Counter play against dwarves?

[P1rateKing]

Counter play against dwarves?

Can anyone suggest a counter to the dwarf opening? It happens every game

Dwarf leader power triggers saskia = 11 Gold strength
He gets to play a silver for free usually gets zeplin = 18 strength and a resilient dwarf
Any other dwarf he plays makes zeplin stronger and all that power gets transferred over to the next round.

Even if I scotch I deal with 11 strength gold that I cant touch.

If I triss or royal decree into here zeplin still survives.

It just seems very daunting to fight this since they just have to mulligan saskia back into the deck and if they have zeplin in hand they can just pull barclay els or the new buff dwarf.

The orders mechanic in general seems a bit busted to me. Since Nilfgaard get the same kind opener with Those golems.

Besides running the Silver witchers to have a just as strong opening is there any counter play?

 

[Ignotas]

You can lock, weather, scorch and demote them into oblivion. Nilfgaard is pretty good at countering and ST decks with tripe scorch. That opening strength is not much if they can't lay out their dwarves properly later.

 

[Tir_na_Lia]

The moment you start locking resilient dwarf units (especially after they have been buffed) the deck loses most of its punch.

 

[zhiphius]

Locking is not the only way to counter dwarfs, deny them the strength is viable too. a 2 str resilient dwarf going into round 2 isnt much of a threat.

 

[PandaLin]

I always play everything I got to win first round agains dwarf or queensguard or consume monster because I know they will have a strong advantage in round 2 if I don't beat them.
Than I just milk round 2 or pass.
Most resilient build up in round one are weaker than your normal build, so beat them should be possible even lose 2-3 card advantage is worth it. or you can lose round one if they have perfect scorch , Igni row.

 

[zecenker]

Let them buff and let it work fo' ya. Use Dudu.

 

[MooshieMooshie]

Nilfgaard with tossers and the silver reset unit seems like the best counter right now. King of Beggers also lets you catch up, or you can just pass after their play and go up a card. Luckily they can only do their combo once.

 

[Vedores]

Nilfgard is probably the way to go, but Dworfs can be moved a lot so I'm not sure.

 

[Treamayne]

Mardroeme: Spores also works well. Let them put all of their eggs in one basket then reset and weaken the resilient unit(s)

 

[P1rateKing]

The problem with all of this is I have to play 3 card to nullify there strat and they can simply pass and have me at a card disadvantage. Will add more lock units tho seems good

 

[Iuliandrei]

Nilfgard is probably the way to go, but Dworfs can be moved a lot so I'm not sure.

Yeah they run 3 dwarven mercenaries and with the buff dwarves even if a cow can get through it will hit 6 at most.
Rot tosser is really bad now since the patch.

Auckes and Peter Saar are the only NG cards that can help against dwarves atm but if you don't have them in your opening hand prepare to lose in 2 rounds.

 

[ListlessDonkey]

If you can't beat them then join them. Dwarf's got some serious love in this latest edition.

 

[Alts-Gamer]

Nilfgaard is good with them. You can use Peter Saar to devastate one of them and Auckes to lock two others. That's pretty enough. If you have Maerdrome it will work to. Scorch or Gigni one of them if you have these cards. There are counters.

 

[felixsylvaris]

Kill them when they are small. Removing them with some deal 5/7 card.
Lock them up. Could be Clever or something more advanced.
Or let them grow and buffed, and then use Scorch or Igni.

 

[Guitarstudent]

dwarves dont usually run any removals, simple impera brigade + resilience combo outpowers them, also auckes (2 lock), that guy that resets str, triss is great for killing the first 5 resilient dwarf, dwarfs are weak to removals, they do their own thing and hope you wont have it, thats it

 

[cgidiot]

Letho + dimeritium bomb is a hard counter for dwarves. Locks and cards that toggle resilience also work, as does scorch/gigni. The dwarves you really need to control are the resilient ones, since a dwarf player will typically try to win two rounds back to back - pushing hard in one, and hoping for his resilient units to stick around and carry him in the next.

 

[Red-Wyrm]

Dwarves usually weakest against my Dagon/foglet swarm deck. Usually i don't even bother much completely kill those resilient dwarves. Although if i play card first, and have to chose where to play fog - against dwarves (or rather any scoatele decks) i play it on melee row... those resilient dwarves almost always got played.

But yeah, since they also tend to buff that resilient dwarf, fog works well to keep damaging him.

 

[halftrolll]

I like running a little bit more removal in every deck, just because it's so versatile. Having an extra Thunder or Triss or Scorch will never hurt you, but in matches where consume or resilience plays a big role, a key removal can totally ruin your opponent's strategy.

 

[DRK3]

I recommend two possible strategies: either try to remove them before they're buffed with Triss or other damaging units or control cards, or let them buff all they want, then:

1. dimbomb the row if they're all on the same row. If you dont have dimbomb its ok, usually there's only 2-3 targets you wanna reset, use mardroeme or those silver faction units that reset value (decoy on them to use them twice). If it locks them even better (like margarita of NR, it resets AND locks), so they lose their resilience.

2. you can also try using weather, but is usually not very effective as they're all on the same row and they buff up like crazy, at a much higher rate than the weather damage