16 hours ago, Kaito Kikaze said:

People kept asking for hand limits... FFG design team wish fulfillment at Wishmaster level, confirmed. No wonder there's a djinn problem.

I'm going to respectfully disagree.

The Fox Deck still isn't legal and there is no Mantis Stronghold.

I'd rate the Design Team at 'Aunt who forgot your birthday' level.

If there was a Fox deck, it wouldn't be Mantis. ?

13 minutes ago, Hordeoverseer said:

If there was a Fox deck, it wouldn't be Mantis. ?

It would be, it would just prevent you from playing Mantis personalities in it.

The plot twist might be is that the Kitsune is absorbed by the Crane!

16 minutes ago, Hordeoverseer said:

The plot twist might be is that the Kitsune is absorbed by the Crane!

Fall down seven times, stand up eight ?

On 10/18/2018 at 10:14 AM, Hordeoverseer said:

If there was a Fox deck, it wouldn't be Mantis. ?

Yoritomo's Alliance. I can always update the template.

37 minutes ago, Hordeoverseer said:

The plot twist might be is that the Kitsune is absorbed by the Crane!

This would be a slap in the face to everyone who played and loved the Kitsune Deck during the CCG.

And the tone of the Clan letter shows that Crane view the Fox far more dismissively than the Mantis were ever accused of in the old story.

WHAT THE FOX SAY

Mantis Mantis Mantis Clan

WHAT THE FOX SAY

Screw the screw the screw the Crane

From the Crane AMA.

I like it that works both to feint an attack and to win a defense, although the requirements are a little too heavy. Maybe not for the Crane, but for other clans that splash this card.

Interesting Q&A in the AMA:

Q :This is a super minor thing, but what're the odds of seeing any of the minor clans beyond the Mantis crop up in the cards? Are there any plans for any of them to show up? I'd imagine with the Fox about to be relevant they might receive representation.

... I'm clearly biased for the Sparrow but I just find the minor clans interesting in general since they tend to get less attention. The Sparrow/Spider plot from Old5r was really cool to me.

A : "I can't talk too much about future things, but the minor clans certainly exist... you can do the math from there." - Brad Andres

For me that’s practically confirming that minor clan cards are coming. The question now is, will we see the first in this box?

I have updated the OP, complete with my speculation.

I mean, we've already seen Minor Clan cards. There were five low-to-average quality Mantis cards.

2 hours ago, Tabris2k said:

I like it that works both to feint an attack and to win a defense, although the requirements are a little too heavy. Maybe not for the Crane, but for other clans that splash this card.

I honestly think the other clans are exactly why it's so restrictive. For Crane, that should be no problem at all to meet the requirements. For the clans most likely to abuse this *cough* Scorpion *cough* any less restrictions would probably make it broken without putting a decent fate cost on it.

3 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

I mean, we've already seen Minor Clan cards. There were five low-to-average quality Mantis cards.

What do you mean? Those are all high quality* Mantis cards...


*Peasants masquerading as a clan do not meet minimum requirements for Great Clan Card Standards ratings. Provisional ratings are not reviewed by the Imperial Advisory Council for quality or accuracy and are intended for entertainment purposes only. Additional clauses and discrepancies may apply. Please see your local Miya Herald for additional details.

Crane needs all the help it can get. Especially of late it is bordering on depressing to play them as other clans just overwhelm them. Probably in good part because they have yet to get a Clan Pack.

3 stronholds [one neutral/imperial]

2 roles, [one imperial, one mantis]

Backing Evidence...

All provinces in cycle packs have been 3x

If I want to build more than one deck using said province I need to buy more than one $40 expansion. I WILL RIOT.

Plots [which in a vague squint and tilt your head kind of way] serve the same utility as provinces and they come 3x in deluxe packs as well

The only thing that commonly comes in 1x in deluxe packs? Runners [Strongholds] and Agendas [Roles]

1 hour ago, Foxtrot Four said:

3 stronholds [one neutral/imperial]

2 roles, [one imperial, one mantis]

Backing Evidence...

All provinces in cycle packs have been 3x

If I want to build more than one deck using said province I need to buy more than one $40 expansion. I WILL RIOT.

Plots [which in a vague squint and tilt your head kind of way] serve the same utility as provinces and they come 3x in deluxe packs as well

The only thing that commonly comes in 1x in deluxe packs? Runners [Strongholds] and Agendas [Roles]

On the other hand, both the core set and clan packs for L5R have included 1x provinces, so the precedent for L5R products is to not include more than 1x province cards outside of dynasty packs. And seeing as provinces are separate from the actual dynasty/conflict decks and in most cases probably shouldn't need to be re-sleeved between decks (unless you really can't use the same sleeves for provinces in different decks for personal reasons), there's no reason you should need to buy more than one premium box.

Given the imperial focus on the set, I very much doubt there will be any sort of Mantis role. There is a slim chance of an imperial stronghold, but I think the theory that the six 1x cards will be Toshi Ranbo and a neutral province for each element (or wild card provinces) is the most likely to be true.

I would deeply resent that... UNLESS; they were ALL clan specific. I understand the idea behind 1 province but I do sincerely hope against it, I have at any given time 4 to 5 decks and switching between them 1 or 2 provinces is needlessly confusing and pointless. And could be EASILY avoided.

I back these ideas with the counter argument; strongholds and roles are totally constant. I could build 7 dragon decks and never have to change sleeves for the role or the stronghold. They remain totally constant. The provinces however could be totally different from deck to deck. Which, unless ALL your provinces are sleeved the same color, or you use the same card backers [which many don't and don't] then it will involve changing between decks.

I also apologize if this is all garbled nonsense lol

8 hours ago, Foxtrot Four said:

Plots [which in a vague squint and tilt your head kind of way] serve the same utility as provinces and they come 3x in deluxe packs as well

The copy limit for AGoT 2nd Ed plots is 2. So they can't come as 1x. Also, everything comes as 3x in AGoT products (except the core set and draft packs).

Sleeves usually come in packs of 50 or even 100, so you can sleeve the provinces for 5 decks with a single sleeve pack and still have plenty to spare.

14 hours ago, Tabris2k said:

Well, now that I think about it, it would have been cool if the art of this card were Yasuki Taka instead of an unnamed Crane coming out of the door.

Man, what a missed opportunity. Now that would be thematic!

1 hour ago, Tabris2k said:

Well, now that I think about it, it would have been cool if the art of this card were Yasuki Taka instead of an unnamed Crane coming out of the door.

Man, what a missed opportunity. Now that would be thematic!

But Taka wasn't given a chance to try again he was told to GTFO.

10 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

But Taka wasn't given a chance to try again he was told to GTFO.

Yes, and the art is a Crane Clan member looking disappointed and walking out a door.

Had it been Yasuki Taka walking out the door, it would have matched one of the current stories. If it were possible to show Kakita Yoshi dimissing Yasuki Taka, then it would have still had a Crane character on it.

But given it is a Crane Clan card, it is odd that it looks to be a Crane character who is being dismissed.

On 10/20/2018 at 4:36 AM, Tabris2k said:

Interesting Q&A in the AMA:

Q :This is a super minor thing, but what're the odds of seeing any of the minor clans beyond the Mantis crop up in the cards? Are there any plans for any of them to show up? I'd imagine with the Fox about to be relevant they might receive representation.

... I'm clearly biased for the Sparrow but I just find the minor clans interesting in general since they tend to get less attention. The Sparrow/Spider plot from Old5r was really cool to me.

A : "I can't talk too much about future things, but the minor clans certainly exist... you can do the math from there." - Brad Andres

For me that’s practically confirming that minor clan cards are coming. The question now is, will we see the first in this box?

We don't even have functional Mantis, Shadowlands or Imperials and people are clamoring to throw nonsense dead-end designs like Minor Clans into the game. This is why I was so against them being introduced or even spoken of in the RPG. People say "oh, it is just for the RPG-- it doesn't have to affect the LCG! They are entirely disconnected."

But, that is just total BS. The very second they are confirmed, people use that as leverage to demand they entirely take over the game. And make no mistake-- they would ABSOLUTELY take over the game. It is no exaggeration.

A year in, 2 entire cycles done and there are only 30 characters for each clan and less than 20 neutral characters.

If they go and print a card for one Minor Clan, no one is going to be satisfied with that unless a card is going to be printed for every Minor Clan. The people demanding them are not going to be happy if FFG prints a Sparrow Clan and totally skips out on the Fox Clan or Hare Clan or Bat Clan or Bager Clan or Frog Clan or Catfish Clan or Lesser Panda Clan or Snow Leopard Clan and so on and so forth.

I don't even know how many there are supposed to be. The RPG already suggested they are making up a whole bunch of new random ones and retconning ones that existed in the previous timeline so they can exist earlier. So what are there... 10? 13? 16? 18?

And, of course, no one is going to be satisfied with only a single card representing their favorite minor clan. They will demand there be 3-5 for each and every single one of them. Of course, what they will really want is enough of them to make an entire deck, so the 3-5 is just the bare minimum to get their constant shrieking down to a manageable level. Except that each and every time they cave in and give one of them, that will encourage fans of each and every random minor clan to feel more entitled and get bolder in their demands. One can quickly arrive at the conclusion that this will require that literally at least a third of all cards printed from now on will have to be Minor Clans if one is going to include the concept in any manner.

And Minor Clan cards on their surface will be absolutely worthless. The general design philosophy right now is to make all neutral cards at least a -1/-1 weaker than the exact same card if you were bringing it into play as a member of your clan, if not also assigning some restriction to them. The current Imperial, Mantis and Shadowlands cards are only playable under the illusion that eventually there will be a stronghold or role card that will inherently boost their stats and probably remove role restrictions too.

Right now we can't even get that for 3 factions, and this box isn't going to change that, now people are demanding this be split across another dozen plus neutral factions?

It is a complete waste if done in the most direct way. They may as well be printing just artwork cards for all that it will matter. Not even all of the clan personalities are functionally playable because others are just so effective and so good as to render even many in clan personalities as not worth a spot in the deck, nevermind intentionally nerfed neutral cards.

If one were to put me on the spot on how to design it, even though I am sure doing so is a terrible, terrible idea...
Basically one could make just a clan character, increase their fate cost by 1 and then allow the faction they would have been part of to buy them for 1 less fate.

For example, you could take any random Crane Character Card, make it a neutral card, increase the fate cost by 1 then change the colors of the outfit in the picture and call it a "Sparrow Character Card" card. Then print on the card that it comes into play for 1 less cost if you are playing Crane Clan.

Then a role card could be printed that allows all Minor Clan cards to come into play for 1 less regardless of your faction but doesn't stack with the reduction you normally get from playing a stronghold of that faction.

Which on its surface might be okay except..
1) I am not sure every minor clan is so clearly a spin-off from another Clan as the Sparrow is from the Crane Clan
2) There is still the problem that if you print any 1 minor clan card, people will want a whole array including every random minor clan idea that has ever popped into anyone's head-- of which there are as many as there are animals.

And, again, this is no exaggeration. I have already seen people throwing a fit that there is no Monkey Clan in the game and that the Fox Clan hasn't already been declared a family of the Mantis Clan and therefore the game isn't even worth buying because of this FFG is "handling Clan loyalty really badly."

Even the guy who asked this question was specifically demanding the Spider Clan version of the Sparrow Clan. And there isn't even a functional Shadowlands faction, nevermind a theme-destroying Imperial Sanctioned openly Jigoku-power-abusing Spider Clan!

There really is no end to the entitlement of the minor clan fans and the second one gives them literally anything, they will demand the world.

Did everyone forget about Toshi Ranbo? I'm pretty sure a box that updates the game to the current story will have the card from the story prize of the kotei season. That leaves 5 single cards and I'd be willing to bet they'll be a set of neutral provinces.

11 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

But Taka wasn't given a chance to try again he was told to GTFO.

Well, turns out I was wrong about the art. From Facebook:

Some guy: “ I'm wondering why the card - belonging to the Crane Clan - depicts someone who appears to be Crane looking downcast as he steps through a gate. Isn't the flavor supposed to be that this character's petition was turned down, and he must "try again tomorrow?" I understand that the player might use it on their own character, but that usage doesn't seem to be the thematic focus, unless I'm misunderstanding the art. TL;DR I question why the character in the art is Crane as opposed to some other faction.”

Brad Andres answer: “ It's the other way around. The Crane is bowing at you the guest and asking you to try again tomorrow.”

So maybe the art should have been Kakita Yoshi bowing... oh, who I am kidding? That fool bows to no one except the Emperor!

6 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

And, again, this is no exaggeration. I have already seen people throwing a fit that there is no Monkey Clan in the game and that the Fox Clan hasn't already been declared a family of the Mantis Clan and therefore the game isn't even worth buying because of this FFG is "handling Clan loyalty really badly."

HECK 'EM. I deeply and sincerely doubt people are getting so but mad about no Shark Clan or whatever. Mantis? Maybe but they're giving out Silver Boardered Yoritomo at worlds so THAT might be a thing...maybe.

Spider? Eh, there are some people who want a banner to gather under, a fancy playmat for doing well, a Seal of the Spider. But most, if not all; "Spiders" are in other clans. Trying to corrupt them and make em evil. Most don't care if they never get a 'clan'.

Imperial? It wasn't a faction in the last game so I REALLY doubt there are any diehard fans who refuse to play the game because they can't play as a faction that didn't even exist in the old game. This goes for every single minor clan too.

You want to know how many people are in the Minor Clan Discord? 4... There are also 108 Phoenix players.

So I respectfully disagre

I'm gonna guess the 6 singleton cards are 5 roles (tied to different abilities involving the imperial favor) and 1 neutral stronghold

9 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Even the guy who asked this question was specifically demanding the Spider Clan version of the Sparrow Clan. And there isn't even a functional Shadowlands faction, nevermind a theme-destroying Imperial Sanctioned openly Jigoku-power-abusing Spider Clan!

Come again?

9 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

This is a super minor thing, but what're the odds of seeing any of the minor clans beyond the Mantis crop up in the cards?

Emphasis mine. I don't see any demanding here. In fact, I think I've seen more ranting from you against any minor clan inclusion in the game than I've seen from the combined minor clans supporters actually demanding anything.

We get it. You don't like minor clans. No sense in continuing to go to such lengthy monologues in beating the dead Horse Clan.