New Set Playtesting – A Guide

The New Order is here, and with new decks and strategies to explore. The joy of seeking out exploitable card interactions. The uncertain journey of a brand new deck types. The quite confidence of slipping a potent new piece of technology into a construction that just needed the missing piece.

I love a new set.

Will I love the love letter deck?

Will I love the love letter deck?

This article is about a few of the challenges and common mistakes that often trip up players when a new set comes along. Avoiding these mistakes will help you maximize your playtesting time. Remember, time is a resource. Every minute you spend in the rabbit hole is a detriment to mastering the horse you should be riding.

Lets start there.

The Rabbit Hole.

You shouldn't be playing a deck with this guy.

You shouldn’t be playing a deck with this guy.

Jesse has a predilection for killing all the things and winning 5 turns after his opponent has stopped caring about the game. Others want to be the one guy running enlightenment. Perhaps you just cannot get enough of Mantis shugenja that make spirit animals. Bias exists. Players play favorites. We explore strategies that are often objectively weaker because we want to “test it out” and “see how it goes”.

We’ve all done it. Tried to be a hero and make the seemingly impossible possible. It isn’t a bad instinct. Its fun to hide away in your own laboratory and burst forth into the world with a new and terrifying creation, but it’s the wrong place to start. The rabbit hole is a hole. You get stuck, tunnel vision sets in, end up getting more and more off track as the actual environment passes you by. Strolling down this lane is fun, but you need to be careful. Have patience. Delay the creation of the bizarre fun deck for a few weeks until after you have settled in with the new set.

How do I identify a rabbit hole? Its like pornography: I know it when I see it.

Anytime you find yourself thinking about 5 or 6 card combos. Any time you imagine a sequence that requires you to have a particular series of draws on turn 1, 2, 3, and 4. Any time you are playing a card solely because of its interaction with just one other card. Any time your deck is built around a unique. Any time your deck is built for a late game (turn 6 or later). You’re in the rabbit hole. Stop. Get out. There are other concepts and conceits to explore. Try for instance:

Build the best deck.

Don’t make up excuses not to. Just build the damn thing already.

Not the best deck for your clan. Not the best honor deck. Not the best military deck. Build the flat out best deck. What is it? I don’t I know! I’m asking you.

Every preview season the players of one faction look longingly at the toys of others while complaining about getting stuck with the earwax flavor Bertie Bott Bean. Instead of wishing you didn’t just love your faction oh so very much and could never dream of playing anything else, go and play something else. Its ok. No one will tell. Playtesting doesn’t matter for the Imperial Herald.

These cards are good. The best deck will probably play them.

These cards are good. The best deck will probably play one or the other.

Environments are formed at the top. The best decks emerge (quick! Everyone watch what Kiyonaga is playing!) , then players react to beat them (or not, but that’s a different article). A new set means this process refreshes. The best decks may remain, but always there is some new deck that looks damn good. Build it. Fun fact: Jesse and I always start out a new set by building what we think the best deck is. Often, we come up with two different lists. He zeroed on Rae Sensei shenanigans straight away. I took a more conservative adjustment to Unicorn approach. Both decks good. His is better. The onus now falls to me to find a deck just as good or better then his.

There is no calcification when the previews are just starting, its all potential, unexamined. Take this time to uncover what is actually the best deck and then return to your desired clan and strategy with the knowledge that you now know what you need to try and beat. If it turns out you were wrong, the best deck is just sort of ok, that isn’t time wasted. If you thought it was the best deck, others will too, the key is to move on first and fastest to the actual winning strategy. The best deck is the one that wins an unfairly high number of its games, 80%+. The deck that feels unstoppable, like a monster. If your deck isn’t doing that, it isn’t the best deck. Keeping moving onto new things until you find it. If you go through the process a couple of times and cannot find it, then hooray! There isn’t one. Note: this is very rare.

Keep your friends involved, and coordinate.

We few. We happy few. We L5R players.

We few. We happy few. We L5R players.

No man wins alone. No one. The format is too large, you need the help of you playgroup, of online resources, your team, the forums, whatever. Divide and conquer is part of the process, it is the only way to digest the entirety of the set. Just watching Bob play a few games with his Scorpion Ninja deck isn’t going to produce helpful data. Get or give direction as needed. If it is suggested that you are missing something, check it out. If the local Spider has fallen into a rabbit hole (Susumu honor, still trying that!?), pull him out.

Patience isn’t actually all that much of a virtue.

The biggest mistake players make is waiting. Waiting for this site to give them ideas. Waiting for an event to supply them with a decklist. Waiting for the set to release widely. Waiting will kill you. Sets need to be caressed. They need to be combed over and then reexamined with fresh eyes. The excitement of the first reading, followed by the cold objective reality of the fifth. Environments evolve because the players understanding of the card pool evolves. Evolution takes time. Sitting on the sidelines isn’t a path to success. It isn’t a path anywhere. Its just sitting. It also isn’t much fun.

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