text:
How should Scheming Symmetry resolve in Judge Tower (shared library) with a Panglacial Wurm that must be cast?
Player A casts Scheming Symmetry in their turn and choses two of the other players (B and C) to have to resolve this. What is the correct way for this to happen, specifically related to Panglacial Wurm being found?

Rule 101.4 covers this type of interaction; while Scheming Symmetry theoretically resolves simultaneously as per rule 701.19i, the decision to cast Panglacial Wurm occurs in APNAP order.
This means that, while playing Judge Tower with either the "Players must treat every instance of “may” as “must”" or broader "Cards must be played as soon as legally allowed." rules, the first player in turn order from the active player that was targeted by Scheming Symmetry will be required to utilize the "you may" on Panglacial Wurm to cast it (during searching the library will also be required to be kept in order due to the ruling on Panglacial Wurm).

701.19i If multiple players search at once, each of those players looks at the appropriate cards at the same time, then those players decide in APNAP order (see rule 101.4) which card to find.

101.4. If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player’s left) makes any choices required, followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the “Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order” rule.
Example: A card reads “Each player sacrifices a creature.” First, the active player chooses a creature they control. Then each of the nonactive players, in turn order, chooses a creature they control. Then all creatures chosen this way are sacrificed simultaneously.

Rule 701.19i describes more accurately to the context how multiple players searching at the same time is being resolved. Furthermore, as you can probably tell from my answer and the followup comment to it, I would like to see a rules quote if possible, or alternatively a statement about the rules you mentioned, which I cannot find at any public source anymore.

The judge tower website is still viewable via https://web.archive.org/web/20230309180113/http://judgetower.com/#content , and has both the unlimited "Cards must be played as soon as legally allowed." rule and “may” as “must” listed as core rules; but there are multiple variations of the rules, it being a heavily casual format
e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/r4w27e/a_judges_tower_introduction_for_set_reviews/ has the “may” as “must” rules listed as optional

Very nice find, thanks! I still think that for the purpose of learning the judging aspects for it, this specific interaction is more harmful than helpful (and as such, I can imagine that the rules stated on MtG Wiki have been sensibly updated by the community), but this is by all means a good answer!

While your question, especially before the edit, is a little vague, the only particularily interesting interaction here would be if a player could lose for not finding Panglacial Wurm.
There is a bit of an issue about the Judge Tower rules, with the seemingly official webpage only being reachable through archive.org (thanks KMR for the link), whereas all other versions that I can find in written form match the rules listed on MtG Wiki. For an answer relating to judgetower.com, see KMR's answer, whereas this answer handles rules as per the ones listed on MtG Wiki.

The rules do not actually require players to find and cast the Wurm, as only cards in hand have to be played, and the Wurm's ability isn't an activated ability, nor is a card in a library a card that player controls.
Therefore, while of course a player can choose to find that card, they are in no way required to. If they do choose to cast the creature, they have to cast it before choosing another creature to actually put on top of the library due to Scheming Symmetry, since they're only allowed to cast that card while searching their library (that is, if they choose to find a card at all).

judge tower rules do require you to play panglacial wurm as if a card says may you must do it (from the judge tower website which does appear to be defunct now) and the ability does state "may cast" which in judge tower reads must cast. afaik that's standard for juge tower. the main issue here is the scheming symmetry is usually resolved simultaneously due to separate libraries but with a shared library it would be APNAP (I think)

I was looking for distinct rules as the first part of writing my response. With the lack of anything like an "official" source, I chose the MtG Wiki as a source because of its community-editable format. Functionally identical rules can be found elsewhere, all mentioning that casting rules apply for cards in hand. I can easily see extending that to all cards in public zones, but as I already mentioned in my post, nothing mentions cards in hidden zones, nor do I see why it would. As I also said, I could see if people would disagree. I suggest to post your own answer, I can see that having merit.

The 'Players must treat every instance of “may” as “must”.' rule is an optional extra, and is quite often included to make cards like Panglacial Wurm more interesting in the format

The possible inclusion of Panglacial Wurm in a judge tower deck does have effects beyond it's potential interaction with Scheming Symmetry, as if it is included the deck must be kept in order while searching.


text:
How does Alchemist's Fire interact with Spite?
We were having an encounter with Spite from Cutthroat Caverns recently and came onto an interesting situation, heres the scenario:
Spite has 20 hp.
Initiative 1 had their attack cancelled.
Initiative 2 had an attack for 20, and also tipped their Alchemist fire.
Initiative 3 had an attack for 25.
Alchemist fire specifically mentions "turn", which for me means you can't do it until your initiative is up, but also it doesn't specify if the tip happens before or after your attack hits.
In my mind you can interpret this situation in two ways:

Initiative 2 kills the boss when tipping Alchemist fire, since the damage happens immediately and isnt subject to Spite's damage cancellation. Initiative 2 wins.

Initiative 2's damage now totals 50, and initiative 1's damage is 25. Initiative 2's damage is canceled by Spite. Initiative 1 wins.

So I guess my questions are:

When does Alchemist fire damage hit?
Does it only hit on the player's turn who tipped?
Does it stack with your Set Attack?
Is it subject to Spite's damage queueing/cancellation, or does that only apply to regular attacks?

Any other unmentioned rules re: Alchemist Fire would be helpful, as theres very little detail about it in the rules!

source: Stack Exchange

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text:
Do I have to shuffle with Settle The Wreckage?
Settle The Wreckage says:

Exile all attacking creatures target player controls. That player may search his or her library for that many basic land cards, put those cards onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle his or her library.

I recently got this played against me on Magic Online, however I had just scryed a card I wanted to the top of my library and I didn't need any more land. As a result I did not want to look for land or shuffle my library.
Magic online didn't give me any choice here though and shuffled my Negate away from me. Is that correct? By my reading of the card the entire second clause is a "may" so I should have had the option not to?

re "Magic online didn't give me any choices": it must have given you some kind of choice - did it just present you with the contents of your library and ask which lands (if any) you wanted?

@BenjaminCosman Yes. Exactly that :)

Please report this bug, if it happened during a match which required entry fees you can file for compensation. MTGO already has support for "may search" (see: Path to Exile). It appears that @Rainbolt has already mentioned this, but it doesn't hurt to file again. And you can still file for comp even if it's a known bug.

@IanElletson Yeah I would report it but it seems it's already a known issue. Fortunately I still won my match (the opponent didn't draw 2nd sun so I didn't need the negate as urgently as I thought I might!) and it was just a friendly anyway. I mostly asked the question because it is rare for magic online to get the rules wrong and I also play that deck in paper so wanted to make sure my understanding was correct.

You shouldn't have had to shuffle your library.
This is actually a known bug in Magic Online. It is listed here as "Settle the Wreckage does not give the targeted player the option to not search their library."
As for the rule itself... unfortunately there's no card ruling on Gatherer, but the rules of grammar should make this clear. If the card's intent were that the "may" applies only to searching the library, and not to the shuffling part, then the shuffling would have to stand alone as an instruction outside of the "may". It would look like this:

That player [may search his or her library for that many basic land cards, put those cards onto the battlefield tapped, then] shuffle his or her library.

The problem here is that "shuffle" would have to be "shuffles" for that to be grammatically correct. If the card did say "then shuffles his or her library", then it would be reasonably to interpret that as a separate instruction apart from the "may".
So the only way for it to be grammatically correct is if it's:

That player may [search his or her library for that many basic land cards, put those cards onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle his or her library.]

There are a lot of examples of "Then that player shuffles his or her library." - separate instruction, separate sentence - on existing cards, though none following a "may" ability like this one. That would presumably be the templating if Settle the Wreckage were intended to force a shuffle, though.

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text:
Help identify card game with teams and secret signals?
Years ago I played a card game with a Swedish friend with a standard deck of cards and two spoons on the centre of the table. There were teams of two, with the team members sitting opposite each other.
I can't remember what had to happen for you to be 'out', I think it was that you had to get a pair, but then you had to make a predetermined, secret signal, say pulling on your ear lobe, to your team mate. When it came around to your go again you both grab a spoon from the centre of the table each, but if a member of the other team guessed you had made a signal they can intercept it and win the game.
Any idea of the name of the game? I would love to remember the rules properly?

Sounds like a variation on what the internet tells me is called Kemps. (Edit: The specific variation being Spoons related but while Spoons has similar bluffing aspects it lacks the team aspects in common with Kemps
There is a more modern board game (Wink) that has a similar mechanic of getting your partner to announce you have the victory via secret signals I'll see if I can find it.

Awesome! This is pretty much it but with shouting Kemps as opposed to spoons! I think the spoon way is better though because I remember we were trying to trick our opponents into thinking we were reaching for the spoons when we weren't, because if they wrongly tried to intercept they lose!
Funny you should say there is a similar board game because I recreated my memory of the game into a board game for an college brief when I was studying design.

ahh Spoons. I kNEW i knew what spoons was. yes that IS familiar. As a game of such old and indeterminate origin it goes by many many names and variations.
I'd have to poll BoardGameGeek.com but I know I saw---- oh wait. I remember.. It's Wink.

Yes Wink - https://youtu.be/8vdTflFYldo - I often mix it up with the more casual game Wink Murder (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae9yQLPsVhs) or I would have remembered it earlier

Brilliant! I just looked it up there and it seems similar too. I remember it being great fun and there being lots of on-edge laughter and trickery! Thank you again!:)

We played similar at school, was called Bartlet there, although we didn't have spoons in the middle, was 4 cards and people could snatch cards from there before others, they had to get a set in their hand and their partner did too.
You call "Bartlet", when you have a set and "Anti Bartlet"+declare couple when you think the others have a set.
Brings back memories, how I loved this game!
Edit:
I've since spoken with my friends, and we're going to be playing bartlett on holiday!  Can not wait.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/22/rules-childrens-card-games-bartlett

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text:
Does Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God make me lose the game if I only control a nonlegendary planeswalker?
Suppose that my opponent activates Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God's third loyalty ability, which reads:

Each opponent who doesn't control a legendary creature or planeswalker loses the game.

As the ability resolves, I control no legendary creatures, and the only planeswalker I control is either Personal Decoy or a copy of any other planeswalker created by Spark Double. What happens? In other words, should the text be interpreted as

who doesn't control (a legendary creature) or ([a] planeswalker)

in which case I don't lose, or

who doesn't control a legendary (creature or planeswalker)

in which case I do lose?

I agree with how you wrote the first interpretation--a second indefinite article "a" would be necessary before "planeswalker". Without that second article, it seems hard to argue for the first interpretation. Would be an interesting question for the English stack exchange!

It needs to be a legendary planeswalker.
See this ruling from Ask an MTG Judge

mjwhitfield86 asked: Is Bolas, Dragon God’s ultimate stopped by non-legendary planeswalkers, such as Spark Double?

No. Bolas will only spare you if you have a legendary planeswalker or legendary creature.
Yes, the templating on this ability sucks, but legendary modifies both card types here.

There's good precedent for this ruling. On Fire Servant, "red" modifies "instant or sorcery". On Kithkin Mourncaller, "attacking" modifies "Kithkin or Elf". On Lucky Clover, "Adventure" modifies "instant or sorcery". On Quandrix Cultivator, "basic" modifies "Forest or Island". I can't find any examples that clearly work the other way.

Whilst I could be wrong I believe it's:

who doesn't control a legendary (creature or planeswalker)

In the case of the former, the text should explicitly specify

[a] planeswalker

as you've noted.
Unfortunately finding a ruling is proving difficult so perhaps someone else can help  with that.

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text:
When I have two cards with cohort would there tap ability works at the same time?
My opponent has two Ondu war cleric. He taps them both and said he gains 4 life. But I believe he couldn't use the second one with only two of those cards, because cohort said you need another untapped ally

Are those the only two ally cards he has?

He had more but only used those two for four life points, i believe he needed atleast 3 ally's or 4

I am not sure on how the timing would work for tapping, I would agree that you would need to tap more but hopefully someone with more knowledge can come in and clear it up

Yeah i wasnt sure either

He can only gain 2 life
When you activate an ability, the first thing you do, is pay it's cost.

602.1a The activation cost is everything before the colon (:). An ability’s activation cost must be paid by the player who is activating it.
  602.2. To activate an ability is to put it onto the stack and pay its costs...

In this case that means that you need to tap the Ondu war cleric and an other untapped ally. They will be tapped before the ability is put on the stack so you won't be able to then activate the second war cleric as he is already tapped.


text:
Are token creatures considerd as a creature spell?
Are token creatures considerd creature spells? For instince when I use Drana's Chosen tap effect combined with Zendikar Resurgent would it allow me to draw a card?

No.
A creature token IS a creature, but that has nothing to do with your combo in this case. Tapping Drana's Chosen is activating an ability, it is not casting a spell. These are two completely different things.
If Zendikar Resurgent triggered on "whenever a creature enters the battlefield" instead, then a creature token entering would count.
The title of your question shows that you have mixed up two very different concepts: a creature spell (or, creature card on the stack) and a creature are not the same thing. A spell exists only on the stack, while a creature is a permanent that exists only on the battlefield. So a token, which can be a creature, can't be a spell. A spell could create tokens, but that doesn't mean that a spell can be a token or a creature.


text:
Can the Resistance Fighters use the fail card?
In the board game The Resistance are two factions, Resistance fighters and Spies.
Me and my friends had some debate if the Resistance fighters can actually use the Fail mission Card.
My stand is yes, the resistance fighters can also use the fail card, because I didn't see in the rule book that they can't use the fail card.
The question here is, can the good guys use the fail card whether he has a reason to use it or not?
Edit
based on the rulebook it is stated that

The Resistance Operatives must select the Mission Success card; Spies may select either the Mission Success or Mission Fail card.

the question is, does the must is just only a Highly recommended move? or a compulsory move? based on the dictionaries i have checked Must is used in different ways.
Edit
So most of the suggestions in the answers pertains to "The resistance cant use the fail card because they have no objective to do it so."
That might be true to the plain The Resistance, but please mind that there are other modules/expansion packs in the Resistance that can give the Resistance an objective to fail a mission,
one example would be The reverser module wherein in this module the reverser (resistance or spy) can reverse the output of the mission, if resistance member already know who is the resistance reverser they can talk to each other like, "Hey reverser, pick the reverse card and ill pick a fail card so that we are sure that in this round we will win even though we get other spy in the mission group".
That is the main reason why i'm asking if the resistance can use the fail card. obviously in this expansion the good guy has already a reason to fail a mission., they can also fail the mission if he thinks that there is a reverser spy in the group and reversed the outcome of the game thinking that all of the resistance would vote success.

Question has been answered below that they can not.  However I'm interesting to know what reason they would ever have for failing a mission?

You could imagine someone thinking "X is on this mission, and I'm sure he's a spy.  By playing the fail card, I will make it more likely that other people think that he is a spy too."  It isn't a good strategy, which is probably part of the reason the rules explicitly disallow it.

I've read accounts of a few games where someone who missed this rule was playing as the Merlin role in Resistance: Avalon and dropped a fail into a mission with a spy on it, probably one that requires two fails.

Guys first of all "Must" does not mean they can only use Success, must pertains to a word that they should use the Success in order to win, because failing a mission as a resistance is non-sense right? but in a reverser module you can talk to a good reverser so that the outcome of the game can be predicted like, "hey im a good guy reverse this round and ill fail this mission so we win", like that, you can check the uses in must here http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/must

@bwarner it is not explicitly disallowed it but it was highly recommended by the rule book. must is not equal to "Only" or other compulsory words, must is used to show what is highly or likely to be done

tagging @MildlyPerilous

What purpose would a resistance member get from playing a fail card? All that would happen is you would confuse other resistance members and cause the game to be lost.

@JoeW - Funny story - One game I've played one of the resistance members did precisely this. His rationale was that he knew that one of the others on the mission was a spy, so he played a spy card to shine suspicion on him. He was in fact correct and the gambit played off, the resistance won the game.

@JoeW as i have explained above in the reverser module where in a reverser can reverse the outcome of a mission, a resistance member can then talk to a resistance member reverser (if he already know) so that the outcome of the game can be predicted like,. "hey reverser reverse this round and ill fail so that we will win"

Once again - in casual language, it's fine to say "I must call my sister" to mean "It would be a really good idea to call my sister" (although even in that context it makes you sound like a member of the British Royal family). However, in the context of a rulebook, particularly in the way the sentence itself is worded, "must" is to be read as an imperative. You can add in the contrast of the fact that the Spy may do something else. It's not a "you have to do this or you will lose", it's "you do not have an option to do otherwise".

@ConMan so you do say that even in the reverser module good guys should not use the fail card even though they have the reason to fail a mission?

Yes. The rule as worded is completely unambiguous. It's not a case of "Resistance has no reason to", it's a case of "Resistance is not allowed to". If it was allowed, then the rule would state "Resistance and Spies may both use either Success or Fail, but Resistance probably shouldn't" or words to that effect.

Agree with the other people here. "Must" in the context of rules means exactly that. It does not mean should or may or can choose to. Must means must. As for the reverser module, that's for a situation where you have foolishly given the power to a spy and they screw you over in a late game hail Mary where you think you've won.

If you look closely at the cards Success has both the blue (good) and red (bad) symbols, but Fail only has the red symbol.

Well if you want to get all word-smithy, it is highly recommended that you comply with the commonly used definition of must or you will probably not be invited back to play many games :)

When "must" means "really should", it's always referring to a future event, and its use is often followed by a "but" clause. Rules tell you what you must do immediately, where "must" always indicates a requirement. Both by the English language and by gaming jargon, the members of the resistance must vote to succeed.

From the rulebook:

Note: The Resistance Operatives must select the Mission Success card; Spies may
  select either the Mission Success or Mission Fail card.

Further confirmation for rules lawyers
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/585119/resistance-must-select-mission-success-card-constr
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1467743/mistakenly-failing-mission

yigiter, Must does not mean they can only use Success  http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/must

i highly doubt about this answer unless you can clear me what is the meaning of MUST, based on the dictionary must is used to give a highly recommended action not a compulsory one.

If they meant "should" they would say "should".  "Must" in a rules document is clearly compulsory.  If you want to debate that, I'd suggest taking it to the English Language site.

In the context of stating rules, "must" is a directive. That section isn't talking about strategy, it's saying that Resistance must play success, Spies may play either.

@bwarner already posted at the English Language site, the thing is if the resistance can only use the Success card they should have stated it like that

please see my another edit also yigiter.

@User They did state it like that.  You are literally the only person I have ever met that reads "must" in a rules document as optional.

User6675636b20796f7521  @bwarner, ConMan, Daniel Lim, and Tom77 are all correct and you are wrong.  Repeating the same thing multiple times does not make you correct.
If you do not believe us, try interpreting "must" as "highly recommended" in literally any game and see how the other players react.  For example, in volleyball a team MUST use a maximum of three hits to return the ball.  (source: wikipedia).  They ARE NOT ALLOWED to use 10 hits and then claim it was legal and 3 was only the highly recommended maximum.

@User6675636b20796f7521 I have added my own answer which explains why all dictionary definitions of must are not applicable to games in general and I recommend that you read it to understand why you are incorrect in this line of thought.

In board game rules must means it is compsulory, and may means they don't have to, but the option is open to them.
The rules are very clear for this particular issue, genuine resistance members are not allowed to play fail cards.

I posted a shorter version of this as a comment but am also writing an answer which allows for more details.
As others have stated, must in the context of games refers to a mandatory action or restriction.  This includes many types of games, including board games, card games, and sports.  If you don't believe, try interpreting must as "highly recommended but not required" in other games and see how the other players react.  For example:
Volleyball includes the rule:

The opposing team must use a combination of no more than three
  contacts with the volleyball to return the ball to the opponent's side
  of the net.

This means a team IS NOT ALLOWED to use 10 hits, claiming it was legal and 3 was only the highly recommended maximum.
Poker includes the rule:

Under normal circumstances, all other players still in the pot must
  either call the full amount of the bet or raise if they wish remain
  in, the only exceptions being when a player does not have sufficient
  stake remaining to call the full amount of the bet (in which case they
  may either call with their remaining stake to go "all-in" or fold) or
  when the player is already all-in.

This means that a player IS NOT ALLOWED to remain in the hand without matching the bet, claiming that it is only highly recommended to match the bet but legal not to do so.
A nearly infinite number of additional examples exist.

For the record i am ACCEPTING the answers of the others, im implying my own thinking for the sake of argument and discussion, this is question and answer site not a Yes No question Site. FYI PS. I Believe all of you and im not repeating myself so that i would be correct, i AM looking for any possible answers given to different circumstances. OK?

No! Never! Who is the Resistance should ALWAYS play the success card!
If someone from the Resistance mistakenly threw a Fail, the game loses all its logic and it is completely impossible to know who is who.
You should highlight this rule a lot when explaining the game to newbies!

The rules have already been quoted, and require Resistance Fighters to play Success cards, by saying they must do so. The idea that they "should" suggests that they could also do otherwise.


text:
What is the name of this game?
I used to play this card game a lot but I haven't in many years and have forgotten nearly everything about the game. All I can remember is that it's a single player card game, you arrange the cards into a triangle with -I may be wrong about this part- the first layer of the triangle with cards face down and the other -or at least next layer- face up. Also, it was played with a standard 52 card deck i think.
      It may be a japanese game because I lived in japan for a large portion of my life and may have learned it there, and I don't remember where I leaned it.
If anyone has any ideas at to what the name of the game is, please tell me even if it's a guess. Thank you

From Wikipedia's List of patience (i.e. solitaire) games, there are three that I could find with a triangular layout, plus one with three triangles, that might be the one you're thinking of:

Pyramid
Bowling
Tree Solitaire
Tri Peaks

I'm going to guess Pyramid, since I believe it's more well-known than Bowling or Tree.


text:
How does Donate work?
Donate is a pretty useful yet useless card. I have two questions about it.

Target player gains control of target permanent you control.

Does this mean the "target permanent you want your opponent to control" has to be on the battlefield? And also, when your opponent takes control of that card, does it go into their control (command) on the battlefield? Or does it go into their hand?

Psst! Hey buddy:
http://magiccards.info/ai/en/58.html
http://magiccards.info/ia/en/79.html
your opponent may want some of these

Target permanent you control refers to a card on the battlefield. So yes it has to be on the battlefield and it would stay on the battlefield when it comes under their control.

When a card says "target permanent", it means a permanent on the battlefield. This is specified in rule 109.2:

If a spell or ability uses a description of an object that includes a card type or subtype, but doesn't include the word "card," "spell," "source," or "scheme," it means a permanent of that card type or subtype on the battlefield.

When a card says that a player "gains control" of a permanent, it means that the permanent's controller changes from the player that currently controls it to the new player. It doesn't change anything else about the permanent, like counters or whether it's tapped.

I think all you need here is "110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield." since Donate explicitly says "permanent", not just a card type.

You're probably right. The rule I quoted if the right one for most of these sorts of questions, but that one's probably better here.


text:
Do you have to choose a target for a spell, or can you just cast it with no target and let it fizzle?
Let's say I have Lightning Bolt and my one opponent has a Leyline of Sanctity and no creatures in play. I might still want to cast Lightning Bolt to delve it later or to buff up my Tarmogoyf or whatever. My question is...  can I cast Lightning Bolt without targeting anyone? Can I just decline to name a target and let the spell fizzle? Or if either I or my creatures are the only valid targets do I have to target myself?

If a spell has no legal targets it cannot be cast.

If you're playing lightning bolt and your opponent opens with a Leyline of Sanctity, you might as well scoop anyway.

You could always bolt yourself!

You could also just keep your hand full and when you get to 8 cards end your turn and discard it.

You cannot cast a spell without choosing all specified targets. In the process of casting a spell, we have these rules

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell follows the steps listed below, in order. If, at any point during the casting of a spell, a player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be cast (see rule 717, "Handling Illegal Actions"). Announcements and payments can't be altered after they've been made.

601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires. A spell may require some targets only if an alternative or additional cost (such as a buyback or kicker cost), or a particular mode, was chosen for it; otherwise, the spell is cast as though it did not require those targets. If the spell has a variable number of targets, the player announces how many targets he or she will choose before he or she announces those targets. The same target can't be chosen multiple times for any one instance of the word "target" on the spell. However, if the spell uses the word "target" in multiple places, the same object, player, or zone can be chosen once for each instance of the word "target" (as long as it fits the targeting criteria). If any effects say that an object or player must be chosen as a target, the player chooses targets so that he or she obeys the maximum possible number of such effects without violating any rules or effects that say that an object or player can't be chosen as a target. The chosen players, objects, and/or zones each become a target of that spell. (Any abilities that trigger when those players, objects, and/or zones become the target of a spell trigger at this point; they'll wait to be put on the stack until the spell has finished being cast.)

So, when you cast a spell, you have to choose legal targets to legally cast the spell.

Note that you do not have to specify targets for activated and triggered abilities on the spells you cast. You can for example cast Hypothesizzle with no creatures on the battlefield (and discard a nonland card, if you wish). Hypothesizzle is anomalous though: previous cards solved optional targeting by saying "up to one target".


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What makes an ideal "control finisher"?
In Magic: The Gathering, many players talk about a "control finisher" -- some kind of big back-breaking spells that (usually) seals up your victory. I guess you could say that, if you boil down a control strategy to "don't lose the game long enough that you can win it", the finisher cards in your deck are providing the "win it" part.
In the past, these have been fairly modest singleton creatures in otherwise creatureless permission decks, whittling away at an opponent's life while you lock your opponent out with counterspells (most notably, Serra Angel and Morphling). More recently, cards like Cruel Ultimatum, Grave Titan, and Consecrated Sphinx have all been described as "control finishers". I've seen the label applied to Celestial Colonnade as well.
What characteristics make a card a good choice for the "finisher" role?
When is a generally strong and cost-efficient card in your deck's colors (a nasty creature or planeswalker, especially) not a good control finisher?

Here's my logic: when you have control of the game, it doesn't matter what your finisher is, so you should pick something that helps you out as much as possible when you don't have control. (I originally read this in Randy Buehler's description of his 1998 Worlds deck, in which he used Rainbow Efreet.) This holds true for essentially all of the common control finishers in Standard today:

Consecrated Sphinx lets you draw a ton of cards. Even using its ability two or three times can give you enough card advantage to match your opponent spell-for-threat.
Wurmcoil Engine gains you lots of life and can also trade for up to 3 of your opponent's creatures or removal spells, which is a huge setback for an aggressive deck. This is why it's a popular finisher against aggro decks, but not so much against other control decks or combo decks.
Sun Titan lets you get an extra use out of one or more of your spells, often something like Oblivion Ring or Ghost Quarter, which can help you regain control when facing down troublesome permanents. It plays a similar role to Consecrated Sphinx.
Grave Titan is basically a horde-in-a-box (actually in a card): getting three creatures out of one card, especially given that one is giant and has deathtouch, can shut your opponent's entire attacking force down. Plus, if they don't deal with it immediately, you get two more creatures every turn.
Going back a bit, Celestial Colonnade helps you when you don't have control in a different way: it can't be countered, and it requires instant-speed removal to get rid of. This is more of an anti-control finisher, since when you're playing another control deck, not having control of the board generally means that you're outmatched with counterspells or removal spells. The Colonnade lets you put pressure on your opponent without having to fight through a ton of counterspells. (Same goes for any other "manland.")
Morphling was a good anti-control finisher for a similar reason to the manlands: the ability to give it shroud and pump its toughness made it very difficult to kill.
Sword of Feast and Famine was the namesake finisher of the Cawblade deck. Its power came from the fact that it allowed you to get double use out of your mana, once for advancing your own board and once for countering your opponent's spells. So even if you were somewhat behind in the game state, once you started getting Sword hits in it became fairly easy to recover. (To be fair, Cawblade wasn't a true control deck, but it did fall into that role sometimes.)
Planeswalkers generally tend to have very powerful abilities that can go a long way toward helping you gain control of the game. This is why Jace, the mind sculptor was so good: it could bounce a creature, draw you cards, or shut your opponent out of good draws. It was like the control player's Swiss army knife. Gideon Jura is a popular choice these days because it can stop your opponent from attacking you, saving you some life, and it acts as a repeatable removal spell as well, so it's difficult for any creature-based deck to play around it. And of course, with both of those planeswalkers, once you've used their removal capabilities to their full extent, they give you a direct win condition as well.

You'll notice that all these cards have big, game-changing effects: 6-power creatures, 4-power flyers, removing your opponent's entire library from the game, etc. This means that if they're not dealt with, they let you win very quickly. There is something to be said for this strategy, because it minimizes the amount of time that you need to maintain control of the game, but in a proper control deck it's not necessary to have a big flashy finisher. Something like Fiend Hunter, for example, would not be too bad because it exiles one of your opponent's creatures and then can sit around and block. Back in the days of the original Caw-go deck, even Squadron Hawk filled the finisher role well because you could play one to attack and it came with 3 buddies who could either block or add to the pressure on your opponent. However, Wizards is making it rather difficult to create a true control deck these days, mostly because counterspells are just not as efficient as they used to be. So I wouldn't actually suggest using something like Fiend Hunter as your only finisher.
When choosing a finisher, the cards I would stay from are those that don't do anything to help you regain control of the game when you are losing it. As a concrete example, you could imagine "losing it" to mean that you're at 4 life and facing down three 2-power creatures; or perhaps you're at 7 life and your opponent will be able to cast Devil's Play to burn you out in two turns. Kindercatch would be a great example of a bad finisher because it just doesn't do anything to help you get out of either situation. Sure, it can block one of your opponent's creatures, but you need something to deal with multiple creatures and non-creature threats.
I would actually say something like Progenitus is only a mediocre finisher, because the only sense in which it deals with anything is by killing your opponent before they get the chance to cast that lethal Devil's Play or whatever. Admittedly it is very effective at that, but you have to consider that a giant creature like that is of absolutely no use in the early game, before you've accumulated the 10 mana required to cast it, which is when you typically need the secondary effects of your finishers most.

EDIT: See this video, specifically game 1 of match 3, for a great example of Snapcaster Mage being used as a finisher.

Excellent point that in many ways a really good control deck can use anything as a finisher, as long as it can lock up the opponent's game well enough.  Having nothing except 1- and 2-power creatures is probably a bit slow, but there's nothing to stop any medium-sized evasive beater from getting the job done.  The "ideal control finisher" for a deck probably therefore depends on the deck!

Oh, and I'd argue with you about Progenitus being a "mediocre finisher" to an extent - it's an amazing, possibly the best finisher in a vacuum, though the downside of it being really hard to get into play is very real and rules it out for most decks.  I don't think a finisher has to be of use in the "early game", because I would define a true control deck as one that weathers the early game, locks up in the mid-game, and eventually does something to win in the late game, possibly 20 or 30 turns later! Mid-range decks have been more successful recently, it's true, though.

Well, if you define a good finisher as a card that can kill your opponent very quickly and is extremely difficult to deal with, then yes, Progenitus qualifies as one of the best. I guess I'm saying those are not the criteria that make a finisher good for a control deck. Of course a control finisher does not have to be useful in the early game, but all other things being equal, a deck with a finisher that has some use in the early game will do better than a deck with a finisher that doesn't. (cont.)

(cont.) As I wrote in another answer, control decks need to make the best possible use of every card (including the win conditions) to survive the early game against aggressive decks, where they typically struggle the most.

True, Progenitus is a dead card in your opening hand... I don't think it's ridiculous for a control deck to have 1 or 2 "big finishers" as the eventual win condition, but if you can get away without any such cards in your deck it's a good thing. Which is why Celestial Colonnade is such a good candidate for these types of deck - if that's all you need to reliably "finish" your deck is excellent!

First of all, you can use pretty much any win condition as your finisher once you have reached board control. You can use a small creature early on, or a big guy very late, or anything in between.
Logically then, what really makes a good finishing creature are its abilities. Use whatever creature supplements your strategy best. A few properties to look out for in a finisher are:

Power of 4 or more
Built-in protection, such as protection from color or Shroud/Hex-proof to minimize your burden of protecting your finisher
High resistance to direct damage, i.e. regeneration, graveyard recursion, or high toughness
Defensive abilities such as Vigilance or life gain
Evasion such as flying or being outright unblockable.
Generates card advantage e.g. through token generation or card drawing

You should look for creatures that combine at least two or three of these properties; the more the better of course. Mana cost should not be much of a concern for a control deck. Cost-efficiency is only important for aggressive decks. In a good control deck you can simply wait until you have enough mana and board control to cast anything you want.
Obviously, anything that is not a good finisher is a bad finisher - any creature without abilities are usually bad finishers, or creatures that are easy to dispose of (this also depends on meta), or aggressive creatures that bring a significant disadvantage to you as well, such as putting time pressure on you (many black and/or red creatures are guilty of that)
I won't give examples because specific card answers depend on the format and will change over time as formats shift, new expansions come out, and rules change.

"In a good control deck you can simply wait until you have enough mana and board control to cast anything you want" -- seems like delaying is just feeding your opponent  additional chances to break a board stall, especially in control vs. control.

What makes power 4 the magic number? (I'm mainly asking to tease out the general idea behind this criterion, and how it might change depending on the overall environment.)

About stall: That's the idea of a control deck though. You typically set up some cards (e.g. counterbalance + divining top or Zur's weirding + firemane angel etc.) to lock down the enemy, or you gain repeating card advantage somehow. That allows you to keep the enemy down indefinitely. Eventually you cast the finisher and go in for the kill. About power: 4 is a magic number because you can kill in 5 swings, as opposed to 7 swings at power 3. You could also say 5 power for 4 swings, but 4 power is good enough for a control deck.

I'd call that "prison combo" rather than control. Not really something that's viable in all formats.

I'm on the fence about whether this answer or David's should be the accepted one. I think you best explain what to look for and he best explained why. :)

@Alex: fair point... I guess the reason I didn't explain the "what" is that I don't think it's as simple as a checklist of attributes. To be honest, other than generating card advantage, I don't think any of the characteristics Hackworth lists are particularly important. (No offense!) You have to think about the "why" to choose the best finisher for your deck, i.e. think about what characteristics are going to help you out of a jam, and if the creature with those characteristics happens to be a vanilla 2/1, that's fine.

@DavidZaslavsky You've won me over.

@DavidZaslavsky If card advantage is the only thing that matters, then why do you list so many cards as finishers that do not generate card advantage? You cite power 4, hard to kill, shroud, flying etc. as desirable in a finisher, just like I did.

I missed this latest comment until now... anyway, I did not cite 4 power, evasion, or resistance to being killed as desirable  attributes. They can be useful if your deck can absorb the cost, but they are not necessary. The key is that every one of the finishers in my list generates card advantage, either by trading for multiple removal spells or creatures, or by rendering the opponent's removal dead in hand. (Or, in the case of the sword, by forcing discards)

@DavidZaslavsky I don't think card advantage is the most important thing. Your own answer talks about the card's primary role being achieving board control, or cementing control if you have it already. You could express this as "virtual card advantage" (e.g. if Elesh Norn killed 4 weenies when she comes into play, you could say she was worth 4 cards, plus whatever cards have become useless in your opponent's hand), but it gets more and more nebulous with cards like Sphinx of the Steel Wind (an amazing presence on the board but not a source of "card advantage" in any non-handwavy form).

@Alex: that "virtual card advantage" is exactly what card advantage is.

Surely this card was the absolute benchmark for a control finisher:

Highly resistant to removal, can't be chump-blocked, kills an undamaged opponent in two swings.
Though I say was rather than is: Wizards, to my vague disapproval, has continued to print cards "in the style of" Progenitus, but with increasingly less prohibitive mana costs:

You can tell they're intentional control finisher designs because they are hard to cast, exceptionally hard to deal with, can win in one and will almost always win in two swings, and have that fiddly "can't be put in the graveyard from anywhere" clause to prevent them from being completely abusive in any reanimator strategy.
So these cards do it all on their own.  You can get away with using less expensive and absurd finishers, but only if your deck can do
the things that these cards can do on their own: protect the finisher from removal, win the game in a short enough window of time once the finisher comes down!

I didn't play during the Alara era. Were there actual tournament decks that would hardcast Progentius? (I know there were decks that would hardcast Cruel Ultimatum, Nicol Bolas, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind; but the only decklists I've seen with Progenitus are cheaty combos like Burning Shoal.)

I can't imagine any except the most casual deck trying to hardcast Progenitus really - you'd have to devote too much of your deck to ramp and colour fixing for it to function well as a deck any more.  I think cheating most of these big guys out is the order of the day.

If you can't even cast these without tricks like Twelvepost and Tinker, are they really control cards, though?

I'd think Polar Kraken from Ice Age was probably the first creature with as much power "out of the box" (cost: 8+3Blue, 11/11 trample, cumulative upkeep: sacrifice a land), though it doesn't have the super-effective protection. I successfully cast it once or twice in casual play for the shock value, but by that time the opponent had effectively lost already.


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Sacrifice enablers for EDH
I'm building my first EDH deck and have chosen Thraximundar (Grixis) as my general.
My deck has a lot of synergy centered around sacrificing creatures.  I find it easy to benefit from sacrificing and have plenty of targets for sacrificing but I need more ways of enabling the sacrifice triggers.
So far I have Viscera Seer, not much to go on.

There are tons of options:
Attrition or Blood Rites, while requiring to pay mana, would kill your opponents creatures (or the opponent himself in the case of the rites). If you need something that doesn't require mana to activate you could try Bloodthrone Vampire, Carrion Feeder or Devouring Swarm.
Hell's Caretaker can be an interesting choice, because it gets creatures back when sacrificing others, but can be activated only once per turn.
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch can be sweet, drawing you cards when sacrificing black creatures or dealing damage when sacrificing red ones.
There are lots more, here you have Magiccards search of creatures that have an activated ability which requires to sacrifice a creature and are black, blue or red.

Thanks for all the options, its great to know this exchange has such dedicated members.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&color=+![G]+![W]&text=+[%22sacrifice%20a%20creature:%22]
Teach a man to fish.
The Gatherer is your friend. Once you know how to use it, you can find many of your own answers. You might want to examine the Advanced Search to narrow your search, or the Help Page to get an idea how to search. Explanation of the URL variables above ('?' starts the query, '&' separates variables, Left Hand Side (LHS) is the variable name, RHS is the value of the variable):

action=advanced (gives responses for a greater range of variables)
color=+![G]+![W] (card mana cost does NOT ('!') contain Green AND does NOT contain White mana)
text=[%22sacrifice%20a%20creature:%22] (contains the exact RULES TEXT ('"' is %22, space is %20. URLs cannot contain these special characters, so they must be encoded) "sacrifice a creature:"

You can type your own search examples on the Advanced page, and then examine the URL to see exactly how your query is posted to the database. Technically, this search result would possibly show us cards that don't match the color identity of the Commander, if a card existed that contained a [G] or [W] activated ability, but not a whole lot of these exist. So just for fun, try replacing the RULES TEXT with this search strings.

text=+![B]+[%22Sacrifice%20a%20creature:%22] This will return all sacrifice a creature activated abilities on cards that don't contain Black Mana symbols on the card. You will note that the botto of page 0 is Quagmire Druid which doesn't match our Commander's color identity.

I agree with this answer completely, but partly because I feel like I already posted it! ;)  Good work explaining how to put together a useful Gatherer query though - this is definitely a useful expansion of my answer.

While a regular user of gatherer I have never seen an explanation of how to use the advanced search strings, until now, thanks :) credit to @thesunneversets for getting there first.

Although I generally shy away from suggesting a single card, in this case Braids, Cabal Minion fits the bill so perfectly that it's tough to ignore.

According to the 'Deck Construction' section of the rules at mtgcommander.net Braids, Cabal Minion may not be used in the EDH format.

Whoops, to clarify, Braids may be used just not as a Commander.

You should have a look at cards that make each player sacrifice creatures/permanents.
Examples: Pox, smallpox, smokestack, innocent blood, fleshbag marauder.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[%22sacrifice%20a%20creature%22]
Without wishing to suggest specific decks for you, the above link should at least give you plenty of ideas to get your creative juices going!

Thanks for the suggestions, deck advice is always welcome but I much prefer finding the cards and building a theme myself, looking at deck lists for inspiration is... acceptable :)

This is the above search further refined not to include any cards costing white or green mana, by the way: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&color=+![W]+![G]&text=+[%22sacrifice%20a%20creature%22]

Most Thrax decks I've seen use Grave Pact or Butcher of Malakir. These are good "rattlesnake" cards that also greatly magnify the value of anything you feed to a sacrifice outlet. Attrition is also worth mentioning, since it's such a cheap outlet with one of the best beneficial effects. Consider Malfegor and Death Cloud if you want additional bulk effects of this type.
Sacrificing your own dudes for mana is also pretty awesome because you can often turn that mana into more dudes to sacrifice. Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar serve as the basis for many token-sacrifice engines. Skirk Prospector can do the same for Goblins, as can Basal Sliver for Slivers. Cards that create Eldrazi Spawn -- in particular, repeating ones like Pawn of Ulamog and Rapacious One -- are also good for giving you a bit of extra mana while Thrax has something to munch on.
In my Sheoldred reanimator deck, I actually use fatties as sacrifice victims, feeding them to Soldevi Adnate, Miren, the Moaning Well, and Xathrid Demon.
Minion Reflector is an excellent way to get double value out of ETB triggers. The tokens it creates have a built-in self-sacrifice effect, but you might as well feed them to something else.

Found a few that I have somewhere in my collection that look like good options:
Carrion Feeder
Phyrexian Ghoul
Thanks for all the suggestions there are far more cards suited enabling sacrifices than I thought.


text:
What are the basic tactics for the heros in Last Night on Earth? (Zombies dominating)
I have been playing Last Night on Earth with my family after my daughter got it for Christmas.  So far we have played five games and the zombies have won each time.  We played "Die Zombies Die" and most recently "Defend the Manor".
We have switched around who played who.  Either things are out of balance or we are playing the heroes badly (or perhaps we misunderstand the rules).
What are some basic tactics that the heros should apply?
Generally our attempts so far have been along these lines:-

Run away from zombies and attempt to get some breathing space to search in a building,
If you get a gun, stand within range and pick-off the zombies,
If you get a hand weapon or other special bonus, perhaps try and fight a zombie or two

There's also been a bit of trying to heal each other, and luring of zombies away from the Manor House.
The zombies seem to be getting a lot more cards to play while the heroes lack useful items.

Our first couple games went very similar to that. Virtually every time we play now though, the humans have dominated. Which is the opposite problem I guess.
A large mistake we made in our first game was that we had zombies moving double speed. Don't know how we looked over that in the rules, but make sure you only have zombies moving one space. Ignoring the use of special cards of course. Note that the human players ran roll a die to see how far they would be able to move before choosing to search or run. There's been many a time a player has chosen to stay and search rather than run a futile single space. Make sure that the Zombie Player is evenly distributing zombies within a single spawn among their spawning pits. Don't forget that the Manor House is only in play during the 'Protect the Manor' Scenario. Otherwise it's the big open field. I've found the Manor scenario to a harder, if not the hardest, scenario to win as the Humans by the way. The Zombie player is limited to a hand of four cards, a good number of which involve combat. The less you are in combat, the fewer chances the Zombie player has to use the cards. So if they want new cards, they'll have to discard those combat events (good for the humans) or hold onto the cards and not draw new ones (also good for you, reduces the changes of getting a 'Play Immediately' event)
An important thing to consider is that if the scenario you're playing doesn't directly involve killing zombies, it may be better to leave zombies alone if you have the option. Especially since actually killing zombies with a melee weapon doesn't have very good odds. Left to their own devices, the humans will find what they need to get out easily, so the Zombie Player isn't going to be holing up somewhere protecting an area; he just doesn't have the resources to both guard an important area while also putting pressure on the humans. So you're going to be pursued most of the time already, why make it easier to be caught? If you're running from one side of the map to the other and pick off a zombie with a ranged weapon just because you can, this gives the Zombie Player a new figure to work with and they can just spawn them closer to where you were going anyway. Unnecessarily fighting/shooting zombies also gives you a chance to get hurt through combat or lose your weapon (either by running out of bullets or through a Zombie Player card). A human would need four dice to a Zombie's one to have better odds of killing it then getting hurt from the attempt. Plus the zombie player has cards to force rerolls and add additional dice to the zombies. Unless you have found an Instant Kill weapon like the butcher knife (which auto-kills if any of your dice show a 6, regardless of what the Zombie player rolls), survivability-wise, it's always better to run.
If the scenario you're playing involves finding specific items, searching buildings is the top priority. You can spend all day killing Zombies, but unless you find the keys and gas, you can't escape in the car, so get to searching! Having the Survivors stick in pairs (while this does make them potential targets for cards like 'This Could Be Our Last Night on Earth') allows you to split up groups of attacking zombies and allows for other strategies, like healing each other, trying to lure zombies away, etc. Make sure you remember though that each Survivor has to fight all the Zombies in their space when they end their turn, even if they're in the same space as someone else. You can only divide the Zombies between Survivors during the Zombie Player turn. Zombie Hunger can be a useful trait to use against to Zombie Player. If a human is within one space of a zombie, the zombie has to move to a human (Zombie Player choice if there are multiple spaces). If a zombie shares a space with a human, it cannot leave. There has also been many human sacrifices to allow another player with a scenario item to escape a building. Remember though, even superior strategy is subject to the whims of the dice gods. Zombies winning ties


text:
What does "removed from the game" mean?
I've seen some cards that say "remove from the game". For example, an old version of Swords to Plowshares says:

remove target creature from the game.

What does that mean? Is it different from "exile?

"Remove from the game" means "exile", and all cards that say it have been given errata to say exile.
For example, Swords to Plowshares in newer printings reads "Exile target creature." And no matter what, the Oracle text for cards (the card text shown on Gatherer) will always have the correct wording with "exile", even if the card has never been physically reprinted to fix it.
There's a historical reference in the comp rules:

406.7. Previously, the exile zone was called the "removed-from-the-game zone." Cards that were printed with text that "removes [an object] from the game" exiles that object. The same is true for cards printed with text that "sets [an object] aside." Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference.

Specifically, this change was made in the Magic 2010 rules update. One of the big reasons for the change (besides "exile" just being shorter) was to try to clarify that they're not 100% for sure forever removed from the game, since that's not really true in general:

The Reality: "Removed from the game" is increasingly a misnomer as we design more cards that use the removed-from-the-game zone as a temporary holding cell for cards that are very much still in the game. Like the "in-play zone," the name "removed-from-the-game zone" does a poor job of maintaining the game's fantasy metaphor.

The Fix: The phrase "remove from the game" is being changed to "exile," which is shorter, more flavorful, and not at all misleading about actually being in the game. The zone is now called the "exile zone" and cards in it will be referred to as "exiled cards."

Note that some cards do still refer to "outside the game" (e.g. Burning Wish). This has absolutely nothing to do with exile, which is a zone that is part of the game. "Outside the game" in tournaments means sideboards, i.e. actually totally outside the game, wasn't in your deck in the first place. In casual play it could mean your collection or something more restricted, depending on who you play with. Either way, they don't work with exiled cards. They used to back when it was called "remove from the game", but it was changed in the same rules update.

As a fun side note. Because "removed from the game" was actually still in the game in some way they made this card in the fun set Unhinged to really remove a card: AWOL


text:
What happens if no one wants to buy a property at auction in Monopoly?
I was playing with my brother and after a few turns, my brother had 0$ due to tax.
Now it was my turn, and because I was in jail, I paid $50 to get out, which was all of my money. Then I rolled and landed on a property no one owned.
The rules just say that the bank would sell the property to the highest bidder, which doesn't help.
But you're also not allowed to do nothing, you must auction the property if you don't want to or can't pay for it.

Is someone allowed to get the property for free, e.g.: "auction" for 0$?
If so, who gets the property in a tie?

Everyone had no money and no ability to mortgage property to get some?

@JoeW Improbable, but not impossible. But it doesn't really matter; because the real question is about nobody wanting to buy the property. Whether they could afford to or not doesn't change the answer.

@Gendolkari It really does matter.  Any player with cash on hand should be willing to bid any amount less than the mortgage value of the property, as they can immediately mortgage the property and get free money as well as control of the property.  The question would be stronger if it focused on the situation where no player has any money.

If nobody has any money or ability to generate money, hasn't the game already ended? Are you playing with house-rules that draw out the length of the game?

@Zags, In an interesting exchange of comments, member Joshua states:"... worthless properties... their expected loss on income tax exceeded their expected gains on rent." and member Nuclear Wang counters with an argument comparing mortgage value and expected loss on the IncomeTax square. https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6857/why-isnt-the-minimum-bid-for-a-property-its-mortgage-value

@nick012000 Both players still have the ability to generate income by passing Go as well as drawing some Chance/Community Chest cards, assuming they don't go bankrupt first.

Philip Orbanes is the renowned master of all things Monopoly.
He is the author of 3 books on Monopoly :

The Monopoly Companion: The Players' Guide
The World’s Most Famous Game--and How It Got That Way
Monopoly, Money and You: How to Profit from the Game's Secrets of Success.

Kevin Tostado is Director of the movie
Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story,
a documentary about the Monopoly national and world championships that are held around the world every four years; the movie won 4 Emmy Awards, including that for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary.
Reference : http://www.monopolydocumentary.com/
Kevin Tostado answered the following question :
How do you properly hold an auction in Monopoly?
Reference : https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-properly-hold-an-auction-in-Monopoly
"The answer can differ depending on how you interpret the rules, since it's not clearly defined within the rules that Charles Darrow wrote when he first published MONOPOLY. But I'll describe how chief judge Phil Orbanes ran auctions at the 2009 US & World Championships.
When a player lands on an unowned property and decides that he or she does not want to purchase it at face value (either because they can't afford it, don't want it, or think they might be able to get it at a lower price), then that property immediately goes up for auction.
The banker conducts the auction and puts the property up for bid starting at $1, regardless of the original face value of the property. Any player, including the one who landed on it and declined to purchase it originally, can bid on the property. Any player can name a price, and there is no sequential order to how bids are offered. The auction continues until the banker concludes the auction with the highest bidder."
So, the chief judge, Philip Orbanes, at the Monopoly US & World Championship says bidding starts at $1.

This doesn't answer what you do if no player has any money

@Zags At any moment in Monopoly, there is always someone who has at least a dollar (or pound, or euro...) or at least one property that can be mortgaged to raise cash. However, if nobody wants the property, you're playing with such low-calibre players that I would expect that the rules are least of their problems...

Not necessarily.  Players could have all of their un-mortgaged properties be developed and therefore non-mortgageable.

Then I would expect the property to become an unowned property that can be bought or auctioned the next time a player lands on it.

On the one hand, real auctions that start at a certain dollar amount can and do decrease that amount if there are no bidders at the starting amount.  On the other hand, no auction would ever allow a $0 bid price.

A player is allowed to bid $0 for the property, and thus buy it for $0 if no one outbids him.
The rules say:

Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed
  price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.

However, the rules do not gives any details on the specific way that the auction should be run. In most standard auctions, once someone has bid $0, any other player who wishes to bid must bid more than $0. Thus, the property would go to whoever bids first. But what player this is will depend on how you have been running auctions in the game in general.
Disclaimer: this is only a partial answer because I don't believe the rules actually answer the question.

This does rely on whether you interpret $0 to be a "price". (I do, but folks often get rather exclusionary about handling zeros.) Nonetheless, this is probably the most pragmatic / fun answer for casual play. If you manage to land on a property while literally no one has liquid assets, it may as well be given to someone for free.

If we are going to allow a $0 bid (something no real auction anywhere would allow) you have opened up a can of worms because now somebody is going to submit an opening bid that is negative.

@Michael The difference is that the concept of a "negative price" is not well-defined within the game rules. Sure you could assume that it means that you take that much money instead of pay that much money, but that's just an assumption. a price of $0 requires no such assumption; there's no need to guess what it means to "pay $0".

@GendoIkari I'm not sure how else you could define it. It seems to me it's more math than game rules.

Frame challenge: I don't believe it's plausible for this to happen in any game with sane players, and so there is no need for the rules to cover it.

Any property, once bought, can be instantly mortgaged for half its face value. It is therefore in every player's interest to buy a property in an auction for half its face value or lower.
If a player has no cash, then they can raise some by mortgaging another property or selling a house. These both have costs: it will either cost you 10% of the property mortgage value to unmortgage it afterwards, or cost you half a house's value to sell it and then re-buy it. Both of these costs should be far outweighed by the gain in buying an auction property for $1 and instantly mortgaging it.
There are theoretical situations in which it wouldn't make sense (e.g. mortgaging the most expensive property or a house on the most expensive side, in order to buy the cheapest property) but the chances of every player being in that situation are so remote that I suggest it has never happened: properties tend to go up for auction fairly early in the game (the chances of no-one having landed on a particular property decrease as the game goes on) when either players have plenty of cash or players have plenty of unmortgaged property (cheaper properties as well as more expensive ones) available.

No real rules seem to exist for this specific scenario, where neither player has any ability to buy the property. Hate to leave such a short answer, but it appears to come down to interpretation of the rules. Since, if you start the bidding at $0, neither of you could conceivably pay higher, so the bidding is an indeterminate tie, with no fair way to decide the winner sans luck options like rolling dice or coin flips, which seems like a poor decision. The best decision seems to be to simply leave the property with no owner in the event of an indeterminate tie.


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Spoons: is passing your cards w/o looking cheating?
In the game of spoons (aka "pig" or "tongue"), you can simply not look at your cards, passing them on directly, so as to be ready to pick up a spoon at any moment (fixated on the spoons, with your hand hovering near a spoon). Is this "cheap" or "cheating" in any way, or just sometimes a good strategy? My sister says it's bad sportsmanship, but I insist it's just part of the game.
Edits:

I accept that keeping your hand near the spoons will incite violence, so let's assume I don't do that.
I only employ this strategy when it makes sense (when I'm unlikely to make a match of 4, and I'm furthest from the dealer)
It does not make sense for everyone to play this strategy, since the more people employ the strategy, the less benefit they get (it becomes a better strategy to try to make a match, since matching is more likely). I feel this adds an interesting element of game theory; you have to anticipate what strategy others are using, and do the opposite.

Given that this is a highly variable kitchen table game, most of the answers you'll get here are opinions. That said, I think that keeping your hand hovering next to the spoons is practically cheating, at the very least, it's a pretty cheap way to play. Not looking at your cards is fine, but everyone should have their hands in front of them unless they're actually grabbing a spoon.
While what you're doing may be within the rules in some circles, it may detract from the game. Imagine a game where everyone played with your strategy!

The interesting thing is that if everyone plays the strategy except one, then the one who doesn't play the strategy definitely gets all 4 cards first.

It is not cheating and is allowed, but its not a very fun way to play for others when it is the only strategy only used.
If your intentions are to not be disliked and you want to invited to continue playing, maybe you should diversify your strategy.

It only makes sense to use this strategy when I'm furthest from the dealer, and it doesn't seem likely that I'm going to get a match.


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Do I need to keep the Ascension expansion boxes as I have the original one?
I have the original Ascension box with wooden separators (pictured below), what makes for a nice, long lasting storage for cards - I would say, a lot of them, as the separators seem quite empty holding only the original game cards.
I'm planning to buy a couple of expansions when travelling abroad, and given the original box and separators, I'm thinking about getting rid of the boxes and bringing home only the cards and manuals - this way I can bring more stuff with me.
Is this idea reasonable? Are there reasons to keep the other boxes (besides, maybe, space for several expansions)?

Your "Bonus" should be a separate question, so others with this same question would have an easier time finding it. (Among other reasons.)

@tsuma534: remove that part on the original question as this is already sort-of-answered at http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/22885/do-ascensions-small-box-expansions-work-well-with-the-other-big-boxes?rq=1 and http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/2434/17509

It looks like that version of Ascension has the Broken Token Box Organizer (or similar) included, which should allow for most, if not all, of the expansions to fit into the one box.
The game normally comes with an insert that looks a little different.
As such you would not need to keep the additional expansion boxes if you have no desire to resell the game, or display the boxes.

Wow! That's the original inserts? The Brazilian version comes with a lot of zip bags and a paper division to fill up box space lol

My organizer seems quite inspired on that from Broken Token, but it also includes actual token boxes (not broken haha)

Unless you sleeve all your cards you will need at least 2 boxes, almost 3

The original box won't fit all the current expansions, there's just too many cards at this point, but no there is no good reason to keep the other boxes if you don't want them, they just take up space at that point. I kept mine, but that's personal preference there, my cards are currently all stored in 2 years of the special edition tins, and it already takes up both years full space.
It should be noted that you definitely need the rule books from each still, as you mentioned, since last I checked Stone Blade has yet to release a comprehensive rulebook (I have emailed asking for a PDF) and each new expansion adds new rules to the base game.

And even so, while not mandatory, it would be good to keep the new boards as well, right? I'll probably keep the big boxes and store the small expansions with the sets they're most playable with.

@igorsantos07 Fair point, all sets are playable together of course, though you do run into the downside of Stone Blade not offering an energy only buy so your decks end up energy light if you play with too many (I left the energy in from the original copy when I bought my year tin so I'd have double, made it better.)

But mixing too much sets might make your games seem a tad boring, because of the low chance of making good combos, wouldn't it?

@igorsantos07 It depends what you want from your game, some people want games where it is harder to combo out, since a particularly good combo just ends the game. I've had games even with 1000+ cards in the center deck where 90% of the cards ended in my deck because I could do a repeatable extra turn combo or had 5 copies of Adayu the serene due to copy effects so would draw 5 cards per enlightened I played.


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Submarines and "Defenseless" Transports in Axis and Allies
So I've got a question about Axis and Allies Spring 1942 edition.
I had a German fleet off the coast of England (cruiser, battleship, two subs, and two loaded transports), and the US attacked with two fighters and a bomber.
The subs can't defend against aircraft, but I believe are not considered "submerged".  The cruiser and battleship were destroyed after two rounds of combat, leaving a bomber on the american side and two subs and transports on the German side.
In this case, are the transports "defenseless" and automatically destroyed? by the aircraft?  They are "defended" by submarines, but those subs can't "do" anything in this instance.  If it were ships attacking, presumably conflict would continue until it was resolved, but with air units I'm not sure.  We played that the transports were destroyed (to my irritation).  What's the technical ruling here?
Thanks,
Nate

You played the right way.
Basically, the turn continues until 1) all the defending forces are destroyed, or 2) all the attacking forces are destroyed or 3) the attacker elects to retreat.
The defender cannot retreat. The exception is submarines, which can submerge (and retreat) if they get the right rolls.
Earlier on, you might have taken at least one transport as a casualty (8 for the transport, 6 for e.g. two infantry units, 14 in total) to save your battleship (15), the unit that has the best chance (going forward) to fight back. Instead, when you sacrificed your battleship, you doomed your transports because they can't fight back.

I think I must have a different version than you're referencing.  The rulebook with my game specifies that transports can only be chosen as casualties when no other units exist (warships protect transports, not visa versa), and that they have no attack or defense value.
I'm not sure which edition it is, but It appears to be the first edition of the 1942 version.

@NathanaelYarger: I edited my answer to remove references to rules that are different in different versions of the game.


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Texas Holdem: How to Score this Hand - Single Pair, 3 kickers
I have a question for you. It's a question that came up last night in a poker game and is still being debated by the group. Some say split, some say one winner. Please let me know how you would score this hand (see pic below). Please tell me who won, or if there was a tie, and also what the series of cards would be for the winning hand or tie. Also, if you're aware of any game variations that are played that would make both sides of the debate right (unlikely).
I'm not going to tell you what I think, because I don't want to bias your ruling. Just trying to get to the truth here.
Thanks so much!

It's a split. If you take the highest scoring set of five cards, each player is holding a double king, queen, ten and nine. The eight of clubs and four of hearts are never considered in scoring.
Here's an explanation of this five-card scoring rule. Especially:

Five might be the most important number in poker, if only because five cards make a complete poker hand. This is true no matter how many cards you’re dealt, whether seven, as in seven-card-stud, or just two, as in Hold’em.

Is there also an explicit rule that excludes suit colors as tiebreakers?

No suit in poker is better than any other in any respect, so they never break ties.

@KefSchecter No suit in Texas Hold'em is better than any other suit. There are common variants where suit may matter, for example determining who will Bring In in 7 card stud.

Let me clarify: no suit is better than any other when it comes to evaluating standard five-card poker hands.


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What is the origins and evolutionary track of Go game?
I didn't find any source explaining the "origins" or "evolution", rather than just history of Go.
Book and article suggestions would also be helpful.

Can you be a bit more precise? Are you talking about rules or about strategy? Both?

@havogt: Thank you for the reply. I am new to abstract gaming world, I am interested in knowing how the experiences got abstracted as the game (if it is the case) or on specifically the origins of the game. I think I should better change the title to "what is the origin and evolutionary track of Go"?

I still don't see why origin and evolution is not covered by history. My use of the word "history" is the story from the beginning (origin) until now (evolution). Maybe senseis can help you.

@havogt: I am from Physics and Math background, usually what happens in these fields is that the history covers only the chronology of the concept development rather than the evolution of the concept itself. So, in those fields there is a distinction between evolution and history, I mean the same here. Thank you again.

I thought of reading the evolutionary history of chess, then dropped it down, as I thought it to be more time efficient to read the evolutionary history of powerful Go game. I found many books on chess "history" but none on Go, even if there were any, they were not the entire history, but rather history of Go in individual countries. I didn't find any book which has a powerful general view of the Go evolutionary and origins history.

Go is so much older than chess and there is no accepted story about its origin. That's probably the reason why there is no book on the very early days of Go. You can only find some stories which are likely more myth than proper research.

@havogt: Then from your experience, which is the best move I can make now? Now I am thinking to read the evolution of earliest games itself, rather than Go or Chess. In a evolutionary way I am thinking to come for Go and Chess, to have a better idea on how games get created.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The following book has information on the origins and history of Go, as well as describing how to play it and explaining some strategy:
https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Game-Peter-Shotwell/dp/080483475X


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Can I cast Dire Fleet Daredevil if my opponent has no instants or sorceries in their graveyard?
I want to cast Dire Fleet Daredevil but my opponent has no instants or sorceries in their graveyard.
Am I able to cast it?
The text doesn't read "You may exile target instant or sorcery", but it also doesn't require it as an additional cost.

As a side note, one of the "skill tests" that separate novice players from experienced players is that, on the whole, novice players assume that because such text exist on the card, that you should wait until you can use it effectively. An experienced player loves to benefit from the card, but sometimes you just need a body on the battlefield (and honestly, a 2 power FS for 2 is not terrible, especially in an environment full of 4/2s.)

Yes, you may cast Dire Fleet Daredevil if you opponent has no instant or sorcerys in their graveyard.
When your Dire Fleet Daredevil enters the battlefield, it will try to do as much as possible with what is available to it. Unfortunately for you since there is no instant or sorcery in your opponent's graveyard you will be unable to cast an instant or sorcery from your opponent's graveyard. You will still however have your creature. This is according to the CR(emphasis mine):

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.

The confusion in your question seem to stem from thinking of Dire Fleet's ability as an additional cost. Additional cost must be paid in order to cast a spell if they do not contain "may". A good way to recognize additional costs is to look for the phrase "As an additional cost to cast..."

I suggest distinguishing this from additional costs, such as on Makeshift Mauler and Relentless Skaabs: it's a different ability which happens later, after the creature is cast, then fails. It would have to be an additional cost to prevent DFD from being cast, because it would be a cost you have to be able to pay before casting the spell.

@ikegami in this case as much as possible is nothing at all, since there is no valid targets

This answer is wrong. As Ikegami says; the ability will never resolve; without legal targets it can't remain on the stack.

"The confusion in your question seem to stem from thinking of Dire Fleet's ability as an additional cost." I think the confusion seems to stem more from thinking that choosing targets is something you would do when you cast the creature, as opposed to something you would do after the creature resolves, when dealing with the triggered ability.

@GendoIkari @ ikegami @ Dopplegreener, I have read through the CR a bit more and picked changed the cited CR

Yes, after I started writing the comment. But even with the word effect removed, it's not any better. Creatures don't "try to do as much as possible". Creatures don't do anything at all. /// It is also wrong to claim "you will be unable to cast an instant or sorcery from your opponent's graveyard", since you will never be asked to cast an instant or sorcery from your opponent's graveyard. /// Finally, you forgot to demonstrate that a choice is required (by 601.2c). It's not clear that the OP knows targets are picked when the ability is placed on the stack (and not on resolution).

Yes, you can.
The enter-the-battlefield ability has nothing to do with casting the creature itself. Creatures are not targeted spells. If they have an enter-the-battlefield trigger, then that ability will trigger after you have cast the creature spell and after it resolves.
After you cast Dire Fleet Daredevil and it resolves, its enter the battlefield ability will trigger. At this point, you must chose targets for the triggered ability, and if you can't do so, then the ability simply disappears:

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. [...]

"After you cast Dire Fleet Daredevil, its enter the battlefield ability will trigger." - perhaps you should change your wording here, novice players might interpret this with an "immediately" in there.

@Hamsterrific Good catch.