13 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

I dedicated the pick to Brad Emon. His reasoning behind not wanting Keeper was a genuine desire to keep the game fun and thriving, and Backhand had the potential to really destroy people's will to play.

Brad was totally willing to embrace being a villain to make this happen, and I have nothing but respect for that.

If there are Scorpion players who aren't willing to be villains, then this may not be the clan for you.

If people wanted a different choice, they had the opportunity to beat out Brad and myself. We finished first and second placed Scorpions at Worlds. I reckon we earned the right to make this choice.

Mark you’re doing the Emperor’s work. You’re not the hero Rokugon needs but you’re the hero it deserves

Just now, Ishi Tonu said:

Straight up pushing someone to 0 honor for free....who cares if you give them cards while they lose.

I just need to play a million games now so I can have that 1 shining moment "you have 6 honour and no Fate...I play Levy 3 times and Backhanded Compliment 3 times. Winner winner, tofu dinner"

Was sort of hoping the kitties and cranes decided to kill each other some more.

Mark and Brad made the right call. No doubt about it.

Interested if the element folks picked will matter much. Rumor has it there are provinces tied to the elements of your role...

Glad to see the investigation getting to happen.

1 minute ago, Vutall said:

Mark and Brad made the right call. No doubt about it.

Interested if the element folks picked will matter much. Rumor has it there are provinces tied to the elements of your role...

Glad to see the investigation getting to happen.

Yes, and some of them quite powerful.

14 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

I just need to play a million games now so I can have that 1 shining moment "you have 6 honour and no Fate...I play Levy 3 times and Backhanded Compliment 3 times. Winner winner, tofu dinner"

The amount of times I've seen players hovering at 4 honor or less it's not hard to set up a chain where you play multiple BC force a loss on your opponent. That is why Levy is ok in the game and BC is busted.

And even then I still don't know if it's going to be good enough to beat the kind of tempo Lion with Crane splash is going to have.

I'm glad to see some of the players policing the game for fun sake.....instead of tromping all over it when something slips through the cracks

Just now, Vutall said:

Interested if the element folks picked will matter much. Rumor has it there are provinces tied to the elements of your role...

A Seeker Fire province and a Keeper Void province have already been spoiled.

1 minute ago, DarkHorse said:

A Seeker Fire province and a Keeper Void province have already been spoiled.

Actually, all of the elemental provinces have been leaked.

2 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

The amount of times I've seen players hovering at 4 honor or less it's not hard to set up a chain where you play multiple BC force a loss on your opponent. That is why Levy is ok in the game and BC is busted.

And even then I still don't know if it's going to be good enough to beat the kind of tempo Lion with Crane splash is going to have.

I'm glad to see the players policing the game for fun sake.....instead of tromping all over it when something slips through the cracks

I play Lion for a change of pace. Spiritcall Tutori, route their only defender on Air conflict, that's three honor right there. If you dishonor a guy at somepoint and it's leaving in fate, you win.

I respect the Scorpion player(s) decision regarding Backhanded Compliment. They're not wrong about how nasty it would get.

That said, I'm reaaaaly tempted to play it in a Crab deck, now. Especially with the Dragon cards previewed so far mostly ranging from "eh...ok, I guess" (the new Kitsuki) to "Really? This is not what we need for monks" (the new Monk just previewed). Oh, well. At least High Kick is potentially solid.

Crab dishonor with Levy and Watch Commander seems strong

37 minutes ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

I respect the Scorpion player(s) decision regarding Backhanded Compliment. They're not wrong about how nasty it would get.

That said, I'm reaaaaly tempted to play it in a Crab deck, now. Especially with the Dragon cards previewed so far mostly ranging from "eh...ok, I guess" (the new Kitsuki) to "Really? This is not what we need for monks" (the new Monk just previewed). Oh, well. At least High Kick is potentially solid.

I don't. Seeker role again? Seeker is the worst role and we had that already. Time to suck at playing Scorpion, or jump clans to Crab so I can actually play the Scorpion play-style... this choice was garbage.

I like the idea of Scorpion 'sabotaging' themselves to do what's best for the game/'empire.' It kind of mirror's Bayushi's choice to withdraw from center stage so they can do their job better. It's all about that Duty!

I was talking to the Phoenix players today about their Water pick and I’m not 100% sure why they went with it. I guess they have their reasons but I think keeper of void or keeper of fire were their strongest role.

Reason being with KoV you can flip the incoming ring to void with elemental fury and the Phoenix province and defend with isawa atsuko, trigger her ability, trigger keepers, trigger fate. This is a strong defensive play and should have been considered.

Also alternatively as a keeper of fire, you can trigger an incoming ring with Show of Power and claim the ring, setting off the keeper role, triggering your keepers then triggering the ring immediately afterwards. Doing so allows you to use the triggered ring on a keeper initiate since the trigger fires after the claim fires - this would mean getting a 3/3 with a fate on it for 1 fate/1 honor with a fire ring.

Water is a very situational ring, especially weak as the very first ring attack and weaker-still if there are no targets remaining for a show of power.

I don’t see the advantage to keeper of water, but maybe the Phoenix representatives know something I’m not aware of.

1 hour ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Didn't realize Backhand was seen as a NPE card, but this explanation is awesome and it's the sort of thing that attracted me to L5R as a new player (never played old5r). Scorpion as second favorite clan: confirmed.

Yeah, after Backhand was revealed I considered switching out my splash from Phoenix/Crab to Phoenix/Scorpion. Watch Commander is a really nice card but it's still the opponents decision whether to lose honor or not. With Backhand it is not a choice anymore. And its less fate and influence for me.

Good of the game before good of the Clan. Always.

I'm fine with people disagreeing with the choice. I earned the right to make it, but I still absolutely solicited the opinion of many people I respected before commiting to it.

If anyone wants a different role, I wish you the best of luck, and I'll see you at Worlds this time next year.

5 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

Good of the game before good of the Clan. Always.

I was hesitant to write it in the Issues with the Day 2 Cut math -Thread, because I didn't want to offend people, but I'll write it here: To me, L5R is still a card game, even if play it competitively. First and foremost, you should play it for fun. If your only set goal to play the game is for prizes and/or recognition, you're doing something wrong. That's why I couldn't understand the "injustice" of making players continue to play in the tournament even if they have no chance of making the final cut. If I were able to participate at the World Championships, I'd love to play as many games as possible with no regards to whether I make the finals or not. Meet new people, play new people and have fun while doing so.

Therefore, I completely support and show my appreciation to you and your decision to make a choice that improves the game and possibly makes it more fun. I drink this cup of sake in your honor! Kampai!

31 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

Good of the game before good of the Clan. Always.

I'm fine with people disagreeing with the choice. I earned the right to make it, but I still absolutely solicited the opinion of many people I respected before commiting to it.

If anyone wants a different role, I wish you the best of luck, and I'll see you at Worlds this time next year.

'Cept you'll be trying to bring it home for Shadowlands right?

Nice to Justice get chosen.

Congrats to all the top 8, 4 and finalists. Looks like it was a blast.

So, somebody out of my clan, that doesn't like my clan, intentionally picked bad so my clan (that didn't even win the tournament, made in other continent) is screwed.

For the first time I lost faith in the lcg system.

36 minutes ago, Barbacuo said:

So, somebody out of my clan, that doesn't like my clan, intentionally picked bad so my clan (that didn't even win the tournament, made in other continent) is screwed.

For the first time I lost faith in the lcg system.

If you're talking Scorpion, it was actually a Scorpion player who made the choice. He just happened to agree with other players. And to make that choice, he outplayed all the other Scorpion players. So it's not like he didn't earn the right to choose by his conscience.

43 minutes ago, Barbacuo said:

So, somebody out of my clan, that doesn't like my clan, intentionally picked bad so my clan (that didn't even win the tournament, made in other continent) is screwed.

For the first time I lost faith in the lcg system.

This would almost seem like a valid complaint if the world champ wasn't from France.

If you don't want somone else deciding the fate of "your" clan, then prove your dedication by showing up and being the top player for "your" clan.

Great for the story is all this drama. Seeker of Void is a good role. The scorpion hatamotos right to choose a role and call out all naysayers to challenge him, play better and take the role next year is correct and cannot be questioned from the technical point.

I personally like very strong scorpion and doubt that these players, however good they are, really know the game better than designers. They presume on the basis of 2 cards that there is going to be NPE which will cause people to leave the game and whatnot. Thats a bit of ego rearing its head right there. If destiny survived Poe/maz and FN, L5R can survive disdainful remark and backhanded. Especially silly is to make such an assumption when there are whole cycles and expansions coming out.

Its a much higher chance that the environment will adapt and make a choice to make a clan stronger, than that everything is going to go down under because of 2 out of 100s of card coming out this year. Of course, it can also go the other way around and suddenly this role becomes op and npe, so its just bad reasoning, hope it doesn't backfire.

23 minutes ago, Dovla said:

Great for the story is all this drama. Seeker of Void is a good role. The scorpion hatamotos right to choose a role and call out all naysayers to challenge him, play better and take the role next year is correct and cannot be questioned from the technical point.

I personally like very strong scorpion and doubt that these players, however good they are, really know the game better than designers. They presume on the basis of 2 cards that there is going to be NPE which will cause people to leave the game and whatnot. Thats a bit of ego rearing its head right there. If destiny survived Poe/maz and FN, L5R can survive disdainful remark and backhanded. Especially silly is to make such an assumption when there are whole cycles and expansions coming out.

Its a much higher chance that the environment will adapt and make a choice to make a clan stronger, than that everything is going to go down under because of 2 out of 100s of card coming out this year. Of course, it can also go the other way around and suddenly this role becomes op and npe, so its just bad reasoning, hope it doesn't backfire.

There is always the chance that the next cycle or future deluxe expansions will have stronger cads for the seeker role, but, based on what the players knew before the roles were selected, their reasons seem pretty sound.

Do the players know what’s in store for the game beyond the first cycle? Nope. So they decided to do what they felt they had to until the card pool is deep enough to allow for it to self correct. That doesn’t mean they presume to know better than the designers, only that they have concerns about what the state of the game will be while it’s still in it’s infancy.

Until FFG wants to spoil all the cards they have planned for the next full year in advance, then all they players can do to impact the game is make the decisions that are under their control based on the info they have, which is what they did.