text:
Is there a significant advantage to being at an 8 person pod over a 6 person pod?
From this question and from experience at a local shop, when there are 14 people who want to draft at Friday Night Magic then they are split into 2 pods, 1 pod of 8 and one pod of 6. Anecdotally, I have noticed that the larger pod tends to have the better decks. One reason I can think that might account for this is that the card pool is bigger, so more specialized cards that only go in very specific decks (for example: Rise from the Tides in a spell heavy deck) are more likely to make their way to the person who needs them. Are there any advantages to being in a small pod? Is there a clear total strategic advantage to being in the 8 person pod over the 6 person pod?
Note: I understand that within a pod there is no advantage, I'm curious about what potential advantage there would be in games between people who drafted from different pods.

Unless a particular set has viable alternate strategies like Mill, one would generally expect the 6 person pod to be more likely to produce a dominant deck since there's a high chance of someone being the only player in a particular color.

My local shop always preferred to keep the pods separated during playtime. So that you're not playing against people whose decks were drafted form a substantially superior/inferior card pool. I believe this is how the pro tour always does it, too.

The number of players in a draft certainly affects the draft, but the effect is symmetrical; all players are affected similarly.
One reason that 8 players is optimal is because the pairings work out perfectly; no one is going to get paired up/down.
From your opening pack you get:

the 1st, 7th and 13th pick in a 6 person draft
the 1st, and 9th pick in an 8 person draft
the 1st, and 11th pick in a 10 person draft

In a smaller draft the signals are clearer, you see the same pack more times. Correctly reading the signals is rewarded with more information about what cards might wheel (come back around to you).
In a larger draft the signals are weaker, you see more packs, but less picks per pack, nothing worthwhile wheels in a 10-person pod. In an 8-person pod, wheeling cards is rarer than in a 6-pod, but still happens occasionally.

Is there a clear total strategic advantage to being in the 8 person pod over the 6 person pod?

No, if anything the advantage goes the other way; a 6-person pod will favor the players who read signals the best. The large the pod the more it favors card-evaluation skills. Different skills are rewarded differently depending on the pod size.

This answer only mentions draft meta strategy, and you seem to discount the simple effect that a larger card pool provides broader card selection, as mentioned in the question.

I largely agree with esoterik's answer, however would like to elaborate on the strict number advantage, which I feel is the more accurate analysis and describes the inherent differences between player numbers in the format better without making assumptions about their skill level (which is how I read the question).

Basic Analysis of the Draft Format
The entire draft format is based around the principle that each player picking one card at the time yields  better results than simply building a deck out of a set number of packs. This is demonstrated in the Sealed format providing six packs (so, twice as many as in a draft), yet requiring the same deck size in the end.
This is because you get to scroll through each pack, taking the card that works out best for you, while passing the rest, whereas in a Sealed event, you have to scrap a large portion of your pool because it's not in your color(s), the cards are simply unplayable, or you have way more than you'd like to play (also caused by the twice-as-large pool size).
This means that regardless how many cards are left for you to pick from, you always get to pick the single best cards, after each pack ending up with the 15 best cards from every hand instead of just 15 random cards from any booster pack.
Having more packs at the table results in more valueable individual picks
In a draft format, because you're looking at packs you've seen before, the total number of different cards you see changes with the amount of players. Since more cards mean more choices, in theory each player will get a better hand, as they get to choose their best 15 cards out of a bigger total number of cards.
Assuming a 15-card pack, these are the total amount of cards every player gets to see over the course of the draft:

8 Players: 276 cards (15+14+13+12+11+10+9+8)*3
7 Players: 252 cards (15+14+13+12+11+10+9)*3
6 Players: 225 cards (15+14+13+12+11+10)*3
5 Players: 195 cards (15+14+13+12+11)*3
4 Players: 162 cards (15+14+13+12)*3

More players in a pod will draft more Rares/Mythics
There's a certain ratio of Mythics to Rares (to my knowledge, it's about 1 Mythic in 8 packs, which we'll use as an example ratio, regardless whether it's accurate). A pod with 8 players will therefore have an average of 3 Mythics (24 total packs), while a pod of 6 players will only get 2.25 (18 packs). Whether this affects the overall quality of decks depends on the actual cards drawn, but since Mythics are arguably stronger cards than rares most of the time, this is a fair assumption.
Color Distribution
While the number of packs scales with the amount of players (for each player, there's 3 packs), there are always five base colors in Magic, which players will need to negotiate between. In a pod of five, that averages to one color per player, six is close to that ratio, however for 8 players, this means that more colors are being necessarily shared.
In reality, every player is likely playing multiple colors even in smaller pods because it's unrealistic to be the only person in a specific color. With more players, however, more people will inherently be interested in any color.
This is the only factor that doesn't clearly favor a bigger number of players, however it's also the most insignificant one, as it's an intended concept of Magic The Gathering to have multiple colors in a single deck, and editions that need it will provide mana fixing.

I'm confused about the "more mythics" logic. Doesn't each player have the same average chance of ending up with a mythic? (3 / 8 = 2.25 / 6)

But better odds that at least one player will have a Mythic that's actually a limited bomb they can play and not like, Conflux, or some three color card they get on pack 3 that's three colors they haven't touched.

@AlexP The Mythics paragraph was a direct response to the questioner's "the larger pod tends to have the better decks". Each player will have the same chance of getting a Mythic, but more Mythics will be opened in total at the 8-pod table. They also don't necessarily divide equally or get passed, which means that in theory, a single deck could reasonably contain 3 Mythics in an 8-player pod, and only 2.25 Mythics in a 6-player pod. The same applies to Foils, generally, but their rate is rather insignificant - in general, all of this is a factor, but not as decisive as the paragraph above it.

Foils don't actually matter when looking at deck strength in a draft though, in fact they can very slightly hinder your deck, as an opponent who has seen your hand and seen a foil copy of a card, then sees a non-foil copy after, gets information they wouldn't have if both copies were non foil and impossible to tell apart. It's the same idea behind playing one art of basic lands, they have no way of knowing if that mountain you just played is the one they saw when they did a thoughtsieze since they look identical.

There are various benefits to being in a larger pod when card diversity / redundancy / synergy is rewarded.
For example, in a set that contains Timberpack Wolves, you can achieve a stronger deck by vacuuming-up several Timberpack Wolves, and it is more possible to vacuum-up many copies of Timberpack Wolves in a larger pod.  In the set Coldsnap, there were numerous "collect me" cards whose power level scaled proportionally to the number of them that you drafted eg: Surging Flame.  In a small pod, you are likely forced to draft a few copies of each of a few "collect me's," whereas in a larger pod, each player can specialize in taking many copies of a single "collect me."
Another possible example would be if a block supported 3 different possible mechanical themes per guild.  In smaller pods, you would essentially be forced to take whatever is in your colors, would have little control over which mechanics you end-up with, and would get a piece of each of 3 different themes.  In a larger pod (especially in a very large pod, which doesn't happen), there could be one player in your guild drafting one theme, another drafting a second theme, and a third player drafting a third theme.  So each player's deck would be more thematically specialized, and would benefit from greater synergistic specialization.
It is also sometimes the case in draft that you want to draft something different than you drafted before.  For instance, you may only want 4 total 4-mana spells in your entire deck.  So if you take a 4-mana spell early on in pack 1 and then shortly later you get a choice between a 4-mana and a 3-mana spell, you may prefer to take the 3-mana spell to avoid having too much of your 4-mana slot already filled very early, and too little of your 3-mana slot filled by this point.  A similar example would be that good draft decks tend to have about 14-15 creatures and 8-9 non-creature spells.  So if you end-up taking a few non-creature spells early in pack 1, then you have a so-far-imbalanced draft pool, and will be obliged to pick a creature over a non-creature in the near future to correct your course.  In a smaller pod, you are essentially slated for taking whatever cards appear in your colors, often tabling everything you declined to pick the first time; and if there is a mana cost imbalance or a creature / non-creature imbalance, it is harder to steer back to a proper balance.  Whatever you decline to take 3rd pick, you can hardly avoid taking 9th pick.
In some ways, drafting in a smaller pod is pretty similar to sealed.  In a draft, you want to take the card you need the most and decline having the next best option, so you are truly exercising selection.  In a small draft pod, you are taking the best card in your colors, and almost certainly wheeling the third best card in your colors; so it's barely a choice at all.  This is less applicable in sets that support few multi-colored cards and few themes.  In a set that supports 5 guilds, when you're drafting in a 5-person pod, and there are few mono-colored cards and many 2-color cards, you are highly likely to draft exactly everything in your guild, i.e. you end-up taking exactly what you are given.


text:
How is Test of Faith resolved with multiple blockers?
As an extension of this related question, how is Test of Faith resolved in a situation where this instant is cast on one of multiple blocking creatures assigned to a single attacking creature?
Let:

A = 8/8 attacker
B1 = 1/1 blocker assigned to A
B2 = another 1/1 blocker assigned to A

In this scenario, let us assume that:

the defending player declares both B1 and B2 to be blockers for A
B1 is the first blocker to receive damage from A
Test of Faith is cast on B1

Specific questions:

Is the defending player allowed to wait until the attacking player
has declared the order in which damage is assigned before playing
Test of Faith? (i.e. attacking player declares damage to be dealt to
B1 followed by B2 before defending player casts spell)
Given that A
would normally deal 1 damage to B1 with remaining damage to B2 (in
the absence of any instants or abilities), does Test of Faith
prevent 1 or 3 damage in this scenario?
Given that A has sufficient
power to destroy both B1 and B2 even with the damage prevention and
+1/+1 counters provided by Test of Faith, does A end up dealing more damage than initially
planned to finish off B1? Or does B1 survive?

Short version: yes, the defending player can cast Test of Faith after damage assignment order is chosen, and yes, the attacking player can send enough damage at B1 to kill it.
This is fairly easy to answer once you know how the declare blockers and combat damage steps work. (Remember the steps of combat: beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat.) Focusing on the relevant bits, we have:

declare blockers

the defending player assigns blockers
the attacking player announces damage assignment order
the active player gets priority (your chance to cast spells or activate abilities)

combat damage

the active player announces how combat damage from attacking creatures will be assigned
the blocking creatures assign their damage
damage is actually dealt

(This is pretty much all in the basic rules, but if you want gory details, see 509 and 510 in the comprehensive rules.)
So the answer to (1) is easy. Yes, the defending player can wait until after the order is assigned to cast Test of Faith - in fact they pretty much have to, unless they want to cast it before they even declare blockers.
The answer to (2) and (3) depends on what the attacking player decides, but if they're smart, they can kill both B1 and B2. They've already chosen the order back in the declare blockers step, but now they can choose the amount to assign to each creature in order. They have to assign at least lethal damage* (1 damage, since it's a 1/1) to B1 before going on to B2, but otherwise they can split it however they want - 8 and 0, 7 and 1, and so on. Presumably they'll decide to assign 7 to B1 and 1 to B2, so that B1 ends up as a 4/4 with 4 damage marked on it and dies, and B2 takes 1 damage and dies as well.
Note that this isn't really terribly specific to Test of Faith. All that really matters is that you can deal any amount of damage to B1, as long as it's at least 1 (lethal damage). No matter what the weird effect is (prevention, redirection, +1/+1 counters appearing...) you choose the amount of damage and can send the necessary amount at it, so you'll never get weird cases where B1 somehow survives even though you could've killed it, or where the damage assignment amounts somehow change outside your control. You do have to consciously make the right decision (deal 7 damage even though 1 is "lethal"), but beyond that, nothing really fancy happens.
* Lethal damage doesn't have to take into account abilities and effects that might change the amount of damage that ends up being dealt, so Test of Faith doesn't matter here - if they wanted B1 to live for some reason, they could deal it just 1 damage.

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text:
Does Deserter's Quarters get overriden by Horizon Boughs?
In a game of Planechase, suppose we're on Horizon Boughs, which says:

All permanents untap during each player's untap step.

I have Deserter's Quarters out, tapped using its second ability to keep another creature tapped.

You may choose not to untap Deserter's Quarters during your untap step.
{6}, {T}: Tap target creature. It doesn't untap during its controller's untap step for as long as Deserter's Quarters remains tapped.

Would this mean I can choose not to untap Deserter's Quarters during the untap step, and keep the other creature tapped, or do both of them untap anyway?

I've edited your question for clarity. Do you also mean to ask if Deserter's Quarter's target of its activated ability would be untapped?

I am asking if it has to untap my opponent is saying it has to, but i believe i can choose not to untap it, which means the creature it is keeping tapped will not untap as i am keeping deserter's quarters tapped so that creature cant untap.

Ok, edited a bit more. Does that fit?

Deserter's Quarters becomes next to useless.
If someone casts Burst of Energy targeting your Deserter's Quarters, it would untap since it's not your untap step. Same thing here.
When in Horizon Boughs, your Deserter's Quarters untaps in the other players' untap steps since you only have the option of not untapping him in your untap step. (The creature held in Deserter's Quarters remains tapped.)
Similarly, the creature held in Deserter's Quarters untaps in your untap step since Deserter's Quarters only prevents it from untapping in its controller's untap step.
Horizon Boughs makes Deserter's Quarters really inefficient. At best, you could retap a creature every turn for 6 mana in a two-player game.

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text:
Are there any dice games you can play with a standard 7-die set?
Are there any dice games that you can play with a standard role-playing 7-die set (d4, d6, d8, d10, d%, d12, d20)?
Maybe you have some time to kill before your tabletop session starts, or during a break. It'd be nice to have a game that doesn't require anything beyond this set of dice. I'm open to games that can be played alone or with friends.
This is an offshoot from another question: Is there a name for the standard 7-die set? I recently received a very nice set of dice as an anniversary gift. I'm not currently in a tabletop session, but I would like to play with the dice.

Are you looking for something where the entirety of the game only requires one 7-dice set, or would one-set-per-player be acceptable?

@PaulMarshall Either option is acceptable.

sigh Why even bother with a game-recommendation tag then? It's not a subjective opinion question, and it doesn't seem like there's a plethora of answers to it. I haven't used a "community wiki" answer before, but would that help make this more relevant to SE?

@redlamp If you look at the tag description it says "Ask Question
Do Not Use Generally off-topic. Suggestions for games that meet specific requirements. (tag exists primarily for historical reasons)", for more info on why they are no longer considered on-topic you can see the linked meta post.

With 2-3 sets, you could play Button Men, a Cheapass Game about capturing dice. Lots of entirely free characters available.

I love Button Men and recommend it as an RPG game day filler during a store run or the like.

How about http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34947/dice-the-evolution ?  I've never tried it but you only need to print out 1 page of paper to give it a shot :)

authors: Андрей Лавров

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text:
is there card game prototyping platform to track, change, print?
this
and
this
and
this
and this
all give good leads, but I'm looking for something with a few specific features:

I want a database that does all the basic database things--store cards, find cards, add cards, modify cards, etc.I don't need a rigid schema system, and I want the flexibility to add features to the (game) system more or less at will.
I don't need any evaluation or resolution features (just want to be able to track and edit the game in a quasi-sane manner, not play it on the computer).
I do want a collection of cards -> printable sheet feature. Nothing fancy, but I would like to be able to specify a group of cards from the database, and produce something that can be printed out, cut up, and stuck in sleeves
Bonus points for flexibility and extensibility, as usual, so that as I move out of pure prototyping I don't have to reinvest in a whole system. For example, at the moment, art is not critical, but I imagine that I'll want to handle that once I have mechanics of play working
GUIs are optional
Even more bonus points for Mac (or *nix) and open source

Thus far, the various systems I've seen all seem to address one or more of the problems but are missing another major component.
I'm a fair hand at programming and systems design, so I may end up building a simple(ish) command-line tool, but here's to hoping someone else thinks like me...

I wouldn't mind having something like this myself, possibly with a few other features you didn't list. I'm a professional software developer and would be interested in collaborating with the right technology stack on an open source project.

Hi Donald, what stack would you favor?

Hi Ben. That's probably more of a subject for chat.

Not an answer, just my method, but I tend to use Inkscape to generate a sample card, then use python scripts to add in the details, and a json backend for the whole thing (it's human-readable enough that I can edit things manually if needed).

Card Warden for Ipad lets you keep track of many different card types and some metadata you've mentioned, but otherwise, you may be better off just setting up your own database with MySQL.

You could set-up your own SQL database. You can download the free Heidi SQL software cross-platform (uses WINE for Linux/Mac) for accessing an SQL database. SQL will easily provide the database requirements you are talking about. If you have an entry in the database that contains the location of a card prototype image then a fairly simple program could be written to call those locations from the database and print the images.
You could, optionally, typeset your cards using LaTeX: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/48061/creating-playing-cards-using-tikz-part-2
If you used LaTex you could have a subdirectory for each card and call all those cards from one LaTeX file to compile them into one printable pdf.


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Occupations and minor improvements break the game?
After playing several games of Agricola in the family friendly mode, I played a couple of games of the full version with a friend.
What we've found is that adding the additional occupations and minor improvements:

Adds a lot more time to each person's turn as they consider their strategy for utilising their improvements/occupations.
Adds overwhelming complexity to decision making, to the point that the game is simply not fun.

I'm wondering if we're playing it wrong.
What we're doing is we're somehow selecting seven minor improvements and seven occupations to start with. See this thread for more details.
The player then can look at his two hands at anytime. This is where the additional time comes in, as each player turn the player is considering how they'll use their cards.
Is this how the game is meant to be played, or have I misinterpreted a rule somewhere?
If this is how the game is supposed to be played, are there some good house rules that will reduce the complexity of the game?

I feel like you have a false dichotomy here: either there's a rule you've missed, or the game is fundamentally slow and you need house rules. What about the third possibility, you have the rules right and you're just spending more time analyzing and optimizing instead of just accepting that not every move will be perfect?

Keep in mind that like most games with cards, the more you play, the faster you'll get at evaluating them.  Starting with a smaller set of cards will help with this too.

I also feel like the two-player game is more intense and less forgiving of mistakes than any other player number.  If you're playing it like a chess match, then factoring in a handful of unfamiliar cards is going to be a bit of a brain-burner.  So I'm basically just reaffirming the previous comments.  1)Play with more people and don't worry about fully optimizing every move. 2)You will get faster as you become familiar with the cards.  Each card is only relevant at particular points of the game.  Once you stop thinking about every card at every decision, things will speed up.

The same thing happened to my group when first introducing the Occupations and Minor Improvements. Trying to incorporate 14 different cards into a good strategy is HARD early, and it takes time. You will get more familiar with the cards as time goes by. I also like pat's answer. My group just picked 7 of each type (Using the Easy deck), picked the 3 or 4 of each type we liked best, and played with those. Cut down on the time and stress a lot.

Not everyone feels the way you do.  Agricola is rated #7 on BoardGameGeek seven years after it was released.  Agricola is rated as "Medium-Heavy" on BGG with a 3.6 rating out of 5 which means that most people see it as among the more complex games they've played.
If you enjoy the family game, there's nothing wrong with just playing that.  Without knowing other games that you enjoy, it's hard for me to say whether Agricola is the right game for you, it's one of my favorites.
Play with the E deck only!
The base game comes with three decks, each with a different purpose. Make sure you are only using the E deck for your first few games to limit the complexity.
The decks are:

E - Everyone
I - Interactive
K - Complex

If you've been playing with just the E deck already, there are a couple ways to ease into the full game.

Play solo - this will let you play at your own pace and get some familiarity with the cards.  Despite the large number of cards, many of them are quite similar, or just deal with difference resources in the same way.
Draft - Each player draws their cards, picks one of each and hands their cards to the next player.  Repeat until all cards are taken.  This takes a long time to go thru the first couple times.  But it allows everyone to take cards they like.  In most cases, the last few cards you get can be ignored.  Not all 7 are winners :)
Draw 7, discard 3.  As I said above, not all 7 are winners.  Force everyone to make the choice up front and they'll be quicker during the game


text:
How are Minor Improvement and Occupation cards meant to be selected for play?
I'm reasonably experienced playing Agricola - but the family friendly version only, because the people I've played with find the game complicated enough as it is.
I understand how the minor improvements and occupations are supposed to be used; at the start of the game each player will have seven occupations and seven minor improvements, which they'll play through out the game.
The question is - how do I decide which deck (E, I, K) to use, and how do I select nPlayers * 7 occupations and minor improvements from it?
From what I've seen, the purpose of the different decks is to provide differing levels of complexity to game, the E deck being more suitable for beginners and the K deck for very experienced players.
I also see there are various ways to distribute the initial seven cards, a draft commonly being used, as suggested in this question.
Say I am playing with a draft, with three players. Do I just randomly select 21 minor improvements from the E deck?
Can someone please provide a step by step guide to setting up the game, from deciding which deck to use, to selecting the cards for draft/mulligan and then drafting them?

The decks you use are completely at the discretion of the players.  I like to use all the decks I own.  Some people like to use certain decks.  Some people like to ensure a particular distribution of cards from each deck, but I find that tedious.  Here's how I set things up:

Set up the game board normally.
Shuffle all Minor Improvements together from all decks.
Remove all Occupations that carry a number greater than the number of players in the game (this number appears in a colored square and is either 1+, 3+ or 4+).
Shuffle all remaining Occupations together from all decks.
Randomly deal out 7 (or more) Occupations to each player.
Randomly deal out 7 (or more) Minor Improvements to each player.

(The next two steps are the drafting steps, which you can skip if you want to.)

Each player chooses on Occupation and one Minor Improvement to keep, then passes the rest of their dealt cards to the person on their left/right.
Repeat the previous step until all cards have been chosen.
If you chose to deal more than 7 Occs/Minors, each player discards until they have 7 each.
Play the game.

Also, when you deal out occupations, make sure that you remove any that carry a number greater than the number of players in the game (this number appears in a coloured circle and is either 1+, 3+ or 4+).

Great thank you - That's what I thought was the case, just wasn't sure.


text:
Distributing the player mats
The setup rules for Scythe say:

Faction Selection:
Randomly shuffle the the Faction Mats and Player Mats, then deal 1 of each to each player.
Starting Player:
The player with the lowest number in the label on their Player Mat will go first. Play proceeds clockwise from there.
Designer's note:
The higher-numbered Player Mats offer slightly more lucrative starting track positions than the others, as those players are more likely to have 1 fewer turn by the end of the game than the player who goes first.

The question here is - when setting up the game - say I'm playing with three people - should I just randomly assign the three lowest ranked player mats, or I randomly assign three of total five?
The thing that I'm thinking about, is what say I randomly assign the 1,2 and 5 ranked player mats, if the person who has the five ranked player mat - has a larger advantage than if they'd been assigned the three ranked player mat.

Your conclusion is a non sequitur - that someone can get a larger advantage doesn't lead to using the worst three (or the best three, or the middle three). You presume that the game is somehow unbalanced if the mats are {1,2,5} but that same advantage exists in a five-player game, except there aren't another two players also getting some kind of advantage.

@Nij The logic in a five player game is that having more people go ahead of you is a disadvantage. Do you reject that logic in general, or do think that it somehow applies differently when comparing five and three player games? In a five player game, there are two more players that can end the game before Player 5 can take their last turn.

It's really simple, actually:

The rules say

Randomly shuffle the the Faction Mats and Player Mats

Do they say "shuffle a number of mats equal to the number of players, starting with the lowest ranked mat"? No, they don't. If they wanted you to do it so, it would have been written there.

You bought the game. It's your property.

Think it would be better using the lowest ranked mats? Do it, it's your game, you can do whatever you want. Or you can go for a bidding, even. Or you can directly allow people to chose their faction mat -like we always do, so to try different factions every time. Or you can stop someone on the street to chose one for every player. Or maybe give all the players the same faction.
Luckily there is no law preventing you to experiment with a game that you own, and luckily the game will not self destruct after the first play. Do whatever you want, and if you don't like the outcome do it differently the next time you play. Simple, right?

This doesn't really answer the question.

@ilkkachu: the question is "can I do something that is not written in the manual?". The only possible answer is "If you think it works better for you do it"

They're asking for clarification to the manual. Quoting the same manual back at them isn't going to be useful at that situation. Rather the question is if there's something useful to know outside the manual. If the designer had an intent that didn't end up in the manual, or has (re)considered the subject after the manual was written, or if other players have noticed any difference in game balance between the possible options.

@ilkkachu: I run a board game association of sort, I've been teaching games to people for a while now, and I've learned there is nothing more efficient to complicate and ruin things to everyone than asking clarifications about imaginary rules. A manual states everything that can be done. The OP here is not asking for clarification to the manual: instead is asking about a rule that is not written in it and that he made up in his mind about a game he has never played. If a rule is not written then it doesn't exist, and if you don't know the game at all then you shouldn't try to change it.

Funny, I sort of run a board game association too (actually it runs itself quite well), and I've noticed that hobbyists have a tendency to think about the content and phrasing of the rules. For better or worse, but sometimes it means having to look for clarification on the rules, and that's partly what e.g. the forums on BGG are for. And, umm, assuming that someone has never played a game based on the fact that they have a question about it seems very, very bold to me.

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text:
Why might a leader propose a team they don't plan to approve?
In a previous question a commenter mentioned that team leader might propose a team, that they don't intend to approve.
Presumably this has something to do with either seeing how other people vote to ascertain if they are spys or not, or sowing discord if the leader is a spy themself.
Can you provide some specific examples where a leader might do this?

Scenario 1:
It is round 2 of a 6-player game, so 3 players are needed for the mission. Alice (loyal) is the leader and strongly (but silently) suspects Bob of being a traitor, perhaps due to a "tell". Carol also suspects Bob and is strongly saying so, and Bob is playing offended.
Alice nominates all three of herself, Bob, and Carol for the mission. She knows that Carol will vote no and will vote no herself, so if even one other member is skeptical the vote will fail. Meanwhile, Alice carefully watches the votes from Donald, Elaine, and Frank. A yes vote, especially a single yes vote, is a suggestion that one of those players is a co-spy; not an ironclad proof, but a possibly-important hint.
Scenario 2:
Same situation, but in this game Alice is a spy. Carol's suspicions about Bob are baseless. Alice still goes through the motions of this charade even though Bob and Carol are both loyal, to throw off suspicion that would arise because she is not going through her typical plan.

Scenario 1 would run a real risk that the other three players will all vote yes, and Bob is on the mission.

That's true. You have to pick your risks; there's also the risk that Alice's read on Bob is incorrect. Another part of the game is guessing/reading/learning from experience whether at least one of the other players will vote the mission down.

Sometimes it works as an information-gathering gambit. You nominate a team, then vote it down hoping it fails, but taking note of who voted for it. What to make of those votes of course depends a lot on playstyle and whether the vote passed or not.
If you are under heavy suspicion, you might either pull the above gambit or pretend to just so you don't take anyone down (or in the case of a spy, take the wrong people down) with you.
To manipulate the turn order. If using The Plot Thickens, you might intentionally tank a vote just to manipulate who gets plot cards on a future turn. In particular, it lets you skip over a suspected spy if the team can still afford to vote down two teams in a row. Speaking of which, this can also be a prelude to a spy victory by five failed votes (No Confidence and Strong Leader can set this up)

At the start of the game, the resistance has the advantage of numbers and the spies have the advantage of knowledge. The core tactic of the resistance is to reduce the spies' advantage by making as much knowledge public as is possible. One of the biggest pieces of public knowledge is what teams are proposed, and how people vote for them. As such, in the groups that I play with, it's extremely common in the first round for leaders to genuinely propose teams, and then vote against them.
In addition, if the game comes down to the last mission, then obviously resistance needs a perfect team to win. Hence any resistance member not on the team must vote against it, as should any resistance member who is on the team but suspects that there are still spies on it. If there are two resistance members coming up as consecutive leaders (and they're reasonably convinced of each other's alignment), then the first can propose a team that includes both of them on it, and vote against it. If anyone not on the team votes for it, that's pretty good evidence they've just outed themselves as a spy, otherwise you can feel more confident about the team and the next leader can propose the exact same team.

I thought I'd add a scenario I thought of.
Alice is the leader. Bob is accusing Charlie of being a spy. Alice suspects that Charlie isn't a spy, but Bob is, and is trying to sow seeds of discord.
Alice, without making a deal of it (pretends to ignore/not notice Bob's arguements) assigns Alice, Bob and Charlie to the team.
If Bob really was Resistance, and was genuine about accusing Charlie, then Bob will vote against this assignment. If he votes for it, he probably is a spy.

To counterpoint the other answers, which are all great.
The leader might be the sort of person that has a policy of voting down every 1st (and 2nd, and 3rd) proposal on a mission.
The leader might be using some random or algorithmic method to determine how to vote.
Yes - I've seen these and more...


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Magic the Gathering for very young kids
I have a ton of MTG cards sitting around and an urge to use them again.  I also have a 4 year old son.
I'm sure he won't appreciate my B/G infect deck or the rules of the game in general lol.
I'm trying to think of ways to use my stockpile for games with him.  So far the only thing I can come up with is to cut down deck sizes to 15-20 all monster cards with equal power\toughness.  So a bunch of 1/1-4/4's and we can run monsters into each other to let him figure out which numbers are bigger.
The post here is kind of related but it's focused on older kids that can read and do real math already.
Can anyone else think of something fun to do with a megaton of old MTG cards for pre-school age kids?
EDIT:  And to clarify, I'm looking for non-destructive ideas.  I'm positive I'm going to get a few bent corners in this process but no glue\scissor projects please!  lol

I'm sorry, but I have to vote to close this as a game recommendation question. You're asking for fun games to play with a particular kind of game piece, just like someone might ask for fun playing card games or dice games.

It's about augmenting the idea of the original game into something that a 4 year old can handle.
Is there a better outlet for this kind of question?

I see your point, but the game you describe (a deck with only creature cards, creatures fighting each other) removes almost all of the existing elements of Magic. Unfortunately, I don't know a better place to ask something like this. Perhaps the Magic subreddit.

The closest question I can figure out that would nearly be answerable would be "How young should I attempt to start my children on MTG" but event that is purely subjective. Personally I think you should hold off on MTG until they are old enough to tackle it all. If you must, play some version of snap.

I started playing with my dad in kindergarten. We would mainly play mono color decks and starter decks. I would play with my hand facing up so my dad could help me and in a year or so I was able to play by myself (although still not well). I liked playing like this, and as long as you don't mind play against yourself I would suggest it.


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Tap/Untap Land and Casting Spells
This is along a similar vain to What happens when I cast a spell incorrectly? but only in that it created a further question.
At what point is it possible to decide that you don't want to cast a spell?
It's a very bad habit i know but i often find myself taping mana for a spell then thinking better of it. I've always just gone along with it after that, i followed through the action even if i see a better option but would it be right that i could change my mind and untap my land to carry out a different action?
What if i don't tap my land but simply drop a spell from my hand to the table without saying anything? Is the casting of that card implicit or would it be right that i could return the card to my hand?
Example - I have 3 cards in hand and 4 untaped land. I tap 3 land for a spell, then without saying anything or placing a card on the table i decide that really i want to cast a spell that only requires 1 land to be taped. Would i be allowed to untap either 2 and cast my 1 mana spell or all 3 land and start again?
Sorry that's more than one question! Thanks, 7's

Are we talking about among friends or at competition level?

Well amongst friends i'd say most anything goes, unless practicing for a competition who gets that strict right?

Absolutely, "Oh wait, no... I don't do that, I tap this instead..." happens all the time with us. Sadly I've never competed so I can't really speak for that side, but... if you cast a spell or tap mana then immediately undo it I think that should be fair, if you tap mana or cast a spell then wait for a second to see if your opponent reacts, then undo it, that I'd call cheating. I'm likely wrong but I'm guessing it's all down to the judges at that point.

If your mana pool didn't have the necessary mana before you started casting, you could forgo producing the mana while casting the spell, leaving you unable to pay the cost and the casting would be undone. This is covered here. That said, I'm not sure how that would fly in a tournament.

@ikegami i'll update the question and make it clearer

Basic lands have hidden text that is no longer printed on them. It reads as follows.

Tap: Add [color] to your mana pool.

This is an activated ability. If you announce that you are activating that ability, and then tap your land, then you have activated that ability. You cannot undo an activated ability.
What if I tap a land, don't announce it, take an action, and then change my mind?
Most people don't announce that they are activating the mana ability on a land. They simply tap it. I had an opponent that tapped all of his land and announced Sphinx's Revelation for 6. I responded with Skullcrack. My opponent claimed that he had not announced his land activations yet. I called a judge. I personally experienced a Competitive REL floor judge tell that opponent that his intention was obviously to activate the mana abilities, whether or not they were explicitly announced.
Player intention is often a consideration in judge rulings.
What if I tap a land, don't announce it, take no action, and then change my mind?
You tapped your lands, but you didn't announce it, and you haven't cast anything. I call this "fiddling" with lands. There is nothing in the comprehensive rules, the regular REL rules, or the competitive REL rules that address this. Some unqualified sources on the Internet say you can take it back. Others say you cannot. In general, if the MTG rules do not permit something, it is not permitted.
What I do know is that MTGO allows you to "undo" your land activations, and that top 8 at Grand Prix's and feature matches from StarCityGames tournaments streaming on Twitch.tv have all shown untapping of lands without a judge intervening. In other words, even the top level judges allow untapping lands, as long as you haven't taken any action since you tapped it and nothing triggered when you tapped it.

I think the main reason they allow you to untap lands is that lands are PRIMARILY tapped as part of casting a spell or paying some cost. There's no real reason(outside of manabarbs at 1 when you want to bolt them) to float the mana before casting. So thus they assume if you didn't cast anything, then you didn't actually activate the mana ability.

@Cruncher Thanks. Added exception (at the very bottom of the answer) for things that trigger on tap.

Tapping can also be used to accumulate mana in the pool. After that one can untap the lands with some ability (for example a Planeswalker's) and reuse them to get extra mana.

@Rusher Thanks for that, that's really useful to know. I'll obviously try to avoid doing this anyway but at least i wont feel like i MUST then use mana once a land is turned sideways.

@Gendolkari Thanks for the edit, but I prefer the card tag links (i.e., [mtg:Sphinx's Revelation]) to regular links.


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Will a copied spell trigger Prowess?
If I cast Howl of the Horde and then cast a Collateral Damage, I know that I do not need to sacrifice additional creatures for the copies based on this question. However, does each new copy trigger Prowess?

Possible duplicate of Do I need to sacrifice again if I copy Goblin Grenade?

@DrunkCynic The second part of the OP's question isn't answered in the suggested duplicate. Maybe an edit to eliminate the first part and point toward the duplicate, while leaving the second part open.

Collateral damage says:

As an additional cost to cast Collateral Damage ...

Comprehensive Rule 706.10 says:

To copy a spell ... means to put a copy of it onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn’t cast. ...

Per 706.10, the copy of Collateral Damage isn't cast, so you don't have to pay the cost again.
Copying a spell does not trigger Prowess. Prowess triggers when you cast a spell, and, as we previously discovered, copied spells are not cast. A ruling on Howl of the Horde reiterates what we have concluded:

... Each copy is created on the stack, so it’s not “cast.” Abilities that trigger when a player casts a spell won’t trigger. ...

Some cards actually copy the card (not the spell) and have you cast the copied card. Panoptic Mirror is a good example. Just to be clear, this would trigger Prowess.

Note that some effects that seem like they are "copying spells" do actually cast. In the case of Isochron Scepter and Panoptic Mirror, a card is copied and then the copy is cast. (since you can't "copy" a card from exile onto the stack)

@HaoYe That is an interesting note, so I included it.

From the card rulings:

9/20/2014: [...] Each copy is created on the stack, so it's not "cast". Abilities that trigger when a player casts a spell won't trigger.

Since the copy isn't "cast", you don't have to pay attention to any abilities saying "as an additional cost to cast [card]...". This also means that prowess does not trigger.


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Is there a standard way to number the faces of a 20-sided die?
I hold a 20-sided die (icosahedron) in my hand. As with any other die, to help fairness, values on opposing sides sum to twice the mean (as explained here).
I know that in a "normal" 6-sided die, there are norms about the numbering order (as mentioned here). My question is this: is there any standard way of numbering the faces of the 20-sided die? For example, is 1 always between 7, 13 and 19? (these are the values that I see in the die that I am holding at the moment). If so: can you see a reasoning?
Some reasoning would be the take further step the effort to make it fair; however, I don't have any rule in mind that will achieve this end.
Finally: if there is no standard, is there any set of standard ways? For example, I can't imagine anyone putting 2 just next to 1, right?
(this question may be asked about other die types as well...)

I assume that we are speaking about a D20 that makes some attempt to roll fairly, such as the ones used in D&D. This is different from the aptly named "spindown" D20 which is numbered in a simple spiral.
Why do opposing faces add up to 21?
According to Everything2.com's article on D20, opposing sides add up to 21 so that the numbers most distant from each other to appear on opposite sides of the die.
Ok, now we have 10 pairs of 21. How do we arrange them?
If you are engraving the numbers, you'll have to carve out more material for some numbers than for others. The more you dig out, the lighter that side becomes.
Everything2 advises that we arrange these pairs in a way that heavy sides are next to light sides, but they provide no actual arrangement. In fact, I cannot find any actual mathematics behind what the best possible arrangement actually is. After a substantial amount of searching, I have concluded that the "standard" arrangement we know today probably originated from D&D, but I can't back this up.
Speaking of standard arrangement, here is the actual answer to your question.

Image from DiceCollector.com

This article had a lot to say about randomness which I think factors into why they are made the way they are made.

Is there any standard way of numbering the faces of the 20-sided die?

There is no industry-wide standard for mapping numbers 1...20 across the faces of a regular icosahedral d20 die. Manufacturers have used several configurations. Their choices appear in dice collections here and
here.

If there is no standard, is there any set of standard ways?

The term "standard die" is often used as a generic term to refer to a die which implements the opposite-faces convention: values on opposite faces sum to one more than the number of faces. In the case of the d20, the sum is 21. Since so many dice makers use this convention, it might be considerd to be the de facto standard; however, this convention says nothing about how the face pairs are distributed across the die. Actually, the term "standard die" refers to a member of the set of dice which implement the opposite-faces convention. Rainbolt refers to one such member with a net from the Dice Collector; Bosch, Fathauer, and Segerman offer another net from the same set. In these two cases and others, different numbers surround face "20":

ChessexGameStop
Bosch et al.
GameScience
Spindown

2 14208
16 62010
2 10203
16 192013

Bosch et al. offered a thought experiment to explain how the opposite-faces convention preserves averages for imperfectly shaped dice. In a word, they explained how the convention mitigates oblateness.

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

Bosch et al. suggested just such a rule. They argued that there are additional measures which manufacturers could take to make d20s which are even more numerically balanced. They offered additional thought experiments to support numerically balanced vertex sums and numerically balanced face sums to mitigate the presence of an air bubble. They stated a mathematical optimization problem and coded an integer program (IP) to solve it. They found an optimal solution with numerically balanced vertices and faces.
The Combinatorics
To see how large this optimization problem is, start counting configurations. There are 20!=2432902008176640000 ways to map numbers 1...20 onto the faces of the regular icosahedral d20 die, but many of these configurations are rotationally equivalent. The size of the rotational symmetry group |G|=60. So, there are
20!/|G| = 2432902008176640000/60
        = 40548366802944000

rotationally distinct configurations of the d20 die. This count includes mirror images. In a perfect world, dice makers may choose any one of the many rotationally distinct configurations; however, the world is not perfect. The opposite-faces convention helps to mitigate some of that imperfection. How many configurations implement the opposite-faces convention?

There are 20 ways to place "1" on an arbitrary face; this placement determines the placement of "20" on the opposite face.
There are 18 ways to place "2" on one of the remaining faces; this placement determines the placement of "19" on the opposite face.
...
Finally, there are 2 ways to place "10" on one of the remaining faces; this
placement determines the placement of "11" on the opposite face.

So, there are
20!!/|G| = (20*18*16*14*12*10*8*6*4*2)/60
         = 3715891200/60
         = 61931520

rotationally distinct configurations implementing the opposite-faces convention
. This count includes the mirror images. Among these are (an unknown number of?) configurations with balanced vertices and faces. With a computer search, Bosch et al. found one of them. This configuration appears on the mass market as the Magic-numbered d20 and on a 3D-printed d20 as the ENUMERATED BALANCED ICOSAHEDRON.
I end with a simple question. Among the 61,931,520 "standard d20s", how many implement balanced vertices and faces? Is the configuration which Bosch et al. found the only one?

You get somewhat more combinations if you consider the orientation of each number with each face. It scales the number up by a factor of 3^19 (~ 1 billion). I doubt these would affect the balance of the die much, but they are in some sense still distinct configurations.

And even number sides dice is numbered counter pairing sequentially, said differently, they are accessing and descending   opposite in series.
1=20 (1)
2=19 (2)
3=18 (3)
... so forth and so on.
Odd dice, I am sure they’re is a mathematical gimmic that always “adds” to some number and using a direction to do the formula.

This doesn't actually address the question asked - it shows that d20s follow the standard convention, opposite sides add up to 21, but not if there is a standard pattern, IE 1 is always next to 19 which is always next to 3, etc.

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

Your answer here is just restating part of the question "values on opposing sides sum to twice the mean" covers your answer. It also does work for a 10 sided, 1 and 10 are opposite, 2 and 9, 3 and 8 etc. This is in fact done with all gaming dice, where opposite sides add up to twice the mean, or n+1 (same number, as the mean on a d6 is 3.5, a d20 is 10.5 etc)


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Where can I find a printer for a budget game board?
I'm trying to get a board printed for a game I'm making. Are there any companies/websites that can provide this service relatively cheaply?
Ideally, each board would cost $5 or less. The material only needs to last long enough for people to understand how the game works, and this is only for small scale production and sale of 100 units or so.
The board is a two-sided board for a card-based game, and it can either be one foldable piece or two pieces. The cards will be poker size, and the board should be at minimum six card slots across in dimension, meaning at least 381mm wide.

How do you define 'cheap'?  Would a $500 3d printer be cheap? Do you want to spend under $5?  Also, is this for proof of concept or for mass production?

Cheap is <$5 a board ideally, the design is very simple and the material only needs to last long enough for people to understand how the game works. The purpose is for small scale production and sale, only about 100 units or so
Thanks!

@user6802 I've made a guess at the dimensions you mean, but it seems there is not only one poker size, so "six poker cards wide" is not a specific measurement. If the measurement's important (it might be!) I advise you to mention a specific measurement. Also, bear in mind it should probably be a couple of centimetres wider than the cards, since some padding would be helpful.

Why not submit your game to a publisher?

Try this site , they can produce a lot of material for board game and after you can even use their online store for the distribution.
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/

Taken from an answer to another question (Board game boxes)...
http://www.boardgamedesign.com/pages/goshopping.htm
I'm behind a firewall and can't find other links, but this at least seems like a start.


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Is pile shuffling considered slow play?
Pile shuffling does not randomize a deck. Except during pregame, where pile shuffling allows players to count the number of cards in the deck, it might be considered a waste of time, and therefore considered slow play.
I see tons of players pile shuffle at large tournaments. I watch them pile shuffle while totally engulfed by hordes of judges because they are playing on camera. I always pile shuffle my deck during pregame to count cards. I pile shuffle my opponent's deck to do the same.
Is pile shuffling at a Magic: the Gathering tournament considered slow play, during pregame or otherwise?
This question is related to the question about Mana Weaving. The difference between the two questions is the actual, real-world experience I have at tournaments and watching video coverage. I've seen judges ask a players to stop mana weaving. I've never seen a judge ask a player to stop pile shuffling. So even though I would expect the answers to be the same from a strict rules standpoint, the answers appear to be different in reality.
If the answer depends on the REL, please answer for both Regular and Competitive.

As the referenced "other user", I think I should mention the discussion may have been about mana weaving, not pile shuffling. Mana weaving should have no effect when followed by proper shuffling. That means 1) it's a waste of time, 2) it's an attempt to cheat (you want it to have an effect), and 3) it creates a perverse incentive to not shuffle correctly.

When I have time later today I'll see what I can find in the Judge Resources, a quick search isn't finding anything obvious but I may just be missing something right now.

Pruning comments.  Folks, I would suggest trying to recognize when you have crossed over from offering helpful suggestions to possible annoyance.

I also deleted several comments that could have been answers.  This isn't the right place for them.

@Jefromi, I consider the following to be the question: According to the TR, pile shuffling doesn't randomize. ("Pile shuffling alone is not sufficiently random.") As such, if you pile shuffle when you are suppose to shuffle your deck, you are wasting time rather than performing the action you are suppose to be doing. Do judges issue Slow Play penalties for this?

@ikegami I see - for what it's worth, the reason I didn't understand that from the question is that it explicitly mentions pile shuffling for the purpose of counting cards, not as a shuffling method. (So I thought the question might be if that was slow play.)

There's an important technicality you are mistaking in your post, it's not that pile shuffling does not randomise a deck, it's that pile shuffling does not sufficiently randomise a deck. By itself it does nothing but it does increase the effectiveness of some other shuffling techniques.

The tournament rules now clearly cover pile shuffling:

Pile shuffling alone is not sufficiently random and may not be performed more than once any time a deck is being randomized.

The description from the update bulletin explains a bit more:

Section 3.9 (Shuffling): This change has to do with "pile shuffling." Pile shuffling alone is not a sufficiently random form of shuffling. Update states that a player may only pile shuffle once each time a deck is randomized. The one pile shuffle is allowed in order to count the number of cards in the deck.

So, pile shuffle once, and you're okay, as long as you still actually shuffle your deck - it will not be considered slow play. Pile shuffling more than once would be against the rules, though it's not clear whether it'd be deemed slow play or just improper shuffling.

As far as I can tell, there is no rule that states that pile shuffling is unequivocally slow play or not slow play.  As your question hints at, it depends on the judge and circumstances.  If it is obvious someone is trying to waste time to force a match draw it would (or should, in my opinion) be called slow play.  If it isn't hurting anything, I doubt it would get called.  The slow play rule is to keep people from taking an excessively long time to do something (either for personal gain, ie forcing a draw, or to stop analysis paralysis).
Mana weaving is different in that it can only, at best, be a time waster.  (If you are properly shuffling, it won't do anything.)  At worst, it is a form of cheating because you are trying to stack your deck.  In either case, it is best to avoid even the appearance that a tournament is allowing something that could be called cheating when that behavior has no possible legitimate use.

This type of shuffling is usually done at the start of the game. How can you tell if it'll hurt anything?

@ikegami If you do it once at the start of a match, it's probably fine.  If you do it 6 times every time you tutor or crack a fetch land and there is 30 seconds left on the round clock and you are losing, that's different.  Granted I will never be able to predict when the loss of a second here and there will change anything.  That's why the judges are there and why the correct ruling would have to be based on context.  I could replace "pile shuffling" with "shuffling in a slow manner" and the answer is the same.  If a judge thinks you are taking too long, they call it.  That's up to them tho.

Re <<I could replace "pile shuffling" with "shuffling in a slow manner" and the answer is the same.>>, No, it's not. Pile shuffling isn't randomizing, so you aren't doing what you are suppose to be doing. You are purely wasting time. You still need to randomize your deck afterwards, which you may or may do slowly.

"trying to waste time to force a draw" is Cheating - Stalling.  "Slow Play" is by definition unintentional.

Pile shuffling one time before a game starts is not slow play.  Pile shuffling has a way of significantly transforming the starting configuration of your deck and washing away all patterns that used to exist due to clumping (while possibly introducing new and very different-looking patterns).  Because it is deterministic, it can have a way of putting the final configuration of your deck into a predictable pattern if the starting configuration was known and easily memorized.  This is why, if you rig your deck between rounds, and immediately go into a pile shuffle when you first sit down for a match, you can use it to stack your deck or mana weave (i.e. cheat).  But if you perform even one riffle shuffle before you begin pile shuffling, then all of the deterministic aspects of pile shuffling are negated and it can't be effectively used in any cheat (other than possibly rigging the top / bottom card of your deck).
An aside about randomization: if the final configuration of a deck is even a little bit influenced by the starting configuration of the deck, then it is not randomized.  For instance if a Dark Ritual was adjacent to a Phyrexian Negator, and they remained adjacent during your entire shuffling ritual, then it is not randomized.  If your deck starts out with a better-than-random mana distribution, and you perform a series of riffle shuffles in which it consistently sustains a better-than-random mana distribution after each shuffle, then it is not randomized.
So anyways, my studying of deck randomization has revealed that dozens of riffle shuffles are less effective at washing away the starting patterns of a deck's configuration than a single riffle shuffle followed by a pile shuffle.  This is especially so because some sleeves tend to stick together a bit, and are capable of sticking together through the course of quite many riffle shuffles, therefore tenaciously preserving information about the starting configuration of the deck.  A lazy riffle shuffle that interweaves large clumps of cards can fail to erase certain deck configuration properties, such as weaved mana (i.e. if your deck is perfectly mana weaved, and then you perform a loose riffle that drops clumps of 8 cards at a time, you will likely find that the deck is still highly mana weaved) or combo cards that are adjacent to one another.  That is why I would say that a mixture of riffle and pile shuffling is not a slow way of randomizing your deck, but actually a faster way of really randomizing it.  If you can fully randomize your deck at the beginning of a match in under 3 minutes, then you should not be worried about violating slow play rules.  However, magic's historical convention for sufficient randomization required at least 3 riffle shuffles, and I would not recommend any shuffling algorithm in which fewer than 3 riffle shuffles are executed (regardless of what additional actions you are performing instead).
Performing more than one pile shuffle creates numerous issues.  First, it can be used to mana weave a deck.  Second, there is a way to perform two pile shuffles in a row such that it restores the deck back to its original configuration before you started the pile shuffle, and if you also rigged the order of your deck before the match begin, then this would execute the ultimate cheat -- the fully stacked deck from top to bottom.  Third, two pile shuffles is just as deterministic as one pile shuffle, and does not provide any greater randomness, nor any greater ability to separate adjacent cards than a single pile shuffle provides.  Fourth, two pile shuffles takes twice as long as one pile shuffle.
Another thing to consider is the timing of a pile shuffle.

Since a deck's state at the beginning of a match is not known to be random, and could in fact be rigged, significant randomization effort should be taken before the first game begins.  This is the time in which a pile shuffle is most justified.  A pile shuffle is more likely to be an authentic attempt at randomization and not a cheat if at least one riffle is performed first.
Once players are done with their opening randomization rituals, provided that a player does not like their opening hand and proceeds to mulligan it, their follow-up randomization ritual should not be as long as the first one.  This is because the deck has already been sufficiently randomized once (and if it wasn't, then they already violated a rule), the player has no way of knowing whether the rest of their deck is also badly clumpy, aside from being slightly skewed by subtraction of the 7 cards they did see (unless they do know, which means they know their deck wasn't sufficiently randomized, which violates a rule).  So the follow-up shuffling ritual is starting from a fairly randomized point, and should not take significantly more randomization to get it to a new randomized state (in other words, a second pile shuffle at this point is not justifiable).  Some players indeed get away with pile shuffling after taking a mulligan, but I think a judge would at least look at the total context of how the match is progressing, if either player is up a game, how long the entire shuffling ritual is taking, and the pace of play.
Once a game begins, if a player is forced to shuffle their deck due to a game rule such as sacrificing a fetchland, then a pile shuffle is very much not justifiable, and could well be considered stalling.  Some decks require to be shuffled dozens of times per match due to game rules like fetchlands, tutors, etc.; and a one-minute shuffling ritual for each game rule for each player could all by itself eat-up more than the match's allotted time, which is why you should strive to get some riffle shuffling done efficiently and very quickly.
After each player performs sideboarding, it is likely that they have seen the exact configuration of their deck (but it is unlikely that they are capable of memorizing it).  It is possible that they picked-up the cards from their previous game in a way that simulates a partial mana weave.  The player might have inserted their sideboard cards into their deck in an even distribution.  All of this puts their deck in a more favorable than random state.  However, it is not a state that is rigged well enough to then mana weave it using a pile shuffle.  Since it is currently in a more favorable than random state, two strategically executed pile shuffles would preserve the current order of the deck, and produce an end result that is more favorable than random (therefore, two pile shuffles at this point could be used for cheating).  In other words, the deck is in a state that is less random than when players take their first mulligan, but more random than when they sit down for a match, so a reasonable shuffling ritual here should be one that is just slightly faster than the beginning of match's shuffling ritual (i.e. 0-1 pile shuffles and several riffles).  There is no reason why a riffle shuffle would be obligatory before a pile shuffle at this point, provided that the player did not have an opportunity to rig their deck in all-lands and all-spells clumps.  Depending on the total context of the match's progress, you can probably get away with a 3-minute shuffling ritual at this point, but my personal belief is that it should be capped at closer to 2.5 minutes.

On another note related to cheating with pile shuffling, I should say that at an event with a REL level, you might fail a deck check if you sit down for a match with a deck that is already in a rigged state (i.e. all spells on top and all lands on bottom).

Interesting point about clearing away physical issues/stickiness, but to say that a pile shuffle doesn't preserve ordering after a single riffle shuffle is false. You know less only because of the riffle, but you still have more information than random. Ignoring physical issues, however, you mention that adding a pile shuffle to a series of riffle shuffles improves the ability to break up segments. However, since pile shuffling adds apparent randomness but no actual randomness, this is a perceptive bias. ~

~ Thus if a pile shuffle, in general, seems to improve the randomness of your shuffle, then your shuffle is not sufficiently randomising the deck. A pile shuffle has no impact on the randomness of the deck. The problem with pile shuffling is that, if people learn (as you observe) that throwing in pile shuffling improves the apparent randomness of their normal shuffling, then they never learn/take the effort to carry out shuffling that leads to results that are sufficiently random.

Welcome to Board & Card Games SE, John! Great observation about the physical issue of sleeves adhering to each other.

It's good to challenge the premise of a question (in this case, that pile shuffling does nothing to randomize a deck), but I don't agree that one riffle and one pile shuffle is better at randomization than dozens of riffles. It's a fact that pile shuffling is deterministic. You found false success with this method because you incorrectly defined success as "eliminating starting patterns". I can eliminate starting patterns too by pile shuffling a deck of 30 lands followed by 30 spells into a deck that is perfectly alternating lands and spells.

This is the type of thing that is abstract enough that it will depend on the judgement calls of judges at a specific event. I can imagine situations where this can be true and untrue.
So for instance, if you are in match 6 at a Grand-Prix and the match is tied up one game a piece. It suddenly becomes clear to one player that he cannot win anymore and suddenly he wants to pile shuffle every time his opponent cracks a fetch land, then it is very much against the rules. He is wasting time to gain an advantage by getting the match to go to time.

I see tons of players pile shuffle at large tournaments. I watch them
  pile shuffle while totally engulfed by hordes of judges because they
  are playing on camera. I always pile shuffle my deck during pregame to
  count cards. I pile shuffle my opponent's deck to do the same.

Pile shuffling your opponents deck at a competitive level may pose a problem. That does seem rather redundant. I would think it better for players to just pile shuffle their own decks and if need be just to do a quick "regular" shuffle of their opponents deck.
On the other hand, pile shuffling as part of the pre-game ritual is perfectly fine. It is not uncommon for the shuffling done between games to take a few minutes. You will often see players pile shuffling at a good speed to make it perfectly clear that they are not wasting any time to gain some sort of advantage.

Pile shuffling does not randomize a deck. Except during pregame, where
  pile shuffling allows players to count the number of cards in the
  deck, it might be considered a waste of time, and therefore considered
  slow play.

A waste of time is not the standard for why slow play is illegal. There are actual cards that do nothing else than shuffle your deck. Truly a waste of time but if you play these cards at a tournament no one is going to call a judge because of your miser cards.

I am terrible at expressing my thoughts in maths, but the idea with pile shuffling before or after randomisation is likely to be a way of proving that you're not attempting to cheat.
Even if you're able to remember a certain order of 60 cards, pile shuffling will rearrange the order of every single one of those 60 cards. Suppose you are able to memorise the order in which your 60 cards are at point A. Now perform a pile shuffle. You now need to shift the position of every single one of those 60 cards by x and remember the new order. Now perform another shuffling technique. Even if the second technique is not one that does sufficient randomisation either, you will still need to shift those 60 cards by another amount y on top of the shift by x. Now add a third method on top of that, shifting once again, now by amount z. I suppose it is possible to know the new order of the cards, but highly unlikely.
This does not even take into account what will happen if one of your 3 methods is actually one that DOES actually randomise the order of the cards instead of simply shifting them around.
This is what I feel is meant by the rules when they state sufficiently randomised. They don't have to be actually randomised, they simply have to be jumbled enough that it is unlikely that you still had significant influence over the order and position of the cards.

I don't agree with this answer. Remembering 60 cards is hard, but what if you only track one card? That's easy. It wouldn't take a genius to track a single card across fifty pile shuffles. As the rules say, if either player knows the location of a single card, the deck is not randomized (sufficiently or otherwise). Therefore, pile shuffling does not randomize the deck (sufficiently or otherwise).

I was hoping it would illustrate my point that it increases the effectiveness of subsequent randomisation. Indeed it is possible to track a single card through pile shuffles, but all 60? Any method that will allow you to know the result of the shuffle assumes knowing the exact order in which all the cards are. By pile shuffling, this becomes exponentially more difficult.

Mash shuffling is equally as effective if you know the starting locations of all sixty as it is if you know only one. Another way to state this is that knowing the starting locations of all sixty locations does not make mash shuffling less effective. A third way to write this is to simply point out that "If I know the starting locations of less cards, then the effectiveness of Mash Shuffling increases." is a non sequitur. I wrote it three different ways because I can't afford to continue another comment discussion. I'll leave the rest to voters.

Here's one reason why pile shuffling is not randomization, even if a player does not remember the position of any of the cards: if a player has a 60 card deck with 20 lands (for simplicity), and before starting to shuffle, they put all of their lands on top, and then they do a 10 card pile shuffle, they will be guaranteed to have 2 lands every 6 cards. Even without knowing where any single card is, they know the layout of the deck. With a little math, someone could keep track of where all the lands are across an arbitrary number of pile shuffles.

This is sort of true in that if you were going to inadequately shuffle, adding a random pile shuffle might well improve the randomization slightly. But the whole point is that you're supposed to shuffle adequately, so it doesn't matter.


text:
Why does rule 608.2b counter Last Word, when Last Word can't be countered?
After reading Can uncounterable spells still be countered somehow?, I am confused by a conflict between two of Magic's rules. At risk of being labelled a duplicate, I want to cover this edge case in more detail than answers to the other questions would, because the other question is very broad. Here's the situation:
Last Word can't be countered by spells or abilities.
According to the top answer on the aforementioned question, Last Word can be countered by rule 608.2b if it has no legal targets. This could happen by using Redirect to change the target of Last Word to Redirect.

608.2b [...] The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal.

I think this is wrong. Last Word can't be countered. The card's text directly conflicts with rule 608.2b. Therefore, rule 101.1 applies.

101.1. Whenever a card's text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. [...]

By rule 101.1, Last Word has precedence. It seems like it would not be countered by game rules. Instead, I think it would resolve, and rule 101.3 would apply:

101.3. Any part of an instruction that's impossible to perform is ignored.

An illegal target can't be countered, and so that instruction would be ignored. That happens to be all that Last Word does, and so the spell would resolve with no effect. The conclusion I arrived at is not the conclusion arrived at in the answer to the other question. It would make a difference if, for example, the spell had other non-targeting effects that were still possible to perform.
Why does rule 608.2b counter Last Word, and why does rule 101.1 not apply?

I honestly don't see why this is not a duplicate of the question you linked to. You still seem to be asking whether there is anything that can counter Last Word, which is exactly what the other question is asking.

@murgatroid99 Not anything. Specifically rule 608.2b.

Asking whether a specific thing can counter it should be, and indeed is, answered by the question asking whether anything can counter it.

@murgatroid99 That statement is logically false. "Something can counter Last Word. Therefore, rule 608.2b can counter Last Word." is a non-sequitur. The answer to the broader question did not, and does not, answer my specific question.

I phrased my last comment poorly. The other question asks what ways there are of countering it. A complete answer to that will include 608.2b if it can counter it, and will not include it otherwise. Either way, any complete answer to that question answers this one.

This is indisputably a duplicate.

@Rainbolt There's another point I wanted to make: your question essentially boils down to "This answer on another question made a statement I disagree with. Is that statement actually correct?" On this site, the proper way to deal with such disagreements is to either post a comment, as you indicate that you intend to do, or post your own answer with your own interpretation.

@Rainbolt We are bent on closing for the exact reason murgatroid just described.

To whomever downvoted, please consider that downvotes are for questions that show a lack of effort on the part of the author, whereas close votes are for things like duplicate questions. If this was a poorly asked question with no research effort shown, please comment so that I may improve my ability to ask good questions.

@Rainbolt I downvoted the question for the simple reason that this question as a whole seems combative, asked primarily because you disagreed with the answers on the linked question. Keep in mind that downvoting questions has the additional purpose of marking the usefulness of a question.

@Waterseas Fair enough. I can see the question coming across as combative. It was definitely my intent to challenge a small portion of another answer.

@Rainbolt I would recommend doing so in the comments of the answer in the future, and if the discussion gets too length, simply move it to chat, and once things are resolved there, make a final conclusion comment on the answer.

@Waterseas Thanks for the advice. If I have small clarification questions, I will definitely ask them in comments, as I have always done. If I have large clarification questions, I'll separate them as I have done here. If others think that my larger clarification questions aren't quite large enough or distinguished enough, that's fine. At this point, I've accepted that others might find the two questions to be the same on too many levels. We don't all see it the same way, which is why we have voting.

Challenging a small portion of an answer is one of the main reasons comments exist. If that turns out to be a complicated issue, sure, ask another question, but as Waterseas said, why not comment first and at least see if it's simple? And now that it's clear that that your concern could be addressed by adding a tiny snippet to the answer on the other question ("608.2b is a rule, not a spell or ability, so it can still counter Last Word"), why not mark this a duplicate? The answer to that question can easily completely answer your question as well.

This is a good and well-asked question (so +1), but it's also answered pretty well by the answer on the linked question, and seems to be based on a small misunderstanding that answer's now clarified. Given the two questions cover about the same territory and the other's now clear, I've voted to close as a dupe.

608.2b is neither a spell nor an ability, it is a rule of the game, therefore it can counter Last Word. This is why all spells that can't be countered and have targets include the 'by spells or abilities' text, as opposed to Thrun, the Last Troll or Supreme Verdict which do not have targets and thus do not need that additional clause. They just say '~ can't be countered'
If it said 'Last Word can't be countered by spells, abilities, or game rules' 101.1 could apply, but it doesn't say that so 101.1 never applies.

facepalm I feel dumb now for asking this question. Slightly off topic, is there is no spell that can't be countered, has targets, and does not have the additional clause(s)?

@Rainbolt http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[%22can%27t%20be%20countered%22]+[target]+![%22by%20spells%20or%20abilities%22]

"is there is no spell that can't be countered, has targets, and does not have the additional clause(s)?" In fact, there was one such situation in the past. If you controlled a Root Sliver when you cast Nameless Inversion (or any other targeted instant/sorcery with Changeling), then strictly speaking it couldn't be countered even by 608.2b. The rules team quickly errata'd Root Sliver to add the "...By spells or abilities" clause, as soon as they noticed this interaction.

@Rainbolt I checked to see if you could make it work by using Cavern of Souls on a creature with bestow, but bestow makes the spell an aura instead of a creature so Cavern of Souls can't be used.

@Zags Though I can't think of a time when giving a bestow creature 'can't be countered' without the clause would matter since if their target is illegal bestows still resolve as a creature

@diego Ah yes.  Good old rule 702.102d.  Okay, maybe not "old".

I think you are forgetting two other rules here:

114.4. A spell or ability that is on the stack is an illegal target for itself.
114.6a. If an effect allows a player to "change the target(s)" of a spell or ability, each target can be changed only to another legal target. If a target can't be changed to another legal target, the original target is unchanged, even if the original target is itself illegal by then. If all the targets aren't changed to other legal targets, none of them are changed.

Basically, Redirect cannot change the target of Last Word to itself because a) a spell can't target itself, and b) even if it could target itself, Last Word cannot be countered and therefore would be an illegal target for itself anyway.
If something else happened like,for example, Last Word was used to counter a spell, then another player uses Dissolve on the same spell (so they can scry 1), then Last Word would have no legal target, you can consider it as resolving, because it cannot be countered, but it would have no effect as the target spell was already countered by a spell placed higher up on the stack.

Redirect can change the target of Last Word to Redirect (which is the situation in the question). Redirect cannot change the target of Last Word to Last Word.


text:
Does damage dealt by Searing Blood's delayed trigger cause Satyr Firedancer to trigger?
I found this unofficial ruling on Searing Blood, but it doesn't make sense to me. To sum up the question and the answer (in case of link rot):

Q: Does the damage dealt by Searing Blood's delayed trigger cause Satyr Firedancer to trigger?
A: No. The damage is dealt by a delayed trigger, which is not an instant or sorcery.*

The delayed trigger clearly says that Searing Blood deals 3 damage. Searing Blood is an instant. Therefore, I think Satyr Firedancer should trigger. Can someone explain why Satyr Firedancer would or would not trigger?
This question was prompted by a related one.

*
The judge reversed the ruling, but was kind enough to leave notes about it. Keep in mind that the paraphrased quote above reflects the original ruling.

It seems to me that the answer to your previous question should provide an answer to this question, one way or another.

Judges are not infallible....

@John I didn't claim judges were infallible. I just asked if the ruling is correct.

For what it's worth, I just emailed the judge and alerted her to the potential mistake, as politely as I am able. There's a possibility that this will prompt her to change the ruling, which means that we will have made the Internet a slightly better place. :)

I would hope that the existence of this question/answer pair would have already made the Internet a better place by clarifying the situation.

It looks like she has updated her answer, good job.

The ruling is incorrect. The source of the damage is the Searing Blood spell. When Searing Blood resolves, it creates a delayed triggered ability

When that creature dies this turn, Searing Blood deals 3 damage to the creature's controller.

The "Searing Blood" in the triggered ability refers to the spell Searing Blood, so when the triggered ability resolves, the spell is the source of the damage. Since the spell no longer exists, its last known information is used.

If the source of the damage is a delayed triggered ability, then the ruling is right.
But the source of the damage is not a triggered ability; it's Searing Blood ("Searing Blood deals ..."), and Searing Blood is an instant. (Triggered abilities don't even have names.)
Or at least it was an instant when it last existed. Having since been moved to the graveyard, the object no longer exists (which is perfectly fine), so Last Known Information is used. When it last existed, it was an instant, so the damage was dealt by an instant.

Is it even possible for a triggered ability (or an ability in general) to be the source of damage?

@GendoIkari, In theory, it isn't against the rules (abilities on the stack are objects). In practice, I think it's a concept Wizards wants to avoid. I seem to remember there was an accidental occurrence of this that was fixed.


text:
How can I find out when a specific comprehensive rule was introduced?
I wrote this answer, and I feel like it would benefit (slightly - it's not exactly a crucial part of the answer) from knowing when rule 706.4 was introduced. I feel that if I can find out when a rule was introduced, I can more easily research why it was introduced, and then I can write a better answer.
In general, how can I determine when a comprehensive rule was introduced?

related: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6508/how-can-i-tell-what-has-changed-in-a-comprehensive-rules-update

@diego Looks like I got tunnel vision with my search terms. Thank you for finding that.

I dunno, not 100% a duplicate; there are probably better ways than reading every rules update. There's the list murgatroid mentioned, or failing that you might rather binary search over past comprehensive rules.

2007-05-01 had it as 503.4. That's the oldest I have.

Voting to reopen after some discussion in chat. The other question wants all changes for a specific version. This question wants when a specific change occurred. Knowing the answer to the other question will eventually tell you the answer to this one, but maybe not in the most efficient manner possible.

To put it another way, the other question is about how to know what happened in a specific rules update, and this question is more about how to know what happened across all the rules updates.

Rule 706.4 was originally created as rule 503.4, and seems to have appeared between 1999 and 2001 - I haven't found any copies of rules between those two. (The renumbering happened in the July 11, 2009 rules update, which renumbered basically all the rules.)

If you have a really good idea when the rule you're looking for was introduced, Yawgatog's rules changes page (linked in murgatroid's answer) is great - for example, if you're looking for Bestow, just click on Theros and you'll see it among all the cleanly-presented diffs.
If you have a good keyword to search for, you can try this rules history forum thread, which summarizes past rule changes. For example, you can quickly find infect under Scars of Mirrodin. Unfortunately this page only goes up to 2012.
Failing those easy solutions, you can just binary search over past versions of the comprehensive rules, linked below.  Note that you can also do some smarter things - for example, you can download them all (and clean them up), and look for the pair where the diff matches what you're looking for. (I did this by making a git repository with a commit for each version of the rules, then using pickaxe search.)
Past comprehensive rules
While Wizards only links to the most recent version of the rules, all the old rules are still being served. I managed to find what looks like most of them since 1999.
These links currently all work, and given how old they are, it seems likely that they'll keep working - but should they ever break, archive.org should have crawled all of them.
These are all plaintext, except some in 2014, because Wizards only linked to docx and pdf versions then.
1999-04-23
2001-07-23 2001-09-24
2002-02-20 2002-10-07
2003-03-15 2003-07-01 2003-10-01 2003-12-01
2004-02-01 2004-06-01 2004-10-01
2005-02-01 2005-08-01 2005-10-01
2006-02-01 2006-05-01 2006-07-15 2006-10-01
2007-02-01 2007-05-01 2007-07-13 2007-09-07 2007-10-01
2008-02-01 2008-05-01 2008-07-15 2008-10-01
2009-02-01 2009-05-01 2009-07-11 2009-09-04 2009-10-01
2010-02-01 2010-04-23 2010-06-18 2010-07-16 2010-10-01
2011-02-04 2011-04-01 2011-05-01 2011-06-17 2011-07-15 2011-09-30
2012-02-01 2012-05-01 2012-06-01 2012-07-01 2012-10-01
2013-02-01 2013-05-01 2013-07-13 2013-09-27 2013-11-01
2014-02-01 2014-05-01 (pdf docx) 2014-06-01 (pdf docx) 2014-07-18 (pdf docx) 2014-09-26
2015-01-23 2015-03-27 2015-07-17 2015-09-26
2016-01-16 2016-04-08

For rules older than this, I couldn't find anything in a similar format. It looks like 1999 was the first time Wizards actually published clean plaintext rules like this.
However, archive.org has a copy of the rules page as of April 1999. There are several links there, including the base Fifth Edition rules, in a frame-based view (kind of tough to use, but it works), as well as the updates for Mirage, Tempest, Urza's Saga, and Sixth Edition. With all of those taken together, you'd end up with the same rules as in the text-format rules from April 1999 linked above, but since they're split, you can see what was added in each step.

That git repo sounds useful, could you put it somewhere public?

Most of the comprehensive rules links older than 2013 seem to have broken. I don't know if there are new URLs, or if there is some other website which archives the documents

One option is to use Yawgatog's rules changes list, which shows every rule that was changed in each set. Rules that were added in that set show up on the right entirely in blue text. Since rules sometimes get renumbered, you should also pay attention to other rules changes under 706. This still involves checking each set, but it's a lot faster than searching whole comprehensive rules versions.
Note that this only goes back to the original Ravnica block, so you won't find rules older than that.

The behaviour codified by 706.4 been in force since far longer than Ravnica (whether or not 706.4 was present then or not, since 706.4 is just a "reminder rule"). If the behaviour was different in the past, it was surely before 6th.

Re "but it's a lot faster than searching whole comprehensive rules versions", I disagree. Using Yawgatog's list is slow since it requires a linear search (up to 44 docs need to be read; 44 in this case, since the rule predates RAV), while you can employ a binary search to search the CRs (up to ceil(log2(44))=6 docs need to be read).

The site Academy Ruins has a rule trace utility that shows the changes to a single rule through the history of the Comprehensive Rules. Currently, it only goes back to Conspiracy.
For example, the rule in question is now numbered 707.4, and the trace for it shows that it was renumbered in the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms rules update.


text:
When is the game state checked for "Whenever you cast [...]" triggers?
When you cast a creature for its bestow cost:

When you begin casting, it is a Creature spell

We know this because Steel Golem prevents Bestow creatures from being cast

When you pay the alternative cost, it becomes an Aura spell
When it gets placed onto the stack, it is an Aura spell

Bestow triggers things like Prowess. See Matt Tabak's ruling on this subject. However, it does not trigger things like Karametra, God of Harvests' triggered ability. See the ruling on Karametra herself. The Karametra case is confusing to me, because at one point, you were casting a Creature spell, and at another point, you were casting an Aura spell. It seems like both should trigger. So my real question...
At exactly what points during the casting of a spell do triggered abilities check to see if they triggered?

There's just one point to check at, once the spell is fully cast:

601.2h Once the steps described in 601.2a–g are completed, the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time.

In those words, the triggers happen when a spell becomes cast. They don't look at the whole process, just that one moment, when everything is definitely okay (modes and targets chosen, all costs paid) and the spell is on the stack for good, with players about to get priority.
So no complexity with spells that change as they're being cast, no complexity with weird things happening while you're paying costs. Just check when you're done!

@Rainbolt Thanks, glad we got it worked out. Deleting some comments. (And VolleyJosh already had an upvote from me, at least!)

A spell is cast and will trigger any 'on cast' triggers when all of the steps of casting the spell are complete and it is on the stack

601.2h. Once the steps described in 601.2a-g are completed, the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put onto the stack trigger at this time.

At that point it only matter what the spell currently is. The game does not look back to the steps of playing the spell to see what it was at various points during the process.
Here are the steps required to cast a spell, detailed in 601. Casting Spells:

Announce (and place on stack)
Choose (modes)
Target  How (to divide)
Total (costs)
Mana (abilities, activate)
Pay (costs)