Various Thoughts

After switching through a bunch of decks, and falling all the way down to 3400, the realization hit that I simply was no longer having any fun playing the game. A fundamental change was in order. So rather than thinking about what would be good against the current metagame (which is a crapshoot to predict with the blind matchmaking) I instead just put together a bunch of cards that would be fun to play.

Ironically, I ended up with a variation of Dagon-Butterfly:

• Foglet x3, Celaeno Harpy x3, Ekimmara x2, Earth Elemental x2, Arachas x3, Lacerate x2
• Grave Hag, Fiend, Katakan, Water Hag, Decoy, Monster Nest
• Ge’els, Triss: Butterflies, Woodland Spirit, Succubus

Now this is not an optimized deck; it has only two methods of calling fog, the Arachas seem orphaned, the consume aspects come across as half-baked, and you can get an awful draw with multiple Foglets/Arachas. Yet its variety, and flexibility (Weather, Butterflies, Succubus, Resilience, Grave Hag, Behemoth/Foglet via Monster Nest), is exactly what I ended up liking most about it and the only real complaint is a lack of card draw.

It brought me up to 4050 in rather short order considering I only played enough each day to reach the first daily reward (a countermeasure against burning out again). Assuming nothing changes I’ll probably stick with this for the foreseeable future, though I’m curious about a Dwarf-Resilience deck I saw a few times that takes a similar approach (it ran Sheldon, Blue Mountain Elves, and even a couple Skirmishers).

After the last post I ended up stuck at Rank 17 for like a week. Couldn’t gain any traction whatsoever against all the Butterfly and Kaedweni Sergeant decks that were suddenly so popular.

So I built a Eithné deck specifically to fight them:

• Smuggler x3, Trapper x2, Dragoon x3, Thunder x1, First Light x1, Shackles x1, Epidemic x1, Mardroeme x1, Lacerate x2
• Toruviel, Ciaran, Myrgtabrakke, Braenn, Nature’s Gift, Necromancy
• Saskia, Saesenthessis, Schirrú, Ithlinne

Unfortunately, I was not skilled enough to make the most of it (making dumb misplays rather often) and didn’t get very far. So to hell with it I thought, I’ll go back to my roots with John Calveit:

• Golem x3, Pikeman x3, Brigade x2, Medic x2, Rot Tosser x3, Emissary x2
• Peter Saar, Aukes, Assire, D-Bomb, Fake Ciri, Cantarella
• Cahir, Vilgefortz, Tibor, Letho

Less weak to player error and far better at topdecking… and it certainly didn’t hurt that Letho plays havoc with Fogling/Resilience strategies… this deck finally broke me past the 3600 point barrier. The only change I made since putting it together was switching out Twisted Mirror for Assire (it was a dead card too often and I sometimes ended up without any cards to draw). Now let’s see if I can make it any higher.

I’m continuing to play this game almost religiously.

After my earlier success with the Bran-Discard deck I hit something of a wall, winning and losing in equal measure. Changing things up I switched over to a Calveit-Spy deck following the random acquisition of the Rainfarn card in a keg:

• Golem x2, Brigade x3, Medic x3, Engineer x1, Rot Tosser x3, Emissary x2, Ambassador x2
• Peter Saar, Aukes, Vanhemar, Decoy, de Wett, Fake Ciri
• Cahir, Rainfarn, Vilgefortz, Tibor

I had remarkably good success with this and practically flew up the ranks. It has bad matchups against both Elder-Consume and Voorhis-Reveal though (two popular archetypes right now at this position; the third being Dwarf-Boost) and I’m debating whether or not to fit Letho in somehow.

Aside from that one I have two other ‘main’ decks I switch between in ranked play. A slightly revised version of the previous Bran deck (which I saw at least two other people playing):

• Queensguard x3, Pirate Captain x3, Pirate x3, Priestess x1, War Longship x2, Shackles x2, Mardroeme x1
• Champ of Champs, Donar, Operator, Sigrdrifa, Svanrige, Alzur’s Double-Cross
• Ermion, Villentretenmerth, Ciri: Dash, Decree

I picked up Villentret for an Elf control deck, but he worked out remarkably well here as well… still might switch him out for Lugos or Coral though. The bronzes haven’t changed much but the silvers were switched around often; I may yet go back to running Johnny instead of Operator and Svanrige is still underwhelming (following the post-update nerf, Morkvarg’s no longer in the running).

As for the third deck, well I took my own advice from earlier and saved up the necessary scrap to build a more powerful monster deck. Elder-Consume in this case:

• Celaeno x3, Nekker x3, Ekimmara x2, Vran x2, Behemoth x3, Mardroeme x2
• Grave Hag, Fiend, Katakan, Crone x3
• Ge’els, Caretaker, Decree, Succubus

It’s pretty standard, with the only real departure from the norm being the Mardroemes. I was running Kayran instead of Caretaker for a while, but playing the Kayran more often than not resulted in severe card disadvantage.

The recent hotfix definitely altered the metagame. With weather no longer being so dominant it’s now possible to actually play decks without being forced to find space for 3+ weather-removal cards, which opens up a number of options. While it was manageable, there is no denying that weather was definitely overpowered before with average bronze weather cards being able to shift the power balance far more than average bronze unit cards.

It’s still powerful now, you just can’t run all-weather decks anymore. So all in all I’d have to say the change was welcome. The Morkvarg and Olgierd changes are a bit more questionable though. Well, we’ll see how things go.

So, since shortly after the public beta started, I’ve fallen down the Gwent rabbit hole. It scratches that card game itch I previously soothed with first MTGO (stopping after it seemed like WotC cared more about making money than satisfying their customers; shortly after the super epic rares popped up I think it was) and then slightly more recently Duel of Champions.

Having spent no money on this just yet, I’m at level 32 (floating between ranks 11 & 12) with pretty much all the bronze cards, some key silver cards, and a handful of gold cards.

Starting out in ranked play I went with Henselt-Reavers (I’m missing the golds and witcher trio to make it really good), then moved on to Elder-Consume (missing all the golds) and Voorhis-Reveal (lacking the reveal golds), next to Elf-Control (missing Villentret), and finally ended up having the most luck with Bran-Discard:

• Queensguard x3, Pirate Captain x3, Pirate x3, Priestess x2, War Longship x2, Mardroeme x2
• Champ of Champs, Morkvarg, Donar, Operator, Sigrdrifa, Svanrige
• Ermion, Ciri: Dash, Drought, Decree

Primarily the deck wins with giant Pirate Captains, supported by giant Ciri, but it also has a bit of a Queensguard-resurrection backup plan (whether you use Operator on them or the Captains depends on the matchup) and I’ve also won a number of games thanks to a 20+ power Champion of Champions.

The Mardroeme used to be Raiders, but I desperately needed more removal. Svanrige has been a bit underwhelming while Cerys, Coral, Kambi, and Lugos are all possible Drought replacements I’m considering. That said, I don’t really like playing Skellige and so may instead save up Scrap for the cards necessary to make a better Monster (Kayran, Ge’els, Crones, Succubus, Woodland Spirit), Elf (Villentretenmerth), or Nilfgaard (Leo, Letho, Vattier) deck.