15 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Peasant's Advice is your friend.

No I'm not trying to be snarky with some sort of "dies to removal" or "counterspell" equivalency argument.

I just think it's a highly underrated card that helps a couple issues most decks want to have answers for.

Being able to look at a face down province is important and not all clans have reliable ways to do this.

Shuffling something back into the Dynasty deck after they use Satoshi and a Rebuild to get it out there is a pretty nice trade off. At the very least it's going to force them to come up with that interaction a 2nd time, and, you might be able to disrupt that plan before they get to do it again.

With Phoenix pushing the "Charging Chicken" deck, and them also wanting their relevant holdings, it's a good card to combat that deck.

Being able to scout out Crane and Scorpion provinces so you don't run into the wrong ones is quite helpful.

I'd say PA is relevant against what is largely considered to be the top 4 decks/clans...……...yet, I rarely see PA on any list out there. Heck I mostly play Unicorn and have access to Wayfinder, but, I'm still packing PA to make sure I can always scout a province on turn 1 and to give me some utility against problematic dynasty flips/holdings.

I don't think that you are snarky, but this situation is "it dies to removal". And in this case the removal costs you even more than the threat costs your oponent. No matter what, you are trading unfavourably and if the Crab player wins the counter war over rebuild (which is very likely), it is gg most of the time. Same reason why Karmic Balance isn't a counter to the echobird deck.

On 8/9/2019 at 2:49 AM, Ignithas said:

I don't think that you are snarky, but this situation is "it dies to removal". And in this case the removal costs you even more than the threat costs your oponent. No matter what, you are trading unfavourably and if the Crab player wins the counter war over rebuild (which is very likely), it is gg most of the time.

I don't think it's that simple. Because PA shuffles, it limits the amount of interaction Crab has since Rebuild only interacts with the discard. If it's specifically an Imperial holding, Crab having Satoshi and Rebuild certainly has more options here, but, I don't see it can be considered an unfavorable trade, since there are results that end up in favor of PA. I've seen this personally, and it's why I refuse to cut PA entirely.

Here are common scenarios, most of which I have experienced personally:

Crab opponent has KD, I somehow managed to break. They play rebuild, I shuffle away with PA, before they use KD.

Crab opponent has Satoshi, they use him and hit KD. I shuffle away with PA before they use KD

Crab opponent has KD in play and is low on honor (7 or less), their discard has 5 Imperial cards in it, and they have about 10-12 cards left in dynasty deck. I shuffle away with PA, my opponent uses Satoshi, hits KD again, but, now has 2 cards left in their dynasty deck, opening up the dishonor win con to me.

Crab opponent uses Rebuild to get a non-imperial holding back, I shuffle away with PA before they can use, They have to activate Satoshi (or wait until next turn if they already used him) and have another Rebuild.

I would consider any of these favorable trades, especially since I find myself generally wanting quick games. Delaying an effect for one turn is roughly equal to countering it, if my opponent never get another turn to use the effect. If I can't close, and my Crab opponent gets to beat me over the head with their repeatable ability and recursion, well that's what they do, but, by delaying that from happening, I lessen the chances we get to the point in the game where my Crab opponent tends to shine. Certainly not all clans/decks are capable of fast attacks, but PA is far more useful than in just these scenarios.

Scouting a province and shuffling away a key character are also very useful

On 8/9/2019 at 9:48 PM, Ishi Tonu said:

I don't think it's that simple. Because PA shuffles, it limits the amount of interaction Crab has since Rebuild only interacts with the discard. If it's specifically an Imperial holding, Crab having Satoshi and Rebuild certainly has more options here, but, I don't see it can be considered an unfavorable trade, since there are results that end up in favor of PA. I've seen this personally, and it's why I refuse to cut PA entirely.

Here are common scenarios, most of which I have experienced personally:

Crab opponent has KD, I somehow managed to break. They play rebuild, I shuffle away with PA, before they use KD.

Crab opponent has Satoshi, they use him and hit KD. I shuffle away with PA before they use KD

Crab opponent has KD in play and is low on honor (7 or less), their discard has 5 Imperial cards in it, and they have about 10-12 cards left in dynasty deck. I shuffle away with PA, my opponent uses Satoshi, hits KD again, but, now has 2 cards left in their dynasty deck, opening up the dishonor win con to me.

Crab opponent uses Rebuild to get a non-imperial holding back, I shuffle away with PA before they can use, They have to activate Satoshi (or wait until next turn if they already used him) and have another Rebuild.

I would consider any of these favorable trades, especially since I find myself generally wanting quick games. Delaying an effect for one turn is roughly equal to countering it, if my opponent never get another turn to use the effect. If I can't close, and my Crab opponent gets to beat me over the head with their repeatable ability and recursion, well that's what they do, but, by delaying that from happening, I lessen the chances we get to the point in the game where my Crab opponent tends to shine. Certainly not all clans/decks are capable of fast attacks, but PA is far more useful than in just these scenarios.

Scouting a province and shuffling away a key character are also very useful

I think that Pecents Advice has its uses, but it always trades down. His holding/ key character costs nothing while you have to pay one card, one fate and a dishonor token to remove it. I would play PA in a duelling deck, because otherwise you instant lose against both Districts and Teahouses. And in KB it also makes sense, because dishonoring is beneficial for you. In all other decks it is too narrow.

10 hours ago, Ignithas said:

I think that Pecents Advice has its uses, but it always trades down. His holding/ key character costs nothing while you have to pay one card, one fate and a dishonor token to remove it. I would play PA in a duelling deck, because otherwise you instant lose against both Districts and Teahouses. And in KB it also makes sense, because dishonoring is beneficial for you. In all other decks it is too narrow.

If you're arguing soley from the point of the opponent just randomly flipping the holding they want/need then sure PA costs a card and fate and a dishonor token vs something that is free.

However, in reality, that is not what happens. Crab and current Phoenix decks are doing a lot of searching to get certain cards into a certain province and or discard. So they are investing something to get the desired result, in a great many situations.

I simply do not agree with you on this one. PA has a much broader application than is it given credit for and the cost to counter your opponent's play is often comparable and or favorable to what your opponent invested to get what they want in their province.

Peasant's Advice is a hassle, for sure. But, as a crab, I welcome anything that costs my opponent honor. When the game first released we had an entire strategy based around baiting and/or 'forcing' assassination to help us jump start our dishonor game. Granted, Peasant's Advice is only 1 honor token rather than 3 honor, but the point still stands. If I had a card that said "shuffle a holding into your deck: your opponent loses 1 fate, discards a card and dishonors a character" I think I'd play that card (I understand it's not a perfect translation because I'm choosing the holding to be shuffled back).

As for why it isn't played more, I think it's important to note that nearly every deck in the format right now has cards #41, 42, 43, 44 and 45 that they wish they could fit in but can't. For my deck, it is 3rd Reprieve, 2nd Mountain, 3rd Defend Your Honor, 3rd In Defense of Rokugan, 3rd Court Games.

So it's not as simple as just shoving PA into your deck. You have to grapple with the fact that you're not only removing a card or 2 from your deck, which you've spent months meticulously crafting, with every card having an explicit purpose, but you're also pushing down those other cards that you already wish you didn't have to cut from your deck.

Now, if your deck is just kinda thrown together or if you're net decking and don't really know why each card is in the deck, it may be easier to fit PA. I remember when Crab was KoE, we had the same discussion regarding Sabotage. There were some match ups, like a Charge deck or a Crab deck, where the card was very good. But it's negative value in every other match up made it really hard to justify, when compared against the other cards that we already had to cut to get down to 40.

9 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

As for why it isn't played more, I think it's important to note that nearly every deck in the format right now has cards #41, 42, 43, 44 and 45 that they wish they could fit in but can't. For my deck, it is 3rd Reprieve, 2nd Mountain, 3rd Defend Your Honor, 3rd In Defense of Rokugan, 3rd Court Games.

A fair point. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made. When you are looking at a meta game that is overwhelmingly Phoenix at the moment and still has a decent representation of Crab, there has to be a point in which you re-evaluate the value that each card brings. When there is a prominent deck in the meta that is using dynasty and discard manipulation to push it's strategy, then having something to disrupt that is an important consideration.

By no means should anyone just cram in PA and expect their problems to be solved.

Also it's important to note that my bias on this comes from an approach with playing Unicorn in a hyper aggressive fashion. I'm fine with the immediate cost of PA, even if it's unfavorable, because it prevents my opponent from doing something that will impact the game now. I don't plan on taking the game into the late stages. The reality for Unicorn is that vs Crab and Phoenix, Unicorn is at a disadvantage in late game matches, so it's simply better to try and win quick. For me, the hassle that PA causes is what I'm going for because I plan to leverage that to win now, since I know I cannot win later.