It's time for another Gwent Open qualifier! With Aerondight and Priestesses nerfed, plenty of new ideas to experiment with, and only a week to figure it all out, let's see what these players brought. All decks can be found here.

Syndicate (16 total decks):

• Off the Books Midrange (13)
  • Devotion w/Junior (12)
  • w/Jacques (10)
  • w/Kurt (8)
  • w/Gellert (2)
  • w/Freak Show (2)
  • Non-Devotion w/Heatwave, Pellar, Squirrel, Knickers, Tinboy (1)
• Off the Books GN (2)
  • w/Savolla, Freak Show, Walter Veritas, Necromancy, Tesham Mutna Sword (1)
  • w/Bincy, Azar Javed, Knickers, Tunnel Drill (1)
• Jackpot Salamander (1)

Everyone in the tournament decided to bring Syndicate. Most of the went for the tried and true Devotion Off the Books deck, the new self poison options just not quite tempting enough. There were a few variants though – Fanderman went for a non-Devotion version, a couple players decided to bring different variants of Golden Nekker off the Books decks, and Mya-Mon went for Salamander.

Scoia'tael (14 total decks):

• Guerilla Tactics Dwelves (6)
  • w/Oneiromancy (5)
  • w/Aerondight (2)
  • w/Zoltan's Scoundrel + Zoltan's Company (2)
  • w/Hen Gaidth Sword (2)
  • w/Roach (1)
  • w/Knickers (1)
• Deadeye Ambush Elf Swarm (5)
  • w/Heatwave (3)
  • w/Surrender (3)
  • w/Great Oak (2)
  • w/Vial of Forbidden Knowledge (2)
  • w/Arcane Tome (1)
  • w/Toruviel (1)
• Precision Strike Dwelves (3)
  • w/Gord (1)
  • w/Surrender (1)
  • w/Zoltan:Scoundrel + Zoltan's Company (1)
  • w/Ring of Favor (1)

Scoia'tael was relatively unaffected by the nerfs this month, as they didn't rely on Aerondight, and when they were running it, it wasn't in a Golden Nekker deck. The Censer nerf didn't warrant cutting it in any of the Dwelves decks either, of which there were 9 between two different leader abilities. The Dwarf Hybrid version of the deck (with Brouver and Council for Filavandrel) seems to have fallen off in favor of the Vanadain/Simlas Dwelves deck. Finally, five players went for a more classic Deadeye Elf Swarm deck.

Skellige (13 total decks):

• Ursine Ritual Self Wound (10)
  • w/Bride of the Sea (9)
  • w/Harald Houndsnout (8)
  • w/Maxii (6)
  • w/Oneiromancy (6)
  • w/Decree (5)
  • w/Knickers (4)
  • w/Ermion (4)
  • w/Artefact Compression (2)
  • w/Lippy (1)
• Reckless Flurry GN (1)
• Reckless Flurry Aerondight (1)
• Reckless Flurry Portal Madoc (1)

Self Wound became one of the most popular decks for this particular tournament, with 10 players bringing some version of it. There were some differences in what consistency package to bring (Ermion, Maxii, Oneirmancy, Decree, and Knickers all showing up), but most of these decks look fairly similar. The weirdest version was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Mya-Mon, who brought Lippy in his Selfwound deck. Finally we had a few Reckless Flurry decks, one a Golden Nekker deck dropping Aerondight for Censer, one an Aerondight deck dropping Golden Nekker/Nova for Truffle/Muzzle/Heatwave, and one a… Portal Madoc deck?! In 2022? Sif_Great_Wolf is my hero for bringing this deck back, we've got Portal/Fish Flappers, we've got Madoc, we've got Greatsword/Megascopes, but now the deck features Aerondight and Magic Compass too.

Nilfgaard (11 total decks):

• Imprisonment Assimilate (5)
  • w/Artorious Vigo (4)
  • w/The Mushy Truffle (4)
  • w/Bribery (3)
  • w/Blightmaker + Mage Assassin (3)
  • w/Lydia (2)
  • w/Shaelmaar (1)
  • w/Spies Package (Ramon, Enforcers, Fergus, Usurper) (1)
• Double Cross Assimilate (4)
  • w/Runemage (3)
  • w/Fercart (3)
  • w/Lydia (3)
  • w/Vilgefortz (1)
  • w/Cantarella+Courier (1)
  • w/Blightmaker+Mage Assassin (1)
• Imprisonment GN (2)

With the nerf of Golden Nekker, Assimilate came roaring back with a near even split between Double Cross and Imprisonment as the leader ability. Not too many surprises here, though there are quite a few options for which exact Assimilate cards to bring. John`Sally was the odd one out today, bringing a pretty sizable Spies package in his Assimilate deck. Finally, two players decided that the Aerondight nerf wasn't a good enough reason to stop playing Golden Nekker for their NG deck.

Northern Realms (9 total decks):

• Stockpile Siege (8)
  • w/Amphibious Assault (7)
  • w/Heatwave (6)
  • w/Muzzle (5)
  • w/Margarita (4)
  • w/Hubert Rejk (3)
  • w/Mutagenerator (2)
  • w/Roach (1)
  • w/Ornate Censer (1)
• Pincer Maneuver Priestesses (1)

Out with Priestesses (except for Mya-Mon, the lone holdout playing Mutagenerator Priestesses) and back in with Siege. Half the players decided to bring a Siege deck, with a few more variants than there used to be in Siege decks – the highlight of which is the two players bringing Mutagenerator in their Siege deck. I'm slightly surprised to see only Stockpile Mutagenerator Siege and not Inspired Zeal, which gets to play Raffard's Vengeance in R1 to help develop carryover with Mutagenerator, but apparently Stockpile is still the choice for these decks.

Monsters (1 total decks):

• Fruits of Ysgith Relicts (1)

Oh Monsters. Were you being propped up by Golden Nekker/Aerondight? It seems these players may have thought so. Only one lone holdout, GrandKazuzu, decided to bring Relicts. He dropped Golden Nekker to keep Aerondight and add Mammuna and the new Triss:Rocks, but otherwise it still looks quite a lot like the old GN deck. Perhaps another week or two will let more MO decks get figured out and they'll stick around in the meta, but they were clearly hit the hardest by the Aerondight nerf.