So, essentially, what you’re saying is that before restricting Spyglass , you didn’t feel the need to restrict the Crab clan, since it was second-best (behind Phoenix, presumably) but now you do restrict the Crab clan (or so you think), even though you still don’t believe that they’re at their best but just “one of the best”? Fair enough, although that could take slightly more clarification.

And on the matter of restricting, Spyglass …When you thought that the Niten Master and the Pathfinder’s Blade were an overpowering combo, you restricted both. Fair. When you thought that Forged Edict and Fate Worse Than Death were too powerful for both of them to be in the same deck (something that you should have seen in the play-testing phase of the cards, but let’s bypass that for now), you restricted both. Fair. When you thought that Isawa Tadaka was dominating the Phoenix game, you changed his text and restricted him along with Secluded Shrine . Which leads us to now, where you think that the Crab clan has seen successes revolving around the same combo of keeping major characters in the game, along with all attachments, relying in 5 Crab cards, to do that so…you restrict a Unicorn card…Do I need to spell out how much nonsensical this decision is? If you truly wanted to break the Crab old-style combo you should put in the restricted list either Iron Mine or Reprieve or both. That is how you weaken an overpowered combo. Nobody gives a **** about Spyglass . They just won’t play it and things will just continue to be the same. They will play Spoils of War instead for card draw. Whatever. It will be a minor inconvenience and the way things are going with all the attachment-hate, Crab players will probably say: "Good riddance."

The game was not won on the back of Spyglass . Spyglass was the least of anyone’s worries when playing against Crab. 1 ^st priority was to remove Reprieve along with Iron Mine and 2 ^nd priority was to play around Watch Commander .

Balancing seven clans is hard, but you’re not even trying, it seems. You just superficially check a few things and decide on the fly without proper play-testing and/or brainstorming on potential outcomes.

And to the people that might come to this post with the argument: “Yeah, you’re all criticism but you don’t provide any meaningful feedback,” I will say: “My feedback for game design is paid by the hour, not given freely. People who want my advice on how to make money, they will pay me for it. Free advice is reserved for friends and family, only.”

Have a nice day.

Edit: I am still waiting on the solution that you come up with on how to make an attachment-heavy clan competitive, in an heavily attachment-hate meta. I really do. Also, the Daisho is crap, don't bring it up in examples like it's the next best thing that happened to the Dragon clan after Mitsu.

Given that Spyglasses draws the Reprieves, Watch Commanders etc. and enabled Watch Commander to be as devastating as it is- I would concur the point that games aren't won on the back of Spyglasses.

4 hours ago, Folkvar said:

So, essentially, what you’re saying is that before restricting Spyglass , you didn’t feel the need to restrict the Crab clan, since it was second-best (behind Phoenix, presumably) but now you do restrict the Crab clan (or so you think), even though you still don’t believe that they’re at their best but just “one of the best”? Fair enough, although that could take slightly more clarification.

And on the matter of restricting, Spyglass …When you thought that the Niten Master and the Pathfinder’s Blade were an overpowering combo, you restricted both. Fair. When you thought that Forged Edict and Fate Worse Than Death were too powerful for both of them to be in the same deck (something that you should have seen in the play-testing phase of the cards, but let’s bypass that for now), you restricted both. Fair. When you thought that Isawa Tadaka was dominating the Phoenix game, you changed his text and restricted him along with Secluded Shrine . Which leads us to now, where you think that the Crab clan has seen successes revolving around the same combo of keeping major characters in the game, along with all attachments, relying in 5 Crab cards, to do that so…you restrict a Unicorn card…Do I need to spell out how much nonsensical this decision is? If you truly wanted to break the Crab old-style combo you should put in the restricted list either Iron Mine or Reprieve or both. That is how you weaken an overpowered combo. Nobody gives a **** about Spyglass . They just won’t play it and things will just continue to be the same. They will play Spoils of War instead for card draw. Whatever. It will be a minor inconvenience and the way things are going with all the attachment-hate, Crab players will probably say: "Good riddance."

The game was not won on the back of Spyglass . Spyglass was the least of anyone’s worries when playing against Crab. 1 ^st priority was to remove Reprieve along with Iron Mine and 2 ^nd priority was to play around Watch Commander .

Balancing seven clans is hard, but you’re not even trying, it seems. You just superficially check a few things and decide on the fly without proper play-testing and/or brainstorming on potential outcomes.

And to the people that might come to this post with the argument: “Yeah, you’re all criticism but you don’t provide any meaningful feedback,” I will say: “My feedback for game design is paid by the hour, not given freely. People who want my advice on how to make money, they will pay me for it. Free advice is reserved for friends and family, only.”

Have a nice day.

Edit: I am still waiting on the solution that you come up with on how to make an attachment-heavy clan competitive, in an heavily attachment-hate meta. I really do. Also, the Daisho is crap, don't bring it up in examples like it's the next best thing that happened to the Dragon clan after Mitsu.

This is so full of wrong. I'll agree that only restricting Spyglass is not enough, but you must admit it is a step in the right direction. Yes, undying crabs are a problem, but when they draw 2-6 less cards a turn, they'll get severely toned down.

Tyler probably won't touch the undying cards of crab, as it is their trademark. Crabs are all about sacrificing some and never let die others. What the game needs to rein down decks like that is a card that gets rid of all attachments in play at once.

And you think attachment-heavy clans are not competitive? Crabs just got nerfed because their whole strategy is stacking a pile of attachments on a single guy and get all the mileage in the world from them. Dragons got nerfed into the ground because they had the same, reliable strategy. The problem with attachment hate is that there's not even enough. Attachments are way too powerful as a mechanic, as you will most of the time get 3 or more turns of their benefits for a small cost.

This is the reason why Dragon has been regularly splashed so much since the beginning of the game. This is not for Mirumoto's Fury, Ancient Master, or aything else than the three mandatory Let Go...

You don't offer any solution, you might as well not say anything.

1 hour ago, Ser Nakata said:

You don't offer any solution, you might as well not say anything.

That's why I chose not to engage.

Replacing Spyglass for Spoils is like Phoenix replacing their Embrace the Void for Path of Man, which is a replacement but doesn't duplicate the same effect they had earlier. Actually both cards take work and are events, which can be cancelled and fall under more taxation effects. It would be silly to think that Crab just merely shrugging the recent RL and continuing business as usual.

1 hour ago, Hordeoverseer said:

Replacing Spyglass for Spoils is like Phoenix replacing their Embrace the Void for Path of Man, which is a replacement but doesn't duplicate the same effect they had earlier. Actually both cards take work and are events, which can be cancelled and fall under more taxation effects. It would be silly to think that Crab just merely shrugging the recent RL and continuing business as usual.

The thing is Spoils is a burst effect to help them stall until they get their real new draw engine (Gate to Meido) up and operational. Once the Meido engine is running they don't need Spyglass or anything else really as they should dishonor you out shortly there after.

19 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

The ting is Spoils is a burst effect to help them stall until they get their real new draw engine (Gate to Meido) up and operational. Once the Meido engine is running they don't need Spyglass or anything else really as they should dishonor you out shortly there after.

How is Gateway to Meido a card draw engine?

Quote

The element that prompted this restricted list update is that this Crab deck has not changed in a meaningful way since the release of Iron Mine ( Meditations on the Ephemeral , 103) at the end of the Imperial Cycle, and the deck archetype is powerful in a way that isn’t conducive to evolution and innovation.

Maybe a new stronghold would help with that... But still no new Crab stronghold in sight...

You get Taka and a Yasuki Broker in play and then repeatedly sac a Vanguard Warrior to add fate to your characters. He gains Sincerity and Courtesy from the Broker while in a conflict and Taka nets you another Fate when you sac the character so he is paying to recur himself and nets you a card each time he dies.

At one point you use a Jade Tetsubo to beat the fate of one of your characters and into your own fate pool and run 3x Levy to offset the 5 honor hit you take for cycling your deck and inflict a 3 honor hit on your opponent with each pass. They also run Prayers to Ebisu so that you have a safety valve on your honor if you are too low when the Combo kicks off.

You should dishonor you opponent out once the combo goes live, but in the interim while setting it up you can keep recycling your envoys and if you also run a 1x Funeral Pyre that is additional draw for you as well.

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.

I find it interesting that in past FFG games Attachments were considered very under powered since character removal was way easier. Therefore putting all your eggs in one basket was ill advised. In this game it seems they were reacting to that perceived weakness and really made Attachments much stronger, and at the same time made keeping characters around for multiple turns easier.

I wonder if from the start attachment removal should have been a ring effect. Maybe the Void ring could have been remove a fate from a character or remove an attachment from a character. It wouldn't stop an attachment from firing for a conflict and you'd need to actually win the ring to get the effect, but at least everyone would have a repeatable tool to handle oppressive attachments that stick around for multiple conflicts.

To summarize the OP's stance: will whine for free but must be paid to be constructive?

Cool.

9 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

To summarize the OP's stance: will whine for free but must be paid to be constructive?

Cool.

Yeah, dude. I went back through their other posts (not difficult, there's only 3 total at the time of writing this comment). Clearly, this human LOVES Dragon, LOVES attachments, and feels mortally wounded somehow by this whole Spyglass thing. As for the "paid by the hour" I could actually accept that if their profession is, in fact, game design/development. But if they were, I'd expect them to be a little more understanding about the RL, and why certain cards are on it.

Restricted List decisions may be bad for you (whoever "you" happen to be at the time), and still be good for the game . I hate it, too. I'm a die-hard Unicorn. Spyglass is a great card. I think this hurts Unicorn more than anybody else, so I too am a little confused at the "It's Crab's fault!" reasoning, but hey, maybe there's things I don't know. My local playgroup is 2 people. I don't do Grand Koteis. I get that they don't want to neuter Crab's main themes - throwing the little guys to the Oni so the big guys can stick around longer is kinda what they do. I feel (note, feel. I haven't actually done hard research on this, so forgive me if I'm actually way off base here) that Unicorn has among the least in-clan card draw, so taking away Spyglass just feels bad. But I get it, and I'll tweak my decks accordingly. Yes, even though I'm just a "casual."

What were competitive Unicorn decks taking as their restricted card? Looking at the list Unicorn's representation so far on that list has been blessedly light. If you really want your Spyglasses then just take Spyglasses. This inclusion does force Crabs to make an interesting choice now on which of the restricted cards they care most about.

53 minutes ago, phillos said:

What were competitive Unicorn decks taking as their restricted card?

I'm going to bet that 9 times out of 10 it's Charge. Charge + Spyglass isn't exactly a busted combo.

No but that's not the point. Now you actually have a consideration on the restricted list, which stops you from taking the other busted stuff potentially just like everyone else. Charge and Pathfinders Blade wasn't a busted combo, but that got restricted because Dragons abused Pathfinder's Blade. Unicorn's have finally joined the restricted club. Rejoice guys. That means your faction has finally arrived.

3 minutes ago, phillos said:

No but that's not the point. Now you actually have a consideration on the restricted list, which stops you from taking the other busted stuff potentially just like everyone else. Charge and Pathfinders Blade wasn't a busted combo, but that got restricted because Dragons abused Pathfinder's Blade. Unicorn's have finally joined the restricted club. Rejoice guys. That means your faction has finally arrived.

Oi there, neighbor. I said I might not understand it, but I accept it. And that it's probably good for the game in ways I don't fully recognize yet. I'm not sure whether you intend it or not, but I'm feeling an "awe, poor baby" attitude coming across that I don't much appreciate.

Anyway, in other news, I'm actually quite glad to see the rules edits are so minimal. A couple of wording tweaks, only one new RL card, no errata. Maybe it means the game is starting to stabilize...

... until they put Gateway to Meido on the RL in October.

Spyglass does nothing to the current "best" Unicorn deck...…...since none of them need Spyglass.

While it was meant more for Crab, it's nothing more than a minor nuisance for Unicorn players that were still using Spyglass is what was likely a sub-optimal deck for this current meta and available card pool.

It does help future-proof Shiro Shinjo a little bit as it's unlikely that the stronghold never turns into the base of operations for a "Superfriends" style of deck that would love to just windmill slam all the best Dynasty characters and then draw a bunch of cards.

It seems like the correct call to me.

Also Crab just got a spoiler for another card draw character. I wonder if slotting that into the current deck would push their dishonor pressure over the edge. I kinda like this restriction since it makes other splashes more viable in Crab, which will make them a bit more dynamic.

I wasn't be trying to be patronizing. I am sorry if you read that in the post. I was just trying to stress that it's only fair that the restricted hammer eventually hit Unicorn, and it is a good restriction for the game IMO.

1 hour ago, phillos said:

I was just trying to stress that it's only fair that the restricted hammer eventually hit Unicorn, and it is a good restriction for the game IMO.

To be fair, FGG on the RL hit Unicorn just as much as it does Lion. Unicorn have effectively been on there as long as anyone else.

I'm not sure I really agree that is the same thing. Really Spyglass is a nerf to Crab more than Unicorn. Like Pathfinder's Blade was a nerf to the Dragon and not the Crab. The difference between FGG and Spyglass is this is actually a Unicorn card being RL-ed, which is a first. FGG was more a ubiquitous concern considering the game state it created rather than being a specific slap down of the Unicorn. Though I guess that's all splitting hairs in the end.

17 hours ago, phillos said:

I'm not sure I really agree that is the same thing. Really Spyglass is a nerf to Crab more than Unicorn. Like Pathfinder's Blade was a nerf to the Dragon and not the Crab. The difference between FGG and Spyglass is this is actually a Unicorn card being RL-ed, which is a first. FGG was more a ubiquitous concern considering the game state it created rather than being a specific slap down of the Unicorn. Though I guess that's all splitting hairs in the end.

The thing is that there is splash damage. The Spyglass restriction doesn't concern the HMT-Rush deck, but is a huge slap on the wrist for midrange Unicorn decks, that are even less competitive now. PFB on the other hand may not hurt Crab, because the cards they are getting since the first cycle support Keeper decks more, it actually hurts Lion, which design space actually suplement splashing Crab.

6 hours ago, Ignithas said:

The thing is that there is splash damage. The Spyglass restriction doesn't concern the HMT-Rush deck, but is a huge slap on the wrist for midrange Unicorn decks, that are even less competitive now. PFB on the other hand may not hurt Crab, because the cards they are getting since the first cycle support Keeper decks more, it actually hurts Lion, which design space actually suplement splashing Crab.

In some ways Pathfinder hurts Crab because its one less reason that they should want to be playing a Seeker Role since their best in clan seeker card is restricted and so denies them playing the better cards Charge or Rebuild.

The real slap there is they killed Pathfinders Blade due to Dragon being to strong with it which made the on reveal provinces (like Restoration of Balance) stronger, they then had to errata Resto because it was too good and there was no answer to it, then they printed Shinjo Ambusher which is a watered down PFB effect but still have Pathfinder's on the Restricted List.

I hope at the next update they seriously look at removing some of the previously deemed trouble cards and let them get back into circulation. there really seems little reason for Pathfinders to still be on the list now that they have Niten Master and Void Fist on the list separating the weapons stand forever and monk package builds.

Similarly For Greater Glory probably needs to come off to open up Lion's design, and if they are worried about Unicorn abusing it with Cavalry Reserves then lets just make the simple correction of adding Cav Reserves to the list in its place.

What other FFG games have RLs? And how often do cards come off the list? I'm curious if the design process is only "This is too strong, nerf it" or if they actually consider then environment as a whole and reevaluate the entire list from time to time.

Practically all of their competitive LCG, even Call of Cthulhu in its heyday. Cards do come off (rarely), sometimes after they are errata'ed or when the environment changes enough.