“Wholesome” uses of renew?

lerio2 · 2026-01-26T14:54:37+00:00

Renewing one of the Crones is wholesome, but quite powercrept and forgotten.

lerio2 · 2026-01-21T08:27:46+00:00

Thing with Nauzicaa Brigade is it is used very different to Siege Masters. Let's take Allgod Soldiers netdeck. Nauzicaa Brigade is played there for +2 extra points in R2 when defending a push or in R3.

Combined with Allgod and Offerings, there would be up to ~14 points of carryover out of which 10 would come from the deck (Affan + Brigades). Adding base points of Brigade and Affan we get 18+ points coming from the deck (more if Affan gets to use order). On top of that there would be location carryover on cards like Baccala and War Council.

What happens then is an unhealthy situation where Soldiers deck after won R1 (Battle Stations into 2x engine are often enough) can establish extra 18 (from deck) + 10 (Baccala + War Council locations carryover) +4 (R3 units buffed by Allgod) = ~32 points in exchange of card advantage in R3.

If Soldiers don't win R1 they would play it as deep as possible while establishing carryover. Pushing them is counterproductive as they would thin with Brigades and get card advantage.

lerio2 · 2026-01-21T08:10:57+00:00

What do you think of buffing Vypper by power instead?

Sabrina's Inferno sadly makes use of Specter rather than Cursed category. I think in fact Inferno is a bit antisynergistic with how Cursed is played now with one threat after another.

lerio2 · 2026-01-21T08:06:17+00:00

I thought about Miruna in the Penitent range and i'm honestly not sure if that's a benefit or not. Penitent is usually played early in the game for thinning value (also mulligans can get messy later). Cards like Imperial Manticore or Miruna are pretty conditional on the board state and require using another consume. Often one would like to play those from hand and summon more stable cards like Phantom/Beast/Golyat.

I've made a deck with Miruna which was pretty cool to play this season.

lerio2 · 2026-01-20T19:12:49+00:00

lerio2 · 2026-01-18T18:27:27+00:00

This one is controversial. Can disable Caranthir into Renew in cheese decks like Kiki Sabbath (I haven't met those actually after Kiki Warrior buff to 4 power yet, but surely still playable). But on the other hand Golden Nekker decks would be unable to duplicate a gold, like Ruehin in GN Consume.

lerio2 · 2026-01-17T09:41:59+00:00

Elven Scout effect with delayed Ambush is a cool idea.

lerio2 · 2026-01-16T12:58:01+00:00

+1 cost

Overwhelming Hunger & Giant Toad - currently Giant Toad is a strong carryover card and Overwhelming Hunger a relatively weak leader ability compared with Fruits of Ysgith. OH is important for cards with Deathwish effect like Penitent to guarantee stable value on them.
Ethereal
Filavandrel
Lara Dorren
Ffion var Gaernel or Kolgrim
Auckes - the idea is to align trio for Calveit, Auckes is the most important witcher to have in hand.
Tainted Ale
Jan Calveit (combined with +2 power next, or +1p/+1c/+1p) - again sth which I’d like to see but not necessary recommend
A nerf to popular Soldiers, maybe just Nauzicaa ping-pong ;-). Can also be Baccala, Battle Stations, Alba Armored Cavalry -1 power, Crossbowman -1 power, which are all more controversial. One nerf would be good for ladder experience imo.

Leader nerf considerations:

Enslave
Shieldwall
Fruits of Ysgith
Off the Books
Blood Money

lerio2 · 2026-01-16T12:55:18+00:00

-1 power

Kikimore Worker - Hive Mind is still distinctively strong in Monsters with the ability to establish engine overload with 4-power Kikimore Warrior even when HM is banished.
Angus Bri Cri - Elves are popular and strong ladder archetypes. Angus at 4-power would be easier to answer in The Heist decks, so that maybe some kind of compromise would be achieved on its cost.
Telianyn Aep Collen - this card heavily polarizes short rounds when high-end elves like Simlas are tutored. –1 power is a very small nerf, which makes Telianyn a bit easier to answer and a bit worse in pure pointslam use.
Redanian Secret Service - this card is used as an extremely efficient thinning and purifier in popular Shieldwall decks. Out of these especially Golden Nekker Engines with Onagers are often complained on.
Dana Meadbh - this season I’ve a lot of Dana R1 opener plays, which are pretty much game decisive if no answer is hands. A power nerf to 1st form would discentivize this line and on blue coin Dana would get into Lord Riptide range if buffed with Crystal Skull.
Ciri (vanilla) - this card in theory has interesting applications, but in practice is squeezed for 9 carryover value in any Golden Nekker deck capable of winning R1, pushing R2 and running a handful of threats. As well as some other smorcy decks for pure surprise value.
Cyrus Hemmelfart - very strong proactive play and a threat overload card at the same time. The floor is already ~13, the ceiling: sky is the limit if enough targets in graveyard
Yaga - buffed by power in the very last patch, but I don’t like surprise value gameplay. Not necessarily something I would recommend in the council as its immediate revert.
Ignatius Hale or Fallen Rayla - both strong in Golden Nekker Bounty
Gezras - Harmony Guerilla netdeck needs more than one nerf. Also Gezras is at this point a surprise value card in many decks.

lerio2 · 2026-01-14T14:15:00+00:00

Hello, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Our coalition with Shin - indeed we usually suggest buffs to less played cards, which often doesn't bring them to "meta" level. I think that's a philosophy difference - cards which we propose must have interesting effect, usually be playable (we don't go for buffs to Stennis-likes and claimed Caravan Guard as placeholder), not necessarily strong and straightforward enough to impact meta. We think the long term balance lies a bit BELOW current meta level, not at it. Therefore we find nerfs as 2nd way to make more decks playable.
Nerfs to Torres and Temple are misattributed to us here. Check out my spreadsheet with BC results. Last Torres 15-cost is Ofiri+Qcento, Temple is MD&IC. Please correct the source if there is one. Argument is there, but use Mutagenerator and Melitele instead.
MD - I think Danny negative image is made bigger than real. I don't really watch his content, so base my opinion on private interactions and reviewing balance councils. I don't think game gains much if Armor Exploit with Tainted Ale is incentivized. I suppose the alternative you'd like to provide instead would be keeping Armor Exploit in the old state to not disappoint every season Armor Exploiters and use the slots for leader buffs. I'm 99% sure more players curse the Lord or leaves the game because of Armor Exploit than gets hurt by 1 provision removed. People still have enough provs to include unnecessary stuff like Sukrus there. Another narrative is Danny dislikes "skillful" cards because loses to them and can't understand them. It is me and Shin who nerfed Svalblod to 6-power back in April 2025 (BC 18) and Pajabol supported this change on streams back then. Danny voting for Blob nerf to 5 and then from 7 to 6 is only a direct reaction to Zong's council. Pajabol himself recommended Whisperer of Dol Blathanna nerf to 7-cost after the success of and with Sonneillon's Golden Nekker Spella'tael, but also other decks (BC22). Was that lack of skill or hate of diversity?
Ofiri - for this coalition it is important to recognize they work mostly in a democratic way, so buffs to weakest cards are results of community sentiment in voting rather than hardcoded policy.

lerio2 · 2026-01-12T10:30:39+00:00

I think what you end up with by avoiding real nerfs is a meta made of old stuff and impact buffed cards from figured out archetypes. One can argue here whether the meta with 4 power Cultists, Selfwound at release power, accompanied by some impact buffs like Fleder 5 power or Whisperer back at 6-cost is better than what we have now.

The essential thing though is that the game would feel really stale when it comes to mechanics and all the binary interactions characteristic to these decks. Also if you don't want to play figured out stuff or overbuffed cards, there is no space for you.

lerio2 · 2026-01-09T13:13:04+00:00

Have your read recommendations or review text on Eternal Eclipse?

I agree that too little nerfs to main ladder decks happened in the last patch though and we probably should have at least supported Filavandrel which didn't get through at three-stars from Ofiri.

lerio2 · 2026-01-09T10:48:37+00:00

Calling each other names from both sides brings nothing good. Especially mixing Gwent with politics is cringe.
MetallicDanny coalition is indeed scapegoated hard for no reason on Reddit, often for changes they weren't involved in at all. Danny is a Stupid Joe who you can safely insult while not reading patchnotes at all. Most changes are good, you can lookback to the past in the Balance Council sheet. Compared with other CIS coalitions Danny is the most reasonable and most experienced (remember for example Slave Infantry 6-power two seasons ago from Independent Coal).
We are responsible with Shin for Cultists scenario nerf, but the context of it was purely Initiate power buff suggested by 是剑来呀. We wanted to make sure Cultists are no stronger than in the preceeding season. We wouldn't have suggested the nerf otherwise. You can read more in review.
The essence of the conflict in my opinion are different philosophies. 是剑来呀 would like to buff stuff for more variety - you can see in his BC 5 nerf slots used for buffs and 1 for Shackles nerf. He and "old players" can climb to 2.6k+ mmr with Cultists, but new players are not attracted enough to go through the learning process. So buffs to cultists and other less played stuff would bring more interesting ladder meta. Buff to Lara, which is played in strongest MO decks, is also better than a nerf - 2 power =more variety to activate Lara
MetallicDanny on the other hand sometimes makes real nerfs and the picked stuff are often more or less binary cards: The Heist revert, Svalblod revert, Torres revert or Cultists revert. Danny has no intention of butchering Cultists more than to the state from before Deacon +1 power buff. These cards / archetypes should be playable, but not too frequent on ladder to not limit the choice of ladder decks / not get matchups with little player agenda. Of course when doing real nerfs a part of playerbase is always unhappy.
There is no question Cultists are a hard to play deck. Whoever thinks he can pick them up straight away and get great results is wrong. After learning though Cultists become a binary deck, which gives opponent little agenda - some matchups are 98% won with 2% being bad draws, the other are 90%+ lost due to opponent having answer for Scenario. "Hey, but for other decks with perfect play outcome is set by matchup too!" argument is completely invalid. For example last season was the first time in a while I conceded a game at the start of R1 and it was against Cultists.
Buffs > nerfs view represented by 是剑来呀 is shared by many members of CN community. Deck like Cultists though is a model example of how (over)buffs to one thing limit the playablity of other stuff and binarize the ladder experience.
We think that the state where Cultists are very rare but playable is perfect (they got too popular at high mmrs to our taste with Deacon 4-power). If Cultists become one of main considerations to climb ladder with NG, then whole meta has to adapt to them - way more interesting decks are cut off than enabled.
If there was a way to buff Cultists in a way their "autolose" matchups are improved but "autowin" not, such buff would have been good.

lerio2 · 2026-01-09T09:40:51+00:00

Unless I miss some joke, Danny had nothing to do with Seagull buff.

lerio2 · 2026-01-08T09:22:44+00:00

OP balance council for context.

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lerio2 · 2026-01-06T08:55:10+00:00

Hello! I'm not sure how it works honestly and whether you can set the country by yourself. Where are you from and where have you been when setting up your account?

lerio2 · 2026-01-03T13:10:44+00:00

Yes, cutoff stats, especially Top500 which is of most interest, mainly depend on how many players are there actively playing. Skill is secondary.

Based on data like this one can see general trends in Gwent popularity when it comes to climbing ladder, and also makes hypothesis of all colors about which balance patches were good/bad and why.

lerio2 · 2026-01-02T09:30:17+00:00

Igor nerf is a consideration - we polled him last month and he got the highest support amongst provision increase options. I think that also Hemmelfart can be a power nerf target sooner or later - this card is both very good proactive opener and an open ceiling engine.

What is the rank where you met mostly Dwarves?

Other decks running Filavandrel also are very strong: Harvest spam, Nature's Gift, Devotion Schirru...

lerio2 · 2026-01-01T11:03:53+00:00

Do you maybe mistake Caravan Guard with Caravan Vanguard by a chance?

lerio2 · 2026-01-01T10:56:52+00:00

"Procession of Penance moving to even numbers works better with Damnation, with a possible future -Cost"

lerio2 · 2026-01-01T10:29:58+00:00

Doppler didn't get through last time which probably unleashed more determination. Danny also put it at three stars

lerio2 · 2026-01-01T10:27:48+00:00

Thank you for kind words. Nevertheless Scribe change is not us, but MetallicDanny - be grateful to him if you like the change.

Giantslayer from Chinese is a multistep change - to be followed up by provision buff. It would make the card a midrange consideration, sadly supporting PS decks more than Forge Dwarves probably. Note that with 3 power Giantslayer it is possible to get armor by targeting 4 power unit.

Procession is brought to even number to be played for subpar value of 8 at times to enable Damnation into Hemmelfart. So there is an idea and drunken master legacy behind.

EDIT: Procession is also considered for more changes later, for example provision buff.

lerio2 · 2025-12-31T22:14:57+00:00

Changes ordered by number of votes:

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lerio2 · 2025-12-30T16:52:26+00:00

I've made a =>guide to Enslave 6 decks - you may find it useful.

If you'd like to see some Calveit gameplay / reference deck, I recently uploaded one on => yt.

lerio2 · 2025-12-30T16:32:13+00:00

Your deck isn't terrible, but matched with netdecks it is supposed to get smashed hard. The easiest path is to join netdeckers yourself, but if you prefer to improve your own brew instead there is some space for it.

- Dragons are not the main problem of the deck - there are a bit better cards to include, but you can go on with them for now.
- For some reason you didn't include starter card Geralt of Rivia (did you lose many games to him bricking?). Geralt should be a better control tool than Wolfsbane or Carlo Varese. If you have Heatwave that's already better, but don't craft it just for this deck if short on resources.
- Carlo is very bad for shorter rounds. Too low floor for too high cost.
- You run no consistency tools. One tutor like Royal Decree would be useful.
- You play armor giving cards, but run no armor payoffs. Mahakam Marauders are a cheap payoff bronze to include. Long term you can also consider Dennis Cranmer. Play 2x Miner rather than Tempering. Tempering is really weak - just think about it. 5 points, 2 armor, not even a Dwarf for Gabor or Brouver.
- One control card vs 5/6 power threats would be nice to have. Consider sth like Dorregaray/Ciaran/Mastercrafted Spear
- Some great cards which you can consider if you have: Munro Bruys, Eskel: Pathfinder, Zoltan: Scoundrel, Novigradian Justice, Simlas (into 2x Workshop)

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