Takaharu

Legend of the Five Rings card from The Dead of Winter

Card Type

Personality

Force

5

Chi

4

Honor Requirement

-

Gold Cost

7

Personal Honor

0

Clan

Ninja, Unaligned

Keywords

Assassin, Ninja

Card Text

Reaction: When another player's Battle action would target a Ninja at Takaharu's battlefield: It targets a different Ninja you control at that battlefield, if legal.

Legality

Destroyer War (Celestial)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: I've looked at the previous rulings, including night watchers, ranged attacks, targeting ninja attachments (blowdarts)... But this is never covered.
  Takaharu doesn't say Takaharu's controller may choose the target.
  "redirect" isn't a rule anymore in the CE rules that I can find (which used to specify the user chooses the new target).
  I found: http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Glossary_T#Targeting
  This does not define when exactly the action WOULD be chosen by a new player, simply suggesting that it can.
  I also found: http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Effects#Substitution
  But again, nothing suggests that the player who forces the original player to substitute targeting gets to choose a new target.
  So, that being said, does that mean Takaharu's reaction says basically "you can't target that card, pick another" but the original action's player still gets to choose which of the remaining legal targets to target (if any exist). All my ninja playing friends (and it sounds this way from most discussions about him) seem to think he magically gets to choose the new target, even though I can find no CE rules that say he does.
  ----- I want a judge ruling on this so I don't feel like D-bag for wanting to correct them (especially when one of the friends is getting back into L5R and I don't want to discourage his new attempt at a goju deck by being mean. I didn't say anything to him because I want him to love the personality and otherwise his deck isn't competitive, but our more active scorpion player is very competitive and so I want to know the correct ruling to be fair.)
  A: Since the effect is Takaharu's player's, he (not the original targeter) makes the the implicit decision for what the new target should be. Brook Cunningham, "Takaharu redirection - who chooses", 30 Jul 2011
• Q: Takaharu and Night Watchers... you CAN react to him being targeted by an effect to play the reaction of attaching the Night Watchers. But after that, you can NO LONGER react to that same targetting to play Takaharus own reaction to redirect it to the now attached Night Watchers? How does this one reaction being used make the original targeting no longer reactionable(?)
  A: It has nothing to do with the Reaction - it has to do with the timing.
  1. Targeting.
  2. Reactions triggered by "would target." <- Takaharu.
  3. Reactions triggered by "after targeting." <- Night Watchers.
  Once you've gone to step 3, you don't get to back up to step 2. Zen Faulkes, "Takaharu and Night Watchers", 28 Mar 2011
• Q: Night Watchers' Reaction is legal to take here. The question I'm unclear on is if it is still legal to take Takaharu's reaction now.
  A: No, for the reason stated. If you wait until "after", you're past the "when it would" trigger. Zen Faulkes, "Takaharu and Night Watchers", 25 Mar 2011
• Q: I didn't see much for Night Watchers here, and nothing with Takaharu.
  My question is this. Can you use both reactions in response to a targeting? If so, does the resolution of one complete before the other one occurs?
  Example......
  Say a player targets Takaharu with an action that gives a target card -4 force.
  Can I then react to this by attaching Night Watchers... which does NOT change the legality or targeting of the original action.
  And THEN can I also use Takaharus reaction to redirect this force penalty to the newly attached Night Watchers? Both reactions seem straight forward, but the timing of multiple reactions, and responding to a single trigger event is the questionable area for me.
  Relevant texts:
  Night Watchers "Reaction: AFter another player's Battle action targets your Ninja Personality, if this card is in your hand: Attach it to the Personality. If he is no longer a legal target for the action, the action's cost are ignored and its effects do not happen."
  Takaharu "Reaction: When another player's Battle action would target a Ninja at Takaharu’s battlefield: It targets a different Ninja you control at that battlefield, if legal."
  A: Reactions (like all actions) are always taken, and resolve completely, one at a time (http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Timing#Priority).
  http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Timing#Resolvin ... _conflicts: "The order of resolution means that triggered effects that come first, due to the above order, the order of Reactions, or the active player’s decision, can negate or otherwise make impossible triggered effects and Reactions that come later. When this happens, Reactions to the now nonexistent trigger may not be taken, and other effects are not triggered by it."
  So if one target is changed from A to B by a Reaction, you can no longer react to something targeting A... because it isn't being targeted any more. Zen Faulkes, "Takaharu and Night Watchers", 24 Mar 2011