herozeromes said:

To expand on what herozeromes said, we do know that each objective is part of a series, as they are all numbered X/6, where the Objective is always #1 in the set, with 5 other cards that go with it. As I've shown in another thread where I compiled all the card images from cardgamedb to see how the Objectives and associated cards line up, it looks like they are grouped fairly well together. I didn't see anything that looked like "dead weight" attached to a powerful card.

You can expect Vader's Lightsaber to come in the same pod as Vader, as shown in the card images, which is obviously a good idea, since you can imagine wanting to take that card if you were running Vader. Similar loadout goes with the "Heart of the Empire" Objective with the Coruscant Defense Fleet matched up with it. I think from what we've seen, it's not going to be a huge restriction to build a deck this way.

The only foreseeable drawback I can address at this point, would be having a limited number of Objectives to draw from at the start of the game's life span, with the Core Set Box. There are at least 36 different Objectives in the box, and if we are to imagine there were 4 Factions evenly represented, and they went with 10 unique Objectives each, that would be 40 Objectives.

So 10 Objectives each factions means "out of the box" playability would lead to identical decks, but then you're always free to by another Core Set to run multiple copes of Objectives, since you can use up to 2 in your stack of 10. Already you've doubled your options by faction. From there, you're waiting for the Force Packs (or whatever name they go with) and the Big Box expansions to flesh it out more.

cleardave said:

I really hope they're not expecting completionists to buy two of every Force Pack. That could seriously kill this game for me.

MarthWMaster said:

Given 60 cards per Pack as in some of the previous LCGs, it means 10 groups (pods) of cards (5 per side ?). It should easily mean that there is room for duplicated groups in a given Pack. For instance, with 1 unique group and 2 duplicated ones per Side, that amounts to 36 new cards per Pack, which is already in the high range of new cards per Pack for a LCG. To avoid having too many new cards per Pack and still having a correct number of cards per Pack, I guess that duplicating non-unique pods should be the rule.

Personally I think it is a great idea, and will put deck-building on its ear a bit. I truly didn't think I would like it, but after further review it adds a layer of complexity and decision-making to deck-building.

Dobbler is right though - we will see how it is handled in practice. And how competative play will work when the inevitable broken card comes out (probably erratta, but if not enough ban the whole pod?).

rings said:

That's an interesting thought. I guess one thing they could do is restrict that pod to 1 per deck like some other pods will already be. And if that won't work or the card is really bad then errata or ban. But yeah, if they just ban 1 card then they'd have to get us a replacement for the pod, so errata or ban entire pod seems more likely.

Yes, the real new thing since most of them were imported from other games (as Legend of the 5 Rings).

oDESGOSTO said:

If you're referring to the edge battles, I have to disagree, as they are nothing like duels. First, per current L5R rules, a dueling deck must be constructed so that cards can be reliably focused from the top of the deck, so as to not whittle down the challenging player's hand. This stands in complete contrast to edge battles, which are played entirely from hand. Second, L5R duels are limited to three focused cards per player, whereas edge battles have no such restriction, and can theoretically continue until neither player has any cards left in hand. And finally, edge battles will clearly be a central feature in every match, versus duels, which generally only come up more than once during a match when they are played from a dedicated dueling deck.

However, if you're not referring to edge battles, then I apologize for my entirely too long-winded and pointless rebuttal.

Must say I'm not a fan, I foresee two problems:

1) simplifying deck building in this way means that your options are limited and there's no room for imaginative or creative deck design.

2) unless this game is extremely well balanced it won't be long before the highly competitive players work out the most effective combo for each side and tournament play could comedown to which identical deck got the best draw on the day. Not fun.

To counteract this I think each pod should have 1 objective and 10 cards and you choose 5 of them. If this is impossible to achieve in the first set then it should be possible after the first expansion.

aussiecossie said:

Yeah in the core set maybe. But how many games can boast with imaginative and creative decks directly from the core set? I actually think this pod-system will make it easier for thematic decks, maybe even make it easier to balance. As for competitive gaming, who knows?

To be honest, this game-mechanic is the one i'm most intrigued by at the moment, it grows on me the more i think about it.

There's a lot of talk about this pod-system leading to unimaginative or boring decks, or whatever, but the more I think about it, the more strongly I disagree. In one respect, yes, it does simplify deck building tremendously - rather than having to go through piles and piles of cards to find those that synergize well with each other, you pick one card and it brings five others that (presumably) fit together wonderfully.

The way I've begun to see it, though, is that it gives you more to think about when you're building your deck. Because to include one card, you bring across the other four in the same objective's pod, and then you have to think about groups of cards that work well with those you already have, rather than the easier option of single cards that work well with a predetermined group. For example, I have a Warhammer Chaos deck that, every month, I look at again with each new battle pack and see if I want to swap out one card for another. But here, the decision will be tougher because you have to swap out five to be replaced.

The idea of being "forced" to play with "preconstructed" decks is just wrong, of course, because you're still building a deck. Yes, a deck of ten cards will predetermine the other fifty you bring, but it's not like you don't know what those fifty will be. You will build a deck taking into account the entire pod, not just the objective card of that pod. So if anything it'll take more time to build a good deck, not less. That you can just throw ten cards together and you can start seems to be what everyone is focusing on, but there is another side to this coin, too.

"Do I want to include objective x, because it comes with some really strong cards, but it's at the expense of objective y. Objective z could work really well, because there are some really good cards in that pod that will work well with objective x's card pod, too, but they're really expensive. There are some cards duplicated from objective x and objective z in objective y, but objective y brings a ton of resources, so I can play that card from objective z earlier than I might be able to otherwise…" That over-simplifies the whole thing, of course, but that sort of thing.

I think, as deckbuilders, we've had it too easy now, and this mechanic will force a lot of difficult decisions.

You make some excellent points I just think that having variety in each pod strikes the right balance between ease of deck building and diversity in strategy.

I've just spent about an hour re-watching the Team Covenant video and making notes from it about how the game will work (because what else am I going to do with my Sunday?!) and I think this game is gonna be awesome!

Something that I hadn't thought of before, and I think has been cleared up by the video, is that in order to play a card from your hand, you need to use at least one resource from an objective that matches that card's affiliation/faction, whatever. Kinda like domains in Cthulhu. I think that is going to also cause some interesting deck-building prospects. If you only have three objectives on show at any one time, and you've used objectives from each of the Light/Dark Side affiliations (it's "Smugglers & Spies", by the way, according to Corey in that video), you've gotta hope you get one objective of each affiliation when you reveal them, otherwise you'll have a lot of useless cards until one of your objectives is destroyed. Which can lead to some interesting tactical options. I'm assuming, of course, that each affiliation/faction will have its own flavour, and you'll want to include as many as possible to get as many options as possible.

We'll see, I suppose!

Thankfully this shouldnt lead to hand clog as you can always use those cards you can't play in edge battles.