I've heard some rumors about a card in the phoenix clan pack that would allow a enlightment victory by gaining 20 ring tokens, and you receive 1 ring token each time you claim a ring. At first shot I thinked "No, they will mess up the game" but then I've started doing the maths and is really difficult claiming 20 rings, even more if is a card that appears in the middle of game..

And I remembered how funny was the many ways of victory in the old L5R, some almost impossible to achieve, but that was the fun about it. I think that if they put some new ways of winning that is obvious harder to achieve than the common ways (province break, honor and dishonor) it could be really nice. It would not mess the competitive scenario, but would add so much for the casual play.

I thinked for example: Win by saving 40 fates (and hire mercenaries maybe?).

What do you think about this? If you like what another ways of victory you suggest?

3 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

I've heard some rumors about a card in the phoenix clan pack that would allow a enlightment victory by gaining 20 ring tokens, and you receive 1 ring token each time you claim a ring. At first shot I thinked "No, they will mess up the game" but then I've started doing the maths and is really difficult claiming 20 rings, even more if is a card that appears in the middle of game..

And I remembered how funny was the many ways of victory in the old L5R, some almost impossible to achieve, but that was the fun about it. I think that if they put some new ways of winning that is obvious harder to achieve than the common ways (province break, honor and dishonor) it could be really nice. It would not mess the competitive scenario, but would add so much for the casual play.

I thinked for example: Win by saving 40 fates (and hire mercenaries maybe?).

What do you think about this? If you like what another ways of victory you suggest?

I love the idea of an enlightenment victory, I'm just not sure the best way to do it. Claim all 5 rings in one round maybe?

14 minutes ago, OokamiGauru said:

I love the idea of an enlightenment victory, I'm just not sure the best way to do it. Claim all 5 rings in one round maybe?

Yes people have talked about this way but maybe cards like "display of power" would have make it too easy to achieve, so it could have ended in this ring tokens formula.

I think it is way to difficult to achieve in a timed environment. Even if you claimed 5 a turn that would take 4 turns and your opponent would likely have to be fairly bad to let you claim 20 rings without him claiming one. Plus, timed rounds are short.

How does one claim 5 rings??

Currently you can't.

Well, we had this in the Rules Reference since the beginning, under Winning Conditions:

◊ Some card abilities can introduce additional victory conditions to the game. Such a condition immediately ends the game if it is met.

So I’ve always thought that win-on-a-card was gonna happen sooner or later. But this rumor seems pretty off. 20 rings are nearly impossible. Now, if it is triggering 20 ring effects... that the Phoenix can do.

The leak I saw was claiming 10 rings, which makes a big difference

29 minutes ago, OsramTaleka said:

The leak I saw was claiming 10 rings, which makes a big difference

For Phoenix that is much more doable. Two per turn plus 2 Display of Powers and you can do it in 4 turns.

3 Turns seems fairly likely as well if you can control your opponents side of the board.

claiming 10 rings is probably doable, particularly with Phoenix and Dragon and their ring tricks. 20 might be overkill.

what we could see are clan specific winning conditions, because if you have to splash Dragon or Phoenix to win enlightenment victory with the crab, it's not a fair win condition.

what I liked in the old enlightenment was that ring cards needed specific conditions to be played, based on theme (x amount of duels, conflicts, spells) and that playing rings added card advantage on that theme as you would put them into play and keep them to use their abilities. This permanence doesn't match with the mono no aware spirit where it often costs you to keep on your cards.

Even without running enlightenment victory, a ring in your deck was a powerful sticking trump card once you put it into play. Many Dragon monks decks ran 2-4 rings, particularly with high house of light (what a monk!) and Crane could play easily the Fire Ring. But now rings are powerful repeatable abilities that players contest, and don't stick.

Enlightenment should reflect mastery of the principles of the rings more than amassing ring claimed tokens.

I'm OK to see enlightenment themed win conditions aimed at Dragon and Phoenix, but then Crab could have a condition themed on winning successive defensive conflicts (undefeated for 2 turns) maybe crane will need to win 15 honor in one turn, scorpion make lose 10 honor in one turn... Get creative.

In order to claim 20 rings, you'd have to actively not break provinces in order to do that before breaking the stronghold.

10 is more manageable, but it would have to be on a stronghold because it would be too difficult to protect on, say, a holding.

For me, if they’re going to introduce new winning conditions, they have to be more difficult to obtain than normal winning conditions, or at least have some requirements to make you bother with the rest of the game.

Or else you’re just gonna see the same deck over and over again for that specific clan. For instance, if this ring victory condition for Phoenix turns out to be more easy than stronghold break, then I think we’ll see a ring-grinding deck that doesn’t care (too much) about board state and just try to win as many rings as possible without caring for effects, effectively going back to those race games from OL5R, like when you played against Honor Win Crane.

Is this win condition going to be role-specific or sh specific? If it isn't in play at the start of the game, do we only count rings claimed since the card was played? Or is this some secret gotcha event that you can drop after a few stale, defensive rounds where the Phoenix player says they win, and everyone else is confused about the ring counts...?

I wouldn't be surprised if the victory is on the other side of the role card we've seen or the 3rd 1 of card that they've mentioned.

Sounds totally made up to me.

10 claimed rings as a win condition on a role card seems viable without being broken. As a province unless it can activate the countdown from facedown, it probably wouldn't work. As a conflict card it would be subject to various counters, but still a hard possibility. Though I doubt it would count past ring claims as that would be a book keeping nightmare. As a dynasty card it would be even harder to get into play in time.

My suspicion is a role or province. A reaction to place an honor token on the card once the player claims a ring. Activation possible from face down if it is a province.

Wild speculation!

Master of the Five Rings * Role Card * If this card has 10 Honor Tokens on it, win the game with an Enlightenment Victory. Reaction: After you claim a Ring - Place one Honor Token on this card.

Possible weakness for the role card.

Forced Interrupt: Before an opponent chooses to resolve a ring effect - That player may choose to cancel that ring effect. Then remove one honor token from this card.

Confluence of the Elements * Neutral Void Province * PS 6 * Cannot be a stronghold province. If this card has 10 Honor Tokens on it, win the game with an Enlightenment Victory. Reaction: After you claim a ring, even if this province is facedown- Reveal this province. Place one Honor Token on this province.

39 minutes ago, GM81 Protocol Droid said:

10 claimed rings as a win condition on a role card seems viable without being broken. As a province unless it can activate the countdown from facedown, it probably wouldn't work. As a conflict card it would be subject to various counters, but still a hard possibility. Though I doubt it would count past ring claims as that would be a book keeping nightmare. As a dynasty card it would be even harder to get into play in time.

My suspicion is a role or province. A reaction to place an honor token on the card once the player claims a ring. Activation possible from face down if it is a province.

Wild speculation!

Master of the Five Rings * Role Card * If this card has 10 Honor Tokens on it, win the game with an Enlightenment Victory. Reaction: After you claim a Ring - Place one Honor Token on this card.

Possible weakness for the role card.

Forced Interrupt: Before an opponent chooses to resolve a ring effect - That player may choose to cancel that ring effect. Then remove one honor token from this card.

Confluence of the Elements * Neutral Void Province * PS 6 * Cannot be a stronghold province. If this card has 10 Honor Tokens on it, win the game with an Enlightenment Victory. Reaction: After you claim a ring, even if this province is facedown- Reveal this province. Place one Honor Token on this province.

I liked your specutalion about the role and the opponent being able to remove the tokens.

As a Province I see some issues, for example: how about the strenght? If is 3-5 is easy to brake and probably the effort of building a deck to win by enlightment is not worth it, unless it keeps counting even broken. And if is too strong let's say 6-9 it can be used to just push the attacks to your other provinces like shameful display.

32 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

I liked your specutalion about the role and the opponent being able to remove the tokens.

As a Province I see some issues, for example: how about the strenght? If is 3-5 is easy to brake and probably the effort of building a deck to win by enlightment is not worth it, unless it keeps counting even broken. And if is too strong let's say 6-9 it can be used to just push the attacks to your other provinces like shameful display.

You can always add a restriction like it must be your Stronghold Province.

1 hour ago, Schmoozies said:

You can always add a restriction like it must be your Stronghold Province.

Furthering then the “race game” were the opponent is forced to break provinces as fast he can so he can reach your stronghold before you meet your victory condition.

Any win condition that is not breaking provinces is racing against how fast your opponent can break your provinces. Adding Rings or any other win con is fine with me as long as the win condition has to be achieved by interacting with your opponent in some way.

For the most part it seems the design of the game will ensure this happens since winning rings can only be done in the conflict phase. If the rules start changing to the point we're players can skip the conflict phase, or lock their opponent out of attacking/defending, then we could end up with the same problems the old game had.....and I don't think anyone wants to go through that again.

On the surface, the idea of adding a ring victory doesn't seem like it would be a problem. If it's a general rule change and not something specific to a stronghold or role, it could be used as another way to help settle ties when games go to time. A simple Provinces + highest honor + favor + highest rings calculation could be worked out to determine a winner instead of checking to see if someone conceedes and if not keep playing til forced tiebreaker. Seems like that could be what this is intended to do if in fact the ring victory condition is real.

I would love to see enlightenment return as a victory condition in some form. That victory condition was what first attracted me to old L5R and why I played Monk until they were no longer a faction.

15 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Any win condition that is not breaking provinces is racing against how fast your opponent can break your provinces. Adding Rings or any other win con is fine with me as long as the win condition has to be achieved by interacting with your opponent in some way.

For the most part it seems the design of the game will ensure this happens since winning rings can only be done in the conflict phase. If the rules start changing to the point we're players can skip the conflict phase, or lock their opponent out of attacking/defending, then we could end up with the same problems the old game had.....and I don't think anyone wants to go through that again.

Well, to be fair, even winning by breaking provinces is a race to see who does it faster

But what I mean, in this specific case, where I was replying to Schmoozies, is that a province under your stronghold and you only have to claim 10 rings? Welcome to defensive, slow gameplay. I don’t even need to attack, just have to win on defense your two conflicts and I’ll win in 5 turns. Taking Display of Power into account, let’s say 2 DoP, I only have to claim 8 rings via conflict, meaning 3 or 4 turns. Even if I attack, I don’t have to commit too much, just do the minimum to tie on attack.

Overall, I think they have to tie very well new winning conditions with the actual mechanics of the game so it won’t be NPE.

2 hours ago, Tabris2k said:

Well, to be fair, even winning by breaking provinces is a race to see who does it faster

But what I mean, in this specific case, where I was replying to Schmoozies, is that a province under your stronghold and you only have to claim 10 rings? Welcome to defensive, slow gameplay. I don’t even need to attack, just have to win on defense your two conflicts and I’ll win in 5 turns. Taking Display of Power into account, let’s say 2 DoP, I only have to claim 8 rings via conflict, meaning 3 or 4 turns. Even if I attack, I don’t have to commit too much, just do the minimum to tie on attack.

Overall, I think they have to tie very well new winning conditions with the actual mechanics of the game so it won’t be NPE.

But you still have to interact with your opponent to do so. A good player will catch on to what you're doing and may be they decide not to throw both attacks at you. Or maybe they pressure your honor or try to race to an honor win. All these things require interaction.

Old enlightenment was not interactive. At the very beginning of the old game, sure, but, enlightenment quickly became a combo deck that had a bunch of cards printed for it to be some sort of side game that played completely separate from the main game.

Unless FFG just starts printing a bunch of cards that "claim a ring" without going to conflict, it should be fine. Even DoP requires the conflict to occur and that you have to lose the province. Do that a couple times and you are 2/10 in the way to a ring victory while your opponent is half way to a victory by province destruction.

Racing is fine as long as there is interaction, which it sounds like that is what FFG is planning. If they make some nonsense cards like an event that says "if you control 3 characters with the water trait, claim the water ring" then that's going to be a problem.

IMO, if they decide to reintroduce enlightenment victory, it should be somewhat arcane and more difficult than just breaking provinces. Part of the fun of old-style enlightenment was having to do all these different things with one deck - you had to win a defensive battle, manipulate terrain and win a battle, win a duel at a disadvantage, play three spells, and empty your hand.

I hope it's more intricate than something like "claim 10 rings total." "Claim each ring twice" would be better. Only counting rings on attack and giving up the normal benefit could be a way to go.

You could have a card that has various conditions on it, and every time the player fulfills a condition they put an honor token on the card. Five tokens is a win. Make the conditions like the ring effects but more.

8 hours ago, Ryric said:

I hope it's more intricate than something like "claim 10 rings total." "Claim each ring twice" would be better. Only counting rings on attack and giving up the normal benefit could be a way to go.

Maybe even take this a step further, you have to claim each side of each ring (political and military) for enlightenment victory. Could be a pain to track though.