Courts of the Crane Clan

Hello, all!

I am a returning L5R player in need of advice on jumping into Crane. I'm a former Scorpion player, but the last time I played, Bayushi Paneki was still ALIVE alive, and not a zombie, if he's even still undead/non-alive anymore. So, yes, a LOT of time has passed since I visited Rokugan. I figured I might as well start with a new clan for a new trip through, and Crane was always the most exciting opponent for me when I played, so I figured why not?

I have a little product coming. I've ordered one box of Ivory Edition and a Currency of War set. Is there a difference between Learn To Play sets and Core Sets? Can I use Learn To Play cards in tournaments, if I choose to attend in the future?

I've also downloaded both rulebooks and will be looking over them in the next day or two.

So what I need to know is, what is the best way to approach Crane right now? What cards should I look for specifically? Are there any resources that people could share (via PM if necessary) to point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Check out the decklist section of this forum and tbe AEG forums and review decks that have been posted there. Use the decklists and www.oracleofthevoid.com to gelp you target cards from particular sets.

FYI, the current base set is Twenty Festivals, though Ivory Edition is still a useful purchase.

The biggest thing right now is the transition to Twenty Festivals. We're still in Ivory Edition, but Twenty Festivals is a new base set and therefore a new set of legality rules. The general release of Twenty Festivals was just yesterday, though, so Ivory Edition materials still have some life left. The most common play format right now is Twenty Festivals Arc which includes anything released in a set this year or a set last year, which includes Ivory Edition and its three expansions.

Some of the items from the Ivory starter, and possibly some from Currency of War I don't remember exactly, are reprints from the previous Emperor Edition, but most should be legal for Twenty Festivals Arc. The easiest way to tell is Oracle of the Void, the L5R card database.



You can set Legality to Twenty Festivals to make it easier to search for currently legal cards.

Currently Crane is in a fairly strong position. They have a few military options. You can use Sachina sensei and some geisha/geisha house for fast cycling and some control. They can also run straight military focusing on Daidoji scouts. There are a lot of good military focused personalities for Crane. They also have some pretty good dueling support, although I'm not sure dueling is all that great in this environment. Crane also has a really strong defensive honor deck with cards like Control and Official Sanction giving you lots of ways to prevent your enemies from doing anything. It's not as fast as Phoenix honor and has a tough time doing anything to them, but it can still be fairly fast and can actually win battles by bowing out the enemy and gaining a ton of honor.

Check out the decklist forum here for Twenty Festivals legal decks, and also check the decklist forum on the Alderac website. They publish the top 2 decks from each Kotei and there have been several crane appearances.

I think the biggest thing to be aware of with regard to Learn to Play sets is that the card Advance Warning was banned for tournament play.

Thanks, everyone.

Currency came in the mail today, so that should be an interesting night. Advance Warning seems really good- double effects are always powerful in any game. I can see why it would be banned.

I'm hoping that the Ivory box shows up tomorrow or Friday. I did look at Oracle last night, and it seems like most of Ivory will be fine to use. I'll just set the non-legal stuff in a separate pile for home use.