Elemental Cycle – Pack 3 – The Fires Within
We’re back with another Elemental Cycle Pack, this time The Fires Within, focusing on the destructive element of Fire.
Abandoning Honor is the Fire province in this cycle’s line of neutral provinces. As with the others, we have 3 province strength, with a +2 bonus if you’re running a Fire role. All these provinces have had effects that trigger when then province is broken, and this time, when the province breaks, you can target a dishonored character and discard them. You do need to have a dishonored target, but they don’t need to be in the conflict. That’s not quite Feast or Famine, the favored Fire province for those with a Fire role – but if you can reliably dishonor an opponent’s character, it comes close. As such, this becomes a strong province for Scorpion, who would be replacing Meditations on the Tao, a province they often look to lose, since once it is face up, its surprise value is lost. This addition to the Scorpion line-up will, no doubt, improve an already scary row of provinces.
42 Hiruma Kogoe
As a 2/1 for 2 Fate with Sincerity Hiruma Kogoe is good value. She’s unique, Crab’s first in the 2-cost slot, which gives resistance to some card effects such as Karmic Twist, as compared to the two mainstays of that cost slot, Shrewd Yasuki and Vanguard Warrior. What will determine her viability is whether or not she can trigger her ability. Her ability works best if you are bidding 1 or 2 – and helps with card quality – but you need to be on lower honor when the draw phase begins. On turn 1, she works against any clan with a higher base honor, but, after that point, she requires you to drop your honor while also bidding low. The Pragmatic Crab archetype is meant to spend honor on powerful effects like Assassination and Spreading the Darkness, so that’s her natural fit.
Her ability is useful in that it allows you to move the best card from the top three to the top, guaranteeing you will draw it, and the ability’s effectiveness is magnified the fewer cards you draw. (If you’re drawing three or more cards, her ability, in fact, has no effect.)
Importantly, she has the Sincerity trait, which means she’ll draw you an extra card when she leaves play. This is a fantastic bonus for the deck types she is clearly intended to help and is almost reason enough to play her in any deck (as Phoenix do with the otherwise lackluster Naive Student). You also have to consider the relative clan strengths as well, Sincerity is just a better trait in Crab, which makes Kogoe a solid addition in the #alwasybidone style Crab deck, especially with sacrifice effects where her draw from Sincerity can be triggered on a whim. She’s a solid card, will see some play, since unique and Sincerity both have value.
The Sadane Student is Crane’s addition to the series of characters who get a ring bonus depending on which rings their player has claimed. Rather than costing 1, like the others, the Student is a 2-cost Courtier who starts with 1 military and 2 political skill – a very small increase for the additional fate. Once you claim the air or fire rings, the student gain an extra +2 political skill bringing it to a healthy 4 political.
As with the other ring based characters, there is the challenge of claiming a relevant ring in the first place. For Crane, claiming a political ring can be easy, but this means only one other political conflict in which to take advantage of the Student’s skill boost. However, if the Crane can win a military conflict first, Sadane Student gains more options, and can be better used to attack. Like most of the others, the Sadane Student has an efficient fate-to-skill ratio, but only under specific circumstances. Otherwise, she possesses only average stats with an essentially blank ability. Given Crane’s excellent selection of existing 2-cost characters, it would be surprising to see Sadane Student make an impact.
At 4 fate, the Master Alchemist is on the higher end of the curve for characters, and with only 3 military and 1 political skill, her ability needs to be worth it. As an action during a conflict, you can pay 1 fate to the fire ring (regardless of its current status) to honor or dishonor a character, essentially triggering the fire ring’s effect. Since the Master Alchemist is 2 glory herself, she can become a 5/3 with a small additional investment.
As with all the spend-to-ring abilities, clever management can allow you to quickly reclaim the fate. However, these abilities also come with the risk of handing that fate over to your opponent. But, like many Shugenja, the Alchemist does not need to be in the conflict to take her action. This means you can use her ability to honor herself during a defending conflict, and then attack with her, reclaiming the fate spent. Since her ability it is an action on a character, you can copy it with Togashi Yokuni, and use it twice per turn with Way of the Dragon. These combinations could potentially lock down an entire board if left unchecked for more than a turn.
At 4 cost, the Master Alchemist doesn’t have too much competition in Dragon decks which currently play Niten Master and Kudaka. As the Monk deck develops Togashi Tadakatsu and Ascetic Visionary also gain value. Dragon characters, however, don’t typically have great glory values so the benefits from honoring up may be limited. Nonetheless, the Alchemist seems like a solid addition to any Dragon deck.
With a limit of 1 per deck, The Wrath of the Kami falls into the same category as Kanjo District and Karada District when it comes to design but, unfortunately for the Dragon, this card does not have the same impact. This card trades honor for province strength, potentially saving a province from destruction. Honor is a limited resource, however, so this isn’t a trick you’ll be able to use indefinitely. Current Dragon decks typically bid the maximum 5 to power their conflict deck, leaving minimal honor for other purposes.
As a holding, it is going to randomly appear in one of your main provinces face-up. This means your opponent gets to decide whether they attack it or not with no surprise factor. Since they need to destroy 3 provinces before moving to your stronghold, this card can be essentially ignored by your opponent. It is worth noting that you can use Mountaintop Statuary and Rebuild to move The Wrath of the Kami onto your stronghold, but the return on such an elaborate combo seems minimal. This is not a card we’re expecting to see in competitive decks.
What a fantastic card. A 1/2 for 3 fate is not a spectacular statline, but Ikoma Ikehata is a Courtier who could routinely spend the majority of his time as a 3-4, with all the potential upsides of being an honorable character in a lion deck (for example contributing while in an army with Implacable Magistrate, or defying death with Stand Your Ground). Coupled with the fact he has that sexy Covert keyword, this card represents an extremely interesting option for a clan that traditionally has had huge problems winning political conflicts. Being able to lock out a potential defender will also be a significant advantage for Lion, particularly early in the game where they will want to be as aggressive as possible with the new stronghold.
And we haven’t even mentioned the card draw Ikehata provides! The honoring effect is nice, but when card draw is thrown in to sweeten the deal, that’s going to lead to a lot of happy Lions. All in all, Ikehata looks too good to be true, which means there’s probably some hidden downside, and here it is: The 3 slot in lion is very hotly contested. Kitsu Spiritcaller and Lion’s Pride Brawler are staples of all Lion decks right now, and even Ikehata won’t changing that. This means that if you want Ikehata to be the “mane” event, then you’re going to be sacrificing the inclusion of either a 2-coster who is going to stabilize your curve or a 4-5 coster who is likely to have a more immediate impact when they hit the board. It’s a good problem to have options, and an even better problem to have great options and Ikehata will be a great option in the right deck. If there’s any knock on Ikehata, it’s that the “right” deck for him has probably not hit a critical mass in terms of the cards it needs to succeed…. yet. But his all-round utility should make him a worthy inclusion in any Lion build.
Let’s take it at face value for starters: The +2 province strength is going to be nice in a game that only seems to get faster with every expansion pack we see. Recursion of Weapons is nice, but, for that privilege, you have to sacrifice this card, and you only get the chosen Weapon back in your hand, making it necessary to pay for the Weapon to use it.
Let’s think about how the Armory would play out in a game: Lion currently don’t run many Weapons of great worth. The most common attachments in lion decks these days are probably Fine Katana and Ornate fan. Recursing a Fine Katana provides very limited value, but could prove to be a difference maker in a conflict. Looking deeper into Lion Weapons we see Honored Blade and Kamayari, neither of which currently see much use.
Realistically speaking, I think the +2 province strength could be largely irrelevant depending on your province line-up. With the ability to run The Art of War, Feast or Famine, Upholding Authority, and potentially Before the Throne/Demonstrating Excellence as your air province, Lion decks in the near future could abandon the idea of defending their provinces altogether, and look to come out on top in a faster-paced game through increased province busting potential with the new stronghold Hisu Mori Toride and gaining resources from their own provinces breaking.
Looking at how Ancestral Armory fits in relation to the other viable holdings for Lion, I would see the Armory as poor choice for most conquest-based decks, which would benefit more from the increased presence in conflicts provided by Favorable Ground, the card draw of Imperial Storehouse, or even the possibly (though highly unlikely) inconvenient Hito District.
The Armory lacks impact, is made even more irrelevant by having to sacrifice itself for its effect, and is just generally not very on- message when it comes to what Lion seem to be focusing on in the near future: Breaking provinces faster than anybody else and end the game quickly. This card doesn’t yet facilitate that major theme. Perhaps it will have a role to play in a Lion honor deck?
Characters that unbow, or which don’t bow due to conflict resolution always deserve a look, and Chikai Order Protector is no exception. As with many Phoenix abilities, there is a condition to be met. In this case, the Chikai Order Protector must defend, and must defend alongside a Courtier or Shugenja. Phoenix have no shortage of either character type, so the Protector’s ability should almost always be ‘on.’ In exchange for a 4-fate investment, plus whatever additional fate you choose to place on her, the Protector offers a defensive stat block that may activate in each defensive conflict. This makes the Protector significantly stronger when you are the second player, since you can defend twice and then attack with her. As the first player, you will either get to defend with her twice, or defend once and attack once.
The Protector could be a strong inclusion in defensive dishonor decks, where her 4/3 stats can place significant pressure on an attacker in terms of hand investment over multiple conflicts. In tempo decks, the Protector draws a closer comparison to Agasha Sumiko, as a character who can contribute to multiple conflicts per turn. Defending is worse than attacking, but the Protector is cheaper, and has a far less stringent requirement. One significant danger when playing the Protector is that an opponent will be able to remove the Courtier or Shugenja with whom the Protector is defending. In this case, the Protector will bow at the end of the conflict in a potential blowout move. Because of this, the Protector requires a much more developed board, and is probably only a worthy play from turn three onward, where Sumiko could be dominating a full turn earlier. Regardless, being in the same conversation as Sumiko speaks volumes for the Protector’s potential power. The Protector still has to contend for deck slots with stalwarts like Prodigy of the Waves, Master of Gisei Toshi, and Isawa Atsuko, along with Kudaka from the Breath of the Kami pack, and she does lack the coveted Shugenja trait, but with cards like Clarity of Purpose to keep her ready through certain attacks, it’s not unreasonable to expect the Protector to appear in most conflicts each turn. She could be a potent force moving forward.
49 Soshi Shiori
A lot of people freaked out when they first saw Soshi Shiori, concerned that she’ll be causing 4 points of honor loss a turn. I can reassure everyone that it’s very unlikely, because winning four conflicts in a turn is very difficult. Instead she’ll likely be causing 1 or 2, but, honestly, that’s still massive. The potential of winning a game, from apparently nowhere (or ‘reach’ in card game parlance), is one of the issues that can hinder Dishonor decks, which can often get opponents down to 2 or 3 honor, but can’t quite take those last few points. Shiori fixes that, fulfilling a similar role to the Blackmail Artist but on a bigger scale. If she hits the table turn 3, a lot of games are simply over. On top of that, she has a strong control influence. If she’s sitting on the table, even bowed, she may force your opponent to pass a conflict opportunity rather than risk running into a timely Assassination or For Shame!, losing that conflict, and suffering further honor loss.
The question then is: does she makes the cut, even given the power of her ability? First, she’s up against Bayushi Shoju in the 5 cost slot, and Scorpion are unlikely to want to play two dynasty characters that expensive, especially when they already have Bayushi Kachiko and A Fate Worse Than Death in their conflict deck. Shoju is a one-man army, capable of forcing through a ring against nearly any defender, but, outside of that, has limited value in a dishonor deck, which means replacing him is quite possible. Like the Soshi Shadowshaper, Shiori is Shugenja without the Courtier keyword, and there are still very few spells that require the keyword. Her stat line is poor in comparison to Shoju’s, but it appears that most 5-cost characters have weaker skills than the Core Set Clan Champions. A political skill of 5 is still enough to win most conflicts, and will help you to trigger her ability at least once each turn – potentially more than enough to swing a game. Testing will be needed to see if the loss of the Courtier trait is significant, but I suspect we’ll be seeing a great deal of Soshi Shiori going forward.
The Battle Maiden Recruit is the Unicorn’s addition to the elemental cycles theme of cheap characters who get bonuses for rings. In this case, we have a 0 cost character, reminiscent of the Crab’s rarely played Eager Scout. The Maiden becomes a 2 military 0 political character if you manage to claim either the Water or Void rings, both quite strong rings early in the turn.
As with the Eager Scout, she forces you to decide between allowing your opponent pass first or to gaining what might be a marginal increase. On the other hand, she does get boosted by Shinjo Shono, boosts Utaku Infantry, and will help with Unicorn’s outnumbering theme. With the Cavalry trait, the Maiden is a target for any Cavalry requirement cards and any discarded copies can come into play as an extra bonus during a Cavalry Reserves.
At +1 military and +1 political skill for 2 fate, the Wicked Tetsubō is a poor deal for an attachment, based on stats alone. Requiring the Berserker keyword to attach it also restricts it to only four characters: Crisis Breaker, Hida Amoro, Vengeful Berserker, and the upcoming Tainted Hero, and, in addition, anyone who bears the Seal of the Crab. So the ability better be pretty good…
When attacking, you get to chose a character and set their military or political skill to 0. That’s pretty amazing. This attachment more or less wins you a conflict, reducing their biggest character to 0 skill. And, since the duration of the ability is ‘until the end of the conflict,’ any modifiers applied to the skill after Wicked Tetsubō has been used are ignored, and the skill remains at 0. Therefore, the Tetsubo is, or at least can be, an extremely effective way of dealing with a ‘tower’ character. This may prove especially effective in the upcoming environment, where we’re expecting an increase in decks using multiple skill pumps. But the Tetsubō, unfortunately, cannot target a character who has already received a Spreading the Darkness.
The ability is really strong, but it’s difficult to fit that many berserkers in a Crab deck, making this a card held back by its deckbuilding restriction rather than a lack of raw power. But still, this is a card to certainly try out, since the effect is worth jumping through hoops for.
This 0-cost attachment essentially is a Favor of the Kami with a kicker and a Fire role requirement. Favor of the Kami never saw any play, since getting +1 glory alone just isn’t enough to justify a card slot. With Icon of Favor, you don’t even get the +1 glory unless you have the Imperial Favor. However, the kicker is that if you win a Fire conflict, you can honor the attached character. So, on a great day, you’ve just won the fire ring, already have the Imperial favor, and can trigger this for a lot of skill boosts. On a bad day, however, it’s a blank piece of cardboard.
However, another way to look at this card is as an extra Way of the Crane with a very limited trigger. From that perspective, it’s not too bad. You declare a fire conflict, and, if it looks like you’re going to win, you drop this attachment onto a character you want to honor. While one of the great things about Way of the Crane is that it’s always useful and has no conditions you can only play three of them. So, if you want more of a similar effect, Icon of Favor might be an option.
Where Icon of Favor was a limited Way of the Crane, Insult to Injury is a limited Way of the Scorpion. In this case, you need to have your Duelist character win a duel against the target you want to dishonor. Then you play this reaction from your hand. There aren’t actually a great array of Duelists in the game currently. The Dragon have Mirumoto Raitsugu, who is fantastic, and Mirumoto Prodigy, who isn’t. The Crane have Doji Challenger, who is fantastic and Kakita Kaezin, who isn’t. The Crane can also use their Seal of the Crane to add the trait to a character. So, already, Duelists seem light on the ground. For actual duel effects, we have Duelist Training, Kakita Kaezin, Mirumoto Raitsugu, the restricted Policy Debate, and the upcoming Game of Sadane. Again, not a great number of options.
Once you do manage to get a duelist and duel together, you need to somehow duel the character you’re looking to dishonor. If you’re looking to dishonor your opponent’s Togashi Yokuni who has an impactful 3 glory, you’re going to have to somehow beat his 5 skill in that duel. Alternatively, if you’re looking to do an extra point of dishonor to your opponent, you need to hope your opponent assigns that character with low skill and no fate. Unfortunately, this is a card that requires some stars to align, so the majority of the time it’s just going to clog your hand.
54 Smoke
Smoke is a debuffing attachment reminiscent of the Scorpion set of poisons; Fiery Madness and Tainted Koku. These poisons use stat penalties to control the board, reducing the opponent’s characters skill. Compared to those poisons, Smoke is a little more limited. It only affects non-uniques, destroys itself on use, and only gives a military penalty. Once triggered, the penalty affects your own characters as well as your opponent’s. On the other hand, the -2 penalty is quite impressive and it does give a penalty to multiple characters. As such, it may be very effective against swarm decks.
Currently, the Scorpion poisons see some, but not a lot of play. They primarily appear in heavily defensive decks which are focused on dishonor. Right now that is not an option for Dragon, so if Smoke does see play, it will be as a splash in another clan, or as a specific meta card should the swarm decks Lion and Unicorn are working on ever prove a significant threat.
Another role-locked card, this time to Void, Jurojin’s Curse is a variant take on Mono no Aware. Both cards accelerate the removal of characters in play – Mono no Aware by removing fate directly, and Jurojin’s Curse by re-running the fate phase. Both are limited to once per round. Additionally, as the fate phase is when fate is placed on unclaimed rings, Jurojin’s Curse also adds extra Fate to unclaimed rings, making it especially good if you will be first player next turn.
Where Mono no Aware is a 3-cost event, Jurojin’s Curse is a 0-cost attachment, but requires the character to which it is attached to be ready for its ability to activate. This requirement isn’t trivial, since most turns tend to end up with all characters bowed, but it’s not hard to set up either, should you wish. (And you can also attach it to an opponent’s ready character.) A further hidden restriction on Jurojin’s Curse is that the character it attaches to must have at least 1 fate (barring certain exceptions we’ll get to in a moment). If the character has 0 fate, they will be removed during the first fate phase, and the Curse’s ability will not trigger.
Characters like Lion’s Steadfast Samurai, or Crane’s Doji Shizue, who can remain in play even with 0 fate, could theoretically ensure Jurojin’s Curse triggers every single turn if they are ready. Neither of these clans has a Void role at the moment, but they may acquire one in the future. Another option is to drop a conflict character and the Curse during the action window that happens before the end of the fate phase. This will fulfill the Curse’s requirements, allowing it to trigger.
The two clans who currently do have a Void role are Scorpion and Unicorn. Scorpion have played with Mono no Aware, and may find the reduced fate cost of Jurojin’s Curse preferable, despite its additional conditions. In addition, Scorpion decks usually feature a number of conflict characters, and will occasionally have other characters unbowed, such as Sinister Soshi, who can bear the Curse as well. (Leaving a character unbowed to take the favor against the Scorpion may also prove dangerous, since it would leave them with a target on which to place the Curse. The Phoenix splash, which has a number of other reliable, impactful cards is already popular with the Scorpion, and the Curse only has an influence cost of 1. With Unicorn decks currently in flux and development, it is harder to see the Curse’s inclusion.
All in all, Jurojin’s Curse will may suffer the same fate as Mono no Aware: not being reliably impactful enough to warrant deck slots. And, as more cards release, and as the speed of the game increases, its use becomes even more questionable. Jurojin’s Curse remains a powerful effect, but one that requires set up, timing, and the right opportunity. All this may deny it regular play.
56 Infiltrator
The ability on the Infiltrator looks good, appearing to be almost as powerful as drawing a card. However, the game already has a similar ability in Pillow Book, which currently doesn’t see play and is probably a better effect. Stealing an opponent’s card feels like it could be powerful, but in reality, the likelihood of you hitting something you can’t use is much higher due to traits and reactions, and discarding from the deck doesn’t really matter until you’ve gotten rid of the whole thing.
The Infiltrator also has the terrible bid-based restriction that has been plaguing Scorpion and Lion cards. Wanting to encourage and reward a specific bid pattern is a good idea that provides some interesting design space, but, for weaker cards, they should still work if the bid is identical. In the current environment, most bids are 1 or 5, with very few reasons to bid 2 to 4. You are unlikely to be able to play this card until turn three in most games, and it simply isn’t a strong enough effect to warrant clogging your hand for that long. The Infiltrator is a card that looks more powerful and interesting than it unfortunately is.
The Shiksha Scout is a 2-fate conflict character with 2 military and 2 political skill, which is still relatively flexible but would be considered slightly less efficient than a 1-cost 1/1. While the Scout is in a conflict, you are considered to have an extra character in that conflict for the purposes of card effects. This helps power cards such as Press of Battle and seems to be one of the key themes for the new Unicorn cards. With 1 glory, there is the option to play the Scout after the last conflict to help take the Imperial Favor – something that is especially important with the current tiebreaker rules in tournaments as time winds down.
The Scout doesn’t work well with characters like Shinjo Shono as the ‘extra’ character has no skill. Without the Cavalry trait, the Unicorn cannot use this as a target for a number of their effects including their current stronghold. This Naga Scout then sits in a weird place where it helps some of the Unicorn themes but not all. If the Unicorn find themselves having trouble with outnumbering their opponent, then the Shiksha Scout will find a place.
Getting an extra use out of an attachment in a turn is pretty big, especially when it is useful in both military and political conflicts. Losing a fate from the character you move it onto is a harsh penalty, however, since you limit the lifespan of that character. Moving the Invocation onto a character without fate gets around this penalty, but does mean that the attachment will be leaving play with the character during the fate phase, but there are ways around this. The Giver of Gifts allows you to move the Invocation onto a third character, one who still has Fate, potentially offering you several more swaps for the following turn. Invocation is an interesting card, even if it only offers stats. As a Meishōdō card, it may interact with more cards in the future, and, if the rumors of Unicorn getting a stronghold similar to the new Lion one are true, the effectiveness of the Invocation of Ash will be increased.
Crab’s Watch Commander is a strong card, which has remained in Crab decks since the start of the game. It forces your opponent into a difficult situation where they have to lose honor or stop playing cards. This neutral event pretends to a similar impact, but ends up falling far short. First, it must be played in a political conflict. This in itself is not damning, since other powerful cards like Court Games have a similar restriction. However, its ability will generally be so low-impact than any restrictions at all look excessive. Each time a non-Courtier character uses one of their triggered abilities, their controller loses 1 honor. So, in order to gain any value from this card, you need to be able to put a player in such a dire situation that they have to win that conflict, and also have no other way of doing so outside triggered abilities on their non-Courtiers. As part of a hyper-focused dishonor strategy, maybe, maybe this card could have a place, but its restrictions, its unreliability, and the scope for playing round it mean that there will almost always be another option. And you are only allowed to play one per conflict, meaning they could clog your hand while you wait for the perfect opportunity to play it. It’s not impossible that this sees play, just improbable.
The Mantis Seafarer offers a straightforward exchange – 1 fate for 1 of your honor should the Seafarer win a conflict. For most players at most stages of the game, this will represent a good deal. Fate is a far more granular resource, with honor only really mattering when a player has an awful lot of it, or very little. The ability is also unlimited, meaning a Seafarer who finds his way into multiple conflicts can return a whole heap of fate.
As a conflict character, he is comparable to the excellent Tattooed Wanderer who costs 1 fate for similar stats, but with the Seafarer you need to win that conflict and lose an honor to equal the efficiency. You do miss out on the Wanderer’s option to attach to a character and grant them the Covert keyword – but you also don’t need to spend influence to include the Seafarer. And if the Seafarer manages to trigger his ability twice, he effectively becomes a 2/1 character for 2 honor, which would instantly make one of the best cards in the game. He’s not quite that good, since he does require an up-front fate investment, but his efficiency is unquestionable.
Sadly, he is role-locked to Air, meaning that currently, only Crane can play him.
Summary
Although this pack has a lot of interesting cards, it seems to have only a few cards that will see play. Hiruma Kogoe is a solid addition to Crab decks that like to bid low, where her Sincerity trait is of increased value. Crane realistically get very little out of the pack, but might find the Mantis Seafarer an interesting addition. For the Dragon, the Master Alchemist offers a powerful ability that could swing games given the right conditions. Lion get Ikoma Ikehata, a fantastic character whose innate strengths probably still outweigh his uneasy fit in current archetypes. The Phoenix don’t get much out of the pack, while the Unicorn get some minor additions in the form of Battle Maiden Recruit and possible the Invocation of Ash which may find a place in their rumored new stronghold.
The Scorpion, in contrast, get a few options. Abandoning Honor will go straight into their province row, giving it a significant boost. Soshi Shiori, even at 5 cost, provides a powerful addition to the Scorpion dishonor decks that have performed well since the game began. Lastly, Scorpion should probably test the Phoenix card Jurojin’s Curse, which may provide another effective element for control decks.
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3 Replies to “Elemental Cycle – Pack 3 – The Fires Within”
Its Chikai order, not Chiakai 🙂
My bad! Fixed. Thanks 🙂
thanks for the article!