Strategy, Schmategy...
Slow day at work, so I figured I'd tackle some of the basics, since most of the "Beginner Tips" are a bit vague.
#1 ABSOLUTE BASICS
Gwent rules say you must play at least 25 cards, and unless you have a very specific reason to, you should never play more than 25 cards. The reason here is that you only draw 10 cards, plus 2 in the second round, plus 1 in the third, so without any help, you'll be seeing only half of your deck during a game, and since gold/silver cards are limited to 1 copy of a given card per deck, the fewer cards you have, the greater chance of drawing the cards you want.
The only exception to this is if your deck is pulling a lot of cards (using emissaries chained with vicovaro novices, temerian infantrymen and blue stripes, etc.) and you are actually running out of cards, but that is a very rare corner case. If you are not sure if you should play more than 25 cards, the answer is - you shouldn't (if it was warranted, you'd know without having to ask).
#2 BASIC TERMS
If you are familiar with games like Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, and others, do note, that Gwent is unlike any of those games. Quite notably, the concept of "aggro" - that is, overwhelming your opponent by going for the objective straight away, before he can bring his "heavy hitters" online is non existent here. Because you are playing one card at a time, and there is no "mana" to speak of, you can't out-aggro your opponent.
What we have in Gwent instead, came to be known as "Tempo". Tempo refers to any play that aims to put a lot of power on the table ,for the use of very few (usually just one) cards. A classic Tempo play is playing the Crones - play one, and the other two come out of your deck, putting a total of 20 points on the table. Playing gold cards with Roach, Saskia/Imperial Golems, etc. The idea here, is putting yourself so far ahead, that your opponent would need 2+ cards to catch up, putting himself at a severe disadvantage if he wants to win the round. Which brings us to:
"Card Advantage" - having more cards than your opponent (just why that's such a big deal will be discussed below).
"Pushing" - the act of actively seeking to with the current round.
#3 CARD ADVANTAGE
Simply put - having more cards than your opponent is a huge advantage. Because whoever has the most cards is guaranteed to go last, regardless of who goes first in the round. And that means, your opponent will not be able to hold anything back from a scorch, or scorch the unit still in your hand when he is finally forced to pass. This is why spies - cards that offer your opponent power (usually 10-12 of it) in exchange for drawing (and not immediately playing) more cards. Consider John Calveit (Nilfgaard leader, lets you look at top 3 cards of your deck, and play one immediately) - you are essentially playing that card, with +4 value (the power of Calveit's own card). If your deck has Imperial Golems in it, that's +13 value. That is TEMPO. Now compare Calveit with Ciri (one of the best gold cards in the game right now, despite being a measly 7 power). If you lose the round, Ciri goes back to your hand, so you start the next round with an extra card in hand. Likewise, Thaler is 11 power on your opponent's side of the board, but you get to pick up another card for later use. That is CADR ADVANTAGE.
A form of pseudo-advantage is going second, because that means that when you make the decision to pass, you and your opponent are (most likely) even in cards), so passing while ahead is equivalent to saying: "You can have this round, but at a -1 card disadvantage". Now consider, if one of the cards you have out is Ciri, and if you happen to be within "1 card range" of your opponent. Now you are offering your opponent to let you have the round at even cards, or to put you at a +2 advantage. Question is - does he take that offer.
What if you are going first. Well, then you have to be careful. Since your opponent (going second) will have a +1 advantage right before playing a card, If you get more than 1 card ahead (by "1 card ahead" I mean build up a lead that will remain after your opponent makes his play) to try to present that "let me win even, or go -1" offer, he might just pass and let you win at -1 instead.
#4 FIRST ROUND ADVANTAGE
Winning the first round means you can now pressure your opponent to keep playing round 2 as long as YOU want, because he cannot afford to pass first, and risk you taking the round (even by using all your cards - who cares at this point). In this case, If you find yourself at a card disadvantage, you actually WANT to open up a 1+ card lead, and pass, forcing your opponent to spend his advantage to catch up, and go first in the final round.
#5 KNOW WHEN TO PASS
A key skill, when playing Gwent, is knowing when to pass. A VERY common occurence in the days of Witcher 3 Gwent, were yourubers like Jesse Cox, Angry Joe, and others, passing when there was no benefit in doing so, but acting like it was part of some grand plan (hint: it wasn't).
Essentially - you should constantly be asking yourself, "What happens if I pass now?". Does your oppontent have a Ciri out? How many cards would he need to play to take the round? If I lose the round, are there any resilient creatures I will have to face in the next round?
This question becomes extremely important if there's an active weather effect ticking away your points. Can you clear it? Will the damage put you to far behind? Maybe it's time to pass, and cut your losses, take the round loss at even cards, instead of letting your opponent push you into a loss at a disadvantage.
When making the decision to pass, consider not only how many, but also what kind of resources your opponent has expended. Did he use his scorch? Then unless he's playing Scoia'Tael, he won't be using it again (or will he? Nenneke and Assire Var Annahid might have something to say about that).
#6 PLAYING AROUND X...
This is a fancy way of saying "play in such a way, as to avoid getting shafted by X". For example: Scorch destroys the highest unit(s) on the board. If those happen to be your two, 18-point Impera Brigades, than a single scorch will cut your score by 32 points! Likewise, Geralt: Igni destroys the highest unit in a row, if that row has a total of 20+ power in it. Again - making sure that your units are not grouped for a perfect Igni is something to consider. Weather effects also figure into this. As do resilient units. It might be wise not putting all your buffs on your single resilient unit - it's great if you can carry over the maximum power, but it really sucks to have it blown up. For that reason, many people put resilience on their second sctongest unit, and have the strongest act as a "scorch wall"
Playing around things is one of the reasons Gwent has such a high "skill ceiling" - good players will take into account an incredible number of things. Here's an example:
Your opponent is playing monsters. It is the second round (you lost round 1), and he has two cards in hand, and a bunch of units (harpies, and harpy eggs) on the board. You have Peter Saar Gwynleve (and 2 other, irrelevant cards) in hand. He plays Iris (spy, power 3, deathwish: boost all your opponent's units by 3) - what do you do? As tempting as it might be to hold Peter back in case he plays a big consume unit or something, that will need to be reset, one should never discount the possibility of his last card being a wild hunt warrior. If he kills Iris, all his units will be boosted, and that could end poorly. As it turned out, his last card was Imlerith, who was unable to kill Iris, after she was strengthened by Peter.
NOT PLAYING around certain effects is a very common cause of defeats, and the source of many complaints on the forums. Just saying...
That's it for now. Hope someone makes some use of it.
Slow day at work, so I figured I'd tackle some of the basics, since most of the "Beginner Tips" are a bit vague.
#1 ABSOLUTE BASICS
Gwent rules say you must play at least 25 cards, and unless you have a very specific reason to, you should never play more than 25 cards. The reason here is that you only draw 10 cards, plus 2 in the second round, plus 1 in the third, so without any help, you'll be seeing only half of your deck during a game, and since gold/silver cards are limited to 1 copy of a given card per deck, the fewer cards you have, the greater chance of drawing the cards you want.
The only exception to this is if your deck is pulling a lot of cards (using emissaries chained with vicovaro novices, temerian infantrymen and blue stripes, etc.) and you are actually running out of cards, but that is a very rare corner case. If you are not sure if you should play more than 25 cards, the answer is - you shouldn't (if it was warranted, you'd know without having to ask).
#2 BASIC TERMS
If you are familiar with games like Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, and others, do note, that Gwent is unlike any of those games. Quite notably, the concept of "aggro" - that is, overwhelming your opponent by going for the objective straight away, before he can bring his "heavy hitters" online is non existent here. Because you are playing one card at a time, and there is no "mana" to speak of, you can't out-aggro your opponent.
What we have in Gwent instead, came to be known as "Tempo". Tempo refers to any play that aims to put a lot of power on the table ,for the use of very few (usually just one) cards. A classic Tempo play is playing the Crones - play one, and the other two come out of your deck, putting a total of 20 points on the table. Playing gold cards with Roach, Saskia/Imperial Golems, etc. The idea here, is putting yourself so far ahead, that your opponent would need 2+ cards to catch up, putting himself at a severe disadvantage if he wants to win the round. Which brings us to:
"Card Advantage" - having more cards than your opponent (just why that's such a big deal will be discussed below).
"Pushing" - the act of actively seeking to with the current round.
#3 CARD ADVANTAGE
Simply put - having more cards than your opponent is a huge advantage. Because whoever has the most cards is guaranteed to go last, regardless of who goes first in the round. And that means, your opponent will not be able to hold anything back from a scorch, or scorch the unit still in your hand when he is finally forced to pass. This is why spies - cards that offer your opponent power (usually 10-12 of it) in exchange for drawing (and not immediately playing) more cards. Consider John Calveit (Nilfgaard leader, lets you look at top 3 cards of your deck, and play one immediately) - you are essentially playing that card, with +4 value (the power of Calveit's own card). If your deck has Imperial Golems in it, that's +13 value. That is TEMPO. Now compare Calveit with Ciri (one of the best gold cards in the game right now, despite being a measly 7 power). If you lose the round, Ciri goes back to your hand, so you start the next round with an extra card in hand. Likewise, Thaler is 11 power on your opponent's side of the board, but you get to pick up another card for later use. That is CADR ADVANTAGE.
A form of pseudo-advantage is going second, because that means that when you make the decision to pass, you and your opponent are (most likely) even in cards), so passing while ahead is equivalent to saying: "You can have this round, but at a -1 card disadvantage". Now consider, if one of the cards you have out is Ciri, and if you happen to be within "1 card range" of your opponent. Now you are offering your opponent to let you have the round at even cards, or to put you at a +2 advantage. Question is - does he take that offer.
What if you are going first. Well, then you have to be careful. Since your opponent (going second) will have a +1 advantage right before playing a card, If you get more than 1 card ahead (by "1 card ahead" I mean build up a lead that will remain after your opponent makes his play) to try to present that "let me win even, or go -1" offer, he might just pass and let you win at -1 instead.
#4 FIRST ROUND ADVANTAGE
Winning the first round means you can now pressure your opponent to keep playing round 2 as long as YOU want, because he cannot afford to pass first, and risk you taking the round (even by using all your cards - who cares at this point). In this case, If you find yourself at a card disadvantage, you actually WANT to open up a 1+ card lead, and pass, forcing your opponent to spend his advantage to catch up, and go first in the final round.
#5 KNOW WHEN TO PASS
A key skill, when playing Gwent, is knowing when to pass. A VERY common occurence in the days of Witcher 3 Gwent, were yourubers like Jesse Cox, Angry Joe, and others, passing when there was no benefit in doing so, but acting like it was part of some grand plan (hint: it wasn't).
Essentially - you should constantly be asking yourself, "What happens if I pass now?". Does your oppontent have a Ciri out? How many cards would he need to play to take the round? If I lose the round, are there any resilient creatures I will have to face in the next round?
This question becomes extremely important if there's an active weather effect ticking away your points. Can you clear it? Will the damage put you to far behind? Maybe it's time to pass, and cut your losses, take the round loss at even cards, instead of letting your opponent push you into a loss at a disadvantage.
When making the decision to pass, consider not only how many, but also what kind of resources your opponent has expended. Did he use his scorch? Then unless he's playing Scoia'Tael, he won't be using it again (or will he? Nenneke and Assire Var Annahid might have something to say about that).
#6 PLAYING AROUND X...
This is a fancy way of saying "play in such a way, as to avoid getting shafted by X". For example: Scorch destroys the highest unit(s) on the board. If those happen to be your two, 18-point Impera Brigades, than a single scorch will cut your score by 32 points! Likewise, Geralt: Igni destroys the highest unit in a row, if that row has a total of 20+ power in it. Again - making sure that your units are not grouped for a perfect Igni is something to consider. Weather effects also figure into this. As do resilient units. It might be wise not putting all your buffs on your single resilient unit - it's great if you can carry over the maximum power, but it really sucks to have it blown up. For that reason, many people put resilience on their second sctongest unit, and have the strongest act as a "scorch wall"
Playing around things is one of the reasons Gwent has such a high "skill ceiling" - good players will take into account an incredible number of things. Here's an example:
Your opponent is playing monsters. It is the second round (you lost round 1), and he has two cards in hand, and a bunch of units (harpies, and harpy eggs) on the board. You have Peter Saar Gwynleve (and 2 other, irrelevant cards) in hand. He plays Iris (spy, power 3, deathwish: boost all your opponent's units by 3) - what do you do? As tempting as it might be to hold Peter back in case he plays a big consume unit or something, that will need to be reset, one should never discount the possibility of his last card being a wild hunt warrior. If he kills Iris, all his units will be boosted, and that could end poorly. As it turned out, his last card was Imlerith, who was unable to kill Iris, after she was strengthened by Peter.
NOT PLAYING around certain effects is a very common cause of defeats, and the source of many complaints on the forums. Just saying...
That's it for now. Hope someone makes some use of it.
