About six months ago or so I almost bought into AGOT LCG after playing it with a friend since I have a history with the world and enjoyed the design of the game. I like playing in small tournaments at shops and was looking forward to getting started. Then I went online and began to peruse the cards available in the latest format only to find that the Lannisters had over twice as many cards available as any other house. They had good aggressive cards, excellent midrange value cards, and plenty of tools to play a full-on control game. They had everything. The other houses were VERY far behind and it showed in tournament results like a neon sign. But the root of the imbalance wasn't due to poor design or development, it was simply that the Lannisters had access to so many more cards than the other houses. Everyone else is probably just as powerful by now, but for a time, there was only Lannisters. For a game that can be about house loyalty to a lot of fans, releasing a massive amount of cards to only one of them at a time seems like a poor choice.

And, for me, this is a deal-breaker: the difference between buying into and playing the game or not. I didn't play the old L5R, but I fondly remember tournament participants' shouting and hooplah at GenCon and Origins as I rolled d20's playing another AEG classic, Warlord CCG. I was a faction loyalist in that game and as my friends and I anticipate L5R coming out, I look forward to playing either Lion or Dragon and sticking with the clan.

Maybe the old L5R was like this as well. Maybe they boosted one or two clans at a time with their product release and maybe everyone loved the in-flux power spikes to specific clans, but again, for me, that's a deal-breaker. So has there been any info about this?

Assuming deluxe expansions exist most likely will be clan based boxes. All of the AGoT deluxes and the deluxes for every other LCG include predominantly cards for one or two factions and then cards for everyone else too.

1 hour ago, Muktidata said:

...I went online and began to peruse the cards available in the latest format only to find that the Lannisters had over twice as many cards available as any other house. They had good aggressive cards, excellent midrange value cards, and plenty of tools to play a full-on control game. They had everything. The other houses were VERY far behind and it showed in tournament results like a neon sign. But the root of the imbalance wasn't due to poor design or development, it was simply that the Lannisters had access to so many more cards than the other houses. Everyone else is probably just as powerful by now, but for a time, there was only Lannisters. For a game that can be about house loyalty to a lot of fans, releasing a massive amount of cards to only one of them at a time seems like a poor choice.

And, for me, this is a deal-breaker: the difference between buying into and playing the game or not...

Maybe the old L5R was like this as well. Maybe they boosted one or two clans at a time with their product release and maybe everyone loved the in-flux power spikes to specific clans, but again, for me, that's a deal-breaker. So has there been any info about this?

And yet somehow Lannister is not alone at the top of the heap anymore. AGoT is in a good spot right now.

1 minute ago, Kakita Shiro said:

And yet somehow Lannister is not alone at the top of the heap anymore. AGoT is in a good spot right now.

I think the point stands though. This is my hope:

I hope they do not do the faction specific boxes and instead try to raise each faction equally. I hope this because I also hope they Continue doing interactive story in some way, and I'm assuming it'd be based on formal play somehow, and it'd be best of each clan could compete equally.

We'll see how that turns out =P

Just because a faction gets a deluxe before others does not make them better than any others necessarily.

No, but it does make them more varied, which is more interesting, which leads to a lot of that faction.

1 hour ago, Kakita Shiro said:

And yet somehow Lannister is not alone at the top of the heap anymore. AGoT is in a good spot right now.

2 hours ago, Muktidata said:

Everyone else is probably just as powerful by now, but for a time, there was only Lannisters.

1 hour ago, Kakita Shiro said:

AGoT is in a good spot right now.

With such "accidents" like 4x Tyrell in Top 4 of last weekend 185 players tourney .

16 minutes ago, Toqtamish said:

Just because a faction gets a deluxe before others does not make them better than any others necessarily.

There's lots of arguments that could be made about representation at tournaments, whether a set's power creep is pushing stronger cards or reeling the format back in, and whether a deeper card pool leads to better decks or not. History shows that a larger pool of cards does lead to more powerful decks as you look at any card game and compare their current and extended formats. One is typically playing rocket tag while the other wants to play fair. Not a perfect analogy, so instead consider that the next Magic set that comes out releases the red cards first. Then a few months later the blue cards. Or that Pokemon TCG releases their Fire type pokemon first, then a few months later Water, and so on. Sucks to be you if you're a devotee of a certain energy type.

I choose to believe that the dominance of the Lannisters during that short (couple of month) period was a combination of them being over-represented by players looking to do well in tournaments and because their cards were the strongest for that season. I also choose to believe that those two factors were a direct result of their house-based card pool being two or three times bigger than the other houses. All fair conclusions in my opinion and I'm not interested in experiencing that firsthand.

Well be prepared to likely be disappointed. It's been a LCG standard for years now. Star Wars did it differently in that you got a DS and a LS faction in each box but otherwise they are all faction based. It's not a reason to not play the game however but be prepared for that to be the likely release model following the established model from the other games.

8 minutes ago, Muktidata said:

There's lots of arguments that could be made about representation at tournaments, whether a set's power creep is pushing stronger cards or reeling the format back in, and whether a deeper card pool leads to better decks or not. History shows that a larger pool of cards does lead to more powerful decks as you look at any card game and compare their current and extended formats. One is typically playing rocket tag while the other wants to play fair. Not a perfect analogy, so instead consider that the next Magic set that comes out releases the red cards first. Then a few months later the blue cards. Or that Pokemon TCG releases their Fire type pokemon first, then a few months later Water, and so on. Sucks to be you if you're a devotee of a certain energy type.

I choose to believe that the dominance of the Lannisters during that short (couple of month) period was a combination of them being over-represented by players looking to do well in tournaments and because their cards were the strongest for that season. I also choose to believe that those two factors were a direct result of their house-based card pool being two or three times bigger than the other houses. All fair conclusions in my opinion and I'm not interested in experiencing that firsthand.

On the other hand, Deluxes in Conquest introduced completely new factions and they sucked balls (especially Tyranids) at the start. So it depends what kind of deluxes will be chosen for L5R -> existing Clan ones or new Clans.

37 minutes ago, kempy said:

With such "accidents" like 4x Tyrell in Top 4 of last weekend 185 players tourney .

For a game you don't like you sure follow it closely.

It's also a misleading statement taken out of context - the fact that four very good players accurately predicted the meta and made an excellent judgement call isn't hugely indicative of anything other than 'preparation and skill win tournaments'.

5 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

It's also a misleading statement taken out of context - the fact that four very good players accurately predicted the meta and made an excellent judgement call isn't hugely indicative of anything other than 'preparation and skill win tournaments'.

100 percent of top 4

50 percent of top 16

Seems like a lot to me. How many factions does the game have?

16 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

For a game you don't like you sure follow it closely.

8 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

It's also a misleading statement taken out of context - the fact that four very good players accurately predicted the meta and made an excellent judgement call isn't hugely indicative of anything other than 'preparation and skill win tournaments'.

Both of you know how many L5R players entered AGoT after 9.11. I have pleasure to read and talk with some really good thrones players and situation/meta is not so good as you want to describe.

As with many topics, you're approaching something with your mind made up and seeking information that corroborates your view. You're welcome to do that, and I don't doubt you'll continue to do so on this thread and many others. My experience has been considerably different, and I also communicate regularly with very good Thrones players.

Ultimately, I can't make you enjoy something you've decided you're not going to. I just fail to see what you gain by trying to also convince others they won't enjoy something. If others are trying to be positive about something, you don't have to join in, but you could maybe give it a rest with the constant negativity, man.

1 hour ago, Toqtamish said:

Well be prepared to likely be disappointed. It's been a LCG standard for years now. Star Wars did it differently in that you got a DS and a LS faction in each box but otherwise they are all faction based. It's not a reason to not play the game however but be prepared for that to be the likely release model following the established model from the other games.

I will start trying to calm down about it beginning immediately. I very much want to play the game and hope that it won't be as bad as I saw in AGOT LCG. I talked to others and they confirmed your statement to me about that being the release schedule. Oh well.

12 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

I just fail to see what you gain by trying to also convince others they won't enjoy something. If others are trying to be positive about something, you don't have to join in, but you could maybe give it a rest with the constant negativity, man.

Maybe i think people should be more open-minded about FFG and their games.

I imagine the situation encountered in a Game of Thrones might be avoided for two particular reasons.

The first is that the Game of Thrones card game is based on set of novels-- an IP where the characters are already set. So if the majority of the focus of the novels is one particular faction in the game-- if that includes most of the named noteworthy characters and the majority of the plots and detail in the world, well... just printing out what it makes sensible to print might wind one up with the overwhelming majority being for that one faction.

However, going forward L5R is a nearly blank slate and while they might bring back and rejuvenate some old favorite characters from the history of the game, going forward they have free reign to reinvent it to their hearts content and make up whatever they need whole-cloth.

The seconds is-- if things really are as bad as you say they are, I am sure they are going to want to do what they can to avoid making the same mistake twice. They will probably have some sort of rotation system. I also suspect the first deluxe pack is going to be Shadowlands-- a faction that doesn't even exist in the core game.

For how much you come in here and demonize others for their opinions based on information, I'm surprised that you don't know that ffg does have a rotation cycle in place.

Old L5R had factions that would become dominant or at least much stronger after a certain set was released, even when each clan received the same number of cards in a set. While that could be disappointing for people not playing those clans, it was part of the CCG beast. At any given time some decks / factions / victory conditions are just going to be better than others.

Usually each expansion did focus a bit on a few factions more than others. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for much of L5R's life I think each expansion would give three clans new strongholds, often with cards focused on the new stronghold themes. Sometimes that would propel a clan to be competitive at tournaments, though odds were just as good that the new stronghold and its associated cards would be crap. After each new set was released we'd go on forums and complain about how design clearly had it out for our clan in particular, and obviously were biased toward whatever clans we didn't play, but that was the nature of things. I doubt the LCG will be much different, both in terms of imbalance between factions and forum complaining.

I anticipate the complaining threads to show up promptly on April 19th, depending on how much info they give us about gameplay and cards.

18 minutes ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

Old L5R had factions that would become dominant or at least much stronger after a certain set was released, even when each clan received the same number of cards in a set. While that could be disappointing for people not playing those clans, it was part of the CCG beast. At any given time some decks / factions / victory conditions are just going to be better than others.

Usually each expansion did focus a bit on a few factions more than others. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for much of L5R's life I think each expansion would give three clans new strongholds, often with cards focused on the new stronghold themes. Sometimes that would propel a clan to be competitive at tournaments, though odds were just as good that the new stronghold and its associated cards would be crap. After each new set was released we'd go on forums and complain about how design clearly had it out for our clan in particular, and obviously were biased toward whatever clans we didn't play, but that was the nature of things. I doubt the LCG will be much different, both in terms of imbalance between factions and forum complaining.

I anticipate the complaining threads to show up promptly on April 19th, depending on how much info they give us about gameplay and cards.

Good points.

5 hours ago, BayushiCroy said:

For how much you come in here and demonize others for their opinions based on information, I'm surprised that you don't know that ffg does have a rotation cycle in place.

Well, they've announced it a while ago, but it hasn't come into effect yet (for any of their games), because it takes that long. It's due to hit Netrunner in a few months (when they begin a new cycle for it).

53 minutes ago, Khudzlin said:

Well, they've announced it a while ago, but it hasn't come into effect yet (for any of their games), because it takes that long. It's due to hit Netrunner in a few months (when they begin a new cycle for it).

Yea I really think the rotation is far too long.

Well, they could release Deluxe boxes not around one Faction, but around a big event in the timeline.