Rapid Deployment

Legend of the Five Rings card from Samurai Edition, Path of Hope, Promotional–Samurai

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Card Text

Battle: Choose your performing Samurai at the current battlefield and target two of your units not there: Move the targets there. If you are defending, straighten each of these units that moved.

Focus Value

3

Legality

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

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• Erratum: Reads, "Rapid Deployment 0G 3FV Battle: Target one of your Samurai Personalities at the current battlefield: Target two of your units not there. Move them there. If you are defending, straighten each of these units that moved." [MRP, Samurai Edition, 25 July 2007] Comprehensive Rules, Samurai Edition, with specific card rulings, final version, May 2009, p. 151

Rules Q&A

• Q: I have Shosuro Jimen in play. My opponent declares an attack on my last 3 provinces with one personality per province. Having only Jimen and Bayushi Kaukatsu in play, I defend only 2 provinces. My opponent resolves the undefended province and used Rapid Deployment(or any action that would move the personalities out) and moves the other 2 personalities to his location and ,thus, successfully destroying the province.
  Can Shosuro Jimen dishonor one of the personality that moved to the undefended province?
  A: No.
  After the first battle, those Personalities did not oppose your Personalities "in the battle", so there is no trigger for Jimen after it resolves.
  After Jimen and Kaukatsu's battles, though the Personalities opposed them at some time between Maneuvers and their leaving during the first battle, they never opposed them IN THOSE BATTLES (which start when the attacker chooses to resolve them, after he resolved the first), so there is no legal trigger for Jimen then either.
  EDIT: This ruling is (Fixed) from how it first appeared. Brook Cunningham, "Shosuro Jimen(non exp) trigger to opposed", 6 Mar 2009
• Q: If I use Rapid Deployment to being in Yoritomo Eriko (xp) and some other personality, would I be able to use Eriko's reaction?
  A: Yes, indeed.
  Eriko's Reaction triggers after the movement. At that point, both Personalities are at the battlefield, so it is "Eriko's battlefield" as her Reaction trigger requires. Brook Cunningham, "Eriko and Rapid Deployment", 7 Jun 2008
• Q: All these rule changes are driving me crazy
  A: Actually, not much has changed. These are all just wording changes made for consistency -- the practical end result has not changed at all. Zen Faulkes, "Rapid Deployment", 19 Mar 2008
• Q: All these rule changes are driving me crazy
  Rapid Deployment Battle : Target one of your Samurai Personalities at the current battlefield: Target two of your units not here. Move them there. If you are defending, straighten each of these units that moved.
  Comprehensive Rules Move
  If a unit that was in an attacking army at any point during a battle’s resolution tries to move to any battlefield (even the same battlefield whose battle resolved) during the same Attack Phase, the unit does not move. This is not negation of the movement (see Do Not). Note that even if it is known beforehand that the movement will not occur due to this rule or any other effect, an action that moves a unit as one of its effects can still be taken, because of the Blind cards rule. [REVISED 15 January 2008, again 16 March 2008 (replacing "fail" with "does not move"), again 19 March 2008 (covers any battlefield, not another battlefield, in line with Rulebook)]
  Can I target personalities who already was at battle resolution this turn, for the effects?
  A: You can target such a Personality.
  He simply does not move. Martin Lund, "Rapid Deployment", 19 Mar 2008
• Q: I control a Samurai at the current battlefield and have 2 Personalities at home. One of them was already in a battle resolution this Attack Phase as the Attacker. Does the Blind Card Rule allow me to play Rapid Deployment targeting these two Personalities or is it an illegal play? Thank you!
  A: You can target them. Any movement on the already-resolved Personality simply can not take effect. That effect fails. The movement of the other Personality is unimpeded. Martin Lund, "Rapid Deployment", 13 Dec 2007
• Q: This is from the rules FAQ: [edit] Is an action legal if an effect can't happen? A. All of those are variations on the same question: Do effects have to happen for an action to be legal? No, they don't. (Costs are another matter, though. Costs have to happen.)
  Based on this, I'd like to get a clarification on a couple cards. For instance: Rapid Deployment says: Battle: Target one of your Samurai Personalities at the current battlefield: Target two of your units not there. Move them there. If you are defending, straighten each of these units that moved.
  If I have only 1 unit not at the current battlefield, can I still move it there with Rapid Deployment. (i.e. I tried to target 2 units, but one of the targetings failed, does the other still work?) The people I play with think no, you have to move 2 units.
  Kitsu Ineko Open: Target a Lion Clan Personality in your discard pile. He becomes honorably dead. Give Cavalry to all cards in one target unit. What happens to Ineko's action if there are no Lion Clan personalities at all in the discard pile? I'm inclined to think this wouldn't work either, although targeting an already honorably dead personality would work.
  A: You want to look a little further up in the FAQ, as both of those questions concern targeting.
  http://rules.l5r.com/FAQ#What_are_required_targets.3F Zen Faulkes, "Effects that don't happen", 3 Dec 2007
• Q: Battle: Even if this Stronghold is bowed, target one of your Crane Clan Samurai at the current battlefield: Ranged 3 Attack. Move him home or to another battlefield.
  If there is no legal target for a ranged attack at the current battlefield, can they take this action? I would think not, such as in the case of Rapid Deployment, as the rulebook states about a ranged attack: In an effect, “Ranged X Attack” (where X is a number known as the strength of the ranged attack) is shorthand for “Target a Follower or a Personality without Followers in the current enemy army. If its Force is equal to or less than X, destroy it.” A ranged attack’s strength is treated as a stat with regard to bonuses, penalties, and minimums.
  A: No. This has always been the case for Mountain's Shadow Dojo, even pre-errata. Chris Fuchs, "Question on targeting for Mountain's Shadow Dojo, Errataed", 30 Oct 2007