How to deal with Nilfgaard boost/resilience deck?

[victorgijsbers]

How to deal with Nilfgaard boost/resilience deck?

I'm a relatively new Gwent player, level 7 or 8, playing a Northern Realms deck (with Reavers and mostly the standard golds and silvers, though I got Ragh Nar Roog from a keg so I'm running that). Having fun and holding my own against almost all types of deck I'm encountering at this stage... except for one. Two times recently, I came up against a Nilfgaard deck that basically does this:

- use a whole bunch of spies to boost one of their units to great heights
- toggle its resilience and the resilience of a unit next to it
- play Fringilla, setting the second unit to the same height as the first
- and then start round 2 with two, say, 60+ strenght units on the board

First time this happened to me, I had passed early after he expended some big cards. I then got to watch as he did this, spending all his carsd except one. I was holding scorch, so I hoped to just kill him in round 2... but of course he got to start, he played a gold that consumes the two cards next to it, and I was looking at a 160 strength gold unit in a round I had to win. I just had to resign; most one-sided game I've ever seen. Second time, I knew better then to pass, so I played along, but couldn't compete with the Fringilla, which almost doubled his strength. (Had I had a scorch in my hand, things would have been different, but I didn't draw it.) So not only did I lose the round, but I was also looking at two 60+ cards at the beginning of round 2... another resignation.

I feel like I have no idea how to deal with this deck. If I pass early, I die; if I don't have scorch in my initial draw, I die. And I die in a way that doesn't feel fun -- it's just me watching while someone else is playing their perfect deck. Any tips on how to deal with this?

 

[xenogorgeous]

probably he used the Letho card, that you can only combat using the Shackles card , to change it to silver and lock it up ..... sugestion it's to keep the Scorch card , but having a shackles into your deck too .... so, using Scorch + shackles or Mardroeme (that resets) + shackles

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

Yep, totally related to that '_>' since you play NR I would suggest you get lady Margarita and use her with decoy, she can reset & clear resilience. Letho you mentioned can be tricky but dimerium bomb can deal with him if opponent choose to play on his own side. (Normally it would be played spying and combined with D-bomb '_>')

Either of these card would cost you 200 scrap, not a big deal I assume?

In case you struggle with Rot tosser as well, try include some mandromoe. It can banish cow carcass or reset a unit.

 

[Skryba86]

I've played quite a few games piloting a fringilla combo build and I can tell you it's main weaknesses:

- number one would be that the deck is entirely dependant on being able to bait an early pass, usually by playing very low power units and dropping cantarella early to further extend the power diferencial. If you keep going, and manage to force your opponent to start buffing before you pass, and even better to actually use one or more engineers (the guy that gives resilience), then you're set to start disrupting his game plan really bad.

- number two would be that after he secures round one, if he doesn't have letho, then he's forced to to try and off set the power of one of his units, and pray you don't have scorch/reset effects. In which case, a scorch/reset will go a long way to netting you a quick R2 win, and then an easy R3 because he'll have used up almost his entire hand on R1.

- number three is that even if he does have letho and absorbs his two huge units into him, he'll still be very vulnerable to D-bomb (which single-handedly wins you the game, always) and shackles+reset/scorch.


As for the player piloting the deck, he needs to play a good bluff game, but other than that, if he knows the mechanics of the deck we'll enough, then it's extremely consistent in cycling through the whole deck and doing its thing. It's actually a fun deck to play, but I do understand it's very frustrating to play against. But at least, the few times I lost against a similar build, I tipped my hat off to the player for the good bluff.

 

[victorgijsbers]

Thanks for the very useful tips! I can totally see how Mardroeme, Lady Margarita and Dimiterium Bomb can kill this off -- adding one of them to my deck to complement Scorch should propbably be enough to do the trick.

Would a Geralt: Igni -- which I don't have but seems to be a prime target for crafting -- accomplish the same? I guess it does, if you play it right before or right after the Fringilla.

 

[4RM3D]

Would a Geralt: Igni -- which I don't have but seems to be a prime target for crafting -- accomplish the same? I guess it does, if you play it right before or right after the Fringilla.

If you play Igni after, then you can Scorch two targets. Anyhow, Igni is indeed one of the cards that can deal with this situation.

 

[Skryba86]

Thanks for the very useful tips! I can totally see how Mardroeme, Lady Margarita and Dimiterium Bomb can kill this off -- adding one of them to my deck to complement Scorch should propbably be enough to do the trick.

Would a Geralt: Igni -- which I don't have but seems to be a prime target for crafting -- accomplish the same? I guess it does, if you play it right before or right after the Fringilla.

Well, for this matchup specifically, igni is a good card to include if you also run one or more shackles. Otherwise, unless R1 goes horribly wrong for your opponent, he won't be dropping fringilla before you pass (or at least that is really a last resort option for him, as it's highly vulnerable and easily loses him the game right there).

 

[Snake_Foxhounder]

It's basically a free win if you have one card, which you should have with you always, especially in this meta. Dbomb is an instant win. If not that, shackles with dbomb or any other debuffing card.

This is one of the easiest decks to play against. Not only does it require the right cards to set up properly, it's basically an all-in strategy that's easily countered.