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I believe NG design is a lot better compared to beta. There is still quite some potential and they definetly need more synergies, but compared to Beta where every single of their archetypes was heavily flawed designwise it is a great improvement.
The biggest problem that I see is that their golds are far too generic and are much better on their own than at supporting archetypes, which is the main concern of this thread too.
The biggest problem that I see is that their golds are far too generic and are much better on their own than at supporting archetypes, which is the main concern of this thread too.
I'm not seeing how this is an improvement. It doesn't even feel like they have any archetypes right now. Spies doesn't work, Reveal was messed up and scrapped. They have decent soldier synergies and that's about it. Beta NG was popular and had good archetypes that worked.
They had archetypes that were working, but they weren't good designwise at all.
Spying was just a MacGuffin. The player spammed the entire enemy board with spies without spy positioning mattering at all, or any other card profiting from placing units on the enemy side of the board. The only purpose of getting those spying tokens was to trigger the two own engines. And if the enemy didn't play consume or selfwounding he couldn't even do anything against spies stacking up on his side of the board.
By now, while spying isn't fully fledged out spies has become a lot more healthy. There are cards interacting with the actual placement of the spies (Mangonel), and with placing units on the enemy side of the board (Magna and Slave Hunter).
Reveal was also mainly a MacGuffin. Reveal is a mechanism to give information about the enemy cards, but instead of interacting with that by having cards allowing the player to adapt his strategy to the enemy hand, the old reveal just got value out of pointlesssly revealing as many cards of both players as possible and revealing cards in your own hand for even more value.
I don't think I have to talk about mill, as that was always really controversial.
Alchemy was just another MacGuffin, forcing players to include as many alchemy cards to give a single core card value without any further real synergy from those alchemy cards.
And soldiers was just never fleshed out.
Slave Hunter is pretty garbage. They are going to have to change it somehow.
If you didn't like those archetypes that's fine but they were at least strong and popular. Spies needs a lot of work still. Reveal will probably always need to have some value attached or it won't have enough tempo to be playable. People still used the information from reveal which is why a lot of people enjoyed it.
I really don't know what MacGuffin means. I don't see any issue with building your deck around one group of bronze cards. People shove a crap load of tactics into a deck right now just to support Ardal.
Did you even read that other guys link? He said the exact opposite and backed up his points really well. You're just calling everything a McGuffin lol. I googled what mcguffin is, an it said "a device in a movie or book that merely serves as a trigger for the plot".
So what are you even talking about? There's no narrative plot in Gwent. I don't think that word really applies here. If anything it seems like you are just using it to support your narrative, which is kinda ironic.
I don't copy any decks, I made my own. TBH I find it surprising that people use Sweers. 10 provisions, 3 power and take a 3 power card. Not exactly overwhelming. Some people even say he is overpowered, I don't get it. For me it is a no brainer to not include it. I was never a big fan of Roach for my own decks. It just seems like a way to burn provisions. A decent card in many ways, I see some good uses for it, but I never use it.
I use Leo instead of Geralt, simply because he is Nilfgaard and because he has an additional option. I like the Vivienne card, I admit. I do use that alot.
Assire, nope. Not my type of card.
Letho, Serrit and Auckles, good cards, but I don't really use them either.
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Sweers gives solid value but more importantly its a really good counter card. You take an engine and not only did you stop your opponents engine but now you get even more value from it yourself. If you happen to take a gold engine with it that can also be game winning.
It's a common play in high rank for NG players to take roach from other NG players. Taking away 3 points from the final round.
10 provs for 9 point swing AND take a card/disrupt play is great value.
Everybody uses Leo, and Vivienne (and Assire, Roach, Letho, Serrit, Auckes, Nauzicaa, Magne, Imperva!). Last week I played against NG 2 out of 3 times (match history backs this up) and see the same cards every time. Maybe it's not just NG, maybe the whole game is just stale. Didn't play once all weekend, nor did I feel the need to. Hundreds of cards yet maybe 30% are useable, and everything is just a different iteration of countering your cards. It's more or less just "how do I counter your counter? Aha, with a counter". If you try to play 'your own way', you'll just get countered, so have no choice but to run counters - and so begins the netdecking, the limited scope for interesting play, and so on.
On a side note, had an idea for a cointoss; why not have both players play a card at the same time (computer 'holds' them then reveals at the same time) and the highest provisions value goes second? Needs work. Actually wondered if this style of play - where both players are playing a card at the same time - would actually make for a decent card game, next-gen style of playing.
I see, I thought as much, but still did not find it useful for my deck. But then again I bring 1 arbelist and card I always bring in my nilfgaard deck is alba armored cavalry x2.
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Well, as I said: I play my own decks, not copy decks. Perhaps many people just copy decks? I've seen many of those decks you talk about as well.
Anyways, I don't like your idea. And I think the game is quite good, minus the more frequent unitless decks recently, which made me take a break from the game.
I've played NG three times out of five today - every time it's the same cards. There's no plan, there's no strategy, they just plonk the cards down when it seems right and it absolutely bores the crap out of me - as usual I just look at my deal and know whether I'll win or lose. It's incredibly dull.
Why does ANYONE think "hmm, I know what I'll do, I'll buy a tonne of scraps and cards to make that same dull as crap NG deck everyone else uses"? The game suffers a MASSIVE amount from boring players who have less imagination than Thronebreakers' AI.
Why does ANYONE think "hmm, I know what I'll do, I'll buy a tonne of scraps and cards to make that same dull as crap NG deck everyone else uses"? The game suffers a MASSIVE amount from boring players who have less imagination than Thronebreakers' AI.
... Or people just realize that no matter the effort, their "own original I'm-the-only-one-running-this" deck is not so original, somebody already thought of it before and concludes it was crap, so they will rely on competitive, optimized decks. Even if it hurts their pride a little.
A few percentage of players actually have enough knowledge of this game, and of CCG in general, to build such decks. There is no shame to rely on them you know.
Understood, I just don't get it. Not about pride/shame, it's about playing a game as it's meant to be played....isn't it?
The concept of 'load up, copy deck, blast a few games out, get reward, quit' seems to be pointless even if it is modus operandi. Perhaps it's an issue with CCG in general; you can't really have any fun trying stuff out as all you ever face are the same decks/cards over and over and over again. It's no fun losing to META's either, so the choice seems to be either copy a net-deck (and use better players' experience) or just don't play. I wonder if this lack of middle ground is killing the game and behind the constantly diminishing player numbers?
I have to completely disagree with you that this is the fault of the players. Players are ALWAYS going to naturally go towards the strongest decks that they can find and enjoy playing. NG was just reworked and has some very strong cards that are a no brainer to put into a deck. Players can not be blamed for doing what makes sense in a video game.
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I also want to point out that you are assuming the players you saw straight up copied their deck. If you saw my NG deck you would very likely say the same thing and yet I made it myself. NG does NOT have a lot of different cards that make sense for a competitive deck. It's mostly just no brainer cards that you are foolish to not use. Honestly I blame the devs for not giving NG enough good cards. They did a rework and I expected more cards to be changed. Perfect example is viper witchers. They are still badly designed and weak overall.
You do realize that till today 8 out of 10 people will point to you that Spies was the pen-ultimate Gwent deck, until it was nerfed before the long break? I myself found it annoying cause it was all over the ladder for so long and so hard to deal with (still nothing close to what SK's GS deck became later).
Reveal at the end turned into pretty, how can I say this... it was not OP, but it was competitive enough and you could built it around revealing OP cards or revealing your own cards (mechanic of which I was a fan of and worked with it the most in the later months). I had the GS destroyer deck in the later months with Morvran and Handbuff that was really, really strong and surprising with Eskel, Renew, Yen to replay Artifact Compression etc. that used the NG Knights and the reveal synergy... so much fun.
Emhyr Handbuff was kind of broken for a month, but far from the best decks at the end.
Mill was another unique archetype, and even nerfed really badly in the last months of the game I loved playing with a decent success with my surprising Morvran Mill with White Frost and Drought (auto lose in 90% of the match-ups against SK, unfortunately).
Alchemy was the closest to actually broken before HC and even this archetype lost steam during the last six months of the game, when players did found combos with other factions that can be beneficial against that archetype. Still very strong and clear archetype and I liked playing it with couple of tweaks in the main cards, cause I usually like to spin the decks I play to have fun with them and not using exactly what everybody else is putting in (a tactic that you can not do with such success in the today's game).
In today's Niflgaard you are stripped of any of these. If you want to play the game to win games, you have these exact cards that you just must include in EVERY deck of yours, cause they do not have other cards that can give as good as value and win you games consistently.
It is really sad what happened to my favorite faction... and it definitely is not a fault that you can pin on the players.
This dude is talking about right things, but that way of card desing seems to be underused and underdeveloped for now. Anyone interested can read more about it (card design, faction and archetypes identity) here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DZTzq3rIx_iLWKmujBta7d1FkZ-gZfn6Aya5Mfepz-E/
NG has always been my favourite faction and, even though I suck playing with them and lose a lot, I used to still enjoy playing with them. Until the last update. I’m so sick of seeing the same repetitive net decks it’s unreal. Roach, Assire, repeat. Sweers, Serrit, Auckes. And of course, Slave infantry, slave infantry, slave bloody infantry!
Bore off people and find some variety!
Bore off people and find some variety!
Of course it's boring. After you removed Mill, Handbuff, Old and New Reveal, a properly fleshed out Spies archetype... nothing interesting is left.
Yes, you can buff your Slave infantry. Yes, you can play your 1-2 combo pieces, but that's it.
A fairly interesting leader is Ardal and a nice addition is Vivienne, I'll give that to the design team.
Yes, you can buff your Slave infantry. Yes, you can play your 1-2 combo pieces, but that's it.
A fairly interesting leader is Ardal and a nice addition is Vivienne, I'll give that to the design team.
You can argue whether NG is good or bad at the moment, but it's undeniable it's the most boring faction right now, at least judging from what you face:
Whether it's Calveit, Emhyr or Usurper, the deck is always EXACTLY the same. Always viper witcher trio, always Roach/ Assire/ Vivienne, always Sweers, always Muzzle, always Leo. Some "spice things up a bit" with Vrygheff+Vreemde on Daerlans or Slave infantries...
Not even when big Monsters was all the rage, at least the Woodland, Eredin and Unseen Elder had some variations of it, but in this case its the exact same deck for 3 Leaders, and the deck is almost as brainless.
Its a very reliable deck, i admit, but its so predictable i won so many matches yesterday because i mulliganed big units on R3 to brick Leo, and kept a way to destroy Roach, before or after Vivienne.
It might not be competitive at all, but copycat Anna decks are the most fun NG has right now, the problem with spies decks is they rely on Impera enforcers which are easily removed, so basically a "meme deck" like copycat, using your opponent's strategy, can actually work better sometimes.
Whether it's Calveit, Emhyr or Usurper, the deck is always EXACTLY the same. Always viper witcher trio, always Roach/ Assire/ Vivienne, always Sweers, always Muzzle, always Leo. Some "spice things up a bit" with Vrygheff+Vreemde on Daerlans or Slave infantries...
Not even when big Monsters was all the rage, at least the Woodland, Eredin and Unseen Elder had some variations of it, but in this case its the exact same deck for 3 Leaders, and the deck is almost as brainless.
Its a very reliable deck, i admit, but its so predictable i won so many matches yesterday because i mulliganed big units on R3 to brick Leo, and kept a way to destroy Roach, before or after Vivienne.
It might not be competitive at all, but copycat Anna decks are the most fun NG has right now, the problem with spies decks is they rely on Impera enforcers which are easily removed, so basically a "meme deck" like copycat, using your opponent's strategy, can actually work better sometimes.
I actually like Slave infantry, but I did something real brave with my last Usurper deck, removed my Slave infantry units. Has its pro's and con's though. But I think it overall made my deck stronger than the one where I have Slave infantry. 7 provisions is not exactly cheap.
I use none of the other cards you mentioned, but I see them played by Nilfgaard people all the time.
It can be a problematic deck to play against, it has much tempo potential. All those witcher cards are 5 and 6 power, and assire. Deithwen Arbalest is something I bring in my deck, 1x, and it works great against Roche ofcourse. Potentially you can use the Nilfgaardian Knight and Leo against Assire or Letho, it's a decent counter. Normally those decks do not have any 8+ units. And if not, then you can use Leo against any of the Witchers in a more desperate situation.
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Are you kidding me? I'm trying to tell you that's not true!
Not everyone is a netdecker. Northern Realms is closest to my heart, but Nilfgaard is my favourite faction now, and I never considered playing any of those cards. Exception is Leo, I use him instead of Geralt. Ooh, and Vivienne ofcourse, it's a great card. (that I cannot afford in my Usurper deck normally)
I don't see that many people use Vivienne aside from myself actually.
Anyways, I saw alot of Anna assimilate spy decks previously, but I have not seen them recently. I see alot of archtype Calveit and Aardal decks, and they often do not use those units you speak about. Except for Aardal who uses Muzzle and Sweers, and Calveit might use the Assire/Roche.
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