L5R CCG Watch List

As part of the never-ending process of improving the L5R CCG tournaments as competitive events, AEG is announcing the creation of a formal Watch List of cards we feel may be unduly influencing the play environment. This list will be updated monthly, with all cards on it eventually either being removed from the Watch List or receiving balancing errata once we have had time to ascertain the card's true status. Such errata will also be announced monthly, and will typically have a one month lead time before any goes into effect.

Chitik
Change cost in trait to "bowing and dishonoring Chitik".
Full text:

You may not create Personalities. You may play Action cards in any discard piles with an additional cost of bowing and Dishonoring Chitik
Remove cards played this way from the game instead of discarding them.

Gift of Rice
Add "If you control the Holding, it can't straighten untill after your next straighten phase."
Full text:

Open: Straighten a target Holding. Until the beginning of your next turn, all Personalities controlled by other players have +1F. If you control the Holding, it can't straighten untill after your next straighten phase.

Shadowed Path to Victory
No change at this time, but remains on the Watch List.

Unexpected Find
New text:

Reaction: After you overpay a Gold cost by 1 or more Gold: Put this card into play in your home bowed. Draw a card during your next End Phase. Reaction: When bowing a Holding to produce gold, bow and discard this card from your home. Produce 1 Gold.

Sezaru's Burden
Removed from Watch List.

Rosoku Sensei
Despite not previously being on the Watch List, after watching it at Gencon and smaller events we are issuing this errata immediately:

All Clans Sensei
While this Sensei is in play, it counts as an Elemental Ring for actions on cards. You can only put cards in your hand from effects of your cards once per phase.

All changes listed above will be in effect for the World Championships. No new cards are appearing on the Watch List, so Shadowed Path to Victory is the only card currently on the Watch List. The next planned update to the Watch List will be shortly after the World Championships.

The following cards have immediate errata and/or clarifications:
Teaching Stick
Costs 2 gold.

The Darkened Path
Any conditions and game states on the Rings before removal are reapplied after they return.

Moto Akikazu
The additional cost only applies to the targeted Personality.
 

Well Laid Plans now has a gold cost of 2.

The Obi of Silence now has the following text:
This Personality cannot issue challenges.
Reaction: After this Personality is challenged, bow this card: Draw a card.
Limited: If your Fate deck is empty, even if this card is in your discard pile: Shuffle your Fate discard pile into your deck. Until the end of the game, you may not draw cards outside of your End Phase.

Effective 2/17/2006, the following three cards are played with the errata:
Rosoku's Staff
Weapon • Unique
Elemental Reaction: After playing a Ring from your hand via its own text, destroy this card: If you control exactly one Ring, search your Fate deck and hand for a Ring. Play it. While this Ring is in play, you may not win via Enlightenment.

Yojireru no Oni
May not be put under a Sensei. After this card enters play, target up to two Dead Personalities. This card copies an ability from each of them until it leaves play.
Limited: Remove a non-printed ability from this card: Once per turn, target a Dead Personality. This card permanently copies an ability from the target.

No Victory
Now has a gold cost of 3.

Effective with the release date of Lotus Edition, the Daidoji Armor is to be played by the following errata:

Its Reaction is only legal if you control at least one unit in your current army (in addition to the requirements stipulated on the card).

This change allows the opponent an opportunity that does not currently exist to defeat the Armor's use, while at the same time taking the change to the definition of "army" in Lotus Edition into account and preserving a limitation that the Armor should have arguably had in Diamond by a strict reading of the rules.

Archive

Warrens of the One Tribe (Enemy of My Enemy)

Effective June 30th, the Warrens will play according to the following text:

You begin the game with three Provinces. Once per phase, you may play a Fate card in any discard pile as if it were in your hand. Fate cards you have played are removed from the game if they are ever in a discard pile.
Limited: Target and bow a Ratling Personality you control: Once per turn, lose 1 Honor. Discard the top card of each Fate deck.

The Warrens forms the basis of a number of powerful decks that are dominating at all levels of play by virtue of unprecedented access to large quantities of their own Fate cards. This errata addresses this advantage by restricting how many cards the player may play from locations other than his hand.

The following errata are all effective immediately, as they all address mechanical problems and not environmental issues.

Tamori Shiki Exp. (Enemy of My Enemy)
His Reaction is usable once per phase.

Moto Akikazu (Enemy of My Enemy)
His Limited ability is usable once per turn.

Togashi Shunsen (1,000 Years of Darkness)
He is now Loyal.

Shiki and Akikazu form the basis of abusive combos in their printed form.

The errata to Shunsen is to remove the encouragement to bring unmanageable yet legal decks containing hundreds of cards to formal events.

Effective April 1st, the ability on Doji Saori (Web of Lies) should be played by the following text. This is ERRATA:

Open: Bow Saori: Once per turn, target Saori or an unbowed Duelist you control, and a Personality another player controls. Your Personality issues the other an unrefusable challenge. The loser bows and may not straighten until his controller takes an Open action to pay 4 Gold.

The Watch List was created to keep an eye on cards that were unduly influencing L5R's play environment. That covers more than whether a card or strategy is simply too strong. We do not feel Doji Saori is a critical component of an unbeatable deck. Saori-based dueling decks do not have an unacceptably high victory percentage in the overall field of competitive play. However, it has become apparent that Saori is nonetheless harmful to L5R as a game. She provides for a denial-based deck that is easy to build and play, is resistant to metagame effects and play mistakes, and is difficult and frustrating to face at many levels of play.

With Saori's removal from the Watch List, it currently stands empty.

Effective December 1st, the first line of Kyuden Bayushi will read as:

You must have two different Winds.

(Thus, it will not be legal to reveal Gozoku Sensei with this Stronghold.)

There is no errata to Gozoku Sensei. It is being removed from the Watch List, effective immediately.