For a really long time it was Northern Realms (siege equipment = easy mode), but lately I prefer a faction I barely ever used before - Scoia'tael.
Of course, I still use some strong Neutral cards and remove the weakest from Scoia'tael deck.
Nilfgaard is even easier than NR because of their spies, with Monsters I'm guaranteed to lose without a few "Clear Skies" cards (I very rarely get even one).
Skellige is the fun faction to play with, but too often I got the feeling I won luckily, maybe I'm going to change my mind about it after I play with it some more.
Of course, I still use some strong Neutral cards and remove the weakest from Scoia'tael deck.
Nilfgaard is even easier than NR because of their spies, with Monsters I'm guaranteed to lose without a few "Clear Skies" cards (I very rarely get even one).
Skellige is the fun faction to play with, but too often I got the feeling I won luckily, maybe I'm going to change my mind about it after I play with it some more.
At the moment, I prefer the Monster deck because it's ridiculously strong. Second favourite is Nilfgaard because it has the best hero cards so far. With Northern Realms, I lose most of the time. Same with Scoia'tael. With Skellige, I don't have enough cards yet to use the deck.
Nilfgaard, but only after I get the Emhyr card that cancels opponent's leader ability. 
Up until then I use Northern Realms, and it's my second favourite. Scoia'tael and Monsters I never use, and Skellige I've never had in playable condition. It looks really cool though.
Up until then I use Northern Realms, and it's my second favourite. Scoia'tael and Monsters I never use, and Skellige I've never had in playable condition. It looks really cool though.
For my first play through it was the Northern Realms, but with my current ng+ I'm definitely going to give all the decks a try and then decide on one. But I must say with my first play through I kinda liked the Skellige deck, I didn't play with the deck as I knew my Northern Realms deck well. But will not be using that deck for this play through.
I started with Northern like everyone, then tried Nilfgaard, and then decided a while ago that I wanted to try Scoiatel - because NPCs with Scoiatel decks are excellent at one thing: making that faction appear to be the worst pile of trash in existence (come on, remember ever losing to a "Scoiatel" NPC while playing Northern or Nilfgaard? I don't think so.)
Then Scoiatel turned out to be extremely fun and powerful.
Fun:
- it is extremely satisfying to win as the underdog
- I scorch and terrorize the AI with this deck instead of overpowering by numbers, far more so than I could do this with the other factions. That offers a sort of intense (though probably somewhat sadistic) pleasure.
- and I love the artwork & Milva.
Powerful:
- well, I ran a marathon through Toussaint yesterday in the evening. 20 matches. 1 lost. The lost one was against a "Northern, hard" ("Foltest 3"), and I had made a mistake. Also, several times through High Stakes with Scoiatel, one-shotting each match.
- "Skellige" NPCs in particular seem very vulnerable to the scorch + terrorize gameplay.
- the only Gwent matches I am somewhat afeared of are "Scoiatel" NPCs, mindboggling as it is.
The "win by tactic, not by numbers" approach also seems to go well hand in hand with Gwent in "hard" setting, if my hypothesis should be correct about that "hard" means rigged, lowered probabilities of getting "hero and good cards" in the starting hand - the cards needed for my tactics are those lackluster normal cards. Not just the heroes.
Then Scoiatel turned out to be extremely fun and powerful.
Fun:
- it is extremely satisfying to win as the underdog
- I scorch and terrorize the AI with this deck instead of overpowering by numbers, far more so than I could do this with the other factions. That offers a sort of intense (though probably somewhat sadistic) pleasure.
- and I love the artwork & Milva.
Powerful:
- well, I ran a marathon through Toussaint yesterday in the evening. 20 matches. 1 lost. The lost one was against a "Northern, hard" ("Foltest 3"), and I had made a mistake. Also, several times through High Stakes with Scoiatel, one-shotting each match.
- "Skellige" NPCs in particular seem very vulnerable to the scorch + terrorize gameplay.
- the only Gwent matches I am somewhat afeared of are "Scoiatel" NPCs, mindboggling as it is.
The "win by tactic, not by numbers" approach also seems to go well hand in hand with Gwent in "hard" setting, if my hypothesis should be correct about that "hard" means rigged, lowered probabilities of getting "hero and good cards" in the starting hand - the cards needed for my tactics are those lackluster normal cards. Not just the heroes.
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I might as well ask here.
Is the Skellige a HOS or BaW deck?
I just got those so I don't know yet.
And for interestingness, are there any neutral hero cards?
Should "hero" be capitalized?
Is the Skellige a HOS or BaW deck?
I just got those so I don't know yet.
And for interestingness, are there any neutral hero cards?
Should "hero" be capitalized?
Hello
Skellige is a BaW deck. HoS has some really nice cards (Schirru (scorch on siege!), the Gaunters (muster), Olgierd (agile morale unit), a cow (introducing "summon avenger" mechanic), a toad (scorch on ranged), and 4 leaders) but not a full deck.
Neutral hero cards: Geralt, Ciri, Yen, Triss, Mysterious Elf.
You mean if you should put all your available heroes into your deck? Nah, that is not a good move. The Triss card is really lousy and does not belong into any decent deck. And for your medic / dummy / commander's horn activities and purposes, it's a good idea not to bring all your available heroes, since heroes are not affected by these special effects. In my Scoia, Nilf and Northern deck, I do not use one of the faction specific heroes each, so that I have room enough for the normal cards and the special shennanigans. In my Skellige deck, I actually use all of them. I do not really ever play monsters, so I do not know if it benefits from all 4 monster heroes or not.
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Oh yes I do. That damned Milva is sooo annoying. Sometimes I Scorch it thrice in a single match because my opponent keeps using Havekar Healers on it.
:angry2:
But that means that the AI can't use the Havekar Healer on more useful cards later on.
Such as:
- last minute revive of that spy, giving the AI some additional cards to win the final round
- revival of the Villentretenmerth to nuke your merry Blue Stripes
- or a last minute revive of the Milva when you already burned your other scorches or have laid out your higher point cards already.
AI is really bad with this faction.
Such as:
- last minute revive of that spy, giving the AI some additional cards to win the final round
- revival of the Villentretenmerth to nuke your merry Blue Stripes
- or a last minute revive of the Milva when you already burned your other scorches or have laid out your higher point cards already.
AI is really bad with this faction.
OK!!! Maybe i shouldn't of added lmao, because i didn't laugh AT ALL when she died...
Ill correct myself. Milva is my favourite character in the books (that doesn't appear in the games) and i really miss her. (No, i prefer Milva over Regis by miles before anyone wonders).
Cahir is an interesting character for sure. You never really knew if he was a good guy or a bad guy half of the books and then when he finally finds her again and protects her from the mercenaries. He also, like most of them, had no reason to like Geralt at all, but he stuck with him to find Ciri, just like the rest of them.
I personally prefer Angouleme over Cahir. I love her childish humour and nature. I think she and Ciri would of been great, great friends. She was only a couple years older than Ciri at the time and in the brief 20 minutes they get they liked each other a lot. My actual favourite character is Yen (as if you couldn't guess) but solely from the books, Milva and Angouleme.
Like almost anyone here I started as Northern Realms deck player, simply because at the beginning of the game other decks didn't have enough cards. Than I switched to Nilfgaard and it's lovely special ability to win if the round ends in a tie helped me a lot during tournaments and other important gwent battles. Now I usually play as Skellige, like this region a lot and deck is pretty nice too. Also Monsters deck is interesting, sometimes I pick it. Didn't play that much as Scoia'tael, probably the least comfortable deck for me, need to play it more and finally understand it's strong sides. Don't have any real strategy, but I prefer to use Weather cards instead of Scorch. And hell... I freaking love gwent!