Lu Meng SP
SP Lu Meng 吕蒙
Learned Knight of the Country 国士之风

Scouting the Tiger 探虎
Once during his turn, Lu Meng can compete with any character. If he wins, he gains the following advantages for the rest of his turn:

1.) The distance between Lu Meng and the character is considered to be one.
2.) Non-delay tool cards used by Lu Meng on this character cannot be stopped via Negate.

Break Negotiations 谋断
Conversion Ability: Lu Meng has two different states; the Military state and the Culture state. When Lu Meng is in the Military state, he has "Passion" and "Humility". When Lu Meng is in the Culture state, he has "Self Restraint" and "Brave Gesture" abilities. 

At the beginning of the game, Lu Meng is in the Military state. When his hand card number falls to two, he immediately switches to the Culture State. At the beginning of any player's turn, Lu Meng can discard one of his cards and switch back to the Military state.
Clarification:
  • When Lu Meng wins the competition with another character for "Scouting the Tiger," the first advantage bypasses a +1 Horse. 
  • Note that Lu Meng cannot willing switch between the two states in "Break Negotiations". For example, Lu Meng cannot switch from the Military state to the Culture State unless the number of cards in his hand falls to two. Also, when the number of cards in his hand falls to two, he must switch to the Culture State. Likewise, Lu Meng can only switch from the Culture state to the Military state by discarding a card at the beginning of a player's turn. He cannot make the switch in the middle of a turn.
  • When Lu Meng wants to switch from the Culture State to the Military State by discarding a card at the beginning of any character's turn, this action occurs before the judgement phase. Also, Lu Meng can make this switch at the beginning of his own turn.
  • To switch from the Culture state to the Military state, Lu Meng can discard any of his cards, either from his hand or his equipment area.
  • Below are the two abilities that Lu Meng has when he is in the Military State:
    • "Passion" - This is one of Sun Ce's abilities. When Lu Meng targets another character or is targeted by another character with a Duel or red-suited Attack, he immediately draws one card.
    • "Humility" - This is one of Lu Xun's ability. It is an enforced ability and it prevents SP Lu Meng from being targeted by Steal and Capture.
  • Below are the two abilities that SP Lu Meng has when he is in the Culture State:
    • "Self Restraint" - This is the original Lu Meng's ability. If SP Lu Meng does not play Attack cards during his turns, he can skip his discard phase.
    • "Brave Gesture" - This is one of Zhou Yu's abilities. During his drawing phase, SP Lu Meng draws an additional card (he draws three cards instead of two).
 Strengths Weaknesses
  • "Scouting the Tiger" is one of the few abilities in which there is no disadvantage to losing a competition. If nothing else, SP Lu Meng can use this ability to use a useless card to waste an enemy's hand card. 
  • SP Lu Meng works very well in games with few players. If he can get himself into the Culture state, he will draw three cards each turn and he can hold all of his cards if he chooses not to Attack. With fewer characters, he draws three cards each turn and can hold all of them.
  • All of SP Lu Meng's abilities and states work well together. After storing many Attack cards and acquiring the Crossbow in the Culture state, he can switch to the Military state and activate "Scouting the Tiger" on any character. He can then unleash all of the Attack cards that he stored on this character regardless of their distance from SP Lu Meng. In the Military state, SP Lu Meng draws a card for each red-suited Attack card that he uses, making him even more dangerous.
  • SP Lu Meng can influence the game more frequently than the original Lu Meng. He can waste other players' hand cards with "Scouting the Tiger" and he can sometimes attack other characters. Because he draws three cards during his drawing phase in his Culture state, it is not always to big of a loss to have to discard cards at the end of his turn since he can acquire cards more quickly than the original Lu Meng.
  • While SP Lu Meng seems to be a vast improvement over the original Lu Meng, he has the same fundamental flaw in that he removes himself from the game while he is stockpiling cards. While he can still influence the game to an extent by competing with other characters via " Scouting the Tiger," other characters can do much more during their turns.
  • SP Lu Meng starts the game in the Military state. One of the advantages that the original Lu Meng had was the he could keep a low profile at the beginning of the game while storing his cards. SP Lu Meng must use cards until he only has two cards remaining before he can switch to the Culture state. 
  • In games with several players, SP Lu Meng is generally at a disadvantage because there are more turns between his drawing phases. As a result, it may be hard for him to 'grow.'

Notable Combinations:
  • Zhang Zhao & Zhang Hong/Wu Guo Tai/Zhang He - These characters have abilities in which they can move equipment around the table. They can help SP Lu Meng acquire the Crossbow.
  • Sima Yi - Sima Yi's "Feedback" allows him to defeat SP Lu Meng's Crossbow strategy by stealing the Crossbow away from him when he is damaged by one of SP Lu Meng's Attacks.
  • Ma Chao/Huang Zhong - Ma Chao's "Iron Cavalry" give his Attacks a 50% chance of being inescapable, bypassing all of the stored Escapes and doing damage anyway. Huang Zhong's Attacks are going to be Inescapable if SP Lu Meng has more hand cards than Huang Zhong has units of health, which will be most of the time if SP Lu Meng is in his Culture state.
  • Ma Su - If SP Lu Meng kills Ma Su, he will lose all of his cards. This could really put a damper on SP Lu Meng's strategy if he wants to kill multiple opponents with the Crossbow on a single turn.
  • Zhong Hui - Zhong Hui's "Rejection" gives him an easy way to damage characters who have many hand cards. SP Lu Meng will likely have many hand cards if he is in his Culture state.
KingSP Lu Meng is a poor king choice. The rebels will actively seek him out and it will be difficult for him to store cards while he is in his Culture state.
LoyalistSP Lu Meng is a serviceable, but not outstanding loyalist choice. When he is in his Culture state, he can draw cards and retain them easily, allowing him to store Peaches and Negates for the king. However, like the original Lu Meng, he may have a difficult time influencing the game significantly. 
RebelSP Lu Meng is a serviceable, but not outstanding rebel choice. Again, he can store useful cards for his team while he is looking for the Crossbow, but it is difficult to influence the game while employing this strategy.  
SpySP Lu Meng is a competent spy choice. It is difficult to win in this role, but SP Lu Meng has a better chance than most other characters with his strategy of lying low.

Final Remarks:
SP Lu Meng is somewhat of a disappointment. He is easily compared to SP Cao Ren. Like SP Cao Ren, SP Lu Meng is much better than his original version, but he still is not outstanding in the standard 8-person game. The fundamental flaw still remains - he cannot influence the game while keeping a low profile and not attacking. However, we must admit that there is more that he can do for his team than the original Lu Meng can. As we also stated previously, it is not as much of a loss if he chooses to attack during his turn and lose all of his extra cards in his discard phase when he is in his Culture state because he draws cards at a faster rate. Also, it is necessary to point out that SP Lu Meng works very well in games with fewer players, as he gets drawing phases more frequently. If you are using SP Lu Meng, there is a very simple strategy to follow - switch to the Culture state as soon as possible, then store up cards until you receive the Crossbow and plenty of Attacks. On you next turn, switch to the Military state, activate "Scouting the Tiger" on the enemy of your choice, the unleash all of your Attacks on this poor character. If your team is in dire straights before this happens, you may have to abandon this strategy to help them out.

There is one more issue to address regarding SP Lu Meng. The most recent release of QSanGuoSha has a bug when a player uses SP Lu Meng. When SP Lu Meng is in his Culture state, the program asks the player using him if they want to discard a card at the beginning of each player's turn to switch back to the Military state. The player can choose to discard a card, but the program will not switch his state back to the Military state. In effect, once the player using SP Lu Meng enters the Culture state, there is no way for them to return back to the Military state. This may sound terrible, but it is actually insignificant. The Culture state is much more useful than the Military state and the player using SP Lu Meng probably will not miss out on many opportunities to draw additional cards for using red-suited Attacks since most of the Attack cards in the deck are black anyway.

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