Do [spoilers] leave a corpse when they die? Since the quetion is about a mechanic revealed in Chapter 3, I'll leave most of it in the spoilers.

   We recently added Inhabitants to our game. The rules say that when they die, we "turn over the token representing them." Does this turned over token count as a corpse for items that would care about corpses?

Inhabitants will not create a corpse.

The term "corpse" is mentioned one time in the rulebook (not counting an example haunt), in the Dying section. This refers specifically to one of your traits moving to the skull, which kills the character and creates a corpse.

  DYING

  Once the haunt begins, if any of your traits moves to the skull, then
  you die. Tip over your figure on your tile. DROP all your Items,
  Omens, and Objects. You are now a corpse.

  Even if the traitor dies, as long as the monsters can complete the
  haunt’s goals, the monsters still get their turn (under the traitor’s
  control) and the traitor can still win.

From the Rulebook PDF

   Your traits refers to the traits of a player's character.

As the rules concerning dying are explained before the inclusion of Inhabitants, the rules on their deaths may be open to debate. Inhabitants do leave a ghost in the event of their death, and as the Inhabitant tokens do have a side that marks whether the inhabitants are alive or dead and that Inhabitants do not return to following games in the campaign, I believe it’s fair to say that inhabitants do leave a corpse when killed.


What exactly was so broken about Urza's Block? I've often heard it said that the Urza Block (Urza's Saga, Urza's Journey, Urza's Destiny) was the most powerful, broken block in Magic history, with decks able to win on turn 1 or 2. I also saw it stated (in some MaRo article) that something like 20 cards were eventually banned from that standard format in an attempt to restore balance. However, I've never seen a good, detailed explanation of what, exactly, went wrong, which cards were to blame, and how the uber-powerful decks of that era actually worked. Can anybody here offer an explanation or a link to an external source?

Preface: I've been drafting this for a few days now. I focused on the cards that were banned, because those were the most broken. I'm sure there were dozens of other combos not included here, and this is by no means giving the fullest extent of how the cards could be used to maximize their broken-ness.

The first step is to take a look at what cards were available at the time. Mirage had just rotated out, which leaves us with the Tempest block and of course Urza's block. This leaves us with some very powerful 0 and 1 mana artifacts: Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Ornithopter, and to a lesser extent, Spellbook.

Note that with Lotus Petal and Mox Diamond, you have yourself 2 mana available on your first turn without playing a land. (To be fair, both of those are part of Mirage, not Urza's.)Those mana can go into a Grim Monolith, which in turn gives you 3 mana when tapped. Make your land drop a Tolarian Academy and suddenly you have 6 mana available on your first turn, and you only needed four cards to do it. I think we can agree that 6 mana on the first turn is broken in an innumerable number of ways. This led the Academy to be the first to be banned.

Along with the Academy was Windfall. This was broken for a couple of reasons. First, consider a card like Divination, which has a card advantage of 1 for 3 mana at sorcery speed. (You draw two cards, but you had to spend 1 card to do it). When you also consider Azure Mage it becomes clear that in blue, 3 or 4 mana is appropriate for 1 in-hand card advantage. Now, consider how fast you blow through cards here: you dropped four cards (lotus, mox, grim, and academy) as well as any other 0 drop artifacts, and use a Windfall. You discard your 0 or 1 non-playable cards and pick up 7 more. Your opponent dumps all 7 of his and draws 7 more. You just gained 6 or 7 card advantage for 3 mana. That just isn't competitive.

The other aspect of Windfall is that your opponent is also playing combo. It was not uncommon for people to mull down to 4 to get their combo. While this will lower the card advantage you get from Windfall, it essentially wastes your opponent's mull! He now has to settle for whatever 4 or 5 crap cards are on the top of his deck. If you went first, then your opponent has not had an opportunity to play, but now is facing you with at least 6 cards on the battlefield, the ability to generate 6 or more mana a turn, and to top it all off, you just gave him a complete crap hand instead of the one he mulled to get. Bummer. So understandably, those were the first two to get banned.

In the next round of bans, you see Dream Halls get the axe. Now, without Academy and Windfall to pump up your early mana, this isn't as effective. It was costed such that you can't use it until turn 5, and you have to use two cards to do it instead of one. So since they were expecting you'd use this on turn 4 or 5, it would end up being very damaging. And under normal circumstances, it is. But there's one small problem. You discard that other card instead of paying the cost. This is supposed to make it so you can't use it. But Yawgmoth's Will made it so you could use it. If you Dream Halled two cards, you could cast the other two cards with Yawgmoth's Will. And with all the mana you have and card draw available, it's reasonable to pull this off.

Another one that was banned was Earthcraft. This card used to look like this:

  Creatures you control have: T: untap a target basic land.

However, it was decided that splicing text onto cards was a bad thing. So it was changed to

  Tap an untapped creature you control: untap a target basic land.

in the name of being easier to work with. Unfortunately, it had the side effect of making creatures with summoning sickness able to tap for mana, which is decidedly overpowered.

Fluctuator was banned because there's about 40ish legal cards with cycling, and they're all (Cycling 2). So they all basically let you loot them for free to burn through your deck. Cycling for free is broken. This combo didn't take much to come together.

Lotus Petal was banned for the combo listed out above, and I'm sure there were dozens of variants of it.

Recurring Nightmare was banned because three mana and a creature (probably 0 mana) was too little to return a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield, considering it goes back to your hand, not the graveyard (even if Yawgmoth's Will is active). It's even worse when the cards coming back are Great Whale, which yields infinite mana (although the infinite mana combo requires four lands on the board, and most games didn't last even that long!)

Time Spiral was the last of the second round to be banned from standard. It had the same problem windfall did, where you got to draw seven cards (including spells you've already played! How convenient!) and get the massive card advantage. Now this is 6 mana, not 3, and we know there's a gigantic difference between 3 and 6 (way way way more than twice as much). But as we've established, you can get 6 mana on your first turn... And to top it all off, you get to untap 6 lands. Umm, yes that's just a little too powerful.

The next big card to get the axe is Mind over Matter. This is simple: you discard (which we've established there's already massive card advantage here, which lessens the penalty...) and you get to untap an artifact (with academy, mana, or the mana artifacts themselves), creature (with earthcraft, mana, or Birds of Paradise), or land (mana). So you get even bigger mana amounts.

Memory Jar was so broken it was the only card to get an emergency ban. Basically you get to draw and play with 7 cards. As we've established your hand empties faster than a AK with a 14 round clip, you're going to get most of those cards out the turn you play it. And since 5 mana isn't all that much to get on turn 1, you might end up with this on turn 1, which when combined with another draw combo will give you access to 20 or more cards on turn 1. Broken? Yep. Unlike windfall, this doesn't kopper your opponents starting hand, as he'll get it back at the end of the turn. But you'll have another 4 or 5 permanents on the board, so what's he really going to do to you at this point anyway?

Like I said, these probably have even better ways to get the most out of them. But hopefully this gives an idea of exactly how these things were broken, and why Wizards reacted the way they did with all the bans. For what it's worth, this is the first genuine test of Wizards reacting to the fan base, and I would go so far as to say their biggest mistake up until that point and even to this day (needless to say they learned many lessons from it!)

I am certainly no guru, and I play MTG very casually compared to some. I think the reason the Urza block got mixed reactions was the introduction of some powerfully good cards, and the number of these cards, that these days (certainly in modern format that my group plays mostly) probably aren't that powerful at all! The game of MTG has changed over the years.

My group have fond memories of that block! Gaea's Cradle. Serra Avatar. Defence of the Heart. Congregate. Crazy days!


Should I respond to 1 NT in a suit or NT holding 17 HCP and a void? My partner opened a "strong" one NT. I am holding:
♠ void
♥ KJxx
♦ AKQxxx
♣ KJx

What should I bid?

I would bid 4C (Gerber) to ask about aces. If partner has 3, bid 7D. If partner has only 2, bid 6D.

The weak point in this hand is if partner has, say, the KJ in spades; some other responder might have a fancier convention to pick out the specific high cards.

I would test the quality of partner's hand by bidding 2 clubs (Stayman), and hope NOT to hear 2 spades. My worst fear is that partner has wasted honors in spades. If I don't hear 2 spades, partner probably has, at most AQJ in spades. Missing the K (or more) or spades, he might be missing one of the following: A of hearts, A of clubs, or the heart and club Qs. A bid of two hearts raises the possibility of a heart contract, otherwise it would be diamonds.

If partner bids two spades or two hearts, I would show my diamonds with 3 diamonds, forcing partner to bid. Then go into Blackwood to find out how many aces are missing.

If partner had NOT bid spades at any point, I would go into seven diamonds if partner has 3 aces, six diamonds with 2, and pass five diamonds if partner showed one ace. With wasted strength in spades, I would bid only six diamonds if partner has 2-3 aces, and pass five diamonds if he has 1.

Given that we're missing at most 8 high card points, the best case is if partner is missing AKJ of spades, and the worst case is if partner is missing the A of hearts and the A of clubs.


Where can I practice MTG draft online and actually play against my opponents for free? I've been having fun practicing drafts on draft simulators like this one, but sometimes I'd like to actually be able to play with the deck I built. Since all of the other players on these simulators are Bots, I have to be content with always wondering if I actually drafted well or not.

Are there any ways to do this on the computer? All I really want is the ability to be able to draft and then play against my opponents without having to pay every time; I don't really care if they are human or not, but I'd prefer it if they were actually decent at the game if they are bots. I also don't care about the creating a virtual collection as I have all the pictures of cards I could possibly want on this cool little website.

I know there is Magic Online, but it's my understanding that it is far from free, so unless somebody knows of a way I can draft as many times as I want on MTGO without ever paying a dime, it does not meet my requirements. Am I doomed to never being able to get any experience similar to MTGO without shelling out a decent amount of money every time I want to play? Or is there some way to practice realistic drafts complete with swiss rounds online without paying a continual monetary upkeep?

You can draft at CCGdecks.com, tappedout.net, or drafts.in, and the free client Cockatrice is excellent for playing.

MTG Mirror.com is a free draft/sealed simulator. You can also use UnTap.in, another free site, to test the decks you made to see if they're any good


How do I manage double-faced cards in Innistrad (MTG) tournament play? I read about the new mechanic in Innistrad, the upcoming MTG edition, called double-faced cards. These cards have two faces, and no standard Magic back. They have actual creatures on both sides. In the linked article they describe two options for handling those cards:

  To put a double-faced card into your deck, you have two options: You
  can put your entire deck in opaque card sleeves, as many players
  already do, or you can use the checklist card provided in many
  Innistrad packs. If you're using checklist cards to represent any of
  the double-faced cards in your deck, you must use checklist cards to
  represent all of them.

I am not happy with either of these options. As a card collector I want my cards nice and clean and I will definitely not remove them from their sleeve during actual play, which is required for the first option. Those cards would take damage really fast. So this option does not work for me.

The alternative is using those checklist cards, but as far as I understand it, this requires me to keep the real cards on a separate pile. Every time I play a checklist card, I will search this pile and put the right card into play. Shouldn't be a problem if you are playing for fun at home or with people who know your deck well. But in a tournament situation, this will leak important information to my opponent. How many double-faced cards am I playing? How many of those are left? It is also very likely that my oppponent my get a glimpse at some of them while I search for a card in the pile, because double-faced cards are hard to hide.

I am considering additional cards to act as decoys. Lets say I only have 4 checklist cards in my deck but I bring 20 different double-faced cards for the exchange-pile. Would this be allowed in a tournament? Or are there better ways to handle that?

Yes, there's been a lot of anger about double-faced cards online.  Obviously they're going to "kind of, sort of" work, but only in a really clunky and annoying way.  No one want to have to be constantly subjecting their cards to wear and tear by sleeving and resleeving them - and players with bad memories are going to keep forgetting what's written on the second face too!

To answer your question, I cannot imagine there could be any possible objection to you keeping the number and nature of your DFCs secret.  I personally would probably want to invest in a deck box and keep the double-faced cards in there with your trades or casual decks.  Having any sort of visible "exchange-pile" (beyond your 15-card sideboard) when you sit down gives your opponent too much information: really, you don't want him knowing if you're playing double-faced cards at all, until you play one.

And if you think playing in Constructed tournaments is going to be annoying, just wait until you consider the implications for Draft.  Curse you, Wizards!  You've gone too far this time! :D

EDIT: SEE COMMENTS! This is a BAD idea - the double-sleeved cards are identifiable!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

On the specific topic of wear-and-tear to the cards, I double sleeve all my double-faced cards, even though I don't double sleeve the rest of the deck.

Doesn't help with the other issues, but at least means I'm not constanly touching and nicking the edges.


Smash Up: Microbot Fixer + Microbot Alpha The Microbot Fixer has the ability:

  If this is the first minion you played this turn, you may play an extra minion. Ongoing: Each of your Microbots gains +1 power.

If the Microbot Fixer is already in play, can I play the Microbot Alpha with its ability:

  Ongoing : Gains +1 power for each of your other Microbots. All of your minions are considered Microbots.

to boost the power of my other non-robot/non-Microbot cards in play?

Put another way, does the phrase "All of your minions are considered Microbots" affect my other cards (by modifying them into Microbots, allowing them to benefit from the +1 fixer ability), or does it only serve to guide the calculation of the Microbot Alpha's final power?

All your minions gain +1 power, because they are all Microbots.
From the FAQ,

Q: When a card makes all of your minions microbots, and further then gives all of your microbots strength bonuses, is the effect only local to the base those cards are located or are those effects global?
A: If the text does not reference “on this base” or “at this base” then it is global.

Additionally, the rules explain how to handle Ongoing abilities. Since both the Alpha Microbot and Microbot Fixer's effect are active as long as it is in play, all your Minions are Microbots and they all gain +1 Power, and the Alpha gets an additional bonus equal to the number of other Minions.

Ongoing: Most abilities happen, and then they're over. Ongoing abilities are active for as long as they're in play.

I disagree.
The card reads "Gains +1 power for each of your other Microbots. All of your minions are considered Microbots."
The wording on the Alpha says that all minions are considered microbots in direct response to the prior sentence, if you were wondering how to calculate that number. It has one power, not two. The second sentence does indeed clarify the first. It does not transform all your zombies into microbots, thus making the microbot fixer a buff to every minion of yours.
While I understand the argument, in these situations I try to go by the spirit of the game. A card transforming everything into microbots would not have used the word "considered." It would say "all your minions are now microbots."


Swap Plays For Draws and Play X with fewer than X cards on hand Lets say the rules are Draw 1 / Play 4, and the Swap Plays For Draws promotional rule card is in play:

My turn begins and I have zero cards in my hand.
So I draw one card.

If I now want to make use of the Swap Plays For Draws rule, how many cards should I draw?

The rules say "Play 4", but I can only play one card, because I only have one card in my hand. So should I draw 4 cards or one card?

Also, if I first play my only card, can I after that use the Swap Plays For Draws rule and exchange my remaining 3 plays for 3 draws (even though I don't actually have 3 more cards to play)?

This is answered in the Fluxx FAQ:
http://faq.looneylabs.com/question/272

  if you have 3 plays left, you get to draw 3 cards, even if you only have 1 card left in your hand. Of course, now you’ve used up your plays, so you can’t play any of those cards on the current turn.

In your first scenario, you've drawn one card, played one card, and the rules are now: Draw 4 Play 1.  So, to make up the difference you draw 3 and since you've already played one, your turn is over.

If you start with 1 card, you draw a card, play a card, then play the Swap Rule. At that point, you've drawn 1 card, played 2 cards. The rules are now: Draw 4 Play 1. So, to make up the difference you draw 3 and since you've already played two, your turn is over.


How should I approach teaching Magic:The Gathering to a new player? I've been playing MtG since Ice Age (mostly with friends) so I'm now sitting on a massive duffle bag of cards, plenty of decks, and quite some experience of the game.

I want to teach the game to someone completely new. I know there once was a set called Portal which was designed exactly for that purpose, is it a good resource for teaching?

It seems like a lot to explain mana, phases, the stack, capabilities, planeswalkers, and all that at the same time using a full compliment of modern cards :-)  Which terms are key and must be taught?  Which can be avoided for a few games while I get them hooked?

I'm happy to buy starter decks or to print out some proxies to get my friends started.

So, what's the "recommended" way to teach someone MtG starting from the basics ?

Have to say, I hated Portal.  If someone can't cope with the word "block" (Portal used "intercept" instead) or the concept of playing a spell at instant speed, they're not going to get on with Magic in the long run.  So why even bother with a watered-down version?

Modern Magic Core sets, like M11, are pretty well designed so that they contain everything that makes the game great, while remaining pretty accessible to a beginner.  Sure, there are some moderately advanced concepts in the set... but they tend to be restricted to uncommon or rare cards.  The commons are pretty straightforward, and have important rules clearly reiterated on the cards, in the form of reminder text.  You don't have to worry about explaining at great length how Flying works: it says so on every common card.

Sure, Magic is a pretty complicated game. However, it's gotten a lot easier from the worst bad old days of interrupts, mana burn, damage on the stack and the subtle difference between "destroy" and "bury".  Anyone who can cope with Settlers of Catan shouldn't have a problem getting their head around Magic!  All you really need to explain is one land a turn, sorceries only in your turn outside of combat vs. instants at any time, and the fact that you have a window to do things after attackers are declared, and then after blockers are declared, and you've explained 90% of the "intricacies" of the game.

Don't sell your friends short - let them into the full and wonderful game.  If you must simplify it, then build some decks with only simpler cards in them, and play with those, gradually introducing more concepts as you go along.  But I really don't think there's any call for Portalizing the game.  Anything that is in a modern Core Set has been proven to be "grokkable" even by beginning players by extensive WotC market research.  I think people respond better, in general, to you giving their intelligence the benefit of the doubt, rather than patronizing them with a vastly reduced experience!

I have found one simple word switch that is a helpful teaching aid.  Substitute the word mana for money.  You can't do anything without money.  The more money you have, the greater your options become.


How does the cost of designer board games compare to other forms of entertainment? Some people complain about the cost of designer board games. With most board games near the $50 mark, and some approaching $100, they might look at the price of a movie ticket, DVD, or video game and think that this is an expensive hobby.

What do you think is the approximate cost of playing board games per hour of enjoyment when compared to other forms of entertainment?

I'm an aging grog... For me, I judge a game based upon player-hours of play. At about $1 per player-hour. Same rate I've used since the late 80's...

And at that rate, the $30 supplement I just got for TTR/TTRE has some way to go. 1st two plays were 4p @ 2.5h and 3p @ 3h - so far, $19 of the $30. One more large play should do it.

Dominion and Intrigue got enough time to "pay off"... and did so rapidly, even tho most were 2p games.

The $50 Cargo Noir is close. At 1.5 to 2h per play, and 3-4p per play, I've gotten 7 plays out of it since mid Dec.

Now, I will say, I never adjusted for inflation, and find most movies on DVD today not worth the $1/person/hour, so that metric still works for me.

You might, however, consider a more movie based metric. A movie is $5 at matinee, per person, and typically 1.5 to 2 hours.  If we add the anticipation and post-movie discussions, we can justify calling them 3 hours. That calls for $2 per person-hour.

I'll note also that I'm 56 hours in on a $50 videogame (Skyward Sword) and 30 in on another (Ocarina of Time 3D), so that $1-$2 per player-hour is quite well holding. Mario-Cart, at that rate, paid off in the first week: 10 hours, 3 players, two days; $20 paid for the disk.

Update for Dec 9 2012: The latest supplement I got for TTR paid off with another $12 of play.

Update for July 2013: All the mentioned games have since paid off. And the Wii has paid off.

What all these $/hour calculations fail to include is the cost of playing.  Depending on your setting, you could include driving costs, room hire, expensive beer prices, etc. when comparing to a video game or a dvd at home.  I'm not saying that makes it an expensive hobby, but when you compare it to old PC games on gog.com, for example, it comes out quite dear.


How do I (self) publish a pencil and paper game? I invented a pencil and paper game that'd be interesting to people who like Hex, Go, etc.

Since there's really nothing I can sell, nor any sort of special pieces, cards, boards, etc needed for it (being a P&P game), how can I publish it in some way to get it "out there"? I'm not really trying to make any money off it anyway.

Edit: If anyone has anything to add about the publicity aspect of this, I would like to know about that too.

If your game doesn't need any materials (or those would be more easily to come by on their own, such as graph paper), I would suppose the elements of your game you're trying to ship would be the rules. Since you're not trying to distribute them commercially, the only real problem is to get it out there.
If I'm correct so far, here's what I'd do:
Pick a Licence
An important part for both you, as well as players of your game, is the licence you intend to release it under. A licence determines what you intend to do, and what people may do with it - for example, whether they may redistribute it, and whether they need to give credit to you.
If you're willing to allow remixing and redistribution, there are a number of tested licences available for choosing, and the GNU project provides some recommendations about what you choices. They are rather software-oriented, so you might want to have a look at the Creative Commons licenses as well, which work for every type of work, or specific game licenses such as the OGL (Open Game Licence).
This is an important step, seeing as some licences aren't revokeable, and depending how popular your game gets, you'll be on stable ground legal-wise. Even for smaller games, this step is worth reading into for a little bit. Of course, until you decide on a licence, your country of origin's default copyright laws will apply, but a licence will still be helpful with attribution of the original author, for example if you end up hosting it on some friend's webspace.
Launch a Web Page
The easiest, probably cheapest way would be to set up a webpage from where people would be able to download a version of your game, and possibly get additional information about it, such as errata or update information, and maybe even a discussion forum. This has a few advantages over any print-reliant method:

you will be able to publish new versions with no delay at all, and players will know where to get the latest version of the game
you save the costs of printing copies of your rules on paper, as well as shipping costs and effort for the finished products
you maybe want a webpage anyway at some point in order to advertise your game
even without a monetary interest and a free game, you can provide information on how to donate money towards you or the project easily
aside from providing written rules, you could provide videos or other media that won't work on print

Making a web page dedicated to your game (as opposed to a blog post in your [insert your probably unrelated topic here] blog) would likely be preferrable, as it will not only appear more serious, but also give you the possibility to adjust the features and layout of the page to your liking.
If you don't have any experience in making web pages, you could rely on one of many web services that offer free blogs and a user interface that doesn't require HTML or programming skills, or find a friend or person online to put one up for you. There are too many possibilities to name them all, and more specialized communities at that.
Of course, asking a professional web designer would be a possibility if you're willing to spend the money.
Advertise your Web Page
Once you have your web page up and running, you probably want people to find it. I won't be getting into much detail here since it's not directly a part of your question, but advertising it on social media, your local game stores, local and online playgroups that play similar games (as you mentioned Go), general online game communities, and friends are general good starting points in my experience.

You can create an entry/page for your game on BoardGameGeek and upload your rule book to the site. Once (if) the moderators accept your entry, your game will be "published".

And because a lot of board game players go to BGG, you are likely to get some traffic to your game entry if all you do is talk about it in different forums.

If you want to spend money publicizing your game, BGG also has on site paid advertising. That is a focused and targeted audience, so your money is well spent.


How many of a legendary card should I be including in my deck? So, I am making a Magic: The Gathering cat deck for my younger sister, and I am running in to a wall with trying to narrow my 63 card deck into a 60 card deck. My biggest problem is that I have 6 really awesome planeswalkers to choose from. They are pairs of three different types of planeswalkers.
6 planeswalkers is quite a lot for a deck. 4 seems decent.

There are two options I have: Get rid of one pair, (as well as another card,) or have each type of planeswalkers, but only one of them.
BUT, you can only have one legendary card of the exact same name on the field at the same time.

So, my big question: For legendary cards that you can only have one of on the field at a time, is it usually better to have two types of the same card, and increase your probability of picking it up, but at the risk it taking up space in your hand, and being unable to play it because it's already on the field,

OR

Have different types of legendary cards, meaning you could have both on the field at the same time, but it decreases your chance of picking up either one of the card, making it more unpredictable?

Note: I do not expect people to help me pick cards to put into her deck. That’s not what I want the focus of this question to be about. But I would still gladly listen to any card suggestions. ^^

I will provide card context into the comments below for anyone who desires to help me on my quest to make an awesome cat deck for my sister.

I'm not 100% sure this question is suitable for this site, so just tell me if you feel otherwise.

My deck list is:

Lands: 21x Plains, 6x Forest
Enchantment: 4x Compulsory Rest, 4x Anointed procession
Creature: 4x Sacred cat, 4x Adorned pouncer, 4x Regal caracal, 4x Pride sovereign, 4x Leonin warleader, 2x Brimaz, king of oreskos,
Planeswalkers: 2 each of Gideon, Martial Paragon (to help pride sovereign make cats), Huatli, Radiant Champion (to draw cards quicker), Ajani, adversary of tyrants (to make even more cats)

It depends on what you want out of your legends. Sometimes the legend is so important for your deck that you're willing to risk drawing multiples of them. Other times the legend drawback is real, and you don't run four copies for exactly this reason. Some examples from recent Standard:
Adrian Sullivan's Jeskai Control won GP Milwaukee. Note the 4x Niv-Mizzet, Parun. This is a legend, but he has four copies. Why? Lots of factors go into this.

Niv-Mizzet is a fantastic win condition: if you ever untap with him, you've more or less won the game (he's even more powerful than Teferi in this regard).
Because Niv-Mizzet is so good at winning the game, Adrian Sullivan is dedicating other cards to supporting him - note he has Dive Down to protect Niv-Mizzet from targeted removal, and Treasure Map to accelerate Niv-Mizzet onto the battlefield. These cards (especially Dive Down) are not nearly as good if the deck doesn't draw Niv-Mizzet.
Another way of thinking about this is that, this deck wants to draw Niv-Mizzet every single game, and the obvious way to maximize that chance is to run four copies.

Ari Lax's Selesnya tokens from Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica. Note he has only three copies of Emmara, Soul of the Accord. Why? Again, many factors go into this:

Emmara is a great role-player and a great body to Convoke with, but you don't need to draw Emmara. The turn after you play Emmara, you're still only convoking for one mana. If you didn't draw Emmara, you might have drawn another of the deck's 2-drops, which also convoke for the same amount. All your lose out on then is a 1/1 token - still a loss, but not a devastating one. Meanwhile if you draw Emmara without drawing a convoke card, she's not particularly good - just a 2-mana 2/2, easily prevented from attacking.
Emmara is easily answered. Shock kill her at mana advantage (Shock costs 1 mana, Emmara costs 2). She's also fully vulnerable to all the commonly-played sweepers, from Ritual of Soot to Deafening Clarion.
Emmara is not nearly as threatening as Niv-Mizzet. Niv-Mizzet is a removal magnet: it's fine if you can't play any more Niv-Mizzets, since if you stick a copy of him, you win. With Emmara, if she lives, the game still goes on. In this case any more copies of Emmara in hand become genuine dead cards.

If you followed this, it should be clear why there're only three copies of Emmara in the Selesnya deck. The first copy of Emmara is great, but the second is not. But for the Jeskai deck, casting and protecting Niv-Mizzet is its gameplan. It wants to draw a Niv-Mizzet every game. It doesn't want to draw multiples, but if the first copy dies, it immediately wants to draw another. So it runs four copies of the legend.
Hall of Famer Frank Karsten once wrote an article on how many copies of a card one should include in a deck. He suggests the heuristic:

4 copies – You want to draw the card as often and as early as possible. The card is essential for the deck to work as it's supposed to, and you don't mind drawing multiples, even in your opening hand. You might even be happy to do so. It's rare to play legends as 4-ofs, but you can make exceptions for cards that are extremely powerful and/or removal magnets. Example: Heart of Kiran in Mardu Vehicles or Karn Liberated in Modern Tron.
3 copies – You want to see the card at some point in the midgame, but you prefer not to draw multiples. A second copy is not necessarily dead, but it's much less valuable than the first. Most commonly, this is because the card is expensive to cast, a situational answer, and/or a non-essential legendary. Example: Kari Zev, Skyship Raider in Mono-Red Aggro or Teferi, Hero of Dominaria in U/W Control.
2 copies – You're not excited to see the card in your opening hand, and it's not vital to your strategy. Often, the card is not much better than the alternatives, worthless in multiples, and/or crazy expensive to cast. Example: Josu Vess, Lich Knight in Mono-Black Control or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in Modern Tron.
1 copy – You don't want to draw the card naturally, but you want to have access to one in your deck. Most commonly, this is because it's a kill condition for strategies that see their entire deck, because you hope to mislead your opponent into thinking you're playing more copies than you actually are, or because it's a tutor target in a toolbox-style deck. For example: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in Gifts Ungiven decks or Shalai, Voice of Plenty in Chord of Calling decks.

On a side note: it sounds like you're including planeswalkers because they're "cool". There's nothing wrong with that, but if your aim is to make a strong deck aimed at winning, each card must have a reason for being included. Take Huatli, Radiant Champion. What does this card do for you? Does it make cats? Does it synergize with cats? Is it better than simply casting another creature like Brimaz? I'm pretty sure the answer to all these questions is "no", and so you should not be including her. There's a place for planeswalkers like Huatli, but in a deck like yours, that place is the sideboard. If you're playing against a deck with lots of Cleansing Nova and Golden Demise, then you bring her in because she's a threat that survives these sweepers. But in game 1, when many decks don't have sweepers, you're better off just casting another creature. Among the planeswalkers you listed, the only one I can see playing in the maindeck is Ajani.

Randomly draw seven cards from your current deck of cards.  Do this several times over and over again.  Out of that snapshot of 7 cards, decide which ones you absolutely love seeing.

Eliminate the cards you are unsure of or put them in your sideboard.

Play 200 games with someone you trust without changing the matrix of the deck.  After putting 200 games behind that setup, decide which cards you love seeing and which ones simply don't make sense.


In Settlers of Catan, how do you overcome bad initial settlement placement? In Settlers of Catan, how do you overcome bad initial settlement placement?  In a lot of games of Catan I've played, initial settlement placement seems to really make or break the game for a player.  Are there any good strategies for overcoming a weak starting placement?

I think the main thing you need to do is correctly identify your strengths and weaknesses, and don't try to force a strategy you're not set up for.  If you don't have abundant brick and wood, don't even bother going for Longest Road.

Even the worst placement will have some resources they are rich in.  Try to get a port that capitalizes on your resources, and make the necessary trades with other players to get the resources you're poor in.

If you're rich in...

Brick or Wood -- try for longest road and build plenty of settlements
Grain or Ore -- upgrade your starting settlements to cities and buy development cards
Sheep -- go for Largest Army via development cards, or depending on your next best resource, you'll probably follow one of the other two basic strategies

Of course even with all of this, sometimes the dice just won't drop your way :)

Resign.

In my experience, it's almost impossible to work yourself out of last place in this game. There's often a struggle between the top two players, but if you're a few turns in and somebody has badly blocked your expansion, I think you're doomed.


Does proliferate give my creatures +1/+1 counters? So I'm using proliferate cards in my white/green deck. If I use the ability proliferate on, let's say, Pollenbright Druid, does it allow me to give a +1/+1 to my druid?

The reminder text of proliferate is:

  Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there

So if your creatures have +1/+1 counters already on them, you can add more with proliferate.
If they have no counters, proliferate will not add any.

If - with the expression "my druid" - you mean the same Pollenbright Druid, then the answer to your question is:
- No, since proliferate ability allows you to add counters on a given creature only if at least one counter is already present on the given creature.


How to play a quicker game of Monopoly? Is it possible to play a quicker game of monopoly that lasts under one hour on average with only two players? If so, how? I am not looking for anything that specific, but I need house rules that will speed the game up. By the way, I lost my Speed Die.

First of all make sure you are following the base rules for Monopoly as there are a lot of different house rules that are used that make the game take much longer then it should. Judging on the accepted answer it seems that you are indeed using some house rules that make the game take longer.

I am including 3 rules that are commonly changed by house rules that make the game take much longer, though there are other house rules that cause problems.

Also I have included some official suggestions on making a game shorter.

Official Rules

Buying Property.

When someone lands on any unowned piece of property it will either get purchased by them or by someone at auction so there should be no reason to need more money to buy property at the start.

  BUYING PROPERTY… Whenever you land on an unowned property
  you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You
  receive the Title Deed card showing ownership; place it face up in
  front of you.
  If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction
  to the highest bidder. The buyer pays the Bank the amount of the bid
  in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. Any player,
  including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed
  price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.

Free Parking

This space does not give the player that lands there anything.

  “FREE PARKING”… A player landing on this place does not receive
  any money, property or reward of any kind. This is just a “free”
  resting place.

Passing Go

You do not get double the amount for landing on go

  “GO”… Each time a player’s token lands on or passes over GO,
  whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card, the Banker pays
  him/her a $200 salary.
  The $200 is paid only once each time around the board. However, if
  a player passing GO on the throw of the dice lands 2 spaces beyond it
  on Community Chest, or 7 spaces beyond it on Chance, and draws the
  “Advance to GO” card, he/she collects $200 for passing GO the first
  time and another $200 for reaching it the second time by instructions
  on the card

Suggestions from the rules for a short game

Suggestion 1

  There are five changed rules for this first Short Game.
  1. During PREPARATION, the Banker shuffles then deals three Title
  Deed cards to each player. These are free— no payment to the Bank
  is required.
  2. You need only three houses (instead of four) on each lot of a
  complete color-group before you may buy a hotel. Hotel rent remains
  the same. The turn-in value is still one-half the purchase price, which
  in this game is one house less than in the regular game.
  3. If you land in Jail you must exit on your next turn by 1) using a
  “Get Out of Jail Free” card if you have (or can buy) one; or 2) rolling
  doubles; or 3) paying $50. Unlike the standard rules, you may try to
  roll doubles and, failing to do so, pay the $50 on the same turn.
  4. The penalty for landing on “Income Tax” is a flat $200.
  5. END OF GAME: The game ends when one player goes bankrupt.
  The remaining players value their property: (1) cash on hand; (2) lots,
  utilities and railroads owned, at the price printed on the board; (3) any
  mortgaged property owned, at one-half the price printed on the board;
  (4) houses, valued at purchase price; (5) hotels, valued at purchase
  price including the value of the three houses turned in.
  The richest player wins!

Suggestion 2

  TIME LIMIT GAME… Before starting, agree upon a definite hour of
  termination, when the richest player will be declared the winner.
  Before starting, the Banker shuffles and cuts the Title Deed cards and
  deals two to each player. Players immediately pay the Bank the price
  of the properties dealt to them

When my daughter and I used to play (a few years ago, now), our rule was that the game ends when no further monopolies are possible.  Our running assumption was that only a fool would help his/her opponent get a monopoly, so trades were not going to happen. (Yes, this makes the game an exercise in rolling dice, but for children that's not a show-stopper.)

The game was declared a tie if neither of us had a monopoly, or if the only monopoly held was Baltic & Mediterranean.  I don't think we bothered about the utilities, either.

If only one player had a monopoly, that player was the winner.

Otherwise the property groups were ranked, with the owner of the highest-ranking group being the winner.  This was mostly based on our experience of who would most likely win if the game were to continue according to the rules.

Orange,
Dark blue,
Railroads,
Green,
Yellow,
Red,
Magenta,
Light blue.


In Axis and Allies, Is There A Way to Measure the Benefits of Various Techs Against Each Other? And the Cost of Discovery? At one level, we can measure the cost of discovering tech using IPCs. Each die roll costs 5 IPCs, and one discovery will be made every six rolls, on average, yielding an average cost of 30 IPCs. Some discoveries may be worth that much or more during the course of a game, others probably not.

If we could measure the various techs in terms of IPCs, then we could compare them against each other. We could also weigh them against the 30 IPCs it takes to find them. (In the Classic Game, one needs to think in terms of 180 IPCs for a "package" of all techs; the first one might not be heavy bombers.)

Everyone "knows" that heavy bombers carry a disproportionate value. Can we now construct a tool to find out how disproportionate, and whether reducing the value of the tech from three to two die rolls is adequate? And the reverse question for some others: do they need to be upgraded to make them worth researching?

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

This is a game of economics. It's all about the mighty I.P.C. The 30 I.P.C.s Russia spends to gain this benefit is at the cost of the 5 Inf and 1 Armor worth of combat power that could have stopped the German advance. As the German player I never wait around. I have to swing the economic balance back toward the Axis as rapidly as possible. If the Russian player hits lucky on his first roll, Industrial Technology could win it for him. The problem is, Russian survival depends on the player being cautious, even stolid. Any player who likes to take risks won't last long as Russia anyway. I see the Tech rules as a kind of toybox for the accomplished general who knows, through experience and training, when to take chances and when not to. The best way to determine the relative value of any of the Techs, is to playtest it. Give one power the Tech at the start and see what the impact on game play is.


Can I cast Quarantine Field with Brisela in play for my opponent? Can I cast Quarantine Field with Brisela, Voice of Nightmares in play for my opponent?

I just tried, Magic Online wouldn't let me.

But with X as 2 Quarantine Field has a CMC of 6.

Is this right?

The Gatherer page for Brisela has this ruling:

  For spells with {X} in their mana costs, use the value chosen for X to determine if the spell’s converted mana cost is 3 or less. For example, your opponent could cast Burn from Within (a spell with mana cost {X}{R}) with X equal to 3, but not with X equal to 2.

You should have been able to cast the spell, so you should report this as a bug.

The converted mana cost you refer to applies only while the spell is on the stack.  While it's in your hand, the cmc is 2, with X being zero.  Thus, Brisela prevents you from even casting it.


Handling dwindling supplies in Splendor Splendor is a great game, but the rules were written sub-optimally.

The following quotes the rules that specify what actions a player can take on his turn:

  On their turn, a player must choose to perform only one of the following four actions.

  Take 3 gem tokens of different colors.
  Take 2 gem tokens of the same color. This action is only possible if there are at least 4 tokens of the chosen color left when the player takes them.
  Reserve 1 development card and take 1 gold token (joker).
  Purchase 1 face-up development card from the middle of the table or a previously reserved one.

As written, it's not hard to get into a situation where it's impossible to perform a legal turn. I presume you can pass if you can't perform any of the actions, but there might be other options.

Can you reserve a development card if there is no gold left (taking the development card without gaining gold)?
Can you take gems if there are fewer than three colors of gems left (taking one from each of the remaining colors)?

Yes you can still reserve without being able to get a gold (some disadvantage: you get the card, but not the gold)
Yes you can still take gem tokens when there are fewer than three colors left (obviously you might get fewer than normal).

Combining these two leads to a useful money-starvation strategy (esp. in 3-player games) if there is some critical color needed for either the nobles or the middle/top row cards. Reserve up to three of the critical color-generating cards (from any rows) and leave the other player with junk in the first row and excessively expensive junk in the middle row. When you run of gold, the other players are then forced to either buy junk, pick up useless color coins, reserve without getting gold, or even gamble by reserving a random (face-down) card.

Even better if you time things so that when you do purchase the cards you've reserved and return useful coins to the supply, they are near their 10-coin limit so can't (net) pick up many coins in that turn, letting you try to get your useful money back before they can get it :) and continue the money-starvation for even more rounds (you can't do that with 4+ players, someone will pick up the useful money).

In a 3-player game, if two of you collude you can mess up the third player.

In one extreme case of a game I played, 10 of the 12 face-up cards ended up being black-producing, which was totally useless for nobles and top row.

Yes you can do both.  Here's a thing being over looked i think.  If you are at your 10 coin limit, you can still reserve and get the gold (if available) or draw tokens.  You rlthen have to put tokens back to be at your ten token limit.  Also you can't reserve more than three cards


Trouble: Despicable Me Edition-Why is the 1 red? My family got a brand new copy of Trouble: Despicable Me Edition. We were wondering why the 1 on the regular die was red, when the only special roll is 6.

Dice produced in Asia usually have the one, and sometimes also the four coloured in red. I've heard a variety of reasons including superstition (no sillier than numbering the 13th room 12A), Emperor's decree or that in some traditional Asian dice games these are special numbers.
The real reason these days is probably just that they have always done it that way.
Regardless, you can probably assume that this dice was sourced from Asia or intended for the Asian market.

In our game of Trouble, rolling a 1 meant that the other players could bring a piece out of home but it doesn't affect the player that rolled.


Sundial of the Infinite and "Sacrifice at the end of turn" The card Sundial of the Infinite allows you to abruptly end your turn.

What effect does Sundial of the Infinite have on cards like Incandescent Soulstroke which the card states

  "Sacrifice it at end of turn"

but gatherer.wizards.com states

  "Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step"

Would this creature still have to be sacrificed? And why the discrepancy between what the card actually says and what the rules text is on gatherer?

Why is the card text different from the rules text on the Gatherer?
The Gatherer text (typically referred to as Oracle text) has precedence over the card text. For all intents and purposes, you can ignore the text on Incandescent Soulstroke, and pretend that it actually says:

[...] Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.

You might think, "Well if I can't trust what the card says, how can I play the game without looking up every single card?". Over time you will develop a feel for what common errata are. For example, "remove from the game" typically means "exile". At sanctioned tournaments, you are allowed to ask the judges for Oracle text. They will provide it to you.
Does the creature have to be sacrificed even though I ended the turn?
Incandescent Soulstroke sets up a delayed triggered ability. Delayed triggered abilities are basically abilities that will trigger at a later point, when their condition is met. For Soulstroke, that condition is "at the beginning of the next end step".
Sundial of the Infinite ends the turn. When you end the turn, the rules say that you skip straight to the Cleanup step.

715.1d The current phase and/or step ends. The game skips straight to the cleanup step; skip any phases or steps between this phase or step and the cleanup step. If an effect ends the turn during the cleanup step, a new cleanup step begins.

Pulling this all together, if you skipped the end step by ending the turn, then the creature won't be sacrificed (yet). However, it will still be sacrificed during the next end step, whenever that comes. As a couple of commenters pointed out, a clever solution to this problem is to activate Sundial while Soulstroke's triggered ability is on the stack. The trigger will be removed from the stack as part of ending the turn, and it will never trigger again.

Your elemental will be saved for a turn.

Incandescent Soulstoke's gatherer text

  Other Elemental creatures you control get +1/+1.
  1R, Tap: You may put an Elemental creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. That creature gains haste until end of turn. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.

From Sundial of the Infinite's gatherer entry.

  If Sundial of the Infinite’s ability is activated before the end step, any “at the beginning of the end step”-triggered abilities won’t get the chance to trigger that turn because the end step is skipped. Those abilities will trigger at the beginning of the end step of the next turn. The same is true of abilities that trigger at the beginning of other phases or steps (except upkeep).


Generator Servent with Nemesis of Mortals Nemesis of Mortals says:

  Nemesis of Mortals costs 1 less to cast for each creature card in your graveyard.

and Generator Servant says:

  Tap, Sacrifice Generator Servant: Add 2 to your mana pool. If that mana is spent on a creature spell, it gains haste until end of turn.

Say I have 3 creature cards in my graveyard and a Generator Servant on the field without summoning sickness. I wish to use the mana from the Generator Servant to summon the Nemesis of Mortals so that it will have haste. However when I sacrifice the Generator Servant I will have 4 creatures in the graveyard and Nemesis of Mortals no longer needs generic mana to summon.

Do I determine the cost of the spell before or after I generate the mana?

Do I determine the cost of the spell before or after I generate the mana?

Either! You can generate mana at any time during your main step, before starting to cast a spell. However, you can also generate it during the spell-casting process:

601.2e The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can't be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes "locked in." If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.
601.2f If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities (see rule 605, "Mana Abilities"). Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.

So in this case, you could determine the total cost (which would include 1 generic mana), then activate Generator Servant in order to produce mana, thus spending 1 of those 2 mana on the Nemesis of Mortals
And to show that Generator Servant's ability is indeed a mana ability:

406.1. A mana ability is either (a) an activated ability without a target that could put mana into a player’s mana pool when it resolves or (b) a triggered ability without a target that triggers from a mana ability and could produce additional mana. A mana ability can generate other effects at the same time it produces mana.

You can sac the Generator Servant at any time during your main phase, the mana it produces only leaves your mana pool if you either use it, or go to the next step in your turn.

Between sacrificing the Generator Servant and casting the Nemesis of Mortals you can do all kind of fun things, like play a land or whatever.

Edit: Gendolkari has the better (and faster) answer :-(


Minimum bid rule for Monopoly auctions Other questions have asserted that many people don't actually auction properties as instructed in the rules.  Monopoly doesn't specify any rules to control the auction.  I have seen auctions stretch on with many +$1 bids, making the process painfully slow.

Seems to me some combination of eBay bid increments and/or Poker raise rules would be appropriate.

What minimum bid increment rule(s) are recommended?
Do these rule(s) lead to faster auctions?

We have played with a minimum 1st bid of 1/4 the price of the property (to vary with property value, but to allow for unchallenged bids to be profitable from immediately mortgaging; this puts upward pressure on the 2nd bid, pushing it towards the mortgage price). Incremental bids are then at least the no-house rent amount (and so also varies with property value).

Note: this is an old answer.  I now recommend a 10% increment rule: any new bid must be at least 10% higher than current high bid. This is simple and enough to keep the bidding from dragging on and on. Been playing this way with my sons and need to help my 1st grader by announcing the next allowable bid.

The house rule I have come up with is that the minimum bid increment must be:
1. At least 1% of the current bid (round up) AND
2. At least 50% of previous bid increment.
Here is an example aution of a railroad under these rules
A: $100
B: $101 (minimum based on #1)
C: $103 (minimum based on #1)
A: $203 delta $100
C: $253 delta  $50 (minimum based on #2)
A: $280 delta  $27
C: $294 delta  $14 (minimum based on #2)
A: $301 delta   $7 (minimum based on #2)


Why are "Egyptian God" cards so significant? Recently, I was browsing through the questions on B&CG SE  (particularly in the [yu-gi-oh] tag) and I see quite a bit of Egyptian God. I was duelling someone from my school, and he said

  "Egyptian God Cards cannot be targeted by any card effect or be destroyed by battle"!

Obviously we dismissed this as another pathetic blurt of words from him, because he makes up so many rules, and cheats,so we told him unless it's on the rule book or the card, it's false, but he dismissed it, so I forfeited in order to maintain my sanity, but this in particular made me wonder:

What's so special about the Egyptian God Cards? Why are these cards more significant than other cards?

I understand that in Yugi's (?) season of the anime l, the Egyptian Gods were established (?). They were a group of really powerful monsters, that could destroy the world if control were lost over them in a duel.

So, does what this person from my school said have any origins from the anime?

They were represented in the anime as being incredibly powerful, and you never saw them defeated by traditional means. In the card game they act as normal cards and have no special "you can't destroy me or target me" abilities I'm aware of (I'll admit it's been a while since I played Yu-Gi-Oh as I moved over to Magic, but I played quite a bit)

Your friend sounds like he's putting a more flavourful edge to things as it makes sense when you look at the anime, but it's not how the game actually works.

Also, if your friend continues to make up rules and cheat, I'd look to find a way to "punish" him in order to correct his behaviour. Stop playing games with him when he does it for example. If he really wants to play the game he'll learn to play correctly if you just show him that cheating doesn't pay off.

If you have seen yugioh before god cards can be prevented from being summoned if you have the exchange card you can take that go card you can also make sure the don't have three tributes to sacrifice in order to summon a god card i have all three gods in my deck including the three blue eyes white dragons and blue eyes ultimate dragon but watch out for ra's abilates if he is put in the graveyard you can use monster reborn to bring   him back for one turn if you tribute 1000 life point's you can wipe out all your opponents monsters then he returns to the graveyard there is also the god pheonix


Does a game exist where some win, some lose, and some don't? In most games, everyone starts off with the potential to either win or lose.  At the end, they've all either won or lost.

Some games have a player who's like a referee -- they can neither win nor lose, they're just the referee, and they're in that state from the start of the game.

Has a game ever been made where everyone starts in the same state, then at the end, some win, some lose, and some neither win nor lose?

Yes. Though it's rare, some games mix up what it means to win and to lose, because why not? Games typically treat everyone as either 100% winner or 100% loser, but it doesn't have to be that way.

In real life, there are many situations where you don't just win or lose, and a lot of people are satisfied if they're able to maintain their situation. Some games mimic this.

For example, in Galaxy Trucker, rules are set out based on the story of the game. Since you're a simple trucker trying to make a living, you're a winner if you've made any money at all that game (though, as in real life, some people win more than others). If you're in debt then you've made a loss from the venture, so you're a loser. If you're on exactly 0 then you've managed to keep flying without winning or losing!

A friend of mine has a game they're making with several different endings:

If the players can't keep the game's from reaching a lose condition, everyone loses.
If the players do too well then the problem goes away without the higher ups noticing, so nobody loses but nobody wins.
If the players hold off the lose condition for long enough, the higher ups notice and reward the best player. This player wins, but nobody loses!

While some people may play with the main goal of simple victory, it can be quite refreshing when your victory, loss or otherwise is more interesting than just numerical competitiveness.

Short answer: no.

Games are designed to make someone win and the rest lose. That's why they are called games. There are games where all players can lose and in the same way that they all can win, Coöp games are like that.

I've played a lot of games and have only found games where one can draw (eg chess, checkers, etc) but than nobody loses, not a situation where one wins, one loses and the rest doesn't lose. I've searched on the internet for a good half hour and I couldn't find any game which at the end have the state you asked about.

From wikipedia about games:
"When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation."
Concluding, a game has a goal, don't achieve that goal and you lose.

As in how I see board games:
When you play a game, you win or you lose.


How to determine points costs of Tau unit enhancements? I have been trying to figure out which are the points costs for the several enhancements to tau units, but there is not a single comprehensive list for that. Sometimes model stats sheets have 'may take a markerlight and target lock (15pts),' while some other sheets just say 'may take two items from the support systems list' without specifying any cost. Does it means that I get those items for free (included in the unit price)? Another confusing case is that of Crisis Battle Suits: they 'may take take up to three items from the ranged weapons and/or support systems lists.' For some units different ranged weapons cost different amounts of points, so it sounds strange that crisis suits have access to all of them at the same (zero) cost.

Apparently the older codex had a table on page 95 with all the costs, but I only have access to the 2015 edition and such table is gone.

Am I correct in assuming that such enhancements cost points when a cost is mentioned but are otherwise free?

There still is a table for the Ranged Weapons and Support Systems on Page 74 of the 2015 edition of the book. The did clean up the locations of special rules/equipment in newer editions, but if you're used to the older editions this can be hard to find.

Generally Ranged weapons are 14 points and other support systems range from 5-25 points each. One nice thing about weapons all having the same points is you cna swap crisis suit builds very easily. None are free unless the rules explicitly state so, for exmaple: "X comes equipped with with a Burst-Cannon which you may upgrade to a Smart-Linked Missile system for 25 points" or something similar.

It is very strange question, as long as all lists (Vehicle Equipment, Ranged Weapons, Support Systems, Signature Systems) have points cost for each option. I'll recommend download elder 2012 codex, which can be used as 2015 one with updates printed in Kauyon book.

And ranged weapons ARE NOT 14 pts., they are all divided to 5 (+5 for twin-linked): 5 for flamer, 10 for burst cannon and 15 for any other. Vehicle battle systems cost from 1 to 15 pts., support systems -- from 3 to 50 and signature systems cost from 2 to 25 (50 for FE).


Bidding in contract bridge I am not a bridge player. I have a question about bidding in contract bridge. The question isn't about the mechanics of bidding or what is the ”best” bid given a particular hand. My question is about  the ”communication process” in the bidding phase. I am aware that partners communicate information about the cards in their hands by bidding things like “1 Heart” or “ 3 No trumps” and hence to arrive at some “agreement” about how tricks they are likely to win in the playing phase . What I don't understand is all this information about bid is “public” so surely the opponents will make the same deductions as the partner as to the likely distribution of cards in the hands? So won't this end up with a sort of ”zero sum” where all players pretty much know what cards are held before the play starts and the playing of the hands is rendered pretty ”mechanical”? Also as I understand, bidding must be a fair representation of the cards held. Any attempt at “bluffing” or "misdirection" in bidding is considered at least “poor play” and at worst some kind of act against the whole ethos of contract bridge. Is that correct or an unfair characterisation?

Yes, you're right - there is no secret information shared by your partner but not with opponents, beyond the difference in ability of the two partnerships at deciphering the information.  When I say "One Heart", everyone at the table knows that I have 12-21 points and 5 or more hearts.
Bridge isn't Poker, or any other similar game, where hiding your hand from your opponents is the skill portion of the game.  In bridge, the skill is in deciding the best contract for your partnership, and then playing it correctly.
That's not to say you tell your opponents everything that is in your hand, though; in fact, this is one of the skills - knowing whether you should announce something that gives information away or not.  Your opponents could be bidding for a contract, and you have one opportunity to make a call other than Pass, say; you could make that call, which both tells your partner something (say, what suit to lead), but also warns opponents of that same information - or you might not make that call, just "pass" instead, and conceal the information from all parties.

Bids not Intended to Make
The question says:

Also as I understand, bidding must be a fair representation of the
cards held. Any attempt at “bluffing” or "misdirection" in bidding is
considered at least “poor play” and at worst some kind of act against
the whole ethos of contract bridge. Is that correct or an unfair
characterisation?

This is quite incorrect. There are any situations in which intentionally bidding more than one can reasonably make, and failing to do so would be poor play. For example, if you have reason tom think, during the bidding, that you and your partner can take 8 tricks with hearts as trump, but your vulnerable opponents can take 9 tricks at no-trump, it is good play to bid four hearts, contracting to take 10 tricks. If your estimate is correct, your opponents will score 100 or 200 points for setting you (depending on whether your side is vulnerable) or if the opponents double you (as they probably should) they will score 200 or 500 points. But if you has permitted them to bid and make three NT, they would have scored 600, so 4H down 2 is a better result, perhaps much better
To Give a more detailed example suppose your partner o0pens one heart as dealeer, and your right-hand opponent bids 1 no-trump. Assuming Standard American bidding on both sides, you partner has shown about 13-20 high-card points (HCP) and your opponent 16-18  with a quick trick (stopper) in hearts, and a balanced distribution.
Now if you chance to hold
S: xx
H: KJxxx
D: Qxxx
C: xx
It is likely that you can take at least 8 tricks in Hearts, possibly more if your partner has more than the minimum promised, and it is very plausible though hardly certain that your opponents could make 3NT. An immediate bid of 4H v uts them off from 3NT, and will more often than not be a winning action, even when it goes down.
However, a bid that is too high would allow the opponents to make a score higher than any they might make by taking the contract. For example bidding 7H on the above hand and auction would be very unwise.  How high to bids is a matter of skill and judgement, in light of one's own hand and the previous calls in the auction.
Public meanings of Bids
Now as to some of the other aspects of the question.
While the agreed meanings of all bids used must be known to or available to the opponents, there is often a significant range of hands that might make a particular sequence reasonable. Nor are all players capable of prefect play.  The best way to declare or defend a hand, even given the knowledge revealed by the calls of the opponents, is often far from clear. In many cases there may bge two or more lines of play which could prove successful. Properly handling the timing of play, entries, transport between the two hands, and other options is often far from mechanical. Indeed this is one of the places where bridge skill can be decisive. A player who is good at play of the hand will have consistently better results than one who is only average,  and will tend to be a winning player. Many books have bee written on the card-play involved, starting only at the end of the auction, advising how to analyze a hand based on the auction and the known cards, and how to achieve the best possible result in the circumstance. Once beyond beginner levels players strive to master these techniques, and to retain the needed focus and quick thought to apply them in actual play, as opposed to leisurely analysis of a paper problem. It is not at all easy.


How does second edition farmer scoring work? Related to this question; I am wondering how “each city can only be scored once” worked in the second edition rules. Second edition, like third (current); scores each farmland as opposed to scoring each city. But if a city can only count once; then how do you treat a city that is adjacent to multiple farms?

A simple example; imagine a competed game where there is only 1 city; and it has 2 farms touching it. Each player controls a different farm. In third edition, each farm would be worth 3 points. What happens in second edition?

I was able to find the rules for first and third editions online; but not second.

A city can be scored once per player, so in the given example, each player would receive 3 points.

I found the answer while combing through some threads on boardgamegeek.com, as well as in an answer to this other question.

From the other answer:

  A player can score for a single city one time, and only one time... no matter how many fields and farmers he has next to it.

And from bgg:

  German 2nd Ed:
  1) look at each city
  2) if a player has the most farmers in any one of the
  fields adjcent to the city he scores 3 points.

So it appears that while second edition does consider each field separately; it still scores city-by-city, as opposed to scoring farm-by-farm, and for each city multiple players might score the 3 points.

The answer to the previous question is wrong. The farm rule for the Rio Grande Games edition, which you are calling the second edition, is the same as the current farm rule. (Note, some people call the current basic game the second edition. I can find no evidence that any of Hans im Gluck, Rio Grande, or Z-Man Games number their editions.)

The confusion arises from the awkward way in which the Rio Grande rules were written. The writer doesn't seem to know if he's scoring farms, farmers or cities.

From Rio Grande Games Carcassonne

FARMER SCORING (for supplying the completed cities)
•Only completed cities are used for scoring farmers.
•The farmer must be in a farm that borders a city to supply it.
The distance of the farmer to the city is unimportant.
•For each city a farm supplies, the player who deployed the most
farmer(s) in the farm earns 3 points, regardless of the size of the
city. If players tie with the most farmers, each scores 3 points.
•A farm can supply (score) several cities if they border the farm.
•Several farms can supply a single city. In such a case, each farm is
scored separately, as descibed (sic) above.
When all completed cities are scored in this way, the scoring and the game is over.


Can two Enduring Scalelords create an infinite loop? With two Enduring Scalelords, is it possible to create an infinite loop by putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature, then because of that, place a +1/+1 counter on both Enduring Scalelords, and because of those gaining +1/+1 counters, they get a +1/+1 counter for the other Enduring Scalelord?

To quote directly from the rulings on Gatherer:

  If you control two Enduring Scalelords, putting a +1/+1 counter on one of them will cause the ability of the other one to trigger. When this ability resolves, you’ll put a +1/+1 counter on the other Scalelord. This will cause the ability of the first one to trigger. This loop will repeat until you choose not to put a +1/+1 counter on one of the Enduring Scalelords.

Yes, you get a non-mandatory infinite loop and can put as many counters on both scalelords as you want.  Luckily for you, it's a "may" trigger, so you can stop it whenever you want, instead of the game being a draw.


Are there any websites for keeping score of various boardgames? My friends and I are pretty competitive.  We play a lot of various games with various scoring systems used by each (i.e. 7-wonders, Catan, Dominion, etc...).

Does anybody know of any website or system that can be used for keeping track of who won which game and by how much?  Doesn't need to be applicable to all games, but would be nice to keep a record.

Boardgamegeek (http://boardgamegeek.com) has a play reporting feature which can include who played, what position each played, their score, and additional notes. Play notes can be publicly accessed. (It can be a bit of a pain, tho, to find someone else's plays.)

It does exactly what you're asking for. If the same person reports every time, it's readily viable to find it.

Further, one can create a private geeklist which lists the games, instead of using the play reports feature.

There's a Chrome app that appears to do what you are looking for. It's called Scorekeeper. You can find it on the Chrome Web Store by searching "Scorekeeper" or by clicking here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scorekeeper/ognaddcodlklfjfbaghkkoipibeniocp/related?hl=en-US


How does Camouflage interact with "can't be blocked by more than one creature"? Camouflage is a strange old card that changes how blocking works. The card text says

  This turn, instead of declaring blockers, each defending player chooses any number of creatures he or she controls and divides them into a number of piles equal to the number of attacking creatures for whom that player is the defending player. Creatures he or she controls that can block additional creatures may likewise be put into additional piles. Assign each pile to a different one of those attacking creatures at random. Each creature in a pile that can block the creature that pile is assigned to does so.

Here's an example of the situation I'm wondering about:

My opponent attacks with two creatures, a Charging Rhino and a Boggart Brute. The former can't be blocked by more than one creature, and the latter can't be blocked by fewer than two creatures. After they declare attacks, they cast Camouflage.

Now, I want the possibility of blocking both creatures, so I put two creatures in one pile and one in another (for simplicity, assume all of the blocking creatures are 1/1 Soldier tokens).

Then, when the piles are assigned to attackers, I get unlucky, and the pile with one creature is assigned to block the Boggart Brute, and the pile with two creatures is assigned to block the Charging Rhino.

Now, clearly the single Soldier can't legally block the Boggart Brute alone. So my question is this: does the Charging Rhino end up blocked?

Basically, I think there are two possible interpretations for the bolded sentence that change how this situation plays out. I think it could either mean

  For each attacking creauture, if some subset of the set of creatures that could each individually block that creature is a legal block, then they are assigned to block that creature.

or

  For each attacking creature, if the entire set of creatures that could each individually block the assigned creature is a legal block, then they are assigned to block that creature.

Or it could even be something different from both of those that I haven't thought of.

You can't leave the Charging Rhino unblocked because it's possible to block it, and you were instructed to block it.

Similarly, you can't block with both Soldiers since you are restricted from doing so[1].

That leaves only two possible legal outcomes:

Solder 1 blocks the Charging Rhino, and Soldier 2 doesn't.
Solder 2 blocks the Charging Rhino, and Soldier 1 doesn't.

Pick one.

In Magic, actions are instantaneous. They are never being performed. For example, a card is never moving, a creature is never tapping, etc[2]. The game instantly switches from one state to another. For example, when instructed to draw, the game instantly goes from a state where the card is on top of your library to a state where the card is in your hand. This is why triggered abilities look at the state of the game before or after they trigger; there is no state during the event that triggered the ability.

Yet, some actions can depend on the outcome of other actions taken simultaneously. This is technically impossible. In this situation, we naturally start imagining complex scenarios to explain what happens, but these have no basis in the rules. I've learned long ago to catch myself, and I now see that you have entered this trap.

The solution: You must simply find the legal state that is achieved from following the instructions. How the game managed to achieve that result is not important!

I find it reassuring that the above achieves the same outcome as if one were to follow the steps of Declare Blocks. But it doesn't resolve many other related problems, such as creatures that require paying costs to block. I would be tempted to interpret

  Each creature in a pile that can block the creature that pile is assigned to does so.

as

  Follow the instructions of the Declare Blocks Step, except

  Each creature in a pile that can block the creature that pile is assigned to must do so,
  Each creature in a pile can't block any creature other than the creature that pile is assigned to, and
  Creatures not in a pile can't block.

I take "that can block" to mean "that isn't tapped and that isn't subject to a restrictions preventing it". In other words, restrictions are still in effect even though they are normally checked during the declaration of blockers which was replaced.
Attacking and defending don't refer to actions being performed, but to a rule-defined state of the object.

Camouflage replaces the declaration of blockers, so none of the rules that usually apply to declaring blockers are used here.

The key sentence is "Each creature in a pile that can block the creature that pile is assigned to does so." So, for each creature, we check individually if that creature can block the creature that it is assigned to.

That means that Charging Rhino can be blocked by any number of creatures using Camouflage, because each creature individually can block it. Also, Boggart Brute can not be blocked by any creature, even if there are several creatures in the pile assigned to it.

There is not especific rule that I can quote to show that each creature is checked individually, but the first ruling on Retether in a somewhat similar situation says to check each card individually.


When can the "build a wonder stage for free" tokens be used? In the Seven Wonders - Babel Expansion, when can the reward tokens that allow a player "to construct a Stage of their Wonder for free" be used?  Can they be used immediately or do they just remove the cost (except coin costs, as noted) but still need to be played on a normal turn by discarding a card?

The question came up during a recent game when a player with Rhodes (B-side), who had participated in the successful project that awarded these tokens, wanted to immediately complete a stage, thereby giving them military dominance over a neighbor.  Without finding anything explicit in the rules, we denied the request, supposing that to build a stage the player must have a card in hand to discard and place under their board for that stage.  I'm hoping someone else has a ruling that can help.

You have to also use a card, as in the base game. In order to understand it better, look at the previous token, "construct a building for free".

  The player takes from the reserve a corresponding token. They can return this token to the reserve to construct a Building for free.

In order to construct a building, you have to play it from your hand, right? So, next time you construct a building from your hand, you may throw in the token and declare "I am constructing it for free". You can't obviously construct immediately an additional building for free, as your hand would have less cards than the other players and thus break the game's mechanism. It works exactly like Olympia's A 2nd wonder bonus.

Same story for the wonder token:

  The player takes from the reserve a corresponding token. They can return this token to the reserve, to construct a Stage of their Wonder for free. Note: if the cost of the Wonder stage contains 1 or more coins, these must still be paid.

In order to construct a wonder, you have to put a card below the corresponding wonder stage, to indicate that it has been built (and to remove a card from the game, as well). Thus, you keep the token and the next time you construct a wonder stage you may discard the token to ignore the resource cost. If you could immediately construct a wonder stage, how would you indicate that the wonder has been constructed? A basic principle of the game is that no memory is required; thus, you have to use a card. But you can't just take an extra card from your hand, as you'd leave your hand with less cards and break the game's mechanism.

TL;DR: you keep the wonder token and the next time you use a card to build a wonder stage, you may discard the token to ignore the resource cost of your wonder.

This happens immediately. If, for any reason, you would want it to happen later, you could make up a house rule if you and other players see fit.


When is it a good time to offer a draw in chess, and when should I accept one? Professional players often offer draws in chess and accept them.  While draws can be very common in professional play, they appear to be very rare in casual play.  Naturally, if you're winning, accepting or offering a draw seems silly, but what if there isn't a clear winner?  When is a good time to offer a draw, and when should I accept one?

In casual play, the main reason to offer a draw is if the game is going on forever and shows no sign of concluding soon. Consider the motivation for the game. Maybe you're playing a game for fun after dinner, but at some point your wife is going to start making loud yawning noises. Maybe you're playing a grudge match with a friend, but both of you are hopeless at rook endings - which is where you've ended up. Maybe you made the mistake of starting a game with someone who takes hours to make any move. I've been in all of these situations! In these cases, achieving the win is secondary to the experience of playing the game. As soon as the experience becomes compromised, or real life starts to intrude, an escape becomes appealing.

One player may actually have an advantage, but if it's going to be necessary to grind out a difficult endgame to convert that advantage into a point, then it may not be considered worth it by the players to continue. A couple of times I have even conceded casual games that I believed I was winning, simply because I wasn't willing to continue to invest the time.

Another reason is if the players are amateurish enough that forcing a win is difficult or impossible. I once spent a frustrating afternoon watching two friends with very basic chess playing abilities circle uselessly for several hours, trying to figure out how to achieve a checkmate. It was like watching Brownian motion on a chessboard; essentially random checks with the vague hope of accidental checkmate. In the end, they gave up and declared a draw. This situation is depressingly common among the large group of casual players who possess no knowledge beyond how to move the pieces.

A final, rather dishonest reason is to protect the ego of your opponent. Too many casual players take losing at chess as a personal failure, or worse, an insult or demonstration of superiority by their opponent. If your opponent is your boss or your grandfather, and they take losing very badly, maybe a draw is a more political decision. In this case, the game is just part of a larger game - the game of maintaining workable relationships in the real world.

"If you've ever played chess, you would know that Black wins just as much as White, on average."  That is not true, and there is plenty of data proving there is some small advantage to White.  For citations to various data and studies, see Wikipedia article on "First move advantage in chess."


Sequence, dead cards with no cards to pick up In Sequence, if you have a Dead Card and there are no other cards to pick up, can you play the dead card on your turn, saving your other cards?

If you have gone through the entire deck then your are supposed to shuffle the discard piles and start drawing from that deck.
taken from the rules:
When the draw deck becomes depleted during play, all discard piles are shuffled together to create a new draw deck.
It is found under the table talk season.
Link to the rules:https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/191084/sequence-rules

From the Sequence rules at JAX Games - https://www.jaxgames.com/sequence-game-rules/
"each player selects a card of their choice from their hand and places it face up on a discard pile ... and then places one of their marker chips on the matching card on the game board."
So one cannot play a dead card since they need to place a marker chip on the board.


Priorities at End of Turn So I announce the end of my turn.

My opponent responds with a lightning bolt to my head. It resolves so I take 3.

Do I still have priority to do something else, eg to play instants that says do this when you take this much damage etc~?

In your case, you do have priority and you can cast the instant in question. However, an instant that says "When you take [some amount of] damage, [do something]" won't really do much because the damage has already been done, so to speak. However, if you had responded to the lightning bolt with your instant, then it would have worked as intended.

You ask specifically about the end of the turn and responding to damage, but you also seem to not completely understand the priority system in general. There are several points during a turn (upkeep, end of draw step, main phase, beginning of combat, attack step, block step, end of combat step, end step) when the active player (the player taking the turn) gains priority. Whenever a player has priority, they can either do something (play a spell, activate an ability) or they can pass priority. Spells and abilities don't resolve and steps don't end until every player has passed priority. Usually, people take the shortcut that if somebody doesn't say anything, they are assumed to be passing priority.

The important thing is that every player gets priority every step (as long as someone gets it) and before anything resolves (so you always get an opportunity to respond). You can read the comprehensive rules entry about timing and priority for more information.

In your specific case, when you say "I end my turn", it really means "I propose a shortcut that we skip to my end step" (there is also a comprehensive rules entry about Shortcuts and when your opponent cast the spell, they were implicitly accepting your shortcut, casting the spell during your end step, and then passing priority to you.

No, it is so much simpler than the complex responses we give for the stack and priority. Every time you cast a spell it goes up above the table in your hand, you reveal it so the person can read the card and then imagine a small timer going off where you can choose to stop it and interact with the spell being played or "allow it."

Simplest and easiest way. When the spell is in the air (or action of any tapped ability or paid for ability other than mana) and the player is casting it, this is when the opposing player has "priority," which is really just your ability to respond. A sorcery can only be played on one of the two main phases, so the only way to respond is with mana abilities (which cannot be stopped if they are activated and is the one exception to this general rule unless stated on a card.) What the mana pays into (instant spells, abilities of creatures, enchantments, lands, -permanents or what you cast from your hand or activate through abilities of pernaments.

Here is your scenario.

"Pass turn." -you

Opponent receives "priority" because like everything in magic and responds with lightening bolt.
You now have priority again, and can respond to his lightening bolt which actually would go on top of his spell (the stack) in the air and would go first) but because you moved your life counter down, it is assumed the spell resolved and the turn was over as you had moved intentions over to ending the turn.


How do you play the Master Spy in Guillotine? Guillotine is a fun, quick, bloodthirsty little card game that would grace any group's collection.  It is very simple, which is just as well, as the rulebook errs on the side of vagueness.

There is one card, though, where it's hard to work out how the creators envisaged it to be played.  The Master Spy goes to the back of the line after any action card is played.

There are two ways of interpreting this.  Either the action card is fully resolved, and then the Master Spy goes to the back of the line.  This means that, basically, the Master Spy cannot be executed except fortuitously, when he is the only person left standing at the end of a day.

The other interpretation is that the action card is played, the Master Spy goes to the back of the line, and then the action card is resolved.  So, supposing you play an action that reverses the line: the Master Spy goes to the back of the line, then the line is reversed, and then THWACK!  It's off with his head.

The latter way of playing appeals to most of the groups I've been part of, simply because it allows for clever play (or at least as clever as you can get in a game like Guillotine).  I do suspect us of approaching the game too much like diehard Magic: the Gathering rules lawyers: drawing a fine temporal distinction between a card's being played and a card resolving is probably not something that would occur to casual card players.

I was wondering, if anyone else here has ever played Guillotine, how do you play the Master Spy?  (I can't imagine Guillotine is a serious enough game for there to have been an "official ruling", but if there has, that would constitute an even better answer!)

The Master Spy is quite hard to kill!

Boardgamegeek posed this question a while ago and got this response from Wizards of the Coast.

  there is no way to play a card to get the master spy to the front of the line without him just going back after the cards effects.

For further reference, a secondhand account but the ruling was during a WoTC run game.

This is the way I've always played it as well.  He's the Master Spy!  Of course he's hard to kill :)

You're referring to the action card 'after you.'  You play the card and place the noble in the front in another players score pile, that's the action card effect, then you collect the noble at the front of the line for your turn.