In general I agree but most of us don't see Skald on the ladder and there was an out for JJ that didn't include it. The fact he was always aware it was in the graveyard when everyone thought he was playing into Borkh displays a thought process most don't see. His clutch pass that led to +3 card advantage was awesome even if it was telegraphed. The fact his discard deck was tech'd for the long game in the first place and not the cookie cutter build that everyone runs is why people like him in the first place.

Vert, if that's true then you should be competing in stuff like this

Vert competes on the Xbox ladder which is tantamount to competing in the special Olympics vs the real thing. He is the Oscar Pistorius of Gwent.

They built their own special ladder just for me!

Lol, I'd actually probably prefer to be on the Xbox ladder if it isn't such a meta deck sh*t show. Once you get past 4200 the sweat is real.

Well, I more or less am competing with these guys and their equivalents around 4300-4400. I think most of these guys are 4600ish, maybe alittle higher. But to get that high requires lots of time and lots of grinding that work + a baby would make impossible. The gameplay difference isn't much different if at all, though. I didn't see any play where I was like, "OMG THAT'S AMAZING"

Some of the tech'ing specifically for the tournament was good, but nothing I couldn't do independently in prepping for something like this. In general, I think Magic players have a massive leg up on the typical Gwent field, so if you apply even fairly simple Magic theory, you'll shoot up the ladder easily enough.

Quick question; how much value does Renew gain in an environment where golds are targetable?

vert, t's just cuz you remind me of a friend of mine who casually entered a Hearthstone big money event and won it. He was watching top level competition and noticing that he wasn't learning anything, so he tried to compete and he won. If the prep isn't too much, you should probably compete in Gwent if its easy to enter.

You have to be top 7 to gain auto-entry to the opens and its a sweat fest plus the MMR gains to losses are punishing at that level. The game is massively decided by coin toss and starting hand in that bracket (they're always a factor but once you pass a certain skill level they outright decide the game) and it can be tilt inducing sometimes. I consider myself a very good player but the sweat involved at higher ranks requires more deodorant than I'm willing to purchase. I think the coin toss needs addressing and I wouldn't be adverse to an increase in minimum deck size; when decks success can be decided by one card I think a hit to consistency is warranted, plus when most competitive decks feature thinning and can see their whole deck a match it just invalidates niche strats that don't have access to every card in their deck.

how long is a typical match?

Coin toss should be easy to address - give whoever is going first some extra points (say, three, so the game begins 3-0 before the first card is played). I also think more consistency is better, not less. A distinguishing factor of Gwent already is its relative lack of RNG, which it should strive hard to keep.

As for "omg that's amazing" plays, you don't expect to see those in a card game, do you? Like, all your options are immediately apparent to an observer, so you can't do something that surprises them. The real challenge is consistently picking the best play.

A typical match in Gwent shouldn't take longer than 10 min, probably significantly less.

As sjok stated, this is the first large money tourney and getting in takes tons of grinding. My ROI is much higher just putting that time to poker.

Poker will always have the best ROI. This might be easier tho

After several games of mulliganing crones into crones and drawing all my Biting Frosts, I bit the bullet and cut crones from my deck. Used one of the three silver slots on Roach for thinning. Very next game my opening hand contains 3x Biting Frost 1x Roach.

I'm done. What deck mulligans well (not counting Francesca)?

Also, the stream's a bit disappointing. Like, I'm a monsters player, but the monsters decks are all banned, and besides everyone is playing Dagon. No fun.

Maybe, but grinding is grinding.

absolutely. I'd only want to do that playing Magic or Poker (the only two card games I enjoy playing). I've switched up my post-flop play in poker a bit and I've been doing terrible since the change but it's not long enough to decide if that's the problem.

i won't get into it here cuz I promised Hakeem I'd only talk about Gwent in this thread. PM me if ever you're interested so I can get your opinion (which I value)

Too bad you don't value proper punctuation and capitalization.

it's just teh internets and that was posted from a tablet on the toilet where it's a real pain hitting the shift key and such

....this post has no excuse tho

Nope don't PM, post it here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19465

It hurts my soul that gwent is the subject of the most active thread here.

Serious question, why are people banning Dagon in that Gamescon format anyway? One could just prepare four decks optimized to beating Dagon (Lacerates, weather clears, etc) and then get your three wins against that Dagon deck.