Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) is a complicated game with an impressive history. Over the years the players have built up quite a large vocabulary of acronyms and nicknames. The most common ones can be found here.
Aggro – Short for aggressive, usually referring to a deck type or play style heavily focused on directly attacking your opponent’s resources, rather than focusing on building up your own.
Air - Usually refers to the Ring of Air, also an Elemental keyword most often found on Shugenja.
Arc- Another word for Edition, Celestial Edition is an example of an arc. It usually means a period for which a particular Base Set is legal, but can also refer to the storyline of that Edition.
Auto-loss – A very bad matchup for a deck, one it’s only likely to win if your opponent is particularly unskilled or (more likely) unlucky.
Blitz – Decks that focus on winning the game as quickly as possible, usually to the exclusion of defensive cards.
Bleed – A dishonour deck that focuses on numerous small loses.
Bomb – An honour or dishonour deck that focuses on large gains or losses, designed to win the game in one swoop.
Bottom-out – To win by dishonour by putting your opponent below -19 “I played the last card in my hand and bottomed him out for the win”
Bounce – When an attacking army is unopposed at battle resolution but doesn’t take the province and just goes home bowed. Often accompanied by a humorous “Boing” sound from the Defender.
Box- Stronghold. Holdover from a time when Strongholds were also printed on the back of the starter box.
Boxable- a Personality that can be paid for with just the Stronghold e.g. a 6 gold or lower cost Personality for Scorpion.
Breeder – A deck that utilises high numbers of “created” Personalities from cards like the Spider Stronghold Fields of the Dead.
Broken – A card considered to be too powerful, to the extent it could deform the environment. An overused phrase.
Cav – Cavalry
Cross, to cross – When an Honour deck goes to 40 honour or above “He gained the last 3 honour he needed to cross and I couldn’t take all his Provinces.”
Cycle - To draw a card and then discard one, or vice versa, such that at the end of the action your hand size hasn’t increased, though hopefully the quality of cards has. Most commonly seen with the Imperial Favour.
Drop (a card) – To put a card into play, usually from the Fate deck. Most often refers to Rings “I dropped Ring of Water and then moved my peep home as my next action”.
Direct-to-player set – A set that AEG distributes directly, rather than through shops. It contains the full set (1x Uniques, 3x non-Uniques), and normally comes with non-card extras, like Folders to hold cards, or Fiction booklets.
Earth – Usually refers to the Ring of Earth, also an Elemental keyword most often found on Shugenja.
Fire – Usually refers to the Ring of Fire, also an Elemental keyword most often found on Shugenja.
Fishbowling - Testing a deck against no-one, to see how it works and get a feel for the flow of the deck.
Flavour – related to the storyline. Can refer to the italics text at the bottom of a card (Flavour Text), or traits on cards
“Game/Gamed” – When referring to something that occurred in a game it usually means Game of Sincerity e.g. “The best way to deal with Kuon is to Game him”.
Harpoon – Something that forces an enemy personality into battle i.e Matsu Kasei
Kotei – Annual tournament series, held all over the world. The winner of each Kotei gets automatic qualification to either Gencon or the European Championship that year.
Mag – Magistrate.
Meta – Cards that are in your deck to help out against specific matchups e.g. War of Dark Fire for when you face Honour decks.
Mirror – A match between two players of the same clan, or same deck types i.e. Spider vs Spider or Dishonour vs Dishonour.
Naked – A deck that runs with no attachments, to ensure it can make more Personalities.
Negative Play Experience – A phrase that originally referred to a deck type or play style that was so unpleasant to play against people would rather quit the game. At this stage it has devolved to simply mean something an individual dislikes.
Peep – Personality
PK – Personality kill. Usually refers to Action Phase Personality destruction cards, and decks that include a high number of such cards.
RA(x) / R(x)A – Ranged Attack with Strength (x)
Sam – Samurai
Shug/Shuggie – Shugenja
Swarm – A deck style that relies on multiple Personalities, usually small, cheap ones. Examples are Crab Scouts and Spider Breeder.
Swing – To declare an attack “I swung for his last Province”
Switch – A deck with multiple victory conditions, most commonly referring to Military/Honour decks like Lion Paragons or Unicorn Battle Maidens.
Tac – Tactician
Tainted – A card with the Shadowlands trait, or a non-Shadowlands/Spider deck that includes a high number of such cards.
Turtle – To go on the defensive, usually focusing on saving a single Province.
Unplayable – A card considered to be particularly bad and not worth a slot in any competitive deck.
Void - Usually refers to the Ring of the Void, also an Elemental keyword most often found on Shugenja.
Voltron – A unit with a high number of attachments, with the goal of allowing it to defeat entire armies by itself. Most commonly seen in Shugenja decks.
Water – Usually refers to the Ring of Water, also an Elemental keyword most often found on Shugenja.
7FP – Seven Fold Palace, Crane Stronghold
AV – Aramasu’s Vengeance, Mantis Stronghold
BH – Bamboo Harvester
BK – Border Keep
CC – Central Castle, Lion Stronghold
CE - Celestial Edition
CoT – City of Tears, Phoenix Stronghold
DGC – Dragon Guard City, Mantis Stronghold
DOoF – Dark Oracle of Fire
EE - Emperor Edition
FoB – Fingers of Bone, Spider Stronghold
GC – Gold Cost
HMD – Hidden Moon Dojo, Scorpion Stronghold
HR – Honour Requirement
JEV – Justly Earned Victory
LSC – Last Step Castle, Dragon Stronghold
PoCS – Palace of Crimson Shadows, Scorpion Stronghold
PoV – Pillars of Virtue, Dragon Stronghold
RoA – Ring of Air
RoE – Ring of Earth
RoF – Ring of Fire
RotV – Ring of the Void
RoW – Ring of Water
RSB – Rising Sun Blade
SFP – Seven Fold Palace, Crane Stronghold
SH - Stronghold
SoC – Shrine of Champions, Phoenix Stronghold
SSK – Seven Stings Keep, Scorpion Stronghold
TKM – Tetsu Kama Mine aka “that other Dragon stronghold”
TLO – The Last One
TST – Twin Soul Temple, Phoenix Stronghold