The Crab

by Zen Faulkes
Rules Junta and Archivist

It all started in the fall of 1995 when I was flipping through Brian Snoddy’s portfolio and saw a painting of a samurai woman in armor carrying an enormous war hammer.

I fell in love then.

And when Brian described her as a “Crab Champion,” that made it that much sweeter, because I was doing my doctoral research in biology on crabs. I got my first Crab starter deck for Christmas, and I quickly joined the Imperial Assembly and swore fealty to the Clan of the Crab. Long months of waiting later, I finally got my first copy of Hida O-Ushi - the woman I had seen in the portfolio - in the Shadowlands expansion. Later, I started the first L5R fan club for her. What can I say? Love makes you geeky.

Hida O-Ushi

Back in those early days, Crab, like many other clans, explored a variety of themes. They were designed as masters of defense, but berserkers were part of the clan at the beginning, too. And cards like the Crab Clan Oni made Crab the original “evil” clan. When early ads for L5R foretold, “One clan will fall, and one clan will be redeemed,” everyone - including the designers themselves - thought that Crab would be the clan to fall. But after Fu Leng shoved the imperial sword through the gut of Hida Kisada, the Crab Champion (GenCon 1996 and Anvil of Despair), many Crab players started turning away from Shadowlands cards. Meanwhile, Phoenix players by the cartload were corrupting Dragons for victory. And so it was that fate was changed.

Crab oni remained the clan’s strongest deck right up until the end of the first story arc. But by the Day of Thunder tournament (where I had the good fortune and honor to represent Crab in the top 32), Crab turned away from that temptation for a long time. Of course, it helped that the Crab stronghold literally couldn’t use Shadowlands cards!

Other themes for Crab were explored over the years. Gold Edition refocused Crab to take advantage of followers, and the Yu trait was introduced. Early in Diamond Edition, there was some flirting with discarding as a theme. In Lotus Edition, Heroic actions were added to an already busy mix. A lot of these ideas never quite gelled mechanically, although high force berserkers were always in style. Personally, I felt it took a while for design to hit upon something that made sense for the Crab both thematically and mechanically. Instead of focusing on Crabs’ skill in defending their provinces, the emphasis shifted to Crab Personalities’ abilities to defend themselves, exemplified by the “hard to kill” Hida Daizu and Hida Sozen.

New Crab Samurai-ko Coming in SE

What will it be like to play Crab in Samurai Edition? Expect berserkers. High force, low chi Personalities will probably remain as staples of Crab military decks. There are already three berserkers in Khan’s Defiance, so the tradition started by Hida Amoro in Imperial Edition is off to a good start for Samurai Edition. Expect that it’ll be tough to hurt some of those Crab Personalities. Hida Yaheiko exemplifies that with a great ability that stops her from dying. The Hero trait and Heroic actions will continue be a clan specialty, but you’re probably not going to see many Personalities with the Yu trait. While the idea of “take you with me,” fit a lot of Crab themes, it seemed to make too little difference to the outcome of games on its own. Plus, we will no longer have to read lots of deck names that make bad Yu puns.

Hopefully, playing Crab in Samurai Edition will be a lot of fun. Particularly if your idea of fun is to hit things with a big, honkin’ stick.

HIDA!