Iron Shackles 铁索连环 (tié suǒ lián huán)

Description:

Another rare dual-purpose card (to be very anal about it, it is actually tri-purpose). The phrase "killing 2 birds with 1 stone" is taken to the extreme with the IRON SHACKLES card. Use this card to shackle players together, then watch them all fry when any 1 of them receives Fire attribute or Lightning attribute damage. Technically, you can shackle every goddamned mofo that is in play if you have enough of this card. What benefit would that bring, you ask? Well, read on to find out!

Assuming you have no wish to shackle people together, then you can choose to use "RE-DRAW 重铸" to exchange for another card from the deck.

What it does:

This card shackles together 2 players of the user's choice. In order to differentiate the players that have been shackled from those that haven't, the character card (the one with the character name such as "Liu Bei 刘备" etc.) of those who have been shackled will be placed in the "landscape" orientation instead of the usual "portrait" orientation.

When any 1 of the players shackled receives either fire or lightning damage, all the shackled players receive the same amount of damage of that element. Note that damage (not an attack or a tool card effect) is transmitted, therefore the incoming transmitted damage cannot be avoided by DODGE 闪 or NEGATE 无懈可击. However the damage can be deflected if you are using the appropriate character (such as Xiao Qiao 小乔). All shackles are broken immediately after any elemental damage has been transmitted.

Shackles can be broken between 2 players by using another IRON SHACKLES card or using the NEGATE 无懈可击 card.

As there have been many questions regarding IRON SHACKLES, a separate section has been dedicated to the disambiguation of this card in the "Disambiguation" section below.

By choosing to execute RE-DRAW instead of IRON SHACKLES, you get a 1-for-1 exchange immediately by drawing a new card from the deck.

How to use it:

To shackle: Pick 2 players to be shackled. Toss the IRON SHACKLES card into the discard pile. Have these 2 players place their character cards from portrait to landscape orientation.

To unshackle: Pick 2 players that have already been shackled. Toss the IRON SHACKLES card into the discard pile. Have these 2 players revert their character cards back to the portrait orientation.

To use RE-DRAW: Toss this card into the discard pile and redraw another card from the deck. No players will be shackled in doing so. Note that RE-DRAW is not considered "using" this tool card, therefore Huang Yue Ying 黄月英 cannot draw an additional card (2 cards) when executing RE-DRAW.

Disambiguation (FAQ) according to Yoka games FAQ in chinese:

1. If more than 1 IRON SHACKLE card was used to shackle 2 different pairs of players, does it matter which pair of players were shackled for damage transmission and unshackling? For example there are 4 players A, B, C and D. A was shackled with B, and C was shackled with D. If A receives fire damage, will C and D also receive damage? What about unshackling? Must we unshackle only the pairs A-B or C-D? Can we unshackle A-C or B-D?

Ans: There are only 2 status of players: those that are shackled and those that are not. All players that are victims of IRON SHACKLES belong to the shackled status. When fire or lightning damage is received, all players that are in the shackled status will receive damage as well. It does matter specifically whom was shackled with whom.

Therefore to answer the scenario listed above, when A receives fire damage, all 4 players A, B, C and D will receive fire damage since all are in the shackled status. Similarly, any 2 players in the shackled status can be unshackled. Therefore the pairs A-C or B-D can be unshackled.

2. If player A has equipped RATTAN ARMOUR 藤甲 and received fire damage, will all shackled players receive 2 units of damage? Or does player A receive 2 units of damage only?

Ans: All shackled players receive 2 units of damage since the shackles transmit the same elemental damage and the same magnitude as was received by the victim.

3. What if player A has equipped RATTAN ARMOUR and is shackled with player B (who does not have RATTAN ARMOUR equipped), and this time player B receives 1 unit of fire damage?

Ans: Player B receives 1 unit of fire damage while player A receives 2 unit of fire damage. This is because the element and magnitude being transmitted to all is solely determined by the victim (player B). Thus everyone shackled receives 1 unit of fire damage. Player A first receives 1 unit of fire damage, then the damage is increased up to 2 units only for player A because of the RATTAN ARMOUR equipped.

4. Assume player A has SILVER HELMET equipped, and is shackled to player B who does not have any armour equipped. If player B is struck by LIGHTNING 闪电, will player A receive 3 units of damage or only 1?

Ans: Player B receives 3 units of damage while player A receives only 1 unit. However if player A was the one struck by LIGHTNING, all players shackled receive only 1 unit of damage. The logic is similar to question 3.

Shackling yourself to another player:

Now why in the world would you want to do something as crazy as making yourself victim to shackling? Here are two scenarios for you to consider.

1. If you are playing the role of REBEL 反贼 and there is a LIGHTNING out there in play, it can be a pretty good idea to shackle yourself to the RULER 主公. Here's why. Whenever the LIGHTNING reaches you, the LOYALIST 忠臣 would not want the RULER to suffer 3 units of lightning damage if you get struck! There is a chance the LOYALIST may NEGATE the LIGHTNING for you at your turn, just so as to protect the RULER.

Loophole here is that it only works on beginners. The expert players will use their NEGATE to unshackle you and the RULER just before you render judgement for LIGHTNING. But either way, you waste one of their NEGATE cards.

2. This 2nd scenario involves protecting yourself from Zhang Jiao 张角 and his Lightning Bolt attack (2 units of lightning damage if Zhang Jiao uses DODGE and judgement is "spades"). By shackling yourself to him, he would not use Lightning Bolt against you since he would also receive 2 units of damage.

By all means if you have any to contribute, please do leave a comment below!

Historical basis:

The story behind IRON SHACKLES is a significant part of the Battle of Red Cliffs 赤壁之战. Pang Tong 庞统 is a widely known as someone as brilliant as Zhu Ge Liang 诸葛亮 in that era, and when Cao Cao 曹操 happens to "bump" into him, Cao Cao suspected no trickery and quickly sought Pang Tong's council. After surveying Cao Cao's army, Pang Tong notices that the army was ill-trained for battle on the water. Numerous soldiers became sea-sick and, thus, had poor morale for battle. He advises Cao Cao to chain all his ships together using iron shackles. This way all the ships would be as stable as solid ground and his soldiers would regain their morale and confidence. Cao Cao agrees to chain his ships together, praising Pang Tong for his intelligence.

What Cao Cao didn't know was that the shackling of his ships was a ploy by Zhou Yu 周瑜. With all of Cao Cao's ships chained together while at sea, there was no way to break away if a fire broke out. That was exactly what Zhou Yu had in mind. By sending small boats filled with flammable materials towards Cao Cao, a huge fire broke out that practically wiped out Cao Cao's army. Of course, this is a very short summary of a very epic battle. Read more about the Battle of Red Cliffs on Wikipedia!