Topic: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil) (Read 1637 times)

Nina Illingworth · « **on:** April 28, 2010, 05:42:46 PM »

Warning, very long. Sorry.

The Cardboard Geisha CE Article 14:
All Decked Out Part 8: “Purple Lions” – CE Unicorn Military

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.” – Genghis Khan, Emperor of the Mongol Empire from 1206 - 1227 AD.

One of the coolest aspects of having a number of very talented friends who are also L5R junkies are the impromptu discussions about L5R theory you find yourself participating in at random social gatherings. It’s not every day that you get to discuss comparative force to gold cost ratios in high honor military clans over a bowl of homemade stew at a good friend’s house. Unfortunately of course there is an ugly downside to hanging out with dangerous CCG addicts at all hours of the day; namely that it’s pretty hard to remember who said what when you’re trading “Rings Theory” over multiple alcoholic beverages. I mention this now simply because I’m about to share one of the most insightful things I’ve ever heard about the Cavalry trait in L5R and yet for the life of me I can’t remember either who told me or where I’d heard it first. I blame some combination of alcohol and old age but at this point the best I can do is paraphrase the wisdom of this mysterious cardboard prophet and hope my half-addled recollection can do it proper justice.

What he told me roughly is that the vast majority of players go through a circular mental process based entirely on experience when trying to cope with Cavalry in L5R. Early on the Cavalry trait is almost impossible for the true beginner to deal with. The ability to avoid battles while still taking provinces/creating a production advantage is typically overwhelming for new players. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone declare Unicorn “broken” pretty much entirely because he/she hasn’t learned how to properly handle a Cavalry deck. Alternately in my local environment we often start new players off playing Unicorn decks simply because the inherent advantage Cavalry creates will make it easier for them to compete with experienced opponents more quickly. Once a player has gained a little experience with it however it’s fairly common for his awe/fear of the trait to lessen proportionally. Eventually he learns to include some meta cards to help improve the Unicorn matchup and how to properly attack/defend against Cavalry armies even without having any Cavalry units himself. As the losses against Cavalry based decks go down so does the player’s overall impression of the trait. For example I personally remember thinking Daidoji Rekai Experienced 2, 3x Superior Tactics and 3x Counter Attack was all the meta I would ever need to beat Unicorn in Gold Edition. I don’t think I realized until years later that good Unicorn players would still consistently beat me, simply because I didn’t truly understand Cavalry and its impact on the game.

Finally of course once the beginner has progressed all the way to battle-scarred veteran and scourge of his local environment he comes back around full circle to realizing just how dangerous/unbalancing/broken the Cavalry trait truly is. In the hands of a world class Unicorn player Cavalry becomes a deadly instrument used to control the flow of the entire game. More-so than any other printed boldface trait, Cavalry forces an opponent to adapt his game to yours and this sensation of “driving” the game is in and of itself a form of board control. While hardly an “auto-win” the presence of primarily Cavalry armies does allow you to confine the game into a smaller and more predictable pattern. By limiting your opponent’s options you make it easier to predict his behavior and respond accordingly, thereby consistently creating advantage with little or no real cost to yourself. At this stage of understanding the player realizes that Cavalry is far more than a way to dominate the early game, it is the trait that will define the entire game against a non-cavalry opponent. Of course at the time I was still pretty sure “Rekai owns Ponies duder!” so I completely dismissed this theory as sheer gibberish and happily went about my way beating most Unicorn players but losing utterly to the best of them. It wasn’t until I came back to L5R at the end of Samurai Edition and encountered the Western Steppes Dueling machine popularized by Aaron Boyhan that I realized just how right that guy whose name I can’t remember was. This article is therefore dedicated to drunken L5R prophets and the enlightenment they sometimes provide.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, my name is Nina Illingworth and welcome to the latest edition of The Cardboard Geisha. For those of you just joining us this article is the 8th part of an ongoing series (All Decked Out) about building/playing tournament level decks here in Celestial Edition. As always nobody is saying this is the only or even the best deck available to the Unicorn clan at this time (Post –TH, pre Plague War). This is simply one woman’s opinion on how to play Unicorn Military in the current environment and if you find yourself becoming angered by anything you read here I strongly advise you to simply close the browser and dismiss me as a madwoman. Life is too short to get mad about little pieces of cardboard.

If you’re joining us this time expecting the Scorpion article I promised last time, please accept my sincerest of apologies. Basically three separate factors conspired to make it impossible for me to finish the Scorpion next. First and foremost while I can build a decent Scorpion Dishonor deck, I can’t make it beat Lion unless my opponent ignores the existence of Jutsushi. Alternately he could agree to not play Kasei, but either way I’m not beating the most common builds of the most powerful deck in Celestial even 1 in 10 tries. That’s *not* a good sign and it leads me to believe Scorpion will likely be getting stronger/more interesting cards in Plague War. Secondly between getting ready for the Ottawa Kotei and the fact that nobody really *likes* to play against Scorpion Dishonor I simply haven’t had enough time to play test the Dishonor deck I ultimately did build. I like to play a COUPLE (2) hundred games with a deck before I write an 8+ page article on it and I just don’t think the 50 some odd games of testing I’ve done so far provide enough information for a proper study. Finally of course I hate the Scorpion clan and I’m out to get you. Okay I’m just kidding, mostly it was the lack of time to properly test the deck before writing about it and the suspicion that the cards necessary to make it EVER beat Lion just didn’t exist yet. I’ll keep trying and tinkering as time allows and I promise to come right back at you with an article about Tournament winning Scorpion decks; as soon as I find one. Until then here’s a link to the deck-list I am playing at this exact moment: http://z3.invisionfree.com/GTA_TGA/index.php?showtopic=1110 .

With that in mind let’s take a closer look at a deck I *did* get the chance to play a couple hundred times while preparing for the Ottawa Kotei; “Purple Lions” Unicorn Military. While ultimately I decided to play Lion at the Kotei in retrospect it’s hard not to feel I would have done just as well with this deck. As always we’ll start with a deck list and a short explanation of the reason for including each card. Then we’ll take a look at a brief play guide to help new players get a feel for how a deck like Purple Lions works in Celestial Edition.

Purple Lions: CE Unicorn Military

If I were to attempt to describe Purple Lions in a single phrase it would probably be something like “Battle Control through the Cavalry Trait.” As previously mentioned in the rambling introduction to this very article, highly skilled players can typically abuse Cavalry to generate board control and set up favorable battle situations as the game drags on. Purple Lions is built to specifically augment this style of play with an absolutely huge number of Battle actions; both stashed in the Fate deck and printed on virtually every Personality on the Dynasty side. Unlike most Unicorn decks that attempt to avoid opposed battles as long as possible, this deck seeks to simply control when and where the enemy will be allowed to engage it. Once it does pick a fight, Purple Lions uses a combination of Sneak Attack and an overwhelming number of battle actions to ensure nothing in the opponent’s army survives the battle. Of course you can also just run away from your opponent until the very last battle and then attempt to overwhelm him like a traditional Unicorn Military deck; the point is that you no longer *have* to with a deck like this. Engaging the enemy just to kill his units is very much a viable option with a deck like Purple Lions.

1x The Utaku Plains – Owing to Unicorn’s “fantastic” selection of strongholds here in Celestial Edition virtually every single good Unicorn deck I’ve seen is built off of The Utaku Plains. This is partially because the other boxes are extremely conditional/hard to use but it’s also because the +1PH bonus gives Unicorn improved access to a number of PH based effects (Desperate Rush and Utaku Hana for example). While I rarely use the force reduction action on the box it has occasionally proven critical for setting up ranged attacks in longer battles; once I killed a 7F Berserker with a Determined Force simply because Anhui spent an action to reduce his Force by 5. Finally of course depending on Personality selection, Utaku Plains provides a form of “soft meta” against a number of popular Magistrate actions based on PH vs. the Magistrates Chi.

1x Border Keep – The proper application of the mulligan actions provided by Border Keep is rapidly becoming one of the most important skills in L5R. Here in a 4 Family Honor deck that plays almost as many games going first as going second, mastering this skill can be the difference between winning and losing. Generally you’ll want to buy 2 holdings on turn 1 and a guy and 2 holdings on turn 2 when going first while instead buying 2 guys and a holding on turn 2 when going 2nd. Knowing how to use BK to set up these draws is critically important to success with Purple Lions.

1x Bamboo Harvesters – Lets be honest here for a moment; it’s simply way easier to win games “just because you’re Cavalry” when going first. Going 2nd however is hardly a death sentence for Unicorn and the clan does a reasonable job of taking advantage of the free Bamboo Harvesters on turn 2 to buy an extra holding and set up Attachments and Civility plays on later turns.

1x Shinjo’s Guidance – I’ve noticed that a great number of Unicorn players are unhappy with Shinjo’s Guidance in comparison to the Celestials given to other clans. While I do understand this point of view I baulk at the idea that a 2nd Chugo Seido that only works in battle but costs nothing is somehow a bad card. Shinjo’s Guidance wins battles and therefore games by redirecting your opponent’s best battle actions to the place they’d be least effective. I refuse to give that up in exchange for The Lost Path out of some misguided fear that someone else out there is getting a better deal (Lion, Mantis, Crab, Spider, etc).

1x The New Order – A fairly straightforward example of a “plug in” meta action, I added The New Order during testing when I found the deck was occasionally a turn too slow when facing top tier honor decks. By forcing my opponent to start a turn at 50 honor to declare victory this event typically buys me that turn/extra attack phase I need to win the game against the very best honor opponents. Sometimes the simplest answer is ultimately the best answer.

3x Border Village – Whether going first or second Border Village is an integral part of Purple Lion’s overall gold scheme. This deck is utterly dependant on buying at least 2 holdings that make 3G+ for Personalities over the course of the game and Border Village helps ensure that by giving you 9 holdings that make 3G even when you go first. Combined with judicious use of the mulligan actions on Border Keep and it’s a rare game where gold is a major issue for this deck. Of course it’s even better when making 4 Gold against high honor clans; mitigating the need to see additional 3GP + holdings and getting you to the magical zone of 3 mid-game Personalities per turn much sooner.

3x Stables – This may surprise some people but 3 plus 3 equals 6, which astoundingly enough is what the vast majority of the Personalities in this deck cost. Consequentially you want to run as many holdings that make 3 as possible and at 2GC your Clan Holding is probably the absolute best card that fits this description. If I could run 9x Stables, I would.

3x Clan Estate – For all intents and purposes this is another set of Stables when purchasing Personalities because almost everyone in the deck has the Cavalry Trait and thus qualifies for the bonus production. Except Ming –li and yes every once in a while this will come up and it will drive you crazy.

3x Deeds and Words – Giant honor gains on the limited phase have become the hallmark of good Honor decks here in Celestial Edition. Whether it’s Impromptu Duel, Peaceful Discourse or Friendly Traveler Sake you can count on Honor opponents dropping 3-5 point bombs on you at all the wrong times (read: Once they’re past 28 or so honor). While Deeds is hardly my favorite card it is highly effective at eating large Honor gains in the mid-late game and will typically buy you an extra attack phase if played properly. Just don’t cripple your gold development by blowing them up in the early game when you should be flooding the board with units.

2x Traveling Peddler – Probably the single biggest reason *not* to play Unicorn in Celestial Edition is the clan’s complete lack of supplemental card draw. Compounding matters, the absence of room for A Warrior’s Patience/Imperial Artificer or a significant number of Weapons or Armors to fuel Inheriting an Heirloom makes the generic Clan-neutral options ineffective here. This pretty much leaves Traveling Peddler as the only reasonable answer and you really can’t afford to wait around all game for your single copy to appear. 5G for a fate card is highway robbery at this point in Celestial but there simply are no other options for this deck.

1x Chugo Seido – I remain convinced that the ability to control the targeting of your opponent’s actions is one of the most powerful effects in L5R. Simply put you use Chugo Seido to direct your opponent’s best action to the place it would be least effective. In a deck based on the Cavalry trait and with 20 Personalities that say “Samurai” it’s often incredibly easy to disrupt your opponent’s game plan once you do finally engage his armies in battle. Alternately unlike Shinjo’s Guidance you *can* use Chugo Seido to redirect a limited phase kill/control action to a less effective target. I can assure you from personal experience that the expression on a Crane player’s face when you redirect his Imperial Adjudication to Chen is priceless. Chugo Seido wins games and I’m often tempted to find room for a second copy.

3x Unicorn War Dogs – Now I know what you’re thinking but before you burst into tears laughing please hear me out. Yes the War Dogs have a number of issues; they’re not Samurai, they have 0(1)PH, they have two Chi, they can’t attach any of the deck’s 5 Items, they require another Personality to be present before they can use their abilities and most importantly they’re a filthy pack of poorly draw canines in purple studded leather armor. Alternately however they do not require an enemy target to use their printed battle ability and thus they’re a 5F Cavalry attacker so long as they’re assigned with another non-War Dogs unit. I probably don’t need to tell you that 5 plus 4 equals 9 but the ability to threaten 8 strength provinces as early as turn 3 is one of the major reasons War Dogs shines in this build. Additionally because their bow action is not restricted by size or non-Follower attachments the Dogs fill a specific meta niche against a huge number of decks in the format. In a pinch you can even use this action to bow a huge Follower; making it virtually impossible to fight an opposed battle where there are no legal targets. I was not a fan of this card at first but extensive testing proved the War Dogs were absolutely a viable option in Purple Lions.

3x Shinjo Hwarang – As one part proactive battle action and one part anti-bowing meta Hwarang provides a certain degree of flexibility here in this build. With another printed bowing action that can target a Personality regardless of size/attachments Hwarang helps win battles and overload your opponent’s “bow meta”. On the other hand his action can be used with Scout Armor, Chain and Sword and redirect effects to render most combat phase bowing strategies ineffective against Purple Lions. Additional his ability to straighten a target Personality can even be used proactively to eliminate the cost of Battle Actions that require bowing to activate (Yamauchi, Kami Unleashed); albeit at the cost of passing priority in battle. While there’s a lot to like here the downside of course is that Hwarang is completely ineffective against attachments of all stripes, especially giant followers with kill actions. Additionally the tendency to save his action for later in battle (in case you need the unbow effect) usually means he gets killed a lot; often right after you bow a guy for Kami Unleashed.

3x Moto Kushi – The yin to Hwarang’s yang, Moto Kushi is yet another 4F Cavalry Personality with a printed bow action that doesn’t care about size for 6G. In this case however Kushi can’t bow a card with attachments, periodically making opposed battles against attachment heavy decks more difficult. Of course that doesn’t stop him from bowing the actual attachments themselves, which can sometimes be more useful (think of an opposing Heavy Elite). Throw in a – HR and you’ve got a very useful if somewhat vanilla military Personality.

3x Utaku Hana – While I’ve never been overtly fond of 3F Personalities that cost 2+ holdings in Military decks I’ve found myself forced to make an exception for Hana. Built in Ranged 4 (see The Utaku Plains) Attacks have a funny way of changing a woman’s mind, while also killing an absolutely huge number of the best Personalities in the format. As a general rule they don’t usually print kill actions on Cavalry Personalities and I’d be hard pressed to build ANY Unicorn deck without 3x Hana.

3x Shinjo Yamauchi – The first time I saw Shinjo Yamauchi I literally had to do a double take just to make sure the Personality was real. Ranged attacks equal to Force are pretty ridiculous here in Celestial (see Kami Unleashed) even without a number of ways to mitigate the cost (Scout Armor, Hwarang, etc). Incredibly enough you don’t even have to bow the performing Personality if you’re defending. Again historically they don’t print a lot of reusable kill actions on 6G Cavalry Personalities, only a fool would pass up that kind of offer while it lasted.

2x Utaku Anhui – Another member of Unicorn’s amazing “Bow Brigade”, Anhui also makes the cut because she has 5PH out of The Utaku Plains. While obviously useful with the Box action she’s also incredibly important for playing fatal Desperate Rushes against 5F targets like Matsu Fumiyo, Taoist Archer and Heavy Elite. Unfortunately at 6HR you’ll need to buy a personality at full to bring her into play for 6G, but this usually easy enough on turn 2 if you went first. Alternately this makes her a tricky buy in games where you go second and either way you’ll almost never want to pull the dreaded “double mulligan into 2 Anhui’s” draw on turn 2 or 3. This is of course why she’s a 2 of and not a 3 of here in Purple Lions.

2x Shinjo Ming-li – If Ming-li had the Cavalry trait she’d probably be the best Personality in the entire Unicorn Clan. As it stands her combination of 5F for 6G and high-utility bow action work extremely well in a deck that also contains Shinjo Yamauchi, Kami Unleashed and Unpredictable Strategy. Amazingly enough this is true despite the fact that Purple Lions only runs one card that says “Weapon”. Like Anhui, Ming-li is another example of a card you rarely want to double mulligan into 2 copies of on turns 2 or 3 and as a result she also makes a solid 2 of card here in this deck.

1x Moto Chiang – This slot basically contains “the rotating Unique Nina is running this week”. I’ve tried Choon-Yei, Tamago, Mirumoto Shiki and even Kohana Exp. At the moment I’m running Chiang; primarily as meta against hard to deal with Personalities like Kuon or anyone previously targeted by The Last One. Choon-Yei and Kohana were also effective while overall out of clan Uniques were not.

1x Shinjo Kodama – Despite being my least favorite Personality in the entire deck, Kodama survives deck revision after deck revision because he negates the cost of cycling the Imperial Favor without using up your Scout Armor before battle. Additionally every once in a while he’ll win me an entire game by letting me straighten a key defender turn after turn. Of course to do this Kodama himself has to remain unbowed but there’s little point in sending him into opposed battles unless you intend to sacrifice him to a redirect effect anyways. Like Chiang this card could easily be Choon-Yei or Kohan Exp without making the deck weaker, just different.

1x Moto Jin-sahn Exp – In the military on military matchup Jin-sahn is in many ways superior to Chen himself. Cheaper and slightly more versatile he also has the potential to hit ridiculously high Force totals as games drag on and thus create more dead Personalities in each player’s discard pile. Even in the early game Jin-sahn can be incredibly strong against 7PS opponents if you strap on a Scout Armor. The important thing to remember is that just because he’s not a Tactician doesn’t mean he sucks. Plus lets be fair, is there a cooler combination of traits than “Favored of the Lords of Death” and “Shogun”? I thought not.

1x Moto Chen Exp 3 – While Jin-sahn may hog the spotlight in games against military decks, Moto Chen’s immunity to Political actions helps bring down the hammer against honor opponents. As previously mentioned Chen’s trait doesn’t prevent targeting with Political actions, he simply negates them. In other words, feel free to Chugo Seido/Shinjo’s Guidance actions like Imperial Adjudication/Restoring Order right at him and watch your opponent’s best cards fizzle. Dueling or Magistrate honor in particular will find themselves hard pressed to deal with a turn 2 or 3 Chen and I stronghold advise flushing aggressively for him as part of your honor meta strategy. With that having been noted however a 6F Cavalry Tactician with a built in kill action is nothing to sneeze at even against another Military deck, just don’t sell out the farm to buy him early like you would against honor.

3x Settling the Homeless – At this point in CE I believe that some form of “presence-less” defensive meta is required to compete in any large tournament environment. There are now too many decks in this format that can effectively threaten a province(s) on turn 2 on a consistent basis. It’s hard to come back from your opponent dropping a Civility on his 2nd Limited Phase and crushing two face-up Personalities before you’ve had a second turn (Lion Hero Blitz). While not a perfect answer, Settling the Homeless works in this deck as part of a 9 card presence-less defensive package designed to hold an aggressive opponent off long enough to claw its self back into the game. Additionally of course it can be also used offensively to remove enemy units that don’t have followers in opposed battles. Even against Follower-based military decks you can find or create (by shooting the Followers first) good targets for Settling the Homeless in protracted battles. This type of versatility makes this card my favorite presence-less meta card and pretty much an auto include in any deck I build that doesn’t duel.

3x Desperate Rush – It’s safe to say that Desperate Rush is at least half the reason I play this deck off The Utaku Plains and it’s pretty much the entire reason I run 2 copies of Anhui. I’ve always been a sucker for combat phase kill actions and as Celestial became faster/more aggressive post-The Harbinger, the value of cards like Desperate Rush only increased. In fact, the ability to destroy 3-5 Force Personalities and Followers in battle is one of the major reasons this deck matches up so well with a wide variety of military decks in the format. As an added side benefit the Force reduction effect is separate from the destruction clause, meaning that even if your opponent negates his death he still loses the force. This can be quite useful when facing units either too large to kill (Kuon) or incapable of dying (The Last One, Furumaro).

3x Determined Force – Okay so lets review here for a moment; Determined Force stops pretty much every legitimate meta card commonly played to screw with Cavalry decks in the early game. That means a big fat “no” to Settling the Homeless, another “no” for Outer Walls and a big fat double “not a freaking chance” for Reinforce the Gates. It also aggressively meta's against effects that increase Province Strengths like Last Step Castle, Ring of Earth and Wall of Honor. Finally as if that weren’t enough you can drop one in battle to make a Ranged 2 Attack; an ability that looks 100% better when your Stronghold has a built in Force Reduction effect. Is there really a Unicorn Military deck in existence where Determined Force doesn’t belong?

2x Laying in Wait – As yet another “small-fire” kill action in battle, Laying in Wait helps this deck aggressively meta against “Naked” Military decks, boxable Personalities and small-medium sized followers. While obviously ineffective against 8G 8F Crab Heroes, this card can eliminate a surprising number of annoying but valuable Personalities popular in Celestial Edition. Examples include: Tsuruchi Saya, Bayushi Arashii, Matsu Youko and even Unicorn’s own beloved Utaku Hana. Remember that while the rules stipulate you can’t shoot a Personality with an attached Follower they say nothing whatsoever about attached Items. You absolutely can kill 6G Personalities right through non follower attachments. Unfortunately against certain types of Big Unit military decks you’ll probably have trouble finding more than one good target per game which in turn makes running only 2 copies of Laying in Wait the safest option.

3x The Direct Approach – One of the most versatile cards in the entire deck, The Direct Approach finds a home here in Purple Lions because it helps you fill 3 separate but equally important roles within the design. First and foremost TDA acts as part of your 9 card presence-less defensive action package by leaching Force from potential enemy armies in the early game. This is especially effective when your armies are primarily made of Cavalry units as you really don’t care about leaving your opponent extra defenders when he aborts his first attack. Secondly of course TDA can be used to temporarily “turn off” key personalities who have as many or more “extra” traits as they have current Force. While this won’t affect every Personality your opponent buys it does trump a stunning number of them, including almost every broken Unique/Clan Champion in the game. I recently managed to win a game against a Big Oni Military opponent pretty much entirely because I turned off a turn 2 Fosuta for an extra turn and then hit my own Personality with a TDA to stop my opponent from sacrificing it to Emma O’s Guidance after she Enticed it to her side. Finally you can even use TDA as an Open set up action for one of the *many* effects in the deck that work based on an enemy Personality’s Force. Examples include but are not limited to: Desperate Rush, Ranged Attacks and the printed abilities on Chen and Jim-sahn. I generally don’t like spending 2 actions to kill one Personality but the fact that TDA is an Open action and thus doesn’t require passing priority in Battle like the stronghold does is a mitigating factor.

3x Unpredictable Strategy – By now it should be pretty obvious that I like cards with a high degree of flexibility, particularly if they are primarily included in the deck for “meta” purposes. Unpredictable Strategy fits this description perfectly by providing send-home and/or bowing meta while still offering a semi-proactive Battle action if necessary. More importantly it allows you to drag key Personalities your opponent refuses to risk into battle by switching them with someone he *did* assign. This is incredibly useful for killing Udos, Jutsushis, the occasional Isawa Fosuta Exp or anyone currently locking down one of your guys with a copy of Control. Of course there are separate and arguably stronger ways to accomplish these tasks (The Height of Courage, The Slow Death, Wrathful Defense, and Matsu Kasei out of clan) but running all the cards to do so would quickly chew through too many deck slots. Sometimes I drop down to 2 copies of this card to add The Thriving Light or a Ring of Water depending on how my local environment shifts from week to week.

3x Justly Earned Victory – At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Justly Earned Victory is yet another card that finds a way into Purple Lions because of it can fill multiple roles in the design. Whereas cards like Unpredictable Strategy and Determined Force are primarily “meta” choices that can occasionally be proactively used in battle, Justly Earned Victory is more of a 50/50 split between proactive option and reactive answer. It’s effective as a meta card because one of the easiest ways to deal with a Cavalry army is to drain its Force below Province crushing strength in the early game, buying time to put defenders at every Province later. A single JEV simply nullifies this entire strategy by canceling all Force Penalties on your army in one swoop, effectively making popular cards like The Direct Approach, Flashy Technique, Soshi Yoshihara and Prepare for the Worst completely worthless. Additionally don’t forget that this will eliminate Force bonuses from actions as well and thus it makes for effective meta against mass Force pump effects like Border Ambush, Might of the Shadowlands and Besieged Borderland. Just remember JEV is indiscriminate about who’s Force bonuses and penalties it takes away; make sure you use it *before* you play your own Force Reduction/Increase cards in battle. Alternately JEV also has great value as a proactive send home action in a Cavalry based military deck that runs 5 attachments and typically as at least one 5F+ personality in a given battle. Don’t forget that JEV doesn’t care if your target Personality is bowed (from making a huge RA with Kami Unleashed or Shinjo Yamauchi), only that he have either more force or more attachments than the Enemy Personality you want to send home.

3x Sneak Attack – While it’s certainly easy to make the argument that 3 copies of Sneak Attack are a fundamental requirement for most military decks in L5R, I’m not really going to bother here. This is at least partially because if you don’t already know why Sneak Attack is good you will learn very quickly as you play more tournament level games. Ultimately however the real value of “Sneak” in this design is as a jumpstart effect for the battle control elements built into Purple Lions. The combination of Cavalry Armies, numerous printed battle actions (many of them fatal) and the ability to take the first action in battle allows you to pick off weaker enemy armies with frightening efficiency. This in turn keeps your opponent’s armies at a more manageable size, restricting his options and thereby allowing you to control the flow of the game. While not absolutely necessary, Sneak Attack is one of the reasons this deck seeks to start battles in the mid-game; rather than running away from them. Please be mindful of Reinforce the Gates; it can and will ruin your day if you don’t get in the habit of playing Battle actions printed on Personalities first when declaring a Sneak Attack. Throwing away 2 cards from your hand to gain nothing is no way to win battles in CE.

3x Civility – Much like Sneak Attack, Civility is another card that’s very strong in almost any military deck with a bunch of Samurai but is even more powerful in combination with the Cavalry Trait. In particular the ability to slip an extra Cavalry attacker into play on turns 4 or 5 helps set up the “2 bad choices” scenario that Purple Lions relies on to help control/beat other military decks . We’ll cover this more in the play-guide but the basic idea is to generate enough force to easily take 2 Provinces on your 2nd Attack Phase. This in turn forces your opponent to either spread his defense or risk being dropped to one remaining Province. Of course, neither scenario is really good for him when facing another military deck that’s designed to dominate opposed battles. Additionally you can always use Civility the way most decks do; to generate an extra unit for an attack in the early game or to create more bodies than your Dynasty draw can provide in the late game (presumably after you’ve lost Provinces).

3x Outer Walls – While primarily included as part of this deck’s 9 card presence-less defensive package, Outer Walls has also become a valuable answer to an Environment suddenly filthy with Ranged Attacks. Between old standbys like Final Duty, Kami Unleashed or Shiro Daidoj and new arrivals Laying in Wait, Scout Armor and Shinjo Yamauchi it’s now fairly common to encounter 4-6 point Ranged Attacks during battles in this format. The ability to shut these lethal RAs down becomes even more important in a deck with no followers and a limited number of re-direct effects (Shinjo’s Guidance, Chugo Seido). More importantly however, as a defensive action Outer Walls excels against Retribution and opponents who respond to Cavalry by dropping into Province trading mode.

3x Kami Unleashed – Depending on the availability of a Scout Armor, Shinjo Hwarang or your lone copy of Chain and Sword there are definitely times when Kami Unleashed is the best fate card in Purple Lions. There is really no substitute for killing/destroying enemy cards in battle and the potential to fire off ranged 5-9’s would make running this card worth it even without a number of straighten effects. Don’t forget that Kami Unleashed also works as excellent meta against popular cards like Low Stance and Game of Sincerity. If your Personality isn’t going to help you win the Battle at resolution you might as well bow him to kill something right?

3x Rout – Despite its awkward gold cost and a general decline in the use of attachments overall, Rout still finds a home in Purple Lions because it answers two common problems the deck regularly encounters in battle. First and foremost it destroys the kind of key attachments with fatal battle actions that give mostly “Naked” military decks fits. Good examples off the top of my head include Taoist Archer, Heavy Elite, Oni-Daikyu, Hand of the Obsidian Dragon and Ronin Brotherhood; any one of which is worth destroying before it smokes one of your guys instead. Even just nuking blank Followers or large Items (i.e. Chagatai’s Armor) can be an effective way to set up your Ranged Attacks and Force-based kill actions for later in the game. Secondly of course Rout acts as a kind of soft meta for Personalities that are simply too large to kill (Kuon, Akuma) with the action set this deck runs. While ultimately you’d much rather kill a 20F Oni permanently, sending it home from battle starts to look a lot more reasonable when the other option is losing an army and multiple provinces.

3x Scout Armor – The ultimate enabler: Scout Armor makes the cut here in Purple Lions because it makes winning games easier on multiple levels. Whether it’s helping you fire off ranged 6+ Attacks for free with Shinjo Yamauchi/Kami Unleashed, giving you 2F for 2G to help take early 8PS Provinces or even just letting you cycle the favor without losing a Personality; you’ll rarely be short of uses for an early game Scout Armor. Don’t forget that Scout Armor can react to straighten the Personality it’s attached to after any action that bowed it, not just your actions. This combines pretty well with Chugo Seido and Shinjo’s Guidance to shut down your opponent’s bow effects in a pinch. Probably one of the most important cards in the entire design, drawing an early Scout Armor will take you a long way towards winning with this deck.

1x Chain and Sword – For the most part Chain and Sword is functionally a 4th copy of Scout Armor in this deck; albeit a slower/less efficient and more expensive version. There are however times where 3F is better than 2; when you’re trying to solo a Province with a 6F Jin-sahn against Crab for example. Additionally much like the Stronghold ability every once in a while you’ll be able to use the -3F action on Chain and Sword to set up a fatal RA later in the battle. Just try and avoid the common mistake of using the straighten action immediately after your Personality becomes bowed. It’s typically better to wait until later in the battle once your opponent has spent his better removal actions and thus increasing the chance your Personality will survive to contribute Force at resolution.

1x Hand of the Obsidian Dragon – Affectionately nicknamed “The Bad Hand” in my local environment, HotOD is both at once a very powerful and very frustrating card. Obviously killing enemy Personalities right through Followers wrecks battles and helps change games. Additionally the Hand synergizes perfectly with Unicorn’s Personalities and The Utaku Plains to overpower even large enemy Uniques with an Item or two. Unfortunately of course such power comes with a hefty price tag; the combination of HotOD’s 7GC and the potential to stop its printed kill action will paint a massive bulls-eye on anyone it’s attached to. While Shinjo’s Guidance, Chugo Seido, Sneak Attack and the Cavalry trait will help protect your investment somewhat, don’t expect the Hand to survive more than one opposed battle.

Nina Illingworth · « **Reply #1 on:** April 28, 2010, 05:43:02 PM »

Play Guide

The simple truth is that the Cavalry trait makes achieving military victories much easier than it would otherwise be. That isn’t to say that any drooling moron can win games with Purple Lions but the ability to control when and how your opponent engages you in battle certainly does simplify the early game. The key then becomes learning when to fight opposed battles and how to win them; once a player has mastered these concepts Purple Lions becomes a very easy deck to play well. After all, you can’t run away from the enemy army forever and you’ll occasionally have to face other decks with heavy cavalry elements. With this in mind let’s look at a few tips that can help you get started on winning with this deck right out of the gate. As always please remember that no play guide is a substitute for actually playing games with a given deck. This is merely a starting point for players who want to build and play Purple Lions on their own; playing games remains the best way to improve at L5R.

     In terms of classification I would describe Purple Lions as a “military attrition” deck that uses Cavalry to pick and choose its battles. While capable of avoiding battles against infantry units, Purple Lions is also completely comfortable with assigning to opposed battles for the purposes of liquidating enemy armies. In fact picking using your attack phase as a form of Personality control by picking off your opponent’s units is an essential part of winning with this deck. This distinction is important as it differs from the more traditional “Province trading” deck that seeks to use Cavalry to out race its opponents militarily. An excellent example of this kind of deck is Case Kiyonaga’s “I Want to be a Hero!” If you want to check it out Case has been kind enough to publish an article about his deck in the Strategy section of the Seikitsu Pass (Unicorn) Forum (http://forum.seikitsupass.com/ ).

   Largely because of its 4 starting Family Honor, Purple Lions is designed by necessity to operate equally well when going 1st or 2nd in a given match-up. Equally however does not mean identically and the correct play-style varies slightly depending on who went 1st and whether or not you’ve drawn a Civility. Of course it would be impossible to cover every single game situation you might encounter in a single strategy guide so let’s focus on the first few turns of the game against lower honor military decks. Afterwards we’ll look at going 2nd against high honor military and honor opponents.

   While it’s ultimately true that your win percentage will be higher when going 1st with Purple Lions it also requires better decision making and more patience than going 2nd. Typically you’ll want to mulligan/discard hard early to try and find 2 of your 9 holdings that make 3 Gold by the end of turn 2. This is important because it’s very hard to buy 6GC Unicorn Personalities if you’re always paying 3 holdings for them. After buying 2 holdings on turn 1, you should buy a Personality and another 2 holdings on turn 2. If possible you should buy the Personality at full to make it easier to purchase any copies of Utaku Anhui later. Now if everything has gone well turn 3 should see you begin with a Personality in play, your 5GP Stronghold, 2 holdings that make 3G, a Border Keep and likely 2 holdings that make 2G. It is VERY easy at this point to convince yourself that you can win the game outright by dropping Civility to bring in an extra guy and spending 2G on a Scout Armor. This is however a very risky maneuver and should only attempted when you have a Determined Force in hand and a reason to believe you absolutely will take said Province. Bouncing off a 2nd Outer Walls at this point could be absolutely fatal to your chances of winning this game. The vast majority of the time the correct decision will be to buy 2 Personalities and either 2 more holdings or a holding and a Scout Armor on turn 3. Either of these two purchases will get you to the mythical “3 guys per turn” plateau that makes Lion so successful and if you drop the Scout Armor you get a free favor lobby to boot. Additionally because almost every Personality in this deck comes with a Battle action a simple 3-2 Personality advantage may very well hold off your opponent’s 3rd turn attack; essentially negating the need to rush into battle on turn 3 anyways. If it doesn’t and you’re afraid you might lose the first battle on defense: there’s always The Direct Approach, Settling the Homeless and Outer Walls to help buy you a turn to build attacking armies.

   Due to the sheer popularity of high honor clans Unicorn decks will go 2nd slightly more often than they go 1st in my experience (55/45 seems fair). While arguable much simpler, going 2nd in Purple Lions forces you to play far more aggressively to try and seize tempo with the Cavalry trait. This means mulling as hard as possible to find either a Border Village and another holding or 2 holdings that make 3GP each. This allows you to buy 2 Personalities on turn 2 and use your Bamboo Harvesters to buy a dragging 2GC holding. Failure to do so will likely make playing Civility or any of the 5 attachments in this deck almost impossible later, which in turn will make trading provinces and grabbing momentum more difficult. Turn 3 typically sees Purple Lions declaring its first attack using either Civility (preferred) or an attachment to generate the necessary force to threaten provinces. Regardless of how you do it, you should still have enough gold to buy 2 Personalities and another holding on this turn. This sets you up to be able to buy 3 Personalities a turn for the rest of the game; a scary proposition considering the quality of Personalities in the deck.

   Once you’ve established an attacking army Purple Lions stabilizes into a fairly predictable play pattern. You’ll want to use the Cavalry trait to snipe an easy province on your first attack phase and then find a way to thwart your opponent’s retaliatory strike. It really doesn’t matter if you do this with presence-less defensive actions or by defending with 1-2 disposable units so long as you don’t take away your own ability to threaten 2 Provinces later. Be mindful of Unicorn’s general weakness against Retribution during this first attack phase; I’ve been known to drop a TDA before my attack just to negate a potential Retribution target if I suspect my opponent might play one. While obviously not ideal, it *is* okay to bounce on this first attack so long as you make your opponent spend some cards to do so. Sooner or later he’ll run out of options and a single extra Dynasty Phase isn’t going to give him a quality defensive army at every Province next turn.

   Your 2nd attack phase is probably both the most important part of the game against military opponents and the single biggest difference between Purple Lions and classic “Province trading” Unicorn decks. Whether through Civility, Attachments or just plain old manpower you should have enough force at this point in the game to effectively threaten 2 Provinces. This allows you to declare an attack phase and assign no Infantry units; trapping your opponent between two bad choices. If he bunches his army up to defend at one Province, he runs the very real risk of you swinging for 2 and jumping up 4-1 or 3-1 on him in the Province trading war. If he spreads his army out to defend each of his remaining Provinces he risks exposing parts of his army to the brunt of your entire force. Typically in the latter scenario I will pick my opponent’s BEST army and use some combination of Sneak Attack and/or Redirection effects to get in the first shot at that battle. Between this and sheer numerical superiority it’s usually pretty easy to mulch the army and the Province at the same time; throwing your opponent behind turns of production and reducing his ability to trade Provinces back. Ironically if all goes well it really doesn’t matter which option your opponent chooses, his lack of either units or Provinces will keep him behind you in the Province Trading war and will thus restrict his ability to attack. From there it’s a simple question of buying enough units to finish off a crippled enemy at a comfortable pace. Assuming you’ve properly developed your gold scheme this won’t take very long at 3 Personalities a turn.

   Alternately when playing Purple Lions against a “Clock” deck like honor, dishonor even some types of Spider breeder/control hybrids it’s incredibly important to remain patient and avoid splitting for multiple Provinces just because you’re Cavalry. The key in these matchups remains flooding the board with units and thus overloading your opponent’s defenses/fate hand. You should generally assume your opponent can stop any army smaller than 4 units even without assigning defenders; making splitting for multiple Provinces something you’ll want to avoid unless his honor total forces you to (i.e. he’s about to win on his upkeep). On the plus side the Cavalry trait will typically make it easy to drain his hand in the early game even if you can’t take first Province. It also buys you enough time to build a perfect hand for winning the last battle once your opponent does engage you. In my experience Purple Lions is an excellent matchup for most types of honor, dishonor and even combo control decks here in the Celestial Environment. It does occasionally struggle with dedicated Crane Scout decks because significant portions of its honor meta package are relatively useless in this matchup (i.e. Deeds and Words). Additionally while it’s a very good match for most types of Dragon LSC Honor decks it does have significant trouble with the so called “Control” variant. In particular Test of Sincerity and Peaceful Discourse can give this deck fits in a build designed to properly handle Cavalry armies. Aside from these two specific decks however, Purple Lions excels at taking apart clock decks by abusing the Cavalry trait.

   Well folks that’s pretty much “all she wrote” for this time, quite literally! Hopefully this article has been of some use to you and thanks skittles to anyone out there still reading at this point (8,000+ words later). With any luck my work schedule will let me put up another article before the official release date for The Plague War and if so I’d love to take a look a Spider Oni Control deck built out of Fields of the Dead. Thanks for joining me and always remember that assigning during the Cavalry phase isn’t cheating, it just feels like it.

P.S. Don’t forget to check our well stocked online L5R singles store (Kyuden Tarantula) for all your “cardboard crack” needs. You can find it by clicking on the image posted in my signature immediately below this post. Thanks skittles. /end shameless plug.

-nina

Yajinden Buffararo · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2010, 08:37:42 PM »

Well written, and the play guide is good; though it's very different from any of the dozens of unicorn decks I've seen locally(by local I mean the quad-state US area of Oregon/Cali/nevada/arizona)

Asahina Raido · « **Reply #3 on:** April 29, 2010, 12:30:02 AM »

Hello Nina, thank you for another great article.

I've always enjoyed reading your articles, they've brought some intersting ideas to mind for me many times. If i may, i have a few small questions:

1) Have you considered Cavalry Officer for the deck? I've recently been playing it in my Unicorn builds and buying two followers off one card for five gold has oftern caught the opponent out, especially if the followers have ended up on Chen/Jin-Sahn/Tamago.

2) With large force people like Chen, Jin-Sahn, and to a point Ming-Li, plus weapons to make personalities bigger, have you tested Plains of Resolution? That card is stupidly good and oftern a game winner on its own.

I may have more later, but at this time in the morning that is all i can think of. Thank you in advanced,

Dario

Matrim · « **Reply #4 on:** April 29, 2010, 01:49:00 AM »

Cheers Nina, I am mirroring the articles on shirodaidoji.com as well for when they disappear into the back logs of the forums..

Daidoji Fitsu · « **Reply #5 on:** April 29, 2010, 02:06:10 AM »

+1 Dario, Plains of Resolution is huge. You don't have to worry about much if you've bowed it for Chen.

Nina Illingworth · « **Reply #6 on:** April 29, 2010, 10:20:17 AM »

Quote from: Yajinden Medalliah on April 29, 2010, 12:30:02 AM

Hello Nina, thank you for another great article.
I've always enjoyed reading your articles, they've brought some intersting ideas to mind for me many times.

Thanks, it's weird I think it's actually getting HARDER to make them shorter as I become a better player because there's so much more I want to share. Sorry they are so long but I'm glad you liked it for sure.

Quote from: Yajinden Medalliah on April 29, 2010, 12:30:02 AM

If i may, i have a few small questions:

1) Have you considered Cavalry Officer for the deck? I've recently been playing it in my Unicorn builds and buying two followers off one card for five gold has oftern caught the opponent out, especially if the followers have ended up on Chen/Jin-Sahn/Tamago.

I tried it for a while but I was unhappy with the way it tended to break out in the deck. Typically in the early game there's a turn where I have 2 Spare Gold and a turn where I have 4 Spare gold, at no point in time do I have a Spare Stronghold except on the weirdest of draws (4 holdings that make 3 for example). Thus I would need barley farms or be willing to sacrifice a guy that turn for the Cavalry Officer. Just never felt it was a worthwhile trade and thus they'd clunk up my hand a lot. Obviously they're great for the whole "Generating a little extra force to attack or take 2" scenario in the early game, I just didn't feel the cost was ultimately acceptable at that time (again typically a whole body).

Quote from: Yajinden Medalliah on April 29, 2010, 12:30:02 AM

2) With large force people like Chen, Jin-Sahn, and to a point Ming-Li, plus weapons to make personalities bigger, have you tested Plains of Resolution? That card is stupidly good and oftern a game winner on its own.

Being fair, I don't actually have very many large force people. Typically Plains of Resolution will target a unit that's big enough to take Provinces on it's own. For example Hida Tatsuma, Kuon, an Utaku Toshie who's been hit with a Last Stand. The only Personalities this deck has that can solo a province are conditional (Chen/Jin-sahn) or require an item (often 2). Fwiw the deck actually only has one "Weapon", the other 4 items are 3 Armors and a Hand.

Anyways I agree that Plains is a beastly card, but it's much higher value in a Unicorn Big Force Hero build that's design to trade Provinces. I didn't see a good fit here in a deck thats really more like Lion than Crab.

Quote from: Yajinden Medalliah on April 29, 2010, 12:30:02 AM

I may have more later, but at this time in the morning that is all i can think of. Thank you in advanced,

Dario

Ask away. I sorta suck at responding back and forth on forums but I'll do my best to answer. I just hate arguing about cards over the internet, I swear

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Author Topic: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil) (Read 1637 times)

Nina Illingworth

The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)

Nina Illingworth

Re: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)

Yajinden Buffararo

Re: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)

Asahina Raido

Re: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)

Matrim

Re: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)

Daidoji Fitsu

Re: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)

Nina Illingworth

Re: The Cardboard Geisha CE Part 14: Purple Lions (Unicorn Mil)