text:
What is the best way to print cards for my game?
I want to print cards for my game, without using a commercially-available site.  Basically, I'm looking for materials I could find in a store.
How do I make these cards in a work- and price-efficient way, making sure that they look nice afterward?
The cards should be able to be shuffled, much like poker cards.
I am building a Print and Play game, but so far I am not satisfied with the cards I was able to make. I tried printing them on thin paper and mounting on poker cards, and printing them on thicker paper. However both of these methods make the cards pretty much unfit for shuffling, since the paper goes off while shuffling. I saw that the game "Twilight Imperium" printed their cards on thin plastic. Is it possible to buy something like that and print directly onto the material?
tl;dr:
Mounting paper-printed cards on playing cards does not work.
Are there any good material out there that you can print on directly?

So this is an arts and crafts question?

hm in a sort yes. art and crafts concerning board games.

Don't forget to cut the corners in a round shape if you make cards. It may seem only decorative, but it's not. It will prevent the cards from being destroyed too fast.

Related question http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/3236/on-demand-cards-deck-printing-service (I know you're not looking for this, but probably good for others who arrive here.)

While one can't riffle-shuffle well, laminating 110# (110 pound) cardstock with Con-Tac brand vinyl does allow for hanafuda style shuffling, and works quite well. The resultant cards are tough, easily handled in play, and durable. (I did this for playtesting the Freemarket RPG.)
I've made decks of cards using 110#  card stock, and it's HEAVIER than most cheap poker cards; it lacks the plastic coating, tho, making it less smooth to riffle shuffle.
90# high-linen high-clay bond makes great cards; it's hard to find. Same issues as unlaminated cardstock.

You could use common card protectors like people use to protect cards from trading cards games (Magic, etc). What your stuff in there (printed cardboard, paper-glued-on-other-cards,...) then becomes pretty much irrelevant.
If not, what about photo printing services? Look for ones making postcards, you can probably easily fit 4 cards on a potcards and they ought to be rigid enough.

Commercial Printing on postcard stock, you're better off spending less to get more cards from a playing card POD shop. Less cost per card, less effort to make them playable.

+1 for card protectors. The re-usability is key, in my opinion. That and the fact that you can replace the card text on the fly in a clean way.

Especially if you are still playtesting sleeves are the way to go. Get a mess of Magic Land cards (or any defunct CCG) and just print on regular paper. Put a CCG card in the sleeve AND your piece of printed paper. Boom! Shuffleable, unmarked and easy to use.

I'm not sure if you'd be happy with proxy cards but among close friends this is considered acceptable. A proxy card consists of a card protector sleeve containing, typically, a basic land card. A printed (or drawn) facsimile of the desired card is cut to shape and inserted into the sleeve, in front of the "proxy" card. This allows a mix of real and proxy cards in a deck without being able to tell which is which.

In rereading this...
The materials to print cards are simple: Cardstock.
3 forms of cardstock are available readily:
letter sized or A4 sized (depending on location in the world) cardstock, usually in 50, 250, or 500 sheet packages.
Index cards
Business Card stock - usually in 10 sheet packs or 100 sheet packs.
All the above run through most laser printers just fine. Most go through most ink jets well, too.
When printing on a laser printer, the issue is that the toner will usually only bond well with one side.
On an ink jet, the issue varies by type of ink. Inks intended to be absorbed (often alcohol based) take some time to dry, and often, won't absorb into one side of a sheet of cardstock. Print a sheet, and set it aside, then print next. Wax-based inks usually leave a texture; they break off in shuffling, and are unsuitable for anything other than laminated or sleeved use.
One can "plastic coat" one's cards with a thin layer of hairspray or matte sealer. It lengthens the lifespan of cards, but is a messy process, and adds considerable drying time.

The business card stock I've seen is all in 25 sheet packs...

The pack I have to hand is 10 sheets of 10 cards each - Avery #28371, purchased at wal*mart.

Cardstock tends to stick for me, so it's very hard to draw 1 card without drawing multiple ones. I think lamination is necessary, but I don't want the card to be too thick

According https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_stock : card stock seems to be paper with a weight between 50# to 110# (about 135 to 300 g/m2). So what paper weight you would recommend ?

@JanVdA 110# is my standard. It's also great for character sheets (in RPGs) when much erasing is expected.

I've done the following:
Print the cards on thick (but not really thick) paper and cut them out.
Cover the cards with clear packing tape.

If the cards are smaller than the packing tape is wide, tape 1st, then cut, for better results.

I used this to create a prototype of my card game,

Print out cards on 6x4 photo paper (2 to a sheet)
Cut the cards out
Sleeve with playing card sleeves (penny sleeves if you're saving money; HMC or Dragon Shield for easy shuffling)

I would suggest that you take a look at this article:
Making Cards: You’ll never use your old method again, it's basically a tutorial about making cards with linen cover stock.
Things you will need:

Linen cover stock (67lb)
Spray adhesive
Rolling pin
Craft knife (or rotary cutter)
Metal ruler
Cutting mat
Corner punch
Light table (or reasonable substitute)

Check out Artscow. I have a friend who has used them before for a custom deck and he was very happy with their work. Also, the price is very reasonable for custom print work.
ETA:
I mis-read the question and thought that the OP was looking for commercial sites, when they actually were specifically not doing so. With that in mind, please look at my response to this question. Blank playing cards are not a perfect solution to the question (Difficult to print on directly. You would need to print on paper and paste it to the cards.) but the results would have the right weight/feel/ease of shuffling and would look nicer than doing the same with a standard deck of cards. Also, such products are commonly available at craft stores. Hope this helps.

The OP asks for answers that do not include commercial sites.

Are you looking for this?

PlainCards® Offers 5 Choices of Printable Blank Playing Cards

You could also just buy some cheap decks from the dollar store and rubber cement standard-paper (cut down to size) or stick Avery labels onto them.
They might not shuffle too well, but get some "shufflable" card protectors and that solves that problem.

Pasting to cheap decks results in shuffling damage.

@aramis Combine it with Card Protectors maybe?

@Marcelo at which point, there really is no need to paste it together.

@aramis Totally right.

Oh, one other thing: rubber cement often eats through paper after a couple years.

I am having the same trouble.I have purchase 20 packs of plane backed playing cards with the idea of running them through my Canon printer. Alas the ink from the printer does not adhere to the plastic coating on the card. The only ink that I can recommend to stick to the plastic coating is  a Nikko Oil Marker 1700 texter pen that you can buy on ebay about $7.00. The only problem then is that you have to carefully write on each individual card by hand. The only other alternative I fear is to get the cards professionally printed at great expense. Goodluck.

Playing cards are springy because the laminated layers are intensionally cross grained. That's why they shuffle so well, not because of the coatings.  Doesn't matter how you coat or protect standard cardstock; it will never behave like professional cards.
beam022 is right about the quality of that tutorial, and there are a few others that discuss how to get that cross grained strength and flexibility. It appears to be a real trick to get them right and still be reasonably thin.
 I completely respect the craftspeople who spin their own yarn, weave their own fabrics, and all sorts of other basic material. I admire the dedication and skill it requires. In all seriousness, if you start laminating your own cardstock, you might as well look into making your own paper so you can control that all important grain. If there were any other way to achieve the same results with standard paperstock (even laminated) then the specialized companies that produce gaming cardstock for casinos and collectable card games would have been out of business a LONG time ago.
There used to be someone out there who was selling the real stuff trimmed to 11x8.5. That's what I was trying to re-locate when I noticed this discussion. I had come across a site years ago where the person had bought a truck load (as in a literal trailer truck) because the manufacturers don't sell it in smaller quantities. I was never sure if it was sold in rolls or sheets, but if it's sheets you can be sure they're pallet sized or larger. They're meant for professional printing presses which print entire decks on single pages with room to spare for the trimming and finishing processes. Anyway, the person was selling packs of 20 pages (11x8.5). I can't remember the exact price, but I think it was around $10 a pack.
Blank cards will generally be coated like poker cards and won't print well, but they're well suited to permanent marker (think flash cards or a one-of-a-kind, lovingly crafted, hand-drawn deck).
Hope everyone finds this informative and maybe even useful.
(Yeah!! Found it!!) https://www.lybrary.com/how-to-make-your-own-playing-cards-a-11.html


text:
How does Infect interact with Lifelink?
When a creature with Infect and Lifelink puts poison counters on a player, does the controlling player gain life? Do all abilities that trigger on combat damage still occur?
A link to an official ruling would be helpful.

Yes, the creature's controller will gain life.
Infect and Lifelink are both abilities that modify how damage is dealt. They're not exclusive in any way; they just mean that the damage dealt has some effects different to what damage normally does. They can happily coexist.

119.3b Damage dealt to a player by a source with infect causes that player to get that many poison counters.
  ...
  119.3f Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source's controller to gain that much life, in addition to the damage's other results.

The damage is still damage in every way. So it'll still trigger an Ophidian Eye, get doubled by Furnace of Rath, get prevented by Samite Healer and so on.
The Scars of Mirrodin FAQ document says:

Damage from a source with infect is damage in all respects. If the source with infect also has lifelink, damage dealt by that source also causes its controller to gain that much life. Damage from a source with infect can be prevented or redirected. Abilities that trigger on damage being dealt will trigger if a source with infect deals damage, if appropriate.

Creatures with Infect still deal damage, so all abilities that trigger* (such as Lifelink) still function.
This is a natural consequence of rule 119.3b and 119.3d (and others, like 702.87x, omitted here)

Damage dealt to a player by a source
  with infect causes that player to get
  that many poison counters.

and

Damage dealt to a creature by a source with wither and/or infect causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature.

(Source)
Note that both Infect and Lifelink occur as a consequence of damage being dealt, thus it follows that any other damage triggered* ability would also occur.
*As AlexC points out, the actually phrase "trigger" can be tricky.  Think "caused to happen, through any of MTG's myriad rules."

Best to avoid saying "abilities that trigger on dealt damage", because lifelink is no longer a triggered ability. Lifelink is now simply something that modifies how the damage is dealt.

Similar to what AlexC said, Infect is a static ability, not a triggered one. It changes the properties of how the creature deals damage, rather than replacing damage when damage happens.

Yes to both. The FAQ for Scars of Mirrodin states that creatures with infect deal damage to players in the form of poison counters; that's still dealing damage, so lifelink and other abilities that trigger on combat damage take place as normal.

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text:
How do split cards work?

I saw these cards on the Internet and quickly became curious: How in the world do they work?
Do you pick one of them to play and then discard the card, or can you play both? How does their color and mana-cost duality function with cards that depend on them? When were these cards added to MTG?

There are similar cards called fuse cards that allow you to cast both, but not these.

Note: The answers given here were correct at the time they were written, rules changes have since made parts of them incorrect.
They work as if they only had one of the sides attributes while on the Stack, and as if they had both sides' qualities in every other zone.
If an effect is asking for a particular characteristic, it gets two answers. For example, Infernal Genesis asks you to reveal the top card of your library and add a number of 1/1 tokens to the battlefield based on the converted mana cost of the revealed card, if you revealed Hit//Run you would get 8 tokens, because the converted mana cost of the card would have two answers 3 and 5.
If an effect is performing a comparison, it only gets one answer. If either side would return a Yes answer when performing the comparison, then you would get a single Yes. For example, if you used Sunforger to search your library for a card that was red or white and had a converted mana cost of 4 or less, you could search out Wax/Wane (because for one of the sides, you would get a yes - Wane is white, and has a CMC of 4 or less) and still cast the Green side (Wax) of the card (only the search is restricted by color and CMC).
When casting a split card, you choose a side and proceed to do the normal process for casting a spell. Announce the spell, choose targets, pay costs, etc.
The Split Card type was added to MtG first in Invasion Block.

708.2. In every zone except the stack, split cards have two sets of characteristics and two converted mana costs. As long as a split card is a spell on the stack, only the characteristics of the half being cast exist. The other half’s characteristics are treated as though they didn’t exist.
708.2a If a player casts a split card, that player chooses which half of that split card he or she is casting before putting it onto the stack. Only the half that is being cast is considered to be put onto the stack.

As of Amonkhet, these cards no longer give separate answers for characteristics - they give one answer that combines the characteristics of both halves. Some of this makes no difference, as explained here Infernal Genesis will still give 8 tokens for Hit//Run because it now gets one answer, 8, instead of two answers 3 and 5. Other times the difference matters, Isochron Scepter can no longer imprint Bound // Determined because the card no longer returns 5 and 2 for CMC, it returns just 7.

Considering the question about whether or not you can cast both halves, it might be worthwhile to mention fuse cards in your answer.

There are now different kinds of cards split similar to these, and some of the rules have changed since the original question was asked.
Basic Split Cards
For example: Fire // Ice. These cards are read with an “and” joining the two names, thus “Fire and Ice”.
These cards work exactly the way you asked, you cast one half of the card for the casting cost, get that effect and the whole card goes to the graveyard. You don't have the option to cast the other half.
Fuse Split Cards
Example: Turn // Burn. These follow the same naming pattern as basic split cards, thus “Turn and Burn”.
In Return to Ravnica block, a new ability was given to split cards, fuse, which allowed you to cast both halves. The cost would be the combined cost of both halves, they would be put on the stack as a single spell and would resolve starting with the left half (which usually made the right half work better anyways). You could chose to play only one half of the split spell.
Aftermath Split Cards
For example: Never // Return. These cards are read with a “to” joining the two names, thus “Never to Return”.
In Amonkhet block, cards with another new ability, Aftermath were printed. These cards had the top half printed as a spell normally, with the bottom half turned sideways. You could only cast the top half normally, the bottom half would be cast like flashback, from the graveyard then exiled.
Common Split Card Rules
The rules for split cards changed, the most recent change was when Aftermath cards were created in Amonkhet. Before the cards would be seen as both separate and combined by effects letting Wear // Tear be seen as a 1, 2 and 3 CMC spell. This let some spells be abused by using the smaller half to meet the imprint requirements of Isochron Scepter but casting the higher half, or using Counterbalance to get three CMCs worth of counter power. Now the CMC of split cards is always the combined CMC of both halves, EXCEPT while the spell is being cast and on the stack, where only the parts paid for are counted. The same is true for the colors of the spell, the colors of a split card are both colors everywhere EXCEPT on the stack when being cast, where only the cast part(s) colors are used.
This is covered in the comprehensive rules:

708.4 In every zone except the stack, the characteristics of a split card are those of its two halves combined. This is a change from previous rules.
708.4a Each split card has two names. If an effect instructs a player to choose a card name and the player wants to choose a split card’s name, the player must choose one of those names and not both. An object has the chosen name if one of its names is the chosen name.
708.4b The mana cost of a split card is the combined mana costs of its two halves. A split card’s colors and converted mana cost are determined from its combined mana cost.
  Example: Assault/Battery’s mana cost is {3}{R}{G}. It’s a red and green card with a converted mana cost of 5. If you cast Assault, the resulting spell is a red spell with a converted mana cost of 1.
708.4c A split card has each card type specified on either of its halves and each ability in the text box of each half.

Adventure Cards are not Split Cards
For example: Brazen Borrower
Adventure cards are not split cards, but are still two spells on one card. They have a main spell that is a creature, and an adventure spell that is an instant or sorcery. The text box shows the creature side on the right, and the adventure spell on the left.
You can cast either half as normal. If you cast the adventure spell, the card is exiled as it resolves and the creature half can be cast from exile. If you cast the creature half from hand, it resolves and you cannot cast the adventure spell.
These do not follow the split card rules listed above, since they are not split cards; instead they follow the Adventurer rules. Adventure cards are treated as if they are only the creature half at all times except when they are on the stack being cast as the adventure.

I've updated your last section slightly: it claimed Adventure cards were not "true split spells", but in fact they are simply not split cards at all and have no rules connection to the split mechanic whatsoever beyond some superficial similarity.

I've also opted to remove the Melek section. That's a rather exceptional corner case and kind of confuses the last paragraph: it's true to simply say an adventure card is only the creature part at all times except when on the stack cast as an adventure. Melek isn't an exception to that; the corner case for Melek is we check whether a card is legal to cast with him by looking at the card when it's on the stack.

@doppelgreener They would likely be thought of as split spells by newer players, as they do have two spells on one card, I think your first edit is a bit of a semantic one there. As for the portion on Melek, can you support Melek checking only once the card is already on the stack with a ruling or rule? That seems awkward to me to wait until the spell had been cast to check if it can be cast, and I can't find such a rule.

I'll look to putting together a Q&A on it tomorrow

Aha, I can give you a more direct citation immediately. The current CR document (effective January 24, 2020) directly describes the interaction between Melek and Adventures in an example under 601.3e on page 77. (You'll recall 601 is the rule defining the procedure for casting spells.) It's definitely weird, and I have some vague recollection that's a relatively recent rules change, but I don't remember from which set exactly—either ELD or one of the recent sets with split cards.

@doppelgreener that doesn't really cover what I asked, I already knew about the example under 601, that;s actually what triggered me mentioning Melek as an exception example in the first place. The way that's written the check still appears to be before the cast, while the adventure is on top of library not on stack.

We make that check while it's still in the library, but what we're checking is not "what type is this?" card, but instead "would it be legal for us to start casting this spell, based on the types it will become when on the stack?". It's still a creature card on top of the library; we just determine that we could cast the adventure with Melek because the card will become an instant/sorcery as we cast it. That's why Melek is not an exception to treating it as a creature card at all times off the stack; with that card we're just looking forward at what it's about to become on the stack.

@doppelgreener which is potentially a distinction without a difference and why it needs to be mentioned because saying its just a creature everywhere but the stack WILL cause cases like this to be missed by players with kess experience

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text:
In MTG, what happens when Sakashima the Imposter copies Halcyon Glaze?
If I cast Sakashima the Imposter, copying Halcyon Glaze, what happens?
My guess is that Sakashima becomes a 4/4 Enchantment Creature - Illusion until the end of the turn (that's the current state of Halcyon Glaze) with Halcyon Glaze's text ("Whenever you play a creature spell...").
So, Sakashima would revert to a 3/1 with Halcyon Glaze's text at the end of the turn. This means that on future turns, if I cast a creature spell, Sakashima would again become a 4/4.
Something about that doesn't seem quite right, however. What actually happens?

A relevant paragraph from the MtG Comprehensive Rules:

706.2. When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of
  the original object's characteristics
  and, for an object on the stack,
  choices made when casting or
  activating it (mode, targets, the
  value of X, whether it was kicked, how
  it will affect multiple targets, and
  so on). The "copiable values" are the
  values derived from the text printed
  on the object (that text being name,
  mana cost, card type, subtype,
  supertype, expansion symbol, rules
  text, power, toughness, and/or
  loyalty), as modified by other copy
  effects, by "as . . . enters the
  battlefield" and "as . . . is turned
  face up" abilities that set
  characteristics, and by abilities that
  caused the object to be face down.
  Other effects (including type-changing
  and text-changing effects), status,
  and counters are not copied. Example:
  Chimeric Staff is an artifact that
  reads "{X}: Chimeric Staff becomes an
  X/X artifact creature until end of
  turn." Clone is a creature that reads,
  "You may have Clone enter the
  battlefield as a copy of any creature
  on the battlefield." After a Staff has
  become a 5/5 artifact creature, a
  Clone enters the battlefield as a copy
  of it. The Clone is an artifact, not a
  5/5 artifact creature. (The copy has
  the Staff's ability, however, and will
  become a creature if that ability is
  activated.) Example: Clone enters the
  battlefield as a copy of a face-down
  Grinning Demon (a creature with morph
  {2}{B}{B}). The Clone is a colorless
  2/2 creature with no name, no types,
  no abilities, and no mana cost. It
  will still be face up. Its controller
  can't pay {2}{B}{B} to turn it face
  up.

I think that what this implies is that Sakashima does NOT become a 4/4 creature when copying a creatured-up Halcyon Glaze, but rather an enchantment with Halcyon Glaze's rules text.  So you'd have to cast another creature to turn enchantment-Sakashima into a 4/4 flyer.  I don't think he'd revert to being a 3/1 at end of turn; he'd stay a noncreature enchantment until returned to hand with Sakashima's ability.
Essentially the key issue here is about what the Magic rules like to call "copiable values". The switched-on Glaze is a valid thing for Sakashima to copy, because it's a creature in play, but its switched-on status is not a copiable value. So Sakashima just becomes a switched-off Glaze, with all the extra characteristics as defined in the Sakashima rules text.

nope, it is not a legal target cause it clearly says "except it is still an enchantment"

It's an enchantment that is also a creature though.  See Lucent Liminid (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130691) if you need proof that this is possible :)

Also, Sakashima's ability doesn't target.


text:
Why would you want to play with a deck bigger than 60 cards in MTG?
In Magic the Gathering, the decks are required to be no less than 60 cards, but can be larger.  Since you can only have 4 of each card (except for basic lands), it seems you would want the limit size to improve your chances of getting the cards you want.  Why would you want to play with a larger deck?

I take it they have increased the minimum deck size?  Back when I played (16+ years ago) the minimum deck size was 35, and I typically used decks of around 40.

@GalacticCowboy Yes, official play is up to 60 now, but many of the "starter decks" only have 40 cards.

There's also a 40-card minimum in limited formats like draft or sealed-deck.

In all Constructed formats that don't impose a certain deck size, the minimum deck size is 60 nowadays. In Limited formats, the minimum deck size is 40 (and no limit of 4 cards with the same name exists). I'm not sure whether the author of the question is aware of that and meant Constructed formats specifically, or whether the question should possibly have been phrased "Why would you want to play with a deck bigger than the minimum size?"

You can easily run yourself out of cards if you build a standard-sized deck based around card-drawing, decking mechanics (where you try and exhaust your opponent's deck), or graveyard-pilfering (where you want to get as much stuff into your graveyard as possible). This can quickly happen if you play with Recycle, Worry Beads, Anvil of Bogardan, Riptide Director, Tolarian Serpent, Cephalid Vandal, Prosperity, Ambassador Laquatus... or any of the infinite card drawing combos. These are some of my favourite kinds of decks for casual play, and are routinely large.
Another strong argument is if you expect to be on the receiving end of someone trying to 'deck' you. I built a deck specifically for this purpose after getting annoyed with my friend's Millstone deck. Clearly this is not a general approach, but is handy for wiping the smirk off your regular gaming partner's face. ;)
A third reason is if you want to keep your deck general, and include lots of options for dealing with different types of enemies. You can build powerful decks around this approach, using the idea of cycling, digging or searching through your deck with e.g. Tutors, Skyship Weatherlight, Captain Sisay, and so on, to find the exact card you need for any situation.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. (1) you are supposed to win by the time you have drawn all your deck; i.e. if your deck is so weak you didn't win after you have drawn 60 cards, burn it; (2) this is a very weak argument even if you know that the opponent will try to mill you: using anti-mill cards is much better instead; (3) if you can't fit all your cards, just have less cards for each type (1x or 2x instead of 4x) and use some tutors to find them - if you think you need too many 1x cards to fit 60, well, lol.

@Lo'oris: If you win at 60 cards you still win. A stall/stasis/mill deck is completely viable in casual play and periodically one will show up in Standard. Decking is also more likely if you play heavy life-gain decks and end up in a mirror match. Giving yourself an extra card can be enough to protect against decking against mirror and it isn't going to hurt your deck that much. (That being said, 60 cards is still likely to be the proper play.)

I agree with Lo'oris.  This answer provides examples of situations where having a larger deck might not be a strict disadvantage.  However, they're all hugely outweighed by the fact that you want to win, and to win you need to maximise the chances of drawing the cards you need to draw, i.e. have as small a deck as legally possible.  This answer makes it seem as though it could be a valid choice to randomly decide to have more than 60 cards in a Constructed deck "just in case".  It shouldn't really be the accepted answer.

I'm surprised at how contentious this answer seems to be, and how strong the counter opinions run. It's not all about obliterating your opponent. In casual play, I enjoy playing with bigger decks. In fact, most of my decks are bigger than 60 cards. Sometimes I enjoy building decks that only use one of each card. Sometimes I like building decks that win with the most obscure mechanic available. The question asked "Why would you want to...?" not "Are decks bigger than 60 cards a great idea for crushing my enemies?" Magic is not just about the tournament scene.

@ire_and_curses In very casual play I will sometimes toss more cards in because I want them in, but in anything remotely competitive I would only use more than 60 cards in a format (like Prismatic) that required it.  In competition, the disadvantages simply outweight the advantages.

@ire_and_curses Most casual decks benefit from playing 60 cards in the same way that they benefit from running the right number of lands. I don't think of this as "crush my enemies" as much as "make sure my deck actually gets to do its thing" -- which is a concern for many casual players.

You can be casual as much as you want, but if something is strictly better than something else, it is at every level. Being casual is no excuse for plainly wrong choices.

It should be more obvious that this answer only is valid for very casual play.

@ire_and_curses "I like it" is a universal answer to "why would you do X?" And like all universal answers, it conveys no useful information. The fact is that every reason given in your answer is a bad reason, because the goals it states can be better achieved through other means.

@eyeballfrog Aren't I lucky to have you around to point out facts for me!

@ire_and_curses I agree - I have a ~200 card deck dimir zombies on MtGA I play with much more casual local friends but would never bring out when playing in any ladder - they don't have as many cards and aren't as good at the game so I play a good but huge deck to handicap myself against them  to make the games not boring for me and still fun for them. I still end up winning most of the time.

Obviously,

At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 200 or more cards in your library, you win the game.
The wizard who reads a thousand books is powerful. The wizard who memorizes a thousand books is insane.

Yes, but you need some way of drawing that specific card from your 200 card deck.

@PatrickvD 250ish card deck. If you start with 200, it would be impossible to have 200 or more cards in your library.

Well, if you play a [mtg:Battle of Wits], in response use the ability of [mtg:Feldon's Cane], and in response play [mtg:Kaervek's Spite], a 202 cards deck is possible. Since the Feldon's cane is exiled and the Battle of Wits is in play, that's 200 cards remaining in the library.

@PatrickvD 3 copies in the deck, one in the sideboard, every other card is wishes(Death Wish and Golden Wish mostly), tutors, land, deck resets and control/stall.

@iberforce in theory, but you would never want to risk that tight a win condition, most of these decks are 225+ cards. Also [mtg] links don't work in comments.

From a strategy standpoint, my answer would be "You wouldn't".
The mathematics of probability in drawing from a 60 card deck vs a 61 or 62 card deck change (almost dramatically).
However, I think that often you can start with more than 60 cards when 'testing' a deck. Often you find that a card doesn't fit or 'play nice with others' and should come out.  Same with cards that you draw and think "I wish I hadn't drawn that".  Those cards come out also.
So to summarize, when testing ideas, 60+ is okay.  For tournament play, reduce to 60.

I think the better phrase would be, "you almost always wouldn't." A number of great players have, on rare occasions, played 61 cards and done well with them, though obviously they put a great deal of thought into the matter. This has been the subject of discussion many times.

@Andy - yes, I agree, with the caveat that you should be aware of the probability changes and make (darned) sure that the 61st card is just as important as the 60th card.

Deck-building, like writing, is all about the editting.

That article does not specifically address the probability of drawing a certain card from a 60 vs a 61 card deck. I dont believe the probability changes as much as you make it sound.

@Matt (apologies for the very late ping): Indeed. Using the example from the article, the probability of drawing no Lightning Bolt on turn 1 increases from 60.05% to 60.60% if the deck contains 61 and not 60 cards, and to 61.14% in a 62-card deck – this isn't even a one-percent difference. In other words, if you have 4 Lightning Bolts in your deck, at least one of them will be in your opening hand in basically four out of ten games, regardless of whether your deck has 60 or 62 cards.

Effective Magic decks thrive on consistency. Exceeding the minimum deck size is only worth it if it gives you a powerful benefit you can't gain otherwise, like a surprising way to attack the metagame.
Pushing your deck above 60 (or 40) cards makes it harder to find key cards, increases the risk of "mana flood" (drawing only lands, so you have nothing to cast) and "mana screw" (drawing too few lands, so you can't cast any of the spells in your hand), and makes it more likely that you'll draw unplayable hands. Generally speaking, this is not a good plan! Even in a casual environment where playing an optimal deck might not be your top priority, losing because of flood/screw or bad mulligans isn't fun.
Pro Tour Hall of Famer Frank Karsten wrote an article called "Is Playing More Than 60 Cards Always a Bad Idea?" to examine some special cases. His findings:

Adding extra cards is not a good way to tweak mana ratios: the added variance of the 61st card tended to be greater than the value of getting your lands-to-spells number just so. Frank's advice:

Running a 61st card to add “half a land” to your deck is almost always wrong. If you really need to add half a land, then cut an expensive spell and add a cheap cantrip.

Specific combo-style win conditions can justify going over the minimum number of cards. Examples are Battle of Wits (which requires a huge library to win the game) and Scapeshift (which requires playing enough Mountains to one-shot your opponent with Valakut triggers). However, since increasing deck size hampers your ability to actually find your key cards, it seems that it's only worth it for one-card combo kills — and you should play lots of tutoring and filtering cards so you can find them faster.
Very rarely, it'll be a good move to play a deck that has no win condition other than just letting your opponents run out of cards in their library. This is for lockdown archetypes like Fog and Stasis. It's good to be aware of these archetypes because they sometimes come up in Limited, like the Lost in the Woods "combo" in Dark Ascension Limited, or making your own surprising imitation of a Fog deck by just drafting a pile of removal and no good win conditions.
(Note that forced-card-draw spells or library recursion like Elixir of Immortality are probably better than diluting your deck, though. Try sticking a Blue Sun's Zenith into your TurboStasis deck before you go adding extra cards.)

It's okay to experiment with deck size, but you should go into it armed with a good understanding of Magic strategy and probability, and the awareness that the overwhelming majority of such experiments are going to fail. In contrast, you pretty much can't go wrong playing exactly 60 cards in your Constructed deck, or 40 cards in your Limited deck.

Frank Karsten wrote a sort of followup to that, looking at a specific 150-card deck that recently had a good showing: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/analyzing-150-card-modern-scapeshift/

You might be playing in a format that mandates it. One example is Commander, which uses a deck of precisely 100 cards, with no cards repeated save basic land.

I want to downvote this because it's not really a good answer, but I want to upvote it because it's technically correct. Guess I'll just comment instead.

I'd argue it's not technically correct, even.  It's fairly clear that the OP is talking about constructed, even though unwritten, since Commander requires exactly 100; there's no just no way to meaningfully interpret "why would you want > 60 cards"...if the game rules mandate it.

Travis Woo has an interesting article, "90 Card Living End", that has a good explanation of yet another reason to have more than 60 cards: his deck is based on a combo that relies on the card Living End being in his library.
Actually drawing Living End is a problem for the deck, so he plays more cards because he doesn't want to draw the most important card. He could play fewer, but he finds that he needs to combo off several times in many games, so he doesn't want to. He can make 90 work because there are good alternatives available for the other cards so he doesn't lose much in quality.
Anyway the article has good explanation on this topic.

Cool example, but I'd like to add a disclaimer: even if you're playing a deck that requires particular cards to remain in your library, it's generally still better to stick to 60 cards and play card-undrawing effects like Brainstorm, See Beyond, and Scroll Rack. (The Living End deck is an exception to this, because his strategy falls apart if he plays any cards that cost 2 or less)

Adding diversity seems to the biggest reason you'd want to go over 60.  Since most decks are designed around getting certain cards, increasing the size of the deck beyond sixty decreases the probability of drawing any one card.  Since a deck is limited to only four copies of a non land card usually, this added diversity comes at the cost of significantly reducing the chances of getting a certain card in a given game.
I think for players looking to experiment, or looking for decks that deliver truly random results, having a deck larger then sixty isn't an issue.  Larger decks could be fun for some people to play since they can have a much larger selection of spells, but I don't there are any strategic reasons for doing.
Larger decks are going to be much less constant on getting the cards you need, when you need them.  Most magic decks are highly focused one or at most two strategies for winning.  Especially when your looking for a certain card combination to win, having extra cards will just reduce the odds of you getting the cards you need.

okay, I agree with the 'diversity' part also.  Still, I tend to want to cut to 60...

@Egg of P'an Ku For any serious deck, 60 cards is the way to go.

I disagree. I think 60 is the way to go for almost all serious decks, but not all. On very rare occasions, some people have played 61 (not sure about any more than that) and done well.

@Andy: IMO, the rules should specifically forbid you from doing that unless you have at least 1 Pro Point. :)

Yorion, Sky Nomad
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=yorion%2C%20sky%20nomad

Companion - Your starting deck contains at least twenty cards more than the minimum deck size. (If this card is your chosen companion, you may put it into your hand from outside the game for 3 any time you could cast a sorcery.)

Released in April 2020, this has seen competitive play, e.g. in June 2020 this Yorion esper control was 9.35% of the pioneer meta according to mtggoldfish.
Besides being essentially an 8th card in your starting hand, its ETB trigger can also be used to gain card advantage by bouncing other ETB permanents already on the battlefield.
This type of larger deck size requirement is a very interesting mechanic in my opinion to shake up the design space a bit, posing a consistency/slightly worse card pool vs one extra card trade off.
Yorion was banned in Modern on October 2022: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Banned_and_restricted_cards/Timeline The main reasons given on the official announcement were that on paper

large decks are harder to shuffle
triggers take a lot of time to manage

and these seem to be more important than balance reasons alone. Notorious Youtubber Magic Aids made a video complaining about it as usual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M35M4Oa9dQo "Magic Card BANNED because of TINY Hands" where he also raises the issue to Yorion leading to more expensive decks on the metagame, which is one of his main general complaints against the state of MtG.

A situation in which you would want decks of more than 60 cards is one in which you are playing in a closed ecosystem of decks (this is most likely a causal environment).  Smaller deck sizes and more copies of cards lead to better consistency, but this is often antithetical to fun when you play the same decks against each other many times.  If you can impose deck building restrictions on all of the decks that will be competing against each other, having a higher minimum deck size can keep these games interesting for longer.
Commander is a particularly popular variant of this.  One of the big appeals of commander is that because of the larger deck size and inability to run multiple copies of cards, commander games between the same two decks tend to be very different (baring commanders with deck searching abilities).  This allows the same few decks to play against each other more times before it gets boring.

If winning is the only goal, you wouldn't. There's no advantage to building over the deck size minimum strategically in magic (there are in some other games) that offsets the downside to consistency of even one extra card. Outside of a few very specific cards (which will be mentioned first) that require deck sizes above the minimum, all the other reasons you might want to are more fitting to casual magic:

Battle of Wits - A win condition that specifically requires you to have more than 3 times the minimum deck size left in your deck to win means starting with about 4 times that minimum, if not more.
Yorion, Sky Nomad - The companion rule for this card specifies you need to play at least 20 more cards than the minimum - this does however in practice just make the minimum 80 cards instead, and people keep to that new number.
Worldknit - this specifically requires you to play every card in your draft pool, that would mean a deck with about 15 more cards (depending on how many other conspiracies were drafted) than the minimum, though this only applies to drafts using the specific set.
Handicap - that downside to consistency can be used as a handicap against less experienced players, to create a more even playing field so everyone can enjoy a more casual game.
Learning - It will happen some time that all 4 copies of the card you need are in the bottom 15 of a deck, larger decks can help simulate this and help a person learn how to come at problems in other ways when their deck doesn't cooperate.
Teaching games - small streamlined decks tend to focus on one strategy, and use a few specific tactics, mechanics, to get there - a larger and more unfocused deck can be used to teach new players broader groups of mechanics and the way they interact better than competitive decks can.

There's a fringe case for including 61 cards in your deck. That is, if in play testing you find that x number of lands is too few, but x+1 lands is too many, you can effectively play some number between x and x+1 (not exactly x+0.5) lands by playing x+1 lands in a 61 card deck.
That is, 20 lands is 0.333 of a 60 card deck, and 21 lands is 0.350. But 21 lands in a 61 card deck is 0.344, a ratio of lands that is impossible with a 60 card deck.

For what it's worth, Frank Karsten argues that level of fine-tuning isn't worth it because of draw dilution (about 1% for 4-ofs) and added variance.

@AlexP Still something to consider. It's also more relevant in draft, with a 40 card deck the difference in 1 land is huge

@AlexP I responded before actually reading that article, which btw was a great read. His example of a 24 bear + 16 land deck was very interesting, and has immediately swayed my opinion on this.
However, I still feel that my answer has value, as it is a reason, just intuitively a bad one. I'll edit my answer soon with the link

I believed in "half a land" for years until B&CG people talked me out of it ;) ... If you expand your answer a bit to talk about some of the other probabilities involved and how they interact with each other (like how that extra card affects your opening hand, I guess?), I think it could be quite valuable.

Statistically speaking, from the viewpoint of consistency, the only reason to have more than 60 cards is because the strategy or win condition in the deck you're making requires a higher number.
Battle of Wits, as mentioned, is a specific reason to have more than 60 cards, because the alternative win condition requires more than 200 cards.
If you are building for the game against a mill deck, you've sacrificed the efficiency of your deck against every other match. Every card you put in the deck is another you have to draw through for the meat of your deck.
There should only by the 60 best cards to make your deck work.


text:
In Magic: the Gathering, what is being gathered?
Why does Magic: The Gathering have "The Gathering" in its title?
What is being "gathered"?

The question is partially answered in the article 25 Random Things About Magic:

Magic was almost not called Magic. In fact, when the first solicitation for the game was sent out the game was called Mana Clash. The reason for this is as follows. Richard (Garfield, of course) called the game Magic when he originally designed it. All through the original playtests the game was called Magic. Then when they went to officially name it, they got a lawyer involved who informed them that Magic was too broad of a word to ever be able to copyright. So they started looking for alternatives. Mana Clash was the name they liked best from that search and thus they used it on the solicitation. But everyone playing the game (Richard, the playtesters and the people at Wizards) still called the game Magic. The name just seemed too perfect. They went back to the lawyer and asked what they could do to call it Magic. The lawyer told them they needed to add something else unique and "ownable" onto it that allowing them to copyright the name as a whole. That is how "The Gathering" was added.

The reason for the specific choice the Gathering is described in this interview with Richard Garfield:

Why is it called Magic : The Gathering?
“Well… there’s a few answers to that. When it first came out, we said ‘the gathering’ was a gathering of friends, a gathering of people, and a gathering of cards. It seemed like a good descriptor for our first set. We were expecting our second set to be ‘Magic : Ice Age’, and to have chapters in this book going along, but that was before we sort of ran them all together. So all the cards are now part of Magic : The Gathering – which originally going to be like the first chapter.
“My name for it was ‘Magic’, and the reason we didn’t use that is simply because ‘magic’ is a hard thing to own, and there were all sorts of really terrible names that were floating around that we could own – but Magic : The Gathering was a good final resting spot because we could own ‘Magic : The Gathering’ and people could still call it ‘Magic’.

An alternative interpretation is that it refers to the gathering of magic/mana, to gather power/force from the world around to cast spells, although I don't have a reference for that.

Re "a lawyer involved who informed them that Magic was too broad of a word to ever be able to copyright." The lawyer surely said trademark.

That lawyer also was probably not in today's legal world, where "Scrolls" is not too broad of a word to trademark, and Facebook has a trade mark on both "face" and "book".


text:
Apostrophes, hyphens, or other tile-less characters in Bananagrams
In Bananagrams, are words that require characters such as hyphens, dashes, and spaces (all of which do not have tiles) allowed simply by omitting the characters with corresponding tile? Or are they not allowed at all?
A couple examples that have come up in play:

'Twas
U-boat

Other examples would include

top hat
man-at-arms

Bananagrams has a pretty basic set of rules, compared to other games: it seems that the only guidance on this subject is "a legal word is one found in a dictionary (the volume should be agreed upon in advance)".
Obviously all your examples can be found in many reasonably good dictionaries.  However, I (and most other diehard Scrabble players I'm sure) would be extremely un-keen to allow them.  Essentially - all of those examples are not actually words, but multiple words, albeit abridged or conjoined in some way.  Additionally, all of them would look really weird played in a game of Bananagrams or Scrabble with their punctuation marks missing; to the extent where you'd have to wonder if they were the same words at all.  "Manatarms", "tophat", "uboat"?  They don't look right for a reason.  Now maybe if a hyphen tile existed in the game...
I do think, though, that this is exactly the type of game where house rules on acceptability are perfectly reasonable, and indeed a good thing.  If you and the people you play with think it's more annoying to have to rule out hyphenated, abbreviated and capitalised real words than it is just to allow them, then I can't see any possible reason not to agree amongst yourselves that they're fine.

You don't even need house rules, you just need everyone to agree on a (virtual and/or hypothetical) dictionary that has exactly all the same words as the regular one, with punctuation removed.


text:
Cumulative Upkeep on the Stack
If I have Glacial Chasm, Power Conduit, and Coretapper out, during my upkeep can I wait for the cumulative upkeep on Glacial Chasm to go on the stack, activate Power Conduit to remove the age counter on the Chasm, and then move that to Coretapper in the form of a +1/+1 counter?
If I cannot, how would all of that interact? Would I have to pay 2 life per turn, but as long as I moved them it wouldn't be any more than that?

Hi Milo. I think it's time I introduced you to Eon Hub. Eon Hub, meet Milo. I think he'd like to get to know you.

Well that is awfully fancy. And an artifact to boot!

No, not quite. The age counter isn't actually placed on Glacial Chasm until the cumulative upkeep trigger resolves. When it resolves, as part of the same triggered ability, you must then pay two life for that counter or sacrifice Chasm. You can't remove the counter before you have to pay two life for it because you don't get priority while an ability is resolving.
You can, however, remove each counter immediately after the cumulative upkeep trigger resolves, meaning you pay only pay two life per turn indefinitely.

Ok, thanks! Two life isn't too bad.. For what Glacial Chasm provides.


text:
Can ciphers be countered?
Can a cipher copy be countered by a counter spell? Or, since the card has been encoded to a creature, does it act more like an ability, and can only be countered by cards like Stifle and others like it?

A spell created by a cipher is a regular spell, except that there is no physical card on the stack. You can counter it like you would counter the original. As the ability says:

Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of this card without paying its mana cost.

All rules applying to spells also apply to copies of spells, for copies of spells are spells.

111.1a A copy of a spell is also a spell, even if it has no card associated with it.

@Guvante, that's not correct either. The rest of the effect works fine too because the copy of the card only ceases to exist the next SBAs are checked. So to summarise: Delay does counter the spell, it does exile it, and it does give it suspend, though giving it Suspend is for naught since it ceases to exist shortly after.

@ikegami: Of course, forgot that the ceases to exist acts exactly like a replacement effect, but isn't a replacement effect to avoid interactions with other replacement effects. 110.5g and 706.10a are the fixers in that regard. In either case the overall effect is the same, the copy is exiled and eventually ceases to exist.


text:
what is a storage counter on a land card and how do you use it?
I have a card called Calciform Pools. It uses something called a storage counter. What is it and how do you use it?
Card Text:

Tap: Add {1} to your mana pool.

{1}, Tap: Put a storage counter on Calciform Pools.

{1}, Remove X storage counters from Calciform Pools: Add X mana in any combination of {w} and/or {B} to your mana pool.

The card's rules text tells you what to do with the storage counters. What's unclear?

I know this is a horrible use of this site, but I thought part of the question was what are they?  I interpret that as are they a physical thing that is placed on the card or do you just have to remember what the count is?  If its a physical thing, what do you use?  If the OP didn't imply this, then never mind.

Most counters in MTG don't do anything by themselves. Their function is defined by the text of various cards which use them or place them. The names of the counters are a bit like creature types — they don't have any stand-alone rules significance but cards interact with them.
The exceptions are:

"+X/+Y" counters (normally +1/+1 and -1/-1, but some really old cards have other kinds), which modify a creature's power and toughness.
Poison counters: a player who has ten or more poison counters loses the game.

In the case of Calciform Pools, the  "storage counters" are there to be used for its second and third ability.

{1}, Tap: Put a storage counter on Calciform Pools.

This lets you slowly "charge up" the land. If you have untapped mana on your opponents end step, you can spend some of it to put a storage counter on the Pools.

{1}, Remove X storage counters from Calciform Pools: Add X mana in any combination of {w} and/or {B} to your mana pool.

This lets you "release" all of the mana you've stored up. The extra cost of 1 colorless is there to encourage you to take out a bunch of mana all at once. Note that you don't have to tap pools to activate this ability, so you can use Pools' first mana ability to pay the 1 colorless if you want to. You can also activate this ability multiple times per turn if you have 1 mana floating around to pay for it.

I think you are asking what the counters are?
They are just something you use to keep track of how many counters you have on the card. You can use button, glass beads, or a 20 sided die that you increments when you add and decrement when you remove counters.

Well it's exactly like it said, you can use the pool to store mana for future purpose. Can be usefull if you are planning to play a card that needs a lot of {W} or {B} mana.
I think the labelling of storage counter instead of charge counter is to prevent the use of the Pool in a combo with the Energy Chamber card that could have enable putting additonnal counter on the pool for free.

Nope, storage counters were used on lands in Fallen Empires in 1994. Energy Counters are only used on Energy Vortex, a card in Mirage. You may be thinking of Charge Counters, like on Mirrodin's Core, but that wasn't released until 2004. Obviously there was no consideration of interaction with counters which wouldn't be used for another 10 years.

Wrong choice of word I was refering to the Energy Chamber card

Right, I got that. But Storage Counters on lands were used 9 years before Mirrodin was released and Charge Counters first used, so there is no relation.

Ok, thansk for the clarifications. Would have been great tough, being able to pump land like that...

Fear not, it still works with Doubling Season ;)

I think in the early days of magic counters were called pretty much anything the card designer's feverish imagination could come up.  It was only later on that they tried to rationalise things and have consistent naming conventions for types of counters.

@thesunneversets I think you're only partly right, there has been some standardization of +X/+Y counters to +1/+1 and -1/-1 and when counters are a theme in a set they have a consistent name, eg. Charge counters on artifacts in Mirrodin. But "one-off" imaginative counters still show up regularly. See Assemble the Legion, Azor's Elocutors, Grimoire of the Dead etc.

@ghoppe Yeah, you're right. If a counter is purely doing its own non-interactive thing, on a card that is unlikely to receive counters of a different kind in the course of normal play, there is no reason at all why it shouldn't have a charming and quirky name.


text:
Are tokens copying Essence of the Wild still tokens?
Some of my friends and I got into an argument about Essence of the Wild.
With Essence on the battlefield, I played Fungal Sprouting and put 6 1/1 green saproling creature tokens on to battlefield. These saprolings obviously became Essence of the Wild as they entered the battlefield.
When I played Rootborn Defenses, I tried to copy what I assumed was a creature token version of Essence of the Wild (created as described above). This is where the argument occurred. The claim was that I could NOT populate my Essence of the Wild (one of those created with Fungal Sprouting), as the creatures were no longer considered tokens because the card they copy is not a token.
Are they still considered tokens and can I populate them?

Nit: No saproling ever became an Essence of the Wild, because you never created any saprolings. They were Essence of the Wild tokens from the moment the tokens were created.

A token cannot become a card through copying. It's not one of the things copied [CR 706.2].
A token cannot become a card by any means. A card refers to a physical MTG card [CR 108.2]. The rules cannot create physical objects, and thus, they cannot create cards or change something into a card.
They are still tokens, and thus, you can have populate copy them.

108.2. When a rule or text on a card refers to a “card,” it means only a Magic card. Most Magic games use only traditional Magic cards, which measure approximately 2.5 inches (6.3 cm) by 3.5 inches (8.8 cm). Certain formats also use nontraditional Magic cards, oversized cards that may have different backs. Tokens aren’t considered cards—even a card that represents a token isn’t considered a card for rules purposes.

706.2. When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The “copiable values” are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, expansion symbol, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by “as . . . enters the battlefield” and “as . . . is turned face up” abilities that set characteristics, and by abilities that caused the object to be face down. Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, and counters are not copied.

Note that this doesn't prima facie eliminate the possibility that the other Essences are neither tokens nor cards...

@Steven Stadnicki, Noone even suggested that's a possibility. What would cause that to happen? The only action the OP expressed concerned with is copying, and my post does cover what copying does. Your comment is not relevant to the situation, but I'll answer it anyway: It's a permanent, and it's not card, so it's a token [CR 110.5].

@Shawn McFall, If this answers your question, please check the mark next to it. Welcome to our site :)


text:
Not enough cards for both players when casting Wheel of Fortune
What happens if both players have only 3 cards in their library and I cast Wheel of Fortune (Each player discards his/her hand and draws seven cards) ?
Is it any different if one player has 1 card and the other player has 3 ?

The active player performs all his draws before the next player performs his. (But it doesn't matter here.)

Here are the relevant Comprehensive Rules:

104.3c If a player is required to draw more cards than are left in his or her library, he or she draws the remaining cards, and then loses the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

Nothing happens until a player would get priority, so the order in which the players drew the cards doesn't matter.

704.4. Unlike triggered abilities, state-based actions pay no attention to what happens during the resolution of a spell or ability.

All the SBAs are performed simultaneously.

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. [...]

All the players would lose simultaneously if it were not for the following exception:

104.4a If all the players remaining in a game lose simultaneously, the game is a draw

In both cases, the game ends in a draw. Because the rules pay no attention to what's happening during the spell's resolution, having more cards doesn't protect you in this case. As soon as state-based actions are checked (i.e. after the spell resolves) you both lose the game at the same time and it's therefore a draw.


text:
How do cards like Brainstorm affect the probability of drawing an out?
I posted this on a Magic forum and got zero responses.
I'm playing a High Tide combo deck. Let's say I am Brainstorming with 50 cards in my deck, 23 of which are outs that make me win. I think the calculation for this is: (27/50)*(26/49)*(25/48), so my failure rate is just about 15%.
However, drawing Ponder, Brainstorm, or Preordain off of my first Brainstorm might enable me to dig for an out. I only have enough mana to cast one more cantrip and one out, I have 3 Brainstorms, 4 Ponders, and 3 Preordains left in my deck. I came up with this: ((27/50)*(26/49)*(25/48))*((47/50*46/49*45/48)). (I think) This would be my percent chance of not hitting one of my 23 outs and not hitting a brainstorm, around 12.3%.
Of course just drawing Brainstorm isn't good enough, I need the third card from the top of my deck to be one of my 23 outs (the top 2 are cards I replaced from brainstorm). It is here that I'm stuck, I don't know how to figure that out, or how to figure it out for Preordain or Ponder. It's been a while since I've taken stats, I don't even know if that 12.3 is correct.
Thanks!

The final answer will be obtained using
P(winner) = P(winner on brain storm) + ( P(cantrip but no winners on brainstorm) * P(winner on cantrip) )

There 23 wins to be found in 50, so there are 50-23 = 27 non-win to be found in 50.
P(no winners on brain storm) = (27/50)(26/49)(25/48) = 15%
P(winner on brain storm) = 1 - P(no winners on brain storm) = 1 - 15% = 85%

Sometimes, we'll draw both a win and cantrip using brainstorm.
There are 23 wins and 10 cantrips = 33 wins and cantrips to be found in 50, so there are 50-33 = 17 that are neither to be found in 50.
P(neither winners nor cantrips on brainstorm) = (17/50)(16/49)(15/48) = 3.5%
P(winner and/or cantrip on brainstorm) = 1 - P(neither winners nor cantrips on brainstorm) = 1 - 3.5% = 96.5%
P(cantrip but no winners on brainstorm) = P(winner and/or cantrip on brainstorm) - P(winner on brainstorm) = 96.5% - 85% = 11.5%

We cast the cantrip when none of the 23 winners were in the first 3. That means we're looking at the first of 47 cards. There are 23 wins to be found in 47.
[Note: I forgot to factor in the the possibility to shuffle with Ponder.]
P(winner on cantrip) = 23/47 = 49%

P(winner)
= P(winner on brain storm) + ( P(cantrip but no winners on brainstorm) * P(winner on cantrip) )
= 85% + ( 11.5% * 49% )
= 91%
(90.68%, to be more precise)
[Experimentation shows that factoring in the the possibility to shuffle with Ponder raises the odds to around 93%.]

Let's verify by experiment.
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use List::Util qw( shuffle );

my @deck = ( ('W') x 23, ('C') x 10, ('O') x (50-23-10) );

my $trials = 10_000;
my $wins = 0;

for (1..$trials) {
   @deck = shuffle(@deck);

   ++$wins
      if $deck[0] eq 'W'
      || $deck[1] eq 'W'
      || $deck[2] eq 'W'
      || $deck[3] eq 'W' && ($deck[0] eq 'C' || $deck[1] eq 'C' || $deck[2] eq 'C');
}

printf("%.0f%%\n", $wins/$trials*100);

$ for i in 1 2 3 ; do p ; done
91%
91%
90%

Magic addendum to this answer: these calculations are correct for Brainstorm and Preordain where the net effect is 'dig just one card deeper' (in the case of Preordain, by bottoming the two that you put back and then drawing blind), but Ponder is a little more complicated since you get two chances to hit (because of the shuffle effect), but with slightly different probabilities.  It doesn't affect these calculations by much more than an epsilon, though.

@Steven Stadnicki, oops, yeah. I'll leave it as is unless the OP really wants to know the odds.

It's fine.  I know what play to make in that situation now.


text:
Game for a blind person
A friend of mine is blind and she said she'd love to play something. And she meant something non-trivial. Do you know any games where you actually don't need to see? I thought about diplomacy kind of game where all you need to do is talk (political/historical background seems interesting), but could you please give me some solid examples of such games?
EDIT:
Let me narrow it down a little bit: AFAIK my friend does not know Braille yet. She's an adult, so simple games just won't cut it. It would also be her first game after becoming blind so it can't be too complex. I see the simple/complex contradiction - by "not simple" I mean with interesting storyline or background and by "not complex" I mean mechanically easy without many elements to remember (I suppose it's easier to remember an ongoing story than a set of cards and/or various numerical values, that's why I'm pushing it a little bit towards spoken games). And maybe one more, minor thing: it's definitely not a must, but I'd appreciate if it was available in Poland or was easily adaptable to polish language.

Normally I'd say this kind of question would be too open-ended, but there are so few deep strategy games that don't require sight.

Boardgamegeek has this old thread with a good number of suggestions: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/1860/games-for-the-blind-or-non-sighted-need-suggestion

This Kickstarter project ending really soon might be of interest???

@Joe Most games normally require sight, sure, but you might be surprised how many could be converted not to need it with a bit of marking and a little help from sighted players.

I wonder if we could make some more constructive questions out of this. We all do really want to help, but this really is a bit open-ended; there are a lot of games which can be made suitable with some level of modification. (Any card game without too much on the table works, for example.) Perhaps more useful questions: how do you look at a game and decide whether it'll work? What's the best way to mark cards? What about simple tiles? (I think especially with the broad question, since we're probably all sighted, we're prone to making unnecessary assumptions.)

@Jefromi I added some details. Thanks for effort and feel free to ask further questions if you have some.

@alex Aha, that really does change it, thanks for the edit. A lot of what I said was based on my experience with a friend who's been blind since birth.

I see three kind of games:
1. Just for fun games
In these games, there is no point in winning, just having fun is enough. What comes in mind is Aye, Dark Overlord!, where the goal is to explain to your Overlord, as a minion, why you totally screw up the very important mission he just gave you. It's basically a speaking-only game and there is absolutely no harm in seeing her cards and telling her what she's got in hands. Plus, the players only have 3 cards in hand, which means she basically have 3 names to remember.
2. Non-hidden games Need a better name
In these games, everything is public, no one has anything to hide. It's most of the time only strategy. In these, it's easy to ask what color is a piece without revealing your strategy. She can play most of them as long as you are willing to sacrifice your game by marking the pieces (each color with a different material). I'd say Quarto! fits the description, simply mark the dark pieces with Play Doh, for example.
3. Co-op games
In those, a strategy can be discussed and the other players can tell her "your idea is good, but there is a detail you obviously can see". I recommand Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, in which the players read a kind of gamebook, each chapter being a bit of investigation. She can simply let someone else read when she's supposed to and still decide what is to do with the clues you've just collected.
NOTE
As a colorblind person myself, I do something with my games: each time there are colors that are hard to see for me, I ask someone to mark all the cards, pieces or tiles of one color with a marker. It doesn't bother the other players but helps me differenciate the colors. It can be possible to do the same with little holes (in braille?) or any other kind of marking. But this marking might be permanent.

I'm not sure no hidden information is the right name for your second category. If there's hidden information, it's hidden from everyone - why does that cause a problem? For example, plenty of card games have hidden information (private hands), and they'll work just fine with braille playing cards. If anything, having hidden information makes things easier: it's less stuff you need to either mark or keep track of mentally.

I like the suggestion of "Aye, Dark Overlord." Another, somewhat similar game is Fiasco. It does need some dice rolling and table lookup, but I'm guessing dice are perfectly 'feelable'? Which leaves the tables, but those could be rendered in braille.

Okay, I know I said "name" but the description for your second category also says everything is public. I think really what you're trying to say is "describable/markable games"? Things where the public information can all be conveyed by either other players describing it or marking the pieces, and pieces can be marked for private information? This will generally mean not having too much public information - you don't want a huge board with 100 pieces in specific positions.

+1 for "co-op games". I really think this is the best place to start. No information hiding is necessary and you can get a good sense of what "visual" information is lost to the player, guiding future choices.

I would keep tabs on this kickstarter that got successfully funded.
Board Games Now Blind Accessible

As well as games that can be played just through talk, it's good to consider games that would be fun to play blind.
Primarily tactile games with open information would hopefully fit the bill, although they might test memory a little more than usual. More traditional games like Chess would be workable, but very difficult.
I think a great option would be a game like Mancala. There wouldn't be too much to remember, and the tactile nature of play would be quite satisfying.
You could also modify another game to use tactile elements. For instance, imagine playing Coloretto, but when a card was drawn, you replaced it with a distinctly shaped object depending on the colour (obviously would need a sighted opponent/adjudicator). This would add a tactile element to having the objects in front of you, and taking them.
Another possibility: If you wanted to play a card game with closed information, you could consider opaque sleeves and braille on the cards. A blind player could subtly unsleeve their card and feel it to "read" it. This might open up closed-information card games if you don't mind modifying your components.

Why do the sleeves need to be opaque? Also, you can likely just put the braille on the sleeves - no need to unsleeve to read, and the sleeves are more easily replaceable if you mess something up

@Jefromi I was assuming they wanted to play against a sighted opponent. Without opaque sleeves, the indentation on the card may be visible to the naked eye, and an opponent might understand it. Obviously if all involved players are blind, the sleeves need not be opaque.

You don't have you braille the cards directly. You can use labels.

Oops, apparently the OP doesn't know braille, so I guess it doesn't really matter for this question.

A few games come to mind as readily modifiable for blind play, and a few as playable out of the box.
Out of the box
Versions of Othello have been released in the past with raised lines defining the spaces; the pieces in that are slightly concave on the black side, and flat on the white. Othello Classic appears to be the current title for this, but I can't tell if it has the standard pieces. (Note that the Travel version has double-flat pieces, while many versions of the full size have simple printed grids, not raised.) Maxiaids.com has a version using rods with a brad in one end, rather than discs.
Mancala as a 2-player game can be played out of the box with only minor issues - the typical rule of not touching others' pits must be ignored for the blind player. Mancala as a series game, as presented in "capture the pit" play in the Oh-wah-ree version by 3M, has issues in multi-player (marbles being used to denote who owns which pit), but one player could substitute beads, another use empty pits, etc, allowing for even multi-player play.
Dominoes. While a traditional "family game", it's actually got some strategy, and is inherently blind-friendly with standard pieces. One blind acquaintance has burned out on it because it was the only blind-friendly game at school.
Rumikub. Some sets are deeply embossed; with one of these, the blind player may be able to feel the numbers without modifications. We had to go to using face down pile on the table instead of drawing from a bag because my set was deeply enough embossed for me to tell what I was drawing.
Mah Jongg can be played once the blind player learns the piece faces - a larger set is better. Most sets use engraved images (the others are cards). Since even the scoring is done using dot-marked sticks, it's just a matter of learning curve.
Score Sheet modifications only
Catan Dice - the dice are only slightly embossed in the wood dice versions, but more deeply so in the plastic dice versions. The score sheet can be replaced with a braille linear matt, and markers for showing what's been taken. Coins can be used for score keeping.
Modifications - add texture
Travel Blokus, with the smooth pieces, can be modified by careful drilling. Drill holes through one color, in every square of every piece of that color. You now have a tactile version. The blind player can feel the board state, the pieces aren't likely to move, and there is no information loss nor gain.
Standard Blokus - if you have two identically sized sets, one with the pieces with hollows, and one with the smooth sided pieces, you can swap a color out in the process. If you have a single smooth-faced set, drill out one color as for travel. If you have a hollowed set, fill the hollows with glue. Or use a texturing on one color. The blind player can feel the alternate face, but can't ID the other colors as separate, but their own move is only trivially hampered by playing this way.
Hive - Since the pieces are not randomized at all, and the images are depressed, only a tiny modification is needed - some means of telling one color from the other; texturing is suggested. It would be best to play on a slightly tacky surface, such as a warm vinyl placemat or a non-slip cabinet liner, so the pieces don't readily slide when touched.
Kids of Catan - you need to texture the player pieces, but that's it. The die is pipped, the commodities can be told by shape, and one can readily play ignoring the slot colors (and in fact, doing so makes the game far more tactical, as does allowing movement either direction). One could add braille labels to the slots, as well, and play the game unmodified. It's simple, but with allowing movement either direction, not totally inane, and very pretty for the sighted folks.
major modding...
Cathedral, as a game, should be playable, except that the pieces don't lock to the board. This can be fixed with drilling holes in the board, and adding not-quite-flush nails to the piece bottoms to lock them in. This also turns it into a decent back-seat-of-the-car or on-the-bus version for longer trips. for totally sightless play, one should texture one set of pieces, as well - sand glued to the roofs is practical and pretty.
Chess can be modded by use of a board with raised square edges and two different sets of pieces with different shapes, and again, ignoring the no-touch rule. Alternatively, the board can be drilled, and pins inserted into the pieces' bases, and one side textured, just like Cathedral.
Diplomacy - the hardest part is not knocking the pieces around. The solution? use a thin bead of caulk to define the board space's edges, braille label the spaces by name, and use distinctive shaped or textured pieces for each player. One might also texture (with blue sand) the seas. For example, one player might be full height cubes, another half height, a third half height textured, a 4th using cylinders full height, and 5th with half-height cylinders, and a 6th and 7th using full and half-height triangles.
Texturing pieces
Many games pieces can be textured. For games like Hive, where the pieces are bakelite, or blokus, where they are polycarbonate, and shape determines piece type, one can texture the surface with only minor cosmetic issues.
If you have a belt sander available, use a medium grit belt and a VERY light touch. Using double stick tape, secure the pieces to a piece of scrap board, and clamp that to the table. Make a single pass with the belt sander on low speed in order to create furrows on the surface. Flip, and repeat for the other side for blokus pieces.
If you wish to go the glue and sand route, apply a very thin layer of glue to the face to be textured, then press that face into a bowl of sand, remove, and let dry.
Braille Drilling
A number of games using bakelite or plastic tiles can have braille drilled in; some blind folks find this acceptable, others don't. If used, set your stops on a drill press to prevent drilling completely through, and mark all the dots first.
Brailling of cards
Most card games can be done in braille - either by directing brailling the cards, or by braille stickering.
A few have been done by punching holes in the cards, but this marks the cards.


text:
How do Phenomenon cards work in the Eternities Map variant?
In the Eternities Map variant of Planechase, players lay out Plane cards in a grid and get to choose a direction when they planeswalk:

Players see not only the current plane, but also adjacent planes they can go to.
Planechase 2012 introduces the new Phenomenon cards as part of the planar deck -- for example, Interplanar Tunnel and Spatial Merging.
How do Phenomenon cards work with the Eternities Map? Specifically,

Can you use them at all?
Are Phenomena resolved immediately when you reveal them from the deck, or do they go on the field and sit there (like adjacent Planes would) until a player visits one?
What happens to a Phenomenon card after it resolves?
How should triggers be stacked when resolving Phenomena?
Do any of the Phenomena require functional errata to work in this format?

I would like to see authoritative official rules, but house rules (with design justification) are also acceptable.

This should be tagged "rules" or "house-rules". I'm not sure which. Eternities Map isn't an officially supported format like vanilla Planechase (so, no comp rules), but I'm looking for an authoritative semi-official answer.

Those Phenomenon cards really should be card links to trim down the bulk -- will change once they're up in Gatherer.

They're not yet in Gatherer, so obviously they can't be linked to.

Your examples are both essentially exciting ways to find out what plane you're going to, so they generally seem to make sense if you resolve them when you visit them, and replace them with the effective destination plane(s). Perhaps the question might be better if you replaced one of them with a different phenomenon where it's less obvious how to deal with actually ending up on a new plane? (Looks like there are lots of the form "do X, then move on".)

In the absence of any official article, here are my current house rules:

Include phenomenon cards in the planar deck, as normal. As a rule of
thumb, the deck should include at least 25 actual planes.
Players "encounter" phenomenon cards when they are revealed from the planar deck -- put their triggers on top of the stack immediately.
In most cases, this means that the phenomenon will be adjacent to
the current plane. After resolving a phenomenon, place it on the
bottom of the planar deck and continue revealing plane cards until all
spaces are filled as normal.
Spatial Merging gets errata to read "Place both of them in the
same slot on the planar map" instead of "Simultaneous planeswalk to
both of them."

My main guiding principle for these house rules was that phenomena are random, one-time events, so it was aesthetically unappealing to have them sitting in a spot, waiting to be triggered. Because they activate when revealed from the deck, moving to a known square can still have additional unforeseen consequences (e.g. Morphic Tide or Chaotic AEther). I like that phenomena only occur when exploring the edges of the map: they are surprises that afflict planeswalkers venturing out into unknown reaches.
Overriding the unique "encounter" keyword allows all current phenomenon cards work as written, with the exception of Spatial Merging (and their reminder text). I consider this an elegant solution.
Phenomena are placed at the bottom of the deck (rather than shuffled) because I found that more natural and expedient. They can still recur unexpectedly because the deck will be shuffled whenever out-of-reach planes are removed from the map. You could also shuffle them in immediately if you wanted to; which approach you prefer doesn't really matter.
Note that, with too few actual plane cards in the deck, the game could get into a degenerate loop when you continuously reveal phenomenon cards -- hence the warning about minimum deck size. Right now, we play with a deck of around 35-40 cards total, 5 of which are phenomena, and this has worked well.
There are some niggles here with trigger ordering that I haven't investigated fully, but so far my informal play procedures have been sufficient for a few quick playtest games.

Accepted because we've tested this more and it worked.

What I've been doing is to leave the Phenomena on the board and treat them as warp tunnels. When traveling to a phenomenal you encounter the phenomenal and then continue in a straight line to encounter a new plane (which may or may not have been visible).

Since Eternities is not an official format, it is very likely that either you'll have to ban Phenomena from being played altogether, or you will have to make some sort of house rules regarding their use in the format, at which point how Phenomenon cards are handled is up to you and the people you play with. Since this format was created by the mothership, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an article about this very subject in the near future; and Mark Rosewater regularly answers questions from fans, so that might be one avenue you could take in order figure out the proper way to address this problem.


text:
Does "prevent all damage to target creature" save the other creatures in a gang block?
In The Great Designer Search 2, one of the participants designed this card:

CW15 - Improvised Shield
1W
Instant
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn.
Draw a card.

MTG designer Ken Nagle said this in his review:

KEN: Nice enough. This kind of effect got better when we changed the
  combat rules in Magic 2010. You can gangblock and the creature with
  the Improvised Shield will protect everyone else.

Is this correct? Which rules (in the comp rules) make it work out this way?
For an example, say I attack with a 7/7 creature, and you block with a 3/3, 2/2, and 2/1. I arrange damage to the blockers in the same order. After blockers are declared, you cast "Improvised Shield" (or Indestructible Aura, if you want a real-card example) on the 3/3. What will happen during the combat damage step?
If one of the blockers has or acquires a relevant protection ability, does the same thing happen?

Hehe. I just went to that page link and like that not only did Ken get it wrong, but so did Mark when he said "I like that you again found a simple effect that we hadn't specifically done yet. I would be tempted to drop the cost to and get rid of the cantrip to make it a little cleaner." — if you drop the cost and got rid of the cantrip, it would have been done in Legends: Indestructible Aura!

No; you must assign lethal damage in blocking order, but this doesn't take into account effects that prevent, redirect, or alter damage when it's actually dealt.
From the Comprehensive rules:

509.1. First, the defending player declares blockers. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. To declare blockers, the defending player follows the steps below, in order. If at any point during the declaration of blockers, the defending player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the declaration is illegal; the game returns to the moment before the declaration (see rule 717, "Handling Illegal Actions").
509.2. Second, for each attacking creature that's become blocked, the active player announces that creature's damage assignment order, which consists of the creatures blocking it in an order of that player's choice. (During the combat damage step, an attacking creature can't assign combat damage to a creature that's blocking it unless each creature ahead of that blocking creature in its order is assigned lethal damage.) This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.

bunch of other stuff happens.

509.5. Fifth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

Therefore, yes, there is an opportunity to play prevention spells after blockers are assigned and assignment order has been decided.
So, the Oracle text for Indestructible Aura reads: Prevent all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn. Let's use that on the first creature in the assignment order. Sounds like a plan.
As per 615.6

615.6. If damage that would be dealt is prevented, it never happens. A modified event may occur instead, which may in turn trigger abilities. Note that the modified event may contain instructions that can't be carried out, in which case the impossible instruction is simply ignored.

As per 509.2, the rest of the creatures in the assignment order can't be assigned damage unless the creature ahead of it has been assigned lethal damage. You might think "hey, all that damage is prevented, and therefore it never happened."
But — wait a sec! We skipped the damage assignment part of the rules. This is the long and confusing but most important rule in this situation. Emphasis mine.

510.1c A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. If exactly one creature is blocking it, it assigns all its combat damage to that creature. If two or more creatures are blocking it, it assigns its combat damage to those creatures according to the damage assignment order announced for it. This may allow the blocked creature to divide its combat damage. However, it can't assign combat damage to a creature that's blocking it unless, when combat damage assignments are complete, each creature that precedes that blocking creature in its order is assigned lethal damage. When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that's being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that's actually dealt. An amount of damage that's greater than a creature's lethal damage may be assigned to it.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). Vastwood Gorger can assign 3 damage to the Guardian and 2 damage to the Elves, 4 damage to the Guardian and 1 damage to the Elves, or 5 damage to the Guardian.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). During the declare blockers step, the defending player casts Giant Growth targeting Pride Guardian, which gives it +3/+3 until end of turn. Vastwood Gorger must assign its 5 damage to the Guardian.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). During the declare blockers step, the defending player casts Mending Hands targeting Pride Guardian, which prevents the next 4 damage that would be dealt to it. Vastwood Gorger can assign 3 damage to the Guardian and 2 damage to the Elves, 4 damage to the Guardian and 1 damage to the Elves, or 5 damage to the Guardian.
Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Enormous Baloth (a 7/7 creature) is Trained Armodon (a 3/3 creature) that already has 2 damage marked on it, then Foriysian Brigade (a 2/4 creature that can block an additional creature), then Silverback Ape (a 5/5 creature). The damage assignment order of an attacking Durkwood Boars (a 4/4 creature) is the same Foriysian Brigade, then Goblin Piker (a 2/1 creature). Among other possibilities, the active player may have the Baloth assign 1 damage to the Armodon, 1 damage to the Brigade, and 5 damage to the Ape, and have the Boars assign 3 damage to the Brigade and 1 damage to the Piker.

You prevent all damage to that target creature but the rest of the damage assigned to other creatures isn't prevented. In the middle of rule 510.1c it says that the attacker does not have to take into account any abilities that change the amount of damage actually dealt. If the attacker chooses, he could assign all the damage to the first creature and it all would be prevented, but he doesn't have to take the prevention effect into account so that would under most circumstances be sub-optimal.
In your example, the attacker doesn't have to assign more than three damage to your first creature. Three damage is lethal damage. Among other options, his best choice would be to assign 3 damage to the first creature, 2 to the second, and two to the third, killing the 2/2 and 2/1 blockers.
PS. If this is an accurate quote, Ken got it wrong in 2010. Here's the rule change announcement in 2009. From that post:

So ... what is "lethal damage"? For the purposes of damage assignment, "lethal damage" is the amount of damage necessary for a creature to be destroyed, ignoring all abilities and damage prevention effects. In other words, it's that creature's toughness minus any damage that's already been dealt to it or that is simultaneously being assigned to it. It doesn't matter whether that creature has protection, is indestructible, will prevent the next 8 damage that would be dealt to it, etc.

Excellent job on the extra research!

One of the finest answers I've seen here.  Fantastically done.

Good question and great answer. I didn't know this. Thanks!

Thanks guys, and thanks @AlexP for the excellent edit! Another thing I thought of as I researched and wrote this answer are the implications for a card like Furnace of Rath. If you block my attacking 4/5 with a 2/3 and another 2/3 to ensure that it dies, I will only be able to kill one of them even though that attacking creature will deal 8 damage!

+! since +1 doesn't seem like enough!

@ghoppe That's a lot like this scenario with Inquisitor's Flail.