Long time lurker here, who's been scratching his head over card interactions involving two particular cards from the latest clan pack. I can find my answers nowhere. I figured I would ask you guys here.

1. Does Cloud the Mind work on Fushicho? The rules say that when a card leaves play, three things happen simultaneously: tokens returned, attachments discarded, lasting effects expire. At this particular point, is the affected card stuck in a limbo state between in-play and out-of-play? Is it too late to trigger Fushicho's Interrupt ability when Cloud the Mind is being discarded as part of this "leaving play" process?
2. Do Fire provinces count as controlled Fire cards for the purpose of Katana of Fire's ability? The developer ruling is clear on Role cards -- somehow that seemed patently obvious to me, as they are never in play -- but there's no mention of Provinces. If I read the rules right on card control, they do count. But I'd appreciate a confirmation on this.

Fuschiso, as per its text, can't have attachments, so Cloud the Mind can't be played on it.

I don't believe that Fire provinces actually have the Fire trait anywhere on them, but I'm a little unsure.

8 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

Fuschiso, as per its text, can't have attachments, so Cloud the Mind can't be played on it.

Good lord. Let me facepalm in a corner over there...

If a province has the "Fire" trait printed on it, then yes. Otherwise, no. Example:

< Insert Bad example here>

Also, to answer your other question, even though it is technically illegal, since it is an interrupt, Fushicho hasn't left play yet, so the Cloud the mind would still be active. I don't think there are any reactions to leaving play, just interrupts, but I could be wrong.

See, on such a province, the word Fire is the element , and bolded keywords just above are what I think are the traits . Are elements traits?

13 minutes ago, Ascarel said:

See, on such a province, the word Fire is the element , and bolded keywords just above are what I think are the traits . Are elements traits?

The fire symbol means that it fits in your deck as a fire province. The Word "Fire" is a trait, which is equivalent to keywords in old L5R, except that none of them have an inherent in game mechanic. So if it has the word fire printed like that, IE the fire Traint, (You can see it on Katana of Fire as well), then it is considered a fire card for the purposes of Katana of Fire. Same as things like Bushi, Courtier, Shugenja, Monk, Shinobi, etc

Oops, Fiveringsdb was misleading. That is not a good example. I thought it had the trait printed on it. It does not. I believe my answer is correct, my example is just bad.

4 hours ago, Mirith said:

Oops, Fiveringsdb was misleading. That is not a good example. I thought it had the trait printed on it. It does not. I believe my answer is correct, my example is just bad.

Fiveringsdb was actually the starting point of my questioning. In the query language, you use e: for elements and k: for traits. Elements gives you Provinces and no Conflict cards, whereas trait queries will never yield Provinces. Is this really reflective of anything in the rules?

Now, in the Rules Reference a trait is defined like this: Most cards have one or more traits listed at the top of the text box and printed in Bold Italics.

This seems to de facto exclude elements of Province, whose traits are actually Neutral, Province (and sometimes Shrine).

All I am seeing everywhere is that a Fire province doesn't feed a Katana of Fire. This seems somewhat counter-intuitive though, so I'm begging to be conclusively disproved.

Yeah, katana of fire also includes the bold italics on it for fire. And nothing about the provinces say they have the trait of their ring, at least that I could find in the rules reference. It doesn't help that Fiveringsdb also includes the element as a 'trait'.

Since I build some pretty janky decks, I can tell with certainty that if a province had an elemental trait printed on it, it would count towards cards that are boosted by that trait.

An example of this was the Seppun Ishikawa deck I made to see how big I could get him. When Before the Throne is in play it counts the Imperial Trait that is printed and bolded on the card, thus it works with Ishikawa. Before the Throne is an Air province, but the only trait printed on it is Imperial.

Just because the province is considered to be a certain element for deck building purposes, it is not considered to have that elemental trait unless it's printed on the card.

56 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Since I build some pretty janky decks, I can tell with certainty that if a province had an elemental trait printed on it, it would count towards cards that are boosted by that trait.

An example of this was the Seppun Ishikawa deck I made to see how big I could get him. When Before the Throne is in play it counts the Imperial Trait that is printed and bolded on the card, thus it works with Ishikawa. Before the Throne is an Air province, but the only trait printed on it is Imperial.

Just because the province is considered to be a certain element for deck building purposes, it is not considered to have that elemental trait unless it's printed on the card.

I did not think of going through the other provinces in order to find actual working examples of province _traits_. Your example is quite convincing. Thanks for that!

On 4/16/2018 at 9:50 AM, Mirith said:

to answer your other question, even though it is technically illegal, since it is an interrupt, Fushicho hasn't left play yet, so the Cloud the mind would still be active. I don't think there are any reactions to leaving play, just interrupts, but I could be wrong.

I'm pretty sure this is how it would work if in theory you could somehow get a Cloud onto Fusc. His ability triggers "when he would leave play" which means he would go off in the instant before he has actually left play and thus still be clouded.

In Game of Thrones for instance there is an event called Nightmares that blanks a card's text until the end of the current phase. If something similar were to exist in L5R then you could Nightmares Fusc which would remove the attachment ban and then Cloud him. Once the Nightmare wore off the Cloud would already be in place keeping his text blank and making itself legal. Currently I don't beleive there's any way to actually do that in L5R but maybe in the future.

Yes, that's exactly how the timing would work out. And there is an event that blanks a character (among other things): A Fate Worse Than Death.

Oh yes, forgot about that one. It does so much I forgot about the text blanking part. By the time the rest of it has happened the blank effect is often the least of your concerns.

Also, Oni Mask.