7 Masters vs. the Underworld FAQ Last Modified: May 3, 2004 May 3: Added an entry for "We Need Bigger Guns!", and clarified the entries for Boundless Heaven Sword and Invincible Earth Sword. This FAQ addresses questions that we think people might possibly ask about the cards of 7 Masters vs. the Underworld. Some of them might be unlikely, and others obvious, but better safe than sorry. If you find an error in this document, have a suggestion for an addition, or just want to say hi, you can contact us by mail at: Z-Man Games, Inc. 6 Alan Drive Mahopac, NY 10541 Please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you'd like a reply. You can also reach us by email at rules@shadowfist.com. Compiled by Julian Lighton. Copyright 2004, Z-Man Games, Inc. All rights reserved. This document may be reproduced and distributed provided that no fee is charged for such reproduction and distribution, and that it is transmitted in its entirety, including this disclaimer. For all other uses, please contact Z-Man Games, Inc. for terms. 200 Guys With Hatchets and Ladders If, by using Probability Manipulator (or Incarnate Abstraction and a Mutator), you change the number in this card's title, you may play another one. When the effect wears off, you keep both of them. A BuroMil Grunt retrieved this way will have been "returned to play", which is not the same as being "played", so it will not smoke at the end of the turn. 401k Squad You must discard a card and force an opponent to discard, unless you have no cards in hand. Aerial Bombardment If there is more damage than can be distributed, the rest is wasted. You must distribute as much as you can, though. You may count either a talent or a faction resource. Ang Dao the Corrupt You may choose which of the weapons in play you want to move onto him, and you can take as many as you want. Ape Nuts If you are attacking with a Character who must attack alone, such as the Golden Gunman, the Ape Nuts cannot also be declared as attackers. Arcanoleech If you end up controlling the subject, you no longer get the extra Power. If the subject's controller skips Power generation, or suppresses it by playing Pocket Demon or the like, you don't get the Power. Balanced Harmonies Essentially, this lets you move the damage on your cards around, as long as you don't reduce anything's Body or Fighting to zero. You can't use Toughness and similar abilities to come out with less total damage than you started with. Damage that cannot be healed cannot be moved with this effect, and is taken into account when preventing you from reducing Body or Fighting to zero with your damage reallocation. If, by some strange means (most likely Cellular Reinvigoration), there is more damage than you can legally reallocate, the excess is lost. Baptism of Fire You may play this during other players' turns. You may play this during periods when normal effects cannot be generated, such as combat. If a Character's Fighting is reduced to zero, you can't play this on it before the Character is smoked. Beneficent Tao The Reload is free. You can't heal an undamaged Site just to get the resource. Blanket of Darkness This applies to non-combat damage as well as combat. (+X and -X damage are restricted to combat damage, but other bonuses and penalties are not.) Bloody Horde There are currently no other Demon Hordes. Boundless Heaven Sword You may still play this card through various cost-reduction abilities or return it to play as long as you pay the full price. You can ignore this card's resource conditions if some ability lets you. Brain Tap Rifle You may look at the player's hand or reveal a Site even if the damage is reduced or redirected. Buddha's Palm You may not inflict less than the maximum damage in order to toast fewer cards. Buro Scientist If you have multiple Buro Scientists, you can unturn multiple cards by playing one State or Event. Celestial Stance Once you've paid the Power, changing location in response will not avoid the damage. Chi Syphon The copied rules text remains even if the Site being copied is blanked or leaves play. If a Site is the subject of more than one Chi Syphon, none of them will blank the rules text being added by others; only the original text can be blanked this way. If a Site has multiple turning abilities, you can only generate one by turning the Site. (Turning is part of the cost, and you can't pay multiple costs with one game action.) If somebody seizes the Site, they may use the copied abilities. Cry of the Forgotten Ancestor You may cancel and smoke an Event. Curtain of Fullness You may play this on a player with fewer than three cards; they will discard what they can. Deep-Cover Rebels All your Characters may attack back-row Sites, not just the Deep-Cover Rebels. (They don't even need to be involved in the attack.) This doesn't allow opponents to join. If you lose the Deep-Cover Rebels after the attack has been declared, the attack continues. (It's legal to be attacking a back-row Site; it's just not legal to actually declare an attack on one.) Essence-Absorbing Stance If the subject cannot be healed, no damage will be inflicted. (This is not the same behavior as Rend Chi.) Feast of Souls You get the Power even if you smoke your own Characters. You do not get Power if you sacrifice Characters. (Sacrificing a card is not considered to be smoking it.) If multiple players have a Feast of Souls, and they all leave play simultaneously, use the simultaneous-play rules to determine where all the Power ends up. (Current player puts his triggered effects on the scene first, then the player to his left, and so on. Then everything resolves in reverse order. You are the one who generates the effect that gives your power to the next player.) Fighting Spirit Hacker may cancel this card even if there are no duplicate Events in the smoked pile; Hacker keys off the potential to toast, not whether anything will actually be toasted. Four Mountains Fist This will damage Characters protected by Iron and Silk. If an interceptor is no longer in play at the end of combat, you keep attacking, even if you did no combat damage to it. The State is the source of the damage. A Character that is also the subject of Hands Without Shadow can calculate the Hands damage, then inflict half of that to everybody. A Character that cannot have its damage reduced may inflict both its normal combat damage and Four Mountains Fist damage. Geomantic Spirit Returning a card to play is not considered to be "playing" it. You may return a Site to play even if you have already played a Site this turn, and returning a Site to play does not prevent you from playing a Site afterward. If this card enters play during an opponent's turn, you may still return a Site to play. Grey Mountain He is a Transformed Character himself, so starts out with five Fighting, and has Mobility while he is being attacked. Haunted Forest You always copy a card's printed rules text, ignoring whether the card's been blanked, modified, or is copying some other card. Technically, a Haunted Forest to the right of another Haunted Forest gets an infinite number of copies of Haunted Forest's ability. This has absolutely no effect on the game. Ho Chen The set-preview promotional copies of Ho Chen are considered to have his rules text: Unique. Superleap against opponents who have 3 or more cards in their hand. Once per turn, you may discard a card to do X damage to target Character about to enter combat with Ho Chen. X= the cost of the discarded card. Remember that only Characters that are going to fight Ho Chen can be targeted; you cannot blast a Character as you go Superleaping by. Hopping Vampire No matter how many Characters you kill or how many Hopping Vampires are involved, you cannot get more than one Hopping Vampire back a turn. You get a Vampire back even if all of them have been smoked. You may only return your own Hopping Vampires to play. This ability cannot be usefully copied, since it applies to cards with a specific title. Ice Sword You may heal the subject or another card that took damage simultaneously with the subject inflicting its damage, but you cannot save a card from lethal damage this way. Incarnate Abstraction The subject retains its rules text. The subject is vulnerable to cards that affect Edges as well as those that affect Characters. If this State is removed, Character-specific States will remain on the subject (even if they make no sense), and effects that target or have otherwise selected the subject will still affect it as best they can. (If the subject is Nerve Gassed, and Incarnate Abstraction is smoked in response, the subject is still smoked. Nerve Gas can only target a Character, but once it has targeted a card, it won't check whether the targeting is still legal when it resolves.) Invincible Earth Sword You may still play this card through various cost-reduction abilities or return it to play as long as you pay the full price. You can ignore this card's resource conditions if some ability lets you. Jade Palace of the Dragon King If more than one Character is smoked at once, you may remove more than one damage. All combat damage is dealt simultaneously and Characters are smoked (and Sites seized or burned) as an integral part of damage infliction. You can't heal a card if its Fighting or Body was reduced to zero by the damage. If a card survives combat (or a Final Brawl or the like), you can use the healing effects triggered from the Characters that didn't survive to heal the damage just taken. Jaguar Warriors This applies only to combat damage. This applies even to characters who are not intercepting Jaguar Warriors. Jenaya Ou She will trigger even if the damage is enough to smoke her. Jiang Fei If a Character has already been declared as an interceptor against her, spending a counter will cause it to cease intercepting. Kunlun Clan Assault If this event has its targets changed, the distribution of damage cannot be changed as part of the retargeting. (So, if you inflict two damage to one card, and one to another, and an opponent Brain Fires, he may not do three damage to a single card, or one each to three. He does get to choose which of the new targets takes two.) Leopard Clan Warriors If you have multiple Leopard Clan Warriors, you may turn one Mountain Site for each. This affects your opponents' Leopard Clan Warriors, too. This ability cannot be usefully copied, since it applies to cards with a specific title. This ability can be canceled with Whirlpool of Blood or the like, since it is generated by turning a Site. Li Mao (Dragon) The Superleap is based on his current fighting, including damage. Li Mao (Promo) The choice is in effect as soon as it is made; responding to his being played with an Event does not work. Long Axe and Short Axe Fighting Bonuses are not doubled, nor is damage directly inflicted by States such as Fusion Rifle. Material Transcendence If this is played on an Edge that is the subject of an Incarnate Abstraction, the Incarnate Abstraction is removed because the subject is not a legal subject for States. The subject becomes an Edge, with a State on it that makes it an Edge. Edges are not at the same location as each other; a Transcendent Mutator has few options for what its ability may be used on. A Unique Character that becomes an Edge will still cause Uniqueness auctions and prevent its controller from playing a new copy of the card. Changing card type does not stop effects that have already targeted or chosen the card. Legality of choice is only checked when the choice is made, not when the effect resolves. If a Character is Nerve Gassed, and this is played in response, the new Edge is smoked. If a Transcendent Character is Realpolitiked, and Material Transcendence is removed in response, the Character is still smoked. (Global effects such as Neutron Bomb and Thunder on Thunder never need to choose, so changing card type can protect you against them.) Monkey Fools the Tiger The Power changes hands at generation, and may be spent by your opponent in response, perhaps to Confucian this card. Monkeywrenching A Site that was chosen to be turned by Monkeywrenching but was turned in response will not unturn at the end of the turn. This is not a Monkey card. Monsoon Only he (and other characters with a similar ability) may be declared against the back-row Site. Players without such Characters may not join, either. Mountain Fortress The bonus changes as the amount of damage does. You may use this ability even if there is no damage on the card. Netherflitter Look at current Fighting to determine whether it is even. Zero is even. (This is possible with Cellular Reinvigoration.) No Shadow Kick This is not combat damage; if you attack a Character that is not large enough to survive No Shadow Kick, the attack is going to fail. Occult Kung Fu The copied rules text remains even if the chosen Character leaves the smoked pile. One Thousand Swords You may not activate both abilities at once. You must turn and pay separately for each. Orange Master Talent resources do not affect his Fighting. Ordinal Spirit Numbers, spaces, and punctuation are not letters. Accented letters (Iala Mané) are. Out For Blood The Character is toasted at generation. It's gone even if this card is canceled. Peacock Clan Warriors Talent resources do not affect this card's Fighting. Penal Soldiers If, during the attack, you lose the card with the appropriate designator, they cease attacking. Giving the Penal Soldiers an appropriate designator will allow them to attack. Rogue Scientist Both cards must go to the same end of your deck. Shadow Legion They do not allow you to search your deck if returned to play, played from your smoked pile, or played from a Memory Palace. Shaolin Defender You must play this card at the time the attack is declared; you can't wait. Shaolin Monkey The chosen ability is not part of his rules text, so it cannot be copied, and remains even if his rules text is blanked. Shaolin vs. Wudang Even though it creates many Faceoffs, this card is still only one effect, so a Corrupt Bookie will trigger only once, for one Power. In order to get the second Power and keep the Bookie alive, his controller must correctly predict the winner of every individual Faceoff. Shards of Warped Reflection You can get the Fighting of an Uncopyable card, but not the rules text. (When copying an Evil Twin, the Fighting it copied is considered to be its printed Fighting.) This card cannot copy the Fighting of another copy of itself. The auction takes place too soon. If you copy the Fighting of an X-Fighting Character, it would be wise to also copy the rules text of a different X-Fighting Character. Without rules text to define it, X defaults to zero. Shrieking Witch Heads Effects normally count on generation; changing the number of Characters in your smoked pile in response to this card does not alter the damage done. Shu Kan If you have multiple Characters with this rules text, you must pay separately for each. (You would also need to pay multiple times if you had one Character with multiple copies of the rules text.) Solar Sword You may only return this card to play if there is a Character to put it on. If a Solar Sword was on a Sword Character that was smoked, you may return it to play. Soul Theft Soul Theft does not return to play with the Character. Storming the Gates of Hell Attackers who join the attack do not get the Fighting, nor are they smoked. Terracotta Warriors You can use this ability before interception is completed. The Book of Wrath You may turn this card in response to an effect that will smoke a Character. The Celestial Eye If the subject is at the targeted location, it will also take damage. The Lady or the Tiger? You may play this on a player with fewer than three cards; they will discard what they can. If the target has fewer than five cards in his or her deck, divide what there is. (This will not cause the player to lose due to having no cards in their deck.) You may put no cards in one pile if you want to. The target may choose that pile. The target doesn't get to look at the cards going back to the deck. The Queen's Wrath Any Character whose current Fighting is one may be smoked or sacrificed. The Shattered Mirror If the designator appears more than once, all copies are changed. One designator only; you can't insert a multi-designator word such as BuroMil to get extra matches. You can change Netherworld to something else; you just can't change anything else to it. The Swords Unite You don't need to control the other sword to get the Power. Thousand Sword Mountain This is not considered to be playing a card at reduced cost. You may combine this with cost-reduction and other "fake power" effects. Thunder Captain He can be returned to play by Thunder Squire. Ting Ting's Bandits The effect is not cumulative. This means that no matter how many Bandits damage a player's Sites simultaneously, only one card is discarded. (Even if multiple players control the Bandits.) If multiple Bandits damage Sites controlled by multiple players, then each of those players will have to make a discard. Tom Donovan When the next set comes out, all of the promos will gain the appropriate rules text. Tranquil Persuader You may take control of a Character you cannot keep; it will change hands briefly (which will cause it to cease attacking or intercepting, among other things), then it will return to its prior controller. Uncontrolled Mutation You may target a Character with multiple copies of this card, but there will be no additional effect. Underworld Gateway If you seize or burn more than one Site, you may play multiple Gateways. If you later seize the Site that a Gateway is on, this will not prevent you from winning. If the Site's controller has no Sites other than the one you took away, you can't play a Gateway. The Site you attacked is yours (or not in play) by the time you can play the Gateway. Winning happens during combat, when it's not legal to generate most effects. If your opponents want to stop you, they will likely have to act before you play your third Gateway. (Though a Confucian Stability would work.) In a tournament, score an Underworld Gateway win as a normal win (i.e. normal match points). Game points should also be calculated normally based on the player's site structure and burned for victory pile. Unexpected Rescue If you have not the resources to play the first Character you reveal, you don't get to keep going. Shuffle the Character in question back into the deck. Wall of a Thousand Eyes The Characters still have the abilities. (So a Superleaper with a Twin Thunder Kick would still have the +2 damage it gains for having Superleap, but it could be intercepted by turned Characters.) Wandering Swordsman Attacks you join do not count. "We Need Bigger Guns!" This includes damage a Character inflicts on itself. Wing of the Crane If the Character leaves the smoked pile then returns to it, Wing will have lost track of the card, and will not return it to play. Wolf Clan Hunters As the number of Transformed attackers decreases, so does the Fighting bonus. Wu Bin of Turtle Island He does not allow you to search your deck if returned to play, played from your smoked pile, or played from a Memory Palace. Wudang Mountain You cannot use this ability if you have no Characters you can heal. (Or if there are no opposing Characters to damage.) Wu Man Kai You can use both abilities during one turn. Xiang Kai The damage is mandatory. If he's the only Character, he will damage himself. None of the damage has to be to the card he is attacking.