When is my last opportunity to turn a manifested Kytheon face up and still cause his trigger? I have 3 creatures that have attacked, one of which is a manifested Kytheon, Hero of Akros. Assuming he will survive combat, when is my last opportunity to "un-manifest" him from a 2/2 and still receive his planeswalker flip trigger? Can I do it after damage, or do I have to do it after blocks, or even as far back as before I declare attackers?

The only restriction is that you have to do it before the End of Combat step, so you can do it after damage is dealt.

When Kytheon's ability says "if Kytheon, Hero of Akros attacked..." it means "if this creature attacked...". Specifically, rule 201.4 says

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

and rule 701.31a says

  "Manifest [a card]" means "Put [that card] onto the battlefield face down." That permanent is a 2/2 creature with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost. That permanent is a manifested permanent as long as it's face down. The effect defining its characteristics works any time the card is face down and ends when it's turned face up.

The point here is that Manifest is an effect that changes the creature's characteristics, including its name, but it's still the object that "Kytheon, Hero of Akros" refers to.

Rule 110.6 says

  A permanent's status is its physical state. There are four status categories, each of which has two possible values: tapped/untapped, flipped/unflipped, face up/face down, and phased in/phased out. Each permanent always has one of these values for each of these categories.

and rule 701.31b says

  Any time you have priority, you may turn a manifested permanent you control face up. This is a special action that doesn't use the stack (see rule 115.2b). To do this, show all players that the card representing that permanent is a creature card and what its mana cost is, pay that cost, then turn the permanent face up. The effect defining its characteristics while it was face down ends, and it regains its normal characteristics. If the card representing that permanent isn't a creature card or doesn't have a mana cost, it can't be turned face up this way.

As both of these indicate, when a manifested creature is turned face up, it is the same object that it was when it was face down.

Finally, rule 511.1, the rule describing the End of Combat step says

  First, all "at end of combat" abilities trigger and go on the stack.

Therefore, as long as Kytheon's ability exists when the End of Combat step starts, and you met the requirements, it will trigger and Kytheon will flip. The last time you gain priority before the End of Combat step is during the Combat Damage step, after damage is dealt, so that is your last opportunity to turn Kytheon face up and have the ability trigger.

You have to manifest Kytheon before combat, otherwise he will not count as having attacked.

711.2. Each face of a double-faced card has its own set of characteristics.
711.2a In every zone other than the battlefield, and also on the battlefield with its front face up, a double-faced card has only the characteristics of the front face.

Kytheon generates a delayed triggered ability if he actually is Kytheon at start of combat. That delayed ability triggers at end of combat. If Kytheon was a 2/2 at start of combat, no delayed trigger is generated, even if he turns into Kytheon before end of combat.


Takenoko: What happens if you draw a card that has an existing pattern in the garden? What if you draw a objective card that has a specific pattern, and it already exists in the garden, for one reason or another.

Examples:

You draw a plot card and that exact same shape is already existing in the garden (including the right parameters). Can you just show your objective card as fulfilled and get the points without doing anything else?
You draw a gardener card and you need 3 four-level bamboo in the garden. If there's an existing four-level bamboo in the garden, do you only need to do 2 more?

What happens in each example?

You draw a plot card and that exact same shape is already existing in the garden
  (including the right parameters) Can you just show your objective card as fulfilled and
  get the points without doing anything else?

Yes. At any point in your turn, you can play as many fulfilled objective cards from your hand as you like. I've found this often happens at the end of the game... drawing a card in hopes that the objective is already fulfilled is a decent strategy.

  You draw a gardener card and you need 3 four-level bamboo in the garden. If there's an
  existing four-level bamboo in the garden, do you only need to do 2 more?

Yes, provided they're the same color. As it often happens with objective cards, other players may be configuring the garden to suit your objectives without even knowing it.

Yes. At any point in your turn, you can play as many fulfilled objective cards from your hand as you like. I've found this often happens at the end of the game... drawing a card in hopes that the objective is already fulfilled is a decent strategy.

On https://pl.boardgamearena.com/ version of Takenoko, when you draw already fulfilled objective, you need to pick another one ;)


Trying to find the name of this patience-style game I was taught this two-pack version of patience a few years ago and want to know if it has an official name or not.

Two packs are shuffled together. 8 columns of 8 rows of cards are layed out face up on the table- 64 cards in total. The rest of the cards are faced down to the side of the table and turned over one at a time.

Any card may be placed on any other card with a value one above it (ie. Any 3 can be played on any 4 etc) but only if they are the same suit can cards be moved in groups. The only cards that can be placed on an empty column is one of the kings.

The aim is to clear the table into 8 stacks from ace to king above the table like in 'traditional' solitaire games.

Does anyone know if it has an official name?

This sounds like a 2-deck variation of the game, 'Golf'. The wikipedia page lists it as a starting with a 7 x 5 card layout. This website has a 2-deck version, which starts with a 9 x 7 card layout.

More rules or game play example might help to narrow it down.

This game is named Martin in our game BVS Solitaire Collection: https://www.bvssolitaire.com/rules/martin.htm


Players who can't seem to follow the rules -- What can be done? Non--board-game people keep making up their own rules, without knowing it.

I'm talking about players who are intelligent and literate, but who don't generally play board games.

Is there anything a game designer can do to help them understand how the game is played?

Examples of the Problem

In one game, you move your piece around the board.  The rules say you may move your piece up to three steps.  There's a pair of dice included in the game for a completely different purpose.  This kind of player grabs the dice, rolls them, then moves their token that many spaces.

In another game, there are many different cards.  Each card has text on it, saying what it does.  This kind of player plays the card and does something completely different than what it says.  For example, if it says "When you play this, you must discard all your cards and gain $10.", they might play it and take $10 without discarding anything.

Or, this kind of player looks at a card and announces that they don't understand what it does.  But when you ask them what it says on the card, they read it, then say, "Oh, that's what it does.".  (Note that I'm not talking about players with low literacy skills.)

Why I Care

I'm a board game designer, involved with the publishing company, so if the rules aren't clear enough, I'm the one at fault.  The good news is that, if there's any fix to be done, I'm in a position to do it.

My experience with people such as this is that they're impatient to start playing, and don't want to take the time to read lots of instructions. The best thing you can do, as @beam022 touched on, is improve the instructions. Make them non-threatening and as easily understandable as possible.
Game element formatting
Graphic symbols--used sparsely--can help. Don't go overboard on symbols, but for the most common of your common game elements symbols can be nice. Dominion, for example uses symbols for money and victory points. It could use symbols for +Cards or +Buy, but those are short, clear words so there's no need. Magic uses symbols for tapping and untapping and for mana costs (maybe a couple other things, but I can't think of any), which is very parsimonious given the level of complexity. Again, they could use a symbol for "target", but it's probably better that they don't. A few graphics can help people parse things better and add color, breaking up text and making it look more inviting. But only use symbols if you can be sure that they are unambiguous. 7 Wonders, for example, uses symbols effectively, but so extensively that every time I've taught the game to someone new they've needed to refer to the symbol glossary frequently.
Systematic formatting can help too. You give an example of a card where the player discards all cards to get $10. If you have many cards that could be broken down similarly, the text on the card could be formatted as

Pay: Discard all your cards.
Get: Gain $10.

Essentially separating the condition and result into bullet points, I think, makes it harder to ignore, and if this is a pattern that can be easily learned and applied to other cards, all the better.
Instructions style
If my experience generalizes, the people who can't be be bothered to read the rules just want to start playing, so write instructions that help them do that. Most rule books start with identifying pieces and set-up, as they should. If you can, the next sections should briefly state the goal of the game, then get on to a sample turn. Give section number references to following sections of the rules where you'll give details on each phase/step/whatever, but let them get started. In writing, you'll be hard-pressed to hold these players' attention for very long. The best you can do is to facilitate their "diving in" by making it easy to look things up in the rules (via short, well-labeled sections and subsections, a Table of Contents, an Index, and cross-references).

It's very simple. All board games are know to have rules attached to them. Many games are complex, and the only way to sift through complex rules are to read through these rules and play-test. If something is inconclusive, most people I know, including myself, search online. If there is no plan for a different version, it would behoove you to create a forum, or to search sites like these to answer any questions out there.

People playing complex games for the first time are simply not going to get it right on the first try. It is their own responsibility to review the rules after. Even those of us that have been playing for a while go back and realize we misinterpreted the rules.

Bottom line: just be as clear as you can. There is going to be misinterpretation no matter what.


Trick-taking card game, where you aim to reach zero points? My family has been playing this card game for years but no one knows what it is called.

You start by dealing out 5 cards to everyone, then flip the next card, which marks the trump suit. The dealer can pick up that card and discard one from his hand face down. Then you go around the table and say if you are in or out, but the dealer has to be in.

Scoring: you start with 21 points and every trick lowers your points. If you get skunked you get 5 points added to your score. You want to get to exactly zero.

What is the name of this game?

This sounds like a trick taking game in the Rams group.

  Rams group: in these games players have the opportunity to drop out after seeing their hands, but anyone who stays in and fails to make their quota of tricks suffers a penalty.

None of these seem to match the rules you state exactly.

Raub starts at 21, with players trying to get to 0 points. But, it is played with 4 cards, when you fail to score a trick you add +4.

Loo: doesn't have the starting total, with players winning shares of the pot for the proportion of tricks they take, with players that take none having to pay into the pot.

Bourre: also isn't a perfect fit. It also has a pot like Loo, has players who fail to take tricks paying into the pot. It does have the first revealed card to indicate trump.

My family always called it "Cut Throat".  Apparently it's also known as "Cut throat Euchre" or "Club Buck Euchre".


What is the name of the game called "Ace" in south Asia (specifically India)? This game has a standard deck of 52 playing cards. All the cards are dealt out to the players, and there can be any number of players.

The game goes like this:

First the player who has the Ace of Spades has to start the game by playing that card. Then each player plays a card of their choice matching the suit that was selected. If they already have a card in front of them, it's discarded first.

If any player doesn't have cards of the selected suit then he plays any card of his choice and then the player with the highest valued card will take all the played cards and add them to his hand, and then start a new round.

The game continues until only one player has cards remaining. That player is the winner.

Does anyone recognise this game?

I've found several references to it online as being called "Bhabhi":

http://s193890092.onlinehome.us/malton/bhabhi.htm

http://www.zymbiotic.com/bhabhi/rules

Also, someone on BoardGameGeek really likes it, so it must be bona fide:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/471299/the-perfect-card-game


Do Collectible Card Games without shuffling exist? All Collectible Card Games (like Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh!) I know require the players to shuffle their decks before the game begins. Also, the deck's card order is unbeknown to the players.

For the game I'm currently designing I thought about letting the players arrange their decks beforehand (so they know exactly which card they draw when, assuming a perfect memory or a virtual match). However, to find out if this is a good idea, I'm looking for at least one CCG that incorporates this mechanic to study it's rules. Do you know any?

Not sure how applicable it is, since it never had an actual physical card-based implementation (and ergo isn't strictly on-topic for this site), but Alteil was an online game based on CCG deck-building mechanics. While the original Japanese game still appears to be in active development, this answer is based on the English localization of it that has been defunct since 2017.

Decks are built of thirty cards, limited only by a maximum of three copies of any given card.  One card can be played each round, and this card is freely chosen from all available cards so there is no shuffling or randomization involved; the player has full access to his own deck.

(Again, this doesn't strictly meet your requirements of "letting the players arrange their decks beforehand" as there's no actual drawing involved — the player's "hand" is effectively his entire deck throughout the game — but it arguably does meet "so they know exactly which card they draw when" so I'll keep going...)

All the randomization that's not in the card selection is found in the actual card abilities themselves.  For example, whereas targetting is common in a typical CCG (at least the ones I've played), it's actually an exception in Alteil.  Most attacks — even the default attack action — only hit random units within range, but the player has no control over which units beyond ensuring the intended targets are "within range".  Targetted attacks do exist, but usually with a trade-off (e.g. higher cost or lower damage).  As such, gameplay itself is much more akin to a tactics game than most CCGs, with a higher emphasis on field layout and timing.

Detailed rules can still be found in the Wayback archive of Alteil's Rule Book; the fundamentals of game phases and stack resolution and card-text-trumps-everything are clearly in-line with existing deck-building games, even if the whole game is probably too complex to (enjoyably) play as a physical CCG.

IMHO letting players set up their decks pre game in a CCG is a bad idea.

First of all, Magic has the shuffling for a reason. One of them is porviding randomness to the game and giving the players the chance to work with what they got. Without that, all of the actual game would be happening in the metagame.

Knowing what your opponent plays and in what order would be instawin if you had proper cards in your collection. The best cards would be very pricey in such a ccg. If two different first turn win combos could be set up with your card base, the game would effectively become rock paper scissors. The players would not be thinking "what can I do with the cards at hand" during play - play would be just the execution of patterns the deck was designed and set up for. If you set your deck the wrong way pre game you would lose. If you were lucky, you would win.

Perhaps it is possible to invent mechanics that let you get around these problems, but in my opinion it is not worth it, as the pre game deck setup isnt really a part of the game thats interactive and fun, and it would be tiresome to set it up again after each game before you can play another. Shuffling is easier and more convinient. So - what do you actually want to achieve with pre-game deck setup mechanics? Perhaps this is a case of the XY problem, and there are in fact better solutions?

On a side note, I feel that making another ccg is not viable. Magic was first and still is the biggest after 20 years. It aint going away anytime soon. Its kind of like WoW in the MMO world. There are some other MMOs, and they do thier little thing, but they cant compare to WoW and its playerbase.


Am I allowed to open at the "one" level with hand like AKQxxxx xx xx xx? I am concerned about a ACBL rules that says that an opening "one" bid cannot be weaker than the top of a "weak two" bid. With this hand, many might open with a "weak two, " and many others might preempt at the three level.
The hand has only nine points according to the Milton Work count but I can get to 12-13 in one of two ways: 1) Counting 1 point for each of the three doubletons brings me to 12. 2) Alternatively, I add two points for each suit card over five, so the sixth and seventh give me four points, bringing the total to 13?
The rules also say that a slightly stronger hand of only 10 hcps, AKQxxxx JTxxx x void is allowed to open with a "strong" two clubs. The reason is that it can make game with "minimal" help from partner, e.g. a low eighth trump and the Q above the JT.
Finally I don't want to weak bid when I have such a good suit and my hand is "average" in high card points (for defensive purposes). AKQ are nine points and I add a tenth for the long sequence, because the J is likely to be swept up by my three top cards.
Am I, in fact, allowed to open this hand with one of a suit?
See the section on allowed bidding agreements.

The ACBL Convention Charts are a list of allowed agreements in the ACBL (but not necessarily other organizations).  You would need to determine which convention chart was being used by the particular competition you were involved in.
Let's check a few.  Please note the following applies to 1H and 1S and not to the minors, which have different rules related to them (though in this case, likely the same - just being clear it's slightly different spots in the rules.)

On the Basic chart, the rule that would control what you may mean by "1 Spade", is the following:

Opening Bids

Any Natural opening bid in a suit, as long as it shows at least Average Strength.

Further, let's define terms:

(1c). “Average Strength”: A hand that has at least 10 HCP or meets the “Rule of 19”.
(17). “High Card Points (HCP)”: The total number of points in a hand based on honors,
counting 4 for an Ace, 3 for a King, 2 for a Queen, and 1 for a Jack.
(27). *** “Rule of N”: A method of determining hand strength computed by adding the High
Card Points of the hand to the number of cards in the two longest suits. To meet the
“Rule of N”, this total must be at least N. *

There is no relationship to the Weak Two range here; what is specifically controlled is whether the "1 Spade" bid is considered permissible.
So we must evaluate your holding here, and see if it fits the range for "Average Hand".

HCP: It has 9 high card points, and does not meet this standard.
Rule of 19:  The distribution is 7-2-2-2, and with 9 HCP, it is evaluated at 9+7+2 = 18.  Thus, it does not meet this standard.

Thus, it is not permissible under the ACBL Basic Convention Chart to have an agreement to open this hand 1S, as a natural bid.

On the Basic+ chart, the rule is:

Opening Bids

Any opening bid in a suit which is Natural, as long as it shows at least Near-Average
Strength.

Defining Near-Average strength:

(1b) “Near Average Strength”: A hand that has at least 8 HCP or meets the “Rule of
17”

This hand is "Near Average Strength", both because it has 9 HCP and 18 "Rule of N" points.  This would be allowed on Basic+ to be opened 1s.

On the Open chart, the following rule applies as to what is disallowed - Open allows all agreements other than what is disallowed.

*** A Natural or Quasi-Natural 1-level opening bid in any seat that could contain less than Near-Average Strength.

This hand is Near-Average Strength, as previously discussed, and so is permitted.
Open+ is more permissive than Open, and so also permits this hand to be opened 1s.

In summary, here are the options:

Chart
1S permitted?

Basic
No

Basic+
Yes

Open
Yes

Open+
Yes

That hand counts 21 playing points so is short of a two demand and  must be opened at the one level.
A better question is whether one club would be reasonable to open with then jump shift into the strong spade suit.


What exactly does it mean to "cast" a spell? For example, Door of Destinies reads "Whenever you cast a spell of the chosen type-" what triggers this effect?

If I have Door of Destinies out and play Akroan Crusader, I know that would count, as would playing a equip card on it, also activating Akroan's ability.

But say that equipment card has " {R}: equipped creature gains +1/+1 until end of turn" does that activate Akroan's ability? Also, does the activation of his spell (and equip spell) trigger door of Destinies?

Casting a spell means taking it from where it is, which is usually the hand (but abilities like Flashback or cards like Isochron Scepter can change that), and put it on the stack so that it can resolve and have some effect. This process also involves (among other things) choosing modes for a modal spell, choosing targets for spells that target, and paying the cost of the spell (after taking into account and alternative or additional costs).

For you example, as Door of Destinies enters the battlefield you choose a creature type (I will assume that Human was picked, though it would also work if Soldier were chosen). Then when you cast the Akroan Crusader since it is a Human it will trigger the Door's ability.

In order to equip a card onto a creature you must activate its equip ability, this is not a spell — it is an ability and will not trigger the Crusader's ability. Similarly the "{R}: equipped create gets +/1+1 until end of turn" is also an ability and also will not trigger the Crusaders ability.

  601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell includes proposal of the spell (rules 601.2a–d) and determination and payment of costs (rules 601.2f–h). To cast a spell, a player follows the steps listed below, in order. A player must be legally allowed to cast the spell to begin this process (see rule 601.3), ignoring any effect that would prohibit that spell from being cast based on information determined during that spell’s proposal. (Such effects are considered during the check detailed in rule 601.2e.) If, at any point during the casting of a spell, a player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 720, “Handling Illegal Actions”).

Casting a spell is essentially playing it, such as from exile, your hand, or the graveyard, by either spending the mana required for it, or using a spell/effect (such as Wrexial, the Risen Deep) that lets you play it without its mana cost. If the spell is countered, it still has been cast. (So, for example, if you cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, then it is countered, you still exile 2 target permanents.) If any artifact is played on a creature with heroic, it does not trigger heroic.


Is there a term for: "Doesn't untap during next untap step"? There are a lot of cards that have the effect

  Target permanent does not untap during next untap step

For example:Kashi-Tribe Elite and Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger.

Is there a term for this? Because it's kind of a mouthful to say "that permanent is not allowed to untap during the next untap step."

Short answer, "no".
Long answer, "noooooooooo".

However, in casual games I [personally] tend to use the term "locked" or "locked down" if something doesn't untap during untap phases at all.

As SocioMatt suggested in the comments, "exhausted" would be a good turn for a single-hit of this on creatures. For permanents in general, you could say "delayed" - or for flavour representing disruption of a player's magical link to their permanent, something along the lines of "obscured" or "tangled".

As of Amonkhet, there is now a mechanic that causes an attacking creature to not untap during its controller's next untap step. It is called exert (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/amonkhet-mechanics-2017-04-03).

However, I usually refered to it as sleeping, freezing or being frozen as those are the flavor effects of the blue cards that inflict this condition in recent sets.


Does Alien Fuel Refinery count as having a trade power in Race for the Galaxy? In Race for the Galaxy, does the Alien Fuel Refinery restriction ("you may not trade a good from this world") count as a "trade power" for the purposes of Trade League, or in other words do I score a point for having Alien Fuel Refinery in my tableau if I also play Trade League?

It seems a bit strange to me that Trade League gives you points for not being able to trade, but (unless I've miscounted) Keldon's AI thinks that it does. Is there anything more official out there as a ruling on this one?

It does count. The Alien Artifact rules actually cover this!

  Consume powers, such as Trade League’s power, can be used.
  Trade League and Wormhole Prospectors do score for this world.

Similarly, the Brink of War rules explicitly state that Trade League does score for the can't sell power of Alien Oort Cloud Refinery (bottom of page 13)

It has a trading power, the restriction is that you have to trade goods from other worlds. This could be done to restrict the card from being to good, or it balances with higher VP-score or lower cost to attack/buy.

In this specific case, the reason that you cannot trade its own good is probably because it is cheap, or, that the designers wanted a cheap producing alien world.

It produces a yellow good which combined with a trading power is a really good combination.


Is Loyal Cathar's ability a "delayed triggered ability"? Loyal Cathar - When Loyal Cathar dies, return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step.

Question reposted from user Zacula:

  I believe that Cathar's ability is not a delayed ability that triggers at End of turn. The ability reads: "When Loyal Cathar dies, return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step." It is triggered upon Loyal Cathar's death! it doesn't say: "If Loyal Cathar dies, at the beginning of the next end step return it... blah... blah... blah...

From the rulings, a triggered ability begins with the words "at", "when", "whenever". Loyal Cathar's aility triggers upon its death, so it is up to the controller of the two triggered abilities (Undying, and cathar's) to place them on the stack any way he/she wishes to. He will of course prefer the Undying to resolve first, hence the result will be the same as everybody else answered to this question.

My question is: am I right regarding the Cathar's ability not being a delayed triggered ability that triggers at the End step?"

You are partially right. Loyal Cathar's ability is actually a triggered ability that creates a delayed triggered ability.

603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[Trigger condition], [effect],” and begin with the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.” They can also be expressed as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger event], [effect].”
Loyal Cathar's ability can be parsed as follows [When][Trigger Condition], [effect]:

[Loyal Cathar dies], - is the Trigger Condition.
[return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step] - is the effect.

The effect of the triggered ability sets up a delayed triggered ability that triggers at the the beginning of the next end step (see example below).

603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However, if that object is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at the time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won’t affect it. (Note that if that object left that zone and then returned, it’s a new object and thus won’t be affected. See rule 400.7.)
Example: An ability that reads “Exile this creature at the beginning of the next end
step” will exile the permanent even if it’s no longer a creature during the next end step.
However, it won’t do anything if the permanent left the battlefield before then.

The original question that spawned your question still has the correct checkmarked answer. Loyal Cathar's ability will fail to find the card in the graveyard, because Undying Evil already returned it to the battlefield. So, when the delayed triggered ability resolves at the beginning of the end of turn, it will fail to do anything. If Loyal Cathar dies again before the beginning of the end of turn, the original delayed triggered ability will still fail to do anything, because the Undying Evil returned Loyal Cathar is a new object.

Here's how I understand it:
2 abilities trigger simultaneously when "Loyal Cathar dies", since they have the same trigger condition. Their controller chooses on how to place them on the stack.

If he chooses to place Undying first and Cathar's ability above it, the latter will resolve first and it will set the Delayed triggered ability "return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step", then Undying resolves, it checks if the creature had no +1/+1 counters on it, and as a result it returns it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it. Then, at the End step, the delayed triggered ability set by the resolution of Cathar's ability triggers, but fizzles due to not finding the Cathar in the zone it was expecting it to be (Graveyard).

If the active player chooses to place the abilities in reverse order though, Undying will resolve first, it will check what it checks, and will return the creature to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it. Then Cathar's ability will try to resolve, but it doesn't find Cathar in the zone it expects it to be (Graveyard), so it fizzles without creating the Delayed triggered ability. Hence nothing triggers at the End step.

So, in the second scenario Loyal Cathar's Delayed triggered ability won't even trigger, since the triggered ability that creates it fizzled. This is excactly what I was saying from the beginning. Of course, I was indeed partially right, since I did not think of the first scenario. In any case Undying happens, either way the controller chooses to stack the abilities, so why even bother thinking about all these??

We are geeks, aren't we??? :P :P :P


What do you do about contradictory rules of Pit? The rules of Pit are oddly contradictory. For n players choose n commonities, add in the Bull and Bear, shuffle and deal out the cards. The rules state that everyone gets 9 cards. Doh! With the Bull and the Bear added in that doesn't work.

The way we reconcile this is two people have 10 cards which gives them a significant advantage, e.g. they can simply hold a single card of a commodity to effectively eliminate whoever ends up going for that commodity.

Are there better solutions to this?

The rules in my copy of the game note that two people get 10 cards. Generally these will be the two people left of the dealer.

You cannot call pit with the Bear in hand; you can call Pit with a Bull and 8 copies of a commodity. If you call Pit with a Bull and all 9 copies you get double points for that commodity.

Of note, it is courteous to remind people that they have 10 cards in hand but only need 9 of a commodity. New players often end up holding all 9 of a commodity while desperately looking for a phantom 10th because they are used to seeing their entire hand match.

Have the Bull and the Bear cards constantly being passed faced down (clockwise) as you trade the other cards/commodities with all players.  Bull & Bear cards go around like ring a round the rosy.  You are NOT allowed to have both BULL & BEAR at the same time.  If you have the Bull or Bear card, you can briefly hold it, but you must immediately pass it to the player on your left (clockwise) when the player to your right passes the other Bull or Bear card to you.  Thus the Bear & Bull cards are being passed continually in a circular motion..  - You could choose to glance at these cards as they pass through you with which to remember where they are.  ---- Then when any player corners the market with a set of all 9 of one, the game stops, and the player holding the Bull card receives an automatic point bonus (of 25), and the player holding the Bear card gets a automatic subtraction of points (for example minus 10).  Note:  if you are passed the Bear card but you are still holding the Bull card when someone corners the market (rings the bell/end of the round) then you receive a penalty of minus 50 points for having both Bear & Bull cards.


When casting a spell, how can a mana ability be paid with another mana ability? A situation was presented with Skyshroud Elf and Ashnod's Altar: apparently, you could generate WW or RR by:

Activate the Elf's filter ability ({1}: Add {R} or {W})
Activate the Elf's filter ability
Activate Altar to generate {2}
Resolve filter ability 1 (or 2?)
Resolve other filter ability

But, mana abilities don't use the stack, and once activated they resolve immediately. So, how can you "respond" to a mana ability in this way?

  605.3b An activated mana ability doesn’t go on the stack, so it can’t be targeted, countered, or otherwise responded to. Rather, it resolves immediately after it is activated

Credit to Pucatrade for the situation

It used to be possible to do this by activating the Elf's filter ability during the process of activating the same ability, taking advantage of the fact that one of the steps of  casting a spell or activating an ability is rule 601.2g:

  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.

But the rule 605.3c introduced in Eldritch Mood explicitly forbids the specific sequence in the question:

  Once a player begins to activate a mana ability, that ability can’t be activated again until it has resolved.

However, it is still possible to do essentially the same thing in a variant scenario where a single creature has two separate instances of the Skyshroud Elf's ability. For example, if you control Ashnod's Altar and Necrotic Ooze, and your graveyard has two copies of Skyshroud Elf in it, then you can accomplish the same thing by doing this:

Activate the Ooze's first filter ability. When you get to step 601.2g of the activation process, do the following:

Activate the Ooze's second filter ability. When you get to step 601.2g of this ability's activation process, do the following:

Activate Ashnod's Altar's ability by sacrificing the Ooze. Now you have {C}{C} in your mana pool.

Pay for the second filter ability with {C} and let the ability resolve, adding {W} or {R} to your mana pool. Now you have {C} and {W} or {R} in your mana pool.

Pay for the original filter ability with {C} and let the ability resolve to add another {W} or {R} to your mana pool.

By doing this, you end up with two mana in any combination of {W} and {R} to your mana pool.

No this doesn't work.

602.2. To activate an ability is to put it onto the stack and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Only an object’s controller (or its owner, if it doesn’t have a controller) can activate its activated ability unless the object specifically says otherwise. Activating an ability follows the steps listed below, in order. If, at any point during the activation of an ability, a player is unable to comply with any of those steps, the activation is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that ability started to be activated (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”). Announcements and payments can’t be altered after they’ve been made.
emphasis added

Mana abilities resolve immediately (605.3b), but you must pay for them first. There is no way to interrupt the activation process; the game rules require one to complete the casting/activation process or rewind the game (602.2; 601.2 for spells)


Game of Thrones: Are Tides of Battle cards used when attacking a neutral force? If players decided to use the optional module "Tides of Battle", are Tides of Battle cards used when attacking a neutral force?

The section about "Tides of Battle" on the rulebook (page 29) mentions that they are used on combat. But when reading the section about Neutral Forces on the rulebook (page 26), it did not become clear to me whether or not destroying a neutral force strictly counts as combat.

I couldn't find anything relevant in the errata/FAQ either.

Thanks in advance!

The Combat section of the rules (page 17) states that Combat ensues "whenever a player marches one or more of his units into an
area containing units from another House…" However, it says nothing about marching into an area containing neutral forces, and nothing in the Neutral Forces section actually defines taking a neutral territory as "combat".

While obviously very combat-like in nature, as I read it "Destroying a Neutral Force" is very much its own thing and not simply an extension of combat. The line about collecting support actually lampshades that it's performed "as in combat" which, to me, demonstrates that this is in itself not "combat".

And technically, combat or no, the first step of drawing Tides of Battle cards is done "after choosing and revealing House cards," which would never happen anyway since "no House Cards are played" when Destroying a Neutral Force.

It does lsay on page 26 that the neutral force must be defeated by exceeding the stregth using the factors listed. Tide of battle cards are not listed and by this exclusion not useable on neutral forces.


In response to an opening bid of 1 spade by my partner, why do I have to have at least 5 pieces in hearts (+ the usual points) in order to respond 2H? I've had this "rule" drilled into me for decades; but somebody asked me recently for an explanation, which I was unable to provide.

In addition to the other two great answers here, I'll expand a bit more on the "why".
Basically, your goal is to describe your hand as low as possible and as accurately as possible, right?  So you want to show partner whether you have 4 hearts or 5 hearts at the earliest moment possible, while showing other details about your hand too.
If you play 2H shows 5, then you have these choices for most hands (in base 2/1) that are game-interested or game-forcing:
1NT: 6-11, nothing else exciting to say
2C:  12+, Hearts 4 or less, Diamonds 4 or less, Spades 3 or less
2D: 12+, 4 or more diamonds, Hearts 4 or less, Spades 3 or less
2H: 12+, Hearts 5 or more

Plus the various "spade support" options, of course.
Now you've told your partner (who's mostly in the drivers seat) what you have without taking up almost any space.  Your partner can then tell you their next most interesting thing: whether that is a 4 card heart suit (by bidding 2H), can explore NT, can explore all sorts of things, especially over 1NT or 2C, which are the "least informative" bids.  This is a generally good idea in bidding - the higher the bid, the more space is gone, so the more information you need to convey!
2H steals all that space; after that, what can P bid?  2S to show longer spades or maybe if they're stuck, 2NT to decline but not leaving a lot of room to explore NT; or 3 level bids.  Ick.  If you're going to have to be in a long conversation that might end up with having to really think hard about how safe 3NT is over a 5-2 4S, you want to have that conversation at the 2 level, not the 3 level, as you have only so many chances to show stoppers or shape.

If you bid 2 clubs or 2 diamonds, you are "bidding to bid." That is, you want to show near-opening strength of 10-12 points and (probably) a balanced hand. There are few chances to get to game in a minor suit with a responder holding only 3-4 cards in the suit. If both partners have minimums and no fit, you should end up in a part score (at the two level).
If you bid two hearts (opposite one spade), you are "bidding to make" (a game of four hearts). The maximum likelihood is that opener has three hearts, rather than four or two. In that case, you want to guarantee an eight card heart fit, opposite your partner's (presumed) three. Then the remaining question is whether you have the "values" (points) for game.
The bidding (and meanings) might go something like this:
Opener: One spade. (12+ points, five spades).
Responder: Two hearts (10-12 points, five hearts).
Opener: Three hearts (three hearts in hand, more like 12-13 points than anything higher).
Responder: Four hearts (Top of my 10-12 range. Let's go for it.)
With 10-11, responder would have passed three hearts. With more than 13 points, opener would have gone directly to four hearts, or bid a new suit (forcing).


Risk - Play by mail/email In Risk (or Risk Legacy), is there an established way of playing the game by mail/email/..?

I'm considering setting up a game between friends, but am struggling to work out how the moves can be played out in a manner whereby the game doesn't take forever. Is there perhaps some kind of well-established rules that would allow players to send in their moves simultaneously, without being aware of the other's actions? (ie a bit like Diplomacy, whereby the moves could be sent to an independent arbitrator who could resolve the winners of those conflicts)

Unfortunately, play-by-mail isn't really an appropriate medium to play Risk, for a number of reasons.

Gameplay is too long, even when just considering playing in person.
while only one player can "act" during a turn, defending players get to roll defending die on each attack
choices to invade where, and in what quantity, are made by evaluating the whole board--something that can't be done if played simultaneously.

Gameplay is too long

Risk can, depending on the players skill levels, take several hours.  This is with immediate feedback from rolls and direct communication. To turn it into mail adds months to complete a single game.  I'm not sure a single game of Risk can maintain engagement over that long a time.  Even with email being much faster, it still suffers the other below issues.

Defending players

It is definitely possible that the defending players' rolls can be taken by the player staging his attacks, but this has a number of drawbacks.

The defending player doesn't get the enjoyment of defending his own territories with his own rolls, and thus all he/she gets in return is a summation "sorry, you lost the following territories; they are now occupied with my armies in these quantities".

It is a necessity that the attacking armies do the rolls for both the attacking die and the defending die (whether manually or assisted with a phone app or website). If the defending player is given the opportunity to make his own rolls, that actually means EACH attack requires a round-trip of correspondence: one to declare the attack, how large, and what the rolls were; the other to defend the attack and what the rolls were.

Only after it has resolved could the attacking army know whether to press the attack, to give up, etc.

Simultaneous play

Even two players couldn't decide to play simultaneously, much less more than two.  Take for example, two armies incidentally and simultaneously attacking a third party's territory.

Whose resolves first?  This is natural to playing on a board, where you might just go clockwise, but simultaneous play will have to 'emulate' what it means to go clockwise then--and if so, then it's no longer simultaneous: whoever falls lower on the priority of his turn--his actions are pretty much null and void.

Consider players A and B attacking player C with only 1 defending unit.  If A and B both send 15 armies after C's 1 unit, and A is determined to resolve first, B's entire plan of taking a territory, then adjacent territories no longer is applicable.

Conclusion

In short, the nature of Risk is synchronous and to modify it to play via a medium--mail or email--is too much work for the reward.  If none of these are compelling enough reasons, even just consider the setting up the board: do you really want to send an email after each ONE army is placed, and have dozens or hundreds of emails (with their delay) to get the board set up?

The easiest way would be to build yourself a graphical interface program of some sort to dump the data into a text file and send the file to the next player, who will load the data into the interface, apply some changes, dump it and send it again to the next.

now for the actual interface, you could make it dumb as a rock (you put a picture of the map with separators you could also put a reminder of the continent bonus soldiers in a corner and counters of the next card hands, each zone has a dropdown box selector to select the color of the owner of the land and a textbox to imput the number of the player's dudes still on the country) where the rules are -not- included in the program. you'd have to check for mistakes yourself...

or you could do the same thing but force the rules and verifications and stuff in the software... with a dice roller and cards included to prevent cheating...

or you could juste give yourself a writing convention like NAME_OF_COUNTRY#COLOR#NUMBER_OF_GUYS and list all the zones
like assuming france was blue and red attacked it and got 10 guys surviving FRANCE#RED#10
and just highlight(you could even all have your color) the lines where there was a change so people can look and see rapidly what happenned.
and use the info in like EXCEL or OpenOffice Spreadsheet

shouldnt be all that long either way

i don't think i'd recommend playing by mail since it'd take days and cost fortunes in stamps


Where can I find a chart or diagram explaining Magic's turn structure? I'm looking for a turn structure diagram for Magic the Gathering to use for teaching new players.  There is a lot of information to keep track of in the turn: there is everything from the fact that the Upkeep Step comes before the Draw Step to when you can play abilities between the game actions of the Combat Phase.

For new players in particular, a graphical representation is particularly useful since I want them to gain an intuitive grasp of how the turn progresses as well as be able to reference particular details that become relevant.

I have seen charts that list the steps and phases in order but I need something more than that for teaching and reference.  Where can I find a chart that includes the order of steps/phases, when you can use various types of cards and abilities, and what game actions happen when?

Here is one I made:

(click for full size - hosted on 27ld.com)

I wanted a chart that is legible when printed, so I came up with the following:

Disclaimer: this chart is based on the old rules, and so the particulars are very incorrect. But If someone is interested in enumerating the issues, I will update the chart. Consider editing my answer with a list of errata at the bottom.

I found this chart that has a lot of detail - I copy-pasted it into excel and tweaked the formatting a bit because I wanted to print it. I also added the mana pool emptying to it, based on @Zaga's.

But, as pointed out in the comments, the rules here are out of date.


Does Vorinclex help its controller or its owner? I play a Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger commander deck casually with friends. If one of my opponents plays Mind Control (or something similar) and takes control of Vorinclex, do the triggered abilities now benefit my opponent and hurt me? That is, does it help its controller or the owner?

Also, since my opponent tapped lands to play Mind Control while Vorinclex was still mine, I think the lands he tapped to cast Mind Control stays tapped next turn. Is my thinking here correct?

All instances of the word "you" on an ability refer the controller of the source of that ability.

  109.5. The words “you” and “your” on an object refer to the object’s controller, its would-be controller (if a player is attempting to play, cast, or activate it), or its owner (if it has no controller). For a static ability, this is the current controller of the object it’s on. For an activated ability, this is the player who activated the ability. For a triggered ability, this is the controller of the object when the ability triggered, unless it’s a delayed triggered ability. To determine the controller of a delayed triggered ability, see rules 603.7d–f.

If an opponent gains control of Vorinclax, then that opponent gets extra mana from tapping lands, and yours do not untap during your untap step. In other words, Vorinclax controlled by an opponent hurts you and helps your opponent.

When your opponent taps lands to pay for Mind Control, you control Vorinclax. Those lands will not untap during your opponent's next untap step.

As a rule of thumb - always assume controller unless the card says otherwise


How are the Utilities unmortgaged with 10% interest if the mortgage value is $75? The official monopoly rules say:

  In order to lift the mortgage, the owner must pay the Bank the
  amount of the mortgage plus 10% interest

However, the utilities have a mortgage value of $75, and 10% of $75 is $7.5. As far as I know, there are no coins or any way to pay less than a dollar to the bank. What would you do in this scenario? Round up? down?

There is no official rule to address this question, so you and your play group must decide how to handle it.

Note that the same question applies in the case of landing on the Income Tax square and choosing to pay 10% of your worth.

A common thing that would make sense is to follow the same rules of rounding that is taught in most basic math... 1/2 and higher means round up, lower than 1/2 means round down. So 7.5 would round up to 8.

But if your group decides on either always rounding up, or always rounding down, that would be equally legitimate.

However, even if you want to use mathematical rounding, there are actually different conventions for handling rounding 1/2... all conventions agree that less than 1/2 means round down, while more than 1/2 means round up. But for 1/2 exactly, there are multiple options.

Because Monopoly is a game designed to simulate handling money, involving banking and such, it might make the most sense to use what is called "Banker's Rounding", which is also known as "Round to even". This means that 7.5 would become 8, but 10.5 would become 10. In other words, when dealing with 1/2, round to whichever direction would leave you with an even number.

in the official monopoly game, based on the rule "numbers ending in 5 are rounded up", utilities unmortgage value accepted 83M


In Puerto Rico, how do you tell whether it is better to trade or to ship a good? How do you choose between "trading" a good (locally) and shipping it (abroad) when the two actions have rather different reward structures?

How do the relevant roles you might play (craftsman, captain, trader) affect these choices?

Of course, if you have a warehouse, that gives you a wider choice of whether to trade or ship, and whether to do so this turn or in the future. More to the point, how do you decide, "I need to buy a warehouse THIS turn, for 1-2 turns down the road?"

It depends on several factors that ultimately boil down to What is the roles overall value?

Is it the early game? - In the early game, it is usually more important to gain coins than VP. The reason for this, is that you can exchange coins for buildings that will gain you more coins/VP over the course of the game than you would earn this turn by shipping and taking the VP. Until you have your coin generating buildings setup, usually consisting of a high value trade good/large market/factory, coins are usually of greater value. Some of the expansion building make this distinction moot (Black Market).
Do your opponents make more Coins/VP because of your choice? - Usually, in Puerto Rico, you want to make decisions that benefit you more than your opponents. If choosing Trader will benefit your opponents more, you might want to Captain instead (or select some other role). The few times you might select a role that doesn't seem to immediately help you relative to your opponents, is when you are denying them access to the cash necessary to buy some building (Guild Hall pops up a lot here), or denying them shipping on a large boat (they have lots of corn and you take a large boat and possibly tie up all the boats from emptying).
Does the role have a coin on it - I will many times take a role card that has a coin, because all I need is that extra coin to buy a building I want during the next building phase.

In the beginning, you need money to invest, so the emphasis is on trading, which generates money. Here, you would want to use the trader and craftsman, all other things being equal.

Later in the game, as it gets closer to the endgame, you are after victory points, so unless you are a builder, the emphasis is on shipping, which generates victory points. Here, the captain is your friend.

There are some other considerations. All goods earn an equal number of victory points when shipped, but some goods are more lucrative than others when traded. In descending order, they are coffee, tobacco, sugar, indigo, and corn. "Comparative advantage" dictates that you want to ship corn more, and trade more coffee.


How can I ensure the Commander deck I'm creating is appropriate for my group's meta? Our group's been playing Magic since mid-2013, and Commander 2013 since a while after that. A couple of us are keen on building our own commander decks now. We're aware the Commander format can easily be very powerful, and that different groups vary from decks that finish within a few turns to those that easily last 15-20 turns (like the C13 decks do). We're having some trouble working out how to gear our decks to be at a suitable power level for our table's current meta.
We can tell when a card's just going to outright break things and be un-fun. However, we encounter fairly powerful cards and we're not sure if they're too powerful, or OK because it's just what that deck does, or maybe it should be considered a bomb like Serra Avatar. Is Pontiff of Blight too powerful or just right in our C13-based environment (pay a few {W/B}, cause life loss and get 3-4 life for each mana spent this way because multiplayer) — how do we tell?
How do Commander groups usually work this out? Are there design standards available? Is there a well-defined tier list that can guide our deck construction? What do people go by to ensure they match their game's meta effectively without breaking it? Or is it just done by feel and experimentation and group moderation of "don't use that card, it won't be fun for us, use this one instead maybe"?

As a subjective question, this will be governed by the Stack's Good Subjective, Bad Subjective guidelines and the subjective questions guidance offered at the bottom of this help page.
This means answers need to adhere to the back it up principle: your solution must be accompanied by based on either something that happened to you personally, or something you can back up with a reference. In general that means cite direct experience (your own or someone else's) that demonstrates the effectiveness of solutions you provide. A solution that comes with no experience of its effectiveness is low quality.

If there's one thing you can learn from Mark Rosewater's "Making Magic" articles (check out the section on "Empires"), it's that the best way to find out if a deck is unfair and/or miserable is to play it. This may seem like something you could shortcut, but card evaluation is really hard, and cards or decks that seem oppressive at first glance may turn out to be actually really fun and exciting; and vice versa.

The key thing here is to have a group happy to communicate that your deck is stopping them having fun, and to be able to tell which deck it is that's doing it. The best way to tell this is the same way you'd analyse anything; change one thing and see what happens.

For example, if everyone turns up with a new deck, and one can't compete, one's horrifically broken, and one just feels like it could be fair if the removal suite in the opposing decks were different, you change the broken one, and see how it fits. If you change all of them, suddenly you could get massive swings against the "could be fair" which you weren't expecting.

Also, be aware that if your deck is requiring people to significantly adapt their decks to deal with it, then even though it seems fair, it's actually warping.

Another issue is play skill; for example, Black Lotus is an entirely reasonable card as long as you're using it to ramp into Centaur Courser on turn 1. The deck may seem reasonable, and then suddenly stop being reasonable in the hands of a more experienced player. So it's worth agreeing that, just because a deck was fine originally, it could now be time to retire it as it starts to cause issues.

Hmmm the problem I see with this is that in my experience a player makes a commander deck he enjoys, he doesn't change it according to the group or the group makes a deck which can match his, this would take a lot of fun out of the proces of owning your own commander deck of 100 cards.

That being said, there are buyable premade commander decks. In my experience they are neither good nor bad and  can be played against each other as long as they come from the same set. I've done this once with some friends, we all bought the new commander decks and played once with them so we could figure out the flaws and then we made changes we deemed necessary to make a deck which could actually fight.

Next to that there are commander staples cards. This forum topic gives a list of all commander staples. I would say that you can build a lot of decks with these cards and cards you deem necessary for a commander deck.

Also a commander deck is mostly build around it's commander. So how a deck is build mostly depends on the commander (although I know of cases where the commander is only used to provide colours).


Multiplayer timer for board games I'm interested to know if there exists something like a chess timer, but for an arbitrary number of players.  I would like to use this for games such as Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan, where each player's turn is largely independent of the other player's involvement.

Assuming there is a product like this I would like to hear whether you have found it helpful to play with, or whether you think it causes more problems than it solves.

The G8 Game Timer sounds like what you're looking for, and Greg Aleknevicus has has a very nice review of it in The Games Journal. It seems like it might be hard to come by these days, as its out of stock in many stores, though it appears the manufacturer still sells them directly.

From the review:

  To my mind the device only really works well when playing games in which the players take sequential, non-interactive turns of several minutes duration. While this might seem rather restrictive there are lots of games that do fall into this category. Also, it's precisely these games in which a timer is most useful. The aforementioned Tikal is one such example and Vinci is another with which it worked quite well. Ultimately, I can't really say whether I recommend this or not. Not because I don't think it's a worthy piece of game equipment, it is. Rather, because its usefulness will depend so much on the particular game and group that's using it.

As mentioned in the review, a timer is less useful in certain games. Games that involve lots of interaction with other players during your turn, such as trading in Settlers of Catan, mean that the length of your turn doesn't depend only on how fast you play, but also on how fast your opponents make decisions. I don't think that Settlers of Catan would work well with a timer.

You also need to consider what you do when a player runs out of time; do you simply eliminate them from the game? In a two player game, when you run out of time you lose, and the other player wins; in some multiplayer games, elimination can disproportionately benefit one player over the other ones.

Then there are games in which people's turns generally go fast enough that the timer is more of a distraction than a benefit. I would put Carcassonne in this category; it doesn't usually take long for someone to place a single tile. If people are taking too long, there's a simple house rule that I use: people draw their tile at the end of their previous turn, instead of the start of the next one. That way, they have everyone else's turn to think about where they want to place it, and the board only changes a bit by the time it gets back around to them.

That said, there are some games in which the timer would be useful. Games in which elimination doesn't disrupt the game, which have long turns in which each player plays independently of the others, and which are prone to analysis paralysis.

As mentioned above, there are several timer apps that turn your smartphone into a timer for board games. This one is pretty cool and has some lock screen functionality: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.multiphonetimer.multiphonetimer


Does a book of 3's in Hand and Foot work? My wife and I play Hand and Foot from time to time. We have toyed with the idea of allowing a book of 3's to count positive, with the caveat that they are only positive if the book is closed and clean. If the book is not closed and clean then each of the 3's has their usual negative score.

We have not found this particularly effective because if a player attempts it then the state of that book determines the winner of the game.

My question is if anyone else has tried a book of 3's in Hand and Foot and if they have found a way to make it work.

Assuming you're playing with the Red (100) Black (5) variation (there are not official rules for hand and foot), then the purpose of the 3's is to add a bit of randomness to the game to offset player ability.  If your goal is to remove this randomness, then you can simply treat all 3's as normal cards and the game will 'work' just fine.   I have played that particular variation.

I'm not sure by which rules you're playing, but if you're allowing threes to hit the table singly, and also allowing the bonus for making a book of them, it's a bit of an unfair advantage to that random chance.

Pagat - Rules to Hand and Foot

You can lay down a book or Canasta of 3s if you have seven cards to lay down. This is worth 2000 points.


Are the larger base cards available for Smash Up? In Geek & Sundry's episode of Table Top featuring Smash Up, they were using larger base cards that featured a built-in counter for the break point:

I just bought Smash Up, and it came with base cards that lack the counter, and are the same size as the rest of the deck cards for the game.

Are these bigger versions available?  Can I download them from somewhere and print my own, or does the manufacturer offer them?

Edit:
It appears that the manufacturer has decided that it was economically unfeasible to release the new base cards.

Todd Rowland, one of the Game Designers/Publishers, has confirmed that the base cards in the episode were made by AEG (the publisher), and will be made available later this year:

  No we made them, and we've made them for AL9K and Cthulhu as well.

and

  We will make them available later this year.

A good tip I use is buy 3 combination locks from the doller store that look like this http://www.amazon.com/BestDealUSA-Combination-Luggage-Padlock-Durable/dp/B007VXKXQ0/ref=sr_1_2?s=hardware&ie=UTF8&qid=1427741474&sr=1-2... they are tiny but can be used to keep track of a bases points and fit in the game box, total cost $3 - total gamechanger


New Transform Rules and Archangel Avacyn Archangel Avacyn says (in addition to other abilities): "When a non-Angel creature you control dies, transform Archangel Avacyn at the beginning of the next upkeep".

Since the triggered ability isn't the actual transform ability, but instead creates a delayed triggered ability, if you put it on the stack while another trigger wants to transform Avacyn, will she transform back? (e.g. Non-Angel died. Go to upkeep, another non-Angel dies. Will she transform back on the next upkeep?)

No, Avacyn will not transform again at the following upkeep.

The new rule 701.25e says

  If an activated ability of a permanent tries to transform that permanent, the permanent transforms only if it hasn't transformed since the ability was put onto the stack. The same is true for triggered abilities of a permanent that aren't delayed triggered abilities. If a delayed triggered ability of a permanent tries to transform that permanent, the permanent transforms only if it hasn't transformed since that delayed triggered ability was created.

Avacyn's ability creates a delayed triggered ability, so the last clause is the relevant one. So, the situation you describe plays out like this:

A non-Angel creature dies. Archangel Avacyn's triggered ability goes on the stack.
Archangel Avacyn's triggered ability resolves, and creates a delayed triggered ability.
At the beginning of the next upkeep, the delayed triggered ability goes on the stack.
Another non-Angel creature dies. Archangel Avacyn's triggered ability goes on the stack.
Archangel Avacyn's triggered ability resolves, and creates a second delayed triggered ability.
The original delayed triggered ability resolves. Archangel Avacyn has not transformed since that delayed triggered ability was created, so Archangel Avacyn transforms into Avacyn, the Purifier.
At the beginning of the following upkeep, the second delayed triggered ability goes on the stack.
The second delayed trigger resolves. Avacyn has transformed since the second delayed triggered ability was created, so she does not transform, and remains Avacyn, the Purifier.

I believe that Archangel Avacyn will only transform the one time. The reasoning behind this is that her transformed side doesn't give her the option to transform again like the werewolves have or even Arlinn Kord. Having her being able to transform back and forth due to a bunch of delayed triggers seems to go beyond the designer's intent. This would allow you to nuke the opponent's board and bolt them for every trigger.

There's also this rule: 701.25d Some triggered abilities trigger when an object “transforms into” an object identified by name. Such an ability triggers only if that object didn’t have the specified name immediately before the transform instruction and does have the specified name immediately after the transform instruction.

Since the ability tells you to transform Archangel Avacyn once she's transformed she no longer has that name and the ability won't try to transform her again.


Can you use a Wizard's charm on another player's monster? The card says "You may discard your whole hand (minimum 3 cards) to charm a single Monster instead of fighting it." Can I use this on another player to charm his monster? Or does it only apply to a monster I am fighting?

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

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

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

Yes. The wizard's Charm ability can be used on any monster during a combat. He/she does not have to be in combat in order to use the ability.


Is there a correct overcall or double in this case? Let's say I have a 4S-3H-4D-2C distribution and 12-18 points. One of the opponents has already opened and they didn't bid clubs but one of the other suits (S, H or D). Now what can I bid? I cannot overcall because that requires a strong suit. I cannot double because that promises at least a 3 carder of all the unbid suits including clubs. What do I bid in this case?

I play Standard American 5 card major or 2/1

As pointed out in the comments, the range 12-18 is a double range for which both sides must be looked at separately.

With the lower half, 12 to a bad 15, just pass. Don't hesitate; just pass in your normal tempo. Trust partner to balance when necessary, or find a partner who will. Any hesitation with this hand gives partner an ethical problem that will prevent a reopening call.

With the upper half, a good 15 to 18, just bid 1NT in tempo.

A bid of 1 NT over an opening bid of 1 of a suit holding 15-18, a balanced hand, and a stopper in the bid suit seems reasonable.  If the suit bid by the opponent was one in which the overcaller holds 3 small cards, I would favor a double, despite a 2-card club suit. It is a risk, as partner might bid the short suit, but the likelihood of the NT bid winding up in a 3NT contract where the opponents lead and run the Heart suit in the case described seems much more serious.

Given the pressure to respond in a major if possible, the risk of a club mis-fit seems tolerable to em, as no bid is perfect in this situation, and a good fifteen is too strong to make pass attractive.


pandemic - can a city outbreak more than once per infect city turn? Scenario:
- infection rate is 2
- Tehran currently has 2 cubes, Baghdad has 3 cubes

At end of turn, first infect card drawn is Baghdad. It outbreaks and adds a cube to Tehran so Tehran now has 3 cubes.
Second card drawn is Tehran, which outbreaks.

Question: Does the Tehran outbreak cause a chain reaction outbreak in Baghdad? Or is Baghdad skipped because it already had an outbreak on this infect cities stage?

Yes, the second card will cause a chain reaction.

In a case like this you would have three total outbreaks happen. First one from the first card drawn, Baghdad. Then two more from the second card drawn, Tehran.

  INFECTION:
  Infections
  Flip over as many Infection cards from the top of the Infection Deck as the
  current infection rate. This number is below the space of the Infection Rate
  Track that has the infection rate marker. Flip these cards over one at a time,
  infecting the city named on each card.

  To infect a city, place 1 disease cube matching its color onto the city, unless
  this disease has been eradicated. If the city already has 3 cubes of this color,
  do not place a 4th cube. Instead, an outbreak of this disease occurs in the city
  (see Outbreaks below). Discard this card to the Infection Discard Pile.

  OUTBREAKS:
  When a disease outbreak occurs, move the outbreaks marker forward
  1 space on the Outbreaks Track. Then, place 1 cube of the disease color
  on every city connected to the city. If any of them already has 3 cubes of
  the disease color, do not place a 4th cube in those cities. Instead, in each of
  them, a chain reaction outbreak occurs after the current outbreak is done.

  When a chain reaction outbreak occurs, first move the outbreaks marker
  forward 1 space. Then, place cubes as above, except do not add a cube to
  cities that have already had an outbreak (or a chain reaction outbreak) as
  part of resolving the current Infection card.

  As a result of outbreaks, a city may have disease cubes of multiple colors on
  it; up to 3 cubes of each color. This does not affect infections.

If you read the outbreaks section closely it only talks about not adding cubes to cities that have already had an outbreak for the current infection card only. So for the situation that you are dealing with there will be an outbreak for each infection card.

From what the rules state no city can outbreak more than once per infection cycle. Otherwise you would have outbreaks going back and forth in a never ending loop. So per your example. Baghdad would outbreak because it has 3 cubes causing Tehran to get a 3rd. Then Tehran would outbreak with the draw. Now as I play it Baghdad would not outbreak because you are still in the same infection cycle. From the other answer he makes it sound as if each card is its own infection cycle. So don't know for sure, but I have never played it as each card is its own cycle.


In a four person game of Quoridor, can a player be forced to pass a turn? As a follow up to my question earlier, can a player be forced to skip a turn when playing a four player game of Quoridor? The rules state that a pawn cannot jump over more than one pawn when moving, but this brings up an potential board state in which a player has no valid moves:

Suppose the turn order is Green, Red, Blue, then Yellow. Green started on the west edge, Red started on the north edge, Blue started on the east edge, and Yellow started at the south edge.

It is Blue's turn, and Yellow has already used all of its walls. Blue then traps all four pawns in the tight corridor by placing its final wall horizontally immediately south of it (noted here by the faded wall below Yellow and Blue). It is now Yellow's turn, but Yellow has no walls, nor does it seem that it has any valid moves. Furthermore, if Green and Red place walls on their next turns, Blue and Yellow are potentially trapped again.

What is the proper way to handle this circumstance?

I would call this game a draw because there are no legal moves available to Yellow. Choosing how to resolve this on the spot would be unfair.

However, it is possible to come to an agreement to a solution before the game starts.

In a two-player game, this problem is addressed by allowing one to jump over an opponent.

Valid moves for "A"
╬═════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬
║     ║  ◎  ║  ◎  ║     ║
╬═════╬══╪══╬══╪══╬═════╬
║  ◎ ─╫─ A ─╫─ B ─╫─ ◎  ║
╬═════╬══╪══╬══╪══╬═════╬
║     ║  ◎  ║  ◎  ║     ║
╬═════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬

If I wanted to create a house rule to address this problem in four-player games, I'd simply extend the jumping rules.

Valid moves for "A"
╬═════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬
║     ║  ◎  ║  ◎  ║     ║     ║
╬═════╬══╪══╬══╪══╬═════╬═════╬
║  ◎ ─╫─ A ─╫─ B ─╫─ ◎  ║     ║
╬═════╬══╪══╬══╪══╬══╪══╬═════╬
║     ║  ◎ ─╫─ C ─╫─ D ─╫─ ◎  ║
╬═════╬═════╬══╪══╬══╪══╬═════╬
║     ║     ║  ◎  ║  ◎  ║     ║
╬═════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬

These movement options would be allowed at all times, not only when no other options are available.

Positioning of the fences
•  The fences must be placed between 2 sets of 2 squares
•  The fences can be used to facilitate the player’s progress or to impede that of the opponent, however, an access to the goal line must always be left open.

So blue can't place a fence here 'cause it will block the path to the goal line


Will Sigarda, Host of Herons and Armor of Thorns cause infinite cleanup steps? If my opponent has a Sigarda, Host of Herons in play, and I play Armor of Thorns as though it had flash and then Donate it to my opponent, will the game lock up at end of turn due to an infinite loop of cleanup steps?

Relevant abilities:

  Sigarda, Host of Herons
  Spells and abilities your opponents control can't cause you to sacrifice permanents.

  Armor of Thorns
  You may cast Armor of Thorns as though it had flash. If you cast it any time a sorcery couldn't have been cast, the controller of the permanent it becomes sacrifices it at the beginning of the next cleanup step.

Relevant rules:

  514.3a At this point, the game checks to see if any state-based actions would be performed and/or any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack (including those that trigger “at the beginning of the next cleanup step”). If so, those state-based actions are performed, then those triggered abilities are put on the stack, then the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. Once the stack is empty and all players pass in succession, another cleanup step begins.

I think that this question rests on who controls the ability that causes Armor of Thorns to be sacrificed.  Is it my ability because I cast Armor of Thorns, or is it my opponent's ability because they control Armor of Thorns?

The sacrifice does not happen; but this does not cause more than one extra cleanup step.

  603.7b A delayed triggered ability will trigger only once—the next time its trigger event occurs—unless it has a stated duration, such as “this turn.” If its trigger event occurs more than once simultaneously and the ability doesn’t have a stated duration, the controller of the delayed triggered ability chooses which event causes the ability to trigger.

This shows that once the delayed trigger happens at the beginning of the next cleanup; it will not trigger again after that. Preventing the sacrifice from happening doesn't change the fact that the trigger still happened.

Sigarda, Host of Herons does prevent the player from having to sacrifice Armor of Thorns, because the controller of the delayed triggered ability is the player who originally cast Armor of Thorns:

  603.7d If a spell creates a delayed triggered ability, the source of that delayed triggered ability is that spell. The controller of that delayed triggered ability is the player who controlled that spell as it resolved.

So there will be a second cleanup step because something triggered during the cleanup step, but there is no trigger that occurs at the beginning of the second cleanup step.

There is no case where there would be an infinite loop, Sigarda has a static ability that's a "can't" effect.  Either the the sacrifice is prevented, or it goes through depending on the cause of the sacrifice.  There's nothing to trigger so nothing goes on the stack that can form part of a loop.

In your scenario armor of thorns would be sacrificed since the trigger comes from armor of thorns which is also controlled by the controller of Sigarda.


Is putting a Draw 4 card on top of a Draw 2 card legal? Is it within the UNO rules to put a Wild Draw 4 card on top of a Draw 2 card, as it is a 'higher' card?

We've ALWAYS played that you can, but my new friend is adamant you can't.

A common Uno variant allows the recipient of a draw 2 to avoid drawing (and being skipped) by playing their own draw 2.  The next player either needs to skip their turn and draw 4 cards, or play their own draw 2.  If they play their own, the next player must either draw 6 cards or continue the sequence.  Some variants allow similar behavior with draw 4 cards.

Assuming you're talking about this "stacking" draw cards, you aren't going to be able to get an official answer, because it isn't an official rule.  This would explain why you and your friend are both adamant about it working in different ways.  You're just going to have to come to an agreement on how you will play.

For what its worth, every place that I've seen this rule described you have to play the exact same card, so you cannot "stack" a draw 4 when receiving a draw 2 in order to make the next player draw 6.  So I expect that is the more common way of playing the variant.

Yes you can me and my family had the same problem it comes in the uno manual


Developing Chess Game After 20 moves Suppose I start out a chess game in this manner: http://goo.gl/reCxP

From this advantage, I have a few questions:

Which item should I sacrifice so I can gain better ground position?
Should I advance the pawns on the right, or leave as protection for the king?
Any other advice?

Thanks.

First of all, and more important than anything else by far:  if you are a beginner, don't worry about positional stuff (yet) !  Learning chess theory (positional chess) will teach you how to form a correct plan, but that skill is completely useless if you can't execute it skillfully - a poor planner with good tactics will beat a great planner with poor tactics, every time.

Thus, if you are below 1800 USCF rating, or you don't know what your rating is, I would suggest focusing solely on tactics, and ignoring everything I'm about to say until you've improved more.

So, you're over 1800, you're satisfied with your tactics, but too often you end up with positions like the one shown above, and have no clue what to do next.  Now what?

Now you learn about the various imbalances in the game, how they work together, and how to take advantage of them.  This also means learning about endgames, as having the favorable imbalances will usually turn into having a favorable endgame.  These are book-length topics, far too large to explain in one post; fortunately, there are lots of good books out there.

The best books for learning the basics of both of these things are both written by the same person:  Jeremy Silman.  For chess theory, I would recommend How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition (make sure you get the 4th edition - it is vastly different from the earlier editions).  For endgames, check out Silman's Complete Endgame Course.  Both are very easy to read, and are geared towards players between 1400 and 2100 levels.

Now that you're comfortable with tactics, and have read the books I recommended above (right? :P), and know all about the various imbalances in different positions, let's take a look at your position in-particular.  What are the imbalances in your position?

Pawn structure: The first thing to note is that it's a closed center - this means, unless you can rip open the center, play will likely occur on the flanks (sides) of the board.
Control of important squares:  White has clear control of d5, while black has d4 - these are excellent outposts for knights.  However, white also temporarily has b5 and f5 available for his knights (temporary, because they could easily be pushed away by pawns), while black does not even have the option of knight-to-b4/f4, as they are guarded.  Both b4 and d4 knights would threaten Nc7+ (forking king and rook).
The move g3 has white committed to the push f4, but has left white with a glaring weakness at h3 - he should work quickly, or black will take advantage of it.
Development: Black is actually hindered in development, because he made the (poor) choice to bring his queen out in front of the rest of his troops.  This will likely come back to bite him, as white can push the queen around with his pieces, forcing black to waste time moving his queen, while white happily develops his own pieces in the process.
Bishops: White's light bishop is his poor bishop (ie. most of his pawns are on light squares), while black's dark-bishop is his poor one - so white would like to trade light-bishops, while black would like to trade dark-bishops.
King safety:  Black hasn't castled yet, but still has the choice of either king- or queen-side castling.  White already castled, but moved his g-pawn, leaving a weakness on h3.

So, what does all this mean in the end?  Here is my interpretation of the above (note that I could be completely wrong - I am a strong player, but no grandmaster):

Either player could still (hypothetically) have good play on either flank.  White could play the queenside by playing for a b4 push, or the kingside by Ne1, f4.  As white, I would prefer the queen-side play, simply because opening the kingside with black's queen and both bishops right there is ominous.

Black could play the queenside by a6, b5, or the kingside by playing for h5, h4, hxg3, bringing the rook into the attack as well.  As black, I would prefer the kingside right now, knowing that white will probably try to play the queen-side (or lose the fight if he tries to go kingside, due to black's better development, and white's king being there).

Unfortunately, due to black's poorly-placed queen, white has an immediate threat:  1. Nd5!, forking the queen and c7.  Then after 1.. Bxd5 2. cxd5 Nb8 (to answer white's next move) 3. Qa4+ Nd7 4. b4 White is quite obviously winning:  he has the double bishops, the initiative, better development, and his attack on the queenside if moving along while black's kingside attack hasn't even started.

It's black's move, but he doesn't have a good response to this threat; his best move appears (to me) to be 1.. O-O-O, but then after 2. Nd5! Qg6? 3. Nh4! Bxh4 4. Bh5 the queen is lost; thus after 1.. O-O-O 2. Nd5, black's only response is 2.. Bxd5, leading to a position similar to above, favorable for white.

So white has a way to force a highly favorable position, but the game is still not won.  As black, don't give up - you still have your kingside attack!  Make sure to deal with white's queenside-threats, but don't allow yourself to be lulled into playing defensively!

Note that this analysis would be very different if black's queen were still on d8 - in that case, I would probably say black has a slight-edge, since he can still choose to castle on the kingside, his strong side, and attacks in otherwise-even positions tend be slightly stronger when they are on the side the enemy king has castled.  So the real answer is, stick to your first-principles; don't move the queen out too early! :P

d4 by white to open the diagonal..this pawm sac then Ne5 attacking Q..after bhshop taker it we take it by pawn and the knight on c6 moves..then check by queen and bishop move next by white


Best place around the table in Blackjack I've read a few theories regarding which seat is the best in Blackjack.

I haven't been able to figure out if my own theory is correct. It won't apply to many situations, but when it does, I believe it would be best to be seated just before the dealer.

Theory: Assuming you have 16 and dealer has 11, and is your turn, I would say you best bet is to not take a new card (8/13 cards will result in you busting). However, if you're next to the dealer, you should definitely take a new card. The reason being: if it's between 1 and 5 you will get a better hand. If it's from 6 and up, you will bust, but the dealer would have gotten 17 or up if you didn't take it, thus beating you anyhow. This only applies if you're next to the dealer, (if not, someone else will take the card you didn't take, and the dealer could still get something low and bust on the next card).

I believe this would give you slightly better odds if you're next to the dealer. Am I wrong here? (I see that the advantage would be very small, however, I'm curious if my logic applies here. Any views?

You are correct that the best seat is just before the dealer.

The reason for this is that you get extra information before deciding whether to hit or stay. Keep in mind that in your example, you would still have the same decision whether to hit or stay when sitting on a 16 and the dealer showing 11. The only difference, is that sitting to he right of the dealer allows you to see more cards if more than one person is playing and adjust the odds of drawing a particular card.

The last position before the dealer is called "third base". As another person already answered, the benefit of playing 3rd base is that you get access to additional information about which cards have been dealt. You can make your decision based on basic blackjack strategy and/or the count if you're playing on a card counting level. I'm a life long blackjack player. I usually play in 3rd base for this exact reason. If 3rd base is not available then I like to play 1st base (the 1st position at the table) because you get to make your decisions first before anyone can do anything that might mess up your chance of getting a good hand (this is the main drawback of third base from my personal experience).


Can Guttersnipe hit Planeswalkers? Guttersnipe's ability states:

  Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, Guttersnipe deals 2 damage to each opponent.

Now, Planeswalkers are classed as "Players". I found this ruling that someone's interpreted:

  306.7. If noncombat damage would be dealt to a player by a source controlled by an opponent, that opponent may have that source deal that damage to a planeswalker the first player controls instead. This is a redirection effect (see rule 614.9) and is subject to the normal rules for ordering replacement effects (see rule 616). The opponent chooses whether to redirect the damage as the redirection effect is applied.

Does this mean Guttersnipe can hit a Planeswalker that opponent's controlling instead?

As of the Dominaria rules update, no. The planeswalker redirection rule you cite has been removed, and so dealing damage to "each opponent" means literally that, just player(s), no planeswalkers involved.

It now reads:

  306.7. Previously, planeswalkers were subject to a redirection effect that allowed a player to have noncombat damage that would be dealt to an opponent be dealt to a planeswalker under that opponent’s control instead. This rule has been removed and certain cards have received errata in the Oracle card reference to deal damage directly to planeswalkers.

In that spirit, many cards which said "target player" have been changed to read "target player or planeswalker", many which said "target opponent" now say "target opponent or planeswalker", and many which said "target creature or player" now say "any target".

Cards like Guttersnipe that wouldn't be so trivial to update have generally been left alone.

For posterity, the original pre-Dominaria answer follows.

Yes, you can redirect Guttersnipe's damage to a planeswalker, due to the rule you cited. (That's an actual rule, not a ruling or someone's interpretation.) Guttersnipe is dealing noncombat damage to a player, you are that player's opponent, you control the Guttersnipe, and you may therefore redirect the damage.

But saying "planeswalkers are classed as 'players'" is only going to get you into trouble. They are not players. They're, well, planeswalkers. There are a few things you can do that make them feel like players: you can redirect damage like this, and you can choose to attack them or your opponents with your creatures. But they aren't players. If a card actually says "player", it means a player, not a planeswalker.

Some examples:

A burn spell like Lightning Strike ("...deals 3 damage to target creature or player") can only target a player. You may end up redirecting the damage, effectively using it on their planeswalker, but you still have to target your opponent. If they have a Witchbane Orb ("You have hexproof"), you can't target them, so you can't cast the spell in the first place.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel ("...each opponent loses X life...") doesn't do anything to your opponents' planeswalkers - you can't redirect loss of life. Similarly, you can't somehow use life gain on a planeswalker.
Dreadbore ("Destroy target creature or planeswalker.") doesn't do anything to players.

Most of the time things are pretty obvious anyway - for example you're not too likely to think a planeswalker can draw cards and try to use Opportunity on it. But you can avoid the chance of confusion by just remembering what you can do (attack and redirect damage) rather than thinking of planeswalkers as players.

The correct answer is yes. Any spell that can target a player, can also target a planeswalker.

Source - http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/planeswalker-cards

  If a spell or ability you control would deal damage to an opponent, you may have it deal that damage to a Planeswalker that opponent controls instead. So while you can't target a Planeswalker with a Shock, you can have a Shock that targets your opponent deal 2 damage to one of his or her Planeswalkers instead of to the player.


How semi-cooperative games handle players who have nothing to lose? After watching Jumanji I wondered if the eponymous game was meant to be a co-op or a competitive game. Having difficulty figuring it out on my own, I have asked that question on a different stack exchange, and that's how I found out about games that are semi-cooperative: where one player might win, but all players can also lose.

I used to think this kind of games would be unplayable, as the cooperative part can quickly crumble once players whose assistance is required realise that they have no chance to win ("If I can't win, what's the point of me trying just to give you the win?" etc). Turns out, however, that those games do exist, as shown in the list above.

How do they circumvent the problem?

Out of all those mentioned I have only played Arkham Horror and for the life of me I was sure that it's pure co-op (wasn't the goal to defeat the Old Ones together?). Jumanji itself isn't much of help either - it basically forces the players to metagame and doesn't seem to give any reward of note to the winner (turning it into a co-op game in all but the rules).

The social contract does most of the heavy lifting

The social contract is an unspoken agreement between all the players of the game as to how the game should be played to maximize the enjoyment of all the players.  (Sometimes it's a spoken agreement, especially in tabletop roleplaying games.  Regardless, it's always present.)

The goal of a game isn't to win.  The goal is to have an enjoyable play experience.  That's why Cards Against Humanity is a much more popular game than Rock-Paper-Scissors, even though your odds of winning are lower.

Of course, winning generally contributes to the experience of a game.  For some people, in some games, it contributes a great deal.  But in other games, victory takes a back seat to the process of the game itself.

Semi-cooperative games are almost exclusively highly thematic, highly variable games.  These are not the sorts of games that attract players whose primary method of enjoying games is to 'win'.  Instead these games are designed to reward players who enjoy creating a narrative together, who want to do things just to see what will happen, and have a good story to tell at the end.

This means that players are less likely to feel dissatisfied because they aren't winning as much as one of the other players, and are still incentive to avoid the big loss conditions.

Also, even if a player does decide to tank the whole thing out of frustration, that doesn't necessarily mean a negative play experience for everyone else.  There's a reason that LEEROOY JENKINS! became the battlecry of the internet for a while.  Dramatic disaster can be just as fun as dramatic victory.

Which is not to say that a discontented player can't ruin the experience for other players.  The mechanical structures that Volker talks about are built in to reinforce it against this sort of behavior, and they're there for a reason.  But the bulk of the heavy lifting is done social contract, by making the focus of the game be about something other than victory.

1

I think terminology here is a big issue: semi-coop is simply a wrong way to define a game, and after a decade or playing hundreds of games with the widest possible audience I honestly can't remember anyone ever using it. I know it's used on BGG, but to me it sounds really weird.

A game is either cooperative or competitive. In a coop you must collaborate to win, in a competitive not. There are some variant to both (team vs team, traitors, alliances and diplomacy) but the bottom line is the same: a game is coop or it's not.

Why this matters? Because in a cooperative game the only way to win is to cooperate. As simple as that, that's everyone's top priority, be it playing against the game or another team, if you don't cooperate you lose.
Then, once the dust has settled down, once everyone is happy because the game is won, many games have ways to declare who was the best player; that player is now the winner among the players, but every one won anyway.

That's why the idea of semi cooperative is odd. There is no semi, you either cooperate to win or you lose.

2

Arcanist Lupus already mentioned the social aspect. It's something that come up every once in a while on RPG.se too, but every time I expose my theory I get downvoted brutally, so let me try here too :-D

It's really simple: no one has been kidnapped by the Nazists, put on a train, chained in a cold wooden shack and forced to play a game with other people. We are all happily living in a very nice environment where no one has a gun to our head to force us to play anything nor to force us to play with people that we don't like.

In my current city I manage a group of 850 players. We meet and play every Wednesday for 5-6 hours in a row: we get to know each others, we interact a lot, we form friendships. And we form ideas of each others play style. So on Wednesday, if someone invites me to a table, I can still say no if I don't like their gaming style an then join another table. Or I can sit there all evening drinking a beer enjoying conversations, and then invite the people I like at my place to play something else.
And maybe I'll invite some specific people to play Terra Mystica because I want some very competitive players, but I'll not invite some of them to play Mage Knight because last time we tried it's been a disaster.

The game rules do not  need to babysit me or solve any issue: I am an adult and I can choose which people I like to play which game with. And when. And for how long. Etc.