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.
Who will win Worlds — Top of Clan Predictions
During our last Imperial Advisor podcast, the question was raised, who is going to win Worlds? The general consensus was that Crane is a serious contender, but I hedged my bets somewhat, suggesting that all clans apart from Unicorn had a shot. Let’s examine this a little more and have a look at some of the currently popular decks.
Toward a better constructed deck
In this article, Justin Walsh shares some of his guiding principles on constructing a tournament winning deck.
Meditations on the the Future
With the L5R Honored event last weekend, we saw an end to the competitive side of the single core environment. With that in mind, this article will look at the upcoming events and what the early environment might look like. Along with this, we have a starting decklist for each clan, to give a flavor of what might be.
The Single Box Environment
The Core Box
With the arrival of the new Legend of the Five Rings game, people are looking forward to playing some games. At Gencon 2017, the first tournament will happen. There will be similar tournaments at release across the world. To make sure enough product is available, these tournaments are going to use smaller deck sizes of 30/30 and only 1 core deck box. So with that in mind, let’s have a look to see what sort of environment this will result in.
Sample 1 Core Decks
Single core set decks are relatively basic when it comes down to it. There are a limited number of cards available for the dynasty deck. The conflict deck is heavily influenced by the traits that are in the dynasty side. To an extent, there is an optimal list for each clan (even if we can’t yet see it) and after that, it is just a matter of perfect play and getting lucky with the draw. Although not required, I’ve used the current role for each plan when putting together these decklists.
Updated post Gencon and L5R Honored.
Understanding Provinces
There are a total of 17 provinces in the game. One for each clan, and 2 neutral provinces for each elemental ring. Each game you are going to be attacking into these provinces, hopefully seeing the fourth province of your opponent as you finally crush their stronghold. Normally, your opponent will have one of each element. If your opponent is using one of the seeker roles, you can expect them to have two of that particular province. Understanding the provinces your opponent might have helps you prepare for what they do have.
Clan Focus – The Scorpion
At the dawn of the Empire, Bayushi, the Scorpion Clan founder, pledged to be the villian for the Emperor. Those acts the honorable Samurai cannot imagine, the Scorpion will. Where the honorable Samurai cannot go, the Scorpion are there. They work in the shadows and deal with the criminal’s of Rokugan, not out of self-interest or weakness, but out of loyalty. The Scorpion know there are certain things that need to be done that are distasteful to other Samurai. They sacrifice their own honor, so they can know of threats to the Empire before anyone else and they can deal with those threats with a subtle blade.