In Goblin Sneak, we've now had the first Shadowlands card appear in the environment. I've no problems with this, other than it being an irritating card to face.

However, what concerns me is that there is no mechanical downside to putting Shadowlands cards into play - after all, if rumours of you associating with such monsters were to begin to spread, you'd be in a wee bit of trouble with certain Imperial authorities.

It would've seemed thematic for there to be an Honour penalty for playing such a thing - maybe 1 Honour per card, or for the first card per turn, or something. Theoretical future Shadowlands strongholds could have a trait ability allowing them to ignore the Honour loss, and you could have Events, Holdings or even Provinces allowing you to ignore it for cards played from hand.

Seems like a missed opportunity to me - what do the rest of you think?

I don't think it's a missed opportunity. Especially since it's a Goblin Sneak, so it's probably not known to the public at large that it's being used.

An honor loss for shadowlands cards might make sense thematically, but it wasn't a very good balancing factor in the old game. It meant that Shadowlands Horde/Spider decks were either practically immune to dishonor decks, or got absolutely stomped by them.

I think that having certain cards that care about the shadowlands keyword would be better for gameplay purposes than having the shadowlands trait itself have an effect.

I think we'll see cards that punish the Shadowlands keyword sooner or later- but the current conflicts in the setting are clan vs. clan.

1 hour ago, Vlad3theImpaler said:

An honor loss for shadowlands cards might make sense thematically, but it wasn't a very good balancing factor in the old game. It meant that Shadowlands Horde/Spider decks were either practically immune to dishonor decks, or got absolutely stomped by them.

Spider was vurnerable to dishonor because of low starting honor and very limited option to gain it from Dynasty (0PH guys). Most of Spider Strongholds got traits like "you do not lose honor from your/Spider Personalities and Fate cards you own ".

35 minutes ago, kempy said:

Spider was vurnerable to dishonor because of low starting honor and very limited option to gain it from Dynasty (0PH guys). Most of Spider Strongholds got traits like "you do not lose honor from your/Spider Personalities and Fate cards you own ".

Initially, yes. The later ones did not in Ivory Edition and Twenty Festivals, but there wee still Spider cards with honor losses on them.

The point I was trying to make was that starting from the position of "every card with shadowlands must have an honor loss" limits the design possibilities and makes it really hard to balance a faction that wants to include those cards.

Goblin sneak's weakness is it's low strength for its 2 fate cost

31 minutes ago, OsramTaleka said:

Goblin sneak's weakness is it's low strength for its 2 fate cost

In the grand scheme of things GOBLIN SNEAK really only costs one, due to the fate you gain back, and it potentially screws up fate plays of your opponent.

The card is pretty freakin' good.

16 minutes ago, kraken78 said:

In the grand scheme of things GOBLIN SNEAK really only costs one, due to the fate you gain back, and it potentially screws up fate plays of your opponent.

The card is pretty freakin' good.

Yea I love it!

It's a goblin. Even if it wasn't good I would be playing it.

Well there is somewhat of a limitation where your opponent has to have fate in order to get any value from Goblin Sneak. 2 fate for 1 military is not a good deal.

As much as I want to cram shadowlands into every deck I can, Goblin Sneak is not what I would consider an auto-include. I will of course be playing decks that can utilize him best.

Going back earlier in the CCG's history there was very much a Gold Cost v.s Honour Cost thing with shadowlands cards. When I started playing the only shadowlands cards you saw outside shadowlands decks (Except Oni no Pekkle) were corrupted holdings, which were 0g, but lost you honour, and were an alternative to the gold costing (but not honour losing) normal versions.

The corollary of that was that corrupt cards were acceleration. You got more for your gold, so they were faster, but they drove you towards an honour loss. In fact their existence kept Scorpion decks (which otherwise struggled) viable; and the existence of dishonour decks helped make corrupted cards not an auto-include. What they did do was make everything faster, and I'm not sure that we should welcome the same model in the LCG.

Losing honor for playing shadowlands worked in the old game because the sheer scale of the honor board was from -19 to 40, meaning losing a point here or there wasn't the end of the world. But in this game honor is directly tied to drawing cards.

Shadowlands, any faction, should never have honor losses built into them out of principle. The game is flavored by the story but not bound to it. Honor loss was a bad mechanic that didn't nothing but hamper play design. Shadowlands cards should just be weird cards that have a mechanical feel to them that they share eventually, not a penalty that makes them liabilities no matter what.

The Conflict Deck represents "hidden things". Since the very concept of employing such hidden things that fly in the face of the Bushido Virtues of Honesty and Sincerity is considered to be dishonorable, then relying on such hidden things is, by extension, also dishonorable...and the more you rely on them, the less honorable you're being. That's why the Draw mechanic increases your risk of losing honor the more cards you draw from your Conflict Deck. The Goblin Sneak lives in the Conflict Deck for that reason (and also so that you can't drain away your opponent's Fate during the Dynasty Phase!) So, in an abstract way, the Goblin Sneak does "cost you honor". Now, yes, I realize that you can easily draw a Goblin Sneak(s) without losing any honor at all, depending on your bid, but this is a pretty elegant way of reflecting that the Sneak is a dishonorable kinda thing to be putting into your deck. The fact he's a "sneak" is a further way of showing that sometimes you can get away with wallowing in the realm of the Taint. Again, this is pretty abstract, I admit, but it works well enough for me as an explanation.

I tend to agree that a straight Honor loss for playing Shadowlands cards is problematic from a game and card design perspective. That said, I COULD see losing Honor for playing Shadowlands Dynasty cards (should such a thing ever exist...and let me hasten to add, despite writing fiction for the game, I have no more insight than anyone else into what cards are coming--so don't take my musing as signaling anything!) If this was the case, to make it worth playing them, they'd have to be corresponding powerful, with high Military Skill (but probably very low, or even "-" Political Skill) and/or strong abilities. If you're going to openly use oni or other Tainted monstrosities to achieve your ends, then you should be facing considerable risk in the court (of public opinion). However, you should also then gain access to very powerful cards, the idea being you win big and fast through mostly Military means, or you lose big and fast when you get dragged down to 0 Honor. Shadowlands cards should be high reward/high risk, especially if they come stomping out of your provinces. Playing a monstrous oni out of a province could even break it, along the lines of Akuma no oni in the CCG, as the Taint corrupts the land thanks to your vile summoning rituals...

DG hits is square on the head. Losing an honor is like you losing the card that honor could have drawn.

If Shadowlands gets big bodies that have honor loss associated that can be fine, like we lose honor for Banzai ing twice. But a flat out mechanic would only hurt shadowlands too much.

I'm all on board for an Akuma that breaks provinces it enters from, not all traditions have to die

3 hours ago, Hituro said:

Going back earlier in the CCG's history there was very much a Gold Cost v.s Honour Cost thing with shadowlands cards. When I started playing the only shadowlands cards you saw outside shadowlands decks (Except Oni no Pekkle) were corrupted holdings, which were 0g, but lost you honour, and were an alternative to the gold costing (but not honour losing) normal versions.

The corollary of that was that corrupt cards were acceleration. You got more for your gold, so they were faster, but they drove you towards an honour loss. In fact their existence kept Scorpion decks (which otherwise struggled) viable; and the existence of dishonour decks helped make corrupted cards not an auto-include. What they did do was make everything faster, and I'm not sure that we should welcome the same model in the LCG.

After playing in a tourney where most of the games went to time I'd appreciate a little bit of speed in play ><

I'm not sure an honor loss is technically necessary. I feel like thematically it would be appropriate but could be very detrimental on the mechanics.

I'm pretty sure the SHADOWLANDS will just become a clan and it will have some good cards but not way outside of the normal good.

I think it would be interesting if perhaps you will be able to splash a standard clan but maybe have an additional 10 influence to splash Shadowlands cards if you so choose...thus making a corrupted deck and adding for increased synergy ideas.

The shadowlands could also be able to splash as normal, but they'd only get the standard influence like all clans. From a storyline standpoint, if Shadowlands were to win a tournament, their clan splash would also be impacted as part of the storyline.

Not sure how I feel about a deck building rule change to accommodate double splash (Shadowlands AND another clan). However, I could see maybe a stronghold ability that works something like that, perhaps in exchange for lower honor, no additional ability, etc. to keep it balanced.

18 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Not sure how I feel about a deck building rule change to accommodate double splash (Shadowlands AND another clan). However, I could see maybe a stronghold ability that works something like that, perhaps in exchange for lower honor, no additional ability, etc. to keep it balanced.

I'm not that sure about it either, but I like the clan alliance idea so much that I'd hate to lose it just to make a deck "corrupted". I can see how mechanically this would cause some possible problems, but without the regular clan splash I feel it would lead some clans to splash Shadowlands more than others just because of strategy limitations that some clans have naturally built in, such as political clans being less likely to use shadowlands (since I feel that military will most likely be their thing). I was trying to make it so all clans might still reasonably use the extra shadow splash without overly changing the basic theme/strat of their deck.

Maybe it would get messy in practice, but since we already have our first "splashable" Shadowlands character in the form of a neutral, I wonder how it might work out to continue making "splashable" Shadowlands cards neutrals, instead of costing influence?

Pros:

• You can still splash another clan without any special influence/splash rules to accommodate Shadowlands.
• It allows for "splashable" Shadowlands Dynasty cards, since they would be neutral anyways.
• It leaves room for Shadowlands to still have nonsplashable cards as well by simply making them Shadowlands faction (with no influence cost) instead of neutral.

Cons:

• No limit (from influence, for example) on how many Shadowlands cards can be included in a clan deck.
• Potential balance issues from making too many neutral Shadowlands cards, rather than using the existing influence system.

That's about all I can think of for pros and cons at the moment. Thoughts?

ADD: Though I listed it as a con, part of me kind of likes the possibility of allowing players to choose "how corrupt" their deck is by not having a limit on how much of their deck can be neutral Shadowlands cards.

2 hours ago, kraken78 said:

I'm not that sure about it either, but I like the clan alliance idea so much that I'd hate to lose it just to make a deck "corrupted". I can see how mechanically this would cause some possible problems, but without the regular clan splash I feel it would lead some clans to splash Shadowlands more than others just because of strategy limitations that some clans have naturally built in, such as political clans being less likely to use shadowlands (since I feel that military will most likely be their thing). I was trying to make it so all clans might still reasonably use the extra shadow splash without overly changing the basic theme/strat of their deck.

I think that making all Shadowlands cards neutral would be the perfect solution. It allows any player to choose to play "corrupted" without having to create a whole faction's worth of Shadowlands cards, while at the same time increasing the pool of neutral cards — which is a boon to deckbuilding. Neutral Dynasty shadowlands cards would not only reduce the need to play so many in-clan personalities in every deck, but also give a nuance to story victories.

20 hours ago, OsramTaleka said:

Goblin sneak's weakness is it's low strength for its 2 fate cost

However, it does cost your opponent a fate as well, and the sneak stays in play an extra turn?

I want the shadowlands back as an option to the clans, as their own "clan" not neutral cards. It was one of my fav's in the old game. Sometimes its just a blast to play the bad guys and wreak havoc. And its also fun to beat them up as Crane, or one of the good guys. They need to be in the game sooner than later. Just my opinion and vote.

On 11/22/2017 at 2:00 PM, Tetsuhiko said:

It's a goblin. Even if it wasn't good I would be playing it.

It's shadowland, Even if it was even better than it is now I would not play it

Maybe the first time in a game you bring a shadowlands dinasty card, you lose X honor and that's it. Having an Oni at your service should be as bad as having a whole army? (from a non battle point of view) Maybe some form of tainted dinasty creatures, the more sneaky ones, do cost discarding card(s). Maybe controlling shadowlands dinasty personalities gives honor to your opponent each turn. Maybe...

Edit:

23 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

(should such a thing ever exist...and let me hasten to add, despite writing fiction for the game, I have no more insight than anyone else into what cards are coming--so don't take my musing as signaling anything!)

Too late!!!!

I'm sure we'll get events like "Play when an opponent plays a card with the Shadowlands trait. That card is discarded and that opponent loses ___ Honor" or "Choose an opponent. That opponent loses 1 honor for each card they control with the Shadowlands trait." I don't think a new game rule needs to be introduced.