Ninja Thief

Legend of the Five Rings card from Diamond Edition, Imperial Edition, Emerald Edition, Obsidian Edition, Jade Edition, Gold Edition, Pearl Edition, Siege of Sleeping Mountain, Heaven & Earth, Dark Allies, An Oni's Fury, Hidden City

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

2

Keywords

Ninja

Card Text

Limited: Target a Personality's Item and another Personality: Transfer the first target to the second. Lose 3 Honor.

Focus Value

2

Legality

Clan Wars (Imperial), Four Winds (Gold), Hidden Emperor (Jade), Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• Can steal item tokens. [DJ; RD, 21 April 1996] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 26

Rules Q&A

• Q: Ninja Thief- can you use this card to steal from an opponents card?
  A: Yes.
  Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar * Unaligned Deputy Rules Guy Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 19 November 2003, Part 2", 20 Nov 2003
• Q: [Ninja Thief] says: "Limited: Move an Item from one Personality to another." without the "...who can legally attach it." clause. Does that mean the card works differently in Diamond?
  A: Left for Jeff Alexander.
  I will note, however, that strictly speaking, the original text was redundant. Cards do not allow you to break rules or another card's text unless its text *specifically* allows it. "Do this, if it's legal" and "Do this" are equivalent. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 17 September 2003", 18 Sep 2003
• Q: Ninja Thief reads: "Limited: Move an Item from a Personality to another Personality who can legally attach it. Lose 3 Honor." Moshi Hinome reads:"...Open: Bow Hinome to remove all Aura tokens from a Personality who has at least one and add that number of +1F/+1C Aura tokens, plus one, to another Personality."
  Jeff, I'm confused.
  Why would Moshi Hinome target first Personality at all? Both action cards are searching and targeting for X. The fact that it happens to be on personality A is merely a necessity of X being in play in the first place.
  A: Hinome has to target some aspect of the source -- otherwise, how would you know what tokens to remove? But she affects all the tokens on the source Personality. That makes that aspect of her action a general effect, and thus non-targeted. The only thing left for her to target is the Personality. Jeff Alexander, "post for 21 March 2003", 22 Mar 2003
• Q: Muchitsujo - Reaction: Bow before another player attaches a card from his or her hand to one of his or her Personalities to redirect the attachment to another legal target.
  I see people saying that he's a built in Ninja Thief, but if it needs to be another "legal" target, that would exclude Muchitsujo's controler's people right?
  A: Right. It has to be someone else that player could have tried attaching that card to in the first place. Jeff Alexander, "rules for 9 September 2002", 10 Sep 2002
• Q: Question to Jeff / Zen: If I use Ninja Thief to MOVE Armor of shadows (exp) from pers. A to pers. B, pers. B permanently gains the Shadowlands trait ?
  A: Yes. Jeff Alexander, "post for 3 September 2002", 4 Sep 2002
• Q: Does Ninja Thief target the personality that currently has the item?
  A: No. Jeff Alexander, "post for 14 June 2002", 15 Jun 2002
• Q: "Effects that target a token on a card also target the card (e.g., Sympathetic Energies)"
  - [JA, e-mail, 16 December 2001]
  This one weirds me out because if you use Ninja Thief to steal an item token, you'd wind up targeting the personality, but not if you stole a non-item token.
  A: That's a relic of the "every card targets every thing mentioned anywhere on it" guideline that was found to have too many problems to be correct.
  Zen, could you please remove this entry from the archive? It is not accurate. Jeff Alexander, "post for 14 June 2002", 15 Jun 2002
• Q: Also, what happens when an item is transfered from a personality belonging to one player to a personality belonging to another, as with Ninja Thief? Does the controller change?
  A: Yes. Jeff Alexander, "post for 23 April 2002", 24 Apr 2002
• Q: What happens if, in a game between two Crane players, one of them were to Ninja Thief the other's Clan Sword? How would the Sword behave?
  A: Its bonus would be based on the number of Crane Clan Personalities its new controller has. Jeff Alexander, "post for 23 April 2002", 24 Apr 2002
• Q: What happens if, in a game between two Crane players, one of them were to Ninja Thief the other's Clan Sword? How would the Sword behave?
  Gold Ed. Rulebook, pg. 26 - "You cannot bring a unique card into play if a unique card with the same name is already in play."
  A: True, but irrelevant. Taking control of a card already in play does not count as bringing it into play. Jeff Alexander, "post for 23 April 2002", 24 Apr 2002
• Q: 3) I play Ninja Thief and move my Tessen to my opponent's Personality. Does this count as his/her personality attaching a card? Can I use Yokubo's second reaction to destroy all the cards already attached to that personality?
  A: Yes and yes. Jeff Alexander, "post for 19 December 2001", 19 Dec 2001
• Q: Similar question. May I Ninja Thief an Item and attach it to a bowed Personality controlled by the same player, or is the 'legally attach' wording on Ninja Thief going to prevent the attachment?
  A: You may move it in that fashion. Jeff Alexander, "post for 14 December 2001", 15 Dec 2001
• Q: Does Ninja Thief target?
  A: In Legacy, http://rules.l5r.com/Older_Cards#For_ca ... THE_EMPIRE: "An action targets whenever it requires a choice to be made of what card it affects, or what card pays the non-gold costs of the action."
  Let's see, was it last printed before Dawn of the Empire? Yes, in Diamond Edition. It targets. Zen Faulkes, "Ninja Thief", 20 May 2009
• Q: it was my understanding that... "your" implies that you both own and control the card that it is describing. Is this incorrect?
  A: Yes, this is incorrect.
  http://rules.l5r.com/Glossary_X-Z: "When “your” and other possessive forms such as “the player’s” or “his” refer to a card, this means “controlled by that player" if the card is in play, or "owned by that player" if the card is not in play." Brook Cunningham, "Kaui Sugimoto EXP, Ninja Thief, Kitsuki Kaagi's Journal, etc", 5 Mar 2009