Is Wardancer A Problem?

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time_drainer;n10825091 said:
... putting decks that favor long rounds in a huge disadvantage and making losing 1st round actually an appealing option, which I think is the opposite of how it supposed to be...

This. Same goes and to discarded Olgierd and any other carryover that you can't actually answer. And while you can do something about any other carryover, Wardancer is just BANG - you're fucked. And that problem amplified first with the Dorf Meta (the horror) and than when Cleaver was changed to make this insane Brouver CA abuse combo we have right now, making Wardancer even more problematic.

Why it wasn't problematic before? Cause ST had to work with way different decks before all of that, like, how can you put Wardancer in the Spella'Tael deck? It was one of those "sleeping cards", like when everybody and their mother were using MGHailstorm or Silver Spy with Summoning Circle. All of those were abusive mechanics and had to be removed from the game FOR GOOD. And those are Silver Cards, not a Bronze of which you have 3 copies for even more abuse (starting R1 with 6 points on the board an be devastating if Oppo got the Blue and is playing a slower tempo/combo deck).

Honestly, I think people that are defending the Warcancer had never played anything outside specific ST decks, to see how exactly it turns the game around on your head.
 
No, the problem is restriction of CA gain. Which made cards like this seems amazing when, some time ago, they would be utter garbage.


Same thing with the coinflip problem. Back on CB, coinflip wasnt a huge of a problem because it was so easy to generate ca and thus, if you had a good deck and was smart, you could always have CA at the third round even if you loose the coin. And it was good gameplay wise because it was dependent solely on player skill; the best player would frequently have the card advantage.


The fundamental problem here is that the 2 main core mechanics of gwent (pass and round mechanics) that you just cant get rid off, will always exist and thus you will always rely on high tempo + pass to generate CA at the very least. Resilience is one of the last resources besides that still around (and the spies, but the spies are dual so in the end they just cancel each other) to generate CA. Once you get rid of that, than high tempo + pass tactics will become "the next wardancer" which, as i'm aware of, is already happening with the broover + clever combo.


I'm actually very surprised that no one ever realized this.


I cant be the only one that sees how much CA gain restriction hurt this game.... When you restrict CA gain so much, you create problems like this, that even shitty cards like wardancer become "broken" just because they give you the possibility of CA gain.
 
Haha. Literally reading this topic and playing against ST deck in ranked. I have blue coin, my opponent drops 2 wardancers, I have no spy.
At this very moment I realise the game is lost. Consider me toxic, but one should be totally naive/blind/retarted to think this is a normal game state.
 
Laveley;n10826101 said:
No, the problem is restriction of CA gain. Which made cards like this seems amazing when, some time ago, they would be utter garbage.

Card advantage is not in particular the main problem with Wardancers.
They are a important factor indeed but It's rather a combination of unfair abilities that can result in that.


Same thing with the coinflip problem. Back on CB, coinflip wasnt a huge of a problem because it was so easy to generate ca and thus, if you had a good deck and was smart, you could always have CA at the third round even if you loose the coin. And it was good gameplay wise because it was dependent solely on player skill; the best player would frequently have the card advantage.

When was the gameplay good?


The fundamental problem here is that the 2 main core mechanics of gwent (pass and round mechanics) that you just cant get rid off, will always exist and thus you will always rely on high tempo + pass to generate CA at the very least. Resilience is one of the last resources besides that still around (and the spies, but the spies are dual so in the end they just cancel each other) to generate CA. Once you get rid of that, than high tempo + pass tactics will become "the next wardancer" which, as i'm aware of, is already happening with the broover + clever combo.

I'm actually very surprised that no one ever realized this.

Slow and high tempo plays are very hard to assess because they depend on many factors like your deck, the cards in your hand, gamebalance and carddesign.


I cant be the only one that sees how much CA gain restriction hurt this game.... When you restrict CA gain so much, you create problems like this, that even shitty cards like wardancer become "broken" just because they give you the possibility of CA gain.

Gwent shouldn't be about gaining card advantage, bashing points and who plays the best removal.
It's about playing a battle/war in a simplified cardform and to keep things fair I believe every player should have the same amount of cards each round.
 
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1990BW;n10826581 said:
Card advantage is not in particular the main problem with Wardancers.
They are a important factor indeed but It's rather a combination of unfair abilities that can result in that.

Yes it is. If it wasnt for the potential CA gain from the card, nobody would be complaining about it. Say, if it worked like a trap card with a 2 turn counter, nobody would complain because it wouldnt protect against drypass and thus wouldnt allow potential CA gain. In fact, nobody would even use it anymore.


1990BW;n10826581 said:
When was the gameplay good?

For me? CB. Although i enjoyed the game on OB too for sometime, even though i felt that the game was going on a bad direction and voiced it over here, just to be confronted on people like you which said i was wrong, said that removing faction passives was a good thing, that turn all units agile was a good thing, that nerfing card after card removing their flavor and depth just because they were "broken" was a good thing.... well look at where we are now. Sux to be right sometimes.


1990BW;n10826581 said:
Slow and high tempo plays are very hard to assess because they depend on many factors like your deck, the cards in your hand, gamebalance and carddesign.

thats doesnt change what i said. Nerfhammer wardancer now, tomorrow high tempo plays will be the next "broken" move which potentially generates CA.




1990BW;n10826581 said:
Gwent shouldn't be about gaining card advantage, bashing points and who plays the best removal.
It's about playing a battle/war in a simplified cardform and to keep things fair I believe every player should have the same amount of cards each round.

Even if the players have the same amount of cards each round, one of them will always have the last say, ALWAYS. And that will always be an advantage. Yeah, you can dilute that advantage. Or you can give players all the tools for them to acquire card advantage through tactical plays and the game itself will decide which player will have the advantage to the last say. That not only emphasizes the skill intensive aspect of the game but also add a whole lot of depth on decision making about the CA battle. And its just as "fair" as a tactical game can be; the most skilled player which makes the most optimized plays to acquire CA will have the advantage at the end.

CB metagame was all about the CA battle and it was enjoyable. Now that we barely have CA battle coinflip became a huge problem and the game is suddenly almost like playing solitaire with point vomiting all over the place and few tactical depth... hmm i wonder why? Since you cant build CA anymore, why even try? Just vomit all the points you can and the board and thats it. The player fortunate enough to draw the highest point combo will win.
 
Barracuda88;n10824351 said:
Ah, well, I'll take another crack at explaining it to "people like you", though. A Gwent match consists of three rounds. Dry-passing should NOT be a valid tactic to either start the game, or gain card advantage in round two. People like YOU should NOT feel entitled to dry-passing. Wardancer at least carries some risk. Dry-passing requires nothing and is truly uncounterable.

If they do away with the wardancer (which it's been established they will gut at the very least, of course), they should also remove the dry-pass.

I think you should try playing a deck that likes long rounds. Play some games with Axemen or Eredin (without Ciri: Nova) or Moonlight, including some against a ST opponent with Wardancers. Alternatively, you can play the Wardancer deck yourself and track your win rate when you're able to mulligan Wardancers in rounds 1 or 2, and when you can't. Then look again at what you wrote above.
 
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Jeydra;n10827151 said:
I think you should try playing a deck that likes long rounds. Play some games with Axemen or Eredin (without Ciri: Nova) or Moonlight, including some against a ST opponent with Wardancers. Alternatively, you can play the Wardancer deck yourself and track your win rate when you're able to mulligan Wardancers in rounds 1 or 2, and when you can't. Then look again at what you wrote above.

I play a ton with decks that like long rounds. I play movement and I play engine decks and I play dwarves, and I guess it should go without saying I played against wardancers and with them. I DON'T play T1-26 Mulligan Swarm deck, though, nor do I want to, to prove some kinda point, to be honest. Not sure what's supposed to convince me of what here. That dry passing is good? Sure, it's good when you're the one doing it, no so good when it's being done to you, kinda like with the wardancer I guess. If dry passing was gone, we wouldn't have an issue with the wardancer, either.
 
Laveley;n10826101 said:
No, the problem is restriction of CA gain. Which made cards like this seems amazing when, some time ago, they would be utter garbage.

No, they failed to be viewed as such an unfair and problematic card before because ST lacked the resources to take full advantage of it. All of their archetypes were "slow burn;" that is, decks that required set up. Spell, mulligan, movement, hand buff, dorf, etc, all lacked early high tempo plays that could punish decks for losing coin flip. It only became a serious issue when the Brouver-Spy-Cleaver combo was introduced. Brouver's near 100% consistency in pulling the combo almost guarantees CA going into the final round because almost no decks can match that early tempo drop. ST hadn't been relevant for a long time before the Mid-Winter Patch introduced a slew of OP golds and silvers that single-handed boosted it back into the competitive fray. Those got toned down, but the Cleaver combo was introduced and that's all that's propping up ST at the moment. In fact, the only thing keeping it from totally dominating the meta is that ST in general still sucks, but even a weak deck can usually make due with an extra card up. It's precisely why Shupe has the highest WR for ST decks... their bronzes and synergies really don't matter. All that matters is Brouver-Spy-Cleaver. And that combo is seriously strangling the rest of the meta, because you have to run either 1) a deck that can consistently bounce out an insane amount of tempo without any set-up, or 2) can reliably win a card down, e.g., Great Swords, the not-coincidentally other staple of the current meta.
 
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Vespuche;n10809821 said:
So I just read the roadmap. Noticed in the entire thing only a single card was mentioned. That card is Wardancer.

I play ST so I am a bit biased. I would like to see this card stay in the game. It is strong, but is it a problem? What do you guys think?

if they fixed spies then wardancer is fine

with spies and dry passing being so broken wardancer is broken too
 
lakired;n10827521 said:
No, they failed to be viewed as such an unfair and problematic card before because ST lacked the resources to take full advantage of it. All of their archetypes were "slow burn;" that is, decks that required set up. Spell, mulligan, movement, hand buff, dorf, etc, all lacked early high tempo plays that could punish decks for losing coin flip. It only became a serious issue when the Brouver-Spy-Cleaver combo was introduced. Brouver's near 100% consistency in pulling the combo almost guarantees CA going into the final round because almost no decks can match that early tempo drop. ST hadn't been relevant for a long time before the Mid-Winter Patch introduced a slew of OP golds and silvers that single-handed boosted it back into the competitive fray. Those got toned down, but the Cleaver combo was introduced and that's all that's propping up ST at the moment. In fact, the only thing keeping it from totally dominating the meta is that ST in general still sucks, but even a weak deck can usually make due with an extra card up. It's precisely why Shupe has the highest WR for ST decks... their bronzes and synergies really don't matter. All that matters is Brouver-Spy-Cleaver. And that combo is seriously strangling the rest of the meta, because you have to run either 1) a deck that can consistently bounce out an insane amount of tempo without any set-up, or 2) can reliably win a card down, e.g., Great Swords, the not-coincidentally other staple of the current meta.



You clearly dont play this game for long and the date under your nickname proves it (besides the obvious BS on your commentary). ST slow? lmao. ST could make 100+ points on the table with 2 or 3 cards, like on the dwaf meta time with ithilene wombo combo. Talk about tempo. ST also dominated a lot of mettas probably even before you ever heard that gwent existed. Wardancers werent used simply because there were way more effective ways of generating CA. About the brouver cleaver combo, 26 point leader aint nothing impressive either, eithne already did that back in the days with saskia + roach coming for the deck. Thing is, back than it wasnt nothing impressive either.

Game was too different, you will never understand it because you didnt played it and thus you cant make a comparison like i can and see how shallow the game is now compared to what have been because of the frequent mechanics strips and nerfhammers by the devs. The power plays back than were way stronger than what it is now, even if the general base points of cards were smaller, the effects were much more powerful, it was possible to easily put 50+ points with one card on CB. ST had basically a +4 spy on cirian and yavinn most frequent than not was also a positive card due to his side effect. Vanilla ciri was basically a neutral +6 spy and frequently an auto include. ST passive alone could grant you CA. Milva + roach combo. And lets not mention eithne returning spies or playing decoy 4 times per match (old decoy, that put the card on your hand and not automatically play it again like it is now). Even drypass was more often than not a bad play because the opportunity of dictating with how many cards round 3 would be played was frequently game-winning and would probably grant you CA per se than just drypassing.

A garbage card like wardancer being "broken" is just a testament of how ruined this game have been on this 2 to 3 years since the launch of CB and, at least on this one, the devs are with me since even they are whiling to pull the reset button on this mess.

listen, i'm not even wasting more calories on this forum anymore. If you want to believe that wardancer is broken or not, i dont really care, on this "solitaire witcher 3 themed" game that has its days counted it probably is. All i know its 6 months from now we might have a game as good as it already been. maybe.

Wake me up when September ends...

:cheers:
 
x1Cygnus;n10824571 said:
Cards like Morkvarg / Olgierd / Cerys and so on? Are we going to start a campaign to get them nerfed/removed too? Or are they OK?
What makes Wardancer distinguishable from any other carryover is the simple fact that it cannot be countered.
 
Barracuda88;n10825241 said:
You base your argument on the idea that in this fair, non-coinflipped world the ONLY way to win Round 1 will be to go down a card, which I think is neither correct, nor desirable. Personally, I would prefer: a) the coinflip issue be fixed in a way that makes it possible to go first and still win on even cards without exploiting stuff like Spy-Barclay-Cleaver; b) that everyone must play at least 1 card in every round; and c) that CA would not matter as much as it does now in round 3.

edit: Also, I think it should be perfectly acceptable tactic to want to lose a round, as long as you participated in it and accomplished what you needed to do.
Okay, we can discuss further whether dry-pass is a problem or not and whether winning a round with even cards or one card down is the preferable, fair outcome, but I don't want to derail this topic too much. I plan to reflect on that later in a different thread though.

Sticking with Wardancer and how the game currently plays, I think it's fair to say that taking a round by committing one more card than your opponent is the most balanced outcome. Losing by committing the same amount of cards gives you a significant disadvantage.
The only safe way for the starting player to avoid this is dry-passing. While it comes with the disadvantages of its own, it's very often the right choice as playing into a round very often means putting yourself in a card disadvantage. Denying it is a powerful tool, any card that can do this is insanely strong in my opinion only to second to CA spies.

I don't think a faction bronze should have this power. In fact I don't think any card should have this power. Being a faction card it gives that faction an insane advantage, not unlike it would be restricting CA spies to a single faction. You want to make it neutral? We end up with yet another auto-include card, with the same gambling bullshit of who was lucky enough to draw it in the right time.

I understand you don't like dry-passing, but even if we want to go that way, the solution shouldn't be a card like Wardancer.
 
Barracuda88;n10827361 said:
I play a ton with decks that like long rounds. I play movement and I play engine decks and I play dwarves, and I guess it should go without saying I played against wardancers and with them. I DON'T play T1-26 Mulligan Swarm deck, though, nor do I want to, to prove some kinda point, to be honest. Not sure what's supposed to convince me of what here. That dry passing is good? Sure, it's good when you're the one doing it, no so good when it's being done to you, kinda like with the wardancer I guess. If dry passing was gone, we wouldn't have an issue with the wardancer, either.

Based on your posts so far I do not think you've played one of the decks I have in mind. Current movement decks are not the same as a deck that needs long rounds any more than Elfswarm is a deck that needs long rounds. No, play something like the three decks I mentioned then come back and read what you wrote again.

For your convenience: let's imagine that you're playing something like https://www.gwentdb.com/decks/46339-bloodmoon-rank-20 vs. a deck with 24 Half-elf Hunters and one Wardancer. You win the coin flip and go second.

Round 1 Turn 1: opponent plays Half-elf Hunter. You play Siren into Moonlight because what else are you going to do? Opponent leads 12-4.
Turn 2: opponent passes. You play something to win the round (you are now down a card).
Round 2 Turn 1: opponent has Wardancer (or CDPR implements your idea to stop drypassing, everyone must play at least one card in round 2). You can't drypass. So you play Siren into Moonlight because again what else are you going to do? Opponent plays Half-Elf Hunter, taking the tempo lead. You are officially forced to play a semi-long round down a card with a deck that has no round 3 plan if it goes into round 3 on equal cards.

And you "won" the coin flip.

So no, I do not think you have played one of the decks I have in mind. You might say "this deck sucks", but this deck reached rank 20, and similar decks have gone even further into the top 100 (https://www.gwentdb.com/decks/46051-...ght-top-100-gm) and even won a LAN (https://www.gwentdb.com/decks/44358-...unt-lan-axemen). Just saying.
 
NYCardplayer;n10827901 said:
What makes Wardancer distinguishable from any other carryover is the simple fact that it cannot be countered.

Patially disagree on this one. As I think while Olgierd and Morkvarg are technically counterable, in practice your options are way too limited.
Sure locks are there, but they're currently so weak, that you probably don't want them in your deck and have access to it only through Create high-rolls. Also can you lock a card in graveyard? Cause Olgierd usually doesn't spend any time on the board, before starting to mess with dry-pass.
You can also keep killing Morkvarg till he expires, but that's very costly and you can get passed before you finish him off.
Which leaves you graveyard hate, but I only know of three graveyard hate cards that aren't horrible in any other matchup: Assire, Caretaker and Ozzrel. These are only 3 cards limited to 2 factions.

So no, we're far from having enough tools to counter them. (As opposed to resilent units where any elimination suffices and are also low tempo plays, so I'm generally okay with them.)
 
time_drainer;n10828541 said:
Patially disagree on this one. As I think while Olgierd and Morkvarg are technically counterable, in practice your options are way too limited.
Sure locks are there, but they're currently so weak, that you probably don't want them in your deck and have access to it only through Create high-rolls. Also can you lock a card in graveyard? Cause Olgierd usually doesn't spend any time on the board, before starting to mess with dry-pass.
You can also keep killing Morkvarg till he expires, but that's very costly and you can get passed before you finish him off.
Which leaves you graveyard hate, but I only know of three graveyard hate cards that aren't horrible in any other matchup: Assire, Caretaker and Ozzrel. These are only 3 cards limited to 2 factions.

So no, we're far from having enough tools to counter them. (As opposed to resilent units where any elimination suffices and are also low tempo plays, so I'm generally okay with them.)

Well not exactly - you can't graveyard hate Morkvarg. However you can lock them and there's also cards like Coral, Muzzle, etc.

Also, it's not so much that Wardancers cannot be countered than that you cannot see it coming. With Olgierd and Morkvarg, you know they're there, and you can plan around whether it's still worth trying to win the round; against Wardancer you might be playing around a card the opponent doesn't have, with associated grave consequences.
 
All the 3 common issues mentioned in this thread relate to card advantage (CA). This is because one card is so strong, that in low number of cards the difference between 1 card less or more in terms of points value is huge.

This issue has become more apparent due to the extreme powercreep the cards have seen. Couldn't this be solved by decreasing the hard value of all cards consistently by 3-4 points (tutors excluded or with lesser impact as they see the same nerf through the tutorable card)? I mean percentage-wise the difference is still the same, but having synergy in your hand means more than having 1 card more as generating 1 point through synergy would mean more when average (hard) value of cards is less. You also could argue you could buff synergy effects but the impact there would be multiplied comparedm to the steps feasible in decreasing average card value.
Also by decreasing average card (hard) value bricked cards wouldn't as totally kill your round as they do now.
 
Jeydra;n10828641 said:
Well not exactly - you can't graveyard hate Morkvarg. However you can lock them and there's also cards like Coral, Muzzle, etc.
Also, it's not so much that Wardancers cannot be countered than that you cannot see it coming. With Olgierd and Morkvarg, you know they're there, and you can plan around whether it's still worth trying to win the round; against Wardancer you might be playing around a card the opponent doesn't have, with associated grave consequences.
Yeah, that's true, you can't graveyard hate Morkvarg. On the other hand Coral, Muzzle and such only works on him and not on Olgierd. So it seems you need two kinds of specific counters if you want to counter the Bran to Olgierd & Morkvarg combo messing up your dry-pass.

To be honest I'm also bit conflicted whether this Bran combo needs nerf, because as you mentioned you can play around it (though forcing you to forfeit 1st round is still quite powerful), it concerns the staple ability of one leader, and is a relatively low tempo play (7 + whatever immediate tempo the last discarded card provides), so it might be just fine.
 
Card advantage, with whom you cannot interract with - is a problem, and anyone who understands game mechanic knows that for sure.
 
Jeydra;n10828211 said:
Based on your posts so far I do not think you've played one of the decks I have in mind. Current movement decks are not the same as a deck that needs long rounds any more than Elfswarm is a deck that needs long rounds. No, play something like the three decks I mentioned then come back and read what you wrote again.

For your convenience: let's imagine that you're playing something like https://www.gwentdb.com/decks/46339-bloodmoon-rank-20 vs. a deck with 24 Half-elf Hunters and one Wardancer. You win the coin flip and go second.

Round 1 Turn 1: opponent plays Half-elf Hunter. You play Siren into Moonlight because what else are you going to do? Opponent leads 12-4.
Turn 2: opponent passes. You play something to win the round (you are now down a card).
Round 2 Turn 1: opponent has Wardancer (or CDPR implements your idea to stop drypassing, everyone must play at least one card in round 2). You can't drypass. So you play Siren into Moonlight because again what else are you going to do? Opponent plays Half-Elf Hunter, taking the tempo lead. You are officially forced to play a semi-long round down a card with a deck that has no round 3 plan if it goes into round 3 on equal cards.

And you "won" the coin flip.

So no, I do not think you have played one of the decks I have in mind. You might say "this deck sucks", but this deck reached rank 20, and similar decks have gone even further into the top 100 (https://www.gwentdb.com/decks/46051-...ght-top-100-gm) and even won a LAN (https://www.gwentdb.com/decks/44358-...unt-lan-axemen). Just saying.

What you do is play your Spy, then, IF they play the spy back, you make a decision to either play the long round 2 to bleed them out or the long round 3 where you'll have the second go. And if they don't play the spy, you have complete control and the last say, because they gave you that round 1. In other words, yes you have to adjust to not being able to dry-pass. You need to be ready to out-tempo, which your deck, by the way, though it starts slow, can get up to speed in terms of tempo pretty quickly, what with the immune 14-point bronzes and 2-4 point per turn gain. You have a 4-point card that plays a 2-point boon, which is pretty high tempo as far as boons go. And there will be times your drypass will work fine (if they don't get rid of it) and you'll see this wardancer played from hand in round 3. And maybe you'll still lose.

I can see how the card can irk some people, but to say it's auto-win against any deck is absurd.

I've played level 20 decks which when I see a nekker played turn 1 and I don't have or didn't draw Compression or Muzzle or Mandrake I KNOW i'm done. Then and there, there's nothing I can do. But hey, I can "interact" with it, so it's cool.
 
It's remarkable there's so much discussion about a 3 strength bronze.
People who defend it, argue about it and throwing other broken mechanics into the discussion.
The fact remains Wardancers will be changed in the balance patch.
So instead of wasting time to a senseless discussion come up with suggestions so this card remains playable.
If you think another mechanic is broken start a topic about it and do the same there.
 
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