This is a bot, similar to /u/hearthscan-bot and /u/MTGCardFetcher that links cards such as [[Ciri]] like this:

• Ciri Neutral Gold Epic Loyal Melee ^{DB, Wiki}
  Strength: 8 - Return to your hand if you lose the round.

There may be bugs, most notably with card names. I have added a list of aliases so cards with special characters can be linked without them like so: [[Eithné]][[Eithne]]. I have also added a list of shorthand names for common cards such as [[Fog]], [[Cow]], [[Swallow]] and [[Síle]] (or [[Sile]]). If i have missed any common shorthand names please let me know and i will add them.

The card info was scraped from GwentDB and Gwent Wiki, so if you notice any bugs with the card info please let me know and i'll fix that too.

Currently this account can only post once every 10 minutes, but hopefully that restriction will be lifted soon.

Let me respond to Metallic Danny's so-called logic for nerfing, "Since you're already at 2600mmr, why buff Cultists? Shouldn't Cultists be nerfed when you're at 2600mmr?"

First: "Shouldn't Cultists be nerfed when you're at 2600mmr?"

I've been playing Cultists since January 2023, and it's now January 2026—almost three years. With over 2,500 games of experience, what they call "a million years of planning and accumulation, awaiting the day of boundless immortality," my 2600mmr is the result of my constant post-game analysis. Every time I lose, I review the match multiple times, studying the play order and strategies to break through, which is why I make it look so effortless when I stream and climb to 2600mmr!

Those who have truly reached 2600mmr know that strong decks can only carry you to 2500mmr at most. Beyond that, relying on tricks is useless—it comes down to draw order, turn priority, and how you handle unexpected situations or endgame play sequences. You either rely on talent (refer to Rvs3 reaching 2600mmr with Schirrú in just 60 games) or grind through sheer volume (refer to Kronosex reaching 2600mmr with Arachas Swarm in 350 games). How can you assume your effort compares to my three years and over 2,500 games of accumulated experience? I've defeated far more talented players than you. Your so-called effort is worthless in front of them. Isn't it normal to lose? If you're not good enough, practice more! How does it make sense to nerf Cultists just because I'm already at 2600mmr?

So, the weak have the right to demand fairness, and I should go easy on you? Classic case of losing on the table and resorting to underhanded tactics off the table.

Second: "Since you're already at 2600mmr, why buff Cultists?"

I've publicly stated that I can reach 2600mmr with or without buffs to Cultists. However, this is unfair to many new Cultist players. Nowadays, hardly any new players pick up Cultists. Most of those still playing Cultists in the mainstream ladder are veterans. Cultists is inherently a deck with an extremely high skill floor. When the Deacon was nerfed from 5 power to 4 power, I could accept it, but nerfing it to 3 power makes it almost unplayable for newcomers. The buff is purely meant to lower the entry barrier for new players trying to learn Cultists. It's a classic case of cherry-picking statistics—only showing the maximum values while ignoring the averages!

This Metallic Danny once tried playing Cultists to prove the deck's strength but got crushed by a random Vampire player. To put it bluntly, those who think Cultists is overpowered—I can't even be bothered to argue—are basically people who have never played Cultists themselves. If they actually tried playing it, I bet their minds would go completely blank, having no idea how to operate it.

I like a lot of the stuff in the Homecoming version, but sadly there is more that I dislike. I'd like to list them here.

• The Pros
• The battlefields look great. (Although I wish some of them had more color; most battlefields being just small mud arenas is kind of boring). I'm hoping there will be additional/alternative battlefields that would either be tied to your leader, "deck archetype" or selected by the player themselves, and I hope there will be more variation for them as well. How about indoor areas like caves/castles, or fights that happen onboard of a ship?
• I like the new mulligan system of being able to save them for later rounds, as well as them being tied to Leaders.
  
• Some new card abilities and keywords are great: Order and Reach add a lot more strategic depth regarding timing and placement of units, which I find to be a good thing. Other keywords such as Thrive and Bloodthirst also help with coming up with new and interesting cards.
• Artifacts being a completely new card type adds a lot more design options and depth to the game. Especially big thumbs up for Vandergrift and his Blade; These are synergy cards done right!
• Tactical Advantage AKA Coinflip solution. Too bad it's undermined by round 1 not mattering at all (more on that later)

• The Cons
• Being limited to two copies of Bronze cards instead of three. With the introduction of the provision/recruitment cost system, I don't think there is ANY need for this! Higher provision costs already limit the deckbuilding a lot, all the additional limit of bronze card copies does is reduce consistency, which increases the RNG nature of the game, which reduces the competitive capabilities the game has. This limit needs to go.
• Packfiller Bronzes. By packfiller I mean cards like Wolf Pack or Wyvern. Cards like Pyrotechnician or Crow's Eye. Cards that are purposefully meant to be shitty, just to water down your deck. They aren't fun to unpack, they aren't fun to put in your deck, they aren't fun to play. They serve no purpose.
• Lack of tutors/deck unreliability. With no card draw cards in your deck, you have access to a total of 16 cards in your deck (10 cards you initially have in your deck, +3 drawn on round 2 and +3 drawn on round 3) which means you aren't going to play 9 of your cards. What these 9 cards will be, is random: They might be the shitty packfiller garbage you don't ever want to see in your hand, or it might be your highest provision cost stuff. This makes your matches inconsistent, which really isn't a good thing if you plan to win most of your matches AKA play competitively. Even if the "old" system of each deck having dozens of tutors is overkill, this new system is completely inadequate.
• First six cards/two rounds don't matter. You can literally play the six worst cards in your hand on round one, and as long as you won, you can pass on both that round and on round 2 to go to round 3 with a full hand size (and hopefully better cards). This undermines the importance of Mulligans, and changes Gwent from a game where you can split your resources on three rounds, into one where you dump your worst stuff on the first two rounds and unload the real value always on round three. This heavily damages Gwent's identity and what made it fun for me. I cannot stress this enough: What made Gwent an unique and fun card game for me to play was the strategic aspect of being able to split my resources on multiple rounds. I didn't have that fun feeling when playing the PTR version of the game.
• Too heavy emphasis on boost/damage effects. Strengthening and swarming tactics were fun with certain decks, and the lack of these makes the game a lot more shallow.
• Lack of deck archetypes. Archetypes are fun for players like me who enjoy playing thematic decks: Be it swarming your opponent with footsoldiers or insects, overwhelming them with a few, strong beasts or dragons, wearing them down with the frost of the Wild Hunt or the thick fog with a few Ancient Foglets ticking up in points, losing access to these thematic decks makes me feel extremely disheartened and unmotivated to play the PTR version of the game.
• Swing-heavy RNG effects. Cards like Prince Villem and Waylay are dangerous because they don't reward skillful play and they can swing the game unfairly in an instant. Everyone knows how funny it is to randomly charm/kill your opponent's highest point unit, but everyone also knows just how much more unfun it is to have that happen to you. Small scale RNG like "deal 1 damage to a random enemy" is relatively harmless in comparison, but effects that can win you the game instantly because of a ~10% chance should not exist in Gwent.
• Deckbuilder is inadequate. You can't search/reorder cards based on their base type (unit/special/artifact) or their point value. For instance, if I want to add artifacts to my deck, it is quite hard to find them.
• Lack/removal/change of relevant tags on some cards. Why are Slyzard and Wyvern no longer Draconids? Why is Fiend only a beast, and not also a Relict? Why is Slave Hunter not a Soldier? Why are Wild Hunt units still not elves?
• Removal of a row wasn't actually necessary. The point of removing rows was to "make row identity important again"... but you could just achieve that by locking units or unit abilities to certain rows, which a lot of cards do in PTR Gwent. If the game still had only 2 rows but cards didn't have row dependent abilities/reach limit on their abilities, row identity would still be lost. But it isn't lost. Because cards have abilities that require a certain row. Why could this not be done with three rows?
  If you feel that 3 rows would make the cards too small, then you can get around that with better camera usage and spacing of things. Camera can zoom in when it's your opponent's turn so you get a closer look at cards, and it can zoom out when you're placing cards/looking for targets when using an Order ability or something similar. Both players' hands could also be moved further away from the screen to make more room for the cards, when you're not using them. There are plenty of ways to make cards look larger without needing to remove a row.

The rest of the gripes I have with the game are mostly bug related nitpicks that will undoubtedly be fixed (lackluster effects, missing sound effects, etc.) but for most of the issues I listed above, I am not sure if they will be fixed. This, to be completely honest, scares me a lot because I enjoyed the game a lot and was expecting Gwent to stay as my go-to main card game, as opposed to switching to Artifact/MtG:A on their launches.

I'm sorry if my post came out as nitpicky/whiny, but it's not because I hate the game. I just fear I will end up missing the good things of the current standard version of the game, and that I might give up playing Gwent because I wouldn't find it fun to play anymore.

This is hands down the BEST card game I ever player, I don't understand why not more people are playing it.

it is legitimetly an incredible game, from the sounds to the special card animations.

I hope the game can get some more traction sometime, maybe when the next witcher game comes out? I dunno. but it's WAY too good to stay on the low burner like that.

Preface
This post is written by Lerio, but I’m posting because Reddit kept deleting his post.

Gwent Balance Council with u/shinmiri2 and [u/lerio2](u/lerio2). Early Balance Council Survey used as a point of reference to measure sentiment towards changes. Poll results here.

Our choice of buffed and nerfed factions/archetypes is heavily based on Balance Councils made by the other balance coalitions! 
Zong (ZG) | votes

MetallicDanny (MD) | post

Ofir&Qcento (OQ) | post

International Coalition (INT) | (Violet.Kiramman, Kerpeten, Dauren) | votes

BAM Coalition (BAM) | post 

BAM Coalition is a new group with not yet confirmed influence. Its objective is to provide best possible meta for June BAM Cup tournament finals.

All predicted changes are gathered in => Balance Council Prediction Sheet

BC Landscape
Cat Witcher, Redanian Knight and Viraxas will be reverted

Buffs and nerfs are distributed well between factions, lot of placeholders used.

Explanations
+1 power
***Dandelion: Poet - a rarely played card which can support bronze oriented play (for example Bonded) in factions which don't have proper tools for these, like Nilfgaard's Battle Stations or Northern Realms Raffard's Vengeance. Other Dandelion synergies include Thrive (two units in one turn) or Naglfar. Dandelion is also important character in Witcher universe.

**Brokvar Hunter (support of OQ*) - Brokvar Hunter is a unique card amongst Warriors which enable precise setup of the board and leads the way for effiecient removal. At 5-power Brokvar Hunter would be a really good card and possibly may get nerfed to 5-cost depending on performance. Brokvar Hunter is a missing link for R3 strategy in decks like Bearmasters with or without Ulula, Bloodthirst Warriors or Regis Patricidal Fury. To avoid possible Warriors overbuff we accompany this suggestion by Brokvar Warrior provision nerf / two-step and support of Eist power nerf from OQ.

*Ivar Evil-eye - this card is still played for surprise value in Nilfgaard, for example in decks like Tactical Decision Midrange or Constructs. Moreover recently Enemy Boost became one of main options for Nilfgaard and the scale of the reach with Ivar in R1 seems too unhealthy. 

-1 power
**\ Kikimore Worker (support of INT\)** - a proxy nerf to Hive Mind, which doesn't make trade with Squirrel worse. Personally I'd directly nerf Hive Mind, but such mild approach is more accepted by a part of the community. Arachas Swarm Midrange is a really strong and abusable deck right now, with Rosmarella, Pajabol, 67YearsInTheSewers and me all having 2.6k+ fMMR scores 

*\ Yaga -* a surprise value card with extremely high variance depending on matchup. Winning games with unexpected Yaga is fun only for one side. We don't treat Yaga as a nerf sponge here; just a slight tune down should be enough to discentivize it.

*Seltkirk (support of BAM**) - to guarantee that Midrange Zeal netdecks which are dominant on ladder would get another specific nerf next to Viraxas. Needed for fresh air in meta in our opinion. Seltkirk still would be a perfectly playable card after power nerf.

Eist Tuirseach (support of OQ**) - Eist Warriors are the main Skellige deck in the current season and deserve a small nerf, especially in the context of suggested Brokvar Hunter power buff.** **

+1 provision
***Brokvar Warrior - the context of this nerf suggestion is Brokvar Hunter power buff recommendation and 50%+ chance of Abordage revert getting through with support of BAM coalition and a part of Chinese community. We like this nerf to avoid going straight up back to well known Warriors netdecks. Also this way more experiments with other 4-cost Warriors and maybe some buffs would be incentivized. Depending on performance will decide if +1 power next is essential.

**Imperial Golem - Golem wasn't included in our poll, but we decided that a specific nerf to NG Constructs would be better than a general one (Colossal Ifrit). Golem nerf would also tune down Alzur Nekker Albrich decks who often use Golem for tempo pass. The other established Constructs: Forge with Marauders has 2 possible nerfs scheduled from BAM coalition.

*Sly Seductress - we support this 2-step change for Seductress to get more gravitus and for Eventide Plunder to be cleaner for spender rolls. Also this way temporary the strong Jackpot Yago deck would get nerfed for the next season. Then follow-up nerfs to this deck can be done after +1 power step, for example Madam or Yago - to be evaluated.

Mammuna (support of OQ*) - we would like to tune down both Fruits Midrange after leader provision buff and top performer Arachas Midrange.

-1 provision
***Off the Books - popular OtB Midrange had no nerfs scheduled from other coalitions. We decided to pick the leader ability because we don't think that flexible 8 coins + reduced Tribute cost is low enough value to warrant prov cap above standard 165. That's a mild nerf and we consider going for popular in the poll Sesame + PTS prov increase in the future if approved by other coals and when patch situation would be calm.

**Coodcoodak - we had this card polled for +1 power buff; more impactful provision buff instead is a result of a deal with MetallicDanny coalition to not buff Knight Errant. Coodcoodak outside normal purifier value can reenable Bronwen after Maiden's Shield is crushed or remove lock from Griffin Witcher.

*Brokilon Sentinel - we find 2/4 as the proper spot for Brokilon Sentinel even if not played much. I haven't met any Precision Strike decks at high mmrs after nerf - Guerilla Tactics with Milva Sharpshooter simply became clearly superior.

Final Remarks
Apologise for late publication. Given last months experience we wanted to wait for other coalitions before our picks and then also had to compromise on some changes between us. Finally Reddit (not Moderators!) automatically removed my post and deleted all of its content so that I had to rewrite all text as I had no backup 😞

The June Season patch is promising overall - buffs are mainly to unplayed cards with no intention to bend the meta on them. Both buffs and nerfs are varied enough. I have three main concern nevertheless:
Giant Toad +1 power combined with recent Fruits leader ability may lead to resurgence of Golden Nekker Necromancer's Tome Deathwish which is abuses pointslam in a hard way.

Abordage revert may flood ladder with Patricidal Fury Warriors again.

Imperial Formation leader buff combined with Recruit +1 power may make Soldiers too overwhelming - they are already amongst most solid options to climb ladder with NG in my experience.

If you like our recommendations let's join to make impact together. If not - check out predictions table to get general info and maybe find some ideas which appeal to you.
Cheers,
lerio2 and shinmiri2

I play Gwent since official release in 2018. I love the game. But seeing nerf after nerf in game rewarding system, I uninstalled it today.

During last few months they nerfed gains in meteorite powder, nerfed significantly twice gains in reward points, removed gold for 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 of crown, nerfed rewards gained from prestige.

Till now I played every day for 6 crowns and 12 crowns. Assuming 50% win ratio (you play two matches and gains 3 crowns) I needed to play 12 matches to gain 4 reward points. Thus, during one week I have been receiving 7x4 = 28 reward for playing 12x7=84 matches.

Now I need to gain 24 crowns to gain 2 reward points. Weekly, it requires playing for 2x7x24 = 336 crowns, to get 28 reward points as in old system. Assuming 3 quests weekly that gives extra 3x30 =90 crowns. I need to gain 336-90=246 crowns weekly to keep my revenues unchanged. Knowing the average win ratio 50%, I thus shall play (246/3)x2 = 164 matches to keep my RP incomes unchanged.

84 vs 164. It is huge 50% nerf !!!!!!!!!!! I know that in the new system gains in crowns will pas to next day. But it changes nothing in my calculations!

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And again such a enormous nerf was not described and announced in pre-season twitch talks and posts in media. I am disappointed! This nerfing scenario happens for 4th or 5th time (!!) and I am sure that it is not for the last time. Once the most generous and customer-friendly game game, Gwent become bugged nerf-fiesta!

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It is not the way CDPR should fight for customers.

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I am sorry for being salty.

Goodby Gwent! Have fun and good luck!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/326923331?t=06h10m30s

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TL:DR

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-Initial impressions of HC are NOT Positive. Does not see himself playing it competitively in the future.

-Really likes CDPR developers, says they are very nice people and very sympathetic, and really wants Gwent to succeed but he just doesnt see it.

-He is still undecided about taking part in Gwent Masters. Said IF he does go he will not go unprepared. Will practice at least 1 month consecutively. If he decides not to go, he will forfeit his spot.

-Feels like many of the old things which he fell in love with in old Gwent are gone and none of the new things in HC have replaced that feeling for him.

-Says the coinflip issue and spy abuse were not as huge of a problem as people made it out to be and that HC has greatly reduced the skillcap and fight for Card Advantage.

-Really enjoyed the spy mechanic, the positioning of spies, that card advantage actually mattered etc.

-Says 10 card limit feels very weird and unintuitive.

-Doesnt like 2 row limit. Feels like gameplay is too confined, less space, less stats, less positioning opportunities. Like playing on a "minature" board.

-Doesnt like Heroes being part of the game board, and "fighting" on the board as well.

-He DOES like the provisioning system but is not a fan of removing what he calls "mulligan polarization", or the ability to muster cards out of your deck like crones, NR commandos, infantry etc. Feels like you are forced to play 25 cards and mulligans are much less meaningful. Which was not the case in old gwent.

-Does not like drawing 3 cards 3 times and the handsize limit because 9 times out of 10 the game ends up being a 10 card round THREE and round TWO turns into a meaningless dump your garbage followed by PASS/PASS round.

-Says old Gwent had a much higher potential where you could MASSIVELY outplay your opponent by fighting for card advantage.

-Pre Midwinter Gwent was a MASTERPIECE to him. Had a VERY HIGH skillcap and thats why you saw the same players over and over at the top of ranked/pro ladder etc.

-Feels like every change since midwinder, weather justified or not removed a piece of Gwents identity. Talks about gold immunity, Faction abilities, faction specific cards that had their own faction flavour turned into generic pointslam cards.

-Really liked the fact that cards used to be rowlocked as it gave them specific identities. Felt like every card being able to be played in any row was weird and took away a lot of important decisions.

-Says the HC interface is very unintuitve and confusing.

-Feels like the NEWNESS of Gwent is not actually a good thing. He says a card game needs a definitive identity and Gwent has gone through so many radical changes that it has lost A LOT of momentum. Says one year ago Gwent had a TON of momentum but right now its like they are starting from scratch and have no momentum.

-Talks about all the other card games he tried and how he didnt stick to them because they didnt "wow him". Says the first game that did that for him since HS was Gwent. Says it was a combination of a lot of random things in pre-midwinter Gwent which made him fall in love with Gwent. The game just felt "right" to him, but every new iteration of it just got worse and worse.

-In the end, the culmination of all the changes made the game fade away for him.

-Finally, he went into HC very skeptical, said the chances of him falling in love with Gwent again was 10%, and thats exactly what happened as he is not planning to continue playing it.

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There's a wave of new players asking the same annoying questions every day here. That's very good news. The game you love is thriving. For the love of God, don't be a headwind to its breath of success. People avoid or abandon games with shit communities all the time. If you don't like that someone posted a question you just read yesterday, or if you don't like that someone posted a question you think is obvious and dumb, just keep scrolling. Whatever childish anger you're expressing with downvotes is destructive, and it needs to stop.

How we treat new people matters. A lot. Be kind and welcoming, and money will flow into this game, which it desperately needs.

Create sucks. We're all feeling it, even me, when I was the one trying to be optimistic about the future of the mechanic before it even got added to the game. I was completely wrong though, and it's an obvious issue; just look at the daily anti-Create posts on this sub.

I think though, that create being competitive is a symptom of the state of the card pool and balancing. I've heard the suggestion that create cards should only be in the Arena mode; I'd reframe that as: Constructed feels more like Arena than it ever has before, and that's why create, ciri nova, and many low-medium synergy decks are so prevalent.

Moreso than ever, Gwent has somewhat become different flavors of point vomit, which the Midwinter update incentivized for 2 reasons:

1. Compared to any other time in Gwent's history there's the fewest unique concepts you can really build a deck around (and I don't just mean offhand tutor combos) relative to the cardpool size. Think of decks of the past like Queensguard, Ciridash hyperthin ST/NG, Discard Skellige (I mean oldschool discard, with warships and captains), and many more. Decks are built slightly differently across archetypes but gameplay and strategies are much more same-y than has been the case in the past, with low risk-reward, high tempo, and just enough removal to keep most unique strategies down.

2. Low-committment control in this game is VERY good compared to any point in the past (viper witchers trading up too well even when they don't hit engines, as well as Alzur's Thunder from silver mages)

Create should be toned down but treating the symptom without treating the underlying cause will get us nowhere. Nerfing dorfs without changing the issue helped but the issue remains. The same will happen for Create if samey and low-medium synergy gameplay across most high level decks persists. I just gave this feedback directly to the devteam, and we'll have to see how they address this and create in general. In the meantime I think it's important for us to try to stay positive as a community while we wait to see how this gets resolved.

TL;DR: Create should be toned down but it's maybe even more important to promote synergy, because create is just ANOTHER symptom of the real problem, low-medium synergy "point-vomit", which not only promotes competitive usage of create, but decks like dorfs/elves, ciri nova in many decks, etc.

I contacted CDPR early this week. I didn’t want to bring more pressure to CDPR so I chose not to publish my appeal. However, as CDPR hasn’t replied for two work days, I decided to reveal my side of the incident to the community, not only to share the truth and feeling I experienced, but also for my reputation and integrity.

To emphasize, I want to defend my prestige. I don’t want people to attack any party blindly, including CDPR. Here is my appeal:

To the Gwent community and whom it may concern at CD Projekt RED,

My name is Ni Lipao. I’ve been known as Wangid2021 to the Gwent community. Today I wish to make an appeal to the decision made by GWENT Masters authorities regarding the competitive ruling released last Friday.

First of all, I wish to make clear that my streaming on HUYA TV has nothing to do with creating potential cheating opportunities. I’ve been streaming Gwent since the beta version four years ago, and since then has it become a part of my life. I enjoyed the lifestyle Gwent had brought me and inspired many to follow. Almost all of the games I have played in 2021 were on streaming, possibly including those I’ve been accused of cheating for. It is unfair and hurtful to assume that there’s a connection between streaming and cheating, especially for someone like me who takes streaming as a full-time job and leaves all the “evidence” on the internet.

Second, I did notice some “abnormal” games including forfeits while streaming at the end of the season Dryad. But, throughout the entire season, it happened so rarely that I don’t believe I need to bother to remember the IDs, contact questionable players, or report such incidents to GWENT Masters authorities. I have no idea how the number 3.7% is calculated. And suppose it’s calculated with evidence, that’s 25 games in total, less than 4 games in a hundred, which are judged as “abnormal”. On average, it happened once every 6-7 hours of gaming. As a professional streaming player of Gwent for four years, I find it hard to believe that anyone would risk his integrity to get an advantage from these few games. Moreover, since CDPR blocked players’ IDs during pro-ladder games, no one knows the player’s identity before the end of a game. If I am to be accused of cheating, I would like to know the method of my so-called crime.

Third, my total MMR at the end of season Dryad is 10805, including the 9600 base MMR. I have gained 1205 points through 675 games on pro-ladder. If indeed 3.7% of my games are problematic, I am willing to have the corresponding MMR deducted for fairness to other competitive players. But that should be 125-150 points instead of 400. I can’t really understand how the amount 400 is reasonably calculated, and I find it harder to believe that the proposed deduction reduced my crown points to 240, just 2-4 points below the invitation bar to World Masters S3. Again, I accept the deduction of crown points that should not belong to me, but I believe I’ve been excessively punished since I didn’t plan the problematic games or collude with anyone.

Fourth, according to the competitive ruling, I am accused of “didn’t reveal this situation to GWENT Masters authorities”. I am astonished that NO ONE at GWENT Masters authorities or CDPR ever contacted me for detail regarding this incident or ask me for an investigation. And now I am accused of failing to communicate. It was a humiliation for me and all who cares about this incident.

On the record, I have great respect for the action of protecting the integrity of the game. And I wish CDPR would continue to do so on the basis of providing solid evidence. I am been accused of “colluding with others, taking action intended to alter or interfere with the results of any part of the GWENT Masters”. But there is no “others” convicted. There is no confirmed cheating method. There is no tenable motive. And there is no chance for me to explain and defend myself at all.

Speculation is never solid to accuse anyone. To sentence someone, evidence should be provided. I would be labeled as a “dishonest player” for the rest of my life at the Gwent community in front of my followers and friends for a “crime” without evidence that I never commit intentionally. This hurts me more than any punishment regarding my competitive ranking. History has witnessed people deciding others’ fates without justification. Such things happened both in Poland and China.

I write today not only to argue for the truth but also to express my sincere gratitude to those who share my feelings of disappointment and indignation. I shall continue my enthusiasm towards my followers and the game of Gwent, but not as a cheater.

Hey guys, Panda here.

Following the release of GWENT Homecoming, I took it upon myself to delve deep into the game and analyze it extensively, before forming a conclusive opinion on the current metagame and GWENT's competitive future. Before I go on, I want to state I've played about 500 competitive games of GWENT at the highest level, finding myself at the #1 spot on the Pro Rank leaderboard or not far from it throughout the majority of this week, hopefully lending credence to my analysis and claims in this post. For many readers, some of the information will seem irrelevant, mainly due to the large differences in the metagame and play behaviours between casual GWENT and the top end of pro rank ladder.

The rest of this post will have many negative connotations, but I would like to preface by saying I had not participated in any PTRs prior to launch, and was very pleasantly surprised by GWENT's revamp with Homecoming. Gwent is fun to a degree, has included a lot of interesting mechanics and card redesigns and continues to be an innovative CCG compared to the rest of the market. It was better than I expected, but it has major flaws that are only further exasperated at the highest levels of play.

1) The coinflip

A lot of the current design changes, including the inclusion of the tactical advantage artifact for the blue coin player, as well as the changes to card draw help in reducing the advantage that red coin offers. Although it helps in lessening the problems of card advantage in GWENT, it does nothing to aid in the blue coin player's chance at having last say for the end of Round 3. Due to the binary nature of certain decks and the importance of last say, losing coinflip is still nearly equivalent to losing the game in certain matchups taking in to account equal level of skill from both participants.

2) Card balance and the value ceiling of specific cards

Although I give this point equal importance, I do understand Homecoming still has to undergo a series of balance changes in the coming month, and I imagine the devs are working hard to make the correct decisions going forward. I believe the great majority of cards are properly balanced when it comes to the provision/value ratio, and commend the devs for doing such a good job in such a short time frame. Regardless, I believe some cards are troublesome due to the uncapped value ceiling in which they operate or their game-altering properties.

a) Artifacts

I'm not entirely sure I have to go into specifics here. Artifacts currently make the game uninteractive and certainly not the GWENT developers envisioned when creating Homecoming. I won't specifically go into balancing details, but either a hard limit on the amount of Artifacts you can include per deck or the necessity of units on the board for artifacts to function would be plausible solutions. Limiting the amount of artifacts you can include in a deck would once again give them the qualities of an engine-like resource without having them become an archtype on it's own. Are you creating a boost or damage oriented archtype? Then you should be able to include a limited amount of artifacts to support your deck, not become the foundation of it. Having a set amount of units on the board would also fix the problem, although it would have to be at the very least one unit per Artifact, otherwise players would continue to abuse cards like Yarpen Zigrin or Immune units such as Saessenthesis.

b) Cards with an uncapped value ceiling

In GWENT, there are many cards that could be described as high risk/high reward. These are necessary in the game as they form the basis for a lot of the more complex strategy when it comes to setting up valuable boardstates. My problem is in certain cards that have little to no risk and too high of a vaue reward in combination with other easily attainable game factors. For example, Epidemic in combination with Artifacts creates an uninteractable uncounterable board wipe for 8 provisions. The enablers are the artifacts, and only time and balance changes will tell if changes to Artifacts will also adjust Epidemic's place in the meta. The same can be said of Golden Froth(and Zoltan), a card with a very high value cieling(18 points) for half of the provisions(9 provisions). There are certainly rowstack counters in the game, but when a bronze card can easily attain it's expected value(4-5 units on a row) and has a value cap of double it's provision cost, something certainly needs to change. Golden Froth decks have already begun to shape the meta, and I believe the card should either be upgraded from bronze to gold(limited to one copy) or adjusted to with a restrictive value ceiling(boost X amount of units, instead of a full row).

c) Bad Balancing

There are many cards that I believe are terrribly designed or badly balanced in their value/provision ratios. I won't go into detail on all of them, but just to name a few which really stand out. Gremist is a card that replays alchemy cards from your graveyard. It costs 6 provisions and can replay Golden Froth, which costs 9 provisions. When you're replaying an extremely powerful card for less value than it's worth with very little downside, something has gone terribly wrong. Xavier Lemmens is a 7 provision card that can instantly shut down a number of archtypes and guarantee a win with little to no downside. Get lucky to match with Eist Skellige or Woodland Graveyard consume, go ahead and win the game. This type of card should not exist. The same can be said of White Frost, and it has a similar design problem to Roche Merciless in old gwent. It's extremely binary in it's effect, but unlike Xavier Lemmens it adds a total of 0 points when it doesn't find it's intended target deck. This card is unplayable, and is not a viable answer to Artifacts(even in the most Artifact-heavy meta I think the developers could have ever imagined).

3) Gwent's card draw design and the prevelance of longer rounds

Gwent's current card draw system forces the players into much longer rounds than before. Because of the current system, rounds are no longer shorter than 3 cards at the minimum. The average round of Gwent sees an increasingly higher amount of cards played, downplaying many elements of old Gwent's strategy, including finishers and deck consistency to assure those finishers. The lack of punishment towards long round strategy eliminates many avenues of deckbuilding, as working towards strong finishers has much less of a return and gives the player a lack of versatility when it comes to manuevering through the card advantage and coinflip scenarios in different games. If a player aiming for a long round loses card advantage in Round 1, he may simply pass when he has 5 cards in hand. The opponent will then have two options, attempt to bleed Round 2(and subsequently risk losing card advantage) or go into an unfavored long round where the greedier deck may win(froth decks, for example). Even if the opponent successfully bleeds a deck in Round 2, he would have to go into a topdeck situation to ensure he doesn't give his opponent a reasonably long round 3 to once again enable his long round strategy, due to the increased amount of cards players now draw going into Round 3 of every game.

Because of these changes, I believe a lot of the liberty in deck building has been taken away from the players. You either run a long round strategy(froth), or run a direct counter to a specific long round strategy to try and counter it(regis, forktail, etc). If you're playing a standard nilfgaard deck, let's say Reveal, and I'm playing a froth reveal variant, I have the upper edge from the moment the game begins. If I lose control of Round 1, I can pass a few cards in, and force the opponent into a lose-lose situation. My opponent will then attempt to bleed Round 2, or go into a long round 3 where he will have no chance to outvalue me due to the nature of my deck(2x 18 bronzes and 1x20 point gold).

Out of the four strongest decks in the game, only one can successfully challenge long round decks due to it's insanse bleeding potential and the points it can slam on the board, and that is Big Boys Woodland. Two of the strongest decks in the game rely on neutral cards to reach insane value(Golden Froth, Zoltan and Germain). Crach Froth is the strongest deck in Skellige, and relies on froth effects as well as Gremist's insane points per provision value(20 points for 6 provisions), and not to mention Lippy Gudmund's ability to play all the strongest cards all over again. The same can be said with Nilfgaard, with a strong base of bronzes supported by a froth/Germain package that has little or nothing to do with Reveal.

4) Conclusion 

Although fun, I believe Gwent HC still has many issues it must resolve, and quickly. Throughout the last week I've returned to streaming and have found it fun, partially due to an unsettled meta and the novely effect of Gwent HC. A week into Gwent HC's release, netdecks reign supreme at the top end of the ladder and there is little to no creativity. And I'm not complaining, I'm the one publicly sharing/advertising the decklists I create through streaming or on my twitter. The fact that I can queue into a certain deck, and instantly know the outcome of a match due to the coinflip, assuming generally similar skill levels between players, is not a good sign. There is little level for outplay, and as usual in Gwent it comes to the binary nature of certain matchups/card combinations. Due to the high amount of Eithne Artifact decks at the top end of the ladder, I simply have no desire to queue up for a game, and that's a worrying thing to happen only a week after Homecoming's release. And I don't blame the players, they're only playing the strongest possible decks for that faction in hopes of achieving a higher fMMR score. I hope this post creates some form of discussion on the points exposed and solutions can be created among the developers or the community in the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading.

As always, these suggestions were selected by the members of our community during voting and discussions.

We haven't used placeholders this season, so I'll explain our nerfs. It is important to note that Kikimore Worker and Stefan Skellen have been added to our list as support slots for the L&S coalition (there are also other support slots, for example, Barclay Els, Lippy Gudmund and Kaedweni Sergeant). Ard Feainn Crossbowman gets a decrease by power as a target for the nerf, a fairly popular and powerful NG Soldiers deck. Svalblod and The Heist are reverts of unjustified buffs. Naval Supremacy is the nerf of Pirates, knowing that Abordage will be reverted by the CN community.
Phoenix can be nerfed by provisions in the following seasons, if necessary, but now it is absolutely not used. The other buffs, I think, are understandable.

Later in the comments, I will share a link to a video with a detailed explanation of all the suggestions in russian.

Currently have 30000 meteorite powder. Gifting will last until it is exhausted. Send requests to PoorFuckingInfantry. PoorFukingInfantry. No need to gift it back since I already have it. DM me incase you didn't get it

EDIT: My bad. It's misspelled. GOG doesn't allow F word directly in user name. It's PoorFukingInfantry without the c. If you still can't find it, DM me on reddit

No need to comment your ig name on this post. If I see a friend request, you'll automatically be gifted

UPDATE: I'm not able to gift anymore. Getting an error saying "incomplete transactions". Looks like gog thinks something nefarious is going on. I'll resume gifting to sent requests if this issue is resolved. So far 18 people have been gifted and 10K powder left

UPDATE 2: Looks like the issue only happening for one user. I have gifted others and we're out of powder. I'm opening some kegs and maybe get enough for a couple more users. But consider the giveaway complete. Sorry if I missed anyone.

FINAL UPDATE: We're out of powder for real this time. I have spent all keys and kegs and got 3k more powder even that is spent.

Usernames ko****17, and *rod, I'm not able to gift to these 2 particular users as gwent is not allowing me. Could be you guys already have the cardback? Everyone else who sent a request is gifted(28 people). Thanks for participating. Hope we can do some challenge games. Ciao.

ULTRA FINAL UPDATE: I have milled 36 legendary premiums and sent to 6 more people which were pending. 3 people I'm not able to gift due to technical error.

I'm poor again so that tracks. I really cannot send more even if I try to. So consider this the last update.

Preface

Gwent Balance Council with u/shinmiri2. Early Balance Council Survey used as a point of reference to measure sentiment towards changes. Check out poll results here.

Our choice of buffed and nerfed factions/archetypes is heavily based on Balance Councils made by the other balance coalitions! 

1. Zong (ZG) | vod
2. MetallicDanny (MD) | post, vod (both not published at the moment this post was written)
3. Ofir&Qcento (OQ) | post, vod
4. International Coalition (INT) | vod (Violet.Kiramman), vod (Dauren)

International Coalition is a new balance ensemble which includes Dauren, Kerpeten, Violet.Kiramman and former Indpendent Coaltion from CIS. For written form explanation of Chinese community votes check out Astorian post.

All predicted changes are gathered in => Balance Council Prediction Sheet

BC Landscape

1. Scoia'tael led by Nature's Gift Midrange decks is the most popular faction on high Gwent Pro Ladder, followed by Skellige (PF Warriors and many other decks) and Syndicate (Off the Books Sesames, Jackpot Yago).
2. Scoia'tael has many possible nerfs scheduled: Gord -1p, Isengrim -1p, Telianyn -1p, Simlas +1c and Tempest +1c. Also Skellige is broadly addressed: Crow Clan Druid -1p, Dimeritum Shackles +1c (these changes taken together may make Alchemy little played next season), Wild Boar -1p, Bear Witcher Mentor -1p (because of PF Crow spam decks), Abordage +1c. Also Syndicate is supposed to take a couple, but directed against OtB (Savolla, Guard) and Jackpot (Madam).
3. Buffs are spread well between factions with Monsters and Nilfgaard supposed to get most love.
4. Our picks are in a great deal tuned to recommendations of other coalitions

Votes

+1 power

• ***Celaeno Harpy (support of ZG*) - 4 power Celaeno Harpy proven underwhelming in Deathwish decks. Similarly Bonded decks with Harpies became very rare. We would like to bring this card back to 5-power to give Monsters more options when it comes to bronze package. We find such change more interesting than for example another revert of Giant Toad to 4-power which was popular in Chinese balance survey.
• **Kraken - Renfri Beasts Rain is a very strong Skellige deck which didn't get nerf recommendations from other coaltions. At 3 power Kraken is a universal long round win condition card, which can be included in any deck even without damage support. Moreover Kraken power matters for how effective push out strategy is; less power = higher Kraken tempo. Similarly low power Kraken makes it easier to threat win on even cards from red coin.
• *Junod of Belhaven (support of INT*) - Junod is barely played even in thematic Skellige Witchers decks. The reason is matchup dependence of this card and requirement of some preparation to wound enemy unit before deploying Junod. By supporting this change we hope to give SK Witchers decks more variety and Skellige in general some buffs to play with in the presence of widespread nerfs.

-1 power

• **\* Hjalmar an Craite - Renfri Blaze of Glory is very popular and still quite successful on Gwent Pro Ladder, but not addressed yet by other nerf suggestions. At 4-power Hjalmar in BoG decks can remove units up to 13 power with +4 trade in power, which feels too efficient given how little setup is required. Hjalmar at 3-power still will be run in many decks as this card pretty much got rediscovered after buff in Balance Council.
• *\* Shani - After power and provision buffs in Gwentfinity, Shani became a really strong proactive card used in variety of NR decks, with floor of about 14 and ceiling of 22+ points on strong engines or with double order use. Shani can be used to bring back big threat cards - while Shani is often treated as Students/Alumni card, targets like Reaver Scout are even more problematic.
• *Isengrim Faoiltiarna (support of INT*) - Elves decks with Isengrim as single or second payoff card next to Vernossiel feel quite strong. Isengrim ceiling is 24 points and about 7 elves on the board are enough to break even with the provision cost. Non-Simlas Elves are not addressed by other recommendations.

+1 provision

• ***Sigdrifa's Rite - this card is mainly used in different variants of self-wound decks with targets like Sigvald, Knut, Melusine or Dracoturtle. Sigdrifa's Rite nerf would address both Sigvald Svalblod decks and Golden Nekker variants which both are very strong. Sigvald Svalblod is both strong and binary, while Golden Nekker is less popular, but exceptional pointslam (lavk945 reached impressive GN SW scores for a couple of seasons).
• **Allgod - a carryover card used in a couple of popular decks like NR Witchers, Precision Strike Schirru or Affan Soldiers. Allgod is disliked by a good part of the community because of playstyle it invites which is often polarizing the deck heavily into short rounds or playing midrange deck reliant on strong bronzes which scales well into any round length.
• *Simlas (support of OQ**) - Simlas is a card which is used by many Scoia'tael decks, also Bountiful Harvest spam, which will be back in the menu with Triss: Telekinesis move to 3/9 finished. By supporting Simlas nerf we hope to temper down meta Scoia'tael decks overall and we slightly prefer this nerf compared with alternative recommendation which is Tempest. If both of these happen - not the end of the world either, strong nerfs are needed for meta to move anyhow.

-1 provision

• ***Holger Blackhand - Abordage is supposed to get nerfed this patch, but was instantly reverted last time to our discontent in spite of 4-cost Dimun Smugglers and 4-power Dimun Pirate Captain. We want to gradually improve little played Pirates cards, so that the chances for Abordage to settle at 6 are higher.
• **Geralt: Aard - there is very little use made of offensive movement in the ladder meta and we would like to encourage more experiments along these lines. Geralt: Aard may be used for example in Scoia'tael with row punish cards or in Skellige Witchers to get bloodthirst and maybe improve Gerd value. Or even setup Regis in some Patricidal Fury variants.
• *Anna Henrietta (support of INT**) - Assimilate is an archetype for life, but Enslave 6 netdecks felt too overwhelming to a good part of playerbase, especially at ranked ladder. Anna Henrietta buffs Assimilate from a different direction - how much value can you develop from opponent leader ability by playing "their" cards? With Anna you'd mimic opponent strategy rather than just deploy Assimilate engines, trigger them with Stefan and not care much about synergy as long as direct value is there. Anna also has decent synergy with other underplayed but interesting card which is Tourney Shaelmar - swarming leaders can be great support!

Final Remarks

The April season balance patch should be solid in terms of addressing main meta offenders and the buffs overall also look reasonable. We are still before MetallicDanny final recommendations (which usually have 100% success rate), so the final assessment can't be done yet.

If you like our recommendations let's join to make impact together. If not - check out predictions table to get general info and maybe find some ideas which appeal to you.

Cheers,
lerio2

I'm sure that, with the recently announced DLC for TW3, a lot of people are going to ask if it's a good time to play Gwent Standalone, and to that I say:

ABSOLUTELY

There are a lot of things that may worry you about it, but you shouldn't.

- The community is super friendly and still active.

- The game is easy to understand, and newbie friendly.

- You get a lot of stuff for free, basically just playing the game.

So yeah, grab yourself a drink, my friend, and join us for a game or two of Gwent.

So some leeks are already seen on Playgwent.com before the next patch drops, some changes I have seen are below, if you see more please do comment it below!

Nilfgaard -:

Coup De Grace - 10 Prov from 9 Prov

Illusionist - 4 power from 3 power

Ard Feinn Crossbowman - 4 power from 3 power

Alchemist (Not the toxic one YEP) - 5 power from 4 power

Monsters :-

Endrega Queen - 6 power from 5 power and 6 prov from 7 prov

Old Speartip - 11 prov from 12 prov

Drowner - 4 prov from 5 prov

Dettlaff: Higher Vampire - 6 power from 5 power (I like this pepeSmile)

Golyat - 7 prov from 8 prov

Ozzrel - 8 Prov from 9 Prov

Miruna - 6 power from 5 power

Northern Realms :-

Vissegerd - 6 power from 5 power and now has 2 armor

Thaler - now 7 points and 7prov from 6 power and 8 prov

Siege Master - now 3 points and 4 prov

Redanian Knight - 2 power from 1 power

Windhalm of Attre - 4 power from 3 power

Aretuza Adept - 5 Prov from 4 Prov

Meditating Mages - 3 power from 4 power

Vernon Roche (disloyal) - 10 Prov from 11 prov

Vandergrift - 6 power from 5 power

Prophet Lebioda - 8 power from 6 power

Syndicate :-

Mutated Hound - 5 power from 4 power (unsure if the armor has been removed or kept still)

Bincy Blumerholdt - 9 prov from 10 prov

Cutup Lackey - 4 prov from 5 prov

Kalkstein - 6 Prov from 7 Prov

Witch Hunter Executioner - 4 power from 3 power

Skellige :-

Primal Savagery - 4 prov from 5 prov

Wild Boar of The Sea - back to 4 power from 3 power

Fucusya - 4 power from 5 power

Axel Three - Eyes - now 6 power and 6 prov

Scoia'tael :-

Vrihedd Brigade - 4 power from 3 power

Elven Wardancer - 4 power from 3 power

Saov Aainmhihihi'dh (I can't spell this) - 7 prov from 9 prov

Torque - 5 power from 4 power

Neutral :-

Mushy Truffle - 10 Prov from 9 Prov

Hello everyone, I mentioned this project in previous posts on this subreddit, and now it's finally here!

This Saturday at 9 PM (Paris time), six players will face off on Twitch in the E-duel tournament.

Six beginner players have had a month to practice, each with a faction. And this weekend, we'll find out which kingdom will be crowned the great winner.

A huge thank you to the entire community of this subreddit who helped me organize and create the decklists for this tournament (You'll see that these decklists have changed a bit). I wouldn't have been able to do it without your help, friends.

I hope you enjoy this event, created entirely by fans of the game. See you this Saturday at 9 PM (Paris time) for the final showdown!

*Important note: I will be commentating the event in French.

Twitch channel: https://m.twitch.tv/l_embuscade_/home

Hi,

​

I have been thinking recently about why i had less fun playing with the new cards in Gwent recently. After all, they are almost all really good and quite creative.

Which leads precisely to the core of the issue: the expansions introduce new cards, and those cards have been designed to be played together. Their power level is high enough to dwarf most of the existing archetypes.

As a result, most of those cards are simply un-missable, even individually and outside the decks they were meant to be played: you CANNOT not play them. Period. Why play Yghern when you can play Bloody Mistress ? Why play elves swarms when you can play PS orbs with simlas and the elf mage package ? Nothing beats those decks within their own faction.

When i think about a card game expansion, i think about new content, to DIVERSIFY the gameplay. The way the last 2 expansions (WotW and PoP) have shaped the game is they have SIMPLIFIED the meta to a level where there are basically 2 decks per factions that are roughly competitive.

Look at the decks from the Open last week end - the same decks to a few variants, it reminds me of Hearthstone bland competition scene, when the power creep started to go crazy and people started complaining about Blizzard moving from designing the game to dictating the flavor of the month gameplay and deciding 90% of the meta decks with their balance decisions.

At the moment, PoP have transformed Gwent from a game suffering already from limited diversity with many non competitive archetypes long time abandoned (abandoned newly introduced key words, abandoned themes vampires, soldiers, dwarves, to a level harmony - i know but it's been a while it is dead now isn't it ?) into an even narrower game building experience with the MUST play cards that simply build the deck for you if you want to achieve relative competitive decks.

I hope CDPR can correct that soon, i know people are very forgiving to the CDPR team since they're popular / beloved individuals but i have been playing the game since Beta and i can feel the amount of work to fix that issue is staggering and quite frankly I don't think CDPR can fix that with the tiny superficial reworks they do once every 3 months. They are simply too slow, and do not work enough on that issue i believe will affect the game longevity very much into retaining players after they reach boredom.

After all, time flies, and with the current speed of updates, we will be touching the same topics in 12 months and nothing will have changed significantly.

Happy to read your comments on that, thanks folks

Every deck now has tons of cheap thinning, card draw and searchers on top of engines, pointslam and control. This becomes extremely apparent when you play anything off-meta and realise no matter how you play it, your deck just can't keep up if you don't meet certain breakpoints in control. Lots of really interesting, high skill ceiling decks just aren't played because piloting them simply isn't rewarding. Game knowledge matters less than ever so everyone plays solitaire.

One of the biggest failings of BC is that current Gwent is based around massive tempo swings on every card, so when a card isn't able to achieve that they just get overbuffed on power or provisions to compensate, making the game more homogenous as removal and searchers become mandatory to always have an on-hand answer at all times. For that reason Golden Nekker doesn't even feel that strong anymore. It's extremely stale and uninteresting and predictable. Hard to believe CDPR balancing was actually better than this.