We have begun our journey this year down the Road to 10,000, and we want you, the L5R community, to join us!

This year, we are excited to be reaching a massive milestone for L5R – our 10,000th individual card! Throughout the year we will be focusing on this and it will lead up to an event no one wants to miss!

To start with, we are giving away Emperor Edition Starter Decks through a special Facebook contest early to you, our faithful customers! From now, February 1st until February 9th (that includes weekends!), we are holding a daily Facebook giveaway. For the next 9 days, you will have a chance to win an EE Starter for free, and possibly more! How do you participate? It’s really quite easy:

Go to the L5R Facebook page

Click the ‘Like’ button at the top of the page. Every single one counts!

Share the comment with your friends.

Then leave a comment on the daily question.

What is the daily question? Each day, there will be a post asking you a question – what is your favorite clan, favorite card, what’s the best flavor text. All you have to do, is leave an answer in that post, and then we will select one lucky winner each day who has answered the daily question at random. Then, all that person has to do is send their Name, Address and Imperial Assembly membership number (if applicable) to events@alderac.com and they will be mailed their FREE Emperor Edition Starter Deck.

But that’s not all. We are celebrating our 10,000th card, and we are beyond excited for this – so we’re going to up the ante for this contest.

As of this posting, the Facebook page is at 7,259 ‘Likes’. We want 10,000. Or even more! So here’s what we’re going to do:

For each denomination of 100 that we hit (so 7,300, and then 7,400, etc.) during this contest, we will be giving away one additional starter to another winner who has left a comment on the daily question on the day we reach that milestone.

And to give you all a little extra incentive to join in – if, by February 9th, at 11:5p PM PST, we reach 8,000 or more  ’Likes’ on the L5R Facebook page, one lucky winner will receive an entire box of Starter Decks. That’s 1 of each Clan, shipped to you free of charge, for joining us on the Road to 10,000!

This contest is only from February 1st, 2012 until February 9th, 2012 at 11:59 PM PST. So get over to our Facebook page, tell your friends, and show the world the love you have for this game that brings us all together!

Daniel Briscoe
L5R Events Manager

In today’s Focus on Emperor Edition, I am going to talk to you about the contents of the starter decks.

As discussed in previous articles, every starter will come with a fully functioning 40/40 deck, so I won’t bother you with that information again. Instead, let’s talk about everything else besides the 40/40 deck, four random rares, and three booster packs you will get in every starter. Some of this has been mentioned before, but will also be discussed here for completeness’ sake.

As you are probably aware, we are focusing on making Emperor Edition a premium product in where we overload you with cool components to give you a truly amazing product. Every aspect has been improved, including the packaging. Every individual starter deck will be covered with your favorite clan’s colors and artwork. Sized to hold a deck comfortably, this will be a great way to carry your deck around.

• Bio cards – When you open the box, you will notice several cards beyond those included in the deck. First we have the Bio cards, a brief description of each of the characters found in the deck. Now you can instantly find out about the characters that you are playing with.

• Koku – Each starter deck will contain a card worth 5 koku, instead of the standard 4.

• Experienced your favorite personality – Just for buying a starter deck, you can impact the story! Each starter deck will contain a card titled “Experience a Personality”. Upon purchase of your starter deck, you will have the option to mail this card, along with your favorite of the 8 non-Champion bio cards found in your starter deck to AEG. The personality whose bio card is most sent in, once for each clan, will receive an experienced version in a future expansion. All envelopes must be postmarked by April 30^th, 2012 to be counted.

• Collect Glory for your clan – As mentioned in a previous article, we spoke of collectible cards that can be traded in for full bleed versions of Clan Champions, Strongholds, and Rings. These cards come in two forms: “Glory of the X Clan” cards and “Ring” cards, which is simply titled as one of the five elements. You can collect three “Glory” cards of a particular clan and trade them in for one fullbleed stronghold of that clan (i.e. you may trade in three Glory of the Crab cards for any one of the Crab strongholds). Or, if you collect one of each clan, you can trade all nine in for any one Clan Champion you choose. If you collect three of any particular “Ring” collectible card, you can trade them in for a fullbleed version of that ring (i.e. you may trade in three Air cards for a fullbleed Ring of Air). If you collect one of each of the “Ring” collectible cards, you may trade them in for any one of the kanji rings of your choice. Each starter deck comes with two of the Glory cards, appropriate to that starter deck, to get you started towards getting your exclusive fullbleed cards. In tournaments, in order to use any of these cards, you must have access to the correct text for your opponent to read, if they so choose.

For all Redemption Cards, please include a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope along with your cards.

• Tokens – Each starter deck is also going to come with six token sheets, generally themed to that clan. Each of these sheets have six punch out tokens that can be used to track various permanent changes in the game. Force bonuses, Wealth tokens, Sake tokens, Poison tokens (you will notice that Poison tokens are –1F/–1C), and other various tokens. These should be helpful in differentiating the different types of tokens various decks can access.

That is all for this article. We hope you will enjoy these extra features we have added. It is only one of the many ways we have upgraded our product to give you the best experience we possibly can.

However, the deck creates a very Negative Play Experience, a term I do not use lightly, often times never allowing your opponent to buy a single personality. And even though the deck is not likely to ever win a tournament, when it is unleashed on the unsuspecting or the casual player, it is enough to make them possibly want to quit the game, which is bad for everyone. In other words, it may not make the cut at a tournament, and if it does it likely will not make it very far into the elimination rounds, but it can be very devastating to the experience of those at the middle and lower end tables. L5R has always been very concerned with the experience all players have at a tournament, not just those who make the elimination rounds.

So with this I have decided to issue erratum to Raido no Oni. Effective immediately, the following trait will be added to Raido.

Will only enter play from a province.

We hope this erratum will get Emperor back on course where we want it to be, and we look forward to having the most successful arc in L5R’s history!

Daniel Briscoe
L5R Events Manager

Many people have asked, will they be able to run the release events after the listed dates. The answer is yes – beginning on the specified weekends, stores will be able to run their release events at their discretion. This means if your local store has players in on the following Tuesday, you can run your event then. They simply cannot begin running events until the specified dates.

We want to reward the hard work of our players and the dedication of our retail stores – despite the Emperor Edition delay, we have worked very hard to get this product into stores across the world in as timely a fashion as able. Realize that some places take longer to ship product to than others, and AEG feels that this release schedule will get product into the player’s hands as fast as we possibly can. There has been a slight misconception with the pre-release, and some players have gotten the idea that AEG has intentionally delayed Emperor Edition to allow Stronghold Stores the pre-release opportunity. What happened was the product was delayed until late February, but we were able to get enough product early to supply our stores, an opportunity we are using to support our Stronghold Stores with the pre-release program. The pre-release program had no effect on the full release date. We hope you appreciate our efforts and will enjoy getting your cards starting in just a few weeks.

In the mean time, we’ve offered you Kolat Edition – a way for you to practice, generate excitement, and transition into the Emperor Edition arc. Despite the name and what Master Tiger will tell you, please know that you do not actually need to claim any loyalty to the Kolat in order to play Kolat Edition. We realize that Kotei tournaments begin at the end of February, and while those tournaments currently fall under the window of Kolat Edition legality, every Kotei needs the chance to succeed, and therefore, we are extended the legality of Kolat Edition to the 19^th of March, 2012, which is 30 days after the release of the starter decks to the stores. This way we can make sure that all players are able to get their hands on cards in a timely enough fashion to practice and play with the product before Kotei tournaments, while also making sure that anyone who wants to play at a Kotei event will be able to.

There is going to be a FAQ posted in the forums that will answer questions about Kolat Edition – please refer there for any questions. Allowing our players to play the game for free is not only new territory for us here at AEG, it is new territory for the CCG industry as a whole. We are really excited to bring you both Kolat Edition and Emperor Edition, and your patience with the delays is appreciated more than we could possibly ever tell you. Thank you all for your continued support as we bring in this new era for L5R, one in which every aspect of the game has been revitalized to bring you the best experience possible.

The L5R Team

Hello and welcome to the New Year. I hope you enjoyed yourself at the festivities and I am glad they brought you to the new year safe, perhaps with only a slight headache from too much sake.

As you are aware, there have been some setbacks in the latest product, Emperor Edition, that even the Divine Child could not foresee. Her Grace now has dates for this new product. Emperor Edition is to release in three phases. First, the Empress shall release the booster packs for pre-release to Stronghold Stores only. This pre-release event will take place starting January 27^th and ending January 29^th. Each store may run one release event for its local Rokugani, the format of which they play must be draft. There will be a special promotional card for the participants of this pre-release, and the event will be part of a storyline tournament that all the people of Rokugan may participate in. The local organizer has until February 16^th to turn in the results of the tournament.

Starting February 17^th and continuing until February 19^th, there will be a pre-release event for the starter decks, which once again will be for Stronghold Stores only to participate in. There shall be a second storyline tournament for this event, and this time the format must be sealed deck. There will be a different participation promo for this event. Emperor Edition in its entirety shall then release on February 27^th. Stronghold Stores, and Stronghold Stores only, may begin selling Emperor Edition in their stores, starting with the above pre-release dates.

The Empress is aware that perhaps these dates are further away than you might have expected, and so she, in her infinite wisdom, has decided to add an extra  compensation for her people of Rokugan. Since taking over the position of Imperial Treasurer, Ritisharu-sama, I am sure you have studied the past history of Rokugan’s financial aspects. In doing so, you have likely noticed that in prior base sets, each booster pack contains 10 common cards, 4 uncommon cards, and 1 rare card. Empress Iweko the First has decided to bless us with a different distribution level in Emperor Edition. In Emperor, each booster pack shall contain 9 common cards, 5 uncommon cards, and 1 rare card, plus the premium card mentioned in a prior missive. I am sure you will find this new distribution to your liking, and Her Grace hopes that it will help with any hurt feelings from the delays.

Miya Masatsuko
Imperial Herald

P.S. I have also attached a letter which was confiscated by our of our Imperial Legionnaires. He believes the man he took it from allies himself with the so-called organization of the Kolat. We have as of yet been unable to decipher it.

Ztvmg,

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