A new year has arrived. Many if not most people find themselves wondering where the time went. What year is it? How did it move so quickly?

I do not suffer this affliction. I know precisely where the time went. Where it slipped it away. The laboratory.

I love to make l5r decks. To experiment. To brew. Oftentimes a deck never quite comes together. I lose interest, I encounter a hurdle, the cards aren’t there, or the rules don’t work. There is a whole cornucopia of deck ideas buried in the back of my mind. Seeds that will never grow into the towering redwood I so hoped they could be. These projects aren’t all that time consuming. Theorycraft, construct the list, goldfish a few hands, realize the build is dead on arrival, discard the project, move on. Simple.

Trouble rears its head when those goldfish hands are encouraging. When I’m so sure I am onto something. If only I can unlock the puzzlebox. Turn the top side of the Rubik’s cube clockwise and twist just so and then! It will all come together.

Much of my 2014 was spent in this state. Not quite trapped in the rabbit hole (how can I be trapped in a place I am consciously visiting?), but struggling to break free from the gravitational orbit of a planet that isn’t quite dead, but cannot sustainably support life either.

In this article I am going to look back on some favorite decks of 2014 that occupied a disproportionate amount of my time. Invariably, these decks were good but not great. They are worthy of examination, both for what they offered strategically, and how they highlight just how much cool stuff Ivory (arc) had going for it as a format.

Need an engine to spin those wheels.

Oh P’an Ku. In our most recent podcast, Jesse and I talked about how Sorrowful Prayer was that card we spent more time on than any other. It is true, but with a caveat. At some point a fatwa was issued on P’an Ku. My deck building had descended into a parody of itself. It started out innocently enough. P’an Ku + Temple of Madness + Hoshoku-sha to eat the stolen personality. Fill the deck out with defensive actions to keep provinces and or attrition effects. Nothing worked. Instead of being honest and recognizing the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze I just kept squeezing. Trying to draw water from a rock. How about supplementing my incredibly slow token based dynasty engine with an equally slow fate based token engine? Poison the Cup get on the bus. What could go wrong? Oh, right. Military decks attack before turn 6 and buy 3 guys a turn. Fine then. What if I run P’an Ku with a Come One At a Time recursion shell. Building a deck around 4 personalities with 1 chi and lethal duels isn’t that absurd, right?

The breaking point came when I was putting together Crab dishonor and I had slotted in Crazy Eyes and his temple. What was I doing? Here I have a speed centric deck that requires aggressive flushing to get important honor loss causing holdings to hit critical mass. I’ve gone and added in 7 and 10 gold cost personalities with no relevant keywords that require a different holding to even get started doing anything. I was lost. Consumed by madness. It had taken me. Thankfully, Jesse intervened and through therapy and prayer I have been able to soldier on.

P’an Ku’s new bffs?

Do I still dream about P’an Ku? Yes. Have I thought about creating a letter writing campaign to demand that design change Poison the Cup’s token from Plague to Poison so it better fits into a Scorpion deck with Unsanctioned Strike and Shosuro Sadao? Who hasn’t. Hmm, in fact, with Shika Sensei + Ninube Shiho, along with Bayushi Jin-E + Knowledge and Power, Yogo Chijin + Poison the Cup (at least they got the Maho part); It may be time to revisit an old friend. That ban ended with the year, right?

I apologize for nothing.

“Tadaka got nothing on me!”

If P’an Ku was my heroin; Isawa Tsuke was my methadone. A unique personality with a built in recursive limited kill action that rewards me for dragging the game out for 20 turns. Sign me up. Sure Tsuke has a 12 gold cost and an ability that revolves around dueling with a starting chi of 2, but it wouldn’t be fun if there weren’t a few hurdles to clear. Start with a playset of Ashalan Blades to break through any chi walls. Add in a  playset of Yasuki Traders to create a bottomless fate deck. Flesh it out with search, draw, and defensive effects. Already priced into dueling, so why not jam Come One. Phoenix have cheap samurai, so may as well combo it up with the Open Emotions. I even get to play Final Sacrifice so as to not be totally ruined by Planted Evidence. The only issue now is getting to Tsuke on time. A fundamental flaw to be sure, but a manageable one.

It turned out there were multiple issues. Spending 12 to 17 to 27 gold to kill a single personality is rarely efficient. Running low focus value defensive cards in a deck that plans to issue a million duels means you are going to brick. Determined Challenge, Sudden Movement and Ambush exist. As do the Flesh Eater and 6 chi personalities who can get +2Chi weapons.

The Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Subtly powerful indeed.

9 factions, 5 rings, Dragon Box. This’ll take awhile.

As a degenerate deckbuilder, I have a burning desire to explore All Clans Sensei out of, well, all the clans. On the surface, the calculus on Mahatsu is straightforward. A card made specifically for enlightenment will work best out of the stronghold that specifically plays a ring. I resolved to save that testing for last. Addicted as I am to card draw, I found myself trying every kind of build with Mahatsu just to power out early Ring of the Void. In the parlance of today’s youth. Epic fail. Not only was I intentionally stunting my own development by kneecapping my starting gold, I had also constructed a game plan built around intentionally finding myself with 2-4 cards in hand on turn 4 or 5. Pre-errata Crane handled this shockingly well. It was one of the trial decks that paved the way for my amore with the Philippines style heavy attachment build. Likewise Unicorn had starting gold to spare, and always having access to Air/Water/Earth had its merits. Still, these won in spite of Mahatsu Sensei, not because of it. Just another spotlight illuminating that Crane and Unicorn were the best factions. The Lion Mahatsu deck is not to be spoken of, save to acknowledge that it rather glaringly confirms my obsessive compulsive deck builder ways.

Back to unplayable.

That OCD eventually landed on Dragon and Mahatsu, and what a fun few months that was. First there were the obligatory military and honor decks that used the Senesi for value like I had done with every other faction, and then there was the enlightenment builds. The best of which ended up being the build that starts Water. Turns out having to play multiple terrains is a real bother and starting with Water gives you an actual tactic to employ. I’m hoping Ring of Fire gets a facelift in 20 Festivals. It is a little embarrassing how terrible the card is. Not even repeatable, ugh.

These aren’t all the decks and variations that consumed me last year, but they are the ones that I was never able to quite shake. Even now I hunt the white whale. The deck that is awesome, powerful, creative and solely mine. If only I had more time.