Gwent has gone through turbulent times. During my 450+ hours in 1.5 years of open and closed Beta I encountered many broken mechanics, but also many interesting ones. I liked the game most just before the feared "Midwinter Update" about a year ago, which shifted the development direction into a direction many players didn't like. So CDPR changed the Leadership and announced an icy 6 Month period with a complete rewamp of the game. The new Gwent could've needed some Months more in Beta, but I can understand their decision to push it to publicity, which probably was a mistake in retrospective. However, I like the new Gwent better than every iteration since pre-midwinter, and it seems balanced, fleshed out and beautiful. I miss some mechanics and optimisation is pretty bad. But seeing the time and dedication CDPR has put into this game, it can and will become better with time! Deck themes like Nilfgaard Spies or Discard Skellige will come back eventually, missing mechanics will return in a balanced and consistent way, and with Slama in the lead they will reintegrate the good things, but keep out the bad ones, of which there were many. The game was too consistent, often onesided and not very visually atractive besides the awesome card art of course. Coin Flip was a huge issue, as well as too much deck thinning and (debatable) the card advantage Spies. Sure, I miss the hyperthinning times of tutoring out the whole Deck and gaining +2 Card advantage. But it just wasn't healty for the game. It IS a different game than we tested, and I understand the frustration that go with it. But I admire the courage of the Team to do several 180 turns to make the possible best game they can think of. I think the new Gwent is closer to the original Witcher Gwent, but I do wish many elements from the Beta back. I trust in you CDPR, whatever you're doing, you're doing it for us and the game, and not for the Money and this is an attitude not many Studios can have!
