10 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

You have great cards, maybe the best stronghold and province, and greats holdings, you can see your opponent hand free playing a 1 cost courtier, but all you can see is how the other clans are getting good cards and yours don't, kachiko is great, and there's still 2 packs to be revealed, be patient.

I was more thinking about Unicorn....there will be something better down the pipe for them. Again, you see a great card and only think about how it will improve your deck...not how it will impact the game. I am looking at a bigger picture here. I could splash her, but it will be inherently weaker as a splash and with the current set of Lion cards there is not much synergy.

Kachiko is a 5 cost conflict character. You only get 7 fate per turn. Maybe I can ambush her in for cheaper. Her glory stat is a liability and her action is not as impactful for the 5 cost. There are also issues with her needing to compete not just with other characters but every other conflict card. You will have to make a deck around just her and work from there, which she may or may not come up in a game. She is poor at best. Compare her with Ujiaki. Same cycle, same cost how impactful to the game is Ujiaki? If you have a FFG in hand, you more or less win the game. You don't even need to pay the 5 cost to play him reliably. He can be better in your discard pile. If I manage to get Kachiko, I am already at a disadvantage because I had to hold back during dynasty. She might help you win a battle, but she is far from the game winner Ujiaki is. You are not seeing that one faction was designed to a different power level than everyone else.

24 minutes ago, Tomello said:

I was more thinking about Unicorn....there will be something better down the pipe for them. Again, you see a great card and only think about how it will improve your deck...not how it will impact the game. I am looking at a bigger picture here. I could splash her, but it will be inherently weaker as a splash and with the current set of Lion cards there is not much synergy.

Kachiko is a 5 cost conflict character. You only get 7 fate per turn. Maybe I can ambush her in for cheaper. Her glory stat is a liability and her action is not as impactful for the 5 cost. There are also issues with her needing to compete not just with other characters but every other conflict card. You will have to make a deck around just her and work from there, which she may or may not come up in a game. She is poor at best. Compare her with Ujiaki. Same cycle, same cost how impactful to the game is Ujiaki? If you have a FFG in hand, you more or less win the game. You don't even need to pay the 5 cost to play him reliably. He can be better in your discard pile. If I manage to get Kachiko, I am already at a disadvantage because I had to hold back during dynasty. She might help you win a battle, but she is far from the game winner Ujiaki is. You are not seeing that one faction was designed to a different power level than everyone else.

Strongly disagree on that. Kachiko has great stats accompanied by a very powerful and versatile ability. How does a card that sends home any target character(lower than 6 is any in most cases) and bows it at once require any workaround or deck building? Not to mention you can make huge attacks with her and send your character home if opponent overcommits. It would be hard to describe her with one word and "poor" is definitely not the right one for the job.

Ujiaki has way worse stats for the same cost and if you don't have a favor he is blank. The only reason he is so broken is that the second you get favor you just rez him with Spiritcaller. However if we compare both cards in the vacuum Kachiko is the stronger one and I can't understand how you can think that a highly conditional strong ability is better than a strong versatile ability with no conditions.

If you "manage" to get Kachiko you can bow and send home opponents 5 fate on a whim. This just wins games.

Lastly getting ujiaki combo to break the province and also getting fgg in hand at the same time with very poor draw from lion is a very unlikely best case scenario. If I were you I would focus more on average results or worst cases(blank 5 drop with 4 drop stats).

pls stop spreading "kachiko is weak" meme

15 minutes ago, Tomello said:

I was more thinking about Unicorn....there will be something better down the pipe for them. Again, you see a great card and only think about how it will improve your deck...not how it will impact the game. I am looking at a bigger picture here. I could splash her, but it will be inherently weaker as a splash and with the current set of Lion cards there is not much synergy.

Kachiko is a 5 cost conflict character. You only get 7 fate per turn. Maybe I can ambush her in for cheaper. Her glory stat is a liability and her action is not as impactful for the 5 cost. There are also issues with her needing to compete not just with other characters but every other conflict card. You will have to make a deck around just her and work from there, which she may or may not come up in a game. She is poor at best. Compare her with Ujiaki. Same cycle, same cost how impactful to the game is Ujiaki? If you have a FFG in hand, you more or less win the game. You don't even need to pay the 5 cost to play him reliably. He can be better in your discard pile. If I manage to get Kachiko, I am already at a disadvantage because I had to hold back during dynasty. She might help you win a battle, but she is far from the game winner Ujiaki is. You are not seeing that one faction was designed to a different power level than everyone else.

Your familiar with the Drop Bears arch-type correct. You know the one that's all about passing early in dynasty and saving fate for the conflict phase and using high impact Conflict characters to "Ambush" your opponent, the one that most competitive Scorpion seem to be having the best results with. Yeah Kachiko with her free send home and bow has no place in a deck like that.

5 minutes ago, BordOne said:

If you manage to get Kachiko you can bow and send home opponents 5 fate on a whim. This just wins games.

Lastly getting ujiaki combo to break the province and also getting fgg in hand at the same time with very poor draw from lion is a very unlikely best case scenario. If I were you I would focus more on average results or worst cases(blank 5 drop with 4 drop stats).

It wins a battle, at a great cost. It is balanced.

As for 4 drop stats...Tadaji says hello. Last I checked 3/5 is better than 1/4. He is better stated than every 4 drop (though there is some situational-ness to it). You can reliably get the favor vs half of the clans, and have to work to get it against the other half. It is not as much of a 'when stars align' to pull of that combo. It is very easy to do.

Kachiko is situational. It is political only, that clan is already really good at that conflict type. So I win one conflict more....

8 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Your familiar with the Drop Bears arch-type correct. You know the one that's all about passing early in dynasty and saving fate for the conflict phase and using high impact Conflict characters to "Ambush" your opponent, the one that most competitive Scorpion seem to be having the best results with. Yeah Kachiko with her free send home and bow has no place in a deck like that.

How do you declare a conflict without a character in play? You have to have some board to do so. I understand the concept of the deck and understand that sometimes unorthodox play can throw off your opponent. Using covert is why it is effective. Kachiko doesn't have covert. She has stats, but is costed fairly for them.

48 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

Making a incredible scenario when Lion is rich because used Charge or Ujiaki, and the opponent have no fate, and you have FGG in hand makes ageless crone seems a lot better than she usually is.

The scenario is not really that incredible. Granted Crone is not that great in a game where your are saving up fate over a number of turns, because your opponent can do the same, but, Lion doesn't have to do that. Other clans splashing Crone would, and it's why she is really only effective in Lion. Lion was already pulling off Charge/FGG tricks before Ujiaki..............now it just becomes a matter of charging Ujiaki first, or bringing him back via Spiritcaller and then using him to get even more value. The Lion were already ahead of most of the pack. Ujiaki took the thing they did the best and made it better. Crone is just the final kick in the nuts after you've already dropped them. It wasn't really necessary. It seems reasonable to me that, to clans which aren't as well off as the Lion, it seems like overkill.

It's quite possible Crone doesn't even make the cut in Lion, or that Lion players are just ok with dropping a Ujiaki bomb on their opponent and letting their opponent try to deal with it, as so far it looks like it's good enough.......but watching an opponent try to scramble that next turn to catch up on the board, end the dynasty phase with little bit of fate in hopes that their conflict hand can help close the gap (since theoretically Lion should be behind on cards after low bidding) only to have a Crone hit the table to cut their opponent's conflict options in half while Lion have them beat on the board............that's just not very fun for at least one person.

2 minutes ago, Tomello said:

Kachiko is situational. It is political only, that clan is already really good at that conflict type. So I win one conflict more....

How do you declare a conflict without a character in play? You have to have some board to do so. I understand the concept of the deck and understand that sometimes unorthodox play can throw off your opponent. Using covert is why it is effective. Kachiko doesn't have covert. She has stats, but is costed fairly for them.

She has a very similar ability to covert, only worse since she rather than bypassing a characters, bows them and takes them out of the fight, something that is very strong in and of itself as it means they can't be used to swing back on your opponents attack or to defend in a later attack. With the rampant debuff that Scorpion have access to lower political is not hard to achieve, even with her dishonored. But the fact that so many Scorpions seem to be focused on if she's dishonored she sucks, well I've got news for you outside of two situational event cards (one requires you to have a courtier in play and you still get to pick whether to dishonor her or not and the other you get to pick the target so if your that worried about it make sure she has a meet shield when you send her into a fight) the only reliable Dishonor is if you run into a Shameful Display or they Fire Ring you. And again its not like Scorpion have ways to deal with that since they run at least two methods of either purging or manipulating honor tokens that I can think of off the top of my head. She is a stat beast character with improved Outwit I'd say that's pretty good. And Drop Bears doesn't skip Dynasty characters entirely it just runs light on them, buy one may be two and than pass. The idea is to save up your fate for high impact turns.

40 minutes ago, Tomello said:

It wins a battle, at a great cost. It is balanced.

As for 4 drop stats...Tadaji says hello. Last I checked 3/5 is better than 1/4. He is better stated than every 4 drop (though there is some situational-ness to it). You can reliably get the favor vs half of the clans, and have to work to get it against the other half. It is not as much of a 'when stars align' to pull of that combo. It is very easy to do.

Kachiko is situational. It is political only, that clan is already really good at that conflict type. So I win one conflict more....

What cost? All I see is 5 drop stats and strong targetable action with barely any restrictions. If she was released as a clan champion she would be widely accepted as one of the strongest. She is balanced I agree but on the stronger side.

The "4 drop stats" was obviously a hyperbole, he does have one of the worst 5 drop stats in the game currently though if not the worst.

No you cannot reliably get the favor against any clan and if you think you can I don't know what game you are playing. You can get the favor if you want to hugely sacrifice tempo and board position thats for sure but Lion are not the best at playing from behind.

No it is precisely "when the stars align" combo. First you need to gain favor. Than you need to draw Ujiaki. Than you need to draw fgg.

So it is at least 2 card combo(with 3 copies of each in 40 card pools) or even 3 if ur ujiaki dies and you need to revive him/you want to cheat him in with charge, in the game with no tutors, in the clan with the lowest draw out of all 7. Assuming that your opponent won't interact with it in any way and not counting how hard it can be to get imperial favor/ tempo hit you will get from getting it. Seems kind of like definition of an "unlikely event".

You can tell me it is very easy to do when you will actually do it yourself. Or at least test it.

Nah Kachiko is not situational. The only reason I can see her not being played is the fact that Shoju works marginally better with dishonor tech in scorpion. If Kachiko had the same stats as him she would be played over him every time. She is essentialy a more expensive version of lions pride brawler with stronger stats, that works in 1 type of conflict on participating chars only but also when defending. Last time I checked Lions pride brawler was "op" and "best 3 drop in the game". How does "op" change into "poor" together with the colours? And its not like Scorp is weak either

oh yeah and btw just because the drop bears are popular now it doesn't mean it is the only way to play scorp

16 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Nah Kachiko is not situational. The only reason I can see her not being played is the fact that Shoju works marginally better with dishonor tech in scorpion. If Kachiko had the same stats as him she would be played over him every time. She is essentialy a more expensive version of lions pride brawler with stronger stats, that works in 1 type of conflict on participating chars only but also when defending. Last time I checked Lions pride brawler was "op" and "best 3 drop in the game". How does "op" change into "poor" together with the colours? And its not like Scorp is weak either

Shh, you'll hurt the Scorpions whole we suck there's nothing to see here narrative if you keep pointing these facts out.

11 minutes ago, BordOne said:

The "4 drop stats" was obviously a hyperbole, he does have one of the worst 5 drop stats in the game currently though if not the worst.

Yasuki Taka at 3/4 says Hi.

5 minutes ago, BordOne said:

People are complaining about Lions Pride Brawler and you tell me that the stronger, more versatile version of it is "poor"?

You don't know what you are talking about. You only have to be attacking to use Brawler, she costs 3 fate, is non unique, and doesn't have to choose a person in conflict. I know 'what-aboutery' is a common debate tactic, but you are only going to convince people that don't know better. Yes we know the military clan has 3 of the best Courtiers in the game. Thank you for reminding us.

8 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Wait what? I understand that the drop bears are popular now but last time I played the scorpion(monday) they actually played characters from the provinces I know crazy concept right xD

What covert what is this what? I don't understand the premise. Kachiko is worth 5 fate for her stats and anything sent home/bowed from her ability is just a bonus of up to 5 fate. What do you need covert for? Last time I checked scorpion can break provinces without covert too.

You do know that the stronghold only gives 7 fate per turn right? How much fate do you think people have?

10 minutes ago, BordOne said:

No it is precisely "when the stars align" combo. First you need to gain favor. Than you need to draw Ujiaki. Than you need to draw fgg.

So it is at least 2 card combo(with 3 copies of each in 40 card pools) or even 3 if ur ujiaki dies and you need to revive him/you want to cheat him in with charge in the game with no tutors in the clan with the lowest draw in the game. Assuming that your opponent won't interact with it in any way and not counting how hard it can be to get imperial favor/ tempo hit you will get from getting it. Seems kind of like definition of an "unlikely event".

You don't have the weakest draw, that is you misplaying. You know a lot of players bid high...guess what you can as well (even one lower?). If you let a 1 cost courtier or a 0 cost bushi impede your game...that is on you. You don't have weak draw you just chose to play to the drawbacks of your 1 and 0 cost characters and not the strengths of the rest. You also have a mulligan to let you see up to 8 cards in each deck. It happens a lot more than you would think, but with the way you seem to be playing I can see how it wouldn't.

21 minutes ago, BordOne said:

The "4 drop stats" was obviously a hyperbole, he does have one of the worst 5 drop stats in the game currently though if not the worst.

Isawa Kaede at 3/4 also says hello. But hey, at least he's in good company, it's not like Agasha Sumiko (4/4), Shiba Tsukune (4/4), or Kakita Yoshi (2/6) are any better when it comes to stats.

Huh...you know, this just made me realize that before Glory is figured in, Phoenix has the worst overall base stats for 5-costers. We must be the worst clan.

48 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

She has a very similar ability to covert, only worse since she rather than bypassing a characters, bows them and takes them out of the fight, something that is very strong in and of itself as it means they can't be used to swing back on your opponents attack or to defend in a later attack. With the rampant debuff that Scorpion have access to lower political is not hard to achieve, even with her dishonored. But the fact that so many Scorpions seem to be focused on if she's dishonored she sucks, well I've got news for you outside of two situational event cards (one requires you to have a courtier in play and you still get to pick whether to dishonor her or not and the other you get to pick the target so if your that worried about it make sure she has a meet shield when you send her into a fight) the only reliable Dishonor is if you run into a Shameful Display or they Fire Ring you. And again its not like Scorpion have ways to deal with that since they run at least two methods of either purging or manipulating honor tokens that I can think of off the top of my head. She is a stat beast character with improved Outwit I'd say that's pretty good. And Drop Bears doesn't skip Dynasty characters entirely it just runs light on them, buy one may be two and than pass. The idea is to save up your fate for high impact turns.

I still have to impede tempo to get less in dynasty, she is only winning one conflict (that you are already suited to win). At the expense of defense for two conflicts and maybe even your military.

Also if I am running 10 characters in deck, I am running less of other things. So that rampant debuff and tons of tricks (most of which cost fate)...well not so much.

39 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Shh, you'll hurt the Scorpions whole we suck there's nothing to see here narrative if you keep pointing these facts out.

I mean they are annoying to play against so I do it with pleasure I guess...

36 minutes ago, Hordeoverseer said:

Yasuki Taka at 3/4 says Hi.

32 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Isawa Kaede at 3/4 also says hello. But hey, at least he's in good company, it's not like Agasha Sumiko (4/4), Shiba Tsukune (4/4), or Kakita Yoshi (2/6) are any better when it comes to stats.

Huh...you know, this just made me realize that before Glory is figured in, Phoenix has the worst overall base stats for 5-costers. We must be the worst clan.

Thats why I said one of, thanks for keeping me up with the data Ya Isawa Kaede and Yasuki Taka(maybe Agasha Sumiko also) have worse stats, rest is the same or stronger(all of them are weak on stats tho).

Well I guess you should count in glory then.

@Tomello Sorry you are responding to the part of the post I edited out after I realized I have written a lot on something that wasn't addresed to me I will happily respond tho.

34 minutes ago, Tomello said:

You don't know what you are talking about. You only have to be attacking to use Brawler, she costs 3 fate, is non unique, and doesn't have to choose a person in conflict. I know 'what-aboutery' is a common debate tactic, but you are only going to convince people that don't know better. Yes we know the military clan has 3 of the best Courtiers in the game. Thank you for reminding us.

Ya I phrased it there wrong here is the thing I rewrote.

Nah Kachiko is not situational. The only reason I can see her not being played is the fact that Shoju works marginally better with dishonor tech in scorpion. If Kachiko had the same stats as him she would be played over him every time. She is essentialy a more expensive version of lions pride brawler with stronger stats, that works in 1 type of conflict on participating chars only but also when defending. Last time I checked Lions pride brawler was "op" and "best 3 drop in the game". How does "op" change into "poor" together with the colours? And its not like Scorp is weak either

I don't want to talk about debate tactics. All I did is a comparison of two similar abilities. They are marginally different, but not different enough to call one of them "poor and situational" and the other one "op" as you did.

34 minutes ago, Tomello said:

You do know that the stronghold only gives 7 fate per turn right? How much fate do you think people have?

Dude you know there are turns other than turn one right xD and that you get fate from other sources such as rings and also provinces if you are a seeker which Scorpion happen to be. Not even touching on manicured gardens.

34 minutes ago, Tomello said:

You don't have the weakest draw, that is you misplaying. You know a lot of players bid high...guess what you can as well (even one lower?). If you let a 1 cost courtier or a 0 cost bushi impede your game...that is on you. You don't have weak draw you just chose to play to the drawbacks of your 1 and 0 cost characters and not the strengths of the rest. You also have a mulligan to let you see up to 8 cards in each deck. It happens a lot more than you would think, but with the way you seem to be playing I can see how it wouldn't.

Give me one other clan that is incentivized to bid low straight up from the effects of the cards getting weaker if they bid high(hey u can't :p)

Venerable historian is a 2 cost courtier and if you knew anything about the Lion you would understand that it is one of our only ways to attack/ defend politically.

And yes I do depend on my cards working if that is what you are asking, I do not put in Recruit to be a blank card that clogs up my provinces and dies instantly or Venerable historian to be the worst 2 drop in the game without honor.

Dude if you mulligan ur full hand and full provinces just to find a combo you will probably lose due to bad draws.

Kachiko - as much as some people love the concept of DropBears it didn't win worlds, and I don't think it placed top in Scorpion either. I may be wrong, please correct me if I am.

The weakness of Kachiko is primarily her 3 Glory, and the fact that she is a conflict character. Its not that Kachiko is weak. She is a very strong character - but she is vulnerable. If I have Shoju and run into For Shame, or Shameful Display I won't lose just because Shoju gets tagged with the dishonor. Likewise if my opponent plays a big event and I need to dishonor a courtier to used Forged Edict I have no problems using Shoju to pay that cost. With Kachiko its tougher... 3 Glory makes her more vulnerable and an important part of any deck is reliability. Shoju is more reliable than Kachiko even though her ability is impressive.

The other part of Kachiko is that she is a conflict character. If she were Dynasty I could see some players running her over Shoju. There are many Dynasty characters I can see players skipping out on to run her... but we don't have that choice. We have to put her in the conflict deck which means she is competing with 0 and 1 cost power buffs. Strong but expensive conflict cards aren't prevalent in the meta even in Scorpion decks. When it comes to the decisions in deck building and you have every conflict card against Kachiko, and a cost curve favoring 0 and 1 cost cards over 2+, Kachiko gets wedged out. When you consider that you only get 10 conflict characters total she also gets wedged out. I already passed on Unassuming Yojimbo because 3 cost is a lot, and I get similar results from splashing Ishiken Initiate who can give me 4/4 for 2 cost.

I don't begrudge people who are optimistic about Kachiko and the dropbears deck, but I think some over-estimate its advantages currently. We'll see as more games are played, and more cards are released, and more tournaments are played just how powerful Kachiko is. At this time I'm confident she will be passed over, at least as a core component of the deck and play style.

-----------

I have a similarly critical view of Ujiaki and the Crone. The Crone is a blanket of greatness for Lion because they tend to have a bigger buy in through dynasty, and concern themselves less with their conflict cards. I have a friend who plays Lion and does very well - better than me - and bids 1 every turn, and plays with just that 1 draw each turn... For him Crone is only good. Is it game breakingly good? I can't say, but it is thematic with Lion. The Lion Clan doesn't need any favors, but I don't want to see any clan neglected simply because they are competitive.

Ujiaki has a barrier of requiring the favor. It is possible to play to get the favor, but I've found that generally the favor is difficult to focus on controlling while also winning the game. Ujiaki will be amazeballz if you have the favor sure, but we haven't seen what players can do to control and deny the favor yet... and Ujiaki has that vulnerability, just as Kachiko does, where he isn't worth the cost if you can't use his ability.

44 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Isawa Kaede at 3/4 also says hello. But hey, at least he's in good company, it's not like Agasha Sumiko (4/4), Shiba Tsukune (4/4), or Kakita Yoshi (2/6) are any better when it comes to stats.

Huh...you know, this just made me realize that before Glory is figured in, Phoenix has the worst overall base stats for 5-costers. We must be the worst clan.

If Way of the Phoenix had the ability of Benten's Touch I think Phoenix would have been much better off in the core. Its funny that Crane depends less on honor status than Phoenix, yet they got the honor tech... At least with Benten's Touch and maybe some other new cards Phoenix can play catch up now.

However - recognizing the weakness of Kaede and Tsukune, people should also recognize the weakness of Kachiko having 3 Glory. Scorpion don't have any honor tech either... so it serves only as a penalty. Eh, sry I don't want to gripe on that too hard, we'll see in play how good Kachiko is.

35 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Dude you know there are turns other than turn one right xD and that you get fate from other sources such as rings and also provinces if you are a seeker which Scorpion happen to be. Not even touching on manicured gardens.

So what you are saying is I have to rely on my opponent also not playing cards so I can not play cards and avoid being steamrolled as well as them hitting 1 province that I cannot use if I want Secret Cache. I also have to hope that my 1-2 costs can win conflicts, without fate support. Talk about stars aligning...

41 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Give me one other clan that is incentivized to bid low straight up from the effects of the cards getting weaker if they bid high(hey u can't :p)

Venerable historian is a 2 cost courtier and if you knew anything about the Lion you would understand that it is one of our only ways to attack/ defend politically.

And yes I do depend on my cards working if that is what you are asking, I do not put in Recruit to be a blank card that clogs up my provinces and dies instantly or Venerable historian to be the worst 2 drop in the game without honor.

What are you talking about. Any person with a non - political stat can attack and defend politically.

So you need 3 cards out of 40 to do anything politically? I think we have crossed the line of hyperbole and gotten into dishonesty.

The game is situational. You know some clans will bid high (some clans need to). So if you are timid you can always bid 2 and be OK. Turn 1 you can probably up that to 4 and still be just fine. At that point you are seeing 20% of your deck. This notion that you are stuck at 1 is nuts. You might not even draw your honor dependent people in a game.

14 minutes ago, shosuko said:

At this time I'm confident she will be passed over, at least as a core component of the deck and play style.

Agreed. Which is why I cannot look at her in the same vacuum everyone else is. I considered everything in clan and in game and she doesn't measure enough to play at this time.

51 minutes ago, Tomello said:

So what you are saying is I have to rely on my opponent also not playing cards so I can not play cards and avoid being steamrolled as well as them hitting 1 province that I cannot use if I want Secret Cache. I also have to hope that my 1-2 costs can win conflicts, without fate support. Talk about stars aligning...

I just can't follow your train of thought what are u talking about why need to rely on opponent? Are you talking turn 1? Don't play her turn one, you have 9 to 10 cards first turn in your hand either way use small dynasty characters and tricks to defend/ attack turn one. Later when ur economy gets going play the bomb. That is how scorpions play shoju anyway.

You just said that you get 7 fate a turn which is straight up false. Scorpion and other seeker clans have economic advantage on keeper ones also. You don't need to rely on anything just play the game.

How do you buy your clan champion? You buy Kachiko for the exact same price. If you have other characters while you have shoju you will have enough characters with Kachiko.

You can use secret cache and you probably should I just got too used to Scorpion being seeker of air.

51 minutes ago, Tomello said:

What are you talking about. Any person with a non - political stat can attack and defend politically.

So you need 3 cards out of 40 to do anything politically? I think we have crossed the line of hyperbole and gotten into dishonesty.

Dude I have a crazy concept for you: efficiency.

Well you saying that makes you look even less experienced with Lion. And I tought it was a common knowledge that this clan is weak politically.

We don't have any characters that are more efficient than her politically and majority of our options are subpar to other clans.

So yes you need your cards working if you want to win the game. Having 6 dead cards in the deck certainly doesn't help you(one of which is your best pol char), saying that out loud sounds really stupid but I guess it needs to be said again.

If you think i am dishonest just play the effing clan

51 minutes ago, Tomello said:

The game is situational. You know some clans will bid high (some clans need to). So if you are timid you can always bid 2 and be OK. Turn 1 you can probably up that to 4 and still be just fine. At that point you are seeing 20% of your deck. This notion that you are stuck at 1 is nuts. You might not even draw your honor dependent people in a game.

1. You are arguing the false premise: you think I said Lion cannot draw cards well, I said they cannot do so as well as any other clan.

2. Never have I ever said I always bid one, to the contrary I bid according to the matchup.

Lion clan is incentivized to bid low due to their honor requirement characters. No other clan has such incentive. All other clans aside from Lion have consistent ways to draw cards from their conflict, Lion lacks an inclan card draw engine.

Lion can draw cards. They are worse than everybody at doing that and incentivized not to.

1 hour ago, BordOne said:

I just can't follow your train of thought what are u talking about why need to rely on opponent? Are you talking turn 1? Don't play her turn one, you have 9 to 10 cards first turn in your hand either way use small dynasty characters and tricks to defend/ attack turn one. Later when ur economy gets going play the bomb. That is how scorpions play shoju anyway.

You just said that you get 7 fate a turn which is straight up false. Scorpion and other seeker clans have economic advantage on keeper ones also. You don't need to rely on anything just play the game.

How do you buy your clan champion? You buy Kachiko for the exact same price. If you have other characters while you have shoju you will have enough characters with Kachiko.

There isn't always going to be fate to play a 5 cost anything. In order to 'get my economy going' I have to go cheap on everything else to bank that fate for future turns. This is rarely possible. Which is the point of saying a 5 cost fate character is not going to see a lot of play.

I rarely buy Shoju, if I flop him early (after mulligan) I pitch him (or I may start running ambush). If I am in a position where I have him and 9+ fate (which is rare) have first player and/or there is fate on rings I may buy him with 1 extra fate. Though if I did add Kachiko I would remove Shoju (which I may do anyways as cheaper less swingy options become available).

You looked at the card in a vacuum, disregarding any synergies in clan or how match ups actually go. Sure in that sterile environment when you don't actually have to play her...she looks pretty darn good. Add the realities of the game compared with your other cards....she is in the binder until something in the game changes.

1 hour ago, BordOne said:

Dude I have a crazy concept for you: efficiency.

Well you saying that makes you look even less experienced with Lion. And I tought it was a common knowledge that this clan is weak politically.

We don't have any characters that are more efficient than her politically and majority of our options are subpar to other clans.

So yes you need your cards working if you want to win the game. Having 6 dead cards in the deck certainly doesn't help you(one of which is your best pol char), saying that out loud sounds really stupid but I guess it needs to be said again.

The game is not static, you may not draw them in games. Are you saying you just lose every political conflict without this character? I didn't know Lion strategy was contingent upon getting this character. They are more often than not NOT dead cards. Honor is swingy, duels and card bid provide massive swings. You already start out highest. You know you have a buffer to what you can bid. if you don't have them you don't need to worry. If you draw too many...and cannot play a few cards you now have a hand advantage. Which all but eliminates unlikely to turn up dead cards (of which I would only count recruit). So the VAST majority of the time you are going to be OK.

You are immensely overstating that balancing of having higher honor for powerful cheap characters as a huge flaw. It is not. It is balance.

1 hour ago, BordOne said:

1. You are arguing the false premise: you think I said Lion cannot draw cards well, I said they cannot do so as well as any other clan.

2. Never have I ever said I always bid one, to the contrary I bid according to the matchup.

Well technically your original premise was that it is highly unlikely Ujiaki will be able to fire on a turn you have an FFG. (to be honest getting any FFG off is devastating) You cited poor card draw as a reason as well as favor issues. You can get the favor just like every other clan, you will have an easier time than Unicorn, Crab for sure. Scorpion you might have a leg up on due to Glory. The rest it is simple toss up as to who gets a better flop and plays better. As you said your card draw is not the best, which also means it is NOT poor. You have the cards a decent shot at the favor...but no Ujiaki is unlikely to ever work.

50 minutes ago, Tomello said:

There isn't always going to be fate to play a 5 cost anything. In order to 'get my economy going' I have to go cheap on everything else to bank that fate for future turns. This is rarely possible. Which is the point of saying a 5 cost fate character is not going to see a lot of play.

Wait what? Clan champs aren't seeing a lot of play? This is a rethorical question.

50 minutes ago, Tomello said:

I rarely buy Shoju, if I flop him early (after mulligan) I pitch him (or I may start running ambush). If I am in a position where I have him and 9+ fate (which is rare) have first player and/or there is fate on rings I may buy him with 1 extra fate. Though if I did add Kachiko I would remove Shoju (which I may do anyways as cheaper less swingy options become available).

You looked at the card in a vacuum, disregarding any synergies in clan or how match ups actually go. Sure in that sterile environment when you don't actually have to play her...she looks pretty darn good. Add the realities of the game compared with your other cards....she is in the binder until something in the game changes.

So you are arguing now that 5 drops are not really playable thus Kachiko is weak? Wut

Dude it is a straightforward ability on strong body. In what match up is "send target personality home and bow it" considered bad? On a good body as a plus?

50 minutes ago, Tomello said:

The game is not static, you may not draw them in games. Are you saying you just lose every political conflict without this character? I didn't know Lion strategy was contingent upon getting this character. They are more often than not NOT dead cards. Honor is swingy, duels and card bid provide massive swings. You already start out highest. You know you have a buffer to what you can bid. if you don't have them you don't need to worry. If you draw too many...and cannot play a few cards you now have a hand advantage. Which all but eliminates unlikely to turn up dead cards (of which I would only count recruit). So the VAST majority of the time you are going to be OK.

You are immensely overstating that balancing of having higher honor for powerful cheap characters as a huge flaw. It is not. It is balance.

Don't put words in my mouth. You do not lose every political without historians it is just significantly harder. What's more not flipping a historian is not the worst case scenario - the worst case scenario is flipping them while being lower on honor than your opponent.

Yes they are more often than not NOT dead cards because you play the game with them in mind and often bid lower than you could with any other clan thus being in card disadvantage you understand now?

If I don't have them I have Recruits. If I don't have either I need to play with my dynasty flop next turn in mind which could be historian historian obstinate for all I know. Both recruit and historian are dead cards if you are lower honor, unless paying 2 fate for - / 1 blank card seems like a good strategy to you.

I am not overstating anything and I never said it is unbalanced, we were talking about the likelyhood of drawing the combo. Lion will not draw as many conflict cards as other clans period I don't know why it even needs to be said.

50 minutes ago, Tomello said:

Well technically your original premise was that it is highly unlikely Ujiaki will be able to fire on a turn you have an FFG. (to be honest getting any FFG off is devastating) You cited poor card draw as a reason as well as favor issues. You can get the favor just like every other clan, you will have an easier time than Unicorn, Crab for sure. Scorpion you might have a leg up on due to Glory. The rest it is simple toss up as to who gets a better flop and plays better. As you said your card draw is not the best, which also means it is NOT poor. You have the cards a decent shot at the favor...but no Ujiaki is unlikely to ever work.

It's FGG, FFG is the name of the company.

Lion can get favor as easily as other clans but what you seem not to understand is that getting favor is not the matter of binary choice and that if opponent sees Ujiaki anywhere, he will play heavily around him(in which case he is a vanilla body with suboptimal stats). Not to mention some of the clans have a way to get the favor automatically...

The card draw of the Lion is the poorest out of all clans in the game. Ujiaki is likely to work. What is unlikely is drawing him with charge and fgg while flipping some 4/5 drops all at the same time. What is likely is you drawing ujiaki. Or you drawing ujiyaki and fgg. Or ujiaki and charge. And also that he is blank.

Ujiyaki is broken with spiritcaller. But looking at the best possible case scenario when the range of results is very wide, and saying that is the reason he is broken is just plain stupid.

56 minutes ago, BordOne said:

So you are arguing now that 5 drops are not really playable thus Kachiko is weak? Wut

In what match up is "send target personality home and bow it" considered bad? On a good body as a plus?

Let me help.

You are trying to say that Kachiko is strong because she is at par with all 5 costers. (or even above it) This is a faulty assumption because they are all not the same thing: they are not all Dynasty cards.

You said you are trying to compare cards "in a vacuum". No, you're not. You keep missing the biggest cost that is making Kachiko sub-par at the moment: opportunity costs. Dynasty characters need to compete against other dynasty characters. Conflict characters, on the other hand, needs to be gauged upon a different metric. If Kachiko was a dynasty character, I'd be happy to have her. Being a conflict character means she's competing with other conflict cards, not just characters. You already said some of scorpion's cards are strong, and I agree. If you try to compare Kachiko to other conflict cards though, that's where it gets dicey. She's competing for space with some of the strongest conflict cards out there, and with her cost, she's at a disadvantage.

As an exercise on the matter, try playing your champ in the conflict deck. At this stage, people can already value what a character's worth in their deck, so I assume you know your champ's value. Play him in the conflict deck and see if your perceived value of him increases or decreases.

Personally, I'd try to make her work. Shes Kachiko. But everytime I picture that scenario, I keep thinking of running A Fate Worst Than Death instead. Better cost, with more impact.

5 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

The scenario is not really that incredible. Granted Crone is not that great in a game where your are saving up fate over a number of turns, because your opponent can do the same, but, Lion doesn't have to do that. Other clans splashing Crone would, and it's why she is really only effective in Lion. Lion was already pulling off Charge/FGG tricks before Ujiaki..............now it just becomes a matter of charging Ujiaki first, or bringing him back via Spiritcaller and then using him to get even more value. The Lion were already ahead of most of the pack. Ujiaki took the thing they did the best and made it better. Crone is just the final kick in the nuts after you've already dropped them. It wasn't really necessary. It seems reasonable to me that, to clans which aren't as well off as the Lion, it seems like overkill.

It's quite possible Crone doesn't even make the cut in Lion, or that Lion players are just ok with dropping a Ujiaki bomb on their opponent and letting their opponent try to deal with it, as so far it looks like it's good enough.......but watching an opponent try to scramble that next turn to catch up on the board, end the dynasty phase with little bit of fate in hopes that their conflict hand can help close the gap (since theoretically Lion should be behind on cards after low bidding) only to have a Crone hit the table to cut their opponent's conflict options in half while Lion have them beat on the board............that's just not very fun for at least one person.

I understand your point, but again the problem in this case is ujiaki not the Crone, and as I started this quote I agree with you and think this OP ability with favor is not good for the game at all, and the same about the magistrates, at least they needed a Nerf like cant attack the stronghold imo.

1 hour ago, BordOne said:

The card draw of the Lion is the poorest out of all clans in the game. Ujiaki is likely to work. What is unlikely is drawing him with charge and fgg while flipping some 4/5 drops all at the same time. What is likely is you drawing ujiaki. Or you drawing ujiyaki and fgg. Or ujiaki and charge. And also that he is blank.

I would ask you to stop feigning ignorance...but at this point I don't think you are feigning anything.

God forbid a clan that was designed on completely different power level not the best at everything. But enough of that, you can continue to tilt at windmills.

My original issue was not with Ujiaki or Kachiko. People just used petulance what-aboutery to downplay how amazing Ageless Crone is for Lion, bringing in other crap. Ujiaki is amazing in both terms of potential and synergy with the best deck options Lion has. You can think Kachiko is the bees knees but in reality...she will sit in the binder for winning decks and in the hand for losing decks. As pointed out A Fate Worse Than Death is a better cheaper option.

My problem was with Crone. I am not going to rehash it.

41 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

I understand your point, but again the problem in this case is ujiaki not the Crone, and as I started this quote I agree with you and think this OP ability with favor is not good for the game at all, and the same about the magistrates, at least they needed a Nerf like cant attack the stronghold imo.

The clans were designed at differing power levels. IMO Ujiaki can have a must bid less than your opponent or discard a fate without any interaction with the favor. It would make the insta-win combo more difficult and/or not be easy to use with Charge and Spirit Caller. That might make him garbage, but it would line up with other clans from a power perspective.

8 hours ago, Shosuro Teri said:

Let me help.

You are trying to say that Kachiko is strong because she is at par with all 5 costers. (or even above it) This is a faulty assumption because they are all not the same thing: they are not all Dynasty cards.

You said you are trying to compare cards "in a vacuum". No, you're not. You keep missing the biggest cost that is making Kachiko sub-par at the moment: opportunity costs. Dynasty characters need to compete against other dynasty characters. Conflict characters, on the other hand, needs to be gauged upon a different metric. If Kachiko was a dynasty character, I'd be happy to have her. Being a conflict character means she's competing with other conflict cards, not just characters. You already said some of scorpion's cards are strong, and I agree. If you try to compare Kachiko to other conflict cards though, that's where it gets dicey. She's competing for space with some of the strongest conflict cards out there, and with her cost, she's at a disadvantage.

As an exercise on the matter, try playing your champ in the conflict deck. At this stage, people can already value what a character's worth in their deck, so I assume you know your champ's value. Play him in the conflict deck and see if your perceived value of him increases or decreases.

Personally, I'd try to make her work. Shes Kachiko. But everytime I picture that scenario, I keep thinking of running A Fate Worst Than Death instead. Better cost, with more impact.

I know Kachiko is a conflict character and I can see her being hard to fit into the deck. I am not as pessimistic as you though. This card dosn't have a weakness in her design other than that. While she might be competing with the rest of the conflict deck I am pretty sure you can find 3 or 2 spaces to try her out.

You didn't mention inherent advantages that comes with being a conflict character - mainly information advantage and opportunity advantage - if she is strong in the situation you can play her if not you leave her in hand - you have 9 other cards, you are Scorpion goddamit.

Toturi wouldn't work in the conflict deck due to how Lion plays - spending all fate in dynasty and then trying to cheat him in with charge. One dead card in Lions hand is also much heavier than one dead card in Scorpions. Tell me: do you think Shoju wouldn't work as conflict character? Scorpion always played into conflicts with huge pool of unspent fate, Kachiko synergizes with that playstyle perfectly. I understand the hesitation, she is first 5 cost conflict character, we don't know how to work our mind around that yet but I am optimistic. And as you said if she were dynasty she would be great so I don't see her as weak or poor as she was called by others with no testing at least for now.

Kachiko does the same thing as A fate worse than death(Which is one of the great cards I see no one talking about, while focusing on the crone instead), albeit only in political. She does however provide you with 6 more political power for a 1 cost increase in fate. And she can do it for 1 fate cheaper if you cheat her in with an Ambush. She also has an added flexibility of being a character(you can initiate conflicts with her, can spend fate on her) and she can use the skill on her own personalities. So I view cards as similar. I will agree though that A Fate Worse Than Death is probably better due to how busted it is. I am still not sure though because Kachiko and 1 drop from Ambush seems like the most broken thing ever(/obvious exaggeration). She's also good with Back alley hideway.

7 hours ago, Tomello said:

I would ask you to stop feigning ignorance...but at this point I don't think you are feigning anything.

God forbid a clan that was designed on completely different power level not the best at everything. But enough of that, you can continue to tilt at windmills.

My original issue was not with Ujiaki or Kachiko. People just used petulance what-aboutery to downplay how amazing Ageless Crone is for Lion, bringing in other crap. Ujiaki is amazing in both terms of potential and synergy with the best deck options Lion has. You can think Kachiko is the bees knees but in reality...she will sit in the binder for winning decks and in the hand for losing decks. As pointed out A Fate Worse Than Death is a better cheaper option.

My problem was with Crone. I am not going to rehash it.

The clans were designed at differing power levels. IMO Ujiaki can have a must bid less than your opponent or discard a fate without any interaction with the favor. It would make the insta-win combo more difficult and/or not be easy to use with Charge and Spirit Caller. That might make him garbage, but it would line up with other clans from a power perspective.

Dude did I say anywhere it is bad that Lion is not as good as other clans at drawing? No. And I know it is good for the game that they are not. You seem to be however arguing against the whole clan while I am just talking about the likelyhood of drawing the combo. If you hate Lion just say it, don't put it behind a thin veil of weakly constructed arguments and personal insults.

Sorry for using the what - aboutery known as "arguing ones point" I will try not to do that again /snark. A Fate Worse Than Death is a better cheaper version of Kachiko because card is busted. If you want to cry about something cry about the impact it will have on the clans that don't cheat in their champions with charge which is most of them.

Well your problem with Crone is stupid and comes from lack of knowledge about how the clan plays. She strikes me as not optimal economy advantage tool, something Lion don't need, clogging your already small hand with low impact cards while you need the exact opposite. She doesn't even stop your opponent from doing anything. She might be strong against Scorpion and I guess that's why she seems "op" to you. Being strong against one match up is not enough though in the game with no sideboard.

Let's wait and see how Ujiaki plays. I think he is broken due to Spirit Caller interaction. I also think "best case scenario"you seem to be quoting all the time is not the reason he is broken.

Lastly if you are worried about your Scorp matchup against Lion worry not, you have a character that automatically gives you imperial favor, with barely any counterplay and certainly with no counterplay in Lion.

tl:dr whole reason I am in this thread: Crone looks ok/ not optimal in Lion while I am reading she is op and broken. People saying Kachiko is "weak and poor" with no testing and without arguing it very well(only coherent arguments coming from Shosuro Teri and shosuko at this point), people saying Ujiaki is broken(which he probably is)due to one in twenty games scenario while ignoring the true problem with him - which is Spirit Caller working around his ability condition.

Lets clarify a little this Ujiaki + Crone + FGG "auto-win" combo.

First several things need to happen for this can be even possible:

1 - Lion need the imperial favor

2 - Lion need Ujiaki in a province or in discard and the shugenja

3 - Lion need to save at least 3 fates for conflict phase (1 for Crone and 2 for FGG)

4 - Lion's opponent need to spend all his fate in dynasty phase.

Despite this very uncommon scenario, lets be honest, if you are facing Lion you have all the informations you need in dynasty phase. You know he have the favor and you know ujiaki is coming. Let's consider the fact Ujiaki can bring up to +15M force into the battle, so, like facing Shoju, the best you can do is stay out of his way and save your cards to win the other 3 conflicts, in order to recover the imperial favor. So all these "Crone reduce my action possibilities in half" are pointless.

Your best chances:

1 - Save 1 fate and use a counter in FGG. If you waste all your fate in dynasty phase in this telegraphed situation you are playing very bad anyway.

2 - If you don't have a counter crone will not affect this at all, the best you could do is use cloud the mind or against the waves in the shugenja, and Crone will not affect this too.

About Lion didn't need a courtier like Crone, I deeply disagree, as I said Lion the main strategy is bid low, and as we don't have many dishonor cards to punish our opponents for bidding high, and Honor Victory is far more difficult to do, almost impossible against Scorpion, Lion usually face opponents with more cards in hand. She is not that amazing, but is a good protection resource principally against decks that can draw a lot with cards like Scorpion (sincerity, stronghold, province), Crane and Phoenix (holdings, sincerity), her main function is to prevent receiving several 0 cost actions in one conflict.

3 hours ago, BordOne said:

Sorry for using the what - aboutery known as "arguing ones point" I will try not to do that again

My problem was with Crone and you mentioned that I should have a problem with Ujiaki and not Crone. That is what-aboutery. Not really arguing a point so much as saying "hey look over here". I did engage with that in good faith, but you have not been responding in kind. I don't really care about Ujiaki, if you get that combo congrats your win is all but assured. I don't think that is "broken" as you put it. I think it is problematic, but at the end of the game I still get to try and play cards.

3 hours ago, BordOne said:

Well your problem with Crone is stupid and comes from lack of knowledge about how the clan plays. She strikes me as not optimal economy advantage tool, something Lion don't need, clogging your already small hand with low impact cards while you need the exact opposite. She doesn't even stop your opponent from doing anything.

All but denying your opponent the ability to play events...yeah that is not optimal at all. Lion tends to have a board advantage but a hand disadvantage. Balance. The Crone will create a fate advantage AND mitigate any hand advantage all while maintaining their board advantage. Imbalance. The problematic part is that I just don't get to play, which is different than other cards with similar impacts because of the synergy with the clan.

You are still looking at all things in vacuums and not thinking about interactions in game and general game pay experiences. I don't think it is broken...I never said such, I just think it creates a negative play experience and gives the clan that already has answers even more. While other clans struggle to be viable.