Need help thinning my nilfgaard deck

[TweetyLeaf]

Need help thinning my nilfgaard deck

Hi!

I'm fairly new to gwent, and reached lvl 18 this season.

I started playing monsters, but took liking to nilfgaard. I do not want to go to details about my deck, but still I need your help, and hope that you accept the limited information I am willing to share.

My problem is thinning the deck, using emissaries is not an option because to high change of drawing cards that are not useful to me in the 1st round.
My deck revolves around utilizing my own and opponents graveyard copying his cards etc.
The problem I am having is that there is simply not enough bronze cards that synergize well with the cards i am using, so I figured I use "secondary synergy" with cards. In my case I have tried using viper witchers and adding 6 alchemy bronzes in my deck. However, i feel it is not enough and I much rather thin my deck to get to those bronzes that actually synergize well with my golds and silvers.

So its simple, how can I thin my bronzes effectively without using emissaries?

 

[4RM3D]

Because you haven't given the specifics of your deck, I can only give you a general answer.

Saskia: Dragonfire, problem solved! Seriously though, there are two ways to thin your deck:
1. Muster cards
2. Tutor cards

Muster cards pulls multiple units from the deck. For NG, they only have Alba Pikeman, in the strictest sense. Although, using reveal, Imperial Golem and/or Daerlan Soldier also kinda counts.

Tutor cards pull other cards from the deck, like using Emissaries. However, there are plenty of other options, depending on the kind of deck you are using, like Vicovaro Novice, Magne Division or Recruit. And those are just the NR bronzes, you can also use silver neutrals, e.g. Marching Orders or Alzur's Double–Cross.

 

[TweetyLeaf]

Because you haven't given the specifics of your deck, I can only give you a general answer.

Saskia: Dragonfire, problem solved! Seriously though, there are two ways to thin your deck:
1. Muster cards
2. Tutor cards

Muster cards pulls multiple units from the deck. For NG, they only have Alba Pikeman, in the strictest sense. Although, using reveal, Imperial Golem and/or Daerlan Soldier also kinda counts.

Tutor cards pull other cards from the deck, like using Emissaries. However, there are plenty of other options, depending on the kind of deck you are using, like Vicovaro Novice, Magne Division or Recruit. And those are just the NR bronzes, you can also use silver neutrals, e.g. Marching Orders or Alzur's Double–Cross.

Tutor cards are the way to go for me I believe, I use magne division in my deck but I feel it would be better to find a combination that I could pull for example reconnaissance with it(its tactic/special so no dice there). (so that would be 3 bronzes out of the way with 1 bronze).

Thing is that there are combos that if succesfull lets you play 3-x cards into the table, the problem is that almost none of those cards come out from my deck.
Mustering with alba pikeman would be beneficial if I could figure out a way to play them without playing one of them.
Example would be monster deck with arachas behemoth spawning arachas drones to the table.

My deck contains no reveal, even tho mixing reveal there would be good thing, problem with that is there are only 1 card (alchemist) that helps you reveal enemy cards and because of that, it will not be an option.

EDIT: Im looking for something more of the line elven mercenary -> reconnaince -> elven mercenary -> reconnaince ->elven mercenary -> reconnaince -> Target bronze.

Thats 7 bronzes out from elf deck (if lucky), and that's just example i figured out just now.

I feel there is no similar nilf higher card count combo, that is why I'm looking for one.

 

[GenLiu]

Saskia: Dragonfire, problem solved!

XD That's the hard way but it gets the job done indeed lol

Mustering with alba pikeman would be beneficial if I could figure out a way to play them without playing one of them.

You just gave the answer one line earlier, you can pull them out using Reconnaissance.
Now be wary that focusing too much on thining will run you into some other issues (bad draws on opening hand, really easy to get milled...in fact even self-milling yourself might even be a problem if you go too agressive on that).

The funny thing is that, I just played against someone who did this mistake this morning. Thined very agressively with Jan Calveit, Novices, Poultice to replay them and during round 3, they played Cahir and Hoho....Nothing to pull with Calveit, game over lol

 

[TweetyLeaf]

XD That's the hard way but it gets the job done indeed lol


You just gave the answer one line earlier, you can pull them out using Reconnaissance.
Now be wary that focusing too much on thining will run you into some other issues (bad draws on opening hand, really easy to get milled...in fact even self-milling yourself might even be a problem if you go too agressive on that).

The funny thing is that, I just played against someone who did this mistake this morning. Thined very agressively with Jan Calveit, Novices, Poultice to replay them and during round 3, they played Cahir and Hoho....Nothing to pull with Calveit, game over lol

Damn, I didn't think of that. Well done. Sometimes I am just too focused on certain order of plays i forget you can do shit in reverse order

Thank you. I'm going to try that out, still not sure how it will fit without testing it, but it might be a good start. Its not 7 cards, but it's better than 2.

 

[GenLiu]

Damn, I didn't think of that. Well done. Sometimes I am just too focused on certain order of plays i forget you can do shit in reverse order

Thank you. I'm going to try that out, still not sure how it will fit without testing it, but it might be a good start. Its not 7 cards, but it's better than 2.

Happy I could help
Btw, I highly respect your will of making your own deck rather than checking an existing one on the internet. I'm pretty sure you'll become quiet good at this game, creating your own thing, experimenting, studing the cards effects and whatnot, there is nothing better to succeed.

 

[TweetyLeaf]

Happy I could help
Btw, I highly respect your will of making your own deck rather than checking an existing one on the internet. I'm pretty sure you'll become quiet good at this game, creating your own thing, experimenting, studing the cards effects and whatnot, there is nothing better to succeed.

Thank you for your kind words.

After testing the deck with 10 or so games, I have to say I am still not sure about thinning with recon -> alba pikeman.
The reason for this is that it is not possible to continue the combo anywhere. Yes you thin 3 out of 15 with 1 card but alba pikeman does not do anything for you after being played.
If played with (for example) alba cavalry on table, then it would be worth it definitely. I just do not think that there is enough synergies keeping pikeman just for the sake of thinning.

I do believe recon tho is a good card, but the problem with it for me is the same as emissaries, I cannot play it first round because drawing 2 bronzes that are not worth playing is worst feeling.

Daerlan soldier feels like the best thinning card nilfgaard has, but the damn thing needs to be revealed, and nilfgaard has only 1 bronze that is able to reveal stuff. Not drawing alchemist with Daerlan is a game over play (unless you use voorhis, but I think it's too expensive to force the combo with leader). What makes matters worse is that you cannot pull alchemist from your deck with other bronze card (I mean ofc there is ambassador and recon etc. but sure way to pull it is impossible).

Maybe I just need to give up thinning the deck further, and patiently wait If CDPR will release more bronze cards that are able to reveal your own cards.

 

[GenLiu]

Thank you for your kind words.

After testing the deck with 10 or so games, I have to say I am still not sure about thinning with recon -> alba pikeman.
The reason for this is that it is not possible to continue the combo anywhere. Yes you thin 3 out of 15 with 1 card but alba pikeman does not do anything for you after being played.
If played with (for example) alba cavalry on table, then it would be worth it definitely. I just do not think that there is enough synergies keeping pikeman just for the sake of thinning.

I do believe recon tho is a good card, but the problem with it for me is the same as emissaries, I cannot play it first round because drawing 2 bronzes that are not worth playing is worst feeling.

Daerlan soldier feels like the best thinning card nilfgaard has, but the damn thing needs to be revealed, and nilfgaard has only 1 bronze that is able to reveal stuff. Not drawing alchemist with Daerlan is a game over play (unless you use voorhis, but I think it's too expensive to force the combo with leader). What makes matters worse is that you cannot pull alchemist from your deck with other bronze card (I mean ofc there is ambassador and recon etc. but sure way to pull it is impossible).

Maybe I just need to give up thinning the deck further, and patiently wait If CDPR will release more bronze cards that are able to reveal your own cards.

You're forgetting one self reveal card which is Nilfgaardian knights. It might sound weird but they're not bad at revealing targetting stuffs in your hand since they ALWAYS reveal a Bronze before revealing any Silver and a Silver before any Golds (I don't know if my explaination is clear). I play 2 copy of them in my Vooris deck (which is a pure reveal) and you would be surprised how precise they can be sometimes.
Of course I'm not saying that they're going to reveal as accurately as Alchemists but they're quiet good and their body is no jocke.

Alba pikeman needs synergy, !OO%. If you only play them to thin I'm afraid it's gonna be on the weak side (at the end of the day, they only represent 9 pts on the board), if you're not running any buffs of any kind it's indeed a good idea to forget about them.

One thing though, I don't know precisely what your combo is (and I respect the fact you don't want to tell) but you can also dig into your deck using card draws. That opens things up for Avalach, Albrich, even Shilard or Stregobor depending on your game plan. You could even turn the deck into an hybrid combo/soft mill because yes, mill is still a thing in Gwent.

On the side note, I know for a fact that it's possible to self mill yourself so much that you can use Shilard to draw the card you reveal from your opponent and thus get card advantage this way. It's quiet dirty and I don't advise you to do so (if nothing else because it's essentially a meme, it's gonna miss most of the time) but it's just to show you how powerful self draw can be to thin your deck.

 

[TweetyLeaf]

You're forgetting one self reveal card which is Nilfgaardian knights. It might sound weird but they're not bad at revealing targetting stuffs in your hand since they ALWAYS reveal a Bronze before revealing any Silver and a Silver before any Golds (I don't know if my explaination is clear).

I did not know that. That is actually awesome. I don't know how I could get them to work, but It's definitely worth thinking about.

One thing though, I don't know precisely what your combo is (and I respect the fact you don't want to tell) but you can also dig into your deck using card draws. That opens things up for Avalach, Albrich, even Shilard or Stregobor depending on your game plan. You could even turn the deck into an hybrid combo/soft mill because yes, mill is still a thing in Gwent.

Drawing has many great sides, but for drawing to be effective, you need a deck where no matter what you draw you would be atleast content with the card your getting. Shilard is kind of an exception because it gives you control, however sadly I do not have that gold (yet)

On the side note, I know for a fact that it's possible to self mill yourself so much that you can use Shilard to draw the card you reveal from your opponent and thus get card advantage this way. It's quiet dirty and I don't advise you to do so (if nothing else because it's essentially a meme, it's gonna miss most of the time) but it's just to show you how powerful self draw can be to thin your deck.

Yeah and the combo is even more dirty when played with The guardian.

Anyway, Knight might be something I need to look at closely.

It could also help me a lot with the first round because my deck is "slow building". It's strongest when I have 2-4 cards left, EVEN if some of those cards are bronze. The problem is that some of the bronze cards are... well... useless before the game has gone on long enough. there are 6 bronzes I really want to avoid to draw in the first round, 3 of them are cards I never want to draw because I can pull them out from the deck (but It does require the game to go long enough).

I feel bad for being so damn cryptic about this, It's not like there are no better decks in the world (because there definitely is). But it's about keeping personal playstyle hidden and trying to evolve and adapt into something that I have very rarely seen played against me.

 

[devivre]

Drawing has many great sides, but for drawing to be effective, you need a deck where no matter what you draw you would be atleast content with the card your getting. Shilard is kind of an exception because it gives you control, however sadly I do not have that gold (yet)

With Stefan Skellen you can make sure that you draw the card you want next time (and it gets buffed +5). I think it's a pretty good gold card, especially if you want to avoid Vilgefortz picking the wrong card.

I kinda like this card better than Shilard, but that's also a matter of taste.