The setting, the people, the people, then the people.

When a game has no monetary reward for winning, and it's a little difficult to get into, what you get is a friendly player base of young adults, 25+.

Of course the inability to sell it to a younger audience eventually led to its downfall, but that is another story.

It was more about coolness and style in my local play group than MTG which was more about money and ego. I and my fellow Dolphin Clan members traveled to Gencon every year to compete. I thnk making connections in the community was always a big part of the value to traveling to L5R events that you honestly had only a remote chance of even making the final cut, much less the top 8 or better.

For me it was an Oni enlightenment deck my friend made. We were playing mtg, he wanted to show me a different game. We played it and the I was hooked. I thought Oyuchi was the creepiest/coolest thing ever.

Edit: For those curious about oni enlightenment, the deck Used Moetechi, Oyuchi,Kukanchi, Toichi and Yosuchi.

The Way of the Unicorn RPG book. And then The Way of the Dragon.

The depth and complexity of L5R's mechanics compared to other games at the time. I was playing Magic competitively, but once L5R started doing sponsored sword tournaments and regional events,I sold my Magic stuff off and that was it.

What hooked me was the Spider Clan in celestial Edition. The Dark Virtues they had and all the cool tools for Board Control were just great. I really liked my unique Spider personality deck where each card had a kill action printed on it and I also loved the major emphasis of the Dark Virtue theme back than. This actually was also a reason why I was dissapointed by the later arcs cause for some reason all the Dark Virtue emphasis vanished and Spdier became more and more a slightly darker merger of Dragon and Scorpion.

What hooked me was the Spider Clan in celestial Edition. The Dark Virtues they had and all the cool tools for Board Control were just great. I really liked my unique Spider personality deck where each card had a kill action printed on it and I also loved the major emphasis of the Dark Virtue theme back than. This actually was also a reason why I was dissapointed by the later arcs cause for some reason all the Dark Virtue emphasis vanished and Spdier became more and more a slightly darker merger of Dragon and Scorpion.

I kinda liked the whole bad guys dressing as monks vibe the spider used to have.

What hooked me was the Spider Clan in celestial Edition. The Dark Virtues they had and all the cool tools for Board Control were just great. I really liked my unique Spider personality deck where each card had a kill action printed on it and I also loved the major emphasis of the Dark Virtue theme back than. This actually was also a reason why I was dissapointed by the later arcs cause for some reason all the Dark Virtue emphasis vanished and Spdier became more and more a slightly darker merger of Dragon and Scorpion.

I kinda liked the whole bad guys dressing as monks vibe the spider used to have.

I really digged the sohei thing going on by just how different it was to the other monks in the game. Looking pretty snazzy helped too. I only feel bad that Tetsuo left the Spider, but maybe he'll get a mention in some other martial monk legacy in the LCG?