foltest OP?

[covya]

foltest OP?

so my foltest deck consists of 25 cards, 3 of them are redanian knights, 3 of them are adrenaline rush. if I get one of each of these in my starting hand, its usually a victory. I also have 3 swallow potions, 3 thunderbolt potions, 1 commanders horn, and one Dandelion, and 3 Promotions. The rest of the cards are just filler, although skewed towards cards that let me re-draw. this strategy works best if I can bait my opponent into passing the first round early, whether by making him think I'm throwing the round by playing weak, or going out hard with the rest of my cards to make him think its a losing battle, either way, if he ends it before I have to waste any of my buffs, its usually a guaranteed win.

The actual play, is to take a redanian knight, buff him as much as I can with potions, apply adrenaline rush, duplicate him with foltests power, use commanders horn and/or dandelion if I drew them, then finally promote them. this leaves me with 2 gold units, that are sticking around in to round 2, with a combined strength usually into the hundreds.

a Perfect round, drawing the 6 potions, adrenaline rush, a redanian night, commanders horn, dandelion, and promotion leaves me with 356 strength in round one, and 352 in round 2, presuming they don't have debuffs.

provided they pass the first round before I start going crazy with buffs, there is nothing they can do, as scorch can't target gold cards, and they also aren't effected by weather. the only counter I have ever seen to this strategy (short of awful luck for me) is phillipa eilhart, as her ability CAN affect gold cards, and sets all units strength to 1.

Seems like an incredibly OP synnergy, but none of the cards or abilities are particularly overpowered in their own right. thoughts?

 

[vodge]

Once people are more aware of the strategy it will be a lot easier to counter, like you said, it depends on them passing early on. Scorch, biting frost, cards that remove strength, that bomb thing that takes away all buffs, and so on can easily prevent it.

 

[Dacatur]

It's a common deck atm and promote will change.

"Brover Hoog" gives you any silver card like scorch, aeromancy or decoy. "King Bran" gives you any card you want. That is strong.

 

[covya]

Again, the bomb card can't target gold cards, so won't save them if they pass. the other unfortunate thing about it, is that scorch, phillipa eilhart, and the dimeritium bomb are ALL silver, so that means one copy per deck, and unless you draw them in round one, it will probably be too late to help. a higher prominence of weather cards could help. I THOUGHT that clearing the weather effect would restore them to their highly buffed state, but it only restore them to their base value, which is probably a much needed weakness. unfortunately, there's no reason this strategy has to be used on a redanian knight, which means you can't just get away with only taking frost to counter it

 

[LukDeRiff]

The Major issue is the inconsentcy. Sure if you get your dream opener and do not get disrupted the deck is almos impossible to beat. The problem is that this does not happen very often. In games this often called "best case mentality". It does not help that the deck does have very few way of obtaining the cards it needs apart from straight up mulliganing into a dream hand.

 

[Ingsoc85]

I imagine they nerf it by making Foltest copy ability not also copy adrenaline rush, as well as promoting to gold would result in cancelling the adrenaline rush ability.

 

[covya]

It is far from inconsistent. with a 25 card deck, and 3 copies of every important card, the chances of not getting what I need in the 14 cards (11 starting hand + 3 mulligans) AND not getting any of my cards that allow card draw? its pretty likely that I get ENOUGH (I don't need everything in order for it to be a fairly easy win) I'd say I win at least 4/5 games using this strategy. maybe 9/10

 

[drewg22]

provided they pass the first round before I start going crazy with buffs, there is nothing they can do, as scorch can't target gold cards, and they also aren't effected by weather. the only counter I have ever seen to this strategy (short of awful luck for me) is phillipa eilhart, as her ability CAN affect gold cards, and sets all units strength to 1.

http://www.gwentdb.com/cards/50059-kaedweni-sergeant

plus (reaver or Foltest skill) plus (scorch or weather).

 

[covya]

ah, I didn't think about him. still, he will only get one of my units, so still needs to commit a lot to win the round

 

[drewg22]

ah, I didn't think about him. still, he will only get one of my units, so still needs to commit a lot to win the round

Reaver or Foltest skill plus another gets both.

 

[april6e]

Again, the bomb card can't target gold cards, so won't save them if they pass. the other unfortunate thing about it, is that scorch, phillipa eilhart, and the dimeritium bomb are ALL silver, so that means one copy per deck, and unless you draw them in round one, it will probably be too late to help. a higher prominence of weather cards could help. I THOUGHT that clearing the weather effect would restore them to their highly buffed state, but it only restore them to their base value, which is probably a much needed weakness. unfortunately, there's no reason this strategy has to be used on a redanian knight, which means you can't just get away with only taking frost to counter it

Then don't pass. You should never pass first turn against a Northern Realms deck. Especially if their leader is Foltest.

The entire Promote strategy is defeated easily with Scorch or D-Bomb. It's neither OP or needs to be nerfed like the opening post is suggesting.

 

[Maerd]

The entire Promote strategy is defeated easily with Scorch or D-Bomb.

Scorch or d-bomb not always in the deck. If you play scoia'tael hawker strategy then your elven mercs will cast random spells from your deck. You don't want Scorch or D-bomb there because 50% of the time you will scorch yourself. Also, depending on a leader, it's not guaranteed that you will have them in your hand. Relying on one card to come to your hand is very unreliable. I'd say copying without a buffs is good enough power by itself. To compensate, if the unit is damaged it also will be copied as a healthy one.

 

[devivre]

Yep copying without a buff would sound like a better idea.

 

[covya]

I agree that copying without buffs is probably the best way to deal with it

 

[Dant3s15]

Scorch or d-bomb not always in the deck. If you play scoia'tael hawker strategy then your elven mercs will cast random spells from your deck. You don't want Scorch or D-bomb there because 50% of the time you will scorch yourself. Also, depending on a leader, it's not guaranteed that you will have them in your hand. Relying on one card to come to your hand is very unreliable. I'd say copying without a buffs is good enough power by itself. To compensate, if the unit is damaged it also will be copied as a healthy one.

Scorch or d-bomb not always in the deck. If you play scoia'tael hawker strategy then your elven mercs will cast random spells from your deck. You don't want Scorch or D-bomb there because 50% of the time you will scorch yourself. Also, depending on a leader, it's not guaranteed that you will have them in your hand. Relying on one card to come to your hand is very unreliable. I'd say copying without a buffs is good enough power by itself. To compensate, if the unit is damaged it also will be copied as a healthy one.

There is no deck good for everything, some decks will loose to buff/adrenaline/foltest/promotion but some will win.
The key is too prevent NR from buffing or make it very hard, to make it not worth to use foltest on anything.

 

[Laveley]

Guys, seriously, PLAY THE GAME A LITTLE LONGER BEFORE MAKING SUCH STATEMENTS!

Tactics that seem "OP" in the lower lvls, when 90% are playing with semi-starter decks, easily become obsolete as you and others progress and get access to better cards.

Really, i play northern realms myself and since i got cards like phillipa and igni i scrapped out adrenaline rush out of my deck (first i used 2, than one, now i dont use it). I found out that a more "controlish" version of NR is way better than the super predictable and easily counterable adrenaline rush/promote bs.

You will only begin to see the real metagame of gwent when you reach lvl 15~20.

Oh, and btw, foltest is completely fine, i would dare to say that radovid is probably better than him depending on your deck. He would only be "OP" if he could copy silvers too.

 

[Tsarconic]

ah, I didn't think about him. still, he will only get one of my units, so still needs to commit a lot to win the round

and to also point out, that card is a very, VERY specific counter. How many other decks, especially of not NR, will have that?

 

[pat_trick]

Guys, seriously, PLAY THE GAME A LITTLE LONGER BEFORE MAKING SUCH STATEMENTS!

Tactics that seem "OP" in the lower lvls, when 90% are playing with semi-starter decks, easily become obsolete as you and others progress and get access to better cards.

The problem is that I'm level one, and have come up against the strategy OP describes three times now. I'm not spending money on cards, and it's basically been a forfeit by the second round because I can't keep that power building from happening with the cards that I have. =/

 

[exie]

I'm level 21 and still finding NR OP. I can go on long win streaks with my Skellige deck but I always end up losing to the same NR deck. Reinforced trebuchets in the first two rounds are incredibly tough to deal with because scorch and d bomb don't work well on them, and you have to take them out completely otherwise they keep doing passive damage. Even after that they can be easily rezzed by field medic and buff each other.

Then on the last round they play the most disgusting, unplayable combo I've encountered, Baron -> Priscilla -> Nenneke and/or Shani -> Field Medic which results in some buff orgy of commandos and reavers. There's nothing you can do to about it either because half the cards are gold and gained the strength bonus. How the hell am I supposed to beat that? Even my strongest Skellige combo, the faction who's supposed to be strongest in the last round, gets steamrolled by this bs! These rez cards should only be able to rez bronzes and should have their strength reduced, otherwise it just completely outclasses everything!

 

[Laveley]

I'm level 21 and still finding NR OP. I can go on long win streaks with my Skellige deck but I always end up losing to the same NR deck. Reinforced trebuchets in the first two rounds are incredibly tough to deal with because scorch and d bomb don't work well on them, and you have to take them out completely otherwise they keep doing passive damage. Even after that they can be easily rezzed by field medic and buff each other.

Then on the last round they play the most disgusting, unplayable combo I've encountered, Baron -> Priscilla -> Nenneke and/or Shani -> Field Medic which results in some buff orgy of commandos and reavers. There's nothing you can do to about it either because half the cards are gold and gained the strength bonus. How the hell am I supposed to beat that? Even my strongest Skellige combo, the faction who's supposed to be strongest in the last round, gets steamrolled by this bs! These rez cards should only be able to rez bronzes and should have their strength reduced, otherwise it just completely outclasses everything!

I'm level 21 and still finding NR OP. I can go on long win streaks with my Skellige deck but I always end up losing to the same NR deck. Reinforced trebuchets in the first two rounds are incredibly tough to deal with because scorch and d bomb don't work well on them, and you have to take them out completely otherwise they keep doing passive damage. Even after that they can be easily rezzed by field medic and buff each other.

Then on the last round they play the most disgusting, unplayable combo I've encountered, Baron -> Priscilla -> Nenneke and/or Shani -> Field Medic which results in some buff orgy of commandos and reavers. There's nothing you can do to about it either because half the cards are gold and gained the strength bonus. How the hell am I supposed to beat that? Even my strongest Skellige combo, the faction who's supposed to be strongest in the last round, gets steamrolled by this bs! These rez cards should only be able to rez bronzes and should have their strength reduced, otherwise it just completely outclasses everything!

You are describing NR strategies as a whole, not just foltest.