We talked about it several times and even announced it in the past, now it is finally here: Sanctuary. No, not our island, but a new format that we want to offer to both newcomers as well as veteran players. Read on for all the details.
What is the Sanctuary Format?
The Sanctuary format offers a smaller card pool, made entirely of cards released by the Emerald Legacy. In this format you should find a game that is still the deeply strategic L5R we love, but the smaller card selection reduces the power level of all clans and pushes deckbuilding into new directions. For newer players, Sanctuary also offers an easier point of entry. In this format, there are fewer cards that they need to learn or try to purchase.
There are currently no lists of restricted or banned cards in Sanctuary format. The card pool available in Sanctuary should always fluctuate around 500 cards. As the Emerald Legacy releases future card sets, the sets present in Sanctuary format will be rotated to keep the card pool small. We expect the next two sets to be incorporated into Sanctuary before any sets rotate.
A Welcome Aid for Newcomers
The game we all love is a complex one, it might be overwhelming for newcomers. We’re super happy to announce that our play tester, artist, and now also editor and layout designer, Rob Smith has created a “Learn to Play” document for you.
It explains everything in detail: card types, game phases, card elements, the rings, everything. And it is beautiful. Have a look and download it today! If you have any feedback, anything you’d like to have added, get in touch!
It even contains sections about the clans, where you can learn a little bit about the lore and how the strategies of each clan work. Every clan also has a recommended starter deck with cards from the core set only.
The (Data)Base of the Format
We enabled Sanctuary as a separate new format in EmeraldDB. When you login and choose to create a new deck via Builder, you will see a new option called Sanctuary.
We also added some more information to each format as players ask the same questions over and over again. You can click on any ℹ️ behind the format and you’ll see a short description of the format as well as a link to more information. Here’s the example for Sanctuary:
Choosing Sanctuary as format will limit the card pool to cards of Emerald Legacy. There is also no ban list and no restricted list, so deck building is a lot easier. Even if you’re a veteran player, give it a try! The experience is completely different compared to Emerald Legacy format.
We also added support to Jigoku, where you can decide to play games in Sanctuary format. All you have to do is to choose Sanctuary as the desired format when you open a new game:
That’s all for today. What do you think of the new format? Do you like it? Do you think the Learn to Play document will be helpful? Let us know, here in the comments, on facebook, Reddit, Discord, or via PM.
