I want to prevent Tsuruchi (inexperienced) from shooting my Akodo Dairuko at 9F by using Turtle's Shell. He would need to burn all 5 Arrow tokens to make that shot. How is removing tokens not a cost? Ruling it is not a cost is both counter intuitive and rewards slow play. Turtle's Shell: Interrupt: Negate the action's Melee or Ranged Attacks. Relevant ability on Tsuruchi (inexperienced): Battle: Destroy zero or more Arrow tokens on Tsuruchi. Ranged Attack with strength equal to twice the number of tokens destroyed. You may use this action three times per turn. Comprehensive Rulebook: Interrupt actions are announced during a non-Interrupt action – either the Interrupt’s player’s or another player’s – at the point after costs are paid and before the action’s effects start to resolve. The other action is suspended while the Interrupt’s player goes through the sequence of steps in the Interrupt action; then it resumes. An Interrupt may not be played to another Interrupt action.
Tsuruchi (Inexperienced)
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.
I want to prevent Tsuruchi (inexperienced) from shooting my Akodo Dairuko at 9F by using Turtle's Shell. He would need to burn all 5 Arrow tokens to make that shot. How is removing tokens not a cost? Ruling it is not a cost is both counter intuitive and rewards slow play. Turtle's Shell: Interrupt: Negate the action's Melee or Ranged Attacks. Relevant ability on Tsuruchi (inexperienced): Battle: Destroy zero or more Arrow tokens on Tsuruchi. Ranged Attack with strength equal to twice the number of tokens destroyed. You may use this action three times per turn. Comprehensive Rulebook: Interrupt actions are announced during a non-Interrupt action – either the Interrupt’s player’s or another player’s – at the point after costs are paid and before the action’s effects start to resolve. The other action is suspended while the Interrupt’s player goes through the sequence of steps in the Interrupt action; then it resumes. An Interrupt may not be played to another Interrupt action.
The only costs in Ivory are bowing and gold costs. Arrow tokens are neither of these, and therefore, they are removed as an effect.
Since The Turtle's Shell is played before you reach that point, Tsuruchi's controller can choose to remove zero tokens if he knows it's not going to have an effect anyway.