Why did NG suddenly fall to the bottom?

[rrc]

I keep seeing people complaining that NG got nerfed a lot and suddenly NG's win rate dropped to pathetic state (even though I am not an NG player, a 45% winrate is hurtful to see). But I don't understand why this is the case. NG still have YenInvo, Vincent, Ball, Poisons, Assire and Usurper's last evolving state has been stealth buffed to be Aristrocrat. Is it due to people still not having figured out an optimal deck?

Braathens nerf was IMO justified. He was too strong and too flexible and he himself was an engine, triggering all possible synergy NG can have (status, spy, assimilate). He came down with 6 Power copying the strongest enemy bronze, disrupting other strategies (with placing the spy). Even then, he was nerfed by just a point (and not in provisions). In most games, he will reach 10+ points very easily in addition to copying the enemy bronze too. He is now in a healthy state. He can still reach 10 points on himself while triggering a lot of synergy and copying a bronze. How is he weak now?

Vincent - there can still be a debate if this is a nerf or a buff. He was made cheaper and effectively losing one point on board. He can trigger Ball and can kill (almost) any unit since adding a status is not hard for NG (or in case of defenders and veil units, they come on a silver platter). Being cheaper now, he can easily accommodate a stronger unit. No one played for 5 points from him on board, but the raw removal potential he has. Does the NG community think it is a harsh nerf?

Usurper's proivsion nerf - Lets be real. Even ST's evolving card also got nerfed even thogh the whole community can agree that she was already pathetic at 11P. So, this Usurper's provision nerf is not a NG nerf alone. Everyone (except the stupid NR) got nerfed (and I believe NR will also get the 12P evolving card sooner).

Imperial Formation - This is the only nerf I can think of which actually hurt NG since IF was the top leader they had and removing one charge might have made the difference. But it was a little compensated by the provision buff. But I can see that losing one charge can have drastic effect.

From a NG player's point of view, which of these nerf do you think has made NG weaker? What do you guys think made the significant change. Is it due to NG being weaker or SK or NR being over-tuned? Slama has already hinted some buffs coming to NG in one of his tweets. So, what do you guys think the buffs should be?

 

[Guest 4368268]

NG has been a fragile faction for a long time now, held together by a select few cards (Masquerade Ball, Vincent, Braathens when MM came out) and Imperial Formation was the only good leader they really had access to. Lockdown of course has its merits in very specific match-ups, but is so costly you'll have to fill your deck with NG's notoriously underwhelming bronzes to accommodate it.

Touching any of NG's strong tools without providing adequate buffs in other places would make the house of cards fall down. I would consider the Vincent change a nerf (a just one) because from my perspective playing NG I had no problem having a 5 point super strong removal card in my 11 provision slot as there's just so little competition in Nilfgaard for golds anyway.
So the 2 points there felt better than the one provision extra NG now has.

I also didn't necessarily disagree with the Braathens change as it's such a super versatile strong card that evidently still sees play. The problem though is as I mentioned before when you nerf the cards at the top and don't buff the cards at the bottom for a faction that's already tier 2 at most you're temporarily destroying the faction.

The problem goes deeper than just the golds of course, I mean compare NG bronze units to SK bronze units or NG bronze specials to ST bronze specials etc. they basically will just always fall short. Streamer Redrame also pointed out that NG's access to Masquerade Ball and their dependency on it makes the entire faction harder to balance because Masquerade Ball is just so insanely strong that if you make NG be on par with other factions MB would immediately 'break the game'.

In short NG just really struggles to produce any points and so the changes to Braathens, Vincent and Imperial Formation (the staples of the faction) make the faction fall off a lot just because NG needs points more so than flexible provisions as there's too little competition for good cards in Nilfgaard.

 

[Fargothwave]

The short answer?

You're completely right about the nerfs to NG being inconsequential. I see great Assimilation decks occasionally, Double Ball is every bit as killy as ever, IF still achieves what it's intended for.

The problem is the spoiled playerbase. [...]

The most incriminating bit of evidence for what I'm saying is Assimilation. It needs you to be smart to pilot it well, but can be really good if you do it right, and to do it right you need to be creative, and people who spammed copypasted Double Balls/soldier balls a couple of months ago just... aren't. If they were, they would've played something else even then. Now that stupid removal spam doesn't quite cut it anymore, bad NG players struggle big time, whereas good ones... probably weren't playing most of the nerfed stuff in the first place, so it's not like much have changed for them.

EDIT:
The point is: there's plenty of successful Assimilate players around. NG isn't bad if you're crafty, and that's how the must subversive faction should be IMO

 

[rrc]

The short answer?

You're completely right about the nerfs to NG being inconsequential. I see great Assimilation decks occasionally, Double Ball is every bit as killy as ever, IF still achieves what it's intended for.

The problem is the spoiled playerbase. [...]

Lets not please make it an NG hate thread. I know assimilate decks can be very powerful, but it can be easily played around as in short round it is pretty bad. I am genuinely curious about why NG has gone bad and what has suddenly made it weaker even though most of its power house remain the same. I wanted to learn/know from hardcore NG players. It is not just players' perception. Even the top players struggle and the win % in the pro rank is also pretty bad/sad. I don't think it is due to laziness.

 

[Slizzl]

I just reached pro rank with a homemade Tactical Decision deck, I've been having great results with it so far. NG is too reliant on Ball, but I think this has made players a bit lazy as well when it comes to deckbuilding. I tried the only two NG decks listed in the Leviathan tier list and I must say they feel suboptimized, I have way better results with my own.

I would argue it's the hardest faction to pilot, which impacts winrate on its own. Maybe some slight buffs are indeed justified, but they're ultimately an utility/control based faction. I feel many players forget this and just want them to slam points as hard as NR/SK. This would ruin the appeal for me.
With enough cleverness NG can compete, and not just versus NR.

The nerfs were completely justified in my eyes. Sometimes it's okay to look at the cards themselves instead of faction winrate then adjust the faction as a whole a bit afterwards. It might end up being better for the faction overall in the end, you never know. NG has been reliant on one specific way of deckbuilding for too long, those clinging onto those few overvalued golds fail to realize this. When those few golds has to carry the entire faction it stagnates as a whole.

 

[Fargothwave]

I don't think it is due to laziness

First, a hardcore NG player seems to agree with me on this one.
Secondly, thou shall not underestimate the power of laziness. A large (if not largeR) portion of any competitive online game consists of people who just want to win, not show their creativity or skills. For certain reasons a lot of such Gwent players has been flocking to NG, because for a while it's been the easiest way to win games. I don't hate the faction per se.

 

[Iuliandrei]

None of those nerfs seem unreasonable in context, i just think some of them are just wrong.
Personally i always disliked Vincent and the whole "status" archetype, i preferred a rework, not make just another 3 str, 10p, kill a unit under certain conditions.
Imperial formation got hit not because of the ability itself, but because of Affan, a card created for the explicit purpose of making IF more powerful. If Imperial formation didn't have the "place a soldier on top" effect, Affan as a card would exist right now.

 

[Slizzl]

None of those nerfs seem unreasonable in context, i just think some of them are just wrong.
Personally i always disliked Vincent and the whole "status" archetype, i preferred a rework, not make just another 3 str, 10p, kill a unit under certain conditions.
Imperial formation got hit not because of the ability itself, but because of Affan, a card created for the explicit purpose of making IF more powerful. If Imperial formation didn't have the "place a soldier on top" effect, Affan as a card would exist right now.

In my eyes Vincent is still the king of "kill a unit under certain conditions" solely due to the fact he can immediately kill a defender. After having realized how miserable and low tempo NG can be without him I've grown to appreciate the status cards. As long as they make the cards that specialize in specific status categories stronger I'm fine with them being as is. If we look at for example Thirsty Dame vs Seditious Aristocrats when it comes to a Spy deck the latter is stronger because they can be used as a semi-finisher while Dame is vulnerable to removal, the only reason they're not used is Ball which is another conversation altogether.

When it comes to the IF nerf I see it as justified because of how much stronger it was than any other NG leader. It's necessary to look at these things if they want to have more than 1 viable deck per faction. I get your point with Affan, but without him as a safety net IF would be too risky of a leader. I have no idea whether or not he'd exist without IF but keep in mind he also synergizes with Albrich (say you're unlucky and draw him R3 nice safety net), Vicovaro, Courier and now Tactical Decision.

 

[quintivarium]

I think nothing demonstrates how “off” (and maybe how difficult) balance is in the game than a comparison of imperial formation and the NR leader uprising. At least when Affan is in the deck, both abilities have identical structure: boost units x times, and when the last charge is expended, play a card.

Imperial Formation is considered marginal with three boosts by two, and drawing a 9 provision legendary card, while Uprising (at least before Shieldwall) was indisputably amongst the best abilities available to any faction with 3 boosts by 1 and drawing a 4 provision common card.

I think this one comparison illustrates perfectly the major problem with NG: the bulk of its cards are boring and overpriced, it’s fun cards are too weak to be playable, and it’s “good” cards are toxic to the entire game.

NG needs a complete overhaul with binary crap like Ball, Cahil, Invocation, Damien, and Amnesty removed, the boring and niche cards (like Affan which reduces all interesting aspects of an entire leader power to an autoplay) revisioned, and the many unique and interesting cards buffed enough to be viable.

Simply removing the half dozen or so really toxic cards — not because they are imbalanced but because they are bad for the game — while giving NG compensating strong, but strategically interesting and unique cards together with sufficient buffs of lower provision cards to be competitive would eliminate most of the NG hate.

 

[Madlax1992]

NG is way too reliant on certain archetypes that until recently, worked. But ever since SK and recently NG got huge buffs and insane bronze cards, those archetypes simply cannot keep up the pace.

I played quite a few games with NG, particularly Double Ball/Lockdown and Assimilate/Impostor and, as a user pointed out well, on short rounds, they are very weak, particularly Assimilate decks.

The problem with Masquerade Ball is that decks containing it revolve around it. If you are unlucky and you don't have it at your disposal, your options are very limited. Same for Double Ball. There is no plan B in this scenario, either you have MB or your ****ed.

Assimilate is a very versatile deck, but very complicated to play. Although it can wreak on a long round an insane amount of points, early removal of your units can pretty much obliterate your strategy.

The nerfs were justified, unjustified is that the NG bronze cards remained the same, rather average cards, while the other factions pretty much received bronze cards that are good engines. ST received Hamadryad. SY has Fallen Knight, MO a variety of Wild Hunt/Frost triggering cards that provide both boost and opponent damage. NG simply does not have a bronze card equivalent to these ones as far as I can tell.

On the other hand though, NG is by far the second most toxic faction to play against, after SK. I know many are complaining about Shieldwall NR, but I believe the biggest problem with this archetype is the way it empowers Anseis and Seltkirk in combo with Viraxas. SK would be by far the faction which enrages me the most when playing against.

 

[ya1]

Why NG?

Because devs base too much of their balancing on:

a) general community feedback instead of elite player feedback

b) dogmas

c) principles of symmetry instead of principles of balance and playability

So we get nerf to the VIncent which is now basically on par with Rivia or Hjalmar (3 body and kill for 10p) which is nice and symmetrical across factions. But from the balance and playability points of view, NG should have better evaluation on their control cards because it lags behind in every other aspect of the game (except scenario and thinning neither of which is enough to make a whole deck competitive).

 

[Celadyl]

I think the nerfs were justified and the affected cards are in a good spot now. overall playing NG feels pretty terrible though. I dont play NG often and I dont like poison decks in general, so when I play it I usually try some soldier or assimilate deck. both of these feel pretty bad imo.

soldiers have tons of bronze cards, some of them actually arent half bad imo, but the archetype totally lacks high provision powerhouses and pay offs. vrygheff and vreemde are just power crept super hard and there are only few other high provision cards like the iron judgement trio, usurper and damien, maybe cahir. only few of those really synergyze well with soldiers though.

assimilate is potentially strong but honestly in this current meta I think it is rather terrible. assimilate has a very slow setup and this meta is so extremely removal heavy with SK warriors, NR duels and symbiosis seemingly limitless rebukes and circles.
I think assimilate is a very hard archetype to balance since it can turn into a very toxic experience very quickly if it gets overtuned, since it is already one of the greediest strategies in the game when played with operator.

 

[Slizzl]

NG needs a complete overhaul with binary crap like Ball, Cahil, Invocation, Damien, and Amnesty removed, the boring and niche cards (like Affan which reduces all interesting aspects of an entire leader power to an autoplay) revisioned, and the many unique and interesting cards buffed enough to be viable.

And how would you change them? Maybe I'm just toxic but to me many of these are fun to play. Doing a YenInvo on Anseis then throwing it back in his face with Joachim buffing it by 10 is hilarious, I don't even feel bad considering how strong Shieldwall is. Setting up a perfect Amnesty with Enforcers is also fun, and honestly if you see NG leaving your engine at exactly 3 points you should see it coming.
I've lost multiple games solely because of an opposing Cahir but honestly I blame this on defenders and not being able to answer them in time. Damien I haven't seen in ages.

Imperial Formation is considered marginal with three boosts by two, and drawing a 9 provision legendary card, while Uprising (at least before Shieldwall) was indisputably amongst the best abilities available to any faction with 3 boosts by 1 and drawing a 4 provision common card.

With Joachim you can do some powerful plays with the ability even without Affan. I know I'm contradicting my previous statement but say you IF Damien then Joachim him out boosting him by 10, this can be hard to deal with. You can do the same with Cahir.
I'm really not sure whether I think IF needs a change or not. With some more Soldier support I think it will do very well. Some NG cards are absolutely deadly if you boost them out of kill range.

I'm just sick of this constant remove/replace mentality. These cards you mention are obviously not broken or anything considering NG is bottom tier right now even with them. I'd absolutely hate to see them do what they did to Vabjorn to something like Cahir. To me that is removing fun.

 

[DRK3]

@rrc Im in the same position as you, i can't really figure out why NG is considered so bad now.

For full disclosure, i havent been playing ranked lately, nor using NG, but i think i have a good idea of the current meta, and i dont see why its doing so poorly.

The top deck is NR shieldwall, ok, NG hard counters shieldwall. And i know this doesnt make it superior, because shieldwall does really well against almost everything, and NG decks dont have that many good matchups.
Also, Nature's Gift is very popular. Im pretty sure my NG decks destroy Symbiosis, maybe because i dont use Ball/poison and yet pack a lot of tall removal.

Then we have SK. Yeah, NG will have a tough time vs SK, but then again, which other faction doesnt?

 

[Slizzl]

Also, Nature's Gift is very popular. Im pretty sure my NG decks destroy Symbiosis, maybe because i dont use Ball/poison and yet pack a lot of tall removal.

Symbiosis is the one deck that absolutely demolishes me as NG. They have many purifies and there's really not that much to interfere with. Getting last say is also really tough against them.
SK is another big issue as you mentioned.
These two simply pointslam so hard without really relying on engines it's almost impossible for NG to keep up. I'm fairly confident this is why NG performs poorly right now.

 

[Celadyl]

symbiosis is rly strong in general. put poison/lock on a hamadryad and your opponent thanks you with a kiss and plays caress. only real answer is vincent but then again he can only rly be played once.

 

[Fargothwave]

symbiosis is rly strong in general. put poison/lock on a hamadryad and your opponent thanks you with a kiss and plays caress. only real answer is vincent but then again he can only rly be played once.

Symbiosis player has 4 caress instances tops. A typical NG deck has 2+ locks, 2 of their possible leader abilities are locks as well (if we count Enslave, that's three), poison, YenInvo, Vilge, more poison, VVM etc. etc.
You can even bait Shaping Nature(veil) out them only to nuke the poor girl three seconds later. Hamadryads really shouldn't be a problem for NG.

 

[Slizzl]

Symbiosis player has 4 caress instances tops. A typical NG deck has 2+ locks, 2 of their possible leader abilities are locks as well (if we count Enslave, that's three), poison, YenInvo, Vilge, more poison, VVM etc. etc.
You can even bait Shaping Nature(veil) out them only to nuke the poor girl three seconds later. Hamadryads really shouldn't be a problem for NG.

That's ignoring the fact that Caress plays for 7 points in a Nature's Gift deck. By the time you get to reapply your statuses you've already fallen behind terribly. On higher ranks people won't use the Shaping Nature Veil against a NG player, no way.

 

[Celadyl]

Symbiosis player has 4 caress instances tops. A typical NG deck has 2+ locks, 2 of their possible leader abilities are locks as well (if we count Enslave, that's three), poison, YenInvo, Vilge, more poison, VVM etc. etc.
You can even bait Shaping Nature(veil) out them only to nuke the poor girl three seconds later. Hamadryads really shouldn't be a problem for NG.

well there are counters yes but your calculation there is very optimistic. who plays all these cards together? I cant remember ever seeing a single ball player using vilgefortz for example. like I said vincent can nuke one hamadryad, but thats usually a trade I am very okay with, especially if it's not round 3. for poison, you can just put a leader charge on your hama, when it gets poisoned you use caress, if it gets poisoned again use shaping nature for veil. sometimes it's better to let a hamadryad die but no matter how you look at it it will usually cost the NG player quite a lot of resources to get rid of it.

 

[Fargothwave]

That's ignoring the fact that Caress plays for 7 points in a Nature's Gift deck. By the time you get to reapply your statuses you've already fallen behind terribly. On higher ranks people won't use the Shaping Nature Veil against a NG player, no way.

8 points actually, because ability itself also counts as a symbiosis instance. Only 2 of which are going to be relevant once they run out of counters to your control.

Vilge is especially nasty, as he's likely to ruin their Gord as well.

Post automatically merged: Sep 13, 2020

well there are counters yes but your calculation there is very optimistic. who plays all these cards together? I cant remember ever seeing a single ball player using vilgefortz for example. like I said vincent can nuke one hamadryad, but thats usually a trade I am very okay with, especially if it's not round 3. for poison, you can just put a leader charge on your hama, when it gets poisoned you use caress, if it gets poisoned again use shaping nature for veil. sometimes it's better to let a hamadryad die but no matter how you look at it it will usually cost the NG player quite a lot of resources to get rid of it.

No matter what deck NG players are playing, they always have at least two instant removals (and a lot more conditional removals if we're talking about the Ball). They're expensive, sure, but remove Hamadryads and suddenly all your opponents has is a bunch of lackluster specials and Gord.