I wonder how Clan loyalty will fare in a LCG setting.

In a CCG setting, it was pretty rough keeping 5-6 good Decks outfitted per arc and 2-3 of those decks were likely to be from one Clan.

Now, we are all going to have all of the cards, and probably playsets of everything.

Potentially, we could have 7 or more decks built from Gen Con moving forward. It's likely these Decks could be from 7 different Clans.

Are old players going to hold to their loyalties? Are new players going to care about Clan loyalty?

I'm sure there will be a not so insignificant amount of die hards that carry over their loyalty, but I imagine most newer players will dabble in everything, though they are likely to find favorites.

I'm interested to see what happens if the top players repeatedly win and have zero clan loyalty. I hope dedicated clans bid on their services as a means to try and ensure story decisions fall in their favor, creating swords for hire, if you will.

And, then there's the fact certain factions have no choice but to "shop around" or wait and hope the game takes off well enough to return certain factions.

Death to the crane....

I played Mantis (originally Yoritomo's Alliance) so I'm stuck in that position of having too choose a second favorite. I'm planning on trying out Dragon and Crab. But if at any time the Mantis (or the Wasp) become playable, I am jumping straight over.

In fact, I'm hoping for a Tsuruchi's Alliance down the line in this new timeline.

I have never played the CCG but love the RPG. I am watching this all carefully as I thinking to get into the LCG. My loyalty is Sparrow and Falcon so I am going to have to pick a Great Clan and as a new player though I am thinking I need to work out what play style works best for me and I will try to get good with that clan. That will become my default Great Clan loyalty but as I will have all the cards, I can try out other Clans. I am betting that there will be play styles that just don't click with me either so yeah, that will help me work out what Clan(s) I will play.

If they botch the Phoenix (which is a BIG if, but it's quite possible all the same)... I really have no one to play as. My true love is the MCA, and the Dragon and Scorpion... honestly, I'm not wild about them in the era we've got.

I've been thinking about this myself. I started with the Naga, and always will have a certain loyalty to them. At the same time, I recognize the mistake of having them in the game (too many factions to balance), and I accept that they won't come back.

I played Lion from Gold edition onwards, but that was by default. When my play group got their hands on the first box of starters, the Lion was all that was left. I'm thinking maybe Dragon, but I'll have to wait to see how the stories unfold. One thing I know for certain is that gameplay won't factor into my decision very much.

It's not likely to be able to have one deck per faction, maybe at most 3-4 full decks.

19 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

It's not likely to be able to have one deck per faction, maybe at most 3-4 full decks.

Depends on how many core sets one buys, and how competitive one wants to make the decks. I was able to maintain mono-faction decks for every faction in Conquest pretty soon after launch, but that was for casual play, not competitive.

Even if I play another clan to be competitive or for fun, I'll have a Scorpion deck built in reserve, and identify as a Scorpion player. I like the characters, the art style, and usually the playstyle.

2 hours ago, Daner0023 said:

Are old players going to hold to their loyalties? Are new players going to care about Clan loyalty?

I think this will mostly depend on how much storyline interaction is in this iteration.

For myself I imagine it will be just like last time. Dragon at the beginning and then Shadowlands as soon as the Yogo Junzo's Army stronghold is released. I'll probably have decks for some of the other clans built from the leftovers but I'll only play them casually.

3 hours ago, Daner0023 said:

I wonder how Clan loyalty will fare in a LCG setting.

In a CCG setting, it was pretty rough keeping 5-6 good Decks outfitted per arc and 2-3 of those decks were likely to be from one Clan.

Now, we are all going to have all of the cards, and probably playsets of everything.

Potentially, we could have 7 or more decks built from Gen Con moving forward. It's likely these Decks could be from 7 different Clans.

Are old players going to hold to their loyalties? Are new players going to care about Clan loyalty?

Personally I have played Crane since Imperial edition. It was the first starter I ever bought for the game. I have always played Crane. I have experimented with a few other clans over the years but I always end up back at Crane.

Since the story sees The Crane clan in difficulty it would be impossible for me to fail it.

Seriously. As I was reading that part I was like : "I give you my mf sword !"

My loyalty will always belong to the Scorpion clan.

My loyalty will always be spider. So as long as they aren't in the game, I will screw around with everyone else's clan and get em messed up in the story.

Seems fun!

3 hours ago, Vlad3theImpaler said:

Depends on how many core sets one buys, and how competitive one wants to make the decks. I was able to maintain mono-faction decks for every faction in Conquest pretty soon after launch, but that was for casual play, not competitive.

Exactly, and even these decks were so similiar to each one. Except signature cards many decks, especially in CS+1st Cycle meta were nearly identical, becasue Conquest had too many good staple cards in Core Set.

8 hours ago, Daner0023 said:

I wonder how Clan loyalty will fare in a LCG setting.

In a CCG setting, it was pretty rough keeping 5-6 good Decks outfitted per arc and 2-3 of those decks were likely to be from one Clan.

Now, we are all going to have all of the cards, and probably playsets of everything.

Potentially, we could have 7 or more decks built from Gen Con moving forward. It's likely these Decks could be from 7 different Clans.

Are old players going to hold to their loyalties? Are new players going to care about Clan loyalty?

7 or more decks out of GenCon? At the same time? Those are lots of cores!

I like the Unicorn best. Just for lore and kami, is enough to be loyal for me. That said, that would not prevent me from making decks of other clans because it is fun to play something different from time to time, and the LCG format will make that even easier as you are not limited to random CCG stuff.

I assume that not every player will buy 3 core sets, that alone will lead to people with shared cardpools and thus players that focus on one clan. And well even in the old days there has always been players who could afford all thecards and still prefered to play their chosen clan at the tournaments (which was for many about the meeting of other players and not necessarily about winning for many anyway).

Clan loyalty and having fun is two things. I'll explain.

I am and always be a fan of the Crab Clan. I started with the RPG, so changing characters is fun for the sake of changing. Doing the same character over and over is boring. That's why I like to play different characters. But it doesn't change the fact that I go back to a Crab character more often than any other clans.

I think that's why I think it's the same with the CCG/LCG. I did like to have more than 1 Clan because it varies the gameplay and helps to understand the gameplay of the other Clans. Understanding strengths and weaknesses are easier when you play them and when you play against them. It's not because someone plays other Clans, it means he isn't loyal.

Also, people can also have fun and try out other Clans for the sake of having fun.

The Clan Loyalty doesn't come from the game, it comes from the communauty itself.

I'm an old Monk player, so I have to shop around too. My "secondary" deck was always Shadowlands...so yeah. I tried Dragon for a while after Monk disappeared, but never really got into them. Think I might try corrupt Phoenix for a while...if I can't have what I truly want I might as well watch the world burn. Plus my just mentioning it to my staunch Crab friend made him mad, so that's a plus.

As someone planning on being an in-store tournament and gameplay organizer at my FLGS, I anticipate creating 1 deck for every Faction out of the Core Set shortly after the release. Mind you, I am also coordinating with 3 other people to walk out of GenCon with 4 Core Sets for this explicit purpose, so...

They won't need to be tournament level, and ideally, they will not be. They will be straight forward, instructional decks to demonstrate how a faction should be played, and how they interact with each other. I will probably maintain a tournament level deck of whatever faction I will be playing for going to other places to play, mind you.

As for what faction that will be? I honestly have no idea. I was a Naga player whose faction went away, and I stuck with the game until I found the Spider Clan. And now there's no Spider Clan, so... I'm a Spider Clan player. Which means my faction loyalty is again up for grabs.

I think the casual players might keep less of a clan loyalty until they get exposed to the community. That being said my loyalties are split. I play a lot of Crab and a lot of Crane in the CCG. However, in the RPG, until the most recent campaign, I have exclusively played Dragon in any serious campaign, and generally thinking that if this Crab Pragmatist dies, will probably play a Mirumoto Bushi to avenge the death of his brother-in-law.

My wife and I plan to buy 3-4 core sets so we can play each other and find what we like. After that we can pick up expansions as needed. I expect we'll keep deck lists of what we like and then assemble and disassemble as needed for whatever we want to play.