10 hours ago, BayushiCroy said:

I honor consistently with my lion deck. I bid 1. I out 2 court games in. I prioritize air with my lion deck since air is 2 honor and fire is at best 1. Losing 1 honor is more than gaining 1 because at itself is lose 1 or gain 2.

Replying quickly to many posts I see. I am happy to have sparked discussion @Joe From Cincinnati

I actually do think Lion will, generally, be one of, if not the best clan for honor running for the foreseeable future, due to the fact that they have 3 self honoring characters, they are less affected by Void (because they're more swarm than tall characters), Water (because they're swarm more than tall characters), Fire (because they're swarm more than tall characters) or Earth (because they rely on their dynasty cards way more than the conflict cards to win conflicts) meaning they are capable of fully committing to Air and basically handing their opponent whatever 1 or 2 rings they want more.

That said, the lack of card draw is a bit concerning because there is still a limit to how good their on board characters can be and I am curious to see how Lion would fare against a clan that is dedicating its time to drawing 1 each turn, getting card draw from other sources and intentionally clearing out your hand each and every turn. I haven't done a whole lot of testing against Lion lately because Phoenix, Crab and Dragon are all more recent and, subjectively, more interesting than either Crane or Lion :P.

2 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I actually do think Lion will, generally, be one of, if not the best clan for honor running for the foreseeable future, due to the fact that they have 3 self honoring characters, they are less affected by Void (because they're more swarm than tall characters), Water (because they're swarm more than tall characters), Fire (because they're swarm more than tall characters) or Earth (because they rely on their dynasty cards way more than the conflict cards to win conflicts) meaning they are capable of fully committing to Air and basically handing their opponent whatever 1 or 2 rings they want more.

That said, the lack of card draw is a bit concerning because there is still a limit to how good their on board characters can be and I am curious to see how Lion would fare against a clan that is dedicating its time to drawing 1 each turn, getting card draw from other sources and intentionally clearing out your hand each and every turn. I haven't done a whole lot of testing against Lion lately because Phoenix, Crab and Dragon are all more recent and, subjectively, more interesting than either Crane or Lion :P.

Water hurts me a lot. And the need for card draw is real.

But I agree with your other points.

An honour victory is a great target, but I suspect it's more achievable against some opponents than others. If you make a deck which can only win via honour and you end up across the table from Crane (say), you might be in trouble.

I've been looking at a Lion deck which tries to balance Political with Military as much as possible, while still leaving the possibility of an honour victory open. That way I can respond to whatever my opponent's weaknesses are, while using my other threats to force them into a suboptimal play style.

I personally think that honor and Disbonor will wind up being successfully viewed as resources rather than a win condition. Means of allowing yourself 5 card draws and Assassinations and buffs and resisting debuffs and who knows what Scorpion stuff is lying around the corner that uses honor as a cost instead of or alongside Fate. Actual wins with them will be fringe cases where folks have set themselves up to steal ganes. Who knows. Anything can happen and everything is awesome!

3 hours ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

everything is awesome!

Everything is cool, when you're part of a team- er, clan!

4 hours ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

I personally think that honor and Disbonor will wind up being successfully viewed as resources rather than a win condition. Means of allowing yourself 5 card draws and Assassinations and buffs and resisting debuffs and who knows what Scorpion stuff is lying around the corner that uses honor as a cost instead of or alongside Fate. Actual wins with them will be fringe cases where folks have set themselves up to steal ganes. Who knows. Anything can happen and everything is awesome!

That's how I view honor. When I'm low on honor I'm not thinking "crap I'm about to lose". I'm thinking either "crap I'm gonna have to draw less cards and give up my card advantage" or "crap I can't realistically play Assassination this turn"

I generally view games where I won with like 11-15 honor as games where I just gave up value. If you draw 3-4 extra cards or play an Assassination you would achieve victory faster and by not extracting that value you're giving your opponent opportunities to come back in the game.

That doesnt apply to decks who intend to win via honor/dishonor and blow up provinces out of coincidence. But most decks aim to win by establishing board presence, winning rings, and breaking provinces.

I tend to look it as both a resource and a win/lose condition. I look at articles like this as inspiration when trying to translate honor and various cards or situation.

7 hours ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

I personally think that honor and Disbonor will wind up being successfully viewed as resources rather than a win condition. Means of allowing yourself 5 card draws and Assassinations and buffs and resisting debuffs and who knows what Scorpion stuff is lying around the corner that uses honor as a cost instead of or alongside Fate. Actual wins with them will be fringe cases where folks have set themselves up to steal ganes. Who knows. Anything can happen and everything is awesome!

Everything is awesome!

Everything is cool when you're killing the Crane!

(To any PETA members out there, I am of course referring to members of the Crane clan, and would never condone the killing of the wild birds called cranes.

...unless it turned out that cranes are delicious, in which case have at them, I say!)

4 hours ago, kiramode said:

I generally view games where I won with like 11-15 honor as games where I just gave up value. If you draw 3-4 extra cards or play an Assassination you would achieve victory faster and by not extracting that value you're giving your opponent opportunities to come back in the game.

Same. Part of my learning curve here is trying to position myself as winning at around the 5 honor mark. Not too close to lethal but having used those resources wisely enough that I was able to maximise myself. As more stuff comes who knows, but for now it's definitely another layer of resource in my estimation, rather than another layer to winning.