Soshi Seika

Legend of the Five Rings card from Winds of Change

Card Type

Personality

Force

2

Chi

4

Honor Requirement

0

Gold Cost

7

Personal Honor

1

Clan

Scorpion

Keywords

Courtier, Scorpion Clan

Card Text

Reaction: After you announce a Political action: Remove the Political keyword from that action. If the action is on a card, also remove the Political keyword from that card.

Legality

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

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: I disagree.
  The key word for SoT is BEFORE a action is used. Not used. So before you initiate the action is when you play SoT. You told me the essentially same thing when using Soshi Seika in removing the political trait after playing a political action to prevent it being Outmanuvered by Force. The same thing also applies to Imperial Messenger which reads:
  Imperial Messenger (U Holding [FOU] SG SD): 0G Imperial Retainer * Political Reaction: Bow before a player plays a card that will cause that player an Honor loss. The player may discard the card instead of playing it. If it is played, increase the Honor loss by the printed loss amount. *
  Since Saori is straight when she starts the action and you are going BACK in time to BEFORE the action is played, Balance shouldnt be able to be played because this should be BEFORE the personality is bowed.
  Team of One
  ps yes I know IM says Bow instead of Use, but I disagree that its the key here, BEFORE is the key.
  A: The use of "before" versus "after" doesn't change what the trigger is. The difference only helps determine when Reactions are announced relative to other Reactions with the same trigger. But even a Reaction "before X" will come after a Reaction "after W" when X comes after W.
  An action is neither "used" nor "taken" until it is fully announced, targeted, and paid for. (And from that point, if it's canceled, that status is lost.) Reactions "before an action is used" do not backtrack to an earlier stage.
  Soshi Seika and Imperial Messenger either do nothing, are retroactive, or to be thoroughly correct should react before a player "announces" the card/action rather than before playing/taking it. (Thank you, Spycraft.) The third is least disruptive. Just because they have to be retroactive or explained is not a reason to judge other cards differently than the standard I've described in the last two paragraphs.
  The Player Design Team is discussing redefining "before an action is taken" to "before an action is announced" and "after an action is taken" as "after an action resolves". On the one hand, it looks more intuitive at first glance. On the other, that's not what the cards actually say. Plus, this change would impact nearly all Reactions in the game to playing a card or taking an action. Martin Lund, "Rules for 11 January 2005", 14 Jan 2005
• Q: Fine, then use Soshi Seika to remove the political trait from his action. What then? You will have more than one. =)
  A: [MARTY] Well, if you build a combo that keeps Kotoa from negating his own Action's effects, then sure, you can have more than one of the effect in play.
  They still won't "stack" in any appreciable manner. They only have any impact on the "next" Political Action played after Kotoa's ability is played. It will just be a bunch of redundant effects. They won't affect any action other than the next one after Kotoa's ability is played.
  Of course, if you had some means of preventing the Negation of your Political Action with some sort of Reaction, then multiple Kotoa plays might matter. Martin Lund, "Rules for 9 August 2004", 12 Aug 2004
• Q: If Soshi Seika is in play do I have to use the reaction?
  A: No. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 24 October 2003", 25 Oct 2003