[Value of Nilfgaard] review for old and new players
Hey guys,
This will be rather long post, so I would like to start with tl-dr "content"section, so you can find what you need right away without being bothered reading.
Contents:
Section 1: Nilfgaard general impressions and faction identity.
Section 2: Semi-budget deck
Section 3:Card reviews and gameplay for the deck
Section 1: General impressions and faction identity:
Nilfgaard identity mainly lies in buffing your cards (easily countered by numerous scorch and control effects in game) and then keeping them in play with Combat Engineers for value. Drawing cards with the likes of Cynthia, Albrich, Emissaries and others. Which is the faction mechanic for deck thinning and generally does not bring you card advantage. And the faction is coming with 2 main lines of card synergies: Revealing cards and heavy spy count.
Nilfgaardian cards are very polarising. They have some very impressive gold cards, (aside from assassination, which not only has 2 asses in its name but also should be silver card) but most of their card pool in silver and bronze is not sufficient to compete with newly buffed MO and SK. After couple of games it is very noticable that developers were very focused on making synergies in Nilfgaardian 2 main lines of play: Spying and revealing and then splashed in some general "filling cards" that lack strenght. Let me explain in detail. There are (aside for exceptions that I will mention later) 2 card types in Nilfgaardian bronze and silver card pool: Heavily synergistic or lackluster.
Heavy synergy is bad for budget decks that we will try to build here and generaly not that strong for couple of reasons:
1) It does well mainly one thing so it is not very universal
2) It requires certain amount of cards to work, meaning you very often lose if you extend in one turn too much, leaving you with useless combo piece or two in your hand in 3rd turn.
(Unless the whole combo is busted or the cards are strong enough outside of combo - ehm ehm, last patch...)
This means in my opinion both revealing and spying decks are not the top of what Nilfgaard has to offer. Cards like Mangonels, Spotters, Alchemists as well as Impera brigade, Nauzicaa brigade, Ambassadors and Emissaries are the ones focused on synergy and require other cards to work well with. Also, I think that as both archetypes are extremely interesting BOTH lack strenght to be competitive.
Lackluster cards are those poor things that lack both synergy with some of the main themes as well as individual strenght, I am mentioning some of silver cards like: Assire van Anahid, Fringilla Vigo, or Sweers. From bronze pool it applies to the likes of Alba pikeman and spearmen, Daerlan foot soldiers, Fire scorpions or Nauzicaa standart bearer. Also aside from spying and revaeling which I think is not playable the rest of bronzes and silvers really lack synrgy which is eternal shame.
Conclusion:
I dont think the combo strenght of either spy or reveal deck can compete with other faction at the moment, but in the same sentence I must add that it is VERY early to the patch and later somebody more clever and handsome than me might discover something good and make it work, so mind it while reading this. This is mostly caused by quality of bronze and silver cards. I feel that most of the golden cards for both archetypes are fine. On the other hand Nilfgaard is offering some very interesting universal cards that I really adore: Rot tossers and Vicovaro medics for bronze slot. Silvers like: Joachym de Wett, Auckes and Peter Saar and golds like Cahir, Vilgeforz or Xarthisius.
So I think that the buffing part of Nilfgaard identity -as good as it might be- has so many drawbacks, that it should not be used to overbuff and you should not play very many buffing cards in Nilfgaardian decks.
Section 2: Semi-budget deck
Hey guys this is the first version of the deck. Since cards assassments and gameplay section was rather inaccurate since early meta post patch I recomand you to check later screenshotted versions in this thread. I am deleting this section (its long and outdated)
Hey guys,
This will be rather long post, so I would like to start with tl-dr "content"section, so you can find what you need right away without being bothered reading.
Contents:
Section 1: Nilfgaard general impressions and faction identity.
Section 2: Semi-budget deck
Section 3:Card reviews and gameplay for the deck
Section 1: General impressions and faction identity:
Nilfgaard identity mainly lies in buffing your cards (easily countered by numerous scorch and control effects in game) and then keeping them in play with Combat Engineers for value. Drawing cards with the likes of Cynthia, Albrich, Emissaries and others. Which is the faction mechanic for deck thinning and generally does not bring you card advantage. And the faction is coming with 2 main lines of card synergies: Revealing cards and heavy spy count.
Nilfgaardian cards are very polarising. They have some very impressive gold cards, (aside from assassination, which not only has 2 asses in its name but also should be silver card) but most of their card pool in silver and bronze is not sufficient to compete with newly buffed MO and SK. After couple of games it is very noticable that developers were very focused on making synergies in Nilfgaardian 2 main lines of play: Spying and revealing and then splashed in some general "filling cards" that lack strenght. Let me explain in detail. There are (aside for exceptions that I will mention later) 2 card types in Nilfgaardian bronze and silver card pool: Heavily synergistic or lackluster.
Heavy synergy is bad for budget decks that we will try to build here and generaly not that strong for couple of reasons:
1) It does well mainly one thing so it is not very universal
2) It requires certain amount of cards to work, meaning you very often lose if you extend in one turn too much, leaving you with useless combo piece or two in your hand in 3rd turn.
(Unless the whole combo is busted or the cards are strong enough outside of combo - ehm ehm, last patch...)
This means in my opinion both revealing and spying decks are not the top of what Nilfgaard has to offer. Cards like Mangonels, Spotters, Alchemists as well as Impera brigade, Nauzicaa brigade, Ambassadors and Emissaries are the ones focused on synergy and require other cards to work well with. Also, I think that as both archetypes are extremely interesting BOTH lack strenght to be competitive.
Lackluster cards are those poor things that lack both synergy with some of the main themes as well as individual strenght, I am mentioning some of silver cards like: Assire van Anahid, Fringilla Vigo, or Sweers. From bronze pool it applies to the likes of Alba pikeman and spearmen, Daerlan foot soldiers, Fire scorpions or Nauzicaa standart bearer. Also aside from spying and revaeling which I think is not playable the rest of bronzes and silvers really lack synrgy which is eternal shame.
Conclusion:
I dont think the combo strenght of either spy or reveal deck can compete with other faction at the moment, but in the same sentence I must add that it is VERY early to the patch and later somebody more clever and handsome than me might discover something good and make it work, so mind it while reading this. This is mostly caused by quality of bronze and silver cards. I feel that most of the golden cards for both archetypes are fine. On the other hand Nilfgaard is offering some very interesting universal cards that I really adore: Rot tossers and Vicovaro medics for bronze slot. Silvers like: Joachym de Wett, Auckes and Peter Saar and golds like Cahir, Vilgeforz or Xarthisius.
So I think that the buffing part of Nilfgaard identity -as good as it might be- has so many drawbacks, that it should not be used to overbuff and you should not play very many buffing cards in Nilfgaardian decks.
Section 2: Semi-budget deck
Hey guys this is the first version of the deck. Since cards assassments and gameplay section was rather inaccurate since early meta post patch I recomand you to check later screenshotted versions in this thread. I am deleting this section (its long and outdated)
Last edited:
