Today we bring a few updates to the cards from Under the Empress’s Eyes and also updates to the Restricted List and Ban List. Let’s get to it.
Under the Empress’ Eyes
Chronicles of Valor: Total skill threshold for the reaction lowered from 30 to 25. Still a special number to reach, but now it’s a bit closer and easier to remember as it mirrors the honor victory.
Devotion in Action: Removed the requirement to sacrifice the summoned character at conflict’s end. This allows the Bushi to persist beyond the conflict, opening the door to further interaction with sacrifices, saves, readies etc.
Retreat to Safety: Fate cost reduced from 2 to 1.
Use the Terrain: Removed the “Max 1 per conflict” limit. This permits multiple uses in a single conflict, amplifying military bonuses in scout-heavy decks for potentially overwhelming skill surges.
Work in Progress: Now reveals the top 3 cards and adds up to 2 of the named type (top 4 if controlling an Artisan), previously top 3 adding up to 1 (up to 2 if Artisan). This increases card selection reliability, especially without an Artisan, for better deck filtering.
Yasuki Yoshi: Military skill increased from 2 to 3.
Steadfast Orator: Military skill increased from 1 to 2.
Steward of Celestial Order: Glory increased from 1 to 2, and added the ability to contribute glory to counts even while bowed. Previously using Stewards ability would often require the Phoenix player to give up their chance at claiming the Imperial Favor. Also, while the character’s honor gain ability is fit to build strategies around pushing this character to be run at 3 copies, additional copies of the character had lower value as having multiples of them in play was not worth the cost. With the new capacity to help claim the favor, both sources of tension get removed, making the Steward of Celestial Order easier to run in their intended decks.
Bird Helm Adjudicator: Reaction changed from causing an opponent to lose 1 honor to taking 1 honor from that opponent. This shifts the effect from pure honor loss to honor transfer, allowing the Scorpion player to power their own honor-costing abilities in their effort to show the Empire that their opponent is actually more dishonorable than the Scorpion/
Herald of Justice: Military skill increased from 3 to 4, and the action now allows sacrificing any friendly character (including itself) instead of another. The stat increase strengthens its attacking role, while the sacrifice flexibility enables self-sacrifice tactics for extra conflicts, adding strategic depth.
The Restricted List and Ban List
We registered almost a thousand games in the last period. The metagame has the clans more or less spread into two blocks: Lion, Phoenix, and Unicorn lead the pack; Crab, Crane, Dragon and Scorpion follow. The difference between the two groups is perceptible, but not too drastic. All considered, it is a healthy meta. When we compare specific matchups and the balance between victory conditions, we see a few issues, and those are the issues we will address in this RL update.
- Ban Ikoma Omoidasu
- RL Asako Kousuke
- Free Bayushi Kachiko 2
This group of changes aims at squaring the matchups between Lion and Phoenix vs Crab, Crane and Scorpion. Often those matchups find themselves heavily imbalanced due to Omoidasu and Kousuke neutralizing core tools that depend on Status token manipulation.
Omoidasu in particular is extremely hard to counterplay due to being non-Unique, getting rid of a single copy of it is not enough, as soon enough a 2nd copy can hit play and the opponent sees their efforts undone.
Kachiko’s return will be valued by the Scorpion, as the clan severely lacks options for characters with high Skill after the rotation of Shosuro Sadako.
- Free Guardian Dojo
- RL Sinister Peacekeeper
This change counterbalances the effect of the previous changes on honor running decks, and keeps the availability of the Imperial keyword for Scorpion under control. It also increases the cost of running Peacekeeper, a necessary change after the release of Theatre of Honest Lies.
- RL Proving Ground
With Under the Empress’ Eyes both Dragon and Crane have enough dueling support to merit a restriction to Proving Ground.
- RL Hayaken no Shiro
Hayaken no Shiro is the best Stronghold in the game without contest. It delivers one of the most valuable effects in the game at almost no cost, as the Lion Clan has a great list of 2 cost Bushi to choose from. To top it off it brings 12 honor to the table.
- Ban Oni Tyrant
The brief return of Oni Tyrant was a fun season, but even though the character did not break the metagame, that type of mechanic is not what the Emerald Legacy wants to see in the game.
- Ban Doji Diplomat
With the Emerald Legacy vision for Crane they simply cannot have free characters. The clan now has better access to skill boosts and multiple effects that rely on the support of smaller characters, this increases the value of Doji Diplomat from what it used to be. If the card has always been a powerful one, with the current card pool of Crane its power crosses the line.
