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.
A player, 9 June 2015
Can you use a kata's ability to put into play even though its already in play?
I have this scenario: My opponent playing shadowed estate of the scorpion appears to have intention to destroy my personality with a lot of attachments. He uses the Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion ability and names Diligent care.
May i use the open ability of diligent care so it can use up the "negate" of the shadowed estate? this way it will allow me to use the interrupt of diligent care once he destroys my personality.
Jon Palmer (rules official), 15 June 2015
Can you use a kata's ability to put into play even though its already in play?
I have this scenario: My opponent playing shadowed estate of the scorpion appears to have intention to destroy my personality with a lot of attachments. He uses the Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion ability and names Diligent care.
May i use the open ability of diligent care so it can use up the "negate" of the shadowed estate? this way it will allow me to use the interrupt of diligent care once he destroys my personality.
This is correct. Diligent Care does not need to be in your hand for you to use its Open action (tho of course it will fail to be "put in play" again), and this will "use up" the Shadowed Estate's negation for the turn.
A player, 18 July 2015
Diligent Care does not need to be in your hand for you to use its Open action
um can you explain this to me, because that doesn't make sense. How can you use a cards action when it's not in your hand? In the case of the kata how can one try to use it's action to put it into play, if you don't have a card to put into play in the first place? It does not seem that you could even announce an action that cannot be fulfilled. And to do it in the way of not even having another copy in your hand to even try to fulfil it in the first place seems to completely nullify the "good faith" rule.
Alex Jones (rules official), 22 July 2015
um can you explain this to me, because that doesn't make sense. How can you use a cards action when it's not in your hand? In the case of the kata how can one try to use it's action to put it into play, if you don't have a card to put into play in the first place? It does not seem that you could even announce an action that cannot be fulfilled. And to do it in the way of not even having another copy in your hand to even try to fulfil it in the first place seems to completely nullify the "good faith" rule.
The rulebook says this about Strategies: Strategy cards are cards normally played from the hand to use an ability on them. ... If a Strategy enters play, its abilities may be used as normal.
Furthermore, note that: [A] player may announce and take an action even if it will have no effects.