Rules for February 6th

First, something from private mail that I forgot to include in my last post:

OK, I am under attack but have no-one assigned to the current battle. As my first action I play Concealed Archers, then Coordinated Fire, then Stars Scatter. Did I just machine gun the attacking army or did I do something wrong? (We had this happen in a multi-player game recently and the Naga player completely wiped out a sizeable Phoenix army using it).

Looking at all the Reactions involved, the only one that doesn't work is Coordinated Fire. When combining Ranged Attacks, all the seperate attacks have to be legal in all ways at that point in time. Coordinated Fire breaks the one unit restriction, but doesn't break the any other restrictions. You couldn't combine Balash and Purusha's Ranged Attacks using Coordinated Fire because their timing doesn't combine, and you can't use Coordinated Fire to combine Ranged Attacks from several cards outside a battle, only one of which has a special condition allowing it to be legal.

No, you may not play Encircled Terrain. It would, in theory, remove him from the battle eventually, but an action needs to immediately and unconditionally remove him from the battle (and not by killing him) to be legal under his prohibition. Actions that would eventually do so are not legal, especially in a case like Encircled Terrain/Kaagi's Journal, where there are multiple card effects involved in his removal.

So Osari Plains/Encircled is out as well, right?

Hmm...

No. My sentence about multiple card effects was misleading. The situation that Nick had created, where multiple card effects create a state where a certain card effect *might* be legal is the reason for the immediacy test. Osari/Encircled would be legal, because it would immediately and unconditionally send Gaheris home. Without an immediacy clause, there's no way of knowing *when the action is played* whether or not it will send him home when the terrain resolves. If you cannot absolutely say that an action will or will not send him home at the instant it leaves your hand, it is *not* legal to play in a Gaheris battle.

Why should an immediacy test exist? It's not supported on Gaheris' text: 'Other players cannot play Action cards during the Battle Action Segment of a battle containing Gaheris unless the Action removes Gaheris from the battle.' Nothing there about 'immediately'. And are we SURE we want to extend the 'destroying something is not removing it' ruling from Test of Courage to this case? Vaugh? Zen? Jeff?

Also, in the case of targetted actions, targetting for delayed actions (like that SW terrain that lets each player send home one opposing unit) isnt done until the action resolves. Still a delayed action that sent home everyone would, in my mind be legal with Gaheris present. (Thx to Gary for pointing out that Entrapping doesnt satisfy this)

I disagree. An action cannot be legally played in a Gaheris battle unless it itself would send Gaheris home immediately. Personally, I cannot think of a terrain that would qualify, due to the gap between play and resolution. I'm holding to the immediacy test, simply because I have an extreme dislike for situations where an illegal action could possibly happen. Test of Courage is distinctly different, because it cancels the action outright. The illegal action that would-but-might-not send him home never existed. With terrains, not only has the illegal action been played, but it quite possibly is still in effect. I'm not willing to open that loophole.

Here's another one. Since indirect effects like the Journal's inability to target arent considered for the legality of taking the action (cf Osari Plains above), I assume it is legal to favor/Block/DPoS Gaheris (no journal) during Winter Warfare, thereby bowing him.

Sure. When you play the action from your hand, it thinks that it's going to send Gaheris home. That makes it legal. Something negating one of the effects that made it legal to play doesn't retroactively make it an illegal action (extenstion from Jeff's ruling on ToC/Winter Warfare, 12/10/00).

I don't think it will be settled until it's really looked at carefully by the Junta, in the light of just how overpowered Gaheris has clearly turned out to be. There is neither a 'directly' nor an 'immediately' test on Gaheris' card. It's an opportunity for the designers to rethink a card that clearly was under-playtested.

Both the directness and immediacy tests were ruled on right after the card came out by Zen, using Deadly Ground as a precedent. Something has to immediately and unconditionally destroy Deadly Ground to be legal during it, and so too it is with Gaheris.

As for rethinking the card due to balance reasons...as Stefan pointed out a few weeks ago, if I'm going to start making rulings on cards due to balance reasons, there's about 10 cards in the queue ahead of Gaheris. Not to mention the furor that's always caused by the Designers changing cards after they've hit the environment. I remember a few months ago, the Designers changed this Phoenix Stronghold that some people thought was unbalanced. Well, it turned out that there was this whole other camp of people who thought that it was just fine, and *man* did they go nuts when it got changed. I think I'll just leave Gaheris alone, rather than making balance changes so long after he's been printed. I mean, *I've* never had a problem with him...

I don't think so. Because Banish uses the word draw, it implies a very specific effect. Drawing is taking the top card of your deck and putting it into your hand, nothing else. What happens to those cards after they are drawn is irrelevant, but for the fact that they were drawn, not searched for and retrieved.

BAS doesn't say 'get the top four cards one at a time'. It says 'get the top four cards'. BAS uses the 'draw' keyword, but it specifically does _not_ imply that all four cards go into yourhand. In the very next sentence on BAS, the player puts the card of hir choice 'into (hir) hand'. The cards drawn do not ever seem to be in the player's hand.

Banish all Shadows * Kiho Limited: Bow one of your shugenja or monks. Draw the top four cards of your Fate Deck. Take any one of these cards and put it in your Fate Hand. Shuffle the other cards back into your deck.

Uona Sensei * Crane*Dragon*Monk*Phoenix*Sensei You cannot get cards from your discard piles or from anywhere in your decks except the top. Limited: Once per turn, look at your Dynasty or Fate deck's top card. You may discard the card.

From the Archive:

A "draw" happens when you take the top card(s) off a deck, regardless of whether the term "draw" is used. Searching a deck to get a specific card is not "drawing." [DW, e-mail]

There are two conflicting phrases on Banish All Shadows, one that says that you draw the Fate cards, and one that says that they never go into your hand (which drawn cards usually do). In cases like this, the Rules Team has to make a choice on which phrase to make dominant. There are already existing effects that draw cards without putting them into your hand, and I don't see a significant reason to classify Banish as being different from those cards. Banish is a multiple card draw and reshuffle effect, and I'm going to say that it's legal under Uona.

You cast the Kiho, then 'search' those four cards, and 'retrieve' the one you want; on the card it's worded 'take any one'. The Kiho was supposed to be a weaker copy of Walking the Way, which also does not use the 'search' word, but uses the 'look through and take' construction. The fact that the Kiho limits you to 'looking through and taking' only the top four shouldn't make a difference, IMO.

I disagree. You only 'get' the cards once, when you pull them off the top with Banish. That's a multiple card draw, and it's legal under Uona Sensei. Someone else brought up Ring of the Void, another card that draws multiple cards off the top of your deck. If Banish can't 'draw' four cards due to Uona, then RoV isn't legal either, something that I feel is clearly not true.

Block is legal against a Journal-less Gaheris, because the 'unconditionality' clause doesn't include what Gaheris' owner may or can do to stop the action targeting Gaheris. If you change that, Gaheris becomes a god. Encircling an untargetable Gaheris meets the same 'unconditionality' test as Block does.

No, it doesn't. Encircled Terrain may or may not be a legal play when it's played, something that isn't determined until much later in the battle. If you can't 100% certain say that an action card is legal at the time that it's played, then it's not legal. Playing Block is legal because it will send Gaheris home when it leaves your hand. Canceling the action does not result in it retroactively becoming a legal play. It just never happened. In the case of Encircled, there are a million things that could happen between play and resolution to make the action illegal, none of which would actually cancel the action.

In a comparable situation, let's say that I have a Kakita Toshimoko with Ancestral Dictate played on him targeting Moto Gaheris. Gaheris is attacking Province 1, Toshimoko is at p2. Should I be able to play a Superior Tactics to move Toshimoko into p1? It *will* send Gaheris home...eventually.

No, because the SupTac isn't meeting the 'directly' test. Again, a different question from the Encircling untargetable Gaheris.

True. It was a bad example.

Likewise, the destruction!=removal case needs to be in place to prevent silly applications of cards like Test of Courage. Test of Courage should not be able to cancel Iaijutsu Duel. 'Removing' is moving the unit home or to another province, nothing else.

I agree, but there is no desperate need for consistency between Test of Courage and Gaheris.

Other than the general need for consistency and clarity between *all* cards. If 'removing' is being sent home for Test of Courage, then it needs to be 'being sent home' in all other cases, not just for ToC.

Besides, the fix for Test shouldn't have been this ruling, which is absurd and flies in the face of logic. If you just errata'd or MRP'd Test to say 'This action may target a Personality who is being destroyed," it would have fixed the problem without having to convince us killing someone isn't removing them from a battle.

It's the other way around. Removing is not killing someone, but sending them home. I personally agree with you, that balance-wise, you should be able to kill Gaheris outright. However, the words on the cards don't support it. Remove=go home, nothing else. I was just about ready to send this to the Junta for consideration, but then I did a Websune on the word 'remove'. These cards use the word 'remove' to mean 'go home':

Bayushi Dozan Come One at a Time Dashmar exp2 Miya Yoto Mukami Mukami exp Nageteppo Run For Your Life A Test of Courage Tunner System When Darkness Draws Near

The only cards that use remove as a synonym for 'destroy' are Deadly Ground and Ravine. Nishiko talks about removal from play, but that's something different entirely. In reference to personalities, 'remove' *always* means 'go home', and *never* 'destroy'.

I had a question about (surprise) O- Ushi Sensei. If my opponent is using O- Ushi Sensei and I play Return for Training, what is the procedure for picking legal targets? If I picked a target which is made illegal because my opponent checks for force instead, does Return for Training bounce into my hand?

Jeez. Given the last few days, it *is* a surprise that this question is about O-Ushi Sensei. It should be about Gaheris! Get it right, man!

Anyways, by the time that you've picked a target, it's too late for your opponent to change that target by making RfT reference force instead of PH. He can't make you go back, and once you've picked a target, the PH part of RfT is irrelevant, so he still goes home.

Nope. The only time 'draw' is referred to in the rules (that I can find, maybe there's a searchable version somewhere on the Web?) is on p. 48, under End Phase: "Draw a card from your deck and add it to your hand." This clearly indicates 'put it in your hand' is not part of the 'draw'. You can draw and discard, you can draw and add to hand (which is what Banish ultimately says), you can draw and focus. The cards drawn from Banish are not placed in the hand, and it says so specifically on the card. There are two posssibilities: they are either still part of the deck, which means that taking anything but the top card would be illegal under Uona, or they are in some kind of limbo. There is nothing in the rules or on the cards to tell us which, so someone official has to decide.

Hi! I'm someone official! I decide that Banish all Shadows is a multiple draw effect, where three of the cards are drawn and reshuffled, and one of the cards is drawn and added to your hand. This makes me happy! So happy, in fact, that I'd like to dance for joy!

(dance for joy)

greetings.

Once again I am Confused. Can I play two outflanks on a single personality in battle?

Yep.

How About Charge? or cards of the sort?

Yep.

Why?

Well, because there's no rule in L5R that prohibits the play of multiple cards of the same name on one personality. There might be some game that has such a sule, but I can't think of one, and L5R isn't it.

One question about gaheris, if I manage to kill gaheris with a ranged attack/innate duel/some other card effect that is already on the table (not an action card), his effect does stop, doesn't it? if he is no longer there, his trait does not work right?

Exactly.

This question was probably answered a long time ago, but I have to ask...(I'm building a deck...)

Does Hiruma Sensei trump Moto Gaheris ability, or the other way around?

Hiruma Sensei trumps Gaheris.

Do my various Ratling people and followers get the force bonus for *each* Tchickchuck in the army, or only one bonus regardless of how many are scurrying around? I really can't think of a compelling reason for only a single bonus, but my Force was adding up so quickly I felt like a bit of a wanker and thought I should check. =)

Each Chuck adds +1F to all other Rats in his army. It can be strong, but that's just the way it works.

Tchickchuck can bow to bring out another Ratling immediately after I bring him into play during my Dynasty phase, correct?

Yup.

There's no condition to playing Encircling, and there's no doubt Gaheris will be removed unless someone does something to Gaheris or the terrain in the meantime. 'Unconditionality' is satisfied at the time the terrain is played, which should be the only test. The legality of a card isn't continually checked, it's only checked at the time it's played.

Not true. There is a condition to the play of Encircled Terrain. The condition is, it has to remove Gaheris from the battle. When it's played, it's a maybe, just like Stand or Run. It might do it, it might not. That makes it illegal.

For example, let's say I have only one shugenja in a battle with a group of samurai. The shugenja casts a Kiho that affects the battle, let's say Root the Mountain. Then the shugenja is killed. The samurai still get +2 in the Resolution Phase, right? Root the Mountain doesn't go away just because it would be theoretically illegal to play at that point. Why is this any different?

Because the cost of playing the terrain (bowing a Shugenja or Monk) was met when you played the terrain. There are no preconditions to its resolution, and no effects that would prohibit it from existing. Gaheris very simply works differently. The only other card effect out there that compares to him is Deadly Ground (and Night Battle), and actions taken under Deadly Ground have to follow the same restrictions as actions taken under Gaheris. Immediately, directly, and unconditionally, they have to remove the action obstruction that's in their way. This action, for example:

Battle: Target one of your personalities, who gains one force. If that personality is still in the battle at terrain resolution, destroy any terrain in play for this battle.

Would *not* be legal under Deadly Ground, because you cannot possibly guarantee that the second part of the action, the part that would make it legal, will actually go off.

I dont think the timing is relevent for non-targetted effects. I believe I stated at the beginning of this thread that if a terrain sent home everything (which technically entrapping doesnt do) then it would be legal, delay and all. That said Encircling is NOT entirely a non-targetted effect.

I disagree. I don't think that non-immediate effects can ever be played under Gaheris to send him home, for the same reason BQW cannot be played. There are too many possibilities available that would result in that action becoming illegal, the most obvious simply being, Gaheris moves to another battle. At that point, you have played an action that could not have been played.

I honestly think the whole area could use some clearing up.

Are all forms of "indirectness" the same? E.g. when the favor targets someone and Ryozo gets sent home, Ryozo's going home is an indirect effect of the favor action. Similarly the inability to target Gaheris w/journal for encircled is an indirect result of the journals trait. However, are these two forms of "indirectness" the same? I dont really know. In the former case, it is Ryozo's trait which is really sending him home while in the latter, the Encircled is actually doing the send home itself and one could seem to make a more powerful argument on Encircled's behalf then on Ryozo's.

That's a lot of words, but what's your question? I don't understand what you're asking. I guess that both of the examples above are cases of traits interacting with actions, but I don't understand how that ties into the current discussion.

Let me make Nick's case for him with another hypothetical:

"Card X" Battle: target every unit in this battle and send them all back to their owner's fiefs, bowed.

Now this will be legal agianst a normal Gaheris, but (presumably) not against a journaled Gaheris. But why? Well, because you say "the journal says he can't be targetted". Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're going to look at the trait for that, you look at it for encircled too right?

Right, and like I said, an immediately resolving Encircled should be legal. It's the delay between action and resolution that I can't accept. You have to be able to say with 100% certainty that a given action *will* send Gaheris home when it leaves your hand, and you cannot possibly do that with terrains, Journal or no.

Oh well, my thoughts, it's a tough issue but not important enough to lose sleep over. Hey, the Grey Crane was a Crane card but they ruled against that too :)

It's funny how your opinion on the rules changes once you become a Guy in Power. I remember being pretty pro-GC as a Crane back then, but now, I *completely* understand what Zen had to go through...