I know there are a lot of Magic and Hearthstone fans in here, so I figured I'd let you guys know about Gwent, which is a free-to-play CCG based on The Witcher books and games that is currently in open beta testing.

I've never played a CCG before, so idk so it compares to Magic or Hearthstone. Most of the emphasis seems to be on improvising tactics with a little bit of deckbuilding strategy. Currently there seems to be a very large and active fanbase and invitational tournaments.

Official Website

Full release is supposed to have a single-player campaign and some additional social features.

Nice, I was gonna start a Gwent thread soon myself. Just started playing it myself and am absolutely loving it so far. Just running through the challenges for the time being getting used to the play style.

It's a very very very different type of game than HS or MtG. Many seem to prefer it. Strongly recommend people give it a shot. I'm really itching for them to release it on mobile too, but I'm sure they're working on it.

is there any word on a mobile client?

I peaked at top 50 when Nilfgaard Spies was the best deck. That deck was the most fun I've ever had playing a card game. The patch that led to the Axeman meta was a dumpster fire and I've barely played since the newest patch.

I guess they're about to release a big patch with lots of new cards. Fingers crossed that they get it right

I don't think there are any plans for this.

I'd bet they're working on it and it'll be out sometime in 2018.

Hey, I've been playing a lot since christmas. The current season just ended and a new patch is coming out this week with big changes, so this is a good time to start if anyone is on the fence and worried they'd be far behind

Personally I'm excited for some scoia'tael after the patch, open beta ST was pretty disappointing until now

Also +1 on looking forward to a mobile client, unfortunately they havent even announced theyre working on it so doubt its coming in 2017 or even early 2018. They did hint in the dev stream today that a new gamemode will come, presumably some sort of draft mode

New season has started, and a couple of big new updates. Check your cards, because some of them no longer do what you think they do. Also, some new social features have been added. My player and is BlunderMan if anyone wants to come fite me.

There's also a starter pack of cards for six bucks which seems like a decent deal if you're thinking about trying the game out.

I'm a little nervous that they're making such big changes this late in the beta stage, but we'll see how it goes.

I have been playing for a couple of months now. It's a lot of fun and I recommend giving it a try. It's an original game concept and not just another simplified Magic clone. The presentation is top notch.

Enjoying the new patch. I get to play Spies again!

Cracked top 20 NA with Lifecoach's Northern Realms deck. Seems p busted

This meta is great

I was also going to make a thread for this at some point. If your sick of Hearthstone or looking to try a CCG for the first time this is the best option for a ton of reasons.

It's extremely f2p friendly.
The standard daily quests take 3-5 games and get you a pack plus ore (gold in HS) and scraps (dust) while 9-15 games will get you an additional pack and more ore and scraps. On top of this you get a few packs for every level you go up which is extremely frequent in the beginning. I still occasionally get 5 packs for no apparent reason after a couple months of casual play. Also the gold (legendary) and silver (epic) drops are way more frequent than hs. They're so generous I bought some packs because I felt bad for taking all their **** for free.

The gameplay is great.
There's a reason this is the game lifecoach, JJ and tides went to after giving up on blizzard. Even the most cancerous decks require significant thought to play well, there are no spew your hand onto the board and point to face decks and there never will be.

THE DEVELOPERS AREN'T BLIZZARD!
An update was just released which changed a bunch of things and left one class significantly stronger than the rest. One (1) week later cdpr released a hotfix that changed a bunch of cards and fixed the problem. Think of that the next time you lose a game to ultimate infestation. There are still a few balance issues but not as many as you would expect from a game in open beta and a lot of it is just that people like to complain about good decks in card games.

TBC.

The Pro Ladder.
For those of you who take their card games seriously the pro ladder is an excellent innovation.

Yup, in this game players can't just spam the most popular deck to get to the top of the ladder. You need to play 4 of the 5 classes well to compete at the top.

The Art
This has never been a big thing for me in card games but the gwent premium art is reeaally good. The gameboard still sucks but I've heard it will be getting changed at some point.

I was really surprised they left Merrigold's Hailstorm unchanged. That card decides way too many rounds. Just yesterday I have seen it provide a 50 point swing which is insane. It's rare to get less than 15 out of it.

Yeah that card is still too strong but it's good to know it will probably be changed before too long and we won't have to wait till the next expansion. Could see it being damage the 4 (3?) highest units on a row by half their power and still see play without being in every deck.

Merrigold's hailstorm is def a must-have card for any deck right now, esp since lots of people are playing NR. Probably should be a gold card instead of silver.

tbh, I kind of like that it forces you to think about how your points are arranged and not stack a bunch of big units on one row. Bad news is that my queensguard resurrection deck is busted.

Yeah I agree that it's a good card to have in the game. It probably needs to be nerfed though. Making it gold would be one option. They could also cap the damage at like 25 or something

The problem is that it's strong enough to plug into any deck regardless of synergy. It should be strong enough to see play in decks with a lot of movement (scoiatel, some monsters) or golden weather decks to punish row stacking and spreading your units out but not every deck on the ladder.

Finally reached the Master rank after quite a grind, pretty stoked. Thought about trying to qualify for the pro league but that just seems way too intimidating. Maybe next season.

Today I noticed what a broken card Sabrina Glevissig is and wondered why nobody is playing it. Until my first game with it when I realized it reads "deathwish", not "deploy".

AFAIK the pro league is only 6 levels above master which is doable just completing the first round of dailies with a decent win rate given you have till the end of October. Looking at the top of the leaderboard you should be able to do it in under 300 games starting from scratch with a ~65% win rate which is a pretty low bar.

I just started playing NR with a slightly modified version of this deck, and yeah, it's crazy busted.

I bought the starter packs (barrels) just to test the game, played the challenges (not so easy but got through, a bit needed to adjust the decks; pick/drop cards and characters) and some practise games, build the decks they have as default as I went and I built one of my own, and might build the other "classes" also similarly. The monster class seems to be the most popular build, but I have an another preference at this time, but doesn't matter, most all need to be played.

The game is basically like HS, but your minions can't attack and there is no face damage; the side having more health on his minions at the end, wins.

You get like 10(+) starting cards and that's kind of it, no cards drawn, sort of, being like bridge. Battle cries and spells, pumps, similar to HS, just minions stand there doing nothing.

Some cards and combos might be too powerful, and if you don't ge them, too bad. There is a 99% luck factor at the end of the game, but before that the luck factor is less than in HS, as you have like ten starting cards and won't get more. That's somewhat close to playing Handlock and so in HS.

Seems like checkers or backgammon to me, meaning casual players will not like this as much, nor players who like faster action, they will prefer HS.

t is said this is similar to HS, that casual games might be reasonable to win (but might not be true) and ranked are tough, just the same as HS. It depends on casual games if this is just p2w or not, as it can be hard to win even one game, if this becomes so, and you get about zero rewards if you don't win. For winners only, for geniuses only.

Playing on occasional bot game can still be interesting, but can't say more at this point, but I prefer fast action when ever possible, so not sure about this yet, or even if it is any slow with more experience, but seems more cards and more combos to think about, all the cards out there, and what the opponent figures to have, might need more talent and more years of training, but can't know yet.

30 new cards some time ago, not sure how the old ones expire other than being nerfed and you get the full value back like in HS. But in the best of the case this could be better than HS's every 4 months expansion packs (with must to craft cards, including legendaries), and in this games you get to build your max amount of gold and silver cards (seems epic and legend comparable, that terms are also used, but I haven't seen them being anything different) in two days perhaps (won't be the best of them for the character and combos I am sure, but you get them fast and no one can use more even if he has more), but you need to know all the decks, like you need in HS, and learn to play them.

Three kinds of tourneys; the most valued, one needs to get to top 8 perhaps in ranked to get to them, so one can forget that (in HS one needs to grind tons of licensed tourneys instead, but it needs just the cards).

There are also licensed tourneys, that give points, so some chance to collect points like that also (but the top 8 ranked have like 20 points already), there being a system for that also, to the direction of HS. At least a 10k prize pool.

Then there are tourneys that give no point and can give away mostly 10k of money. This and just maybe the licensed ones, offer at least some action for players who like to play Ts, and not grind the ladder, ranked games. So, there are future posisbilities, but not even HS is there yet (if ever, but maybe some other game like these will be), just some narrow hole to get in value Ts without grinding the ladder, ranked games, and too little money in other Ts, or there are some majors and so but you need to earn your place there by grinding Ts. In poker you just buy yourself in or get through a satellite or two and the competition is generally weakers as so.

The skill aspect in this game can be high, so can take years (up to 10-20?) to get very good, and then there is the extreme luck factor ending (you can totally outplay and dominate your opponnent but still lose because of the flip of the coins type at the end). But at least you get to play something more skill needing for a start, although between the geniuses (not much motivation to play bots as no rewards, and no future here, if not a genius), there might be no more skill factor, but maybe even more luck factor, but not everyone is a genius, but still, the non geniuses won't get to top 8 or in value Ts, or maybe some narrow hole exists to some super luckbox.

Checkers (there are some different kind of these, but the most important have good Ts action, vs. other geniuses) might be a better pick, and bridge; won't cost you anything, all equal cards or so. Practise online, play live.

How many different (card) games one is supposed to grind up? And these buy-cards or wast-your-time games are just sick as so (fine as long as one is learning, but not playing crap games at casuals when nothing to learn, but just to get gold/dust, or you can play HS arena, being equal, but it leads nowhere, just a hobby, or the best get cards faster that way, but still, a waste of time then), needing to wait till future till there is one 1k+ cards collection, no more cards coming, and all cards free and only tournaments, all similar to poker, but will be sponsored at higher levels.

This is basically my main concern with Gwent (and other online ccg's). People say you only need 300 games or w/e to reach legend, but that's actually a lot of time.