Why did NG suddenly fall to the bottom?

[Fargothwave]

Now every card is created solely with provisions into points in mind.

I found this bit especially curious.

What you say not entirely true. Some of the MM cards have no clear point expression and actually are more "stragetic" so to say (squirrel being the prime example). You are right about games getting poinslammy lately, as these new cards allow and (apparently) promote pointslam.

But the thing is, it's usually very easy to punish, and yet people largely ignore row punish, Yrden, Compression and all the other things that help a lot. I know this is possible because I've Tetrised a significant amount of 100+ point rows into nothingness this week, using exactly that - Yrden and heavy row punish (and some movement, admittedly). Even if you can't afford it, there's nothing stopping you from packing a couple of cheaper resets for key targets and Lacerate/Surrender/Tinboy/Werecat/whatever to dispose of small abundant units.

Yet few people actually bother with proper efficient counters and prefer pointslam contest to finer solutions. If they didn't, meta would look very differently.

Besides, look at this from a different angle for a second - did you forget how frustrating it is to play the cards that don't even stick? What is the point of them having abilities and values if most of them are basically designated sacrifices to Alzur and poison? Current meta is very damage heavy, true, but it isn't necessarily as direct removal heavy (outside of triple duel), which means you can finally try all kinds of things and not just swarms. This is a good thing.

Bottom line: if you hate pointslam, blame the players, because the game offers a lot of other valid options.
Better yet, start appreciating it.

 

[ya1]

All the NG golds mentioned (Vincent, Brathens, Invo, Userper, etc) are superb, and likely deserved their respective nerfs. However they are mostly control oriented and as a faction NG lacks 13-15 point slams that gives you reach


More importantly IMO: most other factions have multiple value bronzes that plays for 7 for 4, 8 for 5, etc.

NG's most played and usable bronzes:
- Magne, 4 for 4 when played and easy removal or counter with movement
- Tortoise, 7 for 5 with a drawback
- Cossbowman, 5 for 5 when played, random pings also easily countered by likes of armor, totem, etc.

you get the idea... as NG you can't trade bronzes for bronzes evenly.
So on blue coin, you either have to give up last say right away, or trade golds for bronzes.
On red coin, the goal is to abuse e.g. double ball, poison,
but as for the 3 most common matchups on ladder:
ST: packs heatwave
SK: you will have no good round 1 poison targets, either viel or 5 pt body usually
NR: similarly, the amount of cheap bronze engines are able to match or out-value poison

Good analysis. Just a word about the top end golds bring superb. I don't see how exactly they are any more superb than top end golds from other factions. It's a competitive game and everything is only as good as how it compares with competition. It doesn't matter how strong something is if competition is just as strong or better.

In fact, compared to stuff like Anseis or Hemdall or Viraxis or even Jaques which have massive synergies within their top decks, Bratheens and Usurper only synergize with spying. Outside assimilate, spying payoffs are limited to a bunch of 5p bronzes, and now that Formation stinks there's no way of protecting them outside the nerfed defender. It's the reason why TLG dropped Enforcers - they don't go above 4 and need to keep sticking as opposed to Dames and Seditious that can play outside 4 removal (though hardly...). Outside those spying/assimilate synergies which are harder to execute than in case of other factions' synergies, Bratheens is a sad 9 for 11 (or a variably decent 4 plus enemy bronze) and Usurper a 12 for 12. Usurper engine value is close to 0 because how many agents will you play after him? Vincent is just sad, it's not any better than Hjalmar or shielded duelists imo, it got great ceiling but it often functions as Fangs -1 and sometimes bricks completely (and ex. Anseis literally never bricks). Sadly, it's necessary as Crystal Skull into an engine makes NG an underdog on red (how pathetic does it sound...). The only NG gold that is undeniably ahead of competition is the Ball.

 

[lor1keet]

Good analysis. Just a word about the top end golds bring superb. I don't see how exactly they are any more superb than top end golds from other factions. It's a competitive game and everything is only as good as how it compares with competition. It doesn't matter how strong something is if competition is just as strong or better.

In fact, compared to stuff like Anseis or Hemdall or Viraxis or even Jaques which have massive synergies within their top decks, Bratheens and Usurper only synergize with spying. Outside assimilate, spying payoffs are limited to a bunch of 5p bronzes, and now that Formation stinks there's no way of protecting them outside the nerfed defender. It's the reason why TLG dropped Enforcers - they don't go above 4 and need to keep sticking as opposed to Dames and Seditious that can play outside 4 removal (though hardly...). Outside those spying/assimilate synergies which are harder to execute than in case of other factions' synergies, Bratheens is a sad 9 for 11 (or a variably decent 4 plus enemy bronze) and Usurper a 12 for 12. Usurper engine value is close to 0 because how many agents will you play after him? Vincent is just sad, it's not any better than Hjalmar or shielded duelists imo, it got great ceiling but it often functions as Fangs -1 and sometimes bricks completely (and ex. Anseis literally never bricks). Sadly, it's necessary as Crystal Skull into an engine makes NG an underdog on red (how pathetic does it sound...). The only NG gold that is undeniably ahead of competition is the Ball.

You are just so on target here!

Excellent post!

Ball is the only thing holding NG up right now.

 

[ya1]

1. Firstly NG has more removal than any other faction,

NG has no dmg with body cards. Once veil appears - and just about every deck includes a 7p veil engine - NG has 2 cards that can deal with it: Yen and the overnerfed Vincent (or Vilgefortz for the hyperthin) both of which function like Heatwave with a bit better evaluation. This is where NG's removal supremacy ends - they got "double Heatwave" in the form of Yen and Vincent.

Other than that NG got statuses. And statuses are the worst form of removal because they're slow and counterable and useless vs. veil. As meta and winrates show, pointslam + damage and engine overload dominate, and NG is the very worst faction now.

Which is ok. Every faction falls from grace sometimes. Used to be MO and ST and SY, now it's NG. I just do not understand the grit and the blind devotion to NG rants when it's black on white that NG is the very worst faction. Those rants really hurt the game because devs evidently listen to them. Why else would the seventh or eighth leader (pro rank winrates) be the only one to get nerfed, and the faction with the second lowest overal winrate got their most important top end autoincludes trimmed? It can't be "data-driven" balancing, can it?

 

[Fargothwave]

I just do not understand the grit and the blind devotion to NG rants when it's black on white that NG is the very worst faction. Those rants really hurt the game because devs evidently listen to them.

Lowest winrate =/= worst faction. "High risk, high reward" and "high skill floor" aren't the same as "hard-set low efficiency". I've lost to some really nasty NG decks this week, and none of those were straight netdecks, so go figure what that means.

Rants persist because NG is every bit as aggravating to play against as before, it's just that they don't always have the points to seal the deal and win the game now, which is actually fair. See, you complain about low tempo, but the whole point of the most ubiquitous NG decks is to halt opponents tempo with excessive removal rather than have a high tempo of your own. It's only fair, as otherwise you'd have a double advantage. And you have the best kind of removal in the game - the only situation where straight damage is stronger than poison is when you play against low-power wide decks. Veiling units is awfully slow and inefficient, too, you know. Besides, giving your Hamadryad a veil basically locks her as an engine and paints a huge target for VVM.

Again, you just can't nuke everything indisciminately anymore, you actually have to predict and pick targets wisely in this meta, which is fair. This is how everyone else plays the game - being careful about choices, card order, damage distribution, etc. For a while NG had been an exempt from this rule, having answers to everything and playing every card in pretty much the same order, and now it isn't, hence the low winrate - people just keep playing the way they had, not realising they have to adapt. Give it some time and you'll see what happens.

 

[Bleach25]

Lowest winrate =/= worst faction. "High risk, high reward" and "high skill floor" aren't the same as "hard-set low efficiency". I've lost to some really nasty NG decks this week, and none of those were straight netdecks, so go figure what that means.

Rants persist because NG is every bit as aggravating to play against as before, it's just that they don't always have the points to seal the deal and win the game now, which is actually fair. See, you complain about low tempo, but the whole point of the most ubiquitous NG decks is to halt opponents tempo with excessive removal rather than have a high tempo of your own. It's only fair, as otherwise you'd have a double advantage. And you have the best kind of removal in the game - the only situation where straight damage is stronger than poison is when you play against low-power wide decks. Veiling units is awfully slow and inefficient, too, you know. Besides, giving your Hamadryad a veil basically locks her as an engine and paints a huge target for VVM.

Again, you just can't nuke everything indisciminately anymore, you actually have to predict and pick targets wisely in this meta, which is fair. This is how everyone else plays the game - being careful about choices, card order, damage distribution, etc. For a while NG had been an exempt from this rule, having answers to everything and playing every card in pretty much the same order, and now it isn't, hence the low winrate - people just keep playing the way they had, not realising they have to adapt. Give it some time and you'll see what happens.

It falls to Tier 4 perhaps?

 

[Fargothwave]

It falls to Tier 4 perhaps?

Nah. "Accidental" players who chose NG because it felt strong will finally switch to another thing, the real devotees will remain and figure out the way, raising the winrate while they're at that.

 

[rrc]

the overnerfed Vincent

I am not challenging you, but really want to understand why you consider it as an over nerf? If Vincent was just made as 3 power unit having the same provision, yes, it is a over nerf. But he was buffed in provision. I still see Vincent as one of the best removal in the game. Even SK Hyalmar has a weakness, he can't be used in R1 where as Vincent can easily turn the tides in R1. He removes the need to have even number of poison. I am not an NG player, but I still fear Vincent the same and consider him formidable. I haven't seen a bricked Vincent. Vincent and YenInvo makes everyone tremble and everyone should play around these two cards in all three rounds.

Same is the case for Braathens. Currently he plays for 5 points + the best bronze card of the opponent (or remove Larvas which is a HUGE thing) all the while triggering assimilate, spy, and status synergies. I really love this card and in my opinion, it is the best (non evolving) Legendary cards from MM. In most games I see Braathens reaching 10+ points on his own (without taking into account the bronze engine he had copied)

Your point on Usurper is true. His engine potential is very very low as there are not many Agents one can play. But on deploy, Usurper triggers Assimilate and Spy and Status synergies. Also, Usurper's nerf is a global one.

IMHO, the bad state of NG is not due to weakness of NG, but SK (Rage of Sea is a bloody 18 point leader - play GS and use the ability for 6 points per use) and ShieldWall being too pointslamming. When SK and SW are toned down, I think NG will reign supreme again with their tools.

 

[Bleach25]

I really Hope they buff Nilfgaard hard at the end of the season. It's unplayable in this state

 

[KenLBlack]

I am extremely worried about CDPR over-buffing NG, as they will sometimes do. I still lose plenty of times to NG, and I know that the OP doesn't want this to be an NG hate thread (hard for me to abide by that! ) but the other side of the coin is that it becomes too strong and makes the season completely unfun for others.

 

[Bleach25]

I am extremely worried about CDPR over-buffing NG, as they will sometimes do. I still lose plenty of times to NG, and I know that the OP doesn't want this to be an NG hate thread (hard for me to abide by that! ) but the other side of the coin is that it becomes too strong and makes the season completely unfun for others.

They just need to buff some more proactive archetypes, like Assimilate or Soldiers and you'll see less poisons and locks most likely.

 

[DRK3]

I found this bit especially curious.

But the thing is, it's usually very easy to punish, and yet people largely ignore row punish, Yrden, Compression and all the other things that help a lot. I know this is possible because I've Tetrised a significant amount of 100+ point rows into nothingness this week, using exactly that - Yrden and heavy row punish (and some movement, admittedly). Even if you can't afford it, there's nothing stopping you from packing a couple of cheaper resets for key targets and Lacerate/Surrender/Tinboy/Werecat/whatever to dispose of small abundant units.

Yet few people actually bother with proper efficient counters and prefer pointslam contest to finer solutions. If they didn't, meta would look very differently.

Im going a bit offtopic here, but this is quite true - how gamechanging Yrden can be, but there are multiple factors into it that make it a fairly complex subject:

1) lets face it, Gwent in the current form, 90% of it is either pointslamming, boosting or damaging/removal. And with so much boosting, between all factions (except SK), including entire decks at the top of the meta that are just boosts, Yrden rarely fails to find value

2) so why dont we see more Yrdens, but also lacerates and row punishment? I think its because the meta is too much influenced by tournaments. In these events, we see the top players with carefully crafted decks, so if they are not using these cards, they must not be worth it? Wrong, its because they have the open deck format and know when something like that is coming and play around it, so they lose a lot of surprise value, with only the incertainty of mulligans and draws.

My point is, players and specially the meta reports which have a huge influence on what is played, should know this and not be so afraid of being outside the box when something proves to be valuable, and not just assume what is played on the top side of pro rank is what's best and everyone else will follow.

 

[Celadyl]

Im going a bit offtopic here, but this is quite true - how gamechanging Yrden can be, but there are multiple factors into it that make it a fairly complex subject:

1) lets face it, Gwent in the current form, 90% of it is either pointslamming, boosting or damaging/removal. And with so much boosting, between all factions (except SK), including entire decks at the top of the meta that are just boosts, Yrden rarely fails to find value

2) so why dont we see more Yrdens, but also lacerates and row punishment? I think its because the meta is too much influenced by tournaments. In these events, we see the top players with carefully crafted decks, so if they are not using these cards, they must not be worth it? Wrong, its because they have the open deck format and know when something like that is coming and play around it, so they lose a lot of surprise value, with only the incertainty of mulligans and draws.

My point is, players and specially the meta reports which have a huge influence on what is played, should know this and not be so afraid of being outside the box when something proves to be valuable, and not just assume what is played on the top side of pro rank is what's best and everyone else will follow.

I think the reason yrden isnt played very much is simply the incosistency. against SK warriors for example it's a very poor 11 prov card and every faction has a number of very high value high provision cards by now that will get them guaranteed value, even if yrden can in some matchups be a game winner on its own

 

[Bleach25]

Im going a bit offtopic here, but this is quite true - how gamechanging Yrden can be, but there are multiple factors into it that make it a fairly complex subject:

1) lets face it, Gwent in the current form, 90% of it is either pointslamming, boosting or damaging/removal. And with so much boosting, between all factions (except SK), including entire decks at the top of the meta that are just boosts, Yrden rarely fails to find value

2) so why dont we see more Yrdens, but also lacerates and row punishment? I think its because the meta is too much influenced by tournaments. In these events, we see the top players with carefully crafted decks, so if they are not using these cards, they must not be worth it? Wrong, its because they have the open deck format and know when something like that is coming and play around it, so they lose a lot of surprise value, with only the incertainty of mulligans and draws.

My point is, players and specially the meta reports which have a huge influence on what is played, should know this and not be so afraid of being outside the box when something proves to be valuable, and not just assume what is played on the top side of pro rank is what's best and everyone else will follow.

I'm not following your argument here.

Yrden and lacerate have become meta in the pasr when there were a lot of wide boosty deck (Hidden Cache meta). Now it doesn't seem worth it though. It's useful against NR and SY, but pretty much dead weight against the other factions.

Also what is really puzzling me is your final statement. If certain cards aren't played because they rely on surprise effect, why would they get included in the widely notorious meta lists?

 

[ShinAkira00]

Im going a bit offtopic here, but this is quite true - how gamechanging Yrden can be, but there are multiple factors into it that make it a fairly complex subject:

1) lets face it, Gwent in the current form, 90% of it is either pointslamming, boosting or damaging/removal. And with so much boosting, between all factions (except SK), including entire decks at the top of the meta that are just boosts, Yrden rarely fails to find value

2) so why dont we see more Yrdens, but also lacerates and row punishment? I think its because the meta is too much influenced by tournaments. In these events, we see the top players with carefully crafted decks, so if they are not using these cards, they must not be worth it? Wrong, its because they have the open deck format and know when something like that is coming and play around it, so they lose a lot of surprise value, with only the incertainty of mulligans and draws.

My point is, players and specially the meta reports which have a huge influence on what is played, should know this and not be so afraid of being outside the box when something proves to be valuable, and not just assume what is played on the top side of pro rank is what's best and everyone else will follow.

I do agree with the meta reports etc and I do wish players would try to think for themselves but that's unavoidable. The problem with Yrden as many have said is consistency. NR and SK are dominating and Yrden would be only partially effective against them and not effective at all against the rest except maybe ST who are focused on nature cards and removal anyway so I'm not sure it's even enough if you do run Yrden unless you get extremely lucky.

 

[DRK3]

@Celadyl
@Bleach25
@ShinAkira00

I thought about listing all the decks against which Yrden is useful on my previous post, but ended up discarding the idea. Since all of you stated that Yrden is only useful against a small number of decks/factions, and i disagree i will do that now:

NR - shieldwall (and uprising too i guess), even if they dont use all the boosty cards, like War Elephant, Vysogotta, Anna, i think its impossible to not have a big Yrden against it
NG - Yoachin/double Yoachin, big thirsty dames,magne divisions or Hyperthin boosts by Xarthisius/Yen Conjurer, every NG deck has big boosts (EDIT) i forgot assimilate, which is obviously also just boosts
ST - nature's gift or precision strike Schirrus/Skaggs (giant Gord on both decks), again boosts all over the place
MO - not as boosty as before, but still endrega larvae, ozzrel and haunt/consumes are on pretty much all MO decks
SY - mostly passiflora, the only non boost engines are possibly Herst and Imke. Congregate swarm also relies on boosts with Dies Irae and sacred flame, easy 16-18 resets on a row
SK- warrior deck is the only metadeck that doesnt have any boosts (unless it uses Dagur), and its one of the most powerful ones because its so hard to disrupt. Still, other SK decks like selfdamage, Priests, Dracoturtle, Beasts and big axel 3eyes or corrupted flaminicas and SK scenario also creates a lot of boosts

So yeah, i dont think its a small number of matchups where Yrden isnt good.

 

[ShinAkira00]

@Celadyl
@Bleach25
@ShinAkira00

I thought about listing all the decks against which Yrden is useful on my previous post, but ended up discarding the idea. Since all of you stated that Yrden is only useful against a small number of decks/factions, and i disagree i will do that now:

NR - shieldwall (and uprising too i guess), even if they dont use all the boosty cards, like War Elephant, Vysogotta, Anna, i think its impossible to not have a big Yrden against it
NG - Yoachin/double Yoachin, big thirsty dames,magne divisions or Hyperthin boosts by Xarthisius/Yen Conjurer, every NG deck has big boosts (EDIT) i forgot assimilate, which is obviously also just boosts
ST - nature's gift or precision strike Schirrus/Skaggs (giant Gord on both decks), again boosts all over the place
MO - not as boosty as before, but still endrega larvae, ozzrel and haunt/consumes are on pretty much all MO decks
SY - mostly passiflora, the only non boost engines are possibly Herst and Imke. Congregate swarm also relies on boosts with Dies Irae and sacred flame, easy 16-18 resets on a row
SK- warrior deck is the only metadeck that doesnt have any boosts (unless it uses Dagur), and its one of the most powerful ones because its so hard to disrupt. Still, other SK decks like selfdamage, Priests, Dracoturtle, Beasts and big axel 3eyes or corrupted flaminicas and SK scenario also creates a lot of boosts

So yeah, i dont think its a small number of matchups where Yrden isnt good.

Post automatically merged: Sep 15, 2020

@Celadyl
@Bleach25
@ShinAkira00

I thought about listing all the decks against which Yrden is useful on my previous post, but ended up discarding the idea. Since all of you stated that Yrden is only useful against a small number of decks/factions, and i disagree i will do that now:

NR - shieldwall (and uprising too i guess), even if they dont use all the boosty cards, like War Elephant, Vysogotta, Anna, i think its impossible to not have a big Yrden against it
NG - Yoachin/double Yoachin, big thirsty dames,magne divisions or Hyperthin boosts by Xarthisius/Yen Conjurer, every NG deck has big boosts (EDIT) i forgot assimilate, which is obviously also just boosts
ST - nature's gift or precision strike Schirrus/Skaggs (giant Gord on both decks), again boosts all over the place
MO - not as boosty as before, but still endrega larvae, ozzrel and haunt/consumes are on pretty much all MO decks
SY - mostly passiflora, the only non boost engines are possibly Herst and Imke. Congregate swarm also relies on boosts with Dies Irae and sacred flame, easy 16-18 resets on a row
SK- warrior deck is the only metadeck that doesnt have any boosts (unless it uses Dagur), and its one of the most powerful ones because its so hard to disrupt. Still, other SK decks like selfdamage, Priests, Dracoturtle, Beasts and big axel 3eyes or corrupted flaminicas and SK scenario also creates a lot of boosts

So yeah, i dont think its a small number of matchups where Yrden isnt good.

Cool, I hear you. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that control and damage/removal is more valuable than point slam. From NR to NG to St that's been proven since the last patch. Yrden just isn't worth the trade off when these factions have better options within their faction.

Every single one you have listed above includes heavy control, damage and removal. MO for example doesn't have that which is why it's falling behind and why OH is the only thing doing well because it's the closest to any control MO has while keeping Devotion. Basically they don't need Yrden and breaking devotion for many isn't worth it especially when you consider the evolving cards that won't get to their last stage with Yrden in your deck.

 

[Celadyl]

@Celadyl
@Bleach25
@ShinAkira00

I thought about listing all the decks against which Yrden is useful on my previous post, but ended up discarding the idea. Since all of you stated that Yrden is only useful against a small number of decks/factions, and i disagree i will do that now:

NR - shieldwall (and uprising too i guess), even if they dont use all the boosty cards, like War Elephant, Vysogotta, Anna, i think its impossible to not have a big Yrden against it
NG - Yoachin/double Yoachin, big thirsty dames,magne divisions or Hyperthin boosts by Xarthisius/Yen Conjurer, every NG deck has big boosts (EDIT) i forgot assimilate, which is obviously also just boosts
ST - nature's gift or precision strike Schirrus/Skaggs (giant Gord on both decks), again boosts all over the place
MO - not as boosty as before, but still endrega larvae, ozzrel and haunt/consumes are on pretty much all MO decks
SY - mostly passiflora, the only non boost engines are possibly Herst and Imke. Congregate swarm also relies on boosts with Dies Irae and sacred flame, easy 16-18 resets on a row
SK- warrior deck is the only metadeck that doesnt have any boosts (unless it uses Dagur), and its one of the most powerful ones because its so hard to disrupt. Still, other SK decks like selfdamage, Priests, Dracoturtle, Beasts and big axel 3eyes or corrupted flaminicas and SK scenario also creates a lot of boosts

So yeah, i dont think its a small number of matchups where Yrden isnt good.

sure but that wasnt exactly my point, I only mentioned SK because it was so obvious and SK is probably still the most played faction atm. let me give another example. yrden is 11 prov. lets say you play shieldwall, what will you drop for yrden? AA, anseis, viraxas, seltkirk? yrden would be effective most of the time but would the trade be worth it? probably not, since yrden has no synergy with the deck unlike the other cards mentioned plus there is always the risk of having an opponent that doesnt use boost. I could make the same argument for pretty much all other decks you listed. the number of safer options that likely have synergy with the deck they're in is growing with every expansion.
again, I'm not saying yrden isnt good or wouldnt work in this meta, I'm simply saying powercreep made the card just one of many tools a player can use and the new devotion concept that some factions adapt to also makes yrden a bad choice.

 

[Fargothwave]

sure but that wasnt exactly my point, I only mentioned SK because it was so obvious and SK is probably still the most played faction atm. let me give another example. yrden is 11 prov. lets say you play shieldwall, what will you drop for yrden? AA, anseis, viraxas, seltkirk? yrden would be effective most of the time but would the trade be worth it? probably not, since yrden has no synergy with the deck unlike the other cards mentioned plus there is always the risk of having an opponent that doesnt use boost. I could make the same argument for pretty much all other decks you listed. the number of safer options that likely have synergy with the deck they're in is growing with every expansion.
again, I'm not saying yrden isnt good or wouldnt work in this meta, I'm simply saying powercreep made the card just one of many tools a player can use and the new devotion concept that some factions adapt to also makes yrden a bad choice.

I've seen several SW decks that featured neither Anseis nor Seltkirk lately (and fared better for that). Yrden has no synergy with the deck, sure, but it could, if you altered it a bit to account for it. Hell, for all I know, a couple of shield-protected catapults may goad your opponent into stacking things in the melee row. Bam, synergy, 40 pts Yrden. How good it is and how much help it needs i can't really say, but the general principle is still there - it's a not a matter of replacing one card with another(even then, i'd say Yrden>Anseis most of the time), it's a matter of adjusting your entire deck to this pointslammy meta.

Also, in case you run a wide deck, Yrden can be useful in patching up your beaten units, just saying.

 

[Celadyl]

I've seen several SW decks that featured neither Anseis nor Seltkirk lately (and fared better for that). Yrden has no synergy with the deck, sure, but it could, if you altered it a bit to account for it. Hell, for all I know, a couple of shield-protected catapults may goad your opponent into stacking things in the melee row. Bam, synergy, 40 pts Yrden. How good it is and how much help it needs i can't really say, but the general principle is still there - it's a not a matter of replacing one card with another(even then, i'd say Yrden>Anseis most of the time), it's a matter of adjusting your entire deck to this pointslammy meta.

Also, in case you run a wide deck, Yrden can be useful in patching up your beaten units, just saying.

even if you have 2 trebuchets on the board, if your opponent had a valuable unit on the back row he might still play into it, in which case your yrden could be gimped by resetting damaged units as well.
anyway, it's kind of besides my point since again, I didnt say yrden was bad or even that anseis is better, just that anseis does very well more consistently than yrden does. there is almost no scenario in which anseis isnt at least 8 points plus likely removing an engine/tall unit when shielded, there are plenty where yrden can play for little points or even be a complete brick on a 3 card round.