Rules for 7 April 2004

And here are the Rules for Wednesday, April 7, 2004.

Overwhelmed and Wedge

If player A attacks, sending 2 units, and player B defends with 1 unit. As the first action, player B passes, player A wedges the unit led by the higher force personality. Player B plays overwhelmed and destroys his unit.

Now, what does player A do?

Strangely enough, he does nothing.

Under the new wording of Overwhelmed, he's forced to choose the "destroy" option. "He must choose to destroy a Personality if he cannot send two units home." (card text)

He can't target the Wedge'd Personality with Actions, so he does nothing. Waste of an Overwhelmed if you ask me.

Questions about Shadowlands personalities

If Chuda Masaru (a Bloodspeaker) is destroyed by Shield of Blood, can you put his card underneath the Pit of Blood? The question came up because Chuda Masaru was destroyed as a cost of playing SoB instead of in a battle or duel.

Well, Pit of Blood seems to say: "Maho Reaction: When a Bloodspeaker Personality you control dies, put that Personality under Pit of Blood instead of into your discard pile."

And Shield of Blood says: "Maho Kiho Limited: Bow one of your Shugenja or Monks and destroy one of your Personalities ..."

Looks like he can go in the Pit to me. He's being destroyed / dying, and he's a Bloodspeaker. That's all Pit of Blood cares about.

Are Shadowlands personalities considered permanently dishonored and can they be targeted by cards that specifically target dishonored personalities?

As odd as it might seem thematically, no, Shadowlands personalities are not "permanently" dishonored or dishonored by default.

There are no special rules thate affect only Shadowlands personalities when it comes to being dishonored. There are a couple of rules that affect Shadowlands Players that might impede their dishonoring / re-honoring schemes though: such as being unable to play Political Actions or gain honor.

But nothing like default or permanent dishonor to all their personalities, no.

Some sneaky dueling questions

Hello all, I'm trying out a Ninja dueling deck and noted the following "subtle points" concerning The Shadow's Claw, Poisoned Weapon, Smoke and Mirrors, Garotte, Uncertainty and Bayushi Yokuan:

"I've got a bad feeling about this ..."

Bayushi Yokuan: reactions cannot be taken during the duel *against* him (e.g., *my opponent's* Bend Like a Reed and Shadow's Claw), but he CAN take reactions freely, correct?

Bayushi Yokuan says: "Reactions cannot be played during a challenge and/or duel involving Yokuan."

No Reactions. Period. This applies to every player, token, stronghold, and card in the game during that time period. No Reactions. None.

The Shadow's Claw + Smoke and Mirrors: if you play The Shadow's Claw and draw Smoke and Mirrors, can you still use the later's ability instead of focusing, or are you "compelled" to focus because TSC says "...focus with one..."?

The Shadow's Claw says: "Look at your top five fate cards. Focus with one, take one into your hand, and shuffle the rest into the deck."

OK, so do this:

Look at 5 cards. Put one down as a Focus. Draw one. Shuffle the rest.

You put one of those cards on the top of your deck down as a Focus before you draw a card. Therefore, if you draw Smoke and Mirrors, it is too late to play it because you've already focused. If you focus Smoke an Mirrors, you can't play it for the Reaction. You certainly can't play it as a Reaction out of your Fate Deck before drawing it.

The above + Garotte (trickiest possibly): if you call strike, then use the Garotte's extra focus to play TSC, then draw and use instead of focusing S&M (assuming the answer to the above is "yes"), is this legal and can you still play Poisoned Weapon after revealling focus cards?

Garrote says: "Reaction: Bow the Garrote when this Ninja is in a duel and you declare a strike. You may focus once more before the focuses are revealed and the strike is resolved. You may not gain honor from this duel."

I assume you are using a Ninja with Garrote then, to gain an additional opportunity to focus. You can either play a focus card or something that plays "instead of focusing."

As mentioned above, The Shadow's Claw won't let you play Smoke and Mirrors out of your Fate Deck, nor will Bayushi Yokuan let you play any of your Reactions in the first place.

Poisoned Weapon: consider my Yokuan has a +1/+1 Bloodsword and challenges Daidoji Rekai. Rekai focuses, Yokuan strikes and plays Poisoned Weapon after seing Rekai's focus (Chukandomo) would make him lose.

You can not play Poisoned Weapon, as mentioned above.

Does PW affect Rekai's Chi of 3 *before* her focus is considered (thereby killing her and keeping the Bloodsword at +1/+1), or is it considered along with the Chukandomo focus? What if she had been targeted with Uncertainty before the duel?

She already has the +4 Chi from focusing Chukandomo, well before Poisoned Weapon can be resolved.

"This card immediately grants your Personality a secret chi bonus equal to it Focus value until the duel ends." (Diamond Edition Rulebook, page 89, "Challenging and Dueling")

Kaiu Sensei and Connecting Walls

Hi, if you are playing with Kaiu Sensei and Connecting Walls, what is the total bonus to each of your 4 provinces during battle?

Jeff Alexander answered this one last week in the email, "rules for 26 March 2004."

In short, +4/+6/+6/+4. Double that for two of them.

Question about costs.

1.I have a Samurai who costs 8

If you use Hiruma Dojo to lower the cost of the Samurai 4 and then pay

I've got the strangest feeling of Deja Vu ...

Oh wait, that's because you asked this question on April 6th and I answered it in that Digest. I'm all for reposting overlooked questions, folks, but please - wait until I actually post a rules digest for that day before you decide that I scorned your question. :)

As always, I'm leaving the Hidden City questions to Jeff. If I missed your question from this day in this digest and Jeff, Zen, or I didn't get you an answer in-thread, please repost it with [RULES] in the subject line and I'll get you a response at the first opportunity.

And this concludes our broadcast day.