Year of the Rat speculations.

[dunadan5]

What do you think the next annual seasonal tree will bring?

My guess is that since it is the year of the rat and the rat, both culturally and in the witcher lore is strongly linked to plagues it will be some mixture of the two motifs.
So possibly the Plague Maiden, Noonwraith and Nightwraith (btw in the original language version they're linked to noon and midnight but midnight wraith just wouldn't have the same ring in english) as they spawn rats and maybe the Epidemic special card as well, for obvious reasons.

But then they might not was to have all three reward cards be from one faction. If not that then i'm not sure which cards they could go for from the neutral card pool.
Devil's Puffball also features a rat in the design, but that's probably a weaker link. Possibly cards linked with poison and alchemy to represent death and mortality?

If my rat-plague guess is accurate then i would also assume that the obvious choice for the Lore Text in the seasonal tree would be something describing the Catriona Plague.

 

[DRK3]

I thought about this too, and what name they will come up with to make it more witcher-friendly (year of the pig became year of the wild boar)

And with Rat, the recently added wraiths and rats of Monsters faction (combined with plague and disease) really is what makes more sense, but i think it will be hard to make something cool that appeals to players, which would be easy if it was the year of the Dragon or Ox.

 

[Pacifixer]

I think they will focus more on "The Rats". A gang from the 4th Witcher book.

 

[DRK3]

I think they will focus more on "The Rats". A gang from the 4th Witcher book.

That would be cool, i've veen asking them to put them in Gwent for 2 or 3 years now and nothing, not even when they added lots of bandits cards recently.

 

[dunadan5]

That could make sense. Although the plague event might be more familiar to people than the Rats.
Mind you a third option could be that it will be something else. We've had Witcher Whatshisname in the Griffin season who wasn't a well known charater. He might possibly have been a new one altogether.
Or... it could simply be a four piece story just about rats.

Post automatically merged: Jan 22, 2020

If the trend continues then the annual tree will contain 2-3 premium cards, a title, some profile pictures and a playing board.
The plague rat connection makes sense to me, as the wraiths are a set of three cards, but the board...
I just keep thinking that a playing board themed around an epidemic of a plague might be a bit to full-on, even for a witcher game. And as for the gang rat idea, i suppose a board themed around them could be everything or anything, maybe a den of some kind.

 

[Pacifixer]

Plague board would be awesome - laboratory from the plague maiden quest in W3, or city streets with rats and corpses, or maybe some sewers, .....
They might also do Korath or Tor Lara board, it's not directly connected to The Rats, but it would sort of make sense.
I just hope they do it properly, i don't want some lazy re-color like Night Novigrad.

 

[Payus]

It would be cool if the added more plague doctor cards like the one in experimental remedy.
Could be fun with some alchemy, necromancers, rats, doctors (maybe units that heal poison without purify)
Even a new "weather" could be added like for 2 turns poison the lowest unit onm this row.
And we colud have a boon weather that every turn for 2 turns remove poison and boost the poisoned unit(s) by 2 at the end of the turn

 

[dunadan5]

I don't think they'll be adding any new cards, just for the sake of the tree. I think it'll just be the cosmetics.
Some of the things you mentioned could be added in the future, if they ever did an expansion themed around the plague.
The poison weather effect is bang out of order though, poison is far too powerful as it is right now, adding anything on top of that would probably be very exploitable. However the weather that counters Nifgaards poisons and lock could be something beneficial.
The laboratory from the Tower of Rats quest in W3 might be a very good idea too. A nice bit of fan service and it would fit well with the year of the rat theme.

Post automatically merged: Jan 24, 2020

We are very much locked into the dark rat theme. I wonder, does anyone have any ideas as to what they could do to make a "cheerful" board for the year of the rat, like with the year of the pig board?