32 minutes ago, kraken78 said:

NEW SOLUTION -

UNCOUTH MAGISTRATE - Crab Clan

3-cost 3/3/0

All characters with glory 1 or more don't count their skill for conflict resolution.

Discuss.

(If you made him cost 5 I'd still play it over HIDA KISADA)

So you're solution for a non-interactive card is another one? This design space shouldn't have been touched in the first place, with so small of a card pool.

I appreciate and agree to some extent that the non-interactive aspect is an issue, although by the same token there is very little I can do to prevent a character OF THEIR CHOICE from being taken out by LPB's ability when buffed with their Stronghold (I don't particularly want to run Katanas and Supernatural Storm in my deck 'just in case' any more than Crab players want to include For Shame!).

But let's put this into perspective: We are talking about a card that when honoured AND buffed by the Stronghold can break one of your provinces single-handedly. If that province isn't Shameful Display. Or Public Forum. Or any other 5 str province if you don't have Rebuild in hand and an Imperial Stronghold or similar holding in your discard. And only if its Military (because you're saving your Court Games for Political, aren't you?).

So you take the hit and then hit back with your covert characters to break a province in return, and do all the other stuff that Crab excels at throughout the rest of the game.

He also only has 3x copies in his deck, not to mention the cards he'll need to draw and play to honour it at the right time (Benten's Touch hasn't suddenly turned Phoenix into Crane or Lion).

Powerful? Definitely. Problematic? Potentially. But shutting down a whole clan?. Hardly.....

Personally I think many people approach this issue from the wrong angle.

If the question is 'is it possible to stop Haughty Magistrate?' then for now my reply would be a meek 'probably'; there are some cards that can counter it nicely. I think people will adjust a bit and while the card will be a pest it won't be game breaking.

The thing is I don't think that's the right question to ask. A bigger issue seems to be 'do we really want specific cards you have to keep in mind when you're building your deck just so you have some outs if you opponent plays it?'. This isn't on the level of 'Scoprion has a bunch of cards that can dishonor my high glory characters, what do I do about this', where a Clan playing to its strengths creates a bad matchup for your Clan. It's 'somebody plays [card], how do you react'.

Some people will claim that adjusting to such changes is the very nature of card games: predicting the metagame correctly and deploying efficient counters. It's not that they're wrong, this is a matter of preference entirely. My preference though is to have as few of these situations(/cards) as possible. Not that we can do much about this as players and crying over spillt milk won't help much either.

7 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Rout's fine. The 'Normally wouldn't run this card' example was for Shame. In order to run it, I'd be shoe horned into a splash and forced to run bad cards like the otomo courtier to allow me to use it. Same with Cloud the Mind.

I'm glad you like the card. I don't like the design space and I've explained why. A lack of interaction in a game they claimed to build around interaction (hence removing the masturbatory aspect of honor).

That said, I will handle it like I always do. Crabs persevere and Phoenix having a broken card will not stop me from beating them.

But Rout isn't a proper answer and is a bad card. Just saying.

For Shame was just me saying every other clan has a neutral card that completly counters Magistrate. Now Crab not having a good counter is a problem that should be resolved with bigger card pool and as we all know Crab do not have very many problems in competing right now.

I like the card the same as I like all other magistrates other than Scorpion. All of them introduce counterplay/planning/decision making on the higher level than usual tactical trading of blows you see right now in nearly every game. For me more decisions = good. The more you think while playing the cards the better, making you choose to save the card or to use it knowing the risk is what makes games like Netrunner for example interesting(it is more: should I run here or there but mechanism is the same).

While rout was not played in every deck it is fairly easy to find top 16 and top 8 decks from Madrid and PAX that run it which kinda proves it is not a bad card.

6 hours ago, shosuko said:

This touches some of the same design space as Lions Pride Brawler. There isn't much you can do to stop LPB from wrecking a game. The only character card counters to both of these effects, without sinking cards from your hand to cancel their character-ability effects are Doji Challenger and Yogo Hiroue who can both force the character to be pulled on defense, and both of these obviously rely on the specific condition that you are first player.

Their effect is massively powerful demanding multiple cards are used to counter a 3 cost dynasty character with its built in ability. The efficiency of these cards are off the charts and practically demands Cloud the Mind be included as a meta-tech. This is tough against Phoenix as there are several characters that begin to demand Cloud the Mind... Phoenix are sleeping giants who are gonna be woke up here quick...

LPB has the exact same condition of being the first player and I do not find her any more problematic than Doji Challenger or Yogo Hiroue.

I am glad you think that Phoenix is a sleeper but I don't think they will be waking up anytime soon with Scorpion being close to 1/3rd of the field and having probably around 60% winrate over them.

@Nanashi Very elegantly said and even though I disagree with you I couldn't have presented my ideas better.

Magistrate is gonna cause many rings to get won and salt to get spilled. I think it's going to fit best in a Dishonor build to guarantee those Air/Fire rings, or to create absurd windows of opportunity alongside a loaded Kaede.

If we're talking being op though it doesn't even come remotely close to Ujiaki. Or as I prefer to call him U-gg-aki. Cards ridiculous enough that it doesn't care what clan you are or what your defensive line is. Good luck not getting hosed but a loaded up one of them. It's existence alone warps the board around it.

"This card makes the Phoenix/ Crab matchup really bad"
"Ok here are cards that specifically help answer him"
"That makes deck building uncomfortable, they don't count as real answers"

This coming from the clan that won the first two Kotei in the game seems really overblown. If the Magistrate is causing problems just use the tools that are given to you to relive the problem, if that improves your matchup against phoenix, but hurts your matchups against other clans then just keep going and accept you will have to play around him, that is what Phoenix has to do with Scorpion all of the time, its called having predators and knowing a meta. **** Unicorn is going with a courtier build in my area just to keep up.

Low Glory has been a huge advantage to the crab up till this point, now that there is one card that actually makes their low glory matter its time to see just how hard the shell of the crab actually is.

The Phoenix Magistrate is a balanced card in the full meta, it requires phoenix to dedicate their stronghold to it entirely and has no inherent protections from interaction while also lacking any of the synergistic keywords phoenix actually care about.

The Lion Magistrate is far more synergistic and powerful in Lion then Haughty is in Phoenix. I think that one will be a far bigger problem on the game.

But I would clarify that I HATE the design of ALL the Magistrates. Printing cards that flat out ignore characters this early in the game is a terrible idea as they are inherently negative play experience cards. Telling people they just cant use their cards is the most boring mechanic in any card game, no one likes to lose to it.

So I agree that the Magistrates are terrible for the game, but come on crabs, its just one personality that you have answers to deal with. If it REALLY is going to cost you wins against phoenix then run some counter play, like rout, display of power or dishonor it. otherwise just accept the challenge. Sure it CAN break provinces, if you invest 2-3 additional cards and rings into it, but the smart phoenix are just getting the imperial favor and using the favor and its ability to take easy rings in practice.

10 hours ago, Asako Shinpi said:

I agree with shosuko that the Lion one is equally problematic. Many decks don't play the honor-my-peeps-game very hard meaning their only defense is the fire ring. A lion magistrate deck can pose hard problems just by making the fire ring now critical to the opponent without any more investment. The spirit caller then chooses times to pull it out when the enemy has failed to honored a defender. The lion player could also invest in a few more honor/dishonor tech to push the magistrate if they wanted. They have enough 3 glory peeps they can pull it off. Plus I hear 3 glory peeps are soon to be very important...

You're also downplaying the fact that Lion wants you contesting fire so they can potentially get of the defensive keeper bonus for extra fate if they win, plus free keepers for their swing back. The Lion Magistrate is all kinds of good and their only weakness is they are competing for the deck space in very competitive non-weeny slot with Brawler, Spirtcaller, General, Toturi and Ujiaki.

Glad to see the discussion continues!

As the instigator of the discussion, I'll say that I've tried a couple things, and just wanted to share my results.

Rout is Rout. It's not a bad solution, but because of the Haughty Magistrate's balanced stats it threatens during both conflicts. Much better if you Rout after the Phoenix player activates their stronghold to pump. It's a flexible solution that also does work against other match-ups, it's just rarely a card that I want to see. It might be worth running a single copy in addition to other potential solutions.

Cloud the Mind is a fantastic card and a fantastic solution, assuming you can actually draw it with a Shugenja on board. As others have pointed out, that usually means just Steadfast Witchhunter for Crab. I run 3x Iuchi Wayfinder as well, so I've been able to reliably pull off Cloud the Mind running two copies of it. While it does rely on the Shugenja to be able to play it, once you're able to it solves all manner of problems, not just Haughty Magistrate. I feel this is the best solution, but also the hardest to pull off given the current card pool.

Pit Trap. Ugh. It has to be attacking, which means you're still going to lose a province to the Magistrate & his friends, but it works just fine after that. Why why why does it cost 3, though? It's an okay solution at best.

Perhaps the best defense is a good offense, in this case. I like the suggestion of just going ballistic if Haughty Magistrate hits the board, hopefully you're in a position to trade provinces or even come out ahead in the exchange until Magistrate leaves the board.

If I take anything from this discussion, it's that the Magistrates in general--while not being game-breaking individually, even the Haughty Magistrate--just aren't good card design.

Can anyone report their experiences against Haughty Magistrate? Did it usually decide the game?

I'm feeling kinda hipster with all these cards I seem to like that so many people dislike... and I hate feeling hipster.

8 minutes ago, Hordeoverseer said:

Can anyone report their experiences against Haughty Magistrate? Did it usually decide the game?

It can win in the grinder phoenix deck as it can usually just swing for the conflict you have the favor on, deny any involvement by anyone, then so long as he is still in the conflict the favor gives you the ring, even if he is bowed. I use him to practically guarantee the air, fire or earth rings when I play him.

He is a nifty tool that is usually the best for ring grabbing.

2 hours ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

The Phoenix Magistrate is a balanced card in the full meta, it requires phoenix to dedicate their stronghold to it entirely..

Actually, a smart phoenix player doesn't have to dedicate the stronghold to it. A better play would be to attack the magistrate unbuffed, then leave you the choice of defending with anybody knowing full well that at the flick of a switch he will negate no matter how much defense you can muster (and making your counter attack weaker), or just take the hit with him not using the stronghold. So in the end, it will be either choose to defend against it and exhaust the stronghold action for a turn, or don't defend and let him use the stronghold against you in claiming the favor.

On paper, the Lion one is much more efficient, I agree. Without any investment from any player, he shuts down everybody on the field. The Phoenix one needs to be buffed in order to do that. But in application, when the only investment you need to counter the Lion one is to invest in a ring, as opposed to no options against a buffed Phoenix one, Haughty Magistrate still works better at shutting down board.

I'm very unclear why dedicating my stronghold to break an enemy province is such a horrible cost. In ANY Phoenix deck I can run haughty. The turn I have first attack, I purchase it with two fate. That turn I attack for the fire ring only and honor Haughty. The next two turns I stomp on two of your provinces. For the cost of 5 fate and 2 or 3 stronghold activations. I still have 2 fate from turn 1, and 14 fate from the next two turns (and possible pass fate), plus all my conflict cards, to do absolutely anything else I want. Why is getting the favor MORE important than 1/4 of my win condition (for each usage)?

What better investment in a character, 5 fate and 3 stronghold activations does ANY clan have?

Haughty is strong because it needs so little support and investment to be a legitimate threat. If I felt I could put 3 fate on it and honor it this turn, you are on a 4 turn clock unless you find VERY specific answers. Power on board is meaningless on the defense here. Instead, you need to win faster than 4 turns while the rest of my deck is still doing whatever its doing. And remember, this is Phoenix so rings are less reliable for you (Display of Power, province switching rings, etc).

Scorpion is actually in good position here. Hiroue just became even more valuable vs Lion and Phoenix not to mention they already run plenty of ways to mess with honor/dishonor. Plus "A Fate Worse than Death" has a lovely target. (still too expensive, but whatever)

Even Unicorn with Battle Maidens is better off than crab. But Crab has been doing better than Phoenix so I don't really care. Once another cycle comes out and more 3 glory characters start running around (or worthwhile glory manipulation for everyone) then the Magistrate will come back down to earth. Until then, Crab needs to run more shugenja and cloud. That's just the reality for the moment.

6 hours ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Unicorn is going with a courtier build in my area just to keep up.

You mean lose more gracefully, right?

1 hour ago, Asako Shinpi said:

Even Unicorn with Battle Maidens is better off than crab. But Crab has been doing better than Phoenix so I don't really care. Once another cycle comes out and more 3 glory characters start running around (or worthwhile glory manipulation for everyone) then the Magistrate will come back down to earth. Until then, Crab needs to run more shugenja and cloud. That's just the reality for the moment.

Or strike back as hard as you. Getting out of the Magistrates way is a valid tactic, save your resources for your counter attack on the non-magistrate attack.

19 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Or strike back as hard as you. Getting out of the Magistrates way is a valid tactic, save your resources for your counter attack on the non-magistrate attack.

The problem with this argument is that the Phoenix need to invest very little into attacking with Haughty Magistrate - meaning they likely have a decent amount of resources to resist your counter attack, or trade AGAIN and take 2 of your provinces for 1 of theirs. The Phoenix are best positioned to take 2 provinces in a turn as they have many balanced stat characters, and Haughty Magistrate does nothing to reduce that flexibility.

20 hours ago, Shosuro Teri said:

So you're solution for a non-interactive card is another one? This design space shouldn't have been touched in the first place, with so small of a card pool.

Actually, it was sarcasm...which is really tough to get via text.

I just created a card that was basically the same as HAUGHTY MAGISTRATE with a slight tweak to show how ridiculous the card would be to all other clans (sadly it still would take less characters out of play).

HAUGHTY MAGISTRATE would still see play if it cost 4. I guarantee it. He's a consistent province break as a solo character and a single support card.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find anybody here that thinks Haughty Magistrate isn't a ridiculous card.

5 hours ago, Shosuro Teri said:

I think you'll be hard pressed to find anybody here that thinks Haughty Magistrate isn't a ridiculous card.

Possibly. But no more ridiculous than some of the other Magistrate cards that seem to have escaped the harsh scrutiny that the poor Phoenix and Lion ones seem to be under. For example the Dragon one that neutralises all but one of the Crab's defence-orientated/buffing characters, which seems to have slipped under the radar...

10 hours ago, shosuko said:

The problem with this argument is that the Phoenix need to invest very little into attacking with Haughty Magistrate - meaning they likely have a decent amount of resources to resist your counter attack, or trade AGAIN and take 2 of your provinces for 1 of theirs. The Phoenix are best positioned to take 2 provinces in a turn as they have many balanced stat characters

I have to respectfully disagree here. Crane and Dragon (possibly others too) can already break two provinces a turn much more easily than Phoenix. Phoenix generally have balanced but low stats that need buffing to have a chance if breaking something. And if you are focusing on honouring your magistrate then you are doing so at the expense of one of your other characters who also crave honouring.

Personally, I think Scorpion will laugh in the face of Haughty Magistrate before dishonouring it, Crane and Dragon will shrug their shoulders before out-blitzing it, and it probably wouldn't even make the cut in a Lion deck (given its competing in the 3-cost slot). Don't know about Unicorn, so that just leaves Crab. And I think Crab can get around the issue just fine (especially if their opponent plays a Magistrate loaded up with extra fate on turn one....)

On 12/5/2017 at 1:41 PM, ElSuave said:

Just use Pit Trap ;D

This guy knows what's up.

17 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

You're also downplaying the fact that Lion wants you contesting fire so they can potentially get of the defensive keeper bonus for extra fate if they win, plus free keepers for their swing back. The Lion Magistrate is all kinds of good and their only weakness is they are competing for the deck space in very competitive non-weeny slot with Brawler, Spirtcaller, General, Toturi and Ujiaki.

I'm gonna be experimenting with dropping Spiritcaller for her. Spiritcaller is obviously baller, but it can cause really awkward flops. In a Lion Bushi build that has some honor tech(and there is lots of it) she can be mental in a way Haughty can only hope to be. As instantly oppressive as Haughty can be(not in every matchup, granted), but it's way easier for you to just come in with some friends. Especially dirty for the final push.

3 hours ago, Caldera said:

Possibly. But no more ridiculous than some of the other Magistrate cards that seem to have escaped the harsh scrutiny that the poor Phoenix and Lion ones seem to be under.

Personally, I think the Scorpion one is the most balanced of all the magistrates. He provides less swing when he hits the board, and his counters are readily available.

Random idea, it would be neat if these magistrates blanked each other's text when in the same conflict, so that they could be the problem and solution to all these problems.

Ive played Lion vs Crab and my opponent managed to flip his 3 Stoic Magistrates and I have to say it was pretty annoying. Good luck winning your military conflicts with that one in the game.

I have to ECHO the sentiment that seems quite spread. I dont like the Magistrate design. You cant do much to avoid them besides Cloud the Mind. They are frustrating to play against.

This whole thread reinforces the notion that Crab players are by far the whiniest players in the entire base.

As for the Phoenix Magistrate; it's a problem for the same reason as just about all the other magistrates: you can't really play around them. They all have the ability to solo pop a province with a fan/katana with the opposing player looking at the board knowing they have no chance to stop it with their guys that are on the table.

I personally really dislike that cards like these exist. When I first saw the Unicorn magistrate I was pretty upset that a card like that was made. It's bad game design. I figured it was bad reparations for the sins of earlier Unicorn design. Then you realize that wasn't a one-off mistake.