Oracle of the Void

Legend of the Five Rings card from Diamond Edition, Jade Edition, Gold Edition, Pearl Edition, Time of the Void

Card Type

Holding

Gold Cost

10

Keywords

Unique, Oracle, Retainer, Void

Card Text

Void Repeatable Limited, w, : Either discard a card or show the top card of your Fate deck and draw it.
Void Repeatable Reaction, w: After your End Phase begins, if you have four or fewer cards in your hand, draw a card until you have five in your hand. Lose 2 Honor each time you draw from this effect; these losses will not be increased or decreased.

Legality

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

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Oracle of the Void: "Elemental Reaction: During your End Phase, if you have fewer than five cards in your hand, bow Oracle of the Void to draw cards until you have five in your hand. Lose 2 Honor each time you draw. These losses cannot be modified."
  I have the Oracle unbowed, and 3 cards in my hand at the end of my dynasty phase. Which is the correct way to use the Oracle? Do I draw a card like normal, then bow the Oracle and draw one card? Or do I bow the Oracle, draw two cards, then draw my normal End phase card?
  A: Drawing a card and then discarding if you have over 8 does not have a specified timing. You can have it happen at any time during the End Phase.
  "If an effect happens "during" one of your Phases, you can have it happen any time in the Phase that you want. [DW, 12/9/96]" (Accumulated Rulings, "Timing")
  Oracle of the Void's Reaction trigger when you are both in the End Phase and have less than 5 cards. You must immediately React to the trigger, or decline to use the Reaction to that trigger.
  Once the window of opportunity has passed, you can not later use the Oracle on that same trigger - you'd need to either wait until your next end phase, or draw to 5+ cards and then discard back down below it. Either of these would create a new trigger.
  If you enter into the End Phase with 3 cards and an Oracle of the Void, you can choose whether to trigger your Draw and Discard first, or use the Oracle of the Void first. Martin Lund, "Rules for 19 and 20 September 2004", 24 Sep 2004
• Q: Oracle of the Void and Settozi, one card that has been used a LOT by Shadowlands Players for it's secondary ability (draw cards up to 5, lose 2 Honor per card...Loss cannot be modified) and Settozi which says that the dishonoring and loss of Honor area costs.
  A: Incorrect. Neither of those cards have the honor loss worded as costs (Gold Edition rulebook, pg. 39). Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 22 September 2003", 22 Sep 2003
• Q: Actually, we checked this recently (we're creating an L5R "Oracle of the Void" database) and we have 3800 distinct cards. Magic would be around 4500-5000 I think.
  This sounds good. Is it going to include rulings? clarifications? What about rewordings of cards that aren't going to be reprinted?
  A: It's going to have our "dream wordings" -- how we would word them if we could go back in time and change them to head off all the questions that ended up being asked about them. Jeff Alexander, "post for 8 January 2002", 9 Jan 2003
• Q: Is the honor loss from using the Oracle of the Void's second ability one honor loss, or a separate honor loss per card?
  A: Separate. Jeff Alexander, "post for 26 November 2002", 27 Nov 2002
• Q: Ok I allways assumed that you used the ocacle's second ability to draw until you had 5 cards in your hand. However on reading it
  Oracle of the Void 10 Retainer Unique Elemental Limited: Bow the Oracle of the Void and pay 1 Gold to either draw a card or discard a card from your hand. Show the card to the other players. Elemental Reaction: At any time during your End Phase, if you have fewer than five cards in your hand, bow the Oracle of the Void to draw cards until you have five in your hand. Lose 2 Honor for each card drawn, a loss that no player can change.
  It seems to me that you could use its reaction before drawing to draw to 5 cards and then have your regular draw which would take you to 6.
  A: It seems that way to me too. Jeff Alexander, "post for 2 July 2002", 3 Jul 2002
• Q: Question:
  Why the Inexorable Defeat is not Absent Battle in the Oracle of the Void?
  Broken Alliance is an Absent Battle in the Oracle of the Void but Broken Alliance and Inexorable Defeat have the same card text:
  "If there are enemy units at the current battlefield, choose your performing personality: Move him there."
  A: Keeping the Oracle's text current is an ongoing project. Obviously it has not gotten to Inexorable Defeat at this point.
  In general, when playing in Legacy, Big Deck and Modern formats, the intent is for cards to work as they functioned when they were legal. Since Inexorable Defeat's Battle ability (but not its Battle/Open) was an Absent Battle at the time, please play as such. Jon Palmer, "Broken Alliance and Inexorable Defeat", 8 Dec 2014
• Q: The unaligned personality Banished has a - Honor Requirement printed on his card, however the listing on the Oracle of the Void has it listed as "0". I haven't read any errata regarding this card, is the information on Oracle simply a typo?
  http://imperialassembly.com/oracle/#cardid=11932,#hashid=d75839eb943b76bf84fa6afd1b950ecb,#cardcount=0
  A: Typo! Fixed. Thank you for letting us know. Brook Cunningham, "Honor Requirement for Banished", 8 Nov 2014
• Q: Hi,
  Can I discard a Fudo Ring for it's effect?
  This question came up in a game I was playing yesterday.
  My argument was that on page 9 in the Advanced Rulebook in the text about Ring cards: ..."They can be discarded from the hand to use their ability" ...
  His argument was This ruling: Fudo Rings and This ruling: Fudo rings where it says you can't pay the cost of bowing the ring for it's action.
  After the game I went on looking and found that both on the cards and in the Oracle of the Void all the rings, Fudo and the standard ring, have a bow cost. I fail to see the difference between them that would allow standard rings to be used from the hand and not the Fudo rings and they are both Ring type cards and I have been unable to find anything in the Ivory Rulebook that differenates between them.
  If the Fudo rings can not be used from the hand can the standard rings be used from the hand as they all have a bowing cost too?
  A: All of the standard rings also have trait saying "You may discard this Ring from your hand to use its ability without cost". The Fudo rings lack this trait, and so their bow cost needs paid in order for their abilities to be used. Jon Palmer, "Discarding a Ring for it's effect", 19 Aug 2014
• Q: The Shadowed Tower of the Shosuro says:
  Tireless Political Reaction, (bow): After an action from your Political Strategy resolves, shuffle the Strategy into your Fate deck instead of discarding it. You may bow your target performing Courtier to ignore the cost of bowing this Stronghold.
  Bayushi says:
  You may ignore the cost of bowing Bayushi for Political actions he performs.
  1) Would Bayushi be able to fulfill the conditions of the Shadowed Tower reaction without bowing?
  2) Is there more recent wording for these? If so, where would I find it? I thought that 'performing' was removed from the game. I got these wordings from the Oracle of the Void database, but if there is a more up-to-date or more official source, I would appreciate a link.
  A: 1) Yes, those cards interact the way you think.
  2) Those are the most up-to-date wordings for these cards, though admittedly the entire Oracle isn't quite Ivory-ized yet. In this case though, while performing is gone from Ivory now, it was too integral a part of the game in the past to remove from older cards, so it's preserved on such cards. The definition of "performing" will soon be added to the Legacy Format Rules (I've gotten a little behind, sorry), which besides the Oracle is needed to fully play with all older cards. Brook Cunningham, "Shadowed Tower of the Shosuro + Bayushi", 26 May 2014
• Q: I could have sworn that when Oracle of the Void went online that all older cards were going to be MRP'ed for the current rules. That might have been me dreaming cause i know that's a big task but I was sure I read it some where. That said, do(should?) legacy terrains follow the same convention as Ivory Edition terrains as far as destroying current terrains in play?
  A: Still working on it! But the actual goal is to update them to Ivory templating, but maintain their original functionality as much as possible. So, no, old Terrains will not be Oracle-ized to destroy other ones when they enter play. Brook Cunningham, "(Legacy question) Legacy terrains and MRP", 23 May 2014
• Q: Is a stronghold considered a holding for the purposes of this stronghold's limited action?
  Limited: Target a Holding. Either give it +1 Gold Production, or increase Honor gains from its abilities by 1 (this turn).
  Oracle of the Void: The Exquisite Palace of the Crane
  A: No, sorry. Strongholds are a different card type entirely from Holdings, despite the fact they both usually produce Gold. Brook Cunningham, "The Exquisite Palace of the Crane", 22 Mar 2014
• Q: I am under the impression that text from Oracle of the Void should be taken as final say for MRP.
  Some newer cards have names as titles, such as "Asukai, the Tireless". Some of these cards on Oracle indicate that "the Tireless" is a keyword, while some others with titles do not have the title as a keyword.
  Should we include these titles as keywords, and add them to the number of keywords a card has, or ignore it as an oversight on Oracle?
  Sadly a few games ended in question because of "Murderous Intent".
  Thanks in advance guys!
  A: The bit of flavor after a comma in card's title is indeed considered a single keyword.
  It will be added to the Ivory Clan Champions sometime before their tournament legality, but it should be present on the entries for all cards prior to that.
  However, if it's any consolation, we're pretty sure at this point that we're never going to print another card that counts keywords ever again. Brook Cunningham, "Number of keywords clarification", 4 Jan 2014
• Q: In Card Vault, I have a note dated 2005-Nov-07 and sourced from the old "AEG Rulings and Errata" list that says:
  "The Imperial Edition Oracle of Water counts as the Oracle of Fire for deck-building and play purposes."
  I guess the titles on these two cards were mistakenly switched, because, just as the text for the Oracle of Water seems to be for the Oracle of Fire, the Oracle of Fire's text seems to be written for the Oracle of Water, yet, I see no similar note attached to the Oracle of Fire in CV. So, my question is: I know the text has been corrected in the Oracle of the Void database, but, for deck-building and play purposes, does the IE Oracle of Fire similarly count as the Oracle of Water?
  MacBeth2001 wrote: "No. In this case, Most Recent Printing Rules would take effect, and your IE copy of Oracle of Fire would be considered to have the text of the most recent printing of the card with that title/exp level, that being the GE version of Oracle of Fire (as updated by the Oracle of the Void database of course)."
  Yeah, I realized that after thinking about it some more. Sorry for wasting time with such a silly question. 8-P
  A: No. In this case, Most Recent Printing Rules would take effect, and your IE copy of Oracle of Fire would be considered to have the text of the most recent printing of the card with that title/exp level, that being the GE version of Oracle of Fire (as updated by the Oracle of the Void database of course). Brook Cunningham, "Imperial Edition Oracles of Water and Fire", 29 Oct 2013
• Q: The Oracle of the Void entry on Kyuden Kitsune mentions an erratum that there's no longer a restriction on playing Mantis clan personalities off that box... however, in viewtopic.php?f=59&t=75249&p=985946 it was ruled that "if the Personality has the base "Mantis Clan" keyword, he will not join you and his entering play under your control will fail"
  So which is correct? Hopefully NOT the Oracle...
  A: The Oracle is the more-current source and correct.
  The ruling you quoted was from 2009, before the Oracle existed.
  When compiling the Oracle, with the switch from "Yoritomo's Alliance" being the identifying keyword of the Clan to "Mantis Clan" in Gold (rather than the pre-Gold situation of the latter implying the former), it was decided to simply remove the trait due to its incongruity with current paradigms. Brook Cunningham, "Kyuden Kitsune (Oracle) vs. ruling", 14 Oct 2013
• Q: According to the Oracle of the Void, The Maws Grave is an unaligned stronghold, not Shadowlands. Though it states you cannot gain or lose honor, it technically can still win via honor since nothing about it explicitly states otherwise.
  When playing cards like The Return of Fu Leng that look for clans that are exempt from winning via honor, this stronghold would not fall into that category and can opt out even though it is also Shadowlands.
  Is this an error, or intentional?
  A: No error. The Maw's Grave (as well as The Forgotten Temple, one might note) is a delightful loophole, allowing you to renounce an ability to win by Honor that you DO have, even if your inability to GAIN Honor means you can never practically achieve it. Enjoy!
  That said, I do feel obligated to correct your implicit and explicit assertions above: The Maw's Grave is not, nor has it ever been, a "Shadowlands" or "Shadowlands Horde" Stronghold. Brook Cunningham, "Legacy question: Maws Grave vs Return of Fu Leng", 21 Aug 2013
• Q: I am a little confused. I checked Oracle of the Void and it looks like that Ravine would exclude any printed action on a card not at the current battlefield.
  A: Yes, that's correct. Brook Cunningham, "Legacy: Ravine vs. Halls of the Damned", 20 Jun 2012
• Q: I saw this ruliing: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=90088
  I was just wondering if the current wording on the Oracle of the Void changes this?
  If this Personality is ever not Ratling: Destroy him. Once per turn, after this card enters your discard pile: You may put it face-up in your hand.
  I think it should.
  A: The errata to Asatte reverses the above ruling. Alex Jones, "Asatte", 18 Jun 2012
• Q: I noticed that in the Oracle of the Void Daidoji Takichi has been reworded. Is this intentional? It seems like it makes a big difference to how he plays.
  Card Wording: Battle: Target a Personality opposing Takichi at the current battlefield: Move the Personality and Takichi to the same adjacent unresolved battlefield.
  Oracle Wording: Battle: Target a Personality opposing Takichi: Move the Personality and Takichi to the same adjacent battlefield.
  Sea Troll Predator has the same wording on his card as Takichi does but his Oracle text did not change.
  A: Nope, just an oversight in transcription. Fixed! Brook Cunningham, "Daidoji Takichi", 9 Apr 2012
• Q: Hi,
  With the updated House of Tao text in the Oracle of the Void, can one react with Introspection when the starting Ring is put into play?
  I would say no in practice, because from http://rules.l5r.com/EE_Sequence_of_play#Start_of_game revealing strongholds is prior to drawing your hand (and thus you'd have no Introspection in hand to react with yet, even though the Ring you put into play with HoT would be a valid trigger), but still...
  House of Tao (relevant Oracle text): After all players reveal Strongholds: You may search your Fate deck for a Ring and put it into play. This counts as putting it into play by its own text.
  Introspection: Reaction: After one of your Rings enters play: Search your Fate deck for a card. Put it in your hand.
  A: Correct. You may not React with Introspection for the very reason you stated. By the time you have a hand in which you may find it, it's too late to React to the Stronghold putting the Ring into play. Brook Cunningham, "Introspection off House of Tao's starting Ring", 13 Mar 2012
• Q: Hi,
  Before the Oracle of the Void, the answer was easy : no. So Shinsei couldn't be payed by bowing a stronghold. The Same Old Tricks was not able to remove any stronghold ability. Now, Brotherhood of Shinsei's updated game text refers to that stronghold as a card : "bow this card".
  Has it just changed ?
  Card's text : The Brotherhood of Shinsei : (Before Diamond Edition) Reaction: Any number of times per turn, before you would trigger a Ring's base trait that would put it into play from your hand, bow this card: Search your Fate deck for that Ring, show it, and put it into your hand. (You then have a chance to play it by its own text.)
  The Same Old Tricks : Reaction: Before the second or later time in one turn the same ability on a target non-Formation card resolves its effects: Negate that ability's effects and permanently remove it from that card.
  Shinsei : Shinsei has the additional cost, "Bow 5 of your cards," to enter play.
  Thanks in advance, Regards, Rémi.
  A: Yes, Strongholds are cards now.
  In the Oracle, as we would now do for all future cards, we endeavored to put Strongholds' past immunity to effects directly in the card's text. So... you'll find that The Same Old Tricks looks slightly different now than the last time you checked.
  However, yes, thanks to the change, Shinsei will happily accept your Stronghold bowing as permission to come into play. Brook Cunningham, "Is every stronghold a Card ?", 29 Feb 2012
• Q: Hello !
  With the coming out of the new L5R database the Oracle of the Void, I found out that now both Strongholds House of Tao and The House of the Tao read :
  After all players reveal Strongholds: You may search your Fate deck for a Ring and put it into play. This counts as putting it into play by its own text.
  The question is : As rings are written, they must be put into play from your hand to count for enlightenment. In this case the ring is not put into play from the player's hand, but according to the stronghold's text, counts as if it were. So, I am a bit lost.
  Does the ring put into play through the Stronghold ability counts for enlightenment ?
  A: Yes, the Ring that either House of Tao puts into play will now count for Enlightenment. Brook Cunningham, "House of Tao", 28 Feb 2012
• Q: [OBH] the stronghold "Yogo Junzo's Army" is tournament legal? It does not appear in the Oracle of the Void...
  A: It was retitled in its MRP to "The Shadowlands Horde". Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 26 Nov 2025
• Q: yu mean the oracle of the void
  A: Yes. OBH Rules are to follow the card text from Oracle of the Void if it differs from printed. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 21 Apr 2025