Had a casual game using this against a buddy IRL last night, he was running the standard aggro unicorn chagatai break 2 provinces a turn.
I was surprised how resilient this was, fun deck to play. Province row was a nice toolbox, Honours reward [continue reading]coming in handy to break his Night Raid. Return the offense was surprisingly useful, never ran it before but worked great to allow me to be able to slow down the attacks and chip away at honour.
Managed to win by Dishonour on turn 4, attacking Air ring against his unnoposed stronghold with a Miyako and way with words, finishing with the 1 cheeky little backhanded compliment .
It did struggle against stronger unique character's, having to play around them or just accept a couple of the big pushes unopposed. With the multiple sources for Dishonour effects already available I think this is missing Soul Beyond Reproach.
Summary of the final game.
Going into it I had said that I probably didn't have much chance of winning. Managing his Exposed Courtyards was the key to victory as it, along with Kitsuki Investigators and Upholding Authority discarding his Let [continue reading]Go's helped me keep Togashi Acolytes in play.
Here are the main things from the game as I remember them. Some things might be wrong, some buys for him and stuff will be forgotten.
Turn 1
Buy Mitsu with 1 fate, use Season of War to discard Exposed Courtyard and pass.
He bought Master tactician and Obstinate Recruit.
I attack for Void and break City of the Rich frog.
He in turn attacks Shameful display with Obstinate Recruit for Pol Earth.
I play Ancient Master and after Shameful win. He then breaks Shameful with Master Tactician on Fire Mil and dishonos Mitsu.
Turn 2
I buy a Kitsuki Investigator.
He get's another Master Tactician and more.
He attacks Vassal Fields for Water (Mitsu has no Fate) and I defend with Mitsu and nothing else and he breaks. Kitsuki Investigator attacks back for Void Pol and finds Pursuit of Justice that had an Exposed Courtyard. Investigator discards a Let Go.
He moves Exposed Courtyard to another province. He attacks back Air with Master Tactician onto Upholding Authority. I don't defend and he breaks, I choose todiscard 2x Soshi ni Kie. He plays Renowned Singer and gets one back and unbows, revealing Spectral Visitations on his Stronghold. I play a Togashi Acolyte, use it to unbow Mitsu with In Service to My Lord. Attack, Covert-ing the Master Tactician and break Pursuit of Justice and gain fate on Mitsu.
Turn 3.
He sees another Exposed Courtyard, has two face up.
I use Cycle of Rebirth to suffle one back into his deck and play a Tranquil Philosopher as I'm down to 4 honor. He has around 6 bodies in play. I use Tranquil to gain 1 honor and bid 5. I had Prayers ot Ebisu on hand if I need it but he bids 5 too so I stay at 5 honour.
I attack Fire Pol at the province with Exposed Courtyard It proves to be Fertile Fields. He defends with a Master Tactician and I tink one more. I play Togashi Acolytes on Mitsu and an Ancient Master and send the Master Tactician home to break and honor Mitsu.
He attacks with everything except one Chronicler of Conquest on my stronghold. Sacred Sanctuary unbows Mitsu and he defends with the Tranquil Philosopher. I know he does not have any Defend your hononr, having used them all on turn 1 and 2. I use Mitsu to get the 2nd Togashi Acolyte back on Mitsu. He plays Way of the Lion on the honored Master Tactician with Fan of Command, Tactical Ingenuity and Sharpen the Mind. I think I play Let go next on Fields of Ruin so he doesn't have any Battlefields in play to stop Master Tactician from working next. He does something. I don't remember the exact order but I play 1-2 actions to boost Mitsu with Togashi Acolyte so I'm 2 lower than he in Mil. He passes. I play Hawk Tattoo to get +1 Mil + 2 extra Mil from Toga Acolytes, take an additional action and send the Master Tactician home with Void fist and he concedes.
I was winning the conflict, would not bow at conflict resolution and would break his stronghold.
Many have been discussing the strength of Sacred Sanctuary but in this case the only thing that mattered was the unbow for defence. I had a Tattooed Wanderer to play and straighten Mitsu with In Service to My Lord to attack his stronghold if he had bowed at the end of that conflict.
The deck has strengths but is hard pressed against Crane and Lion, as most Dragon decks are these days. I won through a lot of luck, had good luck in the pod games and very good luck against Micha (Crane) and Notfragle (Lion) in the final.
It's a bonkers Phoenix card previewed in a marketing fan image for coils of power:
https://store.us.asmodee.com/catalogue/l5r-lcg-coils-of-power_3295/
0F, discard your hand. Until the end of the phase you can see and play the top c [continue reading]ard of your deck.
So you trigger Divine Ancestry to make sure you don't lose honor when you reshuffle. Play Calling The Storm, and then your whole deck is 0 cost except the two characters and you can play it all. You get the whole lot out on the table and then so long as you have logistics as your last card, or in hand, or some way of drawing a card, eventually you need to draw a card from the effect, which reshuffles your deck. At that point your only cards left in deck are copies of Logistics. You can then play one, to draw another. Keep doing that: you play one in your hand, which shuffles the one in your discard into the deck, which you draw to hand. Do it forever until your opponent has no dynasty left.
I think TI is useful for making sure the sequencing at the end of your deck works properly. But Courtyard can also guarantee a Logistics at the bottom.
If they changed the rules so you can only lose 5 honor once a round for running out of cards in a deck, that would stop something like this working.
Please don't actually play or try to play something like this though. It's just a thought experiment cause that Calling card is silly.
That's our understanding how it works. When their whole dynasty is out and a province empties, then they try to refill, lose 5, have nothing to shuffle and then just keep losing 5. However even if it was ruled that only happens once, earth role lets [continue reading]you take Sabotage so a 1x of that will let you keep feeding them one card to reshuffle so they do lose the 5 and then you just keep going and they will lose without relying on the empty deck = unlimited honour loss.
At the moment the game doesn't allow for you to have nothing in a province. But possibly the rules do need updating to allow that 5 honour loss to happen once and then you just keep going without refilling, until it's possible for you to do so. It might even be necessary: if the opponent also plays divine ancestry then the game just breaks as they keep trying to reshuffle infinitely without losing honor.
But I do think 1x sabotage makes the loop work even if the rules were changed.
Wait, I thought you were actually milling and reshuffling opponent 's deck over and over for a 5 honor blast each and every time. But it's even worse ; the opponent just has their whole deck stacked on a random province, is that it?
Are we sure [continue reading] they lose if can't actually reshuffle? If so, then it's simple to remove this nonsense.
Hammer is only 2 influence. The same as Oracle. If you replace it with 13 influence (keeper) having currently only spent 9, I think you would be fine. Technically you just need two logistics anyway. Play one at one card left. Then play the next. It r [continue reading]eshuffles as soon as there is need.
Ah I just thought of something that saves the game from this nonsense: you won't cycle your own deck without a way to draw a card when it's empty. It's still theoretically possible as logistics draws a card, and there's storehouse in there too but pr [continue reading]obably looping your deck won't be possible. Thankfully. Need to think if there's a way around this.
Hammer is too much influence for 3x but you could put one in instead of a favor. Every card in the deck is irrelevant except ancestry, logistics, ingenuity and calling. The rest were literally only chosen to be zero cost and always playable so you ca [continue reading]n cycle your deck. What they actually are doesn't matter so much. If you pull it off you won't even resolve a single conflict to actually trigger hammer. You just sit there and cycle through your own deck endlessly without honour loss moving cards from an opponent's province until they have to refill, but have none left in deck or discard. Then they lose.
I tested Ujina for some few matchs, but I didn't feel that it gave me such good results, because it doesn't press as much as a Kaede. The other problem would be the fate curve. I will give him an opportunity perhaps removing to Shiba Yojimbo or favor [continue reading]able Ground.
Just an ordinary Lion rush deck. The deck plays mostly from the Province deck, so usually I don't pass first during Dinasty Phase. So, I had to make sure the Conflict Deck had mostly zero-cost cards.
Given a lot of readying effects (Tes [continue reading]sen, Zentaro, Hayaken no Shiro, Gohei and Paragon), I usually try to get the Favor on first round.
Some cards comments:
For Greater Glory / Feeding an Army: I play the lone Feeding an Army as a 4th For Greater Glory. To feed my army, I usually break Ninkatoshi, but in some occasions I could break The Art of War or Demonstrating Excellence (can't play Upholdind Authority due to element being Earth), specially if opponent plays a Doji Diplomat. Play around event cancels before playing Feeding the Army (i.e., do not play if Crane opponent has more honored characters than you - Voice of Honor -, or if Scorpion has less honor - Forgery-, or if opponent has Imperial Favor - Censure)
Captive Audience / Court Games: The deck despises political conflicts, so for some time I ran Captive Audience as the only way to deal with them. Added Court Games to at least do something in cases I dont have Captive Audience. Cut Even the Odds for Court Games when I realized I was not running enough commanders.
Hand to Hand: The only way to deal with attachments. I run only Elegant Tessen as a target, but usually it is played more to ready a charachter than to give them a stat bonus, so no big deal if it is discarded.
Those Who Serve, City of the Rich Frog, Honored Veterans, Staging Ground, Akodo Gunso and Obstinate Recruit: In order to get the most value out of Those Who Serve, the deck plays rallly and province reveal cards. Obstinate Recruit is used mostly as a way to reveal more cards with Staging Ground, I don't care too much about keeping myself more honorable than opponent.
Ikoma Tsanuri: Has rally and makes attacking very safe. Her other version (+1/+1 to all characters if 2 or more bushi are attacking with her) is useful as well, specially for political conflcts.
Kitsu Motso: He is very useful, so I try to give him lots of fate and forego the swarm strategy when he shows up. That's why I only run 2 of him, not a good card to reveal in round 1. Primary target for Called to War.
Matchups so far:
CRAB: Usually is a poor matchup. Provinces are usually hard to break, and Common Cause makes their towers do double duty. I don't care too much about Way of the Crab, as usually I have some bodies to sac. Problem is the Crab player gets value out of their characters dying.
CRANE: Let me be frank: we won't win many duels with a swarm strategy. I've considered running Stay Your Hand to deal with the most disruptive duels, but it is a dead card against a lot of other decks. Doji Diplomat is great for us when she reveals Art of War and we have the Feeding an Army. Problem is we can't be sure to resolve it, so the trick is more about drawing 3 cards than giving fate to the army. Hand to Hand is used against Unicorn attachments in order to avoid Gaijin Customs. Destroy Tsuma before City of the Rich Frog in order to turn off Voice of Honor and Noble Sacrifice.
DRAGON: Against Monk Tower, Hand to Hand Togashi Acolyte, and never initiate a Fire Conflict in order to make their Mantra of Fire dead. The deck does not care too much about the Conflict Deck, so facing Restoration of Balance, Upholding Authority and some other discard effects is not that big a deal.
LION: Against honor strategies, bid low. The deck plays mostly from the Province anyway. Against tower strategies, focus on playing Hand to Hand on Unicorn attachments. Against swarm, the hope is to generate more fate on bodies than the opponent, in order to eventually amass a bigger army.
PHOENIX: Always assume the facedown province is Sanpuku Seido.
SCORPION: Good luck with that... At least Stoke the Revolution won't hit major threats from our Provinces. Try to keep the cards revealed to play around it. Am running Fearless Skirmisher to at least try moving their dishonor counters around.
UNICORN: Always assume the deck is splashing Scorpion for Forgery, so be wary of playing Feeding an Army or banking it all in For Greater Glory. Declare conflicts often and use Kitsu Motso as a way to keep Tetsuko from attacking.
Just want to save that this deck is my first branch out from my beloved Scorp and I'm having a blast playing it. Played 4, won 4! Feels really tight, and as you say, cards which are useful in a range of circumstances means I've been able to fend off [continue reading]most major issues. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks!
Gaze has been a real pain in the butt for my opponents, and having an extra set of battlefields to make Chronicler more consistent has been really nice, too. I need to do additional testing against more varied opponents to be sure, but I'm mostly sol [continue reading]d on it.
Shoshi ni Kie is gimmicky. There's only one on-reveal effect in my provinces, and I don't like the idea of telling them where a safe province to attack is. Also, once all my provinces are revealed, it becomes a card I can't play for the rest of the game, which is doubly bad for me since I have both Command Respect and Three Trees. Levy may have slightly less potential for game impact, but it has zero liability.
Hey!
- How has Gaze been working for you so far?
- With water role and spectral, don't you find yourself wanting to play Soshi ni Kie? I guess it depends on how good Levy actually is. It can sometimes be crazy with courtyard but I'm still [continue reading] not sold on it.
My first created deck while trying to learn the game. Obviously based on an older Bushi zerg deck.
My idea is: try to limit how much damage we take with Waning Hostilities for the first turn, possibly the first 2. Get as many bodies ou [continue reading]t as we can using Ikoma Message Runner, Akodo Gunso and Staging Ground. Use For Greater Glory to keep them on the board. Ignore defense, just try to break at least one province per turn. Once we have two down we hope to start the conflict phase and use Ivory Kingdoms Unicorn to take out the last province and the stronghold.
Of course it's never gone that way but it's till produced some enjoyable games so far. Sometimes Captive Audience is used defensively hang on a bit longer and hope our swarm will eventually win.
Looking for the cheap pre-conflict Prodigy fate and hoping to sacrifice BTT to push it over. If that doesn't work, keeping around Chronicler and/or Hero would be just as good. Honestly this is more for testing right now than actually putting forth an [continue reading] effort. I was wanting to try Saibrock's Levy and since Feeding is Air I figured going back in with Toturi and MT could see some play.
Getting Commander of the legion to keep people in play happens in about half the games. Most of the rest of the games are to short finishing on turn 3 for that to matter. The +1 Mill is amazing.
Most kill cards want you dishonoured firs [continue reading]t. A lot of the mid and late game stat bumps are from dynasty so adherent is used only when needed also he has 4 mil for way of the lion. Also a lot of the peeps have 2 glory so once honoured it can give you +2 +2 and with the straighten in the deck you could more then one use of that stat buff a round at the right time vs the right decks it is worth it.
Master tac is a bit outside what you want for the deck cost wise, you could use him instead of the Honoured General as a SC target but I like the army wide buff late game.
You can also often get more honoured people the crane so no voice for them.
Interesting! How has commander of the légion been working for you so far?
I guess skirmisher and adherent are there VS dishonor stuff? Adherent looks a bit odd as he draws card when you would actually like to choke your opponent so basically.. [continue reading]. Is honoring one dude worth 1 card for the opponent in this very deck?
Why not Gohei instead of Adherent?
I guess Master Tac is too expensive for this build?
Hi there - just some insights you can choose to ignore! I would consider replacing borderlands fortifications with x1 Iron Mine and x1 Funeral Pyre - that holding doesn't really do anything for you there - and sadly - extra strength on provinces is w [continue reading]eak in this game currently. It still then holds up to your thematic goals here!
Seal of the Crab is a card to enable berserker payoffs however all you really need is Crisis Breaker to use that trigger on himself for the most part to be "good" - perhaps x1 Seal here would be fun, but that is x2 slots there for you to use, perhaps on a Fine Katana? The Core set attachments (Ornate Fan and Katana) are such great cards even today.
You have a very expensive curve here which can cause you to blow-out on fate/board state - there is so much bowing/removal in the game that it is very risky to play 4/5 cost characters all that often. Cards like Finger of Jade are around to offer some protection, or you specifically build around dropping expensive characters either by cheating them out (see guardians of rokugan) and maybe vanguard warrior to put fate on them before they leave? Shinsei's Last Hope might be a better province to use instead of Flooded Waste, as it lowers the cost of your characters also.
Yeah here is my most recent version Solo. Sorry I'm not really on bushibuilder ever. https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/c35d6cb8-43c3-11eb-9323-22d334ba48b8/view
Sadako is such an awesome card. Along with Geisha House. And Elegent Tessen. She can be a really nasty surprise. Love it. Being new at this, I usually use From the Shadows, so she comes in dishonored, but I like the double whammy of Geisha House. I m [continue reading]ight have to invest in some new cards now.
Way of the Warrior x3
Accursed Summoning x3
*Bog Hag
Welcome back.
I was surprised how resilient this was, fun deck to play. Province row was a nice toolbox, Honours reward [continue reading]coming in handy to break his Night Raid. Return the offense was surprisingly useful, never ran it before but worked great to allow me to be able to slow down the attacks and chip away at honour.
Managed to win by Dishonour on turn 4, attacking Air ring against his unnoposed stronghold with a Miyako and way with words, finishing with the 1 cheeky little backhanded compliment .
It did struggle against stronger unique character's, having to play around them or just accept a couple of the big pushes unopposed. With the multiple sources for Dishonour effects already available I think this is missing Soul Beyond Reproach.
How is HMT going so far?
Going into it I had said that I probably didn't have much chance of winning. Managing his Exposed Courtyards was the key to victory as it, along with Kitsuki Investigators and Upholding Authority discarding his Let [continue reading]Go's helped me keep Togashi Acolytes in play.
Here are the main things from the game as I remember them. Some things might be wrong, some buys for him and stuff will be forgotten.
Turn 1
Buy Mitsu with 1 fate, use Season of War to discard Exposed Courtyard and pass.
He bought Master tactician and Obstinate Recruit.
I attack for Void and break City of the Rich frog.
He in turn attacks Shameful display with Obstinate Recruit for Pol Earth.
I play Ancient Master and after Shameful win. He then breaks Shameful with Master Tactician on Fire Mil and dishonos Mitsu.
Turn 2
I buy a Kitsuki Investigator.
He get's another Master Tactician and more.
He attacks Vassal Fields for Water (Mitsu has no Fate) and I defend with Mitsu and nothing else and he breaks. Kitsuki Investigator attacks back for Void Pol and finds Pursuit of Justice that had an Exposed Courtyard. Investigator discards a Let Go.
He moves Exposed Courtyard to another province. He attacks back Air with Master Tactician onto Upholding Authority. I don't defend and he breaks, I choose todiscard 2x Soshi ni Kie. He plays Renowned Singer and gets one back and unbows, revealing Spectral Visitations on his Stronghold. I play a Togashi Acolyte, use it to unbow Mitsu with In Service to My Lord. Attack, Covert-ing the Master Tactician and break Pursuit of Justice and gain fate on Mitsu.
Turn 3.
He sees another Exposed Courtyard, has two face up.
I use Cycle of Rebirth to suffle one back into his deck and play a Tranquil Philosopher as I'm down to 4 honor. He has around 6 bodies in play. I use Tranquil to gain 1 honor and bid 5. I had Prayers ot Ebisu on hand if I need it but he bids 5 too so I stay at 5 honour.
I attack Fire Pol at the province with Exposed Courtyard It proves to be Fertile Fields. He defends with a Master Tactician and I tink one more. I play Togashi Acolytes on Mitsu and an Ancient Master and send the Master Tactician home to break and honor Mitsu.
He attacks with everything except one Chronicler of Conquest on my stronghold. Sacred Sanctuary unbows Mitsu and he defends with the Tranquil Philosopher. I know he does not have any Defend your hononr, having used them all on turn 1 and 2. I use Mitsu to get the 2nd Togashi Acolyte back on Mitsu. He plays Way of the Lion on the honored Master Tactician with Fan of Command, Tactical Ingenuity and Sharpen the Mind. I think I play Let go next on Fields of Ruin so he doesn't have any Battlefields in play to stop Master Tactician from working next. He does something. I don't remember the exact order but I play 1-2 actions to boost Mitsu with Togashi Acolyte so I'm 2 lower than he in Mil. He passes. I play Hawk Tattoo to get +1 Mil + 2 extra Mil from Toga Acolytes, take an additional action and send the Master Tactician home with Void fist and he concedes.
I was winning the conflict, would not bow at conflict resolution and would break his stronghold.
Many have been discussing the strength of Sacred Sanctuary but in this case the only thing that mattered was the unbow for defence. I had a Tattooed Wanderer to play and straighten Mitsu with In Service to My Lord to attack his stronghold if he had bowed at the end of that conflict.
https://store.us.asmodee.com/catalogue/l5r-lcg-coils-of-power_3295/
0F, discard your hand. Until the end of the phase you can see and play the top c [continue reading]ard of your deck.
So you trigger Divine Ancestry to make sure you don't lose honor when you reshuffle. Play Calling The Storm, and then your whole deck is 0 cost except the two characters and you can play it all. You get the whole lot out on the table and then so long as you have logistics as your last card, or in hand, or some way of drawing a card, eventually you need to draw a card from the effect, which reshuffles your deck. At that point your only cards left in deck are copies of Logistics. You can then play one, to draw another. Keep doing that: you play one in your hand, which shuffles the one in your discard into the deck, which you draw to hand. Do it forever until your opponent has no dynasty left.
I think TI is useful for making sure the sequencing at the end of your deck works properly. But Courtyard can also guarantee a Logistics at the bottom.
If they changed the rules so you can only lose 5 honor once a round for running out of cards in a deck, that would stop something like this working.
Please don't actually play or try to play something like this though. It's just a thought experiment cause that Calling card is silly.
At the moment the game doesn't allow for you to have nothing in a province. But possibly the rules do need updating to allow that 5 honour loss to happen once and then you just keep going without refilling, until it's possible for you to do so. It might even be necessary: if the opponent also plays divine ancestry then the game just breaks as they keep trying to reshuffle infinitely without losing honor.
But I do think 1x sabotage makes the loop work even if the rules were changed.
Are we sure [continue reading] they lose if can't actually reshuffle? If so, then it's simple to remove this nonsense.
Otherwise why say RIP L5R? This is likely the jankiest of jankness anyway.
Given a lot of readying effects (Tes [continue reading]sen, Zentaro, Hayaken no Shiro, Gohei and Paragon), I usually try to get the Favor on first round.
Some cards comments:
For Greater Glory / Feeding an Army: I play the lone Feeding an Army as a 4th For Greater Glory. To feed my army, I usually break Ninkatoshi, but in some occasions I could break The Art of War or Demonstrating Excellence (can't play Upholdind Authority due to element being Earth), specially if opponent plays a Doji Diplomat. Play around event cancels before playing Feeding the Army (i.e., do not play if Crane opponent has more honored characters than you - Voice of Honor -, or if Scorpion has less honor - Forgery-, or if opponent has Imperial Favor - Censure)
Captive Audience / Court Games: The deck despises political conflicts, so for some time I ran Captive Audience as the only way to deal with them. Added Court Games to at least do something in cases I dont have Captive Audience. Cut Even the Odds for Court Games when I realized I was not running enough commanders.
Hand to Hand: The only way to deal with attachments. I run only Elegant Tessen as a target, but usually it is played more to ready a charachter than to give them a stat bonus, so no big deal if it is discarded.
Those Who Serve, City of the Rich Frog, Honored Veterans, Staging Ground, Akodo Gunso and Obstinate Recruit: In order to get the most value out of Those Who Serve, the deck plays rallly and province reveal cards. Obstinate Recruit is used mostly as a way to reveal more cards with Staging Ground, I don't care too much about keeping myself more honorable than opponent.
Ikoma Tsanuri: Has rally and makes attacking very safe. Her other version (+1/+1 to all characters if 2 or more bushi are attacking with her) is useful as well, specially for political conflcts.
Kitsu Motso: He is very useful, so I try to give him lots of fate and forego the swarm strategy when he shows up. That's why I only run 2 of him, not a good card to reveal in round 1. Primary target for Called to War.
Matchups so far:
CRAB: Usually is a poor matchup. Provinces are usually hard to break, and Common Cause makes their towers do double duty. I don't care too much about Way of the Crab, as usually I have some bodies to sac. Problem is the Crab player gets value out of their characters dying.
CRANE: Let me be frank: we won't win many duels with a swarm strategy. I've considered running Stay Your Hand to deal with the most disruptive duels, but it is a dead card against a lot of other decks. Doji Diplomat is great for us when she reveals Art of War and we have the Feeding an Army. Problem is we can't be sure to resolve it, so the trick is more about drawing 3 cards than giving fate to the army. Hand to Hand is used against Unicorn attachments in order to avoid Gaijin Customs. Destroy Tsuma before City of the Rich Frog in order to turn off Voice of Honor and Noble Sacrifice.
DRAGON: Against Monk Tower, Hand to Hand Togashi Acolyte, and never initiate a Fire Conflict in order to make their Mantra of Fire dead. The deck does not care too much about the Conflict Deck, so facing Restoration of Balance, Upholding Authority and some other discard effects is not that big a deal.
LION: Against honor strategies, bid low. The deck plays mostly from the Province anyway. Against tower strategies, focus on playing Hand to Hand on Unicorn attachments. Against swarm, the hope is to generate more fate on bodies than the opponent, in order to eventually amass a bigger army.
PHOENIX: Always assume the facedown province is Sanpuku Seido.
SCORPION: Good luck with that... At least Stoke the Revolution won't hit major threats from our Provinces. Try to keep the cards revealed to play around it. Am running Fearless Skirmisher to at least try moving their dishonor counters around.
UNICORN: Always assume the deck is splashing Scorpion for Forgery, so be wary of playing Feeding an Army or banking it all in For Greater Glory. Declare conflicts often and use Kitsu Motso as a way to keep Tetsuko from attacking.
Shoshi ni Kie is gimmicky. There's only one on-reveal effect in my provinces, and I don't like the idea of telling them where a safe province to attack is. Also, once all my provinces are revealed, it becomes a card I can't play for the rest of the game, which is doubly bad for me since I have both Command Respect and Three Trees. Levy may have slightly less potential for game impact, but it has zero liability.
- How has Gaze been working for you so far?
- With water role and spectral, don't you find yourself wanting to play Soshi ni Kie? I guess it depends on how good Levy actually is. It can sometimes be crazy with courtyard but I'm still [continue reading] not sold on it.
My idea is: try to limit how much damage we take with Waning Hostilities for the first turn, possibly the first 2. Get as many bodies ou [continue reading]t as we can using Ikoma Message Runner, Akodo Gunso and Staging Ground. Use For Greater Glory to keep them on the board. Ignore defense, just try to break at least one province per turn. Once we have two down we hope to start the conflict phase and use Ivory Kingdoms Unicorn to take out the last province and the stronghold.
Of course it's never gone that way but it's till produced some enjoyable games so far. Sometimes Captive Audience is used defensively hang on a bit longer and hope our swarm will eventually win.
Most kill cards want you dishonoured firs [continue reading]t. A lot of the mid and late game stat bumps are from dynasty so adherent is used only when needed also he has 4 mil for way of the lion. Also a lot of the peeps have 2 glory so once honoured it can give you +2 +2 and with the straighten in the deck you could more then one use of that stat buff a round at the right time vs the right decks it is worth it.
Master tac is a bit outside what you want for the deck cost wise, you could use him instead of the Honoured General as a SC target but I like the army wide buff late game.
You can also often get more honoured people the crane so no voice for them.
I guess skirmisher and adherent are there VS dishonor stuff? Adherent looks a bit odd as he draws card when you would actually like to choke your opponent so basically.. [continue reading]. Is honoring one dude worth 1 card for the opponent in this very deck?
Why not Gohei instead of Adherent?
I guess Master Tac is too expensive for this build?
How did you use the Reserve Company? Did you find it a good card?
The only thing I could pointed out is adherent. I'll play probably ikehata.
Seal of the Crab is a card to enable berserker payoffs however all you really need is Crisis Breaker to use that trigger on himself for the most part to be "good" - perhaps x1 Seal here would be fun, but that is x2 slots there for you to use, perhaps on a Fine Katana? The Core set attachments (Ornate Fan and Katana) are such great cards even today.
You have a very expensive curve here which can cause you to blow-out on fate/board state - there is so much bowing/removal in the game that it is very risky to play 4/5 cost characters all that often. Cards like Finger of Jade are around to offer some protection, or you specifically build around dropping expensive characters either by cheating them out (see guardians of rokugan) and maybe vanguard warrior to put fate on them before they leave? Shinsei's Last Hope might be a better province to use instead of Flooded Waste, as it lowers the cost of your characters also.
Have fun!