The 4th Italian Gwent Meta Snapshot is here!
The latest patch has balanced the meta, reducing the gap between factions. If NG Imperial Formation Hybrid and ST Mystich Echo have a slightly better winrate than the other lists, NR Uprising is still played and can still have its say, while Syndicate players have many abilities to choose from despite Hidden Cache’s heavy nerf. Skellige keeps momentum going with archetypes like Greatsword and Lippy, whereas Monsters remains the worst faction in the meta, although a new Vampires deck is gaining popularity.
This snapshot is the result of a collective effort, the outcome of a combination of data and personal judgment. We truly hope you like it, and as usual we remind you that the whole ESC Team is at your disposal to answer any questions. We can’t wait to read what you think about it!
Snapshot represents the set of the main competitive decks which, divided by tier, create a complete vision of the current meta. Snapshot varies according by the changes introduced (about every month) each time a new season begins.
Tier 1 = This section contains decks that tend to define the meta, to be competitive against other Tiers 1 and not to be disadvantaged starting from Blue Coins. They provide a favorable match-up against the lower tier decks.
Tier 2 = This section contains decks that are less consistent than Tier 1 but, with optimal access to all the resources of the deck, they could win against Tier 1 decks. They suffer more from the Blue Coin.
Tier 3 = This section contains the decks that can have a good winrate but suffer the match-ups against decks of the upper Tiers. In some cases there may be variations of some cards compared to the stronger Tiers.
Special Mentions = Decks difficult to pilot, but in the right hands they can compete against the major tiers. Finally, they have the advantage of the surprise effect which should not be underestimated. These decks are also not recommended for inexperienced players.
Star symbol meaning: The increasing number of stars indicates the strength that the deck expresses within the Tier of belonging. The greater the number of stars, the greater the force expressed.
After the big nerf to Hidden Cache and the slight adjustment to Uprising, the Harmony archetype, already strong in the previous seasons, is now once again the deck to beat in the new meta (along with Imperial Formation). Very strong in both long and short rounds, and at the same time easy to pilot: this deck has all the perks to dominate in this season.
CORE CARDS
Water of Brokilon, The Great Oak, Barnabas Beckenbauer, Call of the forest.
STRENGHTS
The deck performs very well in both a long and a short round. In the first case the possibility to play Water of Brokilon twice allows you to play 4 Dryad Fledgling in the same turn, each one of them can easily reach 8-10 of power and if unanswered they can easily give you the win. Instead in the short round using the leader ability onWater of Brokilon allows you to generate from 12 to 16 points, which a very few decks can overcome.
WEAKNESSES
Since this deck popularity has increased a lot, in the same way also the tech cards against it have increased, cards such as Geralt: Igni and Geralt: Yrden are very problematic to face. Moreover, starting first, this deck suffers a bit those which aim to win round 1 on even, such as Ursine Ritual Lippy or Nilfgaard Soldier.
TACTICAL CHOICES
The gold package is almost untouchable, while in the bronze package there is much more flexibility, allowing you to adapt the deck to the meta. The only change worth mentioning is switching Toruviel for Geralt: Igni or Geralt: Yrden, which see their value increased as Malena helps you in setting them up. In this case, the bronze card to remove is the Hawker Smuggler, adding a bronze up to the player’s preference.
The deck settles halfway between a Soldiers and Poison deck, taking the best out of both. Ramon Tyrchonnel and Soldiers allows to abuse the red coin, while the Scenario with Poisons guarantees a very strong long round. Triss: telekinesis and Lacerate improve even further the deck’s performance in the long round.
CORE CARDS
Masquerade Ball, Ramon Tyrchonnel, Maraal, Ffion var Gaernel.
STRENGTHS
A devastating long round, which combines the Poisons to eliminate very strong single units, and Lacerate along with Triss: telekinesis, useful to counter those decks that tend to swarm the board, such as the Deadeye Ambush. Add to that a very strong short round with very efficient cards, capable of making a fair amount of points with a single play, such as Joaquim De Wett and the leader ability combined with Affan Hillergrand.
WEAKNESSES
Bomb Heaver can be quite annoying if the opponent is able to remove our Defender, however, even without Scenario, the game is not compromised. There aren’t many negative match-ups, but facing this same deck on blue coin is often very disadvantageous.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Triss: telekinesis and Lacerate can be swapped for Vincent Var Moherleem and Sweers, downgrading a 5 provisions card into a 4.
Being extremely flexible and adaptive, this deck provides a large amount of choices in terms of both gameplay and deckbuilding. As opposed to the other deck of this faction, Radeyah has the chance to fight until the end in round one in order to gain control of the match. Thanks to its good engines and its high-value cards, this deck can perform well whether in a short or a long round.
CORE CARDS
Radeyah, Prince Anseis, Philippa: Blind Fury, Falibor.
STRENGTHS
Strong removals such as Philippa: Blind Fury, Falibor and Prince Anseis (especially when combined with Radeyah) in addition to good engines like Reynard Odo make the deck extremely resilient – in fact, its flexibility allows you to create value while countering your opponent’s strategies.
WEAKNESSES
Despite having good chances to win both a long and a short round, this deck doesn’t have neither an extraordinary long or short one, so it must be piloted in order to take advantage of the opponent deck, denying its strategy.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Apart from its core cards, this decklist offers lots of tactical choices that allows you to adapt according to the meta changes. Even though we opted for what we think it is the best performing decklist, an alternate version with Surrender is also very popular.
After a short absence from the high tiers, Skellige has come back thanks to the disruptive power of its damage mechanic that, if combined with Dagur Two Blades or An Craite Greatsword, lets you get the upper hand against any possible opponent.
CORE CARDS
Wild Boar of the Sea, Dagur Two Blades, Morkvarg: Heart of Terror, Covenant of Steel, An Craite: Greatsword.
STRENGTHS Being able to play twice in a game core cards like Wild Boar of the Sea and Morkvarg: Heart of Terror due to Second Wind lets you invest strong cards in round one. The strategy of this deck relies on damaging your opponent’s units in order to gain as much value as possible by the combo of Dagur Two Blades (or An Craite Greatsword) and Wild Boar of the Sea. If you don’t have the latter, Morkvarg will do the work.
WEAKNESSES If you don’t win round one, winning the match will become much more difficult. In fact, not having last say exposes Dagur or Greatsword to a tall removal or a reset. In addition to that, losing round one can often mean playing a short round three – in that case, the deck’s strategy loses much of its power.
TACTICAL CHOICES If you want to have a high-power card in case of a short round, you can replace Dagur Two Blades with Hemdall – be aware that this also means losing the value Dagur can create. Moreover, in order to balance provisions you’ll also need to replace a Skellige Storm with a 5p card, Bomb Heaver being the best option because of its usefulness against Scenarios.
After the impactful nerfs to Hidden Cache and Madame Luiza, Syndicate is forced to go back to the origins. Keeping as a starting point the great power of Passiflora, combined with a very versatile leader across all the 3 rounds such as Off the Books, and the usual Poison package, this deck is able to compete with all the other decks of the meta, virtually beating everything on a long round.
This deck has a really strong long round, thanks to cards such as Passiflora and Tinboy, moreover the leader ability grants a lot of advantages to this deck. First, it allows to play Savolla even without having any coin in the bank, since it can be played using just the 3 leader charges. Then it brings a really strong bronze package, with cards such as Fence and Renegade Mage. The deck is completed by Maraal and the classic poison package, which helps a lot in keeping under control the opponent’s tall units.
WEAKNESSES
This deck relies a lot on Passiflora, so it should always be played behind the defender. But if the defender gets answered, and the opponent has Bomb Heaver in hand to remove the Scenario, the match will be a lot tough to win.
TACTICAL CHOICES
To increase the possibility of drawing Passiflora and/or Tinboy, the underpowered Madame Luiza can be removed in order to play Matta Hu’uri, choice that grants higher consistency in the draws, but that means giving up on a strong play as Madame Luiza, if unanswered.
The Deadeye Ambush archetype has shown over time to adapt through different seasons, thanks to his flexibility; it also has mechanics typical of the Harmony archetype that makes it really performing.
CORE CARDS
The Great Oak, Vernossiel, Novigradian Justice, Call of the Forest, Maraal, Ele’yas.
STRENGTHS
This archetype guarantees a solid round 2, and forces the opponent to play his best cards to keep up. In Round 3, thanks to the leader ability this deck becomes particularly effective, especially in a short round. A huge point swing can be achieved combining a melee Vernossiel with our leader and Ele’yas.
WEAKNESSES
This archetype suffers long rounds, especially all those decks that play cards that can deal row damage, such as: Tinboy, Lacerate, Wild Boar of the Sea and Hemdall.
The latest increase in Imposter’s provisions has made this leader even more viable as an alternative to Tactical Decision for leaders who exploit the Scenario. The ability to play Masquerade Ball twice, thanks to Assire’s ability, remains one of the most effective options to play Nilfgaard, despite being used for several seasons.
CORE CARDS
Triss: Telekinesis, Vanhemar, Masquerade Ball, Assire var Anahid, Lacerate.
STRENGTHS
Given the recent nerf to Syndicate and the leader Hidden Cache, and the subsequent shift towards more greedy mechanics in the Syndicate and Skellige decklists, Poisons have acquired even more consistency, countering all the main high-tier decks thanks to its natural strength against archetypes like Harmony. This version of the deck exploits a play based on the combined leader ability with Vincent Van Moorlehem or Vanhemar, which provides a viable alternative to the Scenario and, above all, a strong short round.
WEAKNESSES
Being on blue coin, against certain archetypes, missing Scenario in the first round, or Assire in the second or third, can be too compromising and lead us to a defeat.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Bomb Heaver and Rot Tosser can be swapped for a second King Cobra or Imperial Diviner. A second Magne Division for a proactive play can be placed in the deck removing a Tourney Joust.
After various seasons where Mobilization was related to the War Machine archetype, this season a new control version, based on the Kaedwen Revenant, is born. At first, it was just an alternative to Uprising, but then it showed to have the strength to create difficulties to the majority of meta decks.
CORE CARDS
Philippa: Blind Fury, Queen Adalia, Triss: Telekinesis, Ronvid the Incessant, Forbidden Magic and Kaedwen: Revenant.
STRENGTHS
This deck has the ability of easily get in control of the match, having available a lots of removals, both single and multiple target. Thanks to the ability of Ronvid the Incessant there will always be a target for the Revenants, in fact, each time a soldier is played, Ronvid the Incessant will respwan with 1 power, allowing the player to kill it with a Revenant and spawn another one, in this way in a few turns there will be a lot of bodies for Voymir and Vissegerd.
WEAKNESSES
A lot of attention must be used in the mulligan phase, cause it is necessary to leave in the deck one Revenant in order to use at best the leader ability. It is essential to manage accurately the number of units on the rows, since it is possible that in a long round, generating to much Revenant, the board will be too crowded to play more units. Moreover the deck suffers the heavy-control match-ups which play a lot of removals, since once the Revenant are all removed, the deck could not be able to generate enough points.
TACTICAL CHOICHES Bloody Baron can be added instead of Geralt: Axii. In this case you should also play a Pellar instead of the Carroballista or a Forbidden Magic, in order to have a Purify in the deck.
Having the last play with Syndicate is certainly decisive, and having one play able to control the enemy’s board is even more important. For these reasons, Wild Card, thanks to the incredible versatility of leader’s ability, in combo with Graden, gives a valid alternative to win in many match-ups hardly manageable in this season, for example: Skellige Second Wind, Mystic Eco, etc…
CORE CARDS
Tinboy, Maraal, Philippa Eilhart and Graden.
STRENGTHS
Last say in round 3 allows this archetype to express its potential in the best way, as it is able to effectively use the value produced by Graden. By the way, this play is able to remove a dangerous opposite engine as well. WEAKNESSES
If the opposite player chooses to push in round 2 and we have an inappropriate hand, we could lose the advantage card, or the same Graden and, consequently, the leader ability. This way we seriously risk to play round 3 without enough resources. Furthermore, the absence of important cards plays a negative role in the match.
TACTICAL CHOICES
It is possible to replace The Flying Redanian with Moreelse in order to have another removal alternative.
Thanks to the balance of the meta, this monster deck based on the Vampires catch the occasion to jump again into the meta, placing himself in the low Tier 2.
CORE CARDS
Orianna, Yghern, Ozzrel, Endrega Larva, Royal Decree.
STRENGTHS
This deck presents a very aggressivestyle of play, pretty unique nowadays, the strategy consist of trying to win round 1 on even cards when going second, abusing of the coin with the Thrive units such as Endrega Larva. This allows the player to easily push round 2, even at the price of going one card down, always playing aggressively. Sometimes it’s even fine to commit the leader and Orianna, which can generate a lot of points, just to be sure to arrive to a very short round 3, where your strong plays such as Ozzrel and Golyat should grant the win.
WEAKNESSES
In this type of deck the lack of important removals is a clique, even though in this version the situation is partly fixed by playing Korathi Heatwave, Parasite and Surrender, which gives the player both AoE and single target removal, although often they’re just not enough. In addition, the deck suffers various type of decks present in the meta, mostly the ones based on strong engine which this deck isn’t able to answer. Also the poison effect, so popular nowadays, it’s on his own a threatening foe.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Adding Geralt: Igni instead of Korathi Heatwave grants you one more win condition, easily setuppable with the various bleeding that you have, but this at the cost of not having a really strong removal such as Korathi Heatwave.
This version of Ursine Ritual is confined to Tier 3 only because it is way too much draw dependent. In fact, missing core cards in Round one has a meaningful impact for the rest of the game, while a good hand can put in trouble any other archetype in the meta.
CORE CARDS
Cerys an Craite, Lippy Gudmund, Vildkaarl, Royal Decree, Matta Hu’uri.
STRENGTHS This deck has some of the best tempo plays in the game and, thanks to Lippy Gudmund, it has the chance to play them twice in a game. Cards like Royal Decree and Matta Hu’uri lower the risk of not drawing Lippy or Cerys, whose combo makes this deck extremely powerful in a short round.
WEAKNESSES
The mulligan phase is the most hazardous one, because lacking core cards and/or drawing cards like Roach, Knickers, Morkvarg or Drummond Shieldmaiden can shatter your plays. Another weakness of this deck is the lack of good options in a long round three: the longer you play, the more your strategies become ineffective. For this reason, you must aim to win round one and push round two.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Triss: Telekinesis, Lacerate and Hammond can be replaced by Geralt: Igni, Sigrdrifa’s Rite and Skjall.
Uprising has received a little nerf in the last patch, but the charge lost has heavily damaged the entire strategy of the deck. It is for this reason that the Engine archetype isn’t played anymore but, also thanks to the surprise effect, it is still a very solid decklist capable of playing with all the other meta decks.
CORE CARDS
Falibor, Queen Adalia, Temerian Drummer, Anna Strenger, Prince Anséis.
STRENGTHS
This deck has a phenomenal long round. If left unchecked, in fact, it manages to generate even more points of archetypes such as Harmony or Kikimora swarm, especially thanks to the enormous reset that Geralt: Yrden can provide. Even the short round is not to be underestimated, thanks to cards like Falibor and Principe Anséis. The Queen Adalia + Temerian Drummer combo is practically able by itself to let survive any card played subsequently, moving them out of the opponent’s removal range.
WEAKNESSES
The deck suffers a lot from cards like Geralt: Igni and, above all, Geralt: Yrden. It is also difficult, in some cases, to be able to win round 1 and thus gain control of the game: in this case, if the opponent decides to play in round 2, you could be forced to play the Queen Adalia + Temerian Drummer combo or even Vissegerd.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Geralt: Yrden is a very strong card in this meta, but he often risks not covering his provision cost. For this reason it can be replaced with Blood Baron or Geralt: Axii. With the additional provision it is possible to change a card at cost 4 with a second Carroballista or remove it and insert Coodcoodak, a very useful card if you encounter many Poisons.
A deck for those who love cauldrons, magic potions and short rounds. The strength of this deck is that it can play Crones up to 5 times, bringing them to make up to 15 points in one move, thanks to Renew and leader Death’s Shadow. Everything is accompanied by an excellent package of single removals and Lacerate, which added to a Whispess capable of dealing up to 10 damages, allow us to keep under control the opponent’s board.
CORE CARDS
Brewess, Whispess, Weavess, Renew.
STRENGTHS
The deck aims to always win round 1 in order to decide how many cards to play and when to use the explosive potential of the leader combined with Renew on Whispess or Weavess. There are very few decks capable of making so many points in so few cards, points to which Ozzrel also adds, so it is very important to be able to bring the game to short round where the deck performs at its best.
WEAKNESSES
Despite the two tutors, it may happen not to draw one of the three Crones, reducing the strength of the combo a lot. A late Brewess and having to play it as last can also make the game complicated, as it will consume 2 or 3 units, creating a very greedy target for Poisons or single removals.
TACTICAL CHOICES
Triss: Telekinesis can be replaced with Geralt: Yrden in the case of there is need to restore enemy units as a last move, rather than removing them with single removals. Instead, if we face few decks with Scenario, Bomb Heaver can be replaced with another 5-provision card. DIFFICULTY
