My first game of the l5r ccg

[Bayushi Senshi]

I had a ready made crab hero deck, he had a homemade scorpion military deck.

The scorpion rocked my socks and ruined me by bowing the individuals I could ever muster, my battle actions being useless beyond the onslaught of weapon attachments and bows.

Even so, I had fun. I think I may finally know enough to start making a deck, now that I finally have a grasp of the actions, keywords, and phases.

Unicorn military here I come! One thing I have gained from my time here in EE, is a new found love for the Unicorn clan. Any suggestions to start my journey? I'm planning on using the stronghold that squirts out cavalry tokens. But know little else.

[Doji Yoshi]

Unicorn commanders is AWESOME.
Hwarang = win.
Basically you play their good commanders, the ranged attack BattleMaiden, 3xIde Kin and then you play the "bow a follower and move stuff" stronghold.
Not many are playing it, sadly, but it's amazing. You can basically not use any of your actions in your hand until you have to. (Use all of your peeps built in actions first).
Plus w/ Commanders you have Travel Swiftly, Hold!, Conscript Troops, about 12 followers in the deck, and WIN GAME.

[Shinjo Roku]

Yoshi is right, Unicorn Commander decks are full of ph33r and win. Mine is easily my best deck.

[Toku Hirotomo]

Personaly, I prefer political decks. Scorpion and Crane are my favorites. Unicorn military decks are very scary though. Plus, I've noticed that political players are disliked a great deal. Makes for a very long game, even if I don't win.

[tadakasan]

If you have a deck list that would be cool ^^ Otherwise, it certainly sounds like a plan. Couple musts if you're doing Unicorn Commanders besides what Yoshi mentioned, none of which should be too hard to find or expensive (IE Rare):

Wooden Barricades - (invaluable to switch over followers off a locked down personality)

Do Not Turn Your Back! - (most flexible straighten in the game pretty much)

Wandering Scout - (nearly invaluable combined with all the actions that bow followers in the Unicorn commander deck like the Stronghold, Peasant Vengeance, Overpowering Assault, Superior Mobility, etc.)

Chugo Seido - (since commanders are typically samurai, this is a great redirect, once again saving your important units)

Utaku Meadows - (followers that don't take up room in your fate deck and can still be blown up or bowed for effects? Good times)
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There are many other cards of course and not all of those may fit your playstyle. And there are also some really good cards out there that are harder to get; just depends on how much you're willing to invest in buy/trading and what you really want in the end.

[Moto Yoee]

Mar 14, 2011 1:44:06 GMT -5 Doji Yoshi said:

Unicorn commanders is AWESOME.
Hwarang = win.
Basically you play their good commanders, the ranged attack BattleMaiden, 3xIde Kin and then you play the "bow a follower and move stuff" stronghold.
Not many are playing it, sadly, but it's amazing. You can basically not use any of your actions in your hand until you have to. (Use all of your peeps built in actions first).
Plus w/ Commanders you have Travel Swiftly, Hold!, Conscript Troops, about 12 followers in the deck, and WIN GAME.

I'd replace Utaku Hana (the BM with a ranged attack but with only 3F) by Utaku Liu-Xeung, which is literally a beast in every Unicorn deck. Being able to do something to the opponent before the battle has even started is all kinds of awesome!
Otherwise, all the advice given to you is good, but the most important thing to do when playing the CCG is to find your own style. People might give you the good piece of advice, but what makes the difference between an average player and a good player is that the good player has his own style and never bandwagons the fancy decks of the moment.

[Akodo Tomatsu]

Correction: I see what your saying.

Just an FYI for everyone else out there, Senshi's opponent was playing Scorpion Kensai (I helped him build the deck).

[Utaku Kasumi]

I wish I knew what the heck are you talking about.
CCG is a black magic to me... and around me... I think I didn't see anyone playing.

[Shoju]

Has anyone made a Phoenix Yojimbo deck that.... You know... doesn't suck!? Friends and I bought a box of starters, and a box of boosters in the fall, and I had a BLAST playing the phoenix yojimbo stuff as a defensive honor runner. Sadly, when we tried to take it from Sealed Draft environment to constructed, it really lost something

[Toku Hirotomo]

I just got my first Spider Deck. I really wanted a Dead of Winter deck and all they had was the Spider. Depending on the cards I may canabalize it to gain more political power for my decks. Or I may just play Spider for awhile. It's the forgotten clan where I play.

[Bayushi Senshi]

Hey Tadaka, my kensai opponent was just telling me not to waste my time with wodden barricades and that its better just to have more gold, why do you find it so useful?

He also recommended scout armor. +2 force and a battle straighten.

[tadakasan]

Wooden Barricades... wonder why he picked that of all things.

Let me go into greater detail there; Wooden Barricades is a basic gold holding that is not dependent on bowing or the holding being unbowed for it's effect. And it does something very very important in a kensai deck, and that's to get items to the people that need them. Not only that, but having straightened attachments.

Wooden Barricade helps with all of this. A couple examples:

1) Your opponent Leaked Information on one of your personalities with with important attachments on them. Without some way to move those attachments off of the personality, it is quite probable that your opponent has just taken a lot of force and important weapon actions out of your attack. This can also happen with your personalities getting bowed in control decks or other control abilities. Wooden Barricade works around this problem. If personality X cannot assign to the battlefield, you simply move your weapon to a personality who is able to. Having played Kensai I can assure you this WILL happen and Wooden Barricades will save you at such times.

2) You are facing another military deck sitting across from you. You have your personalities attack and take one of your opponent's provinces. Which is great, but the people you bring out to defend have no weapons, seeing as they came into play after the action phase obviously. With Wooden Barricades (once again, even with it bowed) you can move your items from your bowed attacking personalities to the defenders you brought into play, suddenly giving you a much better chance of holding onto your province. Oh, and did I forget to mention it also straightens the item? So you can use something like a Fubatsu No-Dachi to kill things both on the attack and defense. Your opponent will hate you with a seething vengeance for this.

3) One important card to most attachment heavy decks like Kensai is Muscle and Steel because it allows you to simply negate most actions by simply bowing an attachment. Wooden Barricade can be a great help for this since you can prevent limited phase bowing or destruction of your important people then simply use Wooden Barricade to simply straighten the item on someone else for use in your upcoming attack.

4) Wooden Barricade allows you to use your weapons early without worry. Early in the game you will likely be buying cheaper possibly boxable personalities, much more expendable in the long run than your higher force personalities with better abilities. Without Wooden Barricades, once a weapon attaches to one of your more lowly samurai, it's stuck there the rest of the game, even if there is someone else who could make better use of it. In other words, with Wooden Barricade in your deck, you can make your beginning personalities powerful early in the game, while still being able to have those weapons available later. Essentially you can have personalities be weapon storage, which can be very helpful.

I could go on, like being able to fish for items with Shigehiro then transfer them around or protecting uniques by transferring armor to them. But really, I think you get the point; items, especially weapons, are the soul of a Bitter Lies deck, and being able to have those weapons straightened and where you want them to be is the key to success many many times. The fact you can use it's versatile ability and still use it for gold is just icing on the cake.

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As far as Scout Armor goes, remember that it is not a battle straighten. It's better than that; it's a reaction straighten. That means it A) can be used any phase and B) doesn't take up a battle action with it's ability so you can do something more pro-active. It is a very good card.

In the end it just depends on if you have room in your deck or not. It is a versatile item, but since it is not a weapon it neither gets benefits from your stronghold, your kensai, or any of their abilities. In other words, if you're including it you're including it purely as meta against bowing. The other part to consider there is if you feel you have enough gold to include it; with the amount of weapons a Bitter Lies deck includes, gold can be at a premium. Having additional attachments outside of those weapons means another thing to pay for out of your hand, gold that could be going towards holdings and personalities. Last thing to consider there is that the more attachments you have in your deck, the less likely it will be that you will have cards from your hand that you can play in battle. The more attachments you run, the more likely it will be in a battle with a handful of items that you can't put on people and won't be helping the battle at all.

Now, I am ~not~ arguing you shouldn't include it. In fact my praise of Scout Armor is indication that I feel it's a nice recommendation. I am simply saying it has it's downsides as well so it is ultimately up to you in the end and no one else if it is working in your deck and its gold scheme.

[Bayushi Senshi]

So in other words I need to make sure my kensai opponent doesn't see the merit in wooden barricades, and should be happy he continues to think that way. I can already see his Fubatsu no-dachi maiming my men that much more. Tomatsu, you've played against him too, amirite!?

Having not seen wooden barricades yet myself, it would have the same effect with followers yes? Then I think he may have had a misunderstanding of the card when he saw it at first cause its a 'must have' for his deck.

[tadakasan]

Followers and Spells too, yes. That why I not only used it in my Kensai deck in Chicago but my City of Tears deck with its 20+ spells. Heck, I'm running a copy in my Ninja deck and I only have 9 attachments; same principal just on a smaller scale.

[Toku Hirotomo]

The Spider Dead of Winter deck is very kensai friendly ready made. I'm taking out the political cards to increase the power of my Scorpion and Crane decks and adding in some other cards to create a Spider Kensai deck. I'm weak, so I got a box of Dead of Winter. I'm hoping to create a respectable couple of decks. In the CCG its just so dang hard for me to stay loyal to just one clan.