Anyone else think it's weird that the best clans to pair up mechanically are usually the clans that don't like one another in fiction?

•Wanna be amazing politically? Go Crane/Scorpion or Scorpion/Crane.
Know who hate each other as bitter rivals? Crane and Scorpion...

•Wanna do Honor shenanigans all day long? Go Crane/Lion or Lion/Crane.
Know who hate each other and have had a thousand year blood feud? Crane and Lion...

•Wanna be the bestest dueling deck? Go Crane/Dragon or Dragon/Crane.
Know who has a huge dueling rivalry based on having fundamentally different approaches to the art? Crane and Dragon...

(Seems there's a common element... It must just all be Crane's fault. )

It just shows how much they could achieve together if they got over their petty squabbles.

Sounds 100% accurate.

Yeah, but alliances only happen through the Conflict Deck which is for dishonorable behavior, like cutting a deal with your hated rivals for your personal aggrandizement.

Dang, I thought you were going to point out that the game is entirely focused on clan warfare, yet in the story the Emperor has decreed peace between all clans and Toturi refused to attack Toshi Ranbo to take it BACK from the Crane because "It could become a war."

I think the key thing here is each pairing is in one way or another a rivalry... and you generally don't have a rivalry with someone who isn't on your level. The problem with trying to implement those rivalries in the game is, as you've pointed out, the rivals' comparable strengths make for good deck building. Banning those combinations because of storyline divisions would really hamper gameplay options.

40 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Dang, I thought you were going to point out that the game is entirely focused on clan warfare, yet in the story the Emperor has decreed peace between all clans and Toturi refused to attack Toshi Ranbo to take it BACK from the Crane because "It could become a war."

To be fair, conflicts can be easily interpreted as tournaments, political debates, friendly winter courts, and sake bar brawls. You don't have to narrate every military conflict as a literal battle. Sometimes it's just a Crab caving some poor Dragon's face in with a tetsubo.

11 minutes ago, WHW said:

To be fair, conflicts can be easily interpreted as tournaments, political debates, friendly winter courts, and sake bar brawls. You don't have to narrate every military conflict as a literal battle. Sometimes it's just a Crab caving some poor Dragon's face in with a tetsubo.

I think that was a Crab taking a Political conflict, and applying his Military skill to it.

Saying "never" and then managing a grand total of three comparisons seems like a stretch. Even your base assumptions are just off. Of course one of the best ways to improve your Military strength is an Alliance with the Lion, just as allying with the Crane would improve your political options. That the Lion and Crane are enemies in the story doesn't invalidate those facts.

It's not storyline and mechanics failing to parallel when it's obvious that two Clans that would work well together in the story if they could get past their differences actually work well together in the game if you ignore the fact that they don't get along. In fact it's the exact opposite- it's showing exactly how well they could serve the Empire better if they stopped being petty and selfish, which is one of the core concepts of the setting. All of the Great Clans claim to put the Empire first, but somehow their own desires always end up being the priority.

I think it's more a matter of having different ideas about what's best for the Empire.

I was thinking more towards the future... where after some time you will see plenty of, for example, Crane/Lion (or reverse) decks in competitive play, but you can't really show that "alliance" in the fiction because then the story falls into a stereotype of "honorable vs dishonorable" which is... very bland storytelling to say the least.

There's a reason that I've always been rather opposed to mixing and matching clans/factions in games like this. It never feels right.

But I think the reason you see these clashing clans team up effectively is often because they are so different they help cover eachother's weaknesses.

Lion is absolutely trash in political challenges. So bringing in Crane seems to work pretty well.

Scorpion waste a lot of their honor doing evil things to their opponents, so they need Crane or Lion to help recover that honor.

Crab like defending, and Phoenix also like defending. One is likely military based, the other political based.

We'll have to see what the "role" cards are, but I really hope they don't allow you to bring in dynasty cards from other clans. The more mono-clan decks have to be, the better in my opinion.

3 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

the reason you see these clashing clans team up effectively is often because they are so different they help cover eachother's weaknesses.

To be honest, this is not one of the best ways to deckbuild. It usually works much better to reinforce strong points than trying to cover weaknesses, as you would never be proficient enough anyway to compete in that area.

7 hours ago, shosuko said:

Dang, I thought you were going to point out that the game is entirely focused on clan warfare, yet in the story the Emperor has decreed peace between all clans and Toturi refused to attack Toshi Ranbo to take it BACK from the Crane because "It could become a war."

Also, a match cannot end without one clan being wholly decimated, either by losing most of their physical territory, or becoming so dishonorable as to have their existence stricken from the Imperial Histories; or if fortune favors them enough that they gain absolute dominance in the courts. In the story, these things take time, generations upon generations, if they happen at all.

With the only out of clan cards coming from the Conflict deck and also having to work within the constraints of the influence mechanic, we are only looking at between 4 - 10 out of clan cards in the 80 - 90 cards total any deck would be playing with.

Storywise you can think of it as an alliance I suppose, but, with such a small portion of the cards being out of clan in any given deck it could.be looked at as 'stolen weapons/plan's or lessons one clan learned from another by experience. Personally I feel the mechanics support the storyline much better than Old5R. The mechanics of the CCG largely revolved around honor requirements...so certain alliances simply could never happen. Allowing anyone to borrow a little bit from anyone else while leaving it open for interpretation what that out of clan support actually is, gives the story team way more control on what happens and should result in better synergy between story and game...at least that is my expectation.

5 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

With the only out of clan cards coming from the Conflict deck and also having to work within the constraints of the influence mechanic, we are only looking at between 4 - 10 out of clan cards in the 80 - 90 cards total any deck would be playing with.

Storywise you can think of it as an alliance I suppose, but, with such a small portion of the cards being out of clan in any given deck it could.be looked at as 'stolen weapons/plan's or lessons one clan learned from another by experience.

In addition to that, as I understand it so far, one is not restricted by a minimum number of out-of-faction cards included as in Thrones. So if you wanted to you could slip in a playset of Duelist Training into your Scorpion Clan deck and call it good. No Crane-Scorpion alliance, just some "Bitter Lies" deck theming.

45 minutes ago, franzvong said:

To be honest, this is not one of the best ways to deckbuild. It usually works much better to reinforce strong points than trying to cover weaknesses, as you would never be proficient enough anyway to compete in that area.

I disagree strongly with this statement. Dedicating card slots to cover up your weaknesses is a sign of solid deckbuilding.

See the "We played some games" thread for recommendations on how the lion can better prepare itself for political conflicts. Advice on how to win military harder is strangely absent.

4 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

See the "We played some games" thread for recommendations on how the lion can better prepare itself for political conflicts. Advice on how to win military harder is strangely absent.

Because they are masters of that and within the limited card pool we are aware of, they don't need to be stronger. But I disagree that a Lion deck should stack up political cards to try to outplay, for example, a Crane deck. It should focus instead on cards that give a general protection (bowing, sending home) or additional tricks to reinforce the theme or speed up its execution.

If they try to compete politically, they just risk to lose efficiency. At least, this is a common behaviour in most card games, it may be different here but I'm not sure why it should be

It's different in L5R because you aren't covering your Political weakness to try win Political conflicts, you're doing it to take more Provinces than you can by Military alone. There will be turns where you have an opening to attack Politically, and if Lion don't have the tools to take a Province during those opportunities they'll be costing themselves whole turns.

Oddly, this seems a bit like tennis. You're expected to win on your own serve, but to win a match, you need to win on their serve.

6 hours ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

I was thinking more towards the future... where after some time you will see plenty of, for example, Crane/Lion (or reverse) decks in competitive play, but you can't really show that "alliance" in the fiction because then the story falls into a stereotype of "honorable vs dishonorable" which is... very bland storytelling to say the least.

I think this only really becomes an issue if FFG tries to incorporate entire decks into the fiction. If it's more abstract (e.g. a Lion deck won, so Lion get a boon), then the specific cards involved become less troublesome.

2 hours ago, franzvong said:

To be honest, this is not one of the best ways to deckbuild. It usually works much better to reinforce strong points than trying to cover weaknesses, as you would never be proficient enough anyway to compete in that area.

I think it's a case by case basis.

Lion, for example, does not need anymore help in military. Reinforcing their military will probably not net you much in terms of wins or efficiency.

But reinforcing their political may allow you to save 1 more province than you ordinarily could and that could lead to you winning with one province left :).

3 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Oddly, this seems a bit like tennis. You're expected to win on your own serve, but to win a match, you need to win on their serve.

This is the wisest thing I've heard said all day.

Karasu-san, your words do honour to your clan, small though it may be.

7 minutes ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

This is the wisest thing I've heard said all day.

Karasu-san, your words do honour to your clan, small though it may be.

As rare as it is for a Dragonfly to receive praise from a Lion, your compliment is taken with deepest respect.