Severed from the Emperor

Legend of the Five Rings card from Samurai Edition, Crimson and Jade, Lotus Edition, Ivory Edition

Card Type

Event

Card Text

You cannot win an Honor Victory or control the Imperial Favor. You have the ability, "Repeatable Interrupt: Negate a Favor action after it targets your cards (the Imperial Favor is still discarded). Lose 5 Honor."
Open: Put this Event into play. Discard the Imperial Favor if you control it.

Legality

A Brother's Destiny (Ivory Edition), A Brother's Destiny (Twenty Festivals), Age of Enlightenment (Lotus), Clan Wars (Imperial), Race for the Throne (Samurai)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rulings

• Can be used by a Clan that cannot win an Honor Victory. [DW, 15 April 1997] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 76
• Can be used by a Clan which cannot achieve an Honor Victory. "The card doesn't require you to renounce an honor victory in order to establish the rest of the effects of the card - it just lists not being able to win through an honor victory as one of the effects." [DW, l5rinfo, 4/15/97] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 52
• Accumulated Rulings Accumulated Rulings, April 22, 1998, p. 30
• Erratum: Reads, “Severed From the Emperor Discard the Imperial Favor if you control it. Until the game ends, you cannot win an Honor Victory, lobby, or control the Imperial Favor, and you have the ability, “Reaction: Any number of times per turn, after an action with a base cost of discarding the Favor targets one of your cards: Lose 5 Honor. Negate the action’s effects.”” [MRP, Samurai Edition, 25 July 2007] Comprehensive Rules, Samurai Edition, with specific card rulings, final version, May 2009, p. 154

Rules Q&A

• Q: Severed from the Emperor will *not* protect your cards from the Underhand.
  All right, if the Underhand isn't a use of the Imperial Favor... why is it a Political action?
  A: The crux of the matter is that Severed from the Emperor negates the *EFFECTS* of the Favor. It does not prevent the Favor from being used to pay a cost.
  Discarding the Favor as a cost for an action makes the action Political, but it does not make all of that action's effects to be considered a use of the Imperial Favor, as it is for Imperial Edicts or Ikoma Tsanuri (Experienced), for example. I don't think anyone has explicitly noticed or stated that slight divergence before. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 31 July 2001", 1 Aug 2001
• Q: Depends on the deck that needs to guard against the favour. Severed from the Emperor and Kachiko's Kiss give strong protection against it and are useful otherwise, but really only in SL.
  A: Just a note here. Severed from the Emperor will *not* protect your cards from the Underhand. Discarding a card from an opponent's hand doesn't count as a use of the Favor. Same reason you can't play C@C against an opponent's Arrival of the Emerald Champion, you can only play it against his discard of the Favor as a cost. Just because the Favor is discarded as part of a card's effect doesn't make it a use of the Favor (Command of the Kami, anyone?). Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for July 30th", 30 Jul 2001
• Q: 8. A player must renounce his honor victory to benefit from Severed From the Emperor. I think either a Horde player would be unable to renounce to Severed From the Emperor, or else when they renounce they should be targetable by Sign of Weakness. Is this correct?
  A: Renouncing your honor victory is not a cost of the effect on Severed, just another effect. Also, a Horde player resolving Severed is not a legal target for Sign of Weakness (though a player with an actual honor victory is). You can't lose what you don't have. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for November 27th", 27 Nov 2000
• Q: Hello,
  If I negate an action with Severed from the Emperor and i have a Shrine of the Colonies in play, will I lose 5 honor or 4 honor?
  Cheers!
  Severed from the Emperor: You cannot win an Honor Victory or control the Imperial Favor. You have the ability, "Repeatable Interrupt: Negate a Favor action after it targets your cards (the Imperial Favor is still discarded). Lose 5 Honor."
  Shrine of the Colonies: Reduce all Honor losses from your cards by 1, to a minimum of 1.
  I mainly ask because I don't know if me losing 5 honor is a requirement of the interrupt. or after I lose 5, I can reduce to 4.
  A: You'll only lose 4. There's no need to lose the full 5 for Severed from the Emperor's negation effect to occur. Jon Palmer, "Shrine of the Colonies + Severed from the Emperor", 9 Apr 2015
• Q: Can I move Personality with Iron Armor attached using action granted by Accessiable Terrain?
  My first thought was no, as Iron Armor ignores card effects, but after reading them carefully I am not so sure anymore. Accessiable Terrain is only source of player ability to move into armies and player abilities are not restricted by Iron Armor's trait. So technically question is: Is player ability granted by a card (e.g. Combat at Court, Accessiable Terrain, Severed from the Emperor) considered to be a card effect?
  A: Since the ability is granted by Accessible Terrain, it is a card effect, and Iron Armor will stop it. Jon Palmer, "Accessiable Terrain vs. Iron Armor", 27 Mar 2015
• Q: Wanted to post this to get confirmation that it works and to show how broken it is!
  Turn 1 Flip Severed From the Emperor Bring it into play and react with the interrupt for 5 honor loss.. Mulligan all cards in my provinces and interrupt for 5 more honor loss. Use the Dynasty action to discard each card from my province interrupting each for 5 honor loss.
  End turn under -20 and opponent wins on my first turn.
  Totally unfair, game breaking combo that was allowed to get through the PDT and ruined my Kotei season. Dishonor is overpowered. FLIP TABLE! RAGE-QUIT L5R!
  [EDIT] Okay sarcasm aside, my question is on the legality of the very first part: Using the interrrupt while the card enters play. There has not been an update to ruling made on on False Ring of Fire at http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic. ... &p=1412442. This was my failed attempt at humor.
  Mod Edit: Changed the title of the question to reflect the actual question. -Ryushi
  A: If you have a legitimate rules concern you're trying to bring up with this ludicrous example, please do so in another thread and with actual examples.
  Otherwise, please refrain from these trolling posts in the official L5R Rules Question forum. Ben Higgins, "Severed from the Emperor and it's Interrupt", 25 Mar 2014
• Q: I figured that because Severed From the Emperor interrupt triggers off of a favor action, it should meet the requirements of Ring of Air.
  A: No, sorry. Severed From the Emperor's granted ability is not "Favor" itself (doesn't have the "Favor" keyword preceding its action designator), so it does not count for the Ring of Air's play requirements. Brook Cunningham, "Ring of Air + Severed From The Emperor + Imperial Summons", 22 Mar 2014
• Q: 2) My opponent attempts to play Imperial Summons against me when I have Severed From the Emperor in play. He however bows his stronghold to do this (therefore not using the Favor). I attempt to react with Severed From the Emperor.
  Q3) If a substitute action is taken that is equivalent to discarding the favor, can Severed from the Emperor be used?
  A: Well, let's start by saying that Severed From the Emperor's granted ability can Interrupt any action, if you want to lose 5 Honor for the fun of it. Its negation effect, will then just fail, unless the action you Interrupt is Favor and it then targets your cards.
  That said, yes, Severed CAN negate Summons no matter how the other player chooses to the fulfill the conditions of the effect. All Severed cares about that the action has the "Favor" keyword and that it then targets your card(s); after that, boom, negated. Brook Cunningham, "Ring of Air + Severed From The Emperor + Imperial Summons", 22 Mar 2014
• Q: My question is about the interaction of these two cards:
  Battle: You may discard the Imperial Favor: Move a target enemy Personality home. If you paid this action's optional cost, gain 2 Honor. and Reaction: Any number of times per turn, after an action with a base cost of discarding the Favor targets one of your cards: Lose 5 Honor. Negate the action’s effects.”
  Two questions really: 1. If they do pay the cost and I use the ability the entire ability would be negated including the send-home. (y/n) 2.They don't pay the optional cost but I can still use the ability because its an optional cost on the action. (y/n)
  A: The cost, although optional, is still printed in ink on the card, and is thus a base cost of the action.
  You may use the action from Severed from the Emperor if Imperial Decree targets you, regardless of whether or not the player playing the card discards the Favor as part of the optional cost or not. Dan Jacobson, "Severed from the Emperor and Imperial Decree", 22 Feb 2009
• Q: Is "discarding the Imperial Favor" still a base cost of Imperial Summons (thus qualifying it for the reaction granted by Severed From the Emperor) if the player of Imperial Summons chooses to bow his stronghold?
  Imperial Summons: Political Open: Bow your Stronghold or discard the Imperial Favor: Bow a target Personality.
  Severed From The Emperor's granted ability: Reaction: Any number of times per turn, after an action with a base cost of discarding the Favor targets one of your cards: Lose 5 Honor. Negate the action's effects.
  A: Yes. It is a base cost of the card and that doesn't change just because you have multiple costs to pay or cost options to choose from. Martin Lund, "Severed from the Emperor vs Imperial Summons", 3 Mar 2008
• Q: Can a jagged maw player use the reaction loose 5 honor to negate a political action from severed from the emperor?
  A: Yes. Thus it has been for, oh, 11 years. (Though it was admittedly Yogo Junzo's Army back then.) Zen Faulkes, "Severed from the Emperor", 22 Jan 2008
• Q: So this also came up last night: Kachiko's kiss/severed from the emperor. How do these interact with effects that are not actually the favor? E.g., hidden catacombs of the scorpion We played that they both effected the same but reading kachiko's kiss on Oracle it seems like it might not? And one more Haha sorry for the barrage: Gozoku sensei: until you next discard the imperial favor for the condition upon an effect, etc.
  I was interpreting this to mean "the condition" to mean the condition of gozoku senseis ability. Not any favor use at all.
  But it's a little unclear on Oracle text. So does that mean using the favor for anything ends the effect?
  A: I'll look. Brook Cunningham, "Oracle of the Void #rules", 6 Jun 2021