Okay, one question: How often have you played NG? I've played it a fair bit and have to disagree with almost everything you say about this faction. All the time. Either I'm just blind or you are completely exaggerating when talking about this faction, something's definitely wrong here.
Not often, and not for a long time, but every time I check if my Assimilation thing works, it still does. Also I am fully aware of provision costs and classic NG decks, and I think some of you guys vastly underestimate just how powerful some of your cards are. Moreover, I think you personally lack the perspective on the other factions' inner workings and just don't realise how much of a deal the instant death of one Hamadryad is...or how bad it is for some decks to be under constant pressure from Imposter...or how brutally Cantarella can mess you up...or how Vilge can ruin their entire game with one lucky pull...or how hard it actually is to shut down an Assimilation deck, compared to all non-NR engine decks. edit: or how awful it is to get your key units Yenvod without a chance for resurrection...
Sure, you need to be smart enough about these plays, but it doesn't take a genius to perform them.
The actual question one must ask is what rank this dude is playing at if he thinks round 1 vilgefortz is so powerful and dominant play, I mean nuking strategem points is nothing new. I had a break from the game and am trying to play a little more to get some ore collected before the next expansion and I dont think NG has any staying power in round 1 or to defend a bleed in the current patch. It plays akwardly and feels akward eg. regarding the new cards. Angry mob is probably the worst 7 for 4p card, people are instead playing dethwen arbalest and magne, lol. This was one of my favourite factions in the past along with SY and it has lost power without getting reinforced in other areas after the last patch.
SC plays more removal (control) and special cards than NG to finish with their gord and novigradian justice thins and plays for 13 points and can secure a round 1 pretty good. How will a vilgefortz win round 1 against this? And some monster players complaining about their faction being weak is a load of bull****, they lost some arhetypes but are quite strong, probably has the strongest scenario after the masquerade.
Yeah okay, Assimilate has nothing to do with Single Ball, no wonder you think NG can win round one every time. Moreover, I definitely don't lack the insight, I've played ST and NR already a couple of times and don't remember a single game NG gave me more trouble than other factions. Your arguments just never make sense to me. Maybe they do for someone else, but to me they sound made up or are so general that they can be applied to every single meta deck that's out there.
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My thoughts exactly, NG probably has the worst win rates and there's still so much complaining around. I guess some people will only stop ranting when this faction is completely erased from the game... I seriously can't anymore....
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Pro for two seasons, rank 2 currently, but I am currently messing with Artis stuff, so go figure.
Assimilation decks are engine decks and lack control as you need a lot of cards to make the synergy work, and they're not even good at that, get outpointed by basically every other engine deck, while having less control than them.
They're not even really viable.
Cintarella is just a high roll card, sure it can be really good, but most of the time it just pulls some useless shit and thins the enemy deck for free.
They're not even really viable.
Cintarella is just a high roll card, sure it can be really good, but most of the time it just pulls some useless shit and thins the enemy deck for free.
You...what now?
Assimilate COPIES enemy engines while ALSO developing their own. How the hell can anything engine-based outpoint them?
Kiki Queen can be countered so I don't agree that against it you're doomed if you lose R1. NG is the worst match up for any MO deck so it's unlikely you'd even win R1. Removal is always better than boosting and NG units are deploy and immediate removal. You can therefore bleed MO, very easily but not vice versa.
In any case my initial point was NG isn't just adding units, they're also removing units so you'll likely use valuable units trying to bleed them but in a short round they have cheap (multiple) options to destroy anything you put down or even take it and use it in R2. Unless you have an endless stream of fodder to throw at the board you'll like throw away cards you need for the next Round. So I don't agree that it works just like any other faction.
So are you saying I can't know how difficult it is to play against NG unless I play NG? I'm not sure I follow your logic. Can you clarify? I've played the game since its inception, I know the cards enough to know what works and what doesn't.
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When had NG had the worst win rate? You do realize if NG was so bad so many ppl wouldn't be playing it correct? 70% of my match ups in pro are NG players.
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Here mister ''NG is so strong, I'm the expert here'' these are the last official facts, before some big nerfs to NG.
Playrate at prorank across all the leader abilities is just over 25% so that's above average,but the winrate across all the abilities is about 45%.
None of these 70% playrates you seem to be encountering. with an abysmal winrate to boot, and that was before all the nerfs. I really doubt as many people play NG now as they did before it got nerfed to the ground.
I give up, you don't want to understand it. Or I'm just too stupid. Anyway, I'm not going to waste my and your time on this topic, see you in another thread. Hopefully with more success.....
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Thank you for your help here, but please don't spend any more of your time on this. There are people you simply can't have an agreement with. Trying to do so is an incredible waste of time because they simply don't want to be convinced.
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Read carefully before responding. I said I encounter NG 70% of the time. That has zero to do with the play rates unless you're sampling several players. I can only tell you what I encounter in pro rank since that's where I am... which is what I did.
I won't spend too much time on the stats because I realize the NG bias runs so deep that it's often a waste of time. In a season that was dominated by two broken factions... imperial formation was still doing well. I'm not sure where you got 45% ...If you're going to use all leaders to justify your numbers then you should then do it for every faction and if you did that NG is not the "Worst win rate" which is what you guys are suggesting.
That aside we all know most NG players run the exact same meta deck so trying to focus on other obscure leaders makes no sense. It's the reason why in almost every instance their play rate is higher than the faction with the highest win rate and that's usually Imperial formation. Looking at your photo under pro rank every other faction above imperial formation had a broken card(s) or mechanic that had to be patched or reworked altogether. And you are actually arguing that it's a weak faction? No one is saying it's as broken as NR or SK right now but it's an exaggeration to say it's the weakest.
We'll leave it at that and look at the next seasonal stats when their out. ..not much will have changed. SK and NR will be at the top and either ST or NG will be below them. If you call that weak then I wish every faction was that weak.
I'm giving you facts, you're reacting with ''This is my own experience and that's how it apparently has to be for everyone'', now suddenly it's maybe not how it is for everyone since you saw the actual numbers... Tell me what's the definition of bias? Is it looking up the facts maybe? Cause that's what you implied by calling me biased.
The % I gave you are for pro rank. You can just calculate the percentage from the data on hand, I did it fast in my head so the Win rate I gave 45% was a rough estimate let's say +/-1.
This isn't an ''official source'' but it's a reliable one nonetheless.
Here's Team Leviathan Gaming's Meta report from last month in case you haven't seen it. Keep in mind this only counts 435 of the top 500 players, so the win rate for every faction is above 50% since these are the best current players.
PAT4F means the number of players that have this faction in their top 4, also counting towards their ranking MMR.
A handy link for you:
Gwent Meta Report #28
Welcome to our 28th meta report! NG and NR are in a great spot, with Assimilate and Alumni somehow avoiding the nerf hammer and thus dominating the meta. SK isn’t far behind - Reckless Flurry is still a force to be reckoned with and Battle Trance is a decent pointslam alternative. As usual, Nature’s
So maybe stop polluting this thread with your misinformation.
NG Assimilate struggles against ST symbiosis - a very popular deck : copy hamadryad is useless, NG doesn't have vitality buff.
Same against SY swarm or SY cache: their hoard engines need coins (we don't have enough coin to active) and fallen knights have veil --> can't lock or poison.
Against SK warrior: we can copy their warriors but we don't have veteran buff and SK warrior control is the best in the game: Skjodal, madman lugos, Hjalmar, champion charge, stunning blow. No engines can survive that.
NR has double resets or triple duels, Vyso + tridam infantry machine guns.
NG Assimilate is fun but not competitive. We need longer round for assimilate engines. If we lose round 1 and opponent bleeds round 2, then we struggle in short round 3. We don't have point slam unit finisher like Gord, War elliphant or Yghern, Golyat, Ozzrel. NG tactically decision assimilate + ball + yen might be viable.
Same against SY swarm or SY cache: their hoard engines need coins (we don't have enough coin to active) and fallen knights have veil --> can't lock or poison.
Against SK warrior: we can copy their warriors but we don't have veteran buff and SK warrior control is the best in the game: Skjodal, madman lugos, Hjalmar, champion charge, stunning blow. No engines can survive that.
NR has double resets or triple duels, Vyso + tridam infantry machine guns.
NG Assimilate is fun but not competitive. We need longer round for assimilate engines. If we lose round 1 and opponent bleeds round 2, then we struggle in short round 3. We don't have point slam unit finisher like Gord, War elliphant or Yghern, Golyat, Ozzrel. NG tactically decision assimilate + ball + yen might be viable.
First of all, many Sym decks run a vitality-granting dryad, so there you go. Many times you can just mimic their moves, no biggie. And have Assimilation procs at the same time. If they just burn their rebukes in R1 to shut down the first portal entirely, well, sucks to be them then, because they aren't shutting down your engines later on.
Secondly, if you hope for any consistency with Assimilate, you add Operator just in case you don't get anything good to copy, so you can matters in your own hands. Your engines are 2(6 if you use Glynnys in R1) value per turn, Hamadryads got nothing on you.
That's true. But then again, warriors murder most everything right now, so using them as an example to prove anything is kinda unfair.
Vyso eats Yenvo or what have you and isn't an issue. If you're cheeky, you can even put him on your side of the board right away. Donimir's protection is for shit in this matchup, becase you have at least two purifies in your starting deck. Now, duels are a different story - but with Operator you can just spam more assimilate engines as needed. They can't possibly duel them all down. Besides, NR clutters their side of the board really fast with Frigates and stuff, so with a decent hand you can effectively pull a reverse-ratswarm on them.
I am not saying it's easy, but definitely doable.
Yen, definitely, as described above. Ball is questionable. Far too expensive, and because you have few aristocrats, far too risky. Tactical decision...eh...I guess? Double Cross is definitely more fun, but if it's consistency you're after...
Let me start by saying that I'm no pro player, my best rank score so far is 6 as I have just a little time on my hands to play.
When I started playing back in May whenever I would come across NG I would be pissed af cause they had answers to almost everything I played (mainly MO faction).
After some months as my collection of cards grew and I was able to make arguably better decks my situation improved significantly.
Atm I can beat most of NG decks out there with my MO deck, even a deck that includes Cahir after including some movement cards.
Ofc I lose from time to time like everyone does but I don't consider NG OP or really that strong anymore.
Indeed you need to know when to bleed em and when to pass, those are the most crucial reasons of why I lose to them and ofc RNG s**t card draws that we all can fall victim to.
I played NG a lil bit in order to get a better understanding of the faction and to find any possible weaknesses that I could exploit and I found some.
Atm I play only NG Assimilation.
Now to the point I'm trying to make, it's not all "black and white"
...mostly gray, does NG has and plays cards that almost feel downright unfair..? -- for sure, no denying that.
Is it op as most of people present it...? -- in my humble opinion no.
You can win against NG, it's not easy cause they have a ton of control, locks, poisons, removal, enslavement... damn, so many things. In order to win against em imo you have to be able to bluff-bait them in playing their cards when they don't need to,
most if the times you can pull it off.
e.g. Tanking with Yghren having it destroyed to save your engines consuming it on another round, playing reversly e.g. not throwing your larva down with no unit in-between.
Anyways... I never thought I would be defending NG but atm they are pretty weak in comparison to others.
I don't think that people complaining are totally wrong, the way the power creep has hit this game, there's a serious need for rebalancing for most of the factions.
Some (not all) changes made with patch 7.3 point in the right direction so cheer up..!
When I started playing back in May whenever I would come across NG I would be pissed af cause they had answers to almost everything I played (mainly MO faction).
After some months as my collection of cards grew and I was able to make arguably better decks my situation improved significantly.
Atm I can beat most of NG decks out there with my MO deck, even a deck that includes Cahir after including some movement cards.
Ofc I lose from time to time like everyone does but I don't consider NG OP or really that strong anymore.
Indeed you need to know when to bleed em and when to pass, those are the most crucial reasons of why I lose to them and ofc RNG s**t card draws that we all can fall victim to.
I played NG a lil bit in order to get a better understanding of the faction and to find any possible weaknesses that I could exploit and I found some.
Atm I play only NG Assimilation.
Now to the point I'm trying to make, it's not all "black and white"
...mostly gray, does NG has and plays cards that almost feel downright unfair..? -- for sure, no denying that.
Is it op as most of people present it...? -- in my humble opinion no.
You can win against NG, it's not easy cause they have a ton of control, locks, poisons, removal, enslavement... damn, so many things. In order to win against em imo you have to be able to bluff-bait them in playing their cards when they don't need to,
most if the times you can pull it off.
e.g. Tanking with Yghren having it destroyed to save your engines consuming it on another round, playing reversly e.g. not throwing your larva down with no unit in-between.
Anyways... I never thought I would be defending NG but atm they are pretty weak in comparison to others.
I don't think that people complaining are totally wrong, the way the power creep has hit this game, there's a serious need for rebalancing for most of the factions.
Some (not all) changes made with patch 7.3 point in the right direction so cheer up..!
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Good post. Your arguments exactly match my limited experience with assimilate decks. I have found no way around SY’s veiled engines, or spam decks in general. And rarely is a copied or stolen card anywhere near as useful to me as to an opponent, because the synergies just aren’t there — you give good examples. And relying upon copying other cards to provide the synergies either wastes my very few cards where I control what is copied, or is extremely random.
I suppose you could put me in the camp of NG haters, but that is spurred by three absolutely horrible, binary cards (Cahil, Ball, and Yennifer’s Invocation) that involve no strategy. Even those cards are not overpowered per se — they just dreadfully narrow the pool of viable decks with no offsetting richness of their own.
But even an NG hater like myself gets frustrated with the exaggerated and nonobjective complaints against everything NG. Every faction deserves usable cards and competitive archetypes to build decks around. You do an excellent job explaining the limitations of assimilate — I wish more people would objectively listen.
I will never understand the YenInvo hate when Heatwave does the same+more in a way more dull manner. There are so many tall removals in the game that gives more value.
To say it doesn't involve strategy, well that depends entirely on how you use it. If you just treat it like Korathi-lite clicking away the tallest unit no question, sure. But if you combine it with something like Joachim then say you YenInvo something like Anseis then do Joachim into that Anseis that's a big play.
There are several ways to use it which does require strategy. I love how it functions in a Lockdown deck where you can use it to work around the low provision cap by stealing a nice gold R1.
To say it doesn't involve strategy, well that depends entirely on how you use it. If you just treat it like Korathi-lite clicking away the tallest unit no question, sure. But if you combine it with something like Joachim then say you YenInvo something like Anseis then do Joachim into that Anseis that's a big play.
There are several ways to use it which does require strategy. I love how it functions in a Lockdown deck where you can use it to work around the low provision cap by stealing a nice gold R1.
I’m consistent. I hate heatwave even more than Yennifer. It’s not so much the tall removal - it’s the extreme generality with cards with cards needing no set up and having no counterability