Reveal deck: Wrongly buffed

[Lyserus]

Reveal deck: Wrongly buffed

I'm not in PL still, but I used reveal and only reveal deck to reach rank 17 (almost 18) in season 2 with 3-6 games a day max. So tho I'm no top expert, I'm pretty good at it.
So here is what I think about reveal deck and the 2 new cards related to reveal type.

Hefty Helge is not bad, the problem is venedel elite, it's so ridiculously overpower for a bronze card, and should definitely get a redone in hotfix.

Here is my overall thought about the design about reveal:

In china we have an old saying "use generals to block the enemy soilders, use mud to prevent water flood" (I'm bad at translating). Which basicallys means, we use corresponding methods to stop the upcoming troubles, and this should be the spirit and ultimate goal of reveal deck------ "You don't lose if you know your enemy and yourself". You should be able to counter what your enemy have with what you have soon as you know your enemy's strategy (seeing his cards getting revealed).

Instead, what we got, including most pre-patch reveal cards and 2 new cards, is brute force. You can't block your enemy's special cards even if you know it's in your enemy's hand; you can't prevent enemy's deploy ability even you know when he will play it, you can at best set a card's power to 1, but in real game the essence of a card is it's ability, not power.

Hefty and Venedel do not bring the salvation of reveal archetype, but (at least venedel) will sure to be the "side kick" of meta in other NG archetypes, simply because these cards only need revealed cards, but the cards themselves do not interact with the archetype in anyway.

What we need is something that make our intel useful. For now, the intel only good when we are strictly doing one thin-----let opponent play out all his cards first, the order of playing and the finisher are the 2 things that reveal archetype value more than anything, because only reveal type knows what opponent is holding and reverse-thinking what opponent will do. However such strict rules limits the potential of reveal deck, and sometimes in the end we still do not have enough strength to overpower other decks. Which is probably why CDPR want to fix reveal by giving even more brute force, but doing that simply makes the unique factor of reveal type cease to exist.

You want me to give a good example of great-designed reveal archetype card? Sweer. Tho it can be used on cards on board, choosing revealed units can mess up opponent's deck more than anything, especially decks that revlove around few bronze cards and certain abilities (*cough spellaetel *cough Henselt)

What reveal deck need is low strength but good interaction with opponent deck (Supposely it should has lower strength than other decks, as reveal deck should be able to control enemy hand, deck and playing order in some way, which can easily get out of hand and become THE meta if reveal itself has high strength).
What we need, is some gold card banish a card in your hand and banish a revealed card in opponent hand;
what we need is lock a revealed card and boost it by 5
what we need is when a card is played, damage all revealed copy of that card, and if some cards in the hand are destroyed, draw a new card (work on both sides, can be used to destroy enemy strategy tho giving him a new card, or destroy cards in your hand to trigger ability or replace cards suit for current situation)

I'm content with the "brute force" part of reveal before the patch, but what we need more now is more interaction, not more cards that does damage on the board
Reveal should be the "control" deck that gwent does not really have right now, it really has this potential if the path is set right

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

Reveal suffers from the same issues as it always has, poor tempo past round 1. The deck hasn't changed much in that way.

Now I haven't tried the new card yet but I believe they tried fixing this with Venedel. So while I haven't tried it yet, it seems a bit too much. With alchemists now revealing 2 cards, you force your enemy to play their top cards early (if revealed). The issue is that you can't do much about it. You either play a revealed card early or get it reset. And if an alchemist reveales 2 big cards, too bad.

I'll still wait a bit to see how things play out but this might be a bit too much.

 

[Lyserus]

Reveal suffers from the same issues as it always has, poor tempo past round 1. The deck hasn't changed much in that way.

Now I haven't tried the new card yet but I believe they tried fixing this with Venedel. So while I haven't tried it yet, it seems a bit too much. With alchemists now revealing 2 cards, you force your enemy to play their top cards early (if revealed). The issue is that you can't do much about it. You either play a revealed card early or get it reset. And if an alchemist reveales 2 big cards, too bad.

I'll still wait a bit to see how things play out but this might be a bit too much.

Venedel is definitely too much....a bronze that can easily achieve 16+ strength with little to none effort since you can almost reveal all the cards now

 

[Makhil]

A third of the games i've done this new season is vs Nilf reveal decks... Venedel is so OP it just kills the fun of playing.

 

[4RM3D]

What reveal deck need is low strength but good interaction with opponent deck (Supposely it should has lower strength than other decks, as reveal deck should be able to control enemy hand, deck and playing order in some way, which can easily get out of hand and become THE meta if reveal itself has high strength).

If only there was such a card. Oh, wait a minute... There is one: Alba Armored Cavalry. Related, let's not forget about Xarthisius, which almost no one plays, while still being an awesome card. While both cards do not synergize with reveal and as such could be played in other decks, it does still provide valuable information. Xarthisius especially because you can infer how strong the opponent's hand is.

You can't block your enemy's special cards even if you know it's in your enemy's hand; you can't prevent enemy's deploy ability even you know when he will play it, you can at best set a card's power to 1, but in real game the essence of a card is it's ability, not power.

This is a very interesting statement because of the implications behind it. Let's explore it a bit...

First of all, there exists no deck that can handle everything and even if it could, such a deck would become pretty awful considering that most of the tools would be very specific/situational and are (near) unless in other situations, e.g. Igni can quite easily become a very expensive 4 strength card. This means that you cannot counter everything, nor do you want to. What you do want to do is minimize the damage. An important factor is which counters does the opponent have and in which order can you play your cards. For example, if you know the opponent is holding an Igni, you can try to avoid row-stacking. You don't require extra tools for this. But if the opponent then uses a row-moving unit and you don't have one of your own or a Scorch-blocker, then it becomes a problem. Furthermore, the order of playing out the cards is important too. If you know the opponent is sitting on a Scorch, you could bait it out and safely play your stronger units later. For example, I solely lost a match against Reveal because the opponent revealed an important gold card which told him how to prevent it in the last round. If he didn't know my hand, surely he would have played the cards differently (and in my favor).

 

[Lyserus]

First of all, there exists no deck that can handle everything and even if it could, such a deck would become pretty awful considering that most of the tools would be very specific/situational and are (near) unless in other situations, e.g. Igni can quite easily become a very expensive 4 strength card. This means that you cannot counter everything, nor do you want to. What you do want to do is minimize the damage. An important factor is which counters does the opponent have and in which order can you play your cards. For example, if you know the opponent is holding an Igni, you can try to avoid row-stacking. You don't require extra tools for this. But if the opponent then uses a row-moving unit and you don't have one of your own or a Scorch-blocker, then it becomes a problem. Furthermore, the order of playing out the cards is important too. If you know the opponent is sitting on a Scorch, you could bait it out and safely play your stronger units later. For example, I solely lost a match against Reveal because the opponent revealed an important gold card which told him how to prevent it in the last round. If he didn't know my hand, surely he would have played the cards differently (and in my favor).

I understand what you are saying because I played a lot of reveal. However, like I said, the limitation of cases like "wait out scorch" is big, usually harder than you think, if you don't play reveal much

To wait out cards, you MUST let your opponent play out all the cards first. That alone is very hard:
Case1: You play first. You have to use overwhelming strength then pass, hoping opponent will use more cards to win the round, then again you will at disadvantage on round 2, and easily resulting you play out all cards first. If your opponent does not, then probably your only chance is dry pass round 2, then weather decks or any long-run decks will mess you up, you usually ended up still lose at strength even you get the finisher.

Case2:Opponent play first. This is easier, but still, reveal pre-patch is good at burst damage, but at most only good at 2 rounds max. Which means you cannot spread your strength between 3 rounds. That means, if you win the first run, you probably still wind up dry round 2 again; if you lose, opponent will take it as advantage and you will have hell in round 2 and eventually lose finisher in round 3.

Revealing opponent's deck gives great info, but do not underestimate the power of "I know my opponent know my hand". Experienced players will detect what you have in your hand when you are force to play less optimal cards to avoid his cards, and as long as you don't have the finisher (last card played), their special cards are gonna have their way. And fighting for finisher, tho important for other decks as well but for reveal deck your win or lose is solely depends on it, limits a great deal on how you play your cards

 

[NerdExtrodinare]

Venedel is just ridiculous. This isn't really adding but... Yeah. It's too ridiculous not to comment on.

 

[Zjiin]

Venedel is just ridiculous. This isn't really adding but... Yeah. It's too ridiculous not to comment on.

Yup.

Its genuinley sad someone was paid to design this card and someone else was paid to sit there and say "Nope, seems perfectly fine to me."

CDPR - For the love of god look into hiring at least a few new balance team members, The current team just cant manage it anymore.

 

[Vaishar]

I like that despite the buff it is still at the bottom of the food chain. People already learned to counter the new bronze card. And players began to reevaluate it. You need setup for it to be good and with alot of swarm decks right now one barely gets over 7-8 points out of it (except the cantarella combo wich needs 3 moves to set up).

 

[Mapandzap]

Reveal is over the top atm.