At this point, we may never see a game as good as The Witcher 3 ever again. We'll spare you the details, but the base game was a masterpiece and the DLC that proceeded it was piles of icing on the cake. And then there's Gwent, the best game within a game ever created.
The game is simple -- have a greater number of units on the board than your opponent and you win -- best two out of three. So while the premise is simple yes, this beloved card game has many intricacies that you must learn if you wish to master it.
10 Play With Everyone And Collect Cards
Bruce Lee once said "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." How does this relate to Gwent? Easy, play the game every second you get a chance to.
In the Witcher 3 you can play Gwent with merchants, town champions and long-time friends of Geralt to name a few. Anytime you see the option, "how about a game of Gwent?" boom, play it, no questions asked. Not only will you benefit from the practice of playing the game, but you'll also receive a card every time you play.
9 Save Your Stronger Cards
The key to winning a game of Gwent is trying to win games while using as little resources as possible. Think of the game as war; do you want to win blowing all your troops in the first battle? Of course not, you want to save soldiers for the next attack (or round in this case) as this is a two-out-of-three bout.
So, like Yu-Gi-Oh or really any card game, don't blow your load to soon. Save strong cards for critical situations like when you're in that third game and you absolutely need the win. A good rule of thumb is always have one or two heroes left in your hand.
8 Use Decoys To Reclaim Cards For Later Rounds
Decoys are a very underrated card in Gwent. They're available in the early parts of the game, but you likely won't be bold enough to start using them until you encounter NPCs that use them by the Witcher 3's midpoint. The way decoys work is you use them to substitute a card on the battlefield for this innocuous card.
So if you happen to have a strong card out that you'd prefer to use later on the game, use a decoy to reclaim it. This card gets especially crafty when spies come into play (a card your opponent plays on your side) and you can take it and go back and forth like mad lads.
7 Keep A Small Overall Deck
The absolute best part about Gwent is that you get to create your deck and choose what you what's in and what's out. You have to have a minimum of 25 cards in your deck and most expert players stick to that number or go as high as 30.
See most beginners make the mistake of loading their decks upwards of 40 cards which is no bueno. In that stack of 40 you're likely to have many junk cards that will only do you harm if you have to use them in a game. So instead make a deck that consists of your 25-30 best cards.
6 Don't Be Afraid To Pass A Round
Let's bring our war analogy back in again -- this time we'll use the aged old adage that "you may lose the battle, but not the war." This is very important in Gwent and can also be implemented in any sport or activity that features a series of games instead of one.
In Gwent it's sometimes much more important to save your resources for the next round instead of wasting them all to take one battle; even the NPCs know this and will do this. You always want to have more cards than your opponent because once you run out, that's that. So don't go crazy using all you cards in the early rounds.
5 Double Check Before Using A Scorch Card
Scorch cards are one of the weirdest special cards in the game. If you use them they eliminate the highest unit card(s) on the battlefield, excluding heroes and including cards on your side. That means if you have a unit card of 8 on the table and your opponent's highest card is also an 8, then you're both screwed.
But you're mostly screwed because you just wasted a card to sabotage yourself. It might seem like this card is too dangerous, but if used right it can wipe out your opponents entire board. If they have multiple units with the same value then it's always worth it to throw down a scorch.
4 Weather Cards Are Useful Early On, But Quickly Lose Their Luster
When you first start playing Gwent you're likely going to have a few weather cards in your deck. There are four different types of weather cards, but with the exception of one, they all pretty much do the same thing. Playing a rain, fog or frost card will set all the individual units in an entire to one. The last weather card, clear weather is pretty self explanatory. These cards can throw a wrench into a game, especially if you've invested heavy in one row, but for the most part they're occasionally useful. Just hold onto a clear weather as NPC's use weather cards like there's no tomorrow.
3 Avoid The Scoia’tael And Monster Decks
There's nothing inherently wrong with the Scoia’tael and Monster decks, as they're pretty fun to play. But, compared to the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard decks they fall immeasurably short. While the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard decks focus on spies and medic abilities, the Monster and Scoia’tael focus on the muster ability.
When a card like this is played, any units that is part of that cards team so to speak will also be played. So play on dwarf from Scoia’tael and three others will come out to get his back. The problem is this conflicts with conserving as many cards as possible and therefore makes for a crap ability in tough games.
2 Spy Cards Are The Best In The Game
Another Reason why the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard decks are the best in the game is they feature the best card type, the spy. Playing a spy card sets the card directly on your opponents side giving them the added units, but allowing you to draw two cards to your hands. If you've been keeping up to this point you would know why this is good.
Spies essentially make or break games. If your opponent is spy abusing you then you'll quickly see their hand shoot up to 13 or 14 cards while you're still stuck at 6. It's no fun when it's happening to you, so make sure you level the playing field with a few of your own.
1 When In Doubt, Stall!
This is the master tip to Gwent and it's the reason that spy cards and preserving as many cards as possible will win you games. It doesn't matter how badly your opponent beats you up in one round, it only matters if they can do it two times. So this means that not only should you waste bad cards in the beginning, but you can also make up ways to stall when you need to.
Use clear weather effects even when no weather cards are in play and decoy your opponent to death. You'll get the hang of it in no time, and when you're ready take on that Gwent tournament in Novigrad.