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DRAGON
Kitsuki Counselor
Overall Rating – 1.2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Wow a card worse than Togashi Mendicant… I guess it is my 3rd in clan courtier so that’s something…
Rating: 1/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
What a boring card. A 1/1/1 for 1 that gets +1/+1 when you (likely) bid 1. It’s like a card written in binary if the coder didn’t realize that you’re allowed to use 0s. My main disappointment is that this card isn’t card #11 in the pack. For that reason, I give it a 1. Or maybe I should give it a 127…
Rating: 1/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
A 2/2 for 1 cost is nothing to write home about especially when you have to jump through hoops to get there, courtier trait would be the only reason this card sees some play eventually, if it ever does.
Rating: 1/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
I have refrained from giving this card a 1 because in a vacuum the card is not completely terrible. However, since this card has no relevant keywords for Dragon, and Dragon has several other 1 fate characters that vastly outclass this one, I see no reason for this to ever see play.
Rating: 2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
The only weakness of Dragon dynasty is probably their low drop. That being said, Kitsuki Counselor is not good enough to find a spot. The only interesting thing here would be the courtier trait but there is almost no chance that Dragon will be interested to play For Shame! competitively.
Rating: 1/5
Prudent Challenger
Overall Rating – 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Not quite sure why this card has courtesy, but aside from that this card is pretty medium. 2 cost cards are the worst cost in the game, it’s ability will rarely if ever hit a meaningful attachment because they would need to block with a character with the attachment you wanted to hit, you would need to win the duel which risks honor, and then you would need to make sure your challenger doesn’t get killed or debuffed while you’re investing in him. This card is fine, but nothing to write home about, it is really good at taking fans off of small characters I guess, so there’s that.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
I’m not sure which is more annoying: the fact that this card is infinitely more useful than the Crab’s challenger or if, despite this fact, it’ll almost certainly still not see much play anyway. The duel may or may not ever actually work, unless you commit a few cards to the cause, but courtesy is really nice.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Reasonable 2 drop with okay stats and a rebate when it leaves play makes this card an alright choice as an early province poker. Don’t expect to get much value from the duel, though.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Challenger syndrome strikes again. This card has a pretty desirable attachment removal ability, but since it’s attached to a small, 2 fate cost body, it’s tough to justify the investment to make the duel fire consistently. At the very least, this card randomly has Courtesy.
Rating: 3/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
This is a good low drop. The statline is more than decent in the world of 2 drop (but never exciting because 2 drops are rarely played for a statline). The courtesy effect make it a 2/2 1 fate character with an important delay.
Because of the body, the duel might not be easy to pull off even in Dragon so it’s clearly not a “Second let go” like I’ve read sometimes. That being said, I have no doubt that it will be used effectively in a decent number of games. I am willing to take a risk with my rating on this one.
Rating: 4/5
Tranquil Philosopher
Overall Rating – 2.8/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Jade Masterpiece is definitely worse with two HMT decks in the meta but couple it with a slow honor gain and a character with a good trai, although bad stats, and you have a cool package. That said this card isn’t good in multiples and will be hard pressed to win conflicts, but the utility is there.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Jade Masterpiece on a stick. A poorly statted stick. The honor gain is interesting anyway and will supplement the high bidding style that Dragon players have grown accustomed to. It’ll likely see spot play in Dragon decks, especially if the fate manipulation on rings actually begins taking shape in the near future. But you probably won’t feel all that great spending 5 to 6 fate up front on this character unless you have monk relevant cards and no other monks to use them on at the time.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Jade Masterpiece lost its slot in conflict decks recently, so having that sort of effect on a Dynasty body is somewhat welcome. The stats here are trash, with the 2 glory being very disruptive on a 2/2 body. I don’t see this card seeing much play at all because of that, but it could be used as a way to tell dishonor decks to shove it as a minor include in current dragon decks.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Jade Masterpiece has fallen out of favor in the recent meta, so Jade Masterpiece on a body isn’t much more likely to see play. It does have the benefit of being a Monk for the Mitsu/Void Fist package deck, but it’s also a monk with relatively underwhelming stats. Hard maybe here.
Rating: 3/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Jade Masterpiece has proven useful in the past even if it is cut in most Dragon deck nowadays. Gaining one honor is a cool icing on the cake. Dragon is also desperately in need of more Monk and a 2 glory body with the rise of Master Alchemist is not anymore a downside.
Still, 2/2 might be a bit low for a Clan that is winning most of his conflicts by sheer stats.
Rating: 3/5
Mirumoto Hitomi
Overall Rating – 5/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Hitomi is Bae, a bald badass bae, she comes in and does her job super straightforward and solid. Having a multi duel is pretty crazy especially with a pretty powerful effect on said duel. Her stats are good, she’s unique, she has a good trait, so what’s not to love. Sadly she still doesn’t bring what Niten Master did, few characters can, but she’s a welcome addition to that slot.
Rating: 5/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
A For Shame bully duel that can be used to bully multiple characters if you’re facing several 0 to 2 strength bodies (like in an off-conflict duel) or if you’re pumped up to inane strength levels (not particularly hard for Dragon). 4/2/1 for 4 are good stats and this character doesn’t even have the requirement to be less honorable than your opponent to have a text box. Not bad at all :).
Rating: 5/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Hitomi is an absolute unit of a 4 coster, and slots right into the current dragon hybrid deck. It’s simply very easy for Dragon to get this character up to ludicrous levels of military and leverage this duel to get value every turn. What’s even crazier is when she has Seal of the Dragon to gain access to Hurricane Punch and Void Fist, then even an army couldn’t hold her back.
Rating: 5/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Dragon lost Niten Master to the RL, but regained a pretty reasonable card to slot into the three new openings in dynasty. Hitomi gives Dragon a solid unique character to run, and her ability effectively serves as two For Shames on a couple of your opponent’s characters. It’s hard to see Hitomi being excluded from any Dragon deck going forward.
Rating: 5/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Dragon’s new powerhouse character. Way more straightforward than Toshimoko. The stats are fine and will be easy to ramp up with attachment and the help of the Dragon stronghold. I don’t expect Hitomi’s ability to work every game on two targets at once but even making it work on one character each turn is important value.
For Shame proven to be really worth the card slot with deck having enough Courtier and winning Hitomi’s duel (which should not be that hard unless you are targeting maybe a Crab tower) is quite close to that.
The Duelist trait will probably be relevant if Mirumoto’s Dojo end up being played and should not be overlooked.
Rating: 5/5
Mirumoto Dōjō
Overall Rating – 5/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Like Kakita Dojo this is repeatable value gain on a holding, this card is much more straightforward and synergizes with existing duelist Mirumoto Raitsugu. The front half of this card is fine as removing fate into your opponents pool while not as good as removing it altogether still helps shave down your opponents board, it’s also very easy to win as Dragon have no issue being the biggest, baddest military force on the board.
Rating: 5/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
A duel that results in a minor Jade Tetsubo effect or a Raitsugu effect, depending on the duelist trait.. The difference between this card and the Crane Dōjō, which I think has a better raw ability than this one (when done by a duelist), is that Dragon can absolutely abuse military strength to make this a basically guaranteed win. This will likely be played in essentially every Dragon deck from here on out.
Rating: 5/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Unlike the Crane duel holding, this one is still pretty decent without a duelist and quite good with a duelist. Dragon has access to two amazing duelist characters in Raitsugu and Hitomi, to boot. I expect this card to slot into dragon decks smoother than a katana through my poor character’s abdomen.
Rating: 5/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Mirumoto Raitsugu has been a Dragon staple since Core because of his powerful removal effect. Now, any Dragon character can utilize this holding to perform a more reasonable version of his duel–Raitsugu included. Players will have to be much more selective about how they structure their attacks once this holding enters play.
Rating: 5/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
A Raitsugu like effect on a holding is obviously very good and Dragon was in need of good clan holding. You do not even need a Duelist to get the most relevant part of the effect, which is very important as competitive Dragon probably can’t afford to make a new keyword matter a lot. Even then, Raitsugu and Hitomi seem a good baseline to get the Duellist bonus often enough.
Side thought : One of the main difference with Crane and Dragon most powerful duellist support in Children (Toshimoko, Hitomi, both dojo) is that the Dragon one is straightforward and fit quite naturally in current decks as the Crane one need more tweakings and are less about direct value, making it them less obvious as their current potential, hence the lower rating on them.
Rating: 5/5
Solitary Strength
Overall Rating – 2.2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Uh I guess this card is medium? It’s a non restricted +1/+2 but still requires you to go in solo, it has a random honor gain on it also which is nice or something. It’s also Air role only.
Rating: 2/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Dragon is pretty proficient at winning conflicts with a single character. And this card further develops that strength. However, +1/+2 for 1 isn’t oppressively powerful, even with the honor gain, considering Court Mask isn’t really played that much, so I can’t tell if this card will see much play either. The role restriction is also stupid.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
This is a solid attachment that is very importantly not restricted. That makes is pretty good in tower decks. I could see some decks using an air role forsake Tattooed Wanderer as their splash option alongside Let Go to run a few of these instead.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
This attachment just doesn’t offer enough stats for its cost to make up for the fact that it gets discarded when not participating alone. There are plenty of other good attachments and card to be running in Dragon or Dragon splash, so best to look elsewhere.
Rating: 2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Cute but ultimately not doing enough to deserve any spot aside of fun duel decks.
Rating: 2/5
Mirumoto Daisho
Overall Rating – 1.4/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
2 cost attachments need to be very very powerful to see play and this card does not fit that bill, it’s cute when it comes to dueling but it has this weird super restricted text along with costing 2 and I’ve seen enough.
Rating: 1/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Kinda like the two-handed keyword from Old L5R. 2 cost attachments are hard to justify in general and this card taking up both restricted slots only makes it worse. It’s basically Ornate Fan and Fine Katana combined but for [undefined] times the cost. The dueling thing is kinda cute, because it further incentivizes bully dueling (except now they must pay at least 1 honor, since they can’t big 1) and prevents your opponent from even being capable of tying a duel where they’re down by 3. Not much to write home about here, in my opinion.
Rating: 1/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
This is a 2 drop attachment that can potentially pay off in a dedicated dueling deck, but the fact that it uses both of your restricted slots makes this really awkward since dueling decks will want to stack their duelists up to win their duels. Obligatory “dies hard to Let Go” comment as well.
Rating: 2/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
The inability to bid 1 or 5 can be damning in some duel situations, but this attachment costs 2 fate and also prevents other restricted attachments from being attached as well. It ultimately only gives the same net bonus of one Ornate Fan and one Fine Katana, when you would be better served doubling up on one or the other. Not gonna happen here.
Rating: 1/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
First, I don’t like the idea of sacrificing two potential Fan or Katana on a same character for just a +2/+2 (which is the equivalent of one copies of each but here you pay 2 fate). I also think playing 2 cost attachment is always very risky with Let Go still everywhere. That being said, the ability can turns out to be very oppressive and lock a lot of duels. Is it powerful enough for the cost and the risk to just see that discarded ? I am going to say no.
Rating: 2/5
Magnificent Triumph
Overall Rating – 2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card has weird timing issues, and just is too situational at the moment to be good. If my deck was like 75%+ duels that were good I could see this card being good, it is also one of the few ways to pump political skill.
Rating: 2/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
When I first read this card, I actually liked it. “Protection from being f***ed with” is a really good line of text and +2/+2 is also really nice. It’s also free. But, with a few exceptions (Like Void Fist), if your opponent was going to do something of significance to this character, they’ve likely already done it by the time you’d won a duel and then had another action window to play this card. If it were a reaction to winning a duel, I think it’d be a lot better, even if it did make it a little bit less flexible (you’d have to decide to play it at the time of winning the duel, rather than when you may actually need the strength buffs). It may see some play in duel heavy decks though, and may be worth splashing in Crane decks someday.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
An alright duel payoff, though the timing is awkward. You need to spend an action to duel, then your opponent gets a window to play an action that affects your character before you can play this. A 0 cost +2/+2 for a conflict is not good enough to see play, so you really need to leverage the immunity for this to be good and the timing just makes the whole thing clunky at best and unplayable at worst.
Rating: 2/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
This is a pretty reasonable duel payoff, since it gives you bonus stats and event immunity after you win a duel to really put the nail in the coffin. That being said, it may be a bit win-more, and since it’s conditioned on duel results, it can often sit dead in your hand for long periods of time. Probably not worth running.
Rating: 2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
The best thing about it is that it’s the same character that you can find later, defeated on Storied defeat, ultimately proving that Crane are the best duellist in Rokugan. Case closed.
Aside of that, I hardly see the payoff worth the inclusion of the card. The “can’t be targeted” clause is only half relevant as most effect targeting a character are fired immediately in the conflict by the defender if there is any doubt about a “protection” effect being played soon.
Rating: 2/5
Karmic Balance
Overall Rating – 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card either will end up being unplayable or broken in terms of power. The consistency is the real issue and with the way the game is I don’t see this card being that strong currently. It’s also not the easiest card to splash as 4 influence is a lot. The effect has been proven to be remarkably powerful in other card games and I don’t see it changing in this one, IF you can reliably get it to go off, resolve and be properly set up for it.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
If there’s one thing you have to admit about this card is that it’s interesting. Dragon already has one of the best cards to deal with asymmetrical hand sizes between you and your opponent (Restoration of Balance). This seems, on the surface, to be a relatively cheap knockoff of that same effect, since it costs 2 fate and also forces you to reset your hand too. That said, this seems like one of those cards that everyone writes off until it’s played by an ingenuitive deck builder who found a way to build a deck around this effect. Maybe a Dragon deck that nosedives their bid following you hitting Restoration, making it impossible for you to recover your hand size thereafter. If you manage to get some non-bid draw going, then they hit you with this. I’m not saying this will definitely happen. It’s just a gut feeling more than anything else. Until then, I don’t think many Dragons will end up including this in their deck unless they’re chasing the dream that is that janktacular deck.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
This card is potentially very strong if you can get everything to align properly. You can potentially empty your hand by playing a bunch of attachments to the board then playing this to effectively make your opponent discard a lot of cards if they can’t match your play pace. This is also a solid answer to recursion and Isawa Tadaka by shuffling the discards back. That said, the fact that Dragon already has Restoration of Balance causing people to play cards quickly early game and that you need to match bids which will be harder if this card ever becomes meta keeps it tame, overall.
Rating: 3/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
I don’t play enough card games to know firsthand, but from what I’ve heard, Timetwister-type effects tend to be quite broken. This one, I’m not so sure about since it’s a little conditional and expensive. I don’t think the deck is there to really capitalize on it, especially at a steep 4 influence cost, but we’ll have to see if this ever becomes busted in the future.
Rating: 3/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
I have a hard time thinking that this will never be played effectively. Despite the cost and the (probably not that hard to fulfill) requirement, we are in presence of a game changing effect. Ironically, one of the best use of Karmic Balance is to help against Restoration of Balance but the card is really hard to splash with a 4 influence cost.
Keep an eye on Karmic Balance because its time will come and it will be warping. If not now, in another meta.
Rating: 4/5
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@nicolas it’s actually a different character on storied defeat. You can tell there are others wearing the same armor and the hair is longer on storied defeat. Sorry dragon still number 1.