Greetings Gwenches and Gwentlemen.
It has been a while since my last forum guides, but in the light of recent events I decide to write another one about the new Balance Council.
With the Balance Council around the corner and discussions already underway, this article aims to broaden the view on how to vote.
Notably this is not telling you which card to vote for, as this is a highly individual choice and the final say remains with each player after all is said and done. This article should be treated as thought-provoking with a few points to consider before casting one's vote to make a more nuanced and sophisticated decision. This way, GWENT, the game we like to play will continue to thrive (not Thrive; mind you dear Monster players) and evolve.
Perfect balance is an utopia
With that being written, just like an evolving card will never reach its final form without Devotion, GWENT will never reach a fully balanced state despite all of its players' devotion.
GWENT is an inherently unfair game.
The coin flip at the start, the luck of the draw, random damage pings landing on armour instead of taking out the engine behind a Defender you hoped to hit. Archetypes struggling versus a particular counter... Full balance will never be achieved. The goal of Gwentfinity should not be to make all cards equally powerful and try to achieve a perfect equilibrium - but to give all cards enough potential to have a chance of winning and thus be considered when building a new deck.
Balancing approaches: numbers versus feelings
When talking balance in card games, players can roughly be divided into two camps:
The first group advocates for a balance of cards by numbers.
Play rates of cards, win rates of deck lists, inclusion rates – all of those statistics are evaluated across several ranks and game modes. If strictly adhering to this approach, any deck list that sees much play across the game might be a candidate for a nerf, even if it might just be a flavour of the month list that sees play because it is easier to complete the current cycle quests with.
Cards that have perfectly average win rates might still get hit by nerfs just because they see much play, as they are the only answer of a faction to a certain other meta deck.
Another example would be Nilfgaard as an entire faction, which usually has inflated play rates because the player base seemingly just likes to play the Black-Clads – even if its win rate was mostly in line with other factions across GWENT's history.
It is all a matter of how much weight is given to each statistic to ultimately make a balanced choice.
The second group balances based on how they feel about a card.
It might be part of a whacky combo that works once in a dozen matches but feels incredibly awful to lose against – so it should be nerfed despite its abysmal win rate. Mill decks tend to be part of that category. Easily countered, and you see them coming from miles away, but it does not feel exactly great if the mill player high roles and removes all your gold cards before you could draw them.
And yet, the people enjoying this kind of playstyle also have a right to snatch a win with it. Both players' perceptions of fun need to be accounted for – the one who executes their whacky game plan and the one who has to take that bullet. A deck that is unfun to play against might get a balancing pass if its play rate is low enough, so nobody has to endure that match too often and said deck's players are still allowed to enjoy their fun once in a while.
A deck list that is seemingly easy to play even after a hard day at work might be target of nerf suggestions just because it is perceived as farming wins without any skill – even if the deck is actually not that simple when you take a closer look.
People might even want to buff a card just because they like its artwork, so they can include it in almost every deck they play. Or nerf a card with an effect determined by luck, because they only remember when their opponent high-rolled and ignore all the matches where it failed them. Bribery is a prime example of this case. Players advocated for this card to be nerfed for months, yet CDPR never gave in and the card remained like it was introduced. Nowadays, the card does not even see much play as there are more consistent options that do not rely on luck.
Which of these approaches is better for GWENT?
That is probably asking the wrong question. Both approaches have their merits and flaws. Just like with many other aspects outside of games, it would help a lot if both parties tried to understand why the other one thinks like it does. Naturally mixed approaches exist. Try to keep both aspects in mind when discussing balance changes and deny neither group – balance by numbers or feelings – its right to exist.
Balancing the extremes
While it will be rather easy to identify which cards could use a nerf simply because you will encounter them fairly often in ranked mode, the cards on the other end of the spectrum will be more difficult to assess. Some of them might see so little play that players might have forgotten they even existed. Just as a reminder, Dragon's Dream is a thing. You are welcome.
When choosing which cards to buff, there are different ways to approach the matter:
Buff cards that are almost playable
This would increase the pool of playable cards quickly and make the game feel rather fresh in a comparably short amount of time. This might be especially appealing since the transition to Gwentfinity might lead to an exodus of players who do not believe the Balance Council will have an actual impact, and quick changes might coerce them to stay. Might. Throwing the towel after merely one vote cycle seems premature. Getting lots of cards playable at the same time would also have a significant impact on the meta and might even feel like a fresh expansion as several decks will be experimented with until eventually a new meta emerges.
This approach has a high risk of forgetting cards that would need several buffs to become viable. Balance discussion might focus on the decks that got the short end of the stick in the wild period described above. With the new changes in place, suddenly other cards that are almost playable emerge, and the next vote will likely be spent to make those playable. There is a significant risk getting entangled into that middle-ground of almost playable cards, shifting points and Provisions around among them without ultimately expanding the pool of cards that are actually being voted on.
Buff cards that do not see play at all
This might not have an immediate impact, as some of those cards will need several cycles of votes to become even a consideration. This way, people might lose faith in whether it is actually worth it to cast votes on these cards because even when the votes go through, nothing in regard to the actual meta really changed.
However, unlike with the approach above, there is little risk of cards being entirely forgotten, especially since at the start of Gwentfinity we sadly have a lot of cards that have not seen play in ages, if at all. If you have ever forgotten a card existed, or look at a card and think 'There is no way I would run this in my deck.' it is likely a good candidate to be buffed.
Moreover, buffing such entirely forgotten cards might lead to other cards that are not entirely forgotten being pushed in the first ones' wake, leading to new synergies and a bigger effect than the initial buff might have suggested.
I highly recommend going with the second approach.
While you are in for the long run, it is easier to identify and buff the worst of the worst cards. There is more controversial debate around the cards on edge of being playable. By buffing the truly abysmal cards, it is more likely the suggested buffs will go through and will not be reverted later on as they turned out to be too good, effectively wasting two vote cycles. If you only buff the middlegrounds, you are risking a yo-yo-effect where you get caught up in endless debates about what is in need of a buff instead of going for the simple low-hanging fruit of obvious buff votes.
At the point of our first votes, we also have much more cards in need of a buff than cards that need to be toned down, so even looking at the quantity of cards buffing the worst card should be a priority. Once all that needed to be nerfed is on an acceptable level, you free up the nerf votes for using them in the area of almost playable cards. Meanwhile, buff votes are in much higher demand by the sheer number of cards that could use them, so risking them being negated in the yo-yo-effect won't be beneficial.
"Benchmark" cards – a broader view on balance
Anyone eligible to vote likely has heard of the four Provision bronze card value debate at some point. How many points should a four Provision bronze card play for to be considered good?
Directly after Homecoming cards played for roughly their Provision value in points, later on a commonly accepted value for a decent bronze card was six points. Lately, this gravitated more towards seven, albeit usually not without a more or less elaborate condition. Card value evolved over the game's lifetime; however, there are a few cards in GWENT's history that used to serve as a benchmark of how many points a card should play for in a vacuum.
In GWENT's Beta, this card used to be Geralt of Rivia.
He had no effect whatsoever and was merely a big body. Back then, in August 2017, this used to be 13 power – and as time went by and the game evolved, this was raised to 15 power about half a year later. If you browsed through the gold cards that did not rely on a target back then, every one of them played for roughly that value – or if it played for more, it had an appropriately complex condition attached to it.
Ever since its introduction, in today's GWENT such a benchmark card is Heatwave.
At its core, it is a very basic, yet important effect: destroy literally anything you can use it on, with Artefacts being a more notable option given how little counterplay they have. While it used to be at 13 Provisions, it was buffed to 12 half a year later and further to 10 after another six months.
And it should firmly remain there for the time being, even if we can now vote on it.
Heatwave is actually very carefully priced. The decision whether to use it on cards with higher Provisions ("trading up" in Provisions) or lower ones ("trading down" respectively) is a decision that highly depends on the cost of the targets Heatwave denies if played in relation to them. Consecutively, changing Heatwave's Provision cost will have an impact on that choice and thus influences dozens of cards around it, with results that will be very hard to guess after such a huge shift by a single change.
After plenty of balance cycles Heatwave might warrant an adjustment, as all the cards around it changed first and the benchmark of the entire game shifted – like it did in the past and will likely do in the future. Just do not take the second step before the first one and move the balance plot pole Heatwave currently symbolises without considering the consequences this will inevitably have.
Never aim to make cards or entire decks unplayable
Every card and archetype has a right to exist.
Some like mill might be highly controversial, but even if you do not like them, is it not a reason to nerf them into what would equal being unplayable for the people that like this strategy. That goes for key cards tying the archetype together, but also for its single pieces. You might invalidate the existence of a dozen cards by nerfing a few of them that would see play in the same deck. It is okay to make a card like Traheaern var Vdyffir unappealing to run as a random card in any Nilfgaard deck, just hoping to hit an opponent's win condition with his effect. However, it is not okay to make him deliberately too weak even for his own archetype, especially since mill is not exactly a competitive deck list at the point of writing this.
One vote, several changes? – a checklist
Balance does not happen in a vacuum; context matters. Whenever you cast your votes on a card, look beyond the card itself and try to imagine what consequences the change has should it go through.
Does the change even have the desired impact?
You might be thinking the obvious answer is: Yes, if it goes through, something will change. It is, in fact, not that simple.
For example, it makes no sense whatsoever to change the power of King Chrum as its own effect sets it to a fixed value at the start of each match. Yes, Mandrake exists, but you hopefully know what I am getting at: there is no point in power changes if a card sets its own power according to a certain condition.
It is also rather ineffective to vote for the power change of an Evolving card when the issue you want to address lies mainly with its second form which is not affected by your vote. While it objectively does have an effect if you are forced to play the card in its first stage, the actual impact might not really exist given that it is usually never played like this unless forced to.
I will only mention this briefly and for the sake of completeness, but increasing the power of a Disloyal unit is a nerf, not a buff.
Just like increasing the Provisions of a leader ability constitutes a buff, not a nerf.
The Golden-Nekker-Gap
Buffing a card's Provision cost from 10 to 9 automatically enables it to be used in Golden Nekker/Ciri Nova decks. Given both of them are Neutrals, every faction card buff needs to be checked to see if it accidentally enables a new strong Nekker list. It might be wise to keep some key cards of an archetype above 9 Provisions to not shoehorn it into being only viable with Golden Nekker. It is hard to guess how much a change will give rise to a new Nekker list and mistakes will be made, but at least keep the thought at the back of your head.
Luckily, Ciri Nova and Golden Nekker themselves can now have their Provisions changed without voiding their effects.
Does the card appear on other cards?
If so, do keep in mind that those cards will likely be buffed or nerfed accordingly.
When you vote for power changes to Cleaver's Muscle, you will influence Cleaver and Novigradian Justice as well, while a Provision change would only have an impact on Muscle itself. Many Scenarios spawn bronze cards on Deploy, some leader abilities have cards as part of their effects.
One power might equal more than one point
Resilience, Predator, Duel and Clash as keywords. Cards that play copies of themselves, like Kaedweni Revanant. Cards that you replay in serveral rounds like Crowmother. There are numerous instances where a one-point change in power translates into more points on the board.
Do not forget about cards where decks revolve around playing numerous copies of the same card; a one-power buff to Blue Stripes Commando can easily equal a dozen points for the Northern Realms deck that focuses on them.
Are there similar cards in the same faction or neutrals?
If several very similar cards exist, players will only consider the best one. It would make no sense for Surrender and Lacerate to cost the same, as the former provides extra benefits while the latter only might have some synergies because of its Organic tag. If you just need row punish as a tech card, the choice would almost always be Surrender.
Nilfgaard has several options to increase a deck's consistency: Blightmaker, Dead Man's Tongue, Jan Calveit, Hunting Pack, also neutral cards like Oneiromancy. If one of those options is strictly superior in terms of cost or efficiency, the others will rarely see the light of day.
Try to make different options appealing for different decks instead of one solution for all of them.
Spread your votes
While people might be able to agree on which of the current meta decks should be toned down, their opinions on how to do that might differ greatly. A deck consists of lots of little gearwheels, packages, and combo pieces and it is difficult to identify which of those is the actual offender that makes the deck stronger than its competitors. Meanwhile, a different deck you want to give some love has a nice bronze package, and you decided to buff all of them because said deck does not see any play and you feel like it needs a lot of help.
If all your votes are targeting the same faction, archetype, or package, there is a significant risk of overshooting your goal. A former meta deck might be nerfed to the ground, so nobody touches it anymore. Meanwhile the formerly weak deck suddenly terrorises the Ranked mode as all the buffs amount to a lot of extra points for that deck that other decks cannot match anymore.
Stay engaged
As trivial as it may seem:
Vote.
Use your votes and even if you did not manage to reach the requirements of 25 wins or Pro Rank this season you can still participate in the discussion of the Balance Council, for example on the official GWENT Discord server.
A lively community and its engagement with each other will help to keep the game just as lively and the meta fresh enough to enjoy the game even without content updates. I encourage you to discuss your thoughts on balance with your fellow Gwenches and Gwentlemen. However, I do suggest you focus less on the cards that everyone picked, and more on the reason why they chose to do so. Do not blindly follow the recommendation of some other players, but make up your own mind and form your opinion. A discussion is about lying down your thoughts supported by reasonable arguments – not about winning it. Ultimately some card will get the majority of votes and thus see changes .
There is no need to be discouraged if cards you voted for do not appear in the list of changes. Keep voting, maybe reassess your choice and think about why nobody agreed with you choices. Regardless of the results, your vote and your part in the discussion matters.
This concludes this article. Thank you for reading, may it be of help with your Balance Council votes. Do by any means feel free to discuss your monthly votes in this thread.
Also thank you to teddybee_r (B o r k h +1) providing a website I can link to for any card effect and art requirements in my articles.
Changelog
January 22nd 2024
It has been a while since my last forum guides, but in the light of recent events I decide to write another one about the new Balance Council.
With the Balance Council around the corner and discussions already underway, this article aims to broaden the view on how to vote.
Notably this is not telling you which card to vote for, as this is a highly individual choice and the final say remains with each player after all is said and done. This article should be treated as thought-provoking with a few points to consider before casting one's vote to make a more nuanced and sophisticated decision. This way, GWENT, the game we like to play will continue to thrive (not Thrive; mind you dear Monster players) and evolve.
Perfect balance is an utopia
With that being written, just like an evolving card will never reach its final form without Devotion, GWENT will never reach a fully balanced state despite all of its players' devotion.
GWENT is an inherently unfair game.
The coin flip at the start, the luck of the draw, random damage pings landing on armour instead of taking out the engine behind a Defender you hoped to hit. Archetypes struggling versus a particular counter... Full balance will never be achieved. The goal of Gwentfinity should not be to make all cards equally powerful and try to achieve a perfect equilibrium - but to give all cards enough potential to have a chance of winning and thus be considered when building a new deck.
Balancing approaches: numbers versus feelings
When talking balance in card games, players can roughly be divided into two camps:
The first group advocates for a balance of cards by numbers.
Play rates of cards, win rates of deck lists, inclusion rates – all of those statistics are evaluated across several ranks and game modes. If strictly adhering to this approach, any deck list that sees much play across the game might be a candidate for a nerf, even if it might just be a flavour of the month list that sees play because it is easier to complete the current cycle quests with.
Cards that have perfectly average win rates might still get hit by nerfs just because they see much play, as they are the only answer of a faction to a certain other meta deck.
Another example would be Nilfgaard as an entire faction, which usually has inflated play rates because the player base seemingly just likes to play the Black-Clads – even if its win rate was mostly in line with other factions across GWENT's history.
It is all a matter of how much weight is given to each statistic to ultimately make a balanced choice.
The second group balances based on how they feel about a card.
It might be part of a whacky combo that works once in a dozen matches but feels incredibly awful to lose against – so it should be nerfed despite its abysmal win rate. Mill decks tend to be part of that category. Easily countered, and you see them coming from miles away, but it does not feel exactly great if the mill player high roles and removes all your gold cards before you could draw them.
And yet, the people enjoying this kind of playstyle also have a right to snatch a win with it. Both players' perceptions of fun need to be accounted for – the one who executes their whacky game plan and the one who has to take that bullet. A deck that is unfun to play against might get a balancing pass if its play rate is low enough, so nobody has to endure that match too often and said deck's players are still allowed to enjoy their fun once in a while.
A deck list that is seemingly easy to play even after a hard day at work might be target of nerf suggestions just because it is perceived as farming wins without any skill – even if the deck is actually not that simple when you take a closer look.
People might even want to buff a card just because they like its artwork, so they can include it in almost every deck they play. Or nerf a card with an effect determined by luck, because they only remember when their opponent high-rolled and ignore all the matches where it failed them. Bribery is a prime example of this case. Players advocated for this card to be nerfed for months, yet CDPR never gave in and the card remained like it was introduced. Nowadays, the card does not even see much play as there are more consistent options that do not rely on luck.
Which of these approaches is better for GWENT?
That is probably asking the wrong question. Both approaches have their merits and flaws. Just like with many other aspects outside of games, it would help a lot if both parties tried to understand why the other one thinks like it does. Naturally mixed approaches exist. Try to keep both aspects in mind when discussing balance changes and deny neither group – balance by numbers or feelings – its right to exist.
Balancing the extremes
While it will be rather easy to identify which cards could use a nerf simply because you will encounter them fairly often in ranked mode, the cards on the other end of the spectrum will be more difficult to assess. Some of them might see so little play that players might have forgotten they even existed. Just as a reminder, Dragon's Dream is a thing. You are welcome.
When choosing which cards to buff, there are different ways to approach the matter:
Buff cards that are almost playable
This would increase the pool of playable cards quickly and make the game feel rather fresh in a comparably short amount of time. This might be especially appealing since the transition to Gwentfinity might lead to an exodus of players who do not believe the Balance Council will have an actual impact, and quick changes might coerce them to stay. Might. Throwing the towel after merely one vote cycle seems premature. Getting lots of cards playable at the same time would also have a significant impact on the meta and might even feel like a fresh expansion as several decks will be experimented with until eventually a new meta emerges.
This approach has a high risk of forgetting cards that would need several buffs to become viable. Balance discussion might focus on the decks that got the short end of the stick in the wild period described above. With the new changes in place, suddenly other cards that are almost playable emerge, and the next vote will likely be spent to make those playable. There is a significant risk getting entangled into that middle-ground of almost playable cards, shifting points and Provisions around among them without ultimately expanding the pool of cards that are actually being voted on.
Buff cards that do not see play at all
This might not have an immediate impact, as some of those cards will need several cycles of votes to become even a consideration. This way, people might lose faith in whether it is actually worth it to cast votes on these cards because even when the votes go through, nothing in regard to the actual meta really changed.
However, unlike with the approach above, there is little risk of cards being entirely forgotten, especially since at the start of Gwentfinity we sadly have a lot of cards that have not seen play in ages, if at all. If you have ever forgotten a card existed, or look at a card and think 'There is no way I would run this in my deck.' it is likely a good candidate to be buffed.
Moreover, buffing such entirely forgotten cards might lead to other cards that are not entirely forgotten being pushed in the first ones' wake, leading to new synergies and a bigger effect than the initial buff might have suggested.
I highly recommend going with the second approach.
While you are in for the long run, it is easier to identify and buff the worst of the worst cards. There is more controversial debate around the cards on edge of being playable. By buffing the truly abysmal cards, it is more likely the suggested buffs will go through and will not be reverted later on as they turned out to be too good, effectively wasting two vote cycles. If you only buff the middlegrounds, you are risking a yo-yo-effect where you get caught up in endless debates about what is in need of a buff instead of going for the simple low-hanging fruit of obvious buff votes.
At the point of our first votes, we also have much more cards in need of a buff than cards that need to be toned down, so even looking at the quantity of cards buffing the worst card should be a priority. Once all that needed to be nerfed is on an acceptable level, you free up the nerf votes for using them in the area of almost playable cards. Meanwhile, buff votes are in much higher demand by the sheer number of cards that could use them, so risking them being negated in the yo-yo-effect won't be beneficial.
"Benchmark" cards – a broader view on balance
Anyone eligible to vote likely has heard of the four Provision bronze card value debate at some point. How many points should a four Provision bronze card play for to be considered good?
Directly after Homecoming cards played for roughly their Provision value in points, later on a commonly accepted value for a decent bronze card was six points. Lately, this gravitated more towards seven, albeit usually not without a more or less elaborate condition. Card value evolved over the game's lifetime; however, there are a few cards in GWENT's history that used to serve as a benchmark of how many points a card should play for in a vacuum.
In GWENT's Beta, this card used to be Geralt of Rivia.
He had no effect whatsoever and was merely a big body. Back then, in August 2017, this used to be 13 power – and as time went by and the game evolved, this was raised to 15 power about half a year later. If you browsed through the gold cards that did not rely on a target back then, every one of them played for roughly that value – or if it played for more, it had an appropriately complex condition attached to it.
Ever since its introduction, in today's GWENT such a benchmark card is Heatwave.
At its core, it is a very basic, yet important effect: destroy literally anything you can use it on, with Artefacts being a more notable option given how little counterplay they have. While it used to be at 13 Provisions, it was buffed to 12 half a year later and further to 10 after another six months.
And it should firmly remain there for the time being, even if we can now vote on it.
Heatwave is actually very carefully priced. The decision whether to use it on cards with higher Provisions ("trading up" in Provisions) or lower ones ("trading down" respectively) is a decision that highly depends on the cost of the targets Heatwave denies if played in relation to them. Consecutively, changing Heatwave's Provision cost will have an impact on that choice and thus influences dozens of cards around it, with results that will be very hard to guess after such a huge shift by a single change.
After plenty of balance cycles Heatwave might warrant an adjustment, as all the cards around it changed first and the benchmark of the entire game shifted – like it did in the past and will likely do in the future. Just do not take the second step before the first one and move the balance plot pole Heatwave currently symbolises without considering the consequences this will inevitably have.
Never aim to make cards or entire decks unplayable
Every card and archetype has a right to exist.
Some like mill might be highly controversial, but even if you do not like them, is it not a reason to nerf them into what would equal being unplayable for the people that like this strategy. That goes for key cards tying the archetype together, but also for its single pieces. You might invalidate the existence of a dozen cards by nerfing a few of them that would see play in the same deck. It is okay to make a card like Traheaern var Vdyffir unappealing to run as a random card in any Nilfgaard deck, just hoping to hit an opponent's win condition with his effect. However, it is not okay to make him deliberately too weak even for his own archetype, especially since mill is not exactly a competitive deck list at the point of writing this.
One vote, several changes? – a checklist
Balance does not happen in a vacuum; context matters. Whenever you cast your votes on a card, look beyond the card itself and try to imagine what consequences the change has should it go through.
Does the change even have the desired impact?
You might be thinking the obvious answer is: Yes, if it goes through, something will change. It is, in fact, not that simple.
For example, it makes no sense whatsoever to change the power of King Chrum as its own effect sets it to a fixed value at the start of each match. Yes, Mandrake exists, but you hopefully know what I am getting at: there is no point in power changes if a card sets its own power according to a certain condition.
It is also rather ineffective to vote for the power change of an Evolving card when the issue you want to address lies mainly with its second form which is not affected by your vote. While it objectively does have an effect if you are forced to play the card in its first stage, the actual impact might not really exist given that it is usually never played like this unless forced to.
I will only mention this briefly and for the sake of completeness, but increasing the power of a Disloyal unit is a nerf, not a buff.
Just like increasing the Provisions of a leader ability constitutes a buff, not a nerf.
The Golden-Nekker-Gap
Buffing a card's Provision cost from 10 to 9 automatically enables it to be used in Golden Nekker/Ciri Nova decks. Given both of them are Neutrals, every faction card buff needs to be checked to see if it accidentally enables a new strong Nekker list. It might be wise to keep some key cards of an archetype above 9 Provisions to not shoehorn it into being only viable with Golden Nekker. It is hard to guess how much a change will give rise to a new Nekker list and mistakes will be made, but at least keep the thought at the back of your head.
Luckily, Ciri Nova and Golden Nekker themselves can now have their Provisions changed without voiding their effects.
Does the card appear on other cards?
If so, do keep in mind that those cards will likely be buffed or nerfed accordingly.
When you vote for power changes to Cleaver's Muscle, you will influence Cleaver and Novigradian Justice as well, while a Provision change would only have an impact on Muscle itself. Many Scenarios spawn bronze cards on Deploy, some leader abilities have cards as part of their effects.
One power might equal more than one point
Resilience, Predator, Duel and Clash as keywords. Cards that play copies of themselves, like Kaedweni Revanant. Cards that you replay in serveral rounds like Crowmother. There are numerous instances where a one-point change in power translates into more points on the board.
Do not forget about cards where decks revolve around playing numerous copies of the same card; a one-power buff to Blue Stripes Commando can easily equal a dozen points for the Northern Realms deck that focuses on them.
Are there similar cards in the same faction or neutrals?
If several very similar cards exist, players will only consider the best one. It would make no sense for Surrender and Lacerate to cost the same, as the former provides extra benefits while the latter only might have some synergies because of its Organic tag. If you just need row punish as a tech card, the choice would almost always be Surrender.
Nilfgaard has several options to increase a deck's consistency: Blightmaker, Dead Man's Tongue, Jan Calveit, Hunting Pack, also neutral cards like Oneiromancy. If one of those options is strictly superior in terms of cost or efficiency, the others will rarely see the light of day.
Try to make different options appealing for different decks instead of one solution for all of them.
Spread your votes
While people might be able to agree on which of the current meta decks should be toned down, their opinions on how to do that might differ greatly. A deck consists of lots of little gearwheels, packages, and combo pieces and it is difficult to identify which of those is the actual offender that makes the deck stronger than its competitors. Meanwhile, a different deck you want to give some love has a nice bronze package, and you decided to buff all of them because said deck does not see any play and you feel like it needs a lot of help.
If all your votes are targeting the same faction, archetype, or package, there is a significant risk of overshooting your goal. A former meta deck might be nerfed to the ground, so nobody touches it anymore. Meanwhile the formerly weak deck suddenly terrorises the Ranked mode as all the buffs amount to a lot of extra points for that deck that other decks cannot match anymore.
Stay engaged
As trivial as it may seem:
Vote.
Use your votes and even if you did not manage to reach the requirements of 25 wins or Pro Rank this season you can still participate in the discussion of the Balance Council, for example on the official GWENT Discord server.
A lively community and its engagement with each other will help to keep the game just as lively and the meta fresh enough to enjoy the game even without content updates. I encourage you to discuss your thoughts on balance with your fellow Gwenches and Gwentlemen. However, I do suggest you focus less on the cards that everyone picked, and more on the reason why they chose to do so. Do not blindly follow the recommendation of some other players, but make up your own mind and form your opinion. A discussion is about lying down your thoughts supported by reasonable arguments – not about winning it. Ultimately some card will get the majority of votes and thus see changes .
There is no need to be discouraged if cards you voted for do not appear in the list of changes. Keep voting, maybe reassess your choice and think about why nobody agreed with you choices. Regardless of the results, your vote and your part in the discussion matters.
This concludes this article. Thank you for reading, may it be of help with your Balance Council votes. Do by any means feel free to discuss your monthly votes in this thread.
Also thank you to teddybee_r (B o r k h +1) providing a website I can link to for any card effect and art requirements in my articles.
Changelog
January 22nd 2024
Last edited:
I guess they could maybe say Prestige 1 and 25 "matches" instead of "wins"?