Stop Restricting my Deck Options

[FreelancerWhisky]

I am absolutely SICK of being forced to save a minimum of 2 card slots in ALL my ranked decks for:

1) A purify card (in case my opponent is running a defender) and
2) An artifact removal card (in case my opponent is running a scenario card)

This binary interaction is not fun for either side. I hate games where I hold onto a bomb heaver for round 3 expecting a scenario, only to be forced to drop a 4 point deadweight when it becomes clear that my opponent is not running it. I hate games where I hold onto my purify card only for it to also be a ridiculous 4 point deadweight when my opponent is not running a defender (because let's face it: a vampire deck has 10 million bleeds, a poison deck has 10 million poisons, a midrange nilfgaard deck has 10 million locks, etc. so purifying a vitality/bleed/lock is crap value and does not justify the cost).

On the flip side, I'm pretty sure my opponents also hate me when they play their extremely expensive 14 provision scenario and it gets destroyed without reaching Chapter 2,or throw out their defender only for it to become purified and useless.

Yet the most infuriating cases have to be when I use up all my mulligans every single round in a game in order to try and find my purify or artifact removal (since I have either played against my opponent or my opponent's netdeck before, and thus know he is using a defender or scenario), only to waste all mulligans with my needed card remaining at the bottom of my deck.

This is one of the reasons beta Gwent's gameplay was so much better. In beta gwent there were 2 auto-include cards: silver mages (for weather clear) and silver spies (for card advantage). But because of the 4-gold 6-sliver 15-bronze class system, it didn't feel bad losing those slots since your bronzes were decent and could consistently obtain insane value (better than silver cards for sure when properly set up; and conditionally better than gold cards). After Homecoming? Hell yes it feels really bad always losing 2 slots when you could slot in better bronzes or even golds. Also, purify blows chunks. It should only remove negative status effects when you have to use it on one of your own units; why the hell does removing a lock or bleed on one of my units also remove its vitality or shield?

 

[Hiperon]

Artificial removal card will not always help you with scenario.
1. They sometimes got caretaker.
2. They sometimes can do half/full scenario in one turn.

Purify card is usefull not only against defenders. And going fordefenders cost enemy turn, and it still can bedestroyed in any other option, if not i one turn, maybe in two turns.

What I'm trying to say, noone force you, you can play without it, and sometimes it's better to compete with enemy deck in other way. Also itis big satisfaction if you kill 14 provision card, but it's rarely end of the game for him.
There is lots of other archetypes that you can/should carry things against. Locks. Geralt to kill the tall enemy. Reset to kill boost enemy. Banish to stop Monsters consume. You either try to include all of them (and lose sometimes because oyour own synergy is not best) or sometimes lose against specific deck. And they will lose against other.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

First of all, I agree that scenarios are too strong and defenders as well, such that it became really necessary to include those two kind of counters. And I wish that we had a state of balance such that no such counter have to be autoinclude. As well as more versatile purify inside of factions like imperial diviner which perfectly fits into an assimilate deck without feeling bad.

This is one of the reasons beta Gwent's gameplay was so much better. In beta gwent there were 2 auto-include cards: silver mages (for weather clear) and silver spies (for card advantage).

That's a great example for how the past always seems better than it was.
Just to list the autoinclude cards at the end of Beta overall factions: Silver Spy, Weather Mage, Reconaissance, Mandrake, Bronze Tutor, Gold Tutor, Runestone.
Of course that is only a snapshot from a specific time and the autoincludes changed with the meta, but there were always more than just 2 (f.e. Firstlight, Shackles, Weather Clear Unit, Silver Lock, Roach, Hailstorm).
The current state of the game is gladly a lot better than that.

 

[stephen1974]

Careful, you'll have the Portland Police after you for that, or should that be Evergreen Hall Monitors.

OP, you are not going to find a hand that will beat all opponents, so play the hand that gives you the strongest chance of winning against the most opponents rather than trying to defend against everything that could possibly be thrown at you.

You'll just be banging your head against the wall with the later.

 

[FreelancerWhisky]

Artificial removal card will not always help you with scenario.
1. They sometimes got caretaker.
2. They sometimes can do half/full scenario in one turn.

Against a caretaker/renew/scenario deck that can play 3 scenarios I'm screwed anyways so I don't care. Against a deck that only runs caretaker, they always use their first scenario round 1 so I save the artifact removal for the later rounds. Against decks that have neither and only run 1 scenario, even just denying Chapter 2 is good. For Nilfgaard Ch. 2 is a poison with unlimited value, for ST it is an elven deadeye which can kill a unit and give another stack for Great Oak or Vernossiel, for SK it is Mardroeme which is always greater than 9 points because it is used on a Drakkar or Dracoturtle, and for NR it is Bombardment which is 8 free damage. No one plays Monsters since they're trash and the Syndicate scenario is the weakest of them all and not even Syndicate decks use it.

Purify card is usefull not only against defenders. And going fordefenders cost enemy turn, and it still can bedestroyed in any other option, if not i one turn, maybe in two turns.

No, purify is not useful against anything other than defenders because like I said - against a Nilfgaard deck they have a million ways to lock or poison you, against a vampire bleed deck they have a million ways to bleed you, and all units which rely on keeping their shield (Windhalm, Imke, Hefty Helge) are better off being reset/destroyed in the case of Windhalm, or just flat out killed or locked (Imke, Helge) so a purify is a wasted turn. Defenders do not "cost an enemy turn" they are not artifacts or specials; they are points on the board. And if you do not have a purify Defenders can be round winning (game winning in r3). But perhaps I should be more precise: the Skellige, ST, and Syndicate Defenders are fair because they each (unadjusted) take 2 damaging hits to destroy. But the Nilfgaard and NR Defenders which see the most play are completely overtuned. Donimr gets a shield which means it takes 3 hits, while Ffion gets boost and armor for 11 total value, which also makes it takes 3 turns unadjusted to take down. Which means that they have enough time to play a nasty order unit such as Vysogota (lol good luck killing Donimr after that) or Damien and congratz you've lost the round. The Monsters defender is also overtuned and takes 3 hits but Monsters is a joke anyways so it's ok to let them have the troll for now whereas NR and Nilfgaard are still rampant in the meta.

Locks. Geralt to kill the tall enemy. Reset to kill boost enemy. Banish to stop Monsters consume. You either try to include all of them (and lose sometimes because oyour own synergy is not best) or sometimes lose against specific deck. And they will lose against other.

Only Nilfgaard can make decks with more than 2 cost-efficient locks (Shackles are trash and if you're throwing them into your deck you need to have your head checked). No one cares about Monster deathwish because Monsters have been out of meta for months (seriously do you even play the game?) and very few cards can Banish. The only real "issue" you raised is whether to include tall removal and resets or not, which everyone has to deal with, but this does not restrict deck slots in the same way as Defenders and Scenarios do, since there are a lot of options available and Resets usually accomplish roughly the same point value as a tall removal so it's not even necessary to run a tall removal if you have resets.

No! I do not agree with this post and comments at all.

That's great especially when it's clear that you haven't even read my post since your first complaint is about people saying status should be lockable, which is something I never wanted or said that I wanted.

I suspect that weather was absolutely ruined because people complained about having to have a Clear Skies card (or the like) in their deck, and so weather was nerfed and is now rarely used or played as a tactic because it's useless. I suspect that some players find it difficult to overcome the Defender, and would rather see it nerfed than face the challenge of having to play against it.

Weather was not nerfed because people complained about being forced to run a silver mage (lol) but because it had infinite value if uncontested and again was very binary, especially the Gold Weathers. This coupled with the insane tempo demanded by the coinflip (you have to outtempo on every turn or you lose card advantage) was punishing to the extreme. You have to remember that back in Beta with a billion different tutors that it was very easy to always access your silver mage, so decks that ran a single gold weather did not do very well. You had to literally spam your deck with weather cards such as in say an Axemen deck in order to play well. Considering that there were Axemen decks getting to Rank 21 (max rank back then) all the way up until near the end of the beta, I'd say CDPR was very wise to change Heatwave into something else and remove Francesca/Eithne's ability to Ragh twice with Homecoming.

Artifacts have also been nearly completely ruined in the same way as weather. I can see scenarios (considered as being an artifact) going the same way if certain players get their way.

Man it's like you were never here for the meta of everyone running expired ale, spears, thunderbolt potions, epidemics, scorch, Regis, Schirru, Eithne, etc. Artifacts were broken as hell. Sorry but no one is going to take you seriously when you say people need to play better when you're openly bragging about missing the good old days when your favorite tools were hilariously overtuned.

Post automatically merged: Jan 13, 2020

That's a great example for how the past always seems better than it was.
Just to list the autoinclude cards at the end of Beta overall factions: Silver Spy, Weather Mage, Reconaissance, Mandrake, Bronze Tutor, Gold Tutor, Runestone.
Of course that is only a snapshot from a specific time and the autoincludes changed with the meta, but there were always more than just 2 (f.e. Firstlight, Shackles, Weather Clear Unit, Silver Lock, Roach, Hailstorm).

Reconnaissance was not a must have in any decks other than ST. Take Alchemy for example. You actually had to go over the 25 card perfect deck size for 26 cards in order to throw in a Recon that Triss could create, and in a deck with so many things that you had to mulligan (3x ales, 3x swallows, 2x ointments) you were not only making your deck less efficient overall in order to take a gamble on Triss potentially creating a Recon, but increasing your chances of bricking your own hand. While bronzes were 100x better in Beta, Runestone was definitely not autoinclude. "Bronze and Gold Tutors" dude with that sweeping generalization you listed like 50% of the cards in Beta Gwent; saying that tutors are needed in Beta Gwent is like saying that more high-provision cards are needed for your deck in Homecoming; yeah of course that's what the whole game is built on you can't really imagine a meta without it. First Light is what weather clear is. It's literally built into silver mages as an option; no one was running first light as a solo card that's ridiculous. Silver lock was also not mandatory due to the sheer amount of damaging options in the game. NR was the only faction to consistently run silver lock with Margarita because her lock also reset a unit which was insane value. 90% of the time it was used to reset a boosted impera brigade or something rather than for a weak lock. Engines back then were better; you did not have to wait for your turn to use engine charges; as soon as you met the trigger condition it automatically unleashed so locks and Shackles were completely outclassed by damage. Roach dropped out of meta as soon as she stopped reviving from graveyard and she never came back. Hailstorm dropped out after it stopped affecting gold units.

OP, you are not going to find a hand that will beat all opponents, so play the hand that gives you the strongest chance of winning against the most opponents rather than trying to defend against everything that could possibly be thrown at you.

A lot of people are running either a scenario or a defender. Admittedly I could just switch to my old Nilfgaard or ST deck and start stomping because defenders do not matter to those factions and thus it only matters whether or not I throw in artifact removal for scenario decks, but I want to finish the faction challenge first.

 

[FreelancerWhisky]

Such as you (if I may be so bold) to accomplish their objective of *not* having to worry about using cards such as purify in their decks - that's clearly the objective of this complaint.

For my part, I consider it acceptable to have to utilise purify cards, and cards to defend against artefacts in a deck. I see no reason to make a change simply to appease a certain faction of players.

That's where you're wrong. I've gotten to pro rank before - this isn't a question of game skill, rather game design.

It only punishes non-optimized decks like the one I'm currently using trying to complete a contract and do a faction challenge at the same time. I'm using Foltest's Inspired Zeal for heaven's sake - Foltest hasn't been good since he lost the ability to give zeal to non-NR units and any NR player not running Pincer Maneuver is already at a disadvantage.

I could have the time of my life running a Nilfgaard poison deck and never bothering to throw in a purify because I can just poison or Vincent or Cupbearer any defender without being forced to adjust my game plan at all.

Likewise I can also just run a midrange Nilfgaard deck with Yenn:Conjurer and just steal your own artifact or defender (btw Yenn's design is pretty cancerous and it's astonishing it doesn't get more hate).

Or an ST harmony deck which also has poisons and purifies.

Skellige has infinite purify with gremist + alchemy cards and can revive gremist to get their scenario going since gremist is usually the best druid to revive anyways.

These 3 factions only have to consider whether they want to run artifact removal or not. Furthermore among defenders it is obvious that those that take 3 direct damage hits to kill (NR, Nilfgaard, Monsters but no one cares about Monsters) are way better than those that only take 2 (Skellige, Syndicate).

So in conclusion the scenario you imagine is happening (people have to run non-optimized decks to prevent defenders and artifacts) is completely off from the real situation (min/maxed decks that are highly synergistic and don't add in counters are doing amazing). All I'm asking is that everyone else gets better options that can synergize with their deck and not freaking Bomb Heaver or Pellar, and that the NR and Nilf defenders get brought into line with the other ones. At the bare minimum purify should be changed to not remove positive status effects (your own unit's shield or vitality) in order to add more versatility.

 

[StrykerS77]

Scenarios and Defenders are *not* too strong. They're only too strong for the weak.

I have read your posts in regards to these cards and I can't agree with them. To start with scenarios are clearly too powerful right now which is why you see them constantly. I won't say for sure what needs to change but to start with you shouldn't be able to fly through the chapters in one turn. That prevents players from countering you and that's a problem when there are so many points on the line.

The second problem with scenerios is that they are artifacts and artifacts (The ones that accrue value) are clearly flawed in terms of game design. One problem as players have been complaining about is feeling required to shove artifact removal into your deck or artifacts might run over you. That makes deck building feel more limiting and people generally would rather feel freedom with deck building and not have to fit in the same cards over and over again. Artifacts were a huge issue at the start of homecoming. If you didn't play then well I envy you. Everyone knew it was a problem, this was not controversial. The devs appeared to agree that artifacts were a problem so they have slowly been nerfed and taken out of the game. I have no idea why they added scenerios into the game and made artifacts an issue again but here we are.

There is one main problem with artifacts and that is when they are extremely powerful like when there were a ton of them or when there are high provision super powerful artifacts like scenerios then you have this dynamic where player A) plays scenerio, then player B) either has artifact removal and wins the game or doesn't' have the artifact removal and loses the game. This doesn't happen every time but this example has been very common in Gwent and it's not a good thing. It clearly shows a flaw in the game and most players call the game out on it. The game coming down to artifact vs artifact removal is simply boring. There is nothing interesting about that.

I don't mind artifacts when they just have a deploy effect because then they are basically a different kind of special card.

 

[StrykerS77]

NR Defender is perfectly fine, as is NG. However, the far more serious issues you go on to mention, most players would like addressing.

I find the ability to use pincer maneuver to plop down a defender next to key engine cards in one turn is too crazy. Defenders in general seem too strong for their provision cost but if we couldn't play two cards in one turn that might not be as bad.

 

[StrykerS77]

So, because scenarios are constantly see, that means they are too powerful, right...? OK, so if I were to say that I see such and such a card all the time, that means it's too powerful - right? Strangely enough, I see certain stratagem cards being played all the time - I guess that means it's too powerful. Honestly, that, to me is such a daft line of reasoning.

Having a stratagem as a tactical advantage is something everyone gets so is not comparable.

Seeing a card a lot isn't going to mean it's overpowered 100% of the time but it certainly means something. The NR deck everyone hates right nows core card is the scenerio. All elf decks use the scenerio because it would be silly not to. You can't even effectively counter them with artifact removal because of how people can go through the chapters in one turn. Something is clearly overturned with these cards. It's hardly even debatable.

Please enlighten me and tell me what cards are acceptable to be seen and played all the time, but doesn't mean they are too powerful. Let's not bother with the lower provision cards, but cards of the higher order. What are the most powerful cards you like to play all the time, and then tell me why they are not too powerful.

Some cards are going to be seen a lot simply because the player doesn't have many other options. Sort of like how Falibor is in most NR decks. Again I'm not saying the only reason scenerios are over powered is because they are played too much. I'm saying they are overpowered and one evidence for this is how often you see them.

However, generally speaking, artefacts are now pretty useless and that's why most of the pros - seemingly - were as happy as Larry not having to take up space for cards like Bomb Heaver - or certain other bombs that destroy them - as well as no cards for removing weather (because weather is now so pathetic it's rarely played seriously).

Did you play weather back when it was strong? The devs spent so much time trying to get weather in a good spot that apparently with homecoming they gave up. Weather has similar issues to what artifacts have now. They had to be countered with a clear weather card and it made the game really strange at times. It's like this odd mini game of weather vs weather clear and if you win that mini game you are probably going to win the match.

Now that a couple of new cards have been made that take up those precious slots and the 'pros' can't make the super deck they desire, with lots of fantastic cards and combos, in case someone has an artefact or scenario - which needs removed or purified (still no need to worry about the weather so no Clear Skies required - might as well retired that poxy card) - it's causing all sorts of outcry. A shame really. I think if NR Defender is nerfed, particularly, as well as artefacts further ruined, that'll be the end of my Gwent playing days.

If you watch pro players they can adapt to anything. They play the game all day and they use every faction. This really has nothing to do with a pro player being kept from playing some kind of super deck.

It's weird that you are telling people to adapt and then say that if NR defender is nerfed you might leave. Artifacts were irrelevant before scenerios and stratagems popped up so why do you care so much that they remain unchanged?

Post automatically merged: Jan 13, 2020

Not playing engines too much, I wouldn't know. Considering defenders can be purified with fairly low provision cost cards, and artefacts can be destroyed with cards that cost around 4 - 5 provisions, I find it hard to believe people think it unbalanced and unfair. I use artefacts and they sometimes get destroyed. Having had to cough up 11 provisions for Sihil and see it get wiped out by a card that costs 4 (Dimeritium Bomb), is never a pleasant experience. Added to the fact that this artefact starts at 1 kill power, and has to cool-down for 2 turns (increasing by 1 for each kill). And people have the nerve to complain.

Surely artefact users are the ones with the grievance when their higher cost cards are getting wiped out by such low cost cards, and the artefacts are a pile of crap to boot! I demand that the provision costs to remove artefacts be increased and that the artefacts, like Sihil, be improved - they just ain't worth the priced paid at the mo!

If you have to play a 4 strength artifact removal against a player that isn't running artifacts it hurts you quite a lot. Having to shove cards like that into your decks on the off chance you run into artifacts really hurts the game imo.

No one uses Sihil because she was nerfed into oblivion. The devs once again gave up on trying to balance that card after players got so annoyed with it memes started popping up with the quote "F*** Sihil" to which the lead designer actually said that quote in the dev stream. I would have wanted Sihil changed to something useful but they just left her like that.

Edit: By the way Sihil back when she was crazy strong is a prime example of problematic artifact cards. It sits on the board racking up insane value and if the other player can't counter it you just get run over. Non interactive cards have been a gigantic issue in Gwent since the very beginning.

 

[StrykerS77]

Thus, it appears to me that for such players Gwent is all about units with numerical value, being able to boost and reduce unit numbers, and that's about it. having to account for the weather or a nuisance artefact isn't part of the Gwent experience that I suspect some desire.

I don't entirely agree with that. If more cards had dual abilities that included artifact removal then people wouldn't care quite as much. Artifact removal is in a weird place because the devs have been so wishy washy about it. After seeing the devs fail so many times with this stuff I would prefer they get rid of artifacts completely, but if they refuse to do that then they need to make artifact removal more viable than it is now.

For defenders I don't mind them being in the game at all but they need to be a bit more balanced because they should cost more provisions for what they do and how much power they currently have. I was also on board with having them defend either one card or the card on each side instead of an entire row. There are plenty of possibilities to consider.

 

[StrykerS77]

Well, defenders cost 9 provisions - that's quite a bit. They can be purified with Spring Equinox for 4 provisions, and you're trying to tell me that's unfair? Sorry, but I can't accept that.

I'd prefer to see artefacts interact with the deck as a whole - Vandergrifts Blade is on the right lines (boosts a unit by 8 and then all knights played by 1. Something like Sihil should probably boost certain types of units attack (all melee units, for example). Shield artefacts should add to defence, armour or boost for certain unit types. That way, the artefact complements the deck and other units more effectively.

Well, we'll see what happens in the upcoming update - see what 'balances' are implemented (we already know artefacts and weather will be either left untouched or wrecked further).

No one uses spring equinox because it is garbage. Defenders protecting an entire row is huge and players can even put them out along with another card in one turn. They straight up changed the game. NG immediately started using them to protect key engine cards. I get that they can be countered in certain ways but for what you can do with them they are a bit too cheap. In so many decks the defender is just a brain dead option to throw in because it doesn't cost that much and if it doesn't get countered it can straight up win you the game.

They aren't going to touch weather. It's not relevant and hasn't been since before homecoming.

 

[Fjortiso]

True, artifacts are too powerful.