GLORIOUS CRANE CLAN PACK





It is finally time for us to delve into the Clan Pack review !

Will Erik brutally murder most of our new cards as usual ? Is Uji the Daimyo that was promised ? How good is Kyuden Kakita ? Can we finally run Cloud the mind without worrying about bad shugenjas ?

All your questions will be answered !



Feel free to give any feedback on this review directly to us !



– Chuterêve

Rating Scale

5 – Auto-include in every Crane deck without hesitation.

4 – A staple that deserve a spot in most Crane decks. It might not be 3 copies but it will be here.

3 – A card that might see some play in specific archetypes or meta.

2 – A weak card. If it see play it will probably be in jank/fun decks.

1 – There is really no reason to include this card in deck. Even in fun decks, there is probably another that do something similar but better.

Kyuden Kakita

Overall Rating – 3,1/5

Daidoji Erik

How often do you duel with a character that is not honored? The only situation where it seems normal to me is Policy Debate with a Political Rival, and in that case the honor effect is not exactly spectacular.

Many potential duels have the limitation that they are either printed on a character (Kaezin, Toshimoko, Yuri) or on an attachment on a character (Duelist Training) which means you can honor that character with Kyuden Kakita, and then all turns after that they are honored already. The only really good enabler duel in my opinion is Kakita Dojo, because you can use it with a different character every turn and you can almost always safely lose the duel.

I think this stronghold is not very strong at all, but neither is Shizuka Toshi. We will have to warp our decks a bit to have enough duels, so it remains to be seen if its worth swapping over.

Rating: 3/5

Kakita Onimaru

The big question about this card is simple: is it better than Shizuka Toshi? For me, the answer is a resounding yes!

But let me be clear. I’ve never much cared for Shizuka Toshi. I think the “soft power” of its ability is easily played around and all it ever did was prevent political pokes. Frankly, if Kyuden Kakita is activated twice in one game it will have proven itself to be 200% more effective than Shizuka Toshi!



But let’s not get too crazy. On its own merits, Kyuden Kakita is solidly “ok”. It can generate the Honored Status tokens Crane characters are hungry for but it does require a duel to do so. A non-duel centric deck may have trouble finding opportunities to get much use out of it and even duel decks can find it a bit tricky to have the right duel available to throwaway for the honor effect. But, in a properly built deck it can keep the much needed honor token around to keep Uji and Voice of Honor online, and that’s nothing to scoff at.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

When this got spoiled, I gave it a 2.5. I think its maybe more like a 2.75 but I guess I’ll round up to a 3 for this. It really is kind of a sidegrade (or slight improvement) from Shizuka Toshi and that’s really not good since Shizuka Toshi isn’t very good. You lose 1 PS, 1 inf, and a pretty play aroundable -2 pol for a repeatable honor effect when someone duels. The problem is this requires you to jam your deck full of duels and and then use those duels with non-honored characters which is basically just handicapping yourself. You want to make one huge guy and duel with them all the time so you can win the duels, but then you might as well have a blank SH. I get that as Cranes a lot of people want to be able to duel and for us to be good at them, but this SH doesn’t really actually help us win duels. It feels like it tries to fight against the inherent problem of dueling that is tower strategies, but it really just makes it feel clunky. I’m still going to play with it for a while and give it a shot, but I’m hoping we can get some cool couriter synergies in cycle 3 and a stronghold on par with other clans options before too long.

Rating: 3/5

Chuterêve

I started my Kyuden Kakita testing with low expectations so it performed better than what I was expecting for me.

Don’t be wrong : It’s still very far from a stronghold on the level of Kyuden Isawa and it might not even be on the level of Moutain Anvil Castle (but it’s approaching it). However, Shizuka Toshi did not aged well and while I miss it in some instances while playing Kyuden Kakita, I think the trade is worth it.

I would put Kyuden Kakita in most crane decks, with maybe the exceptions of the one not running either Policy Debate or Duellist Training.

There will be situations most likely where you won’t be able to trigger Kyuden Kakita during a turn, especially if you don’t have a Kakita Dojo flipped and run only Policy Debate or Duellist Training and not both but there was also turns where Shizuka Toshi was doing nothing.

Something worthy of note is that having a Kakita Dojo in your provinces makes Kyuden Kakita way better that when you have none. Others activators are not nearly as effective and versatile as Kakita Dojo when it comes to Kyuden Kakita.

In summary, Kyuden Kakita is not super strong compared to some others Stronghold in others clans but it’s still in most of the case an upgrade for us.

Rating: 3,5/5

Doji Liforre

Shizuka Toshi is honestly one of the worst stronghold of the game so, if you play basically any kind of duels, you’re probably playing this instead and being decently happy about it. The fact that it has 9 influence can sometimes really hurt your potential splash so we could still see some Shizuka Toshi played in the future. Still, more honor techs are always very welcome and it also gain decent value if your opponent is also playing some duels.

Rating: 3/5

Market of Kaze-no-Kami

Overall Rating – 1,8/5

Daidoji Erik

A ‘character that is not honored’ means almost any character, but bowing one character as an on-reveal effect is just not very impressive. Rally to the Cause or Midnight Revels seem better.

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Onimaru

It appears that the designers are still trying to get a grasp on how powerful to make a province that only triggers on reveal. Once again, this card does not make the cut. Essentially this card is a worse version of Midnight Revels, a card that is already not good but technically the best neutral water province in the game. And while Midnight revels can sometimes be dead if you have the highest cost character on the board, at least its repeatable and you can control which characters are on your side of the field to ensure it goes off. Market of Kaze-no-Kami is easier to target, but a simple bow effect just isn’t on the same power scale as other one-use provinces

Rating: 1/5

Asahina Neph

Alas, a bad in clan province. It happens but it feels bad. The only advantage of this over something like Midnight Revels is it’s a bit more of of a controllable bow but you trade a PS for it. And it’s also a one time use so you are really banking on the (hopeful) tempo advantage to close the game out. All told, not a big fan.

Rating: 2/5

Chuterêve

I know Magistrate Station is good so we shouldn’t complain but it’s sad to see that our new clan province is so bad. It’s not better than any other water province option, even if you want to put them on row for whatever reason. The “only on reveal” coupled to the terrible PS really kills it. RIP Market, we hardly knew you.

Rating: 1.5/5

Doji Liforre

This is not incredibly impressive, even for a water province but it does its job just fine. In some metas, this is going to be better than midnight revels, but it shouldn’t realistically matter too much in deck building

Rating: 3/5

Support of the Crane

Overall Rating – 5/5

Daidoji Erik

Very important card for all those players complaining that Crane cards are so overpowered. Go play Steward of Law / Noble Sacrifice / Duel to the Death and experience yourself how much it will make you win 😛

Rating: 5/5

Kakita Onimaru

I still don’t know if its worth using a “Support of” role in place of an elemental role, especially with the economic advantage Seeker roles, but Way of the Crane is a good way to get some POL power into your deck.

Rating: 5/5

Asahina Neph

Best role in the game hands down. Maybe not the most competitive, but the best.

Rating: 5/5

Chuterêve

This is the best support in the game, simply because it’s our support. While it does not give us anything concretly, you can still show dominance to your opponent by playing it in a Crane deck

Rating: 5/5

Doji Liforre

Sometimes, you just need to send a message, and playing this in your crane deck is simply the best way to do it.

Rating: 5/5

Iwasaki Pupil

Overall Rating – 3,2/5

Daidoji Erik

Having 1/1 for 1 stats is fine for a dynasty character, and the text will have a lot of effect for sure. I would expect that in over 90% of cases both players will bid 1 for the draw phase with a Iwasaki Pupil out. The question is: what benefit does that give you? Why do you want both players to have low cards in hand? It has some synergy with the discard theme, but to make low draw games really work you need to either 1) get a lot of draw from other sources or 2) have a superior dynasty deck. I don’t see Crane fulfilling either of those plans any time soon.

Rating: 3.5/5

Kakita Onimaru

This is a great card in decks that focus in honor running and/or hand control. As long as you bid 1, you stand to gain value. Your opponent would need to bid at least 4 before they got a more cards than you, leaving you to gain 3-4 honor. More than likely they will bid 1 as well, in which case you can leverage your card discard to brutal effect. While honor decks can have access to these same tools, the greater advantage this card gains you is not dropping severely behind in card advantage once you reach the point in which you will need to lower your bids to cross the honor finish line.

Rating: 4/5

Asahina Neph

This rating kind of comes with a caveat. In a deck that wants to force the game into low bids (like hand hate Crane, which is all I’ve played from the pack so far as of this writing) I think the card is really good. If you don’t care about that, I don’t think you play it, so my rating is with that idea in mind. Either you successfully keep bids at 1 or your opponent over pays you for some more minor card advantage.

Rating: 4/5

Chuterêve

Cool to have a Geisha…but what do we do with it ? Maybe it fits in hand destruction deck if that ever become a thing ? This is a card obviously made for decks that want to bid 1 at some point to force their opponents to draw less. There is certainly potential for this card but we have to see if the right shell for it will exist at some point or not.

Rating: 3/5

Doji Liforre

Why can’t Crane get good 1 drops ? 🙁 This even have no relevant traits and no glory, even though though the card denial might work in some weird decks that just aren’t there yet. I think this would have been fine as a sudo Kage in Lion for example, but I don’t think you really want to play this in your Crane deck.

Rating: 1.5/5

Beloved Advisor

Overall Rating – 2,1/5

Daidoji Erik

Decent stats, but the ability is symmetric and that is generally bad. The best case scenario would be giving your opponent a card that they immediately have to discard to Earth ring / Spies at Court / Letter of the Daimyo, but that seems pretty rare.

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Onimaru

For the life of me, I cannot think of a reason why you would want to give your opponent a card. And I defended Perfect Gift! At least with that one you have an amount of control and information of what your opponent is getting while you search for a critical card.

Some dishonor decks have been known to run Seppun Truthseeker, which has a very similar effect as this. But those decks do so because they have many events that can cause honor loss, essentially making their draws more valuable. There just aren’t enough effects like that in Crane that can support that sort of strategy.

Rating: 1/5

Asahina Neph

This guy is interesting. He has potential I think but I’m not positive how good he actually is. I haven’t played with him yet but I think I would need to before really making a judgement. 2 cost is an awkward spot since their stats are hardly ever that much better than 1 costs. I’m not sure a symmetrical draw effect is worth that extra fate, but maybe it’ll see some use at some point.

Rating: 3/5

Chuterêve

When I saw this card first, I dismissed it quickly but now that I am paying more attention, the stats are not bad at all for a 2 drop although i doubt it will make the cut anywhere. The action will probably be good in combo decks if a competitive one end up existing.

Rating: 2.5/5

Doji Liforre

I wish this could be a beloved card, but I highly doubt it. The stat line is obviously fine but the effect is mostly unimpressive, unless you’re playing some weird combo deck with perfect gift and everything. Could this be a card designed for multiplayer ? It sure is perfectly decent there

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Favorite

Overall Rating – 2,1/5

Daidoji Erik

If you ever really need the duelist trait, I guess Kakita Favorite is there for you.

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Onimaru

If you need to fill out your deck with cheap duelists, this is your guy! Unfortunately, i can’t think of any reason why you want to do that. There are very few cards that require a duelist and even fewer worth playing. And while his ability balances him out for pol duels, he’s still not going to win much without attachment support, something you don’t want to give a 2 drop. There is really no reason not play Nerishma over him until the day comes when we got more cards that require duelists.

Rating: 2/5

Asahina Neph

Stats are okay, but nothing we don’t already have in Brash or Nerishma, both of whom have abilities I like more than this guys. We have huge pol bodies for our pol duels, we don’t need to use this guy for those. Our honored military characters also tend to be more than 3 pol. Duelist trait currently only really counts for Kakita Dojo but I think challenger, Kaezin, and Toshimoko are enough for that.

Rating: 2/5

Chuterêve

So, 3/1 for 2 is not a bad stat-line but our 2 drop military spot aside of Brash is currently taken by Nerishma because of the increasing amount of holdings in our deck. The ability is weird because you really don’t want to tower a 2 drop to start dueling. I guess it’s cool that she’s a duelist if you really need one and have a terrible dynasty flip ?

Rating: 2.5/5

Doji Liforre

I very highly doubt the card text is going to ever be relevant, although the duelist/bushi trait could be useful with a little bit more support. Overall, not exactly a very impressive card, that should be decent filler at best.

Rating: 2/5

Maker of Keepsakes

Overall Rating – 3,5/5

Daidoji Erik

Without the shugenja keyword this seems clearly worse than Asami or Ryoku, so if you play it then it should be for Cloud the Mind. For that purpose the Maker of Keepsakes is pretty solid. What you get is simply a 3/3 with 2 glory, with no ability requirements or anything like that. So if you have copies of Cloud the Mind you need to play, it’s hard to imagine a turn when this is not a decent buy.

So could it be good to start playing Cloud the Mind? You need other (1+ cost) attachments to have play against Let Go, so it would be a deck with some combination of Duelist Training and Above Question. It will be hard to find space for this both in the dynasty deck and the conflict deck.

The real problem is that of the listed shugenja, only Miya Mystic is normally played in Crane decks. So you are paying a real cost for the keyword, unlike most other clans that play Cloud the Mind off shugenja that would still be very good characters without the keyword.

Rating: 4/5

Kakita Onimaru

Wow, a crane shugenja that isn’t garbage!

3/3/3/2 is a very potent stat line, especially in Crane where we can honor folks fairly easily. And while her ability makes her vulnerable to for shame, is also makes her immune to pretty much all other dishonor effects. I think any Crane deck that is trying to fit Cloud the Mind would be well served checking her out. She doesn’t really have a spot in most decks, but she is far from unplayable.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

Finally a decent mid cost shugenja (if only they were unique T.T)! This probably lets us play cloud at long last without having to give up “too much.” Sure it gets ruined by For Shame, but that doesn’t make too many decks these days (and we can probably just honor them). I think this, plus mystics plus artisans or a 4 cost shugenja works quite decently for clouds though.

Rating: 4/5

Chuterêve

This is the Shugenja we waited for to open Cloud the Mind options in our decks (which does not mean we will end up running CTM but the possibility is a very serious one to consider). Challenger statline is exactly what we want from a 3 drop. The ability look pretty good against Scorpion or even Crane deck even if you have to be very careful against For Shame because it is an automatic bow. I can see the tower duel decks really liking this in some matchups and adding Cloud the Mind when you have already a critical amount of attachement seem a good idea. In others decks, it’s the same old issue if you start running cloud the mind : You need a good number of attachement to not see it auto-let go. If anything, running Duellist Training alongside Cloud the Mind seem the way to go.



Rating: 4/5

Doji Liforre

This might just be our best overall playable shugenja, which is something I guess. It’s a 3/3 at worst, and it’s pretty likely that you will never honor her in order to make use of her text. I don’t think it’s very impressive to be honest, but if you REALLY need a shugenja (basically because you want cloud the mind), well, this is better than Origami Master so, yeah …..

Rating: 2.5/5

Kakita Yuri

Overall Rating – 2,8/5

Daidoji Erik

Any character with a duel printed on them deserves some consideration in Kyuden Kakita. In this case, the stats are a bit meh and it will be quite hard to get a benefit from the duel. Buying a ‘blank’ honored 2/5 could still be okay, it depends how easy it will be to trigger KK through other cards.

Rating: 3/5

Kakita Onimaru

I am sure Lion and Unicorn love this guy!

I really like this guy, ironically, because of how unreliable his duel is. Sure, he CAN potentially shut down a military conflict, and that can be devastating to military minded opponents (if they even bother to defend him), but a lot of times it won’t matter who wins or loses the duel because all of the military duels will have been spent. But it’s still a duel, so you can use it to trigger Kyuden Kakita no matter what and cards like Storied defeat and Proving ground is you win. Best of all, you can usually just bid 1 because you do not care if you win or lose, forcing your opponent to give you honor to stop you from triggering things.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

Another middling 3 cost X/3/2 courtier. I think Yuri is on the lower end of that scale though as he can be played around without too much difficulty by your opponent declaring their military conflict first or just letting him in on defense. Unless you are first player and take him in your military conflict and your opponent has to defend I don’t see him firing his own duel in a relevant way very often, and in that scenario you’re already probably pretty ahead. Duelist also doesn’t matter for much outside Kakita Dojo, which this guy uses poorly (unless you want to just try and steal some honor and threaten storied defeat in a pol conflict which I can respect, but is niche compared to using it with a real duelist)

Rating: 2.5/5

Chuterêve

I don’t like Yuri that much. He doesn’t stand in the art like a distinguished Crane and has poor stats. If you are first player and attack with Yuri, your opponent will usually try to dodge it if he wants to declare a military this turn (which I guess at least make your opponent take suboptimal lines ?). If your opponent is first, he can just declare his military immediatly. Even against HMT, I think he’s not very good. You will send him to military in defense to block the second military of the Unicorn/Lion player but he still get completly trampled because of terrible mil stats. Instead, you could have buy a 3 drop with a decent chance to resist the onslaught and prevent normally a second military.

One of its saving grace is that his ability is the easier to trigger of all Duelling characters, making it a straight free honor with Kyuden Kakita.

Rating: 2.5/5

Doji Liforre

One less military than its daughter, but overall very comparable body. FFG sure love to give us 3 political 2 glory courtier that cost 3! Completely denying military conflicts is pretty good, although the duel timing is always going to be pretty awkward. Realistically, if you’re opponent is playing a clan that care about doing military, he is simply going to let your challenge with Yuri unopposed … which is already pretty good on itself I guess.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Takamori

Overall Rating – 3,6/5

Daidoji Erik

A very interesting character. Ideally you are hitting one of their big characters with his effect every turn. The effect is quite similar to Tengu Sensei, and Takamori has the same problem of being completely countered by Favorable Ground, a 3x staple in almost all decks.

The upside of Takamori over Tengu is that he still works well if you are second player, and he comes with a very good keyword. A 4-cost shugenja with a powerful effect but low stats is especially nice when facing Against the Waves.

Getting either +3 on the imperial favor contest or a 3/3 when honored is not that bad either.

Rating: 3.5/5

Kakita Onimaru

Takamori has a really powerful effect but is somewhat hindered by a number of factors. Triggering his ability can be something of a cat and mouse game, waiting for your opponent to field a decent character so you can lock them down. Then you have to try to keep buying fairly expensive characters to keep what you want locked down. Finally, his stats require him to be honored to get up to okay-ish stats so he’s not really doing much damage on his own. But, still a solid character and probably the lynchpin of any deck that wants to run shugenja. He doesn’t have a place in duel decks but i wouldn’t be surprised to see him in some courtier builds.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

Unique Asahina; 5 out of 5 (in my heart). This guy is really interesting and another one I think is hard to evaluate without playing with him more. 4 cost 0/0 is definitely not the best, but his ability is pretty strong and he does provide 3 glory for the favor or being a moderate body if honored. He also has the not-irrelevant Courtier and Shugenja traits. He can be susceptible to bad flops but we have some good conflict characters at 3 cost to help mitigate that. I’m excited to see what this guy can do!

Rating: 3.5/5

Chuterêve

I was originally going to give a lesser score to Takamori, saying that he really need a deck built around him and a new archetype but testing proven me wrong and I think he might fit in a lot of Crane decks (not all tho).

You don’t want to flip the Asahina daimyo with no board presence as a 0/0 for 4 is not performing very well in conflicts but if you already have a board and this guy is coming, he can shut down your opponent’s key elements, like for example a nasty Crab tower (Fight On doesn’t even work on non-bowed character). You might not always have a 5 drop at your disposition to prison your opponent 5 drop tho, so the card has some situations where it won’t be as effective…this is no guest but still, Takamori is quite good. And this is backed by some testing. Also, he fits very well in decks running Duellist Training + Cloud the mind and Uji makes him even better.



Rating: 4/5

Doji Liforre

Probably the hardest card to evaluate without tons of testing. The stat-line is obviously really bad, even though its two traits are fine. It does trigger off itself and work pretty well with both Daddy Uji and conflict characters. In a very controly deck, this could be a good answer to towers, even though it get hard countered by move in effects. I think this card has tons of potential even though it might just not be there just yet. It should also be noted that it has slight anti-synergy with gaining the favor, as it keep their big character standing and counting its glory for the favor.

Rating: 4/5

Benevolent Host

Overall Rating – 2,4/5

Daidoji Erik

I heard a lot of people say positive things about this card, and I want to convince you they are wrong. First of all, Crane decks do not have that many courtiers in them dynasty-side anymore. This makes the risk of flipping Benevolent Host without any targets quite high, and in that case you have a completely dead dynasty slot.

But suppose you have built your deck wrong on purpose to have more targets. What exactly is a good scenario to see this card? If you have favor and flip a Yoshi, would you rather pay 4 to get Yoshi with no fate on him and a blank 2/2 body, or is it maybe better to pay 7/8/9 fate to get your Yoshi some staying power?

I guess buying this and using the ability on a 2-cost courtier is slightly better, but what 2-cost courtier are you getting exactly? Even then you are getting the 2-cost with 1 fate, and this 2/2 blank body that’s worth at most 1.5 fate. So your profit is half a fate. Yay?

How about when you are attacking their stronghold and flip this with a 5/6 cost character? Well, if you are second player you cant buy this, because they will just go for a water ring to bow your big character if you don’t defend with it. But lets assume you are first player. Now you can pay 4 fate to get a Benevolent Host and your 5/6 coster. You probably received 7 fate at the start of the turn, so if your Benevolent Host was another card then you could still get the 5/6 and have the option to put fate on them, and you would also have another dynasty flip. The small fate discount and 2/2 extra body are just not worth giving up a dynasty slot.

Rating: 1/5

Kakita Onimaru

I am very intrigued by this card. While the dream is to cheat a large character into play, I think the true value of this card is to buy it with ANY courtier so you can swarm the board for a single turn before letting them die, preferably honored so you can rapidly gain honor. It’s a neat idea, but an untested one. Ultimately, i don-t think it finds a spot in a deck unless that particular strategy proves to be effective.

Rating: 2/5

Asahina Neph

Some people are really hype on this card but I’m not as sure. This thing has the stats of a moderate two drop itself so basically never put extra fate on it. If you use it to get a two cost courtier you’ve basically saved one fate and an action to get two 2 costs. If you use it on something bigger (say Winter Court Hosts, which is the biggest) you (kind of, this is all very shaky equivalence) save 4 fate (2 coster+6coster). But big cards really want fate on them, charging a 6 cost for 4 isn’t that great to me since 4 is still a lot of fate that could go elsewhere. Combined with the fact it has to hit a courtier which makes it even less reliable, I’m not really sold on this card.

Rating: 2.5/5

Chuterêve

At least, he’s doing his courtier job right because he is already the talk of the town. The main downside of the card is that to really benefits from it you need to have another worthwhile courtier in your row. Dynasty combo are I think quite unstable but let’s see the value itself with two ideal scenarios :

1) You play the Benevolent Host and have a Savy Politician in your row, so you get the Savy for free with 1 fate, which is a 3 fate reduction. However, Benevolent Host stats are these of a 2 drop and not a 4 drop so you have to pay him 2 more fate. Which end up giving you a 1 fate reduction, with maybe a little help at passing first because you bought two characters at once. Worth the instability to be unsure to have a worthwhile courtier in your row ? I would say it barely make things even.

2) You play the Benevolent Host and you bring the Yoshi or Winter Court Hosts on your row for free, which are 5 or 6 fate. So, if we deduce the fact that Benovelent has the stats of a 2 drop, you get a 3 or 4 fate reduction. But here is the bad news : A 5 or 6 drop without fate is -I think- way less more than when you put fate on it. You are basically charging it for the turn but without the effect of surprise and paying your charge roughly 2 fate. I think that is interesting if you play a deck with Reprieve but without it, it is just a nice stat burst for the turn mainly. And that’s the best you can do with Benevolent Host.

In conclusion, I don’t think Benevolent Host is bad but including it in your deck is contestable because of the lack of stability and you need to have an ideal scenario to really get significant value of it. This might be a card you want to play in a courtier focused deck but very far from a main reason to play such deck.

Rating: 3/5

Doji Liforre

This is a very cool card concept that is also pretty divisive. If you use it to buy a 2 cost, it’s basically a 2/2 for 1 courtier that you can fate and doesn’t get assassinated which … is pretty good by itself. However, we don’t actually have a ton of 2 drop courtiers that we can use with it, which drastically reduce its utility. And then, there is the fact that you can just put a Winter Court Hosts or a Yoshi for no fate but for a discount, which might very well be very relevant in late game. I suspect this might be far better than it actually look but … the deckbuilding restrictions seem a little bit too important right now.

Rating: 3.5/5

Daidoji Uji

Overall Rating – 5/5

Daidoji Erik

It turns out Hidden Moon Dojo is a very good card, and we will be able to play not 1 but 3 copies of Uji. Playing dynasty characters outside the dynasty phase gives you a lot of options, including but not limited to:

– Playing characters into conflicts after your opponent commits characters/cards to win the conflicts

– Playing characters into conflicts after your opponent does not attack/defend strongly enough

– Playing any character with glory at the end of the conflict phase for imperial favor

– Playing characters in the fate phase, meaning they don’t lose fate this round but you still get a new dynasty flip

– Playing a character in the draw phase if you are first player, before your opponent has any chance that round to Cloud your Uji

On top of that, you get a discount of 1 fate as well. About probably every character in this pack I have heard ‘but its only X-1 fate if you play it with Uji!’. That means Uji is good, not all the other characters in the pack. I can’t think of any character that is bad with Uji.

His natural enemies are Cloud the Mind and Mark of Shame, so keep those Let Go ready and against Scorpion on an Air role just don’t rely on him too much. You can also try to draw out their Marks all game long, knowing they want to keep at least one in hand in case Uji shows up.

A Daidoji daimyo worthy of the title 🙂

Rating: 5/5

Kakita Onimaru

Obviously strong card is obviously strong.

I don’t think anyone doubted that this card was going to be among the best cards in the game the moment it was previewed, and I am not here to convince anyone otherwise. The only thing I will say is that it is not quite as easy to keep Uji honored as one would hope so it takes a bit more management of your honoring tools to keep him online than normal, but we’re Crane. We can find honor tokens when we really need them.

Rating: 5/5

Asahina Neph

Obviously this dude is nuts. 5 cost 6/2/2 in Crane? Amazing. Play any character in your provinces at instant speed when he’s honored, a thing we would already want to do and are good at doing? Sign me up. What? You get a discount on those characters for no good reason? I would have said it was too good to be true if it wasn’t printed on the card. This guy is probably the best Crane card since Guest of Honor and she’s busted. I think you play 3 Ujis until FFG says we can’t; even in a hypothetical all-in political/courtier focused deck I think Uji can find a place.

Rating: 5/5

Chuterêve

It’s our turn to have a 5 drop that we will make others Clans complain about. The Daidoji Daimyo is not on the power level of a pre-errata or even post-errata Tadaka but he is at least on Togashi Mitsu’s level, which is something we can be very happy with. Uji is simply the best Crane character we got since core set.

The stats will make almost all of our decks happy. Usual Crane “tempo” decks will enjoy having a second high drop with high military stats after Toshimoko and full duel decks will find that a base 5 mil with 2 glory is the best in clan tower target we have so far.

It would be easy to think that the ability is always on but that is not the case. Honoring him will range to very easy to medium-hard depending on the stronghold you are running and the matchup. Shizuka Toshi decks might sometimes take some detour to honor him such as taking Fire ring or going in political with him but you should still be able to make it happen most of the scenarios. Decks on Kyuden Kakita will probably have an easier time, especially when he doesn’t need to be honored to win a military duel with such stat.

Against a deck playing Mark of Shame, it might sometimes be wise to not buy Uji if you don’t think you can fight back on the honor.



The ability itself -Hidden Moon Dojo with a cost reduction- is incredible. It will find best value in decks running Let Go, a bit less holdings than the full duel deck and relying more on several characters (read classic Crane/Dragon playstyle). If you can keep Uji on the table in such deck, the incremental value and flexibility he will bring over several turns will probably do a lot to make you win the game.

In a deck like the Crane/Uni duel without access to reliable attachment hate, you will play Uji mostly for the very good body as you must be prepared to see him clouded in most matchup, which is fine because a good military body is all you care about. Also, you will probably want to Seal of the Crane him.



Rating: 5/5

Doji Liforre

Daddy Uji is here and … he is good, like really good. He is so good that you actually kind of want to build your deck around him to make him better. First, I think he improves the value of Callow Delegate as it’s both a free character and a way to honor him if his ability is not online. One cute thing you can do with him is playing 1 fate characters during the fate phase, before having to discard them during the regroup phase, for free value. Unless the metagame become so hostile that we can’t keep our characters honored, which frankly I can’t really see happening, Uji should be a huge staple of Crane decks going forward. He is just that good.

Rating: 5/5

Winter Court Hosts

Overall Rating – 3/5

Daidoji Erik

Big blue stats are not a joking matter, and Winter Court Hosts have plenty of that. Unfortunately the reaction requires them to be participating AND you to be more honorable, which makes it just a bit too narrow to be universally good.

In a deck focused on honor this card will be a lot stronger than in current ‘standard’ decks, as the more honorable requirement will be trivial and the card draw will be a bigger boon in situations where you don’t draw 5 every turn.

Rating: 2.5/5

Kakita Onimaru

This just might be the most playable 6 drop in the game (not counting Fushicho, who wants to be charged in to play). While I am a bit miffed that its ability has a restriction of being more honored than an opponent (isn’t 6 fate cost all the restriction I need?), I think it does a lot to solve the Honor running decks problem of not being able to generate enough cards. I think this is worth at least one slot in any deck trying to honor run. And at 2/7/3, it might be worth sliding into some decks for the sheer power alone.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

This is a card I want to like more than I do. Good art, cool flavor, huge numbers, and a not too shabby text box. I don’t think the more honorable condition will be too hard for us to fulfill most of the time. Apart from costing 6, the main problem I have with this card is I just don’t think we need it. I think much like core set Shoju, you just let this card swing in and do its thing uncontested because contesting it is too painful. The thing is I think we can usually win political conflicts fine and dandy anyway without having to spend 6 fate and change on this card. Militarily maybe it has some game but it really needs to be honored to push the stats there as well, but even honored its only a teeny bit bigger than Yoshi in political. 6 cost is just a really big deal. I look forward to seeing some courtier synergies in cycle three that might help the hosts find a home.

Rating: 3.5/5

Chuterêve

Winter Court Hosts is a tricky card, not because of the cost itself but of the condition on the ability. Current crane decks either rarely have their honor higher than the opponent (Tempo Crane) or are not interested in playing a political body (Crane/Uni duel), which make Winter Court Hosts without a deck to host it.

Assuming a Crane deck rise that will play around having more honor than the opponent (Crane honor deck ?) and wants this, it’s a pretty good character despite the 6 fate tag. Let’s compare it to a staple in most of our decks, Kakita Yoshi. Kakita Yoshi has a requirement that probably is on roughly half of the time and make you draw 3 with a bonus cost reduction on events. Winter Court Hosts has the upside of not being able to be clouded and make you draw a card everytime your opponent play a card in a conflit it is participating. If your opponent wants to try to win any important conflict, he generally try to spend a good number of card on it and if Winter Court Hosts is in it, an average of 3 draws seem reasonnable. Sure, your opponent can also not play cards but then, it goes against its main objective that would be trying to winn the conflict they commited important characters in.

If you play move-in in a deck with winter Court Host (which is probably the right thing to do if you include it), it makes it every better as it goes around covert and allow to benefits from the ability in several conflicts.

I think once a deck that will fulfill the honor requirement will be found, Winter Court Hosts will show how good it really is. For now, it is a sleeper.

On a last note, while it is tempting to compare that card to Guest, Guest (ability) is obviouslly better but is currently on RL and also doesn’t have a similar body.

Rating: 3.5/5

Doji Liforre

This is decently comparable to Yoshi, which we all know is a staple in Crane. It has very similar body, and kind off similar effect, although it’s probably a little bit harder to use. It’s also “No attachments” which make towering with it harder, but also impossible to Mark of Shame or Cloud the mind, which is probably worth it overall. However, the fact that it only works “if you are more honorable” vastly reduce her playability right now.

Rating: 2.5/5

Distinguished Dojo

Overall Rating – 2,4/5

Daidoji Erik

Seems fine, but Imperial Storehouse and Favorable Ground are better even if you are going for honor. I like that you can leave the Distinguished Dojo around to gather stupid amounts of honor on it, at the risk of your opponent breaking it and all that honor going down the drain.

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Onimaru

You know, I just am not sure how effective honor decks are going to be, but i wouldn’t be surprised if this card played a big part in it. That said, it has some big downsides. First off, it’s a holding. Holdings are becoming very precious space in Crane decks and the inclusion of this surely means on of the old standards must go. Secondly, it depends on duels being played and won, a hard thing to do without sacrificing honor. I would not be surprised to see some sort of honor bomb deck where you bring copies of distinguished dojo into play with reprieve before dropping a bunch of duels, but i doubt such a technique would be viable. We’ll see.

Rating: 2/5

Asahina Neph

This is probably for an honor deck but has some tricky things against it. For one, we have good holdings now and that makes this one really hard to include. Favorable Ground is too good to go anywhere, any deck dueling enough to want this definitely wants proving grounds, and I think we still need Kakita Dojo to have enough duels for this kind of thing. That’s a ton of holdings to play with this; you’ll probably have some awkward flops, the more so because this wants to stick around so you can build it up. You also need to be able to win those duels without spending honor in order to get a net gain. If honor decks are ever good, this probably has a place in them but it’s going to take some careful deckbuilding and duel choices to really make the most of it.

Rating: 3/5

Chuterêve

This pack seem full of cards that are the “Ok, cool, but what do we do with that ?” kind. +2 PS is notably good but we wouldn’t play a blank +2 PS holding. The ability is probably only for honor deck (as a duel tower deck as mean to not be dishonored with Kakita Blade and Master and is very full of holdings already).

Being able to win up to 3 honor a turn outvalue Bonsai Garden pretty hard and makes Dueling the way to go for any Crane honor deck.

The only other instance where i can see iDistinguished Dojo ending up played is if a dishonor deck becomes tiers 1 in the meta (looking at you, Keeper of Air Scorpion) as it seem a pretty sweet tech against dishonor.

That being said, Distinguished Dojo has one major issue : We have too much holdings and including more even to tech against a potential tier 1 dishonor deck make our flips way more dicey and does not synergize with Uji or Takamori.

Rating: 3/5

Doji Liforre

This is a combo kill card, pretty similar to what you could to with a Mirumoto Dojo. However, it’s often way easier to dishonor your opponent than just going straight to 25 honor, especially since this is limited. I don’t think this will see much play unless we find some weird honor turbo duel tools.

Rating: 2/5

Political Sanction

Overall Rating – 1,8/5

Daidoji Erik

This can effectively blank a lot of characters, but compared to Cloud the Mind this effect is a lot weaker. It doesn’t stop static effects like Tadaka or Guest of Honor, and doesn’t remove keywords like Covert either. Combined with the restrictive play conditions, I think this is not quite worth a deck slot.

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Onimaru

Crane have a real hard time running Cloud the Mind due to a lack of good and/or synergistic Shugenja, so they gave us this hand-me-down version. It’s not good. Granted, It may get better in the future if there become more triggered abilities worth cancelling. As it stand now, the card is going to be dead a lot of the time and your opponent can easily maneuver their bodies to avoid being targeted when you DO want to play it. Overall there are just too many restrictions to make this card worth while.

Rating: 2/5

Asahina Neph

I was excited about this card until I noticed it had to be played on a participating character. On top of not really blanking I’m not sure I’m sold on it. Especially since we can more reasonably just play Cloud the Mind now. Its something I’m going to keep an eye on and consider “would it have been helpful this game?” as I play, but for now I can’t say I’m super big on it.

Rating: 2/5

Chuterêve

The real sanction would be to put that in your deck. Don’t be fooled, this is not a 0 cost situational cloud the mind as it only prevent to trigger abilities, similar to Kakita Dojo non-duelist dependent effect. You don’t want to spend a card slot for something that narrow that has a condition before attaching.

Rating: 1.5/5

Doji Liforre

That’s a lot of conditions for a cloud but at least you don’t have to play all the bad shugenja Crane have. Oh wait, it doesn’t even blank, it just prevents from triggering abilities. Hum …

Rating: 1.5/5

The Spear Rushes Forth

Overall Rating – 3,6/5

Daidoji Erik

This is by far the hardest card for me to review. On the one hand, it is restricted to military, costs a fate, AND requires you to discard an honored token. However, “The spear waits not for its master, but rushes forth to guard the way” is easily the best motto in the game and I just love the Daidoji flavor dripping off.

So how am I going to justify giving a good score to a card that is inefficient, typically a flaw that I cannot forgive? First of all, bowing any participating character is a strong effect (see also: Mirumoto’s Fury). The cost of discarding an honored status token can easily be mitigated by Brash Samurai, or by Kyuden Kakita in combination with a duelist such as Kaezin or Toshimoko, or Duelist Training. Characters tend to get higher military stats than political during conflicts, so being restricted to military seems less bad than to political.

Rating: 4/5

Kakita Onimaru

I am a fan. Crane have access to a lot of honor tokens, especially with Kyuden Kakita around. This card can single handedly swing a MIL conflict in your favor with relatively little investment. It is a bit costly, and honor tokens are not so plentiful that you can play this willy nilly, but its consistent enough to worth slotting at 1x or 2x. I think it is an improvement over Admit defeat, and a reasonable replacement for Mirumoto’s Fury.

Rating: 4/5

Asahina Neph

A good use for those honored status tokens Kyuden Kakita will crank out that lets you keep dueling with your big characters. 1 cost is fair for a bow, military restriction hurts it but seems reasonable. Cool art, good name. Has the advantage of Admit Defeat of being more flexible on the targeting. A decent, playable but not insane card.

Rating: 3.5/5

Chuterêve

The Spear rushes forth did well in my testing, specifically because it can be triggered both on offense and defense unlike Admit Defeat. The price can be high but the effect is strong enough for me to consider the card as 1x in most on my decks. I am not sure if you cut your 1x Admit Defeat or run it alongside it.

Rating: 3,5/5

Doji Liforre

“Bow that character” is something that is always going to be an extremely valuable effect. The conditions to play it are a little bit too much for my taste however, especially since it cost one fate. The synergy with Brash Samurai and Kyuden Kakita to a lesser extent is pretty superb though, so this should still be playable in most decks.

Rating: 3/5

Gossip

Overall Rating – 4,1/5

Daidoji Erik

Yes, I understand that it’s a scary idea that Crane can play this and prevent you from doing whatever it is you wanted to do. However, the baseline for this card is spending 1 card for none. It is not that easy to make up for that loss in value by naming something that is really crucial this turn. In many cases it seems better to cancel an event or Let Go an attachment.

Still, if you know the right card to name at just the right moment, Gossip can win you games.

Rating: 4/5

Kakita Onimaru

This card isn’t the end all, be all some people are worried about online, but it is very powerful. Powerful enough to warrant 3 slots? Probably not, but it does create some very powerful openings.

The strength of this card is lies in your ability to recognize the one card in your opponent’s hand that can completely wreck your plan of attack. These moments are in actuality rather rare, but they are critical enough that I am sure there will be at least 1 copy in every Crane deck until it becomes illegal.

Rating: 5/5

Asahina Neph

A god card for those times when you think “I really lose to X here”. Don’t want to deal with 3 supernatural storms for +4 each? I hear storms are terribly unfashionable. Crab has some big guys about to leave play? Can you imagine the embarrassment of taking a Reprieve? Couldn’t be me. Even if it just eats a cancel it isn’t the end of the world. That said, its limited and probably isn’t that huge every turn so I would definitely not go above a 2x.

Rating: 4/5

Chuterêve

This card was spoiled and others clans screamed end of the world. In practice, it’s a way harder card to use than what it looks like. It’s specifically good to close a game or defend a stronghold during a critical turn but if you have good reading it can also save you during a critical turn by preventing your opponent to play a card that would change the game. It is a very skill dependent card and I expect it to not have the same power level in the hands of every player.

Rating: 4/5

Doji Liforre

This might just be the card that require the most knowledge and skill of the entire pack. It’s always very hard to know if this kind of effect is good, because it’s always hard to know if the card actually did anything at all. This is obviously extremely meta dependent, but the low cost of 0 make it pretty low risk if you are already drawing a lot.

Rating: 3.5/5

Letter from the Daimyo

Overall Rating – 2,9/5

Daidoji Erik

The +2 political does help you win conflicts, but it’s not exactly fair to say this is an Ornate Fan with upside. The advantage of attachments like Fan is that they stick around several rounds. With Letter to the Daimyo, you either discard it when you win a political conflict or risk not being able to use its reaction later.

Compared to Ornate Fan you are paying 1 fate to make your opponent discard two cards of their choice, which seems like a fine trade. Time will tell if its worth it to replace some Fans with Letters.

Rating: 3.5/5

Kakita Onimaru

If you take away the fate cost, the restricted keyword, or let the discarded cards be random and I think this would be a very good card. As it is, it’s kind of terrible except for potentially in a hand destruction deck that seems to be a new crane theme. Testing will need to be done to see if that is even a top tier strategy at the moment, but even if it is then the restrictions still make this card a sort of painful fit. One of its few saving graces is that POL bonuses are still hard to come by.

Rating: 2/5

Asahina Neph

Hand Hate Crane! The obvious comparison here is to Spies at Court: this has a cost, can be Let Go, and isn’t random; but it actually helps you win the conflict which is really important. Even at choice, two cards is not irrelevant assuming your opponent plays good cards. Unlike a fan, it also doesn’t feel bad to put on a no fate character since it’s going to be discard at end of conflict anyway. Definitely put it in your hand discard decks, but not sure how good it is outside those.

Rating: 4/5

Chuterêve

At first I thought it was random discard, which would make the card good. Giving the choice to your opponent to discard what he wants make it way weaker and i am just not sure if running Letter to the Daimyo is worth the slots even if what you pay for it seem “fair”. In general, i am skeptical of hand hate deck being any good right now.

Rating: 3/5

Doji Liforre

You’re trading one fate on your ornate fan for the ability of maybe discarding two cards from your opponent. If you’re playing a classic good stuff crane deck, your opponent won’t have an issue picking two bad cards between his 10+ cards in hand. If you’re playing the “card denial” fabled deck that FFG try to make viable then … maybe this is ok ?

Rating: 2/5

Courteous Scheming

Overall Rating – 2,6/5

Daidoji Erik

Another card with a cool effect, but sadly too expensive and restrictive to dedicate deck slots to.

Rating: 1.5/5

Kakita Onimaru

I like duels so of course I like this card. However, different duels have different places in decks. Ironically, this does not fit in very well with a dedicated dueling deck as they rarely have the bodies ready to even use on a 3rd attack and the fate cost stresses resources than need to be hoarded for attachments. However, in a deck focused on courtiers I think it is perfectly fine to use 1 or two. Crane HMT, here we come!

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

This is expensive, and your opponent chooses their duelist, but man is the option of a third conflict for us pretty cool. Would work better in a pol heavy courtier deck more than the current duel Crane, but really adds some potential for us to go faster which is good. If we ever get access to more good stands, this things stock also goes up.

Rating: 3.5/5

Chuterêve

This is not HMT. This comes with a price and a very serious one in a clan that might not even be well equipped to get advantage out of it.

I suppose you would play that in some sort of courtier decks with a lot of cheap bodies. In this case, can you even afford to pay the 2 fate cost and getting mileage over it ? Why not focusing your deck on being well balance between political and military to try to win both conflicts aside of winning two politicals ?



Rating: 2/5

Doji Liforre

The effect is powerful, but the conditions to use it on a board where it’s going to be a relevant card are pretty hard to come by. Still, it should be a very decent one off in most decks and can sometimes surprise and win games on the spot so …

Rating: 3/5

Festival for the Fortunes

Overall Rating – 2,3/5

Daidoji Erik

Only quite janky honor decks will be able to use it. In a normal game, you will have more honored characters as a Crane player, so honoring everyone is often not in your favor.

Rating: 2/5

Kakita Onimaru

Why in the world would you want to honor your characters as well as your opponents. Especially in a world where you are trying to keep Voice of Honor online?

In an honor deck, thats where!



While this card is expensive and actively helps your opponent, i do think this card has a lot of potential in a deck that wants to buy many courtiers with no fate so that you can reap honor from them when they leave play. Bonus points if you can get the Asahina Storyteller in play to draw a bunch of cards.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

Maybe playable in a keeper role, honor-a-million-chuds style honor deck but otherwise not for us. We already honor our guys well enough to need to pay 3 for it.

Rating: 2/5

Chuterêve

For now, this is a card that will mainly make janky honor decks happy and it’s already something.

Rating: 2/5

Doji Liforre

“Asahina Storyteller best card” master race ! You will probably never see this in a classic deck that don’t want to abuse some king of combo or weird synergies. It’s however decently likely this find a shell where it’s absolutely insane in the near future.

Rating: 2.5/5

Daimyo’s Gunbai

Overall Rating – 3,9/5

Daidoji Erik

Pretty good conflict duel to use with Kyuden Kakita. Getting a +2/+2 attachment is a solid reward for winning the duel. It might be challenging to find a good time to play this though, as your opponent can select their duelist.

If you already have a Gunbai in play, you can trigger a second one from your hand to initiate a duel where the winner gains nothing (the Gunbai will be discarded) for KK. I think 1-2x of this card should fit with the new stronghold.

Rating: 4/5

Kakita Onimaru

This card has 1 role and 1 role only: Activate a duel. And it does the job well. Like many of the other duels I like, it is low impact enough that you do not have to worry about bidding high to actually win the duel but it can activate a number of other cards in your deck all the same. Unique keeps it at being just a 1x in a deck, but it can be very versatile in a deck that wants to say “I start a duel” as often as possible.

Rating: 4/5

Asahina Neph

I don’t know I’d go at more than 1x because its unique, but +2/+2 for no fate and a duel activator for Kyuden Kakita is pretty cool. Because it’s an Action and not played from hand it also basically functions as a Cloud the Mind on Kisada which is pretty nice.

Rating: 4/5

Chuterêve

There will be times when Daimyo’s Gunbai will be awkward to play because you can’t win the military duel without two restricted attachements in the first place. I still think it’s worth playing at least one in Kyuden Kakita decks as it gives an additional activator for free.

Oh and also, it completely destroy Kisada’s ability.

Rating: 3,5/5

Doji Liforre

The fact that’s it’s a very easy duel to trigger from hand that also give you a way to win more duels easily is probably going to be very good. It’s main drawback being that’s it both unique and restricted. Still, in a dedicated duel deck, this is one of the best free duels you’ll want to play.

Rating: 4/5

Bonus : Duel to the Death (cycle 3)

Overall Rating – 3,5/5

Daidoji Erik

Without Steward of Law, this card seems a lot worse than Noble Sacrifice to me. So the situation you want this for is combined with Steward of Law, making it a 2 card 2 fate combo to discard an enemy character. You still need to win a military duel against them as well, so you can count on having to spend a few honor at the least. And in order to win that duel you need a big military character to be in the conflict, which will be a big waste of that characters potential especially when defending.

All in all I think this card could be good, but nowhere close to what most people seem to think it will be.

Rating: 4/5

Kakita Onimaru

This is it! The kill duel everyone has been waiting for! Obviously, with my duel obsession I like this card. Being able to kill a character is just about the most powerful effect in the game. Powerful enough that it is well worth bidding as High as you need to win the duel. That said, it does require some set-up, and now that Steward of Law is on the restricted list it is no longer an instant death sentence. But between this and Noble Sacrifice, being dishonored is quickly becoming a death sentence for opposing characters.

Rating: 3/5

Asahina Neph

So be it. I love that refusable duels are here, otherwise this never costs 1. Steward of Law died for this card too so hopefully it turns out okay but most of the time this is going to be a 1 cost way of the scorpion probably, you don’t want to start this without knowing you’ll win. If your target is already dishonored for some reason (like Shameful Display) then this gets spicer. Because the stakes are so high and its refusable this is not a good KK activator, take the kill when you can get it.

Rating: 4/5

Chuterêve

This will often be a glorified Noble Sacrifice. Both requires a dishonored character and a secondary condition. Noble Sacrifice “only” ask you to sacrifice an honored character and Duel to the Death as you to win a military duel. I would think in most matchup, Noble Sacrifice is easy to trigger.

One upside of Duel to the Death compared to Noble Sacrifice is that sometimes if you need it it can act as a 1 fate dishonor. The other is obviously the combo with Steward of law to bypass the dishonored requirement. The combo is strong but will require to take Steward as your RL card, which is probably not what you want to do naturally.

Rating: 3/5

Doji Liforre

I want to like this, especially since it basically got steward of law banned, but I suspect it’s going to be a worst noble sacrifice most of the time. Still, it’s potentially a kill card, as well a being a decent duel and it might end up being oppressive in the correct shell

Rating: 3.5/5

Armament Artisan

Overall Rating – 0,6/5

Daidoji Erik

Mantis are pirate scum and if you put this in a Crane deck then I will personally For Shame you.

Rating: 0/5

Kakita Onimaru

This is a less good version of Savvy Politician, a card that has largely been cut from crane decks for not doing enough. Honoring effects are not so plentiful that this is a guaranteed 3/1, and even if it was that only puts it in competition with Cautious scout and Daidoji Nerishma for a deck slot, a battle it is not going to win anytime soon.

Rating: 1/5

Asahina Neph

This is just a worse savvy politician that is also a Mantis card which makes it much worse than it already was. No real reason to play this I can think of, probably the second worst card in the pack save Retreat. They really phoned in some of those neutrals huh.

Rating: 1/5

Chuterêve

This card has several uses like stabilizing a table, feeding a fire, poking your cat but none of them are related to a L5R game.

Most importantly : Why can a Mantis honor characters ?

Rating: 1/5

Doji Liforre

I mean, this is a worst savvy politician!

Rating: 0/5

Top 5 cards :

1) Daidoji Uji 5/5

2) Gossip 4,1

3) Daimyo’s Gunbai 3,9

4 and 5) The Spear Rushes Forth and Asahina Takamori 3,6