City of Blood

Legend of the Five Rings card from Web of Lies

Card Type

Stronghold

Province Strength

6

Gold Production

4

Starting Family Honor

0

Clan

Phoenix

Card Text

Phoenix Clan Shugenja you control have Bloodspeaker.
You ignore Honor Requirements when bringing Phoenix Clan Shugenja into play.
Maho Limited: Bow your target performing Bloodspeaker Personality to look at the top four cards of your Fate deck. You may show one that is a Spell or Maho card, then put it in your hand. You may shuffle the deck.

Legality

Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Pre-Game

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: For the purposes of Seek the Path, does the City of Blood's effect count as searching your deck?
  Seek the Path: Kiho Reaction: Target one of your unbowed shugenja or monks before a player searches his or her deck fate for a card to force that player to draw the top card of his or her fate deck instead. Draw a card.
  City of Blood: Maho Limited: Bow a Bloodspeaker personality you control: Once per turn, look at the top 4 cards of your fate deck. You may show one spell or maho card, then put it in your hand. You may shuffle the deck.
  A: City of Blood does not search your deck. Martin Lund, "Rules for 29 January 2005", 4 Feb 2005
• Q: Our playgroup has been reveling in the glorious carnage of the Big Deck Highlander format for a year or two--"There can be only one!" It's great to be able to play with those dusty old cards from aeons ago. Here's the situation:
  Phoenix Clan player is using the City of Blood stronghold with the Iuchiban Sensei, giving him a starting family honor of -2. He's got plenty of cards dealing honor losses to himself which will trigger Nexus of Lies: "Before another, non-Spider Clan player loses Honor from a card he owns, increase the loss by an amount equal to half his Starting Family Honor, rounded down."
  We've been playing it as if the starting family honor were zero, with no additional honor loss, because it didn't seem quite right that Nexus of Lies could result in an honor gain.
  Yorishiku o-negai shimasu, Isawa Jeff, Phoenix Clan Instigator Watakushi wa Watakushi desu.
  A: This is essentially correct, but there are real Rules reasons why it works this way.
  Nexus specifically says it causes a player to "lose" Honor, so trying to lose a negative amount wouldn't result in a gain, in the same way that if you have an effect on a 5F Personality that says, "Raise his Force to equal the Force of another Personality in his army". If your only other Personality has less than 5F, you can't "raise" it to a lower number, so nothing would happen. Brook Cunningham, "City of Blood + Iuchiban Sensei + Nexus of Lies", 13 Aug 2015
• Q: According to the EE Special Wording Rules, it appears that City of Blood now works as one assumes was intended. That is, you can benefit from Kinuye's Garden and meet the conditions of Iuchiban Sensei on any Phoenix Clan Shugenja when bringing one into play, rather than just those with the base Bloodspeaker keyword. I recall this being an issue in the past, but I must ask if my assessment is correct?
  A: The use of "your" does not override the fact that effects normally cannot affect cards that are out of play.
  However the rules on effects in and out of play do state that effects affect your cards while they are in an entering play area. Since Personalities enter the entering-play area before you pay for them, both Kinuye's Garden and Iuchiban Sensei will treat your Phoenix Clan Shugenja as having the Bloodspeaker trait while buying them. Jon Palmer, "City of Blood", 27 Mar 2012
• Q: Alright I saw the ruling on this earlier in the forum but was hoping for a more extended answer to it. According to the rule book for bringing cards into play (Quoted Below) You first bring a card into play observing all restrictions, chose all targets if need be, and then you pay costs.
  A: See Archive, general, Entering play.
  You're overinterpreting the rulebook. The "you must bring it into play" is a reference back to the phrase, "Before you use a card." The first part of the sequence is "observing all restrictions." Yes, it could be clearer. Zen Faulkes, "City of Blood", 25 Mar 2005
• Q: Just looking to verify that the stonghold only makes Phoenix clan Shugenja bloodspeakers after they come into play?
  A: Correct. "Phoenix Clan Shugenja you control have the Bloodspeaker trait." [card text] Cards not in play have no controller. [DE p. 55] Jeff Alexander, "Re: City of Blood", 5 Mar 2005
• Q: This would mean that Kinuye's Garden would only produce 4 gold for those personalities which already have the bloodspeaker trait on them while they are in your province waiting to be purchased during dynasty and not for just any Phoenix shugenja in the province right?
  A: Right. Jeff Alexander, "Re: City of Blood", 5 Mar 2005