Playing with the pros again...

Greetings fellow mortals, welcome to the my fortress again, and this is the Dark Lord speaking...

Frankly speaking, I haven't been playing much with the more experienced players in L5R since after the last 'Amazing Race'. Most of the time, I'm just been playing with my usual gang (the Midvalley CM gang), kinda get used to all of their decks already. Here's the player breakdown for our playgroup at CM:

Spider: Daigotsu (Me)

Lion: Sze Kerng

Crane: Aik Dwin (bloody Imperial Favor abuse...!!!)

Scorpion: Nathan (Champion deck weih....!!)

Unicorn: Yee How (Angry chicks that gives you ED)

Crab: Kevin (Always been flipping T1 Kuon, T2 Hida's Guidance)

Phoenix: No regular player found

Dragon: Dillion (One of the more challenging players there)

Mantis: Shaun (Choo Choo Train as usual... Plus abit of enlightenment)

Well, overall I have been playing with these people most of the time, and I can say that I know most of the ins and outs of their decks. That's why it's one of the reasons that I get bored sometimes also... :-P

Today managed to play with the pros again at the Tavern (my friend, Kenji's hideout), and after playing with them, I realized that the title of Top Spider that I earned back from the previous Race is kinda lucky. If i were to compare my skills with them, it'll be fathoms deep...

Anyway, the first pro to drop by is Rahman, with his even-more-annoying Imperial Favor abuse with Seven Fold Palace. Basically his deck is a control deck utilizing the full power of the Imperial Favor, with tons of bowing actions, send homes, and also honor gaining defensive actions. As usual I'm using my Dark Paragons. Well, I had a chance when I bought out Daigotsu Setsuko exp, gave her cavalry and preparing to attack an undefended province. Before that I've quite exhausted my hand due to the open bowings that Rahman's peeps did to Setsuko.

The 12-force Cavalry Setsuko in action...

When I pumped Setsuko's force high enough, double copies of Settling the Homeless Literally screwed my play, and from there on I lost my tempo... He crawled up to 42 honor, and The New Order is nowhere to be found... Well, Crane control decks has always be a very bad matchup for me, and I still can't find a way to bypass their heavy control...

Stupid presence-less defense... I have a home!

Next up I played with the Phoenix Daimyo, Adi-sama. This time, I switched to Monk Kensai, and pitted against his Shiba Smash. What is this deck you say? The deck bascially used a few of the best Phoenix and Ronin Samurais with solid stats and good battle action, and let the boys loose equipped with Rising Sun Blades, Hida War Drums, Armor of the Ryu, and SLAM!!!! Oh yeah, did I forget that they're using one of the game's best Stronghold, Twin Soul Temple? A built in kill action, do you have a problem with that? I know I had a lot...

Cheating!!!!! Not Fair!!!! Blasphemy!!!!

The lonely Monk holding his ground.

Tamago: Are you A unique?

Momiji: Err... No?

*Tamago pulls out his sword*

The first 2 turns kinda screwed me up, with holdings keep showing up and Momiji (vanilla sucks!) as my only peep. He took a province from me, and I countered back one, and that's when he showed me a Retribution, took out my Daigotsu Hotako (Naval peeps are annoying he says...), and left me with only 2 provinces without much options to ponder...

The end result? Of course I got Adi-ed. Well it's ok, after all he's a better player than me, and I still have a lot to learn with them. Looks like I need to play more with the pros to gain more experience. Actually I really hoped that one day I will join the ranks of them... Overall, it's a very good night for me, get to play with good players, and have some game talks with them. Somehow I feel more 'enlightened' when discussing after-battle talks with them.

That's all for the moment. Fu Leng will bless those that are loyal to him, and the Dark Lord shall enact his will. Daigotsu signing out, because for now he shall return to his chambers yet again...