The Honesty of the Phoenix

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/n ... f-harmony/

So

Many

Good

Cards.....

I love our champion. She is so amazing and flavorful and useful. I love how the theme of Glory plays into us honor running, and fits how we are amazing when we try, but if we are disheartened we are worthless. Also, from a pure stat analysis, our extra high glory means it would be strategically better to bring honored people to normal than to dishonor, because if your glory is higher than your base stats it is more of a + than it would be a -, meaning dishonor decks are going to have to struggle with deciding if they want to hit our honor or our stats best.

I am pleased by our cards.

And Tsukune... well then. I was WONDERING what they'd give her to make up for being a 4/4. Now I know. And... yeah, fair trade.

Nothing I don`t like.... happy with the flavour, and the cards. Tsukune I think is going to be a handful. I do wish that some of the courtiers where Shugenja/Courtier, but I`m not gonna push my luck.

I'm really starting to think that a Phoenix/Scorpion or Phoenix/Crab dishonor deck could be extremely viable. We'll have to wait until the Scorpion spoilers, of course, but even now splashing a bit of Crab for dishonor looks promising. Not a route I was expecting from Phoenix, but if I'm being honest, it's something that puts a big smile on my face.

Ring/elemental shenanigans to prove to the kami and empire how dishonorable you are? Yes please...

I'm just glad our cards look complicated but solid. I've had my fill of complicated and garbage.

Eh, I'm a little worried we're going to be the clan that gets the "crappy out of the box; really amazing after a few expansions" treatment. I'm really not sold on Tsukune, either.

I think we will be better out of the box than we used to be, the game seems much more balanced. But Phoenix`s control play style always works better later down the line, something that needs be accepted when playing Phoenix.

Tsukune is the best champion in my opinion cause when on board she guarantees us the ability to resolve 3 of the Rings a turn and/or resolve multiple rings twice. She need not even participate in conflicts to do any of that. Combined with our ring manipulation... no I think she is extremely powerful.

My concern with Tsukune is that it takes people passing on conflicts to make her ability useful. Sure, proccing an extra ring for free is good, but I feel most times you'll only be getting one ring, not two. Even then, the ring of water would be useless to proc at the end of the conflict phase, so really you're looking at four options, not five.

Is her ability good? Sure, absolutely. I just don't see it being champion level powerful, especially on an already high-risk, high-reward character.

The thing about Tsukune is she does not need to win a conflict or even participate in the conflict to use her ability. It allows us to resolve multiple rings even if we decide not to inititate conflicts.
In comparison to Hotaru and Toturi, they only work at specific times while participating in a specific contest, Kisada is very powerful but all you need is to win one conflict and he is blank. Yokuni is only decent if your opponent has useful action on his character. All of which is powerful. But Tsukune works every turn and with the ring manipulation Phoenix has, how often will there not be at least one ring we would like to resolve at end of turn. I think she is going to be very powerful considering the rings have some of the most powerful actions in the game.