decks and comments

[barrysheppard at eircom.net]

> Hrm, I play with a group of extremely good players. Jimmy 
*snip*
>weeks a month. I think dragon is totally capable of winning.

People remember gencon 2000? All the Irish winning everything, top crab, top unicorn, top phoenix and vu was playing monk before our local goblin showed him how to play shadowlands.
Thats my play group.
I dont think Dragon can win.
Yes its possible for us to get lucky and win smaller events, the seeds of war for example has plenty of dragon wins (well a few). Some how I can't see a dragon player winning Gencon UK (currrently on), so much so that I decided it wasnt worth my while going (it would have involved borrowing money).

>I think we can win in gold edition, we just won't win as often as 
>other clans. 

Which is the problem, winning is part luck, part deck, part play. Unfortunately our decks are at a disadvantage, so we have to make up with perfect play and a little luck

>We don't have the battle prowess of lion or their immunity to 
>terrains
Their high personal honour, all samurai personality base, great peeps which work together, high starting honour meaning they go first (helped by a tactician fate deck).

>we don't have the amazing gold scheme of crane
Which is silly, I always loved yoritomo sensei I couldnt believe some crane players called the mrp a neutering.

>and we don't have the speed of shadowlands, or the speed and 
>uberstronghold ability.
Again its in the gold, free gold means you can make a first turn personality. Also the designers seem to think honour losses are a reasonable way to balance cards, which basically gives shadowlands great cards with little or no down side.

>Since about all we have is arguably the best set of guys without 
>the gold scheme to be the top clan i find it to be no suprise that 
>we aren't in the top 4 clanwise.
If by "best set of guys" you mean some great personalities for other clans sure.
Phoenix: Tamori Chosai
Crane: Mirumoto Ukira
Crab: Togashi Nyima
Unicorn: Mirumoto Daisuke
Lion: They like 3ph samurai so probably Daisuke again
Scorpion: Shaitung maybe or Nyima
Shadowlands: Nyima - hr 2 force off the box

We do have some great personalities, the trick is getting them all to work together.
 
> I think this could changed based on cards in future 
>expansions. Most importantly, a stronghold that actually does 
>something. Kyuden Hitomi kind of sucks in gold because of 
>honor requirements and lack of free gold(not to mention that it's 
>effect cannot be felt to later in the game whereas a kosaten 
>shiro or towers of yogo deck always has it's ability turned on)  
>and iron mountain makes us do well against a clan that is not
> top tier right now.

Being able to use Kyuden Hitomi would be great. Its such a good stronghold, if only it had some sort of reasonable starting honour.

> I'm not trying to be a nay sayer and I'm trying diligently to find 
>the best mix of cards for my battle and for my honor deck. This 
>is just my perspective on why we seem to have trouble 
>"winning".

On retrospect, Im whining a lot today. Mainly because I dont think we can compete properly in the enviroment and I would love us to be able to. I fully expect Goblin (both man and deck) to win Gencon UK.
On the other hand Im not being very constructive.


>My answer to stand against the waves is wait till a later battle 
>where you have multiple guys out, when they sneak use fall on 
>your knees and then shoot a follower. I just hope battle decks 
>don't start playing with fall on your knees.

Stupid expensive rare I dont have :/ seems the best solution especially as we have Daisuke already and when someone has sneak stand in hand they expect to win so are that little bit cockier. 

> 3x trading grounds
How are you finding them?

Hitomi Hokosaki
www.dragonstrategy.net