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.
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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