On topic - I think the Imperial Cycle made the game much richer. Every clan (except for maybe Dragon and Unicorn) has multiple competitive deck archetypes. Given the extremely limited card pool, that is actually rather impressive.

I am not sure why there is so much griping over Policy Debate. Yes, it should probably have been limited in some way, but it's really not the be-all, end-all that some here seem to think it is. You are trading a card for your opponent's best card, and that is assuming you can set up a bully duel situation which isn't easy out of most clans.

I, personally, think that Feast or Famine, Pathfinder's Blade, and Talisman of the Sun are bigger problem cards than Policy Debate.

13 hours ago, kiramode said:

I don't think that the face down province mechanic is inherently bad. It's only bad if the provinces are game swinging. It's not as simple as "play around it". There's a lot of competitive decks that simply can't play around certain provinces. They don't stop being good decks, they just have a certain percentage of games that they'll lose if they roll a 1. Games being decided by pure chance isn't good. Of course you can opt not to play any deck that has the potential to get blown out by provinces, but then you limit your deck options significantly. I have yet to meet a person that thinks having less competitive options is better than more.

This cycle brought us provinces that are interesting, worth running, and don't just end the game by flipping in the wrong situations. The cycle also brought us Feast or Famine. And that's really where the issue is. You can make the case that anytime you have face down provinces there will always be something like FoF that will make the whole thing look like a dumb idea from the start. But you can also as a design team make a conscious decision to not make swingy provinces that end games by chance.

Can you provide some concrete examples. You can play around FoF by changing how and what you buy during the dynasty phase, you can play around RoB by changing how you bid... you should know all the possible outcomes when you swing at an unknown province and if one of those is lose the game maybe you just shouldn't attack.

9 minutes ago, HamHamJ2 said:

Can you provide some concrete examples. You can play around FoF by changing how and what you buy during the dynasty phase, you can play around RoB by changing how you bid... you should know all the possible outcomes when you swing at an unknown province and if one of those is lose the game maybe you just shouldn't attack.

With the exception of being very stupid around "Endless Plains" or "Feast or Famine", I am having a lot of trouble coming up with a "flipped the wrong province" scenario where you just straight lose the game on the first turn. And if you invest heavily into a single guy and swing wildly at Unicorn, Lion, or Dragon you are asking for it.

Everything else I can come up with is just a wasted attack with a few other negative repercussions.. Which sucks, but is hardly the insta-lose that people seem to think is an issue.

I still hate the face down province mechanic (see previous post) but let's keep things in perspective.

Province flips can have a big impact, but, an insta-lose because of one is rare.

For example:

Last night I played my first game on Jigoku against @suburbaknght (spoiler alert, he crushed me)

In the first turn I had A situation where I could Assassinate his 2 drop, Cav Reserve in Altsanarai and kill off his only other character with a province break.......

but I attacked into Public Forum and that pretty much put me on the back foot for the entire game, as Mirumoto Ravioli got geared up and bullied my poor little pONI's..........aren't the Dragon and Unicorn supposed to be friends?

I made a couple mistakes and had some interface issues I was dealing with because of the wonkiness of playing on an ipad, but, that opening play had a big impact on the game. I can't point to that one instance and say it beat me though. There were many other things that lead to me losing that game besides that first turn...........probably the biggest issue is playing Unicorn in the first place.

Seriously though, I noticed that my hand got clogged with cards that weren't proactively winning me any conflicts, so I can see that there needs to be some tuning in my deck building. I was playing on Jigoku for the first time and missed some things in how the interface works which resulted in some unexpected board states. I flat out made mistakes because I wasn't paying full attention. I was playing against a better deck and player. All these things contributed to my defeat. I could take the easy way out and say that first province flop beat me (it did have a big impact on the game) but that wouldn't be completely honest.

for me the most problematic card of the cycle is the imperial palace, especially the combo with satoshi.
I will give the example of my Lion Deck, when using the satoshi and taking out the imperial palace (I only use these 2 imperials) I have the following options;

- put in the Feast or Famine, which gives me control over the board, especially if my opponent already has a char with 2+ fates on the table
- put in the Public Forum, in most situations my opponent will not be able to break the province 2 times in the same turn, even more with 5 strength
- put in the Pilgrimage, a good option against decks that do not make much force, anyway, 7 force pilgrimage is great.
- put in the art of war, if my foe is playing control.

Having the favor not only empowers my opressive Ujiaki but also locks cards in my foes hand/board, I have seen many decks focused on imperial favor.

Before the "play around" troop comes, it's easier to use let go than for my opponent to use the cloud the mind. For FWTD I can use censure, and for pathfinders let go also works, and it is in a minority of decks. Anyway there are cards to save, it is not unstoppable, it is perfectly possible to lose the game, but theres no doubt is very annoying for the opponent, it is necessary to abandon the deck strategy just to try to stop this snowball effect. And it just cost 2-3 cards to run this, you don't have to construct a deck to work or make many choices, just take your best deck, take 3 dynasty cards out and put 2 satoshi and the palace.

My point is, the imperial favor "minigame' is not fun at all, but you can't escape it, if you dont run your opponent probably will, and at same time when I win a game with the imperial palace I have the feeling it was a easy win, it steal my credit and when I loose it steal my foe's credit, but it is frustrating anyway..

Maybe I am just overreacting because I have too many favor races lately.

Actually mathematic probabilities are quite a large part of many strategic games like e.g. Poker or black jack.

It is quite helpful to know how many cards an opponent has played from a deck and how many copies could remain.

I fail to see how 1 card that shows up within 2 of 7 clans among 1 of 5 cards does not allow for a good chance to evade it.

One does know that playing vs dragon or lion is a 20% chance to hit Feast or Famine.

There are several ways one can adjust to the situation, like including Iuchi Wayfinder, scouting with a week character, attacking with a fateless character, attack when all the enemy characters also have fate, killing of all enemy characters without fate.

This card does prohibit play options in some way but it does not outright win except when you are recklessly about it and happen to hit it under the right circumstances.

It is my option that there are quite some options within the corset and imperial cycle.

What I do not like is the current limit given by strongholds.

Playstyles that are not well supported by your strongholds ability are disadvantageous.

3 minutes ago, Kroc said:

It is my option that there are quite some options within the corset and imperial cycle.

well spelling was never my field of expertise.

4 hours ago, HamHamJ2 said:

Can you provide some concrete examples. You can play around FoF by changing how and what you buy during the dynasty phase, you can play around RoB by changing how you bid... you should know all the possible outcomes when you swing at an unknown province and if one of those is lose the game maybe you just shouldn't attack.

You can't play guys without fate. That's not a viable strategy. You'll get grinded off the board. Poking also isn't the answer because your opponent can just pump your attacker. The optimal strategy for dealing with FoF is to just not roll a 1.

On a bigger picture scale, it's not about how often provinces decide games. It's that they decide them at all. Provinces giving incremental advantages that can at the right time push a game in the favor of a player is fine. But a province taking a game that's even, then blowing the game out of the water is a problem. That sort of variance is never good for a game.

33 minutes ago, kiramode said:

You can't play guys without fate. That's not a viable strategy. You'll get grinded off the board. Poking also isn't the answer because your opponent can just pump your attacker. The optimal strategy for dealing with FoF is to just not roll a 1.

On a bigger picture scale, it's not about how often provinces decide games. It's that they decide them at all. Provinces giving incremental advantages that can at the right time push a game in the favor of a player is fine. But a province taking a game that's even, then blowing the game out of the water is a problem. That sort of variance is never good for a game.

You can play 2 and 3 on turn 1 instead of champion with two and still win the game. So against Fire roles, even if you have no answers in your Conflict deck, you can mulligan for an opening that is better against FoF. You can play someone with only 1 fate and swing void to remove that fate if you hit FoF.

Yes you will be a bit behind on the board turn 2, but you also will have spent less fate. And you either hit FoF already or know one or two safe provinces that aren't FoF, and can go back to buying normally.

4 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Province flips can have a big impact, but, an insta-lose because of one is rare.

For example:

Last night I played my first game on Jigoku against @suburbaknght (spoiler alert, he crushed me)

In the first turn I had A situation where I could Assassinate his 2 drop, Cav Reserve in Altsanarai and kill off his only other character with a province break.......

but I attacked into Public Forum and that pretty much put me on the back foot for the entire game, as Mirumoto Ravioli got geared up and bullied my poor little pONI's..........aren't the Dragon and Unicorn supposed to be friends?

I made a couple mistakes and had some interface issues I was dealing with because of the wonkiness of playing on an ipad, but, that opening play had a big impact on the game. I can't point to that one instance and say it beat me though. There were many other things that lead to me losing that game besides that first turn...........probably the biggest issue is playing Unicorn in the first place.

Seriously though, I noticed that my hand got clogged with cards that weren't proactively winning me any conflicts, so I can see that there needs to be some tuning in my deck building. I was playing on Jigoku for the first time and missed some things in how the interface works which resulted in some unexpected board states. I flat out made mistakes because I wasn't paying full attention. I was playing against a better deck and player. All these things contributed to my defeat. I could take the easy way out and say that first province flop beat me (it did have a big impact on the game) but that wouldn't be completely honest.

It was an honor to be your first Jigoku opponent. The interface does take some getting used to and, while I won't pretend false modesty, luck did seem to go my way. Public Forum is one part of it but also that I then immediately flipped a Kitsuki Yaruma to flip it back over. I look forward to our next match.

Interestingly, my problem is not with cards like Feast or Famine or Meditations on the Tao or Restoration of balance. My problem is with unplayable cards that are just outright garbage and that basically almost no one plays. I play Lion right now, and I'm playing Meditations, not Feast or Famine...

Now, I look at Way of the Chrysanthemum, Test of Courage, Midnight raid or Good omen and the only thing I can think is: "Coaster". That's bad for the game. Really bad! The vast majority of my games degenerate to bid "1" war in the second to third turn. Any card that requires your opponent to conveniently bid higher than "1" is frivolous. This state of affair should also have been expected by the designers. There are literally no passive ways to "create" honor in the game and there are passive ways to lose it (i.e. Don't defend a conflict). This leads to honor totals that are usually dwindling and low bids to counterbalance the dwindling honor. With low bids, all of these cards are complete and utter trash.

The only "power" card I find problematic is Policy Debate, and not because it is strong, but because it reveals my whole hand. These type of game should be about bluffing and reading your opponent. All of that is thrown out of the window with Policy Debate. I find Kitsuki investigator and Meek Informant to be less problematic: A) They are clan specific (and might force a suboptimal splash, in the case of meek) B) Their effect has a much higher cost C) (in the case of Kitsuki) it is a dynasty card, of which you draw a lot less during a game and it is much less reliable.

\begin{edit}

Actually I do find the snowballing cards to be also annoying. Yoshi, Ujiaki and the Phoenix district. Ujiaki is probably the least offensive of both when not paired with FGG (But that might just be me playing Lion and being biased). However, I strongly despise these cards because they often lead to unsurmountable situations. If you can't reclaim the favour quickly enough or get rid of the card quickly enough.

\end{edit}

8 hours ago, Seawhale said:

[...]

Now, I look at Way of the Chrysanthemum, Test of Courage, Midnight raid or Good omen and the only thing I can think is: "Coaster".
[...]

I play 3 of these 4 cards because I value and like them

8 hours ago, Seawhale said:

[...]

Actually I do find the snowballing cards to be also annoying. Yoshi, Ujiaki and the Phoenix district.

[...]

I have to agree here. There are little options here

A little digression from the Province weeds here... I have not been posting lately because I have literally been playing L5R every waking moment since the third Dynasty Pack dropped! If only that were true...

My comment comes from someone who was suddenly busy, so did not play at all since the Core set until recently, but with all the expansions piled in. As a Phoenix player I rejoiced being able to put away that boring <not going to name the other clan> deck to go back to my jank loving Shugenja roots. For starters, 90% of the generic neutral cards are gone from consideration and some of the spell fire that fell short at Core is actually cool. The main reason why I had trouble picking up a Phoenix deck with only cards from the Core is that the number of generic cards I had to include in the Conflict deck was blasphemous and I could not bring myself to do it. This issue has been fixed beyond expectation.

Please indulge an old AEG CCGer here. Playing the Phoenix now was reminiscent of something... a moment in another game from the AEG braintrust, Warlord, Saga of the Storm, when a few seemingly innocuous cards suddenly combined together to create a viable deck for a miniature evil forest dwelling elf. With that in mind, my Phoenix experience brought back the wonder and joy of playing L5R, like the old Raziel dazzle!

Only meh moment would be the X-Role only cards. I think the card pool would be at least more expansive if development of cards with Role limitations were slowed WAY down through this cycle and the next. I understand the value of self imposed design firewalls to allow the creation of potentially OP cards with built in barriers to prevent abuse. The number of them is just a bit much with so few cards.

So, there you have it from a former competitive gamer who is "retired" and more interested in just flipping some cards with friends, sometimes with libations, and always a side of jank. IMO, mostly what has been done so far with new L5R is a success because it is currently fun to play. 8/10

Now you may return to meta talk.

On ‎2018‎-‎01‎-‎22 at 11:39 PM, Barbacuo said:

According to Imperial Advisor, Policy Debate was included in half of the decks from the last kotei, and ranked sixth in the most included card list.

Which were the other five?

8 minutes ago, Mangod said:

Which were the other five?

Small Farm
Take the Initiative
Superior Tactics
Imperial Gift
Gifts & Favors

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Small Farm
Take the Initiative
Superior Tactics
Imperial Gift
Gifts & Favors

Gifts and Take on the same list? So it was probably some Legacy Kotei. Problem is that Take was banned in every Legacy format i know.

3 hours ago, Mangod said:

Which were the other five?

Court Game ; Banzai! ; Charge! ; Ornate Fan ; Assassination

4 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Small Farm
Take the Initiative
Superior Tactics
Imperial Gift
Gifts & Favors

1 hour ago, MrMenthe said:

Court Game ; Banzai! ; Charge! ; Ornate Fan ; Assassination

One of you is being a stereotypical Scorpion here. Sources, please?

31 minutes ago, Mangod said:

One of you is being a stereotypical Scorpion here. Sources, please?

Sorry, mine was intended as a joke. I just listed five of the most commonly seen "auto-includes" from the classic AEG Version of the game. I apologize if my in-jest response was at all confusing or misleading to anyone, I did not mean to derail the conversation.


I will say, as a long-ago player of the AEG version, I've kept my eye on the new L5R and have been wondering if it would be worth getting into. I wanted to wait and give the game a little chance to establish itself first before making any decisions. This thread has been very helpful in that regard, in so far as it's convinced me to not jump into the game. I had my reservations, and seeing that some non-negligible portion of the communities find some of the key structures (provinces) or some of the dominant meta builds to be frustrating or disappointing already, in a game so young, is enough to tip the scales for me.

3 hours ago, kempy said:

Gifts and Take on the same list? So it was probably some Legacy Kotei. Problem is that Take was banned in every Legacy format i know.

Ah, banned lists. I remember those old original Scrye magazine ads that touted "0 Banned Cards, 0 Restricted Cards. L5R." Hah, what those adds didn't tell you was that LSD (Lion Speed Decks) would obliterate you within a few turns. Desperate Measures? Ouch. Oni no Akuma? Uh-oh. Matsu Gohei and Charge! Ouch. Oh, I'm dead now... darn, so close, I was almost was able to bring out my first personality!

6 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Sorry, mine was intended as a joke. I just listed five of the most commonly seen "auto-includes" from the classic AEG Version of the game. I apologize if my in-jest response was at all confusing or misleading to anyone, I did not mean to derail the conversation.


I will say, as a long-ago player of the AEG version, I've kept my eye on the new L5R and have been wondering if it would be worth getting into. I wanted to wait and give the game a little chance to establish itself first before making any decisions. This thread has been very helpful in that regard, in so far as it's convinced me to not jump into the game. I had my reservations, and seeing that some non-negligible portion of the communities find some of the key structures (provinces) or some of the dominant meta builds to be frustrating or disappointing already, in a game so young, is enough to tip the scales for me.

Don't base your choice on forum opinions, since complains tend to be more vocal. I'd give it a try with somebody who already has the game and then think about it. Neverthrless, I find province fliping the most annoying mechanic of the game. But O5R also had annoying mechanics.

About the card lis:

http://imperialadvisor.com/wp/2018/01/17/careful-consideration-pax-south/

7 minutes ago, Barbacuo said:

But O5R also had annoying mechanics.

This is true, and I stopped playing the game for a reason. But that's not a free pass for Nu5R. If I was going to return to card binders and Rokugan, the New L5R needed to not just be 'as good as' the original, it had to be exceptional.

13 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

This is true, and I stopped playing the game for a reason.

If you remember LSD fueled by Akuma and also G&F it means you're playing for at least 5 years (Imperial - middle Gold) . I think it's just lot of time spent for a "bad" game unless you're masochist. Anyway there's huge gap between Imperial and fe Emperor edition in term of old game flow and playability.

15 minutes ago, kempy said:

If you remember LSD fueled by Akuma and also G&F it means you're playing for at least 5 years (Imperial - middle Gold) . I think it's just lot of time spent for a "bad" game unless you're masochist.

I never said the old LR5 was a "bad" game, just that it had its share of issues. Overall, I have vastly found memories of the game and of Rokugan in general, and if I hadn't I wouldn't have been presently curious about the health of Nu5R. But nevertheless, yes for me, eventually those issues of AEG5R outweighed the positive (the aspects of the game that worked, the story, the community).

I started a little after Crimson & Jade, though still got rocked by friends' LSD decks plenty, and corrupt Crab decks if I'm not mistaken ... corrupt iron mines, Oni no Claw-Guy, Akuma, Oni no Tsubru, and the like. It's perhaps worth noting that during most of that period we were just casual scrubs enjoying a samurai-flavored card game, with the vast majority of our understanding of the "real" meta game stemming from magazine articles (ah, the 90s) or watching what dominated the rare local tourney we'd go to and get stomped at. We fizzled out a a bit before Spirit Wars, but some of us came back for the rebirth of Gold, got pretty serious and competitive, and stuck it out for maybe a half-dozen Gold expansions? I'm not sure if any of that is relevant or helpful, but you seemed interested.