elfiver

Clinical Follow-Up: Raido no Oni

2012-01-26T20:51:00.008-05:00

A lot of stuff has happened for me in the last few days. It started off well when I got to visit my Grandpa who, when I told him that I was starting Internal Medicine residency in July, responded with a resounding "whoopee!" You see, my grandfather isn't able to verbalize as much as he used to but the fact that he was able to muster up a remark like that brought a real smile to my face. That smile quickly disappeared later that night though...

The worst part was that this was the night before my last residency interview and it took all of my energy to even go to the damn thing at 6AM the next morning. On my way back home, every time my GPS told me to turn left I started getting flashbacks and had to pull over to compose myself. During one of those panic attacks, however, I was glad to notice on my twitter feed that despite my pain at least Raido no Oni had gotten errata'd. My one real fear about the start of the Emperor format is now resolved, but let's back-track a little bit.

I first heard about this thing back in December, when a fellow Southern L5R player named Jeremy Sumerlin sent me a message about the deck. I took a quick look at it, said "oh that's pretty neat" and went on with my business of figuring out what I was going to lose Topaz with (and oh did I). The first time I saw the deck in action was two weeks ago while testing my own kotei deck against it. When I noticed how this Crane Oni thing was getting at least two copies of a 10 force card out in the action phase of its second turn, I became a bit worried. Then I saw it attack with 4 copies of a 10 force card on turn 2, I immediately saw the makings of a true NPE.

Like our lead designer I don't like to use this term lightly. In fact, when I look at things objectively, there were only 3 NPE items in the entirety of Celestial (those being the Phoenix Blitz deck early arc, breeder as a whole, and Wrath of Kali Ma on two separate occasions). Most of these (COUGH) were properly dealt with by design once it became apparent that they were a problem, so I was confident that they would do so again.

This is where I give a big fat shout-out to Jeremy. He is the one who invented this thing and was cool enough to not only post it publicly, but also gave Brian Fox and I permission to aggressively campaign with AEG employees for something to be done. Both of us (likely along with some others who I didn't know of) got on facebook line with Bryan Reese and Daniel Briscoe extensively about the danger the deck represented, especially to new players. This last part was the factor that likely swayed the final decision; having a ridiculously strong deck is one thing, but when seeing it even once could cause people to quit the game the decision becomes business more than balance. I remember nearly quitting myself back in Samurai because of Bayushi Saya, and this was far worse than that ever was. Luckily for all of us, Bryan was already aware and had gotten all of play test on the issue. At the end of the day, he thankfully came up with a tidy solution to the problem.

Fast forward again to me recovering from another episode. See, I was listening to NPR and somebody was talking about how the former Greek President was "kicked" out of office and I just lost it. After I stopped dry-heaving I decided I'd check the facebook feed on the erratum and saw gems such as this:

"one bad game experience for one desigm (sic) team member cause ban for one deck type ... very BAD"

and this...

"BTW, I want errata on Dragon's dishonor stronghold because it makes games unfun (sic) at my house. I expect the errata this week."

aaaaand this

"...I wonder if I would have cried to Dave Williams about Matsu Gohei enough he would have band (sic) him
from the game...NOT...get over it you babies! You're the one's (sic) who RIUN (sic) the game..."

First of all I appreciate you guys forcing me to use (sic) a lot it makes me feel like a real writer despite the magical samurai-ish subject matter of my prose. Other than that though, what you see here is a classic case of "using sarcasm and hyperbole on the internet for no real $#!%ing reason." Now, I usually don't approve of people starting sentences with "I'm sorry but..." though I will make an exception this once. I'm sorry but...are you people for real? Anyone who has seen this deck in action should have nothing but respect for how consistently it could put 20 force on the board in the action phase of turn 2. Take a look at the deck list, a close look, and you can see how it has a lot of built-in consistency. I can guarantee that it would have been an issue for the rest of the arc.

I encourage you guys to tell me how you feel in the comments. To start things off, Daniel Wheeler sent me this message, with impressive grammar and no typos even!

"I think everyone agrees the deck needed errata as it was stupid; they just find Reese's justification for doing so rather weak and that perhaps Raido himself was not the card to errata."

I would somewhat agree that Bryan may still be underestimating the deck in his announcement, but new players were the main issue, and at the end of the day the reasons matter little because the fix got done. On the second part, I think Raido was the right call. Some have argued that you can still One Koku for a Raido along with a bunch of free artisans turn 1 then Amazing Feat a couple times but this is waaaaay harder to pull off as it relies on dynasty flips to a huge extent (much less flexible than just relying on fate). I am sure there will still be plenty of Oni to summon with I Give you My Name in the future and plenty of fine, non-busted ways to use amazing feat as well.

I also hate it when folks end things with "in conclusion" but damn it it's been a long day so in conclusion, I think this was the right medicine for quite a disease. Playing against this deck was the opposite of fun, and that kind of goes against the whole point of playing a game doesn't it? Again, please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments section. Was it the wrong call or was this just what we needed to start the season on the right foot.

Right foot....oh god...it's kkhhkfdjfdii22222222222222222222222
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Performance Enhancers: Crab Scouts (Part 1)

2012-01-21T18:54:00.001-05:00

Author's Note: Before we start I'll not that while I said the Lion Paragon article was on the way I decided to put on the back burner while I explore some clans besides that one that I've usually played competitively. I hope you'll understand, there will definitely be a Lion article in the near future though!

A new year, a new edition. With the recent announcement of final Emperor Edition release dates there was a secret little message at the bottom which, when decoded using that cipher from that Tom Hanks movie and that other Tom Hanks movie reveals that the full PDF has been released of the EE base set, which you can download here. The announcement also reveals that EE legality with these proxies has already officially begun per TO choice between now and the kotei season. I'm glad that Daniel and company decided to push back the end of proxy legality as well, and now I can say in all honesty that I am very excited for the new arc.

This is going to be my first article examining how I build and play a deck. Notice that I didn't say how "to" build and play a deck because I don't pretend to be the authority on things like this. Instead I would ask that you play along with the idea that I usually know what I'm doing when it comes to this game. That or you can read this with the intent to ridicule it after you're done, whatever gets us the hits I guess.

Enough jibba jabba

Stronghold and Starting Holdings

Kyuden Hida- Experienced

Did you really expect anything else here? The berserker and courtier boxes are obviously out, and while Range 5 + 9 province strength is great and all it don't beat getting 3 free scout followers on your favorite people. Followers continue to be the best protection in the environment, and as someone who got knocked out of Gen Con by this stronghold I can tell you that it can be REALLY REALLY annoying to fight against. Yeah the days of Hunting and Concentrated are over but this box is still extremely dangerous.

Border Keep and Bamboo Harvesters non-experienced

It takes a pretty compelling argument for a military player to use BK-xp, and I think that argument is pretty damn hard to make out of this box. If there is any card that this deck would want to dig for it's Duty of the Crab or maybe Rumors against honor but in general I think this needs to keep a good flow of personalities out of your provinces. As far as bamboo goes...well, it's a go second military deck, and I definitely want that gold on my turn 2 to get a good economy rolling.

Dynasty

The Peeps

Well this is a scout deck so let's put some scouts in here! What's nice about this deck is that you can literally bring up the card-search program of your choice (I use Egg of Pan Ku) and bring up a list of all the crab scouts. Now, we'll begin by adding...let's see...all of them. Yep, in a remarkable turn for a start-of-arc theme deck I've decided to sweep everything in here. We'll start with a range 4, then move on to a range 4 through followers. After that we'll add a dash of range 4 which in turn has a side of range 4 if you bring a friend. For those looking for a larger meal we'll toss in some range 5, and a guy who makes your range 4's into 5's. Then for good measure we'll add a tactician who brings his own flavor of range 4 with a province strength modifier. You say there's a ninja who moves in THEN does a range 5? Hell yeah.

If you look close at the above paragraph you MAY start to notice a trend. We'll get back to ranged attacks in a second, for now let's add the three non-scout uniques that improve on what is already a good thing. Hida Komatsu has a nice 1:1 F/G and has two excellent abilities to boot. Fubatsu is of course the man with the plan, handing out free shit is always a good decision plus he's a 6F tactician. Finally, we'll add the champ who is (sigh) only the second-best in the game.

Don't worry Josh Kolb, I didn't forget you! You might be an enigma since you don't range 4 like your human buddies but there's still a place for a 4F cavalry scout who has a great send-home action. Don't forget that ageless produces 3 for this guy.

The C.R.E.A.M. (that's gold for all you who ain't down with the Wu)

So, with a gold cost that averages just a bit above 7 I'm totally down with playing 15 holdings. I know that some folks like to run less for scouts, but the reason we're running regular BK is that we can cycle out the gold flood later in the game. Iron mine of course goes in, and colonial harbor lets us use that fantastic box whenever we want. Ageless shrine is sexy in any samurai deck and it can even be used with the lone non-samurai since he's nonhuman. Now that we're 9 holdings down we get into utility territory. With all these ranged 4's that relatively common 5 force guy will often be a pain so let's add archery range to smooth it out. Recruitment officer goes nicely with the gold costs here and can conveniently be used before the box. We'll round it out with peddler since cards are good and Chugo Seido since redirecting is also good.

The Filler

Two slots left, this is easy. Second city goes into every deck in the environment that doesn't rely on regions, and if you argue with me I will call you names publicly. Not only do you essentially shrink your dynasty deck to 39, you can scout ahead at the provinces you are thinking of taking (what's that? Hiromi is under there? I think I'll attack at that one!) Lastly, Ryoshun's is extremely hot when you can use it to re-target to a scout follower.

Fate

Scout Stuff

Strangely enough there isn't a ton of it. Disrupting is a must and strategic strike gives you another excellent (surprise) ranged attack. Seeking the Truth provides a nice pro-tempo tutor of your discard pile, which is especially appreciated in a post-Scouting Far Afield world.

Ranged Attack Stuff

There aren't many decks that are unreachable with a range 4 or 5 but Sniping closes that gap. No Hiding Place is a card design might actually regret bringing back since it gives defensive decks gigantic headaches; it's also great against those pesky paragon decks that sit back in preparation for a Perfect Moment...poor old Matsu Arata is only 3F at home after all.

Having More Dudes is Usually Good

Duty of the Crab is MESSED. One of these days I may do a quick run through of all the virtues...SPOILER ALERT: Crab wins. For all those who think that the semi-doomed intentions that is The Courage of the Mantis is better I dare you to suggest that after you get hit with Hida Kisada coming from a province into a fight on turn 3. That covers one aspect of maintaining a personality advantage, the other is Your Clan Needs You. I have heard this one bad-mouthed plenty, even by good players, but I have been testing with this in multiple deck types and by God it works. The majority of folks in this deck are 7g, meaning that YCNY busts them into a fight for free. An alternative to this would be At Any Cost to revive the dead guys but this fills a similar role for a much cheaper cost...after all, if the guys to bring in survive you can always buy them at the end of the turn just like you normally would have.

Other Good Miscellany

When you've exhausted the good keyword tech and other cards specific to gold schemes and clans you move on to the basics. Creating order and game of dice go into just about every deck so...not much more to say about that. Sundering strike and Brawl are both versatile and unperformed strategies that should find themselves into any deck that has enough space. Know No Fear is along the same lines, though obviously that is limited to the samurais. Lastly, a couple sneaks are a good idea in a deck that has some innate protection in case it flops; some folks may not necessarily expect it out of a scout deck either.

Meta

Good meta is flexible meta, and Rumors Travel (or as most of us see it, Beloved on crack) is no exception. Two copies of this means you won't be flooded with movement tech against other military while it gives you a decent chance to see at least one copy against honor, which you can fish for over and over again with Seeking the Truth.

Rangs

I'm a bit squeamish on putting fire in here since you have to look hard to find folk's above 3 chi in here but the change from "lower" in previous editions to "equal or lower" is huge, plus it's super easy to put in play here. Water and Void are the kind of cards you need to find reasons to NOT put in rather than the other way around. PRO TIP: Water is super-easy to get out in this deck even unopposed because of the fact that you don't need to declare targets for ranged attacks anymore. You can sit around shooting at nothing and you can still bust it out, just as long as you are doing it with four different cards.

With all of that said, let's take a look at the full list:

1 Kyuden Hida - exp

# Dynasty (40)

# Celestials (1)
1 Ryoshun's Guidance

# Regions (1)
1 The Second City

# Holdings (16)
3 Ageless Shrine
3 Iron Mine
1 Traveling Peddler
3 Colonial Harbor
1 Chugo Seido
2 Archery Range
3 Recruitment Officer

# Personalities (22)
1 Hiruma Akio - exp
3 Hiruma Nitani
3 Hiruma Tensin
3 Toritaka Chokichi
3 Nijugun
3 Kaiu Esumi
1 Hida Komatsu
1 Hida Fubatsu - exp
1 Hida Kisada
2 Toritaka Shishido
1 Takasho

# Fate (40)

# Strategies (37)
3 Disrupting Communication
3 Seeking the Truth
3 Strategic Strike
3 The Duty of the Crab
2 Brawl
3 Sundering Strike
3 Your Clan Needs You!
2 Heart of Darkness
3 Know No Fear
2 Sneak Attack
1 A Game of Dice
1 Creating Order
3 Sniping
3 No Hiding Place
2 Rumors Travel

# Rings (3)
1 Ring of Water
1 Ring of the Void
1 Ring of Fire

In part 2 we'll talk a little bit about how to play this thing, including somewhat of a play-by-play with some visual aids! We got ourselves a PREMIUM blog here so stay tuned!

Bounty or Bribery: You decide!

2011-12-21T15:50:00.003-05:00

The Emerald Championship took place this past weekend and the winner, John Seals, representing the Unicorn Clan, has designated his choices for Emerald Champion. His first choice was the Recruitment Officer who, while not being a part of the ponies proper, would certainly make for an interesting choice. His back up choice was Utaku Ji-Yun who Mr. Reese hinted will likely wear the armor vacated by Jimen. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Seals was not the “winner” who has had the most focus as a result of the tournament. That would be Mr. David Winner and he comes into the spotlight for reasons other than his playing ability and runner-up finish.

Here’s the scenario as best as can be discerned from various threads on the AEG, Crane and Mantis forums:

1. Prior to the tournament, a Crane bounty is placed by David Winner, that monies will be paid if an untainted Crane is named the Emerald Champion. This obviously requires that a Crane win the tournament. The bounty is in the amount of $500.

2. David Winner ends up in the final four and is the only Crane player therein. He faces Will Brewer representing the Mantis clan.

3. At some time just prior to the beginning of their match, David offers half of the aforesaid bounty to Will if Will concedes.

4. Will either declines or is indecisive about the offer (it is unclear as Will’s tournament report has been edited once the situation blew up) and they proceed to game one.

5. Will wins game one. He loses game two (badly, by his account).

6. It is determined that John Seals will face the winner between David and Will.

7. Will concedes game three.

8. David loses in the finals.

Here is where things get murky: David offers to Will half of a bounty that he placed originally and happens to be the only person capable of claiming. This split is offered before anyone is in a direct position to actually claim the bounty, though Will’s prior knowledge of the bounty can be assumed to exist (though why he would need reminding of it JUST before they began play is curious). Will stated in his tournament report (which statement has since been removed from the Mantis forums) that “I fell on my sword in game 3 as I was offered a decent deal, was exhausted, had achieved more than I'd set out to do just by hitting Top 4, and knew Seals would be my opponent in finals and did not like my chances.” The ‘offered a decent deal’ part shows that the stipulation from David was a factor (one of four) in Will conceding game three.

These have been the general defenses offered:

1. No money ever (or yet) changed hands.

2. Will conceded and only after that fact went back to David about the fulfillment of the offer.

3. Will had every reason to be amicable to David because David had helped Will out previously. (Will posted on the Crane forums that he didn’t realize that David was Yoshi at the time).

4. There was no maliciousness present in the concession.

What do you guys think?

Editorial Note: I personally think that the slander has been put back into the Crane clan for the offer being made during the tournament itself. Mr. Winner, having just won Tanukifest, is clearly a capable player. For me, however, that he is the source of the bounty, is the only one capable of receiving the bounty as result of his stellar play, and offers a part of that bounty for a concession just prior to the start of his top four match (regardless of whether the money was ever paid out or not) deserves for Doji Yoshi’s card to be flipped upside down in dishonorable fashion.

Fitness Exam: The Champions

2011-12-12T10:15:00.015-05:00

Editor's note: Please welcome multiple Kotei winner, Straw Dog, & recent M.D. recipient Evan Paul (Velo75) of Memphis, Tennessee as the newest elfiver blogger. Evan comes with quite a reputation and passion for the game. Here's to hoping he's as successful here as in the rest of his life.

When I started this game back in 2007 I remember looking at my clan champion, Matsu Yoshino, and thinking "why does a guy in the Lion Clan have a bear on his chest, and what does personal honor mean?"

Fast forwarding four years, I look back and laugh at my own ignorance. While I'm still not enormously clear about what personal honor is, the bear is a obviously metaphor. In some parts of East Asia, to say that someone is "like a bear" is to suggest that this person is stubborn and oblivious to the realities that surround him. It foreshadowed Yoshino's brash march into Unicorn territory, which would eventually result in his own death!

My other theory is that the guy who drew that card that didn't know what a Lion looks like.

While we're on the subject of champions, we got ourselves a brand new batch of 'em for the upcoming Emperor Edition. While this is only the third set I'll have had the chance to play with, I am told that even compared to the good old days (or bad old days depending on who you ask) this set of champions is superb all around. Every one of these guys is going to cause some anxiety on the other side of the board when they show up, which is a testament to the amount of time design likely had to spend balancing them. Still, the Orwellian truth is that that some of these guys are more balanced (read: less awesome) than the others, which is where this list comes in.

There are several factors that went into my selection here which include but are not limited to their cost, viability in all the clan's themes, quality of abilities/traits, and raw stats. You'll notice that some of the top personalities, including the number one, will not see a lot of play in one of the clan's themes later in the arc. I see this as being acceptable, considering their costs I would rather have a champ that makes 3/4 of my clan's decks "a lot better" when in play than one which makes 4/4 decks "a fair bit better." If you want an example of when this was so in Celestial, you need only look as far as Yoritomo Naizen, who didn't see a lot of play outside commander and thunder decks but was still almost unarguably the second best champ in the arc.

I'm sure lots of folks will disagree with my opinions on this matter. If you feel I am an idiot, please feel free to call me one, as long as you can back it up. I will welcome any and all arguments provided they don't suggest that I am accusing the lower-ranked dudes on this list of being "bad" by any stretch of the word.

Oh yeah, the first person who brings up the fact that I didn't include The Dark Naga earns a scowl and a wag of my finger. Naga is not a clan anymore, get over it snake nerds.

Now that I have alienated a small portion of the player base, let's get started.

1. Yoritomo Hiromi (Mantis)

The Pros: I foresee myself writing an essay about the most game-breaking personalities in Emperor in about two years and, much like Kuon, I foresee this guy topping that list for the entirety of the arc. Provided that you aren't getting out-navaled, you WILL get to kill somebody on the other side before the other guy gets a chance to do anything. Even then, an opponent with negation in his deck will still need to get rid of him as pretty much all battle strategies become unstoppable when he performs them. If you are running him out of a weapons deck then...man, he just gets more and more ridiculous. He is, quite simply an offensive nightmare, and one with a strong 0.73 Force/Gold (F/G) ratio to boot. I know that I won't bother defending this guy without redirection in my deck unless I'm prepared to lose your best guy before I can take an action. It's hard to offer higher praise than that.

The Cons: OH NOES HE IS NOT A MAGISTRATE-SCOUT-SHUGENJA. The fact that he does not have relevant keywords besides Samurai and Thunder is akin to getting a scuff on the undercarriage of your Porsche. The only real downside to him is that he doesn't really mesh with the Kitsune deck...but hell they'll still play him, at least at the start of the arc anyway.

The X-Factor: On the defense and worried about a sneak? Use this guy with the mantis virtue. A theme of this discussion will be meta, and no matter how common Effortless Counterattack is it cannot stop diddly-poo when Hiromi is performing it.

2. Hida Kisada (Crab)

The Pros: Let's get the obvious things out of the way. His cost of 12 with that below-box HR makes him tied with the Lion and Crane champions as the cheapest to buy at base honor, and Kisada couples affordability with two great abilities. The kill action seems at first glance to be a weaker version of Daigotsu Kanpeki's but this is not entirely correct. Kanpeki can only target personalities, so in a case when he may be out-forced or tied with a person with a weapon he has no legal targets. Kisada on the other hand can blow up anything with less force than him, giving him some extra options. Being a tactician, he can also pump himself up before using the ability to widen his target choices. Though this would usually be a fatal tempo sacrifice, it is somewhat mitigated by his second ability, the real star of the show.

Retargeting...wins...games. Though Tsukimi has limited protective options for herself, Kisada's redirect allows him to shrug off the an opponent's first action that targets him much like his daddy did. Interestingly, Kuon didn't work with a buddy there while Kisada...sort of needs one. Maybe when he's a big bear he will get his pop's trait.

The Cons: He probably could have had berserker on him without adding to his cost, but this will matter less if you surround him with some berserker pals there; if an opponent's action is strong you can always re-target to one of them then delay it with their box. Another minor blemish on him is that he won't solo most provinces without help from a tactical force bonus, but he only needs a 3 to take any in the game.

The X-Factor: Yes, he does fit into the dishonor deck. This is fact because he A) is relatively cheap and B) can re-target to courtiers to trigger nasty effects like this guy and this thing. Oh yeah, and don't forget that in this deck you can tutor for Kisada using sac of pawns.

3. Akodo Dairuko (Lion)

The Pros: The Steel Lion represents a lost opportunity in nicknaming. If she were the Real Steel Lion then this game could have latched onto a whole new market of mecha/Hugh Jackman enthusiasts. Maybe her XP version in the next base set will have her lose an arm and replace it with some metal gaijin magicks. Shawn, Dan...it's not too late, call me.

Despite not being a robot Dairuko is a very well oiled machine. Of all the champions with an above box HR, hers is the easiest to reach (only 3 away in a clan with an average personal honor of about 3) and once you get there she has an extremely impressive 0.75 F/G ratio. Her melee 8 is also going to kill sometime the majority of the time, weapon decks and crab scouts are the only things she really needs to worry about here. But you know what, I don't even want to talk about that crap, OR the fact that she's the first Lion champ since Lotus with 5 chi, OR the fact that she has both tactician and paragon on her. No, the thing that elevates her on this list to #3 is her reaction. I think that some folks look at these champions in a vacuum. When you see a guy with 9 force, a great kill action, and a bunch of great keywords it's easy to say "OMG BORKEN" and declare him the top of the pack (oooh, foreshadowing!) but L5R is about building armies. None of the other champs contribute to a victory condition in quite the same way that Dairuko does, and this is thanks to the fact that she has a printed version of Rallying Cry on her which she can use even if bowed. While this card hasn't been legal for a while, most of you will remember Military Assessment and how much it swung games in the military v. military match up. She's just plain efficient at everything, and the only reason she isn't number 1 on this list is that she isn't broken (Hiromi) and can't protect herself (Kisada).

The Cons: Like Kisada she does not solo without some tactical help, and she needs a 4FV to get above Crab Siege's 9 province strength. Additionally, while she has 5 personal honor I honestly wouldn't put her in Kitsu decks since she doesn't really synergize all that well with what that theme is supposed to do.

The X-Factor: Her ability sets up for The Perfect Moment pretty wonderfully. Opponents will have to think hard before attacking into a group of unbowed paragons on the following turn. Even better, she can use her reaction after your perfect moment and, if you have a second copy, DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. I dunno about you but that sounds like auto-win to me. Another possibility to consider is her popping up under Shinden Shorai on turn 3...buying her in the action phase ignoring her HR having gone first on that turn is incredibly strong...and unlikely...but really really strong.

4. Doji Makoto (Crane)

The Pros: The Crane sure have it tough. For the first time in a year they will have to adjust to starting with a mere 6 honor and will no longer be able to automatically win duels in the action phase. Also, without Shikishi they will finally have to show up to fight and...wait, what's that you say?

Damn

Well anyway one thing Crane won't have to worry about is the quality of their champion. Like Dairuko this guy is just plain awesome for his cost. His HR can be met with one proclaim and then he his good to go for a 5 honor boost. Once he's out, grabbing the favor once a turn is extremely powerful. Honor and dishonor decks will have fits when they can't hold onto the thing, and against military he allows you to lay down an Accidental Confession before grabbing it back to use its battle action later. Oh yeah, he's also 6 chi with a battle duel. All three of the themes that run this guy should have good enough focus values that you shouldn't ever have to worry about losing one with him, and despite the hits that dueling has taken this arc he wasn't gonna do nothin' but bully everybody anyway. Like Dairuko, getting more for your money is Makoto's MO, and that kind of efficiency is what makes decks competitive.

The Cons: He probably doesn't belong in the scout theme, unless you aren't using a lot of scout actions since they tend to have awful focus values. Also, the scout box doesn't seem to play nice with those that don't share that keyword. If he sees play there early it will only be because there isn't enough depth in their personality base to kick him out yet. Aside from that, my main note of caution is that as a dueler one must be aware of the fact that most of the clan virtues delay the effects of duels, and most have good enough actions on them that they will show up a lot. It's gonna be important to keep that in mind, against Lion or Unicorn you probably won't have to worry but Crab and Mantis are much different stories.

The X-Factor: Rugashi Bazaar, 10 force with a kill action comin' your way punk. Also, the undeniable power of sac of pawns strikes again here in a big way.

5. Mirumoto Shikei (Dragon)

The Pros: Like the mysterious character in Sting's "Shape of My Heart," Shikei deals in cards as a meditation. Yes I am a fan of his solo albums, no I am not a woman in her early 50's, and yes...I think that the whole tantric sex thing is a little weird. What's not weird is the idea that card draw, like redirection, wins games. Anyone who played with or against pretty much any dragon deck in CE remembers that Togashi Satsu XP5 had the potential to swing the game in a big way. While Shikei can't do it in open (thankfully) he doesn't have to pay any costs whatsoever. This alone makes him useful in Dragon decks of any theme; there is little reason to think that he won't be played by all 4 early in the arc. Though his chi may actually be too low at 5 to make his battle duel reliable in non-dueling decks, you won't have to worry about this in magistrate and monk which both run very high focus values. His F/G is pretty good at 0.67 before you meet his HR, and a freakin' incredible 0.8 once you make it to 10. Finally, his combination of monk, samurai, and kensai allows you to take advantage of a lot of good tech and pump up that chi a bit.

The Cons: This us the first of three champions that are somewhat hampered by an honor requirement that cannot be met with one proclaim action from their clans' starting honor, and he stands a few spots above his peers in this regard because "Limited: Draw" a card is just that good. Other than this his main weakness is that his battle duel becomes beatable out of shugenja and (if not equipped with a chi boosting weapon) kensai decks since their focus values appear to be middling at best.

The X-Factor: Enlightenment loves this guy. Being that he draws cards and takes most provinces single-handedly, it's hard to argue that any of the other champs are even close to being as useful as he is for that victory condition.

6. Shiba Tsukimi (Phoenix)

The Pros: Oh hey, I remember this chick. It's the next version of that card that I almost never saw in Celestial Edition. Well, as you can see, she has come quite a ways since then. For one, she's got a kill action. Melee 6 is good enough on its own but let's face it, it's usually gonna be an 8. The yojimbo decks need shugenja around to function at top form and a quick scan of currently legal cards reveals there are already a couple good unique and possibly non-unique shuggies that will show up in the henshin deck. Glimpsing ahead, I think that this is actually a champion that could see more play as the pool of shugenja becomes deep enough to be more universally useful. But I may have lost focus on what is great about her, it's that reaction. While using her correctly will require some foresight on the player's part, the ability to move in AFTER an opponent's action is a great counter to dirty tricks like force pumping cavalry or naval/sneak actions. Even players who have gotten powerhouses like Hiromi out will need to carefully scope the whole board before proceeding when there is an 8F personality on the board who will have virtual free reign to jump in and gank you in the face with a melee 8. The fact that she is a duelist is extra icing, and like Shikei she has an excellent F/G ratio when you meet her HR.

The Cons: But man, take a look at that HR. I think 20 is a fair enough point where I can basically pretend that she is a 14G personality, and I don't think many would argue with me at that. After all, only one of Phoenix's themes is likely to gain much honor at all and even then it may be tough to hit 20 before the end of your own turn 4. This technically makes her more expensive than most of the champs, and while the overall package is still great it simply doesn't stand eye to eye with the others QUITE as well. Additionally, while the "move in" part of her reaction is excellent the "get out" part is not as much. Yeah, yojimbo decks tend to have a lot of redirect but it won't save her from anything that successfully bows or destroys her. Opponents will still need to take heed though; if they aren't careful she can easily get in, kill somebody, and book it before things get too hazy.

The X-Factor: This is probably the most subtle champion, and a survey of the available cards didn't reveal any obvious combos to me. Again, if I could gaze into the future I would expect to see that she will be better than she is now.

7. Daigotsu Kanpeki (Spider)

The Pros: Well to start with he easily has the best flavor in his ability. Story likely wanted to allude to characters such as Bane (a dangerous combination of brains and brawn) and Ivan Drago (a dangerous combination of Communism and performance enhancing drugs) to give us an image of an intelligent, abnormally strong, and ruthless individual with a penchant for high tax rates.

So hey...he's the only champion that can routinely kill all of the others if alone and with no attachments. I'll honestly be surprised if design prints another human personality with a force this high in the entire arc, so Kanpeki will rarely have to look hard for someone to snap. If you're a kensai player then all you need is one weapon to realistically target pretty much everything in the game. Speaking of keywords...monk/kensai/samurai/paragon is probably the second best combination among any of the champions. At the moment, monk tech is somewhat weak but paragons and to a lesser extent kensai start with some great strategies that just get better thanks to his second ability. Remember when Katahide killed two guys in a row and you cried for a while? Yeah...it's back with this dude. Finally, 9 force will take all non-siege provinces without any help, which is a big deal in this Brave New World. Looking at Kanpeki from a raw power standpoint, it's hard to argue that he doesn't compare well with even Hiromi...but there is of course a cost to pay for this kind of strength.

The Cons: And that cost is 13 freakin' gold. This is easily the most damning thing you can say about this guy...and it actually is pretty damning. He has an amazing stat-line and ability set but there is something that he does not share with the top 2 champions on this list: he does not have any printed insurance that you will get your money's worth with him. Let's consider a scenario where you have an army consisting of Kanpeki and 2 other guys attacking into an equally sized army with a sneak attack in hand. Though the obvious play will be to play something like "sneak, cast aside their best guy then snap their second best," you are risking getting in the way of two commonly used meta cards (Entrenched Position and Effortless Counterattack). This would be a good example of L5R's own law of diminishing returns. As personalities and attachments in this game become more and more expensive we need to see more and more output from them. Hiromi and Kisada are cheaper and yet have printed text that cushions this law, whereas Kanpeki is extremely risky.

Don't believe me? His dad had arguably the best single ability in the entire Celestial arc. How often do you remember seeing THAT guy?

The X-Factor: From what I can tell the most potent cards to use with his reaction that are available so far are Cast Aside the Weak, A Paragon's Strength, Never Beyond My Reach, Bow Before My Will, and Strength of the Spider.

8. Moto Naleesh (Unicorn)

The Pros: Remember when I said Kanpeki had the second best keyword combo of any of the champions? Yo. She's got the combination of tactician/cavalry, enabling her to take any province in the game if she has a 4FV. Then there's paragon, which DT elevated to god-like levels with the printing of just two strategies in a direct to player set. You know, these two. The fact that she straightens on each turn enables her to share some of the strengths that Dairuko has, namely the fact that you can attack on your turn and still be ready to defend on your opponents. Of course, it also sets up what may be Unicorn Paragon's greatest asset, The Perfect Moment. All this is enhanced by the fact that the new Shinjo's Guidance can tutor your deck for her. Essentially, this gives you 2 champion slots, a feature that would be vomit-inducingly powerful if she weren't so...

The Cons:

Pricey. I mean, damn girl, I know the stronghold makes 5 but 13 with an above-box HR? Considering the fact that only one theme (Paragons) is likely to get to her requirement of 10 before mid-late game this is very significant. This essentially makes her as expensive as Kanpeki. Woof.

Let's talk about that battle action. It's unrestricted unit bow where all of the other champs have actions that have some sort of restriction, so that is a plus. However, you can't get around the fact that she can't kill anyone with attachments. Before I get flamed, I realize that Tsukimi and Dairuko have abilities that are greatly hampered by even one follower; but the cards previewed this far indicate that weapons, armor, and spells will be far more popular. In other words, a melee 8 will still still kill a 4F guy with a cursed relic on him whereas this will "merely" bow the guy and destroy the relic. Almost as good for sure, but not quite. By the way, what's the deal with the cavalry restriction? She can't kill most of the naked guys from an entire clan and a unit with a cavalry follower (which 1/9 of themes run by the way) gets to keep it. You'll never catch me saying the ability is BAD, but for 13 gold paid it's not unfair to ask for a bit more.

For those who are curious about the opinion of a dedicated and accomplished Unicorn player you should check out this write-up my teammate John "Ogre" Seals did for unicornclan.com. He raises similar concerns, and reminds us that the fact that doesn't stack up well against the other champs does not make her bad...just less ridiculous.

The X-Factor: Her every-turn-straighten not only enables Perfect Moment but also Guided by Honor. This can set up some mean traps for an unwary opponent, especially if you have an Iron Will + Effortless Counterattack in hand to deal with whatever followup may occur.

9. Bayushi Nitoshi (Scorpion)

The Pros: If there's one thing I have noticed about Shawn is that he loves folks with daddy issues. This guy takes the cake though...I mean, if your pop was this guy I could understand if there was an appreciable TLC deficit in your childhood. His very first story established that he is a major dick, and we already know this stuff makes for good television. I am am legitimately looking forward to the nasty things this dude will do in future fictions.

This guy is a pretty complete package. He's got samurai, courtier, and, suppliesingly, ninja. He's got 8F for an appropriately priced 11G with a dash HR. All of this in addition to the fact that he has inherited Paneki's ability to 'splode dishonorable guys in battle outright, though this time he has the added benefit of being able to kill anything if it doesn't have attachments. Still, all this is somewhat old hat for Scorpion champs in the last couple arcs...the new wrinkle is his Limited action. An effect that causes honor loss AND dishonor is something that dishonor players will respect in EE more than in the previous arc, since appearances indicate that it will be more difficult to dishonor the table in general. Not only does this obviously contribute to that win condition, it can be a pretty potent meta for honor decks if you're playing one of Scorpion's three military themes. Finally, not to repeat myself but he can be grabbed at any time with the always-lovely sac of pawns.

The Cons: We're getting close to the end of this thing so let's go full circle. Remember when I said a preferred a champ that worked really well in 3 themes to one that worked "pretty well" in all 4? This guy is a poster child of the latter. Let's go one-by-one

Courtier Dishonor: This is probably his strongest role to play. As was previously noted, the effect of his ability is amazing...but we don't live in a magical samurai world where Assigning Blame exists anymore. Unless you're killing this schmuck you're probably losing a trait or ability in killing your own guy. This becomes less of an issue late-game, but I think players will feel the burn of this ability's cost more often than they might initially have believed when first seeing this guy. As for his battle ability, you may want to save it for the last attack to assign him because he's got a pretty fat target on his face.

Magistrate: This is his second best theme, where is battle ability really shines. Assuming that magistrates have enough ways to dishonor people, an 8F guy who can kill one regardless of attachments is a great asset. Still, he is not a magistrate. Additionally, while his limited can help you if you're switching, it's tough to stomach killing your own guys in a military match.

Ninja: Well, he IS a ninja. More specifically, he is a big ninja who can kill a card without attachments and has some printed honor meta. That's about the size of him in this deck...is that gonna make him worth 11G when there may be better uniques around in the future? Probably not. For the same cost I'd rather buy these two.

Paragon Yojimbo: He's a 5 chi courtier, and if he is in play there's a good chance he's your only courtier since you paid so much for the guy. These parajimbos tend to suck if the dudes that they're supposed to be protecting aren't on the board, so if you're sending Nitoshi into battle and he happens to get nixed you are double-boned. Like in Ninja you aren't likely to see a lot of dishonored guys on the other side of the battlefield so his ability is somewhat hampered and this theme's stronghold is already such strong honor meta that his ability may be superfluous too often.

To tie this all together, he is useful in all 4 but I would argue that the costs will often outweigh the benefits. As much as some players may not like to admit it, 11 gold and some of your own people may not be as huge a swing as the initial reaction to his being previewed may have indicated. Let me again repeat myself for my own sanity and yours: Nitoshi is a GOOD personality. The other champions have, however, set a very high bar for him to stand up to and to be perfectly honest he looks to be the worst of the 9 in a grand comparison.

Please address all flames to Shawn Carman and Bryan Reese.

The X-Factor: In the words of the Notorious, I got big plans...BIG plans...within plans.

[menacing laughter]

I hope you all enjoyed this article. We've got a lot of great authors on this site and I'm happy to be included among them. If you have any feedback please feel free to post it here or e-mail me at evanptn@gmail.com. Stay tuned next time for "Performance Enhancers: Lion Paragons" where I'll outline a sample decklist and specific strategies for this deck type. I am starting with this because I am familiar with it, but be assured that I will cover all of the clans eventually.

Thanks for reading, and keep on truckin'

Bling Bling, We Got New Rings!

2011-12-05T19:53:00.006-05:00

Check out the latest EE previews from AEG, the new(ish) five rings themselves!

Premium Slots Announced!

2011-11-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

Boom! Looks like the backs of our draft strongholds will be premium indeed! With redemption cards for full bleed rings, strongholds and champions, as well as cards worth 20 koku each, Emperor Edition will give you plenty of reasons to keep buying / winning packs.

Full announcement here.

EE Preview: Heart of Rokugan

2011-11-12T18:20:00.002-05:00

Here's our latest preview, from Emperor Edition, the return of a classic terrain:

New Draft & Sealed formats for L5R coming in EE!

2011-11-08T09:16:00.001-05:00

With War of Honor we got new and improved multiplayer rules. Looks like Bryan Reese and AEG are ready to add new Draft and Sealed formats to the mix as well.

Oracle of the Void announced @ L5R.com

2011-11-01T13:00:00.004-04:00

Link here.

From the main page,

"The Oracle of the Void is an official, online, searchable database launching with Emperor Edition. Long overdue, we have worked tirelessly to create this database for the convenience of you, the player. It is our goal to constantly improve every aspect of this game and this is simply he next step."

Color us interested.

Turn the Clocks Ahead!: Second City and EE!

2011-11-01T07:54:00.002-04:00

By now everyone's seen Second City and more or less knows what's in it. Am I right? An odd set, released in limited quantity at GenCon and not officially released until some time later, Second City has been put in the difficult position of being the last Celestial bugged set to affect tournament play and one of the first to break into Emperor Edition play. What does this mean? - We'll be seeing it for a long, long time, so it's going to be important for you to know what to keep and what to get rid of.

I've done several features like this before for set releases (some more timely than others), but I think Second City presents an interesting opportunity to examine cards for the upcoming Emperor Edition Arc. While this arc is winding down and it's power curve and top decks already established, new cards are held to a higher standard, where as a card that's not as good now, per say, might be awesome a year from now - so that's what I'm going to put the focus on - what's going to be good.

Now, without knowing much about Emperor Edition itself, that is to say, we've only seen a few of the previews so far (ie. Strongholds, themes and some other cards starting today), much of this will be based on pure speculation about the cards we already have that are bugged (BtD, FL, WoH, and existing EE promos) and how they might work within the announced clan themes and strongholds.

Allow me to present you with my latest format for determining card's usefulness. Although based on card "value" - I'm mostly talking about it's place in your decks, and as such if I say a common is a "sell it" card, I'm not saying you'll actually get anything for it, I'm just saying..well, you'll get the picture.

BUY IT!: Cards tagged with this label present themselves as those with great upsides: not too specific and powerful enough to stick around as a deck staple for a while. These are "the best" cards in the set.

SELL IT!: These are the cards that, based on the current (CE) environment are gravy trains of goodness, but might end up at the back of your binder come EE. These are the red herrings of Second City.

STEADY!: These are the cards that the jury's still somewhat out for, those that are good or decent now, and may be good or decent down the road.

SCRAP HEAP!: These are the cards that flat out stink - now and later.

Another quick note: I won't obviously be grading every card, as I'd like to include a little reasoning on those I am choosing. If you're curious about what I would say about a particular card, just ask! I'll add any requests to the end of my post.

Let's do it alphabetically!

Again! (strategy, uncommon): Thanks to some major firepower already existing for EE, in the forms of Wyrmbone Katana and Nightingale Blade, and the fact that we know at least two clans will be showcasing the Kensai theme in Emperor, this is a card that, while maybe not that strong right now because of all the excellent straighten and additional action tech that exists, will be stronger down the line. Additionally, if absolutely any good weapons get printed in EE or subsequent expansions, this card's utility only gets bigger.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Archery Range (holding, common): As a 2 for 2, the standard for utility, and with a reaction that buffs Ranged Attacks without having to bow it, Archery Range looks as if it could weasel its way into decks in the future. I do in fact really like the idea of it. What I don't like is that as of right now, I'm not sure which clans will really be using ranged attacks. That, coupled with the announcement of the addition of Melee Attacks to the game, means that it's possible we won't be seeing all that many Ranged Attack actions come Emperor. Now there are in fact some that already exist, albeit only a few, but the holding becomes even more niched when it can really only be used effectively on the attack (since it'll be bound, therefore useless) in defense. All of that said, I could still see this being ok at some point down the road.
Verdict: STEADY NOW!

Asako Rikate (Phoenix personality, rare): What we know is this: Phoenix are getting a newish theme in Henshin Monks and this guy is both. He's also Maho, Shadowlands and has a kind of nifty ability. I do like the flavor for sure. What I can't get behind is what looks like an utter lack of synergy with the other things Phoenix and their new monk focus are doing. The other few monks, Chukage, Heiwa and Karachu all look to have a little big of enlightenment and nothing to speak in terms of Chi penalties, maho abilities or anything else remotely similar to Rikate. Now if some chi based kihos make an appearance in EE, like Hitsu-Do, Cold Hands, Stone Heart or One With the Flame - then he might see a little bit more use. As it stands however, I don't think he'll be useful.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Bayushi Kahoku (Scorpion Personality, rare): One of what I think will prove to be the better uniques from the set Kahoku matches some of the things Scorp will be doing in EE, dishonor, battle control and Magistratey goodness. With his ability to pop dishonored folks through followers, he can essentially shoot a 7F personality through attachments, a pretty unheralded Ranged Attack strength. Though he is unique, and Scorpion, at 9 gold I could see him having some interclan utility if the personality base of Emperor isn't up to snuff (no indications it will or won't be at this point). All in all, I think he's solidly costed for his Force and Chi and has a great ability. No reason he shouldn't see some heavy action.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Blade of Champions (weapon, rare): Another of what I think will be a series of practical uniques emerging from Second City the blade is a steeply priced weapon at 5g with a redirect ability and a sufficient Force and Chi bump. The blade may see play now for the remainder of CE in weapons oriented decks (Monksai, Dragon, even a Unicorn or two) because of it's strong ability to redirect and the sturdy amount of item / weapon support holdings and actions. Come EE, I can't really see this changing, but, as I've noted, we've seen relatively little of what, in the end, will make up the EE environment. One rather conspicuous absence thus far, has been new item oriented gold production. While War Encampment and Secluded Outpost currently exist, who knows if either will get through - making running weapons more expensive and less reliable. That reasoning leads me to be somewhat skeptical of oddly costed weapons such as this.
Verdict: STEADY NOW!

Control Your Destiny (spell, uncommon): We've been hearing whispers of a return to prominence for enlightenment, and even changes in the rings, so could this card be central to fixing those all powerful enlightenment grips? It's possible. A card that more or less lets you eliminate cards you don't want to see and set up draws you do want to see, for free, and over and over, seems like it could be helpful. So on one hand, the card looks super-useful. On the other we don't know exactly who or how much enlightenment is really going to be around. This card by itself creates one prerequisite for use: a shugenja, which while many clans now have them, aren't always guaranteed. Going off in a totally opposite direction I could also see this card being used in Crane. What?! That's right. There's been a recent influx of Crane shugenja and the new rules changes have made dueling work from straight off the top. So maybe they can't fix their focus pools, but with cards like this they can manipulate their topdecking.
Verdict: STEADY NOW!

Daigotsu Bofana (Spider personality, uncommon): With a 7 force to toss around and the Paragon keyword this card seems to be a powerhouse out of the gate. 10 gold is a hefty price tag, but Spider gets the 2 extra gold from Bamboo in every match (save the mirror). Thankfully for your 10 gold you get a level of "protection" that has been relatively unseen before. The fact that non-performed actions still trigger the once per phase trait is a big boost for this personality. If the support materializes for Spider Paragon in EE we will be hearing more from Daigotsu Bofana.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Dislodge the Foe (strategy, rare): Another tactician strategy "trick" shows up in Second City in the card Dislodge the Foe. There isn't a ton of positive in this card, but the two positives of the card are that it isn't a "tactical" action soaking up your use of tactician for the turn. The other positive use of this card is in connection with some of the infantry tacticians printed for Unicorn in BtD, FL, and SC. Using your tacticians to lure opponents into your cavlary seems good, but other uses of this card escape us. As of now this card wouldn't make the cut into any deck with enough tacticians to play it.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Dispensing Justice (strategy, rare): Magistrate action that lends itself very well to Temple of Purity Phoenix decks. The addition of the dishonor clause makes it more than playable out of Scorpion or possibly Mantis as well. Kill action with the EE bug makes this card one to watch out of the gate. The ability to also send home units with attachments puts this card into range where you could make a case for it in any deck with access to Magistrates. Depending on the popularity of attachments in the early going in EE, Dispensing Justice could push into the upper echelon.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Dragon's Breath Castle (stronghold, fixed): A new Dragon Clan stronghold with a familiar mechanic for the honor playing type of Dragon players. As mentioned in the Imperial Herald before SC released, the stronghold is distinctively different than Last Step Castle. Against LSC players could attack all out and the stronghold provided no threat other than the province strength. Dragon's Breath Castle punishes players for not attacking and helps you defend when they do attack. Having no connection to a keyword will allow this to be the most universal stronghold available to Dragon for EE. Whether or not it proves to be a powerhouse has left the jury out.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Elite Sentry (follower, rare): Unique follower with mammoth force and two abilities that are awesome in almost any context. The ability to kill anything without an attachment including other followers, items, spells or naked personalities will cause consideration for Elite Sentry in most military decks. If big units will be your fancy, the Battle/Open ability to straighten the entire unit should make this a must include for decks that can support the price tag of 10g. It wouldn't be surprising to see this card get played in even cash strapped decks early in EE.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Goju Plot (strategy, uncommon): Shadowlands ninja only strategy that destroys one personality as a cost and has you pay the difference to return a hopefully "better" and probably more expensive personality to play. The ability to follow up with another action maybe puts Goju Plot into playable territory. However Effortless Counterattack is in the environment could totally kill any momentum that this card provides. Unless some kind of combo is spawned formed with the aforementioned card, the outlook is bleak.
Verdict: SCRAP HEAP!

Hasty Fortifications (strategy, common): So fortifications haven't officially been around in card form for years, but who doesn't remember the old Crab Walls decks? Annoying. In this card, we have a less annoying, somewhat fun - really innovative card - that falls flat in practice. In order for it to get better, you have to play more. What's bad about that? Well the more cards you play, the less you have in your hand and you're not going to get any function out of this terrain without playing at least one more action. And all that for a measly +1 province strength. I'll hesitate to scrap the card, but yeah - it's got to go.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Hiruma Tensin (Crab personality, uncommon): Ranged Attacks are cool, right? Having recon is easy enough. Bowing a follower for a ranged 4 isn't so bad, especially given the Crab Scout boxes tokens, but something just rubs me really wrong about this dude. He's only 3/3 and he doesn't do anything by his lonesome. Could he be good? I suppose, with the tokens and with the box, and plenty of recon stuff. Can I see him being the first scout cut? Definitely.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Interference (strategy, common): The upside: it's good box meta. The downside: it's good box meta. How deforming are strongholds really going to be? I couldn't tell you the last time I packed a card for the expressed reason of messing with someone else's stronghold. Heck I don't even know if one exists in CE, but with this - if ever a stronghold gets out of control, at least we've got a plan.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Kakita Maratai (Crane personality, uncommon): Another Artisan with 4 personal honor? Amazing Feat? At the very least its another guy to play that off of. Sounds good, but with the 8 honor requirement, the lack of another helpful keyword and a situational honor gaining ability, this Crane seems like his uses are going to be verrrry limited. I do think he'll see plenty of early arc screen time in maybe 1 or 2 deck types, but I'd say his days as card worth flopping are severely numbered.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Kitsu Akai (Lion personality, rare): What are all of these Lion Clan shugenja doing running around? And what's this? He not only breeds a guy, but has an innate, recurring destruction effect. Sign me up! I like the new theme of Ancestors for Lion, given that in the past they've dabbled a bit. Not sure exactly where the theme is going though. I mean, clearly honor, but shugenja have never been real tough guys, especially not those of the Lion Clan, and it would seem that design is steering the Ancestor build towards a battle honor theme. If they get some additional support in EE and through the arc, this guy could carve himself out a nice little spot in those decks.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Kitsune Ohsuki (Mantis personality, fixed): Mantis Furries are almost as ludicrous as Lion shugenja, but hey - it's something new, so I'm not really complaining. This unique Earth shugenja, like Akai, breeds a token - and the token has a mind of it's own. It's substantial 3 point recurring honor gain carries a serious load, and although unique, the ability to breed is not once per game. Currently, I'm not sure how many "clean" ways there are to bring back the dead, but multiple tokens could mean a lot of honor for Mantis players. Also, the shugenja trait opens up an arsenal of deadly defensive spells to the Mantis in their new theme. I'd expect to see this guy for a while.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Know Their Minds (strategy, rare): Terrible cost. Terrible ability. End of story.
Verdict: SCRAP HEAP!

Kuronada (Ronin personality, rare): After all, what would L5R be without it's big personalities with big personalities. We all know and love Kuronada, and if his newest incarnation is any indication - we're going to be seeing him for quite a long time. He's still got a bag of traits and he's as big as ever. The built-in destruction will ensure that he'll literally Force his way into many decks outside of those that are just Ronin (no word on whether or not there will actually be a ronin faction / stronghold, but we're hoping). I for one am glad he's around, especially if we're no longer going to see Tamago hulking around.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Mirumoto Ezuno (Dragon personality, common): Take a traditionally Phoenix ability, slap it on a Dragon guy, and this is what you get. He's beefy enough to satiate his Samurai, Duelist and Yojimbo needs, and allows Dragon to start to mesh their Shugenja and Samurai together, something it's been a long time since they've last done. I'm sure some of you still remember when the Dragon Clan were proud heralds of the Empire's more magical and mystical aspects, and I'm glad to see it returning - in playable, strong cards and themes. To be perfectly honest, I could see Ezuno, like Kuronada, being "whored out" to other decks, most notably of which could be Phoenix or Crane.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Moto Jun-Ni (Unicorn personality, rare): Like Mirumoto Ezuno, it seems Jun-Ni seems to be the product of an ever increasing trend in L5R - giving abilities and actions typically assigned to one clan's personalities to another clan's. Jun-Ni has the awesome ability to attach followers from the discard, and not just your own - anyone's. Oh, well what good is an infantry follower on a cavalry personality? Well he gives that trait out just for kicks - and usefulness. While his Chi may leave a little to be desired, his Force is well costed and he'll rarely ever be naked.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Overgrown Grove (region, common): What we have here is an interesting concept: very interesting. It's one of, again, several cards, that I think are being given "Magic" type abilities - which is both innovative and thought provoking. By introducing alternative costs to actions, like decking yourself for 3, the floodgates of creativity are opened farther than they've ever been. Are 3 cards worth a send home ability? Maybe. Maybe not. Could this perhaps foreshadow a future card that reshuffles? Or is that the downfall of the cost? In any case, I think this card will at the very least deserve a decent amount of deck building consideration come EE.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Rebuilding Kyuden Hida (event, uncommon) No Sneaks? Cool, if Sneak exists in EE. No naval is always a pro move too. In event form - essentially becoming totally unpredictable and unreliable? And it's just for a limited time only? I'll pass until someone proves me wrong.
Verdict: SCRAP HEAP!

Red Crane Dojo (holding, uncommon) Decent big gold here (especially for Ninja, Thanks Velo!), slightly reminiscent of another dojo. I can't say I'm super sold on the tightly niched, reactionary ability though, and at this point I simply have to believe that there will be much, much better holdings to include in all of my decks that Temple of Purity (the obvious target of this card) will affect. This isn't to say I might be horribly wrong and Temple of Purityesque tricks will run rampant throughout EE. If that were the case, I would be in support of it as I've really enjoyed finally being able to put the proverbial screws to personalities with less savory Rokugani affiliations.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Scavenging Party (strategy, uncommon): While this probably doesn't have a bearing on the CE or EE format discussion, I absolutely love this card for are semi-fictional, semi-official Legacy format: BigDeck. Well, I guess it actually does. The reason I love it for BigDeck is because it does 3 things, rolled into one card. And unlike some of the other, historic, utility cards, this one has at least 2 parts that I can see myself using - a lot. The 2 province strength bump alone makes it somewhat useable in honor decks and being able to get back that discarded fatty might also have it's uses. The focus effect is simply sprinkles.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Singh Remnants (follower, uncommon): File this card under: weird! It's not a badly costed follower: 2g, 1F, -3 to ranged attacks targeting the unit. But throw in a 3 PH requirement and a strange reaction to play it out of the discard pile on a guy entering play and an honor gain? My head's spinning, and not in a good way. Might be that someone will find a way to use it effectively (Chris Russell?!), but at this point I have no idea where it might fit! Honor / followers? Yeah.
Verdict: SELL IT!

Slanderer (holding, rare): Big gold. Recurring dishonoring of personalities. I shouldn't have to tell anyone why this card is and is going to be awesome.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Spirit of the Monk (strategy, common): I'm not totally sure what to make of all of these "Spirit of X" cards, but of all of them, I guess I am most intrigued by this, the Monk one. Of all the traits to give out, for some reason, I'm thinking Monk might be the most solid (as it opens to door to a bunch of targettable monk actions), and the ability seems to be one of the stronger handouts: bowing a card without armor (aka just about anything unless there is a sudden increase in the number and quality of armors floating around). That said, I think that Spirit of the Yojimbo and Spirit of the Berserker may also be strong.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Strength of the Tsunami (spell, rare): Ugh: what to make of this monstrosity, which amounts to, in essence, Rising Sun Blade or Wyrmbone Katana in spell form. 8g is a steep price to pay for a spell, which unlike a follower, doesn't provide that much protection. It does grant a 6 Force bonus, which is obviously awesome, but without knowing if we're going to see War Encampment it makes calling this an auto include for spell military a little risky. I love the actions - both of them. Being able to straighten and move home is a plus and the send home + stay there ability is also good. I just don't know if the 8g cost will prevent it from being useful or not.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

Takasho (Ronin personality, rare): In the same way I like Kuronada, I like this guy / girl. Cool flavor. Shadowlands, small honor loss (a trend I dig) and a very Rekai-like move and shoot ability. The card also gets some interesting keywords in Ninja, Shugenja and Air. I think those, and the low buy price of 6g, will mean this card is going to see a fair amount of play in a variety of decks - both now and later.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Temple of Hotei (holding, common): Like Slanderer, this card requires little explanation. Thus far, it's the only consistent EE honor holding and even if Temple to Shinsei comes back, this card still makes a case for itself by being able to produce both its gold and its honor on the same turn. I would imagine though that its appearance means that My Father's Shrine will not be reappearing any time soon.
Verdict: BUY IT!

Tireless Efforts (strategy, common): I love, love, love the versatility that this card provides in battle. I'm not sure that it's good enough to worm its way into decks right now at the end of CE, but being able to straighten during battle and erase all current and new force debts, I think this card has to go in military decks in EE. Cards that do both of those things don't come along frequently, and when they do - you gotta play 'em.
Verdict: BUY IT!

War Weariness (event, uncommon): I like the idea behind this card, but in practice, it's unpredictability to practicality is just not going to be reliable. In the times it resolves, I foresee it being easily played around, therefore taking up a slot occupied by something more effective and less random.
Verdict: SCRAP HEAP!

Your Clan Needs You! (strategy, rare): This is what I would like to call the new "rent-a-guy" program. It gives you a dude in a pinch, and doesn't make you lose him for good when the battle's over as similar cards have done in the past. I think that, again, this card demonstrates a move toward alternative costs and effects, which I think are really, very exciting. What I don't know is whether or not the card will really deserve a slot in any of my decks. I was thinking of it's potential utility vs. a deck with maneuverability strengths (i.e. Unicorn), but the fact that once you bring the guy out your opponent still gets the first chance to act on him means the guy probably won't stick around for long. Maybe someone will come up with something to make this work, but right now I can't see it. All that said, I can't really say it's going to be useless.
Verdict: HOLD STEADY!

In Memorium Revisited: Solving the Riddle 2011

2011-10-22T04:30:00.007-04:00

October 22 is the day of Vancouver's 2011 Solving the Riddle event, and for the second year in a row, I decided to offer up my hair, which I haven't cut since the spring, in order to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer research and care to honour my father's memory.

As I wrote in my personal reflection last year, my father, Len, passed away in 2007 from Pancreatic Cancer at the age of 66, six weeks after the birth of my youngest daughter, Inara, and two weeks before my other young daughter, Marikko, had her 3rd birthday. Since then, my brother and his wife have had a son, Aiden, who like Inara will never know him. Also, two of my step-daughters have had sons, Brian and Charlie. My father never got to see any great-grandchildren.

Cancer has touched everyone in at least some way, even if its only recently when the man that brought you the iPhone/Pod/Pad/etc you own, Steve Jobs, died from the same form of cancer that we're fundraising for. Its a brutal disease and the fight continues to eradicate it. I'm so glad that Chris Stevenson has giving L5R players an opportunity to join that fight, because its given me the chance to really get involved.

Last year, I asked my fellow employees at PriceSmart Foods in Chilliwack, BC, Canada to assist me in my efforts, and while I went in hoping for a couple of hundred bucks, they contributed a little less than $600 as a store and I was able to finish my fundraising at an unexpected $865.

This year, I asked again, with the optimistic hope that I'd match last year's total if I was lucky. But things changed on the second day of my fundraising. My co-worker, Malonie Tanner, approached me and asked if I'd like her to issue a challenge. She had lost someone close to her a couple of years back to cancer so I wasn't surprised she wanted to help, but what came next knocked me off my feet. She made a challenge to the whole store that if, collectively, they raised $750, she would shave her hair off with me. I was floored by her amazingly generous and brave offer and made sure she was serious. She assured me she was, and the challenge went out and the staff got excited!

As I sit here typing this out in the wee hours of the night before the tournament, I can definitely say that they were more than equal to the task. I have a total of $974.25 from them, which should be the final total unless I get some last second additions tomorrow morning. In addition, thanks to generous family and friends, some of whom even email transferred money to me from far away, I have $365.

Combined, that's a grand total of $1339.25!!

Obviously, I'm just absolutely blown away by the total amount that I was able to raise and can't thank everyone that helped enough for their contributions. It means so much to be able to honour my father in this way. I can't say enough about the place I work at and the people that work there. So many generous people that give their time and money to help others, and this is just another shining example. But a special thank you to Malonie, who made this into something amazing with her offer. In true Malonie fashion, when I interrupted her as she trained a new employee today to tell her the news that we'd passed $750, she was so happy for me, gave me a big hug, and then smiled and said, "Let's get some more!" After she takes a trip to Las Vegas in November, we're going to make a big event out of her head-shaving at the front of the store, and knowing Malonie, we'll be collecting more donations before her hair comes off. I'll be reshaving my head again with her, getting rid of the 5 weeks of growth that will have accumulated by then. I wouldn't be surprised if I had other volunteers.

Tomorrow, I once again go to play cards and donate a lot of money in honour of my father. I love you and miss you, Dad, as does Tamikko and your grandchildren. You are always in our thoughts.

ADDENDUM: Prior to the tournament, I received a few more donations. The final total I handed in prior to the tournament ended up being $1409.25. Thank you again!

Scavenged Goods

2011-09-17T03:52:00.005-04:00

If there’s one thing that Br’nn is good at in the CCG (and admittedly, there isn’t a lot), its scavenging around and finding a few things to use (for a force boost). And sometimes, there’s just not enough of one thing to make a whole blog entry about, but there is a bunch of tidbits to look at. So, in honour of the vanity card I named the blog after, I present a few tidbits that tickled my fancy enough to write about them: Scavenged Goods.

Release Event Thoughts

Last night, I attended Vancouver’s Second City Release Event. It wasn’t particularly well populated, as I think a lot of players in our area are pretty much waiting for Emperor Edition to start and taking a mini L5R hiatus. That said, there were about 8 players, and I got a feel for how the starters worked out in practice rather than just theory.

We got to pick our starters, so I played Mantis, solely because I’d included Br’nn in the deck contents. I opened a couple of extra Magistrates that could be useful, so I ended up removing a few of the Shugs and beefing up a bit out of clan. I ran the full suite of my beloved non-humans, and finished things off with the Fukuzo I pulled. It ended up working out okay for me. My first match was against Dragon, and I got off to a solid start seeing the Sparrow Shug early. He saw two Cav beatsticks, but I saw Yukitaka no Onna and held them off. The turning point was when I went to bow for the Favour with my Sparrow and got Enough Talk-ed for my troubles. Why the heck did I put that in the Dragon deck?!? That was followed up on his turn by an Impromptu on Yukitaka and a big honour boost, and I was on my heels without the Sparrow’s 3 honour per turn. I had to switch to military, but by then, he was well established and he had more actions than I did.

Second game was also against Dragon and went better for me. He didn’t have two beatsticks early, so I was able to swarm out my guys while he gained a bunch of honour. I didn’t gain any honour the whole game. Eventually, I had a 2 to 1 personality advantage and he wasn’t able to deal with the numbers I had. Crippling Weather sealed the deal.

Sadly, at that point, my third round opponent wanted to open packs and conceded and that was that. I didn’t see Br’nn in either game. My first round Dragon opponent went on to win.

Looking at the overall decks in action, I thought the Dragon performed better than I thought it would. While it didn’t have to two Tamori Yayu I requested, Bryan did put in two of IG2’s Tamori Masako, so it balanced out. Having a solid 7 Shugs to work with was important to its success. The Mantis deck also flowed better than I thought it would, although that might’ve been because of the packs I opened. It was tough for Scorpion to crack, especially if it saw the Sparrow early, and if it realized it couldn’t race Dragon without a good start, it had some military game against them as well. On the other hand, the Scorpion deck wasn’t as synergistic as I thought it would be and may have lacked enough ways to dishonour someone for the full effect of their actions. However, all three performed fairly well, so I’m happy with how they ended up, as I’d been concerned that they would be much farther apart than they appeared from my small sample.

Story Love

Is it just me or has the story team really been firing on all cylinders since the now-infamous Goddesses Pt.4 story? The story scrolls from Gencon were very well done, the initial efforts of the two new writers were very good (I really liked the subtle horror feel to the infiltration of the Sparrow story and the character of Suzume Kenta), the last Scenes from the Empire had some stellar entries in it (particularly the Turquoise Championship and Master of Horse stories), and even the stuff that hasn’t been amazing has at least been good. After the histrionics that G4 caused across the interwebs, I have to make sure that the Story Team gets equal love for doing a great job, and I think that they’ve done just that over the last month’s work. I find myself really looking forward to Friday’s fictions right now.

Now, I just have to convince Shawn & Fred to let me have one Br’nn story...

Winner’s Choice Seattle & Earth Dragon Tournament

This past weekend saw a couple of events that had my interest, although I didn’t expect the Earth Dragon tourney to do that. Locally, Seattle had a Winner’s Choice event that saw 37 players attend. The finals saw Jonas Solberg’s Crab Scouts take down Nathan Peever’s Embassy Crane, with former Gencon Champ, Roby Swann (also playing Crab), and Mitchell “Satoshi’s Dual Warfans” Hammond (playing Lion Paragons) rounding out the top 4. Jonas, a former Kotei winner, chose Ascended Shugenja, requesting Kuni Kiyoshi if possible. From all accounts, it was a good event and I wish I had been able to attend. The playskill level was off the charts. With the Team Marike’s House players in the area, everyone has to raise their game to be able to compete and having faced many of these players, I can tell you that there are a lot of excellent players playing in the Pacific Northwest, and they aren’t all named Case and Andrew.

Speaking of Team Marike’s House players, another of their group, Kyle Anderson, showed his skill by taking down the Favoured of the Earth Dragon event in New Hampshire. Kyle, newly moved to the area for work, got his turn to shine, taking his TST Yojimbo deck through 40 other players to take the day. I remember Kyle winning many a youngest player award at the local Koteis for a few years, but he’s all grown up now and another fantastic player. It’s nice to see him win a big event. Well deserved.

One last note about both events: Spider had 1 player in Seattle and 2 in New Hampshire. I think my clan might be in trouble for the end of CE.

Under Heaven

Just before Christmas last year, I wrote up an entry about a fantastic novel I read that I thought L5R players would like. That novel was Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. Its now out in paperback and recently won Canada’s Sunburst Award for excellence in the literature of the fantastic, in the adult fiction category. If you enjoy a good book, I once again heartily endorse this one. You'll thank me.

Pocketing the Loot

That wraps up this tidbit article of Br’nn Power. I hope everyone enjoys (or enjoyed) their Release Events! Now, let’s get those final CE decks built with SC and bring this great arc to a close!

The Final Defining an Environment: Second City

2011-09-15T20:59:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the final installment of Defining an Environment, my continuing look at the thought processes and complications that went into building the starter decks you get to open up at your Release Events. This time, we take a look at the final set of CE, Second City.

Final, You Say?

For those that missed my earlier End of an Era post, my playtest team rotated out after 8 years and some admitted burnout. With our team no longer playtesting, it was a good time for someone else to give it a go putting together the starters. While I did some initial work on the EE Base Set starters, I wasn’t involved in the finished product. Thus, this will be the final Defining an Environment.

Enough About You! Where’s the Starters!

Scorpion

The Scorpion starter, Law of Darkness Dojo, was probably the easiest of the starters to put together. Throughout most of CE, Scorpion has had a good amount of Magistrates and Ninja that were available for use in the starters, and the foundation of the deck is a pretty even balance of the two. Fading Shadows, the 10-copy Follower, gets 5 copies, which ups the Ninja count considerably and fills up the attachment slots in a hurry, but there’s also three new Items (fulfilling the mandate to include as many new cards as possible while being playable) and even a couple of Spells (Flash of Bright Wings and Allure of Jigoku) for the Air Shugenja prodigy Soshi Neiru and Soshi Ganrou from CE to use if you want to include a couple of Spells for them. With Neiru a double inclusion and a common you may see a third of in packs, I went back and forth before deciding that a couple of Spells wasn’t a big waste of space in the starter for those that want a little janky option. Strategies are some of the usual Magistrate actions like Restoring Order and Allegations to go with some Ninja Tricks like Dramatic Assassination and Knife in the Darkness.

Dynasty side, you get the usual suspects that you’ve seen in most Scorpion starters this arc. Arashii, Jutsushi, Saka and Sakai are some examples to go with the mandatory 7 copies of new personalities. I also had a little fun in this final outing and indulged myself by including some cards that might not normally make it in were it not my last kick at the can. For Scorpion, I went a little evil with the new Sea Troll Predator, Nakanu Technique, and Undying Warriors as a beefy Follower Fate side. Following the end of the CE story, it’s pretty fitting with the new Festering Pit in Scorpion lands, but I had no idea that was coming when I included them. It’s a happy coincidence for this Hordling.

Dragon

Dragon’s Breath Castle was a bit of a struggle, due to the fact that Dragon hasn’t had many Shugenja this arc. It was bad enough that I asked Bryan if I could break the rules and include two of the new uncommon Tamori Shugenja, Tamori Yayu, to up the count as well as IG2’s Tamori Kuroko. I don’t know if he agreed, as I just submitted the list and haven’t seen the starter contents yet, but if the rules weren’t bent, the Dragon deck will be more Shug-lite than it already is (5 or 6 vs 7), which may hurt its chances. That said, the deck can battle fairly well, as it’s fleshed out with the archetypical Dragon personalities, Monks and the Tamori have some beef to them. The usual Berii and Ichizo inclusions round out their extra personalities.

Fate side, we see a fair mix of Spells and Kiho, as befits the split Dynasty side. Also, because they’re beefy (and to pad new cards), there’s some extra Items and a Follower to give them lots to spend their money on and give them some more heft in battle. Strategies see some of the usual suspects again, including the Dragon starter staple for CE, Steel on Steel. There are not many Duelists, but when has that ever stopped Dragon! My one little vanity inclusion in this one was Essence of Undeath. Apparently, when Hiroshi’s Legion chased zombies through the mountains, at least one person got bit.

This deck will likely live or die by the amount of Shugs it sees, and that means that the number of them included will play a role in how it does. The Stronghold and Fixed guy are really good, and if they get time to develop, they could be tough. No dedicated big force military helps that even more, so Dragon should see its share of positive results.

Mantis (Fox)

Ah, Kyuden Kitsune, how you perplex me! With perhaps the exception of Palace of Crimson Shadow, this starter was probably the hardest to make of all of the CE strongholds, and I honestly have no idea if it has enough tools to survive the more focused competition. As an entirely new theme, there is zero support for it in earlier sets, although there is at least some Thunder Shugenja to splash in to supplement the Kitsune. Further, most of the new Earth Spells target Nonhumans, and there are only two token makers in this set for Mantis. That meant I had to improvise!

Of course, since we’ve been talking vanity cards, nothing is closer to my heart than my beloved Br’nn, and needing Nonhumans, he and Rusty joined the party with En’you and Yukataka no Onna. Add in two of the token Bear maker, and you have a veritable zoo to work with and target with some of your Spells. There’s a solid base of Thunder Shugs to visit the Temple of Hotei, and there’s a few of the usual starter suspects in Tsuruchi Sanjo and Yoritomo Eriko for some honour gain and added options.

Fate side, we find the requisite Spells for a Shugenja theme, supplemented by a few nonhuman abilities and a couple of Magistrate actions. The Legion of the Bat fittingly joins the Mantis and what Mantis wouldn’t be caught without Flesh-Cutter Arrows? Generic battle actions like Rout and Settling finish things off, although I did include a couple of Winter cards for the benefit of Yukataka no Onna. There may be some Crippling Weather on those Snowy Plains!

Overall, I think this starter may have some trouble unless your packs flesh it out or it comes out just right, but for those that like a challenge and a little animal assault, this could be fun to play.

This Is The End...

That brings to a close this series of articles on the construction of CE starter decks. I really enjoyed giving people a behind the scenes look at what I was thinking when I put them together, and I hope you enjoyed them, too. I want to once again thank Bryan and the DT for giving me the opportunity to have this small influence on the game that we all love by building the contents of the Starter Decks as far back as SE and throughout this entire CE arc. I like to think that the effort I made was shown by the relatively balanced environments that each Release Event had throughout CE (whenever printing errors didn’t screw things up). Feedback was for the most part positive throughout my stint, and as I mentioned before, Bryan paid me the ultimate compliment by calling me the “Charles Urbach of Starter Decks”. It doesn’t get any better than that! Thanks, Bryan!

Enjoy your SC Release Events! I’m about to head out to mine as soon as I hit send. I hope you enjoy it and the final portion of CE. EE is coming soon, and it’s going to be really strange not knowing what’s coming. Exciting, too. I can’t wait!

Gen Con, The Forgotten Temple, and You

2011-08-10T16:24:00.002-04:00

In case you are living in a barn, you’re aware that the Gen Con results are in and controversy is afoot with regard to the strong showing of Oni/Non-human decks out of the Forgotten Legacy “Naga” stronghold, The Forgotten Temple. Sour grapes or valid arguments? In this article, we will explore just that.

For those barn dwellers, the following folks have won their respective contests:

Invitational Tournament: Case Kiyonaga, Lion

War of Honor Event: AJ Valle, Unicorn

Main Event: Danny Walker, Unaligned out of The Forgotten Temple

Second Chance: Paul Clute, Unaligned out of The Forgotten Temple

Costume Contest: Rixy, Crab Clan

So, two of the five contests were taken by the unaligned Oni, though they took half of the card based contests. After swimming the AEG and clan forums, I’ve noticed the following complaints/comments:

1. The Forgotten Temple is overpowered.

2. The Forgotten Temple is not overpowered, but Wrath of Kali-Ma is.

3. The Forgotten Temple is immune to dishonor decks.

4. This game is about Samurai, not about oni’s, and the design team has erred in even making non-human decks viable competitors.

5. It is the skill of the player, not the strength of the deck (so quit your whining!)

Before addressing these five items, I’d like to put this out there from the beginning: The Forgotten Temple is designed as an oni/goblin stronghold for Celestial Edition. Any claims that it is for Naga players is ridiculous as there are only four naga personalities legal in Celestial, and one follower. Three of those personalities just came from the direct-to-player set, as well as the follower. While this may change once Emperor Edition expands, there should be no doubt what it’s release during Celestial was for. This begs the question: Was the Jigoku faction rewarded for their efforts during the Kotei season, despite the fact that more points were awarded to the Empire by Spider Clan players?

My answer to this is a resounding “yes!” While avoiding the disgruntled observation that it wouldn’t have mattered what Spider players did, they got both of the Kotei choices that were offered to them through this season, there is arguably good reason for the design team’s decision to grant this boon: Seattle. The playgroup that meets at Andrew Ornatov’s wife’s house (as Andrew has recently called it on the AEG forums) have won the last four Gen Cons and many intervening events. With their victories, they have largely defined the L5R experience and have become the most influential L5R play group in the entire world (sorry non-US players). Ever been to that tournament where prize support was given only to the top 8? Well, AEG is giving this same prize distribution to some of the best players in the world. And just as it is a TO’s decision to reward the best players, it is AEG’s decision to do the same. Get over it.

Taking that into context, I now want to address the five comments listed above, in order:

1. The Forgotten Temple is overpowered.

Well, it isn’t. The province strength is average, the ability, while extremely useful in bringing that big oni in late game that you had to discard early, is hardly any different than many of the other clan strongholds. What it is, however, is arc changing. Much like Embassy of the Crane, where the Crane received the ability to go first against all other clans and served as a perfect fit for Limited/Open dueling and Gisei dishonor builds championed by Kamiko-sama (who won best fantasy costume for all of Gen Con). Crane came on the scene with a viability that was previously absent in the Celestial arc. The Forgotten Temple does the same thing: it makes a previously unviable deck type a winning one. And Gen Con proved just how winning it can/will be.

The only criticism I would make would be the release timing of The Forgotten Temple. Becoming legal just one week prior to the World Championships, players did not have the luxury of playing against it in legal play as they did against Embassy. Crane wins lessened after months of games against it as knowledge of tactics and weaknesses were spread throughout the L5R world. Even then, Crane managed several wins, either because the folks at that tournament were not paying attention, or because the cards didn’t flop in their favor. Remember folks, we shuffle the cards for a reason: to present randomness. However, the Jigoku players were granted a sneak attack against the rest of the player base, giving the defenders little to no chance to act. If L5R had restrictions on “fairness”, I would say “bad form design team” in releasing The Forgotten Temple when they did. However, AEG isn’t a democracy, it’s a business, and like true capitalists, the Jigoku players seized upon an opportunity that others chose not to avail themselves of.

2. The Forgotten Temple is not overpowered, but Wrath of Kali-Ma is.

This concern is a little harder to deal with than the previous one. A single card in a deck can radically change the game IF it pops and when it pops. How many times has a Scorpion player flipped an Ignoble Demise first turn, or a defensive player flip Winter’s Embrace on turn two? “But those are events,” you might say, and don’t stick around for the whole game until you use it like a Celestial does. True, though many other Celestials, such as the Mantis and Crab, can dramatically alter the game with added production or insane province crushing ability, respectively. But naysayers believe that Wrath is even more powerful: it doesn’t matter when it pops, it is eminently effective because it brings the non-unique personality or personalities of your choice from your deck into play. The only restriction to this is the player having to pay gold cost, making it a much more dangerous card if it is around late game when economies are established. Does any other celestial have the ability, late game, to create such an impact as this? The answer is “no.” Shiba’s Guidance allows you to bring back one personality, a dead one, but nothing on this scale. A whole army comes into play at once, because of a single card, and enough gold. Couple this with The Forgotten Temple’s ability to get a discarded personality at will and it gives the oni deck an unconscionable control over the exact personalities you bring into play.

3. The Forgotten Temple is immune to dishonor decks.

Scorpion players may not like my answer to this, but the answer is “no, it isn’t.” What it is, however, is so weighted against dishonor decks and their philosophy that they give dishonor decks a hard time, particularly the dishonor bomb decks. All arc, Spider’s biggest problem has been beating a dishonor deck, but it could be done with skillful play, the inclusion of multiple Oyo Seido, running Daigotsu Oki, and having the right card in hand. Don’t believe me? Ask Jeremy Killburn, winner of the Long Island kotei this year, whose breeder deck beat a bomb deck by dropping a Game of Sincerity to knock his opponent from -18 to -20. He exclaimed so loudly that the whole hall turned to look at him. That moment, to me, illustrated what L5R is about.

The Forgotten Temple, however, nullifies those euphoric moments by making matches against dishonor a tit-for-tat battle where any anticipation is removed from the game. Someone from the boards commented that they have this same tit-for-tat sensation when they know honor decks are going to send them home multiple times, but it isn’t the same. First, there is movement negation galore. Second, The Forgotten Temple makes a dishonor player think about the number of actions they can take, not the quality or efficiency of them. It should be noted that no other stronghold in Celestial has so effectively or overtly combated one of the four win conditions. Sure, there is meta against honor, but those are cards that enter play, not those that begin and stay. Would AEG ever consider a stronghold that raises the honor win condition by five or ten? No, because it would be unbalanced. Yet design has released a card that causes this same form of imbalance. And it makes the Spider player in me rejoice.

4. This game is about Samurai, not about oni’s, and the design team has erred in even making non-human decks viable competitors.

As Cody has told me several times I have submitted an article idea to him (and he’s right), not every L5R player is interested feudal Japanese culture as I and many others are. For me, my passion for the culture brought me to the game. For others, it was the fact that was a CCG they stumbled across. Others, it was the community of L5R which is unlike any other. Whatever a person’s reason for enjoying (or not) L5R, AEG cannot tailor their business to a single raison d'être. From a story sense, they can, but run the risk of losing some of their audience/market. But L5R is unique in that the story team has allowed the direction of the story to be steered by the players; a unique trait among games. It is that relinquishing of complete story autonomy by AEG that gives L5R players a sense of ownership of this game, more than any other CCG competitor is willing to do.

Did they have to make it viable, however? No. They still haven’t made ronin viable and they have been with us most of the arc. Sure, a ronin deck made top four in one Kotei, much to many players enjoyment, but it isn’t viable, and without a new stronghold, won’t be for next arc. Simply put, they made it viable to cater to the jigoku crowd and Shadowlands players of old. Either as a business decision to bring back old players or as homage to the Seattle crew, there are now ten factions in Rokugan; the nine clans and the oni.

5. It is the skill of the player, not the strength of the deck (so quit your whining!)

There can be no denying that a skilled player, given a deck, will win out over an inexperienced player given that same deck. However, when you build in the personal customization that comes with CCG’s, rarely is there the same deck played by more than one person, unless the second player is “copying” a winning deck. Those copy cats don’t do as well, traditionally, and it is the innovation of a deck by the creative process that produced it that amplifies a player’s synergy with a deck. In short, the creating of a unique deck makes you a better player.

But if the tools aren’t there, it doesn’t matter how good a player is. Let me give you an example: The great Ornatov agreed to play Mantis this Kotei season until he won. He didn’t. Here we have a player who is a world champion and who has earned the respect of multiple Gen Con winners such that their story choices have been a tribute to him. He is a great player who is THE sensei of L5R. But without the proper tools (which Mantis lacked over the majority of the arc) couldn’t snag an event win. Much to Mantis player’s chagrin, The Forgotten Temple was previewed and Ornatov returned to his shadowlands horde.

Mantis, of course, made it to the Gen Con finals, but not with DGC, their stronghold of merit in Celestial arc; but rather with a stronghold many overlooked and who one skillful player found to be the right tool.

Conclusion

The Forgotten Temple is a stronghold which, for it’s place in Celestial, is in direct and unbalancing opposition to one of the win conditions of L5R, and through ill-timed release, has created a feeling of overwhelming bitterness in many Clan loyalists due to the skillful piloting of a useful and viable stronghold by some of the best players in the world who seized upon an opportunity afforded them. Will it be eratta’d? Will it be as strong once time passes weaknesses are discovered? Will it have the support in Emperor that it has at the end of Celestial? Will dishonor decks receive TFT meta?

I’m sure we’ll find out.

Score 4 for the Pacific Northwest: A Gencon Wrap-Up

2011-08-08T12:51:00.002-04:00

Another Gencon is in the books and I thought to myself, “Who better to recap it than someone who wasn’t there?!?” So with that in mind, let’s look over some of the L5R news and highlights from Gencon 2011!

Continued Dominance

2011 marks the 4^th straight year that a player from the Pacific Northwest, and specifically the Seattle area, has won the main event of Gencon. This year, a long-time friend of mine, Daniel Walker, claimed the brass ring, piloting his Forgotten Temple Oni deck through some impressive competition. Another member of the “Andrew Ornatov playgroup”, Danny has been a fantastic player of many games over the years and this kind of accolade is a long time coming. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Thus far, the story pick has had a request of “related to M’rika somehow”, but I’ll have to see if my joking with him prior to the tournament about getting Br’nn into the story will pay off. ;)

Expect the Unexpected

Other results from the various events were enough to set a few of our less level-headed AEG forum members off on rants, but I always look forward to the ways that the Story Team will make the wishes of winners with more “interesting” choices work. This year should be interesting with some of these confirmed and requested results:

Second Chance Tournament: Won by Paul Clute playing Forgotten Temple Oni as well. He requested Akuma no Oni becomes a Dark Fortune, and honestly, I can’t think of a better and more natural choice than the Oni that has been kicking ass since Imperial Edition. I really hope that the choice is allowed.

War of Honour Tournament: Won by AJ Valle playing Utaku Plains Unicorn. There are a bunch of rumours floating around about his choice, but the juiciest is Moto Chagatai’s son (with Shinjo Dun even mentioning that Kolat was included in the request although that’s unconfirmed). That would be a very interesting choice were it to come to pass, given the winning clan in the Imperial Yojimbo tournament...

Imperial Yojimbo Tournament: Won by Case Kiyonaga playing Lion Paragons. Case chose Matsu Koyama as the Yojimbo, and given the history between the Lion and the Unicorn, especially with Moto Chagatai in the past, that presents some fantastic story opportunities. Further, in the Unicorn story scroll given out at the costume contest, the Unicorn Khan, Shinjo Min-hee, daughter of Shinjo Shono and reincarnation of the Kami Shinjo, killed Shigetoshi’s son in a duel over his father killing Shono. Interesting times ahead for the Lion and Unicorn, indeed!

Darling of the Season Costume Contest: Last but definitely not least, this year’s costume contest had many worthy costumes based on pictures I’ve seen, but the winner will certainly not be your normal Darling of the Season. Crab won this event, although I don’t have the real name of the winner, just her handle on the Crab boards, Rixy. If someone can fill me in on that, I’d appreciate it. Anyhow, she had a fantastic costume of a Kuni Shugenja, complete with facepaint, scroll cases and some well-done armoured shoulder plates. She was a deserving winner. Here’s a picture swiped from the Crab boards:

EE Rules Changes & Demo Decks

As I stated in the previous rule changes post, big rules changes are ahead for our beloved game, changes that I think will only make the game better. But lost in the excitement of those changes somewhat was the debut of some new strongholds for themes in EE. I’m going to leave that for another post once the remaining demo strongholds are spoiled and I can take a closer look at each. Suffice it to say, more than one are making players yearn for the end of the year and release of EE. I know I love the new Spider Paragon box!

Story Scrolls

As I mentioned above when discussing the potential Lion-Unicorn issues coming in EE, there were story scrolls given to the top-placing members of the costume contest, each relating to a specific member of their clan. Of the ones revealed thus far, we’ve seen some fantastic examples of character driven and personal stories, with depth we haven’t seen in awhile in L5R fictions. In particular, the Crane and Mantis stories were excellent, while the Spider gave a rather unbelievable send-off to Michio (if we believe the tale). Thus far, we’ve only seen 5 of the 9 scrolls, and they should all be posted on various clan boards in the next few days. Nicolas also stated that they would release them eventually as well, and I encourage you to seek them out. Great work on these stories, Story Team!

Another Year in the Books

So ends another Gencon. From all accounts I’ve read, it was another great show and I wish I’d been there, as I always do. I hope that everyone had a great time there, and I can’t wait to see the fallout from everything that happened there. Stay tuned in the near future for a look at all the EE Strongholds that were released in the Demo decks and for my final instalment of Defining an Environment, discussing the Second City starters. I’m also hoping to convince Danny to do a little interview with me about his win, but since he doesn’t know about it yet, that’ll have to be a wait and see!

Big Rules Changes Revealed at GenCon!

2011-08-05T08:56:00.005-04:00

The first day of GenCon is in the books and the biggest L5R news comes to us courtesy of Kakita Onimaru on the Crane Forums: some big changes to the rules we all know and love are coming in Emperor Edition!

The picture, taken from the Crane forums (please don't kill me, noble Crane!), shows a rule card that was included in EE Demo Decks that made their debut at Gencon. The Crane demo deck included "Soul of" Personalities, a new version of Ring of Earth, a new XP version of Kyuden Otomo as one of the EE Crane strongholds, and some new Personalities. However, what made the Crane board buzz the most, and rightly so, was the rule changes that were revealed on the card pictured above as well as some other rules that were mentioned in that thread about Dishonour and Enlightenment victory timing. That's what I'd like to speak on.

It should be noted that according to Kakita Onimaru, the AEG rep that gave him the deck did say that because these were demo decks, the cards and rules were subject to change prior to release,
but one would have to believe that rule changes as substantial as the ones on the card would likely not change at this late stage. Emperor Edition should be long gone to printer and playtesters should be well into the first expansion of testing, if not the second. Further, Emperor Edition had a long playtest run, far longer than most sets, and I know that these rules got very thorough testing. Still, to be clear, all of these are subject to change prior to EE release. I hope they don't though.

Let's look over the biggest changes:

1) Everyone has a modified City of Tears ability for equipping Spells in battle.

The biggest change is the change to how Spells attach in Battle. Until now, only the amazing Phoenix Stronghold, City of Tears, had the ability to attach Spells in battle, unless the Spell itself had that as an ability (like some Thunder Spells do), and then take an immediate followup action on the Spell. CoT could also do it as an Open action. The newly updated ability is now for all clans and unlike its predecessor, it can't be used as an Open.

A change I also heartily approve of is that the Personality attaching the Spell has to be unbowed and opposed in the Battle. While we don't know if there will be a Phoenix version of a Cav deck like the one that was so prominent in early CE, we do know that Unicorn Deathpriests will be in EE. Not allowing some kind of Cavalry rush deck to just load on force-boosting Spells unopposed if the defender can raise province strength somehow is a nice assurance. We've seen Mantis Followers do it for 4+ years and Phoenix has done it since CoT at times, and I'm happy to see the "opposed" caveat on the ability. Further, its annoyed me for quite some time that a bowed Shugenja can cast Spells, and while this doesn't change that specific ability, it does mean that you can bow out an opposing Shugenja army and know your Personalities won't eat a Consumed or similar style spell that bows itself and not the caster unless the Spell was already attached.

This fundamentally changes how Spells work in the game, and its a fantastic rule change. I really think players will like it.

2) Dishonour and Enlightenment Victories no longer happen instantly, but rather at the end or beginning of the turn.

This is another change that I really, really like. Even if we ignore the horrible angering feelings from SE of crushing a Scorpion's last province just to eat an Assigning Blame to lose (see my Unicorn deck's first loss at the last Portland Kotei), the change to those victory conditions brings them into line with the other victory condition that checks at the start of the turn, that being honour. Its also far easier to explain to a newer player that you check for all these conditions effectively between turns rather than at different times in the game. In the case of both those victory conditions, a military deck attacking in on the final attack often knew that they had no chance because they would be dishonoured out or the final Rings would be dropped, which is certainly no fun. In anything, these changes should make games against both those victory conditions more interactive and nailbiting. I'm fairly sure that dishonour players won't like it as much as I do, but I think its a fair change.

Edit: I added in the correction that has been confirmed that Enlightenment checks at the beginning of your turn, not the end.

3. Proclaiming happens at any time during your turn, rather than only at during the Dynasty phase.

Buying someone for honour has a name now in "Proclaiming", and if we're reading the rulesheet correctly, you can gain honour for a person at any time on your turn, not just during Dynasty. That means that if you bring a personality out without clan discount during a battle or as a Limited action, you can gain honour for them (although you can't then do it again during Dynasty). This presents some interesting potential scenarios in terms of an honour deck perhaps buying someone during the Limited phase to gain enough honour to take the favour, or an attacking deck buying a guy during battle for honour to get above honour requirements for an in-province guy or avoid an ability that is preventing the gain during Dynasty somehow. Either way, its another rule change that also simplifies the rules for a new player. "You can gain honour on your turn for bringing a guy in without clan discount at any time" is easier than "only during Dynasty".

Imperial Yojimbo Tournament

Case Kiyonaga continued his domination of all things L5R by defeating elfiver's own Andrew Moul and his Embassy deck in the finals of the Imperial Yojimbo tournament with Lion Paragons. He chose Matsu Koyama as the Imperial Yojimbo to the Shogun. Congrats to Case on another big win!

What Do You Think?

Let us know what you think of the changes in the comments below. Do you love them or hate them or are you in the "wait and see" camp? Either way, EE is certainly going to shake things up in more than a story-jump way. I can't wait!

A Game of Skill (or How Many Big Names Can I Name-Drop in One Article?)

2011-08-04T07:25:00.003-04:00

With GenCon events just around the corner (or already started depending on when you read this) and some of the biggest names in the game converging on Indianapolis for this year's Main Event tournament, I wanted to talk about something that one of our better Pacific Northwest players said on the Coastal Katana Dojo a little while ago that struck a chord with me, because I think it’s really a true statement about the state of the game and the environment as a whole in the latter part of CE.

“It’s interesting how much the game has shifted from being a deck-building game to a play-skill game.”

Early in CE, the environment was all about blitzy decks like Phoenix, Lion, and Goblin. Anything that wanted to compete with it had to be fast enough to keep up or it was run over. In that part of CE, the era was more about the deck you had built than the skill of the player, unless it happened to be a mirror match. I remember building the still-terrible Spider Paragons before the 2^nd Coastal Katana Dojo Invitational that November and trying to judge cards based on whether I could get them out in time to deal with Phoenix blitz and whether it could deal with their attachments since so many Paragon abilities required no attachments to get through. In that case, no amount of play-skill would’ve saved me, and I considered myself fortunate to go 2-3 (losing to two Phoenix decks in the process, in an event not surprisingly won by Case).

This is not to say that play-skill wasn’t important before. One only has to hear stories of how someone like Greg Wong can take a deck that won’t work for anyone but him to a top 4 finish at many a major event to know that play-skill does still play a role in the success or failure of a player. By the same token, even back in early CE, if I’d just picked up the Phoenix deck without testing it and faced someone like Case with a tier 2 deck, the game may have ended up with me losing. However, my chances would’ve been greater with the deck I was playing than it would have been otherwise.

Now, in the current late-arc CE environment, we’re in an entirely different situation. Of course, if you’re crazy enough to play Spider Paragons, you’re still going to likely lose no matter how good you are, but if you are smart enough to play one of the competitive builds your clan has, then you stand a good chance of having your games come down to who plays better and not who built the one or two tier 1 decks.

In the current environment, there are strong builds for every clan, except maybe Mantis depending on whom you talk to (I’m not convinced of that). In many cases, there’s more than one. Fast weenie decks like Breeder, Paragons and their negation tricks, big unit Kensai, Commanders or Oni, lightning quick honour or dishonour and more; there are so many decks in the field that are capable of winning a match that we can’t say “play Phoenix” or “play Lion” and pretty much know how the tournament will end. At this stage of the arc, it’s a testament to the way CE has unfolded that there are enough strong decks out there that it will come down more to the skill of the player than the fact that Clan X easily has the top deck.

Gencon has a way of weeding out the players that haven’t seen the likes of an Ornatov or Jacobson, an Armitage or Rojo. But more than ever before, those players will win or lose based on their skill rather than being mercenary and playing the best deck. Further, more players will be weeded out because there aren’t the one or two uber-decks that can put someone that may not belong into the elimination rounds. Flores may be running Battle Maiden Paragon or maybe his Burn Dishonour deck, but it’ll be the fact that he’s a great player that may see him to the final day. The same can be said of many of the names that we usually find littering the top 32 of major events. There’s a reason that they got to where they are, but more than ever before, the reason that they’re staying there is their skill and not because they are playing the clan that is better than the rest. It should be a fantastic and challenging weekend of L5R events, and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.

Afterword

Once again, I’ve found myself short of the necessary funds to make Gencon, but I wanted to wish everyone best of luck in the various events AEG is hosting during the “Best Four Days in Gaming”. I’m sure that it’ll be another fantastic time and I’ll be watching online to see how the various tournaments unfold. I’ll send a special shout-out to my Vanguard brethren who made the trip and to the Seattle crew that is trying to make it four in a row this year. Bring it home, boys!

elfiver L5R GenCon Coverage

2011-07-27T19:18:00.002-04:00

As you have noticed, things at elfiver have been quiet over the past few weeks. With the close of L5R’s Kotei season and the preparation for GenCon in full swing the community will focus their attention on Indianapolis a little over a week from now. Some exciting news has already begun leading into the jewel of L5R’s summer months. Second City, the final dual-bugged expansion, is set to release in a small quantity at the con. Previews have started on AEG’s L5R Facebook page.

elfiver will be well represented at GenCon and coverage, while intermittent, will be available to catch up on any exclusive breaking news. My own GenCon schedule, with slightly delayed reporting to appear here:

Thursday: L5R Imperial Yojimbo tournament (reporting while playing) & L5R Qualifier #1 (wrap up report following conclusion)

Friday: L5R Qualifier #2 (wrap up report following conclusion), L5R Shogun of Empire tournament (updates throughout), AEG Exhibit Hall review & report (available by early evening)

Saturday: L5R The Imperial Governor tournament (reporting while playing), L5R Big Game Night (reporting while playing)

Sunday: L5R Imperial Governor Finals (with any luck I will be a part of this!), L5R A Soul Ascends Finals tournament (wrap up report following conclusion)

So as you can see there is quite a busy schedule to execute over the 4 days of GenCon. Please check here for updates throughout.

At this time I would like to thank (personally and on behalf of elfiver) the individual donors and members of the Crane clan’s loyal player base who have provided the means necessary for my GenCon attendance in 2011. It is a familiar story and there are more financial constraints on everyone in 2011, but once again the community bands together to assist individuals to participate. For anyone able to make the trip, please come talk to me so I can continue to eternalize the generosity of the L5R community.

Beginners Guide to TOing

2011-07-22T16:55:00.003-04:00

[Editor's Note: Introducing Michael Iakovides of Greece as MacFrenzy: Rant!, a new column focusing on, among other things, the art of TOing events both large and small. Enjoy]

So, we covered some of the basics on how to create an L5R scene (for more info see my post here). As we already talked about, a defining moment in the evolution of your L5R playgroup and your own personal growth (or L5R addiction), is your first major tournament.

First of all, lets take a look at some prerequisites for running a major tournament (by the way, major tournament is a subjective term, and is relevant to your playgroup size- it might be as few as 20-40 people, or it might be huge ala Spain or France or parts of the US). These are:

a) a player base of at least 20 people.
b) having trained both yourself and your playerbase in tournament play beforehand (running swiss round tournaments, experimenting with top4 or top 8 finals etc etc)

That's about it. I could have written a slew of other things, but I want to stress that most of the obstacles to running a major tournament, are in your mind (if you are willing to put the time and effort into it, running a large L5R tournament is not that hard- hell you can play L5R which is definitely not the easiest thing to do so you are more or less set).

Now, given that we are talking about a first tournament, I will break things down a great detail, so you can use this as a checklist for running the thing. So without further ado:

1. Planning phase:
If this is your first major tournament, you should really plan ahead for it. Especially if you want people to attend who are not part of the local tournament scene, you should give them heads up so that they can plan accordingly. Personally, I would suggest starting planning 3-5 months in advance.

2.Choosing your TO team:
You might be one of those lone wolfs, who can multitask well enough to handle everything by yourself (or you might be a raging control freak who wants to do everything in a specific manner). Even if that is the case, I would humbly suggest you not go this alone. The key to your first event, is to minimize the possible things which could go wrong. The chances of things going wrong increase if you try to handle too much by yourself, or if you involve too many people. Which brings me to my next point: you might be one of those people who wants to involve everyone. This is also a very bad idea, since this is a sure way for miscommunication to ensue (and nasty fights were too many people want to have a say in things). In my personal experience a core team of 2-5 people can run any event provided they can properly communicate with each other and respect each other enough to know who can handle what. Musts include someone who can handle swiss pairings and a Judge who knows the rules. Personally, I would also suggest someone who is comfortable with being social with players, because imho the social aspect of the tournament is also very important.

3. Choosing a date:
This is a factor which will greatly define the success of your tournament. The date is hugely important, and should be given careful thought. Your first tournament needs to have the support of your gaming community. You need to pick a date where almost everyone of your playgroup will be able to attend (here you need to get 40k commissar on your playerbase arses- gamers have a tendency to commit to things at a drop of a hat only to remember that they can't attend leaving you high and dry, so make sure you stress the importance of them attending and showing their active support to their L5R community). Facilitate things by making sure the date you choose does not coincide with midterms, other local gaming events, nearby Koteis, GENCON or any other major events which would cause people to have to pull a no show.

Another important factor, which people might forget, is when the next expansion is coming out. For instance, planning an event a few days after the release of an expansion but before it is legal might cause no shows because people will be too busy (or will have spent lots of money) with the new set, or an event a few days after a new set might be very successful or doomed to failure depending on card availability and various other factors. So, if possible, try to steer away from such dates for your first tournament (when you are a jaded veteran you will be able to deal with the vagaries of fate- for now just try and limit the things that can go wrong).

Checklist:
-Overview of available dates
-Checking that there are no events which might interfere with your tournament (gaming events, release of a new set, etc etc).
-Discussion with local playerbase
-Discussion with nearby playerbase who might be attending
-Choice of date

4. Choosing a venue:
Again, a very important factor, one which will effect both attendance and how good a time your players will have. Also, this is a tricky parameter, since it also might have to do with how much money you will spend, so be careful. How do you choose a venue? Well that has to do with what your goal is for your tournament and what you can afford to spend on it. A logical goal is to think that you will have an attendance which will exceed your local player base, and based on your promotion of the event and the feedback you have had from other playgroups, you will more or less know the number. A quick note here: this is where you need to put a bit of work in. You will be surprised at the deals you can find (especially off season), for hotel conference halls, in university campuses and other places. Talk to people you know, and you will be surprised at the suggestions you might be given (one of the nice things regarding L5R players is that they tend to come from different environments so chances are there are people in the L5R scene, or related to someone in the L5R scene who might help you).

My suggestion about this step would be as follows: sit down with your TO team, and determine a budget for the tournament (in our case, we decide how much we are willing to spend on the tournament, take the worst case scenario of attendance, decide what the entrance fee to the tournament is and see how much money we will are comfortable on spending on the tournament- others who want to break even or make money off the tournament can just take their expected attendance, plan for the entrance fee they will charge and see how much money will be available, and plan accordingly). Once you determine the budget, and subtract money required for prize support (for more see below) you know how much you have to spend on your venue. As to the creature comforts the venue needs to have, you know your player base better so I will leave that up to you. However, I would suggest that the venue has semi decent tables (aka not minuscule so that you can actually play L5R) and decent air conditioning (eau de gamer leaves much to be desired, especially after 6-8 rounds of swiss).

Also, make sure that the venue you choose is accessible to those coming (ie if you know that none of your playerbases have cars and move via bus or metro, plan the event somewhere near stations).

Checklist:
-Determine budget
-Determine suitable locations
-Contact location management
-Possible discussion with player base

5. AEG haranguing:
If this is a Kotei, this might have already occurred (in general the points here are done simultaneously and not concurrently). AEG are VERY decent when it comes to helping TOs out with tournaments. If you persuade them that you are sincere about what you are doing, they will step up (the amount of support we have had for our tournaments ranges from amazingly decent to awesomely amazing). However, they can be at times a bit disjointed in sending things to you. This is why you, oh most wise of TOs, decided to start planning for your tournament so early. You will be able to discuss things with AEG, plan for tournament support, and get it sent to you ahead of time, so you don't have to scramble. Also, if you are aiming at a storyline tournament this is a must (examples of available tournaments: http://www.l5r.com/2011-winter-court-season/ ) and frankly you should aim for a storyline tournament for your first major tournament.

Checklist:
-once you have the details set and before publishing the tournament, send AEG an email (or our good friend Nicola Bongiu). Discuss your aims, the possibility of a storyline, and see how they can help with prize support.
-Wait for a response, and see where the conversation takes you.

6. Spirit of the tournament:
All great tournaments have something of their TOs and their player bases in them (I firmly believe in L5R metaphysics, especially as analyzed over huge amounts of food and alcohol after/during tournaments). When planning for your tournament, you should think about the "feel" you want it to have. What do I mean? Well for instance, the Ruby Championship is about L5R excellence. Mouzaka is about using L5R as an excuse to have a roaringly good time and having fun. Spanish tournaments are about manlove (you know it Pablo). And the list goes on. Different people like different things in L5R. You should think about what you and your playerbase likes in L5R and try your tournament to reflect that. If you remain true to your vision of L5R, your tournament will be the better for it.

7. Promotion, promotion, promotion:
The goal of your first major tournament should be to introduce your player base to the wonders of large tournament play. This means taking them out of their shell, and having them play with people from outside your player base. That means, that your goal should be to have an X amount of players from outside your group. What is X? Well that depends on how many you think you can get away with. This is where the social aspect of TOing comes in. You need to mercilessly target people and persuade them that coming to your tournament will be fun and good. You should have aimed and gotten a storyline tournament (which always attracts players), you should state that this is the first major tournament (people who play L5R are suckers for finding excuses to travel to new places and playing L5R) and plaster the internetz with details about your tournament. Additionally, if you have gotten to the point of thinking of such a major tournament, ideally you will also have travelled to other places to play L5R. This means that (given that you are not a raving psychopath or at least that you do not practice it in front of other L5R players), you will know players who will be interested in attending your tournament (target the poor TOs in other regions- generally they love getting away and actually playing the game instead of getting lorded over by players :)). Also, flyers or posters could get attention for your event.

Finally, remember the internetz is your friend. If you can make a site for your tournament, it would be good. If this is too much hassle, you can settle for a facebook group on it, posting it on the aeg forums (there is a section for events) and generally plastering it in forums.

Personally, I would suggest personally pestering people via email or phones (every extra player who comes to your first event counts).

Checklist:
- (optional): attend other L5R events in other regions, meet players, insidiously suggest that sooner or later they should come over to one of the events you will be hosting
-(optional): make a tournament poster
-Post in the alderac forums in the event forum.
-Post anywhere in the internet you can think of relating to L5R.

8. Prize Support:
There are numerous approaches to prize support both in terms of the cards given out as prizes, as well as for the top spots.

I would strongly suggest a more egalitarian approach to distributing boosters (ofc some people disagree). In addition to the promos and whatever else you give upon registration or the first round, I would strongly suggest that you not then give all your swag to the top 4 or top 8, but rather further distribute a chunk of it to the players still there at the end of the last round. There is a number of reasons why this is better rather than throwing all the prizes at the top players. First of all, in general and with few exceptions, those ending up in the top places in tournaments, tend to be more heavily invested in the game, which means that they tend to actually have the rares required to play it. Thus, they are in it to win it, and the fact that they came in first is by itself the most powerful incentive (that is not to say however that you should not think ahead for something special for them- see below). Secondly, by rewarding those players that stuck it until the end of the swiss, you are providing an incentive for people who would have dropped (which might effect tie breakers- and also it is my belief that in your role as a guide to your playgroup you should make them see that even 'casual' play in tournaments allows them to hone their L5R skills, something which is often lost as a point to those dropping in tournaments). On the other hand, you should have a special prize for the winners, a memento which will allow for feel good memories in the future. I would shy away from katanas, because frankly after a while and if you attend and place decently in tournaments (or so I have heard :)) you tend to have more Japanese cutlery than you know what to do with. Cups, trophies medals, scrolls and whatever you can think of and is catchy can be had at very affordable prices and are easily accessible via the internet or even in your local environment. Also, if you have the time and effort to put into it, you can come up with inexpensive brickbracks for all those attending. In the Europeans, we had small ancient Greek tourist keep sakes (okay I know they are generally cheesy but we did try to find some tasteful ones) to give to participants, which were dirt cheap.Again, I urge you to plan ahead and think outside the box -you will be surprised at what you can come up with. Also, I would strongly urge you to have top of Clans prizes, even if it is something small. Personally, I believe that L5R tournaments should (and do) leave you with a nice buzz when facing real life afterwards, and it is your duty as a TO to try and spread this to as many people as possible.

Checklist:
-How much prize support do I have?
- How much will I be giving away simply for attendance and how much will be left?
-How will I distribute the rest between attendees at the end of Swiss, top of whatever?
-Can I arrange something for top of Clan?
-What will my prizes for first/second/third/whatever place be?

9. The final touches
You have things well in hand. Now, you should run things in your mind, to see if you have a clear picture of what will occur in the tournament. Do you know what software you will be using? Have the people which will be operating used it before? Do you have enough computers, a backup etc? How many rounds will you be doing? Will there be a food break? Could you possibly arrange for the venue for food (in hotels for example)? Can you have deliveries made? Cut to top 16/8 whatever? Will you be having side events? When? What type? Note that an excel with times could help you see what is run where pretty easily. For instance:

Passive or active judging? 5 min warnings? 40 or 45 min rounds? Best of 3? Etc etc

When all is said and done, you know what is occurring what (even us Greek TOs who are know for reveling in chaos, generally have a pretty firm grasp of what will be occurring when and how, if just to know what we are currently doing in another fashion than the one planned:)).

10. Gempukku ceremony:
We all have our per psychosis/projects/obsessions whatever. Well this is mine. Remember I talked about the L5R tournament feel good vibe? There is a possible exception. As you well know, L5R has a STEEP learning curve. Your first experiences in L5R (unless you are a wunderkid or something), especially your first tournament, are the equivalent of a curb stomp (what is that you say, you have never played against LSC before? etc). Getting thoroughly stomped for a whole day tends to put a damper on the whole feel good vibe. So how to go about making the experience a bit more enjoyable?

Well, at registrations, or at the first round, make an announcement and ask about players who have started playing L5R in the last year (or six months depending on how frequently you hold tournaments). If you get any takers, call them up to the TO booth, announce their names and their Clans, give them a little something (even if it is just a booster, a rare or whatever) and have the tournament give them a round of applause. This accomplishes two things: a)it makes them feel good (obvious) b) it actually shows more experienced players who is new to the game which will generally make them behave a bit nicer to them, enhancing their experience in the tournament (not so obvious).

I would strongly urge you to do this in your tournaments. New L5R players are a good things to have, and I firmly believe that helping them get into the spirit of things is possibly one of the most important things for a TO to do.

Well folks, I am sure that there are tons of more advice I could be giving, and I am sure that if you have comments that they will show the things I forgot to mention, but I think that this is a good place to start.

Comments and suggestions, as usual,

elfiver Exclusive - Some Guy (Case Kiyonaga)'s San Jose Kotei Winner's Report + Decklist

2011-07-05T13:42:00.003-04:00

What follows is one man's, Case Kiyonaga's, account of his winning performance at the June 18th, San Jose California Kotei, the second week of legality for BtD.

"First, a big thanks to my good friends Ogre, Brandon, and Amanda for running a fantastic kotei (and putting a bigass bulls-eye on my back).

It was well and efficiently run, everyone had a blast, and the prize support was second to none. (As usual, I'm going to make all you lazy bums that are just looking for a list to poach scroll all the way to the bottom!)"

Round 1: Crab scout/commanders Kyuden Hida xp

I was told Lenny only recently returned to L5R. His deck is a mix of commanders and scouts, and doesn't really do a whole lot if he doesn't have his box up on defense. Kasei ruins his day (repeatedly).

Round 2: Phoenix enlightenment/honor Shrine of Champions

This guy had Ring of Void and Ring of Fire deck backers, so I straight out told him that I thought he was playing enlightenment. I was pretty convinced that was his primary win condition, but an early houhou in province (which he kept) made me hold on to the Proper Deference I was holding. Seventeen provinces defended later, I honored out when he last-ditch-effort tried to enlighten while he was at one province. He didn't have a Ring out before that turn.

Round 3: Breeder Fields of the Dead

Pretty straight-forward game. He buys Udo/Inisi, I buy Kasei/warm bodies. He attacks, I wipe an army and trade an army. He takes one, I honor out via battle resolutions. Whee.

Round 4: Crane honor dueling Seawatch Castle

This game was pretty brutal. I get turn 2 Kobi and some gold, turn 3 two guys and some gold. His turn 3 (from 10 honor) he tries Impromptu (declined) Adjudication (I had a bowed seido) and I focused out (maybe I can win? he's not Embassy). He wins the duel; I strike after drawing a focus card from his hand, and he dumps a hamstrung for 4 honor, attaches and uses the Crane blade (I give him two), then swings (he focused two slow death and was apparently a switch deck). I block, Shameful and Cowardly both guys, he runs home, buys a guy for full to go to 24, and I Proper him back to 10. I attack, he defends with one of the dishonored guys and another dude, and duels one of my guys. Will, harpoon, kill, kill, and he's at 4 honor down a province with no hand or board. Not the best spot to be in.

Round 5: Dennis Dreischmeyer playing Mantis Dragon's Guard City

Games with Dennis are always...interesting. I defend a little bit and chip away at his army, and swing back with two Paragons at a time with Guidance and Kobi out (the two were Ryozo and Kinihara). I use Kobi to attrition him down a bit, then win an opposed battle and use Kasei to keep his board clear for the rest of the game.

Round 6: Doruk Oyzadin playing Palace of Crimson Shadows

Paragons vs battle dishonor. Um yeah, I'll let you guess how this ends. He does drop me about 25 honor in one turn cycle (double Unfortunate, then another 14ish in battle) but judicious use of my box and buying guys for full keeps me at -10 and he's just lost about 8 guys and his hand.

Round 7: Randy Green playing Kyuden Hida xp

We go to a bar and get a drink. Wait there was a tournament round? Why did nobody tell me?

Top 16: Brandon Snyder playing Central Castle Lion

Whee, the deck that's most likely to hose me with Unfamiliar Ground (I took out the one Inexorable Defeat the previous night for attachment meta aka Rout aka the most useless card in my deck aka the card I tacticianed the most aka the card I had in hand at the end of every game I played). We decide to just play the two games alternating first turns and then roll for game 3 if we got there. Game 1 I go second and am able to take a pretty big advantage on the board, then walk 4 dudes into an Unfamiliar. I lose a couple of provinces and am down 3-2, so attempt to get back into it knowing that I lose to another Unfamiliar and that I don't have the luxury of playing around it anymore. OHAI UNFAMILIAR.

Game 2 he double BK's and gets one holding going second. 17 unfamiliar grounds wouldn't save him.

I win the roll for game 3 and it's not really close. Guy/gold/gold turn 2, Kasei/Kobi/gold/gold turn 3, wipe his board turn 4 and lose mostly nothing. I have the luxury of playing around Unfamiliar for the rest of the game and with Kobi I can even just throw guys into his kill actions.

Top 8: Chris Dornan playing Temple of Purity honor

Game 1 he chooses to keep Last Line of Defense in province (a mistake in my opinion). I take one using a Determined Force through Winter's Embrace and eventually draw into a Shameful and Cowardly and a Scouting Far Afield. He tries to get from the low 30's to 40 via Unstoppable Power, but Shameful and Cowardly put a stop to that. He defends a province but is at 34 with no cards in hand.

Game 2 is pretty much the same. Last Line pops in province turn 2, I take one, Shameful drops him back below 40. Unimpeachable Name gave him a false glimmer of hope, but honor is pretty defenseless without a hand, and Kasei/Scouting/Shameful seals the match. He correctly played around Proper Deference both games.

Top 4: Matt Rivers playing Crane honour dueling out of Embassy

He's playing swarm honor dueling..or as I like to call it, the "I bend over to Shameful and Cowardly" deck. He doesn't cross 40 in either game.

Finals: Ohmi Fasudhani playing Twin Soul Temple military

Epic tempo swings, complex battles, insane topdecks, and sick plays...none of these things happen. We divy up prizes and go a-drinkin'.

Listlistlistlistlistlistlist. The deck is slow, a little bit awkward, has some keyword inconsistency, needs 15 honor meta cards, loses to commonly played cards, and can't kill a guy with a 0f follower using a fate card. It has zero boxables and doesn't run census, gets hit by all Breeder and Lion meta, and is generally uninteresting. Play this deck at your own peril.

Shamate Keep

Akodo's Guidance

1 Farmlands

Kitsune Den

1 Chugo Seido

2 Traveling Peddler

3 Famous Bazaar

3 Dockside Port

3 Fortified Dock

3 Copper Mine

Akodo Sadahige xp

Matsu Fumiyo xp

Akodo Ryozo

Akodo Shigetoshi xp2

Akodo Tsudoken

Akodo Kobi xp

Matsu Mikura xp

Ikoma Hagio xp

3 Matsu Kinihara

3 Matsu Nishijo

2 Matsu Shunran

3 Matsu Kasei

3 Matsu Youko

Fate

Ring of Water

2 Final Duty

2 Will

3 Scouting Far Afield

3 My Life is Yours

3 Brothers in Battle (this card is dumb)

3 Determined Force

3 Force of Spirit

3 Guided by Honor

2 Beloved of the Clan

3 Cost of Pride

2 Rout

3 Iron Will

2 Shameful and Cowardly

2 Justly Earned Victory

2 Proper Deference

1 Courage

The L5R Postseason Nears...

2011-06-22T11:04:00.005-04:00

As spring turns over into summer each year the days grow longer and hotter, but they aren't the only thing heating up this time of year. Annually the competitive L5R scene begins to burn with passionate support of all clans alike. If you think of the Kotei events as the L5R “regular season” this time of year would closely resemble the “playoff push” as it is known in the sporting world. Players fiercely battle at remaining Kotei events for the last few seeds into GenCon’s L5R Main Event. While there is no multi-million dollar purse at stake, there are quite a few interesting avenues a winner can take. L5R bounties are reaching all-time highs in 2011, and loyalty seemingly runs strong.

As highlighted in Tales from the Markside, the current environment is experiencing a shuffle as a result of the release for Before the Dawn. Forgotten Legacy looms with a July release date to go legal just in time for GenCon’s prized jewel. With it come a number of cards to support currently viable and newly competitive decks. For my money there is no one card that vaults a deck to king of the mountain, but The Forgotten Temple figures to draw the ire or fervor of the haters and loyalists both. With a fraction of the marquee L5R players having qualified in Kotei season, the Thursday and Friday qualifiers figure to be extremely competitive fields still laced with some of the strongest players in the game today. Popular Kotei decks including Spider Breeder, Scorpion Dishonor and Crane Honor figure to draw meta going into the GenCon weekend, but rarely do the top decks dominate and prevail by Con’s end.

As it stands, about 6 weeks out, with another set to figure into the mix. Who is the postseason favorite? Mistaken for a gambling man my money would be on some variant of Twin Soul Temple, but can the Phoenix overcome the front-runners? Unlike the NBA or NHL, we won’t have to wait 2 months to find out!

A Very L5R-Lite Interlude about the Vancouver Riot

2011-06-19T16:18:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday night, I was one of most of the people in British Columbia watching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between our beloved Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins. Sadly, our team did not prevail, and what happened after in the downtown core of Vancouver was seen around the world as images of rioting hooligans smashing windows, flipping over and burning cars, and looting made its way to CNN, ESPN, and other networks that otherwise pretty much ignore hockey. This is not the Vancouver I know and love or the Vancouver that I regularly go to play L5R in. In the aftermath, there’s another more positive side of the city to be seen. This is what I want to share, if you’ll indulge me.

People outside of Canada have a hard time understanding just how passionate we are about hockey in Canada, and so it’s probably harder to describe how strong our desire is to win hockey’s biggest prize, the Stanley Cup. While many sports have loyal fans of all stripes, few sports are as ingrained into the culture of a country as hockey is to Canada. I would perhaps compare it to soccer/football in Europe. I don’t really think there’s a comparison in the USA, despite their love of football and baseball being “America’s pastime.”

The Vancouver Canucks have been playing since 1970, and other than two fluke runs to the Cup Finals in 1982 and 1994, our team has never really had a good shot at winning it all. This was the first time in the team’s 40 year history that we were favourites. Everywhere you looked, people were wearing Canucks jerseys and shirts. Over the last month, it’s been a veritable sea of blue shirts around BC. The collective love around the city and the province was at a high that was last seen during the 2010 Winter Olympics and rarely before that. The hockey team’s ad slogan over the last year has been “We are all Canucks”, and for the last month we really have been, all over BC.

It was estimated that 100,000 people were gathered in the downtown core of Vancouver on Wednesday night. Similar numbers were there for every game of the Finals. However, from the beginning of the night, it was reported that the mood was different. There have been reports that families that had gone there with their kids started to leave after the Canucks were down 3-0 after two periods because there was a different vibe to the crowd than at other gatherings. There was a sense that something bad was going to happen, and people concerned for their safety and that of their children left early. What had been a pleasant and friendly gathering of fans on other days had been infiltrated by those with other motives.

By now, most people know what happened after the game officially ended. News sources around the world covered it in disturbing detail, while many locals including myself watched with disgust on local stations and their websites. Anyone that follows me on Twitter (@Bronn1 for those that are interested) or is a Facebook friend has seen my comments that I made during, and which have continued since, the riot. There is a collective outrage amongst the vast majority of citizens of Vancouver and its outlying areas for the damage done to that beautiful city, and also a collective show of support for both the police (as shown in the picture of thank-you post-it notes being left on a VPD police car) and those individuals and businesses affected. This is the Vancouver that I want people to see now. The side of the city that won’t see follow-up reports on those big US and worldwide stations.

Cody asked me on Facebook if I’m Vancouver’s PR rep, and obviously I’m not, but my reply to him was this: “I am one of many after Wednesday. I may not live directly in it (being an hour east), but I do love the city. I have lots of family there and have been visiting it since I was born (and will again tomorrow). It was painful to watch hooligans tarnish its image to the world, especially after how positive the Olympics were for the city.”

So many British Columbians are sickened by the events of Wednesday night. There are blogs and websites up now that are dedicated to using social media to identify, turn in and publicly shame many of those captured on video and in pictures committing crimes. That is one of the greatest things about modern technology and social media. These criminals can’t hide. There’s the parents who have turned in their 17-year old son after seeing photos of him looting a Louis Vuitton store. Faceless rioters now have names like Brock Anton, Jason Li and Nathan Kotylak, and will hopefully face consequences for their actions. In the case of Kotylak (shown below), a 17-year old water polo player who is apparently working towards the Olympics, this action may cost him far more than he could’ve imagined.

The best showing of the spirit of Vancouver and its outlying areas was shown the next morning, when thousands of volunteers made their way to downtown to help with the cleanup. Many signed the wooden boards shoring up windows at the iconic Bay store downtown, showing their love and support for the city. By midday, if it wasn’t for the boards and scorch marks from where cars burned, you’d hardly know that there had been a riot. The show of community on that Thursday morning shows more of who we are than the images that were shown around the world. We won’t let a bunch of hooligans ruin that. The healing has begun.

I’ll be in Vancouver on Saturday, June 18^th for Free RPG Day, but I’m sure that I’ll haul out some of my L5R decks to play with friends as well. If I get a chance, I’m going to try and head downtown to add my name to the wall of support at the Bay. Vancouver remains one of the greatest cities in the world, and I’m proud to live near it (and I did briefly live in it many years ago for a summer job). It’ll take more than this riot to dampen the spirit that the Olympics brought out in us and the Canucks added to. Someday, I hope that a few of you may have a chance to visit and see for yourself. If you let me know you're coming, we can meet up for some games of L5R.

Opinions, Opinions

2011-06-17T14:55:00.006-04:00

I spend a lot of time talking to friends, and invariably that talk is L5R-related. With a new expansion just becoming tournament-legal, I decided to canvass the opinions of some well-known and respected L5R players regarding the Celestial Edition environment so far, and the impact they think Before the Dawn will have on competitive play.

Note that these comments were all received before the first BtD-legal Kotei weekend. I posed four questions to each person, and these are their responses.

Looking back...

What has been the strongest deck in CE so far?

The strongest deck throughout CE has been Fields of the Dead swarm. The exact formula for the deck has changed (Goblins -> Goblins + Breeding -> Breeding), but the approach has remained the same: overwhelm the opponent with a large number of small personalities out of a stronghold that creates small personalities. - Andrew Ornatov

Naked Lion before the nerf of Central Castle. - Andy Moul

I would say the strongest deck in CE (maybe I'm biased here) has been Naked Lion. It's probably the one deck that has consistently been top tier basically the entire arc. Mantis DGC is close by that measure but while it has also been strong all arc I don't think it's had the same high points as Naked Lion. - Anthony Lawrence

Lion CC. No question, this has been the strongest, most consistent deck in the celestial arc, and it's not even close. Any arguments about breeder would be wrong for a lot of minor reasons but also one very profound one: breeder has a nearly autoloss matchup in dishonor(and really, not much has changed that) while lion has not had any glaringly bad matchup for the entirety of the arc. All of the meta printed recently for breeder also hits lion, and neither deck has suffered a significant amount. With breeder you generally hope to avoid dishonor during the elimination rounds, but with lion you don't have any matcuhps that you really want to avoid. - Case Kiyonaga

I think it's hard to dispute that Breeder has dominated this edition, having basically just powered through any and all meta put in its way. - Dave Russell

Strongest deck in CE so far has to be breeder. Goblins won 1st gencon and breeder took the second one. You can make so many play mistakes, and still come out on top. - Eric Gardiner

Strongest deck at any point in CE was Lion in PotD, strongest for a length of time has been various breeders. - Jon Palmer

Breeder, easily. Free, generic, nearly infinite dynasty resources. Recursive card draw. Very few bad matchups. - Josh Griffis

Overall, Breeder enjoyed the longest period of dominance, but I think Crane Embassy is currently top of the pile. - Justin Walsh

In this environment, it is all about the field. In the past Samurai, Diamond, and lotus editions, it was all about deck build, and strongholds. Not so any more. The most dominant deck has been breeder, but it is all about the field. In the heavily breeder "meta" fields, we see Crab or Big unit decks in the top 8. In the dishonor heavy (or breeder meta less) fields, we have seen more honor decks or decks with higher honor (Lion) reaching the top 8. So, while Breeder is the strongest deck because it really only has one bad match-up (dishonor) it is really the tournament feild that has determined who gets through. (Also, the MVP, or most valuable POINTS are those few decimal points that determine which of the 15 5-2's make the cut.) - Kevin Christopher

I think straight up breeder/spider swarm has been the strongest deck of the environment at almost no point has it not been a lead contender. - Matt Rose

A single strongest deck is difficult as each of the contenders has been around at slightly different times in the arc and some never saw play in a serious environment due to errata. The top X (in no particular order) is:

1) Path of the Destroyer naked Lion. Central Castle and Lightwater Bay were such a powerful source of card advantage. When this was combined with the deck’s economy and personality base the result was a military deck that was massively consistent and always seemed to have a full hand.

2) Path of the Destroyer Phoenix blitz. Errata killed this before it even got a chance to ruin a kotei season. 2-4 provinces on turn two was just ridiculous. I suspect that this is the deck that most people will forget about but given the chance this would have caused as much wailing as breeder does now.

3) Spider Breeder. Be it early arc goblins or late arc undead this deck has proved to be even more consistent that Lion and has deformed the military environment more than anything else. No single thing is outright broken (pre-errata The Wrath of Kali-Ma aside) but each powerful element has combined to make a deck that can abuse every abusable battle action. A blight on the current kotei season.

4) Crane honour. The first time this deck caused problems was Path of the Destroyer and saw player’s crossing 40 on turn 4-5. The deck went quite until The Dead of Winter and now Embassy of the Crane is not a pleasant experience. Be it a straight honour deck or an honour/dishonour deck it can both rocket and control to an unhealthy degree. - Mike Dickinson

Definitely Breeder. - Ralph Tropeano

It's hard to ignore the consistency with which Naked Lion and Breeder have performed. - Scott Hadsall

Strongest deck for would be LSC in its day or breeder as an arc leader for the entire arc. - Stephen Jones

Personally I believe the strongest deck has been Spider Breeder. Even with the meta a player still has to have a good bit of luck or hope for an error on the Breeder players part to beat a good player playing breeder...and of course a good player makes fewer mistakes. - Tim Wells

Which deck have you enjoyed using the most?

For fun play, I really enjoy playing all the new decks that appear when a new expansion comes out, with all the cool new cards. For tournament play, I enjoy winning, so I enjoyed my Fields of the Dead decks the most. - Andrew Ornatov

TST with items in the TPW environment. Andy Moul

I definitely enjoyed playing goblins the most. Something about the little buggers enthusiastically going squish all over their enemies then coming back for more really puts a smile on my face! - Anthony Lawrence

Is none an answer? Pony civility was fun for a few weeks, but then got a bit tedious (and really unfun to playtest). Phoenix COT blitz was fun for about 35 seconds...then the game ended and they errataed or MRP'd everything. The TLO deck was pretty mechanical, so I guess the crane military superfriends has been the most interesting deck for me, at least lately (though I've also not really been competing much lately). - Case Kiyonaga

I've not exactly branched out too much this arc, having tried staying loyal to Scorpion, specifically Ninja. It gives most military a very hard time, whilst rarely having any particularly strong match-ups itself. Every game involves a lot of strategic play and mind-games to try and get your opponent to defend so you can take another province unopposed, or not defend since you're bluffing the movement. - Dave Russell

I enjoyed playing my defensive DGC build for most of CE, but sadly it is now obsolete. - Eric Gardiner

Most fun to play has been any sort of TST or Embassy superfriends. - Jon Palmer

I had a ton of fun playing Phoenix open control off TsT. At the time it dominated people unprepared for it, and died horribly to decks that were. - Josh Griffis

That’s a Spider Monksai. Attaching big sticks to cool-looking guys and going medieval in opposed battles has held and still does hold a lot of appeal. - Justin Walsh

Personally, as a Dragon player, I have found playing Kensai off the Kensai box an absolute pleasure. All the negation, straighten and battle actions mean I almost always have something to do. Playing a deck full of big honking sword and chopping people up is awesome!! But, it is sadly a middle tiered deck, and decks that rely heavily on big honking attachments will usually have issues in a field of weenie hordes. (Lion / Monk / Breeder) - Kevin Christopher

Hard one I mean scorpion dishonor has been my bread and butter for so long. But I have to say I really did enjoy playing crane oni last kotei season it was a fresh and fun deck with a lot going on. - Matt Rose

My most enjoyable deck so far has been naked Lion. Its consistency and card advantage means that you can always play cards and fight battles: you’re always playing the game (Crane match-up aside). - Mike Dickinson

Unicorn blitz (no surprise there!). - Ralph Tropeano

While I've certainly had success with Lion, I've really enjoyed playing quirky decks like Aramasu's Vigilance and military dishonor (either out of Palace of Crimson Shadows or Seven Stings Keep). It's really challenging to play the decks that are more fun however, as they're usually not the decks that you'll see any real success with in a tournament. - Scott Hadsall

CoT Blitz. - Stephen Jones

Lion Tacticians has been my favorite so far. I've dabbled with everything else but I do like the versatility Central Castle and the Lion line up have offered. Granted this is also considering I only play Lion for tournaments so it doesn't say much about the other clan's good decks. - Tim Wells

Looking forward... What deck do you think will be the strongest in the Before the Dawn Era?

Fields of the Dead swarm. It's difficult to beat a stronghold that creates personalities. - Andrew Ornatov

Scorpion Dishonor followed closely by Crane Dishonor or Dishonour in your speak. - Andy Moul

I'm most worried about Crab out Kyuden Hida exp2. I'm not sure what exactly the deck is going to look like, but I think it'll be scary. The usual suspects (Embassy Crane, breeder, some form of Lion) will likely be up there as well. - Anthony Lawrence

The Crane Slander dishonour deck is looking very scary. And Phoenix ToP is a nightmare for a large number of military and control decks. It's hard to call what deck will come out on top, but if these decks look the nastiest they may well just get meta'd out of the scene.... and Breeder will give Spider a 3rd GenCon win in a row. - Dave Russell

In the short period where BtD is legal, but FL is not, I think Embassy (honor or dishonor) will be the strongest deck, as breeder will probably get hit by the rise in dishonor decks. - Eric Gardiner

PoCS dishonor looks very strong post-BtD, but I haven't looked at it too closely. - Jon Palmer

I'd have to say Crane, since they actually have force now. I think that shores up their matchup vs. dishonor, while having very few bad remaining matchups. - Josh Griffis

Crane Embassy remains a powerhouse, but I'd watch for Temple of Purity out of Phoenix. Breeder is still a nightmare for military, and shouldn't be underestimated. - Justin Walsh

I don't think anything knocks breeder off its pedestal. I think dishonor gets better, with its worst match-up being LSC magistrate honor. Therefore, I would predict that, in a field with a few dishonor decks, and a few LSC decks, Breeder should be weeded out, and one of those 2 decks tops out. Slanted, I say Dragon LSC Magistrates with battle actions, but, Crab Scouts could also be a dark horse. - Kevin Christopher

I think dishonor receives a set of things that will continue to raise it's power level. - Matt Rose

My bets for Before the Dawn are Crane (be it honour or dishonour) and Crab scout. Crane everyone knows and Crab seems to have everything it needs for both the military and non-military matches. - Mike Dickinson

Still Breeder. - Ralph Tropeano

It's very strange to talk about BtD without talking about Forgotten Legacy - currently the end of the Kotei season will be using the former and ignoring the latter, even though GenCon is right around the corner, and both will have a major influence. BtD opens the door to a lot of decks, and probably one of the most potent decks is getting glossed over at the moment. I'd probably rank Phoenix honor out of the new stronghold arguably one of the best decks, though be on the watch for Lion Paragon. - Scott Hadsall

I suspect it will remain similar to now with the Crane/breeder/dishonour rock-paper-scissors scenario although some Phoenix will be able to beat all 3 of them. - Stephen Jones

What deck gets the biggest boost from Before the Dawn?

I am not at all sure. To be honest, I have done nothing but build various Forgotten Temple decks, since the Stronghold was previewed, so I am not at all sure what other clans got in Before the Dawn. - Andrew Ornatov

1. Crab Scouts - Kyuden Hida XP gives them so much, not to mention the personality and fate support. It is exactly what scouts SHOULD have been for most of CE.

2. Crane Dishonor - At first glance it is easy to say they don't get too much. If you consider the addition of Distructive Priorities, Favors, and Amazing Feat. Thy can now make a dishonor deck independent of dishonoring. The focus values suffer (for Gisei) but with Public Records that shouldn't impact the overall effectiveness of the deck. Amazing Feat is well, amazing.

3. Honor decks in general - With the added boost to dishonor the meta should entirely shift away from honor decks which have been contending all Kotei season. - Andy Moul

Crab Scouts/Commanders/whatever picking up KH2 have in my opinion gotten the biggest boost. That stronghold screams power and consistency. - Anthony Lawrence

It's a pretty good set. Phoenix Honour/Dishonour becomes just downright frustrating to play against thanks to the box. My Ninja get two of the more frightening strategies in Sly Deceiver and Spirit of the Shadows. I'll have to say dishonour probably comes out of this set the best, gaining an awful lot of new toys. - Dave Russell

The biggest boost is a tough one for me to answer. I don't play a lot of other clan decks as I don't get much time in to play so I play mantis decks when I get the chance to play. What I've seen so far since BtD became legal is that Kyuden Hida xp is a very nice addition to the scout deck. A lot of their new guys really shine (read annoying) out of the new box.

I think dishonor is really hard to beat for low honor clans right now. I'm not sure how a big unit deck is supposed to stop Flores' burn deck to be honest.

I think Embassy's new toys are going to be mostly in the FL set, but they did get Munemori at least. Nothing appeared in the set to really put a stop to this deck. Is that a boost? - Eric Gardiner

I'd imagine crab scouts gets the biggest boost but I don't know if it'll be enough to beat good military. - Jon Palmer

Crab scouts haha. Biggest power boost, and they're still terribly behind the power curve. - Josh Griffis

Phoenix Magistrates, which gains a home and becomes a fully realised archetype. - Justin Walsh

Paragon Lions obviously get a boost. The SH is great for switch, and has a reusable source of honor on both attack and defense might be better than LSC's box in this build. You can pull people in and send them home for 2 honor off of the Lion provoke actions, and that, in fishbowl playtest, looks solid. - Kevin Christopher

I think crab scouts will be the one that gets one of the biggest shots in the arm. - Matt Rose

I think that Before the Dawn has given huge boosts for Aramasu's Vigilance blitz and magistrate control, Crab scout and Crane dishonour. - Mike Dickinson

Embassy Slander. I don't see anything in BtD that is going to dramatically change the landscape. I do think that the new Crab box is going to open up some very interesting decks, just not sure how impactful they will be on the environment. - Ralph Tropeano

Easily, Phoenix honor is the deck that gets the most out of BtD with the stronghold and access to a true honor/dishonor style deck. It can easily crush other honor decks and has a lot of force adjustment tools to maintain a firm grip on the military game. I really think it'll be one of the decks to beat until Forgotten Legacy becomes legal. - Scott Hadsall

Biggest boosts will be Crab Scouts and Phoenix Inquisitors - I am just not sure they got enough to take the top spot. - Stephen Jones

Both of these BtD-related questions are linked in so far as I believe Embassy of the Crane Dishonor might be at the top and got the biggest boost from Before the Dawn. Embassy of the Crane in particular because out of all the Dishonor variants it goes before Lion and that is a big advantage for any Honor/Dishonor deck.

Honor has a lot of meta already out there for it. And if it ever got out of control players could just run a pile of it and probably make it through. Though that isn't saying anything about their Military match ups.

On the other hand Dishonor has less meta to deal with, that it doesn't already have the tools to defeat. Not to mention it often wipes the floor with any low honor player barring really bad luck. High honor clans have a better chance to beat it but Before the Dawn gave the deck a lot of new tools that I think give it the edge now. - Tim Wells

THE PLAYERS
Andrew Ornatov (2009 World Champion, 2010 Emerald Championship, winner of various Koteis and other events)
Andy Moul - (2011 Rockville Kotei winner, 2011 Long Island Kotei runner-up, elfiver contributor)
Anthony Lawrence (A fixture in the knockout stages of North-East tournaments)
Case Kiyonaga (2008 US Champion, winner of more Koteis than most people have played in)
Dave Russell (2nd place Kuronada's Destiny, Name a Holding winner)
Eric Gardiner (Ottawa Kotei Champion 2010 and 2011, winner of various Koteis and other storyline events)
Jon Palmer (The best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be...at rulings)
Josh Griffis (Owns the New England and North-East tournament scene)
Justin Walsh (2000 World Champion and former L5R Brand Manager)
Kevin Christopher (2011 Montreal Kotei champion and the Scourge of the Scorpion Clan)
Matt Rose (Innovative and creative player who can make the cut at Koteis with just about any clan or deck)
Mike Dickinson (Perennial Kotei runner-up, inspired deck builder)
Ralph Tropeano (The nicest guy in L5R)
Scott Hadsall (Dynasty member, multiple Kotei winner, and current Imperial Herald editor)
Stephen Jones (Son of Bowman)
Tim Wells (YOUR 2010 Obsidian Champion)

First Taste of BTD Environment

2011-06-08T17:36:00.001-04:00

Since leaving PT, I've spent a fair amount of time taking a long look at the BTD environment. Having played very little CE this year, other than a Kotei and Level 10 event in Vancouver, and having been playing mostly Emperor Edition in that time, its had to be a quick learning curve. While I won't be playing in any more Kotei or heading to Gencon, I do fully intend to immerse myself back into CE and attend as many local events as I can, and to do that I'll need to practice a bunch of decks and see what's out there. Tuesday night was my first taste of the BTD environment and these are some initial thoughts on it.

Jonas Solberg, past Kotei winner and yet another excellent BC player, was in Vancouver (he lives a long ferry ride away in Victoria, the capital of BC) for a conference, so he made his way east to our little town for our usual Tuesday night of L5R. In preparation for that, I managed to put together three decks in time (while also having written decklists for 3 more): AV Zoo to play Br'nn in a deck, Reese's version of Spider Monksai, and Kyle Anderson's version (early, as it turns out) of Temple of Purity Popcorn Honour.

Jonas was packing a deck that I think will be a force to be reckoned with going into Gencon: Crab Scouts. With battle control in Hunting the Daughter and Coordinated Fire, solid abilities on his relatively cheap people, and free attachments for protection, the deck has a lot of power behind it. Played by a player with the skill of Jonas, it was very tough to stop.

I played against it with Zoo and ToP, and was unable to win a game. In fact, in one AV Zoo game, my Zoo first turn was the nuts with two En'you, a Sakarah and a Kyogen, and by the end of my second turn attack, I still had no people left. In the one game ToP played, I managed to cross 40, but was unable to save the last province. Jonas also faced Mantis Scout out of AV, PoV Dragon Monks, my Spider Monks played by someone else, a janky Spider Goblin build, and a dishonour ToP build and lost one game that I'm aware of. Even on bad starts, he was able to hold his own and regain control of the game thanks to the control elements in the Crab Scout deck. By the end of the night, a couple of us were frustrated enough to wonder if Swift Counterattack may become an interesting meta choice to deal with Hunting the Daughter. I don't think we're there yet, but the deck did dominate the evening.

The other stronghold that was very impressive was Temple of Purity. The Popcorn Honour version I was running was a initial rough draft that Kyle had sent me a couple of weeks back, and I would think he's updated it since then, as there were a few things that could change (and a mistyped card that was an important missing card). Despite that, the deck was lightning fast, regularly getting into the high 20s or even 30s before losing a province. Against Dragon Monk, despite three Dove Tattoos and a New Order, I still only lost one province. And as I said, against Crab, I rocketed over 40, but his control was enough to keep me from winning. There are some changes that may help in that match-up that I'll have to look at going forward. In addition, the dishonour version I played against was also very potent and certainly a high-caliber deck to consider. The table seemed to think that it wasn't quite as good as the honour version but both are definitely forces to be reckoned with going forward.

I really enjoyed my first non-tournament night of CE L5R in a long time. The power level is very high, but I still enjoyed the games I played. I'm heading to the first of a series of bi-weekly events on Thursday in Vancouver, so I'm expecting to play a lot more CE L5R going forward and will try and continue with my thoughts on the environment as we head into the summer.

To conclude, as its been posted on the Phoenix forums, I'll cut and paste the version of Kyle's Phoenix ToP Honour deck (full credit to him, I had nothing to do with it!). I haven't seen Jonas' deck online so I can't post it, although you can find various versions of Crab Scouts on the Crab Clan Catastrophe forums. Here's Kyle's deck:

Temple of Purity

3x Acrobat Troupe
3x My Father's Shrine
2x Temple to Shinsei
1x Shrine to Hotei
1x Kitsune Den
3x Silver Mine
2x Counting House

Isawa Mitsuko
Shiba Ningen XP3
Daigotsu Oki
Isawa Mizuhiko xp
Isawa Kyoko xp
Isawa Kumai xp
Otomo Seimi
3x Asako Serizawa
3x Agasha Asai
3x Isawa Shun
3x Asako Ayako
3x Asako Izuna

Jimen's Decree
Ebisu's Honesty
Well-Defended Border

3x Walking the Way (may leave)
3x Seek the Stain
3x Forging Destiny
3x Patrolling the Roads
3x Peaceful Discourse
3x Outer Walls
3x Taxing the Scum
3x Legendary Feud
3x Wall of Honor
3x Hamstrung
3x A Gentle Word
3x Unimpeachable Name
3x Test of Sincerity
1x The Thriving Light

The War at Home: L5R Goes (Back to) Multiplayer

2011-06-06T20:01:00.003-04:00

AEG's newest L5R product, War of Honor, released today, and with it they usher in a new era (and tournament format) for L5R, the multiplayer environment. Now those of you who remember the "old days" of the game may fondly remember the 6 hour ordeals that were formally called L5R multiplayer, where the person who was least winning usually ended up winning and Shadowlands Horde players couldn't ally with anyone else, but this isn't your daddy's multiplayer throw down Design, headed by Bryan Reese, took a well-deserved second look at the format and have orchestrated another top notch product meant to jump start newbies and keep the attention of veterans with new rules, mechanics and multiplayer cards. I'm here to give you 10 reasons why War of Honor is something worth checking out!

10. Gold Rush: While not as much of a CE player's paradise as The Battle of Kyuden Tonbo, War of Honor does come stuffed with stuff that's already established in CE - ie - good rares. Peddler, Expendable, Acrobat Troupe, RoBro and Unpredictable Strategy all come fixed, and that's not all. While I won't spoil all of the goodies for you, there is no shortage of nice, usable OUTSIDE of multiplayer stuff to get your hands on.

9. Kickin' it Old School: While it seems the designers had current players in mind by giving them a helpful haul of CE rares, those who've been around from the beginning should also get a kick out of the set's contents, which includes such old school standards as Small Farm, Birth of the Sword, Block Supply Lines and Welcome Home. Without stamping them legal for CE (or EE) they've been able to bring back some fun older cards to use in multiplayer without wrecking the power curve of the current environment. Also by doing so, they further the theme of "something for everyone", something that this set is shaping up to be.

8. Pimp My Ride: We've all heard about the various steps that AEG has taken towards committing to producing a "premium" game, and this set offers more of the same. The box is awesome looking, heavy duty, and comes with an insert that can hold all of the games contents and then some. The beautiful game pieces are double sided and made of sturdy, reinforced materials, showcasing the clan mons stronghold art for the clans in a new way. Even the gameboard itself is expertly art designed, showing the new rules and victory conditions in an elegant and simple way.

7. To the Victor go the Spoil(er)s: Well, well, well - after this set, we can safely assume we'll be seeing the return of some cards to the EE arc, most shockingly here Game of Sincerity, complete with new art. Although there isn't a lot of old cards being rehashed for EE (at least that we know of based on this), one could make a safe assessment on what's not coming back. I don't want to break too many hearts, but the amount of good stuff without EE bugs might encourage some folks with the new direction - or it might not, but its definitely something worth looking at / keeping in mind.

6. New World Order: Ok, I lied, there is a bunch of stuff EE bugged in the set - you just haven't seen it yet. Cards like Chokehold, Temple of Harmony, Shameful Death and Embracing Virtue will all mean something down the road, but get some mileage here first. Sorry I wasn't able to provide you with links, but I'll try to get pictures up tomorrow (or you could go out and buy it!). Non-uniques come in triplicate and uniques as one ofs, so there's no need to look any further. Whether or not they'll be reprinted or rares remains to be seen, but I'll tell you one thing, they are worth your coin. Temple of Harmony is a 2 for 2 holding or 3 for monks. Embracing Virtue is a new Bushido Virtue ala Path of Wisdom or A Warrior's Patience - ie stuff worth getting!

5. Make it Through Customs: Yeah, you get the four precons, but you also get infinite customizability. The rules are but a framework for your imagination. In kicking the game and its structure around for a few games, we found that stuff can go in, stuff can come out, and it all works. Take your new cards, your old cards, your bad cards and stuff em into your War of Honor decks. The environment allows for opportunities that I've only imagined before, and because of the altered rules and win conditions, the customizability is endless.

4. Rules, Shmules: Oh yeah, those. The set comes with a new fangled, large print, awesome, full color rulebook that explains the new War of Honor format as well as the rules (as far as I can tell) for the regular game. From reading it cover to cover I can safely say that this is the best set of rules ever assembled. The language is clear (if not always concise) and the tempo moves - AND - its not too long. We had someone up and playing who'd never played before in under 20 minutes. That's a testament.

3. WINNING!: With the rules for War of Honor come 4 new adapted ways of winning in the format, the "Paths to Victory". Much like the standard ways of victory, there is Honor, Dishonor, Military and Enlightenment. Each has a path that will grant its walkers rewards as they advance toward victory. The rules also make it so each player can work towards multiple paths at once, and also make it so conventional eliminations play little role in players achieving their own conditions. In fact - conventional victory conditions are out the window! I won't go into too much detail, but it seems to me (from playing and reading) that they've finally found a way to balance each condition for multiplayer!

2. Party for Your Right to Fight!: Imagine a multiplayer game of L5R that took 2 hours. Amazing, right? How about an hour? Unheard of. How about 45 minutes? Yeah, its like that. The victory conditions, while challenging, don't require hours and hours of gaming to complete. Sure, you'll run into an occasional marathon, but the new format and rules make the game a viable tournament format and something that you and your buddies can do on a Saturday night without taking a dinner break.

1. Whole Lotta Love: Bottom line is this: It's fun, it's got a ton of awesome cardage, and it shows that despite some blunders, AEG and it's L5R crew still have the balls to take risks and give their players something new, exciting and worthwhile. I can't emphasize how down right cool this set is. I'm buying 2.

The End of an Era

2011-06-03T10:49:00.001-04:00

Last Monday night, I returned from a fun day out with my family at the Vancouver Aquarium and after carrying my sleeping little girls to bed, I found an email from Bryan that I’d actually been expecting for some time. After more than 8 years of playtesting L5R, our team was rotating out to allow some fresh blood to take over.

How It All Began

In 2003, I was still making semi-regular pilgrimages down to Seattle to play in events. If I remember this correctly (and I admittedly may be blurring some events this long ago), at the Kotei that year, I was talking with then-Lead Designer Jeff Alexander when the elimination rounds I had missed out on were taking place. With me were Sean Whittaker and not-yet-Vice-Story Guy Fred Wan and at some point talk got onto playtesting. Sean, Fred and I were all interested in getting involved and said as much.

Our local area had a good reputation with Jeff and the company at the time. Current AEG Webmaster, Joe “Puck” Fulgham had been a playtester in the past, and both he and Sean Bosko were involved with Dark Edge Gaming back then and held some big events in the Chilliwack area. Greg Wong and some of his Calgary crew even made the 10+ hour drive from Calgary back then to play in our local global storyline events, they were that much of a draw, and we also drew from the Seattle area, which we continue to do to this day. The Vancouver scene was also hopping, as the University of British Columbia had an active L5R group and there were regular tournaments at Chaos Cards. It was a great time for L5R in BC, a time that may only be equaled by the current state of the game in BC with the resurgence of the Vancouver scene.

With the endorsement of some of the well-known Seattle crew, Sean and Fred got the okay to form up a group and I was invited by them to be a part of it. They had two other players at UBC to join and they suggested I add one player in Chilliwack, who ended up being Greg Byrne, in case I couldn’t always make the hour-long drive west to the big city. Early on, we would meet at UBC and occasionally they’d meet me half-way so I didn’t have to drive as far. PT was an interesting new experience and we did the best we could with a spread out group. We tested through until Dawn of the Empire and the beginning of the Lotus arc. At that point, we were rotated out in favour of some friends of incoming PDT guys, including Jared Devlin-Scherer (hopefully I didn’t butcher the spelling).

The game ramped up its power levels to be more of a “tournament game” and we missed the next two sets: Web of Lies and Enemy of my Enemy, as it happened (see what happens when we leave! ;)). At the Seattle Kotei that year, prior to Code of Bushido testing, we talked with Jeff again, and he expressed an interest in bringing in some teams that were more casual players. While we were known in the Pacific Northwest, most of us were not travelers who had made it to big events like Gencon, so the label fit as well as any. We agreed again, but during our hiatus, some of the UBC players had graduated and also gotten into an argument on the forums with Jared about the current state of the game, an argument was the last straw and saw them leave the game. With the Vancouver scene on the decline, our team looked east to fill up its roster. While Sean stayed on and Fred still chiming in even though he was already involved with Story at that point, the majority of the team was in my area now. Patrick Naayer and Lance Harder joined Greg and I, with Patrick taking the role of Lead, and the first of many iterations of our long running team began.

Team Vancouver (Even Though we’re in Abbotsford/Chilliwack) Through the Years

I had to throw in that little part about Abby/Chilliwack because despite asking Bryan to change our title many times, he kept us as Vancouver because it was the city we started as and the city he knew as opposed to some little towns east of the big city.

Throughout the years, we had many teammates, and I wanted to mention all of them because this is truly a team effort and without them, I would never have stayed on for over 8 years. My apologies if I butcher any spellings:

Sean Whittaker

Fred Wan

Sheldon Reddekopp

Aran T. (he has a 15 letter last name that even Sean and Fred can’t spell!)

Greg Byrne

Patrick Naayer

Lance Harder

Allan Humphrey

Mitchell Hammond

Aaron Frede

Randy Green Jr.

Chris Enns

Sean had a tough time making it out from Vancouver and eventually joined an Internet team of players until that team was rotated out, and Lance, our best control player, moved to Saskatchewan, leaving a big void. However, with the wealth of quality players we had in the area, we had no trouble replacing them. Allan Humphrey added his boisterous voice to ours. Aaron Frede joined up and was a long-serving member until he went off to university (although he continued to help during school breaks when he was home). Randy Green Jr. took Aaron’s place when he returned to the game after a few years away and dominated us. Mitchell Hammond was one of our younger players but you’d never have known it from his contributions. Chris Enns joined midway through CE when Greg finally had to step back. And Nathan Flaming was waiting in the wings to join up to replace Patrick after the EE base set, but unfortunately, he’ll have to wait to see if we get a chance to return in the future.

War Stories

Throughout our tenure, I like to think we had some small role in shaping the game you all know and love. While most of it was simply playing games and typing up reports, there are a couple of things that I recall that I personally had a hand in, for better or worse.

One of the most polarizing instances ended up beginning with a simple AOL Messenger conversation with Bryan as our half our team was playing in my kitchen. Only three of us had been able to meet up, so while two guys played, I sat on my computer typing up the games I’d played and talking to Bryan. We were testing a Lion stronghold that was called “Lion Honor” in PT but the ability had nothing to do with an honour deck. We’d just played some games with it, but I said to Bryan that the stronghold’s ability wasn’t bad but didn’t have anything to do with honour. We batted around some ideas a little bit until I suggested that it have a Brilliant Victory trait and then a small ability. Bryan didn’t think it needed any ability and Vigilance Keep was born, to the chagrin (but subsequent victories) of Lion players everywhere.

The one other story that I can relate didn’t affect a card’s playability but it was memorable for me. While work was being done on the Emerald and Jade Championship set, I was not happy with the direction of Daigotsu Eiya XP. In an effort to explain how I thought his ability should come across, I posted an idea for a different ability while adding the description “He growls at his next victim” to better explain what I was aiming for. The flavour text stayed, even if my idea wasn’t used.

Throughout PT, there were sets where we were by far the most productive team and there were sets where we weren’t able to meet that much, especially recently. But throughout it all, I truly believe we helped any of the Design Teams we worked with shape their vision of L5R and make the game as good as it can be.

Playtesting Today

Most people don’t get a chance to see what goes on behind the scenes, and while I still can’t go too far into some things because of NDAs, I can hopefully talk about how different the testing of L5R is now compared to when we started.

In recent years, L5R playtesting has become a well-oiled machine. While there was some structure in place in our early days, the structure that is currently in place is the most clean and clear that it has ever been. Bryan and company have added a lot of new playtest teams over the last couple of years and also expanded the numbers to get a fuller view of the cards they are designing. Where we might have been one of 6 or 7 teams years ago, we were part of double that now. Further, where teams in the past had multiple formats that they submitted reports with, there are standardized forms now to make things clear when testing. Finally, there is direction given by a Lead Playtester and Design about specific cards or concerns that they would like tested, as well as calculations about what decks are and aren’t getting tested so that all the themes can get the attention they need to get during a PT cycle. All of that has really helped in getting accurate results that can balance the game to the best of the ability of the DT. We just have to look at the overall balance of both CE and SE to see what the changes have brought about. Celestial Edition is the most balanced arc of L5R that I’ve ever seen in my 15 year history of L5R, and having been through Emperor Edition testing, I see the lessons learned from the last couple of arcs, and I have high hopes moving forward, even if we’re not a part of testing it. Bryan has a great set of playtesters in place right now, a great system in place to bring in new blood and get good results from them, and a great Design Team that are giving players more options than they’ve ever had with the Theme system. A lot has changed in the 8+ years I playtested, and the game and the system that helps make it are better for it.

Moving Forward

Over the last week, I’ve gone through all the stages of mourning. I’ve been an L5R playtester for more than half the time I’ve played the game. However, as I said at the start of this piece, this was not really a surprise for me, which lessened the blow somewhat. Our team is a lot older now, most of us have significant others, kids, jobs, and other commitments. Furthermore, we’ve been doing it a long time and despite enjoying helping shape the game, it is still something of a “job” that you have to commit to, and if you can’t devote time to your job, you don’t keep it. As outside pressures increased, something had to give. While I’ve still got the desire to playtest, I also have to be honest with myself that I might not have the time I used to have to be a part of it. When my renovation is finally finished, I might again, even if others in the group still might not. We’ll have to see if I seek out Bryan down the road for a return, but for now, I’m content with the way things are. In fact, I’ve built more non-PT CE decks in the past week than I probably have in a year, so that’s an exciting change for me. I’ve been spending a bunch of time getting reacquainted with where the current arc is at, and I’m going to try to get in a bunch of CE games again to try some new things and play some old favourites.

I would definitely like to take a moment to thank Bryan Reese, Mark Wootten, Todd Rowland, Jeff Alexander and the many others that allowed me the opportunity to be a part of playtesting for so long. It was an honour to be a part of it and play a role in helping make the game I love as good as it can be for the past 8+ years. I worked with and got to know so many great people through this opportunity and it was a privilege to serve the L5R community in this way.

I’d also add in a special thank you to Bryan for letting me take on the role of “the starter guy” back during Samurai Edition. With the team leaving PT, I’ll also be passing off the building of Starter Decks. I did complete the full arc by doing the starters of the final expansion of Celestial Edition (has its name been released yet?), and did some initial framework on the EE ones before passing them off, but there will only be one more “Defining an Environment” article (and I also can’t make lame “who built this crap” jokes at our local release events anymore). I’m hopeful that the next person or persons enjoys it as much as I did. Bryan paid me the ultimate compliment by calling me “the Charles Urbach of Starter Decks” when I talked to him about the starters moving forward, so I thank him for that undeserved compliment and for his trust in me with something that I always felt was a small but important task in how the game is presented to both new players and old.

This was a big change in my L5R life after so long, but with each change in our life comes new possibilities. I’m really looking forward to playing some current era L5R (first deck built was AV Zoo to actually play Br’nn in a deck!), and it will certainly be strange to go into a preview cycle without knowing what the cards will do whenever the first EE expansion hits. I might even have a little more time to blog about L5R again, as it has often been a struggle to prep for PT and write something on limited time. One thing’s for sure: I will still be playing L5R. That part hasn’t changed. Now, I’ll just be playing with the same sets as most of you. I can’t wait!

The Blackest Player in L5R

2011-05-31T08:31:00.016-04:00

"Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud." - Jimmy Rabbitte, The Commitments.

I like gamers a lot. Let's get that out there straight away. I've been a gamer myself for nearly 25 years now, and have spent pretty much my entire adult life playing and working with non-electronic games.

As a social group, we tend to be friendly, welcoming and accepting. After all, every person we welcome into the fold is another potential opponent or ally. I think most of us have been stuck in the situation where we're the only gamer in town, so when we do find someone who shares our passion, we embrace the opportunity and greet them with open arms. Friendships initially formed at the gaming table, be it flopping cards or rolling dice, are to be treasured, and often expand away from the game in question: I've met pretty much all my drinking buddies over the last two decades through gaming.

So...I think gamers are good people. And among gamers, L5R players stand out. I've mentioned in the past that the nature of L5R tends to attract a more mature and honourable type of person, and that very much remains true. While I've made a great many friends over here in the US, I also think that the UK and Irish players remain the epitome of what makes a great L5R player: they take all the good qualities of the gaming and L5R communities and just amplify them, constantly setting the bar for hospitality, passion for the game, and creativeness.

I've been blessed to be part of several different playgroups in the UK, and all hold a very dear place in my heart. The Huddersfield group was probably my favourite though. With Steve and Luke, the staff at Patriot Games Huddersfield, enthusiastically supporting the game, the scene has grown from nothing a couple of years ago to a collection of some of my favourite people in L5R. I'm proud to have helped shape that community, and hope that it will continue to expand and thrive with the release of Emperor Edition.

Even among the high standards of the Huddersfield playgroup, one person stands out. Bobby Moran was actually part of the very first L5R game I demo'ed in Huddersfield, and allowed himself to be persuaded to attend the Aldershot Kotei just three weeks after learning the game. Right from the start, Bobby has ensured he plays the game in the right manner, and is an amazingly polite, courteous and considerate opponent. These qualities helped him earn the Most Honourable Player award at that Kotei, and he has maintained that high standard of behaviour since. What makes that even more remarkable is that Bobby has endured some extremely rough times away from L5R over the last couple of years, but he rarely lets that affect him, smiling his way through games and remaining an absolute delight to play against.

I'm lucky enough to get to talk with Bobby online on a semi-regular basis, and he congratulated me on the success of my charity Box of Greed at the Feeding Hills Kotei. He wanted to do something similar at the Sheffield Kotei to raise money for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. L5R players are incredibly generous and giving when it comes to charitable events, and Bobby probably could have got away with just doing a collection or a Box of Greed like I did. That's not how Bobby rolls though, and he really pushed the boat out.

Bobby decided to theme his efforts under the banner of The Sohei Ceremony (the Facebook page for the event can be found here). Firstly, Bobby gave away 'all his worldly belongings' by filling a Box of Greed with all his rares and promos from his time playing L5R, and also raffling off other pieces of L5R merchandise, including all his collected koku...after all, a monk has little need of money! Finally, Bobby agreed to have his head shaved bald at the event, and raised sponsorship money to add his total.

Now, many L5R players raise money for charity, and both the efforts and amount raised can be truly staggering. Bobby's collection was a little more modest, but he still finished with over $500 towards the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Fund. What impresses me most about his endeavour though is the spirit and good grace he showed throughout. Whatever problems and stress Bobby has away from the game never shows at events, and he carries himself in such a manner that he remains an example and an inspiration to many players, myself very much included.

I'm sure we'll read more about Bobby's charitable efforts in the future, as he remains committed to L5R and helping others. As you can probably tell, I'm extremely proud of Bobby, and the game and L5R community are both improved by his involvement with them.

Herald Review, Vol 3 / Issue 7

2011-05-18T14:42:00.002-04:00

As many of you know, The Imperial Herald is the semi-annual newsletter of the L5R Collectible Card Game and Role-Playing Game. Thirty bucks each year will get you early info on upcoming projects and products AEG has in store for the Rokugani fan, access to stories written just for Herald subscribers, strategies for various deck types, not to mention the ability to bank koku to obtain those hard to find rares. The newest issue has all kinds of good things to make you go “Hmmm.”

Preview of Before the Dawn

Bryan Reese gives us a cool look at six of the Before the Dawn rares just before the set’s release. If you are anything like me, you were squinting at the fully displayed cards to read the exact language that rules lawyers throw at you during game play. Mr. Reese also gives us his thoughts on design and playability.

First among them is Destructive Properties, a political kata that allows dishonor decks to cause even more loss during the Dynasty phase. Put it into play and any time that you buy one of your personalities for full, you may choose to bow your Courtier to have your opponent lose a flat two honor, regardless of your peep’s PH. This card begs to be played in Scorpion dishonor decks (maybe even the new Yasuki theme) due to their personalities having relatively low or non-existent honor requirements. Phoenix may utilize this with their new box as their dishonor condition might be more viable now. Having played Crane dishonor at the last Kotei I attended, this card, with it’s 1 focus value, doesn’t mesh well with Daidoji Gisei without running a Public Records (which I whole-heartedly recommend running two of) so Slanderous Crane may keep this card on the fence.

Next up is The World Dissapears, a Void – Kiho card that mimics Scouting Far Afield in that it retrieves a kiho strategy from your discard pile. Cody gave his thoughts on this one but I think there are some points worth mentioning. This gem targets the card during the Open phase, allowing you to not only exceed your hand size to prepare for that attack or defense, but also to reuse a strategy up to six times in a single game. Imagine the use this will have in any Monksai, Tattoo, or the new Phoenix Henshin decks. The 3 focus value is a boon to anyone trying to put the Ring of Fire into play.

Cody already talked about One Action, Two Strikes, so I won’t barrage you with my thoughts. Just make darn sure that when you play this card, your opponent won’t have any options left to them as you won’t be taking another battle action at the current battlefield. I can see this card being of use to Scorpion ninjas in particular, where Keirei can drop a card, and then triple lindy to another battlefield to reek more havoc.

Unorthodox Attack is the fourth rare previewed and this card is just butter. Cody also talked about this card in his BtD review. Simply put, this card is a no frills, effective card. The 3 FV makes it viable for dueling decks as well.

One of two kami in this set, Ebisu’s Honesty, is the fifth card previewed in the Herald. Ebisu is the kami of hard work and this translates to game mechanics in giving all of your provinces +2 province strength. For those defensive decks, this just rocks. I would have loved this card to boost Embassy of the Crane to an 8 or 9 strength (depending on favor ownership) at a few events I attended and it makes Crab running this and Hida’s Guidance sit at 12 PS. As if this wasn’t’ enough, you discard it during the Limited phased to gain four honor which can’t be negated. A quick way out your opponent’s dishonor win condition? Yes please!

The sixth and final card previewed is Words of Consecration, a spell which, when it attaches to an Air shugenja, can cause a gain or loss of one honor to a player of your choosing. The primary utility of this card is for honor decks, where you can target another player’s personality and gain an honor when they assign, or two if you control a temple. This can get janky with the use of Enticement, Ambush, and other harpoon effects that initially force a peep to a battlefield.

Storyline Update

A lot has happened during the Celestial arc, and all at the hands of the players. Shimekiri and his goblin toadie felled the god-beast, the Ebon Daughter was given travelling papers into the after-life, and Mizuhiko gave the Dark Oracle of Fire a herniated disk that keeps him bed-ridden outside the Empire’s borders. *cough cough* Here Shawn Carman, lead writer, gives us the story connection to the last three boxes for the Celestial arc. The Hiruma emerge out of the ruins of Kyuden Hida to strike the Destroyers from behind, the Phoenix unleash their Inquisitors on the Empire to ferret out any corruption the Destroyers might leave in their wake, and the Lion in “Gandalfian” fashion declare that None Shall Pass through Shamate to the rest of the Empire. L5R has always connected the game to the story behind it, and it is pieces like this that put the frosting on the cake.

Return of the Naga!

Messer’s Carman & Reese offer us insight into the new direct to player set forthcoming this summer which features the return of the Naga to both narrative and play. Forgotten Legacy by name, the set is retailing for about $100.00 and already looks to be a must-buy. Included in the set will be six Eternity bugged cards. What does that mean? Mr. Reese explains that Eternity bugged cards will be legal for the current arc (Celestial), the next arc (Emperor Edition) and the unnamed one to follow. Two of those cards are Bamboo Harvesters Experienced and Border Keep Experienced. The experienced version of BH doesn’t’ straighten until turn three, but offers a nice card draw option. By bowing it during the limited phase, you may draw a card and must discard a card if you have six or more cards in hand. Experienced BK gives you the customary two dumps, but only on turn one. In addition, once per game you have the option to “dump” up to three fate cards to the bottom of your fate deck and draw an equal amount to replace them. Both of these cards offer another way to cycle and produce card draw to get the cards you need or want into your hand so your play can me most efficient. Players may choose whether they want to run the experienced or unexperienced versions dependent upon their play style and deck strategy.

Of Sparrows, Purity and Paragons

Three small articles appear to offer strategy regarding some of the new strongholds. If you ever tried Monksai before and didn’t feel like the existing boxes were supportive enough, Kyuden Suzume may be the one for you. Out of the three articles proffered, this one feels more like a filler as Suzume came out last set and a quick trip to the Spider forums will yield similar results to reading here. The other two articles, however, offer some card combos and strategies for the two new boxes for Phoenix and Lion, respectively. Dishonor/honor switch for the Phoenix’s Temple of Purity and paragon Shamate Keep for the Lion. Particularly troubling to me and the dishonor player is that Shamate keeps Lion personalities’ personal honor at their base rank, even when dishonored. This causes all kinds of problems for targeting effects and makes Lion even stronger (as if they needed it!) against the dishonor win condition.

War of Honor

While the Forgotten Legacy article might be considered the meat of this Herald, the articles on design and game play of War of Honor are certainly the potatoes. Whereas the multiplayer rules for L5R have been criticized as being klunky and not-worth-the-effort, War of Honor introduces a more systematic and coherent experience to bring the multiplayer format back into prominence. Releasing in June, War of Honor will ship with four pre-made decks (Lion, Scorpion, Phoenix and Dragon) though custom made decks of any clan will fit seamlessly into the product. The win conditions will be the same as a one-on-one game, though keeping track of those conditions will be a little different. You can still win through military, honor, dishonor, or enlightenment conditions, but each condition has a Road to Victory. This is to say that for each province you destroy, each 8 points of honor you gain, each 8 points of honor loss you inflict, or each ring you put into play, you advance one more step along that road. The trick is that each step has to be taken in one turn. Cause 8 honor loss through open actions and ally with another person to destroy a province and you’ve just earned two steps in two different roads. Take five steps in any one path and the game is yours. Debate is still abound on whether Our local playgroup is very excited about this format and with tournament support at GenCon for War of Honor, there should be some good competition and support for the new multiplayer format for years to come.

RPG Preview – Kuni Witch Hunter

Being one of the RPG play testers, I was happy to see the Kuni Witch Hunter basic school released to the general die roller. The techniques for this school clearly define and support the Kuni Witch Hunters role to discover the taint in others and eliminate them efficiently. This translates to one extra rolled dice to detecting taint and an extra rolled and kept dice for both resisting the taint and your attack rolls against someone you know is tainted or a shadowlands creature. The Rank 2 technique is a nice flavor connection to illustrate the hunter’s training and knowledge. A die roll offers the hunter recollection of offer insight into a foe, revealing either a strength or weakness of the Jjgoku beast, enabling the hunter to fill their intended role. Rank 3 gives the multiple attacks technique which is nice to have earlier as even some more martial schools don’t offer it until Rank 4). The Rank 4 tech offers and improvements on taint detection from rank one, and provides the hunter with access to a kiho to give them that mystical advantage over their foes. The final technique offers a key 1k1 bonus against tainted individuals or creatures.

Defining an Environment 6: Before The Dawn

2011-05-13T18:52:00.013-04:00

Welcome back to another edition of Defining an Environment, my attempt to give you some insight into the decisions I made when choosing the cards to include in the starter decks for the latest expansion, in this case, Before the Dawn.

First off, I'll apologize for missing the article on the last set of starters from The Dead of Winter. As my lack of posts has shown lately, my life has been very busy both planning and then beginning a big renovation on my townhouse and I haven't been able to play much L5R throughout most of 2011, be it CE or playtesting. This is something I'm hoping to remedy once summer hits, as we're nearly finished everything with the exception of a lot of painting in the next couple of weeks. I'm jonesing for some serious gaming again, and it can't come soon enough!

Anyhow, let's take a look at what my twisted mind was thinking when I attacked the BtD starters:

Crab: Kyuden Hida XP

The Crab box was a fairly straight-forward box. Scouts with a bunch of Followers is pretty obvious when you see the Stronghold and I wasn't going to argue with something so obvious. Crab has some solid CE personalities to go with their BtD ones and because I can use cards I've used in other Crab boxes, there's a group of TPW Crabs in as well. The 40/40 construction of starters now means that I really have to use those other cards to flesh out a deck or it becomes more of a hodgepodge than the former 25/25 starters.

The Crab deck does include some Commanders for those 10 included Followers as a secondary theme and two Spirit of the Warrior gives them some dangerous weapons in addition to two Peasant Vengeance. If you are playing against Crab, you really need to have attachments on your best people! There's a solid suite of Scout actions to compliment your Scouts (Disrupting Communication, Advance Warning, We Stand Ready) and a splash of the usual Crab staples like The Height of Courage and Strength of Bamboo to round it out.

Lion - Shamate Keep

It should come as no surprise that Lion tends to have the best people to work nicely together, and this starter is no different. The number of Paragons they have access to for this starter is solid, and they round things out nicely with Commanders and Heroes, like Crab does. One comment I heard last night at the Release Event I attended was that the Lion Starter had the best synergy of the three. I can't really argue that. Paragons and Commanders play well together, and even guys like Hiroshi adds to the Follower love the starter has.

The Lion and Crab deck share a lot of the same actions, thanks to both having Commanders and Heroes, and both pack a good amount of Followers (in Lion's case, 9). Where they differ obviously is Paragon vs. Scout actions, as well as Bushido virtues. Unfortunately, the best Paragon action for Lion in this set was Rare, but they do get Ascending The Ranks if they don't mind losing a little honour. Its the inclusion of the Bushido Virtue Brothers in Battle that can really turn things up. +1F to 3 Lions can get them out of range of some Crab and Phoenix ranged attacks and up to 3 Ranged 4 attacks is pretty good, especially against Phoenix, and with the common Akodo Tezuka, you can reuse it (as I found out to my dismay in my tournament!). Brothers is an uncommon, so there's only one in the starter, but with two Tezukas, you have a shot at using it at least twice if you don't pull another one in your packs. Add in one of each CE Bushido Virtue, and you have a Duty to keep the Brothers alive and shooting things.

The starter is fleshed out by a couple of Deathseeker and Hero actions for the personalities that are splashed in with those keywords, and its a solid deck.

Phoenix - Temple of Purity

The Phoenix starter was the hardest one to build, as most starters with an honour/control element are. In Sealed, its hard to have the time to set up your defenses and with a limited card pool, its even harder to have the cards you need to defend yourself. This one was no different.

The first thing I noticed was that there weren't that many common or uncommon Inquisitors that the deck had access to, which hurts it a little. With only 5 cards available, the box was already going to be difficult to use to gain honour, but all 5 went in (the fixed Sakanoko, Izuna x2, Katashi and Mokichi). Because of that, I looked at the inclusion of 2 Kunji and two of the common Ueda from CE as a switch option. Adding in Isawa Yutako from GotE, who I've used before and can use again, the deck has 6 Cavalry options, even if the force of them isn't overly big. One thing I didn't factor in, after seeing them in action, is how the common Indomitable Home's Province Strength boost would limit the switch option, and in my Release Event, I ran into it more than once. That hurts the switch idea some and had I foreseen that, I'd have included a couple of more ways to boost the force of the Cavalry people.

As for running for honour, as the deck likely will, there's one Temple of Shinsei and one My Father's Shrine to go with the box, as well as Touch of Ice and Unstoppable Power. The Phoenix can bring a fair number of Ranged Attacks to the table in its defense and they have a few Spells that can destroy things (Consumed by Five Fires x2, A Dragon's Favor and Ember's Final Fire are in, for example). If the deck can get its Magistrate engine going, there's an Allegations and two Restoring Order to help the cause. Two Steel on Steel should also help with attrition, and there's the usual assortment of defensive cards like Settling the Homeless, Rout and Outer Walls. One of the biggest factors with this deck is seeing those Magistrates and Inquisitors, so dig for them aggressively. This deck was the hardest to get synergy with and if you don't see the pieces, you'll be in tough.

Wrapping It Up

Before the Dawn is another great set and the Release Events should be a great time again. I'm hopeful that the starters will again be fairly balanced, and depending on whether your event is 30/30 or 40/40, I think all three starters are fairly close, with Phoenix being the most vulnerable to a 40/40 environment and the environment as a whole. Like most honour decks in Sealed, it needs to see its pieces to shine.

I hope you enjoy your Before the Dawn Release Events and the set as a whole. Have fun!

PS. A followup to the post I made a few months back (http://elfiver.blogspot.com/2010/12/under-heaven-book-review-that-might-be.html) about Under Heaven, a fantastic book by Guy Gavriel Kay that I encourage everyone to pick up. The book is now available in paperback, so ask your local book store to hook you up. You will not be disappointed!

What U Should Know Before Before the Dawn. (A Review)

2011-05-11T09:12:00.006-04:00

Back again for yet another review of an upcoming set, this time L5R's newest addition, Before the Dawn. While as always, AEG has given us plenty of hints about what's going to be in the set through their various preview outlets, I can't help but think the set's release still leaves players of all skill levels with myriads of unanswered questions. And while I'm not going to try to answer those, I am going to take another stab at profiling the set in a way that's both insightful and beneficial to players both new and old. So throw out what you know, and dig in to my latest try at getting to the heart of the set.

The best meat is RARE: In the quest of analyzing the set, most people want to hear about the "good cards", many of which are the rares. I'm here to tell you which of them are good for you, which are bad, and which are down right filthy in the right situations, so listen up!

Get 'em: We all know that there are those cards in each set that everyone just needs to have, and I'm going to tell you what they are so you can buy them now while they are still low. Of course, each card on this list (and the others) has the added advantage of being dual-bugged, meaning it's legal now AND for several more years, but that should go without saying at this point.

Seaside Bazaar for one thing is going to be a big pain in the butt to track down for a while, so if you have a collector's soul, go out and get it NOW! With its triptych of traits (Farm, Market, Port) and it's built-in flexibility, it strengthens already existing gold schemes for several clans, which makes it almost universally awesome (sorry Lion).

Another card that I can't get out of my head is Disgraceful Conduct, a card that has Mantis written all over it but may be just as useful in a couple other decks. Its ability to drop without presence makes it a threat that shouldn't be ignored and in my opinion a card that runs the risk of seeing it's price advance as we move into EE. If you can get a spare or two now, they may be worth hanging onto, especially if you're into playing Crane or Phoenix honor.

Another must have has got to be Saibankan's Justice. Don't believe me? It immediately creates two targets for dishonorable actions if you choose to use it's action which at this point in CE can make several decks really go. Choose not to? Wish your opponents good luck grabbing the favor through any conventional means. While it may not bring top dollar like some other rares in the set, it'll be a staple for a couple of decks now, and maybe even more later.

Trade 'em: With every set that has must have cards comes the cards that you think you must have, but who's usefulness never comes to fruition and who's value (un)predictably plummets.Two words: Unexpected Arrival. These are those cards for Before the Dawn.

One card that looks fantasmagoric on paper is Amazing Feat, aka the "Artisan Egg". Good ability? Reasonable cost? So what's the problem? Well, for one only a small number of clans have worthwhile people with the Artisan trait at this point, and of those, only Crane really utilizes them. Beyond that, the card represents a kind of "win more" attitude that isn't really conducive to reversing the fortunes of a game.

Another wooden horse, or quite literally, another boney whale, The Great Death is a card that I think will excite some folks, but I don't think really has a place anywhere right now. With the Naga previews there is talk of a move toward nonhuman decks in EE, but the fact is we're still in CE, where no such stronghold or niche really exists. I could see it fitting in an Oni deck, but even they are few and far between at the moment. You might want to sit on them for next arc, but my advice is to move them NOW if you find any takers.

The real bitch of the bunch for me has to be One Action, Two Strikes. While it looks like a surefire winner to a lot of folks it reminds me of two things: this card, which no one played and that was obviously better (and common), and that extra actions mean extra cards. I get it, this card could represent a major tempo swing, but just playing it eats up a card for your hand, one that could be a card with a better proactive or reactive action printed on it. I'm sure there are those of you who would disagree with me and might even attempt to make it work, but I'll wager that the card doesn't make the final cut in many top tier decks for the simple fact that its cost / benefit doesn't do enough to help.

Use 'em: And then there are those cards that might not go in every deck, but are Grade A BEEF in their own domain, the cards that against their monetary value and collectibility show up constantly as game changers. These aren't the cards that I'm telling you to go out and stock up on, but these are the cards you should sit on and use in your decks, as they are most likely the rares that will make some of the greatest impact in the coming environment.

Something that Kensai and Monk decks have relished in to moderate success has been the ability to pull of multiple effects with a single card. Think The Serpent's Deception in Spider or even Dragon's latest stronghold, Farthest Fortress. This is exactly the world that Readied Steel lives in. Straighten a UNIT? Check. Get back a weapon from the discard and attach it at a discount? Check! Sign me right up please. While the decks that will run this have no shortage of either unbow or recursion this card will slip seamlessly into already established decks and make for an instant threat to straighten or attach, or both.

I guess the only real "no brainer" of the set for me is Stolen Merchandise. At worst it's a two for two copying their Border Keep (note: doesn't work!). At best it's their holding that most benefits your deck. Although that is a pretty wide range, the fact that it's unique and so versatile should ensure that it's in almost every deck you're going to see. Sure, I'll take a Seiden Sanzo, or 3g, or anything else good. That said, I don't think it's going to be a card you want to go out and stock up on. Unique rares tend not to be very valuable despite its "every deck" usability.

An argument could probably be made that my next choice is probably the most bland of all the nifty cards from the new set, Unorthodox Attack. Why, you might ask do I choose it as one of the cards that'll have the most effect? Super low cost, decent effect. There are many cards that bow other cards, some even at a lower cost, but the ability to bow ANY card, regardless of attachments or other restrictions by merely having an unbowed Samurai at the current battlefield has to rank among the best of them. It's relatively mediocre effect should keep the price low on these as will the fact that some decks will prefer superior effects (send home / death), but I definitely see a bunch of decks running them.

Another card that may seem quite obvious (or maybe I'm just overrating it) is The World Disappears, one of the better recursion cards we've seen come out in a while. While there aren't many Monks with the Void keyword, there are a lot of monks, across three clans now, and if any deck that runs Monks and Kihos doesn't run this one I'll be mildly surprised. I could see Spider Monk forgoing it, but it would seem that this card could become a staple in hammering out a solid enlightenment deck at some point in the near future.

Diamonds (and Circles) in the Rough: As players we all know that sometimes the cards that are the rarest aren't always the cards that are the "best" in the set. We should at least by now. Some of the lesser rarities are often times overlooked, so I've made it my job this set to try and find the best of them for you, so you don't have to look as hard.

Both Beautiful Host and Indomitable Home look to be strong holdings. While Beautiful Host won't take the place of Oyo Seido in any of my decks, it is an alternate way of making dishonor pay in what looks to be becoming a new theme of "Revenge" tokens. Tokens are solid because they are permanent, and perhaps if a deck doesn't need Oyo Seido to combat dishonor, this could see play. Indomitable Home on the other hand I think will be very strong right out of the gates. The fact that its ability requires bowing and not destruction makes it reusable, and in decks that aren't hard up for gold (think Crane honor) this might give them a recurring Outer Walls or god forbid Outer Walls isn't reprinted...

On the dude front, I've chosen, best I could, the cards that I think could have the most immediate impact in the CE environment as well as those that look just down right good for each clan.

For Crab, I'll have to admit, I wasn't that thrilled by their people (outside of the rares), but they were given two actions that I think will benefit them more than anyone else, Beyond the Line and Stockpiled Resources. Both give Crab (or Mantis, Unicorn, etc) interesting angles that increase the "element of surprise" in battles featuring Scouts and Commanders. Beyond the Line could specifically cause a lot of problems for people as it not only lets a player drop a limited or oepn action in battle, but also draws a card to replace itself. Stockpiled Resources isn't quite as awesome, but still allows Commander to threaten a province with an unequipped person.

Crane on the other hand do get a guy that I really like. I'll probably be fanned to death for saying so, but I think Kakita Yasunori is a personality that can really help them out. He's a boxable (cheap) 3PH Artisan with an action that creates a free attachment for any of your people. He doesn't do a lot proactively, but his keyword, cost and useful action should ensure that he sees some action in Artisan keyed decks.

For Dragon, there were two cards that struck me, the first being Mirumoto Houken, a Duelist who has an action that straightens a unit. Spider have Torao and Arima, but Dragon have been kind of left out on useful, solid Kensais to go with their cool new weapony box. Houken should find his way into the deck easily and remain there as long as he's legal. A second card that really stood out as a gem for Dragon is String of Victories. It's a Battle:/Open: that straightens all your Rings, puts a Ring into your hand from your discard and gives you an additional action. By themselves, each of those things wouldn't be that great, but the fact that the card does so much, in my opinion, means that it can't be ignored. Dragon probably have one of the best shots at making the card work due to their Ring manipulation and additional action abilities.

And then there was Lion. I wasn't exactly taken aback by their personalities, but I did find one to be quite interesting, as he provides even more recursion and the Paragon keyword which their new box lavishes in, Akodo Tezuka. It seems that recursion seems to be a new mechanic that design really likes working with, and frankly, I can't blame them. It's a good mechanic that doesn't require balancing anything other than the cards most likely to be reused. Tezuka explores yet another way to showcase the mechanic, and as long as the cards remain unbroken, I'm all for it. In the meantime I'm sure Lion players aren't going to complain that they are seeing the "Lion's" share of these types of cards.

One of my personal favorite personalities from the uncommons and commons of Before the Dawn has to be Yoritomo Zinan of the Mantis. With the Naval and Commander keywords, as well as his 5F, he already asserts his usefulness into their core deck, DGC, and adds an interesting and somewhat useful Battle action to an arsenal that's become ever more potent as the arc rolls on. The ability to return an attachment to hand both benefits a Mantis player and harms their opponent. Being Naval, Zinan has the power to immediately neutralize a Rising Sun Blade, Chag's Armor or something else that could become a thorn in the side of their military domination.

Being a Phoenix player myself (primarily, that is) I've seemed to be able to find a bunch of helpful cards for their decks, a few of which I'll note here, Asako Izuna and Seek the Stain to be specific. I chose the two of these because, first of all, the personality, Izuna, is a beast. With the keywords Air, Shugenja and Magistrate she opens up a veritable pantheon of targetable actions that benefit Phoenix's new stronghold. In addition her reaction permanently makes someone a target for the box and dishonors them as well! If that's not a dream personality then I don't know what is. The spell goes hand in hand with her. It can be attached from the discard (conditionally) and churns out box targets as well as targets for a bunch of other useful things too!

Scorpion also get a few cards, and for the first time there were actually two guys I thought were worth mentioning here, Bayushi Ebara and Wrathful Dead. Ebara, like Houken for the Dragon Clan, gives Scorpion a powerful and useful Kensai to rival those of the Spider Clan. The ability to attach isn't all that great, but the ability to do it as an Open action and draw a card is something to be envied. His stats also make him a viable option for dueling as well. Wrathful Dead on the other hand benefits Scorpion's more established theme of Battle dishonor. The card destruction gives them a useful and deadly battle action, something that besides the ones that cause dishonor, Scorpion has been deeply lacking.

For Spider, the obvious choice would be Omigawa, but I feel like I've already heard enough about him to last two lifetimes, so I wanted to extol the greatness of Goju Sawaki. So we know at this point that Spider are going to be getting Ninja support in EE, but I think Sawaki is a guy that will be at least minimally beneficial RIGHT now. He's boxable, he has the Ninja keyword (think Dramatically!) and he's hard to kill (thus the Immortal keyword). I could see him slipping right into something breedery and going further maybe even a control deck.

I've been to a couple of Koteis this year, and as such I've seen a ton of interesting decks and players. Perhaps none of them were as interesting as Ralph Tropeano's Unicorn blitz deck that I saw a couple times this year. Unicorn got another great addition to the deck in Shinja Byung, a boxable Tactician with 3F. Now while Byung is blank, I think Tactician and Cavalry make him enough of a threat to find his way into a couple of Unicorn decks. I'm sure 'Corn players already know this so consider this a warning to the rest of you :)

And finally, I'd like to conclude this little exercise by pointing out a few of the less clan specific cards that I think might muscle their way into more than a couple decks. In terms of guys, I really like Komori Taruko. Call me Phoenix-biased, but I don't think they'll be the only one utilizing her stats and ability. She's boxable in 'Corn and has the Air trait which could see use in Crane and Scorpion as well. I love, love, love the fact that you can get two uses out of her a turn due to her ability and her stats are nothing to shrug off. Also, her art is pretty kick ass, something that yet again, I think is improving with this set on the whole.

Another neat, more universal card, is Vigilant Riders. A 3F for 4g follower that is pretty much the follower equivalent of Blade of Perfection, it won't bow and is hard to murder. Oh, and it's cavalry. Oh and throw in 3FV for good measure. Good luck not seeing this card.

On top of those two, two actions stood out to me that will be hard to dodge in this and the next arc, the obvious one, No Time for Games, and the not so obvious one, Of One Instant. No Time for Games has already been exhaustively discussed at this point I'm sure, but I have to illustrate my own crush on the card. No Sneaks? Sure. Dishonor meta? Hell yeah. 4 focus? Ok. I can't see this card NOT being played in about half the decks in any given field. I like it, and I like it a lot. If you've passed it over, please don't. It's worth a second look. Then, Of One Instant. At first glance it looks pretty niched, until you realize how many different decks and clans can duel these days. One of my personal favorites is Ronin, which I think this card fits "like a glove" to quote Ace Ventura. Force pump, focus value, and more force pump. Ain't bad. Try it.

Other Things You Should Know: And that about wraps up my review of Before the Dawn, what I think is another great set. I would briefly like to give you, the players and readers, some other small tidbits I thought might be worth knowing in a bit of a rundown fashion.

Packaging: Even better than last set. The boxes seem more sturdy (although the inserts are weak and kind of sucky) and the art design on them is fantastic. Unfortunately it seems AEG and their printers still haven't figured out out to make a booster back that doesn't require a pair of pliers and a blow torch to open. Despite the difficulty of the packs, I have to reiterate how much I loved the art design for this set. It's truly above and beyond, and even bordering on "premium" :)

Art: Some GREAT art in this set. My top 5 are as follows (in no order): Shiba Ryuba, Raido no Oni, Chuda Kiuchi, Death, Defeated and Ikoma Ayumu, with a bunch of others right on their heels.

Tokens: Somehow, and I suspect that this was intentional, I received exactly 6 of each of the tokens for this set. Not too many and just enough to play the cards that produce them in my opinion. Great job folks!

Printing: I think the cards continue to look great, but without the ease of opening the packaging the new printing style (glossy) really shows damage moreso than cards from years passed. I boogered up quite a few cards on the way out of packs for this reason. Also the glossiness has created quite a few "sloppy joe" situations where stacks of cards have slid all over the god damn place. Just a small nitpick, but something I noticed that may save someone else a headache.

Checklist: I don't think I've said this before on here, or enough to my group, but I can't get enough of the checklist action. I love it. It makes getting my cards in order and completing sets so much easier, so thanks to the powers that be for that! (note: No checklist for this set, but a rules insert. I messed up!)

Rare Dispersion: I thought the collation for this set was PHENOMENAL, and I repeat, phenomenal! I got one of a bunch of unique rares and multiples of a bunch of non-unique ones. Now maybe it was just sheer luck, or maybe there is some thought behind it. Either way, color me pleased.

Survey Says: BUY IT! Seriously, get this set. It's one of the strongest in terms of contents and it is going to be legal for quite some time. If my review has learnt you anything, I hope it is how diverse and unique the set is and how it benefits almost every deck type out there and even some that are yet to arrive with EE. I think the approach of Design in making every card playable, or at least seeming like that's there approach is wonderful for the game and can't wait to see what they have in store with Forgotten Legacy!

L5 Art

2011-05-11T09:10:00.000-04:00

While perusing some of the Forgotten Legacy previews, one can't help but notice the exceptional focus on awesome and relevant art. Anyone who has been around the game for better than half of the first 15 years knows that at times art hasn't been the pinnacle of the game. Sure, it is a story based collectible card game, but in my honest opinion the art is most important part of the game outside of the game mechanics. It is a welcome change to see AEG assemble an art dream team (Baker, Graham, Castro, Argyle and Engle so far) rather than the direction they took Death at Koten. Hopefully this theme continues into Emperor Edition. Thoughts from the community?

Everybody must get Stoned!

2011-04-27T09:43:00.001-04:00

The new Make A Wish type card, Stone of Remembrance, is now available for purchase from the AEG store. I've been hearing both positive and negative things about it from various people in private conversations. I personally think it's a nice perk for players that contributes to an excellent cause. I am curious though, how do you feel about it? Are one shot / once per tournament cards something you think has a place in the game? Let us know!

Too Soon?: The Strange Tale of a Tournament Stupor

2011-04-26T14:22:00.008-04:00

"Is alcohol acceptable here?" I asked, a shade before 10am, toward the two tournament organizers seated behind a row of tables set up on an elevated stage.

"Sir, it is not only acceptable, it's actually encouraged..." one of them replied. The same man then gave me erroneous but clear directions to the small VFW bar located in the rear of the hall. I skeptically meandered over to that bar, purchased a soda and began to survey the territory and my plan for the day's festivities.

Before I knew it I had a belly full of breakfast burrito, barbecue and beer and was on my way to finishing off one of the most drunken, haphazard, intense, delicious and FUN L5R Kotei events in my life, despite not making the cut, despite not achieving top in clan, and despite not being able to compose complete sentences.

By the start of the tournament, a fully patch-worked bluegrass band was playing Appalachia's greatest hits in the VFW lobby and several attendees had already begun to amass more of a buzz than most would prefer at that hour. I myself was already a beer deep, thanks to a little coercion from some old friends and the encouragement of the tournament crew.

Since a BBQ tournament was taking place in roughly the same location, some food vendors had begun to set up shop right outside in the VFW parking lot, where I quickly found myself with a warm and delicious breakfast burrito, stuffed full of hashbrowns, eggs and hot sauce in my hands.

As the pairings began to fall in place for the first round, I vowed to myself to make the most of the tournament, socially, mentally and alcoholicly. Without boring you with the details of each of my specific games, I was playing Spider Monk, a slightly varied version of the deck I played at DC, and was undefeated through the first 2 rounds.

Round 3 saw me face off against Chris Medico, who'd knocked me out a month earlier in the DC top 8. This time I was more prepared, although at game's end I suffered the same fate yet again. I quickly rebounded to 3-1, then fell to 3-2 because of a few drunken mistakes to Aaron Barto's Lion. I feel it necessary at this point to highlight the fact that I was probably throwing back at least a beer between each round. Kolat master and perennial alcoholic Dan Dineen was posted up at the bar, and somehow had convinced each of his opponents to play him IN the bar, so between each round I had to stop by and see how he was doing. Before the 6th round I shared a "few" beers with some other familiar faces that were around the bar and then sat down for a game against Scorpion dishonor. Playing Spider, I know that barring a great draw by me or a terrible draw by him my day is likely done. Thanks to both, I win, skitching his last province sitting at -18.

Round 7 brings me even more alcohol and a date with Jeremy Kilburn to see who makes the cut. I warn him before the game of my self-induced psychological ineptitude and we agree that the winner will buy the loser a beer for ending the others' day. I come out quick with a bunch of uniques and a favorable draw. I even manage to snake the first two provinces. Jeremy, being the resilient player that he is (see his winning report or Van Natter's t4 report for further proof) and having the luxury of playing Spider breeder, not to mention seeing all three Udos over the course of our game, quickly recovers with two provinces of his own. In the end beer (and Jeremy) got the better of me as I made two ill-advised attacks where I split my forces and proceeded to be erased from the table by a slew of zombies. My card playing day was now over, yet as I would soon find out my real day was just beginning.

The tournament took a break for dinner, which was the host provided BBQ dinner which was again - succulent and delicious and equipped with cole slaw, cornbread and a freakin' brownie! I can assure that it was the best (and only) Kotei brownie I've ever had. The break was nice and long, which provided plenty of time to socialize, drink a few more drinks, bat the general shit, and have the tournament organizers announce the Honor prize (canned food drive) winners, Top in Clan people, Best Sportsman and the like. I must say that at most Koteis after this part of the day is done, most people leave, however the nature of this tournament just wasn't the same.

When the cut to the top 16 happened, maybe it was the rain, or maybe it was the beer, but tons of people stayed behind to play in the side event (draft) or just pickup games, to trade and to drink. I had several conversations and altercations with folks that I might not have had at other Koteis (for better AND for worse). I think I recall splashing my drink all over the draft winners' rarezes, telling Danny Swartz' wife that she was a terrible wrestler and another guy that I would fucking kill him because he was Middle Eastern and Aaron Barto was one of the best Lion players that ever lived. Hey, when in Rome folks.

A handful of buddies made the cut: Aaron Barto, Palmer, Danny Swartz and even my brother (Andy Moul), so there was no shortage of people to route for for me, and to be sure, no shortage of drinks as my money began to run low and I had to cash in all of the "I'll buy you a beers" from this day and beyond. Needless to say I did NOT need any more drinks when I finally did make my way home.

As it turned out Andy faced off against Kilburn in the finals, honorably conceding to his friend rather than taking a shot at back to back wins, while Swartz and Van Natter rounded out the top 4. It was great to see a guy like Kilburn who has played the game for so long finally come away with the big win he's deserved. I do have to say though, regarding the "playoff" rounds, I was a little surprised to find that they were doing a best of 1 until the finals. Most of the other tournaments I'd been to had been best of 3. Granted, the person who wins the first games (there has to be a statistic about this!) usually wins the best of 3 match, but it was still a bit refreshing and somewhat tense to see it play out this way.

And it's with that, that I'll conclude with what everyone else has been doing: My Props and Slops if you will, only in my own special way.

Props:
Team Whiplash for, despite what I've said about them, putting on a great and unique event
The people at the VFW for putting up w/ all of us in our varying degrees of annoyingness
Andy for doing great again
Kilburn for taking it down
Everyone else who performed well for doing a good job
My Deck for only losing 3 games despite being shitfaced (To Medico, Barto, Kilburn)
Angela Rose for letting me use her leather jacket as a sop mop, heh, truly sorry for that
Beer for various reasons

Drops (Slops):
Me for being shitfaced and losing 3 games despite having an awesome deck
The rain
Whiskey for various reasons
Beer for other various reasons

Yep and that about does it. Hopefully next time I'll have a better story.

Before the Dawn Preview #2: Record of Failure

2011-04-23T12:58:00.000-04:00

Looks kind of interesting for EE dishonor.

Josh Van Natter NY Kotei Top 4 Scorpion Ninja Report & Deckist

2011-04-21T21:04:00.007-04:00

I hadn't been planning to write a report but since I got to top 4 and it was aske here it is, sorry if I got any of the names wrong.

Round 1 Mantis AV Control 1-0
We both get off decent starts, he brings out Yoritomo Utemaro and gives him a Rising Sun Blade to take a province. I attack a province with a Keirei and another 4F Ninja, he defends the adjacent province with a magistrate which he moved the Rising Sun Blade to with a Wooden Barricade. i moved Keirei over to the defended province then goto that battle where I use strike From the Shadows to steal his Rising Sun Blade with Shadow Plays and I believe I take the province. There is a little back and forth when he uses Enticement to take back the Rising Sun Blade but I have another Shadow Play to steal it back and I'm able to kill his people.

Round 2 Mantis AV Blitz Dan Dineen 1-1
I've know Dineen for a long time both playing in the North East, we head into the bar where he is playing his games. This game goes very quick, He flips a Reinforce the Line, Heartlands, Nosloc No Oni and with another card that creates a 2/2 spud he takes a province before I even start the game. Game goes downhill from there, I'm able to save a province but I have very little gold and he's got limited kill actions to get rid of some of my defenders before taking my province. I think the game took all of ten minutes, then we just hung out till the next round.

Round 3 Dragon Kensai Paul Goldberg 2-1
This round I find out I'm paired up with someone from my local playgroup. This game goes fast as he gets a slow start only able to bring out 1 guy at a time to my 3 with a Midnight Shadows attached. He tried to defend a couple of times but I have a Strike From The Shadows for each attack and without any weapons his lone defenders die to Midnight Shadows and I take all his provinces without much problem. We play another game for fun which ended up pretty evenly matched.

Round 4 Crane Dishonor Scott Pegg 3-1
Seeing that I'm playing Crane I figure I have a 50/50 chance as I play against an Embassy Honor deck all the time in the Local group, then he flips some Scorpion dishonor personalities and I realise my chances are much worse. Luckily my gold came out and I was able to attack turn three with a Tsubaki/Flawless Assasin and Takaharu with a Midnight Shadow and was able to take two provinces with the help of Shadowplay. I believe in the next turn he brings me down to -10 but I take another province. On the last turn he's able to get me to -16 but doesn't have the honorloss to stop me from taking his last province. Overall it was a very good game and it's nice to see more clans with dishonor available him, plus Scott was a great opponent.

Round 5 Spider Breeder 4-1
Breeder is another hard matchup. He brings out a turn 1 Fusata, I get some gold + 2 Nishu. 2nd turn he flips A walking death and I think I get out a Keirei. I lose a lot of Ninja to Fusata before he dies to A Walking Death but he hasn't been able to attack my provinces, I some Suburo's and copy his Udo so I can make some Zombies too. I'm able to take 2 provinces, but by now he has like 15 zombies out, and I've gone through most of my Dynasty Deck. Luckily he discards his Forewarning the turn before my Crossing the Forbidden Sea resolves leaving him only two defenders and I'm able to take his remaining two provinces.

Round 6 Scorpion HMD Ninja 5-1
First time facing a fellow Scorpion player which is pretty amazing with 15 in the tournament. Turns out he playing ninja also but out of Hidden Moon Dojo. The Game goes back and for a bit, but I get out the Dark Oracle of Fire and Rekai's Yumi and am able to kill more of his guys.

Round 7 Mantis DGC Chris Medico 5-2
It seems that Mantis are my bane this tournament as this is another fast game. He brings out a Sunagawa, I bring out Tsubaki and another ninja. He attachs a Taoist Archer and swings for a province. I try to defend but he has answers for pretty much everything I can do and I lose my army and my province. Game goes a couple more turns before I concede when all I flip is gold + suboru when I have no army out.

So I'm 5-2 and hoping to get into the top 16, I figure I will but I'm been close too many times not to be nervous and when the Top 16 gets announced I believe I'm 11th and I get pair up against Crab.

Top 16
Crab SPC Eric Welsh
I'm still slightly stunned that I've actually made the cut for the first time when I sit down to play agains Eric. We both seem to get decent gold first turn. He buys a Tatsuma, I buy a Keirei, Shigamasa and a Nishu. He doesn't attack but buys Tamago. I attach a Flawless Assasin to Shigamasa and give a poison token to Tamago and attach a midnight blade to Keirei before attack with Keirei and Shigamasa using Strike From the Shadows to move to an unopposed battle and send shigamasa home with the flawless to take a province. I bring out another Nishu and I believe another Shigamasa. He attacks with both Tatsuma and Tamago, I defend with just my Nishus, he Sneaks and Tamago kills a Nishu. I Silent Rot Tamago and I believe he Claw and Shells my remains nishu and using the Height of Courage to take my province and bring in a Hebi. I give Hebi a poison token and attack again. He defends with Hebi but I have a Strike from Shadows to kill him with the Midnight Shadows. I Keirei to another province so I can take two. Eric brings in Tatsuma with Beloved of the Clan but I have Ultimate Sacrifice to kill him. He has only 1 province left and I have Bayushi's Guidance out to remove any personality that would show up.

Top 8
Lion Central Castle Aaron Barto
I don't have a good track record against Lion so I'm a bit nervous going into this match, I get an ok gold start and I believe he does as well. I'm able to attack into him but I don't have any Strike from Shadows but I do have the Dark Oracle of Fire and Rekai's Yumi and I'm able to kill his defends but he's able to kill most of my guys too. we do this a few more time I Believe I'm able to take 1 of his provinces but we are both losing personalities left and right and he decides to switch to honor running. The pivotal battles comes when I he has a Shigetoshi, Kasei and some other lion we go through killing each other people and I'm able to out-force his Shigetoshi but not take a province. He gets up to 36 honor I believe when we find out we have 5 minutes left when Aaron graciously concedes as he has only 1 personailty in play and only 1 more personality in his dynasty deck which wouldn't of brought him above 40. What a great game and Aaron was a great opponent.

Top 4
Spider Breeder Jeremy Kilburn
I can't believe I've actually made it to the top 4, Jeremy lets me know I'm his next opponent and I take a short break before we get started. I know i have to come out fast to have any chance at beating breeder so I'm able to bring out a couple of ninja and some followers and burn two walk in shadows to be able to take an unopposed province. By now he's got a couple of Shuzo and some other Shugenja with about 4 zombies when Crossing the Foridden Sea pops a turn earlier than I'd like so I decided to attach some followers but I'm only able to take two of his provinces. I try to to take out his last province but he has to many zombies and in a pretty instance fight I take out most of his shugenja but he's killing all of my followers and a border ambush give him enough for to kill my army. unfortunately thats where my deck decides to go downhill, Kilbourn starts attacking with his zombies and I only see 1 personality a turn. I draw into a Strike from Shadows with an Ultimate Sacrifice on the top of the deck and try to swing in for his last province while i believe I still have two. He defends with a Gotubo and another Shugenja, I strike but he has a holding in his province so I don't get to draw. I kill his Shugenja, and he Shameful and Cowardly my two people. I don't have any more kill actions so I bow his Gutobo with the box battle action. He then proceeds to relentless conviction my personality with a midnight shadow and I concede. Another great game with another great opponent.

So I end up 4th after it's all worked out and I'm pretty happy with that as it's the first time I've ever made the cut.

Plus all my opponents were very nice and I enjoyed each game I played. Overall a great Event.
Props:
Team Whiplash for another awesome event
All my opponents, great people make great events.
The Connecticut Playgroup for helping me test my deck to the point that
I got it working so well.

Oh, and the deck....
1 Fortress of Blackened Sight

# Dynasty (40)

# Events (2)
1 Alter History
1 Crossing the Forbidden Sea

# Celestials (1)
1 Bayushi's Guidance

# Holdings (15)
1 Dark Oracle of Fire - exp2
3 Border Village
3 Geisha House
1 Traveling Peddler
2 Wooden Barricade
3 Famous Bazaar
2 Diamond Mine

# Personalities (22)
3 Bayushi Arashii
3 Bayushi Keirei
1 Bayushi Muhito - exp2
1 Bayushi Tsubaki
3 Shosuro Nishu
2 Shosuro Shigemasa
3 Shosuro Sogetsu
1 Yogo Rieko - exp
2 Takaharu
3 Bayushi Suboru

# Fate (40)

# Strategies (30)
2 Black Hearts, Red Blades
3 Hidden in the Shadows
3 Shadow Plays
3 Silent Rot
3 Shuriken and Smoke
2 Smoke Cover
3 Strike from the Shadows
3 Walk in Shadows
2 Only Actions Speak
3 The Cost of Pride
2 Scouting Far Afield
1 Ultimate Sacrifice

# Followers (8)
3 Flawless Assassin
3 Midnight Shadows
2 The Silent Blade

# Items (1)
1 Rekai's Yumi

# Rings (1)
1 Ring of the Void

Don’t Listen To Me, I Suck.

2011-04-21T11:30:00.006-04:00

I promised that I would contribute to this blog with a kotei report from the Sheffield kotei. Most of these reports start with some tale or amusing anecdote of travel and possibly hardship overcome.

My life just isn’t like that. I went to the airport and had a drink, I sat on a plane and people brought me drinks, I had a car pick me up and drive me to Sheffield and now I sit and drink once again. The swiss rounds are likely finishing even as I write this and all I have to worry about is will the really cute redhead bring me my next drink, or will it be the slightly less cute but younger blonde? Yes I dropped out, yes I am a bad person and no I don’t really care.

Just like everyone else I had high hopes coming to the kotei. I wanted to make a “good showing” and yet I still chose to play Ronin. I really only have myself to blame (and Bryan of course). I played Ronin at the Rockville kotei and did terribly, yet I know the deck is better than my performance there and I want to have another chance. My experience at Rockville taught me that I lose when I go first, 7 rounds going first 6 times with a record of 1-6 speaks volumes (versus 3x Scorpion and 3x Spider). I just have to hope I don’t hit that again.

So here we go round 1 at Sheffield...Scorpion Ninja I go first and lose hard. Nice enough guy, just too much movement with 2x Suboru and a Keirei or two. No matter what I try I can’t get opposed long enough to play the kill actions I have in hand and he is going to roll me pretty easy so I concede.

Round 2 is Dragon Kensai this promises to be much more fun and to actually require opposed battles. First two turns we buy peeps and holdings, I purposely sweep for Hisao. Turns 3 and 4 he attacks into me and to his surprise I defend, I have more bow than he can cope with and kill his army each turn. By that point I have a Cavalry, Naval 10F Paneki’s Disgrace and start attacking, he concedes.

Round 3 is Crane honor from Seawatch Castle. He starts pretty well buying peeps and gaining honor to about 20. I only buy 4 or 5C duelists and then Last One a Tamago, I also have Oracle of Dark Fire and Shatter the Line in hand for more opposed kill. Plains of Resolution flips for my next turn and the game goes my way from there.

Round 4 is Crane dishonor from Embassy of the Crane, this is an absolute autoloss for my deck. We play a few turns before I recognise the dishonor deck portion, then I am soon annoyed by presenceless defense and Ronin having no honor gains. I concede.

Round 5 is Mantis Commanders from Dragon’s Guard City, we roll-off to start. I “win” the roll and go first. Guess what? I lose this game too. Of course his ranged 9 attacks and Naval advantage went quite a way to confirming the dominance.

Record is 2-3, I can’t possibly make the cut and had already promised to concede top slot to the only other Ronin player. In disgust (mostly at myself) I drop from the event. So what next? I am three beers in to this report and already I want to go back to the drawing board and try to work out a way to win with this deck. And for some reason I still love the game. I still want to play and meet new people. Today’s opponent may be tomorrow’s friend and that is the best part of L5R. But for now, let’s see which one gets to bring me my next drink. Beer me woman.

Before the Dawn Preview #1: Raido no Oni

2011-04-11T07:43:00.001-04:00

10f, 7g? Ok. Love the art too.

Mikey

2011-03-31T18:19:00.003-04:00

Cody gives me a fair amount of leeway with my contributions to this blog, despite my ofttimes only vaguely actually L5R-related ramblings. This is very much one of those times, and it covers some things I just find plain painful to write about it. Hey, I don't have my own blog to post these angst-ridden emotastic posts on, so I figure Cody can endure a little misery every now and then. This is also likely to be my most long-winded and meandering post ever...consider yourself warned.

This weekend is my third Kotei trip of the season. I'm traveling with my wife and two very good friends, and we're staying with the excellent Canadian folk who looked after us so well last year. We'll be meeting up with other friends there too, and regardless of how the event goes, the social side of things will be, I'm sure, fantastic fun. On top of all that...after many months of fruitless searching, I've found a job, and start work next week.

Despite all these reasons to be positive, my heart is heavy and my spirits are low, because tomorrow, the day we'll be heading up to Ottawa, also marks the tenth anniversary of my friend Mikey's death, and each year it hits me hard.

I tend to be a private person, but this won't work without giving some considerable background, so prepare to know more about me than you ever wanted or needed to.

Firstly...well, I'm not a very nice person. For most of my youth and a good portion of my adult years, I was a waste of space. I was smart enough to get by but not smart enough to do anything useful with my intelligence. A convergence of circumstances and environment had left me self-destructive and borderline nihilistic. Literally the only things that actually enabled me to get by day to day were my family and friends: I deserved the love and support of neither, but they kept me from going too far off the rails.

Fortunately, we were mostly on the nerdy end of the degenerate wastrel scales, and along with drink, drugs and trouble-making, we played a lot of games. Most of us were either unemployed or students, and we had a lot of free time, so we went through games at a rapid rate. I've mentioned the circumstances that saw us pick up L5R in earlier posts, so I'm not going to repeat things in depth here, but playing L5R led me to the local comic shop, and when a gaming store owner from Liverpool was looking to expand and use the upstairs of the comic shop as a small gaming store, I was in the right place at the right time to be hired after an extensive interview that consisted of Dave, the game store owner, asking if I liked games then taking me over to the pub for a couple of pints.

The gaming store, called Best Books and Games after the Liverpool 'parent' store, lasted barely eighteen months. Dave made it across a grand total of three times during that period: the rest of time, stock would be sent over with Stuey, the comic shop owner, and I was left to my own devices, working most days and fighting an uphill struggle to keep the store open with limited stock and support. Still, by that time I was spending most of my days mooching around the comic shop anyway, so doing that and getting paid for it, albeit poorly and infrequently, seemed like a great deal at the time. I was heavily into L5R by this time, and relished the opportunity to share that passion with others and to try and push the game to the rare customers that would venture upstairs.

It was while working there I met Mikey and the other guys from Ruthin, a town maybe 40 miles away from my hometown. They had already picked up some L5R elsewhere and were delighted to find a store selling it relatively nearby (bear in mind we're talking about the days before widespread e-commerce!). We chatted and played some games, and they became regular customers. We were all around the same age and pretty much from the same demographic...social malcontents into gaming, computers, good music and bad women (in fact, future conversations would reveal a scary amount of shared encounters without us knowing each other). As they would mostly come over at the weekend, we become drinking buddies too, with Mikey often crashing at one of our flats and hitting the local alternative club with us.

Given just how much we all had in common, it is very likely that we would have met eventually: North Wales isn't that big of a place, and we frequented the same sort of...establishments. Still, it was L5R that introduced us, gave us common ground and a shared interest, and a reason to meet up on a regular basis. I ran tournaments at the store, and we started traveling to play in other events too. The community flourished, strengthened by mingling our individual social groups. The nights out became more frequent, we played football together, and we attended larger events, including UK GenCon and the first few UK Koteis.

Now, I should probably point out now that Mikey wasn't very good at L5R. He played Naga almost exclusively, which was an uphill battle to begin with, and would compound things with an uncanny knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If Mikey had eight cards in his hand, seven of which guaranteed a win and one of which would cause him to lose...well, he'd pick that card more often than not. His look of bemusement when he did so was priceless, because Mikey was one of those rare players that enjoyed the experience every bit as much as the competition. He liked to win for sure, but he'd end each game with a smile on his face regardless, either from the victory or from laughing at himself for doing something stupid.

As mentioned, Mikey, along with many of my other close L5R friends, was at UK GenCon in 1998 when I had an epiphany of sorts. I wrote about this in a post on the L5R-UK Yahoogroup, and I'm going to be lazy and paste it here now:

"...that GenCon was life-changing for me. I come from a pretty rough part of Wales, and although I escaped the council estate I grew up on without a criminal record, it was a close run thing. For most of my teenage years and early twenties, I was a waste of space…spending more years on the dole than off it, going out and getting hammered at the weekend, not amounting to a whole lot of anything. Fortunately, my friends were on the geek side of total wasters, and we played a variety of games when we really should have been looking for work. We flitted from game to game until by chance I came upon Five Rings, and something in it resonated within me, appealing to the same part of me that loved David Gemmell books and epic rock music…it changed a lot about how I acted, and I helped our fledgling group pick itself up and become competitive players, travelling to Liverpool, Manchester, and Nottingham, as well as running events in our local town, Rhyl. We were enjoying ourselves enough that several of us made the trip to GenCon in 1998 for the convention that really kick-started the UK scene.

I was actually at UK GenCon 1997 where several small-ish events took place. My time was split between playing Five Rings and working a stall for Best Books and Games, a games shop in Liverpool that had recently opened a small store at the back of the comic shop in Rhyl and that I had started working for. I don't think any of the tournaments had more than maybe sixteen players in, but I had a great time, and spent the year leading up to UK GenCon 1998 convincing my friends to attend.

I did well in tournaments that year, winning the largest sealed deck tournament and finishing in the top four of three other side events. It's the storyline tournament that really changed me though: I knew I was a pretty good player by this point, but I actually went into the last round of Swiss undefeated. In the rounds leading up to that, I played several people who would become good friends of mine, and who made such an impression on me that it caused me to re-evaluate who I was and where my life was going. I can remember four of my six opponents clearly, and even how the games progressed. I was running Crab Rat, and played two of the Irish Crab players, Jim Brophy and Brian Mulcahy. For a long time, the Irish players were the soul of the European scene, and both Brian and Jim exemplified that. Banter was thrown backwards and forwards across the table, good-natured insults were bandied around, and at the end of the game, regardless of the result, a handshake and a smile was offered to your opponent. To this day, I try and maintain that philosophy.

By contrast, my first-ever game against Gary Whittle was more reserved, but just as enjoyable. Gary carries himself with a level of courtesy and dignity that sets him apart even amongst the high standards of Five Rings players. I've been lucky enough to play him many times since then, but still look upon that first game as pivotal to my change from an arrogant wastrel into an almost-functioning adult. His behaviour is something that I've tried to emulate, and his manner made me realize how the game should be played.

My final Swiss game was against Quinton Dalton, one of the game's more, ahem, mature players. Quinton was a regular attendee at the Rhyl and North-West tournaments, and was instrumental in convincing us to head over to Nottingham and play. Quinton was very much the wise old man of our group (although he was actually around the same age I am now…THERE'S a sobering thought!), and although I introduced him to the game (I sold him my Unicorn deck, complete with Ancestral Sword, a couple of years earlier), he was a mentor to me away from the table. You'll read this a lot from me here, but the influence Quinton had on me cannot be understated: without going in to too many details, I come from a single parent family and haven't spoken to my father in about twenty years, and Quint taught me a whole lot about how a man should act. Anyway, going into the last round of what was at the time the biggest tournament in UK L5R history, we were both unbeaten, and that was an astonishing feeling. Quinton rolled me to head into the top eight undefeated, but I made it in as well.

This is where my life changed. We took a break for dinner: although the first few days' events had been held in a large marquee tent, bad weather had forced us inside into one of the conference rooms. While most people wandered off to grab some food, most of the top eight remained in the room to just chat and chill out. I looked around at the people there, like Quinton, chuffed to bits for making it in, and Ben Davies, the driving force behind the Liverpool scene and one of the most consistent players ever to play L5R. Rich Hudson from Stoke, who I'd regularly meet in the latter stages of tournament, was there, as were Mark Wootton and Tom Mulheims, who would famously meet in the final and settle the outcome with a duel of Rejus. My close friends from North Wales, Darren Hulme and Mike Jones, were with us, and I remember just looking around at all these great people, thinking `This is where I want to belong.' It was more than that, though. These weren't just good card players…they were also good people, and I, at the time…well, wasn't. Not only did I want to belong, but I also wanted to be worthy of their friendship, of the camaraderie clearly felt in that room."

Still with me? Wow, you're doing well!

So, while that event was certainly a catalyst, the change was by no means immediate. I was still living in a flat barely fit for human occupation, still getting hammered every Friday and Saturday night, and despite working sporadically at the comic shop, still not really contributing anything worthwhile to society as a whole. I was struggling to live a better life, but was unable to make a decisive break. The love and support offered to me by my friends and immediate family were becoming almost a crutch, their unreserved help acting as a constant safety net to my worst excesses, something that would continue for several years. I'm ashamed to say I took advantage of that on many an occasion, and although I try not to nowadays, I owe debts that I will likely never be able to repay.

My chance for escape came from a strange source, and is once more L5R-related. At UK GenCon, I'd played in an L5R sealed deck event against someone I'd never met before. As luck would have it, I'd drawn Lion, and my opponent was running Shadowlands...back when it was the Shadowlands Horde and came with about three holdings you could actually bring out. Knowing the disadvantage he was at, I stubbornly refused to resolve my Evil Feeds Upon Itself, and insisted on waiting until he'd hit holdings he could bring out before bringing out any myself. This made quite an impression on Ed, the player in question, and several months later, I started getting emails from him telling me about the games store he was planning on opening in Southampton.

Now, I know most Americans get considerable stick for their lack of geographical knowledge, but at the time, I admit I couldn't have pointed Southampton out on a map. Our travels hadoextended MAYBE three or so hours from where we lived, and I'd been outside the UK literally once, on a trip with my ex to Dublin. So when the conversation progressed to the point where Ed mentioned they needed help getting the store set up, I was quick to offer my physical aid to go with the scant advice I'd been able to give him. It turned out Southampton was a seven-hour train journey away, but after managing to convince the Job Centre to cover the cost of the train ticket under the excuse of attending an interview, I took the plunge and headed down for a week or so to do whatever I could.

Right from my first day in Southampton, I knew things would have to be different for me, and I plunged myself headfirst into helping Ed and Pete, the other owner of what would become Hidden Fortress, get the store ready for its opening. This was a chance at a fresh start, an opportunity to work hard and display a work ethic that I'd just never had before. I helped with everything I could, pricing stock, painting, cleaning...no task was turned down. The night before Hidden Fortress opened, I literally worked through the night getting things onto the shelves, ready for the grand opening weekend, which would culminate in the Test of the Emerald Champion Global Storyline Tournament. By that time, I'd made a fair few friends at the various L5R tournaments I'd been regularly attending, and enough of them turned up to make it that weekend a success.

I sat down to chat to Ed and Pete before heading back to Rhyl, and they offered me a job. I weighed up my options, and it didn't take me long to accept. Moving to a new town at almost the other end of the country was a daunting prospect, but I think I'd realised by that time that if I didn't escape Rhyl soon, I probably never would. The chance to help build a gaming community, particularly L5R, and to almost reinvent myself was something I couldn't afford to turn down, and I moved for good a week or so later.

Fast forward three months or so, and we reach the start of April 2001. The store is going well, although a sixty hour week is about average for me at the time, and would remain so during my time at the Fortress. L5R was doing extremely well at the store, and we were also having some success pushing the WWF Raw Deal CCG, a game I'd taken up ironically enough when Daz's car broke down on the way back from a Nottingham L5R tournament and we'd wanted something to do that evening while we stayed in a service station motel and waited for his car to be fixed. The guys back in Rhyl were playing it as well, and we were hosting a weekend-long series of tournaments for the game. I'd invited Mike down for it, but he couldn't afford to make the trip, largely due to the fact I still owed him 50 pound (stupid American keyboard) from just before I had left and moved down to Southampton. Instead, he'd stayed in North Wales and was going on what used to be a regular night out for us: a coach ran from Rhyl to the Memorial Hall in Wrexham, where they ran a rock/metal night every month.

As an aside, I'm a big fan of the author Patrick Rothfuss, and the two books he has published so far both start with a description of 'a silence of three parts'. Well, I feel a guilt of three parts over Mikey's death, and that right there is the first part. If I'd paid Mikey the money instead of holding off for a month, he'd have been in Southampton that weekend.

Anyway, the Raw Deal event went fine, although I got a puzzling phone call from a friend in North Wales asking if I'd heard anything from Mikey, as no-one had seen him since the previous evening. I hadn't, but we both assumed he'd either pulled and was in a strange woman's house, or he was sleeping off a heavy night somewhere.

Just as everyone was leaving, around 4pm or so, I got another phone call, this time from Big Paul, a close friend and one of the nicest people I've ever met. Paul is an intimidating figure when you first meet him, as he's a huge barrel of a man with tattoos and a shaved head, so when his voice broke on the phone, I knew something really, really bad had happened.

Paul had found Mikey a job working with him, and the two of them were very close. They'd gone to the Memorial Hall the night before along with several of our other friends, and a considerable amount of alcohol had been consumed. On the way back, the coach had stopped at a service station to refuel, and apparently Mikey had got off to answer the call of nature. The coach had then left without him, and Mikey had shortly afterward stumbled onto the motorway ramp, where he was hit by a car and died instantly. There was little if any chance Mikey, dressed all in black with long dark hair, would have been visible to the driver, and it was a total accident. He was twenty-five years old.

Paul collapsed in tears while telling me this, and his girlfriend had to take the phone off him to fill me in on the rest of the details. I thanked her, and numbly put the phone down. I remember sitting on the bottom of the stairs in the store, just stunned. Pete and Ed asked what was up, and I told them. They were extremely supportive, offering me time off and whatever else I needed. I wandered off to my tiny two room flat, stopping only to pick up a ridiculous quantity of beer on the way.

That night is one of the longest and most painful experiences I've ever had. To be so far away from the people I cared about, to be alone and helpless to do anything...it just devastated me. I drank bottle after bottle to try and escape what to me were two simple facts. You see, while I was pretty much a good for nothing waste of space back in North Wales, I'd been going out regularly since I was fourteen, and that meant I could really hold my beer. I could at that time count on one finger the number of times I'd been falling-over drunk, and although I had the tendency to get into fights every now and then, I took it upon myself to watch out for us when we were out. Others might get so drunk they needed to be carried home, but not me. I hesitate to describe myself as responsible, but I was at least a caretaker for our drunken shambling horde.

That's the second part of my guilt. To this day, I regret not being there. To this day, I feel I let my friends down with my absence, friends who had given so much to me. I should have been there when Mikey needed me, and I wasn't.

It won't surprise you that a lot of tears were shed that night. The only thing that stopped me spiraling totally out of control was the phone calls from friends back in North Wales. They were a lifeline to me...they kept me grounded, talked me through my pain, anger and grief, cried along with me. These people who I knew from playing a card game kept me sane when I was close to breaking.

There's a lot more I could go on to write here, about Mikey's funeral and him being buried in one of the L5R team shirts we'd had made up, about my time in Southampton and then Huddersfield and the pivotal role L5R played all throughout that, but my rambling has to come to an end at some point.

So, let me explain what the third guilt I carry is. See, Mikey's life inspired me. He played the game in the right way, he carried himself with honour and dignity, and he never took himself too seriously. I cherish the memories of him that I have, and wish more than anything that I could spend another hour in his company, get a game or three in. However, it took his death to change me. Maybe I'd have eventually grown up if he hadn't died...but his death shook me more than anything else ever has, and put me on the path to being a better person. It's a long path and I'm right at the start, but at least I'm on it. I wish I could have been that person while he was alive, and more than anything, I wish that it hadn't taken his death to force me to look at my life and make the changes I had to.

Just like with Mikey, I'm sure I'd have met some of my card-playing friends eventually. A lot of us share similar interests, and social circles have a way of intersecting. That should never lead to complacency though. The fact is we all have bonds of friendship because of L5R, and without it, we'd be lesser people. I'm grateful more than I can ever express for every game, every conversation, every friend this game has ever given me. And I'm blessed that it gave me the chance to know Mikey.

Sleep well, my friend.

AEG to auction off Tournament to Benefit the Blackburn family

2011-03-31T12:46:00.001-04:00

As you may have heard, the daughter of Jolly Blackburn, an instrumental voice in both gaming and the creation of L5R has recently passed. Everyone who knows or knows of Jolly and his family are deeply saddened by the loss of Amber, so please take this opportunity to keep them in your thoughts and prayers even if you don't know them.

BoardGameGeek is having a charity auction to raise funds to cover the family's hospital expenses. In this vein AEG has decided to help and so can you. Visit AEG's main page for more information on how you can help and get some cool L5R stuff in the process.

We at elfiver would like to send our own thoughts and condolences the way of anyone affected by the loss of Amber.

Packaging Bonanza

2011-03-31T10:18:00.002-04:00

In case you missed it, AEG made a huge announcement yesterday that you can file under packaging. Building on the success of last set's new boxes they've taken the idea and ran with it. Too much? Time will tell, but they are lookin' pretty sweet so far. Can't wait to get my hands on some. Check out some picture links below.

The new Mantis themed box.

The Crane themed one.

Top and bottom lids.

The packs 'n' decks.

Again, I really like the idea of sustainable, reusable boxes. Good for my pocket and good for the environment. I'm not sure I like the new graphic design work on the packs and boxes, but I'm sure with time I'll warm to it.

elfiver Exclusive - Slazcond Place DC Kotei Report

2011-03-29T12:52:00.006-04:00

DC Regular, Spider aficionado and blog reader Chris Slazinski, known to those around the game as "Slaz" was gracious enough to volunteer his tournament report of Saturday's Rockville Kotei where he finished second to the blog's very own Andy Moul. What follows is Chris's account of the tournament as well as his Spider Breeder decklist from the event. I'd like to personally extend my thanks to Chris for lending his expertise to the blog and would like to congratulate him for making it as far as he did.

Round 1: Barry Kunz, Dragon TKM Enlightenment
In the first two turns I pretty much guess Barry is playing enlightenment, and so that dictates a slower game than I would normally play as I send only Taizo and 2 chi zombie tokens for the first few attacks, not giving him a chance to get Ring of Fire into play, meanwhile Barry is able to get the rings of Earth and Void into play. Finally Barry gets a pair of 1 chi duelists on the board and manages to get Ring of Fire into play off of them. On the last turn I attempt to go for his last two provinces and he naturally bunches up at one, due to a play mistake on my part he easily manages to get the remaining two rings in play and Enlighten.
0-1

Round 2: , Lion CC Cavalry
This was an interesting game, my opponent was playing a lion cavalry deck that was playing more like a unicorn deck, with a lot of force pump and movement, but very light on actual battle actions. He manages to take an early province with his cavalry due to me not drawing a Settling the Homeless, but I build up enough zombies that I can start providing coverage to all of my provinces, with Unclean Sacrifice in hand to mitigate the Sneak Attacks. I start taking 1 province a turn while keeping my own safe, and start killing off his army. Eventually he runs out of proactive battle actions and I wipe out his army, and I swarm to take his last two provinces unopposed.
1-1

Round 3: Karl Prince, Ronin
Karl gets a slower start due to the fact that he is forced to go first against me, but eventually builds up a respectable army of Ronin Heroes while I start amassing zombies and get the Dark Oracle of Fire out. Karl starts pulling out some of the unique Ronin, but I had managed to draw 3 of my kill actions, which paired with Dark Oracle let me decimate his personality base. After winning the attrition war I managed to stay ahead of him and take his remaining provinces.
2-1

Round 4: Mark Armitage, Phoenix CoT Last One
Mark is usually a Spider player, and Fu Leng was apparently punishing him today for jumping clans since he kept running into Spider opponents. He managed to pull out a turn 2 Ochiai xp3 while I bought the broken Udo + Chuda Inisi start. Mark dueled Inisi to bow him with his first action, and then attached two Consumption of Fire to Ochiai and zeroed both of my Shugenja, with the intention to kill both of my Shugenja. Fortunately I was holding a Settling the Homeless to keep my Shugenja alive, and then we started into an attrition war. Again I got the Dark Oracle into play and did a good job of keeping Mark from getting enough personalities to play The Last One on Ochiai. I get ahead of him in the province race and manage to keep a well-equipped Ochiai at bay long enough to win.
3-1

Round 5: Dan Jacobson, Crab SPC Berzerkers
Dan manages to apply early pressure while I bounce on my first attack thanks to Hida's Guidance, but I consolidate and manage to hold him off long enough to even up the provence race, despite him playing 2 Claw and Shells to kill my tokens. Eventually I pull ahead and manage to take his remaining provences.
4-1

Round 6: Bob Martin, Scorpion FoBS Magistrate Dishonor
Bob does a decent job pulling my honor down, and with an early Successful Bounty kept a lot of pressure on me, however I managed to draw all 3 of my Oyo Seidos to keep my honor in the low negative teens. Eventually I manage to drain his hand and build enough bodies up that I could ignore Jutsushi and take his last province.
5-1

Round 7: Dan Dineen, Mantis AV Blitz
Dan gets a turn 1 heartlands, but is unable to attempt the turn 1 blitz that he managed to pull off earlier in the day. He still buys out 2 bodies, and turn 2 I clear off two of his heartlands tokens with Claw & Shell, but he still manages to take a province. Turn 3 I put 4 bodies in front of him, and after a Claw and Shell and 3 Flanked by Nightmares (2 naturally, a third after I Scouting Far Afield one back into my hand) I clear his board and he concedes since I have the game at that point.
6-1

Top 8: Jeremy Kilburn, Crab SPC Berserkers
Game 1 I draw enough Routs and kill actions to keep Kilburn's guys at bay, and his fate hand was fairly poor for this matchup. I start taking provinces while Game of Sincerity helps stop a Yaheko xp with Chag's Armor from running roughshod all over my own.

Game 2 Jeremy flips a turn 3 Census followed by a turn 4 Crossing, and I don't see the forewarning. He manages to take 1 province while my shugenja actually have to fight to hold the remaining provinces. Eventually he flips Hida's Guidance and Kuon, while I get him down to 1 province, and he attacks all 3 of my remaining provinces. Kuon sacs himself to the guidance to take one of my provinces, and he manages to generate enough force where I put my remaining army to take the province and still have enough to take my third (undefended) province.

Game 3 I draw into the early forewarning, but don't need it. I manage to draw enough kill actions to keep his body count low and start taking 1 province at a time while holding back defenders, and Kilburn keeps defending at the provinces I don't defend at. Eventually he is forced to go for my 3 remaining provinces again, but this time I am able to hold him off more successfully and win the game.

Top 4: David Lapp, Scorpion PCS Dishonor
Daigotsu Oki wins games.

Game 1 He puts early pressure on me, and double Castle of Water + Outer Walls and Settling the Homeless manage to keep me from taking an early province, but he isn't able to drain my honor fast enough to offset the Oyo Seido I have, and the 6 honor spike from Oki keeps me afloat long enough to win at -17.

Game 2 David gets a horrible gold start, double Border Keeping into only 1 holding, but still is able to put pressure on me despite this. An early Oki spike is offset by an Unfortunate Incident, and David drops his own honor enough to hit me with a second UI later in the game. He builds up a large number of bodies to defend his last province, and I attack at -17. He drops me to -19 during the fight, but I am able to send home his Shadowed Court personalities and Private Shrine + Might of the Shadowlands + 2 Border Ambush give me the huge force swings I need to smash his last province.

Top 2: Andy Moul, Crane Embassy Honor
See Andy's report for this matchup. I haven't had any experience with this matchup, so was forced to learn on the fly. Game 1 I start with a strong Fate hand of 2x Questionable Charity, Border Ambush, and a Settling the Homeless to remove presence, but my draws + Dynasty don't gel together enough for me to race his 3(!) Impromptu Duels spiking his honor. I attack at 36 hoping he didn't have enough honor gains in his hand, but he did and crossed so I concede and move to game 2.

Game 2 I start feeling the time pressure and start making risky attacks, but Andy manages to fend them off and start heading to 50. Andy also manages to get all 3 Doji Umakai on the board to essentially shut down my token production, while I don't get enough Udos to compensate.

About the deck:
It's a fairly standard breeder deck, in my mind the natural evolution of Ornatov's deck following The Dead of Winter giving it a significant power boost between Hachigoro, Chuda Inisi, and Unnatural Hunger. It's not the most innovative or creative deck in the field at the moment, but it has two things that are really important (in my opinion) for the current metagame: It is consistent and fast. I generally find myself with enough bodies that I can either safely swarm a single province and keep enough guys at home to defend, or send 4-5 guys apiece at multiple provinces late game and force the opponent to split his defense. The deck also does a good job of just winning through the attrition war, thanks to the fact that the deck is loaded with kill actions, and enough additional ways to generate tokens to boost my numbers.

Fields of the Dead

1x The New Order
1x Alter History

2x Private Shrine

3x Expendable Resources
3x Oyo Seido
2x Border Village
2x Barley Farm
3x Shinomen Marsh
2x Traveling Peddler
1x Dark Oracle of Fire

1x Chuda Seikai
1x Daigotsu Susumu
1x Daigotsu Oki
3x Hachigoro
3x Chuda Otsu
3x Daigotsu Taizo
3x Chuda Atsuro
3x Udo
3x Chuda Inisi

3x Game of Sincerity
3x Rout
3x Settling the Homeless
2x Unfamiliar Ground
3x Final Duty
3x Border Ambush
3x Unclean Sacrifice
3x Flanked by Nightmares
3x Scouting Far Afield
3x Unnatural Hunger //The worst card in the deck
2x Questionable Charity
2x Might of the Shadowlands
2x Forewarning
3x Claw and Shell
2x Caught Unawares
1x Ultimate Sacrifice

elfiver Exclusive - Superior at Last: 1st Place DC Kotei

2011-03-27T19:12:00.007-04:00

Let me start off by thanking Aaron, Nick and Andrea for a superb job as the event staff running one of the few flawless Koteis I’ve been to. DC is about a 2 or 2 ½ hour drive from Philadelphia and definitely worth the trip for an event like this. About 2 weeks ago I decided not to play Mantis for this but instead to try Crane honor, oh the horror! Without further ado, here is a summary of my running of the gauntlet.

Round 1 – Paul Scorpion Ninja

Paul gets 2 early ninjas and straps on a follower to put himself in province taking range. I’m already in the 20’s before he is able to assign. Use of the favor and my fistful of defense keep me at 3 provinces going into my turn to cross. He isn’t able to put together the final surge and I end on 3 provinces and 40 honor. Record: 1-0.

Round 2 – Sascha Spider TLO

Sascha flips Kyuden Suzume and I figure that some Spider monks are in order (see description in round 6 for detail). Spider monks have a lot of unbow and movement so I know I need a very solid defense. I start to see breeder type cards (Inisi, Atsuro, etc.) and quickly start to wonder what I’m in store for. Paneki’s Disgrace hits the board and The Last One is dropped. Luckily I’m at 36 before he is able to attack and Oki makes sure I end on 3 provinces and 40 honor. Record: 2-0.

Round 3 – Bob Martin Scorpion Dishonor

Bob is in my playgroup in Philly and we start the head shaking following parings. Lunch break is up after this round. Knowing that honor versus dishonor is about as fun as high-fiving a wood chipper we decide to roll off and get an early break. I win 7-5. Record: 3-0.

Round 4 – Rich Phoenix TST

Rich starts off a bit slower but quickly builds an army containing a number of 4-5 chi duelists. This presents a problem for me considering I’ve only got 2 duelists who can match that. Luckily a very well timed Peaceful Discourse on Tsukimi gives me 5 honor and lets me hang onto 4 provinces hitting 40. Record: 4-0.

Round 5 – Chris Medico Mantis DGC

Chris races out of the gates compared to my 15 honor at his first attack. Not enough bodies and a few poorly timed decisions put me in a real hole with him having 4 guys with beefy followers against my 3 provinces with me at 32 honor. A Height of Courage, Fearless Defense and couple of passes later he takes all 3 and I end on 32. Record: 4-1.

Round 6 – Cody Smallwood Spider Monks

After dropping my first last round I fully intend to get right back to it in round 6. Then I get paired against whom else but my brother. We know each other’s decks very well and that shows in the early game. He double BKs first turn into 1 holding. Next turn doesn’t go well either and then he brings out a guy for me to duel and I hit the 24 honor mark before a concession is issued. Truce amongst brothers. Record: 5-1.

Round 7 – “Mouth” Spider ChiBreeder?

Mouth is from the Harrisburg group that I started in (along with several other transplants: Cody, Barto, Chris Russell, etc.). Mark Cimino has done a great job keeping this group alive and prospering. Mouth was on somewhat of a run with his hybrid breeder control deck before dropping his first the last round. Our game goes pretty well for me and it is tough to beat a comrade, but to the victor go the spoils. His deck isn’t setup to beat honor effectively and he knew that coming in. Record: 6-1.

So it is cut time and I’m sure that at 6-1 I am in. Standings go up and I’m 3rd. Well played sir. Well played.

Top 8 – “Mouth” Spider ChiBreeders?

So Mouth seems to have the worst luck today, because not only did he drop round 7 to me he also drew me in the finals. He knows that his weakness is honor and he draws the only honor player in the top 8. Yikes. We begin and go back and forth in the first game with me hitting 32 when he decides he is ousted. Elims: 1-0.

Next game is even worse for Mouth and he has much less to work with. Paneki’s Disgrace hits the table and is dishonored and dueled to the death. Ujisato hits a Claw and Shell and Mouth decides he has had enough torture. Elims: 2-0.

Top 4 – Chris Medico Mantis DGC

A chance to avenge my only loss! Challenge accepted. In the first game I get a reasonably quick jump. A ton of small honor gains without losing provinces help me through the 20s. Chris’ dynasty flips are less than desirable and I get to 47 before he is able to threaten the remaining 3 provinces. I save one or two? Either way the loss has been avenged. Elims: 3-0.

In the second game my start in honor is far superior to his start in production. Gains in chunks of 3 or 4 propel me into the 30s before an attack is launched. I’ve got 4 provinces at 37 when I’m able to Hamstrung and Chris concedes the match. Elmins: 4-0.

Final – Chris Slazinski Spider Breeder

Slaz is a local to DC and a very good friend of Aaron Barto the T.O. (who is also a longtime friend of mine) and an all around great guy. Regardless of outcome the game will be extremely pleasant. I get a very good start in terms of production and fate sequence. Duels get me quickly through the 20s and into the 30s with 4 provinces still intact. In the meantime Slaz has resolved an Alter History that I am not able to Subversive. I hit 36 but promptly drop to 31. Next turn I am able to climb back to 36 with my 3 provinces still holding strong. He attacks at 2 and I drop the old double Wall of Honor for the win. Elims: 5-0.

In game 2 again I start fairly decently and then on turn 3 Slaz is able to resolve The New Order again without any help from Subversive. Knowing that I am up against the 50 honor mark I play this game much more defensively and give up the speed for building a better resistance. Two early Umakais and the 3rd before the end of the game help as well. Not to mention this game I see 3 Claw and Shell as opposed to 0 the previous game. Slaz cracks 2 provinces when I’m in the upper 30s and low 40s. I hit 47 and he begins his turn. I have the Peaceful Discourse (for 1 honor – bah Spider) and a Wall of Honor, but time is called and the modified Palmer rule gives me the victory. Elims: 6-0.

At this point I would like to thank all of my opponents throughout the day for playing me and allowing me to have a lot of fun while playing some extremely competitive matches. This is probably the first event in a long time that I didn’t have a single negative thing to say about the event or the players in it. Winning might help that right?

About the deck, it is pretty standard Crane dueling honor. The idea for the deck is that you have a chance to win each and every game you play with it. That being said this is not a deck that will win the game for you, because there a ton of key decisions about balancing gold/honor/board control. If anyone is interested in specific card choices I will be more than happy to answer here. I have always been an advocate of sharing decklists and believe decklists should be posted for all major events. So I give to you:

Embassy of the Crane

# Dynasty (40)

# Events (2)
1 Winter's Embrace
1 Last Line of Defense

# Celestials (1)
1 Daikoku's Guidance

# Regions (2)
1 Mountainous Region
1 Well-Defended Border

# Holdings (15)
3 Marketplace
3 My Father's Shrine
3 Famous Bazaar
2 Barley Farm
1 Traveling Peddler
1 Counting House
1 Chugo Seido
1 Kitsune Den

# Personalities (20)
3 Doji Shikishi
3 Doji Umakai
3 Kakita Yosuga
3 Kakita Hideo
2 Doji Ayano
1 Doji Ayano - exp
1 Kakita Noritoshi - exp3
1 Daigotsu Oki
1 Doji Domotai - exp4
1 Kakita Hideo - exp
1 Otomo Seimi

# Fate (40)

# Strategies (39)
3 Hamstrung
3 Favor of Artisans
3 Snow-Swept Summit
3 Distractions in Court
3 Imperial Adjudication
3 Impromptu Duel
3 Peaceful Discourse
3 Weigh the Cost
3 Steel on Steel
3 Reinforce the Gates
3 Claw and Shell
3 Subversive Influence
3 Wall of Honor

# Rings (1)
1 Ring of the Void

5 reasons why YOU should attend the Rockville Kotei:

2011-03-21T13:36:00.006-04:00

Before the readership accuses the blog of homer-ship I would like to admit that this will be my first DC/NoVA/MD kotei in a number of years. With home base now being the greater Philadelphia area this is the closest Kotei in terms of travel time. At any rate, please see my countdown style justification for your attendance in Rockville next Saturday 3/26.

5) Baltimore, MD & Washington, DC – While Rockville is closer to DC than it is to Baltimore, you can still parlay the trip for the Kotei into a visit to an underrated American tourist attraction: Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. As many people originally from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia know there are many national historic sites in Washington, DC. Ok so maybe bi-yearly field trips have jaded those of us close enough to have been here as kids, but for someone foreign to the mid-Atlantic this could be a sweet weekend trip. Where else can you visit two great historic cities, play in a Kotei and enjoy some coastline all in a weekend without visiting radioactive California. Three airports (BWI, Reagan, Dulles) will help you get here with ease and offer a series of options as BWI is a hub for Southwest and Reagan/Dulles are connections for most major airlines.

4) T.O. Aaron Barto – So this is where homer-ism comes into play, because I’ve known Aaron since high school. Nonetheless the general consensus is that he has done a terrific job recently with the Kotei’s in the DC-metro area. The prize support is best-in-class including unique and tasteful top-in-clan prizes that will be stylish relics of your achievements for years to come.

3) Generally open field of players – Without inducing too much hysteria about “who’s who” in the DC and surrounding areas this Kotei has been won by several different people over the last few years. Near as I can tell the field is typically balanced with most supporting their faction. Also, as seen above, Aaron is running the tournament and therefore unable to win. That helps!

2) Generally open field of decks – There will always be the “my clan can’t win” naysayers in every arc, but early 2011 Kotei results show that most clans have a fairly good shot at making a run. We’ve seen consistent performers but nothing that is truly dominating the field in the early running. Most every deck has some sort of bad matchup, and a lot of innovative ideas have been making runs deep into the elimination rounds. This week will be no different.

1) No pre-registration needed – Most T.O.’s will tell you that pre-registration really helps them get an idea of the attendance at events and there is no disagreement here. However with plenty of seats, this Kotei will be ready for all who are able to make the trip. Even if you are attempting to throw together a last minute road trip, simply hit the doors before 10 A.M. and the staff will get you ready for round 1!