Rules for January 26th

Muhuhahaha!!! Betcha thought you were done with me, didn't you? Well, Jeff wanted to take a vacation for the weekend, and it looks like all you guys are going to have to deal with me for at least another day or two. Let's see how many new and funky rules terms I can think up in one weekend...

;)

This question maybe old, but I have just joined the list-serv. Let's say I am in a battle opposing Bayushi Kachiko, exp. 3. I play Block Supply Lines on Kachiko. If she cancels, and I play Fall on Your Knees in response, can she try to cancel the blocks supply lines again??

Currently, yes. This ruling is still under debate by the Rules Team, and may change. For the time being, though, a canceled action is still considered to have never taken place, and so a canceled Reaction would be able to be used again in response to the same trigger. Kachiko's controller would have to discard another card as a cost, though.

I was looking in the accumulated rulings at http://www.planet.net.au/~zfaulkes/rulings.html and found the following ruling:

Under the optional "each Event only happens once" rule, Avoid Fate cannot be played in reaction to the second or later appearance of an Event that has already resolved. [DW, 9/3/96]

Does this mean that if I reshuffle an event, that has successfully resolved, into my deck because of Moon and Sun, my opponent cannot play avoid fate when it resolves the second time?

No. That ruling has been outpaced by the flow of the game. When it was made, there was no real way to get an Event to resolve a second time (though I think that right after it was made, someone brought up Architects of the Wall as an exception). Essentially, you can only play Avoid Fate in response to the real, live resolution of an Event. An Event that fizzles due to something preventing it from resolving (including Norikazu Sensei and Troll Raiders) is not a legal trigger for Avoid Fate.

I am finding myself beset by these Underroos wearing, faceless,...sorry about that it was about to get unfriendly. So I decided to have a little fun at there expense. The difficulty is my card affects can not cause the Ninja to lose honor. I can redirect though. Since this is the case, I need to find out what is causing the loss of honor when/if I play Martyr, the personality/duel/Kolat action or the Martyr card. Right now I see it as the action taken that killed my peep that caused the honor loss. If this is the case, the next time one of my peeps is killed by Kolat Assassin I am going to have a little treat instore for the perpetrator. ;)

Sorry to have to tell you this, but Martyr is considered to be the card causing the honor loss, not the action/effect/act of god that triggered Martyr in the first place. As far as I can tell, there are very few ways to cause a Ninja player an honor loss (none, so far as I can tell). Best that you can do is Court Jester one of the losses that he creates for himself. How's that?

Repine, James writes: Can I bow my Stronghold to buy the 10G Personality, then, once my opponent declines to Kolat Bookkeep me, bow the two Jade Works for the rest (and, if KB is played, I'll then bow the Jade Works for something else)? Or do I have to first try to meet the full cost, and then see whether something happens?

You have to announce how you are paying for the personality in full and then see if your opponent does something. Also note, if you can fulfill the cost another way (i.e. bowing other holdings), you may do so in order to cover the cost of the card in question.

For more complicated questions about such timing, one could add corrupt holdings, an Honor Requirement on the Personality, and various tricks like The Wind's Truth with possible reactions to it - basically, the question is, can the cost payment be lumped into one big trigger for possible reactions, or is there a sequence?

Can you be a little more specific? If you bow 2 corrupt gold producing holdings, they are separate honor losses..... (not sure what else you mean).

Well, if I bow a corrupt Holding, that starts a "lose Honor" trigger. When that happens, Reactions can start happening (Imperial Favor, The Wind's Truth). Since The Wind's Truth is Political, that can start duels (Enough Talk!). Someone may end up dying as a result of this, which means lots of things can happen, including initially uninvolved people dying (if someone loses a Personality of a Clan they have the Sword for, the Sword-bearer loses Chi, and this may result in him dying - possibly dishonorably).

An incredible lot of things can happen when someone bows a corrupt holding. When more than one such holding is bowed, it can be even worse - so I'd like to know what the precise timing of this would.

It's just like any other Reaction chain. As soon as there is a legal trigger, the whole chain starts. Assuming infinite hand size, it would concevably be possible for a whole game to be won or lost in the Reaction chain following the bowing of one corrupt holding, without ever reaching the resolution of the action the holding was bowed to pay for.

Keith Tobeck writes: In a message dated 1/24/01 11:35:50 AM Eastern Standard Time, writes:

<< Can I bow my Stronghold to buy the 10G Personality, then, once my opponent declines to Kolat Bookkeep me, bow the two Jade Works for the rest (and, if KB is played, I'll then bow the Jade Works for something else)? Or do I have to first try to meet the full cost, and then see whether something happens?

If someone negates the gold you are generating to pay for a personnality (kolat infiltrator and kolat bookkeeper for instance) you still have the ability to try and generate gold from any source you have. This was ruled a long time ago..though I cant say when as its been that long. Generating gold is not an action..so you can bow to your hearts content even after your opponent negates some of it. If you cannot pay for the card, all the gold you produced is taxed..ie the emporer says thanks for the money. You cannot spend the gold on another card.

OK, the real question I was asking is, can I use my Stronghold first, give my opponent an opportunity to play Kolat Bookkeeping, so that, if he declines, I now have the Gold produced and can go on producing for my Personality; and if he does play KB, I can use my Holdings for something else.

No. You have to announce what you are trying to do, as well as how you are paying for it, all at once when you start payment. If something messes with that (Kolat Infiltrator), you have an opportunity to make up the gold that you have just lost. You also have the ability to change things about the purchase that you're trying to make (buying someone for 2 less, paying less gold for a variable cost card), if that will make the purchase legal.

I suppose the answer to that is no: what KB is reacting to is the Gold payment, which must be done in full or it is already known that the Personality is not going to enter play. But then, there may be more problems with other things that can happen during a Gold payment (I'm trying to find out whether there can be a change in a Holding's Gold production during this time, and cannot find a way for it; any ideas?)

Kolat Infiltrator is the Big One. That can affect any purchase at any time, as opposed to Kolat Bookkeeping only affecting the purchase of personalities. I suppose that there might be a way to increase a holding's gold production in the middle of a purchase, but because you have to fully announce all steps that you're taking to pay the full cost when you announce the payment, any further increases would just get taxed.

Are we getting closer to answering what you're asking? ;)

The archive says the personality targeted by this crd gains the adept of ... trait.

But it is not said if the trait is written boldface or not.

Past precedent seems to indicate that the trait gained is considered to be boldfaced, so I don't think it's to much of a stretch to rule that it is indeed boldfaced.

So the question is, is the personality after that a ... card and are actions written on the personality then ... actions?

Yup!

Iuchi Shahai has the battle ability to give herself a -1F/-1C maho token and then, if she's still alive, give one to someone else, and this can be done 3 times per turn.

Uncertainty gives a target personality -2F/-2C, but states that the target's chi may not go under 1 chi.

So, can I drop Uncertainty on Shahai and keep her alive while she doles out the maho?

Sure. There's nothing special about Shahai's ability that would override the effect of Uncertainty. She'll still die at the end of the turn, though, because the tokens will still be there when the effect of Uncertainty wears off.

A question recently came up over Towers of Isawa Castle and whether the restriction on the card refers to individual spell effects or individual copies of cards that produce spell effects. We've got two different schools of thought on this, and each appears to be valid....

Towers of Isawa Castle reads: Fortification. May only bew brought into play by a member of Phoenix Clan. Shugenja do not need to bow to produce spell effects or innate abilities during a battle at this Province. No spell or innate ability may be used more than once during any one battle at this Province.

We dug through the accumulated rulings and basically came to one main question:

Does the retriction on use of spells and innate abilities work in the same way as has been ruled Naka Kuro exp does? According to the AR, Since Naka Kuro refers to the spell effect specifically, a kiho with the same name can be used a second time only if the kiho can be used to produce an entirely different effect. If, for instance, the Phoenix player has two different copies of Facing Your Devils, the second copy could not be used until a later turn because it produces the same effect as the first cast.

Just like Naka Kuro, Towers of Isawa Castle checks the effect of the spell or innate ability. You cannot use the same spell more than once for the same effect, or the same innate ability from different copies of the same Shugenja. Using a spell card more than once to produce different effect should still be legal, though (ex. Emergence of the Masters). Jeff?

I dont know if anything has been said on the matter, but is Arrival of the Emerald Champion considered "moving" a unit into battle? Mainly I ask this for Oni no Ugulu and Oni no Okura(Assuming her chi is 7 or more) to see if they would prevent the playing of AoEC. Anyone out there who knows? I am currently under the assumption that it isnt considered any kind of movement.

It's definitely movement, that being the reason you can use this card when you have no units in the battle (it brings a unit in). If Okura has over 6 Chi, then you cannot play Arrival to bring in an invalid personality.

can he also use any Shugenja specific cards (if there exists any)?

None exist, but if they did, he couldn't use them either.

Jeff, you're slipping! Must be because you're sick. Besides the shugenja only kiho, Hate's Heart, there an entire class of shugenja only cards: spells. Geez. Whatever are we going to do with you.

Jeff was referring to cards worded as a reverse of One With the Elements, something that says "Bow one of your Shugenja to... YOu may not bow a Monk to use this...", because that's the sort of thing that the original poster was asking about. Of course he can use Spells! Silly Bloodspeaker... ;)

Shaun Scott <hidaokami@UREACH.COM>

"Opposing" means in the opposite army from the one that Takao is in,

He can't destroy Regions or Holdings (not even Fortifications) since they're not parts of armies,

Didn't we have a similar discussion about this some time ago? Given that there are a few fortifications that specifically do something to an "opposing" card, what was the decision?

Those Fortifications can break the general rule about cards attached to the province not being opposing cards, because they need to in order for their abilities to be usable at all. Rule of Obviousness.

If a fortification can _have_ "opposing cards", why can't it _be_ an "opposing card"? Opposition is a mutual relationship.

The Fortification's ability would make it an opposing card just long enough so that it could use the ability, and no longer. At all other times, the general rule that attached cards do not count as opposing takes precedence.