14 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I think the tie breaker in that match up is the fact that the Crane event cancel has conditions (you need more honored characters), whereas Scorpion's doesn't really (have a non-dishonored courtier, but this is easy to obtain for Scorpion.)

But yea, it obviously comes down to whether or not the Scorpion player is able to make the dishonor stick.

I think there are a few points where a 1 conflict showdown would give Scorpion the advantage. Their event cancel is easier to use, they have non-event debuffs to get around Above Question, Calling in Favors for native item removal (and stealing), and to top it off Shoju himself has a higher POL without honoring, and his own POL debuff to further tilt the scales. In a 1 conflict showdown I give the edge to Scorpion, its only after Crane wins that Crane starts winning more.

7 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I think there are a few points where a 1 conflict showdown would give Scorpion the advantage. Their event cancel is easier to use, they have non-event debuffs to get around Above Question, Calling in Favors for native item removal (and stealing), and to top it off Shoju himself has a higher POL without honoring, and his own POL debuff to further tilt the scales. In a 1 conflict showdown I give the edge to Scorpion, its only after Crane wins that Crane starts winning more.

I'd say that Scorpion has overall the edge in the MU (but the edge is very small), because of their dynasty cards. Bayushi Liar is unreasonably strong for a 1 cost character, Bayushi Manipulator opens your oponent up for "I can swim", Favored Niece searches for your dishonor tech, Bayushi Shoju wins pretty much every conflict, where "Political Rival" isn't coverting him, "Soshi Illusionist" can discard their Honor and Yogo Hirue can either dishonor someone or make them overextend in the conflict. So it's often really dificult for the Crane player to win conflicts consistently and have more characters honored than your oponent, without losing a lot of tempo.

48 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

I'd say that Scorpion has overall the edge in the MU (but the edge is very small), because of their dynasty cards. Bayushi Liar is unreasonably strong for a 1 cost character, Bayushi Manipulator opens your oponent up for "I can swim", Favored Niece searches for your dishonor tech, Bayushi Shoju wins pretty much every conflict, where "Political Rival" isn't coverting him, "Soshi Illusionist" can discard their Honor and Yogo Hirue can either dishonor someone or make them overextend in the conflict. So it's often really dificult for the Crane player to win conflicts consistently and have more characters honored than your oponent, without losing a lot of tempo.

Bayushi Manipulator cannot turn on I Can Swim as he only influences the bid and not the dial itself.

Also, I think Crane with the Scorpion Splash can go reasonably even with Scorpion. They really, really like Forged Edict, giving them more event cancels than the scorpion player when combined with Voice of Honor, and Fiery Madness lets them bow a much larger range of people with Shizuka Toshi, which isn't bad at all. Doji Challenger is also a nice answer to Shoju when the Crane player is going first, forcing him into a military conflict where he is notably quite weak.

3 hours ago, I Fight Dragons said:

Bayushi Manipulator cannot turn on I Can Swim as he only influences the bid and not the dial itself.

Also, I think Crane with the Scorpion Splash can go reasonably even with Scorpion. They really, really like Forged Edict, giving them more event cancels than the scorpion player when combined with Voice of Honor, and Fiery Madness lets them bow a much larger range of people with Shizuka Toshi, which isn't bad at all. Doji Challenger is also a nice answer to Shoju when the Crane player is going first, forcing him into a military conflict where he is notably quite weak.

Agreed on all points. I am fast finding this type of Crane deck to be my favourite one to play. Events either get cancelled or stay in the opponent's hand (Guest of Honour FTW). Shizuka Toshi becomes that much more powerful with FM, true. FM also helps Outwit (further complemented by Height of Fashion). For bowing, Shizuka Toshi is further helped by Steward, Duelist Training and For Shame!

The Crane are much better set up to face the Scorpion than most other clans. I find Phoenix has a very challenging time against the Scorps, if anything.

As a phoenix player, I really don't mind the scorpion match-up at all. The main strength they have is using Edict to prevent Display of power. High glory is a trap, so I don't run Serene Warrior at all and Tsukune is just fine as a 0/0 with her ability in my opinion. Remember that the phoenix stronghold can increase an enemy characters glory by two, so scorpion dishonoring their characters has a costly downside against Phoenix.

2 minutes ago, I Fight Dragons said:

As a phoenix player, I really don't mind the scorpion match-up at all. The main strength they have is using Edict to prevent Display of power. High glory is a trap, so I don't run Serene Warrior at all and Tsukune is just fine as a 0/0 with her ability in my opinion. Remember that the phoenix stronghold can increase an enemy characters glory by two, so scorpion dishonoring their characters has a costly downside against Phoenix.

I thought you were a Crane player?

True. I do use Serene Warrior. My deck tries to target and re-target the Ring of Fire so as to leverage Glory. As a result, I've had to include cards like Way of the Phoenix, Know the World and Display of Power. This in turn resulted in a 'no-splash' Conflict Deck. Theoretically, this should work to alleviate the effects of dishonour while providing enough of a stats boost to break provinces... Yet, that hasn't been the case.

I'd like to be able to use high glory characters to maximize those honouring effects though...

I've been undecided for awhile and then decided phoenix really fit my jam as the toolbox faction in this game. They feel like a mixture of Martell (my favorite Thrones faction) and Shaper (my favorite Netrunner faction) and were originally one of my top factions from the CCG alongside Crane and Scorpion. I then became a Phoenix Hatamoto at gencon so I guess I am committed for at least awhile. Crane and Scorpion are still my off-decks for when I just need to spice things up a little in local matches

Ah interesting, a Gozoku player (kidding :)). Those are my top clans as well, but primarily the Phoenix and Crane.

The Phoenix in the LCG are a revelation to me. High ceiling, deepest floor. Combo-centric, of which I am not a fan, but the net gains are there this time. You're not honouring your samurai so that they become as good as the base samurai from other factions, they become better. There is a net gain for being combo heavy. I will enjoy playing them (and I hope you stick with them).

I will say I'm not looking forward to dealing with 6 event cancel decks in 3 core. That just sounds ******* dreadful haha. Especially when Crane runs them both so well.

In Thrones they made the event cancel a neutral card and I felt that that was bad because it created an essential neutral card, which I don't like. But now that there's twice as many cancels in this game, I find myself missing the idea of a neutral event cancel that anyone could play to deal with said cancels haha.

I'm getting the impression from a few of the posts in this thread that some people don't know how Tsukune's ability works, or mmore accurately, *when* it works.

There have been some comments about "doing two extra ring effects when you attack" and "getting two ring effects as a defender".

You can't use Tsukune's ability at the end of a conflict. Her ability happens at the end of the conflict *phase*, which is after all conflicts have been resolved, and all conflict phase action windows have passed.

So, she is only able to use the effects of up to two rings that are still unclaimed. She can be a very powerful character, but to get the most from her, you have to carefully play Phoenix's Ring Control cards (especially Know the World). Between her, Know the World, and Display of Power, you can make the game flow your way, but it's definitely difficult to afford all that while still keeping your provinces from being broken too fast,