Dwarf and Elf Decks

[stephen1974]

Has anyone put together deck of just Dwarves or just Elves? if so, how are you finding them?

I put together a pure Dwarf deck and it's pretty fun to play with games often depending on the final card. Nice mix of offence and defence but it obviously has its weaknesses and is by no means a top flight deck.

I can't seem to put together a reasonably decent elven deck though. They seem to lack numbers to make them viable. Plenty of fire power but low stats mean they are knocked off the board pretty easy. Also, there are not that many units it seems and I've had to put a deck together using Dryads as well. Yet to play with that one, but on paper, doesnt look like it will do well.

 

[MysticJoey]

Season of the Draconid Meta Snapshot (2021) - Gwent: The Witcher Card Game | Aretuza

The meta shifted drastically with the release of 9.2. Back in 9.1, we saw a lot of Sunset Wanderers and cards that were good against it, such as Ivar Evil-Eye. With the nerf to Wanderers and a whole new set of cards, decks are looking pretty different. Monsters in particular got a powerful set of…

teamaretuza.com

 

[DRK3]

Im guessing you're new to Gwent, or a beta player returning now...

Because after Iron Judgment expansion, f****** dwarves completely dominated the meta, you couldnt do 2 matches without seeing them.

Then came Merchants of Ofir expansion, with support to the elf archetype, and everyone jumped on that wagon, now SC is dominated by either Harmony decks or elves decks.

 

[stephen1974]

I've only come across one other person using a dwarves and no one using elves.

 

[StrykerS77]

I've only come across one other person using a dwarves and no one using elves.

Then you must be playing low rank where you find a bunch of different stuff. If you get to a higher rank you will see a ton of elves. Use the scenerio, stratagem, and that highest provision elf legendary. It's easy to get a ton of elves on the board.

 

[rrc]

Im guessing you're new to Gwent, or a beta player returning now...

Because after Iron Judgment expansion, f****** dwarves completely dominated the meta, you couldnt do 2 matches without seeing them.

Then came Merchants of Ofir expansion, with support to the elf archetype, and everyone jumped on that wagon, now SC is dominated by either Harmony decks or elves decks.

That was the time I was on a break and didn't play anything. But I think with in a month, they were now nerfed to a point that they are unplayable, basically how they remainded for an year. All the core dwarfs are nerfed in provision such that overall, it is not worth playing a dwarf deck. I tried a pure dwarf deck recently, but it didn't have any punch.

Seriously, the weakest extremely inefficient 11+ provision faction cards are the ST Dwarfs. The Zoltan is 12 provision for 10 points. You can't possibly have many Rowdy Dwarfs for him to go the other ability by which he boosts all Rowdy Dwarfs by 2. I believe initially the Defender gave 2 RDs and now he is giving only 1. War machines gives 1 Dwarf (if bonded 2, but it is unreliable) and why to have a War Machine in a pure Dwarf deck? Only Zoltan's Company can reliably give 3 RD. Munro doesn't have any alternate conditions, bascially he can be 7 for 11. I can understand the Dwarf hate, but now, they are just pathetic and weak. At the minimum, the Legendary 10+ provisions Dwarfs should be made decent. ZoltanWarrior and Munro should get provision buff and Munro should get some alternate conditions (or add more dwarf cards or special cards which will spawn Rowdy Dwarfs).

 

[Gyg]

Munro ia actually ok even with one RD as he breaks even. Maybe give RDs their armour back?

 

[DRK3]

That was the time I was on a break and didn't play anything. But I think with in a month, they were now nerfed to a point that they are unplayable, basically how they remainded for an year. All the core dwarfs are nerfed in provision such that overall, it is not worth playing a dwarf deck. I tried a pure dwarf deck recently, but it didn't have any punch.

Seriously, the weakest extremely inefficient 11+ provision faction cards are the ST Dwarfs. The Zoltan is 12 provision for 10 points. You can't possibly have many Rowdy Dwarfs for him to go the other ability by which he boosts all Rowdy Dwarfs by 2. I believe initially the Defender gave 2 RDs and now he is giving only 1. War machines gives 1 Dwarf (if bonded 2, but it is unreliable) and why to have a War Machine in a pure Dwarf deck? Only Zoltan's Company can reliably give 3 RD. Munro doesn't have any alternate conditions, bascially he can be 7 for 11. I can understand the Dwarf hate, but now, they are just pathetic and weak. At the minimum, the Legendary 10+ provisions Dwarfs should be made decent. ZoltanWarrior and Munro should get provision buff and Munro should get some alternate conditions (or add more dwarf cards or special cards which will spawn Rowdy Dwarfs).

They were barely nerfed, i think the only significant changes was the reduction of defender spawning 2 to 1RD and RD losing their armor (which was necessary). I havent played or seen them played recently, but that doesnt mean they're not viable anymore, they're just weaker than elves, and that's enough for them to not be played, whether that margin is large or not.

And that Zoltan that is basicly a dwarf Vernossiel (or the other way around?), was definitely best played to boost existing RD, it was incredibly easy to have +6 on the board.

War machines were amazing too, because they helped fill the row for a finishing Oak, and there were those bronze dwarves that boost for no. dwarves on the row that were giving 10+ pts for 4p.

Im sorry but the dwarves were not overnerfed and most definitely do not need a buff.

 

[Gyg]

They were barely nerfed

Since Iron Judgement following cards were nerfed:
Novigradian Justice
Rowdy Dwarf
Dwarven Berserker
Mahakam Guard
Dwarven Mercenary
Zoltan Chivay
Barclay Els
Figgis Merluzo.
Also dwarven chariot is not a good card for Oak. Unless you use bonded which is rare you get 5 points for 5 provisions. Oak changes it to 6, which only ok value.

 

[rrc]

Munro ia actually ok even with one RD as he breaks even. Maybe give RDs their armour back?

With one RD, he breaks even after 4 turns and that is it. Even neutral cards that costly bring more value in 4 turns (like Avallach).

They were barely nerfed, i think the only significant changes was the reduction of defender spawning 2 to 1RD and RD losing their armor (which was necessary). I havent played or seen them played recently, but that doesnt mean they're not viable anymore, they're just weaker than elves, and that's enough for them to not be played, whether that margin is large or not.

And that Zoltan that is basicly a dwarf Vernossiel (or the other way around?), was definitely best played to boost existing RD, it was incredibly easy to have +6 on the board.

War machines were amazing too, because they helped fill the row for a finishing Oak, and there were those bronze dwarves that boost for no. dwarves on the row that were giving 10+ pts for 4p.

Im sorry but the dwarves were not overnerfed and most definitely do not need a buff.

If Zoltan is to be used for boosting RDs, then Munro is kind of mutually exclusive to him and the only card which can reliably bring value to both Zoltan and Munro is that one 6P Nature card. If Zoltan uses it, Munro can't use it and vice versa and without that card both of them can't reliably get value.
I tried to use them and felt it incredibly hard to justify the 23 provisions these two take as it was nearly impossible to get value even after adding all the cards that are filtered for "Rowdy".
How can you say it is *incredibly* easy to have +6 RDs on board in the context of Zoltan (that is without Zoltan's 2 RDs). Seven RDs are the max you can get without Zoltan from 4 cards (2xMachines, Zoltan's Company, Defender) in your deck. By 6+ you are basically saying you have all four cards that can bring RD and have Zoltan in your hand and saying it is incredibly easy. I am surprised you are making such statements! Probably once in 15 or 20 games when all the necessary cards are with you, you can get 6 RDs on board and have Zoltan to get more value and then Munro is bricked!
I can understand if Dwarfs were too oppressive and needed a nerf, but they were *not* barely nerfed. As @Gyg pointed out, every single Dwarf card that mattered was nerfed. If that is *barely* nerfed, I am curious what would be a decent nerf for Dwarfs.

Again, I haven't played any games in Dwarf meta and I am not even fond of trying Dwarf decks. I was just saying objectively that Zoltan and Munro are just overpriced and Dwarfs are not playable competitively.

 

[hachri80]

By 6+ you are basically saying you have all four cards that can bring RD and have Zoltan in your hand and saying it is incredibly easy.

You can play the Zoltan company card twice with Mystic Echo to get 6 Rowdys in one turn. But usually you want to use the leader ability on Water or Novigradian Justice.

And yes, dwarfs were nerfed too much. Some of these changes should be redone to make them viable again.

 

[Gyg]

I consider Zoltan Warrior as an enabler for Munro. Uninterrupted it generates 25 points for 23 provisions nad builds board for Mahakam Guards/Barclay/Zoltan Chivay. One easy solution to improve Dwarf decks is to give Rowdy Dwarf one point of armour back.

 

[DRK3]

@rrc Maybe i really was being blinded by the hatred i gained for the archetype on those couple of months. It was truly awful, even with decks designed to completely counter it you had to have a good hand and play perfectly, while your opponent could do anything and get ridiculous points.

I thought the nerfs werent so hard because i know the cards remained mostly the same, it was the provisions that changed and i dont know those by heart.

But on your analysis you're forgetting this archetype was used 100% on Mystic Echo, so it could play Novigrad Justice or Zoltans Company twice. And i said you could easily get 6 rowdy dwarves, THEN. You got 2 from the defender. 3 from Zoltans Company. Just put a war machine and you had 6 RD, that couldnt even get removed by lacerate because they had 2 armor.

But the double Novigrad Justice was the worst offender, getting 4 dwarven mercenaries or berserkers instantly was even more oppressive than 4 dryads nowadays with Waters.

 

[rrc]

@rrc Maybe i really was being blinded by the hatred i gained for the archetype on those couple of months. It was truly awful, even with decks designed to completely counter it you had to have a good hand and play perfectly, while your opponent could do anything and get ridiculous points.

I thought the nerfs werent so hard because i know the cards remained mostly the same, it was the provisions that changed and i dont know those by heart.

But on your analysis you're forgetting this archetype was used 100% on Mystic Echo, so it could play Novigrad Justice or Zoltans Company twice. And i said you could easily get 6 rowdy dwarves, THEN. You got 2 from the defender. 3 from Zoltans Company. Just put a war machine and you had 6 RD, that couldnt even get removed by lacerate because they had 2 armor.

But the double Novigrad Justice was the worst offender, getting 4 dwarven mercenaries or berserkers instantly was even more oppressive than 4 dryads nowadays with Waters.

Yes yes @DRK3 I can understand. Luckily, I didn't play during that time. And by looking at all the cards that were nerfed, it should have been just too insane. I tried to create a deck without using Mystic Echo and honestly it sucks. That is why Mystic Echo needs to be changed. Just because of that ability, all the cards are priced such that no other leaders can make use of the archetype.

 

[jed9653]

Even after MoO I still run two dwarf decks. One based on rowdy dwarf/dwarf berserker, the other around engines like dwarf defender. The rowdy dwarf one got me to rank 6 this current season, but it's definitely not top tier by any means. Incredibly fun to play though. It is incredibly weak against row punish, skellige greatsword decks, or decks revolving around moving your units to other rows so you can't get full swarm benefit. Rookie to the forums, but been with the game since beta on xbox.

 

[plastiq33]

I've been playing elves in pro rank (playing Fuscia Breifs syana elf deck with some tweaks although the Gone Gwenting Radeyah Elves deck is more consistent) and performing pretty well. I regularly beat sheild wall since the deck goes wide and even when Syana doesn't survive or the scenario doesn't it has a fighting chance. Also really strong against bleed.

Im probably going to craft Radeyah next and see how far I can take things with Elves. I think people just look at some archetypes and think "Its not as OP as SK Warriors" and don't bother with it but played well you can do a lot with it.

No opinion on dwarves .

 

[MANYUE2003]

Trynet recently played a Dwarf deck that I saw on youtube.

I needed 4000 scraps to craft that so I did not do it yet.

Is it viable in pro rank ?

 

[Barracuda88]

Trynet recently played a Dwarf deck that I saw on youtube.

I needed 4000 scraps to craft that so I did not do it yet.

Is it viable in pro rank ?

Depends on what you mean by "viable." Can you win some games with it? Sure. Can you climb to 2500 and beyond? Probably not. Not exactly sure what list Trynet played, but dwarfs are kinda like SK warriors but without control and rezz

 

[MANYUE2003]

Depends on what you mean by "viable." Can you win some games with it? Sure. Can you climb to 2500 and beyond? Probably not. Not exactly sure what list Trynet played, but dwarfs are kinda like SK warriors but without control and rezz

Yes I mean is it viable in pro rank ?

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That is the link to the deck he played.

 

[Barracuda88]

Like I said before: "Can you win some games with it? Sure. Can you climb to 2500 and beyond? Probably not." In other words, you'll probably be under 50%.

I'm not crazy about that deck, tbh, though I like that there's no Munro in it.