Even though I was a pretty diehard Mantis player, I'm personally glad they are reigning the game in to the core 7 clans. I understand why AEG got rid of Shadowlands and made the Spider clan, even though I always hated the concept story wise, but I really don't want to hash that back up here.

Between 7 clans and 3 methods of victory, I feel FFG will be able to do plenty to make the game feel different for each clan without breaking anything too much.

For the sake of maintaining game balance, I'd personally want all the other factions left out of getting strongholds and as playable factions.

But I still would like to see Minor Clans as personalities and maybe even the ability to have a Minor Clan "Province" card, I think that would be neat, ways to have a moderate presence of minor clans, but stop short of making them a full faction.

I really enjoyed the flavor of the Mantis. It was group of minor clans that were able to get enough influence to become a major player in the politics of Rokugan. Then, when Yoritomo had an opportunity, he said, "Either recognize us as a Great Clan or we're all dead." The idea of a group of nobodies forging their own path.

My hope is that down the road they'll release other expansions to allow for some of these factions to be in the game.

I'll be very sad if Mantis don't show up as a story point. I think if it happens though, it has to happen pretty early in the game's life to avoid being at permanent card disadvantage.

I expect that we will see some other factions, but honestly, good riddance to the Spider. To me it felt like a mechanical design decision that forced its way into the story to make them relevant, with a lot of deus ex machina to make it work. I don't have an issue with the whole "Shadowlands infiltrator" idea, in fact it can make for compelling storytelling. But making them into a real clan felt like a they wanted to unify the system (which is fair), but then needed to legitimize the clan somehow in the story. Basically they kept painting themselves into the corner, and doubling down on their mistakes.

After thinking about it, I feel we may have more chance to see the Spider back (a lot sooner than in AEG's timeline) than a true Shadowlands faction.

Shadowlands would go against too many mechanics and flavour of the new game (honor victory, dishonor defeat, use of honor for duels and card draw, political conflicts, ephemerality due to accomplishment of fate - what fate does an undead have?, etc...).

Sure, it could have special rules but either there a lot of rules on the SL stronghold or there are lot of special rules in the rulebook for just 1 faction. A Spider clan would be a lot easier to integrate.

Otherwise, Shadowlands could be used as an opponent for multiplayers game (1 against several).

2 minutes ago, KerenRhys said:

After thinking about it, I feel we may have more chance to see the Spider back (a lot sooner than in AEG's timeline) than a true Shadowlands faction.

Shadowlands would go against too many mechanics and flavour of the new game (honor victory, dishonor defeat, use of honor for duels and card draw, political conflicts, ephemerality due to accomplishment of fate - what fate does an undead have?, etc...).

Sure, it could have special rules but either there a lot of rules on the SL stronghold or there are lot of special rules in the rulebook for just 1 faction. A Spider clan would be a lot easier to integrate.

Otherwise, Shadowlands could be used as an opponent for multiplayers game (1 against several).

Everything you say about Shadowlands is what you could say against a vast majority of the Spider themes, and the rest are considered somewhere between heretical and sacrilegious in terms of their beliefs, even if they aren't directly tainted. They basically do not follow Bushido, and therefore aren't really samurai. How this reflects on the concept of personal honor would need to be treated differently either way.

5 minutes ago, KerenRhys said:

After thinking about it, I feel we may have more chance to see the Spider back (a lot sooner than in AEG's timeline) than a true Shadowlands faction.

Shadowlands would go against too many mechanics and flavour of the new game (honor victory, dishonor defeat, use of honor for duels and card draw, political conflicts, ephemerality due to accomplishment of fate - what fate does an undead have?, etc...).

Sure, it could have special rules but either there a lot of rules on the SL stronghold or there are lot of special rules in the rulebook for just 1 faction. A Spider clan would be a lot easier to integrate.

Otherwise, Shadowlands could be used as an opponent for multiplayers game (1 against several).

Old Shadowlands did not care about honor either. Against it, no honor loses, so just draw 5 every turn and focus always 5 in duels because you do not lose honor. And fate is everywhere. As old good Moto Tsume.

Just now, Wintersong said:

Old Shadowlands did not care about honor either. Against it, no honor loses, so just draw 5 every turn and focus always 5 in duels because you do not lose honor. And fate is everywhere. As old good Moto Tsume.

I think the point is that there would need to be some sort of balance between mechanics and flavor. Depending on how it was written (way back in the day, Shadowlands just always had -19 honor and "could not gain or lose honor"), this would break the game, since then dishonor decks couldn't beat them. Also they could always draw 5 cards or bid everything if they kept that sort of "You did not gain or lose honor" mechanic. Or they'd get crippled since they couldn't really gain honor to fight a dishonor deck, in more recent years, and therefore had a disadvantage against decks that other clans inherently didn't have.

I wonder if they'd have unaligned shadowlands cards that cause honor losses but not the ability to play them on their own.

29 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

Old Shadowlands did not care about honor either. Against it, no honor loses, so just draw 5 every turn and focus always 5 in duels because you do not lose honor. And fate is everywhere. As old good Moto Tsume.

Honestly, (without having played the game yet) I feel a match-up where you don't have to think 1sec about your bidding and without possibility of political conflicts would suck a lot in this version of the game.

The draw system really does seem like a very bad idea the more I think about it. In it's current state it would make anything more than 2 players a mess but it makes it difficult to implement groups that don't care about honor.

It would be pretty stupid if a Shadowlands themed group was added later but they could lose because they dishonored themselves.

For me the "main" problem with the Spider was not that they were a legitimate faction but that were a Great Clan in the story. they went against a lot of lore to push this change through.

Perhas more plausible is having a spider sect/cult. Their Followers of the 9th Kami that want to destroy the Great Clans and in the end the Empire .Thereby ending the challenge Togashi issued Fu Leng. Their goal should never be to join the Empire.

Much as I loved Naga, if we want to focus on clans, they're not in.

Mantis could have been in from the get-go. Nothing but the awesome rise of Yoritomo would've been lost if the Mantis were one of the Eight instead of Seven Great Clans. This, to me, suggests they either a) didn't have core mechanics they felt stable enough or b) were worried about how many clans were going in at the start.

Spider... Spider's problem isn't so much that they were in, than it is that they were forced in with no opportunity for opposition and little in the way of compromise on Spider's part. As a result, the story hinged on people named after the God of Evil not being assumed at all times to be untrustworthy and in dire need of restraint and monitoring. It's like inviting Mordred to the Round Table AFTER he got caught trying to stab Arthur. It doesn't work for anyone to want him there, or for him to continue to plot and scheme as though he's not being watched.

In contrast...

Consider: Most of Yogo Junzo's Army was a bunch of monsters, madmen, or mindless thralls. A fair number of the Shadowlands did show or held independent thought and ambition -- the Oni Lords, the Dark Daughter and Demon Bride, the Shuten Doji, even Hida Amoro showed some self-control in death that he essentially lacked in life. Would it really be surprising if Moto Tsume or Tsukuro showed up on the Day of Thunder, captured someone on the outskirts of battle, and sent back terms of truce claiming they don't want the end of the world, either?

...and of course, at this point in the storyline, Yoritomo's Alliance hasn't been formed yet, so there's certainly no reason to assume they won't be along at some point, unless the story team explicitly says otherwise.

And the Spider are generations away from existing. We don't even know if Daigotsu exists in the new story. Which is a little sad, as he was the best villain, but we'll have to see how the story shakes out.

If (and that's a big IF) FFG wants the Spider Clan in the game, nothing forces them to wait for the same moment in the timeline as the AEG one to create it. Since they intends to change how things happened, it could very well be a consequence of the 2nd Day of Thunder (if we even have a Day of Thunder). And they could do a better job of integrating correctly this clan in the Empire.

1 hour ago, Mirith said:

I think the point is that there would need to be some sort of balance between mechanics and flavor. Depending on how it was written (way back in the day, Shadowlands just always had -19 honor and "could not gain or lose honor"), this would break the game, since then dishonor decks couldn't beat them. Also they could always draw 5 cards or bid everything if they kept that sort of "You did not gain or lose honor" mechanic. Or they'd get crippled since they couldn't really gain honor to fight a dishonor deck, in more recent years, and therefore had a disadvantage against decks that other clans inherently didn't have.

I always found dishonor decks autolosing to Shadowlands to be fitting. The weird part was to be able to honor victory against Shadowlands.

41 minutes ago, KerenRhys said:

Honestly, (without having played the game yet) I feel a match-up where you don't have to think 1sec about your bidding and without possibility of political conflicts would suck a lot in this version of the game.

But

• we do not know if we will have extra factions yet and if one of them will actually be the Shadowlands
• we can assume that if FFG does include the Shadowlands, they will make it work well and in not sucking way. Maybe they give you Shadowlands Taint tokens if you bid higher than them (in "exchange" of you not losing honor in the bids) or any other new mechanic that right now does not exist. Not that we know the current mechanics completely.
• we can also assume Shadowlands getting the form of a "neutral" Stronghold but... no. Tainted Great Clan Strongholds that work as regular ones (gain/lose honor) could be the way too. Kisada allies with Onis again? Let's bring a tainted Shiro Hiruma!!! Such tainted strongholds could allow you to recruit shadowlands characters as if they were of your clan and count as Shadowlands instead of the corresponding Great Clan for story rewards.

Just speculating, eh? What do I know?

I really agree with SirEuain, part of the problem of the Spider clan to me is they create 1 known enemy.

The fun of shadowlands taint and corruption is anyone in the 7 clans could be tainted. You have no idea who it could be, making each unveiling exciting and heart wrenching if it's someone you were rooting for in the story.

It's more interesting to have a story where anyone *could* be tainted, but less so if there's a giant clan of villains everyone is expecting it from.

2 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

I always found dishonor decks autolosing to Shadowlands to be fitting. The weird part was to be able to honor victory against Shadowlands.

Fitting maybe, but it's extremely unbalanced for tournament play.

Shadowlands decks basically forced you to be military if you wanted to stand a chance to win against them, which is one of the reasons why they got rid of them.

2 minutes ago, Teslacrashed said:

Fitting maybe, but it's extremely unbalanced for tournament play.

Shadowlands decks basically forced you to be military if you wanted to stand a chance to win against them, which is one of the reasons why they got rid of them.

Oh, I know. Still, from a theme point of view, totally fine.

Shosuro Agent: "I have evidence of yo..."

Oni no Akuma: *nom nom nom*

7 minutes ago, Teslacrashed said:

Fitting maybe, but it's extremely unbalanced for tournament play.

Shadowlands decks basically forced you to be military if you wanted to stand a chance to win against them, which is one of the reasons why they got rid of them.

However with the whole "Political Conflict" thing, I think it makes sense that they could still go down something similar. I expect that Honor vs Dishonor or Dishonor vs Dishonor, one or both sides should expect to go political conflict. And against Oni, you should win every time.

I actually would like to see the Mantis and the Spider get to come back, and I could even imagine that neutarl cards for minor clans and oni and such things are already in the core set which could be later used to with Mantis and Spider decks.

1 hour ago, TechnoGolem said:

The draw system really does seem like a very bad idea the more I think about it. In it's current state it would make anything more than 2 players a mess but it makes it difficult to implement groups that don't care about honor.

It would be pretty stupid if a Shadowlands themed group was added later but they could lose because they dishonored themselves.

Simple fix seems to be to just avoid including Shadowlands as a faction.

we were theorycrafting on the discord about how shadowlands might work in the new game, and the idea that taint would replace honor for a shadowlands deck came up, but flipped. as in, any time you would normally lose honor, you gain taint, and many cards would key off of it. similarly when you would gain honor, you'd lose taint. it isn't a perfect system. in some scenarios, another clan is acting dishonorably, and you're losing taint. thats not entirely sensible. but ultimately it fits into the existing system pretty clean, and forces you to make much the same choices that you'd be making anyway without tacking too much extra in. you'd have to balance how much taint you want to have against tainting out and surrendering yourself to Jigoku, or alternatively losing your connection to jigoku entirely.

Just now, the eigensheep said:

Simple fix seems to be to just avoid including Shadowlands as a faction.

i'm not sure why people seem to think this is a viable option, any more so than removing crane or dragon. mechanical complexity aside, they're fundamental to the story, even the new one. they are mentioned very ominously like 8 times in the first preview article.

6 minutes ago, cielago said:

i'm not sure why people seem to think this is a viable option, any more so than removing crane or dragon. mechanical complexity aside, they're fundamental to the story, even the new one. they are mentioned very ominously like 8 times in the first preview article.

Fundamental to the story doesn't necessitate them becoming a full-fledged playable faction. I think everyone expecting everything that was represented in the CCG to be grandfathered into the LCG is setting themselves up for disappointment.

Don't get me wrong - they may very well be incorporated into the game as their own 'clan' in a future expansion. I just don't think it's a given.