The reason why NG is so popular

+
Have you already played against the new (double) Keltullis deck? Not going to write a whole book about this now, but stuff like this is the reason why control factions like NG are always that popular. This match-up is pretty simple, you either have multiple answers for defender, Keltullis and also Ciri or you're absolutely doomed, unless you play almost no units yourself. And no one wants to lose against cheap shenanigans like this, so control is the way to go for a lot of the players, including me. The whole situation is, needless to say, very unhealthy for the game, frustrating af and furthermore completely unnecessary. Please CDPR, stop creating engines like Keltullis, Foltest or Cahir. Engine cards definitely have their place in the game, but not in this binary state.
 
This is exactly what I said even during card reveals. That some of the cards introduced in the last patch will make the game even more focused on control factions and archetypes. SY being nerfed is no longer omnipresent and now you have NG being even worse.
 
No thats not it.

The reason NG is popular is because it has way too much way too strong control so you dont have to make any intelligent decisions.

The game already has a major control tool that is always available for every faction regardless of deck. Its called passing.

Then you got Heatwave, Movement, Geralts and a reasonable number of faction specific removal. More than enough to target priority threats in decks like the one you mentioned (KT defender even with rezz). There is something to be said about certain power crept bronze engines being too strong and therefore high value removal despite being spammable cards but considering stuff like Mage assassin exists NG players certainly shouldnt be allowed to complain about power crept bronzes.

Anyway tl;dr the reason people play NG is because they can turn off their brain and never have to make smart decisions about what targets to remove because their tools are abundant and consistently strong.
 
No thats not it.

The reason NG is popular is because it has way too much way too strong control so you dont have to make any intelligent decisions.

The game already has a major control tool that is always available for every faction regardless of deck. Its called passing.

Then you got Heatwave, Movement, Geralts and a reasonable number of faction specific removal. More than enough to target priority threats in decks like the one you mentioned (KT defender even with rezz). There is something to be said about certain power crept bronze engines being too strong and therefore high value removal despite being spammable cards but considering stuff like Mage assassin exists NG players certainly shouldnt be allowed to complain about power crept bronzes.

Anyway tl;dr the reason people play NG is because they can turn off their brain and never have to make smart decisions about what targets to remove because their tools are abundant and consistently strong.
This comment is an insult for every player who actually plays NG, saying they're lazy and only want to turn their brains off. But I knew something like this would eventually come up here, so whatever :D
 

UMA22

Forum regular
the reason is, that it too easy cahir, yennefer's invocation... many destroing card without almost any condition, i have a NG [. . .] this deck have absolutly no strategy it only based on cheated NG cards.
NG players don't need to have a strategy, but somehow they are the longest one to make their décision
and my favorite time is when they have to play against my scoia'tel trap deck, almost all the NG player rage quit against it
 
Last edited by a moderator:
the reason is, that it too easy cahir, yennefer's invocation... many destroing card without almost any condition, i have a NG [. . .] this deck have absolutly no strategy it only based on cheated NG cards.
NG players don't need to have a strategy, but somehow they are the longest one to make their décision
and my favorite time is when they have to play against my scoia'tel trap deck, almost all the NG player rage quit against it
I don't know from where you guys get the assessment that playing NG is for brainless players as it requires no strategy. I am not an NG player, but I did play this faction whenever it was playable (i.e. had a strong deck to compete with). While it is not so difficult to pilot as an SY deck (because of the coin economy), NG is not your average run in the park either. Currently, NG's best archetype is Assimilate, and Assimilate has been rather difficult to pilot since it was introduced. On a short round, it is slow to develop. On a long round, it is devastating.

Secondly, while NG benefits from a lot of control and removal cards, knowing how and when to play them is more important. And of course NG doesn't do well against no-unit decks. Control/removal strategies require interaction with your opponent's cards. Interaction that is rendered obsolete if your opponent is a no-unit player. SK Warriors was bad against it. Lined Pockets ST was also bad against it. Engine and point-slam decks fair better against no-unit decks.
Post automatically merged:

Hi, all. I have been playing Gwent for a very long time, and I want to share my personal ideas on the game since the reveal of the last expansion price of power has brought a lot enjoyments to us players but also frustrations and angers. The reason I dont like harvest of sorrow cards is too many cards are associated with Graveyard plays, which makes everyone adding Xavier Lemmens into the deck that breaks some devotion decks.
First thing is my idea on improving the game, to make it more balanced.
SK: 1. Cut down Havfrue base power from 6 to 5 or 4, make it able to be removed at least.
2. Put Fulmar, Fucusya and Rioghan all into the catagery of Devotions. The reason SK raining is so strong right now is because all these cards can be accessed by playing Oneiromancy, there are no skills required on playing those decks, just play rains, rains, rains and then nuke. If a player using discard system to obtain golds in a match, it's obviously much solid and fun.
3. cut down Rage of sea leader given provision to 14. 1 p higher is not allowed.
4. one another thing I found ridiculous is the raining engines are too many plus leader ability. possibly just get rid of the rain order ability on Havfrue, remake it and get rid of the Fucusya rain effect as well.
ST: 1. Seriously, very seriously, increase provision of the Sorceress of Dol Balathanna from 5 to 6, I am not joking CDPR. Just think about it you will figure it out.
NR: Get rid of the Meditating mage resilience, I mean it's a very interesting idea, but thank you CDPR, just get rid of it.
MO: Very simple, increase witches' Sabbath provision to 12.
NG: Change practitioner to an Epic card.
SY: Remake The useless (Brute) If all above cards can be fixed, problem solved, game will be much more balanced.

Below is my another thinking of the entire game.
Before this, I need to emphasis one thing which I dont think some players or especially the designer of this game have ever realized.
Fundamentally, the provision cost and the base power of one certain card should be equal, that's where a designer starts making a card, for example, start from the expansion, Master of Mirror, both Jacques and Usurper at stage two or three, can have 12 points after played from hand, ignore other stuffs like paying fees to boost self or playing agent to boost self. So, what I mean is 12 provision for 12 points, fair enough. Before this, look at very old cards like Falibor, 11 provision for from 10 to 13 points if set up accurately, also fair enough and interesting, and Old Speartip, also 12p for 12 points. After this, However, look at the newest cards from price of power expansion, Gerhalt, under any circumstance, it can have 11 provision for 13 points (7 base power + 6 points pact on himself), that's "changed", you feel me? I call this over-modeled. Because 13 points is a secure number to get from this card, which is bigger than its provision, that's getting bit over-modeled. After this, look at Fucusya, how many points she can have? 5 + (lets say it play a 4 provision Havfrue from grave)+ 6 + 6 rounds of rains * 2 damage per round = 23 points, thats ridiculously over-molded. At this point, I'm not saying over-molded card is ridiculous, 11p Wild Boar of the sea can be very over-modeled, but man it requires a great situation like enemy board is swarmed and damaged to play, which means that requires skills to set up Wild Boar of the sea, but man playing Fucusya doesnt need those considerations, just play and get so many points, that's unfair and ridiculous!!! From this point, the future of Gwent is hanging on a thread because later CDPR will just release more new cards that are over-modeled like that and few more expansions later, maybe a 4 provision card can have 12 points, because Blightmaker is 6p (changed) and can have 11 points already, shake my head. if you talking about Seltkirk and prince Anseis also being over-modeled, they are not mate, they play great points with dueling because they use leader ability. Bloody Baron and Morkvarg: heart of terror can sometimes have great points after tall resting and tall removal, but they are also not over-modeled, because it requires timing and skills and patience to play them cards. Hopefully you get what I mean here, cards like Fucusya and Gerhart is just not decent. And there are more examples of card like Fucusya, just ridiculously designed because they want more money to spend on these expansions.
I see you've put a lot of effort into this. When the reveals were being made I made an assessment that cards which banish graveyard units and specials will become staples in the meta. Xavier and Squirrels are seeing more plays than ever precisely because of this. While in the past they were used to counter echo cards last months Orbs of Insight, now they are auto-includes because of the ridiculous Double Kelly decks and SK Rain with Rioghan.

As for your suggestions:

1. Cutting down her power to be in removal range means cutting down the self-damage as well. If you make her 5 power, her damage needs to drop to 3. If you make her 4 power, he damage needs to drop to 2. Otherwise she removes herself from the board. Little Havfrue is essentially the bonded version of MO Gan Caenn.

2. With Fucusya and Rioghan I agree, they should be restricted to Devotion decks. Not with Fulmar because his most concerning thing is his order, which can only be played next turn, thus giving you time for removal/control. The other 2 have deploy effects.

3. Fair enough with the leader, although the leader was never the problem to begin with. It was the introduction of these new cards that made the leader actually playable after a very long time. Punishing the leader because Fucusya, Rioghan and other cards are busted is a bit too much.

4. I think making Little Havfrue in removal range with lowered self-damage is enough. Another rework would be to not make her the SK bonded version of Gan Caenn. Change it to something like bonded: cancel self-damage when using the order ability. Fucusya's rain effect should remain. Rain effect is not an issue. It becomes an issue when Rioghan comes into play. A bigger problem is Messenger of the Sea. She should only boost herself based on row effect. For example, if Messenger is played on the Melee row, she should only boost herself if Rain is on the opposite Melee row. At the moment Messenger boosts herself with no row limitation.

5. Sorceress of Dol Blathanna is ok at 5p. This card most of the time is removed/controlled anyway and she rarely plays for more than 10 points. She is nowhere near as powerful as Messenger of the Sea for example and weaker than Blightmaker which plays for a reliable 11 + thinning.

6. Meditating Mages are a meme. I originally believed their resilience was OP, but as many other people said, this strategy loses every single time against control. And this strategy incentivizes control. One single card is enough to crumble the entire strategy: Siegfried.

7. I think this is not enough. There should be other restrictions for this kind of card, more specifically what it can actually pull from the graveyard.

8. I would argue that an ability such as the one as Practitioner has should not exist in the game in the first place. The amount of abuse this card can do in conjunction with the new Vilg is just disgusting. If the devs are hellbent on keeping it though, this card should not be an Assimilate engine.

9. Totally agree on this one. For a 13p card, The Brute is just underwhelming. The Brute is like combining an inferior Sigi with an inferior Graden.
 
Last edited:
Hmm, why does everyone play control I wonder? Maybe because this regularly happens if you don't draw all your answers round one? Basically what happened was that Archgriffin got buffed like stupid, round two an Erland with 200+ points came down who I barely outpointed with the help of Remedy into one of these crazy Adepts and Lydia into the special card that resets a unit's Order. Well guess what, Mr. Opponent of course draws both Alumni with leader ability who both come down for a healthy 50 points each round three. I'm definitely taking a break from this game and the Forums now, especially because there seems to be an abundance of users around that don't find stuff like this "problematic" and instead say control is "brainless" and only for "lazy players". And I really don't want to waste my time with this anymore.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20211013_131121_com.cdprojektred.gwent.jpg
    Screenshot_20211013_131121_com.cdprojektred.gwent.jpg
    1.5 MB · Views: 140
So long as greedy cards such as Archgriffin exist in the game, this will incentivize control more and more. Sure, one can say Archgriffin is a meme and in a way he is, but still, such effects are not healthy for any game.
 
Have you already played against the new (double) Keltullis deck? Not going to write a whole book about this now, but stuff like this is the reason why control factions like NG are always that popular. This match-up is pretty simple, you either have multiple answers for defender, Keltullis and also Ciri or you're absolutely doomed, unless you play almost no units yourself. And no one wants to lose against cheap shenanigans like this, so control is the way to go for a lot of the players, including me. The whole situation is, needless to say, very unhealthy for the game, frustrating af and furthermore completely unnecessary. Please CDPR, stop creating engines like Keltullis, Foltest or Cahir. Engine cards definitely have their place in the game, but not in this binary state.
Keltullis was present in the game for a long time he just wasn't played a lot, the card itself is ok if it playeble one round, the probleme is the association with the defender card and the witche sabbat, that make it really toxic.
Keltullis must require ability like dévotion so like that the players will be able to play only the monster no unit cards
Foltest is a little toxic sure but not realy it not easy to play it and it require to have a copy card in the game and pavetta ....
many conditions that make the deck really complicated to play,
You alway need to have the right card in the right time
Cahir is just horrible, it counter all the boost decks.
What do you think about the skellige strom and rain deck ? It maybe the third more toxic deck after Keltullis and madoc, you realise how cheated some decks are when you play it that why i said NG decks are so easy the whole faction is a probleme, the wild hunt deck to is too easy to play that deck is really for brainless players, the scoia'tel elfes and trap deck require i little more strategy but it is also too easy to play .
 
No matter what the power of NG currently is or was, it is or was always top played faction.

Because it's kinda the only unique faction!

I know you're still playing the same cards over and over and over again. But even so, each game is kinda unique, because NG has so many different tools: steal, mill, all kinds of shenanigans, playing your cards, Coup'ing different cards, now Terranova'ing different cards etc, new Vilg opens many DIFFERENT crazy things.

While other factions just boring boost/damage, sure same cards too, but same games!

And if NG has big winrate, then it becomes more toxic, meta becomes most boring.

So the problem is not NG, but all other boring factions and extremely repetitive gameplay because of bad balancing and tons of dead cards.
 
I find i come up against NG in regular mode about the same as most other factions. It's extremely popular in seasonal modes though, I think because most of those really favor boost/assimilate decks
 
Probably because it takes zero creativity and skill to use. It's by far the easiest deck to use and it seems like people are more about cheap wins then coming up with their own ideas. I used that deck when I started playing the newer version (the original version of this game is by far better) but it became unfun and unfair in my opinion. I won't ever play with that deck or against it ever again. those of you still playing with it... fun. But, let's not fool ourselves a win using NG means nothing it's the cheat code faction so good for you that you know how to consistently press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. SWEET.
Post automatically merged:

can someone explain to me why and how in Double Down mode any NG card with a disloyal option is allowed to pull cards from your deck? It's just another example of how stupid this game play is and that faction has become. How do you figure that Joachim De Wett can be played and then pull a high card from my deck and play it has their own. This makes no sense. The rule of that event is - Whenever you play a unit from your hand, play a unit with the same Provision Cost from YOUR deck. These rules are broken the game play is sh_t. An emissary can boost one of their players 7 points but also steal a 4-provision card from my deck. No. If playing any disloyal card should pull from the other persons deck then that card should be given to that player, as you're putting that card on the same side of the board. This game is so stupid.
Post automatically merged:

can someone explain to me why and how in Double Down mode any NG card with a disloyal option is allowed to pull cards from your deck? It's just another example of how stupid this game play is and that faction has become. How do you figure that Joachim De Wett can be played and then pull a high card from my deck and play it has their own? This makes no sense. The rule of that event is - Whenever you play a unit from your hand, play a unit with the same Provision Cost from YOUR deck. These rules are broken the game play is sh_t. An emissary can boost one of their players 7 points but also steal a 4-provision card from my deck. No. If playing any disloyal card should pull from the other persons deck then that card should be given to that player, as you're putting that card on the same side of the board. This game is so stupid.
 
Last edited:
Translation - It's easy to use
The most popular NG deck is an Assimilate one, which has always been an archetype rather hard to pilot. Before PoP, Assimilate was pretty much in shambles to be honest. In a short round it was abysmal, while in the long round it was fine. The new cards made this archetype very strong in a long round and quite good in a short round too.
 
Top Bottom