How to Deal With Nekkers

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4RM3D;n10249312 said:
jeydee

thread merged

Bad idea to be honest. Saovine Nekker deck is not the same as Midwinter Nekker deck. Like, at one point I was even wondering if my opponent was out of Nekkers since he had a Nekker on the board, I passed, and there were no Nekkers at the start of the next round. Obviously, Deathwish has changed.

Also, I'm not asking about specific cards to use against Nekkers. Those cards are obvious. I'm asking about playstyle.
 
Just target the Nekkers while they are weak. I don't run any lock or AC with the spy deck but if you nail 2 enforcers down you can do an insane amount of removal. Kill off spies, revive them, spawn them with ceallach, bring an infiltrator, and as many enforcers as you can, always targetting the Nekkers. If the opponent passes don't be afraid to go a card down or two to kill a few more.

Other than that, locks. AC, Sweers and every damager targeting them. You should make it even, if not win. Just be careful with the locks because the opponent usually uses R1 to breed them and R2 and 3 to summon them. So obviously you need to lock them when he revives them with the ibtent to consume them.
 
Jeydra
First of all you need something scorchy (like you mentioned), a lock, movement, weaken effect.
Pivotal for the matchup overall is to get consumption triggers out of them (like Vran Warrior or forktail), all there golds are great too.
Don't overcomit using your scorches and locks too early in the game.

1)This is an option if you are able to put a massive amount of points on the board with 2-3 cards. If you decide to do so, be resolute doing so.
2)Hard to say. You'd need to be able to outmuscle nekkers in the long round 3. If you are confident doing so considering your hand, its fair to give it a go.
3)Generally bleed them, yes. Get the core cards out of them. If they go in a round 3 with 3 cards and got no more consumption triggers, it looks good for you.
4)Don't know about that, because Slyzard and all those cards that consume/muster from their graveyard. If you can banish them/or steal them from the graveyard do so.
 
I just played a game where I aimed everything at Nekkers. Before the end of round 1 there were four of them in my opponent's graveyard, but he'd played three Nekker Warriors and had a Nekker on the board. The main problem with doing this is that since the Nekkers replace themselves I don't stay ahead on tempo as much, if at all. What could've been +2 CA became equal CA. Of course ultimately what matters is winning, but this is still disturbing.

Is there a way to estimate how many points a consume player can put out in rounds 2 & 3, based on the number of cards he has in hand? A rough estimate suffices - after all it's certain to vary depending on what exactly he's drawn and played.

When bleeding the consume player in round 2, what are the key cards to watch out for?

Texen1982 - I certainly don't hate consume, in fact I probably have a positive win rate against it, but I find the deck hard to play against. Are you implying that winning round 1 vs. consume is a necessity?
 
I'm using Mandrake (twice when playing with Eithne if necessary). Some players still don't know, that Nekkers thus were removed from the game and it's always fun to see them wasting their Slyzard or even Brewess: Ritual.
 
Yeah, Eithne and Mandrake just demolishes them, yesterday was messing around with the Ocvist meme deck - Neckers were my favorite meal for which I was praying and laughing my ass off every time I had this just 15 STR Ocvist but opponent had 0 Nekkers.

But this is one Leader with one card out of like two dozens. In NG you have Sweers, but if you don't draw him or draw him a turn too late...

Overall I think this deck still needs balancing, it's preposterous when their train starts to run and all you can do is watch.
 
When bleeding the consume player in round 2, what are the key cards to watch out for?

Texen1982 - I certainly don't hate consume, in fact I probably have a positive win rate against it, but I find the deck hard to play against. Are you implying that winning round 1 vs. consume is a necessity?[/QUOTE]

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If you win R1 then you're in charge of the game thereafter and can decide how far you want to push R2 (which of course you already know). But this therefor means you can work out how many Nekkers your oppo has left (based on how many you've killed thus far) and your best shot is to try and get your oppo to use all their remaining Nekkers in R2, because the consume deck has no power finisher in R3 - except of course for a massive Nekker.
This consume list is quite comfortable going into R3 with only one Nekker left because there are numerous ways of pulling it - Slyzard, Shadow, Pheonix. If you go to R3 on even cards and oppo has no Nekkers left - you'll win. If you go to R3 and oppo has 1+ Nekker left - you'll probably lose.
By letting oppo win R1, oppo can dictate the play in R2 and decide how many Nekkers to carry over into R3 (one is usually plenty). So to sum up, if you can drain oppo of all Nekkers in R2, you're in great shape.

 
You have to be running mushroom tech, basically. Removal can't keep up. I can't think of a deck that runs 9 bits of removal that isn't spellatael, let alone draws them all in rounds 1 and 2. The only thing that really holds them back is terrible hands where they can't get a nekker and a warrior.
 
Texen1982;n10260272 said:
If you win R1 then you're in charge of the game thereafter and can decide how far you want to push R2 (which of course you already know). But this therefor means you can work out how many Nekkers your oppo has left (based on how many you've killed thus far) and your best shot is to try and get your oppo to use all their remaining Nekkers in R2, because the consume deck has no power finisher in R3 - except of course for a massive Nekker.
This consume list is quite comfortable going into R3 with only one Nekker left because there are numerous ways of pulling it - Slyzard, Shadow, Pheonix. If you go to R3 on even cards and oppo has no Nekkers left - you'll win. If you go to R3 and oppo has 1+ Nekker left - you'll probably lose.
By letting oppo win R1, oppo can dictate the play in R2 and decide how many Nekkers to carry over into R3 (one is usually plenty). So to sum up, if you can drain oppo of all Nekkers in R2, you're in great shape.

I just played this game, tell me if you think I did something wrong.

Round one went pretty long. I killed ~2 Nekkers, he played ~2 Warriors. He only played one Vran, which I killed on sight. Ultimately I won on equal cards. Entering round two, we had ~5 cards each left. The last few turns of the game went:

Round 2
Turn 1:

Me: play something generic for 11 points. I wanted to drypass, but also figured that since he has a synergistic deck I should try to make him play some Nekkers and / or enablers, to pass on.
Him: play Vran Warrior. 11-6.

Turn 2:
Again I wanted to pass, but I had a 5-point lead and decided to go for one more card. He played Phoenix bringing out Slyzard bringing out Nekker which got consumed and gave him enough points that I couldn't catch up. So I passed.

Round 3:
He played Whispess, Cockatrice, and Arachas Queen generating over 60 points. I had Scorch for the Arachas Queen but it didn't matter since the Nekkers were worth more than enough points to stomp me to the ground.

I feel like I got outplayed somewhere. It's possible his finishing combo is unbeatable, in which case I really needed more CA from the first round. Or perhaps I should've been killing Nekkers and leaving his Vran Warriors untouched. Or perhaps I should've bled in round 2 till only one card in hand. I don't know. The deck is hard to play against.

At what point would you say using an anti-big unit effect like Scorch, Peter or Iorveth: Meditation is worth it? Should I be saving them till they're worth 30+ points, or is 20+ good enough?
 
Suggestions on facing Nekkers?

By now I am pretty convinced I do something wrong, seeing as the Nekkers have become my absolute bane :p

With decks that have Mandrake, it's one use and opponents usually have 2 nekkers/shadow in their hand. Locking them is no good either due to the large amount of slyzards and copies in the graveyard. resetting them with anything other than Mandrake won't kill them. And I don't want to make a counter nekker deck.

I've had no trouble facing this deck before the midwinter update, but now it suddenly seems like I can't for the life of me figure out how to beat it. Any general advice? Thank you :)
 
Hey does anybody know if Cyprian Wiley banishes Nekkers? I've been thinking of getting that card to replace Peter but well, I like that Peter strengthens units too.
 
OG.laloquaint;n10289332 said:
Hey does anybody know if Cyprian Wiley banishes Nekkers?

Yes and no.

The Nekker's base strength is set to 0. However, if the Nekker is boosted, then he will remain on the board, but his deathwish will no longer trigger, if he is eaten. This means Cyprian Wiley only has a limited use against Nekkers.
 
I'm baffled that nekkers' base power went up to 4. Before mushrooms were a straight counter to nekkers. Now they're - not useless per se - but only a minor inconvenience. I won't be surprised if they go back to 3 given how the deck's evolved since then. There's very few decks that have much game against them.
 
4RM3D;n10289352 said:
The Nekker's base strength is set to 0. However, if the Nekker is boosted, then he will remain on the board, but his deathwish will no longer trigger, if he is eaten. This means Cyprian Wiley only has a limited use against Nekkers.

Cyprian teamed up with Brouver and seasoned with decoy means almost 90% win rate against pure nekker strategy. 25% of the time opponents forfeit tight away.
 
Maerd;n10311472 said:
Cyprian teamed up with Brouver and seasoned with decoy means almost 90% win rate against pure nekker strategy. 25% of the time opponents forfeit tight away.

Sure, if you can use Cyprian Wiley when the Nekkers aren't boosted yet. However, compared to Artefact Compression and Mandrake, he is more limited.
 
4RM3D;n10312742 said:
Sure, if you can use Cyprian Wiley when the Nekkers aren't boosted yet. However, compared to Artefact Compression and Mandrake, he is more limited.
The thing is Cyprian is guaranteed to appear. And I don't mind using double tremors to remove small boost from the nekker. In my experience, it's extremely efficient. My win rate with Brouver - Cyprian against nekkers is about 80%. Nekkers is my fav opponent, a win is almost guaranteed.
 
I've been toying around with some success with a strategy of short rounding them early... seems to help a bit, even against regular consume that uses grave digging for finishing points... basically the idea is to come out big, especially if you have first play. needs 15pts on board. if they set out consume targets even better, the point is to either deny them full value on the early consumes, or make them pay dearly to load their deck with nekkers while running them down cards. this forces them to rely on Slyzards R2/3 further denying direct consume value from the Nekkers. after that is a matter of picking off the ones you can early to deny the consume value, and saving nuke options that kill buffs for the last two that come out.
 
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