This is just a fun experiment: If I could magically make FFG reprint some of the Unicorn cards to make the clan more consistently viable, which cards would I redesign, and how?

This is a work in progress, but in general, I wanted to make their movement both broader and more consistent. Also, I'm adding a little bit more support for political conflicts and honor gain, while still keeping the mostly military focus.

Step One: The Stronghold, Dynasty characters, and province.

It seems like the weakest stronghold, though that's partially due to not enough cards meshing with it completely. I slightly increased the province strength, and made the ability move into or out of a military conflict.




For now, I've concentrated on Dynasty character that I think are truly sub-par, and / or needed a nudge towards making the clan work together more cohesively.

I'll be adding a new version of their province later. For now, here's a new conflict card I created to add some flavorful honor-gain , and to show the other side of the Unicorn.

I like the idea of the Compasion of the Ki-Rin......

Changing all the other stuff I still feel is a bit premature. Moving in is already strong. Moving in and out is a bit over the top for the stronghold. Tatsuo would be fine.

I agree, moving out may be too powerful ?

In other news, your flavor text is great!

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To be perfectly honest, basing a clan around moving between conflicts is a flawed concept for this game, since only one province can be attacked at a time and because defenders bow at resolution now.

If you gave Unicorn that stronghold, they would be a terror to deal with, as they could duck out of any conflict they are suddenly losing due to their opponent spending cards ("oh, you defended with a guy and banzai'd? I'll just move my guy home. You're out a ready character and a card and an honor and I'm out...nothing. Nothing at all.")

That kind of card and board advantage spanned over 2 to 3 turns would be absolutely stifling. Your opponent winning conflicts would feel like losing, and that's not something that FFG should build into the game.

Or, you could do that. But then your characters would need to be heavily taxed. We're talking Tatsuo would need to be a 2/1/1 or something like that (but still cost 4).

I don't know what they're going to do with Unicorn, but I think what they really need to do is just give them a brand new stronghold and start all over with new cards over time slowly replacing the old cards.

34 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

To be perfectly honest, basing a clan around moving between conflicts is a flawed concept for this game, since only one province can be attacked at a time and because defenders bow at resolution now.

If you gave Unicorn that stronghold, they would be a terror to deal with, as they could duck out of any conflict they are suddenly losing due to their opponent spending cards ("oh, you defended with a guy and banzai'd? I'll just move my guy home. You're out a ready character and a card and an honor and I'm out...nothing. Nothing at all.")

That kind of card and board advantage spanned over 2 to 3 turns would be absolutely stifling. Your opponent winning conflicts would feel like losing, and that's not something that FFG should build into the game.

Or, you could do that. But then your characters would need to be heavily taxed. We're talking Tatsuo would need to be a 2/1/1 or something like that (but still cost 4).

I don't know what they're going to do with Unicorn, but I think what they really need to do is just give them a brand new stronghold and start all over with new cards over time slowly replacing the old cards.

I think the problem is not a design flaw with moving in and out of conflicts per say, but rather the cards given are mediocre at doing so. However, on the flip side of that, I think if FFG were to pump out great to amazing cards for Unicorn that the game itself may be broken. I have to wonder if it was intentional to start off with "weaker" cards for them in order to slowly boost them over time. I find that people do not seem to understand how to properly use the clan as well as they cold be, we have a great Unicorn player in our roughly 12 person pool. I personally think they are an interesting clan mechanics wise, however I will forever be a Scorpion player.

Part of me almost thinks Harmonize's effect would have made more sense as a Unicorn card. Maybe call it something else, like "Wild Chase" as it represents sending one of your characters away and enticing one of your opponent's characters to leave the conflict to chase after them.

Honestly, I think early in an LCG's life, any faction is only a couple of good cards away from being viable. Imagine a scenario where they got some of the 'power' cards instead of other clans - Lion's Pride Brawler with a Cavalry trait, stuff like that. Suddenly, they'd be a **** of a lot more viable, and a lot more of their 'bad' cards would be viable (e.g. Breakthrough would start to look a bit hotter). They probably only really need two-three great cards and a similar amount of good ones, and suddenly they are fine.

And someone pretty much always starts slow in LCGs - look at the Night's Watch in Thrones 2.0. They spent most of the first cycle as a limited gimmick deck, but then pretty much as soon as the second cycle hit they got a HUGE influx of power and have been competitive ever since. I can understand the frustration of having to wait, but chances are it'll come. Maybe the initial testing for Unicorn had them being too strong and they got nerfed; maybe they wanted to start them off weak so that they didn't get a mess that they have to fix later.

Lately I have read stuff about beta. And even hear about it from a brief encounter with a tester. Stuff like Altansarnai creating new Military conflict and then nerfed (with whatever they could think of) after the other Unicorn nerfs were not enough. Or being able to declare conflict and not assign attackers. Being able to choose two conflicts of the same type. Etc.

While I hope that we keep getting good cards (not looking at you, Shinjo Saddle), we will be always at different level from general cardpool point of view. Unless the rest of Clans start getting the equivalent of Core Unicorn.

Honestly, Deluxe box release schedule worries me more...

Just give me decent (I'm not even asking for good) Battle Maidens that do stuff in battle and I'll be happy. Yumino =

Good points made on the stronghold being potentially too much. It might be less deforming if it let you move in your cavalry character while you are the attacker, and move out while you are the defender.

In any case, I agree that in theory, starting over with new ideas to build on would be best. However, I don't agree with abandoning movement mechanics entirely. They're far too integral to what Unicorn is about.

14 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

Honestly, Deluxe box release schedule worries me more...

If the rumors I keep hearing turn out to be true (all the Clans getting a deluxe box each before any other new 'clans' show up, starting with Phoenix), I think it will seriously hurt the game.

Yes, FFG has other successful LCGs that took a year or two to get 'Deluxe' numbers of new cards added for some factions. However, it definitely cases some people to quit the game when their faction is one of the last to get such a major boost, and I believe that issue will be greatly exacerbated in L5R, due to clan loyalty still being a major factor for a lot of players.

Let's say Unicorn is last to get a deluxe box set. The earliest that would happen is towards the end of 2020, unless they somehow manage to shift to 3-4 deluxe box sets a year. Even then, it's a problematic release model.

If I were to completely redesign Unicorn from "scratch", I'd make them similar to Crab in a sense: 1/4 or so of their initial character base would facilitate movement, and 1/4 would gain benefits when you move them and / or another Unicorn your control. 1/4 would be honor-based, mostly tying into Battle Maidens. The last 1/4 would just be generally solid characters to round things out.

Oh, and no matter what, I'd give them a Province that is worth using in most of their decks.

6 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

If the rumors I keep hearing turn out to be true (all the Clans getting a deluxe box each before any other new 'clans' show up, starting with Phoenix), I think it will seriously hurt the game.

I read Phoenix (Enlightement victory condition), Mantis+Lost, Lion, etc. Which, if true , would suck even more. Not just because of the card boost, which would be there, but because of extra strongholds. If they ony get released in deluxe boxes, some clans are going to spend years waiting for their second/third one while other clan(s?) got its during the first year.

But as we get "Limit: 1 per deck" cards thrice in the packs, maybe at some point some get strongholds too.

Silly single Clan boxes. Where is Storms Over Matsu Palace when you need it?

due to our box movement the Unicorn are destine to be lack luster in my opinion. Being able to move in bowed guys and use their abilities can be DEVASTATING. With that said they have to be extra careful not to give us any crazy awesome stuff that allows us to send a bowed guy in and win a fight. I would have liked to see more reactions to movement. My box is mostly used to move a bowed guy to a fight to avoid honor loss. It does seem tho we were hit very hard by the stronghold nerf, late in the design which didnt allow for enough time to go back and change alot of our guys. All that aside i feel the issues we face as a clan are the increase in people with out cav, 3 new people that have 0/- on political skill, and our crane rivaling glory numbers. With no additional cards to honor our guys, we have all the same or less ways to honor our guys as other clans (ring of fire,Shameful, and court games.)With a card like way of the crane being able to honor on a military battle, would be devastating.

Side note i love your changes, but i agree that moving home guys is SUPER STRONG. Only change id make to testuo would be his skills, id make him a 4/3 or a 4/2.

Trying to understand: When winning or losing a defensive or offensive military conflict, why would moving a character home be so devastating to an opponent's tactics?

Doesn't it mean, pulling a character home from a defensive military conflict, that you'd be in jeopardy of having a province broken? [If a feint during a offensive military conflict, I can see the value, but only if I can generate a second offensive military conflict]

My Stronghold's ability is frustratingly useless in 50% of the 4 conflicts per round, unless I have a 'change from political to military' card.

On 11/19/2017 at 4:18 AM, Togashi Gao Shan said:

I'll be adding a new version of their province later. For now, here's a new conflict card I created to add some flavorful honor-gain , and to show the other side of the Unicorn.

I have been debating as to whether or not to respond in this thread, and I hope you take this with all due objectivity:

If this Compassion card comes into play, (let’s assume it is an official card) it will severely undermine a number of Clans that currently rely on a single or few characters as part of their standard play. For example, this card utterly destroys my Dragon deck, completely. I’m not going to cite examples of play or representative boards in order to drive home the point, but I really won’t be able to compete in a 1-to-1 environment with a card as this. (furthermore, in conjunction with the soon to be released cards, my deck will be hosed from the get go as the number of bowing cards and effects are shaping up to be a pretty nasty beat stick against the current Dragon deck)

Please don’t think I’m trying to undo your thoughts in this thread; I’m totally with you in this quest. But some cards need to be judged in accordance with existing other cards in order to gain a full understanding of capabilities; this card, IMO, is not being looked at with that view in mind.

how dare you taunt me with what should have been

2 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

I have been debating as to whether or not to respond in this thread, and I hope you take this with all due objectivity:

If this Compassion card comes into play, (let’s assume it is an official card) it will severely undermine a number of Clans that currently rely on a single or few characters as part of their standard play. For example, this card utterly destroys my Dragon deck, completely. I’m not going to cite examples of play or representative boards in order to drive home the point, but I really won’t be able to compete in a 1-to-1 environment with a card as this. (furthermore, in conjunction with the soon to be released cards, my deck will be hosed from the get go as the number of bowing cards and effects are shaping up to be a pretty nasty beat stick against the current Dragon deck)

Please don’t think I’m trying to undo your thoughts in this thread; I’m totally with you in this quest. But some cards need to be judged in accordance with existing other cards in order to gain a full understanding of capabilities; this card, IMO, is not being looked at with that view in mind.

so your saying a card that makes you lose an honor for choosing to do nothing to your own guy is devastating to your clan?

keep in mind the cards allows both players to send a guy home, if they do they gain an honor, if they do not they owe the other clan an honor. This is much less powerful then leve, or backhanded compliment, or really any ability that causes an honor loss. Not trying to poke holes in your comment but maybe you can share some examples, cause im not seeing how the option to send a dude home bowed, and gaining an honor, or leaving him there and losing an honor is gonna hurt you, especially with cards like jade finger.

I'm just hoping packs 4-6 net Unicorn some decent cards because. Packs 1-3 have been somewhat of a let down. Pack 1 was nice as Yurt and Magistrate are solid cards.....even if the magistrate lacking cavalry or even just being a courtier instead would have been an acceptable improvement, but at least there were an improvent.

Packs 2 and 3 have been a major disappointment......especially when you see other clans getting solid cards in every pack so far.

5 hours ago, yujufrazer said:

With a card like way of the crane being able to honor on a military battle, would be devastating.

Lion says Test of Courage. But hey, Lions be Lions.

2 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I'm just hoping packs 4-6 net Unicorn some decent cards because. Packs 1-3 have been somewhat of a let down. Pack 1 was nice as Yurt and Magistrate are solid cards.....even if the magistrate lacking cavalry or even just being a courtier instead would have been an acceptable improvement, but at least there were an improvent.

Packs 2 and 3 have been a major disappointment......especially when you see other clans getting solid cards in every pack so far.

Eh...Dragon is getting some rather "iffy, at best" cards in this cycle.

Itinerant Philosopher is just...not good.

The Enigmatic Magistrate is probably going to be far too unreliable to make up for his crappy stats.

5 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

I have been debating as to whether or not to respond in this thread, and I hope you take this with all due objectivity:

If this Compassion card comes into play, (let’s assume it is an official card) it will severely undermine a number of Clans that currently rely on a single or few characters as part of their standard play. For example, this card utterly destroys my Dragon deck, completely. I’m not going to cite examples of play or representative boards in order to drive home the point, but I really won’t be able to compete in a 1-to-1 environment with a card as this. (furthermore, in conjunction with the soon to be released cards, my deck will be hosed from the get go as the number of bowing cards and effects are shaping up to be a pretty nasty beat stick against the current Dragon deck)

Please don’t think I’m trying to undo your thoughts in this thread; I’m totally with you in this quest. But some cards need to be judged in accordance with existing other cards in order to gain a full understanding of capabilities; this card, IMO, is not being looked at with that view in mind.

Hey, man, I play Dragon the great majority of the time. I think they need less clunky and / or less easily shut down mechanical themes.

However, I mostly disagree with your assessment of this hypothetical card. It probably needs a "once per conflict" cap, and maybe a 1-fate cost, but otherwise it's fine. The worst that happens is that your opponent bows one of their characters opposing you and sends them home, and you choose not to do the same, so they gain 2 honor and you lose 1. Powerful effect, yes, but it has a cost and it's effects can be cancelled.

The effect is okay, I assume it's an easy honor grab since your 1 coster can be chosen against any oopponent you want. Maybe that could change. It does feel kinda wordy and complicated, maybe that could be simplified. I'm also iffy on the title, since the "compassion" is optional on the unicorn's part, and not seeing how it connects flavorwise to the opponent's decision.

Maybe instead it could be part of a series of cards, clan specific or no, for the tenets of bushido. For example, call this one "Tenet of Compassion" and it could still be a unicorn card since that's their exemplary tenet, and do something similar with each of the tenets/ clans.