonly used are the wedges, which involve two enemy color combinations: they're derived from the dragons of Planar Chaos, the volver cycle from Apocalypse, five clans from Khans of Tarkir, or more recently the the triomes of Ikoria. Having only one allied color pair (the two enemies of a single color will be allied) limits deck cohesion, making their use infrequent, although this obviously varies as the meta changes.
Note that if one of the colours is not particularly present in the deck, for example there's only a single card of a given color, you may see a two color name with a third listed as a "splash."

 Red + Green + Black = Jund
 Green + White + Blue = Bant
 Blue + Black + Red = Grixis
 Red + Green + White = Naya
 White + Blue + Black = Esper
 Blue + Red + White = Jeskai (clan on Tarkir), Raugrin (Ikoria triome), Numot (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Raka (from Rakavolver)
 Red + white + black = Mardu (clan on Tarkir), Savai (Ikoria triome), Oros (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Dega (from Degavolver)
 Black + green + blue = Sultai (clan on Tarkir), Zagoth (Ikoria triome), Vorosh (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Ana (from Anavolver)
 Green + blue + red = Temur (clan on Tarkir), Ketria (Ikoria triome), Intet (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Ceta (from Cetavolver)
 White + black + green = Abzan (clan on Tarkir), Indatha (Ikoria triome), Teneb (dragon from Planar Chaos) Necra (from Necravolver), Junk citation, or Doran citation

Informal usages:

Red + white + black = Borzhov
Red + white + blue = USA/American/Patriot
(although note that Team America is actually black + blue + green)
Red + green + blue = Grizzet
(although it's usually Simic splashing red)

In addition, it's especially common for red + blue + green and black + blue + green to be called by their abbreviations — "RUG" and "BUG" — because these are names that are easy to remember and pronounce, even though those are not the proper color orders.
Four colors
Most decks do not have four full colors. As with three color enemies, if they reach this many colors, it's a shard with a splash of another color. So you're more likely to see something like "American splash black" instead of "Yore", and lately simply "four color" is rising in popularity.
Names for four-color identities come from one of two sources:

The names of the Nephilims from Guildpact.
The names of the four-colour “guild identities” defined during Commander 2016's design.
Reference the one color the four-color combination is missing, thus Non-(color).

The four colour identities' names are:

 Blue + black + red + green = Glint-Eye, or Chaos, or Non-white
 Black + red + green + white = Dune (or Dune-Brood), or Aggression, or Non-blue
 Red + green + white + blue = Ink-Treader, or Altruism, or Non-black
 Green + white + blue + black = Witch (or Witch-Maw), or Growth, or Non-red
 White + blue + black + red = Yore (or Yore-Tiller), or Artifice, or Non-green

Occasionally, some informal usages of four color decks, especially when it involves a typical three color deck with a splash of a fourth, will be to include some kind of pun or other indicator to an established name. For example, taking a Jund (Red, Green, and Black) deck and adding Blue would be more likely to make it something like "Wet Jund" than it would be Glint-Eye or Chaos. Or if only splashing Blue for a single card might make it "Moist Jund", that is Wet Jund that is slightly less wet than Wet Jund. Similar puns can be made for Dark Jeskai (Blue, Red, and White adding Black) and I could envision something along those lines for a splash like Dim Jeskai (Blue, Red, and White splashing Black) although admittedly I've never seen it in the wild.
Five colors
Decks with all five colors usually revolve around a single combo that they hope to pull off. It takes a lot of mana fixing and a massive amount of playtesting to get a reliable five color deck. For this reason, you don't often find them in tournaments. You find them often in Commander (giving the player access to every card ever, greatly increasing the power level of the deck) and in skill challenges where a player just tries to come up with a crazy deck idea to see if he can make it work. Obviously there's only one five color deck, it uses all five:

 Rainbow/Domain/Five-Color/WUBRG (pronounced Whoo-Burg)

Sometimes, four color decks will also be called Rainbow just because they have so many colors.
No colors
Sometimes, particularly in formats with a very large card pool, you'll see colorless decks as well. The most common name for these is a reference to the old card frame for artifact cards:

 Mono brown (not to be confused with BrownTown which is a draft deck leaning heavily on minotaurs)

 Some newer colorless decks have come to be referred to as "Diamond" decks in reference to the diamond-like new symbol for colorless mana


Teferi will stop Cascade from working; as well as any other triggered or activated abilities that allow you to cast a spell as part of the abilities’ resolution.

From a Gatherer ruling on a similar card, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir:

  11/17/2017 If a spell or ability lets an opponent cast a card as part of its effect (such as suspend and rebound do), that opponent can’t cast that card since the currently resolving ability is still on the stack. This is true even if that card is an instant.

This is because Teferi’s ability is a restriction, so the second golden rule applies:

  101.2. When a rule or effect allows or directs something to happen, and another effect states that it can’t happen, the “can’t” effect takes precedence.

Also, it does not matter that while cascade is resolving, it is actually a time that you could cast a sorcery, because that's not actually what "when you could cast a sorcery" means:

  307.5. If a spell, ability, or effect states that a player can do something only “any time they could cast a sorcery,” it means only that the player must have priority, it must be during the main phase of their turn, and the stack must be empty.


In LOTR with Sauron, what's the timing of Nazgul cards?

Yes, the players can interrupt the nazgul card and avoid its main effects.

First you must resolve the symbol in the upper left of the Nazgul card.  After that, because the main text of the Nazgul card treated as if an event tile were revealed, it can be interrupted by anything that can interrupt event tiles, such as putting on the Ring, Gandalf, etc.

If this ends the scenario, then the main text of the Nazgul card never occurs.


Do the rules as written make Assault weapons and Pistols useless?

The Most Important Rule

Basic Rules, Page 6 Sidebar, Summarized:

  When you aren't sure of what's supposed to happen, talk with your opponent and apply the most sensible resolution that you can agree on.  If you can't agree, roll-off, and apply the victor's resolution.

The fact that this is labeled "The Most Important" implies that this trumps any other rule.  Additionally, it relies on sense, rather than interpretation.  It would not make sense for the rules to include exceptions which do not apply, regardless of how you interpret the "hard" restrictions on Advancing.

As is true in almost any game, general rules are to apply until an exception says otherwise.  WH40k's version of this rule is "Do what makes sense", and an exception to the rules will only ever make sense if the exception can be applied.

Since the rules under Pistol and Assault weapons state they're an exception, those exceptions must apply, since it makes more sense to obey these exceptions than it is to accept they were arbitrarily added to the Basic Rules for no reason.


Mtg creature spells, instants, priority?

Your Ghoultree will still resolve fine; your opponent can’t prevent it by exiling cards from your graveyard after you have cast Ghoultree.

The casting cost of a spell only matters when you are casting it. You declare your spell, put it on the stack, pay it’s costs; and only then does your opponent have a chance to respond.

Your opponent could have cast his instant earlier; before your main phase, but he would have had to know that you were planning to cast Ghoultree. There is no time between you declaring you are casting Ghoultree and you paying the cost where your opponent can act.


7 Wonders Duel: Age cards before or after Wonder selection?

I had a look into rules. Choosing the wonders is part of preparation of game so something done before any age starts. When you have a look on Age description it says:

  At the beginning of each Age, shuffle the corresponding deck, then display the
  20  cards

So for me it is quite obvious that you don't know cards when choosing a wonder as preparation of game need to be completed to start first age.

For Pantheon it is even bolded sentence:

  Perform the Wonders selection phase.

As part of setup for age one which comes after instruction to prepare cards.

So in fact it looks order is different with addition than in main game.


Why did devotion decks dominate PT Theros?

Conventional wisdom is that multicolor decks are optimal in competitive Magic due to their broader access to powerful cards

Part of it is that devotion breaks that conventional wisdom, because it actively rewards you for playing lots of cards with identically colored mana symbols. The power level of the main devotion engines — Master of Waves, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and Fanatic of Mogis — is high enough (when you have significant devotion) that it overwhelms the benefit of running multiple colors. For example, if you already have 5 devotion to blue, then Master of Waves gives you 6 2/1 creatures for four mana. Nothing in RTR block is nearly that good, even when you can put multiple colors together.

Of course, the high potential power level of e.g. Master of Waves wouldn't matter if you had to run otherwise terrible cards to enable it. But the cards that have lots of colored mana in their mana costs, like Nightveil Specter and Boros Reckoner, tend to be reasonably powerful anyway, which is related to the fact that they're normally so hard to cast. Devotion was just the extra benefit these cards needed to elevate them from fringe playables to core cards of the format.


Where can I find in-depth analysis of different digital card games?

I don't think you are likely to find a one-stop-shop for many different card games (can't say for certain, because proving a negative and all).  Coming up with those analyses are usually things that take some depth and investment in a game to come up with, thus aren't likely to be common / easy to write for a quick blog post to make a few bucks on the internet.
To get the kinds of analyses you are looking for you are probably going to have to dig a bit and use Google extensively.  Think about what kind of resources are more likely to give you in-depth analyses of Magic.  There are dedicated blogs and YouTube channels that regularly analyze metagames, new cards, etc. but they all are catering (primarily it seems) to an audience that is already invested in the game.  It saves them from having to explain the basics so they can focus on the meat of the topic at hand (ie. present the bits that are interesting to that primary audience, not the things they are likely to know and find boring to hear rehashed for the 753rd time).  So those kinds of resources, the kind most likely to be able to present such an analysis, are also the least likely to do so because it isn't going to get eyeballs in front of content (and ads).
The other problem you are likely to run into is that there is going to be a lot of opinion involved.  While the denizens of the internet have no problem or lack of desire to share their opinions on a topic, finding a group that will give you healthy debate to produce what you are looking for is likely to be rare.  What one person considers a strength another might consider a weakness (as your own description of Magic above points out).  But you aren't likely to see a ton of that without seeing both proponents and detractors of a game.  And the way the internet tends to create groups of like-minded people (like sub-redits, Facebook groups, etc.) you aren't going to typically find both sets of people in the same place.  So you are going to have to seek out both and make your own analysis of a game you presumably haven't played yet.
So all in all I don't think you are going to find much of this for any single card game, much less find a place that would have this for a broad range of games.  There just isn't money to be made doing it and the current internet community model doesn't lend itself towards producing this naturally.


Using "Rivals for Catan" extensions with "Catan Card Game"

It would be incredibly difficult to mix the old base game with the new expansions. While similar, the rules and mechanics were completely redone for Rivals. It may be possible, but you'd probably need to reword most of the descriptions for all of the cards in either the base game or the expansions.

By the time you've done all of that, you'd have been much better off just spending the $15-20 to get a copy of Rivals instead.


If my creature is temporarily under my opponents control, and it dies, do they get the ‘when this creature dies’ effect or do I?

Whoever controls a creature when it dies controls the triggered abilities that creature has that happen when it dies, just like any other triggered ability. Like most abilities that involve a creature dying, the game looks at the last known information for that creature while it was on the battlefield, in this case it cares about who controlled that creature when the ability triggered, not who's graveyard it goes into.
To answer the specific question, since your opponent controlled it when Roalesk died, your opponent will get to proliferate twice.


"Can't attack you unless" in Two-Headed Giant

Propaganda etc. apply whenever the enemy team attacks your team.
In 2HG games you cannot be attacked individually, you always attack or defend as a team, so all attacking creatures attack both players at once and Propaganda costs will have to be paid for those creatures that don't attack Planeswalkers.

810.7a Each team’s creatures attack the other team as a group. During the combat phase, the active team is the attacking team and each player on the active team is an attacking player. Likewise, the nonactive team is the defending team and each player on the nonactive team is a defending player.
810.7c As the declare attackers step begins, the active team declares attackers. If an effect of an object controlled by a defending player prohibits a creature from attacking him or her, that creature can’t attack the defending team. The active team has one combined attack, and that set of attacking creatures must be legal as a whole. See rule 508.1.
508.1g If any of the chosen creatures require paying costs to attack, the active player determines the total cost to attack. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. Once the total cost is determined, it becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, ignore this change.


Can a runner make a run on an "empty" remote server?

No, remotes only exist if there is a card installed either inside of them (asset/upgrade/agenda) or in front of them (ICE). This differs from the central servers, which always exist even if there is nothing in or protecting them (e.g., archives).

This is discussed on page 4 of the official FAQ, under "Destruction of Servers" (emphasis mine):

  If there are no cards installed in or protecting a remote server, then
  the server immediately ceases to exist. If a server ceases to exist
  during a run, the run immediately ends. Unless the run has passed step
  4.4 of the timing structure of a run, it is not considered to be successful or unsuccessful.


No, you can't sacrifice a ghost to a demon. From the final page (24) of the rules, under the description of ghosts:

  Ghosts can not be used to pay the cost
  for a demon.

And then later, under the description of demons:

  Heh, heh. That's me. I'm always happy
  to help you reduce your overhead. But
  don't think you can get away with
  feeding me ghosts. They just go right
  through me.


Tiana, Ship's Caretaker and Kaya's Ghostform

Gatherer for Tiana says "If an Aura you control is put into a graveyard immediately after Tiana leaves the battlefield, most likely because Tiana left the battlefield but the Aura was put into the graveyard as a state-based action after it found itself not attached to anything, Tiana’s last ability won’t trigger."

Your reading is correct, and step 3 is the crucial bit of info. When Tiana herself dies, the game checks for state based actions when the next player gets priority. The game would see a Ghostform attached to nothing, then it would move to the graveyard. At this point Tiana is no longer on the battlefield, so her last ability will not trigger according to the Gatherer ruling.

Additionally, please note that the Tiana returning due to Ghostform is a new object according to the game. The new Tiana has no memory of the the old Tiana or its auras. To conceptualize this, if you play Languish and then Grizzly Bear on your turn, your Grizzly Bear lives. Languish only affects the creatures already on the battlefield when it is played. By the same logic, Tiana only sees the auras and equipment that go to the graveyard when it's actually on the battlefield.

You would get both back if both Tiana and its enchanted Ghostform were destroyed simultaneously, such as by Planar Cleansing. Spells with multiple targets such such as Causalities of War also produce the same effect as Planar Cleansing. In both of those cases, Tiana is on the battlefield when the aura is destroyed, so her last ability will trigger. You get a Ghostform trigger immediately and Tiana sets up a delayed trigger for your end step. Both happen simultaneously, yet the triggers themselves are independent. Ghostform returns Tiana to the battlefield immediately, while Tiana's delayed trigger goes on the stack during your end step and returns Ghostform to your hand. Gatherer confirms this ruling.


Can I prevent my opponent from looking at cards with Vizier of the Menagerie while I'm Mindslaving them?

Yes, the Mindslaver's controller may prevent the controlled player from taking that specific action.

Mindslaver's rulings say:

  You get to make every decision the other player would have made during that turn. You can’t make any illegal decisions or illegal choices — you can’t do anything that player couldn’t do. You can spend mana in the player’s mana pool only on that player’s spells and abilities. The mana in your mana pool can be spent only on your spells and abilities.

Since looking at the top card of your library is an action you may take while controlling Vizier of the Menagerie, the player controlling the turn may simply choose not to take this action.


Right: you can't move my marker up to the 3rd row to collect 3 points or build a stone building, with the favors I've earned right after scoring the dungeon. See the example on the last page of the rules:

Orange has just gained a favor during the Dungeon scoring. He chooses the first line (prestige points), on which he already advanced in a previous phase. However,
since the Dungeon is being scored, Orange can’t advance his marker. He leaves it on its space and gains 2 prestige points.


You are correct, these cards are not in booster packs. For the past few years, Wizards has put out 30 card sample decks to introduce new players into the game. This year they decided to put into these packs a number of reprinted cards not actually present in M15: see here for decklists. Like the article mentions, the Deck Builder's Toolkit for M15 also has the extra cards.

Since putting two of these sample decks together gives a basic 60 card, two-color deck, Wizards expects a number of people to do just that to build their first standard deck. They made those extra cards explicitly standard legal to allow people that option; most people would assume by default that such a deck is playable.


How fast should a competitive combo deck win?

Is a turn 5 win slow for Legacy?

Yes.

As of the current meta (from May 24th, 2018), Turbo/Dark Depths is the most represented Legacy combo deck, having around 6% of the field. This specific archetype can combo as fast as "Turn 0" with as few as 5 cards (a land that produces green mana, Crop Rotation, Vampire Hexmage and two Lotus Petal). It can consistently combo on turn 2 or 3, so this is usually what a combo deck should aim for.

The next 4 most represented decks are Storm, Show and Tell, Elves and Reanimator, all of which can consistently combo as soon as turn 2, but usually go off on turn 3-4.

When talking about Vintage, the most represented combo decks are PO Storm and Dredge.
Vintage has a huge amount of 0 and 1 CMC mana accelerants, most of which are artifacts. Since the whole idea of the deck is to go off with Paradoxical Outcome, the PO Storm deck consistently goes off on turn 2, sometimes on turn 1.

Dredge decks don't benefit as much from the 0 and 1 CMC mana rocks, but it can usually go off on turn 2 or 3 with a couple of Bazaar of Baghdads.

The Modern metagame is all over the place, and it's mostly aggro decks, having 54% of the field.

The most represented combo decks are Scapeshift, U/R Storm, GWx Devoted Company and Living End, all of which usually combo on turns 3-6, depending on mana acceleration and card draws.

The current Standard meta has no combo decks. The last time a combo decks had any relevant appearance in standard was during the BFZ-AKH standard, where both Aetherworks Marvel and Saheeli Cat decks worked more in a control role until they could go off. They're considered combo decks because their wincon is a combo, but they were not particularly fast.

Combo decks in duel commander (aka "The French list") are currently much underrepresented. The three most played decks still only represent about 3% of the field.

They're Iname, Death Aspect, which is a control/reanimator deck, and Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, which is a "cast my commander, hit you for 21" kind of deck.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage is represented in both MTGO (9% of the field) and Duel commander (1%) and it is really a control deck that controls the game long enough to cast either Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (in MTGO) or Emrakul, the Promised End (in Duel).

Disclaimer: Every number mentioned in this answer was taken directly from MTGTop8, which really mostly takes MTGO into account when breaking down the metagame, so some of the numbers might be slightly off when talking about physical decks. Also, the information on how long a particular deck takes to combo comes from personal experience playing either with or against said decks and watching tournaments and streams.


How do you prevent deliberately losing in Republic of Rome?

If it's not part of any sort of larger tournament or ranking system, then there's pretty much no difference between everyone losing and a draw, so it's just going to wind up being an issue of perception.

The solution, then, would be to play it in the context of a ranking system or tournament. I don't know the game in question, so I don't know what the possible outcomes are, but you could assign different point values to different results; winning gets you 1 point, losing gets you 0, and Rome falling gets everyone -1. Then people will have an incentive not to let Rome fall; if they do, they will lose rank compared to other players not in that game.

By the way, this sort of brinksmanship between the fall-of-Rome-is-a-loss and fall-of-Rome-is-a-draw crowds may be an intentional feature of the game. After all, it's not all that uncommon for some politicians or political parties to focus so hard on winning their own particular issues that they're willing to put the whole country at risk (state, nation, empire, what have you) if they don't get their way. It sounds like a pretty realistic political situation, if you ask me.


While R&D's Secret Lair is on the battlefield, you should not ignore the "errata" printed on Ashnod's Coupon. The Coupon's controller still pays any costs for the drink. Mark Rosewater, the official silver-bordered rules manager, published the following ruling:

kingdavidofisrael asked: Does R&D's Secret Lair remove the errata from Ashnod's Coupon, or will I still have to pay for the drink?

R&D Secret Lair contradicts itself as it asks you to play “all cards as written” and “ignore all errata”. Ashnod’s coupons errata is written on the card.
This means I can basically rule either way so I have opted to rule in favor against dumb shenanigans. (Note I’m all for regular shenanigans when playing with Un-cards.) Owner of the Ashnod’s Coupon pays for the drink.

The first linked article, authored by Mark Rosewater and published on the Wizards of the Coast official website contains the following statements:

I wear many hats at Wizards of the Coast, one of which is that of silver-bordered rules manager.
Most of the time, being silver-bordered rules manager is easy—I just get the occasional question on Twitter or my blog.
If you have a question I didn't address, you can write to me at my blog for an answer.

Therefore, Mark Rosewater's role as silver-bordered rules manager is officially sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast, and when he answers ruling questions about silver-bordered cards he is doing so in his official capacity as silver-bordered rules manager. So, his rulings on his blog have the same force of authority that the main rules manager's rulings have on the main game.


To trash an estate or to curse my opponents?

You should play Jack of All Trades

You will not be slowing your opponents down much with Witch, because they are buying Jack of All Trades as well, and will just trash the curse you give them.

  DoubleJack/Big Money crushes attacks.  Sea Hag?  Trash the Curse.  Militia?  Draw back up.  Rabble?  Chuck the Victory card.  And all throughout it’s gaining Silver.  Attacks barely matter at all to DoubleJack: in the simulators, it obliterates Sea Hag/Big Money and DoubleMilitia, solidly beats ChapelWitch and ChapelMountebank, and goes toe-to-toe with DoubleMountebank and DoubleWitch.


Order of building landmarks in Machi Koro

I feel there are often times where considering a more detailed approach can help squeeze more optimal play. The base game has 4 cards:

Train Station (4) : Roll 1 or 2 dice
Shopping Mall (10) : Each Cafe/Bakery type earns +1
Amusement Park (16) : Doubles grant an extra turn
Radio Tower (22) : You may re-roll each turn

These are all characteristically different. The train station opens up the opportunity to access 7-12 roll values which may be something you want or something you very much don't want if others have cards with these values. Definitely do not buy this cheap card on a whim because you may be wasting 4 good coins that could be used elsewhere.  Notice that even if you do not have cards with 7-12, you may want this one just to keep opponents with many 1-3 valued cards from getting any hits at all.

The Shopping Mall is clearly very dependent on your holdings of cafe bakery types. For what could be as little as 1 full round around the table more you, you could potentially afford the Amusement Park, and then further the Radio Tower, so again do not buy the Mall simply because it's affordable unless you feel it strongly increases many cards in your holding.

I would in general gloss over the Amusement Park and go straight for the Radio Tower typically, as for 6 coins more, having the power to retry your roll every turn is far more powerful than occasionally getting doubles which happens 1 in 6 rolls. With the ability to re-roll, consider how much more attractive that looks.


Can I delay the $200 to avoid paying some of my taxes?

You will get your $200 before paying the tax.

From the the rules:

  Each time a player's token lands on or passes over GO, whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card, the Banker pays himther a $200 salary.

So the $200 comes as a result of passing over Go, technically you would have that money before you even get to your final landing space of Income Tax.

Note that this is not really a question of cheating. Generally cheating means to intentionally break the rules to gain an advantage. If someone thought that you were not supposed to get the $200 until after you paid the tax, they would be playing incorrectly. But it would only be cheating if other payers were playing correctly and a player purposely paid too little tax.


I play quite a bit of Splendor, love the game, but I've never run into this problem. Do you each pay attention to the other's gameplay? (that sounds rude, but I promise it's not meant to be!) Do either of you ever sabotage the other?

For example, if I see that my opponent's purchase power leans toward a particular premium card, I snatch that card off the market, along with a wildcard token. I'll score it later.

Also, if I notice that a particular gemstone is hard to find, I'll buy those up to slow a leading opponent.

Maybe you already do these things.

If not, try paying closer attention to what your opponent's cache could purchase, at any given time, and if it looks like he could spring ahead by purchasing one of the 4 higher level cards, then snatch that card, along with your wildcard token, and shout, "Punked! B!tch!"

That last part is very important.


Does a quantified comparison between differing non-basic lands exist?

The limited options in the question aren't directly comparable. Looking at non-basic lands in general, they categorize as follows:

Requires a Cost or condition to tap.
Filters mana
Is throttled
Come into play tapped
Come into play tapped, but offer an immediate benefit
Come into play tapped, unless you meet a cost or condition

Further, some of the non-basic lands are enhanced over their counter parts by being sub-typed, increasing their search-ability. As designed, the strength of the card increases with its rarity.

Note: Some of the differences in the lands are inherent because of the set they were introduced in. Example: At common, Dimir Blackwater appears stronger than Dimir Guildgate, because 1 life is gained. However, inside the Gatecrash block, the subtype Gate has a functional role.

Given that the needs, costs, and capabilities of each deck they could be played in differ, it is difficult to fully evaluate the impacts of each. The cost-benefit analysis of a land that comes into play tapped with a benefit versus one that has a mechanism to not come into play tap is more nebulous outside of their context. Even within the category of lands with a mechanism to enter the battlefield untapped, looking at Watery Grave versus Sunken Hollow, it is difficult to compare the cost of two life against meeting the condition. Independent of the actions of the opponent, two life could be negligible in a fast deck or one that gains life; however, in a deck that chews on your own life total consistently, that two life may be a bit beyond the pale.

All that said, there are four varieties of non-basic lands that can be evaluated, nearly independent of the deck they are in. Keeping to the Blue/Black premise of the question, these are:

Sunken Hollow
Choked Estuary
Drowned Catacomb Didn't include in question, cause I don't have any.
Darkslick Shores Didn't include in question, cause I don't have any.

The conditions of these lands are:

Enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands.
Enters tapped unless you reveal a(n) Island or Swamp card from your hand.
Enters tapped unless you control an Island or a Swamp.
Enters tapped unless you control two or fewer lands.

Of these four, the first has the additional benefit that it has the associated land subtypes, making it searchable by Polluted Delta. First though, we should evaluate the ability to satisfy the condition statistically, under the assumptions you play a land each turn you are able to, the opponent doesn't destroy your lands, all four of the remaining land slots are given to one of these 4 options, and you have at least one in your hand. As an extension of that last condition, since we are applying that probability to all four cases, they can be evaluated without having to use multivariate hyper-geometric distributions. That would be hard.

Enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands.

Sunken Hollow benefits being played turn 3, after two basic lands. For this, there is a decision point which creates two possibilities: is Polluted Delta used to search only for basic lands, only for Sunken Hollow, or some combination.

Enters tapped unless you reveal an Island or Swamp card from your hand.

Choked Estuary just wants a card in hand. Early in the game, this is relatively easy. However, as the assumptions are maintained, and lands are played, the probability a land will be in hand to support playing Choked Estuary untapped dwindle, with the search effect of Polluted Delta narrowing the supply even further.

Enters tapped unless you control an Island or a Swamp.

Drowned Catacombs just wants a card with the appropriate land sub-type in play. Since it can't be searched for with Polluted Delta, there are 19 cards in the population of 60 that could be played before it.

Enters tapped unless you control two or fewer lands.

Darkslick Shores really want to be played on or before turn 3, or with no more than 2 lands in play. It can't be searched from the deck with Polluted Delta, reducing its odds to four successful copies among the population of 60. In this special case, it is less about the last assumption from above (we already have the card), and more about the likelihood it is drawn quickly. As the game goes on, and other lands have been played, this card gets progressively worse.

Graphic

This graph depicts a rough estimation of the chances you'll be able to satisfy the conditions of the cards, narrowed to the range of 40% to 100% over the number of cards sampled as the game progresses (7 to 21) over fourteen turns. Excepting for the requirement that lands be played before Sunken Hollow and Drowned Catacombs, the lines show the probability you've drawn sufficient land to satisfy the condition. For the multivariate concern that is Choked Estuary, There are three lines, reflecting the best, worst, and average case; for the worst, it assumes you've drawn and played every basic land in the deck before drawing the Choked Estuary. The average splits the difference.

Of the four lands evaluated, Drowned Catacombs [blue line starting at (7,.94)] has the greatest probability to satisfy the requirement, so it is the best option.

Chocked Estuary ranks next [diverging lines starting at (7,.88)], up until turn 6; at that point, Sunken Hollow [four converging lines where y ranges from .57 to .72] edges it out if all four Polluted Delta's are used to find basic lands. As the game continues, the average case continues to decay.

Darkslick Shores is not depicted on the graph, because of the four it has the cruelest requirement.

The line not referenced is the probability of drawing at least 1 of 4 cards as the game progresses. This is the probability influencing the last assumption.


Do you know this card game (mafia themed)?


Catan: Play any development card before rolling

You can play a development card at anytime on your turn.

From the Catan Rules p. 7:

  You can play the [development] card at any time, even before you roll the dice. You may not, however, play a card that you bought during the same turn.

However if you have Year of Plenty there is no reason to play it before the roll because you can just play it after the roll and get the ore you need in order to win (and still have a card left over), and if you were not in a position to win playing it before the roll would mean you have one fewer cards than playing it afterwards.


City was not first a settlement. How to fix?

If you don't notice a mistake until long after (or once you can no longer roll back the moves to correct the mistake) it happens then you should just let it stand. In this case the player should get full credit for the city as if it was built correctly.

The problem with trying to penalize the new player for the mistake is it is also the fault of the other players for not paying close enough attention to catch the mistake in the first place.

On the other hand if the player was intentionally making the mistake as a way to win more easily then they should be removed from the game instead.

You should always remember that when playing games with a new player mistakes will always happen and being a new player they have a smaller chance of winning anyways so it will even itself out in the long run.

This also applies to experienced players who make mistakes (everyone can make them) but need to be careful that someone isn't just trying to cheat. The main theory behind this is that everyone playing the game is responsible for ensuring that it is played correctly and also responsible when a mistake that is publicly knowable (like playing a city without a settlement there already) is made.


Is there a way to make Splice effects cheaper?

Because using Splice creates an additional cost, anything that reduces the normal cost of casting a spell can be used reduce the total cost.
For example, if you have 3 Goblin Electromancers in play, instant and sorcery spells cost you {3} less to play. You could play a Shock and reveal Splicer's Skill for the Splice ability. Your total cost would normally be {3}{R}{W}, but it would be reduced to {R}{W} by the Goblin Electromancers; you would not have to pay the other {3}.

702.46a Splice is a static ability that functions while a card is in your hand. “Splice onto [quality] [cost]” means “You may reveal this card from your hand as you cast a [quality] spell. If you do, that spell gains the text of this card’s rules text and you pay [cost] as an additional cost to cast that spell.” Paying a card’s splice cost follows the rules for paying additional costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2f–h.
601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions.

Note that only cost reduction will help; if you have something such as Fires of Invention or anything that allows you to pay an alternative cost (not having to pay mana at all is an alternative cost); you will still have to pay the normal Splice cost, because additional costs are calculated after alternative costs.


What's better for Ork Nob in Warbiker Mob: Big Choppa or Klaw?

There's a few things to weigh up here.

What else could you get with the points? It's easy to go overboard on your 'hero' units, and forget that you could spend that extra 15 points on more basic troops. With Orks, huge numbers is a core strategy. A few extra Boyz could be much more valuable to you.
Who do you expect to be facing? Ignoring armour is a much more useful ability against Space Marines and Necrons than it is against Dark Eldar or Tyranids. If you regularly play against a few particular armies, then this is particularly relevant. More tactically, consider whether your Ork Nob will be likely to be in a situation where he can make use of armour-ignoring abilities. Will he be attacking tanks, Dreadnoughts, or souped up heroes? Or is the primary role of the squad to act as cannon fodder, or take down more generic troops? Bottom line - there's no point taking expensive custom stuff if you don't make use of it.
What do your other models have? I like giving identical units different weapons, just for variety. This is also handy when you need to pull out a specialised weapon combo for a particular scenario.
What do you like the look of more? This is actually an important point, in my opinion. Warhammer is about aesthetics and cool models just as much as it is about optimising armies and strategies. If you think the Big Choppa looks much better, that's a strong argument for taking that as a weapon!

Without knowing the answers to these questions, I can't give you a straight recommendation. The Klaw is clearly a much more powerful weapon. But whether the cost (both points and aesthetic) is justified depends on all these factors.


Does Ranar the Ever-Watchful's last ability trigger if he is exiled?

Yes, Ranar's ability will trigger if he is exiled.
Ranar's ability can trigger when objects leave the battlefield, so it is a "leaves-the-battlefield" ability, which are defined in rule 603.6c:

Leaves-the-battlefield abilities trigger when a permanent moves from the battlefield to another zone, or when a phased-in permanent leaves the game because its owner leaves the game. These are written as, but aren’t limited to, “When [this object] leaves the battlefield, . . .” or “Whenever [something] is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, . . . .” (See also rule 603.10.) An ability that attempts to do something to the card that left the battlefield checks for it only in the first zone that it went to. An ability that triggers when a card is put into a certain zone “from anywhere” is never treated as a leaves-the-battlefield ability, even if an object is put into that zone from the battlefield.

As a result, rule 603.10 applies:

Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions, and continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like. However, some triggered abilities are exceptions to this rule; the game “looks back in time” to determine if those abilities trigger, using the existence of those abilities and the appearance of objects immediately prior to the event. The list of exceptions is as follows:

603.10a Some zone-change triggers look back in time. These are leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a card leaves a graveyard, and abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library.

When you exile Ranar, the game "looks back in time" to before he was exiled to check what abilities trigger. Since his ability existed at that time, it triggers from that event.


What happens while casting protection from Banishing Light?

Part of what will help make this clear is that Banishing Light doesn't get targets chosen at casting time. Here's how Banishing Light normally plays out:

You cast Banishing Light. (No special choices are made. No target is chosen.)
It resolves and enters the battlefield.
Its enters-the-battlefield triggered ability goes on the stack, with a creature chosen for the target.
That ability resolves and the creature gets exiled, to return when Banishing Light leaves the battlefield.

If you play Gods Willing to give a creature protection in between steps 1 and 2, no target's been chosen yet, and the player must choose any other target during step 3. If there are absolutely no other legal targets to choose during step 3, the triggered ability can't go on the stack, so nothing happens — we skip step 3 and 4, and Banishing Light now just sits there uselessly.

If you play Gods Willing to in between steps 3 and 4, you know what creature they're targeting with Banishing Light's triggered ability. If you give it protection, the ability can't resolve and will fizzle & be countered by virtue of having no legal targets left at resolution time. The player who controls Banishing Light doesn't get to pick any other creature; Banishing Light (again) just sits useless on the battlefield. Nothing gets exiled by it.


Blocker with First Strike and Blocker with Double Strike

This sounds like it is a bug. Since the way the Combat Damage Step works is

Each player decides how their creatures will deal damage
If any creatures have First Strike or Double Strike they deal their damage
State Based Actions are checked, anything that triggers off of damage happens, players get priority
Any creatures with Double Strike or that didn't deal damage in the first Combat Damage Step deal their damage

So what should have happened is what you were expecting, your creatures deal 1 damage each in the first Combat Damage Step, then when SBAs are checked it should have died due to having damage marked on it equal to its toughness.


Games that are quick to teach to new people, yet still fun and strategical

Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne are the two games that we generally use. We have been so successful with Ticket to Ride Europe that not only have friends bought the game but they have taught it to friends of friends who have also gone and bought the game.


Some cards in my deck are heads down, can opponent force me to fix that?

Nobody but judges are allowed to look at your deck during the game. You will need a judge to fix your deck.
During a game, you would obviously not be allowed to look through your deck unless an effect would allow you to.

401.2. Each library must be kept in a single face-down pile. Players can’t look at or change the order of cards in a library.

In a tournament setting, your deck would count as marked, and you would get at least a Warning for it, possibly a game loss:

Tournament Error — Marked Cards
A player’s cards are marked or oriented in a way that could potentially give an advantage to that player.
Penalty - Warning
The Head Judge has the option to upgrade this penalty to a Game Loss if he or she believes that a player noticing the pattern of markings would clearly compromise the integrity of the game.

Only a judge would be allowed to fix your deck as a remedy to the infraction.
If the error was not reported, and the Head Judge is convinced that you knew it was illegal, and that you intended to gain an advantage from the cards' orientation, the infraction would probably be upgraded to Cheating, and you would have to get a disqualification.


What is the highest achievable score in Catan

The game ends when you reach 10 points on your turn, so if you are playing with 5 or 6 players you could easily get high then 10 on the special build phases so it would be closer to the maximum number of points possible with the amount of building you have.

5 point for settlements

8 points for cities

4 for longest road and largest army

5 in hidden victory points
So in theory you could get to 22 points if you are extremely lucky.

taken from the rule book on ending the game:
"If you have—or reach—10 victory points on your turn, the game ends immediately and you win! You can only win during your turn. If somehow you find you have 10 victory points during another player’s turn, you must wait until your next turn to claim victory"


What happens if I set up for a "29 hand" and miss?

Indeed, playing for 29 can be a very risky proposition - especially if you're in a late stage of the game and stand a good chance of losing if your hand scores no more than 14.

To simplify, I'm setting aside any human influence here. Yes, there are two other cards known to the player, as well as six cards known and controlled by the opponent. However, none of these are going back into the deck and no further cards are being drawn.

At best, a player might be able to use the two other cards in his hand to adjust his expectations of what the up-card could be. Of course, there's no chance at nailing 29 if you have all four 5s dealt to you along with a J and something else. But if your extra two cards each have a face value of 9 or lower, the odds that the up-card will substantially improve your score just went up a notch.

Still, setting aside all factors except the 4 mandatory cards in the starter hand simplifies calculations and gives a relatively solid baseline for our expectations.

Once you take out the rainbow hand of three 5s and a J, you have 48 cards left in the deck. Of these, the possible up-card scenarios are:

The 5 that matches the in-hand J (29 points, 2%) - This is the only way to score 29 and maximize this hand. And there's only one card that can do it.
Any remaining J (22 points, 6.25%) - This adds three more 15s and a pair to your base, for an 8-point boost. Counting out just the given base hand, there's three of these left in the deck.
T/Q/K matching the in-hand J (21 points, 6.25%) - Again, giving you three more 15s. Add on the knob and it's a 7-point total boost. Also, like the Jacks, there's only three ways to do this.
Any other T/Q/K (20 points, 18.75%) - Not matching the in-hand J, but still having face value of 10, means we lose the knob/pair points but keep the 15s. There's nine ways to do this though, so our odds here are relatively favorable in comparison to the previous scenarios.

Totaling the above gives us a one-in-three chance of scoring 20 or better. With a minimum possible score of 14, that's still a very nice hand!

However, as you'll see below, two-thirds of the possible scenarios will only bump your score by one point at most - and the majority of those don't add to it at all. If scoring 16 or more is absolutely crucial in the round where you get this hand, you might want to put off your dreams of hitting 29 for another day.

Any other card matching the in-hand J (15 points, 16.67%) - Anything other than 5/T/Q/K, which matches the in-hand J, only gives us one additional point for knobs. No extra 15s or pairs. This is where things start looking relatively bleak, since there's eight ways to do it.
Any card not categorized above (14 points, 50.00%) - This is the bare-minimum possible score with a hand that might otherwise score 29. We've got the three 15s for pairing each 5 with the J (6), the one 15 by adding all the 5s (+2), and a three-card match between the 5s (+6). Any up-card that's not a T/J/Q/K, and doesn't match the in-hand J, will not add to this. Having 24 ways to do this, out of 48 possible up-cards, gives us coin-flip odds of being stuck with the minimum score for this hand.


What is Astrochain and how does it work?

"Astrochain" (or "astrotrain") is a term used to refer to the use of the scored ability of the "Astroscript Pilot Program" (APP) NBN agenda in Android: Netrunner.  When scored by the corporation, an agenda counter is placed on the APP that allows:

  Hosted agenda counter: Place 1 advancement token on a card that can be advanced.

This ability can be triggered during any subsequent paid abilities window, and is generally regarded as one of the strongest agenda abilities in the game.

The APP itself is a 3/2 agenda, meaning that it requires 3 advancement tokens to score and yields 2 agenda points when scored.  Because it can be scored so quickly, many NBN decks have been constructed around scoring these agendas in particular and preferably doing so out of hand (meaning the runner will never see them in a remote server, but will only be able to grab them from HQ or R&D) - this strategy is referred to as "Fast Advance".

In faction, they are often paired with SanSan City Grids, which allow for agendas to be scored one advancement token sooner than they would be otherwise.  If the Corporation has a SanSan City Grid installed at the beginning of their turn, they can pay 6 credits to rez it, install the APP, advance it twice (either via credits or with a Shipment from SanSan), and score it all within one turn.  The hosted agenda counter can then be saved to help advance subsequent agendas, which can be immensely helpful if your SanSan City Grid gets trashed.

This kind of deck typically is played as a "rush deck" - where you may install a few pieces of cheap, end-the-run ICE and hope to win before the runner has a chance to fully put together their rig and break through your defenses (typical ICE choices are things like: Chimera, Wraparound, and Quandry).  Once they can get in, you have to win quickly.

This strategy is so strong that the influence splashes in some decks also revolve around accomplishing this goal (scoring APPs out of hand).  The most typical of these is the "Astrobiotics" deck, which includes up to 3 Biotic Labours (splashed from Haas-Bioroid at 4 influence each).  With an APP and a Biotic Labour in hand, one can Biotic, then install, advance the APP three times, and score it within one turn.  Of course, if you do this and also have a SanSan rezzed, you can even do something else with your last click!

APP tokens are sometimes "chained" - which does indicate that you use one APP to score another, but as has been mentioned, it is not extremely common to draw them one after another in this fashion.  However, if you are able to score one or two of these agendas and sit on their agenda tokens, you are in an extremely strong position to score other agendas faster than the runner can deal with them.  For example, with 1 Biotic Labour, you could install a Project Beale and advance it three times.  This would typically score it for 2 agenda points, but if you had previous scored 2 APPs, you could spend their tokens to advance it twice more - yielding you 3 agenda points, and the win! (note: SanSan City Grids do not help with obtaining the additional agenda points from Project Beale)


A permanent with the Mountain land type. Sacred Foundry can be enchanted with Chained to the Rocks.

"Mountain" could mean mean two things:

An object whose name is "Mountain". e.g. Mountain
An object which has the land (sub)type "Mountain". e.g. Mountain and Sacred Foundry

When a card refers to something that can be a name or a type, it always refers to the type[1]. As such, Chained to the Rocks looks for objects with the land type "Mountain".

For example,

A Mountain does have that type. It can be enchanted by Chained to the Rocks.
A Mountain enchanted by Contaminated Ground does not have that type. It is a Land, it is a Basic, and it is a Swamp, but it is not a Mountain (despite having that for name). It cannot be enchanted by Chained to the Rocks.
A Sacred Foundry does have that type. It can be enchanted by Chained to the Rocks.
A Boros Guildgate does not have that type. It is a Land, and it is a Gate, but it is not a Mountain. It cannot be enchanted by Chained to the Rocks.

For references to permanents, this is covered by 109.2.

  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.

The same is understood to apply for references to non-permanents, though this is not explicitly stated in the rules.


Can the campaign mode for Star Wars: Imperial Assault be played if one player is not always able to attend?

Short answer:

It shouldn't be a problem as long as you guys are willing to share control of that player's character when he isn't available or are OK with taking some risk with game balance by having the number of players vary between missions.

Detailed answer:

The number of players in the game does matter and is meant to be fixed. The campaign setup (Rules Reference Guide, Page 7) requires that each player choose a Hero and handles assignment of the Legendary/Heroic cards for games with less than 4 players at campaign start time. If the number of players changes, you'll need to add/remove Legendary/Heroic cards as appropriate.

Campaign setup also affects the building of the side mission deck (Rules Reference Guide, Page 17) as each hero's red Side Mission card will be inserted into the deck.

Critically, the number of credits granted at the end of each session scales based on the number of players. The game wasn't designed for this to vary.

You likely could change the number of players between missions, temporarily removing their side quest and granting less credits at the end, but this means that the pool of players will have less credits than they ordinarily would have had. This can be fairly impactful, as it's a common practice to pool resources to load up one or two heroes with great end-game weapons and attachments. Additionally, the missing hero would either need to be granted XP upon rejoining the game or fall behind.

There are also some logistics to consider: if you have the missing player's hero controlled by the group, you may want to coordinate which abilities they would want to pick if you're doing more than one mission at a time.

I personally feel it's best to just control that player's character in their absence to keep the number of players constant. Some groups will opt to always play with four heroes, even if there are less players, as some missions feel more balanced with a full group and support characters get a greater chance to shine.


Catan: play development card after rolling robber

No, you can’t do that.
Under the rules for rolling a 7, it says that you “immediately” move the robber. This implies that cannot do anything in between.

a) Rolling a “7” and activating the robber

If you roll a “7,” no one receives any resources.

Instead, every player who has 8 or more resource cards must select half (rounded down) of their resource cards and return them to the bank.

Then you must move the robber. Proceed as follows:

(1) You must move the robber immediately to the number token of any other terrain hex or to the desert hex.


Looking for a specific variant of Tic-Tac-Toe


What's the best way to explain 7 Wonders to a new player?

I find that using the rulebook is often not the best way to teach 7 Wonders. There's a lot of text there. While a "here are your cards, let's go approach," can work well, most new players appreciate some form of idea.  I'll post the bullet points to my 7 Wonders Crash Course (given fairly regularly at game nights near me). Apologies for the impending wall of text.

This is 7 Wonders, in which you will receive a Wonder from an ancient Mediterranean civilization, which you must turn into a shining beacon of greatness.
To do this, you'll need Victory Points, which look like this (Point to a VP symbol).  Building your Wonder will get you some Victory Points, and a cool ability (explain their wonder ability).
You can get Victory points by playing cards.  Cards have a cost (Point to the cost of a card) and an effect (point to an effect).  Not all cards have a cost, but most of them do.
There are seven different types of cards, which do seven different types of things.
First off, we have brown cards, which provide you with a basic resource: Wood, Stone, Clay, and Ore. (Have an example card on-hand for each)
Next, we have gray cards, which provide you with manufactured resources: Glass, Textile, and Papyrus. (again, have example cards)
Brown cards and Gray cards provide you with resources, which let you build other buildings.
Next up, we have Blue cards.  Blue cards give you Victory Points, the currency of winners! As you progress through the game, you'll gain access to buildings that provide more Victory Points. (Show some blue cards, preferably from all three ages)
Yellow cards are Commerce Buildings.  They mostly deal with gaining money, which you can use to buy some cards, and to get a discount on buying resources from the players sitting next to you.  (Show them Trading Posts, explain East vs West & purchasing, and also show them a Tavern).
Red cards are Military Buildings.  Military buildings increase your Civilizations strength.  At the end of each Age (indicate Card backs), you'll compare your military score against your neighbors' military scores.  If yours is higher, you get Victory Points! If yours is lower, you lose 1 Victory Point. (Show the tokens, along with a red card).
Finally, we have Green cards.  Green cards are Scientific Buildings.  They allow your Civilization to unlock new and exciting technologies, which are really just Victory Points.  Science is complicated, but very rewarding, just like real life.  There are three symbols on Green cards, Cogs, Compasses, and Tablets. (Again, get some examples)  The more of any symbol you have, the better.  At the end of the game, you receive Victory Points equal to the square of the number of cards you have for each symbol.  So if you have one tablet, and two compasses, you'd get one point for the tablet, and four points for the compasses.  If you got five cogs, you'd get 25 points!  But that's not it!  For every set of three different symbols, you get an extra seven points!
We also have purple cards.  They don't come into the game until Age Three, so we can wait until then to worry about them.  The important thing is that they get you points for what people next to you have.

That was a lot, huh.  Don't worry.  It all clicks pretty quickly.  One last thing, and we'll get started.  You'll start with a hand of cards.  Each turn, everyone will pick a card to build, and place it face-down in front of them.  Once everyone has selected a card, we all turn them face up, pay any necessary costs, and put them by our wonder. If you don't want to build one, you can also discard it for three gold, or use it to build part of your Wonder.  Then, we pass our cards to the person next to us.  The hands keep rotating around until there's only two cards left, so you never know exactly what cards you'll be picking from on your next hand.  There's a handy chart for what all the symbols on the cards mean in the rules, so you can check it any time you want to, or ask the person that just gave you your cards, if you'd rather not.


Summary

Cardinal Koth can still take a move action while immobilized because the quest rule trumps the card effect of Immobilize

Explanation

If the master zombie can prevent the cardinal from moving with grab, this is basically impossible for the heroes unless they have some of the special things I've listed in the "Hard Mode" section below.  The cardinal has a 22% of resisting a grab.  Because the master zombie can spawn next to the cardinal and grab twice on it's turn if needed, the heroes have a 5% chance of being able to move with the cardinal on any turn (assuming the overlord uses grab as much as possible).  Even if the heroes managed to win this way, it would be extremely tedious.  As a result, this can't be the way this scenario was intended to work.  The cardinal must be able to move despite the grab ability.  What follows is the rules lawyering to achieve this.

The rules for Cardinal Koth read differently from the rules for other special hero characters in that Koth never activates:

  Once rescued, at the end of the last hero turn each round, Cardinal Koth performs a single move action.

Compare this to the very similar special character Fredrick in The Monster's Hoard part 1:

  Fredrick activates at the end of the last hero turn each round...  When activated, he performs only 1 move action.

Every other scenario with a special character for the heroes (villagers, guards, etc.), these special characters get an activation... except the cardinal.  As a result, I believe that the cardinal taking a move action is covered as a special rule of the scenario and thus trumps the restriction of Immobilize.  Essentially, because the move action is not done as part of an activation, it is the scenario that is causing Cardinal Koth to move, not the cardinal himself, and Immobilize restricts the cardinal and not the scenario.

Why then does the cardinal have attributes at all?  Because he can still be poisoned, thrown, etc.  He can even gain the Immobilized condition, it just usually doesn't do anything to him.

In particular, the scenario rule allows the cardinal to ignore the You cannot perform move actions portion of Immobilize.  That's it.  The cardinal can still have his movement affected by other things, such as the overlord card Tripwire.  The cardinal can still be blocked by zombies or other monsters standing in doorways.  He can even have his movement interrupted by Web Trap, since, according to the FAQ, becoming immobilized reduces your current movement points to 0.

I have played under this rules interpretation and it works fine.  It is still quite interesting tactically, and I assume is what the scenario designers intended.

Hard mode

You can play this scenario on hard mode, where the cardinal can't move while immobilized.  In this case, the heroes need special techniques or to have found a particular item in order to have any real chance of winning.

Curse Doll

If you find the Curse Doll as a search item, you can get the cardinal to the door of the library (the Curse Doll is a one-time-use condition remover).  Make sure the master zombie is still alive put 2 heroes blocking the library spaces behind the cardinal, thus preventing the master zombie from moving next to the cardinal and also from moving out of the library.  Then, you can just leave two heroes there the doorway of the library to keep the master zombie trapped and move the cardinal out.

Disciple/Apothecary

The Disciple class has Cleansing Touch which can remove immobilize:

  Each time you use Prayer of Healing on a hero, that hero may also discard 1 of his Condition cards.

While the cardinal can't recover health from Prayer of Healing, he can still be targeted by it for the purpose of cleansing touch.

The Apothecary has a similar ability.

Wildlander

You can use the Wildlander's First Strike ability to kill the master zombie at the beginning of it's activation:

  During the overlord's turn, immediately after he chooses a monster to activate, you may exhaust this card to perform an attack targeting that monster with a Bow. After this attack is resolved, if the monster was not defeated, it may continue its activation.

Stun

If you can reliably stun the master zombie (such as with a hero ability), the master zombie can only grab once and can't attack.  Within 5 turns, this will give you an opening to make a break out of the library and outrun the master zombie.

Other alternatives

There are many other house rules you could introduce if you wanted this scenario to be winnable by the heroes but still prevent the cardinal from moving while immobilized.

Have the zombie spawn at the end of the overlord's turn instead of the beginning.  Then, the heroes can kill the master zombie to buy a turn of respite and get the cardinal out of the library.
Zombies only spawn at the entrance.  Then, the heroes can kill the master zombie and block off the entrance to hold off the zombie hoards while they move the cardinal into place for their dash outside.  It's far more cinematic this way too.
If the heroes defeat all of the monsters, consider that an alternate victory condition.  It's kind of silly that the heroes don't win by default if they do this.
Only allow the master zombie to make one grab at the cardinal per turn.  This gives a 22% chance of the cardinal moving.
Give the cardinal 3 strength.  This ups him to a 53% chance of resisting one grab, meaning he now has the quite reasonable 28% chance of resisting a double grab.


Playing an Ascended Form can indeed shorten the round.

What that sentence means is that an Ascended Form does not immediately end the round. The round continues, but the only legal play is another Ascended Form  (which causes the following player's turn to be skipped, etc). One must match or beat the current set, and only an Ascended Form matches or beats an Ascended Form.

That said, an Ascended Form does immediately end the round in a two-player game. In a two-player game, you need to beat (not match) the current set, and nothing beats an Ascended Form.


What happens to companions when a player dies?

Page 12 of the rules book (you can download a copy from WotC here) says that those companions remain in the room and are picked up whenever another explorer enters that room (this appears to be mandatory, whereas it is optional for explorers to pick up dropped items).


Since T14 allows a sente hane, the initial board effectively looks like this:

$$W
$$ ------------|
$$ . X O . . . |
$$ X . X O . . |
$$ . . X O . . |
$$ . . X O O . |
$$ . . X X O . |
$$ . . . O X 1 |
$$ . . . X 2 . |
$$ . . . . . . |

The usual attempt is to hane from the outside, then kill by playing at the vital point:

$$ ------------|
$$ . X O 4 3 . |
$$ X . X O 7 2 |
$$ . . X O . 6 |
$$ . . X O O 5 |
$$ . . X X O 1 |
$$ . . . O X 8 |
$$ . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . |

But after 8, play cannot play at 1 to remove the eye due to atari.

Let's try a vital point in the corner directly:

$$ ------------|
$$ . X O 6 . 8 |
$$ X . X O 4 1 |
$$ . . X O . 5 |
$$ . . X O O . |
$$ . . X X O 7 |
$$ . . . O X 2 |
$$ . . . X 3 . |
$$ . . . . . . |

After 8, the situation becomes a 2 step ko in b's favor.

Next, consider this sequence:

$$ ------------|
$$ . X O . 4 5 |
$$ X . X O 1 2 |
$$ . . X O . 3 |
$$ . . X O O . |
$$ . . X X O . |
$$ . . . O X . |
$$ . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . |

After B5, the position is a direct ko. Black wins the ko by playing at 2, creating a dead shape inside. The same position arises if B1 is at B3.

However, thanks to the marked stone, black should try this:

$$ ------------|
$$ . B O 6 5 . |
$$ X . X O 1 4 |
$$ . . X O 9 . |
$$ . . X O O 8 |
$$ . . X X O 7 |
$$ . . . O X 2 |
$$ . . . X 3 . |
$$ . . . . . . |

The shape is dead without ko.

In the original diagram, black can still aim for the same shape:

$$ ------------|
$$ . X O O X . |
$$ X . X O 1 . |
$$ . . X O 5 . |
$$ . . X O O . |
$$ . . X X O 4 |
$$ . . . O X 2 |
$$ . . . X 3 . |
$$ . . . . . . |

After B5, white is short of liberties and dies.


What house rules/modifications have you adopted to make a board game work well over webcam?

We played Monopoly with a single board.

It was useful to have dice, money, and property cards for the remote player at their location. Locally we ghost played them - they rolled remote dice, we trusted their reported roll and moved their counter on our local board. We also did their money for them so local players could see it, but they duplicated that at their end. When doing transactions, they picked out the money from their remote stash and showed it to the camera (the bank acted as interchange).

Money and property names differed in the versions we had so we went through before hand to check the money was "normalised" (used an exchange rate of 1000). Properties were named by colour Brown1 being the first space after, and Purple2 being the last space before Go. Mention of a property at the local end was followed always by its list price.

Worked well, 2 local and 1 remote player using meet.jit.si for a 4hr game (including setup).


The way spells function was actually amended in the Errata and subsequent mobile game, such that spells are instead cast after a player's roll - so you cast them only when you need them.
Full text from the errata:

Spells that hold dice are cast after a player’s roll, not before. The player looks at the roll, then, if he wishes to save a particular die, casts the spell and places the die on the spell. The ‘held’ die remains on the spell card until used to complete a task or until removed (as described below).
• Dice may have their results modified by items/abilities before being placed on a spell, but not afterwards.
• Before any roll, a player may remove some or all of the dice held on spells in order to roll them. Any spell that has no dice remaining on it is discarded. New dice cannot be added to a spell to replace those that were removed from it.
• If a die becomes locked while it is on a spell, the die is removed from the spell and locked. If the spell has no dice remaining on it, the spell is discarded.


If I deal multiple types of damage, do I need to deal them in the order listed?

Effects on cards that are separated by an "and" happen sequentially, so the melee damage will happen before the radiant damage.

From user phantaskippy (tagged as playtester) on the Sentinels of the Multiverse game forums:

  Any use of "and" will happen sequentially. . . . All uses of "and" in situations where timing is relevant are intended to be sequential. It may not be obvious, but it is at least consistent.

This sentiment is repeated here by user Rabit (tagged as moderator and playtester) among the discussions about effect timing:

  Do things in the order described.

In reading through forum posts, the consensus follows this interpretation.

To answer the question about why this may be important, that is, you want to increase one damage type for a specific reason, Adam the Admin has this to say over on the forums (emphasis mine):

  The damage is intended to be dealt individually. This means if it's increased, both melee and radiant are increased by 1 separately, and the same goes for when it's decreased. A base reduction of -1 will make her do no damage at all, but a +1 will double her output. It essentially makes damage modifiers into multipliers for her innate power, which is in keeping with Fanatic being a high-risk/high-reward character.

So if you are looking to increase the radiant damage, you're in luck. Any increase to Fanatic's damage output will increase both the melee and radiant damage.


Can I suspend Ith, High Arcanist as my commander directly from the command zone?

No, you cannot.
Suspend means:

702.61. Suspend
702.61a Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that functions while the card with suspend is in a player’s hand. The second and third are triggered abilities that function in the exile zone. “Suspend N—[cost]” means “If you could begin to cast this card by putting it onto the stack from your hand, you may pay [cost] and exile it with N time counters on it. This action doesn’t use the stack,” and “At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is suspended, remove a time counter from it,” and “When the last time counter is removed from this card, if it’s exiled, play it without paying its mana cost if able. If you can’t, it remains exiled. If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of the spell or the permanent it becomes.”

You can only use Suspend from your hand. Since the Command zone is a zone different from your hand, you cannot use Suspend.
This is also summarised in the reminder text for Ith's Suspend ability, which can be read on Gatherer.


Blue burst is more valuable for simple reason. Let's compare them

Blue burst:
+ It's more certain to hit than gold burst
+ It gives +1 card advantage
+ It makes you immune to damage
- OR -
+ It gives you card advantage over opponent that thinks you are bluffing

Gold burst:
+ It's less certain to hit than blue burst generally 50% case.
+ It can give opponent chance to retaliate for free
+ It gives +1 card advantage, while it gives +2/3 card advantage compared to power-up (3 cards for 2 aces)
- Other cards can achieve similar effect, and can recur more often.
- If you lose your opponent is almost guaranteed to gets some free damage in.

With blue burst, you win whether opponent does something or not (assuming you played a Joker). With gold burst it's a bit more all-in.


Can you put a wild card back in your hand when no longer needed in Monopoly Deal?

You can't take it back to your hand.  From the rules:

Cards can NEVER go back to a player's Hand

However, you can move it to be part of a different set of properties on your turn:

Property Wildcards:
Use Property Wildcards as substitutes for property cards of one of the colors shown on the card.  You can swap these around among different sets on your turn.

So, if you have two Oranges and a Red, and are using a wild as a third Orange, you can move the wild to be a Red any time on your turn.  You could do this for lots of reasons, including to increase the values of the Reds for charging rent, to avoid the Deal Breaker card, or because you drew a third true Orange and want to replace the wild with it.


After an amphibious assault can overland attacking aircraft stay in newly captured territory?

Attacking aircraft can never land in a newly captured territory.  Being an amphibious assault does not change this rule.

The fighters need to return to a territory that was friendly since the beginning of the turn.  Note that if the aircraft return to a land territory, it does not need to be the same one that they departed from.  Fighters can also choose to land on an aircraft carrier.  A single carrier can support two fighter planes.


How does removing +1/+1 counters during combat affect abilities granted from having that counter?

Once blockers are assigned, you do not recheck legality of assignments again. The creature is considered blocked and combat damage is exchanged between them normally. The same would be true if an attacking creature became unblockable after a blocker was assigned to it. It would still be blocked.

From the Comprehensive Rulebook:

  509.1g Each chosen creature still controlled by the defending player becomes a blocking creature. Each one is blocking the attacking
  creatures chosen for it. It remains a blocking creature until it’s
  removed from combat or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first.
  See rule 506.4.


What elements of Arkham Horror balance the difficulty across the number of players?

The 'limits' that change with more players are:

Maximum number of monsters on the board before they go into outskirts
Maximum number of monsters in the outskirts before the terror track is moved
Maximum number of gates that can be open at any time
Maximum number of monsters that trigger the awakening of the Great Old One once the terror level has reached 10