Collect 'em All and High Stakes

[The Mastermind]

Hello there!
I was playing through the Witcher 3 and stumbled upon the High stakes side quest. I went and lost the first round, I then completed the quest. I thought, that if there were cards locked behind winning the Collect 'em all quest would fail I then went on to play the rest of the game. I am now trying to complete Collect 'em all, but I now find out, that I need to complete High stakes in order to get the 4th leader cards.

Is High stakes really the only way to get those cards? Are they needed for Collect 'em all? And if that is the case, why didn't Collect 'em all fail?

[Bolski]

Yup. You have to win all the rounds in High Stakes to get those cards. There is no other to get them and they ARE part of the quest. Same with getting cards from Dijsktra, etc. I can't remember if any of the cards from the DLC count or if this only applies to cards from the main campaign. Years ago, I got all the cards and I had to use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of what I got because I couldn't remember which merchants and tavern owners I had already played Gwent with.

Best thing is right before your first round, save the game. Then if you lose, reload and try again.

You'll want to save again right after that, if memory serves me correctly, because you then play the next two rounds back-to-back before you play the Count. You can then save if you get to the count.

So that means, round 2 you need to win, and then win round 3 as well. If you lose either round, reload your save you made right after round 1 and try again.

However, if you lost any round and didn't start over, then you're out of luck. Either find a save right before that quest and do as I stated, or else you'll have to start a new game if you're so far into it that going back to that save would be too much.

[The Mastermind]

Okay thank you, I'll do as you said. Although my save is quite far back