Emperor Edition: Important News

L5R Players,

As you know, we want Emperor Edition to exceed your expectations in all aspects (Story, Card Mechanics, Game Play and Product Packaging). You have already seen the impact that this commitment has had on the fictions and also have been introduced to some of the changes in Card Mechanics and Game Play through the Designer Diaries written by Bryan Reese and the rest of the Design Team.

Packaging-wise, Emperor Edition is our boldest product ever for the L5R CCG line, taking the design of the Emperor legal expansions – Before the Dawn and Second City – and also Forgotten Legacy to another level!

This has created challenges for our printers, who have responded admirably. However, with Emperor Edition, we regret to say that we got word from our printer that they are unable to hit the schedule and that, as a result, the product will be delayed. With a standard expansion, this would have likely been a 1 or 2 weeks delay but with Emperor, this means a longer delay, pushing us into the holiday season.

As a result, we have decided to push the release of Emperor Edition into January 2012.

We are disappointed by this, but we also believe this gives us a better chance to help retailers for the release of the product in 2012, since they are extremely busy over Christmas and the entire holiday season. For you, the end customer, this also means multiple release events at your local store allowing you to impact the storyline of L5R.

We also know that there have been some unofficial announcements about French and Spanish language edition releases. With our partners we have made the decision to no longer print the localized language versions of L5R.

We have found over the years that a good many of the players use English language cards and retailers in France and Spain are forced to carry both. We are going to make Spanish and French language edition PDF’s available to anyone who is a member of the Imperial Assembly so they will have access to translations for clarification if need be. For those players this negatively effects we do apologize, but we ultimately feel this will help everyone and we will do everything possible to help players playing these editions to have the information they need to play at all levels.

Let’s now focus on the good stuff! We are pleased to reveal the amazing packaging of Emperor Edition (the culprit in our delay, but we love it), one that will stand out in stores and in your home alike!

Base sets are always special as they contain 1 starter for each of the 9 Clans in the game and come with 36 boosters instead of 48. With the Emperor legal expansions receiving clan themed booster boxes and starter boxes, it meant that we had to find a unifying theme for both displays. We opted to go with the Imperial Dynasty: after all, the Empress is expanding her influence in the known world, thanks to the settling in the former Ivory Kingdoms and the Edition is named after her.

The Emperor Edition booster display has the same size and design as the Emperor legal expansions’ keeping it consistent with the rest of the line. It features the Imperial Mon, artwork from the Empress herself as well as other Imperial and Unaligned personalities such as Chikara.

Inside, you will find 36 boosters (the normal amount for a base set), each containing 16 cards instead of the traditional 15. Those 16 cards are broken down into: 10 common, 4 uncommon, 1 rare and 1 special Premium card. You will be able to read all there is to know on the Premium cards in a following article, as their uses to you the players are plenty (draft specific cards and redemption for special cards to name only a couple).

The starter box display (as shown above), on the other hand, required us to change its regular size due to its contents, and the contents of the individual clan starters. It follows the same theme as the booster box (Imperial) and features artwork for exclusive cards only found in starter decks!

From this picture, you can notice that the box is of an unusual size, more in line with a large board game box. That is due to our decision to make it work as a card collection holder.

So, besides the traditional 9 starters (1 of each clan), you will also find a poster of Emperor Edition, as well as card dividers and trays to help you sort out your Legend of the Five Rings collection!

The individual starter decks are clan themed and feature artwork from the various exclusive cards you can find in them.
They have many goals for both new and existing players: allow you to familiarize yourself with the Clan you have picked, provide you with a good starting base to create a good first deck, allow you to carry a single sleeved competitive deck and provide a great Sealed tournament experience.

As such, you will find inside each:
• short bios for the characters included in the deck
• a specific Clan fiction
• an exhaustive Rulebook available for download soon
• your first storyline vote
• an Imperial Favor card
• Specific Learn to Play cards
• 1 booster from each of Before the Dawn, Second City, and Emperor Edition
• Tokens that will allow you to keep better track of effects throughout the duration of the game
• Clan specific cards: each starter contains 1 Celestial, 1 Champion, 4 Strongholds (one for each theme), 1 House Guard and 3 Clan specific Virtues. Visit your Clan forums for a sneak peek at those cards as part of our preview program!

All that amounts to 116 cards per starter (112 + 4 random rare cards) and a larger box that will let you carry your competitive deck everywhere you may need it really easily.

You can find below our entire Preview Schedule for this amazing base set. We will be adding a few special items to it to make up for the delay. We are convinced you will think Emperor is the best Edition to date and that the wait will be worth it.

- 45 days countdown: Everyday, both on Facebook and L5R.com, from Oct 31 to Dec 14

- Clan Specific Previews:

- Articles on Emperor Edition: Every Tuesday, on L5R.com, from Nov 1 to Nov 22

- Fictions: Every Thursday, on L5R.com, from Nov 3 to Dec 29

Thank You for your continued support.

Nicolas Bongiu
L5R Brand Manager

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