The desert is no place for honor or etiquette. In the Burning Sands, only two things count: water and control over some part of the jewel of the Desert Medinaat al Salaam. The game play and winning strategies reflect this pretty well. I will discuss the techniques you can use to make this happen and how some of the Factions perform in relation to these techniques.

The LBS TCG has an ever-diminishing resource that alters the pace of the game as players use it: Water. Remember when building a deck that some Factions actually become stronger as Water dries up, even when they fall way behind in the overall Water balance.

Two strong archetypes are the Raiding deck and the Drought deck. They become strong as Water decreases because their real strength lies in their focus on moving the Water around. With less Water in play, they can move a higher percentage of it around. They can move Water from your side of the table to theirs and repeatedly create scenarios in which your Military deck effectively destroys its own Water. They very often focus on defensive cards and/or Hero elimination through duels or Battle Action cards, which tend to kick in better when the attacking player has fewer options.

Hero destruction in the LBS TCG is much more significant than Personality destruction in the L5R TCG, mainly because the majority of Heroes cost Water. This means that each time you bring one into play, you pay an irretrievable cost, and you lose your investment when you lose the Hero. Secondly, because the combat system has built-in attrition, each Hero in play tends to reflect a larger part of your resources.

The loss of Water grows more significant the faster the deck. A fast Senpet Jinn or Dahab Anarchy (gorillas and Undead) deck can classically bludgeon its way past a Moto Raider, jackal/Alliance Drought or Assassin Dueling deck. The faster Military decks burn their Water to achieve speed, often buying Heroes that cost almost as much in Water as they destroy with one attack. After early losses, the more control-oriented decks seek to turn that into a weakness as they eliminate these Heroes before or after a single attack. They then steal yet more Water, gradually depriving the Military deck of key people.

The control decks can struggle against the slower, more defensive, Water-conscious Military. Factions like the Ashalan, Ebonite, and Ivory Kingdoms all have access to a good number of very effective mid-range, high-Strength Heroes. They all achieve their objectives differently, however. The Ashalan conserve their Water at source but do not have quite the beef that the other two have. They use less Water to buy their people and have some devastating "Stronghold plus a Holding" Heroes, making them slightly quicker. The Ebonites conserve their Water by using it to absorb more damage before its destruction. The Kingdoms can use the precision of Archery and a little dueling to supplement their own high-Strength people.

The other standard victory condition is the Story Victory. This is in some ways analogous to an L511 Enlightenment Victory, but the player looks to play 5 Points worth of Stories chosen from a broad range of Story cards. This means that you can't always predict a Story deck, as you never know which 5 Points worth of Stories your opponent wants to play. The Qabal Faction and the Assassins can both make interesting and effective Story decks, though a Story Victory is the most difficult to achieve.

These are my key principles to improved play, whatever style you choose:

The number, and Fate value, of cards in your hand can be at least as important as the Heroes on the table. During discards, I have kept cards useless for anything but their Fate values instead of cards whose actions I might have used, and had it pay off.

You can destroy City Sections and reduce your opponent's hand size most effectively early in the game rather than late, when both players have depleted hands. Remember this when creating your deck.

It is often good to build decks that interfere with an opponent's strategy rather than just focus on your own goals. For example, every non-Jinn deck should probably include the Brass Lamp Jinn-destruction card. Even against non-Jinn decks its Fate value of 4 finds uses.

The order that you play actions is absolutely critical. With the alternate-action turn structure, attacks could come at any point, and you have to be ready for them. I have seen games won and lost because people hesitated to attack, thus giving their opponent the chance to play another Hero-or because someone played an action before putting that crucial defender on the table.

More than any other game I have seen, the balance of power in the LBS TCG can shift. Within two or three turns, I have gone from certainty that I would win to a position of disadvantage. In the finals of Gen Con U. S. and U. K. Military decks hit me hard early. I won one final and lost one, both with the very tightest of finishes. Look for that opportunity to turn the tables, and when it comes, choose your timing well!

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