Matsu Benika

Legend of the Five Rings card from Samurai Edition, Drums of War, Promotional–Samurai

Card Type

Personality

Force

3

Chi

3

Honor Requirement

7

Gold Cost

6

Personal Honor

3

Clan

Lion

Keywords

Beastmaster, Lion Clan, Samurai

Card Text

Benika has +1F for each Nonhuman card at her battlefield.
Limited, : Target one or two of your Personalities. Create and attach a 1F Nonhuman • Cat Follower to each target.

Legality

Age of Enlightenment (Lotus), Race for the Throne (Samurai)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rulings

• Erratum: Reads, “Matsu Benika 3F/3C 7HR 6G 3PH Lion Clan • Samurai • Beastmaster Benika has +1F for each Nonhuman card at her battlefield. Limited: Pay 2 Gold: Target one or two of your Personalities. Create and attach a 1F Nonhuman, Cat Follower to each one.” [MRP, Samurai Edition, 25 July 2007] Comprehensive Rules, Samurai Edition, with specific card rulings, final version, May 2009, p. 145

Rules Q&A

• Q: I have a bowed samurai with an unbowed Hand Of The Jade Dragon attached. Isawa Reido Blows up this samurai to destroy an opposing personality. Can I react with Hand Of The Jade Dragon to negate the samurai's death and still destroy the opposing personality? I ask because Reido's text doesn't state that the person has to have been destroyed for the effect to go off, only that the person was targeted. Relevant text Below...
  Isawa Reido Phoenix Clan • Fire • Shugenja • Unique Battle: Destroy your target Personality or Follower: Destroy a target Personality or Follower without attachments and with equal or lower Force than your targeted Personality or Follower.
  Hand Of The Jade Dragon Jade • Unique Attaches to Matsu Benika paying 2 less Gold. This Personality has Hero. Reaction: Before an action's resolution: Negate this Personality's destruction from the action's effects.
  A: No, for several reasons.
  Firstly, Hand of the Jade Dragon's ability only negates the destruction of its Personality from an action's effects, whereas Isawa Reido destroys the Personality as a cost. See Mandatory costs: The mandatory cost of an action is found in the constraints block and Definition of effects: An effect is anything, other than a cost, that changes the stats, traits, abilities, restrictions, or capabilities of a card, a player, a game entity (such as Provinces), or the game state.
  Secondly, Hand of the Jade Dragon's ability reacts "Before an action's resolution", which is after costs are paid. See Using abilities: A. Announce the action B. Required targeting C. Pay costs D. Action resolution E. Action ends
  Thirdly, because the Personality is destroyed as a cost of the action - that is, the destruction is listed between the two colons - if the Personality is not destroyed, the action's costs cannot be paid and the action fails. See Interference with mandatory costs. Alex Jones, "Isawa Reido&Hand Of The Jade Dragon", 8 Mar 2010
• Q: If I control Matsu Benika and she is dishonored and I overlay her with Matsu Benika exp. Is the exp. version also dishonorable?
  A: Yes. http://rules.l5r.com/Physically_marked_ ... Overlaying: "The underlying card’s... game state, including ongoing effects, also apply to the new stack(.)" Zen Faulkes, "Overlaying a dishonored personality.", 20 Dec 2007
• Q: Regarding viewtopic.php?f=59&t=60498
  It doesn't say 'card' either, hence the confusion.
  Venerable Master, Farmlands and Matsu Benika all have abilities that can produce something that is neither a token or a card (unlike Hida Dayu's followers who have the 'card' trait), what should these be treated as?
  A: This is from the post you linked to in your original question: "In Samurai Edition, follower, item or personality tokens cannot be created; cards are created instead." (Emphasis added.) Zen Faulkes, "RE: Tokens and Bowing 2", 14 Aug 2007
• Q: This post is in regard to your response on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=59778
  The followers created by Matsu Benika are cards. This leads to a few questions: 1. For a tournament, do they need to be represented by L5R cards or some type of proxies? 2. Do they need to be sleeved like your fate deck? 3. Would they go to your fate deck discard pile if destroyed? 4. If destroyed and in your fate deck discard pile, could they be shuffled into your fate deck by a card effect? 5. If a card effect allows followers to be played from the discard pile, would their gold cost be zero?
  A: Comprehensive Rules, Created Cards. Zen Faulkes, "Re: Matsu Benika", 30 Jul 2007
• Q: New to the game I played my first tournaments this weekend. Today I played one and my first match was against lion. He had Matsu Benika as his first personality out while I struggled at first to get some gold. He uses her ability to target herself twice and gain 2 cat followers as well as attaching a weapon. This turnes her into 9f if I remember correctly, and he was able to take a province right away, and then it just went downhill from there for me.
  Anyway, I was wondering about that play: her ability is to "target one or two of your personalities. create and attach a 1F nonhuman, cat follower to each one" to me that means 2 separate personalities, not the same one twice. I've tried looking this up elsewhere but haven't found anything definitive. Thanks for the help.
  A: If you want two, you must have two separate targets. Zen Faulkes, "Question on targeting (Matsu Benika's ability)", 30 Jul 2007
• Q: Simple question, are the followers created by Matsu Benika cards or tokens? If they are tokens she does not get a force bonus in SE right? The question came up, because e.g. Hida Dayu says he creates follower cards specifically, while Benika does not, and we could not find anything in the rulebook about this.
  Matsu Benika
  Limited: Pay 2 Gold: Target 1 or 2 of your Personalities. Create and attach a 1F Nonhuman, Cat Follower to each one.
  A: Cards. Zen Faulkes, "Matsu Benika", 29 Jul 2007