Forgotten Treasures was the mid-winter update of Homecoming

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Just as the title says. I believe the Forgotten Treasures update is modern Gwent’s mid-winter update. But not because the updates are similar. Rather I’m referring to fiasco the game has become since the update.

Please note that I’m not doomsaying, or treating this as the end of the world. This probably isn’t even the worst state the game has been in since launch. But it’s definitely the worst it’s been in the last year or even two.

As I said earlier, the last expansion is similar to the mid-winter update. But why? Mid-winter was bad for reasons that aren’t related to what we have now. The introduction of the create mechanic, the game-breaking bugs, etc. etc. aren’t really relevant to what Forgotten Treasures gave us. But what’s happened is the same. We have a stale tier 0 meta focused entirely on card advantage and huge tempo swings. That’s all the game has been since this update. And no, before you say, it hasn’t always been that way.

Yes we don’t have silver spies to abuse anymore. I understand. Ciri: Nova isn’t exactly massive carry-over either. So it’s not a big deal right? Well maybe not by itself, but the fact that more support is added to this style of deck makes it troublesome. Ciri: Nova decks previously got to play a really good card at the cost of running a deck that wasn’t polarized. Note that inherently Ciri: Nova decks weren’t in any way handicapped. They didn’t have less provisions than you. They just had to distribute them more flatly, rather than an extremely polarized deck with a few high-value golds and many low-value bronzes. It made it so that any missed cards would cost more (rather than having the deck having only a few 4-provision bronzes, it could have a few mid-end golds). Unfortunately Golden Nekker decks completely remove that disadvantage.

Now I don’t hate the card, nor do I think it’s bad to give support to this “exotic” deck style they’re pushing (9-provision and under only), what I find issue with is how similar all these decks are because of the strategy they employ.

Nearly all of these Golden Nekker decks function the exact same. They Run the trinity of powerful neutrals introduced: Aerondight, Ring of Favor, And Golden Nekker. Add Ciri: Nova with it and you have a game-plan. Pump Aerondight up as much as possible, push round 2, and have Ciri: Nova as carry-over with a massive Aerondight coming back on top of your deck in a short round 3. Since Aerondight only procs if you have more points than your opponent at the end of your turn, you need lots of thinning cards that jump out to give you a big tempo boost. So you need Roach and Knickers as well. And so the game becomes simple. Hope you start on blue coin, get a stratagem, and just slam high-value cards boosting your aerondight and denying your opponents aerondight if they have it. Ring provides a huge swing as well, and plus your opponent is most likely running it so you need it to counter theirs. Ornate Censor is a good throw-in since it easily plays above its provision value. And there you go, you pretty much win if you go first.

It’s depressing that every Golden Necker deck plays this way now. Whether it’s GN mill, GN relicts, GN flurry, etc. they all play this way. Hope they go first, slam all their high-value golds, run thinning cards, and then have carry-over in the form of Ciri and echo Aerondight. The game is so dumbed down now. Their is no nuance, subtlety, or strategy when playing. And the worst part? You have to play the same way or you almost auto-lose. Denying your opponent tempo at the end of their turn is now very important, so you have to play just as aggressively. You can’t afford to run a polarized deck usually because low-tempo bronzes aren’t going to cut it.

It’s starting to feel like if you don’t win round 1 you don’t have a chance. All these problems come from the fact that so many of the cards they released are absolutely either broken, undercosted, or blatantly powercrept version of cards we already have. Without going into too much detail, here are some examples:

Ring of Favor: feels like an auto-include in every deck because it’s the only way to counter your opponent’s Ring of Favor. Either gives you a free thin or allows you to guarantee a round 1 victory against an opponent who doesn’t use it

Golden Nekker: yes it’s random, yes you can get bad pulls, yes it requires deck set-up and strategic ordering of your plays, yes it can brick. But regardless, it allows you to play up to 3 cards in one turn. That’s extremely powerful no matter what. What’s worse, it can be reused. It isn’t doomed, so Alissa can just cycle it for you. And if you play Nilfgaard, you can take your opponent’s GN with your location

Ornate Censer: how is this card, with the potential for massive swings, only at 8 provisions? How is it 3 provisions cheaper than Scorch, which also requires initiative to get its full effect? In most cases, it’s just a vastly superior Scorch. Yeah it can brick, but when have they ever made cards with huge potential swings cheaper because they can brick. They didn’t with Scorch or Curse of Corruption which can also brick. Cards like this are problematic to balance because they have no definitive ceiling or floor. They can have extremely low floors (or functionally a floor of 0 since you’d discard it if it’s bricked), but can easily play for 30 or 40 points or even more, without even that much set-up. Other cards like Scorch and Regis have much higher and more difficult set-up costs to get even close to that value. It makes no sense

Aerondight: (see above) Requires no set-up other than hoping you go first and running Roach and Knickers. Cards with Echo usually have some cost removed as they thicken the deck (other than thinning echos), but in this case, using it twice at a value of 13-17 is ridiculous. Not even mentioning the built-in mechanic where you don’t lose any value because any excess damage comes back as boost

Magic Compass: the utility of this card is insane. Any legendary? It’s not really difficult to meet this condition. Yeah it can deck you out, you can get bad luck and discard three golds, yeah it has downsides, like most cards. But the sheer utility of being able to use any legendary not in your starting deck gives it insane value. Add Aerondight, and you can even use it’s Spawn effect twice, and then have both echo cards stack on top of your empty or 1-card deck making it so that it’s impossible to deck yourself out

Traveling Priestess: is there anything to say that isn’t obvious? How is a card that can effortlessly play for upwards of 20+ points only 4 provision? I understand they want powerful bronze engines that support an entire archetype (Fleders, Priestess, etc.), but why isn’t it costed for what it does? Why is it only 4 provisions when it’s uninteractable carry-over that requires very little set-up to reach better value than most high-end gold cards? Why is Aen Elle conquerer the same provisions with a devotion handicap, when Priestess has veil, basically has zeal (from Griffin Witcher Adepts and Istredd), can easily play for 50+ points with combo cards like Tridam and Trollololo, and can’t be answered by the opponent in any way? Yeah you can’t compare cards in a vacuum, but how in their minds can a card like Conquerer for example, be valued equally to something like Priestess?

Anyways that’s my rant. I’m not doomsaying. This update won’t ruin the game forever, it won’t make people quit, it won’t ruin the lives of its players. But it’s worrying that direction the game is going in is all about “exciting” massive point turns or huge swings. The last expansion Price of Power was well-disliked for the blatant powercreep it introduced, and it seems it’s only getting worse. Unfortunately, long-term plans and strategies just don’t have a place in the game anymore because of how simple it’s become. There’s no nuance. There’s very little strategizing. So much of Gwent’s character is lost. For example, we don’t have as much thinking about what to commit in round 1, how long to push round 2, what specific cards you should try to bleed out, what are good tech neutrals to put in to cover for your deck’s shortcomings (since all we have are autoincludes now), figuring out what sort of deck your opponent is running, what to trade with your opponent, and on and on.

I don’t hate the game. I love it. I want it to be the best it can be. I want its players to be happy (as much as they can be). I know it’s just the current meta, and that every meta will upset some people in some way. But it’s worrying that the devs don’t really seem to think there’s any issue when a much larger segment of the player-base, at least the dedicated players, find this update (and the direction the game is going in) to be bad. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the data doesn’t support it. But when I’m in pro-rank and 90% of my games are Golden Nekker decks that run the same 10 of 25 cards no matter what faction they’re playing, or that the only NR decks being played are Priestess, I believe I’m not entirely misguided in my worries.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree, let me know your thoughts below :)
 
No, you are not misguided in your worries. Ever since the card drop released, it took me approximately a week to quit the game, at least until things get better.

Don't get me wrong, I love Gwent, but going through this Priestess/Aerondight/GN experience is no fun, but rather sickening.
 
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