Hi everyone,
I just read lerio's article on analyizing matchups:
Or rather re-read it because when I first read it few months ago I was a total beginner with few hours of gameplay and most of the stuff in it just flew right over my head >:).Now 300h of gameplay later it makes much more sense. Do yourself a favor and check out his articles if you haven't. Now I would like to have a discussion about a part of the article that peaked my interest the most as it was not so obvious to me as the other parts.
In the article he presents this picture when discussing situations in which, some decks are more favorable to win when they go first in R3:
From this picture we see that in such matchups it's preferable that you are on blue coin because you can just pass on 7 cards(losing) so you will have first say in R3.
Perhaps this is obvious to more experienced players but it never occurred to me that in some matchups actually having first say in R3 is important because the advantage of having last say is much more emphasized by everyone everywhere but now after reading that and thinking a bit I guess that is right for example in a Reavers mirror match you would prefer to go first in R3 as that would give you the opportunity to deploy your engines quicker than OP and therefore generate more value from them in a long R3. At least that is the theory that I concluded from the article.Same for siege that he references in the article.
So let's get back to the Reavers mirrors example if you are on blue coin all you have to do is play some shit bronzes and pass on 7 because then you will either:
- Have first say in R3 which according to that diagram makes you favorable to win
- Survive the bleed and go into R3 with card advantage making you favorable to win since it's a mirror match and card advantage should be better than first say in this case.
- Of course 1,2 are only valid if OP is not aware of this and just passes on 8 while being behind on points
So this is the theory. Here is a video I found as reference where a guy plays in a mirror Reavers match first on blue and then on red:
That is the theory but in practice I see people playing the Reavers in mirrors as if they would against any other deck: pushing R1 and then attempting to 2-0.Here is a video as reference of a guy playing Reavers mirror first on blue and second on red:
He manages to get first say R3 both matches and wins although his opponent could have played better in my opinion(like when he was on blue he could have passed and not commit so much to win R1 maybe?)
So my question is: besides the obvious Reavers and Siege mirrors when is it better to go first in R3? Which decks prefers to do so? Reavers is an obvious example because it needs to have as many engines down as quick as possible and they benefit from passive points but what other decks prefer to do this?
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/zzagjm/analyzing_matchups_first_say_r3_wins/
