Imperial Artificer & transferring attachments

Yoritomo Takara Battle/Open: Transfer your target Follower to your target Personality.

Permanent Encampment Battle: Straighten your target attachment. You may transfer it to your target Personality.

Wooden Barricade Open: Even if this card is bowed, choose your two performing Personalities: Transfer a target attachment on one of them to the other. If the attachment transferred, straighten it.

Imperial Artificer Bow this card: Produce 2 Gold. If this pays for a Follower or Item attaching to a Samurai, you may draw a card, then discard a card.

Attach When a player attaches an attachment card, he or she brings it into play, adding it to a personality’s unit. If the source of an attachment card to be attached in an effect is not specified, it must come from the player’s hand. Transferring a card from one unit to another is attaching too. A Personality card is not considered attached to its attachment cards. Thus, Followers, Items, Spells, and so on are always considered "cards without attachments."

Question Based on the rule that I can overpay the zero gold cost associated with attaching a follower created from another effect such as Farmlands, and the definition of attach specifying that transferring is also attaching, could I use Wooden Barricade to transfer an attachment from one personality to another, then use Imperial Artificer to overpay for the new attachment triggering the draw and discard text on Imperial Artificer? This looks pretty legit to me, but I wanted to run it by the rules folks first to make sure it works as I believe it does.

Followup from thread: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=87216

Ruling in question: Transferring is also attaching, for the purposes of effects that limit what can be "attached" or that are triggered by something "attaching".

However, the aspect of attaching from your quoted definition of "Attach" that is NOT part of transferring is that you are not "bringing it into play". The attachment is already in play, it doesn't leave and re-enter when transferring. Therefore, you have no opportunity to pay (or re-over-pay) for it when transferring. -----------------------------------

I was reading this ruling and it seems to me that it was meted from a "designer intend" viewpoint. Which implies a smart card effect. I don't want to be a rules lawyer, but since the card states as a trigger [attaching] and the rules define transferring as [attaching], I fail to see why the [entering play] has anything to do with the whole deal. I am just trying to figure out here if there is something I missed. Please clarify.

Thanks

Sorry guys, I know this might be a nuisance, but the explanation given in this thread is still not satisfactory, rules-wise.

As stated in the link you gave us, the trait of the Imperial Artificers activates when the follower created by Farmlands attaches, if you overpay while attaching.

Farmlands: Limited: Pay 2 Gold: Create a 1F Follower and attach it to your target Personality.

According to the rules about Order of Effects, the [creating] and [attaching] happens sequentially. Farmlands specifies where the Follower comes from, in order to waive the requirement that the attachment must come from the hand and the "and" that links the two effects makes the [game process] continuous. However, according to the example given in the rulebook, the Imperial Artificers trait activates when the [attaching] happens, not when the created card comes into play. -------------------------------------------------- Attach

When a player attaches an attachment card, he or she brings it into play, adding it to a personality’s unit. If the source of an attachment card to be attached in an effect is not specified, it must come from the player’s hand. Transferring a card from one unit to another is attaching too. A Personality card is not considered attached to its attachment cards. Thus, Followers, Items, Spells, and so on are always considered "cards without attachments."

When a player attaches a region, he or she brings it into play, associating it with a Province. Changing a region’s province is also considered attaching.

An effect that lets a player "attach a card" does not allow attachment of a non-attachment card, and does not automatically waive costs (see Mandatory costs). ----------------------------------------------------

What I mean to say is, these two rulings are inconsistent. If we stick to the wording and the rules, you either have to repeal the Farmlands ruling since Imperial Artificers do not pay for the entering play effect or to tell us that the transferring ruling is dictated by designer fiat and that is that. Either of the two is completely acceptable, but the explanations given so far are not.

Disclaimer: This is just a technical issue, I am not arguing against the Rules Junta, I am trying to find out why there is this inconsistency.

Thanks

Continuing from here: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=87216&p=1153318#p1153318

In both cases, Farmlands and Transferring, the Imperial Artificers do not pay the cost of the card entering play.

However the ruling for Farmlands is that, if you overpay when the created card is added to the target unit, you can activate the Imperial Artifacts trait. The Imperial Artificers' trait cannot be activated when paying the cost of creating the 1F Follower, which must be paid separately. The created card has already come to exist in "a specially created entering-play area." That's why Farmlands specifies "create and attach". If the card was not already created, the attachment would have to come from the hand.

Now, let me point out again that the inconsistency lies in the fact that for the Farmlands ruling, you specify that Imperial Artificers' trait activates upon attaching, and the fact that transferring is also defined as attaching. However, from what you have so far explained, the trait of the Imperial Artificers activates after the entering play of the created card.

Technically, I believe that the ruling regarding transferring is correct, the one that needs be clarified is the Farmlands one.

Nitpicking, I know, but since it is rules nitpicking, I think it is quite relevant.

in reference to this.

I think the problem that Tsuruchi Tagami is pointing out is that the phrase under the glossary definition of transfer... "A player does not need to pay the card's costs when transferring it,..."

Implies a "may" where none should exist. Which is what Tagami-san is getting at, I hope. Namely that the implied "may" opens the opportunity to pay for a transfering attachment, and thereby makes bowing an Imperial Artificers legal. A shortening to "A player does not pay the card's costs when transferring it,..." would make it clear that no cost payment, even one that is not "needed", is implied. I know there is already a rule that says that you pay for stuff before bringing it into play, but I hope you see the point we are both making. That the logical negative, that you only pay for a card when bringing it into play is not anywhere in the rules. Indeed, the same wording is used for a a gold cost of zero... "A Gold cost of zero does not need to be paid by Gold production; it is always considered to have been paid.", but we know from the ruling on Farmlands, that it is permissible to pay for that zero gold cost.

I also believe there is some ambiguity in the use of Attach, to indicate both the act of bringing an attachment card into play, and transfering it to another personality. Attached is a state where an attachment card is in a unit. Attach/Attaching is the act of putting an attachment card in a unit. Transfer is just the special case where the card is already in play attached to a different unit/personality and is moving to a new unit/personality. Which is seperate from bringing the card into play. The rules confusion is that currently "Attaching" implies "bringing into play", in both the glossary and the various rules for "playing" the attachment card types.

My opinion is that this is the root cause of the problem. Split those two elements up and you almost eliminate the need to have a specific term for Transfer. The only useful distinction at that point is to trigger off the separate conditions of attaching from out of play, and attaching from in play.