Hi. Can someone point me in the right direction on what I might be missing to manage the devastation of this rule:

• In the Regroup phase, "each player must discard all faceup cards from their broken provinces." (5.2)

I'm finding that to be frustratingly brutal. It forces my hand so much in the Dynasty phase to play or abandon whatever cards happen to flop on a broken province.
Once a couple provinces break, that limitation on your play options seems almost irrecoverable-- especially if the provinces fall early in the game.

I had a game this weekend where Lion got me back on my heels hard and early. I felt like I maybe could have clawed back in to make a game of things except that my Fate investment had to prioritize whatever random card popped-up on the broken provinces, stripping me of any real flexibility.

I'm curious how some of the advanced players play around the limitation. Am I missing some tactic on this that helps mitigate?
So far I'm playing with the clan builds from a single starter set, so no triples in the decks. Does this rule maybe become more of a non-issue when you play with a full deck?

Thanks in advance and much appreciated.

11 minutes ago, Harry Paget Flashman said:

So far I'm playing with the clan builds from a single starter set, so no triples in the decks. Does this rule maybe become more of a non-issue when you play with a full deck?

As you can probably imagine, it doesn't feel like your one and only chance to bring a specific character out of a broken province when it literally isn't. Flipping your Clan champ on a broken province isn't such a one time only deal if you know there are two more in the deck yet to come. It does force players to make choices knowing that the card is going to be discarded at the end of the turn but this game is all about choices.

It affects your ability to long-term plan, leaving you more open to the vagaries of draw variance. Sometimes I target a specific province because I know that character is going to give me problems in combination with the current board if it comes out next turn. Very occasionally I prevent a break on my end to protect the character on top (if they are integral to a next-turn-play). Usually however plans are always changing and even if I'd planned to pop out a character next turn I often end up doing something else anyway.

However it isn't doing anything more than that. If your deck is consistent enough (which is where playing single core is going to be hurting you), most cards you see in the dynasty phase will have the potential to be useful to you in some way. You're always going to see 4, regardless of how many provinces are/aren't broken. If your clan champ disappears and gets replaced with something else, it isn't really that much differenct than if you'd just randomly drawn the something else and the champ was on the bottom of your deck anyway. It's not like you ever actually had the champ or paid for it or anything.

With a 40 card deck you actually see less than 50% of your cards most games, so there's decent odds you'd never even see that champ (or whatever card it is that vanished) in a lot of games in the first place.

I just try to accept my losses. I'm not sure I am an "advanced" player, but I can pretend to be one!

Basically, yes, you need to buy who best to buy. But consider this. Say you have the choice between 2 4 cost guys, where you definitely cannot buy both. Is there much difference between buying them when both provinces are unbroken, where your opponent can then swing and discard the unbought one anyways, vs if one is in a broken province and you buy the other one?

Given two bodies and the Mono No Aware system, you really run into one of 4 cases (in my mind):

1) Character in Broken province is better than Character in unbroken province. Buy the one in the Broken province

2) Character in Unbroken province is better, buy the one in the Unbroken province

3) Characters are even. In which case, probably buy the one in the Broken province

4) Character in broken province will be really really good after some setup, but Character in unbroken province is good this turn. ??? (Example, Clan Champ in Broken province, 2 dudes that work really well together in Unbroken Province. Is it worth sacrificing your clan champ to get the nice combo out now, but if you wait, your opponent is likely to discard one of the 2 dudes?)

4 is the only one where I think you have much of a decision, and I don't think it happens very often. In my mind you should almost always prioritize buying the better dude for this turn, given that board state changes so much per turn, that planning ahead is only limited.

Plenty of people with better advice, but you can also play Lion, and then drop a ton of fate onto characters like Spiritcaller and Eiji, to call from the dead.

(And as a reflection of Old5R, still better than losing the generation all together, even if it still sucks.)

54 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

(And as a reflection of Old5R, still better than losing the generation all together, even if it still sucks.)

Yep. In the CCG, broken provinces went away entirely, and left you with one fewer province to even reveal cards from. This often led to games just snowballing, where after I take one of your provinces and you fail to take one of mine, I can just produce more and more and you're struggling even to defend. The LCG system of broken provinces bleeding cards seems to be a bit of a compromise between giving the attacker an advantage for being successful without making it too difficult for the defender to catch up.

As far as what to do, Mirith covered it pretty well. Look at what will benefit you the most, and don't worry about recruiting every single character before they disappear. Having 3 copies of your clan cards certainly helps, but learning to prioritize is an important skill regardless.

Also consider... if your choices are roughly similar, you might flush those cards anyways to get deeper into your deck. Your opponent can't make plans around cards you have in reserve either, as they will be fresh each turn. I think it is kind of a wash. The only thing it does is guarantee to accelerate you a bit more toward having to reshuffle your dynasty and lose 5, and make the occasional character choice differently.