8 hours ago, williamobrien said:

It might be worth trying Master as a reason to pass first. Like buy two cheap guys, and if your opponent buys two guys as well you can pass to get the extra fate and essentially buy Master for 2 fate cost (almost like a 1 since you're also costing the opponent a fate). A turn that looks like Obstinate Recruit + Eiji for 5 + pass with Master in your hand and an Eiji target in province seems pretty strong. It could also work to make Oathkeeper more useful on his off turns as well.

Well, small sample of 4 games (3-1 Lion, but one of the 3 was super tight, could have gone either way and involved Sashimono to prevent Toturi bowing in a losing attack so he could defend knowing the two unbroken Lion provinces were Shameful and Pilgrimage), but so far this trick works pretty well. I changed the Lion deck to use Jade Tetsubo and Reprieve so there was further incentive to save up. The key Master of the Spear "plays" were stuff like turn 1 Eiji for 5 and Obstinate Recruit, where the Master didn't even need to get played so I had 10 fate on turn 2 and a turn where I bought Lion's Pride Brawler for 4 instead of Toturi and then Brawler + Master + Water bowed out a board of Doji Gift Giver + Hotaru + Challenger despite Shameful Display and then played For Greater Glory.

14 hours ago, williamobrien said:

She's only honored the turn she comes into play if they go first and have Way of the Crane ready. Otherwise, why aren't you hitting her with Fire?

Even mulliganing the full 4 cards at the beginning, Way of the Crane should only be in their opening hand about half the time. Even less if they don't mulligan the full 4. They shouldn't *always* have it unless your luck has been just terrible.

re: Guidance - It's not just above winning the conflict, it's also about saving the province, especially where Pilgrimage is concerned since saving the province essentially is winning the conflict. If they can't bow the new defender they need at least 8 strength to take the province without any other effects or defenders, which means they sent a pretty hefty commitment. If they sent that to a province and it flipped The Art of War they would feel pretty bad.

Since I think we've gotten off-track a bit, my overall point was that Challenger's ability is a little worse than Brawler's at hitting premium targets because of the risks. True backfire probably won't happen often, since if there's a big risk they'll hit someone safe like Berserker. But that means Challenger hasn't hit the best possible target. Yeah, Brawler can get stuffed by Ready for Battle, but that card probably isn't going to be in every deck once we get more than two clans previewed. Plus, Brawler can actually be used against opposing targets, which Challenger most certainly can't.

Doji Challenger should probably be either 2 POL or 1 Glory to be in line with the other 3-drops.

Welp if they go first they can go for fire themselves and deny you any ability to dishonor.

Yes, them hitting Way of the Crane if they mulligan 4 is around 49%. But if you add to it and average draw of 3 they have 61% chance to have it during their first conflict, even more if they drew 5, so they will have it majority of the time.

Considering Guidance: I don't think you ever swing with solo Doji challenger to break the province, and we were only talking about her since the beginning. Yup I agree. I feel at 1 glory she would be better.

Regarding your Master of the Spear post I am glad it works out for you, during our games she always felt like dead draw but maybe she has some potential. Anyway I am always happy if a Lion card turns out to be good.

BTW: Do you guys exchange decks or it is mostly you playing Lion and your friends playing Crane?

10 hours ago, williamobrien said:

The key Master of the Spear "plays" were stuff like turn 1 Eiji for 5 and Obstinate Recruit, where the Master didn't even need to get played so I had 10 fate on turn 2 and a turn where I bought Lion's Pride Brawler for 4 instead of Toturi and then Brawler + Master + Water bowed out a board of Doji Gift Giver + Hotaru + Challenger despite Shameful Display and then played For Greater Glory.

When you say Master of the Spear "plays" in this example, do you mean you payed to play the Master from your hand on the third (or fourth, maybe?) Turn? Also, were you using two Brawlers plus the Ring of Water to bow the 3 Crane characters?

Sorry for all the questions, but I couldn't quite get your explanation. The Master of the Spear and Eiji don't mix, and the Master doesn't bow anyone.

40 minutes ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

When you say Master of the Spear "plays" in this example, do you mean you payed to play the Master from your hand on the third (or fourth, maybe?) Turn? Also, were you using two Brawlers plus the Ring of Water to bow the 3 Crane characters?

Sorry for all the questions, but I couldn't quite get your explanation. The Master of the Spear and Eiji don't mix, and the Master doesn't bow anyone.

I think the first "play" was: he was just saving glory to play master in conflict so he passed first in dynasty just with eiji and obstinate recruit, who were enough for that turn so he didnt need to play Master. He saved a lot of fate thanks to that for the next turn. I could see this play as being pretty good.

But yeah Master of the Spear doesn't bow anyone so I guess he plays her wrong again? Either that or enemy just blocked with 2 people he send 1 home and bowed both at home with water ring and Brawler. It however leaves 1 character in the conflict chosen by his opponent so I don't understand how he was able to break the province with 5 military strength against opponents 3(or even worse since it was shameful display) to play For Greater Glory. It sounds like there was one blocker that was send home and that was enough to break shameful display? It means though that only 2 characters will be bowed.

@williamobrien What do you say?

2 hours ago, BordOne said:

I think the first "play" was: he was just saving glory to play master in conflict so he passed first in dynasty just with eiji and obstinate recruit, who were enough for that turn so he didnt need to play Master. He saved a lot of fate thanks to that for the next turn. I could see this play as being pretty good.

But yeah Master of the Spear doesn't bow anyone so I guess he plays her wrong again? Either that or enemy just blocked with 2 people he send 1 home and bowed both at home with water ring and Brawler. It however leaves 1 character in the conflict chosen by his opponent so I don't understand how he was able to break the province with 5 military strength against opponents 3(or even worse since it was shameful display) to play For Greater Glory. It sounds like there was one blocker that was send home and that was enough to break shameful display? It means though that only 2 characters will be bowed.

@williamobrien What do you say?

I attack with Brawler, Shameful Display is revealed , they defend with Gift Giver and they use Display (2 MIL to 1). I play the Master (4 MIL to 1). They use the Gift Giver, I play Ready for Battle and use the box (6 MIL to 1), they play For Shame! on the Brawler (3 MIL to 1), I play a Banzai on Master (7 MIL to 1), then bow Hotaru with the Brawler and Challenger with the ring and the Gift Giver bows from defense. If I play Toturi that turn instead to try to double Water, the Shameful Display + Gift Giver + For Shame! would have saved the province and Ring. It was important to have two guys. It could have been Oathkeeper instead since the ability didn't matter but the idea is to have redundancy.

2 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

I attack with Brawler, Shameful Display is revealed , they defend with Gift Giver and they use Display (2 MIL to 1). I play the Master (4 MIL to 1). They use the Gift Giver, I play Ready for Battle and use the box (6 MIL to 1), they play For Shame! on the Brawler (3 MIL to 1), I play a Banzai on Master (7 MIL to 1), then bow Hotaru with the Brawler and Challenger with the ring and the Gift Giver bows from defense. If I play Toturi that turn instead to try to double Water, the Shameful Display + Gift Giver + For Shame! would have saved the province and Ring. It was important to have two guys. It could have been Oathkeeper instead since the ability didn't matter but the idea is to have redundancy.

Yeah I figured he needed to block with one. Your earlier post made it look like they didn't block and that is where confusion comes from. So you didnt use Masters ability at all.

And yeah right to the point with oathkeeper, which would be much better since he is one fate cheaper and actually could have been useful in many other situations. Hell Steward of Law just blows her out of the water being 2 fate cheaper and saving you from shameful display or for shame or both.

Did you get a situation where you could play her and her ability was useful?

5 hours ago, BordOne said:

Yes, them hitting Way of the Crane if they mulligan 4 is around 49%. But if you add to it and average draw of 3 they have 61% chance to have it during their first conflict, even more if they drew 5, so they will have it majority of the time.

So the Crane is drawing 3 on average and they're still getting ahead on honor on you? Are you also bidding 3? I feel that's a mistake with Lion, at least on the first turn when the starting honor is so close. That one turn of bidding 1 to 3 puts you ahead 14 to 9 and gives you a huge cushion to use your stuff. A 7 to 5 card advantage to them isn't that big a deal when your dynasty advantages should be making up the difference.

3 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

So the Crane is drawing 3 on average and they're still getting ahead on honor on you? Are you also bidding 3? I feel that's a mistake with Lion, at least on the first turn when the starting honor is so close. That one turn of bidding 1 to 3 puts you ahead 14 to 9 and gives you a huge cushion to use your stuff. A 7 to 5 card advantage to them isn't that big a deal when your dynasty advantages should be making up the difference.

I bid two at that time since he was complaining about his hand and I didnt need advantage at that time. And where do I say it happens every game. I said it is average.

Just now, BordOne said:

I bid two at that time since he was complaining about his hand. And where do I say it happens every game. I said it is average.

Sorry, I assumed the drawing 3 on average meant usually 3 and sometimes 2 or 4. In which case a Lion bid of 1 should always give you a buffer. Earlier you were saying Lion was having a tough time staying ahead and I guessed this was the reason.

3 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

Sorry, I assumed the drawing 3 on average meant usually 3 and sometimes 2 or 4. In which case a Lion bid of 1 should always give you a buffer. Earlier you were saying Lion was having a tough time staying ahead and I guessed this was the reason.

If I have recruits or historians I always bid 1. My opponent if he goes first will also bid 1 at that time. When i dont have them Crane usually go for a bit of card advantage. It also all depends on what characters both of us have in play. if I feel he will try to go for more cards and I don't need honor i will bid more usually around two.

7 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Yeah I figured he needed to block with one. Your earlier post made it look like they didn't block and that is where confusion comes from. So you didnt use Masters ability at all.

And yeah right to the point with oathkeeper, which would be much better since he is one fate cheaper and actually could have been useful in many other situations. Hell Steward of Law just blows her out of the water being 2 fate cheaper and saving you from shameful display or for shame or both.

Did you get a situation where you could play her and her ability was useful?

I didn't get to use the ability in those games, but in the Toturi + Sashimono game if I had had the Master in hand I would have been able to send home the 12 MIL Hotaru (honored + Fine Katana + Banzai) that was in the way and would have broken the province instead of losing the battle and triggered double Water to hit Hotaru and Asami. So that was a situation where I wanted the specific card and didn't have it.

Overall I think it's just the change in approach that's a good idea. I had been using 6-7 fate every turn, but the idea of holding resources back for surprise impact plays seems like it might be better.

5 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

I didn't get to use the ability in those games, but in the Toturi + Sashimono game if I had had the Master in hand I would have been able to send home the 12 MIL Hotaru (honored + Fine Katana + Banzai) that was in the way and would have broken the province instead of losing the battle and triggered double Water to hit Hotaru and Asami. So that was a situation where I wanted the specific card and didn't have it.

Overall I think it's just the change in approach that's a good idea. I had been using 6-7 fate every turn, but the idea of holding resources back for surprise impact plays seems like it might be better.

Hmm I guess in 1 defender situation she is pretty good if you want the effect. Pretty sad that Strength in Numbers is not that strong.

Maybe if there was a Clan with 2 or more bushi in conflict deck it would be kind of cool deck idea, holding back rescources so opponent would never know what can happen xd

6 minutes ago, BordOne said:

If I have recruits or historians I always bid 1. My opponent if he goes first will also bid 1 at that time. When i dont have them Crane usually go for a bit of card advantage. It also all depends on what characters both of us have in play. if I feel he will try to go for more cards and I don't need honor i will bid more usually around two.

I think you should try out bidding 1 on turn 1 every time, in the interest of building a lead to use for later. On turn 1, both players have at least 5 cards and probably fewer characters than any other turn, so it's a time where card disadvantage has the least impact. Even a one bid difference probably puts you in the lead for the rest of the game, barring an Asami.

43 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

I attack with Brawler, Shameful Display is revealed , they defend with Gift Giver and they use Display (2 MIL to 1). I play the Master (4 MIL to 1). They use the Gift Giver, I play Ready for Battle and use the box (6 MIL to 1), they play For Shame! on the Brawler (3 MIL to 1), I play a Banzai on Master (7 MIL to 1), then bow Hotaru with the Brawler and Challenger with the ring and the Gift Giver bows from defense. If I play Toturi that turn instead to try to double Water, the Shameful Display + Gift Giver + For Shame! would have saved the province and Ring. It was important to have two guys. It could have been Oathkeeper instead since the ability didn't matter but the idea is to have redundancy.

I don't understand why your opponent chose to defend only with the Gift Giver. Knowing Shameful Display was the province and knowing you were attacking with the Brawler, it only makes sense to send the Challenger or Hotaru herself (considering she was fateless and you were attacking for Water) to maximise the MIL difference and to prevent the use of the Brawler's ability on any of those characters. Of course, from the description I might be missing other particularities on the board state, but from what we know from this game play defending exclusively with the Gift Giver seems a bad option, imho.

7 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

I think you should try out bidding 1 on turn 1 every time, in the interest of building a lead to use for later. On turn 1, both players have at least 5 cards and probably fewer characters than any other turn, so it's a time where card disadvantage has the least impact. Even a one bid difference probably puts you in the lead for the rest of the game, barring an Asami.

You mean honor lead? thats why I bid 2 when I don't need it since my opponent often bids 3. if i have bomb hand i bid 1.

5 minutes ago, barrufet said:

I don't understand why your opponent chose to defend only with the Gift Giver. Knowing Shameful Display was the province and knowing you were attacking with the Brawler, it only makes sense to send the Challenger or Hotaru herself (considering she was fateless and you were attacking for Water) to maximise the MIL difference and to prevent the use of the Brawler's ability on any of those characters. Of course, from the description I might be missing other particularities on the board state, but from what we know from this game play defending exclusively with the Gift Giver seems a bad option, imho.

I guess the opponent wanted to just bow lion pride brawler with gift giver and win conflict? he also had for shame just to be sure. but he did miss pretty good opportunity to honor hotaru, maybe he didn't want to use her on water ring tho. If I were him I wouldn't defend with just gift giver if I saw my opponent sitting on 4 fate and 3+ cards in hand for sure.

just bad play i guess

2 minutes ago, BordOne said:

I guess the opponent wanted to just bow lion pride brawler with gift giver and win conflict? he also had for shame just to be sure. but he did miss pretty good opportunity to honor hotaru, maybe he didn't want to use her on water ring tho. If I were him I wouldn't defend with just gift giver if I saw my opponent sitting on 4 fate and 3+ cards in hand.

Well... that's what I thought, just overoptimistic expectations on the conflict outcome.

About using Hotaru, however, I don't think it is just the missed chance of honoring her. Having no fate that conflict was clearly the last opportunity your opponent had to play her. SD on the Brawler to set her to 2MIL + lion box == 3MIL. Even if bowed, the Brawler can target Hotaru. Hotaru bowed and fateless == Bye bye Hotaru. You can compute that from the very beginning of the conflict, and I think it is a likely outcome. Hence, since Crane is starting from a Doomed Hotaru position, I think it only makes sense to send her in, honor her w/ SD granting 1 honor at the end of the turn and bolstering chances of saving the province and even winning the conflict.... All in all, defending only with the Gift Giver seems to me a very bad option.

Lion had an honored Historian left over from the previous turn. Hotaru had a fate on her (Crane play for the turn was Hotaru at 6, Gift Giver at printed, 1 fate left), so the hypothetical Toturi play would have been Fire for double dishonor rather than Water, I mis-typed.

The Lion deck has Jade Tetsubo in it, so defending with Hotaru runs the risk of Tetsubo getting played which gets the Brawler 6 MIL to bow her and a pump on top of that would mean losing Hotaru's fate as well. Either Way of the Lion or Banzai also pumps enough to bow Hotaru. Hotaru is probably screwed no matter what. Defending with Gift Giver at least gives Crane the possibility of winning the battle with the multiple bow effects and having Challenger left to do a MIL challenge and bow Historian.

So far Lion seems just as strong as Crane to me. I think that people are getting bad results with Lion because it takes more setup for Lion to contend in politics than for Crane to contend in military, given all the military pump we have. Once you get used to maximizing the value of Lion's strong Political characters, the matchup is a pretty even one -- I've actually had more success with Lion than Crane.

44 minutes ago, Eugene Earnshaw said:

So far Lion seems just as strong as Crane to me. I think that people are getting bad results with Lion because it takes more setup for Lion to contend in politics than for Crane to contend in military, given all the military pump we have. Once you get used to maximizing the value of Lion's strong Political characters, the matchup is a pretty even one -- I've actually had more success with Lion than Crane.

Yeah Lion is catching up in our group. I think they are on similar power level to Crane right now. We will see with next spoilers.

I think I just dislike their playstyle. Compared to Crane I always feel like I have less proactive plays and more fires to put out. As of now I prefer to play as a Crane. Which sucks.

1 hour ago, williamobrien said:

Lion had an honored Historian left over from the previous turn. Hotaru had a fate on her (Crane play for the turn was Hotaru at 6, Gift Giver at printed, 1 fate left), so the hypothetical Toturi play would have been Fire for double dishonor rather than Water, I mis-typed.

The Lion deck has Jade Tetsubo in it, so defending with Hotaru runs the risk of Tetsubo getting played which gets the Brawler 6 MIL to bow her and a pump on top of that would mean losing Hotaru's fate as well. Either Way of the Lion or Banzai also pumps enough to bow Hotaru. Hotaru is probably screwed no matter what. Defending with Gift Giver at least gives Crane the possibility of winning the battle with the multiple bow effects and having Challenger left to do a MIL challenge and bow Historian.

I understand. Nevertheless I still feel If it was me I would have sent Hotaru on defence in addition to the Gift Giver, which itself seems a pretty good move. As I said before my criticism was about sending her (the Gift Giver) alone.

From my point of view, Hotaru adds complexity to the outcome of the conflict, improving the chances for your opponent (this is @williamobrien in the gameplay described) doing some misplay. When the conflict is presented, the Lion player has to consider if he can commit enough MIL bumps to beat Hotaru, and assuming the Crane player did have some cards in his/her conflict hand, this can be a though decision. In the very worst case scenario there is the additional loss of 1 fate on Hotaru, which I admit is really, really bad. On the other hand, any other possible outcome improves the result described above, even if the effect is just forcing the Lion player to play more cards (Way of the Lion or Banzai) to achieve a similar result. And assuming the Crane player had a decent sized conflict hand (MIL bumps, duelling technique, Good Omen, honouring+voice), the conflict could have turned the other way around, still leaving the Doji Challenger for a follow up on a (MIL) conflict Vs the Historian.

Although I haven't played any real game myself, from the series of posts in this thread I was feeling that Lion was perceived as far superior to Crane, given that most of the particular examples provided were about furry cats feasting on little blue birds. This particular example looked like the perfect sequence for the mighty Lion army, as they had the right answer for any move from the Crane side. Since my personal feeling (just guts, haven't tested anything yet myself) is just the opposite --this is that both factions are pretty balanced, I was wondering if there was any skill bias in the games described here.

And before I forget, thank you for sharing your experiences on the current state of the game!. These gameplay examples are really instructive and interesting!!!

5 minutes ago, barrufet said:

I understand. Nevertheless I still feel If it was me I would have sent Hotaru on defence in addition to the Gift Giver, which itself seems a pretty good move. As I said before my criticism was about sending her (the Gift Giver) alone.

Remember that defenders bow as well now. So if the Crane defends with the Gift Giver and Hotaru, the Brawler bows the Challenger and voluntarily loses the conflict without playing anything, everybody bows, then the Crane has nothing to do while the Historian waltzes over and crushes the province.

2 minutes ago, williamobrien said:

Remember that defenders bow as well now. So if the Crane defends with the Gift Giver and Hotaru, the Brawler bows the Challenger and voluntarily loses the conflict without playing anything, everybody bows, then the Crane has nothing to do while the Historian waltzes over and crushes the province.

Except that Hotaru triggers the Ring of Water effect. The Challenger is ready for a (different) history lesson ;-)

Just now, barrufet said:

Except that Hotaru triggers the Ring of Water effect. The Challenger is ready for a (different) history lesson ;-)

Remember, Lion had Ready for Battle for one of the bow effects. It's the reason a solo attack into a Gift Giver is possible at all. It obviously saves it for the Hotaru Ring use since it's getting what it wants out of the initial battle anyway (bowed out opponent).

1 minute ago, williamobrien said:

Remember, Lion had Ready for Battle for one of the bow effects. It's the reason a solo attack into a Gift Giver is possible at all. It obviously saves it for the Hotaru Ring use since it's getting what it wants out of the initial battle anyway (bowed out opponent).

Sorry, I didn't explained myself well enough. I was meaning using the Ring of Water effect to ready the Challenger that the Brawled had previously bowed.