Defenders of the Wall – Crab Pack Review
Today we have Eoin giving his review on the Crab cards in the Defenders of the Wall. Along with some help from Justin covering the non-Crab cards.
…Elemental Cycle – Crab
In this article, we look at the Crab cards in the Elemental Cycle. To give some perspective, Pablo Pintor Espinosa has taken the time to add his own comments. The Spanish community is large and super competitive. Pablo was the winner of the Madrid Kotei, the largest of all the Kotei, and came second at the Birmingham Grand Kotei. Keep an eye for him at Worlds.
The Imperial Gauntlet — Decks to Test Against
Top players prepping for a tournament will put together a range of the decks they expect to face and play their chosen deck against this ‘gauntlet’. The first difficulty with this is picking out the right decks, hopefully, I’ve done a decent job below but any suggestions are welcome. Different environments have different playstyles and sometimes a deck that will do well in one area will underperform in another. At the most basic, does your environment typically bid high or low during the draw phase? Just that simple norm can shift which decks come out on top. This might mean you need to shift your playstyle to get the best out of each deck. The hard part then is getting the games in. Practice, practice, practice.
Crab Tactica – Draw Phase
Now that we are out of the Dynasty Phase, we need to talk about the Draw Phase. If the Dynasty Phase is about managing fate, then the Draw Phase is about managing honor.
The Imperial Environment
The first Imperial tournament is going to be at PAX south on January 12th followed by Cork on 27th January. So far, we have only the faintest idea of where the clans stand relative to each other as the Imperial cycle added 120 cards to the small starting card pool. At the end of January, we will have a pretty good idea, but that’s no good for us now. This Christmas, Imperial Advisor is giving you the gift of rampant and wild speculation. We’ve had limited testing and nothing to back it all up with. I’ve included win rates based on the results from the Lotus Pavilion tournament website. As tournaments, you’d hope that it would be a little more accurate, but that could still have a lot of noise. With that aside, we present, the Imperial cycle tier list.
Imperial Cycle – Crab
With the Imperial cycle finally out, let’s have a look at the Crab specifically to see what cards in the new packs go into their decks.
Imperial Cycle – Neutral
Although not a faction, the Neutral cards are the most important in any pack. They are playable by everyone and have the greatest potential impact on the meta. For the Imperial cycle a few stand out.
Crab Tactica – The Dynasty Phase
I’ve been carrying out a number of experiments with different opening turns for Crab with the goal of ironing out inconsistencies, and it’s been bearing some fruit. One of the difficulties in L5R is the amount of brain power the game requires, especially over the course of a long tournament, so any automation where decisions are concerned is welcome. I’ve been tinkering with some different mulligan priorities and build strategies. These priorities shift depending on board state, and they do have exceptions, but I’ve found some general guidelines which are helpful in most situations. These aren’t big revelations and I’m not the first player to talk about them. These seem to be common conclusions from across the world that we saw at Worlds, Pax, and Madrid. They do form a solid foundation for new Crab players, and are a key start to this series of Crab Tactica.
Crab Woes – A Reflection on Worlds
A lot of information about the L5R LCG’s competitive scene emerged from the World Championships this past weekend in Minnesota. Among the most surprising revelations was the Crab Clan’s failure to perform at expected levels. Despite decent participation numbers, Crab struggled in the format, with only a single challenger limping to the final cut. Different reasons have been offered as to why Crab failed – from the trollish to the bewildered. After my own series of bruising defeats, I have been trying to analyze what went wrong, and why, and I have a few hypotheses.
Clan Focus – The Crab
The Crab Clan, defenders of the Empire. Although they are famous for their wall and for their heavy armor and Tetsubo’s, the might of the Crab is in their Bushi. A lone Crab Bushi’s first thought when they are attacked by an Oni isn’t one of glory, it is to raise the alarm so that when they inevitably fall the rest of the Crab will be ready. While the Crab are occasionally scorned by the other Clans for their brutishness and lack of manners, it is not due to a lack of culture but instead a determined focus on their duty to protect the empire.