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We are celebrating our 20th anniversary and you can join the fun.

Grab some new party avatars, border, and cardbacks by playing games and even a Raróg Avatar 🐦for tuning into our stream later today.

The event will last until August 24th.
 


July Season is over = it's time for the new Qualifiers!

The First Qualifier will be on August 20th - 21st and cast by The Salty Captain and Ceely.

The Second Qualifier will be on August 27th - 28th and cast by Lionhart and TheaBeasty

You can find the lists of participants below.

Players eligible to participate in the First Qualifier (TOP 16) of the July Season:
  1. 0lsmer
  2. mitchan11
  3. puzzle.express
  4. kaneki_yamori
  5. poisound
  6. kams134
  7. usedtoberogbros
  8. grandkazuzu
  9. kerpeten96
  10. lerio2
  11. holdyr
  12. 星条旗の小丑
  13. bart933
  14. xxxrevanxxx007
  15. pepesmile
  16. lentropy
Players eligible to participate in the Second Qualifier (TOP 64) of the July Season:
  1. 0lsmer
  2. mitchan11
  3. puzzle.express
  4. kaneki_yamori
  5. poisound
  6. kams134
  7. usedtoberogbros
  8. grandkazuzu
  9. kerpeten96
  10. lerio2
  11. holdyr
  12. 星条旗の小丑
  13. bart933
  14. xxxrevanxxx007
  15. pepesmile
  16. lentropy
  17. 情枭的黎明
  18. kolemoen
  19. gandalf0271
  20. 捡破烂的猎魔人
  21. adzikov
  22. treeofaogiri666
  23. 五花膘
  24. john丶sally
  25. spellingbee
  26. rabbitgeorge
  27. magpie131
  28. kupcevic
  29. probear
  30. hange40
  31. tlg_pajabol
  32. sanvanter
  33. ern16
  34. vika73
  35. tlg_qnerr
  36. nik_r
  37. violet.kiramman
  38. kosciej16
  39. crashftw-
  40. danirai
  41. gabane
  42. expelliars
  43. zurii69
  44. b3g1t3.ya.k0n43n1y
  45. xragexx
  46. maximumthegavr
  47. argied
  48. spyroza
  49. jayce360
  50. hannsu
  51. zestudent
  52. t1mmy1337
  53. sheath29
  54. mooncrow1305
  55. infern-ale
  56. okoglaz
  57. mr.troco
  58. highrollerko
  59. mfarcik
  60. pawloex
  61. 重铸辛迪加荣光---我辈义不容辞
  62. dykyj_kaban
  63. jaimeonehand
  64. renfriidiotcard
  65. xnelder
  66. 是伏笔没有一点技术
 
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The next batch of Infinite Journeys has arrived and packs fresh content.​

If you missed out on the Journeys of Alzur, Triss or Yennefer, you now have the chance to grab them and play through them.​

With the re-introduction of previous Journeys, you’ll be able to return to where you left off, and, more importantly, you’ll be able to unlock new vanities.​

And most importantly:​

You can play at your own pace since the returning Journeys are not time-limited once you have them.​

For more information, visit the Journey tab in game!​
 


The August Season has begun and brings a brand new Seasonal Mode!

In "Order in all things", at the start of the match, players' decks will be sorted from highest to lowest provision!


Patchnotes: Link


Seasonal Modes:

Plus One 09.08 - 16.08

Whenever you play a unit, spawn a 1-power copy of it at the end of its row.


Trial of the Grasses 16.08 - 23.08

Whenever a unit appears on the board, damage it by 2 then boost it by 4. If it's a Witcher, the damage is not dealt.


Order in all things 23.08 - 30.08

At the start of the match, sort players' deck from highest to lowest provision.


Banished 30.08 - 06.09

After mulligan Banish both players decks. Whenever a card appears in any deck, banish it.


This season is planned to end on September 6th, 10:00 A.M. CEST.
 


Hey everyone,

Update 10.8 is here to bring fresh Infinite Journeys including brand new vanities.

Also, it adjusts cards that needed adjusting like our popular leader ability creation tool - Renfri.

Ryan and Jean give their thoughts on the upcoming changes in this month's Developer Update:

New Features

Anniversary Event - To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of CD Projekt Red, a special event will be held in Gwent! Come join the celebration and obtain free vanities while playing matches!

Returning Journeys - Alzur, Yennefer, and Triss make a comeback! Choose which Journey you want to progress, or simply continue where you left off!

• Contracts - Unlock even more rewards by playing matches with your favorite vanities.

• New types of trinkets - You will now be able to unlock additional rewards:

-For Alzur: Auras based on mutagens, a music vanity, and a cardback.

-For Yennefer: Djinn Hunter skins, auras, a music vanity, and a cardback.

-For Triss: A Nature aura and trinket, a music vanity, and a cardback.

Changes

Daily quests that require winning with a specific faction are now a bit easier to complete.

Neutral

Knickers - Provision cost changed from 7 to 8.

Maxii - Now has the Cursed tag.

Renfri - Power changed from 7 to 5.

Provision cost changed from 13 to 14.

Is now Doomed.

Renfri: Curse of Envy - Ability changed to:

Order: Damage all enemy units by 1.

Renfri: Curse of Gluttony - Ability changed to:

Order: Boost an allied unit by 2. Increase this value by the target's base power.

Renfri: Curse of Pride - Power limit changed from 10 to 8.

Renfri: Curse of Wrath - Damage changed from 7 to 6.

Renfri: Blessing of Diligence - Damage changed from 8 to 6.

Renfri: Blessing of Humility - Boost changed from 5 to 4.

Renfri: Blessing of Patience - Cooldown changed from 7 to 8.

Renfri: Blessing of Temperance - Set power changed from 12 to 10.

Monsters

Sir Scratch-a-Lot - Now has the Knight tag.

The Manor's Dark Secret - Prologue ability changed to:

Spawn a Cursed Damsel on this row and boost it by 2.

Skellige

Bjorn Stormursson - Power changed from 5 to 4.

Armor changed from 2 to 1.

Deranged Corsair - Power changed from 4 to 3.

Northern Realms

Knighthood - Provision cost changed from 5 to 10.

Ability changed to:

Play a Knight from your deck and boost it by 1 for each Knight you control.

Cintrian Knight - The Deploy no longer has a Melee row requirement.

Scoia'tael

Added secondary categories to a LOT of units across the board.

Barnabas Beckenbauer - Power changed from 6 to 5.

Provision cost changed from 10 to 8.

Munro Bruys - Armor changed from 1 to 0.

Removed Charges.

Added new part of ability:

Cooldown: 2

Barricade: Set Cooldown to 1.

Mysteries of Loc Feainn - Provision cost changed from 15 to 14.

Waters of Brokilon - Provision cost changed from 12 to 11.

Weeping Willow - Ability changed to:

Harmony.

Order (Melee): Boost self by the number of unique primary categories among units you control.

Deploy (Ranged): Poison an enemy unit.

Zoltan: Warrior - Armor changed from 1 to 0.

Dryad Ranger - Power changed from 3 to 4

Ability changed to:

Harmony.

Deploy (Melee): Damage an enemy unit by 2.

Deploy (Ranged): Poison an enemy unit.

Trained Hawk - Ability changed to:

Harmony.

Deploy (Melee): Damage an enemy unit by 2.

Deploy (Ranged): Move a unit to their other row.

Nilfgaard

The Eternal Eclipse - Provision cost changed from 15 to 14.

Eternal Eclipse Deacon - Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.

Eternal Eclipse Initiate - Infused ability changed to:

"Whenever your opponent plays a Cultist, damage self by 1.

Deathwish: Spawn a base copy of self on the opposite row, Infuse it with the Cultist category, then set its power to the number of Cultist your opponent controls."

Syndicate

Conjurer's Candle - Provision cost changed from 6 to 7.

In Search of Forgotten Treasures - Provision cost changed from 15 to 14.

Sir Skewertooth - Now has the Knight tag.

Failed Experiment - Cooldown changed from 1 to 3.

Treasure Huntress - Hoard requirement changed from 7 to 9.

Game Fixes

Cards Spawned and added to the playstack by Scenarios, Locations, and certain units no longer jump to the top of the playstack.

Row restriction warnings now trigger correctly on mobile devices, for each card played after the first on each turn.

Grace abilities now trigger immediately when a unit that met the requirements while Locked is Purified.

Stockpile no longer reduces the Cooldowns of Locked units.

Bronwen, Reynard, and Windhalm are no longer able to use their Order abilities before the Grace requirement is met.

Damien de la Tour now resets Leader abilities that are on Cooldown.

In Search of Forgotten Treasures is now correctly Doomed, as per the tooltip.

Dettlaff: Higher Vampire and Viy no longer Spawn Cataclysm from Deranged Corsair's Infused Deathwish in the graveyard.

Hen Gaidth Sword now banishes units on Deathblow when it has a soul stored.

Mask of Uroboros now Spawns Crows even when the deck is empty.

Sir Scratch-a-Lot, Red Riders: Charge, Chameleon, and Teleportation no longer ignore Doomed, and affected units will now be Banished correctly when replayed.

"Replay" abilities used to reset the cards to their default state before they were picked up - now that order is reversed and card is only reset after it leaves the battlefield, which results in getting banished by Doomed status.

Tokens that were Purified of Doomed will no longer be Banished when replayed.

Viraxas (Prince; Outcast; King) is no longer able to bypass Grace requirements when activating a unit's Order.

Weavess: Incantation now triggers Deathwish abilities before Giant Toad is able to react to them.

Cow Carcass's end of turn timing now works as intended; its unnecessary Timer was removed.

Imperial Practitioner now correctly displays the card it will Spawn in its tooltip.

Knight Errant's Infusion no longer triggers its boost when the Shielded and Infused unit is Purified.

Nekurat now reacts to Vampires played from the opponent's deck or graveyard.

Treasure Huntress is no longer able to target Immune units.
 
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The July Season has begun and brings a brand new Seasonal Mode!

In "Trial by Fire" you will be able to play the new Black Sun cards before crafting them!


Patchnotes: Link


Seasonal Modes:

Trial by Fire 05.07 - 12.07

Queue up with a faction of your choice - your deck will be replaced with a prebuilt deck for the same faction, featuring cards from the new expansion!


Power Shift 12.07 - 19.07

At the start of the match, set the power of every unit in your starting deck to its Provision Cost.


Seesaw 19.07 - 26.07

On the end of the player's turn, damage player's odd power units by 1 and boost player's even power units by 1.


Switcheroo 26.07 - 02.08

After two turns players switch hands.


Entrenched 02.08 - 09.08

Each played unit has resilience.


This season is planned to end on August 9th, 10:00 A.M. CEST.
 
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Surrender to the cosmic forces that shape destiny, or join Renfri's gang to carve out your own in blood… The Black Sun is here bringing 27 new cards to the game!

Watch the Black Sun trailer:


The Black Sun pack is now available in your Shupe-Shop and includes all premium cards of the expansion plus the Sands of Time Board:







The pack will be available until October 4th.

Also starting today, you can test out the new cards in the brand new weekly game mode “Trial by Fire”.

For more information and a look at all the new cards visit: www.playgwent.com/en/updates/black-sun
 
Hey everyone,

Update 10.7 has arrived together with the Black Sun!

27 new cards including a new Scenario for each faction and Renfri as a neutral card.

In addition, there is a list of supporting adjustments to existing cards to improve your experience.

Check out our latest Developer Update for an in-depth look at the upcoming changes:

Black Sun card drop - Herald the inevitable coming of the Black Sun, or join Renfri in exacting vengeance on all its prophets. This card drop introduces four new cards per faction, along with three Neutrals.

New keyword - Infused - Status that adds effects or categories to a card. Removing the status also removes all added effects and categories. Lock disables Infused abilities.

New keyword - Grace - The first time this unit's power is equal to or higher than the specified amount, trigger the ability. If the condition is already met when it enters the battlefield, trigger it immediately.

New keyword - Clash - Units simultanously damage each other by their power.

New seasonal mode - Trial by Fire - Queue up with a faction of your choice - your deck will be replaced with a prebuilt deck for the same faction, featuring cards from the new expansion!

Changes

Evolving cards (Auberon, Usurper, Viraxas, Eithné, Harald an Craite, and Jacques) now... evolve! This means that unlike with usual transformations, any armor, statuses, ability infusions, and power changes will be retained in the process.

Neutral

Alzur - Now has the Knight tag.

Olgierd: Immortal - Power changed from 8 to 10.

Ornate Censer - Provision cost changed from 9 to 10.

Ability changed to:

Boost an allied unit by the amount of damage dealt to enemy units this turn, or damage an enemy unit by the amount of boost given to allied units this turn.

Syanna - Power changed from 3 to 5.

Vivienne: Oriole- Provision cost changed from 10 to 9.

Monsters

Auberon King; Invader - Replaced transform with evolve.

Nekker Warrior- Power changed from 4 to 7.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: If this card would not trigger any of your Thrive units, damage self by 3 and Infuse self with "Thrive".

Skellige

Arnaghad - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Clash keyword.

Gedyneith - Renamed to In Gedyneith's Shadow

Crach an Craite - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Clash keyword.

Harald an Craite; Warmonger - Replaced transform with evolve.

Melusine - Replaced Veil with Deploy: Gain Veil.

Northern Realms

Royal Inspiration - Provision bonus changed from 16 to 15.

Ability changed to:

Order: Boost an allied unit by 5.

If it triggered an allied unit's Grace ability, refresh the Order and reduce the boost by 1.

Reynard Odo - Power changed from 6 to 7.

Provision cost changed from 9 to 8.

Ability changed to:

Whenever you play a unit, boost it by 1.

Grace 12: Boost all boosted allied units by 1.

Vandergrift - Provision cost changed from 8 to 9.

Has new part of ability:

Grace 12: Gain Resilience.

Vandergrift's Blade - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Damage an enemy unit by 5.

Deathblow: Store destroyed unit's base power. The next time you play a unit, boost it by the stored amount, then destroy self.

Viraxas Prince; Outcast - Replaced transform with evolve.

Windhalm of Attre - Has new part of ability:

Grace 10, Order: Gain Shield.

Cintrian Knight - Has new part of ability:

Grace 6: Boost self by 2.

Mad Charge - Ability changed to:

Boost an allied unit by 5 and give it 2 Armor.

If it's a Knight, also give it Vitality (2).

Redanian Knight - Has new part of ability:

Grace 8: Boost adjacent units by 1.

Scoia'tael

Eithné Young Queen; Mother - Replaced transform with evolve.

Percival Schuttenbach - Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.

Dryad Fledgling - Power changed from 4 to 5.

Farseer - Provision cost changed from 5 to 6.

Forest Whisperer - Power changed from 4 to 3.

Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.

Nilfgaard

Glynnis aep Loernach - Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.

Usurper Officer; General - Replaced transform with evolve.

Syndicate

Jacques Miracle Child; de Aldersberg - Replaced transform with evolve.

Passiflora - Name changed to One Night at the Passiflora.

Ability changed to:

Doomed.

Scenario: Progress whenever you play a Blindeye.

Prologue: Spawn Sly Seductress on this row.

Chapter 1: Spawn Passiflora Peaches on this row.

Chapter 2: Gain 6 Coins.

Sir Skewertooth - Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.

Fisstech Trafficker - Now has the Blindeyes tag.

Salamandra Mage - Tribute cost changed from 4 to 5.
 


The June Season has begun!


Patchnotes: Link


Seasonal Modes:


Irresistible Attraction 07.06 - 14.06

Whenever you play a non-Spying unit, move a random enemy unit with the same power to the opposite side.


Dual Casting 14.06 - 21.06

Once per turn, when you play a special card, spawn and play a copy of it immediately after.


Patience is a virtue! 21.06 - 28.06

At the start of your turn, transform all cards in your hand into random ones that cost 1 provision more.


Battle Rush 28.06 - 05.07

Both players have just 8 seconds to complete their turn and 15 seconds to complete the redrawing phrase.


This season is planned to end on July 5th, 10:00 A.M. CEST.
 


Hey everyone,

Update 10.6 is here and brand new cards for Triss and Yennefer with it!

On top of that, it brings some adjustments to neutral and faction cards alike.

Check out our latest Developer Update for an in-depth look at the upcoming changes:
New Features
Added a confirmation pop-up for purchasing Fast Travel in Journeys for Scraps.

Added a warning pop-up for switching from a Premium to a Standard Journey.

When changing from a Premium to a Standard Journey, players will receive fewer Crowns Pieces for completing quests. (Standard - 20CP; Premium - 40CP)
Neutral
New Unit - Triss: Meteor Shower - Human - Mage

3 power, 12 provision cost

Deploy (Melee): Damage all units on an enemy row by half their base power.

Deploy (Ranged): Boost all allied units on a row by half their base power.

New Unit - Yennefer: Illusionist - Human - Mage

4 power, 12 provision cost

Deploy: Spawn Yennefer's Illusion on this row.

The first time you Spawn a unit on your side of the battlefield each turn, damage the lowest-power enemy unit by the Spawned unit's base power.

Deathblow: Boost self by 1.

New Unit - Yennefer's Illusion - Human - Mage, Token

4 power

Doomed.

When this unit takes damage, destroy self.

Aerondight - Provision cost changed from 9 to 10.

Enraged Ifrit - Power changed from 4 to 5.

Damage from the Deploy changed from 4 to 5.

Francis Bedlam - Power changed from 4 to 6.

Ornate Censer - Provision cost changed from 8 to 9.

Triss: Butterflies - Power changed from 5 to 4.

Ability changed to:

Deploy (Ranged): Shuffle a card from your hand into your deck, then draw a unit of your choice and boost it by 3.
Monsters
Auberon King; Invader; Conqueror - Power changed from 5 to 6.

Ge'els - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Play a Wild Hunt special from your deck.

Devotion: Play a Wild Hunt card from your deck instead.
Skellige
Harald an Craite; Warmonger; the Cripple - Power changed from 5 to 6.

Sigvald - Provision cost changed from 7 to 8.
Northern Realms
Viraxas Prince; Outcast; King - Power changed from 6 to 7.

Traveling Priestess - Power changed from 3 to 4.

Starting Charges changed from 0 to 1.

Charges per shuffle changed from 3 to 2.
Scoia'tael
Symbiosis - Updated the tooltip to include non-unit sources of Symbiosis.

Eithné: Wrath of the Brokilon - Power changed from 6 to 10.

Ability changed to:

Immunity.

Symbiosis 3.

Freixenet - Power changed from 6 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Zeal, Order (Ranged): Spawn a Young Dryad on this row.

Cooldown: 4

Devotion: At the end of your turn, lower the Cooldown by the duration of Vitality on self.

Torque - Removed the Devotion requirement. Now always starts in your hand.

Farseer - Power changed from 4 to 5.

Provision cost changed from 4 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Boost an unboosted unit in your hand by the number of boosted units in your hand.

Oakcritters - Bleeding amount changed from 3 to 4.
Nilfgaard
Fergus var Emreis - Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.

Usurper Emperor - Power changed from 6 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Spawn an Operative on each enemy row and give them Spying.

Zeal. Order: Seize all Spying Operatives.

Whenever an enemy unit gains Spying, boost self by 1.

Impera Enforcers - Armor changed from 0 to 1.

Has new part of ability:

Deathblow: Gain 1 Armor.
Syndicate
Off the Books - Provision bonus changed from 15 to 14.

Fallen Rayla - Power changed from 5 to 6.

Provision cost changed from 11 to 12.

Ability changed to:

Veil.

Profit 3.

Tribute 3: Remove Poison from an allied unit, then boost self by 5.

Whenever your opponent plays a unit, Poison it and remove a Counter.

When the Counter reaches 0, the Tribute becomes a Fee.

Counter: 2

Gellert Bleinheim - Ability changed to:

Profit 2.

Immunity.

Fee 1: Poison an allied unit and boost it by 2.

Cooldown: 1

Adrenaline 5: At the end of your turn, Purify self.

Failed Experiment - Power changed from 10 to 6.

Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Poison self.

Fee 3: Move Poison from self to a unit.

Cooldown: 1

Hysteria - Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.

Mutant - Armor changed from 2 to 0.

Ability changed to:

When Poisoned, Spawn a base copy of self on this row.

Counter: 1

Salamandra Assassin - Armor changed from 1 to 0.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Place a Bounty on an enemy unit.

Order: Poison the enemy unit with Bounty.

Salamandra Lackey - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Purify an allied unit and gain 2 Coins for each status removed.

Stolen Mutagens - Ability changed to:

Choose a mutagen:

Red - Damage an enemy unit by 4.

Blue - Poison an allied unit and gain 5 Coins.

Green - Boost an allied unit by 4 and give it Veil.

If you control at least 2 Salamandra units, choose an additional mutagen.
Game Fixes
Auberon Invader's Create is now correctly affected by Runemage's ability.

Francesca Findabair's tooltip now correctly mentions a base copy of the special.

Order abilities that move a card to the other side (such as Master of Puppets and Arcane Tome) now affect the controlling player's Hubert Rejk, rather than the opponent's.

Sihil can now be used to play Traps.

Xavier Lemmens' ability no longer becomes disabled when failing to select a target while viewing the graveyard.

Summoning Circle's tooltip has been adjusted to reflect the current ability.
 
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The first two Journeys, which you know and love, are back and better than ever. If you missed our first two Journeys (our alternative progression system) you can play through them once again.​

With the re-introduction of previous Journeys, you’ll be able to return to where you left off, and, more importantly, you’ll be able to unlock new vanities.​

And most importantly:​

You can play at your own pace since the returning Journeys are not time-limited once you have them.​

Check out the second part of our Developer Update for Patch 10.5 for more information on the new Infinite Journeys:​
 


The May Season has begun!


Patchnotes: Link


Seasonal Modes:


Switcheroo 10.05 - 17.05

After 2 turns the players switch hands.


Entrench 17.05 - 24.05

Cards played on the battlefield have Resilience.


Plus One 24.05 - 31.05

Whenever you play a unit, spawn a 1-power copy of it at the end of its row.


Trial of the Grasses 31.05 - 07.06

Whenever a unit appears on the board, damage it by 2 then boost it by 4. If it's a Witcher, the damage is not dealt.


This season is planned to end on June 7th, 10:00 A.M. CEST.
 


Hey everyone,

Update 10.5 will bring a bunch of changes and adjustments, with the highlights being Neutral reworks, Deathwish Monsters and a new 'Timer' Keyword!

Check out our latest Developer Update for an in-depth look at the upcoming changes:

New Features

New Keyword - Timer: Before the end of your turn, lower the number by 1. When the number reaches 0, trigger the ability.

Timer is a new keyword added to cards that had a counter going down every turn (Ciri: Dash, Megascope, Saskia: Commander etc.).

Timer abilities will now trigger before all end of turn effects - which means that if Portal or Megascope summon an engine card, its end of turn ability will now trigger!

Changes

Returning Journeys - Geralt and Ciri make a comeback! Choose which Journey you want to progress, and return where you left off!

Rewards - Progress the Journeys to unlock ornaments and vanities, and earn Reward Points in the Standard and Premium paths.

Contracts - Unlock even more rewards by playing matches with your favorite vanities.

New Types of Trinkets - You will now be able to unlock additional rewards. For Geralt: Auras based on Witcher signs, and for Ciri: Trophies based on her adventures.

New Weekly Quests - Each week only 3 quests will now be available for the Journey. If you’re unable to complete any or all of these quests, you’ll get the option to reroll old quests from the previous week to the new week. Quests stay the same no matter which Journey is selected. The Crown Pieces earned after completing a quest will be added to the currently selected Journey.

Story - Check out the stories for Geralt and Ciri, which will be both fully available with the release.

Info: We are disabling non-completed contracts which are tracking the completion of Journey Quests, while we are working on a fix for these contracts. Your progress will continue to be tracked after the fix.

Neutral

Ciri: Dash - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Hen Gaidth Sword - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Ability changed to:

Echo.

Damage an enemy unit by 5, then Spawn and play a base copy of the stored unit and give it Doomed.

Deathblow: Banish the unit and store its soul in the Hen Gaidth Sword.

Mysterious Puzzle Box - Tooltip adjusted to include missing information.

Now reads:

Disloyal.

Deploy: Spawn a 7-power Lamp Djinn on the opposite row. If neither player has passed, choose a card from your hand.

Adrenaline 2: Spawn a 7-power Lamp Djinn on the opposite row and destroy self instead.

Order: Pick a card from your hand.

At the end of your turn, transform the highest-provision chosen card(s) in hand into Thing From the Box, then Banish self.

Portal - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Ring of Favor - Provision cost changed from 8 to 9.

Base boost changed from 4 to 3.

Saer Qu'an - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Sihil - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Provision cost changed from 11 to 12.

Ability changed to:

Damage an enemy unit by 1.

Deathblow: Play a bronze card from your hand, then move Sihil back to your hand.

Initiative: Also increase the damage by 1 for the rest of the game.

Stregobor - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Summoning Circle - Card type changed from special to artifact.

Provision cost changed from 6 to 8.

Ability changed to:

Resilience.

Deploy: Choose a unit from your deck and set the Counter to that unit's provision cost.

Before the end of your turn, remove a Counter from self for each adjacent unit.

When the Counter reaches 0, Summon the chosen unit from your deck to this row and destroy self.

Tesham Mutna Sword - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Ability changed to:

Damage an enemy unit by 5. Repeat once for each status it has.

Villentretenmerth - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Mastercrafted Spear - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.

Ability changed to:

Damage an enemy unit by 6.

Deathblow: Damage another enemy unit by the excess damage.

Megascope - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Petri's Philter - Provision cost changed from 7 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Boost an allied unit by 3.

Order: Give an allied unit Zeal.

Thunderbolt - Provision cost changed from 8 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Boost an allied unit by 3.

Order: Boost an allied unit by 3.

Wyvern Scale Shield - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Provision cost changed from 7 to 4.

Ability changed to:

Boost an allied unit by 4 and give it a Shield.

While in your graveyard, when you play a unit, give it a Shield, then Banish self.

Monsters

Arachas Queen - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Consume an allied unit.

Order: Spawn and play Arachas Nest.

Deathwish: Spawn a base copy of the Consumed unit on this row.

Old Speartip: Asleep - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Ritual Sacrifice - Name changed to Brewess: Ritual.

Card type changed from special to unit.

Power set to 5.

Provision cost changed from 8 to 11.

Ability changed to;

Deathwish: Summon 2 random bronze Deathwish units from your deck to this row.

Hybrid - Ability changed to:

Deploy (Melee): If a unit was Consumed during this turn, boost self by 4.

Deploy (Ranged): Consume an allied unit.

Vran Warrior - Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.

Nilfgaard

Masquerade Ball - Provision cost changed from 15 to 14.

Amnesty - Provision cost changed from 6 to 5.

Northern Realms

Amphibious Assault - Provision cost changed from 13 to 14.

Queen Meve - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Traveling Priestess - Ability changed to:

Veil.

Deploy: Gain 0 Charges. Whenever this unit is put back in your deck, increase the number of Charges by 3.

Order: Boost an allied unit by 1.

Whenever this unit is Inspired, gain Zeal.

Charge: 0

Siege Master - Power changed from 2 to 1.

Armor changed from 0 to 1.

Scoia'tael

Brouver Hoog - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Gain 1 Armor for each Dwarf in your hand.

Barricade: At the end of your turn, boost all Dwarves with Armor on this row by 1, then lose 1 Armor.

Saskia: Commander - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Vanadain - Power changed from 6 to 7.

Provision cost changed from 7 to 9.

Zoltan's Company - Ability changed to:

Spawn 2 Rowdy Dwarves on an allied row. Increase the number of Spawned Rowdy Dwarves by 1 for each Zoltan in your starting deck.

Crushing Trap - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Skellige

An Craite Longship - Tooltip adjusted to specify that only units played by the opponent on their side of the board will receive damage.

Syndicate

Ludovicus Brunenbaum - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Eternal Fire Inquisitor - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Game Fixes

The game UI can no longer become uninteractive when the player is observing the graveyard while it is modified.

Deadeye Ambush classification corrected from "Utility Ability" to "Spawning Ability"

The Doomed keyword no longer incorrectly indicates that it only affects units.

Dual row cards will now always show the "row specific effect" highlight when played.

Cards with "Draw a card, then ..." will no longer perform the second action when a card could not be drawn.

Dol Dhu Lokke's Order no longer becomes uninteractive when there are no units in the player's deck.

Figgis Merluzzo no longer has Zeal.

Ihuarraquax's Ranged ability no longer Summons the opponent's unit to a random row.

King Bran's start-of-game ability now correctly progresses Veteran contracts.

Sunset Wanderers is no longer able to sometimes trigger the Ring of Favor's Banish effect.

Sunset Wanderers will no longer be Summoned to the board if transformed by the Mysterious Puzzle Box while in the rightmost position in hand.

Cat Witcher Saboteur no longer skips its damage when attempting to target a unit on a full row, and being unable to move it.

Drummond Berserker's ability will no longer trigger if it was forced to transform prior to its turn in the end of the turn sequence.
 


Welcome to our article series on the Design of GWENT. Regularly, we’ll dive into the big concepts that make GWENT, design philosophies and other appropriate topics. We encourage you to reach out on topics you would like to see being dissected in this column!

From the beginning of GWENT, one of its key differences with the competition has been its willingness to do balance patches and evolve its mechanics. Today let’s delve into these monthly installments that rhythm the life of the game and of the community, why and how they’re made.

First of all, we need to go on a tangent and talk about “metagame”. You might have heard of “META” as an acronym for “Most Efficient Tactics Available”. While a sweet explanation, it’s actually a case of backronym. Instead, metagame is formed with the prefix “meta”, of the Greek “beyond”. “Metagame interactions” for instance are interactions with your opponent that take place outside of the explicit rules of the game, like thrash talking to disturb your opponent or in GWENT when you emote with only one card in hand in hope that your opponent will forfeit as that last card otherwise wouldn’t be enough.

But more often, metagame used alone refers to the way a game is played at a specific time and in a specific community. The first part is obvious enough, with time the way a game is played changes as people find new strategies, get better or adapt to previous strategies, even if the game itself doesn’t change.

For the second, imagine you’re playing a physical card game and you’re going every week to your local shop to play. There, there are 10 to 20 regular players. Out of these, more than half are casual players drawn to flashy strategies, a quarter are competitive players and the rest is made of experimenters and people that want to make a specific deck work at all cost. Now you could play an “optimal” deck derived from discussions on the internet over the last international tournaments, but you would only get the best results if you adapted to the specific environment you find yourself in. Like bringing a wide deck on purpose because Johnny has an unhealthy love for Geralt of Rivia and other tall removals. Playing a “suboptimal” strategy because it’s actually the one that brings the best results in the situation you find yourself in is what Frank Lantz calls the “Donkey Space” coincidently.

Thing is, while the scaling up and absence of boundaries that the Internet offers (especially when automatic matchmaking is available) does tend to smoothen the effect for digital games, this effect still exists. One of the best examples of it has been the first international tournaments for League of Legends. Due to playing on different servers, the European and American communities had developed very different metagames with different roles spread and different champions being favored. The results of these initial clashes resulted in the European way prevailing which eventually led to a harmonization of standards between the regions. Still what is greatly interesting is how two communities which shared languages (English) and even places of discussion (Reddit, the game’s forum, etc…) were able to diverge so much in the way they played the game in the first place.

Another example is the way the neural network artificial intelligence OpenAI plays DotA: far from the classic moba metagame of having different roles with different priority regarding income, it played in a fluid objective centric manner, spreading coins evenly between the different players so that everyone would be efficient in fights. While these results are mitigated by the amazing coordination of the AI and developmental bias that may prevent metagame like the one played by the players from appearing due to the huge evolutionary steps it would require, it still raises the question: since it’s winning, is the AI playing the game the proper way? After all, the tendency of Starcraft II’s neuronal network AI AlphaStar to overload its bases with workers (to make them more resilient to attacks at the cost of a decreasing efficiency) made its way into players' playbooks.

What I want to highlight here is a crucial element of metagames: they are up to players’ subjectivity. A metagame is made of players' perceptions, a mish mash of influences from what they’re playing against, the community they partake in, the players they are influenced by, what they love playing, etc… The objective state of the game has of course an influence on it, but a metagame will always be at most an interpretation of how to best play the game. Populations over the Internet are also more split than one would expect. Different ranks, different time zones and different habits heavily affect the population of players you might run into by queuing up. As for opinions on the game, language barriers but also even the streamers one might watch or the discussion places one might go to also have huge influences. Meta reports are a good example, decklists and opinions vary even though the players making them are of relatively similar communities.

This long introduction leads me to the “why”: the point of making balance patches is to make the game more enjoyable. To this, balance is a means, but not an end.

Typically the easiest way to bring balance is through symmetry: if all players have access to the same options at all time, there’s no concern for balance. However, the popularity of asymmetrical gameplay proves the interest there is in exploring different options and the replayability it provides, albeit to the cost of having to attempt balance on an ever so tilting ground.

Another point is that balance does not necessarily give information about the gameplay. Picture a meta with three decks in an absolute Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship. While the game would be balanced from the perspective of the average win chances, gameplay would be pretty unsatisfying if you knew with absolute certainty from the start of the match if you would win or lose. Instead, we have to try to reduce the polarity in all matchups so that every match feels “fair” to a reasonable degree, although covering all cases can be very hard. And even in a fair match, it’s not guaranteed for the gameplay to feel fulfilling. Winning can feel unsatisfying if you felt like you didn’t have a say in how the match went, just like losing can still feel good in a tense match. This is typically the kind of problem some players had with the old Viper Witcher Alchemist (or rather its accessibility in Gorthur Gvaed), as the card wasn’t necessarily strong on average but could feel quite frustrating for them.

As so, more often than not players' perception and how changes may affect it is actually what we’re really concerned about. For example, say there was a game with a deeply overpowered option apparent through data but which the community perceived as underpowered. Nerfing it would probably come at the surprise and disbelief of said community. In fact, we often see discrepancies between our data and what players might perceive as strong and weak, though the topic of the usage of data in balancing is complex and would deserve its own article.

The choice of doing balancing isn’t even obvious by itself. If developers step in every time a community isn’t happy about something it might lead to the community being less willing to adapt and find answers to the state the game finds itself in. Sometimes giving time to something is enough to see its impact and perception change as new strategies are found and a better understanding is reached (one of our most famous blunders in that regard was the buff to Viper Witcher Mentor in 8.2 which, due to the inherent delay between the patch being locked and delivered, arrived 10 days after the deck had finally been figured out).

The desire for less frequent balance patches isn’t a rare opinion among players, especially in the community of fighting games where balance patches are historically very spread apart and can have devastating consequences in the way a character feels or must be played. There are of course differences between fighting games and card games. In general, a good rule of thumb is that the more player agency the game offers (meaning the more the outcome of the game can vary depending on the player's decisions), the more players are able to adapt and as such the more time they should be left with to explore the game’s balance.

More generally, a game changing too fast can be overwhelming for players while a game changing too slowly can be boring. And of course, this perception of fast and slow is completely different from one player to another, making it a difficult balance to strike.

Which leads me to my next topic: communities are not single blocs. In the same community, wildly opposing opinions are usually expressed making it hard for developers to distinguish a unique “truth” (because it usually doesn’t exist and things are always more subtle). Even when there seems to be consensus in the community, it can be hard to measure how much of the community actually agrees with that opinion. It’s no secret that people tend to be more vocal when they are dissatisfied, so while complaints about a specific thing might represent the community’s views to a degree and even influence the perception of other members of the community, there usually exist people which believe that same thing to be fine but don’t feel the need to express it. Quite often, addressing a balance complaint tends to make the opposite opinion appear, with players being dissatisfied that what they were playing and enjoying was changed.

Which raises the question, if a deck or a faction is despised by a part of the community (hello Nilfgaard!) but loved by another part, should it be addressed? Sometimes the answer is obvious, an overpowered card might be fun to play but everyone can agree it makes the game overall worse. But it can be a pretty tough call to make in other situations, especially as the approach of maximizing happiness can just end up having everyone be mildly dissatisfied as it's sometimes discussed in philosophy.

When you’re annoyed at a specific deck or strategy, it’s important to remember there probably also are players that enjoy playing it. This is why our nerfing approach tries to be non-destructive: not only a nerf will always make some people unhappy, but if the deck ends up disappearing we’ve also hurt the game’s diversity.

We don’t always manage to achieve this however, especially as we tend to suffer from “nerf bias”. Changes are perceived more strongly than the actual state of things, so a card that received an important nerf can be abandoned even though it might still be quite good (League of Legends even had cases of announcing a nerf to a character, forgetting to include it and then observing the character’s play rate and win rate go down nonetheless). It can then take a while before players start experimenting again with it and “rediscovering” it, for instance, Viy disappeared after the 8.2 nerfs but ended resurfacing for a bit 2 months later.

The opposite can also happen interestingly. Nerf perceived as ineffective tends to be disregarded and not affect a card playrate even though the win rate does suffer. Provision changes are a good example of this: while a card becoming more expensive tends to be brushed off as “just needing to downgrade a bronze card”, it does mean the deck is weakened in some scenarios. In the long run, it amounts to a loss of a few percentage points, which in an environment where it only takes about 5 or 6 percentage points above 50 for a card to be considered very good can mean a lot. But these are just statistics and it doesn’t do much to the player’s perception.

At the same time, we’ve had a lot of past examples of singular provision changes having massive impacts: Maxii Van Dekkar’s buff in 8.2 had the card go from being considered as something that would never work to an icon of competitive decks, Eist Tuirseach’s nerf in 9.0 led to a disappearance of Warrior decks, etc…

Jackpot is also an interesting case. Following its rework in 9.0, it was at 16 provision and dominated the faction. A 1 provision nerf in 9.1 impacted it but still left it dominant, and it pretty much disappeared after a 2 provision nerf in 9.2… Only to resurface in 9.4 following the nerf to Tunnel Drill and eventually took over the faction again. Since Price of Power had a pretty quiet impact on Syndicate at the time, it goes to show how much the perception around this leader ability evolved. It also raises the question, if it had been released at 13 or even 12 provisions right away, would it have been tried?

Trying to predict the effect of changes in a massively interconnected system is already a hard task, but accounting for players’ perception makes the entire thing an even tighter fit.

If small nerfs can easily trigger massive perception shifts, we’ve learned that buffs tend to be the exact opposite. When nerfing a deck, players usually have an idea of how strong it is since it's played and as such it is possible to project oneself on the impact of the nerf. But since buffs usually happen on non or underplayed archetypes, the current state is way more unknown. Figuring if some cards are worth playing after a buff requires time and dedication so it’s understandable that most players won’t bother if the buffs don't feel impactful to them.

This is the reason behind our recent orientation toward delivering buffs as archetype focus. This way of working allows us to deliver more ambitious changes, but most importantly grouping these buffs and changes in this way makes them feel more exciting to try and experiment with, giving them a novelty factor. This leads to a decent portion of the player base trying the focused archetypes. And even if they end up feeling too weak in the long run, they still got on everyone's radar and provided us with great information to further improve their state in the future. This approach does however sometimes lead us to delay deserved buffs to instead deliver them at a time where we feel like they’ll be the most exciting and be the most impactful.

To finish this article on balancing and players’ perception, I find it important to remember that accounting for players’ perception doesn’t necessarily mean that the community is “right”. Over the course of the article I’ve shown multiple examples of how a community's perception of a game might be biased, but here I want to talk about a broader design principle: users are very good at identifying how they feel, but often misidentify why and give undesirable solutions. And it’s quite understandable, these kinds of analyses are complex and we also don’t always get them right, hence the importance of self-doubt in design.

Probably one of the most famous examples of that principle in video games was how the Thompson from the allied side in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was considered better than its equivalent from the axis and should be nerfed, even though the game was actually symmetrical. It even was backed by data, with players performing better with it. Developers ended up identifying the beefier sound effect of the Thompson as part of the problem. It made the weapon feel stronger which led to players playing more confidently in turn giving them better performances. Tuning the sound effects mostly resolved the issue.

Like so, in GWENT we often see suggestions that are inadequate at solving the issue at hand or create more issues by themselves. For instance, following Milva: Sharpshooter release in 9.6, a common suggestion was to lock her behind Devotion. This presented multiple problems as it only answered some of the decks in which the card was ran (and not necessarily the strongest), heavily restricted the diversity of decks in which the card could be played (which wasn’t what we desired for it) and wouldn’t address the perception when faced against it as the Devotion condition tends to be disregarded by players (a topic we’ll explore another day).

Another example is suggestions such as giving better control tools to Wild Hunt, Dwarfs or Congregate, or giving all factions a Purify, etc... While these might indeed help archetypes in the short term, we believe that it is very important to preserve factions/archetypes identity by giving different weaknesses and ways they’re played, balanced through proper strengths of course. Historically we haven’t been the greatest at it, older designs often used patterns across factions which gave them all access to similar tools, but it’s something we’ve been working on as we believe the game is more interesting with a wide range of deck identities, though it does mean the process of properly building an archetype gets more difficult and can require us to rethink its identity multiple times.

These, along with the design principles developed in this article explain why we don’t always take the direct route to balance a card. Surrounded by diverse and conflicting opinions, we have to identify when (and how) we should make changes, and when we should believe in our opinions, with the objective of having the game be the best it can be.
 
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Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has been Verified for Steam Deck Compatibility! This means that Steam Deck users will be able to enjoy Queen Meve’s story to its fullest.

If you already have a copy of the game in your Steam Library then it’s ready to run on your new hardware. And if you don’t, you’re in for a treat — until May 2nd Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is discounted by 70%!
 
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