GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

Gwent is a collectible card game with unique mechanics, set in the Witcher world. The win/loss is mostly decided by the players skill and not by the random factors. It's usually possible to identify the misplay which led to the loss. Also, deckbuilding and tweaking the decks for the meta is more important than in other card games. It has the most beautiful art and animations out of all digital card games and a friendly economy model (it's possible to get a tier 1 deck in a matter of weeks). If you didn't try it out yet and are reading reviews to get a feel for it then do it - it's free!

I've put over 700 hours now into Gwent, been playing since the day Open Beta came out. Game had ups and downs and midwinter patch followed by 6 month hiatus sure hurt the playerbase. But this brought us Homecoming and despite many veteran players crying to bring "old Gwent" back, this version is much superior. Gwent has never before been balanced this well in any prior patch. We now have a solid base set of cards and with new leaders coming at the end of January and the first major expansion in March - the future sure looks bright. Highly recommend this game to all card game enthusiasts as well as people who hold dear the Witcher universe.

NO UNIQUE mechanics anymore. Just +/- effects, thus creating genuinely powerful cards. Everybody is using the same deck. Reveal? DEAD. Spy? DEAD. Movement? DEAD. Kambi? DEAD. NR Value? DEAD. Viper? DEAD. Trap? DEAD. Every interesting deck is butchered into pieces XD

Beta tested it, I was only able back then to install it on my phone, and seems now even here, there's no option for a Mac either. Anyway, the game in itself is certainly well done, the graphics are good, the whole rules and gameplay are well done, as someone that played card games since early magic the gathering and was a playtester and giving demos or run tournaments for countless other card games later, I certainly applauded it, 'as is'. The problem was and, from what I gather, still is, the playerbase. There were very, very few people in there playing just to have fun. It's exceedingly rare for instance you'd meet someone playing, say, a deck full of Geralt and his merry squad. Or anything story-related or, well, y'know, resembling the thing it's titled for, named after, supposed to represent? But no, everybody just copy/pasted whatever was supposed to be the 'power deck(s)', and people either played that, or some meta to beat them. Then the company repeatedly had to swoop in and balance some cards, making changes. So all those people would go and flock to a new deck winning everything. In the end after hundreds of games, I noticed I was getting a pattern of the fact that by the time you saw a 2nd or 3rd card go up, you just threw your arms up and conceded. The other players can push a button 'good game', applaud you, etc., but hardly anyone ever did, while they did do sounds like make you hurry along. To me, at one point, I noticed I was starting to forget to log in, and not even feeling like it anymore, as there was no fun. Then that turned to weeks, months, and finally just uninstalled. Try it out, as a game/card game. But prepare to get it on your nerves with what the playerbase is.

I play Gwent since closed beta and liked the beta vision a lot. After the launch a miss some things and features from the beta vesion. But after I played a few hours I got a better feeling for the new Gwent and have a lot of fun with it now. It's not perfect, but I think CDPR will add new mechanics in the future. People should give the game a try and shouldn't be discouraged by some negativ reviews.