Main changes in Rules
From Legend of the Five Rings Rules
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Main changes in Rules
Major rules changes from Samurai Edition to Celestial Edition
1a. New start to the game. Legacy holding rules are gone; all players start with a special, non-deck Holding in play (Border Keep) and players who aren't going first start with a bowed Bamboo Harvesters in play.
1b. New start to the game. Players start the game with six cards instead of five in hand.
See Sequence of play, Start of game.
2. Non-restrictive Uniqueness. Other players' Uniques do not restrict your ability to play your Unique. (As a consequence, Rings are no longer restricted to one per deck by the rules, but by the Unique keyword.) See Glossary, Unique and The Player, The play deck.
3. Dragon Clan Favor. As a reward for winning the Race for the Throne and seating Empress Iweko, Dragon Clan players start the game controlling the Imperial Favor if they are the only Dragon Clan player in the game. See The Imperial Favor.
4. Strategies. Action cards are now Strategy cards. “Action” now only refers to the game procedure and not a card type.
5. No Sharing. The Share player ability no longer exists.
6. Naval. The Naval Reaction has been further simplified; the action you get must now be performed by a Naval Personality, not a Follower. See Player abilities.
7. PH Max. Personal Honor now officially has an in-game maximum of 5.
8. Unit Force. Total Unit Force is now calculated including bowed Followers and Personalities, leading to more intuitive use of actions that check unit Force. Army Force is now what matters for battle resolution, and this still excludes bowed Followers and Personalities. See Glossary, Total Force.
9. Explicit Negation. In CE rules, all negation is explicitly stated with the word “negate.” There are only two levels of prevention: negation, and “do not/will not,” which is used to prevent negation and other effects in a more definitive way. "Can not/cannot" is not used in card text. See Prevention (including negation).
10. Battlefield Control Changes. A Personality who changes control while in an army now immediately joins his new controller’s side, instead of making the long trek to his new controller’s home.
11. Timing. Timing has been simplified to three steps (prevention/substitution of trigger, non-Reaction triggered procedures, Reactions). Timing rules for duel consequences have been simplified. There are also no special timing rules for assigning after Maneuvers.
12. Partial negation. Partial negation and other rules limiting stat changes such as “cannot raise” have been replaced by a rule that can break gains/losses into two when faced with limits on a total amount of gain/loss; see the exception in Family Honor.
13. Keyword inheritance. Keyword inheritance between abilities and cards now goes both ways for all card types (from abilities to cards and vice versa), but not between abilities on the same card. See Card features, Abilities.
Minor technical rules changes in Celestial Edition
- Continuously applied instantaneous effects and “effects do not happen” are defined.
- Rules have been added to cover modification of changes to stats and values.
- Usage limits on triggered traits has been simplified.
- Conditional cost wording now uses “unless”.
- The tracking rule now interacts specially with shuffling.
- Play now explicitly proceeds to left after a change to who acts first.
- References such as “the card you bowed” have been clarified.
- Several rules about armies have been removed due to improved card wording.
- Action success has new application to prevention and negation effects.
- Transferring counts as attaching.
- Interference with costs consistently returns cards entering play to where they came from, but still uses up actions and discards Strategies.
Major functional changes to cards (MRP) in Celestial Edition
Imperial Census now resolves even if you control any Ninja or Shadowlands cards.
Diamond Mine now has a Gold Cost of 6.
Kakita Hideo (Experienced)'s Reaction may not be used unless both players have one or more focused cards.
Yoritomo Saburo (Experienced)'s Reaction has changed. Now it reads: Reaction: Even if Saburo is bowed, after the resolution of an action that moved one of your Naval Personalities: Straighten Saburo's unit and move him to the Naval Personality's location.
Isawa Kyoko (Non-experienced) now has an Honor Requirement of 6.
Daigotsu Gyoken (Non-experienced) now has a Personal Honor of 0.
Michio (Experienced)'s Reaction must target a Personality at Michio's location.
Pokku (Non-experienced) now has a Gold Cost of 4.
Holy Site's Reaction may be taken before the resolution of any battle or action or trait, even if its effects will not destroy this Region.
A Warrior's Patience's Reaction no longer targets your Paragon or Samurai with 4+ PH, so, for example, you cannot use Matsu Naomasa's Reaction (GotE).
Fury of the Dark Lord does not destroy Shadowlands Personalities.
Insight no longer allows you to take an additional Battle action from a Ring you find in the top 3 cards of the chosen Fate deck.
Justly Earned Victory and Shameful Injury no longer negate the Force bonuses and penalties from tokens created by actions. This is due to the way the new wording interacts with the Comprehensive Rules on negation effects.
Kata of the North Wind's granted Battle action can only straighten a Personality at the current battlefield.
Reinforce the Gates, Swift Counterattack and Monkey Magistrates no longer negate the effects of an action: they use "do not happen," which means that even effects that "will not be negated" do not happen.
Unexpected Intimidation no longer checks whether its consecutive effects are negated but if they happen or fail. For example, if you play Unexpected Intimidation on a bowed enemy Personality and his movement home is negated (e.g. with Blanketed Forest), the bowing effect fails because the Personality is already bowed, therefore Unexpected Intimidation destroys him.
Unwavering Assault is now performed by the targeted Samurai Personality.
Vengeance Cannot Wait reduces the targeted Personality's Gold cost by 6 instead of 7.
Yarijutsu has no targeting paradox; it is now performed by the Personality bearing the targeted Weapon.
Battle Maiden Troop's ability's Honor gain has been reduced to 2 and its Force bonus to +1F.
All five Rings are now Unique due to the changes in the rules about uniqueness.
Ring of Fire must be focused during a battle to be put into play by its own text.
Kyuden Hida's Reaction now draws you a card immediately, rather than during your next End Phase.
Seven Fold Palace's Political Open ability may no longer be used while this Stronghold is bowed.
Venerable Plains of the Ikoma's Battle action now bows an enemy Personality, not his whole unit.
The Utaku Plains no longer reads that your Personalities have a maximum Personal Honor of 5 because this is a rule in Celestial Edition.
Imperial Decree from Glory of the Empire has received a MRP with the release of Celestial Edition; you must already control the Imperial Favor to take its Battle action.
