So... kalani's landing...

Built a variant of Kalani's Landing last night. Ever since it came up in a discussion with Tauren and Naiteiru last night, I figured I'd give the deck a fair shake. So far... it's been so incredibly good that I've been unable to sleep. Every time I lay down, my mind starts racing for ways to beat it. I've played about 8 games using the best of every clan that I've made during playtesting...

and the deck is still undefeated.

I cannot beat it. It went 3-0 vs my kotei deck. It beat parajimbos, lion tactagons, crab carpenter castle big unit (didn't even lose a province), phoenix spell military, Lion Ancestors, spider monks.

It is pretty consistent and just brutal. And Yoritomo's guidance is just stupid. I would really like to get on egg sometime this weekend with you all and show it to you all, so we can all try to figure out how to beat it. I know that I'll be switching whatever meta slots I can over to it if I see a halfway decent mantis turnout at atlanta and orlando.

I'm not sure why more forums aren't ablaze with lists that are similar to it (and due to kotei season being so soon I'm not going to post the exact list here in this forum yet).

Granted 8 games is a small sample size... but still, I'm just shocked that this deck has been sitting under our noses and we haven't even really considered it yet.

you talking about kalani blitz?

the stronghold itself is nuts, i never toyed with a blitz variant because, well i hate blitz.

also going 8-0 against yourself is different than actually going 8-0. I found that there are parts of the game (decision making, play errors, surprises, tricks) that can't be replicated by playing agaisnt yourself in egg.

I don't know how it works, but it is a known quantity (as in it is not going to come out of left field), and it is tier 1 from what i've heard.

However, EE right now is surprisingly balanced in that there are a ton of quality decks and no deck is fool proof or lack a bad matchup or two. It isn't the embassy vs breeder monopoly we saw at the end of CE either.

Pruto wrote:you talking about kalani blitz?

the stronghold itself is nuts, i never toyed with a blitz variant because, well i hate blitz.

also going 8-0 against yourself is different than actually going 8-0. I found that there are parts of the game (decision making, play errors, surprises, tricks) that can't be replicated by playing agaisnt yourself in egg.

I don't know how it works, but it is a known quantity (as in it is not going to come out of left field), and it is tier 1 from what i've heard.

However, EE right now is surprisingly balanced in that there are a ton of quality decks and no deck is fool proof or lack a bad matchup or two. It isn't the embassy vs breeder monopoly we saw at the end of CE either.

No, not Kalani blitz.

And while I agree with you that there are nuances to the game that cannot be really experimented when playing yourself, there is something to be said for when you give one deck "unfair advantages" (such as takebacks... basically trying to play the "perfect game") and not giving the other any advantages (which I was doing for KL, just playing it as honest as I could). I've done a lot of solo playtesting, and it's how I came to build my current Kotei deck. I know it's not foolproof, and I'm sure that there are decks out there that can beat it.

But the deck surprised the hell out of me just how good it can be. Specifically, with it's consistency. In those 8 games, I never had any economy problems due to the cheese of the SH and abuse of cards like peace and basic lesson. The reason that I've stayed away from it was that I felt that the personalities were too vulnerable compared to other decks, and that going 2nd but not having a good tempo switch strategy (can't really run ret reliably, in particular) will just outright lose you games (look at parajimbos and they get 2 rets!). But the economy matched with some REALLY solid personalities and some of the best battle actions I can imagine being in one deck makes it scary. Then you add yoritomo's guidance (why ANY mantis player isn't running that card is beyond me, when any of your dudes plus a recruitment officer spud can take a province) and things just start getting crazy.

Maybe the KL deck I built sucked, but it was one of the first ones I played around with. Great peeps, great box, but my lion tact deck wiped the floor with it. Part of the reason why I stopped experimenting with it further



i would love to play against yours

I've never been sold on KL. I know lots of people are enamored with it, but it not a deck I would take to a tournament.