Do the 'Charizard EX' sets automatically come with a Mega Charizard EX card?

I'll attempt to give you the best help I can with the information you've provided.
This might be a bit confusing to someone who knows nothing about the card game. If you can in the comments or your question, define what you mean when you say "set" and what your child means when they say "set". I suspect you are using "set" to mean a product that includes a "set of cards", and your child is using "set" to either mean a set of one card (2-4 of the same card for use in a deck) or a "set" as in "a set of both".
"Set" can mean one of several things. "Set" could mean he wants a set of both; it could mean he wants a "playset" - a term used in competitive Pokemon indicating having several of one card to use in a deck (generally 2 - 4).
First off, there are two types of "Mega Charizard". One is "Mega Charizard X", which is black and blue. The other is "Mega Charizard Y", which is orange.

Mega Charizard X
(There are two printings of this card. One is from the booster pack series Flashfire; the other is from the booster pack series Generations).

Mega Charizard Y
(This one is from the booster pack series XY Evolutions).

It would be useful, if you can, to provide links to the "sets" of product you've found for M Charizard EX. Are these boxes with a single card and packs? Tins? Single cards? The Pokemon TCG includes a lot of product including sealed packs of cards, boxes with certain cards, tins, etc.
When you use "the Charizard EX set of Pokémon cards" I'm assuming you mean a product that includes Charizard EX, which is probably this box:

If that is the case: No, this does not come with either M Charizard EX card. This sealed product comes with four booster packs as shown (which contain random cards, of which M Charizard or any other EX card is fairly rare), a single Charizard EX card, and an oversized version of the card.
Alternatively, you could have found these products on Amazon:

If that is the case: No, this ALSO does not come with either M Charizard EX card! This sealed product comes with four booster packs as shown (which contain random cards, of which M Charizard or any other EX card is fairly rare), a single Charizard card (much less valuable than an EX) and a small statue. Also looks like your selection is random!
This also shows up on Amazon!

Unsurprisingly... this also will not give you either M Charizard EX card. Similar to the first box, you'll get four packs, a single Charizard EX, and a jumbo card.
Regardless of what version your child wants, the only reliable, 100% way to obtain either M Charizard EX card is to buy the single card.
It doesn't look like these were available in any promotional boxes. Buying packs to try and get one is a terrible idea - the odds of getting even a single EX rarity card, of which there are very many, is about 1/6 of these booster packs which retail for around $3-4 each.


Neither, both have a weight of 7.

Domino weight values are determined by counting the pips on bound sides. Heavier tiles left unplayed in hand, will earn your opponents more points in many Domino variants.

  The sum of the two values, i.e. the total number of pips, may be referred to as the rank or weight of a tile, and a tile with more pips may be called heavier than a lighter tile with fewer pips.


Activation of character's effects (RE: DBG)

From the ruleboook (source), page 10:

  LEVEL UP!When a Character has received a certain amount (or more) of the indicated Decorations, that Character “levels up”, giving you access to more powerful effects to aid you in your escape. When a Character becomes Level 2, that Character has all of the abilities of Level 1 as well as Level 2.

So yes, when a charachter becomes level 2 they can use all abilities of level 1 and level 2.


Where can I download high quality images of poker cards?

The deck linked by @Glorfindel is for French playing cards.

Here's a link to poker playing cards, in PNG or SVG format.

Poker cards are wider than French ones. This design is used by many decks, e.g. Bicycle Playing Cards, and will typically be the one you see in movies or at the casino.

  A full set of poker playing cards created using vector graphics. The
  .SVG source for each card is available as well as a high resolution
  rasterized .PNG version. These images are released into the public
  domain - attribution is appreciated but not required.

Here's the related blog post : Byron's Blog - Vector Playing Cards

As mentioned by @Dezza, there  are other alternatives:

  There's also SVG sets by revk at me.uk/cards with associated blog
  posts revk.uk/search/label/Playing%20cards


Are Hand-Based Stat Monsters prone to abuse?

Does anyone have another example or an answer?

I think that yes, they could be abused... but the situation you portray is by itself hard to achieve.

To summon Slifer, the Sky Dragon you must tribute 3 monsters first, something that takes time and surely cards from your hand to achieve.

Next, cards like Pot of Greed that you mention are Forbidden in competitive play (why, check this other post). Unless you want to play Traditional format you can't use cards like that. And even if you did, in Traditional format you would be able to have 1 copy of Pot of Greed, not 3...

Now, regarding Veil of Darkness. Yes, you may draw another card if you draw a Dark monster, but the card also requires you to discard the Dark monster you drew (so no hand number increase). From its text, emphasis mine:

  During your Draw Phase, if you draw a DARK monster(s): You can reveal any number of them; send them to the GY, then you can draw 1 more card.

Finally, there are several other ways to get rid of a monster, regardless if they have 26,000 ATK points:

You can return it to the hand (say, Compulsory Evacuation Device)
You can send it to the GY (say, Dark End Dragon)
You can destroy it (say, Soul Taker)
You can banish it (say, Dark Core)
You can take control of it (say, Creature Swap)

etc... So as you can see, using Slifer and hand-number strategy is not as easy as one may think, as there are several ways to counter those cards, as well as some you thought useful are actually not that useful for this scenario.


3/4 creature versus a 3/3 creature, why would the 3/4 creature die?

Damage does not modify toughness, so your creature will not become 3/1. It will remain a 3/4, but it will be marked with three damage. (Some video game versions of Magic show this as 3/1, but that is inaccurate.) That alone is not enough to kill it, so something is missing from your description.

Maybe your creature was marked with damage earlier in the turn.
Maybe an effect enhancing your creature's toughness was removed.
Maybe the attacking creature had deathtouch.
etc

A more detailed description of the scenario would allow us to give a more detailed answer.


Can a J-T combination be counted as a single honor under a "two honor" rule?

Broadly yes. A common take on this is ‘Two of the top three, or three of the top five.’  That means QJT counts (or KJT or what have you).  See for example this article on Fifth Chair.
Also note that this only really applies first or second seat, and some would even do it first seat Not Vulnerable. Preempts are getting somewhat more aggressive over time as their value is shown - some even do five card weak twos now, though I find that more risky than I can tolerate.


Yes, Mjolnir is an Action Die.

There are only two types of dice in Marvel Dice Masters - character dice and action dice.

  Actions ... have no numbers around the die's custom symbol.

Mjolnir has no numbers around the hammer icon, thus it is an action die.

Source: rules.


Yes, you can do this, and if the person playing the first "No" is also holding the third "No", they can play it against the second "No" to result in a chain with the net effect of just the original "No" negating the targeted action card for that player.


Is it possible to design a two player game of skill with absolutely no luck?

By Zermelo's Theorem, every 2 player game has one of the following:

Chance
Hidden information (this also includes simultaneous moves)
Either first or second player has a strategy that will guarantee them the win
Both players can guarantee a draw (or force the game to go on forever)

Any game that has (1) is clearly out.

Any game that has (2) is also out if you view chance as our way of modeling information that is unknown. After all, the same rules of probability work whether it's unknown because it will be chosen soon by the roll of a die, or is unknown because an opponent has already chosen something but isn't telling us.

Any game that has (3) is out by your definition, which is reasonable because presumably you choose who goes first by chance, and that determines the winner.

So your only choice is to go for (4): games that under perfect play end in draws (or are infinite). For example, tic-tac-toe can be thought of as fitting your requirements because under perfect play every game is always a draw, no chance involved.

Note that we can't always distinguish games in category (3) and (4) - for example, though you talk about the "inherent advantage" of first in chess, it's entirely possible that this advantage is merely an artifact of our incomplete understanding of perfect play, and that two perfect players might always play to a draw (perhaps even in the same way each time). You can also convert any game with (3) into a game with (4) by wrapping two rounds together in a single game where first player alternates, and declaring the overall game a draw unless one player wins both times. So while chess may or may not fit your definition, two-round-chess does.

ADDENDUM, addressing common objections to this answer:

The English definition of "game" is broader and fuzzier than the "extensive-form" definition I am implicitly using to apply Zermelo's Theorem. If you wish to consider other types of games, including timed contests of prowess and trivia, read other answers.
My analysis of (2) is certainly controversial - I consider rock-paper-scissors a game containing luck but you don't have to. For more on different views of chance, read about Bayesian vs frequentist schools of thought.
I consider simultaneous moves under hidden information because you could imagine that players alternate but the first player's move is hidden until the second player moves.


Can I discard clues from the Cover Up card when at a location with no clues?

No, you definitely can't use it at a location that has no clues on it.

The triggering condition for this reaction is

  When you would discover 1 or more clues at your location: ...

And the rules reference (on page 7 under Clues) states

  A card ability that refers to clues “at a location” is referring to
  the undiscovered clues that are currently on that location.

This means that you must first have the possibility of discovering at least one clue at your location, and then be the target of a game effect (investigating the location, an Event card, or some other means) that instructs you to discover at least one clue at your location.

The triggered effect also specifies that this would not be of any use to you on a location with zero clues. It says

  ... Discard that many clues from Cover Up instead

Even if there was no minimum limit of discovering 1 clue at your location, discovering zero clues at your location would result in zero clues removed from Cover Up.

Also note that Cover Up, like all Triggered abilities controlled by the player, is optional to perform. So you can opt to discover the clues if you feel it is of the most benefit to you, or you can opt to discard the same number of clues from Cover Up instead.


In Settlers of Catan, are all actions on the same turn simultaneous?

All building is simultaneous within a build action
Here is what the Catan rulebook has to say on the subject of building.

Build
Now you can build.  Through building, you can increase your victory points, expand your road network, improve your resource production, and/or buy useful development cards.  To build, you must pay specific combinations of resource cards (see the Building Costs Card).  Take the appropriate number of roads, settlements, and/or cities from your supply and place them on the game board.  Keep development cards hidden in your hand.

emphasis mine.
This implies that all the building is chosen and paid for all at once.
However, that is not to say you can roll back your entire turn.

Combined Trade/Build Phase
The separation of the trade and build phases was introduced to make the sequence easier to learn for beginners.  We recommend experienced players ignore this separation.
After rolling for resource production, you can trade and build in any order (you can trade, build, trade again and build again, etc.). You can even use a harbor on the same turn you build a settlement there.  Using this method speeds up the game a lot.

This means that there is separation between builds done before and after trade actions.  You cannot build a city, trade with another player, and then roll back the decision to build that city and use the new cards to instead build something else.  Those were separate actions.
And arguably, this means that it's allowable to take two separate build actions in a row.  After all, you could take a trade action and not do any trading, which gives you two consecutive build actions.  Which is useful, because building a development card reveals new information to you, and might change how you want to do the rest of your building.
How much 'undoing' is allowed will depend on your play group.
Ultimately, it's up to your play group to decide what constitutes formally 'taking' an action.  Does declaring that you're building a city count as taking the action?  Placing the city on the map?  Depositing the resource cards?
This doesn't have to be a formal decision the group makes.  Many groups are informal about this process, and frequently allow a decision to be reversed as long as it is easy to do so, no other players have made decisions in the meantime, and no new information (like looking at a newly build development card) has been revealed.  However, rewinding and adjusting a turn takes time and energy on the part of all involved, and if invoked frequently can quickly get wearing.  Groups who have members who have a tendency to waffle on their decisions are far more likely to require clear decision points after which decisions cannot be undone.  Additionally, tournament play tends to require clear decision points, as action rewinds can be used to deliberately confuse and frustrate the opponents by interrupting and changing their planning.


Question regarding exchanging territory cards in Risk

As per the rules (1993 standard Risk) on page 7 (emphasis mine):

You are trying to collect sets of 3 cards in any of the following combinations:

3 cards of same design (Infantry, Cavalry, or Artillery)
1 each of 3 designs
any 2 plus a “wild” card

This is verified in the rules you posted:

A set is made up of 3 cards with the same Insignia..., OR 3 cards with one of each of the 3 Insignia...

In the case where you have "Infantry, Infantry, Artillery, Artillery, Cavalry," you will trade in "Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry" as a set.


How literally should I take the "Man of War" in Pirate King?

This is a challenge and the recipient must actually fight a ship of equal value in game combat, and if they win, they receive the stated reward.

From the All Hands on Deck (bottom left corner), hand management expansion:

  The Commodore's First Mate: Instead of challenging the Commodore, players may challenge the Commodore's First Mate when they land on the Commodore's spot. The First Mate's ship acts like a Man of War card. Player must fight a ship of equal in men and cannons to their own. If they win they gain 500 bronze, 1 crew & 1 cannon, but if they lose normal defeat conditions apply.


No, for the same reason that you can't cast a card from your hand twice. As part of casting a spell, you place the card being cast on the stack. The card would no longer be in the graveyard to be cast.

601.2. [...] To cast a spell, a player follows the steps listed below, in order. [...]
601.2a [...] a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack. [...]


Bidding response to convenient minor bid

The Convenient Minor as a forcing bid is a prohibited agreement in North America (ACBL Jurisdiction). To get caught regularly responding to it with less than 5 points will result in severe disciplinary action by the ACBL.

If you are not playing in North America, you must refer to the agreed conventions and agreements as per your national authority on the rules. In most countries such unusual agreements are typically prohibited except in extended team play competition, just as in North America.

Update
ACBL Convention Charts (pdf)


Wargame with customizable miniature stats?

Quite a few, actually, have had such a "Look at it and rate it" approach.
Early Warhammer games
The first edition of Warhammer 40K (Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader), and the first several editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, were all intended to use any minis, and had extensive minis rating lists by base type, weapon, and profile value.
40KRT vehicles were points-costed by their ratings; the rating system wasn't terribly effective at play balance, but it was workable within reason, and especially for man-sized units.
Ground Zero Games' games
GZG's rules are intended for use with both their lines and others' lines of minis. Better still, you can get them in PDF for free direct from GZG.
Dirtside II is vehicle or squad per mini, platoon scaled, up to battalion level. It includes vehicle design rules that border on being "Look and rate"...
Stargrunt II is tactical, squad level, individual man per mini, infantry combat, but it also can use Dirtside II vehicles.
Full Thrust is space combat, one ship per mini. It can do fleet level play easily.
R Talsorian Games' Mekton
Mekton has always been a combined battle game and RPG, and always had a design system capable of producing a wide range of designs.
Because the design system is actually a design system, you might not always be able to get decent match to a given mini's fluff text.
7th Street Games' Mecha
The system is able to use a variety of minis. The included setting is less flexible, being focused on space aztechs.
Dream Pod 9's whole catalogue
The "rating" system in both Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles is intended to take an extant mini or image, and allow you to devise game stats to fit, generating a relatively good point total for balance purposes. Other games in the line use the same ratings, so that means that any of them can be used. Several have both minis and RPG rules, and the minis rules are almost all written for hex-grids but easily adapted to gridless play.
Flashpoint!
Flashpoint! is a wonderful minis wargame, using a mostly 1d20 rolls, printed in landscape mode in the 90's, of skirmish scale combat in a near-future sci-fi setting.  1 Character/vehicle/robot per model, typically individual model maneuver scale, and intended for platoon level and below.
Many elements border between a rating system and a design system, especially robots and vehicles.
Old FASA games
VOR is very similar to early WH40K:RT... except using d10's rather than d6's, and having a less-obviously Traveller/Cthulhu mashup setting. The rating system is very similar to that in 40K:RT.
And onto the less close fit to the question...
Battletech, while having a design system rather than a rating system, has rules for mecha, vehicles, and troops, and multiple games in various scales, so you can use pretty much almost your entire collection somewhere... and it's still in print, from Catalyst.
Renegade Legion is very much the same approach as Battletech, but is a different set of combat mechanics.


Start by accepting that your deck won't be as straight-up competitive as it could be with Mox Opal — it's a staple, and cutting staples, especially for budget reasons, inevitably involves giving away some percentage points here or there. Maybe you can gain some improvements in unusual matchups, though.

What does Mox Opal do for you?

Consider what Affinity does, in general:

Affinity is a fast aggressive creature deck
Generally, Affinity is an "all-in" deck. The Affinity player wants to dump their hand onto the battlefield as quickly possible in order to power up a card like Cranial Plating. The deck mainly relies on speed to blank a lot of your opponent's card. You have a few cards to dig you out of a stall (Etched Champion, Thoughtcast) but you really aren't trying to grind down an opponent slowly.
It plays a bit like a combo deck, sacrificing individual card power for massive synergy.
There's significant redundancy in kill conditions. Cranial Plating, Ravager + Inkmoth, Signal-Pest-powered beatdown, &c. But your deck generally sucks if you don't have one of your key cards out.

So, what does Mox Opal do in that deck?

It's an accelerator. You can use it to put a Cranial Plating or an Arcbound Ravager down on the field on turn 1.
It's color-fixing in a deck that plays lots of colorless lands (up to 12) and 2-4 colors of spells. Don't underestimate the value of being able to make BB to move Cranial Plating around at instant speed, as well!
It's an artifact. It ups your artifact count for Cranial Plating, Thoughtcast, and Etched Champion. You can sac it to Ravager. It'll keep your Glimmervoid from dying.
It's free. You can dump an Opal onto the field without disrupting the flow of the rest of your turn.
It's a non-creature artifact so it'll survive sweepers (besides the ones people sideboard specifically to hose you). I don't think that's as important right now, ever since Zoo pushed Pyroclasm out of the format.

That's a tough act to follow!

Suggested alternatives

Here's my best shot.

The most important thing is to remember that consistently executing the deck's overall concept is more important than finding a direct functional replacement for the mana rock.

The closest thing to Mox Opal in functionality is Springleaf Drum. You should be playing a playset of these already, though.
You can also just add lands. Replacing 4 Opals with 4 lands won't do good things for your deck, of course, but you could totally add 1-2 lands. Gemstone Mine (already a staple) and City of Brass/Mana Confluence are decent picks for multicolor support.
Paradise Mantle is a 0-cost card that's basically a worse Springleaf Drum. It's a bit harder to get explosive starts with it due to summoning sickness. The main knock against it, though, is that doubling up on Springleaf Drums stretches your creature base pretty thin. I'd playtest 2 rather than the full 4.
Gitaxian Probe is a 0-cost cantrip. You can run these in the hopes of just getting to your other cards quicker. (It is way better for this purpose than Mishra's Bauble, which is an artifact but pretty terrible.)
Chromatic Star is a bit slow for this deck but it might be a decent color-fixer in a pinch. It cantrips if you feed it to a Ravager, and it counts for Thoughtcast's affinity even if you sac it to make blue mana for the spell (because you calculate costs first, then pay them).
Many Affinity decks already play a singleton Welding Jar. So try 1-2 and see how far that takes you. It's great for pushing through an Inkmoth kill.
You can always just up the creature count and play it more like a beatdown deck. Affinity typically runs some mix of "lords" like Signal Pest, Steel Overseer, and Master of Etherium. Just add the one you don't have already. (If you have all of those already: did you take out Vault Skirge or something? Try putting that Vault Skirge back in.)
You can experiment with maindecking hate cards, especially if you play in a relatively small and cozy environment where you know what decks you'll face:

Spellskite and Phyrexian Revoker are nifty creatures that can mess up a lot of decks (Ethersworn Canonist, too, but you're cutting color depth so I'd stay away from colored artifacts).
Relic of Progenitus is a great non-creature pick, since it cantrips and gives you splash hate against decks that run Goyf and Snapcaster.
Pithing Needle and Grafdigger's Cage can also work if you really, really know your metagame well.
Another way to maindeck hate is to add targeted discard in the form of Thoughtseize, Duress, or maybe Inquisition of Kozilek. Essentially you're accepting that your deck will be just a bit slower than the typical shell, but you're planning to make up for it by disrupting opponents more. You'll want to rejigger your mana to support more black sources to make this work, of course.

To reiterate: you'll probably want to add a land! Even if you go the Paradise Mantle route, none of these cards are quite as fast and flexible as Mox Opal, so you really do just want the extra land to smooth out mana production.

Note that you may need to adjust other cards if you're changing your ability to produce mana — not playing Mox Opal basically guarantees that you can't play the greediest of the Affinity lists.

Above all else, remember that, since there's no drop-in "next best" replacement, you're going to have to test and tune your deck.


Are creature effects considered an Instant?

No, the doubling does not apply. Creature abilities are fast effects, a class which includes instants. But instants, like sorceries, are a distinct spell type.


Monopoly: Strategy in trading --how do I compute the expected value of a trade?

I don't think there is a quick method, but there are a few simple rules to consider when trading your cards.

1) How much is the card worth to you. Therefore, what can you do with the money you gain as opposed to what could you do with the card you are selling

2) How much is the card worth to your opponent. If you are selling a card that allows an opponent to complete a row, you have to understand how likely they are to build houses/hotels and the likelihood of it affecting your game plan further into the game.

3) If selling to an opponent who doesn't really need the card, consider the likelihood of them selling the card on, and the impact this will have, as per point 2.

For buying a card, the rules are pretty much the same as above, but inverse. You always need to weigh up the benefits you gain as opposed to what your opponent may gain, and think several moves ahead.

Also, take a look at this thread about the best ROI for properties. Which property group colour gives the best ROI , undeveloped or fully developed, in Monopoly?. This will help you to calculate the real values of the properties in the game.


When zombies overrun a location each zombie that overruns kills a survivor that is at the location. What the means is that even if all the places for zombies are filled you can still go back there to try and do something but unless you kill some zombies any that get added will kill the survivors at the location.

Rules

  Whenever adding zombies, they are added 1 at a time until
  all zombies that need to be added have been added.
  When adding zombies to the colony, always place the first
  zombie on any empty space in entrance 1, the second zombie
  on any empty space in entrance 2, the third zombie on any
  empty space in entrance 3, etc. until all of the zombies that
  need to be added have been placed. When adding a seventh
  zombie, place it on any empty space in entrance 1 again, an
  eighth zombie on any empty space in entrance 2, etc. If there
  are no empty entrance spaces in the entrance the zombie
  would be placed but there is a barricade token in one of
  those spaces, destroy that barricade token and remove the
  zombie that would have been placed. If there are no empty
  spaces and no barricade tokens, the entrance has been
  overrun, remove that zombie and kill the survivor at the
  colony that has the lowest influence value. If there are only
  helpless survivors at the colony, kill a helpless survivor. If
  there are no survivors at the colony remove the zombie that
  would have been placed without further effect. Every time a
  survivor is killed (including a helpless survivor), decrease
  morale by 1. When adding zombies to non-colony locations
  follow all of the same rules, except there is only 1 entrance to
  place zombies in so all of the zombies are placed in spaces at
  that entrance. See Example: Adding Zombies to right.
  In the rare case that players ever have to
  add zombies and there are no more zombie
  standees left, use the zombie tokens included
  in the game to add the additional zombies


Is there an efficient use for a surplus of Insects in Standard, Kaladesh to Ixalan?

Aside from simply attacking for the win on the following turn, you have many options:

Grant them haste with Samut, Voice of Dissent
Play a huge Majestic Myriarch and Fling him at your opponent

anothe option, without green: have both Decoction Module and Fabrication Module on the board when you cast the Hour, put all counters on one of the tokens and Fling that

Arcane Adaptation naming Zombie and drain opponent to death with Plague Belcher and a sacrifice outlet (such as Yahenni, Undying Partisan)

You can also drain them with a Wayward Servant if you can make it survive the Hour (and can play white too)

There are probably many more, but these are the ones I came up with in a few minutes.


Why so many people use "house rules" in EDH/Commander?

Generally speaking, in any game community the casual players are going to have a different attitude toward banning than the tournament players. In the case of M:tG, the tournament formats are very fine-tuned and the most hardcore players tend to play in sanctioned tournaments, so if anyone's going to be banning cards that aren't officially banned, it's going to be casuals who don't like losing to certain stuff.

EDH is and has always been a very casual format. It's an open secret even among the people who designed and govern it that the format would be broken in a lot of ways if anyone tried to "solve" it. Drew Levin said that "Commander is a format where everyone puts Sol Ring in their deck and then apologizes if they get to cast it". Even "serious" Commander strategy articles will often trail into digressions about not breaking the format too hard.

All of this is to say that if casual groups are banning a card, the thought process is probably something like "ok, we get it, you can beat us with that card. We'd like to actually play a game this time." If that bothers you, play a "real" format. I had to play Commander all of twice to decide it wasn't for me.

EDIT: I originally attributed the Drew Levin quote to Aaron Forsythe. I did find another article about an EDH deck created by Forsythe; the comments thread is pretty pertinent here.


If you have multiple wonders do you get multiple special powers?

Each player has a single Wonder board, and each Wonder stage can only be built once.
The Quickstart rules cover this on the first page under Actions, but it is also covered in the main rules under Game Overview, Clarifications.  You may only build the stages in order from left to right, and each stage can only be built once per game.

build a stage of their Wonder(in the order given by the board, from left to right): the card is placed partially under the board, face down.
2.b. Build a Stage of a Wonder - [...] each stage can only built once per game. (page 5, main rules)

For example, if you have The Lighthouse of Alexandria, building the 3 stages of side (A) would give you 3VP, one Raw Material of your choice per build step, and 7VP in stage order. Building the 3 stages of side (B) would give you a Raw Material of your choice per build step, a Production Good of your choice per build step, and 7VP in stage order.


In Scrabble, can a normal play be scoreless?

There are two blank tiles which score zero. So if you played a two letter word using a second blank tile connecting to a blank tile, then your turn would score zero even though you played a word.

Also,  as Nathan has pointed out in the comments, you could play a two letter word with two blank tiles on the first turn.


Does exiling a morph card face down for the turn bring it back face up?

If you exile a face-down creature, it will enter the exile zone face up, and if it returns to the battlefield, it will enter the battlefield face up.

The first important thing to consider is that face-down is a status. Rule 110.6d says

  Only permanents have status. Cards not on the battlefield do not. Although an exiled card may be face down, this has no correlation to the face-down status of a permanent. Similarly, cards not on the battlefield are neither tapped nor untapped, regardless of their physical state.

In addition, rule 707.9 says

  If a face-down permanent moves from the battlefield to any other zone, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. If a face-down spell moves from the stack to any zone other than the battlefield, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. At the end of each game, all face-down permanents and spells must be revealed to all players.

And finally, rule 400.7 says

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

If we put all of these together, they mean that when the face-down Akroma is exiled, it's owner reveals it. It then moves to exile in a state as described by the card that exiles it. Momentary Blink doesn't say to exile it face down, so it's exiled face up. Once it is in exile, it is just an Akroma, Angel of Fury card, with no memory of its existence on the battlefield. Then it enters the battlefield as a creature with no memory of its previous existence on the battlefield or in exile. The effect that puts it on the battlefield doesn't say that it enters face down, so it enters face up.


How many Development cards can a player play on their turn?

According to the Catan rules, you can only play one (1) development card on your turn.

  You may build roads, settlements or cities and/or buy development
  cards. You may also play one development card at any time during your
  turn.

Catan Rules


Can you look at a Bonus Marker before placing it on the board?

My group has always played that you could look, but while digging through the rulebook to support that decision, I've come to the conclusion that the opposite is true and that you cannot look.

From the English rules:

  For each bonus marker a player obtains during his turn, he should draw
  a new bonus marker from the supply and put it face down on the tin
  plate on his player mat without looking at it. Before the next player
  starts his turn, these bonus marker(s) should be placed next to any
  route(s) of the player’s choice that meet the following three
  conditions: (i) no bonus marker is already on that trade route, (ii)
  no resource is located on that trade route (i.e., all fields need to
  be empty) and (iii) there is at least one available (i.e. open) Office
  space in an adjacent city to the route.

You could still argue it's up for debate since it doesn't explicitly state that you cannot look at it before placing it, but based on the fact that you can't look at it when you receive it, and it never states that you can look at it, I think the implied answer is that no, you cannot look.


Can I play a first turn Simic Growth Chamber to have 3 mana available in the second turn?

No. If you play Simic Growth Chamber without any other lands in play, you still must return a land you control to its owner's hand ... which happens to be the Simic Growth Chamber itself. So while it is legal, it is not useful to play it the first turn.


Can't speak for the pieces since the picture doesn't show much of any detail on those (except that they're probably homemade), but that definitely looks like a Janggi board:


Does an Ebonblade Reaper holding a Quietus Spike kill players?

No, it doesn't work like that. The triggers decide how much damage to do when they resolve, not when they're put onto the stack.

So if your opponent were at 21 (to make things simple) it'd go like this:

Ebonblade Reaper deals 1 damage, putting them at 20. Both triggers go on the stack.
The first of the triggers resolves, making them lose 10 life, putting them at 10.
The second of the triggers resolves, making them lose 5 life, putting them at 5.

You do get to pick what order the triggers go on the stack, but it doesn't really matter, since they're doing the same thing.


A rough rule (from economics) is that you should bluff until the money you lose from getting caught approximates the money that you would forego from not bluffing. That is, you should equate the "marginal utilities" of the two activities.

If you "never" get caught, you aren't bluffing enough. That is, you are leaving money on the table with a number of bluffs that you could have "run" but didn't. You SHOULD get caught, partly for "advertising" purposes, and partly so that you "start" to lose money bluffing. Then bluff "a little more" and stop when you lose a little more. If you get caught "too often," you are losing more money than you're making with your last few or "marginal" bluffs.


In Elder Sign, does defeating a monster with a spell count as a completed task?

This is a quote from the Elder Sign rulebook, as currently posted online.  Page 8.

  Failing Rolls
  If the player is unable or unwilling to use his die results to satisfy
  any task’s requirements, the roll is considered a failed roll. He
  must discard one die of his choice from the dice pool and
  roll the remaining dice in another attempt to complete a
  task.

There is no other errata or clarifications or asides that alter this rule (other than a brief aside to confirm that yes, you can choose to intentionally fail rather than spend too many dice on one task).  It doesn't matter that you managed to complete a task on the adventure card in some other way, in your case by killing a monster with a spell.  The roll still failed.  You must still discard a die.


Is it ever a good idea to research weapons development?

Ok, so I asked a question over at math.stackexchange.com to get some advise on how to analyze the various weapon development options (see How to analyze risk vs. reward for spending on research and development work). Mike Spivey suggested using a decision tree, which I had some familiarity with from past classes in probability and statistics. In short, the decision tree calculates the expected value for spending 0 through 30 IPC on a turn for weapons development research.

To construct this decision tree (see below), I made some assumptions:

Heavy bombers are the only weapons development "worth" anything. In short, any money spent that resulted in discovering a tech other than heavy bombers was considered wasted.
Discovering the heavy bombers tech is worth some amount of IPCs. Because this value may differ per player (that is, I may be willing to pay, say, 50 IPC to get heavy bombers while someone else may be willing to pay 100), I created an Excel spreadsheet where this "worth" could be plugged in and the expected value would be computed for spending 0 to 30 IPC on a turn for rolling for techs.

Here is the decision tree I constructed to compute the expected values for spending 0 to 30 IPC in a turn, meaning paying for 0 to 6 rolls of the die.

The expected value of one of the rolls is computed by adding together the value (the amount in the bottommost boxes) times the probability of getting there for a particular branch in the tree.  I presume the player has a purse of 30 IPC at the start of their turn.

For instance, if you do zero rolls (the far left branch) then you have an expected outcome of 100% * 30, or 30 IPC. In other words, you'll always end up with a purse of 30 IPC after the rolls. However, if you decide to spend money to do one roll then you have a ~2.75%  chance of getting Heavy Bombers (1/36). Doing so yields a purse of 25 + X, where X is the "worth" of having heavy bombers. There is ~97.25% chance that you will not get heavy bombers, in which case you have a purse of 25 IPC. So the expected value of one roll is 2.75% * (25 + X) + 97.25% * 25. Of course, the actual hard number depends on X, which is what heavy bombers is worth to you.

I created a very simple Excel spreadsheet that calculated all seven expected values for a given value of X, where X was a number in a particular cell. Using this spreadsheet I could play with X to see at what point it actually makes sense to roll for weapons development.

The chart below shows how the expected value changes as the value of X grows. The X-axis shows the expected outcome for zero to six rolls. The series show how the expected value changes as the value of the heavy bombers tech (X) increases. Here I show the expected value for six different values: 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, and 270.

Note how at a "worth" of 180, heavy bombers have the same expected value regardless of how many times you roll the die. If the value is lower, however, it makes sense to abstain from weapons development altogether; if its higher to you, spend every last penny you have on development!

Personally, I think heavy bombers are not worth this much. 180 IPC is the combined budget of 5-10 turns. It is equivalent to purchasing 12 standard bombers. Forgoing any sort of unit procurement for that many turns, just to get heavy bombers, is a suicidal thought.

In closing, keep in mind that this is a very simple model. It presumes heavy bombers are the only worthwhile tech. It does not factor in that if you discover other technologies, that the odds of discovering heavy bombers actually increase since if you roll an initial 6 you get to keep rolling for your discovered tech until you discover a new one. Also, the analysis presumes the player is in a vacuum of sorts and does not factor in that he must spend certain amounts of IPCs to hold his territories from the enemy, not to mention the monies needed to go on the offensive.


If you disturb a Jenga block, can you push it back into place?

According to the official 2000 version of the rules:

  As play proceeds and the weight of the tower shifts, some blocks become looser than others and are easier to remove. You can touch other blocks to find a loose one — but if you move a block out of place, you must fix it (using one hand only) before touching another block.

Since this rule includes the proviso before touching another block I take this to mean that you can't touch blocks after you have started to remove your block.

I believe it would be within the spirit of the rules that you could try and replace the block you started to remove, then try and remove the block you disturbed.

The key is that you can only touch one block at a time with only one hand.


Is there a complete database of Pokémon data?

Can't vouch for its completeness, but http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-trading-card-game/database/ seems to be a similar resource to the Magic TCG's "Gatherer".

Certainly when I made a request for cards with the name "Pikachu" I got 27 card results, so it seems like it could keep a deckbuilder busy for quite a while...


Predominantly games of this style fall under either the Alquerque or Zamma families.

There are a number of variants played globally, with the board shape and number of stones varying considerably depending on region.
Games typically grouped in the Zamma family tend to have larger boards and stone counts, where Alquerque variants tend towards the smaller.
Though the grouping into families for this style of game is relatively arbitrary, and is mostly dependent on which game the individual doing the grouping first came into contact with.

As far as I can ascertain the 3 bead variant was developed by the Gujaratis, but as with a lot of these games there's no clear literature as to when the variant came into favor, or even of it's actual origin.

For similar games, the closest I'm aware of  in terms of board size would be Four Field Kono from Korea, but that has a modified capturing mechanism.
There are a number with almost identical rule-sets, so just searching for Alquerque is probably a good option.


The only time that a family member is only fed 1 food instead of 2 food is if that family member was just added to the family in the round that immediately preceded that harvest. In other words, if that family member has never yet taken any actions.


I usually have the exact opposite problem, I can never keep mine from cracking and peeling.

If the model wasn't sealed, you could have tried pressing some masking tape over the decal and peeling it off.  That may take off the decal with out taking off the paint underneath.

Once the model is sealed, I don't think there's a good way to get the decal off without taking the paint with it.  Any kind of chemical you use will need to get through the sealer and would probably dissolve the paint as well. You'll probably have to paint over the area and apply the decal on top of the old one.


Does "Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth" work on lands in libraries?

No. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth only affects lands on the battlefield, not in any other zone.

Rule 109.2 says

  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.

Urborg affects objects with the type "Land". Since it doesn't use any of the mentioned words, that means that it affects permanents of type "Land" on the battlefield.


Monster unaffected by Spell/Trap vs. Monster given protection via Spell/Trap

The thing here is that the one unaffected by spell/traps is your monster.

However, that does not make your opponent's monster unaffected by spell/traps.

Protecting your monster from spell/traps does not negate a spell/trap card that affects your opponent's monster.

You could, however, make your opponent's monster unaffected by spell/traps (for example targeting with whatever effect made your monster spell/trap proof), and if you do that then the spell protecting it from being destroyed won't save it from your attacks.


Do I decide {X} for cards in my library for effects and abilities asking for a particular CMC?

There are two relevant (overlapping) rules for this situation:

107.3f If a card in any zone other than the stack has an {X} in its mana cost, the value of {X} is treated as 0, even if the value of X is defined somewhere within its text.
202.3c When calculating the converted mana cost of an object with an {X} in its mana cost, X is treated as 0 while the object is not on the stack, and X is treated as the number chosen for it while the object is on the stack.

So, in this case, Genesis Hydra's CMC is always 2 when it is in your library, so you can only search for it if Yisan has exactly two verse counters. Then, if you do search for it and have it enter the battlefield, X is still considered to be 0, so it has no +1/+1 counters and dies immediately.


Why couldn't I declare Tsumo with this hand?

Riichi Mahjong has a one-yaku minimum before you can complete your hand.  While tsumo gives you a yaku if the hand is still closed, it won't give you anything if you've already opened your hand by calling melds.

For further details, you can read the related answer here: Why couldn't this hand win with ron?

Your hand, as it stands, doesn't have any yaku.  If the North wind was active (i.e. if you were playing in the North seat) you could earn a yaku by calling or drawing a third North tile, but then you would be stuck with a pair wait on one of the 2/3 character tiles.  Beyond that, about the only way you could win with that hand (short of hoping for a winning tile on the last draw or a kan draw) would be to swap out the characters and replace them with a set of dragons or an active wind.


Dominion - bold and regular type: which action comes first?

You do exactly what the card says in order, how bold the type is doesn't matter. The +2 Actions isn't an instruction to play (up to) 2 action cards at that time, it means that later in the Action Phase you can play 2 additional actions. So the revealing cards would happen before you could play any other cards from your hand.

From the Dominion Rules:

  Furthermore, the player must
  fully resolve an Action card before playing another one (if he is
  able to play another Action card).

and

  "+X Action(s)" – the player may play X number of additional Actions this
  turn. +X Action(s) adds to the number of Actions that can be played in the
  Action phase. It does not mean play another Action immediately. The
  instructions on the current Action card must be completed before playing
  any additional Actions.


Do you forfeit that piece if you do not take a compulsory move?

That is an optional rule called the Huffing Rule.

Capturing pieces is compulsory. It is both players responsibility to make sure that is enforced.


Can the winged dragon of Ra use its effect during another players turn?

The answer is no.

The reason why is that the Winged Dragon of Ra's effect is not a quick effect. Quick effects are monster effects you can choose to activate during either player's turn. You can think of them like quickplay spells or set traps. Quick effects are usually designated by the phrase "during either player's turn", or have the text "(quick effect)" inserted after the effect description. Winged Dragon of Ra's effect to destroy monsters reads as follows:

  You can pay 1000 LP, then target 1 monster on the field; destroy that target.

Since it lacks a phrase that marks it as a quick effect, if Ra is in your opponent's control, it can only be activated during your opponent's main phase 1 or main phase 2, and can't be activated during your turn.


consequence for illegal double word plays

Not an official rule, but common sense.

In the ideal world, we all follow the rules. But sometimes people "forget" a rule or they try to cheat. The best way is to call them out and let them correct their mistake. And if they persist in this behaviour, find somebody else to play with.


How can I cheaply and easily create stackable tiles?

Best bet for multiple "3d" sets: 3-D Print off a master of each type, then use resin casting to make as many as you need. Or use a single type, and print circular labels that go inside a recess.

As for bubble removal - an insulin syringe. that microfine needle barely leaves a mark, and can suck half a cc of air out.

It's better, however, to not get bubbles in the first place... so, you set an edge past the edge of the meaningful area, the use a rolling pin or squeegee to press it flat from there over. I've also found it better to expose the lamination and put the paper onto it, than to place the laminate onto the paper.


Leading from the wrong (nondummy) hand in bridge

From the Laws of Contract Bridge - 2014,

Law 55 - Declarer's Lead Out of Turn

  When declarer leads out of turn from his or dummy's hand:
  A either defender, without consultation, may accept that lead as provided in Law 53; or
  B. either defender, without consultation, may require declarer to retract that lead. Then,
   1. if it was a defender' turn to lead, declarer restores the card led in error to his or dummy's hand without penalty.
   2. if declarer has led from the wrong hand when it was his turn to lead from his or dummy's hand, he withdraws the card led in error and he must lead a card from the correct hand.

  If declarer adopts a line of play that could have been based on information obtained through his infraction, the offenders should adjust the score to redress the damage.

So, in direct answer to your question, and assuming no inappropriate information was obtained by declarer through the infraction, once a defender requires declarer to retract the card led in error declarer restores it without penalty and leads (any card of his choice) from the correct hand.

In a club (other than a Duplicate Club) a slightly more formal alternative law may apply using the services of a pre-appointed Arbiter, if such is available. I understand from your description that this is not the case fr your question.


How many plays of Pandemic Legacy until it is complete?

The Pandemic Legacy campaign runs over a single year. You play a game for each month, but if you lose then you play that month one more time before moving to the next one. So if you win every game, you will have 12 games, but if you lose each month then you will have 24. Before you use any of the Legacy components, you can also play an unlimited number of games of "standard" Pandemic (or something very close to it), but once you start opening packets and putting on stickers you're in for those 12-24 games.


Traditional 1-stone handicap before komi

In Edo period go, the system worked like this:

Even: Taiga-sen (Alternating Black and White)
One Dan difference: San-Ai-Sen (Black two out of three games)
Two Dan difference: Josen (Always Black)
Three Dan difference: Sen-Ni-Sen (Black two games, two stones on game)
Four Dan difference: Sen-Ni (Alternating Black and two stones)
Five Dan difference: (Always take two stones)
Six Dan difference: (two handis twice, three handis once)
Seven Dan difference: (three stones twice, two stones once)
Eight Dan difference: (always take three stones)

It is important to note that you had a different handicap against each player, based of your individual results against each other. Also it was expected that you would play many games. Almost like tennis where you try to break the serve, if you won consistently while playing white, it was impressive (Black is expected to win more often, getting the first move)


How does Hazoret's Undying Fury work with Aftermath cards?

You can't cast Authority from the graveyard for free.
Appeal//Authority is not in the graveyard when you are instructed to cast the cards Undying Fury exiled. If you haven't cast Appeal, it's in exile. If you have cast Appeal, it's on the stack.
Keep in mind that Undying Fury only has you cast spells (which is to place it on the stack, make some choices, and pay its costs). They don't resolve immediately. The spell will only resolve when it's the top item on the stack after all players have passed priority in sequence, which can't happen before Undying Fury has finished resolving.
The only way Appeal//Authority could be present in the graveyard when Undying Fury instructs you to cast it is if some replacement effect caused Undying Fury to place the card in the graveyard instead of in exile. This effect would be phrased "If a card would be exiled, put it in the graveyard instead." If such an effect existed and was applied, then you could cast either Appeal or Authority for free (but not both) since Undying Fury is the one that put it in the graveyard.[CR 400.7][CR 400.7h]
You can't cast Authority from exile.
Undying Fury could cast Authority from exile, except Aftermath forbids Authority from being "cast from any zone other than a graveyard",[CR 702.126a] and restrictions take priority over instructions.[CR 101.2]
You can't cast Authority from the stack.
Casting Appeal places the card on the stack. At this point, the Appeal//Authority card that Undying Fury exiled no longer exists as far as Undying Fury is concerned.[CR 400.7]

101.2. When a rule or effect allows or directs something to happen, and another effect states that it can’t happen, the “can’t” effect takes precedence.
Example: If one effect reads “You may play an additional land this turn” and another reads “You can’t play land cards this turn,” the effect that precludes you from playing lands wins.
400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. There are nine exceptions to this rule:
400.7h If an effect causes an object to move to a public zone, other parts of that effect can find that object. If the cost of a spell or ability causes an object to move to a public zone, that spell or ability’s effects can find that object.
702.126a Aftermath is an ability found on some split cards (see rule 708, “Split Cards”). It represents three static abilities. “Aftermath” means “You may cast this half of this split card from your graveyard,” “This half of this split card can’t be cast from any zone other than a graveyard,” and “If this spell was cast from a graveyard, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else any time it would leave the stack.”


Can an opponent destroy an Iron Maiden during their upkeep to avoid taking damage from it?

No.  The  iron maiden's ability goes onto the stack before any player gets priority, and it will resolve regardless of whether it's source is still on the battlefield when it does.

  112.7a Once activated or triggered, an ability exists on the stack independently of its source. Destruction or removal of the source
  after that time won’t affect the ability. Note that some abilities
  cause a source to do something (for example, “Prodigal Pyromancer
  deals 1 damage to target creature or player”) rather than the ability
  doing anything directly. In these cases, any activated or triggered
  ability that references information about the source because the
  effect needs to be divided checks that information when the ability is
  put onto the stack. Otherwise, it will check that information when it
  resolves. In both instances, if the source is no longer in the zone
  it’s expected to be in at that time, its last known information is
  used. The source can still perform the action even though it no longer
  exists.

.

  503  Upkeep Step

  503.1. First, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of the upkeep step and any abilities that triggered during the turn’s untap
  step go on the stack. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)

  503.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

  503.3. If a spell states that it may be cast only “after [a player’s] upkeep step,” and the turn has multiple upkeep steps, that spell may
  be cast any time after the first upkeep step ends.


Feeding is entirely sequential:

Feeding Species

Beginning with the First Player and continuing clockwise, each player must feed one of their Hungry species.

So if player 1's attack causes some other species to go extinct, then that species will not get a chance to feed regardless of who that species belonged to and whether it was a carnivore or not.
Also note that if Carnivore 1 attacks Carnivore 2, Carnivore 2 can't normally attack back even if it does survive because a predator must always have a strictly greater Body Size than its prey. That said, the Pack Hunting trait can create a scenario where this is possible.


Why do older players keep their money under the edge of the board?

This has most likely been passed down throughout the generations as "the way to do it", without any actual backing reasons, but there are some situations where it is beneficial to put the money under the edge of the game board.

Small playing areas (such as a small table) where space is at a minimum, so it makes sense to conserve space by putting money under the edge of the board.
Playing outside (where it can be windy) or inside with a fan can cause the money to be shifted constantly, so sliding it under the board allows it to be pinned down.
In games where money is not the driving factor (such as Monopoly, where the Title Deeds are more important), it helps to keep your focus on what matters.
It makes it easier to keep the denominations in separate piles (if that applies) as you don't need to worry about sifting through a single pile to find the right denomination.

Joey has already mentioned the playful/imagination aspect of it which may also apply in some cases.


At the end of the game no role cards are reveled until the Assassin declares who he thinks Merlin is. The Assassin should be able to remember who the evil players are and determine who Oberon is based on game play.

  Without revealing any Character cards, the Evil players discuss and the player with the Assassin character card will name one Good player as Merlin.

There is nothing mentioned about the good players remaining silent or being able to speak.


GO ARK , a 9x9 Go set designed by Japanese designer Junji Masamitsu, fits your description.  The set is also sold on amazon.jp, shown as "out of stock" at the moment.


Discard Ongoing Card for effect (Mad Mod)

From what I recall, Mad Mod is not an Ongoing card, so therefore the effect (+2 power, discard an Ongoing card for an attack) happens only once.  By his argument, you could also get 200 power.


is party bridge the same as rubber bridge?

I know of no rules for Party Bridge named as such, but there are other  scoring table besides standard Contract Rubber Bridge; it is possible that your friends are referring to what is best known as Chicago Scoring. Also known as Four-Deal Bridge, Chicago scoring frequently, though not always, omits scoring points for Honours; I played it both ways while learning the game many years ago.  To the best of my knowledge the rules for scoring Honours are always only On or Off - I know of no variations beside making it optional.

Chicago Scoring puts more points in play per hand than Rubber Bridge scoring, and is consequently also frequently preferred for high-level money games - the greater number of points in play further reduces the luck element over a session, and more easily accommodates rotating a fifth or sixth person in and out of a game.

This same dynamic is valuable in a party setting, because each table should finish a four-deal round in under 30 minutes. Players can then socialize for a few minutes before receiving their new seating assignment, typically determined either round-robin or progressive. A 6-round session should easily play in under 4 hours while still allowing frequent opportunities for socializing, or even in close to 3 hours for a more serious-minded group.

However if you attempt to break in to a new money game and find Rubber Bridge scoring being proposed, remember the old Poker adage - if you don't know who the sucker is, it's probably you. Amateur players will sacrifice far too often and frequently to save the rubber, and good players will rapidly fleece any person or partnership that exhibits this behaviour.


Oath of Teferi targeting Oath of Teferi?

No.

So I know that ETB happens before the legendary rule kicks in

Well, the ability triggers as soon the object enters the battlefield, but nothing else happens just yet. Specifically, it's not placed on the stack just then, so its targets aren't picked just then.[CR 116.2a]
The next time a player would get priority, state-based actions are first performed, and then triggered abilities are added to the stack.[CR 704.3]

State-based actions (SBAs) are what enforce the Legend Rule. As such, you need to move one of the Oaths to the graveyard before the new Oath's triggered ability is placed on the stack, and therefore before the triggered ability's target is chosen.

Even if we pretend SBAs are performed after triggered abilities are placed on the stack, the answer is still no.
Once the old Oath is moved to the graveyard, it becomes a new object. Objects don't really move between zones; it's more accurate to say that they cease to exist, and a new object is created in the new zone. This means that when the triggered ability gets to resolves, it wouldn't be able to find the Oath you targeted since it doesn't exist anymore.[CR 400.7]
Instead of resolving, the ability would be removed from the stack with no effect because it only has illegal targets.[CR 608.2b]

116.2a Triggered abilities can trigger at any time, including while a spell is being cast, an ability is being activated, or a spell or ability is resolving. (See rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities.") However, nothing actually happens at the time an ability triggers. Each time a player would receive priority, each ability that has triggered but hasn't yet been put on the stack is put on the stack. See rule 116.5.
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. If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; otherwise all triggered abilities that are waiting to be put on the stack are put on the stack, then the check is repeated. Once no more state-based actions have been performed as the result of a check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, the appropriate player gets priority. This process also occurs during the cleanup step (see rule 514), except that if no state-based actions are performed as the result of the step's first check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, then no player gets priority and the step ends.
400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. There are nine exceptions to this rule: [None are relevant here]
608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that's no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. If all its targets, for every instance of the word "target," are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn't resolve. It's removed from the stack and, if it's a spell, put into its owner's graveyard. Otherwise, the spell or ability will resolve normally. Illegal targets, if any, won't be affected by parts of a resolving spell's effect for which they're illegal. Other parts of the effect for which those targets are not illegal may still affect them. If the spell or ability creates any continuous effects that affect game rules (see rule 613.10), those effects don't apply to illegal targets. If part of the effect requires information about an illegal target, it fails to determine any such information. Any part of the effect that requires that information won't happen.


Multiplayer card game based on Rock Paper Scissors- what is it called?

I think it might be GG.
Was a Kickstarter back in 2016.


Yes, the ability specifically states that Pyrohemia deals the damage. So it's a single source dealing 4 damage and the Ogre dies.


Can you Clone a creature with protection or shroud?

A spell or ability that targets must use the word "target" in the rules text, or the rules of the Keyword ability on a card. Everything you need to know is covered under rule 114, where 114.1a-e covers targeted spells and abilities and when those targets must be selected. Most spells and abilities that target will say "target" directly on the card, unless their Keyword ability rules covers this already (i.e. Auras, Equipment, Haunt, etc.).

Reminder text, which shows up in many base sets or on cards with new Keyword abilities, might appear on a card in italics with the word "target" to inform you an ability is targeted.

  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.


Apparent contradiction in official rules for Kamisado?

You must add third fact from the official Rules (in the "Opening Moves" section):

(3). "In any round, the player that moves first is known as the Challenger. The other player is known as the Defender for that round."

This rule is "hidden" in the basic rules, not where expected - after Filling L/R. The facts (1) and (3) together suggest the option 1: the player who lost in the previous round takes the opening move. That convinced me (I had the same hesitation). There is the common sense also - the opening move is said to give considerable advantage, so the loosing player could recover and the match would prolong.

I guess the description for Figure 7(h) must be simply an overlook, and should instead read: "diagram shows the possible moves open to Alain with his purple Sumo dragon tower, if he gets the opportunity to make move with purple and if nothing is blocking the purple tower". Too complicated; the figure should have been taken from another match not to confuse people.


What are the rules for saving people on the merchant ship map in Flash Point: Fire Rescue?

The idea is that the stairs effectively split the top spaces into two - see the designer's comment at https://boardgamegeek.com/article/14049646#14049646 . On that basis I would regard the top spaces as accessible only via the stairs.

At the bottom I'd regard e.g. (6,0) as the rescue space and (5,0) as where you go on your way out of it. On the other hand explosions (or Chop actions) can connect the bottom spaces to the cabins (e.g. linking (6,0) to (6,1)).


Cribbage scoring for one hand less starter card

If I read you correctly, you're describing a hand like 4H 4D 4S 7D.

4H 4D 7D - 15 2
4H 4S 7D - 15 4
4D 4S 7D - 15 6
4H 4D - pair (2 points)
4H 4S - pair (2 points)
4D 4S - pair (2 points)

You are indeed correct that this adds to 12 points. You are also correct that you can shortcut the pairs to 6 points as Pair Royal.


White has a slight advantage in the Accepted line, but it will depend what level you play at.  Even at the higher levels both Anand and Kasparov have played it.

You give up the center in the QGA as black, but white has an isolated Queen's pawn to deal with.  There are too many alternatives for the QGA to go over them all here.

In general, white is taking the center, and hopes that his advantage will compensate for the pawn.  A very logical move then is 3. e4, grabbing the center with a pawn duo, though 3. Nf3 has been more popular.

If Black tries to hard to keep the pawn, he'll only hurt himself.


Magic: The Gathering Sorcery vs Activated Abilities

There is one stack, that all spells and abilities use (with the exception of special actions and mana abilities). In your specific example, player A casts Whelming Wave, and once they finish casting it, it's on the stack. Then, player B activates their creature's ability "in response" to the Whelming Wave, meaning "while the Whelming Wave is on the stack". That ability goes on the stack on top of the Whelming Wave. Then the ability resolves, and the ability does whatever it does. Finally, the Whelming Wave resolves, and, the creatures are returned to their owners' hands. If, however, the resolving ability killed player A, the Whelming Wave would immediately leave the game with its controller, and it would never resolve.

This can happen because abilities can be activated at instant speed; in this case, they can be activated in response to other spells or abilities. Rule 112.3b says

  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. Doing so puts it on the stack, where it remains until it’s countered, it resolves, or it otherwise leaves the stack. See rule 602, “Activating Activated Abilities.”

Notable exceptions are the Equip and Outlast abilities, which can only be activated at sorcery speed.


If Anger of the Gods kills a creature, does it still trigger death effects?

The creature never died, so the ability doesn't trigger.

Anger of the Gods creates a replacement effect.

614.1. Some continuous effects are replacement effects. [...] Such effects watch for a particular event that would happen and completely or partially replace that event with a different event. [...]
614.1a Effects that use the word “instead” are replacement effects. Most replacement effects use the word “instead” to indicate what events will be replaced with other events.

So the creatures never went to the graveyard.

614.6. If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities. Note that the modified event may contain instructions that can’t be carried out, in which case the impossible instruction is simply ignored.

So the creatures never died.

700.4. The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”

If you have an ability that triggered on a creature being exiled, that ability would trigger.


Can I target a Shrouded creature's ability?

Yes, the ability is a legal target.

Shroud applies to the creature. It says you can't choose the creature for a target.

Reroute doesn't choose the creature for the target. It chooses an ability. Those abilities are not connected to the creature (once they go on the stack, they're wholly separate objects) and they do not inherit any of the creature's abilities.


You have to pay just 3. From a ruling on Trinisphere, emphasis added:

  12/1/2004: Trinisphere's ability affects the total cost of the spell. It is applied after any other cost increasers or cost reducers are applied: First apply any cost increases. Next apply any cost reducers. Finally look at the amount of mana you have to pay. If it's less than three mana, you'll pay three mana.

So, after taking into account all the present Spheres of Resistance, we determine whether the spell you're casting costs less than 3 mana. Your artifact's already been beefed up to costing {3}, so Trinisphere does nothing extra to it and remains costing {3}.

The rules basis for this is in (currently) Casting Spells, 601.2f. Emphasis added again:

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

In that bolded section in the middle we're applying Sphere of Resistance, and any other cost increases and reductions. Then in the bolded section at the end, we apply effects like Trinisphere which just directly say what the total cost is.


Can Body Double copy the back face of a card in the graveyard?

No, it cannot. Rule 711.4a says

  While a double-faced card is outside the game, in a zone other than the battlefield, or on the battlefield with its front face up, it has only the characteristics of its front face.


Fumigate does no damage; it destroys. All the creatures die; Repel the Abominable does nothing to stop it. If you wanted to keep your creatures, you'd have to seek another means of preventing their destruction, such as by regenerating your creatures (e.g. Dark Dabbling) or making them indestructible (e.g. Boros Charm). For thoroughness, protection wouldn't work.

Damage can lead to a creature being destroyed, but being destroyed doesn't necessarily have to involve any damage at all.

If it did do damage, it'd say so: Wave of Reckoning and Blasphemous Act are board wipes that deal damage.


How can I play Dominion with 5+ players without expansions?

To play with more than 4 players, the rules for Intrigue (link - page 7) give the following guidelines:

Provinces = players x 3
Curses = (players - 1) x 10
Exhaust 4 Kingdom piles (instead of 3) to end the game. Province pile still ends the game on its own.

Of course you'll need 3 more Estates per player at the beginning of the game, but for the Coppers you'll just have fewer in the supply.
All other rules are the same as in a 3- or 4-player game.

Keep in mind that more players can make a game feel slower, and can make some cards (especially attack cards) more powerful than in a smaller game. Also, Intrigue is the only "expansion" that comes with the common (Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse) cards, but once you have it you can use those to boost your supply. Until then I recommend using a few unused Kingdom cards to fill in the blanks. Between the Base set, Seaside and Alchemy I found I had at least fifteen blank cards, which my wife lovingly inscribed with appropriate verbiage to reduce our need for unused Kingdom cards.

EDIT: For awhile now Rio Grande Games has had a set of just the Base Cards for sale.


Proper way to play Ghostly Possession Enchantment Aura?

If you play it on your own creature, you now have a flying blocker that can't be dealt damage. That's not 'useless' at all. If you play it on an opponent's creature, you can stop it from dealing damage, in exchange for giving them a really good blocker.


How to play a planeswalker such as Sorin, Lord of Innistrad?

I know I add 1 loyalty counter at my upkeep.

huh? no. Outside of the effect of a spell or ability, you only add loyalty counters onto Sorin when you place it on the battlefield, and when you activate its +1 Loyalty ability.

  Can I play the -2 ability twice or only once per upkeep?

No, for two reasons.

You can't play it during your upkeep at all. Loyalty abilities can only be used "as a sorcery". (On your turn, in a main phase, when the stack is empty.)
You can only activate an ability of a given Planeswalker once per turn.

  My other question is can I play +1 and then -2 on the same upkeep?

No, for the same reasons.

  606.3. A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent he or she controls any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of his or her turn, but only if no player has previously activated a loyalty ability of that permanent that turn.


What are the odds a player doesn't draw a monastery or garden tile?

This should happen to you about 1 in every 620 games that have 3 players, 14 tiles that an Abbot can be played on, 1 start tile, and 57 other tiles.
Given that there are 72 tiles, in a 3-player game, you'd draw either 23 or 24 tiles, depending on turn order. Although the 72 tiles divide evenly, one of them is the start tile and is removed. I'll assume that in 1/3 of games you go last, and only get 23 tiles.
Without changing the statistics, we can pretend you draw all your tiles first, without any other players taking their turns. You can think of their turns as simply showing you what was never in the tiles you were going to get without affecting it, besides that you're stopping your draws early and not drawing the whole stack.
Drawing 23 tiles out of 71 without replacement, 57 of which are not Abbot-eligible, your chance of only drawing from those 57 is 57/71 * 56/70 * ... * 35/49. This comes out to about 0.200% (or about one in 499) of games where you go last.
Drawing a 24th tile multiplies this by 34/48, for about 0.142% (or about one in 705) in games where you don't go last.
Weighting the probabilities together based on your chance of actually going last it's 0.161% (or about one in 620).
Obviously changing the number of players, introducing river tiles, or caring about whether anyone at the table can't play an Abbot rather than just you would change the chances.


Invocation of Nehek (Vampire Counts 8th Ed, pg 60) says that "Wounds gained are distributed as described in Ressurecting Fallen Warriors".

The rules for Ressurecting Fallen Warriors (Vampire Counts 8th Ed, pg 26) state that "A unit cannot be taken beyond it's starting size, though certain powers, spells and special rules may provide exceptions".

So the unit will not go above it's starting size unless the unit or the caster has a special rule saying they may do so (Swarms do not).

The rules for Ressurecting Fallen Warriors go on to say:

"In the case of multiple Wound models, all models in the unit must be fully healed before another can be resurrected."

However, Invocation of Nehek does add that "models with the Vampiric, Ethereal or Large Target special rules can never regain more than 1 Wound per successful casting."


Choose from discard pile ability: put into play simultaneously?

The cards are taken secretly from the discard, and then put into play simultaneously
The quote from the Wonder Pack rules should be taken literally. When they use the term, "resolution order" they are specifically speaking of what order to resolve the actions in the previous conditional: (I.e. multiple players taking cards from the discard pile.)

If multiple players take cards from the discard pile during a given turn, the resolution order is the following: Halikarnassos, The Great Wall, Manneken Pis, Salomon and finally, Courtesan’s Guild

Cards are always played simultaneously, so some way to resolve conflicts between multiple players taking conflicting actions is necessary. Take for example the original rules (page 5, 8):

Overview of an Age - [...] Each Age is made up of 6 game turns. During each turn the players put into play a single card, simultaneously.
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus - the player can look through all of the cards discarded since the beginning of the game (those discarded for coins as well as those discarded at the end of an age), pick one, and build it for free.
Clarification : this special ability takes place at the end of the turn in which this stage is built. If players discard cards this turn (as in the case of the 6th turn of an age), the player can also choose from among them.

The same rules text is in the Leaders Expansion (page 4, 7):

Recruitment Phase - During this phase, each player will play one of their Leader cards. The cards are chosen secretly by each player, then revealed simultaneously to be played.
Solomon - Once Solomon enters play, the player can choose an Age card from the discard pile and put it in play for free.

The Leaders rules also only notes that Halicarnassus chooses its card before Solomon, not that it plays the card before Solomon.

Leader: Solomon
Q: What happens if Solomon enters play in the same turn in which Halicarnassus builds a Wonder stage?
A: Halicarnassus chooses its card from the discard pile before Solomon.


Does bypassing an ICE trigger Chum's subroutine?

Yes, you have encountered the next ice and so you will take 3 net damage if you don't break its subroutines. As you are bypassing the ice you will not have a chance to break the subroutines and so will take the 3 net damage as soon as the encounter ends.

This is explained the FAQ From FFG


What makes a cooperative board game actually a game?

What is a game?
There's some argument about what exactly constitutes a "game" in academic and design circles. Going by Salen and Zimmerman's definition from Rules of Play:

A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict,
defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.

Cooperative games still have rules and definite win/loss outcomes. "Artificial conflict" does not prescribe that the conflict be between players, or that it be focused on strategic competition per se.
Strategy vs. algorithm
The operative assumption in the original question is that play vs. a sentient actor requires on-the-fly decision-making, whereas cooperative play vs. random game events can necessarily be reduced to a script you can follow to win. I think this is an error.
Even when the adversity they face in the game is tied to something as simple and unthinking as the luck of the draw, the human players may still have to adjust their actions to the unpredictably changing game state. To use your Dominion example, simply knowing what an optimal strategy looks like in the abstract doesn't free you from having to adjust your turn-by-turn plays to make the best use of the cards you've actually drawn.
You could try to articulate all these tricks into a single defined "strategy," but for many games this hypothetical script will be so complex that a human player couldn't simply follow it by rote. And how is this different from trying to write out a gameplan that includes ways to compensate for intelligent opponents' moves, anyway?
Counterexamples: strategic depth without opponents
Consider these examples of challenging decision-making without a human opponent:

Classic solitaire games such as Klondike involve hidden information and strategic decisions analogous to classic multi-player card games.
Knizia's Lord of the Rings board game is a cooperative board game with a random element (some tiles in a bag) as the the source of adversity. It has an expansion that allows a player to assume the role of the antagonist; this tends to increase the difficulty a bit since the Sauron player is actively choosing the most punishing outcome, but either mode involves qualitatively similar gameplay and strategic decision-making for the ringbearer players.
There's a casual variant of Magic: the Gathering where players team up against a random deck representing a zombie horde. The horde just immediately casts whatever it topdecks and always attacks with all of its guys. There are certain things the horde can't do (play targeted removal, for instance), but the players still have to make strategic decisions about resource utilization, attack vs. defense, and timing their spells that are qualitatively similar to the decisions involved in a normal game of Magic. This is a mirror of the situation above: a normally head-to-head game can be played as a cooperative game against a random element, with qualitatively similar gameplay and strategic decision-making.
Video game AI opponents are often actually fairly simple actors just following a generally-good strategy. Despite not being particularly reactive to the actions of the human players, these rather simple opponents can still present a significant challenge to them.

Is strategic thinking an integral part of all board games?
More generally, I think your question presupposes too much about games and why people play them. Board games, like all games, can provide a variety of experiences, including:

Overcoming a challenge
Proving yourself against your peers
Solving a puzzle
The thrill of gambling
The visual and tactile pleasure of gameplay (think about how much enjoyment miniatures gamers get from the look and feel of their pieces)
Socializing with your friends
Experiencing the narrative of play (drama and resolution, for instance)

Among these, overcoming challenges is not always and necessarily the game's or players' primary goal. Nor is strategic play the only way to experience a challenge: games can easily involve physical and mental tests that don't depend on analysis and planning.
Some products traditionally labeled "board games" don't actually put much emphasis on overcoming challenges. Candyland is, of course, the archetypical extreme example. Some game designers and purists may say that such board games aren't really "games," but that is their popularly-accepted label.


Ramses and Babel tile 23: are Guilds free or do you have to pay coins?

With Ramses in effect, guilds are still free. This is the reason Babel tile 23 specifies "construction of guilds via resources" is forbidden.

Antoine Bauza (the game's creator) was asked this directly on his forums this past December. The question was posed:

«When we built a guild with Ramses Leader in play but the tile Babel No. 23 (resources become parts payable) is also at stake, what's happening? The guild building is it paying off in parts or completely free in the end?»

To which he replied:

«Your Free guilds remain with Ramses (Free resource becomes free rooms)»


What's the point of putting five face-up train cards next to the deck in Ticket to Ride?

When you are taking cards on your turn, you can choose to take any of the face-up cards rather than taking one from the deck. Taking a face-up card this way lets you choose what you are getting (as long as the color you want is available).

From the rules:

  Draw Train Car Cards – The player may draw 2 Train Car cards. He may take any one of the face-up cards or he may draw the top card from the deck (this is a blind draw). If he draws a face up card, he immediately turns a replacement card face-up from the deck. He then draws his second card, either from the face up cards or from the top of the deck. (See Train Car Cards for special rules for Locomotive cards).

This is a key part of the game, so I recommend reading through the rulebook again; if you missed that you likely missed other important things.

One rule that's related (though not all versions have this, Nordic Countries doesn't):

  If a Locomotive card is one of the five face-up cards, the player who draws it may only draw one card, instead of two. If, after having drawn one card the replacement card is a Locomotive, the player cannot take it. If at any time, three of the five face-up cards are Locomotives, all five cards are immediately discarded and five new ones are turned face-up to replace them.

To summarize; if you are choosing to draw 2 train cards on your turn; you choose one at a time to draw the top card of the deck, or one of the 5 face-up cards. If you chose a face-up card, you replace it with one from the top of the deck, and then you make the choice a second time. If you choose to take a locomotive card from the face-up cards, then you can only take 1 card that turn instead of 2.


Can my opponent force me to play out a demonstrated loop?

They can't refuse a shortcut[1]; they can merely shorten it by naming a place where they will deviate from the shortcut. The game then advances to that point, and they must take a different action than the shortcut.

716.2b Each other player, in turn order starting after the player who suggested the shortcut, may either accept the proposed sequence, or shorten it by naming a place where he or she will make a game choice that’s different than what’s been proposed. (The player doesn’t need to specify at this time what the new choice will be.) This place becomes the new ending point of the proposed sequence.
716.2c Once the last player has either accepted or shortened the shortcut proposal, the shortcut is taken. The game advances to the last proposed ending point, with all game choices contained in the shortcut proposal having been taken. If the shortcut was shortened from the original proposal, the player who now has priority must make a different game choice than what was originally proposed for that player.

What you should do: After your opponent refuses the shortcut, ask at what point of the shortcut they would like to do something different. If they refuse to name one, call for a judge as they are refusing to take a mandatory action. If they name one, they gain priority. If they don't do anything different than your shortcut had proposed, call for a judge as they just violated 716.2c.

Obviously, they can refuse a shortcut if it's illegal. For example, they could refuse the shortcut by pointing a point at which the complete game state would no longer be known


You will die first.

The attack phase is actually a series of steps, of which declaring the attacking creatures is only the second. After you have determined your attacking creatures, there are several opportunities for each player to play instant-speed spells (such as Shock) and abilities before the attacking creatures can deal their combat damage. So, unless you agreed to resolve combat first, if your opponent can reduce you to zero health or less, you will lose.

For reference, these are the steps of the combat phase:

At the end of the first main phase, when the stack is empty and all players have passed, combat starts. Every player can play spells and abilities now.
You declare with which creatures you want to attack, if any. You tap them, they now count as attacking.
Every player can play spells and abilities until the stack is empty and everyone passes. (This is where your opponent played Shock, which killed you right there).
The defending player declares with which creatures to block, if any. They now count as blocking.
Every player can play spells and abilities until the stack is empty and everyone passes.
Combat resolution starts. First, all creatures with First Strike and/or Double Strike now deal their damage, simultaneously.
Every player can play spells and abilities until the stack is empty and everyone passes.
All creatures with Double Strike and all creatures who didn't deal damage in the first damage step deal damage now (this is where you would have killed your opponent with the 4/4 and gained 4 life).
Every player can play spells and abilities until the stack is empty and everyone passes.
Combat ends.


It is important to study effectively for the L1 exam. Remember that the L1 exam is just the first step into the judge program and isn't intended to be too gruelling.

The IPG isn't part of the L1 test at all. The L1 test only uses the JAR (Judging at Regualar REL) for it's questions where the players have done something wrong.

When studying the CR (Comprehensive Rules) focus on just the following topics:

Parts of the turn and the things that happen in each of them
How spells and abilities are played
How they resolve
How the layers interact
What Two-Headed Giant is (really just read the 2HG FAQ).

A couple of quick skims of the MTR are likely to be enough for the few questions that might be based on it. There will be a few things in there that might surprise you, those are the bits to remember.

Most usefully log onto the Judge Center (judge.wizards.com) and do some practice tests. Easy Practice tests are a good gauge of how hard the L1 test is and the fully explained answers will help you understand what you didn't understand.

The other thing that must be done is you need to judge a few events, preferably with the Level 2 judge that will be testing you. Judging a couple of events is required before you can be certified as a Level 1 judge. Remember you don't need to be certified to judge events.


Damage to player when activating Flying ability after 'Declare Blockers' step

Flying only creates a restriction on blocking when blockers are declared, once the blocker is declared giving the attacker flying will have no effect.

From the Rulings on Leaping Master

  9/20/2014  Activating Leaping Master’s ability after it’s been blocked won’t change or undo the block.


In Betrayal at House on the Hill, what happens when a player owns the Holy Symbol and turns into a vampire?

There are no rules dealing with this specific interaction, so we have to make conclusions based on the specifics of the rules that are there. By a literal reading of the rules, the traitor would be unaffected by the Holy Symbol in this case.

The rule states:

  Each time any Vampire
  tries to enter the Chapel or any room with an
  explorer who has the Holy Symbol, it must
  attempt a Sanity roll of 6+ to enter that room. A
  Vampire who fails that roll can't enter that room.

In general, to "enter any room with an explorer who has the Holy Symbol" would mean that the room you are trying to enter already contains an explorer who has the Holy Symbol. Especially given that it is talking about "trying to enter" a room. Meaning, before you have entered the room, you check what's in that room. If it is the Chapel, or if it contains an explorer who has the Holy Symbol, you must roll.

In this case, the Holy Symbol is not in that room, because it is with you in the room you are currently in. So you are not trying to enter a room that contains an explorer with the Holy Symbol.

Thematically you can think of the Holy Symbol as needing to be "activated" by an explorer to have the negative effect on the vampire. This would explain why it doesn't effect the vampire if it isn't just sitting on the floor of a room; it had to be with an explorer. So while it's simply sitting there in the vampire's pocket; it would have no effect.

You can also see it as thematically, it should effect the vampire, because it is a Holy Symbol. If you prefer this interpretation, then I recommend the house rule that the vampire automatically drops it when he becomes a vampire. As Betrayal at House on the Hill is a very theme-driven game, sometimes coming up with rules that make sense thematically is fine. And I don't see that rule as causing much of an imbalance.


What happens when you put a +1/+1 counter on a planeswalker?

Non-creature permanents can have +1/+1 counters on them, they just don't do anything until the permanent becomes a creature. Say you have a man land. If you animate it, then add +1/+1 counters to it, they stay on it even when it stops being a creature.

Also, cards like Earthen Arms can put counters on any permanent. Its gatherer says:

  Any permanent can have a +1/+1 counter put on it. Those counters won’t have any effect unless that permanent is or becomes a creature.


Can a planeswalker ability be activated in response to another spell or ability?

No, a player can't activate loyalty abilities during his upkeep nor in response to spells or abilities. Loyalty abilities can be activated at "sorcery speed", only during a player's main phase. The specific rule from the Comprehensive rules is:

  606.3. A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent they control any time they have priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of their turn, but only if no player has previously activated a loyalty ability of that permanent that turn.


Betrayal at House on the Hill -- what counts as a turn for attacks?

The Traitor always gets to move and attack with each monster, separately, after they have finished their own turn (unless a Haunt-specific rule tells you otherwise, of course).

From the second edition rulebook (page 17, or page 12 if you are cross-referencing the first edition rulebook):

  After you finish your turn, you move and attack with all of the monsters, if any.