Toxic vs. wholesome decks

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There have probably always been complaints about certain decks and/or cards and how dreadful it is to play against them. But lately, it seems that there are more complaints than ever — and complaints about a much wider selection of decks. I have recently seen complaints about ST movement (with Saskia), ST no units (with Milva and traps), ST no units (with Milva and Madoc), ST spells, NR patience, NR resilience, NR Witchers, NR siege, SK Pirates, SK Druids, SK warriors, SK rain, SK just for being SK, NG clog, NG mill, NG hyperthin, NG assimilate, NG anything, MO Keltullis, MO weather, MO Vampires, MO Viy, SY freakshow, SY drill, SY King of Beggers, SY coin mechanism, ….

That leaves me with two questions: what makes a deck toxic or cheat? And what decks at the moment do you consider fair and wholesome?
 
Well, basically the meta shifts constantly. If people run into engine decks 80% of their games, they're gonna change to removal. If they're running into 80% removal...well, you can't do shit because removal beats everything, you can only hope they get bored and start playing engines again...or play ST Traps and leave them with nothing on the board to remove.
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There have probably always been complaints about certain decks and/or cards and how dreadful it is to play against them. But lately, it seems that there are more complaints than ever — and complaints about a much wider selection of decks. I have recently seen complaints about ST movement (with Saskia), ST no units (with Milva and traps), ST no units (with Milva and Madoc), ST spells, NR patience, NR resilience, NR Witchers, NR siege, SK Pirates, SK Druids, SK warriors, SK rain, SK just for being SK, NG clog, NG mill, NG hyperthin, NG assimilate, NG anything, MO Keltullis, MO weather, MO Vampires, MO Viy, SY freakshow, SY drill, SY King of Beggers, SY coin mechanism, ….

That leaves me with two questions: what makes a deck toxic or cheat? And what decks at the moment do you consider fair and wholesome?
Decks you would never play yourself because they're different to your playstile (hence they annoy you more than others ever could). Others would say a "cheap" tactic, meaning a gameplan that requires little thinking or skill but can still match your deck. Last but not least decks which don't let you do what you want because they interrupt your deck's strategy. I think there're many definitions, but annoyment is certainly involved in all of them.
 
For me, it's all about frequency and how often the deck is used. When I face Kolgrim/Mill/Milva/Mages/Pirates/Traps once or twice a day, then all is good. When I face them 5 times in a row (like today, for example - I played 5 consecutive games against Mill...) then it is frustrating and feels more like a chore than a pleasure.

what makes a deck toxic or cheat

Apart from the point made above, I would say that decks that allow you to push round 2 (and bleed your opponent from his best cards) and then have your main combo ready for round 3 can be called 'toxic'. The main suspect is obviously Kolgrim but there are other decks that allow it - most recently, King of Beggars, for example. You can play almost to the last card without consequences and then drop that 30-40 point combo which does not seem fair to me.

To make it a bit more clear - any deck can try to push in round 2 but there are certain decks that pay little price for it or even benefit from the bleed.

And what decks at the moment do you consider fair and wholesome?

A wholesome deck for me is something that uses cards that are typically not played, or played rarely. It does not have to be a completely new deck, just add something original/out of the way and I already feel different about the game. I also like when decks include RNG cards - Uma, Gascon, Aguara, Shupe, Radeyah, Cosimo, Walter, and all those runestones.

As to specific decks, yesterday I made a really nice Arachas Swarm deck with Shupe/Radeyah, tall/row punish, and a bunch of fun cards (Devana Runestone, Werewolf) and I've had quite a lot of fun so far. Arachas Swarm is not popular at the moment (1.01 play rate in Mahakam season) so it feels fresh and not oppressive.
 

ianann

Forum regular
A toxic deck is nearly every deck you need kind of a specific counter deck only to keep it under control. That's both boring and annoying.
A wholesome deck is the creative use of not only faction-soecific abilities but a nice synergy of both neutrals and factions.

As an example: I started to include this Bearification Card some month ago which converts a artifact to a bear and I don't have a clue why there's only one in a million player including it. I mean, you get a 10 Point for 6 and at the same time can stop opponents from playing those annoying scenarios or (not so annoying) locations.

Creative decks for me are just not too predictable what your opponent is exactly doing in the rounds.

90% of matches is: Ah yeah, this or that ability, I know what comes next which is like playing any Game for the hundreth time over and over again. Seems like most play just for the sake of up-ranking, while I just play for the sake of playing - with only homebrewn, pretty colourful decks i think. Sure, hard to beat Skellige-Graveyard-Insanity but still fun to see Netdeckers struggle with lower-predictablity matches and you in fact can get to Rank 1.
 
IMO all toxic decks always do one of the following:
1 - they prevent you from playing the game - unitless, mill, clog
2 - they make your actions/decisions pointless - tall thrive (it's not as bad as it used to be), any over-tuned deck
3 - they relly heavily on RNG - mill, clog, Alzur
4 - they are based around binary threats (if you don't have the right answer, you're screwed) - Kelli, Kolgrim, mill
5 - they abuse some of the core gameplay mechanics - Lippy, Witches' Sabbath
 
To me, toxic decks are memey-type decks that are either built around one card: Kelli, Alzur, Madoc, Viy, Archgriffin, formerly Drill, or around some cheesy-ass mechanic, such as Commando spam or Lippy. "Coins" are increasingly becoming one of these mechanics as well.

Or literally anything Nilfgaard does, because every NG archetype is toxic by deliberate design.

By contrast, most SK decks aren't "toxic" per se, they are just unfair because of the value they generate.

Examples of wholesome decks, to me, are most of the ST archetypes: dwarves, elves, Nature's gift, Harmony, movement, handbuff, because they are all based on actually playing your opponent and gradually building up board or payoff value.
 
To me the most toxic decks are the ones that puts a million threats on the board that demands you either play some hyper control deck to answer it all or some super greedy deck to outpoint it. Good example of this would be NR patience mages and basically ANY ST with that absolute garbage card Saskia.
 

ianann

Forum regular
There you go. As toxic as it gets. Those decks suck the whole gameplay off the game. This is super annoying. Oh, there was Saskia and Milva of course in the first round. Pfff.
 

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Came up against a deck today where over R1 & R2 they kept respswning look at deck and banish cards. In R3 after a couple more spawns my deck was empty. They then used big total cards with no penalties as no cards to pull to minus, and my respawning cards didnt work so game over.
Dont see point in game allowing deck removal as it means forfeit or just let cards blow up, same same.
 
Came up against a deck today where over R1 & R2 they kept respswning look at deck and banish cards. In R3 after a couple more spawns my deck was empty. They then used big total cards with no penalties as no cards to pull to minus, and my respawning cards didnt work so game over.
Dont see point in game allowing deck removal as it means forfeit or just let cards blow up, same same.
Welcome to Mill [...]. In order to win against that you have to 2-0. If you don't win R1, you're pretty much done. If you do, you have to 2-0, or you're done. They're having fun, though, I guess.
 
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Welcome to Mill [...]. In order to win against that you have to 2-0. If you don't win R1, you're pretty much done. If you do, you have to 2-0, or you're done. They're having fun, though, I guess.
I always try to win round 1 and, depending on my hand, either push or go for a long round 3. Also works pretty well because without playing into all three rounds you very often have enough cards in your deck remaining to draw.
 
I always try to win round 1 and, depending on my hand, either push or go for a long round 3. Also works pretty well because without playing into all three rounds you very often have enough cards in your deck remaining to draw.
Can't imagine how you have enough cards for R3. It never works for me, though I do tend to pack tutors and thinning into my decks.
 
Can't imagine how you have enough cards for R3. It never works for me, though I do tend to pack tutors and thinning into my decks.
Maybe I was lucky, for thinning I had something like Vivaldi Bank, Flying Redanian and Sewer Raiders. I'm pretty sure I prevented Redanian from coming out of the deck so he could take a bullet from one of the Kingslayers though. Discard SK and many ST decks with Simlas, Council or Call probably have to go all in for 2-0 no matter what.
 
What really kills it for me are the "I spy everything you throw on the board" decks. I mean, the opponent can literally play any unit you throw at him if you don't veil it asap. Same for vampires, if you don't have a very specific deck to prevent all the bleeding and stuff, you're fckd. Then there still is Spella'tael, toxic combinations with Madock and Milva, Skellige who play all their super-cards at least twice and in the end: Syndicate who can literally play any style due to crazy coins and in the end just throw a massive point slam in the last round. And the best thing is: You face those toxic netdecks pretty much constantly.
 
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There have probably always been complaints about certain decks and/or cards and how dreadful it is to play against them. But lately, it seems that there are more complaints than ever — and complaints about a much wider selection of decks. I have recently seen complaints about ST movement (with Saskia), ST no units (with Milva and traps), ST no units (with Milva and Madoc), ST spells, NR patience, NR resilience, NR Witchers, NR siege, SK Pirates, SK Druids, SK warriors, SK rain, SK just for being SK, NG clog, NG mill, NG hyperthin, NG assimilate, NG anything, MO Keltullis, MO weather, MO Vampires, MO Viy, SY freakshow, SY drill, SY King of Beggers, SY coin mechanism, ….

That leaves me with two questions: what makes a deck toxic or cheat? And what decks at the moment do you consider fair and wholesome?
Deck that are wholsome and really hard to play it the NG with the imperial golem it really complicated to keep only the imprial golem as a unit in the deck to play yennefer and triss

Deck that are toxic is the sabertooth eldain and traps, i still think sabertooth and eldain need a nerf, i think Eldain should not be able to be played as the last card, because play only traps and put eldain in the end to get about 20 point is not fair at all, also sabertooth should get his order use reactivated only if you play an unit
Special toxic think now is the jan calveit with kolgrim, there no more strategy building or smart play, all what need is to get you deck with full of tactic cards even if the deck containe 40 card it doesn't matter it even better, then play jan calveit his condition allow to have it in the first round, then second round just play defender kolgrim and letho and you will won 90% of the time
Siège deck Is a little to strong but not toxic, patiente is not toxic at all but if you are playing a deck with no contrôle card it will very complicated to won
 

UMA22

Forum regular
Any NG deck is toxic for me these days. I hate it!
The NG imprial golem is not toxic at all, it a good deck but one of the hardest to play, if the opponent make me draw two card or ban two it will be over for me if the card is the golem it over two
NG soldier deck is not toxic too and not very strong
Double Cross, enslavement, are toxic yes
Poison deck is useless if you kill all the vampire ladys and if you play damaging units instead of boost, it doesn't have any chance against my SK warriors deck or NR warfare deck
The strongest faction for me now are NG and NR with the new nerf of the siège master for NR, i can draw a card in one turn for 4 provision cost i just need to play a siege engine, to see comparaison ciri draw a card after 4 turn and she cost 10, so i think ciri will get nerfed two soon to make her stronger, there is also vengeance of raffar and johachkim, vernon roche etc NG and NR are full of those cards so they can play a largest part of their deck, so more chances to get their strongest card in the right moment
 
The NG imprial golem is not toxic at all, it a good deck but one of the hardest to play, if the opponent make me draw two card or ban two it will be over for me if the card is the golem it over two
NG soldier deck is not toxic too and not very strong
Double Cross, enslavement, are toxic yes
Poison deck is useless if you kill all the vampire ladys and if you play damaging units instead of boost, it doesn't have any chance against my SK warriors deck or NR warfare deck
The strongest faction for me now are NG and NR with the new nerf of the siège master for NR, i can draw a card in one turn for 4 provision cost i just need to play a siege engine, to see comparaison ciri draw a card after 4 turn and she cost 10, so i think ciri will get nerfed two soon to make her stronger, there is also vengeance of raffar and johachkim, vernon roche etc NG and NR are full of those cards so they can play a largest part of their deck, so more chances to get their strongest card in the right moment
phahaha, mate, where did you see anyone playing NG golem or soldiers lately? They all play that assimilate netdeck or exploit new Philip with poison.
 

UMA22

Forum regular
phahaha, mate, where did you see anyone playing NG golem or soldiers lately? They all play that assimilate netdeck or exploit new Philip with poison.
The golem ? I'm playing it lol, I'm combining it with banish deck and it really not bad at all
Sure i use more NR and SK those days
U have hard time with NG poison deck so i guess you are playing Monsters with witches sabbat no ?
You don't have a chance against it, it just the game some decks just don't have any chance against others one, u just need to be smart playing to make your deck have less weakness, if you are one of those who was playing the vampires with sabbat, defender and the unseen elder you just deserve what it happen
Play smart see what people are playing the most now ? Assimilation ? It hard to beat it sure but be smart play gold cards before bronze one so he can't make copy of them
NG poison deck ? Need a control deck
Some guys play without their brain, others just play NG, legends play SK and NR lol, just a little exemple see this seasonal event this week ? Each turn all card in the hand change for card with 1 point more provision cost, Many people are playing NG just why ?? NR have litteraly a leader ability that allow you to play any NR card you want from your deck at any moment and you can have two more uses if you play radovid
I was expecting to see half of the guys playing pincer maneuver, but there is only NG and few ST
if you want to make a friend game i'll show how to break NG lol everyone who hate NG is my bro
NR rules
 
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