Forget Nilfgard. Is it just me, or is Nekker Swarm ridiculously OP right now?

[Yykkla]

My thoughts exactly. Don't forget the silver unit Shadow too. He can summon a nekker, and that is what one of the enemies in my original post did after I banished his first 2 nekkers before he could make copies of them with nekker warriors. Killing them and putting them in the graveyard, even if it is the third original nekker, is no safe bet because of slyzard. Even if you lock a nekker, an enemy can still use nekker warriors to make copies, or like you said, use griffen to "call another one."

The more Nekkers you destroy in round 1, the less you have to to deal with later. Especially since Nekker cloning isn't retroactive in terms of boosting, you have to consider how many consume triggers your opponent can put out as well.

 

[KingPegasus]

The current meta favours snowball cards, dragoon, that thing that shots you when they play spys, nekkers, self wound things with war cryers etc. You can either try to out snowball them or kill things off fast. I tried NR machine which have plenty of removal, drowner monster weather, both had fairly good success rate. Try something more half and half like curse and I struggled a bit more. Not even trying swarm decks as it is a bit too easy to counter. Back to nekkers, they snow ball hard if you let them nekkers warrior early, so kill them fast as possible and win round 1 when their tempo is relatively slow. Then bleed them to use all nekkers round two. If you suspect they have carry over, go all out and try to 2 round them. Winning Vs them round 3 is nearly impossible if you let it snowball to much.

 

[bojerbela]

Maybe it's just me, that played SK decks that arent that aggressive and have that many control options.

The problem is you need to counter those Nekkers right away as they're played, otherwise if even one nekker warrior is played on a nekker, you're doomed.

If you lock nekkers, they're either unlock them or just use griffin to call another one.

If you kill all on board, they'll slyzard more into the board.

Basically you need to either banish / artefact compress all 3 original nekkers, or destroy those 3 without any being multiplied, otherwise a nekker player will always have a way to get more of those buggers.

To begin with the "Nekker-train" requires a lot of setup. For all you said I have to have at least 2 Nekkers, 1 Slyzard, 1 Nekker Warrior, 1 Consume Unit in my starting hand. Extremly low tempo play. And I have to win the first round, so the desision, how long I want play in round two, in my hands. My opponent has often card advantage. So it's not so easy. It's a cheap deck, you have to try in ranked. At the beginning of the season I won 24 matches and lost 10. Now: 36 win and 22 lost. First week: 70% winrate. This week: 50%. Everybody plays Nekker-counters.

 

[Lornick77]

It's a deck the devs should keep an eye on, but it's hardly unbeatable. When you build your whole deck around one card, a lot can go wrong.

 

[olegavi]

This is bar none the most frustrating deck in the meta right now in my opinion. CDPR nerfed some of monster's carry over like the harpies, but now nekkers are a true pest for carry over due to their deathwish. Factor in the synergy that nekkers have with nekker warriors, slyzards, and shadow, and you get a frustrating deck that is like trying to wack-a-mole or kill a cockroach; one pops back up immediately. That is not all though. Additionally, if you have a long round, your enemy will consume units and thus boosting nekkers by 1 wherever they are (with the sole exception of the graveyard). This will give highly boosted nekkers that can easily get in the double digits, and carry over because of deathwish. One match a couple of days ago, my opponent and I only had 2 or maybe 3 cards in our hands in the final round, and he had one nekker from the 2nd round deathwish carryover. He played a griffin, and suddenly he had 2 nekkers that were about 16-18 points each on top of griffin's 9. So, guess what? I lost with only having 2 cards left to play in the final round.

I just finished a ranked match a few minutes ago against another nekker consume deck and despite my control counters against that deck, I still lost. In the first round, thankfully my opponent went first so he played a nekker as his first card. I then used Mandrake right off the bat to not only kill it, but to also prevent it from entering his graveyard where Slyzard would pull another nekker from his deck. He played Toad Prince, and then passed. I of course only went down 1 card to win round 1. I thought, wow I actually shut down a nekker player from the start for once. I open passed in the 2nd round to have even cards with the opponent (I don't remember which card was his throw away in the 2nd round win). In the final round, he played his 2nd nekker immediately at the start. I used Corral to shut it down too. After that, he played his Shadow unit to pull a nekker from his deck. I knew my 2 previous efforts to eliminate the nekkers were in vain since I didn't have a counter to his third and final nekker. Of course, after that, he played nekker warriors and I knew I would probably lose since he naturally had Unseen Elder as his leader. Even though I had all four of my golds in the final round, and skellige storm on the opposite side of the board, I lost. Admittedly, this match was more unique than the other times against the nekker decks because he got a CaC Greatsword from my Operator, and he used the Caretaker to revive my Light Longship to be placed next to the Greatsword. Despite this unique aspect, I have lost against Unseen Elder's nekkers for what seems like every time despite changing my deck up on multiple occasions.

I explained all of the above essential parts of the nekker plays because I remember the guy who created the topic about NG reveal being OP was criticized for a lack of details on the first page before he added more information. I initially hated reveal Nilfgard post-patch with the Venedal Elites among other things, but I don't have anywhere near as much consistent trouble facing them, and I also just don't seem to face them much at all anymore. If you lose to the nekker consume deck in the first round, the deathwish of the nekker(s) activates and new ones spawn in the 2nd round, and so your opponent already has decently boosted units carrying over which can put you at a big card disadvantage if you even win the 2nd round. If you win in a long 1st or 2nd round, the nekkers become highly boosted for the final round from all of the enemy's consuming.

Okay, my rant against this frustrating deck is over in my first and long post in this topic.

I play Unseen elder consume deck and I can confirm that if the Nekkers left unchecked can be a big problem late game. That been said, a deck that revolves around one thing like in this case feeding Nekkers are one trick decks. If Nekkers are denied it's game over 9/10 games. I can't say the same of some of the other decks in this game like Spy Nilfgaard which have zero interaction with.

 

[Idiotruinsgame]

No way, super easy to stop. Muzzle, shackles, Succubus, the double shackles guy, NR leader ability, that NG jerk that throws away copies of a card in your deck or turn it into a jade figurine. On top of that to get an effective plan going you have to also play some nekker warriors to get the ball rolling.

Its not anything like.. I don't know a bronze unit that can take out just about any card with no setup cough cough assassin... or enforcer/Infiltrator which can do more damage than strength you can gain with nekkers with little effort.

So in short the answer is no way I'm forgetting NG is OP to anyone not in love with NG, it is just you and its in no way OP but don't be mad because we still love you.

 

[Michelazz]

It is so match up dependent. I started this meta with a nekker deck with ekimaras and nekker warriors. I began to kick ass until sweers suddenly became a thing. Also if your opponent managed to kill most of ur nekkers in round 1 90% of the times you loose. However if the combination worked perfectly, its an automatic win as none of the other archetypes or factions can match the same carryover strength.

 

[Draconifors]

So, ran into one of these last night, and I've got to say I can definitely see why you'd call it OP.

Despite having tools to counter Nekkers (used Sweers on six(!), Letho on another one, Auckes on yet another one), they just kept coming. I almost consider it a miracle none showed up in R3.
It was a fun match, but I certainly wouldn't want to be running into a gazillion Nekkers without that specific deck that I happened to be using.

 

[tussauc]

It certainly is annoying and hard to keep pace with, especially if you aren't running a deck that's strong in the meta now, but hopefully when they make balance changes the deck will take a hit.

 

[Yykkla]

It certainly is annoying and hard to keep pace with, especially if you aren't running a deck that's strong in the meta now, but hopefully when they make balance changes the deck will take a hit.

If someone isn't running a good amount of removals/locks, then I wouldn't be surprised if they are struggling with Nekkers. I don't think the deck needs to 'take a hit'. In particular Unseen Elder is already dogshite outside of Nekker Consume decks.

 

[lakired]

It certainly is annoying and hard to keep pace with, especially if you aren't running a deck that's strong in the meta now, but hopefully when they make balance changes the deck will take a hit.

If you look at the Gwentup Meta Report, you'll see that far from needing to take a hit, if anything it needs some additional help. I think the trouble with the Nekker consume deck is that if left uncountered it feels incredible oppressive... but it's also incredibly easy to counter. In the present meta Unseen Elder is, well, unseen at higher MMR. Monsters in general for that matter is struggling as a faction to keep their heads above water. If at your MMR level you're bumping into consume a lot and it's proving a nuisance, just run a few copies of Mardroeme (and a tutor if your faction has one; e.g. herbalist or elven mercenary).

 

[SHALLAHJUSTICE]

It's true. You need to turn them into jade figurines as soon as you see them.