Let's talk Skellige - what's wrong with this faction?

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Only chance against Svalblod for me right now is when the opponent gets to greedy and tries to 2-0 me. Sometimes I have enough tempo cards to keep up and then win round 3 pretty easily. But most of the time I don´t.
 
Maybe its just me but do you guys remember a time where discard was the main strength of SK? Nowadays I rarely see any Skalds, Birnas ... nothing. It is no surprise. Why would you want to discard anything when all your cards are great?
 
I'm currently stuck at rank 1. At least 70% games vs SK. And they all start with the same combo 1st - Ship (even from Royal Decree), 2nd Protector, 3rd Priest... What a sad stage :shrug:
 
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Just checked stats for the best faction* in the top200 Pro rank players:
SK - 58,0% !!!!!!!!
ST - 15,0%
NG - 10,5%
MO - 10,5%
NR - 6,0%

* - which means that 116 of 200 top players made the best faction MMR (fMMR) with Skellige... :disapprove:

BTW - week ago I got rank0 with Filavandrel and at pro ladder my best faction was NR with zero SK games. Played ~50 SK games with Arnjolf around rank8-5.
 
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Just checked stats for the best faction* in the top200 Pro rank players:
SK - 58,0% !!!!!!!!
ST - 15,0%
NG - 10,5%
MO - 10,5%
NR - 6,0%

* - which means that 116 of 200 top players made the best faction MMR (fMMR) with Skellige... :disapprove:

BTW - week ago I got rank0 with Filavandrel and at pro ladder my best faction was NR with zero SK games. Played ~50 SK games with Arnjolf around rank8-5.
The thing with stats is that they are less impressive, once you understand to read them. For example, this statistic just says that those who played SK the most made the best fMMR with it. How surprising!
More important is THAT they play SK more often. And there we are at what I said earlier in this thread. It's because nothing is wrong with SK, but unfurtunately a lot with the other factions. It's fun playing SK, it's less fun playing other factions. But the goal of a game like Gwent should be to have 5 factions that all are fun to play, not to have 5 factions that you all can't enjoy.
 
"For example, this statistic just says that those who played SK the most made the best fMMR with it. How surprising!"

That statement is not true at all and has nothing to do with the stats I mentioned earlier. You can check it here: https://masters.playgwent.com/pl/rankings/pro-rank/season-13

In fact you usually need to farm more games with a weaker faction to get a nice streak of 25 games to score the highest fMMR with it.

Edit: only 34% players in Top50 were playing mostly with SK (not 58%), 24% with ST, 22% with NG, 20% with MO and nobody with NR.. :cry: Most games with their best faction were played also by 34% of top players and it wasn't always a SK faction. They locked a highscore with SK and were grinding pro ladder with other factions.
 
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I can't help but hate SK players most of the time :cry: I cant seem to beat svalblod with any of my decks except if the opponent misplays. harald, svalblod priest, this other dude that deals 2 damage when he gets damaged... it's just ridicolous imo. svalblod priest especially. why cant this card atleast have an "at turn start" effect instead of instantly popping to 5 and being almost impossible to stop from that point? isnt the point of engines that they are susceptible to removal but generate value when left on the board? oh, not this one... not this one. you pretty much need a geralt in hand to remove a 5 provision card which has crazy synergy with almost every other card in the deck lol.
with the other 2 mentioned cards it generates 3 points per turn with removal chance. even more when you have a heymaey protector on the board which is only a 4 provision lmao.

I dont care much about the golds, they are more or less fine. but skellige can win with bronzes alone. doesnt really help that 60% of my opponents are playing SK for some reason :shrug::shrug:
 
I hope at the end of the month, when the balance patch hits its not just SY that gets nerfed, but also SK, since it's 3 months due.

Basically all SK decks are using svalblod priests, Harald Houndsnout, longships, Haralds are using Olafs, Eists are using Champion of Svalblod, and tons of removal.

I love Skellige, just not this Skellige, that it's "easy mode".
 
svalblod priest should still be at turn start imo. not a huge nerf in the long run but it gives the opponent a chance to react.
 
Skellige is a dead deck when you're climbing the ladder.

EOT.

PS. Oh, some people from CD Project may ask why? First, i don't belive you that your really involved in this topic. Second, you won't ask why, because you know it's dead and unbalanced comparing to other deck so it's better to keep it as "polichinelle secret". And if somebody would say that's it playable on high pro ranks - i will answer you, that im not there yet and i don't like the situation when i have to adjust to the rest playing the most common decks and praying to have a better shuffle than my opponent, because all of us MUST play the same [deck].

EOT.
 
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PS. Oh, some people from CD Project may ask why? First, i don't belive you that your really involved in this topic. Second, you won't ask why, because you know it's dead and unbalanced comparing to other deck so it's better to keep it as "polichinelle secret". And if somebody would say that's it playable on high pro ranks - i will answer you, that im not there yet and i don't like the situation when i have to adjust to the rest playing the most common decks and praying to have a better shuffle than my opponent, because all of us MUST play the same [deck].

Balancing has some problems but I wouldn't call SK dead. I cannot say if they are playable on pro rank but if you search youtube you can find decks like McBeards Crow list that he plays on pro:

It's funny because SK was always called the favorite faction of the developers that got the best stuff the other factions had. SK was a top faction for a very long time and right now they are not but are also not terrible. After the next patch things can look totaly different.
 
Armored Drakkar, thanks for adding this card to Skellige. Most ridiculous 5p card ever.

5p cards that are "impossible" to remove and give endless value. Armored Drakkar and Svalblod Priest, now the perfect pair.
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Skellige is a dead deck when you're climbing the ladder.

Not sure how pro-ranks look now, but at the time of this thread, it was dominated by Skellige, completely. It could be easily seen just visually looking at the ranks. But someone also showed some ridiculous statistics, which made it even more clear.

Iron Judgement added some ridiculous cards for other factions, and I've yet to play Ofir, but I think it and scenarios look really bad, looks like it will/have pretty much break/broken the game. Iron, scenario, defender. What fun..

Ofir on it's own actually look interesting. Anyone not playing crossbowmen, bombardment and dwarves anymore? Looks boring and pointless. Sure, Skellige might no longer be what it used to be due to all that.
 
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5p cards that are "impossible" to remove and give endless value. Armored Drakkar and Svalblod Priest, now the perfect pair.

The combo is quite strong but the priest is one of the very few engines SK has so it shouldn't get nerfed imo. There are also some ways to deal with this play. While it is tough to remove the Drakkar you can try to remove or lock the priest (maybe with poison :oops:), move one of the cards to the other row or play a unit between the two cards. In addition both cards will get into tall-removal quickly so you get another chance there.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
The combo is quite strong but the priest is one of the very few engines SK has so it shouldn't get nerfed imo. There are also some ways to deal with this play. While it is tough to remove the Drakkar you can try to remove or lock the priest (maybe with poison :oops:), move one of the cards to the other row or play a unit between the two cards. In addition both cards will get into tall-removal quickly so you get another chance there.
Yes, I was a vehement hater of SK when it was Tier 0 for many many months continuously. I still think there are some cards in SK which are very very strong. But Svalblod Priest is not one of them. He was nerfed/balanced recently to be 6P. If you think about it, unless he has Drakkar or Blueboy or DragonBeast (or other units that benefit from getting self damage), priest needs three turns to break even. SK has many units that can benefit from Priest, but still I think priest is fine now. That is as long as Poison is kept viable. If poison is nerfed to be not viable, then SK and MO will become the monsters they were once before.

But I really hate Armored Drakkar. It is impossible to kill that unit with any card before Iron Judgement expansion!. Even a Gold damage unit can't kill it. It can only be locked or let it grow big and kill it with 10p cards.
 
The combo is quite strong but the priest is one of the very few engines SK has so it shouldn't get nerfed imo. There are also some ways to deal with this play. While it is tough to remove the Drakkar you can try to remove or lock the priest (maybe with poison :oops:), move one of the cards to the other row or play a unit between the two cards. In addition both cards will get into tall-removal quickly so you get another chance there.

Both those cards can be used in a number of ways, not just with each others.

Nerfed to 6p, sure.. Together with Greatsword Svalblod Priest is really gold cards camouflaged as 6p bronze. What kind of bronze cards to Skellige players ALWAYS bring from the graveyard anyways? (ok, let's disregard the ship, which is a real 5p bronze with POSSIBLE synergy not guaranteed like priest)
 
dont undertsand your problematic cards list, i play skellige and would never play ursine ritual its rubbish(5 charges and a bear abomination.....), svalblod is effectively a tamerian drummer but cost more..... vajborn is rubbish for his provisions(if your playing NR is hard to have an enemy damaged and he cost like 8 or 9 provisions anyways and doesnt add much power not to mention other factions dont have very high power cards anyways so total waste, vildkaarl is good if you can get him out but very easy to kill before that happens, the rest are rubbish and alot of cards are very situational, we get the weakest defender, one of our most important cards being dagur or greatsword are very easy to kill and are usally reset by a geralt regardless, olaf is a joke lol 11 provisions then you need to damage him alot somehow with only vialable options being your 5 charges which have to last you all game harald whos also 9 provisons and is rubbish and usally gets killed, 2 priests that are also needed for other things and are too slow to damage, not to mention if you want to damage olaf to get any decent boost chance is they are gona kill him when hes weak all of this needs to be setup too, artis is interesting and viable but your relying on him alot and again is easy to kill. jutta has to be setup with restore and half the time you wont get it or just get restore which is then a waste of a card (jutta is decent though but not op) ive trying playing her without restore but half the time i cant get a card over 12 power(relying alot on getting wildkarl to work or boosting greatswords of dagur before you play her. ulfheddin is decent but only worth it against big units which are typically SK like you said because thats their identity, but still yeah all round decent card. Knut is important to damage self but again this is all setup and hes 8 provisions i believe i used to try him with wildkaarl to set off berserk or after he transforms but half the time they are not together and the rest of the time wildkarrl is taken out and even if it does work you then need a very low power unit to sacrifice to heal or youve gained zero points. svalblod totem is ok to get through your deck faster but 10 power for ten provisions isnt that great at all especially as their is no synergy for abominations its just a straight up ten power, you can do that in all factions with alot of cards and better cards. ive literally never lost to ursine ritual and their scenario has to be the worst, wild boar ship is crap and 11 provisons id maybe use it if the effect were the other way around, never found a place for dracoturtle, 11 provisions for 6 power or 12 heavily relying on setup, cerys is very underwhelming, hjalmar is very reliant on setup and even than i would rather have korathi as its no setup, you need nothing high power in the grave and banishes anything where as hlajmar can probably only get 12 damage if the setup is perfect, covenant is ok but weaker than nilfgaards defender whyyyy... skellige supposed to be warriors his effect has never once saved me. hemdall is basicly a meme. i can go on only faction weaker than skellige are monsters, skellige and NR basicly the same, sco slightly ahead and nilf miles ahead. all of SK tall units have to be setup or have weakness like skall damage by 5 and hes gone vildkaarl needs setup same as jutta not to mention my personal hatred of NG poison, theres no kaedwani revenant to save me and dont compare to queensguard they are not anything alike not to mention nilf can just lock your first queensguard even if you had infinite self harm where as there are multiple ways to get kaedwani, you get 5 charge for ursine just let that sink in for all the berserk setup that is needed i wouldnt play ursine with 10 charges i really wouldnt.
 
@SpudCakes, that wall of text is in need of paragraphs and punctuation marks, to make it more readable for users because not many are going to read it now. Just as an FYI.
 
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@SpudCakes, that wall of text is in need of paragraphs and punctuation marks, to make it more readable for users because not many are going to read it now. Just as an FYI.

fair point mate haha just was on a rant and didnt stop. i need to quit forums and go back to school i think,
didnt even mention that dagur and greatswords are totally useless once they have been switched rows, so basicly pointless playing them against sco >< i cant help myself after someone said skellige of all factions are OP.
 
i cant help myself after someone said skellige of all factions are OP.

Well the guy who said Skellige is OP also said he's playing on console version, so he really has no idea what the game is really like. There are no scenarios/poison/bombardment in that game version, so it's no wonder he's saying weird things about balance.
 
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