Why Hyperthin is bad

[Alexander_Volgin]

That's 7 cards. One of the Brigades is created.



So can NR. As a funny thought experiment, if all the stars align, you can pull 26 cards with one combo:

Syanna ready, then
Roche [1] + Roach [2]
|=> Fables [3] > Epidemic [4] kills Roche
|=> Blue Dream [5] on Roche
..........................................|=> Sile [6] on Roche
..........................................|=> HG Sword [7] on Roche
.................................................................................|=> D-Bomb [8] on Sword
.................................................................................|=> Regis [9] on Roche
|=> Caretaker [10] on Sword on Roche
...........................................................|=> Royal Decree [11] > Witchers x3 [12] [13] [14]
...........................................................|=> Last Wish [15] > Marching Orders [16] > Avallac'h [17] > Portal [18] > units x2 [19] [20]
|=> Villem [21] > Double-Cross [22] > Dandelion [23] > Shupe: Hunter [24] > John [25] > Winch [26]

This is excluding create effects, which could technically go infinite.

PS. The combo above is obviously not possible. It's just a thought experiment.

I dont know what you are, dedication incarnate or pure genius. But one thing is for certain. I would appreciate if you were on Gwent-design/philosophy team, as you always seem to contribute to new ideas and thoughts. Secondly, you are active both on the forums and in the game itself, hence your have basic understanding of the mechanics and the players feeling of/towards the game, by playing it yourself. I see you as the golden asset of this community and a future creative-design manager of Gwent. I hope that you go for it, as most of this community would appreciate to see you in that position.

 

[Sleeperko]

That's 7 cards. One of the Brigades is created.



So can NR. As a funny thought experiment, if all the stars align, you can pull 26 cards with one combo:

Syanna ready, then
Roche [1] + Roach [2]
|=> Fables [3] > Epidemic [4] kills Roche
|=> Blue Dream [5] on Roche
..........................................|=> Sile [6] on Roche
..........................................|=> HG Sword [7] on Roche
.................................................................................|=> D-Bomb [8] on Sword
.................................................................................|=> Regis [9] on Roche
|=> Caretaker [10] on Sword on Roche
...........................................................|=> Royal Decree [11] > Witchers x3 [12] [13] [14]
...........................................................|=> Last Wish [15] > Marching Orders [16] > Avallac'h [17] > Portal [18] > units x2 [19] [20]
|=> Villem [21] > Double-Cross [22] > Dandelion [23] > Shupe: Hunter [24] > John [25] > Winch [26]

This is excluding create effects, which could technically go infinite.

PS. The combo above is obviously not possible. It's just a thought experiment.

I am not sure about provisions, but looks like simple combo for 27 point swing.

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

the same game every game is even without tutors...
or you like not drawing half of your total provisions at all

Yes, that is exactly what I want. No deck should be able to play every freakin combo inside, there should be variance and you should have options, otherwise you pull the same stuff every match and you play passively your stuff without trying to outsmart your oponent, which is the whole point of the game isn't it?
Francesca( or should I say ST as a whole, because Fran has alternatives) is OP because regardless what you do she can have 3 strong rounds. ST has good short, bleed and long round options and can do all of them together, combined with good control.
Hyperthin is OP because it makes you play around it, and a few decks can do this. I really don't understand how a deck that plays all of its cards can be matched with a deck that has 6-7 remaining cards unplayed at the end of the game. Everybody is pointing out that hyperthin is vulnerable by giving examples of other extreme thinning decks - DJ thins a lot, Calanthe thins a lot. Please give me an example of a deck that can handle hyperthin but uses 0 tutors/thin mechanincs. There is none.
The mentality at the moment is that the meta decks can play all of their strong cards, which I believe should instead be - hey he has these and these options most probably in the deck and he will be able to pull 1 or 2 of the possible combos, so how do I see the signs of which combos he has available and how do I counter them? If the oponent will play everything regardless, what is the point of thinking at all?

 

[InkognitoXI]

Yes, that is exactly what I want. No deck should be able to play every freakin combo inside, there should be variance and you should have options, otherwise you pull the same stuff every match and you play passively your stuff without trying to outsmart your oponent, which is the whole point of the game isn't it?
Francesca( or should I say ST as a whole, because Fran has alternatives) is OP because regardless what you do she can have 3 strong rounds. ST has good short, bleed and long round options and can do all of them together.
Hyperthin is OP because it makes you play around it, and a few decks can do this. I really don't understand how a deck that plays all of it's cards can be matched with a deck that has 6-7 remaining cards unplayed at the end of the game. Everybody is pointing out that hyperthin is vulnerable by giving examples of other extreme thinning decks - DJ thins a lot, Calanthe thins a lot. Please give me an example of a deck that can handle hyperthin but uses 0 tutors/thin mechanincs. There is none.
The mentality at the moment is that the meta decks can play all of their strong cards, which I believe should instead be - hey he has these and these options most probably in the deck and he will be able to pull 1 or 2 of the possible combos, so how do I see the signs of which combos he has available and how do I counter them? If the oponent will play everything regardless, what is the point of thinking at all?

Tech against them (literally any tall punish or an own good round 3), bleed them or just accept you will lose, do all in engine decks complain about having a bad matchup against Ardal ?

 

[hachri80]

The question is not "how to beat Hyperthin" but "is Hyperthin good or bad for Gwent". I think that it is bad because it adds an unhealthy level of consistancy to the game. A core theme of card games is dependency of drawing, in other words a certain amount of RNG. Will I draw the combo pieces that a need when I need them? Being a good card player means reducing the impact of RNG by building decks that will perform well even if you draw the wrong pieces. If your deck is a one-trick-pony you will probably lose most of your games. But by extreme thinning these decks get more consistant because you know that you will draw the needed combo pieces. That is a difference to RTS-games for example, where the player who performs a certain strategy best will win the game.

Gwent to me also is about bluffing. Is Tibor your final card or not? In Hyperthin you know it is.

 

[BoYoDes]

... it adds an unhealthy level of consistancy to the game...

So it is worse than you didn't draw your better cards and got demolished?

I just want everybody to stop with this mentality of nerfing everything. And than complain "we don't have enough archetypes, what happened with Gwent's archetypes". Some people like to abuse engines, others like to control the board and destroy every card put on it, but there is the group that likes clear strategy and vision for his games, where micro-choices matter and RNG is put to minimum. I always loved this in Beta with all my decks and this is what pushed me far away from Homecoming.

I say give us more tools to make those decks more variable, than to nerf them into oblivion like everything else in this game.

I miss mill...

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...]
I miss mill...

I agreed until that part.
Mill was never intended to be a thing and forcing one's opponent to 2-0 or lose, while having an extremely binary advantage against anything that thins is unhealthy.
In fact there was never as toxic an archtype as mill, in the entire history of the game.

 

[hachri80]

So it is worse than you didn't draw your better cards and got demolished?

You should be able to draw your combos often but not like every time. It´s a thin line. And I said that tutor cards are fine as long as they don´t let you pull other tutor cards and so on.

And while I agree that we shouldn´t call for the nerf hammer every time we can´t beat a certain deck, I feel I did something differerent here. It is not about a certain card or combo it´s about a game mechanic that let´s you thin to your last card. The NG Hyperthin deck is one example, discard SK was another one. If someone plays up to 7 cards in one turn I would call it a bug or an exploit - without saying that anyone did something illegal here - it´s a broken mechanic.

 

[Shagric]

I agree with this problem, very good point.
I think a solution would be to give any possible tutor card the tag "tutor" and forbid tutor cards to pull other tutors. (as an example: you could not pull matching orders (tutor) with menno (tutor), because it would have the tutor tag).

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

I agree with this problem, very good point.
I think a solution would be to give any possible tutor card the tag "tutor" and forbid tutor cards to pull other tutors. (as an example: you could not pull matching orders (tutor) with menno (tutor), because it would have the tutor tag).

This is a great idea, and I honestly do not understand why it is not implemented yet. It is so simple!
Also tutors should be really costly, their reliability should be balanced with the cost and make you really think if you want to include a tutor in your deck or not. Nowadays mulligans hardly matter anymore!

 

[hachri80]

This is a great idea, and I honestly do not understand why it is not implemented yet. It is so simple!
Also tutors should be really costly, their reliability should be balanced with the cost and make you really think if you want to include a tutor in your deck or not. Nowadays mulligans hardly matter anymore!

I would say that 8 prov for a 2 strength card is already expensive enough.

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

I would say that 8 prov for a 2 strength card is already expensive enough.

I would say it is not, given it provides consistency + tempo. Compare it to the witcher trio and count the provisions/points&thinning.

 

[InkognitoXI]

I would say it is not, given it provides consistency + tempo. Compare it to the witcher trio and count the provisions/points&thinning.

The Witcher Trio is horrible though.
It was op when it was actually worth the provision investment, however that is also because the general tempo was lower then, so the game moved beyond that kind of tempo AND the trio was nerfed into oblivion.

 

[4RM3D]

I think a solution would be to give any possible tutor card the tag "tutor" and forbid tutor cards to pull other tutors.

That doesn't solve the problem with hyper-thin, though. And Fauve is the only other card were it applies, to begin with.

Also tutors should be really costly [...]

They used to be and no one played them, which is also not a desirable situation. Tutor cards are okay, but the accumulation of tutors might not be. The solution is to make tutors conditional, not to make them more expensive.

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

That doesn't solve the problem with hyper-thin, though. And Fauve is the only other card were it applies, to begin with.
They used to be and no one played them, which is also not a desirable situation. Tutor cards are okay, but the accumulation of tutors might not be. The solution is to make tutors conditional, not to make them more expensive.

Also applies to any royal decree -> tutor. The 'create' status is also not considered as tutoring but in the NG case it actually is(vigo). So non-unit cards like decree and marching orders should also have the tutor tag.

I'm not sure how exactly to make them conditional.
I believe that if they are all expensive, people will play even the witcher trio if they need thinning - an example is the monsters graveyard consume deck that has the witchers inside (because they need bodies and thinning).
People don't play the trio because there are way better options at the moment.

EDIT: Decree into blue stripes commando will also be affected for example.

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...]
I believe that if they are all expensive, people will play even the witcher trio if they need thinning - an example is the monsters graveyard consume deck that has the witchers inside (because they need bodies and thinning).
People don't play the trio because there are way better options at the moment.
[...]

You consider the Mourntart Eredin deck to be a problem ? (it is one of the worst decks in the game at the moment ...)
People do not play the Trio because it is worthless right now, before the tutors were made playable by provision buffs people did not play the nerfed Trio either, because investing 3 8 provision cards for the tempo 4-5 provision cards are currently giving is in no way worth the investment.
Tutors are still expensive, however affordable.
Thinning means nothing if you have no provisions left for anything actually meaningful to thin for in the first place.
Hyperthin does not play as many thinning cards because thinning that much is actually helpful, it is because of the extremely high payoff of guaranteeing a Tibor (or that 11 point Golem) as a target for Yennefer, Xarthisius and/or Vilgefortz. (Also because of the high payoff of High Tempo finishers)

 

[thetruerenter]

I'd say hyperthin has a weak spot against the milling decks. They could get a round 3 with no cards in deck remaining. And why would this deck be OP? I had a similar Xarthisius based deck like 5 months ago with the prior exception of not having portal in it. It didn't win that much back then.

 

[4RM3D]

Also applies to any royal decree

Royal Decree is usually added for consistency, not thinning; same with Fauve, because ST doesn't need to thin, but it does need consistency. That's a totally different scenario.

I'm not sure how exactly to make them conditional.

A few examples:
1a) Play a unit (or maybe card) from your deck which has equal or less provisions than the number of units you control.
1b) Play a unit (or maybe card) from your deck which has equal or less provisions than the number of cards in your graveyard.
2) Banish a card from the graveyard and play a copy of it from your deck.
3) Play a card from the deck whose primary category is not yet in your graveyard or under your control.
4) Put a unit you control on the bottom of your deck and play a different card of equal or less provisions from your deck.

These are all neutral examples. You could also implemented faction specific tutors tied to faction mechanics, e.g. for NR:
5) Play a card from your deck which has equal or less provisions than the number of boosted units you control.

All these tutors need to be tweaked based on provisions/category/strength, as 1a is easier to achieve than 5.

 

[ardeathwinggwent]

Royal Decree is usually added for consistency, not thinning; same with Fauve, because ST doesn't need to thin, but it does need consistency. That's a totally different scenario.

Regardless what it's added for, fact is, it still thins 1 card from your deck. It still improves your chances of drawing what you need to be higher in the rounds after you use the decree.
Decree imo is 1 of the best cards in the game currently for its cost. 10prov, you can pull stuff that cost more, apply combos, consistency and 1 card thin. It's only limitation is that it pulls a unit.

You consider the Mourntart Eredin deck to be a problem ? (it is one of the worst decks in the game at the moment ...)

On the contrary, I was giving an example of a deck that still uses the witchers regardless of their high provision cost.

 

[Hassene_Gadacha_As]

Why are you complaining about something that is not OP by your own admission?