The Swift Sword

Now up on the main site: Den of iniquity.

Seriously WTF? A reusable, non unique, undestroyable, 2 gold 3-4 fing honor loss holding? What the hell? Dovetails nice with another one that just says "oh, your dishonored!" So, they can cause up to 12 honor loss in one turn for a cost of six gold? 15 if our champ is in play? Seriously, WHAT THE HELL???

How is our Tac deck supposed to weather that? Paragon? Shuggies? Oh, but don't worry, we get one that boosts up to 4 peoples force by their PH. Oh, damn, it costs 4 GOLD. Guess that does dick for us. I had usch high hopes for this arc, and this one card just crushed them. Ah well, guess I save a couple hundred bucks on cards. This card doesn't break the arc, it smashes it. F that.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

Ugh, I may have gotten a little over zealous. Reading the header shows some interesting info, like that the card becomes legal on April 1st. LOL. Guess they got me good on that one. Assuming it is a joke, well played AEG. Well played.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

This wouldn't count as april fool joke as its 5 months in advance so I think its real. Second read the cards before claiming they break the game. This can only inflict a max of 3 honour loss. So our paragons won't suffer that much. They also have enough honour gains that dishonour probably needs the help against us.

Given we have seen every piece of dishonour meta and Lion personality that will be legal April 1st, Tacticians and the kitsu are obviously dead decks. Also with that assumption we don't even have a clan champ for the next kotei season!!!!


Wait a minute I feel like I've forgotten something...

First off the max honor loss this can cause by itself is 3. It produces no gold so it has to go into a non holding slot in the deck. It requires a dishonored peep to work at all. So the dishonor deck must balance effects that dishonor against effects that cause honor losses.

A Lion deck can simply seppuku dishonored personalities right after they are dishonored, it will be an open action. Or you can simply pack No Time for Games or Beautiful Host, which give out permanent force unlike RB, and gain force on your peeps to make it much easier to break the dishonor deck's provinces. And more than ever dishonor decks telegraph their strategy from the start of the game so smart strategic play will help a great deal, buy gold for an extra turn so as to be able to buy a peep for full every turn alongside 2 or 3 other peeps each turn. Also effects like Formal Apology and Imperial Gift, announced as in EE in the Herald, serve to slow the dishonor deck clock.

In short relax dishonor may be strong but the tools to deal with it are out there and I bet more are coming.

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Legacy format discussion

OK, so three copies makes 9 honor loss per turn off of one personality. Sure, we could just Seppuku them. Making all dishonor actions an instant kill is a great way to win a game, isnt it?
This card is flat broken. 2 gold for repeatable 3 honor loss? Non unique, non singular? And it does produce gold, its a 2 for 2. Non destroyable as well.

How in the world is a unique 2 honor gain event going to slow a 9 honor loss per turn? Thats laughable.

Beautiful host is hard to include in an already tight gold scheme, and No Time For Games isnt much better. Not to mention B.H. needs to be left unbowed on your opponents turn to be of any use. I'm not in the habit of leaving too many unbowed holdings, are you?

"balanced" isnt printing a card that can make me lose my printed honor three times a turn to offset the once per game I can gain it.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

I did read the card, obviously. Just miss quoted it. Being legal on April 1 does bring questions though, you must admit. Coincidence? Perhaps. Paragons will suffer with more than one in play. 3 honor loss? Sure, no big deal. NINE a turn? Just off these holdings, not even touching on any other honor losses? Ridiculous. What about our Tacticians? Scouts? And lets not forget all of those pesky honor requirements we have. Doubly screwed.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

The new dishonor design creates a new balance issue. Since you get your "last gasp" attack, there is a problem. There are pretty much two scenarios.

1. You get bombed too fast and can't finish them off.
2. You struggle through and hover until you have the resources to finish them off.

I imagine that the goal is to have a nebulous area between 1 and 2 where you have a shot, but it isn't a sure thing. That's a problem. If you hit -15 before you have a chance to even get set up for your first attack, do you even swing if you don't think you can threaten all four or can sleaze one? If you are at 10 honor when you take the first province, how worried do you feel? If you're at 2? What if you crack two provinces at -4 honor? You'd feel pretty damned safe in the first and third instances, and probably even at the second. If I were a dishonor deck and I were down to 2 provinces and had 16 honor to go against my opponent, I would be close to writing off the game.

Let's say you get bombed down to -10 before you swing. Is it time to find something more interesting to do for the rest of the round? And what happens to the poor saps who have 2 straightened units alive against a 3 dishonor deck with 3 provinces when they get bombed early and stand zero chance?

Preventing the extremes of either player saying "I never stood a chance" after the game (assuming equal player skill) is the job of Design, and that's a high-wire act I do not envy, especially in this particular scenario.

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Swift Sword Forum Rules

Most decks won't run three copies and if someone does run 3 and gets all 3 into play early enough to matter they'll have either few other gold holdings or few peeps. So you roll them.


It's actually a decent strategy if you can win by honor anyway. It makes all the dishonorable punishment effects they're packing useless.


It bows to cause the honor loss so it does not produce gold when used. Unlike Beautiful host or RB.


2 honor slows a 3 honor hit which is going to be the typical hit from this card for Lion.

Beautiful Host is the same tradeoff as Den of iniquity. each side gives up a 2 gold producer for an effect. BH is slightly better in you can use it and then bow it for some gold cost effect.

They didn't print a card that can do that.

Also try and keep in mind that dishonor is now like honor you'll get a last gasp attack and it doesn't matter how low your honor goes during that attack. We've been able to beat honor under those conditions and we'll be able to beat dishonor as well.

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Legacy format discussion

Why in the world would any dishonor deck NOT run three copies? Its reusable solid honor loss that doesn't clutter up your fate hand. Theres no real drawback to running it. Loss of spells, sure, but spells can be destroyed, and require two cards (spell plus a shuggie)
Seppukku is not a good strategy. With Slanderer, plus whatever else they have, your sacking three-four peeps a turn. Its an option, but the loss of the reactionary seppukku hurts a lot here.

Yeah, it bows. Pay 2 gold to make me loss three honor? What dishonor deck won't jump at that? BH must be unbowed on their turn to be of any use, so its in the same boat. We can't depend on it for gold production. RB is pointless as its 4 gold. Clutter up my entire gold scheme for dishonor meta? Pass.

Again, a UNIQUE, once per game 2 honor gain is pathetic compared to a non unique, every turn, three honor loss.
Sure looks like they did to me. I can gain my PH once, then they can endlessly punish me up to three times a turn.
That "last gasp" attack will depend on crashing through their hand. Now remember, half the time we will be ttacking out of a deck that doesn't plan to attack, and isnt optomized for it. All their deck needs to be optomized for is defense. All the force in the world doesn't do you any good when you are bowed out or sent home.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

Just like Ken said. If they get all three copies out, then they're missing some other resource that generally comes from dynasty flips. If they have too few people, how are they defending their provinces? If they have too little gold, then their entire flow is stymied.

Their deck cannot be too focused on defense. They still have to cause you real honor losses from their fate deck. The Dynasty losses alone will barely slow a paragon deck's upward momentum until around the fifth or sixth turn. A dishonor deck that can't get you below your starting honor before the fourth turn is kind of sunk. Then you get to attack at your leisure, eat a bunch of battle losses, and then attack into them with a drastically reduced fate hand the next turn.

There's a comment on the AEG boards about a dishonor deck that has a 30/10 split between battle and action phase. With 10 cards in the fate deck to cause honor losses outside of battle, where is the pressure to attack until you are ready? This holding is a BLANK 2-for-2 unless you have dishonored personalities. Would you be happy to see a dishonor deck pay 7 gold to dishonor one of your people and then ping you for 3 honor? That's the opportunity cost of a Slanderer and this holding bowing for their effects.

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Swift Sword Forum Rules

It will depend on the cost of the associated peeps. Turn one, they get a Den and a 3 producer. turn 2, slanderer, another den, and at least one peep. That means turn three they can dishonor, cause six honor loss, and still have 11 gold to spend. Thats very rough for any deck to overcome. Flushing provinces early with BK, this should be very efficient, easy to pull off, and minimal impact to their roll. Putside anything but a hardcore blitz, they will be down one province possibly, if their one defender couldn't pull it out. And you will be facing three defenders the next turn.

The pressure comes from the downward honor spiral, you are going to need to attack fast to beat it out. Hard for some decks to do.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

So under your scenario they bow a holding to dishonor a guy, you seppuku and their 2 dens are useless. You then roll them up with all the people you bought, including if you're a smart deckbuilder guys off Shinden Shorai and Your Clan Needs You.

Even if they have some other way to dishonor a guy you eat the 6 honor and still have a decent chance of taking a province on the attack and they have bowed all 3 holdings they bought the first 2 turns. They'll never recover from that big a slowdown in development.

Any deck that runs 3 slanderers and 3 Den's will have huge gold problems and will not beat the field.

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Legacy format discussion

Ok unless something else comes out, dishonour decks are running 3 of these. How many 2 for 2's are you running so these are the first choices for those slots at this stage of previews.

That said our scouts seem to have a lot of 2 ph guys and so may not suffer too much against this. Using the ability or gold may be a tough choice some turns depending on what else they have. Right now yes this card does destroy the enviroment especially against lion with high ph and limited access to rugashi bazaar. However we have seen none of our EE base peeps. We have strategies, holdings, events, regions to be previewed especially when you consider we may have an expansion by April 1st. Wait till we see the rest of the cards before we start shouting our beloved game is worthless.

I meant our paragons don't suffer more than say Crab scouts who have a lot 3 ph guys and none of our in built honour gains. They suffer our losses without our gains which seems worse (our tacticians could be in a similar scenario)

I presume there are Lion on DT who have raised these issues. When we see cards it is often too late to get them changed so we should see how they play in the arc they are designed for. We do have to remember that sometimes things get previewed in a bad order for us to judge interactions correctly.

I agree with Domotai that this does look like a very thin high wire to walk for DT but lets wait until we are sure they are falling before saying they have failed.

On turn three? All those what, one guys you have? I'm sure they won't be packing any defensive cards to send him home or anything.

Sorry, somehow Shinden Shorai and Your Clan needs You just don't make the cut in my shugenja deck. Guess I'm a bad deck builder. Again, thye still have 11 gold to spend. Not much of a slowdown there.

Now, what if that person you bought is Akai? Sacking him devastates your deck. I fail to see how turning a Bow to Dishonor holding into a limited bow to kill is a proactive means to win a game. You wouldn't pay 5 gold for a limited kill action that goes through all attachments? That is what you are suggesting. OK for swarm, not so good for everyone else.

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North American Taisa of the White Lion

"I may die for my choice, but I shall die pure."

You might want to wait until the EE Lions, particularly the Shugenja, are previewed.

Alex

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L5R Rules Team