Sleep's Phoenix Tower

The deck has beat Shika Swarm in two games playtested so far. No idea how it deals with the rest of the field... probably about as well as any other tower deck.  The theme is to get into battle with your tower and stay there.  If the opponent doesn't have shiho, you attack as well as defend. If there is one shiho, you slowly build your tower while proclaiming to win by honor until you get a sneak attack. If he has multiple shiho... brace for impact hahaha.


# Pre-Game (1)

# Stronghold (1)
1 The Eternal Temple of the Phoenix (1)

# Dynasty (46)

# Events (3)
2 Glimpse of the Unicorn
1 The Samurai Caste Divides

# Holdings (18)
3 Bountiful Fields
3 Coastal Lane
1 Counting House
3 Famous Bazaar
3 Shrine to Hachiman
3 Silver Mine
2 The Ivory Courtroom

# Personalities (25)
3 Isawa Hibana
1 Isawa Kaname, Advisor the the Ruby Champion
3 Isawa Orinoko
3 Kyuji
3 Shiba Kintaro, the Remembered
3 Shiba Michiki
3 Shiba Tsukimi, the Blind Phoenix
3 Shiba Yuuchi
3 Isawa Amihiko

# Fate (41)

# Followers (3)
3 Shield Wall

# Items (6)
3 Iron Armor
3 Saikatsu

# Rings (1)
1 Ring of Earth

# Spells (17)
3 Deafening Thunder
2 Final Ruin
3 Fire Kami's Greed
2 Guidance in War
3 Stones of Purity
3 The Dragon's Talon

# Strategy (14)
3 Final Sacrifice
3 Jade Ascension
2 Sanctioned Declaration
3 Sneak Attack
2 Honed to a Razor's Edge
1 Traditionalist

If Shiho's that crippling you should try and sneak in some VD.

The 3x sneak and final sacrifice really helps... But VtD may be a good option.

Deck has been updated. I'd like to build it one night this week plzkthx.

Shield wall is fucking dumb against Shika swarm. I dropped Ichigos Guard for them (amongst a few other changes) and now the deck shits on shika. On top of that, it's still a free follower vs other decks.

I also like this deck because it's good against control and Lion. Any of the 9 "tower eligible" personalities + Iron armor = a lot of wins vs that decktype.

Also adding Amihiko just gives me blanket naval/sneak protection. Over the last week of playtesting, this has by far become my favorite deck. It fits my playstyle, is a Johnny/timmy deck, and whether I go 1/6 or 6/1 at the kotei, I know I'll be having a blast and playing a deck that nobody else is playing.

I do love the quote on Shield Wall heh

I have the cards at my house. I will build it when i get home. you can come by whenever if you'd like to test it.

There were many times when I had sheild wall instead of ward of air. I ended up tuning with the spell and it rarely helped me. I should of run the follower.

I play tested with ward of Air... It's the better card because of the send home and the fact that you don't lose cavalry. Problem is that it is directly confrontational with iron armor

And by send home, I obviously mean the retreat. Being able to over commit and then evac your tower is strong. But the shield wall just turns off Shika (nearly every build I see doesn't have a single answer for it in the deck) and it works well with iron armor. As a plus, most of the time my tower is going to be conqueror so it doesn't really matter

Sika should be running true nature, keppo and shiho. Lots of answers.

panku wrote:Sika should be running true nature, keppo and shiho. Lots of answers.

maybe not your true nature but definitely the other two

List updated, after a night of playing against send-home heavy control. I overlooked the fact that the favor gets around Iron Armor. Brazen Disregard also cannot prevent favor send home, but luckily I remembered a card that should have been in the list from the outset: Honed to a Razors Edge (Absent move-in for shugenja and monks, discipline 2) which for this list is actually strictly better than brazen disregard.

-2 Brazen Disregard

+ Honed to a Razors Edge

Sleep wrote:The deck has beat Shika Swarm in two games playtested so far. No idea how it deals with the rest of the field... probably about as well as any other tower deck.  The theme is to get into battle with your tower and stay there.  If the opponent doesn't have shiho, you attack as well as defend. If there is one shiho, you slowly build your tower while proclaiming to win by honor until you get a sneak attack. If he has multiple shiho... brace for impact hahaha.


# Pre-Game (1)

# Stronghold (1)
1 The Eternal Temple of the Phoenix (1)

# Dynasty (46)

# Events (3)
3 Glimpse of the Unicorn

# Holdings (18)
3 Bountiful Fields
3 Coastal Lane
1 Counting House
3 Famous Bazaar
3 Shrine to Hachiman
3 Silver Mine
2 The Ivory Courtroom

# Personalities (25)
3 Isawa Hibana
1 Isawa Kaname, Advisor the the Ruby Champion
3 Isawa Orinoko
3 Kyuji
3 Shiba Kintaro, the Remembered
3 Shiba Michiki
3 Shiba Tsukimi, the Blind Phoenix
3 Shiba Yuuchi
3 Isawa Amihiko

# Fate (40)

# Followers (3)
3 Shield Wall

# Items (6)
3 Iron Armor
3 Saikatsu

# Rings (1)
1 Ring of Earth

# Spells (17)
3 Deafening Thunder
3 Final Ruin
3 Fire Kami's Greed
2 Guidance in War
3 Stones of Purity
3 The Dragon's Talon

# Strategy (13)
2 Final Sacrifice
3 Jade Ascension
3 Sanctioned Declaration
3 Sneak Attack
2 Honed to a Razor's Edge

Iron Armor was dead most times last night when i played it, I can never have enough final sacrifices, Sanctioned Declaration is situational as hell and should be down to a 2 of. I feel like Kamori Tairuko deserves a slot.

Final version of the deck posted.

I've been concerned with the imperial favor being able to get through Iron Armor to send my unit home, and have been trying to be creative. I put in 2 Honed to a Razors Edge, and while that card will remain to deal with regular send home, I didn't think about the fact that I cannot use it to move my super unit with Iron Armor back to the battlefield (Honed is a card effect, so it is negated by Iron Armor). Then, late last night, it hit me. The answer to all of my problems was right in front of me and I had just never even considered it.

Traditionalist.

You may not play other Allegiance cards. Your Favor actions may target your Personalities as well as other players'.

Political Open: Put this Strategy into play.

Political Interrupt, [BOW]: Choose a Personality. The action may not target him if it is a Favor action and there is another legal target.

This. Solves. Everything.  It's the piece to the puzzle. It's the brilliant stroke that makes the deck now complete.  

The main strategy of the deck currently is to send my tower into battle with some cheap spuds to redirect actions to (or to eat up my opponents other actions) to attrition their action pool.  With Traditionalist in play, as long as I have ANY. OTHER. PERSONALITY. at the battlefield, when my opponent announces a send home with the favor, I'm safe.  BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

The bit in the trait on Traditionalist about choosing my own personalities also means that I get to use the favor myself if I have it (I oftentimes do in matchups where the above situation isn't occurring) to EVAC my attacking tower if shit goes sour. This is something the deck has needed, but couldn't do because of Iron Armor. I cannot explain enough how huge this is.  AWESOME BONUS POINT: It's fucking awesome to actually represent Traditionalism as a Traditionalist myself, by actually playing the card.

Deck changes:

-1 Sanctioned Declaration, -1 Final Ruin, -1 Glimpse of the Unicorn
+1 Final Sacrifice, +1 Traditionalist, +1 The Samurai Caste Divides

Do you think just one is enough? Even with the event that lets you dig?

While the favor is my kryptonite, I'm a high honor clan and I run ivory courtroom as well. While it is an effective counter, it's also a corner case and I cannot "knee jerk" react to it. In addition, it being courage instead of kharmic hurts it quite a bit (I have no reliable way to use courage) so duplicates in hand kill me.

 AWESOME BONUS POINT: It's fucking awesome to actually represent Traditionalism as a Traditionalist myself, by actually playing the card.

Deck changes:

-1 Sanctioned Declaration, -1 Final Ruin, -1 Glimpse of the Unicorn
+1 Final Sacrifice, +1 Traditionalist, +1 The Samurai Caste Divides

You are dead to me! lol

I'm also glad that you supported the true heir and rightful emperor. I'm pretty sure that snot nosed spider kid had extra appendages under his kimono.

He was always called the younger brother not the little brother....