GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

Noticed there was no thread for it yet, so I am fixing it.

So, for those who don't know, Gwent is a free-to-play card game based on the minigame of same name in Witcher 3. Unlike what you might expect it is a very different game from the ones inspired by Magic and Hearthstone. There is no life or mana, your objective is simply to have more strength in your side of the board than your opponent, and it is played over 3 rounds, in a best of 3. You draw much less often as well, starting instead with a large hand (10 cards) and drawing just thrice over the course of a game (unless you play cards that let you draw, of course).

The game just entered open beta yesterday, and it is quite fun to play. I was in the closed beta for a few weeks and had a lot of fun. The game rewards you with enough cards quickly enough you can construct a fun deck in a short period.

Beat me to it.

Haven't gotten around to playing Witcher 3 but I heard great things about Gwent. Just downloaded the beta and played the tutorial. Glad it's not just Witcher-Hearthstone.

Going to play some more, learn how it works, then consider a faction to play. Maybe Niflgaard?

I haven't tested yet, but I've heard the Nilfgaard starter deck is one of the weakest of the open beta. Which is a pity, because that was my favorite faction back in closed. I had built a really fun reveal deck (i.e. a deck based around revealing both mine and the opponent's hand), but now Nilfgaard doesn't seem to start with any of such reveal card.

Gwent is probably the thing everyone remembers about Wild Hunt. Need to download it on my Xbox.

Well trying this out finally, I gotta say it is really nice that basic decks are basically complete.

Been playing with the Northern Realms starter deck today. They are the faction that changed the most from closed to open beta, so it is really interesting. Their armor synergy is actually quite cool and often lead to units way more powerful than I was originally expecting. So much I ditched scorch for decoy. I did add a couple of Redanian Knights I got from kegs, though, and they are absolutely amazing. The original deck might be a bit weaker without them.

Okay, played through the tutorial. Definitely feels familiar, though I think having the ability to damage other units and destroy them is new.

Damaging units is new, but there were a number of "destroy unit" abilities and spells already. Lots of new abilities have been added in general, most of which seem pretty interesting. Some aren't properly explained, though. Like, I have a card that creates a copy of a bronze card when deployed. But when I play another card that does the same thing, it doesn't work. Is it because of a glitch? Because that ability doesn't work while there's a copy on the field? I don't know, and the game doesn't say.

Speaking of which, the game needs to take the time to show you what your opponent is doing. While the Magic: The Gathering video games were always annoyingly slow, at least you knew what was going on. A lot of times here the enemy will just do random damage, or some of my cards will disappear, or theirs will get boosted. They should show us what card they're using so we can look at its abilities.

Is the card you are talking about the Wild Hunt Hound, by any chance? If so, it is no glitch. That card doesn't actually create a copy of Biting Frost. Instead, it essentially draws you one from the deck and plays it. Notice the "summon" keyword. It is different from "spawn"(which, indeed, do create a copy). You can see what each keyword in a card does by hovering over them.

There was a big rewording job between closed and open, for the sake of shrinking text and making everything more clear. But I am afraid their choice of keywords was not particularly intuitive and is confusing a lot of people.

Also, I agree the game should slow down a bit. You can check what happened by going to the card log, but it would be nice if that wasn't needed every time. Once you are more familiar with cards and their effects you can usually know what happened, but still. Maybe that should be a setting option. A "fast mode" for those who don't want to wait, but having everything slower by default.

Back in closed beta you started with a couple of silvers and a single golden, if I am not mistaken. Glad they changed so you can have a full set with any faction from the start. They are hardly optimal, as most of them are generic but, still, better than feeling you couldn't compete at all until you got some golden.

I never played the original game, but I imagine it changed quite a lot. The current game is full of weird special effects, which I suspect were inexistent in the original. Like, my previous deck in closed beta was all about revealing mine and my opponent's hand and triggering combos that way. I doubt such a thing existed in Witcher 3, right?

edited 26th May '17 3:26:56 PM by Heatth

Okay, actually went through some challenges. Skellige and Monsters are giving me more success than the Northern Kingdoms, though I was only using the pre-made tutorial deck rather than anything constructive.

I believe the pre made decks are actually descent, at last given the cards you start with. There is a lot that can be improved, but you will need kegs for that. It is probably a good idea to use them as basis for your decks while you don't have enough cards to make something entirely new. It is what I have been doing anyway.

Yeah, I've been using the pre-made decks. But I was talking about the deck I "made" in the deck management tutorial.

Oh, that thing. I just deleted it. I think it was just a bunch of random cards thrown together? No idea if it was supposed to be viable or not.

The tutorial made it seem like it was a preplanned deck it threw together, didn't actually look at it yet though.

It doesn't seem very good, but eh.

So far I'm enjoying the game, anyway...even if some of the flavor text in loading screens still suffers from the problem of being too damn small.

Btw, guys, don't be too afraid of the multiplayer. I believe even in casual mode you will be pit against people of similar level, so not much risk of finding crazy decks right of the bat. And it is rather easy to get gold with daily rewards. You need to win 6 rounds (rounds, not games) for a full 100 ore, which is not bad. After that you will need 12 rounds for another 100 ore, which is a bit harder, but the first 6 is simple enough (you also gain extra rewards every 2 rounds). The daily will reset in 15 minutes, though, so I would wait until then.

I'd rather have 6 rounds for 100 than 3 rounds for 10, like how Hearthstone does it.

Yup, Gwent is way more generous than Hearthstone. To be fair, a Gwent game is usually longer but, still. The fact you don't actually need to win the game is also very helpful. Because of how the game work, it is rather easy to win at last 1 round. Hell, a common strategy is to insta pass if you win round 1, to gain card advantage in the final round. As a result, even if you are in a losing streak, you can get 1 keg per day with relative low effort.

Not to mention there's plenty of ways for you to counter strategies that some people might try and make gimmick decks out of.

Then again that's just because people haven't figured out the meta yet.

Ugh, I have no idea how to use Wild Hunt Navigators.

I think they are not very good until you have some Wild Hunt Riders. Being able to get another Hound or Warrior can be good on certain situations, but it is not that impressive. Meanwhile, Riders can win you the round with their self buffing and, even if they don't, they will carry over to the next.

Once you do have the Riders, though, the Navigators are great. It makes getting three riders into field at the same time much easier, specially if you get Eredin.

Ah, so use them on Riders, not other stuff. Okay.

I mean, situationally other stuff is good. Hounds can lead to way higher power swings and sometimes you really do need that small removal from a Warrior. But riders are pretty much always useful. If you can use Navigators on them, that means you will have two in play already. Then you only need one more or Eredin to finish the trio. And that is not only a powerful play from itself, but it is useful even if you lose the round^note it is a good combo for round 2, for example, assuming you won the first. It forces the enemy to play cards while you are building up for the next round.

Btw, a cool trick is to use a Navigator on a Navigator first, then use the second on your Rider or whatever. This helps with deck thinning, which is always good. For the same reason, it is a descent idea to spawn a Navigator with Eredin. You just need to make sure the card you need is actually in your deck.

Been having fun with the basic decks but holy crap actual deck building just seems a lot more staggering than other card games like Shadowverse and Hearthstone.

Absolutely lost doing that.

Any ideas on just making the basic deck themes better? like the scoia'tael basic deck.

edited 27th May '17 8:40:07 AM by Memers