13 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

If Core never gets re-done, Unicorn will forever be UN-competitive.

I'm really hoping for a Core 2.0.

I thought when we only had the Core set, Unicorn were un-competitive! Most of the paradigm shift to competitiveness occurred with the release of the expansions, particularly the latter ones (WotW, Elemental cycle). Overall, what's most important is keeping the game fresh and making it accessible to new players so I'm not against a Core 2.0 as long as it doesn't mean existing players have to buy it to maintain a viable card base.

5 hours ago, The Steel Unicorn said:

I thought when we only had the Core set, Unicorn were un-competitive! Most of the paradigm shift to competitiveness occurred with the release of the expansions, particularly the latter ones (WotW, Elemental cycle). Overall, what's most important is keeping the game fresh and making it accessible to new players so I'm not against a Core 2.0 as long as it doesn't mean existing players have to buy it to maintain a viable card base.

Warriors won't be effected by rotation as its a clan pack that only rotates when they release it with a new one. Yes Unicorn will loss a bit when they have HMT and the rest of the Elemental Cycle rotate out, but we still have 3 cycles of cards to see what they replace those tools with.

On 6/18/2019 at 7:16 PM, Evilgm said:

But Unicorn are competitive now, so "forever"is already over.

They've never won a significant event and Warriors of the Wind was too little, too late.

Now we're about the level we should have been a year ago.

Fast forward to the Crane, Crab, and Lion packs, and this Inheritance Cycle and we're back to the bottom of the barrel.

On 6/18/2019 at 7:16 PM, Evilgm said:

But Unicorn are competitive now, so "forever"is already over.

They've never won a significant event and Warriors of the Wind was too little, too late.

Now we're about the level we should have been a year ago.

Fast forward to the Crane, Crab, and Lion packs, and this Inheritance Cycle and we're back to the bottom of the barrel.

Yes, if you fast forward into the future where the Lion and Crab packs are out and assume that Unicorn received no cards in the meantime, I can see why you'd think they're bad. But it is all just an assumption, one with no basis in reality.

1 hour ago, Evilgm said:

Yes, if you fast forward into the future where the Lion and Crab packs are out and assume that Unicorn received no cards in the meantime, I can see why you'd think they're bad. But it is all just an assumption, one with no basis in reality.

The whole Inheritance has been leaked. Unicorn also knows their Lion and Crab cards.

Trust me when I say we're still not winning any Koteis any time soon.

Why would I trust you when I've seen how well Unicorn can perform in the hands of a competent player? Unicorn topped the Swiss at Birmingham Day 1A and put 6 players into the cut in the event. Your doom and gloom predictions are baseless whining- Unicorn were certainly bad last year, but good players have shown that that simply is no longer the case.

13 hours ago, Evilgm said:

Why would I trust you when I've seen how well Unicorn can perform in the hands of a competent player? Unicorn topped the Swiss at Birmingham Day 1A and put 6 players into the cut in the event. Your doom and gloom predictions are baseless whining- Unicorn were certainly bad last year, but good players have shown that that simply is no longer the case.

Because the swiss standing doesn't tell the whole story. We had the same discussion one year ago because Bazleebub publishing a tier list heavily based on Kotei data that showed Dragon and Scorpion at the bottom. History on the other hand showed that Scorpion was pretty OP.

51 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

Because the swiss standing doesn't tell the whole story. We had the same discussion one year ago because Bazleebub publishing a tier list heavily based on Kotei data that showed Dragon and Scorpion at the bottom. History on the other hand showed that Scorpion was pretty OP.

One player's result is not a good argument. But 6 Unicorn players making the cut does suggest the clan is no longer in such a bad place.

2 hours ago, Ignithas said:

Because the swiss standing doesn't tell the whole story. We had the same discussion one year ago because Bazleebub publishing a tier list heavily based on Kotei data that showed Dragon and Scorpion at the bottom. History on the other hand showed that Scorpion was pretty OP.

Hold your horses on that one. I never published what you're talking about. At the end of December 2017 I did publish an article that started with the following

Quote

So far, we have only the faintest idea of where the clans stand relative to each other as the Imperial cycle added 120 cards to the small starting card pool. At the end of January, we will have a pretty good idea, but that’s no good for us now. This Christmas, Imperial Advisor is giving you the gift of rampant and wild speculation. We’ve had limited testing and nothing to back it all up with.

That's a totally different beast and was the exact opposite of 'heavily based on Kotei data'.

That you're quoting the results of later tournaments as an indication of how good Scorpion were is pretty much a case against your point. Indeed, prior and during the Scorpion dominance period, Scorpion's qualification rates into the swiss were consistently high.

9 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

One player's result is not a good argument. But 6 Unicorn players making the cut does suggest the clan is no longer in such a bad place.

It could indicate that, but the sample size is pretty small. Lion had a conversion rate of 20`% on the second day although being the worst clan by far. The meta was furthermore better for Unicorn than it is now due to the restriction of SoL combined with the Crane pack not being released. If you look at the data of all Koteis after Warriors of the Wind, it doesn't look good for Unicorn.

Testing of some really good players showed that Unicorn has currently problems against Crane, Crab and Phoenix. Unicorn is heavily favored against Lion and Monk Dragon. Test results are not 100% clear on the Dragon duelling deck and Scorpion, but I give Unicorn the benefit of the doubt there.

8 hours ago, Bazleebub said:

Hold your horses on that one. I never published what you're talking about. At the end of December 2017 I did publish an article that started with the following

That's a totally different beast and was the exact opposite of 'heavily based on Kotei data'.

That you're quoting the results of later tournaments as an indication of how good Scorpion were is pretty much a case against your point. Indeed, prior and during the Scorpion dominance period, Scorpion's qualification rates into the swiss were consistently high.

Sorry. I remembered the stat graph of tournaments and thought they were from Koteis.

If anything, the opposite has proven true with Scorpion and the swiss results. The reason they've maintained their impressive lead in the Kunshu glory race is because they continued to perform well in the swiss in relation to the other clans, even after the RL updates nerfed them and they were perceived to drop a tier or two and were struggling more in the cut.

I just wonder if the game is designed for a fair rotation system or not.

Back in the day, there was another card game I played. It had no rotation for at least 4 years, before finally announcing they would implement it. The problem was, themes had been spread out. For an example, one of my favorite deck archetypes had been introduced in block #2, but didn't have the additional cards to make it viable until block #3. So when block #2 rotated out and the new block replacing it did NOT have suitable replacements for that theme. It had become broken by the new system. (needless to say this was around the time I left the game)

My biggest concern is something similar with L5R. I'll use crab as an example since that's the clan I like to brew with the most. (until....)

It strikes me that crab has 3 big themes right now: kamikaze (sacrifice guys for fun & profit), holdings, and turtle. (with obviously plenty of variation and overlaps between them)

• Sacrificing I'd argue is the best realized theme as they have a lot of good support, tools and can really make a deck work around this. (especially with 5th tower watch now...)
• Holdings have steadily improved and while I think it is still missing a few parts to work, can be solid.
• Turtle is the odd one out. The theme is there, but they don't have many ways to win. You can find a theme of forcing a dishonor victory using Levy, Watch Commander, etc but its far from tournament viable. (This is the one I keep fiddling with, hoping for good fuel.)

The first cycle rotates out and then what? Kamikaze loses Yasuki Taka and Holdings lose Iron Mines - which both need to be even close to tournament viable. If each cycle focused on and supported particular themes in each clan instead of a scattershot approach to them all, I would feel much better about rotation. Especially if FFG demonstrated some awareness of this. So if a cycle focused on one theme was about to rotate out, they could then bring the theme back in the next cycle - probably with balancing adjustments, new game mechanics, and more.

Otherwise it just seems like various deck styles are going to be broken at "random." That's what I think the unicorn player is concerned about.

1 hour ago, Simplegarak said:

• Turtle is the odd one out. The theme is there, but they don't have many ways to win. You can find a theme of forcing a dishonor victory using Levy, Watch Commander, etc but its far from tournament viable. (This is the one I keep fiddling with, hoping for good fuel.)

I feel I should point out that this is the deck that Crab have been using as their most successful answer to the meta since Imperial Cycle pretty well solidified it. You play dishonor/military switch and it won close to half the Kotei's for the first season and has been a well represented presence in the field all of Kotei season 2.

Yeah the most competitive Crab build continues to be the one that just outlasts the opponent with a dishonor/military switch. It is the one people like playing against the least and the one that's most effective for Crab players at tournaments. Spy Glass/Watch Commander towers on the board that ready up and never go away allow you to lower your bid after a while and choke your opponent.

The problem is that this was the type of deck we were winning with as early as the core. The current dominant strategy is pretty much the same strategy Joe was championing after he won his hatamoto at launch. Different cards, but the deck plays more or less the same. I actually think it would be a good thing for the faction if FFG blew that build up to open up the other deck types.

I've been desperate for a change for a long time, but nothing pierces the tournament scene as sharply as that original game plan.

Taka can rotate out fine. Give us another better version of that guy. I really want to like him and his Wily Trader trait, but he always gets cut from my decks. Iron Mine + Rebuild kinda made Crab busted so I'm okay with that rotating out as well.

2 hours ago, phillos said:

Yeah the most competitive Crab build continues to be the one that just outlasts the opponent with a dishonor/military switch. It is the one people like playing against the least and the one that's most effective for Crab players at tournaments. Spy Glass/Watch Commander towers on the board that ready up and never go away allow you to lower your bid after a while and choke your opponent.

The problem is that this was the type of deck we were winning with as early as the core. The current dominant strategy is pretty much the same strategy Joe was championing after he won his hatamoto at launch. Different cards, but the deck plays more or less the same. I actually think it would be a good thing for the faction if FFG blew that build up to open up the other deck types.

I've been desperate for a change for a long time, but nothing pierces the tournament scene as sharply as that original game plan.

Taka can rotate out fine. Give us another better version of that guy. I really want to like him and his Wily Trader trait, but he always gets cut from my decks. Iron Mine + Rebuild kinda made Crab busted so I'm okay with that rotating out as well.

Yeah, I get that, but it's also kind of the catch - most of the core of the "power deck" as pointed out are in Core and so how much of the top tier deck is going to be crippled? Vs the janky, more off-beat decks?

Let's take a clearer example - 2 strongholds are in dynasty cycles. One of those really makes viable the unicorn zerg swarm deck archetype. When rotation happens, then what? Sure unicorn will have some cards that still play well with swarm, but such decks will be pretty crippled. If all the swarm loving cards were in that same cycle with their cornerstone stronghold, then it would be a bit more bearable.

It's the difference between taking away an entire car, and taking away one of the car's tires. You're not driving the car either way, but at least if the system was set up, you could be confident that you would be getting an entirely new vehicle soon.

well potentially I can see two possibilities, which would alleviate your fears:
1.) Like netrunner did they keep cards from the rotated out cycles and old core that are not busted and are integral to deck builds by introducing a core 2.0. That way you continue to carry the actual value cards each rotation cycle. Also it rewards players who were collecting all the rotated packs since some of their previous purchases are still legal, and new players can just pick them up from one new intro product.

2.) They don't do 1, but do take a look at the old cards and give us new versions of those old cards (that were essential to a deck archetype) with a potentially improved design based on their greater experience with the game.

So I guess what I'm saying is I'm not worried. No card in this game "needs" to survive a rotation. I welcome rotation. More variability in the card pool means a more dynamic game, and it doesn't have to mean we lose deck archetypes.

Personally I'm hoping for option 1 since it worked once already, and if a card isn't broke then why take up space in a future pack redesigning it.

On 6/26/2019 at 9:39 AM, phillos said:

well potentially I can see two possibilities, which would alleviate your fears:
1.) Like netrunner did they keep cards from the rotated out cycles and old core that are not busted and are integral to deck builds by introducing a core 2.0. That way you continue to carry the actual value cards each rotation cycle. Also it rewards players who were collecting all the rotated packs since some of their previous purchases are still legal, and new players can just pick them up from one new intro product.

2.) They don't do 1, but do take a look at the old cards and give us new versions of those old cards (that were essential to a deck archetype) with a potentially improved design based on their greater experience with the game.

So I guess what I'm saying is I'm not worried. No card in this game "needs" to survive a rotation. I welcome rotation. More variability in the card pool means a more dynamic game, and it doesn't have to mean we lose deck archetypes.

Personally I'm hoping for option 1 since it worked once already, and if a card isn't broke then why take up space in a future pack redesigning it.

One other possibility that occurs to me: just make all cards from the core set restricted to 1 copy per deck. Will help out new players (lower investment cost) and seems like that would go a long way to balancing out some of the power. lol

But if I may, to quote someone from the topic on the spyglass restriction...

22 hours ago, HamHamJ2 said:

The reasoning in the article seems pretty spurious. The goal is apparently to shake up the Crab deck but Spyglass is not so central to that deck that it will not just get replaced with the next best card nor do I think the power level of the deck will be decreased enough to make it not the obvious best choice because none of the other strategies Crab has are even close to being as good .

That's my issue there. It strikes me that some of these "other strategies" are starting to reach the point of competition, and they're going to be the ones hit hardest by rotation. We shall see.

The one per deck cards as a balancing mechanic for strong card effects has been criticized by the L5R fandom already since we saw alot of that in the first cycle and those cards just made the game way more swingy. I suspect presenting that solution again would be just as unpopular.

Hopefully everyone blows up together therefore what is competitive get's reevaluated. Previously noncompetitive cards and tactics could see light. That is sort of the ideal for LCGs. A constantly changing card pool allows you to constantly reevaluate your card pool in a new light. Rotation just adds instead of subtracts but the same should be true. I'd argue subtracting is more effective in this regard since at some point if you only add to a card pool you reach a ceiling of competitiveness for a faction deck and you only get small tweaks to top tier decks. The game therefore stagnates at a competitive level assuming they are good about not introducing power creep. We've seen this to be historically true in LCGs.