When Tutoring Goes Wrong (MM Edition)

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I just wanna know how people feel about the huge amount of tutoring options that was added this expansion. To me this seems like a big misstep. I know many people love tutoring because it brings consistency and Gwent players love consistency. I can see that, but when there's an increasing amount of low-risk tutoring they all become auto-include and in turn limits deckbuilding. Every match starts to feel the same, no real unpredictability, no need to adapt to the cards you're dealt. I just don't know.
This became a big issue for me with the beta. Dwarves tutoring into tutors into tutors, it made the game stale. Now it seems the devs are adamant to go back to that stage and I feel like it might be a slippery slope.
 
Well Tutoring cards are kind of expensive. So they are reducing the risk of not getting your valuable cards. I think that they are great and not too strong at all. My NG userper deck is for example without any tutors and kind of performing now.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I agree, tutoring got a bit too far this expansion.

Oneiromancy, Blood Eagle and Amphibious Assault can be found on every single SK, NR and other faction decks. And look, its precisely SK and arguably, NR that are dominating! :shrug:

The Echo effect is really strong, its definitely worth the 2 extra provisions (Oneiromancy compared to Royal Decree), and yet nobody is using the Squirrel to banish those, because its hard to evaluate its value.

Also, the bonus effects (Amphibious Assault's boost and Blood Eagle's damage) makes these cards even more valuable, they probably didnt even need those to be great, its those boosts that make them auto-includes.
 
I think neutral tutors are the ones that bother me the most. I wish Matta, Decree and Onieromancy didn't exist.

Since they are available to every class, they feel redundant on top of the class options and lead to less diverse gameplay.

If you would have told me before the expansion that NR was gonna run Amphibious Assault AND Onieromancy, I wouldn't have wanted to believe it. xD
 
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Guest 4368268

Guest
I think neutral tutors are the ones that bother me the most. I wish Matta, Decree and Onieromancy didn't exist.

Since they are available to every class, they feel redundant on top of the class options and lead to less diverse gameplay.

If you would have told me before the expansion that NR was gonna run Amphibious Assault AND Onieromancy, I wouldn't have wanted to believe it. xD
That stems from the infamous power discrepancy between NR bronzes and golds and the ratio they use them in. Ideally you'll want to find and use your bronzes to execute a gameplan. In NR, however, you'll often see half their deck being 4/5 provisions and the other half 9+ provisions with little in between.
 
I think tutoring cards are good. Especially for lower ranked players that only care about fun and playing their favorite decks. I like to play a deck the same way over and over again (currently rank 9). And I think it's also good for higher ranked players because they kinda know what to expect, and - if they are smart - should exactly know how to counter, because I think that's what makes a higher ranked player leaning more to the professional side: being able to play pro-active and knowing what to expect from the opponent. It's kinda like Formula 1. Absolutely boring until someone makes a tiny mistake and bam, ten people just broke their ribs. Maybe I'm completely missing a point here, but I think people could try to be more creative and take advantage of the situation. E.g. by adding a few bronzes that are pretending a different kind of deck, or by ignoring Devotion, or maybe just add that stupid Squirrel..
So far my favorite cards are: Oneiromancy and Triss_Telekinesis.
 
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I think tutoring cards are good. [...]
Maybe I'm completely missing a point here, but I think people could try to be more creative and take advantage of the situation.

Gwent is already the most consistent CCG out there. Yet, you want to go further? You want every game to play out the same? Because that's what you are getting with an overabundance of tutors. We have seen this nightmare already after Midwinter (in beta). We don't need it again.
 
I agree, tutoring got a bit too far this expansion.

Oneiromancy, Blood Eagle and Amphibious Assault can be found on every single SK, NR and other faction decks. And look, its precisely SK and arguably, NR that are dominating! :shrug:

The Echo effect is really strong, its definitely worth the 2 extra provisions (Oneiromancy compared to Royal Decree), and yet nobody is using the Squirrel to banish those, because its hard to evaluate its value.

Also, the bonus effects (Amphibious Assault's boost and Blood Eagle's damage) makes these cards even more valuable, they probably didnt even need those to be great, its those boosts that make them auto-includes.

The banish mechanic is just plain bad. Squirrel needs at least 6 points to be worth including. Also consider that outside of NG and SK echo is the only common graveyard interaction. If the opponent doesn’t draw an echo then a banish is basically bricked. Given the addition of a ton of new engines and value cards, you need more removal or engines to compete. It makes cards that play a flat 4 very difficult to use.
 
This game has always been about, 'draw your golds and win' I dont see how it is different now compared to prior the patch. Same principle apply. There are no tutoring chains either, although I cannot say what people in the beta complained about explicitly. The consistency, or tutoring chains.

Im happy the way things are now. Although I wouldn't mind less tutors but more mulligans instead.
You are most likely to use tutors on your high powered golds. With more mulligans you have more freedom in designing your strategy. This should distinguish a good player the from bad, and less so the 'skillfullness' in drawing golds.
 

Gyg

Forum regular
I really like what Amphibious Assault did to NR decks. Not a brain-dead tutor for your best Gold but a tutor for Key bronze. If tutors are problem, I would sooner drop all neutral ones.
 
With more mulligans you have more freedom in designing your strategy. This should distinguish a good player the from bad, and less so the 'skillfullness' in drawing golds.
My NG spy ball deck agrees. Some rounds I want to go with spies, others poison. Usually get stuck having to do a conglomeration of the two because I mulliganed and got the same card.
 
Mulligans benefit good play; tutors benefit good decks. If everyone built their own deck, I would say the two are equally important. Given not everyone builds their own deck, I would prefer reducing RNG by mulligans
 
My NG spy ball deck agrees. Some rounds I want to go with spies, others poison. Usually get stuck having to do a conglomeration of the two because I mulliganed and got the same card.

About that, you are very disadvantaged when you dont draw your ball, which brings me to the next point.
I think it was a very bad design decision to add cards that are above, or at 12 provisions. This creates too much variance, in terms of your deck composition, like @Nathan277 already mentioned. Making you rely upon drawing your gold consistently in order to win.

I get it that developers like the huge point swings, but i'm not so sure that this is the right way for gwent, which takes (took) pride in archetypes and skillfull play.
 
About that, you are very disadvantaged when you dont draw your ball, which brings me to the next point.
I think it was a very bad design decision to add cards that are above, or at 12 provisions. This creates too much variance, in terms of your deck composition, like @Nathan277 already mentioned. Making you rely upon drawing your gold consistently in order to win.

I get it that developers like the huge point swings, but i'm not so sure that this is the right way for gwent, which takes (took) pride in archetypes and skillfull play.
There's so many ways to tutor ball now I wouldn't even call it a risk. They even introduced Matta in the same expansion as scenarios just for this, which I still think was a mistake.
Without all these "just play whatever you'd like" tutors those big provision cards would at least be a bit of a gamble should you not draw them leading people who want to play a safer deck to maybe use something different. But as it stands they're completely safe to use in fact there's absolutely no reason not to use ball in a NG deck.
Ask yourself why midrange decks are so rare now? I reckon it's because you can play all your high cost cards without fail anyway these days.
This is why I blame tutors and not scenarios themselves.
A gamble is inherent in any card game, there were many beta decks that were huge risks but incredibly strong should you be lucky. That didn't make them OP.
I feel like Gwent is removing the option to even play risky. Some people like that but I don't think I do actually.
 
There has to be a solution in between, a middle ground.
Imo getting rid off all tutoring seems a lil bit excessive.
Like @Gyg mentioned above, maybe nerf em in some way, just like "devotion", have em in the game so players don't have to rely just on their luck but on clever deck building aswell.
Scenarios are expensive aswell, ofc they bring a ton value to the table but it feels kindah disappointing to include such expensive cards (to craft and use aswell) and not get your "money's worth" out of em.
Cheers ! :beer:
 
Gwent is already the most consistent CCG out there.
That's good to know!
Yet, you want to go further? You want every game to play out the same?
Well, not exactly the same. (Although I'm a person that could eat Pizza everyday.) But I think it would be good to have access to the whole deck (I don't mean every card at any time). Maybe more thin decks in general. instead of more tutors, maybe it would help to obligate cards like those "summon-all-copies-from-your-deck".
Because that's what you are getting with an overabundance of tutors. We have seen this nightmare already after Midwinter (in beta). We don't need it again.
Ok. I didn't play the beta, but I believe you.
 
This game has always been about, 'draw your golds and win' I dont see how it is different now compared to prior the patch. Same principle apply. There are no tutoring chains either, although I cannot say what people in the beta complained about explicitly. The consistency, or tutoring chains.

Im happy the way things are now. Although I wouldn't mind less tutors but more mulligans instead.
You are most likely to use tutors on your high powered golds. With more mulligans you have more freedom in designing your strategy. This should distinguish a good player the from bad, and less so the 'skillfullness' in drawing golds.

There are tutoring chains but outside of Oneiromancy into Amphibious or Coup+Roderick or another gold spy, basically doesn't happen.

Imo, Oneiromancy into Amphibious is one of the most broken, soft skull, brain dead decisions the developers have ever made. Of course that was going to be a severe balance issue lol, it's a re-usable tutor chain with zero requirements or drawbacks.
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About that, you are very disadvantaged when you dont draw your ball, which brings me to the next point.
I think it was a very bad design decision to add cards that are above, or at 12 provisions. This creates too much variance, in terms of your deck composition, like @Nathan277 already mentioned. Making you rely upon drawing your gold consistently in order to win.

I get it that developers like the huge point swings, but i'm not so sure that this is the right way for gwent, which takes (took) pride in archetypes and skillfull play.

The neat thing is it's pretty hard not to get Ball out if you build right. Oneiromancy, Roderick, Matta, etc. Lots of ways to tutor it directly onto the field - and equally as many ways to get out Assire to play ball again, sometimes in the same turn due to Oneiromancy or War Council.
 
I fully agree with you, tutoring is a blight upon the game at the moment lol, needs to be nerfed and resigned to be less so straight forward...
 
Oneiromancy into Amphibious is one of the most broken, soft skull, brain dead decisions the developers have ever made [...] it's a re-usable tutor chain with zero requirements or drawbacks.
Do you have a good example? it actually costs you at least 24 provisions, and plays for approx. 10 points each time? Sounds pretty bad to me, and on top of that it's predictable.
 
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