Northern Realms Meta Deck - An Oxymoron?

[Serellious]

I'm a F2P (mostly) player, and just started playing Gwent about two weeks ago. I've been working on learning the game and game mechanics playing NR decks, and I wanted to ask what the current or semi-current meta deck builds are for NR. Are there NR decks that are good all-rounders, or at least have a decent shot of going past a .500 win rate?

Needless to say, I am struggling right now with Northern Realms, trying to put something together in which I can learn game mechanics and game strategy, while winning at least a couple matches/games a day. As it is, I'm getting beat down pretty bad, running 4-5 game losing streaks... to which I feel I am not playing (or executing?) a NR deck that is "meta enough" to win with.

What are your thoughts? Any recommendations on a meta NR deck I can put together and run?

 

[NR4ever]

Devs always threated NR like bastards sons, and it was that way for many years. Maybe except two-three seasons it never was T1. Look at ScoiaTell for example- there is even a card with face of Paweł Burza, one of gwent devs (Pavko Gale) so they dont even bother to hide with they favourized factions. But - from the other hand - maybe that eternal avragness of NR is reason why I play only them, because if I am able to create something from nothing than I am much more satisfied than take from the youtube every season that what is currently strongest and gring levels with that

 

[quintivarium]

It was almost two years ago now that I started the game and things have changed. I also started with NG rather than NR. But I was strictly ftp and I suspect a lot of my experiences could carry over to you.

I do not think chasing a perfect metadeck to learn from is the right approach. Not all meta decks are easy to play; not all meta decks are good at highlighting key playing skills. And without spending significant money, you don’t get enough scraps to experiment with every meta deck you think might be interesting. NR is probably the top faction right now — if not top, certainly very competitive. But many of its meta decks are pretty gimmicky at the moment, heavily relying on one or two facets of games play — I would not consider them good learning tools.

I do not know how much you play or what rank you are — and that could make a significant difference. But I think I played my NG starter deck exclusively for close to a month. Eventually I reached a rank where winning with it became difficult and I started crafting my own decks, mostly in ST or NR and later, SK. Within another month, I reached a point where those decks could not win either. The trouble with Gwent’s ranking system is that there is a tendency to rise rapidly until you reach a level where all your opponents either have much more experience, or far better cards, or both, and winning becomes very difficult.

I would council patience. You will eventually move past this point as well — although it could take months. In the meanwhile, I suggest varying your play format. In unranked play, you will face a mixture of highly refined decks, weak quest filling decks, experimental decksand meme decks. You will meet a variety of levels of playing skills. You will lose hopeless matches, and you won’t get the win rate you might have had in early days of playing. But you should win consistently enough to complete your quests and advance winning basic journey awards.

To learn the game, look for teaching articles and videos. I learned a lot from a series of learning videos by SPYROZA. These are still available on YouTube. Although they use an outdated meta, the principles they illustrate have not changed. If you prefer printed articles, both DRK3 and I have threads with a lot of instructional material. DRK3 also has a deck of the day thread to offer you deck ideas. I suggest looking up his low cost decks (he has some with no expensive legendary cards). Again, be careful - not all of DRK’s decks are well geared towards beginners and some are very gimmicky as well.

You can also learn a lot by watching streamers — just be careful to tune in on experienced players. Twitch streamers I find very helpful are Spyro_za, Crozyr, Lionhart, TheaBeasty, and shinmiri2.

And be sure you advance the new Reward tree for NR (on the last tab of rewards) These trees grant cards when you complete the nodes. These cards are well chosen to help a beginner create sound decks. And they will give you good epic and legendary cards without needing to open hundreds of kegs or burn your limited scraps.

Your question has inspired me to try to write an article specifically geared towards how to grow as a player in my strategy articles thread. Because of my work schedule, it may be the weekend before I finish it, but it should be up within a week if you are interested.

 

[DRK3]

I'm a F2P (mostly) player, and just started playing Gwent about two weeks ago. I've been working on learning the game and game mechanics playing NR decks, and I wanted to ask what the current or semi-current meta deck builds are for NR. Are there NR decks that are good all-rounders, or at least have a decent shot of going past a .500 win rate?

Needless to say, I am struggling right now with Northern Realms, trying to put something together in which I can learn game mechanics and game strategy, while winning at least a couple matches/games a day. As it is, I'm getting beat down pretty bad, running 4-5 game losing streaks... to which I feel I am not playing (or executing?) a NR deck that is "meta enough" to win with.

What are your thoughts? Any recommendations on a meta NR deck I can put together and run?

NR is definitely one of the strongest factions right now, and it has multiple strategies to be competitive.
I am sorry, but i will never recommend or point out the place to get the best metadecks, thus encouraging netdecking.
Still, even though you started recently, its likely you have found some of these NR strategies being used by your opponents.

In what rank do you play, if i may ask? Because on the top ranks, i heard a lot of players are playing hypercontrol precisely to counter NR which is almost unbeatable without control.
Also take in consideration that NG was, is and probably always will be the most popular faction in Gwent (even when its not the strongest) and its the faction that seems to be designed specifically to counter NR, which makes playing NR a bit risky.

Finally, like quinti said, there's plenty of guides and videos out there to help out.
Mine personally are not geared towards beginners (because everyone else's are ) but i still like to help out those starting the game.
Oh and dont believe those that say only with the current metadecks you can reach high ranks, there's always a lot of different strategies that are viable.

 

[Serellious]

I do not know how much you play or what rank you are — and that could make a significant difference. But I think I played my NG starter deck exclusively for close to a month. Eventually I reached a rank where winning with it became difficult and I started crafting my own decks, mostly in ST or NR and later, SK. Within another month, I reached a point where those decks could not win either. The trouble with Gwent’s ranking system is that there is a tendency to rise rapidly until you reach a level where all your opponents either have much more experience, or far better cards, or both, and winning becomes very difficult.

You've absolutely hit the nail on the head. When I started playing this game two weeks ago, I was winning the vast majority of my games with the NR starter deck you're given after completing the tutorial, doing 8-9 winning streaks at a time. That has since stopped, and so I adjusted by using NR decks developed by Jaggerous which I had decent luck with.

Again, I was doing multiple win streaks, but soon, that stopped, and I was losing the majority of my games. I'm starting to see a trend develop, and I'm now at the point where I'm not exactly sure what to do next, hence my original post on this topic. Maybe using the word "meta" was a poor choice, as really, I'm simply looking for a NR deck solution that can decently compete and win matches consistently.

That said, I'm not exactly looking to chase a meta, but I am looking to maximize my win ratio with NR as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. If it helps, i am Rank 26 and Level 14. Thank you very much for your insightful and well-thought out post. =)

 

[NR4ever]

NR is definitely one of the strongest factions right now, and it has multiple strategies to be competitive.
I am sorry, but i will never recommend or point out the place to get the best metadecks, thus encouraging netdecking.
Still, even though you started recently, its likely you have found some of these NR strategies being used by your opponents.

In what rank do you play, if i may ask? Because on the top ranks, i heard a lot of players are playing hypercontrol precisely to counter NR which is almost unbeatable without control.
Also take in consideration that NG was, is and probably always will be the most popular faction in Gwent (even when its not the strongest) and its the faction that seems to be designed specifically to counter NR, which makes playing NR a bit risky.

Finally, like quinti said, there's plenty of guides and videos out there to help out.
Mine personally are not geared towards beginners (because everyone else's are ) but i still like to help out those starting the game.
Oh and dont believe those that say only with the current metadecks you can reach high ranks, there's always a lot of different strategies that are viable.

In that season I play draug+scorch pincer manuver deck and its handling NG with ease, Skellige is problem, and well skilled player with Syndycate almost unbeatable ( we discuss that matter in other post)

 

[DRK3]

In that season I play draug+scorch pincer manuver deck and its handling NG with ease, Skellige is problem, and well skilled player with Syndycate almost unbeatable ( we discuss that matter in other post)

Ah yes, that makes perfect sense, Draug and revenants are one of the very few strategies NR has that NG struggles with.
That is because NG has amazing control, but all single target, and the only good way they have to stop many revenants transformed by Draug is a multilock with Auckes with Serrit in hand, which nobody uses anyway so your safe.
(BTW the other good NR strategy against NG is blue stripes, because of inspired zeal you can give zeal and also put multiple targets in your board at the same time, and their locks and control will struggle)

Unfortunately though, you will struggle against SK by using Draug, as Reckless Flurry is wildly popular and that will probably keep being the case. SY is also very dangerous, but at least on higher ranks there's very few SY players nowadays.

 

[ReaperTek]

That has since stopped, and so I adjusted by using NR decks developed by Jaggerous which I had decent luck with.

Well yeah Jaggerous made that Deck 2 Year's ago and it most likely didn't age well and is totally outdated, i guess a current NR low rank/Beginner Deck should probably look more like this Uprising Frigate Swarm Deck since the recently added new Players Faction trees* give players Natalis, Amphibious Assault and Kerack Frigate to upgrade the starter Deck.

If you're looking for the strongest Meta Decks you just need to check out the top Decks on playgwent.

* Those are the Beginner upgrade Trees if you haven't found them yet.

 

[Alex_Zhou80]

It was almost two years ago now that I started the game and things have changed. I also started with NG rather than NR. But I was strictly ftp and I suspect a lot of my experiences could carry over to you.

I do not think chasing a perfect metadeck to learn from is the right approach. Not all meta decks are easy to play; not all meta decks are good at highlighting key playing skills. And without spending significant money, you don’t get enough scraps to experiment with every meta deck you think might be interesting. NR is probably the top faction right now — if not top, certainly very competitive. But many of its meta decks are pretty gimmicky at the moment, heavily relying on one or two facets of games play — I would not consider them good learning tools.

I do not know how much you play or what rank you are — and that could make a significant difference. But I think I played my NG starter deck exclusively for close to a month. Eventually I reached a rank where winning with it became difficult and I started crafting my own decks, mostly in ST or NR and later, SK. Within another month, I reached a point where those decks could not win either. The trouble with Gwent’s ranking system is that there is a tendency to rise rapidly until you reach a level where all your opponents either have much more experience, or far better cards, or both, and winning becomes very difficult.

I would council patience. You will eventually move past this point as well — although it could take months. In the meanwhile, I suggest varying your play format. In unranked play, you will face a mixture of highly refined decks, weak quest filling decks, experimental decksand meme decks. You will meet a variety of levels of playing skills. You will lose hopeless matches, and you won’t get the win rate you might have had in early days of playing. But you should win consistently enough to complete your quests and advance winning basic journey awards.

To learn the game, look for teaching articles and videos. I learned a lot from a series of learning videos by SPYROZA. These are still available on YouTube. Although they use an outdated meta, the principles they illustrate have not changed. If you prefer printed articles, both DRK3 and I have threads with a lot of instructional material. DRK3 also has a deck of the day thread to offer you deck ideas. I suggest looking up his low cost decks (he has some with no expensive legendary cards). Again, be careful - not all of DRK’s decks are well geared towards beginners and some are very gimmicky as well.

You can also learn a lot by watching streamers — just be careful to tune in on experienced players. Twitch streamers I find very helpful are Spyro_za, Crozyr, Lionhart, TheaBeasty, and shinmiri2.

And be sure you advance the new Reward tree for NR (on the last tab of rewards) These trees grant cards when you complete the nodes. These cards are well chosen to help a beginner create sound decks. And they will give you good epic and legendary cards without needing to open hundreds of kegs or burn your limited scraps.

Your question has inspired me to try to write an article specifically geared towards how to grow as a player in my strategy articles thread. Because of my work schedule, it may be the weekend before I finish it, but it should be up within a week if you are interested.

Agreed with your opinion