[Lion] Central Castle Swarm GenCon Finalist (CE + IG2)

Central Castle (swarm & blitz) 40 / 40


Regions (2)
2 Lightwater Bay (promo)

Events (2)
1 The War of Dark Fire (promo)
1 Winter Solstice (GotE)

Holdings (14)
3 Barley Farm (CE)
1 Chugo Seido (DaK)
3 Copper Mine (CE)
3 Famous Bazaar (CE)
3 Large Farm (CE)
1 Traveling Peddler (GotE)

Personalities (22)
1 Akodo Kurogane (IG2)
1 Akodo Tsudoken (DaK)
3 Akodo Shunori (CE)
3 Ikoma Hagio (GotE)
3 Ikoma Toraji (CE)
2 Matsu Fumiyo (CE)
3 Matsu Notsuo (IG1)
3 Matsu Shunran (DaK)
3 Matsu Youko (DaK)


Rings (2)
1 Ring of Air (CE)
1 Ring of Water (CE)

Strategies (38)
2 A False Accusation (DaK)
3 Charge (CE)
2 Courage (CE)
1 Incredible Resilience (GotE)
3 Final Duty (DaK)
2 Kami Unleashed (GotE)
3 Low Stance (GotE)
3 Game of Sincerity (IG1)
3 Outer Walls
2 Reinforce the Gates (CE)
3 Rout (CE)
3 The Height of Courage (CE)
2 Unpredictable Strategy (GotE)
2 Settling the Homeless (CE)
2 Unfamiliar Ground (CE)
2 Will (CE)

Deck Strategy:
The dynasty deck is meant to be fast and swarmy. Given the gold cost of personalities, your first turn holdings and the flip of Winter Solstice, the deck is capable of some really fast starts. The speed is used to keep the opponent off his game. Basically, don't let them set anything up. Threaten a prov. so quickly that they will either defend and lose people or lose the prov, sometimes both.
The fate deck is just full of battle actions. There are zero attachments. We tested with the clan weap, but pulled it a couple days before GenCon because the guy with the weapon became a target.
Between the speed of the dynasty and the battle abilities of the fate, the deck is scary good in a fight. For this reason I enjoy being opposed. The deck is very capable of splitting its forces to two or sometimes three prov. at a time.
As for matchups, the speed and swarm of the dynasty is enough to beat honor. Military matches rely on the fate side, good force and a lot of people. I was actually able to dodge Mantis all of Gencon, but in testing the deck was fast enough to get ahead of the mantis, before it could start playing and recycling big followers. Mantis is a bad-ish matchup though.

If anybody has questions on the deck or playstyle, please post and I will be happy to answer questions. Its hard to discuss everything in a vacuum.

Good/Bad/Ugly of GenCon

Good:
- I want to thank John Hall and the rest of the AEG staff for a great event.
- FUJItheFISH made a damn good deck, which we both played, I just had better matchups
- A fine showing by Team Takanaka Think Tank !!!!!!
- finishing the top 16 match, just before the entire convention was evacuated
- L5Rchives for all their coverage of the event
- A Great game with a better player base (I'm still technically new to the game, so it was nice to meet a large number of players at my first large event)

Bad:
- I think Spider will be the clan to beat for a while. Apparently bad guys rule...

Ugly:
- Shameful Tactics... yup, lost me GenCon.

Je me suis permis d'éditer le deck car la liste me faisait saigner les yeux.

En tant que gros beauf, je commente pour dire que je n'ai pas de commentaire particulièrement intéressant à apporter. A savoir : je ne vois là rien de spécial, c'est un deck standard dans la répartition thunes/persos/autres, idem en Fate où il a compris plus vite que d'autres à quel point les attachements étaient inutiles. Le schéma de thunes. Les persos sont les meilleurs du clan, R.A.S. Maël joue les mêmes, rien d'extra-ordinaire (ici je ne critique pas Maël , au contraire je dis qu'il a le niveau d'un finaliste de Gen Con ) ; à vrai dire je m'étonne de l'absence du courtisan qui fait défausser (Ikoma Igawa), peut-être Ryan ignorait-il que ce perso combottait avec la Forteresse mais là j'extrapole de façon totalement délirante.

Là où le joueur sort du lot, outre par le talent qu'il a déployé au cours de tous ses matchs lors de la Gen Con, c'est dans certains choix originaux : Winter Solstice est une découverte pour moi mais une très bonne idée dans un jeu où les persos coûtent si peu cher. A False Accusation est bonne idée pour gérer les gros thons peu honorables (onis et zerker), à vrai dire je la joue déjà sans problème en Mante SSP donc imaginez en Lion ; j'imagine qu'il joue Unfamiliar Ground pour des raisons comparables, moi aussi. De plus il met au goût du jour le concept de toolbox en profitant du moteur de cyclage de sa Forteresse, alimenté par cinq tacticiens, deux baies des eaux claires et deux anneaux.

Bref un deck solide mais d'apparence classique, je n'aurais pas parié un kopek sur lui si on m'avait demandé de pronostiquer la finale de la Gen Con, ce qui prouve bien que je n'y connais rien à la Celestial en général et au glorieux Clan du Lion en particulier.

Ryan précise : "2x Lightwater is a must. The region is way too strong with Central Castle. Against honor, you will never lose the lightwater, so you just get to draw an extra card every turn and are able to cycle out stuff you don't need.
[...] I now wish reinforce would have been Justly... but reinforce did win me one game against Oni (which is a bad matchup, so it really helped). False accusation was nice, kill a person off Game or Shameful tactics, but also help to 0 out force.
The nice thing about the deck is all the card cycle, so if I played against a deck where one or the other was not particularly useful, I could just cycle it out."

Ryan ajoute : "For Marty:

1.)Did you see much in the way of Retribution being played? If so, what counter-measures did you find helped mitigate its impact the most?

Honestly, I did not play one Crab or Mantis at GenCon… ever. We did play test against both though and Ret hurts, a lot! But the match can be overcome with some good battle resolution pk.

2.) How frequently did you find Settling the Homeless got countered by The Height of Courage?

Not often, it was always a great card to get defenders out of the way, especially in a honor matchup. Against military, I can’t recall how often it was used, but it was less than I expected. This is likely due to timing of cards, rather than opponents not running the height.

3.) Can we get a tournament report that tells us a little bit more about what kind of decks you faced and what went on in your match-ups, both in the Grinder and the Main Event?

Oh, a tournament report… I should have taken notes. I will try though:
Grinders: 7-1, 2nd overall
Match 1: Dragon military/honor: I lost to a play mistake in a 3rd turn battle and was never able to regain tempo. Just my bad.
Match 2: Phoenix honor: Very close match, crossed 40, but I was able to take.
Match 3: Phoenix military: this time military, I was just faster.
Match 4: Lion: He was running lots of attachments, I went first and was just faster.
Match 5: can’t remember
Match 6: I think this one was another phoenix
Match 7: Crane: I won, he was at 20 honor. I had a very good start!
Match 8: Spider: I won a 3rd turn battle with no casualties and took the prov. He scooped because we were both already qualified.

Saturday: 6-2, 6th overall
Match 1: Phoenix playing 4 win conditions. I win before he is able to set up.
Match 2: Greg Wong, Dragon military: I probably got lucky. I was faster and he was never able to stabilize.
Match 3: Chris, Spider Oni: I was worried about this match, Oni is difficult. I didn’t attack turn 3, although he did with Tsudo, I block, he sneaks, I reinforce, Tsudo dies. I attack, he defends for 2 turns. Then I swing with 6 peeps at 3 prov. 2 at each. He defends with Bozu, spud and the oni that eats farms, one at each. I take all three.
Match 4: Nik, phoenix honor: he gets to 34 honor(I think), I win
Match 5: play the t16 lion: I lost this one to a play mistake. I split an attack and forgot that he had a ring of water in play… If I had kept my guys together, I think I could have won. Good game though.
Match 6: sigh… I can’t remember
Match 7: Dragon honor that made t4: I lose, he is able to hold me off well in the beginning and he hits good honor from the fate side and I don’t see war of dark fire.
Match 8: Phoenix: He is military. It was a good match. I go first so I have tempo, but by the time I get to the last prov. He has three guys turned into Oni with a range 7. So I build a few turns, then swing for the win.

Top 16: Scorp: Steve and I had been tracking each other all day, so it sucked that we had to play each other here.

Game 1: I lose because he says bow and lose 2 honor SIX times from his fate hand!!! That’s what I get for shuffling his deck.
Game 2&3: He does not see his god draw and the games go how I expect them. I build a few turns to get around 15 honor and then start swinging with anybody that was not a Jutsushi target. He can make me lose some honor in a fight, but I have too many battle actions.

Top 8: Spider goblins:
Similar to the final match, his deck was less refined. We go to 3 games and there are no clear identifiers and any of the matches, as to a win or loss.

Top 4: Dragon: I really like this deck and appreciate that he was able to take it to t4, considering everybody’s thoughts on Dragon being weak. The games were good, but I had too many personalities for him to consistently control. So, I generally take 1 prov at a time, slow and steady.

Top 2: Spider Goblins: I think these were fantastic games! Really good. If the video of this match gets posted, it may be worth a watch. Back and forth the entire time. Great fights where we were both able to play a lot of actions, so we never knew when and how it would resolve. Andrew has mentioned that my deck running Shameful Tactics was the only thing to consistently beat goblins in testing. I agree, because I felt like I was winning each game…. Until the Shameful Tactics hit the table. Three of those per game in games one and three is rough."

Et il poursuit : "-Matsu Notsuo was great. The no bow is great for chump blocking defense. althouhg, he may be the weakest of the 6g people.
-Igawa came out for a Fumiyo. The champ also came out for a Fumiyo. Toraji is very helpful. Turn one barley and copper can pay for 2x 6g peeps and either Toraji or holding. He is also a great chump block or Game of Sincerity target.
-Honor is a good matchup, but sometimes War of Dark Fire is still needed. Its just such an easy meta that doesnt hurt me at all.
- I like shameful injury, but the fate tries to be more pro-active with its battle actions.
- We have two fantastic Crane players in our playgroup, both are defensive honor. One is pure limited control and was a difficult match for the lion.
- I wanted the reinforce for Mantis naval and Oni running Sneak. Otherwise I think it has nice utility for defense to pull over an attacker. and worst case scenario, just cycle it out! Eugene was running swift counterattack instead of the reinforce. Both were last minute additions."

Je me permets de citer le commentaire de Tandyys sur Ryoko, qui a entres autres le mérite d'une franchise rafraîchissante :

"alors, ça me fait mal de médire, mais vraiment là j'ai du mal.

Autant le deck gob blitz d'Ornatov je l'admire, là j'ai vraiment envie de dire "j'ai les mêmes à la maison, mais en mieux". je trouve vraiment que les items sont bien plus puissants et accélèrent bien plus le deck que les pelletés de battle actions (rien que pour prendre une province au T2, ou la voler au T3 avec unwavering assault. pour faire des kami unleashed qui échouent pas lamentablement sur outer walls, ou capable de toucher un oni ou un crabe).
En plus il a pas peur avec seulement 2 bay et 6 persos pour trigger le stronghold...
Je dis pas ça au pif, mais c'est après avoir testé du militaire avec 30 battles en lion. Quitte à jouer ça, je comprend même pas comment il a pu ne pas trouver la place pour 3x insight, 1 favor ou 2 (quitte à jouer un ou 2 tactoches à la place de Matsu mon trait, c'est la marque de naissance des persos pourris Notsuo), et Void posé tous les jours.
Ca ne change rien au fait qu'il ait fait finaliste, et moi jamais gagné quoi que ce soit en lion à part l'estime de mes pairs (avec le Ion qui préfigurait sachika bomb), mais je passe de l'admiration (du gob) à l'incompréhension la plus complète. je me dis que si lui a fait 1-2, il aurait monté mon deck il aurait fait 2 victoires...

Par contre, il y a 2, 3 choses qui m'interessent: winter solstice, j'avais toujours pensé que c'était trop "casse gueule" je veux bien le croire quand ils disent que c'est efficace. je cherchais un slot pour un 3° event, je croie avoir trouvé [...]"