Board 8 > Gwent Discussion Topic - Is Anybody Playing This?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I figured I'd make this topic to see if there's any interest on the board.

Open Beta released earlier today on PC/PS4/XBONE. I followed it very casually through the closed beta, but couldn't get it to run on my PC for some reason.

I've been having a lot of fun with it. I haven't committed to buying any packs at this point, but I got a bunch by playing through the tutorial stuff, and the 5 starter decks seem pretty decent on their own.

Playing on PS4, currently level 4. I'm not sure if there's matchmaking between systems or if accounts are linked, though.

Coming from Hearthstone, it's definitely a new feeling to see packs being thrown at me, and what appears to be generous daily and seasonal rewards.
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Downloading it right now because of this topic. I've been wanting a card game to play on the PS4.
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Played it a bit yesterday. Seems decent enough so far.
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Afternoon bump.

Nearly up to level 6 now. I want to get to level 10 to open up Ranked mode, which in turn will grant me access to the end of season rewards.

I've been having the most success with a variation of the Skellige starter deck. The discard synergy is a lot of fun, even if I'm missing most of the cards.
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Downloading now.
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Up to level 9 now.

I ended up buying 7 kegs, and managed to make slightly improved versions of the starter decks.
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Played a little of this last night, and sort of started to figure out what I was doing after going in blind. Definitely had more success after switching to the Wild Hunt deck or whatever it's called (I've only tried the Nilfgaard and Northern whatever with Foltest besides that).

It seemed to have more options available for utilizing weather effects and had some cards for different siutations like the harpy that will have its eggs hatch at the end of a round, and the griffin I think it was that will clear weather effects if you run into them.

Was able to beat the AI handily with it at least. Only played 3 matches online with it where I just scraped by in the 3rd round each time.
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I'm playing and having a lot of fun. Played a bit in the closed beta so had 24 kegs to open and built a kind of poor reveal nilfgaard deck since I'm missing almost all silver and golds for the archetype.
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Downloaded the open beta yesterday, been following it a bit during closed beta but don't really know much about it aside from the witcher 3 version, gonna be fun to explore
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I love TW3 (beat it 3 times) and I enjoyed Gwent a lot in it.

But after playing Hearthstone since closed beta, and subsequently getting burnt out on the genre, I don't think I want to stomach Gwent. By the time I quit HS I detested the game so much, with its lack of variety, overpriced money grabbing, and slow-to-a-crawl dev team.

I love CDPR and I hope Gwent is amazing. But all I saw when I booted it up to play a few games was HS.

I actually really enjoyed ESL when I tried that a few months ago. I loved the single player arena. ESL is the only reason I might pursue Gwent. Well, that and my love for the Witcher universe.

I hope it's good!
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Gwent is so different from Hearthstone though
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I've had it installed for like a year, but I can't bring myself to play it because I'd rather play it during Witcher 3.
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I've only been playing it for two days, but I'm already considering uninstalling Hearthstone despite my two year investment in it.

I think it's a better game overall, but mainly it's the lack of dumb RNG that I like. In HS, nearly every single game, regardless of skill level, comes down to RNG, so when you lose you feel bad because you got unlucky.

Gwent is all about the skill. Yeah, you're generally going to lose against players with much better cards, but otherwise, you know why you lost every game, and understand what you could've done to potentially change it.

That, combined with the better rewards (I've managed to get 3 packs both days just from the "round win" rewards) has made it a lot more enticing for me to continue to queue up.
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theawesomestevr posted...

Played a little of this last night, and sort of started to figure out what I was doing after going in blind. Definitely had more success after switching to the Wild Hunt deck or whatever it's called (I've only tried the Nilfgaard and Northern whatever with Foltest besides that).

I was having some success with a version of the Skellige starter deck that included extra copies of the cards that were initially included, but it kind of auto loses to a Nilfgaard deck that runs the unit that revives from your grave.

I opened up a Ciri in a keg, so I switched over to a Wild Hunt deck that runs triple Rider and triple Hound. I can either open with the intent to win Round 1 with weather stuff, or go for a triple Rider and Ciri play and essentially auto-win Round 2. It's been pretty successful against all decks that aren't super advanced, and even then I've been able to steal some wins.
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Got through the tutorial yesterday

Did they get rid of spies by chance
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KommunistKoala posted...

Got through the tutorial yesterday

Did they get rid of spies by chance

Spies are there, though I didn't play the closed beta so I'm not sure if they've changed or not.
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skull_bonek23 posted...

Gwent is so different from Hearthstone though

The model is the same. F2P CCG. Likely expensive expansions, eventually gets harsh on new players, or is exhaustive to keep up with.

Like I said, playing HS for years tired on me. Booting up Gwent, all I'm feeling is a different HS.
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So after winning round one, i should just be tossing every card i don't need anymore and then passing so i go into round 3 with card advantage plus only good cards, right?
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Mayonesa posted...

So after winning round one, i should just be tossing every card i don't need anymore and then passing so i go into round 3 with card advantage plus only good cards, right?

It depends on what you and your opponent are playing, but in simplest terms I'd say yeah.

If you win round 1, you can theoretically force your opponent to play their entire hand in round 2, and use or lose any of their combos, since they need to win it. The final round ends up coming down to who draws better, though.
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Got to level 10 last night. The game looks at your results up to that point and places you in the appropriate rank, so I ended up starting at rank 5, and getting all the rewards up that point, which was pretty cool.
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How similar is it to the Gwent played in Witcher 3? I got pretty damn good at that, even intentionally using crappy cards to make it more challenging and still winning the tournament in Novigrad.
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JetJaguar posted...

How similar is it to the Gwent played in Witcher 3? I got pretty damn good at that, even intentionally using crappy cards to make it more challenging and still winning the tournament in Novigrad.

The core mechanics are generally the same. It still involves playing one card a turn, getting a higher point total, and winning 2/3 rounds. Things like spies and weather effects are carried over as well, however they've altered their effects.

In general, cards do more here than in the Witcher, which is the biggest difference. Almost every card does something when you play it, rather than just being a way to get your score up like in the base game. It has actually been awhile since I played the Witcher, but from what I remembered, cards had effects there as well. I guess I would say that in this version, everything is more complex.

Also, you're limited to 4 gold cards in your deck, so you can't employ the same tactics as the Witcher where you played all the spies followed by all the strongest gold cards. It's definitely more balanced.
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I know everybody says not to do this in these games, but i milled every non monster card so i could make the deck i wanted. I'm enjoying it a lot more now because every card has an actual purpose and it's easier to keep track of my counts when everything is at what i want it to be.

My favorite thing to do is win round one and get all three riders out in round two and just stall the game out. Even if they do find a way to deal with them I'm still getting rid of cards that won't do much for me in the third round
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Mayonesa posted...

I know everybody says not to do this in these games, but i milled every non monster card so i could make the deck i wanted. I'm enjoying it a lot more now because every card has an actual purpose and it's easier to keep track of my counts when everything is at what i want it to be.

My favorite thing to do is win round one and get all three riders out in round two and just stall the game out. Even if they do find a way to deal with them I'm still getting rid of cards that won't do much for me in the third round

I did that in Hearthstone and then regretted it later after I started investing into the game and building my collection, but it definitely improves the game short term. I feel like the outlines of the basic decks in this game are decent enough that almost every game feels competitive (until you get hit with those gold weather cards), so I don't feel as inclined to get an immediate upgrade.

I've been doing the same thing with my monster deck as well. Either you get the effect off with the riders and set yourself up to win, or force your opponent to use valuable resources to stop it. Works pretty well.
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Bump
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I wish getting to level 10 didn't take so long. I like working towards earning a higher rank. Just playing for the sake of it gets old.
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Mayonesa posted...

I wish getting to level 10 didn't take so long. I like working towards earning a higher rank. Just playing for the sake of it gets old.

You get rewarded for your casual results by being placed in a higher rank when you finally do get to level 10 dependent on your record, so there is some use to it. I agree that the process is a little long, though.
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Finally got to level 10. Ended up starting at rank 6.
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I joined the dark side and crafted a Ragh Nar Roog.
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I'll bump this one more time.

I was stalling at rank 9 for a long time, including losing 10 games in a row, so I decided to switch it up and made a Queensguard deck. I then somehow managed to get all my lost points back and then some, which got me to rank 10.
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