Progressive Draw 2 and Draw 4 Uno When playing with progressive Draw 2 and Draw 4 and (say that there are 2 players playing) and

Player 1 goes out with a Draw 2
Player 2 puts down a Draw 2

Does player 1 have to pick up 4 cards?

If you look at the base rules of the game it ends as soon as a player has no cards in their hand. Which means that the second player would not have a chance to play the draw 2 in response to the first players card.

Also should be noted that if you are playing in a situation where you want to continue playing till everyone but the last person runs out of cards it would be the same. As soon as a player plays their last card they would be out of the game and not impacted by any cards.

uno rules

  Scoring: When a player no longer has any cards and the game ends, he/she receives points. All opponents’ cards are given to the winner and points are counted. All number cards are the same value as the number on the card (e.g. a 9 is 9 points). “Draw Two" – 20 Points, “Reverse" – 20 Points, “Skip" – 20 Points, “Wild" – 50 Points, and “Wild Draw Four" – 50 Points. The first player to attain 500 points wins the game.

I think its right answer for game 1st player have to pick up 4 cards because second player is also challenging again.than it will be more interesting.


How many different variations/editions of Monopoly are there? Is there a website that has a comprehensive list of all the various editions of the Monopoly board-game there are? I'm sure there's hundreds... but I'm not having much luck finding it online.

It depends on how you define "variations" of the game. At this moment the monopoly wiki has 1144 versions of the game, but it includes fictional editions (Monopoly Capitol City Edition from the Simpsons), predecessors (The Landlord's Game), and so on.

Well, if you look at my website www.worldofmonopoly.com, you can exclusively see the number held by the world record holder which is 2249 different editions.
I also exclusively keep his list up to date and can say that at this point (14th August 2019) he is at 2586 now!
The list is continually updated on the website
Hope this helps.


Why open 1NT with a 6 card minor? I often see good players note on their convention cards that 1NT may contain a 6 card minor. Depending on the strength on the 1NT range, I would bid such hands 1m - 2m (12-15) or 1m - 3m (15-18). What are the benefits of opening 1NT with 6 card minor? What are the characteristics of such hands?

Holding AKx Kx QJxxxx Kx, it is unsatisfying and misleading to open 1D and rebid 3D. Most of your values are outside of diamonds and in fact you have decent stopping positions in all other suits. Opening 1NT conveys the hand type and playing strength more accurately.

This kind of bidding will be popular with pairs that like to open and play a "Gambling 3NT" with a long, strong, minor. The opener will bid 3NT with such, and little else, and the responder will "leave" it there if s/he has stoppers in all three, or at least two out of the three remaining suits. With no such protection, the responder will "pull" to 4 clubs, which may be the final contract, or corrected to 4 diamonds, if that is the opener's suit.

For such pairs, it would logically follow that one would open One No Trump with 15-17 high card points, and a solid six card minor suit, something like Ax Kx Qxx KQJxxx or Ax Ax Kxx KQxxxx. The likelihood is that if partner has a decent responding hand (about 10 high card points), s/he is short, or at least weak in that one minor, has both majors stopped, and perhaps the other minor as well.

With a long, strong minor suit that can take six or more tricks, it is usually easier to get three more tricks for a game in 3NT than five more tricks in a minor suit, which is why many pairs aim for 3NT with such a holding. If one suit is unguarded (hopefully the other minor) the opponents may not lead it, because no trump bidders will often conceal minor suit strength. Since they will usually show major suit strength, the absence of a major suit bid makes it a "moral" certainty that one of the two majors will be led.

The "second" type of 1NT bid with six of a minor is, as ruds pointed out, when you have a long but fairly weak suit, headed by maybe a Q or J, with most of your 15-17 points in the three short suits; something like Ax AK KQx Jxxxxx. Then your hand is actually "balanced" with length substituting for strength in stopping your weak suit. Your hope is that your strong "side" values will find partner with a five card suit that can be run. A Qx (or better) in your weak suit would be ideal, as it would limit the opponents' tricks in that suit.


Split Second or Can not Be Countered Is split second just another way of saying “this card can’t be countered”? To me, it has no other qualities? Once this card is removed from the stack opponents are then free to cast spells. So I’m guessing we just treat this as a can’t be countered spell despite its fancy naming convention or can it do more than what I’m perceiving?

Split Second has uses other than making a spell uncounterable.

As a simple example, say you cast Sudden Shock; targeting a creature with only 2 toughness. If not for Split Second, your opponent could save the creature by casting a spell any spell that does any of the following:

Increases the creature’s toughness
Gives the creature Hexproof
Gives the creature protection from your spell
Regenerates the creature
Prevents the damage

Several ways he could save his creature. But due to Split Second, he can’t respond at all; and the creature will almost certainly die.

Similarly if you cast Sudden Shock targeting your opponent who has 2 life. He can’t cast anything that will increase his own life.

There are all sorts of ways other than countering a spell that you might want to respond to a spell. Split Second prevents all of them.

While Split Second is generally more powerful than “cannot be countered” due to the reasons stated; in some cases “cannot be countered” will work better, such as if there’s a triggered ability that counters spells, such as the emblem from Jace, Unraveler of Secrets.

Split Second can be used to ensure you do things while holding priority when casting spells. Ex. You cast Damnation, holding priority you cast Sudden Spoiling (Split Second). This would leave no one able to respond except through triggered abilities and special actions IF they have any.

There are a few jank ways to utilize Split Second, most forget about Players holding priority when responding or using the stack, so it helps to bring that up as well.


Where can I find a list of all the cards in Elder Sign? I'm looking for a breakdown of the common item, unique item and spell cards so I know what my chances are when buying certain cards. I've done a bit of googling and have not come up with anything.

Someone over on boardgame geek added a list of all cards for all expansions since I originally asked the question and did my search.

Board game geek has Elder Sign listed. One of files in the game listing should have the information that you're looking for. I'll point out that the game also has a number of expansion packs.


What to bid in this situation (xx-Kx-AQTxx-AQxx, 1D-1S-2C-2D...)? (System: Simple SAYC) I open 1D -- Partner 1S -- I bid 2C (my holding was xx-Kx-AQTxx-AQxx) -- Partner bids 2D --
What do I bid, and why? (since I have to respond when partner keeps changing suit and no NT has been yet bid)

Your 2C was nonforcing; partner could have passed 2C but instead showed a preference for your first suit with 2D. This is to play. Depending on your responding style, partner could have as little as

KTxxx
xxxx
xx
xx

or as much as

KQxx
Qxx
Jxx
xxx

In any case, you don't have quite enough to take another bid and should pass. To bid again, you should have at least reversing strength (e.g.

Kx
Kx
AQTxx
AQxx

which in my opinion is not quite enough to make a game-forcing jump-shift after partner responds).

Your partner's 2D bid was a "sign-off" bid, because it mentioned your diamonds for a second time (between the two of you), without raising to 3D, thereby allowing you to pass.


Which is authoritative: Ban List or Gatherer? I built me a comannder deck for Athreos, God of Passage.  I did some searching for ways to get  card draw (because I was running out of cards) and one of the card I looked at was Yawgmoth's Bargain.

I am always careful to check to make sure that the card I want to play is legal.  So I loaded the "Sets and Legality" tab for Yawgmoth's Bargain.  Since it is listed as legal for comannder, I bought the card and have been happily playing it in my commander games.

Well, tonight I was browsing around and got to the Commander banned list (MtgCommander and Wizards).  To my surprise I saw Yawgmoth's Bargain on the banned list.

Frustrated that I had missed this I went back to the "Sets and Legality" page on Gatherer to double check.  As you can guess, the card is listed as "Legal" for Commander.

So, which one wins?  A ban list on a web page, or the Gatherer card database?

NOTE: I am happy to get opinions on this.  But what I really want is a rule to says which one is the authoritative source of legality.  (Without a rule, we are all just giving opinions right?)

MTGCommander.net is the authoritative reference for all things commander.

Says who?

First, a little history.

According to this article, Adam Staley created the format. He shared it with Sheldon Menery, a retired Level 5 Judge, who popularized the format by inviting judges at tournaments to play. Over the next few years, the format spread from judges to the common player.

Gavin Duggan, who is a member of the Commander Rules committee along with Sheldon Menery, is also the creator of MTGCommander.net. When the rules committee bans a card, it shows up there first.

Wizards of the Coast catches on

But they wanted to avoid using the trademarked "Highlander" in the name (which could lead to a lawsuit), and so Wizards changed the name to "Commander". Wizards maintains the Gatherer and their own banned list for MTGO. Their list links to MTGCommander in the opening paragraph!

We like rules

If that wasn't convincing enough, there is actually a rule that acknowledges MTGCommander as the source of "additional resources" (emphasis mine):

  903.1. In the Commander variant, each deck is led by a legendary creature designated as that deck’s commander. The Commander variant was created and popularized by fans; an independent rules committee maintains additional resources at MTGCommander.net. The Commander variant uses all the normal rules for a Magic game, with the following additions.

Ah..

Commander I see.

It depends on your play group then.

If you really wanna check the legality, I always look at magiccards.info. It's pretty reliable for me.

UPDATE :
It seems that I need to make some clarification for these downvotes :

I also mentioned a site which is reliable for me to decide legality of cards in a certain format. Which I believe, refer to the gatherer itself.

mtgcommander rules is also made based on community / certain play group. Bear that in mind before downvoting.

And, to asker, isn't it obvious that you need to "obey" the rules of the house above anything since WotC is the maker of the game? Everything else is subjective and community-made rules.


If Emrakul, the Aeons Torn somehow loses all abilities, and then dies, does it shuffle back into the deck? This is a follow-up question to Will a God Eternal enchanted with Deep Freeze shuffle back into the deck if it dies?

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn has this line of text:

  When Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles their graveyard into their library.

If Emrakul loses its abilities somehow (e.g., because of Humility, or if it were somehow enchanted by Deep Freeze), and then dies, does this effect still trigger to shuffle it back?

I'm guessing yes in the case of Deep Freeze since presumably when it "enters the graveyard" it has regained all its abilities. This is in contrast to God-Eternal Oketra, whose ability triggers when it dies (not when it enters the graveyard). In the case of Humility, I'm guessing no, since Humility's text doesn't say it only affects creatures on the battlefield, and so presumably also affects creatures in the graveyard.

Yes, your graveyard will be shuffled back into your library.
This is a bit of an unusual situation because it's a triggered ability using the unusual phrase “from anywhere”.
Normally triggered abilities look at the current state of the game: we care only about what cards look like now. There's an exception made for a handful of triggered abilities that instead “look back in time”, which means we look at what the game state was like previously to determine whether and how any abilities trigger. The most common one is when a creature dies: in that case we look at the game state when the creature was last on the battlefield. Deep Freeze or Humility would remove all abilities from a creature, so that means usually a “When this creature dies” ability wouldn't trigger, so God-Eternals wouldn't shuffle back into your library.
That's according to these rules (under the section Handling triggered abilities, emphasis added):

603.10 Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions [based on the game state and continuous effects as they apply now.] However, some triggered abilities are exceptions to this rule; the game “looks back in time” to determine if those abilities trigger, using the existence of those abilities and the appearance of objects immediately prior to the event. The list of exceptions is as follows:
603.10a Some zone-change triggers look back in time. These are leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a card leaves a graveyard, and abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library.

However, Emrakul's put-into-the-graveyard ability doesn't match any of these exception criteria. In particular it is never treated as a leaves-the-battlefield ability:

603.6c Leaves-the-battlefield abilities trigger when a permanent moves from the battlefield to another zone [...] An ability that triggers when a card is put into a certain zone “from anywhere” is never treated as a leaves-the-battlefield ability, even if an object is put into that zone from the battlefield.

This means we don't look back in time for Emrakul's ability, as surprising as that might be. We just do the default: we look at Emrakul's state once it's in the graveyard.
In the graveyard, Emrakul has all of its abilities intact. (Recall that Humility doesn't affect cards in the graveyard.) A trigger condition has been met—we know Emrakul has just been put into the graveyard—so we put that triggered ability on the stack. If it resolves, we shuffle your graveyard, probably including Emrakul, into your library.

Additional notes

If Yixlid Jailer is on the battlefield it will prevent Emrakul's ability from being triggered. This is because we check for Emrakul's triggered ability once it's already in the graveyard, but at that point it will have no abilities at all.
There are also various ways to stop the ability from doing anything useful: you can counter the triggered ability or exile all cards from that graveyard before the ability resolves.
Although Blightsteel Colossus has a similar effect it behaves differently because it is a replacement effect. If it loses all abilities on the battlefield then dies, it will be put into the graveyard and stay there. This is because we have to check the replacement effect in the previous zone before it reaches the graveyard, and on the battlefield the replacement effect doesn't exist.

No, Emrakul is not shuffled back. Both with Deep Freeze and Humility, Emrakul dies as a creature without abilities, and will not trigger its shuffle-back ability because it doesn't have it at that time. In order for Emrakul to regain its shuffle-back ability, it has to be in a zone other than the battlefield (i.e. the graveyard), but by that time the trigger event has already happened and can't trigger Emrakul's ability.
Both Deep Freeze and Humility create continuous effects. Continuous effects are always in effect as long as the generating object and the objects it affects are in their appropriate zones:

611.3a A continuous effect generated by a static ability isn't "locked in"; it applies at any given moment to whatever its text indicates.
611.3b The effect applies at all times that the permanent generating it is on the battlefield or the object generating it is in the appropriate zone.

If Emrakul was enchanted with Deep Freeze and it dies, Deep Freeze is still attached to Emrakul as it hits the graveyard. Deep Freze only becomes unattached as a state-based action that happens after Emrakul hit the graveyard. Therefore, Emrakul hits the graveyard as an enchanted creature without abilities:

704 State-Based Actions
704.5m If an Aura is attached to an illegal object or player, or is not attached to an object or player, that Aura is put into its owner's graveyard.

What matters is the state of Emrakul as it last existed on the battlefield. Both with Humility on the battlefield and when enchanted with Deep Freeze, Emrakul was a creature without abilities when it died, so it has no ability to trigger. By the time Emrakul regains its abilities, it's already in the graveyard, and it's too late to notice the zone-change event.


How to Measure Luck vs Skill in Games? Anyone who has played a wide variety of games knows that some games are almost purely skill (i.e. Chess, Go), while others are 100 % luck (ie. Candyland, card game of War). However, most games are in between. I would find it helpful as a game buyer if there were an objective measure indicating how much luck is involved in a game, to include as one of several criteria when deciding which kinds of games I'd like to buy and spend time learning. I personally prefer games where luck/probability plays a role, yet deliberate practice increases skill over time (i.e. card game of Bridge). But obviously other people will have different preferences.

I've observed many debates about the amount of luck and skill in certain games and I sometimes use information gleaned form these informal debates to help me decide whether to purchase a game. Very few of these debates cite objective measures to indicate how much luck or skill is involved.

Note that in a BGG luck/skill thread I started, one person did cite an attempt to objectively measure whether skill exists in the game Fluxx.

So what measures exist and how useful are they? Or is there some persuasive mathematics to suggest that useful measures (of how much luck is in a game) are not possible?

Think about the Elo Rating System used to measure the relative skill of Chess players. This is essentially an equation that takes a series of wins and losses and produces a number that can be used to predict the chances of one player winning a game against another player.

One of the inputs to the equation is a "distribution" that describes how much a difference in skill changes your odds of winning. This part is tweakable - they started with a normal distribution, but some groups have switched to a logistic distribution because they've found it to be more accurate.

If we had a fully deterministic game like "Which player weighs more?", the Elo rating would just be your current weight (or some deterministic mapping thereof), and the distribution parameter would be the Heaviside function (0 if less than 0, 1 if greater than 1).

If we modify that game a bit to make a game like "Roll a D6, add that to your weight, and see who has the highest number", the Elo ratings for everyone would still be the same, but the distribution function would have to change so that the behavior from -6 to +6 was a stepwise thing based on the distribution of die rolls.

If we had a zero-skill game like War, everyone would have the same Elo rating (and the distribution function wouldn't matter).

So if we have a two-player game that produces win/loss results, and a set of players, we can force the players to play games against each other and establish Elo ratings for every player, using some distribution function (maybe we start with a normal distribution like chess did). Eventually we'd be able to look at the results of all the games and determine that a logistic distribution (or a log-normal distribution, or some other distribution) did a better job of predicting the results than a normal distribution.

The shape of that distribution - how 'wide' it is, how it tapers near the ends, how steep it is in the center, and so on, is the answer to your question. Of course, this takes a huge amount of effort to measure, but it's theoretically possible to determine that curve.

Addendum: Here are some distribution curves (courtesy of Wolfram Alpha). Apologies that these don't have 100% consistent X/Y axes, but hopefully you get the point.

This is the 'normal' distribution (rather, its CDF). For example, using the yellow line, we'd expect a player with a skill of "+2" to win about 80% of the time.

The logistic distribution is very similar, but has heavier tails (this is really subtle!). The X-axis here is different (why, Alpha?); again using the yellow line we'd expect a player with skill "+50" to win about 90% of the time.

Note that with both the logistic and normal distributions, there is a parameter to tweak how 'wide' the spread is.

Heaviside:

Stepwise (using the "weight + d6" example, this should be transposed up and flatten out at the left/right extremes):

Consider the game of Risk.  In a 1v1 game of Risk an expert player can beat random play very close to 100% of the time.  If this were a measure of skill than risk would be 100% skill. But risk, obviously, isn't 100% skill.

Breaking down this question should be done differently.  The question is how likely is it for a player who plays worse to beat a player who plays better(games with more than two results I'm ignoring for simplicity).  This is conceptual and their is a lot of nuance in what exactly you are measuring but I think it really is what you are actually trying to get at.


What is a good way to find information on previous ban lists? Many people say it's fun to go back and play previous formats of Yu-Gi-Oh, like the popular "Goat Format" from the mid 2000s. I have been having a hard time finding a resource to easily view every banlist since the beginning of the game (for the TCG). Is there a good website to look at that might have all this information in one place? The TCG NA website does not have easy ways to access previous banlists, which I was really surprised by.

Bonus points if there's also a way to find out what the available cardpool was for these periods, though you probably could work that out yourself.

Is there a good website to look at that might have all this information in one place?

Seems that the good ol' Wiki has a complete  collection of Historical Banlists.

It seems very exhaustive and complete.

I also found a Historic Limited/Forbidden Chart which displays the information regarding forbidden and limited cards in a graphical way (green, yellow, red color code). Perhaps that is a better way to see the evolution of bans of cards.

Thought I would also add in that there is this website I made earlier this year, and it auto-updates the ban lists displaying them similarly to the main Yugioh website. It also generates .conf files if you want to download them:
http://ygo.anihelp.co.uk


How Unethical Is A Purely "Blocking" Move In Ticket To Ride? Here's a scenario to illustrate my question.  My wife and I were playing Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries earlier this evening - apologies if you don't own this particular edition, but hopefully the basic situation will be obvious to anyone who's played any TTR, even if you're unfamiliar with the map.

We'd both drawn a poor selection of Destination cards and kept only two each.  My first play was Orebro - Stockholm.  The next two routes were played by my wife: Kobenhavn - Karlskrona, and Karlskrona - Norrkoping.  At this point, with a spare red ticket in my hand, I opportunistically played Stockholm - Norrkoping!

With both the southern entries to Stockholm blocked, my poor wife now had no choice, if she wanted to link Kobenhavn to the top right segment of the board, to undertake a cruelly circuitous route, involving three turns and ten tickets, instead of one single ticket and a single turn.  I patiently endured the two minutes of dire recriminations and imprecations that followed my dastardly move, and ended up winning the game by in the region of 20 points - hardly a landslide.

I'm just wondering whether this kind of thing would be considered poor sportsmanship in other groups.  I ask because there was a question on this very site about whether it was poor form, in Settlers of Catan, to pretend to want to trade for a good, to sneakily fish for information before playing a Monopoly card.  To me that seems like a perfectly sensible procedure, but a lot of people seemed horrified at such unsportsmanlike practice!

There's an argument that one should play Ticket to Ride only "by the book" - making only plays that actively help to score Destination cards in one's hands.  I would counter that, in an exclusively 2/3 player game like Nordic Countries, blocking one or both of the other players can be just as beneficial as straightforwardly aiming to score routes, if not more so.  If another player has drawn and kept 5 amazingly compatible routes and I am going to struggle with my 2, why is it unfair for me to "even the odds" a little by throwing a spanner into my opponent's works?  Essentially, I don't understand why it's okay for me to try to crush an opponent by "above board" means, and not okay to do that by "devious" play.

In a game with many players I think a purely blocking move could be slightly more dubious, on the ground that it will probably only mess with some players, allowing others to pull ahead: it's kingmaking, basically, and that can be really annoying.  But is there anything wrong with such tactics in a 2-3 player game, where it can obviously be an effective route to victory?  Would a player who regularly tries to spoil your plans rather than concentrate on his own be persona non grata before too long?

Certainly it really gets my wife's goat - I'm lucky I'm not sleeping on the couch tonight!

There seems nothing unethical about such a move - opposite to your example of pretending to want to trade (which in my book is clearly unethical because it involves active lying), this move is just one of two main winning strategies:

Get more points for yourself
Limit points of the opponents

There is no lying or obfuscation - you are making it harder to win for the opponent by legal game means without any metagaming (like looking at an opponent's cards or hustling opponents into telling you some information which you shouldn't know while playing by the rules, like in your Settlers example).

Basically this move could be similar to a situation in Settlers when you put a robber on someone and also yourself - you are losing something (a turn in TTR) but in certain situations limiting the opponent more.

I would say, due to the nature of the game, that it IS unethical, and hear me out as to why: the whole point of the game is building a NETWORK of trains and trying to earn the most possible points out of that network.

Building on a single section of track that is nowhere near your actual network, just to prevent another player from building their own network, seems to fall outside the spirit of that, especially thematically (it's hard to imagine a railroad company halting production of their own project just to travel across the country and sabotage the production of someone else's project).

In fact, I think that is why some of the later games addressed this. For example, Ticket to Ride: Europe added the "stations" - it basically makes blocking completely useless because if you only blocked one section of the track, then you basically just wasted your own turn because your opponent can use what you built to finish their own route. IMO, the fact that they added that mechanic to later games indicates that it was not intended to be a tactic in the original games either.

The other thing to consider is how the game is actually played - turn based. By only being able to build one stretch of track at a time, it's pretty difficult to NOT give away what you are going for. It makes it very easy for an opponent to block you, especially on tracks that are only 1-2 trains long. So it also seems unfair when you need to connect 3 sections of track and it takes 3 turns to do. I think it would be different if you could connect as much as you wanted on your turn, then if you left something open to be blocked, fine... but if there are 3 places to block you, it's just not possible to cover all of them on 1 turn, meaning you are helpless against being blocked, which changes it from "a valid strategy" to "not fair", because there is nothing they could do to prevent you from blocking them, so they feel cheated rather than outwitted.

I mean, let's take a real look at the situation described in the original "question" - the wife has to complete 3 small routes to set up her network. If she had played the one that had been blocked first, what's to have prevented you from taking one of the other legs instead? If she played Stockholm-Norrkoping, you could have still blocked her by playing Norrkoping-Karlskrona (a 3-train route, so slightly harder to block, but not impossible by any stretch). So really, what options does she have to complete this 3-leg route without being blocked, if you are intent on blocking her? There aren't really any, which is why it feels "cheap"/"unfair" to be blocked.


Is It Possible To Win 2-Player Agricola Without Taking Wood? A few months ago I visited a friend who'd recently taken up playing Agricola with her husband.  "We think there should be a bigger handicap for going second," she said, "Otherwise the person who keeps taking the wood always wins."  I thought this was rubbish, and took her on in a 2-player game, letting her take wood first every time while I concentrated on a Major Improvements-dominated strategy.  I can't remember the final scoreline but I'm pretty sure I won the game by double figures of points.

I just played a 2-player game on the excellent boiteajeux.net, where my opponent went first, and started as he meant to go on, by hogging the wood space.  I had some really bad Occupations and Minor Improvements: I played the Pieceworker in the first round, but thereafter never had a really big incentive to play another card.  Opponent took some more wood, and eventually some reed, before playing - uh, oh - the Wet Nurse.

I decided in the face of this obviously unbalanced game not to scrabble for 3 wood or the starting player token (I had no good Minor Improvements to play after all), but to cut my foe mercilessly off food whenever possible.  This certainly slowed the pace of his domination of the game, but he still had enough breathing room always to take 6 wood when it was available.  Eventually he made his move and grew his house from 3 to 5 rooms with a full complement of people, with me still on 2 actions a turn.  I continued to make it hard for him to get easy food grabs, but ultimately he was able to build a lot of fences while my farmyard had, in the end, 2 rooms, 5 fields, 1 pasture... and 7 painfully empty spaces.  The ultimate scoreline was 43-30 in his favour, not exactly a rout but not very close either.

My question then is: is it impossible to win Agricola this way?  Do you have to compete for the wood to go under?  Against my married friend I was able to keep her in check by cutting reed to keep her off room building; but this might not work against a more determined opponent.  Should I have resigned myself to the fact that I needed to "waste" an action by taking Starting Player without having a minor improvement to play?  Or to take 3 wood even though this would give my opponent more opportunities to move ahead in other areas and cement his lead?

Or can I just chalk up my loss to the fact that the Wet Nurse is a bit unfair against a player with no good cards of their own to fight back with?

Normally I wouldn't like to answer my own question, but I have played a lot of online Agricola since posting this one, with the specific goal of taking as little wood as possible, so I hopefully have some interesting new information to provide by now...

Wood is a really hard commodity to ignore in Agricola, just because it's so versatile.  You need wood for all the below things:

to have space to grow your family quickly
to grow your house to a good size so you can get big points from removation at the end of the game
to build early stables and/or fences to pursue the animal breeding strategy
to build a giant pasture in the late game to avoid losing big points from unused spaces
many, many good Minor Improvements require wood, as does the Well

When it comes down to it, wood just does more than anything else in this game, so much so that I think it's a bit of an insult that the Joinery also exists: wood does all of this AND you can get bonus points from having a surplus of it too?  (Not that anyone ever buys the Joinery, because in practice there's always something else useful you can do with your wood.)

In the light of all this, how can you do well in Agricola without wood?  Well, here's the big things you can do without it:

get a lot of food

None of the efficient food-getting strategies in Agricola requires a single piece of wood.  And while food-gathering is not an end in itself, it does mean that if your opponent is hogging the wood space, you have every opportunity to cut them off from a good food engine, specifically by taking all the clay for the first half of the game.  When your opponent has no good way of feeding his family (Fishing and Day Labourer don't count), then it's academic that he can grow his family - fear of Begging cards may mean he just can't afford to.  Lack of a steady supply of food also limits the number of Occupation cards he can realistically play - after the first they do start inhibiting the ability of a food-poor player to feed his family!

So would I recommend a food-denial strategy as a counter to a player who remorselessly goes after the wood?  Yes and no.  In the first half of the game you can definitely hold your own against the wood-mad player by trying to starve them.  Unfortunately, you have to be an actually terrible player to stumble blindly into a situation where you can't avoid getting Begging cards; so generally I'd say the food-denial strategy can only contain, not crush, an opponent.  It's not hard, though, to engineer a situation where you have a Fireplace, some grain fields and maybe an Oven too and your opponent has nothing but a lot of wood and a heavy reliance on Fishing and Day Labourer.

The problem is that I don't think this position is sustainable all the way to the end of the game.  You can't cut an opponent off from all avenues indefinitely.  I had a great game where opponent dogmatically took all the wood and I dogmatically took all the reed, every time.  Sadly he finished a few points ahead of me: the sad fact is that, even once I buy the Basketmaker's Workshop, a gigantic pile of reed is only worth 5 points and some food, while a gigantic pile of wood enables, at the very least, the building of a giant pasture that uses up all the empty space in your farmyard and ends up being worth 10+ victory points.  Plus, to add insult to injury, they probably go on to buy the stupid Joinery and totally crush you!

As such, my ultimate conclusion is that, no, it's not possible to win Agricola without ever taking wood.  Not without some ridiculous combination of Occupations and Minor Improvements, at any rate.  There are good ways to attack the players who take wood aggressively at the start of the game, but once you've done this you'll want to make a strategic U-turn and compete for it aggressively yourself starting from about round 7 or 8.

Wood is just too useful for too many things, and if you've played a very miserly, explosive-growth-impeding game, you still need 12 wood at the end to build a 3x3 pasture and save yourself from losing double figures of points at the end.  What's the alternative - ploughing 9 fields?  I don't think so.

I find that there isn't enough incentive to keep fighting for starting player, as you probably cant use the majority of your minor improvements in the early stages, and cant afford to waste valuable turns at this time.

We usually adapt the family game rule of adding food to this action space each round, so you can either take the food or use a minor improvement when you take starting player.

This means that the starting player tends to change more often and make it a more balanced / interesting game.

Apologies that this post is not particularly related to your question, although stemmed from my friend the 'wood hogger'!


Too many Tech-Victories seen in 2-player rules for Civilization I have been playing Civilization The Board Game some times with my girlfriend, but each time, the game quickly becomes a race for the tech-victory. Since it is a large advantage to research tech in general, this victory is easy, and we do never even attack each other, since the tech victory is easier.

Can you propose some alternative rules which would change this behavior? We thought about just removing the possibility to win by tech, but my prediction is, that this will just make culture-victory the new tech-victory.

For simplicity, I will focus on the base game (Sid Meier's Civilization the Board Game, as published in 2010) without any expansions because this is what I assume you are currently playing.

Tech victories are common while learning the game rules.  This is because the Research phase acts as a sort of timer; if everyone acquires approximately 1 technology per turn, then someone's tech victory is likely to happen close to the 15th turn regardless of other game events.  Tech victory is what eventually happens if the empires are grown without focussed strategies, or if opportunities to advance are often missed (fewer strategically useful actions per player per turn).

However, after the learning phase is over, you will see that tech victories are not at all that common.  In fact a tech victory is quite a feat for anyone except Russians, whose espionage is the easiest way to speed up research.

And some speed up is very much necessary.  Games played between seasoned players are won around the 11th turn in one way or another.

well, in the computer game, you can control which victories to implement. you can check the box by the domination victory, so that no one can we by domination for example. the simple fix for this is to decide at the beginning of the match that victory by technology is not an option. hope this helps.


Can the Mage Wars Warlock be played without any Demon cards? As the subject states, I was wondering if the Mage Wars Core Set comes with enough Fire type cards to allow the Warlock Mage to build a spellbook with absolutely no Demon cards. Without seeing the cards, I will assume that most, if not all of the other Dark magic cards are OK, but I would ultimately prefer a pure Fire Magic spellbook.

So as to preemptively answer the almost inevitable 'Why?', I will simply say that, as an orthodox Christian, my conscience doesn't allow me to play a game with such cards. I would prefer not to debate/explain this further, as I believe such a discussion is well beyond the scope of this site.

In the starting Core Set I would have to say that it would be a very tough if not an impossible feat to be able to play the Warlock without the Demon cards, as there is only one Flame type creature, but it just happens to also be a Demon.  So you would have to spend quite a bit of your deck points on the doubled points from creatures not being a dark or fire type.

This may be doable, as you may be able to counter balance with some of the powerful Flame attack spells that can really do some damage, especially when combined with an equipment called Elemental Wand, to allow you to bind and recast the attack spells each turn.

Google "mage wars Warlock strategy" one of the results will be a 4 minute youtube video of a Warlock tearing a beastmaster apart, winning the game in 9 rounds, without summoning a single creature, demons or otherwise.


Is there a standard way to number the faces of a 20-sided die? I hold a 20-sided die (icosahedron) in my hand. As with any other die, to help fairness, values on opposing sides sum to twice the mean (as explained here).

I know that in a "normal" 6-sided die, there are norms about the numbering order (as mentioned here). My question is this: is there any standard way of numbering the faces of the 20-sided die? For example, is 1 always between 7, 13 and 19? (these are the values that I see in the die that I am holding at the moment). If so: can you see a reasoning?

Some reasoning would be the take further step the effort to make it fair; however, I don't have any rule in mind that will achieve this end.

Finally: if there is no standard, is there any set of standard ways? For example, I can't imagine anyone putting 2 just next to 1, right?

(this question may be asked about other die types as well...)

I assume that we are speaking about a D20 that makes some attempt to roll fairly, such as the ones used in D&D. This is different from the aptly named "spindown" D20 which is numbered in a simple spiral.

Why do opposing faces add up to 21?

According to Everything2.com's article on D20, opposing sides add up to 21 so that the numbers most distant from each other to appear on opposite sides of the die.

Ok, now we have 10 pairs of 21. How do we arrange them?

If you are engraving the numbers, you'll have to carve out more material for some numbers than for others. The more you dig out, the lighter that side becomes.

Everything2 advises that we arrange these pairs in a way that heavy sides are next to light sides, but they provide no actual arrangement. In fact, I cannot find any actual mathematics behind what the best possible arrangement actually is. After a substantial amount of searching, I have concluded that the "standard" arrangement we know today probably originated from D&D, but I can't back this up.

Speaking of standard arrangement, here is the actual answer to your question.

Image from DiceCollector.com

I found a pattern that is consistent with all equilateral die. If n=number of sides of the dice and k=a number chosen on the die, then the number directly parallel to k = n-k+1; however this doesn't work for non-equilateral dice like the d10. I still don't know what the relation between k and the numbers adjacent to k is yet.


Can the last player in a trick win with Change Rage? In the game Rage, who wins the trick if the very last card played is a Change Rage card?  We're playing as though the person who played the Change Rage card is the winner since they changed the Trump color.

Does anyone have experience with this and if so, how did you determine the winner?

No, the last player cannot win in this way. From the wikipedia link

  The 14 Rage cards in the deck have black borders and, with the
  exception of the Wild Rage card, do not count as being of any suit and
  therefore cannot win a trick.

Honestly, I'm not really sure where the confusion is. The card changes the trump color. You then evaluate the other cards played on the trick, find the highest card of the new trump (or the highest of the led suit if there are no cards of the new trump), and it wins. The only player that can't possibly win the trick is the one that played the Change Rage.

As far as I can tell, you're handling the scenario correctly.

I wasn't able to find any specific ruling for this. Rules As Written, though:

Change Rage "determines the trump color for this and any further tricks. The previous trump color is no longer valid for this trick."
The highest-number trump card in a trick always wins the trick.
I can't find any exceptions related to either of those two rules.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/55521/Fundex-Games-Rage.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(trick-taking_card_game)#Bidding


Is a Regenerated Creature Removed from Combat? Say my opponent attacks me with a creature.  I use a burn spell to deal lethal damage, then he regenerates it.  Is it removed from combat at that point or does it still deal damage?

Yes, when a creature is regenerated, it is removed from combat.

The exact wording of the rule (701.12a) is

  If the effect of a resolving spell or ability regenerates a permanent, it creates a replacement effect that protects the permanent the next time it would be destroyed this turn. In this case, “Regenerate [permanent]” means “The next time [permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage marked on it and tap it. If it’s an attacking or blocking creature, remove it from combat.”

If I recall correctly creatures regenerate tapped.  That pretty much removes them from combat.


Online resources for learning/practicing bridge Are there any good online resources to learn the game. By learn, I mean learn attain the knowledge that one would by buying/reading a good book.

For example, are there any "puzzles" that are well explained that either explain different bidding systems or strategies for playing with the dummy etc.

Here are some:

Richard Pavlicek's site on bridge which has puzzles, articles explaining concepts, bidding systems, calculators etc. A very good free resource.
The now discontinued deal of the week by Fred Gitelman which is an over the shoulder type of software. Free.
Bridge Master and software by other world class players: http://bbi.bridgebase.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi (not free, but highly recommended).

I am developing a site to practice card play for bridge:
akqbridge. There is no bidding - you play set contracts.  One key aim is to lower the entry barrier for new players.


What are good standard strategies for Carcassonne ? I've only just discovered Carcassonne (thanks to the iPhone app), but I keep losing (in 3-player games).

Which standard strategies are there? (game without extensions, 3-4 players).

One strategy per answer please.

Strand your opponents Meeples

When you place a piece, of course try to make it advantageous to yourself.  But if you can, place it to hinder your opponent.  If he is trying to complete a city and you weren't able to figure out a way to share it, then place a tile next to the potential closing piece.  This will limit his options.  By slowing down the rate that his meeples return you will gain an advantage.

Often times, it is possible to leave an empty space that no tile can be placed in.  If your opponent has an unfinished city or road that connects to that empty space then his meeple will not be returning to his hand and will generate a sub-standard score.

There are 2 main empty squares that cannot be filled using pieces from only the base set.

There is no tile containing 1 road, 1 city, and 2 field sides.
There is no tile containing 1 road, 2 city, and 1 field sides.

With a little practice it is pretty easy to get this to work against even moderately experienced players.  I played a game online recently that followed this general sequence

My opponent had a couple pieces towards a city
I played a city tile with a meeple to try to encourage sharing the city.
He played another city+meeple to defend and was able to connect his 2 before I could share
I was able to complete my city while surrounding an empty square, making it unplayable.
As a bonus, he also had an unfinished road running into the empty square.

My opponent had 3 meeples stranded and it we were only 1/3rd of the way through the game!  He stood no chance to win the game at that point.

If you are playing with any expansions, it is important to apply them to strategies you already know, as the expansions may make some strategies more useful, or more obsolete.

Some examples of this may include:

10th Anniversary Special Edition, in which would make blocking people off from getting their Meeples back more difficult until late game
The Gold Mines Expansion, in which would make sharing of castles and roads a much more interesting way to move. It would make blocking people a much more prominent strategy when you don't ever get your share.
The Flying Machine Expansion, in which would change the way you look at jumping on the train to sharing points for castles, roads, and even abbeys.

Changing your strategy may need to happen, depending on the expansions you use. Thinking of how you will play before the game begins can change the outcome of the game drastically.


In what order are triggered abilities executed? When in a player window where triggered abilities can take effect, how do players determine the order of execution of the triggered abilities?  Can they be in any order, i.e. player 1 triggers 2 abilities, then player 2 triggers 1, then player 1 again triggers 1?  Or do they follow certain restrictions such as particular abilities requiring all triggerings for that to be done atomically or, in the case of a disagreement among players, defaulting to the player who controls the lead investigator to decide who goes when, or in player order etc.?  I would think the answer is likely in the order the players decide, with disputes resolved by the lead investigator.

Form Rules Reference, p.17

Priority of Simultaneous Resolution

If an effect affects multiple players simultaneously, but the players
must individually make choices to resolve the effect, these choices
are made in player order. Once all necessary choices have been
made, the effect resolves simultaneously upon all affected entities.

If two or more forced abilities (including delayed effects)
would resolve at the same time, the lead investigator
determines the order in which the abilities resolve.
If two or more constant abilities and/or lasting effects
cannot be applied simultaneously, the lead investigator
determines the order in which they are applied.

If multiple triggered abilities trigger at the same time by the same player, those abilities can be placed onto the stack in the order of that players choosing resolving in reverse order. If multiple triggered abilities from multiple players trigger at the same time, first the active player orders their abilities in the order of their choosing onto the stack, then the next player in turn order does the same for their abilities, going around until each player has done this. This is active non-active player order.

The abilities begin to resolve in reverse order one by one from how they were put on the stack (meaning the last ability from the player furthest from the active player would resolve first). If a triggered ability or abilities were to then be triggered during the resolution of one of the stacked abilities, the current ability would finish resolving first. Before the next ability on the stack resolves, the new triggered abilities would be put onto the stack in active non-active player order again, and the last of these added triggered abilities would be the next one to resolve.


Why is capturing mandatory in checkers/draughts? What if capturing was optional like any normal move? Would the game become completely unplayable? I am totally new to checkers/draughts. I have just learned the rules today, and I have a question about a specific rule: why is capturing mandatory?

What would happen if we changed the rules so that capturing is optional like any normal move? Would the game become completely unplayable?

No, the game does not become unplayable.

Years ago, I regularly played without mandatory capture rules, and found the experience enjoyable.

There is also something called the Huffing Rule variant, where the capture is not forced, but by not taking the capture you lose that piece after your turn.

Yes, without the compulsion to jump 8 x 8 checkers/draughts becomes an absolute farce, whereas with it it is as skilful as any mind sport. Also, remember that in the days of huffing, you could always insist that your opponent retracted the illegal move and jumped anyway. Finally, in serious play to overlook a jump is extremely rare and a source of acute embarrassment -like a chess grandmaster not noticing they were in check!


How do I get the "5 routes" achievement? What is meant in the poker player of using all "5" routes - is it all routes that use 5 carriages or tickets that score 5 points? I did the former but didn't get the achievement.

Yes. Get all the 5-car, 10 point scores, there are 8. You must also win the game too. Recommend playing against only one bot.

It needs to be in the standard version. I tried with the 1910 version and it didn't work.


In Catan, how to ensure nobody lies when monopoly card is played? I don't like that the rules assume players are honest. One time, we had a player that lied about not having the requested resource, but was caught in the next turn when he tried to buy a road with that resource. However, a cunning opponent can lie and get away with it.

What's the most practical way to handle this situation? How do you deal with it? I don't really like any of the solutions I can think of. Forcing everyone to show all of their cards, having a judge/game master who checks everyone's cards, relying on everyone's honesty, ... all of them are either impractical or unfair.

Count the cards in the supply

In Settlers of Catan you are always allowed to count the number of resources left in the supply decks.  It is a perfectly legal move to count the deck before using the monopoly on a resource.

This also means that after you got the resources you can just check how many you have in your hand, and how many are left in the deck.  If you are missing one, then someone is cheating.

In the 4th edition of the game there are 19 of each resource card.

Even if you think that counting the deck is out of the spirit of the game, having someone do it after a monopoly reveals no new information, and just controls for cheating.

There's really no need for all these complicated solutions and rule-sets.

Unless, you are participating in an organized tournament -- in which case, you should notify the judges, because cheating would likely result in disqualification -- you do not need to put up with cheating. When playing a friendly game, there's no reason for anyone to lie and cheat. It throws off the balance of the game and makes it no fun for everyone. Isn't that why we play games to begin with?

I've played hundreds of hours of Catan (and other games) with my friends and if we ever discovered someone was cheating, we'd probably do our best to fairly penalize them for their misdeeds. If they continued to cheat then we'd simply refuse to play with that person and not invite them to future games.

Speaking for myself, if I discovered a cheater, depending on the circumstances, I would probably refuse to play as long as that person was playing.

If that's not an option, then yes, make up some house-rules to deal with the situation. If it is an ongoing problem then implement an immediate-lose rule which forces them out of the game.


The Resistance doesn't work when resistance members don't care about losing Was playing a game of The Resistance with some people who haven't played it before. What I found, is that of the five games we played, the Resistance only won one of them.

I think the reason for this, was a social dynamic of people not wanting to argue, and 'let's just get on with the game' so vote for the mission to go ahead, even though there's a good chance there's a spy on the mission.

Are there any good strategies for getting people more vested in the outcome of the mission, or is this simply a matter of 'playing with the right people'?

All games require people to be at least somewhat invested in playing properly, otherwise what's the point in playing in the first place?

I think the issue is made clear in your line about how there "was a social dynamic of people not wanting to argue, and 'let's just get on with the game'" - sorry, but arguing in The Resistance IS the game. Without the discussion, it's just a game of voting. It's already a short game (20-30 minutes), what is to be gained by rushing through it?

Sounds to me like the group weren't that up for playing. It is a game that requires the right group of people as you say. Although I will add the caveat that lots of people I didn't think would be into it will often surprise you with how invested they get.

Some people will take at least one game to establish properly how it works and what opportunities are available (and yes, you may need to artificially inflate the drama a little by throwing some accusations around perhaps more than you normally would). Some people however simply will not get it and won't get invested (my brother for example, couldn't understand why the spies would bother lying - which makes no sense, but whatever).

The only way to make people care about something that they don't already is to wager something.
I am not suggesting that you need to wager in The Resistance, or that it is even a good idea, but there is no other way to get people who don't care to care.

Also I would mention that most games don't work if the people playing it don't care.


Bridge auction and play with a 5521 hand opposite 1255 Playing at a matchpoint Swiss pairs event yesterday, I played this hand as north.

Our auction went 1♤-2♢-2♡-3NT-4♡. I had difficulty choosing what to bid over 3NT. South could have bid the fourth suit to look for a major fit so I knew I would likely be playing in a seven card fit. What action would you take and why?

I also found the play interesting. East lead ♡10, Q - K - A. I then made a plan for the play: ♤ AK, ♤ ruff, ♧AK, ♧ruff high, ◇A,◇ruff low and then get a trick from ♡8x (since the lead makes it look like the Jack is onside). Roughly I need 4-3 spades, 4-2 diamonds, 4-3 or 2=5 clubs. Is there a better line of play?

You could attack Diamonds before touching clubs, while the A♧ is still an entry to south. This sets up a long diamond, but it works only if the opp with short diamonds is also short in trump. On the actual lie, the long diamonds will be trumped.

You don't mention it, but on your line a diamond must have been discarded on the second club trick so that the second diamond can be trumped.

You also don't mention but in the 4-card ending when you hold ♤Tx ♡8x  in the north hand, (after the Diamond ruff) you must lead a spade so that the opponets will have to lead trump into your 8x. This works on the actual lie.

I don't see a celarly better line of play.

On bidding, I agree with the comment that you could stop in 3NT. But on the actual lie, i don't see a play for 9 tricks, with neither black suit breaking favorably.

And I don't see a good reason to try for slam over 3NT. It certainly doesn't work on the actual lie, but with no running suit and no more than 28 HCP between the hands, it is hard to see how slam is plausible. Also the 3NT bid seems to deny any slam inters.

Duck the HK on trick 1; smoooooothly.

The lead has revealed both that HJ is in West, and that West has the long trumps (as East would have lead a low Heart with length

West's options are now:

Continues a low Heart.
Win low, cash HA and lead a low Spade to the 9to set up a third Spade trick.
Continues HJ.
Win with HA, cash H8 and H9 and lead a low Spade to the 9, as above.
Lead a Club.
Win in Dummy and lead a low Diamond to the Q.
Lead a low Dimaond.
Win in hand, cash two clubs and lead a heart from Dummy for the finesse.
Lead Diamond King.
Win in Dummy and lead a low Heart for the finesse.
Lead a Spade.
Ride to the 9.

By retaining control of the Heart suit after the initial duck at Trick 1 you give opponents a tough time to determine a winning defense without the additional information of knowing what suit you are going to try and set up (Spades).

After the Duck you hope to establish 3 or 4 Hearts, 3 Spades, 2 Diamonds (since DK is onside) and 2 Clubs for 10 or 11 tricks.

On the bidding I see no issue with either passing 3NT or the actual call of 4H. A gross misfit is revealed - but it is more evident to both you and partner than to the opponents. Any further action will only raise the auction, reveal the extent of the misfit to opponents, entice a penalty double, and assist the defense in their play. Time to get out.


What is the maximum score in Ticket to Ride USA, and how to aim towards it? My wife has been playing Ticket to Ride on her iPod, and has achieved what seems to me a very impressive score of nearly 250 in the 2-player game.  Naturally, nothing now matters to me except trying to beat her...

Even assuming a terrible computer opponent, it seems to me to be quite difficult to get much above 200 points in a normal game.  But I thought if I enlisted the help of the BG:SE brain trust, we might be able to work out the maximum possible score for the US board.

And if we can find out or approximate that information, from there I'm guessing it should be easy to work out which routes or combination of routes are the best to aim for for racking up a top score...

Straight from Board Game Geek:

  In order to get 295 you must get one of the most important cities Miami! You end up sacrificing New Orleans and Sault St. Marie to do so.

  Follow the same route from Vancouver to Santa Fe, but then you deviate from there:

  Santa Fe -> Denver -> Kansas City -> St. Louis (Splitting Point Here)
  St. Louis -> Nashville -> Atlanta -> Miami
  St. Louis -> Chicago -> Pittsburg (Splitting Point Here)
  Pittsburg -> Toronto
  Pittsburg -> New York -> Boston -> Montreal

  This route will give you the same 62 points for train length, but 223 for destination cards resulting in 295!

  Dropped Destinations: Dallas to NY; NO to Vancouver; NO to Chicago; Sault St. Marie to OKC; Sault St. Marie to Nashville (48 points)

  Added Destinations: Denver to Pittsburg; Miami -> LA; Miami -> Boston; Miami -> Montreal (51 points)

Following this as close as possible, you should be able to beat 200, and eventually eclipse your wife's score of 250. It's going to take a little luck, but this seems like the best blueprint.

Read the back of the score card. If you have a consecutive path of all 45 trains you get a bonus score of 225


Properly choosing a random discard Sometimes an effect causes you to discard a card at random. In casual games, it's usually acceptable to have the player hold their hand out (or face down) and the other player picks a card. However, this is not really random. For example I often play mind games to influence their decision like sticking one card out really far while staring at another one.

If my opponent wants to resolve a random discard that way, am I within my right to demand that it be settled with something more random, like a dice roll?

Yes. Many of us use dice even in casual games, because we can't actually make random decisions, and it's easy.

Random means, well, random, so a nonrandom method is not following the rules. I don't think this is explicitly in the rules anywhere, though both die rolls and coin flips are mentions as methods of randomization. It's left implicit that a nonrandom method does not suffice for a card which asks for a random choice; it's not what the card said to do.

  705.3. ... Other methods of randomization may be substituted for flipping a coin as long as there are two possible outcomes of equal likelihood and all players agree to the substitution. For example, the player may roll an even-sided die and call "odds" or "evens," or roll an even-sided die and designate that "odds" means "heads" and "evens" means "tails."

It's also sometimes mentioned in rules clarifications, e.g. for Goblin Test Pilot from the Dragon's Maze FAQ:

  To choose a target at random, all possible legal targets (including creatures and players) must have an equal chance of being chosen. There are many ways to do this, including assigning each possible legal target a number and rolling a die.

But again, I don't think it ever says explicitly "nonrandom methods are not random", because that's supposed to be obvious. Any method is okay, as long as all outcomes are equally likely. Determining what methods satisfy that criterion is left up to the players, or if necessary, a judge.

Another way to obtain a random decision, in the absence of a die, is to:

Have both players secretly write down a number from 0 to N-1 (where N is the number of cards to choose from);
Reveal them simultaneously and add them;
Take the result modulo N; and
Select a card this many places over from the left-most card of the owning player's hand.

One can see how this works as follows: whatever number one player might choose, each possible number chosen by the other player will map that to a single unique card from the pool, exactly once. And vice-versa.

Update:
Excerpts from my comments to the original question:

Try that strategy if you like, but any decent opponent knowledgeable in Game Theory would figure out your strategy in a few instances. You are always better off in such a situation, against a knowledgeable opponent, to provide no information what-so-ever.
against a skilled opponent, random is the very best you can do. Google game theory if you don't believe me.
Against children, novices and fools you might do better; however a skilled opponent will have determined which card to select in such a circumstance before the game even started. They will deviate from this pre-game selection only if they have identified your tell. Watch The Cincinnati Kid sometime, or the original Rounders with Matt Damon.
More on Game Theory is readily available on the web, or try Googling Prisoners' Dilemma.


Is pawn promotion to rook or bishop something that is seen in play? Reading What is the proper Algebraic Notation for a pawn being promoted? made me wonder whether pawn promotion to rook or bishop ever happens.  The only time I can think this might happen is when promotion to a queen would provide stalemate.

Are there any other situations where one might choose a rook or bishop over a queen (or knight)?  Secondly, has this ever been a case where promotion to a rook/bishop gave an advantage in an actual game?

Under-promotion to bishop/rook happens from time-to-time.  I've only seen it in three cases:

The pawn will be captured regardless of what it's promoted to, and the promoting player wants to be cocky
It's checkmate with just a bishop or just a rook, and the promoting player wants to be cocky (in those cases, a queen would mate also)
Promoting to a queen is stalemate

Of those, the only one that's interesting is #3.  It's extremely rare, but has happened in tournament games.  For example, in the game Ruben - Sultan Khan, 1930:

Playing 1. f8=Q leaves Black in stalemate, but 1. f8=R does not (though 1. Kf6! would have been better :) )

Here is another example (Vasiukov - Tukmakov, 1976)

White, in a last-ditch effort, played 1. Rg1+ -  1.. hxg1=Q would be stalemate!  Black responded 1.. hxg1=R! 0-1

Under-promotion to knight is more common (though still very rare) than to rook/bishop because, unlike rooks/bishops, the knight has the possibility to attack squares the queen cannot, which can sometimes be necessary to win material or force checkmate.

Readers may be interested in the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dgrvlWML4
in which the great physicist Richard Feynman made use
of promotion to bishop, specifically, in an entertaining analogy between theoretical physics and chess. Perhaps I missed it, but I
did not see in the discussion above a case occurring in a recorded
game where bishop promotion gave a result which other promotions would not.


Meaning of redouble in Goren system? Here is the situation. Playing best of minors (with four diamonds and 14 points with no five card suit) I opened one diamond. Opponent on my left Doubled. My partner Redoubled. Her partner passed and I passed…not comprehending what she was telling me or asking. As it turned out she just thought it was the right thing to do having four diamonds and a minimal supporting hand. We made two diamonds, and scored it accordingly, but left all of us still wondering what the Redoubled meant.

What could it have meant, or what should it have meant under the Goren system of bidding? Was redoubling the right thing for partner to do with a minimum supporitng hand?

Playing a basic Goren system the Redouble (of a Take-Out Double of an opening 1 of a suit bid) shows a hand of 10+ points. It tends to show a balanced hand as it suggests that Opener Double the escape by 4th hand if it is into a good 5-card  suit (or 4-card suit at the two level) in his hand, otherwise pass. It also tends to deny good support in Opener's suit for the same reason, as with a good fit Opener's side may find more profit in a Game contract than in penalizing the opponents.

The more strength there is in Redoubler's hand the more likely that it is short in Opener's suit, again because the likely profit in a penalty double increases from the potential mis-fit.

With sound support for Opener's suit the modern tendency is to make a pre-emptive raise: to the 2-level with 4-6 HCP and good 3-card support and the three level with 7-9 HCP and either a side-singleton or 4-card support and a doubleton.

For the situation you described Fourth hand should have taken out the redouble: You scored a nice profit considering the opponents can probably make 8 or 9 tricks in a major themselves.

The redouble is not forcing on the original bidder, so the responder must be willing to see the hand played in the bid contract.  That means:

The responder has support for the original bid (at least 3 diamonds, and at least six points.)
The responder must have neither the points or the distribution that would make game (or a slam) virtually certain -- otherwise bid a new suit or NT.
The responder does not have a hand thaat would make a preemptive raise reasonable, to prevent the opponents for finding game or slam.


Does a person playing an illegal Draw 4 in Uno still get to pick the color? If you play an illegal Draw 4, then are challenged and fail, do you still get to pick the color? I know the player who got caught playing the illegal card has to Draw 4 cards, but it's unclear if whether or not they still get to pick the color.

As per the (2008) Rules sheet from Mattel (emphasis in second paragraph mine):

  Wild Draw Four Card - When you play this card, you get to choose the
  color that continues play PLUS the next player must draw 4 cards from
  the DRAW pile and lose their turn. However, there is a hitch! You may
  only play this card when you do NOT have another card in your hand
  that matches the COLOR on the DISCARD pile (but it is acceptable to
  play this card if you have matching number or Action Cards). If turned
  up at the beginning of play, return this card to the deck and pick another
  card.

  NOTE: If you suspect that a Wild Draw 4 card has been played on you illegally (i.e. the player has a matching card), then you may challenge that player. The challenged player must show you (the challenger) their hand. If guilty, the challenged player must draw the 4 cards instead of you. However, if the challenged player is innocent, you must draw the 4 cards PLUS an additional 2 cards (6 total)!

The takeaway from this: Since the penalty on this states that the challenged player draws 4 cards instead of the challenging player AND since the rules never state that an illegally-played "Wild Draw 4" card is taken back, the card remains on the discard pile and the declared color remains in effect. This means you can't prevent an unfavorable color change from an illegally-played Wild Draw 4 card.

Official Uno Videogames handle this the same way: the Wild Draw 4's declared color remains in effect (at least one version recolors the Wild cards after a color's been declared to make it clear what color the top card is).

Some rule revisions, such as the 2003 Rules Sheet from Mattel, also specifically refer to playing a Wild Draw 4 while still having cards matching the current color as bluffing.

Wild Draw Four Card - This is the best, meanest, most sneaky card to have. Not only does the player get to call the next color played, but the next player has to pick 4 cards and forfeit his turn. There is a hitch, however (of course): you can only play this card when you don't have a card in your hand that matches the color of the card previously played.
  Note: A player may have a matching number or word card of a different color in his hand and plays his "Wild Draw Four" card.

  If a player plays a Wild Draw 4 card illegally and gets caught, he must first show his hand to the player who challenged. If guilty, he must draw 4 cards. If not guilty, the challenger must draw 2 cards in addition to the 4. The challenge can only be made by the person required to draw the four cards.

uno rules

Notice that the penalty does not indicate the card illegally played should remain in play. The only guidance in the rules is derived from the initial statement that you cannot play this card. The only interpretation I see is to remove the illegally played card from play since it could not be played and to instead play another card. That results in no choice of color having been made. To do otherwise would encourage this illegal play.


What card should I play when my partner has bid nil and I can't follow suit but do have Spades? Setup:

My partner has bid nil or blind nil. The player to my right led the trick, and I can't follow suit, but have one or more Spades in my hand.

Possible situations:

I know my partner has no Spades left.
I know my partner has no card of the led suit left, but may have Spades.
I don't know whether my partner has any Spades or led suit cards left.

My response:

Play my lowest Spade. I know that this will allow my partner to get rid of any high cards.
Play my highest Spade. My partner may have a Spade, so playing high will allow them to play their high spades to get rid of them.
Play my highest Spade. My partner may have or may not have to follow suit, or may or may not have to play a Spade.

Is this a valid (i.e. good) strategy? How would additional knowledge of what cards have been played affect my strategy?

It depends. Have you and the opponents bid for most or all of the tricks? If so then your left hand opponent (LHO) will probably not let the trick go by for fear of going down themselves. If not, and RHO has led a low card, then partner's nil may be in danger and you probably won't have to work hard to get your bid, so you need to protect partner from LHO playing low.

If you are going to protect partner, do you think he will have to follow suit? If so, then you can either trump small so he can throw a high card, or discard small and save your strength for later if you think he can duck this trick. If not, then a high trump will allow him to under-trump if he has an awkward middling trump.

Of course, if you know the cards that have been played, hopefully you'll know how many high cards are gone and what risk this trick poses. A good partner will also try to help you by good discarding - ideally he'll discard short suits first (if you have K765432, you don't gain anything by chucking the King early!), and by discarding a low card in a suit he's essentially saying "this suit is safe, please lead it whenever you can". Deliberately winning the lead with the intention of giving partner a free discard is very helpful.

(In any case, aren't spades always trumps? Or is that just the MS online version?)

When you say the "trump" suit I assume you mean the led suit. Spades are always trumps.

You need to assess where partner's nil is likely to be set.

Scenario 1, you are worried partner might be forced to win this trick, so you are going in with a spade. That would be correct if there is reason to assume partner might be forced to win it, given by counting what has happened so far. Or it being the dangerous 3rd round of the suit.

Scenario 2: Partner has no cards so he will be able to discard. You're already in trouble if partner only has spades left, unless this is trick 11 or 12 and you know the opps both have only spades too. You definitely do not want to part with a spade here. Save it for when you need it. Partner can get rid of a high side-suit card anyway.

Scenario 3. Playing a high spade is probably the worst thing you can do here. This is like scenario 1, you might ruff in if you are scared partner will be forced to win this trick.


For Sister Grimm's Super Power, where does the plot twist go if you can't play it? The Sister Grimm supporting character's Super Power reads:

  {C} Any Combat {Y}: Search your deck for an {C} Combat plot twist with a different name from each plot twist in your KO pile and play it if able.

What happens if you can't play it? I assume that if I search for a card and can't play it, it stays in my deck. Part of the problem here is that I'm used to MtG, where the card would explicitly tell you what to do in the alternative case.

It does tell you, it says play it if able. You are not able so you can't use it, it stays in your K.O pile not your deck.


Is there a way to beat Standstill? If your opponent has a  standstill on an otherwise empty board, is there a way to remove it without your opponent drawing cards?

krosan grip doesn't work because split-second doesn't apply to triggered abilities, and stifle or trickbind don't work either, because they themselves will trigger the ability.

You need to look for abilities that can be activated from places other than the 'field, since abilities don't trigger Standstill.

You can cycle Resounding Wave targeting Standstill and a land, as cycling is an activated ability it won't cause Standstill to trigger.

  702.28a Cycling is an activated ability that functions only while the card with cycling is in a player’s hand. “Cycling [cost]” means “[Cost], Discard this card: Draw a card.”

EDIT: Below answer actually won't work, because Standstill is only sacrificed when its triggered ability resolves.  It will trigger again from the Stifle and the second trigger will resolve before Stifle does.

Play any spell so that Standstill triggers.  Then play Stifle to counter the trigger.


In what zone do the lingering effects of spells reside? Cyclopean Tomb, for example, creates an effect that continues for the rest of the game, even if it is destroyed.

Is there a name for the conceptual "board" of lingering effects whose originating cards are no longer on the battlefield?

They do not reside in any special realm. They just continue to apply. CR 611.2a states

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

What is interesting is, that these effects continue to apply even if the controller of the spell or ability that generated it leaves the game in a multi-player. So, if you turned some of your opponent's lands into swamps and then are killed, those lands continue to be swamps as long as they remain on the battlefield with the counters. Since you already left the game, your turn will be skipped and no counters are removed by the tomb's second ability.

Most cards with lingering effects have had their oracle text changed to include "emblems", which goes into the Command Zone (example: Elspeth, Knight-Errant), however the Cyclopean Tomb is not one of them (likely due to them being unused in competitive formats).

Because Cyclopean Tomb doesn't mention an emblem, Rule CR 611.2a would apply.

Here's a good article to read about this specific issue:

http://humbabellasgamery.blogspot.ca/2013/07/oracle-review-cyclopean-tomb-and-gaeas.html


Why would you not move pawn two spaces during first move in chess? My Question:

It seems like you'd want to make it across the board faster to take control of the board, so...
Why would you not move your pawn TWO spaces (instead of one) during your first moves in chess?

My Assumptions:

I'm a TOTAL rookie at chess (and I suck), but it's my understanding that these are valid reasons for moving your pawn two spaces:

to gain/maintain control of as much of the board as possible
because the player controlling the middle four spaces typically has the upper hand
white may have an advantage because they move first, which indicates advancing space on the board early-on is advantageous

Sometimes, center board control is not immediately the goal of a particular openings's strategy.  I'm referring specifically to two types, Larsen's Opening and regular Fianchetto openings.

Here, white is advancing each pawn only one square, 1.b3 or 1.g3.

As wikipedia states:

  The fianchetto is a staple of many "hypermodern" openings, whose
  philosophy is to delay direct occupation of the center with the plan
  of undermining and destroying the opponent's central outpost.

And regarding tactics:

  One of the major benefits of the fianchetto is that it often allows
  the fianchettoed bishop to become more active. Because the bishop is
  placed on a long diagonal (either h1-a8 or a1-h8), it controls a lot
  of squares and can become a powerful offensive weapon.

Regarding "regular" Fianchetto(vs long Fianchetto): Advancing the pawn two squares would deny it the protection from the rook's pawn and bishop's pawn.  Fianchetto would be a great  search term for finding openings making use of single-square pawn advancement.

The goal of the opening is to develop all your minor pieces as effective as possible and as fast as possible. This means that you want to move every piece only once, and ideally only make one or two pawn movements. You also want to control the centre so that your opponent can't push back your minor piece. This is why you need to control the centre.

Looking at the theory above, it only makes sense to move your first pawn two blocks, rather than one.

[my rating: 1920]


How can I mana ramp in a Commander game without helping my opponents? I'm working on a Commander deck and I'm looking at ways to ramp my mana that won't aid my opponents.  I may eventually use all the listed ramp cards, but, I'd like to keep the restriction for the early game at least (when the draw gods smile on me).  This deck will be a mono-red deck and one of the other players also plays mono-red (but not particularly effectively).

I want to avoid, where possible, handing the other mono-red player an advantage by playing cards like Gauntlet of Might or helping all the other players with something like Mana Flare.

An example of something I think will work is Extraplanar Lens with Snow Covered Mountains (SCM).  It would work since I can be the sole player using SCMs and it works by naming the land card to benefit.  I can also use Caged Sun since it's text specifically adds to my mana pool (presuming that tapping a SCM for red mana is "activating it's ability") and benefits creatures I control.

Gauntlet of Power is another obvious contender, since SCMs count as basic lands (they are, in fact of type "Basic Snow Land — Mountain" per Gatherer errata), but suffers the same problem as Gauntlet of Might with respect to aiding my red playing opponents.

If I pursue the Snow Covered strategy (they are very uncommon in this area) what other ramps can aid me without unduly aiding my opponents?

Are there other cards that might come to my aid if I dropped the snow-covered idea?

In Commander, it's typical for decks of all colors to run "mana rocks" -- artifacts that generate mana. Some of the popular ones are: Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Thran Dynamo, Darksteel Ingot, Worn Powerstone, Dreamstone Hedron, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt. Some of these help with mana-fixing, others just produce colorless mana; the former is often helpful in a multi-color deck, but for mono-color you can just go with whatever's got the best resource yield. These cards are less sexy than straight-up mana doublers, but they'll give you a consistent edge right out the gate -- and usually draw less hate, to boot. (Spectral Searchlight is a pet card of mine I'd like to throw in here. It lets you play "friendly" by fixing someone else's mana or letting them cast some big spell a turn early, if you wish.)

Beyond mana rocks, any color deck can use Solemn Simulacrum, Pilgrim's Eye, Expedition Map (use it to tutor for cheaty lands like Coffers), and Doubling Cube. You can play mana Myrs if you seriously need the extra juice, but be ready for them to die to board wipes (Plague Myr deserves special notice -- slap some big equipment on him and he turns into a major threat).

There are colored cards that can do ramp, too. While green is known for ramping, being able to access almost the entire Vintage card pool (and getting to play higher-cost stuff because the game's not over in just a couple of turns) means every color has access to its own brand of acceleration.

Black's acceleration is surprisingly strong in the format. Cabal Coffers is very popular in black decks (or multi-color decks running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth). Magus of the Coffers and Nirkana Revenant give you even more Coffers-like effects. Black also has fast mana with old-school ritual effects like Dark Ritual and Soldevi Adnate.
White has rather little, but you can get extra lands with cards like Land Tax, Weathered Wayfarer, and Knight of the White Orchid (get your land count lower than the rest of the table by using Ravnica bouncelands). Serra's Sanctum is strong in the right deck.
Blue's biggest asset is easy card draw. You can put a bunch of mana rocks in your deck without having to worry as much about them messing up your late-game topdecks. Drawing multiple lands per turn also combines nicely with Walking Atlas, Patron of the Moon, and Azusa (if you're blue-green).
Red has some pretty good fast-mana spells; for Commander, I like Mana Geyser and Brightstone Ritual. As far as more lasting options... Braid of Fire has already been discussed; Koth of the Hammer is solid, but will probably draw a lot of hate; Soulbright Flamekin is a quirky and underestimated dude who can buff your creatures and fix your colors at the same time. Red has something else going for it, though: plentiful land, artifact, and creature destruction spells you can use to knock out other players' key ramp component.

For a red deck, I'd look to artifacts for ramp first and foremost, just for efficiency's sake. Red's in-color rampy stuff is nifty but I find it difficult to use.

If you're looking to generate prodigious amounts of mana to power out X spells, you can also get more bang for your buck with damage doublers like Fire Servant, Quest for Pure Flame, and Furnace of Rath; and copy effects like Reverberate (copied spells have the same X values and kickers as the original).

Khalni Gem can also be used to reduce your number of lands in play.


Our copy of Mansion of Madness, second edition doesn't contain the original 8 investigators cards, is this correct? we had Mansion of Madness, second edition (core game) for Christmas (don't have the original) but the game doesn't have the original 8 investigators. Is this correct? We have 16 other investigators cards. The box say it should come with 8 with matching 8 figures, we have 8 figures but 16 cards. (Not sure if they match) the game comes with a conversion pack which it says has the 16 extra cards. Are we missing the 8 investigator cards??
I'm so confused!
Thanks for any help.
(The box was all sealed, etc.)

It seems to be correct. From the second-edition rulebook, page 4, "First Game" sidebar:

  Before choosing a scenario, if you own the first edition Mansions of Madness base game and/or any of its expansions, you can integrate the components of those products as described by the Conversion Kit rules insert.

  Players can play any investigators from the integrated first edition products, and the app can use any of the monsters or map tiles from those products during the game.

I think it's reasonable to infer that the original investigators (and monsters and map tiles) are intentionally separate from the second edition.

I don't own the game, so I can't physically confirm this.

I got it for Xmas too...the 16 investigator cards are from earlier editions and not for the new one. So not sure how to use the app with no investigator cards to give me their stats


If I put a copper and add 4 more random cards into my hand from my starting deck, does it change the odds of getting the 5:2 split? I was thinking about a situation where someone accidentally reveals a copper from their starting hand while shuffling their deck or discovers that they only have 9 cards in their starting deck (and they are certain they put the required 3 Estates in).

If they added a copper from the supply to their first hand, and drew 4 more of the remaining 9 cards, would their odds of getting a 5:2 or 2:5 hand versus a 4:3 or 3:4 hand be any different than if they drew a normal 5 card starting hand from a normal 10 card deck? (I realize that a 5:2 hand is slightly different than a 2:5 hand, in that it allows you to change your possible 2:5 coin buy after an opponents first purchase. The thing I am wondering though is if it changes the chances of getting a 5:2 split versus the more likely 4:3 split).

Short Answer:

No.

Long Answer:

The odds of getting a 5:2 split over the more common 4:3 split is unchanged, even if the first card is intentionally chosen to be a copper.

Mathematically, this can be proven using hypergeometric distribution.  This can be calculated using the following function, where N is the size of the deck, n is the number of cards drawn, and m is the number of coppers available:

P(X=k) = (m choose k) * ((N-m) choose (n-k)) / (N choose n)

With a normal starting deck, you would use values of N=10, n=5 and m=7.  Without boring you with the math proper, these would give you a result breakdown as follows:

2 copper: 1/12
3 copper: 5/12
4 copper: 5/12
5 copper: 1/12

So you would normally have a 1/12 + 1/12 = 1/6 chance of getting the 5:2 split.

Now, if the first card is preemptively selected to be a copper, this changes our starting numbers.  Since the first card is known, your starting draw would effectively be a four card draw from a nine card deck containing only six coppers.  Punching in the values N=9, n=4 and m=6 into our function, we end up with the following table:

1 copper: 1/21
2 copper: 5/14
3 copper: 10/21
4 copper: 5/42

Even though the spread of numbers is significantly different, your odds of a 5:2 split work out to 1/21 + 5/42 = 7/42 = 1/6, which is exactly the same as before.

However, note that although the odds of the split themselves are unchanged, by selecting out the first copper you are now over twice as likely to get the 5:2 draw as you are to get the 2:5 draw.

I'm a little unclear what you mean by revealing the copper, then keeping on shuffling.  If you're still shuffling, then you're not done yet, and any cards revealed should be put back into the 10 cards.  If you're already starting to deal, then the cards are fixed, in which case you keep dealing regardless of the revealed card.

Nevertheless, making any kind of decision based on a revealed card will change the odds. Here's what I mean by decision:

I'm trying to game the system, so I shuffle until I accidentally reveal a card, if it's a copper, I let it remain in my starting hand, but if it's an Estate, I shuffle it back in.  I've just drastically increased my odds of having more copper in my starting hand.

NOTE: This scenario is equivalent to one where I intentionally reveal copper, as that's simply  the same as choosing the first card of your hand, and having the rest random.

In short, getting to choose your first card (instead of it being random) definitely affects the odds of getting any particular hand.


Are tile bonuses counted twice if 2 new words are formed? An example:

  O
 O?

There is a triple letter tile to the right of the bottom O, indicated with a ?.

If I place an X on it, making the words OX (vertical) and OX (horizontal), do I score 50 points (scoring the tile twice) or 34 (scoring it once)?

Yes, you score it twice as long as the double/triple letter/word tile was covered up by your current play.

From the rules:

  When two or more words are formed in the same play, each is scored. The common letter is counted (with full premium value, if any) for each word. (See Turns 3, 4 and 5 in the Scoring Examples

rule #5 (From Hasbro the game maker)
"Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value."


Fixing the "Vs. Player" squares in Encore! Few squares in Encore! are more dreaded by our play group than the "Vs. Player" squares — "Team vs. Player" and "Player Vs. Player." It's not just that they're harder; they're palpably less fun, and kill the momentum that's generated by the game. They remove the collaborative element that's a big part of the game's appeal, and have the potential to cause tension. (Instances where the chosen player gets a word that they blank on,  or when the rest of the team has to sit in silence as the "best" player seizes the spotlight for a while or a stymied teammate struggles with a word that his or her friends can think of half a dozen songs for.)

Here are some steps we've taken to try and fix the problem:

On XvP squares, the "player" is not necessarily chosen in advance; rather, it's the person on the singing team who begins the first song after the timer starts running. This means you'll never be completely without a song unless no one on your team had one.
At our last Encore! party, I served as timekeeper and as the "player" — XvP became "challenge the host." This worked well for the team challenge, but Player vs. Me had many of the same difficulties as Player vs. Player.

We like Encore! and play it regularly, but it seems that this one element is more likely to cause awkwardness in the game than any other. How can this be reduced or eliminated?

From the looks of the rules, ways of solving this issue are rather limited. This appears to be a normal roll and move trivial pursuit type of game of the music variety. Your solution is probably the best solution, just don't use single player spaces. In any game that requires a single player from a team to answer a question, it can be awkward if that player is completely stumped. In a game like this, where you want collaboration, I see no need to force single players to compete against each other.

Just ignore it! We always play team vs. team on every square.


Gaining control of a creature while an Aura targeting it is on the stack It's my opponent turn.  I have Prophet of Kruphix on the battlefield, which means I can play creatures as though they had flash.

My opponent plays Boonweaver Giant and chooses Spectra Ward, which goes on the stack as triggered ability (?)

I play Hypnotic Siren with bestow to gain control of Boonweaver Giant in response to the triggered ability.  (I can do this during my opponent's turn because I control Prophet of Kruphix.)

Does that mean that the stack looks like this?

        TOP
    Hypnotic Siren   \
                     |
  / Spectra Ward     | 1
2 |                  |
  \ Boonweaver Giant /

        BOTTOM

Will I gain control of Boonweaver Giant, and then it gets the Spectra Ward Aura under my control?

Can someone tell me whether there is a mistake in this play?

The rulings on Hypnotic Siren say:

  Gaining control of a creature doesn’t cause you to gain control of any Auras or Equipment attached to it.

which does not apply to this situation because Boonweaver Giant does not have any Auras attached to it when I gain control of it with Hypnotic Siren.

First, if Boonweaver Giant's triggered ability is on the stack, then Boonweaver himself is not on the stack. He has already entered the battlefield. Second, Spectra Ward should never have been placed on the stack. Boonweaver Giant's triggered ability is what actually gets placed on the stack. Your opponent doesn't have to make a decision until it resolves.

With these corrections in mind, here is what your stack actually looks like:

Hypnotic Siren (TOP)
Boonweaver Giant's triggered ability (BOTTOM)

Hypnotic Siren resolves. You gain control of Boonweaver Giant. Next, Boonweaver Giant's ability resolves. Your opponent may search for an aura and attach it to Boonweaver Giant. He may choose not to. If he does, he will control the aura attached to Boonweaver, and you will control Boonweaver.

You cannot bestow enchantments during your opponents turn.  When you bestow an enchantment creature it is considered an aura.  Prophet only allows you to cast creature spells.

Card Text:
Bestow 5BlueBlue (If you cast this card for its bestow cost, it's an Aura spell with enchant creature. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature.)
Flying
You control enchanted creature.
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has flying.


Will Rings of Brighthearth + The Chain Veil let me use Chain Veil's ability more than once? I have a question in regards of using The Chain Veil's Activated Ability:

  {4}, {T}: For each planeswalker you control, you may activate one of its loyalty abilities once this turn as though none of its loyalty abilities have been activated this turn.

Can I use Rings of Brighthearth copying ability

  Whenever you activate an ability, if it isn't a mana ability, you may pay {2}. If you do, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.

to use Chain's ability more than once in one turn?

Yes. The sequence would/could be as follows:

You activate The Chain Veil, and put its ability on the stack.
The ring's triggered ability triggers, and is put on the stack.
(after all players pass priority) The triggered ability resolves, you are given the choice to pay 2 and copy the ability, and the copy is placed on the stack.
(players pass priority) The copied effect resolves.
(players pass priority) The original effect resolves.

A ruling from Gatherer confirms that The Chain Veil's ability can be repeated, i.e. each effect allows an additional loyalty ability to be played, on top of the single normal use.

  Each additional time The Chain Veil’s last ability resolves will allow you to activate a loyalty ability of each planeswalker you control an additional time. For example, if you activate The Chain Veil’s last ability, untap it, then activate it again, you can activate a loyalty ability of a planeswalker you control three times that turn.

Not only can you copy the chain veil but for each copy of the chain veil your planeswalker increases or decreases loyalty counters according to the ability you choose.

Example, if you picked a +1 ability and the chain veil activated twice, your Planeswalker will get 2 additional loyalty counters.