While we don't have all of the cards yet (given), coupled with a ton of interest to/with/for the various individual Clans by our posters on this site, I thought I pose this question:

Given what we currently know, what are your thoughts as to the relative "strength" of the 7 Clans? Which Clan is 'tough' enough to competitively go against the other Clans when judged by the released cards we have? Which Clan do you believe can put together a 'sick' deck with their Influence (which we only know of 2 Strongholds so far, iirc) and come up with a killer deck? etc.

Thoughts?

Right now Lion scares me the most if they continue to trend the way they are trending. I imagine Scorpion will have a reasonably high deck building skill as a barrier for entry, but their power levels are up in the air right now.

1 minute ago, Kiseki said:

Right now Lion scares me the most if they continue to trend the way they are trending. I imagine Scorpion will have a reasonably high deck building skill as a barrier for entry, but their power levels are up in the air right now.

Honestly if Scorpion continues to have tricky and high skill floor cards, then I think they will do poorly out of the box because they will lack some meat.

Just now, BayushiCroy said:

Honestly if Scorpion continues to have tricky and high skill floor cards, then I think they will do poorly out of the box because they will lack some meat.

Yeah, that would also be true. It'll depend how we do in the "teeth" department I think. And if we get some sharp teeth, then there might be an aggressive Scorpion variant that ignores the strong but subtle (not to mention expensive) control elements and just goes for the face early on. If we do get that, then it'll probably take several packs for our control archetype to be viable.

I'm worried about the Dragon and Phoenix. Relying on powered up individuals seems like a bad idea in a game where nothing lasts, especially with enough ways to nullify/remove characters. The the play style with how some of their cards interact with the rings might turn out to be too gimmicky.

I feel the unicorn may turn out to be better when being the junior partner in other decks. Their Calvary doing a better job supporting the strength of other decks. We'll see how the crab do offensively when they don't have their holdings to protect them. Do the scorpion have enough "oomph" beyond their tricks/skill cards? I'm curious to see what the Crane will be packing diplomatically. I'm thinking a Crane/Dragon mix for decks. I get good feelings about the Lion. In a game where nothing lasts, being able to pump out honored-weenies every turn seems like a strong strategy.

I think it's far too early to say, but where's the fun in that?

I think Dragon will be a strong choice, especially if Doomed Shugenja can be played from the Conflict deck (a 3/3 for 1 played directly into a conflict?? AND can then have fate added to it? Yes please!). They have multiple balanced characters between Military and Political skill, a known design around attachments, ring synergy, and duelists, not to mention the niten style is just insanely awesome!

I'd expect Lion and Crab to do well in the early days too as they both seem fairly straightforward, whereas Clans relying on more complex strategies will likely have a higher learning curve and/or require multiple packs worth of cards to reach their full potential - Scorpion as noted above, possibly Crane (but given Crane's track record maybe not), and maybe even Unicorn.

I'm not worried about the state of Dragon from what we've seen. I'm actually seriously considering them as a number 2.

I'm very satisfied with the Unicorn so far. I like that the Aggressive Moto has zero glory: makes him less vulnerable to dishonor, and it's a flavorful choice given his gaijin ancestry. As for the Shinjo Outrider...well, let's just say that players new to L5R are gonna learn some hard lessons when they face a Unicorn deck for the first time.

Something tells me that my first deck is going to be a Pheonix deck aiming to abuse the 4/1 guys ability to stall out Military while sneaking in Political wins, cause something tells me they won't be the strongest in any one stat, but viable in both. Also, you never know whats cracking with the spells! Also, I want Crab to be good and think they will be, despite my initial impressions about holdings.

But truth be told, I think I'll need to play around with stuff to get Phoenix and Scorpion decks running, much as I want to.

Lion, on the other hand, looks like it might well just fall together into an obvious pile and smoke stuff.

My intention is actually to make a Lion pile for my mrs as her intro to the game and then that thing becomes my thing to beat with the other stuff that's less obviously sick lol

Historically, in most games, the most straightforward decks work best when dealing with a limited card pool. Therefore, I would imagine that fairly brainless military decks out of Lion, Crab, and possibly Unicorn will be the best right out of the gate.

This will change once more cards are added to the card pool and everyone else has a chance to catch up.

It's hard to say which clan will be stronger as a base clan because we know so little of what those clans do and how they operate (in addition to seeing their best characters and holdings).

However, in terms of what clans best "splash" into other clans' conflict decks...

I foresee a lot of decks early on having Scorpion cards splashed into their decks. Blackmail is likely going to be one of the largest strength swings available in the core set of the game. Considering we've seen multiple 2 cost or lower characters with 2s and 3s (plus abilities that allow them to gain more strength), a 3 fate card may result in a 4 to 6 strength swing. And that's before accounting for attachments that character may be equipped with. I Can Swim also seems like an incredibly efficient way of removing characters from the game and will basically force your opponent to rehonor any characters you dishonor as quickly as possible. Or else they'd be forced to bid low consistently in order to deny the potential I Can Swim until they find a way to rehonor their character.

I also think Crab will see play in a lot of decks. Reprieve and Jade Tetsubo are both elite cards, from what I can tell so far, that apply to just about any clan, regardless of their ultimate goal. Keeping characters on the board longer with reprieve and smacking characters upside the head in a military challenge after gaining +3 military skill both seem like...amazing abilities. The ability to knock all fate off of a character could really mess up a character. You're basically making it so that putting characters with a lot of fate on them in military challenges will always be a risky measure.

Other than that, Unicorn has "go first" tech, which may be useful for certain decks and Crane have some interesting effects, like bowing characters that defend alone, with Admit Defeat and drawing cards with The Perfect Gift. We've seen Pheonix has a Courtier/Shujenja dual keyword character that comes from their conflict deck, so that may be useful, depending on how rare courtiers are and how impactful their keyword specific cards are, such as allowing for a surprise Cloud the Mind.

It's not yet clear to me if you can include any number of different clans in a deck up to the influence value of your stronghold. For example, if I have 10 influence available, can I include 1 Blackmail (influence of 3), 3 reprieves, (1 influence each) and 2 Admit Defeats (2 influence each) into a Lion Clan deck? Or do I have to choose 1 or maybe 2 clans from which I can bring in non-clan cards to my conflict deck? The deck building, as far as I know, hasn't yet been fully laid out.

4 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

It's not yet clear to me if you can include any number of different clans in a deck up to the influence value of your stronghold. For example, if I have 10 influence available, can I include 1 Blackmail (influence of 3), 3 reprieves, (1 influence each) and 2 Admit Defeats (2 influence each) into a Lion Clan deck? Or do I have to choose 1 or maybe 2 clans from which I can bring in non-clan cards to my conflict deck? The deck building, as far as I know, hasn't yet been fully laid out.

Influence to be included from only one clan other than that showed in your stronghold, as per the last FB life.

My thoughts are similar to most of the posters above, with maybe a few tweaks.

From the few cards we have seen, Lion (offensive military strengths), Crab (defensive military strengths), Crane ('defensive' political abilities) and Scorpion ('offensive' political abilities) jump out at me. Most of this is pure speculation, as we don't have all of the cards out yet. While I am planning on playing a Dragon deck, from the few Dragon cards that I have seen, I can see how Dragon would be able to shift from Military to Political conflicts more easily than the before mentioned Clans. However, Dragon, Phoenix and Scorpion have yet to "wow" me with any of their released cards.

Furthermore, I am interested to see what the Neutral cards bring to the game such that I am certain various Clans will include some of those cards, while other Clans might need to include more than the typical 'auto-includes.'

Lastly, as mentioned in other threads, support cards must be factored into this equation, for which we don't have much knowledge to go about. Strongholds will also influence my selection of cards, as the attached Influence attribute might/should have a bearing on which Clan I buy cards from.

As of right now, I still am focused on Dragon with possible Crane or Scorpion for Political support. Am seriously hoping that all 7 Clans come out of the gate fairly balanced...

1 hour ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Historically, in most games, the most straightforward decks work best when dealing with a limited card pool. Therefore, I would imagine that fairly brainless military decks out of Lion, Crab, and possibly Unicorn will be the best right out of the gate.

I totally agree with your assessment above. Some of the Lion cards are just too easy to play with, with the same being said of Unicorn and (Politically) Crane.

2 minutes ago, barrufet said:

Influence to be included from only one clan other than that showed in your stronghold, as per the last FB life.

Okay, then that's actually good news, in my opinion :D.

Makes predicting your opponent possible, which will be nice.

I wonder if you have to announce if you have another clan in your conflict deck or if that won't be revealed to your opponent until you play the first out-of-clan card during the game.

1 hour ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Historically, in most games, the most straightforward decks work best when dealing with a limited card pool. Therefore, I would imagine that fairly brainless military decks out of Lion, Crab, and possibly Unicorn will be the best right out of the gate.

This will change once more cards are added to the card pool and everyone else has a chance to catch up.

My counter to this idea is, in this game, unlike many others, even the 'political' clans must attack. So, where in Old5R, Crab and Lion were all about attacking and Crane and Scorpion were more about artfully dodging their opponents as they decreased/increased honor, this versions' political decks can smash provinces just as easily as the strong guys.

It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

4 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I wonder if you have to announce if you have another clan in your conflict deck or if that won't be revealed to your opponent until you play the first out-of-clan card during the game.

My guess is it's the latter.

Which, when Dynasty packs are released, might really throw your opponents off if you decide to not include any support cards from other Clans. ??? (however odd that might be... and given some of what we know about the game, it would be foolish to not include any support cards from other Clans, right?)

1 minute ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

My counter to this idea is, in this game, unlike many others, even the 'political' clans must attack...

Agreed.

Which allows me to believe that said mentioned Clans that mostly rely on either Military or Political conflicts as their forte might seriously be at a disadvantage versus the other Clans that have a more balanced Military/Political strengths. I am applying this belief to the Core set, not when some of the Dynasty packs get released further down the road.

I'm happy I ain't the only one thinking in this manner.

9 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

... this versions' political decks can smash provinces just as easily as the strong guys.

I am not convinced this is true. From what we have seen so far, it is far easier to gain military skill than political skill. Smashing provinces via political looks like it will require a lot more effort than smashing them militarily.

Of course, take that statement with many grains of salt. I am looking forward to seeing the Crane previews on Wednesday to see if this is truly how it will shake out.

1 minute ago, Yogo Gohei said:

I am not convinced this is true. From what we have seen so far, it is far easier to gain military skill than political skill. Smashing provinces via political looks like it will require a lot more effort than smashing them militarily.

Of course, take that statement with many grains of salt. I am looking forward to seeing the Crane previews on Wednesday to see if this is truly how it will shake out.

We've seen a lot more military heavy stuff, but we also haven't seen a lot of crane/scorpion attachments, where I'd wager most of the political skill lies.

anything FFG has put out in articles has leaned heavily on the military conflict, but that doesn't mean there isn't an healthy amount of political boosts and battle as well.

Scorpion cards LOOK really strong, which means they'll be hot garbage. So far, I like unicorn's spoiled cards the most. Phoenix seems fine.

It is way too soon for strenght speculation as a whole, but I find this thread quite interesting, as we can discuss the potential of some features.

I mean, there are some sinergies already discovered. The focus that has been placed by Joe from Cincinnati on the influence rule is quite accurate.

We can imagine the dragon clan matching cool enough with any clan that shows powerful and cheap attachments. If we see in a near future (and I wouldnt be surprised) a dragon character whose text gives him some kind of bonus while she has an attachment, then we can imagine it would be a fine combination with Retrieve. Specially as we could draw Retrieve with the ability of the Agasha Swordsmith. Retrieve is cheap, may be one of the few protection cards we find on the Core set, and character protection seems to be a good choice for a clan focused on attachment play.

If that protection comes from an attachment itself... jolly good.

Im sure we will find more sinergies with what we have seen.

Without seeing everything, I speculate that Unicorn might have an early edge against the rest of the clans. Being able to control first player status is one of the few ways to gain extra fate as it gives them the first opportunity to pass the dynasty phase to gain extra fate as well as select the first ring in the conflict phase and have the option of gaining extra fate there too.

11 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Without seeing everything, I speculate that Unicorn might have an early edge against the rest of the clans. Being able to control first player status is one of the few ways to gain extra fate as it gives them the first opportunity to pass the dynasty phase to gain extra fate as well as select the first ring in the conflict phase and have the option of gaining extra fate there too.

We will have to see how being first player works out. I could see it being an advantage, but it could also be a disadvantage in many cases. Being first player means you must initiate the first conflict (or pass and, presumably, give up a conflict that turn). That will allow your opponent to see what you're trying to do and defend (or not defend) accordingly, putting you in a position where you either did not commit enough to the conflict or committed way too much, wasting resources and opening yourself up to a particularly vicious counter attack.

Obviously, the other side of that coin is you get first dibs at ring choice, like you said. But with 5 options, it's not like there will be only one good thing to do in a round.

In a Game of Thrones, there are very specific times to go first. Those times are:

1. When you have an effect that will severely damage their board before they get the chance to attack (multiple kill effects or multiple kneel effects)

2. If you attack and win, you win the game before they get a chance to win.

3. You have cards that require you be first player in order to use them.

Outside of those conditions, it was almost always more beneficial to go second.

Different game, obviously, but I could see the thought process could be similar, especially now that FFG owns L5R and will likely print cards that are similar to those in A Game of Thrones.

13 hours ago, Reiga said:

I think Dragon will be a strong choice, especially if Doomed Shugenja can be played from the Conflict deck (a 3/3 for 1 played directly into a conflict?? AND can then have fate added to it? Yes please!).

I feel pretty confident that there is no way the Doomed Shugenja will ever be able to make the leap from your Dynasty to your Conflict. It is exactly what it seems to be -- a one-shot powerful and cheap bomb that blows up after use.

On the other hand, if there is any way to put Fate on characters after they're in play, you could perhaps use those effects to keep your Doomed Shugenja around. We haven't seen anything like that though.

4 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

I feel pretty confident that there is no way the Doomed Shugenja will ever be able to make the leap from your Dynasty to your Conflict. It is exactly what it seems to be -- a one-shot powerful and cheap bomb that blows up after use.

On the other hand, if there is any way to put Fate on characters after they're in play, you could perhaps use those effects to keep your Doomed Shugenja around. We haven't seen anything like that though.

Reprieve would work as a virtual "+1 fate" card. Although the Doomed Shugenja will still be knelt by the ring of water.