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Can't say I agree with getting 6 cancellation cards, 3 of which that cost influence. Voice of honor and Forged edict don't play well with each other as they are rather counter-productive. I think you just open yourself up to getting your courtiers dishonored to the default state or to the dishonored state, leaving you with up to dead voice of reasons. And every challenge with Steward of law will make you either have to dishonor a honored courtier or have dead forged edicts.
Given the amount of high glory characters in here, I'd rather supplement the voice of honor with censure and use my influence for tools that make me win conflicts. Fiery madness (assuming you'd play cloud the mind at that point) and mark of shame are both interesting options.
The deck has no 5s, which is definitely interesting. You should be able to save up on fate for your events and attachments, but you don't have the political power house in here to help you, and overall you will be down a couple of heavy hitters compared to your opponent's deck. I personally think Tengu Sensei would work well in this deck, but perhaps daidoji Nerishma will give you plenty to spend your fate on.
Apologies for the delay responding. I saw your post on the train to the airport on Friday but it deserved a detailed response. Today I am far too mentally exhausted to focus on work so it's an ideal time to respond.
You make some very good points and I will deal with them one at a time.
* The value of Forged Edict is its surprise and turn 1/early tempo (hence x3). It will cancel unexpectedly and optimises maximum use of Soul Without Reproach. Players expect cancel when Crane have honoured advantage or any player has Imperial Favour. What they don't expect is Crane with nothing honoured turn 1 have their turn 1 Assassination cancelled by dishonouring a Savvy Politician who then is double honoured with Soul Beyond Reproach triggered once to suddenly have 2 honoured characters to turn on your Voice of Honour. I know it's a Magical Christmas Land anecdote but these synergies, they happen in games, perhaps not to that extent. Like a honoured Brash Samurai at home stealing a Katana with Calling in Favours, the first "clever" move I ever did in this game during that 1 Core first ever intro tourney. It also leverages current style playing against Crane (don't dishonour Crane now due to Soul) so something has to get maximum benefit from the card that I heralded was a redundancy "game changer" in post #122 here. Also you Edict in their window to Soul in your window for Voice.
* You make a very good point about the anti-synergy with Steward of Law and it was a mistake by me. Early on in this thread (page 1), I recall debating the merits of Dragon splash (favoured by me) vs Scorpion splash (then favoured by Imperial Advisor's Crane reviewer). One of my issues with Scorpion splash was Steward of Law being so key against Scorpion yet nerfing all 5 splash cards. Here I'm making the same mistake, just out of habit of writing 3x Steward of Law! It shows I have always been a Crane.Dragon player primarily (flirting with even faster Lion splash due to game length worries).
Yet this mistake by me provokes a very good question: is Steward of Law over-valued these days? Good players will see Crane with 1 Fate and a bowed honoured character with no Fate and when you For Shame them, they often will voluntarily bow (unless they are Crane with their Soul). I have been playing at least 2 and mostly 3 Noble Sacrifice because they win games (yet they don't play nice with Voice of Honour). If you don't play Stewards, your For Shame feels devalued (already is against Crane). So maybe, gasp, the deck needs to substitute the 3 Stewards with 2 Harriers and 1 Rival. Because a card that doesn't play nice with 4 of your other cards (Shameful Display, Art of Peace, Calling in Favours, Forged Edict) and there's more (Game of Sedane), it may be time to finally accept Steward is primarily for Mori Seido splash Crane builds that values Courtier Scholars and just wants to protect its high Glory power houses. Yes, my thinking on Steward of Law is slowly changing and that's down to you reminding me of the page 1 anti-synergy and me becoming fed up with how clunky it is in Crane Honour/Dishonour aggro-control builds.
* I explained why Censure is of less value due to anticipation, especially as winning Favour vs Crane (to nerf Shizuka Toshi) should be a high priority for opponents. I have considered Mark of Shame (because it empowers both Noble Sacrifice and Shizuka Toshi) but it feels too expensive. It is however excellent in a Crane heavy meta (such as the UK Elemental Masters that happened this weekend). As for Fiery Madness, my strange preference is for maligned Tainted Koku over Fiery Madness as looking at commonly played characters, when its purpose is to reduce the character to Politics 2, combined with Dishonour that is better against high cost characters, Tainted Koku is almost as effective and often stays in play for the rest of the game. But that's just theory crafting, I've never actually tried it!
* No 5s (only Guest at 4+) is my style and I proved it works at Birmingham Grand Kotei. I've explained why it works in old Crane posts and yes, it does need the constant temptation and tempo kill of 3x Admit Defeat. There is so much "win more" in the game with 6/9 Hotaru stomping a province per turn (or twice with Magistrate Station) - where is the finesse in that? I thought Crane were pure finesse! No, I personally prefer winning with several 3 cost characters in play, all of them Glory 2 so they can all solo break and so rarely attract more than 1 defender (when they do, Assassinate the weenie). Forged Edict does allow you to rely more on your 2 costers and that's big for Crane as they have such good 2 costers. The build was based on divorcing yourself from Politics 6+ characters, Asahina Artisan and Policy Debate. The question then was "what's my Restricted?" and as I don't normally play Scorpion, I thought I would explore Forged Edict. If you play Yoshi/Hotaru, you should play Policy Debate.
* As for Tengu Sensei, I think the kenku fits best with 3 Rivals and Seeker Crab splash (2 Skirmishers, 3 Reprieve, 3 Blades). I may post my odd Crane splash Crab build later.
* There are 15 dynasty cards that are 3+ cost to spend your Fate on, normal for me and I pay 1 Fate on all my 1 and 2 cost characters too (except Delegate at times and end game) in my quest for achieving the sustainable "4 Moving Parts" board so the cost structure has never felt too low to me. But I don't play typically. If the game has become too tall, the solution is to go wide so the "shape" of your board depends on your opponent's style.
I want to stress again that I don't consider Scorpion splash as good as the standard "boring" Dragon splash build I cited in post #136. It was just my meta mate is normally a Scorpion super-fan who was playing Crane at UK Elemental Masters (he came 13th out of 63 which is not embarrassing) because he knew that he would only play Scorpion once their Clan Pack comes out. So I trotted out my Scorpion splash. Boring though it may be, I firmly believe Dragon splash is the way to go with Crane to win consistently, not flashily. Player skill will demonstrate other splashes can produce good results too.
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