Control in L5R is tricky business. It needs to exist in some amount, or else you end up with voltron decks and super units. Dealing with these sorts of threats in the Limited phase is an elegant solution to a big problem, and keeps players from getting too greedy. On the other hand, if there’s too many control cards, dedicated control decks that can kill all the guys become environmental forces, and everyone wants to quit either L5R or their life.

Usually, powerful control shells have dynasty engines at their core. I’m talking about Yajindin + Jama Suru Xp + Force of Will, Suitieru no Oni + Chimimare no Oni + Jigoku Sensei, or Kunji Experience + Chuda Seki + Sly Deceiver.

wombo-combo.jpg. I can’t believe Paul took this mess to a 2nd place finish at Chicago 2013. Let me know if you even see the combo in the comments.

We don’t have anything like that in Ivory. Whether that’s a good thing or not isn’t for me to say. What we do have, though, is the best environment for drawing cards in the history of L5R. Design seems to have decided that since fate cards aren’t very good, we get to have a lot of them. And they can’t all be terrible, right?

Here’s a Spider list I’ve been playing a lot in my spare time, and that I would have taken to some Koteis had I been in America for the season.

The Engine

The only card I want to play is Planted Evidence. So I made a deck that lets me draw it 15 times.

So how does this mess work? The two cards it really showcases are Sorrowful Prayer and In Stillness, Forge the Soul. Basically, your goal is to live long enough to thin your fate deck to less than 20 cards. Once it’s that small, putting 3 control cards (some combination of Planted Evidence and A Magistrate Falls) then playing an In Stillness, Forge the soul gives you around a 70% chance to immediately hit one of the cards you shuffled back in. From there you can play control effects every single turn, until you’ve killed all your opponents guys and you leisurely wander over for their provinces.

The Support

Not pictured: Temple to Tengen, Oracle of the Void Exp, Strength of the Fifth Ring, Heart of Fudo Exp, Diving Bowl, Game of Dice, Ring of the Void

The rest of the deck is card draw effects, gold, and ways to survive. Because the engine is all fate cards, the deck needs very few personalities in play to operate. The number is probably 3 – Nikaru, Hiyamako, and any Shugenja. Hiyamako can In Stillness, Forge the Soul and Banish All Shadows, the Shugenja can Walking the Way or Strength of the Fifth Ring, and Nikaru duels everyone to death. Nikaru is just gravy though, we can also win without him by cycling our Planted Evidence.

Shuffle effects are especially important to the deck, which is why we’re running Yasuki Traders and Divination Bowl. In Stillness, Forge the Soul lets us see 5 cards and re-order them, but if they are all bricks you’re screwed. A shuffle lets you get rid of those 5 and see 5 new cards, pushing you every closer to your kill cards.

The Gold

As I mentioned, the deck doesn’t need a lot of personalities in play to win. As a result, the deck runs a ton of gold. If you survive to the end game, you’ll need it all more than you need a 0F rent-a-shugenja. As long as you pick up at least 2 shugenja by the end of the game you’ll be fine. Flush aggressively to get to Nikaru, since he makes your combo turns a lot cheaper.

The Power of Recursion

Drawing tons of cards and having access to both In Stillness, Forge the Soul and Sorrowful Prayer lets you do some very powerful things. This deck takes advantage of the combo to play kill effects, but it’s not the only thing you can do with it. Check out the list from my Ban Jade Ascendance article for another list that abuses the combination of card draw and Sorrowful Prayer.

The Rae Sensei list doesn’t even bother with In Stillness, Forge the Soul. That’s just because it draws a lot more raw cards than this deck, thanks to Komori Taruko + Strength of the Fifth Ring + Shrine to Hachiman. If Phoenix had access to a cheap Kensei though, you can be sure I’d play it. Horobei is a Samurai Yojimbo, so he could be a potential candidate for the deck if I wanted to take it in that direction.

Killing Guys and Taking Names

As for the Spider deck, it’s definitely a tier 2 deck. It was close to tier 1 pre-TCS, but that ship has long since sailed and the rise of powerful military decks like Crane Scouts and Unicorn have pushed it out of the environment. That doesn’t mean there’s not tweaks that can be done!

One change could be to use Kuroko Sensei to give the deck access to Komori Taruko. That would turn on the draw engine from the Rae Sensei deck, plus give us access to Poison the Cup by playing The Soul of Man to make our guys courtiers. Ninube Shiho might have to be cut a that point, both to make room for Komori Taruko and also to mitigate honor losses since she has a 1 honor requirement.

Clearly what Bryan Reese intended when he designed these cards.

With those changes, the gold would have to be re-worked, but one thing my experience testing Yung Sensei and Rae Sensei is that 3 gold boxes are fine, as long as you plan for the game to go long enough. There are enough holdings that make more than they cost to slowly grind your way to massive production if you have the time.

Regardless, this deck is an interesting one to break out at your casual nights and make your friends hate you. Give it a try, and see what other shells you can find for Sorrowful Prayer!