Well, it is restricted for a reason. This card is dirt cheap to play. Even without any shenanigans, this lets you play with a higher income per turn, allowing you to deploy another body down the line. The only requirements are that you play with enou [continue reading]gh shugenja, and that you plan to play a 3+ cost character with 3 fate or more, preferably.

The aforementioned shenanigans is the card Consumed by five fires. You can attach this on your opponent and blast their fate away, gaining all the fate from the character that had the embrace the void. Another example is Student of Esoterica, a character that you can spend fate from to pay for spell cards. Embrace the void will refund the fate that you are spending from the student.

The final way of using this is on a 2 drop. Many 2 drops in the game are excellent cards, all hampered by the existence of Assassination. Embrace the void lets you get away with buying a Asako Tsuki with three fate. If you get assassinated, you will have at least recoup that fate on Tsuki. Still, be wary of Let Go into Assassination!

Magnificent Kimono quickly fell out of favor even during core set days, because this card has "risky" written all over it. And to be fair, if you're marginally winning a conflict, this card is raising the stakes. Even so, this is by far the best card [continue reading] with the pride keyword in the game. You get to decide when to use this after all.

There are a couple of ways how you can mitigate or avert the risk altogether. The first option is to play this on your character that already became dishonored, in which case this is pure upside. The second option is to play this on a character that participates in multiple conflicts, like Prodigy of the waves or a Chikai Order Protector. These characters are commonly getting dishonored as the preferred solution to them anyway. The third option is to play this when you are running into your opponent's province with an on-break ability like Upholding Authority or when you are running into a Display of Power. In those cases you're at least getting some equity from the exchange beyond a broken province.

Now, with Bonds of Blood, this card has a bit of extra life added to it in the shape of Conflict Isawa Tadaka. It is very easy to find a board state where you can play Isawa Tadaka and find a conflict that he will win. This card very obviously synergizes with that situation, too.

Note that all of the above assumes that you are running Isawa Mori Seido.

Pacifism has a couple of extra uses beyond the obvious one of handicapping that militarily-slanted character: You can use it as pseudo-covert in case your opponent is keeping back a powerful character like Toshimoko or Ujiaki for a critical defense. [continue reading]The second use is with Kuroi Mori. You put this on any big character, and you can switch back to military with kuroi mori to send them home bowed. This card excels against any deck that attempts to lean heavily on one or two characters.

One addition: This can also be used to make someone a Phoenix character. This isn't particularly useful in most cases, since the cards this enables is a Benten's Touch which requires a Phoenix shugenja. The one other use case is to import a champion [continue reading]into Phoenix. Slap this on the neutral Akodo Toturi, and you have an extra phoenix champion, capable of bearing and using Ofushikai. One reminder: If they let go the seal from Toturi, and it was the only seal, then Toturi will discard Ofushikai as he is no longer an eligible target.

rate_review Card Review: Rated: : 5
This is a contender for the best courtier in the game. It is easily the best courtier that Phoenix has, and they're no slouch with the likes of Asako Diplomat, Naive Student, Radiant Orator and Meddling Mediator. With the Isawa Mori [continue reading] Seido stronghold, this is a 2/6 in most cases. It gets even better when there is a character with higher base political like a Fearsome Mystic or even Fushicho.

There are other contenders as well, of course, but this one has the compromise of a relative low cost for 6 and upwards of political strength. Its strength is that it wins conflicts like no other for that price. When you play this character, you want to focus on grabbing a fire ring with this and get it honored if the situation presents itself. A 4/8 or 6/10 is not something most decks can deal with without spending several cards and/or fate.
Thinking about support, Maezawa is great all by himself. You don't need anything to help him, though I would recommend running a couple of Magnificent Kimonos. It is easy to get these to work in your favor. If there is any other card that you want to put in there as support, it would be Clarity of Purpose, so that you can project his power twice.

rate_review Card Review: Rated: : 4
The rating applies only when playing this in the Isawa Mori Seido stronghold. Without it, it hits about 20% of all characters (i.e. the proportion of characters with 0 glory), and 94% of all characters during air conflicts. With Isa [continue reading]wa Mori Seido's bonus, she hits 94% of all characters, and 100% during air. Note that the overall percentage isn't really representative of the characters you see in the game itself. Some clans prefer 0 glory across the board, whereas others will hover around 1.6 glory per character.

In IMS, Fearsome mystic is a house of a card. Dishonoring her doesn't hurt much with her 1 glory, so you do want to confront her with characters or with remote bow or send home effects. These latter two are few and far between, plus bow isn't all that useful considering that against the waves won't be far behind. This makes fearsome mystic an excellent attacker, because blocking her is painful. When she gets honored, you can also just throw 7 to 9 skill into an air conflict, which is clan champion levels.

Generally, you will want to attack with her on the void ring if there aren't many characters without fate on them on the opposing side. If you put her in your deck, it is a good idea to also run favorable grounds so that you can throw her into whichever challenge has the best target.

In the near future, when Isawa Ujina enters the card pool, she will be even better at pursuing the void ring and demand her prize.

rate_review Card Review: Rated: : 2.75
This card is a far cry from some of the other "way of..." cards, but it has its uses. Your main mode for this card should be setting up the scenario where a ring accumulates two fate and denying that your opponent gets to take it [continue reading] so that you can capitalize on this ring the next round and take up 3 fate (or 2 if you need it during the next dynasty phase). The second mode is to deny the ring that your opponent needs to trigger keeper initiates, or a ring effect that hurts the current board state way too much. A niche application is that you can deny the HMT players from declaring a fifth conflict.

Overall, an unexciting card since it does nothing during a conflict, which is the type of card you can't run in significant numbers. That said, if your deck is very fate-hungry, consider playing this as a singleton together with other "gain fate" phoenix cards like Embrace the void and Path of man.

rate_review Card Review: Rated: : 4
There's a good reason why this has a lot of influence printed on it. This card is magnificent and pretty easy to pull off. It is especially nice how you can play all of them in your hand in one conflict where you end up over-defendi [continue reading]ng or breaking a province.

rate_review Card Review: Rated: : 4
Worse than Bayushi Liar, but still great. Most useful in contesting the imperial favor. Also strong if you can get him honored with Asako Tsuki. Good traits, nice cost, good ability.

A couple of suggestions:
- Add Naive Student instead of Fire Tensai Initiate.
- Find room for Ethereal dreamer (I suggest getting rid off Chukan Nobue).
- This kind of deck should play Magnificent Kimono.
- Don't run Midnight [continue reading]revels in a list where you want Shiba Tsukune or some other big value character in play for many turns.
- Play the third Clarity of Purpose.

I do not like Magnificent Lighthouse by itself, and think you could run Forgotten libraries over it. Or even just run the imperial palace over one of them.

I also don't think you should be running 2 displays of power in your always-defend Chikai Order Protector list. :)

It might be preferable to run more shugenja to keep those cloud the mind playable, or otherwise replace them with something else, like pacifism. Note that you probably should run against the waves as support for Isawa Tadaka anyway.

Neat idea. I wonder if Policy debate is the right choice here. It is a good card, but you want specifically Maezawa and other political powerhouses do the talking without having to commit a card first. How has it been working out for you?

[continue reading]> Also, with all that glory, have you considered playing the emperor? Thoughts about keeper initiates?

@RoninRosko, the Illustrious forge is indeed not going to give me a great hit all the time. Despite this, I think it significantly increases the likelihood that I find one of the unicorn attachments, which is enough for me. Consistency is key here. I [continue reading] don't feel like Meditation on the Tao is where I want to be nowadays, especially as I have other ways to get that effect. Vassal Fields has proven better, and so it has been one of my favourite provinces to redirect into/out of.

I believe you are right about that. I'll look into playing one. Subdue the spirits sounds great in this deck. I could very well play that over the second Benten's Touch.

Thank you for the kind words.

I had been thinking about the ningyos and had removed them at some point. The thing is that I am doing a lot that involves the water ring with Tsuki and Prodigy of the waves, and it's nice to have free defe [continue reading]nders in case my opponent wants to nab the fate on the water ring. I am also a little worried that I could get a bad flip with nothing to play, and playing a Ningyo might not be ideal, but it is good to have the option. I am always trying to get Ikoma Reservist in the deck, but if I'd do that, I would be leaning on the water ring even harder.

I do like the suggestion of Asako Diplomat, and have considered running that instead of the Asako Tsuki. My belief is that Tsuki is still better, especially with the Henshin Disciples in here. I don't particularly want to run more 2 drops however. Because of how risky they are against assassinate, I try to limit the number of 2 drops in here, especially as alternatives at 1 or 3 fate are available.

Clarity of Purpose is a good card, and I want to fit one in somewhere. That said, I don't really like this on my bushi. Being unable to bow means that For Shame will dishonor me. I do think they can have a space, but I'd start cutting some of those ready for battles for other ways to keep my bushi honored. As it stands I like playing Clarity of Purpose on Fearsome mystic or Ujina when they are on the offensive, but if I'd use it on those, I think against the waves is enough support.

Now, if I were to remove the ningyo and find room for Clarity of purpose and Asako Diplomat, I believe that would be an excellent deck. I would however then pivot the focus of this deck away from the characters that need claimed rings, and replace those with courtiers. Radiant Orator, Maezawa and even the sage of gisei toshi would be excellent candidates for that list. I would start playing Chikai Order Protector as well instead of the prodigy of the waves. It'd be an interesting idea, but at that point I am changing so much that it will play in quite a different way.

Commonly, my opponents that play let go are sandbagging one of them to ensure that cloud the mind doesn't get their crucial character. Many opponents also snap off a let go on an embrace the void or a timely ornate fan. So, their let go is slightly o [continue reading]verworked.

Other than that, I will occasionally take let go with policy debate or find it with magnificent lighthouse and bin it/steal with infiltrator. Another common occurrence is that I pressure my opponent's hand to such a degree that the earth ring is burning their last few cards, which happen to be let go.

Even so, while infiltrator is a very fun and surprisingly potent card, I do not feel it as a necessity to protect it. This list can win without ever resolving one of them. On the other hand, policy debate will make it an informed choice on whether the infiltrator will stick.