DRK3's Thread (Farewell)

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Running behind on my schedule, havent played much Gwent on this weekend, and before that, the 'Patience is a Virtue' seasonal, with its never-ending fun, distracted me from creating new, memorable (standard) decks.

Still plan to post the last 2 decks of the day next week, but instead of Monday + Wednesday, it will probably be more like Wednesday + Friday.

And one shall be Skellige - of course - which is a work in progress, but the other i still dont know at all, so if anyone's got a request or idea to throw at me, now its your last chance (i cant promise i'll do it if its too similar to meta or something ive already covered in the past, otherwise i will try to do it).
I would love to see some "good old" selfwound, before Svalblod came out. Something built around Artis would be cool. Maybe Hym... I really like their abilities.
 
I would love to see some "good old" selfwound, before Svalblod came out. Something built around Artis would be cool. Maybe Hym... I really like their abilities.
Your wishes are my command. The last deck of the day ever shall be SK self-wound... :ohstopit:
Actually, i am jesting. The SK deck i am preparing was already self-wound, or more specifically, heal archetype, long before your post, but im glad you will get what you ask, even if only partially.

It does not have Svalblod, as that would remove the protagonism from the other cards i want to shine on. Also, i did strongly consider Artis but i couldnt fit him. Without defender he's basically a thinning tool that gets insta-removed (hopefully he'll be powerbuffed in the balance council, for the future players), and the current version of the deck is staying away from cards that are severely punished by heatwave.

Still i want to share with you a screenie of a test deck i did and will not cover, that is the opposite - jampacked with heatwave targets, to give you an idea how to use Hym.

Screenshot_20231023_001155_Gwent.jpg

Hym + Olaf is still the best pair, 9+19 and all you need is a ping on Olaf.
Udalryk can now also pair with Hym, to put an enemy unit at 1pt, in this case i just damaged him with Totem and leader charges.
 
I still want to make a few posts before i leave Gwent for good - some opinions and comments, some decks i didnt feature in the deck of the day thread but still think they deserve some mention and perhaps some screenshots (a picture is worth a thousand words, right?)

As always, feel free to comment whether you agree or disagree, or add something to the discussion.

CONSTRUCTS

As you may know, Constructs were revamped on the last card drop. There's only 6 constructs (excluding tokens), so its not really a fleshed-out archetype, but its a package, similar to Dragons.
It was the first DotD i did and shared in that patch, and i immediately loved it. It was also one of my failed predictions - i thought it would become really popular, especially any Lippy constructs version, but after the first few days, i never saw it again.

Personally, i also quickly abandoned it, but for a reason it may seem unusual, even stupid to most tryhard players - it was too good. It was too easy winning (perhaps because he were in that experimentation stage), i never felt at disadvantage (which is a symptom of a tier 1/0 deck), so i moved on to decks that presented a challenge to be improved.
Skip a month and im now rockin a NG constructs deck (which will be featured more in-depth in this thread soon), and although weaker, it still feels incredible to play.

This makes me think the playerbase is sleeping on some great cards, and surprised no pro player has shown how dominating those cards can be, which then would find them into the meta in short time. This collective lethargy - little effort to explore the potential of the 1500+ cardpool, AS IS (of course the balance council will hopefully bring new opportunities) - is not new, but i di think it has gotten worse with time, and its incredibly rare to find any other players doing something different.

TL;DR - give Constructs a shot!

YEAR OF THE UROBOROS (2023)

Powercreep has been constantly pointed out over the years in Gwent. Its undeniable.
However, 2023 was probably the first (and only) year where there was no powercreep. Yes, there were only 60 new cards added, less than other years, but 60 cards can still make a huge impact, but these didnt.

The cards of 2022 dominated the meta this year: for SK Sove, Tyr and Svalblod are all from late '22, for NR temple, mutagenerator and reavers - 2022, so is Torres and cultists and many more. Not to mention 2022 was the year of Golden Nekker and Renfri...

Meanwhile almost all new cards this year were experimented with initially but discarded and never made it into the meta. From the 1st half, there was Drakenborg, which was quickly nerfed and im glad i wasnt around to experience that. And MO Arachas, that made it into some tournaments, but it wasnt popular.
ST got Heist and elves got popular for some time but lost some gas lately, MO got ogroids in the big card drop, which became quite popular but not really meta-defining. I would say only SY got massive additions this year, with Open sesames, Vice cards, and more recently, Novigrad, to be the staples of every single SY metadeck.

I am against powercreep, but its hard to look at this year and see it as a better alternative, it never shakes the feeling of being a sort of failure, unable to freshen up the meta, so the players had to stick with (mostly) the same cards, and those are the same that will keep dominating until the Balance Council is able to implement a massive shake-up.
 
Here's the deck ive been playing for the past few days, that i mentioned in yesterday's post:

NG CONSTRUCTS + SPOTTERS

I think ive nailed it - ranked up from 2 to Pro rank with this in a couple of hours. And ive alredy got over 40 matches with it, so i know its ins-n-outs perfectly by now, which matchups are good or bad.
Im using Imperial Formation, i even got Musicians of Blaviken which apparently makes it look like flanking soldiers and a lot of players insta-forfeit (this was not my intention, i just included it when i noticed all my bronzes were 5p).

I use almost all Constructs - both Daos, both Ifrits, Imperial Golem which is really cheap, but here's my magic touch - instead of expensive and vulnerable Living Armour, my 6th Construct is Letho KS, to copy Colossal Ifrit, which is the main wincon.
There is a risk of Colossal Ifrit getting insta-killed, thats one of the reasons i chose this leader, so i can boost him out of cheap removal. But if its locked or seized, i can still use Letho KS to copy it and do 3x6dmg (to adjacent units).

The deck is NOT just constructs, i am abusing Battle Stations twice (with Assire) before its imminent nerf, but i refuse to use flanking soldiers or nauzicaa sergeants, so instead im using Spotter spam (with NG knights in deck), and soldier locks as backup.
For tall punishment, i got Yen Invo, and my ol' boys: Vanhemar and Peter - so underrated and they trade so well against opponents tall cards.

MATCHUPS AND WEAKNESSES

This deck slaps NG in their f***ing face, i love it, fighting fire with spicy flames...
100% winrate against actual flanking soldiers, defeated most NG status and enslave-6, the only ones who gave me trouble were Assimilate.

Also 100% winrate against ogroids, i even feel bad for them. And also destroys ST heist elves, since i have many ways to kill their 7pt boys.
Against SK warriors/ svalblod its a tough matchup but winnable. The decks ive struggled the most against are big immune units, not Sove but giant Erlands, or even MO Madoc Tatterwing or one Tibor Spam (the bastard had Ceallach! Unlocked 3 practitioners!)

The deck has a really strong R1, been able to win R1 over 80% of the matches. The biggest struggle is avoiding bricks (rock barrages, or NG knights which need to stay in deck for spotters), or since the deck thins so much, at R3 i may not even 2 bronzes for the 2nd battle stations, or no special for arcane tome.

SCREENIES

Screenshot_20231027_233130_Gwent.jpg

I feel bad for this opponent, and every single opponent i faced with 0 control, this was the result everytime.
There were so, so many units on their side, lets just say if had Saessenthessis Blaze in this deck, i would have broken my own record of its value...

Screenshot_20231028_010308_Gwent.jpg

This was an early version of the deck, that had Ramon for an extra Spotter.
I was on a winstreak-high, thinking i got this in the bag, didnt save enough locks and Demavend ended up turning the tides, but more importantly, this opponent played absolutely perfect this R3, no single point wasted, cooldowns all in the right turns, (it was Devotion with Radovid Judgment) and ended up being really close, it was epic.

Screenshot_20231030_004739_Gwent.jpg

This was the match that got me to rank 1. I missed my big wincon - Colossal Ifrit, my 2nd Battle stations had a single bronze target but i still won. Why? Spotters, like Torres, give a lot of information on opponents deck, i knew he had defender and Damien, so i saved Barrage Dao for it (i think he mulligan'ed defender away, not sure why).
The other MVP was the leader ability. I spent the entire R3 playing around Skellen and Coup (his last card), and my Letho KS copied his Damien, while his was simply moved away (Dao cant moved allied units, so even if he copied it was safe).

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(ONE DAY AFTER EDIT)

My intention with this post was that anyone reading it and interested could recreate it if they wished...

What i didnt take into account was how close the first Balance Council changes were.
I knew Battle Stations would surely be nerfed, but it wasnt expecting so many nerfs: 1p from Battle Stations, 1p from Leader, 2p from 2 Slave Drivers, 2pts from Alba lock cavalries.
I am glad i played it so much until i was tired of it, but now its pretty much unusable (the constructs strategy is still viable and can be implemented in other decks though).

I am sorry to anyone that could have been curious to try it but it became immediately obsolete due to my lack of foresight.
 
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DRK3

Forum veteran
Happy Halloween, everyone (a bit for late that, sorry :shrug: )
My plan was to make this last day of October, my last day of Gwent ever, but with all of the turmoil going around its making it harder to let go.
Still, i have officially "retired" 2 factions - NR and NG - and more will reach that state soon (when they reach a nice XX00 wins number).

Today i wanted to make a super-post about Syndicate. Not SY now, but SY as a whole, through time and space.

SYNDICATE

This faction was the last to be introduced, in Summer of 2019. It was publicized as 'the complex faction', only for advanced players. For a long time it didnt even have a starter deck, and there was never a SY AI opponent in training mode.
For a long time i considered it my least favourite faction, but i still played it (got +1000 wins, all Leader masteries). Recently, ive revised my opinion and i would say its probably my 4th favourite faction.

Syndicate, in my opinion, is both a massive success and failure.
Its a success in design: its undoubtedly the most unique faction, with an exclusive mechanic, and therefore it represents faction identity done right.
Its divided into gangs, similar to how ST is divided into races (elves, dryads, dwarves), but goes further and includes cards that synergize with multi-gang use.

On the other side, its a failure: its the least played faction in the game, even when it was pretty much on the top 3 factions in winrate since its inception.
For a simple example, i didnt find a single SY opponent while climbing from rank 3 to Pro this season, and this time it took a lot longer than usual because i insisted on using very awkward decks. Then i hit Pro, my 1st opponent was SY and i was crushed by it.

I believe this failure was partially caused by how it was presented, which scared a lot of players looking for simplicity, and stayed away from the faction for a long time.

SYNDICATE - ONLY PLAYED IF ITS OP
I think this title perfectly summarizes the faction.
A lot of players dont like it, but give in when its clearly the top faction and gives the best chance at winning.
I dont think any other faction has been Tier 0 as often as SY, and even then, its playrate is probably close to NG's, with its everlasting popularity.

It was a notch above all others on release, then there was a down period, then i think it was early 2020 when Cleaver was added and Tunnel Drill became the most problematic and dominant card of the year. 2020 was SY's year.
In 2021 and 2022 it went down in popularity i think, even though it was still really good, and in 2023... we all know how scary is VIce, seen by the changes implemented today, nerfing those key cards into the ground.

SYNDICATE - JUST GO MIDRANGE
This is probably the actual reason why SY was a failure.
Even though it had so many gangs and styles, there was usually only 1 or 2 that were competitive at any given time, but worse than that, the SY metadeck was usually an hybrid containing the best cards of each gang without any synergy, just midrange instant value and keeping it simple and strong.

If you look at the SY decks used this year on the tournaments you will see this is true, they're all the same, and when new cards that are OP were added, they replace some old ones but the deck remains mostly the same.
I said this year, but probably on every single year before this was also true, but i just cant remember it in order to guarantee it.

This removes all of the 'zing' SY could offer, and its mostly likely what drove players away from it. Why bother trying to keep it synergistic and stick to an archetype if the metadeck of the faction is always more competitive?
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Today i wanted to tallk about two of my decks, both Skellige:

- The first is a deck i built around a week ago, when i was trying to figure out which SK deck i would feature in the last Deck of the Day. It was really original, but not super strong, so i ended up discarding it, but i think it still deserves a mention.
And i apologize for not having any screenshots of it, but hopefully i can describe it well...

It was a Tyr deck... But not Tyr warriors, it was actually Tyr pirates.
You see, Tyr is actually a really interesting card, but unfortunately its only used for warriors pointslam.
What i did was focus on the two bronze units which are both pirate and warriors: An Craite Raiders and Tuirseach Invader. I used Bran to increase these units base power, and Draig Bon Dhu to buff them further. But then, rather than revive them with Freya's blessing, i used Dimun Warship, one of my favourite underdog cards, the ONLY bronze deathwish outside of MO.
This card used to revive a random bronze pirate, but now revives the highest power one, so its very reliable, and i used svalblod totem in case i needed to kill it faster. I protected Tyr behind a defender, and then it was revives everywhere, it was really fun, but disruptable if pushed R2, as the deck had very few other plays.

- The second is the deck i built after Balance Council, and the one im using on Pro. Its one of my favourite classics: Crow Messenger spam. Going further with carryover with the buffs to Crowmother and Phoenix.
The goal is to get 5 crow messengers R1 (2 extra from Axel, 1 extra from Operator), Phoenix and Crowmother, then you have 30 pts of carryover for BOTH following rounds. Unlike resilient units, killing any of them wont stop the carryover, only banishing them or seizing them.
Its a deck that doesnt mind losing CA as long as it wins R1, and i still push R2, and always go for the shortest R3 possible.

Its really great against SK warriors, because i have plenty of control, including CoC which makes it 'EZ Mode' against any Sove decks, while their beloved raid cards that do massive damage dont have any unit higher than a 5pt to kill, as my points are very distributed (the only time i lost against SK was because my rows didnt have space for the last crow messenger in the GY, lost by 2pts :giveup:)

The biggest nightmare for this deck is what may become the new SY meta. Pirate cove, pulling the strings, as seizes are this deck worst nightmare. Pulling the strings is basically a 5p Muzzle, and it's buff was HUGE, going into 5p makes it a target for shady vendor, so it can be played 4 times in each match, and Open sesame nerf into 6p makes it more likely you get Pulling the strings from Shady vendor (chances are 3/5, or if you have played RuneMage, guaranteed!)

Screenshot_20231031_200300_Gwent.jpg

Max carryover loves to be pushed R2, this was the rare instance where it actually worked for my opponent because i had 2 discard bricks and missed all my tall punishment (it was Temerian Infantry spam).

Screenshot_20231101_161454_Gwent.jpg

Another advantage of swarming is NG poison wont get much value from their removal.
Still, it was very close and i had carryover and CA and removed their first 3 turns of 4pt units with leader and Cyprian, but that extra part of the imposter leader, of boosting the copied unit by the number of stats on their row was massive for them.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
On the last few days, i played mostly ST and MO.

The last ST deck i used was Movement, as it was the only ST archetype i felt i could explore something i hadnt done before.
I wanted to avoid the classic bronze movement trio: cat witchers + dryad matrons + DB sentry. I still used sentries, but i relied on cat witcher mentors, frog mating season, treant boar and Milva (i love her character and only recently noticed her rework into the movement archetype).

It was a GN deck, and i tried including Nivellen and Geralt Aard, but they were too awkward, since they can only do enemy movement, and Milva doesnt get boosted by that, so the only way to get value was to use DB sentries on front row, then move them to the back for allied movement boost... like i said, awkward.

Screenshot_20231105_011000_Gwent[1].jpg

This archetype is one of the most synergistic combos, almost all these cards are near useless by themselves, but when you get so many of them working together, their point potential is really impressive.

Screenshot_20231105_203521_Gwent[1].jpg

The MO deck ive been using is another GN deck, trying to maximize another card that i hadnt touched since it was reworked (and got buffed in the 1st BC) - Ruehin.
I'm going for 2 Ruehins and 4 Succubus (2 in GY, 2 on board), maybe thats too much but i feel like Ruehin isnt giving decent value, i would rather just use Succubus. One of the problems with Ruehin is that you must always be careful with your board, cant have small units or they'll be consumed rather than consuming DW units (the arachas you see on screen were only spawned at the end to avoid this).

In theory, i thought Succubus and Ruehin would be the perfect match but im not happy with the results, maybe there's a better use for Ruehin...
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Hello guys, for one last time.

This post will be divided into two: what i've been up to on these last few days in Gwent, and on the other section, a stats overview of my overall "Gwent career".

There won't be anymore delays - its uninstalled now. Also uninstalled Twitch, since it was the only game i saw there.
I will still watch the last official World Masters next month, but after that its a complete shut off from me.

My only regret was being unable to play a few final friendly matches with some of the forum users that supported my content and posts throughout these years, but sadly there was a stupid bug that prevented friendly matches for several days, when i was trying to do exactly that. Sorry :cry:

ENDING WITH... MONSTERS

I do like MO a lot, and probably didnt speak about it as often as it deserved.
Im not exactly a MO ambassador, since im not a fan of so many of their main archetypes, like Wild Hunt, Vampires or Pointslam, but i do love some Deathwish, consume, swarm and anything related.

Yesterday, i played on seasonal - 'Our Battle will be Legendary'. Conceptually, its a really fun mode, but the hordes of NG players ruin it, probably dissatisfied with the state of their beloved faction in standard modes, so they can reminisce here where their faction is still favoured. And since i was using MO, i was highly unfavoured, with minimal control and consistency, so eventually i got tired of the mode (still, against other factions i won almost everytime).

Today, my goal was to reach 2000 MO wins, and i wasnt gonna do it with either of my MO decks: a terrible Ruehin GN deck, and my beloved Arachas Lara Dorren deck (can be found on DotD thread). The latter is not bad... but its awful in this SK GN pirates + NR siege meta, insta-loss everytime... :giveup:

So i built a MO hyper-control deck. Not the first time i do so, and everytime i do it, it produces amazing results. Today was no exception.
MO is known to be a faction with very little control, so my method is usually MO pointslam cards and neutral control cards, works wonders.
I wont share the deck, its way too nasty, but i did built it targetting the "meta topdog", in particular, i used Unicorn + Chironex too, and HG sword, for one of my favourite combos.
For bronzes, i used very reliable units - Fiend, Endrega Larvae and Incubus - plus portal and 2 megascopes. Its kinda brainless, but it certainly works.

Screenshot_20231108_142512_Gwent.jpg


Racked up wins very quickly with it, but defeating SK GN was still quite hard, the problem is Magic Compass (obviously) which is not only incredibly powerful, its the most versatile card in the game and there's a lot of strategies it can negate.


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STATS, FOR ONE LAST TIME

I started playing Gwent (the standalone version, was already a huge fan from TW3) back in October 2016, when the closed beta started. So a total of EXACTLY 7 years (plus a couple of weeks :ohstopit:).

During that time, i did 3 considerable hiatuses:
-the first, when Project Homecoming was announced, until it was released, so the first 9 months of 2018
-the second, when i "quit" Gwent at the end of 2021... it lasted the first 4 months of 2022
-the third, when i "quit" Gwent (this time surely for good) at the end of '22... this time it lasted 7 months into this year

(Yes i see the pattern, but with no prospect of new cards, i wont come back unless there is a Gwent 2.0, with The Witcher 4)

During that time, i played mostly on PC, GOG, 4000 hours, plus 600h on mobile in 2022 and '23, making it my most played videogame of all time. But that is not an accurate number of the time i devoted to this game...
I've been a regular in this forum since 2019, and also visit Gwent reddit, even though i dont post there. That easily adds up 1000+ hours - on the 'Deck of the Day' thread alone, making 200 complete text guides, complemented by screenshots, that alone certainly took over 500 hours. Also, watching Gwent videos, on youtube and twitch also became a thing since the pandemic, easily adding at least another 1000h.
My estimate? I would point to 7000 hours, committed to this humble F2P game.

And what about in-game stats and feats?
- Im max Prestige + Level for 2 or 3 years now (Elder title still bugged :facepalm:)
- Completed every reward book page, including seasonal ones
- Completed all 42 Leader Masteries and 6 Faction Masteries (1000 wins)
- Completed all Journeys to at least Lv 100 (Geralt at 200, Ciri at 300)
- Collected all kegs and packs obtainable without real-currency purchases (got a 80 keg collection, never meant to be opened, OCD-style!)

Screenshot_20231108_190222_Gwent.jpg


I know this just seems like a bragging post, but its just my personality, that requires this type of 'full-info briefing' to get closure.
(And the SK win number is the odd one out, but i couldnt miss the chance to leave it at such an awesome number)

I hope the well-intentioned players that stick around keep being able to find joy in the game and the Balance Council proves to be a success in the long-term, achieving what the developers never could in all these years.

Farewell :howdy:
 
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There won't be anymore delays - its uninstalled now. Also uninstalled Twitch, since it was the only game i saw there.
I will still watch the last official World Masters next month, but after that its a complete shut off from me.
Said and done.
I've stayed away from Gwent for a month, from the game, from forums and reddit, and from Youtube and Twitch, but came back to watch Gwent Masters #5 this weekend, and im definitely glad i did.

Watched almost everything, only missed Series 1 from Day 1 (might still watch it today, i want to see Magpie use that SK deck) and the 1st match between Myamon and Paja today.

I would probably not even login into these forums and make a post if it had gone any other way, but i got electrified by watching several amazing matches and witnessing a player ive admired for several years (my only 2 ever Twitch subs are to Shinmiri and Myamon) - another beta player who's also been playing Gwent for 7 long years and the fellow content creator who best represents meme decks, creative deckbuilding and breaking the trends and the meta - prove that you can be a pro and be competitive without forsaking your own style and identity.

Today, Myamon was crowned the last (official) Gwent Master - very well-deserved (after many nail-bitting matches, not for the faint of heart) - and this achievment is also a victory to every player who was brave enough to build their own decks and fight the uphill battle against metadecks.
Congratulations Myamon, your win was the perfect end for Gwent, in my eyes. :howdy:
And now i bid adieu. Merry Xmas and happy New Year to every forum user. See you in the WItcher 4 / Gwent 2 :ohstopit:
 
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