A simple fix to toxic decks plagueing casual mode

[Six-Sided-Prism]

I am using a pirate SK deck that is doing very well ( in casual at least ) and a Trap deck/ elf control hybrid that works too, even seen a variant of it with Aglais ahah. The rest is pretty tricky, but you could play organic trolling the opponent by filling is lane with rats or swarming.

My point wasn't that you can't play or even win with bad/undersupported archetypes (I use a Trap deck myself), but if you face any top-tier meta deck directly copied from some team's website, then you are going to lose, most likely even if you play well and the opponent makes a misplay or two (excepting those rare 2-0's against opponents who have never read or encountered Mahakam Horn). Also, I don't consider Organics to be bad; I listed it in my examples of a few of the many mediocre archetypes that actually have a shot against meta decks. And keep in mind that this observation about bad archetypes losing to meta decks is only true of decks that actually incorporate some of the support cards; adding a couple of Crushing Traps to an Elf or Movement deck doesn't make it a Trap deck in the same way that adding a couple of Geralts to a deck doesn't turn it into a Witcher deck.

Ultimately, the reason I posted any of this in this forum topic is that Casual should be the default game mode for bad and mediocre archetypes as well as completely novel and innovative deck concepts. If you feel the need to copy one of the current meta decks, then at least be a decent person and only play with it in Ranked.

 

[DRK3]

It now seems clear that the problem with lazy people ruining Casual mode was not the insane grind in the Ciri Journey because that's in the past, and almost everyone is still copying top tier meta decks to play in Casual mode.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I just played six games, and four of my opponents were using an entirely unoriginal Tier 1/2 meta deck, literally card for card. It's getting to the point where I feel like immediately forfeiting against them, but then I feel like I'm rewarding them.

I want to play different/unique decks, but I don't want to lose practically every game either. Draft is still a hot mess and I don't care for the current Seasonal mode, so if there is absolutely no difference between Ranked and Casual, I guess I should just quit playing until Way of the Witcher is released, when there will at least be a couple of weeks when deckbuilding is actually relevant. If anyone has an alternative, I'm all ears.

I dont mean to sound rude, but only very naive people or players very new to Gwent would believe that - the amount of netdecking in casual was only because of the grind of Ciri's Journey. It was already like that before, i dont think its getting worse but that's only because i think its already at the worst state it can be.

I cant say this for sure, as i dont have data to back it up, maybe not even CDPR has this data since its very subjective, but i think it the noticeable increases in netdecking and decrease in player skill happened when the game was released on mobile, first on iOS then on Android. Im not saying all mobile players are bad, but on average i dont think they're as good as PC players, perhaps for not being so commited (playing on mobile can be done on a break or a pastime, while on PC you're actively choosing that over other games or hobbies)

Also, you say 4/6 games you're getting matched to metadecks, so 66% of the time... Man, i wish i had those numbers, i play mostly on casual and if im getting 1 out of 5 matches against someone with at least 2/3 cards different from meta reports i consider myself lucky

(EDIT) Also, pirates is NOT a bad archetype, its not even a mediocre archetype, its really good, but its second to SK Warriors so it doesnt see much play. I played SK Pirates (and ships) a few months ago and it was destroying anything other than SK Warriors, and the only thing that was nerfed on that deck was Rage of the Sea, but i think it can still be super strong vs other factions (specially since there's on overlap of SK warriors and pirates)

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

This is part of my match history
MO -> OH Haunt, ST -> Nature Gift Gord control NR -> Blue stripes spam and shieldwall triple duel
As you can see it's all done in casual
All matches against meta decks

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

I dont mean to sound rude, but only very naive people or players very new to Gwent would believe that - the amount of netdecking in casual was only because of the grind of Ciri's Journey.

Well, I only first tried out Casual during Ciri's Journey. I joined with the mobile players after seeing an ad in another app (now I'm mostly PC), but prior to the previous Journey, I was content playing a mixture of Ranked, Seasonal, and occasionally Arena. I guess it was just an assumption that I and apparently quite a few others had that there must be a valid reason as to why so many players were using their Ranked decks in Casual mode.

Also, you say 4/6 games you're getting matched to metadecks, so 66% of the time... Man, i wish i had those numbers, i play mostly on casual and if im getting 1 out of 5 matches against someone with at least 2/3 cards different from meta reports i consider myself lucky

Maybe I am lucky. And just to clarify, I consider a top tier meta deck any one of the dozen or so decks copied from one of those Team Leviathan/Aretuza/etc. websites. So for the most part, I only include Overwhelming Hunger (with or without Wild Hunt) for Monsters, Enslave and Assimilate for Nilfgaard, Firesworn Crime Congregate and Hidden Cache for Syndicate, etc. If, for example, someone builds a different version of Firesworn without all the Crime cards, I no longer consider it a meta deck. I would say at least 20% of the deck would have to be different for me to acknowledge that you actually built the deck yourself.

Also, pirates is NOT a bad archetype, its not even a mediocre archetype, its really good, but its second to SK Warriors so it doesnt see much play. I played SK Pirates (and ships) a few months ago and it was destroying anything other than SK Warriors, and the only thing that was nerfed on that deck was Rage of the Sea, but i think it can still be super strong vs other factions (specially since there's on overlap of SK warriors and pirates)

You and OuterSpaceDoggo are probably correct about this one. I'm willing to admit my mistake. I have a decent amount of experience trying to make Harmony, Traps, and Witchers work, but almost none with either Bandits or Pirates. I just lumped the latter two into my examples of bad archetypes/decks because they have almost no real support cards, but I guess the difference between Bandits and Pirates is that Pirates has some of the individually strongest Bronzes in the game. When your 4- and 5-Provision units all play for 7-8 points, maybe it doesn't matter that you're lacking any sort of unique synergy.

 

[DRK3]

@Six-Sided-Prism I am not a fan of those meta reports and i criticize them often, in fact, i have to 'soften' my comments about them in order to avoid getting my posts deleted.

They are not wrong most of the times - what they say its good, usually is good. However what they dont say is that their work is incomplete. They know the players want something fresh, so they just focus on providing 10-12 different decks each time, however, a lot of decks from previous metas are not featured anymore or the tier lists would get too big and confusing.

The result is - players assuming only those 10-12 decks are competitively viable on that particular meta and become afraid of trying anything new or different, even if its just using a deck that fallen out of favour although it didnt get any nerfs.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

@Six-Sided-Prism I am not a fan of those meta reports and i criticize them often, in fact, i have to 'soften' my comments about them in order to avoid getting my posts deleted.

They are not wrong most of the times - what they say its good, usually is good. However what they dont say is that their work is incomplete. They know the players want something fresh, so they just focus on providing 10-12 different decks each time, however, a lot of decks from previous metas are not featured anymore or the tier lists would get too big and confusing.

The result is - players assuming only those 10-12 decks are competitively viable on that particular meta and become afraid of trying anything new or different, even if its just using a deck that fallen out of favour although it didnt get any nerfs.

I generally agree with you, but it's a good indication of what's considered to be powerful in any given season. It's probably even true that most players who netdeck will have more success with Ranked if they tweak a published deck to fit their own style or tech against other popular decks. About the decks from past seasons still being viable, that may or may not be the case, depending on the deck because, as I've previously mentioned, Harmony seems completely terrible now, and it used to be a Tier 1 deck. Power creep from expansions seems to cause some pretty big changes, some of which aren't even intended, like Veil making MO Vampires practically unplayable when it was clearly designed just to counter Poison.

Regardless, meta reports definitely make it easy to spot who did or did not build their own deck. And honestly, that's half of my complaint with the Ranked decks appearing in Casual. People are clinging to whatever appears the most broken in a mode where winning isn't the ultimate goal, and they didn't even attempt to do any of the real work by trying to construct the deck themselves. Casual, in my mind at least, is for testing out new ideas or trying to use decks which you know will never win consistently enough in Ranked, not for grinding out easy wins with an overpowered deck that someone else built and tested for you. It would be perfectly understandable if some players also used Casual to build up a bit of experience with a new meta deck, but given their prevalence, that does not explain this chronic problem.

 

[quintivarium]

Let’s place the blame where it really lies: bad design philosophy (emphasizing big swings and too much difference between top golds and cheap bronzes), together with poor card design. There is too much tutoring — especially for some archetypes (soldiers, warriors, assimilate) and scenarios (which generally favor a single archetype). There are too many auto include cards — either because they are op (oneromancy) or they are necessary to counter too many other op cards (heatwave). The result is a very small set of viable archetypes, and very little meaningful variability within an archetype. Moreover, the excessive tutoring makes every game against a given archetype play almost the same. Even when players don’t netdeck, if they optimize a deck with a viable archetype, the deck feels like a netdeck.

 

[Rammyp]

Imho i think crowns should not be earned via casual play (as it was before the journeys). That should discourage the "crown farmers" to play meta on casual. Crowns should be given on Ranked, Seasonal (because there are different metas there that will be probably used anyway) and the draft. In that way players that just want to chill on unranked will encounter less meta decks while there will remain more than one way of earning crowns.
Personally i play casual just to complete the journey quests that i won't be able to complete on ranked w/o losing (like 10 bleed/ 10 vampires etc.)

 

[DRK3]

Imho i think crowns should not be earned via casual play (as it was before the journeys). That should discourage the "crown farmers" to play meta on casual. Crowns should be given on Ranked, Seasonal (because there are different metas there that will be probably used anyway) and the draft. In that way players that just want to chill on unranked will encounter less meta decks while there will remain more than one way of earning crowns.
Personally i play casual just to complete the journey quests that i won't be able to complete on ranked w/o losing (like 10 bleed/ 10 vampires etc.)

That would discourage EVERYONE from playing on Casual, not just those that play top tier decks on it.
I play mostly Casual because there is no real difference between it and Ranked rewards-wise, there's the RP at the end of a season which are a joke to a veteran, other than that, the only actual rewards from ranked are limited to the top 200/500 of pro rank, with trinkets but more importantly, a chance to play on tournaments for actual prize money.