Who is the most feared dynasty character in L5R? One that makes you groan inside when it hits the board and you wish you had put more Cloud the Minds in your deck? Hida Kisada? Bayushi Shoju? Togashi Yokuni?

No, its ...

... Kitsuki Investigator

This one character makes those mighty Scorpion players flee in terror. Watch as turn after turn, they pass their political conflict to not face the mighty Investigator. Multiple games now even with Bayushi Shoju on the board, the Scorp player still passes their political conflict.

Yogo Hiroue and harpoon him to a military conflict. Or AFWTD. Or Fiery Madness + Shoju. Or CtM. Or I Can Swim. Or Covert him...

Or frankly, just let him discard one card. The Scorpion has enough drawing power to offset the loss of a single card.

And when he die, use Shosuro Actress to bring him back under your control and give them a taste of their own medicine.

Haven't seen any Scorpion worry about him. People are more scared of LPB

I'd probably say Kisada.

No matter how many times I remind myself to burn my worst action I always seem to forget and mess something up when he's in play. Its especially hard when playing Unicorn because I'm generally having to sequence everything in a certain way just to barely scrape out a win and one small slip just ruins it.

It feels like Kisada has nailed me every game I've ever played against Crab. Heck, maybe he has. I've had a few rare games where I was ahead enough that the misplay didn't matter, but, I can't recall any game that I played without making a mistake against Kisada.

I guess I can use these experiences as further motivation to crush the Crab once a Shadowlands faction shows up as a playable option. Cuz stealing 1 fate with my Goblin Sneak is not nearly satisfying enough.

While I agree on boards people don't complain about Kitsuki Investigator, in practice when I'm playing or watching a Dragon game Kitsuki Investigator always had a pretty devastating effect on their opponent (it's even worse if they are also running Policy Debate, which they usually are because now they can Investigator first to scout and see if it's worth using their Policy Debate as a follow up). You say Scorpion has enough card draw to offset the hits from Investigator, but this is also the faction with Restoration Of Balance. I don't know about other players but I try not to flood my hand until that's been revealed. Sometimes I navigate that mine field deftly and sometimes I don't

People like to complain about LPB, but as a player who's trying to learn to play Lion competitively currently that's definitely not the faction to worry about right now.

I'd vote Kisada also. Yeah there are ways around him but most of the time he's making you make hard choices and Crab has a lot of answers to mitigate the answers you'd use against him. As a Crab player I'm never sad to see Kisada flop up regardless of the match up. I can't really say that about the other champs when playing those factions.

Kisada, Yoshi, Kaede and Guest of Honor.. They deserve it.

No mention of Shoju? He's downright terrifying, thanks to things like Fiery Madness. No blocker is safe from him.

14 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

No mention of Shoju? He's downright terrifying, thanks to things like Fiery Madness. No blocker is safe from him.

Meh. Just play Koi Pond and he is neutralized.

I wouldn't say fear, but Haughty Magistrate is among the most annoying characters to see show up.

Kisada.

Shinjo Altansarnai Moto Juro Border Rider Ide Trader Uhh...I'd say LPB is the most OP and annoying in the game to date.

Only character I've caught myself making multiple deck building considerations to get around is Stoic Magistrate. (But that's because I play lion, and blanking him is **** near impossible due to shallow shugenja pool)

My local group hates the guest of honor above all else. Everyone groans and comments on hate (even from other tables) whenever she shows up

14 hours ago, Edweird said:

Only character I've caught myself making multiple deck building considerations to get around is Stoic Magistrate. (But that's because I play lion, and blanking him is **** near impossible due to shallow shugenja pool)

Generally when you see Crab you should mulligan hard for your 3 cost and higher people and really push the Spiritcaller recycling. Get those 2 drops out of the way, find Toturi, Uj', LPB, etc., land FGG and overwhelm them with onboard actions, cuz you're right you likely will not be able to consistently blank Stoic Mag.

Stoic, Haughty, and surprisingly Enigmatic seem to be the top magistrates. In certain match ups they seem to have the biggest blowout potential, where as the others are a little easier to play around.

When I play competitive I generally run Dragon/Crane so many of the normal problems cards tend not to hurt me as much. When I'm playing Unicorn, everything seems like a problem, so it's really hard to gauge this one.

In the old game, oh man, there were so many at different periods of time it's hard to keep track. If we are comparing beginning of LCG to beginning of the CCG, we'd be right about at Imperial + Shadowlands expansion of the old CCG. Oni no Akuma would have to be the most feared. Great stats for the meta, cost you a province to play but generally got you two or more from your opponent in return, and created so much of a tempo advantage that it was near impossible to come back from an early Akuma hitting the table along side of whatever else the player got normally that turn. Just about every blowout game I can remember during that period of time generally involved Akuma. With the original unique rules only allowing one copy of a unique in play for both players, whoever got their Akuma out first was at a big advantage. This was a time where people were not wanting to play the bad guys because of a random event that hosed Shadowlands was the only thing keeping corrupt decks in check............and the reality was that it wasn't doing a good job. Rokugan was also really lucky to have more cards by the time the 2nd Day of Thunder event rolled around. If it would have happened a few months earlier, only extremely bad luck would have kept a Shadowlands player or corrupt deck from walking away with that event.

3 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

Shinjo Altansarnai Moto Juro Border Rider Ide Trader

Why did you cross those out? Unicorn players fear, or are annoyed by, their own characters way more than any other clans characters.

The characters I’d like to immediately blank are, in the following order of priority:

1) Kisada

2) Ujiaki

3) LPB

4) Doji Challenger

5) That Scorpion one that harpoons a character and dishonours then afterwards

Haven’t faced Kitsuki Investigator yet: In fact I can’t remember the last time I faced or saw anyone playing Dragon full-stop.

12 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

Shinjo Altansarnai Moto Juro Border Rider Ide Trader Uhh...I'd say LPB is the most OP and annoying in the game to date.

I actually think Moto Juro is pretty strong, up there with the best of the other ‘new’ 5 cost characters (apart from Ujiaki who is ridiculously OTT good). Juro seems to be a prime target for Cloud The Mind when i’m playing against Phoenix.

Border Rider never lasts long on the board as she rides around with a placard saying “Come on - Assassinate me!”, although i’m wondering if that can be leveredged to good effect in a Unicorn Dishonour deck..

2 hours ago, Caldera said:

Border Rider never lasts long on the board as she rides around with a placard saying “Come on - Assassinate me!”, although i’m wondering if that can be leveredged to good effect in a Unicorn Dishonour deck..

Nothing to see here. Move along people..........

So how did everyone do with their match madness brackets?

I'd say Kitsu Spiritcaller, but Lion is in a pretty bad spot righ now. After the pack it will probably be charged Fuchiko.

I think Kisada is the king until we see what tadaka can do, but maybe the most "feared" character in the meta can be a guy from a clan thats not on the top tier right now, the Yoshi.

Differently from other great character that gives you advantage to win specific conflicts like Shoju, guest of honor, the magistrates or Ujiaki, Yoshi besides doing that reducing the events cost gives you a good advantage that will help your entire game, since you dont need to spend those cards on that conflict. I think it is were LPB (bowing home), Kisada and now Tadaka shines too, cause they can impact multiple conflicts.

And using Yoshi on defense as your first action you cant play around it (and this is why we try to dont give crane the favor, but is not a easy thing to control for most decks..), so maybe it is a char to run that third cloud the mind.. I think he is the character that can cause the major overturn in a game without needing aditional cards to work (for example Ujiaki can win a game with a right time played FGG, but is a specific condition with multiple variables).

About Kitsuki investigator he is a good character, not even in top 10 imo, but is kind of funny hearing that scorps are complainig about a policy debate effect =) For sure they can use cloud the minds and fwtd on him if they want..

There is a fellow that has not gained the deserved attention (and hate) on the current subject: Ninten Master.

With little effort, he can defend against a strong attacking force and still pose a danger to two enemy provinces. The insanely cheap Pathfinder Blade will both ready him and eliminate the risk of running into a province that could slow his one man blitzkrieg.

That guy makes my lion blood boil in anger.

Guys, what's so scary about Kisada? I even forgot what he does as people just immediately cloud the mind. There was perhaps one game where he wasn't cloud the mind'ed and my opponent's first action was court games (which we both unknowingly allowed to happen).

1 hour ago, Hordeoverseer said:

Guys, what's so scary about Kisada? I even forgot what he does as people just immediately cloud the mind..

Well, that´ is a clue...

3 hours ago, Hordeoverseer said:

Guys, what's so scary about Kisada? I even forgot what he does as people just immediately cloud the mind. There was perhaps one game where he wasn't cloud the mind'ed and my opponent's first action was court games (which we both unknowingly allowed to happen).

Uh what's so scary about a guy that ALWAYS gets IMMEDIATELY clouded? Umm...nothing I guess.

A big clue, but I just wish I knew what he did...