18 minutes ago, Hellvlad said:

I don't want to go again into the debate if Policy Debate is broken or not, but from memory there were way more powerfull duel effects in the old 5R and getting hit by those duels was really punishing and brutal.

Fluff - wise duels are a really important matter and have major consequences not to be taken lightly. This translated into the game with powerfull effects , beyond the classical " destroy the loser". Here are some examples:

And these were repeatable actions since they were printed on characters. My point is that if people loose their mind over Policy Debate now, I can hardly imagine the sh*tstorm when actual dueling deck enabling cards will come up.

None of these cards look at your hand (in game without handsize limit as LCG is) and discard something from it. They're just about killing things which was (in most editions) so common action as bowing or sending home. Also even if they're available every turn they're on the table, visible to your opponent so he can just play and prepare for them. It's just open board information.

Getting you consequential amounts of honor, imperial favor, stealing enemy characters...Kokujin was massive in lotus and was wreaking havoc.

4 minutes ago, kempy said:

Also even if they're available every turn they're on the table, visible to your opponent so he can just play and prepare for them. It's just open board information.

So you are saying that if Policy Debate was a printet action on a character it would be less powerful because it's open information?

16 minutes ago, Hellvlad said:

Getting you consequential amounts of honor, imperial favor, stealing enemy characters...Kokujin was massive in lotus and was wreaking havoc.

So you are saying that if Policy Debate was a printet action on a character it would be less powerful because it's open information?

You're talking about actions printed on Unique and costy Personalities in a game where with every Province destroyed your chances to see them decreased a lot. In game where you could kill them even before battle or bow/send home as first battle action. And all i remember from (late) Lotus that before you even had occasion to buy someone as Kokujin (or anyone) you just lost 1 or 2 provinces to Nezumi DotS or Lion Ashigaru blitz decks. And even Kokujin required additional body to work.

And about printed PD - it depends on what kind of Personality of course, but yes, open information (even if repeatable) is less dangerous than hidden. Especially when this printed ability may just fade out in a turn or two so you try to play around it.

Anyway, comparing such different games and abilities without overall game/environment context is just a mistake. Looking at OP hand and discarding was in Lotus and - thankfully - AEG stopped to print such effects later. Last card i remember with such effect was Soften the Resistance and it was so conditional (looking for lowest FV).

It's obvious that the games are different and the power level cannot be directly compared.

For me, I see it more as a question of a general feeling. Duels looked to me pretty brutal back then and i'm not surprised by Policy Debate. In fact I would expect even "worse" meaning more powerful duel effects to arrive in the future. The card is powerful, I'm not denying that, and will be a major element of the meta, but as time goes it will not be the only duel card with a big impact.

Playing a duel deck in the old game added a good layer of restriction for the deck-building , mainly due to the need to pay attention to the focus values of the conflict cards. This was the trade off to allow you to benefit from quite powerful effects.

As the card pool grows, I hope that duels have been designed with that in mind as well for the current game. It's too early to draw conclusions and for the moment PD is usable by anyone owning a character with high political strength, and does not require a specific dueling deck. I expect this to change in the future and non dueling decks having access to better option as cards, fearing the match up against a dueling deck that could send the discard back into their own face.

These are just assumptions, but it makes sense to me that such cards are designed looking at the long therm growth of the game and not only with just the current meta in mind. Maybe it was released too early

4 hours ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

I was replying to the post directly above mine. I guess I should have quoted?

That said, none of the suggestions are good, as none of the cards that currently exist are toxic to the overall environment. People get sour grapes when actions hurt their board state. Card developers have even commented on the forums here about how suggestions they get to "fix" "problem cards" have historically always ended up turning the card(s) into cardboard coasters.
What we have is a small vocal minority who always bids 1 vs PD and then complains PD is "too good." PD isn't too good, this person just doesn't feel like playing the bidding game and then griping about it on the internet.

I would also agree that the majority of the player-base are more mature than it's reputation suggests.
Then again, this very thread exists...

What is and what isn't toxic is a question of definition. Judging from the results of the two last Koteis, Scorpion is a problem for the competitive metagame. The sample size isn't large, so I don't think that it warrants a restricted list, but I can't blame anyone that thinks differently.

Fun is subjective, but the design from the core set and first cycle heavyly favors cards that disrupt your oponent's board or hand, especially if you consider that characters have a expiry date in this game.

I thought it was really interesting to see how strongly the playerbase voted that it was too soon. Just a reminder that although some voices a loud and noticeable, sometimes there's way more silent participants that may not agree.

10 hours ago, Hellvlad said:

Getting you consequential amounts of honor, imperial favor, stealing enemy characters...Kokujin was massive in lotus and was wreaking havoc.

So you are saying that if Policy Debate was a printet action on a character it would be less powerful because it's open information?

We have Policy Debate as a printed action on a character already. The card is called Kitsuki Investigator No one was crying about that guy so I guess there might be something to that. The Investigator has to trigger in a very predictable way and therefore is easier to counter if needed. For the record I'm fine with Policy Debate. It helps me way more than it hurts me as a Crab player. I needed some way to fish out those ridiculous conflict cards. All the cancel cards are really hard for us to play.

6 hours ago, phillos said:

We have Policy Debate as a printed action on a character already. The card is called Kitsuki Investigator No one was crying about that guy so I guess there might be something to that. The Investigator has to trigger in a very predictable way and therefore is easier to counter if needed. For the record I'm fine with Policy Debate. It helps me way more than it hurts me as a Crab player. I needed some way to fish out those ridiculous conflict cards. All the cancel cards are really hard for us to play.

@phillos Come on man, did you really just attempt to say that the KI is equivalent to PD?

So I have to pay 3 Fate to bring the character in, wait for a Politcal Conflict, commit the character to that said Conflict, spend an ADDITIONAL Fate onto a ring, and then use his ‘look see, and remove a card’ ability, which can be done ONLY ONCE max per Conflict.... and this is the same as using a no cost PD card, that can be used by ANY CHARACTER, during ANY CONFLICT, with no limitation as to the number of times used in a single conflict??? ?

Ummmmm, ok. You have convinced me! ?

5 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

@phillos Come on man, did you really just attempt to say that the KI is equivalent to PD?

So I have to pay 3 Fate to bring the character in, wait for a Politcal Conflict, commit the character to that said Conflict, spend an ADDITIONAL Fate onto a ring, and then use his ‘look see, and remove a card’ ability, which can be done ONLY ONCE max per Conflict.... and this is the same as using a no cost PD card, that can be used by ANY CHARACTER, during ANY CONFLICT, with no limitation as to the number of times used in a single conflict??? ?

Ummmmm, ok. You have convinced me! ?

I personally think that the comparison of the two cards is strange, but I generally get more stressed out when I see KI on the other side of the table than when PD is played against me.

That was sort of my whole point. People didn't freak out in the same way because KI triggers in a more predictable way. I'm surprised at your reactions. The comparison is there because they are the same effect. I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to compare them. If not them then what two cards in the card pool