In another thread some questions came up about game tempo, honor, and provinces. I think these two games against Croy exemplify a more defensive gameplan pretty well. This is Croy's stream, so seen from his PoV!

Games start around the 30 minute mark: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/156224105

The first game is a Crane v Lion matchup which shows my typical playstyle. The second game is Dragon v Lion and shows a slower, more grindy game.

Thanks for sharing. Is the module for Tabletop simulator available?

@Reiga I feel Wandering Ronin not breaking province against Matsu Beiona wasn't necessairly his fault, no other card would have broken it(not counting honored champions) since Croy had double way of the Lion. Also would by nice to get some insight on why you didn't decide to go all in military at that point since he had 2 historians that can't participate, you also saw that Lion brawler with water is coming and you could have gotten 3rd province to his 0. Even if he blocks with Lions pride brawler and you don't break(if you guys play with 2/2 Mirumoto Prodigy) at least you deny him military.

Glad you recognized the superior might of Elemental fury, you are now forgiven

Yes I made a few misplays down the stretch there. That being the biggest.

That turn actually has quite a few misplays:

1) Not just committing to the MIL attack, especially since I was up on provinces and ahead in tempo

2) Playing Kazue as an attachment - I wanted to try her out as I hadn't used her before. Kazue as conflict character OR Wanderer as Conflict character win me that battle

3) Similar to 1 but going all in with Conflict resources while not going all in with Dynasty resources. Conflict resources are generally more valuable and I took a suboptimal line

4) The next turn when I play Yokuni I forget I didn't break 3rd province otherwise I should've put more fate on him

5) Turn 2 there was little reason for me to waste 1 fate and IW on that Niten Master crackback.

6) I mention this on the stream but one turn I shorted myself 1 fate (2+7 = 9 not 8) and that also hurts.

Despite the misplays it was a lot of fun and I definitely learned a lot.

This was my first time playing Dragon ?

I think that the more games we see and play, the more it is shown that drawing few cards is almost never the correct play. There is too much power in the conflict deck to ignore it when honor win is not supported with other cards. The only clans that you want to bid more conservatively is Lion and maybe Scorpion if they are revealed to have mill/dishonor shaneningans. In the matches that are between the rest of the clans most of the time it will be a slug fest.

1 hour ago, blackheartz said:

I think that the more games we see and play, the more it is shown that drawing few cards is almost never the correct play. There is too much power in the conflict deck to ignore it when honor win is not supported with other cards. The only clans that you want to bid more conservatively is Lion and maybe Scorpion if they are revealed to have mill/dishonor shaneningans. In the matches that are between the rest of the clans most of the time it will be a slug fest.

I'm witnessing this to be true. Honour running just doesn't seem to be a viable win condition. It's more of a tool used to gain card advantage.

I do wonder how the playtesting went for this? Did FFG find that 25 honour was a threatening enough threshold to victory that it matched the impact of breaking provinces? Because we don't see that in early playtesting right now. Admittedly, the card pool is only about 43% complete, but this is what we have to go on so far...

My guess is that honor was never intended to be a legitimate win condition. I think it was put there to make card draw at least somewhat interesting and also to put a clock on the game.

Could be they wanted "wiggle room" with the honor victory for future card expansions.

10 hours ago, franzvong said:

Thanks for sharing. Is the module for Tabletop simulator available?

It's not posted on steam or TTS, it's kind of underground right now out of respect to FFG.

18 minutes ago, Shu2jack said:

Could be they wanted "wiggle room" with the honor victory for future card expansions.

They really wanted to avoid the solitaire game that was Old5R honor running and I think they've largely succeeded. I don't think making honor a primary wincon would be good for the game, at least not to the point you could outright ignore conflicts.

3 hours ago, blackheartz said:

I think that the more games we see and play, the more it is shown that drawing few cards is almost never the correct play. There is too much power in the conflict deck to ignore it when honor win is not supported with other cards. The only clans that you walynt to bid more conservatively is Lion and maybe Scorpion if they are revealed to have mill/dishonor shaneningans. In the matches that are between the rest of the clans most of the time it will be a slug fest.

Hm I don't know about that. The first game where Lion player drew a lot of cards he lost, and the second where he always drew 1 he won. Not every deck will be able to win by honor in every circumstances but drawing little cards is not that weak if you counteract it with dynasty and draw from provinces/holdings also earth ring while slowly choking opponent on honor, making them think if they should defend or not. Also both with night raid and restoration of balance high card count can be easily countered. obviously non crane or lion decks will draw more on average

6 hours ago, kiramode said:

My guess is that honor was never intended to be a legitimate win condition.

Out of the box maybe. Core set v core set being a game of smashing guys together is somewhat expected -and forgivable- methinks.

I also don't think that honor running in this game would be a completely solitaire like venture regardless because of the way that the draw mechanics work and how one could potentially metagame that. But we'll see. I hated the honor run/dishonor bomb style of play as much as anyone I think it would be a shame if Honor and Dishonor were never really viable ways of winning.

10 minutes ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

Out of the box maybe. Core set v core set being a game of smashing guys together is somewhat expected -and forgivable- methinks.

I also don't think that honor running in this game would be a completely solitaire like venture regardless because of the way that the draw mechanics work and how one could potentially metagame that. But we'll see. I hated the honor run/dishonor bomb style of play as much as anyone I think it would be a shame if Honor and Dishonor were never really viable ways of winning.

I kind of like where the dishonor is at. I you get two 5-1 bids you're a couple dishonored characters, air rings, and unopposed penalties away from killing someone. Granted; your opponent would have to take the bait twice(unlikely). But it makes it so one 5-1 bid fundamentally changes how people play(which is important).

The honor victory is a joke though. The closest I've seen is 20 and that game the guy with 20 honor got beat 4 provinces to 1. With time I could see a deck that has numerous ways to pick up honor via defensive cards and then grind to 25. But given that we've already seen just about all of the Lion and Crane cards; it's hard to see how that will be viable out of the core set.

Just noticed this thread. Thanks @Reiga.

I had some misplay, but this was fun. So far I have won 4 times to honor, 1 to dishonor and about 6 to military.

I've lost to honor 1 time and to military several. Never dishonor

1 hour ago, kiramode said:

I kind of like where the dishonor is at. I you get two 5-1 bids you're a couple dishonored characters, air rings, and unopposed penalties away from killing someone. Granted; your opponent would have to take the bait twice(unlikely). But it makes it so one 5-1 bid fundamentally changes how people play(which is important).

The honor victory is a joke though. The closest I've seen is 20 and that game the guy with 20 honor got beat 4 provinces to 1. With time I could see a deck that has numerous ways to pick up honor via defensive cards and then grind to 25. But given that we've already seen just about all of the Lion and Crane cards; it's hard to see how that will be viable out of the core set.

Liked for 100% agreement with everything you just said.

I also just fundamentally like the way Dishonor works in this game. It's gonna make people feel like every little decision, every defence, every draw, is something they need to be mindful of and that I can possibly turn against them to just kill them. Love it. If a Dishonor is viable out the box I intend to find it!

9 hours ago, kiramode said:

My guess is that honor was never intended to be a legitimate win condition. I think it was put there to make card draw at least somewhat interesting and also to put a clock on the game.

I think it's probably more correct to say that you cannot assume an honour route to victory.

I think it is more likely that if the other play is incautious, and you have the right deck, you can extract an honour victory from them.

For example if I am reckless I can 'gift' my Lion opponent with the opportunity to win through honour.

The same 'reckless' strategy against say Dragon would not be as risky, as Dragon currently have fewer opportunities to win through an honour condition. That's not to say Dragon *cannot* win in that way, it's just measurably harder for them to do so.

Honour tempers wildly aggressive play (drawing lots of conflict cards, firing off Assassinations left and right) to a degree. Some clans I expect will be quite suited to aggressive play, able to absorb or at least manage honour loss OR attempt to threaten an opponent with an honour win.

Scorpion I expect will threaten the 'wild aggressive' play by denying Honour regeneration (for example by dishonouring characters). Conversely Unicorn will demand players switch to aggressive card drawing play if only to be able to defend in almost every conflict phase.

Matsu Beiona says: Reaction: After this character enters play, if you control 3 or more other Bushi characters – place 2 fate on this character.

So you trigger the reaction AFTER she enters play so wouldn't she count towards one of those 3 Bushi?

7 minutes ago, Kakita Katai said:

Matsu Beiona says: Reaction: After this character enters play, if you control 3 or more other Bushi characters – place 2 fate on this character.

So you trigger the reaction AFTER she enters play so wouldn't she count towards one of those 3 Bushi?

My friend and I discussed this, no she wouldn't it says "3 OTHER Bushi" Even though she is Bushi in play it only triggers off of other keywords.

9 minutes ago, Kakita Katai said:

Matsu Beiona says: Reaction: After this character enters play, if you control 3 or more other Bushi characters – place 2 fate on this character.

So you trigger the reaction AFTER she enters play so wouldn't she count towards one of those 3 Bushi?

"other"

Good point.

I've now played 5 games of this game total, so...take what I say with a grain of salt, but winning via honor seems virtually impossible to do consistently. Even if you're at 20 honor you may be a hand full of turns away from winning that way. And that's with a diminished hand (presumably way underbidding each round) and no legitimate way of consistently preventing your opponent from doing either Ring of Fire to dishonor your characters or just Ring of Air to take an honor off of you.

And even then, you should be able to break provinces during your turn while gaining that honor and ultimately lead to a more convenient way of winning via province destruction.

There just aren't enough ways to get honor in the game (right now) to threaten honoring out unless you are only bidding 1 and your opponent is only bidding 4 or 5 and you're prioritizing Air every single turn (which allows your opponent to tag your characters with Void or Water to limit your board state or Earth to limit your already depleted hand or Fire to keep your honor down.)

I think of honor more as a way of making sure people don't go crazy with the card draw and dishonor themselves out and offers a weak alternative if, somehow, you are consistently able to gain honor but, simultaneously, incapable of winning conflicts on offense.

I don't know a deck that can do that right now.

I will say that we haven't seen a lot of neutral cards yet. If there's some reliable honor gain hidden in there, this story may change. But, as we know the game right now, it seems very difficult to get to 25 while being unable to break 4 provinces instead.

Dishonor, on the other hand, I think has some merit. In a few of the games I was playing, one of us got down to 6 or 7 honor a few times. And that was without major losses in bidding. Just even draws and a few Air and Fire challenges can drop an opponent relatively quickly.

If Scorpion has any "lose 1 honor if <blank>" abilities that they can tack on to that honor loss, in addition to potentially bidding low on turn 1 or 2 to gain an additional 1 or 2 honor loss, you could have a lot of people floating around 4, in which case they are pretty much unable to take any more than 1 card.

It feels like a much shorter path from 11 to 0 than it is 11 to 25 haha. Especially with the honor lost from not defending conflicts.

1 hour ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I've now played 5 games of this game total, so...take what I say with a grain of salt, but winning via honor seems virtually impossible to do consistently. Even if you're at 20 honor you may be a hand full of turns away from winning that way. And that's with a diminished hand (presumably way underbidding each round) and no legitimate way of consistently preventing your opponent from doing either Ring of Fire to dishonor your characters or just Ring of Air to take an honor off of you.

And even then, you should be able to break provinces during your turn while gaining that honor and ultimately lead to a more convenient way of winning via province destruction.

There just aren't enough ways to get honor in the game (right now) to threaten honoring out unless you are only bidding 1 and your opponent is only bidding 4 or 5 and you're prioritizing Air every single turn (which allows your opponent to tag your characters with Void or Water to limit your board state or Earth to limit your already depleted hand or Fire to keep your honor down.)

I think of honor more as a way of making sure people don't go crazy with the card draw and dishonor themselves out and offers a weak alternative if, somehow, you are consistently able to gain honor but, simultaneously, incapable of winning conflicts on offense.

I don't know a deck that can do that right now.

I will say that we haven't seen a lot of neutral cards yet. If there's some reliable honor gain hidden in there, this story may change. But, as we know the game right now, it seems very difficult to get to 25 while being unable to break 4 provinces instead.

Dishonor, on the other hand, I think has some merit. In a few of the games I was playing, one of us got down to 6 or 7 honor a few times. And that was without major losses in bidding. Just even draws and a few Air and Fire challenges can drop an opponent relatively quickly.

If Scorpion has any "lose 1 honor if <blank>" abilities that they can tack on to that honor loss, in addition to potentially bidding low on turn 1 or 2 to gain an additional 1 or 2 honor loss, you could have a lot of people floating around 4, in which case they are pretty much unable to take any more than 1 card.

It feels like a much shorter path from 11 to 0 than it is 11 to 25 haha. Especially with the honor lost from not defending conflicts.

Ha. I have had the exact opposite experience

24 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

Ha. I have had the exact opposite experience

1 hour ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

If Scorpion has any "lose 1 honor if <blank>" abilities that they can tack on to that honor loss, in addition to potentially bidding low on turn 1 or 2 to gain an additional 1 or 2 honor loss, you could have a lot of people floating around 4, in which case they are pretty much unable to take any more than 1 card.

To follow up on what you posted, I too suspect Scorpion to have several cards/personalities/events/etc that will specifically tackle Honor loss and gain, which will by far be their primary strength, methinks. Imagine if there exists cards that will pose a -1, -2 or even a -3 Honor loss through some ability, like you are theorized. Yikes!!! (Intact, one of the main reasons that I am gravitating toward splashing Scorpion into my Dragon deck is for some method of gaining +1/+2/etc Honor as I suspect I will be bidding high for cards for the first two or even three rounds of the game. (thus, I would need to offset my Honor loss)

1 hour ago, BayushiCroy said:

Ha. I have had the exact opposite experience

Can you elaborate? Of the 13 games I have seen online, only 1 was an honour victory.

Traditionally, Crane and Phoenix were the clans most associated with honour victories, so I'm quite curious if winning the game in this fashion is viable.

5 minutes ago, Anemura said:

Can you elaborate? Of the 13 games I have seen online, only 1 was an honour victory.

Traditionally, Crane and Phoenix were the clans most associated with honour victories, so I'm quite curious if winning the game in this fashion is viable.

Just posted my decklist with thoughts.