Duel/Meta

CCG Information
From the Lotus Edition Rulebook:


 * A duel is a test of personal combat, often to the death, between two Personalities. Every duel begins with a challenge. Challenges may normally be refused without penalty. If (and after) a challenge is accepted, a duel begins.

Chi is the value most often compared in a duel, although duels of force and personal honor are not unknown. Duelling is often used as a form of control in many, if not most, honor decks as it often gives the winner of the duel honor, card draw and a reliable form of keeping your opponent's personalities down (i.e. dead, bowed etc.) Refusal of a duel often dishonors a personality as an additional cost; many duels are irrefusable, however.

Honor Bombs
In the mid-Diamond enviroment, a dorminant decktype was the Crane Kenshinzen honor bomb out of the stronghold, Kakita Duelling Academy (KDA), where it was possible for the player to gain 20 or more honor in one single turn. The deck was built around Iaijutsu Challenge, Kakita Tamura and other so-called "chi bullying" that ensured the Crane player won the duel.

The KDA honor bomb was often quoted by many players as an example of how duelling decks were supposedly non-interactive, as it was extremely frustrating to play against: there was little a military deck could do to halt the progress of the honor bomb, seeing how the deck almost never went into combat. To rectify this problem, the Double Chi trait was removed from the game and instead replaced with Duelist.

In the current Lotus enviroment, the Shiro Kitsuki (SK) military honor bomb is another popular decktype that uses duelling as a form of control and honor-gain. This deck tends to be built around the event Honor and Glory and various ways of starting battle duels, since the event gave the player 3 honor for merely initiating a duel during battle.

Duelist and Double Chi
Where the Double Chi trait allowed a player to double the focus value of any card he focused, thus almost ensuring that player a win, the Duelist trait merely allows the duelist personality to focus first in any duel he initiates if his Chi is lower or equal to the challenged personality's. The Duelist trait is being printed on far more personalities than the Double Chi trait has ever been, and many argue that this still leads to bully duelling still continues, albeit in a different guise.