text:
If an attacking creature is sacrificed after being blocked, can I redeclare the block?
I was playing a quick game, and my opponent played Shidako, Broodmistress and attacked with several creatures, I declared my blockers, and my opponent proceeded to pay the forests and sacrifice all of the creature I blocked to buff the one that got through, my question is, now that all of the creatures I blocked are no longer attacking, am I able to redeclare blockers, due to the change of creature prescence?

No.  The step for declaring blockers only happens once, followed by the ability to play abilities and effects, which can result in any number of situations including attackers or blockers no longer doing so, being destroyed, buffed, or whatever.  Regardless of the circumstance that results, blockers cannot be changed and the players must deal with the consequences of the units continuing with their combat orders to the best of their ability.

No; once blockers have been declared, play moves to the Combat Damage step. Because your opponent's action happened after the Declare Blockers step you can't re-declare your blockers. But the good news is you don't have to:
If blockers have been removed due to exile, card return or sacrifice, the blocked creatures still count as blocked and resolve their damage against the non-existant blocker(s)!
This is actually very helpful, as you can declare a blocker and then sacrificie it for it's sacrifice ability or pull it back to your hand to keep it safe.
From the comp rules:

509.1h An attacking creature with one or more creatures declared as blockers for it becomes a blocked creature; one with no creatures
  declared as blockers for it becomes an unblocked creature. This
  remains unchanged until the creature is removed from combat, an effect
  says that it becomes blocked or unblocked, or the combat phase ends,
  whichever comes first. A creature remains blocked even if all the
  creatures blocking it are removed from combat.

Your first paragraph is good. The rest is unrelated to the question at hand, and already has a dedicated question and answers http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/4332/3128


text:
Can an ability be used after my opponent uses an instant?
Can I use an ability after an opponent uses an instant?
Example: Opponent casts Victim of Night on my creature. It reads:

Destroy target non-Vampire, non-Werewolf, non-Zombie creature.

Can I use Bubbling Cauldron's ability to sacrifice the creature he just attempted to kill?

1, Tap, Sacrifice a creature: You gain 4 life.

Yes, you can do that. In Magic: the Gathering, most creature abilities are used like instants.
You should read the Basic Rules (PDF), page 10, if you're not familiar with the Stack and how spell casting works.
The situation you describe would work like this:

Opponent casts Victim of the Night, choosing your creature for the target. It goes on the stack and doesn't resolve yet.
Opponent chooses to cast nothing else yet and passes priority to you.
You use Bubbling Cauldron's ability. That too goes on the stack and doesn't resolve yet. You pay the cost immediately, including sacrificing the creature targeted by Victim of the Night.
You choose to pass priority so your opponent can respond. They choose to do nothing.

Now the top object on the stack resolves.

Bubbling Cauldron's ability resolves first. You gain 4 life.
Again there is an opportunity for your opponent or you to respond in turn, if neither of you do, the top object of the stack resolves.
Victim of the Night resolves. Its target is gone, so it can't do anything. A new target can't be chosen. Victim of the Night goes to the graveyard.

What if after you pass priority,  the opponent cast yet another Victim of the Night? Are you still able to sacrifice the creature to gain 4 life?

@Pacerier That couldn't happen, you can respond to the Victim of the Night because destroying the creature is part of the effect, but your opponent can't respond to you using Bubbling Cauldron to sacrifice the creature because sacrificing the creature is part of the cost, not the effect. By the time they get priority again the creature is already gone and the life gain effect is on the stack.

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text:
Can you attack again after I decide not to block?
We are both new to MTG. He will attack me, and when I decide to take the hit and roll back my life, he then likes to attack me a second time. This doesn't feel right to me, is this allowed? Can he hit me twice after I've blocked or taken the hits?

There are some card games that have a mechanic like this, but even in all of those I know about, if you wanted to block the subsequent attacks, you could then choose to do so.  Your opponent may have learned this in one of those, but as the answers point out, he will need to unlearn this for Magic.

Keep in mind that Lightning Bolt and such are not attacks. He may cast as many of spells and activate as many abilities as he can.

Also, you might be "damaged twice" even if you aren't attacked twice. [CR 510.5]. If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike (see rule 702.7) or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step. [...]

I believe the OP's opponent's mistake was thinking of the ability to cast non-fast effects during the main phase before and after combat. A second opportunity to cast spells, not attack.

No, you can only attack once per turn
There are certain cards that give you a second attack, but normally, one attack per turn.
If you are new to Magic, you should have a look at the Basic Rulebook (pdf) on the Magic rules website. It contains all the essential info to get you started.
If you encounter situations not quite covered there, you can always check back here, or try to figure it out yourself in the Comprehensive Rulebook (don't use that one to start out).

No, this is not correct. You usually only have one combat phase (There are exceptions using cards that give additional combat phases.)
Imagine this is not the case and you don't have any blockers. Then you could be dead on turn 2 by a 1/1 creature attacking as many times as you like.

As most have pointed out, there is only 1 attack phase.
The exception would be if a card explicitly states a second combat phase, e.g. Aurelia, the Warleader:

Whenever Aurelia, the Warleader attacks for the first time each turn, untap all creatures you control. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.

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Can I sacrifice an opponent's creature to Shadowborn Demon?
I have a Shadowborn Demon and I was a little curious about the description of it. It specifically says "At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are fewer than six creature cards in your graveyard, sacrifice a creature."
So what I was wondering is, do I have to sacrifice my own creature? Or can I try and keep less than six creatures in my graveyard and sacrifice an opponent's creature every upkeep? Since it does specifically says "a creature" — it does not say "your creature" or "a creature you control." Most cards that have a sacrifice involved are extremely specific about that and will say "your creature" or "a creature you control" if it wants you to sacrifice your own creatures.

As a historical note, cards used to be worded "Sacrifice a creature you control", but with the new definition, it's now redundant.

@ikegami The exact wording was more like "Sacrifice one of your creatures". You can find it on Sacrifice, for example. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sacrifice

You cannot sacrifice a creature you do not control. The rule on sacrifice, 701.14a says

To sacrifice a permanent, its controller moves it from the battlefield directly to its owner’s graveyard. A player can’t sacrifice something that isn’t a permanent, or something that’s a permanent he or she doesn’t control. Sacrificing a permanent doesn’t destroy it, so regeneration or other effects that replace destruction can’t affect this action.

From a common sense point of view, getting rid of something that's not yours isn't really a sacrifice.


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What is the original purpose of Bazaar of Baghdad?
I have a lot of interest in Bazaar of Baghdad

{T}: Draw two cards, then discard three cards.

I know how powerful this card is in a Dredge deck in Vintage and thus why it's banned in Legacy, but since the Dredge mechanic has been introduced in the Ravnica block in 2005 and Bazaar is a card printed in 1993 in Arabian Nights: what was the purpose of that land?
I suppose there must have been another use other than "create a card disadvantage for me" (even One with Nothing had one!), so I'm wondering how and how much was Bazaar used in those twelve years and if its price has risen so much only after Ravnica: City of Guilds.

At the least, if you have 3 cards in your hand that you can't use, then this is as good as "Draw two cards."

While not a duplicate of http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6117/why-is-bazaar-of-baghdad-supposedly-such-a-good-card, the non-dredge answers there apply.

Bazaar of Baghdad was designed as part of the Arabian Nights set, this was a very flavor driven set with many cards designed around characters from the 1001 Arabian Nights stories, and others from general Arabian history or legend.
Bazaar of Baghdad obviously follows in this flavor, and the mechanics of the card attempt to evoke a feeling of getting something you want, at a price. It was designed to give card selection: at the cost of 1 card (and obviously a one-time cost of one land drop), you could trade your 3 worst cards for 2 others. In a world of massively high-powered cards amongst dross, this would be a hugely important effect. For decks aiming to build up a combo of 2 or 3 cards, often all other cards in the deck can safely be discarded while searching for the remaining pieces.
This card was one of the first attempts at giving players a way to trade bad cards for better ones. Cards like Faithless Looting and Careful Study are more recently printed cards with a very similar tradeoff (3 cards in hand for 2 new cards) as a single use, both have seen use in legacy dredge lists, as well as some other archetypes (reanimator and other graveyard strategies).
I can't answer for how (if at all) it was used before Ravnica block, or what decks played it, or what happened with it in the years leading up to the printing of the dredge mechanic.

Attunement is another older card (Urza's Saga) with this mechanic. It can be reused over and over, like the Bazaar.

Mostly what I was going to say, but I would go further: I don't think this card was 'designed for anything' in the sense that we now know the term at all.  Magic design was in its true dark-ages infancy, and plenty of cards were crafted from a pure-flavor perspective without any sense whatsoever as to how they would help a player.  Bazaar, I strongly suspect, was one of these.

@StevenStadnicki Nice thought, it might just have been designed to be a nice flavor card with no actual use (although a nice use has been found later!)

You get to draw two cards. This (at the time of printing) was 5% of your deck. At worst case, the two you drew were not as good as what you had in your hand and you will get rid of them, and chances also are that you had one card you would be willing to get rid of, or at least would be worth the risk.
You get to discard AFTER drawing the two cards. If the two cards you drew were crap, you don't have to keep them. It would be much worse if it was {t}, discard three cards: draw two cards.
You don't have to draw the cards you drew later. Key to the design of magic is the ability to make a comeback win, and this comeback typically comes with a top-deck bomb. Sometimes there's only one or two cards in your deck that can allow you to win, and the rest of your cards are just to keep you alive until this bomb gets on the board. So in that sense, this card could be {t}: draw two cards, then discard cards from your hand until you have one card left in hand. and it would probably still be sought after for that purpose. (Actually, the dredge crowd would salivate over this card even more if it did that...)

I didn't know that the deck size has changed, very interesting!
While I agree that discarding three cards as a part of the cost would be worse, I think that if you find two crappy cards and discard them you still lose one card in your hand
Tutors and cantrips are better in accomplishing this goal but I understand your point

If you find two crappy cards, you got unlucky admittedly. But most looting requires you to discard first, then draw because of how much more powerful it is than Bazaar. 3. Tutors are a whole different ball of wax and really can't be compared. Cantrips cost mana and aren't repeatable like this is. They also only draw 1 card at a time, which is twice as slow as Bazaar.

In a 40 cards deck (but in my opinion this is true also in a 60 cards one) having at the same time more than one useless card in hand is poor deck buildin. Or at least ssomething that happens once in a while thus not worth having a specific card to help you. If you draw way to many lands once in a tournament, it's ok; if it happens half of the matches the deck needs improvement, not Bazaar. 3. I agree they can't be compared

@corsiKa actually, most looting doesnt require you to discard first, its a relatively new form of looting, predominantly in red, that requires the discard before the draw. discarding after drawing is also quite unfortunate for dredge (although you are right, its only the fringe case of dredge that its a benefit for), if the discard happened first I would expect dredge to be a turn 1 deck in vintage as opposed to a turn 1-2 deck.

@Patters If I am not mistaken loot refers to "draw then discard" and the opposite, "discard then draw" tends to be called rummage - named for [mtg: Rummaging Goblin]

@Mangusto Not really - first it depends on format and what's available to build with, not every card is going to be amazing, second you have cards that are only good situationally - Doom Blade was a kill spell just every black player used, but it's useless if your opponent is playing mono black, there are also cards you need exactly 1 copy of out, so you can discard the 2nd copy, mostly legendary permanents. Third sometimes the whole point of the deck is to dig to specific cards for your combo to go off, the other cards don't matter (Grinning Ignus & Grapeshot decks do the last two)


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How do Platinum Angel and Darksteel Reactor interact?
I have a Darksteel Reactor on the battlefield, and my opponent plays Platinum Angel. How does the Reactor's effect resolve when it hits 20 counters with the PA in the battlefield? Do I win the game or not?

The game will be a draw. Darksteel Reactor will trigger, attempt to win you the game, and then resolve and do nothing (since you can't win the game). Once resolved, Darksteel Reactor will see that it is still in play and still has 20 counters, and it will trigger again.

603.8. A state-triggered ability doesn't trigger again until the ability has resolved, has been countered, or has otherwise left the stack.

This will continue without moving the game forward until a player removes either Darksteel Reactor or Platinum Angel or both. Since the game can't move forward, it is a draw.
Note: in a multiplayer game, "You win the game" is translated as "Each opponent loses the game." So if Player A had Darksteel Reactor, player B has Platinum Angel, and player C had nothing, player C would lose and players A and B would tie.

You are correct. My answer isn't wrong but not complete.

Why does Darksteel Reactor wait for its first trigger to resolve before triggering again?

@John, It is a state-based trigger (one which triggers based on a specific game state, checked along with other state-based actions). I don't have the CR in front of me so I can't give you a reference, but state-based triggers do not trigger again until they have resolved. If that were not the case, Reactor would always draw the game, because it would never let itself resolve.

This is an interesting result

If either player has, say Dark Banishing in hand, and can make mana, they'll be able to avoid a draw by killing the angel, correct?

I don't understand why it will be a draw. X Turns later the controller of the Darksteel Reactor will attempt to  draw from an empty library, and will lose the game?

@BolucPapuccuoglu The problem is that the Reactor will trigger an infinite number of times in the first upkeep where it hits 20 counters: "Did I win? No." Reactor still has 20 counters, so "Did I win? No." Repeat an infinite number of times. (It's exceedingly silly, but rules are not known for being flexible.)

@BrianS: there's a flaw in your argument that Reactor would always draw the game if this were not the case. Game wins happen immediately by Rule 104.1, so even though the ability presents itself from resolving, it does so in such a way that the concept of resolving the action no longer applies: the game is over. The ability does indeed appear to be a state trigger, as you say, and that has the repercussions you claim, but even if it didn't, that would not cause the card to always draw the game.

@TheSpooniest: Rule 104.1 only applies after the ability has resolved. Also every triggered ability that triggered off of state would cause the game to go to a draw, so it really is a moot point.

@SeanMcMillan, Yes. You can respond to the Reactor's trigger with an instant, a card with flash, an activated ability, etc. If you can remove either Reactor or Angel, there will be no loop and the game won't draw. If Angel is removed, the Reactor player wins as soon as the trigger resolves. If the Reactor (or some of its counters) is removed, the trigger will resolve and do nothing (abilities resolve independently of their source), and then won't trigger again, so the game continues normally.

Note that neither player is obligated to respond to the trigger, even if they are capable of doing so and breaking the loop.

You will not win the game.
This rule is relevant here:

101.2. When a rule or effect allows or directs something to happen, and another effect states that it can't happen, the "can't" effect
  takes precedence. Example: If one effect reads "You may play an
  additional land this turn" and another reads "You can't play land
  cards this turn," the effect that precludes you from playing lands
  wins.

I don't know about the official rule system, but the "house rules" way I've always seen this played with my friends (who think draws are stupid) is that any persistent state that would cause you to win the game is effectively "put on hold" until Platinum Angel is off the battlefield (the effect doesn't retrigger until it can resolve differently).
So, if you put 20 counters on Darksteel Reactor, the game would continue, and if (before your opponent wins) you remove Platinum Angel while Darksteel Reactor is still down with 20, you win as soon as Platinum Angel is removed.

You make a good case for the existence of house rules, but the world is not your house.

dark steel reactor has "20 or more charge counters " so it will just continue gaining counters until either platinum angel or dark steel is removed

This does not add anything new to the question that was not already answered.


text:
Does Monopoly involve skill to a considerable degree?
Many classic children's board games, like Snakes and Ladder and Candyland, are essentially pure games of chance. Is it reasonable to regard Monopoly as a game of this type? How important is player skill (as opposed to luck) in Monopoly?

Could you give us a few examples of dice games you want to compare against?

Monopoly base game. It has as much skill as tic-tac-toe (maybe more). You are going to need to define skill. People seem to have wildly different opinions what the word means, and how to measure it.

This is a good question that should not be closed. I have heard the question several times in my life. In one case, I proved my answer that Monopoly has skill by playing a game with fresh opponents and winning handily, using skill. In my experience, most beginners greatly underestimate the importance of and skill required in trading. I answered the question to describe this important and complex skill and what goes into acquiring and mastering it.

You didn't lay out criteria in your question so I'm going to assume that what you're asking is: Let's say Bob diligently acquires as much skill as possible in Monopoly and practices with 50 or more games. If Bob plays several beginners (10 or fewer games - little study of the game), and no players know other players' skill level - is Bob highly likely to win?
The answer is yes. Monopoly definitely involves skill, and therefore Bob is highly likely to win that first game.
The most sophisticated and difficult skill involves working favorable trades. Though trading occurs only a few times a game, it is the primary means by which skill can cause the odds of winning to shift dramatically.
To make favorable trades, you must:

understand relative worth of different properties (you must know landing frequencies, development costs, etc.)
understand risk/reward
be able to quickly understand what your opponents care about, which in many cases will NOT be optimizing for greatest relative worth trades
be persuasive

There are also some simpler skills such as learning when it makes sense to buy a property and when to let it go up for auction, when it makes sense to start building houses (and how much money to keep in reserve), that the third house is the most valuable, etc.
Like Settlers of Catan, however, once it is clear who is the most skilled player, it is very easy for everyone to stop the most skilled player via trade embargos. I have had the experience several times of trouncing new opponents at Monopoly for a game or two and then losing more than average thereafter when my opponents refuse to trade with me. Actually - it's usually a little more gradual than that as first they just refuse to trade on my terms and start demanding more. And then they won't ever let me have a monopoly result from a trade. So then I resort to ever higher risk trades until I reach a point where nobody is willing to give me any trade I would want.
It is only when playing with fresh opponents that I have an opportunity to exert maximum skill, without fear that trading reputation will mean embargoes. That is why I carefully rephrased your question to assume lack of knowledge of the opponents. Because once it is clear who the most skilled player is in the game, it is very easy for opponents to gang up and actually cause the most skilled player to lose more often than average.
Side Note: several other answers imply that the luck of what you get has to be pretty good to even have a chance at making favorable trades. To that I say, you can make your own luck. For example, if you've studied Monopoly, you know that the two best monopolies to get in terms of risk/reward and Return on Investment are the oranges and light blues. So you may try trading for them earlier in the game. Many players are under the mistaken belief that Boardwalk is the best property. So if I obtain Boardwalk and I own one light blue, while the 2nd is owned by a different player and third by bank - I may offer Boardwalk for the light blue that is owned - and they think they are getting a steal. I now have two light blues and have created the possibility that I may get a monopoly if I get the third. So even though I had bad luck in not having 2 out of 3 of either light blue or orange, I have created a 2 out of 3 situation with one of the best two colors to increase my chances of getting lucky, or at least being able to trade for the 3rd.

Despite having acquired some skill in the game, I don't like to play Monopoly because the part that involves great skill and has a large influence on the game outcome - trading - only comes up just a few times in a several hour game.

Games like Settlers and Monopoly tend to reward coming in a high place ahead of winning. Naturally winning is good, coming in second is very very good. It is generally considered better to come in second every time than to come in first occasionally and lower places most times.

Reading through my own answer, it occurs to me that I would win more Monopoly games by pretending to have less skill than I do. For example I could say silly sounding things like "my favorite color has been blue all my life so I really like the blues . . . can I trade you . . . ." If I could make it look like I was stumbling my way to victory despite my seeming lack of skill, perhaps I could go many more games before getting embargoed.

that would work with unskilled people. I think skilled people would pick up the scent of a power gamer by the multitude of other actions you'd take. I suppose you could convince skilled players that you're a bad player by taking bad actions, but if you're trying to win I'd be very careful how many bad actions you take!!

Your statement reminds me of a Magic deck my friend built that filled his deck with complete crap but stole his opponents creatures. He said "I'm trying to trick my opponent into thinking I have no way of winning." to which I replied "and you've done so by actually having no way of winning! You sure showed them!"

@thumbtackthief With no house rules, Monopoly will last several hours if there is little or no trading and no player achieves a Monopoly. I have seen such games, especially when 1 or more players are greatly feared for their trading prowess. Other players embargo or trade very cautiously and infrequently.

I think you've pointed out an important "flaw" in Monopoly, namely that collusion is completely legal and if everyone else is out to prevent you from winning there is nothing you can do about it (except get lucky).

Skill matters a lot in the game, but with a bit of luck, an player with less skill might beat a player with more skill. The skilled players who know how to take a balance between risk and reward would have a great advantage and would much more likely be able to win the game.

There is a skill involved in making trades and the rate to build houses and hotels.  You can win the game with only the brown properties and hotels on them, that's if your opponents refuse to deal

Knowing your Opponents is a Skill
I feel like auctions should be distinct from trading, and has largely been ignored in almost all of the answers (much like it's ignored in many games). Both require skill, but auctions especially require understanding your opponents.
Knowing when to put a property up for auction rather than just buying it and either getting it for below market value or "helping" an opponent buy it for above market value is one of the most overlooked skills in the game. It involves being able to evaluate the value of properties on the fly based on the board state as well as gauge how accurately others perceive the value. As well as understanding the skill of other players.
Maybe player B is easily tempted into bidding wars but is a savvy trader while Player C rarely bids higher than market price, but sometimes makes foolish trades. If you land a property that completes someone else's set, in this case if B has the other properties you'd want to put it up for auction, but if it was C you'd want to buy at market and trade it with them.
Much like poker a large part of the skill is about evaluating your opponents more than it is about knowing the intricacies of the which properties are generally most profitable. You can learn the basics of the game with a little bit of googling, but learning your opponents' tendencies requires playing games with them and paying attention.

In terms of skill versus luck level, I would put Monopoly on a similar plane to poker. That makes it more a matter of skill than the average dice game.
That is, between two comparably skilled players, luck will decide the winner.
It is possible for a skillful but unlucky player to beat a lucky, but unskillful player. But the skillful player would probably have to bluff a lot in order to win.

It is difficult to bluff games with perfect information, which Monopoly is.

@corsiKa: A skillful player I once knew tried to bluff someone that two utilities were worth as much as two maroons (which would have given him a monopoly). Which he might have to do to win, if the lesser skilled player got one or more monopolies, plus "stoppers" to all others.

That is not a bluff. That is a lie. A bluff involves taking game actions that you would take if you had certain resources but you don't. If you're playing 5 card stud poker, and you have TJQK of spades showing, and you tell your opponent there's a 1/52 chance you have a straight flush, that is not a bluff. That's just a lie. It's verifiable false.

@corsiKa: In your poker example, you don't tell your opponent whether or not you have a straight flush card in the "hole." You just bet as if you do, and let your opponent draw his own conclusions. As for Monopoly, $150 for utilities is about the same as maroons, and the utilities' UNIMPROVED rent is better. The bluffer just leaves out the part about houses.

I think you might need some definitions here. On the face of it, the last two paragraphs would apply to every game in the world; and between two equally lucky players, skill will decide the winner (in every game).

@corsiKa: If "that is not a bluff, that is a lie," then Monopoly is NOT a game of perfect information, because the recipient can't tell the difference.

@TomAu Perfect Information means the information is available. It does not mean that all players have seen and understood it. I can flip a coin and tell you it landed on heads even if it landed on tails, but you still have Perfect Information and could tell me I am lying.

@John: That's why a skillful but unlucky player can beat a lucky player that doesn't understand things.

Usually you roll, you land somewhere, and you pay rent; no decision making.  If the property is unowned, you have to decide if you want to buy it, but 99% of the time, buying it is the right thing to do.  So there are two real sets of decisions; what trades do I make, and when and where do I buy houses.
Those few decisions have drastic impact on how the game unfolds, so sure, people who are more skilled at choosing wise trades and when to buy houses (for instance, is the extra $$ to be made from hotels more important the tying up the limited supply of houses?) will do better.
But those decisions are highly constrained by where the dice take them on all their previous turns.  And like Joe said, that's a pretty bad ratio of useful decision-making to play time.
For sure, people who play with the house rule of putting money on Free Parking are skewing things away from skillful play even further.

Compare to backgammon - where it's long been remarked that while one must make very many right decisions to win: just one mistake is sufficient to lose. Monopoly feels the same to me.

In my experience, Monopoly has more to do with luck than with skill.  I define skill as the ability to make correct decisions.  A decision is correct if it maximizes the odds of you winning.
It is possible to play Monopoly poorly (unlike, say, the card game War which is a game of pure luck and no decisions).  For example, never buying anything and just collecting your $200 for each circuit will (against normal play) result in you eventually losing more money on each circuit than you earn.  Therefore, some degree of skill is required by the game.

People are extremely exaggerating how much skill is involved. The beginning of the game is the most important because whoever gets the best properties quickly has a HUGE advantage.   Assuming no special rules the game rests way too heavily on the properties you’re  able to get in the first part of the game. That is almost exclusively luck of the dice. There’s almost no reason not to buy every property you land on because you need it for trading bait or at least to stop someone else getting monopoly. The railroads you might want to think about same with the water and electric. But basically if you land on it you buy it and that’s complete luck . Making smart trades is important but if you don’t have enough to trade with you’re gonna lose. What makes monopoly particularly a bad game is that there’s almost never any come back’s. You can see who’s going to eventually win from a mile away and it’s almost impossible to stop when someone has a lead.


text:
Plague Spitter + Rite of Passage
Scenario: I have a 2/2 creature and Rite of Passage on the battlefield. Then I play 2 Plague Spitters.
What will happen at the beginning of my next turns upkeep?
Will both Plague Spitters damage happen at the same time, or will Rite of passages triggered ability respond to each Plagues Spitter's damage in turn and thereby save the 2/2 creature?

Generally we call a 2/2 creature a bear, after Grizzly Bears

In Magic, when one event triggers multiple abilities simultaneously, you put all the triggers on the stack and resolve them one by one, sequentially.
So, what's actually happening with the triggers is this:

Both Plague Spitters' abilities trigger at the same time. Since you control both, you can put them on the stack in whatever order you choose. We'll say you put ability #1 on the stack first, then ability #2.

Stack is: PS1, PS2.

If nobody adds more stuff to the stack, we begin resolving abilities on the stack. Plague Spitter ability #2 at the top of the stack resolves and does 1 damage to each creature. You check to see if any creatures died, but they all have 2 toughness, so they don't. Also, the damage triggers Rite of Passage. You put the Rite of Passage triggers (one for each creature) on top of the stack. If there are three creatures, there are three separate triggers.

Stack is: PS1, RoP1, RoP2, RoP3.

(Note that the RoP triggers are on the stack, so none of your guys have +1/+1 counters yet, but they all do have one damage marked on them. If I Gut Shot one of your Plague Spitters right now, I could wipe your board using its death trigger.)

All pass. We resolve RoP trigger #3.

Stack is: PS1, RoP1, RoP2.

All pass. We resolve RoP trigger #2.

Stack is: PS1, RoP1.

All pass. We resolve RoP trigger #1. (Now all your creatures have a +1/+1 counter on them.)

Stack is: PS1.

All pass. We resolve Plague Spitter trigger #1. The Plague Spitter does 1 damage to each creature. We check if any of them died. They all have three toughness now, because of the counters, so nope. Rite of Passage triggers again (for each creature).

Stack is: RoP4, RoP5, RoP6.

(Continue resolving RoP triggers.)

You'll end up with a bunch of 4/4 creatures (2/2s with two +1/+1 counters each) with 2 damage marked on them.

So this happens because I control both Plague Spitters. What if my opponent was in control of one of the Plague Spitters? would that make any difference regarding stack sequence?

@JacobLund You go in "APNAP" order, which means the active player puts all of his or her triggers on the stack first in any order, then everyone else goes in turn order. (Meaning that your opponent's triggers will go on the stack above yours, and thereby resolve first.) See 603.3b and 101.4 in the comp rules.

@AlexP Yeah, but since both PS trigger before anything else, the order is actually rather irrelevant in this case, but their PS will die to the second trigger, as it didn't get buffed by RoP.

Your creatures will live, the Plague Spitter's abilities resolve separately. At the end of your upkeep you will have 3 4/4 creatures that are marked with 2 damage each (2 plague spitters and your starting 2/2 creature.


text:
Can my opponent respond to an "enters the battlefield" ability?
I played Shadowborn demon. It has the ability

When Shadowborn Demon enters the battlefield, destroy target non-Demon creature.

Can my friend play Fall of the Hammer on the target creature that would be destroyed to have it deal damage to my Shadowborn Demon, or would his creature be destroyed because of the ability?

Both things happen. First, your opponent's creature will deal damage to Shadowborn Demon (thanks to Fall of the Hammer); then the Demon's ability will kill the creature — even if Fall of the Hammer already killed your demon.
When Shadowborn Demon enters the battlefield, you get to choose a target for its ability. The ability then goes on the stack, just like spells do when you cast them. (Check out the MTG Basic Rulebook for more information about the stack and casting spells.)
While the Demon's ability is on the stack, your opponent can respond to it by activating abilities or casting Instant spells, including Fall of the Hammer.
So, now the stack looks like this (most recent thing on top; that's why it's a "stack"):

(top)
Fall of the Hammer
Shadowborn Demon's "destroy" ability
(bottom)

When nobody else has more actions (you could respond to Fall of the Hammer by casting Giant Growth on your Demon, for instance), we resolve what's on the stack.
So, the Fall of the Hammer happens first, allowing your opponent's creature to deal damage to the Shadowborn Demon. If this is enough damage to kill your Demon (for example, the opponent's creature is an Arbor Colossus), you'll put the Demon into your graveyard.
After you're done resolving Fall of the Hammer, you'll resolve the Demon's ability, destroying your opponent's creature. Even if your Demon is already dead, though, the opponent's creature will be destroyed. That's because the "destroy target non-demon creature" ability doesn't directly depend on your Demon if you've already put it on the stack.
So, your opponent's creature will damage your demon first (potentially killing the Demon, if it was a lot of damage), and then afterward the creature will be destroyed.

Both.

Once a triggered ability is placed on the stack, players can respond to it. He may indeed cast Fall of the Hammer before Shadowborn Demon's ETB resolves.
Fall of the Hammer will resolve first (having been placed on the stack last). This damages your Demon, which presumably results in its destruction.
Then, Shadowborn Demons's ETB will resolve, destroying his creature. This will happen even if the Demon no longer exists.

112.7a Once activated or triggered, an ability exists on the stack independently of its source. [...]


text:
Does Homing Sliver give other Slivers slivercycling even before it's been cast?
Homing Sliver gives each sliver card in each player's hand slivercycling 3. My question is... does it do that even if Homing Sliver hasn't been cast? Or do slivers in peoples hands only gain that ability after homing sliver is on the battlefield?

Homing Sliver only affects other Sliver cards when it is in play. The ability that says

Each Sliver card in each player's hand has slivercycling {3}

is a static ability. Rule 604.2 says

These effects are active as long as the permanent with the ability remains on the battlefield and has the ability, or as long as the object with the ability remains in the appropriate zone, as described in rule 112.6.

This ability does not match any of the exceptions mentioned in rule 112.6, so it is only active as long as the Homing Sliver is on the battlefield.
Note that as long as Homing Sliver is on the battlefield, every Sliver card in each player's hand has the activated ability slivercycling, which does work from the hand because it matches rule 112.6i:

An object's activated ability that has a cost that can't be paid while the object is on the battlefield functions from any zone in which its cost can be paid.


text:
Do I use the original start tile when playing The River?
Yesterday I bought the Carcassonne board game and it comes with the mini-expansion The River.
I read the rules but they don't clarify whether the removed/replaced first tile is removed from the game or mixed with the other tiles for future use after the 12 river tiles are played.
What do you do with the original game's start tile when playing The River?

Welcome to B&CG Stack Exchange!

Thanks for the edition Alex P, the English is not my main languaje

If you're playing with the River (or the River II) don't play with the start tile from the basic game - it has a different coloured back and so will stand out during the tile draw.

So what do you start with? And what are the ramifications of starting with the original tile verses the accepted alternative? And what should happen to the original tile?

@corsiKa The entire point of the River mini-expansion is that it provides an alternative start (you start with one end of the river and build the river from there, before using the regular tiles). Not playing with the original start tile means just setting it aside (as opposed to mixing it in with the bag of other tiles for the rest of the game).

@corsiKa, it is exactly as Jefromi explained. You start with the spring end of the river.

I accept the answer, but doing a little bit research, I found in the Complete Annotated Rules the following:

The original starting tile can either be mixed into the stack of river tiles, or placed as soon as the river has been completed, and is treated like a normal tile.

And an additional house rule:

Mix the original starting tile (without a river) in with the river tiles. If it is drawn then it acts like a 'bonus' tile that can be placed anywhere.

What's a CAR? Is it something official?

Maybe are not official, are Complete Annotated Rules published in that page, I have curiosity because are mentioned in http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/7427/what-are-the-differences-between-the-3-versions-of-carcassonne but the link in the answer is broken.


text:
Can an untapped creature "become untapped?"
If an untapped creature is targeted with an "untap target creature" spell or ability, will it be considered becoming untapped?

Related question: Are (un)tapped permanents still legal targets for “(un)tap target permanent” effects?

No. There must be a transition. As per the English definition, "to become untapped" is "to begin to be untapped".
In fact, the ability you mentioned won't even try to untap it. It's impossible untap a permanent that's already untapped. That's why you can't activate an ability with the untap symbol ({Q}) in its cost if the source of the ability is already untapped.
Similarly, it's impossible to tap a permanent that's already tapped. That's why you can't activate an ability with the tap symbol ({T}) in its cost if the source of the ability is already tapped.
This wouldn't stop you from casting a spell that would try to do these impossible actions. The spell will simply do as much as possible, and skip over the impossible instruction. e.g. Gerrad's Command on an untapped creature would effectively become "Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.", and Crippling Chill on tapped creature would effectively become "Target creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step."

Is an untapped creature still a legal target for the example spell in the question?

@Colin D, Depends on the wording, but all that matters is the targeting condition. If it says "target creature" and it's an creature, it's a valid target. (e.g. Gerrard's Command) If it says "target tapped creature" and it's an untapped creature, it's not a valid target. (e.g. Soldevi Golem)

@Colin D, Examples for tapping rather than untapping: 1. Crippling Chill can target a tapped creature. It won't tap it, but it will stop it from untapping. 2. Traitor's Roar can't target a tapped creature.

Unless specified as part of the target (e.g. "target tapped creature"), targeting doesn't check or care whether that thing is already tapped, so you can target an untapped creature with Savage Surge. That's why cards like Devout Invocation and Clock of Omens specify that those permanent must be untapped.
However, if a trigger looks for something that "becomes untapped" like the new inspiration cards, it require a change in the tapped/untapped status, just like cards like Brink of Disaster or Chronic Flooding (Compare with Bramble Elemental and its "becomes attached" trigger).

@ikegami You can still target the creature, it just won't do anything (I believe it's countered on resolution or something). The point is it's a valid spell target. I'll admit your answer is better, I just wanted to cover that edge case in your original comment. As for Urza's Contact Lenses (and you know you're reaching when you go to UNGLUED for your rules examples, right?), I'm not sure that's correct. After all, Arena can "tap" a tapped creature. I think it is acceptable to clap your hands twice without turning the Lenses off. Tapping as a cost is different to tapping as an effect.

UCL has you chose one of two actions: Tap UCL or untap UCL. You can't choose to perform an impossible action, so you must choose the only possible action. Arena simply has your opponent choose a creature. It later tries to tap that creature, but can't. I had to reach into Unglued since UCL is the only card that has been erratad to "you may tap or untap it" (e.g. Twiddle). This gives you a choice of three actions: "do nothing, tap it or untap it", allowing you to maintian the status quo.

@ikegami "You can't untap something that's untapped, and you can't tap something that's tapped." You can't tap them further, but you can still target them with abilities that would (un)tap, like [mtg:Wavecrash Triton] (that's what rule 609.3 is about). The targeting part was referring to stuff like [mtg:Traitor's Roar], [mtg:Assassinate] or [mtg:Surrakar Banisher].

@Circeus, Considering I already explained all that before you answered, I know all that, and it has nothing to do with what I said. You said the spell doesn't check or care, but that's not true. Targeting doesn't care sometimes, but the spell does. You said the spell doesn't care or check, but it does because it can't untap something that's untapped (which means it doesn't become untapped, which answers the OP's question).

@Circeus, There, fixed.


text:
Do permanents controlled by a player with hexproof also have hexproof?
If I have a Witchbane Orb, then I (the player) have hexproof.

Are permanents I control also hexproof? Or am I only hexproof from abilities that target me specifically?
Can a card like Wrath of God be used to destroy creatures with hexproof, because it is not targeting the creature(s)?

You are the only one protected from opponent's spells that target you with a witchbane orb. Saying a player is hex proof is not the same as saying all of their permanents are hex proof as well.
As for wrath of god and other 'All creatures' or 'all players' spells. Since there is no targeting hex proof does not protect a creature from Wrath of God. Indestructible would protect a creature from wrath of god, but not hex proof.

Looking at Comp rule 114.1a a definition for targeted is made. It says that the verbiage 'target [something]' is the indicator that a spell is targeted.
Looking at 702.11 the definition for hex proof says a permanent can't be the target of a spell. meaning it can't be targeted.
So a Wrath Of God that says 'Destroy All Creatures' is not considered a targeted spell and thus is not hampered by hex proof.
Furthermore looking at 114.9a it is clarified that just because a spell or ability can affect objects and players they don't target does not mean they have atrgeted that player or object.

I blame True-Name Nemesis for muddling this all up in the first place.


text:
Does Day of Judgment destroy my own creatures, too?
I have read all the other questions on the card Day Of Judgment, but none of them state if the card destroys all the creatures on my battlefield. So, in Magic, The Gathering does the card Day Of Judgment destroy all my creatures too?

Plague Wind is an example that doesn't kill your own. As you see, this card is much higher in mana cost because it is a way more powerful effect

There is no concept of your battlefield on MTG, only THE battlefield. So unless the card specifies controllers, it referes to all sides of the table.

Very unclear and you could have been a little bit better when asking questions by researching it first then using SE as a last resort. It seems to be a very easy question to answer. I hope you take this on board in the future. Also, the best way of thanking him is to vote and accept( as you have done partially) as it specifically says before you type the comment that  you should AVOID saying thanks or +1.

It does. Mtg is very literal in its text, if it says all it means all, including your creatures


text:
How does Decree of Silence interact with multiple spells cast?
With a Decree of Silence in play with two depletion counters on it, what would happen if my opponent were to cast Titan Strength and then Giant Growth?

If your opponent cast Giant Growth without waiting for Titan Strength to be countered, both will be countered.
Whenever your opponent casts a spell, Decree of Silence will trigger and its ability will become the topmost object on the stack. When that ability resolves, the first spell will be countered, Decree gets its third counter and will be sacrificed. Therefore, if your opponent casts Titan Strength and just waits for the stack to resolve, Decree will be gone and he will be able to play Giant Growth without it being countered.
If, however, your opponent casts another spell before that ability resolves, Decree is still on the battlefield and will trigger again, putting another instance of its ability on the stack.
Now the stack starts resolving. The second spell gets countered and a counter is put on the Decree. It will be sacrificed immediately afterwards. Now the first instance of the Decree's ability resolves. It does not put a counter on Decree because it's already in the graveyard, but it will do as much as possible, i.e. it will counter the first spell.

Relevant rule: CR 112.7a Once activated or triggered, an ability exists on the stack independently of its source. Destruction or removal of the source after that time won’t affect the ability. [...]


text:
Activating Field of Ruin's ability without a target
The activated ability of Field of Ruin states:

Destroy target nonbasic land an opponent controls. Each player searches his or her library for a basic land card, puts it onto the battlefield, then shuffles his or her library.

Can I use this ability to make all players search out a basic land card even if the first part has no valid target, for example because there is no nonbasic land to destroy?
I am assuming the period matters, and the next section is a different effect that is not contigent upon the first resolving.

I'm in favor of leaving this open, based on the distinctions that can be made due to this being an activated ability and not a spell (see my answer), even though the answer to both is the same.

If the answer is the same why not mark it as a duplicate?

@JoeW: Because the linked question addresses spells only, and invites the follow-up question whether it's the same for activated abilities. Even though this is a given for experienced magic players, I can't think of many other card games where cards you play from your hand have identical mechanics as cards already played, so I find it to be a worthwhile mentioning that activated abilities do indeed work the same.

No, you won't be able to do that.
Abilities aren't split into parts by colons, or anything of the sort. They have an activation cost, and everything behind it is one block of effect text that is to be treated as a single entity:

602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]”

The rules for activating abilities are identical to the rules for casting spells:

602.2b The remainder of the process for activating an ability is identical to the process for casting a spell (...). Those rules apply to activating an ability just as they apply to casting a spell. (...).

And just like for spells, you can't activate them without declaring the maximum number of possible targets - in this case, one.

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell follows the steps listed below, in order. If, at any point during the casting of a spell, a player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be cast (...)
601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires. (...) If any effects say that an object or player must be chosen as a target, the player chooses targets so that he or she obeys the maximum possible number of such effects without violating any rules or effects that say that an object or player can't be chosen as a target. (...)


text:
Can you counter a Land in Magic the Gathering?
I have always wondered this when I played Magic the Gathering, whether or not you can use a counter spell on a land.  I know a land is technically a spell, but it is a special type, hence the confusion.
It may be kind of a waste to counter spell a land but still it could be a good strategic option.

A land is one of the few things in the game of Magic that is NOT technically a spell!

Nope; it's a land (which is a special kind of not-a-spell card), not a spell.  In particular, a land never goes on the stack (where all the spells go); it goes directly from your hand into the battlefield as a permanent.
(If you could, it would completely not be a waste to counterspell a land.  Magic works on a steady acceleration of bigger and better spells as more land comes out.  Anything that puts your opponent a turn behind on that curve is useful.  Destroying/countering a land is about equivalent to delaying everything your opponent does for the rest of the game by one turn.)

Indeed. One the basic strategies at the start of the learning curve for MtG is doing anything you can to make an opponent's land less useful. Blow it up. Change it's colour to be inappropriate for them, and more appropriate for you. Have it cause damage to the opponent when tapped, and so on. This same principle also seems to me to vastly reduce the cost efficiency of powerful spells that nerf your own land capacity...

I disagree with your second para, actually.  If you put 4 Boomerangs into your deck, you can "sort of" counter an opponent's land on turn 2 by bouncing it back to their hand and setting their mana development back a turn.  The computer AI on Duels of the Planeswalkers does this to me all the time.  In practice though trading a card for a small tempo advantage of this kind seems to me a losing proposition.  Yes, this isn't quite the same as land destruction, because they are much less likely to get landscrewed.  But I still say that snap-bouncing a land or killing a mana Myr or elf is bad.

@thesunneversets: Everything you say is true, but that is getting a bit more sophisticated than the level implied by the question - as you correctly point out, Boomerang really isn't the same as a counterspell in this case.  (I don't say that countering land is always the right move, only that it's not always a waste.)

Well, certainly, if your opponent misses a land drop or two and sits there unable to do anything, countering the next land would be an amazing (if evil) play.  Wizards have made a point of reducing the power of land destruction and denial in recent years, mostly because this kind of thing is no fun at all to be on the receiving end of...

Note that playing a land does not use the stack, and cannot be responded to. Therefore a player playing a land does not pass priority and may tap it immediately for mana and cast something before someone tries to destroy/bounce it to slow development.

I'd argue the closest thing to really "countering" a land is Stifle on a fetchland. Which is a thing that comes up in Legacy tournaments with fair regularity and almost nowhere else.

Accepted answer is a good and correct answer — but no references! Comprehensive rules. Emphasis mine.

305. Lands
305.1. A player who has priority may play a land card from his or her hand during a main phase of his or her turn when the stack is empty. Playing a land is a special action; it doesn't use the stack (see rule 115). Rather, the player simply puts the land onto the battlefield. Since the land doesn't go on the stack, it is never a spell, and players can't respond to it with instants or activated abilities.

Since you can't respond to it, you can't counterspell it.
.. snip ..

305.9. If an object is both a land and another card type, it can be played only as a land. It can't be cast as a spell.

Even if you added another card type to the land somehow, you cannot cast it as a spell.
There are those who don't like to slog through the comprehensive rules, that's understandable, but Wizards was pretty clear in the Basic Rulebook on this point too:

Land
Although lands are permanents, they aren’t cast as spells. To play a land, just put it onto the battlefield. This happens immediately, so no player can do anything else in response. You can play a land only during one of your main phases while the stack is empty. You can’t play more than one land a turn.

Excellent point, ghoppe; I should have taken a moment to find the rule.  Thanks for fixing the gap.

Another major consequence of the 'land cannot be responded to' is that if you play a duplicate copy of a legendary land (e.g., Gaea's Cradle) then the player who owns the other copy doesn't have a chance to tap it for mana before the Legend Rule makes it vanish.

Yay! Now I don't feel bad for bumping an eight-month-old question just to fix the title. :)

@AlexP Woo and I totally got a Necromancer badge :)

@ghoppe it might be useful to add some further detail, there are multiple lands that are other card types already. such as Dryad Arbor, or the artifact lands like Ancient Den/Darksteel Citadel. i dont know of any tribal or planeswalker lands but who knows what the future holds?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


text:
Does card-counting work in online Blackjack?
I realize that card counting is strongly discouraged.
Are there systems in-place to prevent card-counting in online blackjack?

Online casinos use an 'infinite shoe', which would preclude any card counting, as they effectively draw random cards with a fixed probability.  This means it's possible (though very very very unlikely) for all the players at the table to draw the same card (e.g. everyone gets an eight of hearts).
This is done both for ease of the game developer (fixed probabilities are easier to code than simulating multiple decks) and to prevent card counting (which is unenforceable on-line).
So, in short, card-counting is completely ineffective on-line.

I believe your answer, it seems the most sensible, but do you have any sort of source?

A good source of evidence supporting this claim is the lengths to which people go to reverse engineer the random algorithm used on online sites.  Consider this paper:  http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.php  It's talking about guessing the RNG seed value.  While THIS type of cheating is possible, it's not card counting.

http://www.onlineblackjack.org/blog/?tag=random-number-generator Also talks about this.

I am a software developer so I can confirm that most if not all forms of online Black Jack will behave in the following way. As there are 52! (80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000) ways of shuffling a deck of cards making it nearly impossible to store simulated decks, they will probably have a deck list stored and cards taken at random from that list

Any online card game worth its salt is going to shoe in a brand new deck on every deal, every time.
No more card counting!

You can still count cards (slightly) within one deck. Often programs don't deal "cards" from "decks", they just pick a random card out of an array of possible choices, without eliminating that choice (meaning you could get repeated cards)

It depends completely on what algorithm is used for representing and dealing the cards.
A computer could simulate dozens of decks and could do a full deck shuffle after each hand.
So card counting can work, if the developer hasn't taken measures to counter it.

I would go a step further - it's much easier to do a complete shuffle as part of 'dealing out' each hand than it is to keep track of the cards remaining in the deck and shuffle only when the deck has been drained far enough.  (Contrast this with a live casino where shuffling is a relatively time-consuming process.)  Card counting should only work on an online casino if the shuffle/deal engine has been built to specifically allow for it.

@StevenStadnicki that depends a lot on the language used. In Python, using .shuffle .count .pop and .add methods, and a list variable per player and for the deck, it's trivial effort to program the half-the-deck accounting.  if (deck.count() < 27) deck = stockdeck  deck.shuffle()

To flesh out my comment into an answer: unless the online casino is specifically taking steps to encourage card counting (which is highly unlikely - there are reasons for physical casinos to do this, but none for virtual casinos; see below), then it's almost certain that they won't be countable.  The reason for this is the difference between shuffling online and shuffling off.  Offline, a good shuffle is a very time-consuming operation: even with the latest shuffling machines, it either requires 15-30 seconds with the shoe into a mechanical shuffler or the bookkeeping of rotating between several shuffled decks; since Blackjack is such a fast-paced game, this time can really add up.  Furthermore, shuffling puts a lot of wear on a deck, and so shuffling more often means that the casino is going through more decks - a relatively modest cost, but definitely a non-zero one.
By contrast, the shuffle operation for a virtual deck of cards is relatively quick (the most expensive operation is getting enough high-quality random numbers for the shuffle), and shuffling the deck each time is much easier to code than tracking dealt hands would be.  Here's the comparable rough pseudocode:
do {
  shuffle the deck;
  deal out a set of hands;
} (forever);

for the 'shuffle each time' method, versus
do {
  shuffle the deck;
  while ( there are still more than half the cards left in the deck ) do {
    deal out a set of hands;
  }
} (forever);

to simulate a 'traditional' blackjack dealing scheme.  There's not a lot of difference between the two, but the latter definitely has quite a bit more bookkeeping, and there's little upside for the casinos.
Note that it's not necessarily strictly true to say that live casinos actively discourage card-counting.  They may start to lean on you if you're too good at it, but for quite a while many of the smaller non-strip casinos were actually encouraging counting just because it was net positive EV for them: they drew more gamblers who thought they could cheat the casino by counting but couldn't actually do it well/correctly, enough to make up for the small handful of gamers who could actually do it well.  But this can't apply online, since an online casino can't police against gamers who use external aids (in this case, presumably software) to do accurate counting in the same way that a live casino can, so the percentage of 'skilled' vs. 'bad' counters is much much higher.

That depends a Lot on how you track cards in the first place, and the programming environment.

I agree that it's generally not too hard, but the point is that unless you're doing something really strange it's never less coding work to shuffle the deck every time compared to shuffling one time in N (for whatever N may be), and there's no real incentive for doing so.

in python, it's one extra line. And the incentive is in mirroring the standard play. Which may be a legal requirement in some places.


text:
Would spells played with Enchanted Evening in play trigger Mesa Enchantress?
With Enchanted Evening, all permanents are also enchantments.  Mesa Enchantress allows you to draw when you play an enchantment.  If I have both out, and play a creature, do I get to draw a card?

No, because Enchanted Evening does not change the card type of spells on the stack.
The Enchantress' Oracle wording makes this clearer:

Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, you may draw a card.

"Casting" refers to the action of putting a spell on the stack.
Enchanted Evening only affects permanents. It will do so from the very moment they enter the battlefield, so they enter the battlefield as enchantments. But the spell that creates the permanent (which is the game object that's represented by the card on the stack) isn't an enchantment spell.

Ahh, ok.  I was thinking "comes into play", not casting/playing

Yeah, the old use of "play" for "cast" makes for quite a bit of confusion. :/

Yes it does, this ruling hasn't changed, and probably wont since its very rare to use.
"Captain Sisay" Searches your library for legendary card.
A card retains all text relevant to the card anywhere except rfg. Note the card says 'All permanents are enchantments.' Not 'All permanents you control...' This ruling is used a lot pre-eight. And will more than likely not change since most formats that allow pre-eight cards are considered casual.
Hope this has helped.

I'm very confused. What does Captain Sisay have to do with this, or whether or not the permanent's under your control? What ruling? Is this the question you actually intended to answer, or did you accidentally answer a different question?

most formats pre-eight includes vintage and legacy, possibly the furthest formats from casual (at least, pricetag wise) in the entirety of MTG, im not sure what other formats you are thinking of that qualify these sets as casual only. The answer is wrong, as cards are only permanents if they are on the battlefield. "You control" only prevents the card affecting opponent's permanents. Cards in other zones are just that, cards, not permanents.


text:
Can I change the order of cards when they change zones?
While goldfishing with my new UG self-mill standard deck, I realized that I have a particular habit that is probably not legal. When I cast Forbidden Alchemy, I have a habit of unintentionally re-ordering (similar to how I shuffle my hand while playing) the four cards I'm looking at before selecting the one to put in my hand and putting the rest in my graveyard.
I realized that the order of things in your graveyard actually matters, and that what I was doing probably isn't kosher. When I'm looking at cards in a particular zone before moving them to another zone, can I change their order?

On the subject of graveyard order (and retiring it), I remember reading this article on mtg.com about how the Recover mechanic in Coldsnap was an update of a mechanic in Alliances where cards cared about graveyard order.

Fear not!

404.3. If an effect or rule puts two or more cards into the same graveyard at the same time, the owner of those cards may arrange them
  in any order.

In addition,

404.2. Each graveyard is kept in a single face-up pile. A player can examine the cards in any graveyard at any time but normally can't
  change their order. Additional rules applying to sanctioned
  tournaments may allow a player to change the order of cards in his or
  her graveyard.

Basically, in formats where no cards care about graveyard order, players don't have to care about graveyard order either. This rule was created in order to "retire" graveyard-ordering in a graceful way.
DCI-sanctioned tournaments follow section 3.14 of the MTR:

In formats involving only cards from Urza's Saga and later, players
  may change the order of their graveyard at any time. A player may not
  change the order of an opponent's graveyard.

Thus, you may freely rearrange your own graveyard in Standard, Extended, and Modern, as well as modern-day Limited formats. (Word of caution: doing this too often might come off as weird and cheaty. So feel free to arrange your graveyard with all the flashback cards or reanimation targets on top, but try not to get in the habit of fidgeting with it compulsively the way you might fidget with cards in hand.)
Note also that it's perfectly legitimate to spread out your graveyard, as long as you don't create confusion between it and other zones. For example, I like to tile my cards in columns so I can see all my options at a glance.

Nothing has ever made me happier than being able to continue shuffling those four cards when deciding which one I want.


text:
What is the most effective creature that can be resurrected from the graveyard in MTG?
I am currently designing a legacy deck around the new graveyard focused cards from Innistrad. My goal is to get cards in my own graveyard quickly and utilize those as best as I can. Innistrad offers a lot of different mechanics for that, but I am also looking for some really nasty creatures that I can resurrect early on with the good old Exhume or Victimize.
What are good creatures for that? I consider the following attributes important:

Must be able to enter the graveyard (no Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or similar creatures)
Must be hard to remove (I tried Ulamog's Crusher in the past, but a simple creature destroyer stops him instantly; creatures like Wurmcoil Engine worked way better for me; being hexproof or being indestructible would also be nice to keep my monster save from immediate destruction)
Must be able to end the game quickly or give me a solid advantage once it is out on the field, because the investment to pull this combo off successfully is rather huge (Sheoldred, Whispering One would complement my deck really well for example, but is too easy to remove with an appropriate creature destroyer)

I guess there is no perfect creature for what I am looking for, otherwise this mechanic would be overpowered. With a good starting hand (entomb + exhume + 2 swamps) I am able to bring any creature into play in round 2. Nevertheless I am looking for the best choice of creature for this task. What should I use?

The common name for this type of deck is 'Reanimator.' So a google for 'Legacy Reanimator' will get you what's popular for specific cards in the current metagame and from up to date sets.  I say that not to try to answer 'just google it' but that lists of cards can go out of date fast, so they're not great stack exchange answers.  Also the knowledge that the deck name to search for is 'Reanimator' is important :)
To try to make it an answer about the strategy/archetype more than a list that will go out of date with each new set:
1) Creatures with Shroud or Hexproof.  May be obvious but a lot of new players don't realize Shroud only functions on the battlefield and only applies to spells that say 'target.'  Creatures with Shroud are excellent entomb + exhume choices.
2) Creatures with an enters the battlefield effect that was at least a decent return on your mana even if they do get doombladed.  e.g., Bogardan Hellkite, Terastodon
3) Creatures that shut down your opponent's answers.  Iona, Shield of Emeria is the obvious go-to, but depending on your meta-game there can be more specific options.
4) Creatures that shut down your opponent's deck period.  Stormtide Leviathan doesn't have shroud, but lots of aggroy decks are counting on burn spells if they need to get rid of early creatures.  Even the Rubin Zoo variants usually only have 4 paths/swords so you've got ok odds game 1 when they don't know to mull aggressively for it.
5) Meta game choices.  You know your buddy is playing Stax?  How's he feel about Symbiotic Wurm turn 2?  Since you only need 1-ofs, you can have plenty of meta choices main deck.

Griselbrand

Griselbrand is the best reanimation target because he is Yawgmoth's Bargain: whatever else you need, he will find it for you.
In Legacy, which is the competitive format where you actually get to play Entomb and Exhume, Griselbrand is absolutely amazing because he can do practically everything, thanks to his ability to just draw a big chunk of your deck. In particular:

Griselbrand easily finds you free counterspells like Force of Will and Daze, which you can use to protect him or stop your opponent's gameplan.
Griselbrand easily sets up subsequent reanimation combos, allowing you to deploy a more specific card to soft-lock your opponent (and gets you the FoW to keep it in place, too).
Griselbrand himself usually swings life totals quickly enough to stabilize against aggressive decks.

If you've built your deck and sideboard correctly, resolving him is absolutely backbreaking to your opponent.
Ironically, Griselbrand almost singlehandedly drove Reanimator out of the metagame in Legacy, by making Sneak and Show so consistent that there's not much reason to go through your graveyard — but, whenever graveyard hate diminishes, top players often pick up the Exhume-based combo again in order to be faster than the Sneak and Show deck.
The Toolbox
That said, no one big fatty is going to be able to beat every deck (Emrakul, the Aeons Torn killing all your permanents comes close, though). Thus, Reanimator decks generally try to have a "toolbox" of different creatures to deal with different opponents. For example, a card like Elesh Norn can totally shut down aggro but is near-useless against a deck that's going to combo-kill you with sorceries next turn.
In addition to your opponents' decks, you have to think about the speed of your combo. A reanimator deck that reliably goes off on turn 2 can run different creatures from a reanimator deck that usually hits its combo on turn 5, or a combo-control deck that sandbags its combo until it has had a chance to wrath the board and run out the opponent's hand. A turn-2 Empyrial Archangel might buy you three turns of safety against an aggro deck that's just starting to develop its board position, whereas one you've reanimated on turn 5 could die the very next time your opponent attacks.
In Legacy, I think the general trend is something like this:

Griselbrand (formerly Jin-Gitaxias) in multiples. This is the engine of your deck. See all that stuff I said above. Jin is trickier to play than Griselbrand, since you only get your cards when you end the turn -- so you've gotta have FoW in hand, wait for your opponent to tap out, or run Jin into Swords to Plowshares and hope your opponent doesn't have it. This makes him much more fragile than Griselbrand; however, the payoff with him is potentially even bigger: if you can get him to stick until your opponent's cleanup step, you'll force your opponent to discard his entire hand.
Some combination of Elesh Norn, Blazing Archon, Empyrial Archangel, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind, tuned to the creature decks you expect to face. Norn board-wipes weenie decks and greatly depowers any creature deck; Sphinx trumps any creatures-and-burn deck that doesn't have Swords to Plowshares for it; Empyrial Archangel is a strong card against aggro-control decks that can remove the other fatties but don't have enough bursty damage to kill her with one attack; Blazing Archon is vulnerable to removal but can protect you from arbitrarily-large creatures, including Eldrazi.
Possibly an Iona, Shield of Emeria somewhere in your 75. She's one of the best soft-lock cards, even against heavily multi-colored decks.
Possibly an Ashen Rider or Tidespout Tyrant as multifunction removal. Eternal Magic is full of game-breaking artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, and lands, but too diverse to justify maindecking narrow answer cards. These guys can help you deal with a variety of troublesome permanents without diluting your deck.
Possibly an Inkwell Leviathan somewhere in your 75, mainly to put a clock on control decks. You don't really, really need this since you can use Force to give your Griselbrand virtual shroud.

At least one of these should be a non-Legendary creature, to give you a threat your opponent can't get rid of with Karakas.
Before Griselbrand, there used to be room for one oddball choice, like Sheoldred for long-game advantage or a Platinum Angel to stop combo decks that don't interact with the battlefield, somewhere in your 75. These seem like a "last 5%" kind of thing: they might be clutch in a certain really specific matchup, but you won't play them in most matches.
Even though we're talking about a combo that can easily go off on turn 2, the key thing to remember is that most of these decks are effectively control decks. Thoughtseize, Duress, Force of Will, and Daze (and Mental Misstep, when it was available) are just as critical as the combo cards and the reanimation targets. Show and Tell in the sideboard is also standard, for dodging dedicated hate.
Some example decklists I'm using as a basis:

Reid Duke's winning Griselbrand list from a June 2012 SGC Open
Josh Weinundy's winning list from an October 2011 SGC Open
Christopher Walton's top-8 list from the same even
A decklist from the Mental Misstep era
Andreas Müller's GP-winning list from 2010, predating New Phyrexia
Owen Turtenwald's 10-th place list at GP Atlanta, with discussion
Robert Cucunato's 1st-place list from an October 2013 SGC Open

What does "in your 75" mean?

@John 60-card deck + 15-card sideboard = 75 cards. "In your 75" means the card is worth having available but you need to evaluate the metagame (i.e. your expected competition) to determine whether it's worth starting with or only something you have ready for games 2-3.

Why Sphinx of the Steel Wind over Akroma, Angel of Wrath?  Does lifelink matter that much if you already have Griselbrand?

How do you feel about a turn 3 Emrakul?

Cast Entomb, putting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into your graveyard
Put Emrakul's graveyard triggered ability onto the stack
Cast Goryo's Vengeance, targeting Emrakul
Swing!

Through the Breach can also be used for redundancy if you can fit red in there.
I realize that this is definitely an all-in strategy (if Goryo's Vengeance is countered, then your graveyard and all of your other targets are shuffled in with no Emrakul on the board to make up for it) but still is pretty cool, I think!

+1 because I was about to get all self-righteous with "but Emrakul doesn't stay in the graveyard!" until I read your actual combo.  Extremely convoluted, but entertaining!

If you wanna be super mean and you do fit red in there, Fling.

Your opponent is going to have to topdeck something pretty good to beat you when you're outdrawing him 8 cards to one every turn.  Insult to injury...

Note that the hand size restriction generally won't become relevant until the end of your opponent's next turn, so he still has one turn to find a solution or finish his combo.

It can be flashed, so it can be played at the end of an opponent's turn.  This way, their response is severely limited.

@Stephen He can be, but 10 mana is a lot to pay for the privilege. You'll need an instant-speed reanimation spell to get him into play on an opponent's end step. Jin's flash is most relevant with Sword of Feast and Famine, letting you float 5 mana during the combat step, untap all your lands, and then cast him after damage is dealt.

6) Creatures that get more creatures out of your graveyard every turn: Reya Dawnbringer, Sheoldred, Whispering One
7) Creatures that have a strong "enters the battlefield" effect, like Angel of Despair
8) Creatures that stop weenie hordes, like Blazing Archon
9) In a pinch, an emergency break: Platinum Angel


text:
In Magic free-for-all multiplayer, what happens when someone dies?
In a free-for-all multiplayer Magic game, what happens when someone dies?
Specifically:

What happens to spells they've cast that are on the stack?
What happens to enchantments they have cast onto permanents that other people control?

Specifically, if player A (at 1 life with 3 creatures) casts Massacre Wurm and Player B flashes out his own Massacre Wurm in response, what happens? Also, player A had previously cast Pacifism on one of Player B's creatures. In the end, what is the result?

Strongly related: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/4749/in-mtg-what-happens-when-a-player-loses-in-multiplayer

@Jefromi Good catch. That is the same question!

There's a whole procedure for this in the multiplayer section of the comp rules. The big take-away is this: as soon as you die, all your stuff leaves the game -- then, after that, if you would still control anything (e.g. a permanent you stole from someone else), that thing is exiled; any triggered abilities you would own don't occur.

800.4. Unlike two-player games, multiplayer games can continue after one or more players have left the    game.
800.4a. When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the
         game, any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end, and all spells and
         abilities controlled by that player on the stack cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still
         controlled by that player, those objects are exiled. This is not a state-based action. It happens as
         soon as the player leaves the game. If the player who left the game had priority at the time he or
         she left, priority passes to the next player in turn order who’s still in the game.
Example: Alex casts Control Magic, an Aura that reads, “You control enchanted
                  creature,” on Bianca’s Wall of Wood. If Alex leaves the game, so does Control Magic,
                  and Wall of Wood reverts to Bianca’s control. If, instead, Bianca leaves the game, so
                  does Wall of Wood, and Control Magic is put into Alex’s graveyard.
Example: Alex casts Threaten, which reads, in part, “Untap target creature and gain
                  control of it until end of turn,” targeting Bianca’s Wall of Wood. If Alex leaves the
                  game, Threaten’s change-of-control effect ends and Wall of Wood reverts to Bianca’s
                  control.
Example: Alex casts Bribery, which reads, “Search target opponent’s library for a
                  creature card and put that card onto the battlefield under your control. Then that player
                  shuffles his or her library,” targeting Bianca. Alex puts Wall of Wood onto the
                  battlefield from Bianca’s library. If Bianca leaves the game, Wall of Wood also leaves
                  the game. If, instead, Alex leaves the game, Wall of Wood is exiled.
Example: Alex controls Genesis Chamber, which reads, “Whenever a nontoken creature
                  enters the battlefield, if Genesis Chamber is untapped, that creature’s controller puts a
                  1/1 colorless Myr artifact creature token onto the battlefield.” If Alex leaves the game,
                  all such Myr tokens that entered the battlefield under Alex’s control leave the game, and
                  all such Myr tokens that entered the battlefield under any other player’s control remain
                  in the game.
800.4b. If an object would change to the control of a player who has left the game, it doesn’t. If a
         token would enter the battlefield under the control of a player who has left the game, no token is
         created. If a player would be controlled by a player who has left the game, he or she isn’t.
800.4c If an object that would be owned by a player who has left the game would be created in any
         zone, it isn’t created. If a triggered ability that would be controlled by a player who has left the
         game would be put onto the stack, it isn’t put on the stack.
Example: Astral Slide is an enchantment that reads, “Whenever a player cycles a card,
                  you may exile target creature. If you do, return that creature to the battlefield under its
                  owner’s control at the beginning of the next end step.” During Alex’s turn, Bianca uses
                  Astral Slide’s ability to exile Alex’s Hypnotic Specter. Before the end of that turn,
                  Bianca leaves the game. At the beginning of the end step, the delayed triggered ability
              generated by Astral Slide that would return Hypnotic Specter to play triggers, but it isn’t
              put on the stack. Hypnotic Specter never returns to the battlefield.
800.4d. If combat damage would be assigned to a player who has left the game, that damage simply    isn’t assigned.
800.4e. If an object requires a player who has left the game to make a choice, the controller of the    object chooses another player to make
  that choice. If the original choice was to be made by an    opponent
  of the controller of the object, that player chooses another opponent
  if possible.
800.4f. If an effect requires information about a specific player, the effect uses the current    information about that player if he or she
  is still in the game; otherwise, the effect uses the last    known
  information about that player before he or she left the game.
800.4g. If a player leaves the game during his or her turn, that turn continues to its completion    without an active player. If the active
  player would receive priority, instead the next player in    turn
  order receives priority, or the top object on the stack resolves, or
  the phase or step ends,    whichever is appropriate.
800.4h. When a player leaves the game, objects that player owns in the ante zone do not leave the    game. This is an exception to rule 800.4a. See rule 407, “Ante.”
800.4i. In a Planechase game, if the player designated as the planar controller would leave the game,    instead the next player in turn
  order that wouldn’t leave the game becomes the planar controller, then the old planar controller leaves the game. See rule 309.5.

So, in your example, it's actually pretty straightforward:
Alex's Massacre Wurm is on the stack. Bianca flashes in her own Massacre Wurm (thanks to Vedalken Orrery or whatever). Alex has no further response, so we resolve Bianca's Massacre Wurm. It comes into play and kills Alex's creatures, putting him at below 0 life.
When Alex loses the game, his Massacre Wurm is still on the stack. It leaves the game directly from the stack, without ever resolving. Poof!
When Alex loses the game, his Pacifism also leaves the game. Its effect on the creature it was enchanting is gone, just like if it had been removed any other way.
Here's the tricky part about these rules... Let's say Alex also had an Oblivion Ring that he had previously used to exile Bianca's Liliana of the Veil. The O-Ring leaves the game, but does not trigger any effects when it does. Including its own. So Bianca's Liliana remains exiled forever.
Also, note that, assuming it was Alex's turn when he died, the other players play out the rest of the phases without an active player. If Bianca had some mana open and she wanted to cast another spell before her own turn, for instance, she could still do it on now-dead Alex's end step.

To check with Oblivion Ring, is this because the returning portion is a separate triggered ability? Conversely, for Aligned Hedron Network, everything would come back because the return condition is built into the exile, rather than a separate trigger? Or Palace Jailer's exiled card would continue watching for its return condition?


text:
How do you tell the difference between Alpha and Beta Star Trek CCG?
The 1994 Decipher Star Trek CCG Premier/1st Edition cards were released in black border limited and in white border which I've only recently found described as both alpha and beta releases.
I'm processing a huge lot of these cards, is there any way to distinguish between the alpha edition and the beta edition?
I know it's a trivial value issue, but I strongly prefer to put the right collections together.

The white bordered alpha edition was produced in 1994 and bears 1994 on the copyright line.
The white bordered beta edition was produced in 1995 and bears 1995 on the copyright line.
The sets are otherwise indistinguishable.  Additionally there is a silver bordered collector's edition that was distributed in a metal container.
The cards with changes between Alpha and Beta are:
ARMUS - SKIN OF EVIL — changed lore from "Malevolent being formed when the inhabitants of Vagra II rid themselves of all the evil they have inside." to "A malevolent being was formed when the inhabitants of Vagra II rid themselves of all the evil they had inside."
DISTORTION FIELD — changed "prevents any beam down here" to "...prevents beam down/up here..."
EMERGENCY TRANSPORTER ARMBANDS — changed "Beam Personnel up or down at any time, even during a battle before the winner is determined." to "Beam your Personnel up or down at any time, except during a dilemma (unless specifically permitted). May be used during battle before the winner is determined."
EVACUATION — changed "Strength" to "STRENGTH"
FIRESTORM — changed "... unless thermal deflectors present. Discard dilemma." to "...unless thermal deflectors present OR Away Team escapes using emergency transporter armbands. Discard dilemma."
GIUSTI — corrected misspelling of "consol" to "console"
**INVESTIGATE TIME CONTINUUM — corrected misspelling of "Dividia" to "Devidia"
KHITOMER RESEARCH — changed from Romulan to Romulan and Klingon mission
LWAXANNA TROI — corrected misspelling of "Lwaxanna" to "Lwaxana"
MENDON — corrected misspelling of "specialist" to "specialists"
'T'PAN — added MINDMELD skill
THE JUGGLER — corrected misspelling of "Lwaxanna" to "Lwaxana"
TORAL — changed "...bidding of half sisters, Lursa and B'Etor." to "...bidding of Duras's sisters, Lursa and B'Etor."
TSIOLKOVSKY INFECTION — added "(Not cumulative.)"
U.S.S. OBERTH — moved staff icon to center of art block.
WESLEY CRUSHER — removed apostrophe from "Protege' of the Traveler." to read "Protege of the Traveler."
WIND DANCER — corrected misspelling of "Lwaxanna" to "Lwaxana"

That is not the only difference: 17 cards where changed to correct some (mostly minor) errors: http://stccg1e.wikia.com/wiki/Premiere

@RoToRa I was mostly concerned with identifying the cards, however, your link is excellent information.  If you put it in an answer, I'd certainly give you an upvote.

I thought white was alpha and black was beta...When they first came out in Lexington Kentucky they were white bordered. a year or so later they came out with black border, same cards as the white border but calling them beta.

The black boarder cards are exclusively referred to as "Limited", and white boarder as "Unlimited".  Only the Unlimited are affected by the question of Alpha or Beta :)

I have 3 T'Pan . 1 of them only has Science for skills while 2 of them have Science and Mindmeld. I guess the just Science one is a miss print!

T'Pan is listed in the cards noted in my original answer.