How many of a legendary card should I be including in my deck?

It depends on what you want out of your legends. Sometimes the legend is so important for your deck that you're willing to risk drawing multiples of them. Other times the legend drawback is real, and you don't run four copies for exactly this reason. Some examples from recent Standard:
Adrian Sullivan's Jeskai Control won GP Milwaukee. Note the 4x Niv-Mizzet, Parun. This is a legend, but he has four copies. Why? Lots of factors go into this.

Niv-Mizzet is a fantastic win condition: if you ever untap with him, you've more or less won the game (he's even more powerful than Teferi in this regard).
Because Niv-Mizzet is so good at winning the game, Adrian Sullivan is dedicating other cards to supporting him - note he has Dive Down to protect Niv-Mizzet from targeted removal, and Treasure Map to accelerate Niv-Mizzet onto the battlefield. These cards (especially Dive Down) are not nearly as good if the deck doesn't draw Niv-Mizzet.
Another way of thinking about this is that, this deck wants to draw Niv-Mizzet every single game, and the obvious way to maximize that chance is to run four copies.

Ari Lax's Selesnya tokens from Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica. Note he has only three copies of Emmara, Soul of the Accord. Why? Again, many factors go into this:

Emmara is a great role-player and a great body to Convoke with, but you don't need to draw Emmara. The turn after you play Emmara, you're still only convoking for one mana. If you didn't draw Emmara, you might have drawn another of the deck's 2-drops, which also convoke for the same amount. All your lose out on then is a 1/1 token - still a loss, but not a devastating one. Meanwhile if you draw Emmara without drawing a convoke card, she's not particularly good - just a 2-mana 2/2, easily prevented from attacking.
Emmara is easily answered. Shock kill her at mana advantage (Shock costs 1 mana, Emmara costs 2). She's also fully vulnerable to all the commonly-played sweepers, from Ritual of Soot to Deafening Clarion.
Emmara is not nearly as threatening as Niv-Mizzet. Niv-Mizzet is a removal magnet: it's fine if you can't play any more Niv-Mizzets, since if you stick a copy of him, you win. With Emmara, if she lives, the game still goes on. In this case any more copies of Emmara in hand become genuine dead cards.

If you followed this, it should be clear why there're only three copies of Emmara in the Selesnya deck. The first copy of Emmara is great, but the second is not. But for the Jeskai deck, casting and protecting Niv-Mizzet is its gameplan. It wants to draw a Niv-Mizzet every game. It doesn't want to draw multiples, but if the first copy dies, it immediately wants to draw another. So it runs four copies of the legend.
Hall of Famer Frank Karsten once wrote an article on how many copies of a card one should include in a deck. He suggests the heuristic:

4 copies – You want to draw the card as often and as early as possible. The card is essential for the deck to work as it's supposed to, and you don't mind drawing multiples, even in your opening hand. You might even be happy to do so. It's rare to play legends as 4-ofs, but you can make exceptions for cards that are extremely powerful and/or removal magnets. Example: Heart of Kiran in Mardu Vehicles or Karn Liberated in Modern Tron.
3 copies – You want to see the card at some point in the midgame, but you prefer not to draw multiples. A second copy is not necessarily dead, but it's much less valuable than the first. Most commonly, this is because the card is expensive to cast, a situational answer, and/or a non-essential legendary. Example: Kari Zev, Skyship Raider in Mono-Red Aggro or Teferi, Hero of Dominaria in U/W Control.
2 copies – You're not excited to see the card in your opening hand, and it's not vital to your strategy. Often, the card is not much better than the alternatives, worthless in multiples, and/or crazy expensive to cast. Example: Josu Vess, Lich Knight in Mono-Black Control or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in Modern Tron.
1 copy – You don't want to draw the card naturally, but you want to have access to one in your deck. Most commonly, this is because it's a kill condition for strategies that see their entire deck, because you hope to mislead your opponent into thinking you're playing more copies than you actually are, or because it's a tutor target in a toolbox-style deck. For example: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in Gifts Ungiven decks or Shalai, Voice of Plenty in Chord of Calling decks.

On a side note: it sounds like you're including planeswalkers because they're "cool". There's nothing wrong with that, but if your aim is to make a strong deck aimed at winning, each card must have a reason for being included. Take Huatli, Radiant Champion. What does this card do for you? Does it make cats? Does it synergize with cats? Is it better than simply casting another creature like Brimaz? I'm pretty sure the answer to all these questions is "no", and so you should not be including her. There's a place for planeswalkers like Huatli, but in a deck like yours, that place is the sideboard. If you're playing against a deck with lots of Cleansing Nova and Golden Demise, then you bring her in because she's a threat that survives these sweepers. But in game 1, when many decks don't have sweepers, you're better off just casting another creature. Among the planeswalkers you listed, the only one I can see playing in the maindeck is Ajani.


If an action card turns a planet neutral, are the space docks and PDS units on it destroyed?

The Space Docks and PDS units are destroyed.

From page 3 of the official FAQ version 2.3

  Q: If a planet contains one Ground Force, one Space Dock, and one PDS,
  and “Local Unrest” is played on that planet, are the Space Dock and
  PDS destroyed?

  A: Yes. The Space Dock and PDS would be destroyed due
  to the planet changing ownership (becoming neutral).

And for good measure, on page 12 of the rulebook:

  If a PDS unit lands alone on a neutral or enemy planet, it is
  immediately destroyed.


"Hostile alien actions" when no one is in their room

You do perform all actions listed if possible. So in the case where there are no players present steps 1-3 don't happen and if there are no unlocked systems present step 5 doesn't happen. This is poorly worded in that section of the rules but if you look closer at the example gameplay they give it shows step 4 happening even with no players present.

Rules

  You’ve used up your actions, so it is time to draw your
  end of turn Alert. You draw “Patrol.” Two Alien Patrol
  appear in the Warden’s Office Hallway. Luckily, no one
  is there, but these are Patrol Aliens. They don’t just sit
  still and wait for the action to come to them. When you
  PERFORM HOSTILE ALIEN ACTIONS, they both move
  into the Mess Hall and find you there. An alarm sounds
  and the Concealment Level goes down by 10%. One
  of them injures you and escorts you to the Infirmary/
  Holding Cell while the other stays behind, ready to
  continue its patrol on subsequent turns.

(added bolding)

If follow through the example it shows two patrol aliens in a room with no players and has them moving to the next room where they find a player. Once they find the player they perform steps 1-3 as normal but they do not perform step 4 again.

The critical thing to note that unless players are in sequential rooms along the patrol path having them not move when no player is present really takes away alot of the power of the patrol aliens and makes it a lot easier to avoid them.


The letter distribution has similarities. However, Scrabble allows you to re-use previously played tiles, so these numbers below don't represent the true availability of letters. Also, there doesn't appear to be any wild card in Unspoken Words (a role filled by the blank tile in Scrabble).

The point distribution is quite different. Furthermore, Unspoken Words has other major differences in scoring (e.g. the lack of Scrabble's letter and word multipliers).

          Number of Cards or Tiles       Points per Card or Tile
          ----------------------------   ----------------------------
          UW:C      UW:D      Scrabble   UW:C      UW:D      Scrabble
--------  --------  --------  --------   --------  --------  --------
A               10        11         9         5         5         1
B                2         4         2         5         5         3
C                2         5         2         0         0         3
D                3         6         4         2         2         2
E               10        11        12         4         4         1
F                2         4         2         3         3         4
G                2         4         3         2         2         2

H                3         5         2         4         4         4
I                9        10         9         4         4         1
J                1         3         1         2         2         8
K                1         3         1         3         3         5
L                5         7         4         1         1         1
M                3         5         2         3         3         3
N                5         7         6         2         2         1

O                8        10         8         0         0         1
P                2         4         2         3         3         3
Q                1         1         1         2         4         0
R                5         7         6         4         4         1
S                5         8         4         0         0         1
T                5         8         6         2         2         1
U                4         7         4         0         0         1

V                2         3         2         1         1         4
W                2         4         2         3         3         4
X                1         2         1         4         4         8
Y                2         5         2         3         3         4
Z                1         2         1         2         2         0
Wild             -         -         2         -         -         0

(Internationalized versions of Scrabble have different letter and point distributions.)

These games are obviously similar in some way: They are both word construction games. That said, the lack of word reuse in Unspoken Words and the scoring differences should make the games rather different. (I've never played either version of Unspoken Words.)

Sources:

Rules for Unspoken Words: Classic Edition
Rules for Unspoken Words: Deluxe Edition
Rules for Scrabble
FAQ about Scrabble


What happens if you are unable to draw because your library is empty?

They lose the game.

120.4. A player who attempts to draw a card from a library with no cards in it loses the game the next time a player would receive priority.
104.3c If a player is required to draw more cards than are left in his or her library, he or she draws the remaining cards, and then loses the game the next time a player would receive priority.
704.5b If a player attempted to draw a card from a library with no cards in it since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game.


When exactly does an attacking creature become tapped?

The attacker becomes tapped during the Declare Attackers step.  The steps of combat are:

Beginning of Combat
Declare Attackers
Declare Blockers
Damage Resolution
End of Combat

So, since the attacker becomes tapped during step 2, it is destroyed before step 4 where it would normally deal damage.

For a full breakdown of a turn, see this post


What is the board game in ‘Friends’ S05E11?

It is Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. You can recognise the loopy indigo board, the characters on the box, and the red/green card box in this image from the BoardGameGeek page:


Remove roles based on number of players in Saboteur 2

Honestly I would recommend removing none of the roles as the game is decently balanced for a game with random rolls and you just got bad luck.

From what you have posted it seems you are missing some of the rules for the game. First what you described to have played was not one game but one round of a game that lasts 3 rounds.

It also sounds like you had bad luck in that all 3 saboteurs where present in a 6 player game which is not all that common. I would also question why you would discard path cards just because they have a crystal on them since they can be critical to winning and you will win more then a single gold in most cases.

The last thing that I am wondering about is from the way you worded your question it seemed like everyone knew what role everyone was. If that is the case it would allow the saboteurs to have an advantage and target the miners and all players to have an advantage to discard crystals.

My advice would be to play at least 1 full game of 3 rounds where you will see different team balances for each game. Though to get a true feeling for the balance of the game I would suggest that you play more games so that a bad draw does not influence your opinion of the game.

It should also be noted that the roles in the game can change at any time as there are 2 action cards that cause a player to switch roles which could be good to get rid of an enemy or prevent someone from making a lot that round.

Update:

Based on your updates it definitely sounds like you where not playing it optimally

At the start of the game everyone should be acting like a miner regardless of their role. This is a hidden role game and you don't want to reveal to much information to start. Every game I have played has started with the saboteurs trying to make it look like they are miners before starting to cause damage to the mine. This is especially important in a larger game where there is only 1 saboteur so they don't become targeted and rendered useless early on. Note once you have more games under your sleeve and have a better understanding of the game and the roles then it is more feasible to come out with your role earlier in the game.
Miners and saboteurs should not be discarding path cards with crystals on them just to prevent the geologist from getting points because every discarded path card could mean the difference between them getting gold or no gold. Note this does not apply to cards that prevent you from reaching your goal.
You should also remember that in this expansion there are cards that prevent people from getting gold and cards that let you steal gold from others. This means that even if everyone ends up on the same team and wins not everyone will end up getting gold or the same amount in the end.


What are the limitations on using a Planeswalker's loyalty abilities?

When you have basic questions like this about how cards work, the basic rules are a good place to start. Here's the section about planeswalkers, which directly answers your main questions.

Planeswalker
Planeswalkers are powerful allies you can call on to fight by your side. You can cast a planeswalker only at the time you could cast a sorcery. They’re permanents, and each one enters the battlefield with the number of loyalty counters indicated in its lower right corner.
Each planeswalker has loyalty abilities that are activated by adding or removing loyalty counters from the planeswalker. For example, the symbol {+1} means “Put one loyalty counter on this planeswalker” and the symbol {-3} means “Remove three loyalty counters from this planeswalker.” You can activate one of these abilities only at the time you could cast a sorcery and only if none of that planeswalker’s loyalty abilities have been activated yet that turn.
Your planeswalkers can be attacked by your opponent’s creatures (if so, you can block as normal), and your opponents can damage them with their spells and abilities instead of damaging you. Any damage dealt to a planeswalker causes it to lose that many loyalty counters. If a planeswalker has no loyalty counters, it’s put into your graveyard.

So yes, one ability per turn per planeswalker. If you've got more than one, you can use them all up to once, though. You can even, say, use one Vraska's ability then play another Vraska (sending the first to the graveyard, due to the uniqueness rule) and use it.
And yes, you can use it the turn you cast it - there's nothing here saying you can't. (The "summoning sickness" restriction is something that specifically applies to creatures.)


Is there a card that lets you put a card from outside of the game into play?

This is the "Wish" card series that were released in the Judgment extension.
For example: Burning Wish. It allows one for example in a tournament to get a card from the sideboard on the first game.

The 5 original wishes are:

Cunning Wish
Burning Wish
Death Wish
Living Wish
Golden Wish

Since then, other similar cards where released. This query should give most of them: o:"own from outside the game". You'll notice Ring of Ma'rûf in the results as well; the wishes are way more common.

So this is nothing "funky" like the fun cards in Unglued or Unhinged, and has been tournament-legal (and still is in some formats).

However these cards don't work by default in Commander/EDH except with prior agreement, so it sounds like your scenario wasn't how things should happen. See Commander rule 13:

  Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma'ruf) do not function in Commander without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup.

This means these cards shouldn't come out as a surprise, because beforehand you have to discuss and agree how they even work.


In Puerto Rico, during the Settlers phase, are players required to pick a plantation

No, the players are not required to pick a plantation.

From the rules, emphasis mine:

  The player who chooses this role may take either a quarry tile as his privilege or one of the face-up plantation tiles and place it on any empty island space on his player board. Afterwards, each other player, in clockwise order, may take one of the face-up plantation tiles (not a quarry tile! - exception: construction hut) and place it on any empty island space on his player board.


Does Gustcloak Savior's ability leave the door open for blockers to be reassigned?

That's correct, your opponents can't just reassign their blockers. Combat works like this:

Beginning of combat step.

Triggered abilities go on the stack.
Then, the active player gets priority and can activate spells and abilities.

Declare attackers step.

The active player declares their attackers. (rule 508.1)
Triggered abilities go on the stack, again. (508.2)
The active player gets priority, again. (508.3)

Declare blockers step.

The defending player(s) declare their blockers. (509.1)
Damage assignment order is worked out by the attacker then the blocker. (509.2 and .3)
Triggered abilities go on the stack, again. (509.4)
The active player gets priority, again. (509.5)

Then combat damage happens, then so does end of combat.

Guess when they declare their blockers? Step 3.1. Guess when the Gustcloak ability triggers? Step 3.3, after all blockers were already declared and you know how damage will be dished out. They don't get to go back and revise. There is no "reassign blockers" or "declare more blockers" step after that.

Your opponent now has at least one blocker now blocking nothing, and you've saved your creature from attack, and that's that.


How does Intrigue change your general Dominion strategy?

Intrigue generally has nastier attack cards than Base does, and you really need to avoid getting hit by them or at least learn how to deal with their fallout.  The three major attacks are:

Saboteur:

This is the only card in the game that can force you to trash a Colony or Province (and not get one back).

Swindler:

This allows your opponent to force you to trash a card and give you one of the same cost.  Essentially, they can dilute your deck, and even give you Curses if you trashed a Copper.

Luckily, for Colony and Province, this just wears down their respective piles, as the cost has to be the same.  Note: For any card, if there is no card of the same cost left, you just lose that card.

Very late Edit: There is one other card that costs 8... Peddler.  I suggest not playing a game with both Peddler and Swindler in play.

Torturer:

A nasty card, particularly when used with Base's Throne Room or Prosperity's King's Court.  Unlike Militia, Ghost Ship, or Goons, Torturer does not stop when you only have three cards.  Also of note is that the Curse goes into your hand should you choose to take it, so you can use it with things like Chapel when your turn rolls around... or if it's King's Courted, take two curses then discard them for the third.

There is one more attack card (Minion) and two pseudo-attack cards (Masquerade and Tribute; they're not attack cards, so you can't block them)... you really should look through all the Intrigue cards to see what they do.


Should runners be able to tell the difference between installed upgrades and agendas/assets?

From the Netrunner FAQ:

  Where is an upgrade installed in a remote server?
  An upgrade is
  installed in a remote server in the same position  as an agenda or
  asset. The Runner should not be able to tell  what type of card is
  installed in a remote server by its position.  This is different than
  installing an upgrade in a central server,  where it is always
  installed in the root.


When will Arena's Workshop: Uncharted Paths be held?

The event is not featured on the Wizards calendar, but it is listed on the draftsim.com Arena schedule and will be March 9–11 2020. It follows on neatly in the schedule, but I don't know why it was missed on the official site.


What are the dependencies of the Werewolf games expansions?

I found almost all the answers on boardgamegeek.com. That page is very handy for this purpose.

The Werewolves of Millers Hollow

The Werewolves of Millers Hollow - Original Game
The Village - Expansion which also contains Original Game.
New Moon - Requires Original Game (or The Village)
Characters - Requires Original Game (or The Village)
Special edition - It is standalone. Found no more info.
The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow: The Pact - Contains: Original Game + The Village + New Moon + Characters (so full game with all expansions)

Ultimate Werewolf

"Ultimate Werewolf" / "Werewolf" - Original Game
Ultimate Werewolf: Whitebox edition - Reimplements Original Game
Ultimate Werewolf: Ultimate edition - Reimplements Whitebox Edition
Ultimate Werewolf: Deluxe edition - Reimplements Ultimate Edition
Classic Movie Monsters - Requires Original Game (or one of the reimplementations)
Night Terrors - Requires Original Game (or one of the reimplementations)
Artifacts - Requires Original Game (or one of the reimplementations)
Urban Legends - Requires Original Game (or one of the reimplementations)
Wolfpack - Requires Original Game (or one of the reimplementations)
Ultimate Werewolf: Deluxe Edition For Kickstarter - Contains: Deluxe Edition +  Classic Movie Monsters + Night Terrors + Urban Legends + Wolfpack (NOT Artifacts)


Are there any side effects if am supposed to draw a card but have no cards to draw?

Never played the game but i'm very familiar with Star Realms.

Your question was asked here on BGG.  No official source chipped in but its seems common sense that if you are unable to do something nothing happens.  Just do as much as you can on the cards.

When I play Star Realms on the app and I want to draw cards and the draw and discard are empty then there is just no effect.


Can a player use only the communal cards when selecting their best hand?

In Hold'em, each player makes the best possible 5-card hand possible using any of the 7 cards available. To each player, there is no distinction between the communal cards and their own private cards. The selected 5-card poker hand can include 0, 1, or 2 of the hole cards.

It's possible that the best hand you can make uses 0 of your hole cards. In this case, you cannot win (unless everyone else folds), but if no player can make a better hand than the 5 communal cards then it is a tie.

Background info (prior to edit)

Poker hands, that is, sets of cards that can be ranked by standard poker rules, contain 5 cards. Many poker variants, including Texas Hold'em, give players access to more than 5 cards and let them create the best 5-card hand they can out of all the options. In 7-card stud, some of the cards are private, but face-up. In Texas Hold'em, some of the cards are shared.

As you said in your question, in Hold'em there are 5 communal cards and 2 hole cards, so each player has 7 cards from which to choose 5 to make the best poker hand they can. The number of ways to choose 5 from 7 is 21 (Combinations, from Wikipedia).

You might think you can get away with omitting the combination consisting of just the communal cards, but this should still be evaluated because if it's the highest scoring hand, then everyone ties (e.g., if the communal cards are a Royal Flush, then everyone ties regardless of their hole cards).


Am I allowed to pass unequipped weapons (or items) to any survivor?

There are two types of moves that involve giving cards to other players.  They are Hand Off and Request.  The one you probably want is request.

  Request: During his turn a player may request 1 or more item cards from other players. Other players may give the requesting player an item card from their hand, if they do, that card must be revealed and immediately played. The requested card cannot be added to the crisis.

Request allows a player, on his turn, to get cards from other players as long as he plays it immediately.  I'm presuming that the card you want to give to someone is unequipped so in your hand.

  Hand Off: During his turn a player may have a survivor he controls that has an item equipped hand that item off to another survivor at the same location. When an item is handed off it is unequipped from the survivor that is handing it off and is immediately equipped to the survivor that it is being handed to.

Hand off is basically if a survivor already has an item equipped (i.e. it is "in play" and out of your godly control to move around to other survivors without restriction), then he or she can give the item to another survivor in the same location.

So, yes, you can pass that unequipped card but not on your turn.  You have to wait until that player's turn before they can request it from you to place on that survivor.


Online Resources for Go Tutorials on specific topics

How to study Go wrongly, a practical reference

Even though you already directly pointed in the right direction, let me disregard part of your actual question and answer differently first. Consider it a supplementary answer.

A common mistake in studying

I believe there is a typical trap many Western players easily fall into (I'm guilty of this myself): Relying on books too much.

Around 10 kyu, studying books should take only a small part of your time. Instead, focus on playing games and reviewing. I'll try to explain my reasoning.

Why you should not study pro games

  On the other hand, I also have trouble profiting from the analysis of pro games, because
  I still have a lot to learn about the reasoning behind moves.

As you said, studying pro games at your level is of lower efficiency since you simply won't be able to understand the moves. This applies to dan players, too, but they possess enough shape and (midgame and corner) joseki knowledge to grasp the basic ideas. So apart from seeing what a game should look like and potentially learning a few common shapes, you won't gain much from pro games. It's just not suited to your level yet.

As a student of a foreign language, you will eventually read lots of texts in that language and learn a lot from first hand resources, but before that you have to learn the basics in your native language.

Why you should not study fuseki (yet)

  What I found to be most effective for me at this stage, are resources like these
  youtube videos or these articles on opening patterns.

Josh's videos are just as excellent as Matthew's lectures, but again, you won't gain much from studying fuseki. While I most certainly agree that it's fun, I can't say for sure that it will benefit your games.

You have to both remember and understand the fuseki shapes, which is not easy at all since every stone on the whole board is very important.

Are you sure you can remember the basic Kobayashi openings until around move 40? If you do and you are not high dan you were setting wrong priorities! ;)

Disregarding that, actually every stone is important and may change the meaning of moves considerably. For instance, you know the basic Chinese Fuseki, right? Consider this board:

$$ ---------------------------------------
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . 2 , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------

Did you know some pros call 5 a mistake due to the position of 2 at komoku (3-4) instead of hoshi (4-4)? White could make a corner enclosure and the main direction of the Chinese opening, the lower side, will be a lot less interesting all of sudden. Subtle differences like this are very important if you really want to benefit from fuseki study.

So while you definitely will gain some insight from intense study of fuseki, this activity becomes way more efficient at strong SDK to lower dan level. By the way, I recently read how insei nowadays don't study fuseki as much as they used to but instead focus on tsumego - the improved reading helps more than a few moves more depth of knowledge in fuseki.

Why having superior fuseki is useless

Another point to consider is your reading ability. Personally, I grew up with fuseki study and was able to easily solve strong SDK level fuseki problems as a DDK. But in my games, the opponent simply played a move I did not know and I had no clue how to continue - I was completely unable to read how to punish, and ended up losing even though I was supposed to be ahead. That eventually made me study fighting more, and that in turn massively increased my understanding of the fuseki positions I played earlier.

And still, there are actually high dans who have a far worse position during fuseki in even games with me, but their insane reading power makes more than up for it and I always lose even with very high handicap. There is a saying that you should not start to study fuseki until there is nobody who can beat you at 9 stones, and it should be considered.

Why you should not memorize patterns

"Memorize joseki, lose 3 stones."

By always playing known sequences, your will grew unable to see other moves. You won't notice subtle differences compared to the position you know, and miss sharp moves that a player with better fighting senses will spot immediately.

Notice that I am not only talking about actually "memorizing certain sequences" but also "blindly only considering known sequences and shapes instead of actually reading each move". This is exhausting but hey, noone said improving in Go is easy ;)

If you don't know the sequence to play, you have to consider all options, forcing you to read carefully. Eventually, you'll decide on a move, and your understanding of the position has been increased so next time you'll be able to decide on the right move faster - depending on the surrounding position.

This means you will have a deeper knowledge of the position and the moves involved, and you will be able to explain with actual sequences why your chosen move is the best. Or why it was a mistake, which is fine, too.

Why playing games and doing reviews is important

We just noticed that you should try to play lots of games to learn patterns by understanding the moves. If your understanding of the position is flawed, this could lead to mistaking good and bad results. This is why you should have someone stronger review your games to point out wrong decisions that you did not consider as such. Gaining this knowledge will in turn directly affect all your decisions in similar positions - practical reasoning behind high level ideas is one of the points that distinguishes strong from weak players with a shallow understanding.

Why this answer is wrong

It's not. Not yet at least (for DDK players). Or not completely.

If you closely follow the approach explained you'll eventually have excellent fighting abilities and win all the (local) fights but still lose the war (game). How is that possible? It's because you did it wrong to the other extreme: Not caring about theory at all.

By slowly applying more and more theoretical study as you grow stronger, you'll not only understand high level concepts (e.g. in fuseki), but also (thanks to your acquired raw abilities) be able to punish opponents for their overplays.

The actual answer to your question

With all that being said, the original question already contains the important hints:

  not a simple listing of fuseki/joseki/whatever
  focuses on the reasoning behind moves

In fact there are books that help with these, as mentioned in other answers, so I won't go into them here. Books about tesuji, hopefully with exercises, are likely the most useful kind you will find.

Even with these books, you should keep the basics I was talking about earlier in mind. Many players capture stones out of habit because they know the awesome tesuji to capture them, but they miss that all groups were already alive and the capture was only worth 2 points.

The fastest way to strong SDK level

Apart from the mentioned kind of books, at weak SDK level, playing games and reviewing them is still the most valuable resource. Make as many mistakes as possible, remember them and never do them again, and you will be strong SDK in no time. Theoretical study could never have advanced you that quickly.

There also is a very simple but difficult to follow hint I can give to players who are willing to put in a lot of effort for quickly improving. It is to simply read 4 moves ahead on every turn in the game. This requires more self-discipline than you may think at first, but it ensures you applied enough reading to a) not make stupid mistakes and b) consider all (or at least most) of the options the opponent has in answering. Which boils down to "avoid sloppy reading". You should literally sit on your hands.

And once you find yourself puzzled about situations more often, unable to find the right direction even though you can see the sequences, it's time to switch to theory and study  aspects not easily visible.


Does die unfairness visibly influence real-world games?

I think all it's really possible to say here is that yes, it's a real potential problem. Dice can be unfair, and if they are, you can't really avoid it with rolling technique, and it will skew your game.

I think it's fairly uncommon with commercial games, but I'm not sure how that's relevant to your homemade dice. For what it's worth, my copy of Small World has a wooden die that I eventually found to be slightly unfair (based on test rolls, it has a statistically significant bias), so if it can happen with commercially manufactured wooden dice, I wouldn't be optimistic about homemade ones.

For your actual problem, initial playtesting with custom dice, I would personally just use regular dice with a mapping from numbers to your custom dice faces. If that bothers you too much, or you're to the point where you really need to be prototyping the actual design, I'd put stickers on real dice (preferably blank - it's easier, and they're likely more fair), rather than wooden cubes, so you know they started out as fair as possible, and if the stickers are the same size and placed the same on all the faces, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.


How to mitigate "bandwagon attacking" from players?

Use this bias in your favor!
Some players just won't listen to the most reasonable arguments.  Trying to convince them that you were attacked enough won't work, instead use their biases in our own favor.  Don't lead on the start of the game, try to be the second strongest player, then stay quiet while others attack the leader.  It is nice to see everybody team up to destroy the leader, giving you an easy win.

In those kind of games, being second is usually the best in terms of winning probability.

I will add to the reference list:

Catan
Struggle of Empires
Munchkin

Of course this "stalling" strategy is groupthink dependent, looks like that in your gaming group it will work like a charm.


In the Pokémon TCG, is there a combination of cards that prevents you from milling out?

Lysandre's Trump Card reads:

  Each player shuffles all cards in his or her discard pile into his or her deck (except for Lysandre's Trump Card).

This can be used with any card that returns a Supporter card from the disard pile, such as VS Seeker which states:

  Put a Supporter card from your discard pile into your hand.


MTG: Is there a lower-limit for life total?

You can go into negative life totals. If that doesn't cause you to lose, subsequent events still affect your life total normally: you could gain life back to zero or above, and losing more life will push you further negative.

The rulings on Beacon of Immortality confirm this:

  2/1/2007  If you double a negative life total, you do the real math.  A life total of -10 becomes -20.

  7/15/2007     Beacon of Immortality's effect counts as life gain (or life loss, if the life total was negative) for effects that trigger on or replace life gain (or life loss).

So yes, if you're at -1 life, you'd need to gain 2 life to get back to 1 life and be safe without whatever was keeping you from losing.


What happens to a losing player's cards in Exploding Kittens?

They go back into the Discard Pile.

  EXPLODING KITTEN
  ... Unless you have a Defuse Card, you're dead.
  Discard all of your cards, including the Exploding Kitten.

Since there are one more Exploding Kitten Card to start with than normal, there still can be a winner.

  STREAKING KITTENS
  ... 6. Insert enough Exploding Kittens back into the deck so that the total number of Exploding Kittens is equal to the number of players - this is 1 more Exploding Kitten than normal because the Streaking Kitten Card allows a player to hold an Exploding Kitten in their hand without exploding!

Exploding Kittens Rules
Exploding Kittens with Streaking Kitten Rules


Do professional-level Go players memorize a list of endgame positions as part of their training?

I don't know if they spend a lot of time doing point-value memorizing, but I would imagine that there is a reasonable amount of time spent studying and memorizing endgame tesuji. Counting is important to properly evaluate when the tesuji are profitable.


How does Ithaqua's "Icy Winds" ability work with Healing Stone?

There is no official ruling, so you will have to house rule it
There seems to be some concern with Fantasy Flight Games slow FAQ releases and lack of designer feedback on rules clarifications. One do the designers, Richard Launius, has answered some questions sent directly to him, but they aren't considered official rules clarifications.
This particular question has been asked on the FFG forums (Q3), but without an official answer. The question is also on BGG, but again lacks an official response.
Neither the revised rules nor the FAQ address the timing of the application of the Ancient One's (AO) abilities and Item effects. So, you have two choices:

Apply the AO effect first: This would mean that a Healing Stone would restore your stamina to the maximum (5 in your example). It also means that if you are 1 stamina you would be devoured. Which means that while nothing in the rules prevent you from using the Healing Stone at 1 Stamina, you probably wouldn't for strategic reasons.

Being Devoured - If at any time an investigator loses sanity or stamina that causes him to drop to zero or less, he is devoured.
When an investigator is devoured, that player adds one doom token to the doom track and returns his investigator card and marker to the game box. [...]

Apply the AO effect after the Item - This would mean that Healing Stone would restore your Stamina to the maximum minus one (4 in your example). It also means you have nothing to fear when using Healing Stone at 1 Stamina.


Risk (revised edition 2008): Is it better to roll 1 or 2 Defense dice with the Bonus Defense die Major Reward?

I think your calculations look roughly correct (my calculations disagree at 4 decimal places, but I doubt you're using that many in an actual game!)

Here's my calculated probabilities for a single defence die (plus bonus die):

Defender wins 4109/7776: 0.528421
Attacker wins 3667/7776: 0.471579

Here's my calculated probabilites for two defence dice (plus bonus die):

Defender wins 22218/46656: 0.476209
Attacker wins 10767/46656: 0.230774
Ties 13671/46656: 0.293017

Since the sample space is only a few thousand dice rolls I wrote a python script to loop through all of them.  Here's the code for the first calculation:

from itertools import *
a_score = 0
d_score = 0
for a1,a2,a3,d1,db in product(range(6), repeat=5):
    if max(d1,db) < max(a1,a2,a3):
        a_score += 1
    else:
        d_score += 1
print 'Defender wins %d/%d: %f'%(d_score, 6**5, float(d_score)/6**5)
print 'Attacker wins %d/%d: %f'%(a_score, 6**5, float(a_score)/6**5)

Here's the code for the second:

from itertools import *
a_score = 0
d_score = 0
tie_score = 0
for a1,a2,a3,d1,d2,db in product(range(6), repeat=6):
    a_dice = [a1,a2,a3]
    d_dice = [d1,d2,db]
    a_dice.sort(reverse=True)
    d_dice.sort(reverse=True)
    if d_dice[0] < a_dice[0] and d_dice[1] < a_dice[1]:
        a_score += 1
    elif d_dice[0] >= a_dice[0] and d_dice[1] >= a_dice[1]:
        d_score += 1
    else:
        tie_score += 1
print 'Defender wins %d/%d: %f'%(d_score, 6**6, float(d_score)/6**6)
print 'Attacker wins %d/%d: %f'%(a_score, 6**6, float(a_score)/6**6)
print 'Ties %d/%d: %f'%(tie_score, 6**6, float(tie_score)/6**6)


Teferi's Time Twist on creature with +1/+1 counter

The River Sneak enters the battlefield as a 2/2 because it will have only a single +1/+1 counter on top of its base 1/1 stats. Rule 122.2 says

  Counters on an object are not retained if that object moves from one zone to another. The counters are not “removed”; they simply cease to exist. See rule 400.7.

Teferi's Time Twist moves the permanent into exile, then back onto the battlefield. As it moves into exile, the counter(s) it originally had on the battlefield disappear. Teferi's Time Twist specifically puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature, so it enters with that single counter, for total stats of 2/2.

Teferi's Time Twist says that the creature enters the battlefield "with an additional +1/+1 counter on it". This counter is in addition to any other counters the creature would enter with for other reasons. Barkhide Troll, for example, will enter with a +1/+1 counter because of its own ability, plus an additional counter because of the effect from Teferi's Time Twist.


They've won (besides, you can always just discard the magic card at the end of your turn anyhow).
Rules:

The first person to successfully collect the required
number of Unicorns in their Stable wins! Each Unicorn
card counts for one Unicorn (unless otherwise stated).

2 – 5 Players: 7 Unicorns to win
6 – 8 Players: 6 Unicorns to win


What is the easiest way to play DarkForest, probably the strongest publicly available go AI?

Hactar go https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.gowrite.hactarLite (android application) offers darkforest as opponent (darkforest running on server side). Not free, but 2€/3 month subscription.


Does Essence Scatter affect Artifact Creatures?

Yes

From a ruling on the Essence Scatter Gatherer entry:

  A "creature spell" is any spell with the type Creature, even if it has other types such as Artifact or Enchantment. Older cards of type Summon are also Creature spells.


Is it impossible to get the gold medal in Duke Landwalker scenario?

The scout card is key to this.  It allows you to do an extra exploration which makes it doable in under 8 turns.


Ixalan's Binding and Ashiok, Nightmare Muse

From a ruling on Gatherer:

  If there is no exiled card (perhaps because the exiled permanent was a
  token or was a commander that moved to the command zone in the
  Commander variant), Ixalan’s Binding won’t stop players from casting
  spells.

If you cast the card from exile using Ashiok then there is no more exiled card.  Therefore, your opponent can cast whatever they want, including Rampaging Baloths.


Sacrificing an attacking creature that should die

He can either trade creatures, or he can sacrifice his creature, but not both.

During the declare blockers step, after declaring blockers but before the combat damage, you have a chance to cast spells and activate abilities. If at this point he sacrifices his creature, then it will no longer be around in the combat damage step and won't deal any combat damage to the creature blocking it.

If on the other hand he does nothing and lets combat damage happen, his 5/5 will have 5 damage marked on it and before he gets a chance to do anything, it will die. (Precisely, it will die when state-based actions are checked during the combat damage step just before players would get priority and be able to cast spells and activate abilities. By the time they get that chance, it's already dead.)

As doppelgreener pointed out, a long time ago combat damage actually did use the stack and could be responded to. Back then, this meant those two creatures could put 5 damage on the stack to be dealt to each other like any other ability, and then before it was dealt one of them could be sacrificed, and the damage would still get dealt. That hasn't been true since 2009, but it's possible your opponent hasn't kept up with rules since then!


Can the other player put Draw 2 if your Draw 2 was the last card?

The game is over.

After the first player plays their Draw 2, their turn is over. If their turn ends and they have no cards, they win the game. There is no opportunity for a counter-play in this situation.


Good question! I agree that the rules aren't completely clear here. We play this by treating the aces in a palafico round exactly as if they were normal numbers. So in your example both two twos and three twos would be valid bids by B.

Think about the purpose of the doubling rule for wild aces. In a normal bid, when you say five threes, you are making an estimate about the number of threes plus the number of aces. But when you bid on aces, you are bidding on aces alone. The doubling rule exists to make these bids comparable.

But during a palafico round, aces are not wild; they're just ordinary numbers. It thus doesn't make any sense to require the doubling rule, because in this round, no bids benefit from additional aces. In other words, all bids are made on equal terms.


Whether you should lead a trump depends on the sort of defense you'll want to execute on the hand. Broadly speaking, there are five lines of defense:

A forcing defense (you force declarer to ruff, making them run out of trumps while the defense still has them). This is a reasonable approach when you or partner hold four trumps, declarer is in a 4-3 fit, or declarer is known to have shortness. Leading a trump here is usually fatal.
A ruffing defense (you want to ruff declarer's winners in a side suit). This is a reasonable approach when you or partner are short in a side suit held by opponents. Usually you'll lead a singleton, or an ace in a suit partner holds a singleton in. Leading a trump is usually fatal.
An active defense (you try to take your side-suit winners before declarer can establish a side suit). Against a trump contract, you may take this approach when dummy has shown a long, strong suit, when opponents have shown extras and tried for (or bid) slam, or when you can see that declarer's second suit is breaking. Leading a trump is usually fatal.
A passive defense (you try to make leads that don't give away tricks). Against a trump contract, you may take this approach when you know or suspect that your tricks are safe, as long as you don't give declarer extra opportunities to finesse, create entries in dummy, etc. Leading a trump here is often safe.
Cutting down ruffs (you try to prevent declarer from ruffing tricks in a side suit). This is often right when the auction indicates opponents are in a misfit, or when you have good cards in trumps, or when dummy has shown shortness in a side suit. Leading a trump here is often required.


Deathbringer Regent and Phantasmal Image ETB Clause

Yes, it will count as having been cast from your hand.
It's important to note that a creature spell and the creature it eventually creates are different objects; putting a creature on the battlefield is the effect of a creature spell. If you cast a creature spell from your hand, and if an effect changes the characteristics of that creature as it enters the battlefield, the creature spell was still cast from the hand.

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect.
608.3. If the object that’s resolving is a permanent spell, its resolution involves a single step (unless it’s an Aura). The spell card becomes a permanent and is put onto the battlefield under the control of the spell’s controller.

Phantasmal Image's effect is a replacement effect.

614.1c Effects that read “[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ,” “As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ,” or “[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . “ are replacement effects.

In your case, it replaces the effect "put a Phantasmal Image creature on the battlefield" with "put a copy of a particular Deathbringer Regent creature on the battlefield". All other things remain the same, in particular that the spell was originally cast from the hand.


What considerations are important for initial placements in Kingdom Builder?

The first turn is basically a trade-off between getting the best bonus tile (given the scoring goals in play) and minimising the risk of getting trapped, by avoiding placing in a large area of one terrain and making as few adjacencies as possible. It's often possible to do this in such a way that the bonus tile you claim guarantees you another tile next turn, regardless of your card draw.


Inalla, Archmage Ritualist and Sage of Fables interaction?

Only the token copy of Sage of Fables will get a counter

Sage of Fables works differently than Disciple of Bolas in several ways.

It has a replacement effect, rather than a triggered ability, and it 'looks for' other creatures rather than itself.

The difference between a replacement effect and a triggered ability is not actually relevant in this case.  It can be relevant - the biggest difference for these sorts of scenarios is that if multiple creatures enter the battlefield simultaneously (due to, for example, a kicked Rite of Replication), triggered abilities will 'see' all the other creatures that entered the battlefield at the same time, while a replacement ability will not.  So Rite of Replication on a Sage of Fables will only net you one counter on each copy, not 5 counters per.

But that's not relevant here, because the two Sages of Fables are not entering the battlefield at the same time.  In this case, the card enters the battlefield, Inarra triggers, and then the token copy enters the battlefield.

Sage of Fables' ability replaces the way a wizard enters the battlefield.  By the time the token copy has entered the battlefield, the original Sage is already there, and can't have its entrance replaced.

This is different from Disciple of Bolas, whose triggered ability triggers when it enters the battlefield.  Every permanent can see itself enter the battlefield.  The ability sacrifices another creature, but that choice isn't made until the resolution of the ability.


Are there partnerships that win major events by using unpopular systems?

Barry Crane (originally Barry Cohen, the Detroit Demon) dominated many aspects of North American bridge for decades playing a system of weak openings and early exits from the auction. This was the antithesis of the systems being expounded by teachers such as Culbertson and Goren, which revolved around sound openings to assist average players in making their contracts, even if they often underbid.

Wealthy enough to be a client and strong enough to compete against the best, Crane inspired strong feelings, pro and con, amongst the North American bridge elite; but few dared cross him because it was nearly impossible to win the McKenney trophy without his patronage.

Noted most for his superb match-point play, Crane's systems revolved around opening 4-card heart suits in order to buy as many contracts as possible in 2H, but opening 1Spade required 5 cards. In consequence he was probably an even more ardent exponent of Moysian fits then Alphonse (Sonny) Moyse was.

It is still possible to find compilations of Crane's bidding system and ruminations on the web.

The post of Grant Baze's memories of Barry., on that final link, are priceless. One oft repeated story is the following:

  Jeff Meckstroth went one better. He played with Barry in a two session
  regional event just because he thought he should play at least once
  with “Mr. McKinney.” At the end of the event Jeff tore their
  convention card into ribbons and threw the pieces at Barry, making it
  very clear that he would never play with Barry again.

Yes, that is the very same Jeff Meckstroth who has had almost as much influence on the bridge world, since Crane's murder, as Crane himself did.

And just for you Tom, because I know you love rulessuch as these:

  But back to the bidding dictums for a moment. Allegedly, among locals
  in SoCal, he[Crane] mandated “Double at match points (for penalty) in
  pass-out seat after an opening 2NT.”

  I rather doubt that but maybe others could shed more light.

  I have done quick and dirty simulations – finding about 52-55%
  conversion rate. Maybe others can chip in.

  Response:
  Ed: I think the statement is correct, but incomplete – after
  “pass out seat”, add “4 hcp's or less”, the rationale being that
  partner holds 11+ hcp behind declarer.


Can I exile a token copy of Greenwarden of Murasa for its second ability?

You cannot choose to exile the token because it has already ceased to exist, and you won't be able to return a card to your hand.

A token ceases to exist as soon as it moves to a zone other than the battlefield:

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

When the token dies, its death ability will trigger. As per state-based actions, the token ceases to exist. On resolution of the triggered ability, you will get to choose whether to exile the token. However, because the token has already ceased to exist, you cannot choose to exile it, and you will not be able to return a card to your hand.


Can "Produce a Miracle for the Masses" be used to replace multiple cubes?

You can only do it once.

When you see a cube on a card, it means one cube. This isn't explicitly stated in the rules, but it should be apparent from the way cards always show a number of cubes, and any time there's not a known number of cubes, it's qualified. For example, this very card says "...any {white}..." rather than just "...{white}..." to make it clear that it triggers just once when you receive any number of clerics. If you look through other cards, I think you'll find you've always interpreted a single cube to mean a single adventurer.

So you could more clearly transcribe the card as:

  Once per round, whenever you take an action that provides any clerics, you can also replace a fighter, a rogue, or a wizard with a cleric.

And since it says you can only make that replacement once, you can only replace one cube.


Why can the activated ability of Genju of the Fields stack multiple times?

Genju of the Fields' activated ability creates multiple separate effects:

Enchanted Plains is a Spirit Creature until end of turn. It's still a land.
Enchanted Plains is white until end of turn.
Enchanted Plains gains the ability "Whenever this creature deals damage, its controller gains that much life." until end of turn.
Enchanted Plains has power 2 and toughness 5 until end of turn.

When the ability is activated, each of these effects is created. If it's activated again, another copy of each effect is created. Each of the other effects has the same outcome if there are multiples (making a permanent white multiple times still results in it being white), but the ability granting effect grants a new ability for each copy.

It's important to remember that permanents don't lose abilities unless something explicitly says so. When you activate Genju of the Fields' ability, the permanent it's attached to keeps all of its abilities, including the ability to tap to add white mana to your mana pool, and it gains a new ability that is similar to lifelink. Rule 112.10 specifies this:

  Effects can add or remove abilities of objects. An effect that adds an ability will state that the object "gains" or "has" that ability. An effect that removes an ability will state that the object "loses" that ability. Effects that remove an ability remove all instances of it. If two or more effects add and remove the same ability, in general the most recent one prevails. (See rule 613, "Interaction of Continuous Effects.")


Monopoly strategy if every unowned property goes to auction immediately?

With these rules, the optimal bid for properties you are NOT interested in is $1 less than the highest bid.  Even if you are highly interested a property, might not want to signal that with a very high bid.
As Toon Krijthe points out, this becomes a guessing game of what others are willing to spend.  Since you say players are running out of money, you may want to not win early properties and pickup better deals later.  You still need to bid high to help others run out of money and to disguise your strategy.
How much players should be bidding can be informed via a property value calculator like those in this article.  As the calculators point out, key variables in estimating the value are number of players, rounds of play expected, and if the other related properties are (or will be) owned.  In addition to the value for your own situation, Calculate value for the player who will benefit the most from obtaining the property being auctioned.  This will help estimate a logical high end bid for the auction.

So key factors in determining your bid are:
 * Who has available cash to bid
 * Value of property to the players in the game
 * How aggressively/conservatively are players bidding.
 * Plans for your available cash


There's an official answer in the Bang! Dodge City FAQ:

Q11. How Conestoga and Rag Time work?
A. Just read the symbols. They both allow you to draw a card (from the hand of among “in play” cards) from any one player, regardless of the distance.

Adding this to the base rules of Bang! regarding the "draw!" symbol:

Draw a card. If “any player” is specified (see that symbol), then you
can draw a random card from his hand, or you can choose one in play in
front of him. If no player is specified, draw the top card of the
deck. In any case, cards drawn are added to your hand.

EDIT: making an assumption about a potential typo in the Dodge City FAQ.
The wording from the FAQ is a bit iffy, so it might be possible the intended interpretation is "from the hand or among 'in play cards'".  If this is, in fact the case, Conestoga can be read as:
Take a card from any opponent at random, or take one at your discretion from the "in play" cards in front of any opponent.


How is the card action phase resolved in 7 Wonders?

According to the rulebook this phase is resolved simultaneously:

  Once every player has selected his or her card, they perform their action
  simultaneously. Three actions are possible with the chosen card :

  a. Build the structure
  b. Build a stage of their Wonder
  c. Discard the card to gain 3 coins

In other words, all players announce their action, build/wonder/discard, at the same time. It's out of the spirit of the game to see what other players are doing and then change your mind. For example, you might have two red cards at the end of Age III and you'd really like to know if your neighbor is going to build one, so that you can discard yours for money or not. You have to decide before phase #2.

When most players are newbies, it's a commonplace to resolve the cards one at a time, so that they can follow, but you should normally resolve the actions simultaneously.

Technically, it's also illegal to decide which neighbor to pay after resolving the actions. You're supposed to decide beforehand who to pay; for example, you cannot decide to pay Olympia, see that he just built the Arena, taking $9, and then decide to pay your other neighbor.


Is it possible to have an unplayable tile?

I found this rule very quickly in the rules.

  In the rare circumstance where a drawn tile has no legal placement
  (and all players agree), the player discards the tile from the game
  (into the box) and draws another tile to place

For example:


Where can I get free tarot cards images to print?

The most popular version in the English speaking world is the Rider-Waite Tarot cards. These were published in the early 20th century.

This site has The Pictorial Key to the Tarot that contains B/W images of the Tarot cards (clicking those opens fair quality scans in color). The book and the images predate U.S. copyright laws.

These images here are the best high quality scans I have found of these old images.


Guards! Guards! starting volunteer's effects

From the rules posted on the Z-Man Games website (Page 3):

  Each player begins the games with the following items: ...
  • 5 - Ankh-Morpork Dollars
  • 1 - Lords & Ladies Volunteer Card
  • 1- Man & Beast Volunteer Card
  Players should collect any items/scrolls or attribute
  bonuses marked on the above cards.

This is a slightly older version of the rules released with the original version of the game. In the 2012 revision, it does not explicitly state that you get the attributes. Looking at the rulebook differences, my guess is the publisher wanted to optimize space in the 2012 rulebook and they figured people would just assume they gain the attribute increases.

Based on the original version of the rules, you do get the attribute bonuses for any volunteers you start the game with.


Does building over rooms render the old room inactive?

When you build over a room the old room is no longer in play and has no effect on the dungeon until all rooms that have been built over it have been destroyed and it is the top room again. When that happens ita normal rules are back in play.


Gideon Jura vs an opponent with multiple combat phases

Gideon Jura creates a requirement that they attack him if able.

In the second combat step, Gideon Jura is no longer around and able to be attacked, so they have no need to attack him. The player may attack freely, including you directly or any other planeswalker you control. They may also not attack at all since they have no  more requirement to do so.


Who does the Runner pay if a piece if ICE states "runner... pays X Credits"?

All transactions are conducted with the bank, credits never change hands directly from one player to another.

Thematically, this makes sense as you can think of runner and corp using different scales of money. One credit to the runner may represent say $1,000 or $10,000, but for the corp it may represent 10 or 100 times that amount.

From a game design perspective, it makes sense as the game was intended to be played with the cardboard credit tokens, but also designed for play between people who own their own sets. With neither player directly giving money to the other, there's no confusion as to whose game pieces are whose.

I believe the most specific place in the rulebook is the Credit Pool definition on page 6:

  Each player has a credit pool where he keeps the credit tokens
  he has available to spend. Spent credits are returned to the
  token bank.

"Pay", "lose", and "spend" have the same effect of credits returning to the bank. The difference is that payments and spending are often optional (unless preceded by "must"), and the payer gains something. "Loses" is common as a penalty from the other player, e.g., from an Account Siphon.


How can a casino offer 99%+ RTP plus 1% cash back?

You are doing the math correctly.

Start out with $100.
Get 1% cash back, so essentially you have $101.
Now, 99.54% RTP, gets you 0.9954 * 101 = $100.54

So, on average every $100 you play, you would make 54 cents.  (It's far more likely that RTP is closer to 99%, in which case, the result is $99.99, but let's say it's really 99.54%)  According to an article from WizardOfOdds.com, this is not unheard of.

On the face of it, this sounds like a money making machine.  But you have to keep in mind...

How long does it take to "play" $100?  If it takes an hour, you're "making" 54 cents an hour.  This doesn't seem like a particularly profitable means of making money.  Even if it takes 5 minutes, you still are only making $6.5/hour.
How much are you spending to make this money?  You may get free drinks, but probably you'll be purchasing food at some point.  How much is that going to cost you?
Are you good enough to actually achieve that kind of return on the game?  The makers of the game can easily make it so complicated that no humans can actually play well enough to achieve that kind of payout level.  There is a game mentioned on the Wikipedia article for Video Poker that has a payout of 100.1.  But with the caveat that no one can play it well enough to achieve that....
Do you have enough capital on hand to "ensure" you make money.  Consider the following 99% game.  (It's not video poker, but the point is to illustrate the idea.)  You win $1,000,000 with probability 1.99e-6, or you lose $1 with probability (1 - 1.99e-6).  How many times on average do you need to bet in order to win?  You need to bet on average $500,000 in order to win once.  So, in that game you have to have $500K cash on hand "on average" to win.  This is an extreme case, but even for more "reasonable" games, the numbers are still in the favor of the house.  You will go broke, before you hit the big money.
Some cashback bonuses have conditions.  For example, some casinos only offer cashback when you lose a bet.


In Yggdrasil, which character abilities are most useful/effective?

Yes, there are tiers.

In order of effectiveness and efficiency:

Frey - 33% more actions than any other god, can excel either as pointman, support, or solo, since his play engine is self-sufficient

Thor - always present combat bonus gives great advantage for two worlds, Asgard and Jotunheim; less need for Nidavellir, Alfanheim, and Midgard

Tyr - better combat ability; reroll can affect a number of enemy effects (Fenrir, Jormungand, Hel, Surt); less need for Nidavellir, Alfanheim, and Midgard

Freyja - very situational advantages; otherwise, no direct efficiency bonuses:

-- can upgrade weapons faster than any other god, which lets other gods equip weaker versions on their turn, since gods cannot get equipment unless the next version is available, great for early attacks

-- double Midgard to get over a sunken island on her turn is more cost efficient than using the Vanaheim track

-- double Niflheim to re-distribute elves and vikings quickly

-- can pull off miracle saves for when three enemies cross the line for defeat conditions, by pushing back two enemies on Asgard and then using the Vanaheim track for the third, a feat that not even the mighty fighter Thor can do

Odin - only better if he comes before Tyr in the play order, to manage enemy effects

Heimdall - drains the viking pool too quickly after cleaning the white/blue bag; three enemy effects shut down his power very easily

With fewer players, usefulness of Freyja's ability decreases, usefulness of Frey's ability increases

With more players, usefulness of Frey's ability decreases, usefulness of Freyja's ability increases (due to weapon sharing restrictions)

See this thread on BoardGameGeek titled The powers of the gods - Odin awfully unmighty? Frey the best of all?


Is it possible to lose Catan to a player with fewer points than you?

Yes, as it says in the rules you quoted you can only win on your turn

Victory Conditions: Can I win during the special building phase?
Answer: No. You can only win during your own turn.

So yes if you reach 11 points and it is not your turn it doesn't matter and someone else will still win if they reach 10 points on their turn and it is before your next turn. In Catan it isn't just about reaching 10 points to win but to do it on your turn as there is a chance you could lose some points before your next turn.


Does the medic remove cubes of the final cured disease (and thus eradicate it) before the game ends in a win?

Yes, according to Matt Leacock (one of the game's designers) on a BGG thread for Pandemic Legacy Season 1, the disease is eradicated. The medic's ability is immediate, so the cubes are cured and the disease eradicated. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 has rules very similar to those of Pandemic, so I wouldn't hesitate applying this ruling to the regular Pandemic.

Note that in Legacy, unlike vanilla Pandemic, eradicating a disease has consequences in terms of game-end upgrades, so the timing of things is quite important.


Does lifelink apply before life loss during combat damage?

You gain life from lifelink at the same time as you lose it from the attacking creatures, and you will survive.
You gain life as soon as your creature deals damage, there is no delay:

702.15b Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes). See rule 119.3.
119.3f Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller to gain that much life, in addition to the damage’s other results.

All combat damage is dealt at the same time during the combat damage step, assuming there is no first strike or double strike involved:

510.2. Second, all combat damage that’s been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it’s dealt.

After combat, the active player gets priority and can cast spells etc.; before a player gets priority, state-based actions are checked. Players can lose the game from having zero or less health only when those actions are checked:

510.4. Fourth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. [..]
704.5a If a player has 0 or less life, he or she loses the game.

By that time, combat damage has already been dealt and you have more than 0 life.
Note that there are some cards that cause life-gain as a triggered ability rather than through lifelink. They are superficially similar, but have a lot of differences too.
As an example, your creature didn't have lifelink but was instead enchanted with Armadillo Cloak. This would result in the following differences:

The life gain would be put on the stack as a triggered ability. It would resolve after the combat damage step, at which point you would already have lost.
Multiple Armadillo Cloaks on the same creature stack, while lifelink doesn't.
Armadillo Cloak always gives life to the Cloak's controller, no matter who controls the enchanted creature, while lifelink always gives life to the creature's controller, no matter how it got lifelink.


Is there a mis-print on the Grabby Guts card?

It's a little counter-intuitive, but "-1 Hand" is actually correct.  You aren't allowed to use more than 2 hands-worth of items; to check this, you can add up the number of "hands" on all your used items.

If you have two 1-hand items, "1 hand" + "1 hand" = "2 hands".

If you have two 1-hand items, plus Grabby Guts, you'll have "1 hand" + "1 hand" + "-1 hand" = "1 hand", leaving you with one hand left.


Cascade works with exile rather than revealing because of the possibility of one Cascade triggering another Cascade.

The full meaning of Cascade is (702.84a):

  When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card whose converted mana cost is less than this spell's converted mana cost. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Then put all cards exiled this way that weren't cast on the bottom of your library in a random order.

With this definition, if one Cascade spell finds another Cascade spell, the way you handle it is easy: the cards exiled by the first Cascade are still exiled, so you keep going through your library until you find another appropriate spell. It's simple and a very literal cascade through your library.

What if you were simply revealing cards from the top of your library? Well, the "reveal" doesn't actually move the cards from your library. So if you needed to Cascade again, you have to put those cards back and then look through them again! Then, making the "put all cards revealed this way" phrasing work becomes much more complicated, because some of the cards are subject to two or more Cascade effects.

In short, I don't believe that there's a deep gameplay reason, but it makes the Cascade mechanism (specifically, its recursive nature) and the wording simple and elegant.


Problem with lifelines in "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" board game

The hit-and-miss nature of the Ask The Audience seems like it is right.  There is no mention in the rules that the answer that a player gives for Ask The Audience must match the answer they ultimately decide to go with.  If you look at the rules for Phone A Friend (which appears to work similarly) it states

  this card does not have to match what the “Friend” may have answered
  on his/her own Console

Since in the real game show asking the audience is really just asking a bunch of random people what they think, I believe the "problem" you have encountered in many ways actually approximates how a real random audience would work.  You have some that know the answer (and are helpful people), some who aren't sure, some who are trolls and saboteurs (even the Phone A Friend lifeline could be used to mess somebody up on purpose, which is partially why I believe that sabotage is ok).

Also, just like in the game show, there is no guarantee that what the audience says is the right answer is really correct.  The contestant has to decide how much they really want to believe the audience and then make their decision.


What is the best way to keep everything organized and spend less time setting up?

For card selection, I highly recommend the iDominion iPhone app.  Lets you specify which sets to include, blacklist individual cards, require Reactions if there are Attacks, and even re-roll one card of the 10 if you just hate the Smithy.  There's also a "lite" free version.

I have all of my cards (Dominion, Intrigue, Seaside, and Alchemy) in two collectible-card-game "long boxes", sorted by set and by name.  (Mine are sleeved as well, but that's not required).  Use one of the many dividers on BoardGameGeek to assist in locating cards.

It's easy to have one person take each box and pull out the cards you need, and for others to chip in parceling out the gold, VPs and starting decks as they're pulled from the boxes.

You can divide up the work this way with the original boxes, but card boxes take up a LOT less table space and the ordering of cards in the original boxes can be highly confusing.


In War, what if one player runs out of cards mid-war?

Answers vary. From pagat.com:

Most descriptions of War are not clear about what happens if a player runs out of cards during a war. There are at least two possibilities:

If you don't have enough cards to complete the war, you lose. If neither player has enough cards, the one who runs out first loses. If both run out simultaneously, it's a draw. Example: Players A and B both play sevens, so there is a war. Each player plays a card face down, but this is player B's last card. Player A wins, since player B does not have enough cards to fight the war.

If you run out of cards during a war, your last card is turned face up and is used for all battles in that war. If this happens to both players in a war and their last cards are equal, the game is a draw. Example: Players A and B both play sevens, so there is a war. Player A plays a card face down, but player B has only one card, so it must be played face up. It is a queen. Player A plays a card face up and it is also a queen, so the war must continue. Player B's queen stays (B's last card) while player A plays a card face down and one face up, which is a nine. Player B wins the war and takes all these seven cards (the five cards that A played and the two cards that B played) and the game continues normally.


How should my strategy change in an MTG Draft based on the number of players?

The traditional number is, of course, 8 players. This is the only pod size used in high-level tournaments as far as I know, but for something more casual like FNM, it's not uncommon to hold drafts with 6 to 10 players. Personally I've participated in (non-sanctioned) drafts with 4 players and with 9 players.

Perhaps surprisingly, the difference in the size of the card pool isn't that significant. Keep in mind that even though you'll have fewer (or more) cards to choose from, there are also fewer (or more) people to choose them. As long as you draft with 3 packs (42 or 45 cards) per person, those two effects balance each other out. It is an imperfect balance, though. Your decks tend to be a bit looser in a smaller pod, in the sense that if you're drafting a very specific archetype (perhaps one that relies on a specific card), you probably won't see enough of the cards that archetype needs to build the deck as focused as you would in an 8-player draft. You'll have to branch out and incorporate some cards that are less relevant to the deck you're trying to build, or perhaps combine two or more specific archetypes. Taking Innistrad draft as an example, instead of drafting a self-mill recursion deck as you might in an 8-player pod, if you're in a 4-player pod you might have to draft blue fatties, only some of which will be relevant to the recursion theme. Inexperienced drafters tend to just draft broad color-based strategies anyway, so they will likely not be affected much by the change in the pod size.

A much more noticeable difference, in my opinion, is that as the pod size shrinks, there are fewer people intervening between your first and second picks from a given pack, and so your chances of tabling your second or third choice card from the pack goes way up. As long as your archetype of choice is sufficiently broad, it's actually easier to make a consistent deck in a small draft pod. If you think about it, with 5 colors and 4 or 5 players, there's a decent chance that the colors will sort themselves out 1 per player.

Conversely, as the pod size grows, your chances of tabling any given card in a pack goes down. In fact, if you go up to 9 drafters, there will be 3 whole packs which you only see once. With 10 drafters, there will be 5 packs you only see once, and so on. This phenomenon reduces your ability to communicate with the rest of the table through your picks, and so you're less likely to get cards that fit into your strategy late in the draft. You should still be able to make a fairly focused deck because of the large card pool, but be prepared to have to fit in some "stragglers," cards that you wouldn't ordinarily want in your deck.

I've heard a lot of people say that pods with an odd number of drafters (like 7 or 9) are undesirable. I'm not sure why that is, though. The effects I've discussed above are minimal for a 7-person or 9-person pod, so the only disadvantage I can think of is that one person has to sit out each round during the games.


If opener "pre-empts" in first or second position, can you reasonably assume a pretty strong suit?

Seat, vulnerability, and partnership agreement all affect required strength for preemptive openings.

On seat:

In second seat, you are preempting 1 partner and 1 opponent; this seat has the narrowest range of suit quality and hand strength.
In third seat, you are preempting 0 partners and 1 opponent; this seat has the widest range of suit quality and hand strength.
In first seat, you are preempting 1 partner and 2 opponents. In this seat the hand might belong to your side or opponents'; it requires a narrower range than third seat but allows a wider range than second seat.

On vulnerability:

When you are vulnerable and opponents are not, missing your side's game imposes a higher cost and preventing opponents from reaching their side's game (or preventing them from finding their best strain) has a lesser benefit.
When you are not vulnerable and opponents are, missing your side's game imposes a lower cost while preventing opponents from finding their best contract has a greater benefit.
When vulnerability is equal, the cost/benefit ratio is in between. You should be slightly more conservative when both are vulnerable than when neither is vulnerable, because the penalty for undertricks is higher (though I take this as a lesser concern).

On partnership agreement:

Broadly speaking, preempts have two purposes. The first is constructive: you wish convey to partner your hand type. The second is destructive: you wish to prevent opponents from finding their best contract. Different partnerships will have different philosophies here as to which goal is more important, and this will vary by seat and vulnerability as laid out above.

The more constructive you wish to be, the narrower the range of hand strength and suit quality you should have. The narrowest common range is something like "my opening 3 bids show exactly 7 cards with 2 of the top 3 honors or 3 of the top 5, in a hand with 7-10 points and no void or side 4-card major." This is a very reasonable standard for nonfavorable second seat openings. This will help partner evaluate their hand for a raise to 3NT or 4 of your major.

The more destructive you want to be, the wider your range should be. This increases the frequency of the bid while decreasing the information given to your opponents. This will make it more difficult for them to determine whether 3NT is safe, for example, and make it more difficult for them to place cards in the defenders' hands during the play. The widest "reasonable" standard for 3-bids is something like "a good six-card suit or a bad seven-card suit in a hand with 2-10 points."

Edited to answer the sub-questions:

Given a 7-card suit (and no other information), it will have all 3 top honors 12% of the time, 2 top honors 44%, 1 top honor 37%, and 0 top honors 7% of the time.
With most of my partners, I would open e.g. a 7321 hand with AKQxxxx and no other honors at the one level in most seats, but at the three level in second seat. Other partnerships open it at the three level more often. With a 7321 hand with Jxxxxxx and no outside honors, I would open at the three level not vulnerable in third seat; other partnerships would never open such a hand. As mentioned above, this depends wholly on your partnership's philosophy of constructive vs destructive preemption. There's not a single right answer here.
I don't understand your "average expectations" rubric. Why do you care about the spots? If you have agreed to play sound preempts with your partner, and you hold Axxx AT Axxx Axxx across from your partner's 3H opening, you can be nearly certain that you'll take 10 tricks in a no trump or hearts contract. It's not reasonable to replace the AT in AQT8642 with the 3 and 5, because your partner has agreed to open only if holding two of the top three or three of the top five. They almost certainly hold KQxxxxx or KQJxxxx. If you agreed to play a wider range, you'll often have to lose a trick in hearts, but it's probably worth the gamble when vulnerable -- even if partner has a poor heart suit like Q9xxxxx, they'll generally have an outside king to make the tenth trick.


Can I target an indestructible creature with a 'destroy target creature' spell?

Yes, Indestructible creatures are legal targets for spells/abilities that say "destroy target creature."

The spell actually does resolve, but when it attempts to destroy the creature rule 700.4 prevents it from happening. The requirements for a "legal target" for a spell must be a permanent, unless the spell/ability specifies otherwise. Indestructibility does not modify the rules for targeting, unlike the rules for protection (702.15b A permanent or player with protection can’t be targeted by spells with the stated quality and can’t be targeted by abilities from a source with the stated quality).

You can target Gideon with Rapid Hybridization, and when it resolves it will fail to destroy Gideon and will create 3/3 frog owned by Gideon's controller.

  114.2. Only permanents are legal targets for spells and abilities, unless a spell or ability (a) specifies that it can target an object in another zone or a player, (b) targets an object that can’t exist on the battlefield, such as a spell or ability, or (c) targets a zone.

  700.4. If a permanent is indestructible, rules and effects can’t destroy it. (See rule 701.6, “Destroy.”) Such permanents are not destroyed by lethal damage, and they ignore the lethal-damage state-based action (see rule 704.5g). Rules or effects may cause an indestructible permanent to be sacrificed, put into a graveyard, or exiled.


It sounds like you know that spells and abilities on the stack resolve in "first-in, last-out" order. However in the majority of cases, this rule will only become important when your opponent "responds" to your spell or ability, so that theirs will resolve first. This will come up frequently if your opponent has lots of instants in their deck (especially counterspells or removal spells).

When you cast a sorcery spell, it goes on the stack and your opponent has an opportunity to respond to it before it resolves. If they do, their response will resolve first because of the "first-in, last-out" nature of the stack. If they don't, your sorcery will resolve.

It is possible to respond to your own spells, but it is very rare that you would actually want to. It is generally preferable to just wait to see if the first resolves, then cast the second one.

In case a), you cannot respond to your sorcery with another sorcery because of the rule you linked. You must wait for the first one to resolve, then cast the second one. You could however respond with an instant, which would resolve before the sorcery.

In case b), you could indeed respond to your instant with a second instant, so the second one would resolve first. Alternatively you could wait for the first one to finish resolving, then cast the second one afterwards.


I've tried counting cards while playing Catan, and I've really found it a needless distraction.  It really isn't worth the effort to know that Player X has exactly 4 Ore, a Grain and a Sheep in their hand.  It gets much too confusing too quickly, especially when you throw in robbing and trades.

Instead, I focus only on counting my most scarce resource.  Since that's almost always the one I would try to steal or trade for, that information is valuable enough to make the effort for.  There are relatively few of that good in circulation, so keeping tabs on them as people buy, trade, and build with them is much easier.


What happens when The Paranormal Investigator discovers a Werewolf?

Allegiance moves with the card, so it's always the person with the PI card who will be a Werewolf. This isn't really spelled out with the PI card, but it follows the same process as the Doppelganger from the base game of ONUW (the PI being from the Daybreak expansion).

  If a player receives the Doppelganger card during the night, she is the role the Doppleganger originally viewed.


Countering Villa + Jeweler in Puerto Rico: The Nobles

Ultimately, we decided that Jeweler and Villa shouldn't be allowed in the same game.  Since the first expansion already has the rule that the Hacienda and Forest House shouldn't be allowed in the same game, there's a precedent for this.

Villa + Royal Gardens is still a bit of a problem, but with Jeweler out of the picture, you won't be getting obscene amounts of money from all of your Nobles during the crafting phase.


In Carcassonne, what is the point of a Bridge in the expansion set?

Their primary purpose of bridges is to be able to play a tile that you normally could not because of a road.

You have more options to finish a construction, sabotaging with roads/farms becomes significantly harder.

Second, bridges strongly affect farms. As Nick already pointed out, farms turn out to be massively larger. It's not at all uncommon to have a single, huge farmland that spans the entire map, minus the tiny farms at the edges sealed off by towns obviously.

On the other hand, invading an already occupied farmland becomes a lot easier than before.

For example (assuming only base set + first expansion), without bridges, the only way to cross a street in order to invade a farm was with the cloister + single road tile. For that purpose, the Bridges & Castles expansion not only adds bridges, but also several tiles with broken roads to accomplish the same thing.


Which Faction Power will result in the greatest bonus troops and/or fewest troop losses?

Die Mechaniker

1) Your starting HQ is always treated as FORTIFIED (+1 to both dice) when you defend it.

2) If your defense roll is two natural 6s, that territory cannot be attacked again for the rest of the turn.

Reason: The odds of getting two natural 6s on a single roll is 1/36. Therefore, the odds that we have not rolled a pair of 6s by the nth attack is, (1-1/36)^n. This is roughly 50% by the 25th-26th attack. This means that in half the games that you roll with two defenders 25 times, you will still not have recieved a bonus from this power. I would say on average, the first game lasts anywhere from 3-5 rounds, and considering you will probably only get 3-5 troops per round, for a total of 8+[(3*5)|(5*5)]=[21|33] troops. If you only received the minimum troops each turn, you more than likely would never get the faction bonus. Even if you are lucky enough to roll 66, the only fair way to count troops saved would be to divide the troops that you could have lost by the odds of you rolling 66 (approximately 21/25 or 33/25, somewhere close to 1 troop. If you could get the 5 troops per turn (probably only likely by getting a continent bonus from Australia/South America/Africa, you would be much better off with a FORTIFIED Headquarters.

A fortified HQ gives you +1 to your High and Low dice. This bonus will result in you losing ~0.388 troops when compared to a normal unmodified attack. This means that you only need to have 4-5 troops within your HQ before this faction power is certain to have a greater effect than the pair of natural sixes power.

The Saharan Republic

1) You can make your maneuver at any point during your turn.

2) When making your maneuver, you may maneuver between any two territories you control, even if they are not connected.

Reason: While neither of these power directly results in fewer troop loses, the ability to maneuver at any point in your turn could allow you to move troops that were previously on one of two different fronts (South America/Africa), for a final assault against two opponents HQs. I will edit this with a little more detail later on troop loses that could be avoided because of this.

Imperial Balkania

1) When recruiting troops, round up when dividing your territory and population by 3, not down.

2) You still draw a resource card at the end of a turn where you expanded into 4+ territories, even if you didn't conquer a territory.

Reason: You aren't likely to be able to get 10+ territories in a 5 player game. At least with the second faction power, you will most likely get 1-2 resource coins. This will amount to at least 2 troops over the course of a game.

Enclave of the Bear

1) The defender subtracts 1 from his lower defense die in the first territory you attack during your turn.

2) If your attack roll is a natural three of a kind, and at least one defending troop is defeated, you conquer the territory. Remove all defending troops.

Reason: From the same statistics link above (Die Mechaniker), you can see that -1 do the defenders low die will result in 0.14 less troop loses, but only for the first territory that they attack in a turn. A clever opponent though can place a 1-2 troops in front of their main defenses to mitigate this power somewhat. The odds of rolling a natural 3 of a kind that kills at least one troop is 125/7776. The number of turns before that is likely to happen is about 43 attacks with 3 troops. I don't think you are likely to see this within the first game. Even if you did, you probably would only kill at most 5 troops, saving you about 5 troops yourself (5/43=0.116). Two attacks with Enclave of the Bears first power would already save you more troops in the long run, and is much more likely to happen.

Khan Industries

1) At the start of your turn, place one troop in each territory that has an HQ you control.

2) When drawing a territory card, you may place one troop into that territory if you control it.

Reason: You are certain to get 1 troop as long as you control your HQ. This will likely gain you 3-5 troops before the first game ends. The second power only gets you a troop if you defeat an enemy, and if you have that territory under your control at the end of the turn. You might have to waste a maneuver to bring those troops to the front lines, but you will earn more troops with the first power.

Overall, I think that Khan Industries is likely to earn/save you the most troops in the first game. With Die Mechankier placing a close second, if you can place your HQ at a good choke point.


Note: all quotes taken from this set of rules.

Yes, you can replace the Joker with either of the missing 10s (in this case, a blue 10)

  In the case of group consisting of two equal tiles and a joker, the joker can be replaced by a matching tile of either of the missing colors.

Yes, you can use the retrieved joker as any tile; you are free to change the color and/or rank it represents.

  a player who has in hand the tile which is represented by a joker on the table, the player can substitute the real tile for the joker and then re-use the joker in some combination on the table.

And note: this is "yes" only if you've already set out your initial meld. You can't retrieve a joker before putting down your first meld.

  The first meld made by each player must consist of one or more combinations formed entirely from that player's hand