Looking for Help Tweaking my Nilf Deck

[shard777]

Looking for Help Tweaking my Nilf Deck

I've been doing pretty well in casual play with the deck I've got linked below. Ranked play (And I'm only level 2) I've probably won about 50% so it's not so great. The idea is to use spies and cards that allow me to draw as many cards as possible (With cows thrown in for damage). I like the deck, but I know it needs work. This is where I'm thinking of going with it, but would like some feedback:

1. I'm about 1,000 XP away from level 20 and a decoy card. When I get the decoy, I was planning to swap out Vandehar for the decoy since I'm really not running a reveal deck anymore.
2. I'm saving up scrap so that I can craft Vilgefortz and swap him out for Cahir. I like Cahir, but everyone knows what he does now and I don't enjoy giving my opponent the ability to use their leader again. If someone can suggest a better gold to swap out (Ciri?) I'd be interested in suggestions. I figure I can use Vilg on my side of the board to kill medic/engineer/tosser to help add to my card draw.
3. I'd like to add another medic at the expense of one of my engineers but don't have the scrap at this time (I still need another 450+ scrap to get Vilgefortz.
4. I'd like to add another ambassador as well, but I'm not sure what to swap out (My second engineer??).
5. Finally, I'm not sure I'm sold on the Infrantry and Brigade cards to round out my deck. Been thinking about adding spearman since they have the shield.

I haven't been doing great with the kegs that I've earned so it's been a long/slow process to try to build this deck (Hopefully there won't be a reset at the end of the beta).

Anyway, thoughts, suggestions, constructive criticism is all welcome. Thank you.

 

[frbfree]

With only 4 spies in the deck, you don't warrant multiple Impera Brigades. I would take them out at this point, since even if you get half of your spies on the board, you're still only talking about 12 Str, when you could get 11 from a Knight without contingency. Joachim De Wett is a necessary play in this deck. He should take Vanhemar's place. The second Ambassador should replace a Rot Tosser. 3 in a deck is never necessary. At some point, it will be used against you, and 4 Str is not worth what you could again get from a knight, or a pikeman. If you played 3 pikemen, instead of Knight and Imperas, you could run a Biting Frost instead of the Demetrium Bomb, and clear that spot for your Decoy (though you should find room for one set of shackles). As for Cahir, Vilgefortz is the optimal replacement in a non-JC spy deck. If you were playing JC, I would tell you to take Letho instead.

 

[Sargarth]

I put the link to the deck i'm using (3.6k mmr currently).

Cahir is the best NG gold card when used properly: use it in round 3 when opponent has 1 card left and you have 2 left. This way the opponent auto-passes just before Cahir triggers and you can use your leader again, while your opponent cant. He's literally game winner is 50% of games. Never swap him out of the deck.
If you want to craft Vilge you'd probably want him over Yen and you'll want to craft Roach so when you play Vilge roach comes out and you have a weak target to burn.
When it comes to NG unfortunately getting big str numbers with it is incredibly hard (when compared to consume or dwarfs melee decks), so you'll probably want to focus your cards towards control over pure power. And what cards you pick mostly depends on what is the current meta: Having problems with nekkers -> Sweers, Units with timers or some abilities cause problems -> Auckes and so on.

I decided not to run NG knights in the deck because it revealed crucial cards in my hand waaaaay too often, like revealing aeromancy when trying to clear dwarf row with rot tossers. If not revealed, opponents rarely expect it and just put a weaker unit for it to burn instead of doing everything possible to get rid of. I can explain why i like my deck and the use of each card, but i think that should be really up to you: finding out what works and what doesnt for you and tweaking your deck the way you want it to work.

 

[shard777]

Thank you for the replies. I did pick up the Decoy last night and dropped Vandehar. I also go another emissary and dropped an engineer. I decided to swap out my other engineer in favor of Alzur's Thunder. Still working my way toward my 800 scraps for Vig. Sargarth, after reading your comments regarding Cahir, I actually tried it a couple of times in games last night and it definitely helped win the game. Fortunately, I had a card advantage both times - otherwise it wouldn't have worked for me. I used to always burn him at the beginning of the first round to minimize the impact of the other team's leader, but saving him to the end is definitely a better play (The same with Cynthia or Albrich). Once I do craft Vig, I'm going to have a conundrum because I'm loath to give up Ciri or Yen because they have definitely helped with win games (And Skellen is too valuable to help me draw the cards I need).

 

[Guest 3973540]

(Hopefully there won't be a reset at the end of the beta)

A full reset is 100% confirmed. But you can get a dozen of kegs as reward depending on your level and rank.

Speaking of the deck, the golds are not bad at all actually. Unless you don't want to try other factions and playstyles at all, I would be crafting some neutral legendary silver instead of Vilgefortz. E.g. Aeromancy (though beware it was rumoured to be changed somewhat in the upcoming update).

 

[thalnor]

Re Cahir: Aside from the obvious card advantage if held until the end of the game, there are a few situations where you want to play Cahir early to control the enemy's tempo.

E.g. If you play first in Round 1, playing Cahir to force a Bran player to play his discard ability within the first two rounds, or else give the NG player a card advantage. In this particular case, you may want to force the Bran player to play his discard early so you can throw out Vicovaros to steal his discards.

Second example: Villentretenmerth into Cahir against an Eredin player. Eredin player is forced into letting his Eredin become one of the burn targets for Villentretenmerth, so if Cantarella is already out, it doesn't matter if he uses Shackles/Dbomb on Villentretenmerth.

Third example: Similarly against Brouvar. Force the Brouvar player to play one of his silvers (like Yarpen) that is most likely going to get burned by Villentretenmerth. If he plays DBomb from the deck? Just use Cleaver or Auckes to lock Villentretenmerth.

Edit: For more bonus points, if Brouvar uses his ability early and reveals the fact that he has no more silvers in his deck (only one when he used it), you can use Cahir to give him a pointless card.

 

[shard777]

So I got to 800 scraps last night and actually bought Regis instead of Vig. I thought about it and decided I prefer draw cards like Cynthia and Cantarella that put the cards in your deck and not make you play them right away. As I get higher in rank, I'm realizing that Nilf definitely can't stand up the stronger decks from other factions. I played some ranked games last night and kept drawing monster consume players. If I couldn't manage to pull my d-bomb from my deck, I was all done...

 

[thalnor]

There are other ways to deal with Monster Consume players as NG, some more generalist than others (as in uses cards that can be used against multiple decks effectively).

If it's a Nekker deck, you have two options: Sweers and Letho. Sweers you typically combo into a Rot Tosser on the first row, so with Sweers, you can remove all copies from the deck, and then at end of turn, the cow blows up the last Nekker. Letho is more of an annoying interrupt: banishing cards means he doesn't pull another from the deck. So he'll have to dig his deck for another Nekker.

A more general card to use against monster consume is Manticore Venom, to blow up all the spiders or kill all the nekkers that spawn from Monster Nest if he gets a Monster Nest out. Alternatively, using Thunder to kill the Vrans/Behemoths. As noted in another thread, if you kill the Vrans/Behemoths, you can steal them with Vicovaros and get your own monster consume train going.