I want to hear what the community has to say about this.

UNICORN splashing CRAB:

(from previous discussion)

I hate to say it but this could create a first turn/pre-first conflict honor win with the perfect hand and dynasty.

WAY OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM, REBUILD, REBUILD, ANY CARD

2x WINDSWEPT YURT in DYNASTY

1 to 5 Honor Dial Bid = 4 honor + CHRYSANTHEMUM 4 honor + 2 honor YURT + 2 honor YURT + 2 Honor REBUILD/YURT + 2 Honor REBUILD/YURT = 26 Honor Pre-Conflict first turn.

I think I'm actually a bit concerned about how reasonable this might be to pull off. The statistical probability of this draw is not nearly low enough, even though it is low.

I feel that this is potentially problematic. Not competitively consistent problematic but random broken problematic. You really could have 2 turns to pull this one off with some regularity.

If your opponent sees two Yurts and doesn't bid one, they deserve what they get.

I agree...you can definitely play around it but it would be assuming a lot of things.

But even 1x Windswept Yurt in first dynasty draw and a second on turn two almost gives the win as well (all other things remaining constant). It's not an unreasonable situation.

The question in my mind now is not about the potential turn-one win. It's more of, "Could a Unicorn deck with Rebuild, Yurt, and Way of the Chrysanthemum have enough honor gain to rely on that as a primary win condition and be consistently competitive?"

At the moment, I'm thinking the answer is "Not quite." It wouldn't take many more new cards to change that, though.

First of all, stop stealing my secret tech.

Secondly while I do play all these cards in my current Unicorn deck, I would not advise going all in on the combo since it is something that is easily signaled to your opponent.

If all the stars align then go for it but what I recommend is that you use the honor gain and thinning of Yurt to get you to your good Charge threats sooner and to help recover the honor loss from Assassination, Captive Audience, and Banzai. The honor burst is just a nice gimmick to have if it shows up but I would never try to mulligan into those cards because of you don't hit them you end up with a bunch of garbage.

Let the honor victory come to you, and yes it's possible. But as a straight up combo deck....no way.

A more plausible win is after you've put your opponent into a position that they have to bid high, or you'll bury them in hand advantage with Spyglass, and you're somewhere in the teens on honor after a Yurt has already come along and been discarded. I have gotten an honor victory this way.

3 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

First of all, stop stealing my secret tech.

Secondly while I do play all these cards in my current Unicorn deck, I would not advise going all in on the combo since it is something that is easily signaled to your opponent.

If all the stats align then go for it but what I recommend is that you used the honor gain and thinning of Yourt to get you to your good Charge threats sooner and to help buffer the honor loss from Assassination, Captive Audience, and Banzai. The honor burst is just a nice gimmick to have if it shows up but I would never try to mulligan into those cards because of you don't hit them you end up with a bunch of garbage.

Let the honor victory come to you, and yes it's possible. But as a straight up combo deck....no way.

I completely agree with you @Ishi Tonu.

To build a competitive deck requires much more than just the honor run combo. It's just a bit scary that it is there, and not wholly unrealistic. I'm not sure you have to go all in with this idea.

As for being easily signaled to your opponent...I'd agree, but the caveat is that there isn't much they can do about it except bid low (win for you!) or risk the bid. Also honor loss tends to be more controlled by the actual player rather than opponent (Scorpion being the notable exception, and even then limited). The actual gain that can be produced is so non-confrontation oriented that it is hard to stop (permission decks being some exception).

I'm not overly worried...just trying to spark discussion. Plus, it's nice to see Unicorn having some viable options in the game, as I'm still not convinced they are as bad as people say. I'll concede some problems, but not having the player base from day one because of assumed weaknesses and griping is (in my opinion) their greatest weakness.

This is why Crab is still my favorite splash for Unicorn. While I have had success with the Crane and Lion splashes, I find Crab gives me the most flexibility when playing and allows me to take what my opponent gives me. When I play with Crane or Lion splashes I already feel like I'm playing an inferior deck that another clan can do better. On top of that, when I run into a deck that can counter my strengths, it's difficult to change things up. Unicorn just isn't a clan that is ever in a position where they can dictate the game to the other person, based on their characters. You already have to try to get as many incremental advantages as possible. When I play with the Crab splash, I can change my line of play easier and more often, and leverage those small advantages in different ways, to keep my opponent guessing. Since Yurt was released, Crab splash has been more successful than anything else I've played with Unicorn, and a ton more fun as most games my opponent's have no idea what victory condition I'm trying for.

I hit 24 honor once with Yurt/Rebuilds... shouldn’t have Banzai!’d.... lol

I was running this deck for a while. It doesn't work as well as you'd think.

Way of the "I'll gain 6-10 honor and then lose because I have 4 cards in hand to my opponent's 8 and they will simply swing for air every turn."
Way of the "Oh that's right I'm fighting scorpion."
Way of the "Oh, you bid one as well... guess I have a dead card in hand."
Way of the "I could have been playing Lion honor, at least that deck does things."
Way of the "Oh ****, I didn't see that Goblin Sneak coming."
Way of the "Where are my Yurts, curse these 40 card decks!"
Way of the "Ok, I gained 8, now what?"

Played this a bunch last night at my local. It's cute when it works, works very inconsistently. Not quite there yet.

Combo decks are killing L5R. You read it here first

Thanks for the warning! now we know what don't do if we see 2 yurts in first turn

THE BEST FIRST TURN POSSIBLE

Starting honor: 10
1-5 Bid: +4
Contingency Plan: +1
Flower Power: +5
Yurt: +2
Yurt/Rebuild: +2
Yurt/Rebuild: +2
================
10+4+1+5+2+2+2 = 26 honor win before the first conflict.

John Mellancamp said it best...Yurt's so good.

Again, I'd like to point out that this should not be played as a "combo" deck.

Yurt provides value outside of the combo, as do Rebuild and WotCh. You only want 3 copies of Yurt and a singleton copy of WotCh. Rebuild is fine at 2 but if you end up with extra space in your deck, the 3rd copy is not a bad card. Getting back a Favorable Ground at the right time can be just as important as trying to go for the combo.

The point is to never be actively pursuing the combo. You don't mulligan for it. If you have any pieces of the combo in your opening flips you replace them because you really want to be playing straight up. Use the extra honor gain as a buffer to play your cards that cause you honor loss. Use Yamino to pitch stray combo pieces.

There may or may not be a time in which you can pull it off and if you do, great, but, it's not something to aim for. For example, last game I played with these cards I had alrqdy played an Assassination, used the Yurt to climb back to around 9 honor and had my Spyglass in play, so I wasn't going to start falling behind on cards. I wanted to start pressuring my opponent's honor to try and cut off their hand, but they had been pretty conservative with bidding so it didn't feel right. I went with a 2 bid, he did 3. Turn proceeded Air ring had a couple fate on it so I went after it being very vocal that I wanted that fate to keep trying to fate starve him. Win the battle, stole 1 honor, but didn't break. Then because his hand was dipping low I went after Earth to entice a high bid from him on the following turn. Got Earth and left him with only 2 cards in hand to my 6 and ended the turn at 13 honor after having some honored people die.

I was now at 13 honor, his honor was now 9 and he was down on cards with me building a board so this is were I felt the low bid would work and he went for 5, I bid one played WotCh to gain 8 and went after Air as first player, got it, took 2 honor, then played Rebuild for the win.

At one point in the game I was as low as 5 honor and then in the span of a couple turns I hit 25. So it's quite possible, as long as you aren't forcing it.

I hereby dub this deck "The Yurtle Turtle."

1 hour ago, TopHatGorilla said:

I hereby dub this deck "The Yurtle Turtle."

As bad as this is...

You my friend deserve a like.

On 12/5/2017 at 4:06 PM, Hinomura said:

Combo decks are killing L5R. You read it here first

And what are you doing to prevent that this time, eh? Which role will you pick for Unicorn to screw them??

PS: sorry, could not resist

You're getting us confused. Brad's the guy who does things for the good of the game. I'm the one who tries to infiltrate the Scorpion Clan while wearing a Spider hockey jersey.

Also, the comment was intended more to reflect the current state of panic in AGoT, but I like how you think

If I was a Unicorn fanboi I'd welcome Brad or Mark playing Unicorn.......unfortunately Unicorn is stuck with the likes of me for now.

4 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

If I was a Unicorn fanboi I'd welcome Brad or Mark playing Unicorn.......unfortunately Unicorn is stuck with the likes of me for now.

Oh, Kami... as if they didn’t have enough problems already... that’s very bad news for the Unicorn.

3 hours ago, Tabris2k said:

Oh, Kami... as if they didn’t have enough problems already... that’s very bad news for the Unicorn.

I was hoping that by latching onto a clan that it would inspire the loyalist to petition FFG to release Shadowlands cards sooner.......to get rid of me.

Looks like I ........

Wait for it........

..........bet on the wrong horse......

#cwutididthere

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I was hoping that by latching onto a clan that it would inspire the loyalist to petition FFG to release Shadowlands cards sooner.......to get rid of me.

Looks like I ........

Wait for it........

..........bet on the wrong horse......

#cwutididthere

YOU LOSE, SIR!

YOU GET NOTHING!

GOOD DAY!

Puns are not something to be trifled with. Do you have a license for those puns?

I'm pretty sure I've got it here somewhere......

Whoa! What's that behind you?

/smokebomb