At Any Cost

Legend of the Five Rings card from Emperor Edition

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Dark Virtue, Will

Card Text

Dark Virtue Battle, : Recruit your target performing dead Samurai.

Focus Value

1

Legality

Age of Conquest (Emperor)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Following this: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=107948&p=1420520
  I take it then that actions such as At Any Cost, or Will, also Recruit the personality?
  And per the definition of Recruit and this other ruling, Kaeru Contractor would not work with them?
  What about House of Contracts? Is it able to produce 5g "when paying for an ability on a strategy"? I.e., is the cost of the Recruiting effect in AAC or Will part of the ability's cost?
  A: Pre-Ivory edition cards (all cards in actuality) should always be played using their current Oracle of the Void text.
  As of right now, At Any Cost and Will do not use the Recruit rulebook procedure found in the Ivory Edition rules. Instead they directly bring the personality in to play, which using Legacy rules, means you have to pay their gold cost, plus any modifications the card describes for them at that time.
  That gold cost is not from the Strategy, it is considered from rulebook, so Kaeru Contractor and House of Contacts would not be able to help you pay for them. Ben Higgins, "Kaeru Contractor | House of Contracts + @ Any Cost, Will,etc", 26 Jun 2014
• Q: don't we follow the 1st Cardinal Rule http://rules.l5r.com/EE_Cardinal_rules with At Any Cost?
  A: We do - but that's not relevant.
  At Any Cost requires you to choose a performer who's not in play, since it states that the performer must be dead, the line below the paragraph I quoted above comes into play: The above limitations are overridden by a reference to cards in an out-of-play area.
  So, 1st Cardinal Rule not needed there.
  The problem with using At Any Cost as your Naval action isn't really At Any Cost, it's the Naval Invasion ability: Reaction: After engaging, once per battle, if you are the Attacker and your current army has more Naval cards than the side opposing it, choose your performing Naval Personality: You have the first opportunity to take a Battle action, which he must perform.
  You must choose a legal performer for this Reaction, and a dead Personality - while a legal performer of At Any Cost - isn't a legal perfomer of the Naval Invasion Reaction. And the 1st Cardinal Rule doesn't help you here, either.
  However, if you take the Naval Invasion Reaction, choosing your Naval Personality at the current battlefield, who then gets destroyed by some other effect (eg via Open Emotion) between then and the first opportunity to take a Battle action, you could, in this scenario, play At Any Cost as that first Battle Action - At Any Cost is one of the few actions you could take! Alex Jones, "Naval + At Any Cost", 27 Jun 2012
• Q: I searched and came up only with THIS post regarding this question. I am not certain that thread is still relevant with the changes in the rules from CE to EE, specifically the slight rewording of the rulebook effect of naval.
  If I have a single unit which is naval attacking and my opponent defends with a single non-naval personality, can I choose a dead naval samurai to perform At Any Cost as my naval action?
  It would seem the previous ruling was it was not possible to play Will as a naval action due to the wording of naval requiring that you target the performing naval personality and not being allowed to target dead personalities. With naval being changed to no longer require targeting and with At Any Cost also requiring to choose a performer rather than targeting a personality, is it legal under the current rule set to play At Any Cost as a naval action?
  A: Is it legal under the current rule set to play At Any Cost as a naval action?
  No, because you cannot choose a dead Personality to perform the Naval Invasion Reaction.
  Physically marked card states, In play and out of play, Implications of in and out of play: Cards that are not in play or in a resolution, entering-play or focusing area have the following limitations: They may not be targeted or perform actions. Alex Jones, "Naval + At Any Cost", 26 Jun 2012
• Q: Perfect Sacrifice Cost
  0 Keywords
  Dark Virtue • Perfection Text
  Battle/Limited: Choose your performing Samurai: Give each Personality and Follower in his unit a Force bonus equal to its current Force. Before this turn ends, destroy his unit.
  At Any Cost Cost
  0 Keywords
  Dark Virtue • Will Text
  Battle: If you control any units at the current battlefield, choose your performing dead Samurai: Bring him into play at the current battlefield, paying all costs.
  Now question to you fine folk: Perfect Sacrifice does not specify exactly when you are supposed to blow up your guy. In reading it as such, am I able to choose when during the turn I destroy my unit (read, after the resolution of that battle so I can At Any Cost him into another one)?
  A: No.
  "Before the turn ends" is a precise timing trigger. Think of it as "immediately before the turn ends", or "when the turn is about to end".
  See Timing, Triggers for more information. Alex Jones, "Perfect Sacrifice (potentially stupid question incoming)", 15 May 2012
• Q: I am playing Kalani's Landing, my only available gold is Kalani's Landing which straightened on my opponent's turn. My opponent attacks me and I defend with two personalities. My opponent announces a kill action and I reduce the cost of my 8G personality by 2 with the reaction on Kalani's Landing. My opponent targets this personality with his kill action. I then play At Any Cost targeting the same personality and pay 4G with Kalani's Landing to bring the dead personality back into play with the 2G reduction from Kalani's Landing and the 2G in clan reduction. Is this a legal play?
  A: Yes, perfectly legal.
  The card was in play when you targeted it with Kalani's Landing's Reaction, and all your statements about durations are correct. Brook Cunningham, "Kalani's Landing + At Any Cost", 22 Feb 2012
• Q: Fields of Mercy: Before a card effect destroys a Personality in an army, if a card effect has destroyed another Personality in that army while this card was in play: Negate the Personality's destruction
  If I play Fields of Mercy, my opponent destroys my Personality A, then I bring them back into play (At Any Cost, say), what happens when he tries to destroy Personality A again? Is it negated or, since Personality A is not "another personality", is he destroyed again?
  Thanks!
  A: Personality A is not "another" Personality as it is not different from the first Personality referenced. Therefore if you bring the Personality back, Fields of Mercy will not negate the Personality's destruction. Jon Palmer, "Fields of Mercy, "another personality"", 19 Feb 2012
• Q: I've noticed two things about At Any Cost.
  1. It has Will as a keyword.
  2. It is nearly the same as Will, the differences being that the two gold cost reduction is not printed on the card (it is now supposedly in the rules [see below] that a personality who belongs to your clan can be brought into play for two less gold regardless of when they're being brought into play) and the cost of the card itself is 0, while you still have to "pay all costs" of the personality. (It also no longer requires opposition or ignores honor requirements, though ignoring honor requirements can be done at any time for in-clan personalities.) Effectively speaking, this makes it a slightly tweaked copy of Will, which has been given wording that fits with the EE rules. (I think no more difference than that between the Samurai version and the CE version.)
  Does this mean that At Any Cost is actually an MRP'd Will, and old copies of Will can thus be played in EE using the updated wording? (It sure seems to me that it should be so. I don't want to spend $15 each on a card just because the words "honor requirement" and "opposed" have been left off when I already own three!)
  "Clan Discount and Ignoring Honor Requirements Now all rules for bringing people into play, except Proclaim, apply at all times, meaning you can apply your clan discount and pay extra gold to ignore honor requirements any time you bring someone of your clan into play. This change was made to simply be more intuitive." (http://www.l5r.com/news/emperor-edition-design-diaries-new-rules/)
  (The EE Comprehensive Rules seem unclear/contradictory on this matter, saying "if it's the player's dynasty phase" under "Playing Personalities" and then "before each time a player brings a personality into play" [with an obvious lack of stipulations] under "Clan Alignment and Entering Play".) http://rules.l5r.com/EE_Card_types#Personalities
  A: At Any Cost and Will are completely separate cards. This was done for several cards in Emperor Edition (Beloved of the Clan vs Rumors Travel, for instance), and the cards are not mechanically the same so new cards were created. At Any Cost has the "Will" keyword but in no other way is related to the card Will; you may play 3 of each in Legacy.
  As for Clan Discount and Clan Allegiance, the second part is correct. I'll talk with Roger about cleaning up the text due to the confusion, thank you for pointing it out. Jon Palmer, "At Any Cost = Will?", 11 Feb 2012
• Q: [OBH] At Any Cost (and similar recruit dead cards): Can this be used to recruit a character that died during the resolution of a battle at a different province?
  A: It would really depend on the card's text to be sure. In the case of At Any Cost, it doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that the performer is dead and a Samurai; where and when they died is irrelevant.
  (Replying to kempy_nezumi: "Its more a question about "no second battle" rule.") Oops, yeah. Missed that potential nuance. Would've been clearer if the question had specifically mentioned the Personality was attacking. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 10 May 2026