GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

Disclaimer: I have achieved Pro Rank twice (I don't play much) and have experienced Gwent in all its forms (Alpha, Beta, and Release). I own 99% of all cards and have never purchased any card packs with money. I waited for a year and pushed hard in certain months to see whether new Gwent would grow on me and I still have the same issues. Pros: - No other CCG comes close to how F2P friendly this is. If you're new you'll have a deck that can reach Pro within a month. - Coinflip is less oppressive - No CA spies Cons: - An entire row has been removed and despite endless promises to make rows matter it has boiled down to "Can my unit use his ability on this row or not? No? Then I'll place it on the other one". Is this truly supposed to be better than early beta when all units were locked to a realistic row, or later in beta when all units were made agile? - Small numbers. The average bronze value of 12 power in beta meant that balancing was easier because CDPR could adjust incrementally. A card going from 4 power (average) to 3 power in Homecoming is a 25% nerf. In beta, losing 1 power would be an 8% (approx.) nerf. - Provision system is awful. Look at the leader abilities. Notice how 95% have 15 or 16 provisions? The only exceptions are chronically under-used powers (Tactical Decision, Ursine Ritual), abilities that got hit with nerfs in previous metas (Mystic Echo, Fruits of Ysgith), and Lockdown. In the beginning you could run a crappy ability in exchange for having better cards on average, or run a better ability with worse average card power. Now that everyone is basically on the same level at 15 or 16 provisions, all depth is gone. The old beta class system of bronze/sliver/gold was much better. - Tutoring has been obliterated and thus every deck has become more dependent on card draw RNG. - Mulligan system has been trashed. You can draw the same bronze card twice unlike in beta which had blacklisting for copies. - Artifacts are worse than beta weather

I encountered Gwent and fell inlove with it while playing the Witcher. I wished they would make a separate game and after a quick search I found the beta in which I got head first. It was really simillar to the original at first and honestly quite exploitable. I stopped playing the beta and came back after a few months when the game got released and I was horribly surprised by how much it had changed. I was seriously giving up until I played a few games and got my ass kicked by some players which played the seemingly weak cards like magicians. I mean I started laughing when I saw what apparently nerfed cards in a well played deck could do in a game. It got a lot more ballanced I think and more demanding for the casual player which needs to use more grey matter when preparing a deck. Also, I know I've said it before :D, it got way more ballanced as you can easily lose a game with a great deck in front of a new player with a standard deck by making stupid mistakes. Also most of the time you win or lose to a small margin which emphasises the non pay to win characteristic of the game. It has a few bugs albeit and I personally try to improve on the game by reporting them but overall I think it's a masterpiece. GG CDPR

+Great card art +Very generous f2p model +Nice cosmetics +Great love from devs, shown in a lot of new content -/+As every card game it is HEAVILY meta dependent and relies on the main gameplay loop -The main gameplay loop is VERY straightforward and gets dull fast. It can more or less be summed up as a "single/double digit addition/subtraction the math" game -Desperately needs more win conditions than just "get more points overall than that guy" -Not diverse enough. Alternate game modes are weak/non-existent -The graphic design is non-uniform. While the cards, avatars and frames are great, the boards and leaders don't fit and are lacking in comparison -Lacks identity in competitive vs. casual focus as all current CCGs do. With the card design and balance it tries to do both and fails to deliver either. (This seems to be a problem for most of the nay-sayers, cause in betas Gwent was definitely focused on fun/experimentation and casual experience and lacked the competitive integrity which it gained gradually.) I would say that Gwent suffers from the same illnesses all CCGs do and why the CCG game design is regarded as obsolete by some.

During the game you will only meet meta decks such as vampires. skellige rain decks and nilfgard boring decks. Who likes it? NOBODY. I liked the game, but now it's just an annoying, stressful, repetitive and sad game

I'm playing Gwent since Opened Beta and was a witness of it's both ups and downs. I really enjoyed it in Opened Beta and was afraid that the launch after 6 years of Homecoming preparation will be too fast or too much game-changing. In fact, I cannot imagine going back to then! It's clearly seen that CDPR works really hard to keep the game balanced and patched. Right now, after the last patch, the game is really diverse and strategic, with bigger player's agency than before. My only complaint right now is lack of my time to play ;)