Kage Sensei

Legend of the Five Rings card from Ambition's Debt

Card Type

Sensei

Province Strength

+0

Gold Production

+0

Starting Family Honor

-2

Keywords

All Clans

Card Text

Your Kolat Personalities in and out of play have your Clan Alignment.
Your Kolat Personalities have the abilities, "Limited: Bow this Personality to give a target Personality a Sleeper token." and "Reaction: Before the resolution of an action performed by a Personality with a Sleeper token, bow this Personality and destroy a Sleeper token on the performing Personality to negate the action's effects."

Focus Value

2

Legality

Hidden Emperor (Jade)

Deck

Pre-Game

Printings

Rulings

• Kolat Personalities acquire your Clan's trait. [Reversal]. This: Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 141
• Applies continually to all Kolat Personalities you control and in your deck, Provinces, and discard piles. A card that changes controllers or traits may gain or lose your alignment. Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 141
• Is not considered swearing fealty. Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 141
• Ratling Personalities fully acquire your Clan's trait. [REVERSAL]. This effect applies continually to all Ratling Personalities under your control and in your deck, Provinces, and discard piles. A card which changes controllers or traits may gain or lose your alignment. This effect is not considered swearing fealty. Shadowlands faction players are excluded from the "pay 2g less or gain honor" option when purchasing Personalities. [rulebook] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 1
• With respect to the Heart of the Shinomen Forest Stronghold: Does not allow you to build a deck with 4 copies of Ratling cards. Your deck must be legal before Sensei are chosen. [l5rinfo, 2/3/2000] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 1
• Note that only cards with the printed Naga trait are automatically Nonhuman. [Ibid.] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 1
• Q: Speaking of Sensei, are my Kolat and Ratlings Shadowlands cards if a Shadowlands player brings them into play using Kage Sensei or Ak'tok'tuk Sensei? A: No. They gain the "Shadowlands Horde" trait. This term is not separable and is not equivalent to "Shadowlands." This is true if you're playing Sepulcher of Bone and The Spawning Ground, too, not just the Shadowlands Horde Stronghold itself. The Imperial Herald, Issue 16, p. 12
• Focus on Kage Sensei and At'tok'tuk Sensei: There has been some confusion (even within the design team) how these two sensei cards exactly work. As of February 1, 2000, both senseis will work as follows: When you have one of these two sensei cards in play, they grant your clan trait onto all of your Kolat/Ratling Personalities in your deck. This is a REVERSAL of a ruling made on the l5rinfo listserver. The original ruling was more in line with the original intent of the cards, but was confusing and counter-intuitive to the players. This reversal/ruling should be much easier for everyone to understand and apply. The Imperial Herald, Issue 14, p. 46

Rules Q&A

• Q: Void dragon reads
  Reaction Elemental: If a Province is destroyed when the Void Dragon is in the attacking army, the defending player must discard all cards from his or her Fate Hand
  ok so here's my question, if my opponent is running Kage Sensei and puts a Kolat token on my Dragon, i attack take his province and go to discard his hand he cancels it, can i take that reaction again or has the trigger been changed, i've read the rule book backwars to forwards and cant figure it out
  A: The trigger is the destruction of the Province while the Void Dragon is in the attacking army. Does anything on the Void Dragon or Kage Sensei say anything about preventing that Province from being destroyed? No. So, the trigger is still there, so everyone is still allowed to use Reactions to it getting destroyed -- including the Void Dragon's reaction, which doesn't count as having been used yet because it was canceled. Jeff Alexander, "post for 6 May 2002", 7 May 2002
• Q: Also, does this mean that the book could conceivably cancel the sleeper token ability granted by Kage Sensei?
  A: That ability is on Kolat Personalities, so it's going to be a Kolat action. Yes. Jeff Alexander, "replies to 6-9 July 2001", 19 Jul 2001
• Q: This event states that the personality targeted is shuffled back into the deck and there gold cost is reduced to 0. No honor is gained from bringing these personalities into play. Do you still have to meet the honor requirement of a personality who was targeted by this event?
  A: There are no changes besides the 0 gold cost and lack of honor gain. You still have to meet minimum honor. Jeff Alexander, "Rulings for 15-16 February 2001", 19 Feb 2001
• Q: Also, just for clarification, if a Ninja player is using Kage Sensei then the kolat personalities have the Ninja trait correct? Thereby being able to use the Night Medallion?
  A: Yes, they gain the "Ninja" trait because that's his Clan alignment trait, and yes -- especially since the Night Medallion can go on a Ninja or Kolat to begin with. Jeff Alexander, "Rulings for 15-16 February 2001", 19 Feb 2001
• Q: Ok I am confused...
  The accumulated rulings contains the following ruling on sensei: "Once the game begins, a player with -19 honor may freely play Sensei that changes starting family honor, as this does not affect current Honor. [FAQ 3.10]"
  OK, a scenario.
  I am playing Kosaten Shiro Crane, Kage Sensei.
  The game begins, I play Kage Sensei...and my starting honor drops to 4. What is my 'current' honor when I begin my first turn?
  A: If you're talking about your initial, free, start-of-the- game Sensei, then you play Kage Sensei first, and THEN the game begins, with you at a starting AND a current Family Honor of 4. Jeff Alexander, "Rulings for 22 January 2001", 25 Jan 2001
• Q: Another question with Journey's end keep and kage sensei. My kolat personalities have my clan aligment, that means I bring kolat personalities for 2 less gold because they would have both kolat and imperial?
  And can someone explain this part to me: When this Stronghold produces Gold, you may not Recruit Personalities until the phase ends or until after you have spent 5 total Gold for non-Recruit costs or payments
  If I am bowing the stronghold to buy, can I bring a personality first, before the other part activates? or I have to always spend 5 gold before I can bring personalities? If I need to spend the money first, can I bow the stronghold to produce 5 even if I am buying something that is worth only 2 for example?
  A: 1. No. "Kolat" is not a Clan Alignment. They would have to have something else that is a legal Clan Alignment for you to get the Discount for them also having "Imperial", per the Stronghold text.
  2+. This box was printed before Gold pooling in Ivory, but effectively, it is saying the 5 Gold it produces cannot be spent on Personalities, so it would be dumb to bow it when paying for a guy, because none of the Gold can go toward buying a guy. That's it. I worded it really cumbersomely in the Oracle text; in hindsight, I probably should have just said, "this Stronghold will only pay for non-Personality cards" or something? It's sort of the inverse of Gold that will only pay for a specific single card, so it was a diffcult thing to wrap one's head around, especially when Gold Pooling was a new thing at the time I was doing most Oracle texts. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 22 Jan 2025