New rules updates coming soon folks!
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Despite the balance cases i also find this change highly thematic. Explaining to a new player why he could wear 3 hats or bandanas always seemed a bit awkward.
Thanks for continuing to make a great and thematic game even better 
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Clearly my deck at Origins was too powerful, and required immediate response from the rules crew.
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So when are Blessed ,Hucksters and Shammys going to be limited to one spell ? And deeds can only attach one totem ?
Suspect we’ll be spared that! Early classic Legend of the Five Rings limited the number of spells a Shugenja could attach to no more than their “Chi” statistic. While flavourful this proved to be superflous most of the time.
EW attire decks are slight collateral damage from this, but I think the net benefits to balance outweigh this. Hoping some of those decks are still able to survive and thrive spreading attire around. Or perhaps we’ll see future EW Outfits/Legends/Dudes that let you attach extra attire cards?
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While I think it would be awesome for the EW attire deck to get some love( as it is pretty much unplayable in any competitive field with this rules change ) I agree that stacking cards on guys can create power imbalance on the board state what I don’t understand is why is okay for casters ? Thematically speaking if a spell is booted with its use that represents the physical toll it took on the caster ? So when I soul blast someone and it boots the spell my dude is to tuckered out to cast it again . That is unless I went to Soul blasts R Us then I can do it up to four times and while that’s the way it is I don’t find it thematic in the same way it is dumb to wear 4 hats perhaps if spells where limit one per title per dude it would make more sense to me .
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Not design team, but for spells you are paying a slight premium for a dude’s Shaman/Blessed/Huckster skill as part of their cost. The below summarises how I’ve always felt things are, and indeed, should be:
- Normal attachments can be attached to anyone, and therefore should be slightly weaker.
- Spells can only be attached to skilled dudes and have a pull requirement, and therefore should be slightly stronger.
Going after a spell casting deck’s skilled dudes is often a good strategy, as it makes them more vulnerable to Unprepared/Pistol Whip etc and can even leave them with dead cards in their hand. It lets people manage risk/reward too: some people wisely play multiple skilled dudes and spread things around, while I’m more of a “high risk, high reward” type and will often start just a single skilled dude.
I think the “tuckering out” (nice turn of phrase) comes through in booting a dude rather than their spell, so Ace in the Hole is perhaps a better example here? I’d like to see more powerful spell effects that require the caster to boot.
Thematically: would extra copies of a spell represent having more power points to be able to cast it more times? Or having mastered a particular spell? 
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Bizarrely enough this change actually makes me want to give an EW Attire deck a go.
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By all means Doomdog make a Wardens Attire deck I am pretty sure with you at the helm you could probably do fairly well with it in a competitive environment ( as you are pretty great at this game) I know that the EW are moving away from the attire theme , they haven’t gotten any support for it in 4 or 5 sets . As a average player and as someone who organizes a play group these large changes are hard to weather ,they are kind of sweeping and sudden . I guess I am frustrated but the support for themes I hate or I feel are bad for the community ( i am looking at you conditions decks)
This is off course important to remember, both for design but also as players. It’s not everyone that always seeks the most competitive deck.
But you should be happy with the newly spoiled Curse of Failure then. That’ll give some juice to condition decks 
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I’m sorry the change is a source of frustration, hoping the slight cost to some themes is outweighed by the overall gain. I think EW attire can hopefully even survive: successful attire decks seem to often have c8 pieces of attire, so spreading these around five starting dudes should work well.
Given your credible performance with what some might dismiss as a gimmick deck I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself.
Which themes would you like to see more of/less of? It may even be that this change frees design to do more with EW attire.
I’ll confess I didn’t find the change sweeping/sudden (appreciate perspectives can differ and this was a theme you’re fond of): I was pleased the decision was explained and a month’s warning was given, but keen to learn what can be done better next time: as Pinebox note the change was proactive, but can understand a desire to wait for tournament results to drive a change (for example). 
@Benni - I think Will is frustrated at Conditions being supported, rather than pleased. Apologies if I’ve misread one/both of you.
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If anything I think this opens up design space for Eagle Wardens attire. I can see future dudes/outfits/goods having traits which allow you to attach multiple attires (think hydro puncher and Jack O’hara).
In a non tournament environment these kind of changes are less important. If your group for casual play wants to keep using cards as they are actually written rather than trying to rember what Nic or Hot lead flying actual does no one is going to object.
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Thinking about it, my old Warden Attire deck only ran 6 attires - 4 Hats, and 2 Sunday Best - and I didn’t tend to stack things on the same dude, eg it made sense to gve both Enapay amd Wei Xu a hat each so I’d have two dudes that could boost Zachary up to 4 stud (I wouldn’t want to play all 4 hearts of one of my values either), while Henry Moran got the Sunday Best so I could move him somewhere even if his trait fired.
When The Spiritual Society is released, I’m thinking Danny Wilde with a Fancy Hat and Idol of Tlazolteotl/Bethany Shiile/some other inf boost casting Foreboding Glances at dudes in town square sounds like the sort of combo Chess Eagles could utilise as part of a larger strategy.
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Oh themes I would like to see more of in no particular order
- Law dogs " don’t you dare cheat" Sheriff Waters being the 1st card added to this theme is great news
- 108 Abombs ( which I know will have skill checks)
- Morgan " Pay me " theme ( flamethrower and Remy Lillian Morgan James free money Getty )
4 Anyone other than 4th ring having conditions maybe Morgan guys who are intentionally infecting things or plague shamans theme wise
I feel gameplay wise one of the biggest challenges for new players is deck Construction and skill checks ( this being doubled with constructing a deck that also has skill checks) so I am in favor of making themes that don’t rely heavily on skills .
I understand that for casual play we could play as however we please but for my play group every time we meet up is preparation for competitive play. I believe my playgroup had the largest showing of any play group in last year’s gencon . Oh this post is getting long gonna have to break this up…
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sorry had to work some back too it .
I see the Term “free up design space” used my than a few times in this thread and it’s use kinda confuses me a little . There are only so many card slots in a expansion right ? It was used a lot for when spirit fortress was nerfed and I don’t see how the new cards that have been spoiled come from a “freed up to design space.” So maybe I don’t understand what it means at all .
I feel like the announcement was sudden but if I was more involved with the discord it wouldn’t have nothing I read about the tournaments of late would have suggested attire cards where a problem if game balance. No design Diaries were posted about the issue, and if I am being honest I am a little angry because I already filmed the part about attire in my learn to play video and now I have to refilm the entire section about attachments . ( the line you can have a hat and boots was used lol)
Now I agree it is stupid to wear 4 fancy hats but I think it is just as stupid in my mind to have 4 swords of spirit
Example
" hello God it’s me Abram please make my sword real sharp"
Next action
" hello God it’s me Abram again uhhhh I ment really really sharp"
Next action
" seriously God do I have to do this again can’t just make it as sharp as possible…"
Next action
" okay I am just gonna worship Satan he could do this in just one action …"
I don’t mean to be negative and thank you for reading my long rant anyway I will stop complaining
Incoming long post: TLDR Attire rule change is good, rationale is questionable, play more Base Set cards and cheap influence. Also a note for Will to address his implied question about “design space”.
I think this rules change is good for the game and doesn’t negatively impact much of anything. I do like that it brings Attire in line with Weapon and Horse, it probably should have always been this way. However, I do have concerns with the way this article discusses the rationale for the change. I get that these changes are made to improve new player experience, but these interactions will not go away with this rules change. They will just be slightly less consistent. If Puppet or Decimator Array are problematic, those cards need to be addressed directly. Personally I don’t think either of the examples presented are actually problematic, these are incredibly resource heavy and time intensive combos that can be disrupted by standard interaction (jobs, attachment hate, hand rank counter tech, send home, etc.). The Attire rule makes sense, and if it helps deal with problems indirectly that is great, but as presented it sure looks like design is taking sweeping actions after seeing some complaints about three card combos that can be unfun against decks that don’t have any way to interact with them because people refuse to play interaction in their lists.
In all honesty, if a list doesn’t have a way to deal with attachments, hand rank manipulations, or extremely telegraphed chess plays that deck wasn’t going to do well against many popular decks. This reminds me of when people complained about dudes and deeds every week: the problem isn’t the deck type, it’s people refusing to be prepared to play around it. It is just as unfun to lose to multiple turn 1 jobs, or to being unable to stop a landslide, or to getting Blood Cursed into oblivion, as it is to have one of these wonky combos fire on you. The answer to all of these is to play more interaction, more influence, and manage your resource economy better. These are important lessons for all players to learn, especially new players.
@Will What they are talking about in “freeing up design space” is that more options now exist for the design team, not that there will be more cards printed. Before the Attire rules change, any new Attire or cards that interact with Attire would have to be designed in such a way that there wouldn’t be any balance problems if they were equipped with other Attire on the same dude. Now that isn’t an issue, because a dude can only have one Attire. The term was also thrown around a lot with the Showboating ban and the Nicodemus errata because those cards constricted design space. Any card that altered skill checks, had a high value and a low skill check, had an effect when pulled, or had a high skill rating had a potential to be problematic with Showboating. Nicodemus was problematic with effects that gave dudes influence, created token dudes, or made deeds more easily defended. Now the design team has more room to explore those themes without having to worry as much that an effect will be degenerate or oppressive.
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Thank you for the feedback and community discussion everyone! In the last change we included additional points of view from Playtest and Design team, so I have asked DT to respond as well to help provide transparency and further clarity on the change.
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Thanks for the feedback. Dissenting opinions are useful, particularly in cases like this where the general response has been good: important to hear from people the change hasn’t worked so well for.
I’m going to put on my playtest lead hat to answer this bit from the playtest team’s perspective. 
@nash has already given a good general commentary on what “freed up design space” is and I’d like to underline his post. Without taking action on Nicodemus Whateley a significant part of feedback on EW cards from playtest had to consider a card’s impact in Spirit Fortress, a deck that is effective but dull to pilot and play against. Cards that would have otherwise been good for EW and pushed them in a positive, interactive direction suddenly become problematic when examined through a Spirit Fortress prism. Even the EW dudes in the 2T2D video with influence but no income would have been problematic pre Nicodemus’s errata, but now hopefully they help open up broader starting options for EW. Similarly, if Design/Playtest were concerned about attire stacking and felt unable to create new EW dudes with this theme they’ll now be able to do so. Happy to discuss this topic further, appreciate posts don’t always come across clearly and part of Playtest’s job is to communicate, so apologies if “freed up design space” is unhelpful jargon.
My sympathies on the video timing issue too! Looking forward to seeing all the entries - the prize is well worth it. 
That and uh, helping the community too I guess…
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This does leave the possibility of characters like “Two Hats” Lee, who can wear two pieces of attire. (Maybe make it so the two pieces of attire need to be different?)
“He’s wearin’ two hats? That’s somethin’ new. Now, if only he’d see to wearin’ two hats, AND some pants, we’d all be a lot happier.”
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I really should be documenting all these future flavor texts 
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