Mask of the Maw

Legend of the Five Rings card from Heaven & Earth

Card Type

Item

Force

+1

Chi

+1

Gold Cost

4

Keywords

Experienced Mask of the Oni, Unique, Shadowlands

Card Text

After this Item enters play, lose 3 Honor.
Repeatable Battle/Open, w: Copy all abilities that do not themselves copy abilities from a target Oni Personality onto this Personality. You may also choose that the target's controller may not use any of its abilities.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Four Winds (Gold), Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Is the Mask of the Maw an oni card ?
  A: Yes. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 13 November 2003, Part 2", 14 Nov 2003
• Q: Also similar question with Chiyeko with the Mask of the Maw and a clan sword attached and the first oni in play. Could she in theory copy the First oni and continue to challenge samurai personalities all day?
  First Oni reads. The First Oni bows to challenge a Samurai. Discard your Fate deck's top card. If the Samurai's Personal Honor exceeds the card's Focus value, the Samurai must accept the challenge. If The First Oni loses the duel, destroy both personalities.
  A: Yes. Jeff Alexander, "post for 16 May 2003", 21 May 2003
• Q: If the Mask of the Maw is used to copy The Maw's ability to send a person home from the battle, can the personality that gains the ability actually use it if they do not have the Tactician trait?
  No.
  Sorry, Jeff, but I would like to have an explanation on this.
  A: An action that counts as a use of Tactician is used instead of the standard Battle action of discarding a card for a Force bonus that Tacticians can take. Since only a Tactician can do that, only a Tactician can do something that's used instead of that. Jeff Alexander, "post for 25 April 2003", 26 Apr 2003
• Q: If the Mask of the Maw is used to copy The Maw's ability to send a person home from the battle, can the personality that gains the ability actually use it if they do not have the Tactician trait?
  A: No. Jeff Alexander, "post for 24 April 2003", 25 Apr 2003
• Q: I know it was just answered whether P'an Ku can copy abilities infinitely, but it was left vague to not spoil the combo.
  Assuming the combo goes:
  PanKu, an oni, and a copy of the Mask of the Maw are in play
  Pan Ku copies the Oni trait
  Then the Mask wearer copies P'anKu's ability to copy on the next turn
  The dragon copies immediately the ability back and then using the new copy, copies the copying ability.
  Repeating the last step over and over, you get infinite copies of the copy.
  *edit:* Reformatted for easier reading.
  That's where the combo gets weird. If I use the last ability in the chain, to copy to something else, that's fine. However, if I do that and then copy using the second to last copying ability in the chain, the final ability to copy on the copying chain goes away. Does the copied ability at the end of the chain go away too? I think this has been fuzzy for a lot of people now due to page 68 of the rulebook where it says "if a copied ability is lost, remove from the game any tokens it created and end any effect it produced whose duration depends on its own card". Does that apply to the copying abilities?
  I hope I explained that well enough.
  A: Answered here. Martin Lund, "P'an Ku infinite copying", 17 Mar 2005
• Q: From Death of Ryoshun:
  "Until the beginning of your next turn, actions on the cards with that title may not be used."
  Does this also refer to actions copied from that card?
  Does it affect identical actions on cards with other names?
  Examples:
  P'an Ku copies Saemon's ability to react to being targeted. Saemon is named with Death of Ryoshun. Can P'an Ku still use the reaction?
  Chimamire no Oni is named with Death of Ryoshun. Then Personality Bob uses Mask of the Maw to copy Chimamire no Oni's ability (after Death has been used). Can Bob use the Chimamire's ability?
  Bob has the ability "Battle: Bow for a ranged 3 attack"
  Fred also has the ability "Battle: Bow for a ranged 3 attack"
  Bob is named with Death of Ryoshun. Can Fred not use his ability because he has the same action as one on the card named Bob?
  Thanks,
  Leon
  A: No. No. Zen Faulkes, "Death of Ryoshun clarification", 17 Mar 2005
• Q: Hi,
  Can Depths of Jigoku be used to go fetch the Mask of the Maw XP?
  A: It is an Oni card. It has the "Mask," "Oni," and "Experienced" traits all out of that phrase.
  Experienced Traits do not have a special exemption from the Keyword Rule on pages 63 and 64 of the Diamond Edition Rulebook. Martin Lund, "Mask of the Maw XP + Depths of Jikogu", 12 Mar 2005