Scorpion could also have a mill subtheme when it comes to dishonor.
If I am correct, running out of cards in either deck forces a reshuffle with a -5 honor loss slapped onto it. Maybe we will see scorpion attack their decks, proactively stopping threats before the opponent can use them.

Kitsuki Investigator already shows us that hand disruption will be a think in this game, maybe scorpion doubles down on it. It makes the oppoenent draw their deck for a minus 5 while also dishonoring and then removing characters while using the Ring of air to drain? I don't know. I personally think that outside of Phoenix and MAYBE Lion we wont see honor victories happen and the few we do see will be very rare. I doubt any clan will be able to win by dishonor with just the core set, not if players are knowingly aware of it, until the game can actually enhance that win condition.

Out of core, I expect Scorpion to use dishonor to debuff the enemy and unlocking abilities on their cards. Just like crane needs honored bodies for their cards, scorpion cares about dishonored opponent cards. Then you will see Covert being their main way to actually attack efficiently since it is the ninja style mechanic.

How it all plays out is anyone's guess, because I believe that phoenix really caught most players completely off guard and scorpion will be very similar.

I'll bet scorpion will have this kind of cards:

- dishonor your char to bow an opponent or

- dishonor your char to kill a dishonored char or

- dishonor your char to move home an opponent

- if you control more dishonored characters... (gain fate, draw cards, take honor)

- change the target of events

- dishonor a char, to cancel an event effect

- If you have less honor points... (gain fate, draw cards, take honor)

Of course they will have a lot of courtier so For Shame will be in the deck, but I don't expect more than 1 card to dishonor the opponent, cause the decks seems very leveled until now, and we know that a lot of dishonor will brake the Phoenix. Maybe the way of scorpion can be a reverse of crane.

I'll bet the theme for Scorpion is "Do whatever it takes", a more agressive deck, with powerful cards with drawbacks than a "Coutier Dishonor" passive control deck.

1 minute ago, L5RBr said:

I'll bet scorpion will have this kind of cards:

- dishonor your char to ...

[snip]

I'll bet the theme for Scorpion is "Do whatever it takes", a more agressive deck, with powerful cards with drawbacks than a "Coutier Dishonor" passive control deck.

I hadn't considered a bunch of cards with "dishonor a guy" as a cost, in the vein of Spies at Court.

But, yes, this seems incredibly likely.

Now that I think of it, I fully expect Way of the Scorpion to be something akin to "Action: Dishonor your guy - Dishonor their guy"

19 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

FFG seems to be setting them up as the expensive/powerful event clan.

I am afraid this could be a very bad and very likely scenario, especially with the design concept of City of Lies. Fate is a very strong resource in the LCG format that designing City of Lies would give Scorpion too much of an advantage if their events are costed like that of the other clans. To balance this, they have to design the clan's event cards on a higher curve. But at what cost, hampering a clan's dynasty production by 25%? A clan that could very well have a less than ideal MIL ability will need bodies out to win a MIL conflict, let alone break a province with it. I doubt losing a dynasty flip is worth a pseudo fate every turn.

9 minutes ago, Shosuro Teri said:

I am afraid this could be a very bad and very likely scenario, especially with the design concept of City of Lies. Fate is a very strong resource in the LCG format that designing City of Lies would give Scorpion too much of an advantage if their events are costed like that of the other clans. To balance this, they have to design the clan's event cards on a higher curve. But at what cost, hampering a clan's dynasty production by 25%? A clan that could very well have a less than ideal MIL ability will need bodies out to win a MIL conflict, let alone break a province with it. I doubt losing a dynasty flip is worth a pseudo fate every turn.

Have you played any games yet? Honest question, not intended to be provoking.

I currently have two decks constructed and have played 4 games. Both of my decks contain 6 holdings (3 Imperial Storehouse, and 3 of the clan holding). I have yet to be annoyed at a holding clogging my production. With only 7 fate per turn, you rarely have the resources needed to buy everything in your provinces anyway, so having an additional free effect around is almost always a good thing.

That said...

In the CCG there were several effects that gave blanket force bonuses or cost reductions that were always in effect. Whenever one of these would appear, the effected stat on all effected cards had a tendency to be priced with the bonus built in. Making it less of a "bonus" and more like "needed to get your stats up to where they should have been to begin with." Much like when a store puts something on sale for "50% off" by saying the MSRP is twice what they are charging, even if they never had any intention of charging the MSRP in the first place.

Since City of Lies does not start in play, FFG is unlikely to take it into account when pricing everything. I am hoping for expensive and powerful event cards along the lines of Blackmail which are costed appropriately. If you happen to have City of Lies out, everything gets a lot easier. But if they design things properly, you shouldn't need it to function.

2 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

I hadn't considered a bunch of cards with "dishonor a guy" as a cost, in the vein of Spies at Court.

But, yes, this seems incredibly likely.

Now that I think of it, I fully expect Way of the Scorpion to be something akin to "Action: Dishonor your guy - Dishonor their guy"

Considering that two entire clans are built around honoring your characters, especially phoenix as their entire gimmick is "honored or bust", I DOUBT they would print a card that flat out dishonors, even if they had to dishonor their own guys, who would no doubt be given glory such that they don't care. Giving such a card that is so crippling to entire clans conceptually is probably way too powerful to see in a core set, especially with a simple "Way of" card.

21 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Now that I think of it, I fully expect Way of the Scorpion to be something akin to "Action: Dishonor your guy - Dishonor their guy"

I sure hope you are wrong on this one. I don't want to have a significantly weaker card (in a vacuum) compared to Way of the Crane which only requires a Crane character.

4 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Have you played any games yet? Honest question, not intended to be provoking.

I currently have two decks constructed and have played 4 games. Both of my decks contain 6 holdings (3 Imperial Storehouse, and 3 of the clan holding). I have yet to be annoyed at a holding clogging my production. With only 7 fate per turn, you rarely have the resources needed to buy everything in your provinces anyway, so having an additional free effect around is almost always a good thing.

That said...

In the CCG there were several effects that gave blanket force bonuses or cost reductions that were always in effect. Whenever one of these would appear, the effected stat on all effected cards had a tendency to be priced with the bonus built in. Making it less of a "bonus" and more like "needed to get your stats up to where they should have been to begin with." Much like when a store puts something on sale for "50% off" by saying the MSRP is twice what they are charging, even if they never had any intention of charging the MSRP in the first place.

Since City of Lies does not start in play, FFG is unlikely to take it into account when pricing everything. I am hoping for expensive and powerful event cards along the lines of Blackmail which are costed appropriately. If you happen to have City of Lies out, everything gets a lot easier. But if they design things properly, you shouldn't need it to function.

I haven't "played" any games against an opponent yet but I've played with proxies by myself to simulate deck flips and card consistencies. But we are talking about Scorpion's holding here so your assessment about it not going to clog province production is baseless without the card pool available.

All I'm saying here is Fate is a valuable resource that giving a clan a leg up in that resource production (even if it's just pseudo Fate) would require a serious design consideration. You already recognized the situation with the CCG format. Sure it's not starting in play, but with your example you said Scorpion would be the expensive/powerful event clan. If they are indeed given powerful cards at an expensive cost, people have the option of digging for it first turn. At 3 copies, you have 40% chances of seeing exactly 1 copy of it with aggressive digging, and goes up 10% more if you consider more than 1 copy. At 50% chance of it appearing on the first turn, you think the mere existence of City of Lies will not have an impact for the costing of their card pool?

25 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Considering that two entire clans are built around honoring your characters, especially phoenix as their entire gimmick is "honored or bust", I DOUBT they would print a card that flat out dishonors, even if they had to dishonor their own guys, who would no doubt be given glory such that they don't care. Giving such a card that is so crippling to entire clans conceptually is probably way too powerful to see in a core set, especially with a simple "Way of" card.

You think the Action: Dishonor your guy - Dishonor their guy card is strong. I disagree. Way of the Crane works because it will always give them a bonus, they have a higher Glory average in general. Simply put, it will always work for the mere stat bonus alone. The said card, on the other hand, will not always work (Against Crab for one. We haven't seen what Unicorn has yet, as well as the mirror match.) And at higher cost, (Dishonor my guy, when you'll probably be the lowest in Honor total across the board?) it's dependability fluctuates highly to warrant inclusion. (In a vacuum)

I think there is a chance that Way of the Scorpion will not have anything to do with dishonor. It might be something like "Choose a Scorpion character you control, that character gains Covert until the end of the conflict phase".

37 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Giving such a card that is so crippling to entire clans conceptually is probably way too powerful to see in a core set, especially with a simple "Way of" card.

4 minutes ago, Shosuro Teri said:

I sure hope you are wrong on this one. I don't want to have a significantly weaker card (in a vacuum) compared to Way of the Crane which only requires a Crane character.

I am now instilled with confidence that my suggested card is balanced.

Of course if way of scorpion say "dishonor your guy, dishonor an opponnent guy", there will be other cards to combo and manipulate the opponent dishonored chars.

1 hour ago, blackheartz said:

I think there is a chance that Way of the Scorpion will not have anything to do with dishonor. It might be something like "Choose a Scorpion character you control, that character gains Covert until the end of the conflict phase".

Given that the art for the card is a Ninja, I think you might be right.

36 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Given that the art for the card is a Ninja, I think you might be right.

Where is this art? I'd love to see it. The art for this game has been amazing.

53 minutes ago, Shosuro Teri said:

Where is this art? I'd love to see it. The art for this game has been amazing.

Top middle:

On 7/28/2017 at 8:19 PM, Shosuro Teri said:

A solid discard based theme can work pretty well as a dishonor theme without actually hitting your opponent's honor value. It would be flavorful as well since it highlights the choice of stooping down to dishonorable tactics to try and keep up, or hold unto your honor as you lay dying. And if there was ever a deck theme I liked close to playing dishonor, it's playing the discard theme.

This. I'm betting on at least two cards that hit your opponents hand in some way.

I still think Way of the Scorpion should be about Dishonoring a character, as an opposite to Way of the Crane.

The fact that a Ninja is on the art doesn't make it impossible or even unlikely. After all, a ninja would be quite capable to plant what you need to make someone look bad.

I think it will have something to do with revealing cards from the opponent. FFG likes that stuff, and we havent seen something like that so far. It also fits the Scorpion theme.

Just now, Bayushi Nono said:

I think it will have something to do with revealing cards from the opponent. FFG likes that stuff, and we havent seen something like that So far.

Revealing provinces maybe?

What about:

Interrupt: After honor dials are revealed but before effects are resolved, choose one opponent - exchange honor dial values with that opponent.

15 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Top middle:

WOW! Thank you for this!

For some reason, the card reminds me of Toson Xp. With that said, I can try and guess that Way of the Scorpion is a "look at the opponent's hand and choose a card. Discard it." of some sort.

5 minutes ago, Shosuro Teri said:

WOW! Thank you for this!

For some reason, the card reminds me of Toson Xp. With that said, I can try and guess that Way of the Scorpion is a "look at the opponent's hand and choose a card. Discard it." of some sort.

This would be incredibly strong and the best "Way of ..." card by far.

15 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Top middle:

Entirely unrelated, but I only just realised that all the wooded hills in the background on Way of the Dragon are actually dragons too. Neato.

I'm sure there will be a Scorpion aggro variant that concentrates on using dishonor to create force swings at battles. Dishonor decks were always the most talked about Scorpion variants in old arcs, but Scorpion did have strong military options; especially of the negative force swinging variety.

2 hours ago, Fumo said:

Entirely unrelated, but I only just realised that all the wooded hills in the background on Way of the Dragon are actually dragons too. Neato.

The buildings in the Background of Way of the Scorpion could be a scorpion, the wind in Way of the crab a pincer (the oni and the protected look like the sigils of the clan). With some phantasy you could argue that the shrine and the bushi in Way of the Lion and the woman and the vase in Way of the crane are the gaps in the clan sigils

Did you guys see the Stronghold ability?
Action: If you are less.............

this stronghold, take..............

I think this is going to be "If you are less honorable than your opponent, bow this stronghold, take the Imperial Favor."

The Crane used to have abilities to simply take the favor, or to even spend the favor... I wonder if the Scorpion will be able to take and spend the favor this time, maybe as a way of mitigating their own honor loss, or to inflict dishonor on their opponents.

I do not think they will have more than 1 card for direct dishonor of the opponent - and that 1 card may also include a choice, not just dishonor. It may be like "dishonor a character or lose 1 honor" but I don't think they will have more than 1 card for this. I believe they will have multiple ways to dishonor opponents.

The Phoenix have 2 ways to honor / dishonor, the Crane I think have 3 if you include their character who honors another person when they are honored. I suspect the Scorpion will have 2-3 cards that honor / dishonor people, as well as triggers that can make being dishonorable bad even if you have 0 glory.

This could be an interesting play pattern for the Scorpion where they would prefer to even win in defense and maybe not attack as much just to keep the favor in play on their side.

I think it will read " Action: If you are less honourable than another player, bow this stronghold -- take 1 honor from that player.