Rulings for 22 March 2001

Locusts vs. Shinomen Forest(Jeff, Vaughn, Zen)

Howdy,

Sorry to put everyone through this again but our play group has to many rules lawyers.

The cards in question;

Heart of Shinomen Forest

Your Nagas are immune to fear. You may ignore Honor

Requirements for Nagas if you have no Shadowlands cards in play. You may have up to 4 of any non-unique Naga card.(now the important part) You may put forests into play for 3 less gold.

Plague of Locusts

Destroy all Holdings in play that entered play for 0 Gold.

The problem;

If I _pay_ the Gold cost of a forest card are they killed by the Locusts? I told them no way in hell, the cost reduction is voluntary (hence the "may" in the text) not forced. They insist that they are correct (very loudly). So please who is correct?

Choosing to pay more than you need to for a card which costs 0 will not save it from Plague of Locusts. However, in this case, the Naga player also has the option of not reducing the cost by 3 when he buys it. That WILL save it.

Rulings for 12-14 March 2001

Jeff Alexander writes:

I made a full search for the word "opposing" in the online rules before posting yesterday, so I read the relevant paragraph. Here it is, for reference:

If a card's text targets or refers to an "opposing" card, "this battle," or "another attacking/defending" card, the card must be in the same battle as the target to create the effect. A reference to "an opponent" in relation to a battle means "a player with units in the opposing army." A reference to "your opponent" in relation to a battle means either "the Attacker" or "the Defender," as appropriate, regardless of whether the player has units present. "Opposing army" means "one or more units attacking one of your Provinces or defending a Province you are attacking."

Nothing about "opposing player", which is the words I was looking for. Does you reply mean that it is equivalent to "your opponent"?

"An opposing player" and "an opponent" are equivalent when it comes to battles. Same with "the opposing player" and "your opponent".

Jeff,

Does this change the way Bayushi Shoju (inexp) should be played?

BS uses the words "opposing player", and was ruled to only work against an opponent who had units present.

It does not change the way Shoju Inexp. works.

(the original question was, what are the conditions under which The Sun Returns can be used - and I'd still like to know that...)

I thought I already corrected myself on this one. The Sun Returns works the same as Shoju: you can only cancel an action of a player who has units opposing yours in the current battle.

Face of Ninube

If you're playing brotherhood of Shinsei, will playing " the face of Ninube" fullfill the conditions to activate your strongholds reaction, and allow you to go for your ring of void? face=empty hand=reaction=void and whamo 1rst turn ring of void! with no cards lost

The Ring of the Void cannot be played in the middle of a discard-and-immediately-redraw effect.

Rulings for 12-14 March 2001

I think Zen made the right call then. I'm officially backing him on it now.

Are you ending the discussion, Jeff?

No. I'm just pitching in with my view on the matter. The Rules Team itself isn't sure what to do on this one. It's another case of too many examples of cards with similar wording being ruled to work in opposite ways in the past, yet the rulings feeling *right* for those cards.

time for a little common sense to prevail. You're much better off with clarifications and errata that make the cards work in an intuitive, understandable manner than with rulings that are consistent but bizarre. It's a case of being pennywise and pound foolish.

But...

What is it about "all effects are separate" that's so "arcane"? WHY is it so hard to understand? I'd really, really like to know.