[L5R] Who prevailed at GenCon...?
JAPE
By now, the final battle for Rokugan should be over at GenCon. Anyone know
which clan prevailed, and who ascended the Emerald Throne?
Togashi Jape-san
Dragon Clan Cartoonist
Art Martella
JAPE wrote:
>
> By now, the final battle for Rokugan should be over at GenCon. Anyone know
> which clan prevailed, and who ascended the Emerald Throne?
As I understand it, a Lion speed deck (yaaaaaaaaaawn) won the Day of
Thunder, and Emperor Toturi the First grabbed Kachiko and said, "Hail to
the King, baby." Or something like that. Everyone else in Rokugan died.
Film at Eleven.
Kakita Martella
Crane Clan Thunder (or a remarkable soy substitute)
ulairi
In article <5sli33$nnn$1...@apocalypse.dmi.stevens-tech.edu>,
{snorts in derision} I know Toturi survived, but every one else dying?
Come on. Who's going to lead the remaining clans? I'm sure we'll have
Doji Kuwanan as the Crane Champion, for instance. I won't say that the
losses were likely staggering, but SOME have to survive. I'm thinking of
Kuwanan, Osugi, Kisada, Toshimoko, Akiyoshi, Tsukune...
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Art Martella wrote:
>
> JAPE wrote:
> >
> > By now, the final battle for Rokugan should be over at GenCon. Anyone know
> > which clan prevailed, and who ascended the Emerald Throne?
>
> As I understand it, a Lion speed deck (yaaaaaaaaaawn) won the Day of
> Thunder, and Emperor Toturi the First grabbed Kachiko and said, "Hail to
> the King, baby." Or something like that. Everyone else in Rokugan died.
> Film at Eleven.
>
<WARNING! MANY THINGS IN HERE YOU MAY NOT WISH TO KNOW ABOUT TIME OF THE
VOID AND GENCON!!! SPOILER ALERT!>
Close enough...
The final four were a Corrupt Phoenix deck (Secretly allied with Junzo),
a Crane Honor deck, and two Lion Speed decks.
I've never hid my distaste for Lion, and *REALLY* didn't hide my
annoyance at the Tourney...
But anyway... the two Lions played each other, and the other two did.
The Crane deck beat the bejeezus out of the Phoenix, and one of the
Lions eventually prevailed.
THE FINAL ROUND...
------------------
Crane vs. Lion... The Emperor's left hand vs. his right...
Unfortunately for Crane (who, believe it or not, I was rooting for...
Me, a Scorpion...) he got two Shrines of Shinsei out fairly quickly...
And then got Return of Fu Leng/Desperate Measured...
No more personalities... DOOM!
And the first turn Doom of the Lion didn't help either.
And thus it ended, the Lion beating the Crane, and long live Emperor
Toturi I... (For now...)
Poor Hoturi, he bit it in the end... But the COOLEST rumor out there
that John Wick (Coolest man in Rogukan) mentioned was that if Junzo or
Scorpion would have won, we would have learned that The False Hoturi
actually won that duel way back when and it really *WAS* all just a plot
by Kachiko... (And the Ancestral Sword of the Crane would have lopped
off Toturi's head)
Speaking of John Wick, he had 20 minutes to make up a new ending,
because the two finalists said they wanted to kill Fu Leng together.
Other incredibly cool things:
THE NAGA!
First round, two naga players were forced to go against one another...
They refused to fight, saying that civil war is a human thing and that
naga are above such frailties (And boy do they get a huge boost in TotV!
The Naga are *COOL* now!) so whoever had more force on turn six would be
declared the winner.
They are SO cool... Watch for "Naga Alliance", a rumored card to spring
from that event.
TotV splinter clans:
Sorry Crab, you've got a *STUPID* ability. No Shadowlands. -4 Gold
cost for fortifications... Stick to your old box, your new box is
simply an event...
Phoenix splinter: SICK SICK SICK... Bow to go get a kiho ala monks with
rings... Now, you're all probably saying "Oh, kiho aren't all THAT
bad..."
<INSERT MANIACAL LAUGHTER>
You ain't seen nothing yet... In TotV there are some insane Kiho...
"Rest, my brother" kills a personality with shadowlands that didn't
originally have it (Can you say Stale Wind or Touch of Dispair, boys and
girls? Instant Touch of Death!) or "Unattuned", which gives a Chi
penalty equal to the focus value of a spell just cast to the shugenja
that cast it until end of turn (So long, Wasting Disease!)
Overall, TotV is an incredible expansion... Those I've listed so far
were cool, but there is one card that literally blew my mind...
Bayushi Kachiko, Scorpion Clan Thunder...
Honor: It's not just for Ninja Spies anymore...
I'll leave the rest of her a mystery for now... but I'll give up this
tidbit: She's no longer a seductress.
BACK TO THE DAY OF THUNDER:
I hate Lion. I apologize to anyone who plays Lion out there and has an
original deck, but the rest of your clanmates have given you a bad
name... What skill is needed to make a deck that is virtually a carbon
copy of thousands of others?
NOTE: The deck that actually won supposedly *ISN'T* a "pure" Lion speed
deck. Good. That's nice. But it sure looked like a generic LSD from
the sidelines.
<Expecting much violent reprisal>
Anyway, I'm obviously somewhat disappointed to learn that the best deck
to play in L5R requires little thought to put together. I was hoping
that at least Crane or Phoenix would win (The Crane deck was a
masterpiece of defence, and well, Phoenix was gonna turn to the dark
side - he was wearing a Junzo shirt underneath the Phoenix clan shirt)
-SPEAKING OF WHICH!-
Chaosium was offering a "lot of Cthulu stuff" to anyone who switched
alliegance to Scorpion in the final rounds... Cool, eh? Kolat
Master...
Anyway, look on the bright side:
Even if Lion's on the throne, it is not always he who sits on the throne
that rules, but sometimes she who stand behind it.
Go Kachiko!
Bayushi Murai
Expecting a lot of hate mail
Matthew M. Colville
One of the problems I have with L5R is that the different clans aren't
evenly matched. Going into the tourney, a lot of people on this newsgroup
expected it to be Crane and Lion in the end. This, to me, speaks of bad
game design. If I can predict, with reasonable accuracy, who is going to
win based soley on thier choice in decks, then there's a problem.
Also, there aren't many different things you can reasonably do with each
clan. It is both the case that if I want to win by honor, it would be
foolish of me to play anything but Crane. Likewise, if I'm playing Crane
and I want to win, it would be foolish to attempt a military or
enlightenment victory.
I don't mind different clans specializing in different methods of
winning. I mind the fact that a good Crane honor deck is more likely to
win than a good Naga military deck. If each clan is doing thier thing,
that should merely make them as likely to win as the other clans, doing
thier thing.
That's just me though. I like game balance.
--
Matthew M. Colville Armed only with wisdom
Role-Playing & Fiction The Shintao monks fight
against the darkness. . .
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolville
mathieu lupien
Greetings,
Matthew M. Colville wrote:
> One of the problems I have with L5R is that the different clans aren't
> evenly matched. Going into the tourney, a lot of people on this newsgroup
> expected it to be Crane and Lion in the end. This, to me, speaks of bad
> game design. If I can predict, with reasonable accuracy, who is going to
> win based soley on thier choice in decks, then there's a problem.
But this is a problem that at least partly perceptual. Once people start
winning with a particular clan, people *perceive* Clan X as being stronger, and
so more play it, leading to a snowball effect. As more people play a given clan,
sheer dint of numbers leads to them being more likely to win a tournament. For
instance, Lion went into Day of Thunder with more players than any other clan.
If you eliminated players completely at random, you would be more likely to end
up with Lions.
> That's just me though. I like game balance.
So do I. But there's much "metagaming" involved than your post suggests in
deciding which Clans are popular. I also like the fact that the balance of power
can shift (and boy, there are going to be some *HUGE* power shifts after Time of
the Void is in general circulation).
Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar
Terry L. Madden
Greetings,
> I hate Lion. I apologize to anyone who plays Lion out there and has an
> original deck, but the rest of your clanmates have given you a bad
> name... What skill is needed to make a deck that is virtually a carbon
> copy of thousands of others?
> Anyway, I'm obviously somewhat disappointed to learn that the best deck
> to play in L5R requires little thought to put together. I was hoping
> that at least Crane or Phoenix would win (The Crane deck was a
> masterpiece of defence, and well, Phoenix was gonna turn to the dark
> side - he was wearing a Junzo shirt underneath the Phoenix clan shirt)
>
I agree . . I mean . .UNFORTUNATELY that is what tourneys turn into . .
big copies of only a few deck archetypes . .
I have seen the LION speed deck since the days of imperial . . and when
my friend who was in the tourny put his together at GenCon he REALLY
didn't need to go delving into the expansions much (he should have used
Return of Fu Leng instead of Evil Feeds . .) . . I thought the Crane and
Phoenix decks were the most fun to play . .
The Junzo decks were all carbon copies taking FULL advantage of their
CHEESY ability to ignore the PENALTY of a lot of powerful cards (Hello!
4 holdings (now up to 7 not including Merchant caravan or small farm)
that produce gold for 0 cost and NO penalty!!!)
I am glad to see them NOT make it NEAR the finals!
The Naga decks I didn't see .. . but they take some GUTS and Creativity
to play in a tourney with what everyone considers a weak clan . .Same
goes for the Mantis and Monks and even toturi's army to a point.
The game is great and tourneys are fun (as was the Day of Thunder, even
though I got my #ss handed to me by Junzo and Scorps). .but I don't want
to see it turn into the GREEDY, COMPETIVE mess they call Magic(tm)
nowadays. .
When someone who plays Phoenix is secretively aligning with Junzo and
when the TWO final players AGREE to work together to finish the
storyline and when a Naga vs Naga matchup MIGHT turn into a future card
. . NOW THAT IS A GAME!.
PLEASE FRPG . . DO NOT HAVE PRO TOURS LIKE M:tG!! They ruin the game . .
everything in magic is no longer for fun, but for competiveness and
money. Every new card that comes out is supposed to help make "killer"
decks . . all rules are CONSTANTLY changed to "Promote fairness" on the
tourney scene.
Do we L5R players want that? I remember a tourney in Magic where I was
playing and I forgot to pay the cost of one of my cards during upkeep .
.well the SECOND I touched my deck to draw a card I was told . . "Your
card is buried" . . I am like . . oh I forgot to pay that . . Here let
me go back. . and I was immediately told NO . . too bad and a judge
backed this up!! "IT IS JUST A GAME . .SUPPOSEDLY Designed to have FUN!"
So let's see some ORIGINAL decks . . Let's see people play the
"storyline" clans . .
Let's hope that the POWER cards (and there DOES seem to be a lot of
them) from ToV does not spoil the game . .
Terry Madden
Crane Clan Maddman
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
> TotV splinter clans:
>
> Sorry Crab, you've got a *STUPID* ability. [snip] Stick to your old box,
> your new box is simply an event...
I think you're seriously underestimating its possibilities. I think
the new stronghold will make "good guy" Crab decks much, much faster and
much more aggressive than they currently are. But we'll see how it
plays.
> Anyway, I'm obviously somewhat disappointed to learn that the best deck
> to play in L5R requires little thought to put together.
Saying Lion is "the best deck to play in L5R" is a PROFOUND
overstatement. Sound to me like you're equating "winning Day of Thunder"
with "best deck." Lion went in with more players than anyone else.
Them's good odds.
mickel ernst knight
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, Zen Faulkes wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
>
> > TotV splinter clans:
> >
> > Sorry Crab, you've got a *STUPID* ability. [snip] Stick to your old box,
> > your new box is simply an event...
>
> I think you're seriously underestimating its possibilities. I think
> the new stronghold will make "good guy" Crab decks much, much faster and
> much more aggressive than they currently are. But we'll see how it
> plays.
Whoah! Gotta jump in on this one. We extensively playtested the new
crab stronhold because it was the one our group was pushing for. Let me
say that reducing the cost of fortifications by 4G is anything but
stupid! Put some decks together and see if fortifications don't become
useful when they just kinda fall into play. We were actually worried
about this stronghold becoming the platform for NPD and honor decks.
> > Anyway, I'm obviously somewhat disappointed to learn that the best deck
> > to play in L5R requires little thought to put together.
>
> Saying Lion is "the best deck to play in L5R" is a PROFOUND
> overstatement. Sound to me like you're equating "winning Day of Thunder"
> with "best deck." Lion went in with more players than anyone else.
> Them's good odds.
I'd put Lion down around 4th. Crane and Phoenix are more powerful IMO
and I'd put Unicorn ahead of them too (but that's debatable).
- Mickel Knight
Kachiko-no-Saji
>In article <5sli33$nnn$1...@apocalypse.dmi.stevens-tech.edu>,
> Art Martella <"amartell@"@stevens-tech.edu> wrote:
>
>> Thunder, and Emperor Toturi the First grabbed Kachiko and said, "Hail to
>> the King, baby." Or something like that. Everyone else in Rokugan died.
>> Film at Eleven.
ALL?!? Hmmh, I doubt we'll see all get the chop (though it might be worth it
to see the Wuss-Boy Hoturi take a dive (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)). I should
imagine there will be quite a mess of bodies though (if only onew clan is
going across to buring sands then it seems a good excuse for a bloodbath
^_^).
K-n-S
--
The University of Sheffield
School of Japanese Language, History and Culture.
D.J.A...@Sheffield.ac.uk
Kachiko-hime-dono wa, Rokugan no teikoku no Youjinbo
ni natta ga Taihen na kikyou mada aru zo!
NO! I am *NOT* Adam Warren!!!!!
"Torenai buta wa tada no buta da!!"
Co-founder: Animeday. Writer, critic, Anime DemiGod!
Jasper Phillips
In article <33F093...@cyberwar.com>,
Michael D. Muray P.A. <md...@cyberwar.com> wrote:
>mickel ernst knight wrote:
>>
>> Whoah! Gotta jump in on this one. We extensively playtested the new
>> crab stronhold because it was the one our group was pushing for. Let me
>> say that reducing the cost of fortifications by 4G is anything but
>> stupid! Put some decks together and see if fortifications don't become
>> useful when they just kinda fall into play. We were actually worried
>> about this stronghold becoming the platform for NPD and honor decks.
>>
>
>
>Fortifications are interesting. I'll give them that. But they are not
>worth not being able to bring in Shadowlands cards and losing 3 points
>of province strength. I know someone will say "Unscalable Walls", but
>hey, there's always Climbing Gear and anyway: You don't have those walls
>for the first few turns. Then when you do get them you're not getting
>something else, like a personality or money. I fear no fortification.
>It just annoys me temporarily, with battering rams, Alhundro Cornejo,
>and the crab guy running around.
These cards don't get widely used though, since they suck if your
opponent doesn't use forts (and most don't). The ability to bow
your stronghold for +3 province strength also isn't usefull early
in the game, since you're bowing for gold.
>Anyway, "Rebuilding the Kaiu Walls" is an event in TotV that does the
>exact same thing that the stronghold does. Sure, now they can bring out
>fortifications for 8 less gold... but most of them aren't THAT expensive
>to start with, especially with "Architects of the Wall", which any
>Fourtyfications deck should be playing with anyway...
Having to relly upon an event showing up (and taking a slot) is quite
a bit weaker than having the effect built into a stronghold, and
contrary to what someone else said (not you), the crab splinters
ability is quite a bit better than Architects of the Wall.
>I'm just saying that the Kaiu ability is rather... redundant. +3
>Defense is a lot stronger and more useful.
There is a certain advantage to an ability you don't have to bow
your stronghold for.
>> > Saying Lion is "the best deck to play in L5R" is a PROFOUND
>> > overstatement. Sound to me like you're equating "winning Day of Thunder"
>> > with "best deck." Lion went in with more players than anyone else.
>> > Them's good odds.
Lions not exactly weak either, although it's certainly the most boring
and easiest to build deck, IMHO.
>Bayushi Murai
>Still expecting more hate mail
-Iuchi Jasper
--
/\ Jasper Phillips (Pit Fiend) ______,....----,
/VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|==================="""""""""""" ___,..-'
`^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|======================----------""""""
\/ http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/
Michael D. Muray P.A.
mickel ernst knight wrote:
>
> Whoah! Gotta jump in on this one. We extensively playtested the new
> crab stronhold because it was the one our group was pushing for. Let me
> say that reducing the cost of fortifications by 4G is anything but
> stupid! Put some decks together and see if fortifications don't become
> useful when they just kinda fall into play. We were actually worried
> about this stronghold becoming the platform for NPD and honor decks.
>
Looks like Climbing Gear is gonna be going in the random Ninja decks...
Fortifications are interesting. I'll give them that. But they are not
worth not being able to bring in Shadowlands cards and losing 3 points
of province strength. I know someone will say "Unscalable Walls", but
hey, there's always Climbing Gear and anyway: You don't have those walls
for the first few turns. Then when you do get them you're not getting
something else, like a personality or money. I fear no fortification.
It just annoys me temporarily, with battering rams, Alhundro Cornejo,
and the crab guy running around.
Anyway, "Rebuilding the Kaiu Walls" is an event in TotV that does the
exact same thing that the stronghold does. Sure, now they can bring out
fortifications for 8 less gold... but most of them aren't THAT expensive
to start with, especially with "Architects of the Wall", which any
Fourtyfications deck should be playing with anyway...
I'm just saying that the Kaiu ability is rather... redundant. +3
Defense is a lot stronger and more useful.
> > Saying Lion is "the best deck to play in L5R" is a PROFOUND
> > overstatement. Sound to me like you're equating "winning Day of Thunder"
> > with "best deck." Lion went in with more players than anyone else.
> > Them's good odds.
Not that many more. Phoenix had more people left in the round of 8...
One of the whole points of the Day of Thunder was to see which is the
strongest clan...
> I'd put Lion down around 4th. Crane and Phoenix are more powerful IMO
> and I'd put Unicorn ahead of them too (but that's debatable).
Lion beat both Crane and Phoenix in the last two rounds... Of course,
Crane got a terrible draw...
I was, however, very glad to see the balance of power shifting around in
Time of the Void... Naga was boosted incredibly (Qamar is... well...
SCARY! And when he dies experienced Isha gets all his stuff! COOL!
Especially with those Ashamana sitting around... XP Dashmar is neat
too...)
and Scorpion got some cool personalities too, with Kachiko Thunder and
Experienced Shosuro Hametsu (This man is evil)...
Although the personality from TotV that I like the most isn't
experienced, or even Scorpion, but Phoenix: Isawa Suma...
Lion Speed isn't the only thing out there anymore...
Elliott Wong
mickel ernst knight wrote:
> Whoah! Gotta jump in on this one. We extensively playtested the new
> crab stronhold because it was the one our group was pushing for. Let me
> say that reducing the cost of fortifications by 4G is anything but
> stupid! Put some decks together and see if fortifications don't become
> useful when they just kinda fall into play. We were actually worried
> about this stronghold becoming the platform for NPD and honor decks.
That's what I'd use this box for. I already play NPD out of a Crab
box and I will *definitely* use more fortifications with the new SH.
Now, is this ability innate, that is, can I bow the SH for gold as well
as
use it's ability?
Thanks!
Elliott
Terry L. Madden
Zen Faulkes wrote:
> We can all do our best to set an example, and regardless of what
> happens, do our best to make sure that *players* get in those line ups
> for new cards, and not speculators.
>
Greetings,
All i can say is . .YES! Zen!
That is the spirit I want to continue with L5R!
I am one of those that STOOD in line a lot at GenCon to get those ToV
cards . . Not because they were cheap or rares or whatever . ..but
because I wanted to see them NOW! I wanted to see the storyline progress
. .I had more fun at that con swapping stories and cards in the ToV line
than most other stuff at the Con (maybe except the DAY OF THUNDER
itself!) My friends thought I was crazy standing in line for hours when
"the cards will be out in a few weeks". The excitement of getting them
early was worht the price
I really like the fact that L5R isn't a SPECULATING sport yet . . I mean
. .inheritance and the clan swords don't go for THAT much in comparison
to the MOXES or even some POWER rares from recent expansions.
I REALLY feel they should reprint the swords though . .they are a basic
part of the game ..EVERY clansman should have theirs. . make them
available for KOKU only (1 per person to stop speculators) make them
availabe again to Imperial Assembly members . .etc.
MAY the PLAYERS rule L5R . . not the Game shop owners and tourney
runners!!
Jeff W. Alexander
In article <33F094...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca>,
Zen Faulkes <zfau...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>Patrice Fortier (>) replied to Terry L. Madden (>>):
>
>>> I have seen the LION speed deck since the days of imperial...
>
> Historical note: As I recall it, Lion _circa_ Imperial Edition was
>universally regarded as ineffectual ("Hey! You can stop them *instantly*
>and for good with a first turn Breach of Etiquette!").
Disagree. The LSD was universally regarded as the top deck
design in Imperial around here since the *only* thing you could
do to stop it was a first-turn Breach.
> The Lion Speed
>Deck arose about a week after the release of Shadowlands (and my memory
>agrees with a conversation I had with Ryan Dancey about this over the
>weekend).
LSDs were around since before Shadowlands. Shadowlands just
gave them Matsu Chokoku and Defend Your Honor, which provided a
very nice defense against those Breaches.
__________________________________________
Jeff Alexander ( -= Legend of the Five Rings FAQ site =- (O
Phoenix Clan Scribe ) http://www.zzz.iipo.gtegsc.com/jwa/l5r )
(_________________________________________(O
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Trevor Stone wrote:
> That's why it's the splinter faction... My current Crab deck doesn't have
> Shadowlands, but it doesn't have any fortifications (though I may add some).
> It'd seem that the old one was more useful, but only to help card flow a little
> bit (now you can have 3 unscalable walls and do pretty much what the stronhold
> CAN do, and use its gold. Plus, one higher fam. honor for those cool Taka
> decks...)
>
I was always thinking that the Clan Champion would be part of the "real"
Clan...
And three unscalable walls are three slots in your dynasty deck. I know
that a lot of people don't worry about things like that, but when your
dynasty deck is 50 cards you look for things to cut.
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Battering Ram
Patrice Fortier
Terry L. Madden (tlma...@execpc.com) wrote:
: I have seen the LION speed deck since the days of imperial . . and when
: my friend who was in the tourny put his together at GenCon he REALLY
: didn't need to go delving into the expansions much (he should have used
: Return of Fu Leng instead of Evil Feeds . .) . . I thought the Crane and
: Phoenix decks were the most fun to play . .
hmmm... matter of taste.
I personnaly don't see much difference between a LSD and an exploding
Crane deck (for FUN I mean).
: The Junzo decks were all carbon copies taking FULL advantage of their
: CHEESY ability to ignore the PENALTY of a lot of powerful cards (Hello!
: 4 holdings (now up to 7 not including Merchant caravan or small farm)
: that produce gold for 0 cost and NO penalty!!!)
: I am glad to see them NOT make it NEAR the finals!
Typical crane sentence :)
And er... well... it's Junzo after all... Evil feeds on itself.
: <couic couic>
: When someone who plays Phoenix is secretively aligning with Junzo and
: when the TWO final players AGREE to work together to finish the
: storyline and when a Naga vs Naga matchup MIGHT turn into a future card
: . . NOW THAT IS A GAME!.
Agreed. I guess that's the reason we all love L5R :)
: PLEASE FRPG . . DO NOT HAVE PRO TOURS LIKE M:tG!! They ruin the game . .
: everything in magic is no longer for fun, but for competiveness and
: money. Every new card that comes out is supposed to help make "killer"
: decks . . all rules are CONSTANTLY changed to "Promote fairness" on the
: tourney scene.
: Do we L5R players want that? I remember a tourney in Magic where I was
: playing and I forgot to pay the cost of one of my cards during upkeep .
: .well the SECOND I touched my deck to draw a card I was told . . "Your
: card is buried" . . I am like . . oh I forgot to pay that . . Here let
: me go back. . and I was immediately told NO . . too bad and a judge
: backed this up!! "IT IS JUST A GAME . .SUPPOSEDLY Designed to have FUN!"
Well, I think L5R is (will be?) a victim of its own success. You can't
stop a magic player from buying L5R cards, and even harder to make them
play with the L5R spirit. It's exactly what's happening here.
Fortunatly, the first players of the Bordeaux area put the rule of
"Only one of each personnality in a deck" for 'roleplay' purpose.
It was maybe a strange idea when it was done, but each game play was
very different from another one (you can't expect Matsu Gohei to be out
in the 1st turn when there's only 1 in your deck), without changing much
the "philosophy" of the deck (this harly changes 1/5 of your deck).
Now I'm sure that this will save our tourneys here. Even if we have 10
times the same LSD, we won't have 10 times the same start and game...
How do you want to make a 14 years old child understand that a crane
(or lion) samurai is NOT just an asian warrior?
I've already seen Totury's Army and Lion decks with Oni no Akuma!!!
"wow! It's cool to get the oni in the first turn." (sigh)
I do think that the L5R pro-tour will be just another Magic Pro-Tour
with Clans, Samurai and Shugenja. But I don't mind!
The only important thing is that the tourneys on which is based the
story line (like the gencon) ARE different than the pro-tours (maybe
with slightly fifferent rules?).
Here is a new card ;)
Doom Of Rokugan.
Event.
Yogo Junzo get back to Scorpion Clan which renaims to Black Clan.
Crab Clan and Lions melt and renaim to Red Clan.
Phoenix and Unicorn make an Alliance and renaim to Green Clan
The monks join the Dragon Clan and renaim to Blue Clan
Crane Clan renaims to the White Clan.
: Terry Madden
: Crane Clan Maddman
Kuni Lokh,
Crab Clan Anarchist
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
Patrice Fortier (>) replied to Terry L. Madden (>>):
>> I have seen the LION speed deck since the days of imperial...
Historical note: As I recall it, Lion _circa_ Imperial Edition was
universally regarded as ineffectual ("Hey! You can stop them *instantly*
and for good with a first turn Breach of Etiquette!"). The Lion Speed
Deck arose about a week after the release of Shadowlands (and my memory
agrees with a conversation I had with Ryan Dancey about this over the
weekend).
> Well, I think L5R is (will be?) a victim of its own success. You can't
> stop a magic player from buying L5R cards, and even harder to make them
> play with the L5R spirit. It's exactly what's happening here.
But all of us can help. At one point, next to the line up for the
Time of the Void cards, someone asked what the line up was for. I told
him. The next question out of his mouth: "Are these cards worth any
money?" I told him at least a quarter, since that's what we all paid for
them. He walked off. How do you explain to someone that yeah, while
these cards are ostensibly worth cash, that isn't what we're there for?
Such people may get interested in L5R... but they won't stay.
We can all do our best to set an example, and regardless of what
happens, do our best to make sure that *players* get in those line ups
for new cards, and not speculators.
Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar
mickel ernst knight
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, Elliott Wong wrote:
> Date: Tue, 12 AUG 1997 11:53:07 -0400
> From: Elliott Wong <man...@soho.ios.com>
> Newgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.misc
> Subject: Re: [L5R] Who prevailed at GenCon...?
Yep.
- Mickel Knight
Matthew M. Colville
In article <33F064...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca>, mathieu lupien
<mlu...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Matthew M. Colville wrote:
>
> > One of the problems I have with L5R is that the different clans aren't
> > evenly matched.
> Lion went into Day of Thunder with more players than any other clan.
> If you eliminated players completely at random, you would be more likely
to end
> up with Lions.
That's a good point, and I grant you that, but people *expected* it to
be Lion or Crane and by god it was. This is not because they were *lucky*
and guessed, but because Lion and Crane decks tend to win more often.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Elliott Wong wrote:
>
> That's what I'd use this box for. I already play NPD out of a Crab
> box and I will *definitely* use more fortifications with the new SH.
> Now, is this ability innate, that is, can I bow the SH for gold as well
> as
> use it's ability?
It IS an innate ability, but there's also an event that causes all
fortifications to cost 4 less gold until the end of the game. While the
event does help your opponent, very few decks use huge amounts of
fortifications except for the occasional NPD and Fourtyfication deck...
Bayushi Murai
Admitting OK, it might be somewhat useful, but for the generic Crab deck
the original is MUCH MORE USEFUL.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Kachiko-no-Saji wrote:
>
> ALL?!? Hmmh, I doubt we'll see all get the chop (though it might be worth it
> to see the Wuss-Boy Hoturi take a dive (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)). I should
> imagine there will be quite a mess of bodies though (if only onew clan is
> going across to buring sands then it seems a good excuse for a bloodbath
He's exaggerating a little bit...
Hoturi buys it in the final battle. So does Junzo, squished by Otaku
Kamoko...
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Junzo in a Can
Trevor Stone
In article <33F0BB...@cyberwar.com>,
That's why it's the splinter faction... My current Crab deck doesn't have
Shadowlands, but it doesn't have any fortifications (though I may add some).
It'd seem that the old one was more useful, but only to help card flow a little
bit (now you can have 3 unscalable walls and do pretty much what the stronhold
CAN do, and use its gold. Plus, one higher fam. honor for those cool Taka
decks...)
### Trevor Stone Scout/Sage Man tst...@Colorado.EDU [O]
### Unaligned Monk Adept of Void Human, Trident, Academic [O]
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### Curse of the moment: Thou clouted hedge-born jack-a-nape! ###
Jeff W. Alexander
In article <33F093...@cyberwar.com>,
>worth not being able to bring in Shadowlands cards and losing 3 points
>of province strength. I know someone will say "Unscalable Walls", but
>hey, there's always Climbing Gear and anyway: You don't have those walls
>for the first few turns.
You've got it backwards. In a traditional Crab deck, you
don't have those 3 points of Province strength for the first few
turns since you're using the Stronghold for money. On the other
hand, if an Unscalable Walls shows up on turn 1 with the new
Stronghold, it *will* go into play for free.
Wildcard
>By now, the final battle for Rokugan should be over at GenCon. Anyone know
>which clan prevailed, and who ascended the Emerald Throne?
In our little world, Chris Bergstrom from Colorado playing a
Lion Deck prevailed over Robert Kramer of NY playing a Crane Deck. In
the world of Rokugan, Toturi and Hoturi refused to fight one another
and focused their attention on Fu Leng. Together they destroyed the
Dark Lord.
-Kitsuki Kagetora
-Dragon Clan Enforcer
-Imperial Ambassador in the East
-wild...@onix.com
Scott Johnson
And people say the Unicorn never does anything of worth... I can live
with Toturi as Emperor - he's a good man, with a good sense of
responsibility. But Kamoko rallied the Unicorn to protect the land,
Naming the True Evil before just about anyone else. And despite being
perhaps the most ordinary of the Seven Thunders (we had a Clan Champion, a
heir apparent to his Clan with a legendary artifact, a woman with the
counterpart to that artifact, a former Clan Champion who had raised a huge
army of ronin, an Elemental Master, the Empress herself... and a simple
cavalry leader who had won the hearts of the peasants.), she slew one of
the two people responsible for starting this whole mess. (Junzo opened
one of the Black Scrolls and started the process of Fu Leng's return. The
other person responsible is Kachiko, who poisoned the Emperor, thus
starting off the Clan Wars and giving Fu Leng a suitable host. She's seen
the error of her ways, but she's still got a lot to atone for.) The
Unicorn as a whole have been one of the few clans to stick consistently
together and stayed in the light throughout it all. From Beiden Pass to
the Day of Thunder, they've consistently been heroes - heroes without a
direction for a time, it's true, but heroes nonetheless.
Isn't it about time they got a *little* respect?
--
Otaku Kubo
Unicorn Clan Beleagured Scholar
Colin Edwards
>> TotV splinter clans:
>>
>> Sorry Crab, you've got a *STUPID* ability. [snip] Stick to your old box,
>> your new box is simply an event...
>
> I think you're seriously underestimating its possibilities. I think
>the new stronghold will make "good guy" Crab decks much, much faster and
>much more aggressive than they currently are. But we'll see how it
>plays.
>
Give the new Crab stronghold a try; it is really interesting to
play (ok, I'm a bit biased, I think Mike Knight and myself can claim
complete credit for its current version ("No Shadowlands; you may
bring fortiifcations into pla for 4G less)). That aside, its a blast
to play... a bit slow to start with (trying to get away from the Oni
Speed Kill decks), but once they are entrenched... impossible to dig
out. I think it really captures the "feel" of the Crab clan; it
reflects how they have progressed (returning to their original mandate
of maintaining the borders), makes fortifications a lot more useful
(been a goal of mine for awhile), and really opens the door for a
radically different type of crab deck. With Shiryo no Kaiu (also by
Mike and I), its a pretty solid combination...
(In fact, I'm almost as pleased with the Crab stronghold as I am with
the Naga and Tsurani... whoohoo!)
- Colin "Death to Crane!" Edwards
Jasper Phillips
In article <33F0EE...@cyberwar.com>,
>that a lot of people don't worry about things like that, but when your
>dynasty deck is 50 cards you look for things to cut.
>
>Bayushi Murai
First off, having the ability on your stronghold as opposed to an
event card is clearly superior -- especially since it doesn't require
you to bow your stronghold so you can still use it's gold (unlike
crab's original ability). An event has a good chance of never
even showing up during a one on one game -- There are plenty
of events I'd love to have built into my stronghold.
Unscalable Walls is a bad example of a fort, since there are
far better forts to include. While Unscalable walls might not
take slots in a deck, there are forts that would if they were free.
Forest of Thorns, Moat (or was that 5 gold?), and one with
the Burning Pitch Balls come to mind offhand.
I have to admit that I still think forts would be coasters in a Crab
deck though, since a good two player deck is forced to deal with
speed honor and speed force. Cheap forts would be very usefull
against a military deck (far more so than the +3 province strength),
but would just slow you down against a fast honor deck. In that
light I guess the ability sucks, since any deck with a proportion
of forts is likely to get crushed by an honor deck, and crab
can't really make an honor deck, because it will still get crushed
by other honor decks.
Perhaps Time of the Void has changed this, although I haven't played
with it so can't really say. Perhaps against popping crane you
could pull ahead with a combination of Time of the Void and
honor holdings, while not attacking so the poets don't go to work.
But then you have to pull Time of the Void, and Crane can include
honor holdings too.
-Jasper
Jasper Phillips
In article <5sred8$dhb$1...@nntp-2.io.com>, Scott Johnson <za...@io.com> wrote:
[ talking about Unicorn ]
>Isn't it about time they got a *little* respect?
>
>Otaku Kubo
>Unicorn Clan Beleagured Scholar
Uh, no. They basicly had no part in the plot, were boring as hell, and
didn't have any interesting characters (although I think there was
potential). Kamoko's deed at the end seems entirely like an afterthought.
And that's all coming from a Unicorn player, imagine everyone elses
view. ;-)
-Iuchi Jasper
Kachiko-no-Saji
??/??/97
>> Saying Lion is "the best deck to play in L5R" is a PROFOUND
>> overstatement. Sound to me like you're equating "winning Day of Thunder"
>> with "best deck." Lion went in with more players than anyone else.
>> Them's good odds.
>
What is "best" is also determined by how you play regularly (as an example
here we tend to play fairly large multis, and as a result LSDs, SND/SDDs and
CHD/ECDs have more or less died out).
Kachiko-no-Saji
??/??/97
>I am one of those that STOOD in line a lot at GenCon to get those ToV
>cards . . Not because they were cheap or rares or whatever . ..but
>because I wanted to see them NOW! I wanted to see the storyline progress
>. .I had more fun at that con swapping stories and cards in the ToV line
>than most other stuff at the Con (maybe except the DAY OF THUNDER
>itself!) My friends thought I was crazy standing in line for hours when
>"the cards will be out in a few weeks". The excitement of getting them
>early was worht the price
>
This seems to be the main point about CCGs (as well as CC in general), the
thrill of pulling a new card from a booster (or bin this case) is "real" ^_^
>I REALLY feel they should reprint the swords though . .they are a basic
>part of the game ..EVERY clansman should have theirs. . make them
>available for KOKU only (1 per person to stop speculators) make them
>availabe again to Imperial Assembly members . .etc.
>
A good point. I too wish the swords would be re issued in some way (maybe
with a different border or some such. It would be a nice gesture by FRP,
though how feasible it would be is beyond my rather selfish mind ^_^.
ulairi
In article <5srh5m$l5d$1...@news.nero.net>,
phil...@nd.ENGR.ORST.EDU (Jasper Phillips) wrote:
>
> In article <5sred8$dhb$1...@nntp-2.io.com>, Scott Johnson <za...@io.com> wrote:
>
> [ talking about Unicorn ]
>
> >Isn't it about time they got a *little* respect?
> >
> >Otaku Kubo
> >Unicorn Clan Beleagured Scholar
>
> Uh, no. They basicly had no part in the plot, were boring as hell, and
> didn't have any interesting characters (although I think there was
> potential). Kamoko's deed at the end seems entirely like an afterthought.
>
> And that's all coming from a Unicorn player, imagine everyone elses
> view. ;-)
>
> -Iuchi Jasper
I think we can fix that with the auxiliary expansions for L5R (Scorpion
Coup onwards), and with any guest stars in Legend of the Burning Sands (I
think all that was said was that they wouldn't be making a FULL
crossover; which clan IS, though?). Still, face the facts--the stars of
this particular saga were Yogo Junzo's Army, Scorpion, Toturi's Army,
Crab, Crane, Phoenix, and Lion. Everybody else, since they weren't
looking for the position of Emperor (the subject of the saga--got it?),
was a minor character. Anyway, if you're worried about the Unicorn not
having anybody interesting, how about writing some of them in an
interesting manner in a story for submission to the Herald?
Iuchi Hisamatsu
Unicorn Clan Peacekeeper
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
Michael D. Muray P.A. (Clan Scorpion) wrote:
> And three unscalable walls are three slots in your dynasty deck. I know
> that a lot of people don't worry about things like that, but when your
> dynasty deck is 50 cards you look for things to cut.
But when they're jumping out for zip, zero, nada -- the turnover rate for
your Dyanasty cards will probably be *extremely* high. "Good guy" Crab
Dynasty decks will probably need to be quite fat so they don't run out of
steam from loss of cards.
The more I think about this new stronghold, the more I like it. I like it
a lot. All those mondo cool fortifications like Watchtower and Earthworks
that you don't put in becuase they're a distraction from hiring
personalities... they're going up fast and furious. You're going to be able
to attack aggressively, leave behind very few defenders, and be reasonably
certain your provinces will be safe even if you don't have a Rallying Cry.
You'll just have to watch out for ninja and their Climbing Gear.
Hey, maybe this is why all the Scorpion list members are trying to
convince us that the new Crab stronghold bites...
Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar
Can't wait to lay his hands on the new stronghold...
Elliott Wong
Zen Faulkes wrote:
> can. Traditionally used with Dragon strongholds. While claims of
> "tournament calibre" have been made, I have yet to hear a confirmed
> report of one winning a tournament.
I can't say that I play a tourny calibre NPD, but I have gone 4-1 in a
recent tournament. Problem was that I suffered my loss in my first game
and then got seeded against other people who had losses. I wound up in
5th place with 3 people ahead of me with 4-1 records. Oh well...
> Will probably never play a NPD -- personalities are too much fun!
While personalities are fun, Kolat Mastering them and then turning them
against their owner is also a lot of fun. Also, the look on an
opponent's face at around turn 3 when all I've turned over are events
and holdings is fun to behold.
"Uh..., you don't have personalities in there, do you?"
"Um, I have one. Kado. And I might give him to you!"
<Rolls eyes>
It's definitely not a serious deck, but it does wreak havoc and mayhem
and that's fun. Having created a Crane/Shinsei's Shrines deck, I can
easily say that I have a lot more fun with the NPD than the Crane Fast
Honor deck.
Elliott
JAPE
<<>> Saying Lion is "the best deck to play in L5R" is a PROFOUND
>> overstatement. Sound to me like you're equating "winning Day of
Thunder"
>> with "best deck." Lion went in with more players than anyone else.
>> Them's good odds.
>
What is "best" is also determined by how you play regularly (as an example
here we tend to play fairly large multis, and as a result LSDs, SND/SDDs
and
CHD/ECDs have more or less died out). <<
I have to agree. I can see why soemone might be annoyed with the LSD and
Crane "I'll just sit here and wait to win" decks, but around here no one
we play with even has a Lion deck, and someone just put a crane deck
together last week. (I know, strange but true). Instead, its been all
Dragon Duels, Scorpion Machiavellian Decks, Crab Oni Juggernauts and
Unicorn Maneuver. I myself would welcome a cran or lion--just for a change
of pace.
Just goes to show that L5R is broad enough to generate many
flavors--depending on who buys the game.
Jape-san
Dragon Clan Dueling Banjo
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Terry L. Madden wrote:
>
> I REALLY feel they should reprint the swords though . .they are a > basic
> part of the game ..EVERY clansman should have theirs. . make them
> available for KOKU only (1 per person to stop speculators) make them
> availabe again to Imperial Assembly members . .etc.
This is something I believe too. I also think that all of the clans
should have their "specials"... I mean, Scorpion will be getting their
armor in Scorpion Clan Coup, and have the broken sword (better than the
Ancestral Swords, IMHO) and will (I assume) be getting the unbroken
sword in Coup, but I feel terrible about the Monks... Do they even have
a "Clan Banner"? I noticed that Yogo has one, Scorpion does, and I got
the Mantis clan banner in the TotV draw, but what about Naga and the
Monks?
I always felt slightly inferior to the other clans since they had
Ancestral Armor and I didn't (but I saw some artwork for SCC, so it'll
be fixed soon...) so it seemed that the longer the game went on, the
weaker the expansion clans would become... Yogo has no sword. He does
have Oni and a banner, but Crab or Scorpion can use them too.
On another note, did anybody get The Terrible Standard of Fu Leng in
Obsidian? I heard that it cost 2 gold more and had another ability...
There were a couple of other changes, like the Kolat Assassin being
able to target things of less than 5 chi, but what else changed?
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Whiner
mickel ernst knight
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Reignman wrote:
> Elliott Wong <man...@soho.ios.com> wrote:
>
> >mickel ernst knight wrote:
>
> >> Whoah! Gotta jump in on this one. We extensively playtested the new
> >> crab stronhold because it was the one our group was pushing for. Let me
> >> say that reducing the cost of fortifications by 4G is anything but
> >> stupid! Put some decks together and see if fortifications don't become
> >> useful when they just kinda fall into play. We were actually worried
> >> about this stronghold becoming the platform for NPD and honor decks.
>
> > That's what I'd use this box for. I already play NPD out of a Crab
> >box and I will *definitely* use more fortifications with the new SH.
> >Now, is this ability innate, that is, can I bow the SH for gold as well
> >as
> >use it's ability?
> What's a NPD? How does it work?
NPD stands for 'No Personality Deck.' Most of them are currently Dragon
decks which have a bunch of money and honor producers, a slew of annoying
events (Retirement, Imperial Levying, Occult Murders, Death of Tsuko, Time
of the Void etc.). The fate decks I've seen consisted of Kolat
Assassins/Masters, Treacherous Terrain, Refugees and other useful high
focus cards. NPD's *have* to win via honor, and if well made can win
tournaments. You need to able to hit them fast, hard and often to beat
these guys.
- Mickel Knight
Art Martella
Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
>
> I worry, however, that the next breed of multiplayer deck may be the
> "Good Crab" Honor-Gain Can't-Kill-Me deck. But that's fine...
"Yeah, i put some Breaches and Goshiu and some other stuff in my deck to
take care of that damn Crab..." Hmm... the Darkest Day IS upon us =^)
Kakita Martella
Crane Clan Master of Brevity
Zen Faulkes
Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
> I feel terrible about the Monks... Do they even have
> a "Clan Banner"? I noticed that Yogo has one, Scorpion does, and I got
> the Mantis clan banner in the TotV draw, but what about Naga and the
> Monks?
All the expansion clans (including Monk and Naga) get *BETTER*
banners than the great clans do.
> There were a couple of other changes, like the Kolat Assassin being
> able to target things of less than 5 chi, but what else changed?
Jeff Alexander's promised us a list soon. He's funny that way. :)
Trevor Stone
In article <33F201...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca>,
Zen Faulkes <zfau...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>> I feel terrible about the Monks... Do they even have
>> a "Clan Banner"? I noticed that Yogo has one, Scorpion does, and I got
>> the Mantis clan banner in the TotV draw, but what about Naga and the
>> Monks?
>
> All the expansion clans (including Monk and Naga) get *BETTER*
>banners than the great clans do.
>
more use out of an item like _The_ Tao of Shinsei, a book that we can use,
than a banner. Our slogans are too long to put on a banner.
"True wisdom cannot be found in a sound byte."
### Trevor Stone Scout/Sage Man tst...@Colorado.EDU [O]
### Unaligned Monk Adept of Void Human, Trident, Academic [O]
### http://www.poboxes.com/tstone/ Curses, contests, games, etc. [O]
### Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be critiqued for $10 per minute ###
### Curse of the moment: Thou droning plume-plucked jolthead! ###
Matt Wolf
Why the hang-up with game balance?
Why L5R is above EVERY other CCG I have played is because of the story.
When in a good story are both sides evenly matched?
It was established early on that the Crane and the Lion had the inside
track to the top (which they should since they start the closest to the
Hentei)
The Crane did get hurt by player request, but the Lion never did.
I agree finding the Kolat should have split the Lion earlier, but oh
well.
The neat part is going into a game where you know you are the underdog
and yet still pull it off.
I loved watching the ebb and flow of the power levels (and yes Lion
stayed on top), as the expansions came out.
'Nuff Said.
Reignman
Elliott Wong <man...@soho.ios.com> wrote:
>mickel ernst knight wrote:
>> Whoah! Gotta jump in on this one. We extensively playtested the new
>> crab stronhold because it was the one our group was pushing for. Let me
>> say that reducing the cost of fortifications by 4G is anything but
>> stupid! Put some decks together and see if fortifications don't become
>> useful when they just kinda fall into play. We were actually worried
>> about this stronghold becoming the platform for NPD and honor decks.
> That's what I'd use this box for. I already play NPD out of a Crab
>box and I will *definitely* use more fortifications with the new SH.
>Now, is this ability innate, that is, can I bow the SH for gold as well
>as
>use it's ability?
> Thanks!
>Elliott
Kachiko-no-Saji
??/??/97
>
>> One of the problems I have with L5R is that the different clans aren't
>> expected it to be Crane and Lion in the end. This, to me, speaks of bad
>> game design. If I can predict, with reasonable accuracy, who is going to
>> win based soley on thier choice in decks, then there's a problem.
>
This is a problem I have encountered with all the CCGs I play heavily. It has
only been addressed to any great degree (not well I might add, but then again
what *can* you do?) in one *particular* game ^_- after a wise that involved
restricting and/or banning the cards that help the perticular archetype
together.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Colin Edwards wrote:
>
> Give the new Crab stronghold a try; it is really interesting > to
> play (ok, I'm a bit biased, I think Mike Knight and myself can claim
> complete credit for its current version ("No Shadowlands; you may
> bring fortiifcations into pla for 4G less)). That aside, its a blast
> to play... a bit slow to start with (trying to get away from the Oni
> Speed Kill decks), but once they are entrenched... impossible to dig
> out. I think it really captures the "feel" of the Crab clan; it
> reflects how they have progressed (returning to their original mandate
> of maintaining the borders), makes fortifications a lot more useful
> (been a goal of mine for awhile), and really opens the door for a
> radically different type of crab deck. With Shiryo no Kaiu (also by
> Mike and I), its a pretty solid combination...
>
Hey, I just said I didn't like it. I never said I wasn't gonna try
it... :) I'm a glutton for punishment. But it DOES look like it would
make a very fun multiplayer deck... I was speaking in regards to a
tournament style deck, which it probably won't do so well as. I
haven't seen Shiryo no Kaiu, so I can't say anything about that, but
with Architects of the Wall and some of the "good Crab", it would make
a fun deck. And it could give you time to get Enlightenment, since
nobody could actually kill you (Unless they have Climbing Gear, which
may actually be used in the ninja decks now that this is out, especially
since TotV seems to be encouraging Ninjas a lot, with Shiryo no Yogo
[All Ninjas cost 2 less gold for this player] and the event, The
Longest Night [Ninja Cards cost 2 less gold and something else])
It would be FUN. It would be mediocre in tournament play though. I
haven't seen any of the fortifications that may be in Time of the Void,
but I'm not really that impressed with most of the fortifications
available. They're great, if you have several of them. Moat by itself
is okay, but once some dragon's teeth are added to them, they're a lot
better. This, however, adds a lot of cards to your deck, making it
decidedly a multiplayer deck.
I worry, however, that the next breed of multiplayer deck may be the
"Good Crab" Honor-Gain Can't-Kill-Me deck. But that's fine...
Bayushi Murai
Overreacting earlier a little
Elliott Wong
Zen Faulkes wrote:
> Yeah, I agree there. I'd have to say that from what I saw of Chris
> Bergstrom's winning Lion deck, and Rob Kramer's runner-up Crane deck
> (which featured a Doom of the Lion, incidentally), these were two guys
> who were both *acutely* aware of the "meta-game" and weren't afraid to
> pack cards specifically to shut down popular decks.
What do you mean, Zen? What did Chris' Lion deck have in it that would
shut down popular decks? It seems to me that Desparate Measures and
Return of Fu Leng are standard cards for a military deck. What else did
Chris have in his deck?
Elliott
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Scott Johnson wrote:
> And people say the Unicorn never does anything of worth... I can live
> with Toturi as Emperor - he's a good man, with a good sense of
> responsibility. But Kamoko rallied the Unicorn to protect the land,
> Naming the True Evil before just about anyone else.
Yup, she squished Junzo. And then apparently fell off the face of
Rogukan, since I don't remember her doing anything of interest in the
final battle, or if she was even there, for that matter.
> she slew one of the two people responsible for starting this whole mess.
> (Junzo opened one of the Black Scrolls and started the process of Fu Leng's > return. The other person responsible is Kachiko, who poisoned the Emperor, > thus starting off the Clan Wars and giving Fu Leng a suitable host. She's > seen the error of her ways, but she's still got a lot to atone for.)
Typical... Everyone blames everything on Scorpion.
It's actually all Crab's fault, specifically, Hida Kisada. If he hadn't
betrayed the Scorpion, then we would have eventually killed the young
Hantei, and would have avoided this entire thing. The thing is, someone
should have taken out Akodo Toturi first...
> Isn't it about time they got a *little* respect?
Hmmm... Nah.
But you'll get a lot more respect in Burning Sands, since, well, you
know everyone there.
It'll be like a family reunion, Unicorns and Barbarians.
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Historical Revisionist
Art Martella
Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
>
>
> It's actually all Crab's fault, specifically, Hida Kisada. If he hadn't
> betrayed the Scorpion, then we would have eventually killed the young
> Hantei, and would have avoided this entire thing. The thing is, someone
> should have taken out Akodo Toturi first...
I'd like to make a public announcement to all Scorpion personalities
here. Your original job was to hide the Black Scrolls, so no one could
find them, right? Well, i must say, you did a damn good job... i mean,
who would think to look inside Togashi Yokuni? Not me, that's for sure.
I just would've put them under a rock somewhere. So, once again, good
job hiding the Black Scrolls, sorry that Hitomi ruined your plans,
better luck next time. =^)
> But you'll get a lot more respect in Burning Sands, since, well, you
> know everyone there.
>
> It'll be like a family reunion, Unicorns and Barbarians.
Too bad Yokatsu didn't win the Doom-a-Champion contest... "Look,
Aramoro, we have created the False Yokatsu! He just sits in the corner
and curses all day!" "Er, my lady, that's the REAL Yokatsu." I
personally hope to see Yokatsu kick some major butt in LBS... he can
challenge any non-Unicorn personality from L5R to a duel... "Ha! Now
you're on MY hom turf!" =^)
Kakita Martella
Crane Clan Giant Albatross
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Art Martella wrote:
>
> I'd like to make a public announcement to all Scorpion personalities
> here. Your original job was to hide the Black Scrolls, so no one could
> find them, right? Well, i must say, you did a damn good job... i mean,
> who would think to look inside Togashi Yokuni? Not me, that's for sure.
> I just would've put them under a rock somewhere. So, once again, good
> job hiding the Black Scrolls, sorry that Hitomi ruined your plans,
> better luck next time. =^)
Our ancestors were even more sneaky and devious than we are... I mean,
Yogo Junzo couldn't find that last one... Just imagine how much effort
it took
to get him to eat it, too!
> Too bad Yokatsu didn't win the Doom-a-Champion contest... "Look,
> Aramoro, we have created the False Yokatsu! He just sits in the corner
> and curses all day!" "Er, my lady, that's the REAL Yokatsu." I
> personally hope to see Yokatsu kick some major butt in LBS... he can
> challenge any non-Unicorn personality from L5R to a duel... "Ha! Now
> you're on MY hom turf!" =^)
It would have been neat if Shoju won it...
"Hey guys! Look! I'm back!"
He'd be all honorable and nice... But the False Yokatsu would be a
master
of etiquette and square dancing. He'd give all of the unicorns a bad
name.
Oh, and he's allergic to horses.
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Spot on the Wall
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
Reignman asked:
> What's a NPD? How does it work?
It's an abbreviation for "No Personality deck." It contains a lot of
rare events (e.g., Chysanthemum Festival, Emperor's Peace), honor
producing holdings and fortifications in the Dynasty deck, and a *LOT*
of direct kill cards (like assassins and Kolat) and a few good defensive
cards (e.g., Refugees) in the Fate deck. Race to 40 honor as fast as you
can. Traditionally used with Dragon strongholds. While claims of
"tournament calibre" have been made, I have yet to hear a confirmed
report of one winning a tournament.
Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
> This is why I was so disappointed to see Lion win. The World L5R
> Champion is a Lion. He is the best L5R player in the world according to
> FRPG, so therefore his deck, a Lion Speed Deck, is the best deck in the world.
C'mon, man. Let's not confuse a nice compliment to a tournament
winning *player* with an objective fact about a *deck*.
> And a Doom of the Lion is going in my Tourney deck, because there were a silly
> number of Lion decks out there.
Yeah, I agree there. I'd have to say that from what I saw of Chris
Bergstrom's winning Lion deck, and Rob Kramer's runner-up Crane deck
(which featured a Doom of the Lion, incidentally), these were two guys
who were both *acutely* aware of the "meta-game" and weren't afraid to
pack cards specifically to shut down popular decks.
Matthew M. Colville
> Why the hang-up with game balance?
>
> Why L5R is above EVERY other CCG I have played is because of the story.
> When in a good story are both sides evenly matched?
Your objection contains its own answer.
Since there is a story, written by people, it can reflect whatever
happens in the game. Whatever happens.
Since that's true, wouldn't *you* like to know that you can buy into any
clan, build a good deck, and be evenly matched? Do you imagine it's
*pleasant* to discover that your clan tends not to win? Or that other
decks win more consistantly, not through any fault of your own, but because
of the way the game's designed?
I don't know. I guess I don't understand people who *like* the idea
that some Clans are better than other. I can only presume it's because
they play those clans.
--
Matthew M. Colville Armed only with wisdom
Role-Playing & Fiction The Shintao monks fight against the
darkness. . .
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolville
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jasper Phillips wrote:
>
> These cards don't get widely used though, since they suck if your
> opponent doesn't use forts (and most don't). The ability to bow
> your stronghold for +3 province strength also isn't usefull early
> in the game, since you're bowing for gold.
>
Alhundro is a staple in most holding destruction decks for the free
explosives, and might as well start blowing up fortifications. And I
was
saying that I'll be putting a Climbing Gear into my ninja deck, just in
case.
> Having to relly upon an event showing up (and taking a slot) is quite
> a bit weaker than having the effect built into a stronghold, and
> contrary to what someone else said (not you), the crab splinters
> ability is quite a bit better than Architects of the Wall.
That's true, but I'd still rather have the +3 defense unless I truely
have a bajillion fortifications in the deck. I was also saying that
Architects was wonderful in combination with the Kiau stronghold
> There is a certain advantage to an ability you don't have to bow
> your stronghold for.
This is true...
> Lions not exactly weak either, although it's certainly the most boring
> and easiest to build deck, IMHO.
This is why I was so disappointed to see Lion win. The World L5R
Champion is a Lion. He is the best L5R player in the world according to
FRPG,
so therefore his deck, a Lion Speed Deck, is the best deck in the world.
Thankfully, TotV will change that, hopefully. And a Doom of the Lion is
going in my Tourney deck, because there were a silly number of Lion
decks
out there.
Bayushi Murai
Meow.
Jack Dracula
Trevor Stone <tst...@ucsub.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
> What good is a banner for those who have few followers? The Monks would get
> more use out of an item like _The_ Tao of Shinsei, a book that we can use,
> than a banner. Our slogans are too long to put on a banner.
>
> "True wisdom cannot be found in a sound byte."
That's funny, I coulda sworn the Monk Slogan was "GET SOME."
Bayushi Dracula
Scorpion PR Man
PS-> Scorpion Slogan: "You Are Not Ready." (a la Sega)
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Zen Faulkes wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote:
>
> > Champion is a Lion. He is the best L5R player in the world according to
> > FRPG, so therefore his deck, a Lion Speed Deck, is the best deck in the world.
>
> winning *player* with an objective fact about a *deck*.
It beat the most number of good decks, therefore was better than them.
A lot of it was luck of the draw, but it WAS a better deck than them, to
have been able to beat them.
If we ran the tourney another six times, I bet it would be lion, crane
and phoenix winning all six games.
A good LSD is near-impossible to beat. That's life.
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Captive Naga
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Matthew M. Colville wrote:
>
> I don't know. I guess I don't understand people who *like* the idea
> that some Clans are better than other. I can only presume it's because
> they play those clans.
>
Not true. I play Scorpion. I started with Naga. Those were the two
weakest clans when I started playing. I don't mind that Crane is
probably a better clan. It's a challenge. It promotes creativity.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Zen Faulkes wrote:
>
> Hey, maybe this is why all the Scorpion list members are trying to
> convince us that the new Crab stronghold bites...
>
You're slowly convincing me that it's actually not bad. It'll be GREAT
in multiplayer, but I still have doubts on its tournament performance.
Drat, you've seen through our dastardly plans... We say a bad thing
about it, so you defend it and like it, and then use it. Then we whip
out the Climbing Gear and beat you. You are far too clever for us, and
have figured it all out... :)
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
Michael D. Muray P.A. wrote about Lion winning at GenCon:
> It beat the most number of good decks, therefore was better than them.
> A lot of it was luck of the draw, but it WAS a better deck than them, to
> have been able to beat them.
>
> If we ran the tourney another six times, I bet it would be lion, crane
> and phoenix winning all six games.
Yeah, I'd agree, if we ran the exact same numbers of players in the
starting gate. If we had, say, 15 players each from the twelve clans
instead of 26 Lion compared to 1 Yoritomo's Alliance player... I think
it would be much tighter.
You may say, "Well, that there were so many Lions is just proof of
their superiority," to which I'd say: partly. There's other factors to
consider, like Lions make a good deck with almost no rares. Some people
may have brought Lion decks because they didn't have four Crab Oni and
an Egg of P'an Ku, or all six dragons, or whatever.
> A good LSD is near-impossible to beat. That's life.
No, that's *temporary*. Things change. I, for one, feel more
optimistic than ever about designing decks that can take on both an
ultra-aggressive Lion deck and a Crane honor runner. After having seen
some new Time of the Void cards, I think Junzo's Army may soon be the
new speed king in duels (and it's pretty good now).
But this is the last thing I'm going to post on this thread, because
I feel like we're splitting hairs here. We both agree that Lion decks
are tough. All I'm saying is that the victory of Lion at GenCon is due
to *many* factors besides Lion making ostensibly the "best" deck.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Zen Faulkes wrote:
>
> Yeah, I'd agree, if we ran the exact same numbers of players in the
> starting gate. If we had, say, 15 players each from the twelve clans
> instead of 26 Lion compared to 1 Yoritomo's Alliance player... I think
> it would be much tighter.
>
> You may say, "Well, that there were so many Lions is just proof of
> their superiority," to which I'd say: partly. There's other factors to
> consider, like Lions make a good deck with almost no rares. Some people
> may have brought Lion decks because they didn't have four Crab Oni and
> an Egg of P'an Ku, or all six dragons, or whatever.
>
I realize there were more Lion than anything else at the start of the
tournament, but not many more than several of the other clans... Crab,
Crane, and Phoenix all had around 20, I think... And that doesn't swing
the odds that much.
I was surprised not to see more Yogo Junzo players... ESPECIALLY with
the threat of 1000 years of Darkness.
> > A good LSD is near-impossible to beat. That's life.
>
> No, that's *temporary*. Things change. I, for one, feel more
> optimistic than ever about designing decks that can take on both an
> ultra-aggressive Lion deck and a Crane honor runner. After having seen
> some new Time of the Void cards, I think Junzo's Army may soon be the
> new speed king in duels (and it's pretty good now).
That's probably true. Junzo makes EXCELLENT speed decks, as does
Scorpion when playing "Junzo in a Can". (Hisa's a good addition to the
deck, as is Baku... And you can do political actions) Even the Monks can
make a mean speed follower deck.
> But this is the last thing I'm going to post on this thread, because
> I feel like we're splitting hairs here. We both agree that Lion decks
> are tough. All I'm saying is that the victory of Lion at GenCon is due
> to *many* factors besides Lion making ostensibly the "best" deck.
Everything has potential. I didn't mean to make a blanket statement
that Lion is the best deck and nobody will ever come near it. In
multiplayer, a LSD is mostly useless. I'd rather play a big ol' Naga
deck, or even the Monks. My main original point was simply that I was
whining (as I normally do) about the lack of originality in most
tournament decks. I'm the type that wants to see people find novel uses
for silly cards, like giving Junzo the Ancestral Sword of Hantei and a
billion black scrolls and using Corrupted Energies to kill everyone. (Of
course, not using the Junzo box, since it's a bit tough to get the
Flavor...)
I love "coasters". I want to make a deck that actually uses Pearl of
Wisdom to a good end, but can't really think of one.
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Plague-Ridden Captive Naga
Matthew M. Colville
In article <33F35D...@cyberwar.com>, "Michael D. Muray P.A."
<md...@cyberwar.com> wrote:
And I presume you're also asserting that more creativity in strategy
games is better. Would you find chess greatly improved by adding more
pieces to one side and, therefore by your logic, more 'creativity?'
Also, I don't see how your conclusion follows from your premise. Why
does the level of creativity (however that's measured) go up if one clan is
more apt to win than another?
Jeff W. Alexander
In article <mcolville-ya024080...@news.earthlink.net>,
Matthew M. Colville <mcol...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> One of the problems I have with L5R is that the different clans aren't
>evenly matched. Going into the tourney, a lot of people on this newsgroup
>expected it to be Crane and Lion in the end. This, to me, speaks of bad
>game design. If I can predict, with reasonable accuracy, who is going to
>win based soley on thier choice in decks, then there's a problem.
While I agree with the general gist of your post, there are
couple nits I'd like to pick. First, the GenCon tournament was
exclusively 1-on-1 due to logistics. But L5R is both a 1-on-1
and a multiplayer game, and in the latter setting the relative
worths of many of the Clans change. Lion is not a good
multiplayer clan unless they bring a significantly different
design to the table than what works in the 1-on-1 format. Crane
and Junzo are exclusively for masochists and the truly brilliant.
Naga and the Monks actually stand a fighting chance. Unicorn has
a field day (at least, until their Rallying Cries dry out).
Second, the Time of the Void expansion does a lot to remedy
the general lack of "oomph" plaguing the really doggy clans,
namely Naga and the Brotherhood, plus any Scorpion deck that
wants to USE their own Personalities instead of imitate a Junzo
deck. Players starting the game today won't have to go through
what we did.
> Also, there aren't many different things you can reasonably do with each
>clan.
That's rather a silly objection. If every Clan could do
everything equally well, why have them? Now if you're going to
argue that some are more flexible than others, I'd agree with
you, and say, yes, that is a bad thing. But claiming that L5R is
a bad game because you can't make a good Lion ranged-attack
deck... *shrug*
>clan. It is both the case that if I want to win by honor, it would be
>foolish of me to play anything but Crane.
Balderdash. It's not like Crane starts at 20 honor. They
don't have *that* much of an advantage. Even in really tight
tournaments, Phoenix can give them a run for the money. Drop
back down to where there's still oxygen in the atmosphere and
you'll find Dragon doing it through dueling, or Dragon, Yoritomo,
or Unicorn doing it through honor-gaining Items, or Dragon or
Totori doing it through Stupid Honorable Seppuku Tricks [TM], or
Toturi or Lion doing it through Refuse Advantage/Legendary
Victory/To Avenge Our Ancestors, or Dragon or Crab doing it with
zero Personalities... And that's just in head-to-head! Get a
four- or five-way game going and the field blows wide open.
> Likewise, if I'm playing Crane
>and I want to win, it would be foolish to attempt a military or
>enlightenment victory.
Yeah, that'd be crazy. Like a fox.
> I don't mind different clans specializing in different methods of
>winning. I mind the fact that a good Crane honor deck is more likely to
>win than a good Naga military deck. If each clan is doing thier thing,
>that should merely make them as likely to win as the other clans, doing
>thier thing.
Now *this* I can't argue against (and wouldn't even if I
could). Again, though, see my point about Time of the Void.
This ideal is closer now than ever.
__________________________________________
Jeff Alexander ( -= Legend of the Five Rings FAQ site =- (O
Phoenix Clan Scribe ) http://www.zzz.iipo.gtegsc.com/jwa/l5r )
(_________________________________________(O
NCascone
>> What's a NPD? How does it work?
>
of
>"tournament calibre" have been made, I have yet to hear a confirmed
>report of one winning a tournament.
About the closest I've ever heard of is second place; I came in 2nd with
an NPD at a tourney here in LA last year (Ben Peck beat me with a Unicorn
deck; it was very close). After AoD, the strength of the NPD was greatly
diminished. I'd say it's no longer tourney quality; it's an interesting
deck, though.
Nicholas Cascone
You want clever? Send money. I don't work for free.
Kirby Krueger
In article <33F35D...@cyberwar.com>,
Michael D. Muray P.A. <md...@cyberwar.com> wrote:
>Matthew M. Colville wrote:
>>
>> I don't know. I guess I don't understand people who *like* the idea
>> that some Clans are better than other. I can only presume it's because
>> they play those clans.
>>
>
>Not true. I play Scorpion. I started with Naga. Those were the two
>weakest clans when I started playing. I don't mind that Crane is
>probably a better clan. It's a challenge. It promotes creativity.
>
become a disadvantage. For example, in the 3-player L5R game last night,
the Unicorn won because I (playing Totori's Army) decided that I needed
to take out the Crane first, or they'd get dug in and get that honor
victory, which gave the Unicorn enough time to jump ahead of me in force.
The only reason I went after Crane and not Unicorn at that point, as I
could probably have beaten back one but not both, was that Crane is a
more dangerous clan in general.
And, of course, Totori approves of the work of the Unicorn Clan more than
the political wrangles of the Crane. One really neat thing about this
game is that I find it common for people to make decisions based on story
reasons. (Shinjo Morito has joined with Totori, and calls upon the
allies in his own clan to help us against the Crane, who we can see are
dealing with dark forces! The Unicorn player stops waffling, and agrees
with this logic, so allies strongly.) It may be that our group is
composed of people with a long roleplaying history, but you can't really
do this very easily in any other card game I've seen.
--
Kirby Krueger O- kir...@netcom.com
<*> "Most .sigs this small can't open their own jump gate."
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jack Dracula wrote:
>
> That's funny, I coulda sworn the Monk Slogan was "GET SOME."
>
> Bayushi Dracula
> Scorpion PR Man
>
> PS-> Scorpion Slogan: "You Are Not Ready." (a la Sega)
From Jogn Wick:
Dragon:
"They cannot beat that which they do not understand." - Dragon
"If I am weak, millions die." - Crab
"I do not need to be strong, because I know my enemy is weak."
- Scorpion
Guard Cdr
> Scott Johnson <za...@io.com> wrote:
>And people say the Unicorn never does anything of worth... I can live
>with Toturi as Emperor - he's a good man, with a good sense of
>responsibility. But Kamoko rallied the Unicorn to protect the land,
>Naming the True Evil before just about anyone else. And despite being
>perhaps the most ordinary of the Seven Thunders (we had a Clan Champion,
a
>heir apparent to his Clan with a legendary artifact, a woman with the
>counterpart to that artifact, a former Clan Champion who had raised a
huge
>army of ronin, an Elemental Master, the Empress herself... and a simple
>cavalry leader who had won the hearts of the peasants.), she slew one of
>the two people responsible for starting this whole mess. (Junzo opened
>one of the Black Scrolls and started the process of Fu Leng's return.
The
>other person responsible is Kachiko, who poisoned the Emperor, thus
>starting off the Clan Wars and giving Fu Leng a suitable host. She's
seen
>the error of her ways, but she's still got a lot to atone for.) The
>Unicorn as a whole have been one of the few clans to stick consistently
>together and stayed in the light throughout it all. From Beiden Pass to
>the Day of Thunder, they've consistently been heroes - heroes without a
>direction for a time, it's true, but heroes nonetheless.
>
>Isn't it about time they got a *little* respect?
Nope :-) (j/k, I like my Unicorn allies)
Daidoji Eric
Trevor Stone
In article <mcolville-ya024080...@news.earthlink.net>,
Matthew M. Colville <mcol...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> > I don't know. I guess I don't understand people who *like* the idea
>> > that some Clans are better than other. I can only presume it's because
>> > they play those clans.
>>
>> Not true. I play Scorpion. I started with Naga. Those were the two
>> weakest clans when I started playing. I don't mind that Crane is
>> probably a better clan. It's a challenge. It promotes creativity.
>
>games is better. Would you find chess greatly improved by adding more
>pieces to one side and, therefore by your logic, more 'creativity?'
>
play with, for instance, no Bishops, to make the game more of a challenge.
> Also, I don't see how your conclusion follows from your premise. Why
>does the level of creativity (however that's measured) go up if one clan is
>more apt to win than another?
>
It's a game. It's about fun. I play (with any frequency) Monk, Naga, and
honorable Crab (none of this Oni stuff!). Why not build a speedy Lion or
Crane deck? That's not particularly creative or challenging. I'm pondering
making a Lion "Book of Three" deck (I've got this stronghold over here I
haven't used in a couple months) where every fate card has a focus of 3, each
personality has either 3F, 3C, 3PH, or costs 3 to bring out. If I had the
cards I might build a whacky Crane deck (no honor execpt Deuls? Cranial Ninja?
no honor except from the Stronghold?)
I play most games because they're fun (you'd be surprised how much fun a losing
deck can be) and mentally challenging. You get more of a thrill if you're the
underdog.
### Trevor Stone Scout/Sage Man tst...@Colorado.EDU [O]
### Unaligned Monk Adept of Void Human, Trident, Academic [O]
### http://www.poboxes.com/tstone/ Curses, contests, games, etc. [O]
### Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be critiqued for $10 per minute ###
### Curse of the moment: Thou knavish hedge-born rudesby! ###
Trevor Stone
In article <33F386...@cyberwar.com>,
>tournament, but not many more than several of the other clans... Crab,
>Crane, and Phoenix all had around 20, I think... And that doesn't swing
>the odds that much.
>
>I was surprised not to see more Yogo Junzo players... ESPECIALLY with
>the threat of 1000 years of Darkness.
>
>I love "coasters". I want to make a deck that actually uses Pearl of
>Wisdom to a good end, but can't really think of one.
>
Hey, it doesn't say they stop questing once they unbow, so you can send
corruption tokens over with Sympathetic Energies...
>Bayushi Murai
>Scorpion Clan Plague-Ridden Captive Naga
Trevor
Unaligned Monk-Naga Liason
Michael William Patterson
Kirby Krueger (kir...@netcom.com) wrote:
: I think that if you had twelve people, and each bought a different
: stronghold and a dozen boosters of their choice, you probably wouldn't
: see anyone dominate. One person may be luckier than others with their
: draw, but that's true of the other CCGs which have no inherent potential
: unbalancings other than the draw. In fact, I'd very much like to try
: this, just to see if it's vaguely true. :-)
My friends and I played a turnament with 1 randomly chosen stronghold and
did a booster draft of 2 packs of Crimson and Jade, and I found that the
Monks are actually really dangerous to go against (I was playing the
Monks and won many games). Being able to pull any ring out of your fate
deck is a very powerful ability! As well, monks have so many battle
options/actions. Plus, having almost every monk be able to be put into
play for only 5G (occasionally 6G for Suana), you do not need to worry
about being gold screwed very often.
:
: I'm certainly competitive with my Totori's Army deck, which is not
: considered one of the Killer Boxes, and it sounds like TotV will only
: enhance it, being follower-heavy.
:
: --
: Kirby Krueger O- kir...@netcom.com
: <*> "Most .sigs this small can't open their own jump gate."
--
*******************************************************************
"When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like Grandpa did,
not screaming like his passengers in the car."
Mike "Stimpy" Patterson
umpa...@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Lone_War
Terry L. Madden wrote:
>
> Zen Faulkes wrote:
> I REALLY feel they should reprint the swords though . .they are a basic
> part of the game ..EVERY clansman should have theirs. . make them
> available for KOKU only (1 per person to stop speculators) make them
> availabe again to Imperial Assembly members . .etc.
This is the reason that I do NOT want FRPG to reprint the Clan Swords.
They are a general guideline as to when you started playing L5R. Now,
not many people care about this, but I do. I started playing L5R with
Imperial, and my friends and I spent ALOT of money early on because we
liked the game. Other than the Swords there are no cards out there that
are different in the basic sets of the game. Nothing else can say, all
by itself, that you have been playing since the beginning. It is a lot
like when I played my Alpha deck of Magic at a local tournament a few
years ago. People stopped just to come over and LOOK at my deck, and
when I told them it was all gotten by booster pack, the look they gave
me made up for the fact that I was losing badly.
The swords are status symbols. They aren't that powerful, but they are a
dividing line between those of us that helped make this game so popular,
and those that came later. Lets keep it that way.
--
Billie F. Krieger III
Dragon Clan Spy/Trader
Death, death, death to all who oppose us!
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jeff W. Alexander wrote:
>
> Second, the Time of the Void expansion does a lot to remedy
> the general lack of "oomph" plaguing the really doggy clans,
> namely Naga and the Brotherhood, plus any Scorpion deck that
> wants to USE their own Personalities instead of imitate a Junzo
> deck. Players starting the game today won't have to go through
> what we did.
>
The Scorpion Personalities in TotV are cool, although they're typically
"Overlay-bait", because they're rather expensive for Scorpion decks
(Like Hisa, but that's not a problem since inexperienced Hisa's only 2
bucks...)
But the single card that helps Scorpion the MOST in TotV is the
Corrupted Giesha House. Bye bye, corrupted iron, something better's
going in the decks... It (partially) solves one of Scorpion's biggest
problems - money.
> >clan. It is both the case that if I want to win by honor, it would be
> >foolish of me to play anything but Crane.
Just wait for the Scorpion Almost-No-Personalities decks... :)
> >Likewise, if I'm playing Crane
> >and I want to win, it would be foolish to attempt a military or
> >enlightenment victory.
>
> Yeah, that'd be crazy. Like a fox.
>
The best thing to do is the unexpected... And I've seen some MEAN Crane
Military decks.
> > I don't mind different clans specializing in different methods of
> >winning. I mind the fact that a good Crane honor deck is more likely to
> >win than a good Naga military deck. If each clan is doing thier thing,
> >that should merely make them as likely to win as the other clans, doing
> >thier thing.
Hey, no busting on the Naga or Qamar and Isha'll get ticked off and come
beat you're... oh, wait a sec... well, you're right, in a two player
game. A Naga Military deck is evil in a multiplayer game.
JAPE
<<>> I don't know. I guess I don't understand people who *like* the
idea
>> that some Clans are better than other. I can only presume it's because
>> they play those clans.
>>
>
>Not true. I play Scorpion. I started with Naga. Those were the two
>weakest clans when I started playing. I don't mind that Crane is
>probably a better clan. It's a challenge. It promotes creativity.
>
become a disadvantage.<<
Or vice versa.
Our Scorpion Clan Machiavelli Master has his clock cleaned regularly at
the tournaments we go to, yet when we have large multi-player games, he's
the one sitting pretty at the end of the game, having expertly manipulated
everyone else into destroying each other. Go figure.
Jape
Dragon Clan Dueling Banjo
Matthew M. Colville
In article <5t0i44$n...@lace.colorado.edu>, tst...@ucsub.Colorado.EDU
(Trevor Stone) wrote:
> In article <mcolville-ya024080...@news.earthlink.net>,
> > And I presume you're also asserting that more creativity in strategy
> >games is better. Would you find chess greatly improved by adding more
> >pieces to one side and, therefore by your logic, more 'creativity?'
> >
> Have you ever seen someone play chess with a "handicap?" I've seen people
> play with, for instance, no Bishops, to make the game more of a challenge.
Yeah, but your bolstering my argument here. Chess begins with both
sides equally matched on the board. It's up to the *players* to make a
difference. I want L5R to be the same way. To hold to your inerpretation
of the Chess analogy, *all* Chess would have to be played with a handicap.
I'll say it again, would Chess be greatly improved by adding more pieces
to one side?
> > Also, I don't see how your conclusion follows from your premise. Why
> >does the level of creativity (however that's measured) go up if one clan is
> >more apt to win than another?
> >
> It's a game. It's about fun. I play (with any frequency) Monk, Naga, and
> honorable Crab (none of this Oni stuff!). Why not build a speedy Lion or
> Crane deck? That's not particularly creative or challenging. I'm pondering
> making a Lion "Book of Three" deck (I've got this stronghold over here I
> haven't used in a couple months) where every fate card has a focus of 3, each
> personality has either 3F, 3C, 3PH, or costs 3 to bring out. If I had the
> cards I might build a whacky Crane deck (no honor execpt Deuls? Cranial
Ninja?
> no honor except from the Stronghold
Again, you're supporting my argument here. If the best Lion deck is
just as likely to win as the best Any Other deck, you, the player, are
*still* able to build Not The Best Lion deck, to satisfy your 'creativity.'
You, Trevor, would be *just as able* to enjoy yourself, yet still know that
if you chose, you could try and build the best Your Clan deck and be just
as likely to win as anyone else.
Matthew M. Colville
In article <33F372...@cyberwar.com>, "Michael D. Muray P.A."
<md...@cyberwar.com> wrote:
> From Jogn Wick:
> "If I am weak, millions die." - Crab
Actually, I think Superman said this in The Dark Knight Returns by Frank
Miller.
"Millions die. . .if I am weak."
But then, what are the *odds* that some game designers read one of the
most influencial graphic novels in the history of the medium?!
P.S. That isn't a dig. If I designed my own CCG, I'd rip shit off left
and right.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Matthew M. Colville wrote:
>
> And I presume you're also asserting that more creativity in strategy
> games is better. Would you find chess greatly improved by adding more
> pieces to one side and, therefore by your logic, more 'creativity?'
>
> does the level of creativity (however that's measured) go up if one clan is
> more apt to win than another?
>
Who is more likely to win that chess game, the ignorant dolt who has
five extra pieces or the grandmaster playing with a handicap?
The ability to make do with a weaker hand and beat someone with a
stronger one is more important than always having the stronger hand.
The CPD may get the dragons out. What happens when, using my Scorpion
deck, I Kolat Assassin it (KA can now target things of 4 chi) or have
Kachiko give it a peck on the cheek, and then Kolat Master it? I am
weak no longer.
I find it much more enjoyable to beat a LSD with a Naga deck than with
another LSD. I enjoy playing Yogo Junzo Enlightenment.
Some may call me a masochist.
Others may understand. I play for fun, not to win.
Nothing compares to watching someone succumb to that slow slide of
dishonor as their personalities are dishonored and then fall to a test
of honor, or when they play an Ambush and have a Court Jester mock them
mercilessly. You may keep your Lion Speed Deck. I shall play it with a
more unorthodox deck. Win or lose, I'll enjoy myself more.
Bayushi Murai
Naga Clan Captive Scorpion Enlightened Ninja Spy
Kirby Krueger
In article <33F476...@execpc.com>,
Terry L. Madden <tlma...@execpc.com> wrote:
>
>In the tourney scene . . I think it was COMFORTING to see that in the
>top 8 of the DAY OF THUNDER there wasn't 8 Lion Clan members! I mean
>there were 5 clans represented . . TO ME THAT DOESN"T show that CLAN A
>is better than CLAN B.
>
You know, this is a _very_ good point.
Of all the Lion Speed Decks in the tournament, and I'm sure there were a
lot, only two made it to the final eight. That means the rest were
beaten, and not just by Lion Speed Decks.
While _nobody_ is arguing that the LSD isn't good, and one did end up
winning the tournament, the other clans didn't show a complete inability
to compete with them. Quite the contrary.
And a Tournament setting is very different from (most) normal play
groups. The decks tend to be much less maximized - only one person I
know owns a single Inheritence - and more balanced. While it may very
well be true that Lion has an edge over Unicorn with three of every card
in the game available, it's not necessarily so obvious with a deck and
ten boosters.
I think that if you had twelve people, and each bought a different
stronghold and a dozen boosters of their choice, you probably wouldn't
see anyone dominate. One person may be luckier than others with their
draw, but that's true of the other CCGs which have no inherent potential
unbalancings other than the draw. In fact, I'd very much like to try
this, just to see if it's vaguely true. :-)
I'm certainly competitive with my Totori's Army deck, which is not
Jack Dracula
>> that some Clans are better than other. I can only presume it's because
>> they play those clans.
> Not true. I play Scorpion. I started with Naga. Those were the two
> weakest clans when I started playing. I don't mind that Crane is
> probably a better clan. It's a challenge. It promotes creativity.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I love trying out new deck ideas, even ones
I know won't be winners, just to play differently. And I despise the
generic LSD/CFH (Crane Fast Honor) tourney decks. So uncreative.
The moral is: if you see someone playing a "Straight from the 'net"
tourney deck, call them a wussy for not being more daring. If that
doesn't work, double-dog-dare them to try something new. Real Men
make up their own decks.
Bayushi Dracula
Scorpion Taunter
Terry L. Madden
Greetings,
All I have got to say is . .
Don't start an arugment that says "deck A" is better than "deck B" . .
we don't want some CRAZY talk about making Matsu Gohei "UNIQUE" or
makking errata to the Lion Clan Stronghold . .
We don't want L5R to turn into that nasty Magic(tm) now do we?
(oh let's see . . this NECRO deck is winning like crazy . . let's
restrict ALL the cards that make it a viable deck option!!!) ARGH!!!
Another reason L5R should NOT go into the PRO TOUR business . .there
will be TOO many people complaining about certain cards/clans that
aren't "fair" and there will be restrictions and bannings flying around!
NO . .kEEP THE GAME FUN!
If an LSD deck seems to be kicking tail in your group . . counter it . .
make your OWN . . play an ANTI-LION deck (isn't that what DOOMS are
for?) have everyone else gang up on him! Convince him to build FUN decks
with everyone else.
In the tourney scene . . I think it was COMFORTING to see that in the
top 8 of the DAY OF THUNDER there wasn't 8 Lion Clan members! I mean
there were 5 clans represented . . TO ME THAT DOESN"T show that CLAN A
is better than CLAN B.
TErry Madden
Crane Clan Maddman
Jeff W. Alexander
In article <33F469...@cyberwar.com>,
>five extra pieces or the grandmaster playing with a handicap?
The grandmaster, of course. But that's not the point.
What if there *isn't* a disparity of skill between the players,
and each can decide for himself whether to play with a handicap?
Neither will ever do so, unless he's stupid or just wants to
waste time.
Jeff W. Alexander
In article <kirbykEE...@netcom.com>,
Kirby Krueger <kir...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>While _nobody_ is arguing that the LSD isn't good, and one did end up
>winning the tournament, the other clans didn't show a complete inability
>to compete with them. Quite the contrary.
Okay, question: can anyone *confirm* that this deck
was, in fact, an LSD? Or was it just a Lion deck?
>And a Tournament setting is very different from (most) normal play
>groups. The decks tend to be much less maximized - only one person I
>know owns a single Inheritence - and more balanced. While it may very
>well be true that Lion has an edge over Unicorn with three of every card
>in the game available, it's not necessarily so obvious with a deck and
>ten boosters.
While true, we are discussing the game as a whole. That
means we're only considering the "three of every card available"
case.
>I think that if you had twelve people, and each bought a different
>stronghold and a dozen boosters of their choice, you probably wouldn't
>see anyone dominate.
Um... actually, Lion *does* have the advantage. They have
an awful lot of beneficial cards in the basic set (Charge, Gohei,
Agetoki, Sneak Attack, Deadly Ground, SupTac, Trav. Terrain. It's
common knowledge in Sealed Deck + N Booster tournaments around
here that if you get a Lion stronghold, you take all Emerald
boosters. They *do* have nice cards in expansions, but in
relatively scarce numbers, and many of them are nice only because
they help defend against early honor loss, which is not going to
happen much in a limited environment.
Oh, and their Ancestral Armor rocks.
Jeff W. Alexander
>make your OWN . .
That defeats the purpose, and only supports his argument.
> play an ANTI-LION deck
And lose to every non-Lion deck you ever play against.
What will you do, demand to know what deck your opponent wants
to play beforehand and pull out a custom-made counterdeck every
game? Not an option.
> (isn't that what DOOMS are
>for?)
Dooms, for the most part, aren't effective. Some are notoriously
weak. Lion's is one of them.
> have everyone else gang up on him! Convince him to build FUN decks
>with everyone else.
There's a simpler option that embodies both these
suggestions: don't play against someone who only plays to
win. Winning *should* be your primary goal in a game, IMO,
but when it's your only goal you tend to miss a lot of the
game as well as annoy your playmates to the point of losing
them.
Allan Seyberth
:> It's a game. It's about fun. I play (with any frequency) Monk, Naga, and
:> honorable Crab (none of this Oni stuff!). Why not build a speedy Lion or
:> Crane deck? That's not particularly creative or challenging. I'm pondering
:> making a Lion "Book of Three" deck (I've got this stronghold over here I
:> haven't used in a couple months) where every fate card has a focus of 3, each
:> personality has either 3F, 3C, 3PH, or costs 3 to bring out. If I had the
:> cards I might build a whacky Crane deck (no honor execpt Deuls? Cranial
:Ninja?
:> no honor except from the Stronghold
<breaking the silence>
Lion decks are NOT the best decks.
Though, it is kind of cool to be thought so. When I got into the game I
picked Lion because I've always liked the noble samurai and for the fact that
NO ONE else was playing because it was thought to be so WEAK. <This was
pre-Shadowlands, hell - this was pre-Breach of Etiquette as an offensive
tactic).
My Lion deck (which I think is a little better then the standard LSD) gets
spanked HARD by my friend's Unicorn deck about half the time. AND his Unicorn
deck does far better in mulitplayer games then my Lion deck does.
Everything rolls around.
The first broken clan was supposedly Unicorn - 5 GOLD?!? Oh my god...
Then people started complaining about Crab - 3 ONI is unstoppable....
Lion....
Crane (got weak there for a bit, and then To Do What We Must came into
play)...
Phoenix (only after the corruption ability)....
The difference between winning and losing? Your skill is really about 90% of
it.
I played a sealed deck tournament where I was Phoenix and the other guy was a
God-draw Dragon. Chrysanthemum Festival, three fire breathers, three hawks
and falcons, three sanctified temples, and at least two each Ia. Duels and
Challanges.... I won the honor victory - I outplayed him. My master of Water
kept throwing in a defender in front of my army so I could keep gaining 1
more honor a turn then he did. I never took a province, and he took three of
mine.
Against equally skilled players? Luck of the draw.
--------------
Allan Seyberth
dar...@nmia.com
1,736,889,097 mph : It's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jeff W. Alexander wrote:
>
> Okay, question: can anyone *confirm* that this deck
> was, in fact, an LSD? Or was it just a Lion deck?
>
I haven't seen the deck, but it WAS destroying provinces on turn two or
three with huge amounts of Lion Personalities. Therefore it's an LSD or
a clever lifelike cardboard cutout. :)
> Um... actually, Lion *does* have the advantage. They have
> an awful lot of beneficial cards in the basic set (Charge, Gohei,
> Agetoki, Sneak Attack, Deadly Ground, SupTac, Trav. Terrain. It's
> common knowledge in Sealed Deck + N Booster tournaments around
> here that if you get a Lion stronghold, you take all Emerald
> boosters. They *do* have nice cards in expansions, but in
> relatively scarce numbers, and many of them are nice only because
> they help defend against early honor loss, which is not going to
> happen much in a limited environment.
>
> Oh, and their Ancestral Armor rocks.
>
The only things you REALLY don't want to play in Sealed Deck are Yogo
Junzo, and possibly Naga or Scorpion (Thanks to the unnatural tendency
of getting your own doom in those boxes...) Everyone else should be
OKAY...
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Sealed Naga
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jeremy Patterson wrote:
>
> The biggest problem with playing a Junzo deck in tourney is that with > most of the tourney
> style decks are either exploding honor or decks that need first turn > attacks. And!!! there are
> sooooooo many cards out there that can shut down a Junzo deck like > there is no tomorrow...
> We all know what cards I am talking about so I won't go into them.
The thing is, the quick military decks aren't going to stock up on the
Shadowlands hosers. You do have to worry a bit about the honor running
decks though. They tend to pack Oni's fury's to protect against Crab
Oni Decks, and that might nail you a bit. They MIGHT have an Iris
Festival, but most Junzo decks have There Is No Hope in them anyway, so
they might not bother.
It's a psychological game... I've seen plenty of Junzo decks WITHOUT
There is no hope, because everyone assumed it was there, so didn't put
Iris festivals in.
Far worse is "Dead walk the earth", as it eats your money supply too.
Bayushi Murai
Can't wait to get his hands on some corrupt giesha... err... wait, that
didn't come out right... whatever.
RICHARD KENAN
Lone_War (Lone...@fastinet.net) wrote:
: Terry L. Madden wrote:
: >
: > Zen Faulkes wrote:
: > I REALLY feel they should reprint the swords though . .they are a basic
: > part of the game ..EVERY clansman should have theirs. . make them
: > available for KOKU only (1 per person to stop speculators) make them
: > availabe again to Imperial Assembly members . .etc.
: This is the reason that I do NOT want FRPG to reprint the Clan Swords.
: They are a general guideline as to when you started playing L5R. Now,
: not many people care about this, but I do. I started playing L5R with
: Imperial, and my friends and I spent ALOT of money early on because we
: liked the game. Other than the Swords there are no cards out there that
: are different in the basic sets of the game. Nothing else can say, all
: by itself, that you have been playing since the beginning. It is a lot
: like when I played my Alpha deck of Magic at a local tournament a few
: years ago. People stopped just to come over and LOOK at my deck, and
: when I told them it was all gotten by booster pack, the look they gave
: me made up for the fact that I was losing badly.
I can somewhat agree with this. Swords have an innate coolness
factor that cannot be matched, and probably should not be
repeated.
: The swords are status symbols. They aren't that powerful, but they are a
: dividing line between those of us that helped make this game so popular,
: and those that came later. Lets keep it that way.
Here's where I disagree with you. If swords had the general power
level of armors, or the Mantis weapons, nobody would really get
upset that they aren't available any more. People would want to
get them, and they'd have a big coolness factor, but they would not
be the dividing line between winning and losing (usually). As they
are, however, swords are *FAR* more powerful than any other items
in the game, with a very few exceptions (Armor of Earth, Imperial
Standard). Give people items that can get 4 honor, and may cost
the opponent 6 honor, and give huge bonuses to a single personality,
and only cost 9 gold, and *EVERYBODY* will play them, because they
are grossly powerful. Swords should probably not be reprinted, but
items of comparable power *SHOULD* be made, so that everybody can
win, even people who never even heard of the game until 6 months
ago. And, while we're at it, give them to the expansion clans, too,
because lets face it, the Mantis weapons compare pretty well to the
clan armors, but aren't at all close to the first 8 clan weapons.
Just me.
--
Richard Kenan
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!eefacdk
Internet: eef...@prism.gatech.edu
fuleng
> Here's where I disagree with you. If swords had the general power
> level of armors, or the Mantis weapons, nobody would really get
> upset that they aren't available any more. People would want to
> get them, and they'd have a big coolness factor, but they would not
> be the dividing line between winning and losing (usually). As they
> are, however, swords are *FAR* more powerful than any other items
> in the game, with a very few exceptions (Armor of Earth, Imperial
> Standard). Give people items that can get 4 honor, and may cost
> the opponent 6 honor, and give huge bonuses to a single personality,
> and only cost 9 gold, and *EVERYBODY* will play them, because they
> are grossly powerful. Swords should probably not be reprinted, but
> items of comparable power *SHOULD* be made, so that everybody can
> win, even people who never even heard of the game until 6 months
> ago.
humm... beware, item of such power will be trouble.. let see it
i put the sword PLUS the new item = 2 power personnalities and 8
honor !!
Jeremy Patterson
"Michael D. Muray P.A." <md...@cyberwar.com> wrote:
>Zen Faulkes wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, I'd agree, if we ran the exact same numbers of players in the
>> starting gate. If we had, say, 15 players each from the twelve clans
>> instead of 26 Lion compared to 1 Yoritomo's Alliance player... I think
>> it would be much tighter.
>>
>> You may say, "Well, that there were so many Lions is just proof of
>> their superiority," to which I'd say: partly. There's other factors to
>> consider, like Lions make a good deck with almost no rares. Some people
>> may have brought Lion decks because they didn't have four Crab Oni and
>> an Egg of P'an Ku, or all six dragons, or whatever.
>I was surprised not to see more Yogo Junzo players... ESPECIALLY with
>the threat of 1000 years of Darkness.
>
I think Junzo's Army may soon be the
>> new speed king in duels (and it's pretty good now).
>
>That's probably true. Junzo makes EXCELLENT speed decks, as does
>Scorpion when playing "Junzo in a Can". (Hisa's a good addition to the
>deck, as is Baku... And you can do political actions) Even the Monks can
>make a mean speed follower deck.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jeff W. Alexander wrote:
>
> The grandmaster, of course. But that's not the point.
> What if there *isn't* a disparity of skill between the players,
> and each can decide for himself whether to play with a handicap?
> Neither will ever do so, unless he's stupid or just wants to
> waste time.
>
Well, my point was that you learn a lot more if you're handicapped, and
will therefore increase your skill a lot more. You typically learn more
if you lose, since you see the mistakes you made that led to your
downfall. Then you don't repeat those mistakes. After a while, you've
got the skill advantage on your opponent. Example, you've been playing
for a god-awful long time. I've only been playing since the beginning
of the year. You would probably beat me if we had identical decks and
the same draw, since you're probably a better player than me and will
think of different ways to use the same cards. You will also make less
mistakes. Now if you used a slightly inferior deck, the matches would
still be even, with you winning about half, me about half.
I'm not sure if I made my point clear or confused it more... I was just
saying it's not a bad thing to play a deck that's not all that good,
especially if you're trying out some cards people normally don't use, or
just playing for the fun of it.
Bayushi Murai
Not trying to get into a bunch of arguements. Just wants to play for
the fun of it. And make silly decks.
Michael D. Muray P.A.
Jack Dracula wrote:
>
> Yeah, I know the feeling. I love trying out new deck ideas, even ones
> I know won't be winners, just to play differently. And I despise the
> generic LSD/CFH (Crane Fast Honor) tourney decks. So uncreative.
>
> The moral is: if you see someone playing a "Straight from the 'net"
> tourney deck, call them a wussy for not being more daring. If that
> doesn't work, double-dog-dare them to try something new. Real Men
> make up their own decks.
> Bayushi Dracula
> Scorpion Taunter
This is exactly why I didn't copy the "Lesser Oni Monk Deck" for my
"Crabby Monks" deck. It's similar, but with ratlings and goblins
instead 'cuz I like them better. And 5 or 6 lesser oni. And scouts,
shield walls, and a bajillion other cheap followers. It's a lot of fun
to watch your opponent go: "Toku's unit has HOW MUCH FORCE? And they've
got a shield wall?" Especially against a Yoritomo ranged attack deck.
(I feared for poor Toku's life at one point when he had two goblin mobs
and a personal standard or two, but no shield wall... but he lived! And
got caught in suspended terrain if I remember correctly...)
And the new Crab banner's just gonna help that deck. Cool.
Bayushi Murai
Scorpion Clan Naga with Crabs
(Or something)
D. J. Trindle
In article <EEzAD...@wlbr.iipo.gtegsc.com>, j...@wlv.iipo.gtegsc.com
(Jeff W. Alexander) wrote:
> In article <kirbykEE...@netcom.com>,
> Kirby Krueger <kir...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> >While _nobody_ is arguing that the LSD isn't good, and one did end up
> >winning the tournament, the other clans didn't show a complete inability
> >to compete with them. Quite the contrary.
>
> Okay, question: can anyone *confirm* that this deck
> was, in fact, an LSD? Or was it just a Lion deck?
Well, I sat Chris Bergstrom down after he won the tournament, and wrote
down his deck. I don't want to spray it out onto the net -- it's going to
be showing up in InQuest and the Imperial Herald, I believe -- but I ran
it past Dave Williams. "Dave? In your estimation, is this an LSD?"
He said yes. He also gave me a little background: apparently Chris never
ran into a Phoenix deck, even though his deck was ready for them. Details
will follow, but I don't know if we'll be posting them.
-D.J.T.
ToTV Signature Card: Oracle of the Void
Jeff W. Alexander
In article <33F5BB...@cyberwar.com>,
>saying it's not a bad thing to play a deck that's not all that good,
>especially if you're trying out some cards people normally don't use, or
>just playing for the fun of it.
You've made your point very well. The thing is, in any game,
it's *possible* to handicap yourself against an inferior opponent
and/or experiment with unusual strategies. You just voluntarily
"play down". But if the Clans in L5R are unbalanced (and despite
my support of the game, I believe that they are), you can't *help*
but handicap yourself if you play Clan XXX where XXX isn't one
of Phoenix/Lion/Crane. And that's a shortcoming of the game as a
whole.
J.L. Robert
Lone_War wrote:
>
> The swords are status symbols. They aren't that powerful, but they are a
> dividing line between those of us that helped make this game so popular,
> and those that came later. Lets keep it that way.
>
There are still quite a large number of the Ancestral Swords hanging
around. They're not impossible to find (heck, one's still in print),
and the price for them is not skyrocketing like Mox Gems.
I've gone through close to a dozen sets of Ancestral Swords. Between
opening up starters, playing in sealed deck tourneys, trading and
buying, I've never had difficulty obtaining swords. Granted, I'm in a
card rich environment. But I've been sending swords all over the
country, and I doubt they all went to veteran players.
Neat to have, yes. Status symbols? Probably not. At least, not yet.
J.L. Robert, Gaijin Monk
J.L. Robert
Matthew M. Colville
In article <EF18s...@wlbr.iipo.gtegsc.com>, j...@wlv.iipo.gtegsc.com (Jeff
W. Alexander) wrote:
> In article <33F5BB...@cyberwar.com>,
> Michael D. Muray P.A. <md...@cyberwar.com> wrote:
> >
> >I'm not sure if I made my point clear or confused it more... I was just
> >saying it's not a bad thing to play a deck that's not all that good,
> >especially if you're trying out some cards people normally don't use, or
> >just playing for the fun of it.
>
> You've made your point very well. The thing is, in any game,
> it's *possible* to handicap yourself against an inferior opponent
> and/or experiment with unusual strategies. You just voluntarily
> "play down". But if the Clans in L5R are unbalanced (and despite
> my support of the game, I believe that they are), you can't *help*
> but handicap yourself if you play Clan XXX where XXX isn't one
> of Phoenix/Lion/Crane. And that's a shortcoming of the game as a
> whole.
What really annoyed me, when I started this, was people arguing against
I point I wasn't making.
I said that if I can predict, with reasonable accuracy, who is going to
win based soley on which clan they're playing, and the presumption that
it's a well-built deck, then there's a problem with Game Balance. I
suggested that, when each Clan is doing it's thing (Monks winning by
Enlightenment, Crane winning by Honor, etc. . .) they should all be merely
*as* likely to win as any other deck.
I then got a string of responses from people arguing that playing a
'less than ideal' deck can be fun, which, of course, is neither my point,
nor relevent to my argument.
But it's nice to know I'm not alone. . .
--
Armed only with wisdom
The Shintao monks fight against the darkness. . .
Role-Playing & Fiction; http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolville
RICHARD KENAN
Zen Faulkes (zfau...@bio1.lan.mcgill.ca) wrote:
: Greetings,
: RICHARD KENAN (hater of lowercase letters) wrote:
: >> The swords are status symbols. They aren't that powerful... [snip]
: >
: > Here's where I disagree with you. If swords had the general power
: > level of armors, or the Mantis weapons, nobody would really get
: > upset that they aren't available any more.
: Because the Armors are still readily available, it's hard to tell how
: much people will be scrambling for the Armors several months down the road.
: I think people might end up missing the Armors more than you expect. My
: impression with the Swords was that it took a long time before the supply of
: Ancestral Swords generally "dried up." People had a long time to get them.
I seriously doubt it. The armors are decent cards, but they cannot
go in every decks. Some Lion decks ignore armor because it's too
expensive. Many Dragon decks ignore armors because they don't risk
their Togashi Yoshi's in battles. I've never seen anybody use the
Crane armor. Unicorn armor is mostly good in a big final battle to
decide the game, which is rarely in question about who wins by that
time anyway. Crab is just plain bad for an aggressive deck. And
most Phoenix decks don't use enough samurai to make it worthwhile
including their otherwise cool armor. On the other hand, the huge
power of the swords means that the only reason not to include your
sword in a deck of the 6 main clans is that you don't own it (or you
don't have any gold production, as some unicorn decks don't).
: > People would want to get them, and they'd have a big coolness factor, but
: > they would not be the dividing line between winning and losing (usually).
: > As they are, however, swords are *FAR* more powerful than any other items
: > in the game, with a very few exceptions (Armor of Earth, Imperial
: > Standard). Give people items that can get 4 honor, and may cost
: > the opponent 6 honor, and give huge bonuses to a single personality,
: > and only cost 9 gold, and *EVERYBODY* will play them, because they
: > are grossly powerful. Swords should probably not be reprinted, but
: > items of comparable power *SHOULD* be made, so that everybody can
: > win, even people who never even heard of the game until 6 months
: > ago. And, while we're at it, give them to the expansion clans, too,
: > because lets face it, the Mantis weapons compare pretty well to the
: > clan armors, but aren't at all close to the first 8 clan weapons.
: See this week's Card of the Week (#59) on the Ancestral Standards in
: Obsidian Edition. In my estimation, the Clan Standards are closer to the
: Swords in power level than they appear at first glance. And, as I point out,
: the expansion clan's standards are better than the big six.
This is cool, but I've recently run into another gripe about the
clan swords. People with lots of swords around here are starting
to include off-clan swords. I'm not talking about Unicorn decks
sticking in Lion swords for Matsu Agetoki, I'm talking about having
a deck with 4 or 5 swords, just to gain honor and breach your
opponent. It's irritating for my Lion deck to lose to another
Lion deck because it has the sword and I don't (bad choice, since
I have a Lion sword, but let's ignore that). Having my Lion deck
lose because a Crane deck attached the Lion sword to Doji Yosai
just to cause me an honor loss and gain 4 honor is broken. At the
very least, errata the damn things so people who can only afford
one sword per deck don't get crushed by people with multiples. Or
else, maybe an event "Accusation of Theft" that causes 10 honor loss,
unpreventable, for every ancestral item a player has that is not of
his clan. I don't object to having powerful cards out of print,
but I do object to having the game set up so everybody who can has
a strong incentive to include every single one in each of his decks.
Come on, FRPG, you aren't making any money off the damn things any
more, at least fix them so people who are still supporting you have
a decent chance.
MotorFudge@delete.spam.protection@hotmail.com
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 09:22:37 -0600, "Terry L. Madden"
<tlma...@execpc.com> wrote:
>
>The Naga decks I didn't see .. . but they take some GUTS and Creativity
>to play in a tourney with what everyone considers a weak clan . .Same
>goes for the Mantis and Monks and even toturi's army to a point.
>
--> Snip
>Terry Madden
>Crane Clan Maddman
Hello folks, I just wanted to throw in my 0.02 Koku....
I was the Naga player that made the most noise at the Day of Thunder
(one of the 2 Naga that refused to attack each other & the Naga that
Refused to Die (TM) by fighting my way back in via skirmishing.)
The deck I used was being modified right up until starting time ...
due to the confusion that we didn't know if we were using Obsidian
ruling or ToV Naga Stronghold. Therefore the deck I built wasn't the
best I could offer (I can think of many many changes now, but....)
My deck consisted of the following (From memory -- may not be
perfectly accurate)
Price of War (stops Lion decks, in my opinion)
Naming the True Evil (I most feared Corrupt Phoenix & Junzo)
3x Small Farm
3x Island Warf
3x Pearl Divers
3x Pearl Beds
2x Merchant Caravan
3x Naga Shugenja
2x Naga Warlord
2x Isha
2x Balash
1x Qamar
1x Master Smith (helps in a stalemate of military decks)
1x Shahadet
and I don't remember the rest of the Dynasty (there was 31 or 32 cards
total)
Fate:
3x Sneak Attack
3x Crushing Attack
3x Stand Against the Waves
3x Rallying Cry
3x Naga Bushi
2x Naga Spearmen
2x Naga Guard
Armor of the Earth
3x Bad Kharma *
2x Utter Defeat
Ancient Spear of the Naga
3x One Koku
and one or two other cards (total was 31 or 32...)
Durning the Initial rounds, I used Bad Kharma to defend against Scorps
& Junzo. I forget what I swapped around, but I did some quick card
shuffling when I found out I was using the ToV stronghold. I replaced
the Utter Defeats in for the Lies Lies Lies I know....
After I returned to the tournament via skirmishing, I know I dropped
the Bad Kharma & put Ancest. Sword of Phoenix & Ancest. Sword of Lion
in...
If anyone wants to know the exact cards I can't remember, please post
&& * AND * email me (Motor...@hotmail.com) and I'll post the rest.
I have a lot of work to catch up on (was on vacation all last week)
and I don't know how closely I'll be able to follow this newsgroup.
Be Calm
Nik Olah
Great Lakes Imperial Ambassador
Samurai Enforcer - Naga
Lone_War
fuleng wrote:
>
> > Here's where I disagree with you. If swords had the general power
> > level of armors, or the Mantis weapons, nobody would really get
> > get them, and they'd have a big coolness factor, but they would not
> > be the dividing line between winning and losing (usually). As they
> > are, however, swords are *FAR* more powerful than any other items
> > in the game, with a very few exceptions (Armor of Earth, Imperial
> > Standard). Give people items that can get 4 honor, and may cost
> > the opponent 6 honor, and give huge bonuses to a single personality,
> > and only cost 9 gold, and *EVERYBODY* will play them, because they
> > are grossly powerful. Swords should probably not be reprinted, but
> > items of comparable power *SHOULD* be made, so that everybody can
> > win, even people who never even heard of the game until 6 months
> > ago.
>
> i put the sword PLUS the new item = 2 power personnalities and 8
> honor !!
And I steal them both, losing me 6 honor and 2 gold.
--
Billie F. Krieger III
Dragon Clan Spy/Trader
Death, death, death to all who oppose us!
Mathieu Lupien
Elliott Wong replied to me
>> Yeah, I agree there. I'd have to say that from what I saw of Chris
>> Bergstrom's winning Lion deck, and Rob Kramer's runner-up Crane deck
>> (which featured a Doom of the Lion, incidentally), these were two guys
>> who were both *acutely* aware of the "meta-game" and weren't afraid to
>> pack cards specifically to shut down popular decks.
>
> What do you mean, Zen? What did Chris' Lion deck have in it that would
> shut down popular decks? It seems to me that Desparate Measures and
> Return of Fu Leng are standard cards for a military deck. What else did
> Chris have in his deck?
Chris's deck featured Corruption of the Harmonies, for one, and I can't think
of any reason why that was there except that he was expecting to see a lot of
Phoenix. (There were *six* events in Chris's 30 card deck -- high number, to
me.) He packed Lies, Lies, Lies..., a card that I'm sure some Lion players will
say is "too defensive."
Rob Kramer's Crane deck -- as I said, Doom of the Lion. Elsewhere in this
thread, Jeff Alexander said this Doom is notoriously weak. Why would anyone
include it except that they were expecting to see a load of Lions? And I know
that Rob had Flight of Dragons in his Fate deck -- again, that says to me that
he was expecting big ol' Shadowlands dragons to be unleashed upon him.
There were more examples, but those are a couple I remember off the top of my
head.
Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar
Zen Faulkes
Greetings,
RICHARD KENAN (hater of lowercase letters) wrote:
>> The swords are status symbols. They aren't that powerful... [snip]
>
> Here's where I disagree with you. If swords had the general power
> level of armors, or the Mantis weapons, nobody would really get
> upset that they aren't available any more.
Because the Armors are still readily available, it's hard to tell how
much people will be scrambling for the Armors several months down the road.
I think people might end up missing the Armors more than you expect. My
impression with the Swords was that it took a long time before the supply of
Ancestral Swords generally "dried up." People had a long time to get them.
> People would want to get them, and they'd have a big coolness factor, but
> they would not be the dividing line between winning and losing (usually).
> As they are, however, swords are *FAR* more powerful than any other items
> in the game, with a very few exceptions (Armor of Earth, Imperial
> Standard). Give people items that can get 4 honor, and may cost
> the opponent 6 honor, and give huge bonuses to a single personality,
> and only cost 9 gold, and *EVERYBODY* will play them, because they
> are grossly powerful. Swords should probably not be reprinted, but
> items of comparable power *SHOULD* be made, so that everybody can
> win, even people who never even heard of the game until 6 months
> ago. And, while we're at it, give them to the expansion clans, too,
> because lets face it, the Mantis weapons compare pretty well to the
> clan armors, but aren't at all close to the first 8 clan weapons.
See this week's Card of the Week (#59) on the Ancestral Standards in
Obsidian Edition. In my estimation, the Clan Standards are closer to the
Swords in power level than they appear at first glance. And, as I point out,
the expansion clan's standards are better than the big six.
Quicksilver
RICHARD KENAN <eef...@acmex.gatech.edu> wrote in article
> I seriously doubt it. The armors are decent cards, but they cannot
> go in every decks. Some Lion decks ignore armor because it's too
> expensive. Many Dragon decks ignore armors because they don't risk
> their Togashi Yoshi's in battles. I've never seen anybody use the
> Crane armor. Unicorn armor is mostly good in a big final battle to
> decide the game, which is rarely in question about who wins by that
> time anyway. Crab is just plain bad for an aggressive deck. And
> most Phoenix decks don't use enough samurai to make it worthwhile
> including their otherwise cool armor. On the other hand, the huge
> power of the swords means that the only reason not to include your
> sword in a deck of the 6 main clans is that you don't own it (or you
> don't have any gold production, as some unicorn decks don't).
I dunno. I've included the crane armor in a couple of dueling decks. They
weren't fast enough to compete with a dedicated honor-runner in honor, but
there was one very memorable game in which a Crab honorable military deck
was within inches of winning by honor and he couldn't go for the favor
because I had Doji Reju sitting around with the Crane Sword and Armor, and
a buttload of Crane to back his Chi up.
--
Quicksilver rides again
--------------
Those who would give up a little freedom for security
deserve neither freedom nor security
-Benjamin Franklin
Yeah, I have Attention Deficit Dis - Hey, look at that butterfly!
Jonathan Hurley (mailto:jhur...@stevens-tech.edu)
Michael D. Muray P.A.
fuleng wrote:
>
> humm... beware, item of such power will be trouble.. let see it
> i put the sword PLUS the new item = 2 power personnalities and 8
> honor !!
I don't really think it's that much of a problem, really. The swords
are a bit tough to get, but possible. You can get the Crab sword in
Beiden Pass, and it's not that hard to trade for some of the rest if you
really want them.
The "Black Lotus Syndrome" was avoided by sticking one in each pack.
And if you can find Imperial packs, then great. You've got them. Same
thing with the armors in Emerald.
Bayushi Murai
Happy with his broken sword, it's generally more useful than an
ancestral sword.
Guard Cdr
>Yeah, I agree there. I'd have to say that from what I saw of Chris
>Bergstrom's winning Lion deck, and Rob Kramer's runner-up Crane deck
>(which featured a Doom of the Lion, incidentally), these were two guys
>who were both *acutely* aware of the "meta-game" and weren't afraid to
>pack cards specifically to shut down popular decks.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
A good example of a meta-game deck, which unfortunately only (ONLY!) made
it to the final 16 was Brian Dalrymple's Toturi's Army deck that featured:
flight of dragons
time of the void
return of fu leng
shadowlands sickness
kolat instigator (poets are dead meat)
desperate measures
iris festival
and more.
He beat a Crab that was whomping him because the crab egged his toturi
then slapped a porcelin mask on him, the shadowlands sickness allowed him
to get the crab's whole army.
BTW, I don't really see where the Lion deck was at all influenced by the
"meta" game.