Shinjo Technique

Legend of the Five Rings card from Gold Edition, Hidden Emperor 4

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

3*

Card Text

This card's ability costs 3 less Gold if you are a Unicorn Clan player.
Reaction: After another player's Strategy targets your Personality: The action targets one of that player's Personalities instead, if legal.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Four Winds (Gold), Hidden Emperor (Jade)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• May not redirect the action to a third player's Personality -- just one belonging to the action's original player. [card text] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 53
• May only redirect an action to someone it could have been played on in the first place. [card text and rulebook] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 53
• Among other things, any action which targets only an "opposing" card cannot be redirected with Shinjo Technique. Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 53

Rules Q&A

• Q: Can I use Shinjo Technique to force the opposing player to use their Iaijutsu Challenge on one of their own personalities?
  A: No. Gold Edition rulebook, pg. 47: you can redirect to something a player couldn't have initially targeted. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 3 July 2003", 3 Jul 2003
• Q: Shinjo Technique
  Reaction: Play when another player targets one of your personalities with an action card. Redirect the action to one of that player's Personalities, if a legal target is available. If you are a unicorn player, the gold cost of this action is reduced to zero.
  Tsuruchi Technique
  This card costs 1 less Gold for Mantis Clan players. Battle: Ranged 3 Attack. Reaction: When one of your units makes a ranged attack, raise its strength by 3.
  I used Tsuruchi technique to ranged attack one of his unicorn personalities. He played Shinjo Technique in response, and redirected the effect to one of my personalities. I argued that my personalities aren't 'legal targets' because I can't ranged attack my own cards. He argued that they were legal targets.
  I looked in the rule book, and I found this "A ranged attack must target a single card opposing the card or cards making the ranged attack: either a Follower or a Personality with no Followers."
  So now I'm confused, my ranged attack didn't come from a card in the battle, they came from an action card -- do my action cards 'oppose' his units in the battle? If so, my personalities wouldn't be legal targets, correct?
  A: Ranged attacks from your hand must still target cards in the opposing army. They cannot be redirected to cards in your own army by Shinjo Technique. Jeff Alexander, "post for 25 March 2003", 26 Mar 2003
• Q: 2) Suppose player A uses an action that could target his own or the player B's personalities. Player B uses Shinjo Technique to redirect to one of player A's. Can player A now use Shinjo Technique to send it back again? We ruled "no" based on the fact that when player B targets the action, he no longer has a choice of both players, therefore when player A tries to Shinjo there are no legal targets for B.
  A: That would be the correct ruling. Jeff Alexander, "post for 11 November 2002", 12 Nov 2002
• Q: The redirection targets a personality controled by the player who originaly played the action Shinjo tech is reacting to. Right?
  So, as the target must be valid, S tech could not redirect a Duel?
  Can it target a personality of the reacting player?
  A: Your question is a little hard to read, and I think I answered it with my last post, but just to be sure...
  If I redirect one of your actions, I am normally only bound by your action's targeting requirements. Your action is the only one targeting anything. My action is NOT targeting them as well.
  Now, Shinjo Technique, by its own text, does apply extra restrictions. When I play it on one of your actions, the new target I pick must be one of your own Personalities AS WELL AS a card you could have targeted originally. Jeff Alexander, "post for 8 Oct 2002", 9 Oct 2002
• Q: Rules question:
  As a Unicorn player, can you use a Shinjo Technique to redirect the effects of Secrets on the Wind to one of the personalities of the player who casted it?
  So in essence - can I use Shinjo Tech to redirect spell effects?
  A: No. Only Action cards. [card text] Jeff Alexander, "post for 23 September 2002", 25 Sep 2002
• Q: If someone targets one of my peeps with a Kolat Assassin or Master, can I redirect it to him with Shinjo Technique? Can it redirect [Iaijutsu] Challenges and [Iaijutsu] Lesson's?
  A: Yes, no, no, and no, in that order, for those cards. Ask, "Could your opponent have played the card on his or her own Personality?" Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 14 July 2002", 14 Jul 2002
• Q: Can anyone give me a better understanding about shinjo technique:
  Reaction:Play this card when another player targets one of your Personalities with an Action card. Redirect the action to one of the player's Personalities whom the player could have targeted with the action.
  So if Player 1 targets Player 2 with an action card and Player 2 reacts with Shinjo Tech. is the action redirected to one of the Player 1 personalities that it could legaly target or is the action card redirected to another of the Player 2 personalities?
  A: One of Player 1's.
  In a nutshell: when someone else plays an Action card on one of your Personalities, Shinjo Technique can make him play it on one of his own instead. It HAS to be one of his (not, say, a different one of yours), and it has to be one he could have played the card on in the first place. If the card targets more than one Personality, you can only change one of the targets from one of your people to one of his. Jeff Alexander, "post for 28 February 2002", 1 Mar 2002
• Q: ... Does Overconfidence work?
  A: Shinjo Technique cannot redirect Overconfidence. No redirection effect can ever work on something which specifies only one possible target. [AOF rulebook p. 47] Jeff Alexander, "post for 19 February 2002", 20 Feb 2002
• Q: And What about Arrows From The Woods ? Can you redirect the ranged attack to his own personnality ?
  A: Not with Shinjo Technique, because he could not have played Arrows From the Woods on his own Personality. Jeff Alexander, "post for 19 February 2002", 20 Feb 2002
• Q: Can I use Shinjo Technique (Reaction: Play when another player targets one of your personalities with an action card. Redirect the action to one of that player's Personalities, if a legal target is available) to redirect Hired Killer(Limited: Pay Gold equal to the target’s unit’s Gold Cost plus 2: Lose 3 Honor. Destroy a target Personality)?
  Do I then have to pay the new target's gold cost?
  A: This question has been asked before. Frequently, in fact.
  http://rules.l5r.com/FAQ#What_happens_i ... nt_cost.3F Zen Faulkes, "Shinjo Technique & Hired Killer", 18 Mar 2009
• Q: So shinjo technique : I'm reading it multiple times and it seems like it can't redirect a lot actions, e.g., duels, blocked supply lines, etc. Am I applying rules correctly? Because it says "legal target"
  A: You're correct; it has a pretty narrow scope. Brook Cunningham, "Oracle of the Void #rules", 17 Apr 2021