Does Ahri's legend effect target units, requiring players to pay deflect costs when a unit with deflect attacks?

Ruling: Ahri's legend effect does not target and therefore does not require paying deflect costs when a unit with deflect attacks.

Sequence:

  • When an enemy unit attacks a battlefield Ahri controls, the trigger condition identifies "an enemy unit"
  • The effect references "it" (the attacking unit) but this is determined by the game state, not player choice
  • Since "enemy unit" appears in the trigger condition and "it" is programmatically decided rather than chosen by a player, neither constitutes a target

Nuances:

  • This differs from blue Ahri (Ahri Inquisitive), which does target and would require paying deflect costs
  • The player controlling the attacking unit is choosing to move into that battlefield; Ahri's controller is not actively choosing which unit to affect
  • Similar effects like Mask of Foresight also do not target for the same reason