4 minutes ago, Anemura said:

Could you elaborate as to why you think Guest of Honour is bad? To me, GoH is built for control decks, and it has a 1:1 POL to Fate ratio, which helps that side of Crane conflicts as much as Asahina Storyteller does... Unless you think the Storyteller also sucks?

Her stats are bad, 1:1 POL is thoroughly average and 0.25:1 MIL with 1 glory is terrible.

Her effect is great, but only working in conflicts means she can be preemptively clouded, harpooned to be suboptimal, or bowed before she can even enter a conflict. Once she's there she's pretty good but that's a lot of suboptimal IFs and low stats. That's why people are "meh" on her.

Watch Commander on the other hand? ACES! Wow this card is so cool! I hope dishonor Crab is a thing!

Crane loves this as an all-in splash. Between this, Asami, air ring, and even a single aggressive bid by the opponent you can really lock down their draw options

5 hours ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

I'd love it if Crab develop a subtheme of dishonouring their opponents. That's been a Scorpion-only thing for too long.

What game have YOU been playing? Crab had a dishonor theme for about the last 5 years of the CCG...

Being an L5R noob, I hadn't realized that the Crab were able to go for dishonor victories. Or is this a new development? It seems to fit thematically--it's the duty of the other clans to support the Crab in protecting Rokugan, yet the Crab still seem to struggle to get the help they need. Maybe their dishonoring is themed as guilting the other clans into backing down from a conflict?

So just to make sure I've got the different clans' strategies right: The Dragon were Enlightenment and a balance of the others in Old5R, and in new5R are an even mix of military and political conflicts, the Lion are military and honor, the Crane are political and honor, the Scorpion are political and dishonor, the Crab are military and dishonor, the Unicorn are straight military, and the Pheonix are...I don't actually know, I'd think all that magic would lend itself to military but the fiction says they're pacifists? So political, then?

Definitely a card I will run the max of in my decks. Theoretically you could win in one turn with 3 of these. It might even ward off the ninjas that rumors say are real.

1 hour ago, Anemura said:

Could you elaborate as to why you think Guest of Honour is bad? To me, GoH is built for control decks, and it has a 1:1 POL to Fate ratio, which helps that side of Crane conflicts as much as Asahina Storyteller does... Unless you think the Storyteller also sucks?

In my evaluation of cards, a card needs to provide 2 to 1 value to justify play. By 2 to 1 I mean that the relevant stat needs to be twice as large as the fate that is costs to play said card. If a card doesn't hit that benchmark, then you have to look at a couple key elements:

- Card text(stats, durability)

- Uniqueness

- Card text(card draw)

-Card text(control)

-Versatility

This makes just about all the weenies playable. But like any other card game; efficiency doesn't mean anything if you float mana. So while an Otomo Courtier is a more efficient unit than a Doji Challenger(stat wise), you would never take a flop of 4 Otomo Courtiers over 4 Doji Challengers. You ultimately have to have a cap on the most efficient bodies in the game.

As for card whose card text derives value; I ordered the options based on how easy it is to calculate value.

Card text(stats, durability)

A card like Lion's Pride Brawler provides 3 skill for 3 mana(pretty weak). But the Brawler can also bow out a guy with 3 skill for the opposing side. So the 3 skill for your side plus the 3 negated skill brings her value up to 6 skill for 3 fate. Stoic Gunso is 2 cost for 2 skill, but will just about always be able to trigger to get up to 5 giving good value. Matsu Beiona if triggered provides only 3 skill for 3 cost, but does live for 2 extra turns. So over 3 turns you're getting 9 skill for 3 resoruces. Steadfast Samurai is terrible at 1 for 1, but in a deck that can usually keep him around an extra turn he becomes acceptable.

Uniqueness

This is similar to card text giving stats. Even a crappy stated unit like Kakita Asina becomes good if you have a second copy of her. Granted, there is an additional cost of having to burn a card to get the effect, but it's typically worth it. Losing a card is tough to evaluate. Some decks it doesn't matter(possibly even welcomed) and other decks it's devastating. I find just about any unique character playable if you run 3 copies.

Card text(card draw)

In the same way that losing a card can be tough to evaluate, so can adding a card. Storyteller, Swordsmith, and Akodo Gunso come to mind as cards that are bad stat wise, but generate extra value. They all have ways to draw. The Storyteller in particular can draw you more than one card in a turn. It's also tough to decide if conflict cards or dynasty card are more valuable draws. Depends on the deck.

Card text(control)

This is where cards like Doji Gift Giver, Guest of Honor, Doji Challenger, Niten Adept, and Deathseeker make their money. All of those guys have meh to bad stats, but all have potentially devastating text depending on the deck they're in, the deck they're up against, and particular board states. Doji Challenger is good in any board state that has at least one bigger unit(so pretty much all board states). Doji Gift Giver is good in board states where opponents don't have fodder to soak up the bow effect. Deathseeker is good against decks where an extra void ring is a killer. Guest of Honor is good when opponents desperately need to play events. And this is where it becomes tricky to evaluate cards. Doji Challenger will be good in almost every board state. But Guest of Honor won't; simple reason is that guest of honor doesn't stop half of the events in the game(events and attachments are both events when it comes to speed). Your opponent has to specifically be relying on events to win the game in order for her to be good. But if an opponent is planning on using attachments as their main source of tricks then Guest of Honor becomes a body and not much else.

Versatility

This one is probably the hardest to evaluate. 2/2 for 2 is terrible, but 5/5 for 5 is fantastic. Why? Not 100% sure. I think it's a threshold thing. 1 or 2 is usually not consequential because the bigger stat will be the used stat almost every time. But if the secondary stat is big enough to threaten a province or simply big enough that I would consider using a character in either conflict type, that definitely counts for something. Just unclear what exactly.

You can always add fate to guys to change value judgements. Adding fate to bigger characters is usually better because getting one more turn out of Hotaru is way more valuable than getting one extra turn out of a Matsu Berserker. So for more expensive characters you can always add extra fate to bring them up to the level of the smaller characters, but then you run the risk of a kill spell(or sometimes even a void ring) messing up your plans. Having skill spread out over multiple turns is only valuable if the unit in question is there to provide that skill. There's also the sad reality that adding fate to guys in an effort to keep them around longer means you probably have less skill on the board right now, which means you're more likely to get voided out or dishonored via ring effects thereby taking away that value you were expecting when you slipped the fate on the big guy.

Not trying to say that value judgements are easy in this game. I feel like learning to make these judgements will be what separates good players from bad players. But this is a shorthand that I've been using that has been quite useful for me. And I can pretty confidently say Guest of Honor is trash.

I guess I'm splashing Crab then.

Sorry, Kitsuki Investigator..you're like cool and all, but Watch Commander is unlimited honorloss..i like discard and all but straight up slandering is my thing..its not you, its me..

Also, FFG..please add more flavor text in cards..the small things really help picture the setting a lot..also from the old game:

1 hour ago, Mandalore525 said:

Being an L5R noob, I hadn't realized that the Crab were able to go for dishonor victories. Or is this a new development? It seems to fit thematically--it's the duty of the other clans to support the Crab in protecting Rokugan, yet the Crab still seem to struggle to get the help they need. Maybe their dishonoring is themed as guilting the other clans into backing down from a conflict?

So just to make sure I've got the different clans' strategies right: The Dragon were Enlightenment and a balance of the others in Old5R, and in new5R are an even mix of military and political conflicts, the Lion are military and honor, the Crane are political and honor, the Scorpion are political and dishonor, the Crab are military and dishonor, the Unicorn are straight military, and the Pheonix are...I don't actually know, I'd think all that magic would lend itself to military but the fiction says they're pacifists? So political, then?

Their subtheme is economic dishonor..its like give me money or you are dishonored. Its thematic that they actually needs other clans resources to maintain defense in the south.

you almost got everything right except Unicorn can switch to honor ( battlemaidens ) and Phoenix can honor out too.

My oh my, it's Christmas in July and nobody told me. I'm so happy to see I'll be able to get up to my dishonor tricks again. I can just imagine what it will be like to attack an have the defender drop this as their first action. Even if it gets Let Go right away it still costs an honor to do that.

1 hour ago, Bayushi Bajie said:

I guess I'm splashing Crab then.

Sorry, Kitsuki Investigator..you're like cool and all, but Watch Commander is unlimited honorloss..i like discard and all but straight up slandering is my thing..its not you, its me..

You can't splash Kitsuki Investigator anyway. That's a Dynasty card.

46 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

My oh my, it's Christmas in July and nobody told me. I'm so happy to see I'll be able to get up to my dishonor tricks again. I can just imagine what it will be like to attack an have the defender drop this as their first action. Even if it gets Let Go right away it still costs an honor to do that.

You can't splash Kitsuki Investigator anyway. That's a Dynasty card.

Of course, you could always play Dragon and splash Crab for Watch Commander. In a way, 1 honor loss = 1 card draw lost, at least potentially. So, you could combine specific card nuking with the Kitsuki Investigator, discard effects like Restoration of Balance or Night Raid, and finally dishonor for actually playing conflict cards with the Watch Commander.

I played Crab dishonor competitively for all of Emperor edition after it was introduced. It's one of my favorite deck types and I'm so glad FFG are keeping it around.

#closetYasuki

I could never get Crab dishonor to work in Emperor. Not for lack of trying. But once The Coming Storm released in Ivory I stuck to the theme like glue.

@kiramode

Appreciate the write up. I think we generally see things in the same way, but with a few key exceptions:

1) What you consider "meh" or bad stats, are actually stat levels that seem to occur with regularity. They are the most common distribution. Here's a preliminary breakdown by Tonbo Karasu: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/253215-character-statistics/. You can see that the preferred/primary stat (Military or Politics) average out to be relatively close to Fate cost for each clan. A 2.5~ Fate cost averages to about a 2.35~ primary stat amount. Roughly 1:1. So when looking for a 2:1 ratio, you are definitely dealing with select characters in the given clan. For Lion, this seems to apply to Matsu Berzerker and Obstinate Recruit only...

2) If we apply those Crane averages to gauge what Guest of Honour's stats 'should' have been we get 2.3 Military skill and 3.7 Political Skill. So we could say that her Military stat is 1 off the mark (should have been 2) and her Political stat is on par. Fair?

3) If we agree on point #2, then we need to figure out if her ability warranted a -1 Military decrease. I'll use Asahina Storyteller as a basis for comparison: For AS, you said that he 'could' draw you more than one card a turn. This is his optimum output and requires set up. On her own, GoH prevents half of the playable cards (events and attachments) in conflicts. Optimum output, no set up required. Both deal in multiples of Conflict Cards. AS gains CCs at character loss, and GoH prevents CCs at conflicts. To me, GoH's ability helps me with my current board state while AS requires my board state to weaken in order to gain advantage elsewhere. With that logic in mind, GoH's ability seems better to me, and so her -1 shortfall in Military (by comparison to AS) can be reasoned.

4) GoH's primary stat is 4 for 4. If primary stats are most relevant, and the secondary stats are a bonus, then a 4P/4F is not drastically different from a 5M/5F. The ratio is the same. Yes, I would prefer the 5, but I can also spend the extra fate to retain the 4/4 for an extra turn. The issue you have with GoH is that she cannot raise her Politics above her Fate cost on her own, but then neither can the Storyteller... Which led us to your justification for AS being that he can draw cards, which is addressed in point #3 above.

5) You said GoH is "good when opponents desperately need to play events", and rightly attributed that need to board state. IMO, that board state has to be a flood of characters for your opponent, something in excess to what the Crane have out. Something the Crane would have trouble handling in Military engagements. In such a state, Crane has to all but ensure that their Political engagements go as planned... and that's exactly what GoH helps them do. It removes half of the potential pitfalls to those engagements. It increases the surety of those conflicts beyond the raw stats.

6) If an opponent is planning on only relying on attachments, then that just reduces half of the mental homework for the Crane player in that battle. Given certain decks, and the usual playing cards seen in an environment, the Crane player with GoH can effectively 'card count' to victory. This is the power of GoH. You can localize the possibilities to a select few cards... and then pre-plan accordingly.

7) You have also said that "if the secondary stat is big enough to threaten a province or simply big enough that I would consider using a character in either conflict type, that definitely counts for something." And yet you have dismissed the 3 stat in Politics for Honoured General and Doji Challenger? This is a significant reason why other players view good secondary stats as a boon, and why there were comments here to the effect that DC was 'over stat'd'. Or, comments that Honoured General was clearly a good card upon reveal. It's interesting we see that aspect of the game so differently.

Good reviews of Guest of Honor. However it just makes people play events before the conflict. It doesn't stop very much imho. Then really only useful in half the conflicts. I think what would have really helped GoH would be if she had a Glory 2 and not Glory 1.

I like guest of honor. Though it's practically worthless when I play lion. Lion doesn't need to draw to be effective.

But I agree people are over judging GoH.

I like Watch Commander quite a bit. It limitless and you can have more than one character with it attached in a conflict. That said the opponent would have to hang themselves for this to be really devastating, but then they need to spend their counters to remove this effect (or play sub optimally to play around it). Makes the opponent make some hard decisions. Also it is promoting Crab playing with honor/dishonor which goes along with the honorless card draw Yasuki card. I hope this gets developed more in the core. If we are playing lots of holdings (as suggested by the FFG articles) I feel like we need more conflict card draw, and I don't want clans like Crane to just bully us because we are always on the low end of the honor spectrum.

I totally agree about the flavor text. It's always fun to read and if there is room on the card there is really no reason not to include something flavorful down there.

7 hours ago, Cold Iron1 said:

Definitely a card I will run the max of in my decks. Theoretically you could win in one turn with 3 of these. It might even ward off the ninjas that rumors say are real.

Yeah that's pretty sick!

If they start at 11 and bid 5-1 they're down to 7. Four events takes them down to 3. Duelists Training duel could take them down to 1 or lose straight up. Air ring, declare no defenders, Banzai kicker or Asami can all take 1 honor.

Now events are unlikely to happen in that order but I think dishonor Crab is going to LOVE the Crane splash for DT and Noble Sacrifice

There is nothing stopping the Crab player from going for the Fire and Air rings. I bet you'll find on Wednesday your starting honor is 10.

I like this also because it promotes keeping a beefy card around. there was some concern that Crab was going to just be weenie spam with sacrifice effects. I still think that's a thing but now I'm thinking Crab can be a high/low deck. At least that's what I'm hoping for and I think that would be cool.

1 fate for 1 political, 1 military and the ability to make your opponent not want to play cards in conflicts he's in?

Seems like a fantastic deal!

I don't think this card says that Crab clan will trend towards dishonor, rather this card is going to be more akin to Martell in Game of Thrones. Crab is going to look for punishment mechanics. Yeah you might get a lot of conflict cards just to win the fight but you sacrifice honor. Yeah you might attack a province with a lot of guys but maybe there is something that discards cards on the way in or removes fate etc.

I haven't play tested at all but do you think this would be worth while running in Lion to make sure your honor is higher than your opponent's? (Obstinate Recruit)

41 minutes ago, HirumaShigure said:

I haven't play tested at all but do you think this would be worth while running in Lion to make sure your honor is higher than your opponent's? (Obstinate Recruit)

Seems like a good fit to me. When you low big to preserve your honor lead you don't want your opponent getting too far ahead on card advantage. Hitting them with some honor loss should help keep things from getting out of control.

@Anemura

To be clear, I think the Asahina Storyteller is a bad card on its own. The only way you can really justify playing him is if you're abusing the card draw he gives your board. He's also both a Sugenja and Courtier, so that gives a slight boost too. But he's still bad enough that he ends up in my first rounds of cuts for any Crane deck I build if I'm not specifically building around him.

Furthermore; I think a lot of dynasty cards are pretty bad. Power levels in card games are never set by the averages, they are set by the strongest cards.

Aggro Lions are the easiest deck to hit the 2 for 1 across all your guys. The deck has 9 dynasty cards can can hit the desired threshold, with little help. The other 4 cards are cards that give extra province flips(Akoso Gunso, Staging grounds), the Clan Champ, and the Imperial Storehouse(guaranteed value). When a deck like this exists, all other decks need to be graded on that curve.

That's not to say all decks need to jam guys that are able to hit a 2 for 1 absolute value for stats, but they need to be on the level. If they're not hitting the desired value on pure stats, they better have text that can make up for it. Preventing events doesn't negate 4 point of lost value most of the time because your opponent knows it's there and can plan accordingly. But drawing 2-3 cards might since your opponent doesn't really have control over your deck.

As for versatility, it's still tough to judge. Doji Challenger isn't good because she is a 3/3 for 3, she's good because of her text. She could be a 1/1 and would still see play. She has probably the strongest text in the game. The stats she has are just a bonus. Being able to prevent your opponent's biggest guy from attacking by forcing them into a meaningless defensive battle is downright disgusting. As for the Honored General, how often are you actually blocking political with him? Paying 4 for a 3 political is a horrendous investment. It's not worthless, but it really shouldn't be swinging card evaluations. I think in just about any other clan he would actually be pretty solid. You send him in with 3 other guys and he's providing 8 skill for your board. Of course, if you already have 3 guys to swing with in Lion, then the General isn't needed because you already have your stronghold. He's just a waste there.

Questions: one of the text lines on Asahina Storyteller says "Each Crane character you control gains sincerity." So does a Crane character gain the Sincerity trait upon getting honored? I would say yes. Does it disappear if it loses honored status? I'd say no. Does Sincerity disappear on other Crane characters disappear if Asahina Storyteller leaves play? I'd say no.

Checking rulings.

2 minutes ago, Kakita Katai said:

Questions: one of the text lines on Asahina Storyteller says "Each Crane character you control gains sincerity." So does a Crane character gain the Sincerity trait upon getting honored? I would say yes. Does it disappear if it loses honored status? I'd say no. Does Sincerity disappear on other Crane characters disappear if Asahina Storyteller leaves play? I'd say no.

Checking rulings.

I believe it is continuous effect - which means the board state is constantly checked and cards only gain sincerity while the condition is true, so if a Crane is honored they immediately get sincerity at the same time but if they are no longer honored, or Asahina Storyteller leaves play they will lose sincerity.