Ronin Strongholds Banned

September 2010

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[Mirumoto T]

Floor Rules now state the IG2 strongholds are no longer legal in Celestial Format.

http://rules.l5r.com/Floor_Rules#Competitive_Formats

Wow.

[Dan J]

Discussion can be found here

I'm pissed... I had planned on taking a Ronin Military deck to Brisbane and possibly gencon.

I can't say I'm fond of Scorpion military at the moment, so perhaps it's yet another year I miss all the tournaments. It just seems so bloody arbitrary - the only *possible* problem would be honour deck abuse, and there would be better ways to fix that.

[Mirumoto T]

I was fully intending to play Ronin honor this tourney season, now I'm not sure I'll bother at all.

[Ookami]

Excuse the language but WHAT THE FUCK!

This is frakking crazy. Poorly played by the PTB. They are essentially saying screw the guys who play the Ronin strongholds who do not play Superfriends and storywise they are saying that the Ronin do not care for the Empire! This ronin want to prove them wrong, but now cannot do so!

[Dan J]

Bryan has pointed out the problems with the strongholds - for Blitz Mil and Blitz honour, they would have been too fast come Harbinger release. Looking over the old playtest PDF I have, I have to say for once I agree.

HOWEVER.

I still think there was a better solution than this. United is a key card that would cause problems, and the out of clan honour gains are ridiculous... deal with those two things and life would get easier.

[Ookami]

EVen getting rid of the 2g discount would have done for Sunrise, and I agree to stopping the honor gain for clan aligned peeps on Lost Traveller. Still think it blows that the metagame was a partial reason for it and well, I have no damn idea what I would play in a Kotei or any other tournament now.

[Dan J]

Lion. They're the clan to beat this kotei season, and they have that Wolf Legion SH for the story folks.

[Yasuki Kanosei]

Almost certainly.  Phoenix Blitz has just got nutpunched (for the best, in my opinion - CAVALRY blitz is retarded beyond all measure), and Spider Breeder, while pretty damn scary, takes a bit of time to get running, so Lion is probably going to be the Clan to beat.

[Ookami]

Yeah problem is with people worried about how to beat the Lion then it would be like me walking into a minefied led by Helen Keller.

Gonna look at how well I can get a Lion to run, but my current Lion is running at 0-3 at the moment, and it is a friend that I taught to play who is beating down on me!

[Yasuki Kanosei]

Lion's beatable, but you have to be prepared for it, I think.  Bring along the standard non-presence defensive cards (Settling, Outer Walls, Direct Approach) as a start, since they help in pretty much every deck except dedicated duelling.  These days, I don't think Lion properly blitz, so much as swarm you with a lot of personalities, especially since everyone and their dog will be running Burn the Village to deal with blitz and boxables.  It's a bit slower, I believe, but it's more reliable, and it doesn't mean you end up good as gone if your initial attacks falter. 

From what I understand, it goes something like T1 - Buy personality, buy gold.  T2 - Buy one, maybe two more personalities, and more gold.  T3 - Attack.

Of course, I could be completely wrong here - I haven't played Lion in a good while, so YMMV.

Back on the OP, Ronin SH's being banned from Kotei's is a bit disappointing, but ultimately understandable, and much easier to handle for AEG.  As much as we may love the Unaligned, those decks can be a bit broken, and it messes with the main focus of the story - the Great Clans.

[daman_asha]

From what I understand, it goes something like T1 - Buy personality, buy gold.  T2 - Buy one, maybe two more personalities, and more gold.  T3 - Attack.

So swarm is 1 turn different from blitz? Phx blitz is usually T1 buy 2 guys, T2 attack. Sometimes T2 attack is split and take two provinces with Cavalry to skirt defenders.

Burn the Villages will still hack into the Lion swarm approach based on the above, I reckon, because one or two of the T1-2 personalities will have to be boxable. In fact, swarm is better targeted by BtV because it hits them for two turns worth of personality development for the cost of maybe only half a turn's development as a response.

Lion T1: pers & holding

other T1: 2 holdings; buying decent gold so maybe starting next turn with 4GP SH, BK, BH, + Diamond Mine/Border Village and Clan holding for extra 6 GP which pays for... hmm.

Lion T2: 1-2 pers & maybe holding

other T2: BtV and then buy a pers or two.

Lion T3: attempt recovery...

[Yasuki Kanosei]

It depends on whether the opposing player gets BtV in their hand, and whether it'll be enough to slow down Lion build up.  As I said, I have very little experience in dealing with Lion blitz/swarm/whatever damn deck they're doing these days, so I won't pretend to speak with any authority.  However, the amount of Lion boxables is actually rather small, limited to Akodo Shunori, Matsu Ishigaki, Matsu Mikura, and Ikoma Igawa.  Losing any of those, even in the early build up, won't hamper Lion too much I think unless boxables are the only things they *do* have out in play.

[Ookami]

If someone is going to use BtV on their turn two against Lion, and are bringing peeps out themselves, I assume they would lose their own guys as well.

[daman_asha]

Not by the timing, surely; BTV is a Limited action and then you buy your perps in the Dynasty phase, well safe from the now resolved action's targeting.

...and then I reread your post; the Lion's opponent in my mind is playing a much slower game and spent their T1 setting up a gold structure rather than wasting time with the personality that would indeed be killed by their own T2 BTV.

Otherwise try to punish the Lion player for not developing resources in T1 by killing both guys he bought instead of gold, by your playing BTV in turn 1 (everyone but Lion can afford this, right?). Then the game sets back a turn; the Lion guy gets T1 over again and you get to face two more boxables from a blitz deck. Nothing changes in this case, IMnsHO, cos the BTV has been mis-played.

I think the card is really there to break decks that sacrifice resource development for the early troops, hoping that the T2/T3 province break will give them a development edge that they would otherwise not have due to inherently weaker (but cheaper) personalities.

[Yasuki Kanosei]

Here's one good reason why the Ronin SH's should be banned: Oni's on Ponies.  Anyone played this deck before?  I have, repeatedly against the guy who created it and made it to the semi's at GenCon in Indy last year, and got repeatedly beaten by it.  Out of... 10 games, I think I won one.  And this was against a guy who literally started playing five weeks before GenCon (I taught him how to play). 

Oni's on Ponies is retardedly strong, relying on never needing to worry about HR from the millitary box.  It allows you to bring in Oni's on the cheap, as well as Unicorn personalities, hell, anything that's got either Cavalry, Naval, and within 8GC to 10GC (It doesn't run holdings).  It's not that quick with getting lots of personalities out, but it *always* gets at least one personality out, regardless.  I've been eaten a Turn 2 Omi-Bozu to the face that had a Samurai's Soul (2GC +2F/+1C weapon) attached more times than I can count.  Scorpion dishonour sounds like a wonderful idea, with the only problem being (a) it goes first against you, and (b) you're likely down to two provinces before you've gotten anyone out, and he'll have at least three for his next attack.  With PotD, it's beatable, due to Settling, OW and The Direct Approach being rather common in decks, but if you don't expect it, it does terrible things to you.

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