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Lion
Honorable Challenger
Overall Rating – 2.6/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Finally, a Lion card that can make meaningful use of its Pride keyword–sort of. Like the rest of the challengers, Honorable Challenger is a 2 drop with a small body, making commiting to firing her duel a risky endeavor. Lion is rarely at lack of enough military pump to make it happen, but Assassinate will continue to be the bane of the 2 drop existence. The payoff here, however, may be strong enough to make it worth going for.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
You mean I get to potentially keep my 2/1 standing after this conflict? Get out of Town! I sure hope I won this conflict, otherwise I have the privilege of my 0/0 remaining unbowed! At least I can attempt to bully duel with it. And Lion’s plethora of military buffs does make it at least somewhat useful.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
It’s the side-grade to Akodo Gunso Lion always wanted! That weirdly means it’s playable.
Rating: 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
A 2 drop 2/1 and Lion, name a more iconic duo. At least this one is better than Akodo Gunso so it might make the deck.
Rating: 2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Let’s add that to the pool of Lion 2 drop 2/1. This one is far from the worst of the bunch as Lion would benefits a lot from character participating in several conflict but its duel might sometimes be hard to pull off.
Rating: 3/5
Ikoma Orator
Overall Rating – 1.8/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
This card is vaguely reminiscent of Venerable Historian, whose ability is simply too inconsistent and less than impactful to see play. Orator is not much different, trading off 1 max pol stat for the ability to attack on military. It just isn’t enough, especially for 2 fate, but if you’re hurting for a cheap courtier in Lion, you could do worse.
Rating: 2/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
2/3/1 for 2 isn’t a bad stateline. 2/1/1 and sometimes 2/3/1 for 2 is a worse statline. Having no text otherwise is sad. I guess if you’re hurting for more courtiers you can shove this little guy in. But you won’t feel particularly good about it.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
It’s the side grade to Venerable Historian Lion always wanted! I feel like having 2 drops that are all like each-other is emerging as a Lion theme. Can’t say I’m a fan.
Rating: 2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
Another card requiring you to be more honorable, and when you fulfill it you get a 2/3/1 for 2 so that’s neat. This card isn’t good and i’ll be happy if my opponents play this against me.
Rating: 1/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
You probably play Venerable Historian instead of that if you need a 2 drop courtier. Borderline playable but fall short.
Rating: 2/5
Student of War
Overall Rating – 2/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Student of War has gotten very little fanfare simply because the card is extremely average. Her Composure effect can be strong, letting her stay around and accumulate value. However, much like Matsu Beiona, being a 3 fate character with average stats and no other ability than longevity is just not enough to make an impact most of the time.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
Slightly below average stats for a 3 coster. And, you can’t really buy this character with less than 2 fate because your opponent can just bid 1 and turn it’s composure off so it’s not even like its ability can reliably save you money like Beiona’s could…I dunno. I don’t see the point in this card. My rating is probably too harsh, but this is just not the card Lion needs.
Rating: 1/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
I feel like this is just Matsu Beiona for people not man enough to go all in on bushi. Average stats and your opponent being able to control whether you have composure or not makes this a pass from me.
Rating: 2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card is meh, it’s basically a vanilla 3/2/1 for 3 and is only “good” with composure, even with composure this card is not exciting, its best use is to get loaded up and stay around a long time due to its text.
Rating: 2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Nice ability but I have trouble finding it relevant enough on a 3 drop that does nothing else, especially because the composure requirement is still tricky. Composure cards need to be more pushed than that to be played.
Rating: 2/5
Matsu Tsuko
Overall Rating – 3.4/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Matsu Tsuko is a good card, if only for having good stats for her fate tier (something Lion characters often struggle with). With Tsuko comes a “more honorable” ability that may finally be worth playing for, as this ability lets you play conflict characters for free, run expensive events like The Fires of Justice, or just get a fate discount on Charge and Strength in Numbers. The more honorable theme still lacks support for maintaining that honor lead, but at the very least this is a step in the right direction.
Rating: 4/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
I love cards that produce fate. Fate is the lifeblood of the game and any card that creates it has to at least be considered for any deck in which it is legal. While this isn’t pure fate production, fate cost reduction is often similar in practice. 4 for 4/3/2 is a good statline too. This is not Hitomi or Toshimoko good, but it’s a nice card worth fitting into your deck.
Rating: 4/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Solid stats, with a 4 military being a major upside for Lion, and an ability that is useful if sometimes a bit unwieldy means I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tsuko in most every Lion deck. She’s decidedly average in power level though, I think she’s waiting for some more strong cards to use with her ability.
Rating: 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card has a powerful effect for sure, but the number of conditions needed to get that effect are high and narrow, while attacking, higher honor and then it’s the next card that conflict. She does have strong stats and her ability is also strong if kind of hard to turn on, she’s a step in the right direction but not a big step.
Rating: 3/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Cool art. Good stats for a 4 drop. The ability can be a bit narrow (need to be more honorable, having Tsuko attacking, and a conflict card costing fate worth playing). I am not convinced by Matsu Tsuko for now but if Lion evolve into a more tower-ish playstyle, she is a good candidate for such deck. Still, she might be played in current decks because how average a lot of Lion characters are.
Rating: 3/5
Tactician’s Camp
Overall Rating – 1/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Wide style Lion could really benefit from more “anthem” effects, similar to Kuni Lab in Crab. This is not the holding we were looking for. With very few ways to reliably honor characters on top of getting an extremely redundant +1 Mil only, it should not be difficult for anyone to leave this in the binder.
Rating: 1/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
What a sad card. It’s almost like FFG was trying to hit a deadline with this design.
Rating: 1/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
“Kuni Lab, can I copy your homework?”
“Okay, just make sure it looks different.”
…some time later…
“Crap, I still got an F”
Rating: 1/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card sucks
Rating: 1/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
No.
Rating: 1/5
True Strike Kenjutsu
Overall Rating – 3.2/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
This card is Lion’s version of Crane’s Duelist Training, only different. Since this card does only use base mil stats, the duels are harder to bully and will likely require you to spend some honor to bow the character. Fortunately, Lion has one of the few ways to modify base mil strength, but the unfortunate part is that Lion lacks a lot of naturally high base mil characters. This attachment will continue to get better the more of those cards appear (Akodo Makoto).
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
This card would be really good if Lion actually had high military base stats. Unfortunately, the designers seemed to have decided early on that giving Lion players a decent card with more than 3 or 4 military strength, let alone a good one (outside of Toturi) was just not reasonable because they printed Way of the Lion in the core set. It’s always frustrating when you see designers paint themselves into a design corner with their earlier design decisions. The limit on this card is the fact that it’ll be difficult to truly bully duel someone with it, since you can’t infinitely pump base stats outside of Way of the Lion. It could be interesting in a splash for a clan with high military base values though. Like…Crab, perhaps? I hear they like attachments too.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
Duelist Training is very strong in a military clan, especially when in this case it uses base military which can be pumped by Way of the Lion. Repeat bow effects are super strong, and Lion is getting even more high base military characters down the road to make this even better. If this card weren’t so darn awkward with Hand to Hand, it would get a 5 from me.
Rating: 4/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card is strong, repeatable bows are great, however Lion is actually pretty lacking in the base military department. Way of the lion tax at its best, I wouldn’t be surprised if this card saw a good amount of play.
Rating: 3/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Lion’s duelist training. The difference is that you only use base MIL, which is good with Way of the Lion but does not work with others mil pumps. The base MIL of most Lion’s character being not that high, I don’t think this card will see a wide variety of plays but at least it does give Lion some options to win a political conflict.
Rating: 3/5
Hand to Hand
Overall Rating – 4.6/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Attachment hate? In my Lion?? After years of waiting, Lion finally has a way to deal with some pesky attachments, but most importantly, Cloud the Mind. In direct comparison to a card like Let Go, you lose the ability to target attachments that otherwise wouldn’t be in the conflict, like Talisman of the Sun and Reprieve. The card also has anti-synergy with your own attachments and only works in military conflicts, so this card can be awkward to run. Because of these restrictions, this card–strictly as a card–gets a 4 from me. However, expect Hand to Hand to have a much more pronounced effect on Lion as a whole, as it finally frees us from the crutch of Dragon splash and lets us run other more potent and dynamic splashes without fear of dying to Cloud the Mind.
Rating: 4/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
I think more attachment hate was needed for this game. The prevalence of Let Go is a testament to that. The downside is that this has a reciprocal effect that makes it less likely to be omnipresent like Let Go is. It also needs to be played in a conflict on a participating character, meaning you can’t use it to prevent Talisman of the Sun from being played and used if it’s put on a non-participating character. It also means you can’t remove Spyglass or Watch Commander outside of conflicts before they have at least one trigger go off for their owners. That said, Hand to Hand will allow Lions to branch out more in deck building and not rely as heavily on dragon splash and will allow dragon splashers to consider lion splash as an alternate build as well if they need the attachment hate but want to test lion splash as well. For that reason, I’m upping its rating from 4 to 5. Good job FFG. Hopefully, this diversifies the environment more.
Rating: 5/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
This card is a bad Let Go, but that’s okay because having a bad Let Go will let you splash from a wider range of factions you couldn’t otherwise without sacrificing in the matchups where you need attachment control. This card will see a ton of play in Lion, and possibly a few other clans splashing Lion now that it has some form of attachment control.
Rating: 5/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card is an awesome addition to the game, it opens up splash opportunities and gives some versatility to the clans in this game. It’s clearly worse than let go, but when that is the bar it is ok to come up short.
Rating: 5/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
Hand to Hand is great at one thing : dealing with Cloud the mind. When you want to deal with attachment like Reprieve or Talisman of the Sun, it’s going to be trickier if your opponent know you might be playing this card. It still does force some awkward play around.
This is not let go but Hand to Hand should open a world of new possibilities for Lion and Lion splash.
Rating: 4/5
The Fires of Justice
Overall Rating – 2.8/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
While I’m unsure that this card will ever be run as more than a 1x, it can potentially alter the way that opponents block Lion military attacks, as a win on military can result in your opponent losing all of your banked fate, or losing all of the fate on a crucial character. This makes blocking or poking on military a potential liability, which can put opponents in awkward situations and make it easier for Lion to get their offense going. I’m not going to rate this card more than a 3 until it gets tested, since it’s a 2 fate event that’s contingent on winning, but don’t be surprised if this card exceeds expectations.
Rating: 3/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
I really like the idea of my opponent chump blocking a military conflict with a little weenie and then I force them to dump 7 fate on him. It also has the added versatility in that it could potentially force them to lose a bunch of fate if they tried the “1 tower to defend them all” tactic and failed. The cost is steep and the role lock is stupid, but I really like the potential blowout plays this card could create.
Rating: 3/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
A neat “gotchya” card that makes a nice 1x surprise. This can totally ruin someone’s day by killing a larger character, similar to Fallen in Battle, or by completely nuking their fate pool and placing it on some chud they used to poke or defend with.
Rating: 3/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card is weird, it has very high blowout potential and doesn’t ask much for setup, the practicality of using this card will be the real question mark and as such I’m not sure of its place in the game at the moment.
Rating: 2/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
This is a perfect 1x card, assuming you have a void role or are Lion/go Lion splash, which is still a specific case. Like a lot of blowout 1x, this card will stay dead in hand some games and will have a extremely strong impact on others games. I am a bit worried that it can be played around a bit too effectively in open decklist.
Rating: 3/5
Glorious Victory
Overall Rating – 1.8/5
(Handsome) Dan Mui
Another card that’s likely to be a 1x at best, Glorious Victory is extremely expensive and requires you to break a province before it actually gets activated. This makes the conditions pretty difficult to meet, and the payoff may not even be all that great based on your board state. Its primary use will most likely be for the big honor swing you can get from having 3-4 honored characters leave the board at once. Since the blowout potential is much less apparent here, I’m going to be skeptical until proven otherwise.
Rating: 2/5
Joe (From Cincinnati) Habes
3 fate to honor every character you control after you do something your deck is designed to do. The cost efficiency will depend a lot on how wide your board is. I could see a weenie high glory deck with For Greater Glory and this card being a thing that people will try. The funny part of that deck, however, is the fact that 3 of the Lion weenies already have pride anyway, so that’s kinda awkward. Maybe Lion can honor rush someday with this card. But I don’t know how far off that time is.
Rating: 2/5
Travis (Fights Dragons) McDaniel
I actually have some hopes that one day this card will be very good, but you really need to honor a lot of dudes to make this worth the cost and a more wide-oriented Lion is still waiting on better early drops to really shine. For now: binder.
Rating: 2/5
Aneil (Mind’s Desire) Seetharam
This card costs 3… Other than in an honor running style deck I don’t see this card as anything other than a coaster.
Rating: 1/5
Nicolas (Chuterêve) Simonpietri
For Greater Glory but not great and without glory. The effect is potentially quite strong but this ridiculously overpriced. It might still be a piece of choice in a Lion honor deck, but even here, it works awkwardly with all the Lion pride character.
Rating: 2/5
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