Rules for 16 January 2005

Your Rules for Sunday, January 16, 2005

Beating dead horses w/ Doji Saori

I saw a thread on the Unicorn forums stating that Saori can target a bowed duelist to perform a duel, so I thought "that can't be right" and started running everything through what little brains I have left. So now I'm posting this becauseI just want to make sure I'm perfectly clear on this since Saori has caused a ton of confusion for me until going over the rules w/ a fine tooth comb. My conclusions are marked w/ a [J].

Pg 32 "Bowed Personalities cannot perform challenge actions" [J] Saori is performing the action (per the rules on Page 71)

Pg 71 To determine who performs an action, follow the first rule below that applies: Rule 1: "Actions on a personality or follower are performed by that card." Rule 4: "Actions which issue challenges from one of their own personalities are performed by the challenger." Rule 4 does not apply because Rule 1 comes first. [J] Rule 4 does not apply because Rule 1 obviously comes first. Thus, Saori is performing the action.

<SNIP>

In conclusion Saori can target a bowed duelist (ie Kakita) who then issues a challenge to another personality. Is this correct? I think so, but I'm not sure if I missed any rules/rulings.

That's all correct.

As for suggestions about working with the Rulebook, those should be directed to Design - Jeff Alexander in particular.

Overwhelmed and Test of Courage

I really should know the answer to this, but I don't, and the rulings didn't clear up my confusion, so I'll ask here anyway.

My opponent (defending with a single personality) plays Overwhelmed. I have an army of three units and I choose to send two home. Then I play A Test of Courage targeting one of my units.

Does my unit stay in the battle?

Yes. Overwhelmed is Canceled. It can't do squat to anything now. (Diamond Edition Rulebook, page 72)

Does my other unit stay in the battle?

Yes, for the same reason as your first unit stays there.

Does Overwhelmed get cancelled or just the send home effect?

A Test of Courage says very clearly, "Cancel the action."

If Overwhelmed is cancelled does the defender's personality still get destroyed?

Again, turn to page 72 of the Diamond Edition Rulebook. The paid costs of a Canceled action are not refunded.

Daidoji Kumi's Minimum

Battle: Bow Kumi for a number of consecutive Ranged 4 Attacks equal to the number of your Provinces destroyed this game (minimum one).

What, exactly, does 'minimum one' refer to? Number of Ranged Attacks produced by Kumi, so she always has at least one; or number of provinces destroyed this game, so she can't bow for zero RA4?

Minimum number of Ranged Attacks. She always has one, even if you haven't lost any Provinces.

No Victory

What happens if I play an Egg on a No Victory Token? Do I get a permanent 6/5 duellist honnored of 3 or does the "destruct after the end of turn X) a "permanent change".

Pay close attention to the card text of No Victory.

"Create a 6F/5C Duelist Personality card with 3 Personal Honor in your home or in the current battle. Remove it from the game at the end of your next turn."

Two separate sentences with two distinct effects. There is no reason to believe that "Remove it from the game at the end of your next turn," is something that is added to the Duelist Personality's card.

The Egg would be a 6/5 3PH Personality.

Following, what happens if I Suitengu Surge my No Victory Token? (sorry if this one was already answered)

If you use Surge to remove Personality from the game on the turn where it as going to be removed from the game by No Victory at the end of the turn, you manage to dodge the removal clause of No Victory completely. No Victory can't remove the Personality from the game, because it is already out of play. The effect fails.

Once your Personality returns to play, the "remove from the game" effect of No Victory is already done with and will never attempt to "reapply" itself. It was a one-shot trigger, it failed, and its time has passed.

a few not so simple rules questions.

I know that any redirection must be to a legal target, but what happens when a legal target results in an illegal action? example, scorp players assigns three personalities, A, B, and C to provences A, B, and C. Khol walls player defends with a personality at provence A. That battle is resolved first, Khol player bows a region to switch the locations of personalities A and C. Scorp redirects the targeting of A to B. Is this legal? B was a legal target of the action, but now the action is nolonger meets relevence. So what happens? is the action cancled? do B and C switch locations?

It was never legal to target Personalities at both B and C due to the Rule of Relevance, so you can not redirect one or more targets of the Action to result in such an illegal combination of targets. You have to pick targets that the other player could select legally.

Wrath of the emperor seems to imply that you can only give the +6 to a card with the duelist trait, or does duelist in this sense mean someone who is dueling?

'duelist: Card from expansions before Dawn of the Empire use this term in lowercase to refer to "a Personality in a duel" rather than "a card with the Duelist trait.' (Web of Lies Rulesheet, "Glossary")

With shattered focus, if only only player was able to focus, and then a strike was called, Can it be used to discard a single focus, or does there have to be two?

It does not say that the ability targets, hence you do not have to meet a targeting restriction to use it. Having only one card to discard will simply mean that the effect discards one card and fails to have any effect on the other, non-existent, card.

Couple Questions

1) Kaimetsu-Uo is in Egg of P'an Ku-ed. The Egg is killed, and then Feign Deather. Does the trait to gain another province come into play in this instance?

Kaimetsu-Uo says, "After the first time this game Kaimetsu-Uo enters play from a Province, gain a Province to the left of your leftmost Province."

Being brought into play by Feign Death does not qualify as "enters play from a Province."

2) Show of Good Faith is played, and I currently control an opponent's personality. Is it currently legal for me to play Ambush? If i understand it correctly, I annouce ambush, choose two people who are legal (i.e. an unbowed personality), pay all costs (0 gold), and begin to resolve effects. At this point, I am unable to declare an attack, so that effect fails. There is no attack phase, so attackers and defenders are unable to assign. I lose 5 honor, and the action phase continues.

This seems reasonable to me. The only restriction that Show of Good Faith places upon you is that you may not Declare an attack, so it will cause the "Declare an attack" part of Ambush to fail. "Lose 5 Honor" will still happen, though "After the end of the Attack," and "resume the previous phase" are obviously irrelevant at that point.

Just because one or more effects of an Action are doomed to fail does not mean that the Action itself is illegal, nor that its other effects fail as well.

That should cover everything from Sunday. If I missed your question, please repost it with the flag [RULES] as part of your Clear and Distinct subject line. I'll get back to you at the first opportunity.