So, we still had a few tournaments with all the cards available to set the new meta, but we're already testing the cards for weeks now, and I would like to know of those who have played quite a few the decks / splashes that seem to be highlighting.
What decks looks like tier 1 now?
Hawk Tatoo is that strong so it needs to be nerfed/go to RL?
What cards seems to be auto-include for your clan?

I gave up my fight to make Dragon/Crane work and switched to a variation of the Dragon/Crab deck that Mindsdesire came up with. It feels like I was playing the game on hard mode and flipped a switch to easy mode.

1) T1: Dragon/Crab and Scorpion/Dragon.

2) Hawk Tattoo isn't too strong, but it stiffles the splash choices for Scorpion and gives a T1 deck another very strong tool. It furthermore can create blow out scenarios with Shamefull Display and Feast or Famine.

Yes I heard a lot about HT being nerfed or moved to RL but in games I've played rarely it makes that much damage to be considered OP by itself, generally you need other cards to take the best use, like deathseeker or talisma.. Seems specially good for Uni and Lion with HMT but since this arent the tier 1 clans atm nerf or RL HT maybe is unnecessary right now.

The impression I have with some games I've played is that the Dragon is the new tier 1 but Scorpion are still much close and since it is the Dragon nemesis this helps maintaining the balance. Crane and Phoenix improved a lot too, Crab/uni is old but gold, Uni and Lion are not tier 1 but HMT is a SH that can swing radically some games and make you win against more consistent decks than yours. So it seems the game reached a strange way of balance with elemental cycle, were some builds power level are much higher but you dont have a deck able to win every matchup easily.

Talking about gameplay, Uni is super cool to play now, Dragon monks, Crane and Phoenix new possibilities make them much funnier too. Lion with HMT is humdrum, the most tedious conflict deck possible, Scorpion and Crab received some nice stuff for those who likes dishonor.

11 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

Yes I heard a lot about HT being nerfed or moved to RL but in games I've played rarely it makes that much damage to be considered OP by itself, generally you need other cards to take the best use, like deathseeker or talisma.. Seems specially good for Uni and Lion with HMT but since this arent the tier 1 clans atm nerf or RL HT maybe is unnecessary right now.

The impression I have with some games I've played is that the Dragon is the new tier 1 but Scorpion are still much close and since it is the Dragon nemesis this helps maintaining the balance. Crane and Phoenix improved a lot too, Crab/uni is old but gold, Uni and Lion are not tier 1 but HMT is a SH that can swing radically some games and make you win against more consistent decks than yours. So it seems the game reached a strange way of balance with elemental cycle, were some builds power level are much higher but you dont have a deck able to win every matchup easily.

Talking about gameplay, Uni is super cool to play now, Dragon monks, Crane and Phoenix new possibilities make them much funnier too. Lion with HMT is humdrum, the most tedious conflict deck possible, Scorpion and Crab received some nice stuff for those who likes dishonor.

The thing about Hawk Tattoo is that it is a very good disruption card. Just being able to force your opponent to over commit to a conflict by harpooning in a key character can be a huge disruption to their game plan. It also works far better in control decks (still have nightmares of a 2 fate Brawler and 3 fate Spirit Caller getting hawked turn 2 into a political conflict with a Shoju who was packing multiple dishonor actions to wipe them both out).

I'm not convinced Scorpion is T1 anymore.

I also think Unicorn is T1 or T1.5.

7 minutes ago, HamHamJ2 said:

I'm not convinced Scorpion is T1 anymore.

I also think Unicorn is T1 or T1.5.

Scorpion is still T1, they just have a more difficult match up against Dragon which makes them seem weaker, but if they can avoid or mitigate the Resto they do very well still. Unicorn is definitely on the up swing but I wouldn't rate them T1 yet. They are safely in the T2 category with everyone but Lion who have fallen to T3 since Unicorn are in the process of stealing their shtick.

18 hours ago, HamHamJ2 said:

I'm not convinced Scorpion is T1 anymore.

I also think Unicorn is T1 or T1.5.

Unicorn is not T1. The only MU for Scorpion that is maybe unfavourable is the Dragon one and the community isn't certain if it is unfavourable and if yes by how much.

I have Dragon, Scorpion, and Phoenix at the top with the rest in the tier below that.

While Lion may be the worst of the bunch right now, they are not nearly as far back from the pack as Unicorn was prior to the Elemental Cycle.

With so many of these discussion across various formats, I think it's important for people to state why they rank clans the way they do. Whether is just based on results (local/online) or just speculation.

I have Dragon at the top because they have a good match up vs the other two top clans, and no bad match ups vs the other clans. Phoenix and Scorpion are essentially the "gatekeepers" of the current metagame. Several of the strong cards to emerge from the Elemental Cycle are focused on shugenja. Phoenix and Against the Waves off the spell stronghold makes it difficult for any clan that wants to do things with shugenja. The shugenja for the Dragon are cheap, so forcing your opponent to have answers to cheap threats leaves less to combat your more expensive threats, Yokuni (which Dragon just skips on purchasing vs Phoenix anyways) Tadaka prevents events from being played, while the Dragon rely on mostly items. Their deck is also the most straightforward to play. That is not to say it's easy to master, but, it's certainly a deck that can luck into blowout wins more often than any other and allows less capable players succeed where they likely would not if playing a more challenging deck.

Scorpion and Phoenix match up well against most of the rest of the clans in the field.

I've already stated most of my case for Phoenix when describing why Dragon was so good. If a clan as an option that is less easily controlled by Phoenix then they would do well to run it. If they can't, they should expect a nightmare of a time trying to do anything significant with your shugenja vs Phoenix. The new Unicorn box is also somewhat of a "gatekeeper" deck in this metagame. If your deck can't handle 3 conflicts a turn then it's potentially an easy victim. The problem for the Unicorn is that a good number of their strong cards are shugenja, or revolve around shugenja, so you are rewarded for running them. Shahai, Master of the Swift Waves, etc all looks really good on the surface until you see Phoenix sitting across from you and know that at any point you can get bowed out by Against the Waves. There are also some players still rocking the old box which does something completely different and is sometimes difficult to deal with when you are not prepared for it.

Scorpion attack on a different axis than most other clans and can always bring the threat of dishonor, but, mostly it's the control that they exert over the game that makes them difficult to impossible to handle for some clans. They have sown some weakness to beign able to handle a lot of conflicts, based on their early woes vs the new Lion box, and Unicorn's stronghold while similar is actually better than Lion, which I think is why some are overrating the Unicorn. The Scorpion's only barrier is player skill. There are plenty of people playing them that likely shouldn't be, or at least enough players that exhibit a lack of understanding on how they should be played and are clueless as to why they aren't winning with Scorpion. I am one of those people. They simply are too far out of my comfort zone for me to dedicate enough time to learn how to play them properly and I would likely do worse them than most other clans. They have a very difficult province row to contend with and now with a Keeper role you have to take into account some decks that people are not entirely prepared for. Most other clans that got both keeper and seeker roles seemed to be simple securing future flexibility. Scorpion already have a threat that has been completely unavailable to them (Backhanded Compliment) since it was printed. This presents a problem to players similar to what Phoenix does in that you can have a variety of deck types coming from one clan and you might not be well prepared to deal with both of them. Scorpion on the other hand is very flexible and has options for a skilled player to answer most of the threats the opposition can come up with.

The rest of the clans don't need much discussion IMO unless you want to make a case for them being top tier. Crab IMO are the closest. Their resiliency can be difficult to deal with. They have good item control, and they now have dynasty control which I think has flown somewhat under the radar. If you haven't considered how Sabotage (and the upcoming Peasant's Advice) can impact someone's ability to protect against WotC, consider yourself warned.

On ‎9‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 5:41 AM, L5RBr said:

Hawk Tatoo is that strong so it needs to be nerfed/go to RL?
What cards seems to be auto-include for your clan? 

Forgot to address these two questions.

Yes I think Hawk Tattoo needs to be on RL or changed to read "Attach to your character,"

It's essentially the only harpoon effect in the game that is playable, via Dragon splash, by everyone and generally included by everyone. This makes the meta game seems like it's Dragon/x and x/Dragon or bust, which can feel very stale. While I know that this is not a representation of the overall metagame, it really feels that way when playing anything remotely competitive.

For temporarily adopted clan, The pONI, aka: Unicorn, All my decks start with Moto Nergui, Master of Swift Waters, Invocation of Ash, Force of the River, Talisman of the Sun......and then I start building from there. I have warmed up to BMR and I'm pretty close to admitting I missed the mark on her. She might be better than I thought, and maybe I found the way to best use her, or I may have been incredibly lucky to avoid bad flops with her so far and eventually reality with set in. So far, she is making the cut more often than I expected.

In general I am also including as many Shadowlands cards in as many various clans as I can, but, that is not for any sort of competitive advantage or because any of the cards are better than playing something else. I just do that cuz I'm a Shadowlands fanboi and I don't want to be left off the train when the Shadowlands Express roles into the station.

18 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Yes I think Hawk Tattoo needs to be on RL or changed to read "Attach to your character,"

It's essentially the only harpoon effect in the game that is playable, via Dragon splash, by everyone and generally included by everyone. This makes the meta game seems like it's Dragon/x and x/Dragon or bust, which can feel very stale.

This.

While I STILL don’t believe that Dragon is Tier 1 (Crab and Scorpion are), I find the HTattoo way too powerful for its cost and simple usage. Otherwise, the game is changing due to the release of the new cards... who would have thought that Unicorn are now able to be competitive with the simple addition of a few cards?

I say FFG, let’s keep this rolling. ?

On the Hawkpoon thing, while it is a good card, and it does show up in a lot of decks, I don't think it especially unbalances anything. I feel as though if it wasn't available in the same splash as let go, then dragon wouldn't be as ubiquitous. Kinda like when they put Mirumoto's Fury on the RL, competitive dragon splashes went down significantly, even though supposedly let go was the primary reason for the splash.

Unless they change how the RL works, I am not going to support putting hawk tattoo on it, because as it stands, when the original RL dropped, dragon suddenly had to pick between 4 cards that were in nearly every dragon deck, and unless one of those comes off the list, HT is only going to make that even more of a problem, and it will be extremely disappointing to have yet another good in clan card I can't play because other clans are abusing it or whatever and policy debate is better (for how I play my deck, at any rate).

While I agree we want more splash diversity, I very much disagree that HT is unbalancing or overpowered or whatever, and I don't think adding it to the current RL is an acceptable solution. If splash diversity is a problem, just print a neutral version of it, and bam, now not everyone is on dragon splash. Or, better yet, print a neutral one cost let go event, and bam now not everyone is on dragon splash (really, I'm of the opinion that let go should have been a neutral 1 cost event from the beginning, but maybe that's just me).

22 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I have Dragon, Scorpion, and Phoenix at the top with the rest in the tier below that.

Scorpion and Phoenix match up well against most of the rest of the clans in the field.

I've already stated most of my case for Phoen  ix when describing why Dragon was so good. If a clan as an option that is less easily controlled by Phoenix then they would do well to run it. If they can't, they should expect a nightmare of a time trying to do anything significant with your shugenja vs Phoenix.  The new Uni  corn box is also somewhat of a "gatekeeper" deck in this metagame. If your deck can't handle 3 conflicts a turn then  it's potentially an  easy victim. The problem for the Unicorn is that a good number of their  strong cards are shugenja, or revolv  e around   shugenja, so you are rewarded for running them. Shahai, Master of the Swift Wave  s, etc al  l looks really good  on the surface  unt  il you see Phoenix sitting across from you and know that at any point you can get bowed out by Against the Waves. There are also some players still rocking the old box which does something completely different and is sometimes difficult to deal with when you are not prepared for it.

Scorpion attack on a different axis than most other clans  and can always bring the threat of dishonor, but, mostly it's the control that they exert over th  e game that makes  them difficult to impossible to ha  ndle for some  clans.  They have sown some weakness to beign able to hand  le a lot  of conflicts, based on their  early  woes vs the new Lion  box,  and U  nico  rn   's stronghold while similar is actually better than Lion, which I think is why some are overrating the Uni  co  rn.  The Sc  orpion's only barrier is player skill. There are plenty of people playing them that likely shouldn  't be, or at least  enough players tha  t ex  hibit a lack of understanding on how they should be play  ed and are clueless as  to why they aren't winning with  Sc  orpion. I am one of those people. They simply are too far out of my comfort zone for me to dedicate enough time  to learn how to play them properly and I wo  uld likely do worse them than most other clans. They have  a very difficult province row to contend  with and   now with a Keeper role you have to take into account some decks that people are not entirely prepared for. Most other   clans that got both keeper and seeker rol  es seemed to be simple securing future flexibility. Scorpion already have a threat that has been completely unavailable to them (Backhanded Compliment) since  it was printed.  This presents a problem to players similar  to what Ph  oenix  does  in  that you can have a variety of deck types coming from one clan and you might not be well prepared to deal with both of them  . Scorpion on the other hand is very flexible and has options for a skilled player to answer most of the threats the opposition  can come up with.

The rest of the clans don't need  much discussion IMO unless   you want to make a case for them being top tier. Crab IMO are the closest. Their resiliency can be difficult to deal with. They  have good  item control, and they now have dynasty control which I think has flown somewhat under the radar.  If you haven't considered how Sabotage (and the   upcoming Peasant's Advice) can impact someone's ability to protect against WotC, consider yourself warned.

Scorpion currently doesn't have problems against additional conflicts, because they are tied to overcomitting conflicts, which they are designed to punish. This leads to Scorpion/Dragon to be as good or even better against aggro decks than Dragon. Phoenix is actually not T1 because they have a really bad MU against good Dragon players and to be only slightly disadvantaged against Scorpion you need an extremly good Phoenix pilot. I also don't think that Crab is the closest to be top tier, because if both pilots are very skilled, they are disadvantaged against everything except Crane.

20 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Yes I think  Hawk Tattoo needs to be o  n RL or changed to read "Attach to your character,"

It's essentially the only harpoon effect in the game that is playable, via Dragon splash, by everyone and generally included by everyone. This makes the meta game seems like it's Dragon/x and x/Dragon or bust, which can feel very stale. While I know that this is not a representation of the overall metagame, it really feels that way when playing anything remotely competitive.

The only thing that Hawk Tattoo does from a splashing standpoint is that Scorpion/Dragon is now better than every other Scorpion deck. The Dragon or bust scenario is caused by attachments being extremly OP now and Let Go being the only reliable and strong answer except Calling in Favors. If there is a problem with HT, it won't be that it is the only card that does xy, but that the card is undercosted and combos absurdly with Scorpion's kit and some provinces.

2 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

While I STILL don’t believe that Dragon is Tier 1 (Crab and Scorpion are)

You are wrong on that one. Crab isn't even a contentor for being Tier 1.

1 hour ago, psychie said:

On the Hawkpoon thing, while it is a good card, and it does show up in a lot of decks, I don't think it especially unbalances anything. I feel as though if it wasn't available in the same splash as let go, then dragon wouldn't be as ubiquitous. Kinda like when they put Mirumoto's Fury on the RL, competitive dragon splashes went down significantly, even though supposedly let go was the primary reason for the splash.

Unless they change how the RL works, I am not going to support putting hawk tattoo on it, because as it stands, when the original RL dropped, dragon suddenly had to pick between 4 cards that were in nearly every dragon deck, and unless one of those comes off the list, HT is only going to   make that even m  ore of a problem, and it will be extremely disappointing to have yet another good in clan card I can't play because other clans are abusing it or whatever and policy debate is better (for how I play my deck, at any rate).

While I agree we want more splash diversity, I very much disagree that HT is unbalancing or overpowered or whatever, and I don't think adding it to the   current RL is an acceptable solution. If splash diversity is a problem, just print a neutral version of it, and bam, now not everyone is on dragon splash. Or, better yet, print a neutral one cost let go event, and bam now not everyone is on dragon splash (really, I'm of the opinion that let go should have been a neutral 1 cost event from the beginning, but maybe that's just me).

For Dragon splash not being the best option for every clan that isn't Crane and Crab, they need to make more strong attachment hate cards.

Since it's freaky Friday, I'm going to mix things up here and instead of agreeing to disagree, I'm going with the "liar, liar, pants on fire" rebuttal.

@Ignithas I appreciate the feedback from another different source that is outside my normal metagame and the info I get from friends in other playgroups, as well as trying to interpret things I read and see online. To be fair, some of the sources I rely on for information, including myself, don't always re-check match-ups after a consensus has been reached. Most tend not want to heard about some crazy jank deck that is doing great things, so it gets overlooked. That is bad, not because the jank deck is really great, but, it often has ideas and concepts that are sound, just not executed properly. Sometime a little tweaking can make that jank idea a legit deck.

As much grief as the design team gets sometimes, I think it's a pretty positive sign that there is not a definitive consensus about which tiers each clan falls into. That's something I think has always been great about L5R. Clan loyalties tend to turn an objective metagame power ranking on it's head when you go to an area that is heavy with a clan that you had not been anticipating.

Clan x could objectively be considered the best and only having a bad match up vs clan z, but, who would play clan z anyways............so you show up to the one tourney with your awesome clan x deck and the field is 50% zzzzzzzzzzz.

Hey guys, I am quite new to the L5R forum (but have been reading a couple of the posts :D)

I read in an interview with Tyler that Hawk Tattoo was apparently not intended to be a harpoon. I think it's safe to say that instead of including it into the RL, an errata or corrigendum would be issued on the card.

Having said that, as a Unicorn player, I really enjoy the amount of "flexibility" the new cycle provides Unicorn - I really have a hard time deciding which paths I'd like to go more.

But hopefully, the Clan Pack is going to make use of some cool Battle Maidens - that seems to be my favourite theme so far!

2 hours ago, Val_Varis said:

I read in an interview with Tyler that Hawk Tattoo was apparently not intended to be a harpoon. I think it's safe to say that instead of including it into the RL, an errata or corrigendum would be issued on the card.

It’s not only it wasn’t intented as an harpoon, it’s that it flew over their heads on betatesting! Tyler said he tested it a few times, but only on his characters, and it didn’t occurr to him to use it on an opponent’s character.

That’s why he said one of the things he wants to address in L5R is clear templating so cards work as intented.

About the Tyler interview I got the impression they will nerf the card too..

But thats an interesting point to think about: When Fury went to RL many dragons complained, but after playing they realized that most clans droped DG splash, and MF + let go getting out was not a bad deal for them..

I feel the same about HT, dragon may be upset with a RL or nerf on it, but if it get nerfed dragon probably could still keep 1-2 copies in deck cause it would still be valuable to bring back a voltron that was sent home or send a scout and move, but most clans will probably leave DG splash again, and in actual high attachment meta HT is one of the few options some clans are using as a trick to avoid voltrons, specially dragon voltrons armored with jade fingers, reprieves and pathfinders blades.. Like uni and lion that can combo HT getting defenders out to explore HMT.

Seems the balance hung to the aggro side with elemental cycle, and in aggro X aggro matchups Dragon is in better position, at least while they keep the SoF role.

People will still play mostly Dragon splash. It will just use Wanderer or Master. This will remain true until there is an alternative to Let Go.

Obligatory comment that if it was a(n) (old) Unicorn card...it would be military conflict only.

That said, getting HT and Bayushi Shoju'ed is getting really tiring.

3 hours ago, L5RBr said:

About the Tyler interview I got the impression they will nerf the card too..

But thats an interesting point to think about: When Fury went to RL many dragons complained, but after playing they realized that most clans droped DG splash, and MF + let go getting out was not a bad deal for them..

I feel the same about HT, dragon may be upset with a RL or nerf on it, but if it get nerfed dragon probably could still keep 1-2 copies in deck cause it would still be valuable to bring back a voltron that was sent home or send a scout and move, but most clans will probably leave DG splash again, and in actual high attachment meta HT is one of the few options some clans are using as a trick to avoid voltrons, specially dragon voltrons armored with jade fingers, reprieves and pathfinders blades.. Like uni and lion that can combo HT getting defenders out to explore HMT.

Seems the balance hung to the aggro side with elemental cycle, and in aggro X aggro matchups Dragon is in better position, at least while they keep the SoF role.

That's an interesting vantage. I don't think it will get added to the RL, just errated to, "friendly character only," or, "character you control."

It would still get used by Dragon (they don't have any scouts), but it almost won't see play as splash.

1 hour ago, HamHamJ2 said:

People will still play mostly Dragon splash. It will just use Wanderer or Master. This will remain true until there is an alternative to Let Go.

Ancient Master (as an attachment) tutors Tattoo and Kiho. There aren't any Tattoo cards outside of Dragon and the only Kiho I can think of is Phoenix's The Path of Man. He's good as a character if you can honor him (1/1 with 2g for 1).

2 hours ago, Duciris said:

Ancient Master (as an attachment) tutors Tattoo and Kiho. There aren't any Tattoo cards outside of Dragon and the only Kiho I can think of is Phoenix's The Path of Man. He's good as a character if you can honor him (1/1 with 2g for 1).

He is splashed so often because of the Favor. 1 Fate for 2 Glory and the Favor is yours.

41 minutes ago, Bayushi Nono said:

He is splashed so often because of the Favor. 1 Fate for 2 Glory and the Favor is yours.

That and his 1 Influence (being one of the few Dragon cards at that mark) means that he fits in as a bonus for the Keeper clans that are on 13 Influence.

18 hours ago, L5RBr said:

About the Tyler interview I got the impression they will nerf the card too..

But thats an interesting point to think about: When Fury went to RL many dragons complained, but after playing they realized that most clans droped DG splash, and MF + let go getting out was not a bad deal for them..

I feel the same about HT, dragon may be upset with a RL or nerf on it, but if it get nerfed dragon probably could still keep 1-2 copies in deck cause it would still be valuable to bring back a voltron that was sent home or send a scout and move, but most clans will probably leave DG splash again, and in actual high attachment meta HT is one of the few options some clans are using as a trick to avoid voltrons, specially dragon voltrons armored with jade fingers, reprieves and pathfinders blades.. Like uni and lion that can combo HT getting defenders out to explore HMT.

Seems the balance hung to the aggro side with elemental cycle, and in aggro X aggro matchups Dragon is in better position, at least while they keep the SoF role.

I hope it will be restricted, because card erratas are a good way of alienating new players. As an active Dragon player I haven't seen a lot of players being upset about the restriction of MF, especially after testing. And in the current metagame I think most Dragon players understand that the restriction of HT is good for the metagame. The only clan that essentially get more splash options is Scorpion, because they aren't as dependant on Let Go than every other clan, but are still locked into Dragon for HT.

15 hours ago, Duciris said:

That's an interesting vantage. I don't think it will get added to the RL, just errated to, "friendly character only," or, "character you control."

It would still get used by Dragon (they don't have any scouts), but it almost won't see play as splash.

Ancient Master (as an attachment) tutors Tattoo and Kiho. There aren't any Tattoo cards outside of Dragon and the only Kiho I can think of is Phoenix's The Path of Man. He's good as a character if you can honor him (1/1 with 2g for 1).

Dragon wouldn't play HT, because the conflict deck is too tight. Best reason to play Ancient Master is the 2g and to have a body for FoF.

8 hours ago, Ignithas said:

I hope it will be restricted  , because card erratas are a good way of alienating new players. As an active Dragon player I haven't seen a lot of players being upset about the restriction          of MF, especially after testing. And in the current metagame I think most Dragon players understand that the restriction of HT is good for the metagame. The only clan that essenti  ally g  et mo  re splash options is Scorpion, because they aren't as dependant on Let Go than every other clan, but are still locked into Dragon for HT. 

I don't know how it will be alienating. Putting it on the RL means it will never be played. Printing new cards to counter it, is awful design after bad and alienates existing players. Errata is the best way to address it. They can just put a reprint in a future package. I agree that players want what is best for the game, and will understand if one or two thing squeak past design and playtest if they get addressed in a way that is better for the game.

It will still see lots of play as moving characters into conflicts is still a powerful effect. Moving a bowed Guest of Honor or other magistrates, etc...is still very much worth it.

Dragon with keeper role can't play Pathfinders blade anyways, so HT on the RL isn't really a big deal. It's actually a lot closer to what FFG would probably consider "working as intended" since you would have seeker Dragon decklists looking much different than keeper Dragon decklists.

Let Go is still the main draw to the Dragon splash for the majority of the clans. But, it's still a somewhat difficult decision of you expect a metagame that it heavy on events. Right now the field has more decks that include critical attachments than not. When you get to add another 2-3 additional cards to a solid metagame strategy, then it makes the choice rather obvious and somewhat dull.

A good number of players are likely going to still splash Dragon for Let Go but at least they wouldn't also get to run additional cards that cover holes in other areas, and by putting HT on the RL it puts Dragon in the same position as the rest of the clans.

Errata should probably be the solution, but, RL is the more likely outcome. Either way it needs to happen fast because the WC is coming up and it's not fair to the players participating to drop a big change in them at the last minute.