Current state of Gwent Meta/Season of the Draconid/Some empirical data

[Breli]

Hi,

Every season we read complaints about the meta. However, this season seems to be specifically bad. We frequently read statements like “75% of my games are against Dijkstra and Foltest” or similar. Unfortunately, we don’t have real evidence or insights in the actual meta. At least I am not aware about any data source that allows to analyse this properly. Thus, I’d like to share some insights I have gathered during the last weeks. This is somewhat related to my post here.

Some remarks beforehand:

• Data gathered by me, total sample size 129 games
• Ranked only, I also have data about seasonal, but this is not so relevant
• Data gathered during the climb from rank 5 iirc to 1 during the last two weeks. My assumption is that these ranks are particularly “bad” due to linear progression and “ambitious playstyle” which requires competitive decks
• Of course, this analysis has limits and the sample size is not good enough to really derive meaningful conclusions since there might be factors we are not aware of (e.g. in matchmaking, “newness factor” of Dijkstra, faction challenge etc.). This is only an indication to the current state of the meta.
• While Dijkstra was very dominant earlier in the season there is a strong shift towards Foltest and Ardal right now. I haven’t seen any Dijkstra in rank 1 lately.
• Most played factions are NR, SY and NG.
• SK and MO are rarely played. ST is in between.
• Dijkstra, Foltest and Ardal account for about 42 % of the games played
• 12 out of 36 leaders are not played at all

My personal takeaway: While there is a natural tendency of players to flock to the strongest decks (Dijkstra, Ardal and Foltest) I was actually surprised how diverse the meta in the grinding rank still is. Moreover, my personal winrate against the strong metadecks is usually positive since I know exactly what they play and how I need to play against them. The creative, unique decks are usually harder to beat! SK is mysterious. They still have very strong decks so there is no reason why nobody plays SK.

Here you go:

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

First - you have my eternal respect for gathering so much data from your personal experience.
Now my comments on your takeaways:
"The creative, unique decks are usually harder to beat! SK is mysterious. They still have very strong decks so there is no reason why nobody plays SK. "
- In total you played 1 game vs SK and 5 games vs MO. Your conclusion that these factions still have strong decks contradicts the fact that nobody plays them in the top ranked divisions (5 and below). If they had strong decks, don't you think you'd meet them there?
- The 75% Dj in SY clearly shows the leader is broken and needs a rework.
- NR is kind of split between 3 leaders, which I guess is good, but that shows the issue with them is not leader related but card related. They are just stronger overall compared to the rest.
"Dijkstra, Foltest and Ardal account for about 42 % of the games played"
- What personally bothers me is the lack of deck creativity you face in those ranks. Dj+foltest+Ardal may be only 42%, but then add:
Usurper which is almost a copy paste of the Ardal decks with very little gameplay difference for you as their opponent (both times you face remove-remove-remove), and you get to the number of 54%.
Meve which requires zero brain to play - just pointslam engine after engine that autogenerates points and the number goes to 62%
Calanthe which kind of feels very similar to Meve with slight difference in the choice of engines and the number goes to 70%.
So in 70% of the games, you know almost exactly what you face at the start of game when you see your opponent's face. Does this help you to win? Most often no, because these decks are on top of the meta with a large margin compared to the MO/SK/ST effectiveness. When you see them you know what they are, and you still know you most probably are gonna lose(if you are using one of the 'creative' decks) because the game is against you number wise from the start. What also bothers me here is that all those decks (Dj/Meve/Foltest/Ardal/Usurper) pretty much don't care what they are facing, their strategy works the same way vs most decks, given your deck is not specifically tailored to counter them.
"I was actually surprised how diverse the meta in the grinding rank still is "
- I wouldn't call these numbers diverse. From 129 games you have faced mostly:
1 type of deck in ST - the francesca 'novigradian justice/scorch/ wonder
2 types of NR decks - foltest/ the others
Mostly 1 type of NG deck split between 2 leaders - the heavy removal deck
Only 1 game vs SK which makes them irrelevant. (I'll also ignore the MO here for the same reason)
1 type of SY deck - the Dj deck with all of its slight variations.
Is this really diverse?

 

[Imm0rtaleflame]

Maybe they played different Calanthe... 2x Portal n such

 

[Breli]

I don’t disagree with you. Actually I didn‘t want to draw conclusions or argue one way or the other. I wanted to let the data speak for itself so that we can have a more informed discussion

Just one comment:

SK is mysterious. They still have very strong decks so there is no reason why nobody plays SK. "
- In total you played 1 game vs SK and 5 games vs MO. Your conclusion that these factions still have strong decks contradicts the fact that nobody plays them in the top ranked divisions (5 and below). If they had strong decks, don't you think you'd meet them there?

My assumption was that they are still strong. They didn’t get nerfed and were clearly #1 last season. I was really surprised that they are almost not played.

But again: this is only a limited insight in my personal meta experience!

 

[SkiZophreniC]

Well done, it is quite tedious to gather such data, even more when you know that CDPR have access to all statistics with simple queries

I may add my remarks about pro rank, where balance problems shine. When you climb the ladder, the variety of decks decreases dramatically. Above 2450 mmr, you will encounter Foltest/Dijkstra 75% of the time, along with Ardal and other NR leaders. Between 2350-2450, this is a mix between sub-optimal decks, unfavoured factions (desperated MO & notstalgic SK players) along with bad Foltest players. And when you drop below 2350, you will encounter all types of "i already got my peak mmr so let me play my crazy decks now". Like, really crazy. Yesterday I ran into a NG guy playing Shupe 5 times using every trick in the game (he lost).

With this in mind, CDPR could easily monitor the unbalance by weigthing the winrate of each leader with the MMR score corresponding to each match. Indeed, a Foltest deck at 60% winrate is much, much stronger than a Brouver at 50%, because Foltest usually plays against another Foltest (or the other broken bald DJ).

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

My assumption was that they are still strong. They didn’t get nerfed and were clearly #1 last season. I was really surprised that they are almost not played.

I expect the same thing to happen next season - CDPR will uberbuff MO or NG, one of them will become the 'new NR' in the meta and everything will repeat. Unfortunatelly this is what happens when you try to balance something piece by piece. Some people will argue that it's impossible to balance everything at the same time, but that's not true. It's all a matter of scale, if you can balance 1 faction at a time, then it should be a matter of budget and people to balance them all at once.
My pesimistic guess is that we'll keep getting seasons with skewed meta to the end of time with this strategy.
In general this is not the end of the world, but in a game such as Gwent, where a lot of your gameplay options are limited by how much scraps/ore you can grind and the short seasons (1 month) it's not ideal.

I think we have 3 main groups of players
1) The 'old' players, nolifers and streamers - they have all the resources they need to always stay in the meta and respond by playing the most skewed deck every month. Additionally, they care a lot about 'fame' and ranking, so their logical choice will always be those 1-2 meta skewed decks
2) The 'single faction lovers' and the people with limited time (and resources)
They can afford to gear 1 faction max with any cards they want, so they keep playing this one faction only. If they are on top of the meta, they are lucky for a season but then they remain out of the top ranks for a few more seasons till the meta hits their favourite(and only) faction again.
3) The newcomers.
TBH if you are a newcommer and not a netdecker, I don't see how you can hit ranks 1-5 during your first month at all. It's an impossible task, so those people are never relevant to the most interesing part of gwent.
Overall you will have mostly 1) and very few 2)s (the lucky ones) in the top ranks every single season if they keep revewing the factions 1 by 1. This kind of kills the fun of the game a bit for me as the surprise factor is missing. Also if you are a normal person that plays a game for a couple of months and then leaves for something else, you will never leave with a very positive opinion of gwent, because you haven't seen all of it for the time you had or you were sickened by the state of the balance, thus the low popularity of gwent overall IMO.

 

[DRK3]

I expect the same thing to happen next season - CDPR will uberbuff MO or NG, one of them will become the 'new NR' in the meta and everything will repeat. Unfortunatelly this is what happens when you try to balance something piece by piece. Some people will argue that it's impossible to balance everything at the same time, but that's not true. It's all a matter of scale, if you can balance 1 faction at a time, then it should be a matter of budget and people to balance them all at once.
My pesimistic guess is that we'll keep getting seasons with skewed meta to the end of time with this strategy.
In general this is not the end of the world, but in a game such as Gwent, where a lot of your gameplay options are limited by how much scraps/ore you can grind and the short seasons (1 month) it's not ideal.

I think we have 3 main groups of players
1) The 'old' players, nolifers and streamers - they have all the resources they need to always stay in the meta and respond by playing the most skewed deck every month. Additionally, they care a lot about 'fame' and ranking, so their logical choice will always be those 1-2 meta skewed decks
2) The 'single faction lovers' and the people with limited time (and resources)
They can afford to gear 1 faction max with any cards they want, so they keep playing this one faction only. If they are on top of the meta, they are lucky for a season but then they remain out of the top ranks for a few more seasons till the meta hits their favourite(and only) faction again.
3) The newcomers.
TBH if you are a newcommer and not a netdecker, I don't see how you can hit ranks 1-5 during your first month at all. It's an impossible task, so those people are never relevant to the most interesing part of gwent.
Overall you will have mostly 1) and very few 2)s (the lucky ones) in the top ranks every single season if they keep revewing the factions 1 by 1. This kind of kills the fun of the game a bit for me as the surprise factor is missing. Also if you are a normal person that plays a game for a couple of months and then leaves for something else, you will never leave with a very positive opinion of gwent, because you haven't seen all of it for the time you had or you were sickened by the state of the balance, thus the low popularity of gwent overall IMO.

I have to disagree with your classification of types of players. It makes it seem there are only the players who have unlimited access to cards and use them to create metadecks, and those who dont and wish they had so they could always also use metadecks.

Im one of your 'old players', who has full collection and enough to create a 2nd full collection if i needed, and yet i refuse to use anything that is top tier. And im not alone, even if we're a minority, from time to time i face decks that are original, or at least use leaders and archetypes that are rarely used in current meta.

Also, i've imposed an additional handicap on myself - now i only use leaders which i dont have the mastery (100 wins) contract, so i no longer use my favourite leaders and factions, for the sake of variety and completionism.

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

I have to disagree with your classification of types of players. It makes it seem there are only the players who have unlimited access to cards and use them to create metadecks, and those who dont and wish they had so they could always also use metadecks.

Im one of your 'old players', who has full collection and enough to create a 2nd full collection if i needed, and yet i refuse to use anything that is top tier. And im not alone, even if we're a minority, from time to time i face decks that are original, or at least use leaders and archetypes that are rarely used in current meta.

Also, i've imposed an additional handicap on myself - now i only use leaders which i dont have the mastery (100 wins) contract, so i no longer use my favourite leaders and factions, for the sake of variety and completionism.

Alright, I get your point, but as you say yourself, you are in the minority. After all there is only 1 win condition in this game - get more points, and people usually get most fun from winning, even if it's not with what they consider 'the coolest card', thus my point of most people going or wanting to go for the metadecks - you reap a lot more rewards and get the 'win-fun' feeling.
I've also considered going for those weird contracts that normally you would not get, but this is mostly as you say 'handicap' and as I'd say 'masohism' while it should not be so in a well balanced game.

 

[Alrun24]

I have to disagree with your classification of types of players. It makes it seem there are only the players who have unlimited access to cards and use them to create metadecks, and those who dont and wish they had so they could always also use metadecks.

Im one of your 'old players', who has full collection and enough to create a 2nd full collection if i needed, and yet i refuse to use anything that is top tier. And im not alone, even if we're a minority, from time to time i face decks that are original, or at least use leaders and archetypes that are rarely used in current meta.

Also, i've imposed an additional handicap on myself - now i only use leaders which i dont have the mastery (100 wins) contract, so i no longer use my favourite leaders and factions, for the sake of variety and completionism.

I'm very grateful for this typ of players. I am a new player and I also stubbornly refuse to play top tier decks. I will never hit higher ranks this way, but I don't care. Sometimes it is frustrating though, than I pass immediately when I face the almighty decks or I use Eithne Armaggedon to watch a board full of Foltest commandos burn. Of course I hope that there will be more diversity after the next big update, maybe I will even try Foltest or DJ than

 

[Duhad]

I have to disagree with your classification of types of players. It makes it seem there are only the players who have unlimited access to cards and use them to create metadecks, and those who dont and wish they had so they could always also use metadecks.

Im one of your 'old players', who has full collection and enough to create a 2nd full collection if i needed, and yet i refuse to use anything that is top tier. And im not alone, even if we're a minority, from time to time i face decks that are original, or at least use leaders and archetypes that are rarely used in current meta.

Also, i've imposed an additional handicap on myself - now i only use leaders which i dont have the mastery (100 wins) contract, so i no longer use my favourite leaders and factions, for the sake of variety and completionism.

Same, been playing since early open beta, have all the cards and tons of scraps, yet I tend to play mostly what I like. ST not strong in the meta? Who cares, I love hand buff dwarves so I am going to play them anyway!

And ALLOT of streamers are the same way, they tend not to just play to the meta since that would get boring for their fans, so they tend to mix it up with unique variations and ideas.

While its true their are allot of people just net decking to win, I think its unfair to say only a tiny, dismiss able number of players are only tryharding 100% of the time when they have the scraps to do so.

Beyond that I think the idea that CDPR is just going to hyper buff one faction after another every season is foolish as they very obviously are trying to get all the factions up to a certain level right now. While that has currently left NR and SY as the clear front runners that is only because SY is the new goal post for where all the factions should be (at least as far as the devs are concerned) and NR got first picked for a rework since before this season they where hands down the worst faction in the game. I imagine the plan will be to try and get all the other factions to their level, then go back to making smaller, more granular balance changes to get them a bit more balanced rather then finishing with the last of the big faction reworks and going, "Oh wait NR is now too weak again... BETTER REWORK IT AGAIN!"

While I sympathize with the frustrating nature of this last season, I have been REALLY unhappy with it as well, its a bit unfair to assume that this sort of grand scale rework of a faction will be the new norm for the games balancing going forward past the reworks for SK, ST, MO and NG. Their WILL be some major reworkings happening over the next couple of months as the remaining 4 factions are brought in line and after that their will likely need to be further rebalancing to fix issues caused by the reworks, like Foltest being so much stronger then the other NR leaders and DJ crushing the rest of SY, but I can't imagine those changes will be nearly so large scale.

So for the time being, ya... Next month 1 or 2 of the remaining 4 factions will get reworked and boosted up and will likely become very popular for awhile, but this period of wildly powerful buffing will pass soon enough... Likely in time for the next challenger which is coming soon. So...

DON'T PANIC

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

I imagine the plan will be to try and get all the other factions to their level, then go back to making smaller, more granular balance changes to get them a bit more balanced rather then finishing with the last of the big faction reworks and going, "Oh wait NR is now too weak again... BETTER REWORK IT AGAIN!"

My friend...I admire your optimism, but the past few years have shown exactly the opposite.

 

[Duhad]

My friend...I admire your optimism, but the past few years have shown exactly the opposite.

I admit, their have been some stumbles, but I think over all, the team has shown they can learn and grow... They just often overshoot and then have to scramble to correct things. I honestly think if they finish all the reworks and then pump the brakes and focus on smaller changes they can level things out and I think they have since Homecoming started to realize how bad over correcting can be. I am hoping that the SY and NR over tunes are the result of feeling like they had to get the new faction playable and then making the worst faction in the game up to snuff and that when they look at the rest of them they will not make the same mistake again.

I know the community loves to shout, "Game dead!" Whenever a new problem comes up, but you have to admit, they have managed to get things back on track after every major screw up eventually... Even if a month or two later a new major problem arises.

 

[MysticJoey]

Main problems with the game right now:
- addition of way too strong cards, they were working on getting bronzes better and a bit closer in value to golds, meanwhile adding Keira (should be more expensive, 12p sounds fine), Bloody Baron (should have 5str body), Roche: Merciless (should not have order at all, make NR work for that deathblow), Falibor (12p)

- bounty should be nerfed BY HALF, in it's current state it makes all tall decks unplayable, witch hunter and slander are ridiculous 4p cards, yes you will have to change Menge again but who cares. OR make those cards more expensive, 6p maybe even 7p, then actually running some purify or card transforming abilities makes sense, right now most purify cards are 4 str for 5p, so you are instantly losing 1p on top of having useless cards in many situations

- portal should be more expensive, 14p maybe 15p, 4 drops got stronger, thinning got cheaper so you won't brick it as often, also this is probably the most rng dependent card right now, just because it's so much better in round 1

- summoning circle should be more expensive, 10p, same reason - cheap cards got stronger

- tourney joust should go back to it's previous state of damaging/buffing by 3

- OP leaders: Foltest should go back to buffing by 1, and probably lose some provisions
Dijkstra should be starting with 0-2 coins (not sure), he should never be able to give you more than 8 points, we already know that being able to use singular points whenever you need them is very strong/flexible
Calanthes current ability is ridiculous, i don't have a solid fix in mind atm

What else guys? Keeping fingers crossed for some good changes next patch

 

[borut0207]

I see players have really short memories. Only a month ago there was a talk of bringing other factions on the SY and SKELLIGE level, which were top tier previous season. And the first faction chosen for rework was NR. They were successful in bringing it to top tier with OP cards and Foltest, but in the process lost SK, which is now simply not competitive.

To me, the development of the game seems to be a series of hits and misses which tend to cancel each other out. That's why I'm pessimistic about the future of this game.

 

[BoYoDes]

... the first faction chosen for rework was NR. They were successful in bringing it to top tier with OP cards and Foltest...

NR was predestined to be an absolute HELL to balance with its core mechanics (Order, Order - Ping-Ping-Ping). Add to that the crazy buffs some cards like Keira, Roche and even Baron saw, and it is off the rails in a blink of an eye (for the life of me, I can't understand why Draug is at 7 STR too, but I guess it is now considered as a given).