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The State of the Crab Clan: What has Changed in Month.
During the first half of the Kotei season, the Crab Clan sputtered through tourneys; never placing first, but getting close on a few occasions. But the second that the newest set, Heaven and Earth, became legal for these regional events: Crab took 3 out of 4 spots in the top 4 in Tampa Florida. The very next week, 2 Crab decks won 2 more tournaments. And even the week after that, Crab take a victory at the huge Everything to Gain Kotei. So in the 3 weeks that H&E has been legal for play in the Kotei, Crab have accumulated 4 Kotei victories. This turnout has put the following question into the minds of many of L5R’s players: What happened in the past month?! I intend to answer that question as well as I can.
First off, many of the cards in Heaven and Earth helped our honor running stronghold and decktype out a lot. Desertion, Rebuilt Temples, and Noh Theater Troupes come to mind.
Desertion
Event (Uncommon from H&E)
For the rest of the game, each player returns all face-up Dynasty cards in his or her Provinces to the bottom of the Dynasty deck, in any order, at the end of each of his or her turns. (Refill Provinces normally.)
Ok, Desertion is useful mainly in a Walls of the Kaiu fortified honor runner deck because one of the problems the deck has is that the same fortification may come up in a province that already has a fortification of the same name currently attached. This problem was partially cured by Isawa Taeruko as she is used to fetch the certain fortifications required for spreading out the forts. Now, at the end of your turn (after the event resolves of course), any duplicate forts in the same province go to the bottom of your deck instead of in the discard pile like they used to. This means that instead of losing resources like in the past, they recycle themselves to your advantage. Another plus, that is also a minus, is that this event also affects your opponent. The positive: He needs to wait till next turn to get his Reju EXP out to start picking off Taeruko, so he leaves Reju in his provinces and BAM away he goes. The negative: He can’t afford Reju Exp at all, and instead of discarding him he gets to put him at the bottom of his deck and get him later. Putting the cards on the bottom of the deck is much worse for them than it is for the Walls player since almost every turn our deck gets reshuffled due to Taeruko or Gifts and Favors.
Rebuilt Temple
Fortification(Uncommon from H&E)
Cost: 1 Gold.
Will only attach to a Province that already has a Region or Fortification attached. Rebuilt Temple enters play bowed.
Bow Rebuilt Temple to produce 2 Gold and gain 1 Honor.
Rebuilt temple is a godsend to any Walls deck, and almost pointless to any other decktype. With Taeruko and desertion we are able to effectively get Rebuilt Temple on a province that already has a fortification on it. This is only half of why this is a great card. The other half is because Deeds, Not Words has always been a thorn in the sides of any honor runner. The way it goes is “I gain 2, then I get deeds’ed”. Now with Rebuilt and a sanctified temple you can gain 3 honor before the inevitable deeds. Also, when deeds’ing an opponent on their turn, you can overpay its 0 gold cost with rebuilt and gain honor on their turn; an effective route around In Time of War. So those many games where you lose by a turn are now much much closer, if not ending in a Crab victory.
Noh Theater Troupe
Holding (Uncommon from H&E)
Cost: 3 gold.
Bow Noh Theater Troupe to produce 2 Gold.
Political Reaction: Bow Noh Theater Troupe after another player gains Honor or resolves a Political action to gain 2 Honor.
Noh Theater Troupe has been added to every honor running deck since Heaven and Earth became legal for tournament play. It is an insane way to gain honor out of an In Time of War’s 5 per turn cap. It is also a giant boost when facing another honor running deck since it adds a new dimension to how each player must think of the game. This holding is definitely more effective for Kosaten Shiro decks since it’s a 2 for 2 holding for them, and anything that buys itself is always great. Other clans are at a disadvantage when it comes to its cost to gold production ratio, but it’s such a power card that this is often overlooked. I decided against this card when playing in the Tampa Kotei and when I look back at it, I DEFINITELY would have made top 16 if I had played Noh over Utagu non-exp. Oh well, these types of decisions are what shows who is a better player and who still has room for improvement. The final match between Tyler Hamilton and Conrad Jackson showed how effective Rebuilt Temples, Noh Theater Troupes and Deeds not Words are in Crab Walls.
Secondly, Heaven and Earth greatly helped military decks in general and specifically Beefy Crab military decks. These decks are the kind that won the last three Crab Kotei. With the addition of such cards as Tireless Assault, Hida Benjiro, and the Daigotsu wind; the Corrupt Crab Military decktype has strongly increased.
Tireless Assault
Action (common from H&E)
2 Gold cost
1 Focus
Battle: Target a bowed or unbowed unit in your home that has not been in any battle during its resolution this Attack Phase. Straighten that unit and move it into the current battle.
So the deal with Tireless Assault is that it is arguably better than a Test of Courage, due to its versatility in use. So it happens to have 3 card slots available for most military decks. It’s better than Test because of the fact that you are granted “One unit Uber Cavalry”. For two gold you declare an attack, see where your opponent decides to defend, resolve a battle that looks nice to you and either Tireless immediately, or use Honor’s Lesson Dojo to have that be your only, undisputed, action in the battle. The thing about that strategy is that most/all crabs in the deck can take a province by themselves or with one card attached. This is the kind of action that has the ability to swing games, and if it cost more than 2 gold: I’m sure it would not see anywhere near as much play.
Hida Benjiro
Personality
4 Force, 2 Chi
- HR * 8 Gold cost * 1 Personal Honor
Crab Clan Samurai * Yu 3 * When Benjiro enters a duel in which he was challenged, he may raise his Chi (or other stat used in the duel) by his Yu value until the duel ends.
When I first saw this guy, I nearly crapped myself. He fits soooo well into corrupt crab blitz decks. His trait deals with the “Crab have low chi, especially in corrupt decks” so they make him slightly more immune to death by dueling. It still doesn’t protect against kolat actions, but if it did, he would be the perfect personality. Either way, another “Dash honor requirement” person is essential for all corrupt crab decks. I remember before H&E, my CCB had Utagu and Wukau in it. Not very beefy. Now, drop Utagu for Benjiro and that gives you some beef instead of something cool that rhymes with beef. So for 3 more gold, you are able to get 4 more force. 4 force with a moto steeds or that KYD item that does the same thing for 4 gold, gives you 6 force cav; which is essential early on for the first couple of provinces. He was the one piece of the Corrupt military puzzle that the Crab needed to overcome the other decks. With him, our personality base is solid, even with only a couple of Shadowlands peeps in it now. Lucas Twyman convinced me that having 19-20 people is also a great idea since you can eventually out produce your opponents PKill, since PKill decks are the main weakness to a crab blitz deck.
Daigotsu
Wind
Lobbying is not Political for you. You lobby by bowing a Shadowlands Personality with any Personal Honor. For purposes of any player lobbying, your Family Honor is considered the total printed Force of your Personalities if that total is higher than each other player's.
Battle: Discard the Imperial Favor to reduce the Force of one opposing card to 0.
This wind is unusual, since it is not necessarily used for its ability and is used more often to keep the favor out of your opponent’s hand. This means that starting at about the 4th turn, for your opponent to lobby for the favor, they must have more honor than your personalities have printed force. The strong side of Corrupt Crab Blitz is a large amount of printed force. This wind basically nullifies the fear of Tsudao when attacking an honor running deck. So you don’t have to worry about the favor being used against you so long as you sell your soul to corruption. This brings up the former question of “Is any victory worth it if it’s through corruption?” This will forever be a tough choice to make, especially for the Crab. Before H&E, a wind was merely an ornament for Corrupt Crab anyways, only used vs. other blitz decks and shadowlands. On the crab list, I heard someone say that Corrupt Crab utilizes followers well, which removes the effectiveness of an honor deck’s refugees. We also now have Tireless, so it reduces the effect of Block supply lines. And with Daigotsu and a big amount of printed force, Tsudao and In search of the future become almost useless. So after H&E, the corrupt crab deck makes 3 key cards in honor decks useless, as well as their favor. This is a big reason why Corrupt Crab has fared so well in the past month.
Finally, another great factor in Crab’s Kotei success as of late is that a lot of the “higher caliber” players have started playing Crab once Heaven and Earth boosted the power of these two decktypes. Lucas Twyman has given great contributions to Corrupt Hida blitz, and has gotten others to play this style of deck in Kotei. Ryan Carter and Conrad Jackson are not dedicated Crab players as some of us are, but they both showed that our cards can win. They are both great players, and I have a lot of respect for them, and even more respect for them showing us just how good the clan we love is. Tyler Hamilton wasn’t a dedicated Crab player, but he’s showed that he also has a great amount of play skill, and is considering becoming full-on crab. I haven’t heard much regarding Marc Thompson and his loyalties, but Justin Monbarren has proven himself as a true Crab before his win, and even more by winning with Citadel of the Hiruma. These four people have also done something that I didn’t think possible, but they all won with 4 different strongholds. This means that there’s only one more gold legal stronghold available to Crab that hasn’t won a Kotei, Razor’s Edge Dojo. As many of you know, a couple of us are moving a bounty forward to the first person to win with a RED deck. The three military strongholds that won Kotei all use similar cards, but different styles of military to win. Hida uses followers to start a Fate card drawing engine, Yasuki Palaces uses Silk Works for maximum gold efficiency, Hiruma is an oddball though, since it’s ability doesn’t directly move you towards a military victory. So if a RED victory is to be achieved, it will most likely be with a deck similar to the Hiruma deck.
So, now that Heaven and Earth has been released and is legal for tournament play there are some definite possibilities for decks to play if you want a good chance of winning at a Kotei, Origins, or Gencon. This is shaping up to be a very good arc for the Crab Clan, and let’s hope this success continues for us through Diamond!