text:
Under what conditions can I cast Panglacial Wurm from my Library when my opponent controls an Aven Mindcensor?
My opponent controls an Aven Mindcensor.

If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.

I have a Panglacial Wurm in my deck.

While you're searching your library, you may cast Panglacial Wurm from your library.

I cast a Rampant Growth (or any other card that allows me to search my library).
What is the ruling on my ability to cast the Panglacial Wurm?
I can see one of three possible answers.

You cannot cast Panglacial Wurm.  You aren't searching your library, you're searching the top four cards of your library.
You can cast Panglacial Wurm, but only if it's in the top 4 cards of your library.  Aven Mindcensor prevents you from looking any further into your library, and if you can't find Panglacial Wurm then you can't cast it.
You can cast Panglacial Wurm, regardless of where it is in your library.  It's in your library, and you're searching your library.

I have a feeling it's either 1 or 3, but I'm unsure.  What is the correct ruling?

For the downvoter, mind explaining your downvote?

It is option 2, you can cast Panglacial Wurm if it is in the top 4 cards.

701.18f If searching a zone is replaced with searching a portion of that zone, any other instructions that refer to searching the zone still apply. [...]

Because Aven Mindcensor uses the word "search" in the replacement, it is still searching. It is just now searching a sub-set of your library.
The regular event of searching your library never happens in this case, so a Wurm somewhere else in your library won't do anything:

614.6 If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities. Note that the modified event may contain instructions that can’t be carried out, in which case the impossible instruction is simply ignored.

The reason number 3 doesn't work is that you don't have the Wurm available to cast. If you aren't seeing it while searching, you have no way of "knowing" that it is even in your library. You wouldn't be allowed to rely on having your deck list memorized to know that. And even if you do know for sure that it's in there, you aren't allowed to search the rest of your library to find it in order to cast it.
This was addressed and confirmed by a judge here.

Interesting, that was the last option I would have thought, but having the Judge confirm it also confirms your reading of the rules.  Accepted and upvoted.

@DenisS I tried finding a specific comprehensive rule that would explain why it's not #3, but couldn't find a specific rule. I think mostly it would fall into trying to do something impossible, covered by 101.3. You can choose to try and cast it; but you would fail to do so because you don't have actual access to the card to move it to the stack.

Now that I think about it, it's possible to remove the wurm from my library without me knowing it.  Thieving Amalgam allows you to manifest from your opponent's library.  Any number of cards that make me exile cards from my library face down.  I know that Wurm was in my deck at the beginning of the game, but I can't prove that he's in there at any given point.

Interesting example. It still seems like a weird interaction because as literally written, Wurm does allow you to cast it in this case; it doesn't specify that the Wurm has to be among the searched cards to do so. It's just so happens that if Wurm is not among the searched card; casting it becomes impossible.

Specifically, this ruling on Mindcensor "Each search works exactly the same as normal except that the opponent doing the searching sees only the top four cards of that library. They can’t look at the other cards in that library at all. Cards not in the top four cards of the library can’t be found in the search, even if they’re identifiable in some manner."  I can't prove Wurm is in there because I can't look at the rest of my library.  It's not just that I cant find a card in the rest of the library, I literally can't look at it.

This answer's confusing in that Rule 701.18f appears to assert the opposite: that effects that trigger on searching the library still happen even if only a subset of the library is being searched.

To note it, I'm sympathetic to the interpretation that effects that trigger when a card is in a searched zone are intended to trigger when that card is found via search of that zone.  But as written, Rule 701.18f appears to specify the opposite: that cards that trigger when a zone is searched still trigger whenever that zone is searched, even in part, mooting whether the relevant card is within the partial search area.

@Nat Note that Panglacial Wurm doesn't have a triggered ability, but rather a static ability. 603.2e actually shows that it would be impossible to have a card hidden in your library with a triggered ability like this; the object must be visible to all players at the time that it triggers. I quoted 701.18f for the first sentence; to show that what you are doing still counts as searching your library.

I've elided that part of the rule so as to avoid confusion.

@GendoIkari 113.6b would provide an exception to 603.2e here though, as the ability on Pangalacial Wurm specifies that it functions "from the library" and also "while x, you may y" is the same format that triggered abilities follow (though a rare implementation, since most triggers are instant conditions not a time range), and not any format used for static abilities. Nothing to me shows it is a static ability rather than triggered.

@Andrew Triggered abilities must start with When/Whenever/At. "While" is not listed as an option (603.1). 113.6b says that the ability "functions", although I don't know if the rules are clear what exactly "functions" means. I would say that 603.2e actually overrides 113.6b, IF it were a triggered ability. The ability may function (as in, because it's a triggered ability, it looks for things that would trigger it), but 303.2e makes it so that when the condition is met, it doesn't get triggered.

@GendoIkari I wouldn't agree though, while you're right that the word while is not specifically listed under 603.1, the ability really doesn't fall under 604.1 either, and the rest of the format is exactly the same as that in 603.1 triggered "while [condition], [effect]"  I'd argue that Wurm is triggered on balance of how it functions and 113.6b overrides 603.2e because of 101.1

@Andrew Aside from the fact that a judge confirmed my answer, as linked, how would you see your interpretation working? The Wurm triggers, but it's somewhere within your library, and you aren't allowed to look through your library to find it? How would you physically cast it when you can't legally see or know where the card is?

@Andrew Also worth noting, if it were a triggered ability, then it would only go on the stack the next time a player gets priority... which would be after the searching is completely done. So you would fully resolve Rampant Growth, and only THEN would the Wurm's triggered ability go on the stack, allowing you to cast it. But that this point, the Wurm would be shuffled somewhere randomly in your library. It simply wouldn't ever be possible to cast it.

@GendoIkari The judge never said anything about static vs triggered, and we agree it would only trigger if in the top 4, as the rest of the library is not being searched and thus A) the condition of the search containing the Wurm is not met or B) your exact point there, you can't legally see or know where the deeper Wurm(s) are and cannot thus resolve the trigger. Effectively treating the library as having only those 4 cards for purposes of search.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Can you have an aura attached to an aura that is itself attached to the first aura?
This question was inspired by this post on /r/BadMtgCombos.

In the post, the user makes use of three copies of Feedback and Aura Graft to get Feedback 1 attached to Feedback 2, Feedback 2 attached to Feedback 3, and Feedback 3 attached to Feedback 1, creating a "Feedback Loop".
Is it possible to remove a Feedback from this bad combo, and have two Feedbacks attached to each other?

The person who made that post also wrote the following comment on it: "Two would definitely work. I only used three because it was easier to present visually."

Yes, and I think you only need two Feedbacks and Aura Graft (and an arbitrary other enchantment). Just use Aura Graft on Feedback 1 and have it enchant Feedback 2.
While the rules mention that

303.4d An Aura can’t enchant itself. If this occurs somehow, the Aura is put into its owner’s graveyard.

there's no such rule forbidding 'mutual' enchantments.

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When does removing Goblin Warchief affect its cost reduction ability?
If I cast Goblin Warchief, giving my Goblins a cost reduction of 1 mana, and my opponent responds with an instant removal spell, can I play more creatures with the reduced cost?
I suspect the answer to be no, because the removal spell will go on the stack and will resolve before I can continue playing my creatures, and thus the Warchief will already be in the graveyard.
In contrast, the Storm deck can continue to play instant spells when Baral, Chief of Compliance is targeted, because being instants, they can be cast when the stack is not empty.

Splitting hairs here, but if he responded to you casting Goblin Warchief with a kill spell, then his spell has an illegal target since Goblin Warchief isn't a creature yet. (The Goblin Warchief spell, which will become a creature upon resolving, still has yet to resolve.)

@Aetherfox While you are technically correct, I assume this is a more colloquial meaning of "responding", meaning "after I played this creature, he did that".

I take it this question is excluding the possibility that you have goblins with flash?

Your understanding is correct.
You can cast one Goblin with the reduced cost, but only if you do so before you know your opponent is going to remove your Goblin Warchief, and only if there is nothing that triggers upon Warchief entering the battlefield.
After a spell resolves, the active player (you since it is your turn) gets priority. This means that you can cast another Goblin at the reduced cost before your opponent has any chance to respond.

117.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

If you do cast a Goblin at the reduced cost, your opponent could respond to that while the new Goblin is on the stack by targeting your Warchief for removal. This would prevent you from being able to cast any further creatures at reduced cost.
If you pass priority, this is when your opponent can cast an instant-speed removal spell. Once this happens, you will not be able to cast more creatures at the reduced cost (unless you have some ability that allows you to cast creatures at instant speed). By the time you would be able to cast a creature again (when the stack is empty), your Warchief will be gone.
Also, if there is an enter-the-battlefield trigger that happens when Warchief enters, your opponent could respond while that trigger is on the stack; thus destroying Warchief at instant speed before you get a chance to cast another creature.
If you have a way to cast creatures at instant speed (such as Leyline of Anticipation, you can do so while the removal spell is still on the stack. You would get the reduced cost because the removal spell has not resolved yet, so Warchief would still be around.

If I understand correctly, you seem to be saying that the Goblins player can cast multiple goblins in a row before the opponent can remove the Warchief. But that doesn't account for the fact that the opponent can cast the removal spell in response to the first goblin.

@murgatroid99 Yes I missed that detail. Updated.

Followup question to this: If OP had something that triggered upon a creature entering the battlefield (Say, Warstorm Surge), then his opponent would gain priority before OP had a chance to cast a creature spell (assuming no instant-speed creatures) since he can respond to the trigger, and would thus be able to kill it before OP could cast another goblin at reduced cost, correct?

@Aetherfox Yes; this is the same situation as wanting to use a planeswalker's ability after casting it; before your opponent can do something to get rid of the planeswalker. See here.

+1 for "You can cast one Goblin" bit. I didn't think about that right off the bat. It reminds me of... ah, I see you already linked to it in a comment :)

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"Sacrifice a Creature" cost on as an ability: is there a limitation to how many times you can use it each turn?
Say I have a zombie knight on the field, as well as a Carrion Feeder(sacrifice a creature: put a +1/+1 counter on Carrion Feeder), Haakon, Stromgald Scourge (as long as Haakon in in play, you may play knight cards from the graveyard), and Rooftop Storm(zombie creatures cost 0 to cast). If I use Carrion Feeder's sacrifice ability to sacrifice the zombie knight, can I simply cast that zombie knight from the graveyard and continue to sacrifice an cast infinitely, or can you only use the sacrifice ability once per turn?

The answer is the same regardless of whether it's sacrificing a creature, paying mana or any other cost.

Aside: you don't need a second zombie knight, Haakon can be the sacrificed creature

@Caleth: If you want to run out of life really quickly.

You can activate an ability as many times as you like as long as you can pay the cost.  The  only restrictions on activating an ability are listed in rule 602.5:

602.5. A player can’t begin to activate an ability that’s prohibited from being activated.
602.5a A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol ({T}) or the untap symbol ({Q}) in its activation cost can’t be activated unless
the creature has been under its controller’s control since the start
of their most recent turn. Ignore this rule for creatures with haste
(see rule 702.10).
602.5b If an activated ability has a restriction on its use (for example, “Activate this ability only once each turn”), the restriction
continues to apply to that object even if its controller changes.
602.5c If an object acquires an activated ability with a restriction on its use from another object, that restriction applies only to that
ability as acquired from that object. It doesn’t apply to other,
identically worded abilities.
602.5d Activated abilities that read “Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery” mean the player must follow the timing
rules for casting a sorcery spell, though the ability isn’t actually a
sorcery. The player doesn’t actually need to have a sorcery card that
they could cast.
602.5e Activated abilities that read “Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant” mean the player must follow the timing
rules for casting an instant spell, though the ability isn’t actually
an instant. The player doesn’t actually need to have an instant card
that they could cast.

So in the case you've listed above where you can recur and sacrifice a creature endlessly, go wild (note that you can't choose to activate something an infinite amount of times, you do have to pick a number, but that's a whole different discussion).

This, combined with Blood Artist, is a classic "Sacrifice deck" instant win pattern. Although usually I see [persist or undying creature]+[way to inhibit, or take away the counter]+[sacrifice outlet]+Blood Artist, repeat 20 times, win.

@Mycroft I use sigil captain in one deck for similar effect (the -1/-1 from persist makes it enter as a 1/1 and trigger captain) Melira is probably the easist way and golgari is the colors you're going to be in anyways for that kinda deck.


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If a sorcery causes a creature of mine to deal damage to target creature or player, do I have to then tap my creature?
If I were to cast a sorcery like Rabid Bite, does that tap my creature after the damage is dealt or can I use it in my attack phase too? Can I still use it to defend? What about the sorcery Prey Upon?

is there some reason to assume they would get tapped?

Neither effects cause your creature to become tapped.
Tapping a creature to attack is a specific part of the creature attacking and actually has nothing to do with the damage dealt.  This is the reason why Vigilance works the way it does.  There is nothing intrinsic about tapping and damage being dealt.  Rabid Bite would explicitly have to say

"Tap target creature you control.  It deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control."

Specifically with Fight, you can read from the Innistrad release article which explicitly says that the creatures do not become tapped.

For a creature to fight another creature, each deals damage equal to its power to the other. A few finer points:

The damage is dealt simultaneously, and it is dealt by the creatures themselves, so abilities like deathtouch, lifelink, and infect will work as normal.
Damage dealt while fighting is not combat damage, so abilities like first strike won't have any effect.
Fighting doesn't cause the creatures to become tapped.
Only creatures can fight.
No more than two creatures can fight.
If a creature somehow fights itself, it will deal damage to itself equal to its power twice simultaneously.

Note that in one era of MtG, a tapped blocking creature would not deal damage.  This has long been no longer the case.

To expand upon this answer, in Magic, unlike in many other card games (looking at you, Yugioh), the cards do what they say they do and nothing else.  This is becoming less and less the case as the number of keywords increase, and Planeswalker as a creature type is something of a disaster in terms of user experience, but in general it's still pretty safe to assume that a card does what it says and does not do what it doesn't say.

@Ertai87 That's total BS. Every keyword action, including deal damage, has a rule definition, so you have to look up the definition of dealing damage in the rules to know what it does. The definition of dealing damage could include tapping the source of the damage. It doesn't, but it could. You have to look up the rule definition to know. You can't just read the card as you say. In fact,  dealing damage does something like 7 different things!


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Question about Untapping Creatures with Abilities
I’m pretty new to magic and whenever I think I know what’s going on I usually don’t. Here is the situation thanks in advance!
Assuming a card like Jokulmorder comes into play and has the text: “comes into play tapped” and “Doesn’t untap during your untap step” and “whenever you play an island, you may untap” to paraphrase.
My question is can you use a creature ability to untap a card like that without meeting the conditions?

The answer is yes - abilities which specifically let you untap a target are ways to get around some of those restrictions. In particular:

"Comes into play tapped" means exactly what it says - when it comes into play, it is tapped. Nothing stops you from targeting it with an effect that untaps it.

"Does not untap during its controller's next untap step" puts into place an effect that gets checked at a specific point, i.e. in your next untap step, when you would normally untap it, you don't. So if you untap it with another effect, this does nothing - but if it then gets tapped again, it will still not untap next turn.

Having an effect that lets you untap it doesn't stop other effects also untapping it, you just have an additional way of doing it.

Absolutely you can! The first effect you reference on Jokulmorder is a replacement effect that modifies how the creature enters the battlefield - it makes sure the creature enters tapped. The second effect is a static ability that says it doesn't untap normally during your untap step. The third effect you reference is a triggered ability that defines an instance when you would get to untap it.
None of these restrict your ability to untap the creature through other effects like Seeker of Skybreak's activated ability.
I can't think of any creature that restricts untapping in the way you're concerned about - it would need an ability like "cannot be untapped" or a replacement effect like "if it would become untapped, instead it...", but it would make it quite the difficult creature to use.


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Inspiring unicorn vs shock
I’m fairly new to Magic and still learning but got the basics.
My problem is as follows.
My friend person A : white deck (basic starter)
Me person B : red deck (basic starter)
Scenario
Person A declares attack with Inspiring Unicorn “when this declares attack each creature you control gains +1/+1 until end of turn” alongside another generic 2/2 creature.
Person B casts an instant, Shock, before declaring blockers, then proceeds to block other creature with 2/3 creature.
Now this is where I was confused as I thought shock would resolve first killing the unicorn before it could apply its ability or am I wrong?? As person A said they were right and the unicorns ability resolved first as he declared an attack so gains the stat increase before shock so shock would be useless.

Once person A declares attackers, the Unicorn's ability triggers, and a Shock won't help to stop it. However, if you cast Shock in reaction to the trigger (of course, it's better to cast it before the combat phase), it will resolve before the Unicorn's ability resolves, and will hence kill the Unicorn. I think that person B cast it 'too late' but it's hard to tell; 'before declaring blockers' can be during the remainder of the declare attackers phase.
However, even without the Unicorn around, the ability still resolves, and the other attacking creature will get the +1/+1 bonus. See Does an ability resolve if the source of the ability leaves the battlefield? for more details.

"of course, it's better to cast it before the combat phase" not if you first want to know what's attacking you, and not use the shock unless you have to.

'Before declaring blockers' can refer to 3 point in your scenario :

At the beginning of combat before person A can choose wich creatures to attack with. The shock can kill either of person A creatures, probably resulting in person A not attacking.
In the declare Attackers Step, in response to Inspiring Unicorn's ability. Shock can either kill the Unicorn but the ability will still resolve, or the second creature.
In the declare Attackers Step, after the resolution of Inspiring Unicorn's ability. At this point it's too late for shock.

Most player would only consider case 3 as 'before declaring blockers', preferring 'beginning of combat' or 'in response to ...' for case 1 and 2 respectively.
Another thing to consider is that person A probably initiated the scenario by saying something like

I attack with whose two 3/3

Not leaving person B the chance to respond in the beginning of combat step.
Taking shortcuts is fine and documented in the section 724 of the rules, including this rule

724.2b Each other player, in turn order starting after the player who suggested the shortcut, may either accept the proposed sequence, or shorten it by naming a place where they will make a game choice that’s different than what’s been proposed.

So don't be afraid to refuse the shortcut and be clear to when you want to act.

Far more likely is that person A initiated the scenario by clicking the orange button on Arena.

True. I tend to forget that Arena exists

@PhilipKendall If this had happened in Arena, the game would have resolved it correctly without argument or debate.

"Another thing to consider is that person A probably initiated the scenario by saying something like
I attack with whose two 3/3" That's a bit imprecise: at the time of declaration, they're both 2/2.

It totally is imprecise, but it's short and coherent with the situation at the end of the suggested shortcut. I pick this line among other because it use such a massive shortcut. Maybe something like "You take 6" could have been an even better example

To really be as clear as possible, let's go through the full sequence of steps outlined in the game rules:

Combat begins.
Players get priority.
Player A declares which creatures are attacking.
The unicorn's ability goes on the stack.
Players get priority.
Player B plays Shock, which goes on the stack on top of the unicorn's ability.
All players pass priority, and Shock resolves.
The unicorn dies.
Players get priority.
The unicorn's ability resolves. The other attacking creature is now 3/3.
Players get priority.
Player B declares blocks.
Players get priority.
Combat damage is dealt.
Player B's 2/3 blocker dies, while player A's 3/3 attacker survives with 2 damage.
Players get priority.
Combat ends.

You may have noticed that players "get priority" a lot. Priority is the official game term for having a generic opportunity to "do something". Every time players get priority, they each declare, one at a time, in turn order starting with the player whose turn it is, whether they are doing anything, and what they are doing. When all players pass, the top thing on the stack resolves, and then players get priority again. When all players pass and the stack is empty, then the game moves on to the next part of the turn. Every time players get priority, any abilities that have triggered go on the stack, and state based actions such as creatures dying from damage happen, before the first player actually gets priority.
In practice, the strict formal process of priority is rarely followed. Instead, it's usually assumed that players pass most priorities when it's not their turn, until a player interrupts to state they're doing something.
Back to this specific situation, Player B can cast Shock at any of the times when players get priority.

At step 2, you could kill the unicorn and prevent it from doing anything. Player A would not yet have declared attacks, however, and could therefore choose to not have his 2/2 creature suicidally attack into your 2/3 blocker.
At step 5, you can kill the unicorn, but it's too late to stop its ability from happening. The unicorn dies, and Player A's creature is committed to the attack, but it will get the +1/+1 if you don't do something else to stop it.
If you instead passed step 5, steps 6 through 9 wouldn't happen. At step 11, the next available priority, it is too late to kill the unicorn with Shock.


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Simulacrum and trample
If I cast Simulacrum to retroactively apply damage done to me to a creature I control, but the attacking creatures have trample, does the excess damage get applied to me a second time?

No, trample does not interact with Simulacrum at all.
First off, make sure you are reading the Oracle wording of the card; that's the actual wording that applies.

You gain life equal to the damage dealt to you this turn. Simulacrum deals damage to target creature you control equal to the damage dealt to you this turn.

The amount of damage that Simulacrum deals is equal to however much damage you have taken this turn, and that damage is dealt entirely to a single creature you control. Furthermore, it is not combat damage, and trample does not interact in any way with non-combat damage.
Trample only changes how an attacker is allowed to assign combat damage, it allows them to assign less than the total amount to the blocking creature(s) and the rest to the defending player. But it doesn't change the way damage itself is dealt.

With the current Oracle reading, the answer is clearly "no".

You gain life equal to the damage dealt to you this turn. Simulacrum deals damage to target creature you control equal to the damage dealt to you this turn.

It is Simulacrum that is the source of the damage, not the attacking creature. Simulacrum isn't an attacking creature, it's not assigning combat damage, and it doesn't have trample.
With the original wording, it's not as clear, but if you look at how Trample works, it still wouldn't apply. Trample affects how damage is assigned; Trample means that once the controller of an attacking creature has assigned lethal damage to the blocking creature(s), they can assign the remainder to the defending player. It does not mean that if a blocking creature receives more than lethal damage, the excess is applied to the defending player.
For instance, suppose an Abyssal Persecutor (6/6, trample) is blocked by an Alpine Grizzly (4/2). If the attacking player says "Your Alpine Grizzly takes 6 damage", the defending player can say "Okay", and their life total doesn't change; by saying "Your Alpine Grizzly takes 6 damage", the attacking player was assigning all 6 damage to the Alpine Grizzly, leaving none for the defending player. If the attacking player wants to take advantage of Trample, they have to assign 2 damage to Alpine Grizzly and assign 4 to the defending player. Once 6 damage is assigned to Alpine Grizzly, that damage stays on Alpine Grizzly, even though it came from a source with Trample. So if you're that situation as the attacker, if your opponent wants to be really nitpicky they can require you to explicitly state that you're assigning 2 damage to their Alpine Grizzly if you want to assign them any Trample damage.
So in the above hypothetical, if Abysmal Persecutor originally dealt 2 damage to your Alpine Grizzly and 4 damage to you, and then you cast Simulacrum, then even with the original wording, if we interpreted it as saying that the other 4 damage is now being done by Abysmal Persecutor to Alpine Grizzly, and even if we treat this damage as still being Trample combat damage being done by an attacker, that damage still doesn't "overflow" to you; as I said, Trample just gives a permission to assign damage a certain way, it has no effect on damage that has already been assigned.


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Does anyone know the name of this card game?
The game is played with a standard 52 card deck.
I start by dealing cards to each player plus a dummy hand next to the dealer and the last card goes into the middle.
Then three pots are made up.

Pot one is first person to get a three card run.
Pot two is the queen pot of you play the queen that matches the card suit in the middle at the end you claim the pot.
Pot three is first person to be out of cards.

Dealer looks at his hand and decides if they want to keep it or change to the dummy hand. This continues around the table until someone accepts the dummy hand.
The game then starts by someone playing an ace but I can't remember which one, then the game continues in suit order.
That's roughly what I remember.

Is this played with a standard 52 card deck?

Yes it is. The dummy hand has one extra card

Sounds a lot like Rummy Royal, but some of the specifics seem off.

Is it a trick taking game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-taking_game

We used to play this game with our grandma from Leeds over 40 years ago. We knew it as Queenie. She used to keep us up until she won all our money.
We are trying to remember the rules and thats how we found your post.
When we played we only had two pots one for the queen and one for finishing first. I thought we used to bid for the spare hand, but I could be wrong.
Yours is the first mention of the game I have found online.

Unless you have a link to rules for Queenie, this seems better suited as a comment than an answer.

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text:
Is Athelas guarded by Forest Grove
A Journey to Rhosgobel actually has an interesting scenario where you can add Athelas to the staging area. Is it guarded when added by Forest Grove?

No, it is not guarded when added by Forest Grove.
According to the FAQs, on guarded:

Surge, Doomed, and Guarded keywords should be resolved any time the card on which they occur is revealed from the encounter deck, including during setup.

The word revealed here is not mentioned in the actual rule book and is the cause for confusion. If we assume that Guarded is only triggered when a card is revealed then Athelas enters the staging area unguarded when added by Forest Grove.

Note that this has also gotten an official answer from Caleb Grace, the designer of the game. He wrote: "Because the Athelas is not revealed when you trigger the Response of Forest Grove, you place an unguarded Athelas in the staging area." So this question has been officially answered.

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text:
A&A 1942 2nd ed: Is it necessary to build an industrial complex in order to mobilize units?
If Russia doesn't build an industrial complex, can units be mobilized in any controlled territory?
I don't see any complexes printed on the board itself to start the game off, does that mean I have to buy one in order to mobilize units?

Every country needs to have an industrial complex to build units. But every country starts out with at least one (America, Germany and Russia have two). So you don't need to build another one unless you have lost one.
If you are Japan or England and you've lost your industrial complex (around your capital city), you're out of the game anyway (unless an ally recaptures your capital). If you're Russia, you can afford to lose Karelia, but not Moscow, if Germany, you can afford to lose Rome but not Berlin, and if America, you can afford to lose Los Angeles (the Western U.S.) but not Washington D.C.

If you look at the setup charts for each country, some territories have "Industrial Complex" listed of one of the units to be placed.  I suspect that they were not printed directly on the board because they could then get covered up by other pieces.
You can find a copy of the setup charts at
http://www.axisandallies.org/resources-downloads/setup-chart-axis-allies-1942-second-edition/


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Agricola: What cards allow for animals be the main source of food for my family?
In 3 player games (only played 4 player a couple times), as I see occupations and minor improvements get dealt out (draft mode), I never see any cards that make me think, "Hey, that would make animals a viable strategy to feed my family the whole game."
I end up only using animals for the first harvest or two to cook sheep because nothing makes them seem viable for the whole game. Is that just how it is? Are there more cards in 4 player that help this?

Well, breeding animals should be enough to feed your family if you have a cooking hearth.  Breeding Sheep gives you 2f per harvest, Boar give you 3f, and Cows give you 4f.  That's 9f per harvest once you have them all going. The problem is having space for all of the animal types, then getting your hands on them.
One card that helps with both those aspects in 4-player is Animal Breeder.  He allows you to buy animal pairs whenever you fence unused spaces.  He is one of the best cards in the game, and I almost always pick him first in draft.  If you fence early and fence often, you can get all animal types breeding very quickly.
There are generally more animal-based Occupations for 4+ players.  For example, Cowherd and Swineherd (similar to 3+ player Sheep Farmer and Animal Dealer) let you take an additional animal when you use the appropriate action space. If you are using expansions there are even more.  Dove Hunter from France Deck lets you turn 1 sheep into 4 food (or 1 cow into 6 food) every harvest.
These are just a few of my favorites for animal-based feeding.  There are plenty of others, though.

Hmmm, that is a good point. I didn't think about just eating one animal of each type each harvest is enough food. Hmmmm. That makes those cards that let us get a boar/cow early quite valuable. I am tempted to accept this answer now, but I'm going to wait a day or two to see what others say. There may be other things I have not thought of yet :)

Cowherd and Swineherd don't strictly require breeding.  With Cowherd and a Hearth, you are guaranteed 8+ food every time you take the Cattle space.  There's a lot of variations.  Breeding animals is just good practice, though.  It's free animals every harvest.

I played a couple games recently focusing on Animals, and I am also seeing there are more obscure cards that can make animals a valid way to feed, like the Loom and Fence Builder. I took starting player in round 1, snagged 2 clay in round 2. Purchased the Fireplace and made it clear I was cooking, used the Fencebuilder on the sheep action space, and was able to build fences whenever I wanted to accommodate sheep/boar/cows. Having the fence builder on the sheep, and taking sheep often, the Loom also gave me a fair amount of food each harvest.


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Agricola : In general, is a balanced play style more successful, or all in themed play style?
Recently I have been trying more and more types of cards and play styles to simply see what works and work doesn't, and it has me wondering...
Has it been found that a more balanced play style works better than an all-in-themed play style, or vise versa?
For instance, if one is able to snag the flagon and a couple other cards that revolve around the well/village well, should the person use the 2 or 3 occupation moves and a couple of improvement turns to make the well a super power move? Or perhaps is it good to only do maybe 3 turns to enhance and get the well, not going overboard, leaving room to play a couple cards for animals,grain, etc...?
Or, does it really come down to the "chaos management" part of the game--meaning it flat out depends on what other people do?

Just as a quick point, doing anything in a score category is effectively worth 2 points, since you jump from -1 to 1. This is often a lot more than getting 1 extra point, so it's often worth at least touching on an all-round strategy.

The short answer is: it depends. Agricola is quite a complex game and there are all sorts of variables at play that determine your strategy. You have already said that you are trying out various different strategies. Keep doing that, and see what works!
The longer answer:
What I've found from my own experience is that going for an all-out strategy too early (i.e. in stage 1) is counter-productive. Time spent playing those minor improvements early means that you miss out on gathering resources for a room, and so you are the last to grow your family, or that you fail to get a food engine set up, and later have to spend too many turns taking "fishing" or "day labourer". In addition to this, by neglecting the more conventional moves like taking wood, you leave nice juicy piles that your opponents can take (particularly in games with fewer players).
Stages 2-3 are often the time to get your nice combi-strategy going, once you have got established a bit. It's early enough that you will still reap the benefits, but (if you've done your preparation well) not so soon that you'll starve. It's also nice and efficient since you can play your major and minor improvements in combination with family growth or renovation. Here you can be fairly single minded, as long as you don't neglect growing your family. Family growth is massively powerful since it gets you extra actions and extra points.
Late in the game, it's time to diversify. The scoring system of Agricola is heavily biased towards having a balanced farm at the end of the game. As @Samthere mentions, the best marginal gains are to be found by making sure that you don't have any -1 points - if you are lacking, it's fairly easy to pick up a single sheep for an instant 2 point gain. Because of this, and the caps at 4 points for most categories, the winning farm is nearly always one that is a good all-rounder. However, there's nothing to stop you from employing a single-minded strategy earlier in the game, as long as you balance things up at the end.
A final note: depending on your mindset, the victory points may only be half the story. To me, coming up with a great synergy of cards is fun, even if it's not necessarily the absolute best strategy at the time.

To sum up what has been said and what I think :

At the beginning of the game, it is not efficient to go through multiple elements, in order to set up your "economy" (food production for example) as soon as possible. The goal of that is to avoid spending too much on food on first harvests.
At the end of the game, it is very important to score points in all categories because of the -1/+1 score gap.


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Agricola Family Growth importance threshold
From comments and such on here and boardgamegeek.com, quickly building rooms and getting family growth seems to be just about the most important early part of Agricola. The hard part is balancing getting rooms and family growth with feeding the family.
In context of a 3 player game (no +2 of any resource you want, only +1), my other two friends and I will fight tooth and nail over reed to get those rooms out. It is to the point that there is almost never 2 reed on the reed space. If there is one reed on the action space we will not let the starting player get that two reed for that advantage, so one of us non starting players will take the single reed.
In general, we all seem to do OK as far as points go, but I am wondering if anyone can weigh in on their thoughts as to how efficient this is? Is it worth it to take a single reed twice for that first room (or even second)?
Sometimes this is easier if someone has a card that provides reed somehow, or a reduced need for reed, but there are times when none of those cards come out.
As a bonus/addon question, is it worth it to build all 5 rooms as fast as possible, or build 4 and use family growth even without room. This should be in context of both situations of having cards that give bonus points for 5 rooms, and not having those cards.

EDIT:
It seems my friends and I were playing wrong. When I learned a couple years ago, I was taught when grain was harvested, we take all 3 grain from the field at the harvest. AND, when animals bred, 2 sheep ( for example ) would make 1 more sheep, 4 sheep would make 2 more, 6 would make 3, etc...
With that being said, other actions have quite a bit more value than they did with our erroneous rules, so reed is no where NEAR of a prominent bottleneck as it was before. For instance, we now value taking that extra turn to get out the Seasonal Worker and use the Day Laborer action space more frequently.
I suppose the abstract question still exists, "Is early family growth worth taking a couple inefficient turns to get early."

The sole* value of getting family growth is having extra action. Each round that you can get family growth earlier and is one extra action you can take.
*Actually there are other reasons you might want to take family growth earlier - to block other people from taking it that round, or in order to not lose out on the three points for the family member at the end of the game, if other people take the space before you.
When weighing up whether it's worth:
a) taking resources in order to build a room (ie. wood, reed)
b) building the room/family growth
You need to consider what that one extra turn is worth.
For example:

If there is 6 wood there, is the one extra turn really worth the six wood?
If there are five sheep there, is the one extra turn worth the five sheep?
If you can see that another player is short on food, and there's four food in the fishing pond, you might consider taking taking the food as an aggressive strategy that will hurt them despite them having an extra family member.

Absolutely, generally speaking, growing your family early is a good a strategy, and extrapolating from that, that means taking the necessary resources (wood and reed) for yourself, or preventing others from getting resources is a good strategy.
This does suggest that the 'take the single reed' could possibly be a reasonable strategy - both to acquire the resource for yourself, and to prevent others from grabbing the two reed the next round.
Though - remember there is always the day labour in order to grab a single reed, and it would cripple your own game to try block both those spots each turn.
Generally I don't favour taking a single reed - there are probably better options - such as plowing fields, or taking the wood.
One better strategy, is if you are in last playing position, and there is still the one reed there, then you take starting player as your last move. This lets you grab the two reed first at the start of the next round.

This is sort of pedantic, but when you say "turn" are you referring to actions?

I edited my question with some new info, but I believe this answer still applies to the abstract question. I suppose it comes down to, "how many actions will I gain by using a certain amount of inefficient actions to build/use family growth"

@SocioMatt Yes - absolutely.

@Jeff.Clark - It's not just 'how many actions will I gain', but also 'how much will I screw over the other players'.

Nice answer. Minor point: The day labourer can only give reed in the family game (in the full game it gives two food). Since the OP mentions cards providing reed I think they might be playing the full game.

I've recently played a few more games and noticed that family growth is not the end-all-be-all in quite a few situations. I recently had a game where I gave up the family growth without room when it first popped up to get a stack of stone that was exactly what I needed to get the well and renovate in one move. Another time I passed up the first family growth in stage 2 because It would have required yet another move to feed my family, where instead I got some resources to let me set myself up better for the end game. Both times I won. This has been good to think about :)


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Eclipse: some House rules to cut down on chance in die rolling?
My group and I enjoy Eclipse, but it has fallen out of favor because of the extreme chance in battle on die rolls. Heck, I can't even get my wife to play at all because the first three games she played, each time she would be in a good early spot to take a good resource hex with a single alien on it and would instead get obliterated (we are talking like 80% or 90% chance to take win). That is no fun. We have moved on to other games like Smallworld and Agricola where it is more about strategy than luck, but I would like to find a way to put Eclipse back into the rotation.
Has anyone tested any house rules that would lessen the harshness of chance in die rolls?
One thing that came to my mind is a self-made technology that could be purchased and would allow the player to re-roll on a 1.

Average Dice:
The easiest solution would to use an average die, i.e. a d6 with the faces:
0/1/1/2/2/3
0 is a automatic miss
3 is a automatic hit
A modified 3 is a normal hit, e.g. a rolled 1 with +2 from computers is a hit.
While the extreme swings (all dice show automatic hit/miss) are not mitigated, the impact of the modifiers (computers, shields) is twice as large, decreasing the overall randomness.
When an average die is rolled you must remember if it is yellow (1 hit = 1 damage), orange (1 hit = 2 damage) or red (1 hit = 4 damage). Potentially rolling the dice of different colors after each other to prevent confusion.
All other rules should be applicable. Outside of combat, still normal d6 are necessary (e.g. for hive hexes).
Average dice are available online (either physical or as an app) and are useful in numerous games to reduce the randomness of the dice.
No Automatic Hit/Miss
If you want to address the extreme swings, then remove the automatic hit/miss parts of the game, i.e. a 1 can hit with +5 modifier and a 6 misses against -1 shield. I wouldn't recommend this, as shield become too powerful (ships cannot be hit at all), but if this suits your taste, why not?
Lastly average dice and not automatic hits/misses can be combined for an drastic reduction of the luck in the game.

Nice. I have never heard of "Average Dice". I'll look into this.


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Laboratory maniac and not being able to win the game
I have a Laboratory Maniac and my opponent has a Platinum Angel and I have 0 cards in my library.
I can't win because of the Platinum Angel, but does this mean that I lose because the ability from Laboratory Maniac will be prevented or will only the part be prevented that wins me the game?

The [mtg:] link to Platinum Angel wasn't working so I submitted an edit to change it to a direct link. Hope that is helpful.

«"Can't" trumps "can"»

I don't think you understand the question

To be honest, I do not understand the Q no... Considering the link for laboratory maniac includes a note answering your question in general terms (and even mentions plat angel), I do not see what is unclear :/

wouldn't the opponent win at some point unless he has someway to block flying or creature removal?  So if he can't remove the creature with the cards in his hand he would lose to damage at some point

You neither lose nor win the game, and the game continues.
What would normally make you lose the game when drawing from an empty library is a state-based action.

704.5b If a player attempted to draw a card from a library with no cards in it since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game.

Laboratory Maniac's ability creates a replacement effect. Replacement effects replace the original event - in this case the card draw itself - with something else. Since you never draw a card from an empty library with this card under your control, the state-based action will never apply.
With a Platinum Angel under your opponent's control, its continuous effect simply prevents you from winning the game. It does not, however, interact with Laboratory Maniac's ability in any other way, meaning its replacement effect will still replace the event of you drawing a card.
In the end, all effects combined could be summarized to something like this:

If you would draw a card from a library with no cards in it, instead nothing happens.

The game will go on normally until either your opponent wins, you lose the game in another way, or either creature is destroyed/stripped of it's ability - in the last case, the next time you would draw a card, you either lose or win the game (depending on the remaining creature).

I've added a sentence to the start to be extra clear about neither winning nor losing means. Does that sit OK?

@doppelgreener: I was in fact editing the last paragraph with the very same intention when you added that - I tried to merge our edits somewhat, but feel free to change it again if you feel that it can be improved.

Looks good to me. :) "The game continues" was the important thing -- otherwise I could see a new player reasonably conclude the game must end anyway and with nobody winning or losing.

Minor thing, but the way you word what the state-based action "effectively becomes" makes it sounds like Laboratory Maniac replaces the "loses the game" with "wins the game". But actually it replaces the card draw itself with "wins the game". So it doesn't replace what that state-based action does/says; instead it replaces all "draw a card" instructions.

@GendoIkari: Well, the SBA itself it worded "if you attempted to draw", which I simply chose to reuse. Re-reading my answer though, you would be correct in the way I explained the replacement effect interaction, and I edited the answer accordingly.


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In what order do creatures return from the graveyard with "March from the Tomb"?
In which order are cards returned from the graveyard with March from the Tomb:

Return any number of target Ally creature cards with total converted mana cost 8 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.

In particular, if one of the returned cards is Kalastria Healer:

Rally — Whenever Kalastria Healer or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

Can I return Kalastria first such that the additional allies entering the battlefield trigger the Rally ability?

There is no order. The card says to return them all at the same time. (And they'll all see each other enter for the purposes of triggered abilities like that; see the proposed duplicate.)


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Is it legal to use opponent's stones in reversi or othello?
In Reversi or Othello, it is sometimes possible that you run out of stones but still need to make a move. Sources disagree upon the fact if you can or must use opponent's stones in this case. I watched numerous videos and people disagree so much about this rule. Someone say you can't use opponent's stones at all; others say you can and a few, you must.
I just wonder: Is there a unique official rule concerning this problem? Because if everyone starts playing according to their personal rules, that won't be too good.

I looked at a few sources for Othello rules, and they either didn't have any rules that cover this edge case or like Ultra Board Games state that you should take discs from your opponent if you run out.

When a player runs out of discs, but still has opportunities to outflank an opposing disc, then the opponent must give the player a disc to use.

Maybe they use double sided discs, where one side is black and the other side is white, so there is no "my discs" and "your discs"

@Cohensius: I've never heard of a Reversi set that doesn't use reversible discs. I struggle to imagine how that would ever be practical to play. You'd have to constantly remove and replace discs every time someone made a move.

@Cohensius The discs are double sided, but rather than having a single pool that each player takes discs from the rules have them each take 32 as "their" discs (unless their opponent runs out)

I don't think it's accurate to call this an “edge case”. Plenty of games involve passes, which lead to the non-passing player playing more than 30 discs (unless that player passes correspondingly or there are empty spaces left at the end). If players were limited to 30 discs, it would significantly change endgame strategy. Othello players always play as if they can just take any disc from the table to play, and Reversi players... I'm not sure they actually exist.


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Smash up: First mate with ongoing actions attached to it. Do the actions follow him?
I'd like to hear peoples opinion on this.
The text on the cards mentioned below:
First Mate: "Special: After this base i scored, you may move this minion to another base instead of the discard pile".
Heirloom: Play on a minion. Ongoing: This card gives this minion +1 power for each Heirloom on it. This card cannot be destroyed.(the "this cards cannot be destroyed" is irrelivant to my question).
Situation:

First mate with an ongoing action (fx. heirloom) played on it(first mate).
The base scores
the first mate gets to move to another base after the base i scored

question: does the action played on him follow him or does it get discarded?
I'd think that it would follow him.

Actions played on minions are attached to those minions, and (unless stated otherwise) they move around with the minion regardless of why that minion moves around.

They follow him.

After scoring, players can use Special abilities that
  happen “after” a base scores. Then all cards still on that base go to their owners’ discard piles.

The First Mate is no longer on the base, so he doesn't get discarded, much less actions attached to him.


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Freecell: How many cells are used in one "supermove"
A supermove in Freecell is when you move more than one card at the same time and automatically takes into account any free cells and free columns you have in order to maximise the number you can move.
The exact formula is not a problem: 2^emptycolumns * (freecells+1)
My question is, when I make a supermove how can I calculate how many moves were made to cells.
I am not talking about how many cells were used. This would be easy to calculate.
What I mean is, for example, you move 10 cards because you have 4 free cells and 3 free columns, it is simulating a number of steps that include moving to cells and columns and back.
So, how many moves were to cells?
Edit: FreeCell: How many cards can be moved at once? does not answer my question. That just gives the formula to calculate how many cards can be moved but not how many cell moves are needed.

Does this answer your question? FreeCell: How many cards can be moved at once?

@Sneftel That only gives me the formula to calculate how many cards I can move. It doesn't tell me how many cells I use when making those moves.

There's no single answer to that. If you have enough free cells and free columns, when making a particular supermove you could choose to use all the free cells or none of them.

@Sneftel I figured that but wondered if there was a way to calculate the minimum number of cell moves you could use


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Can you re-equip equipment to the same creature?
Murderer's Axe has an equip cost: discard a card, and since madness runs off discarding, this can be rather useful.
Can an equipment card be re-equipped to the same creature that already has it equipped?

Yes, you can choose the currently equipped creature to target with the equip ability since it doesn't require the target to be a different creature.
Note that if you have other cards that care about things becoming (un)equipped or (un)attached they will not trigger since the equipment never actually stops being equipped, and it doesn't gain a new timestamp.

702.6a Equip is an activated ability of Equipment cards. “Equip [cost]” means “[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

Unless the Equipment is a Lightning Greaves.

It may be worth mentioning that 701.3b specifically covers the case of attaching an object to something it's already attached to.

Since there is no restriction (other than control) based on the wording of "equip", I'd say yes.

702.6a Equip is an activated ability of Equipment cards. “Equip [cost]” means “[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

Yes you can. That card doesn't specifically mention anything about its equip ability having to be used on a different creature and not on one it's already attached to.
A good rule of thumb with Magic: Unless the card specifically states something, more oft than not you do exactly what is says on the card and nothing else.
So since it doesn't specifically tell you to only equip it to a different creature, then you're good to go.
Enjoy that madness ability!

I'm not sure this logic really works well in this case. The card doesn't really say anything about how the equip ability works; it just says "Equip." You have to look at the rules to figure out what it actually means. The sorcery-speed restriction for Equip is a nice example: if you just looked at the card as you're suggesting, you might think you could Equip at instant speed.


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Identify this half matte sleeve for ThunderStone Advance?
I just more or less completed my Thunderstone Advance collection at a recent garage sale. My collection, previous to that, is not yet sleeved but the new addition to the family (ToR w/ CoB) is already sleeved with what appears to be UltraPro 2 5/8" x 3 5/8 sleeves. I know the make is UltraPro as it has the hologram logo on the other side i.e side not pictured below.
The UltraPro site does not seem to have anything like this.
Some have a matte finish on one side like the one picture below. I would gather the intention is that you could have a glossy side or matte side facing you depending on preference? These do not feel like penny sleeves (which I did find in this dimension on Amazon) and I do not want those for this. I am having a hard time finding more of this dimension. These are larger than standard Magic the Gathering cards.

Click on images to embiggen

They appear to me to be Ultra Pro’s Pro-Matte sleeves in clear, which I myself use for certain things. One side is glossy, the other matte. And sleeves made for Magic will fit TA cards according to this thread: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/822554/card-sleeve-size

After talking with m FLGS they also came to that conclusion. @user30903 If you flesh that out into an answer I will accept it.

If you are looking for sleeve sizes for a game, the following links are

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/164572/card-sleeve-sizes-games
https://www.maydaygames.com/pages/sleeves-by-game

Here is the entry for Thunderstone Advanced: Numenera, other Thunderstone versions are listed below.
I realize you aren't asking about the game, as much as what product are your sleeves. This is meant for people who may stumble upon your question.


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Can anyone tell me who Mr. Suitcase is?
I acquired a collection of cards among which were some sinkholes. One in particular is signed;

I understand the name in concept. From the wiki page for The Duelist:

"Mr. Suitcase" being a reference to the large collections of cards that some players would carry with them

I even found an article by a person asking to referred to by that name on Wizards.com

CALL ME MR. SUITCASE

In the case of the latter I had tried reaching out to the author but received nor response. However given the name of the author is Kelly Digges I doubt that is his signature.
If the former holds true it could just be anybody. I am curious to know if this is somebody? Searching for BuHo didn't get me anywhere.

I'm not getting any good results from searches, but the signature looks like Bulto to me.

One idea I had was to look at a list of pro mtg players, but came up empty.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_Magic:_The_Gathering_players  Nothing struck me as a match.  Your mileage may vary.

Unfortunately, there was never any one person known as Mr. Suitcase. Mr. Suitcase is old-school slang for someone with a lot of cards. More likely than not this was just some random guy who was kind of a big deal at his local shop.
The basic idea is that in the early years your average player didn't have a lot of money as most players were students. So they would show up to tournaments with decks built from their limited collections of cards.  Mr. Suitcase, however. Well, he had tons of disposable income and a collection to match.  A collection so big he had to carry it around in a gosh-darned suitcase. This meant that he could build pretty much any deck he wanted and it would be better than anything else anybody else could bring.
Mr. Suitcase isn't necessarily good but he usually has an ego. It's not surprising that he would sign what was probably his ante card when he lost the match

I suspected as much in my question. Was hoping someone just knew. :( card has less value now

I think the only "old days" aspect of this story, is the specific card involved, and that this likely was an ante card.  My local shop has exactly this spread of players.


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Can you identify this likely chess variant?
I frequent a thrifting board game thread on BGG (BoardGameGeek). Recently a nice copy of a supposed chess variant appeared and we cannot seem to identify it.

From that post the game is described thusly:

The board has nine slots on both sides for pieces and it came with 9 pieces for each player. Pieces look like chess pieces with two rooks, two bishops, a king, and 4 pawns per side.
Did determine the designer is Arne Basse and the game appears to be from the 60's.

Designers name doesn't appear to help much other that to affirm that is is likely on of their designs as it is similar to regular chess board in material composition. That does lead to the only only other mention of this game, I could find, from chessvariants.com

It was passed onto me from my parents, They said it was called "Viking Chess", but I haven't been able to find it among the variants at your website under that name (perhaps I have not looked hard enough).
It has 9 pieces per side (king, two bishops, two castles, 4 pawns). It has a spiral board with 36 cross shape places and a star in the middle.
I am trying to remember the rules as the original set are lost. My faint recollection was that each piece "entered" the spiral from the sides.

Between the two posts it was surmised that this is not the following:

Viking Chess
a Morra-Board
Byzantine Chess
Circular Chess

Determination based on board layout and piece composition.
Can you identify this game?

Michael Ireland, the person who posted their copy on chessvairants.com, remembered some details, and replied with some added information (original post here). I will quote it here:

Viking Chess Rules as best as they can be remembered – November 28, 2020
The goal of the game is to checkmate your opponent's king as in regular chess.
Board: The board is made up of "rings" linking "crosses" (the spaces).  There is a centre >space, the “star”, in the middle.
Pieces: There is a king, 2 rooks (flat tops), 2 bishops (spikes) and 4 pawns per side.
All pieces start off the board.
On their first turn (white goes first) each player places their king anywhere on the >board on any space except the centre space (I believe that no piece could start on the >centre star because it gives too much of an advantage to start there - but I am not 100% >certain of the rule).
In the second and subsequent turns, each player can either move an existing piece on the >board or bring another piece onto the board as per turn 1.
Different pieces move differently as follows:

Pawn moves one space in any direction
Rook moves up to 3 spaces up or down, or one space to the side
Bishop moves up to 3 spaces around one of the rings, or one space up or down.
King can move up to 3 spaces in any direction up or down

Once placed on the board a piece can enter the centre space or through it.
A player takes an opponent's piece by moving a piece into their opponent's piece's space.  >Once a piece is removed from the board it cannot return.  I do not believe there is a >rule to promote a pawn to a Bishop or Rook.
The King is the strongest piece on the board combining both the Rook's move (3 up or >down) and the Bishop's move (3 around a ring in either direction).
If the King is taken/mated the game is over.

Lou, thank you for your input on the rules!  I am the guy who made the original chessvariants.org post about this game.  I have now updated my rule set with your additions.  Do you recall if the thralls could be promoted?
The Windrose Game (Danish Viking Chess) Rules (revised to take into account your comments)
The goal of the game is to checkmate your opponent's king as in regular chess.
Board: The board is made up of "rings" linking "crosses" (the spaces).  There is a centre space, the “star”, in the middle.
Pieces: There is a king, 2 rooks (flat tops), 2 bishops (spikes) and 4 thralls per side.
All pieces start off the board.
On their first turn (white goes first) each player places their king on the edge of the board.
In the second and subsequent turns, each player can EITHER bring a piece onto the board edge OR move an existing piece on the board
The different pieces move as follows:

Thrall moves one space in any direction
Rook moves up to 3 spaces up or down, or one space to the side
Bishop moves up to 3 spaces around one of the rings, or one space up or down.
King moves up to 3 spaces in any direction up or down

Once placed on the board a piece can enter the centre space or move through it.
A player takes an opponent's piece by moving a piece into their opponent's piece's space.  Once a piece is removed from the board it cannot return.
When a King is mated the game is over.
Note: One commenter thought that a Thrall could be promoted to a Rook or Bishop if it reached the centre star space but this cannot be confirmed. This could be played as an optional rule.

I can't tell if you're trying to respond to Lou(in which case use the comment section below Matt's answer) or provide a new answer (the answer portion looks a lot like an existing answer, which quotes your original write up on another site), so perhaps your additions would be better placed as comments to that answer.

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.

Doing my best.  Can't comment directly to Lou as I am short reputation points.

This game was advertised as The Windrose Game (Danish Viking Chess).  I still have the board and pieces purchased at Modern Designs in Ithaca NY.  As I recall the small pieces were called Thralls and each piece entered from the edge, one per player's turn.  The player could opt not to enter a new piece and play one already on the board.  I too have lost the rules and would love if someone could find them.  Thanks!


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Necroskitter and clone/ board wipe interaction
I had Necroskitter out and my opponent has Clone which cloned some 3/3 monster. I play Puncture Blast to kill it. I believe that I get Clone card because of the following steps

Cast puncture bolt
Target Clone creature
Opponent has no response so there for it dies
Because it has -1/-1 counter when it was sent to the graveyard it triggers my Necroskitter
I get to put Clone into my battlefield

I believe I am right but my friend says that [Clone][2] comes back as 0/0 as therefore dies. Who is right?

You would be better off separating this into two questions.  Stack Exchange encourages each question to have it's own individual post.

Oh I didn't know that but I understand the reasoning for it. I'll do my best to remember that for future questions on all boards.

A lot of forums encourage question collation in order to save space, but Stack Exchange's primary priority is to provide a searchable database of answers, which is why the "one question per post" rule is preferred.

So would it be best to do that for this question right now?

Edit out the second question, and then repost it as a new question. Or better yet, don't repost it at all, because it would just get closed as a duplicate of this question

I believe I am right but my friend says that Clone comes back as 0/0 as therefore dies. Who is right?

You are correct.
Clone's ability reads

You may have Clone enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.

This ability applies any time Clone enters the battlefield.  The person who controls Clone (in this case you) gets to choose a creature to copy as it enters the battlefield.  It will not die.

More precisely, the ability applies any time Clone would enter the battlefield. Assuming that the ability is used and a valid option exists, "Clone" never enters the battlefield, the copy does instead.


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Where does the term "cube" come from?
In Magic, a cube is a collection of cards that is handpicked to make a good draft. A cube draft is a type of limited format that uses a cube to draft from. But what does "cube" mean? Does it refer to a collection of cards in the general sense, or is it Magic-specific terminology? Where did this term originate?

Mark Rosewater offered this explanation on his blog:

I believe the first cube was kept in a box that was a cube.

I wouldn't call that explanation definitive, but a quick Google search demonstrates that there are Magic players who would back up Rosewater's memory.


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What is the official name of this game? In India, it is called kaali teeri (3 of Spades)
This game can be played by 4 or 6 people.
with 6 people you take out all 2.
10 points are associated with each of the face cards(A,K,Q,J and 10) , and 3 of Spades has 30 points associated with it making it a trump card. And 5 has 5 points. Everything else has no value.
Players wage their scores depending on how good their cards are (maximum is 250), and player with the highest wager ask for a partner with a specific card and creates trump suit(pick a color of cards which has higher value to take hands). Partner then assists the player reach the target points, either openly or secretly.
I want to know the official name of this game. Is there any game named
'Three of Spades'?

@HansAdler Yes. You are absolutely correct. The 3 of spades is the highest trump regardless of trump suit. This game is widely played in India. We played it last night but none of us knew what is it's exact name in English. Few of my friends suggested that it may be called Three of Spades (Just a straight English translation). But I am damn sure it must have been originated from England as they ruled us for nearly 200 years. I still want to know what's it traditionally called.


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Is there a functional reason for Ghostfire not having the Devoid keyword?
Ghostfire is a card that has a colored mana cost, and then is changed by its rules text to become colorless. This is largely what Devoid has been used for in editions printed after Ghostfire has first seen the light of day.

702.113a Devoid is a characteristic-defining ability. “Devoid” means “This object is colorless.” This ability functions everywhere, even outside the game. (...)

Ghostfire is very similar to Reality Hemorrhage, with the only difference being that you pay one more colorless mana for one more damage, and the difference inquired about here.
The only apparent difference is that Devoid is a keyword ability, but since it only creates a CDA (characteristic-defining ability) with exactly the same text that can be found on Ghostfire, it doesn't seem to make a difference.
Is there any ever-so-slight functional difference at all between these phrasings?
Of course, reasons other than functional ones could be, for example, that only Eldrazi-related cards would actually receive the Devoid keyword, or that Wizards maybe wants to errata as little as possible, but that's not what this question is primarily about. However if you do find citation for that, please post it as a comment, or addendum to an answer.

Yes, there is a practical difference between Ghostfire and Reality Hemorrhage as far as the color-setting ability goes.
The colored mana produced by Corrupted Crossroads could not be used to cast Ghostfire.
Other examples of cards affecting other cards with specific keyword abilities include at least the cards found by this search, except Humility. Note that this was a very basic search, and there are many more such cards that affect specific keyword abilities, such as Adarkar Windform.
It seems unlikely that Ghostfire, a card released in 2007 as part of the out-of-order Future Sight edition and the only card made colorless by a CDA before the Battle for Zendikar block, was intentionally left un-errata'd to nerf its interaction with Corrupted Crossroads. Avoiding unnecessary erratas seems to be the most likely explanation why it was not updated.

Corrupted Crossroads is a good find. As for the paragraph about taking abilities away, apart from the fact that they all seem to apply exclusively to permanents (creatures, actually), none of them applies specifically to Devoid, so they would take "This card is colorless." away just as well.

I added a note to exclude Humility. Other than that, none of the cards in my quick search would take away devoid or its Ghostfire near-equivalent. If there was a card that said "all objects lose devoid", then Ghostfire would continue to be colorless

That's correct, but nevertheless, no cards (from that search or otherwise) are able to take away Devoid of a non-permanent card, which is why I was arguing it's not really applicable to the question. That said, I noticed I phrased it a little weird in my question, which is what likely caused the confusion, and edited that respectively.

You stated in your original question: "I don't believe there's a card that takes keyword abilites away, yet leaves other abilities untouched.", which I refuted.

Right... that's what I tried to indicate with my previous comment. What I meant to say was "I don't believe there's a card that can take the Devoid keyword ability away from non-permanent cards, yet leaves Ghostfire's abilitiy untouched." I now decided to take that part out completely, as "it doesn't seem to make a difference" explains what I mean by itself.

This answer doesn't really hold up. Because Corrupted Crossroads didn't exist before Devoid, it doesn't actually present a difference that would have prevented Ghost Fire's change. That means the difference you identify is merely a theoretical difference. When you factor in the existing cards, you find there is no practical difference.

One could also point to lifelink as a historic example where aggressive retroactive key-wording errata bit them in the behind and had to be undone and left things in a confusing state for poor old loxodon warhammer.

In addition to @Hackworth answer, there was also a flavour reason:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/battle-zendikards-part-2-2015-09-28 (scroll to section "Touch of the Void")

I had numerous conversations with the creative team about whether there was any way to involve Ugin's colorless magic in the story, but in the end, it was clear that doing so would just cause confusion. I talk a lot about how an important part of design is consistency, so the audience understands how things work. Throwing one non-Eldrazi devoid spell in the mix just led to awkward design.

As it points out, it was a flavour decision not to include it in Battle for Zendikar because devoid is a Eldrazi mechanic and WotC are starting to make more effort on aligning the cards to the story/world. Functionally changing Ghostfire to have devoid would have come under the category of "flavour fail"

I can't find a quote, but devoid didn't do well in market research so WotC are more likely to just write it out like Ghostfire in future rather than just use a keyword in the future

It wasn't terribly unpopular either, but "My best guess is we will find ourselves in the future needing devoid, but we'll probably do it written out without a keyword (as the existence of a keyword creates expectations devoid can't meet)." -- http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/storm-scale-zendikar-and-battle-zendikar-2016-11-21


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How can I acquire dice which are as close to perfectly fair and unbiased?
I intend to get a bit closer to my goal of finding a perfectly fair die. What I mean by that is a die that has as little as possible imperfections that might cause it to favor any particular side, or in other words has as little bias as possible.
Definition of Fairness and Bias
Each side of a die with equally sized and positioned faces theoretically has an equal probability of facing up after rolling. Taking a six-sided die as an example, that would be a chance of 1/6 for each face. If you would roll this die an infinite amount of times, each face should come up evenly - if you "only" roll it a large number of times, it should roughly be the same. This is stated by the strong law of large numbers (related to the convergence of random variables).
If that is the case, you have a fair die, meaning a die that fits your expectation that each side has a 1 in 6 chance of facing up. If that is not the case, for example because one number comes up significantly fewer or more often, you have a biased die.
Definition of Die/Dice
I'm interested in information/suggestions about any kind of physical die. This means that other dice than a six-sided die are welcome, however they do have to be dice by the definition of "throwable objects with [distinguishable] sides that can rest in multiple positions".
Concerns
Any die in the physical world will, through a multitude of factors (such as their own shape, material, or environmental conditions like the rolling surface or air resistance), never perfectly reach that average. This question is about finding dice with properties that best eliminate any elements that introduce imbalance in the die itself, such as uneven weight, favoring rolling behavior, and so on.
More specifically, the following practical questions come to mind:

What kind of dice should I buy in the first place?
This relates to material, manufacturer, identifiable general qualities, or even whether self-cast dice are better than commercially acquirable ones.
Is there anything I can/should do to those dice either before or after rolling them?
How can I test whether my dice are actually balanced?
Are there any other factors I need to consider?

Additional Notes
I am in particular interested in dice I can use to be as fair as possible when I myself want them to be fair, as opposed to dice or methods that are manufactured in order to prevent cheating, unless the first statement is also true.
For completeness's sake, while playing games with friends, most dice will be sufficient to have fun, as you should never unintentionally end up with dice that always roll or significantly favor a certain number. This question is about practical application, but more for the maniac than the otherwise focussed player.
Because this has come up a number of times, I will explicitly state that I am not advertising that only perfectly fair dice are good dice, or that you can't have fun without them.

If fairness is the only concern, use a random number generator.

@ArcanistLupus dice in fact are random number generators, but assuming you mean computer programs that take care of that job, it isn't trivial to generate good pseudo-randomness either. In any case, the question is specifically about physical dice.

I'm confused by what you mean by fairness and balance.  Are you suggesting that after say 6 rolls of a d6 each number should have appeared once?  What are you wanting this for where their perception of fairness is so important as opposed to a fun boardgames?

@StartPlayer I don't see any ambiguity in the question. You seem to be of the opinion that fair rolls don't matter to have fun with a game, and that's certainly fair - as a matter of fact, I state that in the last paragraph. What I'm asking about is how to eliminate any kind of bias as much as possible. "Fairness" and "bias" aren't terms I've come up with in relation to dice, they're well-used throughout statistical mathematics (I have links to some scientific voices in my answer below, if you're curious).

Granted that you are using established mathematical definitions for "fairness" and "bias", I think it would improve the question to add short summaries of the definitions, to account for the fact that this site is not focused on mathematics or statistics and many readers may not be familiar with the specific meanings you are referring to.

@Thirdman I figured it was, which is why I made a (too) snarky comment, not an answer.  I apologize for my failed attempt at humor. That said - making a RNG is hard, but using one someone else has made? That's easy.

Take some casino die. If you find out they are imbalanced, do another visit to said casino.

@murgatroid99 I suppose I must have presumed too much here indeed. I tried to clarify the question and its nuances as much as possible - thanks for the hint!

@ArcanistLupus It wasn't too snarky by any means, sorry if I came across as dismissive. I am a software engineer by profession, and as such, it's perhaps a more delicate topic to me than others. There are many ways to generate randomness, generally speaking, and I feel that dice have their very own charm as well as of course interesting physical properties, providing a kind of randomness that isn't completely replaceable. That's likely why I and almost everyone I know playing tabletop games strongly prefers actual dice. As such, I think the strife for accurate physical dice isn't unjustified.

General warning: Even if you have a perfectly fair real world die, if a human being is doing the dice throwing this will introduce some bias. With enough practice to the point where the player can change the odds to their advantage.

Slightly facetious answer - buy lots of dice, select one blindly and roll it once, then discard it! An individual die is hard to make completely fair, but the way in which each one is unfair is quite random in itself. As long as you don't have a selection/sorting/reuse mechanism you'll get good results!

Theory
Fairness of dice is a sometimes loose concept. While there are games in which each result matters significantly (i.e. Yahtzee), there are games like pen and paper RPGs where there's a difficulty rating, and whether you succeed by rolling a 16 or 17 isn't important. Of course, a different check might succeed on a 17, but fail on a 16, but what I'm trying to get at is that not in all situations, perfect fairness matters. But of course, a perfectly fair die is never worse than a biased one in this regard.
Another thing I want to note is that while the question is about the die as an object itself, how it's being tossed is another matter entirely, which influences how fairly a die will actually roll, regardless of its physical capabilities of doing so, and even if you're not actively trying to cheat on the toss.
Manufacturing
As far as my research goes, accuracy is mainly attempted to be achieved at the production stage, so starting out with well-manufactured dice seems to be mandatory. This consists of getting a mold free of air bubbles, avoid bias from finishing the die (such as from tumbling). and mitigate the uneven amount of material taken out of the die when carving numbers into them.
Six-Sided Dice
If you're looking for six-sided dice, there's two great commonly available options: Casino dice, and precision Backgammon dice. Both are made with accuracy in mind, and should offer the highest amount of fairness you can wish to acquire due to the stakes involved in using them (referring to casino dice in particular).
Non-Six-Sided Dice
If you're looking for less common dice, such as the typical d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d100 assortment of pen&paper dice, the ones I've found to be well-manufactured are GameScience/Zocchi precision dice. There's this test that basically concludes that non-precision Chessex dice are good enough, however also shows that precision dice have a more even spread, which is what this question is asking for. There's a video by Louis Zocchi, explaining the reasons for that, basically stating that tumbling destroys the balance of the die.
I personally own four sets of these dice, inked them with crayons (which should mitigate the missing material more than a pen would, but I cannot provide any measurements in terms of how well this works, or even whether I potentially made it worse in terms of balance).
I believe I've come across precision dice from another company over the years, but never owned a set of them, and I failed to find them when looking for it now.
Opaque vs. Transparent Dice
Air bubbles may form within a die during the process of injection molding, which may result in an unbalanced die. That can be avoided (in part or full) by injecting the material more slowly, as well as letting the dice cure (cool) for a longer amount of time, which is done for transparent dice, where air bubbles would otherwise be visible. For opaque dice, this slower process isn't necessary to achieve a perfect appearance, as you cannot spot any air bubbles forming under the surface, so it makes sense for manufacturing efficiency reasons to speed up the process, resulting in the aforementioned air bubbles. This has apparently been confirmed by dice manufacturers, and makes sense if you consider that outside of this question thread, "good enough" works for most players. The previous link states that this might not actually affect the balance of the dice, which of course is true (especially considering that dice manufacturers may use different processes), but tests exist that at least some opaque dice are far more biased than transparent dice (although I will point out that this is certainly not a Chessex-specific issue - it's just what the person in the video happened to test).
Shape
Persi Diaconis introduced me to the concept of fairness by symmetry through his YouTube videos, going back to Euclid and Archimedes. The idea is basically that a perfectly symmetric die (which can be a d4, d6, d8, d12 or d20) is more fair than a non-perfectly-symmetric one, even if the latter features sides of equal shapes and dimensions. If I paraphrase him correctly, that is because of the ability to manipulate a non-perfectly-symmetric die more easily through use of manual dexterity, as well as a higher difficulty of predicting the "random" outcome for symmetric dice, even though the randomness in a die toss is technically only determined by physics and therefore in theory computeable. The concept is perhaps more of a philosophical than practical one, as your definition of fairness may differ from his, but I think it's worth mentioning in any case.
Evaluation
Whether you want to check if your precision dice are as accurate as they claim to be, or you want to test whether a set of non-precision dice is accurate enough, having a way to determine it for any particular dice is handy. There are three methods I know of to evaluate dice:
Rolling them a large number of times, and see how evenly spread the results are
This method is likely to give you a very good idea of the fairness of your dice, as long as you are willing to roll a ridiculous amount of times, and go through the effort to document every roll. Of course, keep in mind that this still is subject to probability, so you're not very likely to actually get even results, even for a perfectly balanced die. The test I already linked above should give a good idea of how a "good" result will look in terms of variance. In addition, Persi Diaconis states that "The notion of long-term frequency [is] actually pretty fictional" (source).
The Chi-squared test
The Chi-squared test is a more sophisticated method of analyzing dice rolls. Instead of leaving the interpretation of the results to you, it provides a formula to calculate whether your die's results have equal frequencies or not, based on the null hypothesis. It involves slightly more work as the previous one, as in addition to a sufficient amount of samples, you need to perform calculations with those numbers. However there are programs you can use to trivialize this task, although I dare not pick a favorite to link to at this point in time.
Spinning a die in salted water
This method takes the roll out of the equation and basically tests the balance of the die without any need for comparing results, making it a quick alternative to the above method. If your die appears to be spinning randomly and keeps showing different results, there's a very good chance that it's rather fair. I keep phrasing this rather ambiguously, because if your die has an even distribution between the majority of the numbers, but will roll a few of them more or less often than it should, there's a good chance you'll miss it using this method.

Do you know if metal dice are more or less balanced than plastic ones?

@ArcanistLupus unfortunately, I don't have experience with metal dice, since they're not what I like to play with. I'm not disqualifying them as an answer or anything, I just cannot provide any kind of experience on the matter... Hopefully, other answers can sooner or later grant more insight to that aspect.

"The downside of this method is that it involves more work as the previous one, as you need a sufficient amount of samples" - chi-squared merely lets you appropriately analyze the data you have. It doesn't require more samples, a non-statistical analysis based on a small sample size can only be more flawed than a chi-squared test on that same sample - if you didn't have enough samples to run a useful chi-squared test, you didn't have enough to do non-statistical inference anyway. 99% of the effort here is collecting the data, plugging 6 numbers into a chi-squared calculator is trivial.

@NuclearHoagie I merely stated that it is more work, not that the amount of work isn't worth it. As a matter of fact, I ordered the two tests the way I did because I meant to illustrate how the Chi-squared test can get you a better interpretation of the same samples. I disagree with your statement that filling the values in the calculator is trivial, because to do so, you first need to familiarize yourself with how the process works in general, but assuming that has already happened, you are of course corrent. I'll edit my answer in the attempt to reflect that.

Consider not use dice but dice cards.  Such as these designed for Catan.
There are 36 cards where 2 appears once, 3 twice, and so on up to 7 appearing 6 times and back down to 12 once.  This echos the distribution of 2D6.
Before the game these are shuffled as normal and a special reshuffle-card is inserted in the bottom 5.  During play when a dice would be rolled you turn over the top card and evaluate the result.  when you the reach the reshuffle-card the discards are shuffled back into the deck and reshuffled again with special card again added back to the bottom 5.
This means in a game you are far less likely to get an anomaly where 6 is being rolled much more than an 8.  Using dice cards you will mimic close to a standard distribution over 2D6 but not in a way that is totally predictable due to way last few cards in a deck might not get used.
I'm aware this isn't a dice as I believe randomness is random and the dice provided with any game are sufficient to provide fun.

Balance and fairness of a die aren't subjective; they're measureable as indicated by statistical mathematics. What is subjective is whether the importance of fair and balanced dice is important, and that is not what the question is about.

While it seems the OP dislike this answer, I think it does adds good information. In particular:  "How can I test whether my dice are actually balanced?" --> those cards are actually balanced.
"Are there any other factors I need to consider?"  --> yes, instead of a die, you can use cards that are actually balanced.

@Cohensius I agree that this post contains useful information in part, for someone. I'm glad that there's great substitutions for dice to solve their respective shortcomings, however this thread is about "how to acquire unbiased dice", not "how to replace dice with a better method". I'm sure if a casino were to approach StartPlayer and ask them about dice, they wouldn't suggest to use cards instead for their Craps game.

Use of the "reshuffle-card" makes it highly non-random - as non-random as, say, 1-deck blackjack (which no casino will play, as counting is way too effective a strategy).  This would be successful (until the first card is marked, I guess) if it was 100% "picked with replacement".  The reshuffle-card game is trying to make things "look fair" more than actually being fair.  It is a good solution to the "unbiased results" problem (if done right); as poor a solution to "get most unbiased dice" as random number apps.

As far as "casino wouldn't use cards in their craps game", no, but not because of the cards; it's because the draw of the game is the spectacle of the bouncing cubes.  They had zero issues moving from dominos to cards in Pai Gow when the "spectacle" meant that only their chinese people would play...

I agree it's not totally random.   I was trying to suggest an alternative which felt 'fair' in comparison to a perception of a dice being uneven in a game.   If it's bad answer then It prob because I'm not sure what the problem is the questioner is trying to fix.

The non-randomness is a feature not a bug. It makes games less luck and more skill since you i.e. can't get 12 three times in a row. Which may make the game better in some cases. But the OP wants fair dice (but still can feel unfair if you get unlucky).