What's the most effective storage solution for x-wing to keep bases, dials and templates next to ships?

What I use is a large organizer box.  Something like this

The trick being having one where the size of the spaces can be adjusted, and one deep enough to fit the ships.

Then I cut up the original packaging of the ships.  They are already perfectly molded to the shape of the ship.  Cutting them out in exact size of the square that I am going to use I insert the packaging into he box, and then the ship into the packaging

I keep the cardboard for the ships in logical squares below the model


The short version

Gifts Ungiven was — and is — popular because it's one of the most powerful and flexible tutor cards in Magic, thanks to its ability to find multiple relevant cards for just 4 mana, at instant speed. In practice, the card is much more powerful than it looks:

The opponent's choice is not a meaningful disadvantage: it's easy to render the opponent's choice practically meaningless, using functional equivalents or Regrowth effects.
Putting cards in your graveyard is actually a desirable feature of the card, not a disadvantage: it's fairly easy to build decks that efficiently reuse cards in your graveyard; it's very easy to cheat on costs when you do that, too.
Tutoring for multiple cards is super-powerful: Gifts is exceptionally good at setting up combos and engines.

The long version

Gifts Ungiven isn't just any tutor card. Sure, it costs the same as Diabolic Tutor, with the following added bonuses:

Gifts is an instant-speed tutor in blue, the best "draw-go" color. You don't have to tap out on your own turn to cast Gifts. Instead, you can keep your mana open, ready to counter any important plays your opponent makes, and then play Gifts whenever it's convenient.
Gifts gives you more than one card. That's always good, right?

So, it's at least as good as Mystical Teachings (also an instant-speed tutor with built-in card advantage — one that saw tournament play during Time Spiral Standard and later in Modern). But it's way better than that, too!

Gifts give you four cards. Not two cards, four cards — it's just that two of them will end up in your graveyard. And you get all those cards at the same time, which makes it an amazing combo tutor.

Your opponent gets to control which cards go where, but, with careful deck-building and skillful play, you can get much more power from the card by effectively removing your opponent's meaningful choices.

Functional equivalents

At the least, Gifts allows you to tutor for four cards and get the third and fourth best ones for the current situation into your hand. That's pretty powerful by itself, though it relies on building a deck that even has a third and fourth best card for many situations.

An easy way to get that effect is to run one-ofs of a bunch of very similar cards, so that your "third best" card is basically the same as your "best" card. Here's the classic example:

(I'm using general examples rather than all Kamigawa-block ones because it's much easier to think about what's good in general Magic than in the rather idiosyncratic world of any set's Block Constructed.)

Two of those cards will end up in your hand. Three of them are 4-drop sweepers. So, whatever your opponent picks, you're guaranteed at least one sweeper in your hand. (The fourth card could be anything, in this case — Path to Exile just fits because you can use it to answer a creature your opponent plays after the wrath.)

Regrowth effects

Running lots of functional equivalents takes up a lot of space in your deck. This isn't too bad for the sweepers example above, since decks often run three of four wraths anyway. When you've got one particular, functionally-unique card you really want, though, or a niche case where you'd only run a one-of.

A common solution is to run "Regrowth" effects, forcing your opponent to choose between the card you want and a card that'll fish it out of your graveyard.

An example from the Kamigawa era is Frank Karsten's 2005 Worlds (Standard) deck. Let's say Frank's opponent has an artifact that needs to be removed right away. The deck has one maindeck answer — Putrefy. Here's a way he could tutor it with Gifts:

Recollect gives you Putrefy back in hand. Reclaim can put it on top of your library; you could either cast Reclaim on your upkeep and draw the card naturally, or use the Top to bring the card to your hand. Your opponent can make you spend a couple of cards and some extra mana to cast Putrefy, but, short of graveyard hate, he can't keep you from casting it.

An easy way to get the same effect with more recent cards, without even having to run green mana sources, is to include Snapcaster Mage and Noxious Revival in your Gifts pile.

Card you just want in your graveyard anyway

Hopefully you saw that this is where we were going when I mentioned Snapcaster.

The graveyard is a very active zone in Magic. So much so that some cards are actually at their most powerful in the 'yard. Kenji Tsumura's 2005 Pro Tour Los Angeles (Extended) deck includes Darkblast and Life from the Loam, whose Dredge ability helps power up his Psychatogs; as well as Wonder, whose in-your-graveyard ability is more relevant than the creature itself.

Flashback cards are great to tutor up with Gifts — whether they go in your hand or the graveyard, you can cast 'em either way. In addition, it's important to note that this is a valid Gifts pile:

That's it! Just two cards.

  701.14b If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a    certain card type or color, that
  player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if
  they’re present in that zone.

(The "stated quality" in this case is "different names".)

Since your opponent must choose two cards to go in your graveyard, both of these will end up in your 'yard. At which point you can flashback Rites and bring out your big reanimated finisher. It's the best graveyard-filling tutor this side of Entomb!

I believe the first example of using Gifts like this was actually during Kamigawa block. During one of the Pro Tour matches, a player was about to lose the game but had Goryo's Vengeance and Gifts in hand. So he Gifts-ed for just Kokusho and then let him die to drain his opponent.

Combos and engines

You know how Tooth and Nail is so good because you can dig out both pieces of a combo at the same time?

Gifts does that as well. It's especially easy with graveyard-based engines. For example, Patrick Chapins' 2008 Pro Tour Berlin (Extended) deck could set up his win condition using something like this:

Regardless of which card goes where, this sets up an engine that lets you make a bunch of Worm tokens every turn.

Plain old deception

Setting up "no-win scenarios" for your opponent is powerful and consistent, but sometimes you don't even need to do that.

For instance, let's say you have Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, Steam Vents, and two Izzet Signets in play (five mana total, but one land away from completing the UrzaTron).

You show me this Gifts pile:

Now, I do have real, serious choices here.

If I let you complete your Tron with the Power Plant, you might cast something nasty next turn — or have nothing to do with all your mana.
If I give you Through the Breach, you could crush me with an Eldrazi next turn, but only if you have one in hand.
If I give you Emrakul, it might sit uselessly in your hand for a number of turns. Or you might be sanbagging a Power Plant already in hand, ready to ramp you all the way to 15 mana in a couple more turns.

There are right choices and wrong choices, but they're based on hidden information. If I guess wrong, you're probably won the game. You're taking a chance when you do this, of course, but it's a chance with a big upside.

Another common way to play mind games with your opponent is to use the Regrowth trick detailed above, but then regrow some other card that was already sitting innocuously in your graveyard.

What a truly busted Gifts deck looks like

Did you know that Gifts Ungiven is restricted in Vintage and banned in Commander? Do you ever wonder why?

Look at this deck (more discussion available here).

Gifts gets so much better with a deeper card pool: there are more ways to cast stuff from your graveyard, more functional equivalents to choose from, more powerhouse "silver bullet" singletons, more two-card combos.

In the right deck, Gifts Ungiven is a one-card combo, an obscene card advantage engine, and every kind of disruption you need to win the game.


If you flash the creature in during the Declare Attackers step or earlier, you can block with that creature. You can do it after attackers are declared, but it's too late once blockers have been declared.

"Summoning sickness" prevents three things:

Declaring the sick creature as an attacker.
Activating abilities of a sick creature with the tap symbol (aka {T}) in their cost.
Activating abilities of a sick creature with the untap symbol (aka {Q}) in their cost.

Blocking is permitted.


One way to remove a first-player advantage (in general for any open-information game) is to let one player make a proposed first move. Then the other player can choose to play as either side.

This is similar to splitting a cake by letting one person cut and one person choose. The first player cannot take too obviously powerful a first move, or the second player will opt to choose that side.


Looking for a simple yet deep card / board game featuring superheroes to use as an introduction to games

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game that fits all of your needs:

  I want to keep to the superhero theme to help this new player engage more with the story, since it is something they are in to.

The players in the game take on the role of superheroes who work together to fight a supervillain and their minions, all while dealing with an unstable environment that may help or hurt them. Each of the character's powers are reflected in the mechanics (e.g. Tachyon the speedster draws lots of cards, Ra the Egyptian god has a scepter and deals lots of fire-based damage).

  Bonus points if the game has an electronic version that can enforce rules without us having to remember them all, at least until they feel comfortable with them.

There is an app version of the game for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS that enforces all of the rules. It's not a rules helper, it's the whole game. After a a game or two, you'll definitely know the rules, but I personally think that the real game has a low enough learning curve that you should be fine without it.

  In terms of complexity, I am probably looking for something more akin to Munchkin than Magic: The Gathering for a card game, or Forbidden Island rather than Arkham Horror for a board game.

Well if it's any indicator, both Munchkin and Forbidden Island are recommended for ages 10 and up and Sentinels of the Multiverse is recommended for ages 8 and up. Personally I think that the game is about as complicated as those two, but hey, the manufacturer thinks that it's simple enough to be played by younger players than those two games. While there are a lot of card effects, they tend to be pretty straightforward and since the game is fully cooperative, players can help each other out if they're having trouble keeping everything straight.

Your question title also mentioned the game being "simple yet deep." The rulebook rates heroes by complexity, so new players can play a hero with a lot of one shot effects while more experienced players can have depth by playing heroes with lots of ongoing effects that interact with each other. Also the fact that there are over a million combinations of heroes, environments, and supervillains (and more if you add the expansions) means that there is a lot of replay value and depth as you try different interactions between characters.


Can I activate a bloodrush ability at instant speed?

Yes. All activated abilities are at instant speed unless they specifically indicate otherwise*. Because the ability is written with a colon, it is an activated ability. It does not need to be on the battlefield to be activated, and your opponent does not need to know it exists to activate it (although you must reveal it, obviously). In this particular cast, you're discarding the card as part of the cost. That's the only reason you have to discard the card. If it didn't say discard, you could activate the ability as many times as you wanted.

This is spelled out in 112.3b, emphasis mine.

  112.3b Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as "[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]" A player may activate such an ability whenever he or she has priority.

Compare this to the rules text for instants,

  304.1. A player who has priority may cast an instant card from his or her hand.

So the timing for activated abilities is the same as the timing for instants.

As for it being in your hand, this is spelled out here:

  602.2a The player announces that he or she is activating the ability. If an activated ability is being activated from a hidden zone, the card that has that ability is revealed. That ability is created on the stack as an object that's not a card.

Note: I said specifically indicate otherwise. This specification does not need to be on the card. For example, the Comprehensive Rules state that planeswalker activate abilities can only be activated on your turn at sorcery speed, but this is not stated on the card.


Do I have to pay the Equip cost each turn to equip a creature with an Artifact Equipment?

No, you would only pay the equip cost again if you wish to equip it to a different creature. There is no rule that causes equipment to automatically fall off each turn.

  702.6. Equip

    702.6a Equip is an activated ability of Equipment cards. “Equip [cost]” means “[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

    702.6b For more information about Equipment, see rule 301, “Artifacts.”

    702.6c “Equip [quality] creature” is a variant of the equip ability. “Equip [quality] [cost]” means “[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target [quality] creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.” This ability doesn’t restrict what the Equipment may be attached to.

    702.6d An “equip [quality] creature” ability is an equip ability, and an “equip [quality] creature” cost is an equip cost. Any effect that modifies how or whether a player may activate an equip ability of an object affects “equip [quality] creature” abilities of that object. Any effect that increases or reduces an equip cost will increase or reduce a “equip [quality] creature” cost.

    702.6e If a permanent has multiple equip abilities, any of its equip abilities may be activated.

In order for equipment to automatically "fall off" at the end of the turn, 702.6a would basically need to read "Attach this permanent to target [quality] creature you control until the end of turn."

The full rules for equipment are here, but really the real rules support for the answer is simply the fact that no such rule exists that would cause something to become unequipped at the end of the turn.

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

    301.5a The creature an Equipment is attached to is called the “equipped creature.” The Equipment is attached to, or “equips,” that creature.

    301.5b An Equipment is cast and enters the battlefield just like any other artifact. An Equipment doesn’t enter the battlefield attached to a creature. The equip keyword ability attaches the Equipment to a creature you control (see rule 702.6, “Equip”). Control of the creature matters only when the equip ability is activated and when it resolves. Spells and other abilities may also attach an Equipment to a creature. If an effect attempts to attach an Equipment to an object that can’t be equipped by it, the Equipment doesn’t move.

    301.5c An Equipment that’s also a creature can’t equip a creature. An Equipment that loses the subtype “Equipment” can’t equip a creature. An Equipment can’t equip itself. An Equipment that equips an illegal or nonexistent permanent becomes unattached from that permanent but remains on the battlefield. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.) An Equipment can’t equip more than one creature. If a spell or ability would cause an Equipment to equip more than one creature, the Equipment’s controller chooses which creature it equips.

    301.5d An Equipment’s controller is separate from the equipped creature’s controller; the two need not be the same. Changing control of the creature doesn’t change control of the Equipment, and vice versa. Only the Equipment’s controller can activate its abilities. However, if the Equipment grants an ability to the equipped creature (with “gains” or “has”), the equipped creature’s controller is the only one who can activate that ability.

    301.5e An ability of a permanent that refers to the “equipped creature” refers to whatever creature that permanent is attached to, even if the permanent with the ability isn’t an Equipment.


Dominion remodel card -can I trash a card already played?

No, you cannot do this. Your "hand" always refers to cards that you physically keep in your hand. Cards that you have played this turn are in a different place, the "in-play" area.

On page 6 of the rulebook:

  To play an Action, the player takes an Action card from his hand
  and lays it face-up in his play area.

Pages 9 and 10 also show picture examples of the different places cards might be; including hand, deck, discard, or in-play.


Yes, you can. There's no limit to the number of instants you can cast, other than having the mana available to pay for them. Is there anything in particular that made you think such a limit would exist? If you haven't done so, check out the basic rule book.

For your second question, yes, at the end of the "declare blockers step", in which your opponent will have decided whether or not to block, each player then gets a chance to cast instants or activate abilities.

From the basic rulebook:

  An instant is just like a sorcery, except you can cast it just about any time you want,
  even during your opponent’s turn or in response to another spell. Like a sorcery, an
  instant has its effect, then you put it into your graveyard.

And

  Your opponent decides which, if any, of his or her
  untapped creatures will block your attacking creatures,
  then they do so. If multiple creatures block a single
  attacker, you order the blockers to show which is first
  in line for damage, which is second, and so on. Players
  can then cast instants and activate abilities.

Note that there are 2 ways to cast 2 instants during the same step:

You can cast the instants one at a time, waiting to cast the second until after the first resolves. Most commonly this is smarter, because you can see what your opponent does before deciding to cast the second one.
Or:
You can cast the second instant immediately after casting the first, in which case the second one you cast will resolve first. If you wish to do this, then you must state as you cast the first instant that you wish to retain priority, otherwise you are assumed to be passing it after casting the instant. You would need to do this if, for example, you wanted to cast Fork, targeting your first instant.


Who chooses which cards are traded when using the Force Deal?

Both choices are made be the player who played the card. You can't use Force Deal to break up a completed set.

(source: monopolydealrules.com)


What happens to the coins on a killed character?

I've not played or heard of the game before but reading the rules file On BGG here this seems to be covered in the Resolution phase example.  (and probably should be under the 'eliminate a card' rules section as well.

The example given shows that influence on an unrevealed card is discarded when the card is discarded.

  Blue's card is a Soldier which must eliminate and adjacent card.
  Blue chooses Red's second card, and reveals it.  Blue discards the
  influence on it.

I think this means that no player gets the influence on the discarded card.


First-player advantage in Puzzle Strike?

Puzzle Strike is related to Dominion in its buy-new-chips mechanics, but its attack and defense mechanics are more strongly tied to Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, the video game without a prequel. Puzzle Fighter has much of the same dynamic as Puzzle Strike: the closer you are to losing, the more ammunition you're holding.

I don't have any hard numbers to back me up about any first-player advantage, but this article about slippery slope vs. perpetual comeback (written by someone involved in the creation of both Puzzle Strike and Puzzle Fighter) puts Puzzle Fighter firmly on the "perpetual comeback" side of the scale: being close to death is also being close to launching a huge attack on your opponent. Winning isn't about slowly wearing down your opponent and forcing them to jump on a slippery slope of "losing = less resources" (such as in an attack-heavy game of Dominion).  Instead, winning Puzzle Strike or Puzzle Fighter is about getting in the last, largest attack. Going first isn't quite irrelevant in that case, but winning is more about taking advantage of the current board state than buying cards one turn ahead of your opponents.


Should the Deck Marker change more frequently?

As you say, from the rules:

Shuffle the deck of Encounter cards and place it to one side. Place
the morning marker next to the deck.  When  there  are  no  more
cards  in  the encounter deck, reshuffle the discards and re-use them.
Also, replace the morning marker with the noon  marker

If  you  reshuffle  a  second  time,  replace  the  noon  marker  with  the  night  marker
(If you need to use the deck a fourth time, leave  the night marker in place.)

There is nothing in the rules or FAQ that would enable you to go through the deck faster than one per turn. For a game that plays a wide range of players (2 to 6), that creates a wide range of rounds required to get through the deck. Combined with the many options in the story book, this could result in small groups not seeing significant parts of the stories over time. Which is what has been widely reported.
Suffice to say it requires some changes to make it work well, and there are a number of options, some suggested in the above links:

Divide the encounter deck into smaller decks each marked with the morning, noon, and night tokens, simply switching to each deck as you finish the previous one. This will work well for player counts where you do manage to get almost through, or through the deck at least once.
Start the game at a different phase, either by consensus, or randomisation. This is good for groups that play together frequently and want to experience the different stories over a longer period of time.
Change the phase at the start of each round (i.e. when you reach the starting player). Works for any player count, and can add more variety into the game. Story wise it allows everyone to play through a morning, noon and evening phase and can make a story of a thrilling day.
Switch phase with each player. Doesn't work with player counts of 3 or 6 as players will always have the same phase on their turns. Will work well for other player counts.
Randomise the phase for each player using the destiny die, utilising a pre-determined specification for the -, +, and blank results (e.g., - is morning, blank is noon, and + is evening)
Utilise predetermined triggers in destiny and story points to decide when to change the phase, e.g. when someone reaches 6 total points, go to noon, when someone reaches 13 total points switch to night. Could be a group wide change, or per player change.

And many, many more variations. Changing the phase doesn't seem to increase or decrease difficulty, so there's no reason to stick to the rules as written when they don't give the variety needed in a story telling game. As with all house rules, it's best that they are identified as house rules, be explained clearly, and all players agree to utilising them.
As the FAQ states:

The    Golden    Rule    of    Tales    of    the    Arabian    Nights    is,   "Whatever    makes    for    the    most    entertaining    story,    makes    for    the    best    game."

So choose the option that give your group the most entertaining story, whether that be sticking to the rules, or implementing one of the variations above, or something else.


How does the Miracle mechanic interact with Flashback?

Snapcaster Mage: Bold for emphasis.

Flash
When Snapcaster Mage enters the battlefield, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost. (You may cast that card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

The flashback cost will be the mana cost of the card, shown on the top right corner of the card. Alternative costs such as the Miracle cost are irrelevant.
But what if you had a Bösium Strip in play?

Miracle {cost} (You may cast this card for its miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn.)

The Miracle cost may only be payed if that card is the first card drawn from your library in a turn, and only when you draw the card. Clearly if the card is in your graveyard, it cannot be drawn, so the replacement effect for the casting cost will never apply.
As an aside, note the implications for a card like Future Sight. If you play the top card in your library that's revealed, you won't be drawing it, so you must pay full cost.


The penalty for misplaying a card, is that now your opponents know you have that card in your hand. Besides that though, the official rules (2003) state the penalty (among other listed penalties):

  If a player plays a wrong card and it is noticed by any other player, he/she must take the card back and take two extra cards from the DRAW pile. Play continues with the next player in turn.

It appears as if the penalty section was removed from the 2008 printing.


Does Phantasmal Bear get sacrificed if its affected by spells or abilities that don't say 'target'?

No, you will not have to sacrifice it. See:

  114.9a Just because an object or player is being affected by a spell or ability doesn't make that object or player a target of that spell or ability. Unless that object or player is identified by the word "target" in the text of that spell or ability, or the rule for that keyword ability, it's not a target.


Does a run on empty archives add counter on Datasucker?

Does a run on empty archives without ice counts as "successful run on a central server"?

Yes it does. The server is empty but it's available for running as usual.


Does Silver Lining negate a creeper requirement?

Normally, if a player has a creeper in play that player cannot win even if they meet the requirements for winning.

If the requirements for winning also require 1 or more creepers (such as in the War=Death goal) the player can win if they have those creepers, and must have those creepers in order to win, however if the player also has any other creepers (such as taxes) in play they cannot win. In this case, a player must have Death and War, but must not have any other creepers in play, in order to win.

The Silver Lining card only removes the requirement that creepers prevent the player from winning. It does nothing else to the creepers or to the requirements. So if you have a goal: War = Death, you can still win if you have War, Death, Taxes, and the Silver Lining card is in play.

"You also need the potato" places the requirement that the baked potato must be one of your cards in addition to the rest of the requirements in order to win. When that card is in play you cannot win without the potato, and you must have the potato in order to win, regardless of whether or not the silver lining is in play.

Ultimately, when a creeper is part of the requirements for a goal or a win condition that creeper in that case does not prevent the player from winning by achieving that goal regardless of whether or not there is a silver lining.


In small world, can builder ghouls still build castles when they are in decline?

There is no builder ability in the base set.  It sounds like you're talking about the Fortified ability?

The rules for Fortified state you can put down one fortress per turn while active.  Here's the full text from the rulebook -

  Once per turn, as long as your Fortified Race
  is active, you may place 1 Fortress in a
  Region you occupy. The Fortress is worth 1
  bonus Victory coin at turn's end, unless you
  are In Decline. The Fortress also augments your Region's
  defense by 1 (just as if you had an additional Race token
  stationed there), even if you are In Decline.
  Remove the Fortress if you abandon the Region
  or when an enemy conquers it. There can only
  ever be a maximum of 1 Fortress per Region,
  and a maximum of 6 Fortresses on the map.

The fortresses stay when you enter decline, but the ability to construct new does not.  And yes, it's the same even if you have Ghouls in decline; being able to continue attacking with them doesn't change how the ability works at all.


Can a card be un-cast, if the player realises it was a bad decision?

Depends on what you mean by "misused".

If the card was cast illegally, such as trying to Shock a creature with Hexproof, the game is rewound to the point immediately before the spell was cast. This does depend on how much time has passed- if so much time has passed that fixing it would be difficult, just correct anything currently illegal and continue the game.

If a player just did something silly, like trying to Shock a creature that actually had 3 toughness because of a Glorious Anthem, the answer is no in any tournament setting. Once you've taken an action, you can't suddenly change your mind. In casual play, it's up to the opponent. If the opponent decides it's sporting to allow take-backs, they can allow them.


What happens if I double Mangara's Tome ETB?

You get two piles of five, and each time you activate the tome, you replace your next draw with taking one card from each pile.
Let's see what happens when the tome enters. The Gatherer rulings on Yarok say

Yarok affects a permanent’s own enters-the-battlefield triggered abilities as well as other triggered abilities that trigger when that permanent enters the battlefield. Such triggered abilities start with “when” or “whenever.”

So the tome triggers itself twice, letting you look for five cards two separate times, putting each in separate piles (there are two separate triggered abilities, not one double-powered single triggered ability, so you do not get one ten-card pile).
Next, what happens when you activate the tome? Again, there is a Gatherer ruling on Yarok:

If a triggered ability is linked to a second ability, additional instances of that triggered ability are also linked to that second ability. If the second ability refers to “the exiled card,” it refers to all cards exiled by instances of the triggered ability.

And also, for more details, rule 607.3:

If, within a pair of linked abilities, one ability refers to a single object as “the exiled card,” “a
card exiled with [this card],” or a similar phrase, and the other ability has exiled multiple cards
(usually because it was copied), the ability refers to each of the exiled cards. If that ability asks for
any information about the exiled card, such as a characteristic or converted mana cost, it gets
multiple answers. If these answers are used to determine the value of a variable, the sum of the
answers is used. If that ability performs any actions on the exiled card, it performs that action on
each exiled card.

Since the first ability was copied, you have two piles of exiled cards. The second ability tells you to take the top card of "the exiled pile" and put it into your hand. Rule 607.3 says you do this with both piles. So you get to "draw" two cards when you do this.


Hand and Foot Rules on playing all cards without going out

I've never played this game but have read the at rules here. they say

To 'Go Out', the player must get a Clean and Dirty, and get completely
rid of the cards. Players must discard the final card, and not 'simply
run out of cards'.

So to me this reads if you have 'simply run out of cards' then you have not 'gone out'.   It also suggests that having a Clean and Dirty book is a requirement for going out so even if you have no cards but not the required books you have not 'gone out'
You would continue to play as normal until you had the required Clean and Dirty books or another player 'goes out'


How does the introduction of victory cities in Axis & Allies revised change gameplay and strategy?

With the introduction of "victory cities," the revised edition tilts the game towards Asia and the Pacific.

Seven new cities have been added to the original roster of five (Tokyo, Washington, London, Berlin and Moscow). The new ones are Paris, Rome, Leningrad, Los Angeles, Calcutta, Manila and Shanghai.

Of these, Paris, Rome, and Leningrad had natural importance in the early editions, en route to Berlin and Moscow, respectively. The Allies actually captured Rome and Paris on their way to Berlin, and arguably, the Germans should have secured Leningrad before attempting Moscow. In a sense, their importance had not changed, only their "scoring."

On the other hand, Los Angeles, Manila, Shanghai and Calcutta have now taken the importance of the other three cities. They are worth fighting for in their own right, rather than just for a few IPCs. Put another way, there are 166 IPCs on the new board and 12 victory cities, meaning that pro rata, each victory city is equivalent to about 14 IPCs. In the old edition, only Los Angeles had anywhere close to that importance. Now it makes sense for both the U.S. and Japan to fight a war in the Pacific instead of heading their forces toward Europe.

The other important change is victory conditions. In the old editions, the Allies were forced to aim for "total victory"  while the Axis were encouraged to go for a major victory (all except the U.S.). (Both of these would be after the implied "mopping up").
There are now minor and moderate victory conditions. The Axis can win a minor victory early by capturing, say, Leningrad and Calcutta, which is more than adequate compensation for the loss of the economic victory option. If the Germans had captured Leningrad and Japan had gone for India instead of Pearl Harbor, the Axis might have gotten a "negotiated" peace.


What do you recommend putting in an Arkham Horror quick reference sheet?

Alright. I'll look for an actual reference guide later, but I'll do a summary of the rules, followed by a brief turn summary now. Here goes.

The game is divided up into four phases. Upkeep, Movement, Encounters, and Mythos.

The game starts with a Mythos.

Phases:

Upkeep: Pass first player token. Refresh Exhuasted Cards, use items/spells that get used during upkeep.

Movement: Starting from first player and going clockwise, investigators get to move. Delayed Investigators stand up and they're done, that's it. Investigators in Arkham can move a number of spaces up to their current speed, barring odd environmental effects. If playing with expansion boards, it costs 1 'movement' to move between two locations with a train symbol, or a location/street with a train symbol and the train station. If an investigator attempts to leave a location/street that has a monster or attempts to end movement in said location, combat starts. Investigators in the first area of an Other World move to the second area. Investigators in the second area of an Other World return to Arkham in a location with an open gate that matches the Other World they're coming from. If no such location exists, they're Lost In Time and Space (lose the rest of this turn and all of the next turn).

Encounters: Arkham encounters come first. Starting from first player and going clockwise, Investigators in a location in Arkahm draw a card for the neighborhood they're in, and read/resolve the encounter for the location they're in. Investigators that are standing on an open gate get drawn through to their respective Other Worlds. Investigators that have returned from an Other World can attempt to close the gate by making a combat or a lore check (Investigator's choice) at the modifier printed on the gate token. If there is a single success, the gate has been closed. When an Investigator closes a gate they can choose to spend 5 clue tokens after the fact to 'seal' the Arkham Location. Then comes Other World encounters. Starting from first playing and going clockwise, Investigators in an Other World location draw Other World encounter cards until they get a card that matches a color of the Other World they're in, and then they resolve that card.

Mythos: The first player draws and resolves a Mythos Card. These get resolved from the bottom up, oddly enough. Bottom left of the card shows the location in Arkham where a gate opens up. With 1-4 players 1 monster accompanies the gate. With 5-8 players you get 2 monsters. If a gate opens in a location where there's already an open gate, a Monster Surge occurs. (Though the exact specifics of this are debated...) Starting from the surging location and going clockwise around the board, place one monster on each gate, for a total of new monsters equal to the number of open gates or the number of Investigators, whichever is greater. If the mythos card shows a location that's been sealed, nothing happens. If a new gate trophy is placed on the board, add a doom token to the Ancient One's doom track. Next up is monster movement. Monsters in a location/stree with an Investigator do not leave. Monsters with symbols that match those in the black rectangle move along the paths in arkham indicated by the black arrow. Monsters with symbols that match those in the white rectangle move along the paths indicated by the white arrow. Monsters with symbols that don't match any on the mythos card do not move. The color of the monster tokens modifies how they move.

Black: Normal
Red: Moves Twice
Yellow: Doesn't Move
Green: Has special text on the token that explains what happens
Blue: If in a location/street and adjacent to an Investigator, moves to them. Otherwise moves to the Sky. The Sky is adjacent to all streets. If in the Sky and adjacent to an Investigator, moves to the Investigator with the worst sneak score.
Purple: Moves to an Investigator in an adjacent street or unstable location. Otherwise it moves normally.
Orange: If in an aquatic location, moves to another aquatic location with an Investigator. Otherwise it moves normally.

Next, a clue is placed on the board in the indicated location. If there's an open gate there, no clue, period. If an Investigator is there, they get the clue.

Finally, the text of the mythos card is resolved.

Combat:

The Monster Token:

On the front of the token is a number in the top corner, that's the awareness modifier. The symbol in the bottom corner isn't important for battle, it's used during the mythos phase for monster movement. The back bottom left of the monster token is for horror checks. If there's a number present, that's the horror check modifier. Under the modifier is a number of ovals for how much sanity damage you'll take for failing the check. The back bottom right is the modifier for the combat check. Under this modifier is a number of hearts for how much stamina damage you'll take for failing the check. The back bottom middle has a number of blood drops, this is the monster's Toughness. This is how many successes you'll need to pass the combat check. Monsters may have additional text at the back top of the token. These effects include:

Ambush: Cannot flee once combat has started
Endless: Don't get the trophy if you win
Physically Resistant/Immune: Physical Weapons give half (rounded in your favor) or none of the bonus they usually do
Magically Resistant/Immune: Magical Weapons/Spells give half (rounded in your favor) or none of the bonus they usually do
Weapon Immune: Weapons give none of the bonus they usually do. Spells are still ok.
Nightmarish X: If you pass the horror check, take X sanity damage. If you fail the horror check, ignore this.
Overwhelming X: If you pass the very first combat check, take X stamina damage. If you ever fail the combat check, ignore this.

Combat Procedure:

At the very beginning of combat, you can attempt a Evade (which is Sneak + anything with evasion bonuses) check at a modifier equal to the monster's Awareness (number on the front top corner). If this check passes, pretend like combat with this monster never happened. (Elusive monsters present in expansions have a green awareness modifier. You can't fight them unless you pass the Evade Check.) If you fail the evade check, you take combat damage from the monster. If combat is still going at this point, you lose the rest of your movement for the turn. Now make the horror check. If the check has no successes, take the horror damage. If you're still alive, start making combat checks. You can also choose to make additional evade checks. If you pass a combat check, the monster is defeated and you claim the trophy. If you pass an evade check, combat ends, the monster remains where it is, and you still don't have any movement. If you fail either a combat check or an evade check, you take combat damage. Repeat this step until combat is over.

Misc.

Getting knocked out/driven insane: If at any point while in Arkahm an Investigator's stamina is reduced to 0, they lose the rest of the current turn, move to St. Mary's Hospital, and are set to 1 Stamina. Same story for sanity except move to Arkham Asylum. If an Investigator is reduced to 0 Stamina or 0 Sanity while in an Other World, lose the rest of the turn, lose the next turn completely, move to Lost In Time and Space, and the relevant stat is set to 1. During the Upkeep phase following the lost turn, the Investigator can appear in any location/street in Arkham. If an Investigator is reduced to 0 Stamina and 0 Sanity simultaneously or are reduced to 0 Sanity or 0 Stamina during Final Combat, or an Investigator's Maximum Sanity/Stamina is reduced to 0, they are devoured. Discard everything except trophies and start with a new character, as though you were setting up.

Monster Limit: There can only be (# of Investigators + 3) monsters on the main arkham board at one time (doesn't include expansion board or the Outskirts). If a monster is placed on the board and the limit is exceeded it goes into the outskirts. The outskirts can support (8 - # of Investigators) monsters. If a monster is placed in the Outskirts and the limit is exceeded, all of the monsters in the outskirts to back into the cup and the terror level increases by one.

Terror Level: Each time the terror level increases, an ally is discarded from the ally deck. Additionally, when the track hits 3, the general store closes; 6 - the curiositie shoppe closes; 9 - The Magic Shop Closes. 10 - Monster Limit is doubled.
Winning: If there are 6 sealed locations in Arkham, or if there are no open gates in Arkham and the Investigators collectively have a number of gate trophies equal to the number of investigators, or the Ancient One is defeated in Final Combat.

Losing: If everyone is devoured in Final Combat

Final Combat: Begins when

There are 9 - (# Investigators divided by 2 rounded up) open gates on the board
The Ancient One's doom track fills up.
Terror Level is 10 and the doubled monster limit is exceeded
No gate trophies left to use when one is needed
No monster trophies left in the cup when one is needed

Final Combat: At the start, the Ancient One's doom track fills up. Final Combat has three phases. Upkeep, Investigator Attack, Ancient One attack. Upkeep is the same as before, also item trading can occur. During Investigator attack, make a combat check at the Ancient One's Combat modified and count the successes. Successes are cumulative across all Investigators and all rounds. A # of successes equal to the # of Investigators removes a single doom token from the Ancient One's doom track. If the doom track empties, the Investigators win. During the Ancient One attack, resolve the printed effect on the card. Usually each Investigator has to pass a skill check of some sort at increasingly difficult modifiers or discard something and when they run out they're dead.

Quick Summary

Upkeep: Refresh, move first player
Movement: Move around the arkham board, fighting/sneaking past monsters or move 1 space in an Other world.
Encounter: Draw an Arkham Encounter, move into an Other World, close a gate, or draw an Other World Encounter
Mythos: Gate opens, doom token, monsters appear, monsters move, clue appears, text is resolved.

Combat:

Evade Check (optional)
Horror Check
Combat Check or Evade Check (repeat this step until dead)

Yeah...the summary got a bit away from me, but that about covers it save for odd corner cases. Hopefully that'll help a bit.


Does "Sacrifice a creature" trigger "sacrifice this creature"

It will not. Sacrificing is a cost paid for the effect to go on stack. Just like you can not spend 1 mana on different costs, you can not spend 1 creature on different costs.

If you wanted it to work the way you described, the ability should be a triggered one, for example it could read: 'When this creature is sacrificed, ...'.

(Also, keep in mind that sacrificing is not targeting anything. Untargettable creatures can still be sacrificed)


All three of your Thatchers will get +3/+3.  They do enter the battlefield simultaneously, and in the process of Thatcher Revolt resolving, Goldnight Commander will trigger three separate times.  By the time you reach the point of going to resolve each of the three Goldnight Commander triggers on the stack, Thatcher Revolt has long since finished resolving, and all your Thatchers are present on the battlefield, queueing up for their Giant Growths!


We had 4 attack cards in a row yielding 8 turns for player B.

For the nerfed version: The attack card does not stack in Exploding Kittens. It is not like the +1 in Uno (if you get the reference).

If you play an attack on me, I have to draw 2 cards. If I play an attack card on top of your attack card, my turns are immediately over and you have to play two turns.

For the current version, player B has to play 8 turns.

  Should we take turn to mean a single turn?

Yes, a single turn, but player B has to play 2 turns (nerfed version) or 8 turns (current version).

So if I understood correctly,

player B played attack on A
player A played attack on B
player B played attack on A
player A played attack on B
player B has to play two turns or eight depending on the version you're playing. So B has to draw the last card on the deck, which is an exploding kitten. Player B draws the exploding kitten, plays a defuse and has to put the exploding kitten back on the deck. Since there is only one card left player B puts the exploding kitten back on the draw pile facing down.
Player B finishes her first turn.
It is player B turn again. Player B must draw a card from the deck which is an exploding kitten.

In your case, player B had an extra defuse? If not, player B explodes and loses the game. If player B had an extra defuse card, it can draw the EK, play its defuse, put EK back in the draw pile and it is player A's turn.

If you are playing the current version, player B won't have 8 defuse cards. So player B loses the game.

I hope that helps


Can you build a road on the other side of another player's settlement?

From the official FAQ:

  Can the roads I build “go through” other players’ settlements
  and cities?

  Answer: No. If you build a new road, it must always connect to one of
  your own roads, settlements, or cities.

The inverse situation is also interesting:

  Longest Road - How can I interrupt the Longest Road of a game partner?

  Answer: By building a settlement on an intersection within the Longest
  Road. Of course, you have to observe all building rules when doing
  this.


I received an answer on /r/cardgames. It's from David Parlett's Oxford A to Z of Card Games.

I recommend David Parlett's Oxford A to Z of Card Games. Here's my understanding from his book:
You lead one member of the happy couple, reveal the other (but hold onto it), and play the trick as normal. In your example, you would take the Jack, and also score for the King or the Queen you chose to play on top of the marriage points.

The key I was missing was the "hold on to it" part, even after the marriage happens and points are awarded (assuming you took a trick). This takes care of the problem I was having where my hand would have one less card than my opponent's.


The rules explicitly state [italics mine]:

  When the name of your character card is called, you must reveal your character card, place it face up in front of you, and take your turn.

If your character has been assassinated, you say nothing and do not acknowledge that you have been assassinated in any way. It will be obvious by the round's end, however, that you did not play a turn and that you were the assassinated character.

Using the most sensible interpretation of the above rules, it follows that it would be considered cheating to pretend that your character was assassinated when it in fact was not.

Since every character is called in numeric order, there shouldn't be any unplayed characters left in anyone's hands at the end of the round, except of course for the assassinated character.


What happens in these end-game situations?

From the ICF Laws of Carrom. Bracketed numbers in italics refer to specific rules that cover the questions.

If the Queen has been covered:

1. What happens if I pocket my last C/m and the Striker?

You lose by 1/3* (+1**).

2. What happens if I pocket my opponent's last C/m?

You lose as normal.

3. What happens if I pocket my opponent's last C/m and the Striker?

You lose as normal (+1**).

4. What happens if I pocket both players' last C/m?

You win by 1/3*. For an improper stroke, you lose by 1/3* (+1**).

5. What happens if I pocket both players' last C/m and the Striker?

(110/112) You lose by 1/3* (+1**).

If the shot covers the Queen:

6. What happens if I pocket my last C/m and the Queen?

(97) You win as normal, having covered the Queen. For an improper stroke, you lose by 3* (+1**).

7. What happens if I pocket my last C/m, the Queen and the Striker?

Unsure! You lose by 3* (+1**).

8. What happens if I pocket my opponents' last C/m and the Queen?

(103) You lose as normal, and the Queen is considered covered by your opponent.

9. What happens if I pocket my opponents' last C/m, the Queen and the Striker?

You lose as normal (+1**), and the Queen is considered covered by your opponent.

10. What happens if I pocket both players' last C/m and the Queen?

(102) You win by 1/3*. For an improper stroke, you lose by 3* (+1**).

11. What happens if I pocket both players' last C/m, the Queen and the Striker?

(109) You lose by 3* (+1**).

If the Queen is left on the board:

12. What happens if I pocket my last C/m, leaving the Queen?

(107) You lose by 3*.

13. What happens if I pocket my last C/m and the Striker, leaving the Queen?

(108) You lose by 3* (+1**).

14. What happens if I pocket my opponent's last C/m, leaving the Queen?

(106) You lose as normal, and the Queen is considered covered by your opponent.

15. What happens if I pocket my opponent's last C/m and the Striker, leaving the Queen?

(111) You lose as normal (+1**), and the Queen is considered covered by your opponent.

16. What happens if I pocket both players' last C/m, leaving the Queen?

(105) You lose by 3*.

17. What happens if I pocket both players' last C/m and the Striker, leaving the Queen?

You lose by 3* (+1**).

* This is the value of the Queen: if the winning player did not cover the Queen, or is at 22+ points, they get 1 point. Otherwise they get the 3 points for covering the Queen.

** The opponent may claim 1 additional point as Due (you pocketed the Striker) and/or 1 additional point as Penalty (you made an improper stroke).


Just to expand on what Matt said, Bioshift has two targets, both of which must be declared at the time of casting. Even if a spell specifies that one effect happens after the other, like Biomantic Mastery, the targets must still be declared together and Swerve won't be able to target the spell.

This also applies to spells that have two separate effects that target, such as a Cryptic Command cast for its first and second modes. Cast like this it cannot be Swerve'd, but if it were cast for the first and third modes then it only has one target, and you can use Swerve.


How much mana does Radiant Fountain provide when tapped?

{1}.

You will only get one colorless mana added to your mana pool when you tap Radiant Fountain. Lands do NOT have an automatic built-in ability, only lands with one of the basic land subtypes do. Radiant Fountain does not have one of these subtypes (Mountain, Forest, Plains, Island, or Swamp).

Even if it did have one of these subtypes, you would still not be able to tap it for 2 mana. Say you have a Radiant Fountain and a Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play. Radiant Fountain now has 2 abilities:

{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool
{T}: Add {B} to your mana pool

In this case, you have these 2 separate Tap abilities, but you can not tap once to get both mana. You would have to choose which ability you wanted to activate by tapping the card, and you would get just 1 mana whichever one you chose.


Couple questions related to Weight of the Underworld

1) You are correct, the restriction on what it can enchant is Enchant creature, so it can enchant any creature. If it was restricted to just yours for example it would say "Enchant creature you control"

2) Yes. The enchantment will resolve and the next time state based actions are checked the game will see the creature has 0 or less toughness and die. Note this is not the same thing as being destroyed so things like indestructible and regenerate won't save the creature.


Avoiding stealing a resource when moving the robber in Catan

Answering the question and its follow-ups:

In general, you are not allowed to decline to take a resource. Page 12 of the rules gives a more detailed explanation of the rule Pat Ludwig cited. There is no option about whether or not to take a resource card if you place the robber next to a city/settlement of one or more players, all of whom have at least one resource card. However, as the answers to your other questions will indicate, you can may have some tactics to wiggle out of this requirement if you really want to move the robber  away but not get your (presumably 8th) resource.
Yes, you can deliberately place the robber in a spot where you will not able to steal a card. P. 12 again states, "You must move the robber away from his current spot and
onto the number token of any other terrain hex." (p. 11 clarifies that the desert is legal even though it does not contain a number token.) Any other indicates that a hex is legal even if it contains no neighbors that have a stealable resource.
Yes, you can deliberately choose to steal from a player who has no resources. Again from p. 12:

  If there are 2 or more such players, you may choose your victim.
  The player you elect to rob keeps his cards face down while
  you take 1 of his cards at random. If he has no cards, you get
  nothing!


Is bringing packs that have a higher chance of a mythic rare to a draft cheating?

Yes, it would be cheating. Your tournament organizer must either provide the booster packs or randomly distribute them before the drafting phase. If that does not happen and you try to exploit that fact, you are cheating.
Since you are well aware that your packs would give you an unfair advantage, you would be cheating. Whether or not your tournament organizer made it easier for this situation to occur by not pooling the packs is irrelevant.
From the Tournament rules:

7.3 Card Use in Limited Tournaments
Cards must be received directly from tournament officials. This product must be new and previously unopened.
If the Tournament Organizer allows players to provide their own product, that product must be pooled with the rest of the product for the tournament and randomly distributed.

The rules (Judging at Regular REL, Infraction Procedure Guide) don't cover your exact situation, because if the tournament rules were followed, it should never occur.
However, cheating is not allowed at any REL and must be sanctioned with disqualification. Going by the definition in the IPG, cheating occurs when a player does something illegal, tries to gain an advantage, and is aware of the illegality.


Sacrifice create before it gets destroyed

Yes... You sac your creature in response to your opponent casting the spell to destroy your creature.


Looking for rules to a card game called "Wild Cards"

Actually, after commenting above, I discovered that you can play Bunco using cards instead of dice.  Check out some of the card-based variants on this page - maybe one of them will be close enough (at least in spirit) to the game that you remember.

http://www.ehow.com/info_12101194_bunco-card-games.html


What's the difference between a Forbidden card and an Illegal Card?

I understand that the difference is that you can use Forbidden cards in a private duel if both players agreed to it before, or in a Championship if its regulations allow it. But you can never use illegal cards. Why not?

There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding between what an "Illegal" card is and what a "Forbidden" card is.
Basically, a Forbidden card is one that was at one time legal to play in OCG or TCG Advanced Format tournaments, but are no longer legal in one or both of them. Note that the TCG also has the Traditional Format, which does not have a Forbidden List.
An Illegal card is one that was never allowed to be played in a tournament. All of the cards have the text "This card cannot be used in a Duel" or a similar phrase written in the bottom left corner, aside from four tournament prize cards that are also considered illegal. Also, counterfeit and unofficial cards are automatically considered illegal. Illegal cards are the only cards that are not allowed to be played in the TCG Traditional Format.
Why are cards made Illegal?
While you can't use Illegal cards in a tournament, there is nothing stopping you from using them in a private duel with your friends. But almost all of the Konami-produced Illegal cards are such because they are pretty much unplayable (by which I mean it is impossible to have a meaningful, fun duel by playing them).
Quite a few Illegal cards, such as Legendary Dragon of White are Match Winner cards meaning that you automatically win not just the duel, but the entire match if you bring your opponent's life points to zero with a direct attack from that monster (tournaments are usually held with three duel matches). The problem was that players would surrender before the player with this monster resolved the attack, which led to accusations of bad sportsmanship. So these cards were banned from tournaments, and Match Winner cards are useless in a casual game with your friends since you aren't playing in a tournament setting.
Other ones include ones that are only playable if you attended a certain tournament (e.g. Get Your Game On!). I imagine that these are Illegal because someone could demand you show proof you were there, which pretty much stops a duel in its tracks.
There's also cards like Card of Last Will that were based on absurdly powerful cards in the anime. Basically, there wasn't really a way to make it playable and still resemble the anime effect, so they just made them as Illegal cards to be fun promo cards (and it says a lot that this card is too powerful given that it's actually weaker than the one the anime had).
So making a card Illegal generally is Konami's way of indicating that "this card is unplayable even in casual duels with your friends".
Why are the Egyptian God Cards Illegal?
Regarding the Egyptian God Cards, the originals were also unplayable. For instance, The Winged Dragon of Ra had ATK ? / DEF ?, but the card didn't tell you what that meant or how it could change. Same with Slifer the Sky Dragon, which had ATK X000 / DEF X000 with no description of what that meant. Obelisk the Tormenter at least had ATK 4000 / DEF 4000, but no other abilities to make it useful, and the blue color might have caused confusion with Ritual Monsters. While it might have worked as a high point Normal Monster, I suppose they probably just made it illegal to match the other two Egyptian God Cards.
Put another way, these Egyptian God Cards are just fancy pieces of promo art that don't have enough rules on them to be playable.
But I heard that there were some legal Egyptian God Cards!
While the original prints were Illegal, Konami made rereleases of these Egyptian God cards that are actually playable and are completely legal to play in tournaments (and they lack the "This card cannot be used in a Duel" text). They are all Effect Monsters and have their abilities explained (which are more balanced than the ones in the anime). Check out The Winged Dragon of Ra, Slifer the Sky Dragon, and Obelisk the Tormenter. Most of these were distributed as promos: I got the legal version of Obelisk when I went to see Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions at my local movie theater.
Will the Egyptian God Cards destroy the world if I play them?

In the anime they said that the Egyptian God Cards are so powerful that if someone loses the control over them in a duel, then they can destroy the world.
Is that the official reason?

I can assure you, Konami does not make the original set of Egyptian God cards Illegal because they fear that a random duelist will summon the card and lose control of them, inadvertently destroying the world. I have played my Obelisk before and the world is still intact. But then again, maybe it's only a risk if I grow hair as crazy as Yugi's ;-)


Can a 0/0 creature with +1/+1 counters on it (like a Hydra) be regenerated?

Those two spells Destroy. Regeneration replaces destruction, which means the destruction doesn't happen, which means it doesn't cause anything to go to the graveyard. If you cast the regeneration mode of Golgari Charm in response to Doom Blade or Supreme Verdict, your Hydras will be safe. They will not lose counters, enchantments, or equipment; they don't gain summoning sickness; spells targeting them don't lose sight of them; LTB and ETB abilities don't trigger; etc.

  614.8. Regeneration is a destruction-replacement effect. The word “instead” doesn’t appear on the card but is implicit in the definition of regeneration. “Regenerate [permanent]” means “The next time [permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage marked on it and tap it. If it’s an attacking or blocking creature, remove it from combat.” Abilities that trigger from damage being dealt still trigger even if the permanent regenerates. See rule 701.12.

Regeneration will not save the Hydras from being sent to the graveyard as a result of having non-positive toughness, but nothing in the scenario you gave reduces their toughness (by removing +1/+1 counters or otherwise).


If I untap all my attackers, do they stay attacking?

This is answered in the magic comprehensive rules, rule 506.4, in particular 506.4b:

  506.4 A permanent is removed from combat if it leaves the battlefield, if its controller changes, if it phases out, if an effect specifically removes it from combat, if it's a planeswalker that's being attacked and stops being a planeswalker, or if it's an attacking or blocking creature that regenerates (see rule 701.12) or stops being a creature. A creature that's removed from combat stops being an attacking, blocking, blocked, and/or unblocked creature. A planeswalker that's removed from combat stops being attacked.

  ...

  506.4b Tapping or untapping a creature that's already been declared as an attacker or blocker doesn't remove it from combat and doesn't prevent its combat damage.

So the attacking creature is not removed from combat when it is untapped.


How to get the best value out of gold and gems in MTG Arena?

Hall of Famer Frank Karsten wrote the definitive analysis for this.

The short version of it is, for beginners with <44% win rate, play BO1 draft for gem entry and BO1 constructed for gold entry. For average players with 44-54% win rate, play Sealed for gem entry and either BO1 or BO3 constructed for gold entry. For veterans with >54% win rate, play BO3 draft for gem entry and BO3 constructed for gold entry.


In Gin-Rummy, what is the bonus points for Gin and Undercut?

Gin-Rummy has many scoring variantions.  As Andrew suggested in a comment, Paget is a good source for rules of card games.

From Paget:

  Some people play that the bonus for going gin is 25 (rather than 20)
  and the bonus for an undercut is 20 (rather than 10). Some play that
  the bonus for an undercut, the bonus for going gin, and the box bonus
  for each game won are all 25 points.

The score on Wikipedia are 25 points per gin, undercut and box bonus.

Both Zinga's popular app Gin Rummy Plus, and cardgames.io use 25 points bonuses for undercuts, gin and box bonus.

For the third question, the answer is no, that player just get the undercut bonus.


Rummikub - Maximum number of tiles in hand

No, there is no maximum. I'll link the rules, but there's nothing to quote, as there is no limit.
Tiles in hand count against you, so there is some risk involved in this strategy.

The first player who manages to play all their tiles wins. The other players add up the numbers on the tiles remaining in their racks, counting jokers as 30. They each score minus the total of their remaining tiles, and the winner scores plus the total of all the losers' tiles.


How do Panglacial Wurm and Imoti interact?

No, you won't know what it cascades into.
Cascade is a triggered ability. This means that the ability triggers when you cast the Wurm, and then goes onto the stack once players receive priority. This only happens once you're done resolving whatever spell or ability let you search in the first place. At the end of the search, you are almost certainly instructed to shuffle your library (I don't know any searching effects that doesn't make you shuffle your library afterwards, but I don't know that none exist).
So here is the order of events:

You search your library, cast the Wurm, the cascade triggers
You finish your search, and shuffle your library as instructed
The cascade is put on the stack
Players have opportunities to cast instants and activate abilities
The cascade resolves and you exile cards from the top of your library

So the search that let you play the Wurm does not let you know what it cascades into. You would have to do something like a scry in step 4 above in order to know that. But by then you have already decided to cast the Wurm.


How does one evaluate the "strength" of a hand in Magic the Gathering?

A Good Hand is a Good Plan

Magic plays rather differently from a traditional card game:

Most cards in Magic require other cards as resources (e.g. land to generate mana). They can only be played once you've sufficiently developed your board. An effective deck has a mixture of early-, mid-, and late-game cards; what exactly that means varies greatly depending on your strategy.
Many cards are situationally useful — they're good because of synergy with other cards, or because they're reactive cards that answer an opponent's plays.
You get to tailor the deck to a particular strategy (outside of a few very special game modes like Momir Basic and Rainbow Stairwell).

So, most of the individual evaluative tricks don't work the same way at all. But that's fine.

Because, as you probably know, all of the evaluation tricks from bridge are cognitive shortcuts for figuring out the fundamental question: "How will this hand play out?" That's what you need to figure out in Magic as well.

Look at your hand and imagine what you're going to do in the next few turns. Imagine what your opponent is going to do, too, based on whatever information you have about them.

"I'm going to run my opponents out of trumps and then all these low cards will be tricks."
"I'm going to play some cheap creatures and use burn spells to clear the way while they apply repeated pressure."
"I'm going to use counterspells to survive long enough to cast my Wrath of God, then stick my planeswalker to control the board."

A good hand is, typically, one that presents some kind of coherent "story" or "gameplan" — ideally one that's powerful, fast, and resilient to disruption.

As a starting point:

What are you going to be doing on turn 1, turn 2, turn 3, et cetera?
Do you have enough lands to develop your board?
Do you have cards you can play early to help you stall or put pressure on your opponent? (Which do you actually need to do: stall or apply pressure? a.k.a. "Who's the beatdown?")
What's your opponent likely to do to disrupt you? What can you do to do to disrupt them?
What's missing? What cards do you need to draw to shore up your weaknesses or make your strongest play? (A bit of poker experience may help here. It also helps to understand "playing to your outs.")

Note that, beyond basics like "Make sure you will be able to actually cast something," what actually constitutes a good or bad hand is highly situational. Familiarity with your deck, with the metagame, and with general archetypes and strategies will all help immensely here.


I need help to find card 094 in Fallout: The Board Game

Card 094 should be included in the contents of the box.

If you are missing card 094 you can send a request to Asmodee for a replacement here : https://parts.asmodeena.com/partsrequests/


What happens to token creatures and planeswalker creatures that die?

If a planeswalker becomes a creature, it acts as a creature in every way, including being able to kill it and send it to the graveyard with normal damage.

This means that if you activate Sarkhan the Masterless's +1 ability, then all your planswalkers (including Sarkhan) could be killed with something like Doom Blade or Flame Lash. It will be sent to the graveyard just like any other creature.

When a token creature dies, it does go to the graveyard, but then ceases to exist the next time state-based actions are checked. You can see more details about that here.


Odds of 100% first turn accusation in Clue?

The best odds possible for a turn 1 win without a blind accusation in a four-player game are 7/648 as Mrs. Peacock holding 5 cards.

There are two probabilities at play here. First, the probability of reaching a room on turn one, which is not the same for all players, and then second, the probability of the resulting suggestion being correct on all counts (that is, no cards are shown to the player and [barring one exception] no cards in hand were used in the suggestion), which is dependent exclusively on the cards that player holds in their hands. We'll first look at the suggestion part of this, since that's where the bulk of the math lies.

The best possible opening hand to get this result is either all suspect cards or all weapon cards.

The odds for the first suggestion of the game being correct mostly depend on the cards the player making the suggestion has in their hand. There are 6 Suspects, 6 Weapons, and 9 Rooms. The effective odds for a player making a suggestion (presumably in a room they don't have the card for) can be determined by 1 / ((6 - held suspect cards) * (6 - held weapon cards) * (9 - held rooms)). The best case for this ends up being a situation where a player holds a hand consisting of either all suspect cards OR all weapon cards. In a 3-player game, in which each player is given 6 cards, the 6th card should not be a room (i.e. the best hands are 5 suspects and 1 weapon or 5 weapons and 1 suspect). Following this, the odds of a correct suggestion (or a blind accusation, for that matter) given the best starting hand and no other information are as follows:

3 Players: 1/45 (6 cards)
4 Players: 1/54 (assuming 5 cards)
5 Players: 1/108 (assuming 4 cards)
6 Players: 1/162 (3 cards)

In a 4- or 3-player game, it is possible that a player may know either the Suspect or the Weapon just from their hand. In that case, it won't matter what they choose for that part of the suggestion, as your accusation does NOT have to be the same as your immediately-prior suggestion. In the case of knowing the suspect in particular, it is beneficial to name themselves in the suggestion so as not to give any other player a free suggestion on their turn by moving them to the room.

While the remainder of this answer simply asserts we did get this best hand for simplicity of math, the probability of actually being dealt said best hand for a given hand size, for all cases other than a 3-player game, are as follows:

5-card hand (4 players): 240/1,028,160 (or 1/4284)
4-card hand (5 or 4 players): 240/73,440 (or 1/306)
3-card hand (6 or 5 players): 120/4896 (or 10/408)

Having the best hand improves your odds of making the suggestion, but the only hard requirement would be not having the room cards for the rooms your pawn can reach on a roll of 12.

Not all players have the same odds of making a turn 1 suggestion

I will preface this section by noting that there are a few variants of the board that still have the rooms in the same spots, but do NOT have doors in the same spots. I'm using the most common board here for reference, which has all the players capable of entering a room with a move roll of 8. The roll required to reach the room closest to each character's starting position (and the room itself) are as follows:

Ms. White: 8 (Ballroom)
Mr. Green: 8 (Ballroom)
Mrs. Peacock: 7 (Conservatory)
Prof. Plum: 8 (Study)
Ms. Scarlet: 8 (Lounge)
Col. Mustard: 8 (Lounge OR Dining Room)

Col. Mustard stands out as having two different rooms he can reach with a roll of at least 8, so even if Col. Mustard has one (and only one) of those two rooms in his hand, he can just go to the other one. This isn't particularly relevant to our calculations, as Mrs. Peacock actually has the best odds of reaching a room on her initial move roll, with odds of 21/36 (as opposed to the odds of 15/36 that everyone else has). Furthermore, the best possible hand for this doesn't include any room cards.

With that, asserting that the best hand possible was dealt for this situation, for Mrs. Peacock, the odds for reaching a room on turn 1, making a suggestion, and the suggestion being correct are as follows:

for three players, 7/540
for four players, 7/648
for five players,  7/1296
for six players, 7/1944


What Makes Buildings Valuable In Puerto Rico?

The value of buildings comes from 2 sources

Providing a direct VP contribution to your strategy
Providing money to implement your strategy

As you have correctly determined there are 2 archetypes of strategies:

The Shippers
The Builders

Shipping Strategy

Obviously they try to win by shipping more goods than the other players. They will choose buildings that give them better yield and control over shipping.

Building Strategy

This strategy is based on filling your city with high scoring buildings a quickly as possible so to end the game before the shippers can play their advantage. They will try to go for at least one big building (depending on what gives them the best score).

Supporting the Strategy

Equally important to both strategies is money. Without a decent income you cannot develop either strategy. So early and mid game the focus will be on buildings that improve the yield of your trades or your chances for getting a trade. Another form of income are quarries. So building that support you in getting one are also good early choices.

What is generally not a good choice is to buy something another player wants but you don't need. Aside from the fact that most buildings exist at least twice and you can only have one, even if you can buy a coveted building from under the nose of an opponent you'll be set back just as much by that buy. The other players will thank you for it. As such, "obstructive building" is not recommended.

Generally speaking the question is not what buildings have good synergies with each other. The question is what buildings have good synergies with your particular strategy.

I suggest you browse the forums over at BoardGameGeek for more strategy on Puerto Rico. There is at least one very in-depth strategy guide there that explains the mechanics far better than I could here.


How Closely Did Afrika Korps simulate the actual campaign conditions?

Not very well at all, but good enough for a board game.

The impact of Malta is reflected in-game as the difficulty of the Germans getting reinforcements and resupply as the game goes on. (I'd get the rules out and cite a detail if only my brother didn't end up with the game; I got Waterloo and D Day, he got Afrika Korps and Panzer Blitz; the local games club got the rest when we moved out).

Of particular interest is that the air element of the campaign is utterly missing.

Balance with "historical" verisimilitude is a very tricky thing.  Afrika Korps is not one of the more complex AH games (I played them all from about 1970 - mid 1980's).  A wide variety of decisions made outside of that theater left both Rommel and Monty with constraints on their resources, and how to make that work "in game" can be tricky.  The 'trickle in' gamism of reinforcing units is reasonably close to how things played out. The relative ineffectiveness of most Italian Divisions is also "close enough" to work in the game.

I've seen games of Afrika Korps won using zones of control and a Recce Company choaking off supply trains at the left edge of the map when Rommel is near to El Alamein.  :-)   IRL, that's not gonna work.

I did not study that campaign in detail until after college, and played it mostly in high school and college.  With the game as an introduction, it was nice to be familiar with the topic, but as one reads the history one begins to see how a game has to take a lot of short cuts with verisimilitude to arrive at a playable state.  (Midway was kind of clunky).

Something you may want to appreciate is that the sales brochures that AH put out back in the 60's and 70's had a "complexity" assessment for each game.  Afrika Korps was one of the easier games; 1914 was a nightmare of complexity.


morphing jar in a chaos dragon-like deck. yes or no?

This is entirely dependant on the metagame you're playing in. And also on the current format (that is, Forbidden and Limited List).

For instance,

if your metagame highly favors decks that destroy many monsters by effects, even face-down ones, Morphing Jar is not a good idea because it will often be destroyed before even getting the chance to flip for its effect.
If your metagame favors fast swarming decks that can do insane amounts of damage in a single turn, Morphing Jar is a bad idea because it will often take the spot of a card that might have saved you, while he only lay there and stopped one attack, which wasn't enough to save you from losing.
If you metagame favors many Set Cards or decks that play out their hands almost every turn, Morphing Jar is a double-edged Card because on the one hand, it can really help you in getting a new hand after playing everything down, but on the other hand, it can help your opponent even more if they just played out their entire hand and get a fresh 5 Cards essentially for free.
If your metagame favors slow setup decks that collect combos or do little for several turns, Morphing Jar is generally a good idea because it will have disruptive power and might just survive into your turn so you can play down your entire hand and Flip Summon it to get the most out of its effect.
If your metagame is full of Dark World decks, Morphing Jar is a terrible idea. Read any Dark World Monster and you will know why.

Bottom line, Morphing Jar is one of those general Cards that are only as good as the metagame they're in and depend much more on those circumstances than on the deck you're playing.
Watch what decks others are playing and how typical turns play out, then think about the impact a Set Morphing Jar would have. If you do that for many different (but common) situations, you will get a very good feeling of how well Morphing Jar fits into your metagame.


I've read many people saying the same thing - the university is overpriced.  I read one group who attempted to find the true value of the buildings by playing for two years and varying prices based on whether they were bought, and how well the people who bought them did.   The write up contains a downloadable copy of their results and final prices for all the buildings.

In their games, most of the prices have seemed to stay fairly close to the original prices.  A rough summary of the exceptions from the base game:

Small Market ~ 2 gold
Small Warehouse ~ 4 gold (with 3 players)
Office ~ 3/4 gold
Large Warehouse ~ 5 gold (with 4 players)
Factory ~ 8 gold
University ~ 7 gold
Harbor ~ 9/10 gold (with 3 players)

There's plenty more that could be drawn from their results too, I'd recommend giving it a read.

The results aren't perfect for a number of reasons.  Firstly they changed the rules to allow all buildings from the base game and first expansion to be available to them every game.  Secondly (as noted above) the power of some buildings vary with the number of players.  There are hardly any games played with two or five players, and not many more with four.  Thirdly, the same people play many of the games, and their preferences bias the results.

To go back to your question though.  If you're interested from a theoretical point of view then this data suggests the university should be about seven gold.  Personally I think that seems about right.

However if you're interested because you want to play with different prices then I suggest trying it!  I read somewhere of a variant where before the start of a game a few buildings are increased/decreased in price by players putting red/green counters on them.  If your group thinks the university is too expensive then it will get more green counters, and you should end up with more interesting in-game decisions.


Do Manifested or Morphed creatures count as tokens?

No.

Both the morph and manifest abilities that allow you to have a face-down permanent apply only to cards (morph works on creature cards in your hand, and manifest on cards from your library). The other two ways to have face-down permanents (Illusionary Mask and Ixidron) apply either to creature cards or nontoken creatures.

If some effect (e.g., Fated Infatuation) makes a token copy of a face-down creature, it will simply be a 2/2 creature with no text, name, type, nor mana cost. It cannot be turned "face up" because being "face down" is NOT a copiable characteristic. Therefore the token is not actually "face down".


What happens if you submit orders for another player?

I believe the traditional response is to feed the game board to a tiger and award the offending player a toothbrush covered in jam.

Which is to say, you're asking what the rules say should happen in a scenario that cannot happen if you're following the rules. That implies a contradiction, and contradiction implies anything.

The rules of the game say "...each player writes an order for each of his/her units on a piece of paper." (emphasis added). If you choose not to play the game that way, you're pretty much going to be on your own when it comes to deciding what the implications of your alternative rules are.


It's Rock Me Archimedes. The page is from Target's Black Friday 2017 Toy Catalog.


Can an enchantment creature with hexproof be targeted by destroy target enchantment card?

No. Hexproof prevents something from being targeted by opponents' spells and abilities — that's pretty final. You can't target Archetype of Endurance with Naturalize because you can't target it at all; there's nothing special about enchantment removal.

(If you're thinking hexproof is a creature thing, and we're getting around it by targeting their enchantment-enss instead of their creature-ness, that's not how things work in M:tG. Note also that anything can have hexproof: enchantments, players, or even every permanent you control.)

You get around this by doing things that don't target the creature: Dead Drop, Toxic Deluge, Settle the Wreckage, are examples of the kinds of non-targeting effects you'd use, or a plain old Wrath of God effect. Or kill it in combat.


Chit assignment in Catan: Seafarers, Scenario 8: The Wonders of Catan?

It looks like you're mixing two things up.

The Chits in this scenario are not the same chits as the victory points ones.
I don't have the material at hand, but you could use something completely different for those chits (a coin for instance). It's just used to track your progress in the wonder you're building.

The first time you pay the resources to build a wonder, you take the corresponding card for that wonder, place it in front of you as it is now yours (nobody else can build it from now on) and place your chit in the first step on the card. When you pay the resources a second time, you just move your chit to the second step on the card and so on until you build the fourth step.

This chit is not worth a victory point. If a player builds the fourth step of his/her wonder, he/she wins and that's it...
The victory points are used for the alternative victory condition: You win if you have 10 points and you're ahead of all other players on the building of your wonder.

More over, in the rules for this scenario, the chits are listed as "Additional Components" which tend to prove that they're not a part of the included game material (hence not the victory tokens).

Hope this helps...


How can I use Board Games to help learn English?

Tales of the Arabian Nights

This game has a ton of reading, but simple mechanics. You'll be getting a fun game, and an English exercise at the same time. Your wife will practice:

Reading English text aloud
Listening to English (when others read)
Reading English text silently (from cards / other private information sources)
Conversing in English (playing the game!)


The Finger of God is a Keeper which, if in play in front of you, allows you to "smite (i.e. discard)" any Creeper, at the cost of returning Finger of God to your hand.

The question here is what "smite (i.e. discard)" can possibly mean.  If you're technically-minded, "discarding" in Fluxx would seem to refer to the act of discarding a card from your hand.  In this case, the use of Finger of God would be: when you draw a Creeper, instead of putting it directly into play, you have the alternative option of putting it into the discard pile (and presumably drawing another card as usual).  Under this reading, it's very difficult to see how you could use the Finger on other players' cards.

Fluxx though isn't really a game that benefits from the players getting too technical about the rules, in my opinion.  I'd suggest that "discarding a Creeper" should be interpreted as "move a Creeper card that's in play to the discard pile".  This is much more satisfyingly SMITEY, after all.  BOOM!

Can this divine smiteage be employed against the Creeper of another player?  Well, as any God-fearing knight would be able to tell you, the good Lord our God Jehovah is omnipotent and as such can smite any evildoer He likes.  If you want to argue that He is limited to targeting some Creepers and not others then ON YOUR OWN HEATHEN HEAD BE IT.


Do these count as electronics for the purpose of Electro?

The most basic definition of electronic device is probably anything which has one or more transistors (or possibly diodes), and which is thus leveraging the tunneling of electrons across a heterogeneous semi-conductor boundary.

  Electronic devices are components for controlling the flow of electrical currents for the purpose of information processing and system control. Prominent examples include transistors and diodes.

I would agree with your Eng. Phys. friend on everything except for chip devices. The chip on a chip card is actually a small CPU which receives power once inserted into the reader, thus clearly passing the possessing transistors test:

  The computer chip inside a chip and PIN card functions like a small computer. Not only can the chip store data, but it's also a data processor. One of the reasons why chip and PIN cards are so secure is that the chip uses cryptography to protect secure data when communicating with a card reader. The chip itself has no power source, but it leaps into action when it comes in contact with a checkout terminal.

However, as with all Munchkin games, the final rule arbiter is always the owner of the primary game set being played.

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


No, it only affects creatures, which is to say creature cards and tokens on the battlefield.

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


The Legendary rule is one of the state-based actions which are performed at several points in a turn.

  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.

State-based actions are also what kills created with non-positive toughness.

During the resolving of a spell, state-based actions are not performed. So when the copy of Elesh Norn enters the battlefield, there are temporarily two of them, and your creatures have -4/-4. The 3/3 creatures will temporarily be -1/-1.

Then state-based actions are performed, and those creatures and all but one of those Elesh Norns are killed simultaneously. From that moment, your remaining creatures have -2/-2.

  704.4. Unlike triggered abilities, state-based actions pay no attention to what happens during the resolution of a spell or ability.


How can I keep track of my sideboarded cards in a physical Magic deck?

Write down your sideboard in a list and keep that with your deck. You might want to keep note of it on something durable in your deck box, for instance.

When you want to reset your deck and sideboard to their default:

Take a look at your currently sideboarded cards, and the sideboard list you wrote. Set aside the ones that belong in your default sideboard - put these together.
Find the remainders in your deck, and put those together with the cards you set aside in step 1, until you have your entire sideboard set aside in a pile.
Everything remaining that is not in that pile must necessarily be a part of your deck, so shuffle it back in.

You'll now have your default sideboard and, by exclusion, your default deck.


Possible to use mana ability in response?

Yes, you may.
The pixie's ability is an activated ability that happens to be a mana ability as well. Unless otherwise stated, you can activate those any time you have priority, so it's possible to do so in response to Shock.

602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]”
605.1. Some activated abilities and some triggered abilities are mana abilities, which are subject to special rules. Only abilities that meet either of the following two sets of criteria are mana abilities, regardless of what other effects they may generate or what timing restrictions (such as “Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant”) they may have.


Does Goblin Arsonist's ability deal 2 damage when there are two in play?

No, it deals 1 damage

Whenever you see a card's own card name within the the rules text of a card, it isn't referring to all cards with that name. It is referring to itself. I believe at one point, the Oracle text replaced this self reference with ~this~ (or perhaps, the database allowed searching using "this"). You can think of the triggered ability in that way:

  When [~this~] dies, you may have it deal 1 damage to target creature or player.

From the Comprehensive Rules:

  201.4. Text that refers to the object it's on by name means just that particular object and not any other objects with that name, regardless of any name changes caused by game effects.

If you were looking for abilities that would trigger multiple times, you need cards that trigger "Whenever a Goblin ...". These cards only care about the creature subtype in question. For example:

  Boggart Mob - Whenever a Goblin you control deals combat damage to a player, you may put a 1/1 black Goblin Rogue creature token onto the battlefield.

  Boggart Shenanigans- Whenever another Goblin you control dies, you may have Boggart Shenanigans deal 1 damage to target player.

Two Shenanigans won't trigger off of themselves, because of the another, but both will trigger when another Goblin permanent is sent to the graveyard from the battlefield. (Note: Boggart Shenanigans will do 1 damage twice, which is not the same thing as to deal 2 damage once.)


If I copy a creature spell and it resolves, is the new permanent a token?

Yes, it becomes a token permanent.

706.10f Some effects copy a permanent spell. As that copy resolves, it ceases being a copy of a spell and becomes a token permanent. (See rule 608.3b.)

608.3b If the object that’s resolving is a copy of a permanent spell, that object becomes a token permanent and is put onto the battlefield under the control of the spell’s controller. It is no longer a copy of a spell. The token put onto the battlefield this way is not “created” for the purposes of any replacement effects or triggered abilities that refer to creating a token.

Note that this token copies all of the characteristics of the permanent spell that it copied, including mana cost, name, etc:

111.11. A copy of a permanent spell becomes a token as it resolves. The token has the characteristics of the spell that became that token. The token is not “created” for the purposes of any replacement effects or triggered abilities that refer to creating a token.

109.3. An object’s characteristics are name, mana cost, color, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, abilities, power, toughness, loyalty, hand modifier, and life modifier. Objects can have some or all of these characteristics.


Betrayal at House on the Hill - Mystic Elevator

There are errata pertaining to the mystic elevator, but I don't believe that they would fix your situation:

  Mystic Elevator -- Can a group of heroes or monsters use the elevator in a group to
  attack their enemies, then retreat to safety?

    No. Add the following rules:

      Monsters and traitors can both use the Elevator to go wherever they wish without
      rolling. However, the elevator may only be moved once during each entire
      traitor/monster set of turns, the first time a traitor or monster enters it. In other
      words, if the traitor uses it during his turn, then it will not work later on if a
      monster enters it.
      Heroes must roll for their destination floor each time they enter the elevator, or at
      the end of each entire movement phase that they spend in the elevator without
      moving.

If I understand your question correctly, you are talking about a monster using the Mystic Elevator just once each turn; and because of this, you couldn't ever catch the monster. The thing is, this isn't a situation unique to the Mystic Elevator. Depending on the layout of the house, if you only have 1 movement, and the monster has more than 1, then it would be easy for the monster to always avoid you, even without the Mystic Elevator.

If the win condition for the traitor is simply to have the monster survive long enough, then it sounds like a clean with for the traitor. If the win condition requires the monster to kill the heroes, then the traitor shouldn't be just running away the whole time.

To advise how to handle your specific situation, we would need to know the actual win conditions for both teams. But if the game cannot end without the monster and hero fighting each other, then it sounds like a clean stalemate to me, and a legitimate move for the traitor to make if he is sure he can't win in combat.


Has there been known of a board game that co exists with a GM?

I think games like Descent is what you're looking for. It's a boardgame where a GM plays against a group of adventurers, and you can add as much roleplay as the group sees fit.
If Star Wars is your thing, Imperial Assault is basically Descent re-themed.


In Catan, can you put the robber on the desert?

On page 5 of the "Base Game Rules" downloadable from catan.com/gamerules.html (describing what happens when you roll a 7, or use a knight card):

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

(Emphasis mine.)  This page was last updated in January 2012, so I would assume it's a pretty current version of the rules almanac!