So, I'm having some trouble getting these guys to work well, and really feel that they're pretty weak in terms of what you get for what you pay in fate. So I'm wondering what I'm missing it's odd others feel the same way. What do folks think of the dragon and what had been successful for you guys?

Which other clans have you played? How did you fare with them?

Are you using a 30 card (1 core) deck or are you using a full collection?

I've played lion, crane, phoenix, and crab. Full 40 40 of everything spoiled up to yesterday, even played tonight. Just finding them less good than any of the others personality for personality.

So what does your conflict deck look like? Remember that the Dragon are the attachment clan - their personalities were 'balanced' with the idea that a Dragon attack would consist of 1 to 2 personalities with at least 1 attachment (preferably 2) that boosts the stat for the conflict type you intend to assign them towards.

While I certainly have much less play experience than that, and don't have anything to answer the question in the first post, I do think that comparing dragon to the other clans "personality for personality" isn't really a fair comparison, as the dragon are supposed to rely heavily on attachments and events, so of course simply going off of a personality by personality basis dragon is going to lose out, that's like looking at lion and saying they aren't that great because they struggle in political conflicts compared to the crane, and vice versa in military conflicts.

By means of example, the recently spoiled dragon event Tranquility basically shuts down some strategies because it prevents your opponent from using characters from home, stopping uni from trampling in, and the phoenix from doing their passive defense thing.

Let go is largely regarded as one of the best utility events out there, as it can knock out key attachments that your opponent might be relying on (such as sachimono or reprieve) or rescue your characters from meta-attachments your opponent might play (such as cloud the mind or pacifism).

The ancestral trait allows you to keep certain necessary cards in play for longer than they really should be.

Indomitable will reinforces the idea that a single loaded up dragon should be able to solo conflicts at least some of the time, and mirumoto prodigy can force the issue if need be.

In summary, I think if you feel like the dragon clan is underpowered compared to the others, then you are looking at the wrong deck.

59 minutes ago, Taki said:

I've played lion, crane, phoenix, and crab. Full 40 40 of everything spoiled up to yesterday, even played tonight. Just finding them less good than any of the others personality for personality.

Which clans did you do well with? What was the Dragon deck you played?

5 hours ago, shosuko said:

Which clans did you do well with? What was the Dragon deck you played?

Crab and lion. Dragon was your basic attachment deck with lion splashed in for sashemono and we are ready.

@psychie your comments aren't helpful. The conflict cards you mention are available to anyone who splashed dragon and often to better effect. Instead of simply implying that I'm a fool, why don't you give me some combos or tactics that I might be missing. And tranquility was only spoiled today as far as I know.

So far I've gotten nothing helpful.

To be fair, Taki, you did not ask for combos or tactics, you just said that you were missing something. Well, here we go for combo!

You shine bright like a diamond and want the world to know it? We have what you need!

One-Hit Wonder combo

It all revolves around the Morumoto Prodigy, preferably when you are the second player. Gear this character up with attachments aimed towards the type of conflict you want and, after your opponent has declared the type of conflict the Mirumoto Prodigy is good at, send him to attack. While it is obvious, it is a very interesting play: you keep the bulk of your characters, which are balanced and fair well in both types of conflicts, at the ready and when you see the opportunity you strike with buffed-up mirumoto Prodigy. Or do not strike, as it can also serve as a detterent and force your opponent to keep a high-value card at the ready to defend.

Push it even further and use Indomitable Will on your Mirumoto Prodigy. Attack only with this character and keep all the others to defend. Dragon are good defenders, especially with Mirumoto's Fury that can easily bow even Champions, some of them up until the attack on your Stronghold (Bayushi Shoju and Shinjo Altansarnai who have a Glory of 2), sometimes until the very end of the game! (Hida Kisada with a Glory of 0); otherwise it forces your opponent to waste a conflict to attack an unnecessary Province.

If you think a single character will not fair well against Champions, remember that it will be fully geared up, at least 2 attachments, and will receive the Stronghold bonus on one of its attacks, another +2 / +2. Moreover, if you give it Togashi Kazue as an attachment, you will be a terrible threat to Champions, by fueling your own Mirumoto Prodigy with the Fate from those unfortunate samurai facing it. Finally, if you want some help from the Heavens to help your Mirumoto Prodigy, give it a Tatooed Wanderer as an attachment.

Not your playstyle? No worries, you can play like a monk!

The Way of the Open Ring combo

The bulk of the combo revolves around Togashi Initiate and Seeker of Enlightenment. However, you will push it further with Ascetic Visionary who will ready your non-monk samurai with monk attachments: Tatooed Wanderer and Togashi Kazue. Finally, you will walk through the flames and Fate will reward you with a Mantra of Fire.

Give it the extra boost of an open mind and bring K game with a Kitsuki Investigator during Political Conflicts.

You are a master of destiny and the threads of fate have no secrets for you? Good!

Your Fate is Mine combo

Doomed Shugenja + Togashi Kazue as an attachment and Togashi Yokuni on the field. You fuel Fate to both every time they are opposed.

You will further remove Fate from your opponents thanks to Secluded temple, as you play few characters loaded up on attachments. And you will strike the coup-de-grâce with Mirumoto Raitsugu and its declaration of duel.

(On a side note, I am more inclined to use Meditations on the Tao than Restoration of Balance as my Dragon Fire Province; however that remains to be proven)

Try those combos out and let me know what you think of them. Also, remember that they are meant to be an intricate playstyle where all of them fair better when played together.

Thanks kuroniten, I'll try to be more specific in the future. That having been said, how do you get mantra of fire to work, it seems to be too situational as you have to have both monks and rely on your opponent to pick the right thing at the right time. Also kazue, while awesome is an expensive card that they will see coming if you left that much fate on the table. Same with most of the other combos you've mentioned, you need attachments and costly cards to get them to work so cards like the prodigy will end up costing as much or more than a champ.

Finally what would you Splash in and why?

Kazue is very easy to see coming. So fake that you have her. Save three, and keep their champion home. Then spend one or two on attachments. Great for defense against champions.

Kiho of fire just needs a monk, or better it just needs a wandering monk and anybody else. If you can get a daimyo's favor then it was still free. Or Kazue becomes a two cost and works with Kiho of Fire.

You will eventually have a monk, and unless they are crab they will take fire.

1 minute ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

Kazue is very easy to see coming. So fake that you have her. Save three, and keep their champion home. Then spend one or two on attachments. Great for defense against champions.

Kiho of fire just needs a monk, or better it just needs a wandering monk and anybody else. If you can get a daimyo's favor then it was still free. Or Kazue becomes a two cost and works with Kiho of Fire.

You will eventually have a monk, and unless they are crab they will take fire.

I'll give it a try. What would you Splash and what would your strategy be?

34 minutes ago, Mirumoto Kuroniten said:

To be fair, Taki, you did not ask for combos or tactics, you just said that you were missing something. Well, here we go for combo!

You shine bright like a diamond and want the world to know it? We have what you need!

One-Hit Wonder combo

It all revolves around the Morumoto Prodigy, preferably when you are the second player. Gear this character up with attachments aimed towards the type of conflict you want and, after your opponent has declared the type of conflict the Mirumoto Prodigy is good at, send him to attack. While it is obvious, it is a very interesting play: you keep the bulk of your characters, which are balanced and fair well in both types of conflicts, at the ready and when you see the opportunity you strike with buffed-up mirumoto Prodigy. Or do not strike, as it can also serve as a detterent and force your opponent to keep a high-value card at the ready to defend.

Push it even further and use Indomitable Will on your Mirumoto Prodigy. Attack only with this character and keep all the others to defend. Dragon are good defenders, especially with Mirumoto's Fury that can easily bow even Champions, some of them up until the attack on your Stronghold (Bayushi Shoju and Shinjo Altansarnai who have a Glory of 2), sometimes until the very end of the game! (Hida Kisada with a Glory of 0); otherwise it forces your opponent to waste a conflict to attack an unnecessary Province.

If you think a single character will not fair well against Champions, remember that it will be fully geared up, at least 2 attachments, and will receive the Stronghold bonus on one of its attacks, another +2 / +2. Moreover, if you give it Togashi Kazue as an attachment, you will be a terrible threat to Champions, by fueling your own Mirumoto Prodigy with the Fate from those unfortunate samurai facing it. Finally, if you want some help from the Heavens to help your Mirumoto Prodigy, give it a Tatooed Wanderer as an attachment.

You entire post is well written, and well thought-out. Nicely done.

Unfortunately, I've found the banking on piling 2-4 cards on the Prodigy (or the Niten Adept) backfired spectacularly in at least 70% of the games I've played (around 35 at this point). Assassination has nuked my fully-loaded Prodigies and Adepts many times. Usually when that happens, I never recover. The people in my group that have tried Lion rarely run Assassination, but most other clans at least try it. The Phoenix player hasn't been running it much, but he's managed to use Isawa Masahiro to the same effect on a few occasions.

I have a feeling that for the Dragon's attachment-based strategy to be consistent enough for competitive play, it will need at least one Niten style card that's along the lines of "Interrupt: When an Event targets this character, bow two cards attached to this character to negate all effects of the event".

You are most welcome.

I am with you: Dragon is an expensive deck, probably because it relies on combo and takes time to be fully ready.

Mantra of Fire is situational and only included at the end of the combo for this very reason. It is a 0-Fate cost event, so it is not an issue to keep it in your hand until the situation arises, or not.

Togashi Kazue is a freakingly expensive as an attachment, however it can really help you remove annoying characters from the field. Between Togashi Kazue, Togashi Yokuni and a Ring of Void, you can remove 3 Fate tokens from an enemy and then discard it with Mirumoto Raitsugu.

Regarding splashing, I would say it breaks down to what playstyle suits you best.

Mirumoto Prodigy? Go for Crane with Admit Defeat, Above Question and Duelist Training; The Perfect Gift is not a bad choice too. Lion works well also with Ready for Battle, Sashimono and Stand Your Ground. Well, even Crab is good for Reprieve and Scorpion with Forged Edict and the sweet Court Mask; anything that protects your Mirumoto Prodigy is a good choice.

Fate control? Go for Crab with Jade Tetsubo and Reprieve. Phoenix and Against the Waves is not a bad choice but very situational as will mostly target Togashi Yokuni.

Monk-y business? I do not see any Clan that would be an interesting splash.

11 minutes ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

You entire post is well written, and well thought-out. Nicely done.

Unfortunately, I've found the banking on piling 2-4 cards on the Prodigy (or the Niten Adept) backfired spectacularly in at least 70% of the games I've played (around 35 at this point). Assassination has nuked my fully-loaded Prodigies and Adepts many times. Usually when that happens, I never recover. The people in my group that have tried Lion rarely run Assassination, but most other clans at least try it. The Phoenix player hasn't been running it much, but he's managed to use Isawa Masahiro to the same effect on a few occasions.

I have a feeling that for the Dragon's attachment-based strategy to be consistent enough for competitive play, it will need at least one Niten style card that's along the lines of "Interrupt: When an Event targets this character, bow two cards attached to this character to negate all effects of the event".

Thank you.

Yes, I figured Mirumoto Prodigy is huge gamble and requires protection by splashing cards from another Clan. Crane with Above Question seems like the sensible choice, moreover you get duel oriented cards. Lion with Stand Your Ground is a solid too, but it requires your Mirumoto Prodigy to be Honored, on the other hand you get the oh so sweet Sashimono.

I have one Dragon strategy and it works well; play Niten Master with 2 Fine Katana in hand. Win.

I play Lion splash and drop a whopping 8 cards in: 3 Honored Blade, 3 Guardian of the Ancestors, 2 Sashimono. 8 attachments. HB gives you an extra weapon to ready the Master and the honour is super helpful, GotA pretty much guarantees that you always have an attachment (great for Niten Adept), and Sashimono is the coup de grace on your giant Voltron. I drop Mantra of Fire from the deck, it's a cool card, but it's too hard to trigger relative to the number of Monks you have. Just play to the stronghold, it's a great ability that's super consistent if you run enough attachments. Also, play 3 Daimyo's Favour, that card makes the deck sing.

38 minutes ago, Mirumoto Kuroniten said:

Thank you.

Yes, I figured Mirumoto Prodigy is huge gamble and requires protection by splashing cards from another Clan. Crane with Above Question seems like the sensible choice, moreover you get duel oriented cards. Lion with Stand Your Ground is a solid too, but it requires your Mirumoto Prodigy to be Honored, on the other hand you get the oh so sweet Sashimono.

Above Question is definitely the best way I can see to make the Voltron strategy more stable. Sashimono is certainly very good, but again. it doesn't do me any good if I've paid somewhere around 4-7 Fate (and 2-3 conflict cards) for a character + attachments, only to have it ganked before it can do anything.

5 minutes ago, Casanunda said:

I have one Dragon strategy and it works well; play Niten Master with 2 Fine Katana in hand. Win.

I play Lion splash and drop a whopping 8 cards in: 3 Honored Blade, 3 Guardian of the Ancestors, 2 Sashimono. 8 attachments. HB gives you an extra weapon to ready the Master and the honour is super helpful, GotA pretty much guarantees that you always have an attachment (great for Niten Adept), and Sashimono is the coup de grace on your giant Voltron. I drop Mantra of Fire from the deck, it's a cool card, but it's too hard to trigger relative to the number of Monks you have. Just play to the stronghold, it's a great ability that's super consistent if you run enough attachments. Also, play 3 Daimyo's Favour, that card makes the deck sing.

Using the Keeper or Seeker Intiate helps with the monk numbers issue.

I do like the Master. He's a 4-cost, so he is immune to some of the nastier stuff that wrecks the 2-costers. I've only managed to get him out with two fine katana once, but that time I also had a Tattooed Wanderer to give him. It went well.

I have not gotten a lot of chances to play. And I really just want to have the cards in front of me to begin building decks.

My main suggestions from what I have learned is this.

1- Togashi initiate and Seeker of enlightenment don't need to attack together. If you have both of them out I too often send in too much for overkill and they just swing back.

2- cheap guys with attachments get assassinated and will soon be blackmailed.

3- way of the Dragon on Agasha blacksmith is tons of fun. It's no Yokuni or Raitsugo, but it is not bad.

Until now I mained Dragon, and I wouldn't take them to a 40/40 tournament, because they are too inconsistent. The problem is, that you are a value deck, but half of your dynasty deck is really bad and so it often happens, that I either have to burn through too many cards to keep tempo or I have to put too many eggs into my Yokuni or Niten Master basket. Both situations makes the deck really vulnerable to control cards and I don't think that the crane splash makes the situation better.

I personally think that the conflict cards from Dragon are really strong and they make Dragon one of the best 1 core set clans. But with so many really strong neutral conflict cards and the really strong cards you can splash from other clans, the dynasty deck can't offset the inconsistencies of the dynasty deck.

Im super excited about the dragon duelist potential. You can play Raitsugu with way of the dragon and throw down Yokuni with way of the dragon and have yokuni copy raitsugu's ability. Then if you challenge with both of them you'll be hitting the opponent for 4 duels that all steal fate off of characters. Double down on that by throwing Kazue on one of them and you've got some real nasty business. If you're as duel obsessed as I am, you can pop on some more duelist love with Duelist Training from a Crane ally deck. Sure, they might start losing on purpose to stop giving you honor, but then you just pop out Contingency Plan and take their honor while also winning the duel and stripping their fate. (not to mention the Crane splash gets you access to Above Question to really keep your Voltron safe and some wonderful draw tek to get your combo going). The reason this works effectively is either you're stealing their money or you're stealing their honor and occasionally you're doing both. The most important combo for me is definitely Raitsugu/Kazue with Above Question turn 1 and then you can save your Yokuni for something tasty on their end if you like.

Side note, does Way of the Dragon double abilities your character gets from attachments like Duelist Training? If that's the case you'd definitely end up with 6 duels.

1 hour ago, raitsugu said:

Im super excited about the dragon duelist potential. You can play Raitsugu with way of the dragon and throw down Yokuni with way of the dragon and have yokuni copy raitsugu's ability. Then if you challenge with both of them you'll be hitting the opponent for 4 duels that all steal fate off of characters. Double down on that by throwing Kazue on one of them and you've got some real nasty business. If you're as duel obsessed as I am, you can pop on some more duelist love with Duelist Training from a Crane ally deck. Sure, they might start losing on purpose to stop giving you honor, but then you just pop out Contingency Plan and take their honor while also winning the duel and stripping their fate. (not to mention the Crane splash gets you access to Above Question to really keep your Voltron safe and some wonderful draw tek to get your combo going). The reason this works effectively is either you're stealing their money or you're stealing their honor and occasionally you're doing both. The most important combo for me is definitely Raitsugu/Kazue with Above Question turn 1 and then you can save your Yokuni for something tasty on their end if you like.

Side note, does Way of the Dragon double abilities your character gets from attachments like Duelist Training? If that's the case you'd definitely end up with 6 duels.

You could also use Jade Tetsubo to turn Raitsugu into a guaranteed kill no matter what.

Taki,

Im a visual learner, so watching recorded games have helped a great deal. Furthermore, while the player posting the videos is rather dry at times and rather annoying at other times, the games versus different opponents are nice to see. Thought you might want to browse through these.

Warning, they are commonly over 60minutes long.

Thank you, I'll go through these soon.

I apologize if I came off insulting, but I was not implying anything about anyone's intelligence. You asked what you were missing, and your OP talked about the characters not being as good, so I was under the impression that what you were missing was that the strength of the dragon comes from the conflict deck.

You say that you did best with lion and crab decks, these are both clans that plan around buying a bunch of characters in the dynasty phase (lion for swarm, crab for sac), but that doesn't work as well in dragon, dragon wants to buy one or two characters in the dynasty phase, add some fate (maybe), and load up on attachments. While getting decent combos and strategies off is always good, sometimes subtle shifts in play style can have significant impacts on overall results, it is possible that you do better with those two clans because you are more inclined to buy more characters in the dynasty phase (just so we're clear, I don't know you, and I'm not trying to imply anything about you personally one way or another, I'm just speculating based on the limited information I have available), so maybe try a couple games where you limit your early round spending, try to always end the dynasty phase with at least 3 fate remaining. While this might not necessarily work any better, it will work differently, in those test games, pay attention to what changes in terms of the conflicts when you do this. This way, later on, you might be better at gauging how much to spend and how much to save in a given board state. I know that this is an issue I also struggle with, and I expect it to be a common problem amongst dragon players (our clan doesn't have the most intuitive modus operandi), especially early on in the game's meta (ie, right after core release, maybe for the first several expansions as well).

I suspect dragon will be a clan that for most players, if they want to get good competitively with this clan, they will need to put a lot of time into really learning the in depth intricacies of the inner workings of the clan. I know I'll need to do that.

As far as combos and strategies, the only one that I can come up with that I haven't already seen mentioned (or at least discussed in detail) is mirumoto prodigy with tattooed wanderer attached. Due to the fact that the prodigy limits them to only one defender, you can use the covert trait to remove particular threats from the equation, and while I know that this is fairly obvious, upon reflection this is a very strong capability, and while it won't matter much with uni and phoenix (move in and passive defense respectively), throwing in tranquility to the mix can really shut people down, and if you've got a shugenja at home you can cloud the mind on their defender to effectively shut down their board.

I hope this is more helpful than my previous response, and I apologize for coming off as insulting (this is an issue I've been working on for a long time, I tend to come off more snarky and condescending than I mean to, both in person and online, but I rarely actually mean it that way).

PS, while I could be misunderstanding what I've read here, it seems some are under the impression that Yokuni can copy Kazue's ability. Yokuni cannot, as Kazue only has an ability while an attachment, and Yokuni can only copy characters, and Kazue's text is meaningless when she's a character. Just wanted to make sure we're all clear on this.

@psychie Thanks for the apology, I really appreciate it. Perhaps I was being overly sensitive in any case.

There's a couple of serious design problems with Dragon that I see, despite the great posts here about them. The first is that when someone builds tall instead of wide, they are inordinately vulnerable to a lot of card effects. While this can be overcome, the ability to overcome that takes up a lot of real estate in a person's deck, especially since dragon only have one decent card to do it with (tranquility). Most of the solutions have to come from out of clan or neutral cards. If this were the only problem, that would be fine, but that leads to the second problem, that of economy.

Again the dragon have a shortcoming here. With the need to build tall, and the everpresent danger of assassination, your money is tapped. You can't afford to risk fate on a two cost character, as an assassination will leave you ruined and your opponent with serious tempo advantage, so you need to invest in 3 cost'ers or higher. Unfortunately those cards for dragon don't have impressive stats at all, and are fairly luke warm on powers as well. Further, many of your cards require you to pay fate to active said luke warm powers. While doing that does help seeker of enlightenment, no other cards work with that engine, and to make matters worse, if you use those powers offensively, you're often paying your opponent as he can claim those rings before you.

Both of these are a great hurdle that I have yet to find a way to overcome. Every other clan has personalities with powers equal to the dragon, but without the restrictions based on attachment, and without paying your opponent