Why there is no thread about MO (Arachas Swarm)?

+

rrc

Forum veteran
Everyday I have been waiting for someone to create a thread about MO, especially about Arachas Swarm. I know there is already a thread about NG and SK keeps popping up every now and then (ST had its days with so many Nerf-ST threads and CDPR told that 'Your will be done' and nerfed ST. I wouldn't say to totally unplayable levels, but removed them being OP). But I have been having really hard time playing against Arachas Swarm. I find it incredibly powerful and unless I tech against them, there is no way I can win (with Guarilla Tactics ST or King of Beggars SY or Ursine Ritual SK).

The main reason being the incredibly powerful cheap bronzes Entrega Larva, Adrenaline Rush providing huge value for 5P cards. Entrega Larva is probably the strongest bronze card in the entire game (as powerful as Svalblod Priest when he was 5P, and subsequently balanced to be 6P). Entrega Larva provides insane value for a 5P card which is very very hard to remove to. Nekkers are also logically the same, but nekkers can be easily handled/removed. Even Lacerate or Lambert can't kill/stop them. Entrega Larva should be 6 provisions or it should only Thrive if Barricade or it should have only 1 armor. The biggest crime of Water of Brokilon was it created two engines effectively making it +2 per turn. It was a high provision card and gave higher value card on board. Entrega Larva is the also the same. Two engines which are hard to remove and can give +2 per turn.

Adrenaline Rush provides 9 value for 5 provisions, above the curve of even SK. SK Druid who boosts two adjacent beasts give 8 points for 5 provisions. No other 5P card can give 9 value on deploy and instantly. All Organic cards provide +1 point on board, so the leader provides a minimum of +7 to the board. IMO, this is a tier 1 leader and should only have 12 provisions, like all other Tier 1 leaders. The only games I could manage to win are if I tech against this heavily, with Heatwave (for that 13 power insectoid) and Yarden. But Yarden is useless against NG, NR and ST (and against many leaders in other factions too).

If you think Arachas Swarm is not OP and you feel comfortable playing against them, please let me know what your strategies are. Please let me know which leaders you play and how you usually go against Arachas Swarm? If you are wondering which rank I am playing, currently I am in pro rank and I find Arachas Swarm incredibly hard to win against, nearly impossible).
 
This deck is super powerful and also high tempo.
Right now, when I see it, I insta forfeit, cause I dont wanna waste time.
Almost every unit they play is above its provisions.
And, they have several removals too.
My number one hated deck at the moment.
 
If you think Arachas Swarm is not OP and you feel comfortable playing against them, please let me know what your strategies are. Please let me know which leaders you play and how you usually go against Arachas Swarm? If you are wondering which rank I am playing, currently I am in pro rank and I find Arachas Swarm incredibly hard to win against, nearly impossible).

Currently I have no problems with that deck, but I recognize that it is quite strong for how it is played. It is another example of how developers seek to give advantage to retard decks that vomit things without thinking.

Adrenaline rush: It doesn't make the slightest sense, it shouldn't work on tokens at least, it is supposed to be "stack risk" when putting buffs on a unit, doing it on a 1 power token loses that risk completely. Still it is a lot for its cost and the requirement is insignificant.

Imerith: A warrior looking for his most worthy opponent according to the story of the character is now the nanny of a larva .......
The ability of the beta is the most correct thing, they should go in that direction and seek to balance it instead of making it mutate so often.

I think that without those elements the free and unnecessary power that the deck currently has would be lowered quite a bit.

I play elves with practically all damage units, and damage units in multiple units, I can kill almost all of the tokens as the enemy creates them.

After that ... scorch on the large units.

The same deck works against NG Poison, as all my units are of low numerical value.

ST.png


Even so I have not played much, it bores me to always see the same, and although my deck does not use most of the cards that are normally seen, my opponents are all netdeckers, I only seeing the ability of the leader I know what will come, it is too much boring to play something like that.
 
If you think Arachas Swarm is not OP and you feel comfortable playing against them, please let me know what your strategies are.

Monsters are OP ^
Nilfgaard is OP. Also, this.
Skellige is OP. Also, this.
Northern Realms are OP.
(Defender is OP. Also, this)

Everything is OP! And when everything is OP, nothing is.

I am not saying the game is balanced. Nonetheless, I am getting tired of everyone claiming something is OP (regardless of whether or not it's true) and worse, people just auto-forfeiting because they face X faction. I would kinda understand when some deck hard counters your own, but that should never be a majority of match-ups.

PS. this is not specifically directed at you, rrc. You were just unlucky to put the final straw on the camel's back.
 
100% agree!
Endrega Larva - crazy overpowered bronze card, 10+p for 5prov is just insane
Adrenaline Rush - 8p for 5prov with basicly no requirements? That is not OK!
Yghern - interesting idea - risky/easy to kill power play, but poorly implemented, he is alwais played with 7+ armour. Where is the risk?

I would like to add 1 more MO transgression - Thrive.
Thrive is IMO the most boring and broken mechanic in the game - you don't have to do anything special, just braindead pointslam.
Post automatically merged:

Monsters are OP ^
Nilfgaard is OP. Also, this.
Skellige is OP. Also, this.
Northern Realms are OP.
(Defender is OP. Also, this)

Everything is OP! And when everything is OP, nothing is.

I am not saying the game is balanced. Nonetheless, I am getting tired of everyone claiming something is OP (regardless of whether or not it's true) and worse, people just auto-forfeiting because they face X faction. I would kinda understand when some deck hard counters your own, but that should never be a majority of match-ups.

PS. this is not specifically directed at you, rrc. You were just unlucky to put the final straw on the camel's back.
You are right, but all those complains are about a single deck and some of them are outdated.
If everything is OP, nothing is. But only 2 or 3 decks are really OP at the same time.

Also no one is complaining abou SY, even though it has only one deck and it's one of the best decks right now :p
 
Last edited:
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc
Also no one is complaining abou SY, even though it has only one deck and it's one of the best decks right now

I do want to make a general remark regarding OP decks. There is a different between decks that people complain about and decks that are actually overtuned. Players in lower ranks usually play more gimmicky decks, but it's precisely these "cheap" tactics that can shut down another deck completely, which usually leads to someone complaining about it on the forums/Discord.

My general advice is, before claiming something is OP, try to play the deck yourself to learn its strengths and weaknesses. I've faced the same situation a few times were I was matched against a deck that seemed to be too strong. But then, when I tried the deck for myself, I found out that it had an unfavorable match-up against a lot of other decks.

On a closing note, I want to mention that when a deck is perceived to be OP, that's still a problem that needs to be dealt with. However, nerfing such decks is usually not the solution. That's why it's important to make a distinction between pro-rank and "normal" rank. Every segment of play requires a different approach to solve.
 
[...]
I would like to add 1 more MO transgression - Thrive.
Thrive is IMO the most boring and broken mechanic in the game - you don't have to do anything special, just braindead pointslam.
[...]

People keep using that term again ... and again ... and again ... and I am starting to get bored/annoyed by it (I cannot tell which one it is at this point).
It is not constructive, not adding anything to the discussion and intended to discredit someone for playing something (they seem to/might enjoy).
"Braindead pointslam" has been used to describe instant value cards (actually so called pointslam cards), counters (control tools) and even engines (which would be hilarious, would it not be so sad), so since it has been used for literally every type of card it is pretty meaningless.
I guess the intend is to say that playing it is incredibly easy, I hate to break it toyou, however in principle everything in these games is incredibly easy to pilot, unless you actually care about more intricate details of the specific matchup (e.g. how to (almost) perfectly use the current point gap to not overcomit, trick etc).

As for this specific instance:
Thrive relies on incentivizing a certain order of plays, the same goes for harmony and ssimilate.
All of them are "blind", unless you look into specific details about them and the certain kind of deck they incentivize.

You forget ST, Noonwraith and SY (which I have to admit I also called OP back then (ST), however back then they were the Tier 1 deck).
Those have recently faded out of the focus, however going back just 2 format or less we can actually find people calling for the nerfing of every faction in the game (although just 1 at a time).

I am also just confused why some people start suddenly calling for nerfs on Tier 2 and even Tier 3 decks.[/QUOTE]
 
Last edited:
You forget ST, Noonwraith and SY (which I have to admit I also called OP back then (ST), however back then they were the Tier 1 deck).

I've only linked the most recent complains/feedback. If I listed them all, then I would have reached the character limit for a post (and, incidentally, the limit of my sanity).
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I partially agree that current Arachas Swarm is OP, but on a more personal note, i hate it passionately.

Arachas Queen is (or was) my favourite Monster leader, it was even the one i chose to complete the reward tree to get her avatar. This was early Gwent HC, when her ability was only passive, when you destroyed an allied unit, it generated another 1pt token, she couldnt even generate arachas with charges.

This deck - Vran machineguns+Glustyworp and forktails - was incredibly fun, but it took many turns to set up, was easily countered (at that time wide punishment was more popular) and had absolutely no control... well at least until the vrans started doing their thing...

Now, the current Arachas Swarm is the polar opposite - pointslam, no combos, removal-heavy... Urghh just to think about it i almost throw up.
The Kikkimore Queen and the insectoid support was nice a few updates ago, but unfortunately that deck works better on Death's Shadow than on Arachas Swarm, so if i want to play arachas swarm (actually SWARM), i have to play another leader...:shrug:

P.S.- the endrega larva really is quite strong, but you should always counter at least one, with a 3pt damage or lock, otherwise it provides insane value (unless you have a Yrden ready, in that case you can leave them... i've had +40pt Yrdens vs Monsters lately)
 

rrc

Forum veteran
Monsters are OP ^
Nilfgaard is OP. Also, this.
Skellige is OP. Also, this.
Northern Realms are OP.
(Defender is OP. Also, this)

Everything is OP! And when everything is OP, nothing is.

I am not saying the game is balanced. Nonetheless, I am getting tired of everyone claiming something is OP (regardless of whether or not it's true) and worse, people just auto-forfeiting because they face X faction. I would kinda understand when some deck hard counters your own, but that should never be a majority of match-ups.

PS. this is not specifically directed at you, rrc. You were just unlucky to put the final straw on the camel's back.
Dear @4RM3D, I agree. When everything is OP, nothing is (my favorite dialogue from one of my most favorite movies The Incredibles). I know this trend of calling everything OP and honestly it annoys me too. That is why I didn't simply create a tread asking "Nerf everything MO". I genuinely struggle against Arachas Swarm. I can't setup any engine as MO now has so many control options and I can't out point them too (their every single play provides more value). The only way I could win was with Yarden. Even in some of the game, I draw Yarden and get 20+ values from it, I lose because good players distribute their boost on both rows. Playing ST (Guaraila Tactics with engines), SK (SvalBlod with incredibly powerful engines and Morgvarg and Yarden), and even SY (with multiple tall punishes with poison, 9P Witch Hunter and again Yarden).. I tried three different decks, but whenever I face, I cringe because most probably I would lose. Just to handle this one bloody deck, I added Royal Decree to make Yarden draw consistent. Even with so much hard counter, I lose more against this deck.

Still, I genuinely think Endriga Larva is broken OP. Disgustingly powerful card which is very hard to counter. I went to extreme lengths as to add Sand Storm just to handle this one bloody freaking unit. The last time I felt this scared about a 5P bronze was the original SvalBlod Priest. Now, I think Entriga Larva is as OP as how SvalBlod priest was then.

Shouldn't MO is all about point slam and tall units which can only be countered by Engine decks? Engine vs Control vs Pointslam wheel. But now, MO has the best engines and too many control options (4P organic cards, 6P organic card, Striga, Imlerith Wrath) effectively making the only way to win against them is to hard tech against them.

So, I wanted to ask how people see this deck and if they think it is easy to handle, what do they do. What is their strategy? Because anyone who is playing classic mode should be aware of this deck as this is very very popular.
 
Dear @4RM3D, I agree. When everything is OP, nothing is

If nothing is OP, the game should be widely recognized as well balanced, and meta decks should basically not exist other than "lots of decks are pretty good" lists.

If you look at ALL the cards of the game, some are OP. If you look at all the meta reports, these decks are based on OP units and leaders or whatever (combos). The golden ratio should be when all card are well balanced around a large majority of cards.
So, at this point, you can say that alot of cards are bad, or some are OP. Personally I don't think the majority of cards need a finer balance and fine tuning.
 
I genuinely struggle against Arachas Swarm.

I have been out of the loop. So, I cannot help you there, unfortunately, other than my earlier advice to try to play the deck yourself and discover its weaknesses. That, and/or maybe watch some streamers.

If nothing is OP, the game should be widely recognized as well balanced, and meta decks should basically not exist other than "lots of decks are pretty good" lists.

That's not how card games work, though. It's a bit too complex to fully explain the situation. For now, I'll focus on one thing, the "balance" you speak of. There is kind of a "balance scale" based on the variance of the match-ups. There are basically two extremes:
1. Every deck is average and can beat every other deck. This is kinda like you've mentioned.
2. Every deck is either rock (value), paper (engines) or scissors (counter).

Both situations are technically balanced because no deck overwhelms the rest, but, at the same time, neither situation is preferred. In the first one, there is no incentive for deckbuilding because too many things work. In the second one, deckbuilding is pointless because too few things work (and everything is decided by a coin flip). In truth, we need a meta and that means having stronger decks and weaker decks. And, because of that, there will always be a rock-paper-scissors construction. However, it should not be the deciding factor of a match.

Lastly, one quick note... trying to balance a card game is extremely difficult. Because, for example, nerfing a dominating deck, might result in another even more toxic deck becoming tier 1. Everything is intricately tied to everything else.
 
I have been out of the loop.

Well, there is all that, and then there is a game which is balanced well relative to itself, meaning cards relative to each others, which is generally something the game seems to aim at, relatively speaking.

I never said anything about every deck being able to beat every other deck. I'm speaking about well balanced cards that maximise the strategic aspect of the game, while feeling like a fair game and well balanced, relatively speaking. I know it's a complex game, but it's certainly possible.
 
Well, there is all that, and then there is a game which is balanced well relative to itself, meaning cards relative to each others, which is generally something the game seems to aim at, relatively speaking.

This topic is veering away from Monsters. So, I'll end with one final note. You cannot balance cards relative to each other. For example, some cards are OP in one faction, while useless in another. Even then, having some strong cards in one faction is okay, as long as the faction as a whole isn't overwhelming. Also, there is the problem with combos and the variance therein. Two cards could be fine, individually, but together they become too strong. You might be able to spot the obvious ones, but with a growing card pool, it becomes increasingly more difficult, especially when everything becomes entangled. In conclusion, balance factions, not individual cards. Regardless, it remains challenging to do so.
 
I tried some kind of AQ swarm deck.
It is ridiculous!
Got me from rank 7 (my stopping point) to rank 2 in 1-2 hours.
Won every game where I started second. Actually, I lost only 2 games (1 misplay and 1 very good playing by my oppo).
The best things about this deck are:
1) very big tempo, except the endrega. But while the opponent tries to kill it, I still setting up next moves.
2) versatile: i can kill almost anything I want, evade poison with purify or consume etc
3) tutors: naglfar, royal decree, organic crone always gives me the best cards. Almost in every game I had best cards, while worst remaining in my deck.

But I think this deck is kinda no-brain, yes.
 
[...]
But I think this deck is kinda no-brain, yes.
I am sure this will upset some people, however all decks are on the surface "no-brain" to pilot.
The actual dept comes from the details, how one commits resources, bluffs certain tools, if one wins the coinflip (with growing powerlevels the value of Stratagems diminishes and going second becomes better and better) and so on.
 
This topic is veering away from Monsters. So, I'll end with one final note. You cannot balance cards relative to each other. For example, some cards are OP in one faction, while useless in another. Even then, having some strong cards in one faction is okay, as long as the faction as a whole isn't overwhelming. Also, there is the problem with combos and the variance therein. Two cards could be fine, individually, but together they become too strong. You might be able to spot the obvious ones, but with a growing card pool, it becomes increasingly more difficult, especially when everything becomes entangled. In conclusion, balance factions, not individual cards. Regardless, it remains challenging to do so.

Well fine, let's not talk about it here. But just think about Muirlega and Etriel vs Unicorn and Chironex.
Anyways, to finish this on something slightly relevant, Caranthir, belongs to the category, inherently because of what he does.

Anyways, a bit of a shame in regards to this particular deck that Imlerith has become nothing more then a boost for a drone. Considering all the destroy abilities of say Skellige, with dependencies and what someone here said about Imlerith "nature", it would be nice to see him do something like "duel an enemy unit, if dominance destroy a unit with lower provision cost than Imlerith".
 
I am sure this will upset some people, however all decks are on the surface "no-brain" to pilot.
The actual dept comes from the details, how one commits resources, bluffs certain tools, if one wins the coinflip (with growing powerlevels the value of Stratagems diminishes and going second becomes better and better) and so on.
These "details" are something you just do in every match, it is not deck-specific. IMO "brain-dead" deck is one that doesn't require any aditional "skill" (like all-in Thrive). You can argue that you have to adjust those general skills to fit your deck, but all you have to do is be aware of how is your deck supposed to be played.
 
These "details" are something you just do in every match, it is not deck-specific. IMO "brain-dead" deck is one that doesn't require any aditional "skill" (like all-in Thrive). You can argue that you have to adjust those general skills to fit your deck, but all you have to do is be aware of how is your deck supposed to be played.
Give me an example for a deck that is different from that.
 
Give me an example for a deck that is different from that.
Any deck except Thrive. All-in Thrive is probably the only deck that doesn't require you to do or watch out for anyrhing special.

Example: Elves with Scorch - You have to prep Aeliren, Yeavin, Scorch, Isengrim, Oak, Scenario, Vernosiel...., thhere is also Blademaster, Purify, Lock and Dragoon. Every matchup is diferent and you have to mulligan the right cards, play the right cards in the right order and keep the right cards to deal with threats.
 
Top Bottom