26 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

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.

Moving Cloud the Mind from someone about to expire to someone fresh, keeping those attachments relevant!

I think Cloud the mind will be very strong.

Wandering Bronin gets my vote in certain decks. He's a good threat since political pump is so hard to come by! We haven't seen any other non-Champ characters that can go toe to toe with Champs. He's only efficient at 5 fate though. And only certain decks will want him but I see him as a potential auto in Dragon and Phoenix if they get fate moving shenanigans.

58 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

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.

From what I understand, Crab are likely getting a second holding, as there is an unaccounted for card between the current holding and the first Crane character. There's a chance that it's a crane character but it would need to be before Asahina Artisan in order to be Crane, which seems unlikely.

This is exciting to me because they already have a nice holding, I'm interested to see what the second holding does!

And I agree with you that Shameful Display is easily the strongest neutral province we've seen so far. I'd be concerned if the unrevealed provinces offer anything more reliable, powerful or useful.

18 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

From what I understand, Crab are likely getting a second holding.....

And I agree with you that Shameful Display is easily the strongest neutral province we've seen so far. I'd be concerned if the unrevealed provinces offer anything more reliable, powerful or useful.

It would make sense that the Crab get a second holding and I am also very interested in seeing what it turns out to be. My guess would be some sort of holding that can be attached to the same province as another holding or somehow circumvent the normal restrictions of holdings cutting off the dynasty production.

When I first saw Shameful Display I thought it was mediocre. But, as more mechanics and cards were revealed it became very clear to me that it would likely be 1 of the best province's of the core set. One of those remaining 7 neutral province's is going to have to be something pretty special to knock SD out. Or, unless there is an elemental conflict with another of the clan specific provinces

I'd guess that SD is a Fire province as that is the Ring tied to honoring/dishonoring characters.

28 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

There's a chance that it's a crane character but it would need to be before Asahina Artisan in order to be Crane, which seems unlikely.

Asahina Aardvark confirmed!

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I'd guess that SD is a Fire province as that is the Ring tied to honoring/dishonoring characters.

Fire or Air seem to be good guesses as the Crane Province The Art of Peace has the Air element.

8 minutes ago, Danwarr said:

Fire or Air seem to be good guesses as the Crane Province The Art of Peace has the Air element.

The clan provinces may be tied to the element that best represents the clan

Air - Scorpion and Crane

Earth - Crab

Fire - Lion?

Water - Unicorn

Void - Phoenix, Dragon?

2 hours ago, Reiga said:

I think Cloud the mind will be very strong.

Wandering Bronin gets my vote in certain decks. He's a good threat since political pump is so hard to come by! We haven't seen any other non-Champ characters that can go toe to toe with Champs. He's only efficient at 5 fate though. And only certain decks will want him but I see him as a potential auto in Dragon and Phoenix if they get fate moving shenanigans.

Cloud the Mind will probably be in most decks, assuming that each Clan has a feasibly costed shugenja that they can include. I strongly believe that this card is more potent than the credit we are giving it.

And the Wandering Ronin is well worth the cost since it can be pumped up, as a few posters have already mentioned.

I still think that there will be further Neutral personality cards which will be included in all decks, but we haven't seen any yet.

Which means at least one clan is going to get the short end of the stick when it comes to province selection. Not being able to use Shameful Display or some other province because of overlapping elements will undoubtedly happen and someone will get butt hurt over it.

Hopefully it's not a serious balance issue and if it is, I hope it's resolved within the first expansion. The only thing I loathe more than seemingly preventable balance issues are the endless complaints about them. As great as the L5R community is in general, the passion some people have about their clan can sometimes be a problem when they perceive their clan is getting shafted, and then we have to hear all about it.

6 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

Cloud the Mind will probably be in most decks, assuming that each Clan has a feasibly costed shugenja that they can include.........

Me - Figure out how many CtM you want to run. Start with Miya Mystic then fill in with a couple other shugenja. Should be fine.

Sorry was having problem with copy and edit.

2 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

And I agree with you that Shameful Display is easily the strongest neutral province we've seen so far. I'd be concerned if the unrevealed provinces offer anything more reliable, powerful or useful.

This too.

Whuch further begs FFG to come up with similar cards for each respective Clan.

2 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

When I first saw Shameful Display I thought it was mediocre. But, as more mechanics and cards were revealed it became very clear to me that it would likely be 1 of the best province's of the core set. One of those remaining 7 neutral province's is going to have to be something pretty special to knock SD out. Or, unless there is an elemental conflict with another of the clan specific provinces

Yes, the other Province cards need to be in the same 'tier' as SD, if they are to compete for their inclusion. As it stands now, SD is an auto include for me regardless of my Clan. IMO.

Everyone saying how good shameful display is and how its the upper tier of province cards. I just want to point out we have only seen 2 neutral province cards and 3 clan cards, so we really have zero to compare with. For all we know SD is actually the bottom tier of province cards.

2 hours ago, JRosen9 said:

Everyone saying how good shameful display is and how its the upper tier of province cards. I just want to point out we have only seen 2 neutral province cards and 3 clan cards, so we really have zero to compare with. For all we know SD is actually the bottom tier of province cards.

Possible, but, IMO improbable that SD isn't a top tier province. Assuming that even one other clan champ has 3 glory you have a card that effectively could be 9 province strength. This isn't even considering the cards that key off honored or dishonored status.

I don't think anyone has lost sight of the fact that there are still more cards to come. All the assertions about the strength of SD are clear that they are based on what we know now. At least I know mine have. Half the fun of spoilers is speculating on the cards and then having a completely new perspective the following day when more cards get added to the mix.

Out of curiosity does anyone think that of the the 5 provinces revealed that SD and the Phoenix are not the top 2?

5 hours ago, Reiga said:

I think Cloud the mind will be very strong.

Wandering Bronin gets my vote in certain decks. He's a good threat since political pump is so hard to come by! We haven't seen any other non-Champ characters that can go toe to toe with Champs. He's only efficient at 5 fate though. And only certain decks will want him but I see him as a potential auto in Dragon and Phoenix if they get fate moving shenanigans.

I don't think he'll see that much play. He's too much of a one turn play and not exactly a strong one at that. Some of the 1 cost characters themselves could potentially threaten provinces with as little as 1 card (Banzai!, the cheap katana, or other pump). You brought up Dragon and Phoenix and they may end up being the ones to really play him depending on what the personality fate moving card(s) are. Plus, so many people seem to want to run Cloud the Mind, so the ronin tends to just be an incredibly over costed 3 drop.

Militarily I tend to agree with you Kubs. There are better options than Wandering Ronin. However we haven't seen a political equivalent of Banzai yet. WR might be the best option some clans have at a political province breaker.....no matter how bad he actually is. He does at least get himself out of range of the effects that target 2 cost or lower characters. That could end up being important.

15 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Militarily I tend to agree with you Kubs. There are better options than Wandering Ronin. However we haven't seen a political equivalent of Banzai yet. WR might be the best option some clans have at a political province breaker.....no matter how bad he actually is. He does at least get himself out of range of the effects that target 2 cost or lower characters. That could end up being important.

Couldn't conflict characters count? Yeah, they're not a buff in the sense of an event adding to a character's skill but still provide a 'instant' addition of skill to one side. I would like to see more neutrals or splashable clan cards though.

I haven't seen any "auto-includes regardless of decktype" cards yet, except for possibly Shameful Display (if people are right about there being a requirement for one province of every element, then there might be another province card of Shameful Display's element that is better in some situations). Wandering Ronin is definitely an "I need to actually play this before judging"-type card. As a Dragon player, I'll definitely be auto-including Ancestral Daisho--unless there's a better weapon with ancestral that we haven't seen yet. I could even see myself including it in my non-Dragon decks--it seems like it'd be very useful in a Lion deck, for example, since my doodz will all be dying early deaths. Unless of course there's a Lion ancestral weapon that's even better--but even if there is, why not have three of both? >:)

I'm not sold on Wandering Ronin. I get wanting some political ooomph, but to get that from him comes with a champion level price tag. Surely there will be better options for most clans. Some Clan characters can get pretty close to those stats simply by honoring.

I think it's too early to say what's an auto-include (as we don't fully understand the environment), but I'm happy to share some of my favorite cards thus far:

Crab: Eager Scout and Shrewd Yasuki. The former will be great for poking provinces early with the help of attachments. The latter seems like reasonably cheap card draw.

Crane: Voice of Honor.

Dragon: Doomed Shugenja - seems like an amazing value play. I'll probably be running 2 copies for a long, long time.

Lion: Staging Grounds and Ready for Battle.

Phoenix: Mori Kurio and Know the World. The former punishes decks that heavily favor one type of conflict - badly; this is an environment shaping card. The latter is an amazing swiss-army knife, which I'll probably run 1 or 2 copies of for the next 20 years of L5R.

Scorpion: Nothing so far. (Let's be honest though, Bayushi Shoju will be the best card in the game.)

Unicorn: Nothing so far.

Neutral: For Shame!, Shameful Display, and Cloud the Mind.

16 hours ago, JRosen9 said:

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

Unless I'm mistaken, you can only include a Phoenix province if you are playing Phoenix as your primary clan. Apart from your primary clan, I believe you can only play neutral provinces. I think the OP is about what you would auto-include regardless of your primary clan.

2 hours ago, slowreflex said:

Unless I'm mistaken, you can only include a Phoenix province if you are playing Phoenix as your primary clan. Apart from your primary clan, I believe you can only play neutral provinces. I think the OP is about what you would auto-include regardless of your primary clan.

This was my take as well. Unless of course your clan loyalty is such that you'd never so much as consider playing anything else.

2 hours ago, slowreflex said:

Unless I'm mistaken, you can only include a Phoenix province if you are playing Phoenix as your primary clan. Apart from your primary clan, I believe you can only play neutral provinces. I think the OP is about what you would auto-include regardless of your primary clan.

I think that you can only include cards that go into conflict deck, from a single other clan and have an influence cost...

9 hours ago, Kiseki said:

I'm not sold on Wandering Ronin. I get wanting some political ooomph, but to get that from him comes with a champion level price tag. Surely there will be better options for most clans. Some Clan characters can get pretty close to those stats simply by honoring.

Perhaps, though in that case the stats could also be simply taken away be dishonoring.

7 hours ago, slowreflex said:

... Apart from your primary clan, I believe you can only play neutral provinces. I think the OP is about what you would auto-include regardless of your primary clan.

Yes, that was my initial thoughts as I began the thread with. Though I should have posted my thoughts similarly like Mr Omura did with his above.

13 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Militarily I tend to agree with you Kubs. There are better options than Wandering Ronin. However we haven't seen a political equivalent of Banzai yet. WR might be the best option some clans have at a political province breaker.....no matter how bad he actually is. He does at least get himself out of range of the effects that target 2 cost or lower characters. That could end up being important.

Exactly as I was thinking.

While Wandering Ronin is not the best bang for your buck, he is able to have 6M 6P, that can be used by pumping his stats through Fate. I haven't come across any of the released cards that can get to those stats that easily. And, as stated by Ishi Tonu, his cost does put him out of range of effects that target lower costed personalities.

This neutral card should allow for any player, regardless of chosen primary Clan, to bring in a personality that can morph into a 6M 6P character that will instill fear into their opponents. I must stress how flexible this sort of character will be for deck building. (and we haven't seen the remaining Neutral personality cards yet)

16 hours ago, JRosen9 said:

Everyone saying how good shameful display is and how its the upper tier of province cards. I just want to point out we have only seen 2 neutral province cards and 3 clan cards, so we really have zero to compare with. For all we know SD is actually the bottom tier of province cards.

I totally agree. Though do consider how much more powerful other province cards (specifically looking at upcoming Crab and Scorpion Province cards) could/would be if they give Shameful Display a run for its money. !!!

I'm not certain that Wandering Ronin should be used as anything other than a gigantic bomb. He's in for a turn, blows up, then leaves. It might let a Lion player make a legitimate Pol attack or a Crane make a paltry Mil attack. It might let Unicorn swing a Pol attack vs. Lion and force over-commit or province loss. WR's strength seems to come from that fact that he is hard to plan defense around. "Surprise, I'm huge! Deal with it."

A clan like Lion/Crane may not be able to consistently threaten a second conflict during a turn. WR opens that up with his ability to solo provinces. That 5 cost is also paying for knelt opposing characters and perhaps drawing out a control card (which I think is wasteful, but have at it.) Knelt characters can't attack you back, so he has done some defensive work as well. His opportunity cost lessens as the game goes on and people save up some Fate. I envision last turns where someone buys two 5-fate WR and has +12 stats versus whatever their opponent is weakest at doing. Beast Mode.