My pursuit of NG and what I learned

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rrc

Forum veteran
[Disclaimer: I am not an NG fanboy. I used to hate NG when it was so toxic with poison (YenInvo, Vincent) packages, but lately I am fine with NG being NG.]
This season post 7.3, I wanted to try NG. With so many people saying it is very weak and unplayable, I was naturally lured into trying that. I didn't want to try Assimilate deck as it is a very strong deck and can completely destroy players not knowing how to play around it. Even otherwise, I consider Assimilate as a very strong coherent archetype.

So, I started with full soldier package without Ball (and without the Spy Soldier) with the idea of Slave Infantry + Repeat Bronze Soldier Deploy + Boost All Copies by 2 with Crossbowman and Ramon. To feed the Slave Infantry I included the guy who spawns 4 cows. In theory it seemed very strong, but in reality, it sucked. When I could pull off the combo, it was a definite victory, but getting all required cards in hand was too much.

Then I wanted to play Spy archetype with the Palmarine buff, but it was also too weak. If you don't draw Ramon, it is such a low tempo that it is hard to compete with anything.

Then I moved on to Status archtype with Dame and Ball and Poison, but everyone and their grandmother is running heatwave. The lack of proactivity was too much and it was very hard to pilot.

Then I tried Enslave 5 with Bribery/Stephan. It was good when your draws are good and against certain matchups, but didn't feel fantastic.

Overall, even though there are some individual bronzes which are very strong (like Dames - I still think this is one of the best bronzes in the game, SpySoldier, CrossBowman, Rot Tosser) and some really strong golds (Hefty, YenInvo, Ramon, Bratheens, Vincent) to get all of them to work in a deck is not possible. When you want to concentrate on Spying, you can't have Crossbowman, when you want to concentrate on Crossbowman, you can't have SpySoldier. When you want to add Dame, you can't have Crossbowman etc. Compare this with SK. They can close their eyes, filter with warrior and just add any top end gold with any bronze with any leader and they have a very good chance to win.

The individual strong bronzes don't work together AT ALL. Making players to go all-in with Assimilate or Single Ball with Soldier (damn.. such an awkard deck to pilot. When it works for the opponent you may think it is too strong, but playing it is super awkward.. In R3, you draw Ramon and no soldiers is such a f**king pain in the ass. Why add these package in status/poison you ask? Because that alone don't have a full solid deck).

Moreover, which leader I was going to use was the single biggest confusion I ever had in Gwent. Only Enslave and Double Cross have a solid backing archetype - tactics and assimilate. Imperial Formation is too weak and putting a 9P gold deck building restriction felt bad and awkward for the 3 boost thing this ability is about. Imprisonment is so awkward - the cards you want to kill with the 6P gold or seize with Vattier will now be less appealing. Playing Moorvan and draw 3 cards - I think this only works for the hypter-thin deck which I was not interested in trying - though I think it can be powerful.

Overall, I can relate with NG fans with their grief. It was hard to build a synergetic deck with NG even though there are some really strong bronze and gold simply due to the fact that they don't work together at all. I am not a strong NG player and may be it played a role in my struggle to build a good deck. Hopefully in the next expansion, NG gets cards to support some of their archetypes fully instead of needing to mix and match and making a mess in the deck to be competitive.

After building every deck I tried a few games in casual and then once I thought it would be good to try competitive I went ranked. This is the result. It felt awful to play NG. Again, I am not a good NG player. May be because I was a noob I had this experience. This is just my own experience and I don't want to generalize with this.
Screenshot 2020-10-09 at 3.31.08 PM.png
 
Man, that was a lot to read.

I agree with everything you said. When I played NG, I played Enslave Tactic deck, and I loved it. Hopefully the next major update NG gets some love.
 
When I play NG, it's mostly assimilate. And you are right in that it can be strong, unless the opponent knows how to play around it. But that's the thing. It is match dependent, draw dependent (bad draws leave you without a good proactive play depending on how you built your deck), and actually requires some careful piloting other than lock and poison everything.

I do actually play assimilate with imperial formation though, and get quite a few wins in ranked with it (currently rank 7, but finished last season at rank 5), so I don't know how much I agree with that part as it helps me protect my engines.
 
I ended up getting the best results by having Allgod buff a bunch of greedy cards like Cahir, Steffan and Helge in a Lockdown deck. Alongside a defender they get really hard to deal with and can easily win you the game. Just make sure you have Menno+Royal Decree so you actually get to play Allgod R1, maybe even an Albrich as insurance.
It's super cheap but you gotta do what you gotta do with NG these days.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I really like NG, but its for its unparalleled meme potential, and i absolutely hate Ball/Poison, so these nerfs never really affected my decks (the nerfs to Braathens and Usurper did though).

Of the current NG Leaders, i use 3: Enslave if im going for some control/seize focused, Doublecross, if im going for some assimilate meme stuff (im not saying assimilate is meme, im saying the assimilate versions i play are), or Morvran if im going for anything else, in my opinion its a direct upgrade over Imperial Formation.
I tried Imposter but it can be played around too easily: either the opponent wont play any good engines R3 for you to copy or he will counter it immediately as you use your leader without a chance to use it.

I used to love cow guy+slave infantries, this was one of the strongest decks in early HC, but with the nerf of infantries from 5 to 4, plus the huge powercreep on everything else, its no longer viable.

I really like making decks focused on a single bronze, and i like NG soldiers, so i've made daerlan decks, enforcer decks, and my latest creation, a few days ago: crossbowmen spam:

Crossbowmen vs Firesworn.jpg

You get more points from Vrygheff+Vreemde on Daerlans for sure, but the rain of damage pings is too much fun.
Also, Morvran leader is a played soldier, so extra pings when you use him if you got crossbowmen on board, and you still get 6pt +5pt affan just like with IF.
 
I made a really fun lockdown deck that works excellently against something like Northern Realms or Skellige which use Orders and Passive Abilities, respectively. Admittedly, it does not perform very well against Deploy-driven decks like some that the Scoia'tael has, but no deck is without flaws.

Basically, use a lot of cards with Locks and Poison. For the golds, use the three witchers Letho of Gulet, Auckes, and Serrit, for locking and damage dealing; Vanhemar and Vincent Van Moorlehem to destroy a "Locked enemy unit" and a "unit with Status," respectively; throw Masquerade Ball in there with Philippe Van Moorlehem to increase the benefit of opponents with Status. For bronzes, Thirsty Dame, Alba Armored Calvary, and Fangs of the empire to not only shut down opponent's engines but also benefit strength-wise from doing so.
 
I would say Nilfgaard's largest issue is (among other problems) the fact that their archetypes lack that last bit of love they need and that their Echo is very unreliable.
I would say NG should be fine if they get a good generic, reliable and non-reactive Gold Spy to use with their Echo, currently they have "Roulette Joachim", "Roulette Cantarella" and Roderick (do not get me wrong, Roderick is very good, however he is not a Spy you want to play in earlier rounds and scales with the amount of remaining Gold cards (also in his reliability)).
 
I would say NG should be fine if they get a good generic, reliable and non-reactive Gold Spy to use with their Echo, currently they have "Roulette Joachim", "Roulette Cantarella" and Roderick (do not get me wrong, Roderick is very good, however he is not a Spy you want to play in earlier rounds and scales with the amount of remaining Gold cards (also in his reliability)).

There is quite some luck involved in many gold Nilfgaard's cards. Cantarella is a good example, it can fish the win-condition of the opponent deck (Lippy, Gord) or it can get you a -1 point card on the board (Aen Elle Conqueror). Tibor, Vilgefortz, Traheaern van Vdyffr are all cards that can highroll or fall short to deliver.

At the moment the only Nilfgaard deck I enjoy playing is Reveal with Enslave as leader ability. There you can actually find some consistency due to the thinning tools. It's rather possible to have just Tibor to be revealed by Triss, Yen and Xarthisius. I tried various version, a greedy one with Nova, a more standard one with Count Caldwell.

But it's just a deck to be played in casual...
 
I don't play NG but I must point out the utter lack of imagination on part of devs to one particular thing... - That being how they couldn't come up with a unique stratagem or Leader ability (Imprisonment) and instead they just copied the Diameritium Shackles card. :] I mean really, stratagem = Diameritium Shackles, Imprisonment = Diameritium Shackles x2 and Diameritium Shackles = Diameritium Shackles (possible to have 2 in deck) lol. They could even make one of them to be SLIGHTLY different by having the NG version 1st do dmg and then lock (while D shackles do it in the opposite (and more useful) order), then change one of those abilities into something that's not a carbon copy of DS. :]
 
I don't play NG but I must point out the utter lack of imagination on part of devs to one particular thing... - That being how they couldn't come up with a unique stratagem or Leader ability (Imprisonment) and instead they just copied the Diameritium Shackles card. :] I mean really, stratagem = Diameritium Shackles, Imprisonment = Diameritium Shackles x2 and Diameritium Shackles = Diameritium Shackles (possible to have 2 in deck) lol. They could even make one of them to be SLIGHTLY different by having the NG version 1st do dmg and then lock (while D shackles do it in the opposite (and more useful) order), then change one of those abilities into something that's not a carbon copy of DS. :]
That could screw you if used on something like Berserk or Deathwish units.
It's not terribly exciting but Imprisonment is intended for units that benefit from having multiple statuses on board like Slave Driver or Thirsty Dame something Imposter isn't really suited for. It's not as bad as people make it up to be, it was a thing in beta so I don't really see the big issue with it being back. The NG deck I currently do best with uses it, I combine it with Damien to get a ton of locks then one shot everything with Slave Drivers.
I just wish they'd give it at least one more provision.
 
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Lately i'vee been trying to make Enslave work but at most I get Draws or lose/win with like 1-5 points difference.
I've experimented with cards like Blizzard and Surrender ( I always pray for it to become a Tactic card ) but I've often find them to brick ( no swarm for surrender ) or become unplayable ( Blizzard will kill also your units ).
I'd love to find a way to make the soldier package works as I, like many NG players, despise Ball and poison, but I think they need more love to work.
I'vee seen some interesting play online with Damien + Letho + Stefan ( holy trinity ) but I didn't see the full deck so I can't really give my opinion on that.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Lately i'vee been trying to make Enslave work but at most I get Draws or lose/win with like 1-5 points difference.
I've experimented with cards like Blizzard and Surrender ( I always pray for it to become a Tactic card ) but I've often find them to brick ( no swarm for surrender ) or become unplayable ( Blizzard will kill also your units ).
I'd love to find a way to make the soldier package works as I, like many NG players, despise Ball and poison, but I think they need more love to work.
I'vee seen some interesting play online with Damien + Letho + Stefan ( holy trinity ) but I didn't see the full deck so I can't really give my opinion on that.

I dont intend to shamelessly plug my guides, but check it out if you're looking for something new on NG: (see the last posts on the thread)


Its not 'set-in-stone' decklists, its mostly an overview of a lot of NG cards which could inspire you to try something i mention there or maybe even something else that you come up with.
 
NG is the meme faction atm.
I have quite some fun with this deck:


Easy way to get to pro-rank
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
NG is the meme faction atm.
I have quite some fun with this deck:


Easy way to get to pro-rank

Seems very weird not using Yen Divination on an Hyperthin deck. Between Triss and Yen Divination i would say the latter is a better choice, as you'll get the 13 pt boost, while with Triss you rely on having a 13pt enemy unit, most times you wont get even near that.

Also, yes - with Yen Divination you are playing into tall removal and with Triss you arent, but with Hyperthin you can play 3 tall units (Yen Divination, Xarthisius and Tibor) and most decks only have one tall punishment, so you should definitely consider playing all those 3 (Tibor works better summoned by Vilgefortz, but can also be played with War Council - like im guessing you are doing - or with Roderick).

(EDIT) i noticed you dont have enough provisions because you're using Lockdown. But you're using 9 tactics, so you could be enslave 5 without changing a single card on your deck, and get the extra provisions.
Im not saying this is unquestionably better - it depends on the opponents leader - but its a viable alternative.
 
Seems very weird not using Yen Divination on an Hyperthin deck. Between Triss and Yen Divination i would say the latter is a better choice, as you'll get the 13 pt boost, while with Triss you rely on having a 13pt enemy unit, most times you wont get even near that.

Also, yes - with Yen Divination you are playing into tall removal and with Triss you arent, but with Hyperthin you can play 3 tall units (Yen Divination, Xarthisius and Tibor) and most decks only have one tall punishment, so you should definitely consider playing all those 3 (Tibor works better summoned by Vilgefortz, but can also be played with War Council - like im guessing you are doing - or with Roderick).

(EDIT) i noticed you dont have enough provisions because you're using Lockdown. But you're using 9 tactics, so you could be enslave 5 without changing a single card on your deck, and get the extra provisions.
Im not saying this is unquestionably better - it depends on the opponents leader - but its a viable alternative.

I've tried a lot of variations when getting to pro rank with the version listed above I only lost once from rank 3 to 0.
Yennefer Divination is a obvious choice but somehow I'm always unlucky if I run it with Triss as well.
In this engine meta I prefer Triss because with Tortoise and Tibor in deck you always have enough reach.
Vilgefortz against MO is very good but against engine decks it's very bad destroying an ally can be tricky as well.
Also tried Enslave 5 and 6 versions but they don't perform as well as Lockdown.

Played a bit on pro ladder with the lockdown deck but it didn't perform as well because there is way more variation in decks.
You need less RNG on ladder so I tossed Master mirror and bribery out and replaced them for Defender and Hefty Helge.
Now it's capable in winning and 2-0 again it really is a good deck :)
Fun but not very easy.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I've tried a lot of variations when getting to pro rank with the version listed above I only lost once from rank 3 to 0.
Yennefer Divination is a obvious choice but somehow I'm always unlucky if I run it with Triss as well.
In this engine meta I prefer Triss because with Tortoise and Tibor in deck you always have enough reach.
Vilgefortz against MO is very good but against engine decks it's very bad destroying an ally can be tricky as well.
Also tried Enslave 5 and 6 versions but they don't perform as well as Lockdown.

Played a bit on pro ladder with the lockdown deck but it didn't perform as well because there is way more variation in decks.
You need less RNG on ladder so I tossed Master mirror and bribery out and replaced them for Defender and Hefty Helge.
Now it's capable in winning and 2-0 again it really is a good deck :)
Fun but not very easy.

It seems to me you're not "hyperthinning" your deck consistently, to get the Tibor reveal at the end everytime.
You can consider also using Hunting Pack, its a bit risky on a deck with no status-inducing, but almost always the opponent will play a status unit on each match.

Also, you said you are pushing for 2-0 most times, that deck can definitely do that, but at the cost of consistency of reveals since you're doin them on R2 when the deck is not thinned enough to only have Tibor and no more units on deck.

I definitely support the use of Master Mirror, obviously, as the meme card ultimate fan, but from my tries on NG, he screwed me so many times when i try to use him on R3, costing me some matches where he gave me golds worse than the bronzes i had, so now i usually try to play him R1 or 2, if he gives me a really good card i save it for R3.
 
I've been using the second version you wrote ( Helge and Defender ) but without much luck.
I admit that even with more than 400 hours played I don't consider myself a good player ( and ladder anxiety prevents me to push ahah ) but I keep encountering netdecks and get screwed up big time.
For example, I don't know how the hell you can counter these type of decks:
- NR control ( revenant spam, and the moment they got Philippa Out i'm done )
- NR Duel ( even with lock they put out more points )
- MO Oh ( classic haunt )
- MO Thrive
- SY Swarm
- ST Control ( both nature gift and Prec. Strike )
The rest I can at least try to fight for the round, even SK which I consider quite tame respect of those decks ( exception: Lippy, but witch lockdown at least it's harder to proc some cards ).
 
I've been using the second version you wrote ( Helge and Defender ) but without much luck.
I admit that even with more than 400 hours played I don't consider myself a good player ( and ladder anxiety prevents me to push ahah ) but I keep encountering netdecks and get screwed up big time.
For example, I don't know how the hell you can counter these type of decks:
- NR control ( revenant spam, and the moment they got Philippa Out i'm done )
- NR Duel ( even with lock they put out more points )
- MO Oh ( classic haunt )
- MO Thrive
- SY Swarm
- ST Control ( both nature gift and Prec. Strike )
The rest I can at least try to fight for the round, even SK which I consider quite tame respect of those decks ( exception: Lippy, but witch lockdown at least it's harder to proc some cards ).

It depends which cards you draw in R1 and how you continue sequencing.
Just played a game with the deck against Overwhelming Hunger.
I had the perfect hand in R1 + red coin:

- 1x Venendal for 10 points
- Marching orders in to defender (7 points)
- Hefty helge
- Got a 2nd Venendal with War council for 8 points - > always play a unit with war council to thin your deck
- Played a lot of bronze tactics

From here (5th card) the opponent kept playing they should've passed.

- Played Menno for a bronze tactic
- Next play was Viggo for 12 point brigade

And then I won on even and a short R2 was possible :)

InR2 I didn't draw Ciri unfortunately but I kept bleeding my opponent to hopefully force them to play scenario.
It was a awkward round I played:

- Tortoise
- Xarthisius in to battle preperation which I played on Tortoise -> my opponent killing it with Geralt.
On pro rank a lot of MO seem to play both Geralt of Rivia and Heatwave quite often these days....
- Played Triss for a 7 point removal only had 2 units left in deck which were Tortoise and Ciri Nova.
- I invocated the Geralt for R3 and then my opponent played the scenario and I passed.

In Round 3 you always get your decent cards if the thinning went well: Tortoise, Ciri Nova, Tibor and the invocated Geralt of Rivia.
I won the game and R3 with 12 points difference :)
And I didn't even need the Ciri Nova carry over
 
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It depends which cards you draw in R1 and how you continue sequencing.
Just played a game with the deck against Overwhelming Hunger.
I had the perfect hand in R1 + red coin:

- 1x Venendal for 10 points
- Marching orders in to defender (7 points)
- Hefty helge
- Got a 2nd Venendal with War council for 8 points - > always play a unit with war council to thin your deck
- Played a lot of bronze tactics

From here (5th card) the opponent kept playing they should've passed.

- Played Menno for a bronze tactic
- Next play was Viggo for 12 point brigade

And then I won on even and a short R2 was possible :)

InR2 I didn't draw Ciri unfortunately but I kept bleeding my opponent to hopefully force them to play scenario.
It was a awkward round I played:

- Tortoise
- Xarthisius in to battle preperation which I played on Tortoise -> my opponent killing it with Geralt.
On pro rank a lot of MO seem to play both Geralt of Rivia and Heatwave quite often these days....
- Played Triss for a 7 point removal only had 2 units left in deck which were Tortoise and Ciri Nova.
- I invocated the Geralt for R3 and then my opponent played the scenario and I passed.

In Round 3 you always get your decent cards if the thinning went well: Tortoise, Ciri Nova, Tibor and the invocated Geralt of Rivia.
I won the game and R3 with 12 points difference :)
And I didn't even need the Ciri Nova carry over

Thanks man for the precious help, these days I didn't play much but I will try again using NG as soon as possible.
 
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