John Calveit/Cahir nerf is terrible!

[Ninschi]

So the dust has settled, the uproar starts to calm down and BEHOLD: Calveit is still around, still viable and still fun to play.

We all love to make loud assumptions of the POTENTIAL impact a new patch can have - just like the death of SK was predicted after the recent Brokvar Hunter nerf. Turns out 2 weeks later that SK is "the most OP ever and 90% of all decks are now SK. QQ!". In all seriousness to those who love to play the prophet: You are most likely wrong! Just because previous builds have to adapt to a new meta doesnt mean that entire archetypes vanish. Also, what sometimes appears to be a nerf might actually turn out to be a buff (see savage bear for reference).

Coming back to Calveit. In combination with Golems, he was completely nutz in its early open beta form. The Calveit spies deck dominated the top of the leader board as some of us might remember. It was able to consistantly draw the entire deck + whatever Assire recycled. After the Golem change, the deck lost alot of potential as Golems are on the one hand perfect for a deck that relies on cycling but also suddenly presented a nombo (anti-combo) with Calveits leader ability. What comes with this patch can hardly be considered a nerf as we are finally back to the days were Calveit and Golems massively thin your deck without any(!) risk involved! The consistency your thinning provides makes it almost guaranteed to draw into your golds as the rounds progress. NG spies didnt look that fresh for quite some time.

TLDR; Take your time and test Calveit as it is stupid to evaluate cards in a vacuum before a new patch even hits. Calveit is certainly not dead yet

 

[partci]

Well, gotta say I play in Casual (don't have the nerves to go Ranked yet) and he is doing pretty good. It is annoying that I can't draw the gold I've settled with Stefan, but what can you do... Only big change is actually wit Cahir - he is out of my Calveit deck now. :?

 

[XenokMe]

After actually playing my deck this change is very good. Its made the deck much better as far as game balance. I think they got this one right.

 

[illicitSoul]

I think Calveit could be allowed to pull the golds while Cahir - no.

 

[Skryba86]

Loll this thread is probably the best example I've seen recently of people over reacting about stuff before even testing it. I think the real nerf here was to a more control oriented build of NG with calveit. The spies version won't really care about not drawing golds as, especially with the golems back, they'll cycle through the whole deck and draw the golds anyway.

Now to a control build, I'd say calveit has lost a lot of his value. You won't be able to control your top deck anymore, or search for a win condition. Not that big of a deal though, as the buffed emhyr would probably be a better option for control anyway.

 

[kitsuneae]

Well with the use of emissaries , golems and many other cards+ leader ability. NG has the ability to thin the deck greatly. So the probability of you drawing a gold card in round 2 and 3 becomes high.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. Your chances of drawing gold are still about as good as any other faction... if anything, they have better means to thin the deck!


Cards that play other cards like themselves:

People tend to lock or kill the foot soldiers before the timer runs out. Also those weak golems. That's all Nilfgaard gets like this. There's also the Neutral Witcher trio, but everyone gets it and it eats three silver slots that can be taken up by better cards.

NR's foot soldiers and reavers have it on deploy for instant troop gain. There's also a leader for instant trio. Blue Stripes (all of them. Even Ves), Reaver Hunter, Field Medic (if you bounce the reavers)

Skelliege has the trickier but far harder to stop Shield Maidens. Also one leader that calls one card, but it's the biggest one you have. They don't do much summoning, mostly ressurrecting.

ST gets things like Baraclay Ellis and Broover Hoog who call other dwarves on summon. There's also a card for elves that summons itself if you have 5 elves in play, but the dwarves are more reliable. No timer crap here! You're not stopping them. There's even a gold with deploy: much stronger and better than some weak golems.

Even monsters get more and better calling out cards than Nilfgaard. Foglets, Arrakis Spawn, Crones, Wild Hunt Navigator, and Nekkers all work better and have no timers to contend with.



Cards that call random Cards:

Calveit and Cahir were you heroes here even though they each only get to play ONE card. Being able to spawn a gold was make or break sometimes... but you'd just as likely find special cards or first light. They weren't actually that strong. Sure, there's spies, but they are very weak and risky. Emissaries have to be found, then played with the novices for real effect. One or the other won't always appear making this combo weak at best (spies, no novices) and useless at worse (no spies, just notices). They also play AT RANDOM. This backfires more than you'd think, especially if you're trying to play control as many NG control cards are situation-oriented (ex: rot tosser).

NR has Field Medics. They also can allow a troop like the Reavers to be reused to draw out even more cards. Much better than a single use spy/medic, no?

I don't think monsters or ST gets cards like these unless they resort to neutrals like Johnny.



Cards that Mill the deck/Mulligan (searching for a gold)

Now here is your traditional "searching for a card" mechanic! Being able to redraw a card at the cost of discarding one is far more powerful than calling a random card or making a copy of a card and hoping your between round draw of what, a total of three cards, is going to get you a gold.

Scoia'tiel has a mulligan troop and a mulligan leader. Also there's Elven Wardancer that is played on Mill so thinning the deck isn't too destructive if done carefully.

Skellige has a leader that mulligans three cards of their choice. Way stronger than Cahir/John's "play one"! The Clan Dimmun pirates mulligan themselves. There's a raider who plays himself on Muligan (Basically Skelliege's Wardancer). They even have two cards that allow for the redraw of multiple cards: Ermion and Svanrige.

Monsters and Northren Realms don't get this that I'm aware of. Unless you count the very risky Gaunter (Monsters).

The closest NG has is the weaker "reveal" mechanic which requires that the right cards be in your hand AND that you are able to play an outside card to reveal them. This is much riskier and requires more cards than simply playing a mulligan card. It's also super gimmicky.

Loll this thread is probably the best example I've seen recently of people over reacting about stuff before even testing it. I think the real nerf here was to a more control oriented build of NG with calveit. The spies version won't really care about not drawing golds as, especially with the golems back, they'll cycle through the whole deck and draw the golds anyway.

Now to a control build, I'd say calveit has lost a lot of his value. You w \on't be able to control your top deck anymore, or search for a win condition. Not that big of a deal though, as the buffed emhyr would probably be a better option for control anyway.

I have actually tested this... a LOT. I have several attempts at black mill decks because I wanted to see if they could thin the deck as well as ST or Skellige. Surprise: they couldn't. I was using three golems, three spies, three novices, three of those self-playing footsoldiers, First light (to summon bronze), Alzur's Double Cross, Cahir, and John to try to thin the deck to make way for silvers and golds. Often I ended up cycling the entire deck outside of a few special cards packed as insurance (ex: shackles) and the golds.... and I never drew the golds. I did this for over a month: long before the nerf happened.

You only get five draw chances to find a gold in best case scenario. Unless your first round is stellar with perfect spies and novices your draw drops even further to literally two chances to find gold.

Nilfgaard isn't that great for deck searching. John and Cahir were the extra chance we needed to be able to stand up to Skellige's superior searching and ST's gold on DEPLOY. Even though it was a low improved chance, it was better than no improved chance at all.

I'd counter that Calveit now only is helpful with control as he gives you three cards to pick from. Not troops, cards overall. This is more versatile but more weak as you don't know what you're getting. Of course, that seems like a kind of weak use for a leader in comparison to other options out there like Dagon (always weather/clear weather) or Broover Hoog (more dwarves).

And yes, Emhir is a better option for control. You know what you are getting: He's a free Decoy. He's not random (and now bronze-silver only!) like John. Everyone runs decoy already as it is, so he can save you a silver slot if you want to use him. Of course Radovid is better with two locks that deal damage. Free locks in an ability heavy meta? Yes please.

 

[Skryba86]

Well, not sure what build you were using, but I've played a few dozen games with a fringilla combo build and I can tell you that it was extremely rare for me not to cycle through my deck enough that I always got to the golds that I needed. And I wasn't playing avallach. This was before the nerf, though, so there is that.

My point here is that if you build your spy deck to be able to cycle through your deck and get to whatever you want, you will get there. Remains to be seen if that can actually be effective in winning. But you can easily cycle through your whole deck and draw whatever you need.

Maybe that won't be a build that can work to win from a non-combo win condition. I've never played a straight up spy deck to try and win by golds alone or buffing impera brigade, or nauzicaa's, so I can't attest to that.

 

[4RM3D]

kitsuneae

An interesting breakdown. I would just like to add that Alchemist + Daerlan Foot Soldiers is still an insane combo. That's a 12 strength bronze + deck thinning. It works nice in hybrid/control decks and gets an extra punch in reveal decks with Mangonel.

Regardless, NG is still the only faction that can play nearly all cards in the first round. Their deck thinning might have some weakness, but its potential is great, nonetheless. Imagine using Avallac'h and Albrich after some deck thinning. The changes of getting a gold card would be pretty big.

PS. Of course you can use a Monster deck with 3x Foglets/Arachas/Witchers/Crones/Navigator and pray to the RNG gods for a good mulligan, then you could theoretically play all cards the first round too. But this is not realistically feasible, unlike with NG.

 

[kitsuneae]

kitsuneae

An interesting breakdown. I would just like to add that Alchemist + Daerlan Foot Soldiers is still an insane combo. That's a 12 strength bronze + deck thinning. It works nice in hybrid/control decks and gets an extra punch in reveal decks with Mangonel.

Regardless, NG is still the only faction that can play nearly all cards in the first round. Their deck thinning might have some weakness, but its potential is great, nonetheless. Imagine using Avallac'h and Albrich after some deck thinning. The changes of getting a gold card would be pretty big.

PS. Of course you can use a Monster deck with 3x Foglets/Arachas/Witchers/Crones/Navigator and pray to the RNG gods for a good mulligan, then you could theoretically play all cards the first round too. But this is not realistically feasible, unlike with NG.

The combo is insane when it works. It requires at least one alchemist + 1 Daerlan Footsoldier in your hand to run. The foot soldiers are competing for hand space with your spies, your novices, and everything else. A lot of the time I ended up with one and not the other or accidentally drew them out with the spies which resulted in no boost. That's another one of the backfires I mentioned earlier. All the Nilfgaard thinning strategies typically requires perfect pairs/draws to really be able to make it work. It's a lot of RNG praying.

When it works you can dump nearly your entire deck in a round or two, which is where I noticed the very low drawing between rounds was often a problem. You're stuck in a catch-22 from there.

I could choose not to run any special cards for a faster deck, but that makes you a sitting duck. One Smuggler (gains +1 per enemy troop played), having NR pass after playing their sergeants and a knight elect (common), or facing a damage-axeman deck (very common!) results in serious problems if you can't use a special card or damage unit (ex: rot tosser) to take them out. Adding these cards lowers your chance of getting a thinning troop.Your choices are be a sitting duck or add them and weaken your deck!

I would rather do the foglets, Arachas, Nekkers and Witchers/crones. They do not require two cards to make them work: just one each!
A single witcher. A single crone. A single arachas (or arachas mother if playing devour). A single fog-creating card. Just one nekker (deathwish triggers between turns). It's far more reliable than having to combo and it saves hand space. Even the Wild hunt Navigators are more reliable than Alchemist + Daerlan Foot Soldier as it can be any Wild Hunt card + the Navigator. It's not limited to just a one and one combo.

Spell-a-tiel is pretty close with the spell-calling cards, especially with troops that thin out spells. And ST gets a free gold just for playing their leader. They don't need to jump through hoops at all!

All the mulligans and redraws in Skellige can make it nearly as fast as Spell-a-tiel.

I really don't understand this nerf when the other factions are as reliable if not more so at thinning and some of them get a gold on deploy.

 

[LethoClean]

Nilfgaard needs some love..

Cahir and calvit should get a points buff, because the nerf hit them both hard calvit should be a 5 again. And Cahir should be a 8 or around that area.. Cahir is just way to weak now

 

[4RM3D]

LethoClean

thread merged

 

[Zjiin]

Cahir and calvit should get a points buff, because the nerf hit them both hard calvit should be a 5 again. And Cahir should be a 8 or around that area.. Cahir is just way to weak now

Your implying CDPR have had any idea what their actually doing for the last few months. Look at the state of the game as a whole, its a complete mess balance wise. Maybe the new patch finally shows some promise for the game, but at this stage i doubt it.