Stars Scatter

Legend of the Five Rings card from Honor Bound

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Kiho

Card Text

Reaction: After you announce a Ranged Attack action, bow your performing Monk or Shugenja: Instead of a single Ranged Attack from the action, you may make a number of consecutive Ranged Attacks with a combined total strength equal to the strength of the original Ranged Attack, retaining all the original's restrictions, requirements, and additional effects.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Hidden Emperor (Jade)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• May produce an indefinite number of 0 strength Ranged Attacks, if the original strength was more than 0. [DW, email, July 1999] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 59
• Can only modify one Ranged Attack if several are produced simultaneously. [Netnews, 7/12/99] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 59
• An indefinite number of 0-strength ranged attacks may be produced. [DW, email, 7/99] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 56

Rules Q&A

• Q: Maybe I missed it, but was there ever an official answer from the rules team on the interraction of Stars Scatter and Jade Arrow?
  A: Yes. The original ruling stands. It's legal and it works, provided you can increase the Jade Arrow's attack strength above 0. Jeff Alexander, "post for 30-31 January 2003", 1 Feb 2003
• Q: OK, I am under attack but have no-one assigned to the current battle. As my first action I play Concealed Archers, then Coordinated Fire, then Stars Scatter. Did I just machine gun the attacking army or did I do something wrong? (We had this happen in a multi-player game recently and the Naga player completely wiped out a sizeable Phoenix army using it).
  A: Looking at all the Reactions involved, the only one that doesn't work is Coordinated Fire. When combining Ranged Attacks, all the seperate attacks have to be legal in all ways at that point in time. Coordinated Fire breaks the one unit restriction, but doesn't break the any other restrictions. You couldn't combine Balash and Purusha's Ranged Attacks using Coordinated Fire because their timing doesn't combine, and you can't use Coordinated Fire to combine Ranged Attacks from several cards outside a battle, only one of which has a special condition allowing it to be legal. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for February 6th", 6 Feb 2001
• Q: <snip> The counterargument to that is that, once Stars Scatter has been played, the new RA's are not the same RA as the original one. They are all completely new Ranged Attacks, and should get all existing bonuses again. For balance's sake, though, I think that the whole thing, Stars Scatter and all, should just be counted once when assessing bonuses.
  And the counter argument to that is the text of Stars Scatter.(which I should have looked at before entering into this discussion :>)
  Kiho Reaction: Bow one of your Monks or Shugenja __as__ you make a ranged attack.
  The range attack is not complete at the time Stars Scatter looks at it :> To me as a TO the rulling would have been you can split the original RA into as many 1F RAs as you like and then the Barbicans will apply.
  A: But Barbican, essentialy, applies itself at the same time as Stars Scatter triggers. When the RA is made. Given that one is a trait, and one is a Reaction, the Reaction always goes last. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for December 18th", 18 Dec 2000
• Q: So, with Stars Scatter, any in place modifications only change the strength of the original Ranged Attack, not all the consecutive ones that follow. This would include things like Higher Ground, as well.
  Hmm. Vaughn, does not the active controller get to decide which order to apply his card effects in?
  A: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Traits always apply before actions, so you cannot do this: Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for December 11th", 11 Dec 2000
• Q: So with 3 Barbicans under Kaiu Sensei you could Double, Double, Stars Scatter and double again.
  The answer you were looking for is a card effect only applies once from a particular copy of that card.
  So once a particular Barbican doubles the original ranged attack no matter what other effects may occur to it that Barbican's doubling effect cannot apply again.
  A: The counterargument to that is that, once Stars Scatter has been played, the new RA's are not the same RA as the original one. They are all completely new Ranged Attacks, and should get all existing bonuses again. For balance's sake, though, I think that the whole thing, Stars Scatter and all, should just be counted once when assessing bonuses. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for December 11th", 11 Dec 2000