Another CCG without a poisonous faction like NG?

[KenLBlack]

Yes, I know NG is "weak" this season. I've played this game for over 2 years, and I'm well aware of both the NG legacy and lore-friendliness. (I've read all the Witcher books, too.) I get it; even a Gwent champion (was it Wangid??) mentioned that it's sometimes "fun to play the bad guy" in one of the tournament interviews regarding factions. For a bit of perspective, I've made it up to rank 3 one season, so I'm not playing at the pro level. And indeed, if NG is "weak" this season, many players have not gotten the message. NG is very prevalent on the normal, non-pro ladder games from my experience this season wallowing around ranks 5-6.

But I have truly reached my tipping point with this game and having a faction like NG that is played solely to ruin other people's day and make playing the game "unfun." It's a shame because the Gwent art is incredibly good, and generally the game seems like it's in a good place now. Except when it comes playing against NG. When I lose to them, I often think it's not due to the other player's skill but rather their luck. I'm aware it's a "high-roll" type of faction and yes, I have played as them. Often.

As the subject line indicates, are there other CCGs out there that have a skill level similar to Gwent but without any entire factions/enemies/sects/whatever-they're-called-in-the-game that is created solely to make playing the game as unfun as possible for the opponent?? Yes, I know about unranked play--and have I tried it many times--but the level of the opponent's skill is wildly unpredictable at unranked. I truly love this game--as I said, I've been playing it for some 2 or 3 years now (I want to say since the April before Homecoming....)--but I guess I've simply finally reached my breaking point with NG.

Mods, I hope a thread asking for non-CDPR games is okay. I've read over the forum rules/regulations again, and it seems this is fine, but if not, I certainly understand. Thanks to CDPR for making a great game.....except for that one little faction!

 

[Draconifors]

Mods, I hope a thread asking for non-CDPR games is okay.

Sure.

 

[Barracuda88]

I've hated NG since beta, and the long break I took since just before HC until early this year was in no small part because of NG. I don't have any CCG suggestions for you, but I do think that a break might be in order. It helped me, personally, to start enjoying the game again. Of course, except for Assimilate, NG has not changed a bit since then, and every archtype they run is still every bit as griefy as ever, but I find myself feeling a lot more zen about it these days. Win or lose, NG is just noise. There to move past and forget about.

And the last couple of seasons, the perceived weakness of the faction is finally making some of these people move to other factions, so the percentage of games where you feel like you're wasting your life SEEMS to be slightly lower

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

There isn't. Every CCG has one faction more or less control oriented.

 

[EduFerraz]

One more who hates NGs.

And see all those players blaming because its too weak by now make me laught.

I know I know, they will say i need to play in pro rank and see no one is playing NG. FIrst of all, in the last seasonals ive got pro rank and usually i wait 1 or 2 weaks to start to play in rank. And in these 2 first weeks i simply just to try to make new decks to see if they are strong enough to play in rank matches and, guess what, in almost all the unranked matches i play against NG, and that destroy all the new decks i am trying to pilot.

Someone could say - you need to win agaisnt every one and thts include NG. I can agreed with part of that. If i am trying to do news decks to play in rank and - like the NGs players like to say - i will not face NG in rank, why in unranked matches i need to play against all those meme [...] NGs decks?

Yes, those decks are kind of meme. The one that try to spend all your cards its meme for me. The Ciri nova hyperthin its also a meme (despite i agreed its real strong) and now we have another new meme deck wich consist in use ciri dash, living armor, ihuarraqax and etc.

[...]

 

[Draconifors]

This is NOT a pure NG hate thread, so unless you're intending to actually contribute to the discussion about other CCGs, don't post.

 

[Philido]

I fear these NG threads will slowly but surely achieve their goal of beating the faction to death. If you look at the "huge buffs" the devs gave NG they also don't want it to be viable anymore. I've never understood what's so bad about this faction and yes, I've played stuff like NR and ST, too. Don't know about other games, but I can't imagine that there are only greedy decks around.

 

[KenLBlack]

Yeah, @Barracuda88 ....I have definitely considered a break, believe me! I think my longest one lasted about a week. But the game does lure me back, which speaks well for the game itself, I suppose. And thanks @OuterSpaceDoggo for the clarification on other CCGs. I kind of had a feeling that would be the case, unfortunately! @Philido, there have indeed been plenty of greedy decks out there in the past. There was consume for awhile (pre-Homecoming, I believe), and every faction has indeed had its popularity at one or another. As I said, it's just a "feel bad" faction to play against

I have indeed gotten to the point that I just do an immediate forfeit against any NG deck, though that definitely doesn't help with ranking up a bit! (Much easier on non-ranked, obviously! ) Thanks to each of you for your insights.

 

[Iuliandrei]

I think every game has cards/archetypes that are really unfun to play against, i think gwent is on the tame side, when compared to obscene things like "look into your opponent's hand a discard one of their cards".

 

[judgecsk]

I think every game has cards/archetypes that are really unfun to play against, i think gwent is on the tame side, when compared to obscene things like "look into your opponent's hand a discard one of their cards".

NG is still really strong...
...these past few days I came across crazy neutral decks that totally wrecked my deck.
Vilgeforge or how his name is in combination with some dragon that calls out units from both of users decks with the leader ability (play a copy from your oponent's hand)
That lets him see what I have and then plan accordingly to break my strategy, it's quite devestating...
Anyways, NG ain't as strong as it used to be but it can still wreck, I do strongly believe this, even without the Ball.

 

[cardgame-respecter]

Yes I have the name of your ccg, it's called mythgard. Similar to magic the gathering, but without the counterspells or discard spells, planeswalkers and the full mill of you 60 card deck, in fact the developers have said that they dont like mill as an archetype. Try it out, they just released an expansion. The only card you might hate in that cardgame that is similar to NG is traitorous murmur in green, but thats about it.

 

[Raja_Rajan]

I was just going to say the same. Mythgard is the only other CCG I have played and I actually loved it. I tried to when I wanted to take a break from Gwent an year ago and played for a month or two more than 200 hours before I quit that game. Why? Because by then it had a disgusting deck called OR (Orange Red) which will absolutely smash you. But I got to know that it was balanced subsequently.

I haven’t tried the new expansion yet but it has very positive reviews.

If you really want to take a break and get a distraction, I would highly recommend Mythgard. But the only reason you want to take a break is due to facing toxic decks, I have to tell you that no game will have only pleasant decks.

Take a break. Try Mythgard for a few weeks and see. Good Luck.

 

[PavelHr]

Card games which don't have poisonous factions/features - Solitaire, I guess collecting Steam card also works. What you want is for you to jam engines 16/16 cards 100% of the time. Thankfully no CCG allows this because it gets boring fast and it's very uninteractive for your opponent. Might I suggest you try Priest in Hearthstone, specifically the Resurrect Priest - 0 thought (check), uninteractive for the opponent (check), every game plays the same (check, check and check). Honestly, simply bait removal early on and save your engines for later and it's an easy win vs NG (alternatively check Rez Priest).

 

[Atalvyr]

I second the suggestion to check out Mythgard. That game has some insanely cool (and very Cyberpunk/Shadowrun) artwork and lore. It is also free and very generous with currency, plus it has an absolute ton of fun gamemodes to switch between to keep things fresh.

 

[KenLBlack]

Hmmm...sounds like Mythgard is worth checking out! In the meantime, I've tried out Wingspan, which is not technically a CCG but I ran across a two-week old YouTube video from Gwent's very own McBeard touting the game. Not everyone's cup of tea, I imagine, but I just so happen to also be a bird-lover!

Thanks to @cardgame-respecter, @rrc, and @Atalvyr for the suggestions/seconds. I do believe I will try that.

Thanks!

 

[StrykerxS77x]

OP I implore you to try legends of runeterra. I played gwent for years and stopped due to design problems that are never going to go away.

For me LoR has virtually none of the frustrations that I had with gwent and it's even more free to play friendly imo.

I didn't care for NG in Gwent either. LoR might have a faction you dont care for but in LoR you can use a combination of two so its not as much of an issue and there is far more diversity.

 

[IvRoz]

Greetings, Mr @KenLBlack

May I suggest you try a deckbuilder?

If so, you should give shards of infinity or ascension a try, Art might not be on par with Gwent's but, in my opinion, none is.
(Shards of Infinity is newer.)

Post automatically merged: Oct 11, 2020

Card games which don't have poisonous factions/features - Solitaire, I guess collecting Steam card also works. What you want is for you to jam engines 16/16 cards 100% of the time. Thankfully no CCG allows this because it gets boring fast and it's very uninteractive for your opponent. Might I suggest you try Priest in Hearthstone, specifically the Resurrect Priest - 0 thought (check), uninteractive for the opponent (check), every game plays the same (check, check and check). Honestly, simply bait removal early on and save your engines for later and it's an easy win vs NG (alternatively check Rez Priest).

Salty!!!!

ROFL!!!!

 

[KenLBlack]

Thank you, @IvRoz....I had no idea what a "deckbuilder"-type of CCG was until I read your reply. (I had to look it up!) Sounds interesting.

By the way, full disclosure: I'm an old guy (aged 60!) who had to retire early due to back pain. Soooo....to take my mind off of my back pain, I play videogames and Gwent is indeed my very first CCG, having picked it up (as many did) after playing Witcher 3. That tactic works, generally, but...well....as I said, playing against NG repeatedly tended to make the ol' pain come back. Thanks again to everyone for their kind (even salty) replies. I'm giving Mythgard a try now (a wee bit confusing!....not used to mana at all, unlike most), and a deckbuilding game like Ascension sounds intriguing.

Also, I'm NOT giving up on Gwent entirely. It's too hard to completely break away from, even when I feel like throwing the computer out the window.

 

[judgecsk]

Salty!!!!

ROFL!!!!

:3 :3 :3

Thank you, @IvRoz....I had no idea what a "deckbuilder"-type of CCG was until I read your reply. (I had to look it up!) Sounds interesting.

By the way, full disclosure: I'm an old guy (aged 60!) who had to retire early due to back pain. Soooo....to take my mind off of my back pain, I play videogames and Gwent is indeed my very first CCG, having picked it up (as many did) after playing Witcher 3. That tactic works, generally, but...well....as I said, playing against NG repeatedly tended to make the ol' pain come back. Thanks again to everyone for their kind (even salty) replies. I'm giving Mythgard a try now (a wee bit confusing!....not used to mana at all, unlike most), and a deckbuilding game like Ascension sounds intriguing.

Also, I'm NOT giving up on Gwent entirely. It's too hard to completely break away from, even when I feel like throwing the computer out the window.

Makes me very glad to see cool, older folks like ya play games man.
I'm 35yo my self and I feel like a grandpah sometimes !

Imo you can rest easy in the fact that if a game can get you riled up like that then you surely are younger on the inside, much much younger tbh !

- Yeah, the Witcher franchise is awesome and the "Gwent game" is pretty hard to quit...such great art..!

I hope your pain subsides a bit and you find something fun to play !

Cheers !

 

[Draco_Aureum]

Ha JudgeCsk - you arent old mate, Until I read KenLBlack's posts I was pretty sure at 50 I was one of if not THE oldest on here.

I have now and always have lived by the motto - "I have to get older, I refuse to grow up"

Not sure where the Judge is from but his moniker couldnt be any more "gamey" if he were here in Ireland - Ken Blacks is one of the bigger toy store chains in the country