Post by Salticidae on May 24, 2013 1:20:59 GMT -5
Hello,
I wanted to build a Monksai deck for Bushi, but wasn't tremendously impressed with The Spider's Web - it just doesn't do anything. The tempo gain and gold reduction for a weapon per turn seem like they could be compensated for by Low Markets, a decent gold scheme, and a sufficient number of cheap guys.
My other issue with TSW was the monks themselves. Ohaba is large but vanilla; Fubuko is decent but there just wasn't a ton of room in the Fate deck for Kiho actions, limiting her usefulness. The fact that my stronghold doesn't protect against honor loss disincentivized me from trying to replace them with better Spider cards, while the low family honor and relative inability to proclaim made it difficult to supplement my Dynasty deck with Dragon kensai.
So instead, I turned to TSL. It has a great combat-relevant ability that works even in the absence of ninja (although not as well). It protects against honor loss from some of my non-monk cards as well as any Fate-side honor loss cards I'd want to run, which is useful. It also gives me an excuse to run sweet ninja like Ninube Onchi or Goju Kobashi. Here's my list:
The Shadow's Lair
Bamboo Harvesters
Border Keep
Dynasty Deck
2 Low Market
3 Incense Mill
3 Shinomen Marsh
3 Fudoist Temple
1 Purveyor of Questionable Goods
3 Red Crane Dojo
3 Prosperous Village
3 Lao-She
2 Goju Sawaki
3 Sandayu
3 Goju Kobashi
3 Goju Yurishi
3 Ninube Onchi
3 Omigawa
1 M'rika EXP
1 Daigotsu Kanpeki EXP
Fate Deck
2 Blade of Perfection
3 Shamsir
3 Thunder Bow
3 Sankaku-Yari
3 Tsuruchi Daikyu
3 Unparalleled Sword
1 The Ancestral Sword of Hantei
1 Ring of Water
2 Again!
3 Help from the Shadows
3 Hundred-Fold Cut
2 Never Safe
3 Silent Terror
2 Sly Deceiver
3 Spirit of the Blade
1 Spirit of the Shadows
3 Touch of the Night
Current as of 17 August 2013.
The idea is to use Ninja to control what the opponent is capable of (Onchi, Kobashi) while swinging into him with large Monksai. The deck is defensive early, seeking to let the opponent make an attack, blow him out, and then Ret to steal a province. Once the opponent is on the back foot, the deck can get very aggressive, using TSL on offense to keep defenders out of combat while using weapons with kill actions, Again!, Omigawa, and Sutigu to make sure any fights the opponent tries to pick are decidedly one-sided.
The Ninja tricks help this plan. Touch prevents the opponent from using superior numbers to overwhelm the size of your kensai; a single Touch can break a combat in half. Sly Deceiver lets your Ninja copy useful abilities off your opponent's men, but can also copy Kensai off of yours - useful in conjunction with Onchi (cavalry plus weapons is usually good for at least one province) or Yurishi (extremely difficult to kill in combat). Terror taps a guy and can deal with a problem face-up card. The rest of the cards are there to keep your guys alive and kicking (Again!, Intent, Cut) or dominate combat (TSotS, Spirit)
The deck is a bit gold-heavy to help pay for weapons and guys in the same turn. It's possible I should be running all three Low Markets, but I'm not sure.
I wanted to build a Monksai deck for Bushi, but wasn't tremendously impressed with The Spider's Web - it just doesn't do anything. The tempo gain and gold reduction for a weapon per turn seem like they could be compensated for by Low Markets, a decent gold scheme, and a sufficient number of cheap guys.
My other issue with TSW was the monks themselves. Ohaba is large but vanilla; Fubuko is decent but there just wasn't a ton of room in the Fate deck for Kiho actions, limiting her usefulness. The fact that my stronghold doesn't protect against honor loss disincentivized me from trying to replace them with better Spider cards, while the low family honor and relative inability to proclaim made it difficult to supplement my Dynasty deck with Dragon kensai.
So instead, I turned to TSL. It has a great combat-relevant ability that works even in the absence of ninja (although not as well). It protects against honor loss from some of my non-monk cards as well as any Fate-side honor loss cards I'd want to run, which is useful. It also gives me an excuse to run sweet ninja like Ninube Onchi or Goju Kobashi. Here's my list:
The Shadow's Lair
Bamboo Harvesters
Border Keep
Dynasty Deck
2 Low Market
3 Incense Mill
3 Shinomen Marsh
3 Fudoist Temple
1 Purveyor of Questionable Goods
3 Red Crane Dojo
3 Prosperous Village
3 Lao-She
2 Goju Sawaki
3 Sandayu
3 Goju Kobashi
3 Goju Yurishi
3 Ninube Onchi
3 Omigawa
1 M'rika EXP
1 Daigotsu Kanpeki EXP
Fate Deck
2 Blade of Perfection
3 Shamsir
3 Thunder Bow
3 Sankaku-Yari
3 Tsuruchi Daikyu
3 Unparalleled Sword
1 The Ancestral Sword of Hantei
1 Ring of Water
2 Again!
3 Help from the Shadows
3 Hundred-Fold Cut
2 Never Safe
3 Silent Terror
2 Sly Deceiver
3 Spirit of the Blade
1 Spirit of the Shadows
3 Touch of the Night
Current as of 17 August 2013.
The idea is to use Ninja to control what the opponent is capable of (Onchi, Kobashi) while swinging into him with large Monksai. The deck is defensive early, seeking to let the opponent make an attack, blow him out, and then Ret to steal a province. Once the opponent is on the back foot, the deck can get very aggressive, using TSL on offense to keep defenders out of combat while using weapons with kill actions, Again!, Omigawa, and Sutigu to make sure any fights the opponent tries to pick are decidedly one-sided.
The Ninja tricks help this plan. Touch prevents the opponent from using superior numbers to overwhelm the size of your kensai; a single Touch can break a combat in half. Sly Deceiver lets your Ninja copy useful abilities off your opponent's men, but can also copy Kensai off of yours - useful in conjunction with Onchi (cavalry plus weapons is usually good for at least one province) or Yurishi (extremely difficult to kill in combat). Terror taps a guy and can deal with a problem face-up card. The rest of the cards are there to keep your guys alive and kicking (Again!, Intent, Cut) or dominate combat (TSotS, Spirit)
The deck is a bit gold-heavy to help pay for weapons and guys in the same turn. It's possible I should be running all three Low Markets, but I'm not sure.
