What's a good source of generic pieces/components? I'm interested in building up a decent collection of generic components that I can grab when I want to throw together a quick prototype of a game. I'm not aware of any "component collections" that you can actually buy (I guess there may not be much of a market for them) but if I'm wrong, feel free to link me to one.

I expect then, that what I'm looking for is a game that has good value-for-money for the components since that's all I'm interested in. For that reason, the actual gameplay or rules are irrelevant to me.

As for the components themselves, I expect I'd be looking at a Euro for plentiful generic pieces (more Ameritrash games tend to have components that aren't particularly generic; I'd rather they not be moulded spaceships, or treasure chests or animals or whatever). For instance, I'm looking for lots of cubes in various colours, maybe a few meeples in different colours too. Cards aren't so important to me since they can be easily prototyped from index cards etc. Agricola came to mind when I first thought about it, but that's quite pricey. (But who knows? Maybe the price-per-component value is actually quite good).

I'm aware that prices etc differ in different places, so I'm not looking for a game guaranteed to be available cheaply near me, but I'd be interested to hear how people have solved this problem in the past.

Update: Thanks for the tips guys! The online resources look really good, but are all based in the US and I'm based in the UK! If anyone knows of any online solutions that can cheaply ship to the UK that would be great. The cost of shipping from the US kind of counteracts the cheapness in the first place!

You have several options if you want to collect a large set of generic components so that you can throw your own prototype together.

Thrift Store games you buy just for the components

If you frequent thrift stores regularly, you can pick up cheap games ($2-$4 usually) specifially just to harvest the components from them. Some good examples from the list above are (with linked pictures of the components):

Scrabble : 100 Wooden Tiles. The backs are blank, or you could have the letters have some meaning within your game, or cover up the letters with stickers.
Risk : Colored Wooden Cubes/Plastic Stars. Old and Classic Editions come with wooden cubes.
Yahtzee Jr. : 1" indented Cubes. Useful if you want to make custom dice.
Advance to Boardwalk : 4 Colors of 20 stackable squares. Upwwords comes with stackable letters.
Trumpet : Cards numbered 1-11 in 6 different suits, when you want to design 5-6 player games and a standard deck won't do.
Bottletops : Hundreds of Wooden disks, most white, some red.
Bingo/Sequence : The $1 Store version of these usually come with red plastic "tiddlywinks", or numbered cardboard chits (useful for wargaming).
Pente : Colored glass beads in two colors.
Monopoly/Global Pursuit - Paper money.
Dicecapades : More dice than you will know what do do with.
Sorry/Pachisi : 4 Colored pawns in 4 colors.

Buy a Piecepack or similar game system

Piecepack is a game system that comes with some predefined generic playing pieces. It is an open board game development platform. Anyone can design and release their own games using Piecepack components, and there will already be an installed player base with the components to play it. The components are offered by different vendors, this one is $30, the components in a standard Piecepack are listed here.

There are other game systems like IceHouse (I am not certain of the openness of this game system. Looney Labs owns a patent on it, but it may have expired), and Orion. For more information, see this page.

Buy generic components from websites.

Print-N-Play productions offers a wide selection of colored wooden bits, meeples, dice, and other game accessories.

Educational Supply stores offer colored wooden/plastic cubes, colored tiles, and other tools that could be used to prototype a board game. I have purchased a tub of 1000 plastic 1 cm. cubes from a local educational supply store for about $22, although prices will vary by the size of the supplier.

Anyone willing to spend more money to get large numbers of pieces such as cubes may want to read my blog post:
 Generic plastic/wood game pieces you can buy for prototypes
(or for full production?)

http://pulsiphergamedesign.blogspot.com/2014/03/generic-plasticwood-game-pieces-you-can.html


Can a player join after the preflop? Can a player join an active game after the pre-flop?
if so what would be the conditions? (for example if he sits between the smallBlind  and the bigBlind

Thanks!

No. A player can join a game before cards are being dealt. In that event he usually pays an out-of-turn big blind to avoid people joining the game at opportune moments or skipping the blinds.
House rules may apply.

Yes. I've seen it happen and no one spontaneously combusted!

Please note that house rules apply. In most casinos, tournaments, and formal games, joining a hand at any point after the cards have begun to be dealt is strictly prohibited. However, in my personal experience at many friendly home games, house rules permit a player that is perhaps late to the table or still rebuying chips to receive cards and buy into the hand. Of course, for ethical reasons, this should either be expressly covered by your house rules or mutually agreed upon by all in the hand when extending this courtesy.

In one home game, we have this scenario happen so often that we have house rules for exactly when it is allowed and which cards are dealt to the entering player: We allow it when there have yet to be any raises, allow the person to return to their position, or if they are new, seat them UTG and they act immediately upon receiving the next two cards from the top of the un-flopped deck.

In your example asking about if it were a new player and they were to sit between the small and big blinds, we usually prevent that placement via house rules about where a new player is allowed to join (as close to UTG (next big blind) as possible). If a player returns to the table having been gone while the blinds pass their position, if they had not been blinded in automatically, we charge them the blinds they missed in advance when they return. So a player added in the Under the Gun position would be able to fold for free, and be big blind on the next hand.

However, if there were no house rule about joining position, I assume the new player that sat between the small and big blind positions would play in order, be forced to at least call the big blind (sort of a two-in-a-row big blind penalty for entering in the worst manner) and of course the actual big blind would retain the benefit of the final "option" given no previous raises.


Short-version of Settlers of Catan What are some rule changes that shorten the game, and what drawbacks do those changes have?

Please limit your answers to rules changes with which you have first-hand experience!

We've tried to replace the robber with a more benevolent figure (we used a LEGO Dumbledore microfig but you can just reuse the robber figure and call it, say, a magician)

When you roll a 7, move the magician to the tile you want
If the number on which the magician sits is rolled, all tiles overlooked by the magician get double the ressources for that turn

We came up with that because we don't like the robber that much, and it sped up the game quite a bit. Now, I suppose any house rule which gives more ressources would shorten the game length, but with that one is slightly strategic in nature.

Of course there's also the bog-standard way to change the duration of the game: instead of 10 victory points, aim for less (8 for example). As long as you agree before starting the game :-)

I have also heard of the playing with the resource cards face up but I hate this house rule because it takes away the fun of bluffing. Here's a couple suggestions:

Come up with a standard way to phrase the bartering. I'm not sure how to do this but there has to be some way to avoid those confusions where people themselves want the same resource as you. Maybe players could say either: I want X, or I have X.
Allow players to pick a random resource whenever they don't gain a resource from the dice roll.
Institute a penalty for not passing the dice when your turn is over. Either losing a random resource card or losing a turn, depending on how harsh you want to be.
Find one of those 1 minute hour glass things used in games like Pictionary and use that to make players take shorter turns. You could have a lose a turn penalty for going over too.
Last, play to a smaller number of points. I like this the least as it doesn't allow for the normal progression of the game.

The items above with strikeout are ideas that I have not personally tried, at least not exactly as written. I didn't see that part of the question before. Feel free to edit/delete this answer if you like.


Can I pocket and cover the Queen in a single strike and win? If I pocket my last C/m and the Queen in a single strike, is this a win or a lose or do you put the pieces in the center again?

"If while shooting for the Queen you also sink one of your pieces, the Queen is automatically covered, no matter which went in first." Carrom.org

By this rule the game would be won along with the bonus for the Queen.

If queen goes first, then the cover goes, then it is secured; otherwise you have to cover it.


What's the etymology of the name Eldraine? Ravnica is based on a Serbo-Croatian word for plain.

And the other planes, like Phyrexia (basically "land of Phyresis") seem to have etymologies for their names...

So, what's the etymology of the name Eldraine?

I think the name comes from two words, Old and Land.

Eld is part of the word "elder". Other answers think that it relates to "Eldritch" but "Eldritch" also just means old.

Raine is like in "Ukraine" which literately translates to Borderland
From Wiktionary

  1651 Ukrain, 1671 Ukraine, 1688 Ucrania, Ukrania, 1762 Ocraine.
  Adaptation of Polish Ukraina, Russian Украи́на (Ukraína), or Ukrainian
  Украї́на (Ukrajína), from the specific use, originally meaning
  “borderland”

Now clearly Wizards took liberty with this. I am not sure the R in the world was taken correctly, but in our minds "-ania" is a place, and many fantasy writers use this.

So the game Land of Old fits perfectly for a place full of Arthurian knights and fairy tales

This is speculation without WotC citation, but my guess would be:

First part coming from eldritch, it's own etymology described here.

Less certain about the second part (maybe it just sounded good), but in both English and French the suffix -aine means "approximately".


Negative and Infinite ATK in Yugioh Two questions:

(-1)
Everyone I've spoke to says that you cannot have negative ATK, why?  It's not in the rule book so it seems that if I could reduce the ATK of an opponent to become negative then in the event I attack them, my ATK would be applied then they would attack themselves (the value equal to the absolute value of their negative ATK value).

(∞)
I've heard from a few sources that after the ATK points reach a certain value (over 9999 maybe? by any means possible) that the value becomes infinite, is this true?  I realize there are some cards which are not legal for play which have infinite ATK values, but is there any rule that states a sufficiently high finite ATK "becomes" infinite.

1)  No, negative numbers are not possible on monsters.  It is true that this is not explicitly stated in any of the official rulebooks.  However, it is most common that such values in games refer to non-negative integers, and therefore it can be assumed that it is the case unless otherwise stated.  It is the responsibility of the rulebook to explicitly state if negatives were allowed, not the other way around.

2)  No.  There is noting even remotely true about the statement, to the point of which the very concept seems rather random.  It's possible that such a glitch might exist in one of the video games, and that your friend might have been referring to that.  Even so, that is an unintentional (and theoretical) computer glitch, and does not reflect on the real game, which is not limited by such issues.

(1) Negative numbers are allowed, because lack of evidence to say that something isn't allowed is not evidence that negative numbers are lacking (in the game).  The very fact that it was not mentioned in the rule books suggests that it is allowed.  The most natural explanation is that such a monster would directly attack its owner's life points if it were to attack another monster and it would be destroyed as well.  Further, we must allow negative numbers for the following reason:

Suppose for a moment that we do allow them; now suppose that I reduce your ATK points to below zero (by whatever means).  Now, suppose on your next turn you summon a monster or use a spell, so that you add ATK points to every monster (or just one); would it be fair for you to add those points as if you were at zero to start with.... absolutely not!  You should first add enough points to raise the monster to zero ATK then apply the rest.  As an example, suppose I lower your 300 ATK monster by -500, then on your turn you add +1,000 ATK to that monster, you are now at 800 ATK and not 1000 ATK.

As a corollary, monsters with 0 ATK can successfully attack negative ATK monsters and not be destroyed.

(2) As far as infinite numbers, I completely agree that no finite number "becomes" infinite at any point; I was merely told that it was a rule; it clearly is not.


Does die unfairness visibly influence real-world games? I'm thinking about designing some custom dice, and the easiest way to prototype would just be to put stickers/paint on wooden cubes.

Does their fairness (clearly imperfect, especially so with artisanal dice) actually come up in real life, or is die fairness more of a theoretical problem? How can I roll dice so that their "unfairness" is dampened?

How often have you noticed a die being unfair in real life?

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

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

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

It's definitely not just theoretical - if say in Settlers of Catan one of your dice was unfair, it would skew the probabilities of the number coming up and thus screwing up the strategy.

Fair dice also makes it easier to properly balance the game. I would suggest using website such a http://anydice.com/ to verify your game is properly balanced.


What are some alternatives to using dice in Settlers of Catan? In Settlers of Catan, there's a variant where instead of rolling the dice, you use a stack of 36 cards with each combination. This reduces the luck component, but has as disadvantage that you can predict future rolls to some extent.

The iPhone Catan game also allows this rule variant.

Have you tried this and do you think it's an improvement?

EDIT: Have you tried other methods of reducing the importance of luck?

The card system that you describe is not just a variant, it is an official expansion, Catan: Event Cards, which includes not only the rolls (in the form of the totals with the appropriate distribution) but also red dice for Cities and Knights and a selection of minor game events.


If I buy a Mint, do I still get to use the coins from the treasures I played that turn to buy a Grand Market? In the  Prosperity rules it says "if you have 11 coppers in play and 2 Buys, you could buy a Mint, trash all of your played Treasures, and then buy a Grand Market." My question is: What are you going to buy the Grand Market with if you have trashed all your treasures?

Just because you trashed the coppers doesn't mean you haven't earned the coins for that turn (and can spend them).  Their value to you is accrued when you play them.

Per the Prosperity rules you must play all treasures you want to use, before you buy cards.  The rules for Mint state:

  If you buy multiple cards in a turn, trash your Treasures right when
  you buy Mint; you still have any leftover coins they produced for spending
  on something else.

So the order would be:

Play 11 coppers
Have 11 coins to spend and 2 buys
Purchase a Mint (have 6 coins left to spend and 1 buy)
Resolve the Mint card and trash all coppers (still have 6 coins and 1 buy to spend)
Purchase Grand Market (valid because no coppers are in play).

The other answer here is incorrect. All your coppers are gone when you buy the Mint; you spent $11 to buy the $5 Mint card and the remaining $6 is squandered.

However, you still can buy a Grand Market if you have +$ from the actions you've played. For example, if you've played 3 Festivals for +$6, then you can buy a Grand Market after you buy the Mint and trash all the Coppers.


What happens when a commander is exiled? Let's say you have a commander on the field, and an opponent uses Sisters Of Stone Death to force your commander to block the sisters and then exiles your commander?  Does it remain exiled, or does it go back to your commander zone?

The rule is

  If a commander would be put into a library, hand, graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead.

(See mtgcommander.net)

So, in this case, you get to choose whether it goes into exile or the command zone. If you put it in the command zone, then your opponent can't use the Sisters' other ability to bring it back, of course.

Several important nuances:

You don't have to put your commander back in the command zone. This is handy if, for instance, you can't afford to hardcast your commander, but you've got a reanimation spell in your hand.
Going to the command zone is a replacement effect, so your commander will never actually hit the graveyard or the exile zone, and won't trigger "on exile" or "on graveyard" triggers. E.g. if you are playing Keiga as your commander, you don't actually get to steal a creature if you put Keiga in the command zone when it dies.
Owner, not controller. Even if someone else Mind-Controls your commander, you still get to pick whether it goes back into your command zone.
You only get a choice when the commander is about to go to the new zone. So, if you put it into the graveyard, it'll stay there. If someone exiles it from your graveyard, then "would be put into ... exile from anywhere" applies again, so you can scoop your commander back into the command zone. Mimeoplasm, for example, can copy a dead commander like any other creature card in your graveyard, but at least you can put that commander back in your command zone since it gets exiled (Mimeoplasm still comes into play as the copy).
Recasting your commander from your hand doesn't cost extra like bringing it back from the command zone does; nor does it count for figuring out how many times you've cast it from the command zone already.
Rare card interactions can cause a card to move from one zone to the same zone. If that happens to your commander, fear not: you do still get the option to put it in the command zone. See this answer for a detailed explanation.

Whenever a Commander is exiled or enters the graveyard, they are returned to toe command zone.

The only zones your commander remains in are:

Command zone
Battlefield
Hand
Library

A good strategy for commander removal is to put them on the bottom of their owner's library. This is a bit mean, however, and may not make you many friends :)


Does "cards with the same name can't be played" affect tokens? So a friend of mine has a card with the ability "Name a card. Cards that share a name with that card cannot be played."

My question is does this work on tokens?

I play a zombie token deck mainly, and this would cause a big hiccup to my ability to win the game.

Can I "play" a token?

No. You can still produce zombie tokens even if you are not allowed to play Zombie. "Play" has a very specific meaning in Magic:

  701.11b To play a card means to play that card as a land or to cast that card as a spell, whichever is appropriate.

When instructed to name a card, can I name a token instead?

It depends. If a token has the same name as a card, then you can name it. Here are a few examples:

Pack Rat creates tokens that are also named Pack Rat.
Meloku the Clouded Mirror creates Illusion tokens, but Illusion is also the name of a card.

Zombie is not currently the name of a card, and so Zombie is not a legal choice when instructed to name a card. However, if Zombie were printed as a card in the future, then it would be a legal choice.

  201.3. If an effect instructs a player to name a card, the player must choose the name of a card that exists in the Oracle card reference (see rule 108.1) and is legal in the format of the game the player is playing. (See rule 100.6.) If the player wants to name a split card, the player must choose the name of one of its halves, but not both. (See rule 708.) If the player wants to name a flip card’s alternative name, the player may do so. (See rule 709.) If the player wants to name the back face of a double-faced card, the player may do so. (See rule 711.) A player may not choose the name of a token unless it’s also the name of a card.

Late comer to this thread. I think I have found a fundamental flaw in both question and answer. When your friend's card asks for the name of a card it's asking for the actual "Name" of the card such as "Devilhorn Fox", "Vengeful Pharaoh" or "Macarbre Waltz". The part a the very top of the card and it has to be exactly the same name name.

For example if your friend said "I ban the use of a card called "Zombie" and you have a card called "Zombie Initiate" you can still use it becuse it is not named "Zombie".

Now there's something else I would like to mention in the spirit of fair play. It seems from the information in your query that if he says "Zombie" you seem to think you can't play any Zombie creatuures. This is incorect. If the card's effect was "name a card type and sub-Type" annd he declared "Creature - Zombie" then you couldn't play zombie creatures for as long as that card effect was active. but the effect is targetting the card's "Name" only so having the name appearanywhere else in card has no bearing whatsoever on the card's effect.

So his card can't stop you playing zombie creatures just because he says zombie. it has to be in the card's name box at the top of the card. so I hope that cleats up your problem.


Cribbage score going out i.e. Player needs 4 points to go out.  The hand value is 3.  Does the Player get to go out with the added 1 point "Go"?

It's fine to go over in standard cribbage; the game is won by the first player or partnership to reach or exceed 121 points.

But remember the way things are scored: as they happen.

If that three points you mention was in play, such as opponent leads a 9, you play a 5, opponent plays a 6, and you play a 7, scoring three for the run in play, then the go from the opponent puts another 1 point score on the pile.

If it's a run in hand, however, it's scored only after the last card, starting with the player to the dealer's left and going left around the table (same as play order). If you are at 117 points, have a 3 point hand (say AJQK and a 2 up), and get the last card for 118, and the other guy is at 110 and gets 16 (AA23), it is determined by who scores hand first. If you dealt, you lose; if he dealt, you win. In three or four player non-partnership, if he's to your right, you've lost.

And remember: muggins can't be claimed until after the peg has been moved. Only on an overpeg would it prevent victory.

Also remember: if your scoring sheet shows last card separate from Go, there is no "go" on last card.

There is a common variant, called exact out, where you have to hit 121 exactly, and any score that would take one over is lost (but must be called out to prevent it being muggins-claimed).

No you have to get the exact number to be able to win. If not you let the other person go until one of you gets the right number.


How to bid and make a grand slam with 28 HCP between the partnership? The Common Game recently had this board in which the East-West pair usually ended up bidding and making a game contract of 3NT or 4 spades. Only 3 pairs of almost 1,000 bid and made grand slams; 42 pairs bid and made small slams. The question is, "How would you bid a slam with this hand?"

The answer is; you don’t.  Not with normal 2/1 methods, anyway; and even pretty out there methods would have a hard time finding this.
Why?  Because it’s dependent on so many things. The seven card heart fit AND the short jack. The spades splitting 2-2, or guessing the finesse.  The partnership has only eight top tricks, and the rest depend on distribution. In NT even a small slam is risky if you get a club lead!  No one would bid the grand knowing even every card in both hands for EW - you need 70% to bid a grand and you won’t get that here (hearts are 61% and spades are 46% roughly between the length and the finesse possibilities, so the grand is about 30-35%, plus some small chance for a club trick with a squeeze).  6S is probably the ideal bid double dummy (only the spade split is really a problem there, hearts don’t matter, and extra chances appear in clubs).
A normal 2/1 auction is simple here.
1NT - p - 2H - p
2S - p - 4S - pass out
Some would bid 3NT instead of 4S, and some would leave it there.  Some have ways of showing really good spades (superaccept), though KTx feels borderline to me for that. Could the spade hand see the slam?  I guess?  But 28 points and pretty average distribution beyond the one extra spade isn’t super exciting.
Some bidding systems are very control oriented very early on, for what it’s worth, and would find most or all of the eight trucks in the early going plus the space fit.  Things like this precision system would have a shot at the small slam I think.
Don’t assume that the few hands that bid the best score did so by being smarter than everyone else. Usually it’s that they were more risk-taking than usual, or misstated the strength of their hands, and got lucky. But for every top they get for this kind of thing they get four or five bottoms when they’re down 2 in grand slam and everyone else is making 4S+1.

A "seven" contract is basically unbiddable, because there aren't enough "salient" features in either hand to reasonably bid it. For instance, West has a six card spade suit, but five of those cards are weak, and opposite three little ones (not KTx), would have difficulty making even "six." Likewise, East has a "strong" AKQT sequence in hearts, but it is not "long" enough to count on extra tricks. And neither East nor West can reasonably deduce the "fit" below without "gambling" (or looking at each others' cards, or doing something illegal).
"Seven" can be easily made, because the cards all fall into place, and the E-W hands fit exactly. The AK of spades clear the spade suit, giving West a total of six spade tricks (four of them with small cards). West's AK of diamonds exactly "cover" East's two weak diamonds. East's A of clubs covers one of West's weak clubs. East's AKQ of hearts drop the J, making the ten "good," and a place to discard West's second weak club.


Remove roles based on number of players in Saboteur 2 I only played Saboteur 2 once, but I realize that it can very easily become unbalanced.

We have 6 players. In a round of the game, we have 2 gold diggers, 1 geologist, 3 saboteurs. The gold diggers stand no chance at all and are almost blocked (with broken tools) the entire game. Same for the geologist, since everyone else discards their road cards with crystals.

I find the game rule doesn't really make sense: choosing roles from the 15 dwarf cards regardless the number of players in the game. What if it was a three-person game, and everyone in the team is a saboteur? What fun do we have by playing that?

Should we remove some roles card depending on the number of players so that it is more balanced?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update:

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

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

I think you'd have more fun with 3 Gold Diggers, 2 Saboteours, and 1 geologist.  Having more traitors than good guys in a hidden-traitor game really discourages anyone from hiding their identity.


Can you raise a one bid with only two "filler" honors in a suit? Suppose partner bids one of a (five card) major. Normally you need three of the suit to raise.

But expert Marty Bergen has opined that if your suit has four honors, you can bid it as if were one card longer. Mr. Bergen also wrote, "When partner promises a six-card suit, you can support him with a singleton honor."

So if I have KJ (or KT or QJ) of my partner's suit, I'a going to play him for a suit with two more honors: AQxxx, ATxxx, or even QTxxx. In that case, partner and I would have four (possibly five) honors between us. And in the worst case (partner has xxxxx, we'd have two honors). So I'd raise to two with the aforementioned trump holding plus a side king, because I've "borrowed" an extra (small) trump for my bid, based on my interpretation of Bergen.

Is this a reasonable interpretation of Marty Bergen's dictums? Is this a reasonable move to make even if you don't always agree with Marty Bergen?

Certainly it's reasonable, whether or not you are a Bergen acolyte. But it ought to be a rare hand where raising with only two trump is more attractive than the alternatives. These situations come up more often in competition. For instance, if the auction started

(1C) 1S (2C)

I would be happy to raise to 2S with something like

AQ
Kxx
xxxxx
xxx

I agree with Pieter that if you have fewer trump than partner expects you ought to be near a maximum in high cards. This point was made many years ago by Edgar Kaplan.

On the whole, something like QJ is not quite as good as xxx, opposite xxxxx, even though there are some situations where it is better. More to the point, KQ is better than xxx because its sheer strength compensates for its lack of length. And KJ is an intermediate case because it is like a KQ if the opposing A is "onside" a finesse, and like a QJ if it is offside. A QJ may be regarded by some as an "adequate" substitute for xxx, but only in a "pinch." And it does have the potential to cause some partnership misunderstanding.

The disadvantage of the two high honors is that it gives a sixth card to the opponents, and possible distributions of 3-3, 4-2, 5-1, and even 6-0. An opposing 3-3 is no worse for you than a 3-2, but the 3-3 appears only 36% of the time compared to almost 68% for the 3-2 (you have eight small cards, the opponents have five). A 4-2 distribution is no worse than a 4-1, but your opponents get this 48% of the time, versus only 28%. So we have to look at the 20% "overage" for 4-2.

If your xxxxx in hand is actually T9xxx, then you're better off with the QJ because of the resulting sequence. They will fall to the AK, but your T9 will pick up the remaining opposing low cards and your fifth card will give you a third "long" trick. (T8 or 98 will also work of the opposing singleton is the missing intermediate card.) If my low cards are 65432, I'd rather have 987 opposite than QJ, because of the larger number of times that the opponents' 4-2 will give them four tricks in the suit than 4-1. Similar arguments hold for 5-1 versus 5-0.

My answer is the QJ. Declarer is likely to have Kxxxx, Axxxx, or even Txxxx, in which case, the QJ will be more valuable as "filler" than the extra low trump would be. It would even be helpful opposite AKxxx or AKTxxx.

With KQ opposite xxxxx, you're actually better off than with xxx. The KQ is a sure trick, and you will take a two "long tricks" (total of three) if your opponents have 3-3. If they have 4-2 with six cards you will take only two tricks, but you're no worse off than with and opposing 3-2 and no honors opposite.


Is Ticket To Ride Asia played with stations? In Ticket To Ride US Edition there was no stations, but in Europe Edition there were.

When playing Asia Edition, do you play with/without stations or is there no set rule about them?

I couldn't spot it in  the rules so I decided to go without stations, but I just wanted to check if there was a consensus on this.

Stations are specific to Europe and could potentially break (or perhaps make) games on other continents. Since Asia and other expansion maps can be played with both US and Europe base sets, the largest common denominator would be to not use stations in expansions.

I have not tried using stations for Asia or India, perhaps it could be worth a test run, but I can see discussions coming up on combinations with Mandalas for India. Asia is more traditional in style (read: more like US) and tension remains mostly because of possible blockage by other players.

I use the stations when I play Ticket to ride Asia. I think it is working good.

According to the rules I don't think you should use them, but I am not sure. I use them and I think it works good.


Adding additional weapons to rock-paper-scissors Many of us are probably aware of the classic 'Rock-paper-scissors' game. I'm looking for an expansion with as many weapons as possible.

One popular alternative is 'Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock'. Is there any longer expansion available?

Well, I think your need is probably satisfied by RPS-101: 101 gesture Rock-Paper-Scissors. There are apparently 5,050 possible outcomes to this game, which should keep you entertained for a while...

For something slightly less mindblowingly hardcore, the same author has also developed 7, 9, 11, 15 and 25 gesture variants. These get complicated quickly! As an example, the 15 gesture version looks like this:

To see what beats what in any version draw out just the circle and whatever gets beat by something go 1/2 of the total if the amount is even and 1 more than half if it's odd.


Good games for playing in a bar Sometimes, I'm sitting in a bar, hanging out with a friend or three, and we run out of things to talk about. I think "this would be a great time to play a game, but I don't have one on me." My local pub has a collection of games in the corner, but they consist of about half a chess set, half a scrabble set with a beat up board, and two thirds of a nice backgammon set.

What games are good for playing in a bar?

Some criteria that can help determine if a game will be appropriate:

Not too many fiddly little components to get lost; or easily replaceable components if they do
Somewhat resilient to spilled beer
Everything is easy to see, as bars can sometimes be a bit dark
Not too complex; after a couple of beers, remembering a lot of rules can be hard
Easily portable, and fits on a small table, or the space between two people at the bar itself

Also, please let me know if you actually have played this game in a bar, and how it went. Some games might seem good for the venue, but turn out not to be.

(note: despite the beer-and-pretzels tag, I'm not interested in solely beer and pretzels games, though those are welcome; games that are a bit deeper can be fine for bars too)

I think Perudo (Liar's Dice) would work great in a bar. You need 5 dice and a cup per person, the rules are easy but the game is hard, there's a lot of interaction, and playing dice and drinking traditionally go together very well.

The related game Skull can be played with bar coasters and a pen, and is one of the better games for drunk people.

I'd highly recommend Zombie Dice, by Steve Jackson Games.  It does have custom dice, which if you're not careful can go wandering, but if you've got a table, it's great.  It's also good because games are so short, if someone else arrives, they're not stuck watching from the side for too long.  Add a little alcohol and "Braaaaaaaains", and you're in for a great game.

SJ Games also make Cthulhu dice, but I've had less success with that: it takes some time to figure out what the symbols on the dice mean, especially if you're not familiar with the Call of Cthulhu rpgs.


What are the rules for the card game "High Nines"? A long time ago, my cousin taught me a card game he called "High Nines":

It was a trick-taking game, similar to Euchre, though it used the full card deck.
Trump cards were worth one point, except for the 9s, which were worth nine.
The 2s would stay in the score pile of the person who played them, even if they didn't take the trick.
There was a rule that let you double your score for the round, but it could be turned against you, somehow.

Does this game seem familiar to anyone, and can they point me to a full set of rules for it?

Not official, but at least a start:

  High 9

  Deck of 52 plus 2 Jokers (mark them "Big" and "Little")
  4 players - draw for partners (2 high cards and 2 low cards)
  High card deals
  Deal 9 cards to each player & keep the rest to pass out to the player who gets the highest bid.
  The player to the dealer's left starts the bid anywhere from 9 to 25. Must at least start at 9. Any player can "Shoot the Moon" at the first bid when it comes to their turn. Only the dealer can shoot over. No one else can. The bidder must get all 25 points & you will win the game. If you lose 1 point, then you will lost the game. If you are in the whole or a negative when you "Shoot the Moon", then you will only come to a zero.
  When the bidding starts, each player can bid or pass. When you pass, you are out of the bidding. Highest bidder gets to name trumps.
  Each player throws away all their cards that are not the trump except for the Off-Jack, Big & Little Joker, and off-nine.
  The dealer deals the remaining cards up to 6 per player, then gives the rest to the highest bidder.
  The highest bidder keeps all trumps, including the Off-Jack, Big & Little Joker, and Off-Nine and throws the rest away.
  If the bidder has more than 6 trumps, he/she can pass all over 6 to his partner. Game starts with the bidder. Bidder may start with a trump card or any off card. You must follow suit. If you do not have suit, you can play any card.
  Total of 25 points per hand. Total per game is 52.
  Point cards are: Ace=1, Jack=1, off-Jack=1, Big Joker=1, Little Joker=1, Ten=1, Nine=9, off-Nine=9, Two=1
  Cards catch in this order: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Off-Jack, Big Joker, Little Joker, Ten, Nine, Off-Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two

  From a printed rules with slight modification for formatting & grammar correction

Hi those are the basic rules the point cards are ace King both Jack's both joker's the duce which saves it self all worth one point both nine's nine points each if you're in the hole you can shoot the moon but you must get all twenty-five points.  I played bthis game when I was growing up in Paducah KY absolutely love it
Cinda


Do I get more cards if my hand is empty at the end of my turn? What do I do if I have zero cards left in my hand at the end of my turn?  Do I wait until the end of my turn then draw the usual one card at the beginning of my next turn or do I draw a new seven card hand?

When you get to your draw step, you must draw a single card, unless some effect lets you draw more or less. If you attempt to draw a card when your library is empty, you lose the game.

Even if your hand is empty, the rules remain the same, and you still only draw one.

Here is how the comprehensive rules states it.

  The draw step is the third step of the beginning phase.

  Draw Step

  504.1. First, the active player draws a card. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.

  504.2. Second, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of the draw step and any other abilities that have triggered go on the stack.

  504.3. Third, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

During casual games with my friends we draw 3 cards during our draw step instead of 1 because that's how my brother taught me to play Yu-Gi-Oh (we played that before I found mtg) and it sort of transferred over to MTG in my head all my friends thought it was better then only drawing 1 so we use that.
However if you play in an official game then that's a big no-no.


Do I draw a card when I resolve an enchantment with Eidolon of Blossoms, Opalescence, and Torpor Orb in play? I control the following permanents:

Eidolon of Blossoms

  Whenever Eidolon of Blossoms or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.

Opalescence

  Each other non-Aura enchantment is a creature in addition to its other types and has base power and base toughness each equal to its converted mana cost.

Torpor Orb

  Creatures entering the battlefield don't cause abilities to trigger.

Summary:

Eidolon of Blossoms triggers a card draw when an enchantment enters play.
Opalescence makes enchantments into creatures.
Torpor Orb prevents creatures from triggering enter-the-battlefield effects.

So when I cast my next enchantment (that will be creature due to Opalescence), does it trigger the draw from Eidolon of Blossoms?

I anticipate the answer is no, but I wanted to confirm my suspicions.

Eidolon of Blossoms will not trigger due to rule 603.6b.

603.6b Continuous effects that modify characteristics of a permanent do so the moment the permanent is on the battlefield (and not before then). The permanent is never on the battlefield with its unmodified characteristics. Continuous effects don’t apply before the permanent is on the battlefield, however (see rule 603.6d).
Example: If an effect reads “All lands are creatures” and a land card is played, the effect makes the land card into a creature the moment it enters the battlefield, so it would trigger abilities that trigger when a creature enters the battlefield. Conversely, if an effect reads “All creatures lose all abilities” and a creature card with an enters-thebattlefield triggered ability enters the battlefield, that effect will cause it to lose its abilities the moment it enters the battlefield, so the enters-the-battlefield ability won’t trigger.

Let's use Armistice as an example of a non-aura enchantment that would be affected by Opalescence.
You cast and resolve Armistice. According to the rule, Armistice is never on the battlefield without being affected by the continuous effect from Opalescence. Therefore, the Armistice enters as a creature. Torpor Orb prevents creatures from triggering abilities, so nothing triggers.

Eidolon of Blossoms effect does activate when the enchantment is cast, since Opalescence would change it afterwards to be a creature as well. The effect of Opalescence only affects enchantments that are on the field, meaning it would chain alongside Eidolon (allowing you to pick how they go, so let Eidolon's effect resolve first by making it chain 2).Torpor Orb will not have any response then, has a creature has not yet entered the fray.


What's the name of the theory that the player with the most options has the advantage? A long time ago, I remember reading about a theory that sounds like this:

  Players A and B have access to options X and Y. Player A also has access to option Z. Player A is, at worst, equal to and, at best, at an advantage to player B.

Ok, so that was poorly worded. Let me put it another way:

  Having more options available to you in a two player game can't possibly hurt you.**

Example

Player A can attack from both sides. Player B must attack from the left. If attacking to the left is the best choice, then both players are equal. If attacking from the right is the best choice, then Player A has a distinct advantage. Player A is either tied or winning. Player B is either tied or losing.

Can anyone tell me the name of the theory I described?

** "... can't possibly hurt you" assumes optimal play from both players. It's not always the case the player with the most options will use them wisely. Intuition tells us that sometimes having too many options can make it difficult for the player to find the best one. Just assume that both players are making the best choices when this theory applies.

This sounds a lot like a strategy-stealing argument. It's often used to prove that one side of a game has an advantage, even if optimal strategy is not known. As a broad example, consider a game with the following properties:

It is a turn-based game
The starting positions are identical except Player A goes first
Player A has the option of skipping the first turn

Assuming optimal play, the first player cannot be at a disadvantage. The proof is a strategy-stealing argument: Any hypothetical strategy that Player B could use to get an advantage could be countered by Player A just skipping the first turn and then using that exact strategy.

Is this principle even true? Consider the following game:

A, B, and C, are dividing $60. All players left standing at the end of the game receive an equal split.

Each player may shoot one other player. If a player gets shot twice, that player can no longer participate in the split.

Alternatively, C has the option to shoot another player, and then (after the first shots resolve) shoot both other players twice.

Obviously, the optimal strategy for C is to take the second option, but then the optimal strategy for A and B is to both shoot C (if they don't, they will get nothing). This means that if all players act rationally, A and B will get $30 each and C will get $0.

In other words, C having more options leads to a worse result for C. So the theory isn't even true, which I think is decent evidence that it doesn't have a name, especially given that nobody else who's come here so far has heard of it. :-P


What is the board game played in Houseki no Kuni? I am trying to identify this game from Houseki no Kuni, a buddhism-inspired manga.
My English is so poor I can't describe this game and "google" it.

the bottom picture looks like Go, but with an unusual shape for a board
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)


Phantom Province Houserule The gaming group that introduced me to Dominion plays with a houserule known as Phantom Provinces, explained as such:

  After the normal condition for ending the game is reached (including running out of provinces), the game continues until all players have had an equal number of turns instead of ending immediately.  During this time, there are an effectively infinite number of provinces to buy (even if the pile ran out as said condition).

This is designed to counter a perceived advantage with going first and disadvantage with going last.  Is there statistical evidence for or against the validity of this rule?  Is this rule in popular use?

There is certainty a first-player advantage in Dominion. However, that particular house rule gives a possibly even more significant second-player advantage. The reason for this is that the first player can never safely end the game. He has very little control over how the game ends. The best he can do is to build up a significant lead, then end the game and hope. Meanwhile, the second player (assuming a 2 player game) can end the game exactly when he needs to in order to win.

There is a lot of discussion about this exact rule here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=9791.0.

And here is a well-written article explaining the reasons behind the first-player advantage:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1467.0

There are definitely statistics to support this advantage. http://councilroom.com/ contains statistics from thousands of online Dominion games with top players. You can pick almost any good player at random and see that their win percentage as first player is much higher than their win percentage as second player. It appears that the search functionality on councilroom is down at the moment, but here is a link to statistics gathered from there: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=54.msg723#msg723. Finally, there is a lot of discussion on the statistics of first-player advantage here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=946.0.

This advantage was designed to be countered by playing multiple games, and having the winner go last in the next game, which is actually written in the original instruction book.

The main problem here is that player 1 does not have an unlimited amount of Provinces to buy.

So if there is one Province left and p1 buys it, p2 could buy 10 Provinces that are not there.

If you're going with this house rule, you should let p1 buy phantom Provinces as well.


Mafia - Werewolf: Online play Is there an online version of mafia/werewolf game that I can play with my friends. I tried to find one but there doesn't seem to be a good one.

I'm the creator of https://werewolv.es which is an in-browser version of werewolf. The games are more like individual chat rooms or slack/irc channels than the usual forum/message board variants you find online. Most of the games on the site take place over several days, but plenty of 'speed games' are played where the rounds a few minutes.

I decided to embrace the online aspect of this version of the game and added features that would be difficult or impossible to simulate in face to face play. Each game is played with a distinct theme (usually taken from a film or tv series) and players are given a random avatar in addition to their role. This gives a degree of anonymity (at least at the start) to the game.

The anonymous avatars also allow for additional avenues of play. For example, the Puppetmaster has control of 2 extra identities in the game, and can freely talk as them, allowing the Puppetmaster to counter claim and cause confusion in chat.

There's quite a few apps as well as sites.
Overall, the best site is Town of Salem by far because if the rich  analogue of characters.
Town of Salem also has an app but the website is much better.


Can Taigam grant rebound to spells I already cast before his attack? So, for example, if I cast Shock, and then during my combat step attack with Taigam, Ojutai Master, then after he attacks, cast another spell like Opt, would both Shock and Opt gain rebound as they were cast on a turn that the creature attacked? Or only Opt as it was cast after he attacked?

It would only count instants or sorceries that you cast after Taigam attacks.
Taigam's ability only triggers at the time that you cast an instant or sorcery, and at that moment it checks to see if he has attacked that turn. Each time you cast an instant or sorcery, his ability triggers if he has attacked that turn. Any instants or sorceries you cast when he hasn’t attacked that turn don’t meet the requirements for triggering.
Note that Taigam's triggered ability has an intervening if clause:

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.

This means that when you cast an instant or sorcery spell, if he hasn’t attacked this turn, the ability doesn’t trigger at all. But even if it were not an intervening if clause (such as “whenever you cast an instant spell, it gains rebound if Taigam has attacked this turn), then the ability still wouldn’t work in that case. It would trigger and go on the stack, but when it resolved it would have no effect because the condition wouldn’t be met.
In order to affect instants and sorceries that were cast before attacking, it would have to have a completely different wording; such as something that triggers when he attacks instead of triggering when you cast the spell.

https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Rebound

From the Comprehensive Rules (July 3, 2020—Core Set 2021)
702.87. Rebound
702.87a Rebound appears on some instants and sorceries. It represents a static ability that functions while the spell is on the stack and may create a delayed triggered ability. “Rebound” means “If this spell was cast from your hand, instead of putting it into your graveyard as it resolves, exile it and, at the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.”
702.87b Casting a spell as an effect of its rebound ability follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2f–h.
702.87c Multiple instances of rebound on the same spell are redundant.

[bolding added]
Once the spell resolves, it's not on the stack anymore (and in fact does not exist as a spell anymore). Since it's not on the stack, rebound doesn't apply. There's also the fact that when an object changes zones, it becomes a new object with no memory of the previous one. When a spell resolves it leaves the stack and enters the graveyard, and once in the graveyard it has no "memory" of being a spell that was cast on a turn that Taigam attacked.


I don't really understand how the expansions/data packs work in android netrunner I bought the core set a while ago and now I'd like to get some more cards, afaik there are multiple ways to do that:

data packs
deluxe expansions
big box?

What's the difference between them? As I've read the data packs each belong to a cycle, what's that all about? What's the bigbox? I got that term from the wiki at reddit:

  Unlike FFG's other Living Card Games, Netrunner doesn't require that you pick up the "big box" expansion before getting the data packs from that cycle.

I'd be really thankful for a quick summary of how all of this works.

Big Box expansions are deluxe expansions, those terms are synonymous. There are only 4 of these and they will always be tournament legal. Their structure focuses on specific factions (e.g., the first only pertained to HB and Shaper, with some neutral cards).

Data packs come in "cycles" of 6 packs, which cover all the factions and have an overarching theme (usually in terms of story or mechanics).  We are currently on cycle 5 (the Mumbad cycle).  At some point in the future, the first two cycles will rotate out of competitive play but that won't be for at least a year or two. If you are just playing casually, this won't affect you.

No matter what you buy, you can find information on which cards are available in each pack online.  All packs should be available at your FLGS.

Unlike with some of FFG's other LCGs (e.g., for Lord of the Rings each deluxe expansion is necessary to play with the following adventure packs, but this is rare for the LCG model), in Netrunner you can pull cards from any expansion you want for your deck - so there is no need to buy everything unless you are a completionist (like many of us). This is what FFG meant in the above quote - you can play a Criminal deck without purchasing Honor & Profit (the big box expansion that features Criminal cards) - however, in most cases, the big boxes yield some great cards and are worth the investment!

As a practical tip, you can browse netrunnerdb.com for decks, and when viewing one that strikes your fancy, click Sort above the decklist and choose "By Set".  That will tell you where all the cards for that particular list can be found.

Good luck and have fun!

@Twitch_City's answer is good, I'm going to take a stab at a shorter alternative.

You only need to buy whatever Deluxe Expansions and Data Packs have the cards you want to play with. You can even play without the Core Set if you don't need any of the cards from it (which is unlikely - you probably want some of them), you can use pennies or pieces of colored paper or dice or whatever as tokens. Use NRDB to pick or build a deck you want to play, and buy the appropriate packs of cards.

From a long-term perspective if you care about Tournaments, Deluxe Expansions are never going out of rotation, so they'll always be in the potential pool of cards for deckbuilding. But that's not a very immediate concern.


Are there specific deck combinations to avoid in Smash Up? I just got the game, and haven't had a chance to play yet, but I did a quick run through on the decks (I got the basic version; no expansions yet), and it seemed like some of the combinations might be actively detrimental (e.g. some decks have Actions that target Minions with a power of 1, so pairing that deck with one of the decks with power 1 Minions might make those Actions less useful).

When picking the two decks to combine, which ones should I avoid pairing?  Why?

Plants/Steampunk and Ghost: Plants and Steampunk have ways to draw additional cards every single turn, but the Ghost deck is trying to discard all of its cards, and is often most powerful with an empty hand. (The Wizards get a pass here; they draw cards on demand rather than every single turn.)

Wizards and Robots: the Robot deck is light on action cards, and the Wizard deck has too many ways to allow you to play extra actions (which you won't be able to take advantage of).

Bears/Pirates/Aliens: Bear and Pirate have a lot of move-minion cards, and Alien has a lot of return-minion-to-hand cards; you're only going to find it useful to move/evict minions so many times during a game. They can still work well together, but you're more likely to have several extra move-minion cards that you can't think of a use for.

Of course, if your deck is too powerful, then your opponents are more likely to team up against you; a weak deck will keep more heat off of you. The game is powered by Rule of Cool (warning: TV Tropes) anyway, so don't sweat it too much. (Robot Bears vs. Ninja Plants!) It's much more fun to pick your deck-halves randomly than to dither over which decks to pick together.

It's really hard to say, since I haven't really tried all of the factions.  While there are no combinations I can tell you to avoid like the plague, I can give advice on what works.  You see, my girlfriend and I play a lot and we both have our favorite combos; hers being Robots and Dinosaurs which work really well together and mine being Zombies and Aliens.  Ninjas and Pirates seem to work really well together, too, and Wizards and Tricksters might be a combo worth trying.  But other than that, I can't really help you, so feel free to experiment and give us your feedback.


Remove bestow target, does it become a creature? If my opponent was to cast bestow onto a creature, and i then remove the creature, does the bestow get countered and go to the graveyard, or does it become a creature?

It becomes a creature, because the rules make a special exception for bestow. Even though you've cast your creature with bestow as an aura spell, when it resolves, it can end up as an aura or a creature. From the bestow section of The Mechanics of Theros:

  If the target creature leaves the battlefield after you cast a card with bestow as an Aura but before the spell resolves, the Aura spell will resolve as an enchantment creature rather than being countered like a normal Aura spell. If the target creature is still on the battlefield when the Aura spell resolves, it resolves as an Aura enchanting that creature.

And the specific rules for this case:

  702.102a ... These effects [turning it into an Aura spell] last until one of two things happens: this spell has an illegal target as it
  resolves or the permanent this spell becomes, becomes unattached. ...

  702.102d As an Aura spell with bestow begins resolving, if its target is illegal, the effect making it an Aura spell ends. It continues resolving as a creature spell and will be put onto the battlefield under the control of the spell’s controller. This is an exception to rule 608.3a.

(Rule 608.3a is the rule about how aura spells normally resolve, which would cause a normal aura spell to go to your graveyard at this point.

Short answer is yes, the spell goes to the graveyard if there is no creature for it to bestow. This means you need an instant removal spell like doomblade, lightning strike etc... and must cast IN RESPONSE to the bestow being cast.


Which has to be declared first: Marklights or Jink? Situation: A squad of (jet)bikes has several Markerlights on them. The tau player is about to shoot at them with some Plasma or other weapon w/ low enough AP to punch their armor.

Does the Tau player have to declare Markerlight usage before Bike player Jinks? Or do the Bikes have to declare Jink before finding out whether the Tau player is going to use the Markerlights to ignore cover?

I am ONLY concerned with 7th Edition rules. 6th Edition was clear cut as Jink was automatic.

ETA:
Jink (7th Edition):

  When a unit with any models with the jink special rule is selected as
  a target for a shooting attack, you may declare that it will jink. the
  decision must be made before any of the to hit rolls have been made.
  If the unit jinks all models in the unit with this special rule gain a
  4+ cover save until the start of their next movement phase, but they
  can only fire snap shots until the end of their next turn.

The reason its important is not for the jinking itself, because you don't "roll" jinking, you are simply given a 4+ cover, which doesn't even come into play until you take potential damage. The defending player can't avoid it, Scour doesn't remove jinking or strip cover saves directly, it simply gives all weapons shooting the "Ignores Cover" rule. It doesn't matter if the jinking player declares it before or after, he ain't getting his cover save.

This is why you can't get Cover Saves from Markerlights because they don't inflict wounds and you only get cover saves from inflicted wounds/pen or glancing hits.

But its still important because Jink makes you fire Snap Shots. So if the defending player knows he's not getting Cover Saves anyway, he can wait for you to use the Scour ability -2 counters and then let you waste it by not Jinking at all. That way, if the unit survives, it isn't on Snap Shots.

I agree that the word MAY for Jink specifies that anytime within the Select Target steps does the player determine Jinking in effect so long as it is done before rolls are made, even waiting until after the first weapon is selected.

Markerlights are more restrictive, and specify "immediately" before a unit shoots their use must be declared, but how they are expended is declared before the shooting attack, which I agree is before the first weapon is selected (which is part of the shooting attack).

So before you state the weapon you are using, those counters must be used. Markerlight declaration is very clearly before that and the defending player can choose anytime before To Hit rolls.

Tau are my primary army so I'm hurting myself by honorably letting my opponents know before I nominate anything to shoot.

Well, first off, lets establish the sequence of shooting in 7th edition.

According to the rulebook the Shooting Sequence is:

Nominate Unit to shoot
Choose a target
Select a weapon
Roll to hit
Roll to wound
Allocate wounds and remove casualties
select another weapon

As you say, Jink states that it is used "when a unit with any models with the Jink special rule is selected as a target for a shooting attack".

Markerlights state that "Immediately before a unit from Codex: Tau Empire shoots at a target that has one or more markerlight counters, it can declare it is using one or more of the markerlight abilities listed below." (Codex Tau 6th Ed, pg 68)

To me, this suggests that the Markerlight abilities are declared between section 3 and 4, after the target and weapon are selected, but just prior to rolling to hit.

As such, the unit of jetbikes must choose whether they will Jink when they are selected as a Target in section 2 of the Shooting Sequence, and the Tau player does not need to declare what (if any) Markerlight abilities they are using until just prior to section 4 of the Shooting Sequence.

Yes, the Eldar player should declare the Jink when they are targetted, which is before the Tau must declare whether they will use their Markerlight counters or not.


What are the names for Magic's different colour combinations? For example, Esper refers to decks made up of White, Blue and Black cards.

What are the names of the other colour combinations? In particular, how do we refer to a Red-White-Black deck?

One color
In the most common environments, decks with a single color are not competitive in tournaments (due to the fact you're settling for the top ten cohesive cards in a color instead of two sets of the top five in two colors. The difference in power level between the top 1-5 and the top 6-10 can be massive and game deciding. The other colors also make up for each others weaknesses.) But they do exist, especially in older formats where consistency is required to win in a couple turns and where you have such a large pool of powerful cards to pick from, and are then referred to as "Mono X".

 Mono red
 Mono black
 Mono blue
 Mono green
 Mono white

Two colors
Each of these corresponds to a guild of Ravnica. Since the guilds were released (and especially now that we've returned) the color pairs have become common names for duo-color decks. Both allied and enemy color pairs are common to see, although allied more so (due to higher deck cohesion).

 White + Blue = Azorius
 Blue + Black = Dimir
 Black + Red = Rakdos
 Red + Green = Gruul
 Green + White = Selesnya
 White + Black = Orzhov
 Blue + Red = Izzet
 Black + Green = Golgari
 Red + White = Boros
 Green + Blue = Simic

Three colors
The first of these are the shards of Alara. They jive well because they give two sets of allied colors each. The less commonly used are the wedges, which involve two enemy color combinations: they're derived from the dragons of Planar Chaos, the volver cycle from Apocalypse, five clans from Khans of Tarkir, or more recently the the triomes of Ikoria. Having only one allied color pair (the two enemies of a single color will be allied) limits deck cohesion, making their use infrequent, although this obviously varies as the meta changes.
Note that if one of the colours is not particularly present in the deck, for example there's only a single card of a given color, you may see a two color name with a third listed as a "splash."

 Red + Green + Black = Jund
 Green + White + Blue = Bant
 Blue + Black + Red = Grixis
 Red + Green + White = Naya
 White + Blue + Black = Esper
 Blue + Red + White = Jeskai (clan on Tarkir), Raugrin (Ikoria triome), Numot (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Raka (from Rakavolver)
 Red + white + black = Mardu (clan on Tarkir), Savai (Ikoria triome), Oros (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Dega (from Degavolver)
 Black + green + blue = Sultai (clan on Tarkir), Zagoth (Ikoria triome), Vorosh (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Ana (from Anavolver)
 Green + blue + red = Temur (clan on Tarkir), Ketria (Ikoria triome), Intet (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Ceta (from Cetavolver)
 White + black + green = Abzan (clan on Tarkir), Indatha (Ikoria triome), Teneb (dragon from Planar Chaos) Necra (from Necravolver), Junk citation, or Doran citation

Informal usages:

Red + white + black = Borzhov
Red + white + blue = USA/American/Patriot
(although note that Team America is actually black + blue + green)
Red + green + blue = Grizzet
(although it's usually Simic splashing red)

In addition, it's especially common for red + blue + green and black + blue + green to be called by their abbreviations — "RUG" and "BUG" — because these are names that are easy to remember and pronounce, even though those are not the proper color orders.
Four colors
Most decks do not have four full colors. As with three color enemies, if they reach this many colors, it's a shard with a splash of another color. So you're more likely to see something like "American splash black" instead of "Yore", and lately simply "four color" is rising in popularity.
Names for four-color identities come from one of two sources:

The names of the Nephilims from Guildpact.
The names of the four-colour “guild identities” defined during Commander 2016's design.
Reference the one color the four-color combination is missing, thus Non-(color).

The four colour identities' names are:

 Blue + black + red + green = Glint-Eye, or Chaos, or Non-white
 Black + red + green + white = Dune (or Dune-Brood), or Aggression, or Non-blue
 Red + green + white + blue = Ink-Treader, or Altruism, or Non-black
 Green + white + blue + black = Witch (or Witch-Maw), or Growth, or Non-red
 White + blue + black + red = Yore (or Yore-Tiller), or Artifice, or Non-green

Occasionally, some informal usages of four color decks, especially when it involves a typical three color deck with a splash of a fourth, will be to include some kind of pun or other indicator to an established name. For example, taking a Jund (Red, Green, and Black) deck and adding Blue would be more likely to make it something like "Wet Jund" than it would be Glint-Eye or Chaos. Or if only splashing Blue for a single card might make it "Moist Jund", that is Wet Jund that is slightly less wet than Wet Jund. Similar puns can be made for Dark Jeskai (Blue, Red, and White adding Black) and I could envision something along those lines for a splash like Dim Jeskai (Blue, Red, and White splashing Black) although admittedly I've never seen it in the wild.
Five colors
Decks with all five colors usually revolve around a single combo that they hope to pull off. It takes a lot of mana fixing and a massive amount of playtesting to get a reliable five color deck. For this reason, you don't often find them in tournaments. You find them often in Commander (giving the player access to every card ever, greatly increasing the power level of the deck) and in skill challenges where a player just tries to come up with a crazy deck idea to see if he can make it work. Obviously there's only one five color deck, it uses all five:

 Rainbow/Domain/Five-Color/WUBRG (pronounced Whoo-Burg)

Sometimes, four color decks will also be called Rainbow just because they have so many colors.
No colors
Sometimes, particularly in formats with a very large card pool, you'll see colorless decks as well. The most common name for these is a reference to the old card frame for artifact cards:

 Mono brown (not to be confused with BrownTown which is a draft deck leaning heavily on minotaurs)

 Some newer colorless decks have come to be referred to as "Diamond" decks in reference to the diamond-like new symbol for colorless mana

I don't believe there is an answer to black-red-white. Esper refers to one of the Shards of Alara, of which there are five. From a post on TappedOut and MTGSlavation:

Bant - primary white, secondary blue/green
Esper - primary blue, secondary white/black
Grixis - primary black, secondary blue/red
Jund - primary red, secondary black/green
Naya - primary green, secondary red/white


Must take net damage vs prevent net damage If a runner hits a shi.kyu can the runner use guru davinder to prevent the damage and both effects?

Can the runner decide to take the net damage and then prevent the net damage with guru davinder?

or

If the runner does number 1, does that satisfy the "OR" condition and the effect is finished? Or does the runner have to add the asset to their score area now, since they did not take the net damage?

The confusion is that shi.kyu says "MUST take". Which implies, unless they take the netdamage one of the conditions has to be met. So the runner would be forced to do the second condition.

Firstly, any damage that doesn't have "cannot be prevented" can be prevented.

Secondly, if you choose to take damage instead of adding Shi.Kyu to your score area, it doesn't go to your score area, even if you prevented some/all of that damage.

So yes, it's a valid play to choose taking damage, have it prevented with guru davinder (or any other damage preventer, this is not relevant part), and don't take Shi.Kyu.
There already is similar ruling regarding Wotan's last two subroutines and Data Raven's encounter ability Wotan and Raven ruling.

A curious person can find different ruling on seemingly similar case Snatch and Grab ruling. The difference is that S&G is worded "do X to Y". "To" implies [cost:effect] relations, and as such preventing the cost from being paid prevents the effect from happening. Discussion on this case is here: BGG forum

To sum it up, here is a great excerpt from BGG post by CommissarFeesh:

  In short though; Data Raven gives you the choice of x (take a tag) or y (end the run). You must choose one of these effects to resolve. By choosing to resolve x, you completely negate y, even if you prevent x.
  Snatch and Grab though is do x to do y - if you never actually do x, then you haven't paid the cost for y.

The official ruling from FFG is that must take (damage) is unpreventable.  The damage has to happen.  Prevented damage isn't taken damage.  So they must suffer the damage to satisfy that constraint on the card.  This is one situation where the card text supercedes the rulebook text.  So for the questions.

No because the runner did not 'take' the damage.
No because the damage did not happen so the runner must then take the agenda as a -1 agenda point in their score area.

I hope this clears things up.

#Notrunner


How to reach either a 6 Hearts or a 6 NT contract? Yesterday I picked up this in the South hand: 15 HCP, 5 spades headed by Ace Queen, two small Hearts, a Diamond triplet led by the Ace and in clubs the King, Queen, small. This is a pretty standard 1NT opening for us. My partner had 5 hearts and 17 HCP!

We couldn't figure out a clean way of bidding this out: I open 1NT, partner bids 2D for a Jacoby transfer to Hearts, I bid 2H and now partner jumps straight to 6H, leaving no room to check if we have a fit. 6H turns out to be playable, but 6NT is the better contract here.

I later thought of a way to bid this. The auction would be:
I open 1NT, partner uses Jacoby 2D to make me bid 2H. Now partner jumps to 6D; this should be an implicit question to bid 6H if I hold at least 3 hearts or 6NT on a doubleton.

Questions

Are there any biddings for such a type of hand? Preferably something that fits in our current Jacoby transfers.
Any obvious downsides to my proposal for rebidding the transfer at the 6-level?

Assuming you are also playing Texas (highly recommended) then the Jacoby Transfer by Responder followed by a jump in the transfer suit always shows exactly 5 card length. This allows partner to jump to 6H, giving you the choice to correct to 6NT with only a doubleton, as you had.

If Partner has 6 card length sufficient to play slam opposite a small doubleton, then partner transfers at the 4-level and jumps to 6H, which is to play.

Don't even think about a 6D jump without serious partnership discussion. Both sides of the table will be wondering if it is telling or asking; and what precisely the subject of the tell/ask is.

Here are some additional agreements for Responder's rebid that are typically employed by partnerships playing both Texas & Jacoby:

Texas followed by 4NT = Blackwood (your usual variant)
Jacoby followed by 4 NT = Quantitative
Jacoby followed by 4C = Gerber
Jacoby followed by 4 of the transfer suit = slam interest with a weak 6 card suit

We've decided on the 6 Diamonds/6 Hearts repeat of the Jacoby Transfer for several reasons:

Not having an agreement for this might lead to stopping at 3NT or 4Major, missing Slam, or as happened, put us in the wrong slam.
The decision to go for slam should be the responder's choice, and with 6D/H you jump over any game score straight to Slam. Furthermore, if responder is incredibly strong or opener transferred to the 3-level instead of staying at 2 (indicating the maximum NT opening), responder may go to grand slam.
The meaning of repeating the Jacoby transfer at the 6-level is very clear; it's not a thing that will happen very often, so when it does it has a certain elegance and clear meaning about it.
And with respect to the existing, very educational answer: it saves us from integrating another convention into the mix. My partner and I discussed Texas, and we feel it adds very little to how we play Jacoby right now. The only addition would be this specific case.


Do +1/+1 counters count for Fighting? I have a 3/2 with six +1/+1 counters on it, making it a 9/8. My friend used Prey Upon targeting it with his own 5/5. He said the +1/+1 counters didn't count while fighting, and that it was just considered a 3/2. Is that true?

No, your friend is wrong. The creatures simply deal damage equal to their power:

  701.11a A spell or ability may instruct a creature to fight another creature or it may instruct two creatures to fight each other. Each of those creatures deals damage equal to its power to the other creature.

A 9/8 has a power of 9, and it doesn't matter what its base power was. The whole point of power/toughness-changing effects (like +1/+1 counters) is that they change the power/toughness of the creature.

So your friend's 5/5 will die, and your 9/8 will survive.

Terminology: we say your creature has base power/toughness of 3/2, but its power/toughness is 9/8. Pretty much nothing in the game cares what base power/toughness is; the only time it's mentioned is when it's being set, like on Turn to Frog. Everything normal in the game just looks at the actual power/toughness.

Your friend may have been confused because certain abilities that modify or care about combat damage do not apply to two creatures "fighting" because it is not considered combat damage as defined by the rules. For example, first strike and double strike don't "count" when creatures fight because those abilities modify the combat step. They deal damage at a different time during the combat step. If they fight via Prey Upon, they do not go through all the Combat steps, and there isn't a separate first strike combat damage step for those abilities to apply.


Does a winning strategy exist for Don't Break the Ice? Don't Break the Ice is a children's game, where players take turns using mallets to knock pieces of ice away from the playing field. The playfield is composed of a (6 x 6) grid of single square blocks, except for the 2x2 block that the skating bear is on.

The object of the game is to not break the ice and have the bear fall.

Is there an winning strategy? If so, for which player? Assumptions:

Each player only knocks out one block of their choice.
Blocks are 'sticky' and will cling to each other along any edge, and so:
The game ends when the center 2x2 square has been disconnected from the exterior of the 6x6 square; that is, when there is no orthogonal (connected along the edges) path from any cell outside the 6x6 square to a cell in the interior of the central 2x2.

If I understand the game correctly, there should be a winning strategy for the player going last. If we first disregard the corners, then the bear will fall when the second last block is removed:

--X---
--X---
--BB--
--BB--
------
------

(or similar)
Since the number of blocks is even, this block will be removed by the player going first.
Now, there are two complication. First, the last block removed may include the corner:

-X----
-X----
-XBB--
--BB--
------
------

or

-X----
-XX---
--BB--
--BB--
------
------

Since the number of remaining blocks is now odd, the player going last would lose.
Second, a block may fall due to being disconnected. As Steven notes, only four blocks can possibly fall this way. If an odd number of blocks fall, then the player going last will be the one to make the last move in the first setting.

However, both of these can easily be avoided by attacking the corner blocks first. Since it requires two moves to remove a corner block, the second player can always remove the corner block before the first can make it fall, and of course before all side blocks are removed. This ensures that the final position will be of the first kind, and thus that the player going first loses.

Given physics, it would seem like blocks wouldn't be sticky - but you can still predict when they will fall. Blocks will stay if they are in between (with a line of unbroken blocks) two blocks that are already confirmed to stay up (counting the edge)

For example, take this board.

----
--x-
---x
----

The two other "corner" blocks by the Xs would also fall, since they are not supported.

----
--xx
--xx
----

The rest of the blocks would stay, though. The rest of the board would stay up because of compression with the board edges.

----
--xx
--xx
x---

This block has been broken, now. However, nothing else will fall. I am going to mark stable blocks with an "s". These blocks are stable because they are held together by edges:

ssss
-sxx
-sxx
xs--

The rest of the blocks are also going to stay because they are held between edges and other stable blocks.

However, there is still a pretty simple winning strategy. Always break the ice block 180 degrees from what the first player played. The board will always remain symmetrical, and eventually you will get to some scenario like this.

xx-xxx
xx-xxx
xxBBxx
xxBBxx
xxx-xx
xxx-xx

Your opponent will be forced to break one of these chains, thus making the center fall.

You can never lose when doing this because of the symmetry. The central tile will only fall if it is not supported neither vertically nor horizontally. If you are breaking one of the tiles holding the center up (here shown as S tiles)

--SS--
--SS--
SSBBSS
SSBBSS
--SS--
--SS--

you would always break a side on the same axis that your opponent broke. You won't break stability in any axis because your opponent will first.

xxxSxx
xxxSxx
--BB--
--BB--
xxSxxx
xxSxxx

If your opponent breaks any of the S tiles, there will be no helpful force vertically.

xxxxxx
xxxxxx
--BB--
--BB--
xx-xxx
xx-xxx

The bottom two tiles are not providing any stability for the center because this stability only comes from compression, and the other side of that compression is broken. This means that when you remove the bottom two, you are not making the center less stable.

Knowing this strategy, however, doesn't mean you'll always win. You have to always be able to knock off only the block/blocks you want (which is skill, not strategy). I also haven't figured out what to do if you are going first and your opponent makes a mistake.


Do all Reaction cards completely block all Attack cards? I'm about to start a Dominion-day and need a question answered.

Do ALL reaction cards completely block all attack cards? i.e. does Tunnel block Witch?

Reaction Cards:

No. It's not an inherent property of Reaction cards that they protect you from attacks. What makes a card a Reaction is that it's used outside of the normal game sequence when something happens; they don't have to interact with attacks at all.

Moat protects you from attacks because it says it does. Tunnel gives you Gold when discarded, whether or not that is from an attack. Secret Chamber is revealed when an attack is played, but doesn't protect you from it; it just lets you manipulate your deck to attempt to lessen the blow.

Most defense reaction cards are returned to hand after each use as a reaction, and so possession prevents the attack card from affecting you.

Not all reaction cards do this, however. A few have other effects that result in either discarding or trashing the reaction card, which means they can only protect you from the first attack.

Further, not all reaction cards are defenses. One simply gives you a gold card when triggered.


In the card game "War", what happens when a player plays their final card in a War? For the card game War, what happens when a player plays their last card as part of the war?

When their last card is the first card of the war (face up), before the three face down cards are dealt
When their last card is one of the three face down cards

It depends.

The linked Wikipedia article has this to say:

  Most descriptions of War are unclear about what happens if a player
  runs out of cards during a war. In some variants, that player
  immediately loses. In others, the player may play the last card in
  their deck as their face-up card for the remainder of the war.

Also, in some variants the other opponents must take the needed cards from the top of their hand and give it to the other player for them to use in the same order.


What are the possible ways to test a deck? Naturally when you make a new deck, you test it on your friends but mine have all stabilised their tournament decks now and the game ends so quickly that I don't get a feel for how my deck flows.

What I want to know is if there is ways of testing decks to see their potential without another player. I really need to give the deck a thorough test so I can see what cards don't fit and which combos are better than expected.

I have seen people play games against themselves but I don't believe this works very well.

What methods do tournament players use to test their decks?

Please note that simply playing games is not an acceptable answer as I do not know people that will just play for fun; they are all super competitive.

There are different ways of testing that you can do, but none of them are as effective as playing real games against other people.

1) Play without an opponent. I usually play new decks over and over without an opponent to see how the basic idea works out. Just draw and play and see how many rounds it would take you to win on average. Do your combos work out as you had hoped for? Do you have too much or too little mana available? Adjust your deck until you are satisfied with the results.

2) Analyze the meta-game you are playing in. What are other players going to play against you? Try to identify the main threats in those decks and see if you can counter them. Are you fast enough so that they do not matter or can you establish enough control to break their combos? If you find a common deck that you are helpless against, try to find a solution.

3) Put up your desk for analysis online. There are many forums with experts from the MTG scene. Post your deck in the appropriate forum and hear what others think about your deck. They usually will have more experience and find weaknesses without having to play the deck. If you have more specific questions than "is my deck any good?", the MTG experts from this site here (Board and Card games on Stack Exchange) will also be able to help. I learned a lot already here.

These three steps can help you a lot already. In addition you can analyze the Mana Curve of your deck and identify problems there. But in the end, finding practice partners helps the most. I have played MTG-games over webcam in the past with friends of mine. It works better than it sounds like in the first place ;). So even if you don't have anyone in reach, you can try to play with friends who live farther away over the Internet.

go to tappedout.net and play their playtest app. you can find different decks in there built by other player and go ahead and play their deck against yours


Will infinite loops still force a draw if I have a way to end them? The comprehensive rules of MTG state:

  104.4b If a game that’s not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player game) somehow enters a “loop” of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw

So, if I have a Sporemound and a Life and Limb, that creates an infinite combo. A land enters the field, which creates a 1/1 Saproling, which is also a land, which creates a 1/1 Saproling, etc. This cannot end, and according to the rules the game now ends in a draw.

However, I have an unsummon, or destroy enchantment, or some other way to remove one of the cards creating this loop. Does this make the game not end in a draw? Can I allow the loop to continue through a million cycles, then destroy my enchantment to break the loop? Or does the game end anyway?

EDIT:

Thanks for all the answers. So, if I have a way to bounce or destroy one of the pieces of an infinite loop, I can allow the loop to resolve as many times as I want, and the game isn't a draw. However, the rules for shortcuts (719) also say:

  719.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)

Does this mean I draw anyway?

I hope you guys don't mind, but I have a few more questions about loops:

When is the game considered a draw, as in how many times does a loop have to resolve to trigger the draw state? If I have an infinite loop that damages a player, but no way to remove a piece of the loop, is the game still a draw?

For example, I have a Sanguine Bond and an Exquisite Blood. It will kill all of my opponents, but it is only mandatory actions and I have no way to stop it. The rules also don't say anything about the game state changing.

Thanks again for all the help.

You have 2 options:

(1) Propose a shortcut where you pass priority on the triggers, allowing Saprolings to be made. If your opponent agrees, you can specify the number of iterations, and then use something like naturalize to destroy one of the enchantments, ending the loop.

(2) You can let the loop proceed indefinitely, resulting in a draw. This is allowed by rule 719.5

  719.5. No player can be forced to perform an action that would end a loop other than actions called for by objects involved in the loop.

To answer your new questions:
Rule 719.4 applies in the situation where no one can interact with the loop, and all actions are mandatory (e.g., you can't set up a mandatory loop with 3x Fiend Hunter because the triggered ability is optional)

The interaction between Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood will cause a player to lose the game. This is because state-based actions are responsible for making a person lose when his or her life is 0 or less. State-based actions are checked before any player gets priority and before any triggered abilities are put on the stack, which means that they occur before effects like Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood can continue to loop.

Note that the rule includes the clause "with no way to stop". The situation you describe includes a way to stop.

The accepted way to handle this sort of thing in a paper game is just to say, "I repeat this loop X times" with the assumption that your opponent will either agree, or interrupt the combo. Then you can interrupt the combo yourself. Because they can't program this kind of shortcut into Magic: Online, decks like this are frequently (but not always) impractical because all the necessary clicking may lead to timeouts.

High-level tournament decks have been built on concepts like this in the past. The shortcut described above works there, too; it's explicitly allowed to propose shortcuts of the form "I do X until Y happens or you have a response", as described here.