So last night, I went home, curled up under a blanket with my significant other, we put some horror stories on in the background, and I played Draft for the night. After playing a lot of it I wanted to put my thoughts down while they were still fresh, what i liked, what I didn't like, what I think still needs work, etc.
For a starting point, I compiled some of my thoughts while Draft was in Beta, discussing what I thought at the time were the issues with it. I will restate those here.
akaean (3 months ago)
So lets look at the decks I played yesterday and break them down a little bit.
Mahakam Forge – 6 : 1 – This deck ended up just being a mediocre dwarf deck with the Crones, what I mean by that is by the end of the draft I had 1 Brouver, 1 Gabor, 1 Novigradian Justice, 1 Zoltan Warrior and those were the best cards in the deck. It was just a solid deck, and with the lower amount of control in Draft Brouver can just curb stomp people. My one loss was to Nilfgaard which had an answer to everything, and it was the second match in the game before the Dwarf package really came together. Earlier rounds in the Draft felt more dynamic and interesting, as this deck had a small Alzur package with some spells like Uma's curse, and it had Boat Builders and Trollollol. The Boat Builders were really disappointing, because the game refused to give me any Dwarves besides Brouver who would work with them. I could not get a single Berserker. I could not get Yarpen. But boy was I swimming in Mercenaries which made taking any non dwarf pack dubious. It was a good but boring deck by the end and I think some of its success was due to lucky matchmaking.
Congregate – 2 : 5 (one of those losses was a win that my connection dropped). – This deck just felt like a below par Congregate deck. SY really feels bad in Draft overall, as the coin mechanic makes taking neutrals and other faction cards awkward. As a result I felt like I was playing earlier rounds like a normal Fire Sworn deck without any Fallen Knights, and I was never offered anything spicy like Crimes + Whoreson Sr or even things like Bone Talismen or other swarm payoff cards. I always felt like getting enough coins to get sewer raiders out was a nightmare. The deck still played… okay. I was robbed from my third win by a disconnect but these things happen. One of my losses was a hilarious loss to a casino Nilfgaard player who always hit exactly what he needed from Uma's curse (he had 5 of them, first one found Scortch for a 14 point lone champion, second found Alzur…)
Ursine Ritual – 5 : 2 – Interestingly, this deck felt the best out of all four that I played last night. It was by far the spiciest and the packages worked really well together including out of faction packages. The deck had a core of Cerys, Queensguard, 2 Olafs, Blueboy, Arnaghad, Bear Witcher Quartermasters, etc. One of the really neat synergies was a "Shield pack", which offered a Dao (meh), Kaedweni Knight, and a Cintrian Artificer. The Knight was really neat to smack with a Quartermaster or be placed next to a Priest when I had those, and the Artificer would often come down the turn before Arnaghad and give him a shield. This deck felt really fun to pilot- especially since it matched well into White Frost and Vampires (as you care a lot less about bleed and frost damage when its hitting things like Queensguard and Olaf)
Imposter – 5 : 2 – oh boy. THIS DECK. Double ball, with lots of poisons and locks, and 6 Hunting Packs. It was stupidly strong, and almost impossible to pivot out of, as once you get far enough into poison locks and aristocrats the game almost always offers you ball, and once you have two balls, why would you ever pivot out. There were some interesting things I noticed, namely Braathens is really awkward, the Disloyal pack that has Braathens doesn't have any other disloyal spies, so you have to find another disloyal pack, and you can't swap either of them out without either losing or bricking Braathens. Doesn't feel great.
Overall from my experiences it seemed as though the strongest decks were Nilfgaard, Monsters, and Guerilla Tactics. Nilfgaard just feels like it has a monopoly on control, as their decks are just swarming with locks and other statuses and combos like double ball are just insanely powerful. Monsters have access to Vampires, which just work really well and always felt solid when I played against them and Overwhelming Hunger which will frequently be offered multiple Haunts. Guerilla Tactics makes the list because they frequently get offered movement packages, and with the lower amount of control in Draft (aside from NG), the movement package is really potent… and they frequently will have multiple Gezras which is insane.
When I look back to my prior criticisms, it is apparent that the first two remain problematic, however the option to skip packs has largely resolved number 3 (although there is still significant luck in what gets offered to you in the first place). I won't go through all those complaints again here, but there are still some packs that are obviously horribly bad, like triple foglets, and some that are really good (realistically any of the thinning ones). And decks still feel really repetitive, because why wouldn't you take the best card in an archetype over and over and over again as many times as you can??
What I really like about Draft is that it requires you to think about the game in a different way. What packs can I get, what interesting combos can I pull to take my opponents off guard. I started a draft this morning that is in process, and was offered Feign Death in a Wild Hunt deck. HOW CAN I SAY NO THAT? There is a ton of possibility for spicy combos that you just won't ever have an opportunity to pull off in a regular game of Gwent and the game is noteworthy because of that. Overall, I think its just minor things that need to be tweaked to make Draft a more enjoyable environment overall.
Now what do I think could use improvement. Pack balance first and foremost, but I won't dwell on that, because CDPR has already acknowledged that this needs work.
Anyway those are my thoughts on Draft currently. Overall its a pretty fun mode and I'd recommend at least giving it a go. Hopefully it keeps improving in the future.
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