GwentUp Meta Report 30 Sep. - 06 Oct.

[Lornick77]

The problem is that bronze/silver card removal is useless for the most part. Skellige has access to 4 resurrect cards as a standard. Add to it decoys and possibly an operator and you can spend the entire game destroying and locking units, only for them to come back with one out of, at least, four cards.

Most of their cards don't boost but strengthen their units, makin resets useless. Picture this. Use Draig Bon-Dhu strengthening Queensgard. Decoy him and playing him again. Then, depending on the situation, use him again by resurrecting him with Sigrdrifa. Then use Restore on her to resurrect DBD again. That's an INCREDIBLE play you simply can't interact with. Locks don't do anything as locked cards can simply be resurrected by a simple bronze card.

You can reset farseers, spotters and whatever else gets boosted. Skellige is unique in that most of their support units don't boost allies but strengthen them, making removals and damage, in hopes of removing important cards, next to useless.

This obviously isn't true. You can interact with your opponent's graveyard, thus denying them the ability to resurrect their units. NG can straight up steal units from an opponent's graveyard turning their strongest units against their owner. And you can always interact with an opponent's units while they are on the battlefield.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

I disagree with you on the NR part

Does that mean you agree with my point on the revive mechanic? (You actually make me worry about my grammar. Is my grammar that misleading or confusing? D:

CDPR will give more love to Skellige

I think, since OB, we have enough evidence that Skellige may receive more love than other factions, and, if other factions accidentally get more love, they will surely be nerfed to the ground in less than a month.

 

[ArianeGrosmont]

Does that mean you agree my point on revive mechanic? (you actually make me worry about my grammar...is my grammar that misleading or confusing? D:

I think your point came across just fine, and yeah, I think limiting revive in the way you suggested might be just what we need.

 

[Archpriest]

''you people''??? what do you mean by that: us 'dwarves'? :skepticalzoltan:

Did I write your people? But if you insist... :comeatmebro:

Does that mean you agree my point on revive mechanic? (you actually make me worry about my grammar...is my grammar that misleading or confusing? D:

Don't worry about that...I'll tell you a secret, she's completely biased against NR.

I think since OB we have enough evidence on skellige having and will have more love than other faction, and if other faction accidentally get more love they sure will be nerf to ground in less than a month

Oh, absolutely. I just don't get however, why they have the need to trash other factions on the way.

This obviously isn't true. You can interact with your opponent's graveyard, thus denying them the ability to resurrect their units. NG can straight up steal units from an opponent's graveyard turning their strongest units against their owner. And you can always interact with an opponent's units while they are on the battlefield.

Is it though? What interaction with other graveyard Scoia'tael or NR have? One spell for both? Ok.

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

This obviously isn't true. You can interact with your opponent's graveyard, thus denying them the ability to resurrect their units. NG can straight up steal units from an opponent's graveyard turning their strongest units against their owner. And you can always interact with an opponent's units while they are on the battlefield.

So basically, you're forced to run 3 medics, which are incredibly low tempo, in order to try and disrupt their play. All the while sacrificing bronze slots for weak cards in a meta that's all about high tempo. And then you steal, at best, 3 of their cards and in most cases just 1 Queensguard as they resurrect them as soon as you steal one. That leaves them with 2 QG, bunch of other streangthened units and at least 3 resurrects to bring them back. Sorry, but that's not a good design.

And you can absolutely interact with skellige cards while they're on the board. Too bad that removing them from the board is next to useless as they're just brought back with one bronze card. Best part? They still have 2-3 resurrects after that. It removes tactical play as the only goal against Skellige is to hit random cards and get their numbers down, as opposed to other factions where you have to think about which cards to target because once they're removed, they're gone.

And then there's restore and spamming 3 Ekimmaras with ease.

Just because you like Skellige doesn't mean you have to be ok with some imbalanced stuff.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

This obviously isn't true. You can interact with your opponent's graveyard, thus denying them the ability to resurrect their units. NG can straight up steal units from an opponent's graveyard turning their strongest units against their owner. And you can always interact with an opponent's units while they are on the battlefield.

It not every removal, but the first 3 or 4 removal. Picture zapping a savage bear (or longship, lightship, greatsword, any tempo or win condition) in early game, how many zap does it take to fully kill the unit? graveyard hate does not work in the same turn you destroy the unit while skellige can pull it back out instantly so interacting with opponent graveyard is always one step behind your opponent. So unless going first in round 2 or 3 it's kinda difficult to interrupt key card with graveyard hate (even that happens it means losing card advantage and when skellige got last play it's usually not a good news for other faction)

she's completely biased against NR

LOL can't judge her on that. I hate skellige so much, of course I am biased

 

[Archpriest]

Just because you like Skellige doesn't mean you have to be ok with some imbalanced stuff.

This is actually quite a big problem with proper balancing - fanboyism.

LOL can't judge her on that. I hate skellige so much, of course I am biased

I play every faction and like them all. Given, Scoia always has been my favorite, but to say that I'm biased against any other faction... no, just trying to be objective. You don't have to hate/dislike something to see its flaws. And if you allow me to go further, hate has rarely produced anything positive. If ever...

:cheers:

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

I play every faction and like them all. Given, Scoia always has been my favorite, but to say that I'm biased against any other faction... no, just trying to be objective. You don't have to hate/dislike something to see its flaws. And if you allow me to go further, hate has rarely produced anything positive. If ever...

:cheers:

Cheers lol I hate because it's been way to often skellige and monster dominating the ladder The direct problem is game become boring very quickly once it settle with such dominant and little to none variant meta (Dagon is actually fine in diversity, I stopped ladder this patch just like last Bran & Dagon meta until there is a hotfix or next patch. playing against such meta is like a punishment

What make me kinda disappointed is how people react to skellige dominance. Every patch we have people say skellige being the most underpowered faction up until this meta report.

 

[Archpriest]

What make me kinda disappointed is how people react to skellige dominance. Every patch we have people say skellige being the most underpowered faction up until this meta report.

Hahaha. That's what I first posted here: the Skellige fanboys always show up at the start of every season no matter what. And Skellige always winds up at the top, yet the crying never stops.

To clarify, I'm talking about a specific type of players, not Skellige players in general. It's just those are the most vocal and easily spotted. NG fanboys are the second worst, albeit they might have a case

But back to the topic, the innumerable res plus base value buffs are the problem with Skellige. Haven't thought about the solution yet because I think it might require a bit of a rework of the faction.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

And 2nd week of Bran dominant, new meta report, same story.

https://gwentup.com/report/17/18

Still no hotfix so I fear it is true skellige is getting some real strange love.

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

Just wait until the patch, when they get more cards.

 

[partci]

Man, he's still at the top... even with my desperate tries with Kambi to drag him down...

 

[Archpriest]

And 2nd week of Bran dominant, new meta report, same story.

https://gwentup.com/report/17/18

Still no hotfix so I fear it is true skellige is getting some real strange love.

I'd rather have CDPR not rush any "fixes". Better to look at the situation more carefully.

Just wait until the patch, when they get more cards.

As long as existing problems remain, new cards won't change a lot.

Man, he's still at the top... even with my desperate tries with Kambi to drag him down...

They're going to make Kambi similar to Witcher 3 and you'll see Bran into Morkvarg, Olgierd and Cerys. Topping that with Kambi... Round 2, 20 point carryover.

 

[devivre]

And 2nd week of Bran dominant, new meta report, same story.

https://gwentup.com/report/17/18

Still no hotfix so I fear it is true skellige is getting some real strange love.

I don't expect significant changes before the end of the season. From my point of view especially because of the eSports aspect of Gwent it would not seem fair to change the game too often during the season. And at this point it makes more sense to me to focus on the next season and prepare the next huge update.

Given how much the game has changed with every start of a new season, it's hard to predict how SK will be doing next season - no matter how many cards they'll get. I'm definitely looking forward to the next season and am curious were it will take us.

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

HenryGrosmont

What I meant with that is that it'll be even worse. Restore will get changed but that still leaves the faction immune to removal and reset. If they get more cards that get strengthened and, God forbid, more resurrects, expect 2 more months of nothing but Skellige and Dagon.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

HenryGrosmont

What I meant with that is that it'll be even worse. Restore will get changed but that still leaves the faction immune to removal and reset. If they get more cards that get strengthened and, God forbid, more resurrects, expect 2 more months of nothing but Skellige and Dagon.

This would make me puke just thinking of it, Why always skellige?

 

[sfruzz]

Skellige is crawling back on top. Can't say I like that. Skellige is a faction you can't interact much with. They strengthen their units and can easily revive them, so most of your actions mean very little when that Freya comes down. With restore, they're even better. Quite frankly, I have no idea what can be done with Skellige. They're not this super OP faction but it's not interactive. Removing their graveyard resurrections would just destroy something unique about Skellige and I don't want that. But some tweaks need to be made. They're getting new cards next patch so Skellige will only get better.

Skellige crawling back on top? King Bran at most.
Above 4000+ good old Harald is played 1.1 % and Crach 1.8% (7-13 october report). Their win rates are also not particularly impressive.

So I don't agree with the conclusion of a dominante Sk meta, but I would be more specific in saying that Bran... well has a slight edge over other decks. 55% win rate at those levels, where skills should matter: it means that if I play 10 game, I'm likely to win 5 and lose 5 game, or win 6 and lose 4?
Overall seems pretty balanced to me.

Some cards that belong to King Bran poweful archetype (Restore, Dorregaray) are above average, others that belong to Harald and Crach archetype are quite below average.

 

[Ellerind]

55% win rate at those levels, where skills should matter: it means that if I play 10 game, I'm likely to win 5 and lose 5 game, or win 6 and lose 4? Overall seems pretty balanced to me.

On a global scale, a 55% winrate for a deck is dominant, even more so when you consider it has above 50% winrate against every other leader except Eithne and Brouver (according to the most recent report) meaning it virtually doesn't have a direct counter. The popularity of the deck is even more concerning. 23% popularity with such high winrate means that the deck is easy to pilot and doesn't require as much skill to be successful with as other decks.

 

[Archpriest]

HenryGrosmont

What I meant with that is that it'll be even worse. Restore will get changed but that still leaves the faction immune to removal and reset. If they get more cards that get strengthened and, God forbid, more resurrects, expect 2 more months of nothing but Skellige and Dagon.

Yeah, I figured that was the case after I posted my answer. As usual, Skellige will be top tier and we'll still get more cries for its buff. Some things never change

So I don't agree with the conclusion of a dominante Sk meta, but I would be more specific in saying that Bran...

Is Bran from Nilfgaard? Not to be rude but it seems that you do not completely understand what does 55% global winrate mean. For example, in any business, if you hold 55 percent of the global market, you're dwarfing every other competition.

 

[sfruzz]

On a global scale, a 55% winrate for a deck is dominant, even more so when you consider it has above 50% winrate against every other leader except Eithne and Brouver (according to the most recent report) meaning it virtually doesn't have a direct counter. The popularity of the deck is even more concerning. 23% popularity with such high winrate means that the deck is easy to pilot and doesn't require as much skill to be successful with as other decks.

55% is not something unheard-of and if you go through all the meta reports, you'll see that some faction where above 30% in popularity at some point. However, I see your point, in worrying about Bran not having a proper counter.

What I would like to see is some nerf to cards that make Bran decks strong, but at the same time some buff to Craith and Harald cards pool. I feel that cards that belong to the Self-Wound archetype are quite underwhelming.