Patch Notes 9.5

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Update 9.5 is almost here. It's the spooky season, and The Witcher world celebrates it with the Saovine Event! Players will be able to unlock new ornaments, by completing quests given by the scariest sister trio you know. We also introduce a new Journey, which will be revealed tomorrow, but let's say it fits the spooky theme. Other than that, some quality of life improvements have made it into the game, like quickening the gameplay, and the Reward Book tutorial page. Of course the regular balance changes are also here. Read on all of the changes in detail below:
Changes
  • The products in Shupe's Shop are now grouped within new sub-categories.
  • Reduced the display duration of cards played by opponents, which will speed up the average game times.
New Features
  • New Journey, with new contracts, rewards and story.
  • The Saovine event returns! You will be able to help the Crones with their chores to unlock new rewards. After helping the chosen Crone, you will be able to help the second and third one. You will receive a special coin for helping out two of the Crones, and a border trinket for completing all of their tasks.
  • -30% sale for spooky ornaments for the duration of the Saovine Event.
  • Introduced a new Reward Book tutorial page made for the new players, with intention to help them improve their starting decks. The page is available to all players.
  • Added new effects for ability Cooldowns, Counters, Fees, and Insanity costs.
  • Introduced a change to the "Exit Without Saving" button in the Deck Builder, where players will now only receive the confirmation pop-up if the deck is invalid.
Neutral
  • The Mushy Truffle: Provision cost changed from 9 to 10.
Monsters
  • Dettlaff: Higher Vampire: Power changed from 5 to 6.
  • Endrega Queen: Power changed from 5 to 6. Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.
  • Golyat: Provision cost changed from 8 to 7.
  • Miruna: Power changed from 5 to 6.
  • Old Speartip: Provision cost changed from 12 to 11.
  • Ozzrel: Provision cost changed from 9 to 8.
  • Toad Prince: Consume power limit changed from 3 to 4.
  • Drowner: Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.
  • Phooca: Now has 1 Armor.
Skellige
  • Arnvald: Power changed from 4 to 6.
  • Blood Eagle: The Bloodthirst condition no longer ignores the target unit when it becomes damaged by Blood Eagle.
  • Fucusya: Power changed from 5 to 4.
  • Skjall: Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.
  • Wild Boar of the Sea: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Dimun Smuggler: Now has Zeal.
  • Drummond Villager: Bleeding duration changed from 3 to 4 for both targets.
  • Primal Savagery: Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.
  • Svalblod Ravager: The Bloodthirst condition no longer ignores the target unit when it becomes damaged by Svalblod Ravager.
Northern Realms
  • Reynard Odo: Deploy replaced with Formation; Order.
  • Thaler: Power changed from 6 to 7. Provision cost changed from 8 to 7.
  • Vandergrift: Power changed from 5 to 6.
  • Vernon Roche: Provision cost changed from 11 to 10.
  • Vissegerd: Now has 2 Armor.
  • Windhalm of Attre: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Aretuza Adept: Provision cost changed from 4 to 5.
  • Carroballista: Now has a Cooldown of 3.
  • Lyrian Landsknecht: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Meditating Mage: Power changed from 4 to 3.
  • Redanian Knight: Power changed from 1 to 2.
  • Siege Master: Power changed from 4 to 3. Provision cost changed from 5 to 4. Now has 1 Armor.
Scoia'tael
  • Saov Ainmhi'dh: Boost amount changed from 6 to 5. Provision cost changed from 9 to 7.
  • Torque: Power changed from 4 to 5.
  • Dol Blathanna Sorceress: Provision cost changed from 5 to 6
  • Elven Wardancer: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Vrihedd Brigade: Power changed from 3 to 4.
Nilfgaard
  • Coup de Grace: Provision cost changed from 9 to 10.
  • Vypper: Now additionally gains Spying when Summoned from the graveyard to the battlefield.
  • Alchemist: Power changed from 4 to 5.
  • Ard Feainn Crossbowman: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Illusionist: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Mage Infiltrator: Now has an additional effect: Deathblow: Move self to the opposite row and remove Spying.
  • Ointment: Boost amount changed from 4 to 5. Category changed from Alchemy to Tactic.
Syndicate
  • Adalbertus Kalkstein: Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.
  • Bincy Blumerholdt: Provision cost changed from 10 to 9.
  • Prophet Lebioda: Power changed from 6 to 8.
  • Blindeye Apothecary: Boost amount changed from 3 to 4.
  • Cutup Lackey: Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.
  • Line of Credit: Amount of Coins gained changed from 6 to 7.
  • Mutated Hounds: Power changed from 4 to 5.
  • Payroll Specialist: Tribute cost changed from 2 to 1.
  • Witch Finder Executioner: Power changed from 3 to 4.
  • Wretched Addict: Boost amount changed from 1 to 2.
Game Fixes
  • Prophet Lebioda no longer grants Shield to Disloyal units.
  • Illusionist no longer triggers its own Bonded effect when Spawning a copy of an Illusionist from the enemy graveyard.
  • Incubus no longer Summons a unit from its owner's graveyard if an enemy unit can not be Summoned to the opposite row due to being full.
  • Ignatius Hale can no longer reach negative Tribute while using the Off The Books leader ability.
  • Emhyr var Emreis will no longer place a card back into the deck if no card was drawn.
  • Confession Extractor's Counter will remain unchanged if the unit that received a Bounty was destroyed before it was Confession Extractor's turn to deal damage to it.
  • Aretuza Adept is no longer boosted by units with Patience that had their Orders reset by Tissaia de Vries after Aretuza Adept's end of turn effects were already triggered.
  • Alissa Henson will now correctly select a random copy of the target bronze special, and will no longer result in only one copy being shuffled into the deck.
  • Imperial Practitioner will no longer ignore the card that entered the enemy graveyard, if there was already a copy of the same card there.
  • The Scoundrel is no longer blocked from Summoning a unit to the opposite side, if The Scoundrel's own row is full.
  • The Brute will now ignore units that had a Bounty on them previously, but were destroyed without it.
  • Music will now play again, as intended, during Tutorial matches
 
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rrc

Forum veteran
Wow! ST gets the biggest nerf with no compensating buff? Every faction has soo many buffs, including NG and SK which are top tier, but ST gets the biggest nerf to its only playable deck (which we saw how much it struggled to get a win in the open). I don't know. CDPR seems to hate ST to the core.

ST loses the one deck which people perceived to be strong and struggled a lot. This should reflect in the masters tournament with 0 participation from ST. Job well done CDPR.

Checked twitter and this is from Plain Talk Jon:
 
Lmao, are you serious? HUGE nerf to the sorceress for what reason, exactly? To compensate for the pointless 1 point buff of Torque I bet :D ST love continues.
 
ST gets 5 buffs and 1 nerf and you guys are complaining? Sheesh!

NR gets its only decent deck buried to unplayability...
 
Doing chores for the Crones definitely does sound like something that fits Saovine. :D

I think I have a pretty good guess about the Journey based on this News post... would be awesome, too.
 
Wow... NR mages decks were ridiculously overtuned and the only nerf they got is one power less to the body of the notorious meditating mage card. A BRONZE card which still has resilience as a secondary effect!!!

SK gets another pointless nerf, as Fucusya can still resurrect an unanswered Melusine for 100 points in one turn. Also, there is still Sigdrifa's Rite, for more resurrecting broken SK cards anyway.

NG still remains the fun police and that's not gonna change.

ST get's a serious nerf to the only good and versatile bronze card regardless of the archetype, but hey, they've got some buffs on some irrelevant cards too! They really want the non-humans to struggle, so true to the lore!

As long as the focus of the game is only to sell cosmetics and journeys and balancing the game is just an afterthought - to put it as politely as I can - I'm sorry CDPR but I won't buy even a single keg from the shop.
 
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I haven't been playing a lot of Gwent lately so maybe I can't really evaluate the new cards and I can (kind of) understand that the devs don't want to change new cards only a few weeks after release, but I really don't get some of these changes:

- Fucusya: I don't think the power of the body is the issue here...
- no change to Messenger of the Sea at all? Not even a reduction of power so you can remove it next turn with 5 dmg like Selfeater?
- ST gets of one of their best (?) new cards nerfed, without any meaningful buffs?
- Torque: Imo, buffs to other cards supporting HB would have been better
- Med. Mages: Ok, now they are easier to remove. I still think Resilience on bronze cards is a bad idea, It is too much carryover.

Edit: Right, the Meditating Mages are also indirectly nerfed by the changes to Aretuza Adepts and Mushy Truffle. Didn't think of that when creating this post.
 
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DRK3

Forum veteran
Wow, we got subcategories on the shop... if only they spent the same effort on the rest of the game as they do with anything involving real money purchases, like creating subcategories for the trinkets section, which is a mess that gets worse and worse as you collect hundreds of borders, titles and avatars.

Does anyone know when will the event END? I can play tomorrow but not on the following 4 days, and if its a short lived event i think i might be screwed and not be able to complete all tasks.

Regarding the "fix" to incubus... there goes a meme deck i had planned and now it wont be possible (i tried row clog with witches sabbath but that never worked).

The change to Fucusya is laughable, it will still be auto-include, but im glad they didnt change it yet because ive still got a ton of different SK Fucusya decks i want to create and a rework might have messed up a lot of them.

I think the meta will remain mostly the same, with the exception of meditating mages gone... good riddance.
 
The nerf to Sorceress is uncalled for. The only reason why a card with no deploy ability and no zeal is played is because it has the potential to at least double its value provided it sticks. 90% of the time this card is either removed or disabled. Why nerf something that works and it ain't overpowered?

The nerf to Fucusya is laughable. The problem was not her 5 power. What should have been nerfed was the units she can pull from the graveyard. Reduce the provision of the units pulled from the graveyard to 9 at least so that it can't pull Melusine.
No, it wasn't. The only ST card nerfed was Sorceress
The nerf to Sorceress is much more significant than some measly buffs for cards such as Wardancer or Brigade that will still not see play because their archetype is still not good. Torque's power buff is also uncalled for. That card is really strong, but the hand-buff archetype overall is not. Saov's buff is interesting, but good enough to warrant playing with what is strong in ST now? No.

Sorceress as a card was fine. A 4 power card with an order for 5p which 90% of the times gets removed, locked or disabled was decent.
 
As CDPR often mentions, when they release new cards their main goal is that "you enjoy playing those." I think they should also consider that we enjoy "playing against those." So, here's a process that you may try for evaluation purposes during balancing (just a suggestion!) -

Pick a faction. Choose as many POP cards and build a deck. Let's call this DECK X. Ask an opponent to choose a faction and prepare a deck without POP cards. Play best of three. Make your opponent choose another faction, build a deck without POP cards. Repeat. Keep a tab of how many factions are able to win their best of threes against DECK X. Make trial changes and repeat gameplays with the chosen decks. You'll be in a much better position to decide on the required balance changes.

So far these changes seem to have been made purely from comments on Reddit/etc. posts, watching random games in Twitch/Twitter/Open, and playing some arbitrary games with the news cards. They are far removed from the general playing experience of most users and does little to balance most other playing archetypes. Even if my suggestion doesn't work, there has to be something wrong with the approach you're following during the balancing process. Try to figure that out first and sort it. More than the game, it's the balancing system that is currently broken.
 
As CDPR often mentions, when they release new cards their main goal is that "you enjoy playing those." I think they should also consider that we enjoy "playing against those." So, here's a process that you may try for evaluation purposes during balancing (just a suggestion!) -

Pick a faction. Choose as many POP cards and build a deck. Let's call this DECK X. Ask an opponent to choose a faction and prepare a deck without POP cards. Play best of three. Make your opponent choose another faction, build a deck without POP cards. Repeat. Keep a tab of how many factions are able to win their best of threes against DECK X. Make trial changes and repeat gameplays with the chosen decks. You'll be in a much better position to decide on the required balance changes.

So far these changes seem to have been made purely from comments on Reddit/etc. posts, watching random games in Twitch/Twitter/Open, and playing some arbitrary games with the news cards. They are far removed from the general playing experience of most users and does little to balance most other playing archetypes. Even if my suggestion doesn't work, there has to be something wrong with the approach you're following during the balancing process. Try to figure that out first and sort it. More than the game, it's the balancing system that is currently broken.
Tbh, the trouble first started when they decided to create better engines/pointslam options last year as a response to the absolute domination of control instead of, well, NERFING CONTROL.

It was kinda innocent, at first. Griffin/Cat Witchers, Frigates and the like...slightly alarming, but nothing too bad outside of a few cards
...but then they also started giving them deploy value/unrebukable bodies, and otherwise untargetable points (best illustrated by Viy, Eist and Blightmaker)
...and that's where stuff really went downhill. If they'd approached it correctly and took care of then-troublesome poison and instant unconditional stuff like Heatwave/Invo from the start, that would've done the trick. Now, though, we're stuck in an arms race and fixing the game is no longer as simple as "nerf control". The sad part is they've seemingly committed to the escalation of powerlevels, and have no intention to ever try and reverse it. It could be alleviated somewhat by bringing older cards up to the par, but they aren't doing much of that either.

Either because of sunk costs or maybe it's just that they still think "swingy cards are exciting" despite massive and persistent backlash from the community. No matter. It's just how things are going to be with Gwent. Take it or leave.
 
A very well deserved hit on the Sorceress with the nerf hammer but then only barely tickle Fucusya by giving her a 1 power nerf?
It's her ability in the whole that's too strong. It should have something like "If the targeted unit has more then 10 power then set it's power to 10 upon playing".
Plus the other buffs to SK, Arnvald is now a potential 11 point point slam. ;D but okay (in line with some other recently buffed 6 provision cards...).
Why not buff Ulfhedinn too btw? He could have "if the target is 4 power or less destroy it instead" and then also give him 1 more power or at least armor! :D He's basically SK's version of the uselessness of MO's old Toad Prince.
 
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Problematic cards untouched - Messenger, Fucusya, Meditating mage - they all need serious nerfs, but the team focused on pointless cosmetics instead of gameplay satisfaction.
What a waste of an update.
 
Messengers could be simply nerfed by making them boost only from weather damage done on the opposite row.
 
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