Ovestated Bronzes in this now Beta

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partci

Forum veteran
Ovestated Bronzes in this now Beta

So, there are some Bronzes now that can accumulate huge value on deploy or are just having such a landslide of generating points (which are in the most parts reasonable... with at least one exception), that if you have couple of them on the board, your opponent often just can't do absolutely nothing. Compared to Golds that are rarely going over 10 STR, this is a total devaluation of the latest.

Let's look at a few that are in my sight right now (in no particular order):

SK Harpooner - 8 STR body with great synergy for Axemen and the ability to deal some sick damage (anything from 1 to 7 up). It's body is just too big for the effect that it does AND provides o the Axemen.

SK Axemen - yes, I know they needed something after the last patch, but getting away from the Maerdroeme range AND getting the Veteran Ability - it is just a bit too much. Still they need set up, so at least this is some relief (ha-ha).

NR DB Heavy Cavalry - for the amount of points it can buff itself ON DEPLOY, this unit's body is waaaay too big. Even when it was promoting itself to Gold in CB it was never more than 4 or 5 STR, if I recall correctly.

MS Drowner - a potential 11, for sure a 9 with a HUGE synergy with dealing more damage with the Weather Effects.

ST Mahakam Marauder - 8 STR with a SICK effect - whatever interaction you do with this unit (except for Lock) - it buffs itself by 2. Just compare them to the Longswords tempo and ways to remove them. Plus the synergy with the Agitators (another card which is a point above what it should be for the effect it provides). This is just not right.

ST Farseer is looking to get on this list as well, though it's set-up can be more tricky than the Marauder, cause at least it wont buff itself the second you AThunder him. And than it will manage to get just 2 to 4 points and those 4 are only if you use some Silver cards or in the best case with Bronzes - few First Lights.


Again - compare those Bronzes to Golds, of which you have 1 piece. Overall I think all the Bronzes should be in the AThunder range - that is why they are Bronzes, right?
 
I don't mind bronzes that buff when in play. Axemen are a perfect example. You can counter them before they do anything, or have an opportunity to pass before they get big. Same with Farseer (although I think they should be a 6 power start rather than 8).

What I do mind are cards that are played massively buffed. Spotters require almost zero setup. Oh look, I revealed a Geralt in my hand. Now my spotters are 17 as long as I never play Geralt. And there's not a thing you can do about it! 17 Bronzes just shouldn't be a thing, and yet nearly every match with a Reveal deck uses this strategy and it comes up 90% of games against them.

Same with Pirate Captains (oh look, I discarded a big card, now I can play massive Captains!) and Vriheed Officers. At least Vriheed reset each time now with the latest patch to a somewhat reasonable level. Even so, they are still incredibly good bronzes.


 
Spotters and Captains were changed, because of their high bronze "body" in R3. Reaver Hunters too. But...Spotters and Captains can have now high Strenght in every round...i have no problem with it. But...Reaver Hunters were so extremly nerfed, that nobody plays this cards. And they can't be pulled by Henselt. So I think they were overnerfed.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Yeah there are some new bronzes that are ridiculously OP. You mentioned the Harpooner but i think the Greatsword is the most powerful and popular of the SK new cards, players just put 3 of them and 3 boats and leave them accumulating huge values, it rendered a ton of SK bronzes useless.

And yeah that Dwarf Marauder is insane, the first time i faced them i was using a weather deck and i had no idea what to do, they would just get stronger and stronger, and he had even more than 3 because the ones he used were copies with that other new dwarf. Yesterday i faced them again but i was super lucky and was using my first OB Radovid deck and was able to lock all 3 marauders and won, otherwise i would be screwed.
 

4RM3D

Ex-moderator
partci You have a point.

arubino99 You have a point too.

A lot of gold cards just enable archetypes to flourish but aren't particular strong on their own. They are still stronger than a single bronze when used properly, but they do not have the innate synergy to create a snowball effect like bronze cards have. And this is the way it's suppose to be. Gold cards should support bronze cards, not the other way around. Now it has become less about swing cards and more about building up a combo or trying to disrupt the opponent from building theirs. The only reason why bronze cards being strong is perceived to be an issue is because gold cards should be stronger considering they are more expensive and are limited to a maximum of 4.

Having said that, the tempo play might have increased just a bit too much. Instead of rounds going over a 100 strength, I would rather have lesser strength values and closer to each other. In the grand scheme of things, I am not sure which direction Gwent should take. The gold immunity patch has brought a lot of interesting things, but at the same time I feel like the game steered off course into unknown waters. I just hope CDPR doesn't get lost at sea or gets eaten by the Kraken.
 
I believe CDPR stated for this patch that they wanted bronze cards to come up in power. It doesn't seem like a bad thing that bronzes are really close to golds in value. If anything it seems like a good thing because it can prevent situations where you get out powered simply because your opponent drew all their golds and you only drew like one.

I think the problem is that CDPR did not bring up the power of bronze cards equally. There were some that got significant tune ups in power, and then there were cards like thunder that were rather weak before the tune up and are now even weaker because the rest of the bronze cards went up in value. CDPR has also backed themselves into a kind of weird space because a lot of changes they have made since closed beta really push tempo (even in closed beta the tempo was pretty important).

It seems that tempo has gotten more and more important though. I'm not really sure how or if it's even possible to fix this. Fixing the coin flip would be a good way to start maybe. But, I think part of the reason bronzes seem so high value is because the game really, really encourages you to play for maximum possible tempo. Unless they just flat out trash all the bronze cards, or introduce something to incentivize tempo less that's going to remain the case.
 
4RM3D;n9503071 said:
The only reason why bronze cards being strong is perceived to be an issue is because gold cards should be stronger considering they are more expensive and are limited to a maximum of 4.
I cite the bronze cards I did specifically because there isn't a counter to them. How do you counter a revealed Geralt in the opponent's hand? You can't affect their hand. The spotter gets played at 17, and there's not a damn thing you can do. Maedroeme or Bomb is about it. I don't think it's a perception, it's more like mathematical fact.

Spotters
Pirate Captains
Dol Blathana Protectors
And to a lesser degree, Vriheed Officers.

Absolutely zero you can do to counter them, especially if played in the last round as the last cards. You can mitigate once they are on the board, but there's no counter. And unlike a Silver or Gold, you can have THREE OF THEM. That's the main issue that I have. They are stronger than Silver/Gold and you can have multiples.

If an ST player drops a Farseer, I can kill it. Or shackle it. Or weather it. Or do something. If they drop Blue Mountain Commandos, the game gives me solutions like Lacerate to react to it before they get big. If an SK player drops an Axeman, I can still react before it buffs. If a NR player drops Dun Banner Heavy Calvary, I could have mitigated some armor to reduce it's deploy. Point is, I have a chance to react to their card combinations and deck and can see something coming. Or not - choice is mine.

But the cards above? Absolutely nothing you can do. They come out big, and all with little setup.
 
arubino99;n9503561 said:
I cite the bronze cards I did specifically because there isn't a counter to them. How do you counter a revealed Geralt in the opponent's hand? You can't affect their hand. The spotter gets played at 17, and there's not a damn thing you can do. Maedroeme or Bomb is about it. I don't think it's a perception, it's more like mathematical fact.

Spotters
Pirate Captains
Dol Blathana Protectors
And to a lesser degree, Vriheed Officers.

Absolutely zero you can do to counter them, especially if played in the last round as the last cards. You can mitigate once they are on the board, but there's no counter. And unlike a Silver or Gold, you can have THREE OF THEM. That's the main issue that I have. They are stronger than Silver/Gold and you can have multiples.

If an ST player drops a Farseer, I can kill it. Or shackle it. Or weather it. Or do something. If they drop Blue Mountain Commandos, the game gives me solutions like Lacerate to react to it before they get big. If an SK player drops an Axeman, I can still react before it buffs. If a NR player drops Dun Banner Heavy Calvary, I could have mitigated some armor to reduce it's deploy. Point is, I have a chance to react to their card combinations and deck and can see something coming. Or not - choice is mine.

But the cards above? Absolutely nothing you can do. They come out big, and all with little setup.

Well, there are still a few things you can do. The spotters get their buff after they have been deployed, and because of that can be sniped and killed off entirely by Morenn. I know, it is a counter strat limited to one faction, but they are not untouchable and unless you are seriously behind on card advantage, your opponent can likely only play one that you could not reset or kill in some way.

The cards you mentioned also require a deck build around them to support them. Spotters are horrible if you did not manage to setup a powerful card in the hand alondside them, and you have to play them before you play the setup-card. Giving the opponent enough time to react to them. With the DBP you pretty much can expect them to come after you have seen a few cards being played and take precautions to not fall behind on CA and make sure you have some reset on hand for round 3.
 
partci;n9502601 said:
So, there are some Bronzes now that can accumulate huge value on deploy or are just having such a landslide of generating points (which are in the most parts reasonable... with at least one exception), that if you have couple of them on the board, your opponent often just can't do absolutely nothing. Compared to Golds that are rarely going over 10 STR, this is a total devaluation of the latest.

what deck/cards you are playing? Cause 10 point golds sounds strange to me
 
@Ramicus was talking more about the maximum Body STR with cards like Stefan Skellen, Xarthisius, Schirru, etc. Compare them to Bronzes that often deploy on 8 STR and manage to double and triple this stat in few turns... brr.
 
partci;n9505811 said:
@Ramicus was talking more about the maximum Body STR with cards like Stefan Skellen, Xarthisius, Schirru, etc. Compare them to Bronzes that often deploy on 8 STR and manage to double and triple this stat in few turns... brr.

gotcha, you complain just to complain
 
Yeah. Dwarven Marauders are nasty, but they require synergy to grow. And they are not entirely good against weather decks, because most weather is frost, and this damages other units before Mauraders.

I think Greatswords are much worse. They get strengthened and can be resurrected later and keep growing. Plus they reset before strengthening. So unless you ca remove them at once, they will actually become stronger.
 
Tbh I like the idea of increasing bronze cards' value. Atm every time one play bronze, it should worth like around 11 points imo. For combo cards, the average value per card played should also be around that, or better. One of my favorite example is Alchemist - Foot Soldiers/Golem combo. You play 1 card, get 11 points, but you can get 1 more if you use soldiers instead which is harder. Vrihedd Brigade might look weak, but in combination with hailstorm it would worth half the moved units power, plus 8.

In about the same matter, I think DBHC is fine. What is not fine however, is stennis and friends for their free armors. There're 3 chances of converting armors into points, which is alright if we're talking on how many times that can be done. The problem is just about them absurd armors, for pretty much no point drawback in the first place. I mean, stennis is 3+bronze/silver, shani is 5+bronze/silver, trolololo is 11 but lots of armors. Considering how good bronzes are, then they're free armors really, and 5 at that, not just 2. I think Redanian Knight + DBHC combo is the more balanced one, (12+10)/2 = 11. It can still be boosted by potions.

arubino99;n9503561 said:
Spotters
Pirate Captains
Dol Blathana Protectors

I do hate pirate captains even if I did peter them 3x due to emhyr/cahir. I'm pretty sure decks that can't counter them is in disadvantage against them. I don't know about tier 1 decks vs them though.

Spotter combo is fine imo. Geralt himself is just a 13, and if not revealed by leo/morvran, the player might be forced to reveal him with alchemist, which is just an 8 and can only be placed on ranged row. Leo most likely won't be able to get the most value out from 13 damage early in the round. Playing huge bodies are susceptible to removals, hailstorm is everywhere.

I think DBP is weak now with the nerfs on stammeltael. Decks that revolve on buffing him can't just blatantly play spells and win. Buffing him alone makes the entire deck need to be comprised of spell plays, unlike the other buff-guys which just need a set up. And the spell plays themselves need to be good, which can't really be done atm. They are predictable, and they themselves are not spells which does reduce their power (unless pulled from the deck by spells).

All the buff-guys are weak to scorch, ST can move n igni them as well.
 
NG player crying for other faction cards are op nice... Ya I means few bronze cards are definitely unbalanced but including few NG too. Like Assassin, Infiltrator & even Impera Enforcers gives you so much value as 2 damage is very high.
 
I play all factions - got to Rank 19 mainly with ST an MS last Season. The fact that NG is my favorite faction doesn't change the fact that some units are overstated - you can remove Impera Enforcers and Brigades with a simple A-Thunder on their initial deploy. Sure, Brigades can come buffed because of the spies, but this requires SET-UP - if you don't have it, they are mere 6 that an A-Thubder removes in a snap. Try to do this with Marauders. The follow-up will be Full Moon or whatever potion and they will be buffing like crazy.

And I am not complaining, but just stating - a lot of Bronze cards have better stats AND abilities then Gold cards, which is ridiculous, compared to the amount of Scraps one's worth over the other. Which is kinda different topic and not what I was intending with my post - if you are pushing the Bronzes up with points AND abilities to go close to the Golds... WTF? At least return Weather Immunity to at least some Golds, put Armor on them, Quen, diverse and actually strong Deathwishes... I know we are in Beta still, but equalizing all the cards like this? Come on, CDPR - you can do better than this.
 
NR heavy cavalry are probably a bit over tuned, but I don't think there's a fundamental problem with big bronzes, in general. There are typically ways of dealing with most.

The body size on gold cards is often irrelevant, as their abilities usually often massive potential synergy that more than makes up for it.
 
partci;n9506601 said:
you can remove Impera Enforcers and Brigades with a simple A-Thunder on their initial deploy. Sure, Brigades can come buffed because of the spies, but this requires SET-UP - if you don't have it, they are mere 6 that an A-Thubder removes in a snap. Try to do this with Marauders. The follow-up will be Full Moon or whatever potion and they will be buffing like crazy.

Really? this way I can say you can remove Marauders easily with.... igani / scorch / Artefact Compression / Manticore Venom after all hard work your opp. put into buffing. These are just neutrals with NG you can destroy easily with spy token or letho with menno / Assassination / 2 locks Auckes /Peter / Fringilla Vigo by putting low strength spy / Sweers if he is not having all copies in hand... I mean just look how many tools NG have.. WOW!

So these is not about removing but having ability which kills the whole archetype strategy of opp. like Assassin do. Killing opp. key cards is not a fun. this ability is good for gold like Eskel but 3 bronze removing 10 strength bronze is not a fun to play. Same goes with Infiltrator as changing token not only removes high strength card but as more spy means more power to other cards too so that 9 strength gives lot of value to NG.

And about other cards you mention like harpooner, axeman, Farseer these needs some setup too & their are so many counters are available too. By saying this I am not saying that all cards are ok as few cards defiantly needs a tweak & imo those are from NR & NG faction mostly.
 
Trent2501;n9505501 said:
The cards you mentioned also require a deck build around them to support them. Spotters are horrible if you did not manage to setup a powerful card in the hand alondside them, and you have to play them before you play the setup-card. Giving the opponent enough time to react to them.
Really? How do you "react" to someone revealing a 10 or 13 power card in their hand? Do you make them discard it? Oh wait, Gwent doesn't have that. The opponent with Spotters has 100% of the power and can choose to play them whenever they want.

There's absolutely NOTHING you can do vs. Spotters short of using Maedroeme or Bomb. As for "building a deck around them" that's a big ol' derp... it's already a reveal deck. It's the exact same for the others on the list.
 
@l_WHIT3WOLF_l you can't compare the way that you can easily remove cards in one turn with Bronze Spells, to cards that you can remove in one turn with Silver Spells only, cause if you use Bronze and do not remove them, you get punished hard after that. And it's like you are saying that said Silver Spells do not work on the NG units. And like the NG Units do not need set-up in order to do their thing. Tell me where NG would be in the Ladder if they did not had such tools like these? They are one of the two factions that do not have cards that can move your units around, so they do need other tools, just like NR have Armor.

I can say that Axemen ability is also more Gold than Bronze, like the Marauders ability too and more and more.

After this patch and with the new cards, NG actually became competitive again, after at least a month of absence on the Ladder and you want them to be nerfed again, while the other decks are competitive as hell again, and with more than one archetype per faction? Have some sense, please.

About Reveal - I don't think it's that much competitive at all. Maybe slightly better than the previous meta deck, but it was expected to be. It had to be. I often see them using said Spotters to catch my tempo than anything else - even in R1!

Now, the SK Pirates with the Skirmishers that are EASILY Strengthening beyond Ciri: Dash, a GOLD card... that's an whole other topic.
 
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