0.8.33 even more control-tilted

[Guest 3973540]

0.8.33 even more control-tilted

My style is more control but I loved to play other deck types from time to time, such as Hawker Support (buffed from special cards), Wardancer (buffed from ambush cards), Skellige resurrection-buffed melee guys or self-wounding-buffed ranged guys etc. A risky strategy, vulnerable to control, but quite often the opp could destroy one such card but struggled against two (especially Scoia'tael who could be placed on different rows).

It seems new cards from patch 0.8.33 have made these strategies much more vulnerable.

First, destruction potential is larger with Geralt:Aard, Corail etc.

Second, now your carefully grown buff may work against you with Becker's Twisted Mirror and Dudu.

In return, the buffing strategies only got Quen which is only good against weather essentially.

Anyone else finds it sad?

 

[Lexandre]

the game has been extremely control-oriented so far indeed, and right now only NR have a strategy that revolves around using units actively that isnt getting easily destroyed by other control strategies

i dont like that but i still enjoy the game and hope that it will soon see reduced effectiveness of control strategies or increased strength of unit-based strategies

 

[4RM3D]

Creating a behemoth unit of 100+ strength is usually out of the question. Now it's more about risk management. I wouldn't call it more control, but rather mitigating potential losses. The general idea is that even up to the very last card, the match is uncertain. This does create a (maybe) unwanted meta wherein people try to use as many card-advantage cards (spies/Decoy/Ocvist) as possible just for the sake of having the last card.

 

[Guest 3973540]

Appreciate the replies. I actually forgot the simplest debuff of all - the D-shackles.
Granted over-buffing 1 single unit should be sub-optimal in any reasonable meta. Yet the simplicity of getting rid of dozens of buff points vs the complexity of getting those buffs in place is still amazing.

 

[devivre]

Yes, I agree "Gwent" feels very control oriented right now. Probably because right now people more or less HAVE to add two or three Mardroemes to their decks to be prepared against Poof Infantry cheese. Therefore the likelihood for that card to pop up is high and a lot of cards have 4 base strength or lower which puts them in danger.

 

[4RM3D]

Probably because right now people more or less HAVE to add two or three Mardroemes to their decks to be prepared against Poof Infantry cheese.

Mardroemes is a solid card overall, not just for or against Poor Infantries, because of the flexibility of the card. I am using it with my Elven Mercenaries, so I can decide on-the-fly whether I want to buff or debuff. Also, you can use Lacerate to counter Poor Infantry.

 

[devivre]

Mardroemes is a solid card overall, not just for or against Poor Infantries, because of the flexibility of the card. I am using it with my Elven Mercenaries, so I can decide on-the-fly whether I want to buff or debuff. Also, you can use Lacerate to counter Poor Infantry.

Well, I never ever said the card sucks. For me it's just a plausible explanation why Gwent has become a bit more control heavy than before.

That lacerate can be useful is not really a secret but usually you can't just rely on that. The last two PFI I had to bomb away with lacerate, mardroeme, yennefer and harald... but that is completely irrelevant right now .

 

[IAxiiYourMother]

Yes, I agree "Gwent" feels very control oriented right now. Probably because right now people more or less HAVE to add two or three Mardroemes to their decks to be prepared against Poof Infantry cheese. Therefore the likelihood for that card to pop up is high and a lot of cards have 4 base strength or lower which puts them in danger.

^This

You have to have these destructive cards or you will get trampled by the PFI kids playing above their level on the ladder due to a ridiculous deck. The only other way to beat them would be Buffing witchers or dwarves, but good luck using these decks versus any other competitive deck. I prefer control meta to buffing meta any day.

 

[Azurewraith1000]

I think Gwent will all ways be control based its just the way the game is by design.

 

[SaunteringLion]

I think Gwent will all ways be control based its just the way the game is by design.

I think that's a key point. With no health point total, and with no resources for playing cards, "aggro" isn't really a possibility in Gwent. Combine that with the fact that pumping out and buffing cards leaves you at a card disadvantage--that unit that required a revive, and a buff, and the card itself to play can be wiped out by a single card (like Scorch) means you're putting yourself at a disadvantage trying to play multiple non-Gold units.

Having the win condition a higher point total, best of three, and no card cost means the game is inevitably going to favour Control archetypes.

 

[Azurewraith1000]

I think that's a key point. With no health point total, and with no resources for playing cards, "aggro" isn't really a possibility in Gwent. Combine that with the fact that pumping out and buffing cards leaves you at a card disadvantage--that unit that required a revive, and a buff, and the card itself to play can be wiped out by a single card (like Scorch) means you're putting yourself at a disadvantage trying to play multiple non-Gold units.

Having the win condition a higher point total, best of three, and no card cost means the game is inevitably going to favour Control archetypes.

Exactly what i was getting at only more eloquently put.

 

[Guest 3973540]

Great observations SaunteringLion.

It also seems the developers have taken the wrong path to address the easy debuffing problem lately. I mean increasing experiments with the base strength, with Maerdroeme (and Keyran) coming to mind. The unintended consequences such as PFI abuse did not hesitate to transpire. More must-have builds and cards (max number of resurrection cards, Caretaker, griffin), more no-go cards (greatly dminished utility of Ocvist and other 4-str long playing cards such as the new Frightener). Nothing too critical yet but I am afraid meddling with the base strength will be very hard to balance.

Any other approaches to make buffing cards more attractive? What I could think of is introducing more asymmetry in buffing spells vs similar debuffing. E.g. Thunderbolt is exactly as powerful as Manticore Venom now (4str), and Swallow is only 1 point stronger than Alzur. A few unit cards that buff a row (Hawker Healer, Skellige's skald) are only as good as Lacerate or even worse. Maerdroeme is 4 points either buff or debuff.

If, however, buffing is made more point-rich (except Maerdroeme - here I the better change is the opposite, to 3str buff), the card advantage SaunteringLion noted above is less prounounced (well, not vs Scorch and Igni). Last-card Swallow at 10 points would be more of a headache for a control opp.

Another idea could be something like that those row-buffing units' ability act after weather, and so cannot be debuffed by it.

And, finally, improve Quen to protect (or 50% protect?) against Scorch and D-bomb.

Of course I am not a dev and cannot foresee all the consequences for balancing the game. Just some preliminary thoughts.

 

[Laveley]

So many wrong things being said here.... so, the problem with meta being too control heavy is the only non-control (somewhat) competitive build (PFI)?!

Also, not true that gwent is control driven by design. Non-control builds can dominate easily, you just have to give them protection against control. Buff-promote tactics before they got nerfed/killed are the best examples. Problem is, the majority of the player base dont like to loose to auto-buff strategies for some reason but are ok with loosing to control and devs are more than welcome to please the masses.

 

[Lexandre]

So many wrong things being said here.... so, the problem with meta being too control heavy is the only non-control (somewhat) competitive build (PFI)?!

Also, not true that gwent is control driven by design. Non-control builds can dominate easily, you just have to give them protection against control. Buff-promote tactics before they got nerfed/killed are the best examples. Problem is, the majority of the player base dont like to loose to auto-buff strategies for some reason but are ok with loosing to control and devs are more than welcome to please the masses.

PFI isnt the only competitive non-control deck, and its rather a cheese/fun deck than actually working deck. But unit-based decks are the underdog regardless even if you can beat control decks with them.

I dont think spamming buffs on Roach or Olgierd and promoting them was a serious tactic, and it certainly couldnt count as playing actual units. Same goes to buffing a unit to the skies then using Adrenaline Rush and promoting it to gold so the opponent had to deal with an unmovable objects for 2 rounds.

Also control decks had tools to deal with such tactics, its actually non-control decks that suffered the most from those buff-promote decks, because for them the whole match was just a luck test if they draw scorch/igni at the beginning or not.

 

[Laveley]

PFI isnt the only competitive non-control deck, and its rather a cheese/fun deck than actually working deck. But unit-based decks are the underdog regardless even if you can beat control decks with them.

I dont think spamming buffs on Roach or Olgierd and promoting them was a serious tactic, and it certainly couldnt count as playing actual units. Same goes to buffing a unit to the skies then using Adrenaline Rush and promoting it to gold so the opponent had to deal with an unmovable objects for 2 rounds.

Also control decks had tools to deal with such tactics, its actually non-control decks that suffered the most from those buff-promote decks, because for them the whole match was just a luck test if they draw scorch/igni at the beginning or not.

Thats why i said "somewhat", i agree PFI isnt really competitive. But saying that the metta is control driven because PFI is non-sense imo. All PFI did for this metta was adding maerdrome to control builds.

Before the patch buff promote tactics were really competitive par to par with control builds, not adrenaline based ones. Adrenaline builds were always trash imo.

 

[kaonashi_de1]

From my point of view the current state of the game gives you only a few opportunities to become a permanent winner. Either you make intensive use of buffing/breeding + locking or you take control of the game with lots of weather effects. Also sometimes a good strategy is to use Skellige, because with this you are able to control which cards to respawn.

This leaves a sour taste to those who want to play a "normal" game where scores are close and you do not have a difference of +100 points between you and your opponent at the end of a round.

So either you accept to lose more matches than you win, and if you win you will do mostly out of luck. Or you obey to these game mechanics and get forced to play a deck and/or tactics that are used by the majority which makes the game boring quickly.

At this point the game could definitely use more variety and a wider range of available and promising tactics for all decks.

 

[xblacklightz]

My style is more control but I loved to play other deck types from time to time, such as Hawker Support (buffed from special cards), Wardancer (buffed from ambush cards), Skellige resurrection-buffed melee guys or self-wounding-buffed ranged guys etc. A risky strategy, vulnerable to control, but quite often the opp could destroy one such card but struggled against two (especially Scoia'tael who could be placed on different rows).

It seems new cards from patch 0.8.33 have made these strategies much more vulnerable.

First, destruction potential is larger with Geralt:Aard, Corail etc.

Second, now your carefully grown buff may work against you with Becker's Twisted Mirror and Dudu.

In return, the buffing strategies only got Quen which is only good against weather essentially.

Anyone else finds it sad?

it's ok if it's control oriented but I don't like it when it gets too grindy with draw a card, and then draw more cards cause as stands skelega and northern realms have way to many card drawing cards and for the most part there is no draw back an no real way to punish them for it. At least with scoiatiel you use a more proactive approach but if you start with 2/5th of your deck and over the course of 3 rounds draw over half your deck there's no real variance. I saw a guy literally have 2 cards left in his 25 card deck with all the draw cards.

 

[Laveley]

it's ok if it's control oriented but I don't like it when it gets too grindy with draw a card, and then draw more cards cause as stands skelega and northern realms have way to many card drawing cards and for the most part there is no draw back an no real way to punish them for it. At least with scoiatiel you use a more proactive approach but if you start with 2/5th of your deck and over the course of 3 rounds draw over half your deck there's no real variance. I saw a guy literally have 2 cards left in his 25 card deck with all the draw cards.

ST is by far the faction with most overdraw, in fact, you have to take care to reach third round still with cards on deck playing as scoia sometimes.

 

[Guest 3973540]

ST is by far the faction with most overdraw, in fact, you have to take care to reach third round still with cards on deck playing as scoia sometimes.

I woudn't say ST is weak in any way in terms of card draw, but then it's not really fair to compare with NR and Skellige. The latter 2 have access to their graveyard, so essentially have their entire 25 cards at hand by round 3. ST's units go into the graveyard for good, and you need gold Aglais to resurrect special cards.

Monsters are definitely weakest in this regard because strategies based on multiple copies of sub-4str unit struggle in the current meta. I hope for more graveyard interacting monster units / techniques in the future, beside Ghoul and Frightener.

 

[kaonashi_de1]

I think Gwent will all ways be control based its just the way the game is by design.

That doesn't mean it has to stay like this.

Also control decks had tools to deal with such tactics, its actually non-control decks that suffered the most from those buff-promote decks because for them the whole match was just a luck test if they draw scorch/igni at the beginning or not.

Agreed. Although it is possible to beat a buff-promote deck it is not really funny to play against it. As it was said before it mostly depends on if you are lucky with your initial cards or not. It seems not really a strategy to me.

From my point of view all of the buffing could be really more tactical if you are either only able to use it once or twice on a unit or to increase the vulnerability to counter attacks when using it. Like the toxicity display in W3 - if you drink to much potions, you die or lose health because you're too intoxicated.