text:
What is the smallest territory in go that can be successfully invaded?
Let's stay one player has a corner of the board totally enclosed, but with no stones in it, like this:
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . X .
$$ | X X X X X X X .
$$ | . . . . . . . .

How big does this space have do be before the other player can successfully invade it?  Successfully invade here means build an alive structure despite the owner of the territory defending it move-for-move with expert play on both sides.  The defender's surrounding stones should be assumed immortal.
It seems obvious that 4x4 and smaller is not invadable, and I strongly suspect a 5x5 space isn't invadable either.
This page on Sensei's Library suggests that a 6x6 space is not invadable under optimal play, but there is some dispute.  Is that true?  How about 6x7 or 7x7?

Am I right to think you mean the invader has to create a pass-alive shape, while the defender’s stones are presumed immortal?

For clarity, the board image should be extended to the right and downward, including the implication that the black stones cannot be killed. A question to Zags: will black defend the space?

@PJTrail.  Yes, exactly.  I'll add that clarification

@fred_dot_u Assume black will defend the space move-for-move.

I've seen and played a version of this were you put the black stones along the center lines of a regular 19x19 board so you carve out a 9x9 space. White is then supposed to create a living group inside. For players of equal strength this is approximately a fair game. I'm not sure what the result of perfect play for either side would be but I'm pretty sure this is the edge case. So 8x8 should be killable if both sides know what they are doing and 10x10 should live. The interesting lines of play for a 9x9 space usually start with white playing the 3-3 point and black answering on the 2-2 point.


text:
Planeswalker Infinite Ultimate Combo
Infinite combos in Magic are awesome (if you're a Johnny).  Planeswalker ultimate abilities are awesome (if you're a Timmy).  Combining the two would be even more awesome.  Then you could have a billion emblems from Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, or Kiora, the Crashing Wave.  Because dealing a billion damage isn't as cool as doing it every time you cast a spell.  And getting a billion krakens isn't as cool as getting them every turn.
What's the fewest number of cards (besides the planeswalker) that allows you to activate a planeswalker's ultimate ability an arbitrary number of times?

The simplest combo in general is 3 cards: Gilder Bairn, Banishing Knack, and Gemstone Array works for all planeswalkers.

Explanation
There are 3 card combos around the The Chain Veil (all you need to add is infinite mana and artifact untapping, such Astral Cornucopia with 4 counters and Filigree Sages, or the combo suggested by @Andrew).  However, these combos only work for planeswalkers with a "+x" ability that won't kill either you or your opponent in the process of using them repeatedly, so it's incompatible with planeswalkers like Chandra, Bold Pyromancer, Sarkhan the Mad, and Jace Beleren.
Gilder Bairn, Banishing Knack, and a Gemstone Array works for all planeswalkers.  Gilder Bairn creates infinite mana with Gemstone Array (provided you have a way to tap the Bairn) and can also pump a planeswalker to have enough counters to use its ultimate the turn it enters the battlefield.  Banishing Knack provides both a way to tap the Bairn and a way to bounce and replay the planeswalker, which causes it to be a new object and thus resets the count on how many times it has used a loyalty ability this turn.  In order for this to work, you need sufficient starting counters on the Gemstone Array and some cheap permanent you can cast repeatedly to bounce with the Bairn while building up infinite mana on the Gemstone Array, noting that the planeswalker you plan to play can be this permanent.  The number of starting counters you need on the array to combo off is 7 + [the cost of your cheapest non-land permanent].

Special Cases
There are fewer-card combos with particular planeswalkers, the clear winner of which is 1 card plus the planeswalker: Doubling Season with Jace, Cunning Castaway.
You can also do this in Commander with 2 cards if Teferi, Temporal Archmage is your commander.  All you need is The Chain Veil and Gilded Lotus on the battlefield (as well as 2 lands) and Teferi in the command zone.  This works because The Chain Veil activations apply to later instances of Teferi that will be cast, so by repeatedly killing him via his "-1" ability to untap The Chain Veil and your mana sources, and replaying him from the command zone, you are gaining more mana than you are spending on the extra commander tax.  As an added bonus, you get to draw your deck while doing this.
Also, credit to @ArcanistLupus for pointing out that an infinite turn combo in a deck with a shuffleback creature in your deck (such as Emrakul, the Aeons Torn) can technically be a replacement for a combo around The Chain Veil (it allows you to use the ultimate on a planeswalker with a non-lethal "+1" ability).  There exist two-card combos that do this, such as Beacon of Tomorrows and Planar Portal.

Note that Voltaic Construct only untaps artifact creatures

Voltaic Construct + Gilded Lotus isn't an infinite mana combo, and Voltaic Construct can't untap Chain Veil anyway.

@BenjaminCosman Whoops; I misremebered the ability.  This has been removed

3 cards, in addition to the walker(s) you want to be hitting the ultimate of:

Tezzeret the Seeker
The Chain Veil
Everflowing Chalice

Chalice needs at least 4 counters, to pay for the veil, tezzeret +1 untaps both chalice and veil allowing infinite uses of veil which resets both tezzeret and the other walker(s), letting you rebuild the + abilities on those walkers until they ultimate again and again.

Plus lands to pay for them.

@Andrew Good answer.  Only works on planeswalkers with a +1 that doesn't kill your or your opponent though.

So, basically, those cards plust 8 mana are needed (8 mana for the 4 kicks of 2 each). With the 8 mana play chalice, use Tezzeret +1 untap chalice, produce 4 mana with chalice to pay for veil, use +1 to untap both, repeat

@DarkCygnus There are plenty of ways to cheat Everflowing Chalice up to 4 counters without actually paying the mana; I think leaving how to get those counters as an exercise for the reader is more prudent than trying to enumerate them, or worse, imply that mana is the only way to get it done.

@KRyan yes, this post does not ask "List the ways to play Everflowing Chalice", and as a MTG ignorant I am sure there are alternative ways to play it than depending solely on mana (perhaps one of those cards that +1s the number of counters on a card)

@Zags true, but no matter what you need a way to replace the counters, so you either flicker walkers that start able to ult, or reset the use of walkers with a plus, the second is much more common kind of walker.

@DarkCygnus Usually when talking combos you only refer to the cards involved in the combo itself in magic, not the cards it took to get them there, that would mean including mana to cast, the creatures and spells that protected the walkers until you could go off, tutors to find the walkers and artifacts involved, etc.

Ajani, Wise Counselor with 10 loyalty counters, Sage of Hours, and at least 30 life.
Step one: Activate Ajani's ultimate, and place 30 +1/+1 counters on Sage of Hours.
Step two: Activate Sage of Hours and gain 6 additional turns.
Step three: Spend five turns adding counters to Ajani
Step four: Lather, rinse, repeat.
This isn't technically a recipe for infinite ultimates, because eventually you'll draw your entire deck and lose.  But that can be patched with a few "When [Cardname] is put into a graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into its owner's library." creatures in your deck.  Just discard them for having >7 cards in hand, and your library becomes infinitely renewable.
Time Vault + anything that repeatedly untaps artifacts also works here, if you don't mind playing with a card banned or restricted in all formats (for this very reason)

I would admit that it's a three card combo instead of calling it a two card combo that requires a third card.

If we're going infinite turn combos, Beacon of Tomorrows + Planar Portal may be logistically simpler.

Also worth noting that this only works on planeswalkers with a "+1" ability that doesn't kill your or your opponent.

@zags Nexus of Fate instead of Beacon works too, or Panoptic Mirror and Time Warp (or any other extra turn spell that doesn't lose the game at end of turn) so long as it's not commander where mirror is banned.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Can you activate one viper twice with the command location?
The Command location has the ability:

Activate up to 2 unmanned vipers.

Then the rules say:

Each viper may be activated any number of times during a
player’s turn

Can you activate the same viper twice?
Which of the following is what the command location does?

Chose up to two unmanned vipers.  Activate each of them once.
Perform up to two activations of unmanned vipers.  The same unmanned viper may be activated more than once.

You can activate the same viper twice
The FAQ says that you can activate the same viper twice (Option #2).

Q: Can a player use the “Command” location to launch a viper and then move or attack with the same viper?
A: Yes. There is no limit to the number of times an unmanned viper may be activated per turn.

To make any sense of the rules, they say:

When a player activates a viper, he must choose one of the
following options:

Launch a Viper: ...

Move a Viper: ...

Attack with a Viper: ...

Essentially, the way that the game works is that each unmanned viper activation happens with no memory of which viper was previously activated.  So you can chose the same viper as the "second viper" to activate with command.
It would be better worded as "Perform up to two unmanned viper activations".
This also implies that Lee Adama's once per game ability of activating 6 unmanned vipers can also activate one unmanned viper 6 times, or spread out the activations among a set of vipers.
Why pilot a viper then?
If you can get two activations of a viper with command, it may seem like piloting a viper (where your action turns into only one activation) isn't worth it.  Piloted vipers are still worth it under this reading for a number of reasons:

You can use your movement to move the viper
You get extra benefits from the Evasive Maneuvers piloting card
You can use the Maximum Firepower piloting card
Character abilities (such as Lee Adama and Kara Thrace) give benefits to piloting vipers
Other piloting cards from the expansions give additional benefits to piloted vipers

While a majority of the above reasons involve using piloting cards, note that the only people allowed to pilot vipers in the first place are those with piloting in their skill set.
Caveat
What's strange is the Kara Thrace ally card, which says:

Skilled Pilot - Choose 1 unmanned viper to activate 4 times

Compare this to the Aaron Kelly ally card, which says:

Landing Signal Officer - Activate up to 4 unmanned vipers

The above interpretation makes Aaron Kelly's ability strictly better than Kara Thrace's as he can activate the same viper 4 times or spread out the activations.
However, this example doesn't invalidate this interpretation of the rule because there are other examples where one ally card has a strictly better ability than another ally card.  For example, the Galen Tyrol ally has "Senior Chief Petty Officer - Repair up to 2 locations on Galactica or up to 4 unmanned vipers", which is strictly better than the Diana Seelix ally ability "Avionics Specialist - Move 3 vipers from the 'Damaged Vipers' box to the 'Reserves'".

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


text:
How do Faceless One and The Prismatic Piper work?
Faceless One and The Prismatic Piper are both legendary creatures (and in one case also a background) with the following ability:

If CARDNAME is your commander, choose a color before the game begins. CARDNAME is the chosen color.

It's clear these cards are designed to allow for adding an additional color to a deck's color identity, but how do they work in terms of rules mechanics?
For a reductionist example, let's say I build a mono-blue deck with Faceless One as the commander.  This deck is a valid deck if I declare "blue" as the pre-game color for Faceless One.  But what exactly in the rules stops me from choosing "green" between building the deck and starting the game?  I intuit that I'm not allowed to choose "green" as that would make the deck illegal, but how is choosing "green" pre-game different from using Prismatic Lace to change the commander's color to green after the game starts (which is legal)?

Even without the specific rule quoted, it seems obvious to me that if you built a deck with one color and then chose a different color later, the deck would be illegal because the color identity of the commander does not match the color identity of the deck. But if you built a deck with a colorless color identity, then you could at any time declare your commander to be any color and it would be valid.

The rules in question are the following (emphasis mine):

903.4a Color identity is established before the game begins.
903.4b If a commander has a static ability that causes a player to choose its color before the game begins, that choice applies during deck construction and throughout the game, even as the commander changes zones. That choice affects the commander’s color identity. The player reveals that choice as they put their commander into the command zone before the game begins. See rules 103.2c and 607.2p.

So, it's not the case that the ability lets you pick an arbitrary color before each game but rather the color you chose for that commander is established as part of making the deck list.
These abilities are different from color changing effects in game because color identity is established "before the game begins", i.e. during deck construction and isn't modified after that.  As a result of this, the choice of color for Faceless One will affect the types of mana that can be produced by Command Tower whereas using Prismatic Lace on a commander will not.


text:
What food(s) do vegetables in Agricola represent?
Most aspects of the food conversions in Agricola have fairly justifiable real-world bases.  Given the game is set in Central Europe around 1670 CE (per the rulebook introduction), it's fairly reasonable from a health standpoint that you need to be able to cook meat to eat it safely (hence, you can only convert animals to food with a fireplace or cooking hearth).  Additionally, while you can eat grain raw, you would certainly get more nutrition out of it by cooking it (hence you can use bake bread to turn grain into more food than the default 1:1).
Given that, what foods are vegetables supposed to represent that they can produce as much food as grain when cooked?  The pieces are orange, which is evocative of carrots, but that just doesn't make sense from a calorie math standpoint.  1 cup of carrots have a tenth the calories of a cup of grain (45 Calories vs 450 Calories), so the part where you get the same amount of food from cooking vegetables as baking grain with a fireplace (2 each) or a cooking hearth (3 each) seems very hard to justify.
Are there any sources that explain what the vegetables are supposed to represent in the game?  Baring that, what foods have the right calorie density and color to be the vegetables represented in the game?

There are several niche components in the game that make it clear "vegetables" are actually a mix of things.  There are the minor improvements "Lettuce Patch" and "Turnip Field" that allow planting vegetables on them, and the occupation "Carrot Farmer" that gives you vegetables.  Unfortunately, none of these are sufficiently high calorie density to make sense with the games mechanics (especially not lettuce patch yielding 4 food per vegetable).
My best explanation is that some of the vegetables are potatoes.  Potatoes are botanically a vegetable and actually yield more calories per acre than to grain (source).  The game is set post Colombian exchange, so these would be in Europe already.  Most potato skins are in the tan-orange-brown range in addition to sweet potatoes which have a bright orange center.  Potatoes alone would actually be too high in calorie density, given you can turn a single field's harvest of grain into more food (max 1 grain -> 5 food with a clay oven) than a single field's harvest of vegetable (max 1 vegetable -> 3 food with a cooking hearth or 4 food with a lettuce patch).  But potatoes mixed with other lower-calorie items (such as lettuce, turnips, and carrots) grown for nutritional diversity could balance out to the right number.

While potatoes were present they were not a wide spread staple in Central Europe until CE1700-1715 with their use spreading primarily from the cold northern countries southwards over time.

@KMR that could explain why vegetables don't show up until one of the later rounds of the game


text:
Why do some cards say "choose target"?
In Magic, most cards that interact with a specific card will target it.  For example, Giant Growth (emphasis is mine):

Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.

There are lots of rules around targeting, and even abilities that interact with targeting, like hexproof and shroud.  Some cards sidestep these rules by having you "choose" a permanent without targeting it.  Of note, these cards can still effect creatures with shroud or hexproof.  For example, Azra Oddsmaker (emphasis is mine):

At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may discard a card. If you do, choose a creature. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player this turn, you draw two cards.

Additionally, the rules for targeting explicitly mention that targeting involves choosing:

115.1. Some spells and abilities require their controller to choose one or more targets for them.

So far, it seems like there are two intentionally different modes of selecting what a spell effects:

Targeting (which implies choosing)
Choosing without targeting.

But then there are cards that say "choose target".  For example, Moonlight Hunt (emphasis is mine):

Choose target creature you don’t control. Each creature you control that’s a Wolf or a Werewolf deals damage equal to its power to that creature.

What is the purpose of the wording "choose target"?  Targeting already involves choosing, so why the double reference?

As a side note, cards like Azra Oddsmaker that don't actually use the word 'target' do not need you to announce the chosen creature when the ability is put on the stack (as a target would), but instead that choice is made on resolution. For cards like Azra Oddsmaker that have choices on resolution (in this case, you only choose a creature if you discard a card), so this is an intended functional difference, and I would assume those cards being able to work around Shroud/Hexproof is a side effect.

The difference is in how the wording works in the entire spell or ability, and if text on that card needs to refer back to the target.
Look at your examples, Giant Growth is very simple self contained effect, it makes you target a creature and applies an effect (+3/+3 until end of turn) to it. Moonlight Hunt on the other hand later refers to "that creature" in the second sentence where it applies the effect.
The reason this was done was to be able to move the targeting instructions to the beginning of the spell, rather than in the middle or the end, to make the targeting clearer at the beginning. Moonlight Hunt could have been written the other way but it would be more awkward:

Each creature you control that's a Wolf or Werewolf deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.

Moonlight Hunt is still relatively simple, but the targeting is at the end in that form and could be read as allowing different targets for each wolf/werewolf. It's even worse on other spells with the same structure, like Spark of Creativity:

Choose target creature. Exile the top card of your library. You may have Spark of Creativity deal damage to that creature equal to the exiled card's converted mana cost. If you don't, you may play that card until end of turn.

Would become

Exile the top card of your library. You may have Spark of Creativity deal damage to target creature equal to the exiled card's converted mana cost. If you don't, you may play that card until end of turn.

With the option of doing damage to a creature or playing the revealed card, it would be confusing to some people in this wording if you had to choose a target on casting Spark of Creativity or during resolution. Moving the targeting to the beginning of the spell makes it clear that there does need to be a creature to target and that you must choose that target when casting the spell, so the spell can't be used for the pseudo-draw without legal targets in play. (This would be true even if it had been written in the middle of the card, but it's less clear that way)

Other spells like Giant Growth could have been written this way too, but it's unnecessary:

Choose target creature. That creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.

Or Doom Blade:

Choose target nonblack creature. Destroy that creature.

There's no ambiguity removed, no improved clarity writing this way, and no need to split the targeting from the effect in the wording, particularly with the targeting already at (or almost at) the beginning of the spell.

The wording on Moonlight Hunt is probably also to avoid newer players thinking they can choose a different target for each wolf/werewolf

@MatthewJensen yes, good example of the problem. There's a lot of potential confusion in the cards that have "Choose target X" at the beginning rather than in the body.

@Andrew, really? I thought what Matthew was saying that having the "Choose target creature." in the beginning makes it much more clear that it's the one and only target each time that gets the damage. That's how it reads to me, too. Though I might have worded it as "[Each Wolf deals damage] to the chosen target", instead of "... to that creature". (Now it's "each creature deals damage to that creature" -- some joker might read it so that each creature damages itself.)

@ilkkachu there's a lot of potential confusion in the cards that have "Choose target X" at the beginning rather than in the body [if they had written it the other way].

@Andrew, ah, right!

So, in essence, "target X" is always short for "chose target X", and the long-form is only used for reading clarity.

Might want to say that even if the targeting is written in the middle of the text, you must select all targets when casting the spell.

Targeting is something a spell or ability does, not something a player does.
To avoid ambiguity, a player never "targets" a spell, even if that spell "targets" a target. Instead, the player "chooses a target for" the spell, per comp rule 115.1:

115.1. Some spells and abilities require their controller to choose one or more targets for them.

115.1a An instant or sorcery spell is targeted if its spell ability identifies something it will affect by using the phrase “target [something],” where the “something” is a phrase that describes an object and/or player.

The player's choice is always described with the word choose, even if the spell or ability doesn't actually include the instruction to "choose a target". In the case of Giant Growth, the effect is simple enough that choosing the target can be implied. In the case of Moonlight Hunt they felt that explicitly choosing the target would make the text more clear, but that doesn't actually change the actions the player takes.
So to answer the question, "if you are already 'targeting', why do you need to also 'choose'?", you, the player are not targeting and never will be. Spells target; players choose.

This doesn't seem to address the main point of the question, which is to ask why some cards use the "choose target" wording and others don't.


text:
Can a permanent be both green and colorless?
Let's start with the obvious; I know the rules say an object can't be both green and colorless:

105.2. An object can be one or more of the five colors, or it can be no color at all.
105.2c A colorless object has no color.

However, there might be exceptions:

101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence.

The situation that I want is for Magic to create a sensible interpretation for the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously".  I'm most of the way there:

Well of Ideas is the "ideas"
Opalescence makes it a creature
Sleep can now affect it, making it "sleep"
Furious Bellow can now target it making it's sleep "furious"
Moonlace and Prismatic Lace can make it colorless and green respectively

The problem is there isn't a way for it to be green and colorless at the same time.  Is there any card that has been printed that can get me there?  I'm open to creative solutions as this is obviously not a competitive deck.
For example, if there are no abilities like "XXX counts as colorless in addition to any colors that it has", are there name changing effects that could put "green" in the name?

I wonder what would happen when we use moonlace on a creature that has an enchantment that tells that the creature has a specific color. For instance witness protection "Enchanted creature loses all abilities and is a green and white Citizen creature...". Does this remove the effect of the enchantment?

It is logically impossible for a card to both have a color and be colorless, according to the definition provided in rule 105.2c.
If you broaden your criteria for what matches your objective, one option is to use a creature with Devoid that has green in its cost, such as Blisterpod. A card like that is actually colorless, but the play constraints that its cost creates are more similar to green cards than to most other colorless cards.
You can also put the color in the name. The card Spy Kit gives a creature the names of every non-legendary creature card. There are no cards with the word colorless in their name, but there are 4 non-legendary creatures with the word "Green" in their names. A creature equipped with Spy Kit will have all of those names.

It's not logically impossible at all.  A valid card could have an ability like: "XXX counts as colorless in addition to any colors that it has".  My question is whether any abilities like this exist.

Colorless means "has no colors". The card text you describe would be logically inconsistent: an object cannot simultaneously have colors and not have colors.

@murgatroid99 an object that has simultaneously colors and does not have colors, that would be inconsistent, but it doesn't mean that such inconsistency might not occur.

It does in fact mean that. One of the basic axioms of logical systems is the Law of noncontradiction, and the Magic rules are such a system.


text:
How are M:TG cards printed in regards to the rarity of each card?
I've seen pictures of the source sheets. They pack many different cards per plate, not one card repeated a hundread times in the same plate.
Suppose that a set contains 300 cards and there are 3 plates with 100 cards each. If there are 100 rares, 100 uncommons, and 100 commons, I'd imagine that there is one plate with rares only, one with uncommons only, the third with commons only. Is this how they distribute the cards' rarities?

Which game are you asking about?

MTG. But, rarity is a card quality present in all TCG.

Yes, but each game has it's own printing process.

Re "If the distribution of rarity is 1:1:1", Clearly not. A booster comes with one rare or mythic rare, three uncommons and 15 commons. For each 8 packs, the rare is a mythic rare, so the ratio is 1:7:24:120.

@ikegami 11 commons, right? (And the land, unless the set has weird things going on.)

oops, yeah. 1:7:24:88. Yeah, some sets vary this a little. And I didn't count the foil, which probably has the same ratio?

Check out this article on how magic cards are made:
Link
From this, we can identify several things:

Magic cards are printed by a company called Carta Mundi.

It appears Magic cards are printed in sheets.  The oversized cards (from the commander sets) appear to be printed on 7x7 sheets and regular sized cards are printed on 11x11 sheets (though the Commander set may have been 10x10 so it was one sheet per deck).

Not just are magic cards printed in a quantity distribution of 1:7:24:88 (mythic:rare:uncommon:common) for rarity, but they are also printed in different quantities by language (English being the most common).

From this, we can deduce that each printing sheet has only cards of one rarity and language (with extras like tokens and informational cards to fill in the extras) and that they print different quantities of each sheet according to the amount of each they want to exist.  So, they print 88 times more of the "English common sheets" for a set than they do of the "English mythic sheets" (though there are probably multiple sheets of commons and only one sheet of mythic rares).  They likely also have separate sheets for foil cards.
That said, this is all speculation based on what we can observe.  You would have to find a better article or contact one of the companies involved to get a more accurate answer (though they are probably protective of some of the secrets in their production process).
For a historic perspective, magic used to do finer granularity of rarity by having cards repeated on a sheet.  So, in Antiquities, they printed 3x as many "common sheets" as they did "uncommon sheets", but there were cards that showed up twice on the uncommon sheets (dubbed "U2" in rarity) which would be twice as available as the "U1" cards (cards that appeared once on the uncommon sheet) but still rarer than cards that "C1" cards (cards that showed up once on the common sheet).  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquities_%28Magic:_The_Gathering%29 and http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/misc/rarity-info.php for more on the history.
Every large set from Mirage through Onslaught as well as the core sets in between had 110 cards of each rarity indicating that the example in your question may not be that far off.  During this period of time, Magic probably was printed as a 10x11 sheet of each rarity with just different numbers of each sheet printed to create different rarity.  It looks like they switched back to 11x11 sheets between 9th and 10th editions.
Also possibly relevant: Are cards of the same "rarity level" really equally rare in MTG? and http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=11040

Magic sheets - and there are a lot out there; they show up as prizes at conventions and such - are generally 11x11, with 121 cards on them.  (You can see this if you do a google image search for 'Magic uncut sheet'). The sheet in that article is specifically the sheet that the oversized Commander generals were printed on; if you look at the size of the images in comparison to the proofer's hands, they're much larger than normal Magic cards.

That article has pictures of what appears to be uncut sheets, and they're definitely bigger than 7x7

@StevenStadnicki I've seen indicators that modern sheets are 10x11; can you find an example of an 11x11 for a recent set?

@Zags Here's a Magic 2015 sheet at 11x11: https://desertbus.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Foil-Uncut-sheet.jpg . As far as I know they've never used 10x11; even uncut beta sheets are 11x11 ( http://product-images.highwire.com/1593929/betasheetuncutsold.jpg ).  I suspect the article you saw may have been in error.

@StevenStadnicki Thanks for the link.  The sheets in http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feature146_sheets2.jpg appear to be 10 cards high

That picture is of a print run from the commander decks, I'm assuming that they made a special size for them so that one sheet = one deck, since everything I've ever heard about the print runs of normal sets is they are on 11x11 sheets

@diego that makes sense.  I updated the answer

Looking at the numbers of each rarity between 6th and 9th edition, it appears Magic was printed in 10x11 sheets for many years.  They have since gone back to 11x11, which they used in the beginning.

"we can deduce that each printing sheet has only cards of one rarity and language" Rares and mythics are printed on the same sheet (with each rare printed more than once on the sheet). For example, Khans has 53 rares and 15 mythics. 53+53+15 = 121

Note that Wizards tends to be fairly secretive about the specifics of how their print runs work, and exactly what a print sheet looks like. We occasionally get articles like the one that Zags linked to showing an entire print sheet, but most of the information we 'know' about the print runs has to be inferred from answers Wizards employees give or mathematical analysis of print runs.
Currently for a regular large expansion a set has 269 cards broken down as follows

101 Commons
80 Uncommons
53 Rares
15 Mythic Rares
20 Basic Lands (5 Different Lands with 4 arts each)

A sheet of cards is 11x11 (121 cards total) as far as we have been able to tell so far the sheets are split up as follows (Source)

2 of each Rare + 1 of each Mythic
2 each of 60 Commons + 1 extra Common
3 each of 40 Commons + 1 extra Common (the same Common as on the previous sheet)
3 each of 40 Uncommons + 1 Blank
3 each of 40 Uncommons + 1 Blank
6 of each Basic Land + 1 Blank

For the 2 Common sheets they are printed in a 3:2 ratio so that every common has the same rarity. The one exception is the 1 extra Common which has a rarity of 5:6, so it is very slightly rarer that the other hundred commons. This 101st Common is generally an artifact or land depending on the set.
These sheets are then printed so that the rarities are preserved both within and between each rarity, so each of the Uncommon sheets will be printed the same number of times so each Uncommon has the same likelihood of getting opened in a pack, and each of those sheets will be printed 3 times for every Rare/Mythic sheet that is printed.
This ends up with a booster pack that has 1 Basic Land, 1 Rare or Mythic Rare (7/8 chance of Rare, 1/8 chance of Mythic Rare), 3 Uncommons, and 10 Commons (one of the Commons has a chance of being Foil, about 1/6 (Source))
Note that all this information is about current large expansions. Small expansions have ratios that work out similarly. Special releases like the Commander decks, and other preconstructed decks have their own print runs (as Zags shows in their answer) and these cards are in addition to any cards in a normal print run, so for example any Rares in the Magic 2015 Intro Packs are more common than normal Rares that aren't in Intro Packs. Also as Zags also noted older sets had different print sheets where one card might appear on it 4 times, another card 5 times, and a third card 11 times (these numbers are based on Arabian Nights) Wizards has not done sheets for normal expansions like this for a while though.

If mythics and rares are printed on the same sheet at a 1:2 ratio, how do they end up as 1:7 in distribution?

Because there are 53 unique Rares and 15 unique Mythic Rares, so on each sheet there are 106 Rare cards and 15 Mythic Rare cards which comes out to the distribution seen in boosters.

Interesting; this means that each mythic card is only twice as rare as each rare, not 7 times as rare.  Secondary market prices seem more skewed than this.

@Zags You forget the demand side of the supply/demand equation. Sure, Mythics are "only" twice as rare, but they also usually include the most sought after cards. (Hello Planeswalkers!)

@ghoppe I didn't forget demand side at all; I'm just surprised that mythics are only actually twice as rare as rares given how big the price difference is.  It's a credit to WotC R&D that they managed to make mythics fairly consistently more desirable cards than rares.

What do the printing sheets look like for a small expansion?

I wasn't able to find any numbers for small sets, the only ones I could find were for large ones. There are 60 each of Commons and Uncommons so they are probably 2x/sheet, The Rare/Mythic sheet though I have no idea on with 35 Rares and 10 Mythics. Since 2x Rare + 1x Mythic is only 80 cards, so they are wasting a lot of the sheet, but there isn't an easy way to fill the space while maintaining the right ratio.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
For Goblin Grenade can you sacrifice a creature that attacked?
My boyfriend plays a Goblin deck that absolutely destroys. But he has a combo that he does where he will attack with all of his creatures, and then sac one off after it has dealt damage to the player, and use Goblin Grenade. Can he do that? That just seems too op to me, because if he has multiple goblin grenades in one had he could sac all creatures that just dealt damage and that just doesn't make sense to me.
If there is a specific rule that says he can't do that, would you mind linking it for me?

Note that it's not longer an "attacking creature" after the Combat Phase is over, when the sacrifice actually happened in this case.

Assuming the Goblins in question survive combat and Goblin Grenade is cast during the Second Main Phase this is perfectly legal.
This is a common strategy for Goblin decks to deal as much damage as they can as fast as they can regardless of the cost to them. While this allows them to make some very powerful plays like sacrificing Goblins to Goblin Grenade, it also makes them very fragile. For example if you are able to counter the Grenade they still have sacrificed the Goblin as part of the cost for paying the spell, so they are down a lot of resources that are going to make it harder for them to win the game. So while in the right deck Goblin Grenade is very strong I would not call it OP or broken.

Thanks! I guess we can stop fighting about it now lol. I think I just got bitter because he had Quest for Pure Flame out with 4 quest counters on it and wrecked me in a single turn. His decks can be very irritating.

Yeah, Goblins can be annoying like that at times. If you are wanting strategies to beat him try to do things that give you card advantage while giving you dudes or removing his like Wall of Omens or Forked Bolt

If the attacking creature survives the attack, it can be sacrificed to a Goblin Grenade that's cast after the combat is over. There's not so much a rule allowing this as there's no rule against it.

Here's what happens during combat:

507 Beginning of Combat Step

507.3 Both players get to play instants and abilities.

508 Declare Attackers Step

508.1 The active player declares his attackers.
508.3 Both players get to play instants and abilities.

509 Declare Blockers Step

509.1 The defending declares his blockers.
509.2 The active player declares the damage assignment order of his attackers.
509.3 The defending player declares the damage assignment order of his blockers.
509.5 Both players get to play instants and abilities.

510 Combat Damage Step (First Strike and Double Strike)

510.1 Combat damage is assigned.
510.2 Combat damage is dealt (simultaneously).
510.4 Both players get to play instants and abilities.

510 Second Combat Damage Step (non-First strike and Double Strike)

510.1 Combat damage is assigned.
510.2 Combat damage is dealt (simultaneously).
510.4 Both players get to play instants and abilities.

511 End of Combat Step

511.2 Both players get to play instants and abilities.

As you can see, you can cast instants and activate abilities at a number of points in the turn.

One can cast instants and activate abilities after an attacker has been declared, but before blockers have been declared. [CR 508.3]
If he sacrifices the attacker here, he might as well have done it before attacking.

One can cast instants and activate abilities after blockers have been declared but before damage is dealt. [CR 509.5]
If he sacrifices the attacker here, he want deal any damage to the blocker.

One can cast instants and activate abilities after damage has been dealt.  [CR 510.4]
The attacker and the blocker will already have dealt damage to each other by this point, so the attacker would have had to survive the blocker's damage to be around to do this.

The one thing that's not possible to to have a creature deal combat damage and sacrifice it before it gets damaged (unless it has First Strike or Double Strike). This used to be possible, but that hasn't been the case since Magic 2010 was released mid-2009.

But at none of those times can Goblin Grenade be cast because it's a Sorcery, not an Instant.
You can only cast Sorcery spells in one of your Main Phases. But there is a Main Phase after the Combat Phase has completed.

505.1. There are two main phases in a turn. In each turn, the first main phase (also known as the precombat main phase) and the second main phase (also known as the postcombat main phase) are separated by the combat phase (see rule 506, “Combat Phase”). The precombat and postcombat main phases are individually and collectively known as the main phase.

The first chance the attacker would have to cast Goblin Grenade sacrificing a creature that participated in combat is in the postcombat Main Phase.

505.5. Third, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. The active player may play a land.

If it was worded "sacrifice an untapped Goblin", then your friend couldn't do it because the Goblin would (presumably) be tapped from attacking. But that's not the case.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Oberon character in Avalon
At the end of the game, when the evil characters discuss who Merlin is, can Oberon reveal himself and join in the discussion?
Edit: I'm asking this because in the games I've played, even though Oberon is an evil character, he doesn't know who the other evil characters are.

Note - it's Oberon rather than Morgana who does not open his eyes during the reveal phase at the start of the game.
The rules say:

Without revealing any Character cards, the Evil players discuss and the player with the Assassin character card will name one Good player as Merlin

So no character cards should be revealed, however the player who is Oberon can join in the discussion.
It's not really explicit whether or not a Good player could claim to be Oberon at the end of the game to try and confuse the Assassin.

Could you elaborate on Morgana opening eyes during the reveal phase at the start of the game? The way I've played it (and this could have been wrong) is that Morgana doesn't open her eye any time during the revealing phase. She only sticks her thumb out for Percival to see.

@nullgraph Here is the line in the opening script Minions of Mordred, not Oberon, - I repeat not oh ber ron, open your eyes and look around so that you know all agents of evil. So Morgana should know who evil is and evil should know who she is.

Morgana is a minion of Mordred. Oberon isn't. But both are evil.

Re "So no character cards should be revealed", no cards need to be revealed, but there's no harm in the evil players revealing the cards. It's less confusing it they do.

I like revealing the evil characters at the end it makes for interesting discussion. But I've never thought of a good person coming out as Oberon at the end of the game that is great!

At the end of the game, when the evil characters discuss who Merlin is, can Oberon reveal himself and join in the discussion?

YES Oberon may join the discussion. But you have to remember, NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO REVEAL THEIR CARDS (except of course for the Assassin so we'd know who has the last say). So even if I say I am Oberon so that I may join the discussion, no one can actually confirm who I am. For all they know, I could be Merlin who is pretending to be Oberon to get the target off of me. That's how fun this game is. It keeps you second-guessing.

If you're quoting something, reference it. Otherwise this is plagiarism and does nothing to assure the reliability of the answer.

Maybe I'm playing incorrectly, but I always played that both Oberon and Morgana are evil. Morgana appears as Merlin, and Oberon knows who all the other evil people are but they don't know who he/she is.
So in the reveal phase :
1) All the evil team would open their eyes put their thumbs out and see each other EXCEPT OBERON (So this could possibly be the Assassin, Morgana, Mordred and any other minions).
2) The evil people would all put their thumbs up and Oberon would open their eyes and have a chance to see who their team is.
3) All the evil people INCLUDING OBERON would put their thumbs up EXCEPT MORDRED and Merlin would have his chance to see.
4) Then Percival would see Morgana and Merlin with their thumbs up not knowing which was which.
I was under the impression Oberon was evil, but the rest of the evil team didn't know who they were. This may not be the correct way but it has worked for us.
And as for revealing characters at the end of the game I guess it is technically wrong, but we've always had all the evil people reveal their characters at the end (including Oberon) then the evil team discusses who they think is Merlin, but the Assassin gets the final say. Usually knowing who Mordred was gives a lot of clues, because Merlin may not have accused them right away. We've found the discussion doesn't give evil too much of an advantage and is fun. So we always have reveal evil their characters, then the entire evil team discusses, and at the end the Assassin just has to say "I assassinate ______" to make their choice.

They both are evil and this does nothing to answer the question.

@JoeW I'm confused how doesn't it answer the question? I do say they are both evil. I clarify how I play with Oberon since it seems it is different than how other people do and I explain that the way I've always played is Oberon can join in the discussion (and I admit this may not be the technical rules but it has worked for me)

You say you might be playing them wrong but you play them as evil when the rule book spells out the fact that they are all evil. 2) you are talking about rules for the start of the game when the question asks about rules for the end of the game. 3) You are making guesses at the end of the game and character cards are not revealed at the end but evil does discuss to decide who they think Merlin is and the Assassin makes the call. 4) What little you do talk about the end of the game you talk about how it works when you play rather then how it should work when played in general.


text:
MTG Emrakul like cards
What are good cards like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that are good for a green-black deck that revolves around Deathrender?

What do you mean by "like emrakul"? Do you just want all of the eldrazi creatures? All of the big ones? Do you just want a list of big expensive creatures?

Here is a link to Gatherer advanced search. Here is a link to a search I performed for all creatures with power greater than 10. You could, for example, limit your search to only Green or Black cards.

http://magiccards.info also has some nice advanced search features. This search, for example, finds all creatures with power at least 10 that are Green, Black, or Colorless, as Rainbolt suggested.

If you are cheating creatures onto the battlefield (i.e. not paying their mana cost), the creatures themselves need not be in green/black/colorless.  Try searching for creatures with high converted mana costs.  They are the ones you are looking for to get the most value out of cards like deathrender.  Here are a few of my favorites:
Worldspine Wurm, Blightsteel Colossus, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Blazing Archon, Platinum Emperion, Avacyn, Angel of Hope


text:
How isn't Sevens pure luck?
In the game of Sevens, also known as Fan Tan/Card Dominoes/Shichi Narabe (7並べ), whenever there are options to pass, why wouldn't I just use up all my passes at the start regardless of what my opponents do?
Please give an example of a hand in 4-player Sevens where all the cards are dealt and there's no joker and all the sevens are played after the cards are dealt.
Context: I am trying to see how Sevens isn't just pure luck.

Case 1: I understand if there are no passes, then it's indeed a pure luck game.

Case 2: If there are no passes and if it's optimal to use all my passes at the start, then we just get Case 1.

Or please just tell me where I can read about this. My google-fu is currently failing me.

Part0 - Inspired by these:

Poker can be simplified to Kuhn poker.

The Monty Hall problem is easy to understand if instead of 3 doors, you have 100 doors and then Monty opens all but 1.

Part 1
I think of a simplified version of sevens where there are only 12 cards: fives, sixes and sevens.

Assume also: 1 pass per player, 4 players, no jokers, all the sevens removed before cards are dealt and you 1st.

Suppose each player gets 1 five and 1 six of the same suit.

Now it's unnecessary to pass because if you play your six, then you're not helping the others' finish their hands.
Case 1: Suppose you pass. Then the other 3 players play their six. Then you have to play your six. Then they all play their five. Finally, you lose.
Case 2: Suppose you play your six. No matter what the others do, you'll win.
Part 2
I'm not really bothered to continue generalising until we reach the whole deck and add 2 more passes. I think I get the idea:
2A. Conjecture, which if true might be the 'fundamental theorem of sevens' similar to the fundamental theorem of poker:

If you have a safe card but pass instead of playing, then you just waste time to clear your hand.

2B. I believe the contrapositive is:

A pass means the player has no safe cards or is making their own situation worse.

Ah well maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any slow playing kinda trick here: like you pass even though you have safe cards and then this somehow tricks your opponent
Part 3:
Conclusion: When do you pass?
You pass either because you're forced to or because you're trying to not play a non-safe card... I guess.


text:
Looking to see why cards are banned
I'm looking to see why certain cards are banned in certain formats. It doesn't seem to make sense. The specific cards I'm looking for are:

Jace, Memory Adept (ok, sort of makes sense)
Daggerdrome Imp
Dimir Aqueduct
Mind Grind
Pilfered Plans

Can anyone tell me where I can get these rulings at?
tappedout.net says that my deck is not standard legal because of these cards.

For future reference, you can link to cards with the syntax [mtg:Card Name]

Jace Memory Adept isn't banned in any format. Are you thinking of Jace the MindSculptor, aka one of the most powerful cards in Magic history? Giving this -1 until the question is clarified.

According to Gatherer, none of those cards are banned in any format

Oh... Sorry, I was going based off of tappedout.net. It said these cards were banned and that didnt make any sense to me. Here is the deck I'm referring to: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/black-n-blue-discard-deck/ If you look, it says its illegal due to the cards I listed.

Do you understand the concept of formats?  Because this all hinges on knowing what it means that your deck is "Standard" format.

I guess I dont. I'll google that

@Sugitime This isn't banning, this is format rotation. The basic information you're looking for is here: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/15591/how-often-does-the-standard-set-change

For format restrictions and banned lists, see the following:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-formats/formats
http://magic.wizards.com/en/gameinfo/gameplay/formats/bannedrestricted
None of the cards you listed are on a banned list, they just aren't legal in "Standard", which is a format that only includes cards printed in the last two years


text:
What advantages do you have when attacking a village in Civilization?
In Civilization, when I attack a village, do I or the village receive some sort of combat bonus or extra standing force cards?  Also, the rule book for the game seems fuzzy on what combat bonuses actually do for you during a battle. I have played Civilization only once so far, and to me the battle system seems pretty random. Are there any recommendations you may have for buying certain units near the beginning before attacking a village or another player?

You get several advantages when attacking a village.
1. You are the attacker and know what units they have
Being the attacker means they must play the first unit.  Even if you have not bought any additional unit cards, have no combat bonuses, nor have any unit upgrades from technology, and attack with a single army, you can still win the battle off of this alone as follows:

The village plays a unit (without loss of generality, let's say an archer)
You play the trump to that unit (in this case a horesman), killing it without taking damage
The village plays the trump to your unit (a spearman), killing it without taking damage
Etc. (you play an archer)
Etc. (they play a horseman)
You kill their last unit (you play an infantry)

Result: you win, losing 2 units
The big piece of variance here is the innate strength of the units.  Units range in base strength from 1 to 3.  A good draw for the village means they may have units that are stronger than yours, whereas a bad draw could leave them with units weaker than yours.  If the average strength in your deck is less than 2, do not attack a village with only one army.  Another problem here is that, while you win the battle and get the village token, you may lose your army since you lost 2 units in the battle.
2. You can bring more than three units
By attacking with multiple armies and having bought extra units, you can attack with more that the three units.  Not only will this practically guarantee victory, it also gives you more options in terms of what to play, allowing you to send your worse units out first (causing them to die and improve the average strength in your unit deck) and have more options with trump units.  Here is an example battle with 5 units (assuming all units are base strength 2):

The village plays a unit (let's say an archer)
You play the unit that is trumped by that unit (in this case a spearman) on a new front, since they no longer have a unit that can trump it
The village already played the trump to your unit, so they must play the same type (a spearman), killing both
You play the unit that is the trump to their remaining unit, which you know because they always have the same unit composition (they have horseman left, so a you play another spearman)
They play their remaining unit (a horseman) on a new front, since anywhere else it would be trumped
You play your remaining units on new fronts since there is no benefit to killing the village's units

Result: you win, losing only one unit
While you could do this with only three units in your battle hand, it is much less likely, since it requires them to play a specific one of their units first, which they probably won't do (especially if they have been paying attention to your purchases).
3. You can have combat bonuses
A combat bonus is part of the determination of who wins the battle.  A battle consists of each side playing all of the units they are allowed to bring as a result of their battle hand size.  Units may be killed during the battle, and this death is permanent.  However, you need not kill units to win the battle.  The winner of the battle is the person with the highest total of strength of surviving units, plus their combat bonus.  So, while a combat bonus does nothing to keep your units alive, it helps in you being considered the winner of the battle, independent of what happened in the fighting.  Since villages always fight with 3 rank one units and have no combat bonus, the most strength a village can ever have at the end of a battle is 9, so a +10 combat bonus guarantees that you will beat a village regardless of what happens in the battle, even if you have no units in your deck to fight with!  Obviously this is an extreme example, but even in less extreme cases, combat bonuses help you get the village token regardless of in-battle losses.
4. Your units can be higher level
This is the big one.  The other boons help you win, and having more units can help a lot.  This one helps a ton.  The villages always have the same units and their units are always level 1.  That means they deal at most 3 damage and have at most 3 health.  If any of the units you have in your battle hand are level 2 or level 3, that means you can now be running around with guys of 4 or even 5 strength; 3 strength also becomes much more common among your units.  With several level 3 units, you can sometimes win the battle without losing any units at all.  Leveling your units makes the threat of the village getting a good draw just so much less scary.  If there are still villages left by the time you get level 4 units, go pick them up.
5. You can use other technology abilities
You can use abilities on technologies like Mathematics or Animal Husbandry to help you win the battle.  The villages do not have any resource abilities at their disposal.  Spending a resource to win the battle can be a bit silly though, since beating the village may just give you the resource you spent to capture it (using an iron to capture a village that gives you an iron is not a great use of time or units).  The exception to this of course is if you have some other reason to want to win the battle, such as getting a coin on Code of Laws.  Abilities like 'Animal Husbandry' though (which are free), can help you win a no-casualties battle, especially if you have higher level units.
Conclusion
No, you don't get free units or inherent combat bonuses when fighting villages, but you do get to bring all of your technological might against their primitive army.  Consequently, fighting a village right out of the gate is probably a bad idea since that is when you have the fewest advantages.  Wait until you either have two armies and five units to bring to the battle, or until you've gotten a technology to level one of your units so that you only have to lose one or no units fighting the village.  These are the same things you will want for fighting other players as well.  The things you want to have are:

Higher ranked units
Combat bonuses from barracks/academies
More units (note that this requires you to have both more units in your reserves and multiple armies to allow you to bring extra units into battle)

One more thing to keep in mind: when fighting a village, killing their units doesn't matter; it's just about winning.  Consequently, don't waste your units that have a base strength of 3.  These units remain the best as you increase in technology; don't get them killed fighting barbarians.  Conversely, do lead with your units with a base strength of 1.  These units are not great to have in your deck and playing them early will not only cull them from your army, but will also force the barbarians to spend battle turns killing your crappy units instead of your good ones.


text:
How does stacking and resolving work exactly?
I understand that every card that is put onto the stack is resolved in the opposite order that it is put on (meaning the first card to be put onto a stack is the last one to be resolved), but here is my question.
Say I cast a Lightning Bolt. That goes onto the stack. My opponent passes priority back to me. Then, I cast Twincast, and that also goes onto the stack. Would Twincast copy Lightning Bolt, effectively doing an additional 3 damage to my opponent?
Or, would Lightning Bolt Resolve, do 3 damage, then Twincast would resolve and do nothing?

The whole point of Twincast is that it copies a spell on the stack.  They wouldn't have printed it if it does nothing

Twincast copies Lightning Bolt, dealing 3 damage to whatever target you choose, then the original Lightning Bolt resolves as usual - a total of 6 damage. The first sentence of your question pretty much explains why. To be specific (and correct the detail about priority):

You cast Lightning Bolt, putting it onto the stack.
You gain priority before your opponent does. (Note that by default, it's assumed that you pass it - if you want to hang onto it, you should say so explicitly.)
You cast Twincast, targeting Lightning Bolt. (The stack now has Lightning Bolt and Twincast on it.)
You and your opponent both pass priority.
Twincast resolves. It creates a copy of Lightning Bolt, optionally with a new target, and puts it on the stack. (The stack now has the original Lightning Bolt and the copy on it. Just one copy - not sure why you asked if it'd copy it twice.)
You and your opponent both pass priority.
The copy resolves, dealing 3 damage to whatever target you chose.
You and your opponent both pass priority.
The original resolves, dealing 3 damage.

For the record, the relevant rules about who gets priority when:

116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
116.3c If a player has priority when he or she casts a spell, activates an ability, or takes a special action, that player receives priority afterward.

This is slightly important in this case because it means that you have to cast Twincast before you see if your opponent wants to respond to Lightning Bolt; if you pass priority to them before casting Twincast and they do nothing, then you've both passed and Lightning Bolt will resolve.

Worth mentioning that in tournaments (and often in casual play), priority is passed by default unless you state that you want to keep it.


text:
Can a corp have more than 1 'Chairman Hiro' rezzed at the same time?
Chairmain Hiro: Can a corp have more than 1 'Chairman Hiro' rezzed at the same time?

I don't think the question is self explanatory. It's self defining. It doesn't explain what you're asking. I don't play netrunner, but when I look at this card, I don't see anything about it that would indicate why it would be limited to a singleton. Can you explain why you have reservations about whether or not you can have multiples, and perhaps the situation that prompted the question?

@corsiKa, actually Chairman Hiro is a unique asset, so only one can be rezzed (or activated) at a given time.  See my answer for more details.  Also, you should learn Netrunner - it is a fantastic game :)

I agree with Twitch_City, Android: Netrunner is a fantastic game, more people should learn and play!

Chairman Hiro is a unique asset (there is a diamond next to the card name designating this status).  While multiple unique cards may be installed simultaneously, only one may be rezzed at a time.
So, if you have two Chairman Hiro's installed, and one is rezzed and the runner runs on it, you could conceivably rez the second Hiro which would cause the first one to trash itself before the runner accesses it (so long as you do this during a legal paid ability window).

Ah the diamond. That's the key - that's the information that will help future visitors! :)

Thank you so much Twitch_City; for some reason I am not able to upvote your answer, but I appreciate it a lot. Thank you! =)

Maybe you could add the relevant section of the rule book to your answer to improve your answer further. Nice to see A:NR gets some love here on this site :-)

From the Android Netrunner rulebook:

Unique Cards
Some cards have a unique symbol (◆) in front of their title. There can be only one unique card of the same title active at a time. If a card with a unique title becomes active, any other card that shares its title is immediately trashed. This trashing cannot be prevented.

Chairman Hiro has the diamond in front of his name, marking him as unique. You can have multiple copies installed at a given time, but you can't have more than one of those copies rezzed.


text:
In Arkham Horror, are Ally cards treated specially in setup?
The rules say this in setup:

The players shuffle the Common Item, Unique Item, Spell, and Skill decks, then return them face down to their places next to the board. Whenever players draw cards, they draw them randomly from the tops of these decks.

There is no mention of the Ally decks, yet in one bgg contributor rulesheet I found here, it says the following in the setup box:

Distribute Allies. Assign any Fixed Allies to Investigators. Draw 11 Allies from remaining supply to create the Ally Deck. Assign any Random Allies to Investigators from the Ally Deck

Is there an official reference to what to do with the Ally cards that I overlooked? I didn't see it in the Rulebook or FAQ. I assumed the omission from the rulebook setup text was just an oversight, but seeing this snippet in the contributor rule sheet has me second guessing.

I think the reason for this may be because there's no circumstance I've run into* where you pull a random ally, except in the case of discarding then it specifically says in the rules:

For every point the terror level goes up, select one Ally card at random from the Ally deck and return it to the box.

So basically, it's not telling you to randomize them initially because there's no point.  The other decks draw from the top and have reasons to look at the bottom as well.
For the record, I generally randomize anyway but admit I end up having to look through during encounters and purchasing (or setup) to find the guy I want then re-randomizing.  So...ignoring might be smarter=)
*: I don't have all the expansions nor have I read every card/encounter etc but I do have 3 expansions and have played this game several dozen times.  But anyway, it's theoretical.

Your answer makes sense toward explaining why they do not ask you to shuffle the deck, but then what reason would there be for the description in the contributor rulesheet?

@Joey Anything on any forum that's not from the creator of the game (which I've seen before from that forum), I consider unofficial "helping", same as here.  What it says is logical (and maybe he knows more than I do (RE 'Random Allies')) and gives you a baseline in the event Qs occur (such as this one=)).  It'd seem logical to me that either the game devs didn't consider it important enough to errata (or note in core rules) or it has no game impacts.  There also are notes in every expansion I have on how it differs from core play.  Further answer may also be there.

In the original rulebook, the ally cards were an investigator deck and you were told to shuffle and ready them.
In subsequent rulebooks, Dunwich Horror, and Curse of the Pharoah were the first two, the ally deck rule was expanded.

Determine Allies: Although five new Allies are included
in this expansion, only 11 total Allies should be used in
each game. When preparing the Ally deck, shuffle it and
deal out 11 cards faceup, returning the others to the box.
Players may examine the allies to see which ones will
appear. Then turn the Ally cards facedown and shuffle
them again. Allies that are taken as starting equipment in
setup step 9 will come from this deck of 11 cards.

If a specific Ally is part of an investigator’s fixed possessions, then that Ally must be one of the 11 Ally
cards used.

The assumption is that the designers wanted to provide some variety of new allies, but thought that the ally deck was a resource to be used.  Specifically because you need to remove an ally from the game every time the terror level increased.  By restricting the total number of allies, the available pool of them decreased to almost nothing as the terror level increased (to a max of 10) throughout the game.


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Dice Masters Casual Setup
I recently purchased the Civil War dice-masters starter. After playing the starter scenario a few times, I would like incorporate the rest of the cards into a game.
Question - How do we setup a game not using the starter scenario?
In the starter scenario, each player receives two heroes who each have two die. Additionally, three cards are placed in the middle and "shared" between the players.
If we decide not to use the starter scenario, how do we pick heroes, dice, and the shared middle cards for a game? How many of each?

The different options for setting up games are located on pages 22 and 23 of the starter set rules. I have no idea if WizKids replicated these in the rulebook for the Civil War starter, but the link should get you going. Assuming you only have the starter set, you're best off going with the draft option for now. If you start buying additional packs it will become more feasible to build teams before a game using the Basic Teams setup. And if you really get into the game, the Tournament Teams setup will probably be what you'd use at your local gaming store. Below are the rules for each.

Draft:

This is a useful style of play when only one player has a set of dice.
Choose a number between 8 and 20, based on the size of the collection being used. Both player will field up to that number of dice, and start the game with that many life. Shuffle the basic action cards and choose three or four of them at random to use. This makes for a different environment to consider when drafting.
Place all the dice, sorted by type, in the center of the table. Place all the available  character and action cards in the center, stacking cards that share the same name together, even if they have different subtitles. Determine the first and second players. The second player picks first, choosing one card stack. If that player picks a stack with more than one card, that player must choose which card to use. The second player also takes all the dice for that character and decides how many (up to the max listed and the chosen team limit) to use. The first player then chooses. The players alternate until all cards have been chosen. Players use all cards for which they have dice. Cards that have no dice to them (e.g., the player drafted them after reaching the team limit) are not used in the game.

Basic Teams:

Use this variant when you want to explore new potentials and try new strategies. Each player starts with 15 life. Build your team to the following specifications.
Choose two different Basic Action cards. You cannot bring two of the same Basic Action card. However, when you play, it’s possible that your opponent may have chosen the same card(s) as you did. That’s fine; there are just twice as many of those dice as normal.
Choose up to 6 cards. You can choose any mix of characters and actions (except Basic actions), and you can mix teams, etc. However, you cannot choose more than one card with the same title on it, even if the cards have different subtitles. For example, if you choose Iron Man, Philanthropist, you cannot also choose Iron Man, Inventor. Choose up to 15 dice. Note that all cards have a limit on how many dice can be on the card. You cannot bring more dice than the card allows. You can bring less, of course, to make room for dice on other cards. However, each of your six cards you choose must have at least one die assigned to it.
Each player reveals the two Basic Action cards they want on the battlefield. It is possible that both players choose the same Basic Action card(s); in that case, there are two sets of those dice available. Assign colors to each of the Basic Action cards revealed, place them in the center of the table, and place the three matching dice on each one.
Then both players reveal their personal cards, and place their matching dice on them. Choose a first player and start fighting!

Tournament Teams:

For tournament competition, each player starts with 20 life. Build your team to the following specifications.
Choose two different Basic Action cards.  Choose up to 8 cards. You can choose any mix of characters and actions (except Basic actions), and you can mix teams, heroes with villains, etc. However, you cannot choose more than one card with the same title on it, even if the cards have different subtitles. Choose up to 20 dice. Note that all cards have a limit on how many dice can be on the card. You can bring less, of course, to make room for dice on other cards. However, each of your eight cards you choose must have at least one die assigned to it.
At the tournament, reveal all the cards and dice you chose at the same time, and simultaneously with your designated opponent.


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Can both starting roads be placed on the same settlement?
According to the rules,

we can place settlements only beside roads leading to it or away from it.
we can place roads beside roads or settlements.

During initial placement, we have the choice of placing two settlements and roads in successive turns. If we follow the above rules, Can we do the following placement?:

There doesn't seem to be any rules in the rule book regarding this, and it is an exceptional case to the above mentioned rules!

From the official game rules, under "Set-Up Phase":

The starting player places a settlement on an unoccupied intersection of their choice, then places a road adjacent to this settlement. The other players then follow clockwise. Everyone places 1 settlement and 1 adjoining road.
Once all players have built their first settlement, the player who went last in the first round begins round two. That player builds their second settlement and its adjacent road.

So no, a player may not place their second road adjacent to their previously-placed settlement, or the road leading from it, because the above rule explicitly instructs that the 2nd road is built adjacent to the 2nd settlement.

The only exception is when the road connects both settlements ;-)

Woah.....is this rule written as part of the almanac provided or on the catan site?
Even so...really appreciate the help...Thanks!

@Karthik - I'm fairly certain this is part of the official rules. Check the part that describes the setup phase.


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MUs from Memory Strips for Deep Data Mining?
Do memory units provided by MemStrips count as free slots for Deep Data Mining? The hard part is the "use the MU on MemStrips only for virus programs" note on the MemStrips.
For example, I’ve got 3 MUs used by some non-virus icebreakers, 1 MemStrips installed and I play the Deep Data Mining. What is the count of free MU to resolve this run ability? 1 or 4?

The memory from MemStrips counts towards Deep Data Mining.  This is because Deep Data Mining doesn't actually use memory, it just looks at how much memory you have vs how much you are using.  MemStrips gives you memory, with a restriction on what types of programs can use it.
I've seen MemStrips used with Data Folding and Overmind for some powerful combo potential under this same principle.

Yes, the deck I've played against (casual play), used both Deep Data Mining and Data Folding with MemStrips. Also Savant via Dhegdheer were used.


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What does the "Ice" word means in terms of Netrunner's Lore?
Why defending programs in the game of Android Netrunner are called Ice? Is it an acronym? Or something else?

Ice stands for "intrusion countermeasures electronics", a term
popularized by William Gibson.

— Android Netrunner Comprehensive Unofficial Rules Wiki entry for Ice

According to the original Netrunner rulebook (and as recorded in the Wiki ):
The corps in Netrunner view it as an acronym for Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics.
The runners view it as an acronym for Insidious Cortical Electrocution.
The original rulebook included it in the corp (runner) glossary thus:

Ice: A program that protects our data forts from intrusion. An acronym for "intrusion countermeasures electronics." (An acronym for "insidious cortical electrocution.")


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Is it a good strategy for the Seer to reveal his identity at the beginning?
Should Seer take part in the Sheriff contest and indicate his identity at the beginning?
When I watched a so-called top werewolf boardgame live, this Seer publishes his identity at beginning, he argues with the werewolf who act as Seer with the aim of misleading the villagers to vote someone his claimed as "werewolf". I though this Seer will soon die, but werewolves do not dare to kill him at first two round. Interesting. Killing hims means accepting the fact that he is real Seer.
I though Seer should keep secret and survive as long as he can, so that to investigate more players. This is a way to keep him safe and time to get more information.
Is it a good strategy for the Seer to reveal his identity at the beginning?

Is this about One Night or about Werewolf? The strategies are very different in each game.

This is pretty clearly about werewolf, not one-night-werewolf; removing the one-night tag

It is almost never wise to claim to be the seer. And it seldom happens. But sometimes it can be a smart move. Especially if another player claims to be the seer.
If two people claim to be the seer, it is almost certain that one isn't. And that is most probably a wolf. The true seer can check this. And start a discussion. There are three possibilities:

The true seer fails to convince and is killed by the vilagers. Next day, the fake seer will almost certainly be killed.
The false seer is killed by the vilagers. Next night, the real seer will almost certainly be killed.
The vilagers decide not to kill any of those. In that case, if the wolves are killing the real Seer, the fake seer will almost certainly killed by the vilagers.

All three cases link the death of the seer with the death of a wolf. And that is not a bad ratio. Yes you lost the seer. But he took a wolf too.
But beware, sometimes a mean game master can add two seers to the party. And that can become a bloodbath.

Some roles, like Village Idiot, require that player to try to get lynched by the village. This can add another voice to the debate of who's the Seer (or other special roles that could possibly identify Wolves like the Little Girl).

I would add in a small paragraph on bodyguard and witch. Especially with the bodyguard in play, the werewolds should not dare to attack the seer in the very first night after revealing, because he will most certainly be protected.
Also, it depends on the number of werewolfs. If it is 2-3 and you can already identify one, its not that bad to reveal.

Questions about werewolf strategy often depend on the meta of the group, which is the set of expectations and play-styles that tend to accumulate around particular play groups. It also depends on whether the moderator adjusts the game based on that meta.
For example, if the current meta in your group is "Seer always reveals first day", then that might result in "Werewolves kill the revealed Seer first night". But then maybe in one game the wolves don't kill the revealed Seer, and use that to discredit her to trick town into lynching her. So in later games the Seer might only reveal if on the chopping block or if she has successfully found a wolf.
Or maybe the Doctor always protects the Seer, which makes it difficult for the wolves to do anything about her, so one of them fake-claims Seer in the hopes of drawing the Doctor's protection and creating confusion. So then in the next game, the moderator might adjust the Seer role to prevent claiming, or might put in two Seers to sow confusion, or she might make it so that the Seer only gets to investigate on even-numbered nights.


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Are Raw Materials stored lost?
You have coal stored at a power plant and then win a bid on an oil powered plant.  If you discard your coal plant to buy the oil plant and have no other coal plants, do you just lose the left over coal?

You have to either move them to an appropriate power plant or lose them, if you cannot store them. From the Rulebook, p. 3, emphasis mine:

During the game each player can have only 3 power plants at any time.
  When a player buys a fourth plant, he must discard one of his other
  power plants. The player may move resources from the discarded power
  plant to his remaining three power plants, if they match the
  resources used by one or more of the retained power plants. If there
  is no capacity left or no matching power plant for the resources from
  the discarded plant, the player returns the resources to the
  supply (not the resource market).

Please note that, even if you can store the resources elsewhere, you are not obliged to. You may still want to build over that power plant and lose the resources, if you are planning to buy them out in this round. This has been clarified by the official 2F-Spiele FAQ:

Q: May a player dump fuel that could be moved? A player was buying an oil plant, and discarding a coal plant along with its fuel. He
  didn't want to move fuel to his hybrid plant because he was going to
  corner the market in oil. Corollary: He could have transferred coal
  from the hybrid to the coal plant just to dump it.
A: Yes. You are not obliged to move them.

Example 1: You have plants #04 (coal), #13 (eco), #21 (hybrid). The #04 plant has 2 coal tokens on it. You buy the #26 plant (oil), wishing to build over the #04. You may either:

Move first the coal tokens on the #21, thus preserving them, and then build over the #04.
Keep the coal tokens on the #04 and build over it, thus losing them.

Example 2: On the same token, if you have plants #04 (coal), #13 (eco), #14 (trash) and you build the #25 (coal) over the #04, you can first move any coal tokens from the #04 onto the #25 that you just purchased. You are not forced to do it, though. This has been discussed here.
Please take a look at the Power Grid FAQ on BGG for similar questions that might come up during gameplay.

@AndyT : (a) That's in fact an excellent question. You do want to discard resources, say, in a 2-player game, where you are last in turn order, thus buying resources first, and you wish to buy-out the remaining resources to block the other player, but not have enough space. Dumping resources is a sound move, to make space, so as to buy-out the rest. I've done it a couple of times. (b) I don't exactly get your question, could you rephrase it, please?

@AndyT Thank you very much for your comments; I further looked into it and it seems that my previous example on the #25 was a bit misleading. You can indeed move coal from #04 to #25 (that you just purchased) but you are not obliged to. Thus, there is no different treatment between the "three power plants" (the one you just bought and the two you are keeping). I've rephrased my answer on that.

Much better, +1. Comments deleted as now superseded.


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Is a cultural win viable in Civilization?
Played Sid Mayer's civilization board game a couple of times now. In the beginning we all had tech wins due to passivity of players. Then I started experimenting with cultural and military victory. Doing so with 2 players game.
Even when I try cultural win, I need to increase military to defend from the other player. Then at the point I can focus on culture, I am at tech level 4, can discover Flight, use two turns to buy some fighters. Then I can quickly reach other player capital. With grouping limit of 4 I can have 9 units which is well enough to defeat a capital. Given a capital can be defended by at most 6 units as far as I understand the rules.
Even with Rome I couldn't reach 3rd culture level before I could achieve the military victory.
Or probably the other player not good enough to defend?
In any case, I think at tech level 4, one can easily make a surprising move to military track and other players could easily be too slow to react if pursuing another victory type.
I'm reading some forum threads where I read stuff about culture victories and it sounds like only possible with 4 players and it's about being in the right place on the map and depending on the tracks taken by the other players.
To sum up:

is culture victory viable in a 2 player game?
is culture victory achievable regardless of other players strategies?
is there any situation where cultural track has advantages over military track? Or is cultural track only for the adventurous seeking for a challenge?

If the designers have done their job, no sort of victory is achievable "regardless of other players' strategies"; you might want to rephrase.

@TimLymington, I don't agree. If game is balanced I'd think that I can choose a strategy and defend against other strategies. But I'm mostly interested, if players are going military, how many chances a cultural win has.

Cultural victory is possible, but in my experience is the hardest of the victories.  Technology victory is just a time limit on the game and not in and of itself interesting.  I have found military and economic victories to be much easier.  However, I have seen cultural victories happen.  Here are factors that make it easier:

Have a helpful civilization.  Rome looks the best on paper, though Egypt can actually be better both due to the starting wonder, which can help kick-start culture production, but also from it's ability to build free buildings which lets you build at least one city that is entirely devoted to culture production (other civilizations can't do this anywhere near as efficiently because such a city is surrounded by temples, universities, trading posts, great people, and a wonder, and as a result is deprived of hammers with which to build these buildings).  America is also okay in their ability to get wonders easier (from their discount when spending trade).  The Chinese can be good as well, as they get some free culture at the start of the game to kick-start progress, though their real strength is if this gives them a great person that produces two culture.  The Germans and Russians are really not worth trying with (see this thread https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/626430/tracking-victory-types/page/1, which also illustrates the comparative difficulty of a culture victory to other victory types).
If playing as America, Rome, or Egypt, put your capital next to the incense on your starting tile; if you later get feudalism, any of your cities will be able to harvest this (note that it can still only be harvested by one city each turn, but it could be a city other than your capital if your capital can produce more than 7 culture through the culture action).
Wonders are key.  Stonehenge, The Louvre, and the Sydney Opera House are the big three you want to get because they give you free advances on the culture track.  The other nice thing about these is they add culture icons to your cities, letting you produce more culture when you hit that action.
Have at least one of your cities devoted to producing culture.  Early game, this will mean building culture producers in that city.  Once the city is ready, hit culture with it every turn.  Do not be afraid to spend trade to get buildings you need in that city (if you are not playing Egypt).  It is better to do this for a few turns if it can get you a solid culture producer faster.
Get technology that feeds your strategy.  Key technologies include: Theology (for the Cathedral and increased hand size), Metal Casting (for the culture production ability, with the added perk of giving you a unit upgrade), and Printing Press (for the University; you should pretty much ignore its coin ability unless you are pivoting to an economic victory).  Other technologies you should consider are Chivalry (for the culture production ability and the government), Monarchy (for the government), Mass Media (if other people have Civil Service), Pottery (for the hand size), Civil Service (for the hand size), and Philosophy (for the great people and the ability to build temples first and upgrade them to cathedrals later).
Cities that have poor culture production can still be used to produce large amounts of culture by producing incense.  Incense can turn into 5 or 7 culture a piece mid-game with the technologies mentioned above.  Don't be afraid to harvest incense before you have these technologies and hold on to it.  Don't use incense on any ability that produces less than 5 culture (don't use the ability on Currency and don't spend incense on abilities like Philosophy).  Go for villages, as they can help you get resources to fuel your progress.
The culture cards and great people you get help your progress.  Great people can help your culture producing cities produce more culture.  This is great (pun intended).  The culture cards can get you the resources to get more culture, can help defend against an aggressive military player, and can disrupt the production/buildings of someone going for an economic or military victory.  If you start advancing on the culture track early, this can start a positive feedback loop.  Also, if you have philosophy and extra non-incense resources, get some great people.  They can help start your culture production (especially if you get one of the great people with two culture icons).  Spending a culture card as an incense to get enough culture to buy another card may seem like a waste, but it's actually exactly what you want to be doing, since this pushes you both closer to victory and closer to the tier 3 culture cards, which are more powerful.
Favor archers when buying units, as you are definitely going to research Metal Casting, which puts those at level 3.
There isn't a necessary tier 4 technology for culture.  Mass Media can be okay, but really feel free to research anything as your first tier 4 tech if it helps you more.  Atomic Theory can be very powerful, as later culture cards (princely gift) give you access to uranium and taking two actions with all of your cities can let you get a truly silly amount of culture in a turn.  Alternatively, you could get one of the military techs to defend yourself.
Build cities next to desert rather than water; trading posts (which generate culture) are more useful to you than harbors (which don't).  Build later cities next to natural wonders if possible to get the extra culture.  The purple forest is probably the best.  Using scouts on natural wonders can be helpful too.
Build all three cities.  This is important in any strategy in Civ, and culture is no exception.
Don't neglect trade production.  You will need it to research technology and also get through the higher ranks of the culture track.
Have a government of Monarchy, Feudalism, or Democracy.  Monarchy gives you extra culture production, which is good.  Feudalism can let all your cities harvest incense if any of your cities has it, which can be used on resource abilities to make culture.  Democracy can help in that you get extra trade and give up something not particularly useful (you shouldn't really be attacking other cities if going for a cultural victory).
Don't neglect military but it shouldn't be a huge focus.  Military is for spare actions and spare technology researches.  The culture cards do help you militarily, and if you see a battle you can win, go for it, as this lets you steal culture or incense from your opponent.  But attacking their capital is not your goal.  If you are in a position where you think you can do it, it's probably because you have spent too much of the game focusing on military.  Make sure you defend your cities, as if they take one of your cities, they can steal one of your hard-earned culture cards or, worse yet, destroy a city you sunk lots of trade and great people you put in to developing.
Don't hoard culture.  Buy cards as soon as you can and play cards as soon as you can.  Obviously don't buy cards if it would put you over hand limit and you want all the cards in your hand, but holding culture is dangerous as it can be stolen by battles.
When you are getting to the end of the track, go as fast as you can.  Forget everything but culture and buy advancement on that track every single time you can.  Discard great culture cards if you have to; you're going for the win.