Crane wants revenge. Will they get it?

Great game, better commentary. Zoom the camera only a bit and up the resolution, comment on what you do every action and i guarantee your podcast will be the best one about gameplay.

What are your thoughts on going first, the importance of defense and generally the fact that crane seem to be the best all around clan?

Thanks, Dovla. We actually upgraded the camera. The old one maxed at 480p. This one does 1080p. We can zoom in a bit.

Gping first is an advantage. Defense is almost unnecessary. In this game, Kiramode lets 2 attacks pass unnopposed and it turns out to be the best decision. After this game, I think Dragon is the best clan for versatility. Most effects rely on bowing a unit and Dragon has some great answers for that.

im also finding that defense is kinda unnecessary, especially if you have a champ out and are going first. thats a bit lame because there are no conflicts occuring then, just rush to take the province first and outrun the opponent. Maybe unicorn with their tempo will change things but so far, this is the thing that i dont really in terms of mechanics.

It's nice to see that mutiple people trying the game come to different conclusion. You came to the conclusion than defense isn't really necessary and that dragon was probably the best clan.

I was talking to an ANR friend yesterday who test the game with his play group and think that Lion is the best clan by large.

I also saw people saying that defense was key to Victory and that Crane was probably the all-around best clan.

That seems like a good game to me.

Hmm.

In the games I've played (a dozen or so), there were a few in which the player who went first during the first round just attacked relentlessly and never bothered defending. Two of those games were Lion, and they did mange to win both those times, though they had lost 3 provinces by that point as well.

I feel that with more experience - not to mention seeing the other 60%+ of the cards in the core set - well-timed defending will win games more often that pure 'zerging'. Sure, some pure aggressive clans (Lion, maybe Unicorn) may still be able to win fairy often with pure offense when they go first, but I'm betting that won't be reliable enough against decks that are either 'balanced' (Dragon, Crane, etc.), or have a defensive theme (Crab, Phoenix, etc).

1 hour ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

Hmm.

In the games I've played (a dozen or so), there were a few in which the player who went first during the first round just attacked relentlessly and never bothered defending. Two of those games were Lion, and they did mange to win both those times, though they had lost 3 provinces by that point as well.

Something to remember, when me and my playgroup first started playing Game of Thrones 2.0 we would swing with X+1, where X=The Strength of your Opponent. You have 12 Military Strength Standing? I swing with 13. This worked out great for us for a while before we realized we could do this amazing thing called "Taxing", where you swing just to see if someone will block you. We tried to do this in the 2-3 games we played and it lead to strange and long drawn out games where we would swing with 2-3 force just to get ring effects to go off. So I think the opposite might hold true, but the more I watch the game the more I realize that Water is 10/10... IF you go second. And I think the Ring of Water was designed with that in mind. However I think the Unicorn with Dragon Splash might the THE Deck to beat out of the box. Only because Way of the Unicorn + Breakthrough = Void, Water, Straighten, Defend. Which on paper sounds absolutely Devastating!

Not defending ever is foolish. You have to look at board position. Ring of water especially can make defending very sensible , especially if you have one big guy.

There are definitely times you want to not oppose attacks, but it really depends.

Liked the vid, a few points:

It'd b great to see honor totals, a lot of the nuance from bidding is lost to the viewer if we can't see honor easily.

I find it interesting how various play styles affect the game - I find defense a pivotal part of the game, specifically just enough to prevent a province break.

Your strategy for card draw is also vastly different. As Crane I generally bid low, relying on Earth Ring (which I think you guys undervalued), Storyteller, and perfect gift to nab cards. While this allows the opponent to gain a bit of card advantage it's at the cost of honor!

You can't boost the Stoic Gunso with the Asahina Artisan as he isn't a Crane Character. That is pretty big cause Yokuni would have still been in the Dragon province.

Personally I don't like Perfect Gift. It doesn't give you a card it just trades itself for a better card and gives your opponent a card.

1 hour ago, Kakita Katai said:

You can't boost the Stoic Gunso with the Asahina Artisan as he isn't a Crane Character. That is pretty big cause Yokuni would have still been in the Dragon province.

Personally I don't like Perfect Gift. It doesn't give you a card it just trades itself for a better card and gives your opponent a card.

Good note on the Asahina Artisan. I still probably pop the province on a military swing later that turn, but I wouldn't be in a position to Noble Sacrifice. We also misread the text for the Togashi Initiate in that it's a offense only ability.

I'm with you on Perfect Gift. You're opponent is unlikely to be running bad cards. So whatever you draw with it needs to be better than two cards combined. In a combo heavy deck that's conceivable, but more often than not you're just giving up value to your opponent.

I'm still on the fence about perfect Gift. Generally players won't include 'bad' cards in their deck, however Perfect Gift makes sure you have the 'right' while generally picking the 'wrong' card for your opponent.

At a crucial point in the game, if I can look at the top four of my opponent's deck and give them let's say a Banzai instead of some sort of anti bow or straighten tech, when I have a good amount of bow abilities, will be where Perfect Gift shines.

I don't think it ever starts as a three of and as more cards come out it will likely get taken out of decks that aren't based around some sort of combo.

Also at the end, when Dragon attacks and hits Elemental Fury you swap Water Political to Air Political. Can't do that. Should still have been Political.

Crane player is doing a lot of telling the Dragon player what to do and not letting him fully play his game IMHO but that is me.

I like watching games but that kind of talk is off-putting.

4 minutes ago, Kakita Katai said:

Also at the end, when Dragon attacks and hits Elemental Fury you swap Water Political to Air Political. Can't do that. Should still have been Political.

From what I saw he declared a military Fire attack and then it got swapped to Air military. When I initially tossed the ring on the province it was on political for half a second, but we made sure it was on the military side before the province flipped.

If you go back you'll see he declared Political and you swap to Military and even when he wants to declare his next conflict you tell him it has to be military cause he is has used his political.

I don't think it would make much of a difference.

But Dragon made only one attack that turn. That was likely more of us misreading the video when doing commentary than actual gameplay. He really needed to go military on the first attack to pop the province.

1 hour ago, Kakita Katai said:

Crane player is doing a lot of telling the Dragon player what to do and not letting him fully play his game IMHO but that is me.

Yeah, Kiramode! Quit being so mean to Badmojojojo. ?

Seriously, though, it's probably because Badmojojojo drinks too much and does not know how to play the game correctly.

Deck lists? I'm wondering about some of the numbers.

We can start posting deck lists, but we do change the decks a lot. Where would you like them? In the description on the video or in the forum post?

4 minutes ago, Badmojojojo said:

We can start posting deck lists, but we do change the decks a lot. Where would you like them? In the description on the video or in the forum post?

Forum lists do allow for easier changes while putting it in the video disc works for people who don't use the forum. Comes down to poster preference.

Yes, I would love to see a list of the decks used! I realize they change, but it would just be helpful to see what is in the decks from the video. I don't care where they are posted. Thanks!!

Huh. I would have guessed that Reprieve would have generally stuffed effects that required a sacrifice because with Reprieve you never actually pay the cost of the guy.

Has it been confirmed that Reprieve works with those kinds of effects? Given what is implied about the way Crab works that could be insane depending on what they're cooking up...

In other FFG games, if you "prevent" a sacrifice as a required cost of an effect, the effect does not resolve. Given that, I really doubt Reprieve works with the sacrifice effects Crab will have.

56 minutes ago, I Fight Dragons said:

In other FFG games, if you "prevent" a sacrifice as a required cost of an effect, the effect does not resolve. Given that, I really doubt Reprieve works with the sacrifice effects Crab will have.

Same.

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On a side note, +1 request for seeing some decklists.

Reprieve would function as a replacement for the sacrifice. I know in Star Wars there is a difference between preventing effects and replacing effects. When a card uses a replacement for a cost, the cost is considered to be paid. But they could rule otherwise for this game. Using Reprieve and Stand Your Ground with Noble Sacrifice has yet to really warp any of our games.