Rules for 14 April 2004

Its April 15th, and the Rules for Wednesday, April 14, 2004 better not be the only thing in the mail or Uncle Sam's going to have to break your legs.

To many Winds?

I have a quick question. I'm playing a Crane deck in an Open tournament, and my wind is Diagotsu.

You dirty bird, you. ;-)

When I bring Doji Kurohito Exp 2 into play, can I go get Hantei Naseru, The Underhand of the Emperor, Toturi Tsudao, The Left Hand of the Emperor, Akodo Kaneka, The Right Hand of the Emperor, Toturi Sezaru, & The Voice of the Emperor so that I have all nine Winds in play at the same time?

Yes. They all have unique card names and are Winds.

You know what else? It doesn't look like you get a choice in the matter either.

Kurohito says, "Bring all Winds you do not have, except the Black Heart of the Empire, into play from outside the game while you control Kurohito."

I'm not sure what sort of humiliating punishment your T.O. should inflict on you for not bring those Winds to the table, but it better be entertaining!

On a more serious note, it doesn't look like bringing Winds into play is optional. You have to bring all tournament-legal Winds available except Black Heart into play. This will expose you to all the negatives of those Winds as well as the positives.

As above I'm playing an Open Crane deck, this time with Akodo Kaneka.

My, you're going to be quite the unpopular one at the Winter Court at Kyuden Doji this year, huh?

I bring Doji Tanitsu Exp into play and Hantei Naseru as my additional Wind. I use Sanctum to allow Doji Tanitsu Exp to cast the kiho Playing with Madness, making him a Bloodspeaker Shugenja. Next turn he Overwhelms one of my opponents Personalities and is put underneath Pit of Blood, which removes Hantei Naseru from play. When Tanitsu is put into play from beneath Pit of Blood, can I then put Daigotsu into play. Assuming I can kill Tanitsu often enough, can I use an alternate Winds each time he is put into play.

You can put "Black Heart of the Empire" into play since Tanitsu tells you to bring a Wind you do not currently control from outside the game into play when he enters play. You don't control "Black Heart of the Empire" and Tanitsu is entering play, so do what his card tells you to do.

Daigotsu was the only Wind to actually get MRP'd, BTW, but it still counts as Daigotsu even if that's not its name anymore.

Rules Question - Hound of the Lost +The Face of Fear+Okura is Released

Hi,

The combo of Hound of the Lost + The Face of Fear + Okura is Released is causing some arguments at my Saturday night game. Please clarify the following for me.

Why am I so forsaken? I - TRY - to be a good person. I paid my taxes on time. I'm not even running Corrupt. What could I possibly have done to deserve this?

Do 'The Face of Fear' and 'Okura is Released' allow a personality with huge force to be targeted and destroyed by a smaller fear effect due to the effect from 'Hound of the Lost'?

Hound of the Lost says, "Reaction: Bow Hound of the Lost before another card in this army produces Fear targeting exactly one unit. The Fear targets and bows a single Follower of your choice in that unit, regardless of Force, instead of producing its normal effect."

Okura is Released says, "Reaction: Play this card when a fear effect is created. All cards bowing due to the fear effect are destroyed."

Face of Fear says, "Reaction: Play when one of your cards creates Fear. The Fear affects Personalities as if they were Followers."

Short answer is, "No."

The long answer is as follows:

They all respond to a card creating / producing a Fear Effect, but Hound of the Lost says "before" while the other two say, "when." Hound of the Lost gets played first and resolves first.

Now you've got to pick a target for your Fear effect. The only legal targets as per Hound of the Lost at this stage are Followers. You target a Follower with your special Fear.

Now you can play Okura is Released or Face of Fear.

Okura is Released will cause the Fear Effect to cause destruction.

Face of Fear will let your fear affect Personalities as if they were followers, but since it is only targeting a Follower, Face of Fear is pretty pointless.

RULE questions

Do you have to be opposed to play luring tactics?

Luring Tactics says, "Move the performing Tactician you control and an opposing Personality from the current battle to an adjacent one."

So yes. The card requires its controller to target a his Performing Tactician and an opposing Personality. If you don't have both legal targets, you can't play the card.

Question regarding Taking Credit.

Does Taking Credit function if your leftmost province does not contain a dynasty card?

Sadly, you can't play it at all if you don't have a card in your leftmost Province. Because there are situations where more than one card may be in your leftmost Province (Plains of Otosan-Uchi), Taking Credit targets the card you discard.

No card to discard = no legal target = no Taking Credit

Chagatai clarification.

Here's relevant text: "Chagatai is not destroyed for having 0 Chi unless his Chi is 0 after all penalties that last until your turn ends wear off."

Thus, wouldn't you have to wait for any and all penalties that would wear off at the controller's turn to expire (I no grammar at good), before killing him?

Well, yes. But if there are no penalties that are timed to wear off at the end of Chagatai's controller's turn actually affecting Chagatai's Chi, then it isn't relevant.

If you control Chagatai with no Effects on his Chi, and then on My Turn I hit him with Written in Blood twice, he dies immediately. There are currently no penalties to Chagatai that expire at the end of his controller's turn, so his trait is of no help.

Search for Advantage

If I play "Search for Advantage" on an Experienced personality who was overlayed, what happens to the inexperienced personality underneath?

"When you have an overlaid card, none of the cards in the stack except for the top one counts as being 'in play' or affect play in any way, with the one exception: if an overlaid card is destroyed in the resolution of a battle, the opposing player gains honor for every card in the stack. If an overlaid card leaves play, remove all cards but the top one from the game. Keep them handy for reference, though since the top card still has the bottom cards' abilities." (Diamond Edition Rulebook, page 67, "Experienced Traits")

So only shuffle the top-most card in the stack back. Remove the others from the game.

Good thing to keep in mind playing Morning Glory Castle too. The less-experienced versions of personalities in such a stack get removed from the game when an overlaid Personality gets destroyed. They don't go to the Discard Pile or become Honorable Dead to use with MGC's ability.

Jeff on Kwanchai xp. (non)targeting, Battle Resolution

The relevant precedent is that the Right Hand of the Emperor's Reaction has been ruled to target;

I'll get you an explanation on Jeff as to how to reconcile this. I've forwarded this to Jeff since I can't just issue a Reversal on his Right Hand ruling, Jeff being the boss and all.

Forwarded. Sit tight and, if nothing else, I'll extract it from him at the First Kotei of the Season at Feeding Hills, Massachusetts this Saturday, April 17th.

[END CHEAP PLUG]

OK, that looks like it covers everything that wasn't from Hidden City or addressed in-thread by Jeff or myself. If your question was missed, please repost it with the flag [RULES] in the subject line and I'll get to it at the first opportunity.

Thanks folks,