All you monsters mercenaries swapping factions the moment the patch hits, makes me sad



Thanks for link! And it's curious but I prefer to play later when the meta is solved so I know what to play around, not to mention the knowledge that if I lose it's not because I have a bad deck.

Played a few games anyway and some first impressions:

1) Weather got stronger. Being able to hit gold cards with it is big, and new move effects also help. My mostly-unchanged old Eredin list is still holding its own (in fact I'm 4-0 with it right now, in casual mode).
2) I like the new Succubus. It can no longer backfire spectacularly, is easier to play, and adds substantially more power if she does hit her target.
3) New spell Scoietal deck looks pretty unbeatable. How does one beat it anyway if everything you have can be hit by weather / spell effects? You can't stop one of the first two rounds from going long and from there's it's just a lot of pain while your own control cards look on helplessly.
4) Celeano Harpy is pretty meh now. Two power on those carryover might've made more sense. Earth Elemental is still good though.
5) Kayran can eat ENEMY UNITS. Wow? It even ignores armor and if you get stuck in a topdeck situation it's still worth 12 power. I've yet to craft any new cards but this looks like a high-priority one.

Next on the agenda is some kind of mega-frost deck (with White Frost!) and unit-moving cards like Jotun, I would think.

After toying around a bit with NG Reveal, I decided the deck isn't good enough.

Upon return to Skellige; I decided that Queensguard is probably the way to go right now. Here's my current list; not sure about all of the cards (mainly the Golds).

King Bran

Royal Decree
Cerys
Ciri:Dash
Ermion

Sigrdrifa
Gremist
Draig Bon-Dhu
Operator
Donar an Hindar
Udalryk

3 Priestess of Freya
3 An-Craite Raider
3 Queensguard
3 War Longsip
3 Clan Drummond Warmonger

I'll likely reintroduce Madman Lugos as well as one Skirmisher as I'm not too happy with Ciri:Dash. Also I'm not 100% sold on Operator; he's great if you have him R1 but gets substantially worse if you draw him later.


Monsters is a pretty bad matchup for the deck btw; especially Eredin Frost seems like a horrendous match-up. Not sure whether I need another weather clear (I'd hate that though as it takes up one more Bronze slot and does not reintroduce a unit).

So Scoia'Tael is making up 8/10 of my games, comprised of both spells and mulligan. It hasn't been 24 hours since the patch and ST is already more oppressive than Dagon was. I wouldn't be surprised to see a hotfix in the near future.

Play casual I've not run into Scoietal yet.

Haven't played much as ST thus far, but also haven't seen as many opponents rocking it; maybe I'm still too low to encounter the tryhards (seeing how I wasted time with the Reveal deck).

Been rocking Skellige and NR Foltest; the prior deck still seemingly has a couple issues, the latter has been cleaning house for me. There's one more Gold I want to try in the shell, and if I get it I'll probably add Redanian Knight-Elites and the second Reaver Scout to bump my deck count up to 30 cards (Currently rocking 26 and with optimal thinning I'll end up with -1 card in round 3; the gold I want to include adds even more thinning).

For reference; the current list:

Foltest

Philippa Eilheart (Will probably be replaced with John Natalis, but she's doing work)
Dijkstra
Shani
Keira Metz

Reinforcement
Commander's Horn (Could be Margarita, but Horn already has performed well and I need it for the second Tactics card for Natalis)
Dethmold
Prince Stennis
Ves
Thaler

3 Biting Frost
Reaver Scout
3 Aretuza Adept
3 Blue Stripes Scout
3 Blue Stripes Commando
3 Temerian Infantry

I've got a build in my head for control machines with Radovid and I'd like to try the Witch Hunter deck but Mulligan is feeding me so many wins it's hard to justify using anything else. There probably is a competitive NR build, I'll just have to play around to find it.

I think I may try Banedon's suggestion and go chill in casuals for a while to trail some stuff.

I genuinely don't see how to beat the Mulligan Scoietal list. Saesenthesis is easily 20+ power if she hits (the entire deck is full of elves ...), and is still 10 power if she doesn't. Saskia's effect is probably as good as or even better than Ermion's, and she's 3 power stronger. Least sensible to me is how Isengrim is a tutor for Morenn or Toruviel - both solid cards - and he's 7 power?? For comparison Geels is 1 power, Aeromancy is zero power, Alzur's Double Cross is 2 power.

I don't see any effective ways to tech against the deck either. It's got 3x bronze weather clears, so weather is out. Lacerate might work but Water Hag just ate the nerfbat, and Lacerate doesn't do enough damage to kill most of the units. Further it has so much tempo ... my monsters deck is struggling for tempo now that Thunderbolt Potion is nerfed, and this deck is capable of simply playing high-tempo card after high-tempo card. I don't get it. What have people been trying?

Yeah, I can have 40+ power turn 2 only playing two bronze cards;

Mulligan two Wardancers, play Commando, pulls Aelirenn. Turn 2 play Officer, reveal Vanguard. That's more points than Crones and old Thunderbolt potion - that kind of tempo is beyond stupid. Horn or Isengrim turn 3 is another 20 points (Isengrim is actually 24 with Roach) on top and I've kept Francesca and Saskia in my pocket. And the downside? None, in fact I'm thinning my deck massively as a tasty bonus. I even played against mill and still won because even though he decked me and was 4 cards up he just couldn't overcome the on board power. Broken.

The best tech against it? Use it yourself, lol.

I think they are pushing the overall tempo way too high, the numbers just keep getting bigger and bigger every patch.

Something as simple as John Natalis for Commander's Horn is 26 points, and that's not difficult to set up.

I like the gold immunity change, though.

The power creep is very real

There are like 7 posts complaining about Morenn on reddit right now; I love it. "She killed my Caretaker, card is stupid'. Complain about a 13 point silver because you're too stupid to play around it. Mulligan is broken, but Morenn is not the reason.

To be fair, the only card in the game that is designed to counter ambush doesn't even work against it. Teching Cyprian feels bad but when you do it and it doesn't even work then.........

Ugh, I don't find the game fun right now. I just feel grossly underpowered with no good way to generate tempo. Weather makes sense if I'm able to apply it and still catch up in one card if my opponent passes, but there's no such card now except the crones, which are a one-time thing. In fact I can barely apply weather given the Wild Hunt Hound nerf, and I'm constantly thinking of "what if my opponent passes" and don't have a good answer to that. Frightener even got nerfed making the situation all the worse. It could be I should just switch into full-out Wild Hunt mode, but that deck doesn't seem very good. Some of the cards are even contradictory. You want units in frost to not die so you can actually tick down on them, but Jotunn and Drowner both do extra damage.

Seriously considering swapping factions although that's not something I want to do.

EDIT: Meh, I shouldn't be complaining until I've tried out all variations. Still, fact is, I have no motivation to play at all. Before the patch getting 12 wins a day wouldn't be a problem, now I can barely drag myself to play to six wins.

Got Natalis yesterday; in the first two or so games it became obviious that Knight-Elect is not for the deck though (it's just too awkward resolving him next to weather and the other buffs and his armor is knocked off too easily).
Since I don't really see a Bronze taking up that slot, I believe I will try cutting Dijkstra instead of Philippa.

The problem I have is every controlly build just can't generate the power per turn that Elves Mulligan can. It seems to combo off for 15 per turn. It's gross. It can cripple a deck like Skellige by simply going straight for the 2-0.

My version is very similar to Sjok's, but I cut a Weather clear guy for a Lacerate and I'm looking at Shirru or Villentretenmerth over Saenthesis.

After running into Rahg na Roog, I've considered running a Clear Skies. Currently I just do it by committing all units to a single row, but that opens me up to Lacerate, which I just don't see enough, but I expect I will.

I'm not sure if the subreddit is the worst it's ever been, but it's pretty bad.

I like Saesenthessis because you don't have to go too long into a round to find value: it can be an 17/18 power play very quickly. Schirru seems like it could conflict with Officers and doesn't have the same immediate impact. Plus it can hit itself now which is funny. The card to run ATM is Merigold's Sh*tstorm and I cut Roach for it. Makes the initial mulligan a little easier too, though given the nature of the deck it was never a huge consideration.

I've seen people say S'thessis drops off too much round 3 (and that the decks weakness can be a lack of power in general round 3) which I believe means they're playing the deck wrong (though I agree it is sometimes an unavoidable issue). People going balls deep round one is silly. I usually pass by round 5 because of the lead I've gotten, especially if I win the coin flip. Even if they win the first round, dry passing round two doesn't generate advantage because of Wardancer and trying to bleed from 2/3 cards behind is a dangerous game. That means I still have a lot of tempo available round 3 and the dragon can still hurt like hell. I mean even if do get bled in round two, if I have Francesca, Officer and another card I can Fran into Isengrim, into Morenn and then officer for a lot of points.

EDIT: I am thinking about replacing Iorverth though. The removal is really handy and in general I think he's better than his 14 point stat-line might suggest, but I'm wondering if Zoltan or Aglais might not be an improvement and just go all on in points.

Examples please!

If I go first, I can usually pass on even cards and up by 30, which usually generates a pass and a win on even cards. If that's the case, I just avoid Round 3. If they go for the win, they risk going down 3 cards, maybe even 4 if I play my spy, which usually means auto gg.

The spy gives me a target for Scorch, but it's very rare that I have the tallest creature. Scorch is usually a 20+ power play in a long Round 2/3. The Scorch dragon is almost always a much bigger swing than Saethenssis or whatever and it is guaranteed to get a body off the board.

I guess my issue is that they didn't diversify the deck options, they just swapped them.

They didn't need to nerf Coral/Harpy/Reaver Hunters/etc. if they are giving other deck ideas all these new tools. The options were "should we boost cards or nerf cards?" and they chose both, which just makes the old decks unplayable compared to the newer builds.