NG buffs are a joke... right?

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Palmerin, and his partner Milton, I mean really. They’re still turd.
Angry Mob, their so called devotion card, does heehaw.
Mage Torturer, too slow like all their bronzes.

it’s Masquerade Ball, or nothing.
 
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Seriously, it's laughable at their attempts to "buff" NG and "nerf" SK. Just laughable...
Actually, the nerfs to greatswords and stunning blow are significant and appropriately restrained. The boost to Olaf and Derran are also reasonable and don’t impact balance as neither card is going to be part of the imbalanced decks. Of course, CDPR does seem to overlook the real problem — powerful echo cards that dominate two rounds.

I don’t play NG enough to comment on the buffs, but they seem irrelevant. And Ball needed the nerf. A bad card in a weak faction is still a bad card.
 
It's high time Nilfgaard deviates from the Ball. I am very much against linear gameplay and Ball scenario provided exactly that: if there is NG deck, the Ball is guaranteed there.

I agree to some extent with the players who are upset with feeble buffs to the faction. On the other hand, NG is a control deck, so it is not the easiest to pilot. With some creativity and adjustment I think it's possible to create a competitive deck.
 

ya1

Forum regular
Right? Right.

And Ball needed the nerf. A bad card in a weak faction is still a bad card.

Not right.

It's high time Nilfgaard deviates from the Ball.

And how? NG got crap bronze base, crap epics, and now also crap top ends. No points anywhere, and the control aspect also quite dubious. Poison is hairy with veil everywhere, ST got purifies, MO got consumes, SK don't go tall, only NR and SY Besides do you know how many poisons a Single Ball actually has? Wholesome 5. That's two removals if you're lucky. You can run Rot Tossers but they are really bad these days with veil besides an extra Rot Tosser means dropping a status payoff card or a proactive play.

NG is done. Believe you me.

With some creativity and adjustment I think it's possible to create a competitive deck.

I mean it's not like Gwent is played in the dark, and nobody figured it out yet. Best ladder players - who used to rock NG as their very fave for years - concluded that NG is crap now. Healthy skepticism and independent thinking is cool but it's like EVERYBODY says NG is shite (except the devs and a bunch of NG haters). They can't all be wrong. Last time I checked, there were only 2 or 3 guys maining NG in top 64 last patch, and zero in top 20-30. NG got the very last winrate and second last playrate after SY (and probably got last in playrate too since Congregate was getting popular at the end.)

Palmerin, and his partner Milton, I mean really. They’re still turd.

They might be cool in the Enforcer list since you do have some dmg in case you brick the "bonded" effect but... What are you gonna drop? That "bonded" effect is ok but really average even if it was for granted. Palmerin is a retarded Fergus, basically. Milton is super conditional 10 for 7. Just about all factions have better cards at that range.

Anyway, how are you even gonna play the Enforcers without Formation?
 
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You're crying over nothing. Last season NG meta decks were not even running double ball, so NG just got 1prov nerf and some weird buffs. SK and NR got nerfed as well so i don't see any problem here.
 

ya1

Forum regular
You're crying over nothing. Last season NG meta decks were not even running double ball, so NG just got 1prov nerf and some weird buffs. SK and NR got nerfed as well so i don't see any problem here.

Exactly. But the problem is NG was already dead last. Still got a nerf based on the removal of the Heaver which had not been used anymore anyway. It's not crying over NG. It's crying over Gwent. Since MM, the balancing has been like change whatever as long as you can pin a slogan on it even if it means buffing the strongest and nerfing the weakest.
 
Heaver which had not been used anymore anyway.
Wrong.

And how? NG got crap bronze base, crap epics, and now also crap top ends. No points anywhere, and the control aspect also quite dubious. Poison is hairy with veil everywhere, ST got purifies, MO got consumes, SK don't go tall, only NR and SY Besides do you know how many poisons a Single Ball actually has? Wholesome 5. That's two removals if you're lucky.
Severely overstated. NG has plenty of bronzes in line with what other people have and some unique tools like Skellen, Damien, Cahir (that one is disgusting), and there's nothing "dubious" about control, still. I don't see many people running veiling units, and only a bunch of them are veiled by default. Usually not the ones you want to prioritize anyway. Consumes are a precious resource you can't just spam, and countering poison this way eats away from your total points. SK go tall with at least 2 and occasionally three units, also have plenty of engines. 5 poisons is two(three with vvm) kills, nearly guaranteed against anyone who isn't Symbiosis SC. Get your facts straight.


edit: most importantly, I meet all kinds of brutally powerful NG opponents. Hefty Helge stuff, Assimllate, Cahir shenanigans...they are oftentimes harder than the metadecks you are complaining about.
 
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ya1

Forum regular
Wrong (About the Heaver not seeing play)

I'm not just talking about the TLG report. Also, the decks published by unaffiliated top ladder players. And what research are you basing your statements on? Personal observation in unranked? Just open playgwent.com and check out decks by players who often make it to top 500 or 64. Heaver was not seeing play anymore.

edit: most importantly, I meet all kinds of brutally powerful NG opponents. Hefty Helge stuff, Assimllate, Cahir shenanigans...they are oftentimes harder than the metadecks you are complaining about.

In pro? At what MMR?
 
I'm not just talking about the TLG report. Also, the decks published by unaffiliated top ladder players. And what research are you basing your statements on? Personal observation in unranked? Just open playgwent.com and check out decks by players who often make it to top 500 or 64. Heaver was not seeing play anymore.



In pro? At what MMR?
My top value was 4.8k I think, and I only play two factions anyway. So yes, in pro.


But that's irrelevant.
I have seen great many Heavers over the last month(fewer than before, true, but far from extinct). Besides...

Basing your impressions and especially balancing the game around pro, and especially top-500 players is wrong and awful thing to do.
Proplay and casual/less devoted competitive play are different like day and night.

Don't know if you have any experience with League of Legends, but that game has been in a lot of turmoil for years now, precisely because devs base their balance decisions on upper-ranked dynamics, which leaves most tiers below in utter chaos that feels wrong and terribly unbalanced. Sure, you could counter with "git good", but most people in the game just aren't dedicated enough (and don't have enough time) to learn to play around some tricky and highly oppressive bs like Double Ball, Cahir or pre-nerf Uprising. It's possible, but is way harder than you make it out to be. People play for fun, and when the game requires you to be a major tryhard to even have a chance at winning, they tend to give up.
 
The thing with Milton, is although he can be a 10 for 7, the effect doesn't really alter the board state much. 1 or 2 damage on units won't remove or halt engines so the actual value feels a lot less than the 10 for 7. Re Palmerin, as someone said above he's just a poor man's Fergus. Similar in points but much harder to trigger the two 2 spies. I've tried piloting them in a spy heavy deck and it's just awkward from start to finish. Those 14 points are just better off elsewhere (typically back to Ball), so for me these two are already consigned to the waste bin. Quite how a month's worth of CDPR time would have us believing differently is beyond me.

The other obvious problem in the spy theme is their 4 point card, Angry Mob. Damage a spy by 2 and gain 2. Oh my. Similar to Milton's 1 or 2 damage, giving 2 damage rarely does anything of any importance. The plus 2 requires setup and just places them nicely into Nature's Rebuke value. Duds.

Then there's the whole spy archetype vs assimilate vs statuses, with many of NG's cards seemingly muddied somewhere in the middle (e.g. Mage Torturer, Dame, Braathens), without clear commitment one way or another. Are you playing spies or assimilate, or are you failing with some kind of bastardised mix of the two? For me, usually the latter.

Lastly is the critical issue of proactivity, with blue coin NG being an especially painful experience. You rarely have the points to ensure you can win round 1, and so you have to be extremely careful to ensure you avoid losing on even, at which point you may as well just forfeit. To circumvent this, you then start diluting your spy theme...

Also - what leader do you use? None are particularly relevant to spies.
 
NG right now could focus on control ( non devotion ). I was thinking about coupling imprisonment with some control heavy neutral ( heatwave, the new blizzard ). The true NG problem is the lack of points, even coupled with removals.
 

ya1

Forum regular
My top value was 4.8k I think, and I only play two factions anyway. So yes, in pro.

Afaik matchups are decided by the value of your currently chosen faction. That is 2400 by default. 2500+ if you play around top 500. 2600+ for top grinders.

I failed top500 this season. I was mid-upper 2.4ks. I have not seen almost any meme decks there. Sometimes someone had a surprise value inclusion but hardly any Cahirs, Assimilates, etc. These are losing decks. Yes, you will win in a favorable matchup when you draw and they don't. But on the average you will lose. Especially with Assimilate that only wins when 1) someone doesn't know how to play against it, and 2) draws perfectly for both rounds. And Cahir only gets value in NR when they don't draw their duels, or some MO swarmy abusers of no wide punish who go all in on their degeneracy and run no control, etc. it's a total brick in SK, mirrors, and over 50% other matchups. Ofc Cahir is your typical abuser of no defender answer. But there are bigger boys in that category. The whole NR, for example. The difference is NR got plenty of removal targets, and NG doesn't.

Anyways, NG sucks.

Basing your impressions and especially balancing the game around pro, and especially top-500 players is wrong and awful thing to do. Proplay and casual/less devoted competitive play are different like day and night.

That's true. But what else are you gonna base the balancing on? On common rants by butthurt beginners who jam their best card in R1 turn 1, get a Yen, forfeit with 9 cards in hand and go unload on Reddit? So far so good, CDPR, Double Ball is gone, and NG is getting more nerfs. WIth all the downsides, I'll take LoL elitism approach over this populism and dogmatism any day. Besides, LoL is not a card game.
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NG right now could focus on control ( non devotion ). I was thinking about coupling imprisonment with some control heavy neutral ( heatwave, the new blizzard ). The true NG problem is the lack of points, even coupled with removals.

Imprisonment is maybe bottom 3 leaders with Invigorate and Stockpile. It's anti-synergistic. You don't wanna damage the units you lock. You wanna destroy them with Vanhemar or Vincent anyway. Or seize them with Vattier. Besides, many lock targets like Frigates, Drummers, Longships got armor so you lose value from that dmg anyway. Imposter is the best NG leader now, and it was considered rather bad in the past. It's still kinda bad, especially in midrange matchups, but NG has nothing better.

By the way, you just contradicted your very idea in the last sentence. You will run control neutrals just like any other modern control deck like ST or MO Carapace. But you will not have their points. How are you gonna win?
 
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Afaik matchups are decided by the value of your currently chosen faction. That is 2400 by default. 2500+ if you play around top 500. 2600+ for top grinders.
I think there's a number that adds up your MMR values across the board (with different factions). Was referring to that one, so two default values, I think. 50% WR or so. None of the decks I run are meta (movement/Aglais shenanigans as SC, Artis+berserk/bloodthirst stuff as SK, Harmony Master Mirror when i feel like going full retard), and it's still 50% in pro, so go figure.

Especially with Assimilate that only wins when 1) someone doesn't know how to play against it, and 2) draws perfectly for both rounds.
And has the correct tools to shut it down in the first place. As an NG player you automatically assume fuckloads of control, which just isn't (and shouldn't be!) true for many decks.

And Cahir only gets value in NR when they don't draw their duels, or some MO swarmy abusers of no wide punish who go all in on their degeneracy and run no control, etc.
Cahir doesn't come alone. It comes with Ffion and Letho, and shutting THAT down requires a dedicated control or movement deck. Best case scenario is that you have a purify and then two instances of movement/locks, which is awfully specific. Either that or three very hard removals. And just one instance of Cahir is enough to negate EVERY boost you receive. And considering you may also have to deal with Damien or Skellen later...
That's not to say it's impossible. Triple duel can handle it all just fine, sure. Until it gets nerfed, which is long overdue. The rest of the decks that aren't made of 99 nukes? Not really.
Also there's way more boosts in the meta than you claim. Symbiosis, Firesworn, Passiflora, anything SC...heck, the only situations where Cahir fails to find value are memes like Blue Stripes and broken-ass SK Warriors.


That's true. But what else are you gonna base the balancing on? On common rants by butthurt beginners who jam their best card in R1 turn 1, get a Yen, forfeit with 9 cards in hand and go unload on Reddit? So far so good, CDPR, Double Ball is gone, and NG is getting more nerfs. WIth all the downsides, I'll take LoL elitism approach over this populism and dogmatism any day. Besides, LoL is not a card game.
I'd say "in-game polls for eligible accounts", but this kind of chaotic democracy often leads to stupid consequences. Still, it makes more sense than making game unfun for most everyone sans tryhards. Besides, bad cards don't get bad rep for nothing. If something in the game forces you to stick a very specific counter in your deck or makes a whole class of playstyles non-viable, this something begs for (at least an indirect) nerf. By this criterion, the Ball and Cahir are among the worst cards in the game, only kept in check by dominance of SK warriors in meta, but meta could change any patch...
 

M3e0w

Forum regular
maybe in the next patch they will nerf Fergus so the Palmerin ''buff'' won't seem as weak.
 
I think there's a number that adds up your MMR values across the board (with different factions). Was referring to that one, so two default values, I think. 50% WR or so. None of the decks I run are meta (movement/Aglais shenanigans as SC, Artis+berserk/bloodthirst stuff as SK, Harmony Master Mirror when i feel like going full retard), and it's still 50% in pro, so go figure.


And has the correct tools to shut it down in the first place. As an NG player you automatically assume fuckloads of control, which just isn't (and shouldn't be!) true for many decks.


Cahir doesn't come alone. It comes with Ffion and Letho, and shutting THAT down requires a dedicated control or movement deck. Best case scenario is that you have a purify and then two instances of movement/locks, which is awfully specific. Either that or three very hard removals. And just one instance of Cahir is enough to negate EVERY boost you receive. And considering you may also have to deal with Damien or Skellen later...
That's not to say it's impossible. Triple duel can handle it all just fine, sure. Until it gets nerfed, which is long overdue. The rest of the decks that aren't made of 99 nukes? Not really.
Also there's way more boosts in the meta than you claim. Symbiosis, Firesworn, Passiflora, anything SC...heck, the only situations where Cahir fails to find value are memes like Blue Stripes and broken-ass SK Warriors.



I'd say "in-game polls for eligible accounts", but this kind of chaotic democracy often leads to stupid consequences. Still, it makes more sense than making game unfun for most everyone sans tryhards. Besides, bad cards don't get bad rep for nothing. If something in the game forces you to stick a very specific counter in your deck or makes a whole class of playstyles non-viable, this something begs for (at least an indirect) nerf. By this criterion, the Ball and Cahir are among the worst cards in the game, only kept in check by dominance of SK warriors in meta, but meta could change any patch...

I'm no pro player, far from it tbh... I'm against the prov nerf of the Ball but...I also agree with the above.
I've come across NG decks that don't include the scenario and they were pretty powerful, especially the "hyperthin" one and ones that include Cahir+Letho+Defender (GG QQ).
I agree that NG needs some love and I find the new "buffs" underwhelming even tho I don't main NG, Bouble ball had to go tho.

"Btw off subject, do you guys miss this week's quest's..?
I do and it sais in short "come back next week", wtf..!? :confused:
 
One can hardly call buffs what NG got in exchange for nerfing Ball. Palmerin's buff is an inferior version of Fergus. How often did you see Fergus being played by NG decks? Rarely. Well, Palmerin will be played even more rarely than Fergus.

I still don't get why people are so salty about Ball. Toxic as it was, these last 2 months saw a huge decrease in the number of decks playing it. Even those that played it, they were only efficient against NR, and even against them, they were way too dependent on good card draws and well chosen mulligans.
 
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