Well February 2000 brought us all Strike at Midnight, our next superb global storyline, and the execution of Hitomi. Having already decided to play Dragon for this tournament I had been doing a lot of playtesting with dragon honour, dragon military, and dragon death of onnotangu, all of which worked alright, but were not really my style. (I came 5th or 6th in one local tournament with Dragon honour, and dead last in another with Dragon Military). Only the weekend before, however, did I make the choice to go with dishonour, which proved very successful, getting me to 2nd place in the Edinburgh strike after going 5-0 in swiss, which is nothing to complain about. I built this deck with a few dragons and a lot of Scorpions, which proved a great choice in dishonour vs. dishonour matchups. For similar reasons I went with a lot of ability to cancel political actions (rise, taberu, goshius, wind's truth) and political mistakes, which though I only got to use them twice in the tournament were nevertheless great. I used Kyudun Hitomi, like I suspect every other Dragon dishonour player did, to get access to key or expensive cards at the right time, and I am left in awe of how useful it was.
The cards I had under my stonghold were as follows.
1x Secrets on the Wind 1x Shame 1x Test of Honour 1x Explosives 1x Ring of the VoidPlaying this deck left me with a few ideas. The first is , I need 3 dens! Once again, somehow, my third den of spies managed to escape my deck, and it would have been nice to see. Early dens, along with as the shadow falls, selaed lost of games for me. Secondly, crossroads are good. Crossroads greatly improved my gold with this deck (more than the golden sun plains) especially since they will give you a free Den of spies. Thirdly plea's are still better than martyr. In this case I had lent the pleas out and, expecting more personality denial, thought martyr's would be fine, but the plea's would have won me the game I lost in the finals so easily. The reason why... the Journal. I hope I never see that foul bit of cardboard again, which of course I will. The journal single handidly lost me the final game, and should have lost me my fourth round match as well. My inability to kill, shame or martyr against the journal crippled me, wheras a plea would still have gone ahead without any trouble.
Looking at the rest of the deck, confusion was definatly more use than the Emperor's left hand, and bad kharma was so effective I should have had another, as I should with the Sun in Shadow (again I had leant one out). Deeds not words, once again, was a waste of space in the deck. Every time I lose to shrines I end up putting them in, but then I always take them out again when I remember how bad they are. I might have done better to have Face of Ninube instead. Finally the cultists were... intersting. I put them in because you can't enough talk them, and I know others who did the same had good results. For me though it just seemed like it was more cards to be lost to Kolat Duplicate, which I am also very tempted to play.
Kyuden Hitomi
Personalites (16)
3x Yogo Shidachi
3x Soshi Jomyako
3x Bayushi Aramoro
1x Bayushi Goshiu xp2
1x Soshuro Taberu xp1
3x Togashi Shinseken
2x Agasha GennaiEvents (5)
1x Dragon Sword is Broken
1x Imperial Ambassadorship
1x Suspicions
1x As the Shadow Falls
1x Alliance (with the Scorpion)Holdings (16)
3x Small Farm
3x Large Farm
3x Gold Mine
2x Sanctified Temple
2x Den of Spies
2x Merchant Caravan
1x Charter of the Scorpion ClanRegions (3)
1x Golden Sun Plain
2x Crossroads
Followers (2)
2x Cultists
Actions (34)
3x Breach of Etiquette
3x Shame
3x Political Mistake
3x The Wind's Truth
3x Test of Honour
2x Martyr
2x Unrequited Love
2x Marries a Barbarian
2x Disgraced
2x Explosives
2x Bad Kharma
2x The Emperor's Left Hand
2x The Sun in Shadow
2x Confusion at Court
1x Deeds, not WordsSpells (5)
3x Secrets on the Wind
2x Force of WillRings (1)
1x Ring of the Void