Legend of The Five Rings CCG

[aerolb]

From the Legend of the Five Rings site (l5r.com):

Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) is a line of games set in Rokugan, a land of heroic samurai, mystical shugenja, and fearsome creatures from the Shadowlands. L5R lets you tell the story. The way you build your card decks, role-play your character, or even interact with the community of L5R gamers will affect the lives of the characters in your Clan!

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of it - Legend of the Five Rings is pretty much a CCG about magic samurai. It's also probably one of the most long-running CCGs in circulation, except for that hiccup in Gold Edition.

Well, why am I posting about it now? You see, Celestial Edition is about to start and it's a great time to get into the game - AEG is releasing a free expansion with the current Celestial cards - cards that have been graphically redesigned and have literally been made much easier to understand and easier on the eyes.

I'm planning to demo the game in the monthly OGM and give away free decks (old-school decks but some of the old-school cards have been cycled in and out of legality so you can pick them apart - and there's also a healthy Legacy format in the country if you wanna play it legally). Also, we're trying to run regular Bushi League tourneys - no rares; all common and uncommons in your deck so you can probably build a deck cheapy.

For the curious, you can check out the main L5R site at www.l5r.com - it's prepping up for Celestial but Samurai Edition is still going strong too. As for any questions about the local community, you can head over to l5r.skillze.com or you can ask me.

[Rolf]

I think I still have my old Naga deck somewhere...let me see if I can find it.

[Tristan T. Angeles]

I want Crane! Although my emerging interest in military history, strategy and tactics, makes me think I'm turning into a Lion..well, the late Hoturi and Toturi were friends so I guess thats ok.. Wait, Toturi's dead right?

[Gaebril]

@Tristan: Even Toturi's sons and daughter have died. I think. I've been out of the loop for a few years.

@Rolf: Used to have a Naga deck too! Even had Deep Forests.

I actually want to go back to L5r, but there have been a lot of functional changes to the rules since I quit at the end of diamond. (And I expect most of my cards are no longer playable by now)

I have a question: Are the starters still half-random? Know anywhere with a list of what's in the starters?

[Tristan T. Angeles]

How much does a starter cost pla? And how much money do you estimate a guy has to dish out to make a competitive deck for tourneys?

Gaebril: Haha. Me too. I stopped nung jade edition pa and started playing the rpg instead.

[John]

I want to get into L5R! I find the game interesting, with 2 draw decks, provinces, Japanese inspired setting, great looking noobie friendly starter decks, etc. I wanna play Scorpion! But what's stopping me is that the game is better for multiplayer than one-on-one? I can barely get one player, much less two or more....

[Nels]

I have been a player of L5R for many years, a proud and loyal member of the Lion Clan, and I can honestly say that no other table top game has ever captured me like L5R did.

Best points of L5R for me:
- Theme is about Samurai.
- The clans are unique and present deep history, epic stories, and their secrets.
- L5R is more complex than Magic, therefore more engaging.
- Multiple play styles and multiple win conditions.
- The cards that you acquire are legal ("type 2" term in magic) for a very long time.
- The efforts of players in tourneys will reflect in the storyline and cards that are designed in L5R.

@ Gaebril: Yes, starters are still half random.

@ Tristan: Starters are around 700php, decks really vary in price, I can't safely say a range. What my group does is we dish out about 700php each and buy a box of boosters, then share the contents.

@ John: L5R is mainly for one-on-one. Sadly, more than 2 players for L5R isn't good.

[alfblack]

Ahh. I remember L5r.

First appeared in Gaming Circle in GreenHills. (now NG).
Nobody was buying/Playing the game. So I told my friend (store owner). If he can find another interested person. I'll buy and try the game. <ccg addick>.

He found one.

We played starter only. I picked Crane. He picked Unicorn. Of course I got creamed. But I was very intrigued with Crane play style and stuck to that faction. <prolly the first Ph Crane player?>

So we played, talked about it. Showed it to people. Next week I came to the place. There were TONs of people playing. Ahh.. Mission done.

I got distracted, dang A.D.D. Might be them new flanged collectible miniatures called mage knight. Uhh. plastic

So I got a stack of cards of about.. umm. 12" high of the first set.

Seeing that the old cards are on sale. I think I want to pick up some more. Unfortunately, I saw that the new edition have new BACKS!!! And what else mechanic they've changed. So I dont know if I can play with the cards I have (small collection only).

Are they still mechanically compatible? (you L5R players here).

But yeh. It was fresh new way to play.

Anybody want to liquidate their old obsolete collection? I'll still play casually.

[Gaebril]

- L5R is more complex than Magic, therefore more engaging.

Complexity is simple. Simplicity is difficult. -Shinsei 

@alfblack: Gahd, a friend of mine played robot Crane in early Jade. I don't think I ever beat him.  Duelling got changed heavily in Lotus arc, but mechanically the cards should be compatible (although of course some of them become useless or broken due to the changes). Oh, the foo of bar rule got changed too. I think this might have killed my Deep Forest Shinomen.

[aerolb]

No worries about legality of old cards- you can mix and match them  with the new backs - as long as you use sleeves of course and they're legal of course - or if you're playing legacy, you only have to worry about the sleeves. Nothing's changed mechanically - same old rules apply; Alderac just jettisoned the useless/old-school traits meaning Double Chi doesn't work anymore.

The L5R site has a link to the rules site which has a download of the latest rules.

I'll try and contact Mark Navarro - he's the local Legacy go-to guy for dealing in Legacy cards.

[Rolf]

hey...what happened to Naga clan?  Are they no longer in use anywhere???  There's no mention of them on l5r.com...

[Gaebril]

Yeah, a lot of the minor clans got purged. Naga went to sleep. Toturi's Army got disbanded. Ninja got absorbed back into Scorpion, and Dragon got absorbed into Monk. 

[aerolb]

lol yeah, though there are still technically some naga running around for storyline purposes, the shooty-mcshooty army style has been taken over by the Mantis - though they do it better with Naval - which is essentially sneak attack printed on a personality. They've trimmed down the game so new players would only have to worry about nine clans and not a dozen or so. Though Naga is still playable in Legacy format (which is the equivalent of Magic's Open) .

[alfblack]

Thanks for the update guys.

Nice to hear that my old cards are still usable in the real scene.

So the 5 rings still exist in the new set?

[Rolf]

awww that's too bad....

I never got the hang of the Naga play style, but I really liked their concept and back story.  Don't get me wrong, I like the other samurai clans, but the Naga were just...different.

Just a question, would a legacy Naga deck still be competitive with a more contemporary Clan deck?