Now we have seen the outline of the Dynasty phase in FFGs new Legend of the Five Rings LCG we have an idea of how things play out. After spending some time considering the options involved I released it wasn’t something I could abstractly do, I needed to see at least images of cards and look at the game state presented. So I present to you a Turn 1 dynasty phase. When reading through this, please do give some thought as to what options you would and what counters your opponent would make. In theory, there is a perfect play for both sides. Perhaps in time, such basic opens will become apparent to us, but for now…

You are playing a Crane clan deck and have revealed your provinces showing 2 Savy Politicians, a Miya Mystic, and Daidoji Nerishma. You start the game with 7 Fate to spend so you could recruit up to three of the characters. You have the following options:

Recruit no characters.

Recruit 1 character and give them up to 5 fate tokens.

Recruit 2 characters and give them a combination of up to 3 fate tokens.

Recruit 3 characters and give up to 1 fate token.

Any Fate not spent this turn can be spent on cards from the conflict deck, or it can be kept over for a later turn. Of course, you don’t play this game in isolation. You’re up against a Lion player who has revealed a very aggressive set of characters. Those two Matsu Berzerkers are problematic as they are lots of force for just one fate.

The Lion player won the dice roll at the start, so they are going first. On one hand, this is a disadvantage for you as it means the Lion player will get an earlier chance to pass to get an extra Fate and they will also be choosing the first conflict later in the turn. On the other hand, you will get to see what decisions the Lion player makes which may indicate what you need to do about it. The Lion player chooses to bring in a Matsu Berzerker with 2 Fate tokens on them. So that character is going to be around for three turns.

You know you have two 3 strength provinces and two 4 strength provinces. Unfortunately, the Lion player just needs to equal that force to break the province. So right now you have a 50% chance of losing a province this turn. If you want to equal the Lion players force, you will need to recruit Daidoji Nerishma for 2 Fate and if you want to keep him around for the same amount of time as the Matsu Berzerker you will need to spend an extra 2 Fate for a total of 4. This will leave you on 3 Fate only able to purchase one more characters. As there are four conflicts in total, this will mean you can only be involved in two.

Your Lion opponent switches gears now. Rather than repeating the same purchase, they instead make the Steadfast Bushi for 1 Fate with no additional Fate, so the Bushi will only be around for this turn. This will allow the Lion player to get involved in an extra conflict either as the defender or the attacker.

The Lion player now equals you in Military and Political skill however they have two characters compared to your one. So you will have to concede at least one conflict. In the hopes to combat this you recruit a Savvy Politician and add an extra Fate token onto them, so the Courtier will stay around for an extra turn. You are now out of Fate and will be passing on your next turn.

Seeing you are expended the Lion player brings out the Matsu Berzerker with one Fate token. You pass and receive an extra Fate. The Dynasty phase ends looking like the below.

During the Conflict phase, the Lion player will be able to declare the first attack choosing the type of conflict and the ring they wish. The Crane stronghold can be used to bow one character, and the Lion stronghold can be bowed to add +1 Military skill to each Lion character in the battle. Attacking with all characters in a Military conflict would make for a strong offensive for the Lion player which could break a province. Doing so would give you as the Crane player the option to let them go past, and you could then win a Military and a Political battle.

Should the Lion player select Water for their battle, they could then unbow a card which would allow the Steadfast Bushi make or defend against a Political attack (assuming characters bow before the victory effect). Selecting Void would remove the Savvy Politician’s Fate token removing them from the game. At the end of this turn the Steadfast Bushi will be gone (assuming it’s card effect doesn’t trigger). So the effect of having the extra character is only going to last for a turn. At the end of turn two, the Savvy Politician and one of the Matsu Bezerkers will leave the field. Only at the end of Turn three will the fate of Matsu Bezerker and Daidoji Nerishma be resolved. We can broadly judge this to be roughly equal.

Did the Lion player make the right calls? Maybe it would have been better to make the second Matsu Bezerker with more fate rather than having the Steadfast Bushi around for just one turn. Would the Crane player have been better off spending less on Daidoji Nourishing to bring out a second Savvy Politician? Based on the current board state is the Crane player better off drawing 1 card and retaining honour or drawing more cards to help win the battles?

Update — We discussed this on Reddit, and the general conclusion was that the Lion player should not have made the Steadfast Bushi as the Crane stronghold makes it hard to compete against in a Political conflict. Instead, the Lion players should have made the two Matsu Berserker’s with 2 to 3 Fate and passed early to get the extra Fate. The Crane player still seems best in making Nerishma with 2 Fate and the Savvy Politician with 1. Alternatively, the Crane player could recruit Nerishma with 3 Fate and pass looking to grab the bonus 1 Fate. For the Conflict phase, the Lion player appears to be best off attacking with both Matsu Berserkers picking Fire to deny it to the Crane or Void to remove a token from the Savvy Politician. Either way a province should get broken. The Crane then get to choose between one conflict breaking a province or winning two conflicts.