Rules for 24 May 2004

Your Rules for Monday, May 24, 2004.

Rules

ok, I saw this answer and I was wondering if shrine of the sun can cancel A New Order can it also cancel a Chrysanthemun festival?

No. Chrysanthemum Festival has no on-going effects to stop. It has one instantaneous effect, "gain a Province." Much like destroying a card or creating a card, once you've created or destroyed a Province it is simply over and done with - not an on-going effect.

Show of Good Faith Q.

Question on Show of Good Faith. Say I show of good faith an opponent's personality with a bunch of followers, including a Shireiken. I then kill said personality in a manner that doesn't kill off the followers as well (a duel or something). The Shireiken now becomes a personality under my control. When the turn ends, does control of the Shireiken revert to its original controller?

[MARTY] No. Control of the attached cards only happened due to the change of control of the Personality. Now that Shireikan is not attached to the same Personality (or any Personality) it stays put.

Shireikan won't take any of the attached cards of the original Personality, though, as per A Show of Good Faith's card text.

Mercy Shrouds the Earth

Greets!

Think this might have slipped through filters due to a wrong type of bracket.. =P

Nope. It was already answered in the "Rules 22 May 2004"

Third Article in the Digest.

Rules question.

Danjuro, who got turned into a shugenja. Tsuruchi Hiro.

My opponent targets Tsuruchi Hiro with Break the Line. Can I redirect Break the Line to Danjuro?

Yes.

In other words, does the choice to bow a "card with a ranged attack" or "a shugenja" lock in when you play Break the Line?

It is a targeting restriction, nothing more. You can choose any card that fits the criteria as a target. Nothing is "locked in" other than the designation of a target, and since you could have targeted Danjuro, you can be redirected to him.

Trying to play Ring of Water

Now, I follow with some different situations to know in which of them I can play the Ring of Water:

A) My opponent cancels the action with the Kyuden Ikoma’s reaction B) The Battle action is canceled, but after some effects has been resolved C) The action is succesfully resolved

I ask because I don’t know what “after taking an action” means, regarding terms of play. Maybe it means “after costs are paid but before effects resolves”, or could be “when an action succesfully resolves.”

"An action is successfully performed after all costs are paid and giving other players the opportunity to perform Reactions to it. [JA, 26 April 2002]" (Accumulated Rulings, "Actions and Abilities")

As for the above scenarios:

"A" will never count for Ring of Water.

"B" is too late to play Ring of Water (you needed to do it before the effects resolved), and once it gets canceled, it doesn't count towards the 4 you need to play Ring of Water after a subsequent action (even though it made some effects).

"C" counts towards your 4 required Actions, but it is too late to play Ring of Water in response to that action (again, effects have already resolved).

Ambush and targeting again and again

Now, I think Jeff has done a REVERSAL about Ambush & targeting, and it looks like his answer from 2 Dec 2003 no longer is valid. Then, I re-ask it again. More specificly, I want to know if I can play an Ambush without Personalities in play.

No. You MUST have legal targets for all mandatory targeting to play a targeted Action, as per Page 73 for the Diamond Edition Rulebook. You can't play Ambush without one personality to attack and one to defend.

Boastful Proclamation ongoing effects

Suppose that I've resolved my Boastful Proclamation, and that my opponent was unable to take the designated province. I gain 3 honor, and the province is at +3 strength.

What happens when my opponent uses Shrine of the Sun's ability on the Boastful Proclamation? I'm fairly sure that I still keep the 3-honor gain, but do I lose the +3 province strength?

Yes, the Honor Gain is kept. It is an instantaneous effect, not an on-going one. Yes, the Province Strength is lost. It is an on-going effect. Same thing applies to the +1/+1 bonus if your Province was destroyed. Drawing a card like an Honor Gain - it is instantaneous, not on-going, so Shrine of the Sun won't undo it either.

Chrysanthemum Festival and Shrine of the Sun

If you end Chrysanthemum Festival with Shrine of the Sun, A) does everyone blow up their leftmost province? or B) Is a player "safe" if the created province has already been destroyed?

Neither. As noted above, Chrysanthemum Festival has no on-going effects.

Ryouko

Ryouko says that when it dies, you may permanently increase its Honor Requirement by 6 and return it to the top of your Dynasty deck instead of putting it into your Discard Pile.

This is no problem. What I want to know is, face-up or face-down? It's not Shuffled back in, so there is nothing to imply it has to go face-down to me. Is there some ruling made in past concerning cards that go to the top of decks that dictate their revealed/hidden state?

Unless an effect explicitly instructs you to have a card in a deck face-up, all cards in decks are kept face-down, as per the basic set-up instructions from pages 51-53 in the Diamond Edition Rulebook.

action play steps and Kolat Bookkeeping

I don't care too especially much about Ambush in particular, but I would like to know if there is anywhere that we can get a list of the steps involved in playing an action and what happens if something interrupts any of those steps.

Well, for interruptions, you can check the basic rules for Reactions in regards to things doing the Interruption, while pages 72-74 of the DE Rulebook cover what happens to the Action be interrupted (cancellation, redirection, etc.)

As for a detailed process, I want to hammer this out with the Rules Team some, but this seems to be the order - I - perceive:

Declaration Step - Announce which Action your playing. This includes setting any variable numbers like the "*" in Ashigaru Levies or choosing which of the two Actions on Kolat Assassin you will utilize.

* Herein you'd play Reactions like Imperial Messenger that happen "before" someone takes an action

Targeting Step - Choose all unconditional targets for the Action.

* Herein you'd play Balance in Nothingness or similar Reactions to any targeting that occurs here.

Payment Step - Use resources to pay the costs of the Action.

* More Reactions can be played here, including those of City of Gold.

* Once Reactions to payment have been completed, if the Action is not canceled, you can now introduce any triggers keying off of the successful play of the action, like Faith in My Clan, Kyuden Ikoma, or Ring of Air.

Resolution Step - Action produces its effects

* Obviously, throughout this process you can introduce numerous Reactions and triggered effects to modify and respond to the effects the Action produces - like Face of Fear, Tsuruchi Technique, or Out Walls.

So that's how I perceive the timing of taking an Action, in a nut-shell. Obviously there are some exceptions outlined in the Rulebook, like Delayed Terrains - but this is the core process.

...but what about buying a personality. I have Iuchiban in one province and a Corrupt Silver Mine in another province. I declare that I'm going to buy Iuchiban in my dynasty phase.

The Purchasing of Personalities during the Dynasty Phase is not an Action. It has its own set of Rules.

I then bow a Pillar of Flesh and a Private Dojo and bow my stronghold and get ready to bow more holdings to buy Iuchiban. My opponent plays Kolat Bookkeeping and I realize that I don't have enough money to buy Iuchiban without my stronghold.

"If part of a cost of an action or of playing a card is prevented, all other costs must still be paid. Variable costs may be chosen based on this knowledge, as far as the card allows. [JA, 18 December 2003]" (Accumulated Rulings, "Costs")

Based on this, I'm to say your Pillar and Dojo are still bowed, and the gold they produced goes to waste.

Danjuro and Scrutiny's Sweet Sting....again

I may have missed the answer to this, but the ruling on Well Prepared + Danjuro has gotten a lot of attention, and I wanted to see if this is the same.

If I play Scrutiny's Sweet Sting to remove the Shugenja trait from one of my opponent's personalities, what does Danjuro do about it?

Hey redirects it to himself. The player of S.S.S. can remove the Shugenja, Courtier, or Samurai trait from Danjuro when the effect resolves.

I am guessing that by the WP ruling that he simply redirects the targeting, and chooses Samurai instead of Shugenja.

But what if he has had the samurai trait removed already, and tries to pull another SSS to himself. He no longer has any of the targettable attributes, which might make him an illegal target. Or would the effect just fizzle?

He's still a legal target (a Personality) but he has no valid traits to remove, so the effect will fail. The Action is successful, but the Effect is negated.

To make shure...

Just to make shure, if I try a flee the darkness that gets canceled with Fall on your kness, and the flee would be my third kiho, I can't put the ring of air in play and Shiba Yoma and Reichin's Helm does not get any bonus.

Correct.

That's all for Monday. If I missed your question, please repost it with the flag [RULES] in the subject line and I'll get back to you at the first opportunity.