Balance Council - Share your picks for December season

[Trevorzan]

Share your picks for this December 2023 season of your picks on the Balance Council.

As in the end of October and middle of November, you can give an explanation or thought process behind your picks.

If you change your mind on your picks, let us know.

I have reached the 50 ranked victories of the season, but for some reason it is not enabled for me. As soon as I can vote, I will share.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

these are my choices. the goal was to improve the "bonded" theme a little, which is highly underplayed.

 

[quintivarium]

these are my choices. the goal was to improve the "bonded" theme a little, which is highly underplayed.

I very much respect these choices. I like that you are focusing on truly unused cards (and overused cards for nerfs) rather than just shuffling meta cards. I have two comments/questions however.

1. Did you intend the change to Knut as nerf or buff? Because of Knut’s berserk condition, it is a bit of both.

2. What is your rationale for the nerf to Quaraxis? I have always found the card awkward with its relict trigger and tag (it is antisynergistic with the cards it needs to be triggered).

 

[Gemueseknolle]

thanks a lot @quintivarium ! your concerns are absolutely right! i made my voting quickly between some real life work-meetings, so not all was well thought. i updated it now. hope it is better:

 

[quintivarium]

I have one more suggestion: I believe a power nerf to Tyr only affects the untransformed version. This would be fine for a card like Torres (or even Dana) that is almost always (or often) used in untransfomed form. But Tyr is almost always played only after being transformed. I think you can find a more impactful nerf.

 

[Bakaaraloca]

these are my choices. the goal was to improve the "bonded" theme a little, which is highly underplayed.View attachment 11377564

dont agree with all the increase, harmonie isint being played much now, i miss it, skellen and sove has already been nerfed, and siege is 13 provisions now, the rest is cool

 

[Raja_Rajan]

My picks for December BC:

Power++
Malena - Have mentioned here last two times too. It is a good card and can be staple in movement decks, but with 6 power, she will start seeing play.
Seasenthesis - 8 for 9P is two years old good card. Immunity is not having the same respect/rarity it used to have. This card should be at least 9 power. It can give a boost to Dragon builds.
Sentinel - 2 damage deathblow is hard to do. Boosting this card will also boost PS and encourage it to be added in non PS decks which wants thinning.


Power--
Sergeant - Already explained it before. This should stay at 9 power max as it has added synergy as bonus.
Idarran - Right when this card was introduced, I hated this design. This is always part of most toxic decks. Ideally I want it to be provision nerfed, but may be it is for later.
Dwimvendra - This card has no business being as 5P card. It should be made 6P. May be for later. For now, it shouldn't play for 4 points. 3 for 6P is the proper stats for this card.

Provision++
Onager - No explanation needed. This card has no business being a 5P card.
Calveit - I think at 11, it would make one 5P tactic to be a 4P tactic. There is no proper fixing for this, but this would make experimental remedy to another 4P card, which is good.
Mutagenerator - At 9P, I wouldn't mind it playing for 20+ points. May be I would, but for now 9P seems like a good trade.

Provision--
Circle of Life - This is a buff for both Handbuff and Symbiosis. At 4P this would become barely playable.
Smuggler - Already explained before. 5 for 5P is the right stat for this card. But first, it should get to 5P. 6P is laughably bad for such a weak card.
Bountiful Harvest - 90% of the times, the elf bronze this card gives is junk pathetic horrible cards, as most elf bronze sucks. This card should be 5P and again, it will help both Handbuff and Symbiosis.

You may agree or disagree, but lets not discuss and argue about other's picks.

 

[Malieux]

My picks for December BC:

View attachment 11377849

Can't wait for even more precision strike maddoc/dragons on ladder. So fun and interactive.
Based on my experience this season with degenerate NR, SK warriors, ST precision/elves and NG soldiers and info gathered on this forum, I'm gonna of course vote to nerf Yenvo and Kolgrim. Not sure about 3rd card yet

 

[Jannay]

This season I see only IZ with bazillions of engines. Demavend, Onager, and co. are strong candidates for nerf.

 

[quintivarium]

Because I can’t get a screen shot to show all selections, I will resort to text. My general focus is on individual cards — not archetypes or decks because I feel there is already excessive focus in the community on decks.

INCREASE PROVISIONS
Operator
Reaver Scout
Raymon Tyrconnel

My rationale is to discourage copying bronze cards that are fine in moderation but become op in excess. This is very binary and destructive to interesting game play.

DECREASE POWER
Gezras of Leyda
Eredin Breacc Glas
Melusine

Although every 12+ provision card needs to go up 3 or more provisions to fix the cost provision curve, I have chosen to first focus on making remove or lose engine cards a little easier to remove.

DECREASE PROVISIONS
Bare-Knuckle Brawler
Wagon
Highwayman

Rationale:
Brawler to reverse an unjustified nerf that destroyed several creative SY deck options.
Wagon is an interesting card with significant strategy. While it doesn’t need a buff to be usable, I don’t think a buff will hurt anything and I want to encourage its use.
Highwayman is a unique card that is quite unusable at 5 provisions. It might still be too weak at four — but it is worth trying.

INCREASE POWER
Artis
Ciri
Mage Infiltrator

Rationale:
Artis is an interesting card. But his impact on deck design is too great for a card easily removed.
Ciri is very strategic, but gives insufficient return unless drawn round one. A slight boost will help.
Infiltrator becomes more interesting when the trade off between damage and returning to one’s own side of the board is more consequential.

 

[Barracuda88]

Power Increase:
-Milva Sharpshooter
-Eudora
-Ciaran

Power Decrease:
-Braathens
-Rosa and Edna
-Artorius Vigo

Provision Increase:
-Thirsty Dame
-Slave Driver
-Highland Warlord

Provision Decrease:
-Munro
-Hawker Smuggler
-Circle of Life

 

[Malieux]

Power +
+ Phillipe
+ Orianna
+ Deacon

Power -
- Vanadain
- Angus
- Sove

Provisions +
+ Mutagenerator
+ Axel
+ Onager

Provisions -
- Emhyr
- Ard Feainn
- Coup

My goal is obviously to buff what I like, and nerf what I don't like. Like everyone else.

 

[quintivarium]

My goal is obviously to buff what I like, and nerf what I don't like. Like everyone else.

No. Many players (I hope it is the vast majority) actually choose buffs and nerfs based upon what they believe will make the game better: more balanced, more strategic, more varied, more fun, etc.

And while this might be subjective; it is not narcissistic as you imply.

 

[Bez_Imena]

Controversial opinion here, instead of nerfing meta decks how about we take care of all the answer or lose gotcha binary bull***t 1st?
Coz i guarantee you, NG and NR keep a whole bunch of stupid decks in check.
I chill outside of pro rank, grinding contracts and have seen maybe 2-3 muta/ng decks this whole season.... but boy have i seen my share of brain-dead "i must win R1, and hope the opponent doesn't draw tall punish or squirrel or lock or he cant add up..." decks. First of all these decks are just terrible and should never have been possible in the game, and second the gameplay they promote is even worse
NG and NR match-ups are insta forfeit for those guys, and any reasonably built deck destroys them. So lets get rid of the binary nonsense 1st and then we can talk about addressing a meta deck, without gutting an entire faction.....again. i assure you gwent will become much more enjoyable

Cheers!

 

[GABRIEL.LEPAK]

1. Bear witcher adept +1 base power and bear witcher -1 provisions are to support portal plays for Skellige witchers. It's beyond my understanding why CDPR set adrenaline for some of Skellige witchers so stupidly. Basically, before adrenaline 4 is activated, bear witcher plays for 5 points for 5 provisions. Compare it with basically every single other 5 provisions unit, it's not even a meme, since memes are supposed to be funny, it's just pathetic. Skellige witchers simply lack any good early match plays and support for portal plays should help a bit to not be forced to either play low tempo bronze cards play gold cards on opponents' bronze ones.

2. Dunn banner +1 base power, Kerack marine +1 base power, Radovid: judgement -1 provisions, Kerack frigate -1 provisions are to support devotion NR uprising, which can fight quite well at 2400 MMR but clearly lacks firepower and good enough swarming capabilities. Notice that -1 provisions for Radovid: judgement also is a nerf to mutagenerator 5+10 deck. It's better than reducing Radovid's power by 1, since this basically reduces points by up to 3 or 4, depending on how much 10 provisions people played with mutagenerator. Kerack frigate is a conditional +2 points per turn. Compare it to Nilfgaard or monsters and it's clearly overpriced so either reduce it's cost by 1 or increase the cost of ALL +2 per turn engines to 6. I want the same rules for all factions.

3. Imposter with masquerade ball is a joke... Dame to 6 provisions seems obvious, hope that Rosa and Edna var Attre also does. I do think that this card should be 5 power and 12 provisions (more or less, I didn't really do any maths here). It's beyond me, why CDPR supported an archetype with 80% win ratio with an 'auto include answer or lose' 9 provisions card, which can easily play for over 25 points.

4. Incubus drives me crazy. People complain about Nauzicaa seargants, which play for 10 points for 6 provisions (conditionally!), I wonder why they don't complain about incubus, which reliably plays for 12 points for 5 provisions.

5. Little bird is too OP - saw today it buffed my opponent's units by 6 points per turn in the long round.

 

[CorvoBiancoBound]

My submission (hopefully it' not lost in the woods):

Power Increase
Nekker (Yes, 2+1, but needs a boost)
King Cobra
Noonwraith

Power Decrease
Crach an Craite
An Craite Longship
Idr

Provisions Increase
Sove
Aerondight
Endless Voyage

Provision Decrease
Professor
Eithne: Young Queen
Ethereal

 

[ShinAkira00]

I'm sure most of these changes won't matter. It's increasingly obvious that voting in a vacuum will have zero impact on the process. Most likely streamers with a huge following are where the bulk of the balance changes will come from. We're going into a new year and we just have to accept that eventually all good things come to an end, so this will likely be my final vote.

Post automatically merged: Dec 30, 2023

Controversial opinion here, instead of nerfing meta decks how about we take care of all the answer or lose gotcha binary bull***t 1st?
Coz i guarantee you, NG and NR keep a whole bunch of stupid decks in check.

And who exactly keeps NG and NR in check? That logic is severely lacking. Most of the answer or lose factions right now include NR and NG. You cannot interact with NG's cards most of the time, all you can do is sit and watch. I played a match recently. On the players 1st turn he placed about 8 cards on the field, managed to tutor his deck down to 11 cards and by his 2nd turn only 8 cards were left in his deck. He already had about a 20 pt lead after 2 turns and there was no way to interact with anything. NR is the same, only they have cards like Siege Master that auto tutors cards from their deck. I can't fathom who thought any of these mechanics were a good idea. And if they aren't doing that NR can just boosts cards in their deck and once they get started, unless you have an immediate answer there is no way to stop them.

Both factions can now effectively remove almost all RNG from their card draw and since every other faction does not have this option, it is very much answer or lose. Your option is to draw perfectly, play a perfect match and just MAYBE you can win.

This much should be clear to everyone at this point. There is no faction that "keeps decks in check". That is a facade that certain players try to sell in order to avoid balancing their faction.

 

[Trevorzan]

like two weeks ago i created a support ticket in gog. I never got a reply, but two days later a new version of the game was rolled out and that fixed my issue of not being able to vote.

This month I have seen so many cards that I believe should be balanced. Also I see many reasonable votes here which I would like to vote the same. Time is ticking and I am not sure how to vote yet.

 

[Trevorzan]

my picks. I accompanied some personal picks with some I saw here and gave them more weight.

 

[Bakaaraloca]

My picks for December BC:

View attachment 11377849

Power++
Malena - Have mentioned here last two times too. It is a good card and can be staple in movement decks, but with 6 power, she will start seeing play.
Seasenthesis - 8 for 9P is two years old good card. Immunity is not having the same respect/rarity it used to have. This card should be at least 9 power. It can give a boost to Dragon builds.
Sentinel - 2 damage deathblow is hard to do. Boosting this card will also boost PS and encourage it to be added in non PS decks which wants thinning.


Power--
Sergeant - Already explained it before. This should stay at 9 power max as it has added synergy as bonus.
Idarran - Right when this card was introduced, I hated this design. This is always part of most toxic decks. Ideally I want it to be provision nerfed, but may be it is for later.
Dwimvendra - This card has no business being as 5P card. It should be made 6P. May be for later. For now, it shouldn't play for 4 points. 3 for 6P is the proper stats for this card.

Provision++
Onager - No explanation needed. This card has no business being a 5P card.
Calveit - I think at 11, it would make one 5P tactic to be a 4P tactic. There is no proper fixing for this, but this would make experimental remedy to another 4P card, which is good.
Mutagenerator - At 9P, I wouldn't mind it playing for 20+ points. May be I would, but for now 9P seems like a good trade.

Provision--
Circle of Life - This is a buff for both Handbuff and Symbiosis. At 4P this would become barely playable.
Smuggler - Already explained before. 5 for 5P is the right stat for this card. But first, it should get to 5P. 6P is laughably bad for such a weak card.
Bountiful Harvest - 90% of the times, the elf bronze this card gives is junk pathetic horrible cards, as most elf bronze sucks. This card should be 5P and again, it will help both Handbuff and Symbiosis.

You may agree or disagree, but lets not discuss and argue about other's picks.

Nauzicaa Sergeant 6 provision to 10 points what's wrong with that really ?
We should increase slave driver provision or division magne instead
Also mutagenator was launched in the game being 6 provision now u want to make cost 9 ?
Mutagenator us useless if u didn't draw it first round and need to build deck focused on it
I never played it bc it's so annoying to play
I just seen some of provisions change today and found that magic compass went 11 provisions, the card used to be 8 when it launched, same here, ok great card bc u can create a 14 prov card but u need an entire deck focused on it,
Now it's just No more worthy to play