Hey all, tournament rules are up here: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/28/3c/283c3398-b170-4ed7-8558-37451737178c/l5c_tournament_regulations_v10_text_version.pdf

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End of Round Example: Time is called for the round. Dan and Emily are currently in the conflict
phase, and add up their points. Dan has two broken provinces, 4 honor, and the Imperial Favor.
Emily has four broken provinces and 13 honor

Hmm

If a broken province goes for +2 tiebreaker points, if you think the game will go to time, it may be easier to break an opponent's fourth province rather than go after their stronghold. I hate this consequence of the tiebreakers, so I guess I'm going to have to learn to play very quickly to avoid this outcome.

Edit: Nevermind me. Hadn't read the document yet.

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Each player receives two points for each of their opponent’s broken provinces, to a maximum of six points

Breaking a fourth province, while doable, will not gain you any extra points.

I love the Tiebreaker/mod win rules. Look at the scoring carefully:

• Win = 10 points
• Modified win = 6 points
• Loss = 1 point
• Modified loss = 0 points

In a game that goes to time, if you're losing badly, you actually gain a point for conceding instead of forcing the tiebreaker calculation. That really encourages players who are behind at time to just save everyone the headache of going through the whole tiebreaker rigmarole. To me, that's perfectly fitting with the thematic idea of an honorable samurai conceding a well-fought battle and acknowledging the superior opponent. I hope this helps L5R cultivate a positive player culture and discourages win-at-all-costs gameplay. Imagine the shame that will be associated with refusing to concede when you know you're losing.

Maybe I'm way off base with this, but I feel like 60 minute rounds is going to be meta shaping in the worst way. Wanna play Scorpion or Phoenix dishonor? Better hurry up, because the clock is ticking. Honestly, it seems super prohibitive to control heavy decks, or decks that simply aren't focused with breaking provinces to win the game. Doesn't make sense at all (to me at least) to attempt a play style like the ones above that you're unlikely to be achieve unless both players are operating at remarkable speeds, which really hinders viable, competitive options for certain clans.

Dishonor and honor are mixed in with breaking. You can't separate them out. Everything is intertwined due to bidding, honored/dishonored and various events.

The game is designed around certain possible values each turn, bidding x amount and losing x amount or breaking 2 provinces, dishonoring/honoring x amount of characters and so on. I don't think there's much difference time wise. Time is more relevant in matchups with opposing and equal decks, like Crane honor political vs scorpion dishonor political. Where they will often mitigate each other's effects and compete on equal military/political footing in conflicts.

I don’t like the requirement for opaque sleeves, hides all the great-looking cards. I really like to use one opaque deck and one clear one.

Maybe if I promise I won’t cheat...

4 hours ago, ayedubbleyoo said:

I don’t like the requirement for opaque sleeves, hides all the great-looking cards. I really like to use one opaque deck and one clear one.

Maybe if I promise I won’t cheat...

Sounds like as long as you don't have any POD quality cards in your deck and aren't playing at a regional or higher, you can still use clear sleeves.

4 hours ago, ayedubbleyoo said:

I don’t like the requirement for opaque sleeves, hides all the great-looking cards. I really like to use one opaque deck and one clear one.

Maybe if I promise I won’t cheat...

That's funny because I actually use FFG brand sleeves. They are very durable, yet not legal for their own tournaments.

The funny thing is, if you really want to cheat and are pro at it you can do it just as easy with opaque sleeves. In fact, you can also strategically mark key opponent's cards under the guise of cutting.

Edit: I just realized that the scoring system allows for a Russian chess situation. Bring a crew of 8 headed by 1-2 clear best players. The crew plays methodic and slow in every game to make them all go to time and refuse to ever concede, meaning opponent's are not scoring higher than 6, and often less. Whenever the crew plays the top player they artfully lose as quickly as possible. Team Russian Crew FTW!

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/de/e7/dee78f63-c1b3-4690-97a6-b396e4e32cc2/l5c_tournament_regulations_v10.pdf

As was pointed out to me on FB (I missed it the first time), 13-16 players Advanced - no tournament for you!

One of the reasons why they want those kind of sleeves is because sometimes the consistency of the promo/alt art cards have some discoloration on the back...

Maybe I missed it, but the Deck Building section in these rules doesn't say anything about the "3 copies of each card" limit. I guess we all need to buy 45 Core Sets for a true full playset. Moneygrubbing FFG!

(I know it's just an oversight, lol)

1 hour ago, Heimdall Ulf said:

Maybe I missed it, but the Deck Building section in these rules doesn't say anything about the "3 copies of each card" limit. I guess we all need to buy 45 Core Sets for a true full playset. Moneygrubbing FFG!

(I know it's just an oversight, lol)

Honestly, while I get that redundancy can be helpful, there's already a full deck building ruleset included in the Learn to Play document. I'm not sure what the point is in half-duplicating them in the tournament regulations...you could just as easily say "Unless an event is designated for "Out-of-Box Play" (single core set format) , Organized Play tournaments adhere to the deck building rules outlines in the Learn to Play document (pg. 18). " Or something along those lines. Someone on the Facebook group already pointed out that the TR also doesn't include the stipulation that you can only splash out-of-clan card from a single clan. Hopefully this gets cleaned up by the end of the week.

I wonder why the rule about not taking notes during play exists. Is it just to save time (because writing down every card your opponent plays would be time-consuming and you'd be sure to go over 60 minutes)? I understand not being allowed to bring in external reference material besides the rules, but what's the purpose of the "no taking notes" rule? It seems to me that it could help detect certain kinds of cheating: e.g., if you've written down that you saw your opponent's clan champion come up three times already, when you see that card come up a fourth time (assuming the opponent hasn't played any fetch-from-discard-pile effects), you'd raise your hand and call for a judge. But if you're not taking notes, you'll have a harder time being certain: did I really see that card three times already, or is my memory playing tricks on me?

I ask this because a while ago, I read http://l5rcheaters.blogspot.com/ , which pointed out in http://l5rcheaters.blogspot.com/2010/07/intentional-cheating-part-2-majors.html that you should always write down changes in the game state, so that if your opponent lies about what happened two turns ago you're not relying on your fuzzy memory. With the "no taking notes during tournaments" rule, this recommendation is now illegal. Why, I wonder? I can understand if it's to keep the game moving, but if it's for another reason, I don't see the drawback in allowing people to take notes. Anyone have an idea?

11 minutes ago, rmunn said:

I wonder why the rule about not taking notes during play exists. I can understand if it's to keep the game moving, but if it's for another reason, I don't see the drawback in allowing people to take notes. Anyone have an idea?

As far as I know, it's to help curtail "scouting". As in, recording every detail of an opponent's deck and play decisions in order to pass it along to your friend(s) that may be playing that person later.

Of course, this cab still happen even without note-taking, but banning note taking makes it less of an issue, in theory.

7 hours ago, Tokhuah said:

Edit: I just realized that the scoring system allows for a Russian chess situation. Bring a crew of 8 headed by 1-2 clear best players. The crew plays methodic and slow in every game to make them all go to time and refuse to ever concede, meaning opponent's are not scoring higher than 6, and often less. Whenever the crew plays the top player they artfully lose as quickly as possible. Team Russian Crew FTW!

Indeed, having played Magic for a long time, this struck me as a little odd.

It certainly does place a premium on concessions, which can leading to some amount of "kingmaking."

2 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

As far as I know, it's to help curtail "scouting". As in, recording every detail of an opponent's deck and play decisions in order to pass it along to your friend(s) that may be playing that person later.

Of course, this cab still happen even without note-taking, but banning note taking makes it less of an issue, in theory.

Except that for the rounds that such scouting would payoff (i.e. after the cut) you have to show your opponent your decklist anyway.

Some thoughts on the Token rules.

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" Tokens Tokens are representations of information about the game or game state. The presence of tokens is marked by one or more indicators. Indicators may also be used to represent multiple tokens, or other open or derived information. Typically, players use the cardboard tokens included in official product as indicators. However, players may choose to use other items as indicators, so long as they do not obscure significant component information, are resistant to accidental modification , and their purpose of use is clear to both players. The marshal is responsible for determining the legality of an indicator and its reasonable use during a match if objected to by its owner’s opponent . "

We have a player in our group, close friend, who plays L5R with dice to count STR during conflicts. While I don't mind whatsoever for casual play ( and even the so called Relaxed tournaments), I could see it being a problem for certain occasions.

Today, we both read the document and he states that there is nothing (worded here) that prevents him from using dices for the above stated purpose.
I argue, that in fact there is, therefore if his opponent objects to using dice - he shouldn't.

In Netrunner, there was exact ruling for this (afraid I can't quote though) that because DICE are NOT resistant to accidental modification, people could deny their opponent the use of dice. Because we've always been there - the tournament, the time, the pressure ... and that "accidental" save on a credit or Virus/Generic counter.

While I know the way he plays is fairly strict, I can imagine a situation where he by mistake (or accident) puts the dice on the wrong number and they resolve the conflict looking at the dice ... To avoid such situations, for Formal and Premier events, I'd rule that his opponent must agree to him using dice for this. Or alternatively, ask him count his dice number somewhere on the side, rather than in front of the participating in the conflict cards.

What is your reading on this? Or I'm being way too strict?

the rules state that after each conflict value change both players calc the new values. If these were values were wrong then the Last pass can be withdrawn. Dice do not matter for this as they are just an aide memoir and not representative of game state.

I.r

k that's 6 for me 3 for you so the province isn't breaking

so I pass

- woops I actually have 7 province breakd

nope incorrect conflct value we carry on and I play this...

Must be the form of writing, but I don't really get your point.

Yes if you mess up the conflict, you resolve it the way you did ... (although I didn't see anything about this in Missed Opportunities ). I'm saying that the dice can help you mess up the conflict, due to being in front of your eyes and displaying a certain value. Like saying " Total STR is 4 !! TOTAL STR IS 4!! " ( while it might be 5 in reality ) ... and I dislike this.

Additionally can you quote, or point me to the RRG stating that after each conflict value change both players calc the new values.

page 12 learn to play

'after using one of the above action opportunities, a player should announce the total relevant skill present on both sides of the conflict that would be counted if the conflict wad to resolve with no further actions'

since this exists it does not matter if dice are used (for this only) or if a player states the value. If incorrect then a pass based on this can be rolled back otherwise one player could cheat.

Learn2Play guide also says that the play who wins the Random toss at the start Goes First. Which is obviously not the case anymore.
Therefore I can't find that argument too solid either.

To elaborate further on what I am saying here:

The Learn2Play booklet was created 6-to-12 months ago ( considering printing schedule and product demand ) when the understanding and the state of the game was different perhaps. If you look at Netrunner's RRG (which was also in a booklet format), you don't see people referencing it anymore, but the online RRG and FAQ.

Therefore, the only truly up to date, hard rule quotes have to come from RRG, TR or FAQ (which we don't have yet).

L2P is nothing more than some generic description how to play the game and as time progresses it will be more and more obsolete. The example I gave in the start, just compliments this argument.

suddenly the reason for the lack of 'likes' comes into startling focus.

look lets treat this more simply.

if you played me and lied about the conflict count (lets assume misscounted) and then claimed my pass could not roll back then I would just concede, slag you off online and never play you again. Life is too short to play with idiots.

now I am not saying you would but you are nailing your colors to a rather anal rules interpretation that breaks the number one game rule of 'dont be a ****'

the only way your interpretation would count is if you are willing to piss off every opponent.

nothing is perfect and no tcg rules system is ironclad. There is no point generating hot air about something as petty and inconsequential as this.

I've said my piece and I wish you every luck , especially if I have horrifically misjudged your view and I shall bow and step away from the fray.