Diligent Care

Legend of the Five Rings card from Twenty Festivals, Promotional–Twenty Festivals

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Kharmic, Kata

Card Text

Open: Put this Kata into play. Discard your other Kata in play.
Interrupt, w: If the action is another player's, put your attachments in your hand instead of in your discard pile when the action destroys them or their Personality.

Focus Value

2

Legality

A Brother's Destiny (Twenty Festivals), War of the Seals (Onyx Edition)

Erratum

Errata effective 19th May 2015

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Opponent Ambushed me, couldn't win battle, bowed diligent care. He claims it doesn't work because my personality died from battle resolution.
  A: He is correct.
  Ambush's action just creates the battle; it's the Rulebook that destroys your Personality for losing. Brook Cunningham, "Diligent Care vs Battle Resolution", 16 Aug 2015
• Q: um can you explain this to me, because that doesn't make sense. How can you use a cards action when it's not in your hand? In the case of the kata how can one try to use it's action to put it into play, if you don't have a card to put into play in the first place? It does not seem that you could even announce an action that cannot be fulfilled. And to do it in the way of not even having another copy in your hand to even try to fulfil it in the first place seems to completely nullify the "good faith" rule.
  A: The rulebook says this about Strategies: Strategy cards are cards normally played from the hand to use an ability on them. ... If a Strategy enters play, its abilities may be used as normal.
  Furthermore, note that: [A] player may announce and take an action even if it will have no effects. Alex Jones, "Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion + Kata Diligent Care", 22 Jul 2015
• Q: Hi,
  I have a Diligent Care in play. If my personality is destroyed, all of his attachments return to my hand, or just one?
  Diligent Care: http://imperialassembly.com/oracle/#cardid=12228,#hashid=b2adf50289eafe008df1dc3e0b14bcf6,#cardcount=0
  Thanks!
  A: It would return all of them. Jon Palmer, "Diligent Care", 23 Jun 2015
• Q: Can you use a kata's ability to put into play even though its already in play?
  I have this scenario: My opponent playing shadowed estate of the scorpion appears to have intention to destroy my personality with a lot of attachments. He uses the Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion ability and names Diligent care.
  May i use the open ability of diligent care so it can use up the "negate" of the shadowed estate? this way it will allow me to use the interrupt of diligent care once he destroys my personality.
  A: This is correct. Diligent Care does not need to be in your hand for you to use its Open action (tho of course it will fail to be "put in play" again), and this will "use up" the Shadowed Estate's negation for the turn. Jon Palmer, "Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion + Kata Diligent Care", 15 Jun 2015
• Q: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=113486
  The answer to this is the Legacy ruling isn't applied here. That ruling is very specifically referring to Focused cards, from half a decade ago, in a different ruleset. It has the same relevance as anything that refers to returning home.
  Also I'd further question cards that were never in my hand. What if I discard a card using Doji Bukita (whatever the 20F version is) that allows me to play the card from the discard. Am I supposed to track which cards in my discard were in my hand?
  What if I pick up an opponents attachment from Press the Advantage? It was in my opponents hand, discarded, then picked up into my hand. If I now discard it, it enters my opponents discard pile. He then attaches it to a guy. Something kills it, I use Diligent Care. Did we have to track the card's existence through all that?
  A: So would you prefer that I make a new ruling that "return" means the same thing it means in English?
  If you're running Diligent Care, you may need to track any cards that enter play without having been in your hand. The situations that result in this are edge cases and I'm not going to go against plain language to support such an edge case. If Diligent Care said "attachments go to your hand" instead of "attachments return to your hand", we wouldn't be having this discussion. Jon Palmer, "Diligent Care and my opponent's attachments", 1 May 2015
• Q: Regarding this: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=113083#p1465321
  Roger said there would be a final answer that week; it's been two since he posted. He said to play Diligent Care as the reminder text indicated, but what, if anything does that mean for Victorious Wave Men and non-unit "unit destruction" (Personality killed by a duel, attachments destroyed by rulebook)?
  If Diligent Care is to be played as the reminder text indicates, is this going to be a change to the wording of Diligent care itself, or a change to the way the rulebook destruction interacts with things that trigger on an action's destruction?
  A: Until Roger prepares a final answer, please continue to play Diligent Care as he as instructed. Do not extrapolate this to any other cards. Thanks! Jon Palmer, "Unit Destruction, Victorious Wave Men, Diligent Care", 1 May 2015
• Q: My opponent Fear Attacks my item, interrupting with Show of Power.
  I want to interrupt the Fear action with Diligent Care.
  Does it stop my item being destroyed?
  A: It would return the item to your hand. Another player's action's effects are destroying the item. Jon Palmer, "Diligent Care vs Show of Power", 1 May 2015
• Q: Per this ruling, 'a card may only "return" to a place where it once resided'. During the After Resolution segment of Battles, Attacking units 'return home', and at the end of the Attack Phase Defending units do likewise. Where do cards recruited during battle using mechanics such as Reserve go, as they never resided in a player's home.
  A: Each such Personality goes to his or her controller's home.
  We're discussing how to handle "return" in the case of Diligent Care. Alex Jones, "Diligent Care and my opponent's attachments", 21 Apr 2015
• Q: Per this ruling, does this mean that are we supposed to be tracking all Fate cards in the game to determine if they were ever in a player's hand?
  And are we expected to regularly utilise 18 year old rulings to justify cards not working as Design intended and thus ignoring their wording or the current rules of the game? I ask because I don't always have access to the archives of all out of date L5R rulings when judging events and tend to base my rulings on the current arc's Comprehensive Rules document and the wording of the cards involved.
  Basically, please stop changing the rules to fit the cards and instead do the reverse. It has been an issue for a long time now, but it has become progressively worse since Ivory and we were informed at Worlds that the rules would have priority over cards.
  A: I may have missed a statement of design intent on Diligent Care regarding another player's attachments being destroyed. If you have such a statement, please share (I know it takes another thread, but I'll merge them) and I can amend the rulings.
  At present, I see no reason why the rulings on "return" should differ from that on Strike Without Striking, or that on Doji (found here). I see nothing involving design intent on Diligent Care, nothing going against the current rules of the game, and nothing going against the English meaning of "return", which is not otherwise defined in the rules. There are no special rules in the CR for "return", other than returning home after battle.
  Again, if you can cite the rule that you believe I'm applying incorrectly, please let me know the specifics. Lord knows I'm only human and not infallible on these rulings, but I can't see where my mistake is here. Return has had a standard meaning for a long time, even if not codified in the CR, and its meaning matches its meaning in English. Jon Palmer, "Re: Diligent Care and my opponent's attachments", 20 Apr 2015
• Q: Hello,
  If I have a Diligent Care in play and my opponent plays Wary Peace can I return his attachment to my hand as well?
  A: No. As implied by this ruling, a card may only "return" to a place where it once resided. Unless your opponent's attachment was in your hand at some point (and what an epic string of effects that would be!) it cannot return to there, so it is destroyed as normal. Jon Palmer, "Diligent Care and my opponent's attachments", 20 Apr 2015
• Q: “For” wording only refers to a specifically named consequence of the effect, not to a consequence arising from a chain of contingent effects.
  Example: In the case above, if a dishonorable Personality is destroyed for losing a duel, and his controller loses Honor, this is not an Honor loss “for” losing the duel, but an Honor loss for dying.
  A: We will be discussing this and have a final answer this week; in the meantime, play the card as the reminder text indicates. Roger Giner-Sorolla, "Unit Destruction, Victorious Wave Men, Diligent Care", 14 Apr 2015
• Q: If I destroy a Ward of Air attached to my shugenja to prevent his destruction from another player's Battle action, can I use Diligent Care to return Ward of Air to my hand?
  Thank you!
  Ward of Air Before this Shugenja, or any Personality if this Shugenja is Air, is destroyed by a Battle action, you may destroy this Spell to negate it.
  Diligent Care Interrupt, w: If the action is another player's, attachments return to your hand instead of being destroyed for its effects (including when a Personality is destroyed).
  A: No, because in this case Ward of Air is being destroyed by Ward of Air's effects, not by the Interrupted action's effects. Jon Palmer, "Ward of Air + Diligent Care", 23 Mar 2015