Hey everyone. I think introductions in gaming articles are generally pretty lame, so I’ll try to keep this short and sweet. My name is Jordan, I play games. My favorite way to play them is competitively at high end tournaments. I love Magic: the Gathering, and for the past year, I’ve been in love with Legend of the Five RIngs. I want to write about it, and that’s why we’re here. Okay, whew, enough of that.
From November 30th to December 2nd, I had the pleasure of attending Pax Unplugged with my wife for the purposes of attending the Grand Kotei. I’m a Dragon player, and my wife plays Crane. We’re both pretty active in our local league, which averages from 12-16 people on any given weeknight. Because of my competitive MTG background, my prefered way of playing games is competitively, and this is the first competitive game event that my wife has ever played in her entire life.
I want to do some reflecting on our Pax Unplugged experience, if not for a reader’s benefit, then for my benefit of getting to reflect and think about the way I played, how I can improve, and what I think of the Kotei system as a whole.
Brief Tournament Report
First, my decklist:
Mountain's Anvil Castle (Core)
Seeker of Void
Manicured Garden (Core)
Pilgrimage (Core)
Rally to the Cause (Core)
Restoration of Balance (Core)
Shameful Display (Core)
Dynasty Deck (40)
Character (33)
3 Doomed Shugenja (Core)
3 Togashi Initiate (Core)
2 Togashi Mendicant (Meditations on the Ephemeral)
3 Agasha Swordsmith (Core)
3 Miya Mystic (Core)
1 Agasha Shunsen (Elements Unbound)
3 Kitsuki Investigator (Core)
3 Mirumoto Raitsugu (Core)
3 Master Alchemist (The Fires Within)
3 Niten Master (Core)
3 Togashi Mitsu (All and Nothing)
3 Togashi Yokuni (Core)
Holding (7)
3 Favorable Ground (Core)
3 Imperial Storehouse (Core)
1 The Imperial Palace (The Chrysanthemum Throne)
Conflict Deck (40)
Attachment (18)
3 Fine Katana (Core)
3 Pathfinder's Blade (For Honor and Glory)
3 Seal of the Dragon (Meditations on the Ephemeral)
1 Ancestral Daishō (Core)
2 Cloud the Mind (Core)
3 Finger of Jade (Tears of Amaterasu)
3 Reprieve (Core)
Character (6)
2 Ancient Master (Breath of the Kami)
1 Hiruma Skirmisher (Into the Forbidden City)
3 Tattooed Wanderer (Core)
Event (16)
2 Assassination (Core)
1 Censure (Into the Forbidden City)
3 Court Games (Core)
3 Hurricane Punch (Breath of the Kami)
3 Let Go (Core)
1 Spreading the Darkness (Tainted Lands)
3 Void Fist (All and Nothing)
The first thing you’ll notice is that the province row is woefully out of date. We had to take a break from L5R for a couple of months because of some life and work things, and I just sort of missed the switch to playing Sacred Sanctuary, which is just an error on my part.
After a quick 2-0, I lost a tough match to a Scorpion player who absolutely outplayed me. To my chagrin, he never hit Restoration of Balance, which may have let me catch up. I didn’t deserve to win at all though. I was not engaging in conflicts when I should have been, and I was overspending in Dynasty phase. I wish I remembered more about the match (and in future iterations of this blog, I’ll make a point to take notes), but I remember it being fun, me getting crushed, and me feeling like I was powerless to stop it.
I lost to two Crane decks, the first of which I flipped five holdings against in three turns, so that was a bit of a downer. I flipped the first set of three holdings, bought what I could buy, and just kinda died. Not a lot to report.
The second Crane I died to, I actually lost to my own honor dial, embarrassingly enough. I was at one honor, but I had a distinct card and board advantage. All I need to do is literally not die to the draw phase.
When we both pass in Dynasty, I SWEAR that I see him simply flip over his honor dial that had five on it. Well, since if my opponent is going to bid five, I can bid five too right?
Wrong.
I flip over my honor dial, and when he does, he reveals a 1, killing me to honor. He must have changed it when I thought he hadn’t. Pretty embarrassing for me, huh?
Otherwise, my deck was pretty close to accurate, although the Assassinations were a bit much considering I lost to Crane via dishonor. That being said, I played some fun games against Lion, Crane, and Crab that were all interactive and difficult. A 3-3 performance for a guy playing a bad decklist and playing suboptimally isn’t terrible, especially considering no Dragon besides Aneil had a winning record.
I mentioned it before, but I want to take better notes (or at least write these blogs sooner) so that I can better reflect on the games. This will be easier when testing on Jigoku, but remember the paper games will be difficult.
Reflection of the Kotei Process as a Whole
This isn’t my first competitive event for a game, and it isn’t even my first Kotei, but I was very impressed with the way that Cascade Games ran the tournament. They had us use this app to get pairings and report matches, and while I think that’s a little silly for an event with only 70 players, it wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. By round 3 or 4, everything was working just fine.
The prize wall was great! I got a playset of Togashi Mitsu extended arts which are absolutely gorgeous, and my wife got a playset of the Crane extended art as well. We used our leftovers to buy some promos for the folks back at home, and we felt like we got our value from the event.
That being said, Koteis need to not be gated behind major conventions. That would stop the issue of having day 1s be on a weekday, and it would increase attendance. The lack of cash prizes also hurts attendance. People simply aren’t going to travel far for a Grand Kotei when the can only win some promos and have (nowadays) an outside shot at Hatamoto. Incentivize your players to travel, and they will do so.
Going Forward…
Despite my gripes about Koteis being gated and not being incentivized to go, I’ll be attending quite a few live events this year:
- Louisville - Elemental Championship
- Toronto - Kotei
- Atlanta - Kotei
- Indianapolis (GenCon) - Grand Kotei
- Other local leagues and tournaments week to week.
I also plan on playing the Discord League month-to-month now. My schedule is pretty tough to make out on a week-to-week basis, and that’s why I’ve usually shied away from the Discord League, but with my wanting to focus on playing L5R better, I need to commit to playing more regularly.
For this blog, who knows how often I’ll update it, but I’d love to use it to chat L5R, keep a record of tournament play, and use it as a way to reflect on what is easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. I want my tournament reports and decklist thoughts to be deeper and have more content. That will come with time, but hopefully this is useful in some fashion, at least to me (I’m not sure yet, heh), in its current iteration. My hope is that with a more streamlined organized play from FFG, the game will get more accessible, and things will really start to take off for the game.
Anway, if you have any thoughts or anything, please feel free to share them in the comments, on Twitter @imjorman, or on the discord @imjorman#1913. Thanks for your time!
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