So, in honour of a certain sporting event that took place at the weekend, I'm curious...what was your greatest ever game of the L5R CCG?

My personal favourite took place at UK GenCon back in 1999, at the Battle of Kyotei Plains storyline event. It was one of the first events that the Mantis Empty The Hand, or METH deck, was unleashed at - the deck made good use of a ridiculously stat'ed Stronghold (8/5/3), a broken Sensei in Kaede Sensei to fetch the original Ring of Void, and undercosted personalities like Yoritimo Masasue whose drawback became an advantage when you were just going to draw five cards a turn anyway. I was running Shadow Stronghold Scorpion out of a decidedly underwhelming Stronghold, but I'd be playing control Dishonour for a few years by that point and felt comfortable with it.

I finished 5-1 in Swiss, and my top eight opponent was Ian O'Brien, one of the Liverpool players that I'd meet regularly for tournaments, and a seriously cool guy. He was a diehard Mantis player and was using the METH deck. We exchanged banter throughout the game, but he definitely had the upper hand, and was smashing my provinces with alarming regularity. I was doing everything I could to stall him out, aided by my Ninja Shapeshifter copying his Bayushi Aramasu, enabling me to keep a draw engine going. I was steadily pinging him for honour losses, but was reduced to a single province before hiding under Rise from the Ashes for three turns. Eventually though, I ran out of stall tactics, and counting up at the start of my turn, could only get Ian down to -18. With a sigh, I flipped over my province, and revealed Bayushi Goshiu. I looked at my hand, and had nothing there to help, so caused the honour loss I could, then brought out Goshiu. I couldn't even clear my hand, and so drew a single card.

That card was Threat. Go look it up on Oracle.

Ian straightened his cards, and asked, "Any actions?". I said yep, then played Threat on myself, targeting my Yogo Shidachi. This caused me a two honour loss, and I bowed Goshiu to share it with Ian, and dishonour him out before he could attack.

There's a little extra story to the end of this, but I'm off to work, so I'll edit it in later. I'd really love to read many tales from others when I get back too, so share your stories!

I was playing a Phoenix Duelling deck at the King of the Trolls storyline tournament in Glasgow, in a year which I now forget.

By some miracle, I got as far as the semi-finals, and was playing against a vicious Shadowlands deck. It was a drawn out game, with me clawing my way up towards the high 30s, while losing 3 provinces.

So, of course, the Shadowlands attack, with 2 Kyosos, so more force and a goblin shaman, easily enough to take out my last province. I only have one unit left, but it was a shugenja with the Phoenix Sword. Even then, the shadowlands would kill the personality and the province.

My first action was to use "Purity of Spirit" to bow one of the two Oni, using the stronghold ability to discard another card and keep it in my hand. But my opponent had thought of this, using the Shaman to cast "Flee the Darkness" and cancel my action.

Luckily, I had an unexpected card in reserve: Witch Hunt. This lets you nominate one of your personalities to get into a duel with someone who just cast a spell or kiho, destroying the loser and cancelling the effect if you win. Alas, the poor goblin's 1 Chi was no match for the sword wielder, and my opponent resigned. (I'd now win the battle, which would boost my Honour over 40).

After the game concluded my hands were literally shaking with stress, but boy was it an awesome win.

(As a side note, one of the best things in my L5R career happened shortly after: I put the deck up on the Phoenix list with a tourney report, then about a week or so later got an e-mail from someone saying that they'd used the deck list in a local tournament and won. Someone had net-decked from me :-D )

I never really tried much to build the most powerful or streamlined decks.

Well, I did for "open" format, I made a really good goblin power house deck with exponential power growth and a ninja dueling assassin deck. I also put together unaligned decks that utilized as many peasant cards as I could.

But most of the time I was playing, I was trying to create an dark shugenja deck. I would tend to pick out a few personalities I liked and then try to find cards that would make them do something. Any time I actually managed to get the thing to work instead of being shut down completely would have been considered one of my better games. Although one guy who worked at the store was a total expert at putting together mechanically powerful decks and would generally dominate every tournament.

He had some Scorpion combo that revolved around him getting out one personality that he successfully protected from dueling and death and with that one personality out, he was able to quickly implement a win condition. I forget if it was bringing cards out of the discard pile into an army or what, but no one lasted more than a few turns against him. The first time I went against him, I got totally crushed. But, it just so happened that some of the funky mechanics I was using to try to get my pre-selected personalities to actually well... do things... meant that I could corrupt the enemy cards, chi kill them and then raise them again as part of my army. The defenses he had against all legitimately competitive decks left little way for him to defend against this but to try to raise the chi of the personality however possible. But without that one personality, he couldn't put his power combo into effect and I could build up enough force to knock out the provinces.

So I managed to beat the unbeatable deck with a deck that generally lost to everyone who had put together something decent.

I think after I did that, I won a prize at the tournament which was a special 3D version of my favorite Shadowlands stronghold, the Spawning Grounds. Someone had stacked maybe 10 copies of the stronghold on top of each other and cut down the picture on different sections so that it was layered. They had done one for each faction.

It was a name an item tournament in Charleston, SC at The Green Dragon. I was playing an all or nothing blitz deck out of The Sacred Temples of the Phoenix from the Honor and Treachery learn to play set. Playing a blank box at a time when boxes did awesome stuff got me some odd looks. That is till I took a province turn 2 consistently throughout the tournament. I finished swiss 6-1 (IIRC) getting into the top cut but not getting into the top4, though did finish top Phoenix and was furthest traveled. The end of Emperor Arc was rather crazy and that deck fit in but was so far afield the meta at that tournament it just went to work till it ran out of luck either way my rounds ended somewhere between 5-30 minutes which was nice made the tournament more relaxing getting an early lunch, bathroom breaks, etc.

Agh, so many... most of my favorite games were great teaching moments - for example, my younger brother learning why you really have to account for cavalry - but I think my favorite game was a rollicking "For the Empire!" campaign. After a year of playing, the campaign was drawing to a close. The Unicorn had been driven back by endless hordes from the Shadowlands, holding only a few strongholds, but still able to maintain their mobility. The Crab had been split into two factions, some valiantly battling on the few remaining sections of the wall, while the others gleefully slaughtering their former brethren in the name of Fu Leng. The Phoenix had delved too deeply into the Black Scrolls and had mostly fallen, with a few pockets of resistance. The Lion's military might had kept them from suffering too many bad losses, but they were being sorely pressed by the Fallen Crab/Horde from the south and the Shadowed Phoenix from the north. The Alliance had been forced back to their islands, but the Horde had been unable to make any headway against Yoritomo's boys, even losing the Kumo in one of the major battles. The Crane, surprisingly, had held the line at Otosan Uchi, and despite lacking the sheer might of the Crab and Lion, were holding their own. The Scorpion has been mostly smashed by the fallen Crab, with a Kachiko-led resistance behind their lines working to keep the good Crab supplied and able to communicate with the other clan. The Naga and Nezumi were thoroughly defeated, with only a few scattered survivors.

At any rate, it all came down to a final battle. The last defenses of the Crab had finally fallen, allowing the full might of the Horde into the empire. The Lion forces had been ambushed in the previous game by the Shadowed Phoenix, and had lost badly, meaning they'd be starting the next game with 3 provinces instead of four. However, the Crane forces had fought off the Phoenix, destroying their main forces and keeping them from allying in the final game. Also, The Scorpion player had pulled off a devious win in their last game, allowing them to Reinforce as an Ally in the final game.

So the stage was set - it had come down to Lion vs. Horde, with Scorpion allying with Lion and Crab allied with the Horde. The battlefield roll came up with Treacherous Ground, so the Horde wouldn't be able to take full advantage of their ally in the first two turns.

Lion won the right to go first. The early game was pretty uneventful - holdings, a few personalities, etc - but being down a province was (obviously) putting the Lion in a hole early. They started to lose a few skirmishes. Then a province. It looked like the writing was on the wall, and even the Shadowlands player began to feel a little bad about it, especially after the Crab ally joined and it began to look more and more one-sided.

Through it all, the Scorpion player had been sitting, silently smirking in the Scorpion way. Finally, it was the turn for allies to enter for the Lion, and the Scorpion player smiled politely and deferred.

To the Unicorn.

Now, the Unicorn player had been out of it for almost a month, by this point. She only had one stronghold left - Provincial Estate of the Unicorn - and could not use any Unique personalities. She had been beaten. So when the Scorpion player opted to defer, everyone was kind of shocked, but it was the player's decision so we all went with it. Then everything fell apart for the Horde - they had been prepared for Scorpion trickery, not waves of Unicorn cavalry - and under the Allied rules, the ability to give the Lion the cavalry ability - and the tide turned.

The Fallen Crab were defeated two turns later, their field general (I think it was Amoro?) cut down. Even bringing Akuma out didn't save them, and in the end a unified force of Unicorn and Lion drove them back from the doorstep of the Emperor and back into the Shadowlands.

Anyway. It was awesome.

I pwned Sparks at the Greeley Kotei a couple of years ago :P. The best game I ever had was in the same tournament, but unlike some of the other games mentioned in this thread, I actually lost.

This was the last tournament before the Akagi Sensei errata, so Crane was definitely the boogieman. I made top 8 with a switch Phoenix deck, and took the eventual winner (Crane, of course) to game 3. At the end of the game, I had two draws at the 2 come one at a time left in my deck of 18ish cards to win (I had crossed 40 and my opponent had no terrain destruction). Didn't get there, but I'm proud that the game was that close.

We had a player in our local tournament scene who had a reputation for being unbeatable. This kid had, effectively, enough money to buy every card he wanted and did so. His decks were renowned for always having the right card at the right time. Were it not for the fact that four of us watched him like a hawk on multiple occasions, we would have sworn the guy stacked his decks and palmed cards, he was just that lucky. None of these statements are exaggeration.

I, on the other hand, had a reputation for being able to take decks of commons and uncommons, throw something together last minute that seemed effective, and place high in tournaments through an exhaustive understanding of how the game was played. When I actually built a solid deck, I would usually win through making good decisions and a lack of play mistakes. I valued table skill above all else.

As one could naturally understand, myself and this other player were, naturally, rivals. He avoided playing me casually when he could because he would hunt for easier prey, but I would go out of my way to play him to just get better. He would, invariably, win, but I would always walk away with a better understanding of the combinations available in the environment.

One day, there was a local sword tournament, and while two ringers came from out of town to win the top two spots in the end, I faced off against this other player in the semi-finals. I was playing a Mantis blitz deck, and he was playing a Dragon dueling enlightenment. He had gone undefeated in the tournament to that point while I had squeaked into the finals on strength of schedule through Swiss. We played, single elimination. I got the early military edge on him, and it quickly came down to the final battle at his final province. Through some kind of chicanery, he had managed to draw all but two cards of his Fate deck, and played four of the five Rings. The Ring of Fire was the only one not out, and we both knew it was in his Fate deck. If he played it, he would win instantly.

We went back and forth in actions that battle, killing personalities and generally messing the other's day up. At the end, however, he ran out of ways to draw cards, and I had enough force to take the Province. Still, it was his action, and he announced "I bow my Ring of Void to draw two cards."

My response?

"Relevance?"

Proceed him stopping dead, and blinking at me. He tried to explain to me that the relevance of the action was that it would draw him the card to win the game. I explained to him that the Rule of Relevance dictated that all actions taken during a Battle had to A) come from a card in the battle, B) target a card in the battle, or C) target the battlefield. Since his Ring of the Void was not in the battle, was not targeting anything in the battle, and did not affect the battlefield, it failed the Rule of Relevance and thus was an illegal action. He called over a judge, and the judge looked up the rule. And noted I had nearly quoted it word for word, and added the "no smart cards" clarification.

I may have not won the tournament, but no victory has ever been as sweet in L5R as that moment when my understanding of the rules defeated the luckiest, best funded player in our local area. The only other time I faced him in a tournament, he got gold-screwed, and I ran over him with a Khol Wall deck that I cobbled together 5 minutes before the tournament out of a charity box and a starter. This win was far more satisfying.

My first win.

The learning curve when I picked the game up was as brutal as ever, and I'd spent weeks getting kicked from pillar to post as I grappled with the basics of deckbuilding and the nuances of L5R's resource system because the playgroup I was nominally affiliated with was neither large nor organized nor terribly good at teaching.

I was playing Phoenix out of City of Tears, my opponent was playing...some kind of late-Samurai Crane Honor thingamajig. I just remember cracking his last province before he crossed and sorta... staring. I couldn't believe I'd won.

5 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

My first win.

The learning curve when I picked the game up was as brutal as ever, and I'd spent weeks getting kicked from pillar to post as I grappled with the basics of deckbuilding and the nuances of L5R's resource system because the playgroup I was nominally affiliated with was neither large nor organized nor terribly good at teaching.

I used to play pretty much every week with a buddy of mine when I was living in North Wales, going back to around 98/99. I mostly played a variety of different Scorpion or Crab decks, and Big Paul would exclusively play Phoenix. He spent literally a year losing every game he played in our play test sessions. I mean, we'd go to tournaments regularly, and he'd win games against other people, but he just couldn't win any games at home.

Eventually of course, he did. I'm pretty sure it was the Void Dragon that did it for him, emptying my hand before I could get anything set up and didn't have a draw engine to recover. He absolutely rolled me that game. At the end of it, he just smiled, and asked, "Another?"

I've taught the game to a lot of people, and I never shy away from the steep learning curve, because to me the reward was worth it...when you crest that hill and take down your first victory, MAN does it feel like you've earned it. Every time someone beats me for the first time, I think of Big Paul smiling and just asking to play the next game.

Sheffield Kotei, I think 2013 (?) vs the great Az Johnston. I was running Koshin Keep, the Mantis box that let you keep shooting until you killed your target, and Az was playing a Spider Weapons deck. We just kept on churning out meat into the meat grinder, recycling bodies and weapons, with endless pitch battles, ambushes, and guerilla tactics on my side vs brutal beat-downs from the Spider. After 45 minutes and I think killing the same guy(s) countless times, I literally ran out of arrows and couldn't hold it off any longer.

Playing opposite Az is always a pleasure, but this game in particular was played in such a spirit of friendship, sportsmanship and camaraderie that it sits as the definition of what playing L5R has always been about to me.

It's really difficult, because over the years I've been playing L5R, I've had so many great games against formidable opponents.

As I've never traveled outside of Europe for L5R, I can't speak about the other communities, but I've met so many amazing opponents in Ireland (Leprecon), the UK (GenCon London), Spain (Koteis and World Championship), Germany (Euros 2003), Netherlands (a few as well), Hungary (Kotei), Luxemburg (Test of Ruby!) and even France ( To the Last Man and a few Koteis).

I think my fondest memory was playing against Faber in Frankfurt 2003. I can't remember who won, but I think it was him, playing Nezumi against my Mantis deck. I think I had to kill Kan'ok Ti-chek (spelling?) 5 or 6 times to finally get rid of the pesky rat. It was a tense game, but my favorite that tournament, because if you can keep Faber on his toes, you're getting good at the game.

6 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

It's really difficult, because over the years I've been playing L5R, I've had so many great games against formidable opponents.

As I've never traveled outside of Europe for L5R, I can't speak about the other communities, but I've met so many amazing opponents in Ireland (Leprecon), the UK (GenCon London), Spain (Koteis and World Championship), Germany (Euros 2003), Netherlands (a few as well), Hungary (Kotei), Luxemburg (Test of Ruby!) and even France ( To the Last Man and a few Koteis).

I think my fondest memory was playing against Faber in Frankfurt 2003. I can't remember who won, but I think it was him, playing Nezumi against my Mantis deck. I think I had to kill Kan'ok Ti-chek (spelling?) 5 or 6 times to finally get rid of the pesky rat. It was a tense game, but my favorite that tournament, because if you can keep Faber on his toes, you're getting good at the game.

I'll add that there are many, many other names I could have mentioned for opponent giving me great games, but trying to name them all would mean my aged brain would probably fry doing so, and I need it still to finish this week's work.

There are many games to choose from, but I have to choose the Gen Con Kotei where Yoritomo Utemaro (XP 2) debuted. I had been playing Mantis since I started the game during Samurai, and I was having a good time. On this occasion, I sat down across from a Spider player named Mark. I had a really good match-up against Spider because my deck expected to go second and didn't need the extra gold you got at the time from going second. So, when I flipped over Mr. Utemaro on my first flip, we both knew where this game was going. I looked up at Mark and apologized. What followed was the most jovial loss I have ever seen, with Mark not salty at my luck, but more happy that I made the game as quick as possible.

This is why I'm so excited for this game. The rules were always a nightmare for new players, and I don't particularly expect that to change. However, the community who is already committed to this game is by far the best community I've ever played with. Mark wasn't an outlier. I've played with people who happily concede by searching for a then illegal Gifts and Favors (he fails to find); people who had already made top 16 come over while I'm flustered at my tie-breaking opponent no-showing, play a short game and compliment me on my deck; people whose eye light up when they realize a card interaction they hadn't thought of is going to lose them a game.

No matter what FFG does to this game, it is the community that is bringing me back.

Since Mark started the thread, figured I'd chime in with a story about the Facehugger deck

While I was struggling to adapt to the game changing in Ivory, I noticed Mark was playing Scorpion at Feeding Hills, not Spider, and he put me in touch with my teammate, Justin Walsh, to talk about the triple win condition Scorpion Fallen dueling deck. It was the most fun I had in l5r piloting that beast. I first played it terribly at the Albuquerque Kotei, then a Top 16 in Atlantic City and subsequently a few Top 4 finishes, most notably in Dallas.

At the time, post Crane nerf, Unicorn blitz was the new hotness, which I was about 50/50 against, but one of the worst matchups was Dragon dueling blitz. Top 8 I have to face it, dropping to 1 province early, working with only 2 BCI for the DH engine. I then flip Dark Naga in the lone province and he doesn't swing. I drop 3 magistrate falls on my turn and buy Nitoshi xp, then naming Turtle Shell and Ring of Earth with my stronghold every turn. He doesn't swing again and I flip Nikaru, who dies to Purge. The key swing comes when Dragon clan champ steals my Naga's versatile blade. I Saya the champ, who then plays a limited duel with the Sensei on Naga. I look at my hand and realize I need every card, and I have to accept to have a chance to defend. I blind focus off the top of my deck 4 times and hit all 4s, killing the champ and causing an 8 point loss. I use heart of fudo to get ring of air since I already played creating order and drop him below -20. Final battle I end up with only dark Naga straight at the end, with an extra 3 force from a focus effect off of a weakness exposed duel. That with province strength was just enough to pull off the win.

There's a few other awesome stories with that deck, including using sudden movement to trigger a kachiko 2 point loss for a win, but that was my favorite.

4 hours ago, Lapp said:

Since Mark started the thread, figured I'd chime in with a story about the Facehugger deck

While I was struggling to adapt to the game changing in Ivory, I noticed Mark was playing Scorpion at Feeding Hills, not Spider, and he put me in touch with my teammate, Justin Walsh, to talk about the triple win condition Scorpion Fallen dueling deck. It was the most fun I had in l5r piloting that beast. I first played it terribly at the Albuquerque Kotei, then a Top 16 in Atlantic City and subsequently a few Top 4 finishes, most notably in Dallas.

At the time, post Crane nerf, Unicorn blitz was the new hotness, which I was about 50/50 against, but one of the worst matchups was Dragon dueling blitz. Top 8 I have to face it, dropping to 1 province early, working with only 2 BCI for the DH engine. I then flip Dark Naga in the lone province and he doesn't swing. I drop 3 magistrate falls on my turn and buy Nitoshi xp, then naming Turtle Shell and Ring of Earth with my stronghold every turn. He doesn't swing again and I flip Nikaru, who dies to Purge. The key swing comes when Dragon clan champ steals my Naga's versatile blade. I Saya the champ, who then plays a limited duel with the Sensei on Naga. I look at my hand and realize I need every card, and I have to accept to have a chance to defend. I blind focus off the top of my deck 4 times and hit all 4s, killing the champ and causing an 8 point loss. I use heart of fudo to get ring of air since I already played creating order and drop him below -20. Final battle I end up with only dark Naga straight at the end, with an extra 3 force from a focus effect off of a weakness exposed duel. That with province strength was just enough to pull off the win.

There's a few other awesome stories with that deck, including using sudden movement to trigger a kachiko 2 point loss for a win, but that was my favorite.

I played scorpion fallen dueling. It was the most fun I had ever. That deck was just something.

I have 2 favourite events if I may... both involved me generally doing okay but nothing special.

Both of these events are the epitome of the reason I played L5R, it was the friends in attendance.

The first event was GenCon UK, it must have been 2003ish... The last event that was held at Olympia in London. There were story prizes for top of clan and I was playing unicorn. Unicorn in Gold edition... where Moto Chagatai and Moto Feng were essentially our best personalities.

No one was expecting a wall of 8/9 gold cost mid range purple dudes to do well, but I felt it had some merits.

Sadly the strategy for the deck was to stock up on kolat Assassins and Masters then take advantage of Cavalry / Rallying Cry early game then build up until you could hit the final Provence with Sneak Attack/deadly ground. Not exactly super interactive.

The top 8 game was against Matt Green, one of the UK's best Unicorn players. Our decks did the same thing. The final battle at Matt's last province had 80-90 force of Unicorn Samurai crashing into each other a full charge... it was a glorious sight to behold!

It went like this... Sneak Attack > Deadly Ground > Superior Tactics > Deadly Ground > Superior Tactics > Deadly G round... Matt didn't have a third Superior Tactics and that was game.

That was how it went back then though, with such strong classic L5R staples still in the card pool.

However the image of the two mass armies plowing into each other had such a visceral feel to it.

Needless to say I was booted out in the Top 4 by a chap from Holland playing Kolat Phoenix Dueling. Ain't no winning when your first personality out is Kolat Mastered and used to take a province...

The second event was the Test of the Ruby Champion in Luxembourg. I really loved this event, it was always so relaxed, a great weekend of gaming! I have such fond memories of the road trips across France.

My first and enduring love in L5R was always the Shadowlands, and so when I heard whispering a of crazy deck that was run out of Phoenix and used Jama Suru, Yajinden and a hoast of goblin wizards and tiny Phoenix Shugenja to set up a wonderful Blood Speaker Chi death deck I had to start tinkering.

If the deck set up it could Chi Death two personalities a turn along with more from Touch of Death, Ambush etc. If you could hold off an attacker for 3-4 turns (easily done with all the other control the deck packed) you could generally win out from there. Clear the board of their personalities every turn and there was very little they could do.

It was just such a fun (although admittedly tough not as funs for an opponent if they got locked out) deck to play, janky as hell but no one really saw it coming.

I made it to the top 32 I think... but crashed out to a Crane Honour Dueling deck. I'm not a good card player by any means and at this point in the event I was well beyond my depth and it showed, I made key play mistakes at the end game and allowed my opponents to defend his last Provence and go over 40 honour. I think it involved accepting a Duel I should have refused...

One of the last games in the Swiss rounds was against Alexander Jones, for some reason whenever his Lion decks faced this Blood Speaker deck they just couldn't win. And this was no different, I got some juicy province flips that just made it even worse. I've felt bad about this game every day since. ?

Anyway... lots of text... I can't wait to get my hands on what FFG do with L5R.

I don't have a game really. But just a couple of old memories. I got into l5r at university with my two close friends I loved building decks and playing on lunch breaks and in our art studies as we studied. But my favourite memory was going to Dublin for the European championship. Taking a crab berserker weapon deck at the height of crab scout decks. And playing in the championships and losing every game but........ Hearimg people say it was a delight to play something different from crab at the time. One game was against a shadow lands deck and we had a great game. But I lost terribly. But this game was one game where it almost doesnt matter about winning and losing and that's it's the community of the game that mattered the most. And I hope and hope that ffg do it justice and the community comes back to the game as it was before.

Honestly, I don't think I have any. I live in a small town so I never got to go to tournaments of any kind. It was just a small group of us playing when we could. I loved the game but no moments stand out to me.

1 hour ago, TechnoGolem said:

Honestly, I don't think I have any. I live in a small town so I never got to go to tournaments of any kind. It was just a small group of us playing when we could. I loved the game but no moments stand out to me.

Just curious why living in a small town prohibited you from going to any koteis or even Gencon?

I'm lucky enough to have so many good memories that it's hard to choose the most memorable so I'll go with the first of those memorable.

It was at the 2nd Malmo Kotei I attended. I was playing Dario Perri. As usual (or when possible) I was playing Dragon enligthenment and at that time it was out of Pillars of Virtue and, being kind of isolated in Iceland and I wasn't playing online yet I really didn't have any experience facing the deck Dario was playing. It was a Crane dishonor deck that was kind of broken at the time and it really was an uphill battle. I manage to get 3 rings into play when he makes a small mistake with the order of his actions and I seem to recall that, along with some trick of mine, left him with no unbowed personalities. He has plenty of cards in hand and I attack with Togashi Satsu and Togashi Kanmu at one of his provinces. I need 4 battle actions to play Ring of Water and I think I'm missing force to take his province too. So I use a kiho to drag one of his personalities into the battle and I can really see his face lighting up a bit like I've just made his day. I use Pillars of Virtue to take an additional action and use Togashi Kanmu to send the personalitiy I just dragged in back home and gain 2F. I can see that I've managed to surprise him and after some thinking he passes. I procede to play more actions for Ring of Water, take the province for Ring of Earth and enlighten.
He showed me what he had in hand and I think pretty much any of his cards would have screwed up everything for me if he'd had the chance to play it.

To mention a few of the rest..

My game at the 2nd Malmo Two other games from the 2nd Malmo kotei:
The very good game againt Az Johnston and his honor at the end.
The epic play mistake in game 2 of the final where I was so tired that I misplayed and forgot to put on the table the 2nd focus card to win the duel and play Ring of Fire.

My first Europiean Championship:
The epic game against Stasinos Karampatsos. For some reason from that first match our matchups throughout the years ar almost always epic!
The auction and burning of a copy of Kakita Matabei.

The Magical Mystery event at the Europiean Championship in Lyion where there where special rules every round
...basically all the games but the drunken master final was something I'm not sure I'll have a chance to repeat!
Round 3 where I switched decks with a Unicorn player ...him around round 5 playing my deck "Oh, It's an enlightenment deck!"
The last game of the swiss rounds there was the hardest game mentally I have ever played. Facing another Dragon military enlightenment deck in a game where was the special rule of the round that the stronghold had best traits of all legal strongholds and all abilities giving both of us so many options and possibilities!

The Ruby event at the Europiean Championship in Barcelona where I was facing a deck that was probably 95% identical to mine. Both playing enlightenment with House of Tao and with 4 rings in play, both missing Ring of Water (need 4 battle actions to play), so no one wanted to attack, when he made the mistake of buying a Shadowlands personality. Until then it was the biggest mexican standoff in my L5R experience.

The Aldershot Kotei where I played my Swiss Army knife deck that managed to win by every victory condition in the swiss rouds: enlightenment, honor, dishonor and military

Surviving facing a Moto Chagatai deck!

Many games again Dave Russel. For a match that is more often than not a enlightenment vs. dishonor matchup they usually end up a slugfest

My only 4th turn enlightenment in Ivory. I had a perfect hand and start against a Spider player from Poland. I start with Ring of Water in play. I play Ring Void on turn 1, Ring of Air on turn 3 and when he attacks on his turn 4 with 4 personalities and a good hand I play Fire and Earth.

The game against Dave Ruddock at the Worchester Kotei in 2015.
I was missing Ring of Fire against a Crane dueling deck that was very close to honoring out.
Just when he was about to cross I was still missing Ring of Fire. I know he must have enough honor gain in hand to cross so I bluff and attack boldly. We stare at each other for many minutes while he ponders if I have the cards needed to play Ring of Fire. I could have but it's unlikely. I put on my best poker face and try to keep my composure and not sweat. After the longest time he decides not to defend that turn. On the next turn he crosses and I attack for a final attack at his remaining provinces but don't have enough force to take all of them. He again needs to decide if he should defend or not and another staredown ensues. In the end he decides not to defend. I pull one of his personalities in and we duel. I focus the 4FV cards I have in hand but I seem to recall that I still needed to focus from top. Luck was on my side that time and I manage to play Ring of Fire and win.

The Reykjavik Koteis and the chance to show my friends around Iceland.

First enlightenment victory ever. After 5 years of playing straight military or military/honor switches i tried to build my first enlightenment deck and score victory! That was really cleansing experience for me.

On 2/18/2017 at 5:23 AM, Sparks Duh said:

Just curious why living in a small town prohibited you from going to any koteis or even Gencon?

You assume they live in a small town in America, where getting to koteis or even Gencon is (comparatively) easy. For all you know TechnoGolem could live in a small town in Sweden. Or possibly not be able to afford the costs of Attending Gencon or a kotei.

Those are all legitimate reasons, which is likely why Sparks asked the question - it certainly didn't come across as any malice or ill intent on his part, just a genuine curiousity about whatever barriers held someone back.

And as an aside, one of the people sharing our rooms this year is from a small town in Sweden. It's not insurmountable, as obstacles go

Thanks to everyone that has posted both here and over on my FB status! Keep 'em coming!

AJ and I played a game at the Detroit Kotei where he played all three of his Elemental Arrow for 4 ridiculous ranged attacks. Then, in the same battle, I played all 3 of my Elemental Arrow. There were body parts everywhere. It was like a heavy metal album cover.

On 2/17/2017 at 8:23 PM, Sparks Duh said:

Just curious why living in a small town prohibited you from going to any koteis or even Gencon?

The only kotei I could ever make was Anchorage (three times), and it was always a major undertaking to get there.