Traditions of Steel

Legend of the Five Rings card from Glory of the Empire

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Card Text

As a Focus Effect: Before this duel's resolution, raise the Focus Value of each of your focused cards to 3.
Battle: Choose your performing opposed Samurai: Before this battle's resolution, raise his Force to 6.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Destroyer War (Celestial), Race for the Throne (Samurai)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: I think his explanation is going to cause a lot of problems (no offense to Zen).
  A: A little offense from time to time keeps me honest. Zen Faulkes, "Traditions of Steel vs Low Stance", 27 Jul 2009
• Q: While the active player does get to decide the order of Focus Effects, is it not true that these two cards have a very specific timing for their Focus Effects? Or would the active player get to decide that an opponents Low Stance resolves, and then they get to resolve their own Weigh the Cost, thus essentially having the Low Stance do nothing?
  A: Weigh the Cost has different text, which in turn gives it a different timing than the other cards in question. The effect of Low Stance will always be applied after Weigh the Cost.
  It is true that the relevant "active player chooses" section of the rules is the timing section of the wiki rather than the duels section, which I'd initially included. Zen Faulkes, "Traditions of Steel vs Low Stance", 27 Jul 2009
• Q: While I agree with Zen's primary ruling, I think his explanation is going to cause a lot of problems (no offense to Zen). While the active player does get to decide the order of Focus Effects, is it not true that these two cards have a very specific timing for their Focus Effects? Or would the active player get to decide that an opponents Low Stance resolves, and then they get to resolve their own Weigh the Cost, thus essentially having the Low Stance do nothing?
  Low Stance Focus Effect: Before this duel’s resolution, negate all bonuses to each focused card’s Focus Value.
  Traditions of Steel Focus Effect: Before this duel’s resolution, raise the Focus Value of each of your focused cards to 3.
  Weigh the Cost Focus Effect: Add 1 to the Focus Values of this card and one other of your focused cards.
  A: Weight the Cost's Focus Effect has a different timing than both Low Stance and Traditions of Steel.
  Weigh The Cost's Focus Effect will always occur before Low Stance and Traditions of Steel, as they are worded to act after all other Focus Effects occur (as the Focus Effect of Low Stance and Traditions of Steel happen "Before the Duel's Resolution" which is after all normal Focus Effects.
  The active player does get to decide the order in which all Low Stances and Traditions of Steel occur, however. Dan Jacobson, "Traditions of Steel vs Low Stance", 27 Jul 2009
• Q: (Does Traditions of Steel) trump Low Stance since its Force bonus happens just slightly after Stance's penalty?
  A: Yes. Zen Faulkes, "Traditions of Steel vs Low Stance", 26 Jul 2009
• Q: As for the Focus Effects, would it matter who focused them?
  A: The active player chooses the order of Focus Effects (http://rules.l5r.com/Challenges_and_duels), so yes. Zen Faulkes, "Traditions of Steel vs Low Stance", 26 Jul 2009
• Q: If the two cards were both focused by the same player, would they happen simultaneously, and then would Low Stance negate the bonus from Traditions?
  A: "Simultaneously"? Blasphemer! Again, "All Focus Effect traits on focused cards resolve, one after the other, in an order chosen by the active player" (http://rules.l5r.com/Challenges_and_duels). Zen Faulkes, "Traditions of Steel vs Low Stance", 26 Jul 2009
• Q: A quick question: If I focus both Traditions of Steel and Hamstrung, I decide to reduce Hamstrung to 0, so that I gain 4 honor. What happens next?
  Will Traditions of Steel set Hamstrung back to 3: In which case I only gain 1 honor?
  Will Traditions of Steel Set Hamstrung back to 3: In which case I still gain the 4 honor?
  Will Traditions not work at all, and Hamstrung is sitting at 0?
  A: Hamstrung's Focus Effect reduces its focus value immediately, whereas Tradition of Steel's raises focus values as a delayed effect. Regardless of the order the Focus Effects resolve, Hamstrung's reduction happens before Tradition of Steel's raise: you gain 4 honour from Hamstrung, then its focus value is raised to 3. Alex Jones, "Traditions of Steel with Hamstrung", 1 Jul 2009
• Q: Both Three-stone River and the battle action on Traditions of Steel are played during a battle: What order do the respective card's delayed effects resolve? What section of the comprehensive rules covers the timing of this situation?
  Thank you.
  A: Both actions create delayed effects that resolve "Before this battle’s resolution", so step D of Resolving timing conflicts applies:
  D. Apply any delayed effects or indefinite conditional effects that resolved previously and are timed to the trigger (such as, “After the next time this turn he assigns…” or "After each time this turn a Personality assigns...") The active player decides the order in which more than one of these effects apply. If different sources each give multiple delayed or indefinite conditional effects to the same trigger, the active player decides which source's effects apply first, but multiple such effects from the same source all happen before such effects from the next source happen.
  The emphasised text answers your question. Alex Jones, "Tradition of Steel vs Three-stone River", 27 Feb 2009