Analyzing every Anti-Weather / Weather-Support card
An addendum: Another weather hotfix has come and gone and the Dagon weather deck is not only still tier 1, it also beats up other decks so badly that I face it 70% of the games at rank 18. The weather "nerfs" barely helped, and to my opinion it's because they mostly touched on tweaking weather rather than the real problem: The crazy power disparity of weather-support cards and the weakness of anti-weather cards, making them a terrible tech-against choice. A few people play Scoia'tael or Nilfgaard but mostly at top 1000 you face weather, weather, weather. I'm not sure if the game feels better now at lower ranks, but at 18 I feel like I'm pressured to play as monsters or nothing at all due to the overpoweredness of weather support cards. I'm shocked that people even complained about the nerfs. Frost, Fog, Wild Hunt Hound, Harpy, Caranthir, all cards that were nerfed and are still played in the number 1 deck. And yes, there are big problems with how only Monsters can flood the board making neutral cards like Triss:Butt, Yen, Bekker's Twisted Mirror and Thunderbolt potion way better for them than any other faction, but the fact remains that the deck is still far stronger than any other because weather-support cards continue being a one-and-a-half in one cards. At the same time, anti-weather cards are weak and do not offer a punishing effect that counters weather.
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(Older part of the post
The "Weather" Patch's name turned ironic. Supposedly meant to tune down weather, it has made weather more prevalent than ever. At rank 15 I see around 70% of decks running weather cards. Even Consume decks are now running weather because of how powerful Weather Support cards are. And I actually think that the weather cards themselves are balanced very well. The problem stems from Weather Support cards being far too powerful, offering extra strength on top of deck thinning, and from Anti-Weather cards being so weak that most of the time you still lose stats while playing them against weather even though they're a supposed counter. So here's an analysis of each of this cards to try and realize why the meta is drowning in Weather instead of sitting on a healthy 20~25% of decks being weather related.
Anti-Weather cards
(Orange - Bad for the game, Yellow - Decent, Green - A well balanced card.)
First Light: This card is absolutely terrible and fails to deal with weather. Playing Clear Skies means you've already lost stats and gained nothing in return, and with weather decks having more weather effects than you possibly can have anti-weather cards (6~7 possible weak anti-weather cards in a deck, while weather decks run anything between 5 to 10 weather cards) it's never a good idea to play it unless you clear more than a single row of weather. So the opponent only frosts your one important row and this card sits in your hand, unplayed while your units take damage, and more damage... Meanwhile any unit you play on your other rows gets dragged into the frosted row by a Drowner or a Jotunn. And you just can't Clear Skies because you won't gain any strength and your opponent will just re-frost your row. So after 4 of your units took 4 ticks of damage you end up using this card for the Rally effect while still frosted.
Archgriffin: The anti-weather card that defined the rest, this card is the reason Anti-Weather is always a losing proposition. If your opponent played a Wild Hunt Hound and frosted a row with 3 of your units he just gained 8 strength. Playing an Archgriffin to clear the row gives you 7 strength. You've just lost on stats in the exchange, even though you played an anti-weather card. And your opponent will always have more weather than you could possibly have weather clears.
Nauzicaa Standard Bearer: Even worse than Archgriffin. If your opponent predicted which row you're going to play your units on and pre-frosted it, you might be forced to play this unit into that row without having a bronze unit in play to buff.
Vrihedd Brigade: Aweful design. You clear weather from the row this unit is played on, and pull another unit into this same row - Probably the row with the most units. So if you've cleared frost from a row with 3 units, after playing Vrihedd Brigade the row will have 5 units on it, making frost get even more value when re-applied to the row. With it's self-harming effect and meager 6 strength it's hands down the worst 'clear weather from a row' card. While the pulling a unit effect was meant to be synergistic with Agile decks, the synergy does more harm than good against frost effects.
Dwarven Mercenary: A decent card to play musical chairs against your weather opponent, tempting them to weather more than one of your rows so you could Clear Skies a bunch of rows at once. The problem is you only have 3 of this units while your opponent has Drowners, Caranthir and Jottun to pull all your units back into the frost.
Sheldon Skaggs: A good silver unit to push all other units out of a weathered row... But you still leave him behind to take weather damage.
Zoltan Chivay: (Added by request) Zoltan was actually pretty good a few weeks ago just before all the cards in the Agile deck were nerfed. He'd probably be a great card if the Agile deck wasn't so weak (it barely breaks 50% winrate against weather decks that it supposedly counters, mostly because of how bad Vrihedd Brigade's effect is). But as he only offers 14 strength on the condition that you already have 3 units on the board and giving you the small advantage of pulling 3 units out of a weather effect. His power is more in line with silver cards than good gold cards. For a card that comes closest to being a 'gold anti-weather card', it doesn't help enough.
Clan Tordarroch Armorsmith: Sometimes a life saver, but most times you've just dropped another unit into a weathered row to heal a few stats in the short term and lose even more stats in the long term. Especially bad if your opponent has an Axeman racking up strength. This card is pretty bad.
Raging Berserker: Decent-ish card. It will almost always transform into a 11 strength bear due to all the weather and savage bears in the meta. While it helps counter weather a little bit, it's avarage at best.
Blue Stripes Scout: Brilliant design. This card is the sole reason NR is played at all. The only good anti-weather card in the game. While it's strength of 6 is weak, the small addition of giving this card Crewman 1 made it a synergistic card that allowed for the creation of new decks in the weather heavy meta. This is what all anti-weather cards need: A synergistic boost to your other units that will make sure playing the card isn't a net loss when clearing a row from a weather effect.
Weather Support cards
Wild Hunt Hound: Frost stretches the boundaries of a balanced bronze card. A unit that plays frost while also adding 5 strength on top of it -and- thinning your deck out of bronze cards (making it easier to draw golds and silvers in future rounds) is simply broken. This unit single handedly makes every anti-weather card (with the exception of Blue Stripes Scout) a net stat loss even when clearing weather.
Foglet: Foglets used to be fair. They're attached to Fog which usually isn't as devastating as Frost, acting as a useful deck enabler without getting too out of hand. What changed then? The addition of other similar units like Wild Hunt Hound that also thin your deck and grant you bonus strength while playing weather is what pushed Foglets into broken territory. Because now you don't play just three of those cards, your deck is rather crammed with them instead. With 3 Foglets, 3 Wild Hunt Hounds and 3 Crones you will usually thin 8 units out of your deck while at the same time stacking up strength while applying weather effects - All at the same time.
Drowner: Slightly overstatted. Having a strength of 7 and pushing a unit into weather means you played a 8 strength unit at minimum - That is if your opponent even manages to clear the weather from the row the next turn. The main problem with this card is that it prevents pure anti-weather decks from having any value against weather. A good way to play around weather used to be playing your units on multiple rows, forcing your opponent to frost multiple rows so you could Clear Skies a few rows at once. But with Drowner existing you can just frost one row and keep pushing all your enemy's units into it. Forcing your opponent into weather is much stronger than playing around weather and also gives you strength while you push units in the weather while your opponent loses stats while pulling units out of of the weather.
Nithral: Good design. Can do serious damage but easy (enough) to remove. It supports weather without shutting down your opponent's options to playing around it.
Jotunn: Just a broken card. 6 strength, does 6 damage and pulls 3 units into frost, this card starts at a value of 15 when played and offers a lot more value if the opponent can't deal with the frost on the row, which they usually can't due to how weak anti-weather cards are.
Frightener: I don't understand why this card was buffed while weather was already top tier. Spies basically give you a free card now that they're no longer weather immune. Frightener doesn't only give you a free card, it also pulls another unit into the frost to be damaged along with it for double value while you gain the free card.
Caranthir: I don't think this card would have been as broken as it is if it pulled a frost effect out of your deck. It offers a lot of value but it is a gold card after all. The problem with Caranthir is that it gives you an extra weather effect, making sure that even decks that run the maximum amount of anti-weather cards won't be able to catch up with the amount of weather effects you have.
Woodland Spirit: A little funny that such a strong gold card is weak against Savage Bears. Woodland spirit is strong, yes, but I don't necessarily think it's too strong. It offers you an extra weather effect but Fog usually isn't half the card that Frost is. If Caranthir and Aeromancy didn't exist Woodland Spirit would've been a good gold. The problem with it is that it adds to the already oversaturated amount of weather effects available to weather decks.
Imrelith: A well designed card. A conditional value of 16 strength is pretty balanced for a gold card, even if the condition is very easy to meet.
Geralt: Aard: This card can grant you a 18 strength advantage while also pushing 5 units into frost for a starting 23 strength swing, so why doesn't it see much play? Because weather is shaping the meta, causing most decks to spread their units between different rows. It's hard to hit more than 3 units with Aard, and you often want to frost the front and back rows. If you hit units on the frost row you knock them out of the weather effect, and the middle row rarely has enough units in it to push into the frost on the back row.
Clan Tuirseach Axeman: Yes, this card is everywhere because of the Savage Bear buff, but in my opinion it's fine as it is in a Skellige deck that doesn't run weather. It's five copies of frost effects that turn this card so stupidly broken that Skellige now makes most of the meta. People's decks either play it, or are made especially to counter it. Notice how almost no one tries to heavily counter the frost that gives this card so much value, because you can use tech cards to destroy axemen, but using tech cards against weather will only lose you stats. Remember when people used to play Blueboy Lugos with Axemen? Now Frost, a bronze card serves the same purpose as a silver, only it does it more consistently by always hitting the same line.
Clan Dromund Shieldmaiden: When in a non-weather deck the shieldmaidens can be tricky to spawn, requiring damaging an enemy of a certain size without your opponent healing them. But in a frost Skellige deck they're a free 21 strength swing in the last round for one bronze card. I don't think this card is a problem, I think frost so easily enabling it is.
Hjalmar: Hjalmar is a pretty cool gold card, requiring you to use a second card to enable it's 25 strength... Unless you play weather, that is. Then you just get 25 stats in one card very easily. If your opponent wants to counter it they'll have to play double shackles - a card that has no strength value and is dead in a non-skellige match-up.
Renew: Hey everybody! Have a second Hjalmar for free!
Elven Mercenary: A balanced card that helps you play weather from your deck while also thinning it (and damaging itself with the weather effect). In the closed beta Elven Mercenary wasn't a spy, it was a 4 strength unit that played a random special card from your deck. Turns out that getting 4 strength for free while thinning your deck was incredibly broken and throughout the close beta Scoia'tael has always been a top tier deck. The balance change to this one card dropped every deck in the faction to tier 3. Yet we have new cards with an identical effect that were given to other factions, learning nothing from how broken Elven Mercenaries used to be.
Aretuza Adept: A 4 strength unit that plays a "random" special card from your deck? Yep, this is the pre-nerfed Elven Mercenary in disguise, still as broken as ever. Also see Wild Hunt Hound.
An addendum: Another weather hotfix has come and gone and the Dagon weather deck is not only still tier 1, it also beats up other decks so badly that I face it 70% of the games at rank 18. The weather "nerfs" barely helped, and to my opinion it's because they mostly touched on tweaking weather rather than the real problem: The crazy power disparity of weather-support cards and the weakness of anti-weather cards, making them a terrible tech-against choice. A few people play Scoia'tael or Nilfgaard but mostly at top 1000 you face weather, weather, weather. I'm not sure if the game feels better now at lower ranks, but at 18 I feel like I'm pressured to play as monsters or nothing at all due to the overpoweredness of weather support cards. I'm shocked that people even complained about the nerfs. Frost, Fog, Wild Hunt Hound, Harpy, Caranthir, all cards that were nerfed and are still played in the number 1 deck. And yes, there are big problems with how only Monsters can flood the board making neutral cards like Triss:Butt, Yen, Bekker's Twisted Mirror and Thunderbolt potion way better for them than any other faction, but the fact remains that the deck is still far stronger than any other because weather-support cards continue being a one-and-a-half in one cards. At the same time, anti-weather cards are weak and do not offer a punishing effect that counters weather.
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(Older part of the post
The "Weather" Patch's name turned ironic. Supposedly meant to tune down weather, it has made weather more prevalent than ever. At rank 15 I see around 70% of decks running weather cards. Even Consume decks are now running weather because of how powerful Weather Support cards are. And I actually think that the weather cards themselves are balanced very well. The problem stems from Weather Support cards being far too powerful, offering extra strength on top of deck thinning, and from Anti-Weather cards being so weak that most of the time you still lose stats while playing them against weather even though they're a supposed counter. So here's an analysis of each of this cards to try and realize why the meta is drowning in Weather instead of sitting on a healthy 20~25% of decks being weather related.Anti-Weather cards
(Orange - Bad for the game, Yellow - Decent, Green - A well balanced card.)
First Light: This card is absolutely terrible and fails to deal with weather. Playing Clear Skies means you've already lost stats and gained nothing in return, and with weather decks having more weather effects than you possibly can have anti-weather cards (6~7 possible weak anti-weather cards in a deck, while weather decks run anything between 5 to 10 weather cards) it's never a good idea to play it unless you clear more than a single row of weather. So the opponent only frosts your one important row and this card sits in your hand, unplayed while your units take damage, and more damage... Meanwhile any unit you play on your other rows gets dragged into the frosted row by a Drowner or a Jotunn. And you just can't Clear Skies because you won't gain any strength and your opponent will just re-frost your row. So after 4 of your units took 4 ticks of damage you end up using this card for the Rally effect while still frosted.
Archgriffin: The anti-weather card that defined the rest, this card is the reason Anti-Weather is always a losing proposition. If your opponent played a Wild Hunt Hound and frosted a row with 3 of your units he just gained 8 strength. Playing an Archgriffin to clear the row gives you 7 strength. You've just lost on stats in the exchange, even though you played an anti-weather card. And your opponent will always have more weather than you could possibly have weather clears.
Nauzicaa Standard Bearer: Even worse than Archgriffin. If your opponent predicted which row you're going to play your units on and pre-frosted it, you might be forced to play this unit into that row without having a bronze unit in play to buff.
Vrihedd Brigade: Aweful design. You clear weather from the row this unit is played on, and pull another unit into this same row - Probably the row with the most units. So if you've cleared frost from a row with 3 units, after playing Vrihedd Brigade the row will have 5 units on it, making frost get even more value when re-applied to the row. With it's self-harming effect and meager 6 strength it's hands down the worst 'clear weather from a row' card. While the pulling a unit effect was meant to be synergistic with Agile decks, the synergy does more harm than good against frost effects.
Dwarven Mercenary: A decent card to play musical chairs against your weather opponent, tempting them to weather more than one of your rows so you could Clear Skies a bunch of rows at once. The problem is you only have 3 of this units while your opponent has Drowners, Caranthir and Jottun to pull all your units back into the frost.
Sheldon Skaggs: A good silver unit to push all other units out of a weathered row... But you still leave him behind to take weather damage.
Zoltan Chivay: (Added by request) Zoltan was actually pretty good a few weeks ago just before all the cards in the Agile deck were nerfed. He'd probably be a great card if the Agile deck wasn't so weak (it barely breaks 50% winrate against weather decks that it supposedly counters, mostly because of how bad Vrihedd Brigade's effect is). But as he only offers 14 strength on the condition that you already have 3 units on the board and giving you the small advantage of pulling 3 units out of a weather effect. His power is more in line with silver cards than good gold cards. For a card that comes closest to being a 'gold anti-weather card', it doesn't help enough.
Clan Tordarroch Armorsmith: Sometimes a life saver, but most times you've just dropped another unit into a weathered row to heal a few stats in the short term and lose even more stats in the long term. Especially bad if your opponent has an Axeman racking up strength. This card is pretty bad.
Raging Berserker: Decent-ish card. It will almost always transform into a 11 strength bear due to all the weather and savage bears in the meta. While it helps counter weather a little bit, it's avarage at best.
Blue Stripes Scout: Brilliant design. This card is the sole reason NR is played at all. The only good anti-weather card in the game. While it's strength of 6 is weak, the small addition of giving this card Crewman 1 made it a synergistic card that allowed for the creation of new decks in the weather heavy meta. This is what all anti-weather cards need: A synergistic boost to your other units that will make sure playing the card isn't a net loss when clearing a row from a weather effect.
Weather Support cards
Wild Hunt Hound: Frost stretches the boundaries of a balanced bronze card. A unit that plays frost while also adding 5 strength on top of it -and- thinning your deck out of bronze cards (making it easier to draw golds and silvers in future rounds) is simply broken. This unit single handedly makes every anti-weather card (with the exception of Blue Stripes Scout) a net stat loss even when clearing weather.
Foglet: Foglets used to be fair. They're attached to Fog which usually isn't as devastating as Frost, acting as a useful deck enabler without getting too out of hand. What changed then? The addition of other similar units like Wild Hunt Hound that also thin your deck and grant you bonus strength while playing weather is what pushed Foglets into broken territory. Because now you don't play just three of those cards, your deck is rather crammed with them instead. With 3 Foglets, 3 Wild Hunt Hounds and 3 Crones you will usually thin 8 units out of your deck while at the same time stacking up strength while applying weather effects - All at the same time.
Drowner: Slightly overstatted. Having a strength of 7 and pushing a unit into weather means you played a 8 strength unit at minimum - That is if your opponent even manages to clear the weather from the row the next turn. The main problem with this card is that it prevents pure anti-weather decks from having any value against weather. A good way to play around weather used to be playing your units on multiple rows, forcing your opponent to frost multiple rows so you could Clear Skies a few rows at once. But with Drowner existing you can just frost one row and keep pushing all your enemy's units into it. Forcing your opponent into weather is much stronger than playing around weather and also gives you strength while you push units in the weather while your opponent loses stats while pulling units out of of the weather.
Nithral: Good design. Can do serious damage but easy (enough) to remove. It supports weather without shutting down your opponent's options to playing around it.
Jotunn: Just a broken card. 6 strength, does 6 damage and pulls 3 units into frost, this card starts at a value of 15 when played and offers a lot more value if the opponent can't deal with the frost on the row, which they usually can't due to how weak anti-weather cards are.
Frightener: I don't understand why this card was buffed while weather was already top tier. Spies basically give you a free card now that they're no longer weather immune. Frightener doesn't only give you a free card, it also pulls another unit into the frost to be damaged along with it for double value while you gain the free card.
Caranthir: I don't think this card would have been as broken as it is if it pulled a frost effect out of your deck. It offers a lot of value but it is a gold card after all. The problem with Caranthir is that it gives you an extra weather effect, making sure that even decks that run the maximum amount of anti-weather cards won't be able to catch up with the amount of weather effects you have.
Woodland Spirit: A little funny that such a strong gold card is weak against Savage Bears. Woodland spirit is strong, yes, but I don't necessarily think it's too strong. It offers you an extra weather effect but Fog usually isn't half the card that Frost is. If Caranthir and Aeromancy didn't exist Woodland Spirit would've been a good gold. The problem with it is that it adds to the already oversaturated amount of weather effects available to weather decks.
Imrelith: A well designed card. A conditional value of 16 strength is pretty balanced for a gold card, even if the condition is very easy to meet.
Geralt: Aard: This card can grant you a 18 strength advantage while also pushing 5 units into frost for a starting 23 strength swing, so why doesn't it see much play? Because weather is shaping the meta, causing most decks to spread their units between different rows. It's hard to hit more than 3 units with Aard, and you often want to frost the front and back rows. If you hit units on the frost row you knock them out of the weather effect, and the middle row rarely has enough units in it to push into the frost on the back row.
Clan Tuirseach Axeman: Yes, this card is everywhere because of the Savage Bear buff, but in my opinion it's fine as it is in a Skellige deck that doesn't run weather. It's five copies of frost effects that turn this card so stupidly broken that Skellige now makes most of the meta. People's decks either play it, or are made especially to counter it. Notice how almost no one tries to heavily counter the frost that gives this card so much value, because you can use tech cards to destroy axemen, but using tech cards against weather will only lose you stats. Remember when people used to play Blueboy Lugos with Axemen? Now Frost, a bronze card serves the same purpose as a silver, only it does it more consistently by always hitting the same line.
Clan Dromund Shieldmaiden: When in a non-weather deck the shieldmaidens can be tricky to spawn, requiring damaging an enemy of a certain size without your opponent healing them. But in a frost Skellige deck they're a free 21 strength swing in the last round for one bronze card. I don't think this card is a problem, I think frost so easily enabling it is.
Hjalmar: Hjalmar is a pretty cool gold card, requiring you to use a second card to enable it's 25 strength... Unless you play weather, that is. Then you just get 25 stats in one card very easily. If your opponent wants to counter it they'll have to play double shackles - a card that has no strength value and is dead in a non-skellige match-up.
Renew: Hey everybody! Have a second Hjalmar for free!
Elven Mercenary: A balanced card that helps you play weather from your deck while also thinning it (and damaging itself with the weather effect). In the closed beta Elven Mercenary wasn't a spy, it was a 4 strength unit that played a random special card from your deck. Turns out that getting 4 strength for free while thinning your deck was incredibly broken and throughout the close beta Scoia'tael has always been a top tier deck. The balance change to this one card dropped every deck in the faction to tier 3. Yet we have new cards with an identical effect that were given to other factions, learning nothing from how broken Elven Mercenaries used to be.
Aretuza Adept: A 4 strength unit that plays a "random" special card from your deck? Yep, this is the pre-nerfed Elven Mercenary in disguise, still as broken as ever. Also see Wild Hunt Hound.
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