I know this has probably been discussed, but here we go again...

I know we can only speculate on the re-design and what's included and not included in the new version.

But with this thread I'm particularly interested in what everyone thinks the structure of the Core Set/the game will be.

Past precedent of FFG's LCG practices shows that they definitely love working with 'factions' rather than 'colors' and that definitely makes total sense for L5R. The other LCG's have varying numbers of factions involved, with some introduced in the core set and others introduced later, in the expansion boxes.

More recently with the GOT LCG all 8 factions were introduced in the Core Set and given an equal foundation on which to grow. This set included 234 cards total consisting of:

- 192 regular cards (20 per faction, and 32 neutral cards)

- 28 Plot cards

- 8 faction cards

- 6 title cards (for the multiplayer mode)

I'm not sure how FFG are going to handle their L5R core set (assuming that they want it to be the same sort of product, with the same box size and containing around 230~ cards).

I think firstly, it comes down to if they keep the 2 deck - fate & dynasty system or not.

If they keep the 2 deck system then I think they'll struggle to have much more than 4 factions in the core box and then bring the others in later?

If they want, say 8 (which seems like a good maximum) factions and to have them all in the core set from the get go - that only allows you to have 30 cards per faction minus neutrals, and accounting for the fact that you'll have to fill two decks...so I don't see how you can make a 8 faction core set with 240~ cards.

So it seems to me that 8 factions is mutually exclusive to the dual deck system.

It'd be a massive decision to get rid of the fate/dynasty deck system (which would seem crazy to me - it's part of what makes L5R what it is...)

What do you think they'll do?

I think it's still too early to speculate. I think their will have some answers at Gencon 2016, which may bring some idea to speculate. Until then, I think it's pointless to speculate since there's no information at all about how the game will look like.

However, there's still a long way until Gencon 2017.

The end result will ultimately depend on a few core decisions FFG decides to make with the game: whether or not to have an action deck (fate deck), number of starting factions, and the "faction" card. I, for one, would want to see why more neutral cards in this core set. A few ronin, ashigaru, ogre bushi, Imperial families, regions/holding, most action/fate cards, items, spells, and so on. I wouldn't mind some of those cards to be lumped together as a single type now like items and spells (as spells can simply be items only for shugenja) or regions and holdings.

Honestly I hope spells are just gone. Just make action cards that trigger off the Trait. It was design space that was consistently useless or overpowered.

I say this as a very long time Phoenix player

Let's see, assuming they keep the minimum deck size 40...

A typical Dynasty deck will need 20 Personalities and 20 Holdings and a Fate deck will need a combination of Strategies and attachments that equals 40.

So with 8 starting factions you have: 8*20=160+20+40=220 minimum. With a cap of 240 that gives you 20 cards to play around with for deck construction.

Given that I see a couple of courses of action:

1) Reduce the number of starting factions (ill advised unless they want to irritate a portion of their consumer base; although I suppose they could try multi Clan factions - Crab/Scorpion, Crane/Phoenix, Dragon/Spider, and Lion/Unicorn)

2) Eliminate the second deck (possible, but this would radically alter the nature of the game and thus invalidate all established wisdom for playing and designing it)

3) Reduce the minimum deck size (also possible and not as much of an alteration, but as a player I dislike it since I tended to struggle to fit everything I wanted as it was)

4) Increase the number of cards in the base set to around 300ish (my preferred option, I don't know how likely it is since I'm not at all familiar with FF's design philosophy, I assume the Original Post's numbers are typical for an LCG)

5) Resign themselves to the base set not being very customizable (Again no idea how likely it is but depending on how quickly the plan to release expansions it might happen)

There're probably options I didn't consider and you could obviously go into each of the ones I did offer in much greater detail, but I think that provides a good outline for further discussion.

3) Reduce the minimum deck size (also possible and not as much of an alteration, but as a player I dislike it since I tended to struggle to fit everything I wanted as it was)

Wow. I liked this idea. Keeping both decks but minimazing for oldschool 30/30 should help, especially with so limited card pool. Ate least it could help to various design and leave space for deckbuilding than "everyone plays same deck becasue i have to play everything i have". FFG card games are built around 50-60 card decks, so it should fit in term of number of cards in Core Set.

I'm not sure what I was thinking giving that as my reason for not liking the idea. Obviously I prefer to have options even if that means making difficult choices. In fact in a way I enjoy those tough choices since they force me to think strategically and it helps the game function as a geopolitical simulator.

Now that I've given the matter some more thought I've decided I do kind of like the idea. I will bring up a few additional points. Decreasing the deck size will likely increase consistency (since you're more likely to see the same cards from one game to the next) and decrease the number of gold screw issues (since you're more likely to see a Holding on your first turn) both of which are good. However, I think this will also make the game faster and bloodier since people will be more likely to see their power uniques. Also, if one faction is overpowered the gap between them and the other factions could be more pronounced than usual.

Even with AGoT starter you must bring two factions together to make a usable deck. There are few cards that get a second, let alone a third, copy except for neutral. The AGoT is a 4 player box with 8 factions. No faction can work by itself and no 'starter deck' is a viable tournament deck. This, along with neutral cards that will give a bit of constructibility in a core box but the real deck construction comes from a second and third core set.

In fairness, that's GoT, a setting more heavily relying on alliances and betrayals than L5R. It's possible that FFG won't want a retread of that. While alliances are a major part of L5R's storyline prizes, they tend to be backburnered some for actual plot and longterm gains for the clans. Traditionally, only one clan (if that) gets the benefit of a victory, even when several clans unite for a common goal. In contrast, the Red Wedding alone featured several betrayals and long-term gains for those involved.

Mind, it's also possible that they'll use an existing system that's done well for them, and make L5R essentially a GoT-compatible game. One of the complaints that's steadily come up before on L5R is that everything's disconnected to the point where the story team left out clans who should have been front and center for certain storylines. Forcing people to play along would help.

What I was pointing out is that you shoul not expect finished decks in the starter set. What you should expect is the ability to learn the game mechanics and see how cards can and could interact. Rarely is an LCG 'complete' or tournament playable without additional purchases.

Don't expect 8 full, usable factions in the box but I would be surprised if the foundations of 8 factions weren't there

WH40k:Conquest and AGoT 2e went with one of each card, apart from a few. I'm going to bet on it being the same for L5R, and prepare to get two cores right away to not be frustrated.

But we don't know what redesigns they're making to the game, so there's no way of telling how many factions it ends up with then. If they try to follow AGoT's model, we'll get a bunch of "main" factions, and if they take a few cues from Conquest there will be references to any missing factions in one of the manuals. Then they just release deluxe boxes with 50% missing faction, 50% additions for the rest.

Maybe they'll even pick fewer than 8 factions just to make dual-deck play still possible, or make the second deck cards shared by several factions.

You only need ~6 Personality [4x3 Non-Unique, 2x1 Unique, then pad up to 20-23 personalities using Unaligned cards] cards per faction to create functional single-faction dynasty decks in the core set, should they maintain current deck construction structures. And I wouldn't be terribly surprised if "Unique" stops being a deck-building restriction, and is instead of a play restriction like FFG other games that contain it.

Ah, I was under the impression that LCG products tended to be released like Forgotten Legacy and The Shadow's Embrace with one of every unique and three of every non-unique.

If that's not the case 20 Personalities would actually be more than we used to get from AEG. According to Oracle of the Void each Clan got 15 in the Emperor Edition Set and 13 in the Ivory one. 234 overall would still be down from 453 and 400 respectively, but I figure there's considerable fat that can be trimmed if you don't have to worry about designing for the draft format.

Having to buy three copies to get a full playset will be annoying, but I suppose it's somewhat preferable to dealing with the luck of the draw with booster packs.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if "Unique" stops being a deck-building restriction, and is instead of a play restriction like FFG other games that contain it.

Isn't that functionally identical to the Singular keyword?

If that's not the case 20 Personalities would actually be more than we used to get from AEG. According to Oracle of the Void each Clan got 15 in the Emperor Edition Set and 13 in the Ivory one. 234 overall would still be down from 453 and 400 respectively, but I figure there's considerable fat that can be trimmed if you don't have to worry about designing for the draft format.

Notice that in CCG, number of Personalities from base was supported in constructed formats by ones from dual-bugged transition sets (6-12).

Ah, I was under the impression that LCG products tended to be released like Forgotten Legacy and The Shadow's Embrace with one of every unique and three of every non-unique.

I've run the numbers against MtG. It's very, very much in favour of LCGs for cost per collection, since I can buy the packs with the cards I want for a reasonable enough price.

To be true you should run numbers against L5R CCG. To start playing L5R you just bought a preconstructed Clan starter (20$) and tuned your personal deck with cards from included boosters (mostly 3 of them) and some Rare singles (plenty of shops online). Starter box was also a nice deckbox as well (at least in Emperor and Ivory) to save some money. Common and Uncommon you could get for free from everyone, if you ever visited local tourney.

This preconstructed starter stuff was more more playable than whatever you could create from 1CS of any LCG that cost 35$. Small exception is an Android: Netrunner CS becasue of cards distribution, so you're not forced to play highlander decks but there's only 113 original cards inside. Same for Doomtown: Reloaded.

Collectible aspect of CCG is completely different and it really cost a lot of money including all these foils, alternate arts etc. Not to forget that CCG are just much, much bigger games than LCGs.

Put me in the field of those that like the reduced deck size. Or rather, reduced -minimum- deck size. It's an elegant solution to a real problem, and truly... nothing prevents folks from increasing their decks to the 40/40 they were used to, once more cards are released for the game

But a minimum of 30/30... yeah, me likes.

Let's see, assuming they keep the minimum deck size 40...

A typical Dynasty deck will need 20 Personalities and 20 Holdings and a Fate deck will need a combination of Strategies and attachments that equals 40.

So with 8 starting factions you have: 8*20=160+20+40=220 minimum. With a cap of 240 that gives you 20 cards to play around with for deck construction.

Given that I see a couple of courses of action:

1) Reduce the number of starting factions (ill advised unless they want to irritate a portion of their consumer base; although I suppose they could try multi Clan factions - Crab/Scorpion, Crane/Phoenix, Dragon/Spider, and Lion/Unicorn)

2) Eliminate the second deck (possible, but this would radically alter the nature of the game and thus invalidate all established wisdom for playing and designing it)

3) Reduce the minimum deck size (also possible and not as much of an alteration, but as a player I dislike it since I tended to struggle to fit everything I wanted as it was)

4) Increase the number of cards in the base set to around 300ish (my preferred option, I don't know how likely it is since I'm not at all familiar with FF's design philosophy, I assume the Original Post's numbers are typical for an LCG)

5) Resign themselves to the base set not being very customizable (Again no idea how likely it is but depending on how quickly the plan to release expansions it might happen)

There're probably options I didn't consider and you could obviously go into each of the ones I did offer in much greater detail, but I think that provides a good outline for further discussion.

I think they will make the core set the same size as GOT - so roughly 240 cards, with most being x1 and only some of the neutrals being x2/3. Now obviously it's subject to change, but the GOT core set is listed on FFG's product page as $39.95, as is the L5R Core set - so that's at least some indication that FFG aren't looking to change the 'broad parameters' of the core set.

- 1 Core set = try out the game, see how it works, no really playable decks, with playable decks simply being "take all the cards from faction X and Y and add some neutral cards"

- 2 Core sets = you can now do some, but limited, deck building

- 3 Core sets = go crazy, you've now got a playset of each card and tons of neutrals.

The GOT core set is also an indication that FFG will want all (8?) factions to have an equal foundation - it's less confusing for consumers to say from the outset "here's all the game's factions and here's where you get them" rather than introducing some in the core set and some later in the 'deluxe expansions'.

Now obviously the wrinkle to this is that in GOT, there's only 1 deck required, and it's pretty unlikely that FFG will abandon the 'twin decks' concept for L5R, because it's part of what makes it distinct from other card games and the rest of the LCG line.

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So I think 1) 2) and 4) are very unlikely

However I think 3) and 5) are quite likely. 5) basically follows the FFG way of doing LCG core sets - as detailed above. Reducing the minimum deck size to 30 for each deck is a way of them fitting all the cards in.

Although the problem still remains that 240 cards / 8 factions = less than 30 cards per faction, when you factor in neutral cards, strongholds and even then that number has to be spread across two decks.

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This suggests to me that the 'first play' decks in L5R will certainly be a 'mash 2 factions together' approach as in GOT. The 'tutorial' decks in the GOT core set are approx 45 cards - with 19 cards from each of two factions plus 7 neutral cards.

Now the GOT core set cards are distributed as follows:

- 192 regular cards (20 per faction, and 32 neutral cards)

- 28 Plot cards

- 8 faction cards

- 6 title cards (for the multiplayer mode)

So that's around 16% of the total cards being neutral. So let's take the regular cards, the plot cards and the title cards and add them for a total = 226. (+ 8 stronghold cards = 234 - the same number of cards as the GOT lcg.)

16% of those being neutral, would leave us with 36. So total pool of 226 cards, minus 36 neutrals = 190 / 8 = approx 23 or 24 cards per faction

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So 'tutorial' decks in an L5R core set could certainly be 2 factions (24 + 24), plus around 8 neutral cards = together for a 28 card dynasty deck and a 28 card fate deck.

That seems totally doable.

^{Taken from the product description page:}

^{Although the LCG version of Legend of the Five Rings will have significant mechanical differences from previous versions, it is fully our intention to maintain the spirit and emotional impact that’s so inherent to this setting. Throughout the development of the LCG, our developers will ensure that the game maintains its connection to Rokugan and the Colonies, as well as the game’s pervasive themes of honor, nobility, magic, intrigue, duty, and warfare.}

^{Based on this, I find it dubious at best that they will maintain a two deck system. They seem quite committed to making a game that FEELS like it is set in rokugan, but this clearly indicates they have no compunction against altering the gameplay and format. That being said, I feel like the AEG made game's big strength really was the setting. That the game would have seen just as many devoted fans without the difference in mechanical play, if that difference had never existed.}

I doubt that FFG will use as many card types as AEG did, so we will prrobably only see five or six. Assuming that the game is designed something like AGoT2e (card distribution wise) we should expect something like this for the breakdown.

Total Size ~220 cards

Cards (by title) per faction

-Personalities 12

-Attachments (Items/Spells/Followers) 1

-Resources (Holdings/Regions) 3

-Action Cards 3

-Sensei/Stronghold(?) 1-2

Neutral Cards (by title)

-Personalities 4

-Attachements (Items/Spells/Followers) 6

-Resources (Holdings/Regions) 3

-Action Cards 5

-Rings 5

Miscellaneous Wiggle Room 26 Cards

With this kind of a break down each faction should be able to put out a deck comparable to a AEG Core set only type deck. I am personally hoping that FFG will keep the two deck design and keep the deck size at 40/40, but that would necessitate either giving greater room to neutral cards to fill out the initial ranks of decks (Something I am not opposed to) or a greater development of individual factions (Meaning 2 more cards per faction in the core set with the remaining 8 either being dropped or added to the neutral portion of the set. But then I also would like to see them break with one of their traditions for CCG's by having the majority of the Action, Attachment, and Resource Cards be neutral. I think this would allow for greater development of the Clan with their personalities. That way faction specific non-personality cards would be much more special than simply, "If I am playing Greyjoy they will use 'We Do Not Sow' when I loose a challenge."

RE: Collapsing card types.
It'll be interesting to see if Events survive the transition, in some form. They rarely did what they were supposed to represent (sudden changes in the story or setting, generally supposed to be symmetrical effects), and in most decks only warranted 1-2 deck slots at most, and generally that was just to run whatever Completely Brutal Meta Event was legal that edition to timewalk the honor/dishonor players. The only other events that really saw play over the years were the "random free stuff!" events, be it free gold, free honor, or free card draw... which is not a particularly great design. Celestials embracing that half of the event card design and then pushing it even further was a bit derpy (Did I see Mantis's first celestial before my first attack? I did? Sweet, massive free tempo swing that was generally absolutely game-winning in Military V Military.), so I'm not particularly sad to have seen those go away. The "free stuff" events were pretty much the hallmark of honor and combo decks, since they cared less about mass-buying dudes than military did, so getting +2 honor for free was a sight better than getting another random dude/holding and no honor for 3-4G. For the combo decks, they only really care about specific cards, not overall card quality, so packing draw-events/cycling-holdings helped make the decks even better at launching their combinations.

If they actually wanted Events to show the impact of the story on play, they did a poor job of it for the most part. If they wanted events to be a balanced and important card type in deck-design, they also did a poor job of it. Which is particularly bad when you look back on just how many of the unplayable events were Rares (and only 1-per-deck usability), making booster pack opening an absolutely abysmal feeling.

Would be interesting if the Events were a seperate deck, provided at Kotei and such based on the current story. Kotei Season Event Deck 1, Gencon Event Deck, resolving an event off the top of the deck at various points during the game. Nobody wants to actually play with Earthquake at Otosan Uchi in their deck, but if you toss that in Storyline Tournament Event Deck A, players now *have* to encounter and deal with it during Storyline Events at which Deck A is used. Would also give them a super ham-fisted way of dealing with OP decks in the short term, until new cards can fix the issues leading to OP-ness.

Would be interesting if the Events were a seperate deck, provided at Kotei and such based on the current story. Kotei Season Event Deck 1, Gencon Event Deck, resolving an event off the top of the deck at various points during the game. Nobody wants to actually play with Earthquake at Otosan Uchi in their deck, but if you toss that in Storyline Tournament Event Deck A, players now *have* to encounter and deal with it during Storyline Events at which Deck A is used. Would also give them a super ham-fisted way of dealing with OP decks in the short term, until new cards can fix the issues leading to OP-ness.

But the Events which were referred to before would more directly translate to L5R Strategies.

I find the idea of a separate event deck intriguing. I could see it working similarly to the Black Scroll cards in Seige: Clan War.

I also think it's unlikely such a mechanic would be implemented.

Combat was difficult to understand for newer players. I suspect things like Dueling & Calvery will not exist without the use of an action card. That is where I foresee them making the most changes.

The way the two deck system worked is part of what L5R is at its core. I suppose it could be changed, but only to make things simpler.

I also support 30 card decks...

I wouldn't be surprised to see 8 core sets featuring each faction. I could also see 4 core sets feature two factions.

At least 250 cards... 5 extra for the rings.

I suspect things like Dueling & Calvery will not exist without the use of an action card. That is where I foresee them making the most changes.

But if they get rid of those, what will Crane and Unicorn do? We'll have crying Kakita on every street-corner, Battle-Maidens wandering aimlessly looking for something to do, Spider and Lion dancing together, mass hysteria!

In all seriousness, maybe just a re-working of how the Dueling and Cavalry (or other keyworded personality traits) function; for example, having a Challenge phase where duels take place pre-combat, or making duels have different outcomes, or being based on different stats/abilities. Maybe Cavalry will function more like an Intercept mechanic. Who knows? Until we know what kind of game they're making, we won't know how the mechanics will fit into it.

I do think that L5R will be markedly different without Dueling and Cavalry as part of personality-bound mechanics, though, even if they're bound to action cards. There's a lot of flavor in those mechanics that I'd hate to see go away.