Hello! Another one of my dumb questions time. Yoritomo Kanaye xp versus variable gold costs (such as Ivinda Village). Do I get a "free" one gold on them if Kanye xp is in play?
Yoritomo Kanaye xp and variable gold costs
A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
The problem with Ivinda Village is that the effect relies not on Gold Cost but on Gold paid due to card text... Open, (*) : Give Cavalry to a number of target cards equal to the amount of Gold you paid.
When Ivinda Village goes on to targeting, your maximum number of targets will be compared to actual gold paid. Cost reductions such as Kanaye XP's won't help you here due to the way the action is worded, you need actual gold production (eg Luxurious Silk) to profit from Ivinda Village
It was stated here that Kanaye xp's trait will (effectively) not work on variable gold cost actions that have effects conditioned on the amount of gold paid (Ivinda Village, Deliberations, Unsettling Gathering, etc.).
What about strategies that have a gold cost contingent on a targeting choice such as A Stain Cleansed? The way I'm reading it, you: A.) Announce that you are taking the action on A Stain Cleansed B.) Choose your performer (unbowed Kanaye xp let's say) C.) Choose required targets (in this case a personality with an 8 gold cost) D.) Pay mandatory costs (in this case, the action costs 6 gold)
Since in step D, the action calculates itself to have a gold cost of 6, I'm pretty sure that Kanaye's continuous trait steps in and makes it so the gold cost of the action is 5. However, if you tried to play A Stain Cleansed for that reduced cost, will it actually resolve? I ask this because in the constraints block of A Stain Cleansed it states "pay gold equal to the card or unit's total gold cost minus 2." So is that considered a requirement the game checks to see if you actually PAID that much gold? Or is it just a way to notate the cost of the action? (Note that I used Stain Cleansed for the example, but pretty much all EE-legal non-Ivory bugged cards that have variable gold costs are worded in this fashion).
Thanks!
A Stain Cleansed is worded differently to Ivinda Village. The sentence you quote essentially defines the numerical value of the action's Gold Cost. So, Kanaye XP works because there's a Gold Cost defined - it's set at the point of targeting, and then a reduction to it can be applied, and after paying the cost, there's a definite effect applying to the target (in this case, unit or card destruction).
(For example, it wouldn't work if A Stain Cleansed were worded in the reverse way, telling the player to pay "some" gold, and after the payment, targeting a card with a certain Gold Cost related to the amount of gold paid. In this case, the effect would depend not on the target but on the gold paid, which is the reason why Ivinda Village doesn't synergize with Kanaye XP - the gold does not depend on the target, the target however depends on the gold)