Mulligan Redesign: Fixed Quality Mulligan

[4RM3D]

Mulligan Redesign: Fixed Quality Mulligan

The idea is that you have a fixed quality in your opening hand. Meaning you will always draw 5 bronze, 3 silver and 2 gold cards. Mulliganing away a bronze, will give you another bronze. Same goes for the silver and gold cards.

This would reduce the RNG and give everyone a greater chance at a fair starting hand. The downside is that the game becomes less flexible and certain archetypes might be unfairly impacted, e.g. 40 card swarm decks. Also, cards like Royal Decree might become obsolete.

Now, I am not actually suggesting the above should be implemented; I am just curious about what other players think about this idea.

 

[NlelithZ44]

That would shift deck building to heavily rely on the starting hand, to enable gameplan from round 1 to the full potential... And this would lead to more stale gameplay. Some might like this stability / predictability at first, but I think people will get sick of it pretty fast. I mean, I hate it when I don't draw my Sweers against spellatael or swarming nekkers, but giving players option to 100% draw him round 1 is a bit too much. I'm sure there's a couple more examples like this, where tech cards would completely ruin some opponents.

 

[sfruzz]

I think that an overly consistent mulligan would favour the usage of the same cards over and over.
If there is a golden card slightly above average or broken OP, with a similar system you could just fish for it in a consistent way.

 

[gigabomb]

Not sure what form would be best, but I like the idea. Certain cards are already massively favored over others, and I think that knowing you both have a set of adequate tools is more like a duel than RNG roulette. There's a reason so many run royal decree, and I often it with Ge'els just so that I can mulligan away my golds, have 2 guaranteed, and draw a silver as well.

 

[Sunsibar]

I doubt that this would do much good for new player experience, where opponents with wider card collection can draw their killer combos at the beginning

Of course it's a bummer if I don't get my key cards to my hand, but it's kinda part of the game. Then I just have to start thinking how to play smart with the cards that I have. Always getting what I want, starts to feel a bit boring after a while. Me thinks. So no, this doesn't smell like a good idea.

 

[altaybek]

Why even play when both parties got almost perfect hands? Some archetypes will always win against the others. Most of the time RNG is annoying and making me depressed and wanna cut my wrists (like the time i got all 9 units at hand when playing spelltael) but that's the way it should be imho.

Also i think some cards have higher draw rate than others but this is just a guess. Need to keep statistics to prove this conspiracy though. Lesser guardian, Imperial Golem and Royal Decree are first ones to come to my mind.

 

[Wonderboy8700]

More control over hand

So I was thinking about how to make the game a little less luck based. What if instead of mulligan you get to select 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze cards from your deck builder and always start with those 5. The other 5 are random with no mulligan. Round 2 and 3 could function the same or you could select 1 specific card and get 1 random card with no mulligan in round 2.

 

[4RM3D]

Wonderboy8700 thread merged

My suggestion was already questionable, but you are taking it a step further. The general consensus is that it's not a good idea. And, ironically, the mulligan RNG is actually the least problematic RNG in the game.

 

[Wonderboy8700]

When I made my original post I had not seen your thread. I understand the concern of the other posters but I think they fail to consider the wider implications. For example instead of setting up your offense what if you set up a defense to throw your opponent off their game. Using igni and compression as your gold and silver presets. The problem with random draws is that gwent comes down to 3 or 4 cards in every match. In other words if you and your opponent are using the same deck, then whoever has access to the best gold, or the clear weather, or the key revival card will win. What sets gwent apart from other online card games is that gwent has more strategy, thus giving more choices to the players increases the strategic value.

 

[Gvynblade]

Making Gwent more balanced?

If card types have quotas per round (like 2 golds,3 silvers,5 bronzes)for each player, wouldn't be more competitive and balanced experience?

 

[Bleach25]

If card types have quotas per round (like 2 golds,3 silvers,5 bronzes)for each player, wouldn't be more competitive and balanced experience?

Eww how are you gonna do that ?

Considering your example the 11th card shouldn't be played. Besides, what happens if I have one more gold or silver than my opponent? Am I screwed?

 

[Hybridizati0nn]

If card types have quotas per round (like 2 golds,3 silvers,5 bronzes)for each player, wouldn't be more competitive and balanced experience?

Terrible idea. If the quotas remained in mulligan as well whats the point of Francesca or any such card because you could basically mulligan safely the golds/ silvers you want in your hand.

As much as the word RNG seems to ring only negative bells, without RNG it would be just machine-like repeating a process to play a match which to a certain extents it already is with many decks. The variable known as card drawing creates RNG and unpredictability which makes you think and opt strategically according to the situation. If not for card drawing RNG you could optimize your deck so that you could play any silver / gold card you want at any point and that results even more to the STRONGEST deck win everytime instead of nowadays when RELIABILITY is a factor to take into account in deck building.

If I had constructive positive feedback about the suggestion I'd share it but can't think of any Instead I apologize the negativity of my post.

 

[Gvynblade]

Eww how are you gonna do that ?

Considering your example the 11th card shouldn't be played. Besides, what happens if I have one more gold or silver than my opponent? Am I screwed?

You'll have a leader card as usual + 6 golds and 9 silvers(2 golds and 3 silvers per round quota)and you can replace 2 then 1 of them only with same colors at every round start.

 

[Gvynblade]

Terrible idea. If the quotas remained in mulligan as well whats the point of Francesca or any such card because you could basically mulligan safely the golds/ silvers you want in your hand.

If not for card drawing RNG you could optimize your deck so that you could play any silver / gold card you want at any point and that results even more to the STRONGEST deck win everytime instead of nowadays when RELIABILITY is a factor to take into account in deck building.

Play any silver / gold card you want at any point not possible if you hold golds or silvers you can't get any more of them, other rounds you can replace just 2 then 1 of them.

 

[4RM3D]

Gvynblade

thread merged

 

[TheShift]

I know this seems to be an issue for players.
I guess I just have played long enough to know that it's just the way it is.
pretty sure it's never changed since closed beta
I honestly think a change to this system would break the game

Even at this point it's obvious the coin flip makes a huge difference in this game
(even though personally I could care less about it)
Fixing that main system should be priority one..

here's a question ... this has been my only ever played card game.. how does HS, magic,and whatever else decide who goes first ?

 

[Hellsmoke77]

They should just really make draws random and not put priorities on certain cards. Specials and weathers clearly have a higher priority. Also, mulliganed cards should be put at the bottom of the deck. If I mulligan a card that means I don't want it in my hand and I spent a very valuable mulligan on it to have that happen. To then get it right back makes the whole mulligan pointless and is like a slap in the face.

This is how I would solve it.

 

[Legendarum]

I know this seems to be an issue for players.
I guess I just have played long enough to know that it's just the way it is.
pretty sure it's never changed since closed beta
I honestly think a change to this system would break the game

Even at this point it's obvious the coin flip makes a huge difference in this game
(even though personally I could care less about it)
Fixing that main system should be priority one..

here's a question ... this has been my only ever played card game.. how does HS, magic,and whatever else decide who goes first ?

It's a little hard to compare Gwent to other card games, because there is no mana/land requirement to play your cards. I'm not sure how familiar you are with HS or Magic, but cards in those games require 'mana' to play.

In HS you get one mana per turn, so on turn one you can play a 1 mana cost card, on turn two you could play two 1 cost cards, or one 2 cost card, and so on.

In HS the player who goes first is decided ramdomly, however, the player who goes second automatically gets a 0 cost card called 'The Coin', that they can use at any point during the game, to add one mana to their mana pool, for one turn. This essentially evens out the downside of going second, as they can 'catch up' when they need to.

As a side note, Elder Scrolls Legends has a similar system, although you can use their version of 'The Coin' three times (not on the same turn though), instead of once.

Magic is again different, in Magic cards have a mana cost associated with them the same as in HS, except in Magic you do not automatically get one mana per turn, instead you have to play 'land' cards from your deck that essentially say on them 'Give me 1 mana for this turn'. You can only play one land per turn. But they hang around the whole game - so ASSUMING you played one land per turn all game, it would basically mean the same as in HS - one extra mana, per turn. Except in Magic this never happens. Part of the skill of deckbuilding there is deciding how many lands you want to put on your deck so as to not be mana starved, or have a land flooded hand. ALSO, that was the really simple explanation, as Magic is absurdly complicated xD

All that being said though, in Magic it is random who goes first. However, in Magic you draw a card every turn - except your first turn, if you are going first. So the player going second basically starts with one extra card in hand.

Buuuut like I said at the beginning, these are so massively different games to Gwent that a lot of comparisons are kind of moot. In Gwent you can play any cards at any time, and points on the board are the only win condition. Gwent also has the pass systen. All of this together means who goes first is massively more important.

Sorry I wrote way more than I intended, but I hope that answers your questions.

 

[Mancoon1980]

I would just change the way the mulligan works. Certain cards do not get drawn like others do.. The odds are insane for it to happen like it does, some decks I've forgotten cards I've picked because I never see them. The new triss for me I rarely see but my other gold I always come across. whatever I mulligan, or swap is always the very next card I draw. I've watched those logic videos that try to explain it...how about just black list whatever I mulligan or reduce its odds. It's like a 75 percent chance whatever you mulligan will be the next card you get next round..

 

[nedders]

Decent game but there's too much repetitiveness, far too consistently. Constantly facing NG - Viper - Wyvern, SK and that incredibly boring ship attack/heal rubbish or NR armoured healing machine.

But the one thing that I think its completely flawed but easily fixed is equalising the draw. I just played a ST deck vs NG and despite every mulligan and card draw possible, my four golds remained unattainable except to use Yaevinn to get Shupe; as I was already struggling against a barrage of Silver & Gold, I had to enter R3 two cards down and STILL didn't get a Gold. Lost to the Letho/Regis combination, as I had no way of countering it. Now I understand that's the case, but the simple solution is to ensure the two decks dealt are dealt in completely equal proportion. So if my four golds end up at the bottom of the pile, so should the opponents. The mechanics should easily be able to randomise the order but keep it exactly the same for both players - that way it's about skill and deck choice, not RNG. Please, CDPR, if you're listening, even things up a bit.

All I feel like I'm doing at the moment is winning or losing because of the draw. There's exceptions, but now I'm sceptical and even find myself writing down cards played!!!!!!