Blade of Perfection

Legend of the Five Rings card from Emperor Edition, Empire at War

Card Type

Item

Force

+3

Chi

+1

Gold Cost

4

Keywords

Weapon

Card Text

After this Item bows, straighten it.
Reaction, : After the resolution of another player's action that destroyed this Item or its Personality, Equip this Item to your target performing Personality.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Age of Conquest (Emperor), Destroyer War (Celestial)

Deck

Fate

Story

2008 Name a Weapon: New York - Paul Chang

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Since the Reaction occurs immediately after the destruction, does it occur from the discard pile, thus incurring a Gold cost to bring it back into play, or does it transfer for free the moment before being placed into the discard pile?
  A: The former.
  Firstly, you are incorrect about the timing. The Reaction occurs after the resolution of the action that destroyed the Personality or Blade, not the destruction itself. Secondly, there is no transitory place between play and the discard for destroyed items. Thus, it is definitely in the discard pile, so its Reaction does bring it in to play, and you will have to pay its cost. Brook Cunningham, "Blade of Perfection destruction", 24 Dec 2010
• Q: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=86993
  Regarding that topic, surely the easily relevent texts are: Reaction: After the resolution of another player's action that destroyed this card or its Personality: Attach this card to your target Personality.
  (my emphases)
  The bolded means that the Blade is back in the discard pile of it's owner before it's reaction could be used, meaning only it's owner could possibly take the reaction.
  The underlined means that only if the person who ISN'T the owner of the Blade destroyed the blade/person destroyed it, could you reattach it, as when you react, it's looking for another player to its controller.
  So if Player A controls the Blade that Player B owns, and Player B plays Rout, the sword would die and it's reaction would not be legal to announce.
  If Player A controls the Blade that Player B owns, and Player A plays Rout, then Player B could use the reaction.
  Forgive me if I'm wrong, I just thought it looked fairly cut and dry.
  A: Whether it is "another player's action" checks who controlled the Blade and who played the action at the time it was in play, by the referencing rules (http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Special_wording ... References).
  But because the Reaction itself is after the item has gone to the owner's discard pile, the owner would be the one who gets to activate the Reaction, as "you" means owner for out of play cards.
  Thus, in a two player game, he would not be able to get the item back into play, because it was not "another player's action." Zen Faulkes, "Blade of Perfection", 21 Oct 2010