I'm confused about this and with our store hosting a local tournament this weekend, I find it necessary to ask this question. I've read the rules regarding challenges and duels and it seems clear, but a post by Zen Faulkes that I found by searching the rules forums seems to contradict my interpretation. Here is my question:
When Focus Pools are revealed, are players honestly only supposed to look at their own cards to determine how the focus effects should be triggered? Is it considered cheating to mentally calculate your opponent's score to maximize your focus pool's focus effects?
Rules Section: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E: Both players reveal (turn face up) all cards in their focusing area.
After this point, any cards that enter focusing areas in the duel do so face-up. [ADDED 24 Jul 07]
F: Focus Effects resolve. All Focus Effect traits on focused cards resolve, one after the other, in an order chosen by the active player. Focus Effects only resolve if the card is in the focusing area at the time it is chosen to resolve. If a new card enters the focusing area during this process, its Focus Effect must resolve before proceeding.
G: Both Personalities in the duel compute their score for the duel. Each Personality adds the total modified Focus Value of all cards in his focusing area to a score that equals his or her duel stat. This does not add to the Personality's stat itself. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The card I’m most interested in is Hamstrung. A lot of the anticipated benefit this card is that it is optional focus modification for honor gain. Since focus effects occur after E: (Revealing of the cards), it was assumed (by me and I believe a lot of the community) that you could always maximize the benefit of the card if you were the active player.
What I mean by maximize, is the following example: (Please confirm if this correct or incorrect)
Player 1 (3 chi duelist) issues a challenge/duel against Player 2 (3 chi). ... Focus pools are generated, and player 1 strikes after three cards are focused by each player (since he has the duelist trait and equal chi, player 1 gets the control)...
E. Focus Pools are revealed. Player 1 hamstrung (potential focus of 4) generic 4 focus value generic 4 focus value
Player 2 hamstrung (potential focus of 4) generic 4 focus value generic 2 focus value
F. Order of the next stage of actions and events: 1) Active player (I assume the player who issued the duel is the active player) chooses the order in which the focus values resolve. As such, he requests that the hamstrung for player 2 resolves first. 2) Player 2 reduces his focus value by 4 because he feels he is going to lose the duel anyways, and so he wants as much honor as possible.* 3) Active player resolves his hamstrung next, by lowering it by a total of 4 because he knows he can win and still gain that much honor.*
G. Totals are calculated and the final result is such that Player 1 does in fact win.
* As both of these “actions” are taken in game, there are serious assumptions made here. The key assumptions is that the players are mentally calculating the other player’s focus values to determine how they should utilize their focus effects. Is it illegal/cheating/ethically wrong to mentally calculate these values to determine how to effectively utilize your focus effects?
Relevant Cards: Hamstrung Text Focus Effect: Lower this card's Focus Value by an amount from 0 to 4: Gain Honor equal to the amount it was lowered by. Reaction: Before a target Personality moves into an attacking army: Negate the movement