Okay, I'll give it a shot.

First, what they have in common:

Static Cards: They are all static (meaning not CCG) card games.  Some (Dominion and Thunderstone) have expansions, but none of them require collecting or hunting down 'rare' cards to make the game better.
Victory Points: They all use a Victory Point system to determine the winner.  This is called "honor" in ascension (I think) but in essence, its still victory points.  The person with the most at the end wins.
Flexibility in numbers:They are all flexible on the number of players: Ascension is 2-4, Thunderstone is 2 - 5 (or 6) and I think Dominion is 2 - 6.  Not sure on the numbers exactly because Thunderstone has a nice single player variant, and both Thunderstone and Dominion can be expanded to include more players by playing with expansion cards.

Now the differences.

Deck Building:

Dominion is focused on building a deck to buy victory points.
While there are cards to interact and "attack" the other players, the game is centered around building a deck that will allow you to buy the most victory points.
Thunderstone focuses on building a deck from a general pool of cards, and then using your hand to "defeat monsters in the dungeon", thus gaining your Victory Points from the defeated monsters.  Some Victory Points can be purchased as well, but not usually enough to win the game, so defeating monsters is important to winning.
Ascension is much more like Thunderstone than Dominion.  In Ascension, you must also build a deck to defeat monsters to gain Honor (Victory Points) but unlike Thunderstone, the cards in the general pool are revealed one at a time.  So you have a line of 8 cards, and when one leaves play (your deck, or the discard pile) another fills that spot.

All are fairly easy to pick up, especially if you have played CCGs before or one of the above.

Dominion is probably the most well known and most played, as it's been around longer and there are several (many...) expansions.

I like them all and while I played Thunderstone first, then learned the others, I think that they all can be quite fun.  Most game shops will probably have Dominion on their "demo" shelf.  Several around here have Thunderstone and Ascension as well.


Are gates too slow for constructed play?

Short answer: unconditionally entering the battlefield tapped leaves them at too great a disadvantage with respect to the other options, and these lands are designed for limited play.

More specifically, there's essentially no advantage to using Gates over the corresponding shocklands or core set/Innistrad duals; since there's virtually no land type specific LD, gates are for all practical purposes strictly worse than their corresponding shocklands, because the shocklands can be fetched with Farseek and otherwise have the option of coming into play untapped if you're willing to take the hit.  Likewise, the core/Inn lands are exactly like the Gates except for the possibility of coming into play untapped on turn 2+ (and note that the shocklands 'turn on' the core lands, which is another point in shocklands' favor).

Between these two factors, the only thing that Gatelands have to offer over the other choices is that little word: 'Gate'.  If there were cards that took real advantage of the gate type - say, something like a Rampant Growth/Farseek for Gates - then I think you would actually see them getting some play in ramp decks.  As it is, though, the only cards that interact with Gates are a couple of creatures (none of which is within constructed-stats range) that gain small benefits for gates in play and Gatecreeper Vine, which fetches a gate but - unfortunately - doesn't put it into play.  This means that the land type (at least for now) isn't offering any upside to offset the advantages that the other styles of dual have.

So why do they exist?  Well, pretty much for the reason that you noted; RTR limited is going to need quite a bit of manafixing since there are so many multicolor cards; this means putting fixing down into the common slots.  And while Rarity Is Not Power, WotC has a number of reasons for not having rares 'outclassed' in substantial ways by commons, and they've done very few powerful land cycles at common (or even uncommon) - you can generally expect that any land-based mana fixing that winds up in the common slot is going to be a little bit weak.


House rule to fix vindictive behavior in Princes of Florence

An alternative to a house rule is often a good defensive strategy. In this case: try to create a situation where multiple of the auction options would be acceptable; if all the other players bankrupt themselves to outbid you, you win! I believe this is really the essence of the game: to manoeuvre yourself into a position where there is nothing that you absolutely need in order to do OK.


Neighing the active effect of Special Delivery in unstable unicorns

No, this does not count as "playing" a card.
From the rules:

Play vs. Bring Directly into Your Stable
"Play" specifically refers to playing a card from your hand
during your Action phase or playing an Instant card at any
time. If you "bring a card directly into your Stable," you
do not "play" that card. This means that any card that is
brought directly into your Stable cannot be Neigh'd.

Note that there are two print runs, and the earlier version included a different rulebook without this clarification.


First of all make sure you are following the base rules for Monopoly as there are a lot of different house rules that are used that make the game take much longer then it should. Judging on the accepted answer it seems that you are indeed using some house rules that make the game take longer.

I am including 3 rules that are commonly changed by house rules that make the game take much longer, though there are other house rules that cause problems.

Also I have included some official suggestions on making a game shorter.

Official Rules

Buying Property.

When someone lands on any unowned piece of property it will either get purchased by them or by someone at auction so there should be no reason to need more money to buy property at the start.

  BUYING PROPERTY… Whenever you land on an unowned property
  you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You
  receive the Title Deed card showing ownership; place it face up in
  front of you.
  If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction
  to the highest bidder. The buyer pays the Bank the amount of the bid
  in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. Any player,
  including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed
  price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.

Free Parking

This space does not give the player that lands there anything.

  “FREE PARKING”… A player landing on this place does not receive
  any money, property or reward of any kind. This is just a “free”
  resting place.

Passing Go

You do not get double the amount for landing on go

  “GO”… Each time a player’s token lands on or passes over GO,
  whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card, the Banker pays
  him/her a $200 salary.
  The $200 is paid only once each time around the board. However, if
  a player passing GO on the throw of the dice lands 2 spaces beyond it
  on Community Chest, or 7 spaces beyond it on Chance, and draws the
  “Advance to GO” card, he/she collects $200 for passing GO the first
  time and another $200 for reaching it the second time by instructions
  on the card

Suggestions from the rules for a short game

Suggestion 1

  There are five changed rules for this first Short Game.
  1. During PREPARATION, the Banker shuffles then deals three Title
  Deed cards to each player. These are free— no payment to the Bank
  is required.
  2. You need only three houses (instead of four) on each lot of a
  complete color-group before you may buy a hotel. Hotel rent remains
  the same. The turn-in value is still one-half the purchase price, which
  in this game is one house less than in the regular game.
  3. If you land in Jail you must exit on your next turn by 1) using a
  “Get Out of Jail Free” card if you have (or can buy) one; or 2) rolling
  doubles; or 3) paying $50. Unlike the standard rules, you may try to
  roll doubles and, failing to do so, pay the $50 on the same turn.
  4. The penalty for landing on “Income Tax” is a flat $200.
  5. END OF GAME: The game ends when one player goes bankrupt.
  The remaining players value their property: (1) cash on hand; (2) lots,
  utilities and railroads owned, at the price printed on the board; (3) any
  mortgaged property owned, at one-half the price printed on the board;
  (4) houses, valued at purchase price; (5) hotels, valued at purchase
  price including the value of the three houses turned in.
  The richest player wins!

Suggestion 2

  TIME LIMIT GAME… Before starting, agree upon a definite hour of
  termination, when the richest player will be declared the winner.
  Before starting, the Banker shuffles and cuts the Title Deed cards and
  deals two to each player. Players immediately pay the Bank the price
  of the properties dealt to them


No, Karlov will not gain counters.

Extort will resolve before Karlov. When you gain life from Extort, Karlov will not be on the battlefield yet, and his ability only works while on the battlefield.

  702.100a Extort is a triggered ability. “Extort” means “Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay {W/B}. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain life equal to the total life lost this way.”

The order of play is:

You cast Karlov, it goes on the stack.
Because of the completed cast of Karlov, Extort triggers. It goes on the stack on top of Karlov.
Extort resolves first because it is the top-most item on the stack. You decide to pay the costs, and you gain life.
Karlov resolves and enters the battlefield. His triggered ability starts listening for life-gain events.


I suspect that you're right that in principle and possibly even in practice an optimal AI could be built for this game to determine who can win from the starting position, though it would likely take more computing power than you're likely to have readily available.  The best approach for brute-force solving a game like this is something close to what user1873 suggests in comments: rather than considering all lines of play, simply consider all board positions and determine the value of each board position.  This is the approach that's typically taken for solving Chess endgames; while this board has many more cells (I count roughly 200, although the diagram isn't very clear) than the average chessboard, the fact that all the pieces are identical here does help a bit, and so it may be within reach; note that the chess endgames with 6 and 7 pieces have been solved for quite a while now.  There are roughly (200 choose 3) = 200*199*198/6 = 1313400 positions for one team's chariots, and so roughly 1.7 trillion positions for all the chariots that would need to be evaluated.

Now, note that you don't have to build a 'move matrix' of 1.7 trillion x 1.7 trillion entries explicitly; that would be too large.  Instead, the game could be solved with a sort of backtracking: first, identify those positions which are clearly won, and which person is winning them.  Next, 'backtrack' - that is, play a turn in reverse - to identify all of the positions from which won positions can be reached, and then forward-evaluate each of those positions with a short move tree for that one turn to determine which of these positions lead to a forced win by one player or the other.  You need a 'move tree' here because a turn isn't just a single move, but instead consists of multiple interlocking moves by the two players.  Once that first turn's worth of backtracking has been done, another turn's worth can be handled in the same fashion; positions can be continuously added to a queue for evaluation, with a bunch of new 'one-move-back' positions added each time the queue empties.

Unfortunately, the catch here is in that move tree; the branching factor there is large enough that it probably pushes an explicit solve out of the realm of practicality (although perhaps not out of feasibility for someone with enough computing power).  A 'move tree' consists of an assignment of the cards 1-5 to 3 chariots (plus a possibility of throwing cards away) for each player, plus some interleaving; this gives roughly (ignoring the throwaway) 75 moves at the first branch (3 different chariots that can be moved, times 10 (picking 3 cards from 5) + 10 (picking 2 cards from 5) + 5 (picking 1 card from 5) possible moves for the picked chariot) and up to 28 moves at the second branch (2 chariots that can be moved, times 4 (picking 3 cards from 4) + 6 (picking 2 cards from 4) + 4 (picking 1 card from 4) possible moves for the picked chariot).  Since cards can be thrown away for turns, we'll back-of-the-envelope bump these to 100 and 50, and call it 10 moves at the bottom branch; this gives roughly 50,000 moves for each player that have to be considered in the move tree, or about 2 billion possible branches to examine on the move tree.  I suspect this is highly overestimated - possibly by up to a factor of 100 or so - but a more careful analysis would be much trickier to finagle here.  Even so, I'd guess there are many million possible ways of each turn playing out, and while doing some standard alpha-beta pruning (using established positional values) will cut that back down, it's still likely to take quite a bit of work at each of the 1.7 trillion nodes to establish a value.

Since positions may have to be evaluated more than once (if the first time determines that they can't be wholly solved yet), the overall work done is likely to be on the order of several exaflop (i.e., quintillions of operations total) worth of computation.  That's a lot of operations - but note that you could get yourself access to a petaflop/second's worth of computational power, and thus do the whole solve in a few thousands of seconds - i.e., a few hours (possibly a few days).  The biggest bottleneck is likely to be access speed to the database of values for positions, since something on the order of a terabyte (the rough size of that database) is still a bit too large to be kept in memory at this point; it'd have to be carefully designed to keep as much as feasible cached in memory and to be very smart about its disc accesses.

That said - I'd say that this is right on the edge of supercomputer feasibility right now; if the game were a bit better-known, this would make an excellent graduate project for a sufficiently motivated supercomputer programmer (or team).


Can a Monster carry more than one Sample at a time?

Yes,

You are playing this correctly on both counts.  A monster can carry more than one sample, see the rules on page 12

  When a monster with sample tokens is killed, all its
  sample tokens are discarded.

The trade in for 5 threat is automatic and should be used for all samples carried by a monster on the altar's space.


This has been a problem since the days when dice, hand-carved out of sheep's knucklebones, could never be considered mathematically fair. Historically, there have been two principal ways of improving a game:

Make sure that a particular number is not always good or always bad. In Craps, rolling a 7 is good for the shooter on the first roll, but bad thereafter; a slight unevenness making 7 more probable is not likely to materially affect the chances of winning, which it might with a simpler rule.
Where possible, make results comparative not absolute. To decide randomly who starts in a two-player game, it would be possible to roll two dice and choose based on even or odd; this is 50/50 if the dice are fair, but not otherwise, so it is rare. Each player rolling the dice and the higher result starting is common, giving even chances no matter what unevenness there may be.

I would also suggest using all the shells every roll if possible; it is annoying enough waiting for those players who carefully select the "high-rolling" or "low-rolling" dice each time, without the possibility that they might actually have a point.


What is this oversized playing card deck for, with numbers 11-15 and Barons and Knights?

The deck wasn't made with 20 cards in each suit to match a particular kind of game — it was made with 20 cards because that's the number of amino acids.
Google translate gives us some indicators of that from the product description:

4 to one of the base 4 in one of the suits, 20 of amino acid 1 from 20 (...)
Normal playing cards 13 compared to the sheets, because the number [ed: of amino acids] is large, J (Jack, 18 th), Q ( Queen, 19 number ) , K (King, 20 th) in front of the 16 as the number K N (Knight, Knight) , 17 as No. B are (Bishop, priest) the picture card of the addition.

Though very rough (very rough), they're acknowledging playing cards are usually 13 to a suit, but they voluntarily expanded the number and added a couple of picture cards because there's a larger number of amino acids than just 13.
The page consistently says it's for Trump (the Japanese name for our standard 52-card playing cards) and never identifies any other game for which you'd use these.
Instead, it's something brand new, as they close off saying, and it's for you to figure out what you might like to do with these cards:

Because it is a new playing cards, to devise how to play, while having fun, the root of the living world is a principle DNA should understand the relationship between the amino acid.


No, you don't generate more Mushroom Armor in decline.  From the rules on entering in Decline:

  To do so, the player flips his current Race banner upside down, so
  that the duotone In Decline side becomes visible to all, and discards
  the Special Power badge that was associated with it as that Special
  Power badge is no longer in effect, unless dictated otherwise (e.g.
  Muddy, Reborn, Royal, etc…).

As for the turn you go into Decline, the rules for Shield state "For each Mushroom Forest Region you occupy at the end of your Conquest phase".  Back to the rules for Decline: "The player can make no conquests during the turn his race goes into decline; his turn ends immediately after scoring!"

Basically you don't even get a Conquest phase on the turn you go into Decline, much less any new Mushroom Armor...


Why can cards like Frost Breath tap creatures that are already tapped, but Teferi, Hero of Dominaria can’t untap lands that are already untapped?

The main difference between those cards is that Frost Breath targets the permanents and Teferi's ability does not.

Frost Breath's text says

  Tap up to two target creatures. Those creatures don't untap during their controller's next untap step.

The targets are chosen when you cast the spell, and since it just says "target creature", you can choose any creature, even a tapped one. Once the spell resolves, it tries to tap those specific creatures. If it can't, it just moves on to the next instruction.

Teferi's ability, on the other hand, does not target. It just says

  Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap two lands.

This effect just tries to untap any two lands, so you have to choose lands that can actually be untapped. This effect still follows the quoted rule 609.3; if there is only one tapped land on the battlefield when the ability resolves, you untap just that land.

You have to choose tapped lands because rule 701.20b says

  To untap a permanent, rotate it back to the upright position from a sideways position. Only tapped permanents can be untapped.

and in part of the description of the process of resolving a spell or ability, rule 608.2d says

  If an effect of a spell or ability offers any choices other than choices already made as part of casting the spell, activating the ability, or otherwise putting the spell or ability on the stack, the player announces these while applying the effect. The player can’t choose an option that’s illegal or impossible [...]

It is impossible to untap a permanent that is already untapped, so you can't choose to do so.


Is it possible that you mean Exodus Proxima Centauri? https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122842/exodus-proxima-centauri

I never played this game but I once saw it at a fair.


What's the point of the covered character in the Bang! 2-player variant?

I haven't played this game, but the rules seem fairly clear to me.

1) You can swap which character is covered, and which is exposed, each game turn. So they don't have to stay in the background.

  At the beginning of any turn, after dealing with such cards as Jail
  and Dynamite and before Phase 1, the active player chooses one
  character to be exposed and the other to stay cover. In order to do
  this, push the exposed character towards the center.

2) You only get to use your exposed character's ability. The exception is when your covered character is targeted, in which case you get to make a response from them instead (poking their head out of cover).

  During your turn, or your opponent’s turn,
  you can only use the ability of your exposed character. However, if
  your covered character is the target of a card (BANG!, Indians!, Duel,
  etc...) you temporarily get the ability of your character in cover
  (and lose the ability of your exposed one), for the short time needed
  to respond (see example below).

3) Your hand size is determined by the life remaining of your exposed character.

  When you declare the end of your turn, you must discard from your hand any
  card exceeding the current life points of your exposed character.


Does Feast for Crows Expansion balance 4 player Game of Thrones?

That is certainly one of the goals of the expansion.  Whether or not it succeeds is somewhat subjective, but it currently has 23 ratings on Boardgame Geek and is averaging an 8.61 out of 10, so I would say that most people seem to think it works pretty well.


Are there times to pre-empt with a "strong" six trumps in bridge?

Under most circumstances, I wouldn't. If your partner has 3 or 4 clubs and mediocre strength, and decides to support, you might find yourself in a disastrous 4CX or 5CX while your opponents didn't have anything better than a game.

It depends on your distribution as well. With 6-4-3-0 I might feel bold enough to try it. With 6-3-2-2, probably not.


Does March of the Machines make artifacts in hand creatures as well?

On any given card, a card that specifies a permanent type without explicitly saying 'card' only affects permanents in play (unless otherwise specified by the card).  If you have an artifact card in your hand, it is exactly that - an artifact card, and not an 'artifact'...

Relevant rule

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

(https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Object)


Yes there is, at The Dominion Strategy Wiki.

Cards:
Chariot Race, Farmers' Market, Bishop, Crumbling Castle, Monument, Sacrifice, Temple, Emporium, Groundskeeper, Plunder, Wild Hunt, Goons, Grand Castle

Events:
Conquest, Wedding, Triumph, Salt the Earth, Ritual, Dominate

Landmarks: Aqueduct, Arena, Basilica, Baths, Battlefield, Colonnade, Defiled Shrine, Labyrinth, Mountain Pass, Tomb


Why Does Magic Use The "Paris Mulligan" Rule?

A few points:

"Good for the game" is drastically different if you are playing competitively or casually. Competitive Magic should encourage good deck building and make it as fair as possible to each player. Paris mulligan vs. lenient paris mulligan isn't going to drastically change the fairness between the two players at the table and adds more complexity to an otherwise already complex game.
Learning when to mulligan is actually a very useful skill in Magic. Making it easier to stomach doesn't necessarily make it a better mechanic. Designing (and testing) decks with 7, 6, 5 card hands is very important. Likewise when playing against particular decks. Some decks struggle against a 1 card advantage. Some decks shrug it off and keep pounding.
Real life Magic mulligan problems can often be solved by shuffling properly. People can get lazy in their shuffles and tournament nerves can make it worse. Take the time to adequately shuffle your deck each time you draw a hand. This is especially true after a mulligan: Simply cut-shuffling a few times will result in you drawing the exact same cards you just threw back.
When playing casually, I recommend players just draw back up to 7 after a mulligan. I would rather play against a deck's best chance than roll over someone with a 5 card start. Casual games should be fun more than fair; if the lenient paris mulligan is more fun for your play group then that is how you should play.


There are no "official" kingdom sets for Prosperity and Cornucopia. Personally, I like it when both Tournament (from Cornucopia) and Colonies (from Prosperity) are out, because it tempts people to try to buy some Provinces and end the game on piles. Even more interesting if Bishop is out, so you could potentially trash the Provinces for decent points.

I'd recommend just playing random sets until you find interactions you like. For generating random sets, I like http://www.hiwiller.com/dominion/, but there's lots of other tools out there.


Good set of cards for teaching beginners

I would not recommend any one card set to teach all the important rules from each expansion.  That may be too much.

For brand new beginners, I recommend the "Big Money" set from the first game.  I use this before the one recommended by the base set rules ("First Play"?) because it teaches the trade off between money and actions.  First Play is really a preview of all the different card abilities, which may give the erroneous impression that the game is all about actions.

Otherwise, I'd play random sets (with some drafting) from the combined sets and teach the rules as they come up.


It seems like what you need is not magnetic mats, but instead simply a metal playmat, and magnetic cards. Unless you produce it yourself, I doubt you're going to find magnetized sheets that fold, whereas you might find a foldable metal whiteboard, or could build one yourself. From there, making the magnetic cards could be as easy as attaching magnets to the back of paper cards, or get the cards printed on magnetic sheets. Of course, how feasible this is depends on your board and card sizes.

The combination of metal and foldable sounds like it wouldn't be much fun sliding things over the surface, nevermind if either part is magnetic. Since you're already dealing with uncomfortable movability, have you considered using hook and loop fasteners (also called Velcro, because of it's manufacturer/trademark holder) instead? This would be consideably cheaper and more portable than a solution involving metal components, nevermind less likely to break and - if you make everything out of fabric material - even washable.

If all you need is a solution to be able to fix the cards into place, you might want to go with a wooden base plate and use tacks to fix the cards on the surface once you're satisfied with the position. This is the most budget-efficient variant I can think of. It comes with the downside of not being infinitely reuseable, as both the board and the cards will be damaged a little bit each time they're used, but this is certainly something you could go with for testing purposes one way or another.

You could also go more fancy and use a base layer out of any rigid material of your choice, along with a cover layer out of a transparent, equally rigid material such as acryllic glass. You could move the cards around without the inhibiting factor a magnet would have, and when you're done, place the transparent layer on top and affix it in a suitable way that depends on what you're trying to do with it.
You may be fine with some kind of clamps, but if you need to pin it on a wall or need to otherwise store it in an upright state, you would be better off using screws (you could fix them to the base plate, reducing the amount of loose parts while making the final assembly easier) and wing nuts, which are easy to use and don't require tools.

If I'm missing what you're trying to do entirely, please clarify your question, providing details about anything you can think of. Brainstorming requires some kind of ground under the feet.


When casting an instant or sorcery, it goes:

Announce the spell and pay all costs
People can respond
Spell effect happens
Spell goes to graveyard

So in this case, you'd cast Enlightened Tutor, find the enchantment, shuffle your library and put then enchantment on top, and then try to put Enlightened Tutor in your graveyard. So you have your target on top of your library and Enlightened Tutor on the bottom.


Do you lose additional turn if sent to jail by Community Chest?

When you end up in jail your turn ends and you have 3 turns to roll doubles to get out of jail or pay the $50 fee. The turn ending doesn't matter if you had additional dice rolls due to getting doubles.
I bolded the section in the rules that talks about turns ending.
https://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/monins.pdf

“JAIL”… You land in Jail when… (1) your token lands on the space
marked “Go to Jail”; (2) you draw a card marked “Go to Jail”; or
(3) you throw doubles three times in succession.
When you are sent to Jail you cannot collect your $200 salary in that
move since, regardless of where your token is on the board, you must
move it directly into Jail. Yours turn ends when you are sent to Jail.
If you are not “sent” to Jail but in the ordinary course of play land
on that space, you are “Just Visiting,” you incur no penalty, and you
move ahead in the usual manner on your next turn.
You get out of Jail by… (1) throwing doubles on any of your next
three turns; if you succeed in doing this you immediately move
forward the number of spaces shown by your doubles throw; even
though you had thrown doubles, you do not take another turn;
(2) using the “Get Out of Jail Free” card if you have it; (3) purchasing
the “Get Out of Jail Free” card from another player and playing it;
(4) paying a fine of $50 before you roll the dice on either of your next
two turns.
If you do not throw doubles by your third turn, you must pay the
$50 fine. You then get out of Jail and immediately move forward the
number of spaces shown by your throw.
Even though you are in Jail, you may buy and sell property, buy
and sell houses and hotels and collect rents


Mirage Mirror - does copy suffer from summoning sickness?

No, summoning sickness is not a copyable value

Copiable values

The copiable values of an object are its name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and loyalty. These values are usually copied exactly as printed. However, copy effects do respect changes to those values resulting from other copy effects, face-down status, and some effects that set a creature's power or toughness. The last are only considered if they have the wording "as [the object] enters the battlefield" or "as [the object] is turned face up".

Additionally, for objects on the stack (that is, spells or effects that have not yet resolved), copies also copy any choices made while casting it, such as mode, targets, or additional or alternate costs that were paid. Many, but not all, effects that copy spells allow the controller of the copy to choose new targets for that copy.

Information not copied

Counters on the object being copied and objects attached to it, such as Auras or Equipment, are not copied.

The collective status of the original object is also not copied. Unless otherwise stated, the copy will be created untapped, unflipped, face-up, and phased-in. This leads to an important distinction and oddity regarding copies of face-down creatures. A copy of such a creature will acquire the copiable values of the original face-down creature, and become a 2/2 colorless, costless, nameless, subtypeless creature, but it will instead be face-up. Such a copy is unable to morph, and never acquires the face-up characteristics of the original creature.

source


When does Skullcage have its effect activated?

Skullcage triggers during your opponent's upkeep step, which is before their draw step. The order of steps in a Magic turn is

Untap
Upkeep
Draw
Precombat Main
Combat
Postcombat Main
End


FreeCell: How many cards can be moved at once?

Technically, one

In FreeCell, you are only allowed to move 1 card at a time, either to or from a free cell or from one stack to another.

That said, it is trivial to move an entire stack of N+1 cards, where N is the number of free cells, by moving N cards to the cells, moving the last card to the new stack, and then pulling down the stored cards onto the new stack.

Most computer implementations of FreeCell allow you to move entire stacks without having to step through the intermediate storage on the free cells (as long as there are enough free cells).  An implementation without this ability would be totally playable, but it would be aggravating to use because simple actions would take significantly more work on the part of the player.

Empty columns can be used as free cells, simply adding 1 to your free cell count.  But they're also much more powerful than that, because they can hold stacks.

If you have a single empty column, you can transfer N+1 cards to that column, N+1 cards to the new stack, and then transfer the N+1 cards from the formerly empty stack onto the new column, for a total of 2*(N+1) cards moved.  Obviously, this only works if you're not transferring cards to the empty column, in which case you're limited to only using the free cells, for N+1.

If you have two empty columns, you can transfer 2*(N+1) cards to that column (using the other empty column, N+1 cards to the second column (since you no longer have an empty column to use), then N+1 cards to a new stack, then reverse that process to pull all 4*(N+1) cards onto the new stack.

With three columns, the third column will be able to store 4*(N+1) cards, leading to (4+2+1+1)(N+1) = 8(N+1) cards being movable.

I hope you can see at this point that the trend will continue, and the total formula is
(2^M)*(N+1), where M is then number of empty columns and N is the number of empty stacks.

All of that said, transfers that utilize columns to their maximum effect are more complicated, less common, and less labor intensive than just using free cells.  If your implementation forces players to use columns manually it won't have the same excessive effect on quality of play that not using the free cell shortcut would have.  Experienced players would probably be unhappy, but it would still be playable.

Additionally, it's not necessarily obvious to new players how to get the maximum transfer using 2+ empty columns, so by doing those maneuvers for them you are possibly allowing players to make moves that they couldn't figure out on their own.  Remember, the goal here is to shortcut routine, obvious, and boring moves without actually providing strategic aid to the player.  That's a judgement call on your part.

My vague memories of Microsoft's earlier implementations was that it either only shortcutted free cell moves, or free cell + one empty column moves, and if you wanted to use more than one empty column you had to figure it out yourself.  I don't remember for sure, though.


How is morale resolved when the Bonding Knife and Tormentor rules are in effect?

With the release of 9th edition, the new core rule book contains a "Rare Rules" item that addresses the situation above
Morale Priority: If a unit is affected by conflicting rules, those that automatically pass Morale tests or cause no models to flee take precedence.
With that rule in place, Bonding Knife Ritual takes precedence and the test will be passed.


Other than basic lands (Island, Forest, Plains, Swamp, Mountain, and Waste) you are only allowed to have four cards in your deck with a given name. (Barring a few exceptions where the card itself says otherwise, or the card is restricted in the format you're playing.)

As an example, you are allowed to have four copies of Plague Rats, and four copies of Ravenous Rats, you can also have any number of Relentless Rats, as the card has specific text allowing "any number" which overrides the four card limit.

In short, you are allowed any number of distinct card names, but only four instances of any given name.


Does being removed from a location via a character ability or event count as "leaving"?

It isn't specifically limited to the movement actions, so anything that causes your pawn to no longer be in that location would count, including events or character abilities. You do have the option to simply stay in that location and perform non-movement actions, which can be viable towards the end of the game if you're about to win or lose anyway.

I asked the same question on BGG, and while there aren't any "official" answers, all of the posts so far have agreed with the conclusion that there are no exceptions.


How concise can I get the Soulbond boilerplate in a homebrew card without functional changes?

All three wordings have the same effect. The last one looks different in that it doesn't say that the bond goes away if control changes or they stop being creatures, but the rules cover that; the wording of soulbond is redundant.

With none of your wordings does the ability have a target. This has some minor effects, like allowing you to pair with a creature with shroud or protection and the not making you choose the creature to pair with until the ability resolves.

The first two could also be changed to say "this one" instead of "this creature", like the original.


Can I get multiple effects from Alhammarrett, High Arbiter when using Brago, King Eternal's ability?

The effect disappears as soon as you blink the Arbiter.

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

The rules list a few exceptions, but the situation you describe isn't one of them. The blinked Arbiter does not know anything about the Shock you chose when it was cast.


Can I combine different races as a single army?

It is perfectly legal to use Necrons with Chaos Space maines so long as you obey all the necessary allies rules.

In standard games of 40K your can field allies with your army using the Allies Matrix.  When you do this your select one army to be your primary detachment and the other one as the allied detachment.  Your primary detachment works as normal and you select your warlord from it as usual.  For the allied detachment you use a modified force organization chart:

[1] HQ
[0-1] Elites
[1-2] Troops
[0-1] Fast Attack
[0-1] Heavy Support

Allied detachments work with your army with varying amounts of efficiency.  You can see the full allies matrix below.

From the matrix you can see that Necrons and Chaos Marines are classified as Allies of Convienence. In this instance, it means that troop units from both detachments are scoring, but characters cannot join units from the other detachments.  Also, army abilities will treat the units from the other detachments as enemy models


How do cards with multiple Xs in their mana cost work with cards that reduce their costs?

Casting Astral Cornucopia with X=1 and Jhoira's Familiar in play will cost {2}.
The number of Xs in a casting cost doesn't matter for cost reduction effects. If you choose X=1, the mana cost of Astral Cornucopia will simply be {1}{1}{1}, or {3}, the sum of mana symbols. Jhoira's Familiar will reduce the mana cost by {1}, resulting in a total cost of {2}.

202.1a The mana cost of an object represents what a player must spend from their mana pool to cast that card. Unless an object’s mana cost includes Phyrexian mana symbols (see rule 107.4f), paying that mana cost requires matching the type of any colored or colorless mana symbols as well as paying the generic mana indicated in the cost.
601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. [..] The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions.[..]


Selling is a form of discarding, as emphasized by the World of Munchkin FAQ (part of the "The rules say that cards in play must be traded or discarded. When can I discard them?" question). Sold items would go to the respective discard pile.

For completeness' sake, the rules have the following to say about selling items in general, also mentioning that selling items is discarding them:

Selling Items for Levels:
At  any  point  during  your  turn  except during combat or Running Away, you may discard Items worth a total of at least 1,000 Gold Pieces and immediately go up one level. ("No Value"  cards  are  the  same  as  zero  Gold  Pieces.)  If  you  discard  (for instance) 1,100 Gold Pieces worth, you don't get change. But if you can manage 2,000 worth, you can go up two levels at once, and so on. You may sell Items from your hand as well as those you are carrying. You may not sell Items to go to Level 10.


What card game is this? Similar to spades

Sounds like Cassino (also called Casino according to Wikipedia).


How many meeples should I have according to the expansions that I'm currently using?

The list of expansions that add pieces for each player are as follows:

Base game

7 meeples, plus one for scoring.

Inns & Cathedrals

Adds the Big Meeple.

Traders & Builders

Adds the Builder and the Pig.

Abbey & Mayor

Adds the Mayor, the Barn, and the Wagon.

Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars

Adds 2-3 bridges and 2-3 castles, depending on the number of players.

The Phantom

Adds the Phantom.

Of the new pieces, only the Big Meeple, Mayor, Wagon, and Phantom are truly meeples.  The rest of them change the rules but can't be placed on their own.  In the games you listed, you're right, you should have 9 meeples.


In bridge, how low an "unlucky" percentage would a good player guard against?

2%?  I don't think most would worry about 2% on most hands, because most hands you'd be losing a higher percentage of the time to protect against the lower.

But yes, in this kind of case it's not uncommon to protect against 5-0 splits.  While it's not common, 2% is 1 in 50 hands, meaning it might come up a few times in a weekend; the difference between a highly experienced player and a top-tier player might only be a few hands, and those would be some of them.

It really comes down to the hand.  If the hand is played at IMPs (where making the hand is paramount, rather than overtricks), and it's solid for 4-1 or 3-2, then there's no reason not to explore 5-0 split lines.  I've certainly done it a number of times before, and I'm hardly a world class player.

I suspect your story is a bit of an apocryphal one, given the description of the actions after the tournament director was called are inaccurate to what would really happen at a tournament (slow play involves slow play warnings, and eventually board penalties, but would not modify the results of a hand; the tournament director would not "award the point" either, it would be up to the opponents to accept the claim or not, if a claim was indeed what was made).  But the actual details - that a world class player considered his line of play for several minutes in order to find a safe line against a 5-0 split - are entirely reasonable, if a bit boring compared to the dramatic telling.


Will generated tokens be progressively stronger when using Cathar's Crusade and Sorin, Grim Nemesis?

All 35 tokens enter the battlefield at the same time. All creatures you control, including the 35 tokens you just created, will get 35 +1/+1 counters.
As Sorin's ability resolves, you carry out its instructions; in this case, create 35 1/1 creature tokens.
Cathars' Crusade will be triggered 35 times:

603.2c An ability triggers only once each time its trigger event occurs. However, it can trigger repeatedly if one event contains multiple occurrences.

If it were to trigger only once, its trigger condition would have to be worded differently, for example as "Whenever one or more creatures enter the battlefield, [..]". As it is, it triggers once for every single creature entering the battlefield.
All abilities that do trigger during the resolution of a spell or ability wait until that spell or ability is fully resolved before they enter the stack:

603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority.
116.3. Which player has priority is determined by the following rules:
116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

The abilities created by Cathars' Crusade work on all creatures on the battlefield at the time they resolve, not when it is triggered or when it enters the stack. Assuming that no player takes further action, the 35 Cathars' Crusade triggers will resolve and give every creature you control, including the tokens, 35 +1/+1 counters each.


Why is 21 damage from a commander lethal?

The original rules for Elder Dragon Legend Wars had the following as part of the rules:

players choose (or select at random) an Elder Dragon Legend as their army's leader. The dragon must be supported by creatures and spells corresponding to each of the Dragon's three specific casting colours.
Players designate and announce three of their creatures as "Warlords" and two creatures as "Captains". If an opponent destroys a Captain, the Captain's controller takes 2 damage, and the destroyer gains 2 life. If a warlord is destroyed, the controller takes 3 damage and the destroyer gains 3 life. And for an Elder Dragon, the controller takes 4 damages, the destroyer gains 4 life.

I'm not sure when or how the rules where modified to add the 21 damage rule, but I found an interesting thread on the MTG boards. Someone who goes by the handle TheTrueNub posted this:

  Well, I can tell you why the 21-damage rule was put in place, anyway. It didn't start out as anything to promote certain archetypes like voltron. "Commander" as we know it was once "Elder Dragon Highlander," the reason being that you'd choose one of the five Elder Dragons of Legends block (Arcades Sabboth, Chromium, Nicol Bolas, Palladia-Mors, or Vaevictis Asmadi) as your commander. Each of these dragons are 7/7, therefore three successful swings equals 21 damage. Though nowadays you don't have to use an Elder Dragon as your commander, the "21 Elder Dragon damage rule" is still preserved to this day.

This makes sense to me. I imagine he "three swings rule" was a flavourful rule added to ensure a large multiplayer game didn't drag out for too long and that aggro strategies were viable. Without this rule, it's too easy to build a lifegain and/or control deck that wouldn't give combat-oriented decks a chance.


When would you "slot" points in backgammon?

This depends heavily on what the opponent has done so far with his runners. If both runners are still on your 1 point, or if only one runner remains in your home board, slotting forward from your 6 point often has a good risk reward. If two split runners exist in your home board (or one runner and one or more opposing men on the bar), you must be much more cautious slotting in your home board.

Additionally, the thickness of your wall to date allows more aggressive play moving it forward. If you have pointed on 5-6-7-8 already, slotting on 4 might be considered even against split runners, but the shape of your opponents home board is important also.

Weighing all these factors is good judgement, which comes only form the experience of having made decisions with bad judgement and learning form it.


Does Hardened Scales interact with the undying mechanic?

Yes, Young Wolf would get 2 +1/+1 counters. The reminder text for Undying says

  When this creature dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.

A ruling on the Hardened Scales Gatherer page says

  “Placed on a creature you control” includes that creature entering the battlefield with +1/+1 counters on it. If a creature would enter the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters on it while you control Hardened Scales, it enters with that many counters plus one.

When Young Wolf returns to the battlefield from the graveyard, it enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter, so Hardened Scales makes it enter with 2 instead.


I am trying to remember the name of a card game

I think the game is Trex, also known as Trix, Tricks, or Ticks.

The game is played by four players and consists of four cycles of five games each. During each cycle, a new player is the dealer. The dealer chooses in which order the five contracts are played (one in each game).

The Wikipedia article notes that it's similar to Barbu.


Why would it? Nothing in the Sultan status says you can't lose wealth. It simply raises your wealth like so many other effects, and the rules clearly limit your wealth to Princely if you have no treasure.


What is the best tournament format for Cripple Mr Onion?

Totally missed when you gave the link to the rules.  That helped out a bunch.  As I understand it, Cripple Mr. Onion plays out much like Blackjack in that each player bets individually against the dealer.

There is a difference in that the dealer is a player too and the position of dealer is bid for each round.  I don't think that makes a ton of difference to what I'm proposing.

If you end up with 7 or less people you should do one table and one round.  At the end of the time, players are ranked by the number of chips that they have.

If you have more than 7 people you will need 2 rounds.

Divide the players up into X groups of Y people.  X and Y should both be between 3 and 7 (inclusive).
Split your available time in half, reserve 10 minutes for a break during which the chips will be counted.
At the end of the first time period, the person with the highest chip count at each table will move on to the finals.
For the finals, collect all the chips and redistribute them evenly.  (You don't want someone who had an extremely weak first table having too much of an advantage in the finals)
At the end of the finals, players are ranked by the number of chips that they have.

Example, you have 20 people.  The first round will be 5 tables of 4 people.  The finals will then be one table of 5 people.


Do I need to roll the dice to open a vault door? Or is it auto success?

It depends on the type of weapon used.

Vault doors can be opened like standard doors (unless otherwise stated in the Quest’s description)
Melee weapons with the “Open a door” symbol can be used to open a door next to the Survivor. Spend an Action and roll as many dice  as the weapon’s  Dice value: the door is opened if any die result equals or exceeds the Accuracy number of the weapon. Place a Noise token in the Zone.
Some weapons have the “Open a door” symbol without a die symbol on it.  They can be used to open doors without the need to roll any dice. Just spend an Action to open the door. A Noise token is placed if the weapon is noisy (see Reading An Equipment Card, page 12)

Can I close vault doors?

You can't normally close a door (of any kind), but there's a skill that grants the ability.

Lock it down – At the cost of one Action, the Survivor can close an open  door in his Zone. Opening or destroying it again later does not trigger a new Zombie Spawn.

It doesn't mention explicitly mention vault doors, but vault doors are opened just like any other door, so I would conclude they can be closed just like any other door too.

Vault doors can be opened like standard doors (unless otherwise stated in the Quest’s description)

It seems obvious that you should only put a noise token if the weapon is noisy for opening doors

I agree. This is already explicitly stated for weapons with the "open a door" symbol without a die symbol on it.

Some weapons have the “Open a door” symbol without a die symbol on it.  They can be used to open doors without the need to roll any dice. Just spend an Action to open the door. A Noise token is placed if the weapon is noisy (see Reading An Equipment Card, page 12)

(Emphasis mine)
I believe you will find there is no weapon with the "open a door" symbol with a die on it and without a bell on it. If you do find such a weapon, I agree that it shouldn't make noise when opening a door (although I'd check to see if the bell icon was accidentally left out first).


I'm not sure what you mean by 'catches'  to me that sounds you think its the other players responsibility to stop cheating. Checking the rules from here and here (I couldn't find a copy of official game rules on a quick search)  It reads that a player is not allowed more than 7 cards.  This is more commonly called a 'hand limit' in other games.

There isn't anything that says other players have to 'catch them'  to enforce a rule.  Nothing says you can have more than 7 cards if no one spots them.  This could be because either a player is cheating or more hopefully just made a mistake.

Its impossible to give a definitely answer about what happens in this game as its not covered in rules.  What I would suggest is to if possible just apply the hand limit as soon as error is noticed.  If this would give a player an unfair advantage then maybe discard at random although that could be unfair.   The links above say the came has a quick start guide?  I assume this mentions the order to do things on a turn including the hand limit?  Many games come with something like this and its a good idea to use it to follow you turn.  Say out loud to other players that you are discarding help each other and remind each other of rules mistakes happen less often.


When can you cast Flash after casting Collective Voyage?

MtG works by a system of timing and priority. The Active Player, player whose turn it is, can cast Sorceries when the stack is empty during their first or second Main Phase. After casting a spell and paying the required costs, including mana costs, the spell waits on the stack for all players to pass priority, then the top object on the stack resolves.

Casting Collective Voyage for one {G} mana places it on the stack, and then priority is returned to you.

  116.3c If a player has priority when he or she casts a spell, activates an ability, or takes a special action, that player receives priority afterward.

You may choose to cast Flash before Collective Voyage resolves, in response to it, since Instants may be cast anytime you have priority and you have the required costs including mana cost {1}{U} to cast the spell. In this case, it would resolve first.

  116.1a A player may cast an instant spell any time he or she has priority. A player may cast a noninstant spell during his or her main phase any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty.

You may also choose to wait until after Collective Voyage resolves, when you will receive priority again to cast spells and activate abilities. In this case, it would resolve afterward.

  116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

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

During the resolution of Collective Voyage, players may not cast spells, but may activate mana abilities to search their library for land cards. The order of how much to pay is written on the card, starting with the player who cast Collective Voyage and continuing clockwise. After all players have decided how much to pay, the lands are placed on the battlefield simultaneously and Collective Voyage is placed in its owner's graveyard (having resolved).

  116.1d A player may activate a mana ability whenever he or she has priority,whenever he or she is casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment (even in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability).


Which games have ever been rated #1 on Boardgamegeek.com's Geek Rating?

Strangely, Wikipedia had this information:

  Paths of Glory (August 19, 2001 - February 20,2002)
  Tigris and Euphrates (February 20, 2002 - 2002)
  Puerto Rico (2002 - August 2008)
  Agricola (August 2008 - December 2010)
  Twilight Struggle (January 2011 - December 2015)
  Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (January 2016 - Present).

As Jefromi's answer shows, the dates aren't quite as nicely laid out as Wikipedia shows, but these are the games that have been #1 at some point in time based on persistent user ratings.

If we expanded it to games that rose to #1 because of bugs or user coordination, three more games are added: (1) The Game of Life, (2) Monkey Auto Races, and (3) Die Macher. The specific reasons for each are described on the Wikipedia page.

The games that have hit #1 are also listed on BGG in one of the Completely Useless Statistics threads.

Update:

As of December 29th, 2017, Gloomhaven is the #1 rated board game.


Can Enchantment Creature play its enchanted ability?

Close, but not quite. Bestow is an alternative way of casting the card, once you choose to cast it not for its Bestow cost it is a regular 3/3 Enchantment Creature with Trample (It isn't enchanting itself so it doesn't get +3/+3 from its ability). There is no way to attach it to a creature once you have cast it as a Creature.

  702.102. Bestow

  702.102a Bestow represents two static abilities, one that functions while the card with bestow is on the stack and another that functions both while it’s on the stack and while it’s on the battlefield. “Bestow [cost]” means “You may cast this card by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost.” and “If you chose to pay this spell’s bestow cost, it becomes an Aura enchantment and gains enchant creature. These effects last until one of two things happens: this spell has an illegal target as it resolves or the permanent this spell becomes, becomes unattached.” Paying a card’s bestow cost follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2e–g.

  702.102b If a spell’s controller chooses to pay its bestow cost, that player chooses a legal target for that Aura spell as defined by its enchant creature ability and rule 601.2c. See also rule 303.4.

  702.102c A spell’s controller can’t choose to pay its bestow cost unless that player can choose a legal target for that spell after it becomes an Aura spell.

  702.102d As an Aura spell with bestow begins resolving, if its target is illegal, the effect making it an Aura spell ends. It continues resolving as a creature spell and will be put onto the battlefield under the control of the spell’s controller. This is an exception to rule 608.3a.

  702.102e If an Aura with bestow is attached to an illegal object or player, it becomes unattached. This is an exception to rule 704.5n.


Is Pandemic Legacy as good with 3 players as it is with 4?

We've played the game with both 3 and 4 in the same campaign.  It didn't affect the feel of the game either way.  For a variety of reasons you likely won't play the same characters in every mission anyway, so there is no reason that you can't add or drop someone part way through.


Instead of searching for "gomoku", search for "renju tutorial" and you find this useful site:

http://renju.net/study/advanced.php


What is the safest way to approach discussing a prize split?

A 'split' is only possible if everything is divisible.  It is basically just a shortcut for all remaining (generally 8 or 4) players all having to go around and individually agree with each other to evenly share any product they may win.  Then separately all going back around and all agreeing to drop from the tournament.  This is all completely allowed.  The 'Split' rules just spell out explicitly and reassure organizers (who aren't by any means expected to be rules wonks) that this particular scenario that comes up often when FNM runs late is allowed by DCI.

You can make an agreement to share prizes any way you like, then actually play the match for real and report the real result.  Or ID, or one player may choose to concede/drop.  As long as there is no link between prize agreement and match result, it's fine.

If specific match results (including dropping from the tournament) are discussed, requested or offered, it's bribery, simple as that.

Sometimes it is not possible to agree to share a prize (like byes and blue envelopes) without implicitly offering a match result because DCI requires the prize be awarded to particular finishing positions.  You are allowed to agree to split however you like only in the final round of the tournament.  Basically at this point you're not harming other people's prospects in the tournament, forcing someone to play for a prize they won't use is stupid, and forcing "fake" matches harms the integrity of the game far more than letting people work out dividing prizes they don't want/won't use.

So to your two questions:

1) Don't mention or make any arrangements about match results and you can agree to do anything you want with transferable prizes you have won or may win.

2) If you've made an agreement that requires reporting a particular match result such that one player advances to claim a particular prize, that is bribery.  If it's the final round of the tournament it's allowed for a player to drop.


Is there a functional reason for Ghostfire not having the Devoid keyword?

Yes, there is a practical difference between Ghostfire and Reality Hemorrhage as far as the color-setting ability goes.

The colored mana produced by Corrupted Crossroads could not be used to cast Ghostfire.

Other examples of cards affecting other cards with specific keyword abilities include at least the cards found by this search, except Humility. Note that this was a very basic search, and there are many more such cards that affect specific keyword abilities, such as Adarkar Windform.

It seems unlikely that Ghostfire, a card released in 2007 as part of the out-of-order Future Sight edition and the only card made colorless by a CDA before the Battle for Zendikar block, was intentionally left un-errata'd to nerf its interaction with Corrupted Crossroads. Avoiding unnecessary erratas seems to be the most likely explanation why it was not updated.


Do creatures with summoning sickness count as tapped?

Saying a creature has "summoning sickness" just means that it hasn't been under its controllers control since the beginning of their turn and it doesn't have haste. Such a creature cannot attack and cannot cause itself to become tapped (i.e. you can't pay a Tap or Untap cost in an ability on that creature - it can still become tapped or untapped by other sources).

A "tapped creature" simply means a creature which has been turned sideways for one reason or another.

In other words, Sheer Drop only cares about whether or not the creature has been turned sideways, it doesn't care at all about when the creature entered the battlefield. If your creature is sick but hasn't been tapped, Sheer Drop can't target it.


In Catan Jr, what happens when a resource is gone and players should receive more of it?

There appears to be no mention of this in the rulebook. The original, vanilla Catan game rulebook states this:

  If there are not enough of a given resource in the supply to fulfill everyone's production, then no one receives any of that resource during that turn.

So that's an option. Another option might be a house-rule along these lines: A player should receive Wood, but there's no more Wood in the stockpile. If that player gives a Wood from his own cache to the bank, he gets to choose another resource. This is basically a 2:1 trade, giving two Wood (one from their hand and one owed them by the bank) for one other resource. This keeps the player happy for he gets resources, and puts some of this resource back in the bank.


I've not seen any multiplayer versions before, but why couldn't you play this the same way that you play multiplayer battleships?

I've played a few variations of multiplayer battleships. One where you select a square in a single opponent's grid, another where all shots hit all grids.  I've even played a version where your shots hit all opponent's grids, but not your own (which made it very tempting to shoot at your own ships).

Players would score for guessing a password as in the original game.  You could implement a score penalty for an incorrect guess, otherwise there would be significantly less benefit in revealing an opponent's square.

If you want to enlarge the search space (for example, if playing that all shots hit all grids) then each player could create several 5x5 grids, only one of which contains a five letter word.


Spades rules on trumping in after spades are broken

As in most traditional trick-taking games, a player must follow suit if able. Breaking spades only allows a player to lead spades, i.e. to play a spade as the first card of a trick. Players can only play a spade on a non-spade trick if they have no cards of the led suit.


Yes. It can target any permanent with the Enchantment type, be it a plain old Enchantment, an Enchantment - Aura, a Legendary Enchantment Artifact, or an Enchantment Creature. Same goes for artifacts: it can destroy equipment, for example.

Aura is a subtype of enchantment, and something which says "target enchantment" doesn't care about subtypes, just that the permanent it targets has enchantment as a type. This is similar to the fact that something which says "destroy target creature" can target any creature, whether it's a Creature - Elf or a Creature - Ooze.


In Bridge, What Is "Playing the Card You Are Known to Hold?"

Great question!

The basic idea is that by playing the card you are known to hold, you do not give declarer any extra information and might mislead declarer about the length of your holding in that suit (the falsecarding bit).

(btw, your example about west leading Q and you playing K from Kx not to disclose your A is not completely right. If East has the A, he will play it. And West would likely not lead the Q from AQ {unless an NT contract, of course}. So the location of the A will probably be known anyway...)

Anyway, here is an example with respect to defense.

      AQJx
      xx
      xxx
      AKJT
Kxx          xxx
xxxx         xxx
xxx          xxx
xxx          Qxxx
      xxx
      AKQx
      AKQJ
      xx

Playing Matchpoints (note: overtricks matter here) South the declarer, finds himself in 6NT.

You are West and you lead a heart.

Declarer wins and plays a spade to the J which wins.
Now declarer comes back to hand with a diamond and leads another spade.

At this point, you must play the card you are "known" to hold: the K.

The K is going to drop on the A anyway, so it is not as if you are wasting that card.

Consider:

Declarer has 12 tricks and would be trying for the 13th (remember, this is matchpoints).

To try for the thirteenth, declarer has two major options: spades 3-3 or club finesse. (we are ignoring any squeezes to get the point across, and IMO those chances are inferior anyway)

If you play low instead of K, declarer will know that you started with either Kxx or Kxxx.

In either case, declarer can cash the third spade to test for spade 3-3. If spades are 4-2, he can safely take the club finesse into partner's hand, who has no spades to cash.

So if you play low, declarer can combine his chances of spades 3-3 with the club finesse without endangering the contract and in the current layout, he will make 13 tricks.

Now imagine you played the card you are known to hold, the K.

Now declarer will likely place you Kx, (but a smart declarer will not completely eliminate Kxx, or Kxxx, of course).

Now if declarer tests for spades 3-3 and you indeed turn up with Kx, declarer is in danger of losing his contract if the club finesse (for the 13th trick) loses, as partner can cash a spade when he gets in.

So in order to not endanger the contract and having some chances of making the 13th trick, declarer might choose to give up on spades and take the club finesse.

If that happens, you hold declarer to 12 tricks, while at the other tables where the defender in your position played low, declarer makes an easy 13.

So by playing the K, you have nothing to lose but a lot to gain.

Of course, at the table you might not have time (or even need to) think about all this. The idea of not giving declarer any extra information is usually sound and when you have no clue about a hand (or need to play in tempo), it pays to follow general principles.


How can a Morph ability counter split second spells?

The Gatherer ruling on Voidmage Apprentice explains it fairly well:

  If a spell with split second is on the stack, you can still respond by turning this creature face up and targeting that spell with the trigger. This is because split second only stops players from casting spells or activating abilities, while turning a creature face up is a special action.

The triggered ability still does use the stack, but split second doesn't stop it. And of course, you're able to turn it face up in the first place because that's a special action, not an activated ability that uses the stack.


Looking for games with drop-in drop-out mechanic

Fluxx and a few other social card games allow players to join or leave at any time.


Giving a creature hexproof as a response

Nahiri's ability would be countered due to a lack of legal target (commonly called 'fizzling'). This is because the legality of a target is checked at 2 different times, when the ability is activated and put on the stack and then again when the ability goes to resolve.

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. [...] Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. [...] The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal. If the spell or ability is not countered, it will resolve normally. Illegal targets, if any, won’t be affected by parts of a resolving spell’s effect for which they’re illegal. [...]
Example: Sorin’s Thirst is a black instant that reads, “Sorin’s Thirst deals 2 damage to target creature and you gain 2 life.” If the creature isn’t a legal target during the resolution of Sorin’s Thirst (say, if the creature has gained protection from black or left the battlefield), then Sorin’s Thirst is countered. Its controller doesn’t gain any life.


You cannot do as you described, there is a ruling on Simic Guildmage (emphasis mine):

  For the second ability, only the Aura is targeted. When the ability resolves, you choose a permanent to move the Aura onto. It can’t be the permanent the Aura is already attached to, it must be controlled by the player who controls the permanent the Aura is attached to, and it must be able to be enchanted by the Aura. (It doesn’t matter who controls the Aura or who controls Simic Guildmage.) If no such permanent exists, the Aura doesn’t move.

Since you cannot attach an Aura to itself due to rule 303.4d you cannot choose to attach Indestructibility to itself:

  303.4d An Aura can’t enchant itself. If this occurs somehow, the Aura is put into its owner’s graveyard. An Aura that’s also a creature can’t enchant anything. If this occurs somehow, the Aura becomes unattached, then is put into its owner’s graveyard.

Even if you could make that choice, the Aura would not move due to rule 303.4j:

  303.4j If an effect attempts to attach an Aura on the battlefield to an object or player it can’t legally enchant, the Aura doesn’t move.


Can you choose how to sacrifice a creature if you are forced to?

As a general rule - No.
In response to your opponent forcing a sacrifice, you can trigger your Blood Host's ability to the top of the stack.  This will then sacrifice your creature for the Blood Host, and then any other abilities remaining on the stack will resolve.  If this is the only creature that you have on the table, then the original sacrifice effect will be unresolved, exactly as if you were unable to sacrifice at the time the spell was cast.
If you have multiple other creatures on the field (As would be the case with your Blood Host being on the battlefield to begin with), you would have to chose another sacrifice for the initial effect.


In Magic the Gathering, what block is the Homelands expansion set?

Homelands was originally released as part of the Ice Age block, at least for tournament purposes. Because it did not fit with the themes or mechanics of Ice Age, it was later replaced with Coldsnap. So at this time, Homelands is not considered part of Ice Age or any other block.
From the MTG Wiki:

The Ice Age block is the first block of sets, consisting of the large expansion Ice Age in June 1995 and two small expansions, Alliances in June 1996 and Coldsnap in July 2006.
The Homelands expansion, released after Ice Age and before Alliances, was originally considered to be a member of the Ice Age block, although it included none of the mechanics or themes of the block.

And

Homelands, released in October 1995, is the seventh Magic expansion. It was the second expansion of Ice Age block until July 2006, when it was replaced by Coldsnap in this role.


Resolving Diplomatic actions in a RISK-style board game

A question to consider is whether diplomacy should even be something that is directly handled by the game mechanics, or something that happens purely through negotiation between players with game mechanics that encourage negotiation.

A great example of this is, of course, Diplomacy. There are no mechanics directly related to diplomacy (nothing that says you're in a treaty, or that diplomacy was successful or not), but the fact that moves are submitted simultaneously, and that you generally need support from multiple armies in order to take territory, means that you need to ally with other players in order to get ahead, and you need to place a certain amount of trust in them that they will do what they say; and those facts means that there are complex, shifting alliances throughtout the game, backstabbing, and negotiated two or three way wins at the end.

Another good example of this style of encouraging diplomacy and backstabbing is A Game of Thrones.

Beyond simultaneous movement mechanics, another way to encourage diplomacy without adding it explicitly to the game it through trading. If people are able to trade resources at some point in their turn, like in Settlers of Catan, then they may be able to negotiate a non-aggression pact and/or trade some resources, giving the players who negotiate such a pact an advantage over the other players in the game.

I would be wary of making diplomacy be something you roll for. It's very easy to add too much rolling for action resolution to the game. People will wonder when playing "why can't I just negotiate directly, why do I have to roll randomly to negotiate, even when what I'm proposing is directly to the advantage of both players involved?" Try to make the diplomatic aspect more of an emergent property of your game, which comes about not because of explicit rules, but because it's the most sensible way to play the game, and I think your players will enjoy it much more.


How many steals runner do when accessing multiple agendas in the archives?

Argus gets triggered 3 times.
From the rulebook (page 18):

  Archives: The Runner accesses all cards in Archives and any
  upgrades in its root. The Runner turns all cards faceup when
  accessing them, and does not need to keep them in order. The
  Runner steals all agendas in Archives and cannot trash cards
  that are already in Archives. After accessing Archives, all
  cards in Archives return to Archives faceup

  Accessing Multiple Cards
  When accessing multiple cards, the Runner accesses them one
  at a time in any order he likes.[...]

  The Runner must fully resolve his access to a card (steal it, pay
  to trash it, etc.) before accessing the next card. If the Runner
  scores an agenda that gives him seven or more points, he
  immediately wins the game, even if he would otherwise access
  more cards.

To summarise: runner accesses all cards in archives. Runner must steal all agendas they access. Runner accesses each card separately and fully resolves each access before continuing to the next card, so Argus ID gets triggered on each steal separately.


I think the easiest way to think of this is in terms of options, and the freedom to take whatever options benefit me.

In your example, you have no options: You need to win this ko, or you will lose.

However, in my case, killing you might not be my only option. I could kill you and swing things thirty points in my favor, or if I felt like it I could grab that empty corner over there worth twenty points and strengthen my position on the right, or I could go back and reinforce my moyo on the bottom to help me with the late game fighting that hasn't started yet, or I can pick a fight with those weak stones in the centre that you forgot to connect five turns ago. I have options. You don't.

As for why the ko is asymmetric in the first place, I would be weighing not only the relative value of winning the ko, but also the actual chances I have of winning it. In most "asymmetric ko" situations, you're probably the one with the first opportunity to win the ko, and I probably won't have any threats on the board big enough for me to significantly threaten you with: Nothing I do is likely to stop you from winning it, because you need to win this ko, or you will lose. If it was just a question of "I can definitely kill you and get a hundred points, or I can definitely take two hundred points over here instead while you win the ko" that's not really an asymmetric ko.

Even if there are big enough ko threats, or somehow I had the first opportunity to win the ko, depending on how close the score is and how strong our respective positions are there might still be no real need for me to be greedy; I can forego the risk and cost of the ko (maybe those high-value ko threats will be more useful later when there's a more important fight going on) and take a lesser but safer advantage elsewhere and still maintain a comfortable lead. Why should I use up valuable aji and give you the opportunity to carve out a chunk of my territory when I don't need to?

Let's take, for the sake of example, the following situation with a 70-point life-or-death ko on the board:

I play a 70-point ko threat.
You respond.
I take the ko.
You play a 60-point ko threat.
I win the ko.
You follow through on your threat.

Now, this whole exchange, I'm ahead by ten points, and I've used up a 70-point ko threat to get there. This…isn't terrible, but not really an incredible outcome; if I had just played a ten-point ko threat in the first place and let you ignore it, I'd be in the same place score-wise, but with less wasted aji. Or I could've played any number of other ko threats that may have given me less points but otherwise strengthened my position. Options.

You, on the other hand, don't really have the opportunity to play a ten-point ko threat since, well, I'll just take the ko: That's now a 60-point advantage for me. You're the one who needs the big threats here, not me. Whether you live or die, I'm still coming out ahead while you still have to go back and secure your tenuous life situation. I'm totally okay with this.

In other words, you're painting yourself into a corner where you give your opponent every chance to dictate which battlefield he wants to fight on. This is generally a bad idea.


Do you get to draw a card if you rotate a tile?

No, new draws can only be made if a new location is in contact with the lava.

Check the rules on page 6: (emphasis mine)

  If this tile is rotated as shown, only one
  Action Card is drawn because there is
  only one lava flow in contact with a new
  location in the village

Also, this was answered on BoardgameGeek by the Designer Chris James


What brand of card sleeves are most reliable for Magic the Gathering?

I have not seen any independent quality assurance tests comparing the various sleeves, and I sincerely doubt there is a comprehensive one to be found. It's probably not economical for anyone involved, since QA comparisons like that can be quite expensive.

From anecdotal evidence at my local shop, which has ~80 player FNMs every week, most players seem to agree agree that:

KMC sleeves (matte or normal) are generally the most durable.
Dragon Shield will start split during shuffling.
Ultra-Pro Pro-Matte will become dirty fairly quickly.

These are the three most popular sleeve types at the shop.


Can Canopy Spider block Treetop Rangers?

The text “can block as though it had flying” does not exist on any cards any more; any cards that used to have it, such as Canopy Spider, have received errata to have Reach instead. Note that even Giant Spider was printed at one time with the “can block as though it had flying” text.

When determining the correct card text of any card, all that matters is what is written in the Oracle card database at gatherer.wizards.com. It does not matter which printed version of the card you are playing with.*

However, to answer your question in terms of MTG history, back when those cards did have that text, yes, they could block Treetop Rangers. This is because for the purposes of declaring them as blockers, you acted as though they had flying. The errata to use Reach changed this interaction.

Source:

  Creatures with reach (and without flying) won't be able to block creatures that say they "can't be blocked except by creatures with flying," simply because those creatures don't actually have flying (and will no longer act as though they do). Cards affected by this change are Elven Riders, Silhana Ledgewalker, Treetop Bracers, Treetop Rangers, and Treetop Scout.

*The un-card R&D's Secret Lair aside.


Return a creature with an adventure to hand, can i cast the instant/sorcery again?

Yes, you would be able to use the adventure again.

If an object changes zones (like battlefield, hand, library, graveyard and exile) it is a completely new object and knows nothing about anything that happened to "it" (the card that represents it) before. So you can send everything off on an adventure again. But you are right, for that you have to have played the creature part of the adventure and then return it to hand. Before that the card is in exile (and thus hard to interact with).


In Seafarers of Catan, are there any special rules for ships or harbors in lakes?

From Combination of “The Fishermen of Catan” with “Seafarers” Scenarios

  If you include the lake, it should always be completely surrounded by
  land hexes. You must  not build ships at the lake. (Of course, if you
  use the lake as a coastal hex anyway, you may  also build ships on the
  sides facing the ocean.)

I suggest this ruling would also apply to the scenario that you described above.


How can I tell which cards or sets are currently legal in various formats?

I would refer you to the following page:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-formats/formats

I think you'll find everything you need there!  Both lists of legal sets for each format, and lists of individual cards that are banned or restricted in those formats.


Can Uncontrollable Urges be used to force one Investigator to attack another?

It looks like the answer is no. From page 2 of the FAQ:

  Q: Can the keeper use Uncontrollable urges to make an investigator attack
  another Investigator with a weapon?
  What about spells?

  A: No. This only
  allows him to use a spell, equipment,
  artifact or tome card. If he forces an
  investigator to cast a spell, he must
  choose a legal target. To clarify, if
  a spell says “choose a Monster”, it
  may not be used against an
  investigator (even if playing Story
  5). As another example, the Keeper may
  not force an investigator to use the
  “Sedative” equipment on an
  investigator who does not have a
  Trauma card.


The primary threat to the Mindslaver player is a free instant that cannot be wasted. The simplest example is if the opponent starts out with no cards in hand, and then draws Temporal Mastery followed by Force of Will, and they have fewer than 12 lands. The Mindslaver player cannot afford to give the opponent an extra turn outside of the lock, and they can't waste the spells by countering the Temporal Mastery with the Force of Will. But even if they tap all of the opponent's lands, the opponent can still counter the Mindslaver on the following turn, and spend at least one turn outside of the lock.

Here, you can replace Temporal Mastery with any blue spell that either has no legal targets during the opponent's turn or cannot be cast without severely damaging the lock. Alternatively, Force of Will can be replaced with another free counterspell such as Foil or Thwart. If the opponent is very lucky, they could even draw Commandeer and two blue spells that the Mindslaver player doesn't want cast. If the Mindslaver player is using all of their resources to maintain the lock, even Daze can break it. Even Pact of Negation would work, because the opponent would be able to choose to pay the cost on their turn.

Note that of the spells mentioned, only Commandeer and Pact of Negation are Modern legal (along with Temporal Mastery, but that's kind of tangential).


How to calculate the power level of a Commander deck?

Power level is very subjective, and its main purpose is to communicate gameplay expectations.
I personally think that trying to create a very refined algorithm for grading power levels misses the point of what the power level is trying to achieve.  Power level is based mostly on comparing decks to each other.
Because Commander is mostly a casual, multiplayer format, power level is simply a discussion to help maintain player parity to ensure interactive and enjoyable gameplay.  It's to prevent someone's janky Pirates win with treasure deck from being completely obliterated by a well-tuned Prossh Food Chain combo deck.  While both those decks are playing Commander, they're arguably playing different games.  The power level is a discussion tool to manage expectations and make sure no one feels left out of this long, multiplayer game.
To that end, the parameters I've heard for determining power level are much less specific than the ones you've posited in the question. The concepts I use to estimate power level are as follows:

Raw power of win conditions
Consistency
Speed

Some of your criteria in the question fall into these broad categories.  For example, the presence of Commander staple ramp cards help improve both the consistency and speed of the deck.  Immediate win-conditions like Expropriate or Craterhoof Behemoth have good raw-power.  Having a single combo that is easily disrupted by your opponents' removal lowers the consistency of your deck.
Comparing decks is just making sure that games are fun and reasonably competitive instead of being one player playing solitaire and everyone one else just watching.  So I wouldn't worry about getting the exact numbers in your rating system as long as the decks are close.  That being said, my 0-10 rating system, that I based on advice from The Command Zone (a podcast about Commander), is as follows:

0-1: It's hard to consciously bring yourself to make a deck this actively bad unless you're going for an off-beat theme like "griffon tribal."
2-3: These decks might be a jumble of rares (and not necessarily good ones) that someone had in their collection.  The commander exists to provide the color identity needed to play all of these favorite cards, even though many do not synergize with each other.  Consistency is typically low because there is no coherent idea for the deck.
4-5: Most of the Commander pre-constructed deck are at this power level.  There are some themes in the deck, but maybe the deck just plays slowly due a lack of ramp.  Possibly there are too many ideas going on at once, or maybe the win-conditions are just not very powerful.
6-8: These decks have a very clear game plan.  They are pretty efficient and/or flexible.  Research and refinement of deckbuilding is likely.  Upgraded pre-cons and decks that have gone through experimentation and updating typically are around here.  The financial costs of these decks can be higher due to the expense of consistent, faster mana bases or sought-after singles that are high impact.
9-10: These decks are built to win.  They are competitive-tier (CEDH) decks that are very fast and very consistent.  Often, these decks use expensive cards (like Mox) to help speed up the deck even more.

Based on your brief description of your Samut beatdown deck, I'd estimate it at about 5 depending on how consistent it is.  The strategy sounds a bit fragile because it appears all-in on combat and lacks card draw, but it sounds like it has plenty of threats and ways to deal damage.


Lands are never spells, even if they have other types like Dryad Arbor.

  305.1. A player who has priority may play a land card from his or her hand during a main phase of his or her turn when the stack is empty. Playing a land is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 115). Rather, the player simply puts the land onto the battlefield. Since the land doesn’t go on the stack, it is never a spell, and players can’t respond to it with instants or activated abilities.

  305.9. If an object is both a land and another card type, it can be played only as a land. It can’t be cast as a spell.


What are the differences in strategy going first vs going second, vice versa, in Scrabble?

There's no real difference other than, if you go first, you get an advantage worth roughly 10 points (because you are starting on a double word score tile, and if you can make a 5-letter word, also a double letter score tile).
Only thing worth noting if you go first is not to give up easy double crosses on the double letter score tiles near the starting tile. For example, if your starting word is FAME, you should not play it such that the two vowels are next to the double letter score tiles.


Would Evacuation and Ambush Commander return all forests to their owners' hands?

Ambush Commander only affects its controller's Forests, but otherwise, yes.  Evacuation will return them to their owners' hands.
This doesn't come down to a single rules citation, but ultimately Creature Lands still count as creatures due to this rule:

608.2h If an effect refers to certain characteristics, it checks only for the value of the specified characteristics, regardless of any related ones an object may also have.
Example: An effect that reads “Destroy all black creatures” destroys a white-and-black creature, but one that reads “Destroy all nonblack creatures” doesn’t.

It does not matter that they are 'Creature Lands', the spell just cares that they are creatures.


Do bombardment counts for "invading planets"?

Yes, the rules (pg. 12) refer to the term "invasion" as:

Hostile Landing (also called an "Invasion"): A player lands units on a planet containing one or more of an enemy player's Ground Force units. This will result in an Invasion Combat during the Invasion Combat step.
If a player lands units on a planet that is controlled by an opponent, but does not contain any enemy Ground Forces, the planet falls without resistance.

There are only three types of landings, Friendly, Neutral, or Hostile ("Invasion").


If an effect destroys multiple creatures, in what order are they destroyed?

If an effect destroys multiple creatures, they are destroyed simultaneously, so any effects on the creatures being destroyed are not eligible to be applied on the other creatures (e.g. Tolas would not gain you anyone any aember, since it is also destroyed). For an effect to be applied, it needs to still be in play after the destruction is finished. The cards also all hit the discard pile at the same time, but the active player does get to choose the order in which they go in.
Reference video.


It Has A Child card - do you stay in Tokyo?

It Has a Child doesn't prevent you from being eliminated. If it did, it would be phrased

If you would be eliminated, instead ...

instead of

If you are eliminated, ...

This means that other effects that occur on elimination still occur. Specifically,

If you are eliminated by an attack on Tokyo, the Monster who attacked you automatically takes control of Tokyo.
Warning: A Discard card that deals damage to you is not an attack.
If you are eliminated by such a card (Discard card), nobody takes your place, and Tokyo becomes unoccupied.

What it does is allow is for you to join the game with a fresh character. As usual, players start the game outside of Tokyo.

By the way, BGG arrived at the same conclusion.


Can you untap an attacking creature to use its ability at the end of declare blockers?

Yes you can.

The combat phase consists of five steps:

beginning of combat
declare attackers
declare blockers
combat damage
end of combat

In each of these steps players get priority and can cast instants or activate abilities. In the declare blockers step the first thing you do is declaring the blockers. It is after this that each player gets priority and can do stuff. And this is before the combat damage step


Is upgraded icebreaker strength per subroutine

Whole encounter.
From the rules (emphasis theirs):

  This strength increase lasts only while the current piece of ice is
  being encountered, unless otherwise noted by card abilities. After an
  encounter with a piece of ice, the icebreaker’s strength returns to
  the value shown on its card


You sure can.

The stack will also matter for this because otherwise your creatures will go poof. Basically in response to them casting DoJ, you pop your Legion's Initiative to exile your guys. There's no timing restriction on Legion's Initiative so as long as you can pay for it, you can do it.

Or in listed steps:

Day of Judgement is cast and opponent passes priority (most likely onto an empty stack because it's a sorcery but there's ways to make it instant speed but that's irrelevant here.)
You get Priority and pop your LI, putting the ability on the stack
Priority Wave
LI Ability resolves, all your dudes go away until the next combat
Priority Wave
DoJ resolves, blowing up the remaining dudes on the battlefield.


The interaction between Omniscience and Trinisphere

Everything costs three mana or more.

The total cost to cast a spell
= mana cost or alternative cost
+ additional costs and cost increases
- cost reductions

Omniscience provides an alternative cost.
Trinisphere modifies the total cost, the only card to do so.

So start with the alternative cost provided by Omniscience. Then apply any applicable additional costs, cost increases and cost reductions. Then Trinisphere adjusts the total.

For example,

Lightning Bolt would cost {3}.
Cathartic Reunion would cost {3} and Discard two cards.
Apex Hawks kicked twice would cost {W}{W}{2} (since kicking is an additional cost).
Academy Journeymage costs {3} whether you control a Wizard or not.

  117.9. Some spells have alternative costs. An alternative cost is a cost listed in a spell’s text, or applied to it from another effect, that its controller may pay rather than paying the spell’s mana cost. Alternative costs are usually phrased, “You may [action] rather than pay [this object’s] mana cost,” or “You may cast [this object] without paying its mana cost.” Note that some alternative costs are listed in keywords; see rule 702.

  601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If multiple cost reductions apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can’t be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.


What is the very last step that Juragedo can be special summoned and tributed

No. Damage step means leaving the battle step, so you could not special summon juragedo in the damage step. You can special summon him during battle step and then tribute during damage step.


How to counter oddities of Shade-Tree Checkers? (long distance king jumps, etc)

The variant of checkers described here is most likely Pool Checkers, or is at least closely related. A quick Google search showed several online play sites along with general strategy write-ups. There is even an iPad app with VS Computer play.

Having never played the variant myself, I cannot give any specific advice on gameplay improvements.