Any decks that make you feel frustrated?

[TheMrEstrada]

I've been stuck in rank 4 for a while and had a run against a few of the so called meta decks lately. So I wanted to ask if there are other decks that make you feel frustrated to the point that you think that winning is impossible?

Mi top three are:
- Lined Pokets on Cleaver + Tunnel Drill strategy
- Any Skellige using Covenant of Steel + Sukrus + Arnaghad
- Most Enslave decks, with a good placed Invocation + Damien de la Tour

To clarify, I don't intend to open a discussion on how to win against these, or unbalanced mechanichs that will never be completely fixed, nor try hards using only popular decks or any other thing related to typical complains on the game or community. There are enough posts about that with all sorts of views on the matter.

I only want to share the feeling, so, any other examples come to mind? which for NR and ST? any that are not that popular right now?

 

[Madlax1992]

ST traps would be one of the annoying ones as most decks playing them are no-unit decks, which makes it difficult to interact with. In addition, Eldain was a rather poor choice of a leader card. One of the busted cards from the new expansion.

As for NR... that would be Shieldwall Witcher with Roegner as finisher. Roegner has a very big ceiling and plays for an insane amount of points, especially since it became much easier now for NR to put up shields on units, with Griffin Witcher Adept and Geralt: Quen. Shieldwall provides another 3 shields and it is not rare to see such decks running additional units that synergize with shields, such as Donimir or Cintrian Artificer. I have even run against a guy playing Lady of the Lake even in one such deck. Another complaint is the Griffin Witcher interaction with Crystal Skull or any unit that provides Veil. On Adrenaline 3, it is stupid for a 5p card to play for 3 points passively each round.

I haven't run against a lot of SK decks playing Sukrus/Arnaghad combo though. Mostly run into those Lippy decks and the standard SK Eist Warrior decks. Enslave as well. Not that often ran into it. LP SY is great, but its downfall is that it is far too reliant on Cleaver and Tunnel Drill for point slam and removal. This is why I love Arachas Swarm more, because it is far more varied and provides you with more alternatives for point slam. You've got Arachas Behemoth, Chimera, Bone Talismans, Triss: Telekinesis and Yennefer. Not to mention removal, Parasite, Heatwave, Curse of Corruption, Predatory Dive (especially great against LP SY which most of the time opens with a tall Safecracker - also denies them the NJ early value), some decks run Natural Selection or Adda for lower removal, etc.

 

[Tucoffin]

Those listed are very good decks, but I suppose I don't get frustrated when losing to any of these per se, it's just the repetitiveness of it all. The strategy for each and every one of the aforementioned decks is well-established, and you know what's gonna happen in acts One, Two and Three. So you can try to just get a half-crown to account for your time and do your best to iron out any mistakes you may have committed.

On a side note, that's why I try to linger in ranks 6-7, in this range people still try stuff new from time to time, making each playing session a bit more colorful.

 

[Barracuda88]

Nah. Nothing is unbeatable. That said, I've never met an NG deck I liked playing against, and a finishing Yrden, especially in a swarm-boost deck like arachas, is a personal pet peeve of mine.

 

[Fargothwave]

1) Anything trap+eldain or precision strike-related - and, to a lesser extent, various Madoc decks, but at least Madoc can be teched against . This playstyle where they play uninteractive, but also curb your every attempt at proactivity is probably the most frustrating one in the game.

The main reason for this being the feeling you don't have any control over the game at all, which should never be the case btw.

2) every meta SK deck, for the same reasons. It feels really unfair how they're able to produce a metric ton of points while dealing the damage they're dealing.

3) Revenant NR. Same as above, but somehow even more annoying. I know it probably isn't t1 or anything, but it's one deck I actively hate. There's something infuriating about seeing all those archers and revenants wipe your board without being able to do anything about it (unless you play something really control-heavy)

 

[Pacifixer]

I hate playing against anything that is:
a.) Uninteractive - i don't mean just no-unit decks, but also decks that get all their points on deploy with no set up (Lippy and some MO pure point-slam decks), or decks that heavily relly on unstopable engines (Endrega larva).
b.) Exploiting design flaws - draw dependency (Mill, Clog), coin toss (Lippy and all the other deck running both Roach and Knickers).
c.) Binary - the outcome is predetermined, either by match up or by draws (Clog, Viy, Revenants, Kelly, Arnaghad).
d.) Poorly balanced - these decks are not necessarily poorly designed, they just have too many points (currently Lined Pockets)

 

[Damashiuchi]

Anything SY or ST. I hate both of those factions almost as much as everyone else hates NG(my faction of choice). Particularly traps and unitless ST. So stupid. And if course Lippy ... Actually I'm starting to feel sorry for lippy players... There's just something extremely pathetic about those decks... But nonetheless annoying.

 

[Draconifors]

Not necessarily difficult to beat, but Lippy decks are insanely annoying and frustrating to play against. Hate those.
SK in general is really annoying and frustrating to play against.

 

[Tucoffin]

3) Revenant NR. Same as above, but somehow even more annoying. I know it probably isn't t1 or anything, but it's one deck I actively hate. There's something infuriating about seeing all those archers and revenants wipe your board without being able to do anything about it (unless you play something really control-heavy)

Oh, that's probably my favorite archetype, despite being miles away from Tier 1. It fails fast and frequently against control decks and SK in general, but when it works, it's exhilarating. It's a deck that actually requires heavy planning and knowledge of what your opponent has in store for you, instead of playing the same sequence almost mindlessly. I do understand your frustration and, if it makes you feel any better, quite often I have my bottom handed to me when playing it, so consider yourself vindicated.

 

[quintivarium]

I don’t think there are any decks I find inordinately frustrating to play against — but I’ve certainly stumbled upon a few that are frustrating to play. Basically anything where you frequently have to select cards. The interface is so clunky and laggy that I often either end up with the wrong card or run out of time. That doesn’t even include when I pick a stupid card because the interface doesn’t always indicate what the card being picked is for.

 

[TheMrEstrada]

Those listed are very good decks, but I suppose I don't get frustrated when losing to any of these per se, it's just the repetitiveness of it all.

Yeah I guess I hadn't seen it that way. Most of the mentioned strategies are cool or at least very well though (except for some inherently annoying), the frustration comes when you have to play gainst the same 2-3 decks several times on any run. I played around 15 games today and at least 10 were against the same NG decks.

Opinions change too depending on your favorite faction or even if your results depend on one of those, at least from what you can read generally in the forums.

I hate playing against anything that is:
a.) Uninteractive - i don't mean just no-unit decks, but also decks that get all their points on deploy with no set up (Lippy and some MO pure point-slam decks), or decks that heavily relly on unstopable engines (Endrega larva).
b.) Exploiting design flaws - draw dependency (Mill, Clog), coin toss (Lippy and all the other deck running both Roach and Knickers).
c.) Binary - the outcome is predetermined, either by match up or by draws (Clog, Viy, Revenants, Kelly, Arnaghad).
d.) Poorly balanced - these decks are not necessarily poorly designed, they just have too many points (currently Lined Pockets)

This is it for me too, I love the competitive feeling of the ranked progession mode, but getting close to rank 1 this type of decks get too repetitive, is like, either you play one or you get stuck. I wish they developed a game mode with some sort of progression, good rewards but reducing the incentives to play the current meta, the journey kinda does it but it isn't exactly that. Anyway, I know thats asking for too much

 

[Rajhi]

Tunnel drill is really cheap considering it's power. Usually cards as strong as that cost 11+ provision. Maybe coin fee can also be raised.

 

[ashleyborgdj]

To echo what's been said. Around my level, this season (R12 to R7) SYLP was easily the most frustrating, to the point, I would insta-forfeit.
Tunnel Drill and Phillipa were the main reasons because they can do so much damage to my strategy with no chance of interacting with them first. Am I wrong or does SY contain no order ability cards? At that time earlier during the month, I was playing more synergised decks such as Vamps or SC Move or NG spies/Ball. But I soon realised that SYLP and the Elves/Traps package were just incredibly frustrating and impossible to beat.

Something I've noticed is that the card sequencing is the same virtually every game, as is the cards within the decks, which also makes those match-ups boring.

I've become one of the people mentioned above who's created a (homebrew) lock/poison/tall removal NG deck to counter the crap those decks and the likes of Viy dish out, which has worked as I've progressed from 12 to 7 when I was seriously struggling to get beyond R10 with my normal decks. (I can actually win against SYLP and Elves/Traps, with none of the last 3 leaving GG, which feels very satisfying)

Those aside Mill and Clog are annoying, for how they mess with any strategy I might have for the match up (which is difficult enough in mirror as it is). But I can beat them and do have more positive results against them in general.

 

[Slizzl]

The new ones that are 3x stronger than everything else for some reason.

 

[EduFerraz]

All precision strike decks.

Mill deck when it works.

Almost all no units and madocs deck.

Any deck Wich uses yrden in The final

 

[Spartonix]

Where to start?
Any deck that use only revenge or assimilation skills
Scojatel deck with trap only or made of all dwarves
Deck of vampires alone is unbeatable
Each deck with more offensive magic cards and fewer units it is not possible to interact with such a deck with your own deck
But I probably don't know what I'm talking about because I play North deck and I don't abuse game mechanics to my advantage, I'm just trying to build a sensible and universal deck

 

[Tucoffin]

Where to start?
Any deck that use only revenge or assimilation skills
Scojatel deck with trap only or made of all dwarves
Deck of vampires alone is unbeatable
Each deck with more offensive magic cards and fewer units it is not possible to interact with such a deck with your own deck
But I probably don't know what I'm talking about because I play North deck and I don't abuse game mechanics to my advantage, I'm just trying to build a sensible and universal deck

Yes, Northern Realms is my favorite faction and I like to brew different theme decks. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as universal decks, as whatever you bring together will certainly be unfavored against something out there. For instance, I crafted a sweet Ildiko-Belohun devotion deck that fares very well in general but is murdered by Eldain traps. Just accept that in some games you hold the upper hand, in others your opponent will defeat you most of the time. Don't worry about teching against everything, it's simply unfeasible.

EDIT: What do you know, I just 2-0'd a Viy deck with this deck! I was quite surprised when I pushed a bleed in round 2 in the hopes they didn't have any more tutors (as they used them heavily in round 1). So believe in your deck, someday it'll pay off.

 

[Spartonix]

I just lost to a deck that had only 7 units and the rest was offensive magic of such a boring game I haven't played yet. They should limit how many cards you can have, the rest of the deck was made of magic cards, so roughly the 20 cards he played were monsters with a strength of 6+ and a geralt that destroys a card with a strength of 9. 13 magic cards. Plus a Leader skill that adds strength to the cards. I didn't even wait for his pathetic play to finish. No gg

 

[MikeBiazzo]

Well, there is a limit of 13 units at least on every deck. So, I can assure you he has more than only seven.

 

[Kessman]

Traps and Insects swarm, both abuse lack of counters. Yes, you can tech against AQ, but then you will suck against everything else.
SK. Is just brainless points+control.
Mill and Clog, just delete this clownery from the Game.

I do not frustrate actually, but rather get no joy playing Gwent in those moments. It just feels like a boring and pointless action.