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, 21 May 2010
Example: I have Daigotsu Yuhmi in play. Daigotsu Yuhmi Exp is face-up in one of my provinces. I bring the Exp version into play and overlay him onto the inexperienced version of Yuhmi. During a battle at a province, the stack is targeted with an action (such as a ranged attack) that results in the destruction of Daigotsu Yuhmi Exp.
Question: Does the underlying Daigotsu Yuhmi remain in play,and the overlaying Daigotsu Yuhmi removed, or is the entire stack removed from play?
I kept getting stuck on this phrase in the overlay rules: If the overlaying card is somehow lost, the underlying card reappears without entering play. There has only been a change to the same card. Likewise, an overlaying card is not entering play even if it comes from an out-of-play area. If the overlaying card is put in an out-of-play area while the underlying card remains, this is not leaving play.
Does that cover destruction from an action such as a ranged attack.
Thanks
Dan Jacobson (rules official), 21 May 2010
Example: I have Daigotsu Yuhmi in play. Daigotsu Yuhmi Exp is face-up in one of my provinces. I bring the Exp version into play and overlay him onto the inexperienced version of Yuhmi. During a battle at a province, the stack is targeted with an action (such as a ranged attack) that results in the destruction of Daigotsu Yuhmi Exp.
Question: Does the underlying Daigotsu Yuhmi remain in play,and the overlaying Daigotsu Yuhmi removed, or is the entire stack removed from play?
I kept getting stuck on this phrase in the overlay rules: If the overlaying card is somehow lost, the underlying card reappears without entering play. There has only been a change to the same card. Likewise, an overlaying card is not entering play even if it comes from an out-of-play area. If the overlaying card is put in an out-of-play area while the underlying card remains, this is not leaving play.
Does that cover destruction from an action such as a ranged attack.
Thanks
That rule only covers during the original overlay. The card can have some sort of cost interfered with (though very few effects do so now) before overlaying causing the overlaying card to be discarded. In that case, the card that would otherwise be overlayed still remains.
Once overlayed, the card that was overlayed is essentially removed from the game, and will not "reappear" once the card that overlayed it is somehow removed from play. (Destruction, removed from game effects, etc)