WotR #038 Mary Jane has the trait:


WW80 #001, #041, #062 have the trait:


WW80 #062 has the Deity keyword; #001 and #042 do not.

1. If WW80 #062 is on my starting force with Mary Jane and gains the Spider-Man Family keyword, then uses Shifting Focus to be replaced by #001 from my sideline, does the #001 have (keep) the Spider-Man Family keyword?
2. If ”No” to question 1: if that same #001 then uses Shifting Focus (on my next turn) to be replaced by the #062 that had been on my starting force (and went to my sideline), does the #062 (still) have the Spider-Man Family keyword?

If someone could kindly point me to where in the Comprehensive Rulebook or etc covers this issue, I’d be grateful. I’m back in the game after a year or two away, I’m sure this must have been hashed out in that time but nothing useful is popping up in search on the WKRF or here.

Comprehensive Rulebook p.56:

24.2a Determining Themed Teams
In order for a starting force to become a themed team, when you reveal your force during step 1 of Game Setup, you must choose a single keyword that all characters on your starting force share. If all your characters share more than one keyword, pick only one.

Theme Teams are established at the start of the game.
Any character brought into the game after that won't gain the Spiderman Family keyword.

This rule is really for the best, given the various ways that figures can come into the game. Otherwise, one of the nastier tricks would be to form a Hellfire Club (becoming X-Men) "team up" with HoX Emma Frost and Blackheart and then make all the newly spawned Hellfire Club Guards into X-Men (for the purposes of Emma's ).

Also gonna add a couple rules references here just to be, well, comprehensive.

There's a lot more to that second rule, but I think that was enough to answer the question.

Cheers!

So they’ve considered this scenario as handled under sections 22 and 24, and haven’t seen a need to address it specifically. Fair enough.

“No” to my first question; the gained keyword doesn’t “transfer.” Gotcha. To my second question—

I take it that, under 22.12a point three, the #062 Wonder Woman that went to the sideline (in my example) would:

• continue to have the Spider-Man Family keyword (that she gained at the beginning of the game from her and Mary Jane being on my starting force at that time) while on the sideline (not that it could matter, because she can only be referenced on the sideline for the Shifting Focus effect that put her there, which doesn’t care about the keyword), and
• keep it when swapped back off the sideline and onto the battlefield.

That is to say, “once that specific figure gets the keyword ‘this game,’ the keyword goes with that specific figure wherever it may travel during that game.”

About right? Appreciate the patience.

That is correct! She would retain the keyword.

Here's a ruling about Shifting Focus Data (STRF-032) that backs up this interpretation.

And the Comprehensive rules have this to say about action tokens off the map:

Thus, between these three, and no rules being present saying that you lose effects upon going to the Sideline/being removed from the map(but not KO'd) that I am aware of, I would assume that any character moved to the Sideline would retain anything applying to them at the time they were moved there for the normal duration of the effect unless specifically stated otherwise.

Thanks much - that Data ruling is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Much obliged!

So this all makes sense, but raises an interesting corollary - it sort of doesn't matter that only #062 has the Deity keyword, right?

For example, all three SF Wonder Woman figures have the Warrior keyword. But if they were on a team with Spider-Viking (whose My Kind Of Allies is "Pirate or Warrior"), and later in the game I wanted Wonder Woman to be Call In Help From The Spider-Verse'd, I'd have to make sure I switched back to whichever specific SF WW had been on the starting force, because that one (and only that one) would still have the SMF keyword.

Huh. Huh, I say.