After a month off, it's time for another round of Gwent Open qualifiers! We've got a new meta and 16 players trying to figure out what's best to bring today, and once again I'm going to try and break it down for you. All decks can be found .
Syndicate (16 total decks):
- Off the Books Devotion (15)
- w/Kurt (13)
- w/Gellert Bleinheim (12)
- w/Mutants Maker (11)
- w/Jacques (10)
- w/Tax Collector (7)
- w/Cleric of the Flaming Rose (7)
- w/The Scoundrel (4)
- w/Excommunication (2)
- w/Ludovicus Brunenbaum (1)
- w/Walter Veritas (1)
- w/Full Poison Package – Hideout, Roland, Hounds, Fisstech (1)
- Off the Books GN (1)
In a so called Neutral meta I didn't expect a Devotion deck to be the most common deck, but Devotion Syndicate takes the cake with 15 total decks. There's a lot of variance here, but even with all of the new cards in the meta, King of Beggars and Whoreson Junior are still strong enough to make this deck a viable choice for nearly everyone to bring. The lone holdout is spellingbee, who decided the Golden Nekker variant of Off the Books was a better choice.
Northern Realms (14 total decks):
- Pincer Maneuver Traveling Priestess (12)
- w/Roche (11)
- w/Thaler (9)
- w/Margarita (9)
- w/Heatwave (8)
- w/Amphibious Assault (4)
- w/Pellar (3)
- w/Cintrian Envoy
- w/Surrender (2)
- w/Mutagenerator (1)
- w/Trollololo (1)
- w/Tesham Mutna Sword, Ornate Censer, and Prince Anseis (1)
- Stockpile Siege (2)
- w/Heatwave (1)
- w/Hubert (1)
- w/Reinforcements (1)
- w/Surrender (1)
To I'm sure no one's surprise, Traveling Priestess was one of the most common decks as well. The AA nerf seems to have made it a cut in some decks. Magpie decided to get spicy with the Mutagenerator. Puzzle.Express brought the strange deck with Tesham Mutna, Censer, and Anseis. Finally, TLG teammates Qnerr and kams123 skipped out on Priestesses to play Siege decks as well, looking fairly to most Siege decks from the last several months.
Scoia'tael (13 total decks):
- Deadeye Ambush Elf Swarm (7)
- w/Heatwave (6)
- w/Squirrel (4)
- w/Toruviel (4)
- w/Surrender (1)
- w/Great Oak (1)
- w/Xavier Lemmens (1)
- w/Arcane Tome (1)
- Precision Strike Dwarf Hybrid (6)
- w/Ornate Censer (6)
- w/Aerondight (5)
- w/Zoltan's Company (5)
- w/Zoltan:Scoundrel (5)
- w/Zoltan Chivay (3)
- w/Simlas/Vanadain/Waylays (2)
- w/Brouver Hoog (4)
- w/Filavandrel+Council (4)
- w/Dorregaray (1)
- w/Hen Gaidth Sword (1)
We had a near even split here, with about half of the ST players choosing to play an Elf Swarm list typical to the ones we've seen from previous months (Feign Death, Simlas/Vanadain for Waylays, etc.) and half going for the newer PStrike deck with Zoltans/Munro. There was a lot of variance within these PStrike decks – some brought different Zoltans, two went for the Simlas Waylay combo anyway, some played Council and Filavandrel for another Zoltan's Company, most played Aerondight, and magpie opted for a different sword (Hen Gaidth). The elf decks looked fairly similar for the most part, with the most interesting to me being Qnerr's decision to bring Oak instead of Heatwave for a higher point potential with less control.
Nilfgaard (8 total decks):
- Golden Nekker Control (7)
- w/Tactical Decision (4)
- w/Imprisonment (3)
- w/Doadrick (3)
- w/Snowdrop (3)
- w/Mysterious Puzzle Box (5)
- w/Aerondight (5)
- w/Lydia (3)
- w/Summoning Circle/Imperial Golem (1)
- w/Blightmaker/Mage Assassin (5)
- w/Sweers (1)
- w/Vivienne de Tabris (4)
- w/Surrender (4)
- w/Lacerate (1)
- Imposter Imperial Practitioner Spam (1)
Half the players decided to bring Nilfgaard this time around, most of which decided to go for a Golden Nekker Control list. We had a split here between Tactical Decision and Imprisonment, but all of them played both Alissa Henson and Assire to potentially shuffle cards like Golden Nekker and Invocation back into the deck, as well as Canterella/Gorthur Gvaed to yoink something from the opponent's graveyard. Finally, we had Imperial Practitioner Spam show up again this tournament, this time brought by Infern-ale.
Monsters (7 total decks):
- Fruits of Ysgith GN Relicts (6)
- w/Toad Prince (5)
- w/Ozzrel (3)
- w/Pellar (2)
- w/Summoning Circle (2)
- w/Surrender (2)
- w/Necromancy (1)
- w/Operator (1)
- Arachas Swarm GN (1)
We've got more Golden Nekker decks showing up here, all of them playing Aerondight as well. Six of them were Fruits Relicts decks, with Crones, Selfeaters, Witch Apprentices, etc. These looked fairly similar, though there were some players who chose to go a bit different with something like Summoning Circle or Operator.
Skellige (6 total decks):
- Ursine Ritual Self Wound (6)
- w/Oneiromancy (5)
- w/Maxii (5)
- w/Knickers (5)
- w/Dorregaray (4)
- w/Freya's Blessing (4)
- w/Squirrel (4)
- w/Surrender (2)
- w/Ermion (1)
- w/Arnaghad (1)
- w/Xavier Lemmens (1)
- w/Pellar (1)
- w/Decree (1)
Skellige was the least common choice here, with the Golden Nekker Double Compass deck not showing up this tournament in favor of Self Wound. These decks look fairly similar to decks from the previous few tournament metas, with Fucusya, Melusine, Sigvald,Knut, and Cerys:Fearless all proving to be common choices. There was a fair bit of variance in what consistency tools each player chose to bring, but by far the spiciest choice is spellingbee's Arnachad.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/uums6v/april_season_top_16_qualifier_meta/
