Is this much support for Poison as a mechanics needed?

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rrc

Forum veteran
The current poison meta from NG reminds me of Eithne Artifact nightmare shortly after HC release, where we needed to bring many artifact removal cards if you want to play a game. How many purify card am I supposed to put in my deck? NG can easily apply poison 8 or more times. This is without considering Scenario+Caretaker degeneracy. I have now played many games in which the opponents play poison unit after poison unit to a level that it is impossible to play against it.

Even without caretaker, NG can play Fangs x 4 (with scenario), King Cobra x 2, Rot Tosser x 2 (which poisons two units), Maraal (who applies poison twice) and the Cook. That is applying poison 13 times (+2 with Rot Tosser) in a game in which we play 16 cards. It is not fun at all to play against these decks as all they do is just poison after poison. Against ST, they had to play the poison cards (Harmony cards) early and hence you can wait to play your important cards. But with NG no matter how late you play your key card, it will be removed. Even after adding a Pellar in addition to Purify engines (the SK Druid who can purify many units), it is impossible to save units as any engines will be locked with a 4P bronze.

I am 100% sure that many people will defend this as "it is an archetype.. don't kill it..". We as a Gwent community have killed many archetypes (some rightfully so) to oblivion (Withcers, Discard, Dwarves, Bounty, Artifacts etc) and I wouldn't be even a bit sad if Poison is killed. The only way to play around is to bring a ton of Purify units which just leaves a bad taste in the mouth when deck building (or) play a Swarm deck. You can't try anything new as long as Poison as an archetype with this immense support is present. Even when tall punish was very common, people would come with a deck which will go tall as you will lose one tall unit to Geralt (or Leo) and others will survive. But with poison you will lose many units to poison (or get locked) which is just impossible to play against.

Now, Gwent team will have statistics which would say that NG poison is fine as they have 50-60% winrate and acceptable playrate. But it could only be because of the existence of Harmony or Pincer (or swarm) decks. Other decks just have no chance against 13 poison (+2 lock) units. So, CDPR, please please fix this. This is not fine even if statistics says so. Remove this much support for poison.

On the top of my head:
1) Increase Maraal's provision
2) Make King Cobra poison a random enemy unit
3) Make all the bronze poison units not to break even.
 
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rrc

Forum veteran
I haven't encountered a deck that uses poison to any extent you have referred to just yet. Although, I've only player casual and Arena recently.

However, if what you say is true, poison does appear to be a problem.

It would seem to me that a unit designed to poison should also have the option to cure poison - have a dual usage, poison or cure - (some at least). Perhaps this is already the case.

(Edit: I suspect that there are probably other units/special cards - spells, etc. - that currently only have one limited ability that could be made to cure poison without upsetting things too much...)

Likewise, certain artefacts that currently only provide a boost to a units power/health should also, I think, have a secondary usage - cure poison (perhaps dependant upon which row the artefact is placed). It might also be interesting to see certain artefacts either prevent poisoning of allied until the artefact is removed, or at least for a certain number of turns - perhaps 4.

Otherwise, make it slightly harder to poison units. Firstly a cook or alchemist is required to brew a poison - 1 turn - then the unit must pass on the poison to the relevant unit via a click and selection (something like that).

Otherwise, just reduce the number of poison units it that faction....
I am currently in Rank 2 and I face this deck around 50% of the times. Some of the decks even go with Scenario+Caretaker :giveup:.
 
The Poison mechanic is broken. It is simply not ok that a unit is destroyed when it gets 2 Poison. It's binary nonsense again similar to artifacts; rock-paper-scissors RNG with very little calculative, strategic play. Poison needs a good and interesting rework. Suggestions have already been made in this thread.
 
i couldnt agree more. this poison got way out of hand. currently i only either face poison decks or NR machine decks.

my suggested solution would be a little more simpler rule than the one suggested above or in the other threat...

my propose:
* every unit has a poison counter, that is 0 by default
* playing one poison on a unit makes the poison-counter for this unit increase by (+1), which means from now on this unit loses 1 HP each round at the end of the turn until it dies (in opposite to bleeding, which stops after some time on its own)
* playing another poison on the same unit, increases the counter again, e.g. to 2, so now the unit will lose 2HP EVERY ROUND (this also a difference to bleeding)
* if wanted the player can increase the round damage by playing more and more poisons on the same unit (so the more poison a unit takes, the more it suffers)

=> by this poison players could increase damage on certain units for the rounds, but at least they would not instant kill them after 2 poisons.
also i think it is fair, cause a standard unit with 5HP would be dead also after 5 rounds in case not treated.

further it offers a lot of fun possibilities for the future: e.g. you could make a use of those syndicate drug addicts which could stronger by every poison they take. so this solution would open way for a complete new mechanic.
 
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DRK3

Forum veteran
Dont bother suggesting complete reworks for the poison mechanic, it's not gonna happen (there's much easier stuff to fix and yet it remains unplayable for over a year)

Personally, i dont have such a problem with poison NG. I rather play against it than NR Pincer with all of the OP cards, or SC Harmony - my winrate against NG Poison is much better.

I've tried SY Poison, and although its weaker and trickier than NG Poison, its still viable but nobody's using it.

@rrc Are you still using SK? Against cow carcasses you shouldnt be having problem, just use self-damage.
The only way NG can poison twice in the same turn is with Maraal or scenario+leader ability.
For Maraal, you'll probably lose a unit (destroy him with thunder, but the unit he poisoned with deploy gets another poison from another source)
If the scenario+caretaker is being a real problem, use Korathi Heatwave on it. I know they use leader ability in the same turn as scenario to immediately advance to CH.1 and using artefact removal by then its usually a loss, but if they had caretaker, it will definitely be worth it to banish.

Today i made an anti-scenario deck with Usurper - no leader ability for them means they cant push scenario to Ch1 instantly (except Radeyah elves). I steal their scenario with Yens Invocation and also use Angouleme for double scenario.

This deck is obviously weak if they dont have a scenario or other artefacts, but when it succeeds... :cool:

Double Scenario (GIGANTIC SHAELMAAR).jpg


(sorry for the offtopic, just wanted to share my achievment)
 
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I believe poison is fine in theory. The only problem is that it was balanced around less poison cards being available and now with more support it just became too strong.
And I really like the basic idea behind poison. It is a form of control, but without instantly killing or destroying an opponent. Instead the player has to wait a turn, which means the opponent has time to react to it and for example order effects can trigger.
The main problem I see with NG current poison archetype is that it can chain poison too easily. So I would nerf it at that point.

Fangs of the Empire can only poison unpoisoned enemies.
And Maraal's deploy ability can only poison an unpoisoned enemy as well.
 
Another idea related to poison - not sure if it already exists - is to have a poison cloud or bomb which would affect a row or two or three units on a row (the effect lasting about 4 turns - could be cleared by cards that currently clear row effects, or whatever). Certain units that fire poison arrows or objects (cow carcasses) could be changed to a row or adjacent unit affected area for limited turns or until cleared. It should also interfere with ranged units ability to fire arrows or operate machinery effectively...
i think this idea would the the perfect addition to my base idea. with a counter you could make even poison clouds with some cards....

example:
lets say some player drops a poison cloud on unitC, so you could have then increasing / decreasing counters with range, e.g.:
unitA [0] - unitB[1] - unitC [2] - unitD [1] - unitE [0] -
=> from this time unitB loses 1HP per round, unitC 2HPs and unitD 1

=================
and another thing comes to my mind, when i think about @StvAce's idea: they could make temporary locking (e.g. locking for 2 turns)
 
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rrc

Forum veteran
Dont bother suggesting complete reworks for the poison mechanic, it's not gonna happen (there's much easier stuff to fix and yet it remains unplayable for over a year)

Personally, i dont have such a problem with poison NG. I rather play against it than NR Pincer with all of the OP cards, or SC Harmony - my winrate against NG Poison is much better.

I've tried SY Poison, and although its weaker and trickier than NG Poison, its still viable but nobody's using it.

@rrc Are you still using SK? Against cow carcasses you shouldnt be having problem, just use self-damage.
The only way NG can poison twice in the same turn is with Maraal or scenario+leader ability.
For Maraal, you'll probably lose a unit (destroy him with thunder, but the unit he poisoned with deploy gets another poison from another source)
If the scenario+caretaker is being a real problem, use Korathi Heatwave on it. I know they use leader ability in the same turn as scenario to immediately advance to CH.1 and using artefact removal by then its usually a loss, but if they had caretaker, it will definitely be worth it to banish.

Today i made an anti-scenario deck with Usurper - no leader ability for them means they cant push scenario to Ch1 instantly (except Radeyah elves). I steal their scenario with Yens Invocation and also use Angouleme for double scenario.

This deck is obviously weak if they dont have a scenario or other artefacts, but when it succeeds... :cool:

View attachment 11027264

(sorry for the offtopic, just wanted to share my achievment)
Yes, but having a very bad time. All the engines are killed - I mean, literally all. Every two turns, I lose my biggest unit (or potential big unit). I wanted to try Queensguard swarm, but even that doesn't work because NG has cheap locks too. Basically SK is unplayable against NG. I had managed to win against Pincer and Harmony, but this NG poison sh*t is just too much to handle. May be the Crow swarming would work, but as you had demonstrated even that might not work it seems.

I think only ST has a decent chance against this poison degeneracy with 3 purify units (and all low powered units with elf swarm). I sincerely hope poison is nerfed a bit (the units or the mechanics as a whole) or same amount of immense support for purify units.
 
It's like they've learned nothing from the Eithne meta.
Typical CDPR Gwent balancing though. If something is overpowered and meta-warping just swing the pendulum to the opposite end of the scale. Just look at how much swarm came with MoO. In a meta like that, NG poison is a counter. Unfortunately, for CDPR, not all players like playing the same few cookie-cutter builds, so something like NG poison becomes yet another unfun NG archetype to play against. Problem is they can't really fix it without powering down some of the other T1/T2 archetypes.
 

Payus

Forum regular
They could make one change that might help. Rework Spring Equinox so it purifies but also gives 1 boost to every status you remove and i costs 5/6 p
And I personally would love it to be an alchemy card, but I get that would be unfair.
 
I think the problem with NG poison is the Scenario card and it's ability to destroy any unit with Fang + Vincent in 1 turn. I would change 2nd and 3d chapters to spawn other non-poison bronzes.
 
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Playing Swarm helps. I have been pretty successful beating poison with elf swarm. Use purify at key moments as well.
 
The entire new patch is just a not that enjoyable imo.

Winning / Losing largely depends on matchup. Inidivdual cards nuke some decks and are worthless against others.

Overall a lot less enjoyable to play than before.

Yes swarm beats poison. But row damage beats swarm. NR pings beat swarm.
Lock beats NR. Idk its just silly. Too much matchup dependent.
 
The entire new patch is just a not that enjoyable imo.

Winning / Losing largely depends on matchup. Inidivdual cards nuke some decks and are worthless against others.

Overall a lot less enjoyable to play than before.

Yes swarm beats poison. But row damage beats swarm. NR pings beat swarm.
Lock beats NR. Idk its just silly. Too much matchup dependent.
Gee, you make it sound almost like CDPR has doubled down on the ever-unpopular RPS style of gameplay ;) I've heard from a few people Hearthstone is a bit like this, in that you devote all your resources to building one of three or four decks, since nothing else can beat them and they tend to RPS themselves. Sad that Gwent, which became popular for not being like Hearthstone, has gone that way and the only thing making it better is its lower RNG.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Yes, but having a very bad time. All the engines are killed - I mean, literally all. Every two turns, I lose my biggest unit (or potential big unit). I wanted to try Queensguard swarm, but even that doesn't work because NG has cheap locks too. Basically SK is unplayable against NG. I had managed to win against Pincer and Harmony, but this NG poison sh*t is just too much to handle. May be the Crow swarming would work, but as you had demonstrated even that might not work it seems.

I think only ST has a decent chance against this poison degeneracy with 3 purify units (and all low powered units with elf swarm). I sincerely hope poison is nerfed a bit (the units or the mechanics as a whole) or same amount of immense support for purify units.

I dont think NG Poison is as unbeatable as you're painting it. I agree they probably buffed it a bit too much and probably need to dial it down back again. But i think there are several archetypes that can beat it:

-Its not just elf swarm, any type of swarm can beat it easily, whether its elves, crows, rats or spiders, even NG soldiers or my caravan vanguard NR deck. If you're playing swarm, you dont even need to worry with purifies at all - for every 4 or 5 pt unit they destroy, you'll be making 15-20pts of boosts on the last turns.

-the popular crow deck, that uses second wind on gremist to instantly play the entire scenario, usually ends up with 2 tall units at least_ the one who got the spawned mardroeme and maybe axel 3-eyes as finisher. But you can go wide instead of tall, and replace that axel with a bone talisman (same provisions i think).
Also the crow mother + 2 crows played early and replayed on every round are great pressure (beware of Yens Invocation and seizes though), and NG poison doesnt have any tempo plays without leader ability and scenario.
 
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