Fires of Retribution

Legend of the Five Rings card from Gold Edition, Scorpion Clan Coup 3

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Fire

Card Text

Reaction: After a Spell action resovles: Destroy the Spell.
Reaction: After an ability on a Shugenja resolves: Give him -2C.

Focus Value

4

Legality

Clan Wars (Imperial), Four Winds (Gold)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• When reacting to an innate ability, the -2C does not occur until after the ability is fully resolved. [DW, 20 February 1998] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 17
• Cannot be used to destroy a kiho, as it destroys a "spell card". [card text and FAQ 3.8] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 27

Rules Q&A

• Q: Another question. Say an opposing player has her Scorpion Shugenja with Secrets on the Winds target and dishonor one of your bowed personalities can you play Fires of Retribution to destroy the spell Secrets on the Winds? Fires of Retribution reads: Elemental Reaction: After a Spell creates a Spell effect, destroy the Spell. Elemental Reaction: After a Shugenja uses an innate ability, lower the Shugenja's Chi by 2.
  A: Yes. Jeff Alexander, "post for 5 April 2002 pt. 1", 5 Apr 2002
• Q: One of the main reasons I definitely want to stay away from considering these as actions that are sorta printed on the personality is all the problems that come with printed actions and shugenja. Would the Lessons action be considered an innate ability? Can you use Fires of Retribution in response to it? Does it count for Ring of Air? Things really start to get messy at that point, and I think it's just much simpler to make the floating actions (other than Tactician) target their performers.
  Does this imply that a Shugenja/Tactician (of which I believe there is only one naturally occurring in the game, Moto Notu) is performing an innate ability when he uses his Tactician trait?
  A: No! That's exactly what I was trying to stay away from! Tactician is *not* an action printed on the card of the Tactician, it's just a floating action that can only be used to give that personality a force bonus. Doesn't target, isn't printed on the personality.
  Look at it this way. Each Tactician generates a floating action that says 'Battle: Once per battle, discard a card from your hand to give this Tactician a force bonus equal to the focus value of the discard.' Each Tac generates one of those, and you choose which action you're using whenever you activate a specific Tactician's trait. It's still not printed on the card, though, so it doesn't count as an innate ability. Better? Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for November 27th", 27 Nov 2000