I just woke up from a dream in which I was opening a booster pack (as in a ccg style booster pack) for the new l5r that had newly released cards in it, most of them I set aside immediately as crap and thus don't recall what they were, but one was a very interesting province that I thought I'd write up here for some discussion.

The province was neutral, had 4PS, and an ability that read something along the lines of: "During conflicts at this province, choose one of the unclaimed rings, that becomes the elemental type for this province. During conflicts at this province this province gains a printed triggered ability that reads ' Action: activate the ability of the ring that shares the elemental typing with this province as if you had won a conflict with that ring as the attacker.'"

I don't recall the exact text, but it covered the entire face of the card in the dream, as in, no room for any card art, so I imagine there was more to it than that, but for the purposes of this discussion that is plenty. I also don't recall seeing what it was titled. What I wanted to discuss is twofold, first, how does this interact with the existing rules, and second, is this balanced and if not how could it be changed so that it would be.

As for how this interacts with the existing rules, I think it should have a clause added to specify when the choice of the ring is made, such as after a conflict is declared at the province, or some such, but one thought I had as to the use of the province in the dream was interaction with Talisman of the Sun, so I don't think that timing would work especially well. I also think it would have to have some kind of default elemental typing in order to be used at all given the way the deck building rules work, as I don't think they currently allow for the possibility of untyped or variably typed provinces to be included.

As for balance, I think the PS is a bit too high given that ability, I think if such a province were to be printed, it would most likely have 3PS not 4. Aside from that I don't think there is anything else that could be altered from what is there to balance it more, it is a potentially powerful ability, and arguably more powerful than a lot of the existing provinces, but I don't believe it is TOO egregious and if it is I can't think of anything to fix that aside from just scrapping it. If you do think it is unbalanced, please state how that could be fixed if at all possible. Also, ignoring the flavor, I think it would be interesting to break down which default typing for deck building purposes would be ideal, from a balancing perspective, such for instance the argument could be made for earth because earth needs more generally useful provinces, or void because there are already a bunch of powerful void provinces so making it void would limit the possibility of having too many especially powerful provinces.

What do you guys think?

It would certainly be one of the strongest provinces in the game. Would it be broken? Probably not, but everyone would play it and counterplay would be extremly difficult and most of the time not possible.

Sounds like you probably had to wash the sheets after that dream.

That card is just all kinds of bonkers so much so FFG already made two separate cards out of it and then toned one of them down.

4 hours ago, psychie said:

What do you guys think?

I think I'll take one of whatever you took before going to sleep.

Probably deserves to be 3 or even 2 strength for that level of flexibility and raw power. I think the best part about it though would be that it lacks a ring type of its own. You'd be able to replace whatever province you're least interested in with a very good province, which is one of the main draws of the Seeker role. I think if you made it a water province, that'd probably be alright.

On its own, I think any one ring effect is probably fine for a province strength, but being able to choose from a handful of ring effects is too far.

A province that just has the kami ability of resolving the ring effect would be neat.

I think it should count as void for deck construction

1 hour ago, Taki said:

I think it should count as void for deck construction

Oh, yeah. That makes more sense than water, and means it's competing for a more valuable province slot too.

well i don’t think that type of province will be neutral but it perfectly fits Phx theme so probably another Phx exclusive province like the current 1 Strength one.

I would rebalance it to being a one strength void province shrine that only reads Reaction: If province is broken as a result of conflict resolution, activate any ring effect.

Alternatively it can be a two strength province that allow you to have the DoP effect.

Then again you may want to wait for my Dark Lord’s Tainted Shrine - Reaction: Break this province once it is revealed. Destroy target opponent province. If the province had a holding in it, search your conflict deck for a black scroll spell. ?

29 minutes ago, Yogo Rye X said:

well i don’t think that type of province will be neutral but it perfectly fits Phx theme so probably another Phx exclusive province like the current 1 Strength one.

I would rebalance it to being a one strength void province shrine that only reads Reaction: If province is broken as a result of conflict resolution, activate any ring effect.

Alternatively it can be a two strength province that allow you to have the DoP effect.

Then again you may want to wait for my Dark Lord’s Tainted Shrine - Reaction: Break this province once it is revealed. Destroy target opponent province. If the province had a holding in it, search your conflict deck for a black scroll spell. ?

I think that this province wouldn't see any play as long as Kuroi Mori and Shamefull Display are unrestricted (save cards that have synergy with Shrine provinces).