Greatsword win rate now 57.6%

[Jeydra]

Please understand, this is not how it works. You're making the same mistake as Esmer. Yes, your Dimeritium Shackles "answers" these cards but they put you behind on points, e.g.:

Opponent plays Vrihedd Dragoon, you play Dimeritium Shackles. Now his Dragoon is locked alright, but you're also down four points. You would have been better off using Alzur's Thunder on it, and nobody runs Alzur's Thunder intending to cast it from hand either. You would also be unable to play Shackles if you got the blue coin + the opponent is ahead by 5 points or more after he plays Dragoon.

Opponent plays Archespore, you play Dimeritium Shackles. Now you are down 3 points. If you actually stopped his other cards from being effective this might work (which is why Shackles works against consume, the only deck it works against). But he still has other deathwish units. Yeah he can't use Cyclops on the locked Archespore now, but he can still use it on a Dao or another Archespore.

Playing Dimeritium Shackles will lose you games. This is why nobody uses them at high level.

As for "who the hell plays that deck in the higher elo" - I dunno, 9.4% of people (Brouver is #4 in popularity among all leaders according to the meta report). Also, alchemy doesn't run Dol Blathanna Sentry which is a ST card, you are thinking of Spelltael, and you can't lock those either because by the time they come down they're already fully buffed. And, spy decks don't run False Ciri, heck nobody runs False Ciri.

 

[minti043]

Please understand, this is not how it works. You're making the same mistake as Esmer. Yes, your Dimeritium Shackles "answers" these cards but they put you behind on points, e.g.:

Opponent plays Vrihedd Dragoon, you play Dimeritium Shackles. Now his Dragoon is locked alright, but you're also down four points. You would have been better off using Alzur's Thunder on it, and nobody runs Alzur's Thunder intending to cast it from hand either. You would also be unable to play Shackles if you got the blue coin + the opponent is ahead by 5 points or more after he plays Dragoon.

Opponent plays Archespore, you play Dimeritium Shackles. Now you are down 3 points. If you actually stopped his other cards from being effective this might work (which is why Shackles works against consume, the only deck it works against). But he still has other deathwish units. Yeah he can't use Cyclops on the locked Archespore now, but he can still use it on a Dao or another Archespore.

Playing Dimeritium Shackles will lose you games. This is why nobody uses them at high level.

As for "who the hell plays that deck in the higher elo" - I dunno, 9.4% of people (Brouver is #4 in popularity among all leaders according to the meta report). Also, alchemy doesn't run Dol Blathanna Sentry which is a ST card, you are thinking of Spelltael, and you can't lock those either because by the time they come down they're already fully buffed. And, spy decks don't run False Ciri, heck nobody runs False Ciri.

Your maths is correct but your logic fails you. Your oponent play archespore that is 7 power Now you play you lock his creature thus preventing it to become 8 power becouse when it bounces its potentially 8 power and it loses 4 power so his creatures becomes 3 power and you played a 4 power card and next turn it becomes 5 than 6 than 7. and if you deny him a deathwish its + 4. If you lock his Dao you play 4 power but you prevent 8 points of stats whitch makes it 12 points of stats. You see 11 points of stats is the most you get from BASIC silver card. And in high elo Lock status is AMUST i run 2 becouse EVERYONE runs at least one.
Your oponent plays False Ciri he gives you a 7 powered card that returns to his side and the card gets boosted each turn. You lock her you get all the stats she has and your oponent is a card behind. Potentially 10-13 power + not to mention the fact your oponent skipped a turn that will win you the game.
Lock status is a must if you are playing off meta deck and i did say its a Budget alternative if you cant afford another good card.
Nilfgardian alchemy actually loses to greatswords and Broaver deck actually loses to greatswords too since their removal is BAD yes viper assasins are AMAZING removal but it does not work againts greatswords.
BTW the top decks thi sseason are Northernkingdoms Either armor or armor ciri:nova or machines, Monsters top deck is the deathwish dao and after that dagon moon although the fog deck is the most popular budget deck to climb. Nilfguardians with wivern scale shields( since nothing exept conseal machines counters it, so you will not find any type of removal usefull).
So feel free to use the shuckles Its not the best card pick I REPEAT it is a budget pick, again but it is useful especially if you are looking to climb.

 

[Witcher3point0]

NR

Sabrina Glevissig / Sigismund Dijkstra / Maulers etc ..

Beautiful counter you can fit this into almost any NR deck IMO.

I took Sabrina out of my own deck being advised by more experienced players, truth be told I miss her.
But my deck is crazily consistent in retrospect.

She works wonders cause it's a gs/ship to a row at minimum and you reset that entire row to 4pts ea or less comboed with Sigismund, the only thing stopping this play is an outright lock which plays for 7 pts value where you still fish 2 cards from your deck and virtually trade up in a worst case scenario.\

That's my opinion. I cannot run scorch etc as I often have the highest pt values so it's usually a bricked card.

 

[bojerbela]

Nilfgardian alchemy actually loses to greatswords (...) their removal is BAD yes viper assasins are AMAZING removal but it does not work againts greatswords.

What? Calveit (Alchemy) winrate against Crach (Greatswords+Veterans) is 51,6%. Alchemy counters Greatswords.

BTW the top decks thi sseason are Northernkingdoms Either armor or armor ciri:nova or machines

What? Best NR leader is Henselt with 49,1% winrate. Foltest has 48,8%. Crach has 55,1%. (3600+ MMR)

Meta report:
https://gwentup.com/report/18/21

 

[devivre]

Yeah, NR is currently not that impressive (Nova/Armor can be good against certain types of decks but not so much against the current meta). At least SK, NG and Monsters are better overall. Although some Henselt decks still come with a pretty good win rate on higher ranks, but that's about it (and even that deck is having a hard time against Crach). But let's not get too off topic with this.

A properly played NG Alchemy is definitely one of the most tricky matchups for Crach players.

 

[minti043]

Ok let me explain to my take on the meta. So the top meta decks are not the most powerfull decks in the game, they are on the top becouse they outvalue sertain archetypes. The decks that you mentioned now that are high meta now like brover swap, NG handbuff, Alchemy. Those decks most of them not those 3 in particular. Are in response to the ciri: nova decks that did swarm the meta (there was forum discussion of having limit of 2 cards not shure if that was the reason).
So the weakness of this deck is that you slim your deck to 2 copyed of cards and you lose some extra value from swarming your deck with particular archtype. And deck with big basic removal like alchemy provides enough removal to remove a lot of value from ciri decks. The other thing that works great agants ciri decks is having low synergy high single use cards like the swap cards, i can say that Ghoul monster are really popular and they share that similarity and are climbing really good too. Those decks outvalue the ciri decks and considering those decks are the most used you get higher % winrates with them.
They are not the strongest decks ever made. Most decks with High synergy cards beat them ( like monsters neckers, that is not in the meta right now. But it beats the shit out of them ) since those decks have great numbers per turn but low outcome of total stats most of the curent mera decks have base value of 100-120 while neckers swarm gets up to 200. And removal like the viper witchers doesnt do that good againts it. If your decks removal resolves around those you can be outplayed with those high synergy decks. You should however make your own statistic based on decks you encounter. The reports are correct but they are temporary fix since the meta changes every day. So far the highest winrate in all my decks is my Fog deck and its kinda budgety but i do get 70% winrate at it on rank 18. My consume deck has like 40%. Dao deathwish is at around 30 since i do missplay a lot there people will not forgive you a missplay the higher you go. My ghould- Relict deck is at 50 but i do not have all th ecards for the netdeck i did lose most of my Fog matches againts such deck so i made some modifications and i kept the 70 % winrate that way. So modify your deck constantly to keep your high % winrate and you can reach high ranks with any archtype. Every deck has weakness so exploit it and i do keep 2 shuckles in my fog deck ( since its budgety i don;t have the silver lock unit yet since i play all the monster archtypes and i prefer more flexible cards.) I even run 2 moonlight decks and i like bloodmoon metter than moonlight. And i just love the fact that i get free wins with fog afaints moonlight and the fact that no one plays bloodmoon. And since My fog deck is insta lose vs greatswords. you put your greatsword on the fog and you get insta value fron your oponents cards i don't think i can keep up the high winrate without 2x lock statuses. Not after the implerith criple .
And Ocvist is insta win with my fog deck againts all those high value low removal decks so i made thereplacement of imlerith to ocvist.I thin kthat the ability Ocvist gives to replay a gard a turn after giving you extra fog dmg is something that should be on some other card without the deal one dmg to all enemies and harder to remove. I would like a card designed to work like that.
But that is kinda offtopic we really did talk a lot about the meta not about the actual greatswords decks. And GS beats alchemy alchemy has up to 4 viper witchers and GS has up to 7 greatswords and since you despite havign the lock status you can eventually get a last turn 24 powered greatsword lose.The only reason alchemy decks find wins againts GS is that 1 powered dude that lets you remove one of the greatswords fro myour oponent graveyard that can starve the revival of greatswords but that is not actual alchemy card its a tech card againts GS and muzzle can help you out in that case.

 

[devivre]

Yeah, but Rank 18 is very very different compared to rank 20/21 - before that you see some meta decks but usually they are not played the optimal way, or include a few cards that seem weird.

You can win 80% of your games at rank 18 and struggle around MMR 4000. At that level you usually start to feel the real meta and that's where decks like Crach can become really frustrating.

 

[astronautis28]

This is not a fix, but rather the final nail in the coffin. Let's not nerf yet another archetype into oblivion. Incidentally, this also makes Mahakam Marauder much better.

They could make it strengthen by one, boost by one then. Hell, even strengthen by one, boost by 2 would be better. Ezpz

 

[minti043]

I don't think they should kill this deck as archtype. If a nerf is to come, make their ability once every 3 turns that way on the 3-rd turn they are 5 powered minion and you can remove them with basic deal dmg cards unless you are dwarf . And even that will be too much of a nurf for the deck but at least its a fair one.

 

[Jeydra]

@minti043 I don't know where you're getting all these impressions of the meta. Alchemy is the only common deck with a favourable matchup vs. Greatswords, please just read the meta reports. If you still don't believe that, read CCG Lewt's Alchemy guide.

You make so many wrong statements I'd be tempted to conclude you're trolling. Nobody plays False Ciri, GS can kill Octvist with Coral, you mistook NG Handbuff for Dragoons and Farseers (that's ST Handbuff), etc. Please brush up your knowledge of the meta, otherwise there's no point discussing with you.

 

[Pruny]

They could make it strengthen by one, boost by one then. Hell, even strengthen by one, boost by 2 would be better. Ezpz

Yeah strenghten by one should be decent nerf. i was destroiyng GS with swordmasters because i had full removal deck, but that gets overpowered by braindead bears
but with other decks that dont have full control is very bad, like Mill i got rekt many times by GS and geting 2vicos was even bad because then i got rekt by alchemy instead and i hate alchemy more...

 

[Nymph137]

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[Jeydra]

It's not that they are doing balance bad on purpose, it's more like they have always been bad at it. The excuse this time was that why do a lot of changes when every card is changing on homecoming. The problem with that logic is that the last balance patch should have left a somewhat decent meta for the 6 months until the next patch, but... nope, it's the same decks over and over again.

Don't be so critical. They just nerfed Brouver, Wardancer, etc, and they were successful at balancing that deck.

@Pruny I think fundamentally the problem is that GS is both a fine engine (1 point / turn) and a strong win condition (often 14 points or more) if resurrected. One or the other, but not both.

 

[Nymph137]

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[minti043]

Lets not say they are bad at balancing. There are lots of things tha were lacking cards. And every non standart leader in every faction is bad. It is not just Adda. And you can see they do make efforts in balancing. Since there are tech cards for everything that can get out of hand. Whitch is a big issue in the meta since there are more tech cards than there are archetypes in the game and that is strange. You can clearly see some unfinished things and this is called BETA just becouse of that. Don't be so upset becouse your favorite card is not the best nor playable

 

[Nymph137]

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[Azure2290]

Easiest and quickest fix that would get all the SK players into a frothing frenzy for such a fair fix.

Greatswords are now doomed - they get enough power from the ships alone that countering GS has become irrelevant not to mention they can somehow throw in bears too.

 

[Jeydra]

They didn't balance wardancer, they overnerfed the card, that's my point, they're not good at balancing. Even though the balance patch arrived VERY late, it still looked like a rushed job without too much thought put into it.

An example is Adda, they nerfed her by changing Olgierd even though Adda is the worst leader, and has been, since her introduction to the game. Another example is that some bronze create cards were nerfed and others, like bears, no. So they remain as an unconditional 12 point bronze card because, again, they've a history of not being good at balance. But hey, maybe Homecoming will change my opinion, who knows.

Wardancer remains viable, so no it was not overnerfed.

As for Olgierd, they didn't nerf Olgierd because of Adda, they nerfed Olgierd because of his carryover potential (most notably in Bran). Adda was an unfortunate side effect.

Back on topic: CDPR, I just played Moonlight against a GS deck. I had these hate cards:

1x Alzur's Thunder
1x Triss: Telekinesis (to tutor Alzur's Thunder)
1x Ozzrel
1x Morvudd
1x Frightener (moves boats)
1x Miruna
1x Vaedamakar
1x Kayran

I drew five of these cards and I lost anyway. I killed the first two Greatswords with Thunders. He played two Freyas. Then he Decoyed a Freya, his Pirate Captains tutored boats, and he managed to have 2x Longships + 2x GS going even through my removal. GS absorbed fog damage like npnp, Hym created Vaedamakar to kill my Miruna, and he even had a Muzzle at the ready had I been running Muzzle instead of Kayran. He wound up winning a long round 2 even though 1) Moonlight is also a strong engine deck and 2) I could interact with his engines while he couldn't interact with mine.

What gives? I'm already running eight hate cards, including the rather clumsy Alzur's Thunder, and that's still not enough to swing the matchup. Eight hate cards in a deck of 25. One could argue that if GS didn't exist as a deck I would still be running some of these cards, and maybe so, but at least two cards are here only because they work against GS and aren't embarrassing in other matchups (Morvudd & Alzur's Thunder).

Deck needs nerf, please do it preferably before Homecoming. The latest meta report did see GS drop a bit in win rate (66.5% popularity, 55.8% win rate) but those are still formidable stats.

 

[Nymph137]

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[Pruny]

What gives? I'm already running eight hate cards, including the rather clumsy Alzur's Thunder, and that's still not enough to swing the matchup. Eight hate cards in a deck of 25. One could argue that if GS didn't exist as a deck I would still be running some of these cards, and maybe so, but at least two cards are here only because they work against GS and aren't embarrassing in other matchups (Morvudd & Alzur's Thunder).

Deck needs nerf, please do it preferably before Homecoming. The latest meta report did see GS drop a bit in win rate (66.5% popularity, 55.8% win rate) but those are still formidable stats.

Hym is a create abomination and spy abusable with skjal. the best monster counter for GS is Cyclops but those cant pick a werevolf to smash boats.