Very interesting discussion. I think Dragon clan is most needing this kind of thread.

I did not have the opportunity to play yet, but I am not a fan of building heavy charachters in any game, as protection rarely overpowers the aggression on characters. And then there is the mono no aware...

I am commited to try a wider spread of charachters and attachments. I mean 3-4 characters and the tools spreading on them, somehow using the attachments as if they were events with some staying potential. Has someone tried this playstile fot dragon?

On ‎8‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 10:57 AM, Mirumoto Kuroniten said:

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.

I agree the two splashes I've been most successful with are Crane for Admit Defeat and Above Question or Crab for Reprieve. For Crab I usually go The Mountain Does Not Fall instead of Jade Tetsubo (to get more use out of my built up character), but Jade Tetsubo will up your attachment count so I can see why it's super valuable and it helps Raitsugu do his thing better. I think the characters to really consider and work around are Niten Master, Niten Adept, Mirumoto Prodigy and Raitsugu. Anyone of those dudes can become super heroes with the right conflict card support.

Dragon is a weird Clan. It seems to be two separate decks in some ways: Niten style weapon weilders or synergy Monks.

If you draw either from your dynasty they can be fairly decent, but a mix of them doesn't seem to work quite as well.

Its also interesting to note that the Seeker/Keeper Initiates are both Monks which suggests that Dragon 'need' those cards in order to really work well?

It will certainly help with things like Mantra of Fire, which I've been cutting from my decks currently because I've been getting more mileage out of supporting the Niten users. That seems stronger out of core. The cheaper monk characters ( Togashi Initiate, Seeker of Enlightenment and Tattooed Wanderer) are pretty efficient, flexible and help supplement your beefy bushi characters. I usually don't put fate on the monks, but bring them out to just get some more bodies on the board. I've been cutting Ascetic Visionary, but the more monks we get the more viable he feels for his cost.

Add: Of course none of this helps anyone making single core decks at Gencon. Good luck. You are just gonna have to deal with an inconsistent deck. Though probably every clan will be reasonably inconsistent.

14 hours ago, Taki said:

@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

By the same token, going tall makes certain card effects much better for you. In Lion, a Sashimono gets you a little more usage out of what is likely a cheap spud with little fate. In Dragon, the bulk of your force is now at every military conflict. The same can be said for any unbow effect. Yes there are weaknesses to it, but they can also be strengths, especially given the nature of the fate system.

You could try my Cheap *** Dragon thing - don't build tall, don't invest fate into your characters, use Fate saved this way to attach Attachments that will go back to your hand after that personality leaves play.

I played in the Kiku Matsuri today. I had to drop after the third round because it was running way, way behind, and my voice was starting to go from trying to be heard of the din all day. I had a bye my first round, won the second, and lost the third (that was largely due to a few play mistakes that I made, however, rather than any failing of the deck). I was rather surprised that economy was never an issue for me, I ended the dynasty phase with at least a couple fate rather consistently, and after a round or two was entering conflicts with 3-5 fate most of the time. Of course this could be much different in a three core environment, but I'll have to do some testing to figure that out for sure. I generally bought 2-3 characters a turn, and put a fate on 1-2 of them, so there was always at least 1 character that cycled out a turn, and I would drop attachments (when I had them) where needed, but with preference for the characters sticking around (there's only 1 copy each of our ancestral attachments, so I rarely had the opportunity to use them).

My favorite moment was when I broke a province against lion, in military, with a solo, dishonored, kitsuki investigator, that was hilarious! (I attacked political with a plan to bring my skill back up enough to crack, he defended solo, used that unicorn event to change to military, I used banzai, paying the honor, he did... something, I used route to send him home, played some attachment or another that gave +1/+1, which brought my skill up to 4, which was the province strength, thus cracking the province)

I didn't get a chance to play against dragon, but I imagine single core decks work well because if you get those neutral characters, you can just like attachments on them while less attachment focused decks scratched their heads at how to use them.

One thing I found after playing a lot of 1-core at Gen Con is that the price of paying a fate to an unclaimed ring isn't that high, if you've got it. You can force your opponent into a suboptimal ring choice for their next conflict if they want the fate. If the ring is also one that's bad for you, and you're second player, you can let it sit for another turn and gain another fate, then grab both when you have the first player token next turn.

I'm looking forward to trying 3-core.

I would like to add another suggestion (file this under tactics?) to playing a specific Dragon card that I believe was misused during the matches in GenCon - the Kitsuki Investigator.

The round that you put that card into play, as soon as your turn comes up, MAKE SURE you select a Political Conflict, toss the Investigator into the conflict, toss the Fate onto a ring, and then look at your opponent's hand and remove a card.

I can NOT state this heavily enough; use his ability to look at your opponent's cards. Do it now. Right now..... while you have no control (after the start of the game and your only mulligan phase) over when he comes into your Provinces, you must ensure to bring him in, save an extra Fate to use for his ability, and for Pete's sake, attack Politically and LOOK. AT. OPPONENT'S. CARDS!!!

It doesn't matter if you win the Political Conflict. It doesn't matter which Province you choose to attack (though you are hopefully attacking a Province you could possibly pop, an un-revealed Province, etc), but if you included the Investigator into your deck, use his ability!!!

I, myself, would happily pay a Fate just to look at my opponent's hand come round 2 and beyond (heck, even in round 1 most cases), plus the ability to REMOVE a chosen card is HHHUUUUUGGGGGGGEEEEEEEE!

Sorry. Had to get this off my chest.

?

4 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

I would like to add another suggestion (file this under tactics?) to playing a specific Dragon card that I believe was misused during the matches in GenCon - the Kitsuki Investigator.

The round that you put that card into play, as soon as your turn comes up, MAKE SURE you select a Political Conflict, toss the Investigator into the conflict, toss the Fate onto a ring, and then look at your opponent's hand and remove a card.

I can NOT state this heavily enough; use his ability to look at your opponent's cards. Do it now. Right now..... while you have no control (after the start of the game and your only mulligan phase) over when he comes into your Provinces, you must ensure to bring him in, save an extra Fate to use for his ability, and for Pete's sake, attack Politically and LOOK. AT. OPPONENT'S. CARDS!!!

It doesn't matter if you win the Political Conflict. It doesn't matter which Province you choose to attack (though you are hopefully attacking a Province you could possibly pop, an un-revealed Province, etc), but if you included the Investigator into your deck, use his ability!!!

I, myself, would happily pay a Fate just to look at my opponent's hand come round 2 and beyond (heck, even in round 1 most cases), plus the ability to REMOVE a chosen card is HHHUUUUUGGGGGGGEEEEEEEE!

Sorry. Had to get this off my chest.

?

Oh I definitely use him. Even better with Way of the Dragon to wipe out their hand.
It is even better when they attack you on Political so you can immediately get the Fate back.

I've got an attachment question. The RR says that ownership/ control of attachments is independent of ownership/ control of characters. If an opponent takes control of a character, blackmail, for instance, it is my understanding that they take just the character. What happens to the attachments that remain under my control? Do they stay in play but don't contribute force? Do they get discarded because they are not legally attached to a character?

Also, how do you counter or prepare for cards such as blackmail?

Thanks.

Another attachment question. The RR says that an attachment bows and readies independent of the card it is attached to. Conflict resolution states that all characters are bowed but does not stipulate attachments.

I'm considering splashing unicorn. If I use favored mount, could I use my character in a conflict, return home bowed, and then bow the attachment to enter a second conflict that same turn?

When your opponent takes control of your character, the attachments stay under your control. However, attachments that say "attach only to a character you control" are discarded, as they are no longer attached to a character that you control.

Constant abilities of the attachment continue to work; a Fine Katana will still give +2M. All triggered abilities are yours to control, however.

Best way to deal with cards like Blackmail is to play against it and see how the choices you make to deal with it best fits your playstyle. It does cost 3 Fate and can only snag a 2 cost or less character, and it's really nothing to be overly concerned about. It's a good card, but the game is filled with good cards.

32 minutes ago, Doji Hana said:

Another attachment question. The RR says that an attachment bows and readies independent of the card it is attached to. Conflict resolution states that all characters are bowed but does not stipulate attachments.

I'm considering splashing unicorn. If I use favored mount, could I use my character in a conflict, return home bowed, and then bow the attachment to enter a second conflict that same turn?

Yes you could. The character would not contribute to conflict resolution because they're bowed, but you could move them there.

5 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

Oh I definitely use him. Even better with Way of the Dragon to wipe out their hand.

If by using Way of the Dragon you mean to activate his Ability twice, I don't think that that is legal, given my reading of (Max 1 per Conflict).

Of course it's possible I'm not understanding your full meaning here.

I'm thinking of posting my deck build but am hesitant to put it on this thread.

Thoughts?

8 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

If by using Way of the Dragon you mean to activate his Ability twice, I don't think that that is legal, given my reading of (Max 1 per Conflict).

Of course it's possible I'm not understanding your full meaning here.

You are correct - Max 1 per conflict means that the ability can only be used once per conflict among all your Investigators. But you can still use Way of the Dragon to use it on both politicals, if you have a way to get him into both (Favorable Ground, anyone?).

Also, Yokuni can copy his ability and use it in the same conflict, since the Max 1 per limit is only among cards with the same title.

11 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

I'm thinking of posting my deck build but am hesitant to put it on this thread.

Thoughts?

I'd like to see it. I'm putting together Dragon builds now.

2 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

I'm thinking of posting my deck build but am hesitant to put it on this thread.

Thoughts?

I think this post is fine if you don´t want too much attention.

If you dont care, open a new thread...

I would like to see it!

8 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

I'm thinking of posting my deck build but am hesitant to put it on this thread.

Thoughts?

I triple Dragon dare you to do it.

22 hours ago, qualistarian said:

I'd like to see it. I'm putting together Dragon builds now.

I'd also like to see what other Dragon players would put together for their decks.

This is what I would play with if I made a deck today:

Dynasty-

3 Keeper Initiaties ... 1 Favorable Ground ... 2 Imperial Storehouse ... 3 Togashi Yokuni ... 1 Ascetic Visionary ... 3 Enlightened Warrior... 3 Niten Master ... 3 Mirumoto Raitsugu ... 3 Niten Adept ... 3 Mirumoto Prodigy ... 3 Agasha Swordsmith ... 3 Togashi Initiate ... 3 Kitsuki Investigator ... 3 Doomed Shugenja ... 3 Miya Mystic ...

Elemental Fury ... Manicured Gardens ... Pilgrimage ... Ancestral Lands ... Restoration of Balance ...... Keeper Role Void (I think that is what was chosen for Dragon)

TOTAL 41 cards

Conflict-

3 Daimyo's Favor ... 3 Ornate Fan ... 3 Fine Katana ... 3 Banzai ... 1 Assassinate ... 1 Rout ... 1 Charge ... 2 Court Games ... 3 Cloud the Mind ... 3 Tattooed Wanderer ... 3 Mirumoto's Fury ... 2 Indomitable Will ... 3 Let Go ... 2 Ancestral Daisho ... 2 Kitsuki's Method ... Crane Conflict cards (5) - 2 Above Question ... 2 Admit Defeat ... 1 Noble Sacrifice

TOTAL 40 cards

49 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

I'd also like to see what other Dragon players would put together for their decks.

This is what I would play with if I made a deck today:

Dynasty-

3 Keeper Initiaties ... 1 Favorable Ground ... 2 Imperial Storehouse ... 3 Togashi Yokuni ... 1 Ascetic Visionary ... 1 Enlightened Warrior... 3 Niten Master ... 3 Mirumoto Raitsugu ... 3 Niten Adept ... 3 Mirumoto Prodigy ... 3 Agasha Swordsmith ... 3 Togashi Initiate ... 3 Kitsuki Investigator ... 3 Doomed Shugenja

Elemental Fury ... Manicured Gardens ... Pilgrimage ... Ancestral Lands ... Restoration of Balance ...... Keeper Role Void (I think that is what was chosen for Dragon)

TOTAL 40 cards

Conflict-

3 Daimyo's Favor ... 3 Ornate Fan ... 3 Fine Katana ... 3 Banzai ... 1 Assassinate ... 1 Rout ... 1 Charge ... 2 Court Games ... 2 Miya Mystic ... 2 Cloud the Mind ... 3 Tattooed Wanderer ... 3 Mirumoto's Fury ... 2 Indomitable Will ... 3 Let Go ... 2 Ancestral Daisho ... 2 Kitsuki's Method ... Crane Conflict cards (5) - 2 Above Question ... 2 Admit Defeat ... 1 Noble Sacrifice

TOTAL 41 cards

FYI the provinces aren't included in your Dynasty deck, looks like you counted them towards the card total. So you're short 5 cards of a legal deck. Could probably fill out the playset on your 1-offs to fix that though.

Oh really. Huh. I always thought that they were.

Well, that would easily include multiples... so back to the drawing board.

I went back and modified my deck post. Haven't given it that much thought, but I'd think it would be a good conversational starting point.

Noble Sacrifice seems like a questionable include if you don't have a reliable way to honor peeps. I leaned towards Duelist Training, myself.