Two things about Haughty Magistrate:

1) It has to be attacking, and does nothing useful on the defense.

2) It wipes out everyone with less glory.

A lot has been made of Phoenix's glory stats. However, if you actually look at them, they have very few people with a glory of 3 or higher. If you attack with him and pump him with your stronghold, you are likely wiping out most of your guys along with your opponent. This will work well for winning conflicts, but won't work particularly well for actually breaking provinces.

15 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

....This will work well for winning conflicts, but won't work particularly well for actually breaking provinces.

Thus it might be more worthy to include in a Phoenix dishonor deck which would be suited for a ‘longer’ game rather than a shorter (Province breaking) game. Just a quick thought.

4 hours ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Two things about Haughty Magistrate:

1) It has to be attacking, and does nothing useful on the defense.

2) It wipes out everyone with less glory.

A lot has been made of Phoenix's glory stats. However, if you actually look at them, they have very few people with a glory of 3 or higher. If you attack with him and pump him with your stronghold, you are likely wiping out most of your guys along with your opponent. This will work well for winning conflicts, but won't work particularly well for actually breaking provinces.

Honored Haughty Magistrate can break any 5 strength province MIL or POL pretty easily. With a fan or sword he could take out a 4 strength province. Not as good as honored, but still valuable. Scorpion could only have Kachiko to defend with... Only Crane and Lion might have a reasonable defender at 3 glory...

5 hours ago, Soshi Nimue said:

Honored Haughty Magistrate can break any 5 strength province MIL or POL pretty easily. With a fan or sword he could take out a 4 strength province. Not as good as honored, but still valuable. Scorpion could only have Kachiko to defend with... Only Crane and Lion might have a reasonable defender at 3 glory...

Lion have Toturi, honorable historian and Ikoma Eiji.. Considering Eiji should go off to run Ujiaki, is just Toturi and historian.. I think Crane doesn't have so many options too..

Haughty Magistrate is far better than the others.

The thing about Haughty though is that over the cycles he will progressively get weaker as more options come out for other clans with 3 or more glory. He is absurd now, but will not be a problem in the long run, or at least less of one.

Crab are like..."tell me about this 3 glory option thing you have going on..."

On 11/24/2017 at 7:09 PM, Ishi Tonu said:

The only thing that would concern me is if one clan, or a very small number of clans, had ways to just take the favor, without other clans reliably being able to same. A neutral card that allowed for this wouldn't bother me as anyone could run it. A conflict card in a few clans that is easily splashed wouldn't be too bad, although I'm a little worried that it would play out the way Crane and Scorpion counterspells did and I'm still not a fan of how those went down. A clan that just straight up takes the favor and then uses it for strong effects to allow them to keep getting the favor back is not a good idea, imo.

I don't mind "imperial favor matters cards" I'd just worry if we start seeing only a select few clans being able to consistently get and/or keep the favor as that would essentially shut the other clans out of that aspect of the game, or force them to commit so many cards to trying to keep pace with the haves that they are weakened to the point that they struggle in other aspects of the game. I don't like it when we get decks that auto-lose to something and just have to accept it. "I was doing well until I ran in to clan x that got the favor and I couldn't do anything about that because my clan y doesn't have good favor interaction" is not a feel good experience.

Well, there is that Scorpion character that straight up claims the favor when it leaves play.

1 hour ago, blackheartz said:

Well, there is that Scorpion character that straight up claims the favor when it leaves play.

Its a well designed favor-taker though because you can't do it at the beginning of the turn, or mid turn. The character is 3 cost so you can't even assassinate your own character to steal the favor. The opponent will see the character in play and expect its effects. They could even NOT target it with fate removing effects to keep the favor if they need.

On 11/24/2017 at 3:48 PM, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

The only REALLY absurd cards are the Lion 5 coster and Aged Crone, but the magistrates are pretty bad from a design standpoint.

The Crone flat out attempts to deny people the ability to even play their cards, which is just an unfun play design so early in the game's lifecycle.

The Crone is less painful than Honored Guest, she raises the cost where as he flat out stops events. I wouldn't say either are poor design as they are hard counters to the Scorpion trick decks that run heavy conflict events to control the board.

29 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

The Crone is less painful than Honored Guest, she raises the cost where as he flat out stops events. I wouldn't say either are poor design as they are hard counters to the Scorpion trick decks that run heavy conflict events to control the board.

They are bad design mainly because the point of the card isn't to feed into the exciting "you go, I go" play style that L5R is famous for. They are designed to basically win by making that NOT happen. Both of these cards are designed to be played and stop people from flat out interacting period.

Guest of Honor is especially a terribly designed card for the core set. Yes she counters scorpion, but she also flat out says that the most common cards in the conflict deck just don't matter to a lot of clans. The back and forth just kind of stops, and that is the core of what makes L5R a lot of fun.

Stopping interaction and tax effects that basically do the same make for more boring and less interesting games overall, especially in such a small card pool. I would be less abrasive if these were printed next year, with a larger card pool to give options, but these cards aren't fun to lose to, they aren't clever or anything like that. That's why I dislike this style of card.

Crone gets a special mention over the Guest however because guest is a dynasty card in one clan. Crone is a conflict character, so you don't see it coming or have time to fully play around it like the Guest, AND is a splash able card for 1 influence! There will be decks that flat out don't rely on events and thus could easily abuse this card, doesn't matter the clan, it could happen to any of them.

41 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Stopping interaction and tax effects that basically do the same make for more boring and less interesting games overall, especially in such a small card pool. I would be less abrasive if these were printed next year, with a larger card pool to give options, but these cards aren't fun to lose to, they aren't clever or anything like that. That's why I dislike this style of card.

Very well said, IBS!

You know, you have constantly posted very well thought out critiques of many cards and design philosophies of the L5R LCG. I really wish that you were on the design team; would have been a total asset. ?

1 minute ago, LordBlunt said:

Very well said, IBS!

You know, you have constantly posted very well thought out critiques of many cards and design philosophies of the L5R LCG. I really wish that you were on the design team; would have been a total asset. ?

Thanks, but be careful what you ask for...

*Puts the Shadowland Keyword on every other personality*

It unfortunately does cater to a certain play style prevalent in card games in general. Some people want their opponents to be unable to do anything as a victory condition.

54 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

They are bad design mainly because the point of the card isn't to feed into the exciting "you go, I go" play style that L5R is famous for. They are designed to basically win by making that NOT happen. Both of these cards are designed to be played and stop people from flat out interacting period.

Guest of Honor is especially a terribly designed card for the core set. Yes she counters scorpion, but she also flat out says that the most common cards in the conflict deck just don't matter to a lot of clans. The back and forth just kind of stops, and that is the core of what makes L5R a lot of fun.

Stopping interaction and tax effects that basically do the same make for more boring and less interesting games overall, especially in such a small card pool. I would be less abrasive if these were printed next year, with a larger card pool to give options, but these cards aren't fun to lose to, they aren't clever or anything like that. That's why I dislike this style of card.

Crone gets a special mention over the Guest however because guest is a dynasty card in one clan. Crone is a conflict character, so you don't see it coming or have time to fully play around it like the Guest, AND is a splash able card for 1 influence! There will be decks that flat out don't rely on events and thus could easily abuse this card, doesn't matter the clan, it could happen to any of them.

As the counter to that though there are options to play around them (water Ring if you're going first) or let them hit and save your bodies to hit back on your attack. Plus how are they potentially worse than some of the province effects like Kuroi Mori which is essentially screw your main win condition I'm taking it away from you if you aren't one of the "balanced" factions, or Scorpion's rampant conflict deck control aspects. Sometimes the game is as much about playing around those hard counter options as anything else. And Frankly the Guest punishes you for relying to heavily on one card type (events) which yes are the most prevalent conflict card at the moment but could also signal a need for a shift in the meta to decks that are less reliant on event cards and make better use of Attachments and conflict characters as well as character abilities. Don't like him splash Lion and Master of Spear will get him out of the fight so you can get your events back.

I will admit Crone can be a surprise but frankly Lion needs that control element as most of our Conflict deck is reactive in nature or strictly military focus so she gives us some protection in the Political game that is sorely needed. And certain factions aren't going to care that much when she shows up. Dragon will just continue to Voltron up and either duel her to death with a Rags. She slows you down as much as your opponent since you are also effected by her, yes you know she's coming so can plan better, but sometimes you need to be prepared for that eventuality and if you game plan is that reliant on events than you need to keep a little extra fate back for her.

I wouldn't call either poor design and more meta cards that force you to plan for them when deck building and be able to react when they do drop.

12 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

I will admit Crone can be a surprise but frankly Lion needs that control element as most of our Conflict deck is reactive in nature or strictly military focus so she gives us some protection in the Political game that is sorely needed. And certain factions aren't going to care that much when she shows up. Dragon will just continue to Voltron up and either duel her to death with a Rags. She slows you down as much as your opponent since you are also effected by her, yes you know she's coming so can plan better, but sometimes you need to be prepared for that eventuality and if you game plan is that reliant on events than you need to keep a little extra fate back for her.

I wouldn't call either poor design and more meta cards that force you to plan for them when deck building and be able to react when they do drop.

"Need"? I don't know about that. They already have anti-bow, anti-fade, recursion, and they are getting anti-send home and anti-dishonor. Now they have a cheap personality that is anti-event. They have enough courtiers to run the standard political conflict cards; so what if they are weaker than Scorpion at political they are so much better at military. Her ability is an order of magnitude better than Kachiko's (send home and bow). She is a better Scorpion card than any of their conflict characters.

She doesn't really slow Lion down that much, you have enough bodies to break provinces without any event cards (maybe you use your stronghold). So your opponent needs to play cards (some of which already cost fate) in order to stand a chance.

With the existence of Let Go, running any attachment that costs more than 1 is a massive risk. With Censure, Voice of Honor, and Forged Edict running events with any cost is dicey. The Crone just exacerbates that issue.

Lets me honest for a second, if it were in any other clan it would have a greater cost. Unicorn card discard a fate from her. If it were Scorpion if would require you to dishonor, Crane honored, Crab defending, Dragon bow attachment etc.

1 hour ago, Tomello said:

"Need"? I don't know about that. They already have anti-bow, anti-fade, recursion, and they are getting anti-send home and anti-dishonor. Now they have a cheap personality that is anti-event. They have enough courtiers to run the standard political conflict cards; so what if they are weaker than Scorpion at political they are so much better at military. Her ability is an order of magnitude better than Kachiko's (send home and bow). She is a better Scorpion card than any of their conflict characters.

She doesn't really slow Lion down that much, you have enough bodies to break provinces without any event cards (maybe you use your stronghold). So your opponent needs to play cards (some of which already cost fate) in order to stand a chance.

With the existence of Let Go, running any attachment that costs more than 1 is a massive risk. With Censure, Voice of Honor, and Forged Edict running events with any cost is dicey. The Crone just exacerbates that issue.

Lets me honest for a second, if it were in any other clan it would have a greater cost. Unicorn card discard a fate from her. If it were Scorpion if would require you to dishonor, Crane honored, Crab defending, Dragon bow attachment etc.

Oh man some serious Lion hate in this post xd I get it we won one tournament, guess we have answer for everything now. The grass is always greener on the other side amirite? I encourage you to try Lion out and if the clan is really as broken as you make it sound then hey, shame on me.

Anyway on more serious note I wonder why is this "crone" discussion taking place now instead of few months ago when Watch Commander was released.

It performs the same function as the new card, stops the usual action chain, a feeling of the fight blow for blow so important in the L5R. It also provides better stats, penalizes all cards(not only events), works only on the opponent and directly influences win condition(honor as opposed to fate which is indirect).

Why was it accepted as easily by the community, when a card with similar function, that has much less impact on interactivity(since it only "blocks" 1 out of 3 card types that can be played during conflict) and also penalizes the user is demonized before it even hits the table?

1 hour ago, Tomello said:

"Need"? I don't know about that. They already have anti-bow, anti-fade, recursion, and they are getting anti-send home and anti-dishonor. Now they have a cheap personality that is anti-event. They have enough courtiers to run the standard political conflict cards; so what if they are weaker than Scorpion at political they are so much better at military. Her ability is an order of magnitude better than Kachiko's (send home and bow). She is a better Scorpion card than any of their conflict characters.

She doesn't really slow Lion down that much, you have enough bodies to break provinces without any event cards (maybe you use your stronghold). So your opponent needs to play cards (some of which already cost fate) in order to stand a chance.

With the existence of Let Go, running any attachment that costs more than 1 is a massive risk. With Censure, Voice of Honor, and Forged Edict running events with any cost is dicey. The Crone just exacerbates that issue.

Lets me honest for a second, if it were in any other clan it would have a greater cost. Unicorn card discard a fate from her. If it were Scorpion if would require you to dishonor, Crane honored, Crab defending, Dragon bow attachment etc.

Let Go does and doesn't shape the environment, first off if you are anyone but Dragon it limits your splash to only Dragon, and further given Dragon's Influence curve being a straight line it further limits your out of clan Splash to it and 2-4 other cards depending on if you are Seeker or Keeper and if you run 2 or 3 of it. But as soon as you know the Splash isn't Dragon its no longer relevant, now the question is are they Scorpion and will they steal it from you. Yes it can hurt to have your 2 cost Attachment discarded but there is counter to that, run either cancels (for which we now have more options with Censure) or run more of them. Sure you killed three of my impact attachments but what about the other 3 I'm running. I won't disagree that Lion are a solid faction at the moment and yes they have a lot of advantages but they pay for that in other ways. They are almost always going to be behind the curve in Fate as the odds of getting the first pass bonus fate during Dynasty is harder with their swarm focus. Yes we have the recursion theme going but it is dependent on a few characters being in play and lets face it if you are facing Lion those are your prime kill targets. As I said most of our conflict deck is reactive in nature, you do something to us and we either mitigate or negate it. Yes way of the Lion is strong, but so are most of the Way of cards. And political is a big throat punch against them as many of our characters are behind the curve on that front so as soon as you can swing the battle to that arena we suffer.

Would the Crone be more expensive for other clans, I don't know, but her cost is also a double edged sword since as a 1 cost she is susceptible to just about every kill action in the game. Many other Clans have cards that achieve a similar objective from another direction so saying that she is the most overpowered isn't really accurate either. Crab have Watch Commander which puts your honor at a disadvantage and if Crab are playing to that pressure it achieves the same effect of choking out your Event options, Crane have the already mentioned Honored Guest who flat stops events for your opponent but leaves you able to play them at will which is much stronger than the Crone. Scorpion have so many trick options its not funny and are still in my opinion by far one of the strongest factions to face against if you don't get an ideal draw from Lion. And since she has to be in the battle all it takes is one send home to make her irrelevant and with her 0/1 stats she is susceptible to all of them.

2 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Oh man some serious Lion hate in this post xd I get it we won one tournament, guess we have answer for everything now. The grass is always greener on the other side amirite? I encourage you to try Lion out and if the clan is really as broken as you make it sound then hey, shame on me.

Anyway on more serious note I wonder why is this "crone" discussion taking place now instead of few months ago when Watch Commander was released.

It performs the same function as the new card, stops the usual action chain, a feeling of the fight blow for blow so important in the L5R. It also provides better stats, penalizes all cards(not only events), works only on the opponent and directly influences win condition(honor as opposed to fate which is indirect).

Why was it accepted as easily by the community, when a card with similar function, that has much less impact on interactivity(since it only "blocks" 1 out of 3 card types that can be played during conflict) and also penalizes the user is demonized before it even hits the table?

You aren't seriously trying turn a blind eye to the inherent strengths of the Lion clan and then compare WC to crone in the same post are you?

25 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Oh man some serious Lion hate in this post xd I get it we won one tournament, guess we have answer for everything now. The grass is always greener on the other side amirite? I encourage you to try Lion out and if the clan is really as broken as you make it sound then hey, shame on me.

Anyway on more serious note I wonder why is this "crone" discussion taking place now instead of few months ago when Watch Commander was released.

It performs the same function as the new card, stops the usual action chain, a feeling of the fight blow for blow so important in the L5R. It also provides better stats, penalizes all cards(not only events), works only on the opponent and directly influences win condition(honor as opposed to fate which is indirect).

Why was it accepted as easily by the community, when a card with similar function, that has much less impact on interactivity(since it only "blocks" 1 out of 3 card types that can be played during conflict) and also penalizes the user is demonized before it even hits the table?

Not really hate, but the clans were clearly designed at different power levels. In the same pack as Ujiaki we got Tadaji. Yeah, that Unicorn grass sure is greener.

Watch Commander uses honor not fate. You need to spend fate to buy characters, and play some cards. For the most part honor allows you to draw cards (and assassinate/banzai). It is a similar function, but has a completely different impact during the game.

Quote

I won't disagree that Lion are a solid faction at the moment and yes they have a lot of advantages but they pay for that in other ways. They are almost always going to be behind the curve in Fate as the odds of getting the first pass bonus fate during Dynasty is harder with their swarm focus. Yes we have the recursion theme going but it is dependent on a few characters being in play and lets face it if you are facing Lion those are your prime kill targets. As I said most of our conflict deck is reactive in nature, you do something to us and we either mitigate or negate it. Yes way of the Lion is strong, but so are most of the Way of cards. And political is a big throat punch against them as many of our characters are behind the curve on that front so as soon as you can swing the battle to that arena we suffer.

That cost is called balance, being weak at one thing to be strong at another. The deck is reactive, but it pretty much has an answer for pretty much everything (except assassinate) the game can throw at it.

8 minutes ago, Tomello said:

Not really hate, but the clans were clearly designed at different power levels. In the same pack as Ujiaki we got Tadaji. Yeah, that Unicorn grass sure is greener.

Watch Commander uses honor not fate. You need to spend fate to buy characters, and play some cards. For the most part honor allows you to draw cards (and assassinate/banzai). It is a similar function, but has a completely different impact during the game.

Except honor pressure is win mechanic, one that Crab are very well (some argue the best) set up to manage. It is very easy for a Crab to get your honor down around 4 or five by turn two with an average draw. And once they have you down there a Watch Commander is essentially the nail in the coffin.

31 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

You aren't seriously trying turn a blind eye to the inherent strengths of the Lion clan and then compare WC to crone in the same post are you?

Each clan has its own strengths. I do not find Lion to be much stronger than Crab, nor do I see Crone to be a card that plays to some particular strengths/weaknesses of the clan hence I find it reasonable to compare cards with similar effects. Like the smugness tho

edit: also the main argument against the crone is that it halts interaction so strength of the clans is irrelevant

21 minutes ago, Tomello said:

Not really hate, but the clans were clearly designed at different power levels. In the same pack as Ujiaki we got Tadaji. Yeah, that Unicorn grass sure is greener.

Watch Commander uses honor not fate. You need to spend fate to buy characters, and play some cards. For the most part honor allows you to draw cards (and assassinate/banzai). It is a similar function, but has a completely different impact during the game.

I have played more games with Unicorn than with Lion, I have Lion mon because I like their lore better, so I get u bro. When I saw the new Unicorn 4 drop I felt insulted.

It might have a different kind of impact but one of similar volume while the card has the same problem of "halting interaction". And still Crone allows both sides to play attachments and characters without any kind of punishment so I don't see how is it more restrictive than Watch Commander which came out without any sort of controversy

22 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Except honor pressure is win mechanic, one that Crab are very well (some argue the best) set up to manage. It is very easy for a Crab to get your honor down around 4 or five by turn two with an average draw. And once they have you down there a Watch Commander is essentially the nail in the coffin.

Yes, but with the air ring, card draw, dueling, and honoring mechanic you can input more honor into the game or swing it. I can also play attachments and characters before conflicts. Aside from seeker reveals or keeper defenses, and unused rings fate is a steady flow. With the watch commander, I know it is there after I draw cards (or before if it is around multiple turns) and can play accordingly. I can also void or water ring or covert to make it a non-issue.

20 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Each clan has its own strengths. I do not find Lion to be much stronger than Crab, nor do I see Crone to be a card that plays to some particular strengths/weaknesses of the clan hence I find it reasonable to compare the cards with similar effects.

It does play to the strength of the Lion in that their conflict deck is more reactive. So if you can prevent the use of your opponent's cards, you don't need to use yours. Lion has the capacity to put more people on the board and keep them around. The Crone forces players to make poorer choices in the dynasty phase, before you even know of the Crone is in their deck or hand. Which plays into the strength of swarm. It is also one less reason to include costly cards into decks.

19 minutes ago, Tomello said:

Yes, but with the air ring, card draw, dueling, and honoring mechanic you can input more honor into the game or swing it. I can also play attachments and characters before conflicts. Aside from seeker reveals or keeper defenses, and unused rings fate is a steady flow. With the watch commander, I know it is there after I draw cards (or before if it is around multiple turns) and can play accordingly. I can also void or water ring to make it a non-issue.

It does play to the strength of the Lion in that their conflict deck is more reactive. So if you can prevent the use of your opponent's cards, you don't need to use yours. Lion has the capacity to put more people on the board and keep them around. The Crone forces players to make poorer choices in the dynasty phase, before you even know of the Crone is in their deck or hand. Which plays into the strength of swarm. It is also one less reason to include costly cards into decks.

All defenses against Watch Commander are equally valid against the Crone. Plus she is a 0 Military/1 Political 1 cost character that is dirt easy to kill.

And as for Fate being a steady flow we are already seeing ways to mess with Fate Economy from Embrace the void allowing you to get back fate you invested in characters to Goblin Sneak puling fate from your opponents pool.

As to playing to the strengths of Lion, maybe she does but all Clans have cards that do that, every time Scorpion get a 0 Glory Courtier does it break the game, how about a Crane with high political and a harpoon or send home effect, or a Dragon with a bonus for having attachments. There are always going to be cards that from the outside appear to good, but when you stop and take a step back you often find that they are not as powerful as they seem.

16 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

All defenses against Watch Commander are equally valid against the Crone. Plus she is a 0 Military/1 Political 1 cost character that is dirt easy to kill.

Wait, I missed something. Attachment removal gets rid of Watch Commander, but doesn't get rid of Crone. And no character is 'easy' to kill. There's basically assassinate, and in rare situations, I Can Swim, Noble Sacrifice, Way of the Crab, and Fallen in Battle (which are all too complicated to present as answers, let alone easy ones.) So, you can assassinate her if you have it, and have to pay the extra 1 fate on top of the honor loss. Not exactly easy to answer.

45 minutes ago, Tomello said:

It does play to the strength of the Lion in that their conflict deck is more reactive. So if you can prevent the use of your opponent's cards, you don't need to use yours. Lion has the capacity to put more people on the board and keep them around. The Crone forces players to make poorer choices in the dynasty phase, before you even know of the Crone is in their deck or hand. Which plays into the strength of swarm. It is also one less reason to include costly cards into decks.

Reactivity is an inherent weakness as opposed to proactivity so I do not what kind of advantage you are writing about. Could you explain it a bit more?

You are also not taking into the account the fact that Lion is in card disadvantage most of the time due to honor requirements on their characters so they need their cards to be as impactful as possible. Crone strikes me as very unimpactful/ straight up weak in some matchups, while ok in the others. Furthermore Lion plays a lot of events themselves so it makes her look even less atrractive

@AradonTemplar You are missing countless send home effects and some blank effects, which are often on characters so you can get rid of her for free.