How is Saskia Commander a good card?

[rrc]

I have seen Saskia Commander mentioned in a few posts on some threads saying she plays for huge points and she is super strong. But I don't see it. She is super awkward, contrived and doesn't fit really well in any decks as a coherent support. At best, she can be considered as just a point slam card. A very slow point slam card which is contrived and awkward and over-priced too.

Spoiler: Nostalgia

https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...dd-coup-teaser-trailer.11091127/post-13174408

The possible targets for Saskia are:

Elf: Sentry (most opt), Whisperer (add just because it doesn't have Deploy like 90% of the ST cards are and if magically it survives, it would fill up the row even faster), Sorceress (useless card in engine overload decks)
Dwarf: Mercenary, Berserker
Dryad: Matron (None of the other Dryads would fit in a Saskia deck)
Human: Smuggler (Abandoned Girl just for sake of 5 point point slam)

Nothing else is a good candidate for Saskia and the worst thing is, your deck should only have these bronzes. Any other bronzes you want to have, it can seriously mess up if it gets pulled. And, even in the engine overload decks, Saskia is more of a nuisance than an actual helper. She can pull card which could/should come late effectively pulling your engine later. She wouldn't let you play the engine which is apt at the time as she wouldn't pull the copy of the engine from deck. She forces you to add cards which doesn't fit just so that she can play for a decent value.

Say you have a Sentry and a Witcher in hand and Saskia pulls a Dward. Now you have to play one of these engines so that it starts to get value. You play Cat Witcher and if it is not removed you lose the ability to pull the engine later. Also, you have very limited bronzes in your deck. What is your round 1 strategy? Are you going to play Saskia in R1 which can seriously mess up and get the good cards you want to use in R2/R3? If you are not going to use Saskia, how are you going to exit R1 without committing your bronzes as well as not committing more golds?

I am trying to figure out a deck which is good for her, but the troubles I need to go through just to make a mediocre junk card.. in most case doesn't seem to worth it. In any other faction, she would be easily a 11P card. But she fits the ST universe perfectly. Contrived, Awkward, Hard To Pull Off, Over-Priced.

 

[Jollyrogerxberg]

I don't know if Saskia C is a good card but if you want to play full controll she is your auto-proactivity.

Is Portal a good card? Would Portal be a good card if it would reset his counter every use? Would it be good as a 4 immune unit instead of an Artifact? Is Raffards Vengeance a good card?

Ok RV is superstrongop forget that. She is basically a Portal with different deckbuilding condition. She is good in strategies where you reserve your hand for reactive cards and don't want to play any bronce unit in R3.
As a long time SC player i guess you can think about one or two strategies that would fit this.

But in general, as a midrange tutor/pointslam/thinner....meh

 

[EduFerraz]

Well, i think the obvious deck she is amazing its in the movement deck.

Despite, of course, the all "shit" with madoc, milva and etc, even if you dont use those cards, saskia commander is really good in that deck.

Sentry is elf, matron is driad and cat witcher is witcher. So she summoning those cards is really good. For me i like to have like 2 cat witchers in hand, one matron and one sentry.

So she will problably summon sentry. Next round i could use cat witchers (or in my case, bombs and traps, but you can use other cards wwith diferents tags). Next turn another cat witcher and she will problably will summon matron, so in next turn i use another matron and problably i win the round and thinned my bronze in the deck.

For the rest, well, you dont need to put every good card in everydeck

 

[NoGG4Netdeckers]

At best, she can be considered as just a point slam card. A very slow point slam card which is contrived and awkward and over-priced too.

She is not a point slam card, she is an engine card, an engine that puts more engines on the board (typically movement oriented). It's like a Raffard's except you don't need to keep the bronzes in hand, no need to waste turns on winches, and it has immunity, which is completely idiotic.

At deploy it's not something crazy, but it steadily builds up to where it gets completely out of hand, and applied pressure with leader ability killing your own engines, good luck, have fun.

I'm fine with Milva, its a cool card, but Saskia needs a serious nerf, and even if nerfed I will still hate it for the same reason I still hate Raffard's even if it's less common now. Maybe everyone should have a Milva, so these kind of cards that try to overwhelm you would be less oppressive.

 

[jed9653]

With all this movement archetype talk, I think that people forget that she can be used to pull harmony engines. I know harmony isn't really competitive right now, but it is a more wholesome way to use her, and that deck easily meets her conditions

 

[1990BW]

It's Portal (summon 2x 4 provision units from deck) but without provision cap, 4 strength body and a constant cooldown of 3 (potentially thinning 4 cards from deck).
The card is too good when you compare it to this card.

 

[Barracuda88]

It's a bad card. Nothing's changed since the reveal. It's nice that it thins and can pull engines, but ST always has to jump through about fifty hoops to get value. Imagine something like Fucusya having a requirement "Res whatever blah blah AS LONG AS you have more than 6 cards already on the board and 2 of them cannot be warriors... or druids." Or Radovid can do his thing "AS LONG AS there are no witchers or mages in your deck." Cos you know, he hates them and stuff... Yeah, that's how it feels to play Saskia.

 

[rrc]

Is Portal a good card? Would Portal be a good card if it would reset his counter every use? Would it be good as a 4 immune unit instead of an Artifact? Is Raffards Vengeance a good card?

Ok RV is superstrongop forget that. She is basically a Portal with different deckbuilding condition. She is good in strategies where you reserve your hand for reactive cards and don't want to play any bronce unit in R3.
As a long time SC player i guess you can think about one or two strategies that would fit this.

It's Portal (summon 2x 4 provision units from deck) but without provision cap, 4 strength body and a constant cooldown of 3 (potentially thinning 4 cards from deck).
The card is too good when you compare it to this card.

I see this portal comparison, and I want mention that Portal doesn't have any severe significant deck building requirement. Portal's only requirement is having one or two 4P card pairs you want to pull from the deck. If you are quite the risk taker, only one pair, or you can have two pairs of 4P card which gets value when summoned. Like the Fish Flapper or the Devotion MO card. You are free to add any other bronze cards. Saskia on the other hand forces you to break your head in deck building.

Portal doesn't make your play awkward. You are free to play any card as you see fit. Saskia forces to you play cards according to your deck and even sub-optimal play. If you have cards that Saskia can pull, you can't/shouldn't play those cards type from hand. You can play Portal R1 for the thinning and the tempo with very very minimal deckbuilding conditions. Saskia is a R3 card which makes the R1 awkward.

I don't know why people say this is a great card (even Spyro, who I respect as a strong player) says that Saskia is a broken card. I don't see it. The pay off seems too "contrived, awkward, and hard to pull". I am trying to build a deck with/around her. It may be 100 iteration behind and I may need to make many more adjustments, but this is the deck I currently built and trying to make it work. May be Saskia is not meant to be played like this. But irrespective of the decks she is supposed to be played, her conditions (in deck building as well in game) seems really contrived and awkward to me.

My super unoptimized deck: https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/c3614e42e44ffd24777b6d1d0ad075af

Post automatically merged: Dec 11, 2021

It's a bad card. Nothing's changed since the reveal. It's nice that it thins and can pull engines, but ST always has to jump through about fifty hoops to get value. Imagine something like Fucusya having a requirement "Res whatever blah blah AS LONG AS you have more than 6 cards already on the board and 2 of them cannot be warriors... or druids." Or Radovid can do his thing "AS LONG AS there are no witchers or mages in your deck." Cos you know, he hates them and stuff... Yeah, that's how it feels to play Saskia.

Exactly my thoughts!! Thank you!! Sooo many conditions in deck building and even during round to get nominal value for a 13P card.

 

[ReaperTek]

She is quite strong and can easily carry round 1 or force the Opponent into a early pass, for me she feels a bit like a mix between Portal and Scenario and i gotta say i really like her Deckbuilding, Mulligan and think twice which Card you play to not mess up her summons Design.

As for her negatives she's very limited on ST Decks you can actually build around her and doesn't already make sense with some Leader Skills like Call of Harmony, Mahakam Forge and Precision Strike (risk of summoning the auto include Brokilon Sentinel) along with Archetypes like Harmony, Elf Swarm and Dorfs and probably is easiest used in no unit Deck's where you don't care that much about what she's summoning as long as she generates points and thins you're Deck.

Other Decks to use her on are in my opinion Handbuff, Spella'tael, Movement (i think she's less risky if you go for a complete offensive movement strategy) or some Neutral Meme Decks* .

Saskia needs a serious nerf, and even if nerfed I will still hate it for the same reason I still hate Raffard's even if it's less common now.

Considering her Deckbuilding requirement, randomness of summons and her sometimes forcing you into awkward plays every Nerf would probably straight off kill the Card.


* After building a more of a classic Gezras Movement Deck for her on Patch day i decided yesterday to go all Meme with a Shupe Singleton Deck since i probably haven't used Shupe on Scoia'tael since Mystic Echo lost his ability to replay neutrals and to my surprise its better than expected and brought me up to Pro Rank although I don't think i faced the no Unit Milva Deck with it yet so it could be just Match-up luck and i had also one guy doing a instant forfeit.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/83937bc4daa7a5755c0a118463d13208

 

[NoGG4Netdeckers]

Considering her Deckbuilding requirement, randomness of summons and her sometimes forcing you into awkward plays every Nerf would probably straight off kill the Card.


* After building a more of a classic Gezras Movement Deck for her on Patch day i decided yesterday Day to go all Meme with a Shupe Singleton Deck since i probably haven't used Shupe on Scoia'tael since Mystic Echo lost his ability to replay neutrals and to my surprise its better than expected and brought me up to Pro Rank although I don't think i faced the no Unit Milva Deck with it yet so it could be just Match-up luck and i had also one guy doing a instant forfeit.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/83937bc4daa7a5755c0a118463d13208

I keep hearing how difficult it is to meet this requirement but I had absolutely no problem with it when throwing together a test deck, and honestly if something killed the card I'm not exactly going to weep.

If cards that put multiple threats on the board are going to be available then they should start printing more cards that does multi removal. They kind of did with Milva, but she's faction specific.

Saskia is a R3 card which makes the R1 awkward.

This makes me wonder if you have even really played against these decks. It's typically used in R1/R2 thinning out all the bronzes and then they go unitless R3. Actually had a game yesterday where I accidentally passed on 8 cards but the guy kept on playing to thin out his bronzes and went traps in round 3.

 

[Barracuda88]

She is quite strong and can easily carry round 1 or force the Opponent into a early pass, for me she feels a bit like a mix between Portal and Scenario and i gotta say i really like her Deckbuilding, Mulligan and think twice which Card you play to not mess up her summons Design.

Sure, she's "quite strong" but that's not exactly a glowing endorsement for a 13p card. In practice, she plays for 12-14 points plus thinning, and even though she can put engines on the board, so can Portal, without the draconian deckbuilding and sequencing requirements. And her thinning is also rarely maximized, because you have to play cards and often it's a choice between bricking her or overcommitting. Yes, the design is kind of clever in its way, and would be enjoyable if it wasn't such a chore, and if didn't make her feasible in like 2 decks total, and if, as an ST player, I didn't involuntarily compare her to some of the other faction "big" cards [or even not big, like Birna, who also has "requirements", also thins 2 and plays for 14-15 points while costing 8p somehow] and realized that after having to deal with all these cute conditions, she basically plays for sh*t value. And her immunity is basically a wash: it provides some (though not a major) measure of protection, but also prevents you from protecting her from something like fog, which kills her in two pings.

As for her negatives she's very limited on ST Decks you can actually build around her and doesn't already make sense with some Leader Skills like Call of Harmony, Mahakam Forge and Precision Strike (risk of summoning the auto include Brokilon Sentinel) along with Archetypes like Harmony, Elf Swarm and Dorfs and probably is easiest used in no unit Deck's where you don't care that much about what she's summoning as long as she generates points and thins you're Deck.

Other Decks to use her on are in my opinion Handbuff, Spella'tael, Movement (i think she's less risky if you go for a complete offensive movement strategy) or some Neutral Meme Decks* .

I think her merit in handbuff and spelltael is VERY questionable. Squeezing ten tags into those decks is going to make them awkward as hell, not to mention handbuff bronzes, which will be pulled unboosted out of the deck for no value at all. And yes, she cannot be played in PS, dwarves or elf decks for obvious reasons. Movement and Shupe are the only fits, basically, and having tried her and played against her, I'm beginning to doubt her merit in Movement as well. Right now the main use for her is probably countering the Saber.

Considering her Deckbuilding requirement, randomness of summons and her sometimes forcing you into awkward plays every Nerf would probably straight off kill the Card.

There's no reason for nerfing her. She's a bad card.

* After building a more of a classic Gezras Movement Deck for her on Patch day i decided yesterday Day to go all Meme with a Shupe Singleton Deck since i probably haven't used Shupe on Scoia'tael since Mystic Echo lost his ability to replay neutrals and to my surprise its better than expected and brought me up to Pro Rank although I don't think i faced the no Unit Milva Deck with it yet so it could be just Match-up luck and i had also one guy doing a instant forfeit.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/83937bc4daa7a5755c0a118463d13208

Yeah, Shupe is probably the best fit for her right now.

 

[DRK3]

I refrained from commenting on this thread the first time i saw it, since until today, i hadnt tried Saskia Commander or even ST since the new update. I will share my recently-formed take on the subject now:

- I really like the deckbuilding conditions, im one of those that was sad when the Harmony leader was changed and lost its deckbuilding conditions, only Enslave leader still had something like that, while i wish more leaders or cards included that style of design.

- However its REALLY hard to build a deck around her.
I was never good at making ST decks or playing them (with some rare exceptions), but i spent over 30min in the deckbuilder, at least nobody can say i didnt try hard.

- The major problem i found was that most ST bronzes are deploy - i believe someone already said that before on this forum, im sorry i cant remember who or where, but that person was correct.
For example, someone mentioned Harmony, but all but the dryad fledglings have deploys and you are missing out a lot of value if you use Saskia to summon them (not to mention the missed harmony triggers).

- There are only a few cards and archetypes that are really good with Saskia commander, and they are the ones people are using her for:
1) the "classic" bronze trio of ST movement: dryad matrons, elf sentries and cat witchers. (i think this is probably the best choice, but i HAVE to be different and use something else on my decks )

2) the spellatael elves and symbiosis dryads (with Nature's gift ofc). However this is what dominated ST for the past 4 months, and i absolutely hate it and you'll likely never see me use those.

3) dwarves. There's quite a few good bronze dwarves for saskiaC to pull, you can already see some of those like pyrotechs which is a common pick in those unitless ST decks going around, as its an excellent bronze. The problem is obviously SaskiaC can only pull one dwarf, then you need different tags and dwarves dont have synergies with other categories.

- The cards for the 10 categories condition dont have to be ST; however she can ONLY SUMMON ST BRONZE UNITS
I actually considered including elder bear non-ironically, due to lack of good options for her to summon, and ended up including the neutral siege engines and human that give shield or armor, to protect engines... then it costed me two games, and i realized they werent being summoned... and i was back at the deckbuilder

- Overall, i think SaskiaC is a really strong card, however its not as versatile as i wished, and doesnt open up many deck possibilities as i thought she would do.


(you will see my SaskiaC deck next week, on my usual thread. It still needs some changes and more testing, but i promise it will be wacky and totally different from all of yours, something only a lunatic would do )

 

[rrc]

- Overall, i think SaskiaC is a really strong card, however its not as versatile as i wished, and doesnt open up many deck possibilities as i thought she would do.

After listing all the things horrible about this card, you gave the judgement that she is a strong card

As Barracuda had mentioned, she can be handled in multiple different ways. If she is not Immune, she will be crap tier and join the vast majority of other ST cards. May be she is niche and plays in one deck relatively strong and even there the people had to suffer a lot to get a decent value. And if the opponent is a good player, I believe the trap decks should never win. Compare her with Fucusya - just add and get million points in million different ways based on the siutations.

 

[quintivarium]

First, Saskia: Commander is a card that will become better over time as more possible bronze targets get introduced into the game.

But even now I found 21 plausible bronze ST cards for it to draw with 6 different labels. Three did have deploy abilities, but had sufficient potential value otherwise to be considered. Three had row locks (two to melee row, one to ranged). And several require supporting cards to be viable. Except for two of these potential cards, all were four power.

As Saskia would typically draw two to three units, she would typically play for 12 to 16 points plus engine value plus thinning. She is not a reach card, but she has excellent tempo in other ways.

Deck building with Saskia is not restrictive in the sense that there are many, many choices still possible; deck building is, however, definitely awkward with lots of anti-synergies and cards that generally don’t work well together.

And playing — to both avoid bricking and gain value — is also challenging. Saskia needs to be played early in a long round to gain maximal value, but is vulnerable to untargeted removal if played too early. In short, she has strategic ramifications that are interesting but not overwhelming.

On the whole, I find the card a great addition to the game. It is definitely a “thinking” card. It has excellent potential for both first and for final rounds. It has potential for healthy value without being oppressive.

I am not sure about possible unbalanced interaction with, e.g., no unit archetypes, but if that occurs, I would not blame it on Saskia.

So, what makes Saski: Commander great? Simply, that is is an impactful that enhances strategic thinking on both deckbuilding and play levels while being neither particularly binary (remove or lose) nor over-powered. I wish I could say that about more Gwent cards.

 

[EduFerraz]

Well, with all the respect i have for rrc, but He knows when its about SC topics i need to say some trues.


Its funny, everyone days its a Good card and only The SC players says its not.

First i ask, its really necessary to create a topic saying everything she can do or her restrictions and etc? I think every player can read her description and understand those things.

For the second, i myself, Who almost dont play with SC, created a really strong deck with her (and i stopped play with that deck because its boring winning with no unit). So i think The SC players need to think outside The box and try to make good decks with her, its not dificult. (and If you cant, just see some youtubers players).

For example, i said in another topic that barracuda played against Bushr, and it was movent against movement, but The Bushr deck was way much better (and here He ask me what i consider better, and answering this, better its The deck wich has more wins conditions, since they were playing in rank, If He wants fun and meme He can try nom unranked)

For the Last, Yes, devs create her majority to be played in a specific deck, so its not because she is hight provision she would be fit in any deck.

Its The same o create a topic blaming because The New Regis cost too much provision and i cant play with him in arachnas swarm

 

[Merchant of Mirrors]

She is not. Why play units when you can go [...] no unit that CDPR supports with adding new Milva?

 

[Barracuda88]

Well, with all the respect i have for rrc, but He knows when its about SC topics i need to say some trues.


Its funny, everyone days its a Good card and only The SC players says its not.

What's funny is how people who don't play ST say "everyone says it's a good card," when clearly that's not the case even in this thread, not to mention elsewhere.

First i ask, its really necessary to create a topic saying everything she can do or her restrictions and etc? I think every player can read her description and understand those things.

Is it necessary to post in such a topic?

For the second, i myself, Who almost dont play with SC, created a really strong deck with her (and i stopped play with that deck because its boring winning with no unit). So i think The SC players need to think outside The box and try to make good decks with her, its not dificult. (and If you cant, just see some youtubers players).

No, you didn't "create" a strong deck, you copied it from the library on day 1 and she was only in that unitless build because it was day 1 of the patch. I agree that it's "not difficult." But if you go back to the library now, you can see that as the novelty dies down a bit, newer variants are being created without Saskia more and more, because again, the value is just not there.

For example, i said in another topic that barracuda played against Bushr, and it was movent against movement, but The Bushr deck was way much better (and here He ask me what i consider better, and answering this, better its The deck wich has more wins conditions, since they were playing in rank, If He wants fun and meme He can try nom unranked)

We both had Saskia, so Saskia didn't win him the match. In fact, he got exactly 8 points out of his Saskia, because as soon as he played her and summoned the Pyro, I high-rolled the Serpent trap and burned her off the board. The difference was Madoc. So yeah, since I wasn't playing Unitless, his deck was "better," but how is that relevant to this topic?

For the Last, Yes, devs create her majority to be played in a specific deck, so its not because she is hight provision she would be fit in any deck.

Its The same o create a topic blaming because The New Regis cost too much provision and i cant play with him in arachnas swarm

No, it's not the same at all. Regis is a last say card, basically a Gord for Vampire decks (I'm sure they'll cap him at 12 boost any day now). A much better analogy would be a thread complaining about Yaga.

 

[rrc]

Its funny, everyone days its a Good card and only The SC players says its not.

Isn't it always the case. People who love a faction need to defend (when people claim some card is good simply because they lost a few games against it) and also to ask for buffs for dead useless cards?

First i ask, its really necessary to create a topic saying everything she can do or her restrictions and etc? I think every player can read her description and understand those things.

I mean, I find this really condescending. There are plenty of topics on cards explaining why it is bad and why it is good. There is a thread about Heatwave people explaining how and why HW is good or bad or necessary. There is another thread explaining how Milva works with the leader and few other cards.

Secondly If there is any card which needs/deserves its own thread to explain what and why, it is this card. Even a veteran and expert like @DRK3 had got this card wrongly and lost a couple of games. That is the purest definition of a "contrived, awkward" card. Anyone can read the card. This thread is not for explaining how this card works. If you read the first post carefully, it explains why this card is awkward and contrived and is perceived to be good, when it is not, IMO.

For the second, i myself, Who almost dont play with SC, created a really strong deck with her (and i stopped play with that deck because its boring winning with no unit). So i think The SC players need to think outside The box and try to make good decks with her, its not dificult. (and If you cant, just see some youtubers players).

OK.. I don't know if you really built the deck yourself or simply copied. if it is the former, let me ask you. How much time you had to spend on the deckbuilder to make the deck possible? How much restrictions you felt when you wanted to add bronzes and even other cards to fulfil 10 different categories? Was the a pleasant experience? Don't get me wrong. I love challenges in building deck to make a theme work. But the awkwardness doesn't stop in deck building, and it continues in the gameplay too. Did you feel that using the card was easy? I mean, look at cards like Gerhart or Fucusya and look at this card. You can't simply play her and continue your game plan. Every card you play needs to be calculated (and played awkwardly in most cases) so that she can play for the value other Legendaries play utterly easily.

So, saying that using her is not difficult seems like a 'for argument sake' and not honest.

For the Last, Yes, devs create her majority to be played in a specific deck, so its not because she is hight provision she would be fit in any deck.

Its The same o create a topic blaming because The New Regis cost too much provision and i cant play with him in arachnas swarm

If the devs only wanted her to played in no unit deck, why didn't they just make her 13 for 13 immune unit? Or just pull a random bronze every 3 turns? I really wish she is as easy as Regis. Regis is meant to be played ONLY in a vampire bleeding deck, but it doesn't have "unless", "if and only if", "you need to fulfill three wishes of the devs to get moderate value" etc. I am sure someone would have created a topic if Regis's description read something like "Boost self by 1 whenever you give bleeding to an enemy unit. For this to work, you need to have a melee row locked unit and a ranged row locked unit. You should have at least 6 special cards. You can have only vampires and utmost 5 other primary category cards in your deck. If you have Regis in hand, the bleeding should only be given by special card. If Regis is in deck, bleeding can only be given by units. In R3, you should have given at least bleeding 3 times. Also, also, every round you should play one vampire card and a card from a different primary category" - Just giving an example.

 

[Draconifors]

A couple of posts deleted for being nothing except disrespectful and ridiculing, and this thread in general could use an improvement in posters' tones. If you cannot be respectful towards others, you are better off not posting at all.

 

[Aris_Tarkus]

Saskia can be a very good card, and is a lot of fun to play. She does have a considerably steeper curve as far as deck design around her. You can't simply add her to a deck and expect top performance. She probably requires a lot more consideration when you are going through mulligans as well.