Ok here are some tips for you bud. first of all kyran is the gold monster removal and like each other faction specific removal card if not played with its archtype, it will lack you the stats. Muzzle on the other hand is charm 8 powered monster so its basicly 16 points of stats + grave removal while kyran is 14 points of stat and consume. You mention something about fog so kyran's consume is not that valuable removal. Second implerith: sabath works great with Ozzrel since after imlerith removes one greatsword your oponent than responds by removing imlerith and than you play ozzrel and eat that greatsword thus removing it from play. Alzyr thunder is a basic removal card try something more effective like mandrake or scorch its not that bad in a weathe rdeck especially if its biting frost since that weather just leaves the highest stat monster undamaged. And keep the lock status for last round if your oponent has one great sword left to play he need plenty of rounds to grow to a threatening power level.
And don't forget that Freyas can only revive greatsword meaning that if they revive the last one or w/e they still get a 1 powered card turn so you can hit the jackpot there.
Don't be afraid to let his greatswords grow a bit. After all 11 is the max base stat for a regular bronze card so they still need priestes and like 2 turns to reach that power level so they are not that threatening and having a scorch just in case is very usefull. Mandrake can make those ships very cheep. i mean they hurt his man to boost self than you just mandrake and make them a 1 power card that is bad tempo even if you are reviving it.
And since you got only one lock effect keep it for the last turn and don't overstay the first. Just burst you removal if its not enough pass to the next one greatswords don't have enough value to last all 3 turns since a greatsword boat combo takes at least 2 turns and it rises to max base power at turn 4 so its scary if it overstays after that.
And yes just remove al lweather cards you have againts greatswords. displacement cards can still work on the boats as long as you don't compleetly remove them.
Also Emris or whatever her name was that 3 powered spy that boost 5 units by 5. she works great with weather and she can absorb 3 hits from his boats what wil lgive you enough time for him to forefit a round witch is bad for him if he does
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Meta report disagrees with you there pal.
As for Greatswords, people always complain about whatever deck is meta. While I don't like it, and I find it really boring as a deck, the truth is I don't have a lot of trouble playing against it.
I'd say the biggest problem in Gwent is Harald and Nekkers, not because they are too powerful. On the contrary they are very well thought, unique in their approach, and often very difficult and interesting to play with. The problem is that they are either extremely powerful when your opponent is unteched or borderline useless when your opponent packs counters.
Greatswords share that problematic aspect with these two, in the sense that hard counters like Artefact Compression and Graveyard hate will beat them, but will not be too useful against other opponents.
What also bugs me about greatswords is how they utterly wreck weather decks. The natural advantage against attrition decks is such that there is literally nothing that can beat Greatswords in the long round, with the exception of Harald (which is at a massive disadvantage in a short round 3 against this deck) and spies (which is back to tier 1 according to the last 2 meta reports, I daresay that the greatswords' popularity is the reason).
Other than that, I don't really use weather decks too often, and the decks I play on Casual all stand a decent chance against greatswords (which means they win more often than not. No surprise considering that it's the baseline consume with graveyard hate, spies and reveal with scorch abuse). It is interesting to note that even decks with a very clear natural advantage against greatswords, or decks teched against greatswords, still can lose, badly as well.
I'd say Greatswords and Dwarves are the only decks that have ever "graced" Gwent that are a bit close to Tier 0 - meaning they are close to immune to relative deckbuilding. Even the heaviest techs will often not help because the points they gain are simply too much to compete. Restore into Pirate Captain into corsair into longship is 19 points and 1 every turn, passively.
All in all, I am not a fan of this kind of decks, I personally don't have a problem with GS, but I can see why they are problematic.
I remember people dramatically tearing their shirt here about spies when the greatest winrate that deck had before midwinter was like, 51%
The irony.I have t odisagree a bit with you Grave haters are the best stated cards in gwent so far. They are always usefull no matter what, pulling the best creature in your grave or your oponents grave, the fact that you can choose that to pick and the fact that they come with stats on their own. As for artefact compression this card is Only usefull as tech card with mages it lacks boddy to be any competitive but if you pull it out from your deck its always guaranteed 10 stats advantage without the boddy that pulled it. Not to mention the built in grave hate I mean when you have it in a card you just take it for granted. The same thing is with deck slimming you don't feel its effect since its kinda RNG status boost so you always says hey i was so lucky or i was so skillfull, not how this deck slimming helped me a lot this time.
But there is a HUGE gap in basic decks and archetype decks. That for me as begginer was very tiresome with this game. Not only am i missplaying shit but my deck is nowhere near competitive againts some well built archetype deck. Its super annoying and than you want to explore another faction and than you start with starter decks and experiments and than you get that bad feeling of hitting a brick wall with those super points spam decks that pasively spam 15+ powered bronzes and you have those basic cards that are 10 power in th ebest case scenario/
I mean when you have it in a card you just take it for granted. The same thing is with deck slimming you don't feel its effect since its kinda RNG status boost so you always says hey i was so lucky or i was so skillfull, not how this deck slimming helped me a lot this time.But there is a HUGE gap in basic decks and archetype decks. That for me as begginer was very tiresome with this game. Not only am i missplaying shit but my deck is nowhere near competitive againts some well built archetype deck. Its super annoying and than you want to explore another faction and than you start with starter decks and experiments and than you get that bad feeling of hitting a brick wall with those super points spam decks that pasively spam 15+ powered bronzes and you have those basic cards that are 10 power in th ebest case scenario/
Ozzrel? Yes it is. It's always worth a lot of points due to the consumption boosting the Nekkers and banishing the highest creature. Which is why it's such a great card even outside consume. But the rest, not so much
Caretaker is pretty good in most matchups, but only really shines against Greatswords. In every other matchup, he is a good gold. Worth the slot, but almost never beyond a good gold.
Ghouls can only eat your creatures so they don't count.
Vicovaros are not that good. Running one is usually the happy medium, but you also need to draw it. Running more than one is you shooting yourself in the foot unless you are playing spies (which have so many ways to counter greatswords anyway)
Actually Ozzrel and the ghouls are the weakest becouse they are vulnerable to a not that popular form of removal called reset. that makes them weak. And every deck has some tech cards that you obviously remove and than you get plenty of value from them wheres the teched decks don't.
Artefact compression and Muzzle are also considerate grave hate since they remove cards from your oponents grave.
That bronze nilfgarian chick that shuffles cards from your grave to the deck she is basicly i nevery deck, Not to mention those 13 points spy cards that can give you the card advantage to evade scorches etc. Grave haters are the best cards to make use of that and monster while having the least powerfull one they can get most value out of those cards. Not only is that they can give you the card advance to evade scorches with your aracj queen, Not only they can consume them from the grave. They can do that from both your hand and field/ I so enjoy toad price ozzrel Frightener for that its just 18 and 19 stat minions and a great card boost let imlerith sabath beat that kind of stat advance. or any of the Golden duelers
Artefact compression and Muzzle are also considerate grave hate since they remove cards from your oponents grave.
That bronze nilfgarian chick that shuffles cards from your grave to the deck she is basicly i nevery deck, Not to mention those 13 points spy cards that can give you the card advantage to evade scorches etc. Grave haters are the best cards to make use of that and monster while having the least powerfull one they can get most value out of those cards. Not only is that they can give you the card advance to evade scorches with your aracj queen, Not only they can consume them from the grave. They can do that from both your hand and field/ I so enjoy toad price ozzrel Frightener for that its just 18 and 19 stat minions and a great card boost let imlerith sabath beat that kind of stat advance. or any of the Golden duelers
I disagree. Having a "best deck" that folds to hate is a good thing. Both Harald and Nekkers fold to hate. Harald can never dominate the top of the ladder for long, because if he does, other decks will simply start running their silver mage + First Light and suddenly Harald folds hard. Nekkers are just as easily teched against. If there's anything wrong with Nekkers it's that they shrug off card disadvantage like no other deck, making getting the blue coin against them horrible.
It should be stated that Harald and Nekkers both shrug off small amounts of hate. You cannot reliably beat Harald with a single silver mage, or Nekkers with just Mandrake. They only become borderline useless when the opponent has excessive hate ("excessive" here means about 3-4 cards).
You mention beating them "unteched" but if you run without hate cards, you should expect to lose against bad matchups. In fact if every other deck can consistently beat your deck without tech, your deck is just bad.
GS is unique because, as I just showed, even running eight hate cards isn't enough to swing the matchup. You can beat Harald with 3-4 cards, you can't beat GS with that same number. Skellige being the only faction that can resurrect dead engines is a big factor here, on top of the fact that the deck is both a strong engine deck and has good win conditions.
You mention you play casual decks that have a decent chance against GS. What decks are these? Because as the meta report indicates, the only competitive deck with a good matchup vs. GS is alchemy.
Wrong. Spies also have a good matchup against Greatswords and they are competitive. The meta report indicates spy bronzes with Emhyr as the leader have a winrate of 53% and upwards in the highest rank. But if you compare Crach (who is both the GS leader and the Greatswords leader) with the other leaders you won't get an accurate picture. Emhyr is also used in Handbuff, Mill and aertain alchemy variants, so he has an overall bad winrate against Crach. That doesn't mean spies have a bad winrate against greatswords.
More importantly, I mentioned casual decks for that reason. Because I hate playing this game to win. I am honestly starting to hate this. It's already bad enough in casual when I get blue coin, opponent has sabbath or an all around superior draw (or all of these happen across consecutive games). I do not play this to win anymore. I give absolutely no damn. The decks I play which have a favorable matchup are those I mentioned: Baseline consume with Caretaker and Ozzrel, Reveal with Scorch abuse and Spies. All of these have, at least for me, a positive winrate against Greatswords. That does not mean they win always. Like I said Greatswords are a relatively closer to Tier 0, so even teched opponents will often suffer defeat. But I find that in all 3 decks, you can't reliably say I pack more than 3 hate cards, especially in consume (reveal: yen enchantress, scorch, villentretenmerth - spies: 3 vicovaro medics)
You are missing the point. My point is not that they are bad. I absolutely love playing with Harald for example. And he is not OP either. The problem comes from the design of these decks. The tech you have to pack is so extremely targeted, that it limits your deck's usefulness against literally anything else.
Harald has stayed at the top of the ladder the past 3 months at least. The reason is because he is in that sweet spot of popularity right now. But Nekkers also consistently have a strong winrate (ever since Midwinter really), the only time they did not was when the faction challenge of monsters vs skellige was on, where they lost badly to greatswords.
It's a deck that if you can't counter, well, sorry, you've lost, really. No deck other than these 2 works like that (Nekkers, it's not entirely like that but you are still at a very disadvantageous position). My little statistic analysis (the thread I made some time ago, and in which most of the active forum members posted, including you, if I recall correctly) goes to show that it's basically the Imlerith: Sabbath of decks (considering we all agree on the "no weather clear? nah, sorry, GG"). And again, unlike the card, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It just stands out in this stupid format of this stupid game. As a deck that works in a way it does not feel like it should, as if it is a little "off"
To put it more simply, I beat Greatswords unteched a lot more consistently than I do Harald. Harald I beat quite literally, almost never, even with minor amounts of hard tech (Scorch, locks, Some removal).
The polar opposite is NG handbuff, which I absolutely hate, but at least there is a very clear optimal way of playing against it.
Hmm, I usually win against GS without giving up an edge toward other decks. What is your full deck list? Seems like you're lacking point building and losing an edge because of it. Let's look and see where we can create value. That's what this is all about. At the end of a round whoever has the highest value wins after all.
I'm confused about where the confusion is coming from. SK has always had very strong interaction with their own GY. Shutting down "problem cards" when they can indefinitely come back into the world of the living requires a very large plethora of cards able to snipe them, tools able to kill and send the "problem cards" beyond the event horizon, thievery options or a polite request for Gandalf to transform them into a sheep . It's hardly a new development.
Insert engine/setup/important bronze/crux of the deck cards into "problem cards" above.
Yes, this is a simplification. Yes, at certain points in Gwent history running enough proper counters could compromise you against other big boy decks (not exclusive to SK). No, this isn't meant to cry a river of tears for SK nerfs. Simply neutering the strong GY play for SK or arbitrarily nerfbatting the poor, persecuted GS in the face is not a reasonable solution.
. It's hardly a new development.Insert engine/setup/important bronze/crux of the deck cards into "problem cards" above.
Yes, this is a simplification. Yes, at certain points in Gwent history running enough proper counters could compromise you against other big boy decks (not exclusive to SK). No, this isn't meant to cry a river of tears for SK nerfs. Simply neutering the strong GY play for SK or arbitrarily nerfbatting the poor, persecuted GS in the face is not a reasonable solution.
I'm confused about where the confusion is coming from. SK has always had very strong interaction with their own GY. Shutting down "problem cards" when they can indefinitely come back into the world of the living requires a very large plethora of cards able to snipe them, tools able to kill and send the "problem cards" beyond the event horizon, thievery options or a polite request for Gandalf to transform them into a sheep
Insert engine/setup/important bronze/crux of the deck cards into "problem cards" above.
Yes, this is a simplification. Yes, at certain points in Gwent history running enough proper counters could compromise you against other big boy decks (not exclusive to SK). No, this isn't meant to cry a river of tears for SK nerfs. Simply neutering the strong GY play for SK or arbitrarily nerfbatting the poor, persecuted GS in the face is not a reasonable solution.
Yeah, I don't even play GS but I don't think it's broken, it may hold a slight edge over certain decks/factions but hardly an overpowered deck.
You need resets and shackles to play competitively at certain levels, 9 damage is a 9 pt play, and you perform a successful half block, meaning the other part of the engine is still in play and effectively works without gs (The Ships). Plus again that GY interaction.
I run 3-4 nukes as far as I can recall off hand, maybe the same amount of counters? They play well into my engine/point building scheme so I'm not operating at an instant loss. The rest is my engine to build pts.
As you said, I'm not sure spies has a good win rate vs. GS. Usurper is likely the most reliable way of seeing that statistic, but the sample size is very small (and don't forget Crach has two decks too). It's not a good sign the usage statistic is this low either since it indicates a poor win rate against the rest of the field. Usurper's 49.3% win rate is semi-respectable though.
Tech vs. Harald is hardly extremely targeted. Silver mages are very versatile cards, and First Light is at worst a random bronze card in your deck, i.e. usually useful (at least after you've thinned all the Foglets etc). Dedicated removal can also kill the Axemen (Alzur's Thunder etc). Arachas Queen can be beaten without too much targeted hate as well, and some decks have naturally strong matchup vs. it. If your strategy is naturally strong vs. another, you can win without targeted hate (e.g. reveal vs. Nekkers, Sabbath vs. Axemen). That's why I wrote 'every other deck' - if every other deck has a strategy that's naturally strong vs. yours, your deck isn't worth playing.
Harald has never been at the top of the ladder. One of the top few decks yes, but the win rate leader, never. Nekkers got wiped out immediately after the patch (44.3%, meta report #19), which I'd say is because of splash hate targeting GS.
When I played that match:
1x Alzur's Thunder
3x Moonlight
3x Siren
3x Werewolf
1x Ancient Foglet
1x Alpha Werewolf
2x Foglet
1x Reconnaissance
1x Ozzrel
1x Golyat
1x Frightener
1x Morvudd
1x Vaedamakar
1x Nekurat
1x Miruna
1x Woodland Spirit
1x Triss: Telekinesis
1x Kayran
I reached the top 100 with variants of this deck before the last patch. Since that game I've been seriously thinking of cutting either Ancient Foglet or Alpha Werewolf, or maybe even both, for Cyclops / Drowner because 8 hate cards clearly aren't enough. Problem with that is, on the ranked ladder, GS actually seems quite rare; they are much more common on the pro ladder. Cyclops / Drowner are slightly inferior against non-GS matchups.
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wow! which gwent u r playing dude? as par I know it's mostly 8 + 3 + 7 total = 18
& I know so many other combos better than this which I am not going to post so go & check them 1st.
It's actually 19 since Longship triggers on the same turn. It can also be directly worth more than 20, e.g. 8 (Pirate Captain) +3 (Corsair) +7 (Clan Dimun Warship) +4 (Warship's effect) = 22. That's Ciri: Nova level.
Restore is a fantastic silver card. It's in every Skellige deck for a reason. Just imagine what it was like before it was nerfed (twice!) - it used to strengthen the restored unit to 10 strength, and the unit wasn't doomed.
What is this +4 Warship's effect? I know the proper calculation till 19, I am just saying there are many combos like this available if u know.
Forget about silvers but some faction bronze cards are that powerful.
It's a Clan Dimun Warship, not Longship. Warships do 4 damage.
Ohh k so that's different machine combo. Sorry I was totally lost in GS deck.
Interesting.... i don't run eithne/brouver, but i am SC, and i usually decimate Crach decks. My win rate is at about 83%, though i am only at rank 19 because i don't play very much.
There is nothing more satisfying than Muzzling a Greatsword you've lightninged that's worth 18+ when they reset
36+ point swing for the win.please run a silver lock deck against me
any non-engine, non-gimmick deck destroys a lock-based deck easily.