Gwent rant

[Cootswig]

I am level 12 now, storywise I'm about 2 hours in to Novigrad.

I swear my game is messing with me.
Every other opponent I have to play 10-15 times over before I finally get a win.

I am not saying I am a gwent master. Far from it, but I have watched some tutorials on the basics etc.

Every move I make they will copy it and with bigger and better numbers.
I switch they switch. I spy they spy. And in the end they can always do me 1 better with higher numbered cards.

It's freaking frustrating and not making me wanna play gwent which is to bad since most people seem to love it.

P.S. yes I have the setting for Gwent on easy...

[DanielMeurer]

Level 12 on Novigrad seems a bit low. Did you make everything gwent related in Velen? There is a bit of a step in difficulty from Velen to Novigrad.

[Orion Invictus]

First, you need to understand that your goal is not to win every round. Your goal is to place yourself in a situation where you can win two rounds - not necessarily consecutive ones.

You also need to be able to change strategy on-the-fly.

For example, if playing strong cards isn't working because the opponent counters them, fine. You'll play your weakest cards, play spy cards, play weather cards; just get the opponent to dump all their strong cards. When they're down to a Clear Weather, a Decoy, and a 1-strength unit, you can have basically anything in your hand to win. Just remember: if they pass while you're dumping garbage, so do you. There's no reason for you to lose more cards if you're just gonna lose the round anyway.

If they start dumping a ton of spy cards (very common with Nilfgaard decks) and you're ahead by a few points, you can just pass, let them play all the spy cards they want, then let them spend even more cards to win the round.

I'd also advise you to add one Biting Frost card to your deck when you start facing Monster decks.

Speaking of your deck, you'll want to "trim the fat", as it were. Remember: the more cards there are in your deck, the less likely you are to draw the card you want. So go ahead, remove those weather cards (you can leave 1 that affects your weakest units, which will hopefully be the opponent's strongest), remove those Decoy cards (again, you'll want to keep at least 1, for spies), and don't put more than 22 units (the minimum) in the deck.

So, TL;DR: make opponent waste cards while you play garbage. Win the two other rounds because opponent has no more cards. Optimize deck. GG.

[N7 Andy]

Much like dude above said. I agree.

Also, I pretty much never lose. And I have Gwent Difficulty set to Hard. (Maybe try setting it to Hard? LOL!?? Why do I find Gwent so easy, then? I know I'm good at it but... if you have to re-try matches 10-15 times to win, like you said... on EASY mode... then something must be wrong with the difficulty setting) ... My advice is... forget weather cards... unless opponent is playing Monster Deck and is chaining lots of monster cards in melee. Even then, if you're lucky, they might exhaust all their best cards in the first round, in which case, you should probably pass if you know you'll lose anyway.

Take your strongest cards with you ONLY and don't exceed the minimum required cards in a deck. You want only the minimum amount of cards in a deck. That way, your chances of drawing your most powerful cards at the start of a game increases. Tbh, you don't even need decoy cards... if an opponent plays a spy card, you can re-summon it and use it yourself against them the next round if you have a "medic" type card that can summon cards from your discard pile.

Also, have your Leader Card be one that doubles strength of cards in a row, and try to save it for the last round, if possible. Get your opponent to use up all their best cards quickly, and try to conserve as many good cards as you can for the final round, whether that's round 2 or 3... If possible. You don't wanna be in a situation where the opponent has more (or powerful) cards then you, but if they do, at least make sure whatever cards you have on hand are good ones that can turn the tide. To do that, get good at knowing when to pass a round to conserve your good cards for when you really need them. Once you understand this rhythm, you'll be able to predict the AI actions easy.

[Sentient_Toaster]

You'll want to build up your deck. Play merchants who aren't part of the Gwent quests before taking on those that are, generally, as any Gwent quest opponent will be harder -- and, in particular, you only get once chance at the "High Stakes" tournament matches. For most merchants that play, the very first time you beat him you'll get another card.

If you ignored Gwent in White Orchard (and the one guy in Vizima who plays, too) you may want to head back there to play opponents since they'll be easier.


As with pre-next-gen update, I still favored the Northern Realms deck, targeting something like
* Leader card: the one who can clear weather effects
* 3x Decoy cards
* Biting Frost (anti-melee)
* Impenetrable Fog (anti-fog)

The minimum of 22 unit cards,
* Every spy card (there are four available to NR, but one will only be available once you've advanced the plot a bit in Skellige)
* Medic cards, to retrieve discards (note that you can retrieve a non-hero medic card with a medic, and chain that to retrieve another non-hero discard)
* High-value heroes (immune to weather, scorch)
* Villentretenmerth (Biting Frost + this is *brutal*, especially against Monster decks)
* Tight Bond cards

With a spy/decoy/medic deck and without having that many more cards than the minimum required, you can cycle through your deck more reliably. Decoys are particularly useful against Northern Realms and Nilfgaard for throwing spies the opponent played back at them, and sometimes in general for retrieving and replaying Villentretenmerth; or a medic card to allow you to reclaim more discards from a previous round.

Card draw is very strong, because the an opponent *must* play a card or use a leader ability (and those are usable only once per match) on his turn if he doesn't want to pass and sit out the rest of the round.

Biting Frost -> Villentretenmerth -> Clear Weather

is a nasty combination if you *both* have a decent number of points in melee.


Nilfgaard can do similar things, although it has fewer Tight Bond cards and will probably push out lower scores overall. There is one Emhyr card that lets you retrieve a card from your *opponent's* discard pile, which is great for replaying a spy card that you played the previous round, but you'll need to have a very solid Gwent deck and strategy before you can try to win that card.

[TommyEV]

winGwint(1)

[Cootswig]

I appreciate the lengthy input of you guys.
All I can say is that I'm doing most of all the tips already.

I am losing with crazy scores like 20/0 me 65/66 com 4/5 com

Like I'm trying to say the computer is copying every single move I make.

Computer playing more cards after I give up? Lol that never happens for me, they always quit immediately.

I'm going crazy.

I haven't been hunting for cards though. I have only bought cards from merchants and played innkeepers. I have not been actively hunting for cards, I don't even know if that's a thing.

Maybe I should put setting on hard like someone suggested...

[Cootswig]

All of this started with the boat guy you gave to play as a gwen quest in velen.

You have to beat 3 people. Someone I forgot, a little kid and then a boat maker.

All was fine until I had to play him. Every since then the computers ai seems to be on Crack

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Computer playing more cards after I give up? Lol that never happens for me, they always quit immediately.

If they're playing Nilfgaard and have a ton of spy cards, it's quite common that they play a lot of spy cards after you pass. But yes, other factions will simply pass to get the win.

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Maybe I should put setting on hard like someone suggested...

You will be demolished.

[Kotory]

- take minimum amount of cards in your deck (22 units + decoys + clear sky/weather/horn dependingon your preferences)
- put as many spies as possible, hence ng or nr are the best choice. +4-6-8 Cards advantage makes prety much any game unlosable
- ai likes to scorch, sometimes multiple times. Play around it.

Spy abuse is the easiest way to win

[Cootswig]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Computer playing more cards after I give up? Lol that never happens for me, they always quit immediately.

If they're playing Nilfgaard and have a ton of spy cards, it's quite common that they play a lot of spy cards after you pass. But yes, other factions will simply pass to get the win.

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Maybe I should put setting on hard like someone suggested...

You will be demolished.

Lol idk ever since I changing to hard I haven't lost a round.

Just finished the "win vimme vivaldi" gwent quest and won on the first try aswell.

[Cootswig]

Originally posted by N7 Andy:

Much like dude above said. I agree.

Also, I pretty much never lose. And I have Gwent Difficulty set to Hard. (Maybe try setting it to Hard? LOL!?? Why do I find Gwent so easy, then? I know I'm good at it but... if you have to re-try matches 10-15 times to win, like you said... on EASY mode... then something must be wrong with the difficulty setting) ... My advice is... forget weather cards... unless opponent is playing Monster Deck and is chaining lots of monster cards in melee. Even then, if you're lucky, they might exhaust all their best cards in the first round, in which case, you should probably pass if you know you'll lose anyway.

Take your strongest cards with you ONLY and don't exceed the minimum required cards in a deck. You want only the minimum amount of cards in a deck. That way, your chances of drawing your most powerful cards at the start of a game increases. Tbh, you don't even need decoy cards... if an opponent plays a spy card, you can re-summon it and use it yourself against them the next round if you have a "medic" type card that can summon cards from your discard pile.

Also, have your Leader Card be one that doubles strength of cards in a row, and try to save it for the last round, if possible. Get your opponent to use up all their best cards quickly, and try to conserve as many good cards as you can for the final round, whether that's round 2 or 3... If possible. You don't wanna be in a situation where the opponent has more (or powerful) cards then you, but if they do, at least make sure whatever cards you have on hand are good ones that can turn the tide. To do that, get good at knowing when to pass a round to conserve your good cards for when you really need them. Once you understand this rhythm, you'll be able to predict the AI actions easy.

Putting setting on hard seemed to work. Thanks dude!

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

If they're playing Nilfgaard and have a ton of spy cards, it's quite common that they play a lot of spy cards after you pass. But yes, other factions will simply pass to get the win.


You will be demolished.

Lol idk ever since I changing to hard I haven't lost a round.

Just finished the "win vimme vivaldi" gwent quest and won on the first try aswell.

Now I wanna try putting it on Hard.

[Cootswig]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Lol idk ever since I changing to hard I haven't lost a round.

Just finished the "win vimme vivaldi" gwent quest and won on the first try aswell.

Now I wanna try putting it on Hard.

I'm right now mixing it up between easy normal and hard just to test.

I just won another couple games and lost 1 game but won on second try.

I really think something was wrong with my game and changing the setting "removed" whatever was wrong.

[N7 Andy]

Originally posted by Cootswig:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Now I wanna try putting it on Hard.

I'm right now mixing it up between easy normal and hard just to test.

I just won another couple games and lost 1 game but won on second try.

I really think something was wrong with my game and changing the setting "removed" whatever was wrong.

Well that's fu*king weird LOL! Maybe Easy difficulty is actually broken??? I wouldn't know, I always play my games on the hardest difficulty available (it's kind of a tradition of mine, and personal preference) But in any case, whatever the issue was... if this works for you, then that's all that matters.. xD Like you say, maybe switching the Gwent difficulty reset some "bug" with the enemy AI that made your Gwent experience super unfair?? I mean, going from having to re-try matches 10-15 times like you said, on Easy, to winning first try on Hard... something sounds off... :)

Just a tip though. You should play gwent with every merchant in the world that is available, as soon as you meet them. That way you'll build your collection quick. Naturally, you should do that village by village, as you explore the world, to make life easier in the long run.

[Cootswig]

Originally posted by N7 Andy:

Originally posted by Cootswig:

I'm right now mixing it up between easy normal and hard just to test.

I just won another couple games and lost 1 game but won on second try.

I really think something was wrong with my game and changing the setting "removed" whatever was wrong.

Well that's fu*king weird LOL! Maybe Easy difficulty is actually broken??? I wouldn't know, I always play my games on the hardest difficulty available (it's kind of a tradition of mine, and personal preference) But in any case, whatever the issue was... if this works for you, then that's all that matters.. xD Like you say, maybe switching the Gwent difficulty reset some "bug" with the enemy AI that made your Gwent experience super unfair?? I mean, going from having to re-try matches 10-15 times like you said, on Easy, to winning first try on Hard... something sounds off... :)

Just a tip though. You should play gwent with every merchant in the world that is available, as soon as you meet them. That way you'll build your collection quick. Naturally, you should do that village by village, as you explore the world, to make life easier in the long run.

Yeah when I'm done in Novigrad I will go back to velen first, I looked at the book and there are 8 cards there still.

I picked up Gwent a little late I guess.