The dead has been brought back to life.

Two more quests and Diagotsu wins lady Doji's hand.

I want shadowlands!!!!!!!!!!!! tomorrow!

On 9/25/2015 at 4:36 PM, PsiNorm said:

...the tug of war with the taint.

LOL, sorry couldn't help it, juvenile I know...

I am quite excited to see what they do with Shadowlands. I like the Goblin we have seen so far, but I do hope we start seeing corrupted personalities and Spider clan.

If they do bring Spider in the future as a clan, or Yogo Junzo's army if they start with that, is probably gonna be like any other faction and follow mostly the same rules.

A few options though to have their own feel:

1. Probably one of the lowest starting honor (around 8 or 9).

2. To compensate for above (who will probably avoid bidding high), their conflict cards (Shadowlands trait) will probably be a bit stronger and of course no influence cost except a few.

3. They might also have unusually high unique province/SH stats.

4. If you need to hurt it more, maybe they can use only cards of Shadowlands trait and/or their SH has no influence and cannot be Seeker/Keeper at all (at least for the Horde type, why would you even entrust a ring to a Shadowland boss unless you have a very good story unfolding afterwards).

5. Lastly they probably should not gain the Imperial Favor (Junzo's army) but might be ok already by the time Spider is up. Still not sure about having Oni courtiers roaming the palace, then again I quit already by the time Spider came out so not sure how they looked like lol

On ‎11‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 3:16 PM, Krashwire said:

LOL, sorry couldn't help it, juvenile I know...

Definitely NSFW...but also definitely great (the Taint relevant part starts at 3:30).

The way things might be going in this version of L5R, I think the first Shadowlands faction stronghold could be Imperial. So, they could use the favor (or maybe at least have ways of making it difficult for anyone for anyone to take it).

There are rumors that we will get a lot of Shadowlands cards in the third cycle followed by a stronghold that can't gain/lose honor.

If that's the same rumors I saw, I'd take it with a grain of salt. There were a few parts of those tidbits that don't seem to pass the sniff test.

11 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

There are rumors that we will get a lot of Shadowlands cards in the third cycle followed by a stronghold that can't gain/lose honor.

I doubt FFG gonna repeat the same mistakes AEG did.

4 hours ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

There were a few parts of those tidbits that don't seem to pass the sniff test.

Seems we have circled back to the taint...

5 hours ago, Ignithas said:

There are rumors that we will get a lot of Shadowlands cards in the third cycle followed by a stronghold that can't gain/lose honor.

That involves trusting 4chan, where everyone is trying to pretend to be the spoiler to make bogus claims.

1 hour ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

That involves trusting 4chan, where everyone is trying to pretend to be the spoiler to make bogus claims.

I want those to be false. Ranged doesn't sound very piratey. Losty could be ok in their own pit. Single clan deluxe sound sloooooooow. Even more if they add clans. There should be hope for extra strongholds before the deluxe boxes? Quite boring having to wait some years just to get a second/third one.

Let's just say due to Honor and Dishonor being fundamental aspects of the game, new factions will have to adhere to this and not ignore it - when one faction plays by an entirely different set of rules, we have problems.

56 minutes ago, kpsmith said:

Let's just say due to Honor and Dishonor being fundamental aspects of the game, new factions will have to adhere to this and not ignore it - when one faction plays by an entirely different set of rules, we have problems.

It really depends how the faction is balanced and what tools dishonor decks get to combat that faction.

1 hour ago, Ignithas said:

It really depends how the faction is balanced and what tools dishonor decks get to combat that faction.

Absolutely. As much a people complain about "old5r shadowlands was busted because immune to dishonor" it was generally balanced, with a few exceptions...........but pretty much every clan or win con had moments of bustedness.

If the shadowlands faction was it's own thing and immune to dishonor it can still be balanced, depending on what they have to give up in exchange.

Personally I was hoping for all neutral cards for awhile but I get the feeling there will be a shadowlands faction sooner than rather than later.

Let's hope for a few months break though if/before the new clans come out.

We need time to enjoy the Imperial cycle and monthly salaries to refill our pockets. -_-'

16 hours ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

That involves trusting 4chan, where everyone is trying to pretend to be the spoiler to make bogus claims.

I didn't find that piece of info in 4chan, but in discord.

Anyway, I cannot trust it because of some terrible points:

1- Shadowlands being inmune to dishonor makes dishonor decks instalose, as they did back in O5R.

2- Ranged attacks, at first, seem kind op. I guess anyone could get them eventually.

3- Making Mantis characters neutral with a keyword would make them horrible looking, as happened with Skaven/Undead/Lizardmen/WoodElves/Bretonnia in Invasion. Also, everybody could play mantis dysnaty characters?

4- Enlightenment sounds really bland. And I find no reason for everyone to not use that card as an aditional option since enlightenment doesn't requiere additional efforts, just happens in the end.

They may also check the deluxe box distribution. Clan focused boxes could make pack cards to rotate even before they have a chance to combine with the box and giving some clans a really bad card pool disadvantage.

42 minutes ago, Barbacuo said:

I didn't find that piece of info in 4chan, but in discord.

Anyway, I cannot trust it because of some terrible points:

1- Shadowlands being inmune to dishonor makes dishonor decks instalose, as they did back in O5R.

2- Ranged attacks, at first, seem kind op. I guess anyone could get them eventually.

3- Making Mantis characters neutral with a keyword would make them horrible looking, as happened with Skaven/Undead/Lizardmen/WoodElves/Bretonnia in Invasion. Also, everybody could play mantis dysnaty characters?

4- Enlightenment sounds really bland. And I find no reason for everyone to not use that card as an aditional option since enlightenment doesn't requiere additional efforts, just happens in the end.

They may also check the deluxe box distribution. Clan focused boxes could make pack cards to rotate even before they have a chance to combine with the box and giving some clans a really bad card pool disadvantage.

1- all clans fight know, though. In any case, I want to assume that it wouldn't be tacked on but thought since day 1 and developed with the rest. Much like favor in first cycle.

3- Mantis fans will prefer neutral border to no Mantis. Putting them in dinasty deck is same as putting Imperials.

4- Which is good.

If the Shadowlands is immune to Dishonor, what stops it from Bidding 5 every turn and drawing 5 cards? Honor is fundamental to the game - you have to interact with it. Whatever the case may be, we won't see Shadowlands as they were previously. There will have to be new mechanical innovations without making special case rules which are poor design decisions.

6 minutes ago, kpsmith said:

If the Shadowlands is immune to Dishonor, what stops it from Bidding 5 every turn and drawing 5 cards? Honor is fundamental to the game - you have to interact with it. Whatever the case may be, we won't see Shadowlands as they were previously. There will have to be new mechanical innovations without making special case rules which are poor design decisions.

Who says that Shadowlands has the same bidding/drawing mechanic than the other clans? In Warhammer 40k Conquest the two factions that came with deluxe expansions changed fundamental things from the other factions. Spoilers: They didn't break the game, nor were they poor design decisions.

49 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

Who says that Shadowlands has the same bidding/drawing mechanic than the other clans? In Warhammer 40k Conquest the two factions that came with deluxe expansions changed fundamental things from the other factions. Spoilers: They didn't break the game, nor were they poor design decisions.

Although to be fair, both Tyranids and Necrons were noticeably below the power curve, at least at the beginning and their different mechanics were at least one part of it.

5 minutes ago, Saibot said:

Although to be fair, both Tyranids and Necrons were noticeably below the power curve, at least at the beginning and their different mechanics were at least one part of it.

This is correct. The designer specifically said that he wanted to play it safe with the new factions to not unbalance the game and I wouldn't mind the same with Shadowlands. I have no doubt that Tyranids and Necrons would have been aproximatly on the same powerlevel than the other factions (Tau also never had their spot in the sun).

4 hours ago, Barbacuo said:

1- Shadowlands being inmune to dishonor makes dishonor decks instalose, as they did back in O5R.

There are no "dishonor decks" in the game right now. There are conquest decks that can win by pressuring the opponents honor and switching to dishonor if that becomes an option. This is important to specify. Scorpion and Phoenix are the best dishonor clans in the game, but do not focus solely on dishonor alone, they are switch decks at their core. They are mainly all about winning fights and breaking provinces, because trying to dishonor Lion is a fools game already if Lion are at least half competent. The tools to just solitaire dishonor simply doesn't exist fully yet, and if Imperial Cycle shows us anything, its that they aren't getting those tools anytime soon.

If Shadowlands at WORST was immune to losing honor flat out then all that would mean would be that Phoenix and Scorpion would have to plan to fight them at breaking provinces, and seeing as I have 0 expectations of Spider being a politically strong faction stat wise (unless those mad, tainted samurai and Oni are really good at writing haiku or something) it will be possible to province race them like these political focused factions already do with Lion and Unicorn. So that would mean that these factions, scorpion mainly, would be looking at one of 8 factions that they now have a slightly harder time fighting, and it wouldn't be an instant loss either, just an uphill match up. Phoenix can flat out drop their dishonor and just honor up to fight them, like they do when fighting lion.

This isn't bad design, every faction SHOULD have natural predators in the environment from other clans as checks and balances in the meta, not flat out rock, paper, scissors but each clan having advantages and disadvantages against certain strategies they have to build around. Scorpion is a clear predator of Phoenix for example, having an insane amount of ways to make the main gimmick of the Phoenix, honoring your bodies, MUCH more difficult to the point that the mechanic works against the Phoenix player. If Shadowlands did come out and became a predator of Scorpion, forcing them to fight for provinces instead of just dishonoring, that wouldn't break the game, it would just be something scorpion would have to build with the knowledge of, and there is nothing truly wrong with that in this newer iteration of the game. Lore wise it also makes perfect sense, as the Scorpion cant blackmail monsters or shame already tainted monsters, that is just silly.

2 hours ago, kpsmith said:

If the Shadowlands is immune to Dishonor, what stops it from Bidding 5 every turn and drawing 5 cards? Honor is fundamental to the game - you have to interact with it. Whatever the case may be, we won't see Shadowlands as they were previously. There will have to be new mechanical innovations without making special case rules which are poor design decisions.

Well, the rumor specified that shadowlands didn't lose honor, but the opponent got +1 honor each time they bid, so if the Spider was bidding 5 and a crane bid 1 then the crane gained 5 honor, if that happens twice and the Crane goes for the air ring the game will be over turn two, turn one if they Way of Chrysantium. THAT is what is stopping them from bidding 5 a turn. Shadowlands would certainly be a faction that can get allot of cards in hand, but that doesn't mean they are free from worrying about the dial. Plus, if they bid 5 and the opponent bids 5 that wont fully help the Shadowlands player as its not converting into full card advantage at that point. Its a lot more complicated then the notion that just because you cant lose honor means you suffer no consequences, its why the honor dial is so fascinating.

Overall I could see some new ideas, like not being able to splash influence on other clan characters unless they had the Shadowlands keyword or go full Nids and deny them any allies. But that's what's exciting, they could do a lot of unique things.

Until we know what the shadowlands faction will look like in the LCG, coming to any conclusion about its interactions with other decks, based on experiences from the old CCG is pointless.

The main problem with the old CCG Was that each win con could opporate independently of one another and interaction was not needed it even encouraged. Not allowing your opponent to interact with you was the best way to win.

The new LCG forces interaction. While you may win by dishonor, you get there by winning conflicts and interacting with your opponent.

So let's say shadowlands is immune to a dishonor loss. FFG will have to have something baked into their design to compensate for that because just a flat out immunity to a win con without a drawback would be absurd. Even the old game attemped to try and balance it, sometimes more successfully than others.

Maybe instead of an unopposed honor loss for shadowlands the opponent gains honor. Maybe shadowlands are extremely weak to political attacks/defenses. Maybe the shadowlands stronghold has a low or even no influence value.

Plenty of things could be done to balance the trade off for dishonor immunity. Besides the fact that anyone building their deck to be so one dimensional is likely putting themself in a bad spot to Bering with because the design rewards good play and decision making. If you blindly force one win con every time all the time you will get beat by better players that know how to adapt.

The simple reason (but there are many others) that Shadowlands cannot and should not be its own clan is the honor system. In the game, the clans via for the favor of the Emperor. This would make no sense for the Shadowlands. How would a Shadowlands deck lose (theme wise) if it ran out of honor? Even more ridiculous is winning by way of honor!

I love the idea of neutral and "corrupted" clan cards being created with the Shadowlands keyword. Also, maybe a co-op game could be created with the Shadowlands acting as the opponent for the players.