22 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Yeah its a tough call. My version I keep wanting to add some Tests of Skill, but that just bloats it even more

And then i remember I'm building on Phoenix hyper splash so no seeker role and I feel less bad.

3 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Shigeru is a control card though. Once you have their honor down and are both in a bid 1 race his ability to stop my opponent from playing cards is more valuable than the third Asami in my opinion.

I just know most of the Crane players I've talked too, even ones that are playing Spies for hand destruction don't run her because she doesn't do much. If she was 0 Mil she would be much stronger.

So here's my two final version of the deck.

Support of the Phoenix Role:

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/76c1276d-8066-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

Seeker of Air Role:

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/00762230-811e-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

I think both are somehow similar. The Seeker of Air has two "Winds of Change" to further allow more Air Ring tricks with Kudaka, Doji Hotaru etc etc.... BUT dosen't have the Clatiry of Purpose set :_(. Managed to put a Display of Power and Kaito Kosori who can be a great character here to. Also has slightly better provinces and the extra 2 fate from role is huge.

On the other hand, The Support of the Phoenix's one had a full set of Clarity of Purpose and two Display of Power at the cost of those two fate from Seeker of Air. Hard to tell right now if 3-4 Better Cards > 2 Fate + Better Province.

What's your call ?

15 hours ago, GWItheUltimate said:

So here's my two final version of the deck.

Support of the Phoenix Role:

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/76c1276d-8066-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

Seeker of Air Role:

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/00762230-811e-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

I think both are somehow similar. The Seeker of Air has two "Winds of Change" to further allow more Air Ring tricks with Kudaka, Doji Hotaru etc etc.... BUT dosen't have the Clatiry of Purpose set :_(. Managed to put a Display of Power and Kaito Kosori who can be a great character here to. Also has slightly better provinces and the extra 2 fate from role is huge.

On the other hand, The Support of the Phoenix's one had a full set of Clarity of Purpose and two Display of Power at the cost of those two fate from Seeker of Air. Hard to tell right now if 3-4 Better Cards > 2 Fate + Better Province.

What's your call ?

Both of those decks are extremely Fate greedy especially on the Conflict side. Combine that with no real way to cheat characters into play with Crane I think you're going to have a hard time actually winning conflicts, which is what you still need to do to claim Air and not just get rolled over.

2 hours ago, Danwarr said:

Both of those decks are extremely Fate greedy on the Conflict side. Combine that with no real way to cheat characters into play with Crane I think you're going to have a hard time actually winning conflicts, which is what you still need to do to claim Air and not just get rolled over.

Well you have a point but it's not THAT bad either. Here's a very typical Crane deck from before elemental cycle. It's a copy of a crane Hatamoto's deck and I've seen a lot of good crane players using this deck with small modifications.

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/546c5579-6a73-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

Conflict deck has a total of 21 Fate cost for 40 cards. My new deck is 28. It is definitly something to be aware of. Could maybe work on it to dowgrade the cost but I want to try the Mirror at the same time (i'm really not convinced).

19 hours ago, GWItheUltimate said:

Well you have a point but it's not THAT bad either. Here's a very typical Crane deck from before elemental cycle. It's a copy of a crane Hatamoto's deck and I've seen a lot of good crane players using this deck with small modifications.

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/546c5579-6a73-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

Conflict deck has a total of 21 Fate cost for 40 cards. My new deck is 28. It is definitly something to be aware of. Could maybe work on it to dowgrade the cost but I want to try the Mirror at the same time (i'm really not convinced).

That deck is also on Dragon splash for MF which makes it much better at defending than the Phoenix splash.

I'm very positive that the Crane Honor deck will be a thing by the end of the Elemental cycle, but it's going to bit more gas to help it get going especially against Dragon/Crab, which is probably still the best deck in the format, because that can just roll you over. Honor decks also have an inherent disadvantage against Scorpion due to the SH ability.

Let's think further about our options here.

While winning by honor is still very difficult, maybe we can use our Bansai Garden and stuff in order to... NOT loosing by dishonor ?

So we could make a deck that supports something like 2-3 x Assassinations, Spread the Darkness etc.... We bid high while unexpected and go for provinces destruction ?

On 7/5/2018 at 3:15 PM, Schmoozies said:

Before the Throne is just going to get famed, better to run another air province and get either card draw or fate for it.

I've purposefully pumped my opponent's characters to make sure they break my Before the Throne. Thou shalt not farm!

7 minutes ago, twinstarbmc said:

I've purposefully pumped my opponent's characters to make sure they break my Before the Throne. Thou shalt not farm!

Yeah the Lion row is famous for please break my province plays like that. But you don't have as many tools to achieve that objective as Lion or Dragon and any pumps you are dumping into opponents cards are ones you can't use for your own characters.

3 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Yeah the Lion row is famous for please break my province plays like that. But you don't have as many tools to achieve that objective as Lion or Dragon and any pumps you are dumping into opponents cards are ones you can't use for your own characters.

But a pump you play to actively gain 2 honour is a pump well spent, whether it's to help your opponent to break your Before the Throne, or to successfully claim an Air Ring. In fact, getting them to break is a better honour result than an Air Ring, since it advances your victory condition at the same time as penalising them.

9 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

But a pump you play to actively gain 2 honour is a pump well spent, whether it's to help your opponent to break your Before the Throne, or to successfully claim an Air Ring. In fact, getting them to break is a better honour result than an Air Ring, since it advances your victory condition at the same time as penalising them.

Yes and no. Most players will do their poke with a 1 or 2 stat character. Against a 3 Province strengthy ou can throw a katana/fan or Banzai on them and get them to break and you are fine. Against a Strength 5 you have to throw even more on them (either kick the banzai costing you an honor or two katana/fans) but that also means you didn't defend so are losing the 1 for undefended thereby negating the bonus for the Throne break or if you did put a token defender there you had to spend that much more to get them to the break level. You also have to consider that you have now let them get 1 step closer to your stronghold where as an honor deck is less likely to be threatening their provinces so you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Better would be to run either Manicured or Fertile, take the fate of card boost, force them to burn actions to break and you only need to speed bump block them to avoid your honor loss for undefended.