Hello All,

I was hoping to get some thoughts from this esteemed community. With the Errata to Hawk tattoo, is favorable ground still an auto include for most Clans? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

In my aggro decks it is. It piles on the shinobi theme of jumping in and out of conflict and synergizes well with cards like Ambush or bowed characters with good abilities like Shoju and Kachiko.

Don't know about other clans though !

I'm gonna say, "No," to this thread's question.

The Olde wisdom from Old5R was to learn to assign people properly the first time - tricksy moves were no substitute for proper play and took up space that could otherwise be cards that helped win battles. Exceptions existed, of course, like old Shinjo's Breath or the modern Hawk Tattoo harpoon heavy environments (among many others.) These environments demanded answers like Favorable Ground because the cost of not protecting yourself was too high. As an old-timey Pony player, I've encountered all manner of tricksy moves in the old game and new game alike. Those tricks were often cute or predictable or simply an over complication of properly committing units to combat - not necessarily proper aggressive or defensive deck components. Since so much of Old5R Unicorn was battle presence manipulation, temptations that substituted for proper play certainly existed in the clan - and one could usually recognize the experienced Ponies by whether or not their movement meta was environmentally appropriate.

My meta does not call for Favorable Ground, either aggressively or defensively, so I do not run it. If it did, I would.

7 minutes ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

I'm gonna say, "No," to this thread's question.

The Olde wisdom from Old5R was to learn to assign people properly the first time - tricksy moves were no substitute for proper play and took up space that could otherwise be cards that helped win battles. Exceptions existed, of course, like old Shinjo's Breath or the modern Hawk Tattoo harpoon heavy environments (among many others.) These environments demanded answers like Favorable Ground because the cost of not protecting yourself was too high. As an old-timey Pony player, I've encountered all manner of tricksy moves in the old game and new game alike. Those tricks were often cute or predictable or simply an over complication of properly committing units to combat - not necessarily proper aggressive or defensive deck components. Since so much of Old5R Unicorn was battle presence manipulation, temptations that substituted for proper play certainly existed in the clan - and one could usually recognize the experienced Ponies by whether or not their movement meta was environmentally appropriate.

My meta does not call for Favorable Ground, either aggressively or defensively, so I do not run it. If it did, I would.

I do and don't agree with this assessment as the changing state of battle can easily necessitate re-evaluating assignments based on what your opponent does. One of my favorite plays is to assign a covert character to lock one of my opponents key characters out of a fight and than Favorable them out of the fight so they are available for either defense or to repeat the effect on my next swing. You also have to contend with the upswing of send home that has come out due to the monk package and cards like Outwit and Rout rising in popularity. I've also seen plenty of use in my Lion deck by say attacking Water with a Spiritcaller, summoning a character from the Discard and than using Favorable to eject my Spiritcaller with the intention of straightening them to have for defense or my next swing. I've done similar tricks with Ujiaki targets.

Its probably not a 3 of in every deck but at least 2 favorables is still a strong investment.

I don't know that it's and auto-include but it's absolutely a card that I always give serious consideration to any time I attempt to build competitive deck

I would say yes except for a couple clans with enough better holdings like Crab. Even without Hawk Tattoo it is still much stronger than Imperial Storehouse. It counters Covert, let's you save a character from a losing conflict, and can just create value in lots of different ways.

1 hour ago, Schmoozies said:

Its probably not a 3 of in every deck but at least 2 favorables is still a strong investment.

YMMV

I mean, if you've found aggressive or defensive uses appropriate to your environment, then it's a correct play for you. I have not, so it'd be an incorrect play for me. The real question is which environment more closely resembles the tourney you want to win. For a local tourney, I'd say you are spot on. For a large event, it'll be more nebulous. I played M:tG, Old5R, and AGOT2.0 at very high levels of competition, but not so much New5R - but I've played enough at high levels to know that sometimes I'm correct at guessing the meta and sometimes my opponents are instead. So, since I can't make to big L5R tourneys anymore, my passion has dwindled and maybe some of my competitive spark. In Old5R, proper play utterly destroyed people, while New5R seems more luck based - which might be a sign I'm not playing it correctly. My only advice for bigger tourneys is that high level players will run the situations you describe because they see the card and will assign their units properly without investing the extra card.

Short answer is yes; you should include at least 1 if not 2 in most* decks.

I have 3 in my Dragon, 2 in my Phoenix deck, and I can certainly use at least 1 in my other decks. I did construct a Lion deck that did not need a single FG, but that’s my preference with what I want to accomplish with that deck.

Thing is, this card is one option that can pay off massively if the opportunity comes up, and in most games you want to have at least a single copy that will allow for some movement shenanigans that otherwise you don’t have access to. In my neck of the woods, you are pretty much obligated to play with a few copies in most decks, as I mentioned above. Hope this helps.