On 1/7/2018 at 11:47 PM, Isawa Tsuke said:

It was because of this one stinkin' card that I lost a game in a recent L5R tournament.

I'm a Phoenix clan player, so winning games is hard enough. I was playing against a Dragon player, and I was doing pretty well. I had broken two of his provinces, and he hadn't broken any of mine. I had attacked a third province and was held off, but it was Public Forum, so I was going to have to break it twice. I decided to go for his fourth province, which happened to be Restoration of Balance.

I had twelve cards in my hand, meaning that I had to discard eight cards. I had three characters on the table with no attachments on any of them, and he had two characters on the table with no attachments and two characters on the table that had about five attachments on each one. I needed those cards in my hand to stand any sort of decent chance of finishing him off. I hit this card and lost all but four cards in my hand. And because of that, he was able to swing in with both of his beefed up characters individually to break two of my provinces that turn, then one province and my stronghold the next turn, all because I hit that one lousy card. And to add insult to injury he got one card (I forget the name of it) that allowed him to flip that province back upside down. So aside from the fact that his characters were too beefed up for me to do anything about, I had to make a choice to either try and break his Public Forum twice (in which case, he could just let me attack once and swing with his beefed up characters to take my provinces) or attack the Restoration of Balance and lose most of the cards I had drawn that turn.

What were they thinking with this card? As soon as I hit it, I felt dejected and I stopped caring about the game. It's situations like this that make me seriously consider giving up on this game.

Seems like a "you" problem, not a "design" problem.

On ‎2018‎-‎01‎-‎07 at 9:47 PM, Isawa Tsuke said:

It was because of this one stinkin' card that I lost a game in a recent L5R tournament.

I'm a Phoenix clan player, so winning games is hard enough. I was playing against a Dragon player, and I was doing pretty well. I had broken two of his provinces, and he hadn't broken any of mine. I had attacked a third province and was held off, but it was Public Forum, so I was going to have to break it twice. I decided to go for his fourth province, which happened to be Restoration of Balance.

I had twelve cards in my hand, meaning that I had to discard eight cards. I had three characters on the table with no attachments on any of them, and he had two characters on the table with no attachments and two characters on the table that had about five attachments on each one. I needed those cards in my hand to stand any sort of decent chance of finishing him off. I hit this card and lost all but four cards in my hand. And because of that, he was able to swing in with both of his beefed up characters individually to break two of my provinces that turn, then one province and my stronghold the next turn, all because I hit that one lousy card. And to add insult to injury he got one card (I forget the name of it) that allowed him to flip that province back upside down. So aside from the fact that his characters were too beefed up for me to do anything about, I had to make a choice to either try and break his Public Forum twice (in which case, he could just let me attack once and swing with his beefed up characters to take my provinces) or attack the Restoration of Balance and lose most of the cards I had drawn that turn.

What were they thinking with this card? As soon as I hit it, I felt dejected and I stopped caring about the game. It's situations like this that make me seriously consider giving up on this game.

A large part of getting good at this game is knowing all the cards in the pool and what is most commonly run in clan decks. Restoration of Balance is almost always a guaranteed Dragon province. I recall having 16 cards in my hand and running into Restoration of Balance (this was when I first started playing when the game came out) and it felt bad, I also think I lost this game but am not sure anymore. I have never made that mistake again, as I know that it exists and it can be easily played around. While this is a horrible experience, it should not deter you from playing the game.

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 12:49 AM, Abyss said:

'we should have some kind of counter to people drawing five cards a turn'.

You mean besides losing honor? (And if they're not, it means you're drawing a lot of cards too, and thus a counter isn't really needed?)

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 5:13 AM, shineyorkboy said:

Personally I think Feast or Famine is worse, but Dragon is Seeker of Fire so you'll probably see both against them.

Also, Phoenix is Keeper so Skirmisher's Blade isn't an option for them.

Doesn't really help in sanctioned play, but one of the things I love about playing casual is not having to worry about which roles are legal.

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 9:10 AM, Joe From Cincinnati said:

So you flipped his other 3 provinces and saw that they were all not Restoration of Balance and then attacked the one that you knew MUST have been Restoration of Balance? Sounds a bit like user error. Or, if you didn't know for a fact that was Restoration, then it is still user error due to lack of knowledge of Dragon's card pool.

It's a strong card, but it only actually matters if you don't expect it. I often bid 2 to 3 on round 1 against Dragon and then start hunting for Restoration, usually after playing a card or two like attachments or characters. Then, if I hit it, worst case scenario, I lose 1 or 2 cards. Then, you can bid 5 from then on if you really want to.

It punishes people who thoughtlessly bid high all game and don't play with it in mind. For that reason, it is definitely a pub stomping card. Which are not great in a game that supposedly wants to promote casual play.

In that way, I agree that it's not a well designed card because it is very unforgiving to new players and may lead to people rage quitting the entire game. I feel the same way about Feast or Famine.

If you're a casual player, then I understand your complaints and agree with them. If you're trying to be a competitive player, then it really isn't that bad.

This can be especially irritating at small, local tournaments, where casuals sometimes go just because you have more people show up than on game nights. Last Saturday I went to a tournament and was surprised by a Kachiko, having never played against Scorpion before, and to this day I still don't think I've ever played against a Dragon player.

On 1/8/2018 at 5:28 AM, Isawa Tsuke said:

Ignorance isn't a good look on anyone. Perhaps you should stay out of the conversation if you're not willing to understand where a person is coming from.

This Dragon player was also drawing five cards a turn. And he had a board state that I couldn't even come close to replicating. It's not a "counter to people drawing five cards a turn," it's a card that gave him an unfair advantage and won him the game.

Hey,

I'm a Phoenix player too and I have gone up against Providences that completely wrecked me (shameful display). You know how painful it is to have our characters dishonored. What I did was to play differently for a turn or two and now that I knew where Shameful Display was, I did not attack it. You must learn to adapt when card games deal you bad cards. Don't get mad, think about what you would do the next time that card shows up.

12 hours ago, JJ48 said:

You mean besides losing honor? (And if they're not, it means you're drawing a lot of cards too, and thus a counter isn't really needed?)

In a lot of cases, yeah, I feel that losing honour isn't actually that big a disincentive. If they bid five and you bid one, they lose four honour...and draw four more cards than you, which will probably mitigate at least some of the honour loss (via honouring/dishonouring characters, getting or avoiding unopposed etc). If you then bid high the next turn to try and make up the card disadvantage, you either give them their honour back or keep things the same.

Bidding high yourself isn't inherently a solution, as it basically just removes the tactical decision and brings it down to who draws better/which faction has the better conflict cards.

Now some decks can certainly punish bidding high, but it's usually via bidding low themselves and then having their draw supplemented by other cards; again this kind of just sidesteps the whole bidding process because it's still 'draw cards=win'. Restoration of Balance may not be the perfect solution, but I like that it's a counter that doesn't just push you in to doing the thing that's being countered.