Iron Judgment 1st Impressions

[thetruerenter]

Move to 24 tier level league

the whole tier-thing is absolute unreliable nonsens. Aretuzas tier 1 decks I do criplle them in turn 3 of R1 and then win win the game thereafter just with homebrew decks. Must be Tier -100 I play with then.

 

[Celadyl]

the power creep in gwent is not even subtle.

One-Eyed Betsy: 10 Provisions, 4 Strength, 2 Armor. Deploy: Damage a unit by 4. If it has armor, damage it by 6 instead.

Raging Ifrit: 10 Provisions, 4 strength. Deploy: Damage a unit by 4.

what can one even say to this? lol. completely obsolete and overshadowed card here.

 

[Allistre]

the power creep in gwent is not even subtle.

One-Eyed Betsy: 10 Provisions, 4 Strength, 2 Armor. Deploy: Damage a unit by 4. If it has armor, damage it by 6 instead.

Raging Ifrit: 10 Provisions, 4 strength. Deploy: Damage a unit by 4.

what can one even say to this? lol. completely obsolete and overshadowed card here.

I think its deeper problem than just powercreep. Homecoming Gwent cards are just too similar all around. Look how easy it was to compare the cards you mentioned. They need to be more creative with design and try to get away from cards just giving points through basic arithmetic. They managed to do it in Beta at least.

 

[Imm0rtaleflame]

the power creep in gwent is not even subtle.

One-Eyed Betsy: 10 Provisions, 4 Strength, 2 Armor. Deploy: Damage a unit by 4. If it has armor, damage it by 6 instead.

Raging Ifrit: 10 Provisions, 4 strength. Deploy: Damage a unit by 4.

what can one even say to this? lol. completely obsolete and overshadowed card here.

indeed. I tried to list such cards in this thread.

 

[Mancoon1980]

wow this meta is SO much fun, I built a meme knight deck and my matchups where: enslave, enslave, tac retreat, enslave, deathwish, deathwish, deathwish.
come on.....

This is why we need ban meta leaders mode. It would make the game so much more fun if cdpr picked 3 meta abilities and everyone played different decks

 

[4RM3D]

This is why we need ban meta leaders mode.

No. Users are thinking too much in terms of penalties and too little in terms of encouragements. You want to motivate users, not punish them. As an example, we got Gwensday which gives everyone +25% EXP on Wednesday. The same can be done with leaders. Just pick the top 5 least played leaders and give them a +50% EXP bonus for a period of time. It could even be a reoccurring event, let's call it the Underdog week, which happens at the end of every month. It won't convince everyone, but it should still have a decent impact.

On a side note, the "ban a leader" does work in a best of (3 or 5) format, but that's a different situation.

 

[Anima_13]

This is why we need ban meta leaders mode. It would make the game so much more fun if cdpr picked 3 meta abilities and everyone played different decks

One of the issues of many competetive card games is, that independent of the current balance of the game people will always pick certain type of decks more then others. Not only because they are stronger or that they are more easy to create from cheaper cards, but simply out of personal preferences/swarm behaviour, fancy new content, art etc.

You can't fix this with simple banning. The only way to fix is to create counters to those decks which reliably beat them up again and again, so the player who reads the meta/trends and adapts have an upper hand and the player who follow the crowd become predictable and lose more. Balance is dynamic and rarerly visible. Its the same reason why eg individual card usage is usually an unreliable measure of balance.

In addition to this banning leaders would regulary put player with incomplete cardpools into disadvantage increasing the gap between old and new players and could also divide the community in the discussion who should be banned and who not.
Thus I am clearly against this. The only way is to demand balanced cards, controlled powercreep (getting none is too often an illusion) and that every mechanism get at least one or two counters.

 

[Mancoon1980]

No. Users are thinking too much in terms of penalties and too little in terms of encouragements. You want to motivate users, not punish them. As an example, we got Gwensday which gives everyone +25% EXP on Wednesday. The same can be done with leaders. Just pick the top 5 least played leaders and give them a +50% EXP bonus for a period of time. It could even be a reoccurring event, let's call it the Underdog week, which happens at the end of every month. It won't convince everyone, but it should still have a decent impact.

On a side note, the "ban a leader" does work in a best of (3 or 5) format, but that's a different situation.

There nothing punishing about that. That could be a game mode for people who don't want netdeck mode 1 or netdeck mode 2b. I'd be fine with xp boost but that not a definite solution.

 

[nedders]

Something needs to happen. The game's utter trash right now. Every deck faced is more or less perfection.

Played a few rounds tonight and the vast majority were against these meta's. Hateful, pointless things. I must say, though, some of the opponents second guessing was borderline miraculous. Passing R1 on even cards with a gap of about 6 points, somehow "guessing" I didn't have a single card that would close that gap? Very, very suspicious.

Regardless, it was just MO bleed, Mystic dwarves or NR roche/HG sword. I just cannot figure how three weeks into the month, people are stll somehow finding joy in playing these broken copycat decks. Some people really are quite sad.

 

[Mancoon1980]

Something needs to happen. The game's utter trash right now. Every deck faced is more or less perfection.

Played a few rounds tonight and the vast majority were against these meta's. Hateful, pointless things. I must say, though, some of the opponents second guessing was borderline miraculous. Passing R1 on even cards with a gap of about 6 points, somehow "guessing" I didn't have a single card that would close that gap? Very, very suspicious.

Regardless, it was just MO bleed, Mystic dwarves or NR roche/HG sword. I just cannot figure how three weeks into the month, people are stll somehow finding joy in playing these broken copycat decks. Some people really are quite sad.

The community is a sad bunch as a whole. I know it sounds mean as I can't expect all people to play like me. I play a different deck each day (ones I made) and get tired after 2 or 3 matches with them, even when winning. I don't understand how winning is fun when your using someone elses deck? It's creates a boring frustrating experiences. No matter how good some homemade decks are they can't compete with the broken meta ones.

 

[hachri80]

I can't understand why people keep complaining or proclaim that Gwent is dead now. To me this is one of the best seasons after Homecoming because there aren't decks that are completely dominating. Mystic dwarves was too strong at the beginning but is fine now. Personally I face a variety of decks and don't think that one of them is oppressive.

The expansion brought several strong bronze cards like NR archer, SK terror crew blunderer and boatbuilders, MO Endrega warrior or ST dwarven beserker and a lot of them enable interessting combos. Bandits are a pretty cool neutral tribe that can be combined with the six factions. This being said, of course not everything is perfect and not everything is viable. But some people are like 'As long as the ogroid archtype is completely unplayable, Gwent is broken'.

Also: not every card that is strong or not seeing play needs to be completely changed. Just be creative.

 

[Pacifixer]

Launch of this season and Iron Judgement was a GIANT MESS. Gwent was filled witch game breaking bugs and balance was worse than ever before. Some new cards were strait up better or worse versions of existing cards.
Fortunately after 1 week and 2 hotfixes, the game became somewhat playable. It is still plagued with bugs and the balance is faaaaaaaar from good, but it's little bit better than last season. This time every faction is playable and there are 2 OverPowered factions instead of just 1.

Defenders are mostly not as big of a deal as i feared they would be, but some big nerfs are needed. Protecting only adjacent units as lot of people suggested would probably not solve the problem. By far the biggest problem with defender is that you cannot interact with powerfull Order cards (Damien, Steffan, Vattier, Seltkirk, Vysogota, Cahir...). I see 3 solutions to this:
1.) BIG provision nerfs - at least +3 prov.
2.) BIG buffs to Purify cards especially Pellar or bronze Purify unit for every faction
3.) Change to Defender: Opponent cannot target BRONZE units on this row.

Mystic Echo and also other leader abilities that play a card once again proved to be a huge problem. This matter cannot stay untouched! In my oppinion the best solution would be to restrict leaders to play only bronze cards and give them some bonus for playing low prov. card.
- Mystic Echo: Play a bronze special card from your graveyard, if its prov. cost is 5 or lower, play it twice. 12prov
- Pincer Maneuver: Play a bronze NR faction card from youre hand, than draw any card. 15prov
- Second Wind: Play a bronze SK unit prom your graveyard. 16prov
- Strategic Withdrawal: Move an allied NG bronze unit to your hand, boost it by 4, than play a card. 16prov
Wild Card, Tactical Decision, Double Cross and Call of Harmony are fine the way they are.

As i already mentioned, on release IJ balance was a DISASTER! And even after balance hotfix, all the problems are still there.
- SY is insanely good. Both Portal and no-Portal decks can beat literary anything, even if you miss-play. Savola, Azar and Dire Mutated Hound are way too strong. This faction needs some serious nerfs, thankfully simple number changes should do the trick.
- ST is just as broken as last season if not more. I'm pretty sure everyone is sick of brain-dead harmony or unfare dwarf combo. Echo needs to change, that ability is endless source of problems.
- NG is in a weird spot right now. It benefits a lot from defender and purify, but can't really compete with ST and SY. Soldiers are great archetipe, but Enslave is simply better, just like we've seen in so many seasons before. Some nerfs to Tactics would be in order.
- MO finaly got some nice buffs, Deathwish is great again, but not so great in comparison to SY, ST and NG. Swarm is either broken or useless, i would like to see some buffs to core swarm cards and nerf to Whispering Hilloc - it should work only on monster units, double Yen or Geralt is just nuts!
- SK is in exactly the same spot as last season - good decks, but terrible matchups.
- NR somehow managed to stay mostly untouched by IJ, but got pushed out of "the second best" spot by SY and NG.

Overall IJ turned out to be better than i expected, it's worth to note that my expectations were very very very low and the first week was much worse than what i expected. CDPR needs to take a break with new cards and big reworks, and just refine / balance what we already have.

 

[4RM3D]

By far the biggest problem with defender is that you cannot interact with powerfull Order cards (Damien, Steffan, Vattier, Seltkirk, Vysogota, Cahir...). I see 3 solutions to this:
1.) BIG provision nerfs - at least +3 prov.

The whole point of Defenders is to protect powerful cards. Those cards should not be nerfed because of this. That wouldn't be fair, nor make sense.

In my oppinion the best solution would be to restrict leaders to play only bronze cards and give them some bonus for playing low prov. card.

Restricting leaders to only play bronze cards would make then even more boring, even with a (provision) buff. Just change them altogether then.

 

[Guest 4368268]

Mystic dwarves was too strong at the beginning but is fine now.

Disagree with you on that. It's still a super easy to pilot low risk high reward deck that is undercosted and therefor too consistent and too efficient. High rewards should be for decks that are tougher to pilot/more susceptible to disruption.

Mystic (Dwarves) decks can win off of their engines but they don't even have to as they can win just off of the raw value they can produce in both short and long rounds. If you completely outplay them (by bleeding them) in round 3 they can still just drop an oak and win.

That's what I mean when I call these decks undercosted, they can afford to keep said cards in hand and win after having their 'strategy' ruined.

 

[4RM3D]

Mystic (Dwarves) decks can win off of their engines but they don't even have to as they can win just off of the raw value they can produce in both short and long rounds. If you completely outplay them (by bleeding them) in round 3 they can still just drop an oak and win.

Did you play the deck yourself? I have and I can say it's not as strong as you think. The only time they rule is when they can start round two or three with quadruple Mercs + Defender. Otherwise, it's going downhill pretty fast and other decks can get the upper hand.

 

[Guest 4368268]

Did you play the deck yourself? I have and I can say it's not as strong as you think. The only time they rule is when they can start round two or three with quadruple Mercs + Defender. Otherwise, it's going downhill pretty fast and other decks can get the upper hand.

I have though not often cause it dominated ladder (initially) and put me off of using them. Novigradian Justice is clearly the strongest weapon but for round 1 there are other big plays like portal, the new dwarf that creates beserkers and so on.

Then when they have a row full of dwarves cards like Mercenary and Zoltan gain great value. The smartest way to play it is probably to not go all in with dwarves and throw in some harmony elements though.

Defender isn't something I personally even used with them. Silly as that may seem, I just felt it made the Nilfgaard seize match-up (a common one) awkward in terms of having it stolen/duplicated through bribery and then bricking my engines.

Ultimately it's as you said it's the Novigradian Justice early in r2/3 that makes it scary but the reason I think it's a problem is because it's very plausible for them to get it off and it generally takes the opponent a few turns (and that's too many) to respond and that's if they didn't just flat out forfeit after you use it.

 

[Pacifixer]

The whole point of Defenders is to protect powerful cards. Those cards should not be nerfed because of this. That wouldn't be fair, nor make sense.

Well Duh! Defenders defend, that's what they are supposed to do. But big cards like Damian or Cahir are supposed to be interactable. I don't want defenders to change, after all they are quite unique and interesting, i want every faction to have answers for them - good bronze Purify units. It would be great if every faction had acces to something like Diviner, but i'm not a big fan of defenders so any change that puts an end to broken combos like Sukrus/Covenant or Ffion/Cahir is fine with me.

Restricting leaders to only play bronze cards would make then even more boring, even with a (provision) buff. Just change them altogether then.

And that's coming from someone who called Lockdown "fun"
Echo is broken as hell and needs to change, or at least those 2 broken combos should disappear. As long as you can swarm the board with engines, there's no reason to play anything else. CDPR could nerf ST into oblivion to justify Echo/Justice/Waters combo, but why butcher the entire faction?! Right now Echo=ST and that's not cool.
Maneuver, Second Wind and Withdrawal are often used to play bronzes anyway so i don't see any problem in restricting them.

 

[nedders]

Well Duh! Defenders defend, that's what they are supposed to do. But big cards like Damian or Cahir are supposed to be interactable. I don't want defenders to change, after all they are quite unique and interesting, i want every faction to have answers for them - good bronze Purify units. It would be great if every faction had acces to something like Diviner, but i'm not a big fan of defenders so any change that puts an end to broken combos like Sukrus/Covenant or Ffion/Cahir is fine with me.


And that's coming from someone who called Lockdown "fun"
Echo is broken as hell and needs to change, or at least those 2 broken combos should disappear. As long as you can swarm the board with engines, there's no reason to play anything else. CDPR could nerf ST into oblivion to justify Echo/Justice/Waters combo, but why butcher the entire faction?! Right now Echo=ST and that's not cool.
Maneuver, Second Wind and Withdrawal are often used to play bronzes anyway so i don't see any problem in restricting them.

Simply, Justice shouldn't be cross-faction. It's nothing - Lore-wise - to do with ST anyway, it's a Syndicate thing. That one change alone is fine. Echo into Waters has been a thing forever, it only got broke when Justice appeared (along with a bunch of annoying dwarves).

 

[Pacifixer]

Simply, Justice shouldn't be cross-faction. It's nothing - Lore-wise - to do with ST anyway, it's a Syndicate thing. That one change alone is fine. Echo into Waters has been a thing forever, it only got broke when Justice appeared (along with a bunch of annoying dwarves).

Justice, as a dual faction card, would be fine if it duplicated Crownspliters instead of Dwarves.
Waters are not as problematic as Justice, but it still spawns 4 hard-to-deal-with engines. Dryads don't kill everything you play but they can still be worth 10p each, that makes Echo potential 20p ability. Compared to for example Fruits of Ysgith, it is 1p above Ysgith's power ceiling and that's not even the craziest scenario.

 

[nedders]

Justice, as a dual faction card, would be fine if it duplicated Crownspliters instead of Dwarves.
Waters are not as problematic as Justice, but it still spawns 4 hard-to-deal-with engines. Dryads don't kill everything you play but they can still be worth 10p each, that makes Echo potential 20p ability. Compared to for example Fruits of Ysgith, it is 1p above Ysgith's power ceiling and that's not even the craziest scenario.

Great point on Justice, happy with that, either way it needs to change from creating Dwarves regardless, it's basically a ST card that SY can use, as opposed to the other way around as intended.

Can't nerf everything. A couple of dryads are a pain, but there's a lot of cards will do 4 or 5 damage, and it doesn't even summon them so it's not amazing.