Li Ru

Daemon Minister 魔仕

**Vanishing Act** 绝策
When a character loses their last hand card during Li Ru's turn, he can cause one unit of damage to them.

**Extermination** 灭计
Whenever Li Ru uses a black-suited tool card that targets only one character, he select an additional character and target them as well.

**Burn the City** 焚城
Single-Use Ability: During his action phase, Li Ru can force all other players to discard X cards or receive one unit of fire damage. X is defined as the number of cards that the target has in their equipment area and has a minimum value of one (even if they have no equipped cards).

**Clarification:**

* Note that "Vanishing Act" is not enforced. Li Ru is not forced to damage a character that discards their last hand card during his turn.
* In order for Li Ru to activate "Vanishing Act," his target must have one hand card, then use it or lose it. He cannot activate this ability on a character that begins Li Ru's turn with no hand cards (unless they gain a card during his turn that he can subsequently remove).
* Li Ru can damage himself via "Vanishing Act" if he uses his last hand card during his turn. However, it is hard to think of a situation in which this would be useful.
* "Extermination" only works for *Breaks*, *Steals*, and *Coerces*. These are the only tool cards that come in black-suited varieties that target one person.
* When Li Ru activates "Burn The City", he does not need to discard any cards. Other characters can discard hand cards or equipped cards to fulfill the X number requirement.

**First Impressions:**

Li Ru seems to not only be the weakest character in the 2013 expansion, but he also seems to be quite weak compared to characters in other expansions as well. This design is no doubt inspired by Jia Xu and his abilities; both characters have an ability that makes it difficult for weak characters to survive their assaults ("Complete Kill" and "Vanishing Act"), both characters have an ability relating to black-suited tool cards ("Curtain" and "Extermination"), and both characters have a single-use ability that affects all other characters in the game ("Upheaval" and "Burn the City"). However, Jia Xu seems to outclass Li Ru at every turn. All three of Li Ru's abilities have significant problems. "Vanishing Act" is useful against characters with only one hand card, as they cannot respond to the cards that Li Ru plays without taking damage. However, it can be difficult for Li Ru to get them to this point unless he has an ally helping him. "Extermination" is nice, but it only works on black-suited *Breaks*, *Steals*, *Coerces*, and *Duels*. All in all, there are only twelve cards in the deck that can be used to activate this ability. Jian Yong's "Persuade" allows him to target an additional character with any tool card or basic card, and the second target needs not be in range. Finally, "Burn the City" is also mediocre. A character with many pieces of equipment will have to discard many cards in order to avoid damage, but since the ability allows them to discard equipped cards, any character with equipped cards can always avoid damage from this ability. It is only useful against characters with no equipment and one hand card or no cards in their possession at all. This design is quite disappointing. We were really looking forward to having Li Ru added to the list of official characters in this game. It would have been nice for YOKA to give Dong Zhuo a strong loyalist and preferably one that could counter Diao Chan (as Li Ru was the only one in Romance of the Three Kingdoms that was able to uncover her plan). Unfortunately, this did not happen.