While the Imperial Cycle brought us the first Shadowlands character, Goblin Sneak was constantly fighting for space in conflict decks and was hardly what one could consider a card that really allowed you to feature Shadowlands in your deck.
The Elemental Cycle has finally given us our first taste of what it will be.like to attempt decks with a clear Shadowlands theme.
Let's take a look at the three major additions spoiled so far and then I'll discuss some deck ideas I've been mulling over since these cards were spoiled.
First up is Marauding Oni. This is a decent starting point for a Shadowlands deck. It's got a decent skill to cost ratio and will threaten to break almost any province if your opponent cannot come up with an answer to it. Lion , Unicorn, Crane, and Scorpion can all make use of this card as they typically have a better ability to absorb the honor loss. While I have heard some argue that Military decks like Lion and Unicorn have better things to some their 2 fate on, their "go wide" strongholds are still going to need to play a large number of cost efficient characters to make that third attack and be a threat without having to invest more cards to break a province and MO certainly fits that M.O. Crane and Scorpion being more traditionally political clans could benefit from a cheap body that can be a real threat to break an opposing province, instead of just scouting.
The most recently spoiled Tainted Hero continues on the 2 to 1 ratio of military skill to fate cost and again a (-) political star like Maurading Oni, however topping out at 6 skill makes this a threat that can destroy any province with little to no help, even if you run into something like Entrenched Position. Both MO and TH have a clause when assigning to a battle so this will be something you will need to be prepared to deal with when building around either of them.
This brings us to the Shadowlands all-star card, Spreading the Darkness or StD (the only one you want to get). This has all the signs of being a meta defining card and will likely cause an increase in the amount of Crab splashing we see going on. When this card was first leaked I immediately swapped it into my Unicorn deck to be comboed with Child of the Plains so I could throw (at worst) a 5 military unit at my opponent that couldn't be targeted and force them to have an answer. It's very much a Cobra Kai "strike first, strike hard, no mercy" type of play that a Shadowlands player should feel comfortable with. While I think this sort of play will be a real thing in the upcoming environment, it's not really Sadowlands focused enough to say "splash Crab for StD" so I'm leaving that out of the design discussion as it's fairly obvious, but I will discuss the card in at least one deck that can really focus on StD as a focal point of the deck.
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On to design
So far we have two Shadowlands characters that are fairly similar in that they share a barrier to conflict assignment. The most straight forward card that gets around this, and all clans have access to, is Favorable Ground. Good news is that this is a card many players were already including so you have some built in synergy right out of the gate.
Oddly enough, in the case of MO, Finger of Jade becomes a pretty important card as is prevents you from getting nailed by Assassinate. It certainly doesn't make much sense thematically, but, if you're going all in on a MO, the last thing you want is to have it killed after you spent 2 fate and lost an honor to assign it, and get nothing out of it.
Let's take a look a a few more clan specific options
Favored Mount. This is a great card as it's easily splashable out of any clan and already a natural fit for Unicorn. 1 influence, movement, and a small military boost for 1 fate make a this a very good card to support MO and TH.
For the Unicorn specifically we also have Master of Swift Waters, which will be an auto include, and some other janky options like Tatsuo, Tadaji, or Seal of the Unicorn + Golden Plains Outpost. I don't think any of the last three options would be playable, but, they are at least worth pointing out in case they become viable options in the future. For a Unicorn deck, Favorable Ground, Favored Mount, and Master of Swift Waters should be plenty of move in to help you avoid that honor loss on MO, not to mention Yurts to help you recover some of that lost honor in case you do have to assign. There is also Gaijin Customs to get that MO unbowed for the 2nd military conflict, or third of you're doing some fancy Captive Audience tricks.
For Crab we have Rebuild to get Favorable Ground back and if you're using Crab as your splash for a Unicorn deck it's a nice day to get back lost Yurts or even a Shitome Encampment to help you straighten a MO riding his Favored Mount. If you are running your Shadowlands themed deck out of Crab then you also have some interesting options that synergize with TH. Crisis Breaker really needs no explanation. Neither should Witch Hunter or Vanguard Warrior. However these last two Crab staples, along with TH increase the amount of sacrifice effects you have at your disposal and I think this means Taka needs another look. While Taka hasn't broken through as a Crab staple yet, now might be his time do do do as we are seeing additional low drops that can be used to fuel a sacrifice themed deck.
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Taking a moment to reflect and discuss as Crab and Unicorn have the abundance of cards that mean well with the Shadowlands cards that are currently available. Crab/Unicorn or Unicorn/Crab are a good place to start if you want to try playing something Shadowlands themed.
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Moving on to the Lion, Crab, and Scorpion. While each of these don't have a bunch of options to push MO, they have the ability to bigger the hi or loss and can utilize the raw stats gained by including somthing like MO in their deck. Lion's typical tricks of Spiritcaller and Ujiaki tricks still work fine, however all three of these clans lack anything as substantial as Crab or Unicorn, outside their natural honor buffers. Still, playing a value military character can be a good way to get your opponent to overplay their cards, which ultimately only magnifies the amount of control these decks can exert upon their opponents.
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Dragon lacks any real reason or cards to support playing MO so I think they can be skipped for the time being.
Lastly that brings up to Phoenix. I saved them for last as the potentially have one of the more powerful combos in Spreading the Darkness and Kyuden Isawa. This is a major military boost as long as Phoenix is able to absorb the honor loss. They have some ways to do this, whole somewhat inefficient, however are those things worth it for the chance to dominate military in a way that can remove your opponent's ability it interact with you? I think the verdict is still out on this one, but, it's worth the effort to test it IMO.
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This is all I have for now, hopefully this will serve as a good starting point for anyone wanting to explore the darker side of Rokugan.
Edited by Ishi Tonu
