I honestly don't know what the win condition is ST seems quite fragmented since there are elves and dwarves and different payoffs for both tribes, yet it doesn't look like one can do anything other than run both of them in the same deck. Agitators should be good since they're effectively +2 strength on all dwarves, I guess there's nothing to be done about the unreliability though. Was thinking of running Fog with Elven Mercenary to force opponents to rowstack (+ thinning of course) but this might make the deck an inferior Eredin.

@Tempo, Blue Mountain Commandos actually seem pretty bad - all three together is still only 9 power. It is good thinning though and combos with Dwarven Mercenary.

What about something like:

Brouver Hoog since finding Yaevinn is probably core for concept (otherwise "free" carryover is still negated by a spy)

3x Dwarven Agitator
2x Dwarven Mercenary - only two since if they are not spawned by Agitator, they're "just" 10 power
3x Blue Mountain Commando
2x Elven Wardancer - core card for concept
1x Vrihedd Brigade - combos with the Commandos, and Dagon / Eredin is quite common in my experience.
3x Dol Blathanna Trapper - I'm having second thoughts about this card since it's counter-able with consume, plus it needs to hit at least three units to be worth it. But it is anti-rowstack.
1x Mahakam Pyrotechnician - if this spawns just once, it should convince the opponent to rowstack for me.

1x Toruviel - necessary with Isengrim.
1x Morenn
1x Aelirenn - need more bodies for Toruviel.
1x Yaevinn - core card for concept.
1x Barclay Els - +1 power Agitator, why not.
1x Ida Emean - rest of the weather clear.

1x Isengrim - probably too strong to not run. It's 7 power, AND tutors for a strong silver card.
1x Saesenthesis - deck's got a mix of dwarves and elves, why not (I oddly don't see this card much though).
1x Iorveth - to kill Impera Brigades on sight.
1x Zoltan Chivay - seems pretty standard in movement decks.

Thinking of Dol Blathana Marksman as an extra move-synergy card but not sure what to cut. Also realized that this doesn't have a single spell -> Yaevinn only pulls one card. The text on Yaevinn doesn't say it can't pull golds though. Royal Decree or Renew or gold weather could be good then.

I don't actually have some of these cards so I can't playtest the list. To repeat, I'm aiming to lose round 1 up a card with no carryover on the other side of the board, then mulligan an Elven Wardancer for "free" carryover. This stops a drypass and hopefully leads to me carrying a 1-card advantage on to next round. If you see obvious flaws please share, after that I'll craft the cards and play.

So, from what you wrote you seem to want to go the movement route. And yes, fog in a non foglet deck is just not worth it in most cases.

BMCs become tempo if they are the cards that pull aelirenn, but, yes they're more thinning than tempo. Keep in mind that morenn doesn't turn over anymore if you're opponent passes. Isengrim in general isn't a musthave for ST decks, in your case it could provide tempo, however. Saesenthesis is good if you have a wellpopulated board, but not so much if you have only a handfull of units on the board. To include Iorveth just to get rid of brigades doesn't make that much sense to me either, better replace him with another gold like Geralt:Aard for example (movement synergy) or something else. Right now he's just a thunder on a stick. If you want to go for movement, the DB marksmen are your bread and butter. I'd cut the trappers if you want to include them.

And yes, Yaevinn does pull gold spells.

Just to have a comparison, this is what usual movement ST looks like: http://gwentlemen.com/new-movement-st/

Can't really tell how well your deck would work, but try it out if you fancy it. Also depends on what your rank is, you might get your ass handed to you in the higher ranks, however.

Ugh Gwentlemen - I have no confidence in their decks. Can't speak for the other factions but I'm familiar with Eredin and both the Eredin control and Eredin Iris lists are not very good. The control list is "better" (albeit still subpar, since no Iris) but shouldn't be running all three of G:Igni, Borkh and Scorch. Iris list is just flat out bad with 3x Rider, 2x Navigator (??) and no weather clear. The metagame snapshot is also missing Harpy Eredin, which as I wrote last page I think is better than Iris Eredin if it doesn't kill itself to mulligans + opponent doesn't have too many bronze weather clears.

Without Iorveth, how does ST go about dealing with the Enforcers? Eredin can wear them down with frost, hit them with WH Warrior / Rider if they're in frost, or kill them with Drowner if they're not. Not killing them looks like suicide since they put out so much damage if unmolested. With spies as common as they are I also can't accept a bad spy matchup.

What gold cards does ST usually run? I see Aglais quite often but it seems unreliable to me (what if your opponent doesn't have a good spell?). Saskia would be great in Harpy Eredin heh, but it doesn't look like so in ST. Beyond that it's just gold weather but the deck doesn't have Drowners, and Dwarven Mercenary encourages you to move your own units. Also, does Aelirenn also have consistency issues, e.g. if Blue Mountain Commando gets instant-sniped by Lacerate, she might never be pulled.

EDIT: I suppose there's Ithlinne into double Lacerate to kill Enforcers, but that seems rather overkill. There's also Ithlinne into double Thunder but the Enforcers would already have been on the board for a turn. Saesenthesiss @ 6 Elves would also work but how reliable could it be to get that high? It certainly feels like Iorveth is necessary, unless running Elven Mercenaries and Thunders.

EDIT #2: What if I did something like this?

Brouver Hoog - core for concept

3x Dwarven Agitator
2x Dwarven Mercenary - only two since if they are not spawned by Agitator, they're "just" 10 power.
1x Mahakam Pyrotechnician - if this spawns just once, it should convince the opponent to rowstack for me.
3x Elven Wardancer - core card for concept. On second thoughts it's better to have all three, since Celeano Harpy into pass gives 5 points of carryover and I need to be able to mulligan two of these to stop the drypass.
1x Vrihedd Brigade - combos with the Commandos, and Dagon / Eredin is quite common in my experience.
1x Arachas Venom - probably better than Lacerate if it's spawned via Ithlinne. Tokens can be dealt with using Ida Emean.
3x Dol Blathanna Marksman - comboing with the other movement cards.
1x Alzur's Thunder - the other half of the Ithlinne combo.

1x Roach - imperative to stay ahead on tempo in round 2.
1x Ida Emean - weather clear.
1x Yaevinn - core card for concept.
1x Marching Orders - +2 power Agitator.
1x Decoy - just in case my opponent has Summoning Circle for spy. Besides, there are good cards to Decoy, e.g. Agitator & Ida.
1x Scorch - nothing else to run ...

1x Geralt: Aard - comboing with DB Marksman.
1x Zoltan Chivay - same as above.
1x Saskia - to ensure that I draw the Wardancers.
1x Ithlinne - now handles Enforcers too!

Drypass round 1 (sorry Modulo!) unless playing against a carryover deck + no Wardancers in hand, in which case play Saskia to draw them. Then pass, since it's preferable to lose round 1 up a card. Stay ahead of opponent with Roach-fueled tempo plays in round 2, carry over one card advantage to round 3.

A bit concerned that if opponent bleeds me out in round 2, I won't have enough power to win round 3.

Tested it out. The deck is hilariously bad. For starters, I can only mulligan one Elven Wardancer so I'll never beat a Celeano Harpy carryover. Second, the deck is awful at maintaining tempo. Yes, I can start round 2 up a card and I can even have a Wardancer on the field against nothing, but when the other decks use their power plays I simply cannot keep up. The deck is just chock full of underwhelming cards. The Marksmen are OK if and only if they're moved by Dwarven Mercenary, but even then I can't control the damage. Pyrotechnicians are weak even if they hit two rows since I also can't control the damage. Marching Orders is weak, Decoy doesn't do much, Saskia was mediocre, Geralt: Aard was just a 14-power gold. I was constantly beaten in the value department in round 2 and I could do nothing to stop my opponents from playing things like max-value Commando's Horn. By the end of some of the games, I was behind by 30-40+ points, which is ironic considering the deck's supposed to stay ahead on tempo in round 2. Awful.

The only thing the deck did do well was stack stuff on one row for maximum value from Merigold's Hailstorm / Trapper (thanks to Zoltan). Arachas Venom was surprisingly good as well, although I never got to live the dream of Ithlinne into 2x Arachas Venom for 26 damage. But they're just not sufficient.

I'm thinking the best thing to do is just netdeck something, because this was awful.

Currently rewatching some GwentSlam, and Movement ST has a pretty good showing by multiple players. Obviously the lists differ a bit, but this seems to be the core:

Brouver Hoog

Zoltan Chivay
3 flex golds (can be gold weather, Geralt:Aard, Royal Decree, Agläis, Renew...)

Barclay Els
Roach
Operator (for Dwarven Agitator/Dol Blathana Marksman)
Ciaran (movement+lock)
Yaevinn
1 flex silver (Scorch, Marching Orders, ...)

3 Dwarven Agitator
3 Dwarven Mercenary
3 Dol Blathana Marksman
6 flex Bronzes (Often including a number of Vrihedd Brigades, either Blue Mountain Commando or Vrihedd Officers, sometimes a 1-of Elven Mercenary with two Bronze spells (First Light+Lacerate)).


Wardancers seem like no-no unless you're playing Francesca.

I provided the gwentleman link so you were able to see that movement is a tier 3 deck currently and what its strengths/weaknesses are. The decklists listed in those snapshots are usually not very refined.

Yeah, I feared that it would not actually do that well, but I don't know how well you know the game and at which rank you are, so I figured you could try it out. Shame it didn't do that well. Iorveth really isn't played that much, one of the ST golds with the lowest playrate in my opinion. Saskia and Wardancers are usually more played in mulligan decks, than in movement. Maybe you'll do better with more of a movement focus like the decklist Modulo posted.

Current 4269 MMR, although I don't intend to queue ranked much. I was happy with 4000 MMR but then casual mode queue times took a very long time so I had to play ranked.

Apparently movement ST has a weakness vs. Spies. I can't accept this since Spies is so very common. Are there any other options for the faction? Also, GwentDB just posted this tournament list: http://www.gwentdb.com/decks/33969-gwen ... -francesca. Even assuming the unique mechanics of a tournament and so no weather clear, why would Freddybabes not -2 Dwarven Mercenary +2 Dwarven Agitator which he can do for free? The only drawback is if he draws the Mercenary, but he's mulligan, he should be able to put the Mercenary back (at least, -1 Mercenary +1 Agitator if paranoid). Further, why is he running Vrihedd Officers? It seems to me the best case is mulliganing a Wardancer, in which case it would be a 10-power bronze. That's by no means good.

Finally, why aren't people running Ithlinne with some utility bronze spells? It looks awfully strong - Ithlinne into double Arachas Venom is 26 points for example, double Lacerate would easily outdamage Merigold's Hailstorm as well.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing. This could be a good combo - Brouver into Yaevinn into Royal Decree into Eskel killing Yaevinn. That's 13 points and you draw a card. Conceivably, that could be a turn 1 play to force card advantage in the subsequent rounds. The cost is investing three gold cards and a silver, but card advantage is card advantage.

Vrihedd Officer in general wants to mulligan Yaevinn; making it a 16-point Bronze. Also Agläis is bad in some match-ups (Spies), so 13 points plus mulling away a bad card is decent.

Acharas Venom is too situational to be played twice IMO; you absolutely need three 8-power units next to each other. Think I'd rather doublecast Overdose, but that's bad against SK (because of Armorsmith)

Well, than you're higher than I am Never really have enough time over the course of the season to do more than scratch at 4k. You'll probably have to ask Freddy himself about that, no idea.

Well, there's always spellatael against spies if you don't want to stick with movement. I'd just tech in some scorches (Scorch and/or Schirru) against impera brigades and elven merc + thunder against enforcers if you want to keep playing a movement deck. I agree with Modulo about the venom, hard to get consistent value out of it.

Your combo doesn't sound that great, honestly. Yes, card advantage is great and all, but not at the cost of 3 golds and a silver while not getting more tempo than a bronze or silver card would provide.

Hmm, but even then Yaevinn is one card. Is three Vrihedd Brigades worth it given that Yaevinn is only one card? Mulliganing Aglais is depressing: in most decks you want to draw your golds, even using thinning to help ensure that, not mulligan them away.

Re: Arachas Venom, you don't actually need three 8-power units next to each other, you can use the second Arachas Venom on a different row. Even if not getting max value, Ithlinne spawning Arachas Venom should easily be >20 in most matchups. I'd have expected it to see play - I don't see Ithlinne spawning Overdose either, in fact Ithlinne only ever shows up in spellatael to cast Quen.

@Lurker I'm only 4269 with Eredin! If I played any other deck I'd probably crash. How does spellatael fare against the top decks in the meta? Right now I'd call these as spies, Restore Skellige, and Dagon / Eredin. My perspective from the other side of the board is that Eredin is slightly better than 50% vs. spells, but it's imperative to draw Scorch. Imlerith is also very helpful. Now that I've taken a closer look at modern spells lists though, they don't run that many Clear Skies, so I'll be more liberal with my weather and this percentage might change. The Farseers are very vulnerable to control after all, and once they die, spells can't generate counter-points.

About the combo, it seems especially punishing if you go second. E.g. opponent goes first, plays Celeano Harpy. You play the combo. Now either you win on equal cards or you lose up two cards. If Roach is included it might even work if going first - not many decks can generate 18 points on an empty board. The only problem is what's going to happen in the following rounds. Round 1 is definitely going to be short with the combo, leaving either a long round 2, long round 3, or two moderately-long rounds. It makes me want to try weather to exploit this, idk.

In my Spellatael deck I only ever use Ithlinne with Thunder not with quen (cause at this point any farseer I had in hand should be on the board and can't be a target anymore). Overdose is not being played with Ithlinne, because Ithlinne is limited to spells (and boons and hazards) while Overdose is an alchemy card. Same thing for venom (didn't realise it earlier). It's an organic card not a spell.

I don't have reliable data, but if you know the enemy decks and their win conditions, spellatael works quite well (at least at 3800 MMR). My decklist for spellatael is the following:

Gold: Ithlinne, Aglais, Yennefer, Zoltan
Silver: Summoning Circle, Hailstorm, Marching Orders, ADC, Nature's Gift, Artifact Compression
Bronze: 3x DBP, 3x Farseer, 3x Elven Mercs, 3x Thunder, 1x First Light, 1x Quen, 1x Lacerate

In other news: Patch is out, new cards are in and Saovine Event is on!

Well all that is moot then

First (and completely theorycrafted) impressions, this wasn't a big patch, but some of the changes can have an impact.

Harpy change is a direct buff to Consume, which was well deserved since the leader was terrible. It's the only mechanic that received buffs in this patch as well (Unicorn / Chironex becoming agile doesn't count). However it also means Eredin Harpy is dead, and I don't know if Dagon will survive either. What does Dagon have that Eredin doesn't anyway - there's only the fact that they make better use of Foglet and hence Woodland Spirit.
They really don't like weather, or weather was really overpowered! New Clear Skies now effectively undoes the last weather tick, unless it killed something.
Avallach the Seer is potentially excellent, as a +2 strength card from the opponent's deck. Problem: you might not be able to take advantage of deck synergies, e.g. spawning Barclay Els.
Ale of the Ancestors is potentially very strong if it comes to a long round where the opponent cannot pass on you. With 4 health + 6 armor it's not easily destroyed either.
Wolfsbane is "merely" 12 power, which is odd for a gold card, especially since there's no apparent way to get it into the graveyard other than with Bran. Does the card actually do anything if you play it from hand?
Expired Ale is a cute card that I doubt would see play. I would just play it and give the opponent their card - they might even be swapping silver for silver, no big deal.
Restore nerf still keeps Gremist as a target, but losing Dorregaray is huge. Dorregaray was the primary Restore target anyway.
Skellige finally gets their own bronze single-row weather clear.
Scoiatael finally gets another handbuff target other than Braenn.
Hattori can potentially resurrect Ida. That should be quite strong. Other targets: Sage, Elven Mercenary.
Venendal Elite looks busted. I'll reveal your highest card with Cynthia, then set its power to one while buffing myself with this card? That could easily make Venendal Elite worth ~16+ points for a bronze card. I guess the only drawback is that this combo can only be used once, before other reveal cards must be used.

Was hoping for a fix to the coinflip but oh well

I've tried Venendal Elite and was not too impressed with it. Sure - once you can hit 7 strength it's good, but this is far less often the case than you want to believe. The most busted combo for it is to use it on your own Cantarella (that you revealed with Leo). It's good in a control deck with a reveal sub-theme, but it's situational enough to not be a 3-of IMO.

No Thronebreaker yet? I Haven't played in a good long while and with Destiny 2 out on PC now and the usual glut of pre holiday releases I'm not likely to check in until the campaign comes out. The fact they still haven't sorted out the coin flip is just silly.

You should check in Sjokwaave, if only for the brief single-player adventure similar to the Mahakam ale one (I found it quite annoying though and just used a guide for the expert challenges).

Modulo did you use it with Cynthia? I don't expect it to be worth three full slots, but two should be good, and each one should more than pull its weight.

Otherwise brief first impressions, the new Elf deck looks busted. Iorveth was already 14 points yet now it can actually also boost one's hand by 7+ points. The handbuff is strong enough that Hattori can reach over 6 power, which means he can resurrect Toruviel - very powerful, especially with Francesca to dig Iorveth up and Renew to use it again. Wolfsbane is quite strong as a "free" 12-power card in discard Skellige, but it can be managed. I passed with its timer at 2, then played Ge'els the next turn, and it was "only" 7 power. Bran looks like a top tier deck this patch though if only because of the carryover, which it has monopoly over now that Harpy is dead.

Aside: how do decks deal with carryover other than losing the first round? They can't drypass round 2, so their only option appears to be to have some win condition and then commit to round 2 as long as possible, but then unless they have the spy + Skellige doesn't have it, they'll be entering round 3 down a card.

Banedon: I have used it with Cynthia (in fact, I thought this interactiion would be broken), but that's not even that great; your opponent has a window of opportunity to play that card if he wants, and often enough you reveal their spy with Cynthia and end up sad.

I actually ended up cutting Cynthia for The Guardian. Both tick similar boxes (good early play), but Guardian has a lower floor and more utility.

My current version btw:

Morvran Voorhis

Assassination
Leo Bonhart
Vilgefortz
Vattier de Rideaux

Scorch
Roach
Hefty Helge
Assire var Anahid
Cantarella
The Guardian

2 Venendal Elite
3 Imperial Golem
3 Daerlean Footsoliders
3 Fire Scorpion
2 Mangonel
2 Alchemist

Only 2 Alchemist because I think that's pretty much all the reveal I ever need. Very unsure about the 2 Mangonels, but haven't really found a card I want to replace them with. Could also see replacing Assassination and/or Vilgefortz in the gold slot, but I found them to be pretty great.

That's a good point actually, didn't think of it. I've yet to meet reveal and can't tell re your list. Why the Assire though? There's no mill to be seen anywhere either.

Lots of Unseen Elders in casual mode right now, so much so that I'm running Morvudd again. Nobody seems to be running weather save the odd Woodland Spirit, and nobody seems to be running weather clear either which is surprising. The Elf-handbuff deck can actually buff the swordmasters to 12(!) or more points which is shocking. It feels like Iris has become ever more necessary, because without triggering her, there's no way for Eredin to keep up on points. That's a conundrum for Caretaker as well. It has no good targets vs. the Unseen Elder list, but bringing back Iris is game-changing.

Assire is a constant 16-17 point Silver due to reshuffling Roach+Golem or Golem+Golem; sometimes you can have some more fun by shuffling resurrection targets

I have to say that most Gold and Silver slots are very much in flux, though. Currently running Muzzle>Vilgefortz as well as some drastically different Silvers (Auckes, Albrich, Operator). There's quite a lot to try here.

I decided to check out the patch myself and got my brother to come hang out and build decks together. We tried a bit of NR with Germain and PFI and it was okay but we were really interested in Venendal Elite and Reveal, so that's where we spent most of our time.

Like Modulo, we were similarly unimpressed with Venendal Elite. It had its moments, sure, but we found the correct number to be one. Unlike Banedon, we actually saw a fair bit of weather from both monsters and NR so we cut the underwhelming Peter Sar Gwynleve for Vanhemar and we added Marching Orders. Orders was okay because it either grabs Venendal or Vanhemar in our list, but if you drew those cards then there was a chance of pulling out Daerlan Foot Soldiers with it, which is quite the brick.

Our first strategy was to max Foot Soldiers and Fire Scorpions but they were a tremendous risk of being bricked in the mirror (which was fairly common). We then tried Mangonels but they were just too slow and pretty bad after round one, as usual. Our next strategy was to reveal a Nilfgaardian Knight to enable 15-point Spotters and it worked out okay. We went heavy thinning with Avallac'h to basically guarantee drawing the whole deck and had moderate success. The deck's biggest problem was the inability to interact with the opponent's strategy and sometimes we just got outmuscled by superior engines.

Here is where we ended the night:

Royal Decree
Vattier de Rideaux
Avallac'h
Leo Bonhart

Cantarella
The Guardian
Cynthia
Roach
Vanhemar
Marching Orders

1x Nilfgaardian Knight
2x Alchemist
2x Nilfgaardian Standard Bearer
3x Spotter
3x Daerlan Foot Soldiers
3x Imperial Golem
1x Venendal Elite

Marching Orders was okay but Assire would probably be better in that slot as Modulo says.

The Standard Bearers were the flex spots, we really didn't know what to to there and we had a lot of soldiers so we gave it a shot. They were okay at spreading out some stats but taking a turn off to set them up was a bit of a stretch at times and of couse they could be drawn after the bulk of the soldiers had been played.

The best part of the deck was the mulligan. In an ideal scenario, you blacklist a golem, blacklist a Spotter, and don't draw your Roach. This was quite common and set up a lot of great openers full of Golds/Silvers/Daerlans. Round one tempo is good, deck is very consistent, and Spotters are still effective finishers despite how boring they are.

Nothing fancy, just a good old fashioned linear deck capable of putting up some nice numbers. Easy to pilot, fun to play in short bursts. I'll be keeping it in the Rolodecks.

So who read the Witcher series?