Granting extra honor to either defense or offense will only exacebate the problem. The extra honor will just get turned into cards.

I'm sure we'll see some new cards that help honor along and that will be fine as long as it's done similar to what we've already seen from cards like Watch Commander, Seeker of Knowledge, or any other conflict cards that mean towards honor/dishonor.

The game doesn't need a rules change

i think saying honor running is non interactive is wrong and old game thinking. As long as they make the cards require conflict it is no less interactive than dishonor. If they are not going to make honor a realistic premise then it may as well not exist . Personally i would like more victory conditions

The game has had just over a cycle and the developers said they wanted to take it slow with honor victory. Honor needs some tools, but it has to be done right otherwise the restricted list will get longer than it should be. And honor will need counter effects that won't be overly abused by dishonor decks. A Game of Thrones power rush deck can be a good model to follow as long as there are ways to hinder the march towards victory. Time will tell.

8 hours ago, mintek917 said:

I think setting honor win to 20 is a legitimate idea. There is no reason it takes this more honor gain to win then honor loss to lose. The interactivity is frankly a bull argument, dishonoring your enemy is not in any way more interactive then honoring yourself. Its you doing the same action on yourself, instead of doing it on someone else. Considering its easier to dishonor and the fact it requires more of it on top of it is a ridiculous idea.

Consider this, the only clan doing well against Crab and Scorpion often enough is Crane, not because they honor win. Simply because destroying their honor is harder. Lion, unicorn and even Pheonix needs better way to either honor or just be like crane and not be totally helpless against dishonored mechanics. As a pheonix player, i am rather peeved at the fact we have an awesome lore Clan champion, one that you decided to make the first clan book about, one that we simply dont get to play because dishonor destroys her more then anybody else in the game and dishonoring clans are all the strongest by design, because you think dishonor victory are more interactive for some reason. I dont know how interactive it can be to flip your stronghold every turn to take one honor from someone so that they can never reverse pressure, but im guessing NOT A LOT.

I think Crab and Scorpion do so well because they have better control. In our experience here the more control you have in your deck the more you will win. It has nothing to do with honor or dishonor. Control just beats decks without it.

Setting honor win to 20 is only a way to make the game completely non-interactive. One Way of the Chrysanthemum and you would all but assured victory. A Court Games and or Fire/Air and you would win turn one. No one dishonoring is doing it turn one.

As for Tsukune having her lunch eaten by being dishonored.. I disagree. She won't win conflicts but resolving 1-2 rings a turn is really good.

Almost every deck includes assassinate and it seems a lot of people bid high. They also prioritize Void and Water, when Fire and Air is what they should be going for.

Phenix, Crane and Dragon for example can be tailored to apply honor and card pressure too.

And of course, there is air, fire and earth rings natural mechanics to apply honor and conquest pressure.

It's just seem easier so far for Crab and Scorpion to apply this pressure using built in mechanics and clan specific cards.

Clan that can produce honor shouldn't strive for the moment toward an honor victory, but bank on honor, outhonoring the opponent to spend for card advantage (easier to bid 3 or 4 turn 1 and 2 then bid 5 turn 3 for acceleration once you built up to 17 honor) .

key is finding the right balance on card draw to base yourself on a bid of 3 each turn and build card advantage on the board instead, like scorpion and crab do. Pretty sure Lion can handle it.

The thing about bidding 5 turn 3 is, your opponent will probably bid 1 that turn based on your previous bids (unless they're really starved for cards or pushing for an early SH break). So you're going to lose a good chunk of that honor lead. It maybe helps to protect against dishonor (hopefully you can avoid playing cards vs. Watch Commander) but there's just not enough yet to make it a solid win con.

I do agree Lion has one of the best odds of making it work, though. I think if they got some draw tech and cards like Kage to control opponent draw capabilities, it'll help. I did have an idea for a Lion card where if their bid was equal or lesser than the opponent's bid, they could draw a card as a reaction (maybe limited to when they're more honorable than opponent).

that's the purpose, getting honor to be spent not accumulated towards 25.

keeping between 9 and 17 using honor to mainly fuel your draw, afford banzai and assassination.

with 17 honor turn 3, U can afford a strong push and bid 5, at worst I'd go down to 13, eventually trying 3rd province and stronghold.

yeah, I can see Lion working like that.

44 minutes ago, Nitenman said:

that's the purpose, getting honor to be spent not accumulated towards 25.

keeping between 9 and 17 using honor to mainly fuel your draw, afford banzai and assassination.

with 17 honor turn 3, U can afford a strong push and bid 5, at worst I'd go down to 13, eventually trying 3rd province and stronI finghold.

yeah, I can see Lion working like that.

Yes, this is how it can often work out. Trying to push to the end from the 16-21 range tends to be a little rough in my opinion. It is happening more often for me if I can get past the first few rounds if I hold even or get a lead in province breaks. The most reliable strategy is using that honor lead as fuel. Honestly, I probably need to work on not breaking safe to attack provinces to farm against. Also become better at protecting my characters that are fueling my wins/honor gains (Implacable Magistrate, Ujiaki, Spiritcaller, Toturi).

At the right time, getting Steadfast Samurai and Venerable Historian can make an honor lead feel great. I wish there were some more durable characters that improve at high honor. More characters and events that work when leading by 5 or more honor might be something we see in the Lion pack. We will see a few more higher honor than opponent cards coming up in the Elemental cycle. Thinking about it, maybe charged up to win conflicts from high honor might be the key over more capability to gain honor.

One thing I know for sure, the cards of the honor game need to be as relevant as dishonor ones, cards that fit on multiple decks, competitively.

I particularly find it horrible the mechanics that condition a card to a smaller bid, such as WotC and test of courage. This model is horrible in midgame, you can never count on having a smaller bid than your opponent, and the trend of the control decks is from Turn 3 on lock on to bid 1-1.

I feel like the biggest problem facing honor/dishonor mechanics is that it's mostly all-or-nothing. Bidding high or low is only effective to pressure your opponent towards a win condition. If you can get there, bidding low can give you the game, but otherwise is mostly meaningless. There are few cards that care about being more or less honorable than your opponent, and I think there should be more, and with bigger impact. The cards that care about honor bid are interesting, but fall short as people end up matching bids frequently. I'd rather see all, "If your bid was lower than your opponent" be translated into "if you are more honorable than your opponent," and continue on from there. Lion have a good start on this mentality, but being just limited to that clan means it doesn't influence most games.

8 hours ago, AradonTemplar said:

I feel like the biggest problem facing honor/dishonor mechanics is that it's mostly all-or-nothing. Bidding high or low is only effective to pressure your opponent towards a win condition. If you can get there, bidding low can give you the game, but otherwise is mostly meaningless. There are few cards that care about being more or less honorable than your opponent, and I think there should be more, and with bigger impact. The cards that care about honor bid are interesting, but fall short as people end up matching bids frequently. I'd rather see all, "If your bid was lower than your opponent" be translated into "if you are more honorable than your opponent," and continue on from there. Lion have a good start on this mentality, but being just limited to that clan means it doesn't influence most games.

The upcoming Hiruma Kogoe for Crab has a "if you have lower honor than an opponent" reorder your Conflict deck effect so these style effects are coming.

I'm *hoping* (beyond hope) that the hint Brad and Tyler dropped in the recent stream means we can expect a serious focus on honor/dishonor, being honorable/dishonorable, in whatever comes next (assuming after Scorpion Clan Pack). They certainly seemed to indicate it would be important, at least.