Scoia'tael Deck Strategies

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Lytha;n6969990 said:
Hm. I had a massive streak of losses last night, when I "just wanted 1 more win to get the 1st level up and get a keg". Matchmaking might have punished me for winning so badly against the newcomers the day before.

Sure, the increasing anger after the first 6 lost matches did not help the focus; but I am not sure I could have won against the later dozen with the crappy hands I had anyway.

I had the same happen to me yesterday. I had a bad losing streak and barely got enough wins to get my keg. At least i got Isengrim and Roach out of that keg, so it wasn't a bad day after all.

I was hoping I could get some advice. I've been gathering scraps for a while now in order to finally get Aglais, since she seems to be a key card in a lot of Scoia'Tael decks. I'm more than halfway through to get her, however I've been wondering, if it's actually the right moment to create the card and if there aren't any other cards which would benefit me more at the moment. I'm aware that she is a must in almost all decks, however I'm not sure how much of an impact she will have on my deck in it's current state.

I'm currently running a variant of the spell engine. My current core consists of 2x DB Archers, 3x Mercenaries and 2x Blue Mountain Commandos. So I obviously use the first two to either take down the key cards of my opponent or buff whatever cards I have on the field. I've added 2x Hawker supports, but as you can imagine, I've found myself barely using them, since they're squishy targets. I only use them in my late game, if the conditions are right. I've also added 2x Mahakam Defenders to take some value to the next rounds. So far so good, however this leaves me a bit concerned.

There are times where I cannot pack a serious punch. This is of course my fault entirely, because maybe I'm just overcommiting in some matches. Card advantage in this deck is a must, but there are situations were I cannot maintain it. The only heavy hitters which I have at the moment are Geralt, Ciri and Sheldon Skaggs. Combine that with my buffed Mahakam Defenders, then that leaves me overfocusing on the first row, which will end up seriously punishing me.

As of the special cards, I've got the Gift of Nature, Commanders Horn, 3x Swallow Potion and 1x Thunderbolt for buffing my units, 2x Manticore Venom and 2x DB Trapper to disrupt my opponents play and Toruviel. I personally preffer the Venom over Lacerate, since I find it better at taking down some specific targets. I've found the trappers to be quite effective against NR players. Even though it's predictable, they do sometimes lead my opponents to make mistakes. Toruviel is a card I cannot entirely rely on. It has given me some easy wins, but mostly because of my opponents inexperience.

Gift of Nature and Ciri were the first cards that I have crafted and I do not regret that one bit. They've made a really big difference in the deck. Im not really happy with Toruviel and I'm yet to test Isengrim. Luckily I got both in kegs.

TL;DR

GOLD: Geralt, Ciri
SILVER: Sheldon Skaggs
BRONZE: 2x DB Archers, 3x Mercenaries, 2x Blue Mt. Commando, 2x Hawker Support, 2x Mahakam Defenders,
SPECIAL: Commanders Horn, Gift of Nature, 2x Manticore Venom, 3x Swallow, 1x Thunderbolt, 2x DB Trapper



Despite the glaring flaws that I have mentioned, I'm quite satisfied with the deck. I can recall only two instances where I have been actually steamrolled by my opponent and most losses were only a close call. I've been wondering what cards could change this. The constant tweaking and modifying of the decks is the most fun aspect of the faction. To me at least. Since the Elves are a rather expensive deck, it might be worth discussing which cards are really a priority. I can see how some players can end up confused, impatient or frustrated about what direction to take with it. Finally getting to a card like Aglais might become a chore for some.
 
I would get cheap but important cards before Aglais. In the start, I crafted a bunch of bronzes to complement my initial H.Support deck. Then, when I went into the Ambush line of business, I crafted some bronzes for it as well.


Okay, let's see...

Ciaran - can be used if you plan to forfeit the round and expect the opponent to expect a Toruviel. I ended up shuffling him away during mulligan during his final days in my deck though. Then he kept reappearing in round 3 and irritated me.

Aelirenn - I did get one or two good runs with her, nuking some breeders into complete oblivion or so. But usually, it was a situation of "so, now I have no neophyte spawners, but Aelirenn in my hand" or "so, I just Franscesca-shuffled out the last neophyte spawner because it seemed prudent, and Aelirenn came into the hand". I dumped her currently. Instances of where I log a "crap hand" in my spreadsheed have been somewhat reduced.

Johnny - this is a very entertaining card. He can end up doing really great card swaps, and he can end up doing really horrible card swaps. The great ones are really awesome, the horrible ones have not irritated me so badly that I considered throwing him out.

Milva - I like and dislike her now. Sometimes, it's awesome to be the one with card advantage in round 3 and finish with Milva after opponent auto-passed. Sometimes, it's lovely to do a Milva on his buffed and stickied reinforced trebuchet (or similar). Then again, sometimes, I have a really well buffed unit lying around there, too, and playing Milva would actually cost me the victory.

Toruviel - as you said, she's become well-known now. She also has the ugly habit of appearing as the last card for round 3, which is starting to make me seriously cranky.

Ida - this is a really useful one if playing against one of those predictable Northeners. She shielded me from having something scorched a lot, she also saved some little but super important units from feeling the wrath of the opponent. However, there is an obvious clash of interests if you end up having Ida and Aglais in your hand for the final round. And yeah, I sometimes played Ida while still having specials in my hand, then forgot about Ida and blipped her myself. I think opponent was laughing then. Another issue is that opponents expect Ida when Toruviel already happened. Too predictable and her cover lost.

Yen - as much as I like Yen, she's currently out of my deck. Benefiting or hurting BOTH sides is too much of a two-edged sword. (I got her in one of my first kegs, by the way, wouldn't have crafted her).

Geralt - 12 simple points, no special tricks. Yeah. No. Bye-bye.

Ciri - that's a keeper card for now. I like to use Johnny on her after she has done her duty in round 1 or 2 though.

Geralt: Igni - Oh yes. Oh yes. The nightmare of most opponents. I love it when Johnny turns Ciri or Milva into Igni. I am also sure I got reported as "cheater" now a couple of times for playing multiple Ignis (and then using Eithne on one). Opponents ragequitted or had the mouse over the two Ignis a lot, and Johnny I had played 1-2 rounds ago, so he might already have faded from their memory. I would get Igni before Aglais, to be honest.

Aglais - another wonderful one, another one making me squee if I get that twice via Johnny. However, you depend on you yourself or opponent actually using worthwhile special cards. That is not always the case.




And opinion on some cards I didn't use yet:

Barclay - seems really nice to have in a Dwarf Power deck. I don't use those though.

Yarpen - same as Barclay.

Zoltan - same as Barclay and Yarpen.

3 Witchers - no. Just no.

Weather combination cards - I did not combine weather with Scoia yet.

Yaevinn - really useful only in combination with a weather card on opponent's side. Else you give opponent 11 points (hurting his units a little bit). Don't know.



---------------------------------------

Anyway, the reason why I wandered into this topic was to report that I am back at a good win% again. I have put my 30 cards deck on a diet and now run 26 cards.

68% wins in the last 28 matches.

But I am now not sure if that is because matchmaker threw me back to the rank where opponents are "mostly newbies" . I labeled 12 of those 28 as "newbies", which does not seem so bad, but who knows.



(Also started to get into the bad habit of forfeiting when Northener pulls out his first reinforced trebuchet and I know that my hand can't handle that.... ah well. I really dislike playing against Northern anyway, and knowing that the reinf trebs will get nerfed + people now abuse them as long as they can... makes me really cranky.)


Special: Commander's Horn, 2x Alzur's Thunder, 1x Lacerate, Decoy, 1 Fireball, 2 DB Trapper
Bronzes: 3 H.Healers, 3 BM Commandos, 2 DB Archers, 3 Vri Vanguard
Silvers: Toruviel, Johnny, Ida
Golds: Igni, Ciri, Milva, Aglais
Leader: Eithne


Without analyzing the data, take the following statements with a grain of salt:

There is a trend of "not doing too well against Skelligers with "buff that Tuiserach dude"", I think.
Monsters suffer.
Northeners... probably still win the majority and still hate me (no GG).
Scoia... wobbly.
 
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I've been playing this Scoia'tael deck that I've built and have not just reasonable success (since the latest patch), but also a ton of fun. Your opponent will hate you though, and it's not really good against decks that utilize big gold cards. Also, it's very important to get card advantage so that if you have Isengrim, you can safely play him and win most games in round 3.

http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/6930-elf-control
 
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Not bad, but maybe I'd change Ciaran for Toruviel (now that is fixed). Also I'm afraid of the mercenaries+scorch combination.
 
Hmmm, I've been playing with ambushes a bit, and I have a pair of issues, just to know if the same have happened to you all.

1)I already made a thread in general discussion about this, but:

Against Skellige,I have Yarpen and Ciaran in my siege row. Oponent plays Merigold's and later Harald special ability. Yarpen and Ciaran are killed. I don't know if it is intended this way, but I think Ciaran shouldn't be affected by weather, the same as he is not affected by lacerate and such, since he is not revealed.

2)Against another Scoia (hi, Iamapotato if you are here, I got handed my ass to me ;) )

He played Ciaran on his side, I played Fireball trap next to him. At the end of the round Ciaran is revealed but Fireball trap doesn't work. Again, not sure if intended this way.

Thoughts?

 
I'm currently running a heavy control deck where the basic principal is to just keep your opponents side of the board clear. Not sure how much i like it yet or of its even viable only played a handful of matches. Im missing a few cards i would like to put in so ill hold of publishing the list until its a tad more finale but my thought process was every deck relies on a certain set of cards, deny them those cards and well their deck falls apart. Main weakness of the deck lack of its own creatures something im hoping to remedy with some of the cards im missing, between moving house, work and kids im struggling to sit down and get playing.... WTB android client kkthnxbai
 
Noela;n7004630 said:
Not bad, but maybe I'd change Ciaran for Toruviel (now that is fixed). Also I'm afraid of the mercenaries+scorch combination.

Toruviel doesn't grant you card advantage, Ciaran does, and having card advantage is key with this deck. He's there to play with Ciri in the same round that you know you will lose so you are 2 more cards ahead of your opponent. If you want to replace him, it's better to replace him with something like Aeromancy.

Also, yes, it's happened to me before, but a way to not have that is either to not mill Scorch when you have it in your hand at the start, or to make sure to play Mercs when your opponent plays a 4+ strength unit.
 
Hello everyone,

I just reached level 60 today and thought I share my Scoia deck with you guys. I actually play every faction, but atm I mainly play Scoia`tael due to the in my opinion fun gameplay.

I opened more or less 140 Kegs until now (bought 60 + farmed 80)



What I really like about this deck is, that it has very few weakenesses due to its high flexibility.

Eithne herself can be used for the following:
  • Play Decoy three times together with Aglais in order to get card Advantage
  • Play The last Wish three times in order to see almost all your cards in the deck
  • Play Geralt Igni twice against high value targets
  • Play Borkh twice against stronger targets
  • Play Commanders horn three times
You can just switch between destroying a lot, going for card advantage or buffing your own troops.

What I normally do with this deck is to drain my opponent before the last round until I have only Isengrim left.
He spawns a Commando N. for each special card in your graveyard, often I have ten or so in there, so thats like a 26 point card in the end.

I would guess my win percentage at around 60-70%, even Weather Monster Decks have trouble beating me.

If you guys have suggestions how to improve the deck let me know, though I think it´s pretty refined atm.

Greetings Florian



 
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floelein;n7018150 said:
If you guys have suggestions how to improve the deck let me know, though I think it´s pretty refined atm.

Looks really nice. Lost versus similar deck while ago, double Geralt: Igni was too suprising :) Maybe you'll want to swap weather card with Johnny? Borkh isn't always best card to play, Geralt also and you may exchange them for something better. Not sure if this wouldn't make deck too unreliable tho.
 
A little update to my deck two posts above, I did achieve the following win ratios this evening, I really don´t know who thinks Monsters are overpowered and Scoia´tell are weak.

 
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I can tell you who thinks that.

People who've just begun playing, and who meet Scoias who also just begun playing. It's easier to successfully noob around with a monster starter deck than with the scoia starter deck.
 
I just decided that I wanted to use my pile of scraps on Yaevinn and Nature's Gift, made a deck for that (Traps, Aeromancy, Nukes) and ran 2 test matches.

Results are ... mixed.


1st Opp: "Foltest buff and clone", advanced deck. I failed here, but I think I got too greedy and forgot that frigging Promote exists. In all likelihood, I would have lost this with my normal deck, too. Mood: -2 (frigging Foltest)


2nd Opp: "Harald wounds", also advanced deck. I won here with lots of extra cards to spare that would have buggered him even more. The whole match mostly happened on his side of the battlefield. In fact, I don't think I had any non-golden cards out in the open on my side of the field, until after he passed round 3.
rd1: Ciri+pass, which he gladly accepted as a won round and played more cards
rd2: Borkh+Ciri; then Yaevinn to feed Borkh more efficiently. Opp passed after Borkh had eaten about 20 points.
rd3: Getting rid of that bear, trapping his Priestesses, trapping his front line, Nature's Gifting some thunders. My Toruviel and a BM Commando was enough to win in the end.

It was very efficient, his Harald was a wasted card, and he ran out of options or motivation with 3 cards left.

But to be honest, I think I would have won this one with my normal deck as well; have defeated a bunch of "Harald wounds" already.
Mood: +2


(Mood rating range is -2 (very bad mood) to +2 (laughing aloud))


I'm also not sure if Brouver might be nice. We mostly see Brouver in combination with Dwarf Power decks currently (though they would also do well with Eithne, I think), and Eithne with elven cruelty in all its variations. It seems natural. But why is that actually so?
 
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I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but Yaevinn + any weather card can take down the scariest of lines, and you get a free card! Win-win.

At the moment I'm playing a dwarf deck with a few elves mixed in and Geralt + Ciri, Francesca as my leader. I don't know how I would live without those 3 redraws, that sh!t has saved my skin so many times already it's not even funny. Zoltan Chivay is my third gold card, he basically gives you +15 if you draw him first round. Now I just need Zoltan: Animal Tamer and my deck is done. I'll probably change out Geralt for something else in the future but I'll look into that after getting the 800 scraps for Zoltan: AT. ^^

Edit: Grammar
 
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Leij;n7035840 said:
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but Yaevinn + any weather card can take down the scariest of lines, and you get a free card! Win-win.

At the moment I'm playing a dwarf deck with a few elves mixed in and Geralt + Ciri, Francesca as my leader. I don't know how I would live without those 3 redraws, that sh!t has saved my skin so many times already it's not even funny. Zoltan Chivay is my third gold card, he basically gives you +15 if you draw him first round. Now I just need Zoltan: Animal Tamer and my deck is done. I'll probably change out Geralt for something else in the future but I'll look into that after getting the 800 scraps for Zoltan: AT. ^^

Edit: Grammar

I mentioned Yaevinn/weather combo here as a huge plus against monster decks w/foglets http://forums.cdprojektred.com/forum...70#post6926370. He's a great card to pair with aeromancy as well. See somebody starting to try a Henselt row on you. Aeromancy + Yaevinn and their entire strategy is ruined.
 
Rawls;n7043500 said:
I mentioned Yaevinn/weather combo here as a huge plus against monster decks w/foglets http://forums.cdprojektred.com/forum...70#post6926370. He's a great card to pair with aeromancy as well. See somebody starting to try a Henselt row on you. Aeromancy + Yaevinn and their entire strategy is ruined.

I find it hard to pick my silvers so I just run with 1x frost 1x fog and 1x rain. I have a bunch of cards that only work in combination with other stuff or in specific situations so I run Francesca for the redraws. Thanks for the tip anyway!
 
I'm starting to use Yaevinn more, and it is a very good card IMO.

-A some of you have said, Yaevinn+weather. He cleans a row and gives you one card. And he is the ultimate defoglet.
-I am a horrible person, so I sometimes use it with Borkh: last moment brilliant move on the part of my opponent, so I had to give Borkh some cannon fodder.

A card I don't see often mentioned and that I'm very fond of, is Saskia.

-Small buff to Isegrim neohpytes
-Eithné her for a total of +2 to all your non-GOld, and -2 to all opponent's non-gold.
-Play a double weather card before her, and wreak havoc on enemy board.
 
Gods, I just replaced Commander's Horn with Nature's Gift ("everyone runs Commander's Horn, and I can steal it with Nature's Gift or Aglais").

So I ran into a Skelliger Bran who was really keen on winning round 1 for some reasons, and used almost all his Priestesses and Siegfrieda there. He then used Regeneration in round 2. I stole that with Nature's Gift.

He fled in panic in round 3, as I was studying my graveyard (after I blew up his last priestess).


I didn't even know what I missed there so far. Nature's Gift is lovely. :D



Next thing that might be getting the temporary shaft might be Decoy. I had Aeromancy in that H.Support deck I made for the lulz after the thread in General about how OP the HS are, and I used it to screw a weather wielding big scary monster dude with Crones. So, I do see the benefits of Aeromancy after all. Decoy is currently a card I keep shuffling out during mulligan, and it annoyed me already severly by coming into my hand for round 3.
 
decoy's primary use is to use it on aglais.you get 2 cards card advantage this way.if u use eithne you can use a decoy a second time and get a third card through aglais.its pretty insane with any gold card with an active ability (geralt igni for example)
 
Decoy does not work on gold cards like Aglais.

Am I missing something?


I guess I could sweep my side of the board clean of non-golds with Decoy, Aglais-Decoy and Eithne-Aglais-Decoy, but uh, I'd rather use Aglais for more destructive things?

Ok, with Ciri and Ciaran that would be 5 cards pulled back in while Opponent cringes. Hrm.

I dunno.
 
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So Scoia players, any good idea about how to counter the Redanian Elite - reinforcement combo of NR? It's kinda frustrating to see only two cards produce 30 solid points and you can hardly stop it. If you try to single out one Redanian Elite, their medics will resurrect it instantly.
 
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