text:
Do Lands count as permanents? Did I find a bug in Magic Arena?
I played a match with Chromatic Orrery on the battlefield.
I had no creatures, no enchantments or anything else on the field but around 10 Lands of 7 different types. 7 mixed and 2 single colors and one radiant fountain
I activated the ability of Chromatic Orrery "Draw a card for each color among permanents you control"
Nothing happened.
Are Lands colorless, not permanent or is this a bug?

It's confusing because lands are the only colorless permanents they still use colored borders for - but they base that on the colors the lands make, not the colors they are - lands have no color.

Lands are colorless permanents, so they will not cause you to draw any cards with Chromatic Orrery.
This is a result of rule 202.2:

202.2. An object is the color or colors of the mana symbols in its mana cost, regardless of the color of its frame.

202.2b Objects with no colored mana symbols in their mana costs are colorless.

Lands have no mana cost, so they have no colored symbols in their mana cost, so they are colorless.

As always, the exception: Dryad Arbor has a green color indicator and is thus green.

Animated man-lands tend to have colors, with a few exceptions like Mutavault.


text:
Can Spellskite redirect Swarmyard's regeneration ability?
I have Spellskite in my board and want to destroy a squirrel from the board of my opponnent. My opponnent activates Swarmyard and tries to regenerate his squirrel.
Can I redirect the target of Swarmyard with the ability of Spellskite to my Spellskite?

No, Spellskite cannot redirect Swarmyard's ability.
Swarmyard has the ability

{T}: Regenerate target Insect, Rat, Spider, or Squirrel.

Spellskite has the type "Artifact Creature — Phyrexian Horror". It is not an Insect, Rat, Spider, or Squirrel, so it is not a valid target of Swarmyard's ability. As a result, rule 115.7a applies:

If an effect allows a player to “change the target(s)” of a spell or ability, each target can be changed only to another legal target. If a target can’t be changed to another legal target, the original target is unchanged, even if the original target is itself illegal by then. If all the targets aren’t changed to other legal targets, none of them are changed.

Note that Swarmyard's activated ability is a valid target for Spellskite's activated ability. So you can legally pay the cost and activate Spellskite's ability targeting Swarmyard's ability, but Spellskite's ability won't actually do anything on resolution. This is stated in one of the rulings for Spellskite:

You can activate Spellskite's ability even if Spellskite isn't a legal target for the target spell or ability—or even if that spell or ability has no targets. In this case, no targets are changed.

It may be worth noting explicitly that Swarmyard's ability is a valid target for Spellskite's ability, even though nothing will happen. The nuance only matters in very niche situations, but it has caused problems before.

I added a note about that.

So, if I understand it correctly, I try to change the target with Spellskite, but in the end the target ist not changed and the squirrel of the opponnent ist regenerated?

Yes, you can activate Spellskite's ability, but it won't actually do anything on resolution. It won't change the target and the squirrel will still be regenerated.

@murgatroid99 Shouldn't it just cause the ability to fizzle because it no longer has any legal targets?

The Swarmyard's ability still has a legal target: its original target.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


text:
In A&A-Europe - When does an economic attack makes sense?
I've been playing Axis & Allies Europe (first version) for a long time and have never found a real value in using my bombers to run Economic Attacks.
It seems that the strength of the bomber is to inflict a lot of damage while supporting ground attacks.
I'd rather destroy a tank that cost 5 IPCs plus the 3 turns to get it to the front than to gamble on the off-chance that I could remove 6 IPCs in an Economic Attack.
Am I seeing this wrong? Is there an advantage to Economic Attacks that I'm not seeing?

Is this the first europe version or the 1940 version?

The first version (I'll add that to the question)

Before the latest adjustments to 1940 editions, bombing has not been a favorite by players in  tripleA and in A&A forums. Personally I disregard it as well as most friends I play with.

I'd rather destroy a tank that cost 5 IPCs plus 3 turns to get to the
  front than to gamble on the off-chance that I could remove 6 IPCs in
  an Economic Attack.

This applies to all editions of A&A. I agree, and I would add two more significant reasons not to bomb:

You are risking loosing a bomber (expensive unit)
and most importantly:
If that bomber is bombing there.. what is it not doing?

Bombers can do many thing, ranging from a sacrifice (I.E. clearing out an infantry unit to open the path for an allied blitz) to desperate defense (I.E. Need to defend moscow one turn and with range 6, only bombers can reach).
In this version bombing is even more crippled because of the escort rules. The defender gains even more advantage. I never saw a game were bombing was decisive.  The only thing I can point out is:

Russia has usually only one fighter
If Leningrad and or Archangel have fallen, as germany you may be just waiting to more units to have better odds in Moscow's last stand; a SBR can help in that turn that you don't assault and want to deal some damage.
Germany is going to take Archangel/Leningrad?  Move the AA's out of there and when they conquer, you may have a free money drain as allies. That bomber is going to hang around for a final stand in moscow or Dday.

But even in these scenarios, there is usually an alternative to the SBR. We have sometimes adopted a house rule for AA fire on bombings:  roll once to abort (on 2 or less); if suceed , roll once more to destroy (2 or less). Even then bombings are rare

The biggest advantage, as I see it, is that the effects of a successful economic attack are more widespread.  So while throwing your bombers into battle at your front can help make that battle more decisive, throwing your bombers on a Strategic Bombing Run can impair the defender's ability to reinforce any other front on the map.
If, for example, you're strong on one front but one of your allies (or one of your other fronts) is being pummeled, a Strategic Bombing Run would let you take some heat off without (or in addition to) turning around and reinforcing it directly (which not only takes time, but also weakens your original line).
Yes, overwhelming your opponent can be a good tactic, but sometimes all you need to do is hold the line long enough for reinforcements to arrive, or for your allies to break through elsewhere.  And if you can do that without committing (all of) your bombers to the battle, the territory-wide effects of a well-timed economic attack can be significant.
Europe during WW2 was not a one-front war.  So when committing your bombers, just ask yourself how important any particular front is right now to the overall war.
(Full disclosure: I've played A&A, but never A&A:Europe in particular.  Feel free to downvote me to oblivion if this post isn't actually useful and/or applicable.)

The last time I played the original A&A was in the mid 90ies so I have no way to compare with the Europe version.  On the other hand A&A:Europe also poses the multiple front problems. Still I find that the bombers make more 'economic' damages on the battle front.

The economic war works best when you have no good military targets to attack.
Suppose all your potential targets are filled with infantry (3 IPCs), which can absorb losses, while there are enemy fighters to "kill" your bomber. Then it might be worth trying to destroy 6 IPCs, while having only a one in six chance of your bomber getting shot down vy antiaircraft fire. The expected value of the damage to the industrial complex is 3.5 IPCs, slightly more than the value of the infantry.
On the other hand, if there are good targets of artillery, tanks or planes that your bomber can reach, it would be better to attack them, because they are worth more than 3.5 IPCs.

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text:
Can dummy claim points for honors in contract bridge?
North won the bid at 4 hearts.  When South laid down his dummy hand, South had 4 of the top 5 hearts.  Is the North-South team eligible to declare 100 honors even though North won the bid and South had the honors?

Yes. Either hand, by either side, may claim honors. The only restriction is that the honors claimed must all be in the one hand. This has been the rule since before I first learned the game in 1963.
From The Laws of Rubber Bridge (2014):

PART VII - The Score*
Law 72 - Points Earned
A. Trick Points ...
B. Premium Points Either side or both sides may earn premium points. Declarer’s side earns premium points ..., by holding scorable honors in either of their hands, or ....  The defenders earn premium points ... by holding scorable honors in either of their hands. (see Law 81)
...
Law 81 - Scoring Table
...
HONORS
Scored above the line by either side

For holding four of the five trump       100
honors (A, K, Q, J, 10) in one hand

For holding all five trump honors        150
(A, K, Q, J, 10) in one hand

For holding all four aces in one hand    150
at a no trump contract

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text:
What are some methods for delivering questions to players?
I am design several games for students. The purpose of these games is to encourage the students to discuss various topics related to their lessons during their study hall period or at home. If the games are interesting enough, this motivates them to do the work without outside help.
I am not so familiar with games and only know of two ways to deliver questions to players:

Players land on a space and the space contains the question.
Players draw a card and the card contains the question.

Are there any other types of game mechanisms that can deliver questions for players to discuss?

I don't think your question is about the delivery of the question ("this is usually done by a player reading a card"). There aren't many ways of "delivering a question," it has to be communicated either visually, audibly, or if blind through touch (only the medium changes). What you seem to be after is a game mechanic that would keep your students interested (in the game, the mechanic, the questions?). This is overly broad. For examples of more mechanics, see Adv. Search on boardgamegeek.com, under "Filter on Board game Mechanic".

For what it's worth, there are a lot of us who play games where some sort of event happens repeatedly (e.g. a question when you land on a space, or an encounter in a location in Arkham Horror), and the main thing that makes games replayable is that the events aren't always exactly the same. Perhaps having new questions will buy you more interest than you think.

As Jefromi has mentioned in his comments, I don't think you need to worry about what format the questions come in. In other words, who cares if the questions come on cards? Almost every modern board game involves cards but those don't seem boring for their use of a card mechanism.
The really important thing for maintaining interest is what happens around those cards. What makes the player have to draw or use those cards, what they have to do to utilize those cards, what they can use cards for?
I think it would be really cool to have a "cooperative" board game, rather than the standard competitive ones. I think a very stripped down and simplified Battlestar Galactica board game would be really cool. In that game, every turn the players have to turn over a "Crisis" card. The Crisis card is some kind of challenge or test that all of the players must help out in to complete. These cards could either make something good happen if the players succeed, or have a setback if the players fail. These tests could be some kind of trivia test or a math question or any kind of educational quiz. Each card could have two conditions - if the current player can pass the test by themselves (for a bigger bonus), or if they need to ask for help from their teammates. This would encourage cooperation, knowledge sharing, but also a focus on each player being accountable without being a huge penalty if they don't know all the questions.
A key piece to keep people involved is to make sure that the entire game isn't just answering questions. Even a trivia game such as Jeopardy has a betting mechanic in Double Jeopardy's and Final Jeopardy - this keeps people interested. Make sure that when you construct the game, there are interesting things the players can do to advance the game that aren't solely based on the material being taught. Again, games like Battlestar Galatica or Red November may be good templates for making decisions and moving around, in addition to some mechanism that is out of their control (ie. the trivia question cards).

If there were 5 players, then would 5 crisis cards (perhaps a few extra) be sufficient?

I think you could make it work however you want. What was in my head though, was a lot more. There would be one card per turn, and assume that maybe it takes 20-25 turns to complete the game. That would be 4-5 turns per player. This would give each person several times to try on their own. With this model, you would want perhaps 50 cards so that there is some replay value. .. With my model, the questions/crisis cards would be fairly succinct;  you could instead make them much more involved but fewer in number.

By the way, it's no help to your current situation, but you've given me some inspiration here. I am going to start brainstorming putting together an open source framework for educational games like this. Create a base game with solid mechanisms and lessons learned from professional games, and allow educators to drop in questions and build their own print and play games.  Thanks for the spark! :)

@DanielRichnak Did you advance on this project?  I'm cruising through this site looking for ideas to build something similar to this.

@Kim No, not really. I did some brainstorming and took a bunch of notes, but never prototyped it. I still think it's a cool idea and I've come back to the idea a few times.

Maybe the original question is "overly broad"; I'll answer a related question:

How can I implement academic drills into existing games?

Some games, such as "Jeopardy!", "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", "Are You Smarter...", etc. are already set-up for academic Q & A. We can also adapt other games to fit this requirement. Off the top of my head:
Monopoly - properties are always auctioned (not bought), with the winner being the first player to correctly answer a question.
Egyptian Rat Screw (played with a standard deck of cards): whenever a "double" or a "sandwich" occurs, the winner is decided by Q & A (not by who slaps first/fastest)
Fore more serious games like Agricola, Power Grid, and Puerto Rico, you could require students to pass the "first player" marker left/right if they fail a Q&A check. Of course, if they all fail, then the marker could work its way back to the original owner...

More generally: replace a given event in an existing game with a random event. Replace an auction event (monopoly), replace an intermittent event (egyptian rat screw), replace a binary random event (die roll for success/failure), replace a cost that would normally have to be paid... basically any sufficiently infrequent (nontrivial) element of a game.

@Jefromi. Also, do not subject your students to Arkham Horror, unless study hall is actually Saturday detention!

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text:
Can legions in Cardfight!! Vanguard be broken/un-legioned?
I am new to Cardfight!! Vanguard, and I was wondering if legions be broken or become un-legioned?

Yes, although it can only happen as part of the effect of another card - it's not something you can choose to do when your vanguard is in Legion. For example, Star-vader, Blaster Joker can retire one of the opponent's legion mates.
In the case where Legion is broken, the vanguard is no longer considered to be in Legion, and it cannot Legion again. You must ride a new Legion Leader and activate Legion with it.

if it is unlegioned, can you ride and then legion again (assuming you have 4 cards in the drop zone, and that the legion leaders or mates are not in the damage zone))

Yes you can. As long as your current vanguard has not legioned this game, it can attempt to legion. Note that your vanguard can only attempt to legion once per game - if it fails (i.e your legion mate is not in the deck), it cannot attempt to legion again.


text:
When do you place the +1/+1 counter for Anafenza?
If I attack with Anafenza, the Foremost and one other creature do I get to place a +1/+1 counter on the other creature or does it have to be tapped before combat?

Yes, you can put the +1/+1 counter on any creature that is tapped, including a creature that tapped to attack. The situation plays out like this:

You declare which of your creatures are attacking, including Anafenza and another creatures. You tap those creatures.
Anafenza's triggered ability goes on the stack, and you choose the target. At this point, you can choose any other tapped creature, including one that just tapped to attack.
The triggered ability resolves, and the creature gets a +1/+1 counter.

During the declare attacker step you chose with creatures attack. Then after you chose all creatures who attack this turn, you put Anafenza's trigger on the stack.
While putting the ability on the stack, you have to chose a legal target, which is another tapped creature. This can be a creature tapped prior to attacking or a creature that you just declared as an attacker. If no target can be chosen, the ability cannot be put onto the stack.


text:
Doesn't damage occuring in the damage phase occur simultaneously?
I was playing MtG Duels and was up against an opponent who had me down to 2 life.  They had a Perilous Myr so when it died would deal damage to me - sufficient to kill me.
I had a Juggernaut down so was forced to attack, so decided to just attack with everything to see what the rule was (or the game thought the rule was).  I had sufficient damage to kill them regardless of what they blocked.
I was pretty sure it would be a draw (dying/damage at the same time) or loss (their Myr's death would kill me before my attackers did damage) but despite their block and the Myr dying, I was granted the win.
Was this a game bug and am I misunderstanding the stack?
I thought all combat damage was dealt at the same time.
Thanks in advance!
NOTE: Despite being the computer version of the game, I felt people here much more able to help me with the rules (not game) question.  If this is misposted please let me know.

Remember there is a difference between combat damage and damage from spells and abilities.

Regarding your footnote: Rules questions are definitely on topic here. (It is nice to mention that you stumbled upon this situation while playing the digital version, on the off chance that you actually found a bug.)

All combat damage is dealt simultaneously. But the damage from Perilous Myr's trigger isn't combat damage, it is an unrelated triggered ability. All combat damage was dealt, which resulted in the Myr dying and your opponent being at 0 health. This also resulted in the Myr's ability triggering, but that trigger never even makes it to the stack, because state-based actions are checked before triggered abilities are added to the stack. When they are checked, your opponent loses for having 0 health.

I don't think the Perilous Myr will even see the graveyard, since the round of state-based actions that processes lethal damage will be the same one that causes the opponent to lose the game.

Well, it would be put into the graveyard at the same time that the opponent would lose (all SBAs in a single round are processed simultaneously), but the trigger because no player receives priority before the game ends.

@murgatroid99 I'm not entirely sure what it means for the myr to be put in the graveyard at the same time as the game ending. I guess it would be more precise to say that there is instance when it is in the graveyard while the game is still active.

It definitely isn't worth worrying about for the OP, but I guess a time when this distinction would matter is in a multiplayer game if an opponent has something that says "whenever a creature dies" - I think that ability would see the Myr die and trigger?

@HaoYe It's simultaneous because 704.3 says it is. You're correct that in the case where there are only two players, it doesn't matter that it's simultaneous, but that doesn't mean that it isn't. And as Jefromi points out, it can matter if there are more than two players.

The Perilous Myr dies, going into the graveyard. However, before the ability has a chance to trigger, the game evaluates for State Based actions. Seeing the controlling player at 0 live, everything he or she has is exiled from the game. Even in a multiplayer game, the attacking OP would survive this to see the second main, and the triggered ability doesn't get put onto the stack.

@DrunkCynic I'm confused what you're trying to add - it sounds like you're simply reiterating the existing answer? The point about multiplayer games isn't that the Myr's trigger happens - it doesn't - it's that other abilities from other players' permanents could potentially trigger off the Myr dying.


text:
How should Bone Splinters and Mirrorwing Dragon work?
When playing Magic Duels, my opponent had a Mirrorwing Dragon as his only creature and I cast a Bone Splinters on it, sacrificing one of my three creatures.
The following occurred:
1) The game copied Bone Splinters (once) - I assume from Mirrorwing Dragon (the game is non-specific)
2) One of my two remaining creatures was targetted by the Bone Splinters copy and destroyed.
3) I was left with a single creature (of the original 3) and my opponents Mirrorwing Dragon was destroyed.  My remaining creature did not have hexproof or protection from black.
Is this how this should've worked?

Are you sure one of your creatures was destroyed through a copied bone splinters, and not sacrificed as a result of the original bone splinter cost?

I'm not sure I understand the title and issue with "other" here - the situation you describe is indeed the spell being copied for a creature besides Mirrorwing Dragon.

@Hackworth I had 3 creatures before I cast Bone Splinters.  One of them was sacrificed to the original casting at the Mirrorwing Dragon.  I had 1 creature left when the exchange was done.  So yes I'm pretty sure.

What seems odd is that you had a creature left. Bone Splinters should've been copied for each of your creatures. Did the remaining one have hexproof or protection from black or something?

@Jefromi Nope.  I agree it is very strange.  As commented to the answer, I suspect it's either a bug in my favor (rather than disfavor) or the additional casting cost needed to be spent and my opponent sacrificed the dragon to kill an additional one of my creatures.  I would be curious which (or other possibilities) in case this ever happened in real life.  Can't change the game I guess=)

@joedragons You might want to edit your question to make it clear exactly what happened and what you're asking. It now sounds like what you actually want to know isn't about what "other" means and whether it includes the dragon, but rather why one creature survived.

I'm downvoting on the basis of the question being quite unclear. I'll keep an eye out for when it gets edited as Jefromi suggests.

@Jefromi I'll add an edit but not sure it helps anyone, was mulling deleting.

Your edit appears to substantially change the meaning/direction of the question. Please just clarify the original question you wanted to ask, and if you want to ask a different question, ask a new question.

@murgatroid99 If you wish you can just delete it.  I cannot, it says to flag for moderator.  I will come back when I have more time if it's still around.

I'm not telling you to delete it. People asked for clarification mainly because the title asked about the use of the word "other" but the body asked about an interaction between two cards. So, you just need to clarify what you intended to ask. For now, I'm going to roll back your edit, because it changes too much.

Identifying the creature that survived by name could provide a clue as to why it survived Bone Splinters, or avoided being a target in the first place. Identifying the names of all of the cards involved is always a good idea.

Also, you mentioned in a comment on Hackworth's answer that your opponent sacrificed his Mirrorwing Dragon to kill one of your creatures. What allowed your opponent to sacrifice Mirrorwing Dragon? Are you certain that it was sacrificed, and not destroyed by Bone Splinters?

He said in that comment that it was a guess. I think we can safely say that he is not actually certain. I'm pretty sure that comment was simply expressing a misinterpretation of the answer.

@murgatroid99 He also mentioned sacrificing the dragon in the third comment on the question (above). If anyone else wants to speculate about what the OP meant, let's take that discussion to another room and leave the comments here for requesting clarification or suggesting improvements.

@Rainbolt I've added #s and commentary to try and clarify.  Murgatroid99's speculation is correct, I was guessing - trying to rationalize how this could have happened besides a bug.  I make the same claim in my edit that got rolledback (or tried to).

If you cast a spell on a Mirrorwing Dragon as its only target, that spell will be copied for and target each of your creatures.

Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell that targets only Mirrorwing Dragon, that player copies that spell for each other creature he or she controls that the spell could target.

"Her or she" refers to the caster of the spell. See also the first ruling on the gatherer page for Mirrorwing Dragon:

The copies are only created targeting creatures that the spell’s controller controls. Copies are not created for all creatures on the battlefield, and the affected creatures may be controlled by a different player than the controller of Mirrorwing Dragon. Notably, if you cast Murder targeting your opponent’s Mirrorwing Dragon, your creatures will each get a Murder, not your opponent’s.

Alternatively, since you said that "he killed one of my creatures*", you may be confusing the creature sacrifice cost of Bone Splinters with its effect. After the sacrifice, however, the spell would still be copied for each of your creatures.

Ah alright, with that murder example, I'm guessing he had to sacrifice his dragon to kill one of my creatures.  Or there's a bug and I got lucky I even had one creature left.  Thanks, I should have read the gather notes more closely.

@joedragons In the situation you've described, as far as I can tell (because I don't quite understand it either), your opponent didn't have to sacrifice his dragon, and in fact there isn't even anything that allows him to sacrifice his dragon. Unless there's something you've left out of the description, you are the only one who gets to sacrifice a creature, and you should have had all your remaining creatures destroyed by copies of Bone Splinters.


text:
What happens to an unattached Aura?
I haven't played magic in forever and I need some clarification on a rule.
Let's say I cast Arrest on a creature my opponent controls. Then on his turn he returns the creature to his hand. Now I'm wondering what happens to my arrest,
Does it get assigned to a new creature? or does it go to my graveyard since the target that got picked is now no longer valid?

When the creature that the Arrest is attached to leaves the battlefield, the Arrest goes to your graveyard because it is not attached to anything. There are several conditional actions that you check every time anyone gets priority called State-based actions. One of those, specified in rule 704.5n is

If an Aura is attached to an illegal object or player, or is not attached to an object or player, that Aura is put into its owner's graveyard.

Note: The Bestow keyword ability overrides this rule.


text:
Is Mr. Jack Pocket balanced?
[To be clear, this is about the distinct two-player edition called Mr. Jack Pocket. This is not about the full-size board game Mr. Jack.]
I really like Mr. Jack Pocket , but I wonder if it's not entirely balanced. It seems to me that it is much easier to win as the Inspector than as Jack. Or perhaps I'm missing some key strategic element to equalize the odds. Does anyone have a deeper analysis of this game?

Why does it seem that way? So far we aren't really analyzing anything...

I don't have a chart of results, but over the many games I've played with my wife, we both find it easier to win as the Inspector. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I just wonder if the game really is balanced and we simply haven't figured out how to play well as Jack.

Short answer: No, 55% winning chance for the Inspector.
Here is a quote from the designer Bruno Cathala on balance in the game.
It is taken from a reply on Boardgamegeek

concerning balance of the game, i just want to give you some statistics.
  The final balance has been made with testors belonging to the top of the mr jack players on internet (http://mrjack.hurricangames.com)
And, moreover, an artificial intelligence has been developped to help us.
I will speak here only about games played exactly with the final set rules.
If i consider games played by human player against an other human player:
196 games have been played
  108(55%) won by inspector (96 by primal goal, and 12 after hunting jack because he got 6 hourglasses at the same time he was identified)
  88 (45%) won by jack (53 by primal goal, 33 staying invisible after being hunted, and 2 by "dawn")
now let's see what happens when the computer plays against himself:
  340 games have been played
  187(55%) won by inspector (140 by primal goal, and 47 after hunting jack because he got 6 hourglasses at the same time he was identified)
  153 (45%) won by jack (97 by primal goal, 55 staying invisible after being hunted, and 1 by "dawn")
So.. that's the reason why i know that the balance is slightly in favor of inspector, but not enough to really create a problem. (Experience and/or tactic competence is much more important to win ;-))
Hoping these results will interest you..
  all the best
  bruno


text:
Spend mana as though it were mana of any color and Sunburst/Converge
There are some effects that allow players to spend mana as though it were mana of any color, e.g. Mycosynth Lattice.

... Players may spend mana as though it were mana of any color.

There are also cards that care about the colors of mana spent to cast them, notably Sunburst/Converge, and some others. e.g. Azorius Herald.

When Azorius Herald enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless {U} was spent to cast it.

If I cast an Azorius Herald with {G}{G}{G}, can I spend it 'as though' it was {W}{U}{U} or similar, so that I don't have to sacrifice it?

No, that does not work. Mycosynth Lattice lets you spend mana as though it were mana of any color, but the spell cares about what types of mana you actually used to cast it.
Rule 609.4 says

Some effects state that a player may do something “as though” some condition were true or a creature can do something “as though” some condition were true. This applies only to the stated effect. For purposes of that effect, treat the game exactly as if the stated condition were true. For all other purposes, treat the game normally.

In this situation, that means that you can treat the mana you're spending as any color while paying a cost, but that effect doesn't extend to when you're resolving a spell or ability, and you want to check the colors spent.
The card Celestial Dawn has a similar ability:

You may spend white mana as though it were mana of any color. You may spend other mana only as though it were colorless mana.

And there is an official ruling about it that applies to the situation in question:

You may use a different color mana than the color required for spells and abilities that require a specific color. If you do, and the spell or ability checks the actual color of the mana, it can tell the difference.

This conclusion is supported by a few rulings from the level 3 judge who runs the "Ask a Magic Judge" tumblr blog:

How would Mycosynth Lattice work with converge spells - would "use mana as though it were mana of any color" satisfy "each color of mana spent"?

Not very well.
While you can spend colorless mana through the lattice as though it were any color, it’s still colorless mana as far as Converge is concerned.

Mycosynth Lattice in EDH: spending colorless mana AS IF it were mana of any color doesnt break 903.9.... right?

Correct.
However, you’re still not spending mana of that color, so something like Sunburst or Firespout will know the difference.

If I control Mycosynth Lattice, then cast Skyreach Manta spending WWWWW as though it were WUBRG, how many +1/+1 counters will the Manta enter the battlefield with?

One.
Sunburst always knows what you actually paid.

609.4. Some effects state that a player may do something “as though” some condition were true or a creature can do something “as though” some condition were true. This applies only to the stated effect. For purposes of that effect, treat the game exactly as if the stated condition were true. For all other purposes, treat the game normally.

So you can spend it 'as though' it were any color, but it isn't actually that color so things that look for the color of mana spent only see what was actually spent

I'm not sure if that rule is specific enough to be helpful here, because it doesn't define the scope of "the stated effect". We know from the rulings here that in this particular case, "the stated effect" covers "paying for a cost" but not "checking how a cost was paid", but I'm not really sure we can conclude that just from the rule.

Is there any reason the 'stated effect' would effect anything other than when you actually spend mana? Since that is that is what you are doing 'as though' something else were true. Resolving spells or abilities isn't part of the spending mana so it looks at what actually happened. Also Celedtial Dawn has a ruling that is relevant if you want to add that to your answer.

That's a fair point. And thank you for mentioning the Celestial Dawn rulings. I searched for rulings related to it online, but I forgot to actually look at the official rulings.


text:
Can multiple spells be activated with the same mana?
So first off I am fairly new to MTG and I was playing with my friend today and he corrected me on my move making. The way I thought it worked is that, for example, if I have a creature that requires 1 Mountain to attack it can attack after I tap the Mountain and the creature. However my friend said that the same land can be used multiple times in a turn, so I could use 2 other creatures on the battlefield that only required 1 Mountain to attack. Is this correct?

Can you give the name of one of the creatures you are talking about, for reference?

Creatures do not require mana to attack, so you have some very basic things mixed up here.

Please please read the basic rulebook (also linked in murgatroid99's answer) - if you have this kind of misunderstanding, you likely have others.

Do the creatures have text equivalent to: "This creature may only attack if you have a mountain in play." OR "[R]: This creature may attack this turn."?

There are a few basic concepts you need to understand to understand the answer to this question. For more information, I would suggest reading through the Basic Rulebook:
Mana
Mana is a resource that is separate from cards and lands, and you have to represent it separately or remember how much you have. When you tap a basic land for mana, it adds one mana of the corresponding color to your mana pool (for example, tapping a Mountain adds one red mana to your mana pool). Some spells or abilities also explicitly say that you add mana to your mana pool, such as Llanowar Elves' ability. Your mana pool empties at the end of each step or phase.
Tapping
Every permanent (land, creature, etc) on the battlefield is either tapped or untapped. Abilities that make you tap the permanent, like a land's ability that gives you mana, can only be activated if the permanent is untapped. You untap all of your permanents at the beginning of your turn, and you generally don't do so otherwise. This means that, unless you do something special, you can't use a single land to generate mana more than once in a turn.
Spells
All cards that represent spells have a mana cost in the upper right corner (except some Future Sight cards, which were printed with the mana cost in the upper left). This indicates how much mana you need to spend to play the spell. When you spend that mana, it is removed from your mana pool. For example, if you want to cast Cancel, you need to have 2 blue mana and one mana of any color in your mana pool to cast it, and that mana is removed from your mana pool when you do so.
So, to answer part of your question, if you tap a land for mana, you can only use that mana to pay for one spell.
Combat
When you start combat, the player who is taking the turn decides which of their creatures is attacking. In general, this requires that you tap those creatures (and that they are not already tapped), but it does not require any mana payment. For example, if you control an untapped Akroan Crusader, you can declare it as an attacker, and all you have to do is tap it.
Once you are done declaring attackers, your opponent declares blockers. This means that they decide which of their untapped creatures should block which of your attacking creatures.
Once that's done, combat damage is dealt, which generally means that blocked attackers and their blockers deal damage to each other, and unblocked attackers deal damage to the player they are attacking.


text:
What happens if Falkenrath Gorger dies while a madness ability it granted is on the stack?
Falkenrath Gorger says:

Each Vampire creature card you own that isn't on the battlefield has madness.

Lets say someone has Falkenrath Gorger in play and discards Drana, Liberator of Malakir to a discard effect. In response their opponent casts Murder killing Falkenrath Gorger.
Now the madness has already triggered since Drana was discarded as part of the cost of the discard effect. However madness has been lost between placing Drana into exile and before casting her.
Can the player still play Drana from exile or is she stuck there now she has lost madness?
Bonus question (I'm fairly sure the answer is no) - if she is stuck in exile would playing another Gorger allow her to be cast from exile again?

The rules on Falkenrath Gorger already has this specific case covered.

8/04/2016     If Falkenrath Gorger leaves the battlefield before the madness trigger has resolved for a Vampire card that gained madness with its ability, the madness ability will still let you cast that Vampire card for the appropriate cost even though it no longer has madness.

Since he'll leave the battlefield after you discarded a card the madness will trigger and you will be able to cast your vampire.
Second question: Madness is a trigger, if you choose not to cast the card it'll be put in the graveyard and you can't recast it.

8/04/2016     If you choose not to cast a card with madness when the madness triggered ability resolves, it’s put into your graveyard. You don’t get another chance to cast it later.


text:
Is the roof a floor?
While playing through Saloon Tycoon for the first time, we weren't able to figure out whether the roof counts as a floor or not. There are two possibilities:
1. The Roof is a Floor
In which case the tallest section would be:
Floor 3: Roof
Floor 2: Another room
Floor 1: Saloon
This is how we played it, since the roof is a tile just like any other it seemed like it should follow the same rules. This led to problems with the Luxury Suite, which is required to be on the third floor.
2. The Roof is not a Floor
In which case the tallest section could be:
Floor 4. Roof
Floor 3. Another room
Floor 2. Another room
Floor 1. Saloon
This helps the Luxury Suite make sense, but it causes a conflict because the roof is now different than other tiles. It essentially becomes a fourth "floor".

The roof is neither a building nor a floor. You can build 3 tiles and when the 3rd one is finished with all cubes placed you get a roof.
This is covered on page 6 under the rules for finishing a tile:

If the [finished] tile is on the 3rd floor, take the appropriate Roof tile (Small or Large), turn it over, place it on top and score +4 Reputation points.

Additionally, the example turn on page 8 illustrates this. The text and picture for step 4 shows a roof being added to a three-story building.

That would mean that a roof is also not a tile, since (as Gendolkari said) no building can be more than 3 tiles high. Is that correct?

Thanks. Someone pointed out this was covered in the rules. I'll accept this as the answer and probably edit in a reference to the rules.


text:
Anger of the Gods and totem armor
When my friend has totem armor on a creature and I use Anger of the Gods, what happens? They are both replacement effects but which is applied first?

The creature will not die or be exiled, and instead the aura with Totem Armor will be destroyed.
Anger of the Gods says

Anger of the Gods deals 3 damage to each creature. If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.

And Totem Armor is an ability defined in rule 702.88a:

Totem armor is a static ability that appears on some Auras. “Totem armor” means “If enchanted permanent would be destroyed, instead remove all damage marked on it and destroy this Aura.”

Importantly, Anger of the Gods replaces a creature dying, and Totem Armor replaces a creature being destroyed. These are very similar, but not the same. Dying is defined in rule 700.4:

The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”

And Destroy is a keyword action defined in rule 701.6a:

To destroy a permanent, move it from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard.

In other words, destruction is an action that causes a permanent to go to the graveyard, and dying is the event of a permanent moving to the graveyard. By my reading, this means that destruction causes dying, so destruction happens first Therefore, the Totem Armor replacement would apply first and save the creature, and we never get to the point where the creature would die and the Anger of the Gods replacement would apply.

You should probably split that into 2 answers so people can up/downvote separately, since the answers are mutually exclusive.

Surely the first version is correct. If the second were, there'd be other weird things like Anger of the Gods optionally being able to exile a creature with a regeneration shield, right?

You two are probably right. I've removed the "alternate interpretation" section.


text:
Does a Sorcery with Support trigger Zada, Hedron Grinder's ability?
If a sorcery (like Press into Service for example) has the support ability, would casting it and supporting only Zada, Hedron Grinder activate his ability? Is the "targets only Zada" requirement met by the support? Or would the card have to specifically say "target creature"?

Support has this definition:

“Support N” on a permanent means “Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to N other target creatures.” “Support N” on an instant or sorcery spell means “Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to N target creatures.”

So, "Support 2" on Press into Service is the same as if the card actually had "Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to 2 target creatures" printed on it. This means that yes, if you cast a spell with Support N, and the only target is Zada, Hedron Grinder, then the ability triggers and the spell is copied.
However, note that this is impossible with Nissa's Judgement (and Press into Service if you want to actually take control of an opponent's creature), because they require you to choose another target besides the ones you support.

Press Into Service doesn't say "target creature you don't control", so you could support onto Zada and target Zada with the second part, which would trigger it's ability.

That's true. I clarified that point.

Very interesting. So Press into Service on Zada is "Put a +1/+1 counter, untap, and give haste to team"?


text:
Gleemax targeting
Does Gleemax allow you to choose an invalid target for a spell or ability?  If you have it on the field and the other player plays and spell that say choose 2 creatures you control and place a +1/+1 token on them.  Can you choose a creature you control or do you have to choose one of their creatures?

No
Keep in mind Silver-Bordered games always require some play-group-specific interpretation of the rules.
That being said, Gleemax changes who selects the targets, but it does not change anything about the legality of choosing targets. Player B selecting a creature they control for player A's ability that must target 'a creature you control' is illegal because the qualifier for the target refers to player A, so it effectively means 'a creature player A controls'.

That is why I used the house rules tag and understand that

Well, house rules by definition will always be up to the groups interpretation, so we won't be able to give a definite answer. My point was that nothing in Gleemax's text changes legality of target selection, so this would be a new clause. If your group wants to add new rules (or rather, take them away for Gleemax), you're free to do so. To get this effect, I would suggest adding additional wording like 'Requirements for targets may be ignored.'

@Aetherfox I mean, by that logic any game or Magic format can have interpretations. If you need Magic help, you ask a judge. If you need silver border help, you ask Mark Rosewater on blogatog who does often give official silver border help. Silver border, while a bit silly, is not any more or less ambiguous than black border. queue joke about Ambiguity here


text:
MTG What happens if the player can't fulfil Iridescent Drake ability
Iridescent Drake has the ability: "When Iridescent Drake enters the battlefield, put target Aura card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control attached to Iridescent Drake."
Can I play Iridescent Drake if there's no Aura in any graveyard?

If there's no valid target for the ability, nothing happens. After Iridescent Drake enters the battlefield, you put that triggered ability on the stack. This process includes choosing targets, and if you can't choose any valid targets, you simply don't put the ability on the stack.
The triggered ability rules describe exactly how this works:

603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. [...]

[...]

603.3d The remainder of the process for putting a triggered ability on the stack is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2c–d. If a choice is required when the triggered ability goes on the stack but no legal choices can be made for it, or if a rule or a continuous effect otherwise makes the ability illegal, the ability is simply removed from the stack.

601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires. [...]


text:
When does paying activated ability costs occur in mtg?
I was playing a game of Commander with my friends a while ago and I had a Seal of Doom in play alongside a Starfield of Nyx and enough enchantments to make all my enchantments creatures. My opponent throws a creature removal spell at my Seal of Doom. In response I use Seal of Doom's activated ability and sacrifice it in order to destroy a creature. My opponent then responds by playing Snakeform on it.
My friend says that i can't activate its ability since it's no longer Seal of Doom and the ability reads "Sacrifice Seal of Doom: Destroy target creature". But isn't the cost payed once the ability goes on the stack and therefore isn't Seal of Doom already in the graveyard before his instant spell resolves? Or am I wrong and can you counter an activated ability this way?

Costs are payed as part of the process of activating an ability. Once you start activating an ability, nobody has an opportunity to respond until after modes, costs, and targets are chosen, and costs are payed. So, the situation you describe should have played out like this:

Your opponent casts a creature removal spell targeting Seal of Doom.
In response, you activate Seal of Doom's ability. At this time, you sacrifice Seal of Doom.
Your opponent has an opportunity to respond while Seal of Doom's ability is on the stack, but they can't target it with Snakeform because it is no longer on the battlefield.
Seal of Doom's ability resolves.

The rules for activating activated abilities use the rules for casting spells, and these are the relevant steps:

602.2a The player announces that he or she is activating the ability. If an activated ability is being activated from a hidden zone, the card that has that ability is revealed. That ability is created on the stack as an object that’s not a card. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. Its controller is the player who activated the ability. The ability remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, or an effect moves it elsewhere.
602.2b The remainder of the process for activating an ability is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2b–i. Those rules apply to activating an ability just as they apply to casting a spell. An activated ability’s analog to a spell’s mana cost (as referenced in rule 601.2f) is its activation cost.

[...]

601.2h The player pays the total cost in any order. Partial payments are not allowed. Unpayable costs can’t be paid.

601.2i Once the steps described in 601.2a–h are completed, the [ability becomes activated]. [...] If the [ability]’s controller had priority before casting it, he or she gets priority.

Keep in mind that the original creature removal spell never does anything to Seal of Doom. Seal of Doom is sacrificed and the ability resolves all before that spell ever resolves. So even if that first creature removal spell had been another Snakeform, it wouldn't have mattered.

A Variation on the Ability
I would also like to clarify that even if the ability worked more like how your opponent thought it worked, they still wouldn't be able to stop it with Snakeform. Consider the hypothetical card Seal of Delayed Doom with the following ability:

{0}: Sacrifice Seal of Delayed Doom. If you do, destroy target creature.

The difference here is that the "Sacrifice Seal of Delayed Doom" clause is part of the effect instead of the cost, so you wouldn't do it until the ability resolves. If you had that instead, your situation would instead play out like this:

Your opponent casts a creature removal spell targeting Seal of Delayed Doom.
In response, you activate Seal of Delayed Doom's ability.
In response, your opponent casts Snakeform targeting Seal of Delayed Doom.
Snakeform resolves, and Seal of Delayed Doom becomes a 1/1 Green Snake with no abilities. But importantly, it's still the same Seal of Delayed Doom object, just with modified types, abilities, and color.
Seal of Delayed Doom's ability resolves. At this point, it instructs you to sacrifice Seal of Delayed Doom, which refers specifically to the object that created the ability. So even though it's a Green Snake and doesn't have the ability, the Seal of Delayed Doom is still on the battlefield and you can (and must) still sacrifice it. You do so, and the targeted creature is destroyed.

This is specified by rule 201.4:

Text that refers to the object it’s on by name means just that particular object and not any other objects with that name, regardless of any name changes caused by game effects.

Split Second
There is one way that the opponent could have destroyed Seal of Doom without allowing you to sacrifice it in response: the ability Split Second prevents players from responding to it's on with other spells or activated abilities that aren't mana abilities. If the opponent cast any of the following spells as or instead of the first creature removal spell, then you would not be able to activate Seal of Doom in response or after the removal spell resolves:

Krosan Grip
Molten Disaster (kicked, with X at least 2)
Sudden Death
Sudden Shock
Sudden Spoiling (would need to follow up with another removal spell)
Take Possession (would need to sacrifice the Seal of Doom while you control it)
Wipe Away
Word of Seizing (would need to sacrifice the Seal of Doom while you control it)

might also be worth clarifying that the card saying "sacrifice seal of doom" really just means "sacrifice this object", and it doesn't matter if it somehow gets a name change, and that snakeform doesn't involve a namechange anyway.

I added an explanation of a variant ability that I think explains that bit.

Seal of Delayed Doom was a great way to talk about that. Nice one.

I added a note about that, and also about when that isn't the case (Split Second).

Paying costs is the final step while attempting to cast a spell, activate an ability, or satisfy a trigger's cost. The mnemonic device often used is "All Crazy Teens Have Tried Magic Pills,"
Announce your spell/ability that you want to put on the stack.
Choose modes (Izzet Charm, for example)
Target any objects or players that are required by the ability
How does this ability affect those targets?
Total your costs. Not just mana costs, but everything before the colon on
the ability (abilities read as "Cost : Ability"). Find out what they are and make it known.
Mana abilities may be used here. They immediately resolve. Exceptions are abilities that have timing restrictions (Lion's Eye Diamond) or abilities that use the stack to add mana (Deathrite Shaman, which requires targetting)
Pay all costs. Tap all the tap costs, sacrifice all the sacrifice costs, pay all the mana, etc.
Once you do this, the ability is now on the stack. If, at any point, you can't complete one of these steps, you backup until you can complete the step, or you back all the way up and stop trying to put something on the stack that you can't properly process through the rules.

What are you supposed to do in the "H" step? It sounds a lot like resolving the spell or ability, but surely that's not what you meant.

The "H" step is for the player casting the spell to give details about what the ability does. For this, using the exact wording for what the card says would happen to the targets is your best choice. Sometimes that's as simple as "(target) takes 3 damage," but more complex cards might need read in full.


text:
When does the activated ability resolve?
I cast a Fiery Temper targeting Electrostatic Pummeler. My opponent then pays 6 Enery Counters so that Pummeler can be a 4/4 but I responded with triggering Dynavolt Tower dealing another 3 damage to Pummeler but he pays another 3 energy so that his Pummeler can be an 8/8. Is this correct? I think the way it works is that Pummeler will be 2/2 when my Dynavolt triggers and that will kill it. Or does Pummeler become an 8/8 and will only take 6 damage?
I think stack is like this
Fiery Temper -> Eloctrostatic Pummeler -> Pummeler Pays 6 Enery -> Dynavolt Tower -> Pummeler Pays 3 Energy

You mention "triggering Dynavolt Tower". Do you mean that at the beginning of this scenario, you have fewer than 5 energy counters, and that the energy you got from Dynavolt Tower's triggered ability allowed you to activate its activated ability?

Expand your explanation of what happened. Did the Fiery Temper and previous activations resolve, or were those objects still on the stack? How much energy did you have before triggering Dynavolt Tower? There is insufficient information in the question.

Clarification to my last: How much energy did you have before Casting Fiery Temper, thus triggering the first ability on Dynavolt Tower?

There's a little ambiguity around the part where your opponent payed 6 energy to activate Electrostatic Pummeler's ability twice, but if we follow the tournament rules, the Pummeler survives this whole ordeal.
Assuming that you started out with enough energy to activate Dynavolt Tower, the situation plays out like this:

You cast Fiery Temper. This is the stack:

Fiery Temper

Your opponent declares that they pay 6 energy to activate Electrostatic Pummeler's ability twice. If we follow the tournament rules, then this is a shortcut for "Activate the ability, then let it resolve, then activate it again". This means that if you're responding to this, you have two choices. You can either respond to the first activation, or to the second.

If you respond to the first activation, you are interrupting the shortcut, so they have only activate the ability once. The Pummeler is a 1/1, your opponent still has 6+ energy, and this is the stack:

Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

Then the rest plays out like this:

You pay 5 energy to activate Dynavolt Tower. This is the stack:

Dynavolt activated ability
Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

Your opponent activates Pummeler's ability twice with the 6 energy they still have. At this point, you have no responses, so both resolve, and the Pummeler ends up as a 4/4. This is still the stack:

Dynavolt activated ability
Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

Dynavolt Tower's ability resolves. The Pummeler is now a 4/4 with 3 damage marked. This is the stack:

Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

The Pummeler's ability resolves. The Pummeler is now an 8/8 with 3 damage marked. This is the stack:

Fiery Temper

Fiery Temper resolves. The Pummeler is now an 8/8 with 6 damage marked. It survives.

If instead you respond to the second activation, you are accepting the shortcut, and one of the abilities has resolved. The Pummeler is a 2/2, your opponent has 3 energy, and this is the stack:

Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

Then the rest plays out like this:

You pay 5 energy to activate Dynavolt Tower. This is the stack:

Dynavolt activated ability
Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

Your opponent activates Pummeler's ability once with the 3 energy they still have. At this point, you have no responses, so it resolves, and the Pummeler ends up as a 4/4. This is still the stack:

Dynavolt activated ability
Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

Dynavolt Tower's ability resolves. The Pummeler is now a 4/4 with 3 damage marked. This is the stack:

Pummeler's ability
Fiery Temper

The Pummeler's ability resolves. The Pummeler is now an 8/8 with 3 damage marked. This is the stack:

Fiery Temper

Fiery Temper resolves. The Pummeler is now an 8/8 with 6 damage marked. It survives.

If you started this situation with less than 5 energy, the situation is actually a lot simpler (assuming your opponent made correct plays). In this case, it plays out like this:

You cast Fiery Temper. This is the stack:

Dynavolt Tower's triggered ability
Fiery Temper

Your opponent responds declaring that they pay 6 energy to activate Electrostatic Pummeler's ability twice. This time, you don't have enough energy to activate Dynavolt Tower's activated ability, so both Pummeler activations resolve. The Pummeler is now a 4/4. This is still the stack:

Dynavolt Tower's triggered ability
Fiery Temper

Dynavolt Tower's triggered ability resolves. You gain 2 energy. This is the stack:

Fiery Temper

You activate Dynavolt Tower's activated ability. This is the stack:

Dynavolt Tower's activated ability
Fiery Temper

Your opponent activates Pummeler's ability again. You have no responses, so you let it resolve. Pummeler is now an 8/8. This is still the stack:

Dynavolt Tower's activated ability
Fiery Temper

Neither players have any more responses, so we let both the ability and the Fiery Temper resolve. Each deals 3 damage to the Pummeler, so the result is that the Pummeler is a 8/8 with 6 damage marked. Again, it survives.

There is the imperfect play possibility, if each player has sufficient energy, where the opponent activates the Pummeler the second time without letting the first resolve. If the Dynavolt Tower ability is then placed on the stack, above the two Pummeler activations, the third is insufficient to save the creature (3>2). While your Tournament Rules interpretation is accurate, it assumes facts that aren't in evidence.

I said that I was making the same interpretation assumptions in the tournament rules. Those rules are written with so that they generally match the intention of the players. It's reasonable in general to use their assumptions when interpreting MTG situations.

In general, nothing you've said is wrong. The room for disagreement is caused by the "Unclear What You're Asking" nature of the question, giving its loose use of MtG vernacular. Since the question is imprecisely asked, it is difficult to determine what the OP is wanting to know.

Assuming the pummeler starts as a 1/1, this is how it'd go down...
STACK

Electrostatic Pummeler is here
Fiery Temper targeting the pummeler
EP ability targeting self
EP ability targeting self
Dynavolt Tower targeting pummeler
Pummeler again targeting self

Now things start to resolve.
STACK

Electrostatic Pummeler is here
Fiery Temper
EP ability
EP ability
Dynavolt Tower
RESOLVES Pummeler is a 2/2

STACK

Electrostatic Pummeler is here.
Fiery Temper
EP ability
EP ability
RESOLVES Dynavolt Tower deals three damage, killing the pummeler.

Invalid targets essentially wipe the stack now.
If he was a more skilled player, he would have asked for a response to 3 before throwing 4 on the stack, boosting the pummeler to 2/2, which would become 4/4 when 5 resolves. It's 4/4(-3), resolves again to be 8/8(-3) then the Temper hits for more, but not enough to kill.


text:
Can I use Fate Transfer to make a Thing in the Ice transform immediately?
If I have Thing in the Ice with 4 ice counters on it and played Fate Transfer to move all these counters on to another creature, will it transform? Or is the check on how many counters it has done before the actual move of all the counters?

Thanks everyone. I guess they're careful on how they worded it now to avoid a Dark Depths scenario :D

I'm still waiting for that elusive "You may reorder the stack. Draw a card." instant for U... :)

End result: Thing in the Ice with no counters, unflipped; another creature has 3 ice counters.
The sequence of events creates the following stack:

Thing in the Ice Trigger
Fate Transfer

The trigger is on top of the transfer since it is in response to the spell. Trigger resolves, removes 1 counter, sees that there are 3 counters left and doesn't flip. Transfer resolves, and moves the counters.  Since the trigger is already resolved, it doesn't flip.
The next time you cast an instant or sorcery, the trigger will (attempt to) remove a counter, then seeing no counters will flip.

It would still be a pretty hilarious play in a Thing In the Ice mirror though.

No, it will not work.
Thing in the Ice transforms from its triggered ability. The following will happen when you cast Fate Transfer as you described (assuming each player passes priority and no other effects happen):

Fate Transfer is cast, targets are chosen, and it goes on the stack.
State based actions are checked (creatures at zero toughness die, players with zero life lose the game unless an effect prevents it, etc)
Triggered abilities go on the stack in APNAP (active player, non-active player) order
Thing in the Ice has a triggered ability as just described. This ability goes on the stack on top of the Fate Transfer you just cast.
Players receive priority in APNAP order. If all players pass priority, the effect on top of the stack resolves.
The triggered ability from Thing in the Ice will resolve first because it is on top of the stack. You remove an Ice counter, if there are no more ice counters on Thing in the Ice then it will transform. In this case you remove 1 Ice counter, leaving 3. There are more than zero Ice counters left so Thing in the Ice does not transform.
State based actions are checked again
Players again receive priority in APNAP order. If all players pass priority, the effect on top of the stack resolves.
Fate Transfer resolves and will move the remaining 3 counters from Thing in the Ice to the other creature you targeted (again assuming no other effects) leaving zero Ice counters on Thing in the Ice. However, it will not transform because nothing is telling it to (its triggered ability which checks if it should transform already resolved)

If you cast another instant or sorcery spell after Fate Transfer resolves, Thing in the Ice will flip because its ability that causes it to flip will trigger again.


text:
Does Immerwolf's bonus stay after it leaves the battlefield?
A little while ago I was playing two of my friends. One of my friends was playing a wolf/werewolf deck with Immerwolf and a few other creatures out on the battlefield.  I was playing an enchantment deck and cast Path To Exile on the Immerwolf. Once the spell resolved my friend didn't remove the +1/+1 from his other creatures (from Immerwolf's ability).
I reasoned that since they weren't actual +1/+1 counters, they would no longer affect his creatures, since Immerwolf was in exile.  He disagreed, saying that the +1/+1 would stay, whether or not Immerwolf was in play.
I didn't really feel like pushing the issue since it was just a kitchen table game and it also didn't really affect the outcome of the game.  I'm just curious as to who was correct.

This is a fairly common newbie question that's shown up on this site before in various guises (don't feel bad if failed to find it in a search, it's hard without already knowing the proper terminology). This answer should have you covered: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/18216/1910

Immerwolf's ability only gives other creatures +1/+1 while Immerwolf is on the battlefield.
Immerwolf's ability is a static ability that creates a continuous effect. The specific rules that covers this scenario are:

611.3. A continuous effect may be generated by the static ability of an object.

611.3a A continuous effect generated by a static ability isn’t “locked in”; it applies at any given moment to whatever its text indicates.
611.3b The effect applies at all times that the permanent generating it is on the battlefield or the object generating it is in the appropriate zone.

As soon as Immerwolf leaves the battlefield, the ability stops existing. Since it isn't "locked in" to those specific creatures that it was affecting, those creatures lose the power and toughness bonus.


text:
Are counters the same as a creature's power/toughness?
I put 4 +1/+1 counters on a 1/1 creature, so now it is a 5/5. My opponent casts a spell that says to remove all +1/+1 counters from target creature. Is my creature now a 1/1? Or are all creatures 0/0 with +1 counters on them?  If they are 0/0s, then since all counters would be removed, is my card dead?
Related, can I use Sage of Hours, again and again, or would it be dead after the first time I use it due to removing all counters?

When asking a question about terminology, I would always name all of the cards involved. When you don't know the terminology, it can be a little more difficult to understand exactly what you are asking. Once we see the cards involved, the question usually becomes apparent.

I have edited your post for clarity. I don't understand why you mention Oreskos or Ephrara; they don't have anything to do with +1/+1 counters.

@Rainbolt  im sorry i confused myself,

@Keshav Please do not edit out your primary question, particularly after it has been answered

sort of related: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/18214/are-1-1-counters-different-from-1-1-effects

Counters are a specific object in the game, usually represented by a physical token (glass beads, tiny dice, pennies if you're desperate, &c.) so you can keep track of them.
+1/+1 counters are a specific kind of counter with a baked-in ability: modifying the power and toughness of a creature they are attached to.
Only things specified as "counters" in the game rules or card text are counters.
All of these things are not counters and do not involve counters:

Your creature's base power and toughness, and effects that set them to specific values.
A creature's power and toughness that gets set by the card text while the value in the corner just says "*/*."
A card that modifies a creature's power and toughness, such as "target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn" or "all white creatures get +1/+1."

The only times you're likely to be interacting with counters in Magic without a card being super explicit are planeswalker loyalty and a handful of specialized set mechanics:

Infect and Wither turn damage into -1/-1 counters.
Suspend and cumulative upkeep both use counters to keep track of their "ticks."


text:
Why didn't my Deathtouch creature kill my opponent's Protean Hydra?
I'm trying to learn the new MTG; I haven't played since the original Beta set. I'm playing on PS3 so I can learn how to at least last a few rounds against my son. :)
So here's the scenario: My opponent had a 12/12 Protean Hydra out. I had a 2/7 Spider with Deathtouch. The Spider blocked the Hydra. The Spider died and the Hydra became a 13/13. Why didn't the Hydra die? Am I misunderstanding Deathtouch?

You're remembering the 'basilisk' ability, which is not the same thing.

Protean Hydra has two abilities that say

If damage would be dealt to Protean Hydra, prevent that damage and remove that many +1/+1 counters from it.
Whenever a +1/+1 counter is removed from Protean Hydra, put two +1/+1 counters on it at the beginning of the next end step.

And the rule for how Deathtouch damage works is 702.2b:

A creature with toughness greater than 0 that’s been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since the last time state-based actions were checked is destroyed as a state-based action

So, here's the sequence of events in your scenario:

We get to the combat damage step, and the Spider is assigned to deal 2 damage to the Hydra.

The Hydra's ability prevents that damage, and instead 2 +1/+1 counters are removed, making it a 10/10. Since the damage was prevented, the Hydra wasn't dealt damage by a source with Deathtouch, so it doesn't die.

At the beginning of the end step, because of the Hydra's other ability, 2 +1/+1 counters are put on it for each one removed earlier, making it a 14/14.

You said that the Hydra ended up as a 13/13 instead. That could happen if the Protean Hydra was actually a 11/11 originally, or if the Spider actually only had 1 power, or it could simply be a bug in the game.

The key is that deathtouch only works if your spider damages the hydra. Protean Hydra has the following line:

If damage would be dealt to Protean Hydra, prevent that damage and remove that many +1/+1 counters from it.

Since the hydra never technically takes damage from your spider, deathtouch doesn't apply, and so the hydra survives.


text:
Is Lone Rider's ability checked every turn or just the turn it was summoned?
The text of the card Lone Rider says:

At the beginning of the end step, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, transform Lone Rider.

Does "this turn" mean only the turn the card is cast, or at the beginning of the end step of every turn?
I am reading the card as referring to "this turn" being the turn in which this card is cast, but a friend of mine is reading "this turn" as following "the beginning of the end step" of ALL turns. The card itself I think lends itself to being probably only meaning "the turn this card is cast", because it would be I think very overpowered if "the beginning of the end step" means "at the beginning of the end step of all turns".
So my question has two parts, lastly but perhaps more importantly, in the case of ambiguous MtG card text, what's the proper way to interpret the text?

Comments Removed. Please take the discussion of editing policy to meta or chat.

Yeah, best to remove those for the sake of the community.

It does in fact trigger every turn (both yours and your opponent's!) in which you gain 3 or more life.
From the Comprehensive Rules:

603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[Trigger
  condition], [effect],” and begin with the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.” They can also be
  expressed as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger event], [effect].”
603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability
  automatically triggers.

So in this case, the ability triggers every time it's "the beginning of the end step", not just the turn the card was played. (Actually there's one more technicality here:

603.4. A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When
  the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers
  only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it
  resolves...

So if you haven't gained 3 life by the beginning of a given end step, the ability does not trigger at all during that end step.)

MtG has been around for a long time and by now is shockingly good at having one definitive meaning for the text, so in general if there's something you don't understand, your answer probably exists in at least one of these places:

The Gatherer page for the card in question - the "Rulings" section may have your answer (not this time though).
The Basic Rules.
The Comprehensive Rules. It'll definitely have your answer, but the answer may be hard to find because there's so much there.

Sometimes a good way to use Gatherer to understand cards is to look for other cards with similar phrasing; for example there are plenty of cards which say "at the beginning of the end step", and it seems pretty clear they don't all just happen once. (Same goes for "at the beginning of your upkeep", etc.)

Comments Removed. Please take the discussion of editing policy to meta or chat.


text:
Full written card lists for sets MTG
Is there anywhere where I can get a full card list just names for sets without all the mana costing and text or pictures. for example in the form:

Card one
  card two
  card three

and so forth.

What you're looking for is a "checklist". Googling for these with some mtg set names should find you a lot of results.

You should describe your actual problem, not part of how you want to solve it. If we understand what you are trying to achieve with that list, we might be able to help you better, because as it is, you are asking for something very specific that I'm not sure even exists in the form you describe. Questions and answers are also supposed to help future visitors, which seems unlikely in your case. For those reasons, I would have to vote to close because it's unclear what you are asking. Yes, it's clear what you are asking on the surface, but the real problem you're trying to solve is unclear

Does something like this work for what you need or is that still too much extra information?

magiccards.info is a nice site for this as well, for instance: http://magiccards.info/ogw/en.html

@Glorfindel or other mods: I think Kairi's answer to this question can now be undeleted but it needs a moderator as you've been promoted since deleting it.

There are multiple places to obtain set checklists that approximately match your description:

Gatherer Advanced Search allows you to search by expansion. If you choose the output format "Checklist", the results page will be a list of cards with Collector's Number, Name, Artist, Color, Rarity, and Expansion Set for each.
Scryfall allows you to search by expansion with the search text set:[set code] or by using the advanced search. This output can be formatted as a checklist, which shows a variety of information about each card. This page also lists all of the sets in reverse chronological order, to easily find the one you want.
The Wizards Play Network has deck checklists for each set, which appear to be intended for use in limited events, but you could print them out and use them however you want. For each card, it lists just the Name, with box or two next to it. However, these lists appear to only go back to Urza's Saga, so if you need the earliest sets, you'll need to look elsewhere.
PucaTrade has a list of every Magic expansion set, and each of those links goes to a page that lists the name of each card along with the expansion symbol colored to indicate rarity.

The deck checklists will be brilliant for what I need. Thankyou very much

If you're comfortable working with URLs, you can use Scryfall's card search API to produce a CSV list.

Search for the set you're after using the following url, where SET is replaced by the set code, e.g. DOM, M19, GRN (uppercase or lowercase is fine):
https://api.scryfall.com/cards/search?format=csv&order=name&q=s:SET

This query is ordered by name. If you want to sort by card number in the set instead, use the set order parameter:
https://api.scryfall.com/cards/search?format=csv&order=set&q=s:SET

You can also order it by several other options (e.g. rarity, color, price, cmc) listed on that same API documentation page linked above.
Save the file it gives you as search.csv or whatever name you'd like to give it.
Open the CSV file in Google Sheets or Excel.
Find the name column, probably column F:

Copy and paste it to another sheet to get just the name alone, or paste it to a text document.

Enjoy your list of solely card names.
Note that you can also sort by collector number using that set sort, and copy the collector number and name to another spreadsheet if you'd like.

I have had a considerable amount of time to work on this since my last post a couple years ago. A comprehensive checklist containing every set with other optional content such as a Table of Contents, notes, language and foil information. Printable and physical copies available in black and white or color. Working on a rare/mythic only version
I generally update it every 3-6 months, whenever I have time between work, life and other projects

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1153470615/printable-full-black-and-white-magic-the


text:
MTG What happens if a creature's toughness is reduced to 0 but immediately raised?
I've been playing MTG for a while and I just ran into this problem.
Example: Let's say I have a 3/3 Grove Rumbler and my opponent uses a Lightning Strike to deal 3 damage to it making it a 3/0, but I immediately use a Titanic Growth to give it a +4/+4 making it become a 7/4. So my question is which happens?
A. Lightning strike puts Grove Rumbler down to 3/0 immediately putting it into the graveyard due to state based effect and Titanic Growth is wasted.
or
B.Lightning strike puts Grove Rumbler down to 3/0, but Titanic Growth resolves before state based effect putting Grove Rumbler at 7/4.

First, damage is not the same as toughness reduction. After Lightning Strike resolves, the Grove Rumbler is still a 3/3, with 3 damage marked. This still causes the Grove Rumbler to die from state based actions, just for a slightly different reason.
Once you add Titanic Growth, the outcome depends on exactly when you cast it. If you let the Lightning Strike resolve, then decide to cast Titanic Growth, you can't save the Grove Rumbler, and it plays out like this:

Your opponent casts Lightning Strike targeting Grove Rumbler.
You choose not to respond.
Lightning Strike resolves. Grove Rumbler now has 3 damage marked on it.
State-based actions occur. Grove Rumbler has 3 toughness and 3 damage marked, so it dies due to rule 704.5g.
You now have another opportunity to act. At this point, you can't cast Titanic Growth targeting Grove Rumbler, because Grove Rumbler is already dead.

Alternatively, if you decide to cast Titanic Growth in response to Lightning Strike, you can save the Grove Rumbler, and it plays out like this:

Your opponent casts Lightning Strike targeting Grove Rumbler.
In response, you cast Titanic Growth targeting Grove Rumbler. Now the stack has Titanic Growth on top of Lightning Strike.
Assuming neither of you have any other responses, Titanic Growth resolves. Grove Rumbler is now a 7/7.
Again, assuming neither of you has a response, Lightning Strike resolves. Grove Rumbler now has 3 damage marked on it.
State-based actions occur. Grove Rumbler has 7 toughness and only 3 damage marked, so nothing happens.

Note: I omitted several irrelevant steps. Each player has an opportunity to act (priority) before each object on the stack resolves, and state-based actions actually occur every time a player gains priority.
If Lightning Strike were replaced with Last Gasp to make the scenario actually involve toughness reduction, each case would play out in pretty much exactly the same way. Grove Rumbler would have a lower power and toughness instead of damage, and it would die because of 704.5f instead of 704.5g.

Recommend bolding "damage is not the same as toughness reduction". This is very important and a clear misunderstanding by the OP as well as several other people from what I've seen.

(Also, is best to just make that type of edit myself, or recommend it via comment like I did?)

I think editing should generally be fine in that situation. You're not changing the meaning of the post, and the author can always just roll it back if they disagree with the change.

The xBox 'Duels of the Planeswalkers' game series represents damage visually as toughness reduction, is why so many people get confused about that in my experience ;)  (it was a real pain to explain to new players when 'evolve' was in standard!)


text:
How many cards can I hold? (How do conflicting effects work?)
How many cards can I hold? Normally, I'd have 7, but card text trumps rules.
On my field, I have Null Profusion and Kruphix, God of Horizons:

Thanks for the edit, Murgatroid. The cards are Null Profusion and Kruphix, God of Horizons

This is not exactly what the question ask but just in case you where wondering the maximum hand size only forces you to discard at the end of your turn. Don't think you have to discard your cards the moment you have three cards in hand with that black enchantment.

It depends, whichever one entered the battlefield last is the one that takes effect.
When a permanent enters the battlefield it receives a timestamp. Then when determining the result of continuous effects (the kind generated by both Kruphix and Null Profusion) you apply them in timestamp order.
So if the Profusion entered last you will have a max hand size of 2, and if Kruphix entered last you won't have a maximum hand size. If they were to enter the battlefield at the same time then the Active Player (the player whose turn it currently is) decides what the order of the timestamps is.

613.6. Within a layer or sublayer, determining which order effects are applied in is usually done using a timestamp system. An effect with an earlier timestamp is applied before an effect with a later timestamp.
613.6c An object receives a timestamp at the time it enters a zone.
613.6j If two or more objects would receive a timestamp simultaneously, such as by entering a zone simultaneously or becoming attached simultaneously, the active player determines their relative timestamp order at that time.
613.10. Some continuous effects affect game rules rather than objects. For example, effects may modify a player’s maximum hand size, or say that a creature must attack this turn if able. These effects are applied after all other continuous effects have been applied. Continuous effects that affect the costs of spells or abilities are applied according to the order specified in rule 601.2f. All other such effects are applied in timestamp order. See also the rules for timestamp order and dependency (rules 613.6 and 613.7).

@diego Awesome. Thanks! Another question: what if two things entered at the same time? E.g. If Kruphix and Null Profusion were now both 3CMC creatures, and I played Collected Company (which bring in two 3-or-lower-CMC creatures)

You may also want to quote 613.10, to show that timestamps apply to these effects even though they aren't part of the normal layer system.

@Tony "613.6j If two or more objects would receive a timestamp simultaneously, such as by entering a zone simultaneously or becoming attached simultaneously, the active player determines their relative timestamp order at that time."

I want to note that "active player" means "the player who is taking the turn", not "the player who controls the objects", which may lead to some unwanted outcomes if you cast Collected Company on your opponent's turn.

@diego Also, one more note: 613.6a is also relevant here. I'm not sure if referencing it is necessary, though.

It might be useful to point out potential interactions with effects that increase or decrease maximum hand size (e.g. Gnat Miser) because it works differently for Null Profusion vs. Kruphix, God of Horizons.

It doesn't really work differently. You still just apply all of the effects in order, and then use the number you end up with.

It might not be clear that the order doesn't matter if the only effects are "you have no maximum hand size" and various increased/decreased hand size effects.

So by Active Player means "player whose turn it is" not "player who currently has priority"? Thus if I put both of these cards in on my opponents turn, he gets to pick which one 'counts'?

It depends on what order they entered the battlefield. Rule 613.10 says that we apply game rule-changing effects in timestamp order. Rule 613.6 explains how timestamps work. Whichever entered the battlefield later[1] has the later timestamp, which applies second and overrides the earlier effect.

613.10. Some continuous effects affect game rules rather than objects. For example, effects may modify a player’s maximum hand size, or say that a creature must attack this turn if able. These effects are applied after all other continuous effects have been applied. Continuous effects that affect the costs of spells or abilities are applied according to the order specified in rule 601.2f. All other such effects are applied in timestamp order. See also the rules for timestamp order and dependency (rules 613.6 and 613.7).
613.6. Within a layer or sublayer, determining which order effects are applied in is usually done using a timestamp system. An effect with an earlier timestamp is applied before an effect with a later timestamp.

[1] Technically, there are ways to "refresh" the timestamp of a permanent, so the order they entered the battlefield is not always the same as their timestamp order, but none of those ways applies in the situation as described.


text:
Casting creatures as spells - searching for the rules
I need to find the ruling where it says, when I want to put a creature from my hand onto the battlefield, that I have to cast it and that it's a spell on the stack.

302.1. A player who has priority may cast a creature card from their hand during a main phase of their turn when the stack is empty. Casting a creature as a spell uses the stack. (See rule 601, “Casting Spells.”)

So now I have to find the rule where it says how to cast a creature as a spell:

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell includes proposal of the spell (rules 601.2a–d) and determination and payment of costs (rules 601.2f–h). To cast a spell, a player follows the steps listed below, in order. A player must be legally allowed to cast the spell to begin this process (see rule 601.3). If a player is unable to comply with the requirements of a step listed below while performing that step, the casting of the spell is illegal ; the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 725, “Handling Illegal Actions”).

Problem here is that a guy just didn't want to accept that a creature is a spell before it enters the battlefield if cast from the hand, he meant that you don't have to cast the spell, just pay mana and there it goes onto the field.
Background: Forgotten Ancient triggers whenever a player casts a spell. He didn't accept that creatures trigger here.
Are there some more definite rules? Or a line where it says to play cards that you have to cast them, if nothing else stands on the card.

If is apparently a common misconception -- which was shared in 1990ies by many my country MTG players including myself -- that creature cards are not spells. In this question it is affirmed that they are and discussed as well https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/49202/has-counterspell-always-been-able-to-target-any-spell-on-the-stack note also that in earlier editions creature cards read "Summon " instead of "Creature ". Ie. "Summon Zombie" instead of "Creature Zombie"

Does your friend play hearthstone. This may be the source of his confusion

We have

701.13b To play a card means to play that card as a land or to cast that card as a spell, whichever is
  appropriate.

There is no room in this rule for a way to "play a creature" other than casting it as a spell. Only lands go directly from hand to battlefield. Unless he has a card with an effect along the lines of "put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield", as those creatures aren't spells.

Exactly what I was searching for.

What about Dryad Arbor? Why do I play it as a land instead of casting it as a spell?

@Arthur Clever, but not quite correct. 305.9 prohibits you from casting it, even if you wouldn't need to pay its unpayable mana cost.

@VeeArr Cool, didn't know that one. Yeah, that changes it.

@Cruncher Dryad Arbor has the Land type (as well as the Creature type), therefore you can play it as a land. It does not have a casting cost (which is not the same as having a casting cost of 0), therefore you cannot cast it.

@Douglas I thought so too until this morning. However, as VeeArr points out, the lack of a mana cost is not the strongest prohibition against this. A lack of mana cost can always be circumvented by other cards that let you cast cards from your hand or other places without paying their mana costs or for an alternate cost. No, a card that has the type land is explicitly forbidden from being played as anything other than a land, according to 305.9, regardless of ability to pay costs.

@Arthur I believe you just said what Douglas said just with more and clearer words.

@corsiKa Not at all. Douglas' argument implies that the Dryad may be cast through Ætherworks Marvel or Bring to Light, or use Kari Zev's Expertise to get it onto the battlefield without using your land drop for the turn. And had the Dryad been, say, a creature without mana cost but with suspend, those would've been allowed. But because it's a land, it's not allowed.

I'm not convinced about that line of thought, because it has no mana cost to not pay. Of course I do believe we all agree on the end result (it can't be cast) and also agree that Dryad Arbor is a rules nightmare, and 305.9 is quite clear itself, so I'll just let this go =)

@corsiKa Then look at suspend. The actual wording of that ability uses "play it without paying its mana cost", and several suspend cards are without mana cost. You ought to be able to cast them once the suspend expires, wouldn't you say?

117.6. Some mana costs contain no mana symbols. This represents an unpayable cost.  [...] 117.6a If an unpayable cost is increased by an effect or an additional cost is imposed, the cost is still
unpayable. If an alternative cost is applied to an unpayable cost, including an effect that allows a
player to cast a spell without paying its mana cost, the alternative cost may be paid.

So it is the fact that the Dryad is a land that really represented the biggest hurdle for it to be cast as a creature, not that it has no mana cost.

Arthur's answer certainly answers your question, but just to add on to it, here's a link to Gatherer featuring all the cards that contain the phrase "noncreature spell" in it's text.  This includes the keyword "Prowess".

Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)

If the game worked in the way your friend said it did (that creatures weren't spells) then the phrase "noncreature spell" would be completely pointless.

This is a great way to appeal to people without having to pop out lawyery comprehensive rules

In case it's helpful to have a simpler explanation, in the basic rules they're quite explicit about this.

To cast a spell, you must pay its mana cost (located in the upper right corner of the card) by tapping lands (or other permanents) to make the amount and Game Actions type of mana which that spell requires. For example, if you were casting Serra Angel, which costs 3 (W) (W), you could tap three basic lands of any type to pay  plus two Plains to pay .
Once a spell has been cast, one of two things happens. If the spell is an instant or a sorcery, you follow the instructions on the card, and then you put the card into your graveyard. If the spell is a creature, artifact, or enchantment, you put the card on the table in front of you. The card is now on the battlefield.

They don't talk about things at the level of complexity of "stack" in this section, but it's quite clear about it being a spell that you cast.

Here's are some more specific rules found in the comprehensive rules (2020-04-24) that clarify that creatures must be cast as spells and then they end up on the battlefield if they resolve (emphasis mine)

302.1. A player who has priority may cast a creature card from their hand during a main phase of their turn when the stack is empty. Casting a creature as a spell uses the stack. (See rule 601, “Casting Spells.”)
302.2. When a creature spell resolves, its controller puts it onto the battlefield under their control.

@Joe It is called Magic Comprehensive Rules. You can find them on this page: https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-formats/rules Note that links to PDF with Comprehensive Rules appear only on English-language version of the website.

The question was about the ruling which states that creatures have to be cast as spells (if nothing else is standing on the card or you make some shenanigans like through the breach).

Cards with "counter target creature spell":https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[counter]+[target]+[creature]+[spell]
Example:
Deny Existence 2U
Instant
Counter target creature spell. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard.
The only reason that creatures can be countered is that when the counter is cast, the creature is a spell on the stack. If creatures were instantly put on the battlefield, no one would have a chance to counter them.


text:
Damage and insult//injury
I play Insult, then attack with my 4/4 and my opponent blocks with their 4/4.
Do both creatures die?  Damage cannot be prevented, does that work both ways?

What do you mean by "attack my opponent's 4/4 with my 4/4"? What do you target with Insult or Injury? Do you cast Injury immediately after Insult?

Insult//injury is a sorcery, played before combat

During the combat phase I attack with my 4/4 and they block with their 4/4.

Do both 4/4's die or just theirs beacause my damage is not prevented because I cast the spell?  I am just using the insult portion of the card.

Great, many thanks.  That is what I thought, just checking

I think you're misreading Insult or something... there's no damage prevention in the scenario you mention. Insult says that damage cannot be prevented, which means that if someone plays a damage prevention effect, it won't work. But in your scenario, Insult doesn't actually do anything relevant (other than deal 8 damage instead of 4 which doesn't matter).

As a note, if you cast Injury from the graveyard immediately after Insult, the damage on Injury would be doubled, so you could kill the 4/4 and deal 4 damage to the opponent with the spell, and then attack with your 4/4 to deal 8 more damage.

As GendoIkari mentioned in a comment, the way you've asked your question makes me wonder if you may misinterpreting what Insult does. It does two things:

Stops damage from being prevented this turn, if anything would otherwise prevent damage
Doubles damage dealt by sources you control, if any source you control would deal damage

Without Insult's effects, when you attack with your 4/4 creature and your opponent blocks with their 4/4, your creature would deal 4 damage to theirs and theirs would deal 4 damage to yours, killing both. But what actually happens instead, taking into account Insult's effects, is this:

Insult stops damage from being prevented, but nothing is preventing any damage, so that effect doesn't do anything
Insult doubles damage dealt by sources you control, so the 4 damage your creature would deal to your opponent's is doubled to 8

Thus your creature deals 8 damage to your opponent's, and your opponent's creature deals 4 damage to yours, meaning that they both die.
Insult's first effect, which stops damage prevention, is only relevant if someone plays a spell like Djeru's Resolve, controls a permanent like Protection of the Hekma, or activates an ability like the +1 loyalty ability on Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. All of these may normally cause some damage to be prevented, which you can tell because they include the phrase "prevent...damage".1 Insult stops these kinds of damage prevention effects from working.

1It can happen that damage is prevented without something explicitly saying "prevent...damage", such as with the protection ability, but I don't believe any recent cards (current Standard) have that ability.

The damage prevention portion works both ways, but only your sources deal double damage.
If you play Insult, then attack with your 4/4, and he blocks with his 4/4, you will deal 8 damage to his creature, and he will deal 4 damage to your creature.
So both creatures die.