ST Elves need work

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ST Elves need work

As I predicted CDPR over-nerfed ST elves and over-buffed ST dwarves to see what would happen.

Here is a pretty decent deck I made that can get to rank 8 with little difficulty, after that it relies on opposing NG and Swim Dwarves to make mistakes. For those foolish enough to play anything else it's a little tricky but it gets through.

http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/19148-y...orm-ravana-729

Any other ST option relies heavily on neutral cards so much...elves are pointless (see http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/18568-spelltael-control-stream-live)

The problem with this deck is that there is no one "really good" elf that can make this deck competitive. Yaevinn is very powerful but with Milva nerfed to hell I don't need her in my deck creating liabilities. She was one of the most balanced ST power cards. There are no reasons to put any dwarves in this deck so Saes is also very underwhelming except in the first round when the opponent has almost always already passed.

(Milva used to work on one's OWN units even after the opponent had passed, now she just fizzles - so now she's just a first round roach bouncer, and a liability in most other cases as Scorch is a better card for removing fat units)

I feel like dragoons are just ridiculously underwhelming, but there are few other options. The entire ST faction is slanted towards this stupid uninteresting move/discard deck no one wants to use except in casual. I mean it seems like every ST card is just pigeonholed into dwarves and very crummy Elf mechanics.

It's really bad game design to say the least and I'm not very enthusiastic about the future. I thought the public beta would be a lot more balanced, and I am just dreading the launch as I think it's going to be more problems. I guess I just can't see a reason for nerfing ST elves this hard except that it is a illogical kneejerk reaction to their performance in closed beta, failing to understand why ST was so OP. Basically they just nerfed everything that made ST work and buffed Dwarves into the Meta endgame which tells me CDPR has no idea what they are doing.

All ST needed was certain buffs in certain areas, because ST had too many good options. But they not only nerfed things they completely altered the mechanics on key ST cards like Aglais, Isengrim and Milva. So ST is just a big confusing mess with beefy dwarves now. There isn't a single ST deck from the closed beta which is buildable. That's complete overkill. The Isengrim small army swarm was a completely viable mechanic and made sense with the character. If they had debuffed the Commando Neophytes to 2 that would have worked.

Another fix would be to make Yaevinn act like the Elven Mercenary (draw him back with an ambush) he's already indispensable to any ST deck so why not give him the job of making elves viable. It won't make them competitive versus NG or Dwarves at the moment but at least it would give us elf lovers a reason to play Gwent.

Would love to see any other viable Elf decks people have discovered. Just not a lot of options here I feel but I have been wrong before.
 
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I like the idea behind what they where trying to do, but mulligan decks are just too weak atm both in card str and no supportive silver\gold.
Same could be said about anything non-Special archtype or dwarf archtype. They got 2 high tier decks sure, but contrasting this is several "meh" units and a few that is utter garbage.

None of the decks i run are viable in ranked :p so i feel there's no point posting them? ^_^

as a sidenote i quite like the idea of planting spies in the opponents ranks, then pull them back with ambush cards :p (putting quen on mercenaries, play them, then pull them back is a always fun if a crap tactic.)

Thanks for the deck btw, i might give it a try. hmm......maybe i will show off the decks i currently run. It's just that i keep experimenting >.<

Edit: My thought about scoia'tael is that i feel like they got potential, potential for alot of fun. But they seem half finished, half baked and half their units under tuned. Like "lets get dwarfs and special'tael out and finish the rest later" thats what they thought :3
 
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ST elves Mulligan and Movement both seem unfinished. They can get a pretty good burst in round or two (assuming movement BMC don't get destroyed by fog, lacerate or epidemic right away), but can't win the game in the third round without everything going exactly right or you have Ithlene in hand with spores in the deck and you can reset your opponent, which rules out Tibor or any other golds. There just isn't that 'finisher' card in either archetype.
 
I can barely manage a 50% win rate with my Mulligan/Move hybrid deck in casual, it is lacking in raw power other than a quick boost from summon cards. The bronze options in ST outside of dwarves are truly slim pickings, the good cards got nerfed and ambush is obsolete in its current state. ST needs some buffs or a bunch of new cards to flesh out some archetypes, ST has the lowest card count of all the factions currently.
 
I'm pretty much destroying around rank 10 in casual with my mulligan/Ciri Dash deck. Usually the burst of Francesca - Saskia - Roach - Wardancer does wonders in round 1. BMC for deck thinning. Johnny and Sarah (if only she counted as a mulligan) for making sure you get Ciri Dash or put it back in the deck and getting a decent opponent's gold (pulling RNR from Johnny is so much fun). Then keep Royal Decree to pull the final Ciri Dash and Vanguards for round 3. It seems to do pretty well, although opponents seem to spend more time reading Johnny's abilities than countering it.

Having said that, they do need more in-built gold/silver support. I'd like to see Isengrim and Eleyas fit in to the archetype - Isengrim can have his old ability but it activates when a card is mulliganed (he'd need to be on the board so hopefully it wouldn't be too op). Eleyas could read something like "Deploy: deal 3 damage for each time this card was mulliganed." Just off the top of my head.

It definitely feels unfinished. If for no other reason that Blue Mountain Commandos. With that card's new ability, it should definitely have 3 artworks (like other cards). The ability doesn't work either - there is no other support for moving cards, except for dwarves, but these guys aren't dwarves. Makes no sense to me.
 
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BMC with Skaggs and Zoltan are great for a quick tempo in round 1, then everything stalls until inevitable loss in round 3 due to lack of power or finishing card.

BMC problem is staying in the board longer than 1 turn. They scream lacerate, fog or epidemic and even with Quen from Ida then epidemic is even worse because all 4 cards are the same strength afterwards.

Using the elf Vrihedd Brigade to move units is alright, but they are underpowered and since they clear weather from a row it doesn't make much sense to use them to pull units out of weather.

More cards are definitely needed for both Movement and Mulligan.
 
SkippyHole Would love to see that decklist.

BMC: Problem with those is that they are easily countered. Epidemic, most pinging units, lacerate, venom, weather, actually most specials and "ping" cards outright counter them. Even if you put quen on them you got epidemic and scorch. Great concept, but can be very vulnerable or too strong.

As mentioned, problem with mulligan and movement archtype (potentially a hidden archtype in ambush\traps) is that most ST cards seems underwhelming or unfinished. Sure they got dwarfs and special ST decks which both are high tier. Even NR seem more "finished" than ST (they're just undertuned atm exept reaver archtype). Monster and skellige seem mostly done too.

Movement: have 2x silver and 2x gold supporting it, but it's generally just.....weak. Mostly due to BMC being vulnerable and the lack of other decent movement cards. It also lacks cards that manipulate enemy movement to take advantage of Iorveth (it has zoltan and malena? add in aard).

Mulligan: this deck needs work. Some cards are just very weak. Lacks silver and gold cards fitting the archtype. However CDPR stated they undertuned, half-baked mulligan on purpose to see how it worked out before they bring it up on par with other decks.

That hidden archtype: I feel there is one. With ambush cards, DB Trapper, DB archer, isengrim and so on. But again, unfinished. Not to mention sappers is the worst bronze in the game probably.

That being said. The main problem with scoia'tael is it's half finished. Several cards needs tuning. Their silvers and gold doesn't seem to really fit in any specific archtype (with a few exeptions, they do have a few very good ones and they currently carry the faction). It feels like CDPR did this on purpose to avoid the ambush meta of closed beta. But we'll see :)

God i ranted again T_T

edit: just checked card pool of each faction, currently NG and ST has the lowest count of bronze units (40 each). ST together with NR and skellige has the lowest amount of silvers (28). As for gold, only NG got 22 golds, rest has 18. That makes ST the faction with the fewest cards :3
 
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zhiphius;n8748980 said:
Mulligan: this deck needs work. Some cards are just very weak. Lacks silver and gold cards fitting the archtype. However CDPR stated they undertuned, half-baked mulligan on purpose to see how it worked out before they bring it up on par with other decks.

This. I'm having trouble finding fitting silver/golds for the achetype. Currently running with Ida (for versatility), the three witchers (very useful for mulligan), Roach, and Summoning circle (for fun and giggles, but seriously, is a wild card and usually no one expects the spanish inquisition...). And golds, Saskia, Zoltan: animal tamer, Yen the conjuror, and Triss. So, just one faction related gold and one faction related silver...
 
zhiphius;n8748980 said:
SkippyHole Would love to see that decklist.
1xCiri: Dash
1xCiri
1xSaskia
1xRoyal Decree

1xRoach
1xJohnny
1xSarah
1xScorch
1xDecoy
1xAlzurs Double Cross

3xBlue Mountain Commando
3xVrihedd Vanguard
3xElven Wardancer
1xCommando Neophyte
3xVrihedd Officer
2xFirst Light

That's what I'm running at the minute. I'd probably add in Ida and/or Aelirenn if I had them. I also think 3 Officers are too much, but I'm not really sure what to add - maybe another First Light.


With BMC, its absolutely useless for staying on the board, yeah, but it makes for a great removal bait. I've had them scorched, and I just don't get why. If they had one or two more strength they might be more viable.
 
I also feel like ST should benefit from an upgrade, it's pretty underwhelming to say the least, as soon as you reach past rank 10, you'll get bombarded with weather cards, and I don't meant just weather cards, cards that usually have a 'body' and a special effect stuck to it. I do know that Ida also have the same thing, but it's just one card, option are so limited to make a deck of this faction work.

I do remember in the closed beta the power of the elves ambush, but that got nerfed to the ground.

That aside high praise for the dwarves, so far I've been having fun with it, it's competitive like a said to a certain degree. It wont get you very far though.That been said, dwarves deck, specially movement dwarves in my opinion needs as many dwarves as possible in order to work more efficiently. They are pretty susceptible to Rot Tossers, to pretty much anything that Monsters faction can throw at you, and movement wont take you that very far. Only ones that present a decent challenge are the ST faction itself or Skellige.

Why not make Ciaran lock two units as well? Similar to the guy from NG. Make it balanced, or at least some cards that allow you to interact with your graveyard, Skellige does it, NG as well, even Monsters with Caretaker. NR does it somewhat with Nenneke + Hunters + Shani.

Make ST great again.

 
I hope they change Ciaran to be on par with other lock cards as currently it is unable to lock gold cards, which is rather sad.
 
sbxsat;n8803890 said:
I hope they change Ciaran to be on par with other lock cards as currently it is unable to lock gold cards, which is rather sad.

None of the silver lock cards can lock gold cards. Only Dim. Shackles can.
 
Trantyn;n8812400 said:
/sigh

No help for Movement or Mulligan to close out a match.

Yea, kinda dissapointing. Atleast we got more options moving enemy units which helps iorveth and weather.
 
I really do not understand what CDPR is thinking. Elves were already nerfed into oblivion with the previous patch, yet they decide to nerf them again.....
 
Trantyn;n8812400 said:
/sigh

No help for Movement or Mulligan to close out a match.

Yeah, this. I run a full mulligan deck, a yesterday for the first time I found another player with a mulligan deck (a bit different, but mulligan all the same); no gold/silver sinergies is a bad thing...
 
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