So, as a Lion-main, I've been really excited for the fact that Lion got a new Stronghold to play with. I've been experimenting, however, and it seems pretty tough to get Hisu Mori Toride to be super impactful on any of the games I'm playing. The big thing, for example, is that, HMT's effect is fairly conditional, whereas Yojin no Shiro has a very straightforward 'Bow --> Positive Effect'.

What sort of tech are people experimenting with to get Hisu Mori Toride to work?
-Akodo Toshiro?
-Charge vs For Greater Glory?
-Sashimono and/or Captive Audience? Breakthrough, perhaps?
-Focusing on building Tall instead of Wide?

Has anyone found any serious success with it?

I really want to like it because I love the art, but do we just not have enough yet to make it worth running over Yojin no Shiro?

It seems Dragon splash for Indomitable Will seems to be becoming popular.

1. Attack with two characters, one big, one small.
2. Win, bow HMT and sacrifice the chump.
3. Indomitable Will the remaining big one.
4. Ready for next attack.

Heroic Resolve will also be a huge help once it is available. Ikoma Reservist is also made for it.

Can you proc both? I thought since both were Reactions with the condition of winning a conflict, you could only proc one based on winning said conflict.

2 minutes ago, Ikoma Sencha said:

Can you proc both? I thought since both were Reactions with the condition of winning a conflict, you could only proc one based on winning said conflict.

http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/39874-ruling-hisu-mori-toride-indomitable-will/

I figure the point is that you can still decide the order in which Reactions to the same trigger event resolve.

You take turns with your opponent activating reactions (in case both players react to the same event) just like you do with actions. But there's no limit to the number of actions/reactions. The only thing is you can't use a reaction ability to the same event twice, like the Mantis Seafarer's ability.

I'm no great player or anything, nor is Lion my main, but I used Hisu Mori Toride last night and couldn't meet its conditions once. Really wish I had not changed up the stronghold cause I know Yojin no Shiro would have been been relevant every round. I almost thought of starting this very same thread but just think I need more practice with the deck.

As Crab I'm always prepared to sacrifice characters for a purpose. As Lion, I felt I'd have more success keeping them on the board than using them to what would have amounted to "farming rings".

Just wanted to share my experience with the stronghold but may have to leave Hisu Mori Toride to the experts.

I haven't tried using it, but I feel like I'd agree, getting value out of it's pretty difficult. You'd have to be the sort of deck that reeeally wants to rush your opponent and can pump out a lot of military value at the same time. That's probably why a tall strategy would be best for it, because it'd be easier to create a lot of strong military value in one turn by just readying one strong target than to win a military conflict by 5 or more and then still have forces to go again. Still, I think Lion naturally can make a lot of use of the original stronghold more easily, and it's hard to give up 2-4 military power on demand.

So my assessment is, if you're double-dipping on one character with Sashimono or Indomitable will, you might be able to leverage the new stronghold well in an aggressive deck, but anything that goes wide probably just wants the ease of use of the original stronghold.

Akodo Toshiro is a must for the new stronghold. He's also fantastic for hitting Feast or Famine as it won't break after he used his ability.

Still using Charge over FFG but can honestly see that changing in the future if Lion gets enough small bodies to go full swarm.

I'm playing with a Crane splash at the moment for Curry Favor - which is great if you manage to ready someone like Honored General for a surprise Political or second Military.

Considering Political Rival as well just because I'm limited on conflict characters (only running Ikoma Reservist) but not sure.

I personally think that either Lion/Dragon or Lion/Crab will be the most popular deck. If you have problems with winning by 5 or more, using 3 Spreading the Darknes could help you.

1) Akodo Toshiro is so strong in this deck.

2) Charge, because you need to get high numbers against clans that can challenge you in mil.

3) Sashimono is good if your meta either has little attachment hate or if you play a lot of attachments. So it has more value in Lion/Unicorn than in the other Lion decks. If you are on Unicorn, Captive Audience is certainly pretty good, but I doubt that Breakthrough should be played.

4) The SH works best if you have both, but it really depends on the oposing clan how you should approach it. Against Dragon for example Feast or Famine can mean gg if you have a fated character. On the other hand putting 2 fate on a char against Scorpion or X/Scorpion makes A fate worse than death brutal.

I personally think that the new SH is better, because having so many mil buffs is way more valuable than it is with the old SH.

For those curious here is the current test version I'm running up to pack 2. It has a roughly 70% win rate on Jigoku (over about 20 games), but I took it to a local event this weekend and got absolutely destroyed (1 and 3) so make of that what you will.

https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/442a82b1-6a8a-11e8-9ce5-8e1ccf16fca4/view

19 hours ago, Ikoma Sencha said:

What sort of tech are people experimenting with to get Hisu Mori Toride to work?

-Akodo Toshiro? Yep
-Charge vs For Greater Glory? Charge
-Sashimono and/or Captive Audience? Breakthrough, perhaps? Sashimono is nice but complicated since its cost 2 and it doesnt help winning conflicts, 1 at max.
-Focusing on building Tall instead of Wide? Tall seems to be working best, but then we need techs to ready characters like mentioned the indomitable will combo.

Ikoma Eiji (yes I know everybody hates it, me too) seems to have a good synergy with the new SH, and Oathkeepers too.

The Uni attach that moves called my attention cause is versatile, you can use it to defend POl and then move to make the third attack for example.

But the more I play with HMT the more I think the tall / attachment builds are better and cards to ready / dont bow the char like Indomitable / Gaijin / Curry / Heroic / Clarity are the key to use it.

4 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

Ikoma Eiji (yes I know everybody hates it, me too) seems to have a good synergy with the new SH, and Oathkeepers too.

The Uni attach that moves called my attention cause is versatile, you can use it to defend POl and then move to make the third attack for example.

But the more I play with HMT the more I think the tall / attachment builds are better and cards to ready / dont bow the char like Indomitable / Gaijin / Curry / Heroic / Clarity are the key to use it.

This si pretty much it. I think the Dragon splash for Let Go and Indomitable/Wanderer is probably the best option at the moment. You need the attachment hate too much for clouds defense at the moment.

I think both the new Lion, and the Unicorn, strongholds will be best utilized to create turns where you can just get two military conflicts, especially against deck that are weak in military, and you ensure that you get last attack.

If you build your board up, it doesn't really matter if you're breaking multiple provinces. As long as you are winning rings and improving your board state you'll crack at least one province, and be able to threaten 3 breaks in one turn at some point.

I think playing overly aggressive with these strongholds is a trap

For those who didn't follow the Houton Kotei this weekend, HMT put up a very strong showing with 2 decks in the Top 8 as well as posting positive winrates against every clan but Scorpion. There were lots of strong Scorpion players at Houston though.

More information on both Top 8 decks here: https://www.bushibuilder.com/l5r/deck/?deck=1e140069-8913-11e8-9c0e-020c407d2d9d&public=y

2 hours ago, L5RBr said:

Gaijin / Curry

The Lion would never add gaijin curry. What do I look like, a Unicorn!?

33 minutes ago, Ikoma Sencha said:

The Lion would never add gaijin curry. What do I look like, a Unicorn!?

But it is really tasty

4 hours ago, Danwarr said:

For those who didn't follow the Houton Kotei this weekend, HMT put up a very strong showing with 2 decks in the Top 8 as well as posting positive winrates against every clan but Scorpion. There were lots of strong Scorpion players at Houston though.

More information on both Top 8 decks here: https://www.bushibuilder.com/l5r/deck/?deck=1e140069-8913-11e8-9c0e-020c407d2d9d&public=y

But honestly put, the entire design of this surprises me, but I'll have to playtest it. He seems confident enough in Lion's innate Military skill that a much larger chunk of his deck is devoted to bolstering their political options. I wouldn't have thought to do that, and instead was more or less leaning into forgoing Political entirely, but it seems like it served him well.

Couple of highlights for my deck running it with a relatively high win rate.

Splash: Crab

For: 3*Reprieve, 3*STD (Speading the Darkness), 1*Covert dude

Conflict Cards: Everything that grants strength bonus:
Banzai, Fine Katana, Way of the Lion, Legion of One, Charge, Honored Blade

I play this deck tall. Favorite play on the first turn? LPB with 3 fate (sometimes 4). Second best? Spiritcaller. If you are having problems triggering HMT with 15 free military force pumps in your deck, I don't know what to say. Try to bait out Let go with Reprieve so you can put a Sashimono on your tall, highly invested characters. Then go to town with him in 3 mil conflicts a turn, and why not a political conflict to finish it off.

I have a pretty good win rate with that deck.


[Edit] I also like Spiritcaller with HMT because even if I can't really take advantage of the second conflict opportunity, I can always use HMT to keep my Spirit callable personalities in my discard pile. Honored General or LPB can stay in my discard pile all game that way!

3 hours ago, Ikoma Sencha said:

But honestly put, the entire design of this surprises me, but I'll have to playtest it. He seems confident enough in Lion's innate Military skill that a much larger chunk of his deck is devoted to bolstering their political options. I wouldn't have thought to do that, and instead was more or less leaning into forgoing Political entirely, but it seems like it served him well.

You're still running 3x Legion of One, 3x Banzai, 3x Way of the Lion, and Charge, which is also really a Mil pump. Plus Spiritcaller and Ujiaki are all increasing the total amount of skill you get in Mil conflict with their abilities. Your opponent still has a Pol conflict themselves and just ignoring half the game because your stats don't always line up enough to break is a mistake. Fans/Methods on Crones/Prodigy/Keepers can get sneaky breaks, and even if you don't have a Pol pump just swinging for Ring value or to scout a Province is perfectly fine.

I am not a great player but I am loving this stronghold. My performance at Houston was poor (I went 1-3 in Samurai, 1-2 in Proving Grounds). However that is due to my skill and mistakes rather than the stronghold. It does take more tactical thinking to work correctly, but when it does that tempo is great!

The synergy with Lion fake wide is pretty good. Spiritcaller keeps their fodder in the discard. Eiji can bring in someone to sacrifice or bring back someone that was sacrificed. Ujiaki always has great play when it gets rolling. Vengeful Oathkeeper has worked well for me as Eiji tempts enemies into a Military conflict.

Ikoma Reservists should help the stronghold as more cheap fuel and a cheap 2nd military attack character. I'm wondering if Ikoma Ikehata might be better than Miya Satoshi as a cheaper political snipe instead of Imperial Palace hunting that fuels Spiritcaller.

Currently my splash has been Crane for Voice of Honor, Above Question and Curry Favor. My strategy is to swing Political first, hopefully with Eiji out. Makes a great threat if you swing Politcal Fire so that either way you get more characters. An Implaccable Magistrate with Above Question and Sashimono can be devastating. Hopefully after faking out the attachment hate.

From what I saw the Dragon splash is the strongest. Crab a close second. Unicorn in third. I'm pondering a Unicorn splash with Captive Audience and Sashimonos. Heroic Resolve might have good synergy with Phoenix splash.

I found the deck doesn't run up in honor as quickly as before, but it still does decently. A few times I have threatened dishonor on my opponent but I couldn't quite get the last one or two honor down. That makes me ponder a Scorpion splash for a last second Backhanded Compliment, with Calling in Favors as attachment hate.

Definitely a lot to contemplate.

13 hours ago, Danwarr said:

You're still running 3x Legion of One, 3x Banzai, 3x Way of the Lion, and Charge, which is also really a Mil pump. Plus Spiritcaller and Ujiaki are all increasing the total amount of skill you get in Mil conflict with their abilities. Your opponent still has a Pol conflict themselves and just ignoring half the game because your stats don't always line up enough to break is a mistake. Fans/Methods on Crones/Prodigy/Keepers can get sneaky breaks, and even if you don't have a Pol pump just swinging for Ring value or to scout a Province is perfectly fine.

Except with HMT you aren't really ignoring half the game, your switching your political attack into a military swing instead, and still keeping the option of a political poke as an option. Lion can build a really good damned if you do province row where everything does something nasty when you break it and we don't care about defense its all offense and having the two military gives us good odds of winning the race to stronghold.

You don't entirely ignore the political side, but I would make it less of a focus and use it more for my scouting poke or third conflict once I've drained most of my opponents resources to set up my attack for next turn. I've had quite a few games where I'm on Stronghold at the end of turn 2 and my political poke is flipping their Rally and they have to really think hard if they want to flip it or not and turn on my military tech.

21 hours ago, Danwarr said:

For those who didn't follow the Houton Kotei this weekend, HMT put up a very strong showing with 2 decks in the Top 8 as well as posting positive winrates against every clan but Scorpion. There were lots of strong Scorpion players at Houston though.

More information on both Top 8 decks here: https://www.bushibuilder.com/l5r/deck/?deck=1e140069-8913-11e8-9c0e-020c407d2d9d&public=y

To be fair at same time there were Strong Scorpion players most people arent used to play against HMT yet, and this was a good advantage for Lions in this first event too. Not demeaning our top8 players, on the contrary I guess they did very well considering just air pack being allowed so the deckbuilding was still very limited on the new SH strategy.

13 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Except with HMT you aren't really ignoring half the game, your switching your political attack into a military swing instead, and still keeping the option of a political poke as an option.

Hisu Mori Toride doesn't change the political conflict, it adds a second military conflict.

12 hours ago, Daigotsu Bakunin said:

Hisu Mori Toride doesn't change the political conflict, it adds a second military conflict.

Technically, yes. I think they're talking functionally. With a HMT deck, you can afford to focus exclusively on Military. So, you get your normal Military conflict, skip your Political one (unless you're playing against a Crab, heh), and get a second Military at the end.

He is saying that a lot of us (Espescially with STD... Well that is not what I meant!) just use the Pol conflict to poke. We don't invest heavily in Pol boost because we expect our Mil to carry us to victory.