I Fight Dragons
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Hall of Honor
during @ Fantasy Flight Games Center - Minneapolis, MN
of 297 players during (Grand Kotei Gencon 2018) @ Indianapolis, IN
of 9 players during (Conflict Tournament @ the Guardtower in Columbus, OH - 9 participants) @ Columbus, OH
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Kyūden Isawa ● (3) ●
0 0 thumb_up 0 mode_comment 10 call_split 0 schedule 0 video_library
person 3 Adept of the Waves
person 3 Asako Tsuki
person 3 Ethereal Dreamer
person 1 Isawa Atsuko
person 3 Isawa Tadaka
person 2 Isawa Uona
person 3 Kudaka
person 3 Master of Gisei Toshi
person 3 Miya Mystic
person 3 Naive Student
person 3 Prodigy of the Waves
person 3 Solemn Scholar
attach_file 3 Cloud the Mind
attach_file 3 Embrace the Void
attach_file 3 Fine Katana
attach_file 3 Finger of Jade
attach_file 3 Ornate Fan
person 3 Feral Ningyo
person 3 Shrine Maiden
flash_on 3 Against the Waves
flash_on 3 Clarity of Purpose
flash_on 1 Consumed by Five Fires
flash_on 3 Court Games
flash_on 2 Display of Power
flash_on 1 Karmic Twist
flash_on 3 Let Go
flash_on 3 Supernatural Storm
Kyūden Isawa ● (8) ● ● Balanced ● Blitz Tempo ● Tempo
1 16 thumb_up 13 mode_comment 61 call_split 0 schedule 1 video_library
person 3 Adept of the Waves
person 3 Asako Tsuki
person 1 Isawa Atsuko
person 3 Isawa Tadaka
person 3 Isawa Uona
person 3 Keeper Initiate
person 3 Kudaka
person 2 Master of Gisei Toshi
person 3 Miya Mystic
person 3 Naive Student
person 3 Prodigy of the Waves
person 3 Solemn Scholar
attach_file 3 Cloud the Mind
attach_file 3 Fine Katana
attach_file 2 Hawk Tattoo
attach_file 3 Ornate Fan
person 3 Feral Ningyo
person 3 Shrine Maiden
flash_on 3 Against the Waves
flash_on 2 Banzai!
flash_on 1 Benten's Touch
flash_on 1 Censure
flash_on 3 Clarity of Purpose
flash_on 3 Court Games
flash_on 1 Display of Power
flash_on 3 Hurricane Punch
flash_on 3 Let Go
flash_on 3 Supernatural Storm
schedule Recent Session Reports
video_library Recent Videos
Title
Date
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Grand Kotei Gencon 2018 - 2nd Place Phoenix Deck Tech
10 months ago
Date: 10 months ago
Recorded By: Travis McDaniel
Description
Detailed deck breakdown and explanation of general strategy.
Detailed deck breakdown and explanation of general strategy.
comment Recent Card Comments
comment Recent Deck Comments
This card is very similar to Artisan Academy, but costs a conflict card that is repeatable on its own instead of a Dynasty slot, which is better. Unfortunately, it's also worse as the card is only face-up for the conflict you use th [continue reading]e action in, meaning it's more likely to miss if you see a Banzai in a political conflict, or a Court Games in a military one. Ultimately, this card seems mediocre.
One of the better magistrates, as there is rarely a time that some of your opponent's characters all have some fate on them. She works really well with Mono no Aware or (stifling laugh) Consumed by Five Fires, to surprise turn off m [continue reading]ost of the board and also cycle a card. She is in a very competitive card slot for Crane, so it's up to your playstyle how much play she sees
.
This card is great on it's own, being a pay 1 to draw 2 in nearly all cases; but when combined with Yoshi to become 0 cost, this card goes through the roof in value. You can even play multiple in one turn to draw a ton of cards, cem [continue reading]enting crane as the defacto card advantage faction.
This card is an interesting alternative to Steward of Law. The effect is stronger, and a blanket effect for the round that only effects your guys instead of both sides; however, it's not a courtier and doesn't combo as nicely with F [continue reading]or Shame, so ultimately I think it's slightly worse than Steward of Law. The shinobi trait is very interesting, at least.
This card received a lot of hate early on for not being Guest of Honor, but another Crane Shugenja helps them run Cloud the Mind, which is a big card in the meta. This guy is a pretty solid 4 coster who works well with the Storytell [continue reading]er and also helps keep Voice of Honor and Noble Sacrifice online.
A very solid card that has a duel use of claiming the favor or allowing you to be aggressive and then stand up for the counter-attack if you are first player. Since taking the favor is key for Yoshi, I expect this card to be in deck [continue reading]s that run him.
Shizue is a very solid 2 cost character for the favor based Crane deck. You can kinda view her as a soft +1 glory towards the imperial favor until you lose it, and in the meantime you have an extra body should you use it. Crane have [continue reading] so many good 2 drops now that I don't really mind her getting assassinated.
This is a terrible holding. For starters, if it shows up on a broken province then you completely lost a Dynasty draw for no effect. For closers, it's just not that powerful of an effect and if your opponent can't deal with it, they [continue reading] just attack somewhere else.
Yoshi packs great stats and an awesome ability, if you can reliably claim the favor. Thanks to Crane's generally aggressive nature, strong tempo game, and support of cards like Doji Shizue and Curry Favor, Crane is very capable of c [continue reading]onsistently being on the emperor's good side. He has one less military than Hotaru, but he brings the courtier and imperial traits and a way more powerful ability.
Same stat line as honored blade with a less reliable trigger for the honor gain, for now. This cards stock goes up as we get a legit dueling deck someday, but until then it's probably a pass.
More solid 2 cost cards for Crane. This card requires a little investment both to buff it up and to pay the fate for the ability; but the payoff is quite good. With him just being honored and no addition investment he's a 3 politica [continue reading]l and 4 military with his ability. Just make sure you have a cancel ready for the inevitable Assassination coming this card's way.
This is a solid defensive card that is great for secondary win condition decks that usually have inevitability should the game go long enough. It doesn't help you win conflicts, only prevent breaks, but that is enough for this to be [continue reading] a solid card that finds a home in some decks.
With how tight the Crane conflict deck is right now, I have a hard time seeing this fit into a slot unless a dedicated dueling deck comes out that requires the duelist trait. There are no cards that rely on the duelist trait besides [continue reading] Test of Skill. It does make Test of Skill a bit more consistent but that's not enough to bring this card out of the binder.
Could easily replace Asami in most tempo builds, as this is a fantastic card for feinting attacks or forcing cards out of your opponent. Combined alongside Doji Challenger, Crane seems to have a large number of outmaneuvering effect [continue reading]s in their repertoire. It's really sad that Crane seem to do what Unicorn want to do, but better.
This card has a lot going on. Noble Sacrifice is one of 4 Conflict cards that directly removes characters from play, making it a very powerful effect when set up properly. Many a game has Noble Sacrifice won me a huge swing in tempo [continue reading] because I managed to trade my Brash Samurai for a clan champion. On the same token, for every time this card has been huge for me, there has been another time it sat in hand and I wished it was something more immediately impactful without set up. Crane can have a harder time landing a targeted Dishonor outside of the Fire ring, and sometimes your honor effects don't line up well enough to pull it off; still, a potentially very powerful card that one would be wise to remember when playing against Crane.
Bow effects are certainly powerful, and Admit Defeat is certainly a card that when it triggers will single handedly win you the conflict. The threat of this card means your opponent should strongly consider defending with two guys e [continue reading]very time you attack them, which is nice passive value. This card can be difficult to trigger once board states get wider, but will win you plenty of early to mid-game conflicts.
Way of the Crane gets my vote for best 'Way of' card out of the core set. With Crane's mid-high glory values and focus on having lots of characters with honored status, Way of the Crane will likely be a full playset in every Crane d [continue reading]eck for quite a while.
Events are plentiful, so any semi-reliable event cancel is going to be stellar for now. The main drawback to Voice of Honor is that sometimes it sits in your hand because you can't quite meet the pre-requisite condition to play it. [continue reading]Once you get there, though, this card is straight fire, and a staple crane card.
This card is not as impactful right now and unless we see a Crane deck in the future that looks for very specific pieces as quickly as possible, the drawback of giving your opponent a card (which already conflict decks are packed wi [continue reading]th very generally impactful cards) feels like too much to really warrant this include. Definitely keep an eye on this one, though.
In a vacuum, Height of Fashion isn't that bad of a card. Paying 2 for 4 political is actually pretty solid over multiple turns. The reason this card gets such a low rating from me is the amount of loss when the card gets controlled [continue reading]by attachment hate or the character is bowed by something else. With those cards around, Height of Fashion is almost too much of a liability but expect its stock to improve when attachment hate is less ubiquitous.
This card is amazing on a character with mid to high (4+ military). Basically, you pay 1 and get a fairly reliably repeatable bow action on the character. That said, this card really shines outside of Crane in factions like Lion and [continue reading] Dragon who can get their military to ludicrously high levels and basically bow anybody. Very solid.
This attachment does a lot of work in certain match-ups. Stopping harmful events like For Shame, Assassination, Rout, Outwit, Way of the Scorpion, and Mirumoto's Fury is well worth the cost considering how common those cards are acr [continue reading]oss many decks. That said, 1 feels like a fair price and there's enough attachment hate and other powerful non-event effects floating around that this isn't always a surefire answer to protect your guy.
Political Rival looks very powerful on paper. A 3 Political with Covert or 6 Political on Defense are both very valuable for 3 fate. No matter how you slice it, this card is a bomb to drop on the board and one of the best options fo [continue reading]r an expensive conflict character.
Steward of Law is a solid conflict character for cheap. His effect combos nicely for For Shame! and is a nice soft counter to some of Scorpion's better tricks. With Scorpion looking to be a popular pick, this is a very good thing to [continue reading] have in faction. Be wary sending him into defend Shameful Display or the Art of Peace, as he will prevent the dishonoring of your opponent's characters.
As far as holdings go, this is lukewarm at best. Some of the crane cards are decently situational and can end up just sitting on top of your deck for the entire phase. If you don't end up using the card you flip, you've actually ben [continue reading]efited your opponent because they now know a card you drew in the next turn. Extra cards are good, but Artisan Academy isn't quite as good as other clan holdings that generate economy.
Hotaru has a really powerful effect, but it's actually on the weaker end of clan champions overall, I think. The recent ruling for her ability on defense hurt her a little bit in this regard, but she's still a truck on offense and s [continue reading]till a great card overall. You also can basically consider her a 6/9 most of the time due to the extra honoring effects Crane seem to get and that is just a fantastic, beefy statline.
Guest of Honor is absolutely fantastic, which one of the most powerful static effects out there. Almost every conflict deck (sans Dragon) is probably over 50-60% events, so she pretty much turns off all of the best conflict effects [continue reading]for your opponent if she happens to show up. I've won several games off the back of this ability, as it gives you a ton of insurance on final pushes for the win.
The Asahina Storyteller is probably the most feast or famine card in the core set. I've had times where he draws me 4-5 cards and other times he's just a heavy 4 coster that cycles. If Crane sees more honor effects, which they very [continue reading]well could, this guy gets insane pretty quick. The consistency isn't quite there for him to steal the show yet.
I really like Kaezin. His ability is very flexible, allowing you to retreat after your opponent over commits to a conflict, or narrow down a wide board if you tron him up even a little bit. These are some niche cases, however, and s [continue reading]ometimes he ends up being a 3/2/2 unique for 3, which makes me rate him as average overall among his cost point.
Asami doesn't make waves on the board, but triggering her multiple turns in a row does have a tangible effect on the game as a whole. Honoring out isn't really a consistent strategy right now, so she's mostly just dishonor pressure [continue reading]right now which is solid. I expect she'll have strong seat in a control crane deck somewhere down the line. Being unique helps her case a bit for now.