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, 11 May 2012
Greetings There seems to be some small confusion with Mirumoto Hikaro. One of the players here argued that cards focused with Hikaro's trait will not be removed from the game after the duel since after the card from the discard pile goes to the focus pool, it becomes face down and out of play, therefore, all card memory on it will be lost. The card will forget the it should get removed from the game, and it will go right back to the discard pile. What really happens? Thanks.
Mirumoto Hikaro Dragon Clan • Samurai • Duelist • Sensei • Loyal After Hikaro enters play: Discard all your other Sensei Personalities. Before you focus is a duel involving your Dragon Clan Personality: Once per duel, you may focus from your discard pile instead. Remove that card from the game after the duel ends.
Brook Cunningham (rules official), 11 May 2012
Greetings There seems to be some small confusion with Mirumoto Hikaro. One of the players here argued that cards focused with Hikaro's trait will not be removed from the game after the duel since after the card from the discard pile goes to the focus pool, it becomes face down and out of play, therefore, all card memory on it will be lost. The card will forget the it should get removed from the game, and it will go right back to the discard pile. What really happens? Thanks.
Mirumoto Hikaro Dragon Clan • Samurai • Duelist • Sensei • Loyal After Hikaro enters play: Discard all your other Sensei Personalities. Before you focus is a duel involving your Dragon Clan Personality: Once per duel, you may focus from your discard pile instead. Remove that card from the game after the duel ends.
Cards focused from the discard pile maintain their face-up position in the focusing area. Though it IS an out-of-play area, unlike the hand or deck, the focusing area is not an inherently "face-down" area.
A player, 11 May 2012
Here it is stated that focusing areas are not inherently "face-down" areas.
But here (game knowledge) it states "Players are not normally entitled to know, without needing effects, the following things: [...] The identity of face-down cards in other players’ hands or focus pools."
And Face-down is defined as "a card state in which only the card back is normally visible. A player can sometimes look at his or her face-down cards (such as in the hand) and sometime can not (such as in the deck or in Provinces). Equivalent to "face down."
And cards that are focused are "normally focused face down and then turned face up after a strike is called" as stated here.
And under Duels: "If the choice is to focus, the player takes a face-down card from his or her hand or from the top of his or her deck and puts it into his or her own focusing area, face-down. Focusing a card is not considered playing it, and the card’s costs, effects and traits that do not concern its use as a focused card are irrelevant. The order in which cards were focused is sometimes relevant, and should be tracked. " In this case Mirumoto Hikaro allows us to focus from the discard but it still seems like the card would indeed be focused face-down.
So it seems to me like Mirumoto Hikaro needs a functional errata stating that the card focused from the discard pile is focused face up. That would fix the whole tracking issue and not cause a lot of editing to the focusing rules.
Brook Cunningham (rules official), 11 May 2012
But here (game knowledge) it states "Players are not normally entitled to know, without needing effects, the following things: [...] The identity of face-down cards in other players’ hands or focus pools."
No such thing as a focus pool any more. Copy/paste error from CE to EE conversion.
And Face-down is defined as "a card state in which only the card back is normally visible. A player can sometimes look at his or her face-down cards (such as in the hand) and sometime can not (such as in the deck or in Provinces). Equivalent to "face down."
True, but largely irrelevant to the arguement.
And cards that are focused are "normally focused face down and then turned face up after a strike is called" as stated here.
"Normally"; cards aren't normally focused from discard piles.
And under Duels: "If the choice is to focus, the player takes a face-down card from his or her hand or from the top of his or her deck and puts it into his or her own focusing area, face-down. Focusing a card is not considered playing it, and the card’s costs, effects and traits that do not concern its use as a focused card are irrelevant. The order in which cards were focused is sometimes relevant, and should be tracked. " In this case Mirumoto Hikaro allows us to focus from the discard but it still seems like the card would indeed be focused face-down.
The emphasized "face-down" in your quote above is simply reiterating the immediately preceeding "face-down" which you didn't emphasize, to clarify that the focused card maintains its face-down positioning. On the other hand, my ruling is now clarifying the special case of Hikaro, that the card focused from the discard maintains its face-up positioning.
So it seems to me like Mirumoto Hikaro needs a functional errata stating that the card focused from the discard pile is focused face up. That would fix the whole tracking issue and not cause a lot of editing to the focusing rules.
Respectfully disagreeing, but thank you for pointing out the lingering reference to "focus pools", which needs editing regardless.