April Showers bring May flowers.

Yea that isn’t a quote that is at all applicable here, but starting your post with a tangentially relevant shibboleth is a tried and true internet writing mechanism. Rust settles in and you need to stretch out the mind muscles.

Instead of wracking my brain for a more on point statement I’m just throwing up that seasonal cliche and doing my best Elongated Man impression as I stretch the premise beyond what is reasonable.

Note: Elongated Man, I should mention that if anybody brings up stupid Reed stupid fucking Richards and his stupid movie power about warping the space around him and appearing to stretch his body into impossible forms and impossible lengths, I am going to officially denounce all things l5r forever.

Dude, were have you been? What happened to all the article content? What’s up Buttercup? Burned out all ready?

 

No not at all. Quite the opposite. Also, yes. The problem with writing about l5r, is that it takes time away from all the other l5r fun stuff you do. There are cards to organize, builds to construct, decks to test (we don’t video everything, indeed, we don’t video most stuff, because seriously, people couldn’t handle just how much l5r Jesse and I play), and general hi jinks to be had. I’ve been so consumed with l5r the last few months that I simply haven’t had the time or desire to sit down and type out all the brilliant wisdom I want to impart. Of course, that only explains a little bit of it. Playing l5r and talking about l5r and playtesting l5r, that is not the great true cause of the radio silence. Indeed, testing for a kotei, even one in a weird limited format like what I won in Highland, lends itself incredibly well to all kinds of posts about tactics and strategy. What doesn’t lend itself so well to open discourse is what I was most involved in. My super secret guilty pleasure. The real pastime I’ve been indulging in. Designing l5r cards.

It is all Woz’s fault. Sometime in the past, I’ve lost all true sense of time scale, he mentioned that on the big mothersite there was a call for an open position on the PDT. By rule, I am not a company man. I don’t see myself that way. I have at various points in the games history been asked to look at a few things here and there and test out a few concepts and give feedback, all informally, all lightly, all just friend to friend stuff. I have never been an official playtester, it is never been important to me to help develop the game as a property. I love the game, but I just want to play it. If it is terrible I will play it (though probably not as much) and make fun of it. If it is awesome, I will just keep on grinding my opponents into dust. With a big old smile on my face. Design though, that is an interesting idea, and I’m not the same young buck full of piss and vinegar that I was once. I wear big boy pants now, and work with people all grown up like, and Jesse and I have designed card sets for fun in the past. Kwame edition, named after Detroit’s mayor at the time, who represented a lot of promise. It was a great name at the time. Not so much considering how things worked out for him and the city.

So, I dialed up the modem, connected to Prodigy, hopped onto the information superhighway, logged into my hotmail, and sent over to Bryan Reese an email. It was short, for me, which is still long when compared to everyone who isn’t me, so probably 1000 words, written in my standard rat a tat machine gun like prose. Thoughts come, I write them down, editing is for chumps.

The email went something like this: You should pick me! I’d be awesome! Pick me! PICK ME! LOOK I AM WAVING MY HANDS WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME!

I didn’t actually think I would get picked, because, ya know, at least 3 or 4 dozen people are going to submit an application and a bunch of them will be playtesters who Bryan Reese will know a bit more clearly in terms of online future set management. I know Bryan some, in the way you know people who you’ve shared a hobby with for 15 years, so I figured I would at least make it to the second round of auditions whereupon I would dazzle the judges with all of my spec work for Onyx. The reintroduction of the Naga. The elimination of the Mantis. Lots of opportunity there. So after sending off the email I got busy working on all kinds of themes and mechanics and cards so that when I got my call back I would have words and words and documents and documents of stuff to demonstrate both my interest and ability.

It was a cunning plan. Did you spot the flaw?

Turns out AEG isn’t American Idol. There is no second round. There is just an email you send out into the ether. Time you spend working and honing and editing on your personal design ideas, and then!

Rejection.

I’m a gamer. Losing comes part and parcel with the hobby. I lose all the time. It tuns out, shockingly enough, that some women in fact are immune to my charms. Rejection is something I can handle. My self esteem is sturdy enough to endure a few hits, but man, there is no more frustrating response than the form letter rejection. The impersonal, “we are choosing to go another direction”. Ouch. Design is a creative process. It is work. Time spent there is time not spent on something else. I wasted a lot of time. I’m sorry. It stings that it was all pointless, all that energy devoted to a project no one is ever going to see or care about. Lessens the enthusiasm. I wasn’t a runner up. I was barely an also ran.

It is enough to make a guy disconnect from his favorite hobby for a few weeks (months?) and focus just on his local scene. The only place in the world running a regular 65/65 pseudo-highlander multiplayer format which turns out to be totally delightful.

Who needs Modern/Big Deck/Extended/Strict. If you want a fun, fulfilling, flexible format for l5r unlike any other. Multiplayer is the way to go.

Time marches on. That kotei in New Orleans that you bought the airplane ticket to. It isn’t still two months away now, is it? If you seriously plan on competing, time to get it together. Turns out the format hasn’t evolved at all in the last few months. This is bad thing for the game overall, but selfishly a good thing for you right now. Makes testing a lot easier. The problem is structured in the design of the Ivory, stop! Stop that right the hell now! No more thinking design thoughts. You aren’t worthy to wield that hammer. Focus on doing what you do. Winning tournaments with Crane and then being insulted by Crane players for not being a true Scotsman. No one likes you. Maybe if you updated your site a little more.

10 days out. That is about all the time you’ve got left. Better make it count. There is no email Bryan Reese could send, no insult he could throw, no further humiliation he could levy that will take away the enjoyment of prepping for and participating in an l5r event.

Besides, he didn’t mean to cause harm. He takes real good care.

I’m not an addict. I can quit anytime I want.

Honest.

 

I remember my first tournament win. Not all of it. Not the whole thing. Some parts I do remember, but not all that well. Time has a way of making the details fuzzy. The memories of other tournaments have a way of fading into each other. I reminisce less about single events and more about entire arcs. I’m pretty sure it was a Strike at Midnight event. I cannot recall what the prize was. There was some store credit. The attendance was just above 4 dozen people. Only a handful more than showed up for normal Tuesday night gaming. In the finals I beat Jordan Murari. A player of note long since lost to the annals of time. A name only remembered because his ridiculous behavior once caused the very rules of the game to be changed. It had to do with Regions. A card type that doesn’t exist now. He played FETA. The first great boogeyman of l5r. In the quarters I overcame his playtest partner, future Dynasty/Straw Dawg/PDT member, and good friend (for a year or two anyway) Vaughn Dredarian. He had been on Crane honor. Kisada’s Funeral won me that. Flipped at just the proper time.

I know what I played. Toturi’s Army. Palace of Otosan Uchi. Saigorei first turn, big follower on turn two. Naga Guard, the stronghold let me ignore the honor requirement and reduce the cost. That was quite some technology years ago. I won after making a great play with my Toturi is Drugged. Jordan two had two shugenja in play. I bowed one, even though I wouldn’t be able to take his province if the other defended. I didn’t have the Charge! (3F with Matsu Suhada) or Coordinated Strike. By declaring the attack, he would be force to chump though. Sneak Deadly kills his shug, I buy more guys and he cannot get there off only his Taeruko. Needs to use Finding twice to end it. I suppose a top deck of Cultists at the end of turn would doom me, but he is only drawing one. Didn’t prioritize the Boundless Depths like he should have. I took the chance. I won. Hear me roar. He wrote a tournament report. Introducing me to l5r on the internet. Ikoma Andy and the Deathseeker site. The flames had been stoked.

Over the years l5r has evolved a lot as a game, but every arc I still inevitably find myself scouring the card pool attempting to recreate the magic of that deck. To capture its spirit. To bathe in the warm glow of a blazing fast victory. To blitz.

The available card pools have changed of course. Corrupt gold and other cheap resources are gone. Cost reduction is a mechanism no longer seriously employed. Deadly Ground wouldn’t be much of a card the way Terrains work today, but end the battle now effects are similarly verboten. Crushing Attack forever relegated to being employed rhetorically. Force bonuses, once a glorified aspect of the game are closely managed. In Twenty Festivals there is not an unopposed force bonus to be had. There are only the Ivory base set leftovers. Inspired Devotion doing its best Charge! impersonation. Yet, I try.

There is cause for hope. The number of absent effects that can blunt an early assault are greatly reduced. Gone too are Refugees, OuterWalls, and Heavily Engaged. There are no trumps like Caught Unawares or Hidden Defenses. Province strengths are as high as they have ever been, but that breeds a feeling of safety and contentment. The blitzkrieg is always at its most brutal and effective when no one sees it coming.

This dance. This tango of blitz options versus defensive countermeasures is an aspect of l5r that is as old as the game itself. An environment without either is a lesser environment. Blitz military isn’t something like enlightenment or open phase lockout control. Those are fringe strategies that can be removed with minimal fuss. Completely eliminating blitz is a different foxhunt all together. Fast military decks preform an important role in keeping other grind-house inevitable decks down. A natural counterweight to the haymaker giant units approach. Itself a strategy in decline. Just as l5r will always have players searching for and playing the best dueling deck. There is always going to be players who want to crush face as quickly as possible. Danny Swartz has to play *something* after all.

As I was cataloging the options open to me with 20 Festivals I was getting a little distressed. Sure every faction now has an honor deck, kind of, sort of, not really. Sure the number of duel decks has increased seven fold. But where is my blitz deck? Twenty Festivals should be a celebration of the deep diversity of deck options that l5r can present. Has a once proud tradition been so unceremoniously discarded onto the trash heap?

Then I saw her face. Now I’m believer. Uragirimono. Or as the cool kids call her.

Sometimes all it takes is one card. One personality. To set you on your course. Down the rabbit hole I plunged. Voitagi alongside Mastu Tayuko in conjunction with Kitsu Suzaki. Filled it out with some just in case gold. Ikoma Shika on one with Toils of Zokujin can set up 6 force before assigning on turn 2 (Shika + Kaiu Ax, ancestor from Suzaki). That leaves me only one or two more fate cards away from taking a province! This is one of those dramatic all in decks. All force and pressure. With just a hint of control coming from the Imperial Summons.

1 The Grand Halls Of The Lion
Dynasty	Fate
3 Voitagi 3 Matsu Tayuko 3 Ikoma Shika 3 Kitsu Suzaki 3 Tarui 3 Temple Of Destiny 3 Questionable Market 3 The Toil Of Zokujin 3 Lane Of Immorality 3 Frontline Encampment 3 Auspicious Arrival 3 Glimpse Of The Unicorn 3 A New Year 1 Wisdom Gained	3 Light Infantry 2 Reinforced Parangu 3 Tonfajutsu 3 Grasp The Swords 3 Destiny Has No Secrets 3 Zazen Meditation 3 Kaiu Axe 2 Oath Of Fealty 3 Imperial Summons 3 Contentious Terrain 3 Inspired Devotion 2 Wedge 2 Relentless 3 Gumbai-uchiwa 1 Ring Of Earth 1 Ring Of The Void

Once you have embraced the path you have chosen to walk, you see more options than originally perceived. Perhaps a blitz deck built around Summoning the Undead Champion, instead of purchasing the rotting corpse of Voitagi in the dynasty phase. Everything is more fun with Shugenja. Corrupt maho returns.

1 The Majestic Temple Of The Phoenix
Dynasty	Fate
3 Yotsu Shinzai 3 Agasha Beiru 3 Isawa Genma 3 Isawa Kageharu 3 Isawa Kouka 3 Isawa Orinoko 3 Glimpse Of The Unicorn 3 A New Year 3 Temple Of Destiny 3 Shigekawa's Court 3 Questionable Market 3 Lane Of Immorality 3 The Samurai Caste Divides 1 Wisdom Gained	3 Summon Undead Champion 3 Banish All Shadows 3 Zazen Meditation 3 Self And No Self 1 Ring Of The Void 1 Ring Of Air 2 Traditionalist 3 Cautious Contemplation 3 Discovering The Shakuhachi Of Air 3 Ornery 3 The Call Of Battle 3 Burning Spirit 3 Inspired Devotion 3 Fire Kami's Greed 3 Overwhelming Power

Drafts as rough as can be constructed, but with some sanding could blitz be a smooth criminal? Testing and time will tell. If the idea fails completely? I’ll always have my memories.

The single most environmentally impactful card from Twenty Festivals was one of, if not the, first to be spoiled. It was months ago, at the world championships. It received little fanfare. In part because it is hard to get excited over a single card from a set that at the time was still half a year away. Mostly, though, it is because holdings remain the least exciting part of l5r. It is a game about personalities, and the narratives they drive. Holdings are boring. Even when they do interesting or powerful things, which is rare. Unheard of in most arcs. Some of the coolest holdings of the last decade were cards like Charter of the Legion of Two Thousand and Recruitment Officer. They made personalities!

Yet development and production and efficiency and value lie at the heart of l5r as we know it today. Holdings are important. Critically so. Today we look at the card that will define Ivory and Twenty Festivals and whatever it is we are playing after that.

Legacy holdings came on the scene officially in Samurai Edition, but they have antecedents as far back as Gold Edition. It makes me feel old to say as far back, but Gold was 2001. That was a long time ago. Bryan Reese was just some guy who won an above average number of tournaments. Case Kiyonaga had yet to be declared his yojimbo and future best player in waiting. Gold Edition was a heady time to be an l5r player. Looking back the game seems barely recognizable. Koteis and kotei season started during Gold. The format featured old school all-stars like Kolat Master, Torrential Rain and Deadly Ground competing for space in decks with incredibly powerful actions like To Do What We Must and Iaijutsu Duel. Despite (or perhaps because of) all the fate side chicanery of the olden days the RallyCrys, CounterAttacks, and Iaijutsu Challenges, when you view the personalities through the prism of today, they are overwhelmingly horrible. Akodo Ijiasu sees fringe play in Ivory today. In Gold Edition he was a staple for the entirety of the arc. The best non-unique Crane personality was probably Doji Kurihito basic. While unique personalities had the ability to take over games the moment they entered play, they had to be incredibly powerful because the only way to incentivize the risk associated with their cost was to make them haymakers.

Pre-Gold, in the bronze age of Legend of the Five Rings, the standard game involved purchasing a personality on turn one. Design knew they didn’t want l5r to be a game that only featured personalities with a gold cost 6 or less. There is only so much enjoyment to be had there, and so a conscious effort was made to limit each faction’s available boxables.  Jeff Alexander and Dave Williams and company (actually, there was no “and company” yet, just Dave/Jeff more or less) wanted to know if there was a version of l5r in which players reached for a card like Doji Kuwawan and it was good idea to do so.

The answer turned out to be sort of and not really. In addition to that old efficiency chestnut there was a serious acknowledged issue that prevented players from embracing personalities with costs that exceed their starting stronghold’s gold production. A specter that haunts and ruins l5r games still today. Gold screw.

There was no cycle, no search, no Border Keep, no anything. You started the game, flipped your first four provinces (3 if you played Rating, – Loophole Man) and hoped. With the omnipresent fear of no gold on turn one, the importance of cheap personalities was magnified an unquantifiable amount. People played the inferior The Iron Fortress of the Daidoji just to get access to the original Hachi at below starting honor. In most cases not having a turn one holding was a death sentence. The power you could generate from your fate hand was such that it could rarely allow you to overcome a zero gold start. If you didn’t have turn one gold, or a turn one personality. The game was over. So came Gifts and Favors. Not the holding we deserved, but the holding we needed.

Of course its revelatory nature wasn’t appreciated. How could it have been? As a holding it was pretty terrible. 2 cost for 2 gold is acceptable, but it isn’t as good as 2 cost for 3 gold (every clan holding) or 0 cost for 2/3 gold (corrupt holdings). It was widely received as a ‘toss one in just in case’ card and move on with your life. Getting just a 2 production holding on turn one was so underwhelming. It was settling and in cases like ‘corn and Crane where an ideal turn one involved buying a Silk Works, it struck some top players as not even being worth the dynasty slot. Better to just run another Hiruma Dojo or Jade Works or whatever. Gifts didn’t feel quite as bad on turn as no gold but it didn’t feel good either.

The idea of a holding on turn one followed by two holdings on turn two? Not something on most players radar. The pace of the format was faster than that. Thanks to potential situations like: Horde player goes Take the Initiative, buy Voitagi on turn one with some free gold, and attack on turn two. Province Strengths were lower, Voitagi and Zombie Troops could get it done, with a Charge! any province was crushed. It wasn’t until the tyranny of corrupt gold ended, and personality design started to ramp up in Diamond that the two turns of gold became routine.

Which isn’t to say that Gifts didn’t have any impact when it first hit the scene. It did. It allowed people to reduce or eliminate holdings.  At first only a few canny players experimented with just G&F builds, but in time, it became a common occurrence to see events/regions on one, grab Gifts, and flush to set up for your ideal turn two, which was something like a boxable and your clan holding,  Kan’ok’ticheck and more rats (multiple Kn’ok’tichecks…) or something like Hida Tenshu and a free holding. The value of less holdings in a deck and the explosive starts created through the costless nature of events (themselves near the height of their power) wasn’t fully conceptualized and embraced by players and design for some time.

Diamond, and Lotus continued to work with Gifts and Favors. The changes in card pool and format design made it both more common and less impactful. The game was now fundamentally constructed around the idea of gold(Gifts) on one, gold on two, guys on three. Which was boring and restrictive in its own way.

So Samurai gave us Legacy holdings which was a little more fun because the holdings could do things, but still the first few turns of the game were dull. So we moved onto Border Keep, and the laws of unintended consequences reared its ugly head. So away they went.

I’ve now spent over a 1000 words talking about cards and formats from editions past. In a post that is suppose to be part of a review of 20Festivals. It is, but the history here is essential. The lessons of the past highlight the fact that Forgotten Legacy is an insanely important card. It is easily the most environmentally stimulating card in 20Festivals, and it is better than any legacy holding that has come before. Fully unlocking its potential is going to be the first big test for players preparing for the 20Festivals kotei season and beyond.

Forgotten Legacy makes 3 gold. No other legacy holding has ever done that (Kyuden Kyotei and Supply Smugglers – Loophole man strikes again!) and it makes all the difference in the world. Lion get to build around first turn Legacy, two 3 produces on turn two (including another Legacy if they must) and whatever the heck they want on turn three.

High gold cost holdings are now a consistent viable option. Weapon Artist is no longer relegated to draft only status. School of Wizardry decks can always afford their Hogwarts when they see it in. Platinum Mine can be ran in tandem with Secluded Outpost. With the right number of one gold cost holdings, there may be even be room for a few 6 gold cost holdings that only make 5. Say for instance, Jesse’s beloved Merchant Atoll.

The Elephant in the room of course, is how Forgotten Legacy interacts with gold pooling. Now every Brilliant Cascade Inn/Questionable Market/Temple of Destiny also functions as a Jade Pearl Inn. The loss of a fate card matters, but nothing is as important as good gold. Good gold and the quest for excellent gold is what will cause players to experiment with 3x Building Contract and 3x Coastal Lane. Gold matters. Invest in gold. Like Glenn Beck tells you to. That used to mean bowing your stronghold and only getting 2 gold out of the deal, now with Deep Harbor/Lane of Immorality/Toil of Zokujin plus Forgotten Legacy you bow your box and get 5 gold. I wouldn’t be surprised if gold schemes featuring 14x 1 gold cost holdings and 2x Forgotten Legacy start becoming the industry standard.

The holding minimum on Forgotten Legacy is there to help hedge against the unanticipated fallout witnessed from the gold fixers of days gone by. Loophole man made an interesting observation. It demands 16 holdings. Not 16 gold producing holdings. Not 16 holdings with a gold cost. The semantic difference doesn’t mean much right now unless you are just chomping at the bit for an excuse to play Tower of Vigilance alongside Tunnel Network. Still, we are just coming off a format filled with General’s Hatamoto, and I spent many a night trying to bust Hidden Weapons open, its a notable consideration.

A common question in l5r is: “is it worth it”? Is it worth playing this card to work with that card? Is it worth buying this attachment now and that personality later? Is it worth risking my army to a battle? Forgotten Legacy is going to cause me to sacrifice a lot of my free time working and rethinking how to best construct a deck. It will be worth it.

The bomb was dropped. Always the last one to know. So it turns out Twenty Festivals is here, or at least previewed. Back we come with a vengeance. Shake off the rust and fire up the engine. Time to start pouring over the new set and breaking it down. Jesse and I will have our video card by card analysis up eventually, but before we can provide meaningful insight

DRAGONS!

Um, inner voice, I’m sort of writing an article here, could you maybe quite down. We are getting back into our normal full posting schedule. Lots of work to do, I don’t need the distraction.

Oh, sorry.

As I was saying, before we can provide meaningful insight on every individual card in the set, we first have to review the set and themes in totality. Cards are, after all, powerful or weak depending on the context

DRAGONS!!

Dude, not cool. Twenty Festivals is a 350 card set with new strongholds and senseis and themes for every faction. There is a lot to focus on, like the evolution

DRAGONS!!!

*Sigh* Ok, want to do you want?

I want you to talk about the coolest most awesomest part of 20 Festivals the return of

The Naga?

Snark. You think that will calm me down?

Ok. Fine. So for my first Twenty Festival Article, before I discuss anything else at all in a brand new base set, I am going to

DRAGONS!!!!

…. I was getting there.

Too slowly.

Fine. So how do you want me to start this article?

Seriously?

Ok. Fine. You win inner Timmy.

Dragons!

DRAGONS!!!!!

I just said

DRAGONS!!!!!!

You cannot keep doing this all article, it is annoying, it breaks up

DRAGONS!!!!!!

I did the shout thing.

Didn’t say it right. DRAGONS!!!!!!! Needed more volume.

No one has accused me of not being loud enough. Like ever.

DRAGONS!!!!!!!!

Ok, lets do it like a banzai. Three times.

Utz!

DRAGONS!!!

Utz!

DRAGONS!!!!

Utz!

DRAGONS!!!

Nice. Please proceed.

Thanks inner voice, please enjoy this highly caloric sugary beverage and shut the hell up.

 

I love gigantic personalities. Generally speaking, this love manifests in the form of me playing gigantic oni personalities. Dragons work too. One of the comments I’ve made about set design so far in Ivory is that I don’t have a clear idea of what a “big” personality looks like. Pre-Ivory base we had the Flesh Eater, the experienced Dark Naga and assorted other Coils of Madness personalities, along with some scattered toys from Gates and Aftermath.

From there we haven’t seen much in the way of high gold cost, windmall slam, deal with this! impact personalities. Ivory brought mediocre clan champions, and not much else. Then there were two different 10 gold cost Shugenja that made personalities. That is a small litter.  So when I got around to the big Dragons after combing through 20Fest, well, you heard.

The numbers.

How do you read a new l5r personality card? Do you first start by reading the text box? Looking at the force, chi? Do you obsess over the keywords matching the art?

The spikiest place to start is where I begin: the gold cost. There is no more important stat on an l5r card. There just isn’t. A card’s value is directly related to its gold cost. Gold cost is the limiting reagent that determines whether or not a card gets to actually be played from provinces  It is the trump. The elemental dragons cost a whopping 15 gold. The same cost as Shadow Dragon Experienced 2, or Gozaru no Oni. More than a clan champion, the Dragons demand a Smaug level of wealth to enter play.

What do we get for 15 gold? Sadly, not a whole lot. 7 Force was massive a long time ago, in an environment far far away. Now? It is not taking the vast majority of provinces. To turn one of these beasts into a House Targaryan style fiefdom destroyer, you are going to need the additional investment of a fate card. Probably a spell, that costs additional gold. Bummer. There is some comfort to be had in that spells are pretty pushed coming into 20Fest, but 8 or 9 force would have been considerably more exciting and cost appropriate, too. Ikoma Akinari invested = 9 force for 15 gold.  5 Chi is hard to complain about in a format that plateaus at 4, but 20Fest features an awful lot of duelists, and for 15 gold it isn’t hard to get a sword slinger up to 6 or 7 chi. On the raw math the dragons come up a little short. So other than our slightly bigger, burlier numbers, what do the dragons bring us? The classic hodge podge of effects.

 

Air Dragon!

Probably the most straight fowardly powerful. Straighten every phase? Don’t mind if I do! Give it some permanent force from a Guidance in War or Stones of Purity and always a have a large threat for every attack and every defense. The battle ability protects your big force. Good complimentary design albeit pretty radical. An Air Dragon that my opponent can target with Ranged Attacks and Spell Effects? Why I’ve never. When Dragon decks win, they will feature the Air Dragon prominently.

Earth Dragon!

Continuing in the vain of completely unexpected, here is an Earth Dragon that isn’t at all interested in whether or not it is attacking or defending. No fucks given. Which is its attitude concerning send home and bow effects. Fits in right alongside Air Dragon in the big units that don’t want to be messed with category, and helps give some clarity of direction to a dragon deck.

Fire Dragon!

The Fire Dragon, from its orginal insane 14 gold cost for 2 ranged attacks in Imperial, to its story based perogative to join the Phoenix clan has always been its own unique special snowflake. Now it feels downright bland. A not as good Dark Naga Experienced, with a perfectly acceptable but not really all that exciting ranged 7 attack. If you want to get a sense of how l5r personality design has changed over the years, take some time to chart the course of the Fire Dragon. It is quite revealing. The Fire Dragon is a campfire hoping to turn into a wildfire.

Water Dragon!

As it once was, so shall it be again. The traditionalist. Water Dragon Experienced 2 was an insane card, and experienced 3 is a comfortable return to form. The ability to copy a trait makes sure it can play with its broodmates. Maybe will be breakable in time, copying traits is unregulated territory. I anticipate the following sequence will happen a lot in my near future: Water Dragon copies Fire Dragon. Paul smiles. Paul realizes bowing Dragons for ranged 7 isn’t actually all that exciting. Paul loses. There may eventually be a super amazing cool something that gets insane benefit from being copied, but with Ninja Shapeshifter also in the set, I’m not holding my breath.

 

Void Dragon!

As it once was, so shall it almost be again. Two cards isn’t the same as whole hand, and there are discipline cards now. The least powerful Dragon and impactful Dragon out the gates. Questionable value even after it successfully triggers. The only one in danger of actually being left out of Dragon decks altogether. The Void has been losing its mojo.

The number I didn’t talk about because it just bums me out.

Honor requirements. The cock block of many an exciting deck. Cleverly implanted honor requirements bring a lot of flavor and variation to personality design. They also can serve as an important restrictor plate, preventing powerful personalities from destablizing a game by entering play to soon.

Hoo boy, 15 is an awfully big number. From the beginning, Imperial Edition, the elemental dragons had an honor requirement of 10, and I confess, it never would have occurred to me so see that modified. A return to the “Must have Ring of XXX” to enter play? I could have swallowed that. Not like I need more reasons to run Long Term Fruition. 15 honor req, did not see that coming. The ability to reduce the hr is good flavor, but dropping to 13 isn’t a significant payoff for the work of finding and playing the proper ring at the correct time.

What does it mean? That these dragons aren’t going to see a lot of play outside the sensei. Hitting 15 honor isn’t hard. Every faction has at least some kind of honor theme. Hitting 15 honor in a military deck that requires a certain pace and aggressive tempo? While developing your gold to afford 15 gold cost personalities, while playing fate side spells to activate your dragons when they eventualy get onto the board? A much harder task.

 

Kiyoteru Sensei

If the dragons had lower honor requirements, there would be an interesting discussion about how necessary and useful the sensei is. As it stands, I don’t see the dragons seeing play except in concert with Kiyoteru. If the dragons had 5 or greater personal honor the ability to proclaim them would open an interesting switch deck option. As it stands, the sensei is a neccessary evil. It does provide for some fun attempts to short cut the HR using force bonuses and modifiers. Items are non-bo with the dragons, and there aren’t  ton of options for limited phase force generation, but there might be a way to consistently play a Dragon on 4. Still to slow for the enivornment as I think it will actually exist, but a man with an urge has to start somewhere.
Here is the decklist I will be proxy-ing up to test.

The Majestic Temple of the Phoenix Kiyoteru Sensei
Dynasty	Fate
2 Forgotten Legacy 3 Silver Mine 3 Famous Bazaar 3 Questionable Market 3 Temple of Destiny 3 Deep Harbor 2 Family Library 1 Counting House 3 Komori Taruko 3 Tonbo Jairyu 3 Isawa Amihiko 3 Shiba Michiki 3 Shiba Koshiba 1 Earth Dragon Experienced 2 1 Air Dragon Experienced 3 1 Water Dragon Experienced 3 1 Fire Dragon Experienced 3 1 Void Dragon Experienced 3	3 Burning Spirit 3 Stones of Purity 3 Overwhelming Power 2 Ward of Air 2 The Dragon's Breath 3 Zazen Meditation 3 Inspired Devotion 2 Oath of Fealty 3 Banish All Shadows 2 Final Sacrifice 2 Reprisal 2 Honed to a Razor's Edge 2 Undermining the Otomo 2 Discovering the Daisho of Water 1 Ring of the Void 1 Ring of Water 1 Ring of Earth 1 Ring of Air

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

 

L5r has never done right by eternal formats. Legacy and War of Honor have degenerate decks that dominate so quickly it is rarely a game was played except by the person who won. Big Deck has the headache of constructing and managing two 100 card decks without running more than a single copy of any card. All of them suffer from l5r’s history of significantly changing the rules of the game.

The fact that Modern as a format exists at all is a testament to the players. There is a real desire for people to play in large expanded card pools. To be able to revisit old characters from the past, to test them with the rules of the present, and interact with strategies from the future.

WTF is Modern?

Modern is a constructed eternal format, or if you prefer, a legacy format. It allows players to play with their older cards in new and interesting ways. The larger the card pool, the more intriguing decks and interactions that are possible.

What are the rules?

The rules of Modern aren’t simple. No eternal format for l5r is going to be have that luxury. L5r rules are complex by default, and to make the older cards work in any meaningful way, the rules have to be warped, twisted, and amended. Some things must be added while others ignored.

Here is a *ahem* brief summary of Modern rules.

It is exactly the same as the Ivory ruleset, except not at all.

Modern retains the Legacy holding rules from Samurai Edition. Will the Legacy holding rules switch to the Ivory Legacy ruleset when it rotates into legality? I have no idea, please don’t ask me.

The Emperor Edition era ability of open seppuku remains. It is a function that probably won’t come up much because turning your opponent’s dishonor effects into kill effects is rarely a good idea. The Blood Money rule (ignore honor requirements by paying two more gold over printed) is also around, but with the absence of built in clan reductions, it is going to be a hard rock to get stuck under if you drop your own honor. Thankfully, the ignore honor requirements if your opponent causes the loss is still here as part of the ruleset, so Blood Money-ing a guy is going to be a real corner case. I suspect there is a busted dishonor deck in Modern. There are probably a lot of busted decks, it is part of the charm of eternal formats.

 

Deck size is 50/50 and with the highlander stipulation, which means that you are only allowed a single copy of any card, regardless of its uniqueness or text (take that Bandit’s Sanctuary). Does this mean decks will feature a whole lot of unique personalities. It does. Uniques are often more potent and aggressively costed, factors that were previously balanced by their uniqueness. Though honestly, decks would be filled with loads of uniques even if the highlander rule wasn’t in place. People like impactful personalities.

 

The highlander stipulation is important for gameplay reasons. Without it, the speed and consistency of degenerate decks is overwhelming. It brings a bit more variance to the games themselves, which will be important for the format to last.

 

The 50/50 also serves as a maximum, though in a delightful display of dissonance, this can be overriden by card text.

 

Modern is an eternal format that isn’t actually all that eternal. It starts with the first Samurai Edition bugged cards (Khan’s Defiance) and carries through to the current set.

 

There are a couple of banned cards, mostly the Border Keeps and draft cards. As a rule, if you want to play a card in Modern, it has to have been legal for a constructed kotei at some point in the past. It is still a monster card pool, and while it lacks the most powerful cards ever, there are still some heavy hitters.

Forgotten Legacy is legal after all.

 

What about costs versus targeting versus reactions versus interrupts?

 

I don’t know, please don’t ask me. There are going to be some cards that don’t work the way you want them to, and a few interactions that do work and are improvements. It is a growing format. If a weird technical interaction creeps up, and it is problematic, it will get knocked down. That doesn’t me there isn’t value to hunting out the exploitable, but do so knowing that you aren’t ever  going to get to pull a Paneki’s Mask. Modern isn’t an officially supported format. One day, perhaps, if there is enough player interest, but for now, AEG is stretched pretty thin on formats. 3 choices for a kotei is enough, even if it is only 2 in reality.

Can we get to the fun part now?

Knowing now how to play the game, it’s time to dive in and start thinking about building a deck. With such a large card pool, though, there is a strong disincentive to just pull up Crane personalities and start skimming. The time commitment to pour over all the available cards is daunting. As an added headache, the various search engines for l5r don’t have a Modern setting, prepare for a slog.

 

There are a few posted decklists that to crib from, but with only a few dozen people actually playing Modern, it is a little early to start thinking about netdecking, and worrying about metagames. Those things come in more solved and combed over formats. Modern is the exact opposite. There is a real freedom here. Permission is given to stick your head in the sand and just build the best Modern deck you can. Spoiler, it will probably turn out to be pretty terrible.

 

A little direction is called for to get started. Think about the faction or strategy you want to play. Is it something that has been around for a while? If it hasn’t. Then you are going to be in some trouble. Something like Crane dueling is going to be a safe pick. Crane have always been dueling, they’ve also always been good in every arc from Samurai onward. Similarly, Crab, Unicorn, and my beloved Spider have frequently fielded decks built around the biggest and baddest personalities.  Those decks may be a little slow, but running mighty personalities is a good place to start.

 

While predicting the best decks is a suckers game, there are some elements the top tier will likely contain. There will be some measure of consistency. Either it will be accomplished  through redundancy, pulling a number of similar cards from across the various legal arcs; or it will happen by utilizing a suite of deck search/draw/manipulation effects. The best decks will incorporate new cards in a way that compliments (or are complimented by) the old. Something like Mantis scouts with Shika Sensei out of Seven’s Seas Port. There are a lot of Mantis scouts, so the sensei gives you a pseudo fifth province, and the recon insures you have above average force efficiency.

 

Why not Kalani’s Landing? That’s stronghold is insane, right? Especially with the possible rules technicality and how it interacts with Legacy holdings? Maybe. Attention must be paid to the environmental context in which a card preformed. In the totality of of the card pool how many Peace and Govern the Land type effects are there? I can think of Peace and Govern the land. If that’s it, if that’s the list, then the deck is going to need something else to make it work. How many Paid Off type gold cost strategies can get crammed into a deck as a single copy? Is Sudden Blockade a good card if you are only ever promised to play it once, and your odds of drawing it are dramatically reduced?

 

Of course, Kalani’s Landing was eventually banned as a stronghold, which is as clear an indication as any that it is a safe place to start for building a good deck. Attention should be paid to any card that was ever banned.

 

Another good option? Unaligned personalities. Look for the Mokkus, Pokkus, Glukkus, and Shukkus of the world to shine in some Modern military decks. Onis and ronin operate in a similar sphere. Design to cost exactly what they cost, these kinds of personalities are paragons of value. Speaking of banned cards, Wrath of Kali-Ma lumbers back to the fold. Celestials, super events with super effects, will be a part of every deck.

 

One of the easiest ways to approach a new format is to use templating. Looking at past successful decks from similar formats and reconstructing it. No personality honor decks have been a part of l5r from Dark Journey Home’s Ninja Stronghold, to Gold’s Kaiu Walls, to Emperor’s Journey’s End Keep Experienced.

 

How did those decks work? All the honor producing holdings and defense that a deck can muster. With 4 arcs of cards to pull from, a reasonable option can probably be assembled. Of course, rocket honor might be an actual construct to be worried about.

Or maybe with stronger options I can finally make that P’an Ku deck happen. What about Enlightenment?

7500+ cards. An unexplored format. An unknown metagame.

Christmas came early.

L5r is a complex game. That complexity makes it a delight to build, test, play, and think about. There is so much stuff going on. So many options to consider. Moves, countermoves, trumps, and wild cards.

It can be overwhelming. Today I am going to talk about a mental process I use to help me digest game states, and make the proper plays.

As a player, you may have already developed a process or two of your own. Sadly, many if not most players, haven’t.

Lets start at the beginning. Decks generally have a built in opening sequence. Gold on turn one, more gold on two, personalities on three, attack on four is a very common progression. A different military deck may aim for less or zero gold and attack on turn 2 or 3. Executing a plan based around being a turn faster and blitzing out the opponent.

Regardless of the specific overarching strategy, both decks have codified first and second turn plays. The players piloting these decks, will rarely if ever stop to consider what an opponent is up to in these initial turns. It seems unnecessary. Superfluous. Except it isn’t at all! Strongholds  with senseis, personalities put down to a cycle, the full nature of the holdings purchased, and the events resolved all provide critical information. As a player, you know this. At least a little. Even the newbiest of newbs understands there is a difference between a Crane deck starting Akagi Sensei and a Crane deck showing Tadanobu Sensei. A Unicorn deck that buys Moto Okano on turn one is approaching the game in a contrasting way then the one that gets first turn Poorly Placed Garden.

Review

Taking notice of all available information, stuff in play, discard piles, provinces, starting conditions, etc, is the review step. It is the first rung of the process, and when its missed, bad things happen. How many games have you lost because you missed an opponent’s on board play? A “trick” that was staring you right in your not-paying attention face? Did you lament your absent-mindedness? Did one of your stupid friends scream at you “how did you miss that?!” Of all the mistakes in l5r, this is the toughest one to shake off. You have no one to blame except yourself, and you know it.

There is no shortcut to observing the board state. No cheat. You have to actually take the time and make sure you are seeing the whole board. The good news is that it doesn’t take that long. Ask your opponent to give you a force total (get technical if you must “how much force including Tamoko Sensei”) make sure the gold piled up in the corner isn’t hiding any secret plays. The easiest way I have found to keep track of my opponents stuff is to keep a mental running tally every time he adds a card to the board, but that can be taxing and leads to a lot of losses to Discipline cards. At a base level, you need to develop the habit of reviewing everything at the start of your turns and when your opponent declares an attack against you. Read the keywords, don’t lose to an unexpected Cavalry engage. Make sure to pay attention to the Jutsushi Sensei force bonus. Remember that the stronghold battle ability is tireless. More games are a lost to people missing plays than any other factor, so take the time, and read the cards that are on the board. At the high end, there is no getting around it. Get in the habit of scanning all the zones and committing all the information to mind. If it isn’t relevant, cool beans. If it is, well, human beings have pretty impressive brains with all kind of storage capacity.

Analyze

Return to our early turn example. When an opponent shows us Tadanobu Sensei we know he is going to be tossing around some number of duels. If in his first turn he cycles down Horobei and Oneiyara we can also safely assume he isn’t planning to win the game by honor. Honor decks that cannot gain honor from holdings don’t play multiple unaligned non-unique personalities.  A Crane duel based military deck. What does that mean? Weakness Exposed is a powerful card to be aware of, he is going to be running some number of attachments (probably items as both those personalities are also kensai) for force generation, low focus cards like Overwhelming Offense or Unsettling Gathering are highly unlikely to make an appearance. Interpreting the reviewed information and extrapolating out your opponent’s game plan and options is the heart of the analyze step. The goal here is understanding. Understanding the likely configuration of your opponents hand, and understanding how exactly he is going to use his cards in play.

Story time.

In the later half of Emperor Edition kotei season, Jesse was in the finals with a Phoenix military deck. He was paired against a Crab dishonor deck. I remember thinking as the game started how cool it was that Jesse was about to be a kotei champ. All my testing indicated that Crab was a significant underdog. It takes a while to get to the finals of a kotei. By the time Jesse was there, he wasn’t doing a good job of reading the 18 lines of text on every Crab merchant. He certainly wasn’t taking the time to understand their various interactions. In no time at all he was getting blown out by Yasukis Daiki, Jekku, and Tanimura. It was a failure of preparation. Jesse had never played against Crab dishonor. It was also a serious failure of rigorous play. He didn’t take the time to figure out what his opponent was doing, and as such, couldn’t construct a plan to defeat him.

Prioritize

You are playing against a Lion military deck, it is their turn 4 and they attack you with Akodo Kenaro, Ikoma Shika, and Ikoma Genichi.

If you don’t defend, you will lose a province for sure. It can be safely assumed that the Lion player has a high enough focus value card to tactician away. This is a critical decision point. Most players when facing this situation will ask 1.) can I win the battle on the defense? 2.) if I cannot win, can I defend and save my province? More experienced players, will also consider things like 3.) Is this province worth saving? or 4.) do I want to conserve my resources for a counterattack?

Determining the relative value of a single card, province, or maneuver is about prioritization.

If you defend against those three Lion personalities with an Unholy Strike in hand, there is some debate on who you will shoot. We know, though, that Ikoma Shika isn’t going to be a target. Genichi has a Ranged 3 attack and Kenaro is a tactician. The only thing Shika is bringing to the table is his keywords, and he shares those with Genichi. In this situation Shika is the lowest priority target, and as such will not be targeted with Unholy Strike. If you have a 3 Force personality with a battle ability that you want to use, then we have a sequencing prioritization. You may want to use that ability first. Generally, using cards in play before using cards in hand is correct, but if the entire point of the defense is to sacrifice a personality to save the province, then opening with Unholy Strike on Kenaro is probably where you want to be.

It’s a lot to consider in totality, but you can see also what players refer to as “lines of play”. Once you make a first decision the second tends to flow from that and so on. Of course, priorities shift. An all in win the battle defense may start to go sour. It may turn into an attrition as much as you can and live to fight another day defense. Thus the importance of constant board review and analysis.

Execute.

The last step. Included for completeness. Once you have determined the correct play. Make it. It sounds easy, but it isn’t always. Especially when the correct play is something like a potentially suicidal semi-bluff attack, or a “hope he doesn’t have it but he probably does” defense. The number of times I have seen people make a play they know is wrong, but they still make it because they don’t know what else to do is shocking.

Review, Analyze, Prioritize, Execute.

4 steps.

That’s my method.

What’s yours?

 

An observable phenomenon of human behavior is the way people continue to make the same mistake over and over and over again.

 

In the words of modern day prophet Gob Bluth, I’ve made a huge mistake.

I underestimated the sneakiness.

Ninja are the coolest. Everyone knows that. It is an objective truth. No one dressed up as a courtier for Halloween. Like everyone alive on the planet, I love ninja, as such, I love to build ninja decks. One of the disappointments I expressed reviewing The New Order is the dearth of ninja.

One ninja personality, who is neither Scorpion nor Spider, who is Masked but not wearing a mask, and who has no cool ability. I can’t say Hiruma Toshi is a bad card. He is, however, a deeply unexciting card. The list of personalities who are Samurai, Scout, and Ninja starts with Bayushi Shiaga and ends with Hiruma Toshi. 2 people. That’s it. That’s the list. But Scout has always been Ninja lite and being a Samurai when you are also a Ninja is comparable to being the best 3 on 3 intramural basketball player in a rec legaue when you are also an NBA superstar. It is nice to be a Samurai, but it is unbelievably marvelous to be a Ninja.

How can something so beloved, so flavorful, be so unsupported? Sometimes design swings and misses, but they didn’t even swing at the ball (more mixing of sports metaphors to come!) when it came to Ninja this set. One personality. There are something like 29 magistrates in TNO, and only one Ninja card? Come on, man!

Then I remembered all the text of Shika Sensei.

It works with Ninjas as well as their little brother Scouts. Sneaky, very sneaky.

Shika Sensei is the Spider stronghold stapled onto a different faction. Against honor and dishonor, it is better. Why go through the hassle of losing a province to get an extra flip? The drawbacks though, can be significant. Look at Crab Scouts and you’ll see a non trivial number of 3 honor requirement personalities. Mantis with a 6 province strength is always going to be a risky proposition, and Crane running Shika sensei means they don’t get to run a Crane specific card (which are the best cards in the game by default).

Scorpion don’t care about any of that! They get to play Ninjas! There stronghold is bonkers good! Why am I using exclamation points!

Having a powerful a stronghold and another powerful stronghold stapled onto the first is a good starting point for any l5r deck. All we need to do now is fill out the other 80 cards of the deck. Thankfully, there is at least one arrow to follow. Everyone loves chi death. Of course, by everyone, I mean “me, specifically”. Chi death has been an odd duck for design over the course of the game. Wasting Disease remains a boogeyman of eternal formats. So overpowered that that innocuous items like Koan’s Robe have been banned to prevent it from ruining games. Bayushi Saya to trigger Shosuro Adeiko was the backbone of an unstoppable juggernaut for a good 15 minutes in Samurai Edition. Frozen in Place doesn’t seem like an above the curve power card, especially in format as muscular as Emperor, and yet, banned it was, because Theological Indecision + Frozen was just too good™. When chi death is working, it is killing personalities and their attachments at a rate that is simply superior to what everyone else is paying.

Now, in Ivory we don’t have chi death attached to limited actions. Chuda Tairo as an open counts, sort of, I guess, but not really. What the set does have is battle based chi death, and hey hey! It gets further supported when we play Ninjas.

 

The Shadowed Estate of the Scorpion Shika Sensei
Dynasty (40)	Fate (40)
2 Bayushi Amorie 3 Bayushi Jin-e 3 Shosuro Sadao 3 Shosuro Kiyofumi 3 Shosuro Tagiso 3 Ninube Shiho 2 Bayushi Akagi 1 Soshi Kodanshi 3 Jade Pearl Inn 2 Lane Of Immorality 1 Temple Of Tengen 3 Geisha House 3 Famous Bazaar 2 Shrine To Hachiman 2 The Ivory Courtroom 2 Imperial Dojo 1 Bamboo Harvesters Experienced 1 Counting House	Actions 3 Red Hunger’s Fang 3 Strike As The Earth 3 Wounded In Battle 3 Unholy Strike 3 Inspired Leadership 3 Unsanctioned Strike 2 Planted Evidence 2 Unsettling Gathering 3 Victory Through Deference 3 Strategic Withdrawal 3 Planned Departure 3 Shinobi Vassal 1 Ring Of The Void 1 Ring Of Water 1 Ring Of Earth 1 Ring Of Air 1 Creating Order 1 A Game Of Dice

 

The dynasty deck comes together rather cleanly. Ninjas with marginal abilities and ninjas with respectable stats. The cost stat is the most important. It is tempting to run some big beefy personalities like Bayushi Nitoshi Experienced and the Dark Naga Experienced. They have great abilities to target with Inspired Leadership and they have the potential to take over the game all by themselves. The problem with such large bruisers is how terribly they line up with the totality of the deck. If you are spending 12 – 14 gold on one personality, you aren’t going to be effectively leveraging your sensei. Likewise, the fate deck is lacking in good reactive staples that such a deck needs to fend off the opposition’s battle actions. No Back to the Front, no Dirty Tricks, no Turtle’s Shell. There is a certainly a Scorpion military deck that runs these cards, but such a configuration is going to be more in the market for the raw power of a  Bayushi Maemi over the cheap swarm action saturation of a Shosuro Sadao. With Inspired Leadership already being a part of the deck, I can see a world where I cut the non-ninja Akagi for some big uniques, but I’m not there yet.

 

The fate deck looks simplistic, what with its chi death theme and the subtheme of “this is a good card”. It has gone through a number of revisions and is still not locked. The chi death package is the core of the deck and compliments the dynasty side well. Use your sea of people to provide presence, take a number of actions per battle, attrition a few units, possibly run away, and eventually overwhelm your opponent.

It is a slow death by a thousand paper cuts (I dare say, a slow acting poison), and as such, the move your guy home force reduction effects are crucial to help blunt early game pressure. Your sensei gives you some staying power, but your low residual force makes it hard if you fall behind too far to fast. Trading for you doesn’t start until you hit critical mass. Chump defenses are often called for. Bayushi Amorie is in the deck primarily for this purpose. Cavalry chump defender.

Supplementing the battle strategy are Planted Evidence and Unsettling Gathering. The two most powerful limited fate cards in the format. Clearing out problematic defenders and helping to generate sweet sweet force they are the knockdown uppercut that supplement your in battle jabs (the sports metaphor payoff!).

Ninja decks haven’t had their day in the sun in Ivory. Partly because they have been outclassed by potent dishonor strategies, and partly because they are just so sneaky and refuse to leave the shadows. The solution? Dive into the darkness and draw your power from within.