Tengoku Acolyte

Legend of the Five Rings card from Web of Lies

Card Type

Follower

Force

3

Chi

0

Honor Requirement

3

Gold Cost

4

Personal Honor

-

Keywords

Cavalry

Card Text

Will only attach to a Dragon.
May attach to a Personality ignoring restrictions on that Personality.
Reaction: After a Dragon enters play: Gain 2 Honor. You may search your Fate deck for a copy of Tengoku Acolyte, show it, and put it in your hand.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Age of Enlightenment (Lotus), Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: One of the people on the Socal list posted this.
  I have a rules question about Tengoku acolyte¹s ability which reads, ³ Reaction: After a Dragon Creature enters play: Once per turn, gain 2 Honor. You may search your Fate deck for a Tengoku Acolyte, show it, and put it in your hand. ²
  Compare this to ³Reaction: During your end phase, if you¹ve brought no Gold Producing Holdings into play this turn, bow your stronghold to search your deck, then face-down provinces, for this card. Put the first gifts and favors you find into play bowed and shuffle your deck. If you find none, you lose the game.²
  A: Okay.
  Tengoku Acolyte says "a Tengoku Acolyte". Any one at all.
  Gifts and Favors says "this card". This physical object.
  They're different.
  Gifts and Favors implicitly allows its own use while out of play by telling you to search for it in places that are out of play (then tells you to play the first one you find, as there is no way to signify which one was actually used). Tengoku Acolyte does not. Martin Lund, "Rules for 11 January 2005", 14 Jan 2005
• Q: If an elemental dragon with a Tengoku Acolyte attached and Suitengu's Surge attached re-enters play, can the Tengoku Acolyte react to the dragon entering play?
  A: Archive, Suitengu's Surge. "Entering play effects occur again when the unit is returned." Zen Faulkes, "Suitengu's Surge and Reactions on cards entering play", 27 Mar 2005
• Q: If a unit that contains a Tengoku Acolyte attached to a Dragon has been Suitengu's Surge'd out of play, and re-enters play, is that Tengoku acolyte allowed to take its reaction? As the entire unit enters play at the same time, can one card in the unit (Tengoku Acolyte) take a reaction to another card in the unit entering play (the dragon).?
  A: Yes, because the Reaction on Tengoku Acolytes is used after the card enters play (card text). Zen Faulkes, "Re: Reactions on cards entering play", 27 Mar 2005
• Q: When I bring a dragon creature into play can I search my deck for a Tengoku Acolyte to put in my hand if I have no Acolyte's in play in much the same way you search for a gifts and favours, or do I have to have one acolyte in play already to do this?
  A: Gifts & Favors
  "Reaction: During your End Phase, if you’ve brought no Gold-producing Holdings into play this turn, bow your Stronghold to search your deck, then face-down Provinces, for this card. ..."
  Tengoku Acolyte
  "Reaction: After a Dragon Creature enters play: Once per turn, gain 2 Honor. You may search your Fate deck for a Tengoku Acolyte"
  You may not play a Tengoku Acolyte from your deck. Gifts refers explicitly to searching your deck for the exact physical card you're reacting with. (The clause about playing the first one you find exists because it is impossible to specify exactly which you used if there is more than one.) Tengoku Acolyte instead lets you search for "a" Tengoku Acolyte. Jeff Alexander, "Tengoku Acolyte", 10 Mar 2005
• Q: Hello guys, one question under Diamond Rules. If I have a Tengoku Acolyte and a dragon creature, Then I use Egg of panku to copy the dragon creature. does the reaction from the acolytes is valid? or the window is lost for the reaction?
  A: No trigger for the Reaction. The copy does not "enter play", the Egg enters then becomes the copy, hence the last line of text on the Egg. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 27 May 2025