[dragon] A new path?

[Togashiheijin at aol.com]

I've been musing on our current struggles to find a niche in the environment, 
given our basic strengths and weaknesses and the decks that seem to 
consistently give us trouble.  I've been also thinking on the comments that 
were made last week during the KRS debacle on the L5R list about how the 
Dragon are trying to be too much like Crane.  I wonder if, on some level, 
there isn't some truth in that and have been pondering what path we could 
take that would remain true to our clan and play to our strengths, giving us 
a consistent route to victory.  I wonder what would happen if we began to 
play more like our allies, the scorpion.  I am beginning to think that 
dishonor/honor may be quite a viable concept for us.  We have the tools to do 
it - given that we are probably the best clan to run combo-based strategies, 
we stand a better chance of pulling the pieces together than many others.  We 
have access to greater card draw and the shugenja to run Walks.  Those same 
shugenja can run Secrets.  We rule Arts with SCTs.  We have issues with 
Challenge because it can easily be refused, but if we play to make that a 
strength it could work to our favor.  Tsuge wielding Judgement is just a 
scary card drawing machine.  Remata would be solid as well, ok, shame about 
the hr but he's still possible.  And, with Wandering Monk, we now have a way 
to get around the all-samurai deck, and he can also cast AotGM so he's not 
necessarily wasted space.  The issue would be Shadowlands - but honestly, 
given the Kotei results, if we could get something working solid against 
Crane and Phoenix, Shadowlands becomes an easier risk, imho, and we've still 
got send-home and honor.  I haven't pulled together a decklist, but I wanted 
to solicit some thoughts on the viability of such a strategy from my brothers 
- if anyone's got experience with such a deck let's discuss because I think 
we need to start examining some other paths to get us over our current woes. 

Togashi Heijin