Gwent: The Witcher Card Game had released its first Expansion, the Crimson Curse on 28th March 2019. It has been almost two weeks since its released and CDProjek Red was quick in releasing a small nerf to the new Leader Deitlaff Van Der Eretein as the Leader dominated the first week of the Crimson Curse. Although there are still a few cards that are overpowered since its release like Regis: Bloodlust, the meta is currently in a relatively healthy place.
Now the meta has mostly settled on the Tier 1 decks but the Rank Ladder is still full of a variety of decks from various Leaders currently available. Here are the Top 3 decks that can often be found in the Rank Ladder.
Monsters Deck: Big Monsters
Leader: Woodland Spirit
Monsters have been the Tier 1 Faction since Open Beta of Gwent and still is today. Big Monsters with Woodland Spirit leading it have been the go-to Tier 1 Monster Deck since Home Coming and nothing much has changed with the release of Crimson Curse. The only addition to the deck is Plumard and Katakan as they are value for their Provision Costs.
Still, the deck performs absolutely well in the current removal meta where tall units are not punished. Scorch, Glorious Hunt, Geralt: Igni and the new Curse of Corruption is not in every deck right now, thus making Big Monster a very good Tier 1 deck. The decks objective is simply to slam down points after points onto the board as most of your opponent’s play tries to catchup. The Ozzrel and Old Speartip combo is good then, and is still good now. So, if you love Monsters and standing tall with huge behemoths, this deck is for you.
Scoia’tael Deck: Harmony Engine
Leader: Dana Meadbh
Credit: https://teamaretuza.com/meta-snapshot/
The New Scoia’tael Leader has proven to be a contender for the top spot as the flexibility of searching for any unit and playing it as a Leader ability is a strong play. One of the main engines of the deck is the new Crimson Curse keyword Harmony, which exists on most of the Dryad units. Harmony boosts the Dryad unit by 1 each time you play a Scoia’tael unit that is a new race on the battlefield. For instance, if you play a Dwarf, the Dryad gets boosted but the Dryad won’t be boosted if you played a second Dwarf.
The deck tries to play a long Third Round while boosting cards like Sheldon Skaggs in hand with Dwarven Agitator and Sirssa in the earlier Rounds. Then on the Third Round, the plyer will play Fauve into Water of Brokilon to get the Harmony Engine going. Other than the Harmony engine, the deck also plays strong cards like Saskia and Barnabas Beckenbauer that takes advantage of the diverse race in the deck. The deck does however suffer from getting bleed on the Second Round without much strong finishers for the Third Round. If you are lucky enough to crack the new Expansion to get the new cards and love the vicious Scoia’tael, this is the deck for you.
Skellige Deck: Bran Value
Leader: Bran Tuirseach
Credit: https://teamaretuza.com/meta-snapshot/
Another strong deck from a strong Faction since the Open Beta days is Bran of Skellige. The ability to discard a card to draw a card is a strong Leader ability that lets you filter out unwanted cards to find the cards that you need. Bran Value is a deck that was strong even pre-Crimson Curse whereby the decks play a lot of high value cards that the opponent has to deal with. With the changes given to Coral, Bran now has a much more consistent win percentage and the additions of the cards from Crimson Curse has helped tremendously.
The deck features a lot of the same cards but with the addition of some of the strong cards Crimson Cruse has provided for Skellige. Regis: Bloodlust and Gregoire de Gorgon seems to be a staple for every deck because of their overwhelming value at their provision costs. There is a change in the way the deck plays now with the addition of Jutta an Dimun and Sigdrifa’s Rite being a good 12-point combo while Knut the Callous and Olaf is a great finisher. If you do not mind crafting some of the legends and still use some old cards, you can try out this deck.
The three above mentioned deck is considered to be Tier 1 and is the go-to deck to climb the Rank Ladder. Still, there are other viable decks like Self-wound Skellige, Thriving Gernichora and other Leaders. You can also brew your own decks to try and break the meta of the Rank Ladder maybe becoming the next Tier 1 deck.
Until next time, keep slinging spells Gwentlemen!
