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CRANE
Ichigekin Soloist
Overall Rating – 2.2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Not as bad as it looks like at first glance but still bad. The only competitive logic to play this would be a need of a filler 1 drop in the dynasty deck. The composure effect is mostly irrelevant as your opponent will rarely want to target a 1 drop 2 pol with anything. I guess if you really need more meme in your life you can also tower this in an attachment heavy deck.
Rating: 2/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
A character that, if I bid lower than my opponent, can’t be targeted by triggered abilities! One of the most potent composure effects to be sure! That sounds pretty great. And what is this character’s stats? Oh…0/2/1 for 1…Okay. False alarm guys. Go back inside. These aren’t the composure effects we’re looking for.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
The composure ability is pretty decent here, and the stats aren’t the worst for a 1 drop, but I don’t think it’s reliably worth bidding lower for on average, but might see play one day in some deck.
Rating: 2/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
The Soloist comes with a very strong Composure ability, as being having protection from triggered abilities can thwart a lot of answers for your opponents. This card’s unfortunate drawback is that it comes on a very less than relevant body, sporting less stats than Doji Whisperer. Accordingly, it’s unlikely that this card is worth making the Composure investment.
Rating: 2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
1 cost characters are very good, and this card sometimes has an ability! However the ability to not be targeted by triggered abilities is not what I look for in 0/2/1 courtiers. This card is not great, but it is a playable 1 drop with a relevant trait and that definitely counts for something.
Rating: 3/5
Courtly Challenger
Overall Rating – 2.8/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
This one is a wild card and already the source of a lot of debate. Courtly Challenger is one of these characters that either will prove extremely oppressing if a deck can make her work reliably or will just be quite disappointing. The first effect printed on the card is largely irrelevant. You are almost never going to trigger a duel you can’t win with Courtly because giving 2 cards to your opponent would be a disaster. You also really do not want to start a duel with Courtly Challenger non-honored given that her base stats are pretty weak for dueling anyway.
The duel itself has a very strong reward. Draw 2 written on a 2 drop is certainly quite good to make an impression. If the card wasn’t a dash military, I would have given it a minimum rating of 4 very easily but the dash is really the part that makes it tricky. Your opponent can play around it and without some help like Doji Challenger’s ability, some board state will just make it impossible to have a small enough duel target for it.
I heard that some people are worried or complaining that the body could be assassinated easily, making it tricky to start investing the necessary attachment on it to win a duel. I personally think that it’s almost a non-issue if we are cautious enough about it. Assassinate is already the first card that we keep our Voice of honor for. Just don’t play her if you don’t have any event cancel up. Alternatively, some fingers of jade can do a great job helping.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Like the Daring Challenger, this card is incapable of the off-conflict bully duel (as it has a military dash). Unlike Daring challenger, however, its effect is actually worth attempting to win the duel. It’s also got a bit of a cascade effect going with its duel because, if it can win its duel the first time, the next time it’ll likely be honored, making it even better at dueling. Drawing 2 cards for a few rounds in a row would be worth throwing a fan or honoring effect on this character to be sure.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Very strong, but swingy duel effect. The key to this card’s success is going to be whether you can consistently win the duel and make it not strain your honor to do so. Being a dash in military absolutely cripples the card in that regard since you lose half the benefit of being honored and can’t show up and bully duel military jocks. Still, I’m erring on the side of caution since this can be a self honoring 2 drop that draws 2 cards a turn and that seems pretty good to me.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Card draw is a strong effect, but this card suffers from the same problem most of the Challengers have. Its effect requires dueling while also being tied to a low-statted 2 fate character. Additionally, the dash in military prevents it from swooping in to duel low-pol characters in military conflicts. Temper your expectations here.
Rating: 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Card draw is and will always be very powerful, however this card requires a lot of setup and has a – in mil. If you do want to set it up the duel is worth it, however the potential to be blown out is very high. The fact that the payoff is not upfront and you’re open to punishment makes this card a no go for me.
Rating: 2/5
Paragon of Grace
Overall Rating – 3.4/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Tyler (L5R designer) confirmed that despite the wording the action is supposed to work like Brash Samurai so your opponent can have characters in the conflict and you can still trigger the effect.
The Bushi trait is mostly irrelevant right now but it’s still a fun little addition. The stat of the card fall a bit short from being exciting because of the 1 glory, making this having less political stat honored than our others 3 drop and less military stat honored than Kaezin or the Menacing Iron Warrior. Also, being non-unique hurts the card in the Phoenix matchup, a clan that is quite dominant recently.
The ability is a good one and probably 2/3 of the time; you will get the random discard effect by having the Parangon honored. I don’t think this characters totally fits our current competitive decks but if Crane hand control deck end up being a thing, it will be partially because of this character.
Paragon of Grace is not quite there yet but the potential is.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
2/3/1 for 3 are slightly below average stats. The action isn’t bad, as discard effects are good. The non-honored discard is opponent choice, which means you likely aren’t discarding a card that will impact that conflict (or it means your opponent is running out of cards in hand, which may be the strategic direction of your deck with this card in it). For that reason, It is a little awkward because Crane likely won’t want to spend one of their honor effects on this character due to its low glory, but if they do it’ll improve the discard effect from a chosen discard by your opponent to a random discard. The fact that this character has to participate alone to turn it on isn’t ideal, however, as that means you may have to sacrifice the conflict win to trigger the effect. Or you have to invest a fair bit of cards into this character to help it reliably win conflicts. I dunno if this card sees play, but it’ll be annoying when your opponent plays it.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Bog standard stats for cost, good traits, and a good ability that generates advantage turn to turn. It’s no Kitsuki Investigator, but it’s far from a consolation prize.
Rating: 4/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
There are limited means to force discard in this game, so Paragon of Grace’s effect is worth considering. However, the card has very okay-ish stats for Crane, and its effect requires participating alone. We’ll have to see if there will ultimately be space in the Crane dynasty deck for this card, especially as the duel archetype gets pushed.
Rating: 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card is sick, 3 costers are the best characters to play. It has the right creature types, it has a sick ability which has been confirmed to work like Brash Samurai does, it works on offense and defense in either conflict type and can be upgraded if you honor it. The only knock against this card is that it isn’t unique, but that’s a very small downside, this card is the real deal.
Rating: 4/5
Kakita Toshimoko
Overall Rating – 4.4/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Crane flagship duelist, very popular character amongst old lore enthusiast.
I am usually not fond of 4 drop statline because for one more fate, you can just play a 5-drop with a way better body but still, Toshimoko has one of the best statline for a 4 drop in the game. Crane lack of good military stats on non-assassinable body already makes Toshimoko a bit tempting.
Before delving into his ability, I want to clear a misconception: You do not need to play a full attachment or duel deck to make duel playable. Fine Katana/Ornate Fan are already in almost all Crane decks and they offer the best stat ratio for cost possible. Toshimoko honored and with two Katana is already a 10/5. Just throw a couple of Kakita Academy in your decks and you are almost ready to go!
Toshimoko’s ability will outright win some games but also will be really marginal in some others. If you lose a duel in defense against a big opposing character, Toshimoko will probably not be able to win his duel (but at least might be able to steal some honor). His duel obviously starts to shine against swarm and is very welcome against Unicorn rising.
One of the most powerful uses possible of Toshimoko is bringing him in the conflict bowed after he attacked or already defended one conflict this turn. This can be achieved with Favorable Ground but also Formal Invitation (a card that was already playable before) or even Favored Mount.
Is Toshimoko the Crane duelist character that finally will show the world that we are the masters of Iaijutsu ? I am optimistic that he is.
Rating: 4/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
A 4 for 4/3/2 that says “If you’re about to lose a conflict, duel somebody. If you win, you didn’t just lose this conflict.” Duels that have “zero downside” when lost are really strong in this game. This is especially powerful as a single defender of a big attack (maybe on your stronghold). If you’re able to pack this boi up with military buffs, your opponent may be unable to win no matter what they do. Luckily, military buffs aren’t exactly Crane’s specialty. That’s the main thing keeping this character from being busted. Still, very powerful and scary effect that works on both offense and defense. It’s crazy. To think a card could work in more than 1 kind of conflict…
Rating: 5/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Even before the dueling Stronghold makes its debut, Toshimoko looks like a brick house for the Crane deck. A strong military body with premium 4 drop stats, and 2 glory to push it into the upper echelon of threats while honored is exactly what Crane ordered. Oh, and he has an ability that makes him a nightmare to attack into should Crane need to be defensive. Toshimoko is a recipe for success.
Rating: 5/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Toshimoko will likely gain a lot of value with the new Crane stronghold, but for the time being he’s quite serviceable for his good stats and annoying ability. A loaded up or boosted Toshimoko can be a difficult hurdle to get past for many clans, especially since his ability can be triggered in both military and political conflicts. Expect to start seeing a lot of him soon, but I don’t think his full potential will be realized until the Crane pack.
Rating: 4/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Toshimoko is a very unique character and has a completely new and unique ability. Time will tell how good/easy to abuse this ability, although the new dueling stronghold definitely adds to it. Overall this is a strong statted charactecter with a potentially game warping ability, so expect to see him moving forward.
Rating: 4/5
Kakita Dōjō
Overall Rating – 4.2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
I like the design direction to put support duel card on holdings rather than only characters or conflict cards. Kakita Dojo will be without any doubt a very important part of duel decks or even decks incorporating some basic duel elements and is currently the only payoff for characters with the Duelist trait (Insult on Injury never existed).
The non-duelist related ability is situationally useful and makes us not feel to bad to flip that holding with no duelist in play. The duelist-related ability is the main reason why we will be playing this card. Like most duels, it will be more efficient against decks that do not run a tower-ish strategy but even against these kind of decks, I expect us to have some targets reliably for it.
An essential question before including Kakita Dojo in our decks is : How many duellist characters do we want to run to trigger that reliably ? My bet would be that Challenger, Toshimoko and 1-2 Kaezin might be enough to run it as a 2x.
Rating: 4/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Another strong card for Crane. Again, Crane’s relative weakness in military may be the only thing keeping this card from being too powerful. Not only does this card potentially “blank” a character’s actions, but it also bows them if you’re using duelists, which will be a theme for Crane. Duelist Training + temporary Cloud is not a bad effect, especially printed on a holding with +1 province strength. Can be used to bully duel in political conflicts since this doesn’t have “during a military conflict” restrictions like a few cards in this pack do.
Rating: 4/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Very clearly for the upcoming crane SH since without a duelist this holding is pretty forgettable, but a first action bow and pseudo-blank on defense is quite strong and it makes defending attacks from Crane very awkward. It’s repeatable too so I have no reason to suspect this doesn’t make the dueling deck eventually.
Rating: 4/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
The effect on this holding is strong, but I’m not totally sure that Crane is in a position to utilize it well just yet. For the holding to have maximum value, the dueling character must also be a Duelist, of which Crane don’t have a high density at this point in time. Toshimoko helps, of course, but we’ll need to see a few more Duelists worth running for this holding to really become powerful.
Rating: 4/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Repeatable value is the name of the game and holdings that allow you to do that are a rare and powerful commodity. This card is definitely worse if you don’t have a duelist, but Crane currently have 3 duelists who are strong candidates for the holding in Kakita Kaezin, Doji Challenger and Tengu Sensei. Bow and blank is an insane combination, however just being able to blank characters is something Crane sorely lack at the moment so even without the duelist kicker it is still a nice addition. Couple this with the upcoming addition of Kyuden Kakita and this holding is here for the long haul.
Rating: 5/5
Iaijutsu Master
Overall Rating – 3.2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
+1/+1 for 1 is not really what we are supposed to want from an attachment but it’s actually not that bad in a duelist/semi-duelist decks because it’s not restricted and therefore, allow to improve a character stats further than just 2 fantana.
The ability is decent but not exciting and the fact that it allow to bid 0 make it an interesting option for any potential dishonor duel deck. Even in a “normal” deck, it can allow honor bleed from your opponent a little more and combined with the others duels that you might want to lose willingly; it can end up making the accumulated honor loss pretty important. Aside of that, by allow to bid 6, Iaijustu Master can virtually be considered as a +2/+2 instead of a +1/+1 when it comes to duel.
Despite all that, I am worried that Iaijutsu Master is not doing enough to justify his inclusion as a 1 cost attachment, especially if it is the only one -or nearly only one- 1 cost attachment here.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
1 for +1/+1 are decent stats. Lowering your bid for an honor loss/gain effect is nice. Upping your bid to ensure victory without overcommitting is also nice. Duelist character only means this is likely restricted to duelist themed decks.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
If your deck is going to be based on dueling, then you are going to want to put attachments on your guys so you can win those duels easier. This attachment pulls double duty for that purpose, as it’s both not restricted which allows you to put other stat boosting attachments on the character and it also allows you to fix your bid somewhat. Heck, if you are in a range to bully duel somebody then you can actually use this attachment to sap an honor from your opponent by bidding zero.
Rating: 4/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
This attachment is somewhat reasonable since it allows you to win a few more duels than you normally would, or steal an honor in bully duel situations. Its big limiting factor is that it can only be attached to Duelist characters, which there likely aren’t enough of for Crane at this point. Because of its limited scope, I wouldn’t expect to see this card in play for quite some time.
Rating:3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Currently there aren’t enough duelist characters and duels to make this card consistently good, and I don’t believe it’s a good enough reason to play seal of the crane. In the deck it’s meant for, dueling, it is a nice addition. Non restricted and allows you to drain honor or win otherwise unwinnable duels is nice, but the 1 cost keeps it from being great. Also the picture is 100% Dave Grohl.
Rating: 3/5
Storied Defeat
Overall Rating – 3.2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Now, that’s a real duel payoff ! Aside of the anti-synergy with Kakita Academy or Duellist Training, it’s a very strong effect even without the kicker effect. With Children of the Empire alone it will be hard to take advantage of it because we still need more non-bow duel. If it has to be tried currently it would be in a deck with Policy Debate as the RL card as it seem very strong with it. Once the Crane clan pack is released I have very little doubt that people will learn to fear Storied Defeat.
Rating: 4/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
What I really like about the Crane cards in this pack is that it looks like FFG actually had a build or theme in mind when designing the cards. I wish they had that design style with all of the clans. Again, another card that will likely be restricted to the duelist theme decks, but man is it a powerful effect. Adding a bow to a policy debate for free is great. Adding a bow and a dishonor to policy debate for 1 fate is even better.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
The strength of this card depends on how many utility duels the dueling decks will run. If your duels already bow/dishonor then this isn’t that great, but with duels such as Kaezin’s, Toshimoko’s, Yuri’s, and the later in this pack Civil Discourse this card can be a house.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Another card that gets significantly better once more duels are being run in Crane. It is a free bow effect, but one that requires a second card or effect to trigger, making it a little inconsistent. With conflict decks as tight as they are, there likely won’t be much room for a large number of these, if any.
Rating: 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
While I do love modal cards, this card doesn’t have the current support to consistently be “on” and in the end while it is a strong effect it isn’t something new and can approach levels of redundancy. This card is a pretty good example of a card being not quite powerful enough to see widespread play even though it is cool.
Rating: 3/5
Try Again Tomorrow
Overall Rating – 2.8/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Interesting tool that can be used either on offense or defense for different effects. A bit too much requirement to probably be worth the inclusion in our usual decks but if an honor stall deck becomes a thing; this card could be looked at.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Move home is really good for a few reasons. It allows you to overcommit on an attack with the intention of drawing a big defense and then backing out. It also allows you to back out of a conflict if it starts to go sour. It also allows you to send home your opponent’s attacker if you’re losing a conflict you can’t afford to lose (or a province you can’t afford to lose). It’s also free, which is what rout and outwit should have been. All around, a decent card. Main thing holding it back is the fact that it is a utility card rather than a card built to support a specific deck goal, which means it may be difficult to fit into decks.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Acts as either a free outwit while defending or as an eject button on an attack. This card is very flexible. The issue is that I have trouble seeing many Crane finding utility slots for more than one of these in their conflict deck.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Send home effects are a bit lackluster in this game, especially highly conditional ones. Honored Courtiers aren’t terribly hard to come by for Crane, but this card also only sends home attackers, limiting its power even further. Don’t expect to see this in modern Crane.
Rating: 2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card is so close to being very very good but it has just a few too many conditions, like if it was courtier instead of honored courtier and if it worked on offense we’d be talking. As it stands crane do not always have a honored courtier all the time, let alone one they want to block with. The one uniquely nice thing about this card is that it can be used to eject your own character from a botched attack, I don’t see this card making a huge impact but I would not be surprised if it saw light play.
Rating: 3/5
Civil Discourse
Overall Rating – 1.4/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Why is this role locked ? And Earth of all role?
That being said, Crane can be happy that this specific conflict card is our role locked option of the expansion.
Even if Testuko/Crone-like effects have proven effective in the past, two things are seriously crippling Civil Discourse : The fate cost and the fact that your opponent can choose the target for the duel.
Rating: 2/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Earth role locked. Lol.
We’ve seen from cards like Ageless Crone and Tetsuko that increasing the cost of conflict cards is a legitimate pain in the ass. But it also isn’t “game changingly” good. So finding space for a card like this would be relatively difficult and would likely only be used as a utility card to blank out your opponent’s options on a stronghold attack. Not an ideal use of card slots. Plus, it costs fate. So you’re spending a fate to maybe make them spend a little bit more fate…okay. It’d probably be a 2 if it weren’t locked to some of the worst roles in the game.
Rating: 1/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
The effect is neat, but paying 1 fate and then winning a duel where your opponent chooses the defender is a very high cost to pay for an impermanent, crappy Tetsuko. Even with the arrival of Vassal Fields alleviating the lack of strong earth options in an Earth role somewhat, this isn’t a card worth downgrading UA for.
Rating: 2/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
This card would likely be passable if it were free, but as it is, it essentially asks you to pay a fate to perhaps trade a fate with your opponent. Your opponent gets choice of who actually duels, and not to ignore the biggest red flag of all: Earth role only.
Rating: 1/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card costs a fate and a card, and then you have to win a pol duel against a character of your opponents choice. If you do all that your opponent can STILL play cards for a modest tax. Oh ya this thing is role locked also…
Rating: 1/5