Victory or Death

Legend of the Five Rings card from Web of Lies

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Iaijutsu

Card Text

Battle/Open: Choose your performing unbowed Duelist and target another player's Personality: Your performer duels him. Bow the duel's loser. If your Personality wins and the loser was had the highest Gold Cost of all his controller's Personalities (including ties), you may search your Fate deck for a card titled "No Victory", 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: Basically what I'm asking is, if I have 2 people with the same gold cost, and they are both my highest cost personality, and one of them loses a Victory of Death duel.....can the winner go find a No Victory. I'm not asking anything about the duel resulting in a tie. I'm strictly speaking of the cost of the people.
  Quote:
  Quote:
  If you win and the loser was the most expensive Personality his controller controlled (including ties)
  How is this (including ties) clause to be read. For purposes of example just say I have 2 Bairezu in play and one just lost the duel.
  Is it:
  A. Saying include the ties when checking to see if he's the highest cost personality, in which case there are 2 tied at 10G so he's not the definitive highest. Or..
  B. Saying include the ties as in they are all counted as one person for purpose of being the highest, in which case he would be the highest as far as the duel was concerned.
  Searched the forums and lists for weeks and have seen the question posted but no official answer ever given. Requesting one.
  A: OK. I think I see what you're driving at now.
  The card is describing its play timing as when you defeat the highest-cost Personality - including when you defeat a Personality tied for the highest cost. Martin Lund, "Victory or Death/No Victory and Ties", 11 Apr 2005
• Q: Question: can you win a Victory or Death challenge (against the most expensive enemy personality), search for No Victory (as per the text of Victory or Death), and then immediately play that copy of No Victory as per its text?
  It seems to me that this is the idea of how the two cards are intended to work together, but I don't see how this fits with the following ruling from the accumulated rulings:
  Quote:
  Outside effects and reactions triggered by winning or losing a duel occur before the results of the duel itself, because winning occurs when Chi totals are compared and one is found to be higher. [JA, 19-20 February 2004]
  Since No Victory is triggered "After you win a duel", whilst Victory or Death's search effect is a standard result of the duel, by the above ruling, the opportunity to react with No Victory falls before the opportunity to search for it.
  Is this correct?
  A: You've got a solid point there. It'll let you get No Victory, but the time to play No Victory has already come and gone.
  That's just like the Walking the Way for Ring of Air situation, come to think of it.
  So you can't follow up a Victory or Death with the copy of No Victory it fetches for you - at least until Jeff says otherwise. Martin Lund, "Victory or Death & No Victory", 28 Mar 2005
• Q: i thought that on any one action you are able to play as many reactions as possible on the original action that was played. so being that the ability to search for the no victory is part of the victory or death, shouldn't the reaction to play the no victory still be in the whole reaction phase of the duel.
  A: No.
  Here's how it goes: Enter the challenge. Personalities focus. One strikes. Flip the cards and total stat plus focus values.
  Determine the winner; the Personality with the higher stat wins.
  Play Reactions to winning the duel. the trigger has just occurred, and you can't wait to play the Reaction until other effects from the action have resolved (e.g., honor gains, etc.).
  Continue to resolve those other effects of the duel, which, in this case, is to retreive a card and put it in your hand.
  The current rules are unambiguous. There is no wiggle room. We're not going to "leave it that way" because it never was "that way." Not really. Just because many people assumed it was legal does not make it legal. I'm not saying it's intuitive, but it is consistent. I do not believe that players really want a game where two cards can have the exact same text but not work the same way. Enforcing consistency in the rules causes short-term pain, but long-term gain. Zen Faulkes, "VICTORY OR DEATH AND NO VICTORY AGAIN", 28 Mar 2005
• Q: Question: can you win a Victory or Death challenge (against the most expensive enemy personality), search for No Victory (as per the text of Victory or Death), and then immediately play that copy of No Victory as per its text?
  It seems to me that this is the idea of how the two cards are intended to work together, but I don't see how this fits with the following ruling from the accumulated rulings:
  Since No Victory is triggered "After you win a duel", whilst Victory or Death's search effect is a standard result of the duel, by the above ruling, the opportunity to react with No Victory falls before the opportunity to search for it.
  Is this correct?
  A: You've got a solid point there. It'll let you get No Victory, but the time to play No Victory has already come and gone.
  That's just like the Walking the Way for Ring of Air situation, come to think of it.
  So you can't follow up a Victory or Death with the copy of No Victory it fetches for you - at least until Jeff says otherwise. Martin Lund, "Victory or Death & No Victory", 24 Mar 2005