Why sacrifice being able to handle other decks just to tech vs a deck you only see once per matchup max?

If it wins you the match, why not?

Maybe I'm not following how it will win you the match

So the format is each person makes four decks, one for each faction. You see your opponent's lineup and ban one of the four decks. Then you need to win once with each of your remaining three decks. After you win with a deck, you can't use the deck anymore.

If you know the other guy will have a Dagon deck, you can not ban that deck, and get each of your three wins against that Dagon deck. That is, for your opponent to win the match, he must win with that Dagon deck. Since he can't get that Dagon win vs. your hyper-teched lineup, you win.

Make sense?

Got the Rebel banner and title for top 26

I'm looking for a suitable anti-dwarves gold card (must be gold, because I ran out of silver slots for BTM). I'm thinking of running Borkh. Succubus would be ideal, but dwarves does have plenty of ways to move units around. Geralt: Igni isn't bad but has some consistency issues against decks that don't rely on big units. E.g. it can be worth 12 power against monsters, but that's not good at all for a gold card.

I've ruined my opponent's Borkh with a spy several times, and the 3-turn delay is painful. On the other hand it's an 8-power Scorch that Dwarves can't exactly do anything about (unless they pass). I've only seen this card in control lists that aim to play this round 3, but as an anti-Dwarves tool it would have to be played much earlier. Any opinions?

Yeah, wait a day or two and it wont be an issue because dorfs wont be a deck after the patch

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

But then why would you choose to do this against Dagon? The other decklists are pretty straightforward, too. Maybe you'll see Skellige Axemen, but NR Combo, Nilfgaard Mill, and Scoiatel Control are all basically locks. Why not just tech to beat Mill, rather than feeling obligated to allow the opponent to utilize Dagon and then try to beat Dagon three times over, when that is the strongest deck (and honestly hard for some builds to tech against).

Friend matches confirmed for console in this update. About effing time!

Some heads up matches this week?

Xarthisius seems really strong.

You get to look at your opponents entire deck (in order and there are very few shuffle effects) and then you get to pick the strongest card and place it on the bottom. You get an implied read on their hand, know their draws and potentially remove a huge threat on top of a 10 strength body. Nilfgaard control looks like it's going to be awesome which makes me very happy.

Yeah I'll be down for some games for sure. This is kinda what I need to get that brewing urge back, knowing I can have some test partners. Hopefully the patch hits tomorrow.

I wonder if this friend match option extends to Xbox vs. PC? My gut says no and we're stuck playing one another until release but at least this is a start.

Fair point but there are five factions. It's possible someone brings NR Skellige Monsters Elves. You could argue that based on power level alone other players are going to have a NR deck and a Skellige deck, but there are different viable Skellige decks (axemen), and while NR is almost certainly combo, it isn't that easy to tech against. I'm not even sure what I would tech against NR combo - Scorch of course, and preferably other ways to deal with big minions, but aside from that how does one tech to beat it?

Against that you're almost guaranteed to play against a monsters deck, and Lacerate is super effective against all variants. Dagon is hit worst by it, but Eredin is hit almost as hard. Cards like Archgriffin also do serious work against both decks. I feel like it could still have been done, idk.

PTR users can stream their games now that the patch has been revealed. Watching Merchant right now. Weather is really strong and I underestimated Wild Hunt: the deck is pretty good from what I've seen, but that is because clears aren't popular. If the deck really takes off it will last in the meta for about 2 weeks before it gets tech'd out.

Oh so we can talk PTR stuff now? I've been using two decks on there, one that I really like and one that I think is promising but I just didn't figure it out. The big problem for me has been finding a match at all since most of the players on there are EU and I play at like 3AM their time.

The deck I think has promise is based around Dol Blathanna Marksman. Its ability has been expanded to shoot an enemy for 2 points if you move it and it is agile now. New Saskia lets you reliably get all 3 copies for round 1 and deploy them all. Once you do that, you just move an enemy unit and all three archers will fire at it. I've been using Malena because it's trolly but it's a liability outside the first round. Zoltan Chivay is a powerhouse in that situation though, I'm running Royal Decree since having both he and Saskia is kinda vital to the deck's R1 strategy. For the R3 win condition I've been using Witchers because Saskia and Vrihedd Officer can shuffle them away and Francesca can fish them out in R3 if you haven't redrawn one. On that note, Francesca seems insane to me, she can grab any card in your deck and has a big body. I've been impressed.

The other deck that I've been using is Dol Blathanna Protector SpellaTael. Sage is absolutely nuts, it's such a great toolbox card. I think it's maybe too good TBH. There's also a cool combo with Elven Merc and Stammelford's Tremors to generate carryover and wound the enemy board. Skellige Storm is really good now too, though they nerfed it during PTR down to 2/1/1. People are playing greedy stuff without weather clears, its viability could drop outside of dedicated weather if clears come back into fashion. I was also playing RNR because of the changes to gold damage and it was really powerful, though again, clears were rare.

I would either play weather or tech against it in the early days of the meta and the main reason why is that gold damage change. The values are the same but the power ceilings have gone up, even White Frost is a better card now because multi-row weather is harder to play around with agility and gold placement no longer negates an entire row from receiving damage. Baiting clears in round 1 into slamming RNR round 2 while bleeding seems potentially powerful.

I should also mention that I ran into a few NR Armor decks while playing the Scoia deck and it's tough to beat. I'm not sure how strong the NR deck actually is but it is a heavy counter to weather- and removal-based strategies, so it could be a good initial choice.

Wish I could've played more, damn my timezone!

PATCH IS OUT!

Are you **** kidding me? Seven hours left to my work day plus a commute and chores after that. FML.

At least the chores are optional

Also starter pack is $5.19, but it's a guaranteed legendary from a choice of 3 (mine were all premium not sure if that is standard, I chose Lambert, Lambert, what a prick) 10 packs and 400 powder. Excellent value for the money even if you don't normally buy packs. Especially if you buy now because you'll now doubt get a nerfed card or two that you can mill into cards of your choosing.