Oracle of the Void #l5r

Trying to copy MtG, probably.

Same with allll the things becoming keywords, with half the cards containing little printed explanations.

And consistently simplifying and dumbing down the rules overall.

Duels, Cavalry, gaining PH from buying a Personality at full, Clan Discount, Foo Rule, etc.

Also, toward the end, I argue that it's to make sure that the previous ~18 years of cards become incompatible, so that new players aren't tempted to try the older arcs out, as that means no sales of new stuff.

Yeah but they did that in Jade, Gold Diamond, ect. Look at Storms over Matsu Palace for a good example..

No, that doesn't count. Each arc they printed one play-to-learn set, which included explanations.

As someone that played from early on, too, around TotV until Gold, and then again for Celestial, the latter rules feel hostile to old players.

Totally get reducing some complexity and ambiguity, though. There was a bunch of that, due to lack of card wording templates, amongst other things.

Some stuff they removed also had actual gameplay impact. For example, Followers having a PH requirement.

Was it a completely different design team than previous editions for ivory and 20 festivals?

Not sure about that one, but over the decades the design team(s) changed quite a bit.

So from Lotus to 20F had the same design lead... that doesn't sound right..

I could be wrong. I'll crack some sealed product later and check

I stopped when several infinite combos and extreme negative play experience decks were reported (I'm looking at you infinite Oni 2005 and Cranezilla) and the lead play test liason basically told us off. Then went to GenCon 05 where over half the field was cranezilla

But I was just a kid then so I'm sure there was more to it

I appreciate that!

So it means that Zinser havent played his game for years.

But honestly i can understand such amnesia. I got a friend, who was top player for years here (he was eg a runner-up at euros), but as we met a year after IP sale and played L5R he completely forgot that Dynasty is after Action phase.

Probably will be easier in Ivory/Twenty Festivals as in EE there are many cards that require specific keyword to work while in IvE actions are more generic but have kickers depend on keyword.

In Emperor lot of generic solid actions are rare or promo cards, but if you have access to such cards you may also try in EE.

Also becasue of such "kickers", Ivory/Twenty Festivals is best environment for standard booster Draft in history of game.

Googling around I found this, which looks cool: http://l5rkenjutsuformat.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-is-l5r-kenjutsu-format.html?m=1

Seems like the concept was pre-Ivory, so I'll need to compare to the later draft rules.

Oh hey, I recognize that. That was the format that I tried to create. I loved the MTG cube format and that was the original idea around it.

just read through it, that looks really cool! Makes me want to do something similar, but I think I have some different ideas on how to resolve the issues you talked about.

I'd say, include 3 different printings of each ring within the kata instead of adding them after the fact. The issue I have with adding them after is if you don't have enough rings for everyone to get one, you might wind up with a scenario where like, everyone wants the Samurai ring of the void, so how do you determine who gets it? Downside is that it uses 15 slots, but it's kind of a central theme, so I think it's fine. And they are unique by card name, so people can't be bogarding them too much.

I'd prefer to use a generic stronghold as the base, and then draft strongholds if you want to, but I'd also put in a caveat that the generic stronghold has no clan alignment, but you can proclaim any personality once per turn, and out of clan personalities do not cost extra for you. If that's all it does, I think people would want to draft a stronghold of their own. But then they wouldn't be flooded with choices from a Stronghold pack. Then you could include 2 strongholds per clan/faction in the Kata, and they'd be fairly findable. Alternatively, divvy out a stronghold to each player at random, and let them trade if they want to.

Clan Holdings as additional add-ins like basic lands makes sense to me. I'd even go so far as to say, you can add as many of any clan holdings as you like, or the Draft card, Brilliant Artisan. Then the only holdings you'd include in the Kata are ones that it's worth paying 2 for less than 3 gold cost on. (Or like, 6 for 5, etc)

I also would prefer to avoid any keyword themes in such a format, as trying to include any tribal mechanics means drafting generically good personalities becomes a liability. If there's a berserker who's gonna do good things by being berserker buff, just let him be that. Don't add a stronghold or a bunch of strategy cards that specifically care about berserkers. The most I'd go for is Samurai, Courtier, Shugenja, and Monk, because a lot of the defining features of those keywords are what cards they can play.

But... that's kinda getting into the nitty gritty of how one might design a Kata, rather than other options for how to facilitate it.

Bottom line, I like the idea. I talk a lot without doing things, but I'd like to pull this off. I'll see if I can manage it.

That's a good point with the rings. Maybe you could also make 2 "ring" boosters that cycle around, allowing for Enlightenment victories or side boarding the extra rings.

Drafted strongholds would be interesting too... would you include that in the first round or later round of packs?

If you have only-pre Ivory cards use any pre-Ivory ruleset. Most reasonable will be using a ruleset of majority of cards you play or just Emperor.

If you have cards up to Ivory/Twenty Festivals use some Legacy rulesets like Obsidian Hand - it's a ruleset that mixes stuff from "both worlds".

It's possible and playable what all those OBH activities prove.

So obsidian hand is what I'm looking for?

Yes

Hmm, it took like 5 minutes to adapt from pre Ivory to Ivory as core is identical. "Different game entirely" feeling happens when you compare AEG game with FFG version. But it's my personal experience.

And I know this isn't an uncommon experience amongst older rings players I still interact with

I was tournament player since late Lotus till the end, and went through all those changes from Lotus->Samurai keyword cut, through CE/EE Border Keep craziness stuff to Ivory.

Cool

On the other hand many people consider Samurai edition as one of the best blocks and as revival of CCG.

So for long-lived game like L5R CCG is nearly impossible to be 100% objective unless someone played 1995-2015 and had same enthusiasm through its whole lifespan.

Because playing same game for 10+ years might be tiresome.

It did indeed start that way

For me, I enjoyed the more broken environments (Jade, late Diamond, Lotus, Emperor) but I did better in formats that were lower powered (Samurai, Ivory / 20F).

The "balanced/accessibility oriented" parts seemed too forced. Like so much got neutered/rebalanced, and yet the exact same power creep happened, but more insidious?

That's a good point, and I've ranted before about liking the early arcs' brokenness, because it was kind of an absurd rock-paper-scissors thing, vs everything being so much more designed and balanced, except it creates and overwhelming slide.

For example, the old 5-7 points of Honour loss per whatever were huge, but you could also swing up easily, whereas in the latter arcs it become all about the 1-2, or 3, points of loss per action, and you'd have tons of them a turn, but with fewer ways to gain Honour back.

So if you build one direction faster/better, there's nothing you can do.

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a bad experience as a new player to get hit with something like Iaijutsu Challenge/Refuse + Shame + Shame on a Shuggie (before Seppuku was allowed which is dumb), but that was part of the risk/reward thing.

Vs "No matter what I do, I'm losing net 3 FH a turn until I inevitably die in 10 turns."

The Seppuku thing would have been cool if it was kept separate. I get the punishment for running non-Samurai, but the mechanical implementation was sub-par. I'd have gone with something like: Samurai can Seppuku as a Reaction and with the -1 FH loss, while Courtiers and Shugenja have to do it as an Open or something like that. So it's more of a head game, around whether you destroy your Dishonoured Personality on the off-chance your opponent has a Shame or whatever to play as their next action.

Hey everyone. Its been a long while since ive played and interested in getting back into it with a handful of decks to share w my friends. I learned to play around gold edition and put it down for a while when the border changed.. came back for ivory through the end.

That being said: I want to build them with the old, old border cards/ imperial up to hidden emperor. (Is there a name for this era of border design? Is it just imperial?) Ive grown to love the design of these cards aesthetically- but really dont know the gameplay too well from this era.

I was hoping to find some insight, suggestions, direction and/or just general help with this as i haven’t been able to find many resources on decks from that era..

Anyone familiar have any suggestions for a project like this? Thanks!

https://akodowarcollege.wordpress.com/category/jade-arc/

Thank you, very much appreciated!!

This is a perfect place to start! Cheers 😊

I also have a large collection of Imperial era and early Jade decks, from before the border change.

I really disliked when Pearl changed them.

Also, in Sun and Moon, you can specify which printing of a card to use, so you can play decks with the old faces, and even swap out the cardbacks to the classic ones.

Never tried sun and moon but i probably should..

So if you want nostalgia, I can share a bunch of those decks, they use the oldest card printings each time.

Gimme a few, wrangling something else. Safe to send you a few txt files via Discord?

Also, for the Sun and Moon Discord: https://discord.gg/CPKqTqrW

Yeah most definitely, i really appreciate it! And no rush take your time

and Im confused as to why a line of rulebook text was added to every single one of them. It makes quickly reading through them impossible

Of course.

One of the many things I've ranted about before.

Massive changes for 20F, that screw up every card before.

I appreciate you! Thank you