The Art of the Duel

Earlier in the week, AEG announced the upcoming rules changes to happen with the new tournament arc for Legend of the Five Rings. They've been introduced to help streamline and simplify a rules set that some have referred to as "the chess of CCGs." One of the biggest changes occurred in the subsection of rules that have handled the system of Iaijutsu contests, one on one duels between two Personalities. This is only the third or fourth major tweaking of the in depth game mechanic in the 16 years of L5R's history, and certainly on par as one of the most dynamic.


In the early stages of the dueling mechanic, a player used cards from hand for their Focus Value to add to their Personality's duel stat in an effort to get a better stat total than the opposing player's Personality. The winner would get various rewards while the loser would be forced to suffer the consequences of losing, often having their Personality destroyed. The number of cards used would only be limited by the number of cards in your hand, and how many of those cards each player wanted to risk investing in any particular duel. Once a card was used to add to the duel stat, it was discarded. This use of the duel mechanic lead to careful consideration of how to invest one's resources, but ultimately lead to Personalities with an already higher duel stat bullying on lower stated targets, rarely resulting in a loss of resources on the initiating duelist's part.

As we entered the modern era of L5R, a new dueling mechanic was instituted, that of the Focus Pool. This change used only a limited number of cards from the top of each player's deck to determine what Focus Values could be added to a Personality's duel stat and one card from a player's hand could also be added to this pool if the player so desired. Introduced at roughly the same time was the Duelist keyword for Personalities. This keyword allowed Personalities with it to circumvent the usual dueling procedure and get the first opportunity to increase their duel stat via the Focus Pool as long as their starting duel stat was equal to or lower than their opposing Personality's stat. These mechanics, when recently coupled with some powerful effects on cards that would occur when their card was used to increase the duel stat, lead to some player griping about the overpowered nature of the current dueling environment. Not to allow a potentially degenerate mechanic to continue to invade their game, L5R's current Design Team once again moved the proverbial cheese and shifted the mechanic again.

Now as we enter the Emperor Edition arc, dueling has taken on a seemingly more risky nature with the current changes. Now instead of having a set pool of cards to use, you are still limited to four the number of times to can use a card to boost your duel stat, but where these cards comes from has changed significantly. Now the four cards can come from any combination of the top of your deck and your hand, with the catch that the cards from the top of your deck cannot be looked at prior to you using them to boost your duel stat. Do you invest resources from your hand, knowing by how much you've pump your stat? Or do you risk the unknown, and keep you hand flush with other options?

Also changed in Emperor Edition is how the Duelist keyword works. Gone is the option to pump your stat first if you have an equal or lesser duel stat, now the keyword allows you to win duels where the outcome is tied (tied duels still result in a double loss) as well as accessing some card manipulation after players are done boosting their duel stat. Have you found the card you used blindly from the top of your deck to be a low enough Focus Value that you'll lose the duel? The Duelist keyword now allows you, before effects from card's used resolve, to remove one of your used cards from pumping your stat and replace it with another, either from your hand or the top of your deck.

So where does these new rules leave players, like myself, who have enjoyed employing them while playing the game? Personally, I like the new direction the Design Team is taking the mechanic. Removing the ability to have the first action to pump a duel stat allows Design to create strong effects on these focused cards, while avoiding the Negative Play Experiences many players perceived in dueling's second incarnation. Unfortunately, the new system does seem to hearken a return to "bully dueling" tactics, where the dueling player would use his duel actions on his largest stat Personality and target a much lower stat opposing Personality. While this would likely be seen as a negative change to the casual observer, Design has had the foresight to already have seeded the Emperor arc card pool with enough "negative" Focus Effects that these bullied players will choose to pump their duel with. While these effects won't save their Personality from losing the duel (save for one card right now, and even that's only a delay), they do help mitigate the effects for losing what some have argued are the potentiality strongest pool of actions in the game.

At first, I'll admit, I was sure that these changes would spell a complete flavor-nerf of L5R's most unique mechanics, but after looking at all the facts we have at this time, it seems like Design just might know what they are doing. Ultimately, I don't see these dueling changes as good or bad for the game, at least not yet. All but the entire Emperor Edition base set of cards is still unknown, and who knows how that will shape the dueling metagame at the start of the arc. The mechanics by themselves certainly present us with a new approach on a classic mechanic however, and I for one welcome the opportunity to take these new tools out for a test drive.