This scorch/damage chaining meta prevents all creative combos.

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Shadow-Stalker;n10467292 said:
That's incorrect; sure, Gwent is, was and always will be about points. That is the main basis of the game.

However, it used to be about what tactical advantage you had over your opponent, what your deck could do that they couldn't. Expecting what they could do and stopping it or countering it. Luring them into a trap or playing every moment like it was your last. (To sum it up very, very simply)

Now you play your deck. You don't care what your opponent does because it won't change what card you play next. Because you're going to play your cards in a specific order because that's the order you play your cards every match.

And you're also kidding or weren't actually in the closed beta if you think there was LESS identity and variety back then.

You know how nostalgia always makes you remember things better than how they were? Yeah, that's what's happening here for you, my friend.

Gwent started off as little more than point slapping and card advantage. In TW3 you could literally win every single game 100% of the time by getting the cards with the highest value, spamming spies and decoys and then slapping down all your high value cards. The only strategy ever involved was playing around scorch.

Gwent as a TCCG has had to evolve from that and make it suitable for multiplayer, but hell it's had A LOT of rough patches along the way. Remember when weather took EVERYTHING on a row down to 1? When clear skies could only clear a single row? When golds were completely immune? When NR was the only faction who could make "promote" other cards to gold and therefore have a board full of immunity? Remember when ST could choose who went first and would just repeatedly do so to always gain CA over you? Remember when Monsters could carry over ANY amount of strength from one round to the next and frequently manipulated it to carry over 20+.

Gwent is no less about strategy than it was in closed beta, in fact with the new archetypes and cards always appearing, there's more diversity and strategy behind each play than there was back in those days. Sure, the cards and patch introduced over winter had the bronze power creep up and thanks mainly to dwarves and bears, started to become a lot more point slappy and strength above all else, but CDPR had proven they're listening to our concerns about this. Plenty of streamers have discussed their discomfort about the introduction of this kind of playstyle, and I bet you over the coming months we'll see changes and additions that address and soothe those concerns.

And if you honestly think there's no thought involved any more and you just play your deck with no consideration for your opponent, then my friend, you need to start watching some higher level players.
 
PraytheRosary;n10468512 said:
Play smart, dont just blindly throw critical building cards down, throw down silver cards that chain with eachother, those 3 witcher cards for example gives you a lead and an opportunity to play either a building card or an attack card depending on your enemy's build.

I appreciate you giving advice..
not sure you know..but I'm a year and a half deep into this game.
I've played every single version since day one

I know how to play 8)
 
TheShift;n10468852 said:
I appreciate you giving advice..
not sure you know..but I'm a year and a half deep into this game.
I've played every single version since day one

I know how to play 8)

didn't know, now i do, thank you.
 
I hate braindead halfelf, elvenscout and that dopler is now pulled by elven mercs. Vomit point deck OP.
:mean:
 
StrykerxS77x;n10457932 said:
That other poster was making this stuff sound like it's really good when it's really not. Villen and Igni aren't scorch effects at all and are prone to be useless to near useless in a lot of games. It can be hard to fit one scorch into a good deck let alone two or three. Scorch is great but it doesn't put points on your side of the board and you have to make sure that it only hits the other side and not your side.

Villen is a pain-in-the-ass to use. I have seen individuals who play NG use it well, but because of its delay, it's such a risk. Gigni is much easier to use. although in R3 we all know it's less useful.

Scorch is a fun card, and I'd argue it's a mainstay in many decks. I have beaten myself enough times with Scorch by having it as a dead card in my hand. I tell myself not to carry it into R3 unless it's a long round, or I play it immediately. Unfortunately, I don't always listen to my own advice. Lol. However, regarding Scorch: it's okay if it hits your side of the board, as long as it hits the other side much harder. In longer rounds, I am happy to Scorch my 8 point unit if my opponent has 3x 8-point units (as his/her highest units) sitting on the other side.
 
TweetyLeaf;n10468392 said:
It definitely is my kind of game.

And you are wrong, as I stated the problem is chaining damage cards while at the same time racking up small points. For example playing AT from elven merc is over and over again to stop the engine of any decks that you go against is just brainless.

My point is, that decks should be "allowed to breathe". Completely shutting down every deck that has creative multi card combinations with pure damage is brainless but most importantly it is not fun mechanic in the long run for either party.

It does not result in interesting, deep gameplay.

Brainless, brainless, everything is brainless, unless you do it, of course. Removing your key units with thunder is brainless, but plopping a ship next to a card, or dropping down an enforcer and spamming spies, or playing a leader after an engine for 30+ point 4-unit combo - now that's the stuff of intellectual finesse. Definitely much more fun for everyone involved.
 
The Eithne deck that 50% of the meta plays in rank 19+ is so bad.

Mandrake
Scorch
Schirru -> Scorch
Artefact Compression
Ithlinne Aegli -> 18 points
Aglais and do it again
Eithne and do it again

Meta really has boiled down to who can dump out the most low power units that create other low power units that do damage.
 
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Barracuda88;n10472312 said:
Brainless, brainless, everything is brainless, unless you do it, of course. Removing your key units with thunder is brainless, but plopping a ship next to a card, or dropping down an enforcer and spamming spies, or playing a leader after an engine for 30+ point 4-unit combo - now that's the stuff of intellectual finesse. Definitely much more fun for everyone involved.

So dropping scorches and AT is not brainless?

I give you an example:

Play moonlight consume that is rarely seen, you get 4 arachas behemoths to thin your deck (1 from monster nest), All get zapped by elven merc and 4th one gets scorched.
You play moonlight with siren, and rng card fucks it up with weather, or it dies to panther.
You manage to get 2nd moonlight to table and get those werewolves out -> scorch both.
You are done. nothing you can do and your arachas queen is useless.
GG.


Im not saying that example had any 200 IQ plays, but I am saying it is not even possible because you cant get your base cards to work.
You might still win that game, because he doesnt have any high units, but my point is, it is not fun.

I am perfectly fine with targetting and removing some cards from your opponents decks, I have nothing against "hey, I really need to remove that one card or I lose". Identifying threats is ofc part of the game, so is baiting removal from your opponent to be able to play something else.

The problem is damage can be chained almost endlessly at the moment. you can remove almost anything with right kind of deck and rack up your own points at the same time.
 
It's funny how people complain about cards that have been in the game for many months. Why now? Why I ask? Because people tired of huge units and start running big removals? Because you can't buff your units to a sky high numbers? LoL Scorch Eithne is my second favorite deck and Ive been running it since close beta and it's never been OP. It's funny how people whining about that or that card only when their deck is not effective anymore. Jeez.:sad:
 
TweetyLeaf;n10477132 said:
So dropping scorches and AT is not brainless?

I give you an example:

Play moonlight consume that is rarely seen, you get 4 arachas behemoths to thin your deck (1 from monster nest), All get zapped by elven merc and 4th one gets scorched.
You play moonlight with siren, and rng card fucks it up with weather, or it dies to panther.
You manage to get 2nd moonlight to table and get those werewolves out -> scorch both.
You are done. nothing you can do and your arachas queen is useless.
GG.


Im not saying that example had any 200 IQ plays, but I am saying it is not even possible because you cant get your base cards to work.
You might still win that game, because he doesnt have any high units, but my point is, it is not fun.

I am perfectly fine with targetting and removing some cards from your opponents decks, I have nothing against "hey, I really need to remove that one card or I lose". Identifying threats is ofc part of the game, so is baiting removal from your opponent to be able to play something else.

The problem is damage can be chained almost endlessly at the moment. you can remove almost anything with right kind of deck and rack up your own points at the same time.

Okaaay. Let's see. By your logic playing any card at all is brainless. Let's not go far and take your deck for example. How is it not brainless playing werewolves in moonlight and waiting for them to grow? It's also funny that you complain about scorch because werewolves are not targetable and can be removed only by scorch effects. Also complaining about all werewolves removed by single scorch...how about staggering their strength?

And what was that about AT? Brainless? Ok. You can't spam AT cause you likely have no more than two of it. And they have to be in the deck in the first place. And they can be dead unless opponents engine are present. And why AT specifically? Why, you might as well complain about any removal. How about viper witchers, fe?

Ridiculous.

:sad:

P.S. And please stop this talk about IQ. Gwent is not a rocket science. It's a card game. And far from the most complex by comparison.
 
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nunqmuo;n10477302 said:
Okaaay. Let's see.

FFS.

I honestly tried to give you a basic example, and you completely miss the point.

You want something more complicated? How about timing fringilla vigo, regis, letho, and cantarella?
That is a 4 card combo. You can add dudu/mandrake etc on that combo.

The play with monsters was EXAMPLE because I have no intention to explain you how to run johnny/ciri dash combo. Im not saying it's 200IQ play, it certainly is not, but the game is FUN when played with interactions NOT with mindless point or damage spamming.
 
I've been feeling the same lately. The point vomit of many small units in the end hurts other play styles. If I don't want to play the that way I have to keep up in tempo and that usually results in large cards. I can always count on scorch end of game. Another reason why card advantage is so important now. You have to go last if not expect scorch. I've been experimenting with done bigger plays such as 47 point ciri but ....anyway not much you can do here though. You can't change scorch. Last card is king
 
Mancoon1980;n10477512 said:
I've been feeling the same lately. The point vomit of many small units in the end hurts other play styles. If I don't want to play the that way I have to keep up in tempo and that usually results in large cards. I can always count on scorch end of game. Another reason why card advantage is so important now. You have to go last if not expect scorch. I've been experimenting with done bigger plays such as 47 point ciri but ....anyway not much you can do here though. You can't change scorch. Last card is king

I know I might repeat myself but yeah, for me scorch in itself is not the problem, problem is chaining it and similar effects.

I so want to play engine/rotation/build up decks, but I play damage now because other options are not valid anymore and trying to play them is so frustrating.

If people wonder that I have one deck that I really like and damage ruins it, it is not so. My playstyle and what I enjoy is "building", and I feel it's just not possible to play the game like I enjoy it the most.
It certainly is not about "I want to have 30+ unit on the table".
 
StrykerxS77x;n10455542 said:
How many decks can scorch five times? SC can obviously do three times but I really don't know what you mean here.
NG can... Scorch, Yennifer, Emhyr, Renew, Cahir, ST can get 4 with Renew. Either can get lucky with Uma's or Aguara: TF
 
Oh you want to drop your engines without getting interupted? Stop playing a greedy Point vomiting consume Deck. Chaining DMG effects lol maybe just maybe try to adept instead of hoping your enemy let you vomit your points out. Because of this point vomit decks people build DMG decks. So play more engines or stop playing point vomit only
 
oOxhaosOo;n10478752 said:
Oh you want to drop your engines without getting interupted? Stop playing a greedy Point vomiting consume Deck. Chaining DMG effects lol maybe just maybe try to adept instead of hoping your enemy let you vomit your points out. Because of this point vomit decks people build DMG decks. So play more engines or stop playing point vomit only

Im not exactly sure what you are trying to say.

No, I allready explained I do not play "greedy point vomit".

Playing something like fringilla on my deck is hardly point vomiting.

Ofc, if you can show me NG/monster deck that actually requires managing but is very viable at the moment, I gladly will try and test it out, maybe then I get how it should be done if it indeed can be done as you say.
 
The main issue I can find with Gwent is actually that there are few removals and control cards, but the ones that do exist are not so well designed, being either very powerful or totally useless. The way you play Gwent, compared to other card games, makes it so aggro decks can't really exist, Gwent is all about tempo and/or setting up combos, and in that situation, designing appropriate removals is really hard: You need to find a way for removals to be effective against tempo, but not too disruptive against combos, but still disruptive enough that it's worth playing them, and in the end the balance is hard to find.
A few examples of what I consider to be good and bad design:
Consume Monsters and Sweers: A Nilfgaard vs Consume Monsters MU essentially boils down to whether Nilfgaard gets Sweers, and Monsters get Brewess as an answer, but hopefully Gwent has enough deck thinning and mulligan to reliably get that on both sides. This design is quite good in that it entices mindgames and favors people actually thinking a bit about what they're doing. Nilfgaard must wonder whether he plays Sweers now or later, Consume Monsters must mulligan appropriately, try and bait the enemy Sweers by committing part of its Nekker Warriors into duplicating Nekkers, while retaining the other part in case you need to Brewess into Nekker Warriors. So yeah sometimes, on either sides RNG will ruin you. But you're playing a card game so that's gonna happen anyway. The fact that Sweers exist, and that you can adapt from it using Brewess is good design
Scorch and super massive minions: against some decks scorch is worthless. Think Foltest/Blue stripes deck, for instance. But against some, it is so punitive that it straight-off ruins a deck and its entire setup. Scorch is great design with its ability to kill multiple units if the enemy is not careful enough, but its ability to totally destroy any super big unit ruins entire archetypes. A slight rework that could be done on Scorch would be making it so if there is only one "highest unit", it is dealt up to 20 damage (still very decent value for a silver), and if there's more than one "highest unit", deals up to 12 to all the highest units. This way you would still be able to remove or severely damage several big units if you set it properly/if your opponent misplays, without removing, say a 40 points unit that was build through the entire game. And in the meantime you allow Geralt: Igni to still entirely remove a unit because his setup condition is harder to meet, because he's a gold card, etc...
 
i think maybe introducting / bringing back some kind of bronze shield cards would be good,
e.g.
* some shield, that saves from any kind of damage for all kind of same units (like it already existed)
* some shield, that saves from any kind of damage for all the highest units
* some shield, that saves from any kind of damage for all the lowest units
* some shield, that saves against some special damage muliple times (e.g. "scorch protection", "direct damage protection", "weather protection"))

also some other cards might be fun:
* some silver card for "magic reflection": returns the last spell casted on a unit back (for targeted units back to the original caster)
** (e.g. if you get scortched by your enemy it will scorch only highest units of him instead)
** could be also used positively
* some "transfer effect". whenever something is casted on some of this unit, that has "transfer effect", the unit can decide to pass it to someother unit
 
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