2 hours ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

This whole thing was based on a daft assumption based on people not reading the ruddy cards properly.

Tsukune says she resolves rings 'as attacking'

Hotaru does not.

Which means she does not. Same with Toturi or anything else that doesn't have that wording.

Which means that people assuming they do are doing exactly that, and then whinging when their assumption is proven wrong and now the cards are 'junk'. Kisada doesn't say he resolves two rings either, should I assume that?

I'm sorry, but this is the most ridiculous mountain out of a molehill ever.

The problem is not due to any daft assumpion and you know it perfectly well. It's based on official articles that explicitly stated the opposite and on a ruling at GenCon that also stated the opposite, as well as playtesters' feedback on how the cards were played during playtest.

And for the "errors happen in article" and "we don't know the designers' intention" cards, as I have already said, we're not talking about some complex combo here, we're talking about possibly the most important cards in the core set. So either designers' intention was that the power would be usable on defense or the article was posted without any check by somebody of the design team be it before or after the publication, which speak poorly of their process and of the designers' interest in their own product.

Honestly, I don't believe in the second solution since from what Nate, Brad and Erik have shown, they seem to really like the work they've done on L5R. After working on a product (that you like) for 2 years, you wouldn't even give a read to how your marketing team is selling that product to the general public? And if you read them and your intention is that the power is not usable on defense, you wouldn't react at all when the article explain the contrary of what you intended (the sentence in the Crane article has not even a bit of ambiguity)?

On the other hand, since you're so smart and we're so stupid we can't even read the cards and we make daft assumptions, next article, could you please take some of your time to explain to us what are the errors in that publication? Thanks in advance.

1 hour ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Question for Lion and Crane players:

How often are you defending with these 2 clan champions in the relevant conflict type?

Let's talk about some GenCon experiences.

1 hour ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Understood

*shrug* It's hard for me to adequately compare them, it's how they work in the clan, not how they compare to each other. Tutori is great in Lion, Kisada or shoju, not so much.

6 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

*shrug* It's hard for me to adequately compare them, it's how they work in the clan, not how they compare to each other. Tutori is great in Lion, Kisada or shoju, not so much.

I think that Shoju would be better in Lion than Toturi.

46 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

If a Lion player left Toturi face up and floated some fate into the conflict phase......it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone though. Shouldn't be that backbreaking if you're paying attention.

Obviously... What I meant is that a player with Toturi on a province and one fate often made attacking in mil impossible, which is a big advantage for the Lion player. With the current rule I can make the conflict pretty safely.

I'm not sure why I keep coming back to this thread. I don't even like popcorn, and this batch is too salty.

From the Product Page of Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game, clicking the Read More tab

Quote

Air —Take one honor from your opponent or gain two honor from the token pool.

Earth — Draw one card from your conflict deck and discard one random card from your opponent’s hand.

Fire — Choose a character in play and honor or dishonor that character. (Honoring or dishonoring a character has a potent effect on that character’s skill, and causes you to gain or lose honor when that character leaves play.)

Water — Choose a character and ready it or choose a character with no fate and bow it.

Void — Choose a character and remove one fate from it.

No "The attacking player" part in the Ring description; those added three words are in the RR.

My concern is that this is on the product page Read More tab and it will confuse both old and esp new players that are interested in the game. The Product Page says one thing and the RR says another...

31 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

I think that Shoju would be better in Lion than Toturi.

Shoju would be terrible in Lion. His stats and ability don't work mechanically or thematically with what Lion is trying to do.

2 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Shoju would be terrible in Lion. His stats and ability don't work mechanically or thematically with what Lion is trying to do.

And neither is Toturi. But Shoju would at least give them a better pol presence, which they are lacking currently.

Just now, Ignithas said:

And neither is Toturi. But Shoju would at least give them a better pol presence, which they are lacking currently.

Well, two things.

First, the fallacy that Lion are bad at politics. They aren't.

Second, Toturi does fit mechanically, and thematically with Lion.

8 hours ago, BordOne said:

No it sounds exactly like they just didn't word them correctly or they didn't think about them when they made the ring explanations. And then whoops suddenly it turns out that 2 of worst champions in the game(aside from Altan) are even worse hehe.

And if it is indeed a nerf then the situation looks even worse. Why would they nerf bottom of the barrel champs? And in such insignificant way? This change barely achieves anything balance wise it's more of a spit in the face and unwillingness to admit a small mistake.

They worded it poorly, they gave examples on how to play them, it turned out that according to rules the cards don't work the way they were designed and now the team doesn't want to make it look like they made many errors early in the life of the game so they won't publish errata(I still hope they will tho).

So, FFG, just get over with it and Errata the 2 cards asap.

Of course they can say now that everything works as intended. And indeed what Nate French wrote makes sense rules wise. But i don't buy that this wording was intentional. Do you?

31 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Well, two things.

First, the fallacy that Lion are bad at politics. They aren't.

Second, Toturi does fit mechanically, and thematically with Lion.

Lion at the Moment wants to spam out characters to threaten provinces. Toturi doesn't do this. Lion is one of the weaker pol clans atm.

17 minutes ago, ForceM said:

So, FFG, just get over with it and Errata the 2 cards asap.

Of course they can say now that everything works as intended. And indeed what Nate French wrote makes sense rules wise. But i don't buy that this wording was intentional. Do you?

I also don't think that the situation is intended, the handling of the situation in the preview articles and at GenCon seems to support the claim.

7 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

Lion at the Moment wants to spam out characters to threaten provinces. Toturi doesn't do this. Lion is one of the weaker pol clans atm.

Lion has Kitsu Spirit Caller and Charge. They can spam out Toturi just fine when needed.

Lion has a hard time with Politics against only one clan, Crane. They are perfectly fine facing down any other clan politically, and even use some of their weaknesses in Politics as strengths. And it could be argued the best pol character is in Lion. It's a complete myth that Lion is terrible politically.

2 hours ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

This whole thing was based on a daft assumption based on people not reading the ruddy cards properly.

Tsukune says she resolves rings 'as attacking'

Hotaru does not.

Which means she does not. Same with Toturi or anything else that doesn't have that wording.

Which means that people assuming they do are doing exactly that, and then whinging when their assumption is proven wrong and now the cards are 'junk'. Kisada doesn't say he resolves two rings either, should I assume that?

I'm sorry, but this is the most ridiculous mountain out of a molehill ever.

The issue here is that the intuition clashes with the reality, which is never good. It feels like it should work, but due to strict rulebook / card reading, it doesn't. When something doesn't work intuitively, that turns people off. I have already seen one post on facebook from someone that is not picking up the game because of how stupid this situation is.

If Hotaru and Toturi were intended to work only on the attack, they would be worded completely differently. If they were intended to work effectively on the defense, they would need to be worded differently.

It is pretty obvious that a wire got crossed somewhere. Everyone was running with the most intuitive reading of these cards (you can resolve a ring on defense) without digging into what that really means. The cards need clarifying errata, in either direction. I am personally indifferent on which direction they go.

3 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

You are making some pretty large assumptions there. No-one has said anything about the way the cards were designed so it is in no way clear.

Except for 2 introduction articles that are supposed to accurately describe the playstyle of the clan.

I get the impression as the rules changed during the course of development, some of the cards were not properly updated. Rings are worded differently in two places as has been mentioned above. FFG employees had different interpretations of the rules. I understand why French ruled it the way it did but overall, this is a huge stinking mess. I prefer when people admit something got screwed up somewhere and try to fix it. I guess Crane will get a better 5 Fate Champion later and this will be non issue in the long run.

If you fix Hotaru, at least give her Courtier too.

Logically I suspect that when the document team were updating the rules they decided that the preview articles list of ring actions could be used by some players to argue that if the defender wins then he/she gets to fire the ring off. Rather than expect players to look in a different location the best solution was to add the attacker text to the ring effects making the rule book easier to read. In the process this nerfed the two champions as they were apparently intended.

Now the rules are written it is easier to state 'this is what the rules say' as opposed to going back and re-writing the preview articles/rules/card errata.

This could be utter crud but I expect it is what actually happened, it would be fascinating to find out if I am right or utterly off the mark....

1 hour ago, RandomJC said:

And it could be argued the best pol character is in Lion.

I'd be interested in hearing this argument.

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

Shoju would be terrible in Lion. His stats and ability don't work mechanically or thematically with what Lion is trying to do.

Shoju is the most powerful dynasty card in the game, he would be just as amazing in Lion as he would be in any other clan. He is 7 political province crusher with the ability to kill other characters. Toturi rewards lion for winning a conflict type they are designed to win, Shoju allows lion to win military AND political insanely easily.

As a phoenix player, I would run Shoju over Tsukune in a flash, any clan would happily trade their champion for Shoju, he is that powerful.

14 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I'd be interested in hearing this argument.

I'd argue Lion's Pride Brawler. Courtier trait for specific cards like For Shame!. And her ability can kick both Pol clan champs to their knees. She's a very strong card for Politics.

9 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Shoju is the most powerful dynasty card in the game, he would be just as amazing in Lion as he would be in any other clan. He is 7 political province crusher with the ability to kill other characters. Toturi rewards lion for winning a conflict type they are designed to win, Shoju allows lion to win military AND political insanely easily.

As a phoenix player, I would run Shoju over Tsukune in a flash, any clan would happily trade their champion for Shoju, he is that powerful.

Well, obviously since I'm making that statement I disagree with this. I wouldn't replace Altansarnai for Shoju, as a Uni player, and I wouldn't replace Toturi for Shoju as a backup Lion.

By your logic, Shoju is terrible in Scorpion (and Crane), because he just helps them win conflicts they are already designed to win. We can sit here and suck on Shoju's ability like its god's gift, but that doesn't mean he works for every clan.

Edit: To clarify on my opinion on Shoju, his ability is only attractive because of the kill action. the ability to just ping off 2 pol points is okay, while his 7 stat is awesome. But as a Phoenix player, you could declare a Void Pol attack and Isawa Atsuko would do a far better version of that ability.

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

I'd argue Lion's Pride Brawler.

She is a military character with a send home ability only matters when attacking, meaning on defense she is a 2 force blank political courtier you are paying 3 fate minimum for, in a clan that struggles to support that kind of defense. She may be one of the best Lion has, but she is not the best political character. No, if you want to look for best political characters and not just look to Shoju you are looking at Guest of Honor from crane, Meddling Mediator from phoenix and Yogo Hirue from scorpion, those characters change the state of the board the minute they arrive and can clearly threaten political conflicts. They all have incredibly powerful abilities that can always be relevant thanks to their clan's inherent support for them.

8 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

She is a military character with a send home ability only matters when attacking, meaning on defense she is a 2 force blank political courtier you are paying 3 fate minimum for, in a clan that struggles to support that kind of defense. She may be one of the best Lion has, but she is not the best political character. No, if you want to look for best political characters and not just look to Shoju you are looking at Guest of Honor from crane, Meddling Mediator from phoenix and Yogo Hirue from scorpion, those characters change the state of the board the minute they arrive and can clearly threaten political conflicts. They all have incredibly powerful abilities that can always be relevant thanks to their clan's inherent support for them.

She's a Bow, not a send home. A bow that isn't position locked. A bow that if I attack first, I attack Military and bow Shoju/Hotaru. But again, this is my opinion. But if I can bow you're best politics characters before they can even act, It's a pretty effective pol character.

2 hours ago, BlindSamurai13 said:

From the Product Page of Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game, clicking the Read More tab

No "The attacking player" part in the Ring description; those added three words are in the RR.

My concern is that this is on the product page Read More tab and it will confuse both old and esp new players that are interested in the game. The Product Page says one thing and the RR says another...

"The attacking player" is in the Learn to Play PDF and is also in the actual hard copy of the L2P that comes in the boxes.

25 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

She's a Bow, not a send home. A bow that isn't position locked. A bow that if I attack first, I attack Military and bow Shoju/Hotaru. But again, this is my opinion. But if I can bow you're best politics characters before they can even act, It's a pretty effective pol character.

I agree with your opinion, and I'll add that Lion also has a 4 Pol skill character in Venerable Historian. Lion easily threaten to take all 4 provinces by turn 2.

8 minutes ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

I agree with your opinion, and I'll add that Lion also has a 4 Pol skill character in Venerable Historian. Lion easily threaten to take all 4 provinces by turn 2.

Historian is also Awesome, yes. Eiji is also an awesome political character. Ikoma Prodigy is also good.