Kotei 2012/Emperor Edition Meta-Game Update #3

There were only two Kotei this weekend, and one of them hasn’t reported clan breakdown yet, so there hasn’t been a lot of change since last week:

Emperor Edition Environment
Participants % of Field Made Cut Won % Made Cut
Crab 105 16.36% 33 2 31.43%
Crane 51 7.94% 5 9.80%
Dragon 64 9.97% 11 2 17.19%
Lion 79 12.31% 24 1 30.38%
Mantis 58 9.03% 13 4 22.41%
Phoenix 66 10.28% 17 1 25.76%
Scorpion 72 11.21% 13 2 18.06%
Spider 65 10.12% 8 1 12.31%
Unicorn 74 11.53% 14 1 18.92%
Unaligned 8 1.25% 0 0.00%
642 138 20.69%

The most significant gainers were Crab (overtaking Lion for the top rate of making the cut) and Dragon (only moved up one spot, but it was a substantial percentage jump.

“Make the Cut %” Ranks:

1) Crab – 31%
2) Lion – 30%
3) Phoenix – 26%
4) Mantis – 22%
5) Unicorn – 19%
6) Scorpion – 18%
7) Dragon – 18%
8 ) Spider – 12%
9) Crane – 10%

7 thoughts on “Kotei 2012/Emperor Edition Meta-Game Update #3

  1. Anyone else think it’s interesting that Mantis has the third lowest percentage of the field (behind Crane and Unaligned), but the highest number of Kotei wins?

    I understand that the make the cut percentage is more telling so the fact that Mantis is third highest behind Lion and Crab is also very interesting. I know KA decks are running Footsteps of Madness to meta Crab and some Lion. What could Lion and Crab run to meta Mantis?

  2. Mantis is always under-represented compared to its deck strength. The Clan just isn’t as popular as the others. For the “all of CE” numbers, Mantis was only at 8.91%, when everyone else but Unicorn was between 11% and 11.5%, and Mantis was marginally above average in performance over that span of data. So, I think the current state of affairs is pretty par for the course.

    The participation number of the course of thet arc that I’m most interested in seeing is Spider. Shadowlands was always one of the least popular factions, which is probably one of the reasons that they introduced the Spider Clan. And it had high participation numbers for a while, but those were likely inflated because of the last mega-game meant much more to them than to anyone else. Their numbers tanked after Forgotten Temple was released, and did not rebound when that deck got nerfed. So I’d like to see where that goes – do they end up hovering around the normal Clans, are do they end up down with Mantis and Unicorn as (long-term) lower attendance Clans?

  3. First minor point, I think Mantis only has one kotei win and the other 3 wins were for non-kotei (but still nice!) events.

    Second, and more interestingly to me, is the reasons for the factions that have smaller playerbases – my personal theory is that it’s in no small part because new players, and playgroups, are pushed away from the things that can be very hard for new players to deal with. (Not necessarily an unreasonable trend, mind) But new players can have a very hard time dealing with cav or naval, and back in the day noone wanted to teach a new player using the perpetually -19 honor Shadowlands because they ignored so many of the rules of the game. At the opposite end of this, new players are frequently pushed towards say, Crab, and they tend to be among the highest attendance long-term.

    It’s got ups and downs – Mantis is unlikely to win more kotei than anyone else unless our decks are just spectacular, but there’s also a decent chance of dodging meta just on the grounds that there aren’t many of us, and I still think any kotei sized event where I can top of clan is a success for me and that’s often easier as Mantis – but so long as it’s not such an outsized difference that they consider cutting the faction again we’ll be fine.

  4. While I cannot offer any definitive reason for the low participation rates of Mantis and Unicorn, I wouldn’t say that this is down to a lack of appeal to new players. Quite the opposite in fact. In my experience, naval and cavalry have a strong appeal to newbs once they understand the basics of the game, and combat in particular.

    This may be because naval and cavalry give a new player an edge, even though they may not yet have developed much tactical skill. If anything, I suspect the lower participation rates of Mantis and Unicorn may indicate that fewer people strongly identify with the flavour of these clans. As a counter-example, my local area is overrun with Dragon players of every level of experience, most of whom initially responded to the nature of the clan rather than what their decks do.

  5. In coming back to the game after a long break, the mantis deck is difficult to get working. Some of the better configurations are rare heavy and it’s edge is challenging to take advantage of. Having built a half baked one it doesn’t exactly leap together. Strong personalities, but no strong play gimmick. Great personalities in mantis, but using them isn’t easy.

    Crab on the other hand almost builds itself with its very beefy personality base, the turn jumping clan strategy card, and multiple excellent strongholds. The number of rare cards needed to make a strong aggressive deck was not large.

    As a non-loyalist I’m always looking for strong decks that can support the best cards from multiple themes and which synergies or offer some unique advantage. It seems Crab can simply attack first and hardest of all the clans, faster than lion, and can back that up with sustained force generation and strong battle actions. I’m still green in this environment but that’s the feel I get from those two clans while deck building and doing some lite testing.

    Other clan “feelings” based on deck building so far…
    Spider – Great deck in a battle, but a turn too slow so it suffers against honor or dishonor because of its lack of voom and starts last. Against military you have to plan for turn around wins.
    Dragon – Their edge is in versatile personalities, but they don’t have a strategy with much speed to it. Both honor and military are a bit ponderous. You have to be very crafty and a little lucky to win with them.
    Unicorn – Better than I expected, but it feels very vulnerable to unit kill. It can snag provinces fast, but it’s not too hard to break its back.

    Haven’t built/played yet but am thinking about it
    Phoenix – I’ve played agaisnt it a lot and its got all the usual tools of good personalities and going first to make it dangerous. But its like dragon in that its about good play and subtle deck building, not a gimik that is a strict advantage.
    Lion – It goes first and its people are amazing and the tactician stronghold is the best card draw at the moment. Its like spider but it goes first instead of last. Hard to argue against it.
    Scorpion – Lots of great personalities, but this clan wants me to make bad decks. It just has a lot of gimmicks that look like fun but aren’t super competitive. Build it straight and its probably a better version of spider, but that’s just a guess.
    Crane – Ugh… I just can’t see anything I like in its personality base yet. Phoenix seems to do honor better at the moment and its just more fun most of the time than crane is. I’ve always liked crane best when they have a killer gold scheme and can play out of clan with it.
    Non-Human – No gold scheme makes this hard. There are some great personalities, and some cool actions but going slow and having limited cash vs expensive personalities makes it well outside of competitive. I have one half built and no clue how I want to finish building it to give it life. Its just big guys and some fun kill actions I’m not sure I will ever get a chance to run out.

    1. RE: PHX – ToP and “he’s a kolat” seems like a pretty good gimmick to me.

      RE: Scorp – Throwing all your non-box paragons and a few courtiers + paragon action suite + redirection/negation + attachment hate = win.

  6. Sure, but the non-loyalists are only going to make up so much of the percentage, and I’d tend to think the longer term trends are more about the loyal player bases of each clan. Last arc there were very competitive rare-light Mantis decks, after all, and the percentage still wasn’t all that high. (Last arc did have what we might call the Shrine to Yoritomo problem where the single most expensive and hard to find card in the environment was huge in most mantis decks, though).

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