The Swift Sword

Currently this arc, we have access to some courtiers for Halls of Memory. Otomo Demiyah and Miya Masatsuko (though she's singular) both stand out for the moment, though we could take advantage of Doji Dainagon if we really wanted to (the remainder of the out-of-clan courtiers simply aren't worth their cost to us).

Most HoM decks run events like Turquoise Championship since the personality base right now is at the absolute minimum right now. Even then, there are two to four slots that most players are filling with Akodo Kisho or other cheap Paragons. What about filling those spaces with the available courtiers?

Courtier strategies are reasonably strong right now and it gives us the option to slow down opposing Honor decks by taking advantage of the Courtier tricks they're using against us right now - Rhetoric (sort of, given the lower Chi of the Courtiers we have access to), but also cards like Accidental Confession, Inexplicable Challenge, Remember Your Ancestors, Dismissing the Cur, and even Sacrifice of Pawns. These actions do further the deck's goals of defense without having to assign Personalities other than the Ancestors, and Confession would give the deck a little Open control capability, while Sacrifice of Pawns would somewhat duplicate the function Capturing the Soul has begun to serve in HoM decks.

The drawback, of course, is including a set of personalities that we can't purchase to gain honor, and the low number of available Courtiers makes including any large number of Strategies needing Courtiers dangerous.

At any rate, I've stopped running the full Events package. I'm actually down to just one, Imperial Gift - Willing Spirits just isn't cutting it against most military builds right now and the rest of them run Ancient Feud anyway), so with the additional room I'm running one Miya Masatsuko (easy enough to use) and a singleton Akodo Kano (he's easy to buy cheaply in this deck and consecutive Battle Actions while on the defense are superb). It was just looking at my available options and thinking about other honor decks in the format that got me thinking about the possibility of running additional Courtiers.

Thoughts?

If I was going out of clan for a filler personality post EoW in an ancestor build I'd go with Kakita Seishi at least till the dishonor craze dies down.

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Legacy format discussion

The idea is mostly that it's not supposed to be filler so much as a potential way to strengthen the deck. Being able to play the strongest Courtier-based control/tempo cards and the cards Kitsu are "designed" to use might break things a little... in our favor.

A good kitsu deck is already faster than any courtier based honor runner so adding courtiers as anti honor meta is a bad idea.

The Kitsu deck needs a more consistent military defence and a better game against dishonor. The new kitsu in EoW improves the military matchup so the hole that needs filling is against dishonor.

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Legacy format discussion

The new kitsu might also help v dishonour, create a spud in an empty battlefield, pump with Tamasine. Not sure if it work as it needs either 2 Miro's or 2 Tamasine's but if it does then free Brave New World every turn .

Being able to use courtier strategies would make us faster against everything but I'm not sure you can get it to the point were it will be consistent enough yet especially as none of them can be proclaimed.

I actually don't think this is true. Rhetoric really swings the honor race in the other direction. Especially now that rhetoric can steal your proclaims. I think dedicated courtier based honor runners is one of the bad matchups for the deck.

That said, I don't know if running courtiers is the answer.

If you have trouble with other honor decks use Duel of Serpents and concentrate on getting multiple Kitsu Suki out.

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Legacy format discussion

I have been testing Ancestor honor as much as I can and I have tried this approach with the Otomo Demiyah and other courtiers (I also run Ryoshun’s) and it has mixed results.
Pros: while not being able to Proclaim Demiya, he can gain additional honor when entering play, also it really helps in the dishonor match giving you time to dig for Tamasine.
Cons: they really don’t help the military as anything but a body that doesn’t combo with anything specific. And the courtier actions that you run for them can be really bad draws.

My biggest issue was consistency, I really don’t like running one set of cards keying off of the Ancestor trait another set the Shugenja trait and still a third keying off courtier (or Paragon).
But this strategy has won a Kotei as well as the Paragon version. So you have some support behind you.

I do have to say thank you for the Kano suggestion I cant believe I missed him.

Now there is one other thing in your post that I feel is completely wrong, you mention
“the deck's goals of defense without having to assign Personalities other than the Ancestors,”
I feel that other than Akai and maybe Suki, every person you bring out it 100% dispensable. Unimpeachable, Great sacrifice, Ring of Fire, unnatural, dropping a terrain, using the favor, if any of these save a province then losing the performer is an acceptable loss.

And I definitely don’t think that Courtier based honor decks are a problem match-up, if they get all three Rhetoric’s and steal 4 honor each time perhaps but going first and digging for the right cards and playing smart I have found win that match.

Here are some other tricks I personally have found that work very well for me.

Chrysanthemum + Seeking + Ancestral Protection. Most decks run Imperial gift so this is one slot that gives you something to search for, now against honor and dishonor you attack, Gain 1 from chrys, if they try to do anything to you AP and gain 1 from that, then Seeking home for 2. It only works 3 times a game but that is usually enough.

Another card I have found extremely useful is String of Victories. I run Wisdom Gained ROF and ROV plus 3 SoV. Against military ring of fire can PK through attachments and in this deck you usually win an attrition war (as I said I also run Ryoshun’s it helps ROF considerably). And against honor/dishonor use it with ROVoid for card cycle to get your meta. It can also work well with ROE both on the defense and offence if you need to attack.
One thing I recently ran into was Kalani’s Landing and Legion of Pain. With this como I had only one personality in my deck that could do anything to the person with them attached and I just didn’t have enough unperformed actions to deal with it. I am going to try Costly Opportunity as well as increasing Rocky terrain to a 3 of in my deck and see if that is enough. Has anyone else had this as a thorn in their side or any other problems you have seen?
These military combos are why I really decided not to go with the courtiers.

But that's still not enough to handle three Rhetoric. Three Rhetoric are kind of the critical mass (against two or less you win even without Duel of Serpents - which is btw. a horrible card in military matchups). And if you think three Rhetoric are very unlikely, then consider Crane (they are able to play Rhetoric five times) and Phoenix (two uses of Winds of Dismissal equals one Rhetoric, but they can run Rhetoric too). This makes the honor matchup very luck dependent and therefore the worst matchup (imo).

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If we can't fit courtiers in our best honour deck I don't think that they're going to help that much in HoM.

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An atheist terrorist group has recently begun to employ suicide bombers to go around blowing themselves up for no reason.

I've faced those decks without anything more than Suki and Duel of Serpents and I've lost once to a Crane favor manip honor runner. The only other honor runner that consistently even pushes me is the Dragon one that forces you to attack or give them honor.

You should always have the honor tempo on all those decks and a HoM deck can easily drop a 10+ honor turn to cross 40 which the other decks cannot match.

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Legacy format discussion

Unless Rhetoric turns that into a 2+ Honor turn with 8 for them, in which case they've probably pulled ahead by a margin larger than Duel can make up.

I'm not saying that Rhetoric is entirely necessary, but I like the idea of running Demiyah and Masatsukos in order to enable Accidental Confession and a set of Rhetorics and well as perhaps another light Courtier splash in the Fate deck. It synergizes about as well as the PAragon splash does, and I think it provides very strong control vs. Military matchups so you don't have to bleed your fate hand early, rather than meeting them on the field with Kisho and Arata. Additionally, the new clothing attachment makes playing Favor games a lot easier for the deck as we're no longer limited to one Lobby per turn, so we can use the Favor proactively as well as have it in hand for Battle send-home.

You're worried about a problem that simply isn't that big a deal.

You have Suki, Visitation and Duel of Serpents to win an honor race. Courtier has rhetoric.

As to putting in a couple of cheap, 2 holdings, courters, none of which has a printed battle and only the singular one has any sort of useful printed action at all, and a bunch of courtier actions that only marginally helps the military match, where you need the most help. At least with Paragons you get useful printed battle actions and a kill strategy which the deck really needs.

As to favor manipulation, adding in the new item further dilutes the deck while not making the deck as good at favor manipulation as either the crane or scorpion version. Taking the favor with a random shuggie or ancestor to get some extra card draw or a send home is nice in those matchups where it works but devoting more effort to the favor than that means you wind up with dead cards against good decks which is rarely a good idea.

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Legacy format discussion

I'm not certain what I'm doing wrong, then, because I find that Courtier-based honor decks using Rhetoric and dishonor tricks can in fact slow down the pace of my stock Kotei-based Kitsu deck and overtake it. Not many Honor decks lack an honor bomb of their own. You might argue user error, but I doubt that can be the entire issue. The matchup only has so many subtleties and I've been testing multiple different lines of play for weeks and weeks.

More to the point, I find that the usual spread of Paragons (Kisho and Arata) are only really marginal on the "good printed battle actions" front, and while GSac (or Cast Aside) is good, it's not cutting it against big-force decks like Kensai and Crab Berserkers, Phoenix Spell Military, etc, that are tearing up my tables right now. I just don't see how Paragons are better in the abstract that Courtiers against the military matchup - they both seem somewhat lackluster, but Courtiers at least shore up a second type of matchup.

Finally, I have to point out that the Kitsu deck has a lot of room in the Fate deck for metagaming. The number of absolutely mandatory cards is 30 or less right now. I believe it's entirely possible to shore up the military matchup even including the use of cards like Rhetoric in the Fate 40. Spain was taken down by a Courtier-Splash Kitsu deck running Delayed Arrival for military defense, so I can't be alone in my thinking, here.

Putting courtiers could be an idea, but there is also one big disadvantage – in later game, there is a risk of blocking Dynasty in a way, where you could not get this essential 3-4 honor from proclaim, as Personalities are not your clan. I would give a try just to one or two Miya Masatsuko – usually, I do not use favour in battle, as quickly I run out of personalities on the battlefield (kill/send home by me/opponent), and good card draw is nice. I even think to change pearl of embers for Dazzling Attire for this, as an item pulled from Imperial Gift.