Can I cast spells in the middle of another spell resolving?

No, Cloudshift is resolved as a single, atomic event.  There is no time in between the parts of its effect in which anyone has a window of opportunity to cast a spell.

From the Comprehensive rules:

  116.2e Resolving spells and abilities may instruct players to make choices or take actions, or may allow players to activate mana
  abilities. Even if a player is doing so, no player has priority while
  a spell or ability is resolving. See rule 608, "Resolving Spells and
  Abilities."


What is the benefit of having an "Inflict X damage to your opponent" spell card that does less damage than others?

There is no benefit whatsoever. The only reason why someone would use this sort or not-as-useful card is that there are some decks that mainly focus on damage from spell or trap cards, such as 'Magic Cylinder' These decks basically only contain cards that deal instant damage. It is one of the most quickest way to deplete someone's LP. The benefit is that not many decks are prepared for this type of damage, and since there are only three copies of a single card within a single deck, varieties of a card are necessary.


I originally posted this question as a guest and am unable to select an answer, however, thanks to everyone who posted here, I have my answer and I'd like to share a little information with you all on the topic.

World Wide Games of Colchester originally made the game. It was indeed called "Fore Par", and it included wooden pucks with little rubber rings on the outside of them to help them bounce. It was a large, plain wooden board (the exact dimensions of which I am still trying to pin down) with pegs and recessed "holes". At one time, the game sold brand new for $158.50. Here is an archived article from the NY Times that mentions the company and the game and cost, as well as other games made by WWG:  http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/12/nyregion/from-adi-to-skittles-to-yoot-making-fun.html

In some instances, Fore Par was included in a "cabinet" set of games you could purchase from World Wide Games.

World Wide Games was eventually purchased by S&S Worldwide. Sometime later, SSW would build a similar game known as "Bumper Golf". I didn't recognize the game because of the graphics and I thought for sure they weren't the same game (since it didn't use coins), but since I found a picture of the original Fore Par, I've been corrected. In fact, looking closely at both of them side by side, you can see that the layouts are EXACTLY the same, the only difference being the starting point for the 4th hole is shifted slightly to a different position. (See photo).

I wish I knew a little more history about the original Fore Par game, and a history of the company World Wide Games. Seems they cared about making a quality product that was used by many educational institutions (schools, YMCA's, etc). It makes perfect sense that I originally played this game as a child at my elementary school.

At my school, the wooden pieces were long gone, and the board had been played with coins for many years. So long that years of coin-impacts had worn away at the wooden sides and hazards at the best places to bounce the pieces.


When Exchanging Items Does It Have To Be a Trade?

You can give an item to another hero in your space without receiving anything in return. This FAQ from the back of the rule book clarifies this:

Q3. - If you have four items including Gasoline or Old Betsy, and you gain a fifth item, can you immediately use the Gasoline or Old Betsy to avoid having to discard an item?
A3. - Yes. You could also immediately hand off an item to any other Hero in your space.


Does creating colored tokens affect a card's color identity?

God-Eternal Oketra's color identity is White

From the comprehensive rules, regarding Color Identity:

  903.4. The Commander variant uses color identity to determine what cards can be in a deck with a certain commander. The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204).
  Example: Bosh, Iron Golem is a legendary artifact creature with mana cost {8} and the ability “{3}{R}, Sacrifice an artifact: Bosh, Iron Golem deals damage equal to the sacrificed artifact’s converted mana cost to any target.” Bosh’s color identity is red.

God-Eternal Oketra has white in it's mana cost, has no other mana symbols on it's card, and does not have any relevant characteristic-defining abilities or color indicator, so it is a White creature


What are the legal tournament formats for MtG?

You can visit the Banned / Restricted Lists for DCI-Sanctioned Magic: The Gathering Tournaments page to see a list of formats, plus deck construction rules and a list of banned/restricted cards for each format.

With the exception of prerelease Limited, new sets enter their appropriate formats on the day of their official release. The specific dates for upcoming sets are spelled out in the "New Releases" section of the most current Magic Tournament Rules (PDF link).

As for a description of each format, plus differences and defining characteristics, is probably overly broad as a question.


What is the penalty for lying about a face-down card?

Cheating is not tolerated at any REL and must always result in disqualification.
The current Rules Enforcement Levels (REL) are Regular, Competitive, and Professional.
The Tournament rules state about cheating:

5.1 Cheating
Cheating will not be tolerated. The Head Judge reviews all cheating allegations, and if he or she believes that a player has cheated, he or she will issue the appropriate penalty based on the Infraction Procedure Guide or Judging at Regular REL document. All disqualifications are subject to DCI review and further penalties may be assessed.

The rules for Judging at Regular REL state:

Serious Problems
Certain actions will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Every effort should be made to educate players before and during events; however, ignorance is not an acceptable defence of these actions. Any player engaging in the following must be removed from your event and, at the Organizer's discretion, removed from the venue entirely:

Aggressive, violent or abusive behavior (physical or verbal).

Intentionally and knowingly breaking or letting an opponent break game or tournament rules, or lying. (“Bluffing” about cards opponents can't normally see is permitted).

Determining match outcomes by incentives, coercion, or outside-the-game methods, or gambling on any part of a tournament.

Theft (including things like replacing a card in a draft with one from a player’s binder).

Removing players in this way is called a Disqualification, and we must always try to educate our players on why these actions are unacceptable. Also let the player know that while your decision is final, the Judge Program would still like to hear his or her side of the story. You can contact your local Regional Coordinator, high level Judge, or WPN Representative to guide you through the process of a Disqualification.

The Infraction Procedure Guide is used for penalties at Competitive and Professional REL and states:

4.8. Unsporting Conduct — Cheating
Definition
A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.
Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:

The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action.

The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.

If all criteria are not met, the offense is not Cheating and should be handled by a different infraction. Cheating will often appear on the surface as a Game Play Error or Tournament Error, and must be investigated by the judge to make a determination of intent and awareness.
Penalty: Disqualification


Does Livewire Lash trigger if a spell is countered by Chalice of the Void

Yes, Livewire Lash will still be triggered. Here's how it'll go down:

You place your spell on the stack, pick your targets (including that creature equipped with Livewire Lash), and pay for it. Casting's now done.

That creature is now the target of a spell. Also, you've just cast a spell that the Chalice cares about. Both of you have a triggered ability to put on the stack. From this question, triggers go on the stack in APNAP order: active player first, then non-active player.

The creature's Lash-granted ability, and the Chalice ability, will go on the stack. (If it's your turn, the Chalice ability will be on top, otherwise Lash will be on top. Either way, the effect is the same.)

Now things will start resolving, if nobody does anything else.

The two triggered abilities resolve in whichever order is applicable. Chalice's ability resolves, and counters the original spell. The creature's Lash-granted ability resolves, and its damage is dealt.
(The spell would resolve here, but it was countered.)

So go ahead and fire off spells like this if you find it's worth the damage.


In order:

- What happens if the opponent can't lay a card to bring the score to either 31 or under 31?
 Nothing; that's normal. The Go stands.

- What happens if the opponent lays a card and brings the total to under 31?
 Nothing; that's normal again. The Go stands.

- What happens if the opponent lays a card and brings the total to 31?
 Opponent gets 2 for Thirty One instead of the already scored Go.

Alternately, think of it as getting a second point for the Thirty One being reached exactly.

- What would happen if for example, the player who previously called "Go" has no cards to put down to lead?
 As in any other circumstance, that's another Go and opponent can play any remaining cards in hand as desired to maximize pegging value.

- Or what would happen if for example, the player who previously called "Go" is the only player with cards left?
 Same as before, but reversed.

- What happens at this point, as opponent has two Qs left?
 Opponent plays Q(10), Q(20) for Pair (two points) and Last Card (one point, functionally identical to go but called differently.)

- At this point, the Opponent can't play either Q. So are any points given?
 This is the default situation. Opponent scores the Go, and starts off the next sequence once already played cards have been turned over.

To remember the correct technique note that the proper timing for scoring a Go is once neither player can play anymore cards. At this moment in time, the last player to have played one or more cards gets either two points (if the count is exactly 31) or one point (if the count is less than 31).

The American Cribbage Congress Tournament Rules hint, but don't quite make explicit, this interpretation (my emphasis):

From the Scoring Chart

From Rule 7.2 Scoring

  a) Points are earned during the play of the cards for the following single card or combination of consecutive cards played. The player playing the last card that forms a combination earns the points (see scoring chart in Rule 1.7):

  ...

  (7) a cumulative count of 31

  (8) the final card played, not making a cumulative count of 31

  b) ... When a player's opponent has no more cards or calls "go," the other player may play all playable cards in succession and announce the points scored before pegging the total at one time.

So it is the combination of all cards played in this series after the opponent has last played a card that scores either two for Thirty One or one for whichever of Go or Last Card applies.


In Puerto Rico, how do you tell whether it is better to trade or to ship a good?

It depends on several factors that ultimately boil down to What is the roles overall value?

Is it the early game? - In the early game, it is usually more important to gain coins than VP. The reason for this, is that you can exchange coins for buildings that will gain you more coins/VP over the course of the game than you would earn this turn by shipping and taking the VP. Until you have your coin generating buildings setup, usually consisting of a high value trade good/large market/factory, coins are usually of greater value. Some of the expansion building make this distinction moot (Black Market).
Do your opponents make more Coins/VP because of your choice? - Usually, in Puerto Rico, you want to make decisions that benefit you more than your opponents. If choosing Trader will benefit your opponents more, you might want to Captain instead (or select some other role). The few times you might select a role that doesn't seem to immediately help you relative to your opponents, is when you are denying them access to the cash necessary to buy some building (Guild Hall pops up a lot here), or denying them shipping on a large boat (they have lots of corn and you take a large boat and possibly tie up all the boats from emptying).
Does the role have a coin on it - I will many times take a role card that has a coin, because all I need is that extra coin to buy a building I want during the next building phase.


Multiple Replacement Effects for "Next Time"

The Dragon-Style Twins will not deal damage in either combat damage step.

One of the subrules of the rule you quoted, 616.1e, says

  Once the chosen effect has been applied, this process is repeated (taking into account only replacement or prevention effects that would now be applicable) until there are no more left to apply.

So, in the first combat damage step, the process of applying replacement and prevention effects goes like this:

We start with two instances of "the next time Dragon-Style Twins would deal damage to you this turn, prevent that damage".
The effect to be modified is "Dragon-Style Twins deals 3 damage to you".
You choose (arbitrarily) to apply the first prevention effect.
The new effect is "Nothing happens". Now there are no applicable replacement or prevention effects, so the process ends.
One instance of the Circle of Protection: Red effect was applied, and the other was not, so now we have one remaining Circle of Protection: Red effect to apply.

In other words, a replacement or prevention effect that applies to "the next time" something would happen is only consumed if it is actually applied to an event.


Does the Preacher affect the Booty/Loot on the ship or in a den?

The rules don't specify, but my interpretation agrees with this player aid in that it's meant to be your booty tiles.
EDIT: A BGG post from Stefan Brunell the American publisher here confirms this.

[Q2:] The Preacher has a Dusk effect of "Remove all but one booty token." Is this referring to that day's booty, or your own inventory? Do the removed tokens go back to the bag or do they end up in your inventory?
Second: Own inventory, to the bag.


Can a 5 year old kid play Legends of Andor?

My experience with Legends of Andor is that it is primarily a "puzzle".  Time is very limited, and you need to be very strategic about what actions you take in order to succeed.  I don't think most 5 year olds will have this level of analytic thinking yet.  So while your daughter can probably learn the available decisions and be able to choose ones she thinks are reasonable, you'll probably need to tweak the difficulty somewhat in order for her to feel comfortable making her own decisions and not constantly having them lead to failure.


Probably the most commonly available ones are called Fudge dice, as used in the Fudge/FATE roleplaying games.

A Fudge die is a six-sided die with the following sides: minus, minus, blank, blank, plus, plus.

Games generally have players rolling a couple of Fudge dice together and adding them up, which creates a curved probability distribution centered around zero. 3dF, for example, gives you a range from -3 to +3, with 0 as the mean, median, and mode.

This Wikipedia article has more information.


How competitive are MTG Arena qualifier events?

I would've stopped playing immediately after reaching mythic at rank ~150

Slightly an aside: that probably wouldn't have qualified you; your rank goes down if you don't play as others get wins and move up.

How competitive are these events?

Pretty competitive. They include what are by some definitions the best 1200 players in the world1. That puts them well above the "entry level competitive" FNM. The closest analogy to "the old world" is probably a Grand Prix, but it isn't a perfect match at all; certainly below the old Pro Tour level, which had only a few hundred of the best players in the world.

How much preparation is necessary to succeed in these events?

That's not a question we can answer, particularly given that Magic is a high variance game. Some people will put hours and hours into understanding the metagame, then designing and tuning decks to find what they think will be most successful... and drop at 0-4 after some unlucky draws. Other people will just take their favourite deck unchanged and make Day 2.

How do people even prepare?

Test, test, test. Perhaps the important thing to note here is that the tournament metagame is likely to be significantly different from the Arena ladder metagame - the ladder always features a lot more aggro than tournaments as aggro decks allow players to play more games quickly on the ladder and move up quicker. As an example, while the infamous Temur (or 4c) Reclamation decks made up 25-30% of the top end of the Arena ladder, they made up 55% of the recent Players Tour Finals decks.

If I decide not to play, can I pass the invite to someone else?

No.
1. Yes, Arena ladder to some extent rewards quantity of play over quality of play. But the old qualification systems rewarded spiking a couple of tournaments over sustained quality of play, so neither were perfect.


What is the proper way way to play Butcher of Malakir and Falkenrath Noble?

Scenario 1

As the creatures are dying, more or less.

Butcher of Malakir's ability triggers 6 times. Falkenrath Noble's ability triggers 6 times.
You place the ability on the stack in the order you desire (since they're all yours): [Doesn't really matter]

Butcher of Malakir's ability is put on the stack 6 times.
Falkenrath Noble's ability is put on the stack 6 times targeting whoever.

Falkenrath Noble's ability #6 resolves:

The targeted player loses one life.
You gain one life.

Repeat step #3 for the other 5 instances.
Butcher of Malakir's ability #6 resolves:

The opponent sacrifice one of his 5/5s. Falkenrath Noble's ability triggers.

Falkenrath Noble's ability is placed on the stack targeting whoever.
Falkenrath Noble's ability resolves:

The targeted player loses one life.
You gain one life.

Repeat steps #5-#7 for the other 5 instances.

(If the other opponent has creatures too, there will be more triggers added in step #6.)

So before moving from the Combat Damage Step to the End of Combat Step,

One or more players lost a total 12 life (one at a time).
You gained 12 life (one at a time).
Each opponent sacrificed 6 creatures.

Scenario 2

It's #2 (you take damage) because all combat damage is dealt simultaneously[1].

Simultaneously,

Your three 1/1s deal one damage to each of his 1/1s.
Three of his 1/1s deal one damage to each of your 1/1s.
The other three of his 1/1s deal one damage each to you.

SBAs are performed simultaneously:

You lose the game if you have non-positive life.
Your 1/1s are destroyed. (Butcher of Malakir's ability triggers three times. Falkenrath Noble triggers three times.)
His three 1/1s with one damage marked are destroyed. (Falkenrath Noble's ability triggers three times.)

You put the nine triggered abilites on the stack in the order you desire.
...

Notes:

All combat damage dealt by the creatures participating in that Combat Damage Step is dealt simultaneously, to be specific. Creatures with First Strike and creatures without participate in different Combat Damage Steps.


The latter. Each creature deals damage equal to its power to all blockers, attackers and defending players or planeswalkers, not to each of them.

Simultaneously,

The 6/6 deals 4 damage to the 4/4[1].
The 6/6 deals 2 damage to the 2/3.
The 4/4 deals 4 damage to the 6/6.
The 2/3 deals 2 damage to the 6/6.

Shortly after, when State-Based Actions are performed, the following happens simultaneously:

The 6/6 is destroyed for having damage equal to or exceeding its toughness.
The 4/4 is destroyed for having damage equal to or exceeding its toughness.

That's assuming the minimum damage is dealt to each creature. You can choose to "overkill" if you so desire, but it's rarely helpful.


Should a temple always be built on turn 2 in Antike?

While getting a Temple is a very good first move, there's a lot to be said for getting the first Technology.
I would immediately follow it up with a Temple though.


When do you increment the 'Successful run' counters?

Add tokens, then access. There's a timing structure in the FAQ (here). The end of the run goes like this:

  4 The Runner APPROACHES the attacked server.

    4.1 [Paid abilities]

    4.2 The Runner decides whether to continue the run.
        ...Either the Runner JACKS OUT: [end the run unsuccessfully]
        ...Or the Runner continues the run: go to 4.3.

    4.3 [Paid abilities and non-ice can be rezzed]

    4.4 The run is considered to be successful. (‘When successful’ conditionals meet their trigger conditions)

    4.5 Access cards, then [end the run].

The run is considered successful (and tokens are added to Medium and the like) in 4.4. You access the cards in 4.5.

To answer the question within the question, this also means you'll get extra cards starting from your second Medium run, and not just starting from your third.


How does the pool work in Glory to Rome?

The Spanish version of the game has really badly translated instructions. The English version (latest version downloadable here) is clearer (emphasis added):

  Place all the face up Order cards [which are revealed during setup] in the middle of the playing surface
  beside the pile of Jacks — they are the starting Pool.

Page 4 shows an image of the cards in the Pool face-up.


Can I use Deathwind with Isochron Scepter?

Yes, you can. When a spell is in your hand any {X} in its mana cost is interpreted as 0, so the card counts as having a CMC of 1.
-0/-0, sorry. This combo isn't very lethal. Isochron lets you cast a copy of that card without paying its mana cost (and that's the only circumstances under which you're allowed to cast it; you don't get to opt to pay mana for it), and in these circumstances, {X} is always given a value of zero. That requirement to pick 0 is reflected in a ruling on Isohron Scepter:

  6/8/2016  If the exiled card has X in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value for X when casting it.

At least it'll trigger Heroic and kill Phantasmal Bears.


Do auras and equipment stay on cards if they stop being creatures?

Equipment will fall off, and Auras most likely will as well.

Equipment can only be attached to creatures. If it finds itself attached to a non-creature permanent, like when the Ojutai Monument turns back into a plain old non-creature artifact, that's illegal, and it'll be detached.

  301.5. Some artifacts have the subtype “Equipment.” An Equipment can be attached to a creature. It can’t legally be attached to an object that isn’t a creature.

  704.5p If an Equipment or Fortification is attached to an illegal permanent, it becomes unattached from that permanent. It remains on the battlefield.

If an Aura says "Enchant Creature" on it, that means it can only be attached to creatures. So if it finds itself attached to a non-creature artifact instead, that's illegal, and it's put into its owner's graveyard. If on the other hand the enchantment said "Enchant permanent" (e.g. Take Possession) it'd be able to stay attached.

  702.5a Enchant is a static ability, written “Enchant [object or player].” The enchant ability restricts what an Aura spell can target and what an Aura can enchant.

  704.5n If an Aura is attached to an illegal object or player, or is not attached to an object or player, that Aura is put into its owner’s graveyard.


Can an Influence Disc be moved to an adjacent hex if there is no other influenced hex adjacent to that target hex?

When you move the influence disk, pick up the disk from the hex and place according to the rules i.e.

to a hex that does not contain an Influence Disc or an enemy
Ship and is adjacent to a hex where you have a disc
or a Ship.
to a hex where only you have a Ship.

The disk cannot move across the explored space on it's own

  Q: Using the Influence action, I can move an Influence Disc from a hex to its neighbor through a Wormhole connection. May I move the Disc that created this connection in the first place?
  A: No. If you move the disc, there is no longer a connection.

Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/711246/eclipse-official-faq


How should one access HQ cards with the "Legwork"

You access the cards one at a time, but they don't go back to HQ until you're done.

Essentially, you draw one from HQ, decide what to do with it (if anything), then set it aside as you draw the next card. Once you're finished, the cards go back to HQ (unless they don't for whatever reason).

From the FAQ, page 3:

  When the Runner accesses multiple cards from HQ, the cards are accessed one at a time, and do not return to HQ until the Runner is finished accessing.

If you want to trash the cards, you must do so as you access them one at a time, not after you've accessed additional cards.


Question about interaction: levitation, then gravity sphere, then oblivion ring on each, then tranquility. Who flies away?

Short answer: your creatures lose flying.

Since both Oblivion Rings are destroyed at the same time, their triggered abilities "When Oblivion Ring leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owner's control." are put on the stack. They are put on the stack in APNAP order:

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

Since we are in your turn (because Tranquility is a sorcery), the ability of the Oblivion Ring you control is put on the stack, then on top of that is put the ability of the other Oblivion Ring. First we resolve the one your opponent controls which returns Levitation to the battlefield. Then we resolve the one you control, and return Gravity Sphere. Since Gravity Sphere entered last on the battlefield, all your creatures lose flying.

Of course, if you somehow managed to destroy both rings on your opponents turn, then the result would be reversed and your creatures would have flying.

When you asked the question, you thought Levitation and Gravity Sphere were entering the battlefield simultaneously. You now know that's not the case here, but you probably still wonder what would happen if they did enter the battlefield simultaneously.

The order in which the effects are applied are defined in the section of the rules entitled "Interaction of Continuous Effects". As you've indicated, it comes down to timestamps in this case (whichever has the latter timestamp wins out). So which one has the later timestamp if they both entered the battlefield simultaneously?

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

Being the Active Player, you would decide the timestamp order.

If you decide that Levitation has the lower timestamp, it gives the ability then Gravity Sphere takes it away, so none of your creatures can fly.
If you decide that Gravity Sphere has the lower timestamp, it task away the ability then Levitation grants it, so all of your creatures can fly.


Betrayal at House on the Hill: Do I have to pickup items that I draw?

Yes you do pick up every item that you draw. However as long as the item does not say it can't be dropped there is nothing preventing you from dropping it.

In the case you mention the amulet (Amulet of the Ages is the full name) gives +1 to all stats when you get it and -3 to all stats when you lose it. Which is something to remember as there are plenty of cards you can get which do more harm to you then good. Als

Rules

  Drawing Omen, Item, and Event Cards
  If the room has an item symbol (a bull’s head ),
  draw an item card. Read it out loud. Place it face up in
  front of you; you now have the item in your possession.
  (You’re carrying or wearing it.) You can use the item once
  immediately and once on each of your turns, unless the card
  says otherwise.


Does Deflecting Palm cause Furnace of Rath to activate twice?

Your opponent will lose, providing you choose the correct order of replacement and prevention effects.

Your opponent casts Lightning Bolt.
You respond with Deflecting Palm and let it resolve.
You now have 2 replacement / prevention effects attempting to modify Lightning Bolt.
By rule 616.1

  616.1. If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the
  affected object’s controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or
  the affected player chooses one to apply, following the steps listed
  below. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same
  time, choices are made in APNAP order (see rule 101.4).

Since you are the affected player, you choose the order of replacement.

Option 1 - Apply Furnace's Effect First

This doubles the damage of Lightning Bolt from 3 to 6.
As per 616.1e, you now repeat the process with any applicable replacement effects

  616.1e Once the chosen effect has been applied, this process is repeated (taking into account only replacement or prevention effects
  that would now be applicable) until there are no more left to apply.

The only applicable effect left is Deflecting Palm.
Now your opponent is affected by Deflecting Palm dealing 6 damage to him / her, so they would make any applicable choices for replacement effects.
The only replacement effect here is Furnace of Rath again, which doubles the damage from 6 to 12.

Option 2 - Apply Deflecting Palm First

Lightning Bolt's 3 damage is prevented.  Deflecting Palm now deals 3 damage to your opponent.  Note that at this point, Furnace of Rath's replacement effect no longer is applicable to the Lightning Bolt event, so we don't worry about it anymore.
Like above, Furnace of Rath's effect applies to Deflecting Palm's damage, doubling it to 6.

So if you do it right, your opponent loses.


Does a runner lose a click when encountering Enigma with no clicks left?

Enigma says: "The runner loses [Click], if able".  The "if able" is the key phrase.  Without a click left, the runner cannot lose one, so the corp phase doesn't trigger.


How are the Spiel des Jahres decisions made?

From the Spiel's website (the English version at least):

  Jury The jury consists solely of journalists who specialize in game
  reviews, have worked for extended periods for newspapers, magazines,
  and broadcast organizations and who have thereby proven their
  competency and ability to make sound judgments. The association's
  charter forbids jury membership to any person involved in any way with
  games publishing and sales.

  Election Procedure The jury will consider all new family and adult
  games published during the current and previous calendar year. There
  is no separate request for submissions. The election procedure goes
  through two phases: an information gathering phase and an initial
  evaluation phase.  After the two phases end, the jury meets in
  conference to create a list of candidates. From this list a shortlist
  of three nominees is selected for the main award. The winner of the
  Spiel des Jahres award is elected the evening before the announcement
  of the award.

  Judgment Criteria The nominees for the main award and the special
  awards are judged on the following aspects:

  Game idea (originality, playability, play value)
  Rules design
  (structure, clarity, understandability)
  Layout and presentation (box,
  game board, rules)
  Design (features, workmanship)

So the jury are pretty powerful as far as I can make out.  But hopefully unbiased!


Spells are not exiled by Jace, Telepath Unbound's second ability in MTG Duels

Should it have been exiled? Yup.  You cast it from your graveyard, it went on the stack, resolved then returned to your graveyard.  Going to your graveyard should have been replaced with exiling the card.

Why didn't it?  No idea.  It's probably a bug.  With a game and rules as complex as Magic's, it wouldn't surprise me that something doesn't work like it is supposed to.


In Arkham Horror, do you ignore counting items that can't be lost or stolen when going insane or unconscious?

While the ruling may seem a little bit weird, everything they say in the errata section makes sense.

During an unconscious or madness scenario, you are the one looking at your items and choosing to remove them.  You still count the amount of items you have, as a whole.  However, you are allowed to pick which ones get removed to satisfy the requirements of the event.

So, for example, you have six items in total and two of them have the "KEEP" status (the status we're talking about).  You get knocked out.  At this point, you have to choose three items to remove, because you have six items total.  Since you're the one that gets to choose, you would see three of these items go away and may choose one of the KEEP items to remove to fulfill the requirement.  This seems all by the rules at this point.

However, let's say you hold all of the KEEP items.  Now, you have two KEEP items and one other item.  Let's say you keep going and find another KEEP item.  You now have three KEEP items and one normal item.  You go mad now, for whatever reason.  At this point, your total is calculated again.  Four total items mean that you have to remove two items from your inventory.  The logic of the board dicates that either you, as the player, decide to remove two items of your own or it forces you to remove two items.  You can still choose, if you wish, to remove a KEEP item to satisfy the request.  However, since you cannot be forced to remove these items, you can instead have the logic of the board remove your one normal item.  Once it's done that, the board would then need another item...but since all the rest of your items are KEEP items, it fails to take any more items from you.  Thus, you are now able to keep all of your items.

That is the basic way the rule works in terms of the knocked out or insane status.


What happens if I mutate on top of a creature that I control until the end of a turn?

In this case, Cavern Whisperer won't be a valid target for mutation, because you are not the owner of Cavern Whisperer. This is per CR:

702.140a Mutate appears on some creature cards. It represents a static ability that functions while the spell with mutate is on the stack. “Mutate [cost]” means “You may pay [cost] rather than pay this spell’s mana cost. If you do, it becomes a mutating creature spell and targets a non-Human creature with the same owner as this spell.”  (...)

108.3. The owner of a card in the game is the player who started the game with it in their deck. (...)


Shard of Greed - Clarification about counters and usage

That does not work for two reasons. The first reason is that Shard of Greed can only use greed counters. This does not necessarily mean that you can only use counters from its own effect, but at the moment there are no other card that exist in the game that use greed counters.

The second reason is that the card explicitly says:

  You can send this card with 2 or more Greed Counters to the Graveyard; draw 2 cards.

Because it does not say that you get to draw one card for every counter on it, you would not be allowed to draw more than two cards.

Also Shard of Greed's activate effect has a spell speed of one, which means that you can only activate it either during your Main Phase 1 or during your Main Phase 2. I hope this helps to clarify the card for you.

Additional information regarding the commented questions:

Cards like Skelengel and other cards that allow you to draw will not let you more greed counters on this card. The reason being that the card specifies:

  Each time you draw a card(s) for your normal draw in your Draw Phase

Meaning that you can not add more counters on to Shard of Greed with the effects of cards, only by normally drawing a card. Also the part that says "card(s)" makes it so that even if you had a card that allowed you to draw more cards during your draw phase (ie: Heart of the Underdog) you will not be able to place multiple counters on your card during the same turn.

Also your question on counters is relatively simple. There are various types of counters in the game. Spellcasters typically use Spell Counters, and Six Samurai usually use Bushido Counters the reason for differing between these counters is that the card makers don't want people being able to abuse cards such as Shard of Greed in the exact kind of situation you are describing. This also means that when playing, you need a way to differentiate between the types of counters you have on the field if you are using multiple counters.


When does the 'Your turn begins' phase end?

The "turn begins" trigger happens only once (at step 1.2 of the corp/runners turn according to the timing structure chart). So a card installed when the triggers resolve would not itself trigger.
This is also separately clarified for The Supplier in the official FAQ (https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/support/FAQ/Android-Netrunner%20FAQ.pdf) in the card clarification section.

56 The Supplier
The Runner cannot use any “when your turn begins”
abilities on cards that are installed by The Supplier until his next
turn


Can I block with Myth Realized if I attacked with it on my turn?

No.  As a creature, it still taps to attack, so barring some other action, it will remain tapped (turning it back into a creature will not untap it) and can't block on your opponents turn.


Do you lose your nomad tile if you move all your settlements away?

No, according to the game designer Donald X. Vaccarino:

  I do not see this in the rulebook, but the intention was that you do not lose the tile, even if you immediately move away.


What is this game with 16 pegs and 36 spools to fit on them?

This looks a version of a game I used to own called Score Four. It is essentially the classic Connect 4 game, but in three dimensions instead of two.

It plays exactly as you would imagine

players take turns adding pieces of their color onto pegs
the first player to create a line of 4 in any direction (vertical, horizontal, diagonal) wins

It is considerably more interesting than Connect 4

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3656/score-four


Can I use a flicker effect to stop an opponents blocker from blocking

No, you can't prevent a block with a flicker effect, unless your creature has trample.
If you flicker the creature before it is assigned as a blocker, your opponent can just assign it as a blocker during the declare blocker step of the combat phase. If you flicker it after it has been declared as a blocker, it will be removed from combat, but your attacker will still count as being blocked.

506.4. A permanent is removed from combat if it leaves the battlefield [..]
509.1h An attacking creature with one or more creatures declared as blockers for it becomes a blocked creature; one with no creatures declared as blockers for it becomes an unblocked creature. This remains unchanged until the creature is removed from combat, an effect says that it becomes blocked or unblocked, or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first. A creature remains blocked even if all the creatures blocking it are removed from combat.

When it comes to the combat damage step, blocked creatures will deal their damage to creatures blocking it - there is no creature to deal damage to in this case, so your creature deals no damage at all.

510.1c A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. [..]

Exception: If your creature had trample, it would deal its combat damage to the defending player.

702.19c If an attacking creature with trample is blocked, but there are no creatures blocking it when damage is assigned, all its damage is assigned to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking.


Does an item effect still occur if you go insanse/unconscious using it?

If a cost associated with a spell or exhaust card leaves you at 0 stamina or 0 sanity it will resolve before you become injured or insane at the location you cast it.

What about Flute of the Outer Gods?
After the injury or madness, the spell resolves(Either its success or failure state) in the location in which it was cast the spell.

You then become injured or insane and are transported to the correct treatment facility.

Other spells that does not have such dramatic effects (Like plus to combat checks) are rendered useless since you can not perform a combat check after the spell has resolved against the original target which resides in another location.


What happens if the first card is a Flip Card in UNO Flip?

Since according to the Mattel's UNO FLIP! rules there are no special instructions for a Flip Card turned over at the start of the game.

  NOTE: If any of the Action Cards (symbols) are turned over to start the DISCARD pile, see FUNCTIONS OF ACTION CARDS for special instructions.

If the card turned over to start the DISCARD pile is a Flip Card you should "flip over" all the cards and play the Dark Side.

  Flip Card – when you play this card, everything flips from the Light Side to the Dark Side. Once the Flip card has been played, flip over the Discard Pile (the card just played will now be on the bottom), then the Draw Pile, then everyone’s hands must flip to the other side...

Question 2 is answered here:
What to do after flipping the discard pile in Uno Flip?


Inspiring Statuary = Improvise for Planeswalkers?

Planeswalkers are nonartifact spells. They do not have artifact on the type line, therefore, they are nonartifacts.


Does moving the wagon after scoring stop you from taking the fairy?

No. Redeployment of the Wagon following scoring (at the end of a turn) is a separate step from the figure deployment step (for the next turn), so it has no effect on any of the actions you can take during the figure deployment step, including moving the Fairy.


Typically, with any strong hand (something like 17+) you should begin with a takeout double (if it's available — see below). In this case, your hand is even stronger than that, so you should probably cue bid hearts after almost any bid by partner:

after 3S, 4C, or 4D, you have enough to insist on game with very little from partner, so cue bid 4H to force to game.
after a jump to a suit game (4S, 5C, or 5D), partner is showing something like 10+, so you almost certainly have slam and may have a grand. After 4S, you can bid 4NT to start asking about partner's kings. After 5C or 5D, you can cue bid 5H to force a slam and start exploring for grand.
after 3NT, you might just bid 7NT, as it's likely that you have 13 top tricks and it's difficult to imagine having a good constructive auction without strong agreements with partner.

Update:
TimLymington points out in the comments that you may have agreed that double here is for penalty. I had not considered this, as I play in the U.S., where the overwhelming majority of pairs play doubles as takeout at least through 4D and often higher.

If double would be for penalty, I recommend doubling and continuing as above except at unfavorable vulnerability. Game for your side is almost certain and slam is a possibility, but it seems difficult to explore for slam when X is not takeout. I expect to beat the opponents by 3 tricks (they'll likely get 6 trump tricks and nothing else), so I'm happy defending when at favorable or equal vulnerability, but the 500 we'll get at unfavorable doesn't compensate us for the 600+ we expect from making our own contract.

In that case, I recommend bidding 3NT, which is a small gamble, but requires very little from partner (the club K guarantees the contract, as does the diamond ten with the spade K, for example).


How do multiple death triggers work with a board wipe?

Both Vastwood Hydra and Hooded Hydra have leave the battlefield triggers. As their name implies, they will trigger only when the creatures actually leave the battlefield.

What that implies is that you cannot move the +1/+1 counters off Vastwood Hydra and into Hooded Hydra because (assuming, by your question, that they will both die at the same time), none of the hydras will be on the battlefield by the time Vastwood Hydra's trigger resolves.

You can, however, put the triggers into the stack in any order you want. That means that you may put Hooded Hydra's trigger on top of Vastwood Hydra's, get your snake tokens when it resolves, and then resolve the trigger that puts the counters onto those tokens, so the answer to the second part of your question is yes, as long as you stack the triggers properly.


Can I buy a development card in the special building phase?

yes.

Taken from the  5-6 players rules pdf: http://www.catan.com/files/downloads/settlers_5-6_rv_rules_100107.pdf

emphasis mine:

  • Special Building Phase – Your opponents may build as outlined below. The
  Special Building Phase occurs just after the end of your turn (i.e.,
  between player turns). All the other players may participate in the
  Special Building Phase. Each player then takes his turn clockwise
  around the table, and is allowed to build anything he can create with
  his resources. 3 Note that no player is allowed to play Development
  Cards during the Special Building Phase. Also note that players are
  not allowed to do any trading with other players—nor are they allowed
  to use Maritime Trade—during this phase. They may only use the
  resources they have in their hands. For this reason, players are
  advised to trade as much, and as advantageously, as possible with the
  current player during his trading phase. They will then have the
  resources they need to build during the Special Building Phase. The
  Special Building Phase is an opportunity for all the other players
  (who are not currently taking their turn) to build roads, settlements,
  and cities, and/or to buy Development Cards. This phase allows each
  player to influence the game, even though it is not his turn! ...

This is also supported by the catan faq:

  Development Cards in General - If I have bought a Development Card
  during the special building phase right before my turn, may I play
  this card on my turn?

  Yes.


I would recommend http://www.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/. They have videos of expert player drafting and playing, which are a great (and fun) way to learn. Luis Scott-Vargas set reviews on the same site are also great (e.g. http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-2014-set-review-artifacts-and-lands/).


What happens to the target of Oko, Thief of Crowns' second ability when it is put in the graveyard?

It will become a Death's Shadow again. Whenever an object changes zones, e.g. when it goes from the battlefield to the graveyard, it gets completely 'reset':

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

The rules list nine exceptions to this, but your situation is not one of them.


Have I Been Misplaying France in Diplomacy?

It sounds to me like both games you've failed to negotiate an alliance with England.  That isn't necessarily your fault, but in order to concentrate on the Med you would need to at least be able to negotiate a neutral England, if not an entirely friendly one.

Some ideas you might want to try

It sounds like in both games you stumbled into an FG alliance that was not in a strong position.  You might do better if you attempted to negotiate the FG alliance from the start.  That way you can be directing the flow of the conflict, rather than reacting to it.
England is likely worried that in an EF alliance, F usually grows faster and is in a more solid position after taking down Germany, while E ends up overextended.  So you'll likely need to give him the better side of the split, and make it clear that you are committing to the South so that E knows he isn't the next target.  You can also make things easier by making sure that England has a good path to grow after the initial attack on Germany, which generally means you want a weak Russia.  At the same time, don't make yourself too inviting of a target for E.  Many alliances are broken due to people who are too trusting and make it too easy for their partner to stab.

The more you play Diplomacy, the more you realize that none of the countries are really better than the others, so don't get frustrated that you didn't get a good result while playing a "strong" country.  Focus on where your negotiations failed to bring the results you wanted, and try to improve on that in your next game.


The order of play is:

Play 1 Action and/or 1 Minion, in either order. (And those cards may do other things, including playing additional Actions/Minions.) You and/or your opponent can also play Special cards, if the Special card allows it. (If the Special can only be played "before the base scores", this is not when you can play that card.)
Score bases, if they've gone over the limit. (For each base, everyone can play "before the base scores" Special cards.) Once you start looking at a base to score it, it's going to finish being scored.
Draw 2 cards

So first off, bases will only be scored once you're doing playing all of the Actions/Minions that interest you in a turn. They do not score immediately. (Read the card your opponent played carefully: if it says something along the lines of "play an Action card as if it were a Special card that can be played before scoring", then your opponent played out of turn. If that's the case, he should have taken his card(s) back, allowed you to finish playing cards, and then re-played his card(s). On the other hand, if your opponent's card had much more loose terms, like "play an Action as a Special card", then they're allowed to play their card in the middle of the Action/Minion part of your turn. And then the base quite definitely wouldn't score, because you don't check for base scoring at all during the Action/Minion part of a turn.)

Secondly, once a base starts scoring, the only thing that can possibly stop the scoring/discarding process is a card that explicitly says something along the lines of "this base can't be scored." (Because rules on cards override rules in the rulebook.) If a Special or something reduces the total power at a base to below the threshold, that base still scores, because it had enough power when it began scoring. It's just going to look a little weird: perhaps someone manages to get 5 VP with 4 Power worth of minions, because that was the highest power at the time – or perhaps the base "scores" with no minions on it at all, and nobody gets any VP.

TL:DR

A base does not score as soon as it's tripped; it scores after Actions/Minions and before you draw 2 cards. Only check to see if a base has tripped once you're done with Actions/Minions.
Read your opponent's card very carefully. If it says "...before a base scores", then he played it too early. He needs to take it back and play it later once you're done playing Action/Minion cards.
You can't play an Action/Minion after a base scores, because all Actions/Minions should be done playing before you score any base.
All of the above can be overridden by card text, but the card must be explicit about what it's doing.


In bridge, are there some 13 point hands that should not be opened?

Sure the JS is a fairly pointless HCP, but the spade shortness is worth something in a trump game.

It's the kind of hand that should definitely be opened, but only at the 1 level.  The point of opening the hand is to let partner know you've got something, at which point you're looking for a 4-4 heart fit.

So in my opinion the hand should be opened, a heart response from partner should be supported, and a 'pass' is the probable response to all non-forcing circumstances.  The biggest danger I can see in this hand is falling into the "use NT as an exit if nothing else works" trap instead of following the "when there's no fit, quit" rule.

Advertise what you've got, and let partner decide if there's any game here.

Well, that's how I read the hand at least.

Additional:

Now to carry on to the more general question, could there possibly be a hand that technically should be opened, but in fact really shouldn't be?  Sure there is, but it's important to note that it's all dependent on the situation, and not the hand.  The main point of opening a "weak opener" is to let your partner know that you've got the points; it follows that the time to NOT open it is when partner doesn't care.

When does partner not care what you've got?  When they don't have a hand good enough to do anything about it.  When can you know that's the case? When the situation makes it obvious!  For example, when you're in 4th seat and LHO and RHO have both bid.  LHO obviously has 13+, RHO has 6+, you've got 13, your partner can't have much to talk about; there just aren't enough points in the deck.  When the situation tells you something like that, then you know it's time to sit in the weeds and help the opponents dig themselves into a nice deep hole.

In general, yes, you should open a 13 point hand.  Because your partner might really want to know.  But there will be situations (not hands, situations!) where you shouldn't bid.

Like all good rules in bridge, you have to know when the rule doesn't apply.


In Ticket to Ride, how do you overcome bad initial tickets?

I have won games with a bad initial draw by simply forgoing tickets. This really works best when you have two tickets that are only worth 4 - 5 points.

Keep the lowest value tickets, return the highest.
Ignore the tickets completely
Immediately aim for as many five and six train routes as possible.
If you can hit the stretch of three six train routes across the top of the US or a the bottom, that might lead to the longest route bonus.
Be willing to 'waste' a turn, perhaps two, per player breaking/blocking them using one,  two if you must, train routes. Watch the San Francisco, Portland and Seattle section for easy opportunities to block; Houston works well as well here.


What editions of Acquire have durable pieces?

I agree with @Cascabel's comment: apparently you read a review for the 2008 version (which is made completely from sturdy cardboard).
If you haven't done so already, check out all the different versions at boardgamegeek and see which versions you can get your hands on.
Here's a summary of the major versions I know and/or would consider:

2016: Haven't tried it, apparently has plastic pieces, could be the easiest way to get a durable version (tiles in the picture seem very similar to the 1999 version; which is the reason it made it to my list). Do note that the board is smaller in this version (10x10 instead of 9x12) and has 24 stock cards per corporation (instead of 25) so gameplay may be slightly different.
2008: Made of sturdy cardboard, I don't consider it to be "cheap" but I do find it inconvenient that tiles don't stay in place because the board is not slotted.
1999: The one I own and my all-around favorite. Tiles and board made of plastic. Board is larger than the 89/76 version but not clumsily so (unlike the 95 version).
1995: Owned it for some time, made of cardboard, I seem to recall that the board is considerably larger than other versions and folded in 4 parts. Wouldn't recommend it.
1989/1976: I've seen and played with these two versions but can't remember a significant difference between them. Tiles and board are made of plastic but they're a bit smaller than the 1999 version. I'd get this if I was trying to get a collectible item.


When should I get rid of the queen of spades in Hearts?

There is no etiquette required when playing the QS.  It is worth half of the available points in the hand.  Anyone expecting you to be "polite" with it (whatever that means) is unrealistic and should go back to playing against the computer.

There are strategic exceptions.  For example, it may be advantageous to pass on an opportunity to play the Queen if you are trying to stick a specific opponent with it and think you can do so safely later in the round.

That being said, are you sure they are actually upset?  Maybe they are trying to trash-talk or joke about their misfortune and just not doing a very good job of it.


Victimize with Noxious Ghoul and opponent's Murder

Creatures entering the battlefield at the same time cause each other's abilities to trigger. Triggering Noxious Ghoul's ability requires either itself or another card of the Zombie creaure type to enter the battlefield - if the other creature isn't a Zombie, only Noxious Ghoul will trigger it's own ability.

That said, assuming the other creature is a Zombie, both abilities trigger at the same time, along with any other ETB abilities that might trigger. Then, those abilities are put on the stack in APNAP (active player, non-active player) order, and for each player in the order of their choosing. Only at that time can players cast spells or activate abilities.

Abilities on the stack exist independent from their sources. If Noxious Ghoul's ability triggered twice, destroying a creature on the battlefield won't remove the ability from the stack. Unless it's countered by something like Stifle, both abilities will resolve, giving non-Zombie creatures a total of -2/-2 until end of turn.


Creating an "Everyone but me knows my role" mechanic

Working Solution:

For n players, you need two identical decks of cards, each with cards numbered 1 to n-1. Keep the first deck ordered from 1 at the bottom, to n-1 at the top, and add a random card from the second deck to the top of the first deck. Set the rest of the second deck aside. Each player will get a single card from the first deck, telling them the relative position of the (alleged) saboteur. For example, if you get a 2 that means the saboteur is the 2nd person to your left (or yourself). Because the cards are ordered, all the cards from the first deck will point to the same person. The one card from the other deck points to another player at random.

To distribute the cards, the order must be maintained but the starting point can be anywhere in the deck. So, the deck is "shuffled" by repeatedly cutting it, which preserves the order but randomizes the start. If the cards are dealt clockwise (to the left), then the relative positions will be also be clockwise.

Characteristics:
Everyone has equal probability of being the saboteur, and the civilian the saboteur is mistakenly suspicious of is chosen with equal probability. Equipment is relatively simple, you only need 2*(n-1) cards where n is the maximum number of players. Two decks of playing cards with the same backs could be used in a pinch. (With a bit of preparation, a single deck could be used. Separate out A through n-1 in two suits, and pick one of each rank at random to separate the two "decks".) The only drawback I see is that mis-shuffling will mess things up, but if players are careful it shouldn't be a problem.

For a worked example of this scheme see TTTPPP's answer.

I'll save my previous solution attempts below, none work completely as the one above does.

Almost Solution: Lots of ranked cards

Have many more uniquely ranked cards than players, e.g. cards numbered 1 to 100. Every player is dealt one card, and whoever has the lowest number is the saboteur. Players reveal their cards, as you suggest, to everyone but themselves (maybe Indian Poker-style, card on forehead). It generalizes: need more than one saboteur? Use the two lowest cards. Need a unknowing "citizen leader"? Whoever has the highest card.

You could even do it with a regular deck of playing cards. Just determine a rank order (make sure everyone knows if Aces are high or low) and a suit order to breaks ties in rank (such as Clubs, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, as in Sheepshead--which is where I got this idea).

Pros:
Everyone has a guess to who the saboteur is. Everyone except the saboteur is right about their guess. It can be implemented with standard supplies.

Cons:
The non-saboteurs can't be 100% sure that they aren't the saboteur--but I really don't see a way around this. It requires a large number of cards that probably won't have another use in the game. During the reveal, there's a danger of people accidentally giving it away by asking questions clarifying the ranking of cards/staring/asking another player to confirm who they think the saboteur is.

It also enables people to make some educated guesses--if no one else has a particularly low card, you might get suspicious that you're the saboteur. My guess is people will overthink this and it will actually throw people off more often than it will give a good hint, which might end up making things more exciting.

Other Brainstorming: Cards numbered from 1 to n+1

This has a slightly different result, but it might be on to something so I'm recording it here in case it inspires someone else: If you have n players, have n+1 cards labeled from 1 to n+1. Deal each player one card, with the remaining card remaining hidden (call it the hole card). The saboteur is whoever holds the card one above the hole card, with the 1 card considered one above the n+1 card. As above, everyone reveals their card to all but themselves. Let's say we have n=5 players, so 6 cards, and the 3 card is the hole card. The two people adjacent to the hole card (including the saboteur, who is 1 above the hole card) see a "big hole", so they know that their card is either 1 above or 1 below the hole card, so they know they have a 50% probability of being the saboteur, and that whoever is above the big hole is the only other possibility. The people who are not adjacent the hole card see two small holes, so they can also narrow the saboteur down to two possibilities, but they know for sure that they themselves are not the saboteur.


Does a spell cast via cascade resolve before the cascade trigger finishes resolving?

Pull from Eternity will be useless. Those cards will be put into your library again immediately after you finish casting the spell, before it resolves.

This means you could choose one of those exiled cards for a target of Pull from Eternity as it's cast via Cascade, but the exiled card will have left exile when Pull from Eternity resolves. That makes it an illegal target (since it doesn't exist) so this manoeuvre becomes a fancy way to get Pull from Eternity to fizzle and put into your graveyard.

The steps

First for clarity let's grab the Cascade reminder text off Bloodbraid Elf:

  When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Here's the basic order of what happens:

You cast a spell with Cascade. In doing so, you take it from your hand, put it on the stack, choose targets (if any) and pay its costs.
The cascade triggered ability goes on the stack.
Cascade resolves:

You reveal cards from your library until you find Pull from Eternity.
You choose to cast Pull from Eternity, pay costs, and choose targets: you pick one of the cards in exile.
You remove those cards from exile and put them back in the bottom of your library.

The stack now looks like this:

Pull from Eternity (top)
The original spell (bottom)

Pull from Eternity resolves. It can no longer find its target, and so it gets countered by the game rules. [400.7, 608.2b]
The original spell resolves.

Rule 400.7 governs step 5 here, which reads like this:

  400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. There are nine exceptions to this rule:

None of the exceptions match. Pull from Eternity wasn't expecting the exiled card to change zones and so doesn't keep track of it as it leaves exile. The card now at the bottom of your library has no relation to the object Pull from Eternity was targeting in Exile. Because there are no more legal targets, Pull from Eternity fizzles (i.e. does not resolve, but is also not countered), and is put into your graveyard per rule 608.2b:

  608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that’s no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. [...] If all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn’t resolve. It’s removed from the stack and, if it’s a spell, put into its owner’s graveyard. [...]


Clarification of Pillbug movement rule in Hive

The piece that is moved by the Pillbug's special ability travels on top of the hive in the same way that a Beetle would. If there are Beetles at that level, you will have to move around them as you would during normal movement at ground level.

To illustrate this, I'll use the picture from the rules that you quoted:

In this example the Ant can be moved by the Pillbug ability. Now imagine two beetles (B) present on top of the white Bee and white Spider:

This would make the gap between those two stacks too small for the ant to pass through, thus violating the freedom of movement restriction.


How does Amass interact with Essence of the Wild?

You just get one Essence of the Wild token, and you don't put any counters on it. If you already control an Army creature, you instead create no tokens and put the counters on that Army.

Amass is a keyword action, meaning that it's a kind of instruction that will appear on spells or in the effects of abilities. So there's no way for it to "keep triggering". You just follow the instruction. Amass is defined in rule 704.43a

  To amass N means “If you don’t control an Army creature, create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature token. Choose an Army creature you control. Put N +1/+1 counters on that creature.”

Following those instructions, you don't control an Army creature, so you create the token it specifies, but Essence of the Wild makes it enter the battlefield as an Essence of the Wild token instead. Then you still don't control an Army creature, so you can't choose one and the last instruction doesn't do anything. Then you're done with the Amass effect, and you continue resolving the rest of the spell or ability.


Protection only functions on the battlefield; most rules text only functions on the battlefield. The exceptions are characteristic defining text, i.e. 'this card is black' and text which references another zone, i.e. '{2}, discard 2 cards: return CARDNAME to battlefield from the graveyard.'

In your example your opponent would discard both of their cards, despite their having protection from black, as protection only applies to permanents on the battlefield.


Interaction between Hexproof and "target of an opponent's choice"

It is the first one, they can choose to target your Hexproof creature.

The full meaning of Hexproof is:

  702.11b “Hexproof” on a permanent means “This permanent can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.”

The person who activated Cuombajj Witches is controller of the ability. It doesn't matter that your opponent is making a choice.

The process for casting a spell or activating an ability starts with defining the controller:

  601.2a To propose the casting of a spell, a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has all the characteristics of the card (or the copy of a card) associated with it, and that player becomes its controller.

And for Activated abilities:

  602.2a The player announces that they are activating the ability. If an activated ability is being activated from a hidden zone, the card that has that ability is revealed. That ability is created on the stack as an object that’s not a card. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. Its controller is the player who activated the ability. The ability remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, or an effect moves it elsewhere.


Jund is the prototypical midrange deck - serving as a control deck in the matchups vs. aggressive decks while playing a more aggressive role itself vs. 'true' control decks.  Unfortunately for the Jund deck, it's difficult to do both of these things at once - generally decks of this kind want to be tuned for a particular environment, and guessing wrong can be a problem for the deck.  What's more, while resilience is its strong suit, there isn't any one thing it does better than any other deck can do it, and so it's vulnerable to both ends of its range.

This points to the core ways of dealing with it (note that I'm primarily focusing on Standard here as it's what I'm most familiar with, but most of the core concepts here should apply to other formats) :

Go under it.  A deck like the Saito or Christiansen G/R decks or the 'aggro Jund' decks (which are more 3-color decks that happen to be in the appropriate colors than the sort of resilient Jund deck this post talks about) can easily kill before Jund has a good chance to establish itself, and often build enough board presence early that by the time the Jund player hits 5 mana and starts running out Thragtusk the aggro deck is able to kill them around it.  This seems to be the preferred approach at the moment, judging by the results of the Quebec City Standard Grand Prix where the top 8 was flooded with more aggressive decks; but much of this may be a result of the Jund decks tuning themselves more against the control and midrange (including mirror) matchups than against the aggro decks (for instance, the rising numbers of Olivia Voldaren in Jund lists); I would expect this plan of attack to have more problems as the Jund decks start adapting with e.g. more Vampire Nighthawks.
Go over it: this is the typical control approach, of course.  Right now it might be more accurate to call this plan the 'go around it' plan — the goal is to be a slower, more powerful deck than Jund by playing on axes where Jund has a harder time interacting.  The Nephalia Drownyard/Jace, Memory Adept mill plan is the perfect example of this — rather than trying to beat Thragtusks or Olivias in a fair fight, the Esper control decks just ignore them outright and go for the library.  Backed with cards like Witchbane Orb to keep the Jund deck from attacking spots where the control decks are actually vulnerable, this strategy can be a trump; typically most Jund decks have no actual defense against a mill plan.
Another way of "going around it" is via combo — since Jund has no way (in the main deck, and very few in the board) to actually prevent its opponents from resolving spells, a deck that can win the game from any board position with a single resolved spell is a difficult matchup.  The prototypical example of this in Standard are the combo reanimator decks like Tzu Ching Kuo's from the Quebec City GP; even having its Unburial Rites discarded by Liliana or Rakdos' Return isn't a major problem, since that deck is just as happy to cast it out of the graveyard and win from there.  Birthing Pod decks in Modern work similarly, since just a single resolved Birthing Pod will generally overwhelm the Jund deck with too much card advantage to be effectively dealt with — any creature becomes a serious threat at that point.


How do undying triggers resolve against exile and other players reanimating my graveyard?

Your first example works as you want: the stasis snare doesn't exile your creature. When it moves between zones, unless otherwise stated, it and everything that targets it forgets that it was something else. Note that 400.7 says zone, not just public zone.

For your second example, you get to keep your creature. Grave Betrayal triggers at the beginning of the end step (technically, it creates a delayed trigger that triggers at the end step), while Undying triggers immediately. Once Undying resolves, it's back on the battlefield and is a different object than what Grave Betrayal is attempting to steal.


In Cosmic Encounter, where do my ships go when I pull them from the warp if I already have 4 ships on each of my planets?

When returning ships to your bases, you may put the token(s) on any bases where you currently have tokens.

Four is just the starting number, not the limit. You can have more than four.

(Note some rulesets call bases "colonies" instead. It's the same thing -- it just refers to your ships on a planet.)


What is a four-wind game called in Japanese mahjong?

According to WWWJDIC, the word is イーチャン, or 一荘 in kanji - read as iichan (although it's unusualy in that it appears to be written in katakana, which I'm guessing could mean that it's a fairly new loanword from Chinese?). There's a JMdictDB entry on it here.


Yes, you can freely extend the length of your longest road to make it even harder for an opponent to claim the Longest Road bonus from you. The rules talk about how you gain the Longest Road card and how someone else takes it from you; nowhere does it say anything that would imply that ownership of the card prevents you from building roads.
Your own settlements and cities do not disrupt your road in any way, but opponents ones do (see Longest Road in the Almanac, p9).


Is there a card that protects me from a (self-)milling death?

Win the game
Cards which change "draw from an empty library" into a win condition:

Laboratory Maniac is the most famous card to do this.
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries has a static effect to do the same.
Thassa's Oracle has an enters the battlefield trigger which causes you to win if the number of cards in your library is less than your devotion to blue.

Shuffle your graveyard into your library
Some cards can cause you to shuffle your graveyard into your library, including Emrakul, the Aeons torn (among other mythic eldrazi cards). Elixir of Immortality will do the same, cheaper for a gain of 5 life. Other similar cards exist, including Finale of Revelation.  Gaea's Blessing is notable for shuffling your graveyard into your library specifically if it itself is milled.
Don't draw a card
Blue Sun's Zenith You can read this as "UUU: don't draw a card", and add the card to your library, so you can draw it next turn and repeat.
Don't lose the game
Various cards include a "you can't lose the game" effect, such as Platinum Angel and Angel Grace.
Miscellaneous

There is also the slightly convoluted combo of Consecrated Sphinx, Notion Thief which you then Donate to your opponent before doing anything to cause you to draw a card outside of your draw step. The draw will be redirected to your opponent, which will trigger the sphinx, which will allow you to redirect 2 more draws and repeat the process to mill your opponent out to defeat. Probably not as good as Lab maniac, but worth remembering.
Nexus of Fate has a replacement effect which causes it to go to your library rather than your graveyard, so you never deck yourself if you can cast it every turn (unless something else causes you to draw). As Nexus of Fate gives you an extra turn, this is a win con if you have some way of damaging the opponent on every turn.
Murderous Rider goes to the bottom of your library when it dies so you can play a similar trick with this if you can draw it and kill it every turn.


Sac outlet, Cyclonic Rift overload, & Chronozoa

Your Chronozoa's ability would resolve first, and you would lose the tokens you got to the opponent's Cyclonic rift.
Whenever an ability triggers or is activated, is goes on top of the stack, and the stack resolves from top to bottom.
So, assuming you both pass after each step:

Opponent casts Cyclonic Rift, stack has just Cyclonic Rift
You respond by activating something that lets you sacrifice Chronozoa, Chronozoa's ability triggers and goes on top of the stack. (We will assume for now that the sacrifice didn’t add anything else to the stack, such as Ashnod's Altar).
Chronozoa's ability resolves giving you 2 tokens.
Cyclonic Rift resolves, returning tokens to your hand, which cease to exist because tokens can’t be in your hand.

There is no other time that you could sacrifice Chronozoa to get around this problem.
Note that in order to have a Chronozoa on the battlefield with no time counters requires something such as Stifle or Solemnity to stop you from sacrificing it when it lost its last counter.
Comprehensive rules:

405.1. When a spell is cast, the physical card is put on the stack (see rule 601.2a). When an ability is activated or triggers, it goes on top of the stack without any card associated with it (see rules 602.2a and 603.3).
405.5. When all players pass in succession, the top (last-added) spell or ability on the stack resolves.


If I'm controlling an opponent's turn, do I get to chose where their commander goes?

Yes, you do get to choose.

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

Where the commander goes is a choice they're allowed to make by the rules. There's no special exception or anything here, so yup, you can let their commander go to their graveyard if it dies in combat.


What happens to Mythos, Trauma, Keeper Action cards that have been used once?

For Mythos Cards (Page 16):

  After playing a Mythos card, the keeper discards it to a faceup pile
  adjacent to the Mythos deck. If the Mythos deck runs out of cards, this
  discard pile is shuffled to create a new Mythos deck.

For Trauma Cards (Page 25):

  Each investigator may have a maximum of one injury and one
  insanity at any given time. If he receives a second card of the
  same type, the original card is discarded first.

Additionally, some injuries/insanities say discard immediately.

Under Component Limitations (Page 25):

  Decks of Cards: If a deck of cards runs out, the players
  shuffle the discard pile to create a new deck. The only
  exception is the Event deck, which always ends the game after
  the last card is drawn (as listed on the card).

For Keeper actions (Page 10):

  During this step, the keeper may resolve any number of these
  Keeper Action cards that he wishes (threat permitting). These
  actions are resolved one at a time by spending (discarding) the
  appropriate amount of threat (printed on the upper left corner of
  the Keeper Action card)

So Keeper Action cards don't get discarded ever, just the threat tokens. In fact, some keeper cards can be used multiple times in the same turn.


Is using 1 die when all but 1 piece is in home and the last piece near home ok, or do I use both dice like usual?

If there is no specific rule that allows you to change the dice usage at the end of the game, then you must roll the dice as always. However, after reading the rules more carefully, rolling only one die would actually be a disadvantage. The dies are used separately, not necessarily added together to move. That is, if you are 3 spaces away (a move less than 7 as you stated) and you roll a 4 and a 3, you use the 3 and it's done.

From this website...

  Die may be combined to move one piece, or may be used separately to
  move separate pieces, but you may not split a singular die to move two
  pieces.


Help me identify this card playing board game.

A board game of sorts, popular in the Eastern USA, known as One-Eyed Jack, Jack Foolery, Jack Off, and Sequence.

Setup
Players: 2-4 (4 players is done in teams of 2)
Materials:
The board you've pictured
Two standard playing card decks, Jokers removed (104 cards total).
A set of 50 chips for each player.

Play:
Shuffle the 104 card deck, dealing 7 cards to each player in a two player game, 6 in a three, or 5 in a four. The cards not dealt are retained as a drawing stock for the course of the game.
Game is played in turn, clockwise starting with the player after the dealer.
Each players turn proceeds as thus: Play a card from your hand, place a counter of your color on the indicated square, then draw a card from the stock.

Special Cards: since their aren't jacks on the field, they cause a special action to occur.
Two Eyed Jack: Wild Card
One Eyed Jack: Remove an opponents counter.

Win Condition: Form two uninterrupted lines of 5 counters, with one allowed intersection.

Source: http://www.pagat.com/misc/jack.html
Google Fu: board game 10x10 playing cards


Is it every turn of the game (my assumption) or every turn of that player?

You are right. Notice that Mimic reads At the start of your turn, while Monster Batteries reads At the start of each turn. Interpreting the cards literally also makes the batteries a card that might be worth buying. :)

  My rationale on this (seeing as it is a "keep" card) is that you can replenish the stock of energy cubes in successive turns to receive more of the 2:1 bonus. Is this correct?

Being a Keep-card does not imbue it with more rules than are stated on the card. The only time you can put energy cubes on it is when you buy it. So you better have a fair number to make it worth your while.


Hadana's Climb / Winged Temple of Orazca - how to apply The Layer System?

Your Thrashing Brontodon will get +10/+10 and be a 20/21.

  611.2d If a resolving spell or ability that creates a continuous effect contains a variable such as X, the value of that variable is determined only once, on resolution. See rule 608.2g.

  608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the battlefield), the answer is determined only once, when the effect is applied. If the effect requires information from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself, the effect uses the current information of that object if it’s in the public zone it was expected to be in; if it’s no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved it from a public zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the object’s last known information. See rule 112.7a. If an ability states that an object does something, it’s the object as it exists—or as it most recently existed—that does it, not the ability.

The affect of the Winged Temple of Orozca is calculated when you use its ability, and it does so looking at the power of the target creature after all existing affects are applied to it.

Once the static affect is created, it will be applied in the layers exactly as you say.  But by that point the size of the bonus is fixed.

Even if one of the other bonuses is removed (for example, a Naturalize on Oakenform), the +10/+10 from Orozca will remain.


Can you play base-game Claustrophobia scenarios with De Profundis included?

Do you have a link for where the designer stated this?

Nobody I know cares about sorting out the cards to switch back to a base-game scenario. The only concern with using De Profundis with the base game is to impose a 3-card hand limit on the Demon player's Event Cards (because the expansion cards are more powerful). You also probably don't want to use the Hellhounds.


The actions such as DRINK are optional. Per the rulebook, on page 14, you can only choose to do one of each action keyword per turn, so you may have the option to DRINK on one tile -- or to use the DRINK action on an item card, for example.


Tapping a creature with summoning sickness in an equivalent play situation

The answers to #1 and #2 will depend on the judge.  A judge may not give a warning at all if it's unclear any rule has been violated.  But if a judge does give a warning in this situation, it would probably be to you.  The reason is that you are responsible for maintaining a clear and legal game state (both players are responsible for this, but yours are the cards in question).  In the situation you describe, you can't remember where you put the newly summoned creature, which sounds like a failure to maintain a clear game state on your part.  Even if your opponent is mistaken about which one has summoning sickness, the statement "I don't remember" is insufficient defense on your part because the burden is on you to maintain the state of your permanents.

As to #3, you would, in this situation, be able to activate the other Greenseeker.  The reason is that the resolution to an illegal action is, whenever possible, to just rewind to before the illegal action.  In this case, if we undo the activation of one Greenseeker, the other one can be activated.  In the case of the linked question, the only illegal action was attacking with the Mountain, which is undone.  Targeting a Mountain with summoning sickness with Koth was still legal, and so that part of the play stands.


Identify a game involving placing cardboard food into a mouth using forks

This is possibly Big Mouth, published by Schaper in 1968 (BoardGameGeek also lists Hasbro as a publisher, but doesn't list a specific version that they published).

This seems to match most of your description. From the website:

  Each player is given a large 14" red plastic fork and a paper plate on which there are 6 different plastic food items and a green bug. A thin piece of cardboard is placed over a plastic bowl. The cardboard is designed in the shape of a cute clown with a hole forming the entrance to his oral cavity, which is formed by the bowl.

The biggest difference between your description and this one is that the food is plastic, not cardboard. It also doesn't look like there is a dumping mechanism, but everything else seems to fit.

If this doesn't quite fit your game, please let us know why and perhaps edit your question with more details


Pawns promote when they reach any square on the back row.  The rulebook you got is either wrong or you are misreading it.


Can you play the Crisis Expansion's Crisis Mode with the core game and Heroes Unite combined?

As per BGG
James Cheng:

One of the option rules for combining and playing with both set mix up is to alternate your game with two separate decks. So you can play two game with each half of the combined deck. The second game will have a little more knowledge about what you might expect.

Richard Brady of Cryptozoic chimes in

At Cryptozoic, if we want to play with mixed sets... we generally mix all the cards up from the first two (and future!) sets and then count out about 115 or so cards to be our main deck. Sometimes you get some scary games with a lot of Villain cards but for the most part it's worked out pretty cool.
Otherwise, I'd suggest making a deck list of your favorite cards but make sure it's somewhere between 110-140. If you go above 140 it actually gets fairly easy, though we've made our own weird variants that use over that amount. We have never gone over 150 as far as I can remember.

John Galietta III:

If I recall my rulebook perusal correctly, it recommends that if you wish to customize the decks, use 25 cards per player. With 1-3 player games this is a little small, so I'd say no smaller than 100 cards. But just a random 100+ cards seems a little random for my tastes. You don't get as much of the synergy you normally would.
I usually keep my main decks separate. If I want to play using both sets, we use both decks separately, using 2 line ups. With the rules that A) you can only buy/gain/affect one line-up per turn, and B) when you buy/gain a card from the line-up, destroy the card in the second line-up in the same spot. There was a file about this variant in one of the forums.
I'd say for that, if you wanted to use the new main deck cards as well just mix 16 into each of the main decks. this variant wouldn't work very well in Crisis mode, though.

There's also this article on a supposed balance of combining the two decks. That might work as well.
In short while there are workarounds some of which are semi-official. There's no official method of combining. There are however many player suggested varients that should resolve the complexities.


Phase 10 - acquiring cards after completing a phase

Yes, they keep drawing

A player still does all the steps of a turn, regardless of whether or not they have completed their phase (i.e. Draw, lay down a phase if they haven't already and can, optionally add any additional card(s) to a laid-down phase, discard).

This allows more time for other players to finish their own phase while still making 'finished' players try and scramble to empty their hands on completed phases to avoid getting points.


In Puerto Rico when using the "residence" how is "occupied island spaces" interpreted?

It means just a plantation, no colonists are required.
From the rules:

Residence The owner of the occupied residence earns, at game end,
additional victory points for the plantations and quarries he has
placed on his island. For up to nine filled island spaces, he earns 4
VP, for ten filled island spaces, he earns 5 VP, for eleven filled
island spaces, he earns 6 VP, and for all twelve spaces filled, he
earns 7 VP.
Example: at game end, the owner of the occupied residence
has filled 10 of his 12 island spaces with plantations and quarries:
he earns an additional 5 VP.

No requirement for colonists.


What can I do to make my opponent play faster at Regular REL?

I'm surprised that you seem to think there is no possibility of official intervention at Regular REL.  From a recently updated official document on Judging at Regular REL:

  General Unwanted Behaviours -

  There will sometimes be issues that do not have official fixes, but
  need to be discouraged. These include, but are not limited to;

  Players taking unreasonable amounts of time side-boarding or making
  play decisions
  Inadequate shuffling after a search
  Asking for, or
  providing, strategy advice during a tournament match or booster draft

  In all of these cases, educate the player on better behaviour – for
  example, alternate shuffling techniques or the importance of allowing
  players to make their own decisions. Players continuing to exhibit
  specific unwanted behaviour after being instructed otherwise should be
  issued with a Game Loss.

A Judge should be available to advise persistent time-wasters that, actually, there is a limit to how long they can spend "thinking about their moves" in a game of Magic.  Obviously the Judge will be gentle at first, as this is only Regular REL; but really, no one is being done any favours , if new players are not told early on that they need to play the game at  reasonable pace, that is to say, fast enough that a full three games can be comfortably completed in the time allowed.

Don't be a jerk about calling a Judge over, but equally, you shouldn't be afraid of doing so. It's not being rude to ask, in a neutral and polite way, for the basic ground rules of tournament Magic to be enforced.


The G8 Game Timer sounds like what you're looking for, and Greg Aleknevicus has has a very nice review of it in The Games Journal. It seems like it might be hard to come by these days, as its out of stock in many stores, though it appears the manufacturer still sells them directly.

From the review:

  To my mind the device only really works well when playing games in which the players take sequential, non-interactive turns of several minutes duration. While this might seem rather restrictive there are lots of games that do fall into this category. Also, it's precisely these games in which a timer is most useful. The aforementioned Tikal is one such example and Vinci is another with which it worked quite well. Ultimately, I can't really say whether I recommend this or not. Not because I don't think it's a worthy piece of game equipment, it is. Rather, because its usefulness will depend so much on the particular game and group that's using it.

As mentioned in the review, a timer is less useful in certain games. Games that involve lots of interaction with other players during your turn, such as trading in Settlers of Catan, mean that the length of your turn doesn't depend only on how fast you play, but also on how fast your opponents make decisions. I don't think that Settlers of Catan would work well with a timer.

You also need to consider what you do when a player runs out of time; do you simply eliminate them from the game? In a two player game, when you run out of time you lose, and the other player wins; in some multiplayer games, elimination can disproportionately benefit one player over the other ones.

Then there are games in which people's turns generally go fast enough that the timer is more of a distraction than a benefit. I would put Carcassonne in this category; it doesn't usually take long for someone to place a single tile. If people are taking too long, there's a simple house rule that I use: people draw their tile at the end of their previous turn, instead of the start of the next one. That way, they have everyone else's turn to think about where they want to place it, and the board only changes a bit by the time it gets back around to them.

That said, there are some games in which the timer would be useful. Games in which elimination doesn't disrupt the game, which have long turns in which each player plays independently of the others, and which are prone to analysis paralysis.


Players turn was skipped, go back and allow that person to play out of order or continue on?

Your question basically boils down to "what are the rules for recovering from breaking the rules?"

Munchkin doesn't have such rules. But it does have the catch-all rule (from the rulebook) :

  Any other disputes should be settled by loud arguments, with the owner of the game having the last word.

So fix the error however the owner of the game decides: rewind game state, snooze-n-lose, play on as you did, or whatever.


Can I tap permanents if it's not a cost?

No, you can't just tap cards on a whim. You need to either cast a spell or activate an ability that has an effect that taps the card in question, or you need to have tapping the card as a cost for some activated ability.


Toughness never gets used up. Damage doesn't change toughness (or power), and it doesn't use counters, it's simply marked on creatures. If a creature ends up marked with damage greater than or equal to its toughness, it dies. But the whole time, the creature still has its original toughness. You probably shouldn't even think of it as having its toughness effectively reduced; that might confuse you in other situations.*

Similarly, power never gets used up. When a creature deals damage, whether fighting or in combat or any other way, its power doesn't change.
If you look at the reminder text for fighting, or the full rules for it or combat damage, you'll see something like "...deals damage equal to its power." That's all that happens: the power dictates how much damage it deals. There's nothing about the power changing.

In your first example, if you get a 4/4 and a 1/1 to fight, you end up with a 4/4 with one damage marked on it, and a dead 1/1. If subsequently that 4/4 gets into combat or fights again, it'll still deal four damage. It'll only take three additional damage to kill it, since it already has one marked on it. So for example, if it were blocked by a 3/4, they'd kill each other: it'd deal 4 damage to the 3/4, and the 3/4 would deal 3 damage to it, bringing it up to 4 damage, enough to kill it.

Basically the same thing happens in your second example. If a 3/3 creature blocks a 4/4 creature, the 3/3 will take 4 damage and die, and the 4/4 will take 3 damage and live. It'll still be a 4/4, but it'll only take one additional damage to kill it. If it then fights with a 1/4, they'll kill each other: it'll deal 4 damage to the 1/4, and the 1/4 will deal 1 damage to it, which brings it up to 4 damage, enough to kill it.

* For example, if you have a 4/4 that has 3 damage marked on it, your opponent can still use Valorous Stance ("Destroy target creature with toughness 4 or greater.") to kill it, since its toughness is still 4.


In Bridge, Can I Ask About Previously Played Cards to the Current Trick?

It sounds like you're playing a less formal game, so I don't see a problem with asking the question.

In a more formal setting each card would remain in front of the player that played it so the question wouldn't be necessary and most likely an irregularity.


Can you force your opponent to cast one of your own spells, using only the cards in your library?

The only way I know to force an opponent to cast one of your spells without controlling their turn is Hive Mind, which reads

  Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, each other player copies that spell. Each of those players may choose new targets for their copy.

They don't technically cast the spell, but they get a copy of it (and they don't get an option as to whether or not they get a copy - while they can control the targets, they can't choose to not play it like they could with Eye of the Storm.  It won't increase their storm count, but they'll get the effect of the spell.

There's even a combo deck based around playing Hive Mind and then playing Pacts that your opponents aren't able to pay for, forcing them to lose the game.