3 minutes ago, BuzzsawMF said:

My 2 cents on the card draw system. I am unsure why people think it is so terrible. The amount you draw depends on the situation and the cards in hand. If I have a deck that relies on having less honor than your opponent, then I am drawing 5 every time. Or maybe you build a deck that is designed on draining your opponent for an honor loss. One would imagine that you would build inherent draw within your deck with effects, so you bid low so your opponent gives you honor. But then you know your opponent's plan, so you play carefully and draw only 2 instead of 5. You have a good board setup and you don't need a fist full of cards. So you counter your opponent.

Really, the draw system just adds depth.

I don't get the hate either at this point. Honorable decks don't HAVE to draw 1 each turn. If I know, say, a Scorpion player is going to draw 5 every turn, Maybe I start drawing 4, even though my victory path is one of Honor. I still get an honor per turn, and I'm only short a card.

Alternatively, if a player is losing 4 honor a turn by drawing the maximum and their opponent the minimum, they are on a 3-turn clock from the get go, judging by the starting honor values presented.

Maybe it does turn out to be a broken mechanic, but I don't see a reason to worry yet.

3 minutes ago, BuzzsawMF said:

My 2 cents on the card draw system. I am unsure why people think it is so terrible. The amount you draw depends on the situation and the cards in hand. If I have a deck that relies on having less honor than your opponent, then I am drawing 5 every time. Or maybe you build a deck that is designed on draining your opponent for an honor loss. One would imagine that you would build inherent draw within your deck with effects, so you bid low so your opponent gives you honor. But then you know your opponent's plan, so you play carefully and draw only 2 instead of 5. You have a good board setup and you don't need a fist full of cards. So you counter your opponent.

Really, the draw system just adds depth.

To add to this, I am sure there are some benefits for having high honor in the game, until I see something you get for having high honor (like old imperial favour) then I think I will wait to pass judgement on trading honor for cards.

Just now, Ryoshun Higoka said:

I think a lot of the knee-jerk reaction might be due to the fact that it's a real, significant departure from "the way things are done". That's my guess, because I had the same initial reaction ("The card-drawing mechanic is WHAT?!?"). After giving it some thought, I've come around to it.

I think it will be more annoying for honor/dishonor players than for province breaking victory condition players.

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Well, I believe at least one of the cards referenced low honor (or did I imagine that?), so I would think there will be some advantages/disadvantages. Also, having few resources could impact things, as you point out. Will I want to draw five cards every turn if I know I'm only going to be able to play one or two of them, and the others are going to put me over my hand limit and force me to discard?

Not to mention, why would the bidding even need to be a massive decision every time anyway? In the AEG game, buying a holding or a personality was often a no-brainer, but when it did matter, it could occasionally be a game-changing choice! Similarly, I expect that many people will establish a pretty good bidding routine that they'll stick with, but when they do mix it up it'll have a potentially massive impact!

You know what this reminds me of, a little? The original bit-mining decks from Netrunner (the Wizards version, not the FFG). The Runners had a bunch of cards that would (essentially) trade bits (in-game currency) for tags (in-game mechanic that didn't always matter, but when it did, it was significant). This kind of debate raged when Runner players figures out that they could essentially trade for cards.

Also, Necropotence, a little.

5 hours ago, Toqtamish said:

No he did not. He said two to be competitive. Steve is very exact with his language. I am not the only one that thought so.

Which as anyone who has played a 3 core LCG can tell you, no one can be competitive with 2. Steve either misspoke or lied.

1 minute ago, Hound Archon said:

Which as anyone who has played a 3 core LCG can tell you, no one can be competitive with 2. Steve either misspoke or lied.

I disagree with this.

1 hour ago, the eigensheep said:

Anddddd then he's stolen by

So, I think I found something in the cards. Right next to the copyright date do those look like bamboo shoots to anyone else? Could that correspond to the "Bamboo rating" on the strongholds? Maybe a mechanic like Netrunner's influence? (I think it is influence)

1 minute ago, Hound Archon said:

Which as anyone who has played a 3 core LCG can tell you, no one can be competitive with 2. Steve either misspoke or lied.

I guess that would depend on which cards have only one copy. If you're going to accuse someone of lying, please prove that every single competitive deck will need three copies of any of these cards (which would be incredibly impressive, since we don't even know what all the cards are or which cards will have how many copies).

1 minute ago, Hound Archon said:

Which as anyone who has played a 3 core LCG can tell you, no one can be competitive with 2. Steve either misspoke or lied.

It really depends on what kind of deck you're building (and what kind of game you're playing). I can see decks being tournament-viable with 2-sets-worth of cards. Heck, I'm only planning on buying one set!

And let's be careful with throwing around accusations of lying - it requires knowing deception, and until mind-reading gets invented, we should try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

1 minute ago, BuzzsawMF said:

I disagree with this.

Yeah not every deck requires or even wants 3 copies of every single card. Either due to cost restrictions or other game limiting factors. 2 to be competitive seems like a fair comment to me.

1 minute ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Also, Necropotence, a little.

This.

I think it will be interesting. As a (dis)honor player, do you try to keep up with the aggressive province crushing decks and bid high every turn so they don't gain card advantage, even if doing so neuters your decks goal gaining honor or causing its loss... It's a gamble to just stick to your plan because you do give up so much in advantage but you get close to winning if they max out on T1 and T2. T3 they will likely reign it in, because they can't sustain that kind of draw anymore based on what we have seen. But will you have enough tricks up your own sleeve to finish them off just drawing that 1 card a turn? Even if you decided, to bid 2 instead of 1 that opens the door for them to continue their aggression -- which by the way -- may not be all that tied to their board state if Lion is all about weenies as the posts seem to make them out to be. They use little fate on their characters to get them into play, and save the rest for conflict tricks. I can see how things could get out of hand fast.

It's also possible that the contents of the Core box changed after that quote, right? I'm not sure how far in advance FFG has to finalize things to get them off to the printers on time.

2 minutes ago, Shikaku said:

I think it will be more annoying for honor/dishonor players than for province breaking victory condition players.

Depends heavily on how easy it is to break provinces.

While we see Matsu Berserker+Way of the Lion+Lion Stronghold can break a province turn 1 we don't know how often this will happen and how fast honor/dishonor will be.

Heck a Turn 1 blitz could mean an easy win for dishonor if you hit the wrong province.

1 minute ago, GoblinGuide said:

It's also possible that the contents of the Core box changed after that quote, right? I'm not sure how far in advance FFG has to finalize things to get them off to the printers on time.

It's probably been fairly set since before that comment, but anything's possible.

I am pretty sure their standard marketing line is 2 to be competitive.

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I guess that would depend on which cards have only one copy. If you're going to accuse someone of lying, please prove that every single competitive deck will need three copies of any of these cards (which would be incredibly impressive, since we don't even know what all the cards are or which cards will have how many copies).

Warhammer 40k Conquest, every deck needed a full play set of its best cards to be competitive. Not having 3 core sets was a huge handy cap.

What if you don't keep your hand from turn to turn? What if the bidding war for draw is your entire hand for that turn and you discard unused cards at the end or put them back into your deck? I don't think the preview specified that you keep them, we're just assuming that.

9 minutes ago, Hound Archon said:

Which as anyone who has played a 3 core LCG can tell you, no one can be competitive with 2. Steve either misspoke or lied.

I remember questioning what he said on this forum about what the "two sets to be competitive" meant.

I had the feeling that being competitive, and having a complete set are two different things. If he said, "two sets gets you a complete set", then it is fair to say he misspoke or lied.

Saying "two sets to be competitive" is obviously open for interpretation (it had me asking what he meant at the time), and for you to draw the conclusion that he misspoke or lied, is presuming to know his mind, which you of course cannot know given that you are not him(I assume!)

Oh, and can I gush about the art for a sec? Seeing old favorites in "hi-res"... there's a reason Clan War sold out really fast. We like our old guys!

Okay, rant over. Yokuni is real pretty...

2 minutes ago, Shikaku said:

This.

I think it will be interesting. As a (dis)honor player, do you try to keep up with the aggressive province crushing decks and bid high every turn so they don't gain card advantage, even if doing so neuters your decks goal gaining honor or causing its loss... It's a gamble to just stick to your plan because you do give up so much in advantage but you get close to winning if they max out on T1 and T2. T3 they will likely reign it in, because they can't sustain that kind of draw anymore based on what we have seen. But will you have enough tricks up your own sleeve to finish them off just drawing that 1 card a turn? Even if you decided, to bid 2 instead of 1 that opens the door for them to continue their aggression -- which by the way -- may not be all that tied to their board state if Lion is all about weenies as the posts seem to make them out to be. They use little fate on their characters to get them into play, and save the rest for conflict tricks. I can see how things could get out of hand fast.

I imagine that low honor decks will much more control centric. While high honor decks will be more rush or tower centric.

While I can understand that some of the changes to the game may be difficult to transition to and some people may be so put out by the changes that they already have decided not to play, I would caution everyone to remain patient.

While this is the most real information we've gotten about the relaunch, there is still more that we don't know. Any judgement at this point, positive or negative, is premature. I know I'm getting at least one box, regardless of what the games turns out to be. I knew that from day one. Its not my place to tell others that their feelings are right or wrong. I just hope that the game is as enjoyable in the relaunch as it was in the original version. I think it's got the potential and so far there are no major concerns for me.......but there is still more to be revealed.

I hope that as we get the rest of the information about the game, and after I've had a chance to play it, I'll be able to recommend the game to others and be as big of an advocate for the relaunch as I was for the original. I'm fairly confident the game will be great, but, it's unrealistic to think everyone else shares my optimism. I hope those that have already had a negative reaction to what has been revealed will give the game another chance after they see the rest of it. And, I hope that those of us who are planning on playing the game will welcome anyone who wants to play with open arms.

Ultimately the game will only be as successful as we make it. Let us all try to be ambassadors of this game and show others what makes L5R and its players so great.

Another thing - there's a vague suspicion that each Ring may only be usable once per turn, so going first gives you the best choice, and that Unicorn card that lets you do both of your conflicts in a row is a good deal too. If this is the case it might be worth picking a Ring just to prevent your opponent from using it.

38 minutes ago, Kikaze said:

1. bidding for cards: FAIL.

i have never seen a cardgame where card draw was not disproportionaly overpowered. lets say we bid. i bid to draw 5 cards, he bids 1. i lose 4 honor he gains 4.

...and then i attack and he gets REKT because I have 7-8 cards and he has 3-4. card advantage is absolute. it will be ok at first, until truly powerful conflict cards come out and handing out card advantage like that means the end. soon, all will bid for full cards. never lower.

2. consequently, honor and dishonor will become rarer and rarer as bidding low will be suicide, being reduced to a form of "switch". the new honor/dishonor will be "political attack decks", their goal the same as military ones; attack provinces.

this game's design has flaws. we'll see if its meta/cards used can be careful enough to fix it.

You realize that drawing 4 more cards than your opponent costs you 4 honor each time? 2 turns like this and you have 2 honor. They don't even need to break your provinces to make the Ring of Air effect go off and steel your last 2. You have beaten yourself in your theory crafting.

Also note that turn 1 attacks that can break provinces are perfectly fine if there viable options for defending them. This simply removes the 1-3 turns of buildup older versions had . The fate system also prevents the dreaded 45 min tournament rounds where both players just sit there never attacking each other building massive armies .

Both points make the game much more tournament friendly.

3 minutes ago, Hound Archon said:

Warhammer 40k Conquest, every deck needed a full play set of its best cards to be competitive. Not having 3 core sets was a huge handy cap.

Ok, but that's Warhammer 40k Conquest. This is L5R, which hasn't even had its full cardlist revealed yet. It just seems a bit discourteous to accuse someone of lying when we have no reason to believe that this will be exactly the same case as Warhammer.