I'm looking to build a janky Dragon deck that starves its opponents of fate, but don't think it's got enough of an edge or consistency to it. Any thoughts are welcome. Current decklist is:

Quote

Dragon: Seeker of Fire

Mountain's Anvil Castle

Restoration of Balance

Pilgrimage

Rally to the Cause

Fertile Fields

Meditations on the Tao

3x Secluded Temple

3x Imperial Storehouse

3x Doomed Shugenja

3x Togashi Initiate

3x Agasha Swordsmith

3x Seeker Initiate

3x Miya Mystic

3x Niten Adept

3x Seeker of Enlightenment

1x Wandering Ronin

3x Enlightened Warrior

3x Kitsuki Investigator

3x Niten Master

3x Togashi Yokuni

3x Let Go

3x Mirumoto's Fury

3x Togashi Kazue

3x Stone of Sorrows

3x Ancestral Daisho

2x Kitsune's Method

3x Written in the Stars

3x Jade Masterpiece

3x Censure

3x Goblin Sneak

3x Good Omen

3x Rout

3x Embrace the Void (6 influence)

2x Consumed by Five Fires (4 influence)

The idea is that you land a Stone of Sorrows on Enlightened Warrior (or anyone else, really, but the warrior would stick around the longest), put lots of fate on rings, get really strong Seeker of Enlightenments, and use those to break provinces. Or, use the fate on rings to cast Consumed by Five Fires to wipe their board, and swing in next turn.

Combos:

- Enlightened Warrior can stick around for as long as opponents keep attacking, pretty much, if he's carrying the Stone of Sorrows.

- Embrace the Void on Enlightened Warrior can funnel that fate back to you.

- Good Omen helps keep your Stone of Sorrows guy around longer.

- Obvious plays like paying fate to rings to pump Seeker of Enlightenment. Written in the Stars is especially hilarious turn one, and also makes it impossible to attack into Enlightened Warrior without giving him fate.

Splash possibilities:

- Phoenix of course gives you extra fate return with Embrace the Void, and enables huge resource swings with Consumed by Five Fires. There are enough shugenja to make it happen sometimes, I feel, but it might be iffy.

- Crane give you Voice of Honor, Perfect Gift, and Test of Skill for more consistency. Raitsugu could even get in there for some Duelist trait action

- Lion gives you Time for War. Normally I wouldn't like this card, but the deck is so dependent on a few attachments that it might be worth it for the consistency.

Problems:

- Is this deck just entirely a Stone of Sorrows combo deck? If so, how do you get Stone of Sorrows consistently? Is there a good way to recycle the Seeker of Enlightenments if they get assassinated or otherwise answered?

- Is there another way to apply Fate pressure? I like Goblin Sneak for the fate theft, but the only similar card is Levy, and this deck doesn't pressure honor enough to make them give you the fate instead of honor. Maybe Raitsugu's not a bad option with Banzai for attacking fate.

Basically, if you have ideas for how to maximize this 'fate bank' style of deck, I'd love to hear them. Currently, this is super janky and inconsistent, so it needs a lot of work, and I don't know if there's a way to make it viable.

I think you're right about being dependent on Stone of Sorrows. Probably your most reliable means to get it would be to mulligan as much of your starting hand as you can afford to start with it, and/ or try to start off with an Agasha Swordsmith to try to find one.

I'd swap out meditations on the tao for night raid, as more discard tends to be better for pressure/control than fate removal.

Similarly I'd drop secluded temple (because it really isn't that great) and wandering ronin (similarly not great) for kitsuki yaruma and ascetic visionary (yaruma allows for reuse of the discard provinces, which significantly improves the discard pressure, and ascetic visionary is frequently undervalued in spite of his strong stats, and you're probably running enough monks for him to work decently).

Also, I'd drop good omen for tattooed wanderer, good omen is decent when you don't control the fate on the board or when you are relying more heavily on draw power than your opponent, but if this type of deck is working properly neither of those are generally the case, whereas tattooed wanderer gives covert which is extremely useful, is both an attachment and a conflict personality and thus is highly flexible, and he makes more people viable targets for ascetic visionary (remember stone of sorrows requires the attached character to be ready to function, so while enlightened warrior is a great choice for staying power, if you can't keep him ready it rather limits the utility of the emo stone, thus putting a monk on his back and running ascetic visionary fills that gap, as such having more attachable monks is hugely advantageous).

Also, once we get one more in clan courtier I'd say we'd have enough to justify running some courtier only events, thus boosting the honor pressure we get from doing discard control, at which point splashing scorpion or crab for further dishonor tech/pressure becomes significantly more viable.

A big thing to keep in mind when building/playing dragon is that we are all about flexibility, we don't do just one thing extremely well, we do lots of things well enough. The emo stone and written in the stars (along with some other less powerful stuff) go a long way toward making fate control viable, but it still doesn't work great in a vacuum (as you point out the deck falls apart if you don't have the emo stone), so adding various other means of control and pressure make a huge difference, and the most readily available means for us to do that is with discard tech, and lucky us there isn't much to do to mitigate strong discard tech, unlike most other forms of control like bow and send home. We are also the most balanced in terms of military and political skill, and that is a huge extra layer of flexibility because it means we are more or less equally effective at both types (something few other clans can do easily), but if you don't run the strong political people (like ascetic visionary and kitsuki yaruma) our ability to do that drops heavily and thus we lose one of our biggest inherent advantages.

I'm not sure what to drop for it, but I'd try to find some way to squeeze way of the dragon in there at least once, as we've got some really powerful actions, so being able to double up on them is huge. Enlightened warrior suddenly is twice as effective, ascetic visionary can ready two peeps, if you are facing someone who likes to dishonor people togashi initiate can suddenly be always honored or at least never dishonored unless your opponent wants to target him three times, togashi yokuni has the best ability on the board at all times and with way of the dragon he has it twice, mirumoto raitsugu suddenly can kill most characters most of the time or when they have no fate two characters, niten adept can bow two dudes, etc.

Also, when splashing crane (or really anyone other than phoenix) I'd drop the miya mystics for mirumoto prodigies and raitsugus (maybe dropping one imperial storehouse allowing for 2x apiece). Additionally, in your analysis for crane splash you missed the two most viable splash options for us, namely above question and admit defeat (although admit defeat is really only worth it when you have mirumoto prodigies because that is the only way to guarantee they are defending alone). While voice of honor is a good event negate it requires having more honored characters than your opponent, something you can't expect to do consistently, whereas above question makes one important peep immune to your opponent's events (which is a useful means of keeping our vital low cost peeps around in an assassinate heavy environment).

I hope this helps!

1 minute ago, psychie said:

I'd swap out meditations on the tao for night raid, as more discard tends to be better for pressure/control than fate removal.

Similarly I'd drop secluded temple (because it really isn't that great) and wandering ronin (similarly not great) for kitsuki yaruma and ascetic visionary (yaruma allows for reuse of the discard provinces, which significantly improves the discard pressure, and ascetic visionary is frequently undervalued in spite of his strong stats, and you're probably running enough monks for him to work decently).

It's a fate denial deck; maybe you missed that ;). Meditations and Temple are key to the strategy.

I'd suggest dropping Good Omen and Censure from the conflict; Good Omen is going a little overboard on your own fate, and you need to draw cards to enable your strategy. I don't see you needing or being able to play it that often. Censure is too conditional, perhaps try out Finger of Jade instead. It's an attachment, so it benefits from the stronghold, and it does a lot of what you want Censure to do, block Assassinations on your Seekers. Perhaps try Mantra of Fire as a 2 of, you have monks that want to stick around.

Dynasty wise, 3 Miya Mystic + 3 Seeker Initiate + 6 Holdings is going to result in a LOT of terrible dynasty draws. I would drop the Mystics entirely, you have Let Go. Raitsugu would be a clear replacement. Drop the Seeker Initiates by 1 and drop the Ronin and perhaps try Ascetic Visionary; it goes well with the Monk theme and keeps your guys ready. Ideally you want 2 powerful characters out there that you can ready multiple times so that the Temple pops if it's out there. That also means that Indomitable Will on the conflict side could be fairly crucial; perhaps drop Jade Masterpiece and Written in the Stars down by a combination of 2 and add 2 IW.

Neat idea, though, I like it! Janky decks are always the funnest :).

I didn't miss that it was a fate denial deck, in fact if you had read my entire post you would have seen that I address why I'm recommending dropping meditations on the tao in spite of it being a fate denial deck. And most dragon players (myself included) seem to agree that secluded temple is not a very great holding because it takes up a province without discarding itself, it requires that your opponent have more personalities than you to use at all, AND to make much of a difference at all they need to have at least one fate on many peeps. All of those make it extremely easy to play around, and when they do play around it it becomes more of a liability than anything else.

And as far as those two being "key to the strategy" goes, just because they can some fate sometimes does not make them "key" to a fate denial strategy, it doesn't even make them preferable over other options that don't directly deal with fate at all. The only card that is inarguably "key to the strategy" is stone of sorrows, and potentially written in the stars (which I notice you recommend having fewer of).

In addition to this, the OP mentioned having issues with inconsistency, which makes sense because he overspecialized in an underdeveloped subtheme in a clan that is all about being flexible (again, as I pointed out in my previous post), and he even specifically requested ways to increase honor pressure, which my recommendations would do. Just as a rigid branch is liable to snap in a gust of wind while the more bendable ones are fine, rigidly adhering to an arbitrary expression like "fate denial" instead of accepting alternatives that do not in fact make that expression any less applicable is a great path toward failure.

In conclusion, in the future please refrain from accusing people of missing the point until you are certain you are not in fact missing theirs. And yes, I know you were poking fun but it was still highly dismissive of several valid points I made without actually addressing any of them, and that is not constructive for anyone, either me or the OP.

1 hour ago, psychie said:

I didn't miss that it was a fate denial deck, in fact if you had read my entire post you would have seen that I address why I'm recommending dropping meditations on the tao in spite of it being a fate denial deck. And most dragon players (myself included) seem to agree that secluded temple is not a very great holding because it takes up a province without discarding itself, it requires that your opponent have more personalities than you to use at all, AND to make much of a difference at all they need to have at least one fate on many peeps. All of those make it extremely easy to play around, and when they do play around it it becomes more of a liability than anything else.

Oh, I read it. I didn't actually see anything that mentioned why Night Raid is better; if you are trying to attack your opponent's fate pool, I'm not sure how attacking their hand helps. You said "more discard tends to be better for pressure/control", but he's specifically looking for fate denial. Could you elaborate?

Just because "most Dragon players" agree that Secluded Temple is sub-par does not make it poor for this particular strategy. Personally, I hate playing against the stupid thing because

1. Not putting fate on characters is a great way to lose the game. You said "they need to have at least one fate on many peeps", but I disagree; they only have to have fate on ONE peep per turn for it to be relevant. The Void ring is one of the most popular rings, and you are getting a Void effect FOR FREE (if you meet the conditions).
2. Having more characters than your opponent is critical for many decks to win (Lion, Unicorn primarily, often Crab), so even it fails to trigger, you have forced your opponent to play sub-optimally (is that even a word?).

Granted, it takes up a dynasty slot, which is certainly a drawback. This is why I recommended trimming the dynasty deck of the low-impact characters, the deck would likely need to lean towards fewer, bigger bodies to make it be effective.

1 hour ago, psychie said:

In addition to this, the OP mentioned having issues with inconsistency, which makes sense because he overspecialized in an underdeveloped subtheme in a clan that is all about being flexible (again, as I pointed out in my previous post), and he even specifically requested ways to increase honor pressure, which my recommendations would do. Just as a rigid branch is liable to snap in a gust of wind while the more bendable ones are fine, rigidly adhering to an arbitrary expression like "fate denial" instead of accepting alternatives that do not in fact make that expression any less applicable is a great path toward failure.

Well, he only mentioned honor pressure in reference to Levy, essentially saying that the honor pressure isn't high enough to force Levy into fate pressure. We're specifically looking for fate pressure here, so Levy isn't likely going to be a great splash; I think that was the point. You seem to coming at this from the standpoint of "Let's build a competitive deck that utilises fate denial". I'm coming at it from the standpoint of "Let's build a fate denial deck that's as competitive as it can be". I don't think this is meant to be a competitive deck (the OP can correct me if I'm wrong), just one that takes a particular theme and makes it as competitive and consistent as it can be. I'm simply providing suggestions that stick to a few core card choices (Meditations and Temple included) and attempts to build around them.

Thanks for the feedback on this, guys. I don't have time tonight to try out the various suggestions, but I'll let you know later when I can.

And yeah, I am specifically looking to go all in on a fate-denial theme, even if it's at the cost of running other sub-par cards. I'm sure there are a lot of solid core dragon cards this deck could run over other options, but I think at this point, if I don't go heavy on denying fate, it won't have any impact at all. After I get the deck fleshed out, I'll make some decisions about dropping on-theme cards with just better cards. Hoping right not to just have some options to make their board hurt and not be able to put up much of an opposition.

Re: Secluded Temple, I find it hard to believe that it's bad. Obviously I'm not a dragon player, so I don't have the game experiences to justify my opinion, but it just seems to me like such a simple objective to cost them a fate every turn has to be worth it. I could see, though, in a deck like this, the opponent realizing they are short on honor and focus, they start playing just one character each turn, and avoiding the trigger.

Alright, the bit about having to play around secluded temple being annoying is a fair point, and I do see the value in the card, the biggest issue is that it doesn't self discard, meaning until you discard it at the end of a turn it is taking up space in a province that could be better utilized with basically any other dynasty card, and if it isn't immediately useful on the turn it flips, more often than not it gets discarded at the end of the turn anyway, meaning that most of the time all it is is a dead flip. And as far as high impact dynasty cards to off set that goes, dragon doesn't have many of those yet (frankly it could be argued that the only clan that does in the current card pool is crab, and they were designed around holding use) so that doesn't do a whole lot to mitigate this.

Yes he only mentioned honor pressure in reference to levy, but it doesn't change the fact that it is still something to be considered, and frankly whether he splashes in levy or not it would still aid in his efforts regardless.

As for the fate denial semantics (I don't use the word semantics dismissively like most seem to, semantics are very important and can cause vital differences in very subtle ways, as seems to be the case here), I don't believe removing those two cards would make the deck any less of a fate denial deck, and in fact the idea of a "fate denial" deck (although not generally put in those terms, per se) is one of the most exciting prospects of the dragon cards revealed thus far in various dragon clan discussion groups, but unless and until more cards are revealed that do just that (and do it really well) the strategy of denying your opponent fate is incomplete in that it cannot stand alone, so trying to build a deck that focuses on it to the EXCLUSION of other useful tactics available to us is not very useful, as right now if we only used cards that actively work for that goal we don't have a complete deck, so we need to include filler, and it's better for everyone if that filler is useful without stepping on the toes of fate denial, and choosing some cards to support those secondary tactic over ones that support the primary tactic when at this stage of the game the cards for the secondary tactic are more useful toward furthering the ultimate goal (ie, one or more of the win conditions) is not going to change which tactic is the primary tactic (unless we do that so many times that there is little left, but I'm talking about 2 cards here).

As for why I suggest night raid of meditations in a fate denial deck, well that is actually a recommendation based on the inclusion of kitsuki yaruma. Denying your opponent fate is all well and good, but because you get 7 fate every turn guaranteed, and there are opportunities to gain more beyond that, therefore while we can hit their wallet to limit their other resources, it doesn't go as far as it could if we also target their other resources, ie their hand and less directly their honor pool. Meditations on the tao only denies 1 fate and only on a character participating in the conflict, and only at that province, so if they fail to break it the first time (where you likely took 1 fate away), the next time they can just not use anyone with fate on them, or use people they don't care if they lose a fate, or alternatively just go after the other provinces so they don't have to deal with that again. Now, then if not for kitsuki yaruma the same argument could easily be made about night raid (and in fact the argument would be stronger here) because it is a reaction to flipping, meaning unless you can put it back face down it will only go off once period, however we can do that with kitsuki yaruma, and because we also have restoration of balance thanks to seeker of fire this means that they can't just avoid running into the discard, because if they want to win by province breaks (the most common win condition right now) they have to keep going after them until one or the other breaks.

Of course if he decides to stick with meditations, then I would suggest swapping restoration of balance with feast or famine, because that one also denies fate, and it does it arguably better than meditations, and because we're seeker of fire we can do both.

And I still posit that neither secluded temple nor meditations on the tao (nor feast or famine, for that matter) are core cards for this concept because they only affect the fate on the board in a minor way when they do so at all, whereas stone of sorrow makes the concept possible in the first place, and the stone aside written in the stars has a decent range of application and variable uses, those are cards that I would consider to be core, or key, or whichever synonym to the idea of a deck based around fate denial.

An important thing to remember is that fate denial is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means to an end, that end being one of the three win conditions, and yes having fun concept decks like this is, well, fun, but when you come up with an idea for a deck that says "step 1: deny my opponent fate, step 2: ???, step 3: profit?" it is like saying your strategy in a fight is to punch the other guy in the gut to knock the wind out of him, that isn't a victory that is a first step, adding discard tech and honor pressure is like saying first I'm gonna punch him in the gut to knock the wind out of him, then I'm gonna get his legs out from under him, and then I'm gonna put him in a submission hold that acts to cut off his air way to keep him from catching his breath and to force him to panic thus handing me the fight.

And while this is a fun concept to play around with, it has the potential to be very very viable competitively, but without the remaining elements that make it viable it completely falls flat, and while I also love playing fun concept decks that aren't necessarily the most competitive, the decks cease being fun when I only win 1 out of 10 games because the deck is so sub-optimal (and yes that is a real word) that I only get to do the fun concept thing it was built to do when I get lucky and draw exactly the right cards early on.

Of course, I'm not saying that that will happen with this deck, in fact, I expect it will do quite decently, probably averaging around a 30-60% win rate depending on how fast you can get the stone of sorrows out and how long you can keep it in play, but at this stage I don't really have the data to assume it will do crazy good or completely bomb, but if there are glaring holes that can be easily filled without changing the overall concept of the deck, then it seems silly to stick with less optimal cards that slightly synergize with the overall theme but are not necessary to it still being the overall theme over cards that help to fill a hole in the strategy.

Also, sorry if this seems like I'm being overly aggressive about this issue, if the OP wants to take my advice great, if he doesn't also great, I just have a tendency to take umbrage at people dismissing ideas and suggestions out of hand without addressing the argument therein, it's one of my pet peeves and if it seems like I over reacted to it, I apologize, I know your intent was meant to poke fun at me and not just dismiss what I was saying, just that kind of disagreement carries some baggage for me and I can get irked when people engage in that kind of dismissal casually and nonchalantly.

A few modest sharings, as I am running a deck with a similar (though not so focused) theme.

3 x Togashi kazue: I know it is a great card, specially on this theme, but at the end I dropped to 2x. This card should remain in play for quite a long time, at least if it does her job, and then drawing another one is a dead card most of the time. Also, it is not a good turn 1 draw. That is why I dropped to 2 copies.

Secluded temple seems like a good card, and it definitely seems to fit in the theme... but then you play it you discover that, if your deck does what it is made for, you cannot use it. You are trying to dismiss oponnent characters and let yours stay, so at the end you find yourself having more characters than your rival. And if your deck is not working, secluded temple is not strong enough to change that, and its effect is not so huge imho to justify blocking a province for 2-3 turns. I have dropped to 2 copies as well, and I eager to drop to 1.

Consumed by five fires: of course I never played, but given the (increasing) existence of cancelling efects I would not risk.

3 x good omen: I also know it is a theme card, but again I ended dropping to 2x. It is situational, unless you play for it, and I found I did not like to be restrained in my drawing for being eager to play this card. Now I have 2 copies and play it differently: I try to rely on other fate advantages (mantra of fire, reprieve, etc...) on the first turns, and probably in turns 3-4 I finally find a way of playing good omen, as the card advantage slowly goes on my side thanks to the ancestral tools and my freedom on bidding. It is a card I don´t like to see on turn 1 so I dropped 1 copy.

I play my deck with crab mainly due to Reprieve. It is a very good "fate" advantage as it works with the Stronghold and also protects against assasination (it shines on a niten adept). It adds to the theme, as your character stays longer.

Hope this helps you building your theme deck, Your posting helped me also.

Looking at the deck list again, I can see how Secluded Temple might not play out correctly like you guys are saying. Also don't see why I wouldn't run Assassinates and Raitsugu as ways of attacking characters to apply pressure to fate.

I really want to make Consumed by Five Fires good, but I know in my heart of hearts that it's way too expensive XD

So, -3 Temples +3 Raitsugu is a good place to start. Might be worth replacing the Miya Mystic with something relatively cheap, like a Seppun Guardsman. I'd like the Ascetic Visionary, but the deck feels like it's getting too expensive at that point. Have to give it a try.

The Conflict deck probably depends on what splash. If Phoenix is too risky, Crane would be a good way to search up the Stone of Sorrows, but I do like Reprieve as well. Maybe 3x Reprieve, 3x Hiruma Ambusher. For Crane, 3x Test of Skill and 3x Perfect Gift. Needs more attachments if that's the case, though. 1 in 4 is not good odds for Test of Skill. Probably something like -3 Rout for +3 Assassinate, and -1 Togashi Kazue for the extra sixth splash card (-5 phoenix, +6 splash).

Thanks again for all the input, I'll keep tweaking it! Unfortunately, Jigoku Online seems to be down for now, so testing it is a little hard.

This is very much a matter of ymmv, and it is obviously a rather uncommon opinion, but I don't like running assassinate unless I have a build that includes things specifically for honor gain, because I find that because of our hand dependency I'm frequently floating around 5-8 honor, and as such assassinate can be a very risky move, and if you have less than 3 honor you can't play it, turning it into a dead card. I mean, I know it's super powerful, but it can also be super risky, so I'd be cautious of running a playset of them.

Also, I don't think route is the best choice to pull for it, because meeting the military requirement is relati vely easy for us, and you should be able to afford the fate cost most of the time, and while send home is less powerful than discard it is still very strong, has way more valid targets, and is way cheaper.

not trying to say don't run assassinate, just be wary of it and preferably find a way to keep route.