is unseen elder really that bad?

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is unseen elder really that bad?

So I've been looking at the meta report statistics and noteably unseen elder has only 37.8% winratio in 0-2500 elo and 38.9% in 2500-3400, which presumeably covers the new player base and the kind of average player retrospectively. I have also been climbing through, currently at 2500ish with over 50% win-ratio with unseen elder and I'm curious as to why people don't seem to succeed with him. I personally don't run celaeno harpies anymore and I basically pretty much just use him as a utility card. I just want to know what peoples thoughts on why people think he's bad? Currently 36-30, but yeah thinking of swapping to another archetype completely, maybe foltest, even though he himself is 3rd lowest win-ratio, I think he's also somewhat underrated next to the right combination of cards.
 
Unseen Elder, without Harpies or Behemots, is just a 5 strength body, unless you play Nekkers. That's pretty weak, regardless. Every other Monster leader provides more value. So, how exactly are you using Unseen Elder?
 
Yeah nah I am using neither harpies nor behemoths, but using adrenaline rush. I'm using it more as carry over strength than anything, but considering It's good for counterplay, like eating spies, denying meno coehorns, denies gold weather multiple targets, needs to hit that one body about 7 times to get good value as a gold card.

Also nekkers are not bad, they are actually very good? it is the only consume target I run, you usually can get 12 or 15 points over 3 rounds from playing a nekker in round one and I also run 1 cyclops, which can and often does lead to a 16 or more power swing in round 3.
 
Everything you've described can also be achieved using Ekkimaras. You actually want to spread the risk as to not get locked or scorched. Nekkers are only strong if you are running enough consume, which can only achieve impressive values with Vran Warrior. However, in the current meta there is not enough place for it to exist.
 
Once again, vran warriors... I tried them, tested them, they are a pretty nasty card because the play is so predictable. Undying elder + katakan + 1 cyclops. I would even add +1 kayran (if i owned him) and thats already enough to get a nekker raking in good points over 2 consecutive turns, and yeah often the nekker does bait the lock and thats also well and fine too because then the lock doesn't negate my resilience. But so many decks are so greedy in their own strategies right now that they can't afford to run a scorch and if I think that they have scorch I typically wait til the round is passed, pushing carry over strength into the next round and well they always get 20 points ahead and pass or well if they don't push far enough ahead, I just drop the extra card, if I've timed it well enough I go into the next round with 26 points in carry over strength, I often bait out 2-3 more cards if I don't favour myself in a long round versus their deck depending on what it is, but also I can choose to pass early on in round 2 and push into a very lengthy round three where my lacerates get really good value.
 
4RM3D;n9707591 said:
Everything you've described can also be achieved using Ekkimaras. You actually want to spread the risk as to not get locked or scorched. Nekkers are only strong if you are running enough consume, which can only achieve impressive values with Vran Warrior. However, in the current meta there is not enough place for it to exist.

That's one of the reasons I've always thought that Unseen Elder should be "up to 3" rather than 3. It should be totally the players choice if they want to go Cookie Monster on their own side or not.


EDIT: Damnit, I wish I hadn't written that. Now I want a Cookie Monster soundpack for when I'm playing consume.
 
Don't know where you got your stats from but according to GwentUp's meta report, Unseen Elder has a 45,4 winrate between 4000-4250 MMR (I chose that MMR mainly because it has the biggest collection of games). That Makes Unseen Elder one of the weakest leaders in the game but I think 45% is still fairly okay. With some nerfs to restore Skellige, all other leaders should become more viable. Also, I would say Unseen Elder along with Rotfiends is pretty deadly. What's more surprising is that Radovid has the lowest WR (43,1%)
 
I've been going not too bad against the ol sk restore, that is half my reason for the positive win ratio, I feel like a nerf to this kind of deck is a indirect nerf to graveyard hate archetypes too. It's like a chain reaction. I agree with you about the rot fiends though, they are perfect. I've only been using lacerate in place of it temporarily because I've been encountering a lot of ST movement archetypes and with harpooners and drowners... etc I feel that a lacerate being immediate impact is more consistent. Also to mention that you require something in your hand to explode it and I don't run ekimmaras.
 
For Unseen Elder to be worthwhile, you have to run Nekkers, which makes your whole deck kind of predictable.
 
Are they really that predictable though. You can be running nekkers with warriors or you could be about to explode them for extra strength if you aren't running a carry over deck. I think they are very versatile. It's just a raw 13-20 point bronze card that can be used in a variety of ways whether your goal is thinning or is carry over or sheer point gain.
 
HTMekkatorque;n9755051 said:
I've been going not too bad against the ol sk restore, that is half my reason for the positive win ratio, I feel like a nerf to this kind of deck is a indirect nerf to graveyard hate archetypes too. It's like a chain reaction. I agree with you about the rot fiends though, they are perfect. I've only been using lacerate in place of it temporarily because I've been encountering a lot of ST movement archetypes and with harpooners and drowners... etc I feel that a lacerate being immediate impact is more consistent. Also to mention that you require something in your hand to explode it and I don't run ekimmaras.

King Bran currently has a WR of 54,2% based on the same data as before and Unseen Elders WR against King Bran is 37,7%. The fact that you have a positive winrate against discard Skellige is a feather in your cap, but overall, that archetype is stronger than the rest, mainly (imo) because of the change to Restore.
Yeah oddly enough I see very few rot fiend decks but when I do, I know I'm in for a tough game.
 
Having as a player 50% ( not leader) winrate in lower ranks is bad . you either have a bad deck or u r struggling urself as a player.
 
Michelazz;n9756521 said:
Having as a player 50% ( not leader) winrate in lower ranks is bad . you either have a bad deck or u r struggling urself as a player.

Yeah and nobody said they had 50% win ratio, maybe take a little more time to read the comments before bashing them firstly. But its basically a question for why unseen elder is the most unpopular faction leader, only being played by 0.8% of the 4250mmr+ community. I feel like maybe I have more experience than the pros with this leader, because they simply don't touch him.
 
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Unseen Elder is supposed to be carried over round 2 and round 3. feed it with your lizards in round 1. i once made a 84 power Unseen Elder and carried it over to round 2 along with a 16 power Nekker. started round 2 with 100 points lol. my opponent forfeited
 
Lyphian92;n9757161 said:
Unseen Elder is supposed to be carried over round 2 and round 3. feed it with your lizards in round 1. i once made a 84 power Unseen Elder and carried it over to round 2 along with a 16 power Nekker. started round 2 with 100 points lol. my opponent forfeited

Which is highly situational. It may or may not work out.
Besides, the fact that Unseen Elder is storing that much power in one body that can easily be destroyed, IMO is exactly the reason why this leader is struggling these days.
 
Bail out the scorch, then adrenaline rush him. It works well early on, but people have other ways to deal with him once they have good gold cards.
 
Yeah but most decent decks could reliably shut that down and know to expect that if you're running lizards, that's why I don't run them, I don't want a big scorch target on the field and quite often I try to make my unseen elder quite tiny, so that if they do shut it down, then it's not too detrimental. I really don't think that strategy would pay good win ratio in high ranking, but hence why I'm wondering like if high ranking players have tried to play him as more of a subtle threat.
 
Unseen Elder was awesome when gold cards had damage immunity. Then you could "lock in" your power behind that sweet damage immunity. Now that he takes damage from everything and can be destroyed from scorch etc, he can backfire terribly.
 
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