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SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
As I said, some of it is alternate timelines, the "What If the Foreigners weren't kicked out", basically, the Empress doesn't die, and it turns into Rokugan quite some time later, as they start to build railroads, and Samurai carry a daisho of gunpowder weapons as well as swords).

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Macdeo Lurjtux
Jul 5, 2011

BRRREADSTOOORRM!

SirFozzie posted:

As I said, some of it is alternate timelines, the "What If the Foreigners weren't kicked out", basically, the Empress doesn't die, and it turns into Rokugan quite some time later, as they start to build railroads, and Samurai carry a daisho of gunpowder weapons as well as swords).

Right but originally the gaijin weren't forcibly expelled, the whole battle was pretend to save face. The Empress wasn't really killed but abdicated and left willingly with the sailers after setting up secret trade agreements. The Tortoise Clan was founded to oversee this new trade agreement, to seek others and to provide cover to any of the Empress' descendants who wanted to return to Rokugan.

Though it looks like someone decided to change that sometime in during The Four Winds.

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
Weird, I never saw that, and I've been following L5R for a long long time.

edit: Oooh, today's previews are nice:

Dueling gets a MASSIVE boost: (Honor/military Duel)

Thousand Year Rivalry (FV3)
Kata • Kharmic

After the first time each turn any of your Personalities wins a duel, give him a +1F token. After your first challenge each turn is refused, gain 1 Honor.

And in my defensive deck, this will be a Summon Ujirou (either Daidoji or Kakita) Spell

Visions of Darkness
1GC

Void Open, (bow) Search your Dynasty deck for a non-Unique Personality with your Clan Alignment. Discard a card in one of your Provinces and refill it face-up with the Personality. Destroy this Spell.

FV 4


SirFozzie fucked around with this message at 09:52 on May 9, 2014

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
So mantis wins another kotei. . (Will with his second win in three weeks with the mantis. Big kotei too. 61 players.. 2nd largest so far. I played.. went 2-1 in the early rounds before lack of sleep ( 1.5 hours in 40 ) led me to mistakes and I dropped in the middle of round 5 to find a corner to crash in. Hope to have a good TCS deck ready for londonderry at the end of June

KO Derf
Jan 14, 2003

Doctor Rope

SirFozzie posted:

So mantis wins another kotei.
This is excellent news. I am quite happy that it was that deck with the Dark Naga too (I love that massive Ranged attack so much). Good to see someone put his ridiculousness to use.

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
Well, here's an Atlantic City Kotei report now that I'm home and at least caught up on SOME of the lost sleep:

I attended my first Kotei in over a decade this weekend, and it was.. memorable. First off, this trip only came together in the last week. Due to the last minute nature of things, the plan wasn't the greatest. All three of us worked various hours on friday, so none of us got sleep really before finally leaving on the trip outside Boston at 1 AM. And of course, it's very hard to get any sleep cramped up in a car (especially I was in the backseat, cramped in with everyone's bags, behind the driver). This would play a role later. Was a semi-interesting drive down, because it was foggy. Boy howdy was it foggy. I'm not talking about "a haze on everything" fog.... I mean "Almost unsafe at any speed" fog. We do make better time after the fog clears, and make it down to Atlantic City about 7:30 am. That means we only have about 90 minutes before the Kotei registration starts, so catching up on sleep is replaced by trying to find breakfast.

very cool to see the crowd. 61 players made it, which is the second biggest Kotei so far this year. I'm playing a deck I call "Semi-Turbo Semi-Honor All-Crane". Basically, it's a very defensive deck with honor holdings, and the Makoto/Hakuseki combo means that I could be proclaiming 5-6 honor a turn just from that.

Round 1: vs Spider Military: This is the first experience I have of the awesomeness that is Daidoji Ujirou live. This is how it usually went:

Opponent: I attack with my big dude (10F).
Me: Ok, I defend with Ujirou and Soken. I do Ujirou's special ability, that makes Ujirou 10F and Soken 10F. Your action?
Opponent: Wait.. what? (looks at card). Um.. I believe I may have made a mistake here..

Between Ujirou and various sendhome/favor stuff, I am up to 32 honor for the loss of only one province, and when it looks like he's about to bounce off another attack, he graciously concedes (as we had just hit the 10 minute warning). Good start (1-0)

Round 2: vs Dragon Dueling

I wince, as this is not a good matchup personal-wise.. my opponent is one of the two players who I rode down with, who's seen my deck before and I've never won against him. He wins a big duel early (he had an In stillness, so he had his deck set up to give him all four FV cards), and has a few Do Not Delays in hand to keep Ujirou from bothering his units (since he'd win the kill-duel, I have to decline, and Hojatsu sensei bows Ujirou from the refusal) as they come over and whittle me down one province at a time. I gramace, but what can you do? (1-1)

During this match, I realize that I'm in deep trouble.. I used two different types of black sleeves when building my deck.. and don't realize this till this game when I notice some of the card sleeves are "shiny black" and others have a pebbly texture to them. This violates the tourney rules that all cards have to be sleeved in the same type of sleeve (to prevent a marked cards-type issue), After the match completes, I have to report myself to the tourney judge. I know the penalty, and I'm expecting to be disqualified, which would really suck after driving down six hours. Thankfully, my self-reporting means that I have until the match is officially due to be reported to fix the issue, and thanks to my fellow Bostoni-tes grabbing a spare sleeve pack and helping me resleeve quickly, I manage to fix this issue with about two minutes to spare.

Round 3: vs Unicorn

A just about perfect start with him having a couple small personalities and I have enough folks to cover his cavalry shenanigans. I think I'm cruising with about 35 honor and three provinces left, but he keeps me from crossing (thanks to a Deeds Not Words), takes one, and then after I it comes down to him needing to take 2 provinces on the final turn. I defend furiously at one location, and just out-force him (but it's close). I'm shocked, that's 2-1 at the lunch break, which is honestly 2 more wins then I was expecting. (2-1)

Lunch break: I'm starting to hit the wall here, there was no food within walking distance of the Hotel that was being used for the Kotei, and I was tired enough not to realize that there's a restaurant in the hotel (it was kinda hidden and closed when we got there), so I grab a couple sodas and some chocolate to try to keep going. This becomes important later.

Round 4: (vs Crane Scouts)

This was a fun game. He whittles me down to two provinces (one of those situations where he has enough force to take a province solo or beat my army). I have one Ujirou/Soeka combo in play, but when I flip another Daidoji Ujirou and Kakita Ujirou combo in my two remaining provinces, I look over the situation and make a realization.. I have enough force to take two provinces... Normally, that would be a HORRIBLE idea, but with Ujirous x2 and favor around, I have enough defense to save ONE province (ie, he could not come back for two). Safe to say, he was NOT expecting this, and it rattles him. He does take one, so we're in a 2 v 1 situation, as we get very close to the time limit. If I had played slow, or even really like normal, we would have gone time, but I'd rather have a result if possible then have it decided by a random die roll. I look it over, and realize that he's about 2 Force above what he needs to destroy the army and take the province, and concede about five seconds before time is officially called on the round. So, I really threw away a chance at the round, but it would have been a cheap win and I think I'm prouder that I played it "the right way". (2-2)

Round 5: The combination of the franticness of Round 4, and a lack of sleep and proper food hit. I'm now at something like 1.5 hours sleep in the last 40 or so, and not having any solid food for about 10 (a kitkat bar and reese's pieces are not solid food). Remember that old commercial saying "Don't Bonk?" I bonked. I bonked Really Really hard. In the process of this game, I get "punch drunk" to the point that I am unable to focus on the cards (blurred vision, etcetera). I inform my opponent (who probably would have won even if I was playing with all my mental facilities) that I'm conceding.. I manage to fill out the slip, and decide to drop out since I'm eliminated from the knockout rounds. Thankfully, someone goes down to the restruaunt for me and grabs a burger and fries.. I manage to eat the food, and after a bit of recovery, I manage to find a quiet corner of the Kotei to lean against my bag and put my head down. (2-3, did not participate in Round 6)

I don't manage to play any more (I napped through the beginning of a second chance draft tournament). So it turned out well, we got a pack of the new Coming Storm cards as a participation prize..

One of our three have made it to the knockout rounds, so we hang around for that, and then to cheer on our fellow Boston-area players (one of whom ended up winning the tournament), and grab a cheapo family suite at a local motel to give us eight hours sleep (we barely stayed awake long enough for the delivery guy to get there with "dinner") before leaving for home sunday morning.


So what did I learn? First off, to plan better. When your plan is "Work a full day, drive multiple hours in the middle of the night and get to the tournament site right before it starts".. get a better plan. I had a blast however, and hopefully this will put me in good stead next month when I take part in another Kotei (thankfully one in a place only like an hour and a half away).

I don't think I'll run honor though, some of the dishonor abilities coming in The Coming Storm are BEASTLY

PrinnySquadron
Dec 8, 2009

Scorpion spoilers are up: I'll edit them into this post ina bit.

EDIT:








PrinnySquadron fucked around with this message at 09:01 on May 12, 2014

PJOmega
May 5, 2009
Is it possible to play Ivory Edition as a pauper (rare less or all common/fixed) format or are too many staples for non-vanilla at the rare/promo level?

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
If you can afford the imperial assembly membership. . 30 a year.. you can print proxies.. There are some rares that are hard to get (for example jade pearl Inn. . There are other plays that a are not as flexible but nearly as powerful

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope
Does anybody know what exactly went on at the Sioux City Kotei? I don't play L5R much anymore, but I used to go to that kotei every year and now it looks like Bob Yeager (The TO) got banned for two years from hosting or playing and I just have no clue how that even happens.

chrisf
Feb 29, 2008

His playing ban is only until august 1st. He didn't properly do the x-2 cut by the floor rules so ~8 players didn't get the chance to play in.

PrinnySquadron
Dec 8, 2009

Military you can probably get cheaper alternatives to replace rares; the only big hit might be Family Dojo and New Cavalry Tactics.

Dishonour you can probably forget about getting on the cheap because 3x Brilliant Cascade and 3x Exquisite Silk Works are basically mandatory.

PJOmega
May 5, 2009

PrinnySquadron posted:

Military you can probably get cheaper alternatives to replace rares; the only big hit might be Family Dojo and New Cavalry Tactics.

Dishonour you can probably forget about getting on the cheap because 3x Brilliant Cascade and 3x Exquisite Silk Works are basically mandatory.

I'm asking not in a "can I compete as pauper versus fully powered?" but as "would a pauper league be playable or would it be endless Crab vs Crab vanilla swarm?"

novamute
Jul 5, 2006

o o o

PJOmega posted:

I'm asking not in a "can I compete as pauper versus fully powered?" but as "would a pauper league be playable or would it be endless Crab vs Crab vanilla swarm?"

If anything everyone playing pauper league would probably be more balanced than not.

ShitheadDeluxe
May 14, 2007

novamute posted:

If anything everyone playing pauper league would probably be more balanced than not.

agreedo

PJOmega
May 5, 2009

novamute posted:

If anything everyone playing pauper league would probably be more balanced than not.

Of course it would be balanced due to most everyone having access to the entire card pool. I'm asking if it would be interesting.

In past editions there were issues like any cards halfway decent for honor running, dueling, tacticianing, etc was at uncommon or higher. It often developed into CvC or maybe CvL military of vanilla-ish dudes running at each other.

novamute
Jul 5, 2006

o o o

PJOmega posted:

Of course it would be balanced due to most everyone having access to the entire card pool. I'm asking if it would be interesting.

In past editions there were issues like any cards halfway decent for honor running, dueling, tacticianing, etc was at uncommon or higher. It often developed into CvC or maybe CvL military of vanilla-ish dudes running at each other.

Balance does not refer to individual players but to the environment and the individual clans and decktypes, obviously.

Nightwatcher
Apr 18, 2007
Played my first few games yesterday and really enjoyed them. Tried Spider, Mantis and Scorpion and ended up picking up the Scorpion and Mantis decks.
Can anyone recommend a good place to expand into from the Mantis deck? So far I think it is my favorite (I really enjoy destroying things with ranged attacks before my enemy can react).

chrisf
Feb 29, 2008

http://www.imperialassembly.com/oracle/#cardid=11811 Suikihime Sensei is so ridiculously awful. Crippling your gold production in order to avoid the +2 gold cost on non-unique out of clan personalities once per clan is really dumb considering the best gold start a 3 production box can hope for is 7, whereas a 4 box should easily hit 8-10 going into turn 2. Even being able to run out of clan non-unique loyal courtiers as a 1x isn't worth that.

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


chrisf posted:

http://www.imperialassembly.com/oracle/#cardid=11811 Suikihime Sensei is so ridiculously awful. Crippling your gold production in order to avoid the +2 gold cost on non-unique out of clan personalities once per clan is really dumb considering the best gold start a 3 production box can hope for is 7, whereas a 4 box should easily hit 8-10 going into turn 2. Even being able to run out of clan non-unique loyal courtiers as a 1x isn't worth that.

Yeah people were asking me if I was going to add her to my Kotei Dishonor deck and my response was lol no.

El Estrago Bonito
Dec 17, 2010

Scout Finch Bitch
Gonna be an unholy terror in Big Deck though.

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
Break up the Mantis!

Will gets his third Kotei tournament win in Ottawa.. that's to be expected.

Three different Mantis types in the Semis (and a Scorpion) that's NOT expected.

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


I just wanted to let everyone know that the main L5R Group on Facebook is horrible. It's filled with Donkeys and people with bad opinions. Some dude, who has ostensibly been playing for years, asked how spells work the other day

ShitheadDeluxe
May 14, 2007

Rygar201 posted:

I just wanted to let everyone know that the main L5R Group on Facebook is horrible. It's filled with Donkeys and people with bad opinions. Some dude, who has ostensibly been playing for years, asked how spells work the other day

Welcome to the L5R internet community.

PJOmega
May 5, 2009

Rygar201 posted:

I just wanted to let everyone know that the main L5R Group on Facebook is horrible. It's filled with Donkeys and people with bad opinions. Some dude, who has ostensibly been playing for years, asked how spells work the other day

Welcome to 90% of any CCG online community. The standout for L5R is that so many of them are determined that they're the next World Champions in waiting.

Back in Diamond I knew a group who played a multiplayer campaign. Every card ever printed was allowed, you gained provinces through map conquest, etc. Most of the players had every card printed because they'd been playing the whole time.

They also had a binder of insane home rule errata. The only one I remember was Shosuro Maru / Yogo Asami's Open becoming Limited because "all the players ran her" and no one thought to make her Loyal.

Then there were the decks. 40/40 was the rule at start, and as you got more provinces your decks would increase in minimum size. So you'd expect some 40-50 card decks to start? Nope, not a single deck was less than 130 cards. Players would bitch incessantly about holding screw/flood and then reveal they were running decks with 15-25% holdings in 150 card decks. They'd have access to the most insane cards ever printed and miss direct comboes (the Phoenix player refused to use spells). They would play for 5 hours a night and players would be down 2 provinces at most.

I was invited to play (one of the players wanted to try Mantis and I had a scorp deck) and played a dueling deck that was designed for 1v1 play, diamond legal as I only had diamond cards. I wiped 5 players boards on turn 3 or 4 and took a province off each by turn 5, and another turn 6 (it's been years, I don't remember the exact count). One player tried to lunge across the table.

Each and every one of them was convinced they were the best player in the state, and I had sullied their high, invitation only table with 'base play.'

ShitheadDeluxe
May 14, 2007
Jesus H. Christ. I love gaming, but I really hate gamers.

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


Shithead Deluxe posted:

Jesus H. Christ. I love gaming, but I really hate gamers.

Empty quoting before I get to my post


I was active on the main boards while I traveled around playing in tournaments during the Race for the Throne and I see things haven't changed much. Most Level Ten events and Kotei I went to were filled with Donkeys with delusions of grandeur who get smashed by the handful of good players who make cut. I'm going to make just the one Kotei this year, I'm hoping I can take it with DH. Ivory DH seems much less fun than Samurai DH was, IMO

PJOmega
May 5, 2009

Shithead Deluxe posted:

Jesus H. Christ. I love gaming, but I really hate gamers.

Almost word for word my license plate cover.

I don't get it. I don't understand how people who have regularly played a game for over a decade and spent untold $$$$ both refuse any effort to get better or stop. There's one guy who has been a staple of my hometown's FNM draft since Onslaught and the best he's ever done is 2-1 once. Most nights he's 0-3, with the occasional 1-2. Those 1-2s are his good nights, about once every two months.

He's constantly giving advice, thinks he's amazing, and yet doesn't understand why he keeps losing. Losing for 12 years. Blows my effing mind. Never improving.

Still, he's better than the 6'8" guy who went off his meds, lost an L5R game, then stripped naked and ran circles in the strip mall parking lot.

ShitheadDeluxe
May 14, 2007

PJOmega posted:

Still, he's better than the 6'8" guy who went off his meds, lost an L5R game, then stripped naked and ran circles in the strip mall parking lot.

My LGS had a grown-rear end adult who would claim he was late for work and bail out of the store completely if it looked like he was going to lose at any game. Warhams, L5R, Magic, Star Wars CCG,any of that poo poo. Do we still have a bad gamers thread? I'll take my stuff there so I don't derail this thread.

PJOmega
May 5, 2009
Anyone have a link to the infamous "Zero banned, Zero Restricted" L5R advert from way back when? Or links to the interview where the designers bemoaned said advertisement?

PrinnySquadron
Dec 8, 2009

I'm really debating whether to go to the Sheffield Kotei. I'm going up to Sheffield anyway but I'm wondering how much of the field is going to be dishonour.

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


PrinnySquadron posted:

I'm really debating whether to go to the Sheffield Kotei. I'm going up to Sheffield anyway but I'm wondering how much of the field is going to be dishonour.

Seriously. I'm hitting up Nola next month and thankfully I expect to be one of the only DH players. Shadowed Estate v Shadowed Estate is certainly something. I'm a pretty devoted eScorpion player and I think our box might have been a bad idea, hah.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I haven't played this game since before the Olympic Committee made them change the card backs, and I don't even think I fully understood it back then. Those were the Wild West days of CCGs, who could focus on just one? I'd love to try again, but don't know if any stores on Long Island run events for it anymore.

Are any of the old cards worth anything? Surely there's some "Vintage"-like format for the game?

PrinnySquadron
Dec 8, 2009

BJPaskoff posted:

I haven't played this game since before the Olympic Committee made them change the card backs, and I don't even think I fully understood it back then. Those were the Wild West days of CCGs, who could focus on just one? I'd love to try again, but don't know if any stores on Long Island run events for it anymore.

Are any of the old cards worth anything? Surely there's some "Vintage"-like format for the game?

There's "Legacy" but it's not tournament-supported I believe and barely anyone plays it.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot

PJOmega posted:

Almost word for word my license plate cover.

I don't get it. I don't understand how people who have regularly played a game for over a decade and spent untold $$$$ both refuse any effort to get better or stop.

Isolated gaming communities. Especially for niche games like L5R. The biggest fish in the small pond thinks he's great because HE IS great in that environment.

The first time I went to Kotei after utterly dominating my local store for months was quite an eye-opener.

Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!

PJOmega posted:

Anyone have a link to the infamous "Zero banned, Zero Restricted" L5R advert from way back when? Or links to the interview where the designers bemoaned said advertisement?

Let me know if you find a copy. I lost mine and I've been asking around for months looking for one.

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


A Fancy Bloke posted:

Isolated gaming communities. Especially for niche games like L5R. The biggest fish in the small pond thinks he's great because HE IS great in that environment.

The first time I went to Kotei after utterly dominating my local store for months was quite an eye-opener.

In Samurai I did quite well at a few level ten events around the country, but failed to make cut at every Kotei. It was two Kotei, and my two losses at both were to Maw's Grave players and a well known ATL Dragon player who ran Fury of the Dark Lord in his Kensai deck. I was pretty salty both times. It's definitely a different level, even from other competitive events

PJOmega
May 5, 2009

A Fancy Bloke posted:

Isolated gaming communities. Especially for niche games like L5R. The biggest fish in the small pond thinks he's great because HE IS great in that environment.

The first time I went to Kotei after utterly dominating my local store for months was quite an eye-opener.

I follow, but I'm talking about the plankton in the small pond. The ones who rarely if ever take a game at the casualest of events.


Toshimo posted:

Let me know if you find a copy. I lost mine and I've been asking around for months looking for one.

Will do. You'd think it wouldn't be more than a google search away.

Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!

PJOmega posted:

Will do. You'd think it wouldn't be more than a google search away.

That's what the Kolat want you to think.

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SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
So Oneiyara is now just MOSTLY useless, not completely useless (before, a 1F follower negated his fear effect for winning a duel, now it fears the personality even if it has attachments) compared to every other duelist who duels to a bow/kill.. I guess there's SOME niche use for it (Okura is Released, other such fearkill actions).. but still.. waste of cardboard if you ask me ;)

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