NG buffs are a joke... right?

[Nerevarine228]

And how would this next expansion possibly make Infiltrator, Mangonel, Vicovaro, Servant, Combat Engineer or the countless other nonsense NG bronzes playable? These don't fit any specific category like Nature cards, how would you make a Symbiosis equivalent buff to any of these? They need thoughtful buffs but that's apparently not CDPRs forte.
This was the time to fix these and there are many simple ways of doing so, but expansions earn more money than balancing so the devs don't give a damn.

The issue isn't just that NG didn't get good MM cards, it's that they simply refuse to make most older cards competitive. This isn't exclusive to NG either. This is a game with what, 5-6 expansions now? And the only real way to compete is two overpowered decks?
Powercreep isn't new but this level of blatancy is on another level.
I don't see how this new batch of cards will somehow help, it will only add another batch of powercreep on-top of the old one which ultimately results in further distilling of archetypes.

There's only so many times I can buy into the whole "next expansion will fix things" spiel. They're simply stacking more unbalanced cards on-top of what they already failed to balance, it's a terrible idea that will invitably crumble.

Kind of offtop here, but they made Elves somewhat playable again in the last patch, so there's still hope I'd say. Aglais is big(but underplayed, curiously), Viviene:Oriole has at least meme potential, Skaggs decks see quite a bit of play, and then there's this cancerous new deck where an SC player packs as much removal as they can and just play with Saenthesis, Malena, Gord, Broken Novigrad Dwarfes and the like (this last one has poison spam energy to it, and needs to die, but still.)
Point is, old stuff does get playable again, if indirectly.

Oh, and btw, Mangonel is a decently powerful card. What other bronze can dish out that much damage? There're better alternatives, but it's playable.

 

[Slizzl]

Where did I say that the next expansion will fix things considering the expansion history of hc it will most likely introduce even more problematic overpowered Bull......., I only said that they already need to consider the upcoming Card's while balancing and I also said that a lot of the outdated Cards desperately need a Buff or a rework (not only the NG ones) but reworks need more time than just some simple buffs to already working archetypes and they're currently most likely busy with the expansion and the Arena rework.

Yeah sorry that came off as a bit more confrontational than I intended. I just took issue with the line about them not buffing some cards because of the upcoming expansion and went off on one of my rants lol. It was really nothing personal.

 

[judgecsk]

And how would this next expansion possibly make Infiltrator, Mangonel, Vicovaro, Servant, Combat Engineer or the countless other nonsense NG bronzes playable? These don't fit any specific category like Nature cards, how would you make a Symbiosis equivalent buff to any of these? They need thoughtful buffs but that's apparently not CDPRs forte.
This was the time to fix these and there are many simple ways of doing so, but expansions earn more money than balancing so the devs don't give a damn.

The issue isn't just that NG didn't get good MM cards, it's that they simply refuse to make most older cards competitive. This isn't exclusive to NG either. This is a game with what, 5-6 expansions now? And the only real way to compete is two overpowered decks?
Powercreep isn't new but this level of blatancy is on another level.
I don't see how this new batch of cards will somehow help, it will only add another batch of powercreep on-top of the old one which ultimately results in further distilling of archetypes.

There's only so many times I can buy into the whole "next expansion will fix things" spiel. They're simply stacking more unbalanced cards on-top of what they already failed to balance, it's a terrible idea that will invitably crumble.

Hell yeah... you're damn right.
They proceed to release a 2nd expansion in a one year's time while the community is still suffering the bad aftermath of the previous expansion and without adressing the game's key issues and the imbalances that last expansion brought.
Makes no sense imo besides wanting to make even more money.

Anyways... we should make a new thread about this, i'm not sure how to phrase it properly as english is not my native language, the thread's tittle
Tag me if you do.
Cheers

 

[ShinAkira00]

You see assimilate. You don't push R2. You lose.
It is as simple as that.
You see assimilate. You push R2. You win a short R3.
It is a little bit more complicated that that, but it is really simple. You need to push until you get all the big cards: Bratheens, Portal, Triss and Assimilate 2 engine. Once you pull out the tooth, Assimilate in R3 is a toothless snake.

BTW, I don't play NG. I am just a non Nature's Gift ST player - playing Guerilla Tactics and Deadeye Ambush.

Lol your assuming that every single match you have against NG you will have cards in your hand to push in R2 or cards you won't likely need for a setup in R3. Unlike NG, MO doesn't have a lot of deploy cards, especially not deathwish. It requires interaction from other cards so this notion that everyone can just drop cards to bleed NG has always been a bit shortsighted. Trying to bleed NG in R2 can easily cost you the match, they have an endless supply of assimilate cards and unless you are ST or SK then you likely won't have that many removal options.

Post automatically merged: Oct 9, 2020

It's weaker overall because you are forced to play the same cards unless you want to lose. Also, consume counters both poison and lock and in a devotion deck you don't have to fear heatwave either.
Most of NG gold are trash with just a couple of really good ones, bronzes are for the most part weak and requires clever setup just to get some points up.

That is terrible advice. As he has already pointed out, NEVER use consume to counter poison unless you have a sure win. Have you even played the game, NG has never needed heatwave... why would they when they have Yenvo and several other cheap removals that won't break their devotion. They're one of the few factions that don't need neutral tools. In fact they are the Swiss army knife of the game.

Post automatically merged: Oct 9, 2020

MO swarm counters any poison and lock and you can play around poison with OH, purify and carapace.
Also, MO playstyles: meme keltullis, swarm, crone control, Thrive point slam, Wild Hunt devotion ( with carapace you counter poison and with the new frost ability you can mess up rows ), DW ( haunt variant and swarm variant ).
I think I'm missing some but you get the idea.

Swarm can counter poison but good luck getting that off the ground...they have a hard counter to larvae and can lock anything to oblivion. The moment DS was removed MO swarm became a thing of the past. It's only purpose at the moment is to fill the remaining slots in your deck. SY can still pull this off because they have several bronze cards this expansion that support swarm, MO does not. Even if it somehow works against NG (and that's really only against assimilate) you'll get slaughtered in almost every other match-up.

 

[Slizzl]

They don't "refuse" anything. Sure, they are lazy. But also you have to remember all of those things you are mentioned don't happen overnight. Since you are so smart, maybe you have an idea on how to rework every single card, create new archetypes and then make those reworked cards fit into those archetypes, huh? That's what I thought. You think that creative work is just something that happens automatically. Don't forget, CDPR never worked with card games before. Also, there are 7 factions in total. Arena. New expansions. Maybe they could've done better or a lot better, but don't make it sound like managing a card game is like working at pizza delivery or something.

Well, the first thing should be to give Vicovaro one more power. 4 strength setup cards that don't really get much payoff doesn't work anymore. Or another more fun suggestion I've seen is if you play it on melee row to have it draw a card then place a card from your hand on top of your opponents deck instead.
I think they went the wrong direction with Slave Infantry, there's really no reason to use it above Daerlan in a swarm list. With 5 strength it could see many uses, with 4 pretty much none. With 4 it needs adequate 1 point targets but right now there's none. One such target could've been Slave Driver if he was changed to 1 strength and the base damage dealt was 3 instead of 2 but that might be a bit too high I'm not sure. Infiltrator has multiple ways to become playable but the simplest one would be to reduce strength to 3 and add Devotion: Boost Self by 3 alongside the current ability. One suggestion for Combat Engineer was to make him give 1 armor whenever you play a Soldier instead of the nonsense ability he has now. I also think Experimental Remedy should be 5 provisions, at 6 it's kinda unplayable.
I can go on but it all boils down to 4 power bronzes being fine at launch but now 6-7 power is the new standard and many cards and playstyles are left behind because of this.
I have made many suggestion threads because I do think a lot can be done with the older cards alone so don't go thinking I haven't tried.

I'm not saying CCG balancing is easy, but when you look at the lack of direction with things like Dimertium Bomb or when they forgot to nerf Viraxas you start to question how motivated the devs really are. Or how Shieldwall played out and their promised tweak was a single provision change, or how they handled Caranthir.
Or how SK has dominated the entirety of MM with pretty much the exact same deck throughout despite various attempts to fix things even reworking leaders from scratch because of Second Wind only for players to just swap leader ability with no changes and still dominate.
I think it's safe to say many of these changes were based solely on statistics and not game knowledge.

Lastly when it comes to supporting archetypes many just need more cards. Instead of introducing so many new concepts each expansion I think a lot of good can be done with just expanding on stuff that relies on crutches in order to compete like Vampires or Dwarves. They already showed signs of this by expanding on Spies a bit which I appreciate despite it still not being competitive.

Anyway I feel like I put the thread a bit off-track so I'll leave it at that. Just know that I'm not saying these things just to be negative.

 

[Nerevarine228]

dude, go ahead and go from rank 2 to pro with just playing your OP assimilation deck. Prove us wrong instead of all this tall talk.

Finally got around to doing this.

Spoiler: There you go

Straight assimilation with some QoL tweaks, no Ball, no Poison.

 

[lor1keet]

NG is just really really bad right now.

I've been trying NG out in pro-rank, and it pretty much gets slaughtered by everything. My best chance at winning is if I face another NG deck. LOL

The buffs to NG from the last patch really were useless. I guess CDPR really doesn't play NG at all, so they don't understand how to properly buff it.

 

[judgecsk]

Finally got around to doing this.

Straight assimilation with some QoL tweaks, no Ball, no Poison.

Congrats my friend..!
Assimilation is pretty fun and as it seems pretty powerful, it's the one deck I play my self when it comes to NG.

Cheers !

 

[Jamborinio]

The big difference I can see is many of the NG bronzes need significant setup or prework to reach their 6 or 7 point cap, e.g. requiring spying units across the board, or locked units, or units with status. When you look at the other factions, they have far more of the 'dump and forget' type of bronzes that just give value without as much setup work. SK and NR are the prime examples with many cards that damage, boost, give bleeding on deploy or through an order, or have the veteran tag.

Compare that to Angry Mob which needs a spying unit of at least 2 power to get the full value, Mangonel which requires lots of spying units, Slave Driver which damages based on the number of locked units or Slave Infantry which transforms a unit (and therefore Ideally needs a severely damaged unit). All of these require setup and consequently are useless in the short round.

Then they have 'utility' bronzes like Infiltrator and Vicovaro Mage, which at 4 for 4 are simply too slow tempo in the current point-slam power crept meta. To play these means you are pretty much giving up winning R1 and if you're Blue coin you very much run the risk of losing on even.

 

[Nerevarine228]

The big difference I can see is many of the NG bronzes need significant setup or prework to reach their 6 or 7 point cap, e.g. requiring spying units across the board, or locked units, or units with status. When you look at the other factions, they have far more of the 'dump and forget' type of bronzes that just give value without as much setup work. SK and NR are the prime examples with many cards that damage, boost, give bleeding on deploy or through an order, or have the veteran tag.

Compare that to Angry Mob which needs a spying unit of at least 2 power to get the full value, Mangonel which requires lots of spying units, Slave Driver which damages based on the number of locked units or Slave Infantry which transforms a unit (and therefore Ideally needs a severely damaged unit). All of these require setup and consequently are useless in the short round.

Then they have 'utility' bronzes like Infiltrator and Vicovaro Mage, which at 4 for 4 are simply too slow tempo in the current point-slam power crept meta. To play these means you are pretty much giving up winning R1 and if you're Blue coin you very much run the risk of losing on even.

Won't argue against most points, because you're generally right about things...

But don't badmouth mah Infiltrator gal!
She has her uses - shutting down Endrega Larvae, setting up stealing of both/either drummer and Anna Strenger(and they can't possibly get both back in shape without burning Shieldwall, which means less duels, yay!), killing some stupid fire acolytes which in the grand scheme of things amounts to 11 for 4 play, which is solid as hell(and that's leaving Aristocrats out of the equation), same thing with elf tokens - it generally is a decent anti-swarm device that prevents your opponent from snowballing those...and isn't a bad way to facilitate engine theft either.


Edit: derp, you were probably talking about the guy with the shield, weren't you

 

[judgecsk]

Won't argue against most points, because you're generally right about things...

But don't badmouth mah Infiltrator gal!
She has her uses - shutting down Endrega Larvae, setting up stealing of both/either drummer and Anna Strenger(and they can't possibly get both back in shape without burning Shieldwall, which means less duels, yay!), killing some stupid fire acolytes which in the grand scheme of things amounts to 11 for 4 play, which is solid as hell(and that's leaving Aristocrats out of the equation), same thing with elf tokens - it generally is a decent anti-swarm device that prevents your opponent from snowballing those...and isn't a bad way to facilitate engine theft either.


Edit: derp, you were probably talking about the guy with the shield, weren't you

Did you just badmouth mah faithful zealots...!?!?
...we will have your elf ears for this blasphemy !
"Elf ! Remove his cowl, then his ears !"
(so hilarious)

- Indeed the NG infiltrator needs no boost it's pretty much near op status dishing out so much dmg, killing outright a lot of engines before they can grow.
One of the best cards introduced with the MM expansion.

 

[Jamborinio]

Not mage infiltrator. The other one lol

 

[quintivarium]

But infiltrator is so good at procing your opponent’s assimilate cards.

 

[Milos9999]

CDPR isnt posting faction winrates for last season so people dont see SK still at a 60 percent winrate and NG at a below 50 percent winrate

 

[Riven-Twain]

Moderator: Some posts deleted. I believe the topic of this thread is meant to be buffs for Nilfgaard. So, back to that topic, please.

 

[DMurder]

I never noticed how bad NG bronze cards were until its recent fall. Cards like Magne Division a 3 power, boosts to 4 when played, but row locks the rest of your deck.
5p for 7 that boosts opponents cards. Probably why NG is stuck with poison removal with a hint of soldiers. Assimilate could be good but there is no real way to control the bronze cards you get. Only really viable with Double Cross which is mediocre leader (like all over NG leaders right now). A lot would need to change for NG to be competitive. A leader that copies opponents leader for assimilate? Removing some of these oppressive drawbacks on NG bronze cards? I have no idea.

 

[Nerevarine228]

Assimilate could be good but there is no real way to control the bronze cards you get.

Laughs in Operator

 

[Morph3uXD]

Since I started playing gwent NG has always been my favorite faction, with this latest update, NG which last month was already a weak faction supported only by Masquerade Ball, has become a faction with no really good deck. I was sad about that.
Even though I know that NG is a faction hated by many, I would like to share some ideas of buffs that I think would be good.

Joachim de wett - decrease the power from 4 to 3, amnesty is a very good card, I think it is a great pity that NG does not have any disloyal card that makes it easy to use 100% of its potential, and even Joaquim being a very good card as is now, this buff would help him to be even more consistent and worth his 10 provision points, since most NG key cards cost 10 or more provision points, and when choosing Joaquim you will leave other cards out .

Coup de grace - Decrease the cost of provision from 10 to 9, coup de grace is a card that has a lot of potential, but it does nothing on its own, you need to prepare the opponent's field for it to work, and it doesn't always work , in a faction that you have so many strong cards that cost 10 or more it is very difficult to get a coup de grace.

War council - Decreasing the cost of provision from 8 to 7, maybe 6, is a great card to give consistency to the deck, indispensable in hyperthin decks, it rarely pays off to be used in others, for its provisions that are too high for what it does.

Vivienne Tabris - Increase the power from 3 to 4, the last buff of this card where its provision cost was reduced from 10 to 9 was a good buff, but it is still not enough to justify using it, with 4 power it would be a little more consistent and it would be more worthwhile to use it.

Letho gullet, Auckes and Serrit - The changes in the last patch were good, but they do not help with their biggest problem, which is inconsistency, it is very difficult to take their value, Nilfgard, whether with devotion or without devotion, there are very few ways of filter the cards you have in your hand, and even if you build your deck in a way that facilitates your access to them, it is very difficult for you to be able to have all 3 in your hand so that you can play them in the order you want. I believe that the best change they could have is that they had two conditions to activate their effects, they could activate if you have them in hand, how they work now, and also activate if they are in the field, that would make it a little more easy to activate their effects, and would justify including them in a deck. No need to play them in a specific order.

Fringilla Vigo - Decrease provisions from 8 to 7, and increase power from 4 to 5. It would be much more compatible with other cards that deal 4 damage from other factions, and have less demanding conditions for that, as it is now it is a terrible card.

Amnesty - Decrease the cost of provision from 6 to 5, in general the bronze cards of NG are very weak and situational, compared to the bronze cards of other factions, amnesty in specific, it is a card that requires devotion, and even so it is very situational, it is very difficult to take advantage of its full potential. For a card like this that requires devotion, I believe that 5 of provision would be more just.

These ideas are based only on my personal experience, and from colleagues I talk to about the game. I apologize for possible spelling errors, I proofread the text but as English is not my first language, I believe I may have missed some mistakes, or that some sentences are not very clear.

 

[Slizzl]

One thing I think Assimilate desperately needs is a better way to reliably play the opposing faction's spells. There are so many matches where you're forced to copy Intimidate or Symbiosis units only to not have any good way to utilize such effects.

 

[ShinAkira00]

One thing I think Assimilate desperately needs is a better way to reliably play the opposing faction's spells. There are so many matches where you're forced to copy Intimidate or Symbiosis units only to not have any good way to utilize such effects.

are you seriously suggesting that NG should be able to not only copy engines but also players special cards? LMAO I want to believe you're joking but I get the feeling you aren't. I don't even know how you come to the conclusion that any faction being able to play every card that the opponent has, is healthy in any way for a game. There's already Triss but as per usual I'm guessing NG players want a special card just for them lol

You know what, they should. Make it a bronze bribery card....you know, because that card is just fantastic