Fluxx "Once during your turn" New Rule cards

New Rules take effect immediately. Your turn is over after you have completed all the required rules and you have chosen not to perform any optional actions.

The Online FAQ and the rules both tell you that new rules take effect immediately (I didn't quote the rules pdf, but look under New Rule:, and also gives blue example boxes)

  Q: Suppose the rule is Play 2 and for my second play I change the rules to Play 3. Do I play one more card or am I done because I played 2?

  A: All rules take effect immediately, so you would need to play 1 more card because the rules at that point had become Play 3.

The turn order is described in the rules

  On Your Turn:

  1) Draw the number of cards currently required.

  2) Play the number of cards currently required.

  3) Discard down to the current Hand Limit (if any).

  4) Comply with the current Keeper limit (if any).

  Optional actions allowed by New Rules, Keepers, etc may be performed at any point during this sequence.

So for example, Recycling is an optional rule that says,

  Once per turn, you may discard a Keeper you have on the table and Draw 3 extra cards.

You can choose to use its ability anytime during your turn sequence.


Companions lost on death in same room as other explorers

The rules as written do seem to imply you have to leave the room and re-enter. However I agree with you that this is silly - the spirit of the rules as I read them is that the lost companion gloms on to the first available explorer. So to resolve the ambiguity I would house-rule the relevant section:

  If another explorer enters the room or starts their turn in the room, he or she gains custody of that companion.

Or if you prefer more instantaneous glomming,

  If one or more other explorers are already in the room, the next in turn order gains custody of that companion immediately. Otherwise, the next explorer to enter the room does.


Advice for responding to "Kwabang" attack when playing Japan?

The problem with the Kwabang attack is it can give the UK a decent foothold in Asia, as well as denying Japan some early IPC, and it really screws with Japan's starting strategies.

Part of me wants to say, "Just ignore Kwangtung, go after Hawaii, and start grinding out transports and armor turn 2 for a mainland attack", but I think the Kwangtung attack swings things enough that you need to deal with it first turn.

While 5 infantry plus 2 battleships against 1 infantry anywhere would normally be overkill, in this case I don't think it is, because:  what else are you going to do with them?

To successfully attack the Pearl Harbor fleet, I feel you should throw everything in your fleet and air force at it, and if you're already sending your bombers into China instead of Hawaii, and you probably want at least one battleship in Kwangtung for the bombardment, there's not much left you can send against the Pearl Harbor fleet.

Sooo... finally to your question, where does that leave us?  I guess it depends on what the US does.  With an intact fleet, I think the US have two options -- harass Japan so they can't start a mainland invasion, or swing through the Panama Canal and support UK's landfall into Germany.

If the US goes after Germany -- good news, it's not your problem, at least not directly.  You'll just have to push hard into the mainland to advance into Russia, and find other ways to support Germany (ideally by eliminating the US and UK presence, setting up a mainland factory, and cranking out infantry and armor from the east coast of China).

If the US uses their first turn to move towards you, their fleet can't make it to Japan in one turn, so you'll have a turn to buy units and bulk up.  If you're playing with two-hit battleships, consider one; otherwise, consider subs and destroyers to counter their navy.  You'll want to go after the US navy pretty fast, because they'll do one of two things:  camp out in the Japan sea space, or start island-hopping with the UK to drain you of IPCs quickly.

Oh yeah, as for Manchuria, if you think you can get away with it, leave one unit in Manchuria for the defense.

Wow, that ended up being longer than I intended.


Why was Reinforcement of the Army limited?

You are correct in saying that "there are many other cards that search from the deck other monsters", but not every card allows you to do such for no cost at all and also for any lvl 4 or lower Warrior-type monster.

As you can see, the target cards for ROTA are many; at least 488 targets to be specific (according to my queries on the YuGiOh Pro database). This makes this card an extremely powerful option for many decks, and also a card with high abuse potential.

Longer answer:

Now, speaking of abuse potential, doing some research I found that according to this official list ROTA card was brought down to the Limited status on November 2015, more than 2 years ago, and remains Limited since.

If we recall, the booster set Secrets of Eternity was released previously that year (on January), where the Nekroz Archetype made their debut appearance on the TCG. They were at that time perhaps the strongest Archetype out there, evidence of that is the Limiting of Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz a few months later after their debut (on July 2015 to be specific).

Needles to say that Shurit is a Level 3 Warrior-type monster which basically allowed Nekroz players two things:

Use Shurit as the entire requirement to Ritual Summon any Nekroz Ritual Monster, and...
add any Warrior-type Nekroz Ritual Monster when doing so, or when tributing him in any other ways.

By having 3 Copies of ROTA in your deck you basically had 6 copies of Shurit, greatly increasing the chances of playing it.

Now, Limiting Shurit was not enough, as there was still abuse from Nekroz players. Specifically, regarding Nekroz of Clausolas which (guess what?) is also a lvl 3 Warrior-type monster that can do two things:

Search for any Nekroz Ritual Spell/Trap card, or
negate the effects, and make the Atk 0 of an opponent monster that was Special Summoned from the Extra Deck.

Not only is this card search-able by ROTA, but it also has the ability to do further searching ("thinning" your deck in the process, thus higher odds to pick the cards you want) and also negate effects like our good fellow Effect Veiler (hey they even look similar lol).

Bonus Fact: Other "searcher" spell cards have been Limited before, being Fire Formation - Tenki the most notable one, during the times of the Fire Fist and Bujin Archetypes. Again, had no cost at all, and even increased the Atk of Beast-warriors.

tl;dr:

Given all these facts, we can say that ROTA was brought down with the advent of the Nekroz Archetype, which heavily benefited from its searching effect.

Instead of banning or limiting many cards from the Nekroz Archetype (thus killing it) they decided to restrict Reinforcement of the Army, the real source of abuse from this and other decks back then.


Axis and Allies 1941: Who, when and to where can you retreat?

TLDR

Retreats are possible for the attacker.
Retreats are not possible for the defender, ever.
Land and Sea units retreat as expected. They all withdraw to a friendly adjacent space. They only possible unexpected point is that even if they came from different spaces, they all retreat to the same space that at one of the "units" attacked from initially.
Air units retreat after the noncombat movement phase as if they had a successful attack. I assume this gives your opponent a chance to destroy it prior to a successful retreat.
The only attacking units that can not retreat are the units that landed during an amphibious assault.

So I downloaded a copy of the rules from the axis and allies website. First thing I came across regarding your question is this on page 14

  ...If no seaborne land units survived the sea combat, or if the attacking sea units retreated from the sea combat,...

So yes, retreats are possible. Then I came across the actual retreat section:

  Retreats: Keep the attacking overland and seaborne land units separated on the battle strip. Attacking seaborne units cannot
  retreat. Attacking overland units and aircraft can retreat as normal at the end of any round of combat (see “Step 6: Press Attack
  or Retreat” on page 17). All attacking overland units must retreat together as a group, at the same time and to the same place.
  They can retreat only to where at least one of those units moved from. Attacking air units, whether involved in the sea combat or the attack on the territory, can retreat as normal. Air units and
  overland units (if any) must retreat at the same time. However, the air units do not land until the Noncombat Move phase.

I do not know for sure but I assume that the reason the seaborne attack could not retreat is because in real life the transport would get off the beach for the next transport to unload and/or to not get destroyed by enemy fire for no reason.
The section on page 17 regarding retreating says as follows:

  Condition B—Attacker Retreats
  The attacker (never the defender) can retreat during this step.
  Land and Sea Units: Move all attacking land and sea units in that combat that are along the battle strip to a single adjacent
  friendly space from which at least one of the attacking land or sea units moved. In the case of sea units, that space must have
  been friendly at the start of the turn. All such units must retreat together to the same space, regardless of where they came
  from.
  Air Units: Retreating air units remain in the contested space temporarily. They complete their retreat movement during the
  Noncombat Move phase using the same rules as air units involved in a successful battle.


What's an effective Small World strategy for new players?

One thing I'm discovering about Small World (especially in games with smaller number of players) is that it's not inherently balanced - your opponents can easily snap up amazing race/ability combos for cheap, leaving you with much less attractive options, just by random virtue of the seating order.

As such, you simply have to play a competitive game.  Don't just look at your race/ability combo in isolation: look at it also in terms of how much it can do to hamper the efforts of the player currently winning the game (or the player most likely to stop you from winning).

Barring special circumstances, you will generally have two races on the go at once: one Declined race in as defensible a position as possible, and one Active race doing things.  The Active race has a lot of work to do: it needs to take lots of territory (to get points here and now); take defensible territory (to keep getting points while in decline); and also, crucially, mess with the opponents: oust them from defensible areas and force them to go into Decline at points that are disadvantageous to them.

In short, I'd agree with everything the other answers have said about this being a game about adapting to circumstances - Small World is nothing if not a game of taking advantage of opportunities as they arise - but I'd add that it's not a game you can play without reference to how well the other players are doing.  If they have some good race/power combos going, then grab an aggressive race, get in there and do them over, as quickly as possible!  Defensive powers and play is all very well, but save it for when you're obviously in the lead...


In bridge, should you be more careful with takeout doubles over one spade?

If your partner has as little as that, your opponents are easily making 3NT and will find it difficult to double your side for penalties (low-level doubles are almost all for takeout these days). However, if your partner has as much as

xxx JTxxx AQx Kx

(and your partner might well hold that much even as a passed hand), your side can make 5H and your partner will be unable to bid over the 2S call that is no doubt coming from your LHO.

So, the answer to your question is that you must double with an opening hand and shortness in the suit opened by your RHO. If your partner has so little that a 2-level contract is going down, you may prevent opponents from finding their best game. If, as is more likely, your partner has enough to make a part-score, you need to get into the auction to avoid handing free plus-scores to your opponents. Finally, if your partner has enough values to get your side to game but lacks the shape to enter the auction (not the most likely outcome after opponents have opened, but not particularly unlikely either), you are doing your side a great disservice by failing to double.


Does this still happen in Haunt 16 even if the traitor dies?

The house is still in danger of blowing up. The FAQ clarifies that the traitor still gets turns:

  A dead traitor can still move monsters, etc., during his turn.

If this weren't true, the heroes could usually pull off an easy win by killing the traitor and then taking their sweet time to scour the house for helpful items. This would be imbalanced, boring, and, as you mention, thematically inconsistent.


The answer to this question will be very heavily dependent on your group, and their groupthink.  In my experience, often bidding 3 on the blade would not result in getting it (I would probably be 2nd or 3rd, with someoen else going all in on the sword), while a bid of 2 on the Raven would probably be enough to get me at least one star (with someone else bidding zero after going all in on the sword).

Given that there is a large advantage of having the Sword token, versus simply being 2nd on that track, I think your strategy of bidding enough to get the Sword makes sense.

From a game theory perspective, since all bids are spent, you want to bid just ahead of a large clump of opponent bids, such that you gain a significant advantage over them while only paying slightly more.  If this is not possible, it might be best to bid 0 in that case.

If your group very consistently lets you win the sword for 3 (but not less), and consistently does not let you get stars with a bid of 2 on the Raven, then I would recommend bidding 3 on the Sword and 0 on the Raven, conserving your power, and then bidding higher on the Raven in the second bidding round.
Also, if your group tends to always bid the same amounts like this, they are very exploitable game-theory wise.  Bid either just above their usual bids, or way under them.


Rebound affecting Return to Dust (second main phase)

No, Return to Dust does not differentiate between pre- and post-combat main phases. You get to exile 1-2 targets when you cast it during any of your main phases, and 1 otherwise.

Generally, when an effect asks about any property of an object or the game state (such as which phase it is), then as long as the wanted properties are fulfilled, the others can be what they want. Specifically, if Return to Dust does something else "if you cast it during your main phase", then it doesn't matter if it's your pre- or any post-combat main phase.

  505.1. There are two main phases in a turn. In each turn, the first main phase (also known as the precombat main phase) and the second main phase (also known as the postcombat main phase) are separated by the combat phase (see rule 506, “Combat Phase”). The precombat and postcombat main phases are individually and collectively known as the main phase.

If you cast the card again through Rebound, it will happen during your upkeep. The second cast is independent of the previous because it's a new object rather than a copy, so it looks at the current phase. It finds that it's not a main phase, so you get to exile only 1 target.

  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.[..]


Creatures pumping each other and combat damage

Three damage would be dealt to the defending player. All combat damage is assigned and then dealt simultaneously. Rules 510.1 and 510.2 explain this:

  510.1. First, the active player announces how each attacking creature assigns its combat damage, then the defending player announces how each blocking creature assigns its combat damage. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. A player assigns a creature’s combat damage according to the following rules:

(Those rules are explained in the next few rules, but they aren't relevant for this question.)

  510.2. Second, all combat damage that’s been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it’s dealt.
  Example: Squadron Hawk (a 1/1 creature with flying) and Goblin Piker (a 2/1 creature) are attacking. Mogg Fanatic (a 1/1 creature with the ability “Sacrifice Mogg Fanatic: Mogg Fanatic deals 1 damage to target creature or player”) blocks the Goblin Piker. The defending player sacrifices Mogg Fanatic during the declare blockers step to deal 1 damage to the Squadron Hawk. The Hawk is destroyed. The Piker deals and is dealt no combat damage this turn. If the defending player instead left Mogg Fanatic on the battlefield, the Fanatic and the Piker would have dealt lethal damage to one another, but the Squadron Hawk couldn’t have been dealt damage.

(emphasis added to both rule quotes)


Cosmic Encounter Data: Which powers are best?

The following tabulated results are from over 500 games of the 1977 EON version of Cosmic Encounter. The vast majority of games were from 3 to 5 players, and I personally played in approximately half of them. Due to the high variability in game outcomes, one has to question the statistical significance of powers played only a small number of times (< 15?). The label headings are defined as follows:

Games: Number of games played
Wins: Number of games won (solo + shared)
Solo: Number of solo wins
Points: The number of points from each win added together. Each game is worth a number of points equal to the number of players, and these points are divided among the winning players and their powers.
Ratio: Points/Games, a measure of how good a power is (does not take into account player strength)
Player Avg: Players were rated like powers, so this represents the average of the players who played this power
New Ratio: Points/(Games X Player Average), a measure of how good a power is adjusted for the average strength of players using the power
Avg/Win: The average number of Points per Win, a measure of how often the power wins solo or shared victories when it wins, relative to other powers


What happens if Saheeli, Sublime Artificer's target is removed?

The ability will resolve, but it will fail to do anything:

  Resolving Spells and Abilities

    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.

So the information for the copy effect will be missing, and that effect will not happen.  The Servo will still be a Servo.


Does Defectors do anything when triggered by Five-Year Plan

If Defectors is triggered by Five-Year Plan during the Headline Phase, it cancels the USSR event if it hasn't happened yet. From the Twilight Struggle FAQ:

  Q: If Defectors is not selected by the US, but a Headline
  event causes it to be played, is the USSR Headline event canceled?

  A: If the event that caused Defectors to be played would be executed before
  the USSR event, then that event is canceled. If the USSR event has already
  been executed, it is not canceled.

However, if Defectors is triggered as an event during the US Action phase, the event occurs, but no VP is gained (because it's not the USSR Action Round).


Does Void Winnower prevent my opponent from casting X spells with even base converted mana cost?

Void Winnower does not prevent you from casting a spell with {X} in the cost as long as you choose an X that results in the CMC of the spell being odd.

Rule 202.3b says

  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.

In addition, the steps for casting a spell contain the following:

  601.2a To propose the casting of a spell, a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack. [...]
  601.2b [...] If the spell has a variable cost that will be paid as it’s being cast (such as an {X} in its mana cost; see rule 107.3), the player announces the value of that variable. [...]
  601.2e Based on the previous announcements, the game checks to see if the proposed spell can legally be cast based on applicable timing rules (including ones based on the card’s type) and other effects that may allow a spell to be cast or prohibit a spell from being cast. If the proposed spell is illegal, the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”).

So, you put the spell on the stack, then you choose X. At this point, the {X} in the cost is equal to the chosen X because of 107.3a. So, when you check whether the spell is legal in the later step, the CMC depends on X, so Void Winnower only prevents it from being cast if the total CMC including X is even.

Void Winnower's Gatherer page now has a ruling that says

  For spells with {X} in their mana costs, use the value chosen for X to determine if the spell’s converted mana cost is even or not. For example, your opponent could cast Endless One (with mana cost {X}) with X equal to 5, but not with X equal to 6.


How is retreating through obstacles handled in Memoir '44?

As long as the terrain isn't Impassable, you can retreat through terrain without penalty.

From the Retreat rules, page 10 (emphasis mine):

The player controlling the unit decides which hex his unit retreats onto using the following rules:
A unit must always retreat toward its controlling player’s side of the board.
Terrain has no effect on retreat moves, therefore a retreating unit may move through a forest or village without stopping. However, impassable terrain may not be moved through during a retreat move.
A unit may not retreat onto, or through, a hex already containing another unit (regardless if friend or foe).
If a unit cannot retreat; is forced to retreat off the limits of the battlefield; or would be pushed back onto a sea hex, one figure must be removed from the unit for each retreat move that cannot be completed.
Some obstacles will allow certain units to ignore the first flag rolled against them.

Since the Barbed Wire terrain type isn't impassable, you can retreat through the Barbed Wire without stopping.

In your case the answer would be 3: some other thing.  Specifically, you would retreat twice from the two flags and keep all of your units, assuming you can satisfy all other retreat conditions.


Can 'whenever' abilities trigger multiple times per turn?

On the card it says you get a 6/6 dragon token whenever a dragon you control attacks.

  112.3c Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[Trigger condition], [effect],” and include (and
  usually begin with) the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.” Whenever the
  trigger event occurs, the ability is put on the stack the next time a
  player would receive priority and stays there until it’s countered, it
  resolves, or it otherwise leaves the stack. See rule 603, “Handling
  Triggered Abilities.”

So every time the trigger event occurs. But you can't activate abilities when attackers are being declared.

  603.2a Because they aren’t cast or activated, triggered abilities can trigger even when it isn’t legal to cast spells and activate
  abilities. Effects that preclude abilities from being activated don’t
  affect them.

There are two types of abilities (that use the stack): activated abilities (which can also be loyalty abilities) and trigger abilities. Trigger abilities can trigger whenever; hence the word whenever/when.

  603.2c An ability triggers only once each time its trigger event occurs. However, it can trigger repeatedly if one event contains
  multiple occurrences. Example: A permanent has an ability whose
  trigger condition reads, “Whenever a land is put into a graveyard from
  the battlefield, . . . .” If someone casts a spell that destroys all
  lands, the ability will trigger once for each land put into the
  graveyard during the spell’s resolution.

For every occurrence. Even if no one can react between those occurrences.

So you get as many dragons as you attack with.


Unlcear about noise making as a useful tactical move

These are the cases where I've used the noise making tactic:

To avoid splitting. If a group of zombies has 2 equally noisy target zones to move to, and you want to avoid adding extra zombies due to splitting (i.e. an odd number of zombies in the starting zone), then making noise clarifies the target zone
As a lure. For example, luring zombies onto a dragon fire trap, luring a group of zombies away from a necromancer who is about to escape, luring a group of zombies into a room to trap them using the lock it down skill etc.
To use towers more effectively. Towers (in the Wulfsberg expansion), allow for archers and spell casters to have more safe shots at zombies. It may be useful to lure zombies towards the tower (to get more shots) or away from the tower (to allow a survivor to escape the tower)
To allow a survivor to escape. Particularly useful when a survivor is in a dead end, or you want zombies to head towards survivors with armour/ironclad skills/regenerate etc.


Have recent changes in bidding priorities changed the value of finesses?

Finesses, now as always, are worth half a trick (absent information about opponents' distributions). In IMPs scoring, it is usually appropriate to take a finesse if that is the most likely way to make your contract, and usually inappropriate to take a finesse if it risks the contract for a chance at an overtrick.

Just because a contract is less likely to make, it doesn't change the value of a finesse. If a squeeze, endplay, or combination play gives you better chances, you should do that instead of finessing. If no better alternatives exist, you should finesse.

It may be that finesses are more commonly employed by players who bid lighter games, but that doesn't reflect on their desirability.


Nivmagus Elemental interactions with nivix cyclops, guttersnipe, and young pyromancer

Yes. All of your examples trigger when you cast a spell. They happen whether that spell resolves or not.

I have seen multiple EDH decks built specifically around cards such as those and Cipher, where the intent is to exile spells with Nivmagus whenever you don't really need them.


What is the formula of rank difference to handicap stones?

Regarding your question: To my knowledge, handicap is intended to be linear.

The observation that large handicap games tend to end with a large score difference is not necessarily true. A large difference in score is usually a group dying involuntarily, which happens in both high handicap and even games on a regular basis.

However, it is far less common to resign in handicap games. Regular games in comparison often feature a high score difference as well, but those games are usually just won by resignation.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the rank system in use may very well be wrong for larger rank differences. You can see this very clearly by just comparing the rank difference of various players in different rank systems. For instance, KGS ranks tend to be a little bit more spread out than EGF ranks.

This means that two players with a difference of 8 stones on KGS may be only 7 stones apart in EGF rank. Which makes you wonder which is correct - and unless you got a huge database of high handicap game results, you won't know which of the systems is closer to the statistical truth.

This leads to my final thought: The EGF rank system (along the European Go Database) clearly specifies the intended win percentage for certain rank differences, also taking into account handicap. According to their formula, it is linear. I believe that AGA uses a similar system, too.

Edit (2018): I have recently worked more closely with rank computations than I hoped, and there is one thing I want to add, described here (I should note that some other information on that page appears to be outdated or wrong, in particular regarding AGA rating).

The skill difference that is supposed to be balanced by handicap stones depends on the skill of the players. That is to say, a single handicap stone in a high level match has a lot more impact than it does in a game between beginners.

This can in fact be quantified: A handicap stone in a pro game equals around 300 elo difference, around 150 for high dan amateurs and only around 50 (!) for kyu players. This adds another dimension in how rank differences and stone differences between players interact.

By the way, these data also show that adding more handicap stones is linear at least up to 4.


What's the point of Xaxos' power in Aeon's end?

Context, Cost, and Timing are the definition of Xaxos power

Xaxos power is amazing: its ability to manipulate the turn order deck can save the game from being lost or set up some really amazing combos, it is one of the 'cheapest' powers in the game, and it can be extremely useful when combined with certain other mages.

Lets look at each part of his power:

Cost of 5: this is pretty much normal, and powers that only cost 4 are usually weaker than the ones that cost 5+.
Activate during any player's main phase: You don't have to activate this on your turn which means it doesn't matter who goes first in a round, you can immediately set up the entire round to go the way you want it to go. More on this in a minute but since a lot of powers are restricted to your own main phase, this definitely gives this power an advantage.
Allies collectively gain 4 charges: This effectively refunds almost the entire cost of your ability to your team, making this one of the most efficient powers in the game. While there are a lot of cards and abilities that grant charges to 'yourself or an ally',  granting that charge to an ally means you don't get to use your own power as often. Not so if you're granting that charge to Xaxos, since he refunds those charges back to the other players when his ability triggers. In most games I play with him, the Xaxos rarely generates more than 1 charge for himself but he still ends every round with full charges, refunding them to the rest of the team at the start of the following round.
Reveal the turn order deck and return the revealed cards in any order: This can be used in two ways: control the nemesis turns or set up player combos (or both). Controlling exactly when the nemesis turns trigger can allow your team to knock out a critical bad guy before he destroys someone, or it can allow you to set up a teammate with just the right discard trigger to get rid of a nasty power card before it goes off, or even just break up the nemesis turns so he doesn't go back-to-back and toss out (and immediately trigger) a strong Power 1 card with no chance for your team to respond to it. Setting up player combos can also be very powerful and there's too many combos for me to list them all (e.g. letting the mage who just prepped a full load of powerful spells go before the nemesis forces everyone to discard prepped spells), but Xaxos' own unique starting spell benefits from this too by allowing you to set up a Player turn order card immediately after your own and amp up the power of your spell.

There are probably a ton of other examples of how this is useful, but to me Xaxos is definitely a strong contender for a position at the table in almost any game of Aeon's End I play.


40k - Kustom Force Field and Vehicle Explosions

6th Edition

Your units within the transport should get their cover saves. Under Effect of Damage on Passengers (p. 80), it states the damage is treated as shooting hits:

Explodes! The unit suffers a number of Strength 4, AP- hits
equal to the number of models embarked. Resolve these as
for shooting hits, except that the controlling player allocates
any wounds caused.

When accompanied with KFF rules (p.34 w/ FAQ p. 2):

Kustom Force Field: Meks will build or scavenge powerful force
field projectors with which to protect their warty hides.
A kustom force field gives all units within 6" of the Mek a cover save of 5+.
Friendly vehicles within 6" are counted as being obscured and have a 5+ cover save.
Vehicles within 6" are treated as being obscured targets. The force field has
no effect in an assault.

If we accept all units inside a transport are within 6" of eachother, we can conclude:

The passengers take a Str 4, AP- hit (p. 80)
All non-passenger units and vehicles within 6" receive a Str 3, AP- hit (p. 74)
All friendly and hostile units receive a 5+ cover save (p. 34 + FAQ p. 2)
Friendly vehicles are obscured with 5+ cover save (p. 34 + FAQ p. 2)
Non-friendly vehicles are obscured with no cover save.

To address the first explanation you provided directly:

Wrecked is different than exploded. Thus, the vehicle being wrecked at all is inco-wrecked.

Wrecked vehicles are left on the table and effectively become
a piece of terrain (p. 74)

Explodes!  The vehicle is then removed and replaced with
scattered wreckage(area terrain) or a crater roughly the
same size as the vehicle (if you have one). (p. 74)

Therefore, you can resolve all damage and placement like this:

Resolve Str 4, AP- hits to passenger unit
Resolve Str 3, AP- hits to nearby models (incl. vehicles); measure 6" from transport
Remove Transport model/add area terrain or crater
"Surviving passengers are placed where the vehicle used to be"
Passenger unit takes a pinning test

The rule about Deff Rollas and cover saves you cite appear to be about units being attacked by the Deff Rollas and appear irrelevant for the sake of this scenario.

7th Edition

7th ed. makes it about as unambiguous as possible:

  The bearer, and all models within 6", receive a 5+ invulnerable save
  against any shooting attacks. If the bearer is embarked in a vehicle,
  then the vehicle receives a 5+ invulnerable save against any shooting
  attacks instead.


Does Wrath of God really destroy creatures with shroud?

Yes, Wrath of God will kill all creatures with shroud.  It will also kill all creatures that have protection from white.  It won't kill creatures that are indestructible.

To understand why this is, you have to look at the definitions of the terms.

Shroud means: "this creature can't be the target of spells or abilities".

Protection means (among other things): "this creature can't be the target of spells or abilities of the colour in question".

Wrath of God just says "Destroy all creatures".  No mention of targets at all.  And I think this is where your confusion is arising.  Wrath of God doesn't "target all creatures and destroy them".  It doesn't target anything.  It just destroys them, whether they're slippery customers or not.  Boom!

Indestructible creatures survive a Wrath because their ability ("cannot be destroyed") specifically interacts with the word "destroy" on the card Wrath of God.  Creatures with Shroud only interact with, and care about, the word "target" on a card.  If you can't find "target" written anywhere on the card, then Shroud won't have any effect on what that card can do.

As an interesting side point, take a look at a card like Copy Enchantment.  This puts into play a copy of an enchantment already on the battlefield.  But note that nowhere on the card does it say "target".  This means that if you copy an Aura on the battlefield, you can put that copy onto a creature with Shroud... even if the original Aura would have been unable to enchant that creature when it was cast!  Sometimes Magic does some pretty counter-intuitive things, but it's very internally consistent.

Hope that's clarified things more than it's confused them, for you!


Does this 7 Wonders analysis make any sense?

The analysis is technically correct, but practically kind of wrong.

Every choice of card in 7 Wonders comes with an opportunity cost, which is to say, "What are you giving up by choosing this card instead?"

It is true that the brown resource cards in Age 2 give you access to twice as many resources as their Age 1 counterparts, for the cost of a single coin which is usually not huge as far as things go. However, if you decide that this means you should ignore the brown cards in Age 1 and just wait until Age 2 to get them, then:

You run the risk of never getting the resources you will need, especially if your opponents are paying attention and carefully deprive you of key cards.
You spend less of Age 2 building more useful cards (e.g. Science and Military cards, especially the ones that enable you to build stuff in Age 3).
You potentially have to spend more coins building things in Age 1, if you're relying on neighbours to provide the resources.
Conversely, your neighbours will not be buying resources from you, denying you a source of income.

It's easy to be flippant and say "It all depends on the cards", but really that's the point - 7 Wonders is a game of making lots of decisions, and there is rarely a singular strategy that you can follow blindly to success.


How does the Feedback Loop card work in Gloomhaven?

You get to muddle the targets you moved through. In gloomhaven, the top and bottom halves of the card are separate, once you have chosen to use the bottom half of this card, you ignore the top half completely, this means you:

  Perform muddle, targeting all enemies you moved through.

With no other enhancements that would mean you have moved through up to two enemy occupied hexes, and back to your starting position in a triangle shaped movement.

This also does not change the targets of the card you chose to play the top half of. You can attack your freshly muddled targets by using this move, then another attack, but it will target as normal.


What is the point of having a token for the Dog companion?

To the best of my knowledge, there is none.

I had the exact same question come up in my last game of Betrayal, in fact. We talked about it a while; couldn't see any reason to use a token, so we just didn't.

It could be only for theme purposes, that you can actually see the dog following you from room to room.


Yes, you can make the head swap. There are 2 rules of thumb for converting Games Workshop models:

Friendly games

Here most things go. If you say 'this model counts as a Hive Crone' before you start playing, then nobody will object.

Tournament games

The rule is WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get). Nobody is going to complain that they can't see your model's mouth weapon. They know what the model represents. I've not had any problems adding extra legs, spikes etc. to my own Tyranids.

In summary, its your model - you can make & paint it how you like.


Why are Shocklands better than Guildgates?

Shocklands (which allow you to "Shock" yourself in order to get an untapped land) have many advantages:

Good color depth without loss of tempo. Oftentimes, getting your land into play untapped is worth two life; shocklands give you the option to set that up.
Excellent color-fixing with fetch effects.

The synergy between shocklands and fetchlands is what makes Modern mana bases so strong. I can crack a Misty Rainforest and get any of these color combinations: W/G, W/U, U/B, U/R, U/G, B/G, R/G. See this answer for more information about the shocks + fetches style of mana base.
We can have four- and five-color decks in Innistrad/RTR Standard thanks to Farseek's ability to fetch any of the ten shocklands.

Shocklands interact positively with other cards that care about basic land types as well. In particular:

Shocks power up M13 and Innistrad "buddy" lands (like Sunpetal Grove), which require you to have lands of specific basic land types in play. In a three-color deck, a single shock in play is sufficient to make every single one of your "buddy" lands enter play untapped.
Shocklands have powerful synergy with "Kird Ape" creatures like Wild Nacatl (which was once banned from Modern for being too consistent of a 3/3 on turn 2) and Flinthoof Boar (which saw tournament play in Standard Gruul decks).


Soviet space exploration board game (now with pictures)

Ok, after a visit to my grandmother I was able to unearth the box with the game. To my delight it was almost completely intact. It's called "Путешествие в космос" ("A trip to space"). It's really hard to find anything related to this game on Google - all the results refer to a newer game by the same title. I'll post some more details, including a scan of the manual and photos of the board, later today or maybe tomorrow.
EDIT:
Ok, while waiting for the BoardGameGeek submission to be accepted, I decided to post the photos now for everyone to see. Enjoy!!!
If someone would be interested in the English translation of the manual, let me know.
EDIT 2:
The submission to BoardGameGeek has finally been accepted. You can view it here. Have fun!!!
Box

Manual Cover

Manual Text

Board Front (Upper Left)

Board Front (Upper Right)

Board Front (Lower Right)

Board Front (Lower Left)

Board Back (Lower Left)

Board Back (Lower Right)

Board Back (Upper Right)

Board Back (Upper Left)


What expansions for Carcassonne add variety without changing the character too much?

Carcassonne: Traders & Builders

The chance with the builder to draw two tiles can make a huge impact on the game so it adds a dimension all on it's own. I however personally prefer not playing with the Traders part (the cloth, wine and grain tokens) just the builder and the tiles.

Carcassonne: Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars

Bridges makes for some interesting escapes and castles is a new fun thing to do with those small cities. As above I preferably skip parts of this expansion which is Bazaars (tile auction).

Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals

Pretty straight forward expansion that adds Inns (a road with an inn somewhere along it's path is worth 2 points when complete (0 if left unfinished) per tile. Cathedrals are in cities and makes the city tiles worth 3 points if completed (0 if not completed) per tile. Great ways to remove others points if drawn late in the game. Also the big meeple/guy is in here iirc.

Carcassonne: The River II

This one, unlike first expansion can split and create two streams.

Finally I just recently started added Carcassonne: The Cult to my bag. Works just like cloisters but if you put it next to a cloister only the one scoring first gets any points. So far it's fun but it's only some 5 tiles or so.


Why are there fewer board games with a triangular grid?

A hexagonal grid and a triangular grid are duals of each other; that is, if you put a dot in the center of each hexagon, and connect them to each adjacent one, then you get a triangular grid:

Thus, playing on the vertices of a triangular grid is equivalent to playing in the spaces on a hexagonal grid, and likewise playing on the vertices of a hexagonal grid is equivalent to playing in the spaces on a triangular grid. An example of this is the game Hex, so named because of the hexagonal grid it is played on; however, you can also play it on a triangular grid by playing it like Go, on the vertices instead of the spaces.

One of the big difference between playing (in the spaces) on a hexagonal grid and a triangular grid is that in a hexagonal grid, each space is connected to six spaces around it; in a triangular grid, each space is connected to only three. This can significantly limit the number of options, if for instance you are only allowed to move to adjacent spaces, or only are allowed to make connections to adjacent spaces. A square grid gives you four connections, or eight if you can move or connect diagonally. A hexagonal grid gives you six. In many game designs, only have three moves or connections available is likely to be fairly limiting, though it may be possible to do something interesting with that.

There are games played with triangular grids. One example that comes to mind is Blokus Trigon. This is an interesting case, as each piece consists of triangles joined by their edges, but you join your pieces together by their corners, with the restriction that each piece must touch another of the same color on a corner but not on an edge. In the traditional square version of Blokus, this means that only two of the pieces which touch at a given intersection may be the same color; while in the triangular version, you have 6 spaces around each intersection, and thus can fit three pieces of the same color in. In this way, it manages to take advantage of both the triangular and hexagonal properties of the triangular grid.

Another example of using triangular and hexagonal boards is attempting to play Go on both. Xah Lee has some notes on how that works. As Go is played on the intersections, not in the spaces, each piece connects to only three others on the hexagonal board, and thus each piece has only three liberties, while on the triangular board, each space connects to six others. In the hexagonal version, only three spaces means that each piece is very vulnerable to capture; the game is very unstable. In the triangular version, each piece has lots of liberties, and is quite hard to capture. It sounds like for Go, 4 connections really is the ideal balance for just enough risk to have good tactical battles, while enough stability to be able to form live groups and be able to think more about strategy.

In summary, triangular grids are used occasionally, but I believe that in many cases they provide too few options or connections to provide interesting strategic play. However, if you're interested in designing games, perhaps you should take that as a design challenge; try to design a game that takes good advantages of the limited number of options a triangular grid gives you.

Image credits

Dual of hexagonal grid by Antal S-Z of StackOverflow. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5
Hex board by Tiltec of Wikimedia Commons. Released into the public domain.
Go-style hex board by Twixter of HexWiki. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0.
Blokus Trigon by Gangster 1930 of BoardGameGeek. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0.


Risk - To secure a world domination win?

Usually securing a continent and ALWAYS being on the aggressive.

When you keep getting Territory cards and playing them at the right time (usually after your opponents have played them first so that the count will be higher), you should always have a formidable army (i.e. so that your opponents won't want to mess with you).

The other critical part to winning risk is being aggressive. You should be getting a territory card each turn usually in a quest to prevent your opponents from ever owning entire continents. This means you constantly annoy them by taking at least (and usually only) one territory of the continent they control on your turn. This prevents them from getting massive bonuses.

Hope this helps.


What's a good item card to get water energy out of a deck in pokemon?

From your deck, there's nothing I can think of specific to water.  You have Energy Spinner and similar cards that get any energy, though, but not enough to make that card all that powerful.

Blastoise though, if you're going to play him, you might as well play Team Up Blastoise:

  Once during your turn (before your attack), you may look at the top 6 cards of your deck and attach any number of Water Energy cards you find there to your Pokémon in any way you like. Shuffle the other cards back into your deck.

That's realistically a better version of the above card, and is standard-legal.


What is the source of redirected damage?

The comprehensive rules say

Redirect (Obsolete)
Some older cards were printed with the term “redirect” to indicate a redirection effect. Such cards have received errata in the Oracle card reference so they explicitly state that damage that would be dealt to one object or player is dealt “instead” to another.

In other words, "redirect" doesn't actually exist in Magic any more. So let's take a look at your Shaman en-Kor. The oracle text says

0: The next 1 damage that would be dealt to Shaman en-Kor this turn is dealt to target creature you control instead.

So the three damage that the lightning bolt would deal to the shaman is instead dealt to the Firewalker. It is still dealt by the lightning bolt, and the shaman is still the target of the spell. But the damage hits the firewalker (and is promptly prevented due to protection).
As for example 2, we can still follow the same argument that it's the same damage just dealt to a different creature than originally intended. Which means there is no reason the damage should stop being combat damage; it's still damage that an attacker or blocker deals in the damage step of combat as a direct result of being involved in said combat. However, in this case it's also explicitly addressed by the rulings on the shaman:

When you redirect combat damage it is still combat damage.


This strikes me as a modified two player version of Peg Solitaire, rather than checkers.

Notably:

Players alternate turns except that a player is granted additional consecutive moves (i.e., captures) during a single turn, under certain circumstances.
Players must readjust two separate pegs prior to their first move of a turn, then they must move using a third peg. Consecutive moves must be made with that same peg.

This, of course, changes the win condition from "remove all the pegs, but one" to "mess up your opponents peg-capturing board state, worse than they mess up yours, and whoever gets the most captures, wins"

Best of luck marketing this game as well as the new Pandemic-killer, "fully cooperative peg solitaire," coming soon to your dreams!


Do Native Help cards apply when replacing another player's settlers?

Yes they do.  Looking at rules from link here it says the following (emphasis mine)

Native Help cards have the following permanent benefit: Whenever you
use a location that includes the depicted icon in the circle, the
required number of settlers you need to place on this location is reduced by 1. If you have several cards of the matching symbol, each
of them reduces the required number by 1. However, you must always
place at least one settler.

Earlier in the rules the term 'required number' has two definitions.  One is the number printed on the board.  The other is the number of workers on a space plus one.  BOTH are consider a 'required number'. So if that is the case the benefit of the native card applies in both situation you describe.
Secondly there is this thread on BGG where a user says they asked the publisher your same question and it was answered-

Yes they do reduce the number of settlers needed to bump another
player from a tile to a minimum of 1.


Does a creature trigger its own ETB ability even if not explicitly stated?

Yes, creatures can trigger their own ETBs

  603.6a Enters-the-battlefield abilities trigger when a permanent enters the battlefield. These are written, “When [this object] enters the battlefield, . . . “ or “Whenever a [type] enters the battlefield, . . .” Each time an event puts one or more permanents onto the battlefield, all permanents on the battlefield (including the newcomers) are checked for any enters-the-battlefield triggers that match the event.

Emphasis mine.

That said, the standard template for such abilities is "Whenever {cardname} or another [type] enters the battlefield", largely to remove exactly this sort of ambiguity.  This sort of question should only be relevant to players if some sort of type modification is going on (for example, playing Setessan Champion while Enchanted Evening is on the battlefield).

This template also has the minor side effect that if for whatever reason the card in question is not of the specified type, it will still trigger its own ability.  (For example, playing Ayara, First of Locthwain with a Mycosynth Lattice in play)


Does Effect veiler negate Decode Talker's ability to negate effect veiler?

In this scenario you can chain Decode Talkers effect to Effect Veilers Activation to negate the activation. So the effect of Effect Veiler doesn't matter to Decode at this point.

The Different here is when an effect is activated and when it resolves and how a chain is build and resolved.
You can look on the wikia for informations

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Chain

Or in the official rulebook, which also comes which each Structure Deck on page 40

http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/rulebook/Rulebook_v9_en.pdf


Till the end of the current invasion. Cyborg reads:

  During an invasion involving the Cyborg, you may spend 1 Energy to add +1 Ground Strength to every Infantry Unit in that invasion.

The rule book defines an Invasion as:

  Invasion: In order to add new worlds to his Empire, a player must launch Invasions. A player performs an Invasion by discarding enough cards from his Warzone to match the Fleet Strength and Ground Strength of the World he is invading.

So, the saved Ground Unit will only get the +1 bonus during the current invasion (cyborg's rules text). The Med-bot can save the troop from being discarded, but the bonus ends immediately after the current Invasion that Cyborg is participating in.


How long do you keep the rattlesnake card in Bang!

It stays in play and checks every turn until someone (most likely yourself) either Cat Balou's or Panic's it away.

Edit:

This thread on Boardgame geek has the same answer.


The scenario you describe cannot happen. Once you have finished activating the Ninjutsu ability, the chosen creature has already returned to your hand without other players being able to interfere with that.
The reason for that is that returning the attacking creature is a cost of the ability. By the time anyone can react to the Ninjutsu going on the stack , the creature is already in your hand.
Furthermore, Ninjutsu does not target the creature you return to your hand, so it can't become illegal. Targets are reserved for effects, not for costs.
For clarity: the wording for activated abilities is always "cost : effect"

602.2. To activate an ability is to put it onto the stack and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. [..]
602.2b The remainder of the process for activating an ability is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2b–i. Those rules apply to activating an ability just as they apply to casting a spell. An activated ability’s analog to a spell’s mana cost (as referenced in rule 601.2f) is its activation cost.
601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires.[..]
601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell.
601.2h The player pays the total cost in any order. [..]
601.2i Once the steps described in 601.2a–h are completed, effects that modify the characteristics of the spell as it’s cast are applied, then the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time. If the spell’s controller had priority before casting it, he or she gets priority.

Note especially the last sentence of 601.2i. Only after a spell or ability is finished casting/activating (in particular after all costs have been paid) does any player get priority, i.e. the ability to cast other spells/abilites.


Can I play Ticket to Ride on my iPad against people using Ticket to Ride pocket?

Yes, all iOS versions of TTR may be involved in a multiplayer game, but only with expansions that are available on all devices.


Are duel deck pairs always released with an even chance of winning?

Wizards' intentions in designing/developing/releasing the decks is for them to be balanced, with 50/50 being the ideal, and further, for the gameplay itself to have plenty of back-and-forth. I found a handful of official articles on wizards.com supporting this; I'm sure it's difficult to be perfect at, but they clearly do a lot of playtesting aiming at that goal.
I'm aware that Wizards' description of their playtesting is potentially biased, but they do suggest that they manage to achieve a pretty high degree of balance and it's certainly in their own interests to do so! They're also up-front about when their playtesting can't match real-world gameplay (e.g. they commonly mention not being able to fully "solve" Standard), and they don't mention that here, suggesting that they genuinely think they do a good job.
Unfortunately I haven't found any empirical playtesting evidence from outside Wizards. The closest I've seen is forum threads where someone says "A is so much better than B" then someone else says "no way, B is way better", someone else says "they came out pretty even in my games", and no conclusion is reached. That's consistent with them actually being balanced and no one having a big enough sample size, but it's not exactly clear evidence.

Some Number of Questions about Knights vs. Dragons - 2011, on Dragons vs. Knights. This is the most explicit one, indicating that they care not only about odds but about the progression of the game feeling balanced:

Balance! This is Development's area of expertise and involves more than simply playing a bunch of test games and making sure the match-up is 50-50. There need to be moves and countermoves and counter-countermoves. In early testing of Phyrexia vs. The Coalition, for example, the decks just exchanged blowouts, which was "balanced" but not very fun.

Playing with Jace & Vraska - 2014, on Jace vs. Vraska, by Sam Stoddard (a developer!), also confirming the strategic balance aspect:

I probably played a hundred plus games of Jace vs. Chandra, and was excited about the opportunity to try to sculpt a fun and interesting matchup between two of our characters using cards from throughout the past.
[...]
When working on this Duel Deck, I tried to position the decks in such a way that the matchup between them was something that was strategically deep and allowed for both decks to have early and late game strategies. ... I definitely didn't want the entire game to come down to whether one deck survives until turn 7, at which time it would have a tremendous advantage. Instead, both decks can take the game over at any point.

Making Enemies: Designing Decks in Pairs - 2011, from the intro; the actual article is a reprint of a 1995 Duelist article from way before duel decks:

These days, Magic R&D designs and develops Duel Decks, specifically made to be balanced against each other.

Pointy Ears vs. Pointy Teeth - 2007, on Elves vs. Goblins, describing the results of playtesting:

Once we had our initial decklists, we put them through the playtesting grinder, fighting both sides of the matchup dozens of times, tweaking as we went, then handing them to other R&D members and watching them play. We knew we were getting close when one playtest pair assured us that the Goblins were better, while another playtest pair with the same decks assured us that the Elves were better.

Duel or Die - 2012, on designing Venser vs. Koth, with a weaker statement of balance:

At this stage, we do what we do best in R&D: playtest and refine. Over and over and over. We swap cards in and out. We speculatively try some cards just to see what they do (and often, what they do is come right back out of the decks). We balance the decks with one another so neither one is an auto-win.

Duel Deckin' Upgrades - 2010, Jacob van Lunen (a player this time, not someone from R&D) on Elspeth vs Tezzeret, suggesting that play skill/style may well have something to do with perceptions of imbalance:

A lot of players at my local shop have complained that the Elspeth deck wins almost every game they play. After having played a lot of games with both decks I was very surprised to hear this. In my experience, the decks present each other with a very even and exciting match.


Game where you construct a line through the board blocking the other player?

The game is called Bridg-It and it is a specific implementation of the "Shannon switching game".  There's a very elegant win for the first player which is based on pairing the edges together.  I think it's in a book by Martin Gardner, but I can't seem to find it online.  There's another solution here, but it's not as easy to understand.

Edit: The solution is given in New Mathematical Diversions by Martin Gardner, and was found by Oliver Gross.  "Make the first play as indicated by the black line at lower left in the diagram. Thereafter whenever your opponent's play  crosses the end of a  dotted line, play by crossing the other end of the same line."


Will Open the Vaults let me return Bestow creatures as Auras?

No, you can't use Bestow when you bring a creature with Bestow onto the battlefield without casting it.
If you bring creatures on to the field without casting it, you can't pay the Bestow cost, and you can't enchant another creature that way.

Bestow [cost]
You may cast this card by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost. If you chose to pay this spell’s bestow cost, it becomes an Aura enchantment and gains enchant creature. These effects last until one of two things happens: this spell has an illegal target as it resolves or the permanent this spell becomes, becomes unattached.


What games have plan-moves-in-advance mechanics like Robo Rally?

Space Alert is a cooperative game in which you plan out your entire sequence of moves while trying to communicate with other players about the moves that you are making and the moves that they should make.  It uses very similar parts of your brain as RoboRally, with the exception that you're communicating about what each other are doing rather than trying to guess.


Mercurial Pretender and Typhoid Rats interaction

As noted by Hackworth, Player B is correct under the current rules that the Pretender can't kill the Rats if it is returned to hand. However, it did still block them successfully and the rats won't deal combat damage to Player A or anything else this combat.

One possible source of confusion in the situation is that it used to work the way Player A thinks. You could "put damage on the stack" then play abilities in the combat damage step in response, before the damage resolved.

This was removed with the 2010 major rules update (the one that also changed Lifelink and Deathtouch). Now, player B is correct, because there is no place to respond between assigning and resolving damage.


Can Emrakul's Evangel save me from "destroy all creatures"?

Unfortunately, no. If you use that ability in response to their spell, you still lose everything. Here's how it works, assuming nothing else happens:

They cast Wrath of God (or some other card that destroys all creatures). It goes on the stack.
You respond by activating Emrakul's Evangel's ability, sacrificing some number of creatures. It goes on the stack on top of the spell.
The top thing on the stack resolves. That's Emrakul's Evangel's ability, so now you get your 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens.
The next thing on the stack resolves. That's the Wrath of God. It destroys all creatures, including the 3/2 tokens you just created.

If you want something to protect you from that kind of situation by giving you replacement creatures, it generally needs to be a triggered ability. For example, Abzan Ascendancy gives you Spirit tokens when your nontoken creatures die.


What happens when a creature with Persist AND Undying dies? ('return to battlefield' issues...)

Both abilities trigger, and you decide the order that they resolve. If you choose to have Persist resolve first, then when Undying is trying to resolve, it fails to find the creature in the zone that it expects. Undying could normally find the creature that moved from the battlefield to a public zone (the graveyard), bu when Undying triggered it was looking for the Object that got moved to the graveyard where the object no longer is.

  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 seven exceptions to this rule:

  400.7d Abilities that trigger when an object moves from one zone to another (for example, "When Rancor is put into a graveyard from the battlefield") can find the new object that it became in the zone it moved to when the ability triggered, if that zone is a public zone.

This all, is of course assuming that both abilities triggered (you said that they did). It is even possible for both abilities to not trigger (as ikegame mentions). This could happen for example if your Undying+Persist creature was dealt damage by a source with Wither and it had a +1/+1 counter. State-Based Actions would be checked, and the creature would be sent to the graveyard at the same time that the counters got removed.

  704.5f If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it's put into its owner's graveyard. Regeneration can't replace this event.

  704.5r If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it.

The Comprehensive Rules give an example for Undying illustrating this:

  704.7. If a state-based action results in a permanent leaving the battlefield at the same time other state-based actions were performed, that permanent’s last known information is derived from the game state before any of those state-based actions were performed.

  Example: You control Young Wolf, a 1/1 creature with undying, and it has a +1/+1 counter on it. A spell puts three -1/-1 counters on Young Wolf. Before state-based actions are performed, Young Wolf has one +1/+1 counter and three -1/-1 counters on it. After state-based actions are performed, Young Wolf is in the graveyard. When it was last on the battlefield, it had a +1/+1 counter on it, so undying will not trigger.


The direct answer to your question is there isn't a rule that covers this eventuality. The rules state however:

  In Two Rooms and a Boom, part of the fun is the lack of rules. Players can say
  whatever they want, do whatever they want, and come up with whatever strategy they
  want.

I think it would be a fairly easy to say a leader must be chosen before people swap between rooms. Otherwise you could ask the question what if someone hasn't been chosen by a leader before rooms must swap? The answer is the game doesn't work. You have to send someone across and so you also have to have a leader by that point.

If your group is struggling in particular with this then maybe you need to appoint a Games Master for the game for a few playthroughs until people get into the swing of it?

We play this game almost every week for multiple rounds at the University game society. We have never had this problem. (In fact it is rare that leader isn't decided within a few seconds of a round starting as nearly always the first question asked is "Who should be leader?")


Is an Action card resolved before or after an initiated clash?

IMHO, the action card is resolved when the clash ends.

This is not made explicit in the rules, but on p. 7 of the rule book it says (under "Play a Season Card"): "The player plays the card, resolves the indicated effect, and then discards that card." This would mean that everything triggered by the Action Card (such as a clash) is resolved before it is discarded, and thus, by association, that an Action Card is only fully resolved after all its effects have been resolved.


Firefly - getting rid of parts (dumping cargo)?

From the official FAQ,

Question: How do I get rid of stuff on my ship I don’t need or want anymore?
Answer: On your turn, you may dump Fuel, Parts, Cargo or Contraband at any time. You may drop Fugitives and Passengers off in any sector with a Planet. You can’t toss them out the air-lock in deep space! This does not use an Action and can be done during another Action, on your turn.

You also have the option to trade with other players. From the rules,

When two or more players’ ships are stopped in the same Sector, players may buy, sell and trade Crew, Fuel, Parts, Cargo, Contraband, Ship Upgrades and Gear to one another without restriction. Players are free to discuss and make these deals outside of the normal turn order and other players may take their normal turn while bargains are struck. Dealing with others players in this fashion does not require using an Action. The opportunity for Trading ends when one of the players leaves the sector.

There doesn't seem to be any option of selling back to the house, but we house-ruled they can be sold off at half-price at Suppliers. This has allowed people that would otherwise have been eliminated from the game to keep on playing.


what is this card game about making an anime or anime character

Channel A

Home | BGG | Video (NSFW - Skantily clad women)
Phew that took a while to track down. I knew it had "A" in the name somewhere but

If you could make an anime series, what would it be about?
In this randomly creative party game you’re part of Channel A’s struggle to come up with an anime series that will be the next big hit. You know what general premise the network wants, and it’s up to you to stitch together a title from random words and pitch a series to win over the fans.


Using Huatli, Radiant Champion ability on another Huatli, Radiant Champion

No you may not use one Huatli, Radiant Champion to put loyalty counters on a different Huatli, Radiant Champion.

As a refresher, the loyalty ability you referrer to in your question reads:

  +1: Put a loyalty counter on Huatli, Radiant Champion for each creature you control.

There are several reasons that you can not place the loyalty counters onto the new Huatli. The main reason is that whenever a card uses its card name in the rules text box, it is only referring to that particular card and not other cards that might share a name with it. This is covered in the comprehensive rules here:

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

Now beyond this rule there is one other that makes it so that you can not do this, State Based Actions and more specifically something called the legend rule.

  704.5j: If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

State Based Actions (SBA) are special in magic in that they are checked automatically each time a player receives priority, they do not belong to any player, and they do not use the stack. This means that when SBAs are checked no player has a chance to respond to them, not even with instants or abilities.

So what that means for your example is that after you cast your second Huatli, Radiant Champion, you must immediately choose one of them and send the other to your graveyard. This will be done before you get the chance to use one of Huatli's loyalty abilities.
So even in the hypothetical situation Huatli had the ability:

  +1 Put a loyalty counter on target Planeswalker for each creature you control.

You still would be unable to activate the ability before the other Huatli is put into your graveyard (and therefore not a valid target).


When the Mirror March enters the battlefield, it copies itself and the existing Mirror March copies it.

The Starfield's effect applies to the Mirror March as soon as it is on the battlefield, so each Mirror March sees both itself and any later Mirror March enter the battlefield as a creature, triggering its ability.


Can abilities that trigger when a permanent becomes targeted trigger multiple times from the same spell?

It will trigger once.

  601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires. A spell may require some targets only if an alternative or additional cost (such as a buyback or kicker cost), or a particular mode, was chosen for it; otherwise, the spell is cast as though it did not require those targets. If the spell has a variable number of targets, the player announces how many targets he or she will choose before he or she announces those targets. The same target can’t be chosen multiple times for any one instance of the word “target” on the spell. However, if the spell uses the word “target” in multiple places, the same object, player, or zone can be chosen once for each instance of the word “target” (as long as it fits the targeting criteria). If any effects say that an object or player must be chosen as a target, the player chooses targets so that he or she obeys the maximum possible number of such effects without violating any rules or effects that say that an object or player can’t be chosen as a target. The chosen players, objects, and/or zones each become a target of that spell. (Any abilities that trigger when those players, objects, and/or zones become the target of a spell trigger at this point; they’ll wait to be put on the stack until the spell has finished being cast.) Example: If a spell says “Tap two target creatures,” then the same creature can’t be chosen twice; the spell requires two different legal targets. A spell that says “Destroy target artifact and target land,” however, can target the same artifact land twice because it uses the word “target” in multiple places.

After having chosen all targets for Seeds, all those creatures become targeted by Seeds.

  603.2d Some trigger events use the word “becomes” (for example, “becomes attached” or “becomes blocked”). These trigger only at the time the named event happens—they don’t trigger if that state already exists or retrigger if it persists. An ability that triggers when a permanent “becomes tapped” or “becomes untapped” doesn’t trigger if the permanent enters the battlefield in that state.
  Example: An ability that triggers when a permanent “becomes tapped” triggers only when the status of a permanent that’s already on the battlefield changes from untapped to tapped.

Although it can be inferred from 601.2c, this rule says that the Illusionist will not trigger more than once from being targeted by Seeds, because even if the number of times that the Illusionist has been chosen for Seeds mattered, it can only become a target of Seeds once.


Can I build more houses than I have the capacity to power?

Your power plant capacity has no bearing on the size of your network. So you can build as many houses as you can afford. From the rules:

  A player may connect to any number of new cities in a round, as long
  as he can pay the building and connecting costs.

Of course, it's probably a bad idea to build a network substantially larger than you can power. Balancing power plants, resources and network size is the key to the game!


Difōmā Raiton and going to zero Life Points

It's hard to say why Konami chose the specific replacement that they did, but the reason why the effect changed is quite simple: The effect would be inconsistent with the rules of the game.

Your third assumption is correct. Quite plainly stated in the rules, if any player's LP becomes 0, that player loses the Duel (or, if both players simultaneously reach 0 life points, the Duel ends in a draw).

When LP reaches 0, that's that - the player loses. As a real-world example, consider the second effect of the card Salamangreat Sanctuary:

  You can pay 1000 LP, then target 1 Link Monster you control; make its
  ATK 0, and if you do, gain LP equal to its original ATK. You can only
  use each effect of "Salamangreat Sanctuary" once per turn.

It is legal to pay 1000LP when you have exactly 1000LP remaining. In this instance, you pay the 1000 LP, your LP drops to 0... and you do not gain LP from the effect of Sanctuary. You will immediately lose the Duel at this point.

Now, just on the side: that's not to say that it's impossible to make the effect work for the physical card game. It could easily have been something like, "When damage would be inflicted to you that would reduce your LP to 0: Toss a coin and call it. If you call it right, your LP becomes 100 instead." But that's neither here nor there.


In Diplomacy, how does a time limit per round affect overall gameplay?

The diplomacy phase is the significant part of the game. So limiting this will affect the game. This site advices a longer period:

  Combinations and agreements among the players may affect the course of the game a great deal. These are determined during the diplomacy
  period which takes place before each move. This period lasts 30
  minutes before the first move and 15 minutes before each move
  thereafter. These periods may end sooner if all players agree at the
  time.

So 10 minute is slightly shorter. This is no problem for experienced players. But with inexperienced players it is possible too short. Not everybody will have the time to meet with everybody. People will miss out on some opportunities and they possibly get frustrated.

My advice is to limit the diplomacy phase, for the first year to 20 minutes and add another 5 minute to write down the orders. For the next year, you can go to 15 or 10 plus another 5 top write down the orders. This will create a more friendly game for new players.


MTG: Activated abilities and change of control on the stack.

The most relevant rules are:

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

Therefore, once you put the Activated Ability on the stack, it stays there unless it is countered or something specifically removes the ability from the stack.

  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 Sorcerer 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.

This rule specifically confirms that after the Activated Ability is on the stack, its source is irrelevant. Any removal of the source or changing of controllers won't affect the Ability.

So in this particular case, Act of Aggression can't do anything to stop the Veldalken Anatomist unless it say, targets the opponent's Azorious Guildmage (also Veldaken! oh the poetic justice!) and, after it resolves, its controller has the mana to put that creature's ability counter on the stack. ;-)

EDIT

Oh, one more thing:

  701.5b The player who cast a countered spell or activated a countered ability doesn't get a "refund" of any costs that were paid.

Even if the ability is countered, no refunds.


How different are "Kill Doctor Lucky" and "Save Doctor Lucky"?

Save Dr Lucky is similar in some ways, but does play differently. In order to increase the chance of success as the game progresses, the board shrinks one deck at time as the Titanic sinks, which means forces the players closer together. This can be annoying when you are holding on to room cards for a lower deck that has just sunk.

It is definitely worth owning if you enjoy Kill Dr Lucky. I will say that it doesn't play very well if you don't have at least four players.


You must draw all of your goods.
From the FAQ:

Resource Cards - Can I voluntarily take less resources or none at all after the production roll?
Answer
No.

I don't believe there is any official guidance on what to do if draws are forgotten about.  If it is noticed fairly quickly, the draws should be made up.  But if you've gotten to a new round of trading, or a 7 has been thrown, it is probably too late.
You can consult this past question that gives general advice on Take Back Privileges that might be helpful in resolving the situation.
The answer stays the same for Cities and Knights


Can you use a Wizard's charm on another player's monster?

The charms only work for wizards in the combat.  From the Munchin FAQ

Q. Can a Wizard use his charm ability if he's not involved in the combat?
A. No. The card says this is something he may do instead of fighting a monster. It's not for interfering with others' fights, so the Wizard in question must be the munchkin who opened the door or is helping.

Nice try but you can't charm an opponent's monster unless you are helping in combat.  If you somehow manage to become part of combat, you can betray them by charming to prevent them from killing a monster and gaining a level.


Haunt requires adding a room, but it will seal off a floor. What do I do?

The rules for sealing off rooms have this line at the end:

  If all the remaining tiles for a floor would seal off the floor, then the person whose turn it is rearranges the floor until there are more free doorways.

It seems reasonable to infer that this rule would also apply if adding the necessary room for the Haunt also seals off the floor. Thus the floor will need to be rearranged so that the room can be added without sealing off the floor.

The above rule also says that the person whose turn it is should be the one to rearrange the floor, which seems appropriate given that they are the Haunt revealer who is kicking all of this off.


(Meta) game design to facilitate educational game design workshop/class

I think you could provide a set structure for the game mechanism while keeping the actual content of the game to be defined by teacher and students.

This allows less skilled people to join in while these boundaries (you may call them guiding principles) to provide guidance and inspiration.

Example: think of a customised happy families (kwartet in Dutch) as one of the easiest examples. The content could be the actual course material.


interaction of "Foreclosure" and "Crop Insurance" cards

The way I played was to leave the Crop Insurance card to the player to who had played it while the crop ownership was transferred to the other player. Then we played the same rules otherwise where if the crop is destroyed in some fashion then the player who put down the Crop Insurance card received the insurance. This would further what I believe was the intention of the card, which is to deter other players from acting on the crop. If they took the crop, the owner of the insurance would have more reason to try to destroy that crop since they would receive their insurance back.

When we played this way, we would have the card facing the owner of the card, so the Crop Insurance moves with the crop, but is rotated to face the correct owning player.

I'm unsure if this ruling was read somewhere or if we just locally decided to play it that way.


Does Battlefield Forge add two mana to your pool each time it is tapped?

You'll only get one mana, and like all mana, it'll be there until you spend it or until the end of the current step/phase. (There are a very small number of cards like Omnath, Locus of Mana in the game which change this, but they clearly, explicitly say so.)

Abilities are of the form "cost: effect". You pay the cost, and get the effect. In this case the cost is simply tapping the land. So you can choose one of those abilities to activate, then you'll have tapped the land, and you won't be able to activate the other anymore.


Fluxx - when is the winning condition reached?

Do you play it and win instantly or do you wait your turn?

The cards have to be on the table, so in this case, sounds like you need to wait until your turn - you can't play the necessary Keeper when it's not your turn. Once you play it (on your turn), you win instantly.

In a different situation, though, you could win instantly, for example if the Goal changes into one whose conditions you already meet.

  So is it "no matter whose turn it is" or is it "on the table in front of you"?

It's both; there's no contradiction. The rules say you win instantly, no matter whose turn it is, when you meet the conditions of the Goal, and the conditions of the Goal are that the cards be on the table. The rules definitely don't say that if there's some way you can win instantly by breaking the rules (e.g. changing what the Goal means) you're allowed to do so!


Does "when ~ dies, deal n damage to all players/creatures" have a name?

A search on Gatherer reveals that there are only two cards with exactly this ability. Based on that, I believe that it is very unlikely that it has a colloquial name. It definitely does not have a name used in the rules; if it did, that name would be used on cards instead.


One common mistake people make is picking up a Hoard right away, and then buying a Duchy (or even Estate) to get the extra Gold. When you do that, you have added 3 cards to your deck, for a total of $5 money. That's less money-per-card than just a Silver gives you! Each time you buy a Duchy and get a Gold, you're adding 2 cards for $3 money... again, worse than Silver.

But Hoard certainly has it's place. If there are other useful Victory Cards, like Island or Tunnel or Nobles, then Hoard becomes great. Also, if you think that it's likely that a Gold would give you $9 to spend on the turn you see it, then Hoard will probably be better, because then you'll have $8 to spend, which is still enough for a Province.

To figure out how likely it is that you'll be able to get a Province, it really depends on the rest of your deck. If you have lots of other money, or you have a good engine that can draw a lot of cards, then it's a pretty safe bet usually that buying Hoard over Gold won't cost you that Province. A general rule of thumb that I personally follow on most boards is to buy a Gold first, and then Hoards after that.

Here's a good article on Hoard strategy: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/02/prosperity-hoard/


No, Ion Damage is handled as normal, plus an Ion token

This is addressed in the core rules on page 16 under the heading "Suffering Damage":

  When a ship suffers damage or critical damage, it suffers them one at a time following these steps. ...
  1. Reduce Shields: If there are any shield tokens remaining on the ship's card, remove one of the tokens and skip Step 2. ...

(Emphasis theirs)

The rules for receiving damage are separate from the rules for dealing damage, so unless the card specifically states that it bypasses shields, the targeted ship would receive the 1 point of damage following the normal rules.


As far as the game is concerned, you have ended your turn and the next player has been instructed to take theirs.[1] And since the rules say take-backsies are only allowed if... Wait a sec, there are no rules concerning take-backsies in Ticket to Ride. In fact, I've never see a game that allows take-backsies.
It doesn't mean you can't take back the move, but how that works is something your group will have to decide. Personally, I have absolutely no problem with allowing the change since nothing was done based on the move that was performed. But this is my opinion. What your group allows/tolerates is up your group's business.

One of the expansions has an optional second action you can take. So, in that game, you may not have ended your turn.


Does "Drive Him Back!" also prevent advancement of the monster on this turn?

Since the rules state that all Monsters move ahead in Phase 5 (and there is nothing specifically stating that this one should not move), I see no reason why it wouldn't move along with all the other monsters. That's how my group has always played.


Are encounters naturally weighted against players and how do we 'fix' it?

Yes, Descent (both First and Second Editions) is weighted against the Heroes.

Descent is a board game designed to play like a Role-Playing Game (RPG), so it includes the classic thematic elements of heroic player-characters striving against an unknown evil entity seeking to do Evil Things with the aid of his endless ranks of minions.

In most RPGs, the monsters will frequently have abilities or stats that the players can only achieve at much later levels, or sometimes never obtain. This is designed to force the players to adapt to overcome the situation, to use teamwork, tactics, and preparation to collectively achieve what no individual could otherwise.

It sounds like what happened to your party was that the Overlord caught you in a standard RPG pitfall: The party became too narrowly focused. Maybe there were no ranged attackers, in favor of heavy-hitting melee? Maybe there was nobody with high Might because everyone focused on Awareness? There's all kinds of ways to leave 'gaps' in your group's abilities, but the important part for you as a heroic player is to learn to overcome them, either by conquering them when they arise or protecting against them ever becoming an issue.

One of the typical ploys in Role Playing is to present the players with a 'teaser' of something evil coming up, just enough so that they can possibly plan and prepare to survive it: a corpse found at the entrance to a dark cave covered in massive spiderwebs (indicating serious spiders inside), or a hallway covered in scorch marks ending in a door burned down to the hinges (indicating a fiery foe awaiting invaders). The problem is, if the players do not respond to this teaser or are unable to adapt to the situation, The Bad Guy is going to beat them. Badly. Defeat happens.

The important thing to take away from a defeat like that (either as a character who somehow survives or at least as a player preparing for their next character) is to look at what happened, look at your available options (skills/feats/abilities, equipment, etc) and try to work out a way to defeat the tactic the next time you see it happening. Perhaps some form of ranged/reach attack so you can still remove threats while immobilized; perhaps a plan to focus-fire on anything that appears behind your team to make sure it can't harass you; or perhaps just changing your plans for who-moves-where to better provide protection for the whole team.

Yes, Descent is weighted against the Heroes. That's the whole difficulty of balancing any RPG or Role-Play-like game: finding the point where the Heroes *can* win, but so can the Overlord, and the difference is teamwork, tactics, and creativity.


When a land is granted a basic land type, what effects does that have?

Keep in mind that there is a difference between "gaining" a basic land type (Aquitect's Will, "in addition to") and a land "becoming" or "is" a basic land type. When a land becomes a basic land type, it loses its old rules text and gains the appropriate implict basic land mana generating ability. Supertypes and Types are unaffected, so a land that is also a creature or artifact remains one.

  305.7. If an effect changes a land's subtype to one or more of the basic land types, the land no longer has its old land type. It loses all abilities generated from its rules text and its old land types, and it gains the appropriate mana ability for each new basic land type. Note that this doesn't remove any abilities that were granted to the land by other effects. Changing a land's subtype doesn't add or remove any card types (such as creature) or supertypes (such as basic, legendary, and snow) the land may have. If a land gains one or more land types in addition to its own, i keeps its land types and rules text, and it gains the new land types and mana abilities.


Does it cost more to counter Sphinx of New Prahv?

No, Sphinx of New Prahv's ability only works while it's on the battlefield. Spells that counter other spells can only target objects on the stack, where the Sphinx's ability would not work.

While the Sphinx is a spell and could be countered, it's on the stack.

  111.1. A spell is a card on the stack. [..]

Abilities of permanent cards such as creatures generally only function while that card is a permanent on the battlefield. There are exceptions, but none apply here.

  112.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield. The exceptions are as follows:


What happens to a Curse when the Enchanted Player dies?

The Aura is put into your graveyard due to 303.4b.

  303.4b If an Aura is enchanting an illegal object or player, the object it was attached to no longer exists, or the player it was
  attached to has left the game, the Aura is put into its owner’s
  graveyard.

Also, if you had two Curse of Exhaustion in play enchanting two players that somehow died simultaneously, both Auras would be put into the graveyard simultaneously, due to this rule:

  704.3. Whenever a player would get 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. [...]


What are the effects of "Taint" tokens in Defenders of the Realm?

Yes, they also serve to mark that location as tainted. This is important for the action Heal the Land, or for Inns (which cannot be tainted).
From the Rules:

Heal the Land: If the hero is on a tainted location, discard a Hero Card that matches the location color and roll 2 dice. If a 5 or more is rolled on either die, the hero removes 1 Tainted Crystal from that location. Only 1 Tainted Crystal may be removed per action.
Inns may not be overrun or tainted.