47 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

Ruin or make better?

I seriously love how he supports our dishonor game. Although with the Mantis Air Shugey I'm tempted to run 6 4+ cost guys. I wonder if this is what if feels like to be Phoenix.

Also, I'm down with Crab getting a supper Banzai that we can play multiple copies of in the same conflict.

Well, makes better if you like dishonor. Or you're Ishi Tonu.

Also, "supper" Banzai? What, has the deep fried tofu insulted your families honor?

49 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Spreading the Darkness is serious business, but, losing that much honor could be an issue.............

If that's the path you decide to take, I'll gladly welcome you to the dark side.

Eh, dishonor decks tend to float around 14 honor unless we're fighting another dishonor deck.

And I've always been an advocate of turning the enemy's weapons against them. That's why I ran Ogre Bushi and Ninbue Shiho back in Ivory.

Well if you're packing Kuni Yori and Spread the Darkness, you likely aren't going to be floating around 14 honor very long.

I also find it hysterical that the abbreviation for Spread the Darkness is StD.

Putting those cards into your deck where you had other cards that didn't cause you honor loss could change things more than you expect. I'm not the Crab expert so I don't know for sure, but, it seems like StD is somewhat in conflict with the typical Crab decks that aren't as aggressive.

StDseems like it really wants to be an offensive card, maybe used in conjuntion with Child of the Plains to make someone big and untouchable so you can force them to either spend a lot of cards trying to prevent a break, or you take a province without using too many cards.

I suppose it works well as a counter attack style card when you have an active Kisada to cancel their first action and then StD to let you take a province or drain them of cards to keep it.

I suspect we will be entering a time where a 5 bid will be a very dangerous choice and Crab might not be able to preasure dishonor the same way. They will still be able to do it, just maybe not from such a comfortable honor total.

Interesting times ahead

@Ishi Tonu : Splash Crane to make your oni Above Question. ?

7 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

@Ishi Tonu : Splash Crane to make your oni Above Question. ?

Don't think the thought has not crossed my mind.

Croni will be making an appearance at some point, I'm sure of it.

6 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Don't think the thought has not crossed my mind.

Croni will be making an appearance at some point, I'm sure of it.

But pONI have more ways to get the Marauding Oni into a fight that aren't assigning it.

17 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

But pONI have more ways to get the Marauding Oni into a fight that aren't assigning it.

Crane splash in a Uni deck, the Beautiful pONI deck is born?

20 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

But pONI have more ways to get the Marauding Oni into a fight that aren't assigning it.

From what we know now, Unicorn or Scorpion are likely the best strongholds to work the oni into. Until an official Shadowlands faction emerges, I'll be exploring all options for the oni. It's a mediocre card at best, but, I just can't help myself when it comes to the Shadowlands.

10 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Crane splash in a Uni deck, the Beautiful pONI deck is born?

Honestly, Above Question & Height of Fashion in a Unicorn Courtier deck does not sound that bad.

Height of Fashion on Border Rider can do some work. It's just really assassinate-able.

2 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

Height of Fashion on Border Rider can do some work. It's just really assassinate-able.

Thus the Above Question and Finger of Jade for LOLS.

Above Question is better than FoJ with Giver of Gifts. What the Unicorn could desperately need at present, however, is a card which fetches Attachments out of their Discard pile. Make it a Dynasty character to boot, and you have the makings of a solid Unicorn staple.

17 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

Above Question is better than FoJ with Giver of Gifts. What the Unicorn could desperately need at present, however, is a card which fetches Attachments out of their Discard pile. Make it a Dynasty character to boot, and you have the makings of a solid Unicorn staple.

It would have to be Dynasty otherwise Dragon would be all over it.

Hmm, not sure I like crab getting the first maho for this edition. I realize it may fit with old story lines but it didn't make sense to me then and doesn't really now. I guess I"ll have to wait and see where it goes. In the current fiction they are about to get support/supplies from an up and coming clan but all of a sudden that isn't enough so /witch hunters/ are now dabbling in literally the very thing they were formed to eradicate. ? oh well.

19 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

It would have to be Dynasty otherwise Dragon would be all over it.

They can always make it conflict without an influenve value.

20 minutes ago, Darksyde said:

Hmm, not sure I like crab getting the first maho for this edition. I realize it may fit with old story lines but it didn't make sense to me then and doesn't really now. I guess I"ll have to wait and see where it goes. In the current fiction they are about to get support/supplies from an up and coming clan but all of a sudden that isn't enough so /witch hunters/ are now dabbling in literally the very thing they were formed to eradicate. ? oh well.

Well negotiations take time, and sending letters informing of progress take even more. And it makes sense to explore different avenues for a possible solution. And not every clan has to be wholly unified in agreement. Different people may look towards the same goal and think "this other guy is wrong, Ill do what I must so things dont fall when he fails".

Wow Kuni Yori. He'll be impactful everytime and really drives Dishonor tech. Those Earth Rings will really hurt while he's in play.

Can't wait to see what the Scorpion daimyo will be !

48 minutes ago, Darksyde said:

Hmm, not sure I like crab getting the first maho for this edition. I realize it may fit with old story lines but it didn't make sense to me then and doesn't really now. I guess I"ll have to wait and see where it goes. In the current fiction they are about to get support/supplies from an up and coming clan but all of a sudden that isn't enough so /witch hunters/ are now dabbling in literally the very thing they were formed to eradicate. ? oh well.

While all the clans struggle with the issue of idealism vs pragmatism in carrying out their duties, the Crab are caught in an especially hellish version of this conflict. They can remain pure, refusing to use the powerful weapons offered to them by the Taint, and risk having the very Empire they're sworn to protect ravaged by the darkness (even IF they receive support and aid from the Mantis, which may still fall short of their true needs). Or, they can be ultimately pragmatic and use the Taint against itself, preserving the Empire but exposing their identity, even their souls, to the menace of that same darkness. You can bet that the answer someone like, say, Yakamo would have to resolving this conflict, compared to the way Yori would answer it (and, yay, conflict! It's where stories come from!)

In the old canon, of course, Hida Kisada kinda went "all in" and actually allied with the Shadowlands, marching with a horde of monstrosities into Rokugan (with the best of intentions, of course). It remains to be seen if things will get that dire this time around...but the seeds of that sort of reasoning are clearly already there...

3 minutes ago, DGLaderoute said:

Or, they can be ultimately pragmatic and use the Taint against itself, preserving the Empire but exposing their identity, even their souls, to the menace of that same darkness.

They already do, in the form of the Damned. Tainted warriors used to fight the tainted creatures and Magic that corrupted them in the first place. Risking their place in the celestial order in the process, mind you. If that’s not pragmatism, I don’t know what it is.

49 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

They already do, in the form of the Damned. Tainted warriors used to fight the tainted creatures and Magic that corrupted them in the first place. Risking their place in the celestial order in the process, mind you. If that’s not pragmatism, I don’t know what it is.

True to a point. The Damned are warriors who became Tainted in the course of their duties. Indeed, it's deeply pragmatic to organize them into a unit of Tainted warriors and deploy them that way, rather than, say, requiring them to commit seppuku. But that's different than CHOOSING to embrace the darkness of Jigoku to achieve some end.

23 minutes ago, DGLaderoute said:

True to a point. The Damned are warriors who became Tainted in the course of their duties. Indeed, it's deeply pragmatic to organize them into a unit of Tainted warriors and deploy them that way, rather than, say, requiring them to commit seppuku. But that's different than CHOOSING to embrace the darkness of Jigoku to achieve some end.

Really as mentioned they are a type of Deathseeker unit, I've been tainted against my will, but before I go out I'm going to try and take as many of the monsters that threaten my clan as I can on the way out.

The issue I think most Crab fans had with the old story was not that the Crab struggled with the temptation to use maho to fulfill their function. I think that is a great angle. I'm perfectly okay with Kuni Yori going down the same exact path of corruption. I mean that's the line Tadaka is walking currently with his risky practices and he's even going down to the Crab lands next. Yori going down a similar yet even more dangerous path is interesting. Having corrupted sects within the Crab lands that need to be rooted out sounds fun or even a whole civil war of ideology within the Crab sounds fun.

I think most people just didn't like the end result in the old story. Maybe I'm remembering a hyperbolic version of the story as written, but the old story of the Crab/Shadowlands alliance came off leaving the Crab looking really dumb in a cartoonish way. Their identify is as the protectors of the empire from the threat of Shadowlands incursion. They decide that the current emperor is too weak and easily manipulated to rule so Kisada decides to take the throne by force to give Rokugan a strong ruler. That's fine. Yori and Kisada's plan to do it is to ally with the Shadowland so he can move forces off the wall to invade with a joint Shadowland/Crab army. Then when they are victorious they turn on the Shadowland forces... What kinda plan is that? Not only does it sounds childish and unrealistic, but it totally upends the entire Crab's identity as sworn enemy of the Shadowlands. I mean we just had a fiction where a woman couldn't tell if her son was corrupted or not so she killed him just to be sure. That mindset is portrayed as the norm and not the exception. Seems unlikely a population of similarly minded people would embrace such an alliance. That is totally different from the seemingly innocent notion of a Kuni making the personal sacrifice of tainting themselves to use the tools of their enemy (to help better fight their enemy). Then those tools turning you into the monster you fought to protect agianst, but you had the best intentions. That sounds like a good story.

I think it wasn't a problem of concept. It was a problem of execution. If they want to walk down that same path again with the Crab/Shadowlands alliance it's gonna take hard work making that sound compelling and harder work to have the Crab come back from it afterwards in a convincing way. The storyline sort of destroys the clan identity at a fundamental level.

12 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Really as mentioned they are a type of Deathseeker unit, I've been tainted against my will, but before I go out I'm going to try and take as many of the monsters that threaten my clan as I can on the way out.

Iuchi Daiyu may be the next Unicorn 5-drop - Deathseeker, Shugenja, Daimyo?

As someone who played back in the day the Crab storyline was always about a question of duty to the empire vs duty to the champion.

Kisada decided to take the throne and took the shadowlands tainted samurai and monsters in service of that. He sacrificed his son and tainted his other son all in the name of his ambition. The samurai of his clan accepted this because their life is in service to their lord and champion. In the end he was successful to claiming Otosan Uchi and taking the throne. It was only Fu-Leng who could stop him from ruling the empire.

The drama of playing a samurai who accepts taint in service of their clan, or refuses taint but serves loyally as their clan falls, or who becomes Ronin as he values his principles over his Clan are all very Rokugan storys.

35 minutes ago, phillos said:

The issue I think most Crab fans had with the old story was not that the Crab struggled with the temptation to use maho to fulfill their function. I think that is a great angle. I'm perfectly okay with Kuni Yori going down the same exact path of corruption. I mean that's the line Tadaka is walking currently with his risky practices and he's even going down to the Crab lands next. Yori going down a similar yet even more dangerous path is interesting. Having corrupted sects within the Crab lands that need to be rooted out sounds fun or even a whole civil war of ideology within the Crab sounds fun.

I think most people just didn't like the end result in the old story. Maybe I'm remembering a hyperbolic version of the story as written, but the old story of the Crab/Shadowlands alliance came off leaving the Crab looking really dumb in a cartoonish way. Their identify is as the protectors of the empire from the threat of Shadowlands incursion. They decide that the current emperor is too weak and easily manipulated to rule so Kisada decides to take the throne by force to give Rokugan a strong ruler. That's fine. Yori and Kisada's plan to do it is to ally with the Shadowland so he can move forces off the wall to invade with a joint Shadowland/Crab army. Then when they are victorious they turn on the Shadowland forces... What kinda plan is that? Not only does it sounds childish and unrealistic, but it totally upends the entire Crab's identity as sworn enemy of the Shadowlands. That is totally different from the seemingly innocent notion of using the tools of our enemy to fight our enemy. Then those tools turning you into the monster you fought to protect, but you had the best intentions. That sounds like a good story. I think it wasn't a problem of concept. It was a problem of execution.

Part of the issue with the O5R Crab/Shadowlands alliance is that it was pre-set before the game released. At the open of the game, Crab are on the March and Hida Yakamo (Oni) was a core set card. Crab players made the conscious effort to play the redemption storyline which turned them away from the Shadowlands through story choices and votes and deck construction. Yes the story set up was a little weak, but then that was a frequent issue with some of the early story choices that we entered the game with (Hitomi and her revenge quest, Kackiko having as much power as she did being other prime examples).

1 hour ago, Goshiu said:

As someone who played back in the day the Crab storyline was always about a question of duty to the empire vs duty to the champion.

Kisada decided to take the throne and took the shadowlands tainted samurai and monsters in service of that. He sacrificed his son and tainted his other son all in the name of his ambition. The samurai of his clan accepted this because their life is in service to their lord and champion. In the end he was successful to claiming Otosan Uchi and taking the throne. It was only Fu-Leng who could stop him from ruling the empire.

The drama of playing a samurai who accepts taint in service of their clan, or refuses taint but serves loyally as their clan falls, or who becomes Ronin as he values his principles over his Clan are all very Rokugan storys.

I agree that struggling with your loyalties is a very Rokugani thing. The problem is does everyone's motivation makes sense in that story, and what does something like this do to your faction's identity? It's problematic on the same level that the Scorpion Clan Coup was problematic for that faction. It fundamentally changes the DNA of the clan. If they want the Crab clan to be the Shadowlands faction then that's one thing, but I'm not sure that's what FFGs wants or Crab players want. Furthermore when viewed now through the lens of the entire established Crab clan history the alliance sticks out as not really fitting with everything else you know about the Crab, which feels not great. Regardless of how we got there that is how it looks now. Who knows, maybe they can make it work. Personally I'd rather see a new story than try and polish up a problematic one. If Kisada decides to walk down the same rebellious path (totally okay with that and it seems likely) I'd like to see him do it in a way that make sense to the character we know now, and to his clan's identity. I feel pretty confident we'll be walking a more interesting path this time around considering the changes they've already made.