One other reason to be loyal: you need to make a deck for the other clan too unless your playgroup is okay with you borrowing their deck for that clan.

Making multiple decks for one clan is hard enough. Especially when they share the same cards as you'll need to keep changing sleeves when you decide to play the other deck ubless all your decks have the same sleeves.

Might be doable if you bought 3 cores for yourself but not if you split with someone else.

Things might be different once we have enough clan cards not to need to splash but the neutrals will still be a problem.

7 hours ago, Matrim said:

wasn't a lot of that people who couldn't win if their clan was top tier using that as an excuse as to why they were not winning?

Saying that if you start believing such things then that might cause players to quit thus reinforcing the basic premise...

I'm speaking from a decade + actual experience with the culture of the L5R fanbase. You can parse it however you want but I guarantee you somewhere 1 to 2 years from now you're going to notice "Why does FFG hate Clan X" threads poking their heads up and its a direct result of people deciding to go for a clan loyal approach. The people with the personality type to be able to suck it up when the faction they traded all their other cards away to complete stinks for 6 months at a time are a lot rarer than you'd believe.

Dragon since Jade Edition. Dragon since 1st ed RPG. Dragon now.
However, I love that I can play different clans whenever I want. Question for more experienced LCGers: how do you keep multiple decks ready to play? Just buy that many core sets?

The stronger one holds to clan loyalty, the sweeter its successes in the story become, and the more visceral its defeats. I cannot express to you how good it felt to have the Gen Con story resolve in my clan's favor, BUT - and this is important - I was also looking forward to the prospect of Meishodo being outlawed, and the implications it would have for drama within the Unicorn: do our shugenjas surrender to the Emperor's wishes, or continue practicing Meishodo in secret? How do our non-shugenja kinsmen deal with this? Similarly, reading that "there will be no alliance permitted between the Crane and the Unicorn" dealt me a crushing blow, but one that I have savored ever since. While it's easy to imagine that being wholly invested in a clan will make any setbacks toward that clan frustrating, for me I find that it increases the emotional weight of the story.

10 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

The stronger one holds to clan loyalty, the sweeter its successes in the story become, and the more visceral its defeats. I cannot express to you how good it felt to have the Gen Con story resolve in my clan's favor, BUT - and this is important - I was also looking forward to the prospect of Meishodo being outlawed, and the implications it would have for drama within the Unicorn: do our shugenjas surrender to the Emperor's wishes, or continue practicing Meishodo in secret? How do our non-shugenja kinsmen deal with this? Similarly, reading that "there will be no alliance permitted between the Crane and the Unicorn" dealt me a crushing blow, but one that I have savored ever since. While it's easy to imagine that being wholly invested in a clan will make any setbacks toward that clan frustrating, for me I find that it increases the emotional weight of the story.

An entire board of the scorpion playerbase accused AEG of literally rigging the megagame to screw them over and like half of them quit the game in a fury over it.

Edit: but not before that drama bled EVERYWHERE.

11 minutes ago, McDermott said:

An entire board of the scorpion playerbase accused AEG of literally rigging the megagame to screw them over and like half of them quit the game in a fury over it.

Seeing as the Story Lead this time around is a Scorpion fan, I don't see any danger of that debacle repeating itself. ?

20 minutes ago, McDermott said:

An entire board of the scorpion playerbase accused AEG of literally rigging the megagame to screw them over and like half of them quit the game in a fury over it.

Edit: but not before that drama bled EVERYWHERE.

I know you are not talking about the megagame where folk take on the role of politicians and act out scenarios in a large scale (40-50 players), but now I want to see that at a grand kotei or something. Clan loyalty would be tested and results could affect the story in a bigger way than just regular tournaments. They could even add in the card game to decide battles or something.

Without the fun of some kind of loyalty and sense of 'this is my team' the whole thing loses a lot of its character.

I don't really see the point. A game is just a bunch of rules without a community and some sense of identity. I don't imagine it'll last half as long as the ccg if loyalty is pushed to the side. Everyone will just jump to whatever the next new thing is. How many people are already doing this with L5R since it's the hot new thing from FFG?

Choose a clan, stick with it. If you don't have some kind of allegiance you're going to miss out on a lot.

Someone with a decade of experience with the IP and the community surrounding it: "Hey, there are a lot of issues that crop up when you buy too far into clan loyalty. Don't do it"

People without that experience: "Nah, whats the point without it!"

I've been a dragon player as long as I can remember, but the currently released dragon style doesn't appeal to me sadly. Perhaps when more gets released I'll return to my tattooed monks. Until then, it's crab and Phoenix I'm enjoying the most, especially crab.

9 hours ago, McDermott said:

Someone with a decade of experience with the IP and the community surrounding it: "Hey, there are a lot of issues that crop up when you buy too far into clan loyalty. Don't do it"

People without that experience: "Nah, whats the point without it!"

I've been playing Crane since the start of Celestial... So that's probably now just about a decade.

You're being a bit dramatic imo.

No i'm being accurate.

Well, as long as the player is aware of the risks (and maybe doesn't see them as such) I don't see a real issue with a strong loyalty.

Knowing myself, I'm pretty sure I'll bring Scorpion to every tournament, being it in store one or kotei, unless something happens in the story/lore that forces me to change. For example, a Scorpion coup without solid reasons would probably cause me to drop my allegiance, but I would then play something very strange to demonstrate such decision (like, Scorpion stronghold with all neutral dynasty, or something like that). But then, I have no problem whatsoever in playing a sub-par deck even during official tournaments and get badly beaten by everybody and their dogs.

On the other hand, if you feel that being competitive may be a stronger motivation for you, go for a soft loyalty, or scrap loyalty completely and go with the meta.

Another thing to consider is the fact that Old and New L5R are very different creatures, simply owing to the production model. The CCG by its very makeup encouraged clan loyalty as it made it far easier to trade away cards for the 8 or so factions you weren't playing. Now, barring trades and ability to keep up with the Six Packs in Six Weeks plan, one has access to everything each of the clans has to offer. That alone makes holding to a specific clan confining at best, and flat-out wasteful at worst. At the same time, FFG has introduced the hatamoto system, where should one receive this title, it is lost as soon as they switch clans. So there is certainly value in choosing a favorite. For casual play, though, and players who have no particular interest in becoming hatamoto, there is no reason not to explore, even if merely to find out how your various rival clans think during gameplay.

Mark Rosewater of MTG Design has often said, "Your greatest weakness is your greatest strength pushed too far." I believe this philosophy can be applied to L5R and the concept of clan loyalty associated with it. When it fosters solidarity, investment in the story, and friendly rivalry, it's a great asset to the community of the game. When it causes real-world fractures between players of different clans (e.g. stereotyping Scorpion players as cheats), clan members blaming the company's decisions for their clan's losses, and intimidating newcomers with this negative attitude, it's gone well past the point of benefiting the community and into the realm of dysfunction.

Clan loyalty doesn't matter in the end. Because at the end of it all, we will all be servants to our Dark Lord Fu Leng, and he will usher in a new era of darkness and prosperity to mislead clans of Rokugan. For too long, the great clans have led their people astray, the backward teachings of the corrupt and traitorous Kami fueling the false ideals of the samurai. Fu Leng will bring about a great cleansing, and then, you will truly understand the power of Jigoku.

10 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

I've been a dragon player as long as I can remember, but the currently released dragon style doesn't appeal to me sadly. Perhaps when more gets released I'll return to my tattooed monks. Until then, it's crab and Phoenix I'm enjoying the most, especially crab.

Dragon can actually pull off quite a bit of MONKey business. They have a good Keeper role which typically entices people to contest Void when they attack you, so you can get more fate. Then the Keeper Initiates just keep coming back to maintain your board presences. Their decent glory stat helps you win the favor, and when you have characters coming in for free that helps offset the cost of reattaching ancestral items.

You can't do full on Monks yet.....but what they have is a good start.

2 hours ago, McDermott said:

No i'm being accurate.

There are always people who take things too far. So don't be one and don't encourage it. You can be for clan loyalty but against people who are jackasses. It's not difficult.

14 hours ago, McDermott said:

An entire board of the scorpion playerbase accused AEG of literally rigging the megagame to screw them over and like half of them quit the game in a fury over it.

This has nothing to do with clan loyalty, this has everything to do with AEG not being transparent and screwing over the, at the time, front runner clans, both of which formed an Alliance that AEG was forcing apart because they decided to change the megagame half way through.

Players left the game because they felt lied to about the company, and that their contributions were being openly muddled with to get the result AEG wanted, not what the players felt they were actually working to earn. **** that entire Megagame ONLY worked because clan loyalty exists.

I was a Spider player from Emperor on, I know exactly how it feels to have design screw up your faction EVERY time, but Clan Loyalty only enhanced my experience.

L5R is very similar to a sports league, like the NFL. People KNOW they root for the worst teams sometimes, but the fun of L5R IS that you have a team to root for.

This isn't like Magic, where the setting changes every set or two and thus you are constantly changing decks. L5R has a unique and powerful niche that no card game gets to really have.

There are stakes and teams.

We have our Hatamoto that we are cheering on, we have our own contributions to various mega games happening over the year, we have a fun casual game that can allow players to really settle into the flavor and feel of a faction.

Sure, sometimes you end up rooting for the Cleveland Browns equivalent of clans, I played Spider from Emperor through Ivory, we were AWFUL. But it only made our few wins that much sweeter and gave us a challenge. There was a time where just top 8ing with Spider was seen as an amazing accomplishment and a show of skill, and that was enough to push Spider, the worst faction in the game, to being the third most supported clan by attendees, because part of the fun was meeting another Spider and seeing how many you guys could take out swinging with you.

Also we now have Hatamoto, which means that even if your clan is the pits in the game competitively, there is still something to fight for, something cool to aspire for. When I played Spider I attended 3 Kotei, I wont Top Spider for all three, beating out the competition and other Spiders, it was fun and satisfying just to do that.

To try to poopoo clan loyalty because sometimes your team might be doing bad is just not recognizing some of the most enjoyable aspects of the game, and that would be a terrible thing to miss out on.

I suppose it comes down to what kind of person you are. Are you "glass is half full", "glass is half empty", or "it's a half a glass of water" kind of person?

Clan loyalty only becomes a problem when you allow it to discourage you from playing a wonderful game. If you come in with the attitude that you are only playing clan X and if clan X is not objectively good, you don't want to play, then you are not embracing the spirit of clan loyalty. If the clan you are loyal too is objectively bad........play them anyways and enjoy it because that's what it means to be loyal. Be open to the feedback that other players offer about your clan, no matter how harsh.

There are more non clan loyal players in the LCG than I remember there being at any point in the CCG and many of those players are bringing a lot of experience from other games with similar mechanics. Many of those players have far more relevant experience than I do with my 20 years of the L5R CCG. Instead of getting bent out of shape when a player makes a harsh statement about a particular clan's competitiveness I listen and try to get as much important information as to why they feel that way. We're all mostly adults here. I'm sure we are capable of not allowing ourselves to get too offended about the way someone describes our clan in a fictional card game made out of cardboard and played by a bunch of geeks.

In addition to changing the game, FFG has also changed how some of the clans function. I have heard several old school players complain about their clan not being the same or dueling, or rings, or some other aspect that they enjoyed in the old game not being in the new game so it has spoiled their love of their clan. That's fine, but, you're missing out on a rare opportunity to try something new. Maybe a different clan is more to your speed. Maybe you didn't have access to all the cards in the past but now you do, so you can try them all. Maybe your clan will evolve into something different that you do like. Or maybe you stay loyal to winning and just play what is best. There are plenty of better options than complaining and ruining the game for yourself and others, al while under the guise of being "clan loyal."

You don't have to accept what people are saying about your clan, but, you should not ignore it altogether. By ignoring the information because you are upset by how it was delivered, you risk falling victim to losing games you probably could have won, or at least done better in. If you have enough of those losses it could lead you to a negative opinion of the clan you are loyal too and then you face the dilemma of not playing with that clan or quitting until that clan becomes good. That is not being loyal to a clan, it's being loyal to winning, and winning a certain way.

You also don't have to be happy with the new look of the clan you have been loyal to in the past. It's understandable that some people will be upset with change, especially after 20 years of something that was a big part of their life. Keep in mind the old game changed quite a bit and there were plenty of times that people were disappointed about the state of one clan or another. No company can please their entire playerbase all the time. If you like the game, just enjoy playing the game, in whatever form that may be. Casually with friends.........making your own house rules........or competitively with the world's best trying to leave your own stamp on the game.

And now that I've rambled about I don't even remember what, I think my point was supposed to be, clan loyalty is only as good as what you do with it.

15 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Similarly, reading that "there will be no alliance permitted between the Crane and the Unicorn" dealt me a crushing blow, but one that I have savored ever since.

Did I miss something? Where was this announced? Is this an official deck-building restriction?

2 minutes ago, Gamedog said:

Did I miss something? Where was this announced? Is this an official deck-building restriction?

It's something Bayushi Kachiko says to her husband in the first Scorpion fiction. And while no, it is not an official restriction, until things change I've decided to acknowledge it when deckbuilding.

17 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

It's something Bayushi Kachiko says to her husband in the first Scorpion fiction. And while no, it is not an official restriction, until things change I've decided to acknowledge it when deckbuilding.

Ahh! I did miss that. Thanks.

Isn't that more like 'The Scorpion cannot allow...'. As in they see it as a danger to their own strength so they will do what they can to keep them from becoming allies? That wasn't an Imperial decree kind of thing, right?

1 hour ago, Tebbo said:

Isn't that more like 'The Scorpion cannot allow...'. As in they see it as a danger to their own strength so they will do what they can to keep them from becoming allies? That wasn't an Imperial decree kind of thing, right?

It was a private discussion between the Clan Champion and his wife. While there is certainly motive behind the affair (not sure precisely what that is yet), to this reader's eyes at least, it is clearly an indication of intent as well, which we all know Kachiko can follow through with given her position of influence over Doji Hotaru.