This is not rant, but an analyse, so hear me out (jump to conclusion words if you don't want to read)
What was the reason behind homecoming? Create, and full tutors deck making all the matches the same
And now look at what we have now.
1.Call of forest went from a switch card to a brainless tutor, empowering Francesca to be a better Dana without set up requirement (while CDPR is claiming they "nerfed" Francesca so they can make stronger neutral specials)
2.Portal is still not nerfed, despite a tutor 2, 2 bodies and at least 8 point on the board and plus enabling strong mechnic set up with 12 provisions,
while the other thin 2 combo (witcher trio) was nerfed to 6 point 3 bodies with barely any interaction, while costing a whopping 24 provisions
3.The lack cluster of tutors got hyper thin back in a even worse state, and with hyper thinning many decks can bring a bunch of crappy 4 provision, enabling high provision cards without risking bad draw
4.Create was a hot topic then but was never truly the core problem, but still even today we have random effects that can affect the tide of battle with no skill required
And yet what was great in the old gwent, was never brought back. In fact, interesting mechnics are getting removed every patch while the new rework cards are made only to serve existing archetypes. So yes, we are going back to the archetype route, despite what Dev says.
And more and more the decks are going back into the "mind your business and build your little home don't mind your opponent". Fun interacting decks are never top tiered, prime example being:
1.Movement: it was fun and nice (tho wasn't too strong back in the day neither), when reach was still a thing they have the bonus to "nerf" the effect of opponent reach card on board, not completely destroy them but still good bonus. Now movement itself represent nearly no value unless your opponent has row-limited engine, in which case it will be a total deny like any other type of deny, since no other faction have strong movement, that moved card is pure dead.
2.Trap: It has one of the best interaction potential, yet never had enough power to be considered top tier
3.NG copycat deck, and many other decks required control bronze units: Was quite few patches back, require high understanding of current meta and play accordingly. Now they don't have enough firepower because no deck does unless you bring bombs, and this deck have no space for that, they were doing fine with NG control units, now they are unable to stop the overwhelming easy-living engines.
4.Bloodthirst: Do I really need to say? with all those buffing on engines it's basically impossible to get high bloodthirst number. SK is now dominant with self wounding (again, most of the time there is no stopping self wounding, only NG has enemy buffing and SK usually can finish the self wound the turn engine was played). Another example of "mind your own business" deck better than "think about your opponent" deck
5.Monster Dominance: Another missed oppertunity. dominance should have play a way larger role when fighting monster, yet dominance was never tier 1, the amount of set up required to make dominance useful is too big and monster never have enough to protect their engine, or supporting dominance mechnic, as of now there are way too many decks that can easily pop up taller units than the simple high str no ability monster units
Instead every patch we have broken meta (Foltest, DJ and now Francesca) as tier 1, "racist" deck as tier 2. The racist decks are all essentially the same, for example there is really no difference between lyrian arbalist, dwarven mercenary, elf sworddancer, and there are many other examples. Those "racist" decks don't have (or no longer have) their uniqueness (for example who called for Mahakam Maurauder change?? dwarven resilience was a thing and not overpowered at all), they are different card simply because there are different categories
Conclusion Words:
Among Chinese playerbase, we say that "the previous patch is always the better patch", which, except occasions of meta deck CDPR refuse to hotfix, is mostly true.
Every patch since homecoming, we are getting uncalled for generalizing rework for cards with unique ability, and stepping more and more back into the bad part of old gwent: tutors everywhere, return of archetype (and Dev rework cards to strengthen them specifically), same outcome everytime, no interaction escept bombing engine to win the game. At this rate we are going to need a second homecoming, or should I say, far from home, soon
What was the reason behind homecoming? Create, and full tutors deck making all the matches the same
And now look at what we have now.
1.Call of forest went from a switch card to a brainless tutor, empowering Francesca to be a better Dana without set up requirement (while CDPR is claiming they "nerfed" Francesca so they can make stronger neutral specials)
2.Portal is still not nerfed, despite a tutor 2, 2 bodies and at least 8 point on the board and plus enabling strong mechnic set up with 12 provisions,
while the other thin 2 combo (witcher trio) was nerfed to 6 point 3 bodies with barely any interaction, while costing a whopping 24 provisions
3.The lack cluster of tutors got hyper thin back in a even worse state, and with hyper thinning many decks can bring a bunch of crappy 4 provision, enabling high provision cards without risking bad draw
4.Create was a hot topic then but was never truly the core problem, but still even today we have random effects that can affect the tide of battle with no skill required
And yet what was great in the old gwent, was never brought back. In fact, interesting mechnics are getting removed every patch while the new rework cards are made only to serve existing archetypes. So yes, we are going back to the archetype route, despite what Dev says.
And more and more the decks are going back into the "mind your business and build your little home don't mind your opponent". Fun interacting decks are never top tiered, prime example being:
1.Movement: it was fun and nice (tho wasn't too strong back in the day neither), when reach was still a thing they have the bonus to "nerf" the effect of opponent reach card on board, not completely destroy them but still good bonus. Now movement itself represent nearly no value unless your opponent has row-limited engine, in which case it will be a total deny like any other type of deny, since no other faction have strong movement, that moved card is pure dead.
2.Trap: It has one of the best interaction potential, yet never had enough power to be considered top tier
3.NG copycat deck, and many other decks required control bronze units: Was quite few patches back, require high understanding of current meta and play accordingly. Now they don't have enough firepower because no deck does unless you bring bombs, and this deck have no space for that, they were doing fine with NG control units, now they are unable to stop the overwhelming easy-living engines.
4.Bloodthirst: Do I really need to say? with all those buffing on engines it's basically impossible to get high bloodthirst number. SK is now dominant with self wounding (again, most of the time there is no stopping self wounding, only NG has enemy buffing and SK usually can finish the self wound the turn engine was played). Another example of "mind your own business" deck better than "think about your opponent" deck
5.Monster Dominance: Another missed oppertunity. dominance should have play a way larger role when fighting monster, yet dominance was never tier 1, the amount of set up required to make dominance useful is too big and monster never have enough to protect their engine, or supporting dominance mechnic, as of now there are way too many decks that can easily pop up taller units than the simple high str no ability monster units
Instead every patch we have broken meta (Foltest, DJ and now Francesca) as tier 1, "racist" deck as tier 2. The racist decks are all essentially the same, for example there is really no difference between lyrian arbalist, dwarven mercenary, elf sworddancer, and there are many other examples. Those "racist" decks don't have (or no longer have) their uniqueness (for example who called for Mahakam Maurauder change?? dwarven resilience was a thing and not overpowered at all), they are different card simply because there are different categories
Conclusion Words:
Among Chinese playerbase, we say that "the previous patch is always the better patch", which, except occasions of meta deck CDPR refuse to hotfix, is mostly true.
Every patch since homecoming, we are getting uncalled for generalizing rework for cards with unique ability, and stepping more and more back into the bad part of old gwent: tutors everywhere, return of archetype (and Dev rework cards to strengthen them specifically), same outcome everytime, no interaction escept bombing engine to win the game. At this rate we are going to need a second homecoming, or should I say, far from home, soon
.
