Just wondering who is using Rout and Outwit in their decks, and who isn't?

Also do you prefer to trade provinces to be closer to your own victory? Or to deny province breaks even if it denies your own ability to break their province in the turn?

1) I don't use Rout and Outwit, because the conflict deck is tight enough and I like the 0 cost events more. But I think that there are good reasons to include them.

2) This completely depends on the situation and the clan I am playing with. But generally I am more defensivly as the second player, because I can use the water ring to stand the character, that defended the first conflict.

I'm playing a dishonor crane deck right know and to have the possibility to send a lone defender home (making its owner lose 1 honor) is really important.

At the moment I play 2/2

I play Rout, but not Outwit, because I meet the former's restrictions much easier than the latter.

The key to effective use of Outwit (or Rout) is never to just send someone home. You have to balance its use with the expenditure of resources. let them play Banzai for the bump and then send them home, or send home the lesser of a pair so that you win and the better one still bows from a fight. or use it on the last conflict so that last guy doesn't get to participate in another conflict. When you play a card continues to be as important as whether you play the card at all.

I think, as stated by MrMenthe earlier, that they are useful in dishonor situations but I would say they are just useful regardless. I think Scorpion having a way to mitigate the cost is also significant.

4 minutes ago, Strange1 said:

I think, as stated by MrMenthe earlier, that they are useful in dishonor situations but I would say they are just useful regardless. I think Scorpion having a way to mitigate the cost is also significant.

True - I've been focusing on 1 core play recently because I only have 2 cores so I can't build a full deck, but also the release tournament is a 1 core tourny, and I'd like to know the environment some. When I do get to build with 3 cores then I can include 3x of the Scorpion holding which will make it more reliable to consider its effect in costing cards for my conflict deck.

8 hours ago, MrMenthe said:

I'm playing a dishonor crane deck right know and to have the possibility to send a lone defender home (making its owner lose 1 honor) is really important.

At the moment I play 2/2

Yeah - I originally passed on them, but my friend pointed out that they can be useful for the unopposed honor penalty. If you don't mind sharing - what else do you do for Crane dishonor? Are you playing to just bid 1 the whole game? Do you rely on Ring of Air a lot? What is your strategy to focus on dishonor?

8 hours ago, InquisitorM said:

The key to effective use of Outwit (or Rout) is never to just send someone home. You have to balance its use with the expenditure of resources. let them play Banzai for the bump and then send them home, or send home the lesser of a pair so that you win and the better one still bows from a fight. or use it on the last conflict so that last guy doesn't get to participate in another conflict. When you play a card continues to be as important as whether you play the card at all.

Totally agree. It's very aikido/jiu-jitsu like. Your opponent gives too much energy, and you use that to send them away. The more energy they use, the worse it will be for them. You just need to learn the timing.

I think what you say about single core is true. I have different decks for each. As I am still proxying, I haven't been as concerned with the 1 vs 3 scenario. I think you have to abuse the rings to truly make dishonor forcefully viable.

To that end I have been focusing on a Phoenix deck for that even though I traditionally play Scorpion.

I actually hope they keep single core alive as an environment using just it and the packs associated with the current expansion set as a sort of limited format. Perhaps not all the tournaments but for different ways to look at things.

I'm running Rout.

It wins games. Especially if you rout a political powerhouse character out of a political conflict with it, when both of you have already declared political :P.

Sending characters home is a really effective way of breaking provinces.

And breaking provinces is a great way to beat your opponent in this game.

They aren't auto-include for me, the restrictions have a lot to do with which decks I play them in. Not only do you have to have the Bushi or Courtier trait, but you have to make sure that said Courtiers/Bushis have high enough skill that they can use Rout/Outwit reliably. I really like Rout in Crab to offset the Pol weakness (and to a lesser extent Lion) and Outwit in Crane and Scorpion for their similar Mil deficiencies. They have a powerful effect, but it's pretty conditional, unlike Banzai/Court Games/Katana/Fan, which are almost always useful, if not always quite as powerful.

2 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Sending characters home is a really effective way of breaking provinces.

It can also be a great way of having your own provinces broken later in the same round if played at the wrong time .

12 hours ago, shosuko said:

Y eah - I originally passed on them, but my friend pointed out that they can be useful for the unopposed honor penalty. If you don't mind sharing - what else do you do for Crane dishonor? Are you playing to just bid 1 the whole game? Do you rely on Ring of Air a lot? What is your strategy to focus on dishonor?

I splash Crab cards (3 watch commander and 1 levy for dishonor) and Mulligan aggressively for them. I bid 1 the first turn just to see (after that I adapt). I chase the air ring and the fire ring (I always dishonor characters with it). I'm very aggressive with Kaezin. I Mulligan for Asami/Hotaru. I play 2 contingency as finisher if needed...

The early goal is to lead the opponent to 5 or less honor at the end of turn 1 (which happen pretty much everyone if he bid 5). That way I can begin to control the game since (depending of the draw ofc) it's a lot of pressure.

After that it's a very grindy type of gameplay.

@MrMenthe Do you ever let an attack go through and break a province so you can get Ring of Air? Do you find that a valid tactic in your normal play?

14 hours ago, Casanunda said:

They aren't auto-include for me, the restrictions have a lot to do with which decks I play them in. Not only do you have to have the Bushi or Courtier trait, but you have to make sure that said Courtiers/Bushis have high enough skill that they can use Rout/Outwit reliably. I really like Rout in Crab to offset the Pol weakness (and to a lesser extent Lion) and Outwit in Crane and Scorpion for their similar Mil deficiencies. They have a powerful effect, but it's pretty conditional, unlike Banzai/Court Games/Katana/ Fan , which are almost always useful, if not always quite as powerful .

It can also be a great way of having your own provinces broken later in the same round if played at the wrong time .

'Building tall' vs. 'building wide' is also a consideration for Rout/Outwit. If your deck tends to field less characters a turn, perhaps supported by more attachments and conflict characters, then Rout/Outwit become more valuable as they can each target bigger characters. Not only that, but the tendency to pass first with Dynasty nets said player a Fate -- Thereby fueling Rout/Outwit.

Their inclusion is more a function of deck interdependence, I find. If I have enough other effects that lead to an easier execution of Rout/Outwit, then they become necessary inclusions. Otherwise, they remain conditional, as you say.

Speaking of Ornate Fan/Fine Katana: Has anyone excluded either card in their decks thus far? I have just started to experiment with this of late, nothing conclusive results wise. I do find that a 1/1/1 can help me more than a 0/0/2 in certain situations, even though the free card is hard to pass up.

58 minutes ago, Anemura said:

'Building tall' vs. 'building wide' is also a consideration for Rout/Outwit. If your deck tends to field less characters a turn, perhaps supported by more attachments and conflict characters, then Rout/Outwit become more valuable as they can each target bigger characters. Not only that, but the tendency to pass first with Dynasty nets said player a Fate -- Thereby fueling Rout/Outwit.

Agreed. Based on that idea, I am working on a Dragon clan 1 core deck, which is perfect for tall building, and including both. I feel these cards are so good on 1 core environment... Then, I can use Rout right away, but have a problem with Outwit: the use of Outwit is specially good at Military conflicts, but Dragon clan deck simply has not enough courtiers available that can enter a Mil conflict, even if you splash Crane. It is a pity to lose that. This is making me think if it would be better to forget about outwit at all, as the courtiers I can field simply are not going to be able to use it most of the time.

I will keep on searching...

For Scorpion, I find Outwit very useful. It can create an unopposed province at the resolution for the additional honor loss and because of the generally high political skill on characters I've rarely been restricted the skill comparison.

It's key that you can use them in any conflict, not just the one that skill is being compared in. Sending home beefy military units because they have one lower political skill is fantastic. I agree that it's also important to try to draw some of your opponent's tech along with using the card. Letting them play some cards from hand or use some of their abilities that may be tough to deal with later, then nullifying the effects of those cards by removing the person from conflict makes the card well worth it. This is particularly true in decks that will keep the opponent's hand size small through dishonor and your opponent bidding low because of honor concerns. If your opponent has no hand, you can plan your gambits with total knowledge of the possible board state.

17 hours ago, shosuko said:

@MrMenthe Do you ever let an attack go through and break a province so you can get Ring of Air? Do you find that a valid tactic in your normal play?

Sometimes. We enter here into the grey area of "depending from game to game"

Sometimes I can defend, sometimes I could but really need the air ring to still have a fighting chance. Sometimes it's the third province and I cannot take the risk... So yeah, sometimes. Sorry I can't be more helpful on that. ^^'

1 hour ago, MrMenthe said:

Sometimes. We enter here into the grey area of "depending from game to game"

Sometimes I can defend, sometimes I could but really need the air ring to still have a fighting chance. Sometimes it's the third province and I cannot take the risk... So yeah, sometimes. Sorry I can't be more helpful on that. ^^'

yeah thx - the reason I'm asking is just to check how common that type of a play comes up, to know whether its something to explore forcing, or building a defense against.

It sounds like the main strategy is to mess with the bids, both for draws and duels, and use the ring of air and fire to steal honor and dishonor characters. Watch commander sounds important too. After that other plays can come in like undefended conflicts.

I chimed in and was about to say that I didn't feel their use was good enough to justify the risk of sending a character home unbowed. But after reading the comments a bit, I think I will actually try Rout again and see how it goes in a 3 core environment. I have a feeling that clutch scenarios will come up more often.