On 11/22/2017 at 9:56 AM, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

...

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

Ahhhhhhhhhh, ****!!!!

Now we’re talking business!

I mean, errr, no, bad idea. Bad idea. None of that here please.

Toku... I mean, Eager Scout & Obstinate Recruit need their Tsuburo no Oni . And Phoenix their Tadaka no Oni but that is a different story.

2 hours ago, Wintersong said:

And Phoenix their Tadaka no Oni but that is a different story.

Hopefully one we don't have to sit through again.

I like the idea of neutral Shadowlands cards setting up a growing corruption in the story for now, maybe save the actual Shadowlands faction until later in the dynasty cycles and even then, keep them as Conflict-Influence cards. This keeps from players having a full Shadowlands deck, which could cause a rules change depending on how they create the cards, and also showcases the corruption storyline, and would show a bigger impact on the story through tournaments, a win with Shadowlands cards would create a different story point than an untainted clan's win.

7 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Hopefully one we don't have to sit through again.

Maybe this time you get Lion treatment a la Okura no Oni.

Corrupted Lion sounds far more interesting than Phoenix.

10 hours ago, DailyRich said:

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.

Now that would be bad design, imho. You should be punished for playing Shadowlands cards. Designing cards that your opponent has to play to punish you is flawed unless these cards also serve another purpose.

I really like the Goblin Sneak card, but it feels like betrayal to put a Shadowlands card into my deck!

Hmm, what would my Clan Champion Togashi have to say about this?

Togashi Yokuni : "What is a goblin? .... What is NOT a goblin?...."

...That didn't help at all...

I don't really understand the concept of Shadowlands as a faction, lore-wise.

First of all, the moment you see the big-bad-enemy behind the scene, the whole build-up about their real motivation, goals and plans evaporates. And it would not be so bad, if the goal of such faction would be something different than the destruction of Rokugan and humanity. As it is, it just doesn't make any sense from my point of view.

Secondly, they should change the game a lot to match the specificity of such faction: how to manage honor (why should they care)? How to manage clan splash?

Imho, the best way to introduce the Shadowlands is as neutral card with honor loss when you play them, and as "enemy/bot deck" for a cooperative subgame (this, I would love to see).

1 hour ago, franzvong said:

Imho, the best way to introduce the Shadowlands is as neutral card with honor loss when you play them, and as "enemy/bot deck" for a cooperative subgame (this, I would love to see).

Coop option would be just absolutely awesome. I'm missing this and thematically Shadowlands could fit perfectly here for that.

I know the focus of the game is to be a competitive one, but this as a side option would be absolutely fantastic.

8 hours ago, Hellvlad said:

Coop option would be just absolutely awesome. I'm missing this and thematically Shadowlands could fit perfectly here for that.

I know the focus of the game is to be a competitive one, but this as a side option would be absolutely fantastic.

It could still be competitive. Make it almost a race style competition. Which groups can down the raid- I mean Shadowlands threat quickest/most efficiently. If they can make competitive DnD this can easily be competitive.

Could be good, like an add on for the two player game. A third deck controled by the game flow and the player themselves, no fate but drops 2-4 strong creatures each turn and must attack each player once a turn, starting by their leftmost province.

Players can attack it to gain honor or claim rings, eventually cooping to destroy it, or competing in parallel to a shadowlands invasion.

On 24/11/2017 at 8:28 AM, Mandalore525 said:

I really like the Goblin Sneak card, but it feels like betrayal to put a Shadowlands card into my deck!

Hmm, what would my Clan Champion Togashi have to say about this?

Togashi Yokuni : "What is a goblin? .... What is NOT a goblin?...."

...That didn't help at all...

Well, it looks like they're getting the 'tempting' part of Shadowlands right...

Shadowlands would be fantastic as a force of corruption/taint inside the clans. A faction within the game with no stronghold, but as soon as you play a shadowlands card you are part of the corrupt faction. The temptation of evil rather than a big bad cool dude with monster buddies.

59 minutes ago, JolOfNar said:

Shadowlands would be fantastic as a force of corruption/taint inside the clans. A faction within the game with no stronghold, but as soon as you play a shadowlands card you are part of the corrupt faction. The temptation of evil rather than a big bad cool dude with monster buddies.

Too easy to grief a clan...

Also, a problem AEG ran into- if a Shadowlands card is mechanically superior, then players who are more interested in victory than adhering to some concept of how they want a made-up clan to act won't think twice about using good cards (for example, Goblin Sneak), and anyone who chooses to forgo those cards could well be facing a mechanical disadvantage that keeps them from the win that lets them make a decision.

1 hour ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Too easy to grief a clan...

Also, a problem AEG ran into- if a Shadowlands card is mechanically superior, then players who are more interested in victory than adhering to some concept of how they want a made-up clan to act won't think twice about using good cards (for example, Goblin Sneak), and anyone who chooses to forgo those cards could well be facing a mechanical disadvantage that keeps them from the win that lets them make a decision.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Shadowlands cards should be "on par" with all the other clans. This way, the community itself could decide whether to corrupt or keep pure through basic deck design, with no "power" inconsistencies.

If honor mechanics get placed, then the honor-based clans (crane, lion, and phoenix) could more-easily mitigate the honor problems and you'd end up guaranteeing that they would be the clans that could run the over-powered honor cost cards. Which is the main reason I think an honor mechanic on the cards would be a poor idea.

Well if players want to grief a clan by purposefully corrupting it. Leaving their own clan, giving up their hatamoto status and winning a massive tournament (or collectively wining volumes of smaller tournaments and en masse giving up their hatamotos) then so be it.

That’s story mode.

The cards should either be on a par powerwise. Or, new cards in the meta that are considered powerful can just have a play restriction such as, “if you have no shadowlands cards in play”

On November 24, 2017 at 1:50 AM, Ser Nakata said:

Now that would be bad design, imho. You should be punished for playing Shadowlands cards. Designing cards that your opponent has to play to punish you is flawed unless these cards also serve another purpose.

Why? Unless they're stronger than other cards, it doesn't make sense to be punished for playing them. That would be bad design.

On November 24, 2017 at 6:54 AM, franzvong said:

I don't really understand the concept of Shadowlands as a faction, lore-wise.

First of all, the moment you see the big-bad-enemy behind the scene, the whole build-up about their real motivation, goals and plans evaporates. And it would not be so bad, if the goal of such faction would be something different than the destruction of Rokugan and humanity . As it is, it just doesn't make any sense from my point of view.

Secondly, they should change the game a lot to match the specificity of such faction: how to manage honor (why should they care)? How to manage clan splash?

Imho, the best way to introduce the Shadowlands is as neutral card with honor loss when you play them, and as "enemy/bot deck" for a cooperative subgame (this, I would love to see).

Well, you're in luck, because that wasn't the goal of most of the big bads from the previous lore, and it doesn't seem likely it will be this time, either. Fu Leng and Daigotsu didn't want to destroy Rokugan and humanity, they wanted to rule it.

7 hours ago, kraken78 said:

If honor mechanics get placed, then the honor-based clans (crane, lion, and phoenix) could more-easily mitigate the honor problems and you'd end up guaranteeing that they would be the clans that could run the over-powered honor cost cards.

Which is sort of what happened in the CCG- If I could make up the Honor loss for playing Facepuncher-no-Oni by simply proclaiming Shiba Goodguy (those of you who aren't up on your CCG mechanics, just bear with me here), the Honor cost of Facepuncher-no-Oni was effectively almost zero. If, on the other hand, I were to put Facepuncher-no-Oni into a Scorpion deck? Much harder to recover from. Even near the end, the Crane, for example, had a pretty solid oni-using deck for a while.

19 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Which is sort of what happened in the CCG- If I could make up the Honor loss for playing Facepuncher-no-Oni by simply proclaiming Shiba Goodguy (those of you who aren't up on your CCG mechanics, just bear with me here), the Honor cost of Facepuncher-no-Oni was effectively almost zero. If, on the other hand, I were to put Facepuncher-no-Oni into a Scorpion deck? Much harder to recover from. Even near the end, the Crane, for example, had a pretty solid oni-using deck for a while.

Well, everyone knows the Crane are inherently dishonourable, so should we be surprised?

On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎25 at 9:01 PM, Vlad3theImpaler said:

Why? Unless they're stronger than other cards, it doesn't make sense to be punished for playing them. That would be bad design.

Cards that specifically call out Shadowlands , I wouldn't have a problem with. Like...

"(X) target (Y). If it has Shadowlands , (Z)."

On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎25 at 9:01 PM, Vlad3theImpaler said:

Well, you're in luck, because that wasn't the goal of most of the big bass from the previous lore, and it doesn't seem likely it will be this time, either. Fu Leng and Daigotsu didn't want to destroy Rokugan and humanity, they wanted to rule it.

I think the only villains who wanted to just straight up wreck Rokugan was Kali-Ma, the Lying Darkness, and the Oni Lords, and the last only did that when Fu Leng wasn't calling the shots.

On 26/11/2017 at 0:25 AM, Shiba Gunichi said:

Which is sort of what happened in the CCG- If I could make up the Honor loss for playing Facepuncher-no-Oni by simply proclaiming Shiba Goodguy (those of you who aren't up on your CCG mechanics, just bear with me here), the Honor cost of Facepuncher-no-Oni was effectively almost zero. If, on the other hand, I were to put Facepuncher-no-Oni into a Scorpion deck? Much harder to recover from. Even near the end, the Crane, for example, had a pretty solid oni-using deck for a while.

But the inverse was true earlier in the CCG, where if I was playing Scorpion of course I had 3+ corrupted holdings and Oni no Pekkle (to give to my opponent, to be fair) and the like, because I was already losing honour left right and centre and what did a little more matter? (Of course, that was with The Ruined Fortress of the Scorpion ).

I think the take-home message is that attaching an honour loss to a card, even a major one, is no barrier to it seeing significant play.

Perhaps rather than making tainted cards stronger than other costs by making them just have bigger numbers, it would be better to let them corner the market on a certain sort of ability (e.g. paying for things with an opponent's fate), while still giving them a drawback. That way there are tempting reasons to play them, but they aren't always *better* than non-tainted cards.

On 11/23/2017 at 5:22 AM, Fu Leng said:

And its also fun to beat them up as Crane, or one of the good guys.

Thank you for recognizing that the Crane are separate from the good guys. XD

On 11/25/2017 at 0:22 PM, JolOfNar said:

Well if players want to grief a clan by purposefully corrupting it. Leaving their own clan, giving up their hatamoto status and winning a massive tournament (or collectively wining volumes of smaller tournaments and en masse giving up their hatamotos) then so be it.

That’s story mode.

The cards should either be on a par powerwise. Or, new cards in the meta that are considered powerful can just have a play restriction such as, “if you have no shadowlands cards in play”

What do hatamotos have to do with this? Are they the only ones who could grief a clan? And who says griefers have to come from outside the clan, anyway? I'm currently a Phoenix player because Wasp aren't yet playable, but that doesn't mean I particularly care about Phoenix. What would stop me from corrupting Phoenix without changing clans, just to be a jerk to people who care about Phoenix and don't want it corrupted?

Nothing. But you’d have to place in tournaments or it probably wouldn’t count for much. Personally I really liked that most clans had corrupted elements in the clan war. The slippery slope that many clans found themselves on was great. There was a divide between those helping Toturi, trying to save the empire. And those seeking power mired in corruption. I mean if people really don’t want their clans heroes tainted them they best get winning to ensure it doesn’t happen.

1 hour ago, JolOfNar said:

I mean if people really don’t want their clans heroes tainted them they best get winning to ensure it doesn’t happen.

You gonna buy our plane tickets?

Why? I like the corruption. I do hope it’s worked into the story a little better for each clan this time though.