Request: make witchers playable before community management stage

[StanislavOZZO]

We barely see any witchers in "GWENT: The Witcher Card Game"

I'd like to put a request to the devs to revisit the witchers in one of the upcoming patches, before they abandon the game.

I'd like to see witchers to be playable, and I'm trying to build something, but witcher decks are completely unplayable at this time.

Let's change this.

 

[Luclon1474]

We barely see any witchers in "GWENT: The Witcher Card Game"

I'd like to put a request to the devs to revisit the witchers in one of the upcoming patches, before they abandon the game.

I'd like to see witchers to be playable, and I'm trying to build something, but witcher decks are completely unplayable at this time.

Let's change this.

I am already playing decks of only Witchers, and I am winning games sometimes It's my first choice every time I decide to play.
It's one of those few creative things that is keeping me here.
As you can imagine I am the only one doing that You should see the faces of the opponents when they lose a game playing one of those boring meta decks

 

[Schildhexerei]

I wouldnt say witchers are completely unplayable. I created a bear witcher Deck after the changes Made to witchers some months ago and it is Kind of competetive around rank 3. I played it a lot because of summer cycle Quests and even climbed to 1 with it last season and won some Games on pro.

But there are definitely much stronger decks, so i would also like to See some more love to them.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

I am already playing decks of only Witchers, and I am winning games sometimes It's my first choice every time I decide to play.
It's one of those few creative things that is keeping me here.
As you can imagine I am the only one doing that You should see the faces of the opponents when they lose a game playing one of those boring meta decks

My win rate with witcher deck is about 1 in 5 matches, which is very low for me.
I was trying various builds but could not yet make any that would give me at least 40% win rate in ranked.

I wouldnt say witchers are completely unplayable. I created a bear witcher Deck after the changes Made to witchers some months ago and it is Kind of competetive around rank 3. I played it a lot because of summer cycle Quests and even climbed to 1 with it last season and won some Games on pro.

But there are definitely much stronger decks, so i would also like to See some more love to them.

I am curious to see your deck if you could share.
Going to rank 1 with witchers is impressive.

 

[Luclon1474]

My win rate with witcher deck is about 1 in 5 matches, which is very low for me.
I was trying various builds but could not yet make any that would give me at least 40% win rate in ranked.


I am curious to see your deck if you could share.
Going to rank 1 with witchers is impressive.

First, let me clarify that I didn't reach Rank 1 playing only Witchers decks. But I think it's possible
My Witchers deck are usually the way I start my Gwent day because they give me a special feeling, but then I change and rotate.
I play several different decks (recently for example some Monsters and I have been experimenting with the new Iris) and what matters to me is that they are all original decks that no other player is using (as far as I have seen after more than 1450 hours of playing).
I don't play meta decks and I am very proud of that
I regretted reaching Pro Rank (Rank 1 actually, because I declined immediately Pro Rank) and nowadays I forfeit immediately as soon as I see certain Leader abilities (or immediately after the opponent plays the first 1 or 2 cards and I see already in which direction the game is going).
I am interested in creating something original, you know, that's the pleasure and the challenge.

Having said that, I don't feel like sharing my decks with anyone. Forgive me if you can, and I hope i am not sounding like cruel or not polite, but given the current status of the game, really the only reason I am still here playing Gwent is because I play those original decks.
If I started to see my original decks broadcasted on Youtube or played with the same frequency as those current boring meta decks, I would uninstall the game immediately.
I can tell you that I have 1 Skellige Witchers deck, 1 Nilfgaard Witchers, 1 Scoiatel Witchers and 1 Northern Realms Witchers deck. Mix of faction and neutral Witchers.
I am talking about decks in which the unit cards are exclusively Witchers, there are no "foregneirs".
I really cannot stand those Youtubers who claim to use Witchers decks but then in their decks you see 2 or 3 cards that are not Witchers. If you are telling the world how good you are in playing with Witchers decks, at least you should be honest and brave enough to avoid using units that are not Witchers. But that's only my point of view, you know.

I would not know what is the win rate of my Witchers decks, as winning has a minimum importance to me and I don't really count. It's the challenge that keeps me fueled.
Yesterday for example I didn't win too many games, forfeited a lot, but then I won 2 games against Ogroids and 1 against Nilfgaard Enslave 6 (yes, always the same) and I had a 1 kilometre long smile. So you can have fun it's really possible.
Or I remember an epic game against Nilfgaard (perhaps 1 month ago) in which the opponent was ahead of me in term of points basically all throughout the game (apart from Round 2 because he just passed with playing any card)...but then with my last card on Round 3 I won the game!
Perhaps the Skellige Witchers deck has the highest winning rate, followed by the Nilfgaard Witchers one. Definitely the Northern Realms Witchers deck has the lowest winning rate I would say, but I am still thinking about it and experimenting a little bit.

 

[Schildhexerei]

My win rate with witcher deck is about 1 in 5 matches, which is very low for me.
I was trying various builds but could not yet make any that would give me at least 40% win rate in ranked.


I am curious to see your deck if you could share.
Going to rank 1 with witchers is impressive.

I can:
Leader Reckless fury, oneiromancy, geralt Professional, axii and quen, vesemir Mentor, Leo, berengar, selective mutation, trial of grasses, artefact compression, gigascorpion decoction, pellar, squirrel and all of Skelliges witcher related cards except one Mentor and Haern Caduch.

The Strategy is basically swarming witchers and use axii, vesemir and Leo to win one round and use quen into Arnaghad in a second (prefarably short) round with berengar as support. Thanks to Junod, Professional, leader, gigascorpion, artefact compression, and trial of grasses you also have pretty good control options. Trial of grasses also can be very useful on arnaghad or some 1 Point witcher.

It is of course not as OP as many Meta decks and going to 1 with it also depends a bit on how lucky you are with your matchups. But it is quite good and fun to play. And since its Not that common i often benefit from playing cards the opponent may Not have expected.

 

[Luclon1474]

I can:
Leader Reckless fury, oneiromancy, geralt Professional, axii and quen, vesemir Mentor, Leo, berengar, selective mutation, trial of grasses, artefact compression, gigascorpion decoction, pellar, squirrel and all of Skelliges witcher related cards except one Mentor and Haern Caduch.

Hello Schildhexerei
but if you include Pellar and Squirrel then you don't have a deck of only Witchers
You can play and win games with decks made of only Witchers cards (and some Special cards obviously), you just need a bit of effort, patience and knowledge of all your cards.
And I give you a hint; you don't need Oneiromancy in a Skellige Witchers deck actually I don't have that card in neither of my Witchers decks...

You guys seemed to be very interested in the topic, so I would like to bring you a couple of interesting statistics. I usually don't pay attention to them, but I was thinking about previous messages on this thread, and I realized that it's perhaps really possible to reach Pro Rank with these kind of decks only. And perhaps I already did it in the past.
1) I won 172 games so far, during the August 2023 season. Just discard perhaps 10-15 games won with an original Monsters deck, and all the rest are wins obtained using decks made of only Witchers units
2) Recently I moved from Rank 6 (0/5 wins) to Rank 4 (2/5 wins) in the space of perhaps 24 hours, using only my Witchers decks. And I didn't even realize it. I guess I was a bit distracted (or tired from work) and I forgot to strategically forfeit some games (in order to stay at Rank 6 - that was suppose to be my plan). I just played and enjoyed the game using my Witchers decks, so much so that I forgot about the rest .
So it's really possible to have a streak of wins with these particular decks, and climb the ranks.
3) I would say that in at least 50 % of my games, the opponents don't know the deck I am using...they are all so addicted to the usual repeatitive standard meta decks that some strategies come totally unexpected, the opponents don't see it coming...and that feels good indeed

Allright. Next week, after the release of the new patch, I will probably leave the game. Too much disappointed about the choices of the devs to continue.
But, before that, I really wanted to write this message

Cheers

 

[StanislavOZZO]

Hello Schildhexerei
but if you include Pellar and Squirrel then you don't have a deck of only Witchers
You can play and win games with decks made of only Witchers cards (and some Special cards obviously), you just need a bit of effort, patience and knowledge of all your cards.

Schildhexerei's deck contains enough witchers and witcher-related cards to be called a witcher deck, in my opinion.
Just like cultist deck does not contain only cultists, and knights deck does not contain only knights for creatures.

As long as witchers are dominant in the deck, I'd call it a witcher deck. I'll try that Skellige themed variant. The strategy for it looks promising

 

[Schildhexerei]

Hello Schildhexerei
but if you include Pellar and Squirrel then you don't have a deck of only Witchers
You can play and win games with decks made of only Witchers cards (and some Special cards obviously), you just need a bit of effort, patience and knowledge of all your cards.
And I give you a hint; you don't need Oneiromancy in a Skellige Witchers deck actually I don't have that card in neither of my Witchers decks...

You guys seemed to be very interested in the topic, so I would like to bring you a couple of interesting statistics. I usually don't pay attention to them, but I was thinking about previous messages on this thread, and I realized that it's perhaps really possible to reach Pro Rank with these kind of decks only. And perhaps I already did it in the past.
1) I won 172 games so far, during the August 2023 season. Just discard perhaps 10-15 games won with an original Monsters deck, and all the rest are wins obtained using decks made of only Witchers units
2) Recently I moved from Rank 6 (0/5 wins) to Rank 4 (2/5 wins) in the space of perhaps 24 hours, using only my Witchers decks. And I didn't even realize it. I guess I was a bit distracted (or tired from work) and I forgot to strategically forfeit some games (in order to stay at Rank 6 - that was suppose to be my plan). I just played and enjoyed the game using my Witchers decks, so much so that I forgot about the rest .
So it's really possible to have a streak of wins with these particular decks, and climb the ranks.
3) I would say that in at least 50 % of my games, the opponents don't know the deck I am using...they are all so addicted to the usual repeatitive standard meta decks that some strategies come totally unexpected, the opponents don't see it coming...and that feels good indeed

Allright. Next week, after the release of the new patch, I will probably leave the game. Too much disappointed about the choices of the devs to continue.
But, before that, I really wanted to write this message

Cheers

I think two non-witcher-units should be allowed in a witcher deck. Of course you can be absolutely consequent and avoid every non witcher unit. But where does this stop? In that case you could also say you only allow witcher specials like trial of grasses and bombs . But this certainly weakens the deck. Especially pellar proved to be absolutely necessary in many matchups so far to deal with a defender and afterwards with the OP card the opponent wanted to protect.

About your hint with Oneiromancy: if you draw the right cards you never need it, right? But if not...there are so many answer-or-lose-cards out there that very often you are doomed if you don't have the right answer on the spot. My deck contains some pretty good answers but having them on hand can be an issue. Oneiromancy just increases the odds.

I think reaching pro with only witchers is maybe possible in theory, but you need to be very lucky with your matchups to do so. While witchers are not unplayable they are certainly weaker than the most meta decks. And going from 6 to 4 is nice but from 4 to pro would be much harder.
I played this SK witcher deck a lot during summer cycle and had about 50% winrate on ranks 1-3. To reach pro i always needed to switch to something different.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

There are some really nice changes to the witchers! It boosted my witcher decks to just about that level when they can be good at Rank 1.

I just didn't get the change for Ivo of Belhaven. At 9 provisions he is going to have 2-10 power depending on when he is played in the round. For 9 provisions this is a very low value. What do you think?

 

[DRK3]

There are some really nice changes to the witchers! It boosted my witcher decks to just about that level when they can be good at Rank 1.

I just didn't get the change for Ivo of Belhaven. At 9 provisions he is going to have 2-10 power depending on when he is played in the round. For 9 provisions this is a very low value. What do you think?

I think Ivo is really good... but probably not in a witcher deck.
It needs to be in decks that chain a ton of cards each turn.
I am thinking either NG assimilate (Braathens into informant is 3 cards, Terranova and Vigo at least 2 cards, even bronzes like diplomacy and experimental remedy are 2 cards).
Or SK alchemy - i just chained over 12 cards in a turn in an Otkell + scenario turn. Still, i dont think i can fit him there, i need the alchemy slots.

There are probably more ways, like some examples of neutrals you can do in every faction: Tempest (3 cards) or Runemage (3 cards)...