In other news, one of my friends actually shared an interesting Google via Facebook. I have to say it's unexpected though since I'm convinced I'm likely the only person in Singapore insane enough to post stuff like this, this, and that. This is further confirmed by my two friends. Dori Dori assumed the Ainu resembled more like the Taiwanese aborigine people when I asked her whether she saw any during her trip to Hokkaido but I didn't try explaining the details. Frontline Bro didn't know who was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, let alone Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. In other words, my friends are never stupid, yet I was hanged by the educational system despite doing nothing wrong. I'm not physically stateless but definitely emotionally stateless. Maybe that's why I would never recommend Gwent to my friends. Maybe that's why I actually choose to play Gwent. Maybe that's why nobody would understand why I like scenes like this and that.
In this post, I'll be doing random ramblings on my experience playing the game so far. Trust me when I say you don't need your government telling you the virtue of failure once you've played enough Gwent.
Certain things were terribly wrong
In the previous post, I made certain big errors in judgement. Factors include...
1. My brain was most likely sleeping. Seriously, playing a trap during the turn before playing a Scout unit card? The mistake was so epic, it's not funny.
2. I was more about learning via messing around. After all, no one taught me to learn things like a normal human being. And no, I didn't Google search for deck builds because I happened to be a local Singaporean donkey instead of a local Singaporean talent in this game.
3. I actually assumed seasonal ranking was only about the snake.
As you can imagine, the previous Gwent post was a horrible mess. If Ryan knew about what I've been doing, he'd be laughing like a Lambert.
Sandboxing
Right now, I have two sandbox decks fashioned after Season of the Viper format. The first was Monsters and the other being Scoia-tael. The ride through Letho's funhouse was definitely rough for the latter since there was only one instance where I used my Monsters faction deck. Needless to say, that one match's worth of using Dr Frankensteiner's combination science (i.e. Overwhelming Hunger with the Deathwish, and Thrive mechanics) got me a win. The process was definitely much easier so long I didn't face a Nilfgaard player using Lockdown. That'd have done me in. Thankfully, no such thing happened. At the same time, it must be stated that the sandbox decks were actually modified versions of what I've used in the previous seasonal ranking. Granted I'm doing this for fun (that or I'll be testing either or both if there's a next Season of the Viper), but there are certain things to be learnt despite having no chances to try them out at the moment. As for my Nilfgaard deck, I'm using it for the current Season of Magic. Seriously, you'd be surprised at how useful Yennefer's Grab app can be without Tactical Decision. Unfortunately, this is a hijack and disrupt tactic instead of the more orthodox hijack and counter approach. Simply put, please don't try this out at home unless you're willing to limit Yennefer's GrabYen usage (Note: When I say GrabYen, I'm equating the cards with the Japanese currency. No Trump jokes and Grab brand parody please).
Firstly, let's talk about how/why I modded my Monsters faction deck. This actually got a lot to do with my seasonal Nilfgaard deck where Lockdown ends up working surprisingly well for me so far (the tactical stunts I could pull is nothing short of insane). In short, I was planning the deck based on the scenario where the opponent actually chose the Lockdown ability. After all, you're most likely screwed if you choose Overwhelming Hunger without having the chance to trigger the full number of charges.
The contingency plan is quite simple: Just play unit cards that devour allied units in play. Unfortunately, I don't have enough such cards. The only ones I can afford to include in the sandbox deck would be Celaeno Harpy, Desert Banshee, and Barghest. For now, however, I'd be waiting to see whether this works. After all, it's better to limit the self with a 25 card deck instead of going like 1-2 cards more. I've tried that and the difference it makes can affect your game via card draw probability (i.e. you can't afford to rely on the RNG when it comes to your hand). Worst come to worst, I'd just get myself stuck with a dummy Harpy Egg or two. Not a good way to play any match if you're to ask me.
The modded Scoia'tael deck is where the fun part comes, the reason why being that I was playing this faction for like 99% of the previous seasonal ranking matches. To learn to play my Scoia'tael, I needed to get my deployment game right. It's not that easy. In fact, my initial decision to use a hybrid deployment of token units and deck units soon turned into a nightmare. Granted I was able to win games, but the entire deployment momentum would always risk getting itself jammed. The reason why? There were moments where I got myself stuck in a tactical limbo between a token unit spawn and an actual unit card deployment. If I chose not to play either a Half-Elf Hunter or Dwarven Chariot, I'd risk getting myself lagging behind the opponent's deployment game. If I chose not to deploy a non-token unit, it means I have to decide between token spawn and playing special cards. It's a no man's land situation no matter how I looked at it. Once I started building up the deck post-Letho season, that's where things started becoming interesting.
We all should know by now that Skellige cards thrive on dealing damage. To use this faction properly, though, would require a balance between damage dealing in the long run and buffing. Classic examples of this would be Gutting Slash, the very unorthodox Svalblod Priest, and that one and only son of a Bran. Would there be other ways to play this faction? I'd say yes because I once came across a crow spawn player who clearly knew what he/she was doing (Spoiler: The person deservedly won the match). But it remains to be seen whether the so-called beast spec deck belongs to a sizeable minority because deck building in this game is all about knowing what you want and trying to get things actually working. I add the word actually because I doubt I'm the only person planning a deck only for things to go Titanic south.
So why did I mention the Skellige faction even though the only thing two factions have in common would be animals and trees? The reason is very simple: High power sniping. There are unit cards able to snipe an enemy target for either 2 points of damage or 1 unless you want to include a buffed-beforehand Wardancer for a 3 pointer. This isn't something I'm exactly most comfortable with though since I'd require Invigorate and either a Hawker Smuggler or Vrihedd Saboteur. The latter if I'm to do a pure elf deck, something which I'm still not good enough to pull off unless I have at least Isengrim in the deck. But because my Scoia-tael deck consists of one ethnic majority and like two to three ethnic minorities complete with the Harmony buff mechanic, there's no point going that far (no, they're not exactly pro-multiracial because everyone else is a dh'oine and that includes your non-partisan church pastor).
Cards like Milaen, Toruviel, and Yaevinn are good options for power sniping. In particular, Yaevinn does work decently well if you have Deadeye Ambush. Three tokens summoned in a single row and place this guy at the same row. That'd be 4 points of damage. Unlike Milaen whom you can afford to pull off a snipe early in the match, Yaevinn's sniping game would be more useful when you're at least 5 turns into the match. This would be where Vernossiel comes in. She is definitely my favourite card of the faction so far due to the high-end damage game if the match is set up properly like in the last 3 turns of the match. Of course, it's not that easy. To maximise her deploy damage trigger, you'd most likely need to use Ele'yas to friendly stab and spawn two Deadeye Archers so that you can do a 2+3=5 in one turn and play Vernossiel on the next turn. Either that or doing the triple Deadeye Ambush in the same turn you play Vernossiel (i.e. possibly the better option). Discounting other sources of Deadeye unit spawn, that'd give you 10 points of damage. Play Yaevinn on the following turn and that'd be at least 14 points of damage.
Note: This strategy will likely fail if you're playing Season of Magic due to the double-casting ouch more than capable of taking out 2 Deadeye Archers in a single go. 3 if it's something like Devil's Puffball or Lacerate. A better alternative would be either using Vernossiel's ranged deploy to spawn two more Deadeye Archers or just fire away for 6 points of damage in a single turn. You can still afford to deploy Yaevinn in the next turn for the damage, though. Be warned that double-casting remains a major hazard, so please deploy with caution.
As cursed as a Clan Brokvar
The story of Clan Brokvar was one of sorrow, guilt, and unexpected redemption come the very end. The reason why I enjoy plot and characters of the dark fantasy genre was that while fiction is never a substitute for reality, a great story can teach us a lot. I won't go that far to say something like this as the absolute truth, but in every great story lies a semblance of truth.
So why am I saying this? Well, Gwent goes by the auto-matchmaking system. What this means would be that the system won't take into account the quality of your deck. If you're lucky, it'd be around two to three evenly matches out of five. If you're unlucky like yours truly at times, make that either four mismatches out of five or a full fiver bummer. In this sense, you can see that technology has no humane factor. Yet, defeat does give you XP. Whenever I lost the match due to severe mismatch of deck quality (that formed like 80-90+% of my total losses), I did gain XP. Interestingly, the amount I gained would only be slightly lesser than how much I'd gain from a win. This may (or may not) imply that the system isn't dumb. The XP welfare treatment may be universal, but I doubt so because that'd discourage gamers from spending actual money. Unfortunately, an actual revenue system is the likeliest cause of any mismatch scenario. Can't blame CD Projekt Red for this since there's a reason why prominent F2P Marvel MMO titles like Marvel Heroes and Marvel: Avengers Alliance had to fold.
A likely situation would be the game having specific servers for the decks. When you create a deck, what you're creating is data. And since we're talking about data, that kind of thing has to go somewhere. Assuming the system is actually more humane than my country's educational system, what this means is that when the auto-matchmaking kicks in, deck data from both players would be registered and processed. I don't know... I may be wrong here. But considering the seemingly illogical XP gain mathematics, I won't bank against it.
Before you think this is a cool possibility, allow me to point out that getting either four mismatches out of five or a full fiver bummer is sheer torture. The reality is always about the loser having an inferior deck. At the same time, luck plays a very vital role during every round. You may know whether luck favour you, but you wouldn't be able to know whether the same goes for the other player. There were moments where I won games due to the luck factor (there were two particularly surreal episodes with one of them resulting in a draw despite me having an inferior deck), there were moments where I lost due to the same reason (albeit as I've said earlier, the vast amount of my losses was due to the opponent having a superior deck capable of playing gold cards consistently in any round). In every sense of the statement, Gwent isn't for those faint in the heart. You'll need to have the mental fortitude to be prepared for the worst (i.e. deck mismatch+BM) and second-worst (i.e. deck mismatch). In a certain sense, Gwent actually captured the brutal nature of the Witcher world without the need to kill or to be killed. But let's not forget the XP welfare. That is provided you're mentally resilient enough.
Then there's this question of whether a mismatch based on the player level is possible provided you happened to be less than a month or two into the game. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case considering Gwent is more for those used to the system due to Witcher 3. If so, then best of luck in trying to be the next Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Note: Torturing yourself via consistent mismatching en-route to levelling up is possible. That happened to me just now. In the event of anguish, please know that Dr Sawano and his assistant Aimer are always around to help.
Add note: Because even a mismatched loss can fill up at least near one-quarter of your XP bar, any combination of victory and self-torture amounting to five matches or so in total should be enough for you to log off and cool down.
Deck rules: Live by it, swear by it, and die by it
Believe it or not, the greatest online influencer is never the likes of Nas Daily, Noah Yap, Xiaxue, or even Eden Ang. Assuming you're actually crazy enough to play Gwent without going through Witcher 3, that'd be your deck. How do I know this? By noticing certain consistencies whenever after I tweaked the deck(s). I don't know about you or a certain Mr Lee genetically unrelated to Mr Lee Hsien Yang praising my analytical ability, but it's not that hard for me to realise this while on the go.
This is very vital because there's such a thing called copy deck. The deck copy property isn't just there for you to do a U-turn in the event things don't turn out correct. It can also be an effective reference in case you're left wondering why certain cards serving you so well had gone weirdly MIA despite having a decently high draw chance in the past. If there's a reason why you shouldn't chop and change what works at least decently well for you, the relationship between your deck and card draw probability is definitely it.
Apart from whatever stated above, there's nothing for me to say.
Currently messed up right now...
Due to what I mentioned in the second last part, I doubt I can write anything coherent for the day. This has got plenty to do with the fact that unlike what Dr Tommy Koh said about the likes of Alfian Sa'at, I don't consider myself as a loving critic due to traumatic experiences effectively destroying my future and emotional health. Granted I don't hate my country, but I do regard my case to be similar to either one of Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Imagawa clan or Date Masamune and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Thankfully, I do have a taste for music. This resulted in the ability to be soothed by the correct songs and themes. So yeah, below are a few songs capable of doing so.
P.S: On a super weird note, there's a reason why I need to Google search on how to forfeit a match. For some funny reason, there were rare moments of an opponent doing a forfeit after I played my first turn. Seriously, I never recalled accumulating some kind of street cred.
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