25 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

This would be the main point I disagree about.

While unicorn is generally touted as a military clan, incapable of honor or dishonor victories, with only the "province break" win condition to aim for, I have found this to be rather far from the truth.

As such, I don't rate Unicorn characters on raw stats alone, or place more value on the stat to cost ratio than the actual ability on the card.

I don't said unicorn cant win or be built to pursue a honor or dishonor victory.

But lets be honest at least now many other clans are in a better position to deny that strategy. I never lost a game for unicorn by honor or dishonor victory with any clan. Unicorn don't have characters that directly take honor, like other clans do. Of course you can build a more favorable splash for this strategy, and try to abuse spyglass, the rings, etc, to make it work, but you can do this with any deck, and still we can't say honor/dishonor is a Unicorn strenght, in fact imo the high glory on characters is one of their major weaknesses.

At least I find is far easier to Unicorn win by braking provinces with a Lion or Crane splash than honoring/dishonoring with any other.

Even scorpion can have a hard time trying dishonor while facing Crane or Lion.. And honor builds are not relevant in competitive scenario yet..

I don't play much unicorn, but with things like Spyglass and Ide Trader, I imagine that, after working on a Dishonor victory, it's probably easier to get them low honor so they bid only one, and then work on breaking provinces with your own draw engine.

36 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

I don't play much unicorn, but with things like Spyglass and Ide Trader, I imagine that, after working on a Dishonor victory, it's probably easier to get them low honor so they bid only one, and then work on breaking provinces with your own draw engine.

Exactly spyglass and Ide trader are the tools for Unicorn pressure honor atm.. Now face them with your Phoenix clan with 3 draw a extra card per turn holdings, a stronghold that practically grants a extra card per round, characters with courtesy, asako diplomat, asako tsuki, etc.. Phoenix just need the holdings to make honor pressure, uni will need to invest fate on items that can be destroyed, move characters, etc.. Is not something the clan was "born to be", it will need an extra effort (and some luck) to make it work.

I know @Ishi Tonu likes to make "underground" builds like Uni/Crab, and this way the value of the same character can be different for two different playstyles. I'm looking forward to see some honor techs for Uni, but my analisis of Shono is limited to what he does now, in the most competitive decks. Off course we don't even know what the packs will bring to us, maybe it can be better or worse than we imagine in the Elemental Cycle Meta.

@L5RBr

I believe Unicorn is below par at every win-con. Their "strength" is their ability to react to unfavorable board states, early in the turn and in the game, to attempt to generate an advantage later on.

In a vacuum Shono may very well be the best character the Unicorn has......if their style of play was to swarm the board, and roll over your opponent with ease. The problem is that Unicorn cannot do this with any consistency. They lack the depth of characters to do this, even with Shono. Also, the types of other decks that tend to make the cut in large events beat this style of deck pretty easy.

Shono makes one of the most explosive combos in the game (Calvarly Reserves / FGG) even more scary, but, to what end? That version of Unicorn simply doesn't have what it takes to beat the top decks. So the other alternative that Unicorn turn to is the Crane pairing which has had some success too and Shono fits OK there. Most of the Unicourtiers lack the Calvary trait, but generally you can make it work to some extent, however this deck is very single-minded in its approach, has no way to protect its important cards, and lacks any real way to force any sort of strategy upon their opponent.

These are the types of decks that are essentially, as you pointed out, inferior versions of decks that can be played by another clan. Unicorn, as of now, is stuck with 3 options: fragile combo, 2nd rate province destruction, or unpredictable reactive play.

As bad as it is to be the reactive player, especially in a game that rewards aggression, I've had more success with Unicorn when playing this way because it's the only thing that they currently do well. Being able to switch your line of play out of nowhere can actually be leveraged as a strength, wereas running a deck with only one strategy, that is almost always worse than your opponent is going to generally end up with a bad result.

I prefer to play a deck that gives me the opportunity to outplay my opponent, instead of one that is hoping for my opponent not to have better cards or a counter to my only trick. I'm not always going to outplay my opponent, but, I want to at least have a shot. Currently, I'm more comfortable with a Crab or Phoenix splash in Unicorn than anything else. Those tend to allow me the most unpredictable lines of play

Shono is stats on a stick, but he's not enough on his own to change what the Unicorn are. Juro and Neguri help Unicorn do the things that they do well now, far more than Shono does. Maybe in time Shono will prove to be more impactful, but for now he simply doesn't help me with the things I want to do with Unicorn.

If I wanted to play a known competitive strategy, I'd start with another clan. For example, I will likely not be playing Unicorn at the Seattle Kotei, unless I suspect a drastic shift in the metagame that results in Unicorn having a favorable match up vs whatever the new top decks are expected to be.

So yeah, probably not playing Unicorn.

1 hour ago, L5RBr said:

I know @Ishi Tonu likes to make "underground" builds like Uni/Crab......

The first rule of underground Unicorn Deck Club .........

39 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

The first rule of underground Unicorn Deck Club .........

...is leave your horses above ground?

21 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

...is leave your horses above ground?

That's certainly not a rule in my club.

Undead horses are ok in my book. Don't need to feed or water them.

2 hours ago, L5RBr said:

Exactly spyglass and Ide trader are the tools for Unicorn pressure honor atm.. Now face them with your Phoenix clan with 3 draw a extra card per turn holdings, a stronghold that practically grants a extra card per round, characters with courtesy, asako diplomat, asako tsuki, etc.. Phoenix just need the holdings to make honor pressure, uni will need to invest fate on items that can be destroyed, move characters, etc.. Is not something the clan was "born to be", it will need an extra effort (and some luck) to make it work.

I know @Ishi Tonu likes to make "underground" builds like Uni/Crab, and this way the value of the same character can be different for two different playstyles. I'm looking forward to see some honor techs for Uni, but my analisis of Shono is limited to what he does now, in the most competitive decks. Off course we don't even know what the packs will bring to us, maybe it can be better or worse than we imagine in the Elemental Cycle Meta.

Unfortunately Trader without Favored Mount is not worth the 3 fate you pay to play him. WITH Favored Mount, he's decent. But attachment hate, cloud the mind, and AFWTD is everywhere.
HOWEVER, I guess if you want to assume there is no attachment hate left, they've already used all their Clouds, and they're not splashing Scorpion or are not Scorpion themselves, and you've spent 4-5 fate on a 1/3 Courtier, +1 fate for Mount, +3 fate for Spyglass (9 fate total) to be able to contribute 2 MIL or 6 POL in 1 conflict, and draw 8 cards...great. But I doubt putting that much fate into that character wins you many games.

Not to mention when they do start drawing all these cards, they're that much closer to decking themselves and losing 1/2 their pathetic starting honor.

15 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

Unfortunately Trader without Favored Mount is not worth the 3 fate you pay to play him. WITH Favored Mount, he's decent. But attachment hate, cloud the mind, and AFWTD is everywhere.
HOWEVER, I guess if you want to assume there is no attachment hate left, they've already used all their Clouds, and they're not splashing Scorpion or are not Scorpion themselves, and you've spent 4-5 fate on a 1/3 Courtier, +1 fate for Mount, +3 fate for Spyglass (9 fate total) to be able to contribute 2 MIL or 6 POL in 1 conflict, and draw 8 cards...great. But I doubt putting that much fate into that character wins you many games.

Not to mention when they do start drawing all these cards, they're that much closer to decking themselves and losing 1/2 their pathetic starting honor.

My strategy goes in the same line, despite many people consider Ide trader being one of the best uni chars, I really don't like him that much, for all the reasons you mentioned and cause investing a favored mount that gives you +1 MIL in a 1/3 courtier makes no sense to me. Tatsuo, that is another option to trigger Ide Trader is also a expensive understated character that can be easily turned to 1/1 for 4 fates.. The same about spyglass on moto Juro..

Of course there are many ways to win the game but all clans need numbers, if you start spending many fate for low stats you will loose more conflicts than win. If you invest in high glory characters without a way to honor them they will be turned into rocks.. Most unicorns characters are understated for their cost, except by some low cost MIL characters. So when I look Shono I see a character that fits the "was born to" unicorn strategy, and for me uni was born to be a agressive clan, forcing the foes to make hard decisions on defense. Of course now the meta is not favoring the going wide strategy but I still believe uni will be succefull in this path with the new pack release, it's why I get more excited with Shono spoiler than with Juro.

I personally don't really care what the true way of Unicorn is, because I hope that every clan will have different playstyles with different traits, families and/or mechanics. But I do care about cards that has a big impact on the board compared to their cost and Shono fullfills this, while pretty much every other 3+ character from Unicorn does not (at least for now).

23 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

This would be the main point I disagree about.

While unicorn is generally touted as a military clan, incapable of honor or dishonor victories, with only the "province break" win condition to aim for, I have found this to be rather far from the truth.

As such, I don't rate Unicorn characters on raw stats alone, or place more value on the stat to cost ratio than the actual ability on the card.

The thing is that Uni cannot compete military even with the less military clans sadly , we are cornered into gimmick honor run trickery that does not align with the lore of the clan (actually you abuse Rebuild from crab clan to make the deck work) or trying to play reactive bc we play from behind due to sub par characters in both conflict and dinasty deck.

Still a good char , hope they show us more like this guy/gal/wathever ;P

8 minutes ago, Aurvang said:

The thing is that Uni cannot compete military even with the less military clans sadly , we are cornered into gimmick honor run trickery that does not align with the lore of the clan or trying to play reactive bc we play from behind due to sub par characters in both conflict and dinasty deck.

This is sadly also my experience. Without some kind of control card Unicorn atm can't do anything against cards that generate a lot of tempo (standing, not discarding, honor etc.), or temper with your tempo (removing fate, dishonor, bowing etc.), if it is cuppled with ways to handle attachments.

While the rest of the clans are playing chess, the Unicorn are playing checkers. Both games are played on the same game board but the game is not the same.

Unicorn isn't even playing standard checkers. They are playing some wacky, make rules up as you go along to try and win, style of checkers that my grandpa used to play while trying to convince me, in German since he didn't speak English, he wasn't cheating.

Shono is more along the lines of what I think the majority of us were expecting Unicorn to be and what they were described as in the fiction. It seems that FFG plans to try and meet those expectations, eventually.

For now I'm embracing the fact that they are different and trying to play to their strengths, however few they may have. Many times I'll spend a turn just trying to lock up the favor or come out ahead in cards or fate...... Just angling for that briefest of moments in which I can leverage all those small victories I've made along the way and attempt to close a game out.

2 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

While the rest of the clans are playing chess, the Unicorn are playing checkers. Both games are played on the same game board but the game is not the same.

I've read this thread and I'm not having the same difficulties winning with Unicorn everyone here is suggesting.

I mean, it's a struggle and Pony Has Problems, but this thread feels like hyperbolic griping at best.

It took me a great bit of practice, but I'd say most of my games could have gone Either Way. I rarely dumpster people unless they are new, unlike the capabilities of some other factions. While I agree that Unicorn is not top tier because of that, I can't agree that they are playing... "checkers."

Shono is Honored General Lite, for sure, except... he boosts politics. My most successful Unicorn builds all concentrate on the Pol side of things because we generally have Mil covered. Shono's going to be good because he'll free up Pol boosting conflict slots and -hopefully- there will be nice cards to put in those slots.

I'm hoping the tone of this thread represents a vocal minority. I can't possibly be on my own with this.

55 minutes ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

Shono is Honored General Lite, for sure, except... he boosts politics. My most successful Unicorn builds all concentrate on the Pol side of things because we generally have Mil covered. Shono's going to be good because he'll free up Pol boosting conflict slots and -hopefully- there will be nice cards to put in those slots.

As a Lion player, Shono is not Honored General Lite; he compares very favorable to the General and there are Lion builds where I would play Shono if I could over the General (even if his ability still only pumped himself).

1 hour ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

I've read this thread and I'm not having the same difficulties winning with Unicorn everyone here is suggesting.

I mean, it's a struggle and Pony Has Problems, but this thread feels like hyperbolic griping at best.

It took me a great bit of practice, but I'd say most of my games could have gone Either Way. I rarely dumpster people unless they are new, unlike the capabilities of some other factions. While I agree that Unicorn is not top tier because of that, I can't agree that they are playing... "checkers."

Shono is Honored General Lite, for sure, except... he boosts politics. My most successful Unicorn builds all concentrate on the Pol side of things because we generally have Mil covered. Shono's going to be good because he'll free up Pol boosting conflict slots and -hopefully- there will be nice cards to put in those slots.

I'm hoping the tone of this thread represents a vocal minority. I can't possibly be on my own with this.

How many cavalry do you commit to POL conflicts, by chance? The buff only applies to cavalry...

4 minutes ago, GoblinGuide said:

As a Lion player, Shono is not Honored General Lite; he compares very favorable to the General and there are Lion builds where I would play Shono if I could over the General (even if his ability still only pumped himself).

What? Honored General buffs ALL LION units. Shono only buffs CAVALRY and it's restricted to having to have more units...
Please elaborate.

4 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

What? Honored General buffs ALL LION units. Shono only buffs CAVALRY and it's restricted to having to have more units...
Please elaborate.

I don't think its that hard to activate Shono, which would his base stats at actually better than General's; and that's before his Pride comes into play. His ability is more restrictive, but I think that on average he's going to have better base stats than the General, and unless you're going super wide with Lion your Generals are going to be buffing 1-2 other guys until you start sending everyone at your opponent's stronghold.

13 hours ago, L5RBr said:

...Of course now the meta is not favoring the going wide strategy but I still believe uni will be succefull in this path with the new pack release, it's why I get more excited with Shono spoiler than with Juro.

"...the meta is not favoring the going wide strategy..." No? I personally think it's a viable option, considering FWTD, Feast or Famine, and the Favor, among other things. Granted, I'm not an all-star.

7 hours ago, FunTimeTeddy said:

"...the meta is not favoring the going wide strategy..." No? I personally think it's a viable option, considering FWTD, Feast or Famine, and the Favor, among other things. Granted, I'm not an all-star.

Policy Debate pretty much kills strategies by going wide, by discarding FGG. FGG is the only way going wide can keep up with the tempo from Phoenix and Dragon.

19 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

While the rest of the clans are playing chess, the Unicorn are playing checkers. Both games are played on the same game board but the game is not the same.

This.

I began writing a reply that was turning into something really long, then I thought to myself it’s moot; if someone can’t put their finger on the pitfalls of ? compared to the other Clans, well there is no other manner of explanation that could explain or highlight the issues with this Clan. (this isn’t a dig against anyone in general or in specific)

20 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

While the rest of the clans are playing chess, the Unicorn are playing checkers. Both games are played on the same game board but the game is not the same.

I'll dispute that both games are played on the same board, since international checkers use a 10x10 board.

2 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

This.

I began writing a reply that was turning into something really long, then I thought to myself it’s moot; if someone can’t put their finger on the pitfalls of ? compared to the other Clans, well there is no other manner of explanation that could explain or highlight the issues with this Clan. (this isn’t a dig against anyone in general or in specific)

I've done that a couple times myself. I don't know if I really want to go though trying to discuss and debate if there is even anything "wrong" with Unicorn clan.

Personally, I chalk it up to two major issues:

Unicorn is not what the majority of players expected them to be

and

Unicorn does not have the support to reach the full potential of what they are

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

...

Unicorn does not have the support to reach the full potential of what they are

I fully agree.

Furthermore, going by previous FFG card games (specifically Conquest), the above curved races/powers/groups (Clans in this game) never elevated their positions through the course/life of the card game. In Conquest, SM and Dark Eldar continued their reign of being the foremost decks throughout each release, due to IMO over-powered cards and simply broken attributes that were never (again, imo) properly tested nor properly assigned their values... maybe the same argument can not be made for AGoT (as the 2nd edition addressed and tweaked the houses), but here too the Lannister continues to dominate quite a bit if my memory serves.... thusly, I fear that we are seeing various forms of disbalance among the Clans, with Unicorn heavily weighed down by less than optimal cards and play structure.

A mention must be made of the postings of some ‘in the know’ who stated that during play testing Unicorn was deemed to be OVERpowered and thus was given a whack, which might have been a knee jerk reaction prior to the release of the game. That’s understandable, I would say, given the powerhouse that Unicorn was in its previous iteration, coupled with the previous game design. (but these were the same playtesters who believed that Scorpion was UNDER powered and needed AFwTD and Backhanded Compliment...) ?‍♀️

/Ah well, back to awaiting the next pack to be released and hopefully the Scorpion pack will allow its players to elevate their game, because, well, Scorpion needs it. !!! /sarcasm

I always wonder what sets design is working on when they are balancing things. I have no clue if Unicorn was something more prior to launch, but I almost feel like design was at least past the point of the Phoenix clan pack and put in strong Scorpion cards in the first dynasty cycle to keep Phoenix in check until we can get to the 2nd dynasty cycle.

If they did that, I would be pretty impressed, but, since we aren't given much info about design and upcoming sets, we get to make a bunch of wild speculations to fuel our disappointed over not getting what we want.