text:
Strategy for the game: I Doubt It, also known as cheat, B.S
Is there any known effective strategies for the game I Doubt It (Wikipedia)?
How can you maximize your chances of winning?
We play the variant where players must continue placing cards of the same rank until someone calls "Cheat" or everyone decides to pass a turn. Like for example, the first player plays 3') 5's claiming they are 3 9's, then the next player has to claim their card is also a 9(they can play any card).
If someone thinking he is bluffing, he can then call him out, and if he is correct the loser will take all cards played so far.
The next player can choose any rank as the cards to claim he had put down, it doesnt have to be sequential.

By "cheats" do you mean they bluff, which is legal and therefore not cheating, or do you mean actually breaks the rules of the game?

Also, in your variant can players still play multiple cards at once?  Does passing remove you from a round for good, or can you reenter if other people keep playing?

By cheating i meen bluffing, and you can reenter again in the round

Does the number you claim the card to be increase sequentially, or can the first player of the next round choose whatever number they want?

You can choose whatever number you want

Generally, let other people call BS
You don't mention it in your variant, but I assume that if someone calls BS and is incorrect, they themselves have to pick up the deck. When the BS-caller is correct, everybody at the table gets the same benefit (the BS-er gets farther from winning), but when the BS-caller is incorrect, only the BS-caller gets punished. Because of this, you should typically let other people call BS, since you'll reap the exact same benefits while taking none of the risks.
Of course, if you have 4-of-a-kind in your hand and anybody else attempts to play a card of that rank, you can call BS risk-free.
Always call BS on someone else's last card
If you are wrong, the game is over anyway. If you are correct, you still have a shot at winning.
If your last card is BS, don't play it
Since you should expect your last play to have BS called on it no matter what, you can only really win by making a non-BS play. If your last card does not match the current value, all you can do is pass, since playing the card will result in a BS call and having to pick up all the cards.

Yes if someone calls BS and is incorrect, he gets all the cards

Cheat! without bluffing is entirely deterministic
In the variant you've described (assuming I've understood it correctly), all the Aces will be played, then all the 2s, then the 3s, etc.  In theory, someone could withhold playing a card during the proper round, but there is zero benefit to doing so, and an enormous penalty (if you do so and nobody else does, you're guaranteed to lose), so in practice nobody would.  This means that the person who wins will be the one who has the lowest high card.  (ie, if my highest card is a Queen and your highest card is a Jack, then you will beat me.)
The strategy in Cheat is entirely in knowing when to bluff or call bluffs in order to minimize your chance of getting new cards while maximizing the chance of other players calling you out mistakenly, and using the bluffs to get rid of the cards that wouldn't be played for a long bit of time.

I didnt mean the variant with no bluffing, we bluff normally. I meant that we play the variant where there is no order to play the cards, you just play the same suit.

@Ahmed Eshra you need to explain your variant in more detail then, because it is not clear what rules you are playing by.  In your question you refer to rank, but now you say suit.  And if you bluff normally, what did you mean by "assuming no one cheats"?

Sorry i meant to say same rank not suit, will update the question

I edited it, is there anything unclear?

@Ahmed Eshra, It's still self-contradictory. You state that there should be an assumption that noone cheats, but you later cover the situation when someone does bluff (cheat).

I didnt mean there is an assumption no one cheats, will edit the post to clarify


text:
Have the two English Scrabble™ dictionaries ever gotten out of sync?
Currently, in North America, the definitive reference for which words are valid in tournament play is the NASPA Word List, which in 2019 replaced the Official Tournament and Club Word List. However, internationally, the definitive reference is Collins Official SCRABBLE™ Words.  The main practical difference between the two lists is that the latter contains more words.
It occurred to me, though, that these two word lists are periodically updated, and the exact dates of the updates do not always coincide.  Therefore, it is conceivable that, even though the international list is supposed to contain everything in the North American list and more, the two lists could briefly get "out of sync," resulting in some words being valid in North America but not valid internationally, at least for a short period of time. This could happen either because some word is added to the North American list before it gets added to the international list, or a word is deleted from the international list before it is deleted from the North American list.
Has this ever happened?

Yes, the NASPA Word List (NWL) and Collins Official Scrabble Words (CSW) do get out of sync.
In fact they are currently out of sync, with the NWL2020 containing 2417 words that are not included in CSW21, of which there are 52 under 9 letters in length.
Primarily this discrepancy is caused by Collins selectively excluding more words deemed to be hate speech than NASPA does (they both exclude some, Collins is just more strict due to the additional regions covered).
There are also a few trademarked works Collins doesn't include as they would be tricky to use in a printed edition.
Helpfully NASPA has a list of the 2-8 letter words included in their Collins Cheat Sheet

Thanks for this answer. I saw a recent Slate article which says that the latest revision of NWL (NWL2023) contains words such as HORSEFEATHERSES and ROUXES and FECESES, which seem to be the result of misapplying certain "rules" of word formation. I wonder if Collins will add these dubious "words" in their next revision.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Identify this space combat game with a letter based ship architecture
I remember going through an old board game I found in my parents attic when I was a child (early 2000s, however it's an old game, so it could easily have been released in the 80s) and I was hoping you could all help me.
It was a hex-based space combat game, where players designed their fleets to a set number of points (and a desired Tech Level) before play. This box set had little cardboard counters for the ships, although there was a leaflet inside for ordering little cast model ships in various styles.
The most unique part was how the ship was described. It consisted of a bunch of letters in a row, each one representing a single module. Damage would typically involve crossing out letters from left to right, although some weapons had different rules.
An example (off the top of my head):

SSSSAAAHHPdGGOIIII

This would represent a ship with 4 units of shields, 3 armour, some holds, Point Defence and other gubbins, and finally four Ion Engines. So this ship would lose its Shields and Armour first and would lose the engines last.
Finally, I remember there was an expansion pack that brought a new faction along with rules for fighter craft.
Does anyone know what this game is called?

Could you provide context to "when I was a child"? (e.g., what year or decade are we talking about?)

Could this have been part of the Starfire series?  Images show a hexagonal grid & ship counters and the description says:

A "word" makes up a ship. As damage is done between ships, letters are
crossed off from left to right within the "word" until the ship is
destroyed.

The review at https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1101304/starlord-review-quick-and-simple-game-yesteryear provides even more corroboration: "Damage Allocation: Damage is applied by deleting systems from left to right, bypassing systems that the weapon doesn't affect. So if the the ship SAIGIRII takes 4 standard damage, it looks like this S-A-I-G-IRII having lost a shield (S), armour (A), ion engine (I) and gun (G)."

This definitely looks like it. Is the culture here to accept an answer immediately, or should I wait for 24 hours like some other SEs suggest?

@Kyyshak: In the case of questions tagged as identify-this-game, I don't think there's much reason to hold out for additional, better answers.

https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2147353865/Starfire-I

Starfire II was the fighter expansion, and Starfire III: Empires was a campaign game with (if I remember correctly) randomly generated star systems and hyperspatial connections between them.

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


text:
What is the game where you have to identify a person based on their features?
I am trying to find the name of a game that I played when I was a child. In it, there were a large number of characters in various costumes. The object of the game was either to guess a target character or guess opponents' characters. I do not remember the exact mechanics by which you played and figured out which character you were looking for. Some key features:

The characters were photographed models in costumes, not drawn;
I would have played this game in the early 80s and I recall the box looking rather old, so I would place this game most likely in the 1970s if not 1960s;
I cannot recall if there was an actual board, but it came in a long cardboard box similar to those that held board games at the time;
I remember there were cards, and it is possible that each player was dealt one as "their character."
I vaguely recall that the cards were larger than standard game cards, possibly 4x6 or 5x7 inches.
It had a short name like "Clue" but obviously I'm not thinking of Clue.
Five or six players could play this game at once.

Can anyone identify the game I am so imperfectly recalling?

That sounds like Guess Who. Most editions have drawn characters rather than photographs, but there are a lot of editions, so I wouldn't be surprised if an early one had photos.

I'm sort of new here, but should answers be in comments? It is not Guess Who, and in fact watching my nieces play Guess Who is what got me thinking about this older game. I will add to my question that at least five or six people could play at once, unlike Guess Who.

Ah, but it didn't answer your question, did it?  But it helped you improve the question, which is what comments are for.  I'll admit that there's a bit of a grey area here,  but I didn't have proof that it actually fulfilled the criteria of your question.  If I knew of a photo edition for sure I would have submitted it as an answer.  (Probably. I was pretty tired last night)

Yeah, I guess you did. Lucky for you it wasn't Guess Who. :)

It sounds like you're describing «Whosit?» (1976)
Whosit? on Board Game Geek

Yep, this is it. The name and photo totally rang a bell, and I now recall that the board was only for reference and didn't have pieces on it. That's probably why I was unsure if there was a board. Thanks Robert!

"Whosit!" was reimplemented recently by Restoration Games as "Dinosaur Tea Party", resulting in a game that has less of that 70s chic but also less of that 70s stereotyping.


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Does the Cosumi Go site sometimes get the score wrong?
Cosumi claims that I won this game by 37 points:

— [9×9, Level 0] Black(You) Wins by 37 Points - Go Browser Game COSUMI
But it looks even to me.
Am I missing something, or does the site sometimes get the score completely wrong?
EDIT:
Strange.  The next morning, the same URL shows the upper-right corner as captured:

That might account for the score but, as far as I can tell, White still owns that territory.
Something strange is going on here.  (Does Cosumi have a bug-reporting mechanism?)

The score is wrong, both white groups are alive

You are right that the top right belongs to White with correct play, but according to the programme Sabaki White wins by one point (because they have a captive). It is conceivable, but somewhat unlikely, that White could make enough errors for Black to win.
The score
Sabaki calculates the score like this for area scoring:

and like this with territory scoring:

The top right
To be on the safe side, I plugged your SGF into KataGo (via Sabaki), and it showed me a ko in the top right that Black cannot win: not only do they have hardly any threats, even if they did, they could not finish the ko in their favour.
The sequence that KataGo found was this:
$$Bcm1 Trying for a ko
$$ +---------+
$$ |..XOO.a25|
$$ |.X.XO.O1c|
$$ |..,XXO4d3|
$$ |.XXXXXOOO|
$$ |..XOXOXXO|
$$ |XXOOOOX.X|
$$ |OOOOOX.X.|
$$ |....OX.X.|
$$ |.O..OOX..|
$$ +---------+

Unfortunately for Black, White simply has to connect with ➅ at a and Black has no way of finishing the ko to kill White. White can just wait for Black to run out of threats and then capture at c and d.
Black’s only chance is if White plays the ko wrongly, for example:
$$Wcm6 White messes up (9 retakes, 13 @ 7)
$$ +---------+
$$ |..XOO36OX|
$$ |.X.XO2OX1|
$$ |0.,XXOO.X|
$$ |9XXXXXOOO|
$$ |57XOXOXXO|
$$ |XXOOOOX.X|
$$ |OOOOOXxX.|
$$ |....OX.X.|
$$ |.O..OOX..|
$$ +---------+

capturing ➅ instead of connecting at ⓫,
threatening with ➉ instead of the deadlier threat at x,
missing x again after Black takes at ⓫ and therefore giving up the ko, so
Black wins by 27 (area) or 26 (territory).


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Rule 506.4a vs 509.3a (removing attackers/blockers during combat)
I'm returning to Magic after a long hiatus, so my apologies if this question is obvious. I'm trying to understand why both of these rules exist:

506.4a: Once a creature has been declared as an attacking or blocking creature, spells or abilities that would have kept that creature from attacking or blocking don't remove the creature from combat.

And:

509.3a: During the declare blockers step, if an attacking creature is removed from combat or a spell or ability causes it to stop being blocked by a blocking creature, the attacking creature is removed from all relevant damage assignment orders. The relative order among the remaining attacking creatures is unchanged.

Given what 506.4a says, when would 509.3a ever apply? Browsing other related questions suggests that when a card specifically uses the phrase "remove from combat", 506.4a doesn't apply (because cards overrule the rules), is that the only time you would fall back to 509.3a, or are there other examples too?
Edit for anyone reading this later who is still confused:
The accepted answer does give examples of cases when a creature is removed from combat, however murgatroid99 helpfully points out that 506.4a is much more precise than I initially thought - it only applies to cards that say something like "prevent this creature from attacking/blocking this turn", not literally any effect that could prevent a creature from attacking/blocking.

I have to ask, you read 506.4a, but not 506.4, which lists several ways that a creature can be removed from combat?

@murgatroid99 I did read that, I'm asking because it seems like 506.4a can overrule most of those cases. For example, it seems as though you can't cast a spell that causes a declared creature to leave the battlefield because that would keep it from attacking/blocking.

Yes, there are cards that remove creatures from combat like:

But there is also regeneration ability, which removes the regenerated creature from combat.
Rule 701.12a

If the effect of a resolving spell or ability regenerates a permanent, it creates a replacement effect that protects the permanent the next time it would be destroyed this turn. In this case, “Regenerate [permanent]” means “The next time [permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage marked on it and tap it. If it’s an attacking or blocking creature, remove it from combat.”

From question:
Is a Regenerated Creature Removed from Combat?
There may be other examples as well, but this one comes to mind.

The rule 506.4a is written that way, because for example if a card prevents something from attacking, it doesn't have an effect on a creature that is already attacking. The rule 509.3a applies in all these situations where a creature is removed from combat.
The rule 506.4 also states other situations where a creature can or cannot be removed from combat:

506.4 A permanent is removed from combat if it leaves the battlefield, if its controller changes, if it phases out, if an effect specifically removes it from combat, if it’s a planeswalker that’s being attacked and stops being a planeswalker, or if it’s an attacking or blocking creature that regenerates (see rule 701.13) or stops being a creature. A creature that’s removed from combat stops being an attacking, blocking, blocked, and/or unblocked creature. A planeswalker that’s removed from combat stops being attacked.
506.4a Once a creature has been declared as an attacking or blocking creature, spells or abilities that would have kept that creature from attacking or blocking don’t remove the creature from combat.
506.4b Tapping or untapping a creature that’s already been declared as an attacker or blocker doesn’t remove it from combat and doesn’t prevent  its combat damage.
506.4c If a creature is attacking a planeswalker, removing that planeswalker from combat doesn’t remove that creature from combat. It continues to be an attacking creature, although it is attacking neither a player nor a planeswalker. It may be blocked. If it is unblocked, it will deal no combat damage.
506.4d A permanent that’s both a blocking creature and a planeswalker that’s being attacked is removed from combat if it stops being both a creature and a planeswalker. If it stops being one of those card types but continues to be the other, it continues to be either a blocking creature or a planeswalker that’s being attacked, whichever is appropriate.

I suggest also quoting rule 506.4, which lists several ways that a creature can be removed from combat.

Thank you for a thorough response - can I ask to be 100% clear about the distinction between 506.4 and 506.4a:  'leaving the battlefield' would remove a creature from combat, but you can't typically force a creature to leave the battlefield after it's been declared as an attacker/blocker unless the card specifically acknowledges that it means mid combat? For example, Unsummon doesn't do anything during combat, right?

No, 506.4a is much more narrow than that. It talks about "spells or abilities that would have kept that creature from attacking or blocking", which is referring to cards like Stun that directly say that a creature can't attack or block. If you cast Stun on a creature that is already blocking, 506.4a says that that creature won't be removed from combat.

Just to be completely clear, you absolutely can Unsummon an attacking or blocking creature to remove it from combat.

@murgatroid99 perfect, thank you very much. I see how I was being way too broad about the phrase  "...kept that creature from attacking or blocking..." I'm marking the above answer as correct, but your comment definitely helped me understand, and is a lot more to the point of what I was trying to ask (though that's definitely my fault for not making it super clear what point I was confused by)


text:
Turn Count Inconsistency when using Attack in Exploding Kittens
When playing Attack, the turns of the current player are transferred to the next player, and a fixed number of turns are added. However, this seems to be inconsistent with the official text:

ATTACK 2X 4 CARDS
Do not draw any cards. Instead, immediately force the next player to take 2 turns in a row. Play then continues from that player. The victim of this card takes a turn as normal (pass-or-play then draw). Then, when their first turn is over, it's their turn again.
If the victim of an Attack Card plays an Attack Card on any of their turns, the new target must take any remaining turns plus the number of attacks on the Attack Card just played (e.g. 4 turns, then 6, and so on).

The text suggests that this would be the effect:

P1 plays Attack, so P2 has 2 turns.
P2 plays Attack, so P3 has 4 turns.
P3 plays Attack, so P4 has 6 turns. (Pn refers to P(n mod p) for p players.)
P4 plays Attack, so P5 has 8 turns.
P5 plays Five Different Cards (to get Attack) and draws Shuffle, with 7 turns left.
P5 plays Attack, so P6 has 9 turns.

The inconsistency is that P1 already has 1 turn when playing Attack, which would imply adding 1 turn per Attack card:

P1 plays Attack, so P2 has 1+1=2 turns.
P2 plays Attack, so P3 has 2+1=3 turns.
P3 plays Attack, so P4 has 3+1=4 turns.
P4 plays Attack, so P5 has 4+1=5 turns.
P5 plays Five Different Cards (to get Attack) and draws Shuffle, with 4 turns left.
P5 plays Attack, so P6 has 4+1=5 turns.

This is clearly not what the text suggests, which is that 2 turns should be added. But even with that change, it seems like 1 extra turn should be added to everything:

P1 plays Attack, so P2 has 1+2=3 turns.
P2 plays Attack, so P3 has 3+2=5 turns.
P3 plays Attack, so P4 has 5+2=7 turns.
P4 plays Attack, so P5 has 7+2=9 turns.
P5 plays Five Different Cards (to get Attack) and draws Shuffle, with 8 turns left.
P5 plays Attack, so P6 has 8+2=10 turns.

Is the inconsistency a result of misinterpreting the description, or is it just that the Attack card has a special extra effect of subtracting 1 turn when the turn count is 1 before adding (3 after adding)?
Transfer turns to the next player, add 2 turns, and subtract 1 turn if the turn count is 3.
I say that it seems inconsistent because in this example, P3 can have 2 extra turns from a 1 turn count difference:

P1 plays Attack, so P2 has 2+2-1=2 turns.
P2 plays Shuffle and draws Shuffle, with 1 turn left.
P2 plays Attack, so P3 has 1+2-1=2 turns. (P3 has 2+2=4 turns if the previous line is deleted.)

Or would P3 get 3 turns (4 if the second line is deleted) in this case, corresponding to the following effect?
Transfer turns to the next player and add 2 turns. The turn count is normally 0, and players still take 1 turn if the turn count is 0.
This last rule avoids removing 2 turns from using 1, but it means 1 original turn and 1 Attack turn left are different states (but only when using Attack).

I would interpret as the attack card having a special rule when played as the victim of an attack card (making it more powerful). This is possibly intentional to encourage people to wait until they are attacked to play their attack card, or to lessen the pain of being attacked

@MatthewJensen, so it would be as described in my last example?

If you want to follow the rules exactly, I think the first example is correct (2, 4, 6...). This is looking more and more like an oversight from the developers, thinking that the attack card gives a player 2 turns, instead of 1 plus their normal turn. If you want to add house rules, your second example seems more intuitive (2, 3, 4...). The rule is more simple too; "give the next player all your remaining turns".

From the official description, (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) turns should be satisfied when Attack is played repeatedly without any other move. However, it's still unclear what happens in the last case of my question: P1 plays Attack, P2 uses 1 turn, P2 plays Attack. Should P3 have 2 or 3 turns? Is it significant that P2 had 1 turn left as an Attack victim (3 turns), or is it no different from having 1 original turn (2 turns)? If it's 2, then does it seem correct that P3 loses 2 turns because P2 used 1 turn?

I have a very interesting answer to this question that might or might not be correct...
For all of this to make sense, I believe the first step should be to differentiate between a normal turn and an attack turn.
If you do that, all different scenarios and rules start slowly making more sense and matching up:
1) Official Rules:

ATTACK 2X 4 CARDS
Do not draw any cards. Instead, immediately force the next player to take 2 turns in a row. Play then continues from that player. The victim of this card takes a turn as normal (pass-or-play then draw). Then, when their first turn is over, it's their turn again.
If the victim of an Attack Card plays an Attack Card on any of their turns, the new target must take any remaining <attack> turns plus the number of attacks on the Attack Card just played (e.g. 4 turns, then 6, and so on).

See how I edited in a word there? Would it remove the contradiction from your examples?
1.1)

P1 plays Attack, so P2 has 2 turns. (0 normal and 2 attack)
P2 plays Attack, so P3 has 4 turns. (0 normal and 4 attack)
P3 plays Attack, so P4 has 6 turns. (0 normal and 6 attack)
P4 plays Attack, so P5 has 8 turns. (0 normal and 8 attack)
P5 plays Five Different Cards (to get Attack) and draws Shuffle, with 7 turns left. (0 normal and 7 attack)
P5 plays Attack, so P6 has 9 turns. (0 normal and 9 attack)

So far so good!
1.2 & 1.3)

The inconsistency is that P1 already has 1 turn when playing Attack, which would imply adding 1 turn per Attack card

Now this inconsistency is gone! Normal turns don't get carried over, only attack turns!
2) Mobile Game
Another source for rules that gave me this idea is the mobile Exploding Kittens game.
The game has interesting type of cards called "Slap" (as a replacement for attack cards, functionality seems to be identical):

There are double slaps, triple slaps as well as single slaps and their behavior does seem to fit in with my answer:
Imagine you start the game by single slapping someone:

P1 (1 normal turn, 0 attack) -> Slap
P2 (0 normal turns, 1 attack)

This is the behavior that you would expect according to my explanation but what if P2 slaps back?

P1 (1 normal turn, 0 attack) -> Slap
P2 (0 normal turns, 1 attack) -> Slap
P3 (0 normal turns, 2 attack)!

That's precisely what happens in the game! It seems like for the rules to make sense you really need to differentiate between normal turns that happen when someone finishes their turn, and the forced "attack" turns that happen once someone gets attacked/slapped.
2.1) Official Rules (again)
The game behavior and my explanation both match up with the "Double Slap" description as well:

Double Slap
3 Cards with  4 Cards without
End your turn without drawing a card and force any other player to take 2 turns in a row.
This is not the same as drawing 2 cards in a row! The target of this card should take their first turn (play cards and/or draw). When their turn is over, it’s their turn again.
If the targeted player plays a Slap Card in return, they pick a player to take ALL remaining turns (4 turns, then 6, and so on). Play always continues from the targeted player.
Triple Slap works the same way as Double Slap, but adds 3 turns instead of 2.

This description matches my explanation as well!

Whether this is the correct interpretation of the rules or not is up for debate, but this was the one and only way I have managed avoid any logical inconsistencies while playing the game both in real life and virtually and reading different rules (old rules are even more different!).

Your system is essentially the last system I described in my question (players take one "normal" turn when the turn count is 0, leading to different behavior when Attack is played when the turn count is 0 or 1). The Double Slap card is described the same as the Attack card, and if the official software implements it this way, I would consider it to be an authoritative ruling.


text:
Effect of using Two of a Kind or Favor on an empty hand in Exploding Kittens?
In Exploding Kittens, it is possible to have an empty hand. When using Favor or Two of a Kind, what happens if the chosen player's hand is empty?
First, consider what happens if Favor is used on a player whose hand is empty.

FAVOR 4 CARDS
Force any other player to give you 1 card from their hand. They choose which card to give you.

It seems like there are two possibilities, but which is intended?

A player whose hand is empty cannot be selected. Favor and Two of a Kind are unusable if everyone else's hand is empty.
The selected player gives nothing. Favor and Two of a Kind are usable without effect if someone's hand is empty.

The same question as above applies to using Two of a Kind on a player whose hand is empty.
"everyone else's hand is empty" is a rare game state, but it seems reachable by having 2 players left:

P1 has 3 cards and uses uses Three of a Kind, asking for a card that P2 doesn't have
P1 draws 1 card
P2 uses Two of a Kind to empty P1's hand
P2 uses Favor on P1

You have it right: the selected player gives you nothing. Whether you want to restrict playing the card (or pair) in that way (to no effect) is up to you (EK is not the kind of game to get official answers on such things), but since playing the card/pair that way is only bad for the player playing it, the restriction won't come up.

It makes a notable difference, as it results in two different games. During your turn if anyone has an empty hand, one game allows you to move Two of a Kind or Favor from your hand to the discard pile without side effects, and the other does not (it either prevents the move or requires you to take a card from another player).

Ah, yeah, there's that. I'd go with "it is allowed" to target a player with no cards (for no effect) then, but it could go either way, really.

So the answer is really that there is no official ruling, and there probably won't be?

Not sure what would be the benefit of discarding more cards than necessary?


text:
What are these Roman Numerals?
I got this used RISK game from a friend, and it was her son's when he was a kid. It had most of the pieces and the cards, but there was also a plastic container in the box with little plastic Roman Numerals in them. They were not mentioned in the instructions, and they didn't match at all the rest of the game. I would like to know if anyone has an idea where they're from. Here are some pics and information on the RISK version:
The box:

The Roman Numerals:

The mismatched box and a RISK pieces box.

The copyright of this edition of RISK is 1993.

Over the years, the "army" pieces in Risk have come in four main styles:

Wooden cubes for a single army, and "oblong pieces" for ten armies, as descried in these 1959 instructions.
Triangular / three-pointed plastic pieces for a single army, and five-pointed stars for ten armies, as featured in instructions from 1969, 1975 and 1990
The Roman numeral pieces you found, representing one, three, five, and ten armies, as seen in these 1980 instructions.
Plastic infantry (single army), cavalry (five armies), and artillery (ten armies), as seen in manuals from 1993, 1999, and 2003. These can also be seen in the current version sold by Hasbro and its instructions, dated 2015. Hasbro acquired Parker Brothers in 1991, so it's likely that these pieces were introduced in the first edition under that management.

Note that only the 1980 manual shows the Roman numeral pieces you found, and the 1990 one shows the star shapes again, so it seems that these were only issued for a relatively short period. Note also that standard editions from the last 30 years seem to have used different variations of the infantry, cavalry and artillery figurines, so these are probably the ones you are most likely to find.

Risk Legacy has a variant of the 1/5/10 armies with infantry, armored vehicles, and hexagonal/star-shaped bases for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the "extra pieces" was added from a different copy of risk so that it could be played with more players.

According to BoardGameGeek and many other sources,
the pieces do belong to Risk.
BoardGameGeek : offer from Game Crafter LLC
The numerals represent armies : I is 1 army, III is 3 armies, V is 5 armies, X is 10 armies.
Rules for Risk 1980, from Hasbro

That doesn't mean the pieces aren't from Risk, quite likely being the collation of different versions into one box.

@Bentley Carpenter : Don't worry about it. We're all learning from our errors here, through civilised discussion.

I don't remember ever seeing pieces like that.  Were they introduced in some year, perhaps, and you have a mismatched set?

The rules published by Hasbro for 1959 to 1980 (se link in my answer) clearly refer to these pieces. One can therefore deduce that they were available in the game up to 1980.

Sometime before 1980, the armies were wood blocks, small ones for a single, and longer ones for 3, long and broad for 5.  Plastic armies were after about 1967, when the set I learned on was made.

@JDługosz I do not have a mismatched set, those were the only weird peices. I think my friend might have had an older RISK, and most of it's peices got lost, so then she got another and just put some of the older RISK peices that weren't lost in there.

That's what I meant -- some older or newer pieces added to this set, so they don't match the box and are not in the instructions.

@ZeissIkon I have never had another RISK game other then my current one, which actually has little plastic men, like: Infantryman for a single, calvary for 5, and a cannon for 10.  And I have seen places companies selling new RISK games... and they all have plastic blocks like the wood ones you mentioned. Is mine special edition, or have I just not seen the companies selling versions with the little people?

@BentleyCarpenter More likely they update the included pieces each time they update the box and board art, which seems to happen every 10-15 years at the latest.

@RobertMiller I've submitted an edit, and also a separate answer, because there's a rather large misunderstanding here: those rules aren't valid for the whole period from 1959 to 1980; 1959 is just the copyright date from the first edition, re-iterated on all subsequent editions. The 1959 edition used wooden blocks, and in fact the 1980 rules are the only ones that mention the Roman numeral army counters.

@IMSop : I upvoted your answer because it adds useful information.


text:
Mix Daemonettes of Slaanesh and Slaves to Darkness, Warhammer AoS
I am back in Warhammer AoS! I started years ago with Slaves to Darkness (i.e. chaos marauder and few Chaos knights). However, I couldn't resist to buy the start to collect Daemons of Slaanesh (with some daemonettes).
Thus, I was wondering: would it be possible for me, if I want to use Slaves to darkness as main army, to use the daemonettes of Slaanesh in a game (with official rules)?
Cheers

Yes.
Each faction lists which other factions can be taken as allies. For the Slaves to Darkness, that includes Hedonites of Slaanesh.

25.8 ALLIES
Below a faction’s Pitched Battle profiles table, you will find a list
of allies that can be taken in an army from that faction (see 27.1).
The allies list will detail which factions you can take allied units
from and any restrictions that apply to their use. Allied units cannot
be generals.

27.1 ALLIED UNITS
1 in 4 units in your army can be allies (see 25.8). Allied units are ignored when determining if the units in the army are from a single faction.

FACTION
ALLIES

Slaves to Darkness
Beasts of Chaos, Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeentch, Maggotkin of Nurgle, Hedonites of Slaanesh

Awesome, the answer is very clear. Can I ask you where you get the citation from? And also, I have been told that in order to make an alliance between them, I should use the mark of Slaanesh on my Slaves to Darkness army: is this true?

@FrsLry I don't see anything requiring you to take Mark of Slaanesh on your StD units, but it is thematic

Ok, perfect, awesome then!


text:
Anyone know a game with yellow and blue ducks?
I remember having a game years ago (it would have been made around 2006-2013) in which there were two players. One player had yellow ducks, and the other had blue. The ducks were 3D, shaped like rubber ducks, only smaller. As far as I can remember, the goal was to get all your ducks across a swamp or pond before the other player did. The board had little oval shaped spaces that I think were indented, so as to fit the bottoms of the ducks in them. I remember that there were lots of ducks, because they ended up all over the house, and I remember that they were small (smaller than a typical rubber duck) at about ¾ inches to 1 inch long. The game was intended for ages around 4-9, so younger kids. Does anyone have any ideas as to what this game is?

Do you have any more detail as to the rules of movement or anything?  With the description given so far it could just as well have been a themed version of chinese checkers.

Do you know for what age group the game was designed?

@JMoravitz: Unfortunately, these are about all the details I can remember. Come to think of it, I do remember something about having yellow and blue paths for the ducks, and multiple starting points, but I can't be sure.

I believe this game is “Duck Duck 1 - 2 - 3” This game sounds very similar to the game plot and has the blue and yellow ducks

Oh my goodness, that's it!! Wow, looking at the pictures on Board Game Geek brings back memories of the spinner and all the little drawings. I'd forgotten that the holes for the ducks were in the mama ducks' backs, not in the board. Here's a ✓ for you!

I could not find a BoardGameGeek entry, but this game for sale on ebay appears to match your description.
It is called "Like Ducks to Water". Specifically, the second image show the indents in the game board meant to receive the ducks:

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, I forgot to mention in my question that the ducks were 3D, like rubber ducks (I edited my question, so that it says so now). But maybe there is an edition of this game that has 3D ducks? Except for that one difference, your game looks very much like it would fit the description in the question.

UPDATE: I think the game I asked about had a different name.


text:
Can Tale's End counter Æther Vial?
Can the spell Tale's End counter Æther Vial's activation (putting a creature on the battlefield)?
Tale's End's text is:

Counter target activated ability, triggered ability, or legendary spell.

Yes, it can BUT you have to use it at Aether Vial's activation, not when your opponent shows you the creature they are about to put onto the battlefield. Newer players sometimes make the mistake that they let the Aether Vial activation resolve, then see what creature the opponents choose to put into play and only then try to react to it, which will not work out.

Right, this specific deck I am trying to play against is tribal so either way I could probably guess and get the creature right, I just want to be able to counter its ability.  Thanks for the answer

@RockwellRice Another caveat: If your opponent did not expect the Tale's End and just proceeded to put the creature on the battlefield without waiting for your go-ahead, you can demand to go back and get your opportunity to counter the ability or take any other instant-speed action. It's then your opponent's fault for showing you the card prematurely.

Ya I kind of figured that might happen.  I have also read about countering the creature play or the trigger of countering up, so not sure which one I would really want to do, but countering the raise, since it has to happen at the upkeep might be what I do mostly instead.  I'll see, thanks for the response.

That is why experienced players will always ask you if you have anything to respond with. If you say no then the chance to counter the ability is gone. Good to have a clear interaction in regards to the state of play.


text:
Do you keep monster trophies when defeating a monster in an "A monster appears" encounter?
The rules seem to be contradictory with respect to what happens with monsters who appear in an encounter and get defeated.
From p. 22 of the rulebook, "No matter how the encounter is resolved, the monster is never left on the board. The monster is returned to the monster cup, regardless of whether the investigator evades or defeats the monster, or is knocked unconscious or driven insane by it." To me this suggests that, if you draw an encounter card that says "a monster appears" and you fight and defeat the monster, you don't get its monster trophy (because it goes back to the cup).
But from the very next paragraph (still p. 22): "When a monster but not a gate appears in an encounter, the monster does not stay on the board. If such a monster is defeated, players may take it as a trophy (unless its special ability says otherwise)." To me this suggests that, if you draw an encounter card that says "a monster appears" and you fight and defeat the monster, you do get its monster trophy.
So, do you or don't you get the trophy?
I've always played according to the latter rule (keeping the trophy for any non-Endless monster you kill), and I guess this is also justifiable if you assume that more specific rules override more general rules. (Furthermore, many other bits throughout the rule book make reference to returning these monsters to the cup if you evade them, whereas this one spot on p. 22 is the only place that mentions returning to the cup if you defeat them; so it seems that keeping the trophy is more in keeping with the "spirit" of the rules expressed throughout most of the rulebook.) But I find this whole section rather confusing.

Fantasy Flight has a Complete FAQ that seems to answer this. The short is that you do get a trophy.

Many encounters state that “A gate and a monster
appear!” For these encounters, both the monster and the
gate stay on the board. However, many other encounters
state that just a monster appears. For example, one of the
Black Cave encounters states “A monster appears!” and
one of the Hibb’s Roadhouse encounters states “A horrible
monster appears!” When a monster but not a gate appears
in an encounter, the monster does not stay on the board. If
such a monster is defeated, players may take it as a trophy
(unless its special ability states otherwise). If the monster
is not defeated, it is returned to the monster cup, regardless of whether the investigator evades the monster or is
knocked unconscious or driven insane by it.
The above change has been incorporated into the rulebook included in the revised edition of Arkham Horror

Complete Arkham Horror FAQ v2.0 (December 2012)

Thanks for the link; I vaguely remembered this FAQ was out there but didn't manage to find it before posting.
The bit you quoted is the same as the second paragraph I quoted from in my OP. The source of my confusion is that the paragraph before it (in the rulebook, not the FAQ) directly contradicts it. I suppose that, given that this part is newer, I should just ignore the contradictory paragraph that precedes it.

This seems to also be the general consensus on BGG where the FAQ is deemed to overrule the official rulebook. 1 2 3 4


text:
Why do Sagas trigger on entering the battlefield?
I've been reading what the comprehensive rules say about Sagas and I think I've noticed an error in the rules.

714.2b “{rN}—[Effect]” means “When one or more lore counters are put onto this Saga, if the number of lore counters on it was less than N and became at least N, [effect].”

That means Sagas have an inherent intervening "if" clause. If that clause isn't true at the time of the listed event (namely, a lore counter being put on the Saga), it won't trigger at all.

714.3a As a Saga enters the battlefield, its controller puts a lore counter on it.

This is where I see a problem. The "as" wording means that there is a replacement effect applied before the Saga enters. This is supported by 614.12:

614.12 Some replacement effects modify how a permanent enters the battlefield. ... To determine which replacement effects apply and how they apply, check the characteristics of the permanent as it would exist on the battlefield...

If a Saga enters the battlefield with a lore counter on it, then there was never a point when the permanent it became had zero lore counters on it. Because of that, the "if the number of lore counters on it was less than N" of the rules is not satisfied (N=1) and the first chapter ability should not trigger.
Am I off base here?

The wording of Read Ahead doesn't contradict anything in the answer. The bolded sentence in 702.155a is a replacement effect that modifies how the Saga enters the battlefield, exactly like the effect in 714.3a.

Does 400.7d cover it? The ability can reference the fact that the spell that became the saga had 0 counters on it?

@murgatroid99 You are correct. My edit was entirely mistaken.

@GendoIkari The triggered ability says "When one or more lore counters are put onto this Saga", and a spell isn't a Saga.

@CainGoldhardt That shouldn't matter, abilities that say "this creature" for example will still continue to function normally even if the creature its on stops being a creature. In other words, "this saga" just refers to the object the ability is on. And it was a different object when it was on the stack, but that's where 400.7d would come into play.

Sagas work correctly as per the rules. When a permanent enters the battlefield with counters on it, they count as having been placed on that permanent.
You are correct in that a Saga enters the battlefield with a counter on it because of a replacement effect and not a separate trigger. However, this counter still counts as having been placed on that Saga and thus causes its first effect.

122.6. Some spells and abilities refer to counters being put on an object. This refers to putting counters on that object while it’s on the battlefield and also to an object that’s given counters as it enters the battlefield.

122.6 has no bearing on the question. It proves that the counter the Saga enters the battlefield with counts as being "put onto this Saga" for the purposes of the trigger condition. But if you agree that Sagas enter with a counter, then my issue still stands: there was never a point when the Saga had zero lore counters on it.

Philosophically, I agree with you: When a permanent enters with a counter on it, the gamestate never sees that permanent without that counter, so it never had zero counters on it, so the saga shouldn't trigger for when it enters the battlefield. And yet, you asked about the rules, and 122.6 says that the counters from a replacement effect count as having been placed there. And logically, if a counter has been placed on a permanent, the permanent must have had zero counters just before, triggering its first effect. That's all there is to say rules-wise.

Perhaps 122.6 is a cop-out, a dirty fix to that problem, but you'll have to take that issue to the rules managers at WotC. 122.6 very much does give the rules answer to the problem.

Honestly, I have to agree that this is not a satisfying answer. I'm not convinced that, just because the counter qualifies as having been "placed" on the saga, there was a transition from it having zero counters to having one. (Obviously there is no doubt that was the intent, it just seems like something that should be more clearly justified in the rules.)

Doesn’t it work because the saga didn’t exist before the counters were placed and so uses a value of 0?

As a general rule, magic treats any undefined value as 0, so the number of counters on the card before it entered is undefined, and thus treated as 0.


text:
What is the fastest way to get infinite mana in Historic?
I'm looking for the combo using the fewest cards from the start of the game that allows you to generate unlimited mana using Historic-legal cards. It doesn't have to be viable or practical, but I have two restrictions:

No using Codie, Vociferous Codex, because I need to cast permanent spells for what I'm trying to pull off and Codie doesn't allow that.
The opening hand may be assumed. If a solution requires more than 7 cards, you may assume perfect results from random events. If it requires 7 or fewer cards it must be deterministic.

I devised a method using 11 cards over 4 turns, requiring you to be on the draw and draw perfectly.

Play Botanical Sanctum and tap it to cast Llanowar Elves
Play Lotus Field, tap Sanctum to cast Stifle targeting Lotus Field's trigger, and tap one Llanowar Elves to cast another
Play an untapped land, tap everything to cast Chromatic Orrery, tap it for 5 to cast Irencrag Feat, then spend that mana to cast Nyxbloom Ancient
Cast Circle of Dreams Druid and enchant it with Gauntlets of Light

I'm sure this can be improved.

Does this have to be a pure goldfish play, or can it involve assistance from your opponent?

@PhilipKendall No opponent assistance allowed.

"No using Codie, Vociferous Codex, because I need to cast permanent spells for what I'm trying to pull off and Codie doesn't allow that." Once you have the infinite mana, you can bounce the Codex.

Another change broke a previous solution, this time a change to Leyline of Resonance, but again new cards provide a new solution.
Turn 1, 7 cards in hand + 2 in library
Play Phyrexian Tower, cast Ornithopter, and activate Phyrexian Tower sacrificing Ornithopter for {B}{B}.
Cast Bone Picker for {B}, and cast Sacrifice sacrificing it, spending the remaining {B} and getting {B}{B}{B}{B}.
Cast Buried Alive ({B} left), putting Priest of Gix, Scholar of the Ages, and a third creature card into the graveyard.
Cast Unearth targeting Priest of Gix; it gives {B}{B}{B}.
Now loop: cast Persist on Scholar of the Ages, which gets back Sacrifice and Persist, and cast Sacrifice sacrificing Scholar of the Ages to get seven black mana.
The third creature card from Buried Alive can be used to obtain the rest of the cards; Liliana's Standard Bearer is one option.

Try #2: Turn 3, 7 cards

Forest, Llanowar Elves
Land, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Swamp, Rotting Regisaur, Tap Selvala for 2W2WG, play Gauntlets of Light, untap Selvala, tap Selvala, repeat

Try #1: Turn 3, with 10 cards

Forest, Llanowar Elves
Lotus Cobra, Forest, Lotus Cobra
Forest, Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, Lotus Cobra, Lotus Cobra, Man-o'-War,
Man-o'-War, Man-o'-War, Man-o'-War...

Explanation:  Man-o'-War can bounce itself.  With Ashaya out, Man-o'-War is a land.  With four Lotus Cobras out, Man-o'-War entering the battlefield produces 4 mana, but it only costs 3 to replay.

Turn 2, 7 cards or turn 3, 6 cards!
(This solution has been improved, but I'll keep the answer around because the optimal one only gives red mana.)
Turns out it was very easily improvable! A card is saved in the turn 2 and 3 deterministic categories!!

Begin the game with Leyline of Abundance in play.
Play Temple Garden paying the 2 life and cast Gilded Goose.
Tap Garden and Goose for G+RG (thanks to Leyline). Cast an Incubation Druid. Cast Kick in the Door targeting the Druid. Tap the Druid for WWWG and enchant it with Gauntlets of Light. Either cast Stony Strength to untap the Druid or pass the turn.

Turn 2, 8 cards or turn 3, 7 cards (source: reddit)

Begin the game with Leyline of Abundance in play.
Play Temple Garden paying the 2 life and cast Gilded Goose.
Tap Gilded Goose for U+G (thanks to Leyline). Cast Neoform on Goose to fetch an Incubation Druid. Play an untapped red land (e.g. Spirebluff Canal) and cast Claim the Firstborn on the Incubation Druid. Tap the Druid for WWWG, then enchant it with Gauntlets of Light.
Either cast Stony Strength with your one remaining G to untap the Druid or pass the turn.

This combo uses only cards that were Standard-legal at the time of its posting two years ago. It might still be improvable.

"Eg Spirebluff Canal" or, y'know, a Mountain.  :D

Turn 3, 5 cards!

Begin the game with Leyline of Abundance in play.
Play a Forest and cast Llanowar Elves.
Cast Sanctum Weaver.
Tap all permanents for G+GG+WWG. Enchant Sanctum Weaver with Gauntlets of Light. Untap it. It now taps for WWWG.

 Turn 3, 6 cards!
I have saved a card in the turn 3 deterministic category!!

Play Blooming Marsh and cast Llanowar Elves.
Play Plains and cast Faeburrow Elder.
Tap Blooming Marsh to cast Footlight Fiend. Tap Faeburrow Elder, Plains, and Llanowar Elves for 6 mana, BRGW+W+G. Enchant Faeburrow Elder with Gauntlets of Light and untap it.

Many thanks to reddit user GreenNinjaDa, the author of the solution in my other answer, who told me about Faeburrow Elder and inspired me to find this solution.
I was unable to adapt this solution to save a card for turn 2 deterministic, but luckily I found a different way to do that! Check out my other answer.

Turn 2, 6 cards!!
As is often the case, the final improvement came from an angle one would never expect (which is why this merits its own answer). Infinite thanks to reddit users ava-fans and MoshiMaro in this thread for giving me the pieces to find this!

Play a Mountain and cast Skirk Prospector.
Play Phyrexian Tower. Cast Ornithopter and sacrifice it to Phyrexian Tower for BB. Cast Putrid Goblin. Tap Mountain and sacrifice Putrid Goblin to Skirk Prospector for RR. While Putrid Goblin's Persist trigger is on the stack, cast First Day of Class. Now Putrid Goblin will return to the battlefield with both a +1/+1 and -1/-1 counter on it, allowing us to repeatedly sacrifice it and add as much {R} as we want.

This solution was broken by the change to Fragment Reality to only target permanents that opponents control.
1 turn; 8 cards in hand + 2 in library; with a constraint on deck content, no additional luck needed
Start with Leyline of Anticipation on the battlefield. Play Plains and use it to cast Fragment Reality targeting the Leyline of Anticipation. We need this to get Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy; for this to be reliable, the deck must not contain any other creature cards with mana value 3 or less.
Cast two Mox Ambers, tapping each for UU (keeping the new one when the legend rule applies), and spend that mana to cast Displacer Kitten.
Cast a third Mox Amber, triggering Displacer Kitten's ability; target the existing Mox Amber, and tap it for GG after it returns, then tap the new Mox Amber for UU.
Cast Tamiyo, Collector of Tales. Now loop: use Tamiyo to get back a Mox Amber; cast the Mox Amber, triggering Displacer Kitten, and target Tamiyo with its ability. With each iteration, tap the Mox Amber for UU or GG.
There are no more cards left in hand, but we can use Kinnan's activated ability repeatedly, eventually finding any non-Human creature card we want; from here, it is easy to get access to the rest of the cards in the library, for example with Vedalken Archmage. We can also use Wish to bring in cards from outside the game; creature cards with mana value 3 or less can be put there without interfering with the setup.

1 turn, 7 cards from hand + 2 from library, additional luck required
Island. Cast Tormod's Crypt and cast An Offer You Can't Refuse on it to get two Treasures. Repeat with another Tormod's Crypt and another An Offer You Can't Refuse to get to three Treasures. Cast Chaos Warp targeting the Island, putting Omniscience onto the battlefield.
Now cast Acererak the Archlich repeatedly, going through Lost Mine of Phandelver and getting a Treasure each time. This is not quite infinite yet because that dungeon also makes one draw a card each time, so add Ormos, Archive Keeper to stop that from causing a loss and make it truly infinite.
2 turns, 9 cards
Turn 1: Forest, Gilded Goose, Mox Amber.
Turn 2: Aether Hub. Tap the lands and spend the Energy for Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. Tap Gilded Goose and sacrifice the Food it created for {R}{R} to cast First Day of Class. Tap Mox Amber for {G}{G} to cast Incubation Druid, which gets haste and a +1/+1 counter. Tap it for {U}{U}{U}{U}. Cycle Vizier of Tumbling Sands to untap Incubation Druid, with {U}{U} left, and tap it again for {W}{W}{W}{W}. Now cast Gauntlets of Light on Incubation Druid, and repeatedly untap and tap it to get infinite mana.
Also 2 turns, 9 cards
Turn 1: Forest, Gilded Goose, Mox Amber.
Turn 2: Island. Tap the lands for Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. Tap Gilded Goose and sacrifice the Food it created for {R}{R}, and tap Mox Amber for {G}{G}. Spend {R}{G}{G} on Xorn and the remaining {R} on Strike It Rich, producing two Treasures. Sacrifice the Treasures for 4 red mana and spend 3 to cast Strike It Rich again by flashback for another two Treasures, and sacrifice those, for a total of 5 mana. Cast Goldspan Dragon and have it attack, producing two Treasures that can now make 3 mana each, for a total of 6 mana. Cast Conviction on Goldspan Dragon, producing another two Treasures, and return it to hand with its ability, and repeat for infinite mana.

How does this work: "Tap Gilded Goose and sacrifice the Food it created for {R}{R}"? Tapping the Goose and sacrificing the food gives only one mana, not two.

@PhilipKendall because of Kinnan you get 2

I'm not comfortable with your turn 1 solution because it relies on random chance beyond the opening hand. I wanted a solution that is deterministic once you have the cards for it.

@CainGoldhardt OK, but what exactly is your condition? It can't be exactly "no random chance beyond the opening hand", since the example given in the question requires 4 cards more than the opening hand. Is it "no random chance beyond the initial shuffle", or "all cards drawn can be assumed", or something else? In any case, this stipulation should probably be put in the question.

@m90 "All cards drawn can be assumed."

@CainGoldhardt You're bound to draw and be able to play Ormos before you deck yourself so this generates infinite mana in a deterministic fashion. In the worst case scenario, you have an empty library at that point.

@PhilipKendall The randomness I object to is not that of Ormos, but the assumption that Chaos Warp will retrieve Omniscience.

Now that I think about it, if perfect draws are OK so are perfect shuffles. This answer is fine  You could easily adapt it to turn 2 5 cards (1. Forest, Elves 2. Mountain, Warp-Omniscience, Acererak) but I've disallowed that. Also Dungeon of the Mad Mage is faster to find Ormos, since it draws 3 cards per 7 ventures; in the worst case Phandelver would take 51/1 * 4 = 204 ventures while Mad Mage would take 51/3 * 7 = 119.

@CainGoldhardt You said in your question that if the combo requires more than 7 cards, you can assume perfect results from random events. Isn’t Chaos Warp a random event?

@RocketMan I only just edited that in. It wasn't there when this answer was first posted.

That was a wild ride

The new card An Offer You Can't Refuse from Streets of New Capenna allows for a 1 turn 7 card non-deterministic solution, improving on your 8 card solution. Play an Island. Cast Mox Amber, hold priority, and counter it with Offer to create two treasure tokens. Repeat this process so we have three treasure tokens. Now cast Chaos Warp targeting the Island, retrieving Omniscience, and go infinite with Acererak.

Turn 1; 7 cards (plus 12 additional cards are required to be in library/sideboard for this to be deterministic); with a constraint on deckbuilding; Deterministic and produces any amount of all colors of mana!
Starting hand: Any leyline, any white-producing untapped land, Fragment Reality, Mox Amber, Spellchain Scatter, Faithless Looting, Underworld Breach.
Play pattern: Start with Leyline on the battlefield.  Play a land.  Cast Fragment targeting Leyline.  Only creature in Library this can hit is Birgi, God of Storytelling.  Cast Mox Amber.  Cast Spellchain Scatter.  Cast Underworld Breach. Cast Faithless Looting, discarding both cards drawn off of it.  [Spellchain's effect conjures a second copy of Faithless Looting into hand.]  Cast conjured copy of Faithless Looting.
Hand is now empty.
Graveyard is now: Fragment Reality, Spellchain Scatter, two copies of Faithless Looting, and four other arbitrary cards from our library.
Escape Spellchain Scatter by exiling Fragment Reality and two other cards.
Escape Spellchain Scatter again by exiling one of the Lootings and the two other arbitary cards, leaving the second Looting in the graveyard.
This conjures a copy of Spellchain Scatter into our hand, which begins the infinite loop: every copy cast generates a mana off Birgi and conjures an additional copy of Spellchain Scatter into our hand.
We can now generate an arbitrarily high storm count and an arbitrarily large number of cards in our graveyard.
Once we reach our desired arbitrary number, we can escape the other Faithless Looting from the graveyard over and over again until we discard into our graveyard a second Mox (infinite Red mana off Birgi triggers and legend rule).  To keep this deterministic and prevent the risk of exiling all 3 remaining moxen before starting the loop, we also run 2 copies of Tormod's Crypt (also generates infinite red mana).
Now that we have infinite red mana, we cast Faithless Looting over and over until we discard a mana filter (examples: Energy Refractor, Crossroads Candleguide, Mimic, Signpost Scarecrow, Urn of Godfire).  To prevent the possibility of exiling all these, we run one copy plus four copies of Wish with a second filter in the sideboard.)
If a wincon is also desired, 1 Grapeshot (plus one more in the sideboard) will do the trick.
(old answers archived below)
Turn 1; 7 cards (+11 more from library); with a constraint on deckbuilding, no additional luck needed
Start with Leyline of Sanctity (or any other Leyline) on the battlefield. Play Plains.  Cast Fragment Reality targeting the Leyline. The only creature in the library with mana value three or less is Birgi, God of Storytelling (comes into play tapped).
Cast Mox Amber; get {R} from Birgi's trigger, tap it for {R} (total in pool: {R}{R}).
Cast a second Mox Amber; get {R} from Birgi's trigger, keep the new one when legend rule applies, tap it for {R} (total in pool: {R}{R}{R}{R}).
Cast (a one-of in the deck) Tormod's Crypt; get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total in pool: {R}{R}{R}{R}{R}).
Cast Indomitable Creativity with x=2 targeting Crypt and Mox.  Get {R} from Birgi's trigger.  The only two creatures in the library are Razaketh the Foulblood and Hornet Queen.  Using Razaketh's ability, sacrifice Hornet Queen and its four tokens to search your library for: Strike It Ritch, a second Strike It Ritch, Pact of Negation, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Gleeful Demolition.
Cast Strike It Ritch; get {R} from Birgi's trigger, (total mana available: {R} in pool and one treasure token).
Cast Strike It Ritch, get {R} from Birgi's trigger, while it's on the stack, cast Pact of Negation, get {R} from Birgi's trigger, while it's on the stack, sacrifice a treasure to cast An Offer You Can't Refuse targeting Pact, get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total mana available: {R}{R}{R} in pool and three treasure tokens).
Cast Gleeful Demolition, targeting a treasure token (total mana available: {R}{R}{R} in pool and two treasure tokens).
Using Razaketh's ability, sacrifice the three Gleeful tokens to search up from your library: Strike It Rich, Wish, and Reckless Charge.
Cast Strike It Rich, get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total mana available: {R}{R}{R} in pool and three treasure tokens).
Cast Wish, get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total mana available: {R} in pool and three treasure tokens).
Using Wish's effect, play from sideboard Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total mana available: {R} in pool and one treasure token).
Cast Reckless Charge targeting Selvala, get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total mana available: {R} in pool and one treasure token).
Tap Selvala, paying {G} from the final treasure token to get 8 mana in any combination of colors off Razaketh's power.
Using Razaketh's ability, sacrifice Birgi to find from your library and cast High Alert.  Repeatedly untap and tap Selvala to make infinite mana.
Once you have whatever amount of mana you fancy, use Razaketh's ability to sacrifice Selvala to retrieve another copy of Wish, and get any win condition you please from your sideboard.
(If you're not concerned with generating infinite mana, rewind to the casting of Indomitable Creativity and find Griselbrand and Queza, Augur of Agonies for lethal damage.)

Turn 1; 8 cards; with a constraint on deckbuilding, no additional luck needed, infinite red mana
Start with Leyline of Sanctity (or any other Leyline) on the battlefield. Play Plains.  Cast Fragment Reality targeting the Leyline. The only creature in the library with mana value three or less is Birgi, God of Storytelling (comes into play tapped).
Cast Mox Amber; get {R} from Birgi's trigger, tap it for {R} (total in pool: {R}{R}).
Cast Underworld Breach; get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total in pool: {R}).
Cast Spellchain Scatter; get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total in pool: {R}).
Cast Spellchain Scatter; get {R} from Birgi's trigger (total in pool: {R}); conjures a new copy of Spellchain Scatter into hand; repeat this last step an abitrary number of times, filling your graveyard with an arbitrary number of cards (and generating an arbitrary storm count).
For infinite mana, cast either a 2nd Mox Amber (one goes to the graveyard via legend rule) or a Tormod's Crypt (or other 0-mana permanent that sacrifices itself), generating {R} off Birgi, repeat an arbitrary number of times by casting the card from your graveyard by paying its escape cost of three cards—remembering that we have an arbitrary number of conjured cards in our graveyard.

While several previous solutions were broken by the change to Fragment Reality, new cards coming in Duskmourn: House of Horror allow a new solution!
This solution was broken by the change to Leyline of Resonance to require a payment of {1}.
1 turn, 7 cards in hand + 6 in library
Begin the game with Leyline of the Guildpact, Leyline of Resonance, and Leyline of Mutation on the battlefield.
Play Darksteel Citadel and cast Ornithopter.
Tap Darksteel Citadel for {R} (because of Leyline of the Guildpact making it every basic land type) and cast Gleeful Demolition targeting Ornithopter. Leyline of Resonance triggers; target Darksteel Citadel with the copy. Let both spells resolve, producing six Goblin tokens and destroying Ornithopter (but not Darksteel Citadel, which has indestructible).
Cast Hoarding Broodlord, applying the alternative cost of {W}{U}{B}{R}{G} from Leyline of Mutation and paying it using convoke by tapping five of the Goblin tokens (which are made all colors by Leyline of the Guildpact).
With Hoarding Broodlord's enters trigger, exile Molten Duplication. Cast it targeting Hoarding Broodlord, using convoke (granted by Hoarding Broodlord) by tapping Hoarding Broodlord and the sixth Goblin token. Leyline of Resonance copies it; keep the target of the copy as Hoarding Broodlord.
With the two token copies of Hoarding Broodlord, exile Rally of Wings and For the Common Good. Cast Rally of Wings by tapping the two Hoarding Broodlord tokens, which untaps all nine creatures.
Cast For the Common Good with X=4 by tapping all the creatures, targeting a Hoarding Broodlord token. Leyline of Resonance copies it; the copy also targets a Hoarding Broodlord token. The copy produces four more Hoarding Broodlord tokens and gives 12 life. The original spell produces four more Hoarding Broodlord tokens and gives 16 life.
From the cards exiled by the new Hoarding Broodlord tokens, cast Accomplished Alchemist by tapping four of them, then cast Molten Duplication by tapping two more, targeting Accomplished Alchemist with the original spell and the copy from Leyline of Resonance.
Tap the two hasted copies of Accomplished Alchemist for 28 mana each. Cast and activate any mana-only untapper (Gauntlets of Light/High Alert/Aggravated Assault/Staff of Domination) to make infinite mana.

A few variations on this also work: Leyline of Mutation can be replaced by a second Leyline of Resonance, or Darksteel Citadel can be replaced by Treasure Vault (but not both).

Why do you need ornithopter? Why not just target darksteel citadel directly?

Nevermind, leyline of resonance won't trigger unless you target a creature. I see

5 turns, 3 cards from hand + 7 from library
Turn 1: Play Mountain.
Turn 2: Play Mutavault. Tap both lands to cast Magda, Brazen Outlaw.
Turn 3: Tap Mountain for mana to make Mutavault a 2/2 creature with all creature types. Magda attacks, and Mutavault either attacks or is tapped for mana; both trigger Magda, making two Treasure tokens.
Turn 4: Repeat, getting two more Treasure tokens.
Turn 5:

Tap Mountain for mana to make Mutavault a 2/2 creature with all creature types.
Tap Mutavault for {C}, triggering Magda to make a fifth Treasure token.
Sacrifice all five Treasure tokens to activate Magda's last ability. Put Hoarding Broodlord onto the battlefield, which exiles Cursed Mirror.
Cast Cursed Mirror by spending the {C} and tapping Magda and Hoarding Broodlord (Hoarding Broodlord gives it convoke); Magda makes a Treasure token. Have it copy Hoarding Broodlord and exile Dedicated Dollmaker.
Cast Dedicated Dollmaker by tapping the Cursed Mirror (copying Hoarding Broodlord) and sacrificing the Treasure token. With its ability, target Hoarding Broodlord, replacing it with a token copy, which exiles a second Dedicated Dollmaker.
Cast the second Dedicated Dollmaker by tapping the first Dedicated Dollmaker and the Hoarding Broodlord token; as Dedicated Dollmaker is a Dwarf, Magda makes a Treasure token. With its ability, target the first Dedicated Dollmaker, replacing it with a token copy. With that one's ability, target the Cursed Mirror copying Hoarding Broodlord, replacing it with a token copy, which exiles Sculpting Steel.
Cast Sculpting Steel by tapping the second Dedicated Dollmaker, the Dedicated Dollmaker token, and the new Hoarding Broodlord token; Magda makes two Treasure tokens. Have it copy the Dedicated Dollmaker copy of the Cursed Mirror copy of Hoarding Broodlord (which has haste from Cursed Mirror's copy effect, and is an artifact from Dedicated Dollmaker's copy effect) and exile Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds.
Cast Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds by sacrificing the three Treasure tokens.
Tap the Sculpting Steel (copying Hoarding Broodlord) to activate the ability granted by Ghired to make another token copy of Hoarding Broodlord, which exiles Hyrax Tower Scout.
Tap Ghired to activate the ability granted by Ghired to make another token copy of Dedicated Dollmaker. With its ability, target Ghired, replacing it with a token copy.
Cast Hyrax Tower Scout by tapping the newest token copies of Hoarding Broodlord, Dedicated Dollmaker, and Ghired. With its ability, target and untap Mutavault.
Tap Mutavault to activate the ability granted by Ghired to make another token copy of Dedicated Dollmaker; Magda makes a Treasure token. With the Dedicated Dollmaker token's ability, target Hyrax Tower Scout, replacing it with a token copy, which targets and untaps Mutavault.
Finally, loop: tap Mutavault to activate the ability granted by Ghired to make another token copy of Hyrax Tower Scout, which untaps Mutavault, while getting a Treasure token from Magda.

Can't you speed this up a turn by making your land either "Inspiring Vantage" or "Sacred Foundry" and then casting either "Staunch Shieldmate" or "Tollcraft Exemplar" on your first turn?

This solution was broken by the change to Fragment Reality to only target permanents that opponents control.
1 turn; 7 cards in hand + 10 in library + 1 in sideboard; with a constraint on deck content, no additional luck needed
Start with Leyline of Anticipation on the battlefield. Play Plains and use it to cast Fragment Reality targeting the Leyline of Anticipation. We need this to get Birgi, God of Storytelling.
Cast two Mox Ambers; each time, get {R} from Birgi's trigger, and tap it for {R} (keeping the new one when the legend rule applies).
Cast Gleeful Demolition on the Mox Amber (Birgi gives back the {R} spent), getting three Goblin tokens. Cast Transmogrify on one of the Goblin tokens (Birgi triggers again). We need this to get Razaketh, the Foulblooded.
(For this to be reliable, the only creature cards in the deck must be one Birgi and some number of Razakeths.)
Activate Razaketh's ability twice, sacrificing two Goblin tokens, to find another Mox Amber and another Gleeful Demolition. Cast them (in that order), ending up with {R}{R}{R} and three Goblin tokens.
Repeat the previous paragraph, going up to {R}{R}{R}{R}{R} and four Goblin tokens.
Activate Razaketh's ability four more times, sacrificing those Goblin tokens. Cast Relic of Legends and tap it, Birgi, and Razaketh for {G} each (now {R}{R}{R}{G}{G}{G}). Cast Wish (now {R}{G}{G}{G}) and use it to cast Selvala, Heart of the Wilds (now {R}{G}). Cast Reckless Charge (now {R}{G}) targeting Selvala, and tap Selvala and pay {G} to get 8 mana in any combination of colors off Razaketh's power. Cast High Alert and repeatedly untap and tap Selvala to make infinite mana.
(We can then activate Razaketh's ability sacrificing Birgi to find, say, Silver Scrutiny, and cast it to draw the rest of the cards.)

Could this be improved with Eldritch Evolution?


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Can the game be left in an invalid state if all state-based actions are replaced?
Rule 704.3 on checking state-based actions states, in part:

[...] If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; otherwise all triggered abilities that are waiting to be put on the stack are put on the stack, then the check is repeated. Once no more state-based actions have been performed as the result of a check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, the appropriate player gets priority.

Based on the wording "if any state-based actions are performed", this implies to me that if no state-based actions are performed because they are replaced, the check would not be repeated and the player could get priority. This is supported by the famous rule 614.6:

614.16 If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities.

Suppose that Alice, while at 4 life, controls The Great Henge and two Exquisite Archangels. Her opponent controls a Balefire Liege, a Void Maw, and a Quakebringer that was dealt 4 damage earlier in the turn. On Alice's turn, something simultaneously deals 4 damage to her and 4 damage to Balefire Liege.
State-based actions are checked, and two such actions would be performed: Alice would lose the game for having 0 or less life (704.5a), and Balefire Liege would die from damage ≥ toughness (704.5g). One of Alice's Exquisite Archangels replaces the former, exiling itself and attempting to reset Alice's life total, but this is prevented by Quakebringer (119.5). Void Maw replaces the latter, causing Balefire Liege to be exiled instead of die.
Because no state-based actions have been performed as a result of the check, the "otherwise" clause kicks in. Assume that no triggered abilities trigger as a result of any of this. State-based actions are checked once again, and now it is Alice's second Exquisite Archangel that fails to reset her life total and is exiled. Additionally, Quakebringer, which was being kept alive only by Balefire Liege's +1/+1 buff to red creatures, has been dealt lethal damage and would die, but is exiled by Void Maw instead. Again, my understanding is that none of this counts as a state-based action being performed.
Now that no state-based actions have been performed and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, Alice gets priority while having 0 life. The instant she passes priority as a result of casting spells or activating abilities, state-based actions will be rechecked and she will lose. But since mana abilities do not reset priority (117.3c), she can now tap The Great Henge to gain 2 life and save herself.
Is this analysis correct? Or perhaps I am correct in the core idea, but this scenario does not allow for it?

Doesn't the archangel set your life total to the starting meaning you are not gaining or losing life? The card doesn't say to gain life but rather set your life total at the starting value and that could mean you gain or lose life from that.

@JoeW "119.5. If an effect sets a player’s life total to a specific number, the player gains or loses the necessary amount of life to end up with the new total."

That sounds like something that should be in your question as it is very relevant but not sure that means the ability is prevented from happening.

One of the rulings on Exquisite Archangel says "For your life total to become your starting life total (normally 20), you gain or lose the appropriate amount of life. For example, if your life total is -4 when Exquisite Archangel's ability applies, it will cause you to gain 24 life; alternatively, if your life total is 40 when it applies, it will cause you to lose 20 life. Other cards that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly."

Your CR reference doesn't appear to support your claim that mana abilities do not reset priority.  CR 117.3c says, "If a player has priority when they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action, that player receives priority afterward."

The simple answer here is that if you take an action as a result of a state-based action, then a state-based action has been performed. In this case, those actions include exiling the Exquisite Archangel and the Balefire Liege.
Your interpretation is incorrect because you are applying rule 614.16 in a way that is overly broad. For example, in your situation, one of the state-based actions we consider is rule 704.5a which has the full text

If a player has 0 or less life, that player loses the game.

Exquisite Archangel's text, in full, is

If you would lose the game, instead exile Exquisite Archangel and your life total becomes equal to your starting life total.

The event that is being replaced here is "you would lose the game", and it is correct to say that rule 614.16 mean that the event "you lose the game" never happens here. However, broader action "If a player has 0 or less life, [do something]" is still performed.
One of the rulings on the card Lich's Mirror makes it clear that this is how it works (reformatted by me for readability):

As part of Lich's Mirror's effect, it typically shuffles itself into your library. If it does, that means that if you'd lose the game again immediately after its effect is finished, it can't help you a second time. This can occur in a few different ways. For example:

You have ten or more poison counters. Lich's Mirror doesn't remove poison counters. If you'd lose the game this way, you'll do what Lich's Mirror says, then you'll lose the game the next time state-based actions are checked.
Your life total is 0 or less and an effect says that you can't gain life. Since your life total can't be raised, it stays at whatever it is rather than becoming 20, and you'll lose the game the next time state-based actions are checked.
The number of nontoken permanents you own plus the number of cards in your hand, graveyard, and library is less than seven. When you try to draw seven cards as part of Lich's Mirror's effect, you'll be unable to complete at least one of those draws and you'll lose the game the next time state-based actions are checked.
You control but don't own a permanent such as Immortal Coil with a triggered ability that causes you to lose the game when a certain game state happens (also known as a “state trigger”), and the condition that causes the “lose the game” ability to trigger hasn't changed. If you owned the permanent, Lich's Mirror would shuffle it into your library. In this case, however, it remains on the battlefield and its ability will trigger again.

Compare this with what would happen with Platinum Angel. When state-based actions are checked, instead of losing the game, nothing happens. Since no actions are taken, state-based actions are not checked again, and the game continues.
There even a somewhat famous example of a state-based action loop that depends on state-based actions working this way, described in another ruling on Lich's Mirror:

If you control but don't own Lich's Mirror, Lich's Mirror itself will still be on the battlefield after its effect is finished. If you would lose the game again for any of the reasons above, Lich's Mirror has its effect again . . . and again . . . and again. An involuntary infinite loop will be created, and the game will end in a draw. (In the case of the triggered ability example given last in the list above, it's possible that a player could cause the loop to end while the ability is on the stack. None of the loops caused by state-based actions can be stopped at all.)

Random question on Lich's Mirror, does that mean that opponents that control your cards would lose them when you follow the instructions on Lich's Mirror?

Yes. It's any permanent you own, no matter who currently controls it.

The other examples would still be almost certain doom even if the player got priority again, but the loop clearly demonstrates that they don't, it just keeps checking and checking and checking without them getting a word in edgewise. Nice find!

The reason the Lich's ruling is the way it is is because it assumes that there are no intervening factors on the battlefield. I disagree that it makes it clear. It simply says "you'll lose the game the next time state-based actions are checked", which will be in the "otherwise" clause of 704.3 assuming no intervening factors. My scenario replaces the "otherwise" clause as well. I see no way to reconcile your claims with 614.16.

Read the parenthetical in the second ruling. It says that if the loop were caused by losing to a state trigger, it could be responded to, but not if it is caused by losing to a state-based action. That means that no player ever has priority in the second case, which in turn means that the only thing that is happening is state-based actions getting checked in a loop.

OK, I accept that the Lich's Mirror ruling proves me incorrect, but I still see this as a rules problem that needs to be clarified as it contradicts 614.16.

I've added an edit to address rule 614.16.


text:
How does Academy Manufactor apply to creature tokens of its listed types?
What happens if I have Academy Manufactor out and I cast Cackling Counterpart targeting my own Parcel Myr, Goldhound, or Gingerbrute?
A ruling on Parcel Myr states

(...) Abilities that care about creating a Clue token, such as that of Academy Manufactor, will do nothing as Parcel Myr is put onto the battlefield. If you create a token that's a copy of Parcel Myr on the battlefield, such abilities will notice. (...)

But that doesn't explain whether the replacement effect will change the copy of Parcel Myr into a noncreature Clue. Do I create a token that's a copy of Parcel Myr plus a Food token and a Treasure token, or ordinary noncreature Clue, Food, and Treasure tokens?

Academy Manufactor's replacement effect applies to creating a token copy of any of those creatures being created, and instead of getting a copy of that creature, you will create a Clue, a Food, and a Treasure token each, none of which being any more than the basic version of that token.
Academy Manufactor's ability is a replacement effect, which roughly means "if something would happen, it doesn't happen, and something else happens instead".
This really is a better explanation than any rules quote would give in my opinion, however if you want to read further, there's this excellent page on magicjudges.org on the topic, and of course for completeness's sake, a relevant rules quote:

614.6. If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities.

Two conditions need to be true for the same permanent in order for Academy Manufactor's ability to apply:

the permanent needs to be a token
the permanent needs to have the Clue, Food, or Treasure artifact type

Both happen to be true for the creatures mentioned, so this perhaps unusual interaction happens.

The key here is that there are two things which could be called "Clue tokens".  One is a token with the artifact type "Clue", and the other is a token defined by rule 111.10f, which has the name "Clue", the type "Clue", and the activated ability.  The replacement action looks for the former, and replaces it with the latter (and also a food and a treasure).  Yes, this is kind of weird.

@ArcanistLupus less wierdly, the former is a generalisation of the latter. Manufactor sees anything of the general kind, and replaces it with the specific kind. In the normal case, you are replacing an 111.10f clue with an indistinguishable 111.10f clue, so it's easy to miss the replacement


text:
Does Equinox take replacement effects into account?
Suppose I control Umbra Mystic and a land that's also an Aura, possible through this convoluted method.
An opponent casts a spell to destroy the creature the Aura land is attached to. With totem armor, the Aura land is to be destroyed instead. Can I tap another land enchanted with Equinox to counter that spell?
My instinct is to say no, because the replacement effect adds a layer of indirection to the spell, such that the spell is not what destroys the land.
Conversely, suppose that a spell would normally destroy a land, but replacement effects (such as regeneration, shield counters, Pyramids or Void Maw) will prevent that. Can Equinox counter that spell?
My instinct here is also no, because the land will not be destroyed. But this seems to contradict my instinct for the previous case, because in that case we don't take replacement effects into account while in this case we do.

From the Umbra Mystic rulings:

If a spell or ability says that it would “destroy” a permanent enchanted with an Aura that has totem armor, that spell or ability is what causes the Aura to be destroyed instead. Totem armor doesn't destroy the Aura; rather, it changes the effects of the spell or ability.

So your instinct about the indirection isn't how totem armor is actually ruled. If your opponent casts Murder targeting your enchanted creature, totem armor isn't what would destroy the aura land. Totem aura would cause Murder to destroy the aura land.
Thus, Equinox should be able to counter your opponent's spell in this case.

Similarly, if the opponent tries to destroy one of your lands, and you have a replacement effect that would stop it, then the replacement effect changes the spell's effect to not destroy your land.
From the Equinox rulings:

When the activated ability resolves, determine whether the targeted spell would destroy a land if it resolved right then.

In this case, if the targeted spell were to resolve right then, it would not destroy the land, due to whatever replacement effect is protecting it. Equinox would not be able to counter the spell.

This means my answer on the other question was wrong.


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What cards can retrieve arbitrary cards from exile?
By "arbitrary" I mean the card retrieved need not be related to the card doing the retrieving. Red's impulsive draw mechanic and flicker cards that exile and immediately retrieve another permanent don't count, but it's fine if the spell limits the category of cards that can be retrieved, like Karn.

Are you including all of the Eldrazi Processors?

Can wishes retrieve cards exiled by other effects in game? For example, Death Wish from Judgement says: "Choose a card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand...".  Modern example: "Wish" from AFR says "You may play a card you own from outside the game this turn." Or is the exile zone an "in-game" zone?

@BradC Exile is a regular game zone and thus not outside of the game. In casual play, outside of the game means any card outside of your starting deck, including your entire collection. In sanctioned play it means any card in your sideboard.

Thanks, @Hackworth. Found the reference for that, it's 400.1, which defines the seven game zones, one of which is "exile", and 400.11, which defines anything not in a game zone as "outside the game". So wishes can't (currently) retrieve cards exiled via (normal) game effects. Interestingly, I believe this was changed at some point, see 400.8: "Previously, the exile zone was called the "removed-from-the-game-zone"; this seems to match up to my memory that the old-school Wishes could to this when originally printed.

I'm not completely sure this covers everything, but as far as I know in most cases you can only interact with cards face-up in exile. So doing a scryfall search for the words face-up + exile reveals 6 cards:

Ashiok, Nightmare Muse (only grabs from opponent though)
Coax from the Blind Eternities (only grabs eldrazi)
Karn, the Great Creator (only grabs artfacts)
Mirror of Fate (quite risky, exiles your deck)
Pull from Eternity (puts the card in the grave)
Riftsweeper (shuffles the card in the deck)

There is also:

Kaya the Inexorable whose emblem lets you cast face-up legendary cards (and face down legendary cards that you can view) that you own from exile
Runic Repetition (only grabs cards with flashback)
Rootcoil Creeper (only grabs cards with flashback)
Memory Theft (only grabs opponents' Adventure cards)
The Eldrazi Processors, and Processor Assault which can put cards your opponents have in exile in to their graveyards.

Kaya the Inexorable can cast legendaries from exile and doesn't explicitly mention face-up, although its rulings touch on it. I'm not sure if there is anything else using this template, which is influenced by the fact that it also looks at your hand and graveyard.

@Cadence You can cast face-down legendaries with Kaya's emblem if you were allowed to look at them at any point after they were exiled face-down. Relevant rules are 601.3f in combination with 406.3.

Also: Runic Repetition, Rootcoil Creeper, Memory Theft, Processor Assault.


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Identify a pre-8th edition black creature card
I'm looking for a Magic The Gathering card that was very sought for back in high school. It was certainly not later than 8th edition era, black colored creature. I remember the art was something similar to Bog Initiate but it had an ability set similar to Cromat, so it must have been at least Uncommon.
Can anyone help me out?

Are you asking what it was called / looked like, or are you asking where you can buy one?

I can only find two black creatures other than Cromat from before 8th edition that had at least 3 activated abilities, and neither has art that looks very much like Bog Initiate to me: Vaevictis Asmadi and Wandering Mage.

What does "similar to cromat" mean here? Does that just mean multiple activated abilities, or that the abilities didn't require tapping, or that all the abilities had off-color activation costs?

There are 190 black creature cards printed before 8th Edition that have an activated ability whose rarity is uncommon or above.

'ability set similar to chromat' is incredibly vague,

My best guess is Keeper of the Dead, a black uncommon from before 8th edition with an activated ability, and its art is decently similar to Bog Initiate. Saying this has "an ability set similar to Cromat" is a stretch, but it's by far the best match I could find from an art perspective and its repeatable removal could make it highly sought-after especially if inexperienced players neglect to enforce the extra conditions well.
Knight of Stromgald is an uncommon mono-black creature from before 8th edition, with multiple activated abilities, and its art shows a single human standing upright centered in front of a monochrome background.
Nightscape Master is a rare mono-black creature from before 8th edition, with multiple activated abilities using different colors of mana and its art depicts a single humanoid (technically a zombie, not a human). This a stretch to say the art is "similar to Bog Initiate", but its ability set is more similar to Cromat than the others.
Lastly, Avatar of Woe is a rare mono-black creature originally printed before 8th edition, which has the same artist as Bog Initiate in its initial printing if "similar to Bog Initiate" was more a matter of art style than composition. It has several abilities, though they aren't very similar to Cromat's, and I could see it feeling overpowered if playing casually with friends at school.
If none of these is correct, here is all black creatures with activated abilities, with alternate arts shown separately sorted oldest to newest. The card you are looking should be somewhere in there unless your "ability set similar to Cromat" description was wildly inaccurate.


text:
Does anyone have any tips on how to use Worldslayer in a Knight deck in Magic?
I know that anyone that uses Worldslayer tends to put it in decks with high res abilities such as Gravedigger and Raise Dead where you can easily retrieve your creatures from the graveyard making it harder for your opponent to bounce back from the effects of Worldslayer, or in low mana cycle decks using cards with 3 or 4 converted mana at the most making it easy to swarm the field back up. But I obviously wouldn't be asking this if I had access to a well built deck with these characteristics so I decided that a Knight deck would be putting it to good use, so with this information does anyone have any tips on how to put a halfway decent Knight deck together while being able to use Worldslayer?
I saw a comment from someone that asked what I meant by "high res abilities" and "low mana cycle", well more or less res abilities are just cards like Gravekeeper and Marshal's Anthem, and I just say low mana cycle because I'm used to talking about videogames with my friends and for the most part if I said curve it would confuse them because none of them really play MTG and now that I think about it just about my whole grade doesn't.

Do you want to build a knights deck with Worldslayer in it or a Worldslayer deck with knights in it? What aspect do you want to focus on?

@Allure Worldslayer's only legal in Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Commander. If the OP is trying to build a Knight deck themed around it, and they're not informed enough on MtG lingo to use the proper terms for things like mana curve, I'm guessing probably not Legacy or Vintage.

Knight Exemplar comes to mind immediately; it lets your other Knights survive Worldslayer's effect.
Fervent Champion or Balan, Wandering Knight can help with getting it attached.
Armored Skyhunter can bypass both the mana cost and the equip cost of Worldslayer.
Acclaimed Contender can pick up Worldslayer or your other Knights.