I love that it is because of players' choice, this feels very much like the good ol' days. My only concern is that the clans each know what the "best" role for them is, and that's all we'll see. So, unless there's a hot new mix of really cool role-locked cards coming out soon, this might actually reduce deck variety. 

Although the game has been out for over 2 years now, it's still in it's infancy.  Freeing the roles is probably a good move and in retrospect probably should have been this way from the beginning.  Role locking never bothered me and I actually think it's a good concept.  Now that we have an idea of how card rotations will work, I suppose that it's not really necessary to lock the roles to facilitate card rotation in absence of new cards.  If new card releases stagnate...…..it could be a problem, but maybe this is a signal that the recent delays are behind us. 
Hopefully this will have the desired effect of encouraging more people to build a wider variety of decks, which I'm guessing will motivate people to play more casual L5R, and in turn, grow the competitive scene when people want to bring their wacky decks to events. 
Now they just need to bring back the Utz! Banzai! chant.

Even if what you say is true, now I can go against the grain and prove that my deck is better (or not!). But having the choice is great! There were events I did not attend this season because I could not play the deck I wanted and that clearly sucked for me. So if even 1 player gets the chance to play what he wants then that is a plus in my book.

I love that it is because of players' choice, this feels very much like the good ol' days. My only concern is that the clans each know what the "best" role for them is, and that's all we'll see. So, unless there's a hot new mix of really cool role-locked cards coming out soon, this might actually reduce deck variety. 

Gateway, Taka, Eager Scout, Yasuki Broker, Talisman of the Sun, Prayers to Ebisu, Vanguard Warrior, Levy. 
https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/15acc716-956a-11e9-804d-22d334ba48b8/view
Well, I faced against it. And it hurt. It took me from 22 honor down to 0 in a single conflict. Every deck I ever make from now on is going to have all the attachment hate and blanking effects I can possibly find. Everyone should play this deck until Gateway to Meido goes on the RL. You know it will.

Honestly I dont understand why meido wasnt made an action. I also dont understand hownit passed playtesting the way it is now

NO the easy fix is make Meido an action.  One use per turn and you've killed the loop without effecting cards that are beneficial to the environment and were meant as a safety valve against dishonor decks that are super powerful right now.

Gateway, Taka, Eager Scout, Yasuki Broker, Talisman of the Sun, Prayers to Ebisu, Vanguard Warrior, Levy. 
https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/15acc716-956a-11e9-804d-22d334ba48b8/view
Well, I faced against it. And it hurt. It took me from 22 honor down to 0 in a single conflict. Every deck I ever make from now on is going to have all the attachment hate and blanking effects I can possibly find. Everyone should play this deck until Gateway to Meido goes on the RL. You know it will.

Gateway, Taka, Eager Scout, Yasuki Broker, Talisman of the Sun, Prayers to Ebisu, Vanguard Warrior, Levy. 
https://fiveringsdb.com/strains/15acc716-956a-11e9-804d-22d334ba48b8/view
Well, I faced against it. And it hurt. It took me from 22 honor down to 0 in a single conflict. Every deck I ever make from now on is going to have all the attachment hate and blanking effects I can possibly find. Everyone should play this deck until Gateway to Meido goes on the RL. You know it will.

Yes and no
It depends on the build you are running.  Inheritance cycle will leave Unicorn with a legitimate swarm build that I believe operates optimally off SS, if you're going for a traditional swarm that can build up over time.  If you're just looking for a go wide aggro blitz, then HMT remains your best option.
The point is that while you will leave yourself open to breaks on the first turn, it really isn't a big deal if you are growing your board, and scouting your opponent's provinces naturally.  This ensures that you start turn 2 having caught up on the fate shortage on turn one and now every turn after you will be ahead.
If it's the big bodies deck then that is going to be a different type of deck with a more difficult task of revealing those opposing provinces.  Likely more defensive and grindy.  The only alternative to playing slow and being behind is playing the cards that help reveal provinces and most of those are bad.
Not exactly.  The FGG swarm deck is playable, and somewhat effective, out of SS, but, it's just missing those final pieces that push it into competitive relevance.  Luckily they are in the Inheritance cycle so we don't have long to wait.
 
Again, if you're playing the traditional FGG swarm deck off SS, you don't really need to defend, because you will have the ability to threaten your opponent's provinces with breaks.  With this deck you can have 3+ (I've had as many as 6 on multiple occasions in testing, 4-5 is most common) characters carry over into turn two with a FGG on turn one.  You should have at least broken one province and flipped at least 2 provinces on turn one, so turn two has you breaking even on fate and in a potential position to threating a military conquest victory if your opponent has a go at you.  If you play back to back turns with FGG then it's pretty much game over, because turn 3 and after you'll have a 3 fate advantage and your board state will just get out of control.  It's another deck that breaks the design philosophy of Mono No Aware, which the game is built around.  It has all indications that it should be legit.  The question will be, "does the meta crack back to a counterspell heavy meta?"  If so, this can be a problem for the deck.
Unicorn has three splashes that should be seriously considered post Inheritance cycle
Dragon - Lion - Crane
Dragon is the premiere Charge based blitz deck (in particular with Toturi……...yes I'm calling my shot and saying my deck is the best version of this style of deck and I'll welcome anyone that wants to debate that with me)  It can be run of both, but, it truly shines off HMT
Lion will again have the FGG swarm deck as an option.  It's great on both and close to as fast as the Dragon splash off HMT, but, the strategies for FGG favor a build up and this favors SS.  It's the premier military swarm build of the future.
Crane is the wild card.  You can play an aggressive aggro/honor switch deck that looks like either of the pure military options and steal honor wins from people who are not prepared.
This variety will pose problems for a lot of people as the decks can look very similar on turn one, and you don't really know what a Unicorn player is going for until that first RL or splash card is played.  By then it could be too late to adapt to what Unicorn is doing.  While it is less a surprise when playing games with decklists, it should help get more Unicorn into the knock out matches and improve their chances to win something.
Until the Inheritance cycle drops, and all the relevant cards are in the mix, Unicorn HMT w/Charge is the best option, and Dragon splash w/Toturi is the best version of that deck...…….and in a few months...………..who knows?
 

I am torn on duels. For those curious - in the old system, each conflict card had a number at the bottom of it. When a duel began, players would place conflict cards into the "focus pool" (or you could do it blind from the top of your deck) and then those numbers on the bottom were added to the duel value to determine winner.
It was clunky (I am leaving out a LOT of details) but I must admit that it felt very much like a duel. I do enjoy how streamlined the new system is, but must admit it doesn't always feel like a duel. The honor wager seems like a good idea in theory, but feels pointless in execution.
I think there's potential in it, but it still feels undercooked as a mechanic.

To be fair, FGG on the RL hit Unicorn just as much as it does Lion.  Unicorn have effectively been on there as long as anyone else.

Castigate IS the kill. Why would you attach this to somebody, allow your opponent the chance to Let Go or whatever, and then drop their Pol? Oh no no, you drop their skill first, then this is the finishing blow. Because you can't counter an attachment.

Also Crab just got a spoiler for another card draw character.  I wonder if slotting that into the current deck would push their dishonor pressure over the edge.  I kinda like this restriction since it makes other splashes more viable in Crab, which will make them a bit more dynamic.
I wasn't be trying to be patronizing.  I am sorry if you read that in the post.  I was just trying to stress that it's only fair that the restricted hammer eventually hit Unicorn, and it is a good restriction for the game IMO.

Yeah, dude. I went back through their other posts (not difficult, there's only 3 total at the time of writing this comment). Clearly, this human LOVES Dragon, LOVES attachments, and feels mortally wounded somehow by this whole Spyglass thing. As for the "paid by the hour" I could actually accept that if their profession is, in fact, game design/development. But if they were, I'd expect them to be a little more understanding about the RL, and why certain cards are on it.
Restricted List decisions may be bad for you (whoever "you" happen to be at the time), and still be good for the game. I hate it, too. I'm a die-hard Unicorn. Spyglass is a great card. I think this hurts Unicorn more than anybody else, so I too am a little confused at the "It's Crab's fault!" reasoning, but hey, maybe there's things I don't know. My local playgroup is 2 people. I don't do Grand Koteis. I get that they don't want to neuter Crab's main themes - throwing the little guys to the Oni so the big guys can stick around longer is kinda what they do. I feel (note, feel. I haven't actually done hard research on this, so forgive me if I'm actually way off base here) that Unicorn has among the least in-clan card draw, so taking away Spyglass just feels bad. But I get it, and I'll tweak my decks accordingly. Yes, even though I'm just a "casual."

Castigate IS the kill. Why would you attach this to somebody, allow your opponent the chance to Let Go or whatever, and then drop their Pol? Oh no no, you drop their skill first, then this is the finishing blow. Because you can't counter an attachment.

Chrysanthemum Steward could be intended to combo with something like the scorpion attachment that lets you play the top card of your opponent's conflict deck. 

Yeah, dude. I went back through their other posts (not difficult, there's only 3 total at the time of writing this comment). Clearly, this human LOVES Dragon, LOVES attachments, and feels mortally wounded somehow by this whole Spyglass thing. As for the "paid by the hour" I could actually accept that if their profession is, in fact, game design/development. But if they were, I'd expect them to be a little more understanding about the RL, and why certain cards are on it.
Restricted List decisions may be bad for you (whoever "you" happen to be at the time), and still be good for the game. I hate it, too. I'm a die-hard Unicorn. Spyglass is a great card. I think this hurts Unicorn more than anybody else, so I too am a little confused at the "It's Crab's fault!" reasoning, but hey, maybe there's things I don't know. My local playgroup is 2 people. I don't do Grand Koteis. I get that they don't want to neuter Crab's main themes - throwing the little guys to the Oni so the big guys can stick around longer is kinda what they do. I feel (note, feel. I haven't actually done hard research on this, so forgive me if I'm actually way off base here) that Unicorn has among the least in-clan card draw, so taking away Spyglass just feels bad. But I get it, and I'll tweak my decks accordingly. Yes, even though I'm just a "casual."

Why would I trust you when I've seen how well Unicorn can perform in the hands of a competent player? Unicorn topped the Swiss at Birmingham Day 1A and put 6 players into the cut in the event. Your doom and gloom predictions are baseless whining- Unicorn were certainly bad last year, but good players have shown that that simply is no longer the case.

But Unicorn are competitive now, so "forever"is already over.

It's the nature of any competitive game, LCG, CCG, DBG. There will always be "optimal" cards, "sub-optimal" cards, and lemons.

At least with an LCG I have full playsets of cards for making fun decks for local casual games.

I want a "Core 2.0" update to the base set/legality.

I'd also like for them to print out cards with errata and make them cheaply available. I see a lot of controversy about this idea, but I just watched a podcast from a much smaller game dev who about to do it for their game because they feel it would be better for the competitive scene in the long run. It's kind of silly to just expect new players to deal with errata on top of everything else getting in to L5R entails. Give out errata'd cards like candy in promo kits and the such. Sell cheap packs on the website. 

What would take longer: Writing down shorthand for a few key cards, or staring at a hand of cards long enough to remember with some reliably what was in it 5 minutes later? I have a crap memory, but I'm a fast writer.

https://www.cardboardrepublic.com/articles/dave-of-the-five-rings/dotr-chapter-thirty-eight
Where in I discuss the last month of news, the lack of new releases, the new RL and the Errata, how the current Role Choice seems to make it smart to NOT pick the Role your Clan is best at for Worlds, and bring to print my contribution to L5R: Daimyo Format.
Daimyo L5R is a fast and casual singleton style of the LCG. My thanks to the folks at NEL5R and Meek Informant, along with everyone else who helped me playtest it, as well as Rhiannon McCullough for providing me a fantastically made Stronghold.

What would take longer: Writing down shorthand for a few key cards, or staring at a hand of cards long enough to remember with some reliably what was in it 5 minutes later? I have a crap memory, but I'm a fast writer.

He's dull, he's drab...………..He's probably playing Crab
Lichtenstein
Lichtenstein
In war, he's born...……...He's splashing Unicorn
Lichtenstein
Lichtenstein
I'm calling it now:
2019 WC Winner, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, Crab/Unicorn