Northern Realms Deck Strategies

[Necro_Man_Ser]

My NR deck is quite weak against the metta right now, but i'm glad if i gave you a good match!

Works for me. I just don't get greedy with buffing roach. I am always aware that weather/scorch or anything else can hit me. So I buff roach up slowly and see what happens. Often, players overextend their damage output to kill my towers and roach so they got not much left to make actual points on their own. While I still profit from the promote and buff synergy somehow. Other times, they still pass way too soon and I buff and promote roach unhindered.

But as I said, a 20 or 30 STR roach is enough against those decks that specialize in killing stuff, because they don't have many buffs or combos going on on their own.

Usually it goes like this for me: Siege Towers -> if they get killed, revive, if they get killed again, reaver-medic-revive and so on. Then roach. Then I buff roach slowly, trying to make sure it does not get the biggest unit as long as possible. Depending on how much the opponent has already spent on removals, I buff up further if I feel safe, or just promote with 20 STR.

In the first case, I already win. In second case, I win round 1 closely. Usually I already have or draw ciri and borkh for round 2. Ciri-> roach gets revived -> borkh -> pass. Opponent will have to waste lots of card advantage to win this round, often they don't. If they do, I usually got shani or henselt or a promote left to make roach spawn in round 3 for the win.

This works something like 90%. I have no statistics but it almost always works.


Now I won't take any "this is OP" stuff from people. You gotta know how to play this, and this is also very draw dependent. Weather decks can easily counter this if played right, skellige draw decks can make you get out of breath. Scoia can snipe your important stuff while keeping card advantage. If you over-nerf promote, NR got nothing left against weather or other two remaining factions which will draw themselves silly. Even radovid control depends on promote. Buffing is no longer the main draw for NR, it's just something you also use in roach decks. The foltest buff times are over, the trebuchet times are over, if promote is over as well, there will be nothing left for NR at all.

 

[Laveley]

Works for me.

Sure it still works, once you get the rang of it and know what your opponent is playing, it is still competitive. But still, control builds are better atm imo. I'm playing scoia spell control/card advantage now and when i get a good hand i almost always win, not coming back to NR now, specially since they are planning a promote nerf/counter, i would advice you to start saving scraps to an eventual plan B next patch.

Your tactic against control is the one i used when i was playing that build too. However, the main problem is when the control player doesnt give up of the first round. As an ex promote player thats what i do when i play against it, i go to the last card if needed to win first round. IF you loose first round than you pretty much loose the game even if you have a decently buffed gold roach.

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

Sure it still works, once you get the rang of it and know what your opponent is playing, it is still competitive. But still, control builds are better atm imo. I'm playing scoia spell control/card advantage now and when i get a good hand i almost always win, not coming back to NR now, specially since they are planning a promote nerf/counter, i would advice you to start saving scraps to an eventual plan B next patch.

Your tactic against control is the one i used when i was playing that build too. However, the main problem is when the control player doesnt give up of the first round. As an ex promote player thats what i do when i play against it, i go to the last card if needed to win first round. IF you loose first round than you pretty much loose the game even if you have a decently buffed gold roach.

I'll take your advice and start saving. Do you feel like posting your current scoia deck in the tactics thread? Would appreciate having something to aim at. Maybe with some cards you'd still like to add if you had them?

 

[Laveley]

I'll take your advice and start saving. Do you feel like posting your current scoia deck in the tactics thread? Would appreciate having something to aim at. Maybe with some cards you'd still like to add if you had them?

Here is what he is now. 90% of spell based scoia will look something like this, some will run eleyas, some toruviel, some johny, some aeromancy, but the main idea is here: http://imgur.com/a/VdGbX


However, if you miss a lot of epics/legendaries i would advise you not to spend on it, since they plan to nerf isengrim (endgame winning bomb) and decoy abuse next patch from what i heard of. Seems that skellige will dominate if they nerf nr (again) and socia.

 

[Keymaker7]

they plan to nerf isengrim (endgame winning bomb)

This is such a good news!!! I am looking forward to it :>>

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

Here is what he is now. 90% of spell based scoia will look something like this, some will run eleyas, some toruviel, some johny, some aeromancy, but the main idea is here: http://imgur.com/a/VdGbX


However, if you miss a lot of epics/legendaries i would advise you not to spend on it, since they plan to nerf isengrim (endgame winning bomb) and decoy abuse next patch from what i heard of. Seems that skellige will dominate if they nerf nr (again) and socia.

NOTHING IS SAFE lol
So the main idea is just collect scrap until the nerfapocalypse has arrived
Stay tuned for more episodes of AMCs the nerf-ed dead.

 

[aspsnake0]

I attach here my Radovid deck, with which I had some good success (and lots of fun) lately. It's not very cheap, but its core elements (Sabrina, Borkh, Lacerate, Scorch, Igni & Shani) are craftable within a week of regular FtP and are mostly playable in other decks. Instead of playing to your deck's strength, as any control deck, the deck plays to your enemy's weaknesses. It runs 4 scorch effects (Borkh (x2), Igni & Scorch) and 3 Epidemic effects, allowing to kill a horde of enemies as well as few strong ones. I often win a round with 1 strength on the field (e.g. Priscilla) against 0 strength on the opponent's side.

More detailed breakdown of card choices and interactions can be found by following the link below:

​http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/7665-sabrina-control

 

[Laveley]

So, looking the stream now NR will probably be the next monsters.... they nerfed pretty much all viable strats as i could see now; nerfed radovid, pretty much deleted promote as they did to phillipa, nerfed even more rez chains and even nerfed dandelion...

To counter all that they gave -2 strength to phillipa.

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

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I just now played against a NR deck as monsters which I see as a possible future. It built on siege towers and ballistas. It completely obliterated my monsters weather deck. I think it can generally be viable. I just played with it for the first time and had no problems against a typical scoia control deck. Although I drew geralt:igni with stennis just when I needed him.

The advantage of that deck is that the new giant downside to promote does not matter for the strat. You want your siege towers to grow and you want your ballistas to do damage for every gold card you play. No buffing up + AR required. Of course you play every rez card you can get your hands on, since your siege towers and ballistas will be prime targets.

This is just the prototype build, ofc I would play baron if I had one. Also not sure about the units, maybe kick the reavers for hunters.

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

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I will try to upload the pic in a new post because the uploader is more horrible than the smell of cat poop.

Nope didn't work. Sorry. I seem to be lacking the forums user degree I need to upload pics here.

 

[Laveley]

You have to use the upload attachments function.

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

Thanks

 

[TheRedWitcher]

Omg I have the feeling that less and less people play Northern and it sucks. It is my favourite deck and it is interesting. I have the feeling that now the monsters using weather immunity [or abusing to more precise] are a bit OP. And many people play skellige too... Why are the Northern decks so unpopular?? And what can I do with a basic deck with few gold cards and too few mages< ? I got just Sheila...

 

[TheRedWitcher]

I usually do send a GG, of course if someone quits in the first round I wouldnt do that.


Back to the topic that belongs here>>>>
Do you guys think that northern realms is a faction that too much depends of buffs< ?

 

[Sunsibar]

Okay folks, few posts has been deleted. Please stay on topic, keep your comments civilized and do not insult others. Thank you.

 

[TheRedWitcher]

guess so......
Anyway - long live Temeria xD

 

[Sunsibar]

I usually do send a GG, of course if someone quits in the first round I wouldnt do that.


Back to the topic that belongs here>>>>
Do you guys think that northern realms is a faction that too much depends of buffs< ?

I'm pretty casual player and I haven't seen that many buff decks at level 45. Or maybe I have just been lucky with countering them? I don't like to use buffs or adrenalines that much myself (I always get scorched), but I still have quite decent win rate in my NR decks. So buffing your deck isn't the only way to go.

There are lots of NR players without buffs, so to me it seems that buffing is just one strategy among the other strategies. Not sure though how things chance in higher levels. I haven't seen it yet

 

[OwNeDUp]

Buffing just isn't worth at all maybe with exception to lets say 1 buff on olgierd / roach then promote but that won't work anymore. The problem with NR units after the patch and now is that their base strenght is not that great + selfbuffs when u play more than 1 copy of unit can be easily countered. They are just too vulnerable to weather, Dbomb, scorch, igni. After the patch theres not much left for NR maybe only Radovid deck survive somehow but will it be that strong ? I highly doubt it.

 

[TheRedWitcher]

I'm pretty casual player and I haven't seen that many buff decks at level 45. Or maybe I have just been lucky with countering them? I don't like to use buffs or adrenalines that much myself (I always get scorched), but I still have quite decent win rate in my NR decks. So buffing your deck isn't the only way to go.

There are lots of NR players without buffs, so to me it seems that buffing is just one strategy among the other strategies. Not sure though how things chance in higher levels. I haven't seen it yet

You are probably more profi than me but in low levels buffing is fine. And many people do not have scorch in this round - even pros cannot always have it [it might stay in the deck] ... I myself think that if you dont have any cards from the :special" group of NR cards, buffing might be OK

 

[Laveley]

Yep... as i feared, shani, lumberking and nenneke cant rez permadeath as sigrdrifa. I think NR is pretty much dead for this patch.