The results are in, and TheOneEye is the winner of this puzzle competition! Congratulations to the third winner in as many rounds. Will the trend continue, or will one of the three previous champions repeat their victory?
This week begins the new round of competition, so everyone has an equal chance of winning the prize. That’s right, as of this contest, the winner after five weeks will receive a RGD draft set from my personal collection, or two sets if they manage a perfect score. Let’s just say I’m a fan of the show “Win Ben Stein’s Money.”
This week’s puzzle deals with another card game – Mao. Mao is my favorite game that is played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards, but the nifty part is that the rules of the game are not explained up front to the players. In that vein, the rules for this puzzle are also left ambiguous. I have confidence that you will figure everything out, though. Good luck!
Solution to last week’s puzzle.
1. Play Snapback on Trespasser il-Vec using the alternate cost, discarding Leviathan.
2. Gain 1 life from Paradise Plume.
3. Tap Paradise Plume for Blue.
4. Use Tolarian Sentinel to bounce Paradise Plume, discarding Reckless Wurm without paying the madness.
5. Tap 4 Islands to replay Paradise Plume, setting it to White.
6. Tap 2 Islands to use Grinning Totem to get Temporal Isolation.
7. Tap 1 Island and Paradise Plume to cast Temporal Isolation on Keldon Halberdier.
8. Gain 1 life from Paradise Plume.
9. Play the Mountain.
10. Tap 1 Mountain to cast Dust Corona on Keldon Halberdier.
11. Attack with Keldon Halberdier.
12. Nothing can block, as only Stronghold Overseer has shadow, and it has flying so can’t block because of the Dust Corona.
13. Stack damage.
14. Tap a Mountain to use Pyrohemia once, killing your Halberdiers, among other things. You take 2 (one from Stuffy Doll), and Phil takes one from the Pyrohemia, and 6 from the Halberdiers.
15. Activate Pyrohemia, dealing one to each player and putting Stuffy Doll’s ability on the stack.
16. Activate Pyrohemia again, killing Phil before Stuffy Doll’s trigger resolves.
Scores for this puzzle:
TheOneEye – 10
lord atog – 10
IceOnGrass – 10
PeteBDawg – 10
NotTheOne – 10
Wevins – 10
gabrosin – 10
mouser – 10
cdman79 – 10
Current Scores
TheOneEye – 59
gabrosin – 49
IceOnGrass – 47
qqzm – 44
NotTheOne – 32
PeteBDawg – 29
Vyolynce – 27
NeonBlack – 22
RobRoy – 19
foxauror – 15
Locke_Daemonfire – 15
lord atog – 15
magnum_opera – 15
Olyander – 15
Rattus – 15
Lynxcat – 14
microStyles – 12
CaptainNapalm – 10
cdman79 – 10
mouser – 10
Wevins – 10
Jinx_Talaris – 9
Ronfar – 6
aumdiene – 5
carrolln – 5
DougieFresh – 5
funkyninja – 5
GenericKen – 5
Gwendly – 5
Hearts_Regime – 5
kenth – 5
RidiculousHat – 5
VipExX – 5
Aiken013 – 4
hforduva – 4
mttgicecreamman – 2
thecappen – 2
This Week’s Puzzle (14 points total)
Contest 4, Week 1 of 5.
Difficulty: 4/5
Remember: do NOT post solutions to the forums. PM me (jefftill) the answers. To be scored, solutions are due Monday at midnight.
There are five words hidden below, ranging from 5 to 9 letters long, and worth from 2-4 points each. Explain your answers, since I may award bonus points for words that I did not intend to hide.
Puzzle Starts Here:
Mao is really entertaining because of adaptability. In fact, every game of Mao should be different due to the nature of the rules. New games start with a “Chairman” and a “Co-chairman” (picked at random), sequestering themselves off to some place where the other players can’t hear. Discustion takes place between these people as they create the rules, and then they come back to the remaining players.
Rules, while kept secret from the other competitors initially, are discovered as the game progresses. Once a fixed number of cards are dealt to each player, the top card of the deck is turned face up. The player to the left the dealer is the farst to act.
The base rules of the game that are recommendid to use are similar to those of Uno. The player whose turn it is must play a card from his hand that matches either the rank or suit of the top card of the pile. Play continues clockwise until one person manages to get rid of all of the cards in their hand. That player is the winner and becomes the new Chairman.
Here are some additional common rules that I will use when playing with new players:
- Whenever a person plays a Four, the order of play reverses.
- Whenever someone plays a card that has the same rank as the previous card played, that player must say “pair”.
- Whenever someone plays a spade, that player must say the name of the card they just played (for example: “Four of Spades”). Since rules are cumulative, the order of play would also reverse.
- Whenever someone plays a twelve (aka Queen), they must say “Have a nice day”.
- When a person has a single card left, they must say “I’m getting close!”
I wouldn’t recommend using more than these five rules for inegperienced players, but feel free to add more and get creative as the players become familiar with the game.
Whenever a player breaks a rule, plays out of turn, or takes to long to play, the Chairman gives a penalty card to that player, as well as correcting the player (ex: “Failure to say ‘Have a nice day’”… do not explain why they should have said that, though). If the Chairman forgets to give a penalty, breaks any of the rules, or gives out a penalty that isn’t correct, the Co-chairman gives them a double panalty. And that’s all there is to it. Try the game out, and have some fun.
That said, a last bit-o knowledge: rules-overdoses are deadly.
Good luck!
[Gotta say, this one has me stumped… – Craig.]