CDPR Needs More Highly Ranked Patch Testers

[isnadtochiev]

Other companies hired the top players on the ladder to help balance patches before they were implemented. They need to hire great players/deck builders like Dunkoro, GUMGUMFACEPUNCH, and Swim to break the patches and give feedback before they release them.

You actually do have a point, from a cybersport POV at least. Thing is, there is no sign of CD project being interested in in that. Actually, after the huge investments by Blizzard in making competetive HS a cybersport, outcome falls really short of miserable failure. Making the same mistake with Gwent would be surprising. Even without cybersport ambitions, it would be nice to avoid making cards that shut down entire archtypes, such as vicovarro medic. However, i do strongly suspect Nilfgaard initially will be overpowered on purpose, so that people will actually play and test it. Medics ability however cant be fixed with numbers alone, so it is indeed probably the most questionable Nilf card.

I'm sure you noticed that many of the decks they showcased in the stream were stolen from the players I highlighted in my post

Stealing is an act of taking ones property without his consent. Im sure you know who owns Gwent, and therefore every deck ever created for it. Id advise you to avoid such statements, they make it hard to take you seriously.

Nerfing Aeromancy when dual weather cards will be the way to go next patch, and after weather was significantly weakened with buffs being remembered. Why is the bronze weather card it spawned kept??? Chances are Aero would have been used on the same row anyway.

Another "I cant rely on weather anymore, even thou i have a whole bunch of one weather card in my deck" complaint. Dodging your own 2-rows weather is considerably harder, especially when stuff like neophytes spawn on random rows. Bronze card is kept so Aglais gets at least some value out of Aero. Were not pretending is about anything besides Aglais, right?

Bad Elven Merc fix decreasing synergy across the faction with BMC and cards that benefit from special cards being played.

Well, cards that synergise with specials are Isengrim (he saw basicly no play all even with old mercs) and hawker supports. The latter will still sit in a same deck with mercs, if such deck will be a thing. Sure, you will no longer be able to get +3 on your support, and remove any possible wouding, and escape weather, and thin your deck by one, and play a special card with a BMC on merc. Question is, why would you think that getting that much value of a bronze unit is OK? A relentless merc is a 3 power draw a random special and play it. Priscilla would be a good comparasion, she gives you a choice and can play a unit. At 2 power, shes basicly as weak. For her stronger ability she pays with silver rarity. Sounds pretty fair.

CDPR Needs More Highly Ranked Patch Testers

No they dont. They need a large player base, and monetisation to make a project profitable. Thats why they invited the streamers, youtubers. Guys who attract audience. Well, at least thats objectievely what CD project guys are doing, so we can assume that is what they need, right? And its understandable, investing men-hours into balancing a game that doesnt bring profit sounds like a bad idea. If, or i believe, after Gwent gets its share of CCG market CD project Red might give us a courtesy of shifting the focus on balance. They however arent obliged to do so in any way, and its unreasonable to expect that to be a priority now. Its like expecting a ship captain to send all hands cleaning the deck. Its nice to have a shiny deck, but that leak in machinery might be a bigger problem.

 

[TheWalkingHawking]

While the visible operation of a Vicovaro Medic might seem like they will target and deal with graveyards...it actually is a synergy card for a faction specialized in Spies/Revealling cards. Vicovaro Medics essentially allows Nilfgaard to re-play bronze spies which are placed in your graveyard.

Why not make them so they can only resurrect Disloyal units then?

Now we are at the point where we can discuss an unmentioned advantage to resurrection. Basically...if Nilfgaard can play Skellige...that also means Skellige can play Nilfgaard with resurrection abilities. Unless spies are recalled back to Nilfgaard terriority by some abilities...Skellige necromancers can throw back dead spies to Nilfgaard for spectacular effects. That is the other side of the medallion.

Actually i can't think of a single card that you would want to resurrect instead of your own creatures(perhaps Fake Ciri, eventually), especially considering they benefit from every Disloyal unit on the board and from Revealed cards, which is a pretty common effect on their Disloyal units. On the other hand, NG will probably want to resurrect their own spies over your creatures, but the fact that they're given the possibility of resurrecting yours only to disrupt your plays before they even start happening seems unfair to me. NG has enough tools to deal with your creatures while they're on the board, can't think of a single reason to give them tools to deal with your graveyard too. Monsters can Consume their spies, ST can bounce them back with BMC and Eithné, NR can turn them into gold cards, SK can only deal with them when they're dead already, so SK can't disrupt their plays, why should they be able to disrupt SK ones both in the board and in the graveyard?

The new skellige archetype by a good deck builder will clearly be the savage bear/ axemen/ new queen card deck. With buffs and wounds carrying over through clear skies, this type of deck will be quite powerful. The bad players can run their discard decks it just wont compare to the new inflict damage/self decks.

Queensguard and self-wounding are completely different archetypes, in fact they're opposite. Both will be pretty powerful as separate decks, but adding Queensguard to any Savage Bear/Axemen deck will do more harm than good. They overbuffed Axemen by a lot(another example of taking a decision and overcommitting with it), along with the changes to Tremors, new Shieldmaidens and all the Strength buffs to other units synergizing with this archetype, self-wounding decks are probably going to be at the top this patch, at least when the NG hype fades and we don't see Vicovaro Medics 9 out of 10 games.

However, i do strongly suspect Nilfgaard initially will be overpowered on purpose, so that people will actually play and test it. Medics ability however cant be fixed with numbers alone, so it is indeed probably the most questionable Nilf card.

It's pretty easy to balance actually, as i said above, allowing it to only resurrect Disloyal units, but the point is, the way it was created, as IAxiiYourMother said, makes no sense at all in NG faction and only speaks about their lack of knowledge about balancing.

A relentless merc is a 3 power draw a random special and play it.

It is actually a 4 Strength now, making the new Officers even stronger as long as you don't play Vanguards.

 

[SirloseAlot]

synergizing

Queensguard and self-wounding are completely different archetypes, in fact they're opposite. Both will be pretty powerful as separate decks, but adding Queensguard to any Savage Bear/Axemen deck will do more harm than good. They overbuffed Axemen by a lot(another example of taking a decision and overcommitting with it), along with the changes to Tremors, new Shieldmaidens and all the Strength buffs to other units synergizing with this archetype, self-wounding decks are probably going to be at the top this patch, at least when the NG hype fades and we don't see Vicovaro Medics 9 out of 10 games.

i misspoke the new card is called clan drummond shieldmaiden. But yes this deck is gonna be super powerful, Im not sure vicovaro medics can even disrupt it that much...

 

[KasumiGoto]

I really don't wanna see 3x Axemen into Yennefer or Tremors..

 

[devivre]

I really don't wanna see 3x Axemen into Yennefer or Tremors..

Yeah, I saw a similar combo with two Axemen during the Nilfgaard-Stream of King Black Tooth today (against Monsters) and the numbers he reached with that move were insane.

Gotta say I hope they slightly nerf Axemen before Monday because it doesn't seem healthy right now. I think it shouldn't get triggered by weakening the opponents units.

 

[TheWalkingHawking]

Im not sure vicovaro medics can even disrupt it that much...

As long as you're not really unlucky with your starting hand and discards, they shouldn't be too much of a problem for this one, since you don't need to play your Axemen until late game and if they're killed you should have the tools to bring them back to the board immediately. I can see them getting rid of Berserkers tho.

I really don't wanna see 3x Axemen into Yennefer or Tremors..

I've done that quite a few times this patch and it's insane, i can't even imagine now that they get buffed from the opposite row too.

Gotta say I hope they slightly nerf Axemen before Monday because it doesn't seem healthy right now. I think it shouldn't get triggered by weakening the opponents units.

Yeah, having played that deck a lot this patch i agree that it's completely unnecessary.

 

[Ugralitan]

Actually i can't think of a single card that you would want to resurrect instead of your own creatures(perhaps Fake Ciri, eventually), especially considering they benefit from every Disloyal unit on the board and from Revealed cards, which is a pretty common effect on their Disloyal units. On the other hand, NG will probably want to resurrect their own spies over your creatures, but the fact that they're given the possibility of resurrecting yours only to disrupt your plays before they even start happening seems unfair to me. NG has enough tools to deal with your creatures while they're on the board, can't think of a single reason to give them tools to deal with your graveyard too. Monsters can Consume their spies, ST can bounce them back with BMC and Eithné, NR can turn them into gold cards, SK can only deal with them when they're dead already, so SK can't disrupt their plays, why should they be able to disrupt SK ones both in the board and in the graveyard?

Well aren't we saying that Vicovaro Medic being able to summon from enemy graveyard allow Nilfgaard to use some of the bronze cards your faction utilizes? In resurrection case, you can utilize any spy within your graveyard. When you do so, you are perhaps breaking their certain combos. Along Fake Ciri bronze spies such as Emissary and Ambassador can help in certain situations. You can replay Cantarella to control your deck or play Joachim de Wett to bring out a beefed up non-gold unit. Remember that Vicovaro Medics can only resurrect bronze cards and that is not a small restriction. It cannot revive Permadeath, it cannot revive silver spies...it will stick to bronze non-permadeath strictly. Meanwhile if you manage to bag their silver spies into your graveyard, as a resurrector you have a wider arsenal at your command.

Some SK self-mutilation tactics can deal with spies by killing them...and then use those spies. Savage Bears will bite their legs off. Tuirseach Axemen will flay spies alive and armor themselves with their skins. Blood of spies will be used in potions of Gremist. Holger Blackhand will use their bones to decorate his new ship. And Modron Freya will beckon dead to spy for you.

I believe current distaste of Vicovaro Medics will die down fast when people adapt their decks to such situations. We should not expect old approaches to work anymore. You can no longer rely on necromancer armies of Skellige and Northern Realms...and that is a GOOD thing. Fear of your graveyard being raided should be always something one should experience.