Playing them as if from your hand would imply you could choose to play them into a conflict or at home, your preference.

Card seems really cool. Being out isn't necessarily +1 fate each turn because a lot of players pass early anyways, but it does mean that you can snag that fate while comfortably playing what you wanted. It also hides your intentions going into conflicts really well. Does he have 8 fate because he's gonna play Kachiko, or has he just not played his province characters yet?

Hinomura's right in that holdings definitely eat up a valuable slot, but I think it's action to refill a province mostly redeems that. You can eventually see all four cards, just not optimally all at once when you're making your overall plan for the turn. It hurts, but not so much I wouldn't play this in pretty much every deck I could.

4 minutes ago, Tomello said:

I am assuming you cannot play these characters into a conflict.

I mean, it says you can play characters in adjacent provinces as if they were in your hand. You can play Conflict characters in any action window that is not the Dynasty phase. Playing them isn't restricted by the Action like on Back-Alley.

IMO, this Hidden Moon Dojo does nothing other than add an additional level of flexibility for Scorpion players in the foreseeable future. This card will be an automatic include for players with previous Scorpion SH and possibly for players with the new Scorpion SH as well; let’s not be disingenuous please. (I mean really, can’t a player easily remove a single Favorable Ground or Imperial Storehouse to include this card???)

In my gaming experience, with card games, board games, miniature games and other games as well, I have yet to figure out what angle FFG is taking with regards to Scorpion... they are simply getting bettter cards and added flexibility with each preview, with no ‘dumb cards’ or cards that do not add viable alternatives to one’s hand. I’m seriously dumbfounded here. (not in a good way)

end of rant

44 minutes ago, Danwarr said:

I'm sort of surprised you think so little of the card. Is the ability to play Dynasty characters post Dynasty phase not exciting?

There's a difference between 'honestly not sure if it's worth it' and thinking so little of a card. It definitely warrants testing, but it's up against an embarrassment of riches, and might not have the oomph it needs. Might not, not does not.

This will also proc Miyako, same way watch commander was ruled to still proc when pheonix plays a spell using their stronghold during a conflict. As it says the same thing, playing the spell as if in their hand. This one is playing a character as if played from your hand. All in all its just a busted card, with absolutely no cost for what its doing, unlike the other busted 1 off Kanjo district and Kadara district. Kanjo requires setup and losing the favor, kadara is a 2 fate swing. This is just play it when ever my bro, doesent matter.

1 hour ago, Hinomura said:

This takes up a quarter of the cards I see in a turn for plus one Fate. I'm honestly not sure that's really worth it, based on the current card pool. Look forward to seeing someone break it though

Actually it takes up no cards because you play a card in an adjacent province and then use the ability to turn that next card face up and still be able to play that card directly into another conflict.

This holding is nothing short of amazing. The only downside is it's one in each deck clause.

You're going to play the Fu Leng out of it.

It's not a guaranteed Fate - if this lands on either end province, there's obviously only one slot to bring characters out of. What happens when you want to play a character from a non-adjacent province? It increases your chances of passing first but doesn't guarantee it.

There is also the issue of flipping another holding in that slot. Fine if it's a Storehouse, less good if it's something that hangs around longer.

It's also pretty random as to whether you'll get an impactful character that is located correctly - it's great when you have Shoju or Hiroue, not so good with a Manipulator or a Liar.

If you do see a strong character, it definitely messes with the entire turn, as the threat of activation screws up your opponent's conflict math for every single conflict. My contention is merely that right now a lot of things have to fall right for this to influence the outcome of a game.

If Scorpion move to a deck style with more bomb characters (such as Aramoro), this definitely gets a lot better. Until then, it's a card with an ability that should always warrant consideration, but may not be reliable enough to automatically get included. We'll see - it's legal for GenCon, right?

My only question is how it works with Shadowshaper.

If I play a 2 fate or less character "as if from my hand" while I have Shadowshaper in play, can I return that dynasty character back to my conflict hand?

That would be my kind of jank for sure

I don't see why not if Togashi Yokuni pops back into your hand after copying Adept of Shadows.

So much fun with Liar!

Some people seem not to realize that it is "during a conflict". You still have to buy charakters in the dynasty Phase if you want to initiate conflicts, if the dojo is in a bad position.

Not nearly as good as it looks, and for sure no Kanjo.

3 minutes ago, Bayushi Nono said:

Some people seem not to realize that it is "during a conflict". You still have to buy charakters in the dynasty Phase if you want to initiate conflicts.

Not nearly as good as it looks, and for sure no Kanjo.

No? You can just buy characters from your hand in the action window before a conflict and initiate conflicts with them

Yes, because what Scorpion needed was even more conflict characters.

It feels like every effort to reign in Scorpion dominance is one step forward, three steps back. Sure we'll make it so they can't run Forged Edict, Mirumoto's Fury, and Policy Debate in the same deck. But in exchange we're going to give them the ability to negate a 4 honor loss (meaning an 8 honor swing), make you lose an honor every time you lose a conflict against them, and make every character in their dynasty deck a conflict character.

Between this and the Soshi Daimyo it feels like I ought to get a sandwich board with 'The End Is Nigh' written on it.

I suppose thank goodness for Sabotage for the time being.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

9 hours ago, Hinomura said:

It's also pretty random as to whether you'll get an impactful character that is located correctly - it's great when you have Shoju or Hiroue, not so good with a Manipulator or a Liar. 

I actually like the option to pop out a Courtier on demand; it can help you use For Shame! Exactly when you need it. Liar won't be bowed with Water Ring, etc... It also helps Shoshuro Miyako to be a little more steady.

10 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

In my gaming experience, with card games, board games, miniature games and other games as well, I have yet to figure out what angle FFG is taking with regards to Scorpion... they are simply getting bettter cards and added flexibility with each preview, with no ‘dumb cards’ or cards that do not add viable alternatives to one’s hand. I’m seriously dumbfounded here. (not in a good way)

end of rant

Heartless Intimidator is really bad. There's no 3-cost that I would ever slot out for this one, even if milling was getting more cards. But yeah, I can't complain when I see Crane's set of cards in this Cycle. Game of Sadane and A Soul Beyond Reproach are good but everything else...

18 hours ago, cforfar said:

I agree, reusable provinces are my generally preference as well. Though I am looking at Abandoning Honor as my new fire province as dishonoring someone is not hard to do as Scorpion.

Abandoning Honor is so good for us that I hope we don't get a Fire role anytime soon.

Is a very good holding, not broken but is another fate generator for scorps, that already have the core set ones that does this.

If theres one thing that really pisses me off in the game is the powerfull holdings. First limiting one per deck is a terrible way of balancing anything, karada district for example is a calling favors on steroids, as if calling was not one of the great cards of the game. The game already have an inherent mechanic that favors playing few characters from dynasty that is gaining a fate from passing first, so, many builds can manage to keep 1 or even 2 holdings without huge problems. The first time I looked at the conflict characters possibilities in new5R I thought it was a smart decision to prevent bad dynasty flops. But on the otherside theres smart players too, and so they managed to abuse this to keep powerfull holdings, pass first, gain fate and play conflict characters, and if your holdings or SH enables you to draw extra cards every turn so the pack is complete. Holdings that draw cards, gain fate, steal attachments, keep characters in play, ready characters, all this without spending fate? without costing honor / conflict cards? Just for the cost of blocking a province? Many games are being won / lost based on the timing holdings show off, regardless of players skills.

Is there a deck for Appealing to the Fortunes? (Void Province revealed)

Right off it might be contesting with Shameful and Pilgrimage, but if it puts a Kachiko in play, could it be worth?

I want to play Appealing to the Fortunes, but Shameful Display is really really hard to top. It'd only play it in a deck that I didn't plan on contesting breaks with, like a full-on aggressive deck that only attacked. The effect is really good, but has a few vulnerabilities. Terrible if it's the last conflict in a round, and bad if you play most of the strong characters in your provinces. At least it can play whatever card is in its own province though, right? Since it's an interrupt, it happens before the breaking is completed?

Yes, interrupts are resolved before their triggering conditions. Otherwise, you couldn't trigger the interrupt at all, since you cannot trigger an ability on a broken province.

Well, that was interesting.

Today's article looked to be just an excercise in filling in a few blanks when a couple of little anomalies showed up.

• The Scorpion Province appears to be 103, which means there's going to be a Stronghold in this pack. My current best guess is Dragon.
• There was another Phoenix conflict character, which threw some calculations off.
• I'd been struggling to work out how the Crane were going to fit their 5-cost and their Creature into this pack - I guess that explains it.

Other things that I suspect are: that the last role-locked card is a Dragon Void one; the Lion are getting a creature Kitsu; there's another neutral Dynasty card in Elements Unbound; I still don't know where Ofushikai goes, but I like Ebb and Flow for the water link.

And finally, here's what I think the breakdown of the set is:

The SH is 100% Unicorn

3 minutes ago, Bayushi Nono said:

The SH is 100% Unicorn

If that is the case, then Unicorn get more cards than everyone else in this cycle. I was toying with the idea of that for Clans that get Strongholds, but there isn't a way to supply Lion with an extra card from the unfilled slots. I currently tend to side with FFG being consistent with the number of cards per Clan.

1 minute ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

If that is the case, then Unicorn get more cards than everyone else in this cycle. I was toying with the idea of that for Clans that get Strongholds, but there isn't a way to supply Lion with an extra card from the unfilled slots. I currently tend to side with FFG being consistent with the number of cards per Clan.

There is that 1 in the Conflict ? column... that could be the Uni stronghold, no?

2 minutes ago, twinstarbmc said:

There is that 1 in the Conflict ? column... that could be the Uni stronghold, no?

That's card number 98. It occurs between a Scorpion Attachment and a Unicorn event. While this theoretically means that it could be a Scorpion card, number 96 is also a Scorpion card already, and they have never put 3 Dynasty or 3 Conflict from a single Clan in one Cycle pack. I'm not saying it's impossible, just less likely.

27 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

If that is the case, then Unicorn get more cards than everyone else in this cycle. I was toying with the idea of that for Clans that get Strongholds, but there isn't a way to supply Lion with an extra card from the unfilled slots. I currently tend to side with FFG being consistent with the number of cards per Clan.

Unicorn are actually 1 card behind the other clans however since they lacked a holding in the core set.