58 minutes ago, JJ48 said:For one thing, when you factor in focus effects and interrupts, it was actually closer to "Battle: Bow a personality, gain 3 honor, play an item for free, give your personality a +1F token, and take another action."
If we're talking about extreme scenarios I remember something like Consecutive Actions that could transform single innocent looking Ranged Attack into hecatomb (multiple Elemental Arrows anyone?).
Edited by kempy1 hour ago, kempy said:If we're talking about extreme scenarios I remember something like Consecutive Actions that could transform single innocent looking Ranged Attack into hecatomb (multiple Elemental Arrows anyone?).
I can't speak to that, as Lotus was a bit before my time. Just looking at Ivory and beyond, though, dueling was far more likely to be NPE than ranged attacks.
I can't tell you how many times I got suggestions via PMs or e-mail on how to 'fix' problem cards in the CCG that basically all did the same thing, which was turn said cards into coasters. For some reason that's the go-to response to a lot of these issues.
Also, a universal truth is that players don't really mind broken cards all that much, they just don't want other people to be able to use them too.
7 hours ago, kempy said:Have you ever played duel deck and faced big fat guy with higher chi that made 95% of your fate useless?
If you mean useless in a duel, yes. The solution is to strike as soon as possible to get it over with (and has been since I started in Gold edition). As a dueling deck playing another dueling deck the fate side was rarely useless though because I could trigger honor gains and card draw with focus effects, some of which didn't even need me to win the duel. If that high chi guy is on the table and I'm a dueling deck I'd avoid challenging him. This happened a lot in mirror matches and I had no problem.
7 hours ago, kempy said:Or have you faced a someone with trait "use Force as duel stat" or a guy with "cannot be challenged" etc.
Yes. See above about triggering focus effects. I'd still lose to the fifteen force Crab but no one would call that broken. It was a good card that had answers to it, be it strategy or specific cards. If it bothered you that much you would play around it or build for it.
Cannot be challenged was a non issue because no one would build a deck entirely with characters that couldn't be challenged. No synergy. And again, if that was a major concern, you'd play around it. Dueling wasn't a win condition; it was a strategy building towards one, be it military or honor run. If you didn't play a back up plan that's a separate issue.
7 hours ago, kempy said:So imagine now, that your "deck restrictions" should include such examples and in many cases they didn't fit your prefered focus values. Also for long time most deadly duels had 1 or 2 FV only.
You choose whether or not to build partly to cover your weaknesses. That's on the player, not design. That's true for all strategies, not just dueling. And for the two years of Lotus I ran only 3 and 4 focus values with no shortage of deadly duels. Emperor locked the same way. From what I remember from Gold the costs of refusing duels had pretty steep penalties to compensate for the low FV. Players called it broken back then, too.
7 hours ago, kempy said:And what's the difference - effect wise - between a Strategy with "Battle: Bow a Personality" in standard military and "Battle: Challenge. Bow the loser." in duel deck?
Because one generates a duel, and depending which version of the game we're talking about it allows for reactions and focus effects or an exchange of fate with the honor dial. In either game they allow for a different set of interactions because of the addition of the duel.
19 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:In those situations that you "simply cannot play it" why is that?
Likely because the stats difference between your character and your opponent's character is too close to allow you to just auto win the duel...........amirite?
Yes
19 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:That's what makes the "duel" part of the card irrelevant.
So... The duel is irrelevant because you only play the card when you know you can win the duel? Doesn't that make the duel extremely relevant since, if you don't know you can win the duel you don't play the card? That sounds like a play restriction to me, and a pretty heavy one at that.
Edited by Yogo Gohei.
Edited by kempy25 minutes ago, Nagori-A-Go-Go said:If you mean useless in a duel, yes. The solution is to strike as soon as possible to get it over with (and has been since I started in Gold edition).
Dueling was a mechanic that was changing through years and fe in Samurai, Celestial, Emperor, Ivory player that been challenged had first opportunity to focus or strike. So bigger Chi of you opponent = troubles. Just saying Strike without any window for Focus effects.
Also starting with Emperor Duelist keyword even didn't allow to focus/strike first.
Huge tower unit with boosted Chi (by Items) that could bully into you and make your duels useless wasn't just good experience. And if your deck didn't have answer for this, you got just bad day.
Edited by kempy1 hour ago, Yogo Gohei said:So... The duel is irrelevant because you only play the card when you know you can win the duel? Doesn't that make the duel extremely relevant since, if you don't know you can win the duel you don't play the card? That sounds like a play restriction to me, and a pretty heavy one at that.
I suppose you could consider it a restriction, but, you even said it yourself that it's rare you can't find a way to play it. Is not being able to play it on the last Thursday of Octomember during the hour of the ox when the blood moon is at its apex really a restriction? The process of revealing honor dials is pointless in the vast majority of PD "duels" because both players generally bid 1.
There is no suspense to the duel. All the flavor that FFG put into their duel design by use of the honor dial is being wasted.
Just now, kempy said:in Samurai, Celestial, Emperor, Ivory player that been challenged had first opportunity to focus or strike. So bigger Chi of you opponent = troubles. Just saying Strike without any window for Focus effects.
This is why you don't challenge someone with higher chi. And the idea of the challenged striking first in my post wasn't because the challenged would win; they'd strike because they figured they other player would win and by striking they'd still lose but avoid focusing cards.
Just now, kempy said:Huge tower unit with boosted Chi (by Items) that could bully into you and make your duels useless wasn't just good experience. And if your deck didn't have answer for this, you got just bad day.
I've heard players argue that playing against enlightenment was a bad experience because they couldn't always stop rings, or playing against unicorn was a bad experience because there was too much cavalry. These things, like dueling, could be accounted for, but those players either didn't see it or didn't want to build to account for it. If dueling was a problem because one player would use high chi units and build a strategy around that, why not take issue with rats having higher province strength than everyone else, shadowlands for being immune to dishonor decks, mantis for having built in sneak attacks with naval invasion, and on and on and on.
If you take the manipulation of stats out of the game, things get incredibly dull with not attachments, buffs, etc.
If you take stats out of duels you're basically flipping a coin, which makes little sense and you have even less control over it as a player.
I really don't get why people are so upset with PD. Maybe i'm wrong somewhere on how I see things but this card is conditional to play and has multiple prerequisites
- First it's an event so it can be cancelled. And cancellation cards are now quite a few available for everyone.
- It requires form you a character with good political strength AND an opponent character with a poor one. As all players are aware this card is a thing, during dynasty phases it will be one thing to keep in mind, same as playing around way of the crab
- If you are against an opponent who really has good cards in hand and aims ant a military victory, there are chances he could bet high, and unless you have an auto win condition like 6 to 0 political skill you will take risks, as losing the duel will backfire to you
- Finally, you are using a card to get rid of an opponent's card. Yes you choose it, but in the end you could have slotted in your deck a really powerful card instead. So you choose to have instead a PD that would remove a good card from the opponent. In the end what you really gain is to view your oponent's hand. and given how situational it is to pull this out, well, it does not seem so overpowered.
As when it comes to AFWTD, I was expecting people complain about. But it's a 4 cost card. Not only it can be cancelled, but there a re some pretty powerful 4 cost characters you can bring to the table instead of keeping your fate to pay for this card. And I'm not sure that you might be in a better position every single time by playing this rather than adding a 4 cost character to your available forces. It does not take 4 fate to bow a character, even a clan champion, Way of the crab kills it for you for the mere cost of a useless bowed fateless guy. And finally, it is a BIG telegraph you can be sending to your opponent when you finish your dynasty phase with 4 fate remaining. So you have your draw phase to play accordingly to get a cancel in order to counter.
To my opinion currently attachments are a way bigger issue and I would be curious about any other opinion explaining me why there are not more concerns about it. Especially negative ones like Cloud the Mind, a way to say to your opponent "f*ck your 5 cost 2/3 fate character" at a minimal cost. The clunky Miya Mystic set aside, only the dragon's "let go" event allows you to deal with these efficiently (and let's forget about Karada district, it does not help for your negative attachements). And as it's en event, shall I remind you that it can be also cancelled?
I think people don't complain about attachment the way they complain about PD is because they probably feel helpless when their opponent plays it. The ways to play around that card aren't as obvious as "did I draw a Let Go / Calling in Favor ?"
To me Kitsuki Investigator is way more busted than PD. But since it's a Dynasty card people don't see it everywhere... But if it where Neutral, it would be. x)
Edited by MrMenthe2 hours ago, Hellvlad said:I really don't get why people are so upset with PD. Maybe i'm wrong somewhere on how I see things but this card is conditional to play and has multiple prerequisites
- Finally, you are using a card to get rid of an opponent's card. Yes you choose it, but in the end you could have slotted in your deck a really powerful card instead. So you choose to have instead a PD that would remove a good card from the opponent. In the end what you really gain is to view your oponent's hand. and given how situational it is to pull this out, well, it does not seem so overpowered.
Yes it's an event, no not everyone has access to cancel. Voice of Honor AND Censure both have prereqs before it can be played. Scorpion requires a courtier. What clans don't have easy access to courtiers.... everyone not named scorpion or crane.
When this card gets played it's you have a guy with 4-5 political I have one with 0 political. I could pay you 4 honor for a very slight chance at stopping it and most likely lose a card in hand or, I simply lose my best card. The choice is pretty clear. especially against scorpion. because vs them you just put yourself halfway to their desired win condition. I'm sure you'd be screaming bloody murder if there was a card titled "Marshall Debate" 1 cost. choose an opponent duel him with military skill the winner then looks at the loser's hand and chooses and discards a card from it. This card cannot be cancelled by a played unless they control a bushi. Lion Crab and Unicorn would LOVE a card like that. Scorpion not at all because hey look you don't have many bushi.... its a bit unfair even though this duel actually would cost a fate.
2 hours ago, Hellvlad said:As when it comes to AFWTD, I was expecting people complain about. But it's a 4 cost card. Not only it can be cancelled, but there a re some pretty powerful 4 cost characters you can bring to the table instead of keeping your fate to pay for this card. And I'm not sure that you might be in a better position every single time by playing this rather than adding a 4 cost character to your available forces. It does not take 4 fate to bow a character, even a clan champion, Way of the crab kills it for you for the mere cost of a useless bowed fateless guy. And finally, it is a BIG telegraph you can be sending to your opponent when you finish your dynasty phase with 4 fate remaining. So you have your draw phase to play accordingly to get a cancel in order to counter.
To my opinion currently attachments are a way bigger issue and I would be curious about any other opinion explaining me why there are not more concerns about it. Especially negative ones like Cloud the Mind, a way to say to your opponent "f*ck your 5 cost 2/3 fate character" at a minimal cost. The clunky Miya Mystic set aside, only the dragon's "let go" event allows you to deal with these efficiently (and let's forget about Karada district, it does not help for your negative attachements). And as it's en event, shall I remind you that it can be also cancelled?
Again... it can't be cancelled by most of the clans especially first turn.... and ESPECIALLY because the scorpioin player has a courtier in play and is definitely holding onto a forged edict. a first turn AFWTD essentially ends the game... period. It's an unhinged, unbalanced card that is miles worse than feast or famine (a card I hate). This is a card that the creators of MTG would publish in an Unglued expansion its so poorly designed. There is no way to stop this card other than above question and finger of jade. (which people have started running but scorpion has the ability to steal it)
Dragon are currently the only people who can stop cloud the mind. You know what cloud the mind doesn't do? Bow, Dishonor, AND Send Home. Also, every scorpion I know of has dragon splash so they can stop cloud the mind, Above Question, and Finger of Jade in addition to the scorpion card that lets them steal said attachment. Removing interactivity in any game is a death knell of the game. AFWTD is a leap down the path of removing interactivity for everyone but scorpion. I would also challenge your statement that you're better off buying a 4 cost character. Are you sure about that? Your 4 cost character will go away at the end of the turn whereas you didn't just remove a champion from being useful thus negating 5 fate you likely also crippled them the following turn... unless you're facing off against Crab because Kisada don't care about dishonor or having fate. Togashi drops to 3M/3P, Hotaru 0M/3P, Toturi 3M/0P, Tsukune 0M/0P, Altansarnai 3M/2P essentially making their 7 fate investment worth 2 fate of value and it's already dishonored so we know it can't swim and for shame makes it a 7 fate investment that gives you zero benefit.
That's not even discussing the fact that 4 fate for AFWTD could instead be used to buy a conflict character if the opponent decides not to attack into AFWTD. You gain the advantage of the ability to decide during a conflict how you want to respond because scorpion has some pretty nasty conflict characters.
I won't call it NPE but it comes pretty darn close. AFWTD, PD, FoF, and Pathfinders Blade are in my opinion what is killing my play group we had 14 players consistently about a month and a half ago (so mid-holiday season) and now we are lucky to get 4.
7 minutes ago, maniacmcgoo said:no not everyone has access to cancel. Voice of Honor AND Censure both have prereqs before it can be played. Scorpion requires a courtier. What clans don't have easy access to courtiers.... everyone not named scorpion or crane.
The way I see it, everyone has access to censure not on first turn of course, but in first turn to have the proper set up for PD to be playable is even more difficult and unlikely to happen. If you clan is not able to get the imperial favor at any point in the game something, I think something is wrong and you will be losing sooner or later. And again, you ignore the other point. Why would you play such a conditional card to remove the best card the opponent has in his hand ( that does not mean that card is essential for him if his hand sucks) instead of slotting in your deck an actual good card that could directly benefit you? I still don't get it. You go through all this hassle in the end just to know your opponent's hand. It's an interesting effect but it will not win you the game.
7 minutes ago, maniacmcgoo said:When this card gets played it's you have a guy with 4-5 political I have one with 0 political. I could pay you 4 honor for a very slight chance at stopping it and most likely lose a card in hand or, I simply lose my best card. The choice is pretty clear. especially against scorpion. because vs them you just put yourself halfway to their desired win condition. I'm sure you'd be screaming bloody murder if there was a card titled "Marshall Debate" 1 cost. choose an opponent duel him with military skill the winner then looks at the loser's hand and chooses and discards a card from it. This card cannot be cancelled by a played unless they control a bushi. Lion Crab and Unicorn would LOVE a card like that. Scorpion not at all because hey look you don't have many bushi.... its a bit unfair even though this duel actually would cost a fate.
That means that in order to play this card you have to prepare the set up and plan for it. In the same way you can prepare to protect yourself. "There is a 5 political character on the table, I will not bring up this 0 political guy, and bring another instead". I don't see why the card you describe would make me scream it's nearly mirror card to PD which I don't find overpowered. It's not because I have a scorpion mon as avatar that I advocate only in favor of scorpion decks.
Regarding AFWTD, I think that way of the crab does a way better job, with less planning required, for cheaper and no one complains about it. AFWTD requires a lot of planing and it does not win you the game. FOr the planning part, there is something important to keep in mind. You decide how much fate you keep at the end of the dynasty pahse and only after you will draw. If you want to play AFWTD the high amount forces you basically to have it in hand 1 turn before. And if you want to bid low, meaning you will not draw more than 1-2 cards, you have a dead card in your hand for the current turn. It messes badly one character and punishes the one man army superhero character for one single turn, sure. BUT you pay 4 fate to disable a high cost character for 1 turn, 2 actually with the removal of 1 fate token (so an investment if 2 fate from your opponent). The only lasting effect is the dishonor, and you can get it for free with way of the scorpion. I can tell you that I more cursed this card when I drew it rather than when I got hit by it.
I cannot imagine how much frustration your gaming group would have had in Old 5R against a lotus edition scorpion ninja/duel deck where only targeting the wrong face down card could cost you the game.
Small word for finishing regarding CtM. Sure it does not bow, send home and dishonor. However non of these statuses are permanent. You can re honor a character. but un-blank it? good luck. This harms way more a champion on the long run than AFWTD to my opinion, and its way easier and cheaper to play. And outside Dragon there is no solution to it, neither a possible counter.
Don't get me wrong, these cards are powerfull and shape the meta. But really disagree calling them broken. Many others have really powerful effects, are easy to play and can mess up with really careful shaped plans ( an Admit defeat can turn the game purely and simply, yet again no one complains)
In conclusion, I'm really sorry if i'm missing something here, maybe you have more play experience than I have but my conclusions come from the games I played and what I witnessed. I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I try to understand the the reason why so many people have such strong negative opinions against these cards.
1 hour ago, Hellvlad said:( an Admit defeat can turn the game purely and simply, yet again no one complains)
In conclusion, I'm really sorry if i'm missing something here........
Admit Defeat..........no, just no.
I think you are missing something. So apology accepted. 
Here are the things I think you should reconsider:
This notion of "it can be canceled" or "requires set up" is a gross overstatement when you consider the decks that are running these cards, the general state of the metagame, and the natural play progression of these decks.
Scorpion is generally going to bid high and with a smart mulligan this means they will have seen over 25% of their deck before going into the first conflict phase. They also generally run a large number of conflict characters. So the odds on them seeing the card they want to use the fate they bank by passing first is really high. They are generally always playing with a fate advantage with the correct counters to negate any response you hope to play.
AFWTD is not a straight up fate cost of character + extra fate spent on character vs fate paid to play AFWTD comparison. If you play a 3 fate character with 2 fate on him, it gets hit with AFWTD and your opponent rips that last fate off with Void Ring.... You just lost 3 turns of that 3 fate cost character. 9 fate in value lost for 4 fate paid. That's huge and only gets larger as you invest in higher fate cost characters. Anything below 3 fate cost is handled by Assassination.
Policy Debate does not require set up. scorpion and Crane are able to field characters with high political stats cheaply and ataching a free can is not much of a stretch. Are you going to let those attacks go though unopposed and lose honor while also potentially suffering ring effects and getting your provinces broken? You will be forced to defend if you want to keep up in the game...... Or maybe Scorpion or Crane harpoon your weak character into the battle, since they are also the only clans that can do that effectively. Unicorn can too, but, let's be real here. So these match ups of high political vs low political are actually very common and they come down to the choice of "am I willing to risk losing 4 honor to stop this duel." The answer to this is almost always no because if the challenger bids higer than 1 now you've not only lost your best card, you also gave up honor to do so and created the worst result for yourself. So you bid one and lose your best card and your opponent now has perfect knowledge of your hand.
Why Policy Debate is so strong is because there are not yet 40 cards that people can play which are better than Policy Debate. So the impact of taking your opponent's best card and seeing their hand becomes a much bigger deal than if you could actually run 3 better cards in place of Policy Debate.
Hopefully this covers it? It not, I apologize too. I tried my best. And I agree that neither card is broken, there just happens to not be much available in they way of playing around them with such a small card pool. The general disdain for these cards is understandable. Maybe, as the card pool grows, they become less impactful?
Edited by Ishi Tonu
15 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:Hopefully this covers it? It not, I apologize too. I tried my best.
Pretty much actually, thanks a lot!
15 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:AFWTD is not a straight up fate cost of character + extra fate spent on character vs fate paid to play AFWTD comparison. If you play a 3 fate character with 2 fate on him, it gets hit with AFWTD and your opponent rips that last fate off with Void Ring.... You just lost 3 turns of that 3 fate cost character. 9 fate in value lost for 4 fate paid. That's huge and only gets larger as you invest in higher fate cost characters. Anything below 3 fate cost is handled by Assassination.
I was considering the comparison between the investments. To keep a character for each extra turn the opponent pays 1 additional fate. The effect is of course magnified by the actual value of the character. it still comes down to 1 fate invested. I agree taht the final impact is huge but you end up actually spending more fate than your opponent trying to counter him. This is why is still consider that there is some balance here opposed to WotC. But I get your point.
15 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:Policy Debate does not require set up. scorpion and Crane are able to field characters with high political stats cheaply and ataching a free can is not much of a stretch. Are you going to let those attacks go though unopposed and lose honor while also potentially suffering ring effects and getting your provinces broken? You will be forced to defend if you want to keep up in the game...... Or maybe Scorpion or Crane harpoon your weak character into the battle, since they are also the only clans that can do that effectively. Unicorn can too, but, let's be real here. So these match ups of high political vs low political are actually very common and they come down to the choice of "am I willing to risk losing 4 honor to stop this duel." The answer to this is almost always no because if the challenger bids higer than 1 now you've not only lost your best card, you also gave up honor to do so and created the worst result for yourself. So you bid one and lose your best card and your opponent now has perfect knowledge of your hand.
Makes also sense. However I point out a link with the point I was making about attachments. It's indeed easy to bring up a cheap 3 political character in crane or scorpion and give him a fan to push it at 5. A non political clan will struggle to close the gap and this will be reinforced if these characters stay around for several turns. Having more ways to deal with attachments would help here and I really feel the game lacks seriously tools for that.
15 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:Why Policy Debate is so strong is because there are not yet 40 cards that people can play which are better than Policy Debate. So the impact of taking your opponent's best card and seeing their hand becomes a much bigger deal than if you could actually run 3 better cards in place of Policy Debate.
Fair point. That also means that with the growth of the card pool, PD will be less and less efficient.
I'm not sure that's true. There are a handful of cards that you can get a lot of value off with PD, like Charge or AFWTD. But the vast majority of conflict cards will be +2 events and basically you could just run more Fans and Katanas.
14 minutes ago, HamHamJ2 said:I'm not sure that's true. There are a handful of cards that you can get a lot of value off with PD, like Charge or AFWTD. But the vast majority of conflict cards will be +2 events and basically you could just run more Fans and Katanas.
Actually that's what makes it true. Nobody is running 40 "+2" cards. They are running the best cards they can, then filling in with utility and finally "+2" cards to round things out. When someone gets into your hand with PD, they get to potentially find out the splash you are playing, they see how you are set up in hand to know if they can push any sort of advantage, and then they take the best card to either ensure them a win on that conflict phase, or, to potentially set up a long game plan and remove whatever card you are running that would mess with that.
When we reach the point where everyone has access to 40 strong cards, then PD loses some value because you are running PD in place of a stronger effect, and getting into someone's hand when they have 9 other copies of essentially the same card is pointless.
So clearly the answer is to just run crappy stuff so when you get hit with PD, your opponent is like 
3 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:Actually that's what makes it true. Nobody is running 40 "+2" cards. They are running the best cards they can, then filling in with utility and finally "+2" cards to round things out. When someone gets into your hand with PD, they get to potentially find out the splash you are playing, they see how you are set up in hand to know if they can push any sort of advantage, and then they take the best card to either ensure them a win on that conflict phase, or, to potentially set up a long game plan and remove whatever card you are running that would mess with that.
When we reach the point where everyone has access to 40 strong cards, then PD loses some value because you are running PD in place of a stronger effect, and getting into someone's hand when they have 9 other copies of essentially the same card is pointless.
So clearly the answer is to just run crappy stuff so when you get hit with PD, your opponent is like
I think what I am trying to get at is that PD is bad at winning conflicts and breaking provinces. It works really well against only a small subset of types of cards, which may mean it is disproportionally affecting certain clans.
The main reason for this is the timing of when PD is played. You need to be in a conflict, and it has to be your action. That means:
15 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:When we reach the point where everyone has access to 40 strong cards, then PD loses some value because you are running PD in place of a stronger effect, and getting into someone's hand when they have 9 other copies of essentially the same card is pointless.
I don't think that this is necessary true. Even if everyone has 60 really strong cards, they will most likely serve different purposes.
4 hours ago, Ignithas said:I don't think that this is necessary true. Even if everyone has 60 really strong cards, they will most likely serve different purposes.
Sure, but, we're at the point where the purpose of some of the cards are just to fill up space.
On 2/6/2018 at 2:31 PM, Ishi Tonu said:The process of revealing honor dials is pointless in the vast majority of PD "duels" because both players generally bid 1.
Sure, but who's fault is this?
I think the idea of an Honorable Bayushi Kachiko/Doji Hotaru dropping a PD against Aggressive Moto is being seriously overplayed in this discussion. (Or substitute whatever 4-5+ point advantage you'd like.)
Can it happen? Sure. But most of the time, you're not gonna have an "instant win" situation. Most of the time you'll have a target that is 1-3 points of Pol lower than your Character.
If the opponent wants to bid 1 in those duels, maybe the honor is more valuable than the card, or maybe they should stop being defeatist and actually bid to win (because *both* players usually bid 1, which means the player dropping the PD is too. Maybe take advantage of that?)
4 hours ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:Sure, but who's fault is this?
I think the idea of an Honorable Bayushi Kachiko/Doji Hotaru dropping a PD against Aggressive Moto is being seriously overplayed in this discussion. (Or substitute whatever 4-5+ point advantage you'd like.)
Can it happen? Sure. But most of the time, you're not gonna have an "instant win" situation. Most of the time you'll have a target that is 1-3 points of Pol lower than your Character.
If the opponent wants to bid 1 in those duels, maybe the honor is more valuable than the card, or maybe they should stop being defeatist and actually bid to win (because *both* players usually bid 1, which means the player dropping the PD is too. Maybe take advantage of that?)
Take it from experience, losing a PD that you yourself threw is extremely painful. You are down two cards, one of which is the best card in your hand, and have nothing but a small amount of honor to show for it.
Unless you are under tight honor pressure, or the duel is literally unwinnable, actually fighting a PD isn't a bad idea.