For more than a decade, people have complained that anything that isn't pure "bushido brawl" (ie: smashing face via military, or now mil/pol I suppose) is bad for the game and unfun inherently. Dishonor has taken the brunt of the hate, in my experience, but Honor has had it's fair share too.
I was reaaally hoping this nonsense would die with the CCG. Unfortunately it doesn't seem so.

Stop. Just... just stop. This dead horse needs a break from the beatings.

There is more than one victory condition in this game. If you don't plan for that, you're going to have a bad time. It's not the victory condition's fault, it's your fault.
Build your deck appropriately, or expect to get destroyed by play-styles you *decided* to ignore.

Its also not just Scorpion that do this. Crane, Phoenix, and Crab can all dishonor as well (if not better at this point)

Nobody wants to play a non interactive game of either honor or dishonor. The way FFG has redesigned conflict there is plenty of room for dishonor strategies imbedded in military or political form. Court Games or variations on dueling, for example, are delivery methods for more interactive honor or dishonor exchanges. With this in mind I do not particularly care for Backhanded Compliment in the environment for what it represents the same way I would not like a card that simply reads, "Gain 2 honor."

What game are you looking at? None of the victory conditions of this game are non-interactive, and the inclusion of Backhanded Compliment doesn't change that one whit.
By design your honor value is a manipulable stat in this game, and you absolutely have to take that into consideration when building a deck and making play choices. If the very thought of "my opponent might play an action that lowers my honor value" is "NPE" to you, my only advice is to toughen up, learn how to play around it, learn how to deck build around it, and become a better player.
What's not okay is having sour grapes because your opponent didn't play the victory condition you wanted them to.

The "concern" around Backhanded Compliment is utterly unfounded. The idea that it makes for a NPE is literally just baggage and whining hearkening back to the CCG era, and it's not even justifiable on it's face: military was much more brutal resource denial than honor or dishonor ever was.

FFG has done a wonderful job of removing "solitaire" playstyles from the game. They seem to be fully aware of that particular NPE and are designing away from it very specifically. Tools like Levy and BC are not an indication that we're going back to non-interactive gameplay. They're just not.

I think it is interesting that Backhanded Compliment is NPE, when half of the core set is NPE as well. Lion attacks with Toturi and plays 2 Way of the Lion to get him to 24 str., Kuroi Mori makes it almost impossible to break your stronghold, LPB kneels your characters every turn, Miromoto's Furry kneels your best character for only one fate, Tsukune simply triggers two rings without any conflict, free event cancels, free attchment removal etc.

1 hour ago, Ignithas said:

Miromoto's Furry

Best typo ever. I died a lil.

I see nothing wrong with Backhanded Compliment. Like Levi, it has an opportunity cost: a card to save one of your provinces from my attack. Failure to take it into consideration is no different than Way of the Crab killing a clan champion... it's your own fault.

I think the relevant point is that Backhanded Compliment is just too much acceleration toward a win condition.

It would be equally problematic if the Crane had a card (Sincere Compliment?) that gave them 3 Honor in exchange for their opponent drawing, or the Lion had a card (Biting Insult?) that was only-one-in-deck but let you burn a Conflict opportunity to immediately break a province without engaging.

ETA: it's also uncontested acceleration; as a Scorpion player, there's no reason not to sit on your Backhanded Compliments until your opponent hits 3-or-fewer Honor and immediately Dishonor them out. The only counterplay is artificially keeping your Honor at 4+ at all times or saving a bunch of Voice of Honors/Forged Edicts.

I dont think BC is OP, but with the few cards we have I see some issues for clans like Unicorn deal with that right now.

Anyway if the Worlds showed us something is the game is well balanced (except for the ponies). To be honest I didn't see Lion as a tier 1 clan in core, and many people too, like Crab that have won the Athens champ and surprised many.

There's no reason for complaining in each side, scorpion got a great role, indeed every clan received a good one, and there is both great keeper and seeker only cards. Scorpion will continue winning by dishonor without BC.. So I agree, the sour grapes needs to stop, on each side..

In the CCG there were editions where Dishonor/honor decks were NPE. You're being disingenuous if you claim otherwise. Currently? Honor isn't a thing yet and dishonor is something you essentially have to help your opponent do to you. Currently it isn't NPE imo but who knows what will happen as the game progresses.

IMO, losing to dishonor is not a NPE, in the LCG. The reason why I believe this that, in general, the play between players is interactive and you have some control over what is happening to yourself and your opponent. Where many people are coming up short in this argument is bringing in their past biases from the old game to the new one. The games share nothing but a name.

Old5R was built around strong cards that created buckets upon buckets of NPE. The best way to be successful in the game was to prevent your opponent from interacting with you. It was always like this but we still loved the game for what it was.

Fast forward 20 years and FFG has rebuilt the game around decision making between the players. You have to interact with your opponent. BC does not do this. It has no restrictions, no cost, and no opportunity for your opponent to respond. You cannot honestly group BC into the same category as Levy or any of the other dishonor cards/strategies because every single one of the others allow for the opponent to have some say in the matter. BC does not. What good is an extra card if I have already lost?

Dishonor, and honor for that manner, have finally been folding into the game in an interactive way because of the interactive design. Making cards that work outside of what appears to be the normal design model have more potential to upset the balance of the game.

Dishonor is not NPE, but being forced into a losing line of play to account for one card is. That's the choice you have when you have to account for BC out of Scorpion.

4 hours ago, Ignithas said:

I think it is interesting that Backhanded Compliment is NPE, when half of the core set is NPE as well. Lion attacks with Toturi and plays 2 Way of the Lion to get him to 24 str., Kuroi Mori makes it almost impossible to break your stronghold, LPB kneels your characters every turn, Miromoto's Furry kneels your best character for only one fate, Tsukune simply triggers two rings without any conflict, free event cancels, free attchment removal etc.

And then Toturi gets bowed by MF, or someone uses a card to straighten after being hit by MF or Tsukune gets Cloud the Mind.

Where exactly is the counter card to specifically combat something like BC? There is none. At least not that we know of yet.

Honoring/Dishonor victories are not NPE, per se - it's the amount of interaction with your opponent needed to achieve it that can be.

If the bulk of the ways you dishonor/honor out is because you are forced to participate in conflicts, play cards with conditions your opponent can play around, etc, then it's totally cool.

But the old solitaire rockets are not fun.

Honor, Fate, Card Draw these are the resources you have to juggle in LCG.

If you can't, you need to git gud.

I go d honored guest to be far more annoying than backhand. Against a clan like scorpion my strategy is killing thier hand and forcing them to bid high and dishonor themselves out. That's a viable way of dealing with a card like backhanded.

3 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

And then Toturi gets bowed by MF, or someone uses a card to straighten after being hit by MF or Tsukune gets Cloud the Mind.

Where exactly is the counter card to specifically combat something like BC? There is none. At least not that we know of yet.

Everything that gains honor or moving your dial a little bit to the right.

4 hours ago, Doji Meshou said:

I think the relevant point is that Backhanded Compliment is just too much acceleration toward a win condition.

...

Backhanded Compliments until your opponent hits 3-or-fewer Honor and immediately Dishonor them out. The only counterplay is artificially keeping your Honor at 4+ at all times or saving a bunch of Voice of Honors/Forged Edicts.

I really hope you are trolling.

First, it is not at all non-interactive. There is no way in this game it can be. Its an action. You get to play a card or execute an action after every single action/card your opponent plays.

Let's lay out a worst case scenario.

1 - A player is facing a Scorpion Keeper or another splashing BC.

2 - That player has fallen to 3 honor. (They probably should be making game play adjustments already despite BC)

3 - The opponent has managed to get 3 copies of BC in hand.

Now let's say all 3 of these conditions, of which you have some agency in controlling number 2, occur. Let's now go through a worst case sequence of play.

1 - The opponent plays a BC.

2 - The player draws a card and loses 1 honor. They are now at 2 honor.

3 - The player now has the chance to play a card or take an action (they now have one more option in hand)

4 - The opponent plays the second BC.

5 - The player draws a card and loses 1 honor. They are now at 1 honor.

6 - The player now has the chance to play a card or take an action (they now have one/two more options in hand)

7 - The opponent plays the third BC.

As shown the player had 2 options to interact. Now it is true that there is only a small number of actions/cards they can play that would stop the loss. But one cannot discount the fact that they have had some agency in preventing this from getting to this point. You have a say in how much honor you lose from bids. You have options for preventing characters from leaving play dishonored. You have options to have characters leave play honored. You have cards from a variety of clans that can influence the 'worst case' game state. You can splash to help with this.

There are just so many options that players can take to make BC dangerous but not the bogey-man some are making it out to be. If you feel you should just be able to ignore the card's existence and not be at some risk for doing so you are playing the wrong game.

Just now, Ignithas said:

Everything that gains honor or moving your dial a little bit to the right.

Tell me exactly how you move your dial a little bit to the right after you've already been dropped to 0?

I know where your are going with this, and I think you're wrong.

Trying to proactively protect against BC by bidding lower is just denying me additional cards that would help me win conflicts before the eventual slow crawl to an honor loss that a good Scorpion player would cause as they would then just pressure me my hand which eventually forces me to high bid or lose to their card advantage.

5 minutes ago, Krashwire said:

First, it is not at all non-interactive. There is no way in this game it can be. Its an action. You get to play a card or execute an action after every single action/card your opponent plays.

Not when that action drops you to 0 honor and you lose the game with no way to respond. Granted you do get that extra card in your hand as you lose. Yay!

7 minutes ago, Krashwire said:

I really hope you are trolling.

First, it is not at all non-interactive. There is no way in this game it can be. Its an action. You get to play a card or execute an action after every single action/card your opponent plays.

Let's lay out a worst case scenario.

1 - A player is facing a Scorpion Keeper or another splashing BC.

2 - That player has fallen to 3 honor. (They probably should be making game play adjustments already despite BC)

3 - The opponent has managed to get 3 copies of BC in hand.

Now let's say all 3 of these conditions, of which you have some agency in controlling number 2, occur. Let's now go through a worst case sequence of play.

1 - The opponent plays a BC.

2 - The player draws a card and loses 1 honor. They are now at 2 honor.

3 - The player now has the chance to play a card or take an action (they now have one more option in hand)

4 - The opponent plays the second BC.

5 - The player draws a card and loses 1 honor. They are now at 1 honor.

6 - The player now has the chance to play a card or take an action (they now have one/two more options in hand)

7 - The opponent plays the third BC.

As shown the player had 2 options to interact. Now it is true that there is only a small number of actions/cards they can play that would stop the loss. But one cannot discount the fact that they have had some agency in preventing this from getting to this point. You have a say in how much honor you lose from bids. You have options for preventing characters from leaving play dishonored. You have options to have characters leave play honored. You have cards from a variety of clans that can influence the 'worst case' game state. You can splash to help with this.

There are just so many options that players can take to make BC dangerous but not the bogey-man some are making it out to be. If you feel you should just be able to ignore the card's existence and not be at some risk for doing so you are playing the wrong game.

Now I'll take the whole scenario. Since BC can be played outside of the conflict phase and during any action window, what exactly are these options a player would have to gain themselves honor before the 3rd BC is played and they lose? Name one card that all clans can play reliably to gain honor or stop BC from causing honor loss.

BC is a good card, I don’t think it’s the be all and end all, and as the game evolves it will probably prove to be relative. It is however a bit scary if your opponent can draw up enough cards that they can start stripping huge chunks of honour off in a turn. When they are dropping you 3 with that 3 with levy and possibly dropping a contingency plan, all outside of conflict it feels all a bit risky. I like the idea of dishonour as a solid conflict based play style, chipping the opppnent down turn by turn.

I had a game where it went like this:

T1 I bid 2, Scorpion bids 1. I'm down 1 honor. I buy two dudes. Attack with one, other gets assassinated. Scorpion takes another 1 from stronghold. Im down 2 honor (at 8)

He then attacks Pol and wins air, so I'm down another 1 honor, and 1 for undefended, and 1 for blackmail artist (Im down to 5), get Spies At Courted and I'm down to 1 card in hand.

He attacks mill, I stronghold Cav in to defend, and get dishonored. Earth takes my last card

T2 I bid one , go first to win air, get Display of Powered. Down to 4. I lose a pol conflict because he has bumps and I have no cards, down to 3 due to blackmail and another 1 for undefended because he bowed out the guy I feint attacked with (was going to Favorable Grounds home), down to 2 honor.

T3 I bid 1. He contingency plans, I'm now at 1 honor, he then assassinates my dishonored character before I could win a fire conflict.

Horrible negative play experience. I had literally 0 things I could do.

Backhanded compliment will make the above dishonor scenario even worse, as it will happen turn 2 (possibly even turn 1 if playing against a clan like Crab who I don't expect to dishonor me. They have in their starting hand 3 Backhandeds and a levy, bid 2 and draw 2 more levy, and their dynasty flop is a goblin sneak to take all my fate. If I bid 5 that means I'm at 7, 3x Backhandeds take me to 4 honor, 3x levy takes me to 1 honor, and they either win air or get an unopposed victory means I'd be dishonored out t1...)

But, I played Old5R since the beginning and I understand that's just how things go. There are plenty of scenarios in New5R that just feel bad. Heck, Benies tried to drop 2x Way of the Lions (would feel bad) and got 2x voice of Honored (feels bad). I had 3x Display of Powers played against me in a row. I've had Crane open up t1 Savvy+challenger+Way of to my 2x holdings and two mystics to then T2 get the exact same combo off again...

13 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Name one card that all clans can play reliably to gain honor or stop BC from causing honor loss.

Ishi, I agree, there are no cards that gain honor reliably right now. But there is also no BC in the game right now. We don't know that there wont be any counters to it in the upcoming cycle.

As for countering the loss, counter the card. There is such a way in both Scorpion and Crane. You can splash them so any clan does have reliable access to these should they choose to do so. There is also the fact that you must be a particular situation for BC to actually be a game ending threat. If it is not used to close out the game then you have chances to recover, and now with more cards in hand. You also can make play choices to try and prevent your honor from getting to that low a point, particularly if you are playing against a player who you suspect has such a card in their deck. There may be more ways coming in future cards as well.

Some other potential options that come to mind, Levy, sacrifice of an honored character, and the Scorpion stronghold action. Is it a narrow list? Yes. But again we don't have the whole picture of what is coming.

Overall, my point is, we don't have enough information to declare that BC will be the apocalyptic, game-destroying, bogey-man many are making it out to be. Will it be strong? Most likely yes. Will it be 'broken'. We don't know for sure but I am inclines to say no until we have evidence to the contrary.

Will it be an NPE? That's 1 - subjective and 2 - not as relevant as people seem to think it is. Let me explain why I believe in 2 here. First off if you are talking about a non-competitive environment, such as casual play, it doesn't matter. You simply let your opponent know you are not interested in playing against that card. If you lost to it by surprise once, so what, losing in a casual game didn't cost you anything but time (and let's face it, playing games casually is meant to kill time, not earn you something special). If one is in a competitive environment and they have a problem with this card they probably shouldn't be playing competitively. A cooperative game is probably better for such a player.

Either way the NPE thing is moot. The card isn't being banned. It WILL be played in some Crab and Phoenix decks. Maybe in others as well.

27 minutes ago, Vutall said:

I had a game where it went like this:

T1 I bid 2, Scorpion bids 1. I'm down 1 honor. I buy two dudes. Attack with one, other gets assassinated. Scorpion takes another 1 from stronghold. Im down 2 honor (at 8)

He then attacks Pol and wins air, so I'm down another 1 honor, and 1 for undefended, and 1 for blackmail artist (Im down to 5), get Spies At Courted and I'm down to 1 card in hand.

He attacks mill, I stronghold Cav in to defend, and get dishonored. Earth takes my last card

T2 I bid one , go first to win air, get Display of Powered. Down to 4. I lose a pol conflict because he has bumps and I have no cards, down to 3 due to blackmail and another 1 for undefended because he bowed out the guy I feint attacked with (was going to Favorable Grounds home), down to 2 honor.

T3 I bid 1. He contingency plans, I'm now at 1 honor, he then assassinates my dishonored character before I could win a fire conflict.

Horrible negative play experience. I had literally 0 things I could do.

Backhanded compliment will make the above dishonor scenario even worse, as it will happen turn 2 (possibly even turn 1 if playing against a clan like Crab who I don't expect to dishonor me. They have in their starting hand 3 Backhandeds and a levy, bid 2 and draw 2 more levy, and their dynasty flop is a goblin sneak to take all my fate. If I bid 5 that means I'm at 7, 3x Backhandeds take me to 4 honor, 3x levy takes me to 1 honor, and they either win air or get an unopposed victory means I'd be dishonored out t1...)

But, I played Old5R since the beginning and I understand that's just how things go. There are plenty of scenarios in New5R that just feel bad. Heck, Benies tried to drop 2x Way of the Lions (would feel bad) and got 2x voice of Honored (feels bad). I had 3x Display of Powers played against me in a row. I've had Crane open up t1 Savvy+challenger+Way of to my 2x holdings and two mystics to then T2 get the exact same combo off again...

Ok, so there are a couple of things here to consider. Your opponent had what sounds like a perfect draw. That happens, that's just card games. It sounds like he made very good choices and you got outplayed. Again, it happens. We all get out played now and then.

Lastly, it sounds like you were playing Unicorn. Sadly that is just handicapping yourself at this stage of the game. Even a really skilled Unicorn player is going to suffer against a moderately decent draw of any other clan. Having a match where the opponent has a nearly ideal draw, well you just outlined the results.

48 minutes ago, Krashwire said:

I really hope you are trolling... [snipped for some interpolation and other general rudeness]

Nope. I meant what I said. Which is why I said it.