Monster Deck Strategies

[geok1ng]

This is my Weather Deck I use with quite success for the past few days: http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/10134-heavy-weather

I've writen a complete guide on gwentdb but then the website crashed and all the text is gone, argh... But I think it's pretty straight forward, focus and 2 and 3 row in round one, 2 and 1 row in round 2 and time your weather cards right, play them after the opponent has buffed and not before.

I will probably swap Bekker's Mirror once I have Imlerith (which might lead to a shift towards a Nithral Strategy) but at the moment I use it with good success in round 3. The only decks I have repeatedly troubles against are SK Pirates and ST Ressurection decks, especially with 2-3 Clear Skies in the deck. Thoughts?

To beat SK consistently with weather you need card advantage. Sarah was useless after mardroeme was invented, she dies as soon as she enters the field. Try Decoy to steal silver spies from other factions or save water hag for later rounds.

My now famous Graveyard Raid deck gained Ocvist for what is now the most card advantage focused deck that monsters can use:

http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/10265-dragons-graveyard

 

[milosh69]

To beat SK consistently with weather you need card advantage. Sarah was useless after mardroeme was invented, she dies as soon as she enters the field. Try Decoy to steal silver spies from other factions or save water hag for later rounds.

My now famous Graveyard Raid deck gained Ocvist for what is now the most card advantage focused deck that monsters can use:
http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/10265-dragons-graveyard

It's true, in an older version of my deck (without Mardroeme) I couldn't play Sarah consistently other than as a bait. But since I've added Mardroeme myself to buff my Foglets, it usually goes like this:
Mutagene on a Foglet -> Opponent plays Spores on the Foglet. Rinse repeat until the opp does not have Mardroeme left, then play Sarah.

Waterhag I play usually in the first round, together with some Drowners. Especially against an SK deck I don't want to have rain in round 2 or 3 because then the Mirror will find the weakest target on the opponents side and not mine.

Btw, Octivist has the same status like Sarah - if it's out I'm going to Spore it, 4 out of 5 times it gets played very early when I still have some Mardroeme.

The biggest problem I have with this deck: if I don't draw 2-3 weather cards it's useless. This happened to me yesterday in 3 matches in a row, two of them I lost. If I don't manage to put at least two rows under weather per first and second round I'm in trouble. So some card draw mechanic is highly needed in this deck.

I've also played against similar decks like yours, frankly they didn't stand a chance in most games because of the weather->epidemic combo. People tend to save their First Light/Clear Skies until the end but then it's too late already

 

[geok1ng]

My deck has around 30-45% chance against a pure weather deck, much higher against decks with fewer weather effects. I do not give time for foglet to be buffed, as i have plenty of cards to kill foglets, dogs, wolves. my few victories came from card advantage and inability to hit both melee and siege row with a deck focused on Ranged row.

losing a lot against weather decks does not hurt me much because they are non existent at rank 10. It was designed to trounce NR, give many headaches to SK and some chances against ST.

 

[milosh69]

My deck has around 30-45% chance against a pure weather deck,

I think you might even have a higher chance against weather or any other deck if you'd swap Draug for Kayran, I was actually surprised it's not in your deck although you have Lambert & co. That's a combo I see pulled off against me many times and it quite often succeeds. Unbuffed you get 27 points on a weather-immune gold card, if you manage to cast the potion on one you have a 39 points monster. It's usually a sure first round win

 

[geok1ng]

against monster? maybe. against everything else? doubtful.

Witchers+ kayran:
ST+SK players bombard me with spies. i win first round behind 2 or more cards and no creature on board- pretty much game over.
NR players: Sergeant>Igni>Sergeant on Igni: i lose the round, they bombard me with spies and can even rezz/decoy igni for next rounds.

Now if i play witchers and pass, they are screwed: i am 1 card down, not 2, i will keep a witcher next round and NR/SK will win the round but becoming 2 cards behind most of the time

- i expect to win 90% of time SK or NR win 1st round but are 2 cards behind with a witcher left on board- most of my defeats against NR and SK come from lack of witchers on 1st round- kayran won't help me in these spots, while Draug can save my skin in such situations.

kayran on the last round works better- protects against f Triss, double f Iorveth and triple f Milva, but the current meta has a lot of weak 3str creatures in NR and ST decks to justify using draug. draug has induce many instant resigns.

i could try some "protect my creatures on last round deck" focused on ST, but my win rate agains NR/ST will suffer. as 90% of the games are against ST cancer, that can work.

http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/10325-the-untouchables

 

[sashal_07]

Guys, what do you think about my weather deck?
http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/10581-tempest

 

[Guest 3973540]

Guys, what do you think about my weather deck?

I would say it's a bad idea to combine a foglet farm (I mean the nekker warrior - presumably to multiply foglets) with a strong melee row (Nithral, Ice Giant). First, you will nearly always have fog on the field and your super melee guys will be Aard'ed more often than not. Second, whenever you add foglets to your deck, it is reasonable to try to draw them at the end of the round, lest you draw a foglet at the start of the next round; and you may not have enough fog cards to do it.

 

[Mkushrom]

Hi there!

I managed to get Rank 11 with this deck: http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/10603-rank-11-ranged-control . It's based on the new Ge'els builds that are becoming so popular, but with some tweaks to make the SK pairing less painful without compromising too much the ST and NR match ups.

Any player in higher ranks can confirm me if there are still SK in ranks above 11? If not, I'll go back to Ge'els as my leader as soon as I reach there, but nowadays I see too many GIgnis to have a row full of 6 power.

 

[iiGwynbleidd]

The monsters deck is very easy to counter, because the multiplier monsters are almost all corporal cards. A Freezing Cold card can ruin a round, if placed strategically. The best deck is Nilfgaardian, with a good variety of option to win a round and some good option of leader.

 

[-NintenDooM-]

So after the Nilfgaard Patch i have been playing around with different Monster Consume archetypes and have made a deck that seems very very promising.

http://imgur.com/a/PxEBj

The basic idea is to play a single Nekker, Monster nest, drop a Arachas Behemoth and then continuously consume the spawned Arachas.

The Crones can win you games alone against everything but monsters. You can drop them immediately for 23 Strenght, thinning your deck and bringing your opponent in a bad situation. If he chooses to play a card and cant match the strength, you can simply pass. Now he has to either give you the round while being a card down, or play another card to win the round, leaving him at a 2 card disadvantage and having to go first. This advantage can then be further increased or held with Avallac'h.


You usually dont want to consume Nekkers, because you want to keep at least one of them in your deck to respawn next round and then again monster nest him. If you manage your nekkers carefully, you can make them last for three rounds.

I found it very easy to get two 2-0 wins against a lot of decks. The combo of tons of nekkers + Arachas feeding Vrans will get 100+ strength on the board in no time. You will easily outnumber even SK wounding or other high number decks. Having Ekkimaras and Vran warrior on other rows than the nekkers allows you to space out your strength across the board, protecting you from a lot of removal.

The reason im running Dagon is that you only ever lose to all-in monster weather decks. Dagon allows you to have a additional clear skies to be safe, and being able to rally a vran warrior or Arachas behemoth is very important in other matchups.
You usually want to have a nekker already buffed before monster nesting him to offset his strength from the spawned nekkers and scorch protect them.

I have been tearing through ranked with this deck today, only losing a few games to Weather monsters (still had a positive winrate against those and only dropped 2 out of 20 games to other factions).
I went from rank 7 to rank 12 today, and didnt face anything that could really deal with this deck.

Things to swap out/experiment on: The harpies are solid, tho i feel they are expendable. I will try switching them out for something else. Maybe Thunderbolt or Blizzard potion or even a few removal spells.
The ekkimaras seem to work, but im not sure if two are really neccessary. Renew can be amazing with Kayran, cause consuming three times will equal 20-30+ strength if you have arachas and Nekkers set up. It also does well into skellige to renew Caretaker and steal their goodies. However, i feel like it can probably be switched out if the need arises, further testing is required.


What do you guys say? What would you change/experiment with? Where do you see the holes and errors in a deck based on this archetype, do you think it will be countered easily once people know it better? I cant wait to hear your opinions.

 

[d3vil_dant3]

hi!!
i made a deck very similiar to yours, but with few differences, tha i m not convinced to use..
i had no arachas and crones, with 3rd harpy and caerano s one..
i still pref witchers above crone, but shouldn t be different so, just a personal view
losing the opportunity to send eggs and little arachas to graveyard has made ghoul + ekimmara combo pretty weak, so i m struggled on using ekimmara.. need to test, but definitely not ghouls..but i suggest you to use old speartip.. he s amazing and can make the difference against a lot of decks.. trust me, he s OP, even if he s been nerfed comparing to pre-launch
d-bomb + speartip combo is really good
for the core, he s just straight: harpy and vran is a good combo, but maybe one less ekimmara or both to +2 nekkers warriors?? can do a good nekkers- chain combo
the new katakan is nice, but i still prefer frightner.. but ehy.. personal choice here
but seems pretty solid thou
lemme know

 

[-NintenDooM-]

100% agree on old speartip, ran into a deck running him and had to include him. He does amazing in this kind of deck. I also cut a ekimmara and replaced the harpies with a thrid monster nest and a blizzard potion.
Crones give more strength than witchers and since im not running swallow/thunderbolt they are a better option.
Nekker warriors dont synergize with this deck imo, with nekker warriors you want to consume your nekkers and have them replaced, you would probably run them instead of monster nest. With monster nest you want to multiply your nekkers and then buff them by eating a shitload of arachasae. I feel like monster nest is better than warriors, cause it requires less setup, synergizes better with buffs like old speartip, thunderbolt, ect (more nekkers on the board at the same time).

 

[d3vil_dant3]

u have right, but try to think= nekker, nekker warrior and monster nest.. than u start consuming.. if you have harpies, consume eggs, if you haven t, start consuming nekkers..
now, having 4 nekkers on the board, for every consume they will grow up and when you consume one nekker, another one will take his place and, on top of that, if you have 4 nekkers, or 3 on the board, with a strenght of 6 or 7 ( kinda easy to achieve in the first round), you spawn another 3 or 4 in the second round, with a good strenght ( 5 or 6 at least).. assuming you hold vran with a good strenght, u have even 3 nekker.. easy 40 strenght in the beginning of the second round
i cut both ekimmaras, and replaced with 2 nekkers warrior.. only 2 nests, but it s enough, because you don t wanna draw it in the third round where generally it s difficult to have breedable units left, and, even if you have them, 9 of strenght won t save your match
just my impressions with the last 5 games done with this new cards

 

[-NintenDooM-]

hmm...that seems like a very cool deck idea, i guess you dont run behemoths then and instead just eat the nekkers with vran? Didn't think about that, sounds really cool, ill give it a shot!

 

[d3vil_dant3]

i have also big vran, but the problem is= only one big card is more weak than more less strenght cards.. because there are too many cards that can make you cry.. scorch, vilgefort, igni, assassination... in this way you can have "da big one" ( monster nest on eggs) or nekkers spam
2 strategies, both avaiable because i have 2 vrans ( the third is useless more or less.. ebcause if you can t manage to make him feed, is just a 5 strenght card), 2 arachas, to ensure food for vrans and win the first round and witcher ( or crowns) for big and fast strenght
maybe my deck sux but on paper is good.. just copy nekkers, put some harpies and arachas before start consuming with vran and in the second round u should have a big vran and a lot of nekkers.. this should be the right strategies
you have caretaker to do nasty stuff and old speartip to buff/ punish others aggro decks, plu d-bomb to clean the opponent's board

 

[d3vil_dant3]

i m straggling with new monster s mechanic.. is intentional that the spwaned units count as last played card??
because in this way, card like arachas behemot or harpy will destroy the strategy

 

[Koaalar.424]

Succubus is undwhelming or I just didn't build the right deck for her yet. Only in 1/10 matches the opponent has a high enough bronze card that playing her would be actually any good. 9/10 matches I trade her in for a weak bronze, so I don't play her at all. Looks like shes the perfect card to get Johnnyd, because where are the high-ass Hawker-Support, Axeman or NIlfgaard guys when you need them because you have Succubus in hand ? Not here, they only come out of hiding if I can't do shit about them -.-

i m straggling with new monster s mechanic.. is intentional that the spwaned units count as last played card??
because in this way, card like arachas behemot or harpy will destroy the strategy

yeah, consume deck makes the monster passive more or less useless

 

[d3vil_dant3]

Is it intended? Because I m starting having some questions about better strategies

 

[Treefur]

Hey guys, I've been playing a consume deck, and you simply have to know when to go off with consume.

Use Eridin, decoy, or Crones to bully for 1st round win then keep that thing on the board and let him win his 2nd round. Then consume hard on the third round for the win with like 150 strength.

 

[metalmaniac21]

Succubus is undwhelming or I just didn't build the right deck for her yet. Only in 1/10 matches the opponent has a high enough bronze card that playing her would be actually any good. 9/10 matches I trade her in for a weak bronze, so I don't play her at all. Looks like shes the perfect card to get Johnnyd, because where are the high-ass Hawker-Support, Axeman or NIlfgaard guys when you need them because you have Succubus in hand ? Not here, they only come out of hiding if I can't do shit about them -.-

Put D-shackles and/or D-bomb into the deck and mulligan for them if you got Succubus in your hand. Succubus goes against buffers and sticky minions which makes your life a nightmare like Ocvist. Maybe it's just me but Succubus is a must for a monster control. Very underrated card, it takes some time to fully grasp the timing of playing this card.

Question for other monster guys. My cripple weather deck lacks, well, weather, only Caranthir and Woodland Spirit but in the mean time, I see Ancient Foglets rarely play in it's full potential and I often draw regular foglets on turn 2 and 3. Should I kick them out of deck and craft White frost and Merigold's Hailstorm in place? I mean, is it viable change at this point?