So with the advent of CE15 I believe we have a new opportunity to reformat the Legacy environment. While I know the majority of us have the majority of cards, many older players do not. I know this has been stated time and time again. I am suggesting we reformat Legacy into two groups.

The first being what we have right now. This is where the majority of cards are legal, and some very select game breakers are banned. I don't think this format is bad, but it does promote some problematic issues. Those being a sort of horizontal equity amongst players. Many of these cards are just unobtainable.

The second category is something I've heard before, that being the Arc series. This would allow anything from one certain point in the games design to the current arc as legal. This could even be a more restrictive format such as cut from Lotus to the Current arc. The only difference would be that cards reprinted in the CE 15 set as anniversary cards would be legal. This would allow those cards to see play.

What do you think?

-Matt

It's a good idea.

I've been harassing Mac to put together a CE-15 Oracle for precisely this reason.

If he spent a tenth as much energy actually doing it as he spend on finding ways to not do it, it would have been done weeks ago :-p

(Not sure about cutting to LOTUS, though - it's possibly the worst cut-off point in terms of how many players view the game (and we're still stuck with the Combo Stronghold of Doom))

I think a couple of natural break points exist.

The original new card faces from Pearl and Honor Bound (IIRC) forward. This is undesirable IMO since it splits up the jade arc and includes a lot of expansions that are now hard to find.

Another good split is Gold Edition bug to now. From a play balance PoV this might be better since it was when the number of factions was reduced and more attention was play to game balance. Some sets are hard to find but not as bad as earlier sets.

A possibility would be the Four Winds cycle. all the base sets and expansions which included the Winds as pre game cards. A personal favorite but a closed ended environment that may not attract much enthusiasm.

An entry level Legacy environment could be Lotus Edition forward. Which would have the benefit of, likely, no banned cards and ready availability of most of the cards. This environment could be maintained by making it the present arc and two previous arcs so that each time a new base set comes out an about 6 year old arc would cycle out. This could easily include the CE-15 cards as well.

No banned cards only because we keep spending vast amounts of energy looking for pretexts not to ban HHOL :-p

(Far as natural breaking points go, I feel the natural breaking point for an "Expanded" format is the start of Samurai. but it may be too recent for this)

Maybe we should see about getting a sense of the Council's feelings on HHoL. It might be time to pull the trigger on it.

I personally think just the prior arc is too small an environment to serve as an alternative format but I could be convinced.

I think it and Yodin Sensei have been strangling Legacy enough. Put a bullet in them both, I'd be fine with it.

Ken - normally I would agree with you.

In this case, however, I honestly think the focus is NOT on introducing older arcs. Because, from where I stand, Celestial-Legal + Samurai-Legal + Lotus-legal (hell, you could even argue for throwing Diamond in there!) is still a less Legacyesque form of Legacy than just Celestial-Legal + 15th Anniversary Flashbacks. One brings back old archetype (many of which people would rather forget); the other bring back most of the greatest and most famous icons of the history of L5R.

(To put it another way, which is the Legacy you'd rather play? One with HHOL, TOE Mantises and Saori, or one with Inheritance, YakOni, Kamoko and Gohei?)

Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't add back more old cards, but rather that we should weigh carefully whether or not to include them.

Samurai is a fairly-easy easy shoe-in. It's the same factions, and the power level of SE is unlikely to throw a CE+109 environment out of whack altogether. Particularly since the worst offender of SE, Chagatai XP4, is already one of the 109 anyway.

Lotus is a whole other ballgame. For a start, it throws the factions out of balance: Spider gets very little, while everyone else some of their most hatefully broken cards thrown back in the mix. Now granted, this isn't as bad as it might sound because Spiders, off their Celestial-era strongholds, can still borrow the Shadowlands arsenal from Lotus, but...

And of course, there's the whole issue that Lotus is, with good reason, a less than popular environment. Bringing back HHOL, Saori, TOE Mantises, etc, is unlikely to create an endearing format for the fanbase as a whole.

Power-level considerations are also worth keeping in mind: LE+ would basically consist almost exclusively of the LE card and the Flashback, with very little room for anything that came after.

These are just my thoughts, mind, but yeah. I think "very strong misgivings" about cover my feelings on the matter.

(The counter argument is, of course, that Lotus add back the Rats and Hordes for those so minded.)

Which is why I say I could be convinced. CE + SE + flashbacks could be a workable format going forward.

I do have concerns, there would be 2 banned cards in this environment, Breach and TFW. TFW need not be banned because without HHoL and Agasha Tunnels the combo isn't a game breaker. Breach OTOH? It could be a bit much or it could work fine with the blood money rule. So we could announce the format with no banned cards (although Chags xp 4 might come under serious scrutiny fairly quickly I suspect).

Lomg term my concern would be about how available the flashback cards will be.

Yeah, Breach would be an issue, and Chagatron too. I think you have the right of it - no bans at first, then we add cards on it as necessary.

Agreed. If HHol goes, Final Wave need not be banned. If HHoL gets put to a vote again, I'll of course also announce a vote to remove Final Wave.

I'm loathe to bring back Breach with Unfortunate Incident around also.



I typically look for three people requesting it to bring on a vote that isn't to make rules run smoothly. Only one of the three needs be a Council member. That's two for HHoL and one for Yodin, and both have support from a council member.

Mac. Himoto and I are 3 for HHoL I think.

Missed one then, that's a vote.