Crane Lion Alliance - Worlds 6-2

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Dare
Daimyo
Posts: 341
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2014 8:54 am
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Crane Lion Alliance - Worlds 6-2

Postby Dare » Wed Nov 08, 2017 9:06 am

https://fiveringsdb.com/decks/ae66f3a6- ... 6fca4/view

Shizuka Toshi
Keeper of Water
Fertile Fields Air
Entrenched Position Earth
Night Raid Fire
Shameful Display Void
Rally to the Cause Water
Influence: 13/13
Dynasty Deck (40)
Character (36)

3x Asahina Artisan
3x Brash Samurai
3x Cautious Scout
3x Daidoji Nerishma
3x Doji Challenger
3x Doji Gift Giver
3x Doji Hotaru
3x Doji Whisperer
3x Guest of Honor
3x Kakita Asami
3x Keeper Initiate
3x Savvy Politician
Holding (4)

2x Favorable Ground
2x Imperial Storehouse
Conflict Deck (41)
Event (31)

2x Admit Defeat
2x Assassination
3x Banzai!
3x Court Games
3x For Shame!
2x Noble Sacrifice
2x Outwit
3x Ready for Battle ///
2x Rout
3x Stand Your Ground ///// /
3x Voice of Honor
3x Way of the Crane
Attachment (10)

3x Fine Katana
1x Guidance of the Ancestors /
3x Honored Blade ///
3x Ornate Fan


This is the deck I went 6-2 with at Worlds. 5-1 and top Crane on Day 1Z, then 1-1 on day 2. 6-2 was enough for a 44th place finish, as well as enough for a Top 16 finish. Maybe some more rounds were needed FFG.

I won't go over every part of the deck, I'll just cover the parts people might question.

Bidding: I bid very aggressively with this deck. If I'm at 10 honour or above, I bid 5 almost every time. If I'm down at 7 or lower, I prioritise Air ring a little higher to float myself back up.

Rings: Pick whichever ring is best. If no ring is obviously outstanding right now, pick Earth. Even if you both Bid 5 turn 1 and you're up first. Earth is the best ring.

Cautious Scout: Run this if you're not. Seriously. I don't understand why people are so happy to run into blind provinces. Or waste cheap guys "probing" when you could just run straight in with a direct threat. This guy took a stronghold's Entrenched solo during the day in mil, it blanked multiple Rallys, Shamefuls, Kuroi Moris, Fertile Field, etc etc. What is the ONLY part of your deck you can GUARANTEE seeing? It's your provinces, all the other things are draw related. So you rely on your provinces. What is the most swingy part of the game? It's provinces (running into Shameful with a high pie dude, or running into Rally without balanced stats etc). This guy turns them off. Run 3 of him. Every. Single. Time. Or don't, and I'll continue messing up your attacks, your choice :) He's a contender for one of the best 2 costs in the entire core set game, not just for Crane.

Holding Choices: Honestly I'm not completely sold on my holding choices. My characters won't change (not in Core environment anyway), so it was 4 slots. Favorable Ground was better than Storehouse, thanks to sliding Guest of Honours in, but also because I regularly only attacked with 1 guy (Brash/Cautious), and it let me move in or out as the conflict went on. I'd probably up to a 3rd Favourable Ground and swap 1x Storehouse for 1x Academy.

Lion Splash: I think Lion splash was the best splash for Crane, despite the finalist playing Phoenix splash and the "common knowledge" being Scorpion splash (I actually very much don't rate the Scorpion splash). 3x Ready for Battle are obviously great, especially so when so much of the field is playing Mirumoto's Fury. It's like 3 more cancels for Fury/Admit Defeat, except it also works on Ring of Water, Niten Adept, For Shame, Doji Gift Giver, etc. I was never sad to have multiple in hand.

Honoured Blade isn't all that amazing. But since I run a lot of cheapish guys, it was good to have another sword. Especially as it meant I had 9 cards that allowed Cautious Scout to solo provinces (Banzai, Fine Katana, Honoured Blade), but also helped protect my non-military guys against Lions Pride Ballers.

Stand Your Ground was a star. From saving people end of turn, to protecting them from Assassinations, it was playable against all non-Scorpion decks. Especially as Ready for Battle means For Shame is less likely to dishonour my dudes. Saving Brash Samurai to do his thing again, or Hotaru after she ran out of fate, or Cautious Scout while he solo'd a province, was amazing. I would always use Way of the Crane BEFORE conflicts, preferably on my solo 2 cost attacker (Cautious Scout baby), so that I had potential of both Voice of Honour and Stand Your Ground to protect my guy from Assassinate, Voice of Honour + Ready to protect from Fury, and so forth.

Guidance was "fine". I hated running 12/13 influence, I just wanted to round it out.

Noble Sacrifice originally wasn't in. But so many times in testing (and in tournament) I could kill a champ the turn it came into play (or turn after) if only I had a Noble Sac. I felt a lot more comfortable with them even if they often didn't work, when they DID work it was super important.

I have 12 total cards in Conflict that cost fate, and they all only cost 1. They are all (bar the Blades and Guidance) cards that help swing battles quite hard. It meant I could very comfortably go into Conflict Phase with 1 or even no fate and be happy I could still contest battles.

I rarely defended, preferring instead to attack hard. These tiebreakers don't favour being defensive, swing hard, swing fast, do the ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM to win conflicts or protect provinces, and you'll be good. If you waste cards defending only to still lose, you've wasted cards you needed to actually win. A lot of my games came down to me breaking 1-2 a turn, and me bumping maybe 1 or 2 attacks total in each game.

Gift Giver was fine, and a meta call on expecting to see lots of Dragon. I still like her, but she was probably the weakest of all my cards. But she also won me games. She spent most of her time in military conflicts. So whatever.

Big congrats to the Crane Hatamoto who beat me in the final round of swiss, and to Mr Urbanek for getting all the way to the finals. Also everyone I met was amazing, had a fantastic time, and look forward to getting Hatamoto in the upcoming year!

Any questions feel free to ask me here or on Facebook. Or send questions to the greatest podcast there is of course: https://www.facebook.com/Troll5R/

tsuri
Hohei
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:29 pm
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Re: Crane Lion Alliance - Worlds 6-2

Postby tsuri » Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:45 am

I'm wondering what you think the best splash for crane is now.

I've been playing scorpion, but I don't think it's as aggressive as I want it to be for my play style.


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