Sometimes you just wanna go big.

I’m not talking about playing crab and buying a 6 force guy for 9 gold. No, that’s just going Crab. I’m talking about going BIG.

Alright, so it’s not Lotus edition anymore. Heck, it’s not even Celestial edition anymore. What’s a Timmy to do?

Kotei season, for the most part, didn’t produce a ton of interesting decks. Good decks, sure, but for the most part everything was within parameters. Nothing was super surprising, out of left field.

Well, almost nothing. Enter Lloyd Videz, my hero, on a shining white steed!

The Exquisite Palace of the Crane Akagi Sensei
Dynasty (40)	Fate (40)
Holdings 3 Productive Mine 3 Nexus of Lies 3 House of Prophecy 3 Marketplace 3 Family Dojo 3 The Breeding Grounds 1 Counting House Bamboo Harvesters – Experienced Oracle of the Void – Experienced The Emerald Dojo Personalities 3 Daidoji Tametaka 3 Daidoji Ujirou 3 Daidoji Gensai 3 Daidoji Tobei 3 Daidoji Kinta Daidoji Tametaka – Experienced 2 Daidoji Tametaka – Experienced Asukai the Tireless	Strategies 3 Back to the Front A Game of Dice Creating Order Followers 3 Shield Wall 3 Elephant Cavalry 3 Chagatai’s Legion 3 Incendiary Archers 3 Spearmen 3 Expert Archers 3 Spearmen Cavalry 3 Watch Commander Items 3 Ominous Armor 3 Exquisite Nagimaki of the Fox Clan 3 Kshatriya Artifact 1 Heart of Fudo – Experienced 2 Rings Ring of the Void

Be still my heart. This deck goes big, by playing a mere 36 attachments. Super units anyone?

So, this deck was pre-errata Crane, which meant it was able to have shaky gold. 3 Breeding grounds, Emerald Dojo, Bamboo, Oracle and House of Prophecy pretty much screams “look how wasteful I can be”. It’s basically rubbing it’s wealth in our faces, all while stomping across the board with 30F conqueror units. Ugh. Crane.

So the errata came along, and this deck was hit hardest. You couldn’t just completely ignore gold anymore. We all forgot about it. But then this card was printed!

To understand just how awesome this card is, you have to understand what the trait really says. It says the holding gets +1 gold each time you attach a follower. Sure sure, whatever. What it really means is 2 things.

The Crane Errata Never Happened

Yep. This should be called “Money Laundering Dojo”. It’s simple. Suppose you have a follower you’re definitely, 100% going to attach, no matter what. You use your box to increase your gold production from 3 to 4, then attach your 4 gold follower. Lonely Dojo’s gold is increased by 1. The production increase moved from the holding that bought the follower to the dojo. More importantly, the dojo’s gold boost lasts through the dynasty phase, whereas the box’s doesn’t. Congratulations, you just laundered gold. Welcome to the Kolat.

All Your Followers Cost 1 Less Gold

This one is pretty simple. You attach a follower, you get one gold back. If the card was a 2 for 2 that reduced the cost of all followers by 1, we’d think that’s a pretty good card, right? Play a deck of free stuff and just go nuts. But the truth is that it’s even better than that, because there’s no limit to how low you can go with multiple dojos. If you have 3 in play and you attach a 1 gold follower, you just made 2 gold.

Poor Lloyd Videz, attaching followers for full price, not able to have ridiculous dynasty phases in addition to flopping down 10 gold of attachments. What a sad existence 37 attachment decks lead, pre-Lonely Dojo! Let’s update that deck with some TNO mojo!

The Exquisite Palace of the Crane Akagi Sensei
Dynasty (40)	Fate (40)
Events (3) 3 Glimpse of the Unicorn Holdings (18) 3 Jade Pearl Inn 1 Bookkeeper 3 Lonely Dojo 3 House of Prophecy 1 Bamboo Harvesters – exp 1 Remote Temple 3 Marketplace 3 Family Dojo Personalities (19) 1 Asukai, the Tireless 3 Daidoji Tomomi 3 Kakita Mitohime 3 Daidoji Tobei 3 Daidoji Nozomi 3 Zenathaar 1 Zansho – exp 2 Daidoji Tanshi	Strategies (2) 1 A Game of Dice 1 Creating Order Followers (36) 3 Ashigaru Spearmen 3 Colonial Conscripts 3 Family Sensei 3 Merchant Guard 3 Spearmen 3 Unliving Legion 3 Watch Commander 3 Dark Naga Ambusher 3 Enslaved Djinn 3 Expert Archers 3 Incendiary Archers 3 Shield Wall Rings (2) 1 Ring of Earth 1 Ring of the Void

Crane, because they are Crane, of course came out like bandits in TNO.

A naval personality with a battle action, and a non-unique 4F conqueror? Is this even real life? Crane players are so spoiled it’s stupid.

The Plan

Alright, the deck is simple. We buy gold for 2 turns, or sometimes just 1. We load up our guy, and we attack. Our Family Dojos let us generate unlimited force, we have a ton of pew pew action from our followers, so we can shoot down whatever gets in our way. We also get to run a bunch of assorted answers in our deck.

Once the Death Star is fully operational, we just keep attacking. If you totally yhatzee on your flips you get a conqueror, so you just can’t stop won’t stop load up one guy and go ballistic (Ecks vs Sever) on your opponent.

 

Sometimes we don’t get totally lucky (unless you’re Paul). In that case, though, the deck can really shine through. The truth is that you don’t need to throw every single follower on a single guy. It turns out that merely having 5-8 followers is enough, and then you can start loading up a second guy. He can defend!

The deck draws more cards than you think. We’re running 9 destined cards, 3 glimpse of the Unicorn, Ashigaru Spearmen, Enslaved Jinn and Ring of the Void. You’ll always have more gas to throw down, and more stomping over to your opponent to do. It’s a really fun deck.

Problems, Speculation, and Alternative Directions

First, a speculative pick:This card seems sweet, but it might be terrible. More testing is required. I know it’s a total nonbo with all the honor reqs in the deck, but it has the potential to be really powerful in multiples, especially now that we have access to a naval personality. First action kill you guy, gain 3 followers seems excellent. You’ll almost get value out of it, since it doesn’t care whose stuff dies, and it works great with Family Dojo. I’m trying it out and hoping for the best.

Now, there are plenty of blow outs for this deck. We can try to mitigate them, but for the most part you just have to realize there are landmines and try to steer around them.

Planted Evidence and Come One at a Time sort of go together in that the original Philippines deck played answers to these that I’ve cut. We can go back to running 3x Omnious Armor, 3x Kshatriya Artifact to beat these cards dead. Kshatriya Artifact also helps against the chi-kill package that sees a little bit of play – Wounded in Battle and Strike as the Earth.

I’ve kept in Watch Commander in my build,  that’s my hopeful answer against Come One at a Time. They get to duel the commander, then you shoot their duelist and hope they don’t have another Come One next battle. Pretty weak, I know. If you’re worried about that card, I’d cut:

-3x Unliving Legion

-3x Colonial Conscripts

+3x Kshatriya Artifact

+3x Omnious Armor

Lastly, Ninube Shiho is a hard scoop in multiples. We have our naval cavalry guy now to dance around him and naval shoot, but if they have 3 on board we just lose. Our strategy there is to realize Spider is terrible and nobody plays them.

Strict?

The deck loses a lot of mojo in strict, but not all of it. We lose Family Dojo, which is a blow, but more importantly we lose 6 destined guys. The easiest answer is to move the deck to Mantis, play a ton of cheap scouts and take advantage of the box trait to keep getting more gas.

Check out our Shika Sensei Mantis video for a look at how the personality base of that deck would look, just with a ton of followers and Lonely Dojo.

Final Thoughts

This is a deck with some serious mojo, and a good amount of resilience. I love playing it because i feel in control of the game from start to finish – I make a massive unit that the opponent can’t answer, all while drawing tons of cards and mounting credible defenses.

In strict, with some of the predatory cards like Planted Evidence rotating out and everyone gunning for Come One at a Time, mass follower strategies are poised to attack your opponents from an unexpected angle. We’re completely immune to many of the popular battle suite actions, we’re resilient to bow effects because of how distributed our force is, and we have solid answers to pew pew actions in Shield Wall.

If you’re looking for a top-tier deck that doesn’t look like all the rest, give this one a try!