What are the best clan splash's (given the limited amount of influence each clan has, I think that's all we can call them) have you found so far?

Dragon: 365, 24/7 @ 1 million percent.

Crane w/Scorpion is the clear front runner.

Unicorn w/everyone is pretty garbage, however I've got some decent results with a Crab splash.

That's the bottom and the top of the spectrum. Everything else is somewhere in between and will depend on match ups and play skill.

Scorpion being so popular in the meta makes Phoenix and Unicorn extra bad. Both of those clans have glory stats that can really hurt you if your characters become dishonored and neither have a great way to honor their people.

Lion has some ways to honor their own characters and can be built to compete against the top decks.

Crab doesn't care about glory so that provides them some measure of protection against getting stalled by glory penalties.

Dragon is somewhere in the middle. They make for a pretty straight-forward splash clan too......although not always the best choice even if it seems like an easy call.

Their may be great synergies between clans that do neat things. For example, I could Cavalry Reserve with Unicorn and follow it up with a Greater Glory from my Lion splash. That will net you a ridiculous board state going into the next turn...............however, all it takes is for the Crane w/Scorpion splash (6 Counter Crane) to counter that and it just destroys you. So as great as the best case scenario is for some of these pairing, you often find they are really bad and you need to go with something more reliable. The trick is to meta against the top decks if you're not one of the top decks. Scorpion is good against the field. Crane is good against the best stuff. If you're not playing something that has a good match up vs Crane and or Scorpion, you will likely get pounded.

If you're looking to start at the top, play Crane w/Scorpion. If you want a life of misery and suffering, go with Unicorn but at least splash Crab to give yourself a pinchers chance.

#cwhatididthere

If you cant figure what to run as a influence choice I suggest running x3 Levy a 0 cost event action that just flat out gives you an opponents honor or fate is good

I made a Lion Deck that Splashes in Unicorn and it looks like its gonna work wonders

x1 Breakthrough

x2 Captive Audiance

x3 Favored Mount

3 minutes ago, redmythos said:

If you cant figure what to run as a influence choice I suggest running x3 Levy a 0 cost event action that just flat out gives you an opponents honor or fate is good

I made a Lion Deck that Splashes in Unicorn and it looks like its gonna work wonders

x1 Breakthrough

x2 Captive Audiance

x3 Favored Mount

I ts not a matter of not being able to figure it out - its starting a conversation about an aspect of the game I didn't see being talked about.

3 minutes ago, redmythos said:

If you cant figure what to run as a influence choice I suggest running x3 Levy a 0 cost event action that just flat out gives you an opponents honor or fate is good

I made a Lion Deck that Splashes in Unicorn and it looks like its gonna work wonders

x1 Breakthrough

x2 Captive Audiance

x3 Favored Mount

More Spyglass! =)

I really like this aspect, my only issue is I want a Crane Deck and a Lion Deck and I cant have a Crane deck w/ Lion since i dont have enough cards or vice versa LOL

Lion Crab is great.

Is spyglass very good outside of unicorn? It seemed like it'd only pay for itself if you can activate it's ability multiple times in a round.

It really depends on the deck. With my Crab, I currently have Lion splash, but I'm considering replacing it with Scorpion just to steal attachments.

My Dragon uses Unicorn for better conflict control.

Meanwhile, my wife splashes nothing with crane. She prefers their cards to any others.

7 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

Is spyglass very good outside of unicorn? It seemed like it'd only pay for itself if you can activate it's ability multiple times in a round.

It's one of the few reasons to splash unicorn. It replaces itself after just one assignment. With Rout and Outwit and other send home effects, you may be able to get multiple uses in the same turn like the pONIs do. It's real value is in the political bonus putting your 2 political skill characters up to 3 and out of reach of the Crane stronghold. Outside of unicorn Spyglass goes on someone you want to keep around to a bit and hedge your bets against political. In Unicorn it's their primary card draw engine.

Edit -

When that new crab zerker comes out you could see some Crab movement trucks with Spyglass. That could be scary.

I'm considering Wayfinder and Spyglass for use with Phoenix: an extra 3 drop-in Shugenja can't be sneezed at and the Spyglass is to add another way of getting cards in hand while regularly bidding low.

1 hour ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I'm considering Wayfinder and Spyglass for use with Phoenix: an extra 3 drop-in Shugenja can't be sneezed at and the Spyglass is to add another way of getting cards in hand while regularly bidding low.

I don't think that enhances anything for Phoenix or full any holes. I feel crane is the optimal splash here sin you can at least try to blank the cards that hurt you and try to get ahead early on honored characters so you can counter stuff of your own. I haven't done as.much with Phoenix as I have pONI.

1 hour ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I'm considering Wayfinder and Spyglass for use with Phoenix: an extra 3 drop-in Shugenja can't be sneezed at and the Spyglass is to add another way of getting cards in hand while regularly bidding low.

I've been thinking similarly, for a shugenja deck. Add in things like favorable mount and make sure favorable ground holding is in your deck for move options to better take advantage of the spyglass.

I've made 3 decks and resigned myself to switching cards between two of them for now. I'm running;

Dragon, with Crane

Scorpion, with Crab

Lion, with Crab

18 hours ago, Shu2jack said:

I've made 3 decks and resigned myself to switching cards between two of them for now. I'm running;

Dragon, with Crane

Scorpion, with Crab

Lion, with Crab

But you have a Crab clan mon......... why no snip snip?

38 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

But you have a Crab clan mon......... why no snip snip?

If I make a Crab deck, I get only one deck with Crab in it. If I spash Crab, I get most of my decks with Crab in it.

I'm running Dragon with Crab. Reprieve and The Mountain Will Not Fall. Having your stacked guy able to engage in 3 conflicts in a turn from one card is good times. Reprieve to keep from getting I Can Swimmed, or Assassinated, and so on.

Just wish I could fit in Watch Commander to get really annoying

On 10/13/2017 at 0:26 PM, redmythos said:

28 minutes ago, Waywardpaladin said:

I'm running Dragon with Crab. Reprieve and The Mountain Will Not Fall. Having your stacked guy able to engage in 3 conflicts in a turn from one card is good times. Reprieve to keep from getting I Can Swimmed, or Assassinated, and so on.

Just wish I could fit in Watch Commander to get really annoying

Watch Commander for my Scorpion and Lion deck. Scorpion to continue to threaten dishonor and make it expensive for him to go toe-to-toe with me with the conflict desk. Lion to help keep me ahead in honor.

Reprieve for my characters involved in an Ambush, Actress, Charged, or Spirit Called.

This is certainly one of the dynamic aspects of the game: who will you splash? I expect the more competitive players to be rather tight-lipped about it until after worlds, but Dragon is all-round good with Let Go and Mirumoto's Fury. Crab is also good with Reprieve, Watch Commander, and Levy. Crane I like for Above Question. There are so many options, it depends on what kind of holes your deck has, or what advantages you want to leverage. But given influence restrictions, one has to prioritize, for sure. Even the 3x vs. 2x can be a weighty decision.

I like the design of Levy, but I wonder how good it is in practice. If your opponent just gives you one honor for it, that's essentially the same transaction as bidding 1 lower and just not drawing the card. Does it only really shine when you're in a game where both players want to bid 1 (or 0), since you can bid 1 and still cost them an honor? Is it designed to just be held on to and dropped all of a sudden when they thought they had more breathing room? And of most interest to me, is it any good in a deck that isn't focused on honoring them out, since the 'pay an honor' exchange is less meaningful?

A few things in this thread:

- Looking for a 0 cost splash that provides a generic positive effect? Levy is crap, Let Go is wisdom.

- Main decking one Crab will provide more crustation love than splashing in four decks based on pure card volume. IMO, L5R is character driven so if you are not playing a Clan in Dynasty you are not playing that Clan.

- To have any chance against Scorpion Phoenix needs more card draw to maintain hand and/or honor superiority. The obvious answer is maxing Forgotten Library. We did the math and I have been testing for reliability. If you can find the bay area L5R FB page it has calculations for drawing a specific card included x3 across a few scenarios.

43 minutes ago, Tokhuah said:

- Main decking one Crab will provide more crustation love than splashing in four decks based on pure card volume. IMO, L5R is character driven so if you are not playing a Clan in Dynasty you are not playing that Clan.

1 Crab is worth 10 men. I think I'm on the right track.

Strangely enough, I'm having a very good time with a good win-rate:

Crab/Crane - 2/3x Political Rival,3x Duelist Training, 2/3x Admit Defeat (players choice on whether to add 3 rivals or 3 admits, I tend to do admits since the 3 cost of Rival is a bit steep for 3)

I really like dueling with Crab military values - Opponent losing Cards or Honor is Win/Win and if they happen to win and bow you...sacrifice fodder for another pump.

Depending on how a player deals with the duels decides whether you go for dishonor or military victories - lose honor (Dishonor), lose cards (press province attacks)

Also it is difficult to stop the bowing effect of a duel since there are no action windows within a duel. Also makes for fun and active play.