Exclusive look at cards from the upcoming L5R Coils of Madness set

Coils of Madness, the new set for the Legend of the Five Rings CCG is coming soon and additional card previews can be seen at www.l5r.com.

Overview

The Coils of Madness expansion starts concluding the Emperor Edition story and tournament arcs and opens the door to the new Ivory Edition tournament arc coming next year. Coils of Madness is AEG’s first ever Direct to Retailer expansion, a product model that allows players to purchase an entire set at once from their favorite brick and mortar gaming stores. Although a smaller expansion, Coils of Madness has a heavy focused story tied to the events surrounding the return of the mad dragon P’an Ku to Rokugan. Creating a raving army of corrupted samurai known as The Fallen, P’an Ku seeks to sow discord and chaos through the Empire.

These new cards all give us a lot to look at. From the wax seal treatment newly given to the tournament legality icons to the stylized red ink swirls that adorn the usually solid black card boarders, the cards of Coils of Madness certainly stand apart from the Legend of the Five Rings cards we already know and love. Today we get to look at eight preview cards for the expansion centered on two themes, the corrupt Dark Naga and the enigmatic Koan.

The Dark Naga

A large and high impact Personality who first made its appearance in the Forgotten Legacy expansion at the start of the Emperor story arc, we see how its trials against the Empire has shaped this beast. Its new card version has forgone the self-protecting Reaction in favor of an ability that allows it to recruit more Nonhuman Followers to its cause. In addition, we get to see two of the new visual mechanics being introduced in Ivory Edition in the appearance of the Gold Cost and Bowing icons found within the card’s abilities. Designed to clean up card text by allowing the omission of clunky wordings, these icons will be seen on numerous cards going forward.

The Shakash

Another returning Naga Personality, The Shakash shows us another of the new machanics in Coils of Madness – the Home action keyword. Another standardization to cut down on wordy abilities, the Home designator always tells the player that the action may be used during a battle even if this Personality is at the Home location. Also showcased on The Shakash, is the small tweaking of the Keyword order on the Personality card. With The Shakash, the first three keywords look like the familiar Keywords we’ve seen in previous expansions, but the last three are highlighted with a bold typeface, indicating they carry additional significance that can be found within the rulebook.

Asp Skirmisher

One of the Dark Naga’s rank and file, the Skirmisher gives us a look at a new Keyword that has rules associated with it. An Expendable card allows it’s controller to draw a card after it is destroyed, generating a small amount of card advantage to make up for it’s fairly small stat line. Giving new Keywords some mechanical benefits looks to breathe new life in to the game, while still maintaining the high levels of flavor expected by its player base.

Koan’s Equipment

The final previews are all related to a Personality we have yet to meet; Koan. Not much can be gathered about this man other than he is a complete mystery. All these cards share the same new keyword, Koan, and they all grow more powerful the more of them you have in play. This culminates in Koan’s Whisper being able to destroy an entire Province should to manage to get them all into play. However, being all Unique cards, it will be quite the feat to assemble them all over the course of the game, but certainly a rare treat for the player who manages to do so.

Useful by themselves even when not combined together, it will be interesting to see not only how these cards are used in decks, but also how the mystery of their owner unfolds within the story itself.