Also, if you play a Griffin you can move your own units to the opposing graveyard to set up Caretaker on silver units from you own deck like Water Hag or Fire Elemental.

That mitigates Griffin's downside a lot when you draw it in matchups it's not designed to counter.

Problem with fancy stuff like Griffin + Caretaker is that it's really fancy. You need several things to come together at the same time. It was like when I decided to try running Archgriffin + Giant Toad, with the idea that if I don't run into a weather deck, I can just cycle it with Toad. But then I get things like mulligan issues when I have one card but not the other, Toad interferes with Ge'els, opponent plays Operator, I have BTM in hand which is semi-blocked by 13-power Toad, etc etc etc. When it's good it's real good, but it doesn't happen very often.

I might have overly high expectations of my gold cards (I did say Caranthir was a little underwhelming too) but still. QG is like the only matchup I've had where Caretaker is good, primarily because the QG aren't at exceptionally high power, but the QG matchup can already be managed by Water Hag / weather effects on the melee row. Like, just look at all the matchups:

NR - best card to take is Dethmold (?) which makes him 15 power IF opponent has played Dethmold AND it has died AND if opponent has a 7-power unit on the board.
Elves - I had several games where the Elf player just sits there boosting their hand. By the time I've run out of other things to play, Caretaker might have targets such as Elven Mercenary (obvious bad target), Aelirenn (another bad target), Vrihedd Dragoon (bad target given late in the round), Commando Neophyte (haha), and so on. I end up taking a card like Hawker Support, which makes Caretaker a 13-power card that's not great at all for a gold card.
Dwarves - I can't make use of dwarf synergies so the best target is something like Dwarven Mercenary, which again makes Caretaker a 13-power card.
Discard Skellige - best case is taking the Skirmishers, but that's also something BTM can handle.
Axemen - what am I trying to take, an Axeman? I don't have the synergies. Blueboy Lugos? By the time that card dies to weather, I have much less time to generate value compared to my opponent.
Monsters - best case is taking the Water Hag, but opponent must play it first and then it must die and then I must have good Lacerate targets. It's a lot to come together. After all, opponent is not going to play Water Hag until end of long round (= when I resurrect Water Hag next round, I have fewer targets) or I use a lot of weather effects (in which case the deck drops precipitously in power, hence I try to avoid overextending into Clear Skies).
Consume - I admit, taking Vran Warrior and using it on your own Harpy eggs is pretty good. Too bad it blocks my BTM somewhat.

It's possible I underestimate the disruptive effect Caretaker has on my opponent's strategies, and simply measure things by effective power too much. But it's not often when I'm thinking of playing Ge'els that Caretaker is the card I want it to draw. I might switch it out for a card like Yennefer or Old Speartip - divinevert did say Old Speartip's effective power is around ~20, which is much stronger than Caretaker's average.

Of course you take an axeman that powers up with your weather.

At one power per turn? If you're lucky and the round goes on for another 5 turns, Caretaker would be a whopping 12 power, not exactly impressive. Sure it gets better if two rows are weathered, but at that point, you're probably going to win anyway. If I'm able to force my opponent to take 4 damage per turn from weather, I'd much rather prepare for the next round (Harpy EE etc) than make further proactive plays like Caretaker -> Axeman.

Again, answers to questions aren't that straightforward. For example the NR best card to take depends on the match up. If they're Henselt, Hunters can often come down early because they can combo them out again in another round with Nenneke. In this instance using Caretaker on a Hunter if you're given the chance might be better; only a low power play for you, but you deny A LOT more power for the opponent. Of course if Dethmold is in the Graveyard it could be the better to let them play the first Hunter and Thunder it, but then you have to factor in the likes of Keira screwing that up.

My point being that in any given game what the right Caretaker grab is could be completely different to a similar matchup in another game. You just have to use him and get a feel for it. Certainly a great card, but one that can be underwhelming. I don't get to use him much in Dagon because the Gold slots are so tight but I do use him in Unseen Elder.

And lacerate, and speartip, etc...

Then theirs grow faster and you hit it with Scorch, Igni, Mardroeme.

Axemen isnt very strong against Monsters, its more teched against Skellige i think.

Depends on the Xmen and monsters build: monsters have 3 viable leaders and Xmen has a number of tech choices. Weather can be an issue for Dagon: I don't encounter it a lot so I'm not even running Archgriffin ATM. I mainly tech for discard which is the biggest bogeyman in the current meta for Dagon, but that leaves me exposed to other buolds like Xmen.

That's true. I mainly play Eredin, who is the redheaded stepchild of the Monsters leaders.

Worst monster leader, still has decent win rate: more than all other factions can boast, who all have a crap leader with the exception of NR; Henselt might be the sub par but he's still viable. I actually think Radovid might be worse now. Muster can just say 'f*ck it' I'm going to out value you. Passing and Gold value can just screw NR control over full stop and people know how to play against him now.

My worry is they are nerfing Calaeno Harpy, which isn't unwarranted, but with it being such a core feature of practically every monster deck it makes me wonder how monsters are going to fair after the next patch.

I still maintain that Unseen Elder is the worst Monsters leader, because Consume decks are so straightforward and exploitable. I prefer Eredin and Dagon, and even most of the other competitive leaders because they interact way more than consume decks.

The problem is that beyond discard and Eredin weather/control a lot of meta decks don't feature much interaction that matters, and the inherent value of consume means it can run away with games. That or if the deck does have interaction like Dagon it just doesn't suppress the deck enough unless you're teching for it. Hence its decent win rate. Like even muster can't keep up with Behemoth, Warrior and double Harpy. That's part of both the negatives and positives of playing Elder; when you win games it isn't a 1 point victory, you blew you opponent out the damn water but when you lose you get shut down hard. Deck folds like a wet paper towel to Radovid but that has fallen out of favour a lot recently.

Past 4K 70% of my games became Dagon or Bran so it isn't a deck I worry about. Immune Boost is such a godly card right now it isn't even funny; I've dropped potion completely its that good.

I don't play Elder, because a lot of discard decks run Lacerate now and its just a nightmare, especially when they have Madman round one.

The problem with Eredin is that while obviously good (with a win rate to back his viability) he doesn't hit the point value of other monster decks meaning that unless you're really heavy on control (one of the reasons I like your build Vert) the opponent just says 'f*ck frost' beat this tempo bitch.

Yeah, Eredin Control feels pretty well positioned in the meta, because it performs well against NR Combo/Consume/Discard/Axemen and is close to 50/50 with Dagon, probably a slight dog vs. good builds.

Weird ass decks can hurt me, like some of the weird Nilfgaard combo decks, but at the higher ranks, those decks just aren't there because of how weak they are to Skellige stuff. It's an interesting meta choice that probably benefits alot from just not being played all that much so it is those top tier decks' "weird decks" that give them problems because they don't tech for it.

Well I recently started playing Dagon instead of Eredin, reason being that Eredin is almost forced to run Crones for deck thinning, while Dagon builds can simply run Foglets. I netdecked this: http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/24617-weat ... -rekt-meta almost entirely, albeit skipping Geralt: Igni which I don't have for Succubus / Imlerith. The deck is indeed not easy to play. Still, even accounting for that I'm not convinced Dagon is better. For reference I take standard Eredin decklist as: http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/25623-4250 ... with-75-wr

Points:

1) I like frost better than fog. Frost will actually kill its targets, while fog does not and allows stuff like Knight-Elect to keep generating value. Further, fog weakens my BTM / Succu / Fiend / Scorch etc while frost does not. A last advantage of frost is that it triggers Imlerith.
2) Eredin's bronze cards are actually quite good. He's got more carryover, and more ways to generate immediate tempo. This also means he can make generic plays that still advance his board (EE / Harpy / Thunderbolt Potion), while Dagon runs out of these much faster and has to show his cards.
3) Dagon builds spawn so many units that anti-swarm cards are scary. Eredin also spawns a lot of units, but comparatively much fewer. Cards like Lacerate and Dol Blathanna Trapper are insane against Dagon, still good but less insane against Eredin.
4) Eredin can kill a unit a lot easier than Dagon can. He's not only got the natural advantage of fog, Imlerith does 8 damage, and if necessary Wild Hunt Warrior also does 3.
5) Finally Eredin is more versatile. If round 3 is gearing up to be a short one, Eredin easily generates more power than Dagon (although truth be told, by round 3, Dagon really should already have been played). If there's nothing else to play, he can also spawn a rider especially if he won round 1.

Dagon has some advantages, in particular Woodland Spirit is great, Ge'els is operating at full effectiveness (although having a lot more different silver cards has its consistency drawbacks, too) and for me at least, it's so much easier to get the Foglets out of your deck than the crones. It's also possible the Dagon build has slightly suboptimal cards. I particularly dislike the Alzur's Double Cross, which is actually counter-productive if it pulls Frightener.

I'll fiddle a bit more with Dagon. What list are you running Sjokwaave? Preliminary thoughts on some of the possible silvers -

Aeromancy - together with a silver weather card could be viable. It matches the deck thinning effect of ADC, and it's another way to access fog if really needed.
Commander's Horn - problem is everything is one power or two power and this could actually make Scorch / Geralt: Igni even more powerful. I almost got blown out by G:Igni targeting my 2-power units in one game, this would make it worse. Conceivably it's possible if convoluted (requires Woodland Spirit / Fire Elemental, and then only on the melee row) to use this on a mix of 1- and 2-power units however.
Iris - Dagon spawns so many units she could be insane, although Dagon also has less carryover.
Katakan - poor man's Caretaker?
Olgierd - since less carryover than Eredin?

I'm running a tech'd swarm variant. Max Harpy, Earth Elemental etc with Horn and Yen. But I have Igni/Mardroeme for Dorfs and Immune Boost for discard. I'm running Fire Ele right now but I'm really considering changing that to Fiend.

I'm using Dashgaard more than anything else now though; I'm playing even less than I was before now I've passed 4K and I'd rather lose a few points playing a deck I like over spiking with Monsters. I'll probably stop playing full stop by weeks end until the new cards hit.

Lol you and me both - did I mention that I'm undefeated in legend-rank Hearthstone games? But I've also played a grand total of zero games after reaching legend rank. Now that I'm 4k, I've stopped queuing ranked, too.

How do you find space to run max Harpy / EE etc? I assume you dropped the Hounds & Frost, but that seems to make your ability to interact even weaker. You have no easy way to kill a card like Longship, Vrihedd Dragoon, Knight-Elect, and so on. Fiend answers these cards but I do feel that Fire Elemental is worth keeping, since it's 13 power, and Dagon builds already have trouble generating immediate power since no crones (or are you running crones?).

Dashgaard is another reason I'm trying non-Eredin builds actually. Avallach can cause some major grief to the standard Eredin list. Typically it's not critical, but it's very inconvenient.

I have this idea, help me tune it. The premise is that if you're not running crones, you're a little short on deck thinning. However if the only bronze units you run are Foglets (which are called out very early in the round), EE & Harpy (which are generically good), then First Light effectively becomes a deck thinning card. As a Monsters deck, you've got plenty of strong bronze spells to run like Thunderbolt Potion and Immune Boost, so this is eminently doable. Once you've done that you've got all the silver and gold slots to play with. Because other than Foglets your cards are generically good, this sidesteps the "can't mulligan" issue with crones, not to mention Avallach, and you regularly get to play 4 or more real silver cards.

Some cards I've tried:

Fire Elemental - generically good, but more importantly because of the next card ...
Iris - this card is insane. With Fire Elemental, Foglets, and carryover from EE & Harpy, you can easily end up with a LOT of tokens. She's easily played onto a row that weather has cleared for you, and if she dies at the end of the round she still triggers at the start of the next round (and Monsters gets lots of carryover). My last game she died to my own frost, generating 30 power in the process, and she wasn't even played in a particularly long round.
5-damage 5-power ranged whatsisname silver dragon - to help force the kill on Iris. Can also kill opposing Cow Carcasses and whatnot.
Fiend - if Iris gets locked. Still reasonably good otherwise.
Triss Merigold - yeah, this starter gold card. Gotta have removal somewhere, and can't reliably generate frost for Imlerith without Hounds.

Cards I'm thinking of:

Water Hag - I originally cut this because I was already running First Light. On the other hand there are also other decks out there against which Lacerate is very strong.
Triss: Butterfly - could be insane with this many tokens. Weather might be a problem, but this concept has maindeck First Light. Only problem is, I don't have this card
Yennefer - see Triss: Butterfly & Iris. Again though, I don't have this card.
BTM - problem with this card is that with Thunderbolt Potions, Iris, etc in the mix, I might be the one with the highest power unit. It's currently not one of my six silvers, but it's a possibility.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Wait, why am I running the 5-damage dragon? Water Hag's 3-damage Lacerate also kills Iris.
EDIT #2: Could still use more deck thinning, especially when I'm using First Light to clear weather. I'm ending games with 8+ cards still left in my deck quite often. I don't know what to cut though, unless I do something like -Thunderbolt Potion +First Light.

This is where I'm at with the deck:

Dagon

3x Celeano Harpy
3x Earth Elemental
2x First Light
2x Thunderbolt Potion
1x Lacerate - to shore up weak matchups (that's in spite of Water Hag + Decoy ...)
1x Impenetrable Fog
3x Foglet

1x Iris
1x Fire Elemental
1x Water Hag
1x Alzur's Double Cross - this isn't a good card but I'm out of ideas on what to replace it with
1x Decoy - synergies with Water Hag, Celeano Harpy and Fire Elemental, not to mention Unicorn
1x Bekker's Twisted Mirror

1x Yennefer
1x Caranthir
1x Woodland Spirit
1x Ge'els

The game plan is to play fog ASAP, then all the carryover units / First Light along with Iris as soon as possible. I typically go for Yennefer as soon as I can no longer play more than one unit in the round. First Light proxies as EE / Harpy since they're the only other bronze units in the deck, in fact I mulligan into First Light since it thins the deck.

The deck's been quite fragile - not unlike the all-in Puresteel Paladin combo deck in Modern. If everything comes together it's really good, e.g. in my last game Yennefer generated 20+ power when she came down, then Decoy generated another 20+ power, and my opponent conceded at once. If the opponent cannot stop the deck, it can easily win despite being down 2 or even 3 cards after round 1. But if they can stop the deck, it gets a lot weaker. It just doesn't have the versatility to switch angles of attack. Other swarm decks are bad matchups, as are Axemen which is very dicey (I still won a couple). Problems:

1) Sometimes I wish I had more fog. The first set of Foglets can be killed, or fog can be cleared. However fog is a crappy weather effect, and I'm short on space.
2) Iris is hard to play. In fact she's a big part of the reason I'm not running Frightener. One always has to consider the possibility that the opponent passes at once before playing these cards, and there isn't a lot of ways to generate enough tempo to avoid it. Frightener also has negative synergy with my own Yennefer.
3) Although Iris is hard to play, I really want to draw her, most of the time. But I can't find a good way to reliably do so. A card like Marching Orders "could" work, but Celeano Harpy and Water Hag are also 3-power. I could run crones but **** the mulligan issues, and there's not enough space. I need Iris, Fire Elemental and Water Hag. Losing Decoy is a big but manageable loss, while losing BTM almost makes me auto-lose against high-power resilient decks like Dwarves and certain Nilfgaard decks. Succubus could substitute, but the gold cards are just as cramped (Triss: Butterfly really wants in as well) and Mardroeme is quite weak.
4) ADC is easily the weakest card in the 25, but I have no idea what to replace it with. I could run a generically good card like Fiend, but I'm already short on deck thinning. I tried Oglierd, but Iris's deathwish doesn't trigger on him at the start of a round for some reason.

Any help with how to make this more consistent?

I'm not a Monsters player, so take my ideas with a grain of salt. Some cards I'd consider to replace ADC are Fiend and Roach.
I always liked having an effect to toggle the lock in the deck, and Fiend does even more than that. Roach works well just as an additional body on the board and for thinning purposes.

Roach is a great idea actually, especially since Dagon is usually played early. I'll try it once I have enough scraps to craft it.

After several more games, the triple Lacerate's doing a great job vs. swarm decks, leaving just Axemen a problem. I just lost one game after being 90 points ahead lol, he had the spectral whale + 2x Axemen + Lacerate against my packed board. Maybe swapping BTM for Fiend would help with that. I'm also considering a Dimeritium Shackles, since Yenn Con is a major threat against the deck.

No Frightener is insane, especially for the control cats cards. You want to use BTM after the axemen reach max size.

And I had better success with Scorch than BTM.