I think the rail designs are pretty clear from this picture off their website.  The exact numbers aren't important if you're building it yourself.

Assuming this desk is 1/2" thick, then the rail groove entrance is roughly 3/8" thick, and the rail is roughly 1/2" deep.  There is a groove going up behind the rail, that looks to be 1/4" wide, that "locks" the desk into place.  Notice, that most of the force of the desk here is getting absorbed not by the thin piece of the desk going into the groove, but the "side wall."

These are beautiful tables!  Good luck with your project.


What do you do when you get stuck in an Eastern Crows loop?

Thalin's ability fires before the "Surge" keyword can resolve, here's the official FAQ entry:

  When an enemy card is revealed from the encounter
  deck, Thalin’s ability resolves before any keyword or
  “When Revealed” card effects on the encounter card


In Arkham Horror, can Shrivelling be used to compound bonuses?

Yes, combat bonuses are cumulative as long as you do not exceed the 'hands' requirement. Shrivelling requires 1 hand so this rules out other two handed weapons or spells.

Skill bonuses such as Fight+1 will also come in to effect.


Are there any specific strategies in Jenga?

The most unstable situation is adjacent middle blocks, and in general, instabilities near the bottom of the stack are more likely to cause the tower to fall than those at the top because of the greater weight of blocks being held up by the rickety base and because of the longer moment arm.

However, it's not quite as simple as setting up a precarious-middle-blocks-at-the-bottom-of-the-tower scenario just to make your opponent move after you've set it up, as the picture makes clear that several middle blocks in a row can often be stable enough for at least a couple more turns--in which case your ploy could come back to bite you.

One trick I've used is to judge which way the tower was tilting after I'd removed my block and then place it on the opposite side on the top. The goal here is to make your opponent place their block on the weak side and hopefully bring everything down. It has the added benefit of being the safest place to put your block.

That said, there's not much strategy to Jenga; it's really more about steady hands, dexterity, and being able to tell which blocks are loose. (Unless of course you engage in psychological warfare.)


The creature is tapped when it would be destroyed (this turn). The most common example of this is:

You attack with your creature (whom has a regenerate ability)
The enemy blocks with a creature with the same or more power than your creature's toughness
You recognize that your creature will die if it is not regenerated, so you activate the regenerate ability BEFORE that lethal damage is dealt, creating the "Regeneration Shield" that will last until the creature is destroyed, or the turn ends.
Combat damage is exchanged. Your creature now has more marked damage than its toughness.
Immediately after, state based actions are checked and performed. Creatures with more marked damage than their toughness are destroyed. Since your creature has an active regenerate shield, when your creature would be destroyed, the replacement effect from regeneration kicks in. Instead, you tap it (if it is not already tapped), remove it from combat (if it is in combat) and remove all marked damage from it.

There are 3 elements of regeneration:

Tapping the regenerated creature - this tends to be relevant only to creatures with Vigilance
Removing the creature from combat - If a regeneration shield is being used during combat but before combat damage, such as to prevent a Doom Blade killing the creature, the creature is removed from combat and will no longer deal or receive combat damage.
Removing all marked damage from the creature - When a creature gets damaged, that damage is "remembered", but only until the end of that turn. If at any point during a turn the damage exceeds a creature's toughness, that creature gets destroyed the next time state based actions are checked.


In fact, you cannot load and move at the same moment, and as payment can only happen after a move, the problem you describe never occurs.
First you make the morning action (move and eventually pay or load) then the evening action (move and eventually pay or load).

it's explained on the "island" #2 (Action Types) in the rules.


Do face-down creatures have "the same name" as each other?

They don't have names:

  702.35a Morph is a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card it’s on, and the morph effect works any time the card is face down. “Morph [cost]” means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature, with no text, no name, no subtypes, no expansion symbol, and no mana cost by paying {3} rather than paying its mana cost.” (See rule 707, “Face-Down Spells and Permanents.”)

If they don't have names, they can't have the same name, so only the morph targeted by Sever the Bloodline will be exiled.

For an official source, see the fourth ruling in Maelstrom Pulse:

  A face-down creature has no name, so it doesn't have the same name as anything else.

Bonus: Why "no mana cost" gives us a converted mana cost of 0 instead of no converted mana cost?: That's because there is a specific rule about this:

  202.3a The converted mana cost of an object with no mana cost is 0.


Your question is a little bit confused. Coin tokens do not accumulate on map squares. Coin tokens are used only to track coins gained through technologies. Your economy dial tracks the total of coin tokens on your technologies, plus the current number of coins you control on the map. From p. 26 of the rulebook:

  A player may acquire economic power in the form of coins – either coins printed on building markers and map tiles, or coin tokens placed on certain tech cards (such
  as Code of Laws) as a reward for accomplishing particular tasks.

Coins that are lost because of your opponents' interference are indeed lost until/unless you recapture them:

  If an enemy figure blockades the square containing the coin, it is lost while the enemy figure remains there. Similarly, if a building granting a coin to a player is destroyed, the coin is lost.

By contrast, the coin tokens that you earn on your technology cards are yours forever:

  Coin tokens advance the economy dial when gained and cannot be lost.


Can I discard more than 1 card at a time if there are no draw cards left?

Looking at rules here I think your interpretation is correct.  Although I suspect from the way you say "its a brilliant move, and I don't see anything specifically preventing this" makes me think whoever you did this against didn't agree!

anyway the rules quotes....

On a players turn one of there options is

  Pass and discard 1-3 face-down cards from your hand..... then draw 1-3 cards.

The note underneath clarifies

  When the pile is used up, no cards are drawn.

So if there were a situation where a player is to draw a card and can't they simply don't get a card.  So yes you can discard cards knowing you can't draw back and deliberately shrinking your hand size.

The rules for swapping state :-

  The player who plays this card chooses one other player and exchanges hands with them. Discard the action card, then the other player gets to draw 1 card!

So you swap your remaining hand of zero cards with the other player.  They are unable to draw a card as non left.

So yes the move seems entirely legal based on that.


Where can one find an up-to-date list of all accepted Scrabble words

According to scrabblepages.com"Any word that is found in a standard English dictionary can be used in the game of Scrabble. There are also Official Scrabble Dictionaries that can be purchased for more word options.

There are some words that are not allowed to be played and these include suffixes, prefixes and abbreviations. Any word that requires the use of a hyphen or apostrophe cannot be played in the game. Any word that required the use of a capital letter is not allowed.

When playing an English version of the game, foreign words are not allowed to be placed on the board. However, if the foreign word does appear in a standard English dictionary, it is allowed. The reason for this is due to the fact that the word is spoken enough and is considered part of the English language."

Now that being said there are words that are definitely not child or teen appropriate under that category and house rules are always fun to use.


Do Flash Duel character abilities supplant main actions?

Jaina's Charged Shot ability is used at the start of a round, and doesn't supplant the normal attack during your turn. The designer, David Sirlin, answered this question here,

  Q: After using DeGrey's ability Spectral Pull or Push or Jaina's charged Shot, do you still take a normal action for this round or is the special ability your action for this round?

  A: Those trigger at the start of your turn, so you do them then you do the rest of your turn. Nothing says it replaces or prevents a combat action, so you can still move or dashing strike or whatever. Using Spectral Pull and then attacking during the same turn is legal and a powerful way to use it. It's especially good in the dragon raid mode.

  Note that the dragon does have a card that triggers "instead of his main action," so that ability really does prevent him from doing a main action later in the turn.


Question about '...only as a sorcery.' abilities

The ability text "Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery" only affects when you can activate it, not how many times or anything else. Rule 602.5d says

  Activated abilities that read "Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery" mean the player must follow the timing rules for casting a sorcery spell, though the ability isn't actually a sorcery. The player doesn't actually need to have a sorcery card that he or she could cast.

The Outlast ability can be confusing because the reminder text is worded "Activate only as a sorcery," but that is just because the wording is shortened to fit in reminder text. The full wording of the Outlast rule is

  Outlast is an activated ability. "Outlast [cost]" means “[Cost], {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."

Planeswalkers have their own rule that specifically forbids activating their abilities more than once per turn:

  306.5d Each planeswalker has a number of loyalty abilities, which are activated abilities with loyalty symbols in their costs. Loyalty abilities follow special rules: A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent he or she controls any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of his or her turn, but only if none of that permanent’s loyalty abilities have been activated that turn. See rule 606, "Loyalty Abilities."


There are multiple places to obtain set checklists that approximately match your description:

Gatherer Advanced Search allows you to search by expansion. If you choose the output format "Checklist", the results page will be a list of cards with Collector's Number, Name, Artist, Color, Rarity, and Expansion Set for each.
Scryfall allows you to search by expansion with the search text set:[set code] or by using the advanced search. This output can be formatted as a checklist, which shows a variety of information about each card. This page also lists all of the sets in reverse chronological order, to easily find the one you want.
The Wizards Play Network has deck checklists for each set, which appear to be intended for use in limited events, but you could print them out and use them however you want. For each card, it lists just the Name, with box or two next to it. However, these lists appear to only go back to Urza's Saga, so if you need the earliest sets, you'll need to look elsewhere.
PucaTrade has a list of every Magic expansion set, and each of those links goes to a page that lists the name of each card along with the expansion symbol colored to indicate rarity.


One thing that may be worth clarifying (for new players) is that, if you've played one card already this turn and your second play is "Play 4", you don't play four more cards; you play two more cards.

Likewise, if you start your turn with "Play 4" in effect and your third play is "Play 2", you don't play any more cards; you have already played more than your currently allotted number of cards for the turn.

Playing cards as part of an action doesn't count towards your Play 4 limit, though.  For instance "Draw 3 and play 2 of them" counts as one of your four plays for the turn, not two or three.

Playing a Keeper or a Goal does very much count as playing a card.  Creepers don't, of course, but they're a well-documented special case.


(Part of) the rules of Set read as follows:

  The dealer shuffles the cards and lays twelve cards (in a rectangle)
  face up on the table so that they can be seen by all players. The
  players remove a 'Set' of three cards as they are seen. Each 'Set' is
  checked by the other players. If correct, the 'Set' is kept by the
  player and the dealer replaces the three cards with three from the
  deck. Players do not take turns but pick up 'Sets' as soon as they see
  them. A player must call 'Set' before picking up the cards. After a
  player has called 'Set', no other player can pick up cards until the
  first player is finished. If a player calls 'Set' and does not have
  one, the player loses one point. The three cards are returned to the
  table.

As such, I'd recommend for your terms: (1) layout, or possibly deal; (2) replacement; (3) the cards [on the table]; (4) calling 'Set'; and (5) variation.  (Not in the above paragraph, but earlier in the rules I'm looking at, it states "Each card has a variation of the following four features".


In Dungeon Petz, what is the optimal round to pick the "Inviting new imps" action space?

First of all you want to do this action exactly twice a game.

First time early, it depends on your turn order and on your opponents move. Ideally it would be around second or third round, so that you get more then one new imp, but it is not too late in the game.
Second time is a trade-off between penalty from not getting all your imps and have them used more times, I would go for them in round 4. Make sure to get at least 2 new imps.

Consider going for imps additional time in last round if your opponents have lots of imps away to prevent opponents from getting them and so that they get penalty.


Which Order Cards Resolve from Stack - MTG

This is what happens:

Your opponent casts Silverstrike targeting your creature.
You cast Titanic Growth.
Titanic Growth resolves, giving your creature +4/+4 until end of turn.
Silverstrike resolves and destroys your creature.
Damage happens but there are no creatures to deal damage anymore.

"Until end of turn" just means that the effect of the spell, in this case +4/+4, remains until the end of the turn.

  405.5. When all players pass in succession, the top (last-added) spell or ability on the stack resolves. If the stack is empty when all players pass, the current step or phase ends and the next begins.

In this rule you can see that the next step, combat damage, will only happen after the full stack is resolved, including the Silverstrike.


According to this set of the rules:

  A player wins the game when the opponent cannot make a move. In most cases, this is because all of the opponent's pieces have been captured, but it could also be because all of his pieces are blocked in.

So you win if your opponent can't move.

I have had this situation several times with draughts which is similar to checkers.


Activating abilities of creatures while it is in stack

No.

The only kind of abilities you can possibly activate during casting are mana abilities.

Even if you could activate arbitrary abilities, you couldn't activate its ability because that ability (like most) can only be activated when the object on which it resides is on the battlefield. From the time you start casting the creature until it resolves, it's on the stack.

Finally, hexproof (like most static abilities) only work when the object on which it resides is on the battlefield, so even if he spell had hexproof (e.g. Ascended Lawmage being cast), it wouldn't have any effect whatsoever.


Does the robot's 6-cost development counters count towards Galactic Federation?

No.

  Add the robot's VP chips and tableau VPs, scoring each 6-cost development card or counter as 6 or 9 VPs, depending on the selected game difficulty.

Galactic Federation, as well as any other such development card, will always count for 6 or 9 VPs.  Don't try to count based on the contents of the tableau.


Can I cast other spells before a miracle?

You can cast your rituals before casting the miracle, though since it's your draw step, you'll have to spend any leftover floating mana during your draw step, i.e. on instants or activated abilities.

The full definition of Miracle is:

  702.93a Miracle is a static ability linked to a triggered ability (see rule 603.10). “Miracle [cost]” means “You may reveal this card from your hand as you draw it if it’s the first card you’ve drawn this turn. When you reveal this card this way, you may cast it by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost.”

The static ability is the reveal-as-you-draw part: you make that decision as you draw the card, before the game progresses any further. If you do choose to reveal it, the rest of the ability triggers and goes on the stack. All that's really happened so far is the reveal.

That triggered ability (the "when..." in the definition) is where everything else happens. You cast the miracle card for its miracle cost when that ability resolves. So before that happens, you can respond to it with whatever you'd like, including your rituals, and you'll still get to cast it at the end. (As long as you're able to, anyway - for example if you discard it, you can't cast it anymore!) Once you're done with your rituals, you let the triggered ability resolve, and only then do you pay the miracle cost and cast it.


When a creature becomes blocked, it stays blocked and blocked creatures do not (normally) do damage to the player.

  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.

Lore-wise, think of the blocker as having delayed/distracted the attacking creature long enough for it to not reach you.


Would a 1/1 token with persist dying trigger on death effects a second time?

Presumably you are doing this with Cauldron of Souls.
Persist doesn't do anything on tokens because they stop existing when they leave the battlefield and can't change zones once not on the battlefield.  See the card ruling on the Cauldron:

If a token with no -1/-1 counters on it has persist, the ability will trigger when the token is put into the graveyard. However, the token will cease to exist and can’t return to the battlefield.

The relevant rule behind this is:

110.5g A token that has left the battlefield can't move to another zone or come back onto the battlefield. If such a token would change zones, it remains in its current zone instead. It ceases to exist the next time state-based actions are checked; see rule 704.

However, if you gave a non-token 1/1 persist (such as Raging Goblin), then it is as you suggest.  The creature would return to the battlefield, and then promptly be put back in the graveyard the next time state-based actions are checked (whenever a player would gain priority) due to having 0 toughness:

704.5. The state-based actions are as follows:
704.5f If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it's put into its owner's graveyard. Regeneration can't replace this event.


Go

Go is an ancient game; at least 2500 years old, and possibly as old as 4500 or more. Originally from China, it is now most popular, and professionally played, in China, Japan, and Korea, though there are strong and growing amateur communities in Europe and the Americas.

Go is a simple, pure abstract strategy game, with no element of luck or hidden information. The rules are quire short and simple; the simplest expression of the basic rules is 10 sentences long, though rules that cover a few extra conventions for ending the game sooner and making scoring easier, and provide more detailed explanation, are a little longer.

Despite the simplicity of the rules, it is extremely strategically deep.

The starting player has a slight advantage in Go, which would give a slight luck-based advantage to who goes first, but because winning is based on total territory scored, you can even that advantage out by giving the second player a few extra points; generally somewhere between 5 and 8 extra points, with the number having drifted upwards a little in recent years as people have discovered that the original amount was still a bit too low.

One of the great features about Go is that it allows you to play handicapped games against strong or weaker players. By letting one player start with a few extra stones on the board, you can even out a difference in skill, and still have an interesting game even though one player is considerably stronger than the other. This is great for small clubs or tournaments, when you don't have enough players of roughly equal level to compete against each other; instead you can play handicap games, and everyone has a chance to win while playing at their own skill level.

Go is a beautiful game, with a great balance between whole board strategy and local tactical battles. It has been studied deeply for centuries, and new innovative ways of playing are always being discovered. In recent years, mathematical analysis of the endgame using the theory of surreal numbers has yielded insights that have helped even top professional players, who have devoted their life to learning the game, and have teacher lineages going back hundreds of years.

I could wax poetic about Go for hours, so I'll stop here, and invite you to check it out. The Wikipedia article gives a good overview, while Sensei's Library is a wiki devoted to Go. There are hundreds of books on Go, a manga and anime series about it, professional players and teachers, schools devoted to teaching young Go players, servers for online play, Go clubs all over the place, and more.


Does a hit destroy a unit in Axis and Allies 1942?

The receiver of the hits chooses which units to lose. In this example, the defender suffered two losses and would probably choose to lose one infantry and one tank (although he could, in theory take two tanks as losses).

The attacker suffered one hit, and will probably elect to lose the infantry.

That's why there is a so-called "infantry push mechanic" in the game, that encourages both sides to build (and lose) mainly infantry. Heavier units are for attack (not defense), to give your infantry an advantage over their infantry.


What are the differences between Dwarves Brets and Empire in WHFB 8th ed

Unfortunately the stack exchange format doesn't really facilitate "discussion" but I'll try to give you an answer of objective statements that might help inform a decision!

Bretonnia: The army book is from 2003, so are most of the models.  There aren't even any rumors that there will be an update soon.  Heavy Cavalry overall was significantly weakened in the eighth (current) edition core rule book.

Dwarves: Army book authors try to spice it up a little bit, but fundamentally this army is about blocks of tough little dudes who trundle forward slowly while they shoot you up.  Some players are really into the thematic elements and love the traditional high fantasy dwarfy legion.  Others think it's just plain boring to have an army that spends a lot of its game turns saying "walk forward, shoot, your turn go."  You have to decide which you are.
Dwarves also tend to be covered head to toe in metal, which makes them an easy army to paint to a nice table top standard for beginning hobbyists.

Empire: Has a lot of variety and effective armies can be built in many different ways.  Swarms infantry, check, elite infantry, check, cavalry, check, shootiness, check, magic, check.  The downside of that is that there are also plenty of combinations that aren't effective and you can end up owning a lot of expensive models that you don't use if you shop without a plan towards a final working army list.  Look at army lists on a Warhammer discussion forum and maybe seek some advice on an army list, then build a shopping list from that.  (Unless you're just rich or something, then go to town)

WHFB vs WH40K is totally a regional thing.  Different cities/stores have different balances of # of people playing one game or the other and it shifts around over time.


How can I identify games that would work better on the computer?

Computerized board and card games can have an advantage when it enables automation of what would otherwise be mundane or tedious tasks:

Shuffling cards in Dominion is a good example; eliminating shuffling applies to lots of classic card games that have wide on-line audiences like hearts, spades, etc.
Computer versions also work well if they can abstract away math that is part of the game, but not really a part of the strategy. Think about a game where anyone at the table would be comfortable helping someone get the calculation right; a benign example would be calculating the 10% income tax in monopoly or figuring out the price to unmortgage a property.
Some players don't like the uncertainty involved in games with lots of dice rolling or probability calculations because they're not comfortable enough doing them in their heads to enjoy playing in person. Obvious examples include gambling games like poker or war simulations like Axis and Allies, both of which have active and thriving on-line communities.

Attributes that make a game ill-suited to being played on a computer:

A high degree of player interaction, especially if characterized by collaboration. Examples would be Arkham Horror (highly collaborative) or Pictionary (lots of in person interaction)
Games where access to the internet completely ruins them: Trivial Pursuit and Scattegories come to mind, as does Balderdash.
Games where a significant fraction of the enjoyment comes from the atmosphere created by playing, like Arkham Horror or Betrayal at the House on the Hill.
Games where players need to take in a lot of information at once. As Edward Tufte likes to point out, the resolution of the physical world is still much greater than the resolution of a screen and most board games take up much more real estate when played than a typical monitor size. I've never played, but looking at all the pieces in the box, Twilight Imperium seems like a potential example, and even playing Axis and Allies on the computer can suffer from a hindered ability to "see the whole board".


Can quarantine marker be refreshed as an action in Pandemic State of Emergency?

No you can't as the rules specifically state that you place a quarantine market at level 2 as an action. If you where able to upgrade it then it would include that in the rules.

Rules

  As an action, a player may impose a quarantine on the city he is in by
  placing a quarantine marker in that city with its "2" side face up. A player
  may not put a quarantine marker in a city that already has one.


How does Zap work in "Chameleon the game"?

It seems that this version of Chameleon the Game is an English reprint of a French game called Le Chameleon.
Unfortunately the Australian company that printed this game, and the original French company both seem to have gone defunct.

Luckily we have part of the French rules, and a semi-established terminology for "Zapped";
Zapping is the act of moving by exact roll onto a space occupied by an opposing piece, and thereby removing them from the game-board, and placing them into their original starting position.

What's still unclear though, is if you are able to "Zap" a piece using the optional move distance allowed when rolling a 6 (or Chameleon).


Does the "Smoke" id counts as stealth card?

Smoke has the subtype "stealth".  As a result, she is a stealth card, and her credit can be used to pay for abilities (like Dai V) that say "Use this ability only by spending credits from stealth cards."
Smoke's ability is effectively a copy of Cloak.


A spinner will move along one of two paths every time you spin it (clockwise or anti-clockwise).  There is no variation in the spin which could occur with dice, such as bounce, roll, etc.  It's always travelling consistently along one path.  This means that the distance it travels is always dependent upon how much force was used to spin it.  Therefore, if you get used to a particular spinner, you can adjust your flick power to make the spinner travel further or shorter depending on need.  Hasbro's Game of Life has a twist spinner instead of a flick spinner, but it's the same concept.  Growing up, my brother and I were able to figure out how to spin the spinner with enough force to fairly reliably get the number we wanted.  Every spinner will be a little bit different between copies of the game, so you may need to calibrate when playing at a friend's house.


In Robo Rally, does a powered down robot get to earn option cards and repair?

It depends on how you view the rules from the original 1994 edition vs the rules from the newer edition.

In the rules for the original edition, you cannot:

  A powered-down robot is completely shut down--it can't fire weapons, tag checkpoints, or update its
  archive location, nor can it acquire or use option cards. Powered-down robots don't move under their
  own power (they receive no program cards), but they may be moved by pushers, gears, and conveyor
  belts. They may also be pushed by other robots and shot at by lasers.

This is also clarified in the FAQ from that edition:

  Q: What can a robot do when it is powered down?

    A: Nothing. A powered down robot cannot fire weapons, receive option cards, tag checkpoints (if pushed onto them), update archive locations (ditto), or use turn programmed cards (for example, Shield). It cannot use any options unless the options specifically say they can be used while a robot is powered down. The robot basically becomes a lump that can be pushed around and suffer damage.

It is reasonable to assume that rules from the original edition are intended to be carried to the new edition unless it's somethign that the new edition specifies (such as the differences in how robots re-enter the board). Based on this, the answer is no, the intent of the rules is that you cannot receive new option cards or repair while powered down.

However, this rule is missing from the newer edition, so by a literal reading of the newest rulebook, without being concerned about the old edition, the answer would be yes. The rules for earning new options simply say that a robot on the correct space earns an option, no exceptions listed for if that robot is powered down. And the rules under powering down make no mention at all about this preventing you from earning new options or healing. The rules do specify that your robot can still be affected by board elements, and lists taking damage and conveyor belts as examples of this. One could say that option and healing squares fall in this category as well.

There's some good discussion on this question here and here, but no official answer given.


Why are the old Pokémon TCG sets not allowed in modern tournaments?

There are a good collection of Pokemon TCG tournament rules and resources here - you may find some of it useful.

Looking at the rules for tournament formats, I see that there is a format called "Modified" that restricts players to using more recent sets - but there is also an "Unlimited" format where any cards ever printed are fair game.  So, in theory, there's no reason why you couldn't find an Unlimited tournament to play your older cards in.  Lobby your local tournament organizers to run one, if they aren't doing so already!

Why would people prefer to run Modified tournaments?  Well, as Aramis correctly states above, the manufacturers have a vested interest in people buying new cards in order to stay competitive.  However, it's not all for evil, economic reasons.  It would be deeply unfair to new players if, every time they turned up at a tournament, they were crushed by long-time players with vast collections of powerful, out-of-print cards.  It's not necessary for the old cards to be stronger than the new cards for there to be a problem: the players who have been collecting for a decade will have so many more options to choose from that by definition they will be able to build better decks.  And if an older, out-of-print card is actively unbalanced, then it's very unfair to ask new players to spend big bucks getting hold of these, just to compete.

Compare and contrast to Magic the Gathering: there is a format called "Vintage" which is quite popular - but to build a truly competitive Vintage deck you need cards like Black Lotus and Moxes, which cost hundreds of dollars apiece!  If all Magic tournaments were Vintage, then only players who have been playing for 20 years or have tens of thousands of dollars to spend would stand a chance of winning a game.  And nobody wants that!


Game of Thrones Catan: Can Othell move a road segment from an “interrupted” road chain?

No, Othell cannot move PlayerA's road segments.

Even though PlayerA lost their longest-road, they cannot move these road segments - because, as Othell's card says, "The road you remove must only be connected on 1 of its 2 ends to your own pieces. Ignore opponents' pieces when checking connections."


How does Athreos, God of Passage respond to creature tokens?

Neither of these scenarios happen. What does happen is called out in a ruling on Athreos:

  4/26/2014: Athreos’s last ability will trigger if a token creature you own dies. The target opponent has the option to pay 3 life, although the token can’t return to your hand.

The ability triggers as normal, since a creature died, even if it's a token. Your opponent is still given the choice to pay 3 life or pay nothing — no choice is made "automatically".

However, tokens cease to exist after they leave the battlefield. Even if your opponent declines to pay 3 life, the token won't ever enter your hand - it's already gone to the graveyard and will cease to exist there. So the result is the same either way: the token disappears. Naturally, your opponent is likely to just not pay the cost.


My conclusion is that Confusion in Line can move the Master Spy to a different position in line without him moving back.  This conclusion is based on the principal that consistency of rules trumps authorial intent.  The explanation follows.

As noted in this question, there is an official answer from Wizards of the Coast here:

An Action Card is played - the Action Card is carried out - the Master
Spy is moved to the back of the line
There is no way to play a card to get the master spy to the front of the line without him just going back
after the cards effects.

The Master Spy has the ability:

After each action card is played, move this card to the end of the line.

What this put together seems to imply is that the resolution of an action card is included in the playing it, and the Master Spy moves only after the card has finished it's resolution and has been placed face up in the play area or in the discard.  Then, the Master Spy will move regardless of whether or not the card had an effect (so playing Fountain of Blood which is just worth two points but doesn't do anything will still cause the Master Spy to move).
Now we are left with two options in the case of Confusion in Line:
Option 1: Take the WotC's answer to the letter.
This means that we pay particular attention to their point that there is no way whatsoever possible in the who wide game to manipulate the line such that the Master Spy does not end up at the end.  And there is your answer.  You play Confusion in Line, and then the Master Spy ends up at the end.
This is an unsatisfactory answer because it isn't well reasoned.  It's saying the Master Spy's ability trumps Confusion in Line's ability because... it just does.  Author's intent is irrelevant without an official FAQ or card specific ruling.  This is not how I play Guillotine.  For that, move on to option 2.
Option 2: Use what we know about other WotC products (namely Magic the Gathering) to create a consistent rules framework for Guillotine.
There are three phases to a turn in Guillotine:

Play an action card (optional)

Collect the first noble in line

Draw an action card

Confusion in Line creates a delayed triggered ability that takes affect in phase 2 of the turn of the player of your choice.  It must be in phase two, because if it were during phase 1, a player could avoid the trigger by not playing an action card on their turn (in which case Confusion in Line would read "Randomly rearrange the line after that player plays an action card".
With this framework, we can also determine that the Master Spy moves to the end of the line at the end of phase 1.  Thus, phase 1 (if the player chooses to have it) has the following steps:

Play action card

Resolve effects

Put action card on table or in discard as appropriate

Move Master Spy (if relevant)

Repeat these steps if you are allowed to play another action card

Let's say you chose yourself with Confusion in Line.  The resolution of effects for Confusion in Line is merely the creation of the delayed trigger.  It is then discarded.  The Master Spy so cleverly moves to the end.  Then we move on to phase 2.  The line gets shuffled.  The Master Spy is at the front!  You scoop him up and get a delicious four points.
Then, on the next player's turn, they play an action card and the Master Spy leaves your score area to go back to the end of the line :P (just kidding; although this might not be a joke since apparently "Clerical Error... end[s] the day and discard[s] all nobles in line if used to get Robespierre from someone else's score pile."; noble abilities working from score areas is a whole other rats nest that we will kick elsewhere).
Anyways, I like this option flavor-wise as well because it means even the Master Spy is thrown off by mass confusion (there is no good information for him to act off of).


Can a well-timed Twisted Image kill a player using Tree of Redemption?

From the Oracle:

  9/22/2011 If Tree of Redemption isn't on the battlefield when the
  ability resolves, the exchange can't happen and the ability will have
  no effect.

Which is consistent with the golden rule that if one rule says a thing can happen and another says it can't, can't wins.


Benefits of not equipping skeletons with spears?

A model with Hand Weapon and Shield can use the 'Parry' special rule to get a ward save.  A model with a spear cannot.  Since skeletons are weak and have poor weapon skill anyway, it may be beneficial to have better survivability rather than a few more attacks that are unlikely to hurt anything, depending on what role you see the unit filling in your army.


Is it possible to use ritual effects to pay for Propaganda?

No, you cannot use rituals or other instant speed effects that gain mana to pay for Propaganda or similar effects, and your reasoning for why this would be the case is correct.

First, as mentioned, rule 106.4 says

  When an effect produces mana, that mana goes into a player’s mana pool. From there, it can be used to pay costs immediately, or it can stay in the player’s mana pool. Each player’s mana pool empties at the end of each step and phase.

So, any mana you produce in the Beginning of Combat step would empty from your mana pool before you declare attacks. Then, the Declare Attackers step is actually multiple sub-steps. The first step, described in rule 508.1, is to declare your attackers. This includes activating mana abilities and paying costs for declaring attackers (508.1i,j). After that, the active player gains priority, which would be the first time they have the opportunity to cast rituals or similar spells during the declare attackers step.

So, there is no opportunity between the mana pool emptying at the end of the Beginning of Combat step and paying to declare attackers during the Declare Attackers step to cast rituals.


The dinosaur enters the battlefield as a 5/5 because, as you say, the planeswalker will be dead before the ability resolves. This is the exact sequence of events:

You activate the planeswalker's ability, putting the ability on the stack and removing 7 loyalty counters to pay the ability's cost.
The planeswalker dies as a state-based action because it has no loyalty counters.
All players gain priority, and pass it or respond to the ability.
The ability resolves and the dinosaur enters the battlefield.


Who takes the trick in All Five (variant of All Fours) if the 10 and Ace are played from the trump suit?

Rank matters during play; points during scoring. So during play the ace is the best and will take the trick, but during scoring it's more important to have collected the 10 than to have collected the ace. This non-alignment of rank and score can make the strategy more interesting - if ace were highest scoring, you could just play the ace and you'd collect all those points for sure, but collecting tons of points off of a lowly ten takes much more skill.


The oracle rulings of Divine Reflection state:

If Divine Deflection prevents damage, excess damage (if any) dealt by
that source is dealt at the same time. Immediately afterward, as part
of that same prevention effect, Divine Deflection deals its damage.
This happens before state-based actions are checked, and before the
spell or ability that caused damage to be dealt resumes its
resolution.

So, the damage is done at the same time and only after are state-based actions checked.

704.5. The state-based actions are as follows:
704.5a If a player has 0 or less life, he or she loses the game.

As checking the life totals is a state-based action, both players will have 0 life at the same check, thus the game ends in a draw!


How has the rise of limited formats affected MTG set design?

Can't answer number one but there have been a number of articles published regarding number 2. When designing sets Wizards takes a serious look at the rarity of each card and its effect on limited. Its okay for a mythic rare to be completely, off the wall busted in limited (though they do try to avoid it) because the odds of pulling that card will be so low that it won't have much effect on any given limited tournament. Odds are even in a tournament with 16 people and 3 packs per person that card might not show up at all. The odds are even lower that that specific mythic will show up more than once and even lower still that the same person will be able to get it more than once.

Uncommons and especially commons on the other hand are a different animal. Its a common occurrence in drafts for players to have multiple copies of common and an uncommon cards and for multiple players to have copies of those cards thus the power level of these cards in relation to the rest of the limited environment needs to be more closely tested. Similarly because the bulk of all limited decks will be commons and uncommons wizards needs to make sure of a couple of things.

First they need to make sure that certain roles are filled by the commons and uncommons. This is the reason there will always be some form of common creature removal, common mana fixing (espescially true in a multi color oriented set) and likely some form of common draw and common non-creature removal. It is also one of the reasons that every set will contain common red burn, common blue draw, common green creature pump, common white weenie cards, common black discard ect.

If the set has a new theme or mechanic to it, as most sets do (I can't think of any in recent years that don't) Wizards also needs to make sure those themes and mechanics appear in some form or fashion at the lower rarities and that there is synergy among the cards at those rarities.


The question is also asked on boardgamegeek. The back of the card looks like:

The text is: "You approach her, the young lady becomes totally absorbed by her strange painting and pays no attention to you."


Can I include a card in my EDH deck that mentions another color?

It looks like it should be identified with just black:

903.4  ... 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).
604.3. Some static abilities are characteristic-defining abilities. A characteristic-defining ability conveys information about an object’s characteristics that would normally be found elsewhere on that object (such as in its mana cost, type line, or power/toughness box) or overrides information found elsewhere on that object. Characteristic-defining abilities function in all zones. They also function outside the game.
604.3a A static ability is a characteristic-defining ability if it meets the following criteria:
(1) It defines an object’s colors, subtypes, power, or toughness;
(2) it is printed on the card it affects, it was granted to the token it affects by the effect that created the token, or it was acquired by the object it affects as the result of a copy effect or text-changing effect;
(3) it does not directly affect the characteristics of any other objects;
(4) it is not an ability that an object grants to itself; and
(5) it does not set the values of such characteristics only if certain conditions are met.

The last clause (5) indicates that since the color change is conditional, it is not a characteristic-defining ability, and hence is not part of the color identity.


What's the golgari stance on an "earth god" like Gaia?

The first issue is planes are all separate, and each plane has it's own beliefs, systems, and in many cases actual godly figures and gods. So while Gaia, spelled as Gaea within magic cards such as Gaea's Cradle, does exist within the planes of blind eternities, she exists tied to the plane of Dominaria and doesn't actually exist on Ravnica. The closest thing to it as far as a spirit of the plane itself is Soul of Ravnica.
As for the idea of what a godess like Gaea would represent, there would be no conflict there with the Golgari - Gaea represents the natural world, including the cycle of life and death, something which is actually pretty core to the Golgari.
This is based mostly on my own understanding of this though, as again, Gaea does not exist as far as Ravnica is concerned.


Is it better to start with M13 and splash in RtR and GTC when building a deck?

Generally speaking, whichever option you choose, this is no big deal. Expansions and core sets released together are designed to play well with each other. But core sets are also designed to be reasonable stand-alone products.

Learning Magic

Core sets are designed to help you learn Magic. The mix of cards is targeted towards newer players. The creatures and spells are generally about as powerful as the ones in expansions, but many of the lower-rarity cards are simpler. In particular, you're less likely to find surprising or "counterintuitive" mechanics that change the basic resource relationships in the game; cards are also less likely to have difficult requirements or restrictions.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. In my experience, new players learn best when they're interested and excited about the game, regardless of what exactly it is that they're doing. The expansion sets are more complex but not overwhelmingly so. If you're really excited by the idea of taxing your opponent to death, for example, then by all means, grab that (Gatecrash) Orzhov intro deck — there may be a bit more up-front complexity in figuring out how to use the cards well, but your enthusiasm will also help you get up the learning curve faster. My wife learned to play just fine with Myr of Mirrodin, an expansion intro deck; the deck's strategy just clicked naturally for her, so within two or three games she was already making substantive improvements using cards from boosters.

The complexity difference is most noticeable in drafting. Core-set drafts tend to be much more forgiving, with more of a focus on deckbuilding fundamentals like building your deck around a mana curve and choosing cards that support a consistent game plan. Drafting an expansion set well, in contrast, tends to demand a good understanding of the internal synergies and idiosyncracies of the enrivonment.

Building a strong deck

Cards in expansion sets like Return to Ravnica aren't necessarily any more powerful than cards in the core set. Core sets usually have the "basic" version of an effect, whereas expansion sets tend to feature a modified version that plays to the set's mechanical themes (compare Cancel and Dissipate, for instance). However, there are always at least a few high-powered staples in core sets — cards like Mana Leak, Lightning Bolt, and Farseek — as well as powerhouse "bomb" cards like Sun Titan and Thragtusk.

Tournament decks pretty much universally have cards from a lot of different sets, because being able to cherrypick the best cards available gives players a competitive edge.

Specific themes

One area where the expansion sets really shine is exploring specific themes. Core sets often have some themed cards, like the different Soldiers in M13, but with fewer cards than a full block and less specialized mechanics, they don't go as deep as the expansions do. If you want to build a graveyard-abusing deck, or an elf deck, or an all-artifacts deck based around Tempered Steel, you'll likely want to focus on cards from a particular expansion set that focused on those themes.


Is there an instant win condition by abusing a loophole in Bang?

The cards in question are: Showdown

Showdown - All cards may be played as they were BANG!. BANG! cards may be played as they were Missed!.

The designer notes what the card should read.

Actually, the correct text should be that BANG! card must be played as Missed!, otherwise Suzy Lafayette armed with a Volcanic could shoot the whole deck!

and the cards Volcanic and Suzy Lafayette

Volcanic - (Weapon) Max distance: 1. You may play as many BANG! cards as you wish.
Suzy Lafayette - As soon as she remains with no cards in her hand, she draws a card from the deck.

This response differs from the publisher's answer, or lack there of:

Q: Shootout. There are questions about how this interacts with player abilities: Calamity Janet ... Willy the Kid..... Suzy Lafayette. If she has a Volcanic card during a Shootout, she can keep drawing new cards and using them as Bang!s until she kills all the other players, if she wants. Should there be some way to limit these situations??
A: About your questions: please consider that unpredictability is a BANG! feature and it is part of his style. We want BANG! to be characterized by two sides: strategy (bluff) and luck. Characters in Wild West Show are powerful, and sometimes the interactions between two of them can be "lethal" for the opponents, but we think this "chance component" is what makes this expansion so crazy and exhilarating! Have fun with BANG!


Bang! 6 Player Problem - It's unbalanced one way or another.

From reading your question and responses in the comments I would say that 100% you are playing the game in the spirit that it was designed.

Rules

  4 players: 1 Sheriff, 1 Renegade, 2 Outlaws
  5 players: 1 Sheriff, 1 Renegade, 2 Outlaws, 1 Deputy
  6 players: 1 Sheriff, 1 Renegade, 3 Outlaws, 1 Deputy
  7 players: 1 Sheriff, 1 Renegade, 3 Outlaws, 2 Deputy

Killing a player

  Eliminating a character
  When you lose your last life point, you are eliminated and your game
  is over, unless you immediately play a Beer (see below). When you are
  eliminated from the game, show your role card and discard all the cards you
  have in hand and in play.
  Penalties and Rewards
  •    If the Sheriff eliminates a Deputy, the Sheriff must discard all the cards
  he has in hand and in play.
  •    Any player eliminating an Outlaw (even if the eliminating player is
  himself an Outlaw!) must draw a reward of 3 cards from the deck.

End Game

  The game ends when one of the following conditions is met:
  a) the Sheriff is killed. If the Renegade is the only one alive, then he wins.
  Otherwise, the Outlaws win;
  b) all the Outlaws and the Renegade are killed. The Sheriff and his
  Deputies win.

I will break down the conditions that need to happen in order for the renegade to win.

4 Player Game:

The renegade needs to kill (or assist) both outlaws
Once both outlaws are dead the renegade needs to kill the sheriff

5 Player Game:

The renegade needs to kill (or assist) both outlaws
The renegade needs to kill (or assist) the deputy
Once both of those are done the renegade needs to kill the sheriff

6 Player Game:

The renegade needs to kill (or assist) all three outlaws
The renegade needs to kill (or assist) the deputy
Once both of those are done the renegade needs to kill the sheriff

7 Player Game:

The renegade needs to kill (or assist) all three outlaws
The renegade needs to kill (or assist) both deputies
Once both of those are done the renegade needs to kill the sheriff

Note with expansions there is also an 8 player game that adds in a 2nd renegade

8 Player Game:

The renegade needs to kill (or assist) all three outlaws
The renegade needs to kill (or assist) the deputy
The renegade needs to kill (or assist) the other rendage
Once all of those are done the renegade needs to kill the sheriff

  I think it's a good rule of thumb to act as a deputy early, but working with the other deputies to buff the sherif is not always a good idea. It can oftern put you in a position where its you and the sherif and but the sherif's sitting pretty with barrel/mustang/hideout or something.

What you are forgetting or ignoring is that with no matter how many players (4-8) a game is setup with a renegade will have to ensure that every player but the sheriff is killed in order for them to have a shot at winning. So it will always come down to a situation where the sheriff and renegade are in a dual so there is no reason not to help the sheriff kill the outlaws. In fact if you do a convincing enough job you might get the sheriff to kill the deputy which would make them lose all their items and become easier to kill.

Another thing you should remember is that not all games are designed to be perfectly balanced for one side or the other and in truth the real role that has reason to complain is the renegade since they can only win when everyone else is dead.

I would also like to point out that in a 6 player (or larger) it is very possible for the players later in play order to be killed before they even get a turn so I would not say this game considers balance at all.


You only score dice at the end of your turn.  So if you had

1122233 (using extra dice from other cards)

You would score 2 points for the 123 (but only once), plus 2 points for all the 2s, for a total of 4 points.


In magic the gathering can I tap a creature at the attacking/blocking phase?

You can always ask your opponent to "rewind" phases if they attempt to skip through them.  According to the rules, each player gets a chance to act within all phases, however, many players choose to skip through the phases in interests of saving time. A player is never allowed to "rush" you through a phase. They will need to reset their creatures to how they existed before attackers were declared.

In this particular case, if they move to attack step before you get a chance to respond, I would politely inform them that I wish to cast a spell during the "begin combat" phase.

For your side note: there are many cards such as Celestial Flare that effect attackers or blockers (scroll down to the bottom for example rulings that I believe you will find helpful)


The attacker has to assign all combat damage to creatures blocking each of his or her creatures.

  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. If exactly one creature is blocking it, it assigns all its combat damage to that creature. [..]

One notable exception to that rule is if the attacking creature has the trample ability. In that case, you only have to assign lethal damage (3 in your example) to the creature(s) blocking it, and the rest may be assigned to the defending player or the blocking creatures as you want.

  702.19b The controller of an attacking creature with trample first assigns damage to the creature(s) blocking it. Once all those blocking creatures are assigned lethal damage, any remaining damage is assigned as its controller chooses among those blocking creatures and the player or planeswalker the creature is attacking. [..]


What's the lifetime of Wicked Wolf's +1/+1 counters?

The counters will stay; "until end of turn" refers to gaining indestructible.

Note that you cannot "put a +1/+1 counter on Wicked Wolf until end of turn". Putting a counter on a thing is a specific act that happens in one moment; it does not work in English (or in MTG rules) to give it a duration. If a counter were going to be temporary, it would need a separate instruction to remove that counter at the end of the turn, like this:

  Put a +1/+1 counter on Wicked Wolf. Remove it at the end of the turn".


Can I summon Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon using Witch of the Black Forest's effect

You will not be able to get the Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon from the effect of Witch of the Black Forest's and activate its effect.

This is because the last thing to happen isn't a monster being destroyed but rather a monster being added to hand.

If you already had Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon in your hand and Witch of the Black Forest is being destroyed, you still retain the priority to activate an effect after the mandatory effect of Witch of the Black Forest goes on the chain.


What happen if I gain the control of aura that enchants an opponent's creature? Would the aura stay attached?

Yes, most of the times it doesn't matter who controls the aura and who controls the creature. There are a handful of exceptions, e.g. Cartouche of Knowledge which can only enchant a creature you control; if you'd steal one of them it would stop enchanting a legal target and be put into its owner's graveyard.

  303.4c If an Aura is enchanting an illegal object or player as defined by its enchant ability and other applicable effects, the object it was attached to no longer exists, or the player it was attached to has left the game, the Aura is put into its owner’s graveyard. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

Note that stealing an Aura isn't really useful if the Aura grants a bonus/ability to the creature (which is most of the time); it might be useful if the Aura has an ability itself.

  303.4e An Aura’s controller is separate from the enchanted object’s controller or the enchanted player; the two need not be the same. If an Aura enchants an object, changing control of the object doesn’t change control of the Aura, and vice versa. Only the Aura’s controller can activate its abilities. However, if the Aura grants an ability to the enchanted object (with “gains” or “has”), the enchanted object’s controller is the only one who can activate that ability.


Saint Petersburg: What happens when you upgrade a full warehouse?

As with your first option, you keep the extra card but your hand limit goes back to normal.

This is covered in these rules in the special cards description (which I think isn't part of the main rules book but is an extra rules reminder sheet):

  The player can have up to 4 cards in his hand. If the player upgrades the warehouse, he need not immediately reduce his hand to 3 cards.


The first thing you need to do is decide which colors you want to support the reanimator theme in. Black is the go to answer, but there are solid reanimation options in white as well. Enablers are going to be mostly blue or green. Once you know the color options, then envision what you want a good reanimator deck to look like in your cube. Do you want it to be a Legacy styled combo deck that can have Griselbrand on the field on turn 2, or do you want it to be a much more grindy Rec-Sur styled GB deck? You can also use cards like Debtor's Knell that give a good value BW deck an awesome late game by itself.

Balancing cards that can be used in both a dedicated reanimator strategy and other strategies is important. Cards that discard for a benefit, like Oona's Prowler and Lotleth Troll are perfect for this. Survival of the Fittest like cards are strategies to themselves, and just get better with a few reanimation cards. Draw/Discard cards such as Thirst for Knowledge fit great into reanimator decks as well.

Once you know what you want your decks to look like, and you have a list of cards you want to include, then all that's left is to find slots in the cube and playtest. Force the strategy a few times, and see if you feel like you're getting enough support. Let others draft and see how often the strategy is taken, and how often it wins. If it's too powerful, cut back cards or add dedicated GY hate*. If its too weak, then add more support cards. If it's good but under-drafted by your group, then bean them with it a few times.

*A note about dedicated GY hate - I don't recommend adding these cards to begin with. They're dead cards more often than they're used. Instead try things like Scavenging Ooze (or if you're like me have Leyline of the Void and Helm of Awakening in your cube...)


What is the timing of activation conditions for mastermind abilities?

When two mastermind-controlled abilities have identical timings, the Mastermind determines the exact order of resolution, with Mandatory abilities occurring first

When two or more abilities with the same timing occur, any Mandatory abilities will occur first, followed by any optional abilities. In the event that two Mandatory or two Optional abilities have identical timings, the Mastermind chooses what order they resolve in. (This is clarified in Cosmic Evil's player rulebook, but the base game doesn't have this issue due to no mandatory abilities having the "Mastermind Ability" timing. Midnight Circle, despite having one mandatory ability with that timing, doesn't clarify it.)

Should an optional mastermind ability cause a mandatory ability's requirement to be fulfilled and the timing is correct for that mandatory ability, then the mandatory ability must immediately be resolved. In all cases where the entire timing of two or more abilities is identical and the abilities can (or must) occur, the mastermind chooses which ability occurs first and resolves it.

Abilities with a specific timing only occur a single time during that specific timing (i.e. The brain's ability can only occur once per day during the Mastermind Ability phase). Abilities with the "Always" timing are considered passive and, if a condition is attached, are in effect while the condition is satisfied.

In the example scenario Teofrostus provided, using the Brain's optional mastermind ability to add a second intrigue to the school causes the Factor's first mandatory ability's requirement to be satisfied. This means that from that moment forward, the Factor can do the same ability as the conspiracy theorist. Because the Factor can then do the same ability as the conspiracy theorist (an optional ability with timing "Mastermind ability"), the mastermind may then immediately place 1 paranoia on any character in the Factor's location (including the Factor).

Goodwill abilities occur in the order that the protagonist leader requests them.

In the example that Teofrostus provided, the Rich Man's Daughter's goodwill ability is invoked (and presumed to have taken effect) and a second goodwill token is added to the Girl Student. Because the Girl Student now has enough goodwill (2) for her ability to be activated, the protagonist leader may now use her goodwill ability to attempt to remove one paranoia from the Rich Man's Daughter (a student, and thus a valid target).

The rules very explicitly state that if multiple goodwill abilities can be activated, the protagonist leader gets to choose which ones he activates and in what order they are activated in. The goodwill abilities phase only ends if one of two things happen: either there are no remaining abilities that can be activated or the Protagonist Leader does not want to activate the remaining abilities.


Icons meaning in Awesome Kingdom: The Tower of Hateskull

After a few games, I believe we came to a conclusion about those icons...
So I'll try and answer my own question (I hope it's OK ;-))

Some of the cards with the icons are thematically connected to the Tower of Hateskull Location (Lord Hateskull, Lady Hateskull and the Stick of 6 parts to name a few). I wouldn't be surprised if the plan is to later release expansion packs for the game featuring new locations with associated cards. Those icons would then come in handy to remove all the cards from the Tower of Hateskull Theme set and replace them with the new ones, only leaving the basic ones and one scenario at a time...


Do punches and vulnerabilities have a type when using Animal Man?

Yes, their type is "Starter"

First off, the full text for Animal Man is as follows:

  +2 Power and choose a card type. Reveal the top card of your deck. If it has that card type, draw it.

The key phrase here is "card type". Page 2 of the rulebook talks about types of cards and shows that the text in the colored bar below the picture is the card type.

As we can see, both Punch and Vulnerability have a card type of "Starter". This is corroborated by the explicit listing of the card types at the bottom of the page:

  The different card types that you can play are: Starter, Villain, Location, Hero, Super Power, and Equipment. Weakness cards have no card type.


What's a good strategy for Shadows over Camelot?

Shadows Over Camelot is actually unbalanced towards the Knights winning.  In fact, the base game has even been solved (guaranteed victory) when playing with 7 players.  The key to that victory lies in the special white cards.  Since they're reshuffled (both decks are reshuffled when you reshuffle one) when you run out of cards, what the Knights should do is keep their hands mostly full as often as possible, thus they can quickly cycle Merlin cards and other whites, instead of 'saving' them.

Therefore, when starting the game, everyone should spend time drawing up white cards at Camelot, until they reach their limit of 12.  Only then should someone go questing.  The only exception to this is Lancelot's armor.  The first knight who has a full house should immediately go claim the armor, as it's the most powerful tool for white victory in the game.

Because of this strategy, the most important Knight roles are King Arthur (for passing cards) and Sir Galahad (for playing the special whites for free).  In general, Arthur gives the specials to Galahad, then he stays at Camelot drawing them and playing them (Merlins included).

Remember, this is a race against time, so movement is the enemy.  Every time you move to a quest, you should lose a life to perform the quest's heroic action.

Now that bad blacks, life (through piety), cards, and even redrawing (through convocation) are dealt with, all that remains is how to complete quests.

As I said, the Armor is the most important.  Get that quickly.  Ignore the Dragon, for the most part.  When fighting Picts and Saxons, your goal should be to complete the quest with 2 or 3 picts/saxons on the board, since then, effectively, those would have been 'wasted' black cards (i.e. don't be too safe and not put any mercenaries on the one you're working on, and, of course, don't lose the quest).  Try to keep the Grail and the Sword, JUST SHORT of victory, until the armor is attained.  If you complete these quests too early, you'll just be adding catepults.  While this is happening, always take black cards, as they're the easiest.  Cats are much more expensive to deal with.

Once you've gotten the armor, and defeated a pict/saxon or two, then gang up to get the sword, draw back up on grails, and then gang up to finish the grail.  Since black cannot 'gang-up' on a quest, you're sure to have victory with the overwhelming numbers.  You do the Grail last (hopefully with a Heroism card on it), and get 4 white swords for it.  (Heroism is key to winning as well).  The traitor won't matter, since even flipping two won't affect the outcome.  Don't waste time on accusations.  The first person to accuse will be the traitor, so if he accuses, accuse him back and it's dealt with.

Late in the game (during the gang-up phase).  Use life points and cats to avoid drawing the black cards.

In terms of special blacks, most aren't that bad.  The ones to really worry about (i.e. use 3 merlins to stop) are Mists of Avalon (always), Vivian (always), and Dark Forest (if the grail is in danger of being lost, only).

Here's how a typical game might go:

Lancelot's Armor obtained (+ Heroism)  2 white swords.
Saxon's defeated (3 white total)
Picts lost (3 white 1 black)
Black knight lost (3 white 2 black)
Excalibur Claimed (+Heroism)  (6 white 2 black)
Dragon Lost (6 white, 4 black)
Grail Found (+Heroism) (10 white 4 black)

Traitor unrevealed (8 white 6 black)

White Victory.


For Monarch, how do you consider which are Garments and Beasts?

I've consulted the official manual.There, it says you can identify certain card sub-types by their emblems. All Beasts have a white beast-emblem printed behind the text, all Garments have a cloak, etc. Here's an excerpt from the rulebook, page 4:

See the white emblem laced in the text on the lower part of the card?

Also, this exact question is featured in their FAQ.


How can I find games similar to a certain type?

If you look under the "Classification" section on the game's BGG page, you can click one of those tags to see other games with similar features. E.g.: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2041/card-drafting


Is there any reason to buy the Ascension base game?

Not to be Captain Obvious, but you would buy CotG if you want the cards.

I quickly glanced at the card list and a few "must-haves" stuck out:

Enlightened: Master Dhartha, Twofold Askara, and Tablet of Time's Dawn (though you might NOT want the possibility of infinitely many turns...)

Mechana: all the constructs in this set are valuable, Burrower Mark II maybe not as much.


Royal Supplier in Puerto Rico Expansion II -- is it all or nothing?

I can find no ruling on this, but there's some precedent to work with.

In the first expansion, the Small Wharf:

  A player may ship different barrels of
  goods during one of his turns during
  the captain phase, but he gets only 1
  VP for every two barrels he ships.

Further clarifications on that building show that a player can ship < 2 goods*, and need not ship all remaining goods.

So, I'd reason based on precedent (and in the absence of any other errata) that buildings that modify the captain phase allow the player to choose the selection of goods involved.

Thus,

Scenario 1: You can send up to 5 goods (1 of each kind) to the royal treasury.

Scenario 2: Likewise, you may send up to 2 goods, provided they are different, to the royal treasury.

*There's some deviousness to be had in combination with Lighthouse, and effectively trading for 1 doubloon at the end of every Captain.


Life and Death by James Davies is part of the Elementary Go series, and has a systematic treatment of common shapes.  It has saved me more reading time than I can count.


Can I use a card with "Add one mana of any color to your mana pool" in any Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) deck?

The text file found on the page you linked to with Commander info has a better description of the rules that clears this up. The important parts:

  A card can't be included in your deck if any mana symbol in its mana
  cost or rules text is a color not in your commander's color identity.
  A card also can't be included in your deck if it has a
  characteristic-defining ability defining it to be a color not in your
  commander's color identity.

The cards don't have mana symbols, so you are good on that front. Yes, you could include those cards.

As of a January 18, 2016 change to rule 4, you can now use those cards to add any colour of mana to your mana pool, including Black & White mana if you're using Animar, Soul of Elements who has neither in its identity. Historically, if you tried to add a colour of mana to your pool that wasn't in your commander's identity, it would just add colourless mana instead.


Who does the Warlord pay to -- the bank or the player who had their buildings destroyed?

I have two reasons to conclude you pay to the bank:

The rulebook doesn't say that you have to pay to the bank when building a district. This is assumed because it wouldn't make sense otherwise. Similarly, if the rulebook doesn't say whom to pay to destroy, then I assume it must go to the bank.
The warlord can destroy one of it's own district if he wants to replace it. The warlord still has to pay the amount, which then obviously would not go to himself but to the bank.


"Diplomacy" rule clarification, unit under attack

All good. Only way to disrupt a convoy is to dislodge the convoying fleet unit. So even if order #3 was not present, the convoy action would proceed


MTG protection from color in multiple card multicolored scenario

The primary issue here is that Questing Beast has an ability that overrides protection, so it deals damage even though your creature has protection from green. That ability is

Combat damage that would be dealt by creatures you control can't be prevented.

The relevant part of the protection rule is 702.16e:

Any damage that would be dealt by sources that have the stated quality to a permanent or player with protection is prevented.

You can see that they use the same wording: protection causes damage to be prevented, and Questing Beast's ability says that the damage can't be prevented. When there is a conflict like that, it is resolved by rule 101.2:

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

When you saw that "only the Embercleave damage was applied", that is not actually what happened. Embercleave itself does not deal any damage, it just increases Questing Beast's power and toughness, so Questing Beast itself deals more damage. The reason Questing Beast only deals one damage to your creature is because of the interaction between deathtouch, which Questing Beast has inherently, and trample, which Embercleave grants to it.
A creature dies if it is dealt damage by a source with deathtouch, even if it is less damage than the creature's toughness. And trample allows you to assign any damage in excess of what is needed to kill the blocking creature, to the defending player. In combination, since any one damage dealt by the creature is lethal, the rest of the damage can be assigned to the defending player.
In this specific scenario, the attacking player assigned 1 of Questing Beast's first strike damage to Linden, and the other 4 to you. After that damage was dealt, Linden died because of deathtouch. Then in the regular damage step, there was no longer a blocking creature, so the attacking player could assign all 5 of the damage to you.


If you already have hexproof when your opponent attempts to cast Gifts Ungiven, then Gifts Ungiven cannot be cast because it cannot target an opponent; attempting to do this is an illegal action and results in the game returning to the state before your opponent attempted to cast the spell (CR 601.2c, 601.2e).
If you acquired hexproof between the spell being cast and the spell resolving (e.g. by casting Veil of Summer in response to Gifts Ungiven going on the stack), then it will fizzle as all its targets are now invalid, or more formally not resolve and be placed into its owner's gravecard (CR 608.2b).


I'm assuming you've read the Wikipedia article, and followed some of those links.  If not, read it first.

Yahtzee has been deeply studied by a few people.  The best known current techniques involve brute force computations over the entire state space.  The state space (the set of all possible games) can be structured to be small enough that every location can be computed.

That said, there is no simple answer to your question.  My suggestion to you, is to go to this page, and look at their deep simulation, and test yourself.  They have brute force addressed this problem and it's an interesting read.

If you are interested and have a decent math background (undergraduate probability theory course, and an understanding of finite state space Markov Chains) you can read these papers:
http://www.cs.loyola.edu/~jglenn/research/optimal_yahtzee.pdf
http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/~pan/papers/yahtzee.pdf


Which "enters the battlefield" effects happen first, cards that are entering, or cards already on the battlefield?

First Scenario

When the Satyr Grovedancer enters the battlefield, the Grovedancer's ability goes on the stack unconditionally and the Cloudfin Raptor's ability goes on the stack because it has lower power than the Grovedancer, and these abilities go on the stack in any order you choose. The order is important, though:

If you put the Raptor's ability on top of the stack, it will resolve first. When it resolves, it checks that it has lower power or toughness than the creature that entered (the Grovedancer). This is true, so you put the counter on it. Then the Grovedancer's ability resolves and you put another counter on the Raptor

If you put the Grovedancer's ability on top of the stack, it will resolve first and you put a counter on the Raptor. Then the Raptor's ability resolves, but by that time it doesn't have lower power or toughness than the Grovedancer, so it doesn't get a counter

Second Scenario

In this case, when the Grovedancer enters, its ability goes on the stack like before, but the Raptor's ability does not go on the stack because the condition for putting it on the stack (it has lower power or toughness than the entering creature) is not true. Then only the Grovedancer's ability resolves, so you get to put a single +1/+1 counter on either creature.

The primary rule that governs how both of these scenarios play out is 603.4:

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

Note that this rule applies because the exact wording of the Evolve ability is

  Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power or toughness than this creature, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.


Which MtG core set has had the greatest change in cards from a previous core set?

The MTGSalvation wiki tracks core set changes here. The summary, assuming I haven't made any copying/arithmetic errors:

Unlimited -> Revised: 39 added, 35 removed (total 74)
Revised -> 4th: 122 added, 50 removed (total 172)
4th -> 5th: 194 added, 128 removed (total 322)
5th -> 6th: 167 added, 266 removed (total 433)
6th -> 7th: 177 added, 177 removed (total 354)
7th -> 8th: 167 added, 160 removed (total 327)
8th -> 9th: 165 added, 163 removed (total 328)
9th -> 10th: 214 added, 190 removed (total 404)
10th -> M10: 158 added, 292 removed (total 450)
M10 -> M11: 136 added, 136 removed (total 272)
M11 -> M12: 153 added, 153 removed (total 306)
M12 -> M13: 193 added, 193 removed (total 386)
M13 -> M14: 154 added, 198 removed (total 352)
M14 -> M15: 235 added, 201 removed (total 436)
M15 -> Origins: 263 added, 259 removed (total 522)

So Origins had the largest total number of changed cards as well as the largest number added, while M10 had the largest number removed. If you don't want to consider Origins a "true" core set for these purposes (because it was also introducing a bunch of new lore) then M10 also has the largest number of changed cards, and M15 added the largest number of new cards.
It's worth noting, however, that some this is driven by changes in set size — the number of cards removed from 10th edition to get to M10 is literally larger than the total number of cards in many of the more recent core sets.


How does Frenetic Sliver interact with the Unearth from Dregscape Sliver?

A ruling on Dregscape Sliver on Gatherer says

  If a creature returned to the battlefield by the unearth ability would leave it for any reason, it’s exiled instead—unless the spell or ability that’s causing the creature to leave the battlefield is actually trying to exile it. In that case, the spell or ability succeeds at exiling the creature. If the spell or ability later returns the creature card to the battlefield (as Astral Drift might, for example), the creature card will return as a new object with no relation to its previous existence. The unearth effect will no longer apply to it.

So say you have an unearthed sliver and you activate the Frenetic ability of that sliver. If you win the coin flip, the ability will, in accordance with the above ruling, succeed in exiling and later returning the sliver.

If you lose the coin flip, the sliver will be sacrificed according to the Frenetic ability, and go to exile instead of your graveyard as Unearth dictates, without coming back later.


What are artifact creatures in Magic lore?

Artifact creatures don't have consistent origins or properties.

The name "Artifact creature" represents the intersection of two fuzzy categories. "Creature" would seem to mean "animate being," but it also includes illusions, walls, and illusionary walls. "Artifact" usually refers to something that someone built, but it includes some natural phenomena like eggs and flowers.

A creature can have artificial material grafted into its body and become an artifact, like Breya, or Robocop. The Mirari possessed intelligence and a will of its own as a non-creature artifact; then it became/gave rise to Memnarch, an artifact creature (arguably "the same thing as the Mirari" but able to walk around).

I'm not sure why Karn should be treated as a special case: Prior to his tenure as a planeswalker, he had a long and illustrious career as an artifact creature: Built by wizards, without any organic components, but with his own intelligence, volition, and personality—essentially the same kind of entity as Bosh. (The fact that he's not an Artifact on his planeswalker cards probably has more to do with the designers' willingness to let him be destroyed by Naturalize, or the amount of space on the type line, than his nature in lore.)

The flavor text on Saheeli's Silverwing indicates that it's intelligent enough to understand spoken instructions. Akroan Horse is clearly inanimate, but still qualifies as a creature (in another decade it would have been a "Horse Wall")—but, still on the plane of Theros, Gold-Forged Sentinel is "beholden to neither" gods nor mortals, and flies around doing whatever it wants.

The "Construct" creature type evidently denoted artifact creatures that were not created magically—according to someone, at some point in time. This proposition does not track with the evidence. There doesn't seem to be anything magical about the Akroan Horse, but it's still a Horse and not a Construct. Creepy Doll, a Construct, was probably nonmagical when it was first built, but if it's not magical, then how does it stab things to death?

Artifact creatures can be intelligent or mindless. They can be magical or nonmagical. They can be animate or inanimate. They can be robots or cyborgs or neither. Their nature isn't consistent within a plane, and it isn't consistent within a creature type. There's no set of criteria that define artifact creatures, but rather a family resemblance that characterizes them in the minds of the artists, loreweavers, and designers.

The nature of that family resemblance is hard to put into words without sounding dismissive, but I believe it really boils down to "An artifact creature is a creature that is, or at least seems, artificial."


Computer AI programs for Axis and Allies?

At the tactical level, the AI for A&A is a minmax on a zero-sum game tree with some fuzziness.  We have a structure that represents game state (board and pieces), the relative score of each player for that state (value of troops and land income), and a set of transitions (i.e. moves) from that state to new states.  Transitions can weighted by probability of outcome (this is what the simulators in other answers supply).  The relative values of starting state and ending states can be compared to determine which moves seem good or bad. These results are scaled by the weight (likely outcome). More sophisticated implementations would go deeper into "promising" branches to check opponent payoff (i.e. whether this move give an opponent an even better counterattack opportunity).

This is a very, very big game tree. Pruning will be essential, and there are some obvious things to try ignoring (attacking with less than all your troops, for example).  But it's relatively straightforward AI problem and there is a lot of info about solving it on the web. Maybe it's a bit harder because of the 5 players, 2 teams mechanic.

In addition to picking battles, there's the purchase, non-combat move, and deployment phases. The interesting problem with these choices is their impact will be felt 2-4 steps down the game tree.  It might be possible to model this into the tactics tree, or its own separate tree, but the breadth intimidates me.  2-4 turns, 5 actors, 1-11 (on average) new pieces, 12 or so possible pieces, multiple possible deployments...  If I had to try this, I'd tackle it in separate stages.  Movement can be handled as first minimizing opponent payoff in one transition.  If payoff is minimized without movement, stack to strongest front.  If no strongest front, go to front of preference.  I'd probably hardcode deployment, and placement of any additional factories, until everything else was working and I had lots of free time.  I'd try purchasing as a kind of lookup table based on current troop IPC value, or if playing with infantry defends on 1, try purchasing with troop ratios (that is, try to have 6 infantry to 2 artillery to 2 tanks to 1 plane, etc.)

At the "grand strategy" level (i.e. if no strongest front), fronts of preference are defined per standard strategy--Axis prefer to attack Russia, then Britain, then US and Allies prefer to attack Germany, then Japan.

Of course, there are other ways to do it and mine is just one step removed from brainstormed.  There's surely better.


Does a Venomthrope gets an extra attack for using multiple weapons?

The reason why the entry for Venomthropes does not list off "two pairs of scything talons" is because Venomthropes--unlike Raveners--have options for how to arm up that are zero cost.

Looking at the Fast Attack Ravener Brood entry, it lists under options:

  Any Ravener may exchange one pair of scything talons for rending
  claws - 5 pts/model

In other words, a Ravener will have two pairs of scything talons--all the time--unless you pay 5 pts/model to switch it out, using this optional upgrade.

Let's focus on the Designer's Note you referenced:

  Designer’s Note: Tyranid Melee weapons come as pairs. For game
  purposes, each pair is treated as a single Melee weapon. This means
  that Tyranid models must fight with two pairs of any Tyranid Melee
  weapons to gain a bonus Attack in close combat for fighting with two
  weapons. For example, a Hormagaunt armed with a single pair of
  scything talons does not gain a bonus Attack, but a Ravener with two
  pairs of scything talons, or a Genestealer with a pair of rending
  claws and a pair of scything talons, does.

If your model has four (4) lash whips, that is very straightforwardly two pairs of weapons.  Each pair is treated as a single melee weapon.  Your model therefore has two melee weapons and will gain a bonus attack in close combat for fighting with two weapons.

Or put another way:

set aside two lash whip models.  two bits, one pair, for game purposes single melee weapon.
set aside two lash whip models.  two bits, one pair, for game purposes single melee weapon.
does the venomthrope support holding all of the physical weapon bits?  If the venomthrope has all four weapon bits, the venomthrope has two melee weapons.

So in a normal assault-phase attack (non-charge), you would get 3 attacks: 2 (base attack score) +1 (double melee weaps)


Fixing the "Vs. Player" squares in Encore!

From the looks of the rules, ways of solving this issue are rather limited. This appears to be a normal roll and move trivial pursuit type of game of the music variety. Your solution is probably the best solution, just don't use single player spaces. In any game that requires a single player from a team to answer a question, it can be awkward if that player is completely stumped. In a game like this, where you want collaboration, I see no need to force single players to compete against each other.


This seems like a mistake to me. I don't see a way to win the race. I wonder if the point was that White now has a stable group, so this is a failure for black. White can hane underneath the stone on the right side, and should probably be happy with that - Black was stronger here to begin with.


Do you need to buy a card when playing treasures in Dominion?

That's fine.  From the Dominion rules:

The cost of a card is in its lower left corner. The player may play some or all of the Treasure cards from his hand to his play area and add to their value the coins provided by Action cards played this turn. The player may then gain any card in the Supply of equal or lesser value. He takes the purchased card from its Supply pile and places it face-up on his Discard pile. He my not use the ability of the card when it is gained.

If the player has multiple Buys, he combines Treasure cards and any coins available from Action cards to pay for all of the purchases. For example, if Tyler has +1 Buy and 6 coins provided by two Gold cards, he can buy a Cellar costing 2, placing it face-up in his Discard pile. Then, he can buy a Smithy with the remaining 4 coins and place that face-up in his Discard pile. If he wants to use all 6 coins to buy one card, he can buy a Copper (for free) with his second Buy or not buy a second card. Players do not have to use any or all of their Buys.

(bolded for emphasis by me)

EDITED, to answer Chris' edit: Yes, it's fine to use Loan's "power" and then not buy anything.  As stated in the rules above, you play a Treasure card from your hand, in this case the Loan: at which point the Loan card's abilities kick in, and you carry out all the revealing, discarding and trashing.  Now you have (at least) 1 coin in your pool that you could spend on a Buy: but the rules make it clear that actually buying something is always optional, no matter how much cash or how many Buys you are entitled to!


What happens when each player has to draw a card with no cards left in their library?

It's a draw.
A player does not lose immediately when drawing a card from an empty library:

704.5b If a player attempted to draw a card from a library with no cards in it since the last time state-based actions were checked, that player loses the game.

State-based actions are not checked until after Skyscribing resolves completely:

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 117, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event.
117.2e 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.”

State-based actions will make all players lose the game, and 104.4 applies in that situation:

104.4. There are several ways for the game to be a draw.
104.4a If all the players remaining in a game lose simultaneously, the game is a draw.

So it's a draw. (Unless one of the players has an effect akin to Obstinate Familiar, in which case they win the game as the only surviving player.)


Is it worth it to buy booster boxes or singles to collect 4 regular and 4 foil Cards

The answer to this will vary depending on the size of the set. I will use Khans of Tarkir as an example, which has 101/80/53/15 commons/uncommons/rares/mythics.

According to this answer,

1 in 6 packs contains a foil
foil mythics are several times more rare than foil rares. I interpret this to mean that distribution is equal to the total number of unique cards of each rarity, e.g. for Khans you'd expect 101 out of every 249 foils to be common, and 15 out of every 249 foils to be mythic.

The question of "how long does it take to randomly collect one of each item in a collection, with replacement?" is called the Coupon collector's problem.

On average,

You need to get 524 commons before you have one of each. There are 10 commons per pack, so you will need to open 52.4 packs.
You need to get 397 uncommons before you have one of each. There are 3 uncommons per pack, so you will need to open 132.3 packs.
You need to get 241 rares before you have one of each. There is one rare per pack, except in the 1/8 chance of getting a mythic, so you will need to open 275 packs.
You need to get 49 mythics before you have one of each. There is one mythic per eight packs, so you will need to open 392 packs.

You need to open an average of 14.7 packs to get one foil common, so you need to open 7702 packs to get one of each.
You need to open an average of 18.7 packs to get one foil uncommon, so you need to open 7423.7 packs to get one of each.
You need to open an average of 28.2 packs to get one foil rare, so you need to open 6796.2 packs to get one of each.
You need to open an average of 99.6 packs to get one foil mythic, so you need to open 4980 packs to get one of each.

The question of "how long does it take to randomly collect N of each item in a collection, with replacement?" is called the Double Dixie Cup Problem. User PM 2Ring located and implemented the formula for me; in general, collecting four sets of something takes about twice as many trials as collecting one set of something.

+--------+---+----------+----------+--------+--------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|rarity  |qty|trials    |trials    |regulars|foils   |packs needed for|packs needed for|packs needed for|packs needed for|
|        |   |(copies=1)|(copies=4)|per pack|per pack|a set of        |a set of        |a set of        |a set of        |
|        |   |          |          |        |        |1 regular       |4 regular       |1 foil          |4 foil          |
+--------+---+----------+----------+--------+--------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|common  |101|525       |1091      |10      |101/1494|52              |109             |7765            |16138           |
+--------+---+----------+----------+--------+--------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|uncommon|80 |397       |839       |3       |40/747  |132             |279             |7413            |15668           |
+--------+---+----------+----------+--------+--------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|rare    |53 |241       |527       |7/8     |53/1494 |275             |602             |6793            |14855           |
+--------+---+----------+----------+--------+--------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|mythic  |15 |50        |122       |1/8     |5/498   |400             |976             |4980            |12151           |
+--------+---+----------+----------+--------+--------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+

to get four of every regular and foil card in Khans, you would need to buy 16,138 packs, with an MSRP of $64,390.62 plus tax.

For comparison, you can currently get a full set of Khans of Tarkir (non-foil) for $200 from SCG. SCG doesn't have the foil set, but you can find it for around $490. 4 x $200 + 4 x $490 = $2760.

$64,390.62 is a lot more expensive than just buying singles for $2760, so singles are the way to go.


Are there any legal go arrangements that can never occur in an actual game?

Assuming you're only interested in what's on the board and passes are allowed.

I would go backwards then: what was the position just before?

It's quite easy to see that if you remove any stone of any colour from a legal position, it will still be legal.

So in deciding what was the last move, pick any stone of the player whose turn just ended and assume that that stone was placed without any capturing.

If the number of black and white stones is too different, include a sufficient number of passes for one player.

In other words, the way to get to a given position, the players just have to place their stones (in any order) to where we want them to be and nowhere else (with a certain number of passes if necessary). No capturing will happen then.