The Samurai clan
"Paper armor and a brush-stroke blade." The Samurai are the one clan with a blade and the one clan whose finishers are announced quietly rather than shouted.
Armour made of paper
Samurai armour is drawn as paper with ink lines over it: a breastplate and shoulder guards, a black hakama below, and a kabuto helmet topped with a gold crest. The katana has a gold guard and a blade that is itself paper. On the minimap they are red discs, close in shade to the Nak Muay, so in a Samurai against Nak Muay match it is worth glancing at the board itself, where the two clans look nothing alike.
The twelve names are short Japanese names and words, several of them nature images: Ronin, Katsu, Hayate, Sora, Tetsu, Raiden, Jin, Kaze, Hoshi, Ryu, Tora and Ren. Kaze is wind, Sora sky, Hoshi star, Ryu dragon, Tora tiger and Tetsu iron. After winning a fight a Samurai either bows or salutes.
Three cuts, three shapes
Quick draw is built on the idea behind iaido, the art of drawing and cutting in one motion. The Samurai settles into a draw pose and holds it, then dashes past to stand behind the defender, leaving afterimages and a curved slash mark in the air. The hit registers only after a pause, SHING!, and the move ends on a salute. Its chooser text is "one cut, too fast to see".
Crescent cut is a single slow-motion spin, one full turn with the blade held out, drawing a crescent-shaped arc through the defender (ZAN!). Falling blade goes up instead: the blade is raised, the Samurai leaps in slow motion and brings it straight down with a falling arc (SLASH!). Watching from the low view, the three moves draw three different shapes: a line, a circle and a drop.
A voice that does not shout
Every finisher in the game has its own voice callout. The other clans call theirs out sharp, booming or fierce, with an exclamation mark; the Samurai say "Quick draw.", "Crescent cut." and "Falling blade." calmly and with full stops, which makes them stand out in a match against a loud clan. Only the ultimate is shouted. The Voice callouts setting and the voice volume slider in Settings turn them off or down.
Moonlit Cut
Moonlit Cut turns the lights off. The screen goes dark, the master takes the draw pose, then dashes behind the defender with seven afterimages and a moon-shaped slash; the lights come back on and ZAN!! lands. The narration reads like a line from a film: "The lights go out. Ronin cuts once, and Volt falls in the moonlight."
A Samurai that loses is torn apart. RIP! appears, thirty scraps of paper burst out and the figure is gone in about a seventh of a second.
Badminton: slow time and decoys
Quickdraw Focus (3 uses) slows time to a crawl for 1.6 seconds, and the description ends with "You don't." Crescent Cut (2 uses) splits your next shot in two, the real shuttle and an ink decoy, and only the real one casts a shadow.
The badminton Moonlit Cut is a fast drive with the lights out for the receiver. The tell is "Lights out. Follow the moonlight glints.". Since a fix on 2 October 2026, the darkness falls only on the opponent and on anyone watching, never on the player who called it.
Computer-played Samurai make fewer errors than any other clan at the same difficulty. They do not do anything flashy; they just miss less, which makes long rallies against them hard work.
Picking the Samurai
Pick the Samurai for the sword and the quiet callouts. Each of their finishers is a single cut, so every capture lands as one decisive moment rather than a flurry.