NG Alchemy & Viper Witcher Deck Advice

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NG Alchemy & Viper Witcher Deck Advice

Hello. I just started playing with Ng this patch, and don't have many cards yet. I am looking to improve this deck with say 800 scrap worth.. any advice would be good. Apologize for the spelling of cards. Do have them in front of me
Leader: Emyer
Gold: letho king slayer
Rainfarn
Cahir
Royal decree
Silver :
Commander horn
Joachim
Canteralla
Mandrake
Runestone
Expired ale
Bronze:
Novice X 2
Mange division
Ale X 3
Oinment X 3
Snake Witcher X 3
Recon
Slave driver X 2

Letho with horn is 25 points, rainfarn with Joachim is 10 plus a bronze, Emyer can replay slave driver or novice. Recon is there in case of bad hand so letho have something. The rest are quite standard. Using 1 mange division because sometimes you want to make sure to hit the oinment.

Trial of grass could replace decree. But that's what I have in mind right now. Any advice welcomed.


 
I am running a similar deck, but I have optimized it a bit more.

Emhyr

Vesemir: Mentor
Letho: Kingslayer
Cahir
Trial of the Grasses

Canteralla
Decoy
Alzur's Double-Cross
Marching Orders
Runestone
Expired Ale

Novice x 3
Viper Witcher x 3
Slave driver x 3
Mahakam Ale x 3
Ointment x 3
Mushrooms x 1


+ This deck has 26 cards because of the extra Mushrooms and wanting to get 10 alchemy cards for a 10 damage snipe with Viper Witchers
+ Alzur's Double-Cross for more consistency, but could be replaced with a silver alchemy card and dropping Mushrooms instead.
+ Vesemir is a great gold because of all the alchemy cards in your deck.
+ Letho is good to use with Decoy; all your units are Decoy-worthy. Marching Orders is a backup for Letho and offers more thinning.


- Rainfarn is not worth using. Use Alzur's Double-Cross instead.
- Silver slots are tight and Joachim is too risky too use. And you are probably only using him as an extra target for Rainfarn.
- Mandrake is not worth the silver slot, use Mushrooms instead to reset the enemy unit.
- Commander horn doesn't work well with Mahakam Ale. Using Marching Orders for more thinning is probably better.


PS. Changed the topic to indicate which deck you are talking about.
 
Thanks for that. The whole Rainfarn thing is just because I have him and not much else. One extra alchemy is worth something like 5 points most games, and Joachim is indeed a bit iffy at times. So if I need to choose between trial of grass or vesmir, which one should I make? They are both neutral, but vesmir is probably more useful else where? And yeah, mandrake is a bit poor most times, and a mard would work just as well. Forgot it was alchemy. may consider horn Vs decoy. I can get 7 units out fairly easily with novice and slave drivers, (5 in a row and 1 each). So horn is not normally a dead card, bit Vs control deck it is a bit bad. Question is can decoy get me 20 points or at least 16...
 
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Vesemir is more flexible and can be used in other decks too. So, I would craft him first. Trial of the Grasses is still a good card for this deck later on.

Decoy is also more flexible. You can Decoy on Viper Witch for an extra snipe, if needed (still 13 points). Or you can use it on Novice to get an Ale out and thin your deck more. If you are in a pinch, using it on Slave Driver can still provide value. Also, sometimes using it on a silver spy can be life-saving. In the end, it's easier to brick Commander's Horn. Still, CH ain't bad and can be used instead of ADC, Decoy or MO.
 
My list is rather different and I've been finding good success with it, around 4000 MMR.

Leader: Jon Calveit

Golds: Vilgefortz, Vesemir: Mentor, Cahir, Trial of the Grasses

Silvers: Sweers, Auckes, Serrit, Cynthia, Mandrake, Black Blood

Bronze: Viper Witcher x 3, Vicovaro Novice x 3, Slave Driver x 3, Mahakam Ale x 3, Ointment x 3, Overdose x 1

Black Blood is one of those cards that's grown on me. I can't think of a time it gave me nothing I could use, and a couple of times it's given me things that outright won games that were looking dicey (usually the new resilience creature). Serrit and Cynthia are intended as a combination to defang finishers or force them to be played early, and were put in as a solution of sorts to the Bear deck, which normally runs Olaf, but separately they pretty much guarantee a witcher on the board for Trial, and Sweers, though situational, is often incredible. Again, good against bears most times, very good against the dorfs sometimes.
 
What good targets do you get from black blood? I used it once and got like 2 vampires.. spawn moon light, drain something by 3 and a ghoul... All a bit useless
 
Barbegazi and Alghoul primarily, though standard ghoul often works out since your slave drivers will often grab a power bronze or two out your opponent's deck. In my experience - at least in the current Meta - Alghoul is very rarely below 15 points, which is pretty chunky in alchemy with possible irritation value on top. Nekurat played onto a busy board can easily give you a 15 point swing with blood moon, played early he buffs himself forever unless they kill him (which means you've attracted removal they could have spent elsewhere)

Barbegazi is the prime alpha pick though; Alchemy can easily peter out into round 2 and it gives you carry over. The worst I've ever gotten out of Black Blood was a 10pt vanilla silver, which isn't ideal but is hardly painful. Basically Black Blood is a timing card. You don't want to play it if you're far behind, but if you're about equal or slightly ahead it can really change the course of a game. But honestly there's very little that can get alchemy far behind because of how quickly it generates tempo and kills stuff. Experiment with it and see how it goes.
 
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You are in fact correct. I must have crossed my wires with something else. Probably monster nest in my relict deck? There's definitely a create card in one of my decks that's given me unexpected barbies and they've been mighty nice.

So scratch that. But the rest is true. The alghoul is the one I get most often, honestly, and I've never been sad to have it. Alghoul and regular ghoul both usually fall in at 10+ power, often 15 or higher with the alghoul, depending on deck you're up against, and I definitely recommend playing with the card and seeing how it pans out. My worst ever draw gave me an ancient foglet, so I still walked out with 10 power. The main thing for me is I'm not 'stuck' with a bad alchemy card in hand in the event I draw it, but rather a situationally quite powerful card I won't mind playing if I'm forced to.
 
I've been seing a version that uses Vicovaro Medic as well to strip creatures from the opponents graveyard... but I think it's a Nova variant. it ends slower in R1 but it can be a true PITA R2+
 
Post patch, with slave driver not reliable, I am finding that alchemy have very little proactive options. My new list is:
Vesmir, rainfarn, cahir and trial of grass
Silver: assir, Joachim, canteralla, mandrake, expired ale, runestone.
Bronze: novice X 3, viper X 3, swallow X 3, oinment X 3, slave driver X 2 and medic.
This gives me 10 alchemy card, and novice is now my proactive play mainly. Rainfarn works quite well with just 2 spies as both are really strong. Assire can help to out some alcehmy cards back from vesmir to pull etc. Worried really well so far.
 
I’m using the new card Ihuarraquax since I got it out of s barrel. I also got Cahir out of a barrel and renew. Is there s viable way to cycle ihuarraquax twice in one game? With renew, stefan, ihuarraquax and Cahir? From the experimenting I’ve done it looks like the second play of ihuarraquax with renew will always be a power 2 and would still need a five point buff from an engineer, so it looks like I can only use ihuarraquax reliably once per game.

my lineup is currently
jan calveit
geralt of rivia
stefan skellen
ihuarraquax
cahir

Vesemir
eskel
lambert
joachim
decoy
mandrake

master of disguise x1
viper Witcher x3
vivotio. Novice x1
assassin x1
Mahakram ale x2
crows eye x3
ointment x 3

if I get trial of the grasses instead of geralt, will the buff to 25 points work on the 3 silver Witcher’s? I assume so, I’ll start saving for that and I guess a better silver card than Joachim
 
i love lachemy , and played fun alchemy deck in the hs and tes legends, but in gwent are poor choses of alchemy and squads, and all 80% similar with each other , so i tried make my deck a bit unique , soem of cards wich i using on my rank (im newbie btw, currently 15 rank) is Стрегобор (in english i guess Stregobor) why? cuz thsi gives you a free card (wo stupid 13 points lover-spy) some of cards already 1 point and others is low anyway, so we lose small amount of power points and our bread is squds warcryes when in another way enemy possibly lose a lot , also i using Свирс (Sweers i fuess) i took him for test against monster's devouring builds, cuz they annoyd me

my english far from perfect, i know it, so no need remind me xD

hope i helped to someone to improve their decks or atleast think about some of cards


btw i using much more then 25 cards, and my vipers are annihilate everything, and still no problems with card rerolls, also thansk to Tregobot he is the best silver card xD)
 
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I've been doing fine with this version of the deck
Leader: Jan Calveit
Golds, Vesemir Mentro, Villentretenmerth, Vilgefortz, Trial of the Grasses
Silvers: Cantarella, Peter Saar, Assire, Roach, Mandrake, Expired Ale
Bronzes (3 of each): Viper Witchers, Vicovvaro Novice, Slave Drivers, Mahakan Ale, Ointment

Could probably swap Villen for Letho Kingslayer or Cahir, but Villen seems to be a pretty good r3 card from the games I've played so far. If I'd go for Letho it'd mean axing Peter and adding decoy.
 
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This is the variant that allowed me to reach rank 20 (yeah !)
Leader : Jan Calveit
Gold : Rainfarn, Vezemir Mentor, Triss Telekinesis, Skellen
Silver : Joachim de Wett, Cantarella, Expired Ale, Black Blood, Mandrake, The Nilfgaard Runestone
Bronze : the classical package : 3x Viper Witchers, 3x Vicovaro Novice, 3x Slave Drivers, 3x Mahakam Ale, 3x Ointment

In my experience it's one of the best variant of alchemy. I won almost all my mirror matches. The strangest and most unexpected combo here is Skellen to put Rainfarn on top of your deck (with a +5 boost) then use him next turn to reach Cantarella (you gain CA while only giving 3 points to your opponent). This move has allowed me to win in 2 rounds more than once :)
 
i used to hate Nilfgaard deck, then i faced a player that literally DESTROYED me with this deck similar to yours, so now i'm trying to copy that deck lol
 
Mine swaps Expired Ale for Dragon's Dream. If you run both spies, you should consider it, since row stacking your spies to a row with just 2 units, it already deals 16 damage when ignited. It's a high priority threat though, so it takes a while to learn when to play it. Usually you want Vesemir to play it with a 6 point body, which is usually enough to win you the round even without igniting it if you do it right :)
 
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