PLAY RATES AND WIN RATES IN THE SEASON OF THE CAT (OCTOBER 2021)

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Hey everyone,

Ryan here, Community Specialist for GWENT: The Witcher Cardgame.

Here is the Season of the Cat data:
WinratesVipe.png




You can also download the xlsx sheet right here: https://gwent.ly/SeasonCatData

Kind regards,
Ryan.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Wowww, glad to see im not the only one struggling to win against ST Symbiosis/ Spellatael, players were saying it was the 3rd/4th best faction but these stats say otherwise.

After that, NR, SK and NG have quite a few leaders on top, which is healthy for the faction, but between factions that balance is questionable, with MO and SY not having a single leader on top 10 (and this month will probably be even worse).
 
Wowww, glad to see im not the only one struggling to win against ST Symbiosis/ Spellatael, players were saying it was the 3rd/4th best faction but these stats say otherwise.

After that, NR, SK and NG have quite a few leaders on top, which is healthy for the faction, but between factions that balance is questionable, with MO and SY not having a single leader on top 10 (and this month will probably be even worse).
"These stats" don't really say otherwise. Nature's Gift may have beat out the Flurry by 0.37% to become the strongest "leader", but ST as a faction has only one leader above 50%, which, compared to SK's 4, and 2 each from NR and NG kind of put it pretty much exactly in that "3rd/4th" best FACTION spot.
 
Wowww, glad to see im not the only one struggling to win against ST Symbiosis/ Spellatael, players were saying it was the 3rd/4th best faction but these stats say otherwise.

After that, NR, SK and NG have quite a few leaders on top, which is healthy for the faction, but between factions that balance is questionable, with MO and SY not having a single leader on top 10 (and this month will probably be even worse).
I knew this all the time too, these ST players trying to claim this leader is balanced really are the worst. But here the stats are, FOR ALL TO SEE.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
"These stats" don't really say otherwise. Nature's Gift may have beat out the Flurry by 0.37% to become the strongest "leader", but ST as a faction has only one leader above 50%, which, compared to SK's 4, and 2 each from NR and NG kind of put it pretty much exactly in that "3rd/4th" best FACTION spot.
I disagree. A faction doesnt have to have several leader abilities at the top of these charts to be strong, but it probably does to be healthy, in the sense that it has many viable options.

This is not necessarily the case, as NG as shown us many times, where there were several leader abilities being used but the decks themselves were pretty much the same (this just indicates a balance between leader abilities' strength, and nothing more).

Perhaps it would have been better to nerf nature's gift instead of the ST cards (like the sorceress), since it seems its this leader that is carrying the faction, but overall its cards are struggling to keep up.
 
I disagree. A faction doesnt have to have several leader abilities at the top of these charts to be strong, but it probably does to be healthy, in the sense that it has many viable options.

This is not necessarily the case, as NG as shown us many times, where there were several leader abilities being used but the decks themselves were pretty much the same (this just indicates a balance between leader abilities' strength, and nothing more).

Perhaps it would have been better to nerf nature's gift instead of the ST cards (like the sorceress), since it seems its this leader that is carrying the faction, but overall its cards are struggling to keep up.
I don't know about several, but more than one, surely. A faction that has ONE competitive deck should not be called strong, either. Certainly not as strong as factions that DO have multiple leader abilities with the winning records. Which is all that's being pointed out here. That the statement that ST is "3rd/4th" faction is not false.

And as for the nerf, you are correct, the Leader ability is the only thing that carries this archtype. All of the cards are either mediocre or overpriced. And the only way to nerf the leader without completely destroying it is to maybe remove a provision. The trouble is, nerfing Nature's Gift is not going to improve the meta, or bring the rest of ST abilities out of the gutter. It will just remove ST's single good deck from the top. (Which they probably already did with the Sorc nerf, btw. Numbers pending, but this season is definitely not the same as last one.)
 

rrc

Forum veteran
I knew this all the time too, these ST players trying to claim this leader is balanced really are the worst. But here the stats are, FOR ALL TO SEE.
Didn't you say in the same thread in which you complained about Nature's Gift that Reckless Flurry is a bad leader :p :shrug:

Now it is also out in the open for ALL TO SEE. In top 10, SK has 4 leaders with 51.95+%

Nature's Gift was on the top and got immediately nerfed and 4 leader in top 10 for SK and SK gets no nerfs (but plenty of buffs). It should be weird, but it is not. It has become normal from CDPR's balancing team.
 
Didn't you say in the same thread in which you complained about Nature's Gift that Reckless Flurry is a bad leader :p :shrug:

Now it is also out in the open for ALL TO SEE. In top 10, SK has 4 leaders with 51.95+%

Nature's Gift was on the top and got immediately nerfed and 4 leader in top 10 for SK and SK gets no nerfs (but plenty of buffs). It should be weird, but it is not. It has become normal from CDPR's balancing team.
If you read properly in the other thread you would see me pointing out that leader abilities and cards are different things. "Sorceresses getting nerfed does not equal Nature's Gift getting nerfed."

And yes, Reckless Flurry is absolute garbage because of the RNG element (not like there are much greater options if you want to run a control deck unfortunately), but a lot of the cards themselves in these decks are very strong.

The fact you see such diversity in leader abilities for SK (same as with NG) should tell you that whatever makes these factions strong are not the leader abilities themselves, whereas ST pretty much only sticks to one leader because it's seriously OP.

Is it clear enough this time?
 
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Lockdown reaching that magic less than 30% winrate... I guess it's finally the time for some rework, right? Right?
I would love to see that! Its previous version was one of the most obnoxious, fun-killing abilities but this one is really bad. I've faced Lockdown three times in the past three seasons and my opponents forfeited after playing one or two cards...

It's not only Winrate; just look at Playrate - 0.05... This ability ceased to be played at all.
 
A lot of people were hyped by the new handbuffs cards, myself included, but Invigorate didn't perform too well. At Rank 7-1 almost 7% of people experimented with Invigorate. The wise pro-rankers didn't bother: winrate ca. 38%.

That the statement that ST is "3rd/4th" faction is not false.
Maybe 3rd. NG Double Cross barely breaks even. Only NG Enslave has a positive - yet not that amazing - winrate, carried by a very strong leader ability.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Getting this data is interesting but it would also be very good to know exactly what data the devs collect and get access, from all the matches being played.

From theses charts, we know they get winrates by leader ability, and i would assume they have deck composition. But what about create cards (for example bountiful harvest), do they know which ones are being spawned more often that lead to victories? Or when leader abilities are being used in the match?

I dont know much about programming, but i think we as players think the dev team have access to ALL the data (and that's why we ask for it) but perhaps that is not the case :think:
 
This data clearly shows a well-defined pecking order for all the factions in Gwent. From best to worst, the factions are rated as follows:

1. Nilfgaard. NG was only played 25.28% of the time at pro rank (cumulative for all leaders). Clearly had any of the other factions been that great, NG would be played more often to counter them.
2. Syndicate. SY has Tunnel Drill. What other evidence do you need?
3. Monsters. MO's best leader had only 46.77% win rate at pro rank -- clear evidence that the players just haven't figured out this complex and subtle faction yet.
4. Skellige. Despite the major nerf to Artis which now prevents him from being summoned by Fucusya, all the purple shows SK has survived.
5. Northern Realms. All 7 NR leaders are in the bottom 40. NR has good reason for being blue.
6. Scoia'tael. ST is clearly the worst faction. It is always the worst faction. Any data otherwise is clearly fabricated to give developers an excuse to nerf it more.
 
The funny thing is.

Mo stayed in tier 1 for what, One or 2 seasonal?

And The nerf Hammer comes heavy, nerfing everything, mamunna, selfetaer, caranthir and bla bla bla.

Nature gift its tier 1 for one/two months and only has 2 provision nerfs in sorceress.

And i only see SC players blaming that The faction its not good.

With all do respect with The SC players - special those Who are my personal friend - but your blames are in The same line than NG player's blame
 
The funny thing is, the entire top 10 is purple, blue and black, but all people can talk about is ST, because it's "on top." And drawing comparisons to the relict meta, as if Nature's gift last season was in any way comparable to the ridiculous relict nonsense from august or the drill SY metas.
 
From theses charts, we know they get winrates by leader ability, and i would assume they have deck composition. But what about create cards (for example bountiful harvest), do they know which ones are being spawned more often that lead to victories? Or when leader abilities are being used in the match?
I do remember some report showing cards playrate, when decktrackers were widely used during Gwent Beta. I guess CDPR will have this information available. On the other hand I don't think it's easy to track the card chosen by the players based on the create options, without hard coding it.

But based on my experience "bountiful harvest" usually creates a "sorceress of dol blathanna" which soon afterwards spawns another "bountiful harvest"!

:smart:

The funny thing is, the entire top 10 is purple, blue and black, but all people can talk about is ST, because it's "on top."
Top ten in a competition can be quite an achievement, but people unsurprisingly talks about the "winner". And having a negative winrate hardly count as winning.
 
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