Make Way for Ivory Edition

Yup, I’m Emperor-only.

Like the granddaddy of the CCGs, L5R has a legality window of about two years for its expansions. This legality turns over with a new base set released every two years, but in order to smooth the transition the 2-3 expansions prior to the base are legal for the following arc (it turns out that no one wants to buy CCG product that stops being legal in three months). The next base set for L5R – Ivory Edition – is scheduled to come out at the beginning of 2014, and Coils of Madness is the first expansion to included cards that are legal for Ivory Edition. Not everything is legal for Ivory Edition, however – 18 of the 147 cards, to be precise. Even without the legality symbols, it’s not too tough to identify the Emperor-only cards – just look for the ones that seem crazy overpowered.

Release Format

Partially because of the split legality on the cards, Coils of Madness is available in two formats. First, it’s available is a “direct to retailer” set. This is like a normal L5R “direct to player” set, except your FLGS buys it directly from AEG and then sells it to you, instead of you buying it directly from AEG yourself. There’s a playset of (almost) all of the cards from Coils of Madness, a story book, and a

Sorry boys, booster packs only.

collector’s tin. These come out in late May (if your FLGS isn’t dealing with them, then they’ll eventually be available for purchase from AEG, but it is unknown when). I say “almost” a playset because there are nine cards that are only available in the other format …

… which is a more normal booster box. Not quite normal though. The booster packs do not include any of the cards that are not Ivory-legal. So, basically, you can get the tin for playing now, but then you’ve got normal boosters of all-legal cards sitting on the shelves for later in the year when folks are only interested in Ivory Edition. The packs also have a different rarity scheme than normal. Instead of common/uncommon/rare, the slots are just Unique (cards you can only play one of in your deck) or non-Unique (cards you can play three of in your deck). Each pack has two Uniques and five non-Uniques. It still works out that the Uniques are a bit scarcer than the non-Uniques, as far as getting a playset goes. Nine of the non-Uniques (one for each Clan) are available only in the booster packs.

Foils and Full-Bleeds

Coils of Madness also sees the return of foil cards to L5R, and also the first appearance of full-bleed art in booster packs. About one in three boosters will have a foil Unique card in one of the two Unique slots, and every booster has a full-bleed art card in one of the non-Unique slots. Foils and full-bleeds do not appear in the direct-to-retailer version.

Rules and Templating Improvements

With a new edition on the horizon, L5R is taking steps to remove unnecessary complication from the game and make it easier for new players to grok, without stripping away strategic complexity. Some of these changes are evidence in Coils of Madness, while others are implied.

Here we can see the new bow and pay gold cost icons.

There are templating changes, which can be seen most prominently in abilities, which have picked up more icons and more keywords. The cost of “bow this card” now has an icon, as does costs of “pay X gold.” Keywords come in to replace commonly used bits of text like being able to use a Battle ability without presence (Absent), without being at the battle (Home), while bowed (Tireless), or even if you’ve used the ability previously this turn (Repeat).

There are also a few rules changes. Followers are losing their Honor Requirement, which basically didn’t come up in gameplay except as a way to hose some Follower decks playing against dishonor or to make it so that Spider Commander decks needed workarounds to have a functional set of Followers. Another change is to Events, which will no longer be resolving in their own special phase, but will instead just have abilities that let you resolve them during the action phase (this rules change, combined with there being no Regions in the set, and with all of the Celestials being Emperor-only, has led to speculation that those two card types are not long for this world).

An Interrupt ability. Also, consider this your example of a False Ring.

Reactions no longer exist – instead of being able to potentially play a Reaction at any time imaginable during the declaration or resolution of other actions, all “reactions” are either now Interrupt (played after an action has been announced/targeted/paid for, but before it resolves) or Engage (played when armies engage at the start of a battle). This should lead to the elimination of many esoteric timing rules that could confuse even veteran players.

You can find out more about the changes coming to L5R by checking out the Ivory Edition Designer Diaries, or catch the Lead Designer when he appears on the Strange Assembly podcast.

P’an Ku v. Fudo

Tying into the story presented with Coils of Madness (and the next expansion, Gates of Chaos, and the big L5R events at GenCon), we see the present menace of the Mad Dragon P’an Ku, and also the Fudoist Monks who, while opposing P’an Ku, present a spiritual menace of their own. Each of these ‘factions’ gets its own Stronghold (but since they’re only Emperor-legal, they only appear in the collector’s set, not in the booster boxes). Fudo gets to bring in Monks from other Clans, and manipulates the False Rings, while P’an Ku hands out Madness tokens and has a crazy-looking Stronghold that’s just begging for some creative deck-building.

The Fallen … or those who might be

Part of the threat of P’an Ku is that his madness will spread and consume the samurai of the Empire. There are a lot of these Fallen Personalities in Coils of Madness (including the nine booster-only cards), but the most prominent are a series of Experienced versions of existing, and sometimes major, characters who are not yet, but might become, Fallen, depending on how future storyline tournaments progress – a Clan Champion, an Elemental Master, the Shogun, the Colonial Governor, the great-grandson of the Kami Togashi. There are some high stakes that the Clans will be playing for this year.

Oh, and the Egg itself is back too:

The “Flashback” Personalities

The story book for Coils of Madness includes a series of vignettes of some of L5R’s most popular characters from the past, depicting times in their lives when P’an Ku attempted to influence them (sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he doesn’t). Some are obvious, characters that we already knew had an interactions with P’an Ku (specifically, the artifact the Egg of P’an Ku) – Bayushi Kachiko, Doji Hoturi (although not appearing in exactly the way you might think), Matsu Nimuro. Some we were not aware of before – Tsuruchi, Togashi Mitsu, Hantei XVI.

The Dark Naga is Back

The Dark Naga, a supernatural threat introduced way back in the Forgotten Legacy direct-to-player set, has somewhat languished in the story, but he’s back in Coils of Madness, along with Experienced versions of some of this helpers from Forgotten Legacy.

The “Relationship” Cards

One of the nice things about L5R is that you get to seem the story reflected in the cards. Sometimes that’s big plot points, like I talk about above. Sometimes that’s small plot points, like two magistrates kind of having a thing for each other while they’re working together. Coils of Madness features five pairs of these intersecting characters, each with a minor mechanical effect relating to the other one.

Everything Else

Of course, Coils of Madness just includes random other goodness as well (plus lots of inspirations for sifting the tea leaves on how Ivory Edition is going to be different from Emperor). There are, for example, a lot of Unique Personalities in here – storyline choices from the Top of Clan selections at GenCon and EuroChamps last year, the Kuni and Susumu daimyo, and so on. Check it out!

Promotional consideration was provided in the form of a review copy.

Strange Assembly – Episode 093 – Humanity’s Shadow

Strange Assembly – Episode 092 – Warmer … Warmer … Briscoe!

First, the main event (including the usual grinders on Thursday and Friday) – showdown with P’an Ku/godzilla:

Face the Madness: The architect of the insanity that has plagued the Colonies has been revealed. P’an Ku,the broken dragon,the embodiment of madness,has driven the Colonies to the brink of devastation in its futile attempt at imperfect recreation. Thousands have been cursed by the dragon’s madness,and the entire relationship between the Colonies and the Empire teeters on the brink of madness. But all is not lost. The loyal servants of the Divine Empress have discovered a means by which the Mad Dragon may be defeated. A powerful ritual discovered by the magistrates of Doji Hakuseki will force the power of the dragon to manifest into a physical avatar,an incredibly powerful entity that will pose untold danger to the Emerald Empire. However, if this avatar can be defeated,then the threat of P’an Ku can be ended. With no other options available, the forces of the Empire have chosen to accept this terrible risk.

If you aren’t qualified for the main event there is, of course, a Second Chance tournament on Saturday:

A New Voice: As the era of madness at last comes to a close in the Colonies, there are great changes afoot in the Emerald Empire. Togashi Satsu, the former Dragon Clan Champion who has served as the Voice of the Empress since the ascension of the Divine Child of Heaven, Iweko I, has taken ill with a terrible fever. His condition seems unresponsive to all medicine and ritual, and in the interests of ensuring his duties are not unfulfilled, he has chosen to retire from his position. The time has come for the Empress to have a new Voice.

This year, for those not competing in the grinders, there are two(!) L5R events on Thursday. The first, with the traditional L5R Invitational title:

The Kolat Master: For more than a generation, the sinister criminal organization known as the Kolat have been believed dead by the Empire. Their ancient tower is nothing but a dust-covered ruin. Many of their leaders died at the blades of the vengeful Scorpion Clan, their disgraced bones left to lie bleaching in the sun, never to know the sanctity of a proper cremation. Their heresy was exposed, their crimes avenged, and their shame ended forever. All precisely as Master Coin desired.

The second of the two Thursday storyline events (starting only one hour after the Invitational), is a Special Storyline Event (no, I have no idea what that means), which seems to be the showdown between P’an Ku and the Fudoists:

The Monk & The Dragon: As the battle against P’an Ku’s madness comes to a head, so too does the conflict between the cult of the dragon and the cult of Fudo. This is an ancient struggle that has flared up time and time again across the history of Rokugan, but never as fiercely as it has within the Colonies. Without the watchful eye of an Empress to mitigate their excesses, the forces of the two groups come together in one final, desperate battle.

Friday brings the ‘usual’ alternate-format tournament, but this year is the first time there’s a Big Deck tournament. Note that proxies are allowed for this one. Storyline is a bit vague, but it’s your one shot if you want to bring one home for a defunct faction. So … anyone have a playable Ratling decklist?

A Tale From The Past: Rokugan is a land of heroes, with innumerable men and women of great virtue and bravery having filled a hundred libraries with a thousand tales of valor.

As with last year, there will be a series of draft qualifiers throughout the weekend, culminating in an 8-person draft on Sunday:

A Hero for the Ages: In every generation there are countless samurai who seek to make a name for themselves, gaining much honor and glory for their family and clan in the process. Most go on to live lives of relative obscurity, with little to distinguish them from their brothers and sisters in arms. A handful, however, gain the attention of their lords and become the stuff of legend, inspiring the generations to follow just as they were inspired in their youth.

Coming soon

Hello, and welcome to another installment of deck diving. Today we’ll be looking at Shaper’s newest wunderkid, Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory has the advantage of being the smallest deck in the game thus far. She also gains +1 Memory. At 5 she can set up a full rig including the stupid button without having to important any extra ram.

I have constructed this deck to take advantage of the Anarch’s cheap to import and cheap to operate breakers. It runs the risk of finding itself unable to break in places, but it also means you can run every turn on very little money. Likely you can make a run against R&D every turn.

Also, I love Personal Workshop in this deck. being able to load up all of your breakers, and only pull them off the bench when you need them means you are super flexible in how to allocate your money. Just be wary of tags if you’re overloading the benches.

On to the deck.

Let’s try this.

Test Run (Cyber Exodus #47) x3 Fetch whichever breaker you need when you need it. Or get a work of art, if you need the cash. Don’t forget it can pilfer the trash if need be.

You’ll be even prouder knowing you made it.

Personal Workshop (Cyber Exodus #49) x3 The economy card of the day. An early workshop should get your economy flowing no problem.

Today, however, we’re going to look at the card evolution of each of these folks. First off, the Crab:

In O-Ushi, we can see several references back to older cards. First, this card represents her before she ever appeared the first time, so her stats follow her original card:

The Coils version of O-Ushi has an ability that bows those of lower Force, which is also shared by a couple of prior versions:

The most clear call-back, however, is probably to the art on O-Ushi’s XP2:

Two words: Chafing. Ouch.

The Crane entry in this category is the clan’s participant in the Second Day of Thunder, Doji Hoturi:

With Hoturi we don’t have an art shout-out, but we do have a couple of mechanical ones. The first is a little weird, flavor-wise, but we’ll let it stand anyway. The card is Inexperienced and his appearance in the story book is actually before the Clan Wars. But the art and flavor text for Hoturi’s CoM card depict him killing his Egg of P’an Ku duplicate. I’m not sure what’s going on with that, but timeline-wise that would put Hoturi in between his basic and Experienced versions and let’s check out the stats:

Nice little blending there. And Hoturi’s new ability looks awfully similar to this one:

The Dragon entry, Togashi Mitsu … well, at least he’s got that same Fire token thing working:

The Lion entry is Matsu Nimuro …

Who has nothing to do with any of his prior versions, unless you count keywords. Nimuro’s card just depicts him making this guy:

Maybe we’ll do better with the Mantis?

So, where is this Tsuruchi in the life of the character? The art is too old, we know that – Tsuruchi isn’t that aged either when “Inexperienced” or as depicted in the fiction. This Tsuruchi is from really early in the Clan War era, and is Inexperienced because Tsuruchi basic did not appear in Imperial Edition. His first version was this:

That’s right – certainly no Mantis Clan, but not even a Yoritomo’s Alliance or Wasp Clan! The early L5R story was pretty fluid. Tsuruchi picked up Wasp Clan and Yoritomo’s Alliance in Jade Edition …

… and he’s picks up Mantis Clan in …. ummm … well, actually, the Coils of Madness version of Tsuruchi is the first one to actually say Mantis Clan (although “Yoritomo’s Alliance” and “Mantis Clan” were basically synonyms for gameplay purposes). Regardless, however, the Coils Tsuruchi has no real solid relation to the basic Tsuruchi, unless you can’t “they both can do multiple Ranged Attacks.” There’s more of a link-up with his XP version from Dark Journey Home:

… since both versions of Tsuruchi are 3F/3C for 8G (and 2HR and 2PH).

Appropriately enough (you’ll know why soon), Phoenix is next:

As we’ve seen before, Tsuke represents an “Experienced 0.5″ version of the character, wedged between the original Imperial character and his next version:

As you can see, the CoM blends the stats and also picks up a similar ability! He’s consistent about that goofy headgear too.

The Scorpion get a new version of one of the most popular L5R characters ever:

There was some minor outcry that this art was too sexualized and did the character a disservice. We must disagree. Well, we agree that the art is shooting for “sexy” … but that’s always been a large part of the point of Kachiko. There’s a reason she’s got that “Seductress” keyword, after all.

The Spider (sort of) get Kokujin, who after a long career briefly founded an order of Spider monks before running off to start a failure of a peasant rebellion and get shanked by one of his underlings:

Hey, we finally got a guy who had the same artist for the original and the Coils of Madness version!

Also not the first time Kokujin has stolen guys with his ability … and I suppose I’ll throw another version like that up here, although I really can’t stand the art:

And last, but not least, it is time for your doooooooooooom:

Although his Karasu is a true Inexperienced version, the mechanical link to his basic version is pretty weak:

Lots of the same numbers, I guess, but not having the same Force kind of disrupts that part of it. And the abilities, ummm, both involving some sort of switching? Our Coils of Madness version has more in common with this guy:

That’s better – same Force/Chi, very similar abilities (also, check out when your home was still called your fief).

Well, that’s it for today’s history lesson. Stay tuned for a future Story Time episode of the Strange Assembly podcast, where we’ll give a little audio history lesson on the stories of these characters for those of you who haven’t been around for the last 17 years.

So, here are the decks I will probably be playing this weekend, as well as the thought that went into their construction:

I’ll start with Corp. I expect Haas Bioroid will be popular as it has been at most of the Regional Tournaments and I can’t get away from the consistency that HB provides. I’m playing Engineering the Future because it’s still easily the best. Agendas first:

3 Accelerated Beta Test
3 Project Vitruvius
2 Mandatory Upgrades
2 Private Security Force

Standard fare for Agendas. I’m going to skip to Operations for a moment to let you know that sometimes I am not original at all:

3 Trick of Light (9 Influence)
3 Green Level Clearance
3 Biotic Labor
3 Archived Memories

You may recognize this Operation line-up as the key cards behind the “advance from hand” deck that supposedly made a splash at the Georgia Regionals. This deck works, and I’m not above using someone else’s concept to my advantage. The rest of the deck is built to support these cards. Ice:

Barriers:
1 Hadrian’s Wall (3 Influence)
3 Ice Wall (3 Influence)
3 Wall of Static

Code Gate:
2 Enigma
2 Viktor 1.0
2 Viper

Sentry:
3 Ichi 1.0
3 Rototurret
2 Janus 1.0

Hadrian’s and Ice Wall are easily Weyland’s best advanceable ice and this deck needs places to advance from. It doesn’t hurt that Hadrian’s is unlikely to be broken on the run you rez it. Viper has done particularly well in tests because of the prevalence of Yog.0 in this environment. The sentries are just the great sentries that HB has always had. Assets will round out the deck.

3 Eve Campaign
3 Aggressive Secretary

Eve is good. Eve is really good. Rezzing Eve after a Runner plays Account Siphon can really make plans go wrong. With a trash cost of 5, many runners will let Eve get you her full 16 credits over the course of the game. Aggressive Secretary is honestly the reason this deck works:

The idea of this deck is that you heavily ice all 3 central servers without using any ice on remotes. Many runner decks rely on consistently getting into centrals, so blocking that path and installing/ advancing things unprotected will often throw the Runner off balance. Runners should know that Secretary is really good, as all Runners but Noise really care about their programs.

My Runner deck is based on the deck I built right when Humanity’s Shadow came out, but it has undergone so many revisions that the two decks do not look similar. I’m playing Andromeda and Criminals should always start with their events:

3 Account Siphon
3 Emergency Shutdown
3 Inside Job
2 Quality Time (2 Influence)
3 Satellite Uplink
3 Special Order

Quality Time is better than I could have guessed; 5 cards is a bunch of cards, and the influence is incredibly unrestrictive. Satellite Uplink takes the space that Forged Activation Order would have because face checking ice is a good way to force the corp to rez it, but face checking trap assets will lose you the game. Programs are next:

1 Crypsis
1 Corroder (2 Influence)
2 Femme Fatale
2 Yog.0 (2 Influence)
2 Djinn (4 Influence)
2 Data Sucker(2 Influence)
1 Medium (3 Influence)

This deck draws cards like crazy including the 4 cards extra cards you start the game with; since you see a high percentage of your stack faster than any other Runner, 1 of Programs make sense. Djinn is the center of this deck’s central server punishment; Djinn will find your Data Suckers and Medium when you need to dig deep into R&D for those last couple points. Last is Resources and Hardware:

3 Access to Globalsec
3 Decoy
2 Desperado
3 Kati Jones
3 Public Sympathy
3 Underworld Contact

Since this deck usually maxes out at 4 MU, the best place to find link is with one of the worst cards from the Core set: Access to Globalsec. Don’t be afraid to play multiples of this link because traces can come up at any time, and it’s nice to use your link for something other than drip economy.

My blundering around while deck building highlights a simple fact: if you want to be better at Netrunner, you need to play. I have tuned these decks to my own personal playstyle; I chose to omit some cards that many find to be staples in their decks (like Tollbooth and Compromised Employee) because they don’t fit me and they don’t fit the deck.

So, one of the important deck building considerations for the Corp is how many Agendas to include. For a standard 45-49 card deck you need 20-21 points, but that can be anything from 7 3 pointers to 21 1 point agenda (sometime in the future once they make some more 1 pointers.) How you choose to fill your agenda points as far as how many Agendas to use will have strong repercussions on your game play, mainly on how many are needed for each side to win but also the likely hood of drawing into them both for your self and the Runner when he wants to top deck.

Since the abilities of Agenda are different for each faction I will only speak generally about the point scale rather than dig into the actual abilities as it influences which category is best for the faction to play/ which are available rather than which categories are available. Also, these are assuming a standard 45-49 deck size. Obviously different deck sizes will need different Agenda counts, thus skewing the potential categories.

7 3 point Agendas

Just making time for some R&R, by putting HQ in R&D

In my mind the best choice for a trap deck, as all of your Agenda will now take 5 points to score, meaning like traps they hang out for awhile masking the traps vs the real Agendas, while also giving you more room in the deck for said traps. Both players will always need 3 Agenda score/steals to win the game. One of the main advantages of the 3 pointers is that, since they are harder to score, they often have stronger abilities than their 2 point cousins. On the other hand there are very few in faction choices at the moment, so some Corps can’t even try this and those who can have little choice in which Agenda to use.

10 2 point Agendas

Since most of the Agenda released have been at this point total this is one of the easier totals to play. With 10 Agenda you’re likely to see one in your opening hand. Further, if you play entirely 2 pointers both players will need 4 Agenda to win making it less likely for the Runner to luck sack into a win before you’re prepared. The two pointers have a range of advancement counts, from 3 to 6, so I can’t say anything generally about how easy they are to pull off. Every faction will play differently.

21 1 point Agendas

Target Locked

Just kidding, this is currently not an option. Maybe some day. That said, it would likely make for an interesting fast advance deck as all of the agenda would surely be easy to score. Either side would need 7 to win, meaning you can lose some to the Runner without having to worry too much. Without Medium/Maker’s Eye the Runner will need 7 different successful lucky runs. Also, you can always fuel Archie without feeling too bad. On the other hand, nearly half of your deck is Agenda leaving little room for ICE, economy or tricks.

A mix of 1 and 2 point Agendas.

The actually possible use of 1 pointers. Based on the exact ratio you’ll find in most games players need 4-5 Agenda to win. Further you’ll likely have fuel for Archer that you won’t mind using. As with the pure 1 pointers you’ll run into issues with large proportions of the deck being Agenda, meaning both in game you’ll be seeing them more often, but also you’ll have less room for other important functions.

When the moon hits your eye, that’s NBN.

Of course, other than these extreme categories there are a number of intermediate categories, such as the 3 3 point, 6 2 point that most factions were forced to run with just the core set. For the most part these intermediate tiers are going to have strengths and weaknesses of both tiers around them. For instance, the base option just mentioned does not have the guaranteed 4 Agenda to win that the all 2 deck did, but likely due to the factional Agenda currently available has a more interesting suite of powers once Agenda are scored. At this point you’re likely building the Agenda suite around the powers of the Agenda rather than the point totals. And of course there are other, weirder combinations you could make, such as Weyland playing 3 Government Contracts and then a mixing of 1 and 2 point Agenda. At that point playing the deck is the only way to tell if the Agenda mix you are using is right for your playstyle/ deck build.

Good luck constructing your Corp decks. Happy … Corping? Not being hacked? UnRunning?

Happy Agenda Scoring!

Strange Assembly – Episode 091 – The Search for Skywalker

Note: This was recorded right after the Force Pack hit, it’s just taken me a while to get the editing done. So check out the Star Wars Game Experience results to see how the environment has actually played out.