The Problem with Nilfgaard

[judgecsk]

Hmmm...
I see this is still going strong, interesting...

- One has to pose a question,
why there are so many people hating on the NG faction with such passion if it is indeed balanced.
Sorry but this whole thing cannot be just an unfair conspiracy.

- While i don't want em removed or nerfed to the ground, like i've mentioned before in other posts of mine something needs to change.
Imo NG is the most annoying faction to play against cause they have unrivaled control over the battlefield.
One has to build specific types of decks to answer the NG threat and that greatly limits the variety of decks and play styles of the game.
I get it it's their whole theme as a faction so I won't go as far as to say "nerf em to hell" just because they do exactly what they were designed to do.

- What needs to be changed is their ability to play the Ball, 2 and even 3 times in one match and being able to trigger it in one turn.
Other than that, something needs to be done with row space since it has been greatly limited and they can fill it up with their spies.

- I play NG aswell (non devotion assimilation) and find it real fun and trolly to b!tchslap the poor unlucky oponents with their own stuff, feels almost unfair but what can you say, "it's a feature" !

 

[ShinAkira00]

My thoughts exactly.

LOL....they don't add a 5pt body to the field and Geralt has a condition. What are you both even talking about

 

[Celadyl]

LOL....they don't add a 5pt body to the field and Geralt has a condition. What are you both even talking about

I was correcting your false statement. the 5 point body wasnt even in the discussion so what are you talking about?

 

[ya1]

- One has to pose a question, why there are so many people hating on the NG faction with such passion if it is indeed balanced. Sorry but this whole thing cannot be just an unfair conspiracy.

Because:

1) NG rants are often produced by people at lower ranks, whose understanding of Gwent is quite limited and based on their own singular experiences rather then a more general outlook and educated opinions of better players. Also, the ability to play around certain aspects of control requires more skill and focus then matches between greed decks. Before that skill is acquired, NG has the potential to truly wreak havoc. (SIDENOTE: Among top pro rank players, I hear, NG is almost universally considered to be the worst faction now. But it is also said that meta is pretty well balanced now and worst doesn't necessarily mean bad.)

2) This attitude is reinforced within the circles where it prevails, like Reddit. You could say it's contagious.

3) Control play style has always been ranted on in almost every CCG. Like blue in Magic. It's psychological. Even children prefer to lose to a bigger tower in a tower building contest then have their own towers knocked over by a bully.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

Control play style has always been ranted on in almost every CCG. Like blue in Magic. It's psychological. Even children prefer to lose to a bigger tower in a tower building contest then have their towers demolished by a bully.

You and others keep mentioning this, but I think you're using the wrong game to make your point. Historically, Blue has received some of the most broken cards in the game, so it wasn't solely popular/hated because of the control aspect; if you wanted to win games, you had to play Blue. I mean, look at Power Nine if you want evidence. Out of the 9 best, most expensive cards in the game, you have 6 colorless artifacts and 3 Blue cards; not 1 of them is Black, Green, Red, or White.

 

[Aris_Tarkus]

LOL....they don't add a 5pt body to the field and Geralt has a condition. What are you both even talking about

Nobody was saying anything about a 5 pt body because that isn't the issue. T

 

[judgecsk]

Because:

1) NG rants are often produced by people at lower ranks, whose understanding of Gwent is quite limited and based on their own singular experiences rather then a more general outlook and educated opinions of better players. Also, the ability to play around certain aspects of control requires more skill and focus then matches between greed decks. Before that skill is acquired, NG has the potential to truly wreak havoc. (SIDENOTE: Among top pro rank players, I hear, NG is almost universally considered to be the worst faction now. But it is also said that meta is pretty well balanced now and worst doesn't necessarily mean bad.)

2) This attitude is reinforced within the circles where it prevails, like Reddit. You could say it's contagious.

3) Control play style has always been ranted on in almost every CCG. Like blue in Magic. It's psychological. Even children prefer to lose to a bigger tower in a tower building contest then have their towers demolished by a bully.

I can't say that I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying but there's some truth in it for sure.
One thing I won't back down from is the bs Ball being played 2-3 times in a single match's duration.
Btw, I laughed hard with the tower example, good one !

Cheers.

 

[ShinAkira00]

Because:

1) NG rants are often produced by people at lower ranks, whose understanding of Gwent is quite limited and based on their own singular experiences rather then a more general outlook and educated opinions of better players. Also, the ability to play around certain aspects of control requires more skill and focus then matches between greed decks. Before that skill is acquired, NG has the potential to truly wreak havoc. (SIDENOTE: Among top pro rank players, I hear, NG is almost universally considered to be the worst faction now. But it is also said that meta is pretty well balanced now and worst doesn't necessarily mean bad.)

2) This attitude is reinforced within the circles where it prevails, like Reddit. You could say it's contagious.

3) Control play style has always been ranted on in almost every CCG. Like blue in Magic. It's psychological. Even children prefer to lose to a bigger tower in a tower building contest then have their own towers knocked over by a bully.

Pretty sure there are pro players (including myself) who disagree with you. Attempting to disregard the problem by saying it's only newbies is laughable. SK got the same treatment when it became broken with the last expansion so your essentially saying the complaints are only valid when its not NG.

SK's identity is in resurrecting cards...but obviously that can be overturned which is what happened with MM and had to be nerfed. NG's identity is control and that likewise can also be overturned.

 

[lor1keet]

Pretty sure there are pro players (including myself) who disagree with you. Attempting to disregard the problem by saying it's only newbies is laughable. SK got the same treatment when it became broken with the last expansion so your essentially saying the complaints are only valid when its not NG.

SK's identity is in resurrecting cards...but obviously that can be overturned which is what happened with MM and had to be nerfed. NG's identity is control and that likewise can also be overturned.

Unfortunately, it appears that your mind is made up, no matter how much data to refute your conclusions is presented to you.

NG has the highest loss percentage in pro-league. Period.

If NG won 1 game out of 10, you would probably say that was 1 game too much.

 

[Aris_Tarkus]

Don't know about Pro Ranks, but I can state from my own experience that I face NG 34% of the time across both Ranked ands Seasonal matches.

 

[GrénnesMann]

But with Lockdown, we have an ability (and one available to only one faction) that can remove a deck’s core essence. In my view, Lockdown is almost anti-strategic because it is most effective angainst the decks that are most consistent with the character of Gwent design.

Also, the advantages that an NG Lockdown player have are that:

1. They have built their deck around the absence of a leader - their opponents have not.
2. They can almost* certainly be sure that all of their opponent's leader abilities will be disabled, and thus not affect their strategy.

* almost, because there is the chance that a Lockdown player comes up against a player who can re-enable their leader ability.... And there is only one faction who has that chance: NG! (with Damien).

If Lockdown was as awesome as you seem to think, then its win-ratio at the pro-ranking level would be above 50%.

In the context of this discussion, who cares about what is or isn't happening at pro-rank levels? Only pro-rank players.

The rest of us (surely a very large majority of players) are not playing at pro-rank. The high volume of complaints about the most oppressive aspects of NG faction cannot be convincingly argued against by referencing stats and observations that only relate to the meta trends or preferences of a minority of very high ranking players.

If Lockdown is not used by many NG players, my guess is that some of the main reasons for that are because it's boring to play a faction without a leader ability, and it stifles new deck ideas too much.

Three. At max. Vincent = 1, Yennefer =1, Ball = 1. Dames do not remove anything, nor does a single Fangs.
Even double Ball only makes the total 4.

7 removals requires a LOT more than those three cards (plus the ones used to proc Ball). Vast over-exaggeration.

Not sure what Sheet1221 meant by "instant removal of 7 cards" as it doesn't make sense with regard to the quantity of units that can be instantly removed by NG cards. Maybe he meant "instant removal of 7+ power cards"?

Anyway, by my reckoning, NG has four cards that instantly remove any opponent's unit of any power: Vincent, Yennefer, Ball (with Roderick) and Vilgefortz - and that's at least four times times more than any other faction's quota of "remove any unit of any power" cards:[/I]

• MO - 1 card: Imlerith's Wrath - requires Imlerith to be already in play (which if counted technically means NG has 5 x instant removals of any size unit because NG also has Vanhemar, which is easier to set up than Imlerith's Wrath).
• NR - none
• ST - none
• SK - 1 card: Champion's Charge - requires 3 damaged enemy units
• SY - 1 card: Moreelse - requires 6 coins

Pretty sure there are pro players (including myself) who disagree with you. Attempting to disregard the problem by saying it's only newbies is laughable. SK got the same treatment when it became broken with the last expansion so your essentially saying the complaints are only valid when its not NG.

SK's identity is in resurrecting cards...but obviously that can be overturned which is what happened with MM and had to be nerfed. NG's identity is control and that likewise can also be overturned.

Even as a Skellige fan, I was glad to see CDPR quickly step in with two patches in relatively quick succession to try and address the runaway excessive dominance SK gained with the MM expansion.

What really annoyed me was that the reasoning given by CDPR in the most recent patch for trying to balance the "controversial" SK faction was that it was "still too oppressive after recent changes".

They were right, of course, but what's conspicuous about this is how CDPR reacted so rapidly to complaints about SK's sudden rise in dominance (and also MO Ethereal) and quickly released two patches to try and fix that.... But for many months before that, the devs seemed totally oblivious to the number of players repeatedly complaining agout how oppressive and irritating it is to play against NG poison spam, double/triple ball and all the other NG control shenanigans!

 

[ShinAkira00]

Also, the advantages that an NG Lockdown player have are that:

1. They have built their deck around the absence of a leader - their opponents have not.
2. They can almost* certainly be sure that all of their opponent's leader abilities will be disabled, and thus not affect their strategy.

* almost, because there is the chance that a Lockdown player comes up against a player who can re-enable their leader ability.... And there is only one faction who has that chance: NG! (with Damien).


In the context of this discussion, who cares about what is or isn't happening at pro-rank levels? Only pro-rank players.

The rest of us (surely a very large majority of players) are not playing at pro-rank. The high volume of complaints about the most oppressive aspects of NG faction cannot be convincingly argued against by referencing stats and observations that only relate to the meta trends or preferences of a minority of very high ranking players.

If Lockdown is not used by many NG players, my guess is that some of the main reasons for that are because it's boring to play a faction without a leader ability, and it stifles new deck ideas too much.


Not sure what Sheet1221 meant by "instant removal of 7 cards" as it doesn't make sense with regard to the quantity of units that can be instantly removed by NG cards. Maybe he meant "instant removal of 7+ power cards"?

Anyway, by my reckoning, NG has four cards that instantly remove any opponent's unit of any power: Vincent, Yennefer, Ball (with Roderick) and Vilgefortz - and that's at least four times times more than any other faction's quota of "remove any unit of any power" cards:[/I]

• MO - 1 card: Imlerith's Wrath - requires Imlerith to be already in play (which if counted technically means NG has 5 x instant removals of any size unit because NG also has Vanhemar, which is easier to set up than Imlerith's Wrath).
• NR - none
• ST - none
• SK - 1 card: Champion's Charge - requires 3 damaged enemy units
• SY - 1 card: Moreelse - requires 6 coins

Even as a Skellige fan, I was glad to see CDPR quickly step in with two patches in relatively quick succession to try and address the runaway excessive dominance SK gained with the MM expansion.

What really annoyed me was that the reasoning given by CDPR in the most recent patch for trying to balance the "controversial" SK faction was that it was "still too oppressive after recent changes".

They were right, of course, but what's conspicuous about this is how CDPR reacted so rapidly to complaints about SK's sudden rise in dominance (and also MO Ethereal) and quickly released two patches to try and fix that.... But for many months before that, the devs seemed totally oblivious to the number of players repeatedly complaining agout how oppressive and irritating it is to play against NG poison spam, double/triple ball and all the other NG control shenanigans!

Same with SY hidden cache and ST Mystic Echo though the last was in play for a while before its nerf. Nonetheless they recognized it was an issue and addressed it but for whatever reason NG is never touched. Listening to the developers post expansion I get the impression that it's quite intentional, I guess to keep the conversation going albeit toxic ones.

The argument made here is since the stats don't show NG completely dominating then its not OP despite the fact that it has consistently remained competitive with broken factions dominating since the start of the year. The play rates are the only reason the win rates aren't higher because you have newbies copying and pasting NG meta decks. What's more unless the devs don't care enough to do any testing before an expansion it's mind boggling that they have consistently overturned a faction for the past 2 expansions without fail and the end result is one broken faction dominating with NG sitting right behind them. Whatever the case its become boring and monotonous. I've already stopped playing and if it happens again next expansion there's no point in playing.

 

[Sheet1221]

Definitely top 3 this patch. Reddit-grade gold.

Three. At max. Vincent = 1, Yennefer =1, Ball = 1. Dames do not remove anything, nor does a single Fangs.
Even double Ball only makes the total 4.

7 removals requires a LOT more than those three cards (plus the ones used to proc Ball). Vast over-exaggeration.

Ball Fist spawn Aristocrat : = 0

Play fawns of empire , fawns of empire from scenario = 1;
play fawns of empire , fawns of empire from scenario = 1;

Vincen =1 ;
Yen = 1;

Marole = 1;

Cow carcas and and guy which poisons and purifies both = 1;

Bribery and other shadey tactics = 1;

This for round 1; Either you pass or go tall to keep with point tally. If you go tall you are screwed.

Ig you don't he shuffles and plays balll again , and number of removals you passed in first is now here. Without swarming there's hardly any way to get through.

And then there's always damien in the end.


Not that it cannot be beated but this is unjustified for other factions and play. Y0ur only option is go wide and swarm.

 

[Guest 4368268]

Lockdown is a terrible ability that shuts down decks that you generally can beat in much more conventional ways with much stronger decks. From the top of my head it hard-counters Hidden Cache (which gets destroyed by a tier 1 SK list anyway) Overwhelming Hunger (a gimmicky coinflip abuse deck that gets pretty much all it points from 3 specific plays) and lockdown can make Ursine Ritual feel very awkward but Ursine Ritual is only the 3rd go-to option for SK right now.

Yeah it's not exactly the most fun thing to go up against for sure but outside of Masquerade Ball lockdown lists really don't have any points. About 60% of lockdown lists consist of 4/5p bronzes and almost everything is reactive. Good luck on blue coin with such a set-up. Especially since lockdown decks have 1 decent round max. (whichever rounds they have their few legendaries in)

I'm very surprised to say the least that some are calling it 'too strong' here. That goes for the NG faction in general. As I and many have said before, often frustrating to play against? Sure. OP? Not even remotely close.

 

[quintivarium]

The real problem with Nilfgaard is that it has lots of unconvincing junk and then relies almost entirely of maybe a dozen cards which, if not blatantly overpowered, are unquestionably bad for the game as they either require specific investment in expensive counters beginners would not otherwise want, they significantly decrease variety in the game, or they eliminate any opportunity for real strategy.

After boycotting seven pathetically unreasonable cards (Masquerade Ball, Damien de la Tour, Vattier de Rideaux, Stefan Skellen, Yennifer’s Invocation, Cahir Dyffryn, Amnesty) — and I did not even include a number of marginal cards, although lots of people complain about these (Usurper, Vincent Van Moorlehem, Braathens, Coup de Grace, Letho Kingslayer, Vilgefortz, Bribery, Assire Var Anahid, Van Moorlehems Cupbearer, Cantarella, Hefty Helge), I have found it virtually impossible to find an NG deck that is even competitive in unranked play. I do have one possibly playable assimilate deck, but in the big scheme, it is pretty weak.

The real problem with NG (and the same is somewhat true of ST after the harmony nerf) is that it utterly lacks a solid core of bronze units upon which a solid deck can be built; so you almost have to resort to obnoxious, very swingy gold cards. I don’t blame players who hate to face it.

 

[Celadyl]

Ball Fist spawn Aristocrat : = 0

Play fawns of empire , fawns of empire from scenario = 1;
play fawns of empire , fawns of empire from scenario = 1;

Vincen =1 ;
Yen = 1;

Marole = 1;

Cow carcas and and guy which poisons and purifies both = 1;

Bribery and other shadey tactics = 1;

This for round 1; Either you pass or go tall to keep with point tally. If you go tall you are screwed.

Ig you don't he shuffles and plays balll again , and number of removals you passed in first is now here. Without swarming there's hardly any way to get through.

And then there's always damien in the end.


Not that it cannot be beated but this is unjustified for other factions and play. Y0ur only option is go wide and swarm.

that's not how it works. fangs of the empire do not trigger masquerade ball, since they are not aristocrats. vincent needs a (good) target with a status, possibly poison or spy to work. the rot tosser (cow carcas) can be played around by placing a weak unit between your good one and the cow. bribery cant be considered 1 removal, it's totally random what you get and it depends on the opponents deck. in competitive decks, damien de la tour isnt even in ball or double ball lists, since the leader isnt really important to the strategy and just gets dames/enforcers out of removal range.
if you get matched with ball lists often, try tech in heatwave

 

[Sensimilius]

Wth Sheet, Fangs of the Empire don't trigger Ball, you speak like a Nilfgaardian infiltrator sent to discredit this thread with such blatantly incorrect arguments and triple-posting.

 

[Celadyl]

Wth Sheet, Fangs of the Empire don't trigger Ball, you speak like a Nilfgaardian infiltrator sent to discredit this thread with such blatantly incorrect arguments and triple-posting.
I would also like to add that I never had problems with playing against a NG Lockdown deck, usually they're handicapped enough by their own leader to not be a threat. And my decks don't rely on my leader ability COMPLETELY.

seems the "NG is so OP" faction here has alot of experience. one thinks fangs trigger ball and NG can just remove the first 7 cards you play instantly, the other thinks heatwave or geralt of rivia cant be used on units with shields, only vincent can

 

[Sheet1221]

that's not how it works. fangs of the empire do not trigger masquerade ball, since they are not aristocrats. vincent needs a (good) target with a status, possibly poison or spy to work. the rot tosser (cow carcas) can be played around by placing a weak unit between your good one and the cow. bribery cant be considered 1 removal, it's totally random what you get and it depends on the opponents deck. in competitive decks, damien de la tour isnt even in ball or double ball lists, since the leader isnt really important to the strategy and just gets dames/enforcers out of removal range.
if you get matched with ball lists often, try tech in heatwave

Vincent can work with veil, shield or defender status.

Cow carcas once played along with spying and 2 units of poison can trigger the thirsty dame twice.

See this he clearly says in the beginning by the end of round there will be only 3-4 cards left on opponents side, if played nicely

 

[GrénnesMann]

that's not how it works. fangs of the empire do not trigger masquerade ball, since they are not aristocrats

Why have you attributed that quote to me? I never said that.

I said that Ball can remove a unit of any power by playing Roderick to trigger both Fangs in one turn.

vincent needs a (good) target with a status, possibly poison or spy to work.

Any card of any faction which damages/removes need a good target, so that's hardly a difficult or unique restriction for Vincent. The unique aspect of Vincent's ability to remove any card of any power is that it must have a status, which is pretty easily achieved by the target card already having status when played (e.g. all defender cards, resurrected cards with Doomed status, cards which play with a shield, etc.) or by the many options NG Vincent players have for giving lock, bleed, poison or spying status to enemy units.

The point is that the other factions have either just one card or zero cards which have the ability to remove a unit of any power. NG has several.