Hello fellow members of the Crane Clan, I finally got my copy of the game and wanted to start a discussion about deck building, and how we can further not only our clan but the glorious Empire. The first part of deck building is selecting what provinces you want to use. As I am sure you are all aware we must choose 5 provinces, one of each element (at least until we are given a role, but more on that later). After looking at the provinces available to us here are my recommended province choices and why.

Earth Provinces: Ancestral Lands or Entrenched Position

Recommended: Both of the Earth provenances are pretty good and straight forward. One gives a bonus to Political battles and the other Military. The thing is, with the Crane you are fairly set with Political battles. It kind of our thing. I would take Entrenched Position for the boost to Military to round out a weakness. Though playing to our strength is also a viable option.

Water Provinces: Elemental Fury or Rally to the Cause

Recommended: You could go either way with the Water Provenance, but I recommend Rally to the Cause. Changing the Conflict type to something your opponent isn't expecting is more advantageous than just changing the ring. It's better to possibly win the conflict then changing the punishment for losing that combat.

Wind Provinces: Fertile Fields, Manicured Garden, or The Art of Peace

Recommended: The Art of Piece. This is our clan specific provenance and its better than either of the other options available. The extra card can be nice, especially if you intend on bidding low, and the extra fate can also be useful, but honoring your own characters (make them stronger) and dishonoring theirs can net you larger gains in the long run.

Fire Provinces: Meditations on the Tao or Night Raid

Recommended: Night Raid. Removing a fate from one character isn't going to help you in this combat. Reducing the number of Cards your opponent has will help you this combat, and it will force them to bid higher in later rounds which you can use to your advantage.

Void Provinces: Pilgrimage or Shameful Display

Recommended: Shameful Display. Canceling the Ring effect is only useful if you lose the conflict, but not by enough to break the providence. Honoring your character and dishonoring your opponents at the same time can create a large swing in total power at the providence, which might be enough to allow you to win the conflict.

What are your thoughts on my recommended Provinces for our clan? Let me know what you think.

I like your choices though I will perhaps choose an 'air' ring as being Crane I dont have much to do with 'wind' (seems more a crab campfire thing) hohohohoh

Ahem sorry. Back on point

I think I prefer Meditations to the Night Raid. Night Raid fires once and the opponent gets to choose which cards he drops. Meditations keeps on firing (allowing you hold the province). Equally our own provinve is a single action whereas Manicured and Fertile consistently fire.

I expect to hold these provinces every now and then so multi use is useful.

With your powers combined...

12 minutes ago, Matrim said:

I like your choices though I will perhaps choose an 'air' ring as being Crane I dont have much to do with 'wind' (seems more a crab campfire thing) hohohohoh

Ahem sorry. Back on point

I think I prefer Meditations to the Night Raid. Night Raid fires once and the opponent gets to choose which cards he drops. Meditations keeps on firing (allowing you hold the province). Equally our own provinve is a single action whereas Manicured and Fertile consistently fire.

I expect to hold these provinces every now and then so multi use is useful.

In my experience there's often very little yield from Night Raid. The once only trigger certainly doesn't help, neither does the fact that it entirely depends on the number of attackers your opponent assigns. Add on top of that the opponent chooses their discards element and Meditations is significantly more impactful. Basically limited void ring on a stick, and there's nothing at all bad about that.

I would like to hear more why Art of Peace is stronger than either of the other two provinces.

13 minutes ago, Matrim said:

I think I prefer Meditations to the Night Raid. Night Raid fires once and the opponent gets to choose which cards he drops. Meditations keeps on firing (allowing you hold the province).

Totally agreed.

14 minutes ago, Matrim said:

Equally our own provinve is a single action whereas Manicured and Fertile consistently fire.

I'm not sure on this bit though. I feel that as Crane, anything that help you honouring has a reason to be included in the deck --which doesn't mean you necessarily need to include it, but rather that you need a good reason not to*. Triggering Savvy after AoP breaks can be a great boost to your board position. Plus dishonour for the attackers. This may be relevant when facing certain clans (i.e. Lion or Scorpion for completely opposed reasons), and also help enabling some of your own tricks, as Noble Sacrifice.

* And this relates to the next question the OP will have to deal with: what other clan (if any) to splash in the deck. Phoenix is popular because the Magnificent Kimonos, but IMHO other splashes have shown to be more effective. In an scenario where you choose a non-Phoenix splash, the inclusion of AoP instead of the Manicured Gardens or the Fertile Fields may be extra-justified.

2 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

I would like to hear more why Art of Peace is stronger than either of the other two provinces.

Wasn't intentional but I hope this serves as seed for the discussion ;-)

1 minute ago, Kubernes said:

I would like to hear more why Art of Peace is stronger than either of the other two provinces.

One gives you an extra card, the other gives you an extra fate. Art of Peace will honor the defenders making them stronger for the next conflict, and dishonor the attackers, making them weaker for the next conflict. Then there is the honor you can gain from honored cards.

Not to to say that a card or a fate is bad, I just that I feel what you get from Art of Peace is better.

Some provinces are locks for us with our current role, others it depends on what archetype you're playing.

Earth: Entrenched Position hands down. If we're getting blown out politically as a political Clan we sort of deserve to lose.

Fire: Toss up but I prefer meditations in my standard Crane deck. Won't always fire but when it does it has higher impact, especially if you can then counter attack with void. Savage.

I'd run Night Raid in an honor running deck

Air: Almost always Art of Peace as it enables Noble Sacrifice and we love honor. However in an honor deck I'd probably run Fertile Fields

Water: Both are great but I prefer Rally to send dash characters home or swap to POL and bow with SH

Void: 100% Shameful Display every time. Reusable honor dishonor swing that also enables Noble Sacrifice? Yes please!

As too what clan to splash, I haven't gotten that far yet. Right know I'm leaning Unicorn, but I cant give hard evidence quite yet.

Depend on your idea about the deck. If you plan on defend some provinces (like ally dragón with mirumoto fury) repeteable provinces are great, if you want to Rush when reveal are usually best

The other problem with Art of Peace (for me so far!) is that in test games I usually find it is the province my opponent avoids hitting. The first time he hits it he usually bounces ( so it does nothing and then they don't go near it.

So that might mean it is 'super strong' but something so avoidable that does nothing unless it is broken loses some potency..

If I am losing provinces so easily that its almost a guarenteed break on first 'attack' then I have different problems and if I don't then it is not as useful as the others.

In the same manner that if I have an opponent that bounces of Night Raid then they usually hit that one repeatedly as there is no advantage to me after the first conflict has occurred.

I suppose you could get all meta and say 'well if they were avoiding AOP then they are hitting your other three so as long as they are potent then it does not matter' but that's too much 'i know you know that I know that you know' for me....

The provinces I would chose would be entrenched position, shameful display, meditations, rally to the cause, and art of peace. Out of those I would stick shameful display under my stronghold and leave my other provinces in the field so that I don't have a province under 4 strength in the field (plus if it is the last defense, Crane characters benefit from high honor). Rally with Crane seems super strong since it can be assumed that they attacked with military into it (since you are Crane after all). Typically, the character/characters will be stronger in military and have a relatively weak political skill. Switching the conflict allows you to more than likely bow someone with your stronghold. Art of Peace I like because it can turn on some key cards for Crane (Noble Sacrifice and Voice of Honor for example). Lets say that they break the province with Yakuni that has 2 fate on him and you defend with a 1 coster. Yakuni is now dishonored and your 1 coster is now honored. In the preconflict action window you can then play Noble Sacrifice and kill off your 1 coster and their champion (sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war). Meditations is just super good and is not a one time trigger like Night Raid. Entrenched position can force your opponents to either attack it politically or invest more resources than they really want to to try and win.

@Matrim , I just feel that somehow you answer yourself. As you stated, if your opponent bounces on AoP this is good for you. And of course, your opponent should be facing harder times when exploring other provinces. If you play against Phoenix or Scorpion, that may not be the case in Entrenched Position but on the other hand you're likely to get more value from Shameful Display against them (also against Lion, but they find hard times in the Entrenched Position too). What I like about the AoP is that somehow many times you have the tools to make the decision difficult for your opponent, and that is always nice. Kazein comboes very well on defending AoP (you'd be able to send him or the other defenders home if you don't tie the duel), Savvy chains the honouring effect, simply having a Storyteller on the table may force your opponent re-considering, etc. And this is just considering the province is approached in a military attack; if your opponent goes political, your options are even much more.

In summary, I think this is a province that you can turn into a win/win situation when attacked: either you retain your province unbroken --which is good, or you trigger its honouring/dishonouring effect, which can result in a total board swing.

1 hour ago, barrufet said:

In summary, I think this is a province that you can turn into a win/win situation when attacked: either you retain your province unbroken --which is good, or you trigger its honouring/dishonouring effect, which can result in a total board swing.

This my my thinking as well.

On ‎8‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 10:20 AM, clanmccracken said:

One gives you an extra card, the other gives you an extra fate. Art of Peace will honor the defenders making them stronger for the next conflict, and dishonor the attackers, making them weaker for the next conflict. Then there is the honor you can gain from honored cards.

Not to to say that a card or a fate is bad, I just that I feel what you get from Art of Peace is better.

My problem with The Art of Peace is that it really wants you to do several, potentially harmful things for the effect.

The first is committing defenders. Sure, they get honored which is fine but you're also typically using them up for the turn for an honor or two. Sure, you could swing with someone next conflict on a water ring and maybe ready an honored character but the trouble with that is now you're almost forced to go a particular path because of a particular card.

That gain is also questionable to me though, especially because it's a delayed effect after the combat or that it really wants you to send specific characters to get the most out of it. Often that perfect scenario doesn't come up very often. I'm not a fan of relying on that in card gaming.

My last problem is that you're giving away a ring and its benefit the opponent. This really hurts when an opponent runs certain cards or wants to trigger a ring that really benefits them. Even worse is when it's a fire or void ring. Yes, you could then defend the province 'for real' in that situation, but is that really good for you?

The effect could make certain characters weaker but that also doesn't happen very often or the characters usually fade away at the end of that turn. I've hit some high glory characters a few times but can be relatively rare. The honor loss is ok but 1 or 2 honor doesn't do as much as I would want for the clan.

The card is ok with honor running decks but I greatly prefer the fate generated from Manicured Garden in either this type of deck or in a conflict deck (aka breaking provinces). There's so much you can do with that fate and you don't necessarily need to potentially waste characters for the effect. I never felt bad about using it's effect or that of the Fertile Fields.

The Art of Peace seemed to work best when you were able to trigger Keeper Initiate earlier or Savvy Politician for some gain later. Savvy Politician seemed to only be worth it in that scenario when you had other certain characters in play. Again, that seems too reliant on certain factors going in your favor. It does feel like Night Raid, where you want a big effect, but end up with a usually small one.

When I do run the province for playtesting, I usually throw in card to mitigate the problems like Stand Your Ground, Against the Waves, or Stoic Gunso. I do enjoy using I Am Ready with certain Crane builds.