The Restricted List

Hi everyone. I’m back from my time wandering the shadowlands. For today I want to discuss one of the biggest changes to the game which is the restricted list. One of the reasons why I went on break is that the game had gotten stale for me. As soon as I saw what Stronghold my opponent had I knew exactly what cards he was going to use with very little deviation. I also realized one additional thing. No new cards would solve the problem. The power level of the cards included were so high that any new cards would have to be off the charts to compete. Which would of course be bad for the game in general. The restricted list is arguably the best solution for this problem. In my opinion it shouldn’t cause as much concern as it would in a CCG as at this point everyone pretty much has all the cards anyway and the pacing of the releases does not really strain your budget. Moving on to the list itself.

Charge!- This is the one I agree with the most. Every single deck I have faced was using this. From Lion and Crab who wanted to cheat in a high cost personality to Scorpions who wanted to use an ability for a turn. There is almost no downside to using it and the cost of 1 fate is not even prohibitive. Combined with ready effects such as the Ring of Water you could even use the same personality in a later conflict.

For Greater Glory – As everyone knows one of the clans I play is Lion. To be honest For Greater Glory is not even that important to a Lion deck. I’m not terribly against the inclusion as of right now as I will always pick charge over it. I do think that this is a choice for the future. I will be making a separate post for this later but Lion seems to be evolving in two directions now. An small Lion based one centered on Tsanuri (which will not include Kitsu Spiritcaller!) and the standard Lion we have now with Toturi and company getting cheated in.

Pathfinders Blade – I agree with this as every seeker clan was splashing Crab just for access to this item. At one influence it even let you put in a set of Reprieves which is another great card. Hopefully this will lead to a more diverse splash in the future.

Miramutos Fury – I understand the need to restrict this to make splashes more diverse. In the past everyone would splash Dragon just for access to this card and I think there was a day in worlds were something like 90% of players splashed Dragon. The thing is with Pathfinders blade half the clans had already moved away from Dragon Splash. I suppose it is necessary to prevent a return to the pre pathfinders blade days. Dragon still has Let Go and Tattooed Wanderer which means they are still a strong contender for best splash.

Policy Debate – I may be the only one who will say this but I never ran 3 policy debates in my decks unless I was playing a heavily political clan. I always thought that since I already knew what my opponents had there was no reason to risk giving them honor which is one of the win conditions I work towards at actively. Everyone else was running three though so I can see why it was included.

Iron Mine- With Reprieve and their sacrificial personality Crab lived before Iron mine and they will live after it. Like For Greater Glory it is something that is nice to have but is not necessary. I think Crab will still select Charge over Iron Mine which just speaks to how strong a card Charge is.

Forged Edict – This may surprise some people but I don’t agree with this pick. Pathfinders blade, Charge, and Policy debate. Scorpion was already hit incredibly hard with the restrictions. I don’t think the edict inclusion is necessary at all though FFG may have been influenced by the strong showing of Scorpion in tournaments.

Against the Waves- Another clan I play a lot is Phoenix. It is already hard enough piloting the clan to victory to have one of your tools taken away. I can sympathize with the too strong clan argument for edict but I don’t see anything like that for Phoenix. In fact when I left Kaede was already getting removed from a lot of decks because she was too slow.

All in all I’m thankful to FFG for the restriction list. I wish they had started it earlier. My one wish is for this to be a monthly document with cards making it in and out of the list as the meta dictates. It is a good tool to spice up a stale game.