How do I find players willing to participate in test-playing my games?

Andrew Looney (Fluxx, Icehouse) has written several great articles about game design on his blog, which I'd encourage you to check out (even if you don't like Fluxx). For the purposes of your question, I think this graphic is very helpful (and funny).

He breaks playtesting down into three phases: inner circle of friends, outer circle of friends and random strangers. I have conducted playtesting on one game, and I agree wholeheartedly with these divisions. I don't know how far along you are, so I'll write this assuming you've only done the "mental" playtesting necessary to build a prototype and are looking for a first test run. There might be more detail in here than you need, but I think it's important to define the phases in order to help you find the appropriate people to fill them.

For initial testing, it's important to have people who are both friends and gamers. For me, this was my game group. To your concern about them not liking it, Looney's instruction about this phase is to "repeat until fun", and I think that's a great distillation of the point: until the huge bugs are ironed out, you don't want to "waste" the interest level of people you don't know until your product is fairly polished. The friends part is important because they'll be patient with you, and the gamers part is important so that they'll have some frame of reference for any familiar mechanics, be able to make good suggestions from experience, and roll with things if you need to change them midstream. I'll also add that you shouldn't bother with a rulebook at this phase, at least not for others; you may end up changing things mid-game, let alone between games. Think of this as alpha or maybe even pre-alpha testing. If you don't have any gamer friends (and don't want to pay people to playtest), you really should make some if you want to have success designing. Many areas have game groups that you can find via BoardGameGeek or Meetup; if not, try starting a Meetup group yourself. (You may have success pulling pre-alpha testers off the street, but then I think your concern about them not liking the game and never coming back is valid.)

Once you've gotten things to the point where everyone is having fun (for me, my metric was when my friends started requesting the game), you can move on to the outer circle. For me, this was people like my father-in-law; he'll play games if asked, but won't seek them out on his own. It's helpful to get fresh eyes on it at this stage because the people who've seen the game since its inception have preconceived notions about it and, often, you'll run into situations where a mechanic or situation is a lot better than it was, but still not good enough. These folks are still friendly enough with you that they'll put up with a game with some kinks in it, but often not patient enough to sit though the broken sessions of your pre-alpha period. Family members and non-gamer friends (unless they're militant non-gamers) should do nicely here. This is probably more like alpha testing; you still should be the one explaining the game and possibly playing, but things should be less volatile at this point; changes should be more along the lines of tweaks than overhauls, and you probably shouldn't make any significant changes mid-session "to see what happens".

By the time you get to random stranger testing, you should have a product that someone could pick up off of a shelf and teach themselves how to play. The artwork doesn't have to be professional (or existent), but rules and player aids should exist, and everything should be clear. It's better at this point if you can be there in person, but don't say anything unless the group has answered a rules question incorrectly. This is the fly-on-the-wall point, like dropping your baby off at their first day of kindergarten and letting them go off into the world. Finding players for this stage is fairly easy, because you can find plenty on BoardGameGeek if you can't find anyone locally. I did my testing at a convention, which is a convenient place if you've got one you can reasonably get to. The key part here is to know your audience. If you're making a children's game, Origins or Gen Con is probably not the best place to approach people. Likewise, you wouldn't try a church youth group if your game is a 4-hour brain burner with a provocative theme. Try to find random strangers who are in your target audience; typically, this will be gamers, but not always.


1 Does my Carbonite Cousin need feeding each harvest that he's not in my house?

No.  He's frozen in carbonite.  As Threepio says "He should be quite well-protected -- if he survives the freezing process, that is."

  2 Does he still take up a space in the house (e.g. for family growth)?

No.  As Han Solo said, the point is: "To freeze a being solid, then hang him on a wall like some trophy?".  Wall art doesn't need a bedroom.

  3 If the game ends before he is rescued, what is his status? Does he still count towards my people score at the end?

No, as Leia says: "He's trapped in that thing forever unless somebody releases him."

See the Wookiepedia for more information.


What is this (solitaire?) card game called?

This is Clock Patience (or Clock Solitaire), although as the Wikipedia article describes it is usually played with the piles arranged in a circle and the King pile in the centre.


If the items are marked "play during any combat" then yes. If the items are to be equipped, then no, you may not change what items are equipped in the middle of combat.


Can I use both abilities of Tainted Field? What's the difference?

They can both be used but only one can be used at a time. This is because to use either ability, you need to tap the card and it can not be tapped twice

The second ability lets you produce colored mana where the first ability only lets you produce colorless mana.

Note also that you must control a swamp in order to use the second ability.

So when you play that land, you can immidiatly tap it for colorless mana if you do not control a swamp. If you do control a swamp, then you can tap it for either a white or a black mana or a colorless mana. If you do not need specifically a white or a black mana, then yes both abilities produce one mana which can be used to pay a colorless cost.

This is of course important because unless you are playing with primarily artifacts, you are going to need mana of a specific color.

This card imparticular allows you to play one land that can produce a single mana of two different colors under specific circumstances. This is very usefull in a deck that has cards of the two colors in it.

Comprehensive rules:

All lands are permanents with no color that have at least one mana ability.

Basic lands have the ability to produce when tapped a single mana of their type.

  305.6. The basic land types are Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. If an object uses the words "basic land type," it's referring
  to one of these subtypes. A land with a basic land type has the
  intrinsic ability "{T}: Add [mana symbol] to your mana pool," even if
  the text box doesn't actually contain that text or the object has no
  text box. For Plains, [mana symbol] is {W}; for Islands, {U}; for
  Swamps, {B}; for Mountains, {R}; and for Forests, {G}. See rule
  107.4a. Also see rule 605, "Mana Abilities."


Can equipment be re-equipped to another creature?

Yes, if you have an Equipment attached to one creature, you can pay its equip cost to attach it to another creature. Every Equipment has the Equip keyword ability, which is defined in rule 702.6a as

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

In addition, the Attach keyword action that the Equip ability uses is defined in rule 701.2a as

  To attach an Aura, Equipment, or Fortification to an object means to take it from where it currently is and put it onto that object.

So, if an Equipment is already attached to a creature, when you activate its Equip ability, you move it from where it currently is (attached to the original creature) and put it onto the new creature.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Equip ability is an ability the Equipment has, not the creature. So if, for example, a Suppression Bonds is attached to the creature, you can still re-equip an Equipment attached to that creature. However, if the Suppression Bonds were instead attached to the Equipment itself, you would not be able to activate the Equip ability.


Can you tell spymaster you know the word they gave a clue for?

Field Operatives are only allowed to discuss the clue after their Spymaster provides it, until their team's turn is over.

Rules, P.4
"MAKING CONTACT

When the spymaster gives a clue, his or her field operatives try to figure out what it means. They can debate it amongst themselves..."

Same page:
"Number of Guesses

...Any wrong guess ends the turn immediately..."

This is reiterated and summarized on page 5:
"GAME FLOW

Spymasters take turns giving clues. After
a spymaster gives a clue, his or her team starts
guessing. Their turn ends when they guess
wrong, when they decide to stop, or when they
have made the maximum number of guesses
for that clue. Then it is the other team's turn"

Any other discussion of a previous clue, during another team's turn or on an operative's own turn prior to the new clue being read, is therefore out of scope of the rules (i.e., it's not allowed).  This conveniently addresses any clue-related discussion among the operatives, but also any directed towards the spymaster (whether or not it is acknowledged by the spymaster).  This would apply equally to basically harmless and vague discussion like "Oh, I know what you meant now" or, taken to its logical conclusion, a field operative explicitly instructing their spymaster to add 1 to the number of guesses on their new clue (effectively providing +2 potential guesses).

So if you're a field operative, unless you want to talk about getting snacks for the table when it isn't your turn or before your team's clue is read, don't say anything!


Is bribing off the robber a good addition to Settlers of Catan?

I have played this and it absolutely degrades the fun factor of the game.

You end up getting everyone paying off to not get robbed.  The person who will pay the least gets the robber.  We had the person rolling the seven getting huge amounts of resources.

It really disrupted the flow of the game.

NOTE: we did not change the rules to allow this.  It was done as an agreement that was payed at a legal trading time.  One fun aspect is that, because it was not part of the rules, you could renege on your "payoff" commitment.  (Though this meant you were a sure target the next time around.)

While there was some fun elements (and gave us a few really fun games), I would absolutely not recommend it for more that variation in a game or two.


"Poker size" cards: layout for easy printing

US Poker sized cards are 2.5" x 3.5". Of course, your art should be slightly larger than that if you want to have printing to the edge of the card. How much larger will depend on your print house, but 1/8" on each side (so 1/4" total in each dimension) should suffice, making the art 2.75" x 3.75".


Can Bazooka Joe use Black Ops when attached to a unit?

This has been errata'd in the FAQ.  Black Ops is now Shared and a unit that is joined to Bazooka Joe will automatically have the rule extended to them.


What is this 4x4 board with black and white sided, numbered pegs?

It's a "My First Sudoku / Child Sudoku" puzzle (a 4-number version of the usual 9-number pencil puzzle).

See for example this Etsy listing.


How to spend attribute symbol on Gear card?

Unless it says to discard, no, you may keep using it.

Yes, you automatically get it if you assign it to the crew on the mission. Each crew can only hold one equipment per mission (with some exceptions for specific crew and equipment). See the main instructions for more on the rules for equipment carrying limits and how mission assignment works.

Assuming you have multiple crew to carry each of the items you're using and they're all involved in the mission at this point, yes, they skill icons stack for skill tests.


What happens if you reach the gold with both (blue and green) doors?

The game designer, Frederic Moyersoen, discusses the answer to that question on BGG. Essentially, only the Boss wins

  If there is a path with a blue and green door, the boss is the only player who can win through this path (4 points). This can be a winning strategy for the boss.


In a two-player Texas Hold'Em poker hand with blinds, which player posts the small blind?

No. Under practically all rules, the dealer posts the small blind and is first to act preflop. After the flop, the other player acts first.

Other rules have occasionally been implemented -- I believe Party Poker used to have this backwards preflop -- but this is almost universal. It is generally thought to lead to a better game with more action, as the small blind has a higher incentive to complete or raise when he has the benefit of acting last postflop.


How does face-down Attack Position (via Darkness Approaches) work?

There are no oddities that you need to be aware of, but you will need to remember the technical details of each action to ensure you do not breach a rule or create a tactical blunder for yourself, as explained below.

Face-up monsters are given one (1) attack per turn. Face-down monsters are not face-up, so they cannot be used to attack.
If a face-down attack position monster is attacked, it is flipped and stays in the same position. The damage step is worked out as if it had been face-up attack position the whole time.
No, you cannot flip-summon an attack position monster. If the face-down monster is in attack position, it does not meet the second criteria below, and therefore is not being flip-summoned. The flip-summon is

a manual change
from face-down defence position
to face-up attack position.


What to keep in mind when copying a small card game?

As commenters have pointed out, the copying that you are describing is illegal in most countries.

This isn't legal advice (and it depends on where you're located), but a quick Google search about copying and protecting card games seems to suggest that you probably can make a copy if you don't directly copy the artwork or wording used in the original game. It sounds like you can write out the rules in your own words, and make your own cards. Of course, some would say this is ethically questionable. And who knows what the issues are if the game mechanics are patented in some way.

  (Don't worry, of course I'll mail a fit donation to the manufacturers.)

There's a better way. If the game is out of print, but the manufacturers are still contactable, why not just write to them? You can avoid the issue of illegal copyright infringement if you have permission.

Something like "I am really interested in a copy of this game. Is it possible to buy it from you still? Are you likely to reprint it anytime soon? If not, would you mind if I photocopied my friends copy and mailed you $70?"


In Eldritch Horror, how much complexity and extra playing time do expansions add?

I have the Forsaken Lore expansion and haven't yet seen that it increases playtime, but it may increase difficulty (much in the same way that playing against Cthulhu in the base game is a little more challenging than say, any of the other Ancients). I have played the Forsaken Lore expansion now a couple of times and it's just as lengthy as the base game.


Yes, whenever I've played it, the player who chose that location must read it out loud to the table.

Group policies differ as to how slowly and audibly the choosing player should be required to read it, though there is a convention that listeners may not ask for bits to be repeated.


King of Tokyo: Healing in Tokyo City/Bay

They cannot heal using the "heart" dice, but they can still heal in other ways.

From the rules:

  Being in Tokyo (Tokyo City or
  Tokyo Bay) has some advantages
  and disadvantages:

    The Monster in Tokyo
    cannot use the
    [heart] result on
    the dice to heal (but can
    heal using cards)


In Seven Wonders can you use the "Play card from Discard Piles" ability to play an age III card?

When you take the last turn, each player first discards a card and then plays a card.  At this point when playing the wonder, you have access to the cards that were discarded for that reason.
You also have access to all cards previously discarded, as well as the cards discarded that round.


What happens if Falkenrath Gorger dies while a madness ability it granted is on the stack?

The rules on Falkenrath Gorger already has this specific case covered.

  8/04/2016     If Falkenrath Gorger leaves the battlefield before the madness trigger has resolved for a Vampire card that gained madness with its ability, the madness ability will still let you cast that Vampire card for the appropriate cost even though it no longer has madness.

Since he'll leave the battlefield after you discarded a card the madness will trigger and you will be able to cast your vampire.

Second question: Madness is a trigger, if you choose not to cast the card it'll be put in the graveyard and you can't recast it.

  8/04/2016     If you choose not to cast a card with madness when the madness triggered ability resolves, it’s put into your graveyard. You don’t get another chance to cast it later.


It took me a while to recognize the dice, but I think they are from a Jenga-like game that I played when I was younger (20-25 years ago). It was called Timber, but I have a hard time finding pictures of it, the best I could do was this:

I can only find local (I'm from the Netherlands) references to the game, for example the Dutch wikipedia for Jenga mentions the following:

Een variant van dit spel is "Timber", waarbij de toren bestaat uit lagen van rode, gele en blauwe blokken. Hierbij dient telkens een kleur te worden gegooid met een dobbelsteen en mag alleen een blok van de gegooide kleur uit een willekeurige laag worden gepakt.

Which translates to:

A variation of this game is "Timber", where the tower is made up from layers of red, yellow and blue blocks. A dice is thrown every turn, resulting in a color and you can only remove a block of that color from an arbitrary layer.

The Dutch wikipedia on dice also mentions this version of the game and the dice, stating the following:

In de Jenga-variant Timber wordt een dobbelsteen met kleuren gebruikt. De kleuren zijn rood, blauw en geel, twee van elk.

Which translates to:

In the Jenga variation Timber, a colured die is used. The colors are red, blue and yellow, two sides of each.

And from memory I recall that game using these dice. I don't think you necessarily need to stack the blocks like in the picture, I thought it could also be alternating layers of red, yellow and blue blocks.
EDIT: I also found the game on boardgamegeek.com and it would be called Klumpeduns, only thing is that the dice on that link don't exactly match the dice in your picture.


Until a few years ago most Victory Scales awarded negative VPs to a blitzed team. (This link makes reference to such.)

However, by not being at the table on time, ready to play, your teammates are introducing a very disruptive effect on the entire tourney. Your opponents have paid to have an opponent and you have declined to show, for no good reason, and with inadequate warning to allow alternate arrangements to be made. Read the fine print - once you paid your entry fee you contracted to appear and play according to the conditions of contest. Accept your medicine and learn better for next time.

Update:

Alexander Woo's comment to the questions inspired me to check out the ACBL General Conditions of Contest for Swiss Teams. In those it is clear that penalties for tardiness to arrive are assessed in IMP's even when the match scoring is in VP's, although the penalties for slow play are assessed in VP's.

  TARDINESS

  A team that fails to seat four players by the announced start of a match is subject to
  penalty. The record of a team whose opponents incur a penalty will not be affected
  (improved).
  In addition, one board shall be removed from play eight minutes after the start of the
  match and another board removed seven minutes thereafter. Three IMPs will be
  awarded the non-offending team for each board so removed. If a team has not seated
  four players when one-third of the time of the match has expired, that team shall forfeit
  the match. At any method of scoring, the teams are assigned a result as though the nonoffending
  team had won by three IMPs and the loser is assigned zero. ....


Resource board game with villagers, huts, and breeding

Sounds like Stone Age by Z-Man games.
Copied from the website:

THE BEGINNING OF TIME
Life was hard in the early days of human history. Our ancestors were
hard workers, but through ingenuity learned to make much of this work
easier. Over time, they developed tools to collect resources and
develop human civilization. In Stone Age, you take on the role of a
human in this bygone era. Beginning with archaic tools, you collect
wood, stone, and gold to attain higher levels of knowledge and build
sturdier structures. With resources being scarce, you must compete for
the limited number of spaces on the board that produce them while also
gathering food to feed your growing tribe. Through diligence and
insight, you can forge your way through the early days of recorded
history and build the foundation of human civilization.  ￼
CARVE VICTORY IN STONE
Stone Age is an engaging and accessible game where players take turns
placing figures on board spaces to perform actions and gather
resources. There are a limited number of spaces, so you must determine
the best actions to take each round. It’s up to you to develop your
tribe by gathering resources, constructing new buildings, and
advancing their culture while also maintaining enough food to feed
your people. Strike the right balance to create the most advanced
civilization and lead your people to a better life!


Yes it can jump multiple levels.

From the rules here it says as follows.

  The only way to block a Beetle that is on top of the Hive is to move another Beetle on top of it.  All four Beetles can be stacked on top of each other.

There is no reference in the rules to moving one level at a time.  If a beetle was to move on top of a stack of all Beetles (as stated in the rules is possible)  then the Beetle would have to jump (or climb if you feel that makes more thematic sense) up more than one level at once.


How does ignoring the first retreat flag work?

Quite literally, ignoring the first flag means that flag is a "no effect." It is measured per roll.
So, in order to force a retreat, an  a sandbagged unit or unit in a bunker that ignores a flag must have two or more flags rolled against it in order to force its retreat (or additional hits if it can't retreat).
Support for this view is in Richard Borg's FAQ dated 4/15/05

Q. For artillery in bunkers, flags are treated as a hit. Do they still ignore the first flag?
A. Yes, Bunkers (page 16)
Basically an artillery unit in a bunker may not retreat. Therefore it must lose one figure for each
retreat move that cannot be completed. But like all other units in a bunker hex, it may ignore the
first flag rolled against it. In other words, it takes two flags to make one hit, and three flags to make
two hits.

Note that the bunker allows ignoring the first flag... but artillery can not retreat from a bunker, so flags on bunkered arty are hits, not retreats.


Blast markers hitting multistorey buildings

In previous versions of the rules, the blast would only hit the top floor. RAW in the current version blasts hit every floor. Many tournaments use 6th edition rules. For your local play group I would suggest picking one way and sticking with it, or at least deciding before the start of the game.


What happens if you sacrifice a creature brought back with Postmortem Lunge?

This card has the following Oracle ruling:

  If the creature is no longer on the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step, it won't be exiled.

This is an instance of general principle: when an effect states that a card moves from one zone to another, if the target card is no longer in the starting zone when the effect resolves, then the effect is countered. In this particular case, Postmortem Lunge creates a delayed trigger which implicitly expects its target to be on the battlefield when it resolves, since that's where the card last put that creature. If the target is no longer on the battlefield, then the effect is countered.


If an attempt to equip fails, does the equipment fall off?

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

The now-dead bear is no longer a valid target so the equip ability doesn't resolve, and the sword remains equipped on the original creature.


In Axis and Allies, Is There A Way to Measure the Benefits of Various Techs Against Each Other? And the Cost of Discovery?

Your only hope is to give each tech a deterministic, crowd-sourced price
In practice, I think the game's tech mechanic is too complicated to yield a useful mathematical model. The average (i.e. expected) cost of successfully researching a technology--or of researching one in particular--is only part of the story. The more important metric is the variance of the cost; that is, the average may be 30 (or 180) IPCs, but how often is it going to cost 5 and how often 300?
It is this uncertainty that drives player's decisions as much as the mean because everyone's desperation and risk tolerance is different. I have a low risk tolerance and prefer to play a slow-and-steady game, believing that superior play will eventually win out and balance out all but the worst of rolls. Thus I never research tech, feeling that the times when I get it cheap will be outweighed by the certain defeat earned if I spend two or three turns researching to no avail. Some people love to take the risk knowing that if they get lucky they can almost assuredly win the game, and don't mind losing the majority of the times they don't get it.
Now to make it even more complicated, this risk calculus isn't static but is influenced by the changing game situation. For example, I've played several games where the other player succeeded in a desperation bid for heavy bombers. Although I was never willing to go for it before, as soon as that happens I know I have to match them or lose the game.
Any proposed tech model must have formulas for the expected cost and the variance (which could be done by folks better at probability math that I). The almost impossible part is that it must have a model for the value of the tech specific to each country and to the particular situation on the game board (even heavy bombers aren't that useful if the bombers aren't in range of suitable factories, and have delayed gratification if the player has very few bombers already in the arsenal).
I cannot think of a first principles method to calculate this tech value; I think the only hope would be to set the price empirically, like a bookie sets the odds on a horse race based on the bets they're receiving. Perhaps this could be done by modifying the rules to make the cost of each tech deterministic (i.e. a tech can be bought for X IPCs). Then have experienced players play a ton of games, adjusting the tech prices as necessary until whether or not a given technology is purchased has a statistically insignificant effect on the outcome of the game.
Once that data existed perhaps the model could be made more complicated by having the price be a function of the turn in which it is bought. Once those numbers were established, the mean and variance from the rolling-for-tech mechanic could be used to set the price per roll such that the median cost were equal to the market price.
Problem is you'd need a infeasible number of games as your data set.


Yes, and no.

The choice of mode ("Choose one or more") cannot be changed.[CR 114.7]
The number of targets cannot be changed.[CR 114.6a]
Any number of the targets can be changed (including zero).[CR 114.6c]
The targeting conditions still apply.

For example, if the original spell targeted a flying creature and a player, the copy must also target a flying creature and a player.

Or in the example you gave, the copy will also have to target a flying creature, a non-flying creature and a player.


Who is the controller of a Pacifism enchanting my creature?

The controller of an aura is the player who cast it, not (necessarily) the controller of the permanent it enchants. A subsequent control changing effect, like Donate, can change this, but they're relatively rare.

So you're right, you can target Pacifism with Conclave Tribunal and exile it.


It's a tie (split pot) since both players' best hands are: A A 4 4 K (Two pairs with a King kicker).

Texas hold 'em

  On the showdown, each player plays the best poker hand they can make from the seven cards comprising their two-hole cards and the five community cards.

List of poker hands


Are Magic: The Gathering booster packs "color random"?

If you're talking about regular (also called 'Draft') boosters: their color distribution is completely random, except that some sets may have a somewhat skewed color distribution themselves, e.g. there might be more black cards than white cards in the set; then, booster packs will contain (on average) more black than white cards. An example of this Torment; from the checklist, it's also clearly visible that it's a set which contains a high number of black cards.

The only thing that is not random is the rarity distribution; each pack contains

  one marketing card, one basic land, ten commons (one possible premium card in any rarity), three uncommons, and one rare (occasionally, about one in eight packs, replaced by a mythic rare).

(source: Gamepedia)

  Can you get booster packs by color?

Actually, it turns out you can. As @murgatroid notes in the comments, beginning with Dominaria in 2018 Wizards started selling 'Theme boosters' (scroll down to the end of the article) with a fixed color distribution (depending on the set, a single color or a combination of two colors).


Does a Angel of Glory's Rise and a Fiend Hunter combo work like I think it does?

The first part of your combo does work. When the Fiend Hunter enters the battlefield, he can exile the Angel of Glory, and when the Fiend Hunter goes to the graveyard, he will already be there when the Angel returns, which allows you to repeat that combo indefinitely.

However, Cloudshift on Fiend Hunter is another matter. When the Hunter leaves the battlefield with the Angel exiled, he will indeed trigger the return of the Angel. However, the Hunter leaving and returning to the battlefield are all part of Cloudshift's resolution, so by the time the Hunter returns and you get to choose another creature to exile, the return of the Angel is still on the stack and is not yet back from its exile. You will have to choose another creature entirely, and if you don't happen to have a second Angel on the battlefield, the combo will end with the resolution of Cloudshift.

As for the Champion of the Parish question: The creatures enter the battlefield simultaneously. Creatures that enter the battlefield at the same time see each other enter the battlefield, so a Champion's triggered ability will trigger for each other Human entering the battlefield at the same time. For example, if you have 5 humans in the graveyard, and 2 of them are Champions, then each Champion's ability will trigger four times, so each would get a total of 4 counters.


Soul Sculptor and creatures with cast triggers

The dragon will get counters.

  603.10. Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions, and continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like.

To determine if an event (casting a creature spell in this case) triggered any abilities, we look at the state of things immediately after that event occurred. At the time that the game checks to see if anything triggered (immediately after the event), Soul Sculptor's continuous effect has ended.

Note that reverting to a creature when the spell is cast is not a triggered ability, or any ability that uses the stack. For that to be the case, Soul Sculptor would need to be worded as a delayed trigger. Something awkward like "Target creature becomes an enchantment with no abilities. When a creature spell is cast, this effect ends."

  603.7. An effect may create a delayed triggered ability that can do something at a later time. A delayed triggered ability will contain “when,” “whenever,” or “at,” although that word won’t usually begin the ability.

Rather, it is simply a continuous effect that has a limited duration, and when the duration expires, so does the effect.

  611.2a A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability lasts as long as stated by the spell or ability creating it (such as “until end of turn”). If no duration is stated, it lasts until the end of the game.

Rule 613 explains how the current values of an object’s characteristics are determined. Immediately after a creature spell has been cast, when the game is determining what the dragon's characteristics are, it determines that the dragon is a creature with its normal abilities, because at that time, the enchantment-changing effect has ended, it is past the stated expiration point of the continuous ability.


Can I transform a token copy of a double-faced card?

No, you cannot transform a token of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy this way.

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

So any effect that exiles a token and then brings it back will fail to bring it back, and it will cease to exist next time state-based actions are checked.
Note that you cannot transform any token that is copying a double-faced card; but for a different reason. If you have a token copy of Delver of Secrets, and try to transform it, it will also fail.

701.27a To transform a permanent, turn it over so that its other face is up. Only permanents represented by double-faced cards can transform.
110.5e A token is subject to anything that affects permanents in general or that affects the token’s card type or subtype. A token isn’t a card (even if represented by a card that has a Magic back or that came from a Magic booster pack).


In the rules on Hasbro's website, there is an explicit rule stating that players get 60 seconds per word (bottom of the first page):

  The timer is turned for another 60 seconds for each new word.

The rules also specify what happens when a team fails to guess their word (emphasis mine):

  If a word is not identified within the time limit, play continues to the left.

There aren't any special rules addressing the order of play after an All Play, so this rule would dictate that the next team to play would be the one to the left of the team that won the All Play round. Since Pictionary is a party game, there's nothing stopping your play group from using a house rule like this:

  After the team that won the All Play fails, play would continue with the team to the left of the team that drew the All Play.


How to deal with Enchantments outside of G/W?

Enchantments are permanents, so they can also be destroyed by spells or abilities that destroy permanents

There are several non-G/W cards that destroy certain types of permanents, rather than enchantments specifically: Gatherer

You can also make your opponent sacrifice certain types of permanents, although that of course leaves some degree of choice for your opponent, depending on the board state: Gatherer

Generally, you should accept the fact that enchantment destruction is firmly inside the G/W part of the color pie, and you should look to less direct ways of dealing with enchantments.

As for direct answers, your best bet outside G/W are Blue counterspells and bounce effects for tempo, and sweeper artifacts.


Not until the end of the round. Pg. 10 of the rulebook:

(Assistant Cards are not refilled until the end of the Round.)

And pg. 12:

Discard the remaining Pea Plant Cards, Tool Cards, and Assistants. Refill Tool and Pea Plant Cards based on player count (see p. 3) and refill 3 face-up Assistants.

And reiterated on the "reminders and clarifications" section on pg. 13:

Tool Cards and Pea Plant Cards are only refilled during the End of the Round Reset, not when taken.


Why are Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Pendrell Mists worded differently?

That is completely correct.

Indestructible and regeneration prevent/replace destruction but not sacrifices.

Sigarda prevents sacrifices but not destruction.


Does entering a fight prevent use of cards with effects during movement phase afterwards?

No, it is not against the rules, and the sequence of events you followed is acceptable within a single Movement Phase.

Being drawn into combat of any kind only ends your movement - it does not end your Movement Phase, and some actions are still valid after combat.

While there is no specific case regarding the Key of Tawil  At'Umr, it can be inferred from an entry in the Arkham Horror FAQ regarding the Find Gate spell in an identical situation (on page 7 under Spells):

  Q: Can an investigator who entered the Other World
  during the Movement Phase because of the Nightgaunt’s
  combat ability immediately cast Find Gate and return to
  Arkham, experiencing no Other World encounters?

  A: Yes.

Neither Find Gate nor Key of Tawil At'Umr have any other pertinent trigger details except that they must be used during the Movement Phase, so it is logical that if one is valid after a Nightgaunt effect, the other is also.

Also on page 9 of the FAQ under Gates and Other Worlds it clarifies reasons why you would (or would not) gain an explored marker:

  Q: Do I receive an “explored” marker if I enter the first
  area of an Other World, cast “Find Gate,” and return to
  Arkham?

  A: Yes. In general, whenever you “return to Arkham,” you
  reappear at a gate that leads to the Other World you were
  in and gain an “explored” marker.

Since the Key of Tawil At'Umr specifically uses the phrase "return to Arkham" you do gain an explored marker when it is used in an Other World.


The Inner Sanctum Sealed Door and Objective 1C

I think you must have had either the Furnace or Ceremony rooms in the wrong orientation, because there's a connecting door from the Basement to the Furnace Room to the Ceremony Room, via the 'top' of the Ceremony room tile. From the Investigator Guide:


What are the results of combining Minion Reflector, Doubling Season, and Kalonian Hydra?

Each instance of the ability would go on the stack one at a time.

So the first 8/8 hydra attacks and puts his ability on the stack,

The second hydra's ability goes on the stack,

The Doubling season's replacement effect modifies them each time the hydra's ability triggers.

Since you are the active player and they both trigger at once, then you get to decide what order they go onto the stack, even though in this case it does not much matter because they both do the same thing.

The first hydra doubles the counters, since it is going to put counters on something and the Doubling season says to put twice that many on, they end up with 8 + 16 =24 counters instead.

The second hydra doubles the counters, since it is going to put counters on something and the Doubling season says to put twice that many on, they end up with 24 + 48 = 72 counters instead.

so they are 8 +16 = 24
then they are 24 + 48 = 72.

  614.1a Effects that use the word "instead" are replacement effects. Most replacement effects use the word "instead" to indicate what
  events will be replaced with other events.

The comprehensive rules show that each ability would count the number of counters at the time it resolves, not when it is put on the stack. (Emphasis mine)

  608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the battlefield), the answer is determined only
  once, when the effect is applied. If the effect requires information
  from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself or
  a target that's become illegal, the effect uses the current
  information of that object if it's in the public zone it was expected
  to be in; if it's no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved
  it from a public zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the object's
  last known information. See rule 112.7a. If an ability states that an
  object does something, it's the object as it exists -- or as it most
  recently existed -- that does it, not the ability.

In this case the information from the game the Hydra's ability needs, is the number of counters on each creature who's counters are being doubled.


In Robo Rally, what happens to locked registers if I power up with more than 4 damage?

They're programmed randomly. This is dealt with explicitly on page 10 of the rules:

LOCKING REGISTERS DURING POWER DOWN
Because robots can still be damaged during a power down, they can sometimes accumulate Damage tokens for a register to lock up before they reenter play. Registers that become locked when your robot is powered down are immediately programmed randomly: Draw a card from the top of the deck and put it in that register, face up.


Effective way of shuffling small form cards

I almost always use Overhand shuffling when dealing with board game cards.
Video shows it on poker cards but it can be applied to smaller formats as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZByHu_NUJs


Interaction between Teferi Time Raveler and Enduring Ideal

No, it doesn't stop it. Teferi says:

  Each opponent can cast spells only any time they could cast a sorcery.

(emphasis mine)

But copying a spell is different from casting it:

  706.10. To copy a spell, activated ability, or triggered ability means to put a copy of it onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn’t cast and a copy of an activated ability isn’t activated.

Therefore, Teferi doesn't affect the Epic ability.


Where can I find a printer for a budget game board?

Try this site , they can produce a lot of material for board game and after you can even use their online store for the distribution.

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/


Dark Magical Circle vs Masked HERO Blast

Since "Dark Magical Circle" stated:

  You can only use each effect of "Dark Magical Circle" once per turn.

No, he cannot use "Dark Magical Circle" to look at the top deck again at the same turn.

However, they are allowed to activate it again as a Continuous Spell, and use the effect to banish your card if "Dark Magician" is Summoned.


Monopoly deal - Can I not use any of my cards during a turn and then let go excess cards?

Yes. This is explicitly allowed by the rules:

  On your turn:
  Play up to 3 cards ... You don’t have to play any cards if you don’t want to.


Do I have to physically cut into my Necron Overlord's Staff of Light to upgrade it to Warscythe?

Well, it depends.

40K by the rules is WYSIWYG(What you see is what you get).  This means that if you give a guy an ax, he needs to be modeled with something vaguely ax shaped.  If you give him a bolt pistol he needs to be holding something bolt pistol like(a holster at his hip works too)  This holds true for the war scythe as well.

There's some wiggle room on this because the game doesn't always specifically say what advanced alien melee weapons are supposed to look like.  So if you can squint your eyes and the thing the Overload is holding is two handed and sorta scythe shaped, your're probably good.

In most friendly games, telling your opponent what the character is armed with before the start of the game is generally sufficient.  Often people like to try out different combinations of wargear, and a certain amount of proxying is tolerated.

This is all dependent on the group of guys you play with.  Some groups may be stricter about the application of WYSIWYG than others.  Check with your gaming group to be sure.

If you plan on playing in tournaments--especially larger ones, you will probably have to go with a more explicit conversion.  Tournaments are more likely to enforce strict WYSIWYG for the sake of side-stepping potential rules arguments.


How do I get rid of Rules Lawyer and win the game?

In fact, Rules Lawyer can be removed as easily as any creature normally can be, because its effect only applies to you and other permanents you control. It can be removed by dealing lethal damage to it or by reducing its toughness to 0.

If a player has two copies of Rules Lawyer, however, then each one will protect the other, and some other kind of effect will be needed to remove it. You will have to resort to one of the hundreds or even thousands of cards that can destroy a creature (e.g. Murder) or artifact (e.g. Naturalize), or exile one (e.g. Path to Exile or Fade into Antiquity), or bounce one (e.g. Unsummon or Steel Sabotage), or even send one to a library (e.g. Banishing Stroke). Mass destruction (e.g. Wrath of God or Creeping Corrosion), exile (e.g. Final Judgment or Merciless Eviction), bounce (e.g. Evacuation or Hurkyl's Recall), or sending to library (e.g. Terminus). There are dozens of variants of each of these kinds of effects, and even others that remove creatures or artifacts without relying on state-based actions.

Regarding winning the game, even if you can't do so via state-based actions, you can still win the game with an effect that specifically wins the game, such as Laboratory Maniac, or Biovisionary, or Azor's Elocutors, or any of over a dozen similar effects. You an also make the controller of Rules Lawyer directly lose the game with cards like Door to Nothingness or Phage the Untouchable or even the Unstable card Baron Von Count, and there are also several other cards this kind of effect too.


Canasta Going Out with Stock Exhausted and Only One Card in Hand and Discard Pile

No, you cannot.

Whether the stock is exhausted or not, a player with only one card in hand cannot take a discard pile that only has one card in it.

Quoting from multiple rules since with Canasta, like many card games, certain rules can vary depending on the source.

Rule source 1:

  A player with only one card left in his hand may not take the discard pile if there is only one card in it.

And they also clarify that this doesn't change when the stock is exhausted:

  If the last card of the stock is not a red three, play continues as long as each player in turn takes the discard, and he must do so if it matches a meld on his side and the pack is not frozen. (The only exception is that a one-card hand may not take a one-card discard pile).

Rule source 2:

  You may not take the up card if there are no other cards in the discard pile, and you have only one card in your hand.

Rule source 3:

  Taking a discard pile that only contains one card is never allowed if you only have one card in your hand.

If playing Viennese Canasta, you can do this but only if you could legally go out otherwise.

  A player with only one card in his hand may take a one card discard pile under the same conditions which would entitle him to take a discard pile of two or more cards. (Since the player will necessarily have no cards in hand at the end of the turn, this can only be done if the team has a canasta and is therefore entitled to go out.)


You would not lose the game from being unable to draw a card.

This is because the rule that causes you to lose the game states (empahasis mine):

  104.3c: If a player is required to draw more cards than are left in his or her library, he or she draws the remaining cards, and then loses the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

and Omen Machine says (emphasis mine):

  Players can't draw cards.
  At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player exiles the top card of his or her library. If it's a land card, the player puts it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, the player casts it without paying its mana cost if able.

So what happens is:

Omen Machine attempts to exile the top card of your library.
You don't have a top card to your library, so the following steps don't do anything.
You continue onto your First Main as normal, having not drawn a card and not exiled a card.

This is further supported in the Gatherer Rulings of a similar card, Maralen of the Mornsong which states:

  While Maralen is on the battlefield, no player can lose the game due to being instructed to draw a card with an empty library.


Why don't players draft the week before a new set releases?

I believe it's because of how the store stocks itself, and because of the economics of a draft/prerelease.

Stores only have so much they can spend per week on their product. Given that they know they will have a lot of customers interested in the new set coming up, it would make sense to spend a large amount of budget on product for the upcoming set. (Or if they can't buy the product yet, save up for a larger spending the following week.) The store might have packs for sale right now they could use, but they probably want to save those to remain stocked on specific sets. They don't want to appear out of stock of certain things if they can help it!

Additionally, they want to make sure there's a large turnout when they do a draft. Most drafts will effectively sell packs for less at a prerelease, when you account for prizes (At my store, a pack usually costs $4. A prerelease gets you 6 packs and costs $25, and the store gives out an average of ~1-2 prize packs per person.) Thus, during a prerelease, each pack is effectively sold for ~$3.12. Also, the store probably has to have more employees present to accommodate many players during an event for handing out packs, enforcing rules, etc. A store might normally get by with just one or two people working, but an event might require 3-4 employees (or more, depending on store size). More employees means more money spent paying those people for their time.

To make it worth their while, a store will want to pack people in to sell a lot of packs.  (If each item sells for less, you need to sell more items to make the same amount.) Many customers don't have the time or money to go to events every weekend, and are more likely to prefer going to an event with the new set that is hyped up then with an ordinary draft of an older set. The store doesn't want to put on the event that risks having only a mediocre turnout because everyone is waiting for next weekend.

Last thought: it's probably pretty tiring for the workers. A lot of events can stretch into late hours, and even if they don't it's still a lot of time to be working directly with customers. More people means more picking up and restocking afterwards, more cleaning the bathrooms, etc. A weekend off is nice, and helps make sure the employees are refreshed and ready to give their A-game next weekend at the prerelease.


Can you use custom made cosmetics on 40K figures?

For cosmetic stuff like this, you should be ok.  The ITC rules certainly don't make any distinction about things like that, as long as it is clear what the model represents.  Other tournaments may have differing rules - for example the NOVA open tournament states that if your models are different from the standard, you cannot gain any unfair advantages (for example, making a model taller to give it better line of sight), but otherwise states that as long as your models are clear on what they represent, you should be fine.

Generally speaking, modifying or converting models is a big part of the hobby, and most tourneys accept and embrace it - with some even having awards for best converted model or the like.  However, it is always in your best interest to read the rules for any tournament you may want to enter and, if you have any questions, contact the organizer to ensure you'll be compliant.


What happens when a Reward that is a character card loses its hitpoints?

From looking I see a thread on board game geek the card goes to the hero's trash when destroyed.

https://videogamegeek.com/thread/2074878/incapacitation-and-rewards

  2) The Reward card is killed. It is sent to that hero's trash. When that hero is incapacitated, does the trashed Reward card go under the hero's character card as well? It SEEMS that way, since no exception is made for trashed rewards in the Incapacitation rules section

The response to this in the thread is that it is correct


In general, this kind of fight is going to get you into trouble - you have a bunch of separate groups to take care of.  If your strategy before Black's invasion was sound, then you should be able to get a useful wall out of the invasion.  In that case, it's generally better to just keep extending along the fourth line.  So, instead of 20, I would just extend.  Black gets two points/move, and you're getting thickness that's worth more.

In the first diagram, if 39 is at 40, then isn't Black alive?


Your conclusion is correct: no counters will be placed, and the creature's controller will not get any lands.
Strictly speaking, each Ordeal's first triggered ability does not "fizzle". They still resolve as always, but the actions they try to take are impossible so they don't actually do anything. The creature is dead, so no counters can be placed on it, and the Ordeal is already in the graveyard, so it can't be sacrificed.
Since the Ordeal can't be sacrificed, its last ability cannot trigger, so the player can never get lands in a scenario like this.


How does Orcish Captain work with multiple activations?

No, this doesn't work.

You can place as many instances of the ability on the stack as you can afford, before any of them resolve, by responding to each one with another one. But you need to choose targets for each one as you place it on the stack. Assuming that Orcish Captain is the only Orc creature you have, then that will be the target for all of the instances of the ability.

The first time you lose a flip, Orcish Captain will die before the next ability resolves. After that, the ability will fail to resolve due to having no legal targets, so you won't do the coin flip.

  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.

So you will only get to flip coins until you lose a coin flip, similar to what your Okaun and Zndrsplt do. You can still add this into the deck, but you would be better off paying just {1}, letting it resolve, then repeating if you won the coin flip.


When a trigger requires you to sacrifice something, can you sacrifice said something using something else?

Most instances* of "enter the battlefield" denote triggered abilities, so they go on the stack and you can respond on them before they resolve, e.g. by activating another ability which can be played at instant speed, such as Zuran Orb's.

However, the land you sacrifice for Zuran Orb (even if it's Glacial Chasm itself) does not count for Glacial Chasm's enter the battlefield ability. So you'll have to sacrifice another land (unless you don't have any).

*: some cards have "As [card name] enters the battlefield"; those are replacement effects and don't go on the stack. Those never involve sacrifices, though.


Responder' rebid with unbalanced hand (system: Simple SAYC)

In a word, no. A jump shift shows a game forcing hand (something like 18 HCP with that distribution). 2C could be any strength that's not game forcing across from a minimum responder, and is probably your best bid here.


Yes, a face-down creature will be exiled instead of going to the graveyard, even if it would not be a creature card if it were face up.

For the purpose of Anger of the Gods' ability, all that matters is that the permanent was a creature when it took the damage. To be specific, when Anger of the Gods resolves, it deals damage to each creature (possibly modified by replacement and prevention effects), and then creates a replacement effect for each creature it dealt damage to. Rule 608.2i says

  If an ability's effect refers to a specific untargeted object that has been previously referred to by that ability's cost or trigger condition, it still affects that object even if the object has changed characteristics.

In this case, the "specific untargeted object" is "a creature dealt damage this way." So, for the rest of the turn, Anger of the Gods replaces death with exile for each permanent that was a creature when Anger of the Gods dealt the damage.

In the situation from the question, play proceeds as follows (assuming for simplicity that the manifested creature is the only creature):

Anger of the Gods resolves and deals 3 damage to the face-down creature. It then creates a replacement effect: if that object would die this turn, exile it instead.
State-based actions are checked. The face-down creature has lethal damage marked on it, so it dies. Anger of the Gods' replacement effect applies, so it is exiled instead.

This would still be true if it had a greater toughness and died later in the turn to other damage, or was destroyed by a Murder, or even if it got enchanted by Song of the Dryads and then died to a Strip Mine.


Look for stores that sell board, CCG, or role playing games.  I'd start with store finders on sites like Wizards.com. If you don't have a specialized hobby store, you can try more general stores that sell that product type such as Hastings. People at these locations might know other players, or even have places set up to play / hang out.

Check sites like Meetup and Facebook for board game groups. Also check any local universities for that type of group as well.  Sometimes you have to dig, but there are gamers out there!


The probability of getting a Complete Destruction in 1 turn is roughly 20%.  So, the expected number of turns is 1/0.2 or 5 turns on average.

The 20% number comes from two sources.  First, I found a lengthy discussion at board game geek on this topic, which gives the final result of approximately 20%.  http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1155539/king-tokyo-odds/page/2

Secondly, I wrote a quick Matlab simulation to compute this.  The optimal strategy is pretty clearly to take any die that's a duplicate of another die, and reroll it.  Using that fact, I get the following table, which performed 100,000 trials:

      % of the time, you get 1-6 different numbers
      on 6 dice after 3 rolls
             1     2     3     4     5     6
Roll 1 :   0.0   2.0  23.2  50.1  23.1   1.6
Roll 2 :   0.0   0.0   3.3  35.2  52.7   8.8
Roll 3 :   0.0   0.0   0.4  17.4  62.3  19.8

Here is the matlab script I used, in case you're interested:

% King of Tokyo, Total Destruction

% Object of total destruction card, is to get 1-6 on 6 different dice
% in three rolls.

NUMTRIALS = 100000;

results.numUniqueRoll1 = zeros(1,6);
results.numUniqueRoll2 = zeros(1,6);
results.numUniqueRoll3 = zeros(1,6);

for ix = 1 : NUMTRIALS
    n1 = numel(unique(randi(6, 1, 6)));
    results.numUniqueRoll1(n1) = 1 + results.numUniqueRoll1(n1);

    n2 = n1 + sum(unique(randi(6,1,6-n1)) > n1);
    results.numUniqueRoll2(n2) = 1 + results.numUniqueRoll2(n2);

    n3 = n2 + sum(unique(randi(6,1,6-n2)) > n2);
    results.numUniqueRoll3(n3) = 1 + results.numUniqueRoll3(n3);
end

fprintf('  %% of the time, you get 1-6 different numbers\n');
fprintf('      on 6 dice after 3 rolls\n');
fprintf('             1     2     3     4     5     6\n');
fprintf('Roll 1 :');
fprintf('%6.1f', 100*results.numUniqueRoll1/NUMTRIALS);
fprintf('\nRoll 2 :');
fprintf('%6.1f', 100*results.numUniqueRoll2/NUMTRIALS);
fprintf('\nRoll 3 :');
fprintf('%6.1f', 100*results.numUniqueRoll3/NUMTRIALS);
fprintf('\n');


It depends on the setup. If you've got Bat Milk, and a few other deck thinners, you remove all of the other trash from you deck, draw your entire deck every turn, and win before anyone else has really started.

Green has the majority of the deck thinning cards (and PVP Defense). Also most of your combo cards are going to be in green. Werewolf in a Tophat and 3 Natural 20s = 3 of each boss loot all on the same turn. With Bat Milk in the mix you can do that reliably.

On the other hand, sometimes Red IS the better choice. Again it depends on the setup, and how other people play. Having some Defense or Deck Thinning is vital if you have a lot of people buying PVP attacks.


Star Wars Rebellion Resolve Space Combat before Ground Combat

Here are the major consequences:

As noted in the question, the Empire must now defeat all Rebel forces on the Rebel Base (as opposed to just all Rebel ground forces) to win the game.
The "Bombardment" tactics card becomes useless for one side in ground combat.
The "Crippling Blow" and "Liberation" objective cards become harder for the Rebels to accomplish, although these are often achieved through "Incite Revolt", "Public Uprising", or "Lead the Strike Team", which are unaffected.
A system with a Death Star is now unassailable on the ground until you get the "Death Star Plans" objective (although making such an attack would be an odd move as the rebels).
In the "Rise of an Empire" expansion, an Imperial system with a Death Star and Shield Bunker becomes completely unassailable to direct attack, and can only be taken via a mission card (such as "Lead the Strike Team").
A Rebel system with ion cannons is harder for the empire to take


Can exiled players only increase an unused die once if they spend a Food 2 card?

The rule you quoted clearly says it raises the dice result by one for each food card, so the dice result is raised by one for each food card.


If I have a net negative number of dice, how many clue tokens do I need to spend to attempt a roll?

You always gain bonus dice from clue tokens spent, regardless of how negative your actual ability check is.

So in your example you do not have to spend one to overcome the negative, then another to gain a dice, you would be able to spend one (or more) clue(s) to gain one (or more) dice.

From the rulebook (page 13 under Spending Clue Tokens on Skill Checks):

  Important: Spending a Clue token always gives you the
  bonus dice that you are entitled to, even if the modifier
  has dropped the number of dice you can roll below 0.


1st Edition missprints on base set pikachu

It does not appear that this is a "Ghost Stamp Pikachu". I checked online and found several for sale that are slabbed and rated, but the "First Edition" marker looks quite different than yours, with parts of it missing:

Note that all of these genuine "Ghost Stamp Pikachu" cards are also Yellow Cheek Pikachu cards, so you are on the right track with it being a Ghost Print.


The blog post is correct. What you're missing is the system that governs the order in which those effects are applied, commonly known as the "layer system", and officially known as Interaction of continuous effects

Put simply, the layer system creates a fixed order in which continuous effects apply to an objects, so there are no loops like you think you're seeing, and there is a single fixed answer to how any set of continuous effects apply to an object.

In this particular case, both of the effects modify the type of the object, so they both apply in the same layer. Then we have to consider timestamps and dependencies to determine the order in which to apply them. The relevant dependency rules say this:

  613.7. Within a layer or sublayer, determining which order effects are applied in is sometimes done using a dependency system. If a dependency exists, it will override the timestamp system.

  613.7a An effect is said to “depend on” another if (a) it’s applied in the same layer (and, if applicable, sublayer) as the other effect (see rules 613.1 and 613.3); (b) applying the other would change the text or the existence of the first effect, what it applies to, or what it does to any of the things it applies to; and (c) neither effect is from a characteristic-defining ability or both effects are from characteristic-defining abilities. Otherwise, the effect is considered to be independent of the other effect.
  613.7b An effect dependent on one or more other effects waits to apply until just after all of those effects have been applied. If multiple dependent effects would apply simultaneously in this way, they’re applied in timestamp order relative to each other. If several dependent effects form a dependency loop, then this rule is ignored and the effects in the dependency loop are applied in timestamp order.

Before either effect is applied Blood Moon's effect has a dependency on Arixmethes' effect, because Arixmethes' effect changes what Blood Moon's effect applies to, specifically making it apply to Arixmethes. Arixmethes' effect does not depend on Blood Moon's effect, because applying Blood Moon's first will do nothing, because at that point in the evaluation, Arixmethes is not a land.

So, we apply Arixmethes' effect first, then Blood Moon's effect, and we end up with the result described in the linked blog post: Arixmethes is a Legendary Land - Mountain that can tap to add {R} with no other abilities.


Catan starting strategies -- actual data?

Although I wouldn't call it a "significant study" as far as initial placement strategies, there is a blog that I found a while ago which gets into an analysis of playing (and winning) SoC from a mathematical perspective.

The blog is called "Developing Catan", and includes the application of several types of mathematical analysis to the game based on the writer's personal experience playing SoC on a frequent basis, both in person and online. In particular, some of the analysis in this pdf discusses probabilities of winning without starting on any particular resource, which answers at least part of your question.


Do things on the stack or state-based effects resolve between first strike and normal combat damage?

You're right about #1 in the first case, and #2 is correct in the second place.
If any creatures have first or double strike, there are two combat damage steps. From the comprehensive rules about what happens within every combat damage step:

510.3. Third, any abilities that triggered on damage being assigned or dealt go on the stack. (See rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities.")
510.4. Fourth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

To end 510.4, both players must pass priority until everything on the stack resolves. When the stack is empty, play proceeds to the next step, which will be a second Combat Damage Step (if the first was for first strike) or the End of Combat Step (normally).


It's "legal", as in not against the law; but ill advised if you expect and desire to play with this partner again.

Modern agreements tend to the line of "forcing to 2NT, or 3 of a major, or 4 of a minor".

This guarantees the 2C opener 3 calls to define the hand, and infers that a 2C opening based on a strong minor suit must either be suitable for NT or about a trick better than one based on a strong major suit.

Also, consider partner's problem with a strong club or diamond hand. How could partner possibly describe this hand without the assurance of not being passed in a 3C or 3D rebid?

Update:
In regards to your specific situation, I would rank possible bids over partner's 3C rebid in this order with 2 HCP as follows:

Bid 3 of any 6-card suit
Bid 4C with 3 or more of them
Bid any 5-card suit at the three level
Bid 3D with Qxxx or JTxx of diamonds in an unbalanced hand, in case partner want to show a two-suiter
Bid 3NT otherwise

Your 3NT should never end up as the final contract, because partner has denied all interest in NT by bidding 3C. This bid denies any extremely unbalanced hand, by failing the criteria for all the higher preferences; this is valuable to partner in assessing level and denomination.

If partner continues with 4C over any of these calls, you can pass. If partner bids a new suit this continues the force, and you must choose between:

bid a new suit to show your value and promise 4+ support in partner's second suit;
Jump in a new suit to show a singleton and  4+ support for partner's second suit;
single-raise partner's suit with 3 or 4 of them.
preference back to clubs with exactly 2 of them.

No other possibilities exist. This scheme is not in any way conventional, but simply common-sense natural bidding. Even the splinter jump has become a natural call, as what is termed an "impossible value-showing hand", and thus must be the exact opposite of it's literal meaning: instead of strong, length-showing denying support, it must be weak, shortness showing, and confirming support. While not all partners will recognize this call, all experts will.

If partner bids 4NT over your rebid this is Blackwood (with clubs as trump if you play key-card), and consequently forcing.


Damage assignment with multiple attackers and blockers

The defending player chooses which creatures block which attacking creatures, so your opponent can choose to either

have each 1/2 block a different 4/4
have both 1/2s block the same 4/4

The attacking player chooses how to distribute damage of the 4/4s. If a 4/4 is blocked, it cannot deal damage to the defending player. In case 1, all 4 damage is dealt to the 1/2 blocking it, so the blockers are destroyed. In case 2, the attacking player can (but is not required to, see below) divide the damage evenly among the 1/2s, destroying them both; the other unblocked 4/4 deals its combat damage to the player. Therefore, case 1 is preferable for the defending player.
It's possible to choose another distribution of damage among blocking creatures, e.g. 4 to one of them and 0 to the other, for example if some of the damage would be prevented with e.g. Cover of Winter (thanks @CALEBF for the suggestion). But a blocked creature (without trample) can only deal combat damage to creatures blocking it. The actual rules can be quite complicated when multiple blockers are involved which can't be all dealt lethal damage; see below.

510.1c A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. If exactly one creature is blocking it, it assigns all its combat damage to that creature. If two or more creatures are blocking it, it assigns its combat damage to those creatures according to the damage assignment order announced for it. This may allow the blocked creature to divide its combat damage. However, it can’t assign combat damage to a creature that’s blocking it unless, when combat damage assignments are complete, each creature that precedes that blocking creature in its order is assigned lethal damage. When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s actually dealt. An amount of damage that’s greater than a creature’s lethal damage may be assigned to it.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). Vastwood Gorger can assign 3 damage to the Guardian and 2 damage to the Elves, 4 damage to the Guardian and 1 damage to the Elves, or 5 damage to the Guardian.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). During the declare blockers step, the defending player casts Giant Growth targeting Pride Guardian, which gives it +3/+3 until end of turn. Vastwood Gorger must assign its 5 damage to the Guardian.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). During the declare blockers step, the defending player casts Mending Hands targeting Pride Guardian, which prevents the next 4 damage that would be dealt to it. Vastwood Gorger can assign 3 damage to the Guardian and 2 damage to the Elves, 4 damage to the Guardian and 1 damage to the Elves, or 5 damage to the Guardian.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Enormous Baloth (a 7/7 creature) is Trained Armodon (a 3/3 creature) that already has 2 damage marked on it, then Foriysian Brigade (a 2/4 creature that can block an additional creature), then Silverback Ape (a 5/5 creature). The damage assignment order of an attacking Durkwood Boars (a 4/4 creature) is the same Foriysian Brigade, then Goblin Piker (a 2/1 creature). Among other possibilities, the active player may have the Baloth assign 1 damage to the Armodon, 1 damage to the Brigade, and 5 damage to the Ape, and have the Boars assign 3 damage to the Brigade and 1 damage to the Piker.


Can Morbid be triggered after the Morbid creature is cast?

No, but not for the reason corsiKa states. The reason that you cannot do this is because the Ulvenwald Bear's triggered ability has an "intervening if clause." For triggered abilities with intervening if clauses, the condition is checked both when the triggered ability would be put on the stack and once again when it resolves.

  603.4. A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn’t true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the “intervening ‘if’ clause” rule. (The word “if” has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an “if” that immediately follows a trigger condition.)


Where can I find the rules for 7 Wonders and its expansions?

Yes, you can find them on the offical website of Repos Production (rprod.com):

7 Wonders base game

http://rprod.com/index.php?page=download-2 (there you can find the Quick Rules, too)

Czech (PDF)
Danish (PDF)
Dutch (PDF)
English (PDF)
Finnish (PDF)
French (PDF)
German (PDF)
Greek (PDF)
Hungarian (PDF)
Italian (PDF)
Japanese (PDF)
Korean (PDF)
Norwegian (PDF)
Polish (PDF)
Slovak (PDF)
Spanish (PDF)
Swedish (PDF)

Leaders expansion

http://rprod.com/index.php?page=download-3

English (PDF)
French (PDF)
German (PDF)

Cities expansion

http://rprod.com/index.php?page=download

Dutch (PDF)
English (PDF)
French (PDF)
German (PDF)
Japanese (PDF)
Spanish (PDF)

Wonder Pack extension

http://rprod.com/index.php?page=download-12

Dutch (PDF)
English (PDF)
French (PDF)
German (PDF)
Spanish (PDF)

Babel extension

http://rprod.com/index.php?page=download-18 (there you can find the Quick Rules, too)

Dutch (PDF)
English (PDF)
French (PDF)
German (PDF)
Italian (PDF)
Japanese (PDF)
Polish (PDF)
Spanish (PDF)

Official FAQ

English (PDF)
French (PDF)


Is there an official Spanish Scrabble Dictionary?

Here's a nice picture of a Spanish tileset that I found: http://gtoal.com/wordgames/details/spanish/

That page links through to the FISE webpages (Federacion Internacional de Scrabble en Espanol), where it is claimed that as of 2009:

  El diccionario oficial de Scrabble es la versión 1.0-2003 (edición
  electrónica) del Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia
  Española (DRAE).

Hope that helps your investigations!


Is each card equally likely to be a Maverick?

Due to the low occurrence rates of mavericks it's impossible to state conclusively;
but, based on available data of registered decks, mavericks have a similar rarity curve to their non-maverick counterparts (8ishC:3U:1R:0S),
with the exception for some cards that specifically reference their own house (e.g. Wardrummer).

In total just over 4% of decks have at least a single maverick, and no decks have more than 3.


Can a player just remove traits or must he replace traits.
Yes, they can. While the original rules didn't allow this, the most recent rules allows one to remove any number of traits from any number of creatures in the Play a Trait step.

Play a Trait
A player may place a Trait Card facedown above one of his species.  A species may not have any duplicate Trait Cards and may not have more than 3 Trait Cards. A player may discard one or more Trait Cards from any of his species at this time.

Can you have a longneck carnivore?
Yes, but the Long Neck has no effect.

Carnivores may never take Plant Food, even with other traits such as Long Neck, Cooperation, or Foraging.

Do you inform what card you will be replacing immediately or do you reveal your traits and then determine what you will be replacing?
Before the next player starts playing cards.
The original version of the rules made it crystal clear that the discard must happen before you play the Trait Card facedown. The updated rules are a little laxer. Discarding Trait Cards is done as part of playing Trait Cards, and you must be done this before the next player starts doing the same.

Starting with the First Player, a player may play as many Trait Cards as he wants, or save them for the next round. There are three things a player can do (in any order) with each Trait Card when it is his turn.


A soft plastic sleeve (like the ultrapro or dragonshields used when playing a deck) in the mail is not enough support, and cards shipped that way that I have received have come in damaged. The best way to ship is in the rigid plastic top loaders, after that between two pieces of cardboard or poster board, something more rigid than the card(s) in the middle that will protect what you are shipping. Almost all cards I have received are one of these two ways, and none of those have ever been damaged during shipping.

If you use cardboard or poster board, you need to tape the pieces together, so they do not slide apart and the card slide out during shipping. A single piece of tape over the opening of a top-loader can also help, particularly with some top loaders that are larger than others. There is less risk of the card sliding out of the top-loader than there is of it sliding out from between two free floating pieces of cardboard, but the risk is still there.

As for what you ship them in, any envelope card size or larger will do. Magic the Gathering cards are Poker* sized cards are 3.5" by 2.5" and top-loaders are 4" by 3". The smallest envelope according to USPS rules that qualifies as a letter (for standard stamp usage) is 5" by 3.5" so anything around that size works perfectly to fit a top-loader.

*Yu Gi Oh cards are slightly smaller Bridge size cards at 3.5" by 2.25"


Karlov attacking together with a lifelink creature

All damage is dealt at the same time, so Karlov of the Ghost Council will only get the +1/+1 counters after it has dealt damage.*

Combat Damage Step

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.
510.2. Second, all combat damage that’s been assigned is dealt simultaneously.

*Unless the Lifelink creature also has First Strike or Double Strike


In Texas Hold'em, who is awarded second and third place in this scenario?

Here, the important factor is that Player B and Player C both lost to, and were "busted" by Player A's hand. Not that Player C's hand beats Player B's.

If two players "bust out" on the same hand, then the prizes are awarded in DESCENDING chip order as of BEFORE the mutual bust. That is Player B comes in ahead of Player C.

If Player C had sat out with 50 chips, and only Player B was busted, Player C would continue. (And probably win second place unless he were able to stage a complete reversal.)


In Pegs & Jokers must I go past home in order to use a card I'm holding?

Yes, you need to move past your home spot.

I've found an explanation and detailing of the rules here. This website states:

  You must always use the full value of the card played. For example when playing a 6 you must move a peg forward 6 holes, no less. If you play a 6 when you have a peg on your in-spot and all your other pegs in the start area, you must move your peg on along the main track, since there is not room in the home track for a move of 6.


Game I thought was called "By Popular Demand"

By Popular Demand is still played in games 'zine Variable Pig (and possibly others) and their rules are online at https://www.variablepig.org/rules/bypop.html


What happens when you have multiple copies of Nine Lives on the board?

Nine Lives second ability is a prevention effect not a triggered ability:

CR 615.1a Effects that use the word “prevent” are prevention effects. [...]

When there are two Nine Lives on the battlefield, the interactions are resolved according to:

CR 616.1. If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object’s controller [...] or the affected player chooses one to apply [...]

In this case you would choose on which copy of Nine Lives to put the counter, effectively giving you 17 lives.


How do I handle casting a spell with a cost of X when the casting cost is reduced?

When you cast a spell with X in its mana cost, you first choose X, then calculate the total cost including cost reduction, then you pay the resulting amount. Effectively, when a spell's cost is reduced by 2, you can cast it for X=2 for the same mana cost as with X=0

When you want to cast a spell with X anywhere in the card's text (usually the casting cost), you have to announce which value X is going to have:

  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.[..]

Then you calculate the actual mana cost that you have to pay, at which time you consider cards like Arcane Melee. Arcane Melee only reduces generic mana costs, and any value below zero is considered zero, so there is no such thing as -2 generic mana:

  601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell.[..] The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If multiple cost reductions apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can't be reduced to less than {0}. [..]

Finally you pay the calculated amount:

  601.2h The player pays the total cost in any order. [..]

Therefore, you are correct in that you could announce Prosperity with X=2 and pay only {U} with Arcane Melee in play. You could also announce it with X=1 or X=0 if you want, drawing one or no card. In those cases, you would still pay {U}.


What's the difference between the versions of Cards Against Humanity?

Changes to the base game are discussed here. There is also some additional information on this thread included photos showing old and new versions.

Between the original and version 1.2, it seems like they got rid of a lot of cards that mention proper names. It seems that cards mentioning Glenn Beck have been removed in 1.3. The second post indicates that at least 8 black cards were replaced and 80+ white cards were changed (though some changes seem small) between the version that came out in early 2012 and the previous one.

This page also has a link to a PDF file (must login) that lists some changes for the first expansion (v1.2 Changelog). Here is a summary:

A bunch of white cards were added:

A pluger to the face
The ooze
Clenched butt cheeks
Stockholm Syndrome
Salvia
Syphilitic insanity

Some white cards removed:

Appreciative snapping
Dancing with a broom
Good grammar
Pistol-whipping a hostage
Slow motion
The Fanta girls

A few minor corrections as well.

A bunch of black cards were also modified:

Orig: My plan for world domination begins with _ / New: He who controls _ controls the world
Orig: Science will never explain the origin _ / New: Science will never explain _
Orig: Next season on Man vs Wild, Bear Grylls must survive in the depths of the Amazon with only _ and his wits / New: This season on Man vs Wild, Bear Grylls must survive in the depths of the Amazon with only _ and his wits


Can I pay some of the cost of an activated ability lots of times to get more out of the effect?

You can sacrifice one and only one goblin. MTG cards are very specific in their language: it says "a goblin", so you can sacrifice a goblin, not two goblins, not three goblins. If the card was designed to let you sacrifice multiple goblins, it would say

  {T}, sacrifice any number of goblins: Tar Pitcher deals 2 damage to any target for each goblin sacrificed. You may choose different targets for each one.

(it would also be overpowered given the ease of creating goblin tokens)


Does Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar die to Fall of the Thran?

Multani does not die to Fall of the Thran, or any other mass land destruction effect, for two different reasons.

First, there is no such thing as being "between zones". When lands get destroyed, they go directly from the battlefield to the graveyard. So, there is never a time when Multani is a 0/0.

Second, dying due to having 0 toughness is a state based action, and those are never checked in the middle of a spell or ability resolving. So even if a similar effect caused Multani to briefly be a 0/0 in the middle of resolution, Multani would stay alive if it has more than 0 toughness after the effect is done resolving.


How do Gatherer Rulings interact with existing rules?

The rulings on Gatherer are simply applications of the Comprehensive Rules, taking what the card actually says and applying the rules. They don't change how cards work.

You could indeed deduce all rulings, but it's still incredibly helpful to provide them because the Comprehensive Rules are quite long and detailed and often abstract, so to most players it won't even be clear where to look for things, and of course if you're in the middle of a game you want a quick answer.

The rulings do also often clarify or explain the actual words on the card, that is, some of the deduction does also involve understanding English. For example, one of Wild Evocation's rulings is:

  If a player reveals a nonland card, that player must cast that card if it's possible to do so, even if he or she doesn't want to. ...

and that's because Wild Evocation says "the player casts it" not "the player may cast it." There's nothing in the comprehensive rules that's really going to explain that, it's just understanding what the words mean.


Is it possible to play 2 of a kind or 3 of a kind while I'm blinded by the Curse of the Cat Butt?

When playing blind, you can only play one card at a time.
Curse of the Cat Butt is a clone/replacement of Blind as a Bat and follows the same rules.
Blind as a Bat instructions:

any cards must be played blind (pick one blindly, and place it face up on the Discard pile).

The expression of the Curse of the Cat Butt rules/instructions tried to clarify some points but ended up with this one point muddled. It's still kinda in there, though:

On their turn, if the blind player decides to play any cards, those cards must be picked randomly and played face up on the Discard Pile. If the card is playable, play as normal.

The way to reconcile the shift from plural to singular is to read it like Blind as a Bat:
Cards are played to the discard pile, and each time, if the card (singular) is playable, ...


Do bestow count toward cards that say "when [sub-type] enters on the battlefield"

According to the definition of "Bestow" (702.102a), the card will enter as an Aura spell.

  "Bestow [cost]" means "You may cast this card by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost." and "If you chose to pay this spell’s bestow cost, it becomes an Aura enchantment and gains enchant creature.

The game will remove the Creature type from the card. Since Human is a subtype of Creature and not a subtype of Aura, the card loses the Human subtype per 205.1a

  "If an object's card type is removed, the subtypes correlated with that card type will remain if they are also the subtypes of a card type the object currently has; otherwise, they are also removed for the entire time the object's card type is removed."

The ability won't trigger since the card does not have the subtype Human.


Can We Find a Middle Ground on the Russia First Turn Attack Rule In Allies and Axis?

Another option (in addition to the fighter option, perhaps) would be to prohibit (or limit) what German naval units can be attacked by Russia on the opening move.

When I play Russia and am allowed to attack on the opening move I aim to:

Wipe out the transport and sub in the Baltic Sea Zone with my two fighters. This carries a bit of risk because if the transport hits I lose a fighter and Russian fighters are essential. Another downer for the Germans when I make this move is that their sub is pinned in the Baltic Sea Zone since the UK Sea Zone is occupied.
Remove the German sub from the Span Sea Zone. If I'm feeling lucky I'll use just my Russian sub, but more generally I use my sub and transport.

With these moves, Germany is going to have a hard time taking out both the Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets in the first turn, and will likely suffer some crippling loses if they attempt to do so. That means:

Less chance for Germany to take and hold Africa for any appreciable amount of time,
A quicker introduction of the "shuck-shuck" strategy, and
Less chance of any sort of counter-attack against the UK sea zone in an attempt to slow the inevitable.

In short, successfully weakening the German navy at the very start of the game puts even more pressure on Japan to break through to Russia before the US gets into full "shuck-shuck" swing.


Is there any good cure in Midway for Japan's lack of search capabilities?

There are some differences in play between the original (60s) and updated (90s) editions of Midway - not least of which is where ships come into the game from (the newer edition uses hexes instead of a uniform grid, too). Based on this question mentioning the 7 squares rule, I'll assume (and answer as if) you're looking at the older edition.

There's not really a "need" to compensate for the Japanese player's fewer searches. Using a T1 or D1 (or F1) to search, I suppose, could be done, but you should be able to extend those out to 14 squares (the limit of a plane's range) - and allow a kamikaze attack by that plane (or squadron, if you sent more than one) if they happen to find anything .. might even consider upping their AF by 1, reducing their die roll by one, decreasing the DF by 1 of the ship, or a combination of the three. Of course, if they find nothing, you've lost those aircraft.

You might cut the number of American searches to 3 from 4, but that's not a big difference either.


When playing units in battle the only choices available are to start a new front, or attack an existing enemy front if there are any - you cannot add more units to an existing front.

From the rulebook (page 24 under the section Starting A New Front):

  There can never be more than one unit in a front.


Is it correct to infer a second, third etc place in board games with a score?

Tl;dr: Players' meta-goals do affect gameplay. And unless all players have the same goals, the entire concept of "best player" isn't well defined, let alone "second best", etc.

First a bit of game-theory framework. Let's say each player has a "utility function" which takes as input the game end-state and gives as output how much "utility" they get - an abstract stand-in for happiness, bragging rights, etc. As an example, you might assign yourself 10/1/0 utils for getting 1st/2nd/3rd highest score in the game. A player's ultimate goal is solely to maximize their own expected utility, regardless of how much their opponents get. (Most utility functions in most games, however, are set up so that maximizing your own utility also minimizes your opponents' - e.g. if all players are using that example function, then to maximize yours you have to get more in-game points than everyone else, which minimizes theirs.)

Your choice of utility function absolutely affects gameplay. You give a bunch of accurate examples of this, so I won't go into it.

Now to the philosophy.

There isn't one "correct" utility function. Some games may have been made with one in mind - as you mention, some rules emphasize the winner while others tell you how to rank the players. But if one player is almost as happy with 2nd as 1st and another only really celebrates when they win outright, neither is likely to convince the other that they're wrong. Not only that but in most situations there's no need to - these two can happily play at the same table, each pursuing their slightly different goals. (Though as a sidenote, if these differences in goals remain hidden then some moves may appear irrational. This can lead to hard feelings, so it can be a good idea to discuss where you stand on this spectrum before you play.)

However, players who are playing with different functions are effectively playing (perhaps only slightly) different games. After all, since function affects gameplay, what is objectively a good move for one player might be a bad move for another! Thus if your goal in "inferring positions beyond the winner" is to determine how good the players are at the game relative to each other, well you can't even be certain about inferring that the winner is the best, let alone the other places!

As a concrete example, let's say you have a 3-player game in which Alice is average - say she can get 1st/2nd/3rd place 30%/40%/30% of the time. Bob starts out objectively better - he can get 1st/2nd/3rd place 35%/60%/5%. Then Alice decides she hates getting second and from now on makes a desperation push for 1st every single time, which fails more often than not, so her new values are 40%/0%/60%. I will now tell two stories. In the first story, Bob knows how to do the desperation move but he's happy with second place so he doesn't think it's worth it. Thus Alice wins more often than Bob (40% vs 35%), but Bob is still the better player. In the second story, there's a massive cash prize awarded to first place, and Bob can't figure out how to pull off that desperation move himself - he watches in frustration as Alice walks away with the prize 40% of the time. In this story, the percentages are exactly the same but this time Alice is clearly the better player.

Thus, unless you have a way of forcing everyone to use the same utility function, you might be unable to determine any rank - even best player - since the entire concept of best player isn't well defined. Luckily, this isn't usually a big problem since the people who really want to rank the players often do have a way of forcing everyone to use (roughly) the same utility function: those people are tournament hosts and that way is prizes. So when you're playing for fun you're welcome to your own concept of victory, and when you're in a tournament, well the prize for 1st in the second story above is not only the reward for being the best but also the reason we can define who's the best.


The penalty for an established revoke, as this was, is one trick plus return of the revoke trick itself if you won that. So you would properly have forfeited the 13th trick, plus possibly the 11th trick under the condition above.

There is also a provision for the Director to assess an additional penalty if required to restore equity. It is unlikely that such a circumstance could arise on the 11th trick.


How do Lazav, Dimir Mastermind and Vigor work together in Magic the Gathering?

Nope, when an ability on an object refers to itself by name it means "this object."

  201.4b If an ability of an object refers to that object by name, and an object with a different name gains that ability, each instance of
  the first name in the gained ability that refers to the first object
  by name should be treated as the second name.

  Example: Quicksilver
  Elemental says, in part, “{U}: Quicksilver Elemental gains all
  activated abilities of target creature until end of turn.” If it gains
  an ability that says “{G}: Regenerate Cudgel Troll,” activating that
  ability will regenerate Quicksilver Elemental, not the Cudgel Troll it
  gained the ability from.

  Example: Glacial Ray is an instant with
  “splice onto Arcane” that says “Glacial Ray deals 2 damage to target
  creature or player.” If it’s spliced onto a Kodama’s Reach, that
  Kodama’s Reach deals 2 damage to the target creature or player.

  Example: Dimir Doppelganger says “{1}{U}{B}: Exile target creature
  card from a graveyard. Dimir Doppelganger becomes a copy of that card
  and gains this ability.” Dimir Doppelganger’s ability is activated
  targeting a Runeclaw Bear card. The Doppelganger becomes a copy of
  Runeclaw Bear and gains an ability that should be treated as saying
  “{1}{U}{B}: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Runeclaw Bear
  becomes a copy of that card and gains this ability.”

If the name were to be used literally, the text would read "a creature you control not named Vigor" instead of "a creature you control other than Vigor".