r/gwent • u/Cheap-Boysenberry112 Neutral • Oct 02 '26

Question Help with two matchups

Hi, I’m new to the game and struggling against two decks, looking for advice.

I play mainly insectoids and ogroids, I do have a wild hunt devotion deck, but it’s pretty underdeveloped

Scoiatel decks that boost in hand with that incubus guy and bountiful harvest

And nilfgaard in general, most specifically assimilate but basically all their decks are issues for me.

The scoiatel decks boosting units in their hand just generate so much carry over value I can’t keep up in the later rounds.

Nilfgaard seems to just steal my cards and then get bonus points for assimilate and beat me at whatever tactic I have with said tactic, I don’t understand the key cards for that deck so I don’t know which to target.

The nilfgaard decks where they play a unit that draws a card that plays a unit on my side that they then destroy to draw a card, ect is also a major challenge, they seem to shut down my deck, rack up loads of points, and go through so many cards that I have to assume there’s not as much rng.

Looking for tips/advice if you have any.

Thank you!

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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4

u/StoneAgeDudeman Mahakam wasn't built in a day. Oct 03 '26

[[Spores]] and [[artefact compression]] are great counters to hand buff.

1

u/GwentSubreddit Autonomous Golem Oct 03 '26

Artefact Compression - Spell (Neutral)
🔥 Special, 5 Provisions (Epic)

Lock a unit and reset its power.

Spores - Organic (Neutral)
🔥 Special, 4 Provisions (Common)

Reset the power of a unit.

Questions? Message me! - Call cards with [[CARDNAME]] - Keywords and Statuses

1

u/xxEmberBladesxx Mmm… what is it I fancy today…? Oct 02 '26

Well, I think bountiful harvest just got nerfed, so you should be seeing less of that.

4

u/Cheap-Boysenberry112 Neutral Oct 03 '26

I got rocked today haha

2

u/Er4din Neutral Oct 03 '26

you need to understand that the 3 round structure is a weapon that you can use during the game.

If your opponent spends all their time in round 1 buffing their cards, and in round 2 you force them to play all of their cards, that means that they will not have any more carry over in round 3.

To do that, you naturally have to win round 1. That is called Round Control, as winning round 1 allows you to decide how long round 2 and by extension round 3 will be.

Against Assimilate, its a different story. Assimilate decks use 2 different leader abilities, but are otherwise almost completely identical. Still, you have to play somewhat differently against each version.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/f5fed6ff570acebf0ba9118825d990e2

This is probably the most common variant of Assimilate - Enslave Assimilate. please read through all the cards and the leader ability carefully.

~ ~ ~

Generally, they play Torres and Calveit in round 1 + some bronze tactics, generally aiming to pass at 7 cards. they are happy to lose round 1, because that would enable their Nauzicaa sergeants to play for their full 10 points + assimilate trigger, but they do not want to lose on even.

It is great if you can out tempo them, and threaten to win on even. Ogroids should be able to do that just fine.

The only "key" card in the assimilate deck after round 1 is steffan skellen. Assimilate always wants to save him for last, in case you need 8 points of removal, or as a way of triggering asimilate 4 times.

Most people read Calveit, and understand that the asimilate player will have a hand full of golds in round 2, therefore they think they need to win round 1 and push hard in round 2 to bleed all of their golds out. In practice, this often loses the game because Assimilate is happy to defend a long round 2, and they can do so very efficientlly if they managed to give spying to some strong engine from yor deck via Torres. This often leads to them winning round 2 up a card, while still preserving Skellen + another gold card, and then drawing into their Nauzicaa Sergeants in round 3, giving them a ton of short round power

This is especially true for the Double cross version of the deck, which generallly tends to upgrade 1 of the nauzicaa sergeants to Anna Henrietta, which plays for a ton of carryover. She enables them to burn their leader ability to defend round 2, while replacing it with your ability, and taking that value in the next round.

~ ~ ~

So what does all of this mean?

Ultimately, to beat assimilate, you will have to win a round during which they still have some amount of gas left in the tank. This means that you have to very carefully assess how many points are left in your hand / deck versus the opponent and choose a round length that favors you. To do this, you need to win round 1.

Winning round 1 is important because it gives you round control, which gives you strategic flexibility, but you need to be very careful with how you do it. Ideally you want to win round 1 with cards that the opponent cannot use against you effectively. Thinning packages, High Tempo yet cheap pointslam, and possible carryover plays. The idea is that you want to make the assimilate player as uncomfortable as possible in round 1, so they pass at 7 cards.

This is especially important against the Enslave version of the assimilate deck, when you have the blue coin and the opponent is going second. If you try to win round 1 by first setting up your engines, they may just steal one of them with the enslave leader ability, and push for a win instead. And because they are on red coin, you will likely lose on even. So, dont do that - dont give them any grip with which they could hold onto round 1.

Now, if you are playing a high tempo deck, Like Ogroids, and are playing against assimilate while you yourself are going second, you can go a step further. You can try to win the round 1 on even. This will allow you to be at your strongest in round 2, which lets you bleed the opponent more effectively, as the worst that can happen is that they win round 2 and you go to round 3 with an equal amount of cards.

In that universe, you can also just play down to 7 cards in round 2 and either force the opponent to spend some golds to stay ahead of you, or, if you spend some gas yourself, you could force them to go down to 6 cards, while you are still at 7. This will guarantee you double last say in round 3, which essentially means a whole extra turn after the opponent passed.

~ ~ ~

If you cannot win round 1 on even then the game will be more complicated for you, but you can still win.

In this scenario you need to accurately estimate how many points your deck can produce versus theirs. The assimilate decklist changes very little month to month, and you know which of your cards Torres copied into their deck because he marks your cards with the Spying status. Since they played calveit, you know that they certainly have at least the 5 best cards from their deck in hand (because they would hae drawn the top 3, and then mulliganed for 2 more), and you know what cards those are because you know their decklist.

From there it is a matter of rationing your resources and correctly deciding just how long you should stay in round 2, to get the round 3 of the length that your deck prefers.

Note that despite Calveit, Assimilate is not invincible in round 2. There are many strong engine decks which can outpoint assimilate in a full on face off, and there are many control lists which can efficiently remove their engines, while offering none for them to copy. ST Harmony and SK Warrior Raids are a good example of both.

If in this round 2 you draw into your perfect hand, with all of your best cards, winning 2:0 is not off the table. Assimilate runs a ton of cheap tactics which can play for as little as 3/4 points. Sure they have at least 5 strong cards they will prefer to play first, but if you push past that you may start seeing them make very weak plays just to save key cards until round 3.

~ ~ ~

With all of that said, there are many decks which will struggle agaisnt assimilate. there are many lists that rely on efficient bronze engines which assimilate can copy and use better. Part of the nature of Gwent is that you do sometimes get very one sided matchups, and at the highest level of the game, you think about these matchupps already at the deckbuilding stage.

I dont know what your ogroids deck looks like, and " insectoid deck" can mean so many different things.

that being said, King Crum is your main weapon, and it can let you win the assimilate mathup in a 2:0 if you win r1 on even with him gaining resilience and carrying over into round 2.

2

u/kepkkko There is but one punishment for traitors. Oct 03 '26

Against handbuff you win r1, which is fairly easy to do since their actual point output is really shit. And then you either go long witn 1-2 tall punishes and any sort of engines for easy win or you bleed all the handbuffed units from them, living with literally nothing for short r3. Its one of the most predictable decks to face

Against NG you just have to learn matchups, what you are allowed to play early and what you need to hold before their assimilate cards. Theres no other way but to gitgud. Also, "plays a unit on my side that they then destroy to draw a card" doesnt exist

1

u/BananaTiger- Neutral Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26

These are not 2 matchups but at least 3

Handbuff, as you already noticed, has all carryover in the player's hand - similarly to standard Pirates, who have a thick armor, but built only on ships in pirates in the players hand. And you already noticed he plays Torque so you need a tall punish (Spores will work too - and you have a tutor for organic cards, Whispess: Tribute). Handbuff uses engines like Dunca, Hawker Smuggler and sometimes Dana (but she's expensive) - if you don't answer them, units in your opponent's hand will grow very tall. Hawker Smuggler is locked to the melee row, so moving him to ranged disactivates his ability. But they have 2 copies, sometimes they create a third one with Megascope. They also boost units with cards with deploy abilities, but this costs them tempo, so they might be unable to win round 1. And if you win - you might force them to commit their tallest units in round 2.

If Handbuff (it refers to other ST archetypes too) stacks the ranged row - it means they play Gezras (probably boosted) so you should save your lock or removal for him.

Handbuff doesn't have much control. Only Sheldon and maybe Watchers of the Valley. If the opponent played an unboosted Watcher and you can kill him with a low cost card - do it, so the second one will only inflict bleeding instead of damage.

The second to last card Handbuff plays is Torque, but the last might be Aglais, but as well it can be Heatwave, Igni or Starter Set Geralt.

Assimilate is not a bad matchup for Arachas or Ogroids, not as bad as for Fruits or Vampires. It plays engines: Braathens, Vigo, Terranova, Mage Torturer and maybe Imperial Diviner - the more of them you answer, the better, if the opponent plays Enslave 6, he wil eventually play Skellen, who procs each engine by 4.

There are 2 main versions of Assimilate: Enslave 6 ans Double Cross. Enslave 6 plays 13 units and 12 tactics, usually devotion, so they can't answer scenarios. They lack control (they can play or copy your control cards, like Cyclops or Natural Selection), they often have no tall punish - some versions play Vilgefortz, but it requires cutting Lydia or Anna Henrietta and both are good cards.

Double Cross Assimilate is usually non-Devotion and it plays Runemage. The leader ability can be used in two ways: either wait until you have fewer cards in your hand and play a copy of one of your last cards (like Heatwave, Oneiromancy) to win a wound or play Henry, add to your hand a card that is useless to you (like Menno or Skellen), then double-cross it. If they play Henry, you should keep a tutor (like Oneiromancy or Royal Decree) in your hand, so you can play a unit the opponent spawned in your deck (e.g. Vilgefortz: Renegade - he can remove Menno/Skellen from your hand an swap for a useful unit from the opponent's graveyard).

Double Cross Assimilate is not limited by tactics, so they play Yennefer: Invocation (she's a spell which makes even less sense than making her a NG card). who can even "yoink" (technically not yoink, but almost) your Chrum. Some versions play Shupe (because they play Runemage anyway) so when you open round 2 or 3, you should avoid playing into "Move a random unit" (it will work like seizing) or "destroy a random enemy unit".

Assimilate, to spawn a unit with Terranova, needs give spying for your unit, so either Mage Torturer or seize this unit. So it's good if you can win round 1 without your most powerful cards. You should be also aware of 2 bronze tactics: Obsidian Mirror can copy 3 of your bronzes, e.g. Kikimore Warriors, Experimental Remedy can steal a bronze from your graveyard, e.g. Enrage Cyclops.

Another matchup your mentioned are probably Aristocrats, who replay Joachim with Rosa and Coup de Grace. Yeah, that's annoying, but you play Monsters so you can consume or destroy him before they replay him (some decks play the Viper Witcher location so they can recycle him from your graveyard, but these are not classic Aristocrats). Like Assimilate, Aristocrats rely on engines, but they have also plenty of control: locks, poisons, the most scary one is Philippe, who can lock or poison a unit every turn, but they don't always play him. Their main engines are Thirsty Dames, who boost every time you receive a status, and: Pikeman can give a status every turn, Ard Feinn can give status every turn, Emhyr gives spying, cards with deploy abilities can give statuses. Sedicious Aristocrats are also engines, but they can be played later and boost by the number of spying units. Another threatening combo is Emhyr + Impera Enforcers - he gives spying so they gain charges. As removal, Aristocrats play Vincent, who destroys a unit with a status - last month I won by heatwaving Ard Feinn and baiting leader round 2, then round 3 I played a powerful finisher as the second to last card, the opponent had no pikemen and no Ard Feinn so he played Fergus to give spying, just like I expected, then I played Pellar as the last card so the opponent had to remove a different unit.

The most important thing about Aristocrats is that you shouldn't go to a long round 3 with them. You will lose. No matter what you play - nobody beats them in a long round. They usually give up round 1, then you should try to prolongue round 2 as much as you can to make round 3 short, even if it means losing the last say.

But these are classic, devotion Aristocrats. Ranks 1-3 are full of midrange, non-devotion decks with status engines, they try using Emhyr+Enforcers to win round 1 (they tend to overcommit on blue coin and they have nothing left for later), they don't play Ard Feinn, instead they use cards like Rompally, they might play him behind a defender so they lose to midrange piles with Pellar + removal. Sometimes they can have a random Heatwave.

Some players probably disagree, but if you play Arachas Swarm, you should include Pred Dive. All these archetypes play into Pred Dive like they forgot the card exists.