Wait....Viper witchers are unchanged???

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I had originally thought they were taken out of the game completely to get reworked or something. I just noticed that they are still in the game with no changes. I am scratching my head trying to figure out how we just had this big NG rework patch and these cards weren't changed? I'm pretty confident the devs have admitted that they don't like viper witchers. I am at a loss for words at this point.
 
My guess is that they just wanted to flesh-out Soldiers and Spies a little more. I think the changes they did are real healthy for NG, I think some are even slightly over-powered. I do dislike Viper Witchers quite a bit, I'm still hoping they give them and Cadeverine poison synergy. It would suit them perfectly. There is nothing strategic or fun about randomly banishing a card from your opponent's deck. Only Traehaern is okay in my opinion since he is a gold card and he doesn't banish.
 
My guess is that they just wanted to flesh-out Soldiers and Spies a little more. I think the changes they did are real healthy for NG, I think some are even slightly over-powered. I do dislike Viper Witchers quite a bit, I'm still hoping they give them and Cadeverine poison synergy. It would suit them perfectly. There is nothing strategic or fun about randomly banishing a card from your opponent's deck. Only Traehaern is okay in my opinion since he is a gold card and he doesn't banish.

Agreed. To be honnest when I saw the reveal of the "Fang of the empire", with the art and the capacity, I thought they were viper school witchers of some sort... This ability would have fit them well. Now it would be nice if it was a poison ability different from what already exists... Like "destroy 2 units with poison" or a poison on order with a cooldown of 3 (although that sounds too strong to me for a bronze...)
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Or: Order: give a unit poison. Cooldown 4. Reduce by 1 whenever you use an alchemy (since witcher) or tactic (since Nilfgaard).
Or still : "refresh the ability at the end of your turn if an enemy unit is destroyed by poison".

Maybe it wouldn't be balanced. Not saying those are good ideas, just that there are a bunch of options (here only with poison) besides just banishing a random card
 
I had originally thought they were taken out of the game completely to get reworked or something. I just noticed that they are still in the game with no changes. I am scratching my head trying to figure out how we just had this big NG rework patch and these cards weren't changed? I'm pretty confident the devs have admitted that they don't like viper witchers. I am at a loss for words at this point.

What's wrong with the Viper Witchers? Nothing.. Pretty well balanced card, compared to other cards that put 4 points on the table and "does something" at a low provision (4-6). Vipers are pretty well balanced, and there are alot of cards that aren't. It's not a powerful play.
 
Agreed. To be honnest when I saw the reveal of the "Fang of the empire", with the art and the capacity, I thought they were viper school witchers of some sort... This ability would have fit them well. Now it would be nice if it was a poison ability different from what already exists... Like "destroy 2 units with poison" or a poison on order with a cooldown of 3 (although that sounds too strong to me for a bronze...)
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Or: Order: give a unit poison. Cooldown 4. Reduce by 1 whenever you use an alchemy (since witcher) or tactic (since Nilfgaard).
Or still : "refresh the ability at the end of your turn if an enemy unit is destroyed by poison".

Maybe it wouldn't be balanced. Not saying those are good ideas, just that there are a bunch of options (here only with poison) besides just banishing a random card

Maybe they are the foundations for future changes! Not changing them now is definitely a missed opportunity in my opinion. Hopefully they get rid of their ability eventually lol.
 
What's wrong with the Viper Witchers? Nothing.. Pretty well balanced card, compared to other cards that put 4 points on the table and "does something" at a low provision (4-6). Vipers are pretty well balanced, and there are alot of cards that aren't. It's not a powerful play.

First they have huge variance. They can hit a useless bronze or a decks biggest finisher. I've had people quit off of one play because I randomly banished their Hubert. That's a bit crazy for a 4p bronze to just win a game.

More importantly than that though it's simply bad game design to allow players to go into someone's deck and steal their cards away. No cards should be able to do that. It feels terrible and unfair.

I remember the devs admitting that this card needs to be changed.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
But they have done everything so that no one uses it, right? Now Nilfgaard has so many great bronze units. Why would anyone use Viper Witchers? Basically, instead of changing VW, they nearly killed it by powercreeping by giving unreasonably strong other bronzes. I don't think I am going to face a Nilfgaar opponent who would play Viper Witcher anymore.
 
But they have done everything so that no one uses it, right? Now Nilfgaard has so many great bronze units. Why would anyone use Viper Witchers? Basically, instead of changing VW, they nearly killed it by powercreeping by giving unreasonably strong other bronzes. I don't think I am going to face a Nilfgaar opponent who would play Viper Witcher anymore.

Another great reason to change the card.
 
I was surprised they didn't get a change considering how many people seem to be less than fond of them.
Wouldn't have minded a Poison ability but I also don't have a problem with the current one (I know I've said this before).

Why would anyone use Viper Witchers?
Because they're witchers. I still run two of them and don't plan on changing that even if they do get reworked later on.
 
More importantly than that though it's simply bad game design to allow players to go into someone's deck and steal their cards away. No cards should be able to do that. It feels terrible and unfair.

Not sure how you establish what's good and bad game design but removing cards from opponent's deck seems like a decent middleground between removing them from their hand (like kambi) and not having any disruption tools. I said this before but HC changed the game completely and the ability to mess with opponent's combo is more important than ever.
 
Not sure how you establish what's good and bad game design

It is my very strong opinion that no card game should ever have the mechanic of letting a player go into someones hand or deck and remove cards. It's a dirty and a bad way to play a digital card game and it has far too high of variance. Lets just roll some dice and if you get two sixes I lose my best card in my deck. Sounds fun? Heck no.

but removing cards from opponent's deck seems like a decent middleground between removing them from their hand (like kambi)

I can rant about Kambi as well. That card absolutely needs to be changed. Not only does it steal my last card out of my hand but I don't even get a turn now? I have order cards on the board that I can't even trigger so you have stolen a card right out of my hand AND my entire turn. Those mechanics are horrible.

and not having any disruption tools. I said this before but HC changed the game completely and the ability to mess with opponent's combo is more important than ever.

Viper witchers are a trash way to accomplish disruption. Using RNG to steal your cards. That's nothing but a dice roll. It's not the least bit strategic.
 
I don't disagree: they are not broken or what, just not interesting... The introduction of poison and Nilfgaard rework would've been a good opportunity to update them...

Vipers are interesting. It's a sabotage play. Granted, it sabotages very little, even if they take away 2 gold cards(rarely), the opponent still have alot of gold cards left. But it's part of an disruption tactic, and also fit's well with some other plays. I play an oppressive Usurper deck, and with this deck, I do "something" to about 6-7 of the opponents cards in the deck. IN part of such a strategy, the vipers are important.

Generally, the Vipers is also a decent card for Nilfgaard, a good starting card for instance. Sometimes you banish a good card of the opponent, sometimes you thin his deck. It's not an auto-include for Nilfgaard, but it is a good supplementary card if your tactic is in that kind of direction I am talking about.

There are plenty of other cards to give poison, and Nilfgaard already has a 5 provision(?) poison card, plus the rot tosser.

Looking at the season of the vipers and what happens with that, it seems likely they will change and ruin the viper card in the future though.

It's a nice card for the game as it is. There needs to be different kind of cards that do different things, and the vipers are unique in what they do.
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First they have huge variance. They can hit a useless bronze or a decks biggest finisher. I've had people quit off of one play because I randomly banished their Hubert. That's a bit crazy for a 4p bronze to just win a game.

More importantly than that though it's simply bad game design to allow players to go into someone's deck and steal their cards away. No cards should be able to do that. It feels terrible and unfair.

I remember the devs admitting that this card needs to be changed.

Variance is a good thing.

Viper didn't win you the game. The opponent put 100% into their Hubert play which is silly. And they quit. Their bad. It was not a win, it was a forfeit.

It's not bad design to let the opponent go into your deck, it's just a different tactic. I think it's a shame that CDPR is destroying reveal which is a great thing for this game and Nilfgaard. I wish they would fix it instead.

Many things feel unfair and terrible.
 
It is my very strong opinion that no card game should ever have the mechanic of letting a player go into someones hand or deck and remove cards. It's a dirty and a bad way to play a digital card game and it has far too high of variance.

Viper Witchers is one thing, but Kambi is even worse. Besides, Magic the Gathering has a lot of options to mess with your opponent's hand, deck and graveyard and it works out mostly fine. So, it does depend on the type of CCG.
 
Viper witchers are a trash way to accomplish disruption. Using RNG to steal your cards. That's nothing but a dice roll. It's not the least bit strategic.

My post wasn't about defending viper witchers, their effectiveness is irrelevant, it's about the principle of messing with opponent's deck and whether is or isn't bad design. I don't particularly like my cards be taken out of my hand either, it feels unfair but as long as powerful combos exist i think there should be a possibility to counter them. Also messing with opponent's deck feels very nilfgaardy, Sweers was one of my favorite cards pre-HC.
 
Variance is a good thing.

Not when it's RNG and goes from weak to game winning.

Viper didn't win you the game. The opponent put 100% into their Hubert play which is silly. And they quit. Their bad. It was not a win, it was a forfeit.

A forfeit is a win and there are plenty of decks built around one or two cards. No player should be able to strip their cards right out of their deck. Whether it's RNG based or not.

It's not bad design to let the opponent go into your deck, it's just a different tactic.

It's a different tactic which happens to also be bad design.

I think it's a shame that CDPR is destroying reveal which is a great thing for this game and Nilfgaard. I wish they would fix it instead.

Many things feel unfair and terrible.

Reveal was absolutely horrible in homecoming. I find it strange that they threw out so much in old Gwent that worked pretty well and instead put in a bunch of RNG style nonsense.
 
Besides, Magic the Gathering has a lot of options to mess with your opponent's hand, deck and graveyard and it works out mostly fine.
No, it does not work out fine at all. Some years ago, I stopped playing MtG after about decade of years. I sticked with MtG for so long, because there were at that time no similar suitable alternatives. Boom of CCG is quite recent thing. And why did I stopped playing MtG after decade of years? There were more reasons, but 2 the most important ones were opressiveness of "discard" and "mill" mechanics. Those are anti-gaming mechanics, which are hurting game instead of helping it. In my opinion, messing with hand, deck and graveyard has no place in seriously meant game. If those mechanics will became more frequent in Gwent too, I will "jump out" of here as well, no matter that I otherwise like Gwent and I even supported game by investing money into it.
 
Not when it's RNG and goes from weak to game winning.

Without variance, this game would suffer. If everything was static it would be boring. That's what the game is about, doing something based on what the other player does on his side of the board. Depending on what the player does, some cards may become more powerful than their default state. IMO that is a good thing.

Viper Witchers has this kind of mechanic, but even if it banish a gold card, it's still not a great move, because the opponent have more than 1 gold card, and should not base his whole tactic on a single card and/or a single play.

A forfeit is a win and there are plenty of decks built around one or two cards. No player should be able to strip their cards right out of their deck. Whether it's RNG based or not.

Well, you didn't play out the round, so the Viper Witcher did not win the game, the forefeit did. That's down the the opponent, there are many reasons to forfeit. You also win if the opponent have to go to the toilet and forfeit to do so. It's not a win because of anything you did. Same with banishing a good card from their deck. They could play on, but they did not. You did not win because of the game, you won due to the opponent forfeiting. It wasn't due to the Viper Witcher, it was due to the opponent being a weak player with a weak tactic who gave up way too easily.

It's a different tactic which happens to also be bad design.

Why do you think it is bad design? I happen to think reveal and vipers is a good design, enriching the game with more ways to play and more tactics. Vipers are useless in most tactics, but with some tactics they are core cards.

There are plenty of interactions with the other players cards (including Graveyard), and it certainly is not only with Vipers or Nilfgaard. I think that has its place in the game, and the game would be less good without it. In regards to Nilfgaard, this is one of their specialities and it would be a bad thing to remove it. I think reveal should become better and more purposeful, lie revealing low cards and high cards and such things, so that people playing with reveal decks, can gather information about the cards of the opponent, at a reasonable cost ofcourse. With Vipers, at the very worst, you thin the opponents decks by 2 cards they don't really want or need. At best you can duplicate Vipers and say banish 3-4 gold cards, in most cases, the "ideal" scenario is that you banish 2 gold cards. Very few people play Vipers to play more than 2. It's fully possible to win a game after losing 2 gold cards.

Reveal was absolutely horrible in homecoming. I find it strange that they threw out so much in old Gwent that worked pretty well and instead put in a bunch of RNG style nonsense.

RNG? Random number generator? aka "random"?

I think randomness belongs in card games, but that's just me. Imagine how boring it would be to play card games (example poker) with an ordered and unshuffled deck.
 
Without variance, this game would suffer. If everything was static it would be boring. That's what the game is about, doing something based on what the other player does on his side of the board. Depending on what the player does, some cards may become more powerful than their default state. IMO that is a good thing.

I never said variance is a bad thing. I was specifically talking about that much variance on a 4p bronze card also based around RNG.

Viper Witchers has this kind of mechanic, but even if it banish a gold card, it's still not a great move, because the opponent have more than 1 gold card, and should not base his whole tactic on a single card and/or a single play.

I think you want to argue that having different types of tactics is a good thing but here you are saying people should never build decks around a powerful finisher or a powerful engine. Doesn't that limit the game? Yeah you have other gold cards but you put that one in the deck for a reason and it's silly that a 4p bronze can go into your deck and get rid of it. It's not a clever tactic, it's just a bad RNG card.

Well, you didn't play out the round, so the Viper Witcher did not win the game, the forefeit did.

The player clearly forfeit based on the viper witcher play. It won the game.

You also win if the opponent have to go to the toilet and forfeit to do so.

Clearly a different scenerio.

It's not a win because of anything you did.

That isn't true at all. What happened was clear. I played one card which banished their win condition so they didn't feel it was worth even playing the game at that point.

Why do you think it is bad design? I happen to think reveal and vipers is a good design, enriching the game with more ways to play and more tactics. Vipers are useless in most tactics, but with some tactics they are core cards.

Well you have been arguing against some tactics here like building around one or two powerful win conditions. How about old imlerith sabbath which could come back in a different form at some point. People built around that card all the time. But one viper could win against that deck. Vipers are the worst kind of "tactics" you can put in a game. It's pure chance.

There are plenty of interactions with the other players cards (including Graveyard),

At least when it comes to the graveyard you at least got to play your card. It's a bit different when it's sitting in your hand or deck and you never got to do anything with it.

RNG? Random number generator? aka "random"?

I think randomness belongs in card games, but that's just me. Imagine how boring it would be to play card games (example poker) with an ordered and unshuffled deck.

RNG is already built into card draw. Who plays first and second. Deck match up. Injecting more RNG unnecessarily gets bad fast. I didn't start playing this game to play flip the coin and see who gets heads.
 
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