Wild Hunt Concept

[N.O.D.]

Greetings from RuGwent community, its NOD and Im here to talk about Wild Hunt archetype. Here Im gonna tell my thoughts on current situation with this archetype and about its future development. I've covered this in my YouTube video, so i wanted to share it with you guys. Let's begin ladies and gentlemen!
Main thoughts
WH - Wild Hunt, will be used as shortening to the term.
WH should be separated from current Big Monsters archetype, it should more rewarding to play and more complex.
Some WH Frost mechanics and synergies should be brought back, I mostly think that CDPR shouldn't forget the OBT and old WH. Also, Frost synergies would be more canon according to the Witcher games and books.
Let's talk about cards for this Frosty WH.

Bronze:

Let's begin with Wild Hunt Hound:

Seems a bit unfair and too powerful but this type of cards should be in game, its additional deck thinning. These cards are absolutely required for some archetypes to function. But still we pay 13 prov for total of 9 points and 1 card draw, I honestly think this card is fine and balanced and it won't break the game in its current state.

WH Riders:

Almost nothing changed at all but
Its still thinning
It has more interesting conditions

WH Navigator:

Sortish engine for WH, when immune gives stable 5 points of strength on board, with riders even more. Changing cards strength value to 3 may be too op, if I had testers and and CDPR developer employee, I would think about that, but Im not, so let's move on.

WH Warrior

Very generic bronze card with 0 of conditions done, 5 str 5 provions, 6 strength with1 of them done and 7 with both. I myself consider this card very strong, but reach 1 makes it playable and not so strong.

So we are done with bronze and we can move forward to Gold cards
Let's start with Nithral:

Very versatile card can be used for spamming units and playing 6 str for 7 prov, also triggering navigator or as nice round finisher.

Caranthir:

My thoughts on current system within 16 turns are that you should keep the frost not all of the time on field but most of the game around 12 turns in summaryб if we add Vaedemakar it's actually 13 turns of frost per game.

Imlerith Sabbath - he was sorta an outsider, when someone tries relate him to the wild hunt, so instead of his art I would Use Imlerith Wrath. Remark: I don't want Imlerith Wrath to be removed, I like the card and effect so I would love to see in game, but mb with different art. REACH 2

6 damage for 9 provions with a condition, generally good card.

Overall this concept looks great. Main problem is that we actually lack some simplistic cards like nekker warrior, that you can just pull out of the hand with no effects or slow engine effects alike thrive or nithral with board spam. This lack of open play right now makes it very uncomfortable to play wit. To compensate the issue 1-2 bronze cards without board interactions should be added to the main set for this concept to fiction fully.
There are 2 leaders versions currently.
Speaking about the idea: they have charges but for different usage.

Eredin the 1st
Eredin starts with 0 charges, he generates 2 charges for each Golden WH card and 1 charge for each WH bronze unit, maximum amout is 12 charges for game.
Pressing the leader buttom opens tab for creating a WH bronze unit.
They are:
WH hound - 4 points
WH Navigator - 4 points
Wh Rider - 8 points
WH Warrior - 6 points
After choosing the unit you create and play it. In total from this ability u get 3 unit combos for all points: Rider + Navigator/WHH. Warrior + Warrior. Or 3 Navigators and etc. t's only the top of an iceberg. This ability allows for some nice plays. This concept is only for existing bronze and can be improved in some ways (card expansions, reworks, new cards from CDPR, players additions and etc). Very flexible ability considering his current possibilities in r1/r3. Considering his ability he shall have about 11-13 Prov.

Eredin the 2nd
Ability : increase weather duration by 1, 2 charges, gain 1 charge for every golden WH unit played. Just 4 points ability to extend frost or other weather effects on the field.

What i wanted to do is to make a clear difference within monsters faction between its archetypes and say final goodbye to wretched pile of big decks mechanics list and no clear difference between them . I would love to see more styalised decks and themes around them. Leave your feedback in comment section of the article and see you next time!
P.S. video

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

I dislike those ideas as they would be a step backwards in card and archetype design bringing back the mistakes from Beta.
You are trying to make an archetype out of WH, but instead of doing that by giving them a common theme, such that it makes sense to combine them because they work well together, you give them tags and conditions that force players to play them together by making restrictions and forcing players to play cards together that except those forced tags don't have anything in common.

You want to combine WH units with frost, which deals 2 damage to the lowest enemy unit on a row. But how many of those WH you proposed do really synergize with Frost? There is only a single one, which is the WH warrior due to its deathblow, but even that card doesn't synergize that well with Frost, because he deals to much damage himself to use the Frost effect. So, if those cards wouldn't force a player to use Frost, there wouldn't be any sense in it.

The next problem is the forced synergy between the WH units themselves. This makes those cards extremly unflexible and brings them in a really tight spot, as the player hasn't any good choice to combine them with other cards, to adapt to new or different situations. And where this leads can be seen in ST, where the elven as well the dwarven archetype are both in a peculiar situation due to this problem.
This doesn't mean there shouldn't be any cards that synergize with certain tags, but those cards shouldn't be the ones you build an archetype around. Instead it should be the otherway around. If a player notices that he already has quite a lot of a certain tag in his deck, he should consider adding a card that synergizes with them or optimizing his deck a bit more in that direction.


My solution
If you want to WH to synergize with themselves and with Frost, give them a common theme that fits inside MO:
1. Switch Frost and Fog, such that Frost damages the highest unit and make WH all about dominance and keeping the enemy cards below a certain level.
2. Keep Frost the way it is, but make WH revolve aroudn deathwishes and butchering enemies below a certain strength level.

 

[Ulubey0]

I dislike those ideas as they would be a step backwards in card and archetype design bringing back the mistakes from Beta.

How are cards like these a mistake? it's a throwback to when Gwent actually had synergy and the majority of cards weren't just "damage by x" / "boost by x".

Even though they added effects like bleed and vitality to the game, when you really think about it those are just damage and boost effects too. The game is too simple without real synergies like we had in Beta.

 

[Pounc3e]

I dislike those ideas as they would be a step backwards in card and archetype design bringing back the mistakes from Beta.
You are trying to make an archetype out of WH, but instead of doing that by giving them a common theme, such that it makes sense to combine them because they work well together, you give them tags and conditions that force players to play them together by making restrictions and forcing players to play cards together that except those forced tags don't have anything in common.

You want to combine WH units with frost, which deals 2 damage to the lowest enemy unit on a row. But how many of those WH you proposed do really synergize with Frost? There is only a single one, which is the WH warrior due to its deathblow, but even that card doesn't synergize that well with Frost, because he deals to much damage himself to use the Frost effect. So, if those cards wouldn't force a player to use Frost, there wouldn't be any sense in it.

The next problem is the forced synergy between the WH units themselves. This makes those cards extremly unflexible and brings them in a really tight spot, as the player hasn't any good choice to combine them with other cards, to adapt to new or different situations. And where this leads can be seen in ST, where the elven as well the dwarven archetype are both in a peculiar situation due to this problem.
This doesn't mean there shouldn't be any cards that synergize with certain tags, but those cards shouldn't be the ones you build an archetype around. Instead it should be the otherway around. If a player notices that he already has quite a lot of a certain tag in his deck, he should consider adding a card that synergizes with them or optimizing his deck a bit more in that direction.


My solution
If you want to WH to synergize with themselves and with Frost, give them a common theme that fits inside MO:
1. Switch Frost and Fog, such that Frost damages the highest unit and make WH all about dominance and keeping the enemy cards below a certain level.
2. Keep Frost the way it is, but make WH revolve around-aroudn- deathwish units-deathwishes- and butchering enemies below a certain strength level.

Solid solution, solid. Nothing more to add, a decent way how to solve the Wild Hunt situation which does not go back to the mistakes from Beta. This is how to move forward with Monsters and especially Wild Hunt Units, and others with "Dominance" tag, it will make sense not only in the short term but in the long term. CDPR, if you are reading this swap both Weathers "Frost and Fog" around so Frost deals damage to the highest enemy unit not lowest and units with tag "Dominance" will keep the opposition units' point value down then putting pressure on the opposition to make their units' point value higher or deal damage to keep yours down.