2 hours ago, TechnoGolem said:

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

Interesting and makes sense. As someone new to this, I don't see the discard as 'dead', but just 'not in this struggle'. I can see it also showing that Lion's will travel far to help their kin, returning to old conflicts after they had thought the matter settled. Honour and grudges.

31 minutes ago, Brekekekiwi said:

Interesting and makes sense. As someone new to this, I don't see the discard as 'dead', but just 'not in this struggle'. I can see it also showing that Lion's will travel far to help their kin, returning to old conflicts after they had thought the matter settled. Honour and grudges.

In this particular instance ,the abilty represents the Lions veneration for their ancestors, and the Kitsu family's mystical ability to speak with such spirits So, dead is more appropiate here.

but your view is definitely not wrong in general

I feel like I'm gonna have to have a serious go and building a good Lion pile partly so that I can fall back on it if it turns out ridiculous out of the box, and partly so that I can have experience playing against what will surely be a common theme. Stuff looks crazy. Still looking forward to seeing what the Crab, Scorpion and Pheonix are saying. If all of the clans feel at least somewhat balanced though I'll be very impressed.

Nothing really wowed me about these previews, but that is about right, I feel. The Lion as the baseline for what military is feels appropriate. The cards seem solid, aggressive, and honorable. The flavor appears to be there.

Unfortunately, the bushi focus of a lot of their conflict cards means I probably won't splash them in my Phoenix decks (unless FFG gives us a more bushi-heavy with shugenja support play style this time around.)

The Kitsu recursion theme is cool, but makes me wonder if resurrection/rebirth won't be a Phoenix focus, or perhaps what they'll do to make such effects feel different for us.

28 minutes ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

Nothing really wowed me about these previews, but that is about right, I feel. The Lion as the baseline for what military is feels appropriate. The cards seem solid, aggressive, and honorable. The flavor appears to be there.

Unfortunately, the bushi focus of a lot of their conflict cards means I probably won't splash them in my Phoenix decks (unless FFG gives us a more bushi-heavy with shugenja support play style this time around.)

The Kitsu recursion theme is cool, but makes me wonder if resurrection/rebirth won't be a Phoenix focus, or perhaps what they'll do to make such effects feel different for us.

I would not be suprised if the Champion had some kind of 'rez or rebirth' effect.

23 minutes ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

I would not be suprised if the Champion had some kind of 'rez or rebirth' effect.

I would be ONLY because our champions may be themed around ring activation for the core set. Unless the next champion we see isn't a ring-activation ability... I think they all will be. Once the core set is over the Phoenix may get a rebirth champion.

1 minute ago, shosuko said:

I would be ONLY because our champions may be themed around ring activation for the core set. Unless the next champion we see isn't a ring-activation ability... I think they all will be. Once the core set is over the Phoenix may get a rebirth champion.

Well the Fire-chickens deserve something nice.

The Phoenix 5 fate unique is probably going to be one of the Elemental Masters.

36 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I would be ONLY because our champions may be themed around ring activation for the core set. Unless the next champion we see isn't a ring-activation ability... I think they all will be.

I agree. I think the core-set champions will all have some kind of way of playing with Rings, like they're special people with some kind of direct connection to the universe itself and the realm of the gods. Lots of flavor theme-wise, less so mechanically depending on what they do with it. But yeah, I feel that if the next one is a ring ability that's basically a confirmation that the first wave core champs are all ring abilities.

46 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

The Phoenix 5 fate unique is probably going to be one of the Elemental Masters.

We already saw that Shiba Tsukune will be (one of?) the Phoenix 5 fate unique and she is no Elemental Master.

44 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

The Phoenix 5 fate unique is probably going to be one of the Elemental Masters.

Judging by Crane and Lion uniques (only Hotaru and Toturi from the Old timers), I believe she will be champion.

20 minutes ago, KerenRhys said:

We already saw that Shiba Tsukune will be (one of?) the Phoenix 5 fate unique and she is no Elemental Master.

Oh... right. I forgot they previewed that.

I'm sure there's a card balance issue being considered, but I am still mildly annoyed that the The Art of War depicts a scene of fire but is a Water province.

There's also a stream.

45 minutes ago, Radon Antila said:

I'm sure there's a card balance issue being considered, but I am still mildly annoyed that the The Art of War depicts a scene of fire but is a Water province.

It might have to do something with Sun Tsu saying that you should be like water...

Or maybe it was DaoDeJing

1 minute ago, BordOne said:

It might have to do something with Sun Tsu saying that you should be like water...

Or maybe it was DaoDeJing

I thought Bruce Lee said it.

14 hours ago, shosuko said:

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!

Honestly, this just makes me worry that the Crab won't be as strong as the Lion hahaha. I hope all the clans are roughly equal in terms of balance coming out of the core set. That would mean that the Crab's abilities will be equivalent to this but, ****, it seems unlikely that the Crab will be able to measure up to that considering how strong they made Lion.

Hopefully, Crab matches the Lion's military strength and then, instead of an honor alternate win strategy, they are given benefits for successfully defending.

We'll see in a month or so!

17 hours ago, JRosen9 said:

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?

Is this 1st ed? I'm trying to think of a situation where this works in 2nd ed.

14 hours ago, shosuko said:

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?

For some characters, there will be different versions of the character that represent them at different points in time, or represent different aspects of the character. But there is no strict time-driven experience progression.

11 minutes ago, qwertyuiop said:

Is this 1st ed? I'm trying to think of a situation where this works in 2nd ed.

I Never Bet Against My Family is one of the most prominent examples.

http://thronesdb.com/card/02050

"If you bring a duplicate into play (say you find Tyrion when you already have Tyrion in play), the duplicate ("that card") will be discarded at the end of the phase, if it is still in play."

15 hours ago, shosuko said:

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?

I really hope they do create experienced versions too. When I was a newcomer to the game seeing Exp. 3 card or something like that got me so interested to learn more about the character, or find his other cards. It just reeled me in so effectively and made me want more!

5 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Honestly, this just makes me worry that the Crab won't be as strong as the Lion hahaha. I hope all the clans are roughly equal in terms of balance coming out of the core set. That would mean that the Crab's abilities will be equivalent to this but, ****, it seems unlikely that the Crab will be able to measure up to that considering how strong they made Lion.

Hopefully, Crab matches the Lion's military strength and then, instead of an honor alternate win strategy, they are given benefits for successfully defending.

We'll see in a month or so!

While agree that Lion look really strong right out of the gate some of their cards seem to be in conflict with each other and their perceived strategies. They are agressive and swarmy which would lean towards wanting to draw cards to keep the pressure on their opponent. However they are also concerned about staying ahead in honor. This will be more difficult to balance then it might appear on the surface. No doubt this sets the bar for military focused clans but I suspect Crab and Unicorn will be just as formidable. Neither will likely have the raw military strength of the Lion, but, I suspect both will be more versatile and ultimately better prepared for what should end up being a very diverse metagame.

9 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

While agree that Lion look really strong right out of the gate some of their cards seem to be in conflict with each other and their perceived strategies. They are agressive and rest my which would mean towards drawing cards to keep the pressure on their opponent. However they are also concerned about staying ahead in honor. This will be more difficult to balance then it might appear on the surface. No doubt this sets the bar for military focused clans but I suspect Crab and Unicorn will be just a formidable. Neither will likely have the raw military strength of the Lion, but, I suspect both will be more versatile and ultimately better prepared for what should end up being a very diverse metagame.

The more I look at Lion the more I feel they are way too focused on military. They will have a lot of trouble defending themselves against more balanced faction and even completing their own two conflicts. Also their control tools are kinda lacking when compared to Crane or even Phoenix leaked that far.

Can't wait to buy Toturi with two fate on him just to get insta Pacified

I have hard feelings about erasing the tactician mechanics. In OL5R I played deeply tactician decks as I found it was a great way to play against the snowball, specially in Gold, as you could defend a province with one personality against an army, often having a chance to win and suffering an affordable loss in defeat. Maybe they include some mechanics in the future, but the fact that Toturi does not even have the tactician trait, makes me think they probably will not. Only commander and champion traits appear in the set with some hope for tactical interaction.

True that snowballing has been prevented by the game itself (presumably), but the tactical dimension of the Lion clan was both colorful and charismatic. It would have been great that it was included somehow (quite differently as it was in OL5R). I would have liked it to be a mirror for duelist trait, interacting with fine and artful battle tricks.

That said, I have a good impression of the cards shown. Art is fine, the mechanics are fine (I dont like swarm but someone has to use it), and some cards are definitely good. I have also the shared impression that Lion is going to be a big deal at the start. They seem like most offensive, and will be driving their opponents to difficult choices for a while. In card games I know, offense usualy is stronger at the start specially. Attacking is fun, also, and winning is funnier.

We will see, but the cards shown seem to be quite playable, their art keep high the level of the crane previews, and some mechanics are truly flavorful, Matsu Beiona and the Honored general will be loved and hated, and that is quite fine for a card game.

May we see Toturi walking the way of the Lion for 12 strength quite frequently? I may be wrong, but I bet so.

3 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I Never Bet Against My Family is one of the most prominent examples.

http://thronesdb.com/card/02050

"If you bring a duplicate into play (say you find Tyrion when you already have Tyrion in play), the duplicate ("that card") will be discarded at the end of the phase, if it is still in play."

Wasn't even thinking about how to get around "cannot be saved". I was thinking Pod for my example. Thanks!