Crane Clan Characters

1 Cost Characters

There are two 1 Fate cost characters from the Dynasty deck. The Doji Whisperer and Asahina Artisan have a clear focus on Political conflicts with both able to contribute an impressive 3 Political skill for their relatively low cost. While the Doji Whisperer has it as a base skill the Asahina Artisan has an ability that requires bowing to give another Crane character +3 Political skill. The drawback here is that the Artisan needs another character to target, alone the Artisan is effectively 0 skill. The ability does let the Artisan stay out of conflicts only using the ability when needed. In a scenario where you have two Doji Whisperers and one Asahina Artisan, you can attack politically with one Whisperer and if you don’t need the Artisan’s boost it will be there when your second Whisperer defends. If you don’t use the Artisan’s ability then you will have 2 glory unbowed to contribute for the Imperial favour.

2 Cost Characters

There are five 2 Fate cost characters. Brash Samurai, Daidoji Nerishma, and Cautious Scout provide a Military base missing from the 1 cost characters. Brash Samurai and Savvy Politician demonstrate honoring characters as a focus for the Crane clan, useful in both boosting skill and gaining honour. The Doji Gift Giver provides an extra Courtier and has an ability that bows opponents.

Daidoji Nerishma is above the curve with 3 military and 1 political for 2 fate. He has an excellent dynasty acceleration ability which helps provide options during the dynasty phase and dig for extra copies of uniques for free fate. Notably, his ability should not be used when you have the initiative as the extra action it requires denies you the opportunity to gain a fate from passing first. In those cases, the ability should be used after the Dynasty phase to improve Dynasty card cycling. As broken provinces get discarded anyway, using his ability on a broken province is a risk it might get you a useable holding or you could end up losing a card you were hoping for next turn.

The Brash Samurai is a 2 cost Bushi with 2 military, 1 political, and 2 glory. These are typical skills for a character of this cost. The Brash Samurai sets himself apart by having an ability that honors him when he is your own participating character. This means the Brash Samurai is a 4 military and 3 political character who can take provinces. That he can easily become honored helps power up cards we will see later such as Voice of Honor and Noble Sacrifice.

The Cautious Scout a 2 military, 0 political, 1 glory character. When this character is attacking alone, the province he is attacking is considered blank. This makes him a useful scout to send into a province with minimal risk. At 2 military he can break provinces with a single boost, a Banzai! or Fine Katana for example. He does need to be attacking by himself for his ability to work. This solo hero idea also appears with the Brash Samurai. As both are vulnerable to Assassination you don’t really want to attach lots of cards to them. For Crane, political conflicts are the priority, characters like Cautious Scout and Brash Samurai allow the Crane to use military conflicts to threaten, win rings, and scout ahead of the political conflicts to come.

The Doji Gift Giver has been somewhat divisive with some players loving it and others disliking it. The cost of giving a fate to your opponent is pretty rough, and the target of the bowing is decided by your opponent. Those who do like her point out that the ability, when used at the right time, is very strong and can win a conflict. The mere presence of the Doji Gift Giver on the board forces your opponent to pause before every conflict to account for her.

The Savvy Politician is a 2 cost Courtier with 1 military, 2 political, and 1 glory. When the Politican is honored you can choose another character and honor that character also. This makes her a perfect target for Way of the Crane getting an extra character honored. Although her glory is only 1, this can be considered a free +1/+1 and a free honor. Like the Brash Samurai, this ability helps the Crane keep an honored board to keep Voice of Honor active and to use Noble Sacrifice.

The 1 and 2 cost characters are very defining for a clan. They provide extra characters to fill out the board often only staying in play for a single turn. From the traits, we can see that Courtiers are going to be a primary focus for the Crane clan. For Courtiers we know there is For Shame! and Outwit, both excellent cards. There are two Bushi a trait mainly useful for Rout. There is a 1 cost Shugenja, the Asahina Artisan, with this the Crane clan may be able to run one or two cards such as Cloud the Mind but will be unable to reliably play cards requiring Shugenja.

3 Cost Characters

Kakita Kaezin seems like an excellent card, he has 3 military, 2 political, and 2 glory so he is well rounded. His ability is a duel, which has always been a popular with the Crane. He is an excellent defender. Drop a weapon or honour him to 5 Military and then defend with Kaezin and challenge your opponent. Your opponent does get to pick the defender, but if Kaezin wins, he sends everyone but Kaezin and his opponent home. At worst, Kaezin goes home after losing the duel, if he was unbowed he returns home unbowed ready to assign to a new conflict. Unfortunately his send home does not bow characters, leaving them ready to defend or attack again in another conflict type. This puts Kaezin in a class similar to many of the other Bushi in the Crane clan, solo heroes rather than team players. Kaezin can go into any conflict and with a little setup, turn it into a 1 on 1 battle where hopefully Kaezin has the edge. Unfortunately, there is only so much room for heroes in the Crane clan and often Kaezin is edged out by the Brash Samurai and Cautious Scout for that role.

Kakita Asami has decent stats of 1 military, 2 political, and 2 glory but where she really shines is her ability. If she is in a political conflict and you have more political skill than your opponent, something common for the Crane, she can take one honour from your opponent and give it to you. As this exact effect is one of the options for the ring of air, she is essentially giving you an extra ring benefit. Due to the strength of her ability, it is unlikely you would want to assign her to a military conflict, which does mitigate her low military skill somewhat.

Doji Challenger has a balanced stat line that makes her equally good in military and political conflicts, something which will be enhanced once she is honoured and her 2 glory is added to the skills. The ability is only useable on the attack which is a surprise for the Crane clan. The ability, which drags an opponent into the conflict, is an impressive denial ability as conflict resolution will bow the target preventing it from assigning to another battle. Her ability does not work on characters who have — for the current battle but there should be plenty of other targets. This lets her drag Kisada into political conflicts and drag Shoju into military ones, it forces the Lion’s Pride Brawler into defensive battles and can

In the 4 cost range, Crane has two characters, Guest of Honor and Asahina Storyteller. Both characters are Courtiers and have 4 political skill reaffirming those twin clan focus. Guest of Honor has a quite powerful effect preventing your opponent from playing event cards during conflicts. This significantly limits the options of the opponent and gives the Crane player increased confidence in whether they can win a conflict or not. As many of the ways to deal with a character are actual event cards, the Guest of Honor is incredibly hard to deal with. This action prevention appears to be a Crane clan theme as we will see when we look at the Cranes conflict deck.

The Asahina Storyteller in addition to being a Courtier is also a Shugenja, assisting the Asahina Artisan in opening up some Shugenja specific cards. The Storyteller’s ability generates conflict card draw, a limited commodity for decks choosing to honor run as they are typically bidding 1 during the card draw phase. The ability requires honoured characters, something the Crane are going to have. As a 4 cost character however, the Storyteller is not offering a lot. The 4 political skill is perfect to take provinces with and the dual traits of Courtier and Shugenja is quite flexible, but the ability is somewhat conditional and doesn’t seem to have the impact you would expect from a 4 cost character. The Storyteller will certainly make it into decks which use the Shugenja trait and may be useful in decks looking for card draw, but I would expect the Asahina Storyteller to be a very tempting card to cut.

Doji Hotaru is the first clan champion we have seen and does not disappoint, she is more than the ‘very good’ her father reprimands her with. At 5 cost she has 3 Military Skill and 6 Political skill with 3 Glory. Given the Crane clan’s focus on honoring characters, we expect that 3 Glory will quickly turn into a +3/+3 bonus. Doji Hotaru’s ability is to resolve the ring ability of a ring you claim during a political conflict. This means, if you win on the attack you can trigger the ring ability a second time. Resolving any of the rings twice in one turn is amazing. While it is possible to use her reaction in defense, as the rings are all phrased to benefit the attacker it is unlikely this will be of help.

Like all of the clan champions, she clearly is worth the investment if she appears on turn 1. Although the 5 cost is significant, the unique status of Doji Hotaru is a considerable bonus. If Hotaru is recruited turn 1 with 2 Fate on her, there will be another 15 cards of the Dynasty deck revealed before she finally leaves play giving around a 60% chance of another copy being revealed keeping her around for another turn. Hotaru on the board for four turns should make a powerful impact. It may end up a serious option to mulligan for a clan champion in the hopes of getting it first turn (~50% chance). Then discard aggressively to get an extra copy.

The last two cards from the Dynasty side are the holding Artisan Academy and The Art of Peace which is the Crane unique province. The Academy has a useful card draw ability allowing the top card of your conflict deck to be played in the conflict phase as if it was in your hand. You can choose to use the Artisan Academy’s action before a conflict, within or after a conflict. Activating it before a conflict reveals the card to your opponent and gives them the chance to play around the card. If you reveal it during a conflict, cards which cannot be played in conflicts such as Height of Fashion have to stay on top of your deck until the after the current conflict. Nonetheless, it does provide cards which will be valuable for a deck attempting to run by honor.

The Crane province, The Art of Peace, has a healthy province strength of 4 which is better than average. The ability on it only triggers when the province is broken, so it is no help in defending itself. The benefit is quite strong. Assuming the attackers are 1 glory and the Crane defenders are 2 there will be a massive shift across the board, and it will push the game nearer to a dishonour or honour victory. Getting a good use out of it can be tricky though, it is rare that you could defend with all your Crane characters as it would leave you open for your opponent’s second attack. The characters who were in the conflict will end up bowed, so they will not be useful for the remainder of the turn.