Since we've discovered that holdings do block dynasty cards from being placed I would say that it is fair trade of given the number of cards we have seen that can flip face down dynasty cards allowing more cards to be purchased with fate.

Also an additional +1/+2 on a province that can't be bowed (though we have not heard if being bowed removes your contribution to your side's total and/or removed your ability to play actions in that character) a nd that won't be removed due to lack of fate seems a more than generous trade off not even accounting for the actions they provide. This could also mean that the characters you are bringing in are more likely going to want to have more fate on them.

Think about Lion running two provinces with staging ground, able to possibly put out 6 characters (depending on the number of cheap Lion clan characters and holding % in deck) from their dynasty deck in a turn. Now they will only be around that turn since you spent all your fate but that's certainly a thing you could do.

Still need to know what happens to holdings when a province breaks. I'm guessing they are discarded and you can't play any holdings on broken provinces.

7 hours ago, Robin Graves said:

It does feel a bit odd with some clans like the Crab. (you are needed on the wall!) Maybe they are summoned to Toshi Ranbo. (sorry, No time for clan struggles, I have to go to the imperial court.)

Unless they change things, the Imperial capital and court is Otosan Uchi. Toshi Ranbo is a city and province that has been getting constantly conflicted over by the Lion and Crane.

There's quite a bit of Character removal shown in this article, and it all seems to use the term "discard". Suddenly the Steadfast Samurai from the Lion Clan is looking even better.

You can already see how they are locking in some pretty powerful basic play-styles for the clans with this first core set. eg. Steadfast Samurai Scorpion manipulator.... it is nice to see.

1 hour ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Unless they change things, the Imperial capital and court is Otosan Uchi. Toshi Ranbo is a city and province that has been getting constantly conflicted over by the Lion and Crane.

Thanks. Oh boy this reboot is already playing havoc with my, admittedly, weak grasp of Rokugani history.

Forget all you know and become an empty cup, abandoning preconceptions, waiting to be filled with new, with a perspective and joy of a child.

1 hour ago, WHW said:

Forget all you know and become an empty cup, abandoning preconceptions, waiting to be filled with new, with a perspective and joy of a child.

This.

I just wish everybody would accept that this will be a new start, and not a retelling of the story we know. Of course, there will be similarities, but I sincerely hope that every time FFG gives a direction to the story that is not the one we know, people will not freak out and treat it as if the skies were falling down...

Yes, Hotari left his place for Hotaru, and Yokatsu is now Altansarnai, and that can mean a lot (no romance and secret bastard child between the Crane Champion and the Scorpion Champion's wife, and no false Hoturi, and...) but I think we can trust FFG to make their L5R story an epic one.

I don't want the same story to unfold, I want to be surprised whenever I read a fiction, or some flavor text. Maybe it's not Scorpion Clan Coup this time, maybe Hitomi and Yakamo never become the Sun and the moon, maybe the minor clans never form an alliance and get Major Clan status or maybe it's not the Mantis at its head.

The reboot is a tremendous opportunity to write a new story, even though the roots are the same. It'd be a shame to tell the same story anew.

6 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

This.

I just wish everybody would accept that this will be a new start, and not a retelling of the story we know. Of course, there will be similarities, but I sincerely hope that every time FFG gives a direction to the story that is not the one we know, people will not freak out and treat it as if the skies were falling down...

Yes, Hotari left his place for Hotaru, and Yokatsu is now Altansarnai, and that can mean a lot (no romance and secret bastard child between the Crane Champion and the Scorpion Champion's wife, and no false Hoturi, and...) but I think we can trust FFG to make their L5R story an epic one.

I don't want the same story to unfold, I want to be surprised whenever I read a fiction, or some flavor text. Maybe it's not Scorpion Clan Coup this time, maybe Hitomi and Yakamo never become the Sun and the moon, maybe the minor clans never form an alliance and get Major Clan status or maybe it's not the Mantis at its head.

The reboot is a tremendous opportunity to write a new story, even though the roots are the same. It'd be a shame to tell the same story anew.

Let's just hope Tsuruchi doesn't fall to the Taint. He'd be able to snipe all the Crab from their Wall without even leaving the City of the Lost!

3 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

There's quite a bit of Character removal shown in this article, and it all seems to use the term "discard". Suddenly the Steadfast Samurai from the Lion Clan is looking even better.

Steadfast Samurai's reaction only happens in the Fate phase.

17 hours ago, C3gorach said:

Well if there is a way to easily get rid of them I can see including 6-8 Holdings in a deck for the purpose of using their Action a limited (once-twice) amount of times. Having one of your four Provinces "blocked" doesn't seem that bad if the Holding Action/Ability is powerful enough...

And haven't all the holdings we've seen granted the province a strength/power/health (whatever they called it) increase? It also isn't like Old5R where you need to get to your gold producing holdings. It doesn't seem there will be an "economy" you've got to get going or you'll just be stuck with your low power generic characters. You still need to see the "mains" in your provinces but they aren't exactly "stuck" there till you can get enough gold out to play them since you can save fate from one turn till the next.

I'd also guess that the holdings don't automatically go onto the province like the old regions. It might only be playable at the province it appeared in but it is probably one of your "plays" to attach it. I'm doubting you're going to be "stuck" with them beyond their possibility of being a "dead draw" and taking up a card slot in a limited size dynasty deck.

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

And haven't all the holdings we've seen granted the province a strength/power/health (whatever they called it) increase? It also isn't like Old5R where you need to get to your gold producing holdings. It doesn't seem there will be an "economy" you've got to get going or you'll just be stuck with your low power generic characters. You still need to see the "mains" in your provinces but they aren't exactly "stuck" there till you can get enough gold out to play them since you can save fate from one turn till the next.

I'd also guess that the holdings don't automatically go onto the province like the old regions. It might only be playable at the province it appeared in but it is probably one of your "plays" to attach it. I'm doubting you're going to be "stuck" with them beyond their possibility of being a "dead draw" and taking up a card slot in a limited size dynasty deck.

Everything points to the contrary. I would say most evidence points to: Holding says in a province, and if its face up in a province, you can use its ability and it bumps up the province strength. Then at the end of the turn there is some form of dynasty wipe you can do (Discard anything you want and refill face down).

It is all speculation, but since we only know that holdings effect single provinces and cards don't refill on top of them, it seems likely.

10 minutes ago, Mirith said:

Everything points to the contrary. I would say most evidence points to: Holding says in a province, and if its face up in a province, you can use its ability and it bumps up the province strength. Then at the end of the turn there is some form of dynasty wipe you can do (Discard anything you want and refill face down).

It is all speculation, but since we only know that holdings effect single provinces and cards don't refill on top of them, it seems likely.

I'm just throwing stuff out there. Just seems to me you'll need to do more to get the benefit of a holding than just flip it over and leave it sit until you don't want it anymore or flip it, use the action, and flush it for a new card . As you say we're speculating as we're fairly short on info.

1 minute ago, Frimmel said:

I'm just throwing stuff out there. Just seems to me you'll need to do more to get the benefit of a holding than just flip it over and leave it sit until you don't want it anymore or flip it, use the action, and flush it for a new card . As you say we're speculating as we're fairly short on info.

Brad said there was going to be an article just about how Holdings work, so we'll know eventually. My guess is after this next article about the last 3 phases of the game, FFG will do Clan articles alternated with card type articles all the way up to Gen Con. However, they could also work the Holding information into the Crab article as we know that is a key element of the Crab Clan theme.

On 4/26/2017 at 4:20 PM, JJ48 said:

" It is also important to remember that there is [no?] limit to the number of conflict cards you can have in your hand, and the more you bid, the more options you will have when conflicts occur."

Very interesting...

While it may be interesting, I didn't like playing against people that utilized this strategy in Netrunner. It was not an interactive game. They would not do anything significant for a long time and then win in one turn playing all their cards (and using combos it enabled). I'm hoping that strategy doesn't really work in this game.

2 minutes ago, slowreflex said:

While it may be interesting, I didn't like playing against people that utilized this strategy in Netrunner. It was not an interactive game. They would not do anything significant for a long time and then win in one turn playing all their cards (and using combos it enabled). I'm hoping that strategy doesn't really work in this game.

I'm confused. Netrunner had a maximum hand (grip) size for both the Corp and the Runner.

2 minutes ago, slowreflex said:

While it may be interesting, I didn't like playing against people that utilized this strategy in Netrunner. It was not an interactive game. They would not do anything significant for a long time and then win in one turn playing all their cards (and using combos it enabled). I'm hoping that strategy doesn't really work in this game.

It certainly won't work for a conflict victory as you can only make two Conflict challenges a turn and you need to break 4 provinces one of which is the Stonghold. Additionally, it's not like they can summon a ton of characters in one turn if they save up.

Just now, the eigensheep said:

I'm confused. Netrunner had a maximum hand (grip) size for both the Corp and the Runner.

They are referring to some Faust/Bagbiter/Hyperdriver combos that existed for awhile.

1 minute ago, Danwarr said:

They are referring to some Faust/Bagbiter/Hyperdriver combos that existed for awhile.

Ah, sure, but that required a good deal of setup and was really only problematic because of Faust (shocker!).

14 hours ago, Frentier said:

Also an additional +1/+2 on a province that can't be bowed (though we have not heard if being bowed removes your contribution to your side's total and/or removed your ability to play actions in that character)

If bowing doesn't remove your contribution to combat, then the Crane Stronghold ability looks pretty useless.

11 minutes ago, the eigensheep said:

Ah, sure, but that required a good deal of setup and was really only problematic because of Faust (shocker!).

Card draw is much easier in Nu5R with the Honor bid system so I can see where that might be a concern. Conflict cards still have a cost though so it's not like they are all free.

On 4/26/2017 at 5:37 PM, Koriume said:

First, of all the cards we have seen so far, I cannot find one with a poor art. Great job FFG.

I'm not a fan of the art on "I Can Swim". The rest look really good to me.

Just now, Danwarr said:

Card draw is much easier in Nu5R with the Honor bid system so I can see where that might be a concern. Conflict cards still have a cost though so it's not like they are all free.

Sure. I was just suggesting the reason all of those cards were a problem is because Faust operates on discards. It changes the fundamental economy of the game for the runner. There isn't enough value to increase your hand size to that degree otherwise.

Just now, slowreflex said:

I'm not a fan of the art on "I Can Swim". The rest look really good to me.

Ha! So far I think that one has my favorite art!

Just now, slowreflex said:

I'm not a fan of the art on "I Can Swim". The rest look really good to me.

I don't know that it 'fits' aesthetically, but I sure do find it entertaining.

5 minutes ago, slowreflex said:

I'm not a fan of the art on "I Can Swim". The rest look really good to me.

Do you just not like the water color events?

The card is a clear reference to the Scorpion and the Frog fable.