2 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

@Togashi Gao Shan

That was a sneaky edit of my post to make it fit your agenda. Please don't.

Will a Crane player struggle against 10 political province strength if they just blindly throw themselves at it.....yes. And if it's truely the only line of play they have, that's a bummer.

The point that is being made is that as long as you're winning rings and getting the desired effects, you should be in control of the board state and eventually have an opportunity to go military or flood the board with enough political power that the 10 strength doesn't matter.......or win by honor or dishonor.

The game is flexible enough to allow you to change your path to victory of you play in a fashion that leaves you pursue multiple paths to victory. If you happen to break 3 provinces and then try to force a victory through province destruction when then board position won't allow you to do it, then that is player error, not a card being too strong.

Sneaky? Uh, no. I just cut out the part that I wasn't responding to.

Regarding not being bale to break a 10 strength final province being a 'player error': Not necessarily. You seem to be saying that a player should always be able to win some other way than through breaking their opponent's provinces, which means Honor or Dishonor. That's simply not going to be possible sometimes.

It could very well be that it doesn't end up being that big of a deal once we have all the cards available, and it could even be moot if it turns out to not be '+5 vs. political'. However, the idea that you can just switch to winning in a different manner may not be viable for some clans (imo), at least from what we've seen of the game thus far.

3 hours ago, Reiga said:

@Badmojojojo Really digging that swarmy Lion deck. It's like a concept I've been working on but way better

I hate it. Not my play style. It's strong, but not because of choices so very little mistakes can be made. Flood the board with cheap units, attack military, successfully defend at least one ring engagement...win the game.

Not sure if this is obvious from the videos, but Kiramode wins more games than I do. I am trying to make mistakes and learn from them, but I cannot decide if flipping into an unknown province is a skill mistake or unlucky? Also, how much does a bad dynasty flop one turn effect the overall outcome?

Got to watch Kiramode play another person recently who did a cool trick I never thought of doing which is to only play one small unit and save up five fate so on turn two he could dump all kinds of big bad fun stuff.

57 minutes ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

Sneaky? Uh, no. I just cut out the part that I wasn't responding to.

And by doing so cut out the context in which that statement was made.

Winning rings, specifically the ring that is most important to your turn to turn strategy, is more important than breaking provinces..............unless and only if both players are at the pony where the first person to break a province wins the games and neither player has any options other that to try for that last province or they lose.

I could argue that it you get to that point you may very well have been outplayed, no matter how far ahead you were up until then. However there are times where the random nature of any card game intervenes and puts you in an unwinnable situation.

In either case the strength of the card is less of an issue than how well you played or if you ran into some bad luck.

If I was constantly running into difficulty breaking the last province then I would look first to seeing if the deck and/or my play strategy needs adjustment, before I changed anything. A great example of this was the first two games I played against Kiramode.

Before even starting I made it more difficult on myself then I needed to. I built a deck that was designed to try and play a longer game against a more experienced player which is going to open me up to make more mistakes for him to capitalize on. I did an ok Jon of trying to switch gears and did manage to drag the game out a little, but never could get the game to a point where I could challenge anything other than province destruction and he had much better cards to play in conflict. In game two I kept a poor hand to begin with but managed to at least flirt with dishonor....one of the biggest problems was that I failed in two occasions to double Air ring with Hotaru and it allowed him to get a ton of cards which again gives him the conflict advantage as he has more relevant actions.

Although I highly doubt the outcomes would have been any different, I did as much damage to myself as he did. To go back and say that 10 province strength was too much and the cause of.me losing would be false. Elemental Fury had a bigger impact for both of us even without a province break than any other province except maybe Shameful Display......but it was really close. The point being rings matter a lot not than getting stonewalled from breaking a province and if you are playing in a way that allows you to maintain board advantage then it doesn't matter of you break a province until it is your only option, contains a card that will allow you to swing the board advantage to your favor, or wins you the game without exposing you to losing if you fail to break.

2 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. If Crane, who we are assuming is one of if not the top political clan, doesn't have a problem with it then why would any other clan have any difficulty with it? It would stand to reason that the other clans would be better off on military to some degree and going military puts this province back to normal.

Scorpion and Phoenix will be the other two clans with political focus and I fear for them. Somehow I do not believe these two will present as much raw power but instead will rely on tricks to win their conflicts. Starting with a 12 power wall even before player interaction will be rough. But again this discussion is pointless we are talking about the effects on an unrevealed card so I will be checking out.

So if that lion deck is swarm deck why play Akodo Toturi? I understand it is a strong card, but at 5 fate it seems like a huge investment for a deck that wants to go wide. I see that card more useful in a deck that cheats cards out (spirit caller and the other Lion coutier).

19 hours ago, Badmojojojo said:

Got to watch Kiramode play another person recently who did a cool trick I never thought of doing which is to only play one small unit and save up five fate so on turn two he could dump all kinds of big bad fun stuff.

I also did that against his turn one Yokuni. It was a gamble for sure but I think it was the right call for a couple reasons. My dynasty flips pretty much sucked. I had Dojo Gift Giver which could essentially stall Yokuni barring any unbow effects which was worth the risk. I had a Banzai which would at least allow me to attack and win Fire to dishonor Yokuni to hit a Noble Sacrifice. If he defended I could hope to gift Yokuni into bowing. And by passing first I denied him any extra fate, limiting him to only 0 cost attachments for the turn.

It wasn't really the plan but after he dumped all his fate in Yokuni it was clearly the best option I had.

3 minutes ago, Spawnod said:

So if that lion deck is awarm deck why lay Akodo Toturi? I understand it is a strong card, but at 5 fate it seems like a huge investment for a deck that wants to go wide. I saw that card more useful in a deck that cheats cards out (spirit caller and the other Lion coutier).

Probably because it helps to have a big body to gain covert and double ring effects keep the board in check but I suspect there are other reasons I'm not thinking of.

12 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Probably because it helps to have a big body to gain covert and double ring effects keep the board in check but I suspect there are other reasons I'm not thinking of.

Maybe, but one character on board is much easier to deal with than multiple dudes. I have not seen the double ring effect be super important, but I have not played any games and have only seen a handful of videos.

20 minutes ago, Spawnod said:

So if that lion deck is swarm deck why play Akodo Toturi? I understand it is a strong card, but at 5 fate it seems like a huge investment for a deck that wants to go wide. I see that card more useful in a deck that cheats cards out (spirit caller and the other Lion coutier).

So I tossed him in there because there really isn't any other options.

-Eiji is fired because he's way over costed(stat wise) in a deck that needs under costed guys.

-Death Seeker is fired because this deck isn't in the business of giving up 50% of attacks just to trigger a void ring. Also has trash stats.

-Spiritcaller is fired because you don't have enough big bodies to justify the action on her.

-Honored General is fired because he's way too expensive for what he is. 4 mana for a 5/3? Not good enough. The pump also isn't relevant in a deck that needs no real help on the military front.

So if you toss in the three cheap neutrals and all the remaining Lion cards you're at 39 cards. Totori ends up on the team by default. Of the 4 fired cards, the Spiritcaller made the most sense as a 1x because you can reasonably get a Totori or a Brawler from the grave.

But it's not like Totori is a bad card in the deck. You pretty much never want him turn 1, but afterwards he has his uses. The deck has natural reasons to want to bid low every now and again which means you can use Good Omen on Totori. Totori also can smooth over excessively light turns where you have nothing but Imperial Storehouses and Obstinate Recruits. In those situations you typically want a big body so you have something to do with your resources. Lastly, the fact that you're drawing more Dynasty cards via Staging Grounds means you're more likely to flip into 2x of Totori. And any unique that gets a free fate is always relevant.

Ideally a good 2-3 cost character would be in that slot instead, but you make do with what you have.

Since there is not a deckbuilding page (and deckbuilding is fun) I thought I would post this here. How do you think this would do for a Lion Swarm deck? In theory, I think it would work well.

Dynasty
3x Obstinate Recruit
3x Steadfast Samurai
3x Ikoma Prodigy
3x Seppun Guardsman
3x Otomo Courtier
3x Venerable Historian
3x Akodo Gunso
2x Deathseeker
3x Lion's Pride Brawler
2x Matsu Beiona
3x Akodo Toturi

Conflict
3x For Greater Glory
3x Honored Blade
3x Ready for Battle
3x Sashimono
3x Way of the Lion
3x For Shame!
3x Stand Your Ground
3x Banzai
3x Fine Katana
3x Ornate Fan
2x Good Omen
3x The Perfect Gift
3x Steward of Law
2x Voice of Honor

Edit: forgot to add 3x Imperial Storehouse and 3x Staging Ground to the Dynasty deck

I think you're missing the holdings that help accelerate and maintain the swarm strategy. I don't think Crane splash is the way to go. Dragon have more relevant cards for winning conflicts. And now Crab appears to be in the mix.

Crane doesn't really cover any holes for the Lion, but, there might be a Crane swarm deck that could borrow from the Lion.......Maybe?

The initial version of the deck ran Steward of Law. But once the Tattooed Wanderer showed up, Crane quickly got the boot. Kakita Kaezin is a pain in the butt and you need an answer for him.

As for the Dynasty deck, Staging Grounds is the lifeblood of the deck. You hard mulligan for that card. And the Imperial Storehouse is great Staging Grounds fodder. Deathseeker needs to get fired though. It's a good card, but does the opposite of what the deck wants to do.

I had mainly taking Crane splash for The Perfect Gift so I could draw into For Greater Glory and for another card draw option since Lion wants to stay on top of honor and bid low. I had forgotten to add Imperial Storehouse and Staging Grounds but I corrected that. I agree that Deathseeker goes against what the deck wants to do and as the game goes on it will be replaced with better options. It is awesome that there are already so many cool combos and only a vast majority of cards of 3 clans have been shown

7 hours ago, kiramode said:

So I tossed him in there because there really isn't any other options.

-Eiji is fired because he's way over costed(stat wise) in a deck that needs under costed guys.

-Death Seeker is fired because this deck isn't in the business of giving up 50% of attacks just to trigger a void ring. Also has trash stats.

-Spiritcaller is fired because you don't have enough big bodies to justify the action on her.

-Honored General is fired because he's way too expensive for what he is. 4 mana for a 5/3? Not good enough. The pump also isn't relevant in a deck that needs no real help on the military front.

So if you toss in the three cheap neutrals and all the remaining Lion cards you're at 39 cards. Totori ends up on the team by default. Of the 4 fired cards, the Spiritcaller made the most sense as a 1x because you can reasonably get a Totori or a Brawler from the grave.

But it's not like Totori is a bad card in the deck. You pretty much never want him turn 1, but afterwards he has his uses. The deck has natural reasons to want to bid low every now and again which means you can use Good Omen on Totori. Totori also can smooth over excessively light turns where you have nothing but Imperial Storehouses and Obstinate Recruits. In those situations you typically want a big body so you have something to do with your resources. Lastly, the fact that you're drawing more Dynasty cards via Staging Grounds means you're more likely to flip into 2x of Totori. And any unique that gets a free fate is always relevant.

Ideally a good 2-3 cost character would be in that slot instead, but you make do with what you have.

This is an interesting take because from the games I have seen, early champions tend to warp the board. Here, you are saying you don't want Toturi early...?

When you say Toturi "smooths over excessively light turns", can not this same thinking apply to Honoured General? Speaking of Honoured General, can you describe why you think 8 stat points (5/3 when bought) for 4 Fate is "not good enough"? Are there better stat'd characters that beat his 2:1 stats ratio?

I can understand why Spirit Caller and Eiji are devalued in a deck that does not use 'heavies', but even in swarm, do you think there would be a benefit in having access to more bodies? Other than providing some Political boost, that's the real benefit to the Spirit Caller and Eiji no?

2 hours ago, Anemura said:

This is an interesting take because from the games I have seen, early champions tend to warp the board. Here, you are saying you don't want Toturi early...?

When you say Toturi "smooths over excessively light turns", can not this same thinking apply to Honoured General? Speaking of Honoured General, can you describe why you think 8 stat points (5/3 when bought) for 4 Fate is "not good enough"? Are there better stat'd characters that beat his 2:1 stats ratio?

I can understand why Spirit Caller and Eiji are devalued in a deck that does not use 'heavies', but even in swarm, do you think there would be a benefit in having access to more bodies? Other than providing some Political boost, that's the real benefit to the Spirit Caller and Eiji no?

When evaluating card stats I always look at the relevant stat only. The secondary stat is bonus. So Toturi is a 6 skill for 5 and Honored General is a 5 skill for 4. Both are not that great in that regard. But Toturi has a lot more upside. For starters he has 3 glory which could bring him up to 9 if he gets honored and lives for another turn. General effectively has no glory. Additionally, Totori having a base 6 power means Way of the Lion becomes a phenomenal card on him. Honored General is no better than a Berserker in that regard. Toturi is also unique which means he can potentially be worth 12 skill for 5 mana(and two cards) whereas Honored General has no such upside. And finally; the text on the general can't hold a candle to the champ.

Ideally the deck wouldn't even have the champ and it would have more weenies and more cards that flip dynasty card over. The deck is all about maximizing value. The champ fits well enough in that framework. The other guys really don't. I'd be more willing to entertain Eiji in the deck over the General just because of the uniqueness giving that extra value.

2 hours ago, kiramode said:

When evaluating card stats I always look at the relevant stat only. The secondary stat is bonus. So Toturi is a 6 skill for 5 and Honored General is a 5 skill for 4. Both are not that great in that regard. But Toturi has a lot more upside. For starters he has 3 glory which could bring him up to 9 if he gets honored and lives for another turn. General effectively has no glory. Additionally, Totori having a base 6 power means Way of the Lion becomes a phenomenal card on him. Honored General is no better than a Berserker in that regard. Toturi is also unique which means he can potentially be worth 12 skill for 5 mana(and two cards) whereas Honored General has no such upside. And finally; the text on the general can't hold a candle to the champ.

Ideally the deck wouldn't even have the champ and it would have more weenies and more cards that flip dynasty card over. The deck is all about maximizing value. The champ fits well enough in that framework. The other guys really don't. I'd be more willing to entertain Eiji in the deck over the General just because of the uniqueness giving that extra value.

In theory, I agree with the way you assess character stats vs. cost.

However, what about Dragon? For one, they have a lot of characters that are 'balanced' in stats, and they also have multiple characters with poor stats for their cost, due to their hopefully superior abilities / tendency to be in multiple Conflicts.

Thus far I'm finding that the abilities on the low stat characters don't completely make up for those sub-par stats, at least not without a lot more effort and / or combos showing up than Lion and Crane need.

3 hours ago, kiramode said:

When evaluating card stats I always look at the relevant stat only. The secondary stat is bonus. So Toturi is a 6 skill for 5 and Honored General is a 5 skill for 4. Both are not that great in that regard. But Toturi has a lot more upside. For starters he has 3 glory which could bring him up to 9 if he gets honored and lives for another turn. General effectively has no glory. Additionally, Totori having a base 6 power means Way of the Lion becomes a phenomenal card on him. Honored General is no better than a Berserker in that regard. Toturi is also unique which means he can potentially be worth 12 skill for 5 mana(and two cards) whereas Honored General has no such upside. And finally; the text on the general can't hold a candle to the champ.

Ideally the deck wouldn't even have the champ and it would have more weenies and more cards that flip dynasty card over. The deck is all about maximizing value. The champ fits well enough in that framework. The other guys really don't. I'd be more willing to entertain Eiji in the deck over the General just because of the uniqueness giving that extra value.

Ok, if we are talking about this swarm deck in particular, then yes, I agree that cheaper characters are better for it.

I too think that Toturi is better than the HG. My point was more about considering Toturi as a good card in general, and not considering HG a good card in general. This is independent of your current swarm deck. What do you think about HG outside of swarm/just in general?

2 hours ago, Anemura said:

What do you think about HG outside of swarm/just in general

I see what you did there!

7 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

In theory, I agree with the way you assess character stats vs. cost.

However, what about Dragon? For one, they have a lot of characters that are 'balanced' in stats, and they also have multiple characters with poor stats for their cost, due to their hopefully superior abilities / tendency to be in multiple Conflicts.

Thus far I'm finding that the abilities on the low stat characters don't completely make up for those sub-par stats, at least not without a lot more effort and / or combos showing up than Lion and Crane need.

Dragon cards are pretty hard to evaluate. They have cards that have loads of potential, but don't have enough support yet. Cards like Seeker of Enlightenment and Ascetic Visionary could one day be powerhouse cards. But neither of them are able to do what you need right now. And then you have a card like Enlightened warrior who would need two theoretical triggers to be usable. On the flipside you have Doomed Shugenja which is criminally under-statted. You also have Niten Adept who has text is that is almost on par with Lion's Pride Brawler and Doji Challnger. The fact that the unit in question has to be participating hurts him a little, but the potential is there. Then you have a card like Kitsuki Investigator who is bad most of the time, but at the right time becomes a 5 star card just because of the hand reveal.

Niten master is probably the easiest of their combo heavy cards to evaluate. He's probably going to be entering two military battles and one political battle. You're also probably going to have to pay a 2 mana tax for the weapons you play on him(fina katana lowers the tax). So he costs an effective 6 resources and 3 cards. The one political battle will contribute 3 attack. Presuming that you swing political first and then use weapons to ready, then the first military he contributes 5 and the second military battle he contributes 7. If you go military first then he contributes 3, 3, then 5. So depending on how you sequence attacks he's somewhere between 11-15 skill for 6 resources and 3 cards. That's okay, but the cost to do that is quite high. He also carries much more value than a typical card if he's able to live an extra turn, so if you're able to get more than one turn of value from him he becomes a phenomenal card.

6 hours ago, Anemura said:

Ok, if we are talking about this swarm deck in particular, then yes, I agree that cheaper characters are better for it.

I too think that Toturi is better than the HG. My point was more about considering Toturi as a good card in general, and not considering HG a good card in general. This is independent of your current swarm deck. What do you think about HG outside of swarm/just in general?

Outside of Swarm decks Totori is still fine. His synergy with Way of the Lion and the fact that he is unique is the main reasons to play him. Double ring effects can sometimes swing games, but the sad reality of Hotaru/Torori is that Elementary Fury effectively blanks their text and Shameful Display dis-proportionally screws them over because of that 3 glory. So you have a 50/50 chance of having the worst sadface when you swing into the unknown. But the gamble is usually worth it.

Honored General is just a card I don't really like. His stats aren't there and he doesn't have enough upside with other card combos to make up the difference. If he were in Crane and could make a bunch of 0-1 attack scrubs into somewhat relevant military attackers, then I think he'd be pretty good. But within the context of Lion he just doesn't make a lot of sense. Even the Spiritcaller/Stand your Ground combo(which somewhat hard to trigger effectively) isn't all that impactful when you actually use it.

I think if Lion one day gets a bunch of politically inclined cards that is seriously lacking in military might, then the General could make a lot of sense. It would have to be a situation where you would swing with the General and one other guy and the combination of the stronghold and the general's pump is enough to squeeze a province break through. But I think we're a long ways away from that situation ever happening.

On 7/9/2017 at 10:25 AM, kiramode said:

Outside of Swarm decks Totori is still fine. His synergy with Way of the Lion and the fact that he is unique is the main reasons to play him. Double ring effects can sometimes swing games, but the sad reality of Hotaru/Torori is that Elementary Fury effectively blanks their text and Shameful Display dis-proportionally screws them over because of that 3 glory. So you have a 50/50 chance of having the worst sadface when you swing into the unknown. But the gamble is usually worth it.

Honored General is just a card I don't really like. His stats aren't there and he doesn't have enough upside with other card combos to make up the difference. If he were in Crane and could make a bunch of 0-1 attack scrubs into somewhat relevant military attackers, then I think he'd be pretty good. But within the context of Lion he just doesn't make a lot of sense. Even the Spiritcaller/Stand your Ground combo(which somewhat hard to trigger effectively) isn't all that impactful when you actually use it.

I think if Lion one day gets a bunch of politically inclined cards that is seriously lacking in military might, then the General could make a lot of sense. It would have to be a situation where you would swing with the General and one other guy and the combination of the stronghold and the general's pump is enough to squeeze a province break through. But I think we're a long ways away from that situation ever happening.

Based on what you have said about HG, I think you will find that most 3+ Fate Cost characters will not measure up for you. I doubt we'll see a +4 Military/Political boost, or the equivalent of in terms of ability, contained within a 4 Fate Cost Character. The game doesn't seem to scale that way. Where I would say that it's possible to see that 2:1 ratio in 2 Fate and lower Cost Characters. Examples like Akodo Gunso and Brash Samurai come to mind. Matsu Berzerker is another. Anyways, I'll delve into this a bit with another post.

----------------------------------------------------------

I was just able to watch your game in full, and I have a few questions:

1. When Kiramode attacks with NM at Shameful Display for the Ring of Water (his first attack I think ), does Badmojo defend with Venerable Historian or not? Because it seems like Kiramode uses the RoW to bow VH, only to have Badmojo play Ready for Battle to unbow VH. This suggests that she did not block and was not therefore bowed by the battle itself.

2. The benefits of putting an extra fate on VH were far greater than the short burst from TW, IMO. It would have allowed Badmojo to threaten Political on Turn #2.

3. On turn #2: Badmojo buys Akodo Gunso, Seppun Gaurdsman X2, Otomo Courtier and Ikoma Prodigy. Leaves a fate behind. When Kiramode is buying Raitsugu with +1 Fate, and already has NM with +1 Fate, would not the thought for Lion be to retain board state as well? Go with AG + 1 Fate (3), OC + 1 Fate (2), SG and IP = 7 Fate for the turn. This way, Lion still churn out twice as many characters than Dragon that turn and still have 2 characters that will persist beyond that turn -- to Dragon's 3 characters. So the benefits of 'swarm' are still there along with some persistence in board state.

4. The board state problem is further exacerbated by Kiramode playing TW with +1 Fate. Meaning, by the next turn, Lion lost 7 (2 MB + 2 SG + AG + OC + IP) characters to Dragons 1 (NM).

Interested to hear your responses. Thanks.

1 hour ago, Anemura said:

I was just able to watch your game in full, and I have a few questions:

1. When Kiramode attacks with NM at Shameful Display for the Ring of Water (his first attack I think ), does Badmojo defend with Venerable Historian or not? Because it seems like Kiramode uses the RoW to bow VH, only to have Badmojo play Ready for Battle to unbow VH. This suggests that she did not block and was not therefore bowed by the battle itself.

2. The benefits of putting an extra fate on VH were far greater than the short burst from TW, IMO. It would have allowed Badmojo to threaten Political on Turn #2.

3. On turn #2: Badmojo buys Akodo Gunso, Seppun Gaurdsman X2, Otomo Courtier and Ikoma Prodigy. Leaves a fate behind. When Kiramode is buying Raitsugu with +1 Fate, and already has NM with +1 Fate, would not the thought for Lion be to retain board state as well? Go with AG + 1 Fate (3), OC + 1 Fate (2), SG and IP = 7 Fate for the turn. This way, Lion still churn out twice as many characters than Dragon that turn and still have 2 characters that will persist beyond that turn -- to Dragon's 3 characters. So the benefits of 'swarm' are still there along with some persistence in board state.

4. The board state problem is further exacerbated by Kiramode playing TW with +1 Fate. Meaning, by the next turn, Lion lost 7 (2 MB + 2 SG + AG + OC + IP) characters to Dragons 1 (NM).

Interested to hear your responses. Thanks.

1) There was no block. The Water ring bow effect got countered by Ready for Battle.

2) Yeah, not tossing a fate there was a huge mistake. The whole board could have stayed an extra turn and steamrolled.

3) I think this one is tricky. In general I think the move is to spam in a way where you place no fate on guys. Reason here being that you're going to want to Void out the Niten Master in all likelihood. But if you toss fate on your guys you run the risk of the Dragon player going Void to keep supreme board presence the next turn. Dragon will retain board advantage either way, but you can reduce the board state to just the duelist. Not a great situation either way.

4) I don't think he saw the wanderer coming. But once he went the no fate route my mindset was to just keep as many guys for the next turn as possible without losing the game that particular turn. So I knew I was for sure playing him on foot with an extra fate.

1 hour ago, kiramode said:

1) There was no block. The Water ring bow effect got countered by Ready for Battle.

2) Yeah, not tossing a fate there was a huge mistake. The whole board could have stayed an extra turn and steamrolled.

3) I think this one is tricky. In general I think the move is to spam in a way where you place no fate on guys. Reason here being that you're going to want to Void out the Niten Master in all likelihood. But if you toss fate on your guys you run the risk of the Dragon player going Void to keep supreme board presence the next turn. Dragon will retain board advantage either way, but you can reduce the board state to just the duelist. Not a great situation either way.

4) I don't think he saw the wanderer coming. But once he went the no fate route my mindset was to just keep as many guys for the next turn as possible without losing the game that particular turn. So I knew I was for sure playing him on foot with an extra fate.

1) I would have blocked with VH there. Rationale: At that point in the game, the odds are better that Badmojo can defend his province against just the NM, than they are him breaking one of Kiramode's provinces on attack. The DS was still home and unbowed, after all. If Badmojo was holding the VH out as a defensive measure against the DS, then it's about gauging which one of the DS or NM has a higher probability of cracking a province. To me, it would be the NM.

I would have have played that turn differently:

- Lion attacks with MB + MB + SS for Ring of Void, not Ring of Fire. Break province + For Greater Glory.

- RoV takes 1 Fate from NM.

- NM attacks Shameful Display alone with RoW because VH is still unbowed. DS is held back to attack politically in next conflict phase. If he goes along, there's a chance Lion keeps VH out of the conflict in order to attack Politically in the next conflict.

- Defend with VH instead of keeping her out. This is because the extra Fate was spent on her, instead of being held back for the TW.

- Shameful Display flips + VH defends. NM is dishonoured and VH honoured. So the totals become: 3 (VH honoured) + 2 (Banzai) + 3 for SD = 8 Military to break. 3 (NM Base) - 2 (Dishonoured) + 2 (Banzai) + 2 (Stronghold) + 2 (Fine Katana) = 7 Military. Not enough to break, but enough to get RoW.

- As far as I know, RoW does nothing in that case. All Lion are bowed, NM is bowed and DS is already straightened.

- Move to DS attack on Pilgrimage.

- Ornate fan on DS, province breaks, spies at court to have Lion discard 2 and DS leaves Dishonoured.

The net difference to this approach is -1 Fate on NM and hopefully 1 extra Fate on VH. This is a significant swing even though the trade off in provinces for that round was still 1 for 1.

Thoughts?

2) VH seems to be the Political focus of that Lion deck. Without her to threaten or defend politically, the Dragon would use their balanced stats ratios and extra Fate on characters to threaten Politically, unopposed.

3) The Lion will take off one Fate from NM this turn regardless (Military with two Berzerkers+) . By putting extra fate on AG, OC and potentially IP, you keep pace with Dragon's board state of 3 Fated Characters by retaining 3 of your own. If Dragon goes RoV to remove a Fate from AG, then that balances RoV for NM. In the end, the Lion should have SS + OC + IP (if you go extra Fate on IP instead of buying SG) remaining. Dragon should have MR + OC + TW remaining. Unless I have miscalculated?

- With VH still on the board (assuming +1 Fate), she can threaten Politically that turn with SS + AG (don't need him for Military) + OC + IP. About 9 Politics total. Berzerkers + Honoured Blade still there for Military.

4) The fact that you had made the call to invest Fate into all of your characters suggests that you did not think you would lose the game that turn. One of your provinces were broken and Badmojo had 2-3 conflict cards. An accounting of the board and Lion's fleeting presence I think would have players invest Fate as you did. TW just pushed your advantage even more to the extreme. But think you were headed there regardless with 7 of Lion's characters leaving the board.

@Anemura

1&2) Historian can't block because she has a dashed military skill. But even if she could block I'd rather have her for attack anyways. Most provinces are 4 health or less. So you threaten to break any of them with her. So that'll put me in a situation where I would have to block her to save the province. But even if I block I'm unlikely to break win the ring. Attacking will generate a ring effect, scout a province, and prevent the opponent from getting a ring a scouting a province if they block. Badmojojo just happened to flip into Pilgrimage which meant he would not break the province nor get a ring effect. That's just bad luck that happens.

And yeah, I would have also swung in Void with the scrub army. If someone ever has extra fate on an expensive guy I always instinctively go for Void because it has the highest potential. Fire ring was probably the wrong choice, but players are allowed to make their own decisions.

3) The fundamental mistake that Badmojojo made that turn was that he didn't play to his boardstate. When playing cards he needed to decide if he was looking to make a move this turn or if he was going to load up for next turn.

If trying to load up for the next turn:

- Play your best value guys and place fate on them

-Make a medium sized card draw bid to retain massive honor advantage, but still have enough cards to defend

-Make winning a Void ring the #1 priority

-Don't let Dragon get any province kills

If trying to lay it down that turn:

-Spam the board with no fate to give no incentive for an opponent to go Void ring

-Make big card draw bid to maximize tricks to ensure province kills and also to draw endurance effects like For Greater Glory and Stand your Ground

-Do everything in your power to break 2 provinces

-Bank on province flips, conflict deck tricks, and ring effects to keep you alive for the turn.

Not saying one is inherently better than the other. You can make a case for either one. But his route was just a non option. Spamming the board and playing defensively is not a viable play. Neither is low bidding in either scenario. Personally, I would have spammed hard with the goal to try to find some way to enter the final turn with both players tied at 3 province kills, an imperial favor for military, not be terribly behind on board, and bank on my stronghold being inherently better for closeout situations. Remember, you don't know the Wanderer is coming. So if you are able to Void out one of the two guys then you go into the final turn with a Steadfast Samurai vs Raitsugu......not great, but hardly insurmountable. But he didn't play his board state correctly.

4) Putting fate on my guys had more to do with not having enough guys and less to do with playing for the next turn. I had the first player token, so I was looking to lay hard shots. But 2 out of 4 province cards couldn't be played on the board that turn, so going the fate route was the way to go. It left the door open for Badmojojo to capitalize on a kind of weak board state, but he for some reason chose to play defensively which all but guaranteed I would win the game the following turn.

On 7/8/2017 at 2:06 PM, Spawnod said:

Maybe, but one character on board is much easier to deal with than multiple dudes. I have not seen the double ring effect be super important, but I have not played any games and have only seen a handful of videos.

I lost my first game due to two air ring victories in a row both with Hotaru.

I saw the second one coming so I did not send as many to defend against the military fire ring. And then he played the Phoenix gal who turned it to an air ring. And I lost in Dishonor.