Armor of Earth

Legend of the Five Rings card from Diamond Edition, Forbidden Knowledge, Training Grounds

Card Type

Item

Force

+1

Chi

+2

Gold Cost

8

Keywords

Armor, Unique, Earth

Card Text

While you control an Earth Ring, Armor of Earth has an additional +2F/+1C.
Earth Repeatable Reaction: Before an action moves this Personality from a battlefield to which he assigned this Attack Phase, negate the action's effects.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Clan Wars (Imperial), Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Erratum

Removal of cost reduction trait via contemporary erratum.

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• Can cancel Encircled Terrain, but not Entrapping Terrain. [DW, 2 February 1998] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 48
• Erratum: There is no cost reduction for having the Ring of Earth in play. [Erratum, JA, email, 5 January 2003] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 48
• Erratum: Armor of Earth: Printed Gold cost no longer changes while you control the Ring of Earth. [errata] Legend of the Five Rings FAQ, April 26, 2004, p. 17
• Q: Wow, that Dark Path of Shadow ability is confusing! Does it work against Deadly Ground? What about the Armor of Earth? Can I use it when I don't have any defenders? A: If you get a chance to perform a Battle or Open action, you can use the Stronghold ability. Period. Even if it's illegal. Deadly Ground won't stop it, nor will Night Battle or a lack of defenders. Effects that resolve the battle immediately will get around it since Battle Actions can no longer be used. The Dark Path's action can also be cancelled by an appropriate countermeasure, such as the Armor of Earth (but not A Test of Courage, since the Dark Path doesn't target anything). And it won't send home units that can't be removed from the battle. The Imperial Herald, Issue 11, p. 26

Rules Q&A

• Q: Since Armor of Earth and Gunsen of Water have the errata that eliminates the cost reduction when having the corresponding Ring in play, does Katana of Fire have that errata as well?
  A: No, but Mempo of the Void does. These Errata were only issued for the Elemental Items that were in the Diamond Format, due to their impact on that environment. Since the Katana of Fire and Yari of Air were not in the format, they didn't earn themselves any Errata. Martin Lund, "Rules for 3 September 2004", 7 Sep 2004
• Q: Honestly, I don't see how moving Personalities who aren't originally part of an Ambush into one, regardless of whether it comes from Strategic Crossroads or any other card 'in the battle', meets relevance DESPITE the action coming from a card or token at the battle based on two past rulings - one on stalling and another on relevance with Tireless Assault:
  1) An old, somewhat unrelated, ruling dealing with Dark Path of Shadow vs Armor of Earth and stalling.
  We, as players, know we can't send the unit home using DPoS because Armor of Earth will just cancel it. Thus it was decided the DPoS player was stalling if they kept trying to send the Armor of Earth unit home. Couldn't that very logic cross over in any action trying to move a Personality into an Ambush if it is illegal to do so?
  A: He's not stalling because he's not trying to do something an infinite number of times to make the game run out of time before it finishes. Jeff Alexander, "rules for 17 Feb. 2004", 19 Feb 2004
• Q: Does this mean if my unit with the [Armor of Earth] moves to another battle that it can be sent home with an action without my being able to cancel that action?
  A: Yes, that's what it means. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 24 August 2003, Part 2", 24 Aug 2003
• Q: Now, Hataki should fall under the 'partial effects' ruling that flip-flopped all over the place last year (the 'go home, bowed' effect vs. an Armor of Earth wearer). How did this rule finally end up?
  A: Going home bowed is the only exception to the "all effects are separate" rule. Jeff Alexander, "post for 22 January 2002", 23 Jan 2002
• Q: Saw the updated oracle text. Looks simpler, but clearer. Thanks!
  Yup, had to scratch my head on this one since the answer looked intuitively obvious. Then again, we end up getting some people asking being anal about stuff like this. Just one hiccup, the following lost the part about their GC being set to 0 Gunsen of Water #cardid=2923 Armor of Earth #cardid=438 Mempo of the Void #cardid=5023
  A: Yeah, those three were reprinted in Diamond, and had to be errata'd fairly early on... https://oracleofthevoid.com/#game=l5r,#cardid=3495 Alex Jones, "Oracle of the Void #rules", 3 Oct 2022