Design Diaries: Onyx Remastered:
Masatari Sensei - Crab Commanders

Masatari Sensei was designed for the Crab Commander theme which had been decided on for Onyx Edition back in 2015. The original version of the sensei had a taste of the use of Courage Followers, but in a more limited fashion (Force bonuses). It also had a sensible Force cap on non-Commander Personalities, which evoked the old Masagaro Sensei from Lotus Edition. Masatari was seen as vanilla and not very enticing, especially with multiple other sensei in the environment with kill or bow actions.

When I was brought onto Design, I retooled it to the version many would be familiar with, which involved removing Courage Followers in the discard pile from the game to use Courage on a Fear action. My concept of the retooled Masatari (not very different from the current, final Masatari), was that the Crab Clan would use all of its available resources, "to the last man," as it were. It also received the "bow a Follower for Fear = Force" action, which is not by itself interesting, but that Fear can be augmented with Courage, using Followers from hand or discard pile, and it gives an equivalent Force penalty to the target if the Follower you bow is Courage. This helps reduce the Force of larger targets, and makes straighten less good on smaller targets, since the target's Force is penalized. This represents the work of those Followers whittling down the opposing forces to a manageable size, not being helpless against huge opponents.

Due to hard character limits on the cards designed for print, the Force cap removed the "non-Commander" clause at this time; we received feedback during current playtesting that this was a "feels bad" limitation on the sensei. In digital form, we are less constrained, so the non-Commander clause from the alpha version of the sensei has been restored. You can run non-Commander utility Personalities in the deck, but it is considered primarily a Commander theme. We also received feedback that the support for the sensei was lackluster, especially as regards the ability to straighten Followers bowed for its action. Several cards changed upon reviewing the Courage Follower suite between Rise of Jigoku and Rise of Otosan Uchi; in the Onyx base set, both Hida Toranosuke XP2 (the theme's main Unique Personality) and Hida Kisada XP2 (Clan Champion) were changed.

Hiruma Tensin XP (Road to Ruin) is worth highlighting as pure support for the theme. His Ranged Attack action sometimes causes people to pause and re-read the card; the effect is that he can bow himself for a single Ranged 3, or bow his Follower for a number of consecutive Ranged Attacks equal to the Follower's Force, with total strength of 3. This means you could bow a 2F Follower for RA1/RA2 or RA0/RA3, or bow a 3F Follower for three RA1 or any other qualifying combination. His ability can even be used, as many such in the RtR expansion, to knock many 0F Followers off the board in a single action by bowing a large enough Follower. It also has the built-in straighten if the Follower is Courage, making it less of an even-trade proposition.

Levied Refugees (RtR) was changed considerably from an earlier version. Several Courage Followers had very similar text, which we retooled and reshuffled; the original ability on Levied Refugees was moved to a different card. Conceptually, the card represents the idea that there are always refugees to draw on, thus its "eternal" nature, especially in a Masatari deck. It also gets some additional protection support. You can use its Interrupt on a Ranged or Melee Attack, banish it with the sensei for Courage, and return it to your hand face-up, allowing you to use its Honesty ability to attach it again in battle. It is a versatile card which allows considerable flexibility in battles.

Finally, the text on Masatari Sensei was re-templated. We had decided to formally bring back "banish" in lieu of "remove from the game," saving space in card text; additionally, the templating on Courage (and other similar) actions would now universally refer to the "rulebook Courage ability".