VTES & L5R

Ohlmann wrote:

* card pool changing way too much. There is no staple in L5R, the game evolve too much.

that's how a CCG stays in business, by selling cards. Limiting the card pool has some very important functions outside of the financial aspect like limiting combinations and keeping deck construction from stagnating. Vtes already has the grouping system for vampires which limits the card pool but doesn't invalidate the old card pools, which is genius.

The similarity almost ends with characters being (theoretically) the primary actor to damage your opponent -- along with the attachment of cards upon said characters -- and the idea of characters grouped into clans.

VtES is primarily multiplayer; it does not duel well natively.

L5R is primarily duel; it has expanded into multiplayer several times and even got player set expansions for more involved multiplayer with its own special rules.

VtES works off of death spiral and diminishing returns in its build-up phase. And it primarily runs off of small effects. The flow of battle can swing to and fro far more often due to its explicitly designed multiplayer nature. Successive card draw and lack of card limits creates a weird spread of specialty decks due to less need for card draw (in fact, VtES works more on "card flow") and deck ratio requirements. The often dual function of cards allows an unusual diffusion of focus for a CCG. Rare cards are often flavor, not essential; common cards tend to be competitive enough.

L5R works off of rapid aggregation and card advantage in its build-up phase. And, like Magic: the Gathering, primarily runs off of pretty large effects (this block is currently swarmed with kill actions and annoying action cancel -reaction cancel "duel"). Flow of battle tends to have one main swing before a duel is usually decided. Limited native card draw and card limits favors card drawers and tight deck ratio requirements. The dual function of cards is pretty recent, as hyper-focused decks were the norm. However, for all the talk of "switch decks" (chasing more than one of the 4 main means to L5R victory) the cancel, counter-cancel, counter-counter-cancel, etc. battle has stomped that essentially dead. Rare cards are essential to be even remotely competitive.

L5R, like MtG, was a fun game upon its release. I quit both once they switched to legal and retired block sets. Revisiting these games, some interesting ideas came in, but it's still pay-to-win and has a lot of the old problems. That said, MtG has held up better with its design team (there's more money riding on it). L5R has done its damnedest lately to piss off retailers with Direct to Player sets, a rocket launch of an arms race for current Emperor block, and a power curve that is almost at the point of Exalted RPG's nightmare of Perfect Defense v. Perfect Attack until someone runs out of motes first.

As long as you lower your competitive expectations and keep perspective, you can have a lot of fun. Sadly, L5R's legacy formats is nowhere near as popular as MtG, and well, VtES never dies, only goes to torpor, so legacy formats are unnecessary. That means your L5R collection will have a shorter shelf life on your CCG rotation, or you'll mostly futz around with buddies on a lark.