3 hours ago, RandomJC said:

What makes her better than a banzai, she can play to an empty field. The last round of attacks, you have no characters on field, you can defend with her. Pol or Mil. Add in some shenanigans and she's useful for multiple conflicts.

Absolutely.

This is what elevates this type (something similar to this sort of card) in a Dragon deck.

59 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Dragon's theme is fate manipulation. Fate can be put on characters and rings, thus they care about the Fate ON rings, but dragon doesn't care about the ring itself.

Phoenix care about the rings themselves, able to modify the conflict type, the ring contested, stealing rings from losing battles, and buffing from them being claimed.

I agree. But then where are the primary Dragon cards that DO CARE about capturing rings? I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but tossing Fate (from your own pool) to pump up characters is fun and 'themey' but I just see a Dragon player having a considerably difficult time winning conflicts when a sizable portion of their characters rely so much on additional Fate in order to be competitive against opponent's characters.

This type of personality, being a shugenja (to allow the use of Cloud the Mind and similar cards to be used) and being able to grow in both Mil and Pol when both players have captured a ring is very effective for a Dragon deck being sliced together with the Core cards. To size up my argument here; a card like this one would have more impact for a Dragon player than a Phoenix player(I should have posited additional examples, but I'm out of breath and jumping to conclusions as the Phoenix cards aren't all out yet) but yes it is situational and does need careful usage to be effective.

I cetainly would have liked a card such as this in my Dragon deck.

Just now, Kubernes said:

@TheItsyBitsySpider my problem with that example are the costs attached to those cards. You have to have 4 just for the Initiate and Display of Power. That's not counting the "heavy assault" to claim a ring.

im rather apprehensive about the whole theme of "losing to win". The first problem is the idea that you are losing just means you're opponent is in the better position. The other problem is card balance when it comes to this play style. This might mean that Phoenix is the hardest clan to play and/or has a steep learning curve.

Well look at the personalities the phoenix currently has.

Solemn Scholar is a 1/1 for 1f with an action

Shiba Peacemaker is a 4/1 for 1f with a no attack clause. Pretty great for a snap defense.

Seeker of Knowledge is a 0/2 for 2f with an attack trigger

Isawa Masahiro is a 3/2 for 3f with removal in fire

Peacemaker and Scholar are some of the best 1 drops for needed defense on bodies, allowing you to quickly set up early turn one, then turn two pull shenanigans. The ability to imagine being able to have available bodies on defense and still play these kinds of cards is easy to see happen.

When I say "losing to win", I'm not saying losing less, then your still losing. "Losing to win" is about taking controlled losses to ensure you win your actual objective, because the normal objectives are less valuable to you. The Susumu deck from the last couple of years from the ccg is an excellent example. It was a deck that WANTED your opponent to attack. It was designed to be free to sacrifice a province (because you got a free province flip), it happily let its personalities die (because Susumu Takuan gained you honor off of spider death), and was happy to have your opponent equip their characters with powerful cards, because you could then place clout tokens on them. It suffered in the meta against decks that didn't attack, like scorpion and crane, but was probably the best control shell for fighting military decks at the end of the game, because everything they wanted to accomplish was ignored or used to profit the Susumu deck. By most of the other decks, the Susumu deck won by "losing".

This Phoenix, while not a perfect comparison, shares many similar ideas. You are a defensive deck, you use cards like Peacemaker and scholar to bait out an over aggressive assault (because a lion player looking down two peacemakers is going to need to push for the province), then deploy no defenders and steal the ring with Show of Power. You lose no bodies, they however just had a large army bow down, and now the rest of the tempo of the turn belongs to you. Its actually very similar to Crab's game play, present a huge defense to force a heavy offense, leaving less defenders for your counter attacks with a select few super fighters like Berzerker and hammer girl, however the phoenix don't need to break the provinces... just grab the ring. They just need to tie.

So phoenix wants to "lose" to ensure they can win later. We have to remember that phoenix are most likely going to be THE honor running clan right out the gates. Crane is aggressive and conflict orientated, You attack to take the province with honored characters that die for honor. Crane CAN fight for provinces and win through aggressive strategies. Phoenix really cant province crack, it is all about just getting that air ring or stealing it from the opponents clutches, swapping it for another ring, then claiming it again, then using Seeker to grab it AGAIN and push for that honor win, caring only about that single last province. Phoenix don't need to break provinces, because it gets them nothing if they are honor running, they just need to be able to WIN and claim the rings. The world is expendable so long as you get that 25th honor.

Whether they can do this in the core set... now there is the question! I honestly don't think they will be able too, especially at gencon. I think they probably will have some of the highest learning curves because they analyze the core gimmick of the game (the combat phase) in an entirely different way then other clans based on what I'm seeing. In a few expansions? Yes, I think core set will see honor and dishonor wins happening, but not as dedicated decks due to the sheer limit of card pool.

3 hours ago, Silverfox13 said:

I figured there would be some counter opinion to my own, but basically what I get from your response is, this card can be good sometimes in some decks. Which can be said for about 85% of the cards revealed. In contrast, conflict card like Charge, Banzai, Court Games almost always have a use and cost less.

Now if you want to compare it to conflict characters it is about average, likely good for phoenix straight out of core, because there aren't any better options. But the arguements I'm reading are "This guy is going to be a 4/4 exactly when I need him to be" are optimistic at best. Reality is, this character will be an average 2/3 at the cost of 2, with no ability. It having the shugenja trait makes it slightly more appealing, but so far shugenja hasn't really been a real need.

I don't see why this card wouldn't be a 4/4 exactly when you need it to be - considering it works off of "rings claimed" not "rings you claimed." The only way it would not reach the potential of 4/4 is if someone passed on a conflict. If your opponent passed on a conflict that is their fault, since they are passing on the potential to win a ring or break a province.

I think this card is a great value to the Phoenix not just for it being a 2 for 3/3 or 4/4 as a conflict card, but also because it is balanced between MIL and POL. Phoenix have ways to change the type of battle between the two. If there have already been 2 POL conflicts, and we're entering our 2nd MIL conflict and the Phoenix have a way to switch this to a 3rd POL it is going to be a very low power conflict since all of the POL cards are likely to have been spent. This card is great because it can work for either type of conflict, and is a great pocket card. I don't see anyone rushing to play this, but rather using it as a last option cover all.

I'm not saying the card is amazing, I'm worried it will fall out of play because it costs 2 fate, which means you have to have saved 2 fate all along to play it... If it were 1 cost for 0/0 with +1/1 per ring claimed it would be better.

3 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

I cetainly would have liked a card such as this in my Dragon deck.

Well she is conflict so you can splash phoenix if they end up being valuable enough to the dragon.

19 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Well look at the personalities the phoenix currently has.

Solemn Scholar is a 1/1 for 1f with an action

Shiba Peacemaker is a 4/1 for 1f with a no attack clause. Pretty great for a snap defense.

Seeker of Knowledge is a 0/2 for 2f with an attack trigger

Isawa Masahiro is a 3/2 for 3f with removal in fire

Peacemaker and Scholar are some of the best 1 drops for needed defense on bodies, allowing you to quickly set up early turn one, then turn two pull shenanigans. The ability to imagine being able to have available bodies on defense and still play these kinds of cards is easy to see happen.

When I say "losing to win", I'm not saying losing less, then your still losing. "Losing to win" is about taking controlled losses to ensure you win your actual objective, because the normal objectives are less valuable to you. The Susumu deck from the last couple of years from the ccg is an excellent example. It was a deck that WANTED your opponent to attack. It was designed to be free to sacrifice a province (because you got a free province flip), it happily let its personalities die (because Susumu Takuan gained you honor off of spider death), and was happy to have your opponent equip their characters with powerful cards, because you could then place clout tokens on them. It suffered in the meta against decks that didn't attack, like scorpion and crane, but was probably the best control shell for fighting military decks at the end of the game, because everything they wanted to accomplish was ignored or used to profit the Susumu deck. By most of the other decks, the Susumu deck won by "losing".

This Phoenix, while not a perfect comparison, shares many similar ideas. You are a defensive deck, you use cards like Peacemaker and scholar to bait out an over aggressive assault (because a lion player looking down two peacemakers is going to need to push for the province), then deploy no defenders and steal the ring with Show of Power. You lose no bodies, they however just had a large army bow down, and now the rest of the tempo of the turn belongs to you. Its actually very similar to Crab's game play, present a huge defense to force a heavy offense, leaving less defenders for your counter attacks with a select few super fighters like Berzerker and hammer girl, however the phoenix don't need to break the provinces... just grab the ring. They just need to tie.

So phoenix wants to "lose" to ensure they can win later. We have to remember that phoenix are most likely going to be THE honor running clan right out the gates. Crane is aggressive and conflict orientated, You attack to take the province with honored characters that die for honor. Crane CAN fight for provinces and win through aggressive strategies. Phoenix really cant province crack, it is all about just getting that air ring or stealing it from the opponents clutches, swapping it for another ring, then claiming it again, then using Seeker to grab it AGAIN and push for that honor win, caring only about that single last province. Phoenix don't need to break provinces, because it gets them nothing if they are honor running, they just need to be able to WIN and claim the rings. The world is expendable so long as you get that 25th honor.

Whether they can do this in the core set... now there is the question! I honestly don't think they will be able too, especially at gencon. I think they probably will have some of the highest learning curves because they analyze the core gimmick of the game (the combat phase) in an entirely different way then other clans based on what I'm seeing. In a few expansions? Yes, I think core set will see honor and dishonor wins happening, but not as dedicated decks due to the sheer limit of card pool.

Essentially by "losing to win" you mean intentionally trading tactical losses for strategic wins. Very fun when you can get it to work!

I am not terribly impressed. If you play her later in a turn, she can be a 3 strength or more for two, but it might be that she will not be strong enough to do what you need at that point. If you have to play her early in the turn, she could easily be a 1 for 2 cost. We don't have a feel yet for how Phoenix card draw is so that might make some difference as to if the card slot is worth it though.

A cost of 2 also means she is a big investment for variable effect card. I looked over the currently revealed 2 cost conflict cards and I think she is the one I like the least. The others don't have as much a high end potential, but they have other effects that make them more useful in some situations.

We've been down this road before. I'm waiting to see what other cards are being released before passing judgement.

Card looks pretty good. Conflict characters are inherently more valuable than Dynasty characters because you can disguise your actions. I want more cards like this one.

This card is godlike. You're already holding up 2 fate for balance of power. Your opponent knows this, so they don't choose air because you'll steal it. Then you crack back in your last conflict with a 4/4, take the province and get air anyway. I'm gonna play sick mind games with all you noobs who think this card sucks.

25 minutes ago, Shosuro Nasunaka said:

I am not terribly impressed. If you play her later in a turn, she can be a 3 strength or more for two, but it might be that she will not be strong enough to do what you need at that point. If you have to play her early in the turn, she could easily be a 1 for 2 cost. We don't have a feel yet for how Phoenix card draw is so that might make some difference as to if the card slot is worth it though.

A cost of 2 also means she is a big investment for variable effect card. I looked over the currently revealed 2 cost conflict cards and I think she is the one I like the least. The others don't have as much a high end potential, but they have other effects that make them more useful in some situations.

I don't see any reason you would play her for just 1-2 power... She is a conflict card, and you have a dynasty phase. If you need bodies you can buy bodies that are better. The Phoenix are likely to have several powerful conflict cards, such as Display of Power, which are held in your hand and you would play the best of them. I don't think its worth considering if you are "forced to play" this card inefficiently, as you can easily choose when it is played, or to play something else. The question is more - will the situation for optimal play arise, and is this the optimal play for that scenario. If the situation doesn't arise, you don't play it. If there is a more optimal card for that situation, then it doesn't make it into the deck.

I haven't played a lot so I guess the questions are 1 - How often does the situation arise where you are in the 3rd or 4th conflict of a turn? How often do people pass on a conflict? From what I've heard it isn't too common since a win by any measure awards a ring / activation, so I would say the situation is likely. Its even in your control, if your opponent passes a second conflict you can still initiate 2 yourself. Case 2 is the bigger question - is there a better option? Is there a better way to play 1 card with 2 cost for 4/4?

1 hour ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Well look at the personalities the phoenix currently has.

Solemn Scholar is a 1/1 for 1f with an action

Shiba Peacemaker is a 4/1 for 1f with a no attack clause. Pretty great for a snap defense.

Seeker of Knowledge is a 0/2 for 2f with an attack trigger

Isawa Masahiro is a 3/2 for 3f with removal in fire

Peacemaker and Scholar are some of the best 1 drops for needed defense on bodies, allowing you to quickly set up early turn one, then turn two pull shenanigans. The ability to imagine being able to have available bodies on defense and still play these kinds of cards is easy to see happen.

When I say "losing to win", I'm not saying losing less, then your still losing. "Losing to win" is about taking controlled losses to ensure you win your actual objective, because the normal objectives are less valuable to you. The Susumu deck from the last couple of years from the ccg is an excellent example. It was a deck that WANTED your opponent to attack. It was designed to be free to sacrifice a province (because you got a free province flip), it happily let its personalities die (because Susumu Takuan gained you honor off of spider death), and was happy to have your opponent equip their characters with powerful cards, because you could then place clout tokens on them. It suffered in the meta against decks that didn't attack, like scorpion and crane, but was probably the best control shell for fighting military decks at the end of the game, because everything they wanted to accomplish was ignored or used to profit the Susumu deck. By most of the other decks, the Susumu deck won by "losing".

This Phoenix, while not a perfect comparison, shares many similar ideas. You are a defensive deck, you use cards like Peacemaker and scholar to bait out an over aggressive assault (because a lion player looking down two peacemakers is going to need to push for the province), then deploy no defenders and steal the ring with Show of Power. You lose no bodies, they however just had a large army bow down, and now the rest of the tempo of the turn belongs to you. Its actually very similar to Crab's game play, present a huge defense to force a heavy offense, leaving less defenders for your counter attacks with a select few super fighters like Berzerker and hammer girl, however the phoenix don't need to break the provinces... just grab the ring. They just need to tie.

So phoenix wants to "lose" to ensure they can win later. We have to remember that phoenix are most likely going to be THE honor running clan right out the gates. Crane is aggressive and conflict orientated, You attack to take the province with honored characters that die for honor. Crane CAN fight for provinces and win through aggressive strategies. Phoenix really cant province crack, it is all about just getting that air ring or stealing it from the opponents clutches, swapping it for another ring, then claiming it again, then using Seeker to grab it AGAIN and push for that honor win, caring only about that single last province. Phoenix don't need to break provinces, because it gets them nothing if they are honor running, they just need to be able to WIN and claim the rings. The world is expendable so long as you get that 25th honor.

Whether they can do this in the core set... now there is the question! I honestly don't think they will be able too, especially at gencon. I think they probably will have some of the highest learning curves because they analyze the core gimmick of the game (the combat phase) in an entirely different way then other clans based on what I'm seeing. In a few expansions? Yes, I think core set will see honor and dishonor wins happening, but not as dedicated decks due to the sheer limit of card pool.

There's a big problem with the whole "huge assault" with those mentioned characters. Plus, cards like the Solemn Scholar require a specific ring claimed for any use of the action otherwise they are weaker characters than similar costed characters.

It just seems like you, and many others, are jumping through too many hoops to make this card valuable in incredibly specific and difficult to achieve instances. You could potentially do this with every card ever spoiled so far.

Just now, Kubernes said:

There's a big problem with the whole "huge assault" with those mentioned characters. Plus, cards like the Solemn Scholar require a specific ring claimed for any use of the action otherwise they are weaker characters than similar costed characters.

It just seems like you, and many others, are jumping through too many hoops to make this card valuable in incredibly specific and difficult to achieve instances. You could potentially do this with every card ever spoiled so far.

Why I've kept mine pretty straight forward. Wait till after two conflicts have occurred and either play as a counter attack when resources of your opponent are low, or use as a defense when yours are low. Simple, and easy.

21 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I don't see any reason you would play her for just 1-2 power... She is a conflict card, and you have a dynasty phase. If you need bodies you can buy bodies that are better. The Phoenix are likely to have several powerful conflict cards, such as Display of Power, which are held in your hand and you would play the best of them. I don't think its worth considering if you are "forced to play" this card inefficiently, as you can easily choose when it is played, or to play something else. The question is more - will the situation for optimal play arise, and is this the optimal play for that scenario. If the situation doesn't arise, you don't play it. If there is a more optimal card for that situation, then it doesn't make it into the deck.

I haven't played a lot so I guess the questions are 1 - How often does the situation arise where you are in the 3rd or 4th conflict of a turn? How often do people pass on a conflict? From what I've heard it isn't too common since a win by any measure awards a ring / activation, so I would say the situation is likely. Its even in your control, if your opponent passes a second conflict you can still initiate 2 yourself. Case 2 is the bigger question - is there a better option? Is there a better way to play 1 card with 2 cost for 4/4?

I think it's worth mentioning that economy can roll in after the dynasty phase and maybe you have no better options and need to win that conflict. It's not a completely unthinkable idea to play this card sub-optimally if the situation dictates it.

In my experience so far it is not an uncommon occurrence for a player to give up one of their attacks because they need to bolster one attack to cause a break and need to defend. When I was playing Crab that was happening a lot since it was suboptimal to not defend twice in that faction. I suspect Phoenix will be similar just with an emphasis on politics instead of military. To give you an idea early game I usually had 2 or 3 characters on the board. I've never had more than 6 at a time. Conflict characters have the added value that they can unexpectedly be a body on the table to initiate or perpetuate a conflict. That's pretty relevant because the amount of effects that bounce a character back home, bow a character or potentially just removes a character are quite high even just in the spoiled card pool.

4 hours ago, shosuko said:

...

I haven't played a lot so I guess the questions are 1 - How often does the situation arise where you are in the 3rd or 4th conflict of a turn? How often do people pass on a conflict? From what I've heard it isn't too common since a win by any measure awards a ring / activation, so I would say the situation is likely. Its even in your control, if your opponent passes a second conflict you can still initiate 2 yourself. Case 2 is the bigger question - is there a better option? Is there a better way to play 1 card with 2 cost for 4/4?

Excellent example. My answer is no; there aren't many options yet that will bring in a 4/4 for 2 Fate, and I don't think we will see any with Unicirn or Scorpion either.

Thus, this is a very powerful, yet hidden card to play in your deck. Even more as the game begins to wind down.

Evaluating conflict characters has been a little tricky for me, because I'm always tempted to compare them to dynasty characters, but they're not quite the same. You get:

1. A small amount of "surprise" value.
2. The ability to play them into a conflict if you need to, which is sort of always like having the Shinjo Outrider's "move to the current conflict" ability, making them versatile.
3. A small amount of fate back, since playing conflict characters as opposed to dynasty characters allows you to pass earlier, potentially giving you the bonus fate. It's hard to quantify this, but the cost of a conflict character can always be thought of as a little less than printed.

I was originally not that enthused by this card, but looking at it using those criteria, it's actually pretty good for a conflict character. I still think the best one is Tattooed Wanderer because of it's cost and versatility, but this could easily be number two. I think the inherent difficulty with evaluating the card just lies in the difficulty comparing conflict characters with events and attachments, characters never come off looking good in those comparisons.

5 minutes ago, Casanunda said:

Evaluating conflict characters has been a little tricky for me, because I'm always tempted to compare them to dynasty characters, but they're not quite the same. You get:

1. A small amount of "surprise" value.
2. The ability to play them into a conflict if you need to, which is sort of always like having the Shinjo Outrider's "move to the current conflict" ability, making them versatile.
3. A small amount of fate back, since playing conflict characters as opposed to dynasty characters allows you to pass earlier, potentially giving you the bonus fate. It's hard to quantify this, but the cost of a conflict character can always be thought of as a little less than printed.

I was originally not that enthused by this card, but looking at it using those criteria, it's actually pretty good for a conflict character. I still think the best one is Tattooed Wanderer because of it's cost and versatility, but this could easily be number two. I think the inherent difficulty with evaluating the card just lies in the difficulty comparing conflict characters with events and attachments, characters never come off looking good in those comparisons.

My problem with the argument is that your three criteria can be used on every conflict character revealed so far to the same effect. I fell like the criteria need to be changed. Such as:

1. Cost to native mil/pol

2. What does this card do to the board state?

3. Combos (the easier to achieve the better) An example might be Steward of Law and For Shame!

4. Comparisons to similar cards

And so on. These are not perfect and used to show an example.

6 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

My problem with the argument is that your three criteria can be used on every conflict character revealed so far to the same effect.

That's exactly what I said I was doing, in order to illustrate the difference between conflict characters and dynasty characters. Your criteria are more appropriate for comparing conflict characters to other conflict characters, which is just a different part of the same conversation.

Here's the thing- if you aren't playing ring-stealing, conflict manipulation shenanigans, then yes, this is not a card you would use.

But if you're playing Phoenix, that's pretty much the playstyle your clan is built to do out of the core set.

My opinion is that this card will easily end up being played as a 3/3, sometimes as a 4/4. It's not uncommon at all for 2 conflicts to happen, then you might be short on bodies for the third one: this card will help.

3 hours ago, phillos said:

Conflict characters have the added value that they can unexpectedly be a body on the table to initiate or perpetuate a conflict. That's pretty relevant because the amount of effects that bounce a character back home, bow a character or potentially just removes a character are quite high even just in the spoiled card pool.

That's the main advantage of a conflict character. Since it's not uncommon at all to have a handful of characters on the board, it is a common occurence to have your only character in a conflict bowed/sent home. In that situation, having a conflict character in your hand allows you to keep fighting, possibly being a target for any new cards you might want to play. It's true that a Banzai is more efficient most of the times, but this card is more flexible and makes you less susceptible to bow/send home effects instead of making you more susceptible, as Banzai does. It's a situational card for sure, but I see it as a nice failsafe that might very well provide solid value if played in the correct situation - what differentiates it from a bad situational card is that said situation is bound to happen, regardless of you including this card or not.

The thing with conflict characters in general is that they do tend to be rather situational, but as conflict characters that's not necessarily a bad thing! Dynasty characters have to be bought before the turn begins, just anticipating what might happen. A situational character there runs the risk of not having the correct situation pop up. With conflict characters, though, you can wait for the proper situation to pop up and then play the character. If the proper situation doesn't arise, you can play a different character, instead, or simply save your Fate for the next round!

Can I get a rules clarification - when you play a conflict character from your hand, can you pay additional fate to add to that character just like dynasty characters?

I know that cards that enter through effects like Charge don't allow it, but I want to be sure.

Yes you can add fate to a conflict character when played from your hand as long as they weren't brought in play by some other action.

Honestly I'm a little like-warm in this one. Its a great ambush cards to play if you have some spare fate and a couple conflicts have already resolve a that turn, but overpaying for sub par stats on a character that can be dealt with in the conflicts before her stats become good. Good but not great imo.

This is the best Phoenix Character spoiled to date.

Effectively, it is Seeker of Enlightenment via the Conflict Deck. SoE can be considered a solid Dynasty Card, so this card is that and a touch more. On most turns, like SoE, she should be a 3M/3P for 2F. That's good. Few cards offer 6 stats points for 2 Fate. What makes her better than SoE is that aside from being a Conflict deck surprise, she has more surety in the bonuses she will receive by comparison (otherwise you don't play her).

SoE and II work as mirror opposites. As more Rings with Fate are claimed, SoE gets weaker. As more Rings are claimed, II gets stronger. Solid card.

It will come down to the frequency of drawing into II. Right now, it's relatively harder to cycle through one's Conflict Deck than it is one's Dynasty Deck. Hopefully, Phoenix will have more ways to draw into Conflict Cards like this as we are spoiled more cards.

I would generally suggest not valuing cards on the total of their two strengths, but on the value most likely to be used. In general they will not be able to be at multiple battles, especially the conflict cards as they are normally not the characters that you would load up any unbow mechanics on. Not to totally discount the flexibility of the 3/3 card, but it is not a strength 6 card.

2 hours ago, Shosuro Nasunaka said:

I would generally suggest not valuing cards on the total of their two strengths, but on the value most likely to be used. In general they will not be able to be at multiple battles, especially the conflict cards as they are normally not the characters that you would load up any unbow mechanics on. Not to totally discount the flexibility of the 3/3 card, but it is not a strength 6 card.

The flexiblity granted by Ishiken Initiate is due to the total stats to fate ratio she has. Without 6 stat points spread evenly among her two skills, she would not be nearly as flexible. With that dispersement, she can threaten either conflict type. That has value.

The game state changes such that often players may have to use characters in their weaker conflict type. It happens. I'm not apt to dismiss the allocation of skill points to the weaker conflict type for this reason. I understand that other players do, and that's fine too. I think the valuation of versatility will be a discussion point moving forward.