If EVER you were curious about "Magic: the Gathering"

Honestly, I've had colds that were worse than this. Mild headache, cough and sore throat. I'm over the headache and cough already. Heck, the test for Covid was worse than the symptoms. Felt like a lobotomy, scraping the back of my sinuses. I now know how a mummy feels. In any case, Thanks for the well wishes.

First a few definitions to help clarify.
Spell - Any non land card.
Stack - The order in which spells are cast and abilities are activated or triggered. Since you maintain this site, I think you'll understand MtG is a first in last out in how you execute the stack.
Cast - When a spell goes on the stack.
Resolve - When a spell or ability comes off the stack.
Permanent - Any card that remains on the battlefield. Lands, Enchantments, Creatures, Artifacts and Plainswalkers.
Activated Ability - An ability of a permanent that requires a cost (tapping, mana, life, etc.). Anything before the colon ":" in the text box is the cost.
Triggered Ability - Abilities that are down when a specific condition is met.
Instant Speed - A spell or ability that you can cast or activate any time you have priority.
Sorcery Speed - A spell or ability that you can cast or activate only during a main phase and while nothing is on the stack.
Priority - Who has the option to add to the stack at any point in the game. The person who's turn it is generally holds priority, but must pass it when anything goes to resolve on the stack or when you end each phase (excluding Untap and Draw phases as there is no priority unless a triggered ability starts the stack). Priority must additionally pass between each step in the combat phase. Priority goes in turn order when passed.
Mana Pool - The available resource to pay costs. Land is tapped to add mana to your mana pool then spent. The mana pool is emptied at the end of each phase and step.
Tap - Turn a card sideways to indicate an action. For land, add mana to your mana pool. For creatures, to attack or activate an ability where tapping is part of the cost. Other permanents also have tapping costs to activate an ability.
Summoning Sick(ness) - A creature cannot attack or use any ability requiring Tap in its activation cost while summoning sick. A creature is summoning sick until it starts a turn under it's controller's control.
Owner - Any card in that player's deck, the player is owner of. For tokens or emblems, whoever had control of it when it entered the battlefield owns it.
Controller - For spells while on the stack, whoever cast it is the spell's controller. For permanents, whoever has control of the card is the controller.
Target - A spell or ability may identify a specific thing it can be used against (i.e. Target player, target enchantment, target creature, target permanent, etc.). There may be one or multiple targets. Targets must be declared upon casting. In order to cast a spell or activate an ability that targets, all targets must be legal when it goes on the stack. When the spell or ability resolves at least one target must be valid. If there are no valid targets upon resolution, then the spell is countered or the ability fizzles and none of the effects occur.
Countered - A spell is removed from the stack without resolving.
Zones - Any location a card can exist. Deck, hand, stack, battlefield, graveyard and exile.

So each players turn consist of phases. Some phases are further divided into steps. You are limited to what you can and can't do in each phase/step. (As an aside, their is likely a card out there that can alter nearly any rule, but it will explain it on the card. For brevity, assume that everything I say also has unless a card says otherwise). Also, there are probably a hundred "key" words that I won't go into defining unless you have a card that has the keyword without explanation text.

Phases:
Beginning Phase - Consists of three steps:
1. Untap - Untap all tapped permanents you control. No one has priority and nothing can be activated or cast unless it's in response to a triggered ability that starts a stack during this step.
2. Upkeep - Pay upkeep costs as required.
3. Draw - Draw a card. No one has priority and nothing can be activated or cast unless it's in response to a triggered ability that starts a stack during this step.
Precombat (or 1st) Main Phase - Can play a land (limit 1 per turn) and cast or activate sorcery speed spells and abilities. You may cast any number of spells.
Combat - Is broken into steps. Priority must pass with each step.
1. Beginning of combat - Declare the start of your combat phase.
2. Declare attackers - The active player taps each untapped creature (that is not summoning sick) he or she wishes to attack with and assigns the creature to a player or plainswalker. If no attackers are declared, then skip to End Combat.
3. Declare blockers - Each player who is attacked or who controls a plainswalker being attacked then assign blockers. The defending player may use any number of creatures to block an attacking creature. Blocking creatures must be untapped in order to block.
4. Combat damage - Any unblocked attacking creature will assign it's damage to the defending player or plainswalker. Any attacking creature that is blocked must assign its damage to the blocker and the blocking creature must assign it's damage to the attacking creature. If there are multiple blockers, then the attacking creature's controller chooses the order in which his or her creature assigns it's damage to the blockers and must assign at least enough damage to be "lethal" before it can assign any damage to the next creature. You can assign more than lethal damage to a single creature before assigning damage to the next blocker. Once all the damage is assigned it resolves simultaneously. (This resolution does not use the stack.) Any creature assigned lethal damage is sent to the graveyard.
5. End combat
Postcombat (or 2nd) Main Phase - Can play a land (Remember if you played a land during your first main phase, then you've played your limit per turn and can't play an additional land this turn) and cast or activate sorcery speed spells and abilities. You may cast any number of spells.
End Phase

In a two player game, the first player skips their draw.

Now, to address your deck specific questions. Your burn deck really has two ways to play and it mostly depends on your opponents deck type. If your opponent is playing an aggro deck, then use your damage spells early to eliminate their offensive and then build up a golem army to attack with in the later game. If your opponent is playing nearly any other deck type, then you'll be better off limiting your burn to critical creatures of your opponents and getting your creatures in play earlier. With each Guttersnipe in play, your increasing your direct damage to that player with each instant or sorcery spell later in the game.

Yes, you may have a maximum of 4 of any creature in a deck and if you have a means of getting all of them onto the battlefield, then yes, each instant or sorcery would trigger all 4 guttersnipes doing 8 damage to each opponent. The only time you are limited on having a single copy of a permanent is if it is legendary (the word Legend or Legendary appears in the card Type.
To help explain the rules a bit I'll elabrate here. Say you have two Guttersnipes in play with Read the Bones and Splicer's Skill in hand and a Lava Dart in your graveyard (as well as enough land to afford the mana to cast all this). You cast Read the Bones which allows you to splice Splicer's Skill onto Read the Bones and both Guttersnipes' abilities trigger. Read the Bones with the spliced ability goes on the stack, then since the Guttersnipes triggered at the same time, you choose the order in which their abilities go on the stack. Next you may choose to hold priority to cast a Lava Dart from your graveyard by sacking a mountain (it's flashback cost; note, you can use a tapped mountain that you used for mana already) or you can pass priority to allow other players respond before the stack starts resolving. You choose to pass and so do(es) the other player(s). The Guttersnipe on top of the stack resolves, then you have priority again. Everyone passes again, and the next Guttersnipe resolves and you once again have priority. Then rather than pass priority, you decide to cast Lava Dart from your graveyard targeting a creature and splice the same Splicer's Skill to this Spell. This triggers both Guttersnipes again. So now there are 4 things on the stack. You pass priority and the controller of the creature you target decides to counterspell your Lava Dart when he or she has priority to save their creature. So there is 5 things on the stack. Everyone passes priority, so the Counterspell resolves removing the Lava Dart with one instance of the splice effect from the stack without resolving. Everyone passes again, resolve Guttersnipe (Note, even though the spell that triggered the Guttersnipes ability has been countered, the triggered abilities still resolve because the card triggers on the cast. Some older cards say successfully cast which now means resolved.), all pass, resolve second Guttersnipe, all pass and resolve Read the Bones with the splice effect in the order they appear on the card (Scry 2, draw 2 cards, lose 2 life and create a 3/3 Golem Artifact Creature Token). This is a long winded way of explaining all the rules that apply to a series of actions that will actually take about 15 to 20 seconds of game play.

Any card that creates a token, WotC has actually printed a token on a card to represent whatever the token is. However, you can use about anything to represent the token so long as you have something that looks different for each token type you have so you can keep track of everything (I have a deck that uses about 6 different token types and 3 counter types, so it can get confusing). Dice are probably the best (Use the polyhedral set that you bought that you didn't care to use in your Wizard Game). But scrap paper or other cards (not MTG) are just as effective. Yes, each Golem you control will get the +1/+1 effect because it is a Global Effect. If you have multiples of this effect, they all apply (this is not true for every ability or effect, such as flying, trample, lifelink, etc. You'll have to look some up as you come across them, or ask me). If the Master Splicer dies, the Golems remain but lose the +1/+1 effect that the Master was providing. So if you have one Master in play, then yes your golems are effectively 4/4s and if you have 2 Masters on the battlefield, then your golems are effectively 5/5s.

Yes, Lightning Strike and Shock are straight forward. Lava Dart is generally a weaker card (as most cards with flashback generally are because you can cast it twice), but it does serve a purpose with the splice effect. It's a cheap card to defend against aggro that can be cast again late game to be used with the splice card (or multiple splices if you have more than one copy of Splicer's Skill in hand). You could probably find a better card, but this is not actually the worst for this deck.

Scry X - Look at the top X cards of your library. Put any number of them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order.

Scry is a mechanic to help you filter through your deck. In this particular deck, I feel like it's designed to help you get to Guttersnipes (i.e. bottom any cards that aren't immediately needed in an attempt to get to your Guttersnipes more quickly).

In this deck, Fateful Showdown is probably more of a mid game play. Against an aggro deck this card will be worthless as you'll have played your hand early to keep pace. Same problem if you get into late game, your hand will likely be small (and probably have the splice card you want to keep in your hand). Against most other decks, you can hold off playing your small burn and have a worthwhile burn with this card mid game. Overall though I don't care for this card in this deck. There's not quite enough draw or flashback to make it significantly effective throughout the course of play. It's a decent card, but really needs a complimentary deck built around it (stuff with graveyard shenanigans and a lot of draw).

For Diabolic Edict, the player you target chooses a creature he or she controls to sacrifice (not discard). There are a LOT better creature kill cards in black than this card. It really won't be effective against any aggro or weenie deck as your opponent will have lots of choices. It'll be super effective against the other deck you bought because of the sheer lack of creatures in Pristine Control. For this deck, use the burn on weenies, then hopefully they won't have an easy choice of sacrificing their remaining larger creatures.

Splice is a weird one. Basically when you cast another instant or sorcery you can pay the splice cost of this card and add the effects of the splice card to the cast instant or sorcery and the splice card remains in your hand. As described above in my two Guttersnipe example, you can splice Splicer's Skill onto Lava Dart and Splicer's Skill goes into your hand and Lava Dart will read "Lava Dart deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Create a colorless 3/3 Golem artifact creature token." when it resolves. (By the way, the card loses the spliced language after it resolves. So no, your flashback of the spell will not come with previously spliced on language. But you can splice new language to casting via flashback.)
A single splice card can be added onto multiple instant or sorcery spells (even on the same turn). If you have multiple splice cards in hand, you can splice each one once onto every instant or sorcery you cast (provided you can pay the hefty mana costs). If you don't have any instants or sorceries to splice it onto, then you can straight cast it for the cheaper casting cost.

Sounds like you get Smiting Helix. See above for Scry on Read the Bones. I actually use Read the Bones in a couple decks as the combination of scry 2 and draw 2 allows for filtering through up to the top 4 cards in your deck. It's reasonably mana costed and the 2 life isn't a major drawback (especially with other life gain to offset). It wouldn't hurt to have a Rubble Reading or 2 in your deck, as a splash of land destruction can be useful. Because you don't have much in the way of discarding, I don't think I would fool with Harsh Scrutiny.

Yes, if it enters the battlefield tapped, then you'll have to wait until it becomes untapped to tap it for mana (usually at the untap step of your next turn).

Hope you find this helpful and informative. Let me know if you have more questions.

Yes, 95% of the time it is as straight forward as that card suggests. Another 4.99% of the time, you'll want to understand the intricacies and complexities to really take advantage of cards. Even my friend and I will create a situation the remaining 0.01% of the time that we need to reference the rules or look up rulings.

Here is the current 243 pages of Comprehensive Rules: https://media.wizards.com/2020/downloads/MagicCompRules%2020200807.pdf

And that doesn't even cover the official rulings for cards that have weird interactions with other cards (which you can look up the card on WotC website to see clarifications).

Don't worry too much about the example. If you get LIFO or FILO or whatever it is in computer lingo, then you understand the stack (I'm a Civil Engineer, so I'm better with Excel and CAD). And basically when something is on the stack, you can only add to the stack with instant speed spells or abilities. The other thing to remember is the Active Player (the player whose turn it is) gets priority every time something goes on the stack and must pass priority (in turn order) to allow each item to resolve. Hopefully that makes more sense.

To answer your question, yes. Because you can cast the spell twice, cards with Flashback are generally over costed (mana wise) for what they do. They do have clear uses in certain deck builds. But I won't go into detail (until you ask and because I can go overboard in discussing deck building).

1. Declare Attack Phase. Allow others to respond by passing priority.
2. Declare Attackers and target player(s) and/or Plainswalker(s). Allow others to respond by passing priority.
3. Defending player declares Blockers. After all are declared, priority starts with you, then passes.
4. Assign how damage is resolved and resolve it.
5. End combat

In your example, the attacking player is sending a 3/1 at you. As the defending player, you choose to use both your creatures (the 3/3 and 1/1) to block. So during step 4, you assign 4 damage to his/her creature and your opponent chooses the the order in which to apply damage to your creatures and has 3 damage to assign.

If your opponent chooses to assign it to the elemental first, he/she must assign all 3 damage to that creature, because of the 3 defense of the elemental. In this case, both the elemental and vampire die upon damage resolution, the Master Splicer lives with no damage on it and you receive no damage.

If your opponent chooses to assign the damage to the Master Splicer first, he/she can assign 1, 2 or 3 damage to the Splicer (as it's toughness is 1), then any remaining damage goes to the elemental. In this case, both the Splicer and vampire die upon damage resolution, the elemental lives but may have damage on it and you receive no damage.

Does this help?

Our internet is very slow, so it's not the best method. But if you want to try, I could do a walk through of some of the MtG gameplay with you. And it'll be easier to relay ideas, talk deck strategy for your decks and we can be more thorough with Q&A. Would you want to try?

I know of, but never played HearthStone, so I can't compare to that. But if you are asking if you can cast instants during combat, yes, you can kill creatures during combat with burn spells and they are removed from combat if they die. The combat tricks are a big advantage of your Splicer Deck.

So if you are the defending player, you can wait till after they declare which attacking creatures they are sending your way. And before you even declare blockers, you can cast a burn spell, splicing on the Splicer's Skill, to damage or kill their creature. Because the splice effect creates a 3/3 Golem, you'll also have an additional blocker during the declare blockers step. Any creature that receives lethal damage prior to the resolution of combat damage dies and is removed from combat.

In Magic, there is no attacking another creature. You can only attack a player or plainswalker. And there is no targeting with an attack (target has a very specific meaning in game). There are several cards however that can prevent you from attacking or force you to attack or any number of combat shenanigans.

Here are a few Cards which impact combat.
Defensive Formation (Card)
Fight or Flight (Card)
Hand to Hand (Card)
High Alert (Card)
Reconnaissance (Card)
Propaganda (Card)
Fog (Card)

I created an account on discord. If memory serves, you said you are from Toronto, Cananda. If that is Eastern timezone, we are in the same timezone (except for maybe during daylight savings). I can talk a lot faster than I can type, so that'll be helpful in explaining.

You make any choices upon casting a spell or activating an ability unless the card specifically states otherwise. So for the dual lands, the color is chosen when tapped for mana. Same goes for the tri land I recommended you swap in.

Keep 'em coming.