So with all these lovely Phoenix cards revealed today, the biggest question on my mind is this: "What clan has splashable cards worthy of inclusion in my Phoenix deck?"

All kidding aside, I'm really interested to hear others' thoughts on what cards they think will have the best effect augmenting a Phoenix deck, especially in support of its apparent ring and glory/honoring-centered themes. Or from the perspective of Phoenix opponents, what cards do you least want to see showing up in the deck of the Phoenix player you're playing against?

I was throwing together a phoenix deck earlier today and settled on dragon as my splash.

Unfortunately 0 splashable cards can honor someone, so activating fire is the next best thing. Dragon has that conflict personality / attachment that gives covert.

Let Go is also good.

I am planning to test this theory with a few proxy games tomorrow.

If a Phoenix is a bird made of fire, are we sure thst "splashing" them is a good idea?

I haven't seen anything that screams for usage right now.

Lion - Honored Blade (general buff and extra honor), Stand Your Ground (can be used to keep honored characters around), Ready for Battle (denies bowing effect)

Dragon - Let Go (general attachment removal), Tattooed Wanderer (covert! and cheap conflict character)

Crane - Voice of Honor (great with the honored focus of the clan), The Perfect Gift (dig for your desired card)

Crab - Levy (cheap honor), Reprieve (for your honored characters or uniques that you want to stay around), Stoic Gunso (eats used up characters and helps with military challenges), The Mountain Does Not Fall (useful for characters that like to be honored, defend, and then swing back)

All of these cards could use some testing.

52 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

I haven't seen anything that screams for usage right now.

Lion - Honored Blade (general buff and extra honor), Stand Your Ground (can be used to keep honored characters around), Ready for Battle (denies bowing effect)

Dragon - Let Go (general attachment removal), Tattooed Wanderer (covert! and cheap conflict character)

Crane - Voice of Honor (great with the honored focus of the clan), The Perfect Gift (dig for your desired card)

Crab - Levy (cheap honor), Reprieve (for your honored characters or uniques that you want to stay around), Stoic Gunso (eats used up characters and helps with military challenges), The Mountain Does Not Fall (useful for characters that like to be honored, defend, and then swing back)

All of these cards could use some testing.

I'm not familiar enough with the card pool, so thanks for spelling out the options for me I think Crab for Reprieve and The Mountain Does Not Fall are great choices. Hiruma Ambusher because the cancel ability is nice and conflict characters are great. He's balanced 2/2 for 2 which isn't bad. Stoic Gunso is a good choice but its too weighted to MIL which might not be needed. Its 1 less influence than HA so there is that to consider. You could do 2 tmdnf, 2 reprieve + 1 HA or 2 tmdnf, 2 reprieve, and 2 gunso - or 3 reprieve.

Mirumoto's Fury is a great defensive card that has synergy with the stronghold.

29 minutes ago, Casanunda said:

Mirumoto's Fury is a great defensive card that has synergy with the stronghold.

You can only add to glory. Seems like anti-synergy with the stronghold. Was it just sarcasm or am I missing something here?

I wasn't really grabbed by anything in the article as an OMG for splashing on the level of things like Reprieve or Let Go(I think Dragon is going to be the most splashed clan by far. Tattooed Monk and Let Go practically splash themselves), but I can see Crane going in on the Pride Kimono and Pacifism.

42 minutes ago, the eigensheep said:

You can only add to glory. Seems like anti-synergy with the stronghold

My mistake, I thought it was +/-2 for a second.

Crane has Above Question and Stewart of Law which can keep your guys safe, plus Voice of Honor if you want some control.

Steward of Law is a good suggestion that I hadn't considered. Becoming dishonored is going to hurt.

Voice of Honor is a meta call at best. You won't be able to regularly keep more guys honored than Crane or Lion with the current card pool.

Edit: Apparently you can't quote someone in an edit. That is very annoying.

I'll add another voice advocating for Crane and Lion; those seem to be the best fit in my opinion. That being said, here's my take (for what it is worth) on what each clan could bring, cuz I am pulling a double and figure it is a good way to eat up some time.

Crab: Hiruma Ambusher (defensive tech that protects your jank), Stoic Gunzo (when you want honored characters to leave play, might as well stack more buffs on it), reprieve (solid attrition bonus), Levy (to push for honor win limiting opponent's options), The Mountain Does Not Fall (+ defense tech)

Crane: Steward of Law (protects your honor victory condition), Above Question (keeps your Rube Goldberg machine of jank running), Perfect Gift (tutoring), Voice of Honor (strong complement to high honor playstyle), Noble Sacrifice (defensive tech that also plays to honor running).

Dragon: Togashi Kazue (attrition), Let Go (more jank protection), Mirumoto's Fury (defensive tech), the attachments are always beneficial if not particularly synergistic.

Lion: Guidance of the Ancestors (for when you need to dig jank out from the graveyard), Honored Blade (honor plus stat boost), Ready for Battle (decent utility), Stand Your Ground (honor based jank protection, not always wanted but clutch when needed).

I just want to point out that if you don't see anything in another clan you really want to add, you don't HAVE to splash.

Can't you just use a bucket and some decent timing? The Phoenix might not see it coming if you sneak up behind them.

However I agree with Blackheartz on the whole Crane splash, if you want to leverage the whole Honored/Glory thing. Voice of Honor is strong if you can maintain multiple honored people, Stewart of Law is decent, but maybe not needed, and can counter the downside to being high glory, and Admit Defeat and Noble Sacrifice are also reasonable contenders.

9 hours ago, Casanunda said:

My mistake, I thought it was +/-2 for a second.

How would "+/-2 for a second" help? By the time your opponent declares his action, the effect's already worn off!

56 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

How would "+/-2 for a second" help? By the time your opponent declares his action, the effect's already worn off!

"Here, lemme just help you out for a second ... Psych!" Sounds like a Phoenix move to me...

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

How would "+/-2 for a second" help? By the time your opponent declares his action, the effect's already worn off!

On the other hand, if the game were being played by superheroes with superspeed, then the effect might last half the game.

(We probably shouldn't design card games for superheroes. They've already got enough to do.)

3 hours ago, Zetsubou said:

Dragon: Togashi Kazue (attrition), Let Go (more jank protection), Mirumoto's Fury (defensive tech), the attachments are always beneficial if not particularly synergistic.

Indomitable Will is a great card, too, and I'm starting to think that it might work well in Phoenix. They have high glory, supplemented by the SH, but are a little lacking in tools to get themselves honoured. So you could certainly end up with one very high-powered character who has high Mil and Pol, since Glory adds to both. That screams Voltron to me, and IW is a great card for that playstyle. Voice of Honour seems ok, but again they seem to favour quality as opposed to quantity, so triggering it may be difficult, as others have pointed out.

In the deck I proxied and got to test out yesterday [vs crane splashing Phoenix, won a long game of dishonor], I went with Crab. 2X Levy and 3X Reprieve. Levy is amazing, because of how much fate we need in the conflict phase, so it is really lose/lose for them. Either turn on my Display of Power/other shenanigans, or swing the honor a bit more. Got to both of them, both times my opponent did the one I wanted them to. Reprieve wasn't as great, but they always seemed to miss my Champ/honored people. lol.

Giving characters +2 glory will likely be good with dishonor shenanigans. I bet scorpion is our top splash for that reason.

Would be best to wait until all the cards are spoiled before knowing what is best to splash.

3 hours ago, Nickciufi said:

Giving characters +2 glory will likely be good with dishonor shenanigans. I bet scorpion is our top splash for that reason.

The funny thing is that all the honor cards from Phoenix can also be used to dishonor characters.

5 hours ago, Ignithas said:

The funny thing is that all the honor cards from Phoenix can also be used to dishonor characters.

Good point. I think there's a deeper point here too.

In Old5R, decks which dishonoured others tended to have a dishonourable playstyle.

In New5R, decks which dishonour others seem to have an honourable playstyle.

It'll be interesting to see whether the Scorpion keep to this pattern.

12 hours ago, Sparks Duh said:

Would be best to wait until all the cards are spoiled before knowing what is best to splash.

Oh, please. Real players figured out the meta months ago, before seeing any of the cards! I don't have all my notes with me, but I'm pretty sure I remember we established that Brotherhood of Shinsei will be most likely to dominate tournaments, whereas Naga will probably be one of the weaker factions, though with a couple potent conflict cards that will make it the most splashed in other decks.

Sure, some may argue that the facts that many cards have been complete surprises and that we've seen no indication of any factions beyond the seven (and many indications of there being ONLY seven) would make these predictions absolutely impossible to be anywhere near correct. However, real players know that impossible odds just mean a huge payout for those betting on them!

The colour of the Lion cards is close enough to that of the Phoenix that it won't clash horribly. That's how I choose!