Golden Age of Dwarves

[Bondonkadonk]

The whole "OP" of Aglais comes from possibility to steal decoy and use it on Hattori/Barclay/Paulie or commander horn for massive ~30 points swing.

That and the commanders horn spam. I've been against plenty of dwarf decks that replay ch multiple times. Perhaps I should stop carrying CH as it almost always gets stolen by her, but if it's not CH, they steal my decoy or scorch or something equally strong.

 

[BILBO.BAGGINS]

I never thought the day would come,that someone would call Aglais an "OP" card sigh ....

Well, if a card is used in the stupid dwarf deck ( i love ST, but this deck is ridiculous ), it automatically has to be op, right?
Wardancer: after months and months of existence, now it's suddenly broken and op.
Agitator: very good in the movement deck, now it upgraded to op.
Aglais: the first variations of the dwarf deck didn't use her, nobody gave a damn about her. Then a new variation that includes Aglais surfaces, she's op, naturally.

Offenders of the dwarf deck: Ithlinne+Tremors combo, Paulie, Skirmisher strength not regressing.

Do people still complain about Hailshitstorm? No. Why? Because the card is not trendy right now.

I'm waiting for a future meta where Milva ( a card that nobody but me, it seems, uses ), somehow, becomes relevant and magically transforms to an "op" card.

 

[Wonderboy8700]

bilbo.baggins, I am sorry but your argument is flawed. Double tremors was not an issue when both sides took damage, but when only one side takes damage now you have a plus 30. Likewise, war dancer is not a big deal in a balanced match, but when you have 3 (at least) 30+ point gold cards (duel, double tremors, scorch +4) and an average of 12+ power per bronze, now that advantage becomes critical. Agitator is not by itself overpowered, but when added to elven scout now the SC has double the decentralized power and can create enough units of diverse power to make defense much harder. Aglais is the same issue, no one minds one OP card, but when special cards are necessary to compete with the rest of the stupidly overpowered cards, Agalais becomes that much stronger.

Your point about hailstorm would be well taken if it wasn't just straight up wrong. Hailstorm rounds down HP and ignores armor, but in practice it lacks versatility (not good in short rounds, and in some cases not even more powerful than lacerate) and given power creep is not a good choice. Cards become obsolete over time, especially when other silvers get supercharged. Take decoy for example. It used to be the case that decoy was worth 3 points and repeat effect. Now with spawn/create cards that power jumps to 17+ consistently. Why risk I a conditional card when you can have an almost guaranteed card of similar total power.

As for milva, it has potential sure (and if you would rather have a less powerful card in 90% of cases then that is your choice,) but if they change the game to make a silver worth 30 in decentralized power, then of course you would want a card like milva to let you use it more than once.

As the game changes, so does the value of the cards. You cannot compare SC post mid Winter to SC pre mid Winter, nor can you compare the value of card in the old system to the new system.

 

[Pruny]

God i miss resilient bufed dwarfs, they were insane but counterable.
:eredinfacepalm:

 

[bojerbela]

Mogwai, Twitter today: "Sorry for the salt guys, gotta be completely honest between the ridiculous ST golds and Summoning Circle Spy fiesta which literally decides most games in the higher ranks, Gwent is pretty unplayable rn. I'll be taking a break I feel."

 

[BILBO.BAGGINS]

bilbo.baggins, I am sorry but your argument is flawed. Double tremors was not an issue when both sides took damage, but when only one side takes damage now you have a plus 30. Likewise, war dancer is not a big deal in a balanced match, but when you have 3 (at least) 30+ point gold cards (duel, double tremors, scorch +4) and an average of 12+ power per bronze, now that advantage becomes critical. Agitator is not by itself overpowered, but when added to elven scout now the SC has double the decentralized power and can create enough units of diverse power to make defense much harder. Aglais is the same issue, no one minds one OP card, but when special cards are necessary to compete with the rest of the stupidly overpowered cards, Agalais becomes that much stronger.

Your point about hailstorm would be well taken if it wasn't just straight up wrong. Hailstorm rounds down HP and ignores armor, but in practice it lacks versatility (not good in short rounds, and in some cases not even more powerful than lacerate) and given power creep is not a good choice. Cards become obsolete over time, especially when other silvers get supercharged. Take decoy for example. It used to be the case that decoy was worth 3 points and repeat effect. Now with spawn/create cards that power jumps to 17+ consistently. Why risk I a conditional card when you can have an almost guaranteed card of similar total power.

As for milva, it has potential sure (and if you would rather have a less powerful card in 90% of cases then that is your choice,) but if they change the game to make a silver worth 30 in decentralized power, then of course you would want a card like milva to let you use it more than once.

As the game changes, so does the value of the cards. You cannot compare SC post mid Winter to SC pre mid Winter, nor can you compare the value of card in the old system to the new system.

I'm sorry, but i'm a ST player and you can't pull the wool over my eyes as far as ST is concerned.
Ithlinne: I guess i wasn't clear enough. I emphasized the word "combo" because Ithlinne herself is not the problem ( like everybody says ) but rather the new Tremors. So, i suppose we agree on that.
IM : I have pulled a 30+ Iorveth a couple of times. On average, he's around 20.
Schirru: I have pulled 50+ or even bigger scorches with the neutral silver Scorch. Is the +4 body an issue for you? Anything to say about new Yen who can scorch a second time and is +5?
You conveniently ignore the fact that those 3 cards are totally situational and depend on what your opponent plays ( though, i repeat, i do find Ithlinne+double new Tremors problematic ) and make it sound like they are always 30+ cards, no strings attached.

Average power of ST bronze +12, really? Can you forget the Skirmishers ( who need fixing ) for a moment? Regarding Elven Scout, i don't consider it a good card, but if it was changed/nerfed or even totally deleted, i couldn't care less. I don't know, i just don't like the card ( i only use it in my Shupe deck ).

Hailstorm: So, it's not a good choice because of the power creep? Do you realize the contradiction? Yes, it's obsolete or, like i said, not trendy at the moment, but it's still the same card the majority of the people were crying about how broken it is.

"As the game changes, so does the value of the cards". I couldn't agree more. Several months back i didn't have many golds and used Aglais in all my decks. She was average or plain garbage most of the times. Now Aglais is very good because of the current meta. She's not "op" per se.

Mogwai, Twitter today: "Sorry for the salt guys, gotta be completely honest between the ridiculous ST golds and Summoning Circle Spy fiesta which literally decides most games in the higher ranks, Gwent is pretty unplayable rn. I'll be taking a break I feel."

Haha! That's rich, coming from the NG guy!

 

[Hellsmoke77]

Amazing how many hoops you have to jump through just to post on this forum, one would think I'm posting on a classified forum for the Pentagon. Absolutely ridiculous. Not only that but I have to post 10 slave posts to be able to post about what I like so before anyone yells "off topic" think it through.

Slave post 1 out of 10:

It's not that Dwarves are that op, it's the 3 "I win" buttons they added.

I win buttons are as follows..

1. Ithlinne
2. Lorveth Meditation
3. Ciri Nova

Save those until the end of the game you win every time. I play monsters because I like them even though they are trash. I liked them in the Witcher and I try to make them work here. I can beat Scoia'tael, I can beat them out of the first round, I can out spy them to gain card advantage and I can smash them the last round until it comes time to play those last 3 stupid cards. Yes I'm angry because the game sucks in the current state.

While we are at it let's talk about Nilfguaard...

They can see all your cards if they like, they can throw all of one card in your graveyard, they can put stuff on the bottom of your deck and they can easily setup firepower to just destroy anything you have on the board by the second card they play. This is a complete joke. Any card game I ever played, seeing the other persons hand is cheating. Manipulating the deck on top of that you may as well just quit.

Since we are on a role here how about Northern Realms...

I love how they can pull out enough firepower to clear the whole board as well, it was fun to sit there for 5 minutes watching the guy pul one gun out after another and comfortably select targets until he wiped about 40-50 points off the board in one turn. Another complete joke.

Skellige seems fine, they have good decks but you at least have a chance to counter them.

Well I made it to rank 18 with my crappy monster deck but it looks like I've reached my limits, not because of skill but because of the lack of balance. It's not even like it's that hard to see either it's basically slapping you in the face, I hope it gets fixed soon because as is I can't see myself sticking around much longer. I've been playing since pretty much the first days and never complained but its getting worse and not better.

Again I would have made my own post but oops...I haven't posted 10 times yet so I can't so I have 9 more times to go off topic somewhere before I earn the privilege. Sorry to the original poster but yours was as close as I could find to being on my topic.

 

[CiriusBlack]

Amazing how many hoops you have to jump through just to post on this forum, one would think I'm posting on a classified forum for the Pentagon. Absolutely ridiculous. Not only that but I have to post 10 slave posts to be able to post about what I like so before anyone yells "off topic" think it through.

Sorry about the inconvenience with posting limitations. However, we had a serious spam problem here some time ago, and after trying few other methods, this was the only way to stop it. There was a time when everywhere on the forums were literally tens of pages of pure spam. So please, try to be patient.

 

[coralzombie]

Well I made it to rank 18 with my crappy monster deck but it looks like I've reached my limits, not because of skill but because of the lack of balance. It's not even like it's that hard to see either it's basically slapping you in the face, I hope it gets fixed soon because as is I can't see myself sticking around much longer. I've been playing since pretty much the first days and never complained but its getting worse and not better.

Yes it is pretty sad what they did to the game with that patch. I decided to play a deck that takes a lot of skill and I lose to dwarves 4/5 of the time, but that's ok. I get my 4 kegs a day. It's a decent way to pass the time. I am about 40 golds away from having a complete set of all current cards, so that's a win in my book. I am just kind of loitering around waiting to see if they fix the game or make another colossal screw up. They throw these shiny gimmicks at us to keep us playing like "borders" and "premium card days" I'm not fooled and I am not sinking any more fiat into this game for now.

Hopefully they fix it, then I can pay attention to the matches I am playing but until then I just autopilot my games while watching Naruto.

 

[Philologus]

I'm sorry, but i'm a ST player and you can't pull the wool over my eyes as far as ST is concerned.

I would have NEVER GUESSED.

Ithlinne: I guess i wasn't clear enough. I emphasized the word "combo" because Ithlinne herself is not the problem ( like everybody says ) but rather the new Tremors. So, i suppose we agree on that.
IM : I have pulled a 30+ Iorveth a couple of times. On average, he's around 20.

That's your anecdotal experience? From my experience, I:M is used in the last round to destroy big finishers (Olaf, CN etc..) and it is worth more than 20.

Schirru: I have pulled 50+ or even bigger scorches with the neutral silver Scorch. Is the +4 body an issue for you? Anything to say about new Yen who can scorch a second time and is +5?

You're ruining your own argument. Schirru + Scorch (the silver itself) + Yen + Ithlinne is just absurdly OP in a deck that already pulls more power per avg bronze play than most (any?) other deck archetype.

You conveniently ignore the fact that those 3 cards are totally situational and depend on what your opponent plays ( though, i repeat, i do find Ithlinne+double new Tremors problematic ) and make it sound like they are always 30+ cards, no strings attached.

Oh please.. I hate it when people are disingenuous.. as if it's THAT hard to play those cards. It's not, and if you have two of those three in hand, or even during the course of a game (not even including I:M here), you easily have 50+ points (removal or on the board) for them combined. I repeat.. easily.

Average power of ST bronze +12, really? Can you forget the Skirmishers ( who need fixing ) for a moment? Regarding Elven Scout, i don't consider it a good card, but if it was changed/nerfed or even totally deleted, i couldn't care less. I don't know, i just don't like the card ( i only use it in my Shupe deck ).

Were you making an argument, there? Who cares if you like the card? It's a 12 point bronze if played on its own, nevermind being part of a chain!

 

[Philologus]

Yes it is pretty sad what they did to the game with that patch. I decided to play a deck that takes a lot of skill and I lose to dwarves 4/5 of the time, but that's ok. I get my 4 kegs a day. It's a decent way to pass the time. I am about 40 golds away from having a complete set of all current cards, so that's a win in my book. I am just kind of loitering around waiting to see if they fix the game or make another colossal screw up. They throw these shiny gimmicks at us to keep us playing like "borders" and "premium card days" I'm not fooled and I am not sinking any more fiat into this game for now.

Hopefully they fix it, then I can pay attention to the matches I am playing but until then I just autopilot my games while watching Naruto.

Am I one of the few people here who couldn't care less about "borders" and "portraits"? I don't even care about collecting every card; I just care about making creative (as unique as possible) competitive decks. Past a certain point/rank, that is not possible, and I saw it months ago. After all, regardless of whether one plays all the factions or one, enough matches should allow one to see that this game only favors a handful of archetypes at the upper ranks.

 

[Wonderboy8700]

bilbo.baggins. the fact that you are not using elven scouts means you are using a less powerful version of an extremely powerful deck. New yen plus scorch = 2 if you draw the scorch card (otherwise yen does something else or nothing at all) whereas +4 is always scorch (no wasted silver.) Moreover when played correctly SC has 4 scorches (NG has 2, everyone else has 1.) Duel is easily worth 30 in most matches.

Hailstorm is not useful because you get more synergy from other cards. Hatori can be decoyed and set up enough cards to have other synergy trigger. Hailstorm used on a row of low power units is less powerful than lacerate.

Ask around about average power. 7 easy examples (there are quite a bit more. 1. Slave driver (create a bronze often worth at least 10.) 2. Beast master (12 power.) 3. Synergy between (I forgot the names) cavalry that takes armor and the boost 5 when loses armor (combined power 25 in 2 turns, divide by 2 = 12.5 power per turn.) 4. Mahakam guard (9+3) 12 points. 5. Nekker synergy (easy 12.) 6. Alchemy deck 2 +10 or ,12 or revive. 7. Viper Witcher (with my deck it hits 11 plus base power 5.) If you need more examples I will happily provide them. But yes average power is around 12.

All that a card needs to be OP is an average of more than 25 (this number is based on a ciri nova who is designed as a finisher people build there whole deck around.) 9+ replay of opponents special easily plays more than 25.

Dwarves are ruining gwent (not simply because they are powerful,) because they kill deck diversity. They are so overpowered that you don't even need a good hand to compete with most archetypes. The three original leaders are as good if not better than any other factions leaders, the golds are better, and the silvers can be as good as any faction other than NG. Boost monsters and add more armor special cards and maybe we can get more diverse decks.

The topic is ironic because the golden age of dwarves is the beginning of the end of Gwent.

 

[Maerd]

Well I made it to rank 18 with my crappy monster deck but it looks like I've reached my limits, not because of skill but because of the lack of balance.

You can definitely play monsters above rank 18. Today I've seen decent amount of MO deck players at rank 20. They play some variants of weather/moonlight decks.
I agree with others that ST is on average stronger than other factions but that doesn't mean others are such inferior that cannot be played at high ranks.

It's not that Dwarves are that op, it's the 3 "I win" buttons they added. I win buttons are as follows.. 1. Ithlinne 2. Lorveth Meditation 3. Ciri Nova

CN is a neutral card, any one can use it... Ithlinne is very powerful but recently I found she can be vulnerable to mill decks where all your spells will be handed to you in hand, so I do not use her anymore. I:M is also awesome but on the last round can end up without good targets, so as a finisher it's a risky play. The best finisher is Hattori -> Barclay Els -> ... hands down, because it cannot be scorched and provides 20-30 points, depending on your setup and your luck.

 

[Hellsmoke77]

I know CN is a neutral but her 25 points aren't easy to keep up with after getting nuked by Lorveth Meditation and Ithlinne and Schirru.

I like how people are actually complaining about consume decks smh it's the only monster deck that can compete and I don't even use it because that one or two Nekkers you actually get your hands on in round one are easily stopped with one of the following cards..

1. Muzzle
2. Mandrake
3. Artefact Compression

Isengrim or Nature's Gift lets you choose the right card if you can sacrifice one of the gold nukes but that seems to be too much trouble for some, that might not let them get that easy win. So let's complain about consume the only valid monster deck instead..

That monster deck can easily be stopped if you run the right cards and there are plenty of other ways I haven't even mentioned to get rid of those one or two Nekkers that someone could get their hands on in the first round.

Monster got shafted. I'd like to resurrect bronze units, I'd like to resurrect silver units etc, I'd like to choose which card I pull when I drop a spy. The amount of advantages all factions have over monsters is amazing, I'm surprised anyone plays them and to top it all off THEY STILL GET NERFED lmao look at Dagon. That one frost just had to go didn't it.

I could go on for days but we all know the reality of the situation, this is not our first day playing this game. Those who play monsters at the top either play consume because players refuse to fit the cards needed to stop it or they got there using other decks. Very few of the top elite use monsters and get anywhere.

The 3 "I win" cards need to be fixed, they are not situational. You simply bleed out your opponent in round one and take it in the end with Lorveth Meditation or Ithlinne, get your cheap carryover with Wardancer to maintain card advantage and when it comes to top deck in round three you simply use one of the nukes you didn't need in round one and your good ole Ciri Nova and it's game over.

I invested in Monsters because I thought "they gotta balance it out at some point right?" but nope..things got worse.

I'm not wasting my time anymore helping people with over-powered decks rank up. Now people might say "why don't you run ST? Because even if I dump a hundred dollars into their pockets I get nothing but doubles that I can mill for a juicy 10 scraps each. I just got 25 dollars worth and ended up with two cards I can use and enough scraps to craft one gold. Why on earth would I go out and dump loads of money to get a ST deck when it can change next month and end up just as bad as monsters? No thank you, they need to make some changes to the cards and the mill prices before I spend another dime.

Like I said I could go on for days but I'll end my rant here. I just think it's a shame because I really enjoy the game and as things look now I'll most likely stop playing it pretty soon. It's bad enough I can't advance in ranked but the same decks are creeping around in casual as well, what's left to do?

Is what it is I guess.

 

[z4nn1ch]

I played one week with 90 % of the opponents using a dwarf or dwarf/elves deck. I did win 1 against someone who left after the 1st round...

Then I rage sold all my stupid cards that are worth shit right now and built the perfect dwarf/elves combo with ciri.

It is the third day and I have a winrate of 100% since then and my opponents provided me with a 30% ragequit rate while 2nd round...

so CDProjektRed - is this how it is supposed to be?

 

[xDivinity]

Well, if a card is used in the stupid dwarf deck ( i love ST, but this deck is ridiculous ), it automatically has to be op, right?
Wardancer: after months and months of existence, now it's suddenly broken and op.
Agitator: very good in the movement deck, now it upgraded to op.
Aglais: the first variations of the dwarf deck didn't use her, nobody gave a damn about her. Then a new variation that includes Aglais surfaces, she's op, naturally.

Offenders of the dwarf deck: Ithlinne+Tremors combo, Paulie, Skirmisher strength not regressing.

Do people still complain about Hailshitstorm? No. Why? Because the card is not trendy right now.

I'm waiting for a future meta where Milva ( a card that nobody but me, it seems, uses ), somehow, becomes relevant and magically transforms to an "op" card.

Sadly i agree with you.This will go on and on im afraid ...

 

[iamthedave]

They are so overpowered that you don't even need a good hand to compete with most archetypes. The three original leaders are as good if not better than any other factions leaders, the golds are better, and the silvers can be as good as any faction other than NG. Boost monsters and add more armor special cards and maybe we can get more diverse decks.

The topic is ironic because the golden age of dwarves is the beginning of the end of Gwent.[/QUOTE]

Well I'm glad we have an 'I told you so' post or hundred to look forward to if that happens. And no doubt many posts of contrition if it turns out that Dorfs is just a rather big blip in the development cycle (and not even the first time Gwent has had a deck like that, even if it is the worst to date).

Eithne and Brouver are excellent. Francesca has never been that powerful. Most leaders in most factions are really good, and it's disingenuous to claim otherwise. Brouver has always been one of the game's strongest because his ability is great, but there are few leaders who can shut a round down faster than Henselt, Arachas Queen doesn't even need to be written about given she frequently ends matches at 70+ points, Moovrhan powers one of the most powerful one turn plays Gwent can pull (provided you stick a mangonel), Emhyr is techy as all hell and allows for horrible things, and so on and so forth.

As for the Golds being better? Highly arguable. Most faction golds are really good. In fact, most faction silvers are really good as well.

One of the most bothersome things about the Dorf situation is players throwing back the feedback that 'EVERYTHING IS OP O MY GOD THIS GAME IS DOOMED DESTROY ALL THE THINGS' instead of actually looking at why certain cards are so powerful. Iorveth: Med is self-explanatory (but can be in situations where he's worth less than 10 points, even if he's often 30+) and probably needs some sort of change. Tremors is the problem with Ithlinne, not Ithlinne herself. Schirru is Schirru, good but not broken. Unlucky or bad dorf players can still brick him at times.

Barclay Els, Hattori and Paulie have contributed as much or more to the rise of the current situation than the aforementioned golds have. The Dorf deck wouldn't be in the situation it is if it couldn't insta-win a long round 2 with Ithlinne and then start round 3 with a res/summon chain that will always put them in the mid-20s with a single card, who in his first play is usually worth mid teens to low 20s.

Even if the golds are nerfed, the deck will still be incredibly potent unless the silvers are looked at closely.

 

[Bondonkadonk]

Ithlinne: I guess i wasn't clear enough. I emphasized the word "combo" because Ithlinne herself is not the problem ( like everybody says ) but rather the new Tremors. So, i suppose we agree on that.

I think Ithlinne *is* a problem though. I'm not usually one to agree with a lot of what Merchant says, but he's right about Ithlinne: the trouble with her existing in the game as she is at the moment is every single special card that ever gets introduced will have to be made with HER taken into consideration. If they make a good value special card that people might actually play, you can bet your ass that Ithlinne playing it double will immediately make it OP. Tremors is powerful, yes, but as a special card on it's own, it's honestly not TOO bad. As a solo bronze, to get value out of it you need at least one 1str unit on your opponents side (which is a lot rarer to see than 2str), and to have at least 6 units on the board just to get 12 value from it. I do think perhaps it should have a cap on the amount of units it can damage (every other bronze special has a certain amount of units it can hit), but my point is, even if tremors was nerfed/tweaked, Ithlinne still poses a threat to future special cards.

 

[Barracuda88]

What a lot of people seem to miss/ignore is the possibility that dwarves are so popular not so much because of the OP-ness of the archetype, but because it's so versatile. You can build so many variants around Barclay-Paulie-Hattori-Skirmisher core. There is actually no "dorfs" deck, in the sense there is NG Spies or NR Machines or Spotters or Nekker Consume or Skellige Restore. If anything, dorfs are a slap in the face of "normal" netdecks, because you don't need to be rigidly aping these other cheese "pro" decks to win. It's like the only tier-1 archetype you can be creative with. So, apparently that's a bad thing. It's "breaking gwent" and makes the archetype "too easy" to play.

Personally, I think this is fun and how gwent should work. Sure, there are some OP gold combos (Ithlinne+Tremors) and chaining issues that need to be addressed, but aside from that there should be more archetypes that let you customize and freestyle and still compete, not less.

(I guess NG Mill is more elegant/skill-demanding. I mean, you gotta put all those truce cards in your deck, wow.)

 

[Maerd]

You can build so many variants around Barclay-Paulie-Hattori-Skirmisher core.

I would say the core is Barclay-Hattori-Agitators because you don't need Skirmishers to have a success. I've got to rank 20 now and I use neither Paulie, nor Skirmishers.