Just now, JRosen9 said:

Almost. I believe Half of Ikoma Prodigy is still missing

We know she is 1 fate. Stats probably 0/1. And I am 99% sure her ability reads "When one or more fate is placed on this character - gain X (probably 1) honor.

She looks like 0/2 to me. The politics number looks pretty similar to the Lion's Pride Brawler, which has a 2.

It seems folks think Lion already have an upper hand but I think most have forgotten what Kakita Asami adds to the hypothetical Crane-Lion matchup

1 hour ago, BordOne said:

By going through Duelist Training ofc

That forces Lion to use its influence on Crane conflict card though, and whilst that 'might' make sense for a Lion vs Crane matchup I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't such a great option against other clans.

1 hour ago, Akodo_Metuki said:

But the Dynasty rules say you may not buy a unique character if you already have one in your home, during a conflict they are not at home, they are at the conflict? Granted the actual wording maybe (and hopefully is better) but the wording in the article leaves the possibility alive does it not?

From the relevant article: "In the world of Rokugan, those who become masters at their craft help shape the destiny of their clans. These named characters provide powerful effects, and are designated as unique by the symbol to the left of their name. A player may only have one copy of a unique character in their home area. However, if a player has a second copy in one of their provinces or in their hand, they may discard that copy to add one fate to the unique copy in play."

Only one Toturi can be in play. It's not going to matter if one is home or in a conflict. The article references the Dynasty phase, but it applies across the board. However, it is mentioned that a second copy can be discarded to add one fate to the existing copy. This is very similar to playing duplicates in Game of Thrones. While, I know the two games are different, there are some similarities, and I think this is one of them. It's possible via some card abilities to bring characters into play outside of GoT's version of the Dynasty/Main/Etc phase. Attempting to bring in a unique character when a copy is already on the board results in that card becoming a duplicate. So, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you could Spiritcaller Toturi into "play" to add a fate to your existing Toturi(sending Spiritcalled Toturi back to the discard pile to repeat the shenanigans). I wouldn't build a deck around it, but considering the way spending multiple fate reduces the per turn cost of characters, it might not be a bad tactic.

My god, Lion looks strong.

Recursion is always a rather rickety bridge in terms of design space. One over tuned card design can really have you careening into the lava river below (metaphorically speaking, of course).

I'm a bit disappointed that these two clans were the first two previewed because play testing will be a hassle playing an all military deck vs an all political deck. Play testing will probably feel...different from how the actual game is going to feel.

Especially since they both care about honor so a lot of cards will feel a lot less impactful than they are based on this match up.

I look forward to the Dragon previews in 2 weeks and, hopefully, Crab in 4 weeks. That should give us a lot more tech to play around with to get a better understanding of how each game will play out. Because there will be plenty of games where you'll always have more honor and honored characters as Lion, and there will be others where you don't, such as the Crane match up. That should provide some interesting balance issues surrounding those honor-y cards.

3 minutes ago, qwertyuiop said:

So, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you could Spiritcaller Toturi into "play" to add a fate to your existing Toturi(sending Spiritcalled Toturi back to the discard pile to repeat the shenanigans). I wouldn't build a deck around it, but considering the way spending multiple fate reduces the per turn cost of characters, it might not be a bad tactic.

However, if I remember AGOT correctly, when you brought in a character as a dup from an effect that discarded the character at end of turn, the dup would be discarded at end of turn. The question would be in L5R, if the card becomes a fate what happens at the end of turn, does the original now get put on the bottom of the deck?

16 minutes ago, Zetsubou said:

It seems folks think Lion already have an upper hand but I think most have forgotten what Kakita Asami adds to the hypothetical Crane-Lion matchup

I agree. Also the recursion theme within Lion is telling: Lion need to hold a high degree of honour (for cards such as Obstinate Recruit) but they essentially need to keep an army 'in the field' (so to speak). That's going to be costly fate wise as characters cycle out at the end of the turn. To mitigate against that high fate cost Lion will need card draw from their conflict deck to play cards such as Master of the Spear, but card draw needs honour...

The recursion mechanic suggests that Lion will often need to 'surge' to win military conflicts and the most efficient means (from an honour perspective) is to use recursion. Interestingly Lions Kitsu Spiritcaller isn't all that strong in military conflict terms.

I think Lion is strong provided it can keep an army in the field using For Greater Glory, Shashimono , Steadfast Samurai and the like. If that mechanism gets disrupted (perhaps through conflict hand discard effects) then Lion probably cracks quite quickly.

5 minutes ago, Tam Palso said:

I agree. Also the recursion theme within Lion is telling: Lion need to hold a high degree of honour (for cards such as Obstinate Recruit) but they essentially need to keep an army 'in the field' (so to speak). That's going to be costly fate wise as characters cycle out at the end of the turn. To mitigate against that high fate cost Lion will need card draw from their conflict deck to play cards such as Master of the Spear, but card draw needs honour...

The recursion mechanic suggests that Lion will often need to 'surge' to win military conflicts and the most efficient means (from an honour perspective) is to use recursion. Interestingly Lions Kitsu Spiritcaller isn't all that strong in military conflict terms.

I think Lion is strong provided it can keep an army in the field using For Greater Glory, Shashimono , Steadfast Samurai and the like. If that mechanism gets disrupted (perhaps through conflict hand discard effects) then Lion probably cracks quite quickly.

That's my feeling as well. It seems as though Lion will have a struggle to sustain their immense military power, and in the meantime will have to mitigate political losses. What happens in the instance that a big Lion force goes in on Art of Peace and the crane toss some defenders in just to make the Lion commit? I believe strategic victories like that, while also being tactical defeats, may deflate the Lion to the point that they can no longer maintain the constant military pressure.

29 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I'm a bit disappointed that these two clans were the first two previewed because play testing will be a hassle playing an all military deck vs an all political deck. Play testing will probably feel...different from how the actual game is going to feel.

Especially since they both care about honor so a lot of cards will feel a lot less impactful than they are based on this match up.

I look forward to the Dragon previews in 2 weeks and, hopefully, Crab in 4 weeks.

I was thinking along the same lines but I couldn't put it into words. Thanks for doing so.

Furthermore, to support your thoughts above, I would have liked to see Crab next in order to gauge the military might of 2 rather similar Clans, ? and ? .... ah well, we'll get there soon.

40 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

My god, Lion looks strong.

Recursion is always a rather rickety bridge in terms of design space. One over tuned card design can really have you careening into the lava river below (metaphorically speaking, of course).

I'm a bit disappointed that these two clans were the first two previewed because play testing will be a hassle playing an all military deck vs an all political deck. Play testing will probably feel...different from how the actual game is going to feel.

Especially since they both care about honor so a lot of cards will feel a lot less impactful than they are based on this match up.

I look forward to the Dragon previews in 2 weeks and, hopefully, Crab in 4 weeks. That should give us a lot more tech to play around with to get a better understanding of how each game will play out. Because there will be plenty of games where you'll always have more honor and honored characters as Lion, and there will be others where you don't, such as the Crane match up. That should provide some interesting balance issues surrounding those honor-y cards.

On one hand I agree - but on the other hand doesn't this make you anticipate how the Crab will fare in battle considering they are nearly as powerful as Lion clan but DON'T care about honor as much? The Lion are powerful with honor advantage, how awesome will the Crab be as they are arguably as powerful as Lion militarily but more brutal with it.

I expect the Crab will have some very taxing defensive abilities, but also some overwhelming offensive abilities. I wonder how much Yatsuki koku can hold them politically as well... I'm super excited to see what Crab bring!

I find it amusing how many lion cards stop functioning properly the instant your honor drops below your opponent's. Reminds of the old days in the CCG where a single Breach of Etiquette would ruin a lion's entire game.

45 minutes ago, Tam Palso said:

I agree. Also the recursion theme within Lion is telling: Lion need to hold a high degree of honour (for cards such as Obstinate Recruit) but they essentially need to keep an army 'in the field' (so to speak). That's going to be costly fate wise as characters cycle out at the end of the turn. To mitigate against that high fate cost Lion will need card draw from their conflict deck to play cards such as Master of the Spear, but card draw needs honour...

The recursion mechanic suggests that Lion will often need to 'surge' to win military conflicts and the most efficient means (from an honour perspective) is to use recursion. Interestingly Lions Kitsu Spiritcaller isn't all that strong in military conflict terms.

I think Lion is strong provided it can keep an army in the field using For Greater Glory, Shashimono , Steadfast Samurai and the like. If that mechanism gets disrupted (perhaps through conflict hand discard effects) then Lion probably cracks quite quickly.

37 minutes ago, Zetsubou said:

That's my feeling as well. It seems as though Lion will have a struggle to sustain their immense military power, and in the meantime will have to mitigate political losses. What happens in the instance that a big Lion force goes in on Art of Peace and the crane toss some defenders in just to make the Lion commit? I believe strategic victories like that, while also being tactical defeats, may deflate the Lion to the point that they can no longer maintain the constant military pressure.

The Lion out of Core Set, from what I've seen, feels a lot like the Lion Imperial/Clan Wars speed/blitz/swarm decks: Lion on attack is going to be hard for opponents to contain but if in future reveals there is a clan (or play style) where Lion can be forced to go from attack to having to worry about just defending themselves the Lion are going to die quickly.

I was going to look at seeing what a constructed lion deck looks like right now and I just realized the dynasty deck is pretty much throw 3 copies of every lion card in and then cut out 2 of them. Granted that will probably change once we see more neutrals.

I really like having interaction with the discard pile. It's a great mechanic to represent Lion's reverence for their ancestors.

Obstinate Recruit is very interesting while the game is new but I think people will be quick to remove him from their decks unless you know you will only be fighting Crab or Scorpion. What really surprised me about him is that his cost is 0. Didn't think we would see characters that cheap.

It looks like it will be fun to play against Lion.

1 hour ago, Zetsubou said:

That's my feeling as well. It seems as though Lion will have a struggle to sustain their immense military power, and in the meantime will have to mitigate political losses. What happens in the instance that a big Lion force goes in on Art of Peace and the crane toss some defenders in just to make the Lion commit? I believe strategic victories like that, while also being tactical defeats, may deflate the Lion to the point that they can no longer maintain the constant military pressure.

It just shows the importance of that first turn 'poke' or attacking a province to reveal what it is and either gaining an easy ring effect or forcing your opponent to chump block. If the Lion player simply just piles in with 3 or more characters without knowing the province then they should meet something like a Night Raid or Art of Peace. Just because you play Lion doesn't mean you need to swing with everything. Or play all military.

27 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

I was going to look at seeing what a constructed lion deck looks like right now and I just realized the dynasty deck is pretty much throw 3 copies of every lion card in and then cut out 2 of them. Granted that will probably change once we see more neutrals.

I don't know if we'll see many more neutral characters; we already have exactly 1 of each courtier, bushi, and shugenja.

Just now, profparm said:

I don't know if we'll see many more neutral characters; we already have exactly 1 of each courtier, bushi, and shugenja.

My spreadsheet of card numbers I have going shows there are going to be at least 7 neutral dynasty cards. 1 of these is a neutral holding, 3 of them are the courtier, bushi, and shugenja. That leaves 3 other cards that are definitely characters (unless FFG screws up the numbering)

13 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

It just shows the importance of that first turn 'poke' or attacking a province to reveal what it is and either gaining an easy ring effect or forcing your opponent to chump block. If the Lion player simply just piles in with 3 or more characters without knowing the province then they should meet something like a Night Raid or Art of Peace. Just because you play Lion doesn't mean you need to swing with everything. Or play all military.

True, but if Art of Peace in play, it will have to be broken sooner or later...

1 minute ago, Zetsubou said:

True, but if Art of Peace in play, it will have to be broken sooner or later...

No it won't. You only have to break 3 provinces before going after the stronghold.

I'm very pleased with lion previews.

The cards seem stronger than what we saw with the crane at first blush, but appear to require more interaction and planning to get the maximum value out of each card.

My favorite element of the lion is definitely the secondary graveyard recursion / "Kitsu" theme. In addition to being an interesting mechanic, it also adds a mystical flair to what would otherwise be the most straightforward clan.

I'm a bit torn on my feelings about mirrored nature of Toturi and Hotaru. I was somewhat expecting Toturi to have an interesting tactical ability, although the additional ring effect could be interpreted as the result of employing superior tactics, I guess.

33 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

My spreadsheet of card numbers I have going shows there are going to be at least 7 neutral dynasty cards. 1 of these is a neutral holding, 3 of them are the courtier, bushi, and shugenja. That leaves 3 other cards that are definitely characters (unless FFG screws up the numbering)

That's good: I was also beginning to fear how little variety would be in dynasty decks.

33 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

My spreadsheet of card numbers I have going shows there are going to be at least 7 neutral dynasty cards. 1 of these is a neutral holding, 3 of them are the courtier, bushi, and shugenja. That leaves 3 other cards that are definitely characters (unless FFG screws up the numbering)

I reckon that we'll get some sort of Seppun Bushi, to complete the three Imperial support families and give a cheapish neutral of the 3 core professions. Also, possibly a neutral monk.

1 minute ago, Mr Omura said:

I'm a bit torn on my feelings about mirrored nature of Toturi and Hotaru. I saw somewhat expecting Toturi to have an interesting tactical ability, although the additional ring effect could be interpreted as the result of employing superior tactics, I guess.

I bet all clan champs will interact with the rings, to bring a focus of "look at the games namesake" as the exemplar of each clan.

42 minutes ago, profparm said:

I bet all clan champs will interact with the rings, to bring a focus of "look at the games namesake" as the exemplar of each clan.

I think that's an alright idea - as it also starts everyone at a similar power level in the core set giving the game a more even meta which would evolve as more expansions are added.

I assume they are going to Experience the characters similar to old5R. That was one of my favorite parts was seeing a character grow, and looking at possible combos between their different abilities. Do we know if they are doing this or not?