text:
Adventure cards and Feather, the Redeemed?
Short Version:
If I cast an adventure card targeting one of my creatures, while I have Feather, the Redeemed on the battlefield, am I required to return the card to my hand?  Or can I leave it in exile?
Long Version:
Adventure cards, let's use Faerie Guidemother, allow you to exile the card after casting the adventure, and to later cast it from exile.
Comprehensive rules:

715.3d Instead of putting a spell that was cast as an Adventure into its owner’s graveyard as it resolves, its controller exiles it. For as
long as that card remains exiled, that player may cast it. It can’t be
cast as an Adventure this way, although other effects that allow a
player to cast it may allow a player to cast it as an Adventure.

Feather, the Redeemed has the following text:

Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that targets a creature
you control, exile that card instead of putting it into your graveyard
as it resolves. If you do, return it to your hand at the beginning of
the next end step.

As these are both replacement effects, does how the card gets exiled for Feather matter?  Or do I get to choose how I move the card?  i.e. can I choose to leave Faerie Guidemother exiled, or can I choose to put her in my hand?

Similar: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/48638/can-feather-bring-back-a-spell-with-jump-start?rq=1

Short answer:
You can do either, your choice, but you have to pick if you intend to return it with Feather or have it exiled as on an adventure while the spell is being exiled, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Long Answer:
Rule 715.3d creates a replacement effect for when the instant/sorcery resolves, as does Feather's text. Like most other replacement effects, the player gets to choose which order they apply, with some limitations. These limitations are covered in Rule 616.1 from the Comprehensive Rules:

616.1 If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object’s controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply, following the steps listed below. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same time, choices are made in APNAP order (see rule 101.4).

616.1a If any of the replacement and/or prevention effects are self-replacement effects (see rule 614.15), one of them must be chosen. If not, proceed to rule 616.1b.
616.1b If any of the replacement and/or prevention effects would modify under whose control an object would enter the battlefield, one of them must be chosen. If not, proceed to rule 616.1c.
616.1c If any of the replacement and/or prevention effects would cause an object to become a copy of another object as it enters the battlefield, one of them must be chosen. If not, proceed to rule 616.1d.
616.1d Any of the applicable replacement and/or prevention effects may be chosen.

The effects are not self-replacement effects (616.1a), they don't change control of control of an object entering the battlefield (616.1b), and they don't cause an object entering the battlefield to become a copy of another object (616.1c) so 616.1d is what applies, making it your choice.
Feather has 2 rulings on Gatherer that sound like they apply here, the first:

If an instant or sorcery spell’s own effect instructs you to exile it or put it anywhere else, it won’t try to be put into your graveyard or exiled with Feather’s effect, so you won’t return it to your hand.

This is talking about spells like Cyclical Evolution, View From Above or Redeem the Lost. The text on these cards tell you to put the card somewhere as part of the effect. Cyclical Evolution will be in exile suspended when it resolves, View From Above and Redeem the Lost might already be in your hand if you meet their conditions, and if not then they would be sent to your graveyard, and Feather can catch them. This is not what happens with Adventure spells, if it was every adventure would have to say "Exile [adventure half name], as long as it remains exiled, you may cast [creature half name] from exile." on it.
The second is the one that does apply:

If another replacement effect instructs you to exile an instant or sorcery spell, such as that of Dreadhorde Arcanist or the flashback keyword, you may choose to apply Feather’s replacement effect first. If you do, Feather’s delayed triggered ability will return that card to your hand.

This ruling is really just applying the rules of 616.1 as explained above, since there are 2 replacement effects that don't fall into any of the special cases that must be chosen first, the player gets to choose whichever they want.
For your second part of your question, you do have to choose which effect you apply as it happens, and the other replacement effect will not apply at all. An adventure exiled using Feather's replacement effect cannot be cast from exile, an adventure exiled under rule 715.3d will not return to your hand because of Feather. Unless you intend to cast the creature immediately, using Feather's effect is likely the better choice, as you will have the option to do either from the hand again.

As a side note, a self replacement effect would be something like the Finale cycle of spells, where they say "if X is 10 or more" where the trigger condition and replacement are written as part of the effect they are replacing.
If you see this coming up in MTG Arena and it is not giving you the choice, there is a gameplay setting to tell the game to auto choose replacement effect order, turning that off will allow you to pick for yourself which one to apply.

While the rules for adventures state explicitly, that those cards are creatures anywhere but on the stack, the combination still works because Feather explicitly says "return that card"?

@Erik Correct. Feather only cares about it being a specific type when it's resolving, after that the ability is tied to the object in exile, the actual card.

@John I figured that might be where the question is coming from, the game makes some honestly pretty bad choices when it comes to effect orders sometimes, but most people don't know it's a setting you can turn off and do manually.

@Andrew:  You are very intuitive.  I'd never seen bad/unavailable choices until now.  I hadn't realized CTRL didn't fix everything.  Can you give examples of bad choices (I had thought of asking it as a question, but it struck me as too broad....)

@John the game is pretty decent at deciding the order when one choice is obviously better, but there are situations like this one where neither choice is strictly better, they are situational and which one is better depends on your strategy and board state. The most common bad choice by the system is probably it's mana tapping algorithm, I've lost many games letting it auto tap land the "wrong" way before.


text:
Why are some decks (i.e. Meandeck Tendrils) not playable in tournaments?
I have been working with Meandeck Tendrils lately.  In the linked article, Stephen Menendian indicated that while the decklist was tournament legal (at the time), it was not possible to play it in a tournament, as:

The primary reason it's unviable is because you have to compress all of the numerous decisions of a typical Vintage game into the space of one turn - and do that in a reasonable amount of time."

Can someone explain this reasoning?  I am unfamiliar with tournament timing rules, and don't even know where to begin to understand his claim.  Note, in case it's important, the card list for his deck is below.
Clarification:
This paragraph is added after many comments were made on the original question.  I'm not so interested in a detailed analysis of this deck per se (My version of this deck differs considerably from Stephan's).  I'm interested in why would a deck that's a 66% first turn kill be slow to play?  That said, Stephan's decklist is hard to play.  My best guess, is that his deck takes at least 5 hard decisions on average, (8 worst case) to play through it's various lines of play.  That is just goldfish play, I have no experience playing against Force Of Will, or other disrupters.  So, it appears Stephan's argument is,

You just can't play this deck enough to automatically know how to make
  all those hard decisions.  Moreover, those hard decisions take a lot
  of time, and you will be too slow for a real tournament.

I can buy that.  The dude has experience (as pointed out in the answers or comments below).  I have none.  If I'm missing something about tournament rules, and how slow play works in tournament rules, I'd like to know it.  The answers below do an excellent job of capturing that.
1 Bayou
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
1 Black Lotus
4 Chromatic Sphere
1 Chrome Mox
4 Darkwater Egg
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
4 Repeal
4 Spoils of the Vault
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
4 Land Grant
3 Night's Whisper
4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will

John, it appears there's some confusion about your core question here - I know we discussed in comments and found that you were mostly asking about why time was an issue (as you say in the body, "unfamiliar with tournament timing rules"), but some people have gotten the impression you're asking why this specific deck isn't as viable, and that answers should instead analyze why this particular deck would cause problems. Would you like to edit your question a bit, especially the title, to clarify?

@Jefromi is, as usual, misquoting me. I never had the impression that you cared about why this specific deck is unviable. I only pointed out to him that if he is going to claim that a deck is prone to Slow Play, he needs to back that claim up.

The primary reason the deck is potentially unviable is issues with round time and possibly Slow Play, so I certainly need to mention that in my answer. But everyone here (the OP included) understood that this deck was difficult to play and could be slow to play; there's not really any need to get into analysis or attempt to prove that, just to mention that those are Bad Things in a tournament, which the OP didn't know.

@Jefromi "and possibly Slow Play" Decks don't cause Slow Play. Players cause Slow Play.

...but some difficult to play decks make players more likely to play too slowly in a way that can result in Slow Play cautions, so decks indirectly do cause Slow Play. These kinds of details are, I think, a bit beyond the scope of the question and absolutely beyond the scope of the comments. I'm just trying to ask the OP to clarify the question a little bit.

Jerfromi.  Individual of infinite patience.  I am in awe.

Effectively, you need to be able to win two games (possibly after losing one!) in 50 minutes, and give your opponent their fair share of that time too, so if a deck is difficult and time consuming enough to play, you may simply run out of time, and not be able to win matches. And you may never even reach the time limit - if a judge thinks you're playing slowly enough to cause problems, they will step in and force you to speed up or lose. If on the other hand you play fast enough to avoid all this, you'll make too many mistakes, and lose anyway.
All these things are potential issues since as Menendian says in the article, a lot of the decisions you have to make are difficult, and the deck is difficult to play fast enough without making mistakes. (Of course, it's also possible that you can play it fast and well even though he couldn't - feel free to try to prove him wrong!)

In tournaments, the time limit is typically 50 minutes per round. (Officially, the minimum time limit allowed is 40 minutes but 50 minutes is the recommended time for constructed tournaments). In each round you're playing a best of three match. If someone hasn't won two games by the end of time, the current turn is finished, then five more turns of play are allowed (i.e. three for one player and two for the other); if the game isn't over by then, that game is a draw. If that was the third game (reasonably likely, it's been 50 minutes), each player has won one of the first two games, so the match is a draw as well. So if a deck is slow to play, you'll likely end up with a lot of draws.
In order to help make sure that people actually finish their matches, the tournament rules disallow "Slow Play". It's normally something where a judge will simply give a caution, letting a player know they need to speed up, but if it continues to happen it can lead to more significant penalties. You can't just sit there thinking forever; you'll eventually get a game/match loss.
The point at which you're playing too slowly is up to the judges' discretion, though. This article by a couple of judges goes into some detail about the way they personally think about it, though it's explicitly not official policy. The key thing to notice is that it's largely based on what speed of play is necessary in order to finish games within the allotted time. So while for many decisions 15-30 seconds is about as much time as you can reasonably take, if you're to the point where clearly you'll either win or lose within a minute once you decide, you might get some leeway. Bottom line, though, it's possible you won't actually get to the point of running out of time in the round: a judge may step in sooner and force you to either decide (making your decisions more error-prone) or lose.
There's another problem on top of this: combo decks tend to have long turns, so those few extra turns at the end of the game can drag on for much longer than with other decks. There's only a small amount of buffer time between rounds, so the two players in the extra long match will end up delaying the next round, upsetting the schedule for the entire tournament. Wizards actually banned Second Sunrise from Modern in order to stop a combo deck from causing these kinds of delays. That doesn't exactly mean the deck was unplayable (in fact people were doing reasonably well with it), but at the same time, you don't exactly want to be messing up tournaments for others.
As for this specific deck, I can't personally tell exactly how difficult and slow it is to play, but it certainly looks hard. There are an awful lot of decisions, and getting any of them wrong could totally derail you, so you'd have to take your time and get it all right under pressure. I would tend to trust the opinion of the experienced player who wrote that article and assume he's right that it's simply too hard to play within the available time. On the other hand, perhaps with enough skill (or enough practice) you could get fast enough.

I think that he meant that if you play the deck at a reasonable pace, you're likely going to make too many fatal mistakes for it to be worth it.
Storm decks are infamously hard to execute because you have to think through a 10 layer or deeper decision tree before you even begin to execute it.
The reason the author brought up the time limit, is probably because of how long it will take you to make each decision correctly.

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text:
What is the availability of the complete sets Wizards of the Coast is apparently selling?
I recently found, what appeared to be complete sets made by Wizards of the Coast.  I had been contemplating buying a complete set of Dragons of Tarkir, with seemingly many vendors making offers, and now I find that (at least on Amazon.com) there are no vendors offering.

Are complete sets always offered?
When are complete sets offered?  Only as part of pre-release?  Or for longer?!

An example of what I'm describing can be seen in this picture
Here is a link to an ebay auction, for a "factory sealed" complete set of Khans of Tarkir:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Khans-of-Tarkir-KTK-Complete-Set-with-Mythics-MTG-Factory-Sealed-/181643375810?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a4ac9f4c2
Here is a link that may rot more slowly, pointing to all magic the gathering "complete sets" offers on EBay:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Complete-Sets-/19114/i.html
one week ago, there were at least 3 vendors providing "factory sealed" sets of Dragons of Tarkir on amazon.  Now I can't find any.

Dragons of Tarkir doesn't release until March 27, 2015. The pre-release is this weekend, on March 20. If you do manage to find someone selling a complete set, they don't actually have it yet (think selling puts on the stock market).

The picture, and eBay auction you link to is for a set that Wizards sends out as part of Magic Online set redemption. The way this works is if you have all of the cards in a specific set, and it is before the cutoff date for redeeming that set, you can have Wizards remove the set of cards from your MTGO account and mail you a set of physical cards. This video shows the boxes from a set redemption, and what the contents of that boxes look like. These sets are never sold by Wizards, though as this auction shows they can be resold by third parties.
Wizards of the Coast is not selling complete sets of cards. Third party vendors such as Star City Games and Channel Fireball however do. These third party vendors offer the complete sets by opening packs and putting the sets together themselves.
These vendors usually offer these products (the larger ones pretty much always do, smaller ones may or may not, it depends on if they think they can afford to or not), as for how long they offer it it depends entirely on how easy it is to keep in stock, and restock when they sell out. This means in general you can find newer sets for sale, but as you go farther back it is less likely that they will have a complete set in stock.

Wizards of the Coast does not sell complete card sets to either the public or to retail.
What you may have heard about was the complete sets offered via Magic the Gathering Online. The deal is: if you have all cards in a set owned in your MTGO account, Wizards of the Coast can ship you the real physical cards, at your expense, and then will erase the digital cards, never to be seen again. This generally means collecting all of the virtual cards the usual hard way: boosters, trading, etc.
There are other conditions too, such as having to actually be eligible for redemption. At the moment, those sets are listed on this table, and comprise the sets and core sets from Return to Ravnica up to Fate Reforged. (So, no Dragons of Tarkir yet.)
Card traders will, of course, sell complete sets online they've put together simply by opening enough boosters and having enough luck, as diego points out. This is a totally unofficial thing that Wizards of the Coast doesn't offer directly.

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text:
Who wins when everyone takes lethal damage simultaneously?
I am building an edh deck for about 5 dollars and was wondering,
If I cast Sickening Dreams dealing more than enough damage to kill my opponent and I at the same time, who wins?

It's a draw. Whenever all remaining players lose at the same time, the game ends in a draw.
From the Basic Rulebook, under "Winning the Game:

If both players would lose the game at the same time, the
  game is a draw—nobody wins.

Similar information is repeated under the glossary for "Life total" and "draw the game".

The game is a draw. MTG's rules are not designed to try to prevent draws. This is perhaps most evidenced by the card Divine Intervention which can specifically cause the game to end in a draw.

Note if you want to link to a Magic card you can use [mtg:Card Name], also if you make an edit to your answer just make the edit, don't point out that you changed something.

Fair enough, thanks for the pointer on [mtg:Card Name]. This was my first post in this exchange and I wasn't sure of the style preferences here. I know some places prefer people to make obvious edits after initial post.


text:
Poison Counters and Damage Redirection
Last week we had a bit of a situation in our commander game and we would like to clarify this for future reference.
Our Situation
One of the players attacked with Bruna, Light of Alabaster who gained infect thanks to Corrupted Conscience and had a power over 20. The attacked player responded with Shining Shoal with the X being 10.
Now for the Question
These two players are the last remaining players on the game, as player 1 and 2 have already lost. Does the game end in a draw? Did the Bruna, Light of Alabaster's player win the game? Or does he lose because he obtained 10 poison counters due to Shining Shoal?

Does Bruna have anything pumping her power? The question makes it sound like it is 10, but it isn't clear. And is Shining Shoal targeting Bruna's controller?

Bruna's Power was over 10, which is why we were wondering what happens.

Was it over 20?

It was a lot over 20

Assuming nobody has any poison counters before Bruna attacks, Bruna's controller will lose the game assuming that her power is at least 10, but less than 20 when she deals damage, and it will be a draw if her power is 20 or greater, if her power is less than 10 her controller will have poison counters equal to her power.
This occurs because Shining Shoal replaces the first X damage dealt by the chosen sources (in this case 10) and redirects it to the chosen target (presumably Bruna's controller). The redirection doesn't change the source of the damage so it will still have infect, thus it will still deal damage in the form of poison counters.
So if Bruna's power is less than 10 all of the damage will be redirected to Bruna's controller; nobody will win or lose. If her power is at least 10, but less than 20, ten damage will be redirected to her controller and you would take the remainder; her controller would lose. If her power is 20 or greater 10 of the damage would be redirected to her controller and the remainder of the damage would be dealt to you, since you both have 10 or more poison counters you would both lose the game a the same time which ends up being a draw.

702.89b Damage dealt to a player by a source with infect doesn’t cause that player to lose life. Rather, it causes the player to get that many poison counters. See rule 119.3.

We assumed the game would be a draw, but we were still unsure of the outcome. This is just one of the crazy things that can happen in our commander games. Thanks!

Shining Shoal will redirect up to 10 damage from Bruna this turn (we'll assume the redirect target is the attacking player). The damage isn't prevented, but is redirected.
Because of Shining Shoal, the 5 damage from Bruna is not dealt to the defending player, so the defending player does not receive poison counters from infect. However, even if Shining Shoal is able to redirect the next 10 damage, Bruna is only dealing 5 damage this combat, so only 5 damage will be redirected.
With Shining Shoal's effect, Bruna deals 5 damage to the attacking player. Since Bruna has infect, the attacking player receives 5 poison counters instead of losing 5 life. If, through some other means, Bruna continues to deal damage to the defending player (or creatures they control), Shining Shoal will continue to redirect the remaining 5 damage until the end of the turn.

Shining Shoal will redirect up to 10 damage.
If Bruna deals 5, then 5 will be redirected. If 10 is dealt then 10 is redirected. If 15 is dealt then 10 is redirected and 5 is not, etc...
All damage dealt by Bruna will be done to players as poison counters.
So if this is enough to kill the attacking player then they will lose. If not then the game continues.

In this case, assuming that Bruna has 10 power, and that the damage is redirected to its controller, the player controlling Bruna loses due to having 10 poison counters. Infect damage is still damage, and can be prevented or redirected like any other damage. The only difference is how it affects the thing it deals damage to. The rules for infect say

702.89b Damage dealt to a player by a source with infect doesn’t cause that player to lose life. Rather, it causes the player to get that many poison counters. See rule 119.3.
702.89c Damage dealt to a creature by a source with infect isn’t marked on that creature. Rather, it causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature. See rule 119.3.


text:
Are there any other spells in bant colors that will cause Enduring Scalelord to go infinite?
Are there creatures, artifacts, enchantments, etc that will make Enduring Scalelord go infinite in Bant?
I'm building a Bant counters EDH deck and it'd be fun to have ES blow up in a couple of different ways. I have Progenitor Mimic in the deck and I know ES would also benefit from the Archangel of Thune/Spike Feeder combo.  I'm blanking on anything else that wouldn't just stop at 1 trigger.

Every clone ever and putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature through any means?

Are you looking for single-card combos or will multi-card ones work too? Since looking the only single-card combos I am finding are Clone variants.

Hi Diego - I'm honestly open to anything?  I'm still a relatively new player, so I don't really know a lot of the cards in the older formats.  What I had in mind was anything that might say something like 'when a counter is placed on a creature, place a counter on another creature' or something to that effect?  That way the triggers could bounce off each other.  But lacking that, multi card combos would work too!

Yes. Cackling Counterpart and Battlegrowth are in Bant colors and combo with Enduring Scalelord.
Can you teach me how to search for cards myself?
Introducing the Gatherer's advanced search feature. We know that Enduring Scalelord goes infinite with itself. Let's try to find a clone in Bant colors. Here is what I started with:

Color:
Does NOT contain Black
Does NOT contain Red
Rules Text:
Does contain "copy"
Does contain "target creature"

Tons of results. Let's try narrowing it down. Instants are nice if they are cheap, so let's see if we can find one.

Card Type:
Does contain Instant"

Still a lot of false positives. I notice a lot of "copy target spell" cards. We don't want those.

Rules Text:
Does not contain "spell"

Here is the final result. The top four cards are all three mana instant speed spells that can copy your Enduring Scalelord. Nice.
I repeated this process to find Battlegrowth, but I'll leave the exact search as an exercise for you. Learning how to mine the Gatherer is far more valuable being handed a list of cards.

The simplest way to get an infinite combo with Enduring Scalelord is to use another Enduring Scalelord (probably with a copy in EDH). Once you have that, any effect that puts a +1/+1 counter on any creature you control will set off the combo.
When I'm looking for cards, I like to use magiccards.info, which has some very nice advanced search features. Commander uses color identity to restrict card legality, so all of our searches need to start with

ci:wug

This finds only cards that have white, blue, and/or green in their color identity (including colorless cards). Once we have that, we can use similar search terms to the ones Rainbolt used:

o:copy o:creature -o:spell -o:populate

This will find cards with "copy" and "creature" in their text, but without "spell" (because most if not all spell copying effects don't let you copy creature spells). I also ignored cards with "populate" in their text, because that only copies tokens, so it will only be marginally useful in this situation. The resulting search returns 41 different cards, most of which will be useful here, including

Clone, and similar creatures that enter as copies of other creatures
Spells like Cytoshape, which turn creatures into copies of other creatures (temporarily).
Cards like Fated Infatuation, which create token copies of creatures

It does also find a few irrelevant cards though, like Back from the Brink, which can't copy creatures on the battlefield, and Essence of the Wild, which can only copy itself.
Now, all we need is a way to put a +1/+1 counter on any creature you control. The simplest search here is to just look for every card with "+1/+1 counter" in its text. The resulting search finds 489 cards, and it turns out that just about every one of them can trigger Enduring Scalelord. Some highlights that would be very useful even without the copy are

Ajani Steadfast, Cathar's Crusade, Cradle of Vitality, Decree of Savagery, Gavony Township, and Mikaeus, the Lunarch, all of which can put counters on all of your creatures (giving you as many Enduring Scalelord triggers as you have creatures)

Aquastrand Spider, Bramblewood Paragon, Cenn's Tactician, and Crowned Ceratok: creatures that grant abilities to creatures with +1/+1 counters

Avenger of Zendikar, which can put a counters on large number of tokens every turn.

Custodi Soulbinders, Etched Oracle, Lunar Avenger, Sage of Hours, and Simic Manipulator: Creatures that can do something useful with the counters once they get them.

There are more cards in each of those lists, and many of the other cards can be more or less useful depending on what else you have in your deck.


text:
In cribbage, during the play, what is the count for four 5s in a row?
If the person to the left of the dealer starts play with a 5, the next person plays a 5, the third person plays a 5 and finally, the dealer plays a 5, what is the count for the dealer?  Obviously the count is 20 and the points would be 12 because of four-of-a- kind.  But within that, could the 15s add up another 8 points (four combinations of 15 for two)?

Player 1 plays a 5 - Total = 5 - No Points
Player 2 plays a 5 - Total= 10 - Two Points to player 2 for a pair
Player 3 plays a 5 - Total = 15 - Player 3 get 8 points (2 for the 15 total, and six for the triple)
Player 4 plays a 5 - Total = 20 - Player 4 get 12 points for the four of a kind.

Nice if you can get it :)

During play you don't count 15s for card combinations, only for the total count.  So the third person got two points for making the total count 15, but the dealer only gets the 12 points for the four of a kind.  In the same way, if the lead was a three, followed by a king, followed by a 5, the person playing the 5 would not score any points for the play.


text:
Why is Noble Hierarch so expensive?
Noble Hierarch costs {G}, is a 0/1 Human Druid with exalted, and taps for {G}, {W}, or {U}.
Birds of Paradise costs {G}, is a 0/1 Bird with flying, and taps for one of any color.
Noble Hierarch is $40-$50, Birds of Paradise is $5.
Why? The birds have flying, and can tap for {R} or {B}.
The exalted doesn't seem like it would be applicable here.

What do you mean with "The exalted doesn't seem like it would be applicable here."?

In most decks, the objective is lots of creatures swinging with each. I didn't consider Infect.

That is a very narrow view of Magic. If you look at the 12 most common Legacy decks, for example, only 6 of them work like that, if you're counting generously.

@murgatroid99 how does one determine the 12 most common legacy decks?

I looked at the mtggoldfish Legacy metagame page.

I remember a time when Birds of Paradise was a lot more expensive. Prices can change for a number of reasons.

Look at how much each has been printed. Noble Hierarch was printed in Conflux and Modern Masters. Birds of Paradise was printed in Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th edition, Magic 2010, 2011, 2012, and Ravnica. There are just way, way more copies out there.
And by the way, Exalted can be quite relevant. The most obvious example is Infect (quite popular and can win tournaments), which is likely to play only Noble Hierarch and not Birds of Paradise. It doesn't need the other colors of mana, flying isn't that important, but an extra poison counter here or there is a huge deal. But this is true even for decks that aren't as all-in on single creatures. For example, this Zoo list plays Noble Hierarch and not Birds of Paradise. It has plenty of other ways to get the red mana, and even if sometimes it attacks with multiple creatures (missing out on exalted), the extra damage on the turns when it only has one creature to attack with can make a huge difference.

Beat me by a minute, better answer to boot.

Two things affect the price of a card.
The card utility, and the card rarity.
Noble Hierarch has very few copies in circulation relative to Birds of Paradise.  So that will affect the price.  Additionally, Exalted is hugely important in a number of decks.  Most notably infect.

Damn, Jefromi types way faster than me...

It wins goyf (i.e. Tarmogoyf) battles. Something that birds of paradise does nothing for. In the Abzan mirror for instance it is crucial in getting your goyfs over your opponents creatures.
Goyfs have one toughness more than their power so they can easily have a staring contest where it makes no sense to attack into one (With your own.) The exalted trigger breaks the stalemate.  Your goyf will kill your opponent's if he blocks and if he doesn't and there are no other creatures in play you are winning the race.
It does not really ramp per se in these decks. It does help fixing a bit but still that free exalted triggers is crucial in getting your creatures trough.


text:
Character and monster buffing
Let's say someone draws a monster face up when they kick open the door.  They are able to defeat the monster, but another play throws down a card to buff the monster.  The person who kicked open the door counters.  Now someone else buffs the monster.  This repeats until everyone runs out of cards.  What is the general rule for this situation?  Can it keep going or are we doing something wrong?

it can keep on going until nobody can/wants to throw any more cards. As seen in the rules(example, p. 5):

 Example of Combat, With Numbers and Everything
Aric is a 4th-Level Warrior with the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment
  (which gives him a +3 to his combat strength). He kicks open the door
  and finds the Net Troll, a Level 10 monster. Aric’s at a 7, the Net
  Troll is at a 10, so Aric is losing.
Aric: I was hoping to save this
  card . . .
He plays the Magic Missile, giving him +5 for this fight. Now his combat strength is 12, beating the Net Troll’s 10.
Aric: Ha! Net Troll going down!
Suzan: Not so fast. Now he’s Enraged.
Suzan plays Enraged, adding 5 to the Net Troll’s combat strength. Now Aric
  is losing, 15 to 12.
Aric: Curses!
Suzan: Want some help? (Suzan is playing a Level 2 Elf with the Boots of Butt-Kicking, so her combat
  strength is 4. Combined with Aric’s 12, they would have 16, enough to
  defeat the Net Troll’s 15.)
Aric: And give you a level? Not a chance! I’m Berserking.
Aric uses his Warrior power and discards three cards:
  Thief and a Wandering Monster from his hand, and Yuppie Water (usable
  only to help an Elf) from his carried items. Each one gives him +1 to
  his combat strength.
Suzan: Not the Yuppie Water! Noooo . . .
Aric: That’s +3 to me, and now we’re tied, 15 to 15. Because I’m a Warrior,
  I win ties . . . so I’m killing the Net Troll unless someone else
  plans to mess with me. Anyone?
No one says anything, so Aric goes up a
  level and claims the Net Troll’s treasures – three from the Net Troll
  card, and one extra because it was Enraged. And the game goes on . . .

As you see, you can cast any number of spells during combat.

Should the rule of 2.6 seconds be applied in between each throw down.  We accidentally let a round go for 10 minutes trying to figure out who was buffing what.

@Jeebwise 2-6 second rule is just a rule that basically means that you should let other players play something before claiming your level(s) and treasure(s). So if player A is fighting a monster, players B and C may buff the monster at the same time, player C doesn't have to wait 2-6 seconds after player B buffed the monster

@Jeebwise, You give 2.6s for people to say/do something when you ask "Anyone doing anything?" (I've always considered saying "Wait" to interrupt the timer.) It could come up multiple times in a combat (i.e. whenever you are winning).

Lol, we normally wait until level 8/9 to become really nasty.  Last game, we had 3 players on level 9, and one on level 3. The last one eventually won ;-).

@ToonKrijthe I think everybody does that. Till level 8/9 people just level up and help each other. When somebody is at level 8 or 9(especially 9) he gets more troubles from other players than from monsters he or she encounters :)

The 2.6 second rule is a joke, Literally.See the official munchkin faq: http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/faq. "Q. My friends start counting 2.6 seconds as soon as they turn over a monster and combat begins. That's not even enough time to read the card! Is this legal? A. The rule says you must get "a reasonable time" to respond when another player is winning a fight...The "2.6 seconds" part of the rule is a joke; the intent is that you cannot hold up the game indefinitely just because someone else is winning." The spirit of the rule is not to filibuster the game, not to encourage second-counting.


text:
Strategy for Yahtzee
Yahtzee (aka "Nokia Dice") has the following rules:
The aim of the game is to score a maximum number of points. There are 13 hands on which you can get points, as well as a bonus. 5 dice are used in this game. Order of play for each hand is as follows.
Roll 1
Roll all 5 dice. You can keep any number of dice (0 to 5) and discard the rest. If you keep all the dice, omit roll 2 and 3.
Roll 2
Roll all the discarded dice. You can keep all 5 dice with you or discard any of them (just rolled, or pre-kept). If you keep all the dice, omit roll 3.
Roll 3
Roll all the remaining dice. You must take all the final 5 dice. You may not need all of them for scoring.
Scoring
There are 13 combinations for scoring. You must select a single combination for each hand. If you select a combination that you do not have, you get zero points for that hand. Once a combination is selected, it may not be selected again. A hand has no order, it does not matter which dice was acquired on which roll.
Combinations
a) 1s - Take the sum of all the 1s in your final hand (other dice are ignored)
b) 2s - Take the sum of all the 2s in your final hand (other dice are ignored)
c) 3s - Take the sum of all the 3s in your final hand (other dice are ignored)
d) 4s - Take the sum of all the 4s in your final hand (other dice are ignored)
e) 5s - Take the sum of all the 5s in your final hand (other dice are ignored)
f) 6s - Take the sum of all the 6s in your final hand (other dice are ignored)
g) 3x - If you have a same dice thrice (or more), take the sum of all 5 dice
h) 4x - If you have a same dice four times (or more), take the sum of all 5 dice
i) 2+3 - If you have a full house - 3 of one number and 2 of the other, take a fixed score of 25, irrespective of the numbers used
j) Mini straight - If you have 1234 or 2345 or 3456, as 4 of the 5 dice, take a fixed score of 30
k) Full straight - If you have 12345 or 23456, take a fixed score of 40
l) Jackpot - If all your 5 dice are the same, take a fixed score of 50
m) Chance - Take the sum of all the dice, irrespective of what they are
Bonus
If the sum of points obtained from options a) to f) (over 6 different hands) exceeds 64, collect a bonus of 35 points
Question
I know how to calculate the probability of a combination occurring at any scenario. What confuses me is which combinations to take early in the game, and which ones later. Should I take big ones right at the beginning, or save them for the end. To what extent should 3x and 4x be preferred over the a) to f), due to the bonus, as well as possibility of greater 3x and 4x sums in the future. Any tips or algorithms would be helpful.

You may find some useful results on the Internet by knowing this game is actually Yahtzee.

Also, the strategy for the single player game (maximize your score) is probably going to be significantly different from the strategy for the multi-player game (beat your opponent, but you don't actually care what your score is). Which one are you interested in?

Technically, this game is very slightly different from Yahtzee. The one defined in this question gives the bonus at scores exceeding 64, instead of scores that are at least 63. It also does not have the chance box to record the score for an arbitrary combination.

My first thought was the game that is superior to Yahtzee in exactly four hundred billion different ways, Kizmet.

@murgatroid99 The description claims 13 scoring combinations, but then lists only 12. I'd be prepared to bet a small amount of money what the 13th combination is.

@Ghosts_in_the_code is this an app?  a pencil and paper game?  Do you have a reference for the rules?

@PhilipKendall I'm asking for a one-player game right now.

@John Okay, so I am basically asking about 'Yahtzee', I didn't know the official name.

I'm assuming you've read the Wikipedia article, and followed some of those links.  If not, read it first.
Yahtzee has been deeply studied by a few people.  The best known current techniques involve brute force computations over the entire state space.  The state space (the set of all possible games) can be structured to be small enough that every location can be computed.
That said, there is no simple answer to your question.  My suggestion to you, is to go to this page, and look at their deep simulation, and test yourself.  They have brute force addressed this problem and it's an interesting read.
If you are interested and have a decent math background (undergraduate probability theory course, and an understanding of finite state space Markov Chains) you can read these papers:
http://www.cs.loyola.edu/~jglenn/research/optimal_yahtzee.pdf
http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/~pan/papers/yahtzee.pdf


text:
Living End/Living Death (EDH)
I have a Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and Yahenni, Undying Partisan on the battlefield and I cast Living End. Pretend every player has 5 creatures, and there are 4 players (including me).
Do the abilities of Mazirek or Yahenni trigger after the Living End resolves or do the abilities disappear?
For example:
I cast Living End and sacrifice five creatures including Mazirek/Yahenni my three opponents each sacrifice five creatures as well.
So do the abilities of Mazirek or/and Yahenni go on the stack and if so do they resolve and put counters on the appropriate creatures?

What do you mean by "do they get stacks"? Does who get what? Do you mean stacks of what, or do you mean to ask if something stacks with something else? Also, I've given your last sentence an edit to what I think you mean (i.e. it's two distinct sentences, not one).

@doppelgreener, thank you I edit it to make it clear.

I'm still having some trouble understanding some of the wording in the question, but it looks like just a language barrier issue.... if someone could edit for clarity that would be helpful. Especially "So goes the abillitie".

For Mazirek, your creatures that started in your graveyard, and are placed on the battlefield by Living End would get 19 +1/+1 counters after Living End resolves.  The gatherer page even says:

If a permanent is sacrificed to pay a cost of a spell or ability, Mazirek’s ability will resolve before that spell or ability. Conversely, if a permanent is sacrificed during the resolution of a spell or ability, that spell or ability will finish resolving before Mazirek’s ability is put onto the stack.

For Yahenni, the ability will trigger (and be put on the stack after Living End resolves), but won't do anything since Yahenni is no longer there.

If Yahenni and a creature an opponent controls die simultaneously (perhaps because they fought or were in combat together), Yahenni won’t be on the battlefield as its triggered ability resolves. It can’t be saved by the +1/+1 counter that would have been put on it.

Do you mean the creatures that came onto the battlefield from the graveyard would get the counters?

@RemcoGerlich Yes.  They are "creatures you control" when Mazirek's ability resolves.

Ah ok, that's what I expected :-) Thought the current wording was a bit confusing because it says creatures in the graveyard get counters.

Living End will resolve and the abilities from Mazirek and Yahenni will trigger.
With Mazirek's triggers, any creature returned to the battlefield by Living End (or put on the battlefield after the resolution of Living End and before the triggered abilities resolve) will get one +1/+1 counter for each creature sacrified.
Yahenni's triggers won't do anything since they are no longer on the battlefield.


text:
Origami's dog card
The dog card says to pick 1 card from the deck and one card for each sheep visible. What sheep is it referring too? The sheep in my collection or the sheep in the collections of other players as well?

What game are you talking about?

@JoeW Based on the tittle, I'd guess this: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/234469/origami

Tag edited. Note that the "playing-cards" tag description notes that it  "is not a meta tag for adding to any card game question!"

@L.ScottJohnson isn't a tag for card games ?

@andreasperelli Right. See the description of the tag on the tag page: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/playing-cards

All visible means all the ones you can see.
The designer, Christian Giove, confirms on this BGG thread:

you count sheeps on top of ALL COLLECTIONS (your own and those of
  other player) plus those in the DRAW LINE and also the card on the top
  of the DISCARD PILE.

I didn't find anything in the rules about the discard deck...

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


text:
King of Tokyo Complete Destruction card question
I roll 1,2,3,3,3,3 on my first roll and after rerolling I achieve 1,2,3,energy,punch,health do I get the 9 victory points or does re rolling cancel out the bonus 9 points; do I need to roll them on my first roll or just a normal final roll?

I don't have the rules in front of me so I won't make this an authoritative answer, but I'm pretty sure based on balance alone that it has to be referring to your final roll - that card would be totally unplayable (definitely not worth purchasing for 3 energy) if it had to be your first roll, and also completely uninteresting (it would happen 100% by luck; you wouldn't be able to make any interesting decisions of whether to go for the combo or not)

In the future, please add the text of relevant cards.

You only ever tally/score/use your roll when you're done rolling.  Typically, this is after the third roll.
Thus, Total Destruction only cares about what dice are up at the end of your third roll, so you score the 9 in your scenario.

Worth adding: Conversely, if the dice show 1,2,3,energy,punch,health after one roll and you reroll the health to get a final roll of 1,2,3,energy,energy,punch, you get no points.


text:
Question about priority and how spells would resolve
Fleecemane Lion enters the battlefield from hand on the owners turn.
Opponent casts Terminate on Fleecemane Lion.
Owner of Fleecemane Lion makes it monstrous.
This would make Terminate invalid correct?
Then following this, opponent casts Chaos Warp, again targeting Fleecemane Lion.
Would chaos warp then resolve before the ability can complete and give it Hexproof?
Thanks for all your help!

Here is the sequence of events.
Fleecemane Lion is on the battlefield.
Opponent casts terminate on Fleecemane Lion and passes priority.
In response, owner activates Fleecemane Lion's monstrous ability (which can be done at anytime the owner has priority) and passes priority.
At this point, the stack has on it (in top down order)

Fleecemane Lion Monstrous
Terminate targeting Fleecemane Lion

Now your opponent, realizing that if this stack resolves, his terminate will do nothing, casts Chaos Warp and passes priority.

Chaos Warp targeting Fleecemane Lion.
Fleecemane Lion Monstrous
Terminate targeting Fleecemane Lion.

Two different things can happen next.  If you have enough mana, you can activate Fleeceman Lion's monstrous ability a second time.  If you do so, and this stack resolves, the Fleecemane lion will stay on the battlefield, and be monstrous.
If you don't have enough mana, and have to let the stack resolve as it is above, then the Chaos Warp will resolve before Fleecemane Lion gets it's hexproof, and it goes into the deck.
In both cases, the terminate will fizzle, as either the Fleecemane Lion will be off the battlefield, or have hexproof.

What if during the shuffling from Chaos Warp, Fleecemane Lion gets shuffled onto the top of the library?

@Acccumulation Then it counts as a different Fleecemane Lion, and none of the stuff already on the stack is targeting it.

You are correct on all accounts.
A target must be legal not only when a spell is cast, but also when it resolves:

Resolving Spells and Abilities

608.1. Each time all players pass in succession, the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves. (See rule 609, “Effects.”)

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal.


text:
MtG multiple "first time each turn" effects question
So I've been trying to word an emblem for a custom planeswalker so it gives the first card played each turn Flash, but so multiple emblems stack, giving each subsequent spell flash. I've been trying to find a precedent in MTG and have only found the following (maybe):
Make copies of Erayo, Soratomi Ascendent and flip them, either with Mirror Gallery on the board or using Helm of the Host, so they become Erayo's Essence which reads "Counter the first spell played by each opponent each turn". If I have, say, 4 of these effects does it counter the first spell four times or the first four spells?
I'm trying to keep the text on the card concise and easy to understand, but if I weren't I would have it read:
You get an emblem with "The first X spells you cast each turn are cast as if they had flash, where X equals the number of emblems you have with this effect. Only one emblem effect counts toward the total number of spells you may cast each turn with Flash gained from these emblem effects." This leaves little to interpretation, but has a ton more text than can fit under a planeswalker's ability.
Any help is appreciated.

Make sure you go by the oracle wording on Erayo,  not the printed wording: Whenever an opponent casts their first spell each turn, counter that spell.

Actually, it's "Counter the first spell played by each opponent each turn". I'll edit my question so it's accurate.

No, that is the printed text, which is obsolete. The actual Oracle text is what I quoted. https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=erayo%2C+soratami+ascendant

This is tricky, and may not be doable with the exact effect want.
One issue is that if you look at the Oracle text of Erayo's Essence, it is a triggered ability:

Whenever an opponent casts their first spell each turn, counter that spell.

A triggered ability will not work for casting a spell as though it had flash though, because if it triggered on casting a spell, it would be too late to allow to cast it if you couldn’t normally.
This means that even if you didn’t care about the ability stacking, and just let it work once, as Erayo does, it would be tricky to word it correctly.
There is something close I can think of that has a few differences, but still does the same basic idea:

You gain an emblem with “At the beginning of each upkeep, exile a card from your hand face-down until the beginning of the next end step. You may cast it as though it had flash for as long as it remains exiled.”

The biggest downside here is that you have to choose the spell you might want to cast at the beginning of the turn. But it stacks the way you want; with 2 emblems you would exile 2 cards and could cast either or both with flash.
An upside is that cards in exile are “safer” than cards in your hand in term of avoiding discard effects, etc.

Another downside is that it doesn't work with spells you don't cast from your hand, e.g. with the Escape mechanic.

@Fax That falls under "The biggest downside here is that you have to choose the spell you might want to cast at the beginning of the turn."

@Hackworth Perhaps, but you can't easily amend it with "exile a card from your hand or graveyard"..

Storm is already a mechanism that counts how many spells have been played before it this turn. What if it was just: "Spells have flash as long as the number of spells cast before it this turn is less than X where X is..."

@Cruncher "where X is" is exactly the problem. Emblems have no characteristics by which you could count them, like a name. They only have abilities and an owner/controller.

For the exact effect you want, you can word the emblem as follows:

At the beginning of each upkeep, if this emblem has no Quickening counter on it, put a Quickening counter on it.
As long as this emblem has a Quickening counter on it, you may cast spells as though they had flash.
If you would cast a spell without a Quickening counter on it, instead move a Quickening counter from this emblem to that spell and the spell becomes cast.

This template keeps track of the number of spells cast with flash through your emblems with counters. You can cast spells as though they had flash as long as at least one emblem still has a counter on it. Since I worded the counter-moving effect as a replacement effect, it makes sure you get exactly N uses out of your N emblems, because they can't put a Quickening counter on a spell that has already been handled by another emblem. After all counters have been moved during this turn, you can no longer cast spells as though they had flash. The counters also cease to exist as the spell leaves the stack, so no maintenance is required in that regard.
Personally, however, I would drop the requirement that it has to affect the first N spells, whether they need it or not. It makes the emblem very awkward to word. I would recommend the following, much simpler and more elegant wording:

{0}: The next card you cast this turn can be cast as though it had flash. Activate this ability only once each turn.

That way, you can have multiple copies of that emblem and they work cumulatively and independently, with what I believe to be the minimum amount of text while using standard wording.
For balance reasons, you can add e.g. "and only during your/an opponent's turn" to the second sentence.
The template is a combination of Quicken and Avizoa.
With this wording, you are flexible which card you want to play with flash, and you don't have to awkwardly count the number of emblems, which are the least descriptive objects.

Do you know of any historic usage of counters on spells, counters on emblems, or emblems with activated abilities?

@Mephy The "Factory of Momir Vig" emblem used in one of the Arena variant game modes has an activated ability, though this isn't a printed card.

Your first suggestion's last ability is actually worded as invalid hybrid triggered ability/replacement effect. I think you wanted to say "As you cast a spell, move a Quickening counter from this emblem to that spell if it doesn't already have a Quickening counter", but it would also work to say "Whenever you cast a spell, if it doesn't have a Quickening counter on it, move a Quickening counter from this emblem to that spell". Also, the first ability of the first suggestion should really be two separate abilities.

@murgatroid99 Thanks for the suggestions. I do agree about the first two abilities being separate. I think your first suggestion would not actually work, at least with current rules. "As you cast this spell" is about paying additional costs (607.2j), and the "as [something]" replacement effects only involve permanents entering the battlefield or being turned face up (614.1c, e). 1/2

2/2 The disadvantage of the second suggestion, while being correctly worded and in line with the rules, is that it is a triggered ability and allows the player to cast any number of spells with flash at one time, as long as the last emblem hasn't resolved. A replacement effect would take care of that bug.

@Mephy There are, to my knowledge, no printed cards with activated abilities, and no emblems with counters. However, I am sure both things are legal. The rules make no limitations on what kind of abilities an emblem can have (114.3). Also, emblems are objects (114.1), and any object can have counters placed on it (122.1).

"As you cast" can be used to generally modify spells, and 607.2i just allows those kinds of replacement effects to be linked with additional costs, it does not restrict them to that. See for example Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, which has an ability that creates the effect "as you cast spells from your hand this turn, they gain cascade".

@Mephy Lightning Storm is an example of counters on a spell (the only one AFAIK).

The activated ability can be retemplated to a static ability using the once-per-turn permission template from cards like Karador, Ghost Chieftain: "During each turn, you may cast one spell as though it has flash.".

I don't know of an example to use for precedent, but I think this would work:

You get an emblem with "You can cast spells as though they have flash as long as you have cast fewer spells this turn than the number of copies of this emblem you have."

It's a little awkward, but it almost1 does what you want:

You get an emblem with "If you would cast a spell without flash, instead cast that spell, it gains flash, and this emblem loses all abilities until end of turn."

To cast a spell you have to follow a series of steps as described in rule 601.2. Our ability creates a replacement effect (by 614.1a) so that the spell is legal to play by the time conditions are checked in step 601.2e.
However, whether or not you are permitted to even start casting a spell this way is somewhat dubious. Rule 601.3d states:

If a spell would have flash only if certain conditions are met, its controller may begin to cast that spell as though it had flash if those conditions are met.

It's not entirely clear whether our replacement effect constitutes such a condition.

1) Spells that already have flash don't reduce the number of non-flash spells you can play.

The problem with this is that the first spell you cast depletes all emblems, because after the first emblem has done its replacing, the resulting event is no different from the original (a spell is cast), so the other emblems still apply, so you get a chain of replacement effects.

@Hackworth Well spotted, thanks. I'll change my answer to address this.

I had considered "if you would cast a spell" wording, but I wasn't sure if it worked for the same reason you are questioning; can the event of casting a spell actually be a legal event that could be happening in order to get replaced?

Any game event can be replaced. Casting a spell is certainly an event, there already exist many abilities that trigger off spell casting. I suppose a spell casting prevention effect, or a replacement effect that replaces the spellcasting event with something that does not involve that spell being cast wouldn't make much sense, but as long as the replacement effect only adds something to the event, it's fair game.

@Hackworth It's a chicken-and-egg problem. You're allowed to cast a spell with flash on your opponent's turn, but for the emblem to give the spell flash, you have to cast it. The rules in 601.3 specify some exceptions, but as I mentioned in my edited answer, I'm not convinced they apply.

@GendoIkari The fix to the chicken-and-egg problem is to also give the emblem "You may cast spells as though they have flash", but I don't think it's worth the confusion it would cause.

@Hackworth Fax already covered it, but I wasn't saying that you can't replace casting a spell. I was saying that if you don't have the legal right to cast a spell at all, then the event of casting a spell can't legally happen, so therefore it isn't an event that's happening to be replaced.

I think you could make this work by having an emblem that gets a depletion counter at the beginning of each turn if they do not already have one. Then you would word the emblem something like Decree of Silence, except make it explicitly say target so that the trigger can fizzle when one of the emblems counters a spell, the wording for this would be something like The Abyss. So then they must counter the spell when the triggers and as part of the trigger they remove the depletion counter. This way the first one will be successful removing it's depletion counter and countering the spell and all subsequent ones will fizzle because their target is no longer on the stack so their counter will not be removed. I think the wording would look like this.

At the beginning of each turn put a depletion counter on Emblem.
Whenever an opponent casts a spell, if Emblem has a depletion counter,
  counter that target spell and remove a depletion counter on Emblem.

Disclaimer: This might work without explicitly making it target but I am not entirely sure.
I think you could apply this same wording for your flash emblem and just have each unique instance check if the spell has flash before removing it's counter. So the first trigger would remove it's counter and all of the other triggers would see a spell with flash then they keep their charge counters until another spell is cast. If you want to let the player choose to make a spell have flash you can just add a may clause to removing the charge and it only gains flash if they remove the charge counter.
EDIT: it just occurred to me their might be a better means to do the flash effect if it is a may. The emblem could grant your spells activated abilities while they are in your hand. Cycling is an example of how this would function. You could grant all cards on you hand a activated ability that requires you to remove a unique counter type the emblem has. The activated ability would be instant speed and would indicate you can cast the spell but need to pay it's Mana cost or it could just grant the spell flash.
EDIT2: This might be the most clean solution.  You would have the emblem grant all spells in your hand an additional cost of one of the counters and the flash ability, the emblem would only have this ability when it has a counter on it and would replenish it's counter at the beginning of each turn. This would mean that we are not causing odd triggers and would mean we don't have to do weird things like reveal information ahead of time with my activated ability proposal.

"depletion counter" probably isn't the right flavor term: "depletion counters" are typically used to represent running out of a resource, not gaining it (kinda like the inverse of charge counters)

@AlexP Yeah I agree, I was just using Decree of Silence for my templating and wanted to keep it the same. In this case the tokens should be charges to indicate we are not running out of a resource. I find it interesting though because at first I was going to describe it as building to a threshold but many things build to a certain amount of counters to trigger their effect like darksteel reactor. Then I was wondering why don't we start with 3 counters and once it has zero sacrifice it. I assume this was because it is hard to remove counters instead of adding them.

Does this even answer the question? OP is asking for an emblem that lets you play the first N spells as though they had flash with N copies of the emblem. The thing about countering with Erayo's Essence was only an example for wording.


text:
planeswalker- Kiora on the battlefield and played Hydra and creature gained 7, does the counters fall away when planeswalker die
I have a planeswalker- Kiora on the battlefield and I played Bioessence Hydra and that creature gained 7 counters , does the counters fall away when the planeswalker die or not

No. Bioessence Hydra Has 2 abilities that grant counters. The first is a replacement effect that gives it counters as it enters the battlefield. It doesn’t do anything else after that. The second is a triggered ability that gives it counters when planeswalkers gain loyalty. It never causes you to lose counters though.
Counters always stay on a permanent unless a specific rule or ability says to remove them. Even though the number of counters here is initially based on the planeswalker’s loyalty; there is no rules connection between the planeswalker and the Hydra.


text:
What is the reason for cards stating "Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end"?
There are creature cards that allow for adding extra mana during a turn, such as Savage Ventmaw and Grand Warlord Radha. They state, respectively:

Whenever Savage Ventmaw attacks, add {R}{R}{R}{G}{G}{G}.

Whenever one or more creatures you control attack, add that much mana in any combination of {R} and/or {G}.

This is all clear to me. These creatures add mana if a specific circumstance is met, check. But then, both cards continue with the following final sentence, which confuses me:

Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end.

What is the added meaning of this sentence? Doesn't mana by default stay "afloat" until the end of turn, making this sentence redundant? This is how (I'm pretty sure) I've played the game so far, with more experienced players. Or am I missing something here?

Related to this question, I wonder how cards like Llanowar Elves differ from the mentioned cards above when it comes to the "ending of steps and phases", while not stating that specifically in its text.

Note that this is a question regarding the rules, not designer intent.

There's the concept of an exception proving (the existence) of a rule. This is one of those cases: the mere fact that such a sentence would be printed on a card should be a very strong hint that the assumption you've made in question is false, and it would be a good idea to recheck the rules.

@ilkkachu It clearly was such a hint, judging by the fact they bothered posting this question. I'm not sure what the purpose of the lecture is.

@ChrisHayes, not actually looking at the rules when faced with such a discrepancy seems to indicate quite a lack of research effort. This isn't even anything remotely tricky, like an interaction of different rules or cards, but a straightforward simple rule. I'm surprised such a question gains that many upvotes. Though maybe I shouldn't complain, given that there are questions here about particular card interactions that come with a link to Gatherer, where the answer is already given.

@ilkkachu I don't know why people upvote something, but after observing and questioning players during some casual games at my LGC: not everyone seems to be aware of this simple rule... even those who play for years. Your point regarding lack of research effort remains a solid one though. ;)

@Lainathiel, since you mention this, I have to admit I noticed at some point that the rules web page doesn't contain that rule under "Basic rules". (The link says "Basic rules PDF", but it's not a PDF file.) So yeah, I must admit it can be missed at least if someone has learned the rules there. The rulebook PDF's I found (via google) do contain it though, I don't know why they've dropped it from the web page...

In the Comprehensive Rules it says (emphasis mine):

106.4. When an effect instructs a player to add mana, that mana goes into a player’s mana pool. From there, it can be used to pay costs immediately, or it can stay in the player’s mana pool as unspent mana. Each player’s mana pool empties at the end of each step and phase, and the player is said to lose this mana. Cards with abilities that produce mana or refer to unspent mana have received errata in the Oracle™ card reference to no longer explicitly refer to the mana pool.

So normally you do not keep mana across phases. Thus, for a card like Llanowar Elves, if you use its ability to tap and produce (G), but do not use it on that step, then it will vanish and you will have tapped it for no reason.

The main reason for this is so that you can't create mana in your first main phase and then use it for combat trick if needed or cast something in your second main phase.

Now that is interesting, will double check how we use the mana pool exactly, next time at the table. Good to know!

Yep, or if someone tries to nuke your elves at the upkeep step to prevent you from playing something bigger. If the rule didn't exist then you could just tap them in response to the nuke.

Re "will double check", Most of the time, it's irrelevant because mana is usually only created when it's needed. About the only time it's relevant is when mana is produced by triggered abilities and when an ability produces more than one mana.


text:
If a commander is phased out, do I still controll it?
If a commander is phased out, do I still control it?
For instance, do I get the extra part of Jeska's will, if my commander is in oubliette?

702.26b If a permanent phases out, its status changes to “phased out.” Except for rules and effects that specifically mention phased-out permanents, a phased-out permanent is treated as though it does not exist. It can’t affect or be affected by anything else in the game. A permanent that phases out is removed from combat. (See rule 506.4.)
Example: You control three creatures, one of which is phased out. You cast a spell that says “Draw a card for each creature you control.” You draw two cards.
Example: You control a phased-out creature. You cast a spell that says “Destroy all creatures.” The phased-out creature is not destroyed.

You will not get to choose both modes of Jeska's Will.

One way to get a better understanding of the rules and meanings of words in Magic the Gathering, is to look up their definition.  In this case, one of the common Wiki's says this about Phasing:

Phasing is a mechanic where permanents may phase out, causing them to
be treated as if they don't exist, until they automatically phase back
in on their next untap step.

As such, if your commander is phased out, due to the oubliette, the game treats this as if the commander doesn't exist.  So, you can't control it (it doesn't exist) and so you don't get to choose both modes.  You have to pick one mode in Jeska's Will.

The definition of words in MtG is in the Comprehensive Rules, not the summary in an unofficial wiki.

Most newbies, of whom Euphorbium apparently is, cannot learn Magic by learning the comprehensive rules.  To assume otherwise, is to not understand the brain of a newbie.  I agree, if you want to be a judge, or a rules maven, you need to read the comprehensive rule, but to a newbie?  That's really poor advice IMHO.  In my experience in teaching MTG, the comprehensive rules are a very advanced topic.

The poster has accepted the answer referencing the CRs so they seem happy with it.

That's a good point @PhilipKendall


text:
What happens if you control two Krark's Thumb and you have to flip a coin?
If I have Sakashima of a Thousand Faces out, a Krark's Thumb and a Copy Artifact that copies Krark's Thumb what happens when I have to flip a coin? Does it go infinite and result in a draw? Do I flip two coins? Do I flip four coins?

Krak's ability is a replacement effect. The relevant rule is

614.5. A replacement effect doesn’t invoke itself repeatedly; it gets only one opportunity to affect an event or any modified events that may replace that event.
Example: A player controls two permanents, each with an ability that reads “If a creature you control would deal damage to a permanent or player, it deals double that damage to that permanent or player instead.” A creature that normally deals 2 damage will deal 8 damage—not just 4, and not an infinite amount.

Like the example, two Krark's Thumbs would cause you to flip four coins.
These flips technically aren't at the same time, but you can generally get away with flipping four coins at the same time and taking whichever you prefer. However, if they want, your opponent can insist on you flipping them two at a time. You can probably also declare before you flip any of them which result you prefer, then flip all of them at the same time; this would probably fall under the general concept of "shortcut". It's generally obvious which result you prefer, but if you don't want to reveal it, and your opponent is a stickler for the rules, you'll have to flip two at a time. Obviously, if the coins come up with different results, then which one you pick will reveal which you prefer, but if you flip two at a time, and they all come up the same, you can keep which you would have preferred secret. This is more of an issue if you had two Krark's Other Thumbs and you would roll a die: if you want to roll all four dice at the same time and it's not obvious what your preference ordering is, you have to declare it ahead of time, and it'll probably be faster to just roll the dice two at a time.

With the die rolls, it also shouldn't matter that you only see two of the dice at first. As long as you can order the results from better to worse, you can always pick the better one of any two rolls. It would matter if the combination of two dice was what mattered, though. E.g. if you're looking for a pair from two rolls, seeing all four dice at the same is much better than a one-of-two pick twice.

Rolling two at a time would certainly matter if you had one Krark's Other Thumb and something like Garbage Elemental, caring about the difference between two rolls

There is a Gatherer ruling on this that appears to apply here. The first copy of it would work as normal and the second copy would replace the flip of those two coins with two coins each.
You would flip 4 coins and chose which one you want.

1 coin flip becomes 2 coin flips from the first copy
2 coin flips from the first copy each get replaced with 2 coin flips from the second copy
4 coins get flipped in the end.

The ruling says:

If an effect tells you to flip more than one coin at once, this replace each individual coin flip. For example, if an effect tells you to flip two coins, you don’t flip four coins and ignore any two; you flip two coins, flip two coins, and then ignore one flip from each pair of flips. You will know the results of all simultaneous flips before choosing which to ignore.

It should be noted that a replacement event can only happen to an event once so this can't go infinite.

Your specific case, you have two Krark's Thumb in play.  Krark's ability is a replacement effect.  Replacement effects can't apply to the same event more than once.  (Rule 614.5 in the article I linked to.)
As the controller of both thumbs, you get to decide what order the replacement effects apply.  The order doesn't matter in this case.
So, you flip a coin...

First Krark's thumb fires, and instead of flipping one coin, you flip two coins, and get to pick the result.
Second, you apply the second Krark's thumb, so for each of those two coins, you flip two coins (a total of four flips).

If you are looking for a heads (for example) the probability you will get a head in this scenario is 1 - probability(no heads) = 1 - 1/2^4 = 15/16.  You are very likely to get the heads compared to usual.
If you have N total thumbs in play, the probability you will get a head now becomes:

1 - 1/2^N.


text:
Does the first spell from Possibility Storm go on the stack before being exiled?
I'm staring at the card Possibility Storm coming out of Dragon's Gate and thinking about cards such as Hive Mind that would add some additional chaos. The wording on Possibility Storm says

Whenever a player casts a spell from his or her hand, that player exiles it, then exiles cards from the top of his or her library until he or she exiles a card that shares a card type with it.

This wording makes me think that the initial spell makes it onto the stack before being exiled, since when it is cast it would hit the stack. It doesn't use the replacement wording "instead," which might indicate that the original spell is never cast.
Does Possibility Storm put the original spell on the stack before casting the second spell from the library? If so, does this mean that Hive Mind would trigger for the first card (assuming it was an instant or sorcery) because it was cast? Would it also create copies for the second card, since it is also cast?
Quick note: I'm also assuming that a player couldn't use Replicate or Reiterate to copy the first spell since all effects of the Possibility Storm would need to happen before someone has priority to do so. The first spell would have been removed from the stack when it gets exiled, so someone wouldn't be able to sneak in a copy spell at that point. I'm also curious if I'm correct here, although it seems like if this is true, then Hive Mind wouldn't be able to sneak in a copy, either.

I think you mean the keyword replicate, not the spell replicate which copies a token but you used the card link.

Let's look at Reiterate first since it's simpler.
Say you have a Possibility Storm on the 'field and you cast some arbitrary spell, Lightning Bolt. Here's how things would unfold without Reiterate.

You cast Lightning Bolt.

You put it on the stack.
You activate mana abilities.
You pay its cost.
Possibility Storm's ability triggers.

Possibility Storm's ability is put on the stack.
Players get priority.
Possibility Storm's ability resolves. Let's say you find Thoughtflare and choose to cast it.
Players get priority.
Thoughtflare resolves.

You can cast Reiterate in response to Possibility Storm's triggered ability (step 3), but if you do, it will trigger Possibility Storm and get exiled, so you won't get to copy the spell.
If you could somehow cast Reiterate from somewhere other than your hand (maybe with the help of Possibility Storm), this is how it would work out:

You cast Lightning Bolt.

You put it on the stack.
You activate mana abilities.
You pay its cost.
Possibility Storm's ability triggers.

Possibility Storm's ability is put on the stack.
Players get priority.
You cast Reiterate (from somewhere other than your hand) targeting Lightning Bolt.
Players get priority.
Reiterate resolves. Lightning Bolt is copied.
Players get priority.
Lightning Bolt-copy resolves.
Players get priority.
Possibility Storm's ability resolves. Let's say you find Thoughtflare and choose to cast it.
Players get priority.
Thoughtflare resolves.

When it comes to Hive Mind and Replicate, we have two triggered abilities that trigger at the same time. When that happens, the abilities are added to the stack in APNAP order. If a player needs to add more than one ability to the stack, they place them in the order of their choice.

603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses. [...]

101.4. If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player’s left) makes any choices required, followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the “Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order” rule.

Say you have a Possibility Storm on the 'field.
Scenario 1

He casts Gigadrowse on his turn, replicating it twice.

Possibility Storm's ability and Replicate triggers.

Replicate is put on the stack first (since he's the active player).
Possibility Storm's ability is put on the stack.
Players get priority.
Possibility Storm's ability resolves. Let's say he finds Thoughtflare and chooses to cast it.
Players get priority.
Thoughtflare resolves.
Players get priority.
Replicate resolves: Two copies of Gigadrowse are added to the stack.
Players get priority.
Gigadrowse-copy-2 resolves
Players get priority.
Gigadrowse-copy-1 resolves

Scenario 2

He casts Gigadrowse on your turn, replicating it twice.

Possibility Storm's ability and Replicate triggers.

Possibility Storm's ability is put on the stack first (since you're the active player).
Replicate is put on the stack.
Players get priority.
Replicate resolves: Two copies of Gigadrowse are added to the stack.
Players get priority.
Gigadrowse-copy-2 resolves
Players get priority.
Gigadrowse-copy-1 resolves
Players get priority.
Possibility Storm's ability resolves. Let's say he finds Thoughtflare and chooses to cast it.
Players get priority.
Thoughtflare resolves.

Scenario 3

You cast Gigadrowse, replicating it twice.

Possibility Storm's ability and Replicate triggers.

You control both Possibility Storm and Gigadrowse, so you decide the order they are placed on the stack. This becomes Scenario 1 or 2 depending on your choice.

Same as Replicate applies to Hive Mind.

To clarify, does Hive Mind trigger twice: once for the original spell, once for the revealed spell?

The card dug out by Possibility Storm is cast, and Hive Mind triggers on spells being cast, so yes, it triggers for both spells (if they're instants or sorceries).

While this looks good overall (I haven't taken a close look yet), one small catch in the first example: Reiterate will also trigger Possibility Storm, unless you happen to find it in your library from casting some other spell in response to Lightning Bolt!  Increasing Vengeance (out of the GY) might be a better choice for an example...

Wait, in scenario 1 of the second part of the post, wouldn't Possibility Storm's ability resolve before replicate, since it went on the stack last? And in scenario 2, did you mean to say "he casts Gigadrowse on your turn"?

@David Zaslavsky, Fixed.

@Steven Stadnicki, Fixed. Reiterate ended up being complicated too!

111.1 A spell is a card on the stack. As the first step of being cast, the card becomes a spell and is moved to the top of the stack from the
  zone it was in...

So yes the spell hits the top of the stack, and as soon as that happens the triggered ability of the Possibility Storm is placed on the stack.
What happens next can be strange thanks to 603.b:

If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player
  received priority, each player in APNAP order, puts triggered
  abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she
  chooses...

So if you controlled the Possibility Storm and the Hive Mind you choose how they go on the stack.
If you had one or the other, yours would go on first and then the other player's would go on next.
So yes, the spell hits the stack to trigger the ability of the possibility storm before the second spell is cast and hive mind would trigger also.
Note that the Hive Mind spells do not trigger the Possibility Storm or Hive Mind again.
On your quick note: I would say they can absolutely play one of those spells because they go on the stack above the Possibility Storm effect. They would resolve before the Possibility Storm ability does.

608.1 Each time all players pass in sucession, the spell or ability on the top of the stack resolves.

To clarify, does Hive Mind trigger twice: once for the original spell, once for the revealed spell?

I would say it would trigger for the second spell that possibility storm creates also because it is cast by the player. but copies generated by the hive mind do not trigger hive mind. The ability does not explicitly state that the spell must come from the hand, also the game defines a spell as 'a card on the stack' so I would say yes. The new Hive mind trigger would wait until the first spell that triggered the possibility storm resolves. Then when players have priority the revealed spell can be cast and Hive mind would trigger again.