Leader Ability Play Rates and Win Rates in Season of the Wolf

[Anna_Zielinska]

Hello!

Here are the Leader Ability play rates and win rates! As always we have the data sorted by rank (see image below).

The data is also downloadable in the .xlsx format

 

[Barracuda88]

Probably one of the least surprising reports I've seen.

 

[Guest 4375874]

I think everyone pretty much predicted this. Lockdown's skigh high playrates and OH slowly heading to the bottom of the pile. This toxic meta is masking some of the major contributors...SK,NR and ST witcher cards are overtuned.

 

[Markus_Wirth]

Thanks, to my mind uprising must be the next target of nerfs and of course we need a lot of buffs for underperforming leader abilities.

Regarding Uprising swarm I would suggest the following nerfs:
- Reduce body of Griffin Witcher Ranger to 1. Then you still have the zeal option on Melee and on Ranged the cards is like before the buff
-Griffin Witcher: Cooldown 2. Whenever you play a witcher reduce Cooldown by 1.

 

[Messyr]

Pretty solid. Glad to see everything below 60% (Pro rank at least), it was about time.

 

[Madlax1992]

Not surprising at all. Lockdown has been for a few weeks the most played leader. Ursine Ritual remains the second most played leader and the most successful. Uprising Witcher decks are also very good.

The losers of this expansion are MO decks and by far, SY. SY currently has no deck/leader that even qualifies to like tier 3. Congregate and Cache remained the same as they were like half a year ago.

 

[quintivarium]

The win rates tell part of the story — and these seem to suggest reasonable balance.
But the play rates tell another — over 1/7th of pro rank games were played with one leader, and nearly a third of all games with one faction. Meanwhile another faction is played in under 4% of pro rank games. I hope the developers are asking themselves why this is the case.

 

[Guest 4375874]

The win rates tell part of the story — and these seem to suggest reasonable balance.
But the play rates tell another — over 1/7th of pro rank games were played with one leader, and nearly a third of all games with one faction. Meanwhile another faction is played in under 4% of pro rank games. I hope the developers are asking themselves why this is the case.

How do those win rates suggest balance? From rank 0-25 it's pretty much dominated by ST...it's mostly green across the board. NR has 1 leader consistently at the top and the rest are way at the bottom. Nothing here suggests "balance"

 

[Markus_Wirth]

Regarding Lockdown I would suggest the following nerfs:
- Alba Armored Cavalry Reduce body to 4 (also consider renerfing other block cards)
- Nauzicaa Sergeant: Body 5, the first time you play a unit with deploy each round, boost self by 1.

 

[InkognitoXI]

Regarding Lockdown I would suggest the following nerfs:
- Alba Armored Cavalry Reduce body to 4 (also consider renerfing other block cards)
- Nauzicaa Sergeant: Body 5, the first time you play a unit with deploy each round, boost self by 1.

That would not even remotely solve the problem though.
The issue with Lockdown is not that it gets used in one particular deck, it is the fact that practically every NG deck runs it.
The only way to deal with that is to directly hit Lockdown (and potentially buff other leader abilities).

 

[Sensimilius]

Well... Lockdown was even a NG leader ability back in Witcher 3 Gwent. :] So it's the most vanilla NG leader that exists atm.
I'd agree with a nerf to Nauzica Sargent... he can just have too much boosts, esp compared to some other 4 P cards like Wild Hunt Hound or Vernossiel Commando.
Like Arturius or Brehen DEPLOY into Informant DEPLOY into copying a unit that also has DEPLOY and bam that's 3 points in just one turn.

 

[Barracuda88]

Yeah, a 4p card routinely getting 2-3 points per turn is pretty stupid. But I mean these guys just buffed Viper Mentor, so...

 

[Lord-Misplay]

Its how you read the table. If you sort it out by playrate the story tells a different picture. In my opinion playrate should be more important than win rate if you want to improve balance.

 

[Philido]

Its how you read the table. If you sort it out by playrate the story tells a different picture. In my opinion playrate should be more important than win rate if you want to improve balance.

And what do you want to do with the overplayed decks?

 

[InkognitoXI]

And what do you want to do with the overplayed decks?

That should depend on the distribution between leaders in a faction (although taking winrate and specialisation into consideration).
The fact that in NG even the specialized leader abilities are about 6 times less frequent, than the generic Lockdown should show that there is a (relative) problem.
The other example would be NR, with Uprising also being 6 times more frequent than other leaders (although in this case we have a leader tailored for a specific kind of deck, so this makes more sense).

Edit: On another note, how can it be that NG still has not gotten an "order + passive" leader ?
Right now every faction has a decent option for that, except NG, which does not even have a bad option.

 

[Lord-Misplay]

And what do you want to do with the overplayed decks?

Well to be fair the overplayed decks are created from the competitive players for a reason. Then the rest of the player base picks them up. Noone faults. Its a competitive game and most people are after the Win. Whats the solution I dont know? I have ideas. You have some as well but its up to CDPR to come up with a solution. I do agree that some cards are imbalanced and need retouching. I also think that NG has better synergies through out their whole deck with leader abilities. E.g. its more likely to use the locks, or soldiers or agents with any leader ability than use dwarves with nature's gift or Call of Harmony. So all in all I believe that NG is not the problem but the solution in the sense that the rest of the factions should be more like it when it comes to synergise cards and leader. SK is quite close but still a click away.

 

[Guest 4375874]

Well to be fair the overplayed decks are created from the competitive players for a reason. Then the rest of the player base picks them up. Noone faults. Its a competitive game and most people are after the Win. Whats the solution I dont know? I have ideas. You have some as well but its up to CDPR to come up with a solution. I do agree that some cards are imbalanced and need retouching. I also think that NG has better synergies through out their whole deck with leader abilities. E.g. its more likely to use the locks, or soldiers or agents with any leader ability than use dwarves with nature's gift or Call of Harmony. So all in all I believe that NG is not the problem but the solution in the sense that the rest of the factions should be more like it when it comes to synergise cards and leader. SK is quite close but still a click away.

completely disagree. It shouldn't be that easy for any faction. It's not just card synergy, it's the cheapest removals they have and the most tutors of any faction to play any card...it's one of the few factions that doesn't even need oneiromancy. It removes the need to think or play strategically. So no, other factions shouldn't mirror that.

 

[skaleras]

I guess Kelly decks are overrated given those win rates

 

[EduFerraz]

That should depend on the distribution between leaders in a faction (although taking winrate and specialisation into consideration).
The fact that in NG even the specialized leader abilities are about 6 times less frequent, than the generic Lockdown should show that there is a (relative) problem.
The other example would be NR, with Uprising also being 6 times more frequent than other leaders (although in this case we have a leader tailored for a specific kind of deck, so this makes more sense).

Edit: On another note, how can it be that NG still has not gotten an "order + passive" leader ?
Right now every faction has a decent option for that, except NG, which does not even have a bad option.

Sorry, but wich NR leader has "order + passive"?

 

[InkognitoXI]

Sorry, but wich NR leader has "order + passive"?

Fair point, somehow NR eluded my radar.