Intro Deck Guide - Scoia'tael

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Thankfully, @Easha has written a set of comprehensive guides about our intro decks and how to improve pre-constructed decks - we are extremely happy that we can share them here with you. Please make sure to also read the general overview in addition to the specific guides.

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My name is Easha Dustfeather, member of the Lodge of Sorceresses and co-author of the Glittering Girly Gwent Gaming blog. As author of the starter deck guides I already explained how to play the free starter decks provided to every player. With the addition of pre-constructed intro decks for sale in Shupe’s shop, I decided to write a guide for them as well, just like I did for the Syndicate starter pack deck.
It is meant for players who just started the game and decided to buy those intro decks. This guide explains how to improve and use them.


Notable changes to the list (original deck here)​

First of all the leader ability has been changed from Mahakam Forge to Guerilla Tactics. While the armour helps to prevent some damage, barely any card in the deck has inherent synergy with one point of extra armour. The leader ability itself is only worth five points in a vacuum.
Guerilla Tactics is more flexible as you can use it offensively to interrupt the effect of row-restricted engines (cards with ongoing effects like Xavier Moran) and improve the value of your Lacerate; and defensively to boost your fragile engines and keep them in the right row if they are row-locked.
The Stratagem has been changed from Enchanted Armor to Tactical Advantage. There are no cards that benefit from being buffed in your hand and five points are simply better than three.

The original list also lacked interaction with the opponent’s side of the board. While it is easier for a new player to focus on their own plays, completely neglecting what your opponent is doing is not advised. For this reason cards which can meddle with your opponent’s game plan like Milaen, Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt of Rivia were added to the deck.

Playing the improved intro deck

Points over time
In general the deck aims for long rounds. Dwarven Berserker, Mahakam Defender and Xavier Moran are engine cards that generate value over time and they need a long round to shine. You can enable all of them using Miner’s Order ability: It provides Armour for the Berserker and an initial boost to the Mahakam Defender.
Pavko Gale is another engine, but not focused on getting points like the ones mentioned above, but removing points from your opponent’s board. Try to kill their engines with it and mind the second part of his effect – preferably play it in a round where you do not want to use Dorregaray of Vole or Geralt of Rivia as they are non-Scoia’tael units and would weaken its damage.

Resilience
Zoltan Chivay and Gabor Zigrin’s Melee effect is Resilience which means they will not be removed from the board after the round they were played in has ended. This means that you should use them in either round 1 or 2 to benefit from it. If you get Gabor in Round 3 you can still use the Ranged effect, as Resilience is no longer necessary – there won’t be a 4th round after all. Resilience will only work once, so if you already used that effect from round 1 to round 2, they will not stay on the board after round 2 has ended. It is of advantage to start a round while already having points on the board. If you used Resilience Round 1 and the cards at your hand are good, you can attempt to 2-0 your opponent (preferably if you already have nine points from both resilient units. If your opponent won round 1 and passed without playing any cards (also known as drypassing), those resilient units are a good card to take the round and start with a small advantage into the next one.
Resilience will also carry over all Statuses applied to a unit into the next round, which enables you to do the following: If you use Dryad Enchantress on Zoltan Chivay, it will get four Vitality, so if you pass early enough after playing Enchantress, Zoltan will continue boosting itself in the next round. The other good target for the Enchantress is Dwarven Berserker before it expended its Armour.

The more, the merrier
Try to put all your dwarves in the same row to improve the effects of Barclay Els and Mahakam Guard. While this makes your deck vulnerable to Lacerate, it also improves the Ranged effect of Dennis Cranmer. To have enough room for those, play other cards that are not row restricted into the other row but also consider the circumstances: Play Milaen where she has the better effect for you depending on the situation, even if you lose one point on your dwarves.

Other cards
Make sure to place Mahakam Horn in the centre of a row filled with units, so your opponent does not kill a unit adjacent to the trap before passing which would only give you four points instead of the expected eight.

Do not forget to only have one copy of Mahakam Volunteers in your hand and the other one in the deck so you can use their effect. Sometimes it is wiser o not take the last Mulligan if you already have one copy in hand. You will regret it if you draw the second one.
 
Last edited:

rrc

Forum veteran
Again, big thanks to @Easha for sharing her guides with us. Today's faction is the favourite of our very own @Burza46 :sneaky:

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Notable changes to the list (original deck here)​

First of all the leader ability has been changed from Mahakam Forge to Guerilla Tactics. While the armour helps to prevent some damage, barely any card in the deck has inherent synergy with one point of extra armour. The leader ability itself is only worth five points in a vacuum.
Guerilla Tactics is more flexible as you can use it offensively to interrupt the effect of row-restricted engines (cards with ongoing effects like Xavier Moran) and improve the value of your Lacerate; and defensively to boost your fragile engines and keep them in the right row if they are row-locked.
The Stratagem has been changed from Enchanted Armor to Tactical Advantage. There are no cards that benefit from being buffed in your hand and five points are simply better than three.

The original list also lacked interaction with the opponent’s side of the board. While it is easier for a new player to focus on their own plays, completely neglecting what your opponent is doing is not advised. For this reason cards which can meddle with your opponent’s game plan like Milaen, Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt of Rivia were added to the deck.

Playing the improved intro deck

Points over time
In general the deck aims for long rounds. Dwarven Berserker, Mahakam Defender and Xavier Moran are engine cards that generate value over time and they need a long round to shine. You can enable all of them using Miner’s Order ability: It provides Armour for the Berserker and an initial boost to the Mahakam Defender.
Pavko Gale is another engine, but not focused on getting points like the ones mentioned above, but removing points from your opponent’s board. Try to kill their engines with it and mind the second part of his effect – preferably play it in a round where you do not want to use Dorregaray of Vole or Geralt of Rivia as they are non-Scoia’tael units and would weaken its damage.

Resilience
Zoltan Chivay and Gabor Zigrin’s Melee effect is Resilience which means they will not be removed from the board after the round they were played in has ended. This means that you should use them in either round 1 or 2 to benefit from it. If you get Gabor in Round 3 you can still use the Ranged effect, as Resilience is no longer necessary – there won’t be a 4th round after all. Resilience will only work once, so if you already used that effect from round 1 to round 2, they will not stay on the board after round 2 has ended. It is of advantage to start a round while already having points on the board. If you used Resilience Round 1 and the cards at your hand are good, you can attempt to 2-0 your opponent (preferably if you already have nine points from both resilient units. If your opponent won round 1 and passed without playing any cards (also known as drypassing), those resilient units are a good card to take the round and start with a small advantage into the next one.
Resilience will also carry over all Statuses applied to a unit into the next round, which enables you to do the following: If you use Dryad Enchantress on Zoltan Chivay, it will get four Vitality, so if you pass early enough after playing Enchantress, Zoltan will continue boosting itself in the next round. The other good target for the Enchantress is Dwarven Berserker before it expended its Armour.

The more, the merrier
Try to put all your dwarves in the same row to improve the effects of Barclay Els and Mahakam Guard. While this makes your deck vulnerable to Lacerate, it also improves the Ranged effect of Dennis Cranmer. To have enough room for those, play other cards that are not row restricted into the other row but also consider the circumstances: Play Milaen where she has the better effect for you depending on the situation, even if you lose one point on your dwarves.

Other cards
Make sure to place Mahakam Horn in the centre of a row filled with units, so your opponent does not kill a unit adjacent to the trap before passing which would only give you four points instead of the expected eight.

Do not forget to only have one copy of Mahakam Volunteers in your hand and the other one in the deck so you can use their effect. Sometimes it is wiser o not take the last Mulligan if you already have one copy in hand. You will regret it if you draw the second one.
Nice. You got me twice! Fool me once it is your victory. Fool me twice, it is my defeat. So, yes, it is my defeat. Both the links to the supposedly the old and new decks goes to an Imposter deck. :coolstory: (typical copy paste mistake WE ALL DO?)

This also suggests that, when an Imposter deck was improved to be better, Imposter was used. But when an MF deck was improved, the leader itself was changed. So, officially CDPR knows and recognizes that Mahakam Forge is a junk pathetic leader ability. So, you guys are saying that "Buy our MF deck and change the leader, strategem and many cards in it"? How horrible is that?

If you guys know and recognize that MF is unplayable, why not improve the leader and make the purchase logical? Why go to the extreme of changing the leader itself? Then, what is the point of that ST intro deck? Baffles me..
 
Please keep in mind that all intro deck guides are not officially provided by us or associates of CD PROJEKT, but are community guides. We share them because we think they might be helpful, especially to newcomers.

The links will be corrected soon, thanks for being vigilant.
 
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Reactions: rrc

Easha

Forum regular
Nice. You got me twice! Fool me once it is your victory. Fool me twice, it is my defeat. So, yes, it is my defeat. Both the links to the supposedly the old and new decks goes to an Imposter deck. :coolstory: (typical copy paste mistake WE ALL DO?)

This also suggests that, when an Imposter deck was improved to be better, Imposter was used. But when an MF deck was improved, the leader itself was changed. So, officially CDPR knows and recognizes that Mahakam Forge is a junk pathetic leader ability. So, you guys are saying that "Buy our MF deck and change the leader, strategem and many cards in it"? How horrible is that?

If you guys know and recognize that MF is unplayable, why not improve the leader and make the purchase logical? Why go to the extreme of changing the leader itself? Then, what is the point of that ST intro deck? Baffles me..

Nice. You got me! Fool me once it is your victory. You have not fooled me twice, as it would bey defeat. So, yes, it is still my defeat. (Typical copy paste mistake I DID!)

This also suggests that the Imposter is in fact so talented, it even undermined faction borders. But when an MF deck was improved, the leader itself was changed, because the support is not quite there yet, but game director Jason Slama hinted in the developer stream, the new expansion might bring some more. So I hereby officially state and want you to know and recognise, that Mahakam Forge is a currently undersupported leader ability. So, you are saying that "Buy our MF deck and change the leader, strategem and many cards in it" would be a CDPR statement while I - as a player like you - was the one who changed it? How horrible is that?

If you know and recognize that I did a mistake, why not improve your attention, read the introduction again and think logical? Why go to the extreme of blaming CDPR? Then, what is the point of that complaint? Baffles me.


Long story short: I did a mistake here, so please do not take it out on CDPR.
Thank you.
 

Gyg

Forum regular
So, officially CDPR knows and recognizes that Mahakam Forge is a junk pathetic leader ability.
rrc and his hyperboles. I find Mahakam Forge not bad. If CDPR adds A couple more dwarves that rely on armour it will be very good one.
 
This also suggests that, when an Imposter deck was improved to be better, Imposter was used. But when an MF deck was improved, the leader itself was changed. So, officially CDPR knows and recognizes that Mahakam Forge is a junk pathetic leader ability. So, you guys are saying that "Buy our MF deck and change the leader, strategem and many cards in it"? How horrible is that?

If you guys know and recognize that MF is unplayable, why not improve the leader and make the purchase logical? Why go to the extreme of changing the leader itself? Then, what is the point of that ST intro deck? Baffles me..


So you both not going to answer this part because "we're from different team, here the hotline..."

Another "Knock knock" open the door, paste the ads on player's face and shut the door!?

How long y'all going to repeat this?
 

rrc

Forum veteran
Please keep in mind that all intro deck guides are not officially provided by us or associates of CD PROJEKT, but are community guides. We share them because we think they might be helpful, especially to newcomers.

The links will be corrected soon, thanks for being vigilant.
I should have known better - that these are from community and not officially from CDPR themselves. Sorry about that.

Nice. You got me! Fool me once it is your victory. You have not fooled me twice, as it would bey defeat. So, yes, it is still my defeat. (Typical copy paste mistake I DID!)

This also suggests that the Imposter is in fact so talented, it even undermined faction borders. But when an MF deck was improved, the leader itself was changed, because the support is not quite there yet, but game director Jason Slama hinted in the developer stream, the new expansion might bring some more. So I hereby officially state and want you to know and recognise, that Mahakam Forge is a currently undersupported leader ability. So, you are saying that "Buy our MF deck and change the leader, strategem and many cards in it" would be a CDPR statement while I - as a player like you - was the one who changed it? How horrible is that?

If you know and recognize that I did a mistake, why not improve your attention, read the introduction again and think logical? Why go to the extreme of blaming CDPR? Then, what is the point of that complaint? Baffles me.


Long story short: I did a mistake here, so please do not take it out on CDPR.
Thank you.
I didn't realize the fact that it is purely community made. I made a mistake in blaming CDPR that they recognized that MF is bad. I am really sorry about that. But the fact remains that MF is so weak and under powered (I wouldn't say under supported. They were good and nerfed just too hard due to ME and NJ shenanigans which were then later balanced/changed. There are many dwarves which could have been made better during dwarf rework, but left as is or reworked to another bad card) the best representatives of Gwent community thinks that the only way to make the intro deck to work is by changing the leader himself.

I would be glad if MF is made good and if the next expansion brings new cards to support MF archetype, that would be awesome, and that is all I (and the community too?) want.

Moreover, dear @Easha, I never said your guide had issues or wrong. Guerilla Tactics is my most favorite leader ability in the game. I couldn't see the cards in the deck as the links were broken, but you had addressed the core issue of MF/Dwarfs, that is not having much say on opponent's board, by adding more control options. If I had known that my criticism will be one one individual, I wouldn't have gone that harsh and it is not personal, I promise. :beer:
 

Easha

Forum regular
So you both not going to answer this part because "we're from different team, here the hotline..."

Another "Knock knock" open the door, paste the ads on player's face and shut the door!?

How long y'all going to repeat this?
While we are at repeating, let me state it once again: I am a player writing guides, red_coshy is from CDPR but as far as I know she is not involed in the game's balance.
Feel free to imply whatever you connection you might see there, but ultimately I just wrote a guide for new Gwent players and as the author, I consider Brouver/Guerilla Tactic the better ability for the cards you get from the ST Intro deck and the ST starter deck. Expecting me to answer questions why CDPR balances the game the way they do misses the point.
That is all there is to it, no hidden conspiracy to trick the players, no advertisement. So please stow away your pitchfork, poor Geralt is already getting anxious.
If you want to criticise the guide, feel free to do so. If you want to complain about game balance, this is not the place.

P.S.: The Imposter deck used to be a budget Spy deck with Morvran Voorhis/Imperial Formation during an earlier draft of the NG Intro deck guide.


[...]the best representatives of Gwent community thinks that the only way to make the intro deck to work is by changing the leader himself.
Either I am missing something or do you really mean me? If so, thank you for the compliment. Writing of misunderstanding: No problem, we are in the clear now. I was merely imitating your message to get my point across - there have never been any hard feelings.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
While we are at repeating, let me state it once again: I am a player writing guides, red_coshy is from CDPR but as far as I know she is not involed in the game's balance.
Feel free to imply whatever you connection you might see there, but ultimately I just wrote a guide for new Gwent players and as the author, I consider Brouver/Guerilla Tactic the better ability for the cards you get from the ST Intro deck and the ST starter deck. Expecting me to answer questions why CDPR balances the game the way they do misses the point.
That is all there is to it, no hidden conspiracy to trick the players, no advertisement. So please stow away your pitchfork, poor Geralt is already getting anxious.
If you want to criticise the guide, feel free to do so. If you want to complain about game balance, this is not the place.

P.S.: The Imposter deck used to be a budget Spy deck with Morvran Voorhis/Imperial Formation during an earlier draft of the NG Intro deck guide.



Either I am missing something or do you really mean me? If so, thank you for the compliment. Writing of misunderstanding: No problem, we are in the clear now. I was merely imitating your message to get my point across - there have never been any hard feelings.
Yes, I meant you :beer:. There are a lot representatives for the Gwent community and you stepped forward to make these guides on top of the Intro deck. The explanations given are very good and can help new players. I am not trying to butter you up to make for my mistakes :p. I am serious.

Glad that we are cool though!:cool::cool::cool:
 
While we are at repeating, let me state it once again: I am a player writing guides, red_coshy is from CDPR but as far as I know she is not involed in the game's balance.
Feel free to imply whatever you connection you might see there, but ultimately I just wrote a guide for new Gwent players and as the author, I consider Brouver/Guerilla Tactic the better ability for the cards you get from the ST Intro deck and the ST starter deck. Expecting me to answer questions why CDPR balances the game the way they do misses the point.
That is all there is to it, no hidden conspiracy to trick the players, no advertisement. So please stow away your pitchfork, poor Geralt is already getting anxious.
If you want to criticise the guide, feel free to do so. If you want to complain about game balance, this is not the place.

P.S.: The Imposter deck used to be a budget Spy deck with Morvran Voorhis/Imperial Formation during an earlier draft of the NG Intro deck guide.
Well since you're tagged in CDPR I thought you're from team CDPR..."not your lucky day.." It's not bad idea get the team post this officially but the way you post(from official) the guide to steer 'new players' to use classic Guerilla Tactic with dwarves made us 'old players' very suspicious. That's because we know MF not up to the mark. 'Hidden conspiracy' YES this was running all over my head lol. And @Easha not only 'new players' in this forum so target audience much wider and we've higher expectations from dev.

You're not guilty to apologize on this. Hyperlink just a small issue but bigger problem is the intention and outcome of this post not clearly explained. And the root cause, I've to pin point @red_coshy didn't explain enough in her first post and the title 'intro deck' can give many impression.
Sadly it always been one way communication from the team. That might be another root for this rage. It always been like that.. I just don't understand this culture and devs keeping gap with players.. or maybe @red_coshy just shy in general.. aren't you.. come on.. :smart: just kidding. but we need a mediator after all..

End of the day you did for this for community and now I feel so bad.. :giveup:
Sorry @Easha I know you super pissed off with my three liner there hehe. And I've all rights to butter you up.
I'll just DM you.

If you want to criticise the guide, feel free to do so. If you want to complain about game balance, this is not the place.

I love ST that's why I'm here. The guide was good, any good tactics and suggestion welcomed here. Emphasizing Resilience on R1 or R2 was cool and finishing game 2-0 well that could work for nice hands.
But overall MF setup is too slow and missing control. Personally a basic Precision Strike have better control options. We need more active dwarves and MF just toooo defensive and Skagg nerf is a no no. Totally killed a solo engine and some dwarves don't need armors.
What if MF leader can convert armors into boost in the end...now thats game winning chance..but OP.

Keep on writing easha. Let your ideas flow like waters of Brokilon. Expecting more on SY decks. :beer:
 
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