Bidding a high number on the dial when dueling is the new equivalent of playing the o5r cards like Arrows from the Ranks or Unclean Cut - your person is cheating to win. It just doesn't take a card play now. If you want to duel honorably bid 1. If you choose to bid more then clearly winning is more important than honor.

I'm imagining some unusual duel comparisons that could be made - imagine a duel that compares claimed Rings.

A duel could compare excess Fate.

Or number of attached cards.

Or number of unbroken provinces - or broken.

Number of holdings.

Province Strengths.

Current hand size.

Number of characters in play.

There's a lot of interesting potential and some of these could have a neat story component to explain the unusual comparison.

7 hours ago, Mirith said:

Do you have evidence or reasoning behind this, besides "Its what the CCG did?"

I would point out that in the CCG, if you had equal force in a battle, both sides lost everyone. They changed it so that there is always a winner in a conflict (Not that it really made sense to keep it). Based on this, I would expect something similar for duels, where the 'attacker' wins ties (IE the Challenger).

This is all of course speculation. Someone ask tomorrow in the FFG live show.

At this stage, I'm not expecting duels to follow the mechanics for battles but we will see if someone asks a question about it. I think that, if you are correct, then duels are more honorable for the challenger because, given two equally matched personalities, the challenger will win if they both bid the same number. This has not been considered in the discussion in this thread so far, which has assumed that duels are inherently dishonorable (except for bully dueling of course, which is inherently honorable now).

4 minutes ago, Ryric said:

Bidding a high number on the dial when dueling is the new equivalent of playing the o5r cards like Arrows from the Ranks or Unclean Cut - your person is cheating to win. It just doesn't take a card play now. If you want to duel honorably bid 1. If you choose to bid more then clearly winning is more important than honor.

I'm imagining some unusual duel comparisons that could be made - imagine a duel that compares claimed Rings.

A duel could compare excess Fate.

Or number of attached cards.

Or number of unbroken provinces - or broken.

Number of holdings.

Province Strengths.

Current hand size.

Number of characters in play.

There's a lot of interesting potential and some of these could have a neat story component to explain the unusual comparison.

If a version of Hotaru is printed that represents her as a duelist, I could see her having a printed glory duel, both because she already has high glory and as a throwback to the first version of Hoturi.

I think Crane can gain honor quick enough that they will basically be able to use it as leverage in duels. The opponent won't be able to risk bidding high because it will put you too close to victory.

5 hours ago, Teslacrashed said:

So yeah, technically anyone can duel, but only Crane/Dragon have special tricks up their sleeves for it, so I'm fine with them getting the majority of duelling focus.

Yes, but so far Crane hasn't any special tricks. For Dragon it's probably less of a problem due to their attachment theme.

5 hours ago, Jedi samurai said:

But if they can't start a duel........

They can still accept one. And the duelist training can be included by other clans. If they want a bow effect that can backfire. I don't mind duels backfiring but they should be high risk, high reward. This one is high risk, telegraphed, costs 1 fate and it's effect is mediocre.

5 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Only when the characters are not honorable. If Doji Challenger, Kakita Kaezin or Doji Hotaru are honorable you are facing a 5+ Military characters which ill smack down a 3 Military Aggressive Moto or a 3 (4 if honorable) Military Matsu Berzerker/Lion's Pride Brawler.

But then we are including extra cards/effects. A Way of the lion boosts the Matsu to 6, Banzai boosts it to 7 (or 10 if both were used). I know Crane can also include neutral cards to boost their mil strength but at the moment we (and phoenix) are probably, and rightfully, the worst at Mil. (although phoenix have a 4 str character).

If duelist had a rulebook effect, if we had a duel that looked for glory instead of mil, if we saw a Crane event or character which manipulates duels all of these concerns would be much less but at the moment, and I have to repeat myself: Crane have 2 cards that initiate duels and nothing to help them win them that other clan's don't have acces to aswell.

In addition, 1 duel has a bow effect that can backfire. The other is interesting but, imho, not so powerful as most people expect it too be. Their will be less characters on the board then in o5r, character that are sent home can enter other conflicts later on in the turn. Is Kaizen sometimes good, yes, but when Hida Kisada comes knocking at our door with a jade tetsubo ...

Is all of this bad, I don't know since we haven't seen all the cards, nor played the game. But currently dueling is not one of the strength's of the Crane, it's an option but if i'm sitting across a Crane player I would be more afraid of their strong political game, event cancel/negation and how easily they honor characters.

2 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

Is all of this bad, I don't know since we haven't seen all the cards, nor played the game. But currently dueling is not one of the strength's of the Crane, it's an option but if i'm sitting across a Crane player I would be more afraid of their strong political game, event cancel/negation and how easily they honor characters.

I'm glad you put this in here at the end. It's worth remembering that, at this point, we've had one clan revealed, and are still missing some rules. Personally I think dueling looks interesting, and is something I'll definitely be trying out when playing. I'm not sure where it'll fall as far as usefulness, but I'm unsure on both sides - might be weak, but it also might be strong. It's also worth keeping in mind that this is the base set. Clans will probably have one theme, or approach, reasonably developed with hints on another one or two (I base this mostly off early AGoT 2.0 and what I've heard about there other games.) So, at the start, Crane are good at politics and honoring their people, with a start at dueling. Seems right on to me.

5 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

But then we are including extra cards/effects. A Way of the lion boosts the Matsu to 6, Banzai boosts it to 7 (or 10 if both were used). I know Crane can also include neutral cards to boost their mil strength but at the moment we (and phoenix) are probably, and rightfully, the worst at Mil. (although phoenix have a 4 str character).

You are downplaying Crane's ability to honor personalities, and how much Military that will give all the high Glory characters that the Crane have. Also consider that Way of the Lion and Banzai both require being in a conflict to use and defenders get first action.

5 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

If duelist had a rulebook effect, if we had a duel that looked for glory instead of mil, if we saw a Crane event or character which manipulates duels all of these concerns would be much less but at the moment, and I have to repeat myself: Crane have 2 cards that initiate duels and nothing to help them win them that other clan's don't have acces to aswell.

Yes, they do. Crane seem to have some on the highest Glory stats and some of the best ability to activate that Glory by honoring characters. Way of the Crane will honor any one of the 3 characters I mentioned in any action window.

Only examining the base stats is a bad idea. You need to consider what a character's honored, dishonored and neutral stats are and the clan's ability to access those stats.

6 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

In addition, 1 duel has a bow effect that can backfire. The other is interesting but, imho, not so powerful as most people expect it too be. Their will be less characters on the board then in o5r, character that are sent home can enter other conflicts later on in the turn.

The Bow effect duel is actually very win/win. I read it as Bow your guy or discard conflict cards/pay me honor to bow mine. Kaezin is similar being a send all but one of your characters home or pay me honor to send my guy home. In both cases you should never initiate a duel without setting things up in your favor before hand.

6 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

Is Kaizen sometimes good, yes, but when Hida Kisada comes knocking at our door with a jade tetsubo ...

You do other things to him. If he attacks solo bow him with Doji Gift Giver before he can do anything.

6 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

Is all of this bad, I don't know since we haven't seen all the cards, nor played the game. But currently dueling is not one of the strength's of the Crane, it's an option but if i'm sitting across a Crane player I would be more afraid of their strong political game, event cancel/negation and how easily they honor characters.

Part of your problem is that you only see winning the duel as the objective. You don't see how duels are win/win for the initiator and lose/lose for the one on the other end.

9 hours ago, Doji Tori said:

If a version of Hotaru is printed that represents her as a duelist, I could see her having a printed glory duel, both because she already has high glory and as a throwback to the first version of Hoturi.

Wait... The first version of Hoturi dueled using his glory stat??

26 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Wait... The first version of Hoturi dueled using his glory stat??

Well, Personal Honor but Glory is more or less the spiritual successor to PH.

http://www.imperialassembly.com/oracle/#cardid=2089,#hashid=c26a3a41d7357521e0065035dd3e33a9,#cardcount=0

11 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

Yes, but so far Crane hasn't any special tricks. For Dragon it's probably less of a problem due to their attachment theme.

They can still accept one. And the duelist training can be included by other clans. If they want a bow effect that can backfire. I don't mind duels backfiring but they should be high risk, high reward. This one is high risk, telegraphed, costs 1 fate and it's effect is mediocre.

But then we are including extra cards/effects. A Way of the lion boosts the Matsu to 6, Banzai boosts it to 7 (or 10 if both were used). I know Crane can also include neutral cards to boost their mil strength but at the moment we (and phoenix) are probably, and rightfully, the worst at Mil. (although phoenix have a 4 str character).

If duelist had a rulebook effect, if we had a duel that looked for glory instead of mil, if we saw a Crane event or character which manipulates duels all of these concerns would be much less but at the moment, and I have to repeat myself: Crane have 2 cards that initiate duels and nothing to help them win them that other clan's don't have acces to aswell.

In addition, 1 duel has a bow effect that can backfire. The other is interesting but, imho, not so powerful as most people expect it too be. Their will be less characters on the board then in o5r, character that are sent home can enter other conflicts later on in the turn. Is Kaizen sometimes good, yes, but when Hida Kisada comes knocking at our door with a jade tetsubo ...

Is all of this bad, I don't know since we haven't seen all the cards, nor played the game. But currently dueling is not one of the strength's of the Crane, it's an option but if i'm sitting across a Crane player I would be more afraid of their strong political game, event cancel/negation and how easily they honor characters.

Crane seem to be primarily about Honoring their characters. Dueling is also a thing, but it's not their primary thing, and therefore it's rather unreasonable to expect it to be fully developed in the base set.

I expect that when Mantis are eventually released, they'll start with a lot of Naval (however that looks) and only a couple Ranged cards. Would it make sense for me to complain about not being able to build a fully Wasp deck out of the very first set?

34 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I expect that when Mantis are eventually released, they'll start with a lot of Naval (however that looks) and only a couple Ranged cards. Would it make sense for me to complain about not being able to build a fully Wasp deck out of the very first set?

Stay away of our shores !

12 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

Yes, but so far Crane hasn't any special tricks.

Well, it is just a Core set. There is room for growing.

16 hours ago, williamobrien said:

I think Crane can gain honor quick enough that they will basically be able to use it as leverage in duels. The opponent won't be able to risk bidding high because it will put you too close to victory.

This guy gets it.

Everyone keeps assuming that the flavor is off because winning a duel will require throwing away honor.

No!

Winning a duel against a superior opponent may require throwing away honor. You can bet your sweet bippy that, the vast majority of the time, the crane honor player is going to be bidding a 1 in any duel they throw. So, your decision as the challanged is would you prefer to (a) win and give them honor or (b) lose.

Unlike in the CCG, this is an actual decision. From what we have seen, it is quite possible for either participant to win any duel depending on the decisions made by the players. The person throwing the duel will always pick on someone smaller and (assuming no fancy tricks) always get something out of it (either honor or victory) and the challenged will always lose something (honor or the duel).

This means that duels are worth playing for almost everyone, assuming you have at least a few sizable people in your deck. This is a vast improvement from the CCG, where the dueling deck beats the non-dueling deck in a duel nearly every time with nothing interesting coming from it.

Or, as it was lovingly described by the CCG developers at some point: "Kurohito kills that guy."

Exactly. Dueling in the CCG either resulted in the duelist always losing, or always winning - there seemed to be no middle ground given how imbalanced the game was. I recall in Celestial there were 30+ dueling meta cards printed but only 10+ dueling boosting cards. Talk about annoying.

1 hour ago, kpsmith said:

Exactly. Dueling in the CCG either resulted in the duelist always losing, or always winning - there seemed to be no middle ground given how imbalanced the game was. I recall in Celestial there were 30+ dueling meta cards printed but only 10+ dueling boosting cards. Talk about annoying.

In situation where two duel deck played against each other (or fe Tactical deck). In CE there's was only Focusing from Decks so there always was a moment of nervousness about how your FV cheated you or not.

Wasn't a Celestial an edition where Duelist allowed to Focus first? I'm just checking Celestial card pool and there's plenty of positive Focus Effects so i really don't know what are you talking about "10+ dueling boosting cards" only.

10 minutes ago, kempy said:

Wasn't a Celestial an edition where Duelist allowed to Focus first? I'm just checking Celestial card pool and there's plenty of positive Focus Effects so i really don't know what are you talking about "10+ dueling boosting cards" only.

Duelists could focus first but not strike against non-Duelists, but it's not much of a boon if your opponent doesn't Focus in response.

3 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

Duelists could focus first but not strike against non-Duelists, but it's not much of a boon if your opponent doesn't Focus in response.

So? If your non-Duelist OP didn't focused and you had possibility to Focus as first, duel ends and Focus Effect resolves. In other words, you gained reward as winner of Challenge and from Focus Effect.

23 minutes ago, kempy said:

In situation where two duel deck played against each other (or fe Tactical deck). In CE there's was only Focusing from Decks so there always was a moment of nervousness about how your FV cheated you or not.

Wasn't a Celestial an edition where Duelist allowed to Focus first? I'm just checking Celestial card pool and there's plenty of positive Focus Effects so i really don't know what are you talking about "10+ dueling boosting cards" only.

Actually count every Focus Effect and see the huge disparity between good ones and bad ones.

3 minutes ago, kempy said:

So? If your non-Duelist OP didn't focused and you had possibility to Focus as first, duel ends and Focus Effect resolves. In other words, you gained reward as winner of Challenge and from Focus Effect.

Yeah, I forget that there was at least one good focus effect in Celestial. It's been so long since someone didn't just "ugh strike" in a duel.

1 minute ago, Kakita Shiro said:

Yeah, I forget that there was at least one good focus effect in Celestial. It's been so long since someone didn't just "ugh strike" in a duel.

I get why they changed to focus pools in the CCG after the calamity that was dueling in mid / late Diamond, but I preferred the old dueling rules for precisely this reason. You had to risk something in order to duel.

Even if you were almost certain to win, your opponent could draw out some of your hand and make you pay for it. Once focus pools showed up and dueling became "free" this whole dynamic disappeared.

I am excited to see it back, in a way, in the LCG.

53 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

Yeah, I forget that there was at least one good focus effect in Celestial. It's been so long since someone didn't just "ugh strike" in a duel.

But you still had duel effect and focus effect without losing temp. I mean, if you challenged non-Duelist OP with same or higher Chi you got "free" Focus Effect included (if you draw any from 3 cards you put in Focus Pool).

Playable FE i remember from CE even if i didn't play duel decks: Hamstrung, Discovering a Conspiracy, Discretionary Valor, Impetuous Challenge, Shadow's Talon, The Slow Death

17 hours ago, Mig el Pig said:

They can still accept one. And the duelist training can be included by other clans. If they want a bow effect that can backfire. I don't mind duels backfiring but they should be high risk, high reward. This one is high risk, telegraphed, costs 1 fate and it's effect is mediocre.

But I dunno if you can consider a character who can't start a duel when it would be benefical to them, but only respond, and would only be "as good" in certain situations "as good" at it.

Is the effect mediocre?

Question: Ties in duels

Answer: No winner. No loss penalties, no win bonuses.

2 minutes ago, kpsmith said:

Question: Ties in duels

Answer: No winner. No loss penalties, no win bonuses.

Interesting. That changes the situation slightly.

A challengers will get Win(victory effect)/Win(gain honor)/Win at Cost (gain honor but have penalty inflicted)

The challengers will get Lose(loss effect)/Lose(lose honor)/Win at Cost (lose honor but inflict penalty)

4 hours ago, kpsmith said:

Question: Ties in duels

Answer: No winner. No loss penalties, no win bonuses.

So, if there is a political duel between Doji Hotaru and Isawa Masahiro, and Hotaru is the challenger: If Hotaru bids 1 and Masahiro bids 5 then there is no winner because both have scored 7. But is honor still exchanged? Masahiro's player still gives 4 honor to Hotaru's player?