Roach only procs on gold cards, not leaders FWIW.

Oh - luckily I haven't crafted Roach then The gold cards in this deck are a bit situational, Yenn obviously may not be played early, while Woodland Spirit is better saved for the later rounds. Come to think of it Roach is also the kind of card I don't want to have in the deck since it's screwy with mulligans. Right now, the only situation where I can't use a mulligan is if I don't draw any Foglets and it's the third mulligan in round 1.

vert, what's "control cats"?

So I'm trying an experiment to inject a little fun into the game to see me through this depressingly boring meta we find ourselves in.

I made a duels deck that was quite popular here; one of the first Bant Tempo lists before Bant Tempo was really a thing. My philosophy for the idea was to squeeze every scrap out value out of the deck by assessing each card, giving an admittedly arbitrary value and competing cards for the slot had to beat that value to make the deck. Interactions and synchronicity were a consideration (mainly because Essence Flux was a 10/10 for value so ETB cards gained a higher rating), but a secondary one.

Given that tempo is even more important in Gwent I want to use the same approach to build a new deck. Obviously there are decks like NR muster that generate massive tempo, but those are based on a mechanic, not single card value.

So, does anyone have any thoughts? What leader should I use, any cards that you think are an auto include?

I find the meta quite fun actually - many of my games I feel like I could've won if I'd just played better, although of course there's also the issue of running into dedicated hate cards (feels like everyone and their mothers have Lacerate now, not to mention stuff like Blue Stripes Scout, sometimes in multiples).

If you're after tempo, try running the Witchers + Crones in the same deck. 37 power in just two turns!

Hm. This task is quite difficult I think; mostly because pretty much everything in Gwent thrives on synergy.
Take the leaders for example. The most powerful leader, not taking any interactions into consideration, is Foltest (always worth upwards of 15 power throughout a game); however even with very little synergy in the deck most other leaders easily surpass Foltest's value (King Bran discarding Morkvarg/Raiders, Brouver Hogg tutoring up Cramer or another good Dwarf, ...).



Same here; though Skellige Discard runs very few hate cards and is not as easy to hate out itself Monsters do the best job at it, but the matchup is still very close to even (if not flat-out even) I think.

God damnit. Of course I stop grinding at 4080MMR and tank a bit playing Dashgaard, just for CDPR to announce that there will be a special ladder coming for those who reach 4200 this season. Guess I've gotta grind a few more games out. Maybe I'll play Enya control for a change of pace.

Enya Control? You mean NR?

I... must have missed that announcement. All the more reason for me to keep going - haven't quite been at 4.2k MMR yet, but being around 4150 I can almost taste it. How long does this season go? EDIT: Nevermind, found it. 27th of August then.

Actually I mean Scoia'Tael; Eithné is an Irish name and is actually pronounced Enya.

Ah, okay. I know (and love to listen to) Enya, but didn't have that association at all, since Scoia'tael doesn't seem to be a harmonic tribe at all.

What if you've reached 4200 and slid back? Because I'm like 4150 right now.

If you already hit rank 20 you're fine, no need to grind again.

I hit 18 and stopped grinding because I didn't perceive it to be worth the time investment to go any further, and that's still my opinion. That could change after the full announcement, though, maybe this new ladder will have a bunch of awesome rewards?

Hrm, what to do? I think I'll just stand pat because if that ladder turns out to be "worth it" then I can just qualify for it next season instead.

Why? What's the harm in grinding? You're a competent Magic player with a solid Gwent deck, the move to 4200ish really isn't that difficult.

It's just the time required. I'm into a few other things currently that are more demanding of my attention. Maybe I'll get my dailies in ranked instead of casual and if I get close then I'll put in the final push for it. I just prefer casual and playing random stuff, I only did the grind for the season rewards.

I wish I weren't so weak to Dagon decks. Frustrating

I thought you were playing monsters yourself? Honestly, the discard deck has no really horrible matchups except for NG mill, that deck is kinda designed to destroy discard. I didn't see it on my climb to 18 at all, but I've seen some streamers pick it up in order to counter discard so I wonder how many other people have started trying that as well?

It's a very strong deck, comes highly recommended from me.

It's the fear of losing, really. Like right now, I can say I reached 4052 MMR with an 83-13-1 record, with one loss coming from a disconnect when I was in a commanding lead, and another loss coming because I threw the game having figured "anything wins". If I keep playing, I will lose more. I don't like losing, so I'd rather not play (especially while I'm tuning my decks).

I don't doubt I can reach 4200 MMR, but I'm not so sure I want to deal with the emotions of actually getting there. There's also the fact that the ladder is apparently >50% Monsters, which means it'll be common to run into dedicated hate cards that easily induce tilt. "Who the hell runs ______ anyway, it beats just my deck and loses to everything else".

If you're weak to Dagon, play more Lacerate (or just play Axemen ... now I wish *I* weren't so weak to that).

I run Eredin control. I'm like 40% vs elves and Dagon and very strong vs. both skellige decks and NR

What version of Dagon are you losing to? I played Eredin control myself and didn't find Dagon a bad matchup. Since I switched to the Iris / Dagon build I don't find Eredin a walkover either - Frost presents a real clock on my tokens before I can combo.

The real key to the matchup I've found is Water Hag / Caretaker. If my opponent manages to Caretaker my Water Hag, I'm in trouble. If I were playing Eredin control now, I'd commit a lot of weather to bait the weather clear in round 1, and then try to use Caretaker on Water Hag.

I had more targeted removal, like scorch/Geralt/mardroeme. I teched by adding tremors and it's working solid to prevent horn/yen ****.

Up to 4280 now