Viy discussion

+
Viy isn't exactly a tier 0 deck but the card still needs to be nerfed.

No. Viy is in that spot where 1 more nerf kills the card or one more buff makes it op again. Viy in in a good spot right now. If you still can't beat the Viy decks then the problem isn't the card, it's the decks you play.
Obviously not EVERY deck should be able to beat Viy just like there is no deck that can beat all other decks. I've been playing Viy at rank 1 trying to hit pro with it (cuz that's what i do every season then i stop with comp) and it's not easy at all, i win 2-3 then lose the next 2-3. The only way to hit pro with a Viy deck is to get lucky and get in matches with decks that can't handle him.
So yeah, not OP by any means, i still lose a ton of games with that deck.
 
Obviously not EVERY deck should be able to beat Viy just like there is no deck that can beat all other decks.
Aight, who said that win/loss should at all be defined by matchups and not by players' agency?
Perhaps you think that pre-determined rock-paper-scissors games of archetypes are inevitable, but that's just not true.

There's such a thing is a favourable matchup, sure, that much is unavoidable. But the desirable, actually balanced meta should work in the opposite way - every deck built synergistically (as opposed to a random pile) would have a fair shot at winning any matchup. If any single card can completely and reliably cancel/heavily outpoint someone's strategy just by existing no matter what they do, this card has no business being so strong. This is even more true if that card requires specific tech to really counter, which should never be a requirement.


I am sure you hate Yrden as a Viy player, but they're, like, the Ying-Yang of toxicity, cardinally different, and yet equally disgusting (except that the ruiner horsie with unpronounceable name often bricks Yrden, so you're favored even against it).


Upd: that said, by this definition they both aren't the most awful thing in the game, that honor goes to the unholy trinity of SY spenders, you know which ones. Good luck playing your engines and wasting your hard control on low-strength bodies.
 
Last edited:
Aight, who said that win/loss should at all be defined by matchups and not by players' agency?
Perhaps you think that pre-determined rock-paper-scissors games of archetypes are inevitable, but that's just not true.

No,i do not think that outcomes of matches should be pre-determined by your archtype but unfortunately this is the reality of the situation.
Every patch there are those 3-4 decks that rule the meta. This is how it's always been and killing a card which brings some type of variety to the game even though you might feel like it's not fair won't help the game, it will only make those 3-4 decks even more relevant.

Viy is not OP. It is pretty easy to deal with so i see no reason to nerf him one more time and kill the card. We should bring suggestions to buff other archtypes to compete with those 3-4 meta decks (and just to be clear, Viy is not part of those decks) rather than nerf everything into the ground till the game gets so linear and boring that no one will play it and go to other card games which allow for more crazy combos and point swings.


There's such a thing is a favourable matchup, sure, that much is unavoidable. But the desirable, actually balanced meta should work in the opposite way - every deck built synergistically (as opposed to a random pile) would have a fair shot at winning any matchup. If any single card can completely and reliably cancel/heavily outpoint someone's strategy just by existing no matter what they do, this card has no business being so strong. This is even more true if that card requires specific tech to really counter, which should never be a requirement.

That's an utopic card game which will never exist. As for the synergy part, the whole deck is built do synergize with Viy, what are you talking abot? The whole deck is a one trick pony for Viy, it has no variety, no complex strategy that you gotta be on guard for, no surprises NOTHING.

You wanna talk about cards that require specific tech to counter? :)) Ok, let's see, tell me how you counter these cards without specific techs:
Yennefer's Invocation, Kolgrim, Erland (with immunity when he gets like a 30-40 points as a finisher), Kelltulis (the one with carapace), Vernossiel (with a board full of archers) and honestly the list can go on.

My point is, there are tons of cards that are more cheap than Viy. True, Viy can get to very high points but i'm gonna tell you the secret to beat the deck! You don't try to get the Viy, you kill / lock the engines that power him up. This way the Viy player gets to the 3rd round with a Viy that's like 13 or 16 points at best and he can't do anything against your finishers. You're welcome!
Honestly if you can't beat a 13 point Viy in round 3 then it's not the card that's the problem.

I am sure you hate Yrden as a Viy player, but they're, like, the Ying-Yang of toxicity, cardinally different, and yet equally disgusting (except that the ruiner horsie with unpronounceable name often bricks Yrden, so you're favored even against it).

Actually no, i odn't hate Yrden. Sure i do lose to it sometimes but i know how to play around it most of the time.
Mechanics that REALLY piss me off in this game are:
Lock - because there's no way in hell you can convince me that a 4 provision card should be able to permanently neutralize a 10 or more provision card (here i'm not reffering to Viy but to all other high cost engines)
Mill decks - Again it's not normal for a 6 provision card to kill a 10 or more card before you even get to play it. Or the other way around, to fill your deck with so much useless cards you don't get to play your own deck.
Cahir - If you put this card behind a defender is game over against any deck with little to no control that focuses on buffing rather than killing and that's not ok for 1 card to neutralize half the decks in this game.
Yennefer's Invocation - Low cost, more effective than Heatwave because you get to play that unit afterwords.

And there were a few others that i can't remember right now. Honestly, Viy is far from the biggest problem this game has. So yeah, let's not kill a viable monster deck just because "big points". Especially since monsters have so few viable decks.
 
No,i do not think that outcomes of matches should be pre-determined by your archtype but unfortunately this is the reality of the situation.
Every patch there are those 3-4 decks that rule the meta. This is how it's always been and killing a card which brings some type of variety to the game even though you might feel like it's not fair won't help the game, it will only make those 3-4 decks even more relevant.

Viy is not OP. It is pretty easy to deal with so i see no reason to nerf him one more time and kill the card. We should bring suggestions to buff other archtypes to compete with those 3-4 meta decks (and just to be clear, Viy is not part of those decks) rather than nerf everything into the ground till the game gets so linear and boring that no one will play it and go to other card games which allow for more crazy combos and point swings.




That's an utopic card game which will never exist. As for the synergy part, the whole deck is built do synergize with Viy, what are you talking abot? The whole deck is a one trick pony for Viy, it has no variety, no complex strategy that you gotta be on guard for, no surprises NOTHING.

You wanna talk about cards that require specific tech to counter? :)) Ok, let's see, tell me how you counter these cards without specific techs:
Yennefer's Invocation, Kolgrim, Erland (with immunity when he gets like a 30-40 points as a finisher), Kelltulis (the one with carapace), Vernossiel (with a board full of archers) and honestly the list can go on.

My point is, there are tons of cards that are more cheap than Viy. True, Viy can get to very high points but i'm gonna tell you the secret to beat the deck! You don't try to get the Viy, you kill / lock the engines that power him up. This way the Viy player gets to the 3rd round with a Viy that's like 13 or 16 points at best and he can't do anything against your finishers. You're welcome!
Honestly if you can't beat a 13 point Viy in round 3 then it's not the card that's the problem.



Actually no, i odn't hate Yrden. Sure i do lose to it sometimes but i know how to play around it most of the time.
Mechanics that REALLY piss me off in this game are:
Lock - because there's no way in hell you can convince me that a 4 provision card should be able to permanently neutralize a 10 or more provision card (here i'm not reffering to Viy but to all other high cost engines)
Mill decks - Again it's not normal for a 6 provision card to kill a 10 or more card before you even get to play it. Or the other way around, to fill your deck with so much useless cards you don't get to play your own deck.
Cahir - If you put this card behind a defender is game over against any deck with little to no control that focuses on buffing rather than killing and that's not ok for 1 card to neutralize half the decks in this game.
Yennefer's Invocation - Low cost, more effective than Heatwave because you get to play that unit afterwords.

And there were a few others that i can't remember right now. Honestly, Viy is far from the biggest problem this game has. So yeah, let's not kill a viable monster deck just because "big points". Especially since monsters have so few viable decks.
There's something to be said about promoting variety, but Viy is really not a case in point. EVERY Viy deck is the same stupid pile of every imaginable tutor crammed in with Haunt and consume cards. Every single one. There's no variety in deck building when this card is involved. There is no variety in play. There is no strategy or technique. Or fun, for that matter (to play against, anyway). Viy may not be OP at this point and it may not require nerfs, but the card was a mistake to begin with and brought nothing good to Gwent at all.
 
There's something to be said about promoting variety, but Viy is really not a case in point. EVERY Viy deck is the same stupid pile of every imaginable tutor crammed in with Haunt and consume cards. Every single one. There's no variety in deck building when this card is involved. There is no variety in play. There is no strategy or technique. Or fun, for that matter (to play against, anyway). Viy may not be OP at this point and it may not require nerfs, but the card was a mistake to begin with and brought nothing good to Gwent at all.

So your point is that they should do a total rework on the card. I mean, i'm not against a rework as long as it's still lore friendly. By that i mean just like he was in the Alzur's story that Viy was this unstoppable monster that killed the most powerful mage in history, destroyed half a city and then when other mages came for him they were obliterated. Then he went to the most monster infested place in the witcher universe and probably destroyed everything there as well.
Story-wise Viy is presented as an unstoppable force of nature that should never have existed in this world and the deck that HAS to be build around him shows that perfectly.
So yeah if they rework him he should be a top tier card that could compete with the best of the best. But honestly, story-wise, i think they did a pretty good job with Viy.

You're right about the deck being very strict with almost no room for improvising on deck building and strategy being somewhat limited but i for one enjoy playing it. When you see Viy getting big and you get to that final round with him you're like "Release the Kracken!". If he gets big enough you know you have a good chance at winning, if you can't get him there, it's over. You live and die by Viy.

I personally enjoy playing that deck even though it's not top tier.
 
I must have missed the part of the lore where Viy gets consumed by a Barghest, then pooped out and then it grows even stronger from that poop, then gets eaten again by a Slyzaard, then pooped out and then grows stronger from said poop, then get's eaten by the very same Slyzard and then pooped out by the same slyzard (while growing stronger from the digestion process again), then gets eaten by a Desert Banshee and pooped out from the Banshee (again growing even stronger) and then eaten by A DIFFERENT slyzard, then get's pooped out by that Slyzard, then it grows stronger from said poop, then it retreats again, then it comes back, only to be consumed by a Barbegazi this time! :O AND THEN!
YOU'LL NEVER GUESS IT... IT COMES BACK, :D from the anus of the Barbegazi, BUT even STRONGER THIS TIME....
... Then the Viy get's eaten by an Ekkimmara and then pooped out by it, again (as you may have guessed it) it grows stronger from being digested AND THEN! OHHHHHOHOHHO, AND THEN IT COMES OUT IN ALL OF IT'S GLORY AND STANDS TALL ON THE BATTLEFIELD NOT DOING ANYTHING, JUST BEING TALL AF!

... Was it a bit tedious and boring to read through all of that?
- Well that's how playing (unless you're Kayn apparently...) or playing against Viy feels like too; only you can actually skip reading this without getting a "DEFEAT" screen in front of your face. :]
 
Last edited:
Viy is tier 1 according to the latest meta snapshot, just saying.

Besides, "Just kill/lock" consumers is a solution available only to control-heavy decks, which, believe it or not, not every deck out there is (despite SK/SY players trying to convince you of it). You can, theoretically, try to outgreed Viy, but you need to get into a long r3 and still have enough stuff to try, despite having to commit hard in R1.
It's a messy, poorly designed card that has not one, but three issues - firstly, it's a 3 points non-interactive engine which is outrageous in and of itself, secondly, it offers tempo that no archetype can keep up with WHILE being an engine (and those are and should be mutually exclusive in Gwent for design reasons), and finally, carryover is generally a very expensive type of points for everyone else(and with a good reason), but you easily generate tons of it. That's just cheat-y.
 
I must have missed the part of the lore where Viy gets consumed by a Barghest, then pooped out and then it grows even stronger from that poop, then gets eaten again by a Slyzaard, then pooped out and then grows stronger from said poop, then get's eaten by the very same Slyzard and then pooped out by the same slyzard (while growing stronger from the digestion process again), then gets eaten by a Desert Banshee and pooped out from the Banshee (again growing even stronger) and then eaten by A DIFFERENT slyzard, then get's pooped out by that Slyzard, then it grows stronger from said poop, then it retreats again, then it comes back, only to be consumed by a Barbegazi this time! :O AND THEN!
YOU'LL NEVER GUESS IT... IT COMES BACK, :D from the anus of the Barbegazi, BUT even STRONGER THIS TIME....
... Then the Viy get's eaten by an Ekkimmara and then pooped out by it, again (as you may have guessed it) it grows stronger from being digested AND THEN! OHHHHHOHOHHO, AND THEN IT COMES OUT IN ALL OF IT'S GLORY AND STANDS TALL ON THE BATTLEFIELD NOT DOING ANYTHING, JUST BEING TALL AF!

... Was it a bit tedious and boring to read through all of that?
- Well that's how playing (unless you're Kayn apparently...) or playing against Viy feels like too; only you can actually skip reading this without getting a "DEFEAT" screen in front of your face. :]

Yeah, what i meant is that Viy is so powerful that only if you build a whole deck around him you can get value. He is THAT pretentious and powerful of a monster that unless the whole deck is about him you won't get value. But hey, let's bring biology in a discussion about a card in a video game about monsters, why not :D


Viy is tier 1 according to the latest meta snapshot, just saying.

Besides, "Just kill/lock" consumers is a solution available only to control-heavy decks, which, believe it or not, not every deck out there is (despite SK/SY players trying to convince you of it). You can, theoretically, try to outgreed Viy, but you need to get into a long r3 and still have enough stuff to try, despite having to commit hard in R1.
It's a messy, poorly designed card that has not one, but three issues - firstly, it's a 3 points non-interactive engine which is outrageous in and of itself, secondly, it offers tempo that no archetype can keep up with WHILE being an engine (and those are and should be mutually exclusive in Gwent for design reasons), and finally, carryover is generally a very expensive type of points for everyone else(and with a good reason), but you easily generate tons of it. That's just cheat-y.

Neah man its not tier one and whoever said that, said it simply out of spite for the deck because he can't deal with it.

As for not every deck being focused on control yeah sure, i agree. Like i said, Viy is weak against control, if you wanna outgreed him you can do that too with some decks but not EVERY deck can beat it and that is normal and healthy for the game.

As i said, that world in which every possible deck with every possible combination of cards has an equal chance against the other is a fantasy.
There will always be winners and losers in every patch but the way to fix that is to buff other archtypes rather than nerf existing ones into the ground.
 
Neah man its not tier one and whoever said that, said it simply out of spite for the deck because he can't deal with it.
Ye, a bunch of high-level players clearly are motivated by spite for the deck or something...:)

As i said, that world in which every possible deck with every possible combination of cards has an equal chance against the other is a fantasy.
True. Except I wasn't arguing that. I specifically said that any non-pile (e.g. coherent) deck should have at least a luck/skill-based chance against against any other deck, with emphasis on coherent - which is a very possible thing to achive by buffing the underperformers and eliminating the gamebreakers. There's a golden rule for balancing of competitive games - ability strength should be directly proportional to the complexity of use and/or risks. So you either end up with something moderately strong, but easy, or with something insane, but difficult/risky. Dota 2 and HoTS belong to a different genre entirely, but both at several points had metas where EVERY single hero and item was viable thanks to following this rule, which proves the general principle.

Besides, I am not talking about nerfing things into ground in the first place - that just leads to archetypes swapping places on the success rating. Rather, certain cards just have such unfortunate designs that they're nearly impossible to balance properly and can only be either utterly unfair or unplayable. They just need to be reworked entirely instead of buffed/nerfed ad nauseam.

Viy, along with the Masquerade Ball are the main offenders, but there're many more - stuff like Cahir, Oneiromancy, clog in general and Kolgrim in particular, unitless playstyle in general (this could arguably be fixed by nerfing the explosive payoff cards like Eldain or Gord), the list is long. Cool, flashy effects absolutely should have place in the game, but also involve a lot of skill/risks. Eist could be fine with a condition based on damaged allied units and without the devotion clause, for example, as it would involve an interactive minigame around getting to that condition.

Masquerade Ball just can't ever be okay because the mix of big points with hard removal all within the same card, no matter how expensive, just doesn't "fit" into general point dynamic of Gwent. Nerfing either into ground would, on the other hand, lead to it being impractical.

Viy can never be okay with its current ability just because 3-round game structure makes carryover extremely valuable (which is why it comes with steep price, usually), and the full-carryover card that doesn't have those associated drawbacks just is gonna be either too strong - like it is now, or inpractical (if its strengthening increment were too small to ever win r1, for example). No middle ground here either.
 
Last edited:
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again... I think Viy's growth function should be an order.

Consume it as many times as you want at 7 points per, but if you want it to get bigger you should have to leave it on the board for a turn and risk a lock.
 
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again... I think Viy's growth function should be an order.

Consume it as many times as you want at 7 points per, but if you want it to get bigger you should have to leave it on the board for a turn and risk a lock.

That would 100% kill the card.
 
I must have missed the part of the lore where Viy gets consumed by a Barghest, then pooped out and then it grows even stronger from that poop, then gets eaten again by a Slyzaard, then pooped out and then grows stronger from said poop, then get's eaten by the very same Slyzard and then pooped out by the same slyzard (while growing stronger from the digestion process again), then gets eaten by a Desert Banshee and pooped out from the Banshee (again growing even stronger) and then eaten by A DIFFERENT slyzard, then get's pooped out by that Slyzard, then it grows stronger from said poop, then it retreats again, then it comes back, only to be consumed by a Barbegazi this time! :O AND THEN!
YOU'LL NEVER GUESS IT... IT COMES BACK, :D from the anus of the Barbegazi, BUT even STRONGER THIS TIME....
... Then the Viy get's eaten by an Ekkimmara and then pooped out by it, again (as you may have guessed it) it grows stronger from being digested AND THEN! OHHHHHOHOHHO, AND THEN IT COMES OUT IN ALL OF IT'S GLORY AND STANDS TALL ON THE BATTLEFIELD NOT DOING ANYTHING, JUST BEING TALL AF!

... Was it a bit tedious and boring to read through all of that?
- Well that's how playing (unless you're Kayn apparently...) or playing against Viy feels like too; only you can actually skip reading this without getting a "DEFEAT" screen in front of your face. :]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I Just laught a lot with this and thinking If my wife ask to me why I was laughting i couldnt explain that.


HAHAHAHAHAH
 
Are there anyone has been playing Viy recently (during current patch)?
Is it still viable in Rank?
 
Are there anyone has been playing Viy recently (during current patch)?
Is it still viable in Rank?
Today in casual i faced a player playing viy.

For his unlucky i was pplaying spyroza/necrotal lined pocket deck and beat it easily.

In fact, he had some unlucky to not get his consumes. In round 3 (medium round - avarage of 7-8 cards) he used a barghest and i killed it. So he used viy and use his last leader charge.
In the 3rd turn he used viy alone (expecting i dont have lock or heatwave). But, for his unluky, it got heatwaved and he forfeits
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
Today in casual i faced a player playing viy.

For his unlucky i was pplaying spyroza/necrotal lined pocket deck and beat it easily.

In fact, he had some unlucky to not get his consumes. In round 3 (medium round - avarage of 7-8 cards) he used a barghest and i killed it. So he used viy and use his last leader charge.
In the 3rd turn he used viy alone (expecting i dont have lock or heatwave). But, for his unluky, it got heatwaved and he forfeits
As much as a dislike SY having so many easy tools of late, I'm quite happy to see less VIY. It's a card that tells me the devs don't put much thought into MO. But of course Sabbath is more of the same "play tall" because apparently that's all MO are capable of doing.
 
I haven't faced a single Viy deck in weeks. It seems all the Viy lovers switched to the similarly braindead Koschey deck, as it's a plague identical to Viy once was.
 
As much as a dislike SY having so many easy tools of late, I'm quite happy to see less VIY. It's a card that tells me the devs don't put much thought into MO. But of course Sabbath is more of the same "play tall" because apparently that's all MO are capable of doing.
Well, I still got PTSD from Arachas and Keltullis, so there's other stuff too. Besides, going tall and generating Dominance is just part of their faction identity, that's why cards and keywords like this keep coming. If you don't like that you can play a different faction with more control ^^
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
Well, I still got PTSD from Arachas and Keltullis, so there's other stuff too. Besides, going tall and generating Dominance is just part of their faction identity, that's why cards and keywords like this keep coming. If you don't like that you can play a different faction with more control ^^
Carapace has never even topped ranking so I don't think Keltulis was as bad as ppl made it out to be. A simple movement or lock. Same for Swarm, the deck just took advantage of the new meta window where no one was playing swarm and so very few had counters but as soon as that changed you saw less.

Koschey is a problem but it isn't that it offers any new or interesting mechanic, it's the same thrive that appears to be the devs answer to all things MO. Just add thrive to it and that will make it better. Remember Phooca? Yea me neither. Adding to that it really wasn't any different as far as simplistic plays go with very little thought, it's the definition of a beginners deck...just put big thing on board..... which I understand is what MO was intended to be initially but the faction is boring as hell now since there are only 2 options to compete with. As for using other factions, I really only took interest in the game because of this faction so I just play the game less now until I eventually lose interest entirely.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top Bottom