You are correct. You cannot spend fate from rings to pay for Mahō cards even if you have Awakened Tsukumogami in play. [Tyler Parrott, Oct 9 2020]

A faceup holding is considered to be “in play” and thus the act of turning it facedown would cause it to leave play. Therefore, it would return to the appropriate out-of-play area controlled by its owner instead of staying in the Lion player’s province, and thus it would be placed in one of the Scorpion player’s provinces. When rearranging the facedown cards, the controller of the Governor’s Spy would get to decide which card goes into which province. Because the Imperial Storehouse cannot be put into any of the Lion player’s provinces, it would instead move to the equivalent province among the Scorpion player’s row—for example, if you attempted to put the storehouse into the Lion player’s leftmost province, it would instead be placed in the Scorpion player’s leftmost province (remember that orientation is mirrored). After fully resolving the ability, the Lion player’s empty province would be refilled. [Tyler Parrott, Sep 16 2020]

The rule you’re quoting hinges around the word “new:” a delayed effect created by a triggered ability is still considered to be a triggered ability, but it is not a new triggered ability. It is an extension of the triggered ability that originally created the delayed effect. Therefore, Chukan Nobue does prevent her controller from discarding the cards drawn by an opponent’s Under Siege. [Tyler Parrott, Jun 29 2020] Chukan Nobue will prevent the delayed effect from discarding cards if she enters play during the conflict. [Tyler Parrott, Jul 12 2020]

1. Yes, and because Forced abilities must be triggered, their costs must be paid. 2. Additional costs do stack. [Tyler Parrott, Jun 24 2020]

You cannot trigger Ivory Kingdoms Unicorn’s ability if you have lost Kakita Yuri’s duel this phase. Because the rhino’s ability states “that conflict is [MIL] instead of its normal type,” you are declaring a military conflict which Yuri’s duel’s effect prevents you from doing. [Tyler Parrott, Apr 23 2019]

Yes, you are still in the reaction window for playing the Benevolent Host. So the Host can put Takamori into play and Takamori can trigger his reaction to after you played the Benevolent Host, all within the same reaction window. [Tyler Parrott, Apr 24 2019]

No. Contingency Plan reduces your bid to 0, so you would draw 0 cards. As Iwasaki Pupil cannot reduce drawing 0 cards, its text does not apply. [Tyler Parrott, Apr 24 2019]

You choose 3 cards in your hand to discard, then simultaneously discard those cards and draw 3 cards. Logistically speaking, it’s equivalent to “discard 3 cards, then draw 3 cards” since humans can’t literally discard and draw cards simultaneously, but technically rules as written you resolve them simultaneously. You can never discard any of the cards drawn by this effect, and if you have 3 or fewer cards in your hand when resolving this ability, you will discard all of them and draw 3 new cards. [Tyler Parrott, Feb 14 2020]

If you trigger Current of the Beryt and then your first (of those two) actions is to trigger Court Musician, your second Beryt-action will not receive the discount, as your next action opportunity begins once your opponent ends their next action opportunity (once it passes back to you). The multiple actions created by Current of the Beryt/Austere Exemplar are all nested within a single action opportunity, as you’ve described. [Tyler Parrott, Dec 22 2019]

Rimei can only target attachments on a character, as she cannot move it “from the character it is on” if it’s not on a character. [Tyler Parrott, Dec 30 2019]

The short answer is: if either player has no fate, Diplomatic Gift-Giver’s ability cannot be triggered. You’re correct that the ability utilizes referential targets, and thus a character can only be chosen if the result of choosing that character would result in a game state change (ie, fate is moved onto it). Each target’s validity is measured separately. [Tyler Parrott, Aug 7 2020]

The attachment bonuses are only ignored for the purposes of resolving the duel—Gensato does not actually reduce the characters’ skill to 0 and cause them to die. [Tyler Parrott, Jan 23 2020]

If your opponent declares a defender with a dash, and you declare the conflict type as being of that type, the defender is now an illegitimate participant and is sent home bowed. If you have 2 characters with dash MIL and 1 character with dash POL and you name “2,” you must declare a POL conflict with your first two characters, as you must declare the named number of characters and the only legal way to do that is to declare a POL conflict. If you ever name a number higher than the number of characters who could legally declare as attackers, you must declare the conflict such that the greatest number of your characters is attacking (presumably all of them). [Tyler Parrott, Jan 9 2020]

Master Tactician's limits are by card, as you're only using one Tactician to play any given card off the top. So you could play 6 cards with two Tacticians or reset the count by flickering it [Tyler Parrott, May 4 2020] When multiple Master Tacticians are in play (along with a Battlefield), both of their constant abilities attempt to be applied, but only one can actually be applied at any given moment, as you can’t be using both abilities simultaneously (the limit of three cards refers to the individual paragraph that the character is using to play cards from the top of your deck). Most of the time, this won’t be a problem as it doesn’t matter which Master Tactician you are using (they do the same thing and have the same duration), but as you’ve pointed out there will be times when it does. Per the RRG, under Priority of Simultaneous Resolution: “If two or more constant abilities…cannot be applied simultaneously, the first player determines the order in which they are applied.” This means that should it be required to identify which Tactician’s ability has been used, the first player assigns the ability to the source. To your specific example, then: Tactician #1 plays Forebearer’s Echoes (1/3) One of the Tacticians plays Fine Katana, assigned by the first player (2/3 + 0/3 or 1/3 + 1/3) One of the Tacticians plays Prepare for War, assigned by the first player (1/3 + 2/3 or 3/3 + 0/3) The echoed Tactician leaves play. Note that even in this example, this only matters if you have a way to get the original Master Tactician into a second conflict, as he cannot look at or play cards outside of a conflict. [Tyler Parrott, May 11 2020]

I’m not sure I fully understand your question, but here is what happens when many honored/dishonored characters leave play against Silent Ones Monastery: In your example, you would simultaneously gain 3 honor and lose 3 honor. As you cannot gain more than 2 honor, you would instead gain 2 honor and lose 3 honor, resulting in a net loss of 1 honor. If you had already gained 1-2 honor previously in the phase then you would gain fewer honor from these three characters leaving play, resulting in a net loss of 2 honor or 3 honor respectively. [Tyler Parrott, May 12 2020]

Roadside Inn’s choice-selection is done in turn order, as described by the passage you’ve quoted. So the first player would choose their character to move a fate too, then their opponent. If the first player is not also the controller of the Roadside Inn, they must give their opponent 1 honor when they make their choice. (If they elect not to choose one of their characters, they do not give the honor.) [Tyler Parrott, Jun 24 2020]

The way additional costs work within the rules has become more clarified since I made that ruling, and that ruling is no longer consistent with how additional costs work. If a character with Softskin is readied by a card or ring effect, its controller must discard the top 3 cards of their conflict deck (or, if they have 2 or fewer conflict cards in their deck, the character will fail to ready). This is a reversal of the previous ruling. [Tyler Parrott, Oct 9 2020]

If you discard a card from your hand while the costs are being paid to play that card, the card can no longer initiate its effects in step 6, as it is no longer in your hand to complete the “Playing Cards” process. [Tyler Parrott, Oct 9 2020]

The additional conflicts are an upper limit, not a pool of options. If Shori leaves play when sacrificing a character to Hisu Mori Toride in your second military conflict, you will lose Shori’s additional conflict and gain HMT’s additional conflict, resulting in a maximum of two eligible military conflicts, both of which have been declared. You would not be able to declare a third military conflict. [Tyler Parrott, Oct 9 2020]

You are correct—if you do not have 4 cards in your dynasty deck, you cannot pay Spectral Visitation’s cost. [Tyler Parrott, Jul 20 2020]

A collection of Hantei rulings, edited to put Q&A together. Yes, Hantei’s interrupt triggers step 1, similar to Mantis Tenkinja. If the ability is aborted during step 4 due to interrupted costs, his interrupt has already been used and cannot be used again. Your Fawning Diplomat/Noble Sacrifice/Hantei example is correct. Hantei will leave play during step 4 when the Diplomat is sacrificed to Noble Sacrifice, but the interrupt has already initiated and will still allow Hantei’s controller to choose Noble Sacrifice target when Noble Sacrifice resolution reaches step 5. You must pay all costs once you’ve begun triggering an ability—you can’t just choose to abort the ability if you want. Hantei allows you to choose all targets for the ability, including those in the costs and effects. (Yes, you choose targets for Court Games, and if multiple targets are chosen (Banzai!) then you get to choose all of them.) It is not legal to trigger his interrupt on abilities like Doji Gift Giver or Shigeru, when the opponent already makes all the choices. See #5 for multiple targets. Hantei does interact with cards that choose in hidden zones (Night Raid, Favored Niece, etc). However, he doesn’t grant you any knowledge of those hidden zones, so you would just choose blindly. The discard would effectively be random. He can choose targets in a duel. Hantei cannot counter Hantei. Player A is still triggering the ability, even if Player B is choosing targets. Therefore, Player A cannot trigger their Hantei (because an opponent is not triggering the ability). Hantei could trigger his interrupt when an opponent triggers Miya Library—however, as he does not grant any additional knowledge, you cannot choose an Imperial character and it would force the Miya Library player to simply put the top 4 back in any order, without choosing anything. If Hantei’s opponent controls a Mirror’s Gaze and Hantei-player plays an event, the Mirror’s Gaze player could trigger the attachment. This would see them resolve the ability as if they had played it—however, they are not separately triggering the event’s ability so Hantei’s interrupt could not be used. If Togashi Mitsu triggers his ability, Hantei could interrupt Mitsu’s ability (to choose which card gets played) or he could interrupt the event card that gets played (to choose the targets of that event). He does not get to do both. [Tyler Parrott, Jan 24 2019] Yes, Hantei 38 can interrupt because any number of targets could be 1 or more. [Tyler Parrott, Apr 10 2019] Essentially, the original statement from Kisada (that “triggering” an ability starts at step 3) is generally correct—steps 1 and 2 are only there as a check to ensure you don’t attempt to take a game action you could not legally take. However, step 4 (when Tenkinja would normally have an effect) is dependent upon step 2, and step 5 (when Hantei would normally have an effect) is dependent upon step 1. Therefore those abilities need to trigger slightly earlier than they normally would to ensure they function properly. [Tyler Parrott, Feb 19 2019]

Unmask (and Apprentice Earthcaller) will set Iron Crane Legion’s military skill to 0, as their effects see “X” as the printed value (and X has no inherent numerical value). Because it cannot be modified by non-set effects, per “set” rules, Iron Crane Legion’s constant ability that defines X cannot modify it away from anything other than 0. [Tyler Parrott, Sep 13 2019]