Meta Decks

[RyseAurellius]

There is always a lot of talk in these forums about balance issues. I honestly don't know what CDPR can do to fully balance the game.

One of the bigger problems I see with the game in it's current form is player obsession with OP Meta decks, they find the crazy Ardal or Fran decks or whatever and they stick to it and then it catches on and it feels like most of the player base does the same, I am someone who likes to build my own decks as I have more fun doing that but the abundance of meta decks and deck building restrictions really prevents me from doing that. As I've said in a different thread I HAD to use DJ in the last meta simply so I could somewhat compete with all the NR and SY. Also no I'm not a pro player and I don't take the game too serious but I play it enough to see that these over the top meta decks aren't healthy for the game..but how does CDPR fix it? Better deck building as in open it up provision wise? I don't know.. Or maybe once all the factions have been overhauled we might see them dissipate naturally?

What do others think of these meta decks?

And what do you all think CDPR could do to get people to stop over playing them every meta?

Regards

(Also this isn't an attack on people using meta decks, they are just playing to the environment CDPR has made)

 

[SkiZophreniC]

This has nothing to do with deck building. The only thing devs can do (and must do) is to use the provision system to balance the whole thing.

During the last months we have been through a major rework of the game with the bronzes strenghtening and NR overhaul. This is normal that there remains some balance problems.

Let us forget last month with unstoppable Foltest and the DJ thing. Right now a few decks are over the top, and players are flocking to these decks because the win ratio is better. But as soon as the game is not perfectly balanced, this phenomenon will remain. You cannot force players to play suboptimal decks.

However, nothing prevents you from playing other decks. I will take my example : I played this week a Brouver movement deck, despite everyone considering that movement is a weak archetype. And I got a positive win ratio at rank 0. But why would I play Brouver instead of Fran ? Just because I had fun with it, even if it is much more difficult to pilot, and because I believe that it has potential. If I played Fran my MMR would be surely higher right now !

The last thing is that so called meta decks are optimized by pro players spending time to test it. You cannot just create your own deck and hope that it will be as good as meta: you need a lot of experience and testing before things work out. Most of the time your own deck will be suboptimal.

Thus following the meta is quite natural if you don't want to spend a lot of time loosing while everyone runs optimal decks. The best thing CDPR can do is, apart from balancing, working on the match length. One game is so time consuming that most people just stick with optimal decks to increase their winrate !

 

[StrykerxS77x]

Better balancing should help. It's become apparent over the years that CDPR has a very hard time balancing the game. More decks will become viable when there are less unplayable cards in the game as well as blatantly OP cards in the game. So many decks feel like no brainers because the golds are so obvious. For example NR has a set of gold cards that are so good nearly everyone uses them.

I could create a list of decks that I would really like to play but they are so weak it would be a waste of time. NG witchers for example should be a deck that I want to play but it's awful. There should be an easy way to replay the buff all witchers card but there isn't. At the very least you should be able to use Emyhr to do that but you can't.

 

[Payus]

People want wins quick, without effort. It's pathetic but such is the human condition.

 

[RyseAurellius]

Better balancing should help. It's become apparent over the years that CDPR has a very hard time balancing the game. More decks will become viable when there are less unplayable cards in the game as well as blatantly OP cards in the game. So many decks feel like no brainers because the golds are so obvious. For example NR has a set of gold cards that are so good nearly everyone uses them.

I could create a list of decks that I would really like to play but they are so weak it would be a waste of time. NG witchers for example should be a deck that I want to play but it's awful. There should be an easy way to replay the buff all witchers card but there isn't. At the very least you should be able to use Emyhr to do that but you can't.

I feel like less unplayable cards will happen once all the factions have been overhauled? And I agree there appears to be a lack of variety with golds, and yeah NR gold are pretty good and gives the faction a heavy advantage.

 

[Bruele]

I'm at rank 10. Last month only Dijkstra, Ardal and Foltest. This month scoiatel and Ardal, in one week I don t see a syndacate deck... Maybe do the same system of pro rank to change deks?

 

[StrykerxS77x]

I feel like less unplayable cards will happen once all the factions have been overhauled? And I agree there appears to be a lack of variety with golds, and yeah NR gold are pretty good and gives the faction a heavy advantage.

I don't have a lot of faith in faction overhauls atm. They did a big overhaul of NR and then appeared to have stopped doing that. Now they are just tweaking and doing the usual buffs and nerfs.

 

[4RM3D]

When CDPR is overhauling the factions one by one, then most people are going to play those factions one by one or build decks to counter them. This results in a less diverse meta. However, it's only temporary. Still, netdecks will always be a part of CCG.

 

[nedders]

Think those who dislike playing against the META need to adjust their mindset and just focus on what you want to achieve, then build a deck accordingly. Want to thin? NG/ST is for you. Synergy? NR/SK probably best. Boosts? NR/MO do a good job. Lockdown? NG. Damage? SK.

Keep changing it around, as well. Yes, there's too many pointless bronzes, but there's a lot of stuff to try. Try to embrace some of the deck building side.

There's absolutely no doubt you'll eventually get an 'unfair' matchup, but you cannot possibly hope to win every match, just accept it and forfeit.

I'm not seeing Syndicate, but I don't really know why, but why not explore that and try the deck? I'm enjoying playing a ST thinning deck for now, never look online for META's, but never expect to get to '0'.

 

[DRK3]

I've been playing Gwent for almost 3 years, seen it through all it's phases and unfortunately there isnt a good solution to metadecks and netdecking.

Even if CDPR manages to balance the game into a good state, the meta will still be a thing and most players will still use the same stuff. Why?

Even if the playerbase is now less than in Gwent Betas, the game is more established - there are websites/ organizations like Team Aretuza and Team Leviathan Gaming, plus the streamers, that provide easy access to great, easy to use decks, with detailed guides, very quickly after each update, and so most players choose that easy way.

Im afraid the only way netdecking would go back to a lesser level would be if Gwent decreased in popularity to the point professional teams would give up on it, and the game would revert to 'every one for himself' state. Dont get me wrong, netdecking already existed before HC, sharing decklists on sites like Gwenty or GwentDatabase, but it was less problematic because there wasnt only 1 or 2 sources where everyone flocked over to.

 

[Veruis]

With upcoming Challenger #5 we won't see any snapshots until tournament I think. Especially that Aretuza and TLG have their patricipants in it. So, well, for now there are only "netdecks" from streamers

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

In theory netdecks should balance themselves out, if the overall game state is balanced enough. If you play a non-netdeck, you will face a lot more netdecks than the other way around and thus you can predict their actions while they can't predict yours, which should give you an advantage.

 

[Imm0rtaleflame]

Since when you can't predict non netdeck actions

 

[Mr_Mugglez]

Go on then...As others have stated in this thread. PRO players make netdecks and everyone else uses them. I also stated months ago that 1% of the player-base are making 99% of the decks that people use. A terrible statistic, albeit not accurate.

How do you balance all that out? They haven't so far. My beloved ST has had two good weeks out of the last two years. It's better now but for how long? That usurper deck is utter garbage. lock/lock-damage/ lock (rinse and repeat) what a bore you must be playing that shite...

Anyhoo!
"Dol, bla thanna!"

 

[RyseAurellius]

Go on then...As others have stated in this thread. PRO players make netdecks and everyone else uses them. I also stated months ago that 1% of the player-base are making 99% of the decks that people use. A terrible statistic, albeit not accurate.

How do you balance all that out? They haven't so far. My beloved ST has had two good weeks out of the last two years. It's better now but for how long? That usurper deck is utter garbage. lock/lock-damage/ lock (rinse and repeat) what a bore you must be playing that shite...

Anyhoo!
"Dol, bla thanna!"

I enjoy the game and don't want to give up on it, but damn, I am certainly looking forward to the day where I won't have to play tier meta decks just to compete.

I started this season playing an NR Mage deck which I enjoyed the hell out of then along came Hyperthin NG and Call of the Forest ST. That put an end to my mage deck instantly.

In the last week since September patch I think almost half the decks I've played against have been ST lol

 

[Sailears]

Depends how seriously you want to climb. I was pretty much playing Dana exclusively over the last few months, but now that ST has become flavour of the month with almost copy paste, if not very similar lists/gameplans between Fran and Dana (honestly sick of seeing Justice, WoB and CotF everywhere), I've kind of got a bit bored and decided to try something else.

So now I'm enjoying and working on an Anna Assimilate deck, which while hardly top tier material, is at least refreshing (even if a bit of a meme). Sure sometimes it fails hard - as tbh this is my first time playing NG for any length of time, and I'm still learning how to play this archetype. But this is keeping me having fun in the game.

 

[Alrun24]

Depends how seriously you want to climb. I was pretty much playing Dana exclusively over the last few months, but now that ST has become flavour of the month with almost copy paste, if not very similar lists/gameplans between Fran and Dana (honestly sick of seeing Justice, WoB and CotF everywhere), I've kind of got a bit bored and decided to try something else.

So now I'm enjoying and working on an Anna Assimilate deck, which while hardly top tier material, is at least refreshing (even if a bit of a meme). Sure sometimes it fails hard - as tbh this is my first time playing NG for any length of time, and I'm still learning how to play this archetype. But this is keeping me having fun in the game.

I understand you very well. Last season I experimented with Fran and Dana, had different decks for those two leaders, that were not high tier, but had a decent chance to win. But now they are mostly only avatars without a specific identity, so I got bored too. Learned playing SK because of Season of the Dryad, but for normal mode I don't know what to do yet. Not NR, after the last weeks I can't stand NR anymore. Maybe I can try SY now, not DJ though, because after the last weeks ...

And you are that annoying Anna!!! I hate her

 

[Sailears]

I understand you very well. Last season I experimented with Fran and Dana, had different decks for those two leaders, that were not high tier, but had a decent chance to win. But now they are mostly only avatars without a specific identity, so I got bored too. Learned playing SK because of Season of the Dryad, but for normal mode I don't know what to do yet. Not NR, after the last weeks I can't stand NR anymore. Maybe I can try SY now, not DJ though, because after the last weeks ...

And you are that annoying Anna!!! I hate her

Must admit I had some pretty funny games to start with. vs AQ got Cantarella onto Glusty, then Anna onto Heatwave to banish another tall unit. vs another AQ I Anna'd Dudu to copy Keltullis as well as pulling Glusty with Invocation and Poet.

And I had one amazing game couldn't stop laughing vs Usurper assimilate - the create chains were ridiculous. xD

Only thing I don't like about Anna is being so predictable using her late game, in that way Calveit could be better especially with Invocation, but I love how Anna can hit some ridiculous cards at the right time.

 

[1990BW]

The devs should focus on more diversity in matchmaking in ranked play you always face the same decks.
Last season DJ, Foltest and NG hyperthin this season Francesca, Svalblod and NG hyperthin.
It's so boring I always lose interest in the game after a couple of weeks and then stop playing for a while.
Leaders with low winrate should get (much) higher rewards and should progress faster if you win a match.
There should be a cap on the amount of plays of a certain deck/faction for example 30 matches.
If you want to play the deck/faction again you'll have to unlock it by playing 30 games with 3 decks from different factions.
Matchmaking should avoid repetitivity for at least 4 games in a row.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

The devs should focus on more diversity in matchmaking in ranked play you always face the same decks.
Last season DJ, Foltest and NG hyperthin this season Francesca and NG hyperthin.
It's so boring I always lose interest in the game after a couple of weeks and then stop playing for a while.
Leaders with low winrate should get (much) higher rewards and should progress faster if you win a match.
There should be a cap on the amount of plays of a certain deck/faction for example 30 matches.
If you want to play the deck/faction again you'll have to unlock it by playing 30 games with 3 decks from different factions.
Matchmaking should avoid repetitivity for at least 4 games in a row.

I don't see that working. It's not a good idea to lock players out of their own decks. Also new players don't exactly have a lot of options.