Imagine Disney buying Star Wars. Would they really want to alienate the fan base and do a movie or series about something none of the fans know about, like 5000 years in the past of the current story? No. Disney wants to make as much money as possible, so they chose to make what the fans really want: a continuation of the previous storyline. I don't see how FFG is going to act much differently from Disney.

Depends on what you mean by 'fan.' I think Disney was appealing to the nostalgic fan that liked the first trilogy and bought some merchandise but didn't really follow it. They definitely weren't catering to the novel-reading, game-playing, costuming fans. They're targeting the broadest audience they can to generate the most money. I suspect FFG will do the same for L5R, whatever the broadest audience turns out to be.

Okay, since the Enlightenment folks find it difficult to imagine they might be the ones to wait for expansion . . . why not the court people?

The other trend we've seen in LCGs is that some of the most popular factions have to wait to be expanded. Tyranids from Conquest and Scum & Villainy from Star Wars come to mind. From that perspective, I could see Crane and Scorpion being held off for 6-8 months until the first deluxe expansion hits.

people in this thread seem to have missed that they appear to be continuing the storyline from the "current" point in time, at least in so much as there will be an Empire and Colonies, which is to say there will be 9 clans. Whether they are all mechanically represented, and how that happens, is anyone's guess, but hoping to back to Clan Wars era 7 or what have you is wishful thinking.

the only way we get any number != 9 is by going forward, which will by necessity start with 9.

Just because clans exist, even retaining their great clan status, doesn't mean they have to be represented as a clan in the game. It's trivially easy to come up with story reasons for a great clan not to be terribly concerned with whatever the conflict in question is.

(And again, this leaves room to add clans in expansions.)

^This is probably a great idea.

Imagine it like years of peace of sequestered all the clans from one another, the story/game goes on for a few months, then BAM something happens, and now Clan X has to *really* get involved, and they make a whole new expansion box to highlight them.

The problem with that is, that players who like clan x will/might not buy an expansion that has no/very little clan x cards in it.

The spider's mechanical woes are common knowledge. with the exception of breeder during celestial, a single deck (god bless you Ornatov), spider has not been competitive (we've picked up a few wins here and there, more in 20f) since its inception. thats just fact. on top of its unimpressive tournament results, its been more or less LOST, design wise, for most of that time, a fact that is widely and commonly acknowledged (oh hello cloud tokens, you sad sad things). this isn't partisan spider speaking. even the people who hate the spider feel bad for how crapawful we've been. thats how pathetic it is. when your enemies pity you, thats sad. the irony of the game ending right now is Evil Portents is the first time, since breeder, that we've gotten an entire batch of legitimately good cards.

ive answered the first part elsewhere

I agree that Spider have some terrible synergy in their cards from one time to another, but I don't think you can prove that for the last 5 years they've consistently been mechanically crippled as you've stated in your OP. Winning 2 Gencons with Spider doesn't sound like mechanically crippled. It sounds more like you are exaggerating. Understandable, since we are mostly fan boys posting on a website for a game from FFG that won't exist for almost 2 more years. And yet even Spider won this last weekend in Kansas.

I think getting the game right has to come first, and while I would be opposed to a whole clan being chopped off in the storyline (unless there is some awesome story justification!), not having them being playable in the core set seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to me. At the most materialistic level, being a LCG you are not loosing out playing another faction for a while as you are getting all the cards anyway. And story-wise, factions have been in without being in before. Scorpion did a ton of cool things while they were off the game: Kachiko and Aramoro at times seemed to be involved half the Clan Wars stuff. The Unicorn took a hike. The Phoenix were reduced to two hovels and a dozen shuggies. In any of these were good grounds to leave their SH out for a bit (even if not always taken, or done half-way like Scorpion in Jade).

So let say the Lion is practically wiped out fighting Kanpeki. Which frankly would be perfectly fitting because not given another imperative (say, protecting a fleeing Sheiken) it would be the Lion thing to do... well, no Lion box, few Lion heroes and Akodo's Leadership quotes and whatnot and then a year later the Lion roars again. I would be happy with that if it is done tastefully (Kano's Army FTW!).

Would I be happy playing Lion? Yes. Would I take it on stride if Lion gets the axe for the Core set? Sure thing.

It doesn't seem unreasonable for FFG to continue with both of those implication set by AEG, but at they same time they might just scrap everything and start over.

Imagine Disney buying Star Wars. Would they really want to alienate the fan base and do a movie or series about something none of the fans know about, like 5000 years in the past of the current story? No. Disney wants to make as much money as possible, so they chose to make what the fans really want: a continuation of the previous storyline. I don't see how FFG is going to act much differently from Disney.

I seem to recall the announcement that they were rebooting the EU was met with some wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I expect much the same here, whatever FFG decides. Even among the Die Hards who've played the game through all 20 years, I imagine there's one player ready to fist fight his regular opponent over whether we should get to see what would have been Onyx Edition in FFG's core, or if we should skip it.

And yes, I'm implying there are only two people who have played the game without a break for all 20 years.

I really think this game would benefit from an alternate starting distribution. Starter sets for each faction would be perfect, but doesn't fit in the LCG philosophy. Combining two clans from the core set to make a deck sounds weird. It all depends on FFG keeping the 2-deck gimmick everybody love. You could put all clans in the core set and only enough green cards for a couple playable decks.

Rebooting the setting is really gonna be the best option. Much like the card game was crippled by design decisions they couldn't get rid of while maintaining continuity of playability, the setting is being hurt by a lot of decisions over the years piling up and strangling it.

I really think this game would benefit from an alternate starting distribution. Starter sets for each faction would be perfect, but doesn't fit in the LCG philosophy. Combining two clans from the core set to make a deck sounds weird. It all depends on FFG keeping the 2-deck gimmick everybody love. You could put all clans in the core set and only enough green cards for a couple playable decks.

Core Set decks for 2 players (or more) are not necessarily tournament legal. I know AGOT, even with the combined decks, you end up with decks smaller than the tournament minimum.

It doesn't seem unreasonable for FFG to continue with both of those implication set by AEG, but at they same time they might just scrap everything and start over.

Imagine Disney buying Star Wars. Would they really want to alienate the fan base and do a movie or series about something none of the fans know about, like 5000 years in the past of the current story? No. Disney wants to make as much money as possible, so they chose to make what the fans really want: a continuation of the previous storyline. I don't see how FFG is going to act much differently from Disney.

I seem to recall the announcement that they were rebooting the EU was met with some wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I expect much the same here, whatever FFG decides. Even among the Die Hards who've played the game through all 20 years, I imagine there's one player ready to fist fight his regular opponent over whether we should get to see what would have been Onyx Edition in FFG's core, or if we should skip it.

And yes, I'm implying there are only two people who have played the game without a break for all 20 years.

But that should be obvious.

No matter what happens, when a new company grabs a product from an old company, even if they don't do anything to the product there will be gnashing of teeth.

This is actually much more dramatic. As a fan group we have no idea of anything other than FFG will make an LCG. That's not much to go on at all.

Okay, since the Enlightenment folks find it difficult to imagine they might be the ones to wait for expansion . . . why not the court people?

I don't find the concept of a wait difficult.

I find your reasoning behind this particular argument faulty- not least because Phoenix has really been more Honor than Enlightenment-centered throughout its history, and Dragon has been capable of pretty impressive military gameplay. Even in the story, the Phoenix have always been a presence in the Empire, while the Dragon's rollout during the Clan Wars saw them throwing their military support behind Toturi.

There are arguments to be made for holding back literally any clan. They all have flaws, and they all have merit.

The spider's mechanical woes are common knowledge. with the exception of breeder during celestial, a single deck (god bless you Ornatov), spider has not been competitive (we've picked up a few wins here and there, more in 20f) since its inception. thats just fact. on top of its unimpressive tournament results, its been more or less LOST, design wise, for most of that time, a fact that is widely and commonly acknowledged (oh hello cloud tokens, you sad sad things). this isn't partisan spider speaking. even the people who hate the spider feel bad for how crapawful we've been. thats how pathetic it is. when your enemies pity you, thats sad. the irony of the game ending right now is Evil Portents is the first time, since breeder, that we've gotten an entire batch of legitimately good cards.

ive answered the first part elsewhere

I agree that Spider have some terrible synergy in their cards from one time to another, but I don't think you can prove that for the last 5 years they've consistently been mechanically crippled as you've stated in your OP. Winning 2 Gencons with Spider doesn't sound like mechanically crippled. It sounds more like you are exaggerating. Understandable, since we are mostly fan boys posting on a website for a game from FFG that won't exist for almost 2 more years. And yet even Spider won this last weekend in Kansas.

breeder was a single, preposterously environment deforming deck. it speaks to a failure in design, not a success.

other than that, it is only in the last half arc that spider has been able to put a few kotei wins together. go back and look at tournament results going back to SAMURAI. spider are consistently the worst, or bottom 3, performing clan. we have not had a single mechanical success unless you count having good personalities that other clans use better than we do (hi there Hotako) that lasted for more than lets say two expansions.

a really good example was Sparks' movement shenanigans TSL ninja deck in Emperor. which was a legitimately decent deck, if you were good enough to play it. i was not, but i know a lot of spider players were. problem was, it immediately fell behind the power curve as the rest of the environment rocketed past it. even when we got GOOD cards, design failed us.

look, you can doubt me all you want but at the end of the day, you ask 100 people who've been playing this game for more than the last 18 months, 98 of them will laugh and agree that the poor spider have had the worst design ride of all the clans. the only factions who have gotten a worse ride than us were the ratlings and the naga, and thats because they got written out of the game.

There are argumentd to be made for holding back literally any clan. They all have flaws, and they all have merit.

Exactly--there is a sort of automatic assumption that there are . . . what is the term being thrown around? Sacred Cows? That cannot be touched--a "core" four or five clans that "must be there" and that there is also a group of "expendable" clans that can be cut to keep those sacred cows in place. The truth is ALL the clans could stay and all of them could go, but there are valid reasons that some of the "autos" are not as automatic as folks think.

Or maybe FFG says "sod it" to the great clans and we have to player minor clans from now

Fox, Wasp, Dragonfly, Monkey, Oriole, Hare, Tortoise, Falcon, Badger...

Yeah, sticking to the great clans might be better.

Or maybe FFG says "sod it" to the great clans and we have to player minor clans from now

Fox, Wasp, Dragonfly, Monkey, Oriole, Hare, Tortoise, Falcon, Badger...

Yeah, sticking to the great clans might be better.

Actually.... I would play that. But I seriously like the minor clans.

Or maybe FFG says "sod it" to the great clans and we have to player minor clans from now

Fox, Wasp, Dragonfly, Monkey, Oriole, Hare, Tortoise, Falcon, Badger...

Yeah, sticking to the great clans might be better.

I dunno, Legend of the Minor Clans sounds pretty friggin' cool to me.

Exactly--there is a sort of automatic assumption that there are . . . what is the term being thrown around? Sacred Cows? That cannot be touched--

I'm basically at the point where I desperately want a 0 cost Cow clan Samurai personality, who, when he enters play, dies honorably and does something for you from the dead pile (or wherever dead cards go in NuL5R).

Sacred Cow

Unaglingned Personality 0 Force 1 Chi

Honor equirement: 0 /Gold: 2 /Personal honor: 1

Nonhuman. Cow. Cavalry.

Sacred Cow cannot be touched , targeted by actions or strategies and can't have attachments.

If a player destroys Sacred Cow, that player looses 2 honor

Dynasty: Bow your performing Human personality and sacred cow to produce 2 gold. Spend this gold only to buy personalities and followers

Or maybe FFG says "sod it" to the great clans and we have to player minor clans from now

Fox, Wasp, Dragonfly, Monkey, Oriole, Hare, Tortoise, Falcon, Badger...

Yeah, sticking to the great clans might be better.

I dunno, Legend of the Minor Clans sounds pretty friggin' cool to me.

True. except I can't choose... They all sound cool. I think i'd go for the dragon meest Phoenix Dragonfly clan.

If a player destroys Sacred Cow, that player looses 2 honor

Boo! Hisssss!

Sacred Cow

Unaglingned Personality 0 Force 1 Chi

Honor equirement: 0 /Gold: 2 /Personal honor: 1

Nonhuman. Cow. Cavalry.

Sacred Cow cannot be touched , targeted by actions or strategies and can't have attachments.

If a player destroys Sacred Cow, that player looses 2 honor

Dynasty: Bow your performing Human personality and sacred cow to produce 2 gold. Spend this gold only to buy personalities and followers

Guess I am glad to have the Spider around, they seem to not mind to lose some honour, and I think the Scorpion are also more than willing to help to get rid of the sacred cows for the greater good and sacrificing some honour to do so.

If a player destroys Sacred Cow, that player looses 2 honor

Boo! Hisssss!

Don't you mean: "Mooooo! Hissss!" ?

Well you have killed the sacred cow! My Original idea was to have both players loose honor because the controling player allowed it to be killed. But that would make it just bad.

With Spider avatars on the forums, that may be a clue our arachnid friends are (unfortunately) not going away.

Do not read anything one way or another in to the Clan mons used. It's doubtful anyone at ffg even knows where things will progress over the next few months.