At least, this has been my experience. Rience is an expensive whoreson at the absolute best case, but ends up bricking more often that not. Hyperthin is really fun to play, but it'll never be an actual competetive meta deck.
Where the new mage cards and Dead Man's Tongue shine are within Ball decks – you can thin out 6 bronzes that you don't want in hand and generate a ton of points in doing so. Dead Man's Tongue in particular is crazy useful – you get to CHOOSE which cards to banish depending on the matchup. Playing against traps? Thin out your Tourney Jousts. Playing against Syndicate? Get rid of your Dutchess' Informant. Didn't get your Usurper in hand? Spawn a Blightmaker with Vigo, move it to the top of your deck, and play him with Joachim.
By round three, I've yet to play a game where I wasn't able to play exactly the cards that I wanted/needed. Especially with so many engines being played by other factions right now, I think we're going to see Devotion Ball actually crest Tier 1 again. Hold onto your dicks, boys, the Vamps are back in town!
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/nw0qwo/new_ng_cards_dont_really_promote_new_archetypes/
