Deck Strategy

Took this deck to LVO and got top of clan in the Swiss before being eliminated in the first round of the cut. Ah well.



The general idea is to put strong bodies on the board with enough fate to stick around a while, the result of which is a stable board, where neither player can easily break provinces. This gives you enough time to honor out. Usually I reach 25 honor on round 3 or not at all. In the meantime, engage in standard Lion tactics utilizing Kyuden Ikoma to occupy the opponent's battle line.



Honor gains come primarily through character abilities, honored characters leaving play, and the air ring, in that order. Hero of Three Trees and Ikoma Prodigy absolutely carry this deck, and without them this archetype wouldn't exist. Buy the Prodigy +1 fate every time you see it. It doesn't really matter what else is going on. Buy the Hero if you can afford to, and if you are confident you can trigger the ability at least once. Try to put 2-3 fate on the Hero if at all possible, because (a) every turn it exists is potential honor gain, and (b) it's a fantastic Zentaro target.



Your bidding strategy should be to start with 4, or possibly 3 if you think your opponent is going to start with a cheeky low-bid. Don't worry if you overbid your opponent in the first round. That just means you are going to have a hand advantage for a while. If you can trigger Art of War or Regal Bearing in the first round (or if you have a Hero in play), drop to 1 for basically the rest of the game. If you don't, then I usually drop my bid by 1 each turn until that happens (or more likely until I reach 1). In the very late game, if you get to around 20+ honor, you can usually calculate how much honor you are able to gain in a single conflict, and you might end up bidding higher at that point. After all, you don't win any more if you get to 29 honor, so why not draw 4 extra cards?



You'll want to play a little more defensive, overall, than you're probably accustom to in Lion. Don't be afraid to "overcommit" to defense by sending Toturi or Ujiaki to defend provinces. Your first conflict each round should feel expendable; Kyuden Ikoma allows you to gain even if you lose the conflict, so why not send Kitsu Motso to attack, get blocked, then if you can't win, pull in an additional enemy character and then bow another for losing? Super value, and it will leave the opponent exposed for your second conflict. This deck is great at losing well.



Most of the time, you don't really want to break provinces; instead, you want to find a nice, safe, farmable province and stay there forever. But in certain matchups you'll need to convert into a break strategy: against Scorpion and Crab, mostly. Don't take too long to switch to breaking. Wasted time can cost you the game, as it has for me many times.



If you have any specific questions about honor lion, feel free to hit me up on the L5R discord server @saibrock.