Why did NG suddenly fall to the bottom?

[Bleach25]

Thou have asked and thou shall receive an answer

*LONG POST AHEAD*

Unlike many people believe under the surface Nilfgaard is a really weak faction, from golds to bronzes passing through half baked archetypes.

First and foremost let's consider Status, Nilfgaard's most prominent archetype. It was Tier 2 till not long ago. So what changed? Several things actually:

- Powercreep. Other factions have been buffed mad especially after this last patch, whereas Nilfgaard is practically stuck in Merchants of Ofir and before, so the point gap is so great that you have to overcommit not to find yourself in an unfavourable spot while the opponent only plays bronzes
- Hostile meta. People have moved away from Devotion for the most part and now most decks are packing Korathi Heatwave, which is an autowin against Statua due to...
- Overreliance on Masquerade Ball. Without it's almost impossible to build a competitive deck. Once Ball is out of the picture, it's gameover.
- Counterplay. Ball decks have been around for long now, so people know their weaknessess. Countering the round 2 Bleed is very hard. And most importantly poison and lock got dealt a big blow with MM. There are many ways you can play around poison:
- play uninteractively forcing proactivity
- Feed low Power units
- and now Feed Veil cards

All of this on top of poison's own slowness (requires two turns to develop)

This is why Ball fell from grace, but there are other archetypes of course:

- Mill: dead and abandoned, but still occupying precious Gold slots
- Soldiers: powercrept to Kingdom come, soldier doesn't even have an identity
- Assimilate: I think that Assimilate is the archetype with the highest potential, but it's probably the devs' unwillingness to unleash its full Power that holds it back.
That said it's match-up dependant, RNG dependant, bad in a short round, lacks removal options, rather underdeveloped and most importantly a lot of its cards cost 5 provisions. And don't get me started on Portal.

Spies: It really needs more thought put into because it was a total failure. I also want to point out that Seditious Aristocrats is a worse Thirsty Dame: Dame has a lot more synergies and so an higher ceiling. I can (could?) just slam down Thirsty Dame and boost it away from removal range with IF nullifying the importance of retroactivity. And of course Status> Spies

Tactics: mostly a support package, but could use some improvements as well

Another problem is that most 5 provisions are either overpriced or bad and overpriced. Examples:

Menagerie Keeper/ Alba Pikemen. Lots of powercreep as well.

And I can continue...

 

[DRK3]

Symbiosis player has 4 caress instances tops. A typical NG deck has 2+ locks, 2 of their possible leader abilities are locks as well (if we count Enslave, that's three), poison, YenInvo, Vilge, more poison, VVM etc. etc.
You can even bait Shaping Nature(veil) out them only to nuke the poor girl three seconds later. Hamadryads really shouldn't be a problem for NG.

Dont forget Peter. He's not tall removal but he's tall counter.

Easily one of my favourite NG cards, incredibly cheap for a card that can win games. Never understood why players avoid him so much, in Poison decks he may be unnecessary but there's rarely a situation where he wont be useful. Quite often people think im out of tall removal after playing my Yen Invo and Vincent VM, then i finish with Peter for the win.

 

[Draconifors]

Easily one of my favourite NG cards, incredibly cheap for a card that can win games.

Yeah, Peter is awesome. Reset in general is good because it can be both offensive and defensive, and Peter's cost really is super low for how useful he is. Won me many, many games, and not always by resetting a boosted unit.

-----------

MM was a big blow to Status strategies, definitely.
And Spies just doesn't feel that good. It's super fun to play, but it gets destroyed too easily even by decks that require way less strategy to pilot (pointslam). Assimilate is also really fun to play, but also just not that good. Tactics is fun to play, but I've not made a "serious" deck around it so don't know how good a properly built one would be.

And yeah, my most successful deck is still (single-ball) Poison, despite Veil. Ball really is a card that can carry.

As for the most recent nerfs, the Vincent one didn't really do much especially since it made him cheaper. Usurper indeed was just part of a mostly universal nerf on evolving cards.


The faction definitely needs that love that was implied it's getting.

 

[DMurder]

NG suffers from a lot of issues.

- Too heavily reliant on Masquerade Ball.
- Underwhelming bronze cards and leader abilities.
- Extremely draw dependent (especially in Lockdown decks).
- Master Mirror additional power creep weaker than other decks (particularly in the spies department).

Game was a lot more balanced last patch for NG and MO.

 

[Celadyl]

No matter what deck NG players are playing, they always have at least two instant removals (and a lot more conditional removals if we're talking about the Ball). They're expensive, sure, but remove Hamadryads and suddenly all your opponents has is a bunch of lackluster specials and Gord.

that's not true for my sym deck but I dont play the 0815 list from the meta report. combined with some handbuffs you can actually pretty reliably stick dun canell guards, eithne and sometimes even the young dryads due to NG having no good way to deal with a 2 point unit effectively.

 

[EduFerraz]

NG its The most boring faction, with removers, Block and poison, and for me thats toxic for The game.

So o think they need to be real nerfed, to estimulate players to dont play with this fucking faction.

Only assimilate its cool to play, but like ppl said, in small rounds assimilate sucks

 

[ShinAkira00]

Thou have asked and thou shall receive an answer

*LONG POST AHEAD*

Unlike many people believe under the surface Nilfgaard is a really weak faction, from golds to bronzes passing through half baked archetypes.

First and foremost let's consider Status, Nilfgaard's most prominent archetype. It was Tier 2 till not long ago. So what changed? Several things actually:

- Powercreep. Other factions have been buffed mad especially after this last patch, whereas Nilfgaard is practically stuck in Merchants of Ofir and before, so the point gap is so great that you have to overcommit not to find yourself in an unfavourable spot while the opponent only plays bronzes
- Hostile meta. People have moved away from Devotion for the most part and now most decks are packing Korathi Heatwave, which is an autowin against Statua due to...
- Overreliance on Masquerade Ball. Without it's almost impossible to build a competitive deck. Once Ball is out of the picture, it's gameover.
- Counterplay. Ball decks have been around for long now, so people know their weaknessess. Countering the round 2 Bleed is very hard. And most importantly poison and lock got dealt a big blow with MM. There are many ways you can play around poison:
- play uninteractively forcing proactivity
- Feed low Power units
- and now Feed Veil cards

All of this on top of poison's own slowness (requires two turns to develop)

This is why Ball fell from grace, but there are other archetypes of course:

- Mill: dead and abandoned, but still occupying precious Gold slots
- Soldiers: powercrept to Kingdom come, soldier doesn't even have an identity
- Assimilate: I think that Assimilate is the archetype with the highest potential, but it's probably the devs' unwillingness to unleash its full Power that holds it back.
That said it's match-up dependant, RNG dependant, bad in a short round, lacks removal options, rather underdeveloped and most importantly a lot of its cards cost 5 provisions. And don't get me started on Portal.

Spies: It really needs more thought put into because it was a total failure. I also want to point out that Seditious Aristocrats is a worse Thirsty Dame: Dame has a lot more synergies and so an higher ceiling. I can (could?) just slam down Thirsty Dame and boost it away from removal range with IF nullifying the importance of retroactivity. And of course Status> Spies

Tactics: mostly a support package, but could use some improvements as well

Another problem is that most 5 provisions are either overpriced or bad and overpriced. Examples:

Menagerie Keeper/ Alba Pikemen. Lots of powercreep as well.

And I can continue...

NG nerf was more than necessary. The faction is still plenty strong, what I see are the players just not accustomed to having an easy win. This reliance on easy removal also needs to be done away with, if that means fleshing out the archetypes then fine.

 

[Sailears]

Interestingly, while climbing this season on Symbiosis, I regularly came across some NG deck - mostly single/double ball. But most of the time is simply a case of removing the Dames so they can't grow and then rationing purify/veil etc - I also run Ida Emean to deal with defenders as is the only offensive ST purify in Devotion without setup. Nice thing with Symbiosis is the points being offloaded on tokens which makes it more difficult for poison to deal with, as long as not making silly mistakes (which I do sometimes xD) like very tall hamadryads...

For other row locked things like Damien, Cahir etc, movement nullifies them easily.

Not to say it was all plain sailing - eg if game decides to screw you with coinflip and mulligans, still need a good hand and good play so NG doesn't seem to be in a terrible spot, though I can appreciate some of the bronze core are a bit meh. Buffs need to be careful, don't want to bring back some other oppressive deck (I still have trauma from beta Viper Witchers... xD).

 

[ShinAkira00]

Interestingly, while climbing this season on Symbiosis, I regularly came across some NG deck - mostly single/double ball. But most of the time is simply a case of removing the Dames so they can't grow and then rationing purify/veil etc - I also run Ida Emean to deal with defenders as is the only offensive ST purify in Devotion without setup. Nice thing with Symbiosis is the points being offloaded on tokens which makes it more difficult for poison to deal with, as long as not making silly mistakes (which I do sometimes xD) like very tall hamadryads...

For other row locked things like Damien, Cahir etc, movement nullifies them easily.

Not to say it was all plain sailing - eg if game decides to screw you with coinflip and mulligans, still need a good hand and good play so NG doesn't seem to be in a terrible spot, though I can appreciate some of the bronze core are a bit meh. Buffs need to be careful, don't want to bring back some other oppressive deck (I still have trauma from beta Viper Witchers... xD).

That's because Symbiosis decks are a natural counter to removal since they don't have to commit to a tall unit...every faction has its weakness. ST can play unit less against NG and remove anything they play. Especially if it's running Nature's Gift. Not every faction has that benefit.

 

[ya1]

(...) NG decks dont have that many good matchups.

In theory, NG should have lots of great matchups in this meta: heaverless Shieldwall and SK, tall Nature's Gift. The fact that it's an underdog now even in theoretically favorable matchups shows how ridiculous those nerfs really were.

 

[Jamborinio]

NG, much like MO, suffers from a very short list of actual viable bronzes. It has some reasonable soldiers albeit a rather short list headed up by Magne Division and the Crossbowmen, and it has poison, and that's about it. Its MM Devotion Bronze - Angry Mob - is situational at best, and mostly trash when compared to other factions' devotion specials. MO has Endrega Larvae and Aen Elle Conqueror but suffers similarly to having a large swathe of unusable bronzes.

Now compare this to vast array of Bronzes that the other factions have access to. NR has a super selection as does SK, ST's bronzes have received a few buffs of late and aren't as bad as they used to be. SY has also received buffs to their bronzes and also got the excellent Fallen Knight with the MM expansion.

NG is not trash, but it's a little narrow in its options and that also includes the Golds where there is arguably a number that are carrying the faction and have done for a while - e.g. Ball, Vincent, YenInvo, Braathens and Usurper.

 

[Corfius]

1- NG lacks points slam.

2-Engines are lackluster and they are hard to protect.

3-Bronzes cards are mostly bad and/or expensive.

4- Their best card is binary (ball).

5- Poison is unplayable proactively.

All in all it makes NG terrible on blue coin, easy to bleed in R2 and more draw dependant than others factions.

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

1 - Many NG playstyle were butchered, reducing it to just the "annoying to play against" faction. Point is, now playing also AS NG has become very boring.
2 - Most of the time has to use poison as a main approach, boring to play with and against and a - pun intended - toxic mechanic. Now many units have veil
3 - Even playing control heavy you lack the points to effectively win the game.
4 - Most boring Scenario and a very predictable one
5 - Should be the strategic faction and "the one that requires a big IQ" and now is reduce to lock this, lock that, poison this, poison that and hope that the opponent ragequits.
6 - Basically no engines except Magne ( that locks your OWN row ) and dame.
7 - The bronze package in general lacks sinergy

 

[Philido]

NG nerf was more than necessary. The faction is still plenty strong, what I see are the players just not accustomed to having an easy win. This reliance on easy removal also needs to be done away with, if that means fleshing out the archetypes then fine.

More than necessary because of what?

 

[Slizzl]

I'm almost certain they will make NG into another pointslammy faction. This is the direction they have went with the entire game now. NG is falling behind because it used to require set-up and payoff, something nonexistent in current Gwent. Now every card is created solely with provisions into points in mind. What they don't see is that this turns the game into having the exact same match just with a different coat of paint, over and over.
I can already picture Cahir becoming an agent tutor or something of the sort.
Excuse my negativity, playing NG in this meta has done that to me.

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

I'm almost certain they will make NG into another pointslammy faction. This is the direction they have went with the entire game now. NG is falling behind because it used to require set-up and payoff, something nonexistent in current Gwent. Now every card is created solely with provisions into points in mind. What they don't see is that this turns the game into having the exact same match just with a different coat of paint, over and over.
I can already picture Cahir becoming an agent tutor or something of the sort.
Excuse my negativity, playing NG in this meta has done that to me.

I really hope not. Searching simmetry among all factions is going to really kill the game and defeat the very purpose of having different factions to start with.
And seeing the same matches over and over again is the result of taking this direction. Many cards are still unplayable so people just stopped trying to create something new and fun and just pointslam with netdecks even on casual. I cannot imagine how painful it is for a new player with the starter deck to match against shieldwall NR or another meta deck from the start.

 

[Wobbrrs]

All the NG golds mentioned (Vincent, Brathens, Invo, Userper, etc) are superb, and likely deserved their respective nerfs. However they are mostly control oriented and as a faction NG lacks 13-15 point slams that gives you reach


More importantly IMO: most other factions have multiple value bronzes that plays for 7 for 4, 8 for 5, etc.

NG's most played and usable bronzes:
- Magne, 4 for 4 when played and easy removal or counter with movement
- Tortoise, 7 for 5 with a drawback
- Cossbowman, 5 for 5 when played, random pings also easily countered by likes of armor, totem, etc.

you get the idea... as NG you can't trade bronzes for bronzes evenly.
So on blue coin, you either have to give up last say right away, or trade golds for bronzes.
On red coin, the goal is to abuse e.g. double ball, poison,
but as for the 3 most common matchups on ladder:
ST: packs heatwave
SK: you will have no good round 1 poison targets, either viel or 5 pt body usually
NR: similarly, the amount of cheap bronze engines are able to match or out-value poison

 

[Bleach25]

All the NG golds mentioned (Vincent, Brathens, Invo, Userper, etc) are superb, and likely deserved their respective nerfs. However they are mostly control oriented and as a faction NG lacks 13-15 point slams that gives you reach


More importantly IMO: most other factions have multiple value bronzes that plays for 7 for 4, 8 for 5, etc.

NG's most played and usable bronzes:
- Magne, 4 for 4 when played and easy removal or counter with movement
- Tortoise, 7 for 5 with a drawback
- Cossbowman, 5 for 5 when played, random pings also easily countered by likes of armor, totem, etc.

you get the idea... as NG you can't trade bronzes for bronzes evenly.
So on blue coin, you either have to give up last say right away, or trade golds for bronzes.
On red coin, the goal is to abuse e.g. double ball, poison,
but as for the 3 most common matchups on ladder:
ST: packs heatwave
SK: you will have no good round 1 poison targets, either viel or 5 pt body usually
NR: similarly, the amount of cheap bronze engines are able to match or out-value poison

SY passiflora also has Heatwave

 

[DRK3]

In theory, NG should have lots of great matchups in this meta: heaverless Shieldwall and SK, tall Nature's Gift. The fact that it's an underdog now even in theoretically favorable matchups shows how ridiculous those nerfs really were.

My choice of words wasnt the most clear - i meant NG doesnt have as many good matchups as Shieldwall, when evaluating them with all of the possible decks, not just the 3-5 top decks.
Because NG is reliant on having a good matchup to do well, while Shieldwall is just strong so it can do really well unless it goes against a specific deck that counters it.

 

[ShinAkira00]

All the NG golds mentioned (Vincent, Brathens, Invo, Userper, etc) are superb, and likely deserved their respective nerfs. However they are mostly control oriented and as a faction NG lacks 13-15 point slams that gives you reach


More importantly IMO: most other factions have multiple value bronzes that plays for 7 for 4, 8 for 5, etc.

NG's most played and usable bronzes:
- Magne, 4 for 4 when played and easy removal or counter with movement
- Tortoise, 7 for 5 with a drawback
- Cossbowman, 5 for 5 when played, random pings also easily countered by likes of armor, totem, etc.

you get the idea... as NG you can't trade bronzes for bronzes evenly.
So on blue coin, you either have to give up last say right away, or trade golds for bronzes.
On red coin, the goal is to abuse e.g. double ball, poison,
but as for the 3 most common matchups on ladder:
ST: packs heatwave
SK: you will have no good round 1 poison targets, either viel or 5 pt body usually
NR: similarly, the amount of cheap bronze engines are able to match or out-value poison

1. Firstly NG has more removal than any other faction, so it's not alone as far as others having things it doesn't have. Removal is far more valuable than boosting

2. NG has cards cards like Venendal that play for the same or more than those you listed. It's conditional as is the case for every other faction with few exceptions.

3. Anyone would trade places to have the removal options they have. As a MO player I know I would. Give them tall play and give us removal options.