10.4 steam release

Salutations amigos. I'm about to express my opinion of the latest expansion. I feel the need to do it where it can be seen cuz i don't have any friends who play so i can't talk with anyone about it. Last couple of days gwenting didn't feel right, and has left a sour taste in my mouth. More precisely, 6 cards have. 6 out of 21 cards released border on OP.

First and foremost is Ring of favor, i think everyone will agree on that. Card is the definition of OP. Honestly it alone has ruined the experience for me. Somehow in matter of days winning r1 became imperative against lot of decks. My last match was against mill. I've played down to the last card, barely got a lead of few points and then oppo plays the ring for 22p. Fortfeit>reddit>rant. Now this one doesn't require a nerf but complete annihilation. From the game, from every website and every reddit post. Over.

Aerondight. There's something deeply wrong with this card. Moving on.

To Highland warrior. God almighty. Make your sacrifices, next couple of raids are gonna hurt. Hard. Tweak in a defender? Question is, will he be worth 2 cheap removals? Another card which came close to obsolete in 10.4. It damn sure is when facing raid deck. Easily played 3 times, warrior makes the gold melt. More is possible but rarely seen. My personal opinion is that it shouldn't be possible for bunch of 4 & 5 prov removals to have this much potential.

Speaking of possibilities, while I'm amused by the yugioh direction this game has taken, sourly amused though, Compass also deserves a mention. I haven't played much with purple faction but it doesn't seem like thinning to 2 cards is such a difficult task for them it should be rewarded with a finisher of choice. Not ranting about it, I mostly win against this one cuz they all play the same, it just feels like it wasn't made with much thought, but simply to be made.

Now onto green faction. The autoincluded ploughing bronze dwarf with conditional output of 1 damage per turn with a resilience as prize for deathblow if the chosen unit had a higher base power. Ok. 3 armor is gained on deploy if condition is met. Since it's at 4p, not finding a target isn't possible. Comrades are shouting "Blood! Blood!" while pixels shoot across the screen and voila, a bronze unit gains resilience, in the archetype with total of 5 cards of the same status. 2 of which are bronze. Again, too much. Dwarves can negate lots of damage and they don' t have to worry much about protection cuz you can't lock or heathwave all of them, and there are lots. Not the first case of bronze resilience, though the 1st one required specific deck built around it to function properly, it certainly wasn't as strong in every aspect of the game. Damage, boost, damage negation, carryover. This deck has it all.

All in all, I personally do not like where gwent is going. I fear 10.4 is only the beginning. Some say meta is diverse. I'd say totally opposite. Diverse would mean that various deck are being played. From rank 6 to pro I've encountered the following:

NR priestess and siege. Another archtype with insanse damage and twice the match lenght compared to 'normal' decks, but that's a topic for another time.

ST dwarves most of whom finished the carnage with Yrden and Deadeye ambush, thats literally the same ambush deck every time.

SK lippies who don't even have lippy in deck playing cards in the same order most of the time. Some flurry, all the same. Blazing glory couple of times.

MO GN fruits and swarm censer abuse.

SY 10 times in close 400 hundred matches.

NG also changed in 10.4, a great sorrow for us all, as mill somehow became prevalent. Even assimiliate is gone for the time being. These 2 sentences say a lot about this expansion, and damage it has done.

That would be all amigos. I understand big nerfs are on the way, people complain about something, it must be changed. But 6 out 21 cards released are busted. That's almost a third of the expansion. Aero and ring are in every deck. Where is this diversity? 6 factions, 42 leader abilities and in more than 300 matches, from rank 6 to pro everyone plays the same not even dozen of decks. Not even a dozen. That's bad amigos, say what you will but that's bad. Take precaution devs, this feels like a step in the wrong direction.

P. S. I didn't mention the priestess because I believe it is deck for little boys who don't yet have game knowledge to reach pro rank but are able to with 30+ point finisher. Respect to memers and streamers.