While we don't have all of the Core cards revealed yet, I am eager to see which cards the L5R community believes should be an "auto-include" in one's deck.

In my opinion, regardless of which Clan I decide to choose for my primary clan, I plan to auto-include the following cards:

3 Cloud the Mind

2-3 Banzai!

EDIT 1-2 Wandering Samurai (Due to not being able to relocate the preview of the card, I am not able to comment on it right now)

My reasoning is that some of the Personality cards we have seen have scary abilities attributed to them which must be dealt with as efficiently as possible. This is why I believe Cloud the Mind comes into play and must be placed in every deck. As for Banzai, a card that gives you a +2Military or +4Military at the cost of 1 Honor must also be in all of my decks, with maybe a few exceptions that I can't pre-plan for as of yet.

What are some of your choices?

At the moment it seems good, except cloud the mind might only be auto include if you have enough spell casters. So that one seems kinda deck dependent.

also have we heard if there will be a sidedecks in this game? If so then some anti meta autoincludes would be side board auto includes instead.

Just now, Spawnod said:

also have we heard if there will be a sidedecks in this game? If so then some anti meta autoincludes would be side board auto includes instead.

FFG does not use sideboards in any of their games. You play with the deck you brought.

Banzai certainly does look good, but it's interesting to compare it to Fine Katana. The Katana gives +2 military skill for 0 fate, while Banzai gives +4 for 0 fate and 1 honor. However, the katana sticks around, so could help you in 2 or more challenges, as well as possibly duels or other game effects. I don't think Banzai is a complete slam dunk, I may lean towards the Katana or similar attachments in duel-heavy decks.

Cloud the Mind is another interesting one simply because it requires a Shugenja. It will force you to include more Shugenja in your deck if you want to pack three copies, as you may end up with dead cards in hand. The concept of mono no aware also means that throwing attachments on your opponents characters isn't quite as impactful as it is in say AGoT2.0, as they're going away in a few turns anyways. Still, the effect is quite powerful in the right circumstances, but whether or not you can take advantage of those circumstances given the Shugenja restriction will make it a narrower card. I like that, personally, I didn't enjoy how prevalent Milk of the Poppy was in AGoT2.0, since blanking characters is frankly not "fun".

Auto-includes for me right now would likely be the "Way of"s for both Crane and Lion, they seem to fit their clan's themes very well. I don't think I've seen a neutral auto-include yet (Banzai being closest).

I think the only card I would call an auto include is the Phoenix province card. Being able to switch either conflict type or ring type is amazingly strong

49 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

EDIT 1-2 Wandering Samurai (Due to not being able to relocate the preview of the card, I am not able to comment on it right now)

http://l5r.gamepedia.com/Wandering_Ronin

This card? This card is terrible! It is an auto-exclude.

Yeah wandering Ronin was much better when we hadn't seen any other characters that cost that much. Now he seems like he won't get any serious play.

2 minutes ago, profparm said:

Yeah wandering Ronin was much better when we hadn't seen any other characters that cost that much. Now he seems like he won't get any serious play.

He might see play at the beginning just because you are searching for a card to make a 40 card deck. Right now if you include 3 copies of every crane card, you end up with 42 cards. Chances are though you don't want 3 of every card and will be looking to add something else instead. But yes, once we have a few dynasty packs, this guy will probably find a permanent home in card box.

Wandering Ronin's role will be a closer in a clan who is strong in one conflict type but weak in another.

Yeah, Wandering Ronin isn't that cost efficient, but he compensates for that by being a potential explosive threat in both conflict types who laughs at being dishonored. He exists solely to sit at 2 or 3 fate tokens and stop that Crane political blitz from wrecking your province by going from 2 to 6, or to sneak in a random political win as a Lion when your opponent miscalculated your political power and you go SURPRISE POLITICAL RONIN on their province.

Or he can chill and act as a slowly burning down deterrent while you work on something else.

11 minutes ago, WHW said:

Yeah, Wandering Ronin isn't that cost efficient, but he compensates for that by being a potential explosive threat in both conflict types who laughs at being dishonored. He exists solely to sit at 2 or 3 fate tokens and stop that Crane political blitz from wrecking your province by going from 2 to 6, or to sneak in a random political win as a Lion when your opponent miscalculated your political power and you go SURPRISE POLITICAL RONIN on their province.

Or he can chill and act as a slowly burning down deterrent while you work on something else.

We'll have to wait and see how he does with everyone else, but having multiple options on the table that your opponent has to take into account is rarely a bad thing.

Revealing information can be as useful as concealing it, if it helps you guide your opponent's plans.

EDIT: Though, I do have to say that I find it a little surprising that a ronin would be so skilled at politics.

It's also worth remembering that cards don't automatically die in the conflict resolution. So you could declare an attack with the Ronin (solo or with friends), forcing your opponent to *defend as if the Ronin went super sayian*, and then decide if you want to burn his fate to force pump or not after you see how the battle is playing.

I mean, this guy can wreck provinces by himself - Solo Ronin who burns 2 Fate is 6 Military / 6 Politics, and your opponent has to account for possibility of having something like Banzai! in your hand or other form of "me big me smash" (Legendary Super Ronin with Banzai goes from 2/2 to 10/6 for a cost of 7 Fate, 1 Honor and 1 Conflict Card). Again, the best thing about him is that you force your opponent to allocate resources preemptively in order to contain the *potential threat*, so you could totally send a solo ronin and draw a whole army against him, and then just spend 0 resources because you don't like the numbers after all.

Though the fact that defenders get first action might be his doom, because that's the point of time where he is still a humble 2/2 instead of 6/6, which means he could be possibly sniped by things like "Bow Military/Political lower than three". Admit Defeat also kinda ruins his day when he is a solo defender.

It's my understanding that there are 10 neutral provinces and then 1 province per clan, for 17 total.

I would be absolutely shocked if every deck didn't run Shameful Display, at least out of the Core Set, barring some sort of inclusion barriers (only one province of each ring type, for instance) that clashes with your clan specific province.

There are 7 neutral provinces we have not yet seen, but I would hope the power level of them isn't much higher than "dishonor any one character and honor any one character" especially with all the potential abilities focused around honor and dishonor. Plus it's repeatable for each battle at that province!

Elemental Fury may have a similar level of "auto-inclusion" during the core set. Again, it all depends on what those 7 other provinces are.

As for cards we've seen so far for the conflict and dynasty deck...I'm not so sure there are any at the minute except for Banzai! and, perhaps, Cloud the Mind (depends on how many Shugenja you have available to you.)

Fine Katana, I'm sure, will see a ton of play, as a 0 cost attachment that gives 2 strength in military.

I'm not so sure Wandering Ronin will see a ton of play. a 3 fate character that needs more fate to be anything beyond a blank body is expensive. It may see play in clans that are more event or holding focused and may, therefore, suffer in terms of character quality (Crab and Scorpion, perhaps). 3 fate for a 2/2 isn't bad value overall I suppose, but it's not like it's a "good deal." It'll depend on playstyle. Lion probably doesn't care much for them, for example. Especially if they truly are a blitzy mini curve deck.

3 Fate cost can be a boon - this means he can't be Assasiinated and burned by people like Isawa Masahiro. It might be a thing that kill effects don't target stuff that costs 3 or more. Again, I see him mostly as a fun turn 1 blitz option that could potentially kill a province, and as a reactive burst defence for "Crane is marching at me with billion political power, I already have large military, I just need extra political cushion and I'm willing to spend tons of Fate on in".

Lot of depends on how popular and easy will be "bow this fool" effects, though. If each opening hand will have 2 or 3 ways to deal with a Wandering Godzilla, then he is trash.

Way of the Crane looks like a Crane autoinclude if I have ever seen one. Only exception I can think of is if you are splashing Scorpion cards that care about having lower honor than the opponent, or a future Harrier deck that plays differently from the Crane we've seen so far.

Then again all Way of Clan cards seem designed to be this so maybe is not even worth mentioning.

23 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

It's my understanding that there are 10 neutral provinces and then 1 province per clan, for 17 total.

I would be absolutely shocked if every deck didn't run Shameful Display, at least out of the Core Set, barring some sort of inclusion barriers (only one province of each ring type, for instance) that clashes with your clan specific province.

There are 7 neutral provinces we have not yet seen, but I would hope the power level of them isn't much higher than "dishonor any one character and honor any one character" especially with all the potential abilities focused around honor and dishonor. Plus it's repeatable for each battle at that province!

Elemental Fury may have a similar level of "auto-inclusion" during the core set. Again, it all depends on what those 7 other provinces are.

We will see. The assumption is that each element will have 2 province cards. Therefore, each clan will have 2 options for four province cards and 3 options for the last province card. I would assume that the clan province cards are all more powerful than the neutral ones and then the neutral ones will all be around equivalent power. If all of that is true, I would actually say that none of the province cards are auto includes (unless one of the neutral ones is hands down better than the other one).

6 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

We will see. The assumption is that each element will have 2 province cards. Therefore, each clan will have 2 options for four province cards and 3 options for the last province card. I would assume that the clan province cards are all more powerful than the neutral ones and then the neutral ones will all be around equivalent power. If all of that is true, I would actually say that none of the province cards are auto includes (unless one of the neutral ones is hands down better than the other one).

I can see a reason to not auto include Endless Plains. It's an odd province.

8 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

I would assume that the clan province cards are all more powerful than the neutral ones and then the neutral ones will all be around equivalent power.

Shameful Display seems much better than Elemental Fury to me. Fury can only trigger once and has a pretty mild effect; some rings are better than others for particular decks, sure, but they're all good. Phoenix might like it more, though.

Just now, Casanunda said:

Shameful Display seems much better than Elemental Fury to me. Fury can only trigger once and has a pretty mild effect; some rings are better than others for particular decks, sure, but they're all good. Phoenix might like it more, though.

I should have been more specific. I meant I assume that the neutral province cards of the same elements would be roughly equivalent in power. Right now I don't think we have a lot of info on the elements. I may be recalling incorrectly, but I think the only neutral province card we know the element of is Elemental Fury.

1 minute ago, JRosen9 said:

I should have been more specific. I meant I assume that the neutral province cards of the same elements would be roughly equivalent in power. Right now I don't think we have a lot of info on the elements. I may be recalling incorrectly, but I think the only neutral province card we know the element of is Elemental Fury.

I see your point. If that's true, though, then provinces of one element would be better than others, which could cause all kinds of balance problems down the road, since each clan will likely (not always) want to include their class-specific province. Those that share the same element as Shameful Display are probably less happy than those than share with Elemental Fury, for example.

Just now, Casanunda said:

I see your point. If that's true, though, then provinces of one element would be better than others, which could cause all kinds of balance problems down the road, since each clan will likely (not always) want to include their class-specific province. Those that share the same element as Shameful Display are probably less happy than those than share with Elemental Fury, for example.

I'd think they may want to keep similar effects together so you can't load your deck with all of the same effect. If this is true, I would assume shameful display is Air forcing crane to choose between their clan one and it. However, this thought is already partially debunked with Elemental Fury being Water while the Phoenix one is Void

1 hour ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

It's my understanding that there are 10 neutral provinces and then 1 province per clan, for 17 total.

I would be absolutely shocked if every deck didn't run Shameful Display, at least out of the Core Set, barring some sort of inclusion barriers (only one province of each ring type, for instance) that clashes with your clan specific province.

There are 7 neutral provinces we have not yet seen, but I would hope the power level of them isn't much higher than "dishonor any one character and honor any one character" especially with all the potential abilities focused around honor and dishonor. Plus it's repeatable for each battle at that province!

Elemental Fury may have a similar level of "auto-inclusion" during the core set. Again, it all depends on what those 7 other provinces are.

Do we know how many copies of the same province can we run? Are we limited to three copies, one of each or can we run the same province 5 times?

4 minutes ago, blackheartz said:

Do we know how many copies of the same province can we run? Are we limited to three copies, one of each or can we run the same province 5 times?

We know nothing for sure, but one assumption since each province has an element on it and you need 5 provinces, that you must have 1 province of each element. If thats the case you will not be able to duplicate ANY provinces.

Miya Mystic gets my vote, as it's a nice compliment to Cloud the Mind. Being able to move attachments on your opponent's characters seems very strong to me. Like moving Pacifism to someone already in a military battle so they have to come home and can't come back......after another character already missed the conflict assignment because they originally had Pacifism attached.

Lion holding ×2 in every Lion deck. Potentially seeing 6 dynasty cards a turn is really good.

Crab holding is likely an auto include as they seem to have cards based around holdings. Likewise attachment centric cards for Dragon.

Phoenix province attached to stronghold is pretty much a given.

Shameful Display is IMO the best of the neutral province's revealed so far as it not only represents the potential for the biggest skill swing it also provides a repeatable way of honoring/dishonoring characters and we've already seen plent to suggest that is of great importance.

'Way of' cards will likely be autoincludes for their matching clans as many other clan cards appear to be tied to the theme represented on the 'Way of' cards.

I want to see a unicorn player so cocky they put endless plains on their stronghold every game, face up.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. It only matters if you break 3 other provinces."