Swift Sword Cut

Legend of the Five Rings card from Celestial Edition, Words and Deeds, Ivory Edition, Promotional–Ivory

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Card Text

Battle: Target and bow your unbowed Kensai or one of his unbowed Weapons. Destroy a target enemy Follower, Item, or Personality without attachments, that has Force equal to or less than your Kensai's Chi.

Focus Value

2

Legality

A Brother's Destiny (Ivory Edition), A Brother's Destiny (Twenty Festivals), Destroyer War (Celestial), Race for the Throne (Samurai)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• Erratum: Reads, "Swift Sword Cut 0G 2FV Battle: Target your Kensai Personality and bow him or one of his Weapons: Destroy a target enemy Follower, Item, or Personality without attachments and with Force less than or equal to your Kensai's Chi." [MRP, Celestial Edition, 29 June 2009] Comprehensive Rules, Celestial Edition, with specific card rulings, final version, February 2012, p. 156

Rules Q&A

• Q: Target and bow your unbowed Kensai or one of his unbowed Weapons. Destroy a target enemy Follower, Item, or Personality without attachments, that has Force equal to or less than your Kensei's Chi.
  To my understanding this card destroy a enemy follower and item as soon you bow your Kensai or your weapon! To kill a personality it request that the target must be without attachments and with Force = or less them my kensai Chi! It is this correct? English isn`t my first language!
  Noob Alert is ON
  A: No worries on the language issue!
  "that has Force equal to or less than your Kensei's Chi" is a clause that applies to the entirety of your targeting choices. Therefore, the enemy Follower, Item or Personality without attachments must also have Force equal to or less than your Kensei's Chi. Jon Palmer, "Swift Sword Cut", 19 Jun 2014
• Q: Swift Sword cut is a strategy with no gold cost and 2 focus value. http://imperialassembly.com/oracle/#cardid=7694,#hashid=9d9bd5d9036c8f488ab36e7d456f3778,#cardcount=0
  The action reads as follows:
  Battle: Target and bow your unbowed Kensai or one of his unbowed weapons. Destroy a Follower, Item, or Personality without attachments, that has Force equal to or less than your Kensai's Chi.
  My issue is with with the underlined phrase. Previous versions of the card began the action with this wording: "Battle: Target your Kensai Personality and bow him or one of his weapons:"
  I feel the new wording introduces an ambiguity into the functioning of this card and may change it. I am looking for verification.
  If you read the card to say that you may target and bow the unbowed kensai or you may target and bow his unbowed weapon, then it words as it always has.
  However, if the proper way to read the card is that you must target an unbowed kensae and then you must bow him or his unbowed weapon, then this only works as long as the kensai is unbowed, regardless of the state of the weapons when the action is targetted.
  Which reading is correct? I have tried to figure it out based on the rules of conjunctions and cannot figure out the proper meaning.
  Put another way. One reading merely requires that either the kensai or his weapon be unbowed, the other reading requires that the kensai be unbowed and may substitute his bowing with the bowing of the weapon.
  A: The wording on the card as printed in Ivory Edition is clear. You must choose an unbowed Kensai; you then target and bow either him or (one of) his weapon(s).
  Apologies for the delay in responding, there was some discussion whether the card should be changed so that it worked as before, where you could bow the weapon of your bowed Kensai. Alex Jones, "Swift Sword Cut Action wording", 14 May 2014
• Q: Do weapons have any force themselves?
  A: http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Card_types#Items: "If something in the game needs to check an Item’s Force or Chi separately from its Personality’s stats, use the value of its modifier (minimum zero)." Zen Faulkes, "Swift Sword Cut and weapons.", 15 Jun 2011
• Q: If the personality with a weapon has their force set to zero, does the weapon also become a zero force bonus?
  A: No. http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Card_features#S ... to_a_value: "To set a stat to a value, give it the smallest possible appropriate bonus or penalty... such that it reaches that value."
  If a 3F Personality with a +3F item has force set to zero, you give the Personality a -6F penalty. Anything that looks at the Item will still count it as 3F, because nothing happened to the Item. Zen Faulkes, "Swift Sword Cut and weapons.", 15 Jun 2011
• Q: Swift Sword Cut: Does ("with Force less than or equal to your Kensai's Chi") affect all the possible targets, or just the personality without attachments part?
  A: All, as per the last quoted example in the wiki. Zen Faulkes, "Swift Sword Cut", 19 Jul 2009