GwentUp Meta Report 30 Sep. - 06 Oct.

[ResoundingBuahaha]

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.

Cute...At the very start of this thread we already have Craite winrate, Let me remind you he has no negative winrate except against Bran. So I don't think there is anything wrong with saying it's skellige meta instead of Bran meta. And yes Harald is so unpopular we can basically ignore him. What I would like to see is nerf to the core revive mechanic so that we don't have to go through Skellige OP meta debate again like this.

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

 

[sfruzz]

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.

Bran is holding 23% of the market, from which he gets a revenue of 5% if you subtract all the losses... to put it in your business metaphor. Doesn't feel dwarfing to me, but I might be wrong.
What I like to see is spread the 20% popularity of King Bran over the other two leaders, plus a slight re-equilibration of the win-rate, without any nerf-to-the-ground attitude.

What I would like to see is nerf to the core revive mechanic so that we don't have to go through Skellige OP meta debate again like this.

Well, we don't want to go through the Skellige LP debate either, don't we?

https://gwentup.com/report/17/16

 

[Archpriest]

Bran is holding 23% of the market, from which he gets a revenue of 5% if you subtract all the losses... to put it in your business metaphor. Doesn't feel dwarfing to me, but I might be wrong.
What I like to see is spread the 20% popularity of King Bran over the other two leaders, plus a slight re-equilibration of the win-rate, without any nerf-to-the-ground attitude.

Apples and Oranges: winrate=/=popularity.
Even so, while it's a relatively new development it's still by far the most popular leader, which makes the winrate look even more impressive. And its closest concurrent Dagon is cheaper and the deck is very similar to the older versions.
Also, none speaks about nerf-to-the-ground changes, way to exaggerate. If anything, I'm against nerfs in general (and there's quite a large number of my posts on this forums that proves it). But turning a blind eye to the obvious problem is disingenuous, to say the least.
The problem is deeper than it looks but, for some unknown reason, CDPR is yet to address it. Still, some changes and tuning need to be made.

P.S. Your link only proves that for one short period of time Skellige wasn't at the top. Ok...

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

Bran is holding 23% of the market, from which he gets a revenue of 5% if you subtract all the losses... to put it in your business metaphor. Doesn't feel dwarfing to me, but I might be wrong.
What I like to see is spread the 20% popularity of King Bran over the other two leaders, plus a slight re-equilibration of the win-rate, without any nerf-to-the-ground attitude.



Well, we don't want to go through the Skellige LP debate either, don't we?

https://gwentup.com/report/17/16

That report seems really well comparison among meta. Even in its prime Northern realm have variation and advantaged & disadvantaged match up like Henselt being good against elder while extremely weak against Ethline. The cards used also have reasonable variation. While with Skellige meta we can see no negative winrate and no variation in cards. With this data available and we still see people argue "skellige is underpowered", impressive. (slow clapping)

 

[quantum_number]

SK is in a Swim or sink situation.

Swim's deck kicks ass, the rest are a crapshoot. They might not be susceptible to locks or removals, but they are to movement, graveyard hate. Most of their decks have no high tempo plays.
Besides, the big problem with Bran is a cool experiment, that so far seems to have failed - cross-faction cards. Dorregaray and his ekimmaras are the big problem.

 

[Archpriest]

SK is in a Swim or sink situation.

Swim's deck kicks ass, the rest are a crapshoot. They might not be susceptible to locks or removals, but they are to movement, graveyard hate. Most of their decks have no high tempo plays.
Besides, the big problem with Bran is a cool experiment, that so far seems to have failed - cross-faction cards. Dorregaray and his ekimmaras are the big problem.

Graveyard hate... this is thrown around way too much. Only two out of five factions can raid Skellige graveyard and one of them does it only for bronzes and usually revives its own spies. So, where's that intolerable graveyard hate is coming from? Besides, if Archgriffin couldn't clear the weather, nobody would run this card, graveyard hate or not. The big problem isn't Dorregaray, he's the nail in the coffin.

 

[quantum_number]

Thrown around or not, fact is that it's another thing you have to play around. SK res is there to make up for lack of thinning and tempo. Those two mechanics can't be disrupted, res can. Whether or not people run the cards to do it, is up to them. That's why I said it's a crapshoot.

Nilfgaard can either thin their deck or disrupt your graveyard, they have that option. With Skellige, you don't have a choice, you're reliant on your graveyard to make up for the faction's other shortcomings.

It doesn't matter if archgriffins could or couldn't clear weather, it's a fact they can, and against SK you get extra utility. SK have no weather clears, I wonder why that is so?

Two of the faction's archetypes require you to row stack if you want maximum efficiency, no other faction's big boosting has that requirement, hence you're vulnerable to movement and Hailstorm.

Bears damage only units played from hand. NR can play Dijkstra -> Shani -> Stennis -> BS Scout -> Commando -> Adept -> Command & Frost.
That's almost a third of a deck and the bear will hit none. Meanwhile, the Siege Master will boost all of them.

That's a whole lot of deficiencies, yet I see "SK is OP" get thrown around way too much.

 

[Archpriest]

The lighting can strike too. Hypothetical scenarios have very little to do with reality of Gwent throughout closed and open beta. At no point people were teching just for the graveyard and no Skellige player, apart from a short period of time when QG was very dominant, was concerned with their graveyard.

Repeating that SK can only rely on its graveyard as mantra and opposing any change when it's clear that,combined with base buffs, it does bring game balancing problems to the table is disingenuous. Moreover, the data support the notion of existing problems.

It does matter that Archgriffins clear weather, because cards' play-ability is very important. If not the most important aspect of the game. So yeah, why don't Skellige players run Skjall? I mean, he has the ability to draw Morkvarg and whatnot... Where's King of Beggars? And so on.

Why do you bring stuff like Bears' damaging ability? Who cares? It's like saying that Necromancy can banish cards for a graveyard. Yes, we know it and nobody uses it. No need to diverge the conversation. Which is, I remind you again, the current and even past problems with Skellige. If you truly implying that current Skellige meta is fine atm, there's nothing to discuss. Fanboyism isn't something I am willing to waste my time on.

About your NR example: Dijkstra has huge drawbacks too, no need to describe a perfect scenario where NR just rolls through everyone - which is plainly untrue given the data presented. It's Skellige that's dominating the meta... and does it practically every patch or at least ends up with one tier 1 deck. Also, the buff scenarios require setup while Skellige res does not, plain and simple... Aaand, NR was actually addressed and changed, unlike Skellige.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

SK res is there to make up for lack of thinning and tempo.

Regardless whatever our different perception, what do you think discard do?

Dijkstra -> Shani -> Stennis -> BS Scout -> Commando -> Adept -> Command & Frost.

The purpose of deck thinning is to drain out bronze to increase the rate you draw key gold, not to use key gold to drain out bronze. Am I mistaken or what

Two of the faction's archetypes require you to row stack if you want maximum efficiency

Every NR archetype rely on row stacking, machine/Kaedewan and swarm/Temeria specifically, cards like knight elect and witch hunter also tells same story so I also count armor/Redanian, what's so special Skellige got 2 archetype require row stacking?

As for graveyard hate, if they are so relevant as you claim we should see NG or MO have high winrate against skellige, however it's spell'tael doing the job in this week and none of the faction did it in last week. So I don't think it's about throwing around, graveyard hate is simply not relavant in increasing winrate against skellige.

 

[sfruzz]

So let's say that the developers are going to achieve perfect game-balance.
We should get 20% of popularity for each faction and 50% winrate for each archetype?
That ain't gonna happen.

What should be a realistic mismatch in the strenght of the decks / across all factions?
To me King Bran is not fully balanced, but it is not in the state of Gold Henselt.
Mind, I'm not saying this is the best meta ever, or do-not-touch SK, but I'll like to have us, as players, to have more a realistic idea on what a healty balance should be.

 

[BornBoring]

It's the combination of tempo and carryover which makes makes all the top tier King Bran Decks we have seen so far so strong. So you have to play a deck, which also offers a lot of tempo and beats this deck in carryover or uses a silver spy. I've been very successful against SK playing this deck: http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/33325-top-100-dwarves-grandmaster#c4

 

[quantum_number]

All the stuff I brought up is to show that the faction has numerous weaknesses, just like all of the others. I really don't get what people's problem with SK is. Is it carryover, is it strengthening, res?
Every faction has insane combos, should they all be nerfed? Which deck, archetype, combo is the biggest offender? Skellige has had countless cards nerfed: QG, Shieldmaidens, Bears, Pirate Captains, Morkvarg, Axemen. Despite all that, people are still complaining. What change do you propose, that will fix all of your issues with the faction? Is there even a point to changes, if next month people will still be unhappy.

To me it seems that all people want to talk about is what a faction has and not what it lacks, and use both for balancing. If that's the case, I will leave you to it...

PS: I think it's very telling that every mention of OP here has been of King Bran, a controversial deck indeed. But whenever "balance" is done around one broken thing, without accurate assessment of the cause, the end results are far from balanced.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

Well, Mr Grosmont, if you noticed my own edit, it says the reason is manners. I wrote something dickish, noticed it was unnecessary, and elaborated my points, while keeping my tone polite.

All the stuff I brought up is to show that the faction has numerous weaknesses, just like all of the others. I really don't get what people's problem with SK is. Is it carryover, is it strengthening, res?
Every faction has insane combos, should they all be nerfed? Which deck, archetype, combo is the biggest offender? Skellige has had countless cards nerfed: QG, Shieldmaidens, Bears, Pirate Captains, Morkvarg, Axemen. Despite all that, people are still complaining. What change do you propose, that will fix all of your issues with the faction? Is there even a point to changes, if next month people will still be unhappy.

To me it seems that all people want to talk about is what a faction has and not what it lacks, and use both for balancing. If that's the case, I will leave you to it...

PS: I think it's very telling that every mention of OP here has been of King Bran, a controversial deck indeed. But whenever "balance" is done around one broken thing, without accurate assessment of the cause, the end results are far from balanced.

I accidentally hear some suggestion, make rez card only work on discarded unit instead of any unit

The list you made are chronological, and evenly distributed among patches, good work. I think itself indicates almost every patch skellige got something to qualify it to dominate the meta, and that happens way too often, for way too long period. This tendency of reoccurrence is the exact thing makes me think it's not about individual card but the strengthening & rez mechanic itself being the central big picture problem.

 

[partci]

ResoundingBuahaha

There was a better suggestion - Priestesses to Resurrect only Clan dudes. This should be fair.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

ResoundingBuahaha

There was a better suggestion - Priestesses to Resurrect only Clan dudes. This should be fair.

That's what I said over and over in this thread or other thread.. Sound suggestion nevertheless

Edit: wait I double checked, not in this thread but in reddit...ignore me plz '_>'

 

[quantum_number]

@Resounding and @partci: Why are we waiting on the devs for this? We're in beta, we're testers, so lets test it. Some of us get together for friendly matches, and we play by these rules and see how well Skellige fares.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

At Resounding and partci (how do you tag people): Why are we waiting on the devs for this? We're in beta, we're testers, so lets test it. Some of us get together for friendly matches, and we play by these rules and see how well Skellige fares.

Umm testing under a thousand Bran and Dagon? no thanks I rather go casual. This is not the first time Bran eliminate meta variation and we are players before we are testers. If the game feel repetitive it's simply not a good experience. Why should players intentionally suffer that? Even worse why should players suffer that again and again?

 

[quantum_number]

Umm testing under a thousand Bran and Dagon? no thanks I rather go casual.

You're proposing a very big change to a faction, that we as a forum community can actually test, in friend matches, where we have nothing to lose and yet you refuse such testing.
Huh? :hmm:

 

[nemirni]

Wish there were more branstore decks being played, they keep my winrate consistently high.
That said, i fail to see how bran can have a positive win ratio against ng spies as the data according to gwentup shows. Res mechanic in general is ok imo, i have a bit of an issue with dorregaray but not more then with foglet. Hope they nerf both.

Maybe they should add nekker warrior to Dorregaray instead. I am sure Henselt wouldnt mind.

 

[Archpriest]

I want to make one point as clear as possible: I strongly oppose any unnecessary changes to Skellige, i.e. nerfing. Balancing is what I'm advocating for. Skellige isn't the only target when balance is shifted. Any blatabt imbalance should be addressed, it just happens that the current one is Skellige. I just added that unless the devs won't look into the root of the problem (Skellige in this case), this faction will always affect the game.