Nilfgaard Handbuff Still Needs a Nerf

[Wyldefyre_CP]

Nilfgaard Handbuff Still Needs a Nerf

Well, with all the nerf-blasting that's just taken place to shake up the playfield, and with the general disclaimer being 'those bronze units were just getting too much value', how the heck did they miss the Nilfgaardian Knight + Mandrake/Mardroeme + Emhyr combo? Because the keyword on mandrake and mardroeme is 'strengthen' and not 'boost', this leaves the player with either an 18 or a 15 powered Nilfgaardian Knight sitting pretty in the hand - that one card is then completely sploited to barf out 23 or 20 powered spotters, followed by ointments to dig up the spotters (b/c conveniently, the spotters 'boost' off the strengthened Nilfgaardian Knight, so they go back to the grave as 5s ... then you have the Vic Novices to make sure you get the ointments, meanwhile you've also got Magne Division to drag out Wyvern Scale Shields to boost other units with, you guessed it, that same Nilfgaardian Knight. There are probably a few other cards I'm forgetting while I ramble here, but you get the point. These bronze cards are beating the socks off any other bronze cards they could've been complaining about in the series, yet here they still stand. Just curious what the reasoning was behind allowing this one to stay while busting up less powerful (imo) combinations.

 

[4RM3D]

Updated topic to better reflect its content.

 

[Wyldefyre_CP]

Updated topic to better reflect its content.

Ah, thanks for that - I blame lack of coffee for my previous, meandering thread title :cheers:

 

[DRK3]

Agree with the OP, i cant even believe they didnt even address this ridiculous strategy, and since the update yesterday it seems it came back, faced that BS deck 3x, only once did i defeated it, because i was lucky to have the perfect cards for the moment and continuous buffing with Triss Butt.

I already made a topic about trying to recreate this strategy with other factions, but on those cases it's much harder to achieve and with less results (since they dont have anything like spotters, and ointments to revive spotters), but with NG is just no-risk high reward crap.

 

[DannyGuy]

Play Serrit ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Honestly, niche strategies are annoying to play against short-term, but I don't think this will catch on. If you are a newer player with not quite optimal decks, you will get destroyed by all the memes.

 

[Hvando]

In my opinion Nilfgaard is the strongest faction at the moment, and I can't get why it wasn't nerfed while other cards was... every 3out of 4 games, I'm playing against fcking Nilfgaard, and guess what? I'm losing every single time. Managed to climb to rank 12 in new season, and now got lose streak about 15-20 games in a row vs Nilfgaard decks.. previously easily was getting to rank 18 with nakers, or eredin deck.
Hate this unbalanced piece of crap.
ty for attention.

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

Seems NG is the OP faction in every patch. It was probably better than dwarves. /s

 

[Tir_na_Lia]

It's because of Ointment.

You can play 6 Slave Drivers, or 6 Viper Witchers, or 6 Vicovaro alchemy tutor, or whatever combination you like the most.

The paradox is that Ointment is restricted to low-value unit, who most the time are those who generate more than the 12 value of a Nilf knight...

 

[4RM3D]

Play Serrit ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Serrit doesn't work because units are boosted by base strength, thus damaging a unit to 1 strength does nothing.

 

[DannyGuy]

Serrit doesn't work because units are boosted by base strength, thus damaging a unit to 1 strength does nothing.

Really? Is that how that works? Are you sure? That's not how I presumed it'd work, but I haven't played reveal since self revealing was implemented.

 

[overcold_ice]

Play Serrit ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Serrit or venendal elite only reduce the real unit's power. Buffs/boosts are based on base power, so they ignore the damage. Idk if this got changed in this patch.

 

[DannyGuy]

Serrit or venendal elite only reduce the real unit's power. Buffs/boosts are based on base power, so they ignore the damage. Idk if this got changed in this patch.

Iteresting, I didn't know that, huh. I guess there is no way to counter that strategy other than running scorch (possibly playing ST and running Schirrú as well).

 

[partci]

Haven't seen this combo in ages, and again - there is a WAY better one with ST.

 

[SoSaHer]

I`ve played this deck a bit as well, mainly to know how to fight it, and agree with the OP. The deck feels really annoying.

Still the deck is counterable by hitting their strong targets before emyr can put them back in hand. Don`t damage them, but either completely destroy them (scorch, eithle`s thunder etc), weaken them (mandrake) or transform them (jade figurine spell/coral).

Also, the deck also often loses against slave drivers that copy the spotters from the deck.

 

[Khreygond]

The deck is quite annoying admittedly. But no, NG is the second to worst faction right now. Spies got berfed to the ground for example that's what everyone wanted because ''enforcers op plz nerf''. NG is not going anywhere now.

as for that snowball deck, scorch doesn't really work. When there is the danger of using Vesemir into mandrake with Emhyr and then immediately grabbing the unit, that means you have to scorch it before that. And if you do so they will play another, either NG knight or Imperial Manticore via Glorious Hunt.

 

[Lyserus]

Emhyr shouldn't be able to return strengthened unit to hand

Emhyr shouldn't be able to return strengthened unit to hand.

I'm always a fan of reveal decks, but emhyr+high str unit+strengthen is just point vomit ,not fun to play or against, and overall not healthy for the game.

If you draw a niffgardian knight and mandrake, you basically win the game, because unless opponent has weaken / 14 damage in one go (which both are very rare), you get a 18 str unit in your hand and just point vomiting, opponent has no way to stop you from getting 30+ each unit every round.

Other strengthen decks, like ciri dash swap, actually require set up and counterable, but emhyr strengthen deck is just no interaction and unhealthy

 

[4RM3D]

Lyserus

thread merged

 

[Void_Singer]

this is a deck that looks powerful on it's face, but actually losses A LOT. the problem with it is mainly the tug of war between having enough cards/tutors to get your needed combo first round, and then protecting them later rounds. there's really no room for tech cards. It's vulnerable to early removal and short round2, and even self bricking. Alchemy, Slave/theft, and Weather Axeman utterly demolish it, and Spell-atael will too. Nekkers, Dorfs, NG Reveal, and Bears, are ~50/50 depending on draw... scorch is the bane of your existence because you will lose average 2 units value minimum R2+, double scorch or scorch with plinker damage with slaughter you, and more often than not early removal will also brick you. It does do well against SK Discard and Greatswords, as well as and NG Mill....

looking at that list you'll see why at high ranked levels it's actually not that good of a deck... despite being one of the more unique concepts out there. oh and the SC version? it's crap... you won't get the same value out of spears and it's opener is more obvious and gives way more opportunity to shut it down early, it's more concentrated at 7big critters (using swap) vs 10 of the NG. The The SK/NR/MN versions are even worse IMO because they rely on luck to get it back in hand.

Free advice to anyone that does decide to run this deck... there are some fairly obvious changes that you can make to the net version that will improve it's consistency allowing you better chances not to brick and even a variation or two that will work nearly as well

 

[Mancoon1980]

Not a fan of the hand buff. 25 point spears, shields, and spotters ..fun times

 

[partci]

... the SC version? it's crap... you won't get the same value out of spears and it's opener is more obvious and gives way more opportunity to shut it down early, it's more concentrated at 7big critters (using swap) vs 10 of the NG. The The SK/NR/MN versions are even worse IMO because they rely on luck to get it back in hand...

Actually I do find the ST version with Ocvist WAY more consistent and I win way more with than with the NG version, which does aligns scorches way too good and in this meta... well,you are left with nothing. With Ocvist people make the general mistake to pass R1, leaving me 2-3 cards down, to cry afterwards. But I still play it mostly in Casual, having fun there.

The NG version I find way too clunky.