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.

I'd be careful throwing around acusations of ignorance when you had been drawing 5 vs Dragon with RoB not revealed, somehow managed to successfully reveal 3 provinces that weren't RoB and then made the choice to attack straight into it.

It could be said that your own ignorance is the difference between this being a rant about RoB instead of a "Dragon player gets crushed by Phoenix/Phoenix is OP" thread.

14 minutes ago, twinstarbmc said:

It can, sure. But, as others have said numerous times, not if you play around it. Just like Way of the Crab, and other supposedly "broken" cards. Noone who's ever played against a Unicorn would send one big important character against a Unicorn province, in effect nullifying our clan province. Heck, more often recently I've not broken it and defended instead, in hopes to keep it a threat on the board.

I agree. But everything being said here also applies to Endless Plains.

Unicorn has the only other province in the game that illicits the same level of rage as Restoration of Balance, which is why I found your comment about "Pardon me while I sit here wishing I had "broken" cards" rather odd.

The correct plan is to be aware they exist and play around them. If you don't do that, expect to get angry when you hit them at a bad time.

Worse than Feast or Famine? Or even Rally to the Cause in some places?

10 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

Worse than Feast or Famine? Or even Rally to the Cause in some places?

Fair point.

Feast or Famine is also extremely anger inducing and is, arguably, more so than Endless Plains.

9 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Fair point.

Feast or Famine is also extremely anger inducing and is, arguably, more so than Endless Plains.

I'd rather hit Restoration of Balance than Feast or Famine. I was completely hosed by the latter recently. The fate swing is positively obscene.

10 hours ago, Isawa Tsuke said:

(...)but as I'm not a Dragon player, I wasn't too focused on what their cards do(...)

In competitive play, this was your mistake.

How exactly are either two of the cards mentioned broken?

I still don't understand, you claim he kept bidding 5 every turn. If you bid 1 every turn, he will die due to dishonor really quickly. It also allows you to play your 3 assassinates etc.

I've said this before, and I'll say this again. Bidding 5 every turn is not the optimal strategy IMHO. Especially if you are sitting on 12 cards in hand. I'll repeat, that's 33% of your conflict deck. If you are hanging around with 33% of your conflict deck in hand, it's a mistake. It makes Policy Debate even more powerful, and it brings you no advantage at all if your conflict deck is expensive (Which it must be if you are not playing cards to win those conflicts.)

I have a single deck that bids 5 each turn (if possible), it's a Crane deck that basically only has 0 cost events and 0 costs attachments (2*A fate worse than death, 2*Scorpion attachment steal and 2* waning hostilities are the only cards that don't cost 0). In that deck it makes sense to bid 5 every turn because I can basically empty my hand each turn, Yoshi makes that even easier.

Many people used to bid high in my meta, until I got into the game and started bidding one, stealing all their honor and playing the same amount of conflict cards as them because my conflict deck is appropriately costed. It doesn't take many turns of bidding 1 to force someone to join you drawing only 1 card a turn. On top of it, with Library, Phoenix has one of the best tool in the game to get card advantage that way.

Just think about it a bit, if your deck is made up of 75% cards with a cost of 1 or above, drawing 4 cards will only yield you 1 card you can play without having planned for it. What's the point of drawing the 3 other cards?

2 hours ago, twinstarbmc said:

Noone who's ever played against a Unicorn would send one big important character against a Unicorn province.

I did it. Once. Lost a Fate-loaded Kisada the same turn he hit the board. Has not happened again, ever. I also sent a 2-fated Tsukune to defend alone against Shoju without having any way to boost her POL, and disregarding the fact that Fiery Madness exists, and works along with Shoju very well. Now I never participate with a big character against Shoju without a fan and/or attachment removal.

Thing is: you learn from your mistakes, and “OP cards” suddenly become just “powerful cards”. And every clan has a couple of those.

(Funnily enough, I’ve never lost more than one card to a Restoration of Balance)

In a tournament, yeah. This is on you. The more you play, the more you'll run into punishing plays like that, and you can remember them. As you said, every clan's got some very punishing cards if you aren't ready for them. Dragon has a very nasty row of provinces (typically, in your four you have Feast or Famine, Shameful Display, AND Restoration of Balance, each of which can wreck you if you aren't prepared), and you made a misplay by underestimating the strength of his provinces. Restoration has a very high impact in the best case, but is also a useless 3-strength in the worst case, which is easy enough to play around. Try playing against dragon again, and see if you can manage to play around it, and assess how much it cost to do so. You'll find that it's manageable, if annoying.

Also, I've found Phoenix to be very vulnerable to province effects (shameful display, frostbitten crossing, feast or famine, pilgrimmage, etc) since we usually like to play fewer characters and keep them around longer, so having ways to scout provinces becomes pretty important. I recommend splashing Unicorn for Iuchi Wayfinder, or finding some other means of scouting safely too. It costs you some tempo to stop and poke and prod instead of just going for a break, but can save you a lot of pain.

Here are some cards I consider each clan to always have in their provinces.

Phoenix-Shameful Display
Unicorn-Endless Plains
Crab-Pilgrimage (which if they get a Talisman is disgusting)
Dragon- Feast or Famine and Restoration of Balance
Lion- Art of War and Feast or Famine
Scorpion- Secret Cache, Shameful Display, and Pilgrimage
Crane-Shameful Display

Hope this helps

Out of all the cards mentioned I like Feast or Famine the least, but it has counterplays (don't put fate on guys or break it when they have all fated dudes). Crab can play around it the best I feel since they can keep guys around forever. If I play against Dragon I need to either find a province to poke or search frantically for Restoration and Feast while bidding no more than 3 a turn.

1 minute ago, LifeGain said:

Here are some cards I consider each clan to always have in their provinces....

Unicorn-Endless Plains...

Less so now that there are better options out there. Endless Plains is too often uneffective. More often than not, I find myself saying, "Well, you're going to break the province anyway, so I might as well break it myself and make you kill that little weenie you sent." Rally to the Cause or Riot in the Streets feel better in a Unicorn deck right now.

Yeah, I realize Unicorn is starting to cut it more-and-more, I just always assume they have it Better to assume they don't and not hit it, than to assume they don't and hit it.

4 minutes ago, LifeGain said:

Yeah, I realize Unicorn is starting to cut it more-and-more, I just always assume they have it Better to assume they don't and not hit it, than to assume they don't and hit it.

That's another reason we cut it -- because you expect it. We can anticipate that you will attack as if you're expecting an Endless Plains behind every corner, and use that to our advantage...

... and still lose, lol

Wait so you had seen 3 provinces, And broke 2? That means it is at least round 2.

How do you break 2 provinces and still have 12 cards in hand? Especially when you "need" them to keep pace with Dragom.

Why not use all these cards to win Public Forum the first time, since you were already there? You need another conflict anyways.

The fact that you have so many is absurd at that game state.

4 minutes ago, Radix2309 said:

Why not use all these cards to win Public Forum the first time, since you were already there? You need another conflict anyways.

I'm going to guess he swung with one large shugenja, and it got Mirumoto's Fury'd or something. Maybe a Haughty Magistrate before it had its glory increased. Or one guy that got High Kicked. Something that bows entirely could have prevented his large hand from coming into play.

It is an awful lot of cards though. When I found myself with that many cards in hand, I went back and assessed how many cards I wanted to be situationally useful vs more universally useful like fans and katanas. It's not just about average conflict card cost, it's also about how readily you can bring those cards to bear in play.

I am bad at building conflict decks

1 hour ago, twinstarbmc said:

That's another reason we cut it -- because you expect it. We can anticipate that you will attack as if you're expecting an Endless Plains behind every corner, and use that to our advantage...

... and still lose, lol

Depends on the deck. I generally run Endless Plains if I am trying to out tempo my opponent and not worry so much about defense. Right now that strategy is difficult to pull off with Unicorn so I tend to cut Endless Plains more often than not. Still there are Unicorn players that insist on being 100% aggro so you kind of have to assume Endless Plains is being run by all Unicorn players, even though it makes more sense not to.

no it's not.

It actually fit well with dragon theme of mastering destiny. Consider all the cards you must discard are because they were foreseen by Togashi.

also, keep your hand around 7-9 max, dont overbid if you already have 6.

Just a small suggestion, but if your dragon opponent (or any opponent, for that matter) has you scrambling to hold that many cards, Way of the Chrysanthemum may be worth putting in your deck. If they're a challenge for competing in breaking provinces and they bid high consistently, you may as well threaten both honor and dishonor conditions. Even if you can only use it once, they might second guess themselves after handing you a potentially big honor swing.

Another advice as well is: Don't deckbuild too much based on your meta/environment.

Build a deck that goes toward YOUR win condition, not how to counter what your environment play.

be conscious of what other clans have as mechanics (discard hand, counters, dishonor...) but beyond that pursue a theme in your deck that you can fulfill by YOUR terms. And play by them. If your conflict and dynasty interactions are balanced you may be good with 8 cards in hand. Even if your opponent draws constantly five, a good deck doesn't need you to draw five to match him.

in the words of Shinmen Musashi

According to this Ichi school, you can win with a long weapon, and yet you can also win with a short weapon. In short, the Way of the Ichi school is the spirit of winning, whatever the weapon and whatever its size.

One thing I am not sure of is if it is better to bid 5 to dig for Wayfinders (or Pathfinder Blade) or bid low to play around Restoration.

1 hour ago, HamHamJ2 said:

One thing I am not sure of is if it is better to bid 5 to dig for Wayfinders (or Pathfinder Blade) or bid low to play around Restoration.

I just bid low until I find it. It puts the dragon player under honor pressure if he keeps bidding 5 and they don't have easy ways to gain honor or honor their guys aside from rings.

4 hours ago, Lord Ammon said:

I just bid low until I find it. It puts the dragon player under honor pressure if he keeps bidding 5 and they don't have easy ways to gain honor or honor their guys aside from rings.

This. Dragon isn't well armed against honor pressure. Not much card draw mechanics on their character or conflict either.

15 hours ago, Nitenman said:

This. Dragon isn't well armed against honor pressure. Not much card draw mechanics on their character or conflict either.

Why I was interested in seeing if Ancestral, Pillow Book, Agasha Swordsmith, and so on would help me make it but ended up sticking with Crab splash.

Currently Crab Splash is our best splash.