I am strongly considering cutting Scorch for Bekker's Twisted Mirror.

FWIW, here's the thing Hakeem was talking about, I think.



Every version of Monsters has a better than 52% winrate at 3.5k+.

No other leader for any faction has 52% or better, with King Bran's Skellige deck being the closest at 51.8%.

Nilfgaard taking all kinds of Ls, so if there is rebalance to be had, I'm guessing it will be related to nerfing Foglets and boosting Nilfgaard. I'll guess Foglets will be reduced to 1 power and Nilfgaard will get some legit boost to 1-2 golds.

What I was talking about was a developer reply within the GwentUp thread where he provided real data from CDPR. GwentUp only collects data from people that use the app itself AFAIK.

Rethaz's data is real stuff.

It's the top reply in this Reddit thread: Weekly meta report by GwentUp [19 -29 July]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments ... 9_29_july/

What qualifies as the "top end of MMR" though? That's amorphous. Is it 3k+, 3.5k+, 4k+? What's the sample? If it's 4k+, it's going to be pretty damn small, I'd think.

I get that it's real data, but it's also super vague and can mean 100 different things?

Thanks - so basically if I'm on the play against NR / Elves I can and probably should go T1 Crones, and if they don't respond with something that is at least 7 power, I pass and either take a 2-card lead into round 2 or win round 1. This is not safe vs. Skellige discard and Monsters, but will force them to use power plays in either situation.

About Merigold's Hailstorm: I suppose it's playable but why would you not use Skellige Storm instead? With the singular exception of playing against weather clear, the storm should provide more value, especially in a long game where a row gets filled.

You have to play the Storm early to get max value, it can be cleared, gold units can tank the damage, etc. Lots of ways to play around it. You get to save Hailstorm in your hand as they build up and then BOOM, massive tempo swing they weren't accounting for. Coral is OP, if I ever get around to brewing, I will likely try this silver version in my decks.

But then you could say the same thing of Hailstorm right? You have to play it late to get max value, gold units can tank the damage, etc. Not seeing it coming is a valid point though. I suppose if it becomes popular people will start seeing it coming, and I could be biased because I play so much weather.

Speaking of which I might start cutting White Frost. I love the card, but it's not exactly simple to make it worth the card if opponent passes immediately. I want to be able to hit two already-occupied rows with it as well as edge ahead in points after playing it, and it's not common for both to happen at the same time. It's epic when I manage to coat all three rows with frost though. I had one opponent concede with 7+ cards still to play in round 2, after we drew round 1. I'm actually tempted to craft Woodland Spirit. Even without Foglets, an 8-power weather-you should be worth it, or at least suited to my playstyle.

Woodland Spirit is great and enables Thunderbolt Potion all on its own. I honestly think that card is too powerful for a bronze anyway, and Monsters just has so many ways to get full value from it. Four points and three to adjacent would be a more fair amount of points while also making it better against Scorch effects.

I'm also starting to experience minor anxiety while climbing now! I've won my last 6 games since I posted, so sitting at 59-19, but I've climbed so fast and steadily that I'm worried about breaking the streak and slowing down. Gotta push past it.....

Lol you can imagine what I feel like to not lose. I finally lost two games though, after like 25-30 wins in total. First game I deviated from the plan of playing T1 crones vs. Foltest (no idea why) + had some unfortunate mulligans, second game I completely forgot I'd won game 1 and played game 2 like a retard. gg!

Thunderbolt Potion has the drawback of requiring 3 side-by-side units. Celeano Harpy provides it, but Harpy is a way to prepare to pass, so you don't want to play Thunderbolt Potion afterwards. The Crones also provide it, but they are also a way to prepare to pass. Thunderbolt Potion is also a potential Igni magnet. I have my doubts about the card, but I do acknowledge my deck has trouble generating immediate value. I need some time to figure it out (and preferably lose more games, so I know the deck's weaknesses better).

I'm at like 106-47 or something like that and I had a stretch where I went like 2-6 which "bounced back" to like 14-14 over 28 games. I was 27-3 or so by the 30 game mark. You'll get a bad stretch and it will hurt VERY BADLY. But just keep pushing.

Well I suddenly started losing a lot (albeit only in casual) - which is great since I can finally make more educated statements about the deck! We don't need to play anymore Beard, although if you still want to play I'm in.

Thoughts:

1) The mulligan is inconsistent. So many times I've had to not mulligan for fear of pulling more crones and / or Biting Frost. I even had one game where I drew no golds, mulliganed crones into crones, and drew all my Biting Frosts by round 3 - didn't bother playing that one out.
2) A corollary to the above is that I often can't mulligan into my power plays. At the moment I think crafting Ge'els is the best idea to improve consistency.
3) I'm now doubting White Frost. I need more weather effects, not less, but this card is not the way to go about it. After all White Frost is only worth it if I can hit two rows with it. The opponent may take several turns to get there, and even then White Frost adds 0 power to my board - hard to stop opponent from passing immediately.
4) 2x Drowners 1x Archgriffin is too much, probably. One Drowner is great, two in the hand at the same time is not. Same goes for Archgriffin against non-weather matchups. This would be fine with a freer mulligan, but the mulligan is already stressed per #1.
5) I got greedy with Succubus once and lost because of it. Bleagh. Note to self: Scoiatael decks in particular may have ways to move units, including the one Succubus is going for.

Questions:

Iris - why don't swarm decks use this card? It can't be too difficult to kill, especially with Eredin, since Wild Hunt Warrior instakills it.
Fire Elemental - it's 13 power, which should be great for a silver card, and it adds three bodies for Thunderbolt Potion. Why isn't it more common?
Ocvist - looks like another good card. I especially like the fact it returns to hand. That means I can either get another turn of weather, or mulligan it for something else afterwards. Why isn't it more common?

Iris - cause opponent can easy avoid effect. Block/buff almost in every deck now. Hard to get value from it. Works sometimes but not often.

Fire elemental is often playable monster card on 4k+. Dunno about lower ranks.

Ocvist - easy to kill/block etc. When u play ocvist u need to save him 4 turns. Hard task. It playable in sc decks but monsters should avoid ocvist cause u need more immediatly impact from silver cards in your deck.

If u want to play, i m always in.

Generic 13 power silver isn't really that impressive.

Ocvist is extremely play-aroundable by timing your pass correctly, which drops it from useful to generic 6 power nothing,

Most swarmy Dagon decks do run Fire Elemental though, at least in the Twitch streams I watch.

And it works. Value is not only in points also in targets to buff

i hate that this is the most active forum on Duels. i HATE IT

Join the dark side. Play gwent.

Vert will make fun of me

Maybe decks without Crones, I could see it, because that opens up a bunch of silver slots.

But it's really not that impressive. I guess it would also have a place in decks with Triss Butterfly because it provides three 1-power targets to get the train moving, along with the foglets.

But otherwise, Jotunn seems like a much better option for a deck that utilizes weather. 10-12 consistent power and the ability to move units for Igni/weather effects.

There are plenty of Dagon variants, the Fire Elemental sees play in the deck using Thunderbolt Potions and Commander's Horns. Pretty sure you're right about being a no-Crone archetype. I think Triss Butt has fallen out of favor in those decks, haven't seen her in a while.