Determination+Assigning the Blame, Negation Issue (L5R rules board)

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, 2 April 2008

ASSIGNING BLAME: Political Reaction: After one of your Personalities is destroyed, if you control a Courtier: Dishonor a target Personality. His controller loses 3 Honor; this loss can be negated but not reduced.

DETERMINATION: Dark Virtue Reaction: Before you announce an action, target one of your Samurai: The action can not have its effects negated or have its targeting changed. After the action destroys any Personality, remove him from the game.

Issue: As Assigning the Blame's phrase, This Loss Can Be Negated is neither flavor text, nor (reminder text), it is effect.

Determination prevents the action's effects from being negated. One of the action's effects is that it CAN be negated. So if Determination prevents it from being Negated, it directly goes against the effect of Assigning the Blame being able to be negated which is present in Assigning the Blame's effect.

Step 1. Determination prevents an action's effects from being negated. Step 2. One of Assigning the Blame's effects is that the Honor Loss CAN be negated. There's no reason for this to be on the card, and it should have been (reminder text), but it's there now, and part of the effect, so has to be dealt with. Step 3: Since "This Loss Can Be Negated" Can't be Negated, due to determination, yet Determination tries to Negate anything that Negates the effect...

Does the universe divide by zero and explode, or which card wins, can Assigning the Blame's honor loss be negated if it's Determination'd, or can it not?

A player, 3 April 2008

Does the universe divide by zero and explode, or which card wins, can Assigning the Blame's honor loss be negated if it's Determination'd, or can it not?

The word "can" only overrides rules, not card effects, unless specifically stated (see below: Glossary, Can).

Likewise, "can" does not overcome restrictions or negations from card sources, unless overcoming such things is specifically mentioned.

Thus, although no rule forbids negation of Assigning Blame's loss of Honor, "can" doesn't overcome Determination's negation effect. As a consequence Determination will negate any effect which attempts to negate this loss of 3 Honor.