post for 16 December 2002

ERRATA: Tsuruchi Hiro

Does this mean that we can expect an errata of Akodo Ijiasu with the Unique trait, for the sake of balance?

No. Ijiasu wasn't printed with the trait originally and accidentally reprinted without it later.

Or was 4 chi on Hiro just too powerful?

A few prominent players have pointed out how, even today, the majority of cards in most decks are from Gold Edition or before. Roger Giner-Sorolla attributes it to what he calls "The Curse of the Base Set": too many cards above average in the environment at the beginning that overshadow anything balanced released afterward.

Leaving Hiro at 4C in Diamond keeps that bad juju around. While not undercosted to the extent of Ijiasu or Hachi, he would nonetheless be above the curve. Every 7g Mantis Clan Personality developed after him, particularly those in the Tsuruchi family, would compare unfavorably and lose out in any deck design decision between the two unless that Personality were also at least slightly above average.

rules questions

1. The deathless

If I attach it to a personality that has navel through Ishada or CoL does it gain +2 force. Will the +2 force where off when the navel trait does?

Yes and yes.

If a personality already has Deathless attached who does not have navel, then they are given navel through IShada or COL does the deathless gain +2 force?

Yes.

2. Yu

Is YU like range attacks, a card effect?

Destroying opposing cards through the Yu trait is a rulebook effect.

Emperor's Underhand

Is the Under Hand political?

No.

Diamond Comments was (ERRATA: Tsuruchi Hiro)

Its the cost of reprints that aren't gold legal. Gold was worth buying for me because I only had a couple of expansions at the time. More or less a newbie. It allowed me to obtain hard to find cards from sets like Time of Void or Crimson and Jade. If Diamond is like Gold with added "Soul of"s etc. as well as deleting personalities that are currently legal, it would put too much strain on my finances. That sucks for me.

Diamond will be a base set. Other than deck-only cards and the occasional exception such as Shahai, base sets do not contain new cards. If you've been playing Gold, and especially if you played before Gold, chances are you already own cards that are going to be in Diamond.

post for 12 December 2002

So why are some [Ancestors] all plus, even without an actual bonus, and some not?

I don't have an answer other than, "That's how they were printed."

Rules questions...

1) Suppose my opponent has three Tachiyamas attacking and I have 8 cards in hand (putting his force at 18). I play Flattery and begin discarding cards one by one. Do we recalculate the Tachiyama's force after every individual discard or do I have to beat the original 18?

After every one.

2) One of our players wants to know exactly what is legal when your opponent offers you his/her deck to cut (and perhaps examples of what is not...well, besides the obvious like tossing your deck across the room and screaming like a banshee...though I suppose the screaming part is ok).

A cut partitions the deck into two parts, top and bottom, with any number of cards (including 0) in both parts, and rearranges the bottom part on top of the top part without changing the order of cards within each part.

How's that?

Rules question

Can "Ancient Halls of the lion"s Reaction to negate a terrain be used on deadly ground? Deadly ground states that no action can be played unless it destroys deadly ground?

But the Ancient Halls Reaction is used after Deadly Ground is played but before it resolves [stronghold text], so its effects have not happened yet. It's legal.

Diamond Comments was (ERRATA: Tsuruchi Hiro)

The fear is just not reprints. The fear is only few hundred cards being only Diamond legal.

50 in 1,000 Years of Darkness 150 in Fall of Otosan Uchi 150 in the set after that 150 in the set after that 300, at least, in Diamond itself (Gold, remember, was 550!) total: 800 to ~1,000

Don't be afraid.

Diamond Comments

People do flock to this game because it isn't Magic. I know I did. When L5R was in its youth, I remember seeing an ad that said something to the point of, "2000 cards, 0 banned or restricted."

The number was only 900. But I shouldn't complain -- most people who recall that ad don't remember that third of it!

Rules Question: Tamori Tsukiro

About Tamori Tsukiro's grenade-bomb:

I understand the ruling about this being a normal ranged attack; however, I did have 3 questions concerning it.

1.) The Arrow Knows the Way - can this still be used to target the personality with this ability?

If he bows to make it, yes. It can't if he destroys a Potion token instead.

2.) Arrows from the Woods - How does this interact when used to increase the ranged attack(s)?

It increases the strength of one of them.

3.) Why is it that he doesn't target the personality with the "any number of ranged attacks"? I know it follows the usual ranged attack rules and that it doesn't target the entire unit, but I know others who will argue about this. The logic they use is "if the grenade kills off all of the samurai's spearmen, his medium infantry and his ashigaru archers, why doesn't the samurai die in the same explosion".

That turns Tsukiro into a 3F/3C 8 gold Personality who says, "Battle: Bow to destroy an opposing unit led by a Personality with less than 4 Force," which is altogether just a little too strong.

Tsukiro can destroy a whole unit, by the way...he just has to take two actions, and store up a Potion token first.

Chance to draw Take the Initiative

Chance = [3/40] + [3/39] + [3/38] + [3/37] + [3/36] = roughly 39-40%

But then again I'm not a mathmatics type so I dunno the fully statistical calculations.

A good rule of thumb on double-checking any probability calculation is asking yourself if the formula gives reasonable results when extended to other cases. Your approach here adds a larger number each time, which is a little suspicious. If you carry it further, you can see that in twelve draws, you have a 105% chance of drawing a Take. That's a flashing red light that something's wrong. No probability calculation should ever give you a number outside the range of 0 to 1, inclusive, for a non- degenerate input. Plus, if you think about this specific problem, you should see that the chance doesn't hit 100% until you draw at least 38 of the 40 cards -- the worst-case scenario is all three Takes on the bottom of the deck.