How to beat poison decks?

[Archan6el]

"We don't know what you all were expecting us to do about poison".

- Jason Slama

Lol I'm getting Midwinter flashbacks.

"Create is fine"
- Burza

Anyone who plays the game a bit will know that Poison is unfun and OP removal nonsense and that Create is just RNG BS. But I guess we shouldn't expect in-depth game knowledge or quality when devs don't remember the name of cards they discuss in their stream and haven't even written it down for presentation to their customers. Simple facts, just putting them out there.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

imo, any swarm deck is good against poison. Add Geralt Yrden and maybe a couple of cards moving creatures to another row and you should be fine.

 

[SpudCakes]

you dont pick your deck after you see who your opponent is and i dont understand how yrden and row changing cards counter poison in any way shape or form. and i have strays of spalla in my deck in case of SCO and just cos they are genuinely handy, but don't do anything against poison, so you have confused me a bit with that comment. yrden resets a row and is my arch enemy, the only cards i hate more than him are yens inno and poison cards but yrden has nothing to do with poison.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

you dont pick your deck after you see who your opponent is and i dont understand how yrden and row changing cards counter poison in any way shape or form. and i have strays of spalla in my deck in case of SCO and just cos they are genuinely handy, but don't do anything against poison, so you have confused me a bit with that comment. yrden resets a row and is my arch enemy, the only cards i hate more than him are yens inno and poison cards but yrden has nothing to do with poison.

You will not know until you try ;-)
In short, swarm small creatures will leave enough on your side of the board after 10+ poisons that the other deck can pull.
Geralt Yrden will reset those aristocrats that became fat. You can use Geralt Igni or Scorch too, basically you need 1-2 tall removals.

 

[hachri80]

This might work as well as Heatwave + Bomb heaver might help to win games against poison or bombardment decks. But it is still annoying as hell that we are so limited in deckbuilding right now. 3/4 of the games I play right now are against Scenario decks (NG or NR) that run Caretaker as well. The opponent uses poison or locks on ridiculous units just because they have so many of these units. How many Fangs can you play in one game? like 10? (with scenario, caretaker, artorius vigo).

I honestly can't stand the Gwent player I recently became but these games annoy me so much: I rarely GG, I spam taunts and rope just to share some of the pain with the opponent aka the Caretaker abuser.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

This might work as well as Heatwave + Bomb heaver might help to win games against poison or bombardment decks. But it is still annoying as hell that we are so limited in deckbuilding right now. 3/4 of the games I play right now are against Scenario decks (NG or NR) that run Caretaker as well. The opponent uses poison or locks on ridiculous units just because they have so many of these units. How many Fangs can you play in one game? like 10? (with scenario, caretaker, artorius vigo).

I honestly can't stand the Gwent player I recently became but these games annoy me so much: I rarely GG, I spam taunts and rope just to share some of the pain with the opponent aka the Caretaker abuser.

Do you play any other card games? Just curious.

 

[hachri80]

I used to play Hearthstone und Duelyst and tried ESL. I started to play Gwent in open Beta (after Midwinter Patch) and enjoyed most of the versions of this game a lot. Homecoming was tough at the begining but got better with the following patches. Right now the game annoys me and I started to play LoR but still play Gwent every other day.

The situation right now feels like the problematic period with Sihil before the card got killed. I think the problem is the same as back then and I can't understand that these mistakes were made again. I really like the idea of scenarios but please give them their own category or doom or something else. It doesn't even make sense that they are artifacts.

 

[DRK3]

You will not know until you try ;-)
In short, swarm small creatures will leave enough on your side of the board after 10+ poisons that the other deck can pull.
Geralt Yrden will reset those aristocrats that became fat. You can use Geralt Igni or Scorch too, basically you need 1-2 tall removals.

I know im going a bit offtopic, but i just wanted to add Yrden is also really good vs Morvran players - they play their defender (5pts you will reset), probably play Damien, so that's 2 times 4 leader charges (16 pts). He will also stack all units on the same row for the defender protection making the mega reset easier. Only problem is the double Skellen/Bribery that can provide lots of points that should be stopped.

So, Yrden is really good vs both NG current top archetypes. Also pretty good vs Harmony and SK GS/Dagur, and SY with all the seductresses and boost engines. I would say only against NR, Yrden is not good enough.

 

[chain747]

I play poison deck and lose many times

 

[OrniTheorynque]

poison decks are pretty weak if you add enough purify units as i do you just need to adapt to the meta

 

[Calabrin]

I constructed a NG poison deck last month and ran roughshod over people with it. Poison is obviously incredibly powerful.

My suggestion to create a card that could purify repeatedly over subsequent turns was heeded, but I’m not convinced this really fixed the issue. How many people are playing with the Caretaker? Plus, the Caretaker, himself, can be easily bypassed, potentially giving you no more than a single purify before he’s axed.

Poison remains incredibly powerful in my opinion. Very frustrating to play against.

 

[DRK3]

Im not saying Poison is fine because of this, but the new MO ability, can easily destroy poison decks, even if you are 1 card down.

The Plague Maiden and Caranthir combo to quickly swarm the board with rats was already good, but it was subject to disruption if they locked or used Yens Invocation on the plague maidens, but now that you can instantly trigger them with a charge? They have no chance, specially if you use Morvudd and Bone Talismans after.

(BTW i did the math - Caranthir+Plague Maiden + Morvudd, with 2 leader charges required, and hopefully no disruption as attacking the rats - it gives 49 pts on 3 turns, which is pretty amazing!)

 

[CorradoD]

The poison deck is good indeed, but I manage to win against them with the Northern R. because they end every match with very low power, so even if the kill half of my troops the others are at the end more powerful than the opponent's deck. The real problem is the card "Scenario" (is called like this in English?), it is able to put 2-3 poison states in one single turn (I think that type of card is really OP also in the Scoiatel deck). I managed adding 2 cards with the ability of destroying "magic cards". My suggestion is also to create a deck not based on one single card, but this is a generale advice for all decks.

 

[RapkaV]

is there anything happening about poison? /support from people even if they run the deck (i know nobody wants their deck nerfed). There's no counter to it i have looked for card that makes another card immune and cant find one, i try to use a defender it just gets stolen by yens innovocation, i run gremist in skellige deck but he just gets killed straight away before i can refresh his ability and i had to change my whole deck to put more alchemy cards in which has basicly ruined it anyways. i have put purifies in but then all im doing is stopping my units being killed while they connstantly put out 4-6 provision units with 4+ power every turn and im not getting points on the board so it doesnt work anyways. i checked on other forums and people are saying use this deck or swarm etc, but last time i checked before a matchup you dont know what deck the opponent is playing so i try to balance my deck to face all factions, but now ive changed it to try and beat NG poison i get trashed by everyone else and still dont beat NG. I just find it all a bit mad these units which are so cheap for NG are 4-6 power and are effectively doing 50% damage to your units, i mean purify i wouldnt even call a counter as all your doing is saving some of your units whilst they rack up the points and putting all those purify in my deck has completely ruined the synergy anyways and useless against other factions. i just dont get it. someone please help with ideas or have information wether they are changing anything about poison? i love the challenge of building a deck in this game but i have been thinking about this for a week and its driving me mad, i understand these games are hard to balance and i think they do a decent job but i just don't understand this, i mean could it not at least be changed to order rather than deploy? would probably still be crazy hard to beat. This has broke the game for me and i think im very open minded and fair when it comes to game balancing, PLEASE HELP!

the answer is simple- you can't

 

[dietbob196050]

I don't have a lot of experience overall. I typically play NR and I have had fair results against poison deck...maybe 50/50
but I also change around my deck a lot to suit the contract/mission/quests I am trying to achieve... at this point win/loss means nothing to me.
NR will overpower Poison Deck, depends on the counters you have in hand (which there isn't much)
Purify doesn't work great especially if your unit has resilience or shield... those would be rendered useless. I did put in a suggestion for a heal card that removes poison only (probably will go to the bottom of the trash can) and as I read above a suggestion to make some of those poisons Orders instead of Deploy...... good luck with that !

hope you find your solution

enjoy
Dietbob

 

[96LG96]

In my opinion poison is far to overpowered.
The times I've to fight against poison only decks are numerous and its getting worse.
The biggest problem I've with the effect is, that you can't do much against it.
The only good way to counter a poison deck seems to overwhelm the opponent in mass. But thats not possible for many decks.
I tried to use consume monsters to counter these decks,l but it did not came close to help a bit.
I'd love to hear about your expieriences with poison and your general opinion.
Sorry for bad english.

 

[Bleach25]

Poison is a bad mechanic and too widespread, but as you mentioned swarming is the best tactic against it.

Right now there are three decks using poison:

- Scoia'tael harmony. They only have three poisons, but they generally use it in the first round to gain the happer hand. Easy to counter even with one purify
- Hidden Cache. Honestly, if you're facing Hidden Cache it's the last of your concerns
- Double ball. This deck is mostly poison which is very problematic if you're playing a tall deck (like consume). Purifies aren't enough against this deck, but there are some ways to counter it. First off, it lacks proactivity meaning that After a few moves they'll have to play their poisons, so try feeding them with your lowest strength units until they have exausted their reservoir.
However the greatest weakness of this deck lies in its win condition: Masquerade ball.
You have two options here:
Korathi Heatwave or Arbalest + Bomb heaver if playing Nilfgaard.
You can also keep a Bomb heaver for the last round and try to fend them off in the first

 

[Draconifors]

@96LG96 Thread merged.

 

[DRK3]

Poison is OP indeed. We just need to look at the facts:

-All 3 factions that have access to faction-exclusive poison cards are using it for cheap removal, which can even work as tall removal (other than poison, tall removal usually costs 9-11 provisions)

-Poison replaced many control options, like locks, now you only see those in NG, and even then only because they are cheap and synergize well with poison (im talking about that aristocrat bronze).

- Poison is very cheap (Maraal and NG scenario are exceptions, but they offer multiple poisons), and usually breaks even on provision even if their target is purified and they fail to remove it. Also SY having a card that poisons and gives coins at the same time is the epitome of non-interactivity.

 

[wonderboy870]

Monster consumption is one great way around poison. NG power swapping does the trick as well.