There seems to be a lot of variety in L5R, from player to player and clan to clan, in the way that people construct their decks and curve the costs of their characters and cards in their conflict deck. For example, the new champs Lion deck has a very healthy mix of low and high cost characters but definitely favouring lower cost characters. On a quick count, 3 zero cost, 9 one cost, 7 two cost, 11 three cost, 4 four cost and 3 five cost ( the latter of which is likely to rise with the emergence of Ikoma Ujiaki!). His conflict deck is very low cost, containing no characters and all zero and one cost cards.

I'm still trying to find my way with deckbuilding in this game, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this subject, what they have found works and doesn't for each clan. Feel free to share your experiences and show others what kind of decks your currently working on.

Tetsuo

This is definitely subject to peoples play styles as well as the clan they play. As a Scorpion player my dynasty deck has many two cost characters and only a few 1 costs. My 3 costs are average and I use all copies of Shoju, Miyako, Yunako, and Yogo Hiroue (4 and 5 cost). My conflict deck on the other hand is primarily 0 cost events with the minor exception of a few attachments and Adept of Shadows and Meek Informant. I find it runs quite well for province breaking and dishonor.

The design supports different deck shapes in that regard, depending on access to surplus Fate, number of Holdings (a high number of Holdings works best in 'Elite decks'), presence of certain events in your conflict deck (Charge! first and foremost) and so on.

I think it is best to ensure a large portion of your Conflict deck is 0 cost. Nothing sucks like having a 3 card hand, costing 2-3 fate each... I typically run most free neutral conflict cards, with most of the low cost clan cards. I rarely use 3+ cost conflict cards at all.

For the Dynasty deck I think it depends on your clan. If you are playing a clan that relies on fewer, larger characters (Dragon / Phoenix) then you will be more top heavy in the cost spread while a clan that plays a heavier, broader rush (Lion, Unicorn, Crab) you're likely to have a much lower average cost. This depends mostly on the clan at this point as most Dynasty decks are just "every clan dynasty card except what is just bad." There really aren't a lot of options here...

Being that I want to play a Dishonor Scorpion deck - as the card options rise I will likely use more lower cost characters who are extremely efficient like Liar and Blackmail Artist over middle cost cards that are kinda meh like Favored Niece or Shosuro Actress. I may even drop Shoju if a more dishonor focused character came out on par with Hiroue.

This is said before knowing what cards are to come though! As cards come out my opinion may change. Currently I prefer buying 2 cheap characters with fate over getting just 1 bigger character turn 1.

23 hours ago, cforfar said:

This is definitely subject to peoples play styles as well as the clan they play. As a Scorpion player my dynasty deck has many two cost characters and only a few 1 costs. My 3 costs are average and I use all copies of Shoju, Miyako, Yunako, and Yogo Hiroue (4 and 5 cost). My conflict deck on the other hand is primarily 0 cost events with the minor exception of a few attachments and Adept of Shadows and Meek Informant. I find it runs quite well for province breaking and dishonor.

I find that interesting coming from a scorpion player. IMHO Scorpion are paying a fortune for their conflict cards. I have never seen so many high cost cards. I know they have a holding that reduces the price by 1 but its not enough based on what I have observed specially when you consider how many cards or abilities just cancel or redirect actions.

I play with as much low cost stuff as I can because I feel that I just dont have enough Fate to do anything unless I pack my conflict deck with 0 cost cards.

I agree with the need for a low cost conflict deck, pretty much all my fate is spent on characters which is not surprising with Lion. Generally unless i'm passing early in the dynasty phase to claim the fate and stockpile my existing fate for a swarm next turn, i will either leave one remaining fate in my pool when I am the second player so that I'm not snookered for options in a conflict or choose a ring with fate on it if i'm the first player (2nd turn onwards). This is not without risk though as fate stealing cards such as Goblin Sneak and possibly Levy if my fate was low would be devastating.

I've found Joe from Cincinatti's article on fate management to be very helpful as a starting point to thinking a bit more about controlling fate. There really is nothing more disheartening than having in your hand the card you need to swing a conflict in your favour and not having the fate to pay for it...but I digress...

I really can't see myself playing any high cost conflict cards such as the new Kamayari that will be at my disposal tomorrow (yippee!) Until I have the means to play it for free (Time for War).

On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎15 at 8:55 AM, Novacaine2 said:

I find that interesting coming from a scorpion player. IMHO Scorpion are paying a fortune for their conflict cards. I have never seen so many high cost cards. I know they have a holding that reduces the price by 1 but its not enough based on what I have observed specially when you consider how many cards or abilities just cancel or redirect actions.

I play with as much low cost stuff as I can because I feel that I just dont have enough Fate to do anything unless I pack my conflict deck with 0 cost cards.

As powerful as Scorpion's high cost events are I find that they contain far too many conditions to trigger them. As a Scorpion player I actually find myself having equal or higher honor than my opponents (it is the way I play I guess), my conflict deck is 40 cards and 34 of them are zero costs (the rest are one or two). I play an extremely aggressive Scorpion deck going for broken provinces. I find many of my games end in a dishonor win naturally as the cards they have naturally tend towards it (i.e Way of the Scorpion and Shameful Display dishonoring characters).