text:
How do adventure spells work with spell-cost modifications?
Say my opponent has a Bonecrusher Giant in play and I target it with Soul Partition.

Can my opponent cast Bonecrusher Giant's adventure side for 1R?
If my opponent does cast the adventure side for 1R, does casting Bonecrusher Giant itself still cost 4R?
If my opponent also has an Omniscience in play, do they still have to pay {2} to play Bonecrusher Giant?

Your opponent could cast Bonecrusher Giant's Stomp adventure, but it would cost them {3R}.

715.3. As a player casts an adventurer card, the player chooses whether they cast the card normally or as an Adventure.

715.3a When casting an adventurer card as an Adventure, only the alternative characteristics are evaluated to see if it can be cast.
715.3b While on the stack as an Adventure, the spell has only its alternative characteristics.

And

601.2a To propose the casting of a spell, a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack.

So your opponent will begin to cast the card, declaring that they are casting Stomp. When this goes on the stack, only the Stomp with the printed {1R} is what is on the stack. Then:

601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs.

Soul Partition kicks in and increases the cost by {2}.
When your opponent later cast Bonecrusher Giant, it will only cost {2R}, both because they are casting it per the adventure rules, not casting it per the Soul Partition rules, and because Soul Partition would no longer know anything about this card, as soon as it resolved and was exiled it became a new object (400.7).
Omniscience only allows you to cast spells from hand without paying their costs, so it wouldn't help here. But if it did allow you to cast cards from anywhere without paying their costs, then they would still have to pay the increase for {2}. See the ruling on Omniscience:

If the card has any mandatory additional costs, such as that of Tormenting Voice, those must be paid to cast the card.

Does this also apply if it's Divine Purge that exiled the Bonecrusher Giant? Divine Purge has the key word perpetual, so it's conceivable that it will affect the {2R} casting cost of Bonecrusher Giant itself after the adventure. I can ask this as a separate question, if necessary.

@Allure From what I can tell with "Perpetually", it would give a cost increase to casting both Stomp and Bonecrusher Giant. Aside from the cost increase remaining effect remaining as the card changes zones, it also is important that Divine Purge, unlike Soul Partition, doesn't refer to spells "cast this way", but rather applies to any way that the spell gets cast.


text:
Why is it forbidden to open hands with fewer than 8 high card points?
Source

2.6 Random Openings
It is forbidden to open hands which, by agreement, may contain fewer than 8 high card
points and for which no further definition is provided.

If you open bidding for a hand with fewer than 8 high card points, then you are going to lose, so the bid is suicidal. I don't see why there is a rule to stop players from making suicidal plays, however. Can someone explain?

One person's "suicidal" is another person's "preemptive bid" :)

It's a blanket limitation on HUM (Highly Unusual Method) systems employing a Forcing Pass or the like; by disallowing a catch-all substitution bid in place of an opening Pass. The effect is that such systems must, systemically, describe for the opponents how every hand type enters the auction.
The greatest virtue of HUM systems is the unfamiliarity of it to the opponents. This regulation combats that.
Further, I suspect it's a dig at proponents of EHAA (Every Hand An Adventure) type systems who are claiming non-agreement and non-existence of agreements on bidding patterns. Of course they built experience, and experiential agreements; now it's in black-and-white that those must be provided, in black-and-white, for the opponents in a timely manner that allows development of at least modest familiarity.
As a final note, your comment that players of such systems automatically lose: that's false. Look up the history of EHAA and Forcing Pass systms going back to the early '70's and check it out. What they actually did was undermine the skill component of winning, randomizing the results unacceptably.

Can you explain how you don't lose if you open bidding with <8 points? Like, why can't opponents could just pass and defeat whatever contract you end up in? Also, can you elaborate on the third paragraph - aren't bid meanings already known "in black-and-white" to opponents since you must explain your bid if asked?

@Allure in unequal strength distribution it's quite likely that opponents all passing results in a bad outcome for them, as them playing (and winning) a proper bid in their chosen suit would net them more points than slightly defeating you in a low bid in your chosen suit.

Well, if the opponents have a lay down grand slam in no trump and they just pass and defeat the contract, then they'll get a lot fewer points than they would have gotten by bidding that grand slam.

What level of "further definition" would be required?  For example, could one have a bidding system where a 1C bid forces a 1D response, and a 1H rebid would be artificial and forcing, indicative of a 9-card or longer suit and 0-8HCP, with no more than 3HCP in any suit?  One wouldn't be able to tell the opponents anything meaningful about the hand after 1C, but after 1H anyone given that description could likely picture what the opener's hand was likely to be (such a guess might be wrong if all remaining cards in the 9-card suit are dealt to the same player, but that would be rare).

@supercat: (1) That's a Highly Unusual Method under 2.2 (b) as the 1C opening may be weaker than Pass; thus only playable in Bermuda Bowl or Venice Cup. (2) It's the 1C opening that is a HUM, so I require a complete and full description of all hands that can, and cannot, open 1C, along with follow up auctions; plus a recommended defense. Until I have that, in a timely fashion, your suggested method is simply disallowed. What you have provided is unlikely to be even 5% of what you need to provide to opponents to get the method approved. Basically, I'm entitled to identify your psychic calls.

A hand with a nine-card suit, even with less than 8hcp, isn't exactly weak.  I would of course expect a proper description to be larger than would fit in a SO comment.

@supercat: Not only this - but why is a simple two call auction being reserved for a hand that will only show up once a year or so, and only for someone playing many times a week. Surely this, and similar strong single-suited hands, should be grouped into a less common auction.sequence.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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text:
Can I defend with Amulet of Earth?
The Amulet of Earth does not have any "shield" numbers on it. Can I defend with it, assuming that its defense value is 0? The question is in the context of Embodiment of Earth: it gives all the non-attack action cards +1 defense. So it can give meaning to defending with the Amulet of Earth.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Can I defend with a card from my hand and a defense reaction against an attack with "Dominate"?
My opponent played an attack with Dominate against me. I defended with a card from my hand. Now, it's time to play defense reactions. Can I play one and add its defense stat to the chain? If yes, why? Dominate says "you can't defend with more than one card from your hand".


text:
Is there a way to block during your turn?
I'm wondering if there's a way to get Snarespinner to reduce the cost of Molten Monstrosity by {3}. We can assume opponent has a flying creature. The idea is that with [mystery card/ability], I can get Snarespinner to block opponent's flying creature, and then cast Molten Monstrosity for {3} discount. I'm only interested in solutions where I cast Molten Monstrosity on my turn, at sorcery speed during one of my main phases.
Relevant text of cards:

Whenever Snarespinner blocks a creature with flying, Snarespinner gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

and

[Molten Monstrosity] costs {X} less to cast, where X is the greatest power among creatures you control.

Extreme shenanigans: Wipe opponent's board, Donate Snarespinner to your opponent, attack with Goblin Fire Fiend which you have somehow given flying, once Snarespinner blocks use an instant speed treason effect to get Snarespinner back under your control (this removes it from combat). It has now blocked and is under your control. I wouldn't suggest doing this to save 2 mana though.

@PhilipKendall Outside of wiping your opponent's board, the same basic thing can be done with effects such as Lure or Academic Dispute or just by giving
Avalanche Tusker flying.

@GendoIkari If I've got Avalanche Tusker, there's no need to do these shenanigans because its power is already greater than the pumped Snarespinner :)

I don't think so. Comprehensive Rule (CR) 506.2 sets the defending player to be the non-active player:

506.2. [...] During the combat phase of a two-player game, the nonactive player is the defending player.

and CR 509.1 allows only the defending player to declares blockers:

509.1. First, the defending player declares blockers.

Therefore you cannot declare a creature as a blocker during your turn.
(References are to the 2023-04-14 Comprehensive Rules).

There are three cards that cause creatures (tokens or cards) to enter the battlefield blocking.
The commonality is that they all rely on creatures attacking you or creatures you control blocking. In other words, they all heavily check that you are not the active player.
This is furthered by the rule:

506.3d If an effect would put a creature onto the battlefield blocking but
the creature it would block isn’t attacking the entering creature’s
controller, a planeswalker that player controls, or a battle that
player protects, that creature does enter the battlefield, but it’s
never considered to be a blocking creature.

Note that these can't cause Snarespinner's ability to trigger, since the blocking creature is never declared as blocking.
If you are open to using un-cards or test cards, you can block outside your turn if an opponent plays with Party Crasher or Throat Wolf.

CR 506.3d is another layer of protection against getting a blocking creature not on your turn.

Note also that if a creature enters the battlefield blocking, it would not trigger "whenever [this creature] blocks".

There's also Throat Wolf, from Mystery Booster.

Donate your Snarespinner at some point, then on some subsequent turn, cast Academic Dispute on the Snarespinner to force it to block.  Attack with any flying creature, then after blockers are declared and the Snarespinner's trigger resolves, activate a Homeward Path to regain control of the Snarespinner.  It will have the buffed stats from combat, but you can now use it at sorcery speed to discount your Molten Monstrosity.
Of course, there are better ways to get the discount, but this is one way that meets all the requirements you set out, with the important exception that your opponent blocked with the Snarespinner on your turn, not you.

If the goal is to literally have Molten Monstrosity cast on the same turn as you block with Snarespinner, all you need to do is give Molten Monstrosity flash, such as with any of the following:

Vedalken Orrery
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Emergence Zone
Savage Summoning

(I recognize the question specifies sorcery speed during a main phase, which this is not)

There are a few silver-bordered cards that would allow or force a creature to attack a player on their own turn, which would allow that player to block as normal.

Evil Presents lets a player put a creature into play under their opponent's control, and forces that creature to attack their controller on that player's attack step.
Party Crasher can attack during opponent's combat steps, which would allow him to attack the active player.

Being silver bordered and thus illegal in every constructed format makes them somewhat useless in reality, but they do exist.


text:
How do people decide on their spread of spot removals and sweepers in control decks?
I'm tuning a UB mill deck for Historic BO1 play. Broadly speaking, the deck looks like this.
This player has chosen to run 3 Cut Down and 4 Fatal Push as removal (Drown in the Loch qualifies as removal too, but it's also a counterspell, so it's strong enough to be an automatic 4-of), as well as 3 Jace, the Perfected Mind as card advantage.
Question: why would a deckbuilder run this particular spread of removal and omit a sweeper? Why not run, say, 4 Fatal Push 3 Ritual of Soot?
I'm looking for theoretical answers, preferably not tuned to this particular deck or this particular metagame. The same question could equally apply to, say, a UW control deck in Modern deciding on their spread of Prismatic Ending/Leyline Binding and Supreme Verdict.
The only guideline that makes sense to me right now is that the more spot removal one runs, the more card advantage one must also run, or one just trades 1-for-1 and loses eventually. However, that doesn't seem conclusive since it doesn't explain when one runs a sweeper.

I understand you mostly want a general answer, but I think we should focus on the specifics a bit in this case. And that's because…
Your posted deck is not a control deck
What's the control game plan? Inevitability. You fill the deck with interactive cards to turn the early game into a do-nothing slog, and then bury your opponent in resource advantage or expensive individually-powerful "finishers" (JTMS, Teferi, Consecrated Sphinx, things of that nature). Many control decks sit down to the table with just a handful of win conditions in their entire deck, and some of those win conditions are things like "I spend 15 minutes of our precious game time beating you down with a 2/1 creature."
But look at your posted deck list. There's like 10 cards that interact with your opponent, and everything else is a semi-interchangeable spells that says "the opponent gets X% closer to losing." This deck simply doesn't have the juice to consistently shut down the stack or the board the way a control deck wants to.
That's because the archetype you're actually playing is actually most similar to…
 Burn.
This mill deck is, in many ways, operating like a classic Burn deck: you're dedicating most of the space in your deck to your win condition, and in your ideal game you just keep casting basically-interchangeable spells as quickly as possibly until the opponent dies before you do.
Unlike a classic Burn deck,

Your opponent-killing spells don't double as cheap removal (like Lightning Bolt), so you fill up some slots with strong, cheap removal so that the creature-based aggro decks can't trivially race you with repeated damage.
Because mill is a niche strategy, there haven't been that many super-efficient, tournament-grade mill spells printed. So it's quite possible you've already used all the good mill cards and these extra slots are just "okay, what else can I do that's not milling?" (See note #1.)
If you weren't playing best-of-1, being blue/black means you can sideboard to transform into more of a control deck, or bring in a lot of hand disruption or countermagic for a combo matchup. This is an option you have that the mono-red decks do not enjoy.

Milling can be a side strategy in control decks (hello, Nephalia Drownyard) but you're just not a control deck, you're a deck where 50%+ of the deck are cards that directly try to kill your opponent and you just want to play enough of them quickly enough that they'll lose before you do. That's the deck!
Why play the cheap spot removal in this deck?
So, having said all that: why fill your limited interaction slots with cheap removal and not counterspells, or a few sweepers like you suggested, or discard spells since you're black?

A sweeper won't save you!
A card like Ritual of Soot comes down pretty late and you don't have enough interaction and card advantage to stabilize on board afterward! You were in a race before and you're still in a race now.
Also, Ritual of Soot just isn't a very good card. Supreme Verdict crushes through countermagic to kill almost anything. The Ritual, meanwhile, is absolutely dead to any midrange deck's 4-drops and any tempo deck's simple countermagic.
Like Ritual of Soot, your cheap instant 1-for-1 removal spells are also focused on beating early-game threats, but they let you interact with early-game creatures in the actual early game (something that every control deck also needs to do). Which means they pick off problem creatures before they put a lot damage on you or powerfully advance the opponent's game plan in some other way. (See note #2.)

You're tapping out too often to play counterspells!
You've got a lot of sorcery-speed spells and you mostly want to cast them "on curve." That means tapping out quite a lot, with room to keep mana open some turns but not every turn as a control or tempo player deck would prefer to do.
If you cast Glimpse on turn 2 and I cast Jarsyl, Dark Age Scion, that's a big problem for your counterspells but only a small problem for your spot removal, which can still clean up Jarsyl as soon as you untap again.
And your interactive spells are still instant-speed so you can leave mana open on crucial turns, e.g. to disrupt creature-based combo decks while some trigger that kicks off their combo is on the stack.
(This deck is really soft to non-creature based combo. That's just how it is, though.)

Your game-winning spells aren't powerful enough to justify discard!
Okay, you're in black: why not play hand disruption (targeted discard spells), then? If you were playing a beefy midrange deck or a brutal combo deck, that would be a solid option. You could look at their hand, take away their best thing, and use the information to sculpt a game plan to play around their own interaction. Sounds great! Okay!
Except: your Burn-deck-in-disguise doesn't want to do that — at all! Their disruption doesn't matter because your cards are efficient, redundant, and mostly interchangeable; a combo deck really wants to proactively take away the opponent's best disruption so they can push your combo, but your mill deck just wants to play some card, any card, it's all good we'll get there anyway. And their gameplan still matters to you, because you aren't going to be able to race every single other deck in the format without interaction, but the thing you most want to interact with is whatever they trot out early to start the race, the thing they've already cast, the thing that's doing things for them right now on board, the thing they've already spent mana on.

Thus, the most expedient thing to run in your relatively-few "reactive" slots are cards that will let you very quickly deal with threats on board. And you're in blue-black so that's creature removal because creature removal is all you've really got.
The very important implications of being a burn deck in disguise
You largely don't care about card selection, because almost all of your cards do the same thing anyway.
Card advantage always matters to some extent in a game of Magic, but your whole plan is casting a lot of cards that functionally read "either nothing happens or I win the game on your next draw step," so traditional measures of card-advantage like "can I get a 2-for-1 here?" aren't super useful to you. With a deck like this, you will always be at a bit of an overall card-advantage deficit compared to your opponents. The main thing you need to worry about is "How likely am I to run out of gas?"

Side notes:
1 - In a broader format like Legacy you wouldn't run these "mill 10" type cards because you'd just chase turn-2 combo kills with a mill deck like Painter or Cephalid Breakfast.
2 - My understanding is that Historic is a bit light on really good mana dorks right now, but for decades a common adage among Magic players was "Bolt the Bird:" these stupid little critters seem innocent at first, but they advance the opponent's gameplan by a whole extra turn. If you can't interact with them it's like letting your opponent cast Time Walk.

I'm accepting this answer because I eventually came to realize that the removal suite of a mill deck ought to not be the same as the removal suite of a control deck, since the latter deck needs to keep the board clear for a much longer time than the former. Mill has a much faster clock than control, it often goldfishes in 6 turns or less. Your answer is also very accurate when it says e.g. "you've already used all the good mill cards", since the list in the OP includes Maddening Cacophony, which is a strictly-inferior Glimpse (I've never kicked it after 40+ games).

Black does have some good 4-mana sweepers, though (Languish, Damnation; although the latter isn't legal in Historic). I wonder why the other Historic Mill lists I've seen run Ritual of Soot. Maybe because of decks like White lifegain where Ajani's Pridemate and similar can grow too large for Languish?

Black also does have a playable 3-mana sweeper in Historic, Witch's Vengeance, which I've been playing with some success. There are board states where 1-mana removal spells aren't good enough, yet Witch's Vengeance would have saved me. How do people decide on the number of sweepers they play?

Maybe the answer is the same as I described to another question here, https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/44815/how-many-of-a-legendary-card-should-i-be-including-in-my-deck/44828#44828 and depends entirely on the predicted metagame ...

Spot removal is useful in the early game, so it's good in just about every deck, but sweepers are often expensive and slow the game down, so they are primarily useful in decks that want the game to run longer.
Take the mill decklist you linked as an example. That deck's curve tops out at 4 mana, and most of the cards cost 2 or less. That indicates that the goal is to execute the deck's game plan quickly, while disrupting the opponent's deck just enough to win faster. The deck wants to spend turn 4 playing two mill spells, not resetting the board (and if you're on the draw, Ritual of Soot could miss the 4-drop they just played). Plus, if you're against a deck that plays a longer game, you could be in more danger from the next card up on their curve than whatever you swept away.
On the other hand, I've seen a blue/white standard deck that plays Depopulate, Sunfall, and Farewell. That deck's curve tops out at 7 if you count Memory Deluge's flashback cost. That deck's goal is to slow the opponent down with early spot removal and counters, and then clear the board and keep it clear with board wipes, allowing them to stick planeswalkers that can take over the game.


text:
If you steal opponent's Ring-bearer until end of turn, does it stop being Ring-bearer even at end of turn?
Say my opponent has a 1/1 Ring-bearer and I target it with Act of Treason. According to rule 701.52a, the creature ceases to be a ring-bearer.

701.52a Certain spells and abilities have the text “the Ring tempts you.” Each time the Ring tempts you, choose a creature you control. That creature becomes your Ring-bearer until another creature becomes your Ring-bearer or another player gains control of it.

When the effect of Act of Treason ends and opponent regains control of the creature, is the creature still their Ring-bearer?
I'm guessing "no" because there doesn't seem to be anything in the rules that say the creature resumes being the Ring-bearer, but it's conceivable, hence I am asking this question.

No. Rule 701 52a, which you already quoted, describes the only way a creature can become your Ring-bearer. Changing control can only remove the Ring-bearer designation, not add it.
Generally, keep in mind a rule of thumb: Nothing happens at all unless a rule or card says otherwise.

Do you know if this rule also implies that a Ring-bearer that phases out remains your Ring-bearer? I can ask that as another question if necessary.

"702.26d The phasing event doesn’t actually cause a permanent to change zones or control [..]" No effect on Ring-bearer-ness.

@Allure thanks for your follow-up question, it got me thinking about another follow-up question.

Citing how effects work:

610.1. A one-shot effect does something just once and doesn’t have a duration. Examples include dealing damage, destroying a permanent, creating a token, and moving an object from one zone to another.
...
610.3. Some one-shot effects cause an object to change zones “until” a specified event occurs. A second one-shot effect is created immediately after the specified event. This second one-shot effect returns the object to its previous zone.

(610.4 is the same thing for "phasing out" one-shot effects.)
Gaining control of a permanent, and a creature becoming a ring-bearer, are one-shot effects - so actually the effect of Act of Treason doesn't "end"; it's explicitly cancelled out. (The creature being a ring-bearer isn't a continuous effect; it's not an effect at all, but a property - "designation", in the language of rule 701.52b.)
Similarly, the creature that was hijacked stops being a ring-bearer; that status isn't put on pause. For the creature to become a ring-bearer again, there would have to be another source for another such one-shot effect - for example, if the creature itself theoretically said something like "whenever you gain control of ~, the ring tempts you".
Continuous effects are a bit trickier.

611.1. A continuous effect modifies characteristics of objects, modifies control of objects, or affects players or the rules of the game, for a fixed or indefinite period.
...
611.2a A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability lasts as long as stated by the spell or ability creating it (such as “until end of turn”). If no duration is stated, it lasts until the end of the game.

However:

611.2c If a continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability modifies the characteristics or changes the controller of any objects, the set of objects it affects is determined when that continuous effect begins. After that point, the set won’t change. (Note that this works differently than a continuous effect from a static ability.
...
611.3a A continuous effect generated by a static ability isn’t “locked in”; it applies at any given moment to whatever its text indicates.

Suppose I have out a creature with mana value 1 (which can be targeted by Dominating Vampire), and In the Trenches (an enchantment with an anthem effect). My creature gets +1/+1, just as a fact of life, because it is my creature. If you flicker the Dominating Vampire (say, with Planar Incision), and hijack my creature, it doesn't have +1/+1 while under your control. At end of turn, when it returns to my control, it has +1/+1 again assuming I still control In the Trenches - because that is the thing with the static ability maintaining the continuous effect.
Suppose that instead of having the enchantment, I cast Ritual of Hope this turn. The creature gets +1/+1 "until end of turn", because it's a creature I control when I cast the spell. The effect is associated with the creature for the duration of the effect. If you now flicker the Dominating Vampire to hijack the creature, it still has +1/+1 while under your control. At end of turn, when it returns to me, it no longer has the +1/+1 bonus, because the effect from the spell ends at the same time.


text:
Why is the first word doubled in Scrabble?
How does the first-word-is-double-points rule affect the game of scrabble? From a game design point of view.
I wonder if it gives an (additional?) advantage to the first player, or actually makes the game more fair than it would have been if the word were scored normally.

In any turn-based board game, there is an advantage difference depending on the order of play. Any game with a competitive tournament scene (which Scrabble has) will attempt to negate this advantage as much as possible, giving each player as close to equal odds of winning as possible.
Which is to say, if the first player gets an automatic double word score, then that is because the designer of the game felt that doing so would reduce the imbalance between first player and later players, rather than increase it.
Why would a guaranteed double word score help balance the game?
Going first is not necessarily a good thing.  Going second in Scrabble is often a lot easier than going first, because of the increased flexibility.  The first player must make a word out of their 7 letters.  The second player has 7 letters, plus the letters already on the board.  Yes, they must include one of the letters on the board, which is a hinderance, but having 2-7 extra letters to work with usually makes up for it.  Plus, the player going second has guaranteed access to double letter scores, and often triple letter scores, or even double word scores.  While players may not have the ability to take advantage of them every turn, there will be bonus spaces available in practically every future turn of the game.  Making no bonus spaces available for the first play would be quite the disadvantage when looked at that way!

[In any turn-based board game, there is an advantage difference depending on the order of play] - Citation required

@Valorum 0 is a difference!

In starting a game of scrabble, tiles are drawn to know the first player. I think the game intends to give the first player an advantage, making it more competitive, so players try their best to pick a tile close to A. Another thing is that the second player most times has the chance of scoring higher than the first player because of the double-letter tiles sorrounding the beginning point. If anything, the rule just makes the game fair

What do you have to back up that opinion on this?

Given that the tiles are drawn out of a bag unseen how would "players try their best to pick a tile close to A"?


text:
Why do people play mana dorks instead of mana enchantments?
As I write this question, Orcish Bowmasters (and to a lesser extent Wrenn and Six) is strongly suppressing mana dorks. These two cards trade extremely favorably against the likes of Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch, and the 2-toughness mana dorks are significantly more popular as a result. (Unfortunately there really is only Delighted Halfling and Gilded Goose with two toughness, and both of them have serious drawbacks relative to the Birds/Hierarch.)
Given that, why do people still run mana dorks instead of Utopia Sprawl? The latter seems like the much more reliable way to ramp, since it's significantly harder to kill.
Examples of recent decks using mana dorks instead of Utopia Sprawl by seasoned deckbuilder SaffronOlive: Deck 1, Deck 2

Which format are we talking about here? 2) Those decks you've linked are Against the Odds decks, they're not supposed to be competitive.

@PhilipKendall 1) currently, Modern & Legacy. 2) My understanding is that Against the Odds decks are supposed to be as competitive as possible while using the highlighted card. The Nazgul deck for example includes Collected Company, which is very much a "I want to win" card.

Against the Odds decks generally try not just to use the card but to make it a critical part of the strategy. The Nazgul deck includes Collected Company, which is good in many decks, but its purpose in that deck is to hit Nazgul and cards that advance the strategy of using Nazgul to win the game.

@murgatroid99 I don't see how that affects this question, since it doesn't change how that deck is built to win using a probably-not-competitive strategy.

Honestly, I misread your question initially and I thought you were linking to the Against the Odds decks that use Utopia Sprawl instead of mana dorks, and asking why that choice was made. And those decks generally play it in a package with Arbor Elf, which allows them to ramp even faster at the cost of more fragility, which is generally only necessary when they need to highlight a particularly expensive card.

The first deck you post as an example uses mana creatures over enchantments because it has Collected Company as a key card.

in short: being slightly easier to remove does not make mana dorks bad enough to disregard, especially in eternal formats where permanent removal is more common and an enchanted land is a way more alluring to target than a BoP, because you can 2-for-1 the opponent.

@garglblarg there aren't many land destruction effects that are commonly played at competitive level, especially effects that can kill basic lands. Comparatively, some of the strongest effects available in Modern trade 2-for-1 against Birds of Paradise.

There's a lot of reasons why mana creatures are preferred over auras, some are very specific, others are more general:
Search - An early game play in some decks is to Green Sun's Zenith for 0 or 1, fetching either Dryad Arbor (a green land creature with 0 mana value(MV)) or a one MV mana dork. Very little searches for auras and enchantments compared to the ability to find creatures or lands, and what does is more expensive and doesn't put the card into play.
Cost - Most played mana dorks cost one mana, Scryfall has a tag which finds 28 one MV mana dorks. There are exactly 2 one MV mana auras in magic Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl all the rest have a higher cost to start, making them slower and...
Restrictive use - The two one MV mana auras are pretty restrictive. One only makes green mana, the other only goes on forests and makes one color chosen when you play it. Of the 28 one MV mana dorks from the scryfall search, almost half of them can make more than one color of mana, and most of those make any color. A few even add more than one mana, or untap lands which can have other benefits.
Combat - Mana dorks can enter combat where mana auras can't. When faced with a big enough attacker which doesn't trample, throwing a mana dork in front of it can stop you from losing a game, something you can't do with non-creatures like auras. There are even pro matches that were famously (GP Lyon 2018) won because a player had a Dryad Arbor to block with (and that caused a tournament rules change to put creatures clearly together, so possible blockers weren't hidden with lands). There are also many times when you can swing with your mana dork on turn two against empty boards if you didn't need the mana, potentially speeding up the game clock, this is particularly true when...
Lords and finishers - A lot of mana dorks are elves, and in elf tribal what starts out as a 1/1 mana dork turns into a 5/5 or bigger actual threatening body. Noble Hierarch and Ignoble Hierarch have Exalted, making a single other attacker bigger even after you used them for mana. They all also make one more attacker when using a finisher like Triumph of the Hordes or Craterhoof Behemoth.
Fragile - But the biggest reason is people simply avoid auras. They are considered the weakest type of card because they don't stay around like equipment when whatever they are on gets removed. While land destruction isn't as common as it once was, there still are plenty of cards that hate on land, mostly other lands like the most recent Demolition Field or Boseiju, Who Endures. But even when talking about being destroyed...
Expendable - These mana dorks usually are expendable and will either be ignored or bait out an opponent's removal early enough on. It's better for the player that is playing the mana dork to have the Orcish Bowmasters on the field sooner where it can be removed and won't be a surprise response to card draw effects. Even though "Bolt the Bird" has been a magic adage for a while, people still played Birds of Paradise, and partly because it made their opponent use that Lightning Bolt sooner rather than keep it for later.
Some things may change, depending on where the value ends up being, but right now there are still many things that make creature based mana acceleration better than aura based mana acceleration. If they did have non-aura enchantment based acceleration, it might end up in a similar place to artifact based mana, but we don't really have that now.

There are two notable exceptions that specifically play mana auras, Mono Green Devotion and Enchantress decks.
Mono Green Devotion wants a single land to tap for as much as possible, this means using one and two drop mana auras piled on a single forest that Arbor Elf and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner can untap, doubling the effects of the auras.
Enchantress decks are specifically all about playing enchantments for ETB and on cast triggers like Sythis, Harvest's Hand or cards with Constellation, this gives more of an upside to using an aura over non-enchantment creatures.

You don't even have to destroy the land to destroy the aura, bouncing it is sufficient (which isn't typically all that appealing of an option, but setting the player back by 2 mana, and taking a source of mana out of the game, is far better than what you normally get for bouncing a land).

@NotThatGuy true, I did say removed not destroyed, but if they bounce the land it's less of the two-for-one since the land is easy to replay, it's also really hard to bounce a land that isn't your own, almost all bounce spells specify a nonland type, or say a nonland permanent.

Mana dorks and mana auras have their own strengths and weaknesses that have to be evaluated in the context of the deck as a whole. The main weakness of the creatures is that they are vulnerable to creature removal, the most prevalent kind of removal in most formats, and their low toughness makes them more vulnerable than most creatures. On the other hand, one strength of those creatures is that they can be used a chump blockers, sacrifice fodder, or even to attack for the last couple of points of damage, in a pinch. Some also have other abilities that are relevant in some decks. Noble Hierarch's Exalted ability, for example, can be fairly valuable in some situations.
Mana auras, on the other hand, have the same weakness that all auras have: they open you up to a 2-for-1 if the permanent they are attached to is removed. In the Modern meta, a significant amount of non-basic land hate is played, so a deck builder who wants to play mana auras has to choose between making their deck even more vulnerable to those cards, or play more basic lands than usual, which restricts the deck's ability to play multicolored spells. In addition, Utopia Sprawl is significantly less flexible than the mana dorks that cost the same: it only produces one color of mana, which is chosen in advance, and the mana it produces can only be used in the same step as the mana produced by the land, and it can only be played if you have an actual Forest, not just any green source (which interacts badly MDFCs and many dual land cycles). On the other hand, those auras combo strongly with land untappers like Arbor Elf.
Overall, the reason that people use mana dorks over auras is probably some combination of an actual evaluation that the card is more effective, and inertia from a pre-Bowmasters meta.

One benefit of mana dorks is that they are semi-live hits for Coco, while an enchantment would not be.

Land Auras in legacy are a bad idea because of one format defining card called wasteland.
In many ways legacy is the wasteland, brainstorm, and force of will format.
Mana dorks stand a better chance of surviving and even if they are killed it should be in a tempo nuetral manner.
If a land enchanted with an aura gets waste-landed then that is pretty hard to come back from.

Yes, but can't you fetch a Forest?

It's worth noting that legacy doesn't really run dork based acceleration either. Most of the Tier one decks aren't in green (some sneak and show lists technically are because they include targets like Atraxa)

@Allure you don't do that in the format, when you fetch a 'forest' it's generally one of the non-basics like the original duals, a shock land, or dryad arbor, top tier legacy decks often have no basic lands at all, and if they do it's generally one ofs.

@Andrew that doesn't sound like the Legacy I know. https://mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=237&a= In 2022, Maverick had 0.9% of the metagame share (9th most popular aggro deck) and an example list 1) has 2 Forests and 2) runs mana dorks. I am also under the impression that basic lands are in most decks precisely because of Wasteland, with only some tempo decks running no basics.

@Allure looking at that same event, 1st place had one forest, the highest tier decks want consistency, they don't want lands that tap for only one color most of the time because that can leave them mana screwed.

@Andrew Yes, but they still run some number of basic lands, so they can fetch for them to avoid Wasteland (and also not auto-lose against Blood Moon).

It seems like the premise of this question is incorrect, or at best mistaken.
First, dissect why decks run mana dorks in the first place. These are 1-mana cards that are extremely effective on turn 1, but also become really bad as the game goes on - after all, who wants to topdeck a mana dork on turn 10? If you're going to run mana dorks anyway, then you'd best have a good reason:

You are all-in on casting a 3-cost spell as soon as possible.
The mana dorks contribute in some way other than generating mana (e.g. Gilded Goose creates an artifact / food, Noble Hierarch has Exalted, Delighted Halfling makes you legendaries uncounterable).
Important: you are a green deck.
Nearly as important: you are running Collected Company. CoCo is a powerful card, and running mana dorks increase the number of hits (not to mention help you cast CoCo in the first place, since as a 4-mana card it is not cheap).

Utopia Sprawl does not do the second (Enchantress decks excepted), or the fourth, making it even worse of a topdeck than generic mana dorks.
Second: Believe it or not, mana dork decks are not meta. Naively one might think that that's because of Orcish Bowmasters, but that's actually not the case. They were already not meta before Orcish Bowmasters, so it shouldn't be surprising that they are still not meta after Orcish Bowmasters.
Check the top Modern decks in 2022 (Orcish Bowmasters was released in June 2023, hence we consider only earlier decks). Looking only decks with 4% or more metagame share:

In aggro there is Izzet Murktide, Rhinos, Burn, Rakdos Scam, and Death's Shadow. None of these decks run mana dorks. Except Rhinos, none of them are green, and Rhinos cannot run mana dorks for obvious reasons (that deck can't run any spells that cost <3 mana).
There is one control deck with 4% metagame share, 4c control, but for obvious reasons this deck (and all control decks for that matter) don't run mana dorks.
Under combo, there is Hammertime, Creativity, Amulet Titan, Creature toolbox, and Living End. It should be extremely obvious why four of these decks don't run mana dorks. The only one that does is Creature toolbox, aka Yawgmoth; this deck did run Ignoble Hierarch in 2022, but these days moved to Delighted Halfling, precisely because of Orcish Bowmasters.

Third: who says people still play mana dorks? If you look at the top 50 creatures in Modern, there is literally one mana dork that's vulnerable to Orcish Bowmasters - Ignoble Hierarch at #49, 1.7 copies (hah) in 5% of decks. Think about what this number means - if you're a deck that wants mana dorks, are you going to play 1.7 copies?! Hell no, you'd play the full four. There's a reason why Delighted Halfling (#14 on that list) averages 3.9 copies in decks.
What about the two decks in the OP? This one turns out to have a pragmatic explanation. The first deck is a CoCo deck, hence it runs mana dorks. The other relies on Vesuvan Drifter, which also wants to see creatures on top of the library, hence mana dorks. It can conceivably turn Vesuvan Drifter from a 2/4 flying into something that accelerates Jace onto the battlefield. Finally, note that neither deck is very good (hence "Against the Odds"), and Orcish Bowmasters is part of the reason why.
tl; dr, Orcish Bowmasters is strongly suppressing mana dorks, which does make Utopia Sprawl more attractive than mana dorks, but mana dorks weren't very good in the first place. So it should not be surprising that Utopia Sprawl is also seeing little play.
PS: The question also asks about Legacy, but mana dorks are and have always been less meta in Legacy than Modern. The reason for that is Legacy is dominated by very powerful effects like Marit Lage, Turn 1 Griselbrand (more recently Atraxa), and so on. Fair green decks (which are also the decks that want mana dorks / Utopia Sprawl) are less common as a result. Point #2 above about Modern applies strongly, so it should not be surprising that Utopia Sprawl is also seeing little play in Legacy.

The question isn't tagged as modern, nor did it mention a format in the body, so the modern meta isn't the only format to consider - mana dorks are still played in metas of other formats. Though since this was your question originally, perhaps you just forgot to add a format tag? My answer was heavily weighted to the formats I play, EDH, Pioneer/Explorer, Historic and Limited, all of which still use dorks.

@Andrew I write in a comment to the OP that it's Modern & Legacy. Modern is the more important format, since mana dorks are and have always been significantly less common in Legacy. Sometime in the future I'll edit some Legacy analysis into this answer. Also, which of the formats you list can you run 4x Orcish Bowmasters? As far as I can tell it's only Historic, and are there many decks that run mana dorks vulnerable to Bowmasters in Historic?

Yes, mono g devotion runs dorks and is meta, elves arent as common as they used to be but still see play, running up to 8 one toughness dorks, dorks are still relevant in historic.

@Andrew hmm I'm under the impression green devotion runs only Delighted Halfling as a mana dork, while Elves are kind of meme in BO3. The last major Historic event had one Green Devotion deck in the top 8, which ran only one Llanowar Elves. https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=48482&d=557120&f=HI It shouldn't be too surprising though, with Green Devotion you're looking to run the mana auras because of Kiora.

The version of bowmaster in historic was nerfed, it doesn't trigger on ETB anymore, so that format isn't as oppressed by the card, a lot of builds for Mono G exist and some run more copies of elvish mystic or llanowar elves.

@Andrew hmm, good point. It makes sense that Bowmasters doesn't suppress mana dorks in Historic, then (I assume that's part of the reason why Wizards nerfed it).

Also worth noting that on arena BO1 is the more popular way to play by far, untapped published stats showing for each format BO1 had 2 to 10 times more games played, so a meme deck in bo3, which falls apart post sideboard can be a meta deck in bo1 where there is no sideboarding (elves probably still isn't really meta any more, its a bit rogue, but the point holds)


text:
What permanent cards give creatures -X/-1?
I'm looking for cards that give my opponent's creatures at least a static -1 to toughness. (I don't really care if it also gives my creatures -1 to toughness.) The effects needs to last until removed, so it must come on a permanent of some kind. Usually I would expect a simple Scryfall search to find everything I need, but Scryfall doesn't seem to register -1/-1 as a valid input. How can I find such cards?
I know at least some cards exist:

Night of Souls' Betrayal
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Ethereal Absolution
Kaervek, the Spiteful
Plague Engineer (edge case, only gives selected creatures -1/-1)

Gatherer supports Regex. This search produces 27 results, including all of your example, but also some false positives.
The statement is intentionally broad so it shouldn't have false negatives, at the cost of more false positives.
Here is a screenshot of the search terms.
The " get " excludes "gets" and "target" results.
The "m/[.]*/-[1-9]+/" term is the regex, with the leading "m/" and trailing "/" being the signal to treat the enclosed term as regex.
Exclude "until end of turn" to only get permanent P/T modifiers.

One potential pitfall of a search like that, with text inclusions and exclusions, is that they could look at different abilities. That's why you get those false positives, and in general it could also produce some negatives, though that doesn't seem to be the case here (e.g. one ability has the effect we're looking for, and a different ability has an "until end of turn" effect. In this case, it happens that there aren't any cards that would be incorrectly excluded this way.

This Scryfall search finds all of the same positive results, and removes all of the false positives, including cards that only debuff creatures their controllers control.

There's always room for more answers.


text:
Benders Deceiver Stun ability vs event card that causes unit to move
The Benders Deceiver "stun" ability states:

Common enemy units that begin a turn adjacent to this Deceiver cannot
move or attack during that turn.

And the Cave Filth Overwork event states:

Choose a common Unit you control. You may immediately move up to 2
spaces and attack with that Unit if able.

Which one takes precedence? Can the Overwork event cause a stunned unit to move?


text:
Complete Sets monopoly
If someone has 4 black cards on the table but they aren't stacked are you allowed to dealbreaker it even if it isn't all together and they say they are using the other color on it can you still take it


text:
Why would a Historic Gates deck run Yorion as a companion?
Example list
My understanding of Historic Gates is that they win by getting 9 different Gates into play and then activating Maze's End. There is a secondary plan of direct beatdown with big creatures (Primeval Titan, sometimes Gatebreaker Ram, and Zacama/Atraxa/Ulamog as in the example decklist), but it is secondary. In particular, since these creatures are vulnerable to removal and the deck plays few threats, opponent is odds-on to be able to answer them. The Gates deck can still win with them, but the Maze's End plan is the primary route to victory.
Given that, why would these decks run Yorion as a companion? Yorion seems like it just decreases the odds of drawing the key cards in the deck (Primeval Titan and Circuitous Route especially; Gates Ablaze too against aggressive decks). I can see that Yorion works exceptionally well with Thragtusk, but that doesn't seem worth it. Blinking Primeval Titan & Elvish Rejuvenator is of course good, but also does not seem like it's worth it - untapping with Primeval Titan is almost a win with Maze's End anyway, so one cannot count on blinking it. As for Elvish Rejverator, by the time one has the mana to cast Yorion, that extra 1 land of ramp should no longer be a big deal.
Comparatively, my understanding of other Yorion decks is that they are composed of nearly interchangeable, generically good cards (e.g. 4-color Yorion) or have enough ETB abilities that the Yorion blink trigger is highly relevant (e.g. Yorion Death & Taxes).

Most of the creatures in that deck have "Enters the battlefield" triggers that potentially progress the game plan of winning by activating Maze's End's ability. Arboreal Grazer and Kami of the Bamboo Groves can both put gates or Maze's End that are already in your hand onto the battlefield. Elvish Rejuvenator and Primeval Titan can both find gates or Mazes End in your deck and put them onto the battlefield. Atraxa can put gates, Mazes End, and other useful cards into your hand.
That deck plays several non-gate lands, so it is possible to cast Primeval Titan while controlling as few as 0 gates, and Atraxa with only two gates. So, even the turn after playing those cards, you can be fairly far away from the Maze's End win, and Yorion can push you pretty far in that direction.

This does not seem correct. Thragtusk has an ETB ability, while Zacama effectively has no ETB if blinked by Yorion. Yorion costs 5 mana to cast, by which point it's improbable one still has lands to play with Grazer or Kami. If Primeval Titan is blink-able, then you have untapped with it in play, in which case attacking is virtually a win (since you probably tutored Maze's End the previous turn, and now you probably have 10 Gates). Something similar goes for Atraxa, except you are probably already winning, since you just cast Atraxa and probably drew like 4+ cards.

You're right. It was late and I didn't read Zacama's ability carefully. But I purposely excluded Thragtusk, because its ETB ability doesn't directly progress the game plan of winning with Maze's End. Also, regarding Primeval Titan, the deck can cast it while controlling any number of gates, including 0. So, even after attacking with it, you can be pretty far from that win, and you can blink it after you attack.

@Allure you are incorrect about it being improbable to still have lands to play with Grazer or Kami. With Maze, you could fairly easily get at least one land back into your hand. With with Escape, you may use your two land drops from the exiled cards. Navigation orb can net you a second land in hand. Yorion let's you reset the loyalty of ugin or choose a new card with Pithing needle.

One (admittedly questionable) reason to run Yorion is that an 80-card deck can be advantageous when facing an opponent that mills even a few of your cards. Not so much for decking, more because milled lands are largely inaccessible to tutor effects. This is less of an issue now that there are so many unique gates, but in the past, a Maze's End win was essentially impossible against mill decks or even Rogues. Newer relevant cards would be Breach the Multiverse and Mesmeric Orb
Again, this reasoning is questionable, and it won't get you to a tier-1 decklist. But Arena matchmaking frequently pits the off-meta decks against each other. That has traditionally meant that a gates brew was often paired against mill brews.  For reference, basically every youtube video posted by LVD where he plays gates features a mill matchup.

I think I figured this one out. The key point is that Historic Gates is a ramp deck - you need 9 gates + Maze's End to win, and obviously playing a land every turn for 10 turns is too slow, so you must run ramp. This is illustrated by the 17 ramp spells in the list in the OP (Arboreal Grazer + Kami of Bamboo Groves + Elvish Rejuvenator + Navigator's Orb + Circuitous Route).
However ramp decks have a fundamental problem. If you draw a nice mix of ramp + payoff, you're in good shape, but if you draw only ramp or if you draw only payoff, you're in trouble. Yorion fixes the former problem by guaranteeing that you'll always have at least one action card. It's not the most exciting of action cards, but it's still an action card. You will always have it, and it cannot be Thoughtseized or otherwise discarded until you've already run out of things to do. This advantage is notable enough that it's specifically mentioned by Andrea Mengucci recently for another deck:

While The One Ring is a great tool for the deck's late game, you're still very susceptible to flood and the absence of a great companion makes you struggle.

The bolded text applies to Gates as well.
Running Yorion comes with the drawback of weakening your Maze's End plan, of course. Many of the Gates cards are interchangeable, especially the ramp spells - Kami is nearly the same as Arboreal Grazer for example, and you could run Explore, Growth Spiral, etc. instead of or along with any of the ramp spells. Gates Ablaze is a powerful defensive payoff, but there are other sweepers available when you ramp enough (Farewell is in the above list, which is situationally more powerful as well). Meanwhile cards like Zacama, Atraxa, Ulamog and Ugin are nearly interchangeable - the text barely matters since it's effectively "if this spell resolves / if you have the mana to cast this spell, you win". But there are some spells that are not replaceable. These are:

Circuitous Route. Important because it's the only ramp spell that can tutor Baldur's Gate, which is the most important land in the deck. Compensated for by running more alternative ramp spells.
Primeval Titan. A significant loss, since it can tutor both Maze's End and Baldur's Gate. No way around this one, sadly. It means your Maze's End win is less consistent.
Various sideboard bullets (e.g. the graveyard hate artifacts).

The deck builder evidently thought the tradeoff is worth it. Whether or not it really is worth it will take serious playtesting, and in all likelihood, will depend on what decks are in the meta & how they're sideboarding vs. you.


text:
Does Éomer of the Riddermark trigger if there are two creatures with equal power?
Card in question: Éomer of the Riddermark

Whenever Éomer of the Riddermark attacks, if you control a creature with the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Human Soldier creature token.

If you and opponent both control a creature with equal power, does this ability trigger? I'd have expected this to be in a ruling, but surprisingly, there is no ruling on Gatherer.

Yes.
There's not really rules to back it up, besides english.

If you control a creature with the greatest power...

The "a" implies there can be more than one such creature.
The text is equivalent to

If you control a creature with power equal to the greatest power...

Hmm, looks like I was too fixated on "greatest power" being a superlative.

The "greatest power among creatures on the battlefield" is some well defined number, even if multiple creatures have that power. Then you can easily check whether you have a creature with that power.

There are cards such as Selvala, Heart of the Wilds which care about a single creature having the greatest power, but those are worded euqally unambiguously.

Interestingly, Padeem, Consul of Innovation doesn't follow the same templating.


text:
Can you cast adventures if you're able to cast creatures off the top of your library?
For example let's say I have Elven Chorus in play and the top card of my library is Bonecrusher Giant. Can I cast Stomp (the adventure side of Bonecrusher Giant)?
Similarly, if I have Johann, Apprentice Sorcerer in play and the top card of my libary is Bonecrusher Giant, can I cast Stomp (or Bonecrusher Giant directly)?

Elven Chorus will allow you to cast Bonecrusher Giant but not Stomp. Johann will allow you to cast Stomp but not Bonecrusher Giant.
Rule 601.3 and particularly 601.3e and its second example directly address this:

601.3. A player can begin to cast a spell only if a rule or effect allows that player to cast it and no rule or effect prohibits that player from casting it.

601.3e Some rules and effects state that an alternative set of characteristics or a subset of characteristics are considered to determine if a card or copy of a card is legal to cast. These alternative characteristics replace the object’s characteristics for this determination. Continuous effects that would apply to that object once it has those characteristics are also considered.
Example: Melek, Izzet Paragon says, in part, “You may cast instant and sorcery spells from the top of your library.” If you control Melek, Izzet Paragon and the top card of your library is Giant Killer, an adventurer creature card whose Adventure is an instant named Chop Down, you may cast Chop Down but not Giant Killer. If instead you control Garruk’s Horde and the top card of your library is Giant Killer, you may cast Giant Killer but not Chop Down.


text:
How can I search for all sweepers?
I'm looking for a search that captures all sweepers on Scryfall. Simply "Destroy all creatures" misses sweepers such as:

Languish (gives creatures -x/-x)
Farewell (exiles)
Terminus (puts on bottom of library)
Oblivion Stone (destroys permanents that don't meet a particular condition)
Hour of Revelation (destroys all nonland permanents)

I'm especially interested in sweepers that can kill planeswalkers.

How would you define "sweeper"?

@PhilipKendall stuff that all creatures, plus possibly other types of permanents as well.

Sorry, I can't parse "stuff that all creatures".  Could you explain in more detail?

@PhilipKendall sorry, missing a word. "Stuff that kills all creatures".

I know I'm being pedantic here, but what is "killing" in specific MtG rules terms? Terminus, for instance, will not trigger any "when this creature dies" effects and does not put anything in the graveyard.

@PhilipKendall "gets this permanent off the battlefield into a zone that is not the hand"

One option is to use Scryfall Tagger. The tags are manually applied, so they may be incomplete or inaccurate, but they are useful for vague concepts like this. In particular, the tags sweeper-creature, sweeper-planeswalker, and sweeper-permanent are relevant to your question.

just to add: there is also a tag for all of these, the tag "sweeper" by itself: https://tagger.scryfall.com/tags/card/sweeper

This Scryfall search doesn't narrow it down completely, but it has a lot more hits than misses:

o:/(?<!for |on |tap |goad )\b(all|each)(?! damage)(\s\w+)+ (permanent|creature|planeswalker)s?\b(?! you control| card| gain| have| type| able)/

The idea is to broadly look for phrases like "all creatures", "each planeswalker", etc., possibly with words in between, with a number of specific words excluded because they appeared on non-removal effects. There's definitely room for further refinement, and some of the exclusions may actually be excluding relevant cards.

I'd suggest adding game:paper to weed out the MTGA specific cards like Divine Purge


text:
What cards can stop planeswalkers from doing anything when they enter the battlefield?
I've built a deck that's working well against most things, except planeswalkers - I cannot counter them, discard them, or attack them off the board, so they always resolve and bury me in advantage.
What cards can stop a planeswalker from being an effective play in the first place? I'm aware of many cards that can remove planeswalkers after they've entered the battlefield, but that's usually a losing proposition, because they will activate a loyalty ability once they resolve. There's also the option "win the game first by advancing your own gameplan", but I'm looking for alternatives that can at least buy me some time, since my gameplan is not very fast.
Here're the cards I'm aware of:

Pithing Needle (and Sorcerous Spyglass, etc.). This is effectively removal that also hits all future planeswalkers of the same name. However, I need to name the planeswalker before they cast it, which is not reliable.
The Immortal Sun. This would actually be great for my purposes if it weren't for how some planeswalkers have passive abilities (e.g. Narset, Parter of Veils; Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner).
Spark Rupture. This has the minor drawback of being an enchantment (the reasons enchantments are not ideal are tangential to the question). However, this drawback is something I can work around, so it's still the best card I know for my purposes. Is there anything even better?

Format: Historic. No color restrictions (I have access to all colors).

The basic value proposition of planeswalkers is that if you resolve one, you get to at least activate one loyalty ability, similar to creatures with ETB triggers. That makes up for their vulnerability to being attacked, unlike other permanent types. But most planeswalkers don't get worthwhile value for their cost from one activation, so I think you're really undervaluing reactive answers.

@murgatroid99 most competitively-playable planeswalkers get a full card of advantage when they resolve, which makes removing them afterwards a losing proposition, unless you are attacking them (since that does not cost a card). It's certainly better than nothing, but not by a lot.

Getting a full card of advantage doesn't automatically make it worth the cost. If you tap out to play a spell that nets you one card of advantage, that's not actually that good.

@murgatroid99 it is though, for my purposes. If you really want to know the details, the deck I'm trying to beat is Historic green devotion (example list: https://mtgdecks.net/Historic/utopia-nykthos-decklist-by-alieldrazi-1755900). It's extremely consistent, with one major weakness: aside from Karn, it cannot interact at all. But if Karn resolves, it's got a bunch of potent sideboard bullets that can stop my gameplan. If I can keep Karn from resolving (and I tap out too often to play countermagic), I should be in good shape.

There are other planeswalkers that can be a threat - Liliana of the Veil is the main one. She can come down on turn 3, tick up, and ultimate. But it takes four turns before she goes ultimate, which is enough time for me to win; furthermore it's possible I survive the ultimate. If Liliana were the only problematic planeswalker, then removal would be OK.

I think you are fundamentally asking for too much. You want to stop the the spell from resolving, but you also don't want to use countermagic.

@murgatroid99 and yet there are three cards in the OP that achieve exactly that ...

You already gave reasons for rejecting the cards in the question. You have eliminated the options.

@murgatroid99 note I didn't say the cards are not suitable. They're just not ideal, for various reasons. Cards that can stop the planeswalker from activating an ability in the first place clearly exist, the question is if there are any better options. I didn't know Spark Rupture existed until yesterday, so it's possible there's something else that I don't know about.

Although now that I look at it, Spark Rupture turns Kiora into a 3-mana 7/7. That's threatening. Not lethally threatening, but still very threatening. I'll have to test if my deck can beat that.

One possible way to interfere with planeswalkers' abilities is to make the abilities cost more. If an opponent taps out for a planeswalker but is unable to also pay mana to activate the walker's ability, that would meet your goal.
A modern example would be [mtg:Suppression Field], but that doesn't help you with Historic

Got an idea from Minsc & Boo, Timeless Hero, which has an enter-the-battlefield trigger, giving you a chance to fire off an instant-speed kill spell before your opponent can play a (sorcery-speed) planeswalker ability. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to force a similar trigger for other planeswalkers: there are no permanents I could find that trigger off an opponent's planeswalker (or an arbitrary permanent) coming into play, except for silver-bordered "Artful Looter" (which triggers on matching artist names) or "River Kelpie" (which triggers if the permanent entered from the graveyard).

Other than Spark Rupture, the only kind of interaction that consistently prevents planeswalkers from activating a loyalty ability even once and stops planeswalkers' static abilities is countermagic. Depending on what other kinds of cards you expect to need to counter, cards like Disdainful Stroke, Dovin's Veto, Negate, and Tale's End seem like decent cheap options.

Eidolon of Obstruction is a way to prevent planeswalkers from using their abilities on curve unless the opponent plays around it.
Alternatively, a powerful and cheap spell for dealing with multiple planeswalkers at once is The Elderspell although that is sorcery speed so they are likely to get one activation before you cast it.
There are not many ways to deal with the green devotion supremacy in historic currently.

There are not many ways to deal with the green devotion supremacy in historic currently. Lol! After struggling to beat green devotion, I crafted the deck and played it in a BO3 league, and immediately went 5-0 in spite of multiple play errors. The deck really is good.


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Is there a way to rate Pokemon decks so that players can be evenly matched?
I took the kids to a local game store for a casual pokemon tournament. I was disappointed to see the vastly superior decks the other players had built. Every pokemon in their decks was V, Vmax, V-Star, Ex, and so on, all with very powerful abilities, plus trainer cards that must be uncommon in the booster packs. They each must have had several hundred dollars into it, plus countless hours.
My kids, on the other hand, have a few of the pre-built decks and custom built decks based on the traditional basic-2-stage-evolution scheme. They stood no chance. I also played with a pre-built deck, and it was so bad that in one game I literally only did 40 damage to my opponent.
So this had me thinking. It's there a way to rate any given deck, so that two players can expect an even game? For example, cards can be given a points value, and the sum of a deck's points is your deck rating. I understand there's a synergy to deck builder games, so it would probably be more complex than that. Either way, it would be nice to quickly convey between players how strong their decks are.

A helpful answer on beginning PTCG deck building. With that info there, of course we stood no chance.

I gotta say, I'm reasonably often on the other side of the table, and I always feel bad winning. It's a tournament, I can scarcely not play to win with my strongest decks, but crushing opponents with weak decks feels pretty cruel. =/

https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/29074/ways-to-handicap-in-magic-the-gathering You might be interested, although I am not sure how handicapping would work in Pokemon (maybe "your Pokemon have -10 HP"?)

@Allure Yes, it was demoralizing. I don't really want to go back, but my son is more headstrong, apparently. He hasn't stopped talking about it, even though he lost almost as hard as I did.

For the record, going to your first anything tournament and getting your butt handed to you is 'the usual' in every form of open competition.

@Valorum Not for me. ;)

@5879 - Alas, we can't all be special

Honestly no TCG makes good premade decks otherwise they would cost 2 to 3 times the amount.  The premade decks are designed to teach the basics and then maybe have one or two meta relevant cards otherwise they are just bought up by resellers for the 2 or 3 cards in them.   I have never seen a premade deck with the right number of high rarity cards to actually be a meta deck.

@Styxsksu In that regard, the PTCG pre-made decks give you the distinct impression that play strategy follows in a particular way. You must start with basics, and you might get a few hits in. Then by turn three or four, you hopefully have a few stage 1 or even stage 2 pokemon in play. These "meta decks", as you call them, do not take this pattern at all. I didn't really spend a lot of time thinking of play strategy, but I recall remarking the first time my kid brought home a V. I said "This changes play completely. Wouldn't you just want a deck filled with Vs?" Turns out that's what they do.

@5879 there have been some times where evolution strategies work in PTCG but even then the distribution of the starting deck is never correct.  There was once a 2 stage deck that didn't run any of the stage 1 Pokemon and just used rare candies for the evolution of the Pokemon.   As with any TCG they build each set to out do the last set by either being more powerful or hating on the mechanics of the last set.  At some point they will point a card or to that will hate on these big basics.  Basic Pokemon have always been a powerful strategy just look at haymaker deck.

Looking at the individual cards directly, no.  Cards are intended to play together - when Creatures develops cards, they plan specific combinations such that they work well together given the other combinations out there. For example, one major deck currently is Lost Box, one version of which has zero V or ex cards in it - and still could win a major tournament, because it works as intended as a deck.
Looking at premade decks (that you can buy in a store), this is possible to some extent as the different classes of deck are meant to be played together.  League Battle decks are of similar strength (and are based on ‘meta’ decks that could win major tournaments), V Battle decks or their kin ex battle decks) are weaker but on a similar level, and the Battle Academy set (which comes with three decks) is its own level.
If you go to a local league, you're best off determining what level they're playing at.  Some leagues are very highly "meta" - meta meaning "the decks that are popular at the highest levels of competition" here.  If that's what they have, then you're unlikely to be competitive until you make a deck that's at that level.  You can look on Limitless  to get a sense of what is popular online (which usually mirrors in person to some extent).  As of the moment of this answer, any of the top 10-12 decks would qualify here; things like Mew Fusion, Miraidon, or Chien Pao Baxcalibur are relatively easy to learn and not very expensive.
Some leagues are less meta, and tend to have more variety in decks.  Limitless still will be somewhat useful here as you can look further down the list and find more varied decks that perhaps aren't likely to win a major tournament, but could be fun to play and easier to obtain the cards for.  As of the moment of this answer, decks like United Wings, Meowscarada, Zoroark Box, or Regis are fun decks that qualify in this space.
Finally, you may want to talk to the professor who is running the league, and see if you and the kids can get some help either learning or matching up with other similar level players.  If your kids are relatively new, it is probably more helpful to learn the game in a noncompetitive setting first; many leagues offer something like that.  The professor may also have example decks available to play that are intended to be at a similar level, and either the professor or another league member may be willing to teach you.  It's also possible that this league is solely competitive, but they could suggest another one in the area that is more learning oriented -  I work with a few leagues, and one is definitely 100% competitive, while another is a much better environment for kids to learn in.  (If you're in the Bay Area of California, let me know and I can connect with you!)

A few footnotes that are more in the frame challenge space:

Pokemon decks do not cost several hundred dollars unless you want them to!  In fact, the player that won Worlds last month did so with a deck that's remarkably similar to a League Battle deck from 2022.  His deck cost just over $60, and odds are you could have gotten it even cheaper a few months prior.  I built the basic core of this deck for several area kids, and it's very good and easy to learn.  This is typical in Pokemon, unless you're playing cards that just came out in the last month; there are always highly competitive level decks available for $50-$100, and that is if you buy every single card for just that deck - 50%-70% of the cards in any given deck are typically reusable in other decks.

V or ex cards do not make a deck necessarily better.  For the most part, in fact, it's the consistency cards that are by far the most important.  Yes, often a V or ex will be needed to do the big hitting, but far more important are the Supporters (Professor's Research, Iono, Boss's Orders, etc.) and the Items (switch, battle VIP pass, nest ball) that make the deck work; you can build a similar deck with single prize cards that still is very competitive, so long as you pay attention to some basic things like 'how do I do enough damage to knock something out'.  Lost Box, Zoroark Box, United Wings, all can manage without two prizers [Lost Box often does include a two prizer or two, but it doesn't have to], because they have consistency cards that make the deck work plus an interesting solution to "how do I do 300 damage".

Very helpful, thanks. Sorry, I'm very far from the Bay.

@5879 looks like it refers to Creatures Inc., the company that develops the Pokemon TCG.


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How does Radiant Scrollwielder 2nd ability work with adventure spells?
Radiant Scrollwielder reads:

At the beginning of your upkeep, exile an instant or sorcery card at random from your graveyard. You may cast it this turn. If a spell cast this way would be put into your graveyard, exile it instead.

Say I have a Bonecrusher Giant in my graveyard, will Scrollwielder attempt to exile the "Stomp" part of the card, and if i then cast it will I then put Bonecrusher Giant in the adventure zone?


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Does Damping Sphere make Baldur's Gate not able to produce all colors of mana?
Let's say Damping Sphere is in play and so is Baldur's Gate (with 2+ other Gates). Is Plaza of Harmony still able to tap for all colors of mana?
The idea is that, if there are 2+ other Gates, then Baldur's Gate's second ability will generate more than one mana, so Damping Sphere kicks in and makes it produce {Colorless} instead. But then Baldur's Gate can only produce Colorless mana. Does Plaza of Harmony still work then? If Plaza of Harmony does not produce all colors of mana, does this change if there is only one other Gate in play alongside Baldur's Gate?
Relevant text of cards in question:
Baldur's Gate:

{2}, {T}: Add X mana of any one color, where X is the number of other Gates you control.

Plaza of Harmony:

{T}: Add one mana of any type that a Gate you control could produce.

Damping Sphere:

If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces {Colorless} instead of any other type and amount.

Plaza of Harmony will only be able to create colorless mana, because at the moment, Baldur's Gate can only product colorless mana.

106.7. Some abilities produce mana based on the type of mana another permanent or permanents “could produce.” The type of mana a permanent could produce at any time includes any type of mana that an ability of that permanent would produce if the ability were to resolve at that time, taking into account any applicable replacement effects in any possible order.

So you basically have to go through what would happen if you were to tap Baldur's Gate right then, and have to account for all the replacement effects, including Damping Sphere. Because you have no way of producing red mana at the moment using Baldur's Gate, then you cannot get red mana from Plaza of Harmony.
If you have just 1 other gate, then Baldur's Gate would only produce 1 mana of any color, so Damping Sphere would be irrelevant, and Plaza can produce any color just like Baldur's Gate can.
If you have no other gates, then Plaza could only produce colorless, because Baldur's Gate could only produce colorless (you could activate it for 0 mana of any color instead, but producing 0 mana is not producing any mana).

Does this mean that if there are 0 other Gates in play, Plaza of Harmony will not be able to tap for all colors?

Correct. Added to the answer.

Hmm I am 99% sure it doesn't work that way on Arena, and Plaza + Baldur's Gate is enough to e.g. cast a 1G spell. Bug?!


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6th edition WHF vampire counts - blood dragon
can someone please explain how this rule works
"Blood Dragon: "+2 to weapon skill. Lords and Counts automatically wear full plate armour (+4 armour save) but generate one less power dice than their magic level in their magic phase, can generate dispell dice as normal.
the part im stuck on is the "generate one less power dice than their magic level"  does this mean a level 4 wizard would generate 3 power dice total for the magic phase?  and a level 3 wizard gets 2 dice and a level 2 wizard gets 1 dice?  or do you still roll 2 dice to generate winds of magic?


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Does The Burning Scimitar allow you to perform tribe action(s) of the meeple(s) you remove?
In the Artisans of Naqala expansion, the magic item The Burning Scimitar allows you to "Remove two meeples of any color(s) from a Tile of your choice." This is the same wording as used in player action 2.3 Check for Tile Control: "Remove all meeples of the same color as your last one from the last Tile you moved on."
Given that it says to "remove" the meeples and not kill them, do you then get to perform the tribe action(s) of those meeples? I.e., can you place white, yellow, or purple meeples in front of you? Would you if you played the magic item during the 2.4 player action phase (Do the Tribe's Actions)?
Or do the removed meeple(s) go into the bag regardless?


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Does the term "ramp" derive from the card "Rampant Growth?"
Many terms used in the context of Magic derive their names from individual cards. The usual example is to mill, which is derived from the effect of the card Millstone. Another common example is tutoring, from the card Demonic Tutor.
I've seen people stating that ramping is another example of this effect. "Ramp," meaning mana acceleration, is then claimed to derive from the card Rampant Growth, first printed in 1996.
"Ramp derives from Rampant Growth" is the sort of overly cute folk etymology that you expect to just be an urban legend. At first glance, it seems much more likely that the term comes from the expression "ramping up," or from the noun "ramp" in the sense of an inclined surface.
However, I've done some preliminary research on various Usenet groups. (Specifically rec.games.trading-cards.magic.* and rec.games.deckmaster.) I could find no evidence that the term "ramp" was actually used before the card Rampant Growth was released. In its place, the term fast mana appears (I've linked to an example.)
However, this doesn't prove that one derives from the other. Just that "ramping" wasn't in use before 1996, and doesn't seem to have been common before about the early 2000s.
So... any ideas?

You can't prove a negative. Unless someone finds concrete evidence that the term "ramp" was used this way before Rampant Growth was printed, all we can say is that the claimed etymology has not been ruled out.

Proof would be hard to find, yeah. I was hoping for evidence that suggests one etymology over the other. For example, if we could find a history of people saying things like "ramping up" their mana production, that would suggest the term doesn't derive from Rampant Growth. On the other hand, if people said "Rampant Growth" effects and shortened that, it would suggest the term is derived from the card.

Why not it be a mix of both?  In a hypothetical scenario, if the initial card were instead named "asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar's growth", surely people would have leaned towards "growth" as the part of the card to say for short to describe the action.

If it eventually evolves into some kind of keyword, it would be another candidate answer to my question Which keywords (besides 'mill') have been named after Magic cards?

It could just be short for "ramp up"


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I’m looking for name and rules of a solitaire game my Grandma taught me, but don’t remember
The solitaire game is set up in a square four cards top and sides(looks more like a rectangle).  A pile of cards is place in the middle.  I’m not sure of how many, I think it was ten.
You play on piles to the left of the square using the cards in the square and rest of the deck.  As the corners are used you pull from the middle pile to replace them.
Sorry, I haven’t played this game for 40+ years.


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what are the standard rules for yes or no tarot?
Starting learning tarot for a while and tried a few tarot reading sites already.
It is quite fun to see one site yesnotarot.org to give yes or no tarot reading based on 2 tarot cards.
I was wondering if 2-card reading is more accurate than one-card reading, or is there any standard rule for yes or no tarot?

I’m voting to close this question because tarot as a prediction tool is not a game.

if 2-card reading is more accurate than one-card reading

They are both equally accurate at 0%.


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Is there an AI that can play Eleusis?
Eleusis is an induction card game that mirrors the scientific process. Is there an AI that can play Eleusis?
From a quick search this paper suggests the answer is 'no', but the paper dates from 1980, and I am not sure if newer developments have happened.

I believe whether an AI can play this game depends on whether there exists some upper bound for what the rules can involve (cards must touch the previous card, players must place with their left hand, cards can only be played on Tuesdays, etc.) Without that, I don't think it's possible to give an AI 'all' the data it needs.

According to this paper, "several algorithms have been developed to play Eleusis":

M. J. Berry. APL and the search for truth: A set of functions to play NewEleusis. In APL ’81: Proceedings of the international conference on APL, pages47–53, New York, NY, USA, 1981. ACM

T. G. Diettrich and R. S. Michalski. Learning to predict sequences. InMachine Learning: An Artiﬁcial Intelligence Approach, volume II. MorganKaufmann, 1989

R. S. Michalski, H. Ko, and K. Chen. SPARC/E(V.2): A eleusis rule generatorand player. Report ISG85-11, UIUCDC-F-85941, Department of ComputerScience, University of Illinois, 1985

It's easy to write an AI to play Eleusis, as long as you don't need it to play well
As a player: on the AI's turn, randomly pick a card in their hand and try and play it.
As a judge: choose the rule "the card played must be exactly N higher or lower than the previous card" where N is chosen randomly from 1 to 6 when the rule is picked
Will this AI win? Probably not, unless the human players are really bad. But it's functional. It's fairly simple to devise a more successful AI than this as well.  Can an AI outperform a human? Well, that depends on how good the human is, doesn't it? I bet I can write an AI that outperforms my cousin. My cousin is 4, but my AI is younger than that!

"Can an AI outperform a human? Well, that depends on how good the human is, doesn't it?" not really, state of the art chess AI can outperform human regardless of how good the human is.


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What happens if you cast a modal spell but choose illegal modes?
For example, Izzet Charm is a spell with three modes, one of which is "counter target noncreature spell unless opponent pays {2}".
Suppose I cast Grizzly Bears and opponent responds with Izzet Charm attempting to counter the Grizzly Bears. That's illegal, of course. Which of the following is the correct result?

Opponent gets to take back Izzet Charm and untap their lands.
Opponent must pick one of the other two modes of Izzet Charm (which can legally be cast).

Bonus question: what if opponent went "Izzet Charm to counter your Grizzly Bears, in response do X"?
I'm assuming the answer varies based on REL, hence tagging with all RELs.

Related: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/15391/what-happens-when-i-cast-a-spell-incorrectly?rq=1

The opponent gets to take back Izzet Charm; see below for untapping lands.
The important rule here is 601.2 which states (in part):

If a player is unable to comply with the requirements of a step
listed below while performing that step, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed

The steps listed below are:

601.2a: moving the card to the stack. This succeeds.
601.2b: making modal choices (and potentially other things). This succeeds, because the player hasn't named a target yet.
601.2c: Selecting targets. At this point, the player realises they have a problem - but nothing in the rules allows a "partial unwinding" at this point; if the player cannot name a valid target, the casting of the spell is illegal and 601.2 means we unwind to the moment before the casting of the spell, not to step 601.2b.

As for untapping lands: going through the strict sequencing, no lands needed to have been tapped at this point; they would be done in step 601.2g. If the player had tapped lands before they proposed casting the spell, they would not be able to untap them at this point.
I'm not enough of an expert to say what the penalties would be for this at any REL, other than the usual enforcing anything at regular REL is for exceptional cases only.

Worth noting that there might be a different legal target (if a non-creature spell were also on the stack), but even in that case the answer stays the same. They aren't forced to name a legal target, they named an illegal target, which causes the game to rewind just the same. The linked question talks about that.

I think 729.1 is the relevant rule here. 601.2 covers what happens if you begin casting and, during the casting process, reach a point where you cannot follow the rules. 729.1 covers what happens if cast your your spell illegally, and then realize the action was illegal (which is more in line with OP's question). Same outcome I guess, but I would still quote the relevant rule.

Phillip ia right about what happens in the game, the spell is illegal and couldn't be cast that way, so the game rewinds what it can to before it was cast if possible (some mana sources cant be rewound like Selvala, Explorer Returned so mana from those sources is just left in the pool), this includes any other actions taken on stack with the illegal spell, they are undone too.
As for the tournament/REL based actions, a player is generally just reminded to be more careful if the error is believed to be an honest mistake, particularly at lower rules enforcement levels. For your bonus question in particular this could lead to disqualification, casting a spell illegally and then immediately responding to it makes it seem you know the spell was illegal and you're trying to keep your opponent from noticing, that looks like cheating and at any rules level cheating is grounds for disqualification from the event.

The answer is pretty much the same for casual games, Regular REL, Competitive REL, and Professional REL, but there are minor differences.
For casual games, the rules simply state that the action is reversed. That means, you undo the action.

CR 729.1 If a player takes an illegal action or starts to take an action but can’t legally complete it, the entire action is reversed and any payments already made are canceled. No abilities trigger and no effects apply as a result of an undone action. If the action was casting a spell, the spell returns to the zone it came from. Each player may also reverse any legal mana abilities that player activated while making the illegal play, unless mana from those abilities or from any triggered mana abilities they caused to trigger was spent on another mana ability that wasn’t reversed. [...]

At Regular REL, the judge rewinds the game to just before the spell was cast. From the JAR:

A player makes an in-game error not mentioned above
[...]
If the error was caught quickly and backing up is relatively easy, you may undo all the actions back to the point that the illegal action happened.

At Competitive and Professional RELs, the casting of the spell is reversed by "simple backup". Your opponent (the player who made the error) receives a Game Rule Violation. If you fail to catch the error in a reasonable time then you receive a Failure to Maintain Game State Violation. You didn't say how much time passed, but I'm going to assume you realized within a few seconds, and so you would not receive a violation. From the IPG:

IPG Section 2.5, Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation
Additional Remedy
First consider a simple back up (see section 1.4)

IPG Section 1.4, Backing Up
Some remedies state a simple backup may be performed. A simple backup is backing up the last action completed

As for your "bonus question", it does not change the situation at any level of play. Even though your opponent has taken two actions now, none of the other remedies for Game Rule Violation are more suitable than a full backup of both actions.