7 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

I fully agree. Sincerely.

Regardless of which deck you run, you should have an equal footing so to speak going into a given match. As it stands right now, this isn’t the case. (IMO)

Yes, you'd see every clan on more equal footing. Instead of now, where we have whole decks built solely on cancelling and discarding cheaper than it costs you to initially play it.

If it cost a bit more to discard/cancel as it did to play, people would be more focused on their own cool combinations and fun play styles instead of the NOPE game that Scorp/Crane play.

FFG rarely errata cards, and certainly not in that quantity. It's simply not going to happen.

There's obviously no argument that Unicorn needs a significant boost. I'd love to see a Unicorn Conflict character similar to the Young Harrier, but with the ability "Action: discard this character - for the rest of the turn, the effects of your Events may not be negated.".

I don't know that it's reasonable to expect that cancels be as expensive as the cost involved in playing something. That would make for a pretty boring game as well.

I think we have a pretty good bit of diversity at the top of the metagame:

Top Tier: (No particular order)

Dragon w/Crab

Scorpion w/Dragon

Phoenix w/Dragon

------------------

Next to Top Tier: (No particular order)

Crab w/Unicorn (Crane and Dragon splashes could possibly sneak in here too)

Lion w/Crane

Dragon w/Crane or Unicorn

Scorpion w/whatever

Phoenix w/whatever

Crane w/? (I don't follow them but I know they have a decent list close to the top)

------------------

Next to Last Tier: (No particular order)

Lion w/whatever else

Crab w/whatever else

Dragon w/whatever else

Crane w/whatever else

-------------------

Last Tier: (No particular order)

Unicorn

6 out of 7 of the clan's having a legitimate deck that can compete is a pretty good sign that what FFG is doing is working. Do I die a little bit inside every time I get my Cavalry Reserves countered? Sure. Does that mean that counters should all cost the equivalent of 3 fate? No, because not every clan has the ability to bring 6 fate worth of characters back from the discard.............and who knows what future design might mean for some of these strong cards.

The more you can do with characters abilities and attachments, the less impacted you are by decks that can shut down events. But you need decks that can shut down events, or you get overrun by powerful events. If there were no counters in the game, FGG and Cavalry Reserve would be very difficult to beat. As much as it sucks for Unicorn right now, I think it's better for the game to have 6 of the 7 clans have a legitimate shot, then it would be to have 1 clan with a shot.

13 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

As long as Cancels and Attachment Hate cost LESS than the cards they're cancelling, Control decks will stay on top. 

PLZ fix, FFG.

This isn't necessary true. There is a lot of design space to give decks good MUs against control decks, despite cancels costing 0. Tadaka and the new Phoenix SH for example pretty much makes all Control decks favourable for Phoenix.

13 hours ago, Taki said:

It seems to me that control decks, especially scorpion are dominating the meta, so I think support for swarm military and voltron are in order

While Control decks got a lot of tools in the first cycle and dominated the meta, Control lost some ground with the Phoenix pack. I personally think that disrupting tempo decks like Phoenix/Dragon and Dragon/Crab are either equal or better equipped to fight a diverse meta.

9 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

Make Let Go = X+1 where X = cost of attachment being discarded
Make Forged Edict = dishonor courtier + X where X = cost of the event being cancelled
Make Voice of Honor = Must be have more honorable characters + X where X = cost of the attachment being discarded
Make Calling in Favors = dishonor + X where X = cost of the attachment being stolen
Make Censure = Must control Imperial Favor + X where X = cost of the event being cancelled
etc...

The problem with that approach is that proactive cards don't have any risk attached to them (save Calling in Favors and Karada District), which will lead to frequent blow outs through cards that are undercosted (FGG, Spyglasses, Talisman of the Sun, Reprieve etc.). Especially Let Go would be pretty pathetic.

9 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

I fully agree. Sincerely.

Regardless of which deck you run, you should have  an equal footing so to speak going into a given match. As it stands right now, this isn’t the case. (IMO) there are many 2 and 3 cost Attachments that would make the game really interesting,  from deck design to actual gaming, to post game discussion, but non one plays these because of the overtly cheap Event cancelers and attachment removal/theft afforded by the few cards which allows that sort of behavior. This is a glaring  weakness to this otherwise fun, involving game.

While I'd like higher cost attachments to see play and hope that there will be cards that make playing higher cost attachments less of a risk (or a restricted list that would achieve that), I don't see the causality to clan balance.

9 hours ago, Hinomura said:

FFG rarely errata cards, and certainly not in that quantity. It's simply not going to happen.

6 minutes ago, kempy said:

They are clarifying erratas though and not balancing ones.

9 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I don't know that it's reasonable to expect that cancels be as expensive as the cost involved in playing something. That would make for a pretty boring game as well.

I think we have a pretty good bit of diversity at the top of the metagame:

Top Tier: (No particular order)

Dragon w/Crab

Scorpion w/Dragon

Phoenix w/Dragon

------------------

Next to Top Tier: (No particular order)

Crab w/Unicorn (Crane and Dragon splashes could possibly sneak in here too)

Lion w/Crane

Dragon w/Crane or Unicorn

Scorpion w/whatever

Phoenix w/whatever

Crane w/? (I don't follow them but I know they have a decent list close to the top)

------------------

Next to Last Tier: (No particular order)

Lion w/whatever else

Crab w/whatever else

Dragon w/whatever else

Crane w/whatever else

-------------------

Last Tier: (No particular order)

Unicorn

6 out of 7 of the clan's having a legitimate deck that can compete is a pretty good sign that what FFG is doing is working. Do I die a little  bit inside every time I get my Cavalry Reserves countered? Sure. Does that mean that counters should all cost the equivalent of 3 fate? No, because not every clan has the ability to bring 6 fate worth of characters back from the discard.............and who knows what future design might mean for some of these strong cards.

The more you can do with characters abilities and attachments, the less impacted you are by decks that can shut down events. But you need decks that can shut down events, or you get overrun by powerful events. If there were no counters in the game, FGG and Cavalry Reserve would be very difficult to beat. As much as it sucks for Unicorn right now, I think it's better for the game to have 6 of the 7 clans have a legitimate shot, then it would be to have 1 clan with a shot.

I personally think that Scorp/Crab and Phoenix/Scorpion is better than the rest of the decks in T2 and Lion/Crane and Dragon/Crane is worse, but the rest mirrors my experiences.

Kempy, what Ignithas said. There's a huge difference between getting a card to work correctly and fundamentally changing how a card works. Could you, for example, point out any examples having significant extra costs added to them, as that was the crux of the earlier post.

7 hours ago, Ignithas said:

While I'd like higher cost attachments to see play and hope that there will be cards that make playing higher cost attachments less of a risk (or a restricted list that would achieve that), I don't see the causality to clan balance.

Ok. Fair enough.

Lets see what the Restricted List brings us, in the way of tempering this current meta of lopsided/powerful cards in relation to their cost.

In all honesty, I’m sincerely hoping and praying that a shift will take place with the RL list; one that might right this LCG ship for all of us, for all Clans. (I’ve already lost 4 players, I don’t think I can keep up with future releases/play this game if there isn’t some ‘balance’ being had. Soon. !!!)

22 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

As long as Cancels and Attachment Hate cost LESS than the cards they're cancelling, Control decks will stay on top.

PLZ fix, FFG.

Both Dragon and Phoenix are aggro decks, not control.

Regardless, answers need to cost less than what they're answering to have any mitigating impact. I know you think you want a meta where Sashimonos, Kazue and Jade Tetsubos run free but that sounds oppressive af. Very seriously, how do you remotely beat a Yokinu with both a Sashimono and a Kazue when you have to pay more than your opponent to remove either of them? How do you ever attack an opponent with a Raitsugu with a Jade Tetsubo and a Favorable Ground showing? How do you ever get to resolve a relevant ring effect against Phoenix now that you have to save up 2 fate + activate your counters to stop the DoP?

One of the truisms of card games is that threats are better than answers. Threats can win you the game, answers can only ever stop you from losing it. Why would I ever play answers if they required the same amount of resources from me as the threats they're answering? Why wouldn't I just play those threats instead?

26 minutes ago, GoblinGuide said:

Both Dragon and Phoenix are aggro decks, not control.

Regardless, answers need to cost less than what they're answering to have any mitigating impact. I know you think you want a meta where Sashimonos, Kazue and Jade Tetsubos run free but that sounds oppressive af. Very seriously, how do you remotely beat a Yokinu with both a Sashimono and a Kazue when you have to pay more than your opponent to remove either of them? How do you ever attack an opponent with a Raitsugu with a Jade Tetsubo and a Favorable Ground showing? How do you ever get to resolve a relevant ring effect against Phoenix now that you have to save up 2 fate + activate your counters to stop the DoP?

One of the truisms of card games is that threats are better than answers. Threats can win you the game, answers can only ever stop you from losing it. Why would I ever play answers if they required the same amount of resources from me as the threats they're answering? Why wouldn't I just play those threats instead?

The designphilosophie of equal cost of threads and answers is that the quality of threads vary and if you can counter their op stuff and you get your OP stuff through you are at an advantage. Attachment hate is also playable if it costs more if you depend on a Card/strategy that gets Josef by a card (Miya Mystic for CTM in Tadaka).

47 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

The designphilosophie of equal cost of threads and answers is that the quality of threads vary and if you can counter their op stuff and you get your OP stuff through you are at an advantage. Attachment hate is also playable if it costs more if you depend on a Card/strategy that gets Josef by a card (Miya Mystic for CTM in Tadaka).

It's a poor philosophy unless the opportunity cost of adding answers isn't cutting OP cards in the first place. Scorp would still play CiF, Dragon might still play Let Go, but no one else is going to spend influence on a card to bring the board state back to parity instead of spending that influence on op cards that win the game. Miya mystic doesn't have that problem, exists in the dynasty and so competes with quite a bit less for its spot, and almost never gets played anyway. It's playable in phoenix now because it's another Shug and also Tadaka is so busted that you can afford to play underpowered answers to protect it.

2 hours ago, GoblinGuide said:

One of the truisms of card games is that threats are better than answers. Threats can win you the game, answers can only ever stop you from losing it. Why would I ever play answers if they required the same amount of resources from me as the threats they're answering?

To get rid of them.

Quote

Why wouldn't I just play those threats instead?

Sounds good to me.

I might see this from a l5r roleplayer pov too, so it's biased, but removing counters or having a greater handicap to play them is depriving crane or scorp of their flavor. so yes Crane and Scorpion can cancel some events. Sucks when facing them, but that's what they do. It's like asking For Greater Glory to cost +1 fate for each Bushi that you fate, because if it isn't canceled, it's too strong.

54 minutes ago, Nitenman said:

I might see this from a l5r roleplayer pov too, so it's biased, but removing counters or having a greater handicap to play them is depriving crane or scorp of their flavor. so yes Crane and Scorpion can cancel some events. Sucks when facing them, but that's what they do. It's like asking For Greater Glory to cost +1 fate for each Bushi that you fate, because if it isn't canceled, it's too strong.

It's not really like that comparing 1 card to being able to cancel all events.

3 times. I never said it isnt strong. It's just the cancelling honor style, as opposed to the scorpion which is the cancel dishonor style.

that's thematic rokugani tools. The crane and scorpion, they are the guys that foils your plans.

An honor based Lion can run it and run FFG.

it's strong, but it's a needed tool, that could be used by almost everyone with a bit of setup.

crane just makes it competitive worthy because they are Cranes.

once again take it with a grain of salt, I care more about flavour or Rokugan itself than clan loyalty.

43 minutes ago, Nitenman said:

3 times. I never said it isnt strong.

I really don't think it's you. I think it's a case of, "Instead of me adapting to the environment, the environment must adapt to me."

1 hour ago, Nitenman said:

once again take it with a grain of salt, I care more about flavour or Rokugan itself than clan loyalty.

And it would appear that FFG is in agreement with you in this.

Why else would they choose to give us more tasty chicken in the first clan pack?

Seriously though, the game Clearly needs more Shadowlands. Because, once there is a big bad in the picture it polarizes the community in a good way. Either you are good or bad and when your Clan is not on top, you root for the clan(a) that support your agenda.

At least that's what the Scorpion told me last time we were at the pool.

I had this crazy theory once that Unicorn's position was a pervert storytelling device from FFG, outsiders and misunderstood in the lore (like a puzzle ) .

So maybe scorpion current strength is another of such, reflecting their current position in the lore.

Cancels in L5R, unlike games like MtG, can be actively played around. Playing against crane ? Go for fire rings and honor your board. Playing against scorp ? Dishonor or get rid of their courtier. Playing against potential Censure ? Fight for the favor.

Or you can do it like every MtG players ever : bait the cancels.

I don't see the appeal for a game without cancels. But I don't enjoy games where the first player to get his combo out wins.

10 hours ago, MrMenthe said:

Cancels in L5R, unlike games like MtG, can be actively played around. Playing against crane ? Go for fire rings and honor your board. Playing against scorp ? Dishonor or get rid of their courtier. Playing against potential Censure ? Fight for the favor.

Or you can do it like every MtG players ever : bait the cancels.

I don't see the appeal for a game without cancels. But I don't enjoy games where the first player to get his combo out wins.

Why shouldn't it be possible to play around Cancels in MtG? There are some that have a resteiction, some have the possibility to simply pay more to reaolve the countered Card and there are cards that are either uncounterable, or cards that make other cards uncounterable.

5 hours ago, Ignithas said:

Why shouldn't it Beratung possible to Play around Cancels in MtG? There are some that have a resteiction, some have the possibility to simply pay more to reaolve the countered Card and there are cards that are either uncounterable, or cards that make other cards uncounterable.

You can't ACTIVELY play around it (ie turn them off). Either they have one that they have enough terrain to play or they don't.

Playing card that are uncounterable or makes others cards uncounterable isn't really playing around cancels, it's more like building around.

I like MtG a lot, I just cited it as an example saying : there are ways to deal with the presents cancels without taking deckbuilding into account. It could be worse.

On 5/10/2018 at 4:59 PM, caseycheesecake said:

Make Let Go = X+1 where X = cost of attachment being discarded
Make Forged Edict = dishonor courtier + X where X = cost of the event being cancelled
Make Voice of Honor = Must be have more honorable characters + X where X = cost of the attachment being discarded
Make Calling in Favors = dishonor + X where X = cost of the attachment being stolen
Make Censure = Must control Imperial Favor + X where X = cost of the event being cancelled
etc...

I don't agree worth these costs, especially when they also have the added cost of being hard to get into your deck (influence cost or of clan).

what would help I think is more ways to make attachments cheaper, and more solidly protect voltron characters

All these 0 cost counters and let go really puts players in a position were If you choose to run 3+ cost events or attachs you're automatically putting yourself in a subpar position against most decks, and this really s**ks.

A Lot of cool cards are currently "banned" from the competitive scenario.

As much as I agree that counters must give some advantage to be usefull and relevant, I feel the lack of a fate limitation is really a bad design choice. Of course having to pay the same (or more) than the card being canceled os not the answer, but these cards would still be very relevant if you put a restriction like "pay the card cost minus 1".

The current meta is really boring cause the game is rewarding too much reactive strategies and it feels like If your clan is not scorpion, crane or dragon you are "forced" to choose them as a splash (in competitive play).

So I'm working on an article that addresses this exact problem.

1. Aggressive Moto should be a 5/- "can not participate as a deffender"; Moto Hoard should be 8/- "you can not place fate on this character, or declare it as a defender"

2. Fate removal needs to be toned down. Without adequate negation outside of Crane and Scorpion Fate Worse Than Death is WAY too good.

A lot of other stuff too