Top 8, to dragon Feeding hill kotei

[SonataOfTheNight]

SO this is the current incarnation I took to the Kotei.  There are a couple cards that should have been in there but weren't because I was just plain out too lazy to find/trade for them.  the only losses the deck had were against lion, and when my fate deck completely crapped out on me.  Generally speaking none of my other games were really that close.

SH:  Mountain Summit Temple

-dynasty(40)-
-peeps-
x3 mirumoto taishuu
x3 bayushi saya
x2 shosuro uyeda
x1 bayushi hisoka
x3 togashi masujiro
x3 togashi kisu
x3 togashi miyoko
x1 togashi tsuri
x1 muketsu
-events-
x1 in time of war
x1 proposal of peace
x1 a new wall
x1 wisdom gained
x1 commanding favor
-holdings-
x3 gold mine
x3 shattered peaks
x3 sushi stand
x2 shrine to fukurokujin
x1 shrine of the sun
x1 corrupt officials
x1 temple of the seekers
x1 private trader

-fate(40)-
-combo-
x3 denounced on stage
x3 unfortunate incident
x3 assigning blame
x2 one more sacrifice
-monk draw-
x3 banish all shadows
x3 brand of fire and thunder
x3 unbiased advice
x2 solving the riddle
-other draw-
x3 test of law
x3 polite discussion
x2 stay your blade
-meta-
x2 death at the mikado
x1 hired killer
-defense cards-
x3 outer walls
x1 three stone river
-rings-
x1 ring of air
x1 ring of the void
-followers-
x1 respected mentor

so the strategy is fairly simple.  DRAW CARDS.  taishuu will be one fo the mroe important personalities in this deck, as the one game he got HK'ed, i had to pitch about 7 cards out of my hand.  although they lose 3 honor to do it, so i really didn't mind.  the deck has the capability to switch to honor very easily(how i won in top 16), although you'll have to make the decision to do so early before you drop like a rock.  Lion will be your only bad matchup for the deck due to their high starting honor and high PH.  i've bee thinking of including district governor, as generally it will net you at least another turn.  Given that the military versoin only gain honor from brining people for full, with an average ph of 3 that gives you til turn 8 to bomb out, if you draw into max combo. I would post a tourney report, but i can't for the life of me remember who i played round 4.
basically it went like
rd 1- crab win
rd 2-scorp dishonor win
rd 3-lion loss(didn't see any card draw til after turn5.  highly improbable, but it can happen)
rd 4- no idea win
rd 5- dragon win
rd 6- unicorn win
rd 7- crab win
top 16- lion honor win
top 8- lion military loss(next card in my fate deck would have won me game 3)

so all in all the deck went 10-3 with it going 3-3 vs. lion.

[iTcouLdbeWorsE]

i have a similiar deck and tested it quite a while

the reason i didnt take it to a kotei was the "autolose" against mantis and phoenix blitz decks

whats ur experiance with those decks?

[Noriyuke Roji]

My guess is avoid them for the first four rounds of Swiss, and be safe since they are not in your bracket?

[iTcouLdbeWorsE]

My guess is avoid them for the first four rounds of Swiss, and be safe since they are not in your bracket?

well thats a nice strategy^^
unfortunatly i saw with my own eys how ur dishonner bomb without switch potental got paired against maws grave at karlsruhe kotei

[Noriyuke Roji]

Yup, not failproof, I know. And I should not have invoked Murphy by actually saying "I hope I avoid Tobias, because I cannot ever beat his deck"....

[irc]

A short question, what are you going to do if your opponent plays a hidden scandal? Any solutions?

[iTcouLdbeWorsE]

A short question, what are you going to do if your opponent plays a hidden scandal? Any solutions?

death at the mikado or kanshi

[SonataOfTheNight]

As to the hidden scandal question.  Against the Unicorn playung utaku plains battle maiden deck round 6 he did try and HIdden scandal me.  I just bowed kisu to death it then RoA'ed kisu in case he played another one.

As for the mantis and fenix blitz decks.  meh,  I've never had problems with the low honor military factions. Mantis is no exception.  Just fish for your courtiers early.  Saya their guys.  If they attack they lose honor, and subesquently the game.  if they don't attack the blitz element is a non issue.  as to the fenix matchup I'm not sure what deck you're talking about. if you mean the seeking/juro blitz honor deck, then I;m about 25-1 in playtest vs. it.  basically just don't bring out shattered peaks.  honor run with masujiro.  saya whoever has seeking.  they'll gain the honor, then lose some and get dishonored, opening up the uyeda party.  bomb them down and cross.  generally even a Great honor deck can't come back after getting hit by 42 pts of honor loss in 1 turn.

Yeah Maw's grave can be problematic.  but the likelihood of playing more than 1 is slim.  I'll cede that you could play 1 and lose.  But with only 1 loss, you can still make top 16-32 whatev.

If you're Really worried throw in RoE and EP.  turtle up and just sit back on your last province.  brand severed/warfare and favor them home every turn.

[Togashi Miki]

You said there were cards that should have been in there if you weren't lazy, what were those?

[Mirumoto Taishuu]

This deck is simply amazing. And as to avoiding the "autoloss", just play every other Dragon there. It almost worked for me

[Hitomi Shujyo]

A very neat deck idea I must say. Really solves some of the problems I've been having with my courtier ideas. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Kokujin Mitsu]

lol so i take it you wont let me playtest against you wedge...i have my oni deck finished and the gobbos isnt far behind.

i got godly lucky and pulled a playset of verastile in a weekend including a foiled one... awesome.

[thalaric]

Definitely an interesting idea. I might have to use the decklist for inspiration after Cincy. Thanks for sharing!

[Kakita Seigi]

I tried this deck idea when Honor's Veil was released and found it to be pretty effective in testing, especially if people don't know what you're really playing. However, I found at least for my builds, which were pretty similar to your decklist, that Hidden Scandal if timed right (which you have good meta for ), Determination+Seppuku, fast and aggressive military decks that went before me like Lion, fast Unicorn decks that pull a Turn 3 Chagatai, or a decent honor/military switch can prove to be quite the challenge. I pretty much found I was hedging my bets people weren't going to be prepared for the deck, which was one of the best things about the deck as nobody expected me to pull dishonor until it was largely too late. Though the honor switch decks I fought wisened up and would go for just enough honor to force my hand to choose honor or dishonor. If I looked like I was going for dishonor (aka honor losses or heavy deck manipulation), they beefed up their honor enough to survive a bomb and made preparations for a switch to munch my provinces. If I instead tried to seriously honor run, they'd then opt for the honor running since they knew my emphasis was dishonor with just a bit of honor running. Also, they'd typically kill Masujiro with HK if they had it. Thus, for many matchups, I found much of the deck's success was based upon players recognizing the signs. If they knew the signs, the deck had some trouble getting off the ground. I did try removing the honor running and went with TKM, which made the bomb much more consistent, but the deck had problems with decks that survived the bomb (which happened fairly regularly). The loss of DVD makes the bomb a bit harder to stick against decks that have the ability to seppuku, especially those honor running or Determination (stupid card ). My gut is that I think this kind of build (MST) is probably the better build (with the backup honor running against honor decks that survive, but can't really switch), but I thought TKM had some potential too.

That being said I do think this is a good deck choice and great job on your placing!

[Wakari Masen]

Ahhh. . . Hearing of this is great news. The past couple weeks have made it seem like MST Defensive Honor was the only thing winning.

Congratulations, and very interesting deck!