When creating an arena deck, it's usually best to pick the highest value cards that do not require any other cards (synergy) to work. Try to pick the best card from the three, based on that. Same thing goes for the leader. To further expand on that, cards that cost more provisions generally tend to be stronger, unless they require specific synergies. Old Speartip and Dandelion are safe choices, but something like Regis or Draug is too risky.
The most difficult decision might be when to pass. There is no easy answer to this. When you have to go first, you generally want to pass as soon as you've played 3 cards and are ahead on points. If you don't have to go first, try not to overcommit in the first round and play your weaker cards first. Saving a good hand can make the final round much easier.
Hello, if you do it for achievement, you have probably noticed, that only ~5% of Gwent players managed to get that one. It tells a lot how hard it is and honestly, with all respect, it is very unreasonable, to expect getting that achievement as a new player. You definitely need experience to reach winegrapes, which are hanging veeeery hiiigh.
So, my advice is, however harsh it may sound, to leave this achievement be for a time and come back for it after becoming more seasoned.
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I find it weird that there is no achievement for 9-0 run, and that only 5,1% people got to 6 wins. My guess is a lot of people never even played arena more than those free runs.
That achievement could have been requiring to get 9 wins, but why should it matter if it was intentionally made more available for players to get this particular achievement? If it would have been harder, even less people would reach it.
Technically, there is about 14.45% probability, that random player manages to get at least 6 wins in his arena run, which is not much. If you consider, that each player is not random person, but has his skill and performance, it is definitely not so easy to get 6 wins. What is a chance, that you will face 6 people out of 8 in Arena, who play your duel worse than you?
The OP is gaining some traction, which is fine, but it's time to move it to it's own thread.
The percentage of players that got the 6 wins achievement should be taken with a grain of salt. It doesn't show the amount of players actively trying to get it (and thus caring about it). The best way to make this point is looking at the Head Start achievement, which requires 10 points of carry-over on the board. This achievement is extremely easy to accomplish, yet only less than 1% of the players have completed it.
As for your actual winning chances, that's up for discussion. There is still a bit of RNG involved in getting good cards and then actually being able to draw them. However, in the long run a skillful player will almost always win more games, even with a deck that's strictly worse.
The percentage of players that got the 6 wins achievement should be taken with a grain of salt. It doesn't show the amount of players actively trying to get it (and thus caring about it). The best way to make this point is looking at the Head Start achievement, which requires 10 points of carry-over on the board. This achievement is extremely easy to accomplish, yet only less than 1% of the players have completed it.
As for your actual winning chances, that's up for discussion. There is still a bit of RNG involved in getting good cards and then actually being able to draw them. However, in the long run a skillful player will almost always win more games, even with a deck that's strictly worse.
Not everyone can be the Apple of his Eye. (He only has two of them.) You can always be the Spoon in Someone Else's though.
Interesting point about head start achievement. I never really bother with achievements in games so I didn't even see this one and if you are playing without taking a look at the achievements it is pretty unlikely that you will start a round with 10 power unit in play. Only way is using a resilience on a big guy (I believe, idk if there is any other method) and a lot of peple won't even think about using that in a normal game.
The thing I notice about arena in this game is that you can kinda know when you will have under 6 wins and when above, just by looking at your deck. I just find it too big on RNG, considering that my friend had a deck with more than half of the deck legendary. It was so easy playing with that deck, you almost had no cards you'd want to mulligan. And then on the other run you get like 2 legendaries and it just feels weak and you know that this deck won't pass 3 wins.
Idk if it would be good if they limited that every 5-10-15 pick or whatever is a epic/legendary card. It would reduce RNG greatly but idk would it be less fun.
I meant to say that I'm surprised that there isn't another achievement for the perfect run (9-0). I would just like to see what is the precentage on that.
The thing I notice about arena in this game is that you can kinda know when you will have under 6 wins and when above, just by looking at your deck. I just find it too big on RNG, considering that my friend had a deck with more than half of the deck legendary. It was so easy playing with that deck, you almost had no cards you'd want to mulligan. And then on the other run you get like 2 legendaries and it just feels weak and you know that this deck won't pass 3 wins.
Idk if it would be good if they limited that every 5-10-15 pick or whatever is a epic/legendary card. It would reduce RNG greatly but idk would it be less fun.
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I meant to say that I'm surprised that there isn't another achievement for the perfect run (9-0). I would just like to see what is the precentage on that.
That's one way. The other is playing the three resilient dwarfs, which actually happened in a match of mine.
There isn't an achievement, but there is an in-game contract, which awards you the Arena border and title.
I am still in love with arena, so here are some suggestions which would make me appreciate it even more:
1. Tone down on pick randomness - Some arenas I have 2-5 legendaries while other arenas I get 10 or more legendary cards. I feel that it makes too much of a power difference in decks, especially considering that most of common cards are quite thrashy in this game. I think it would be great if epic/legendary is every fourth or fifth pick with a, let's say, 5% chance for those pick in between to be epic or legendary. I believe that would greatly reduce power difference in made arena decks.
2. Please make collecting daily reward points available through arena - when you really want to play arena, but still you want to get those reward points because you still don't have all the heroes and CC is around the corner, you have to do some ranked to stay on track. It would be really great if you could get first 4 reward points through arena at least (for 6th and 12th round win). I think that would help a bit in arena popularity as well. (NOTE that I never even mentioned rewards for 2 round wins; if those were added to arena it would be too much value just playing arena, so I completely ignored that, as well as any reward points beyond 12th round win).
That's it for now, can't wait for new cards for more versatility in arena!
1. Tone down on pick randomness - Some arenas I have 2-5 legendaries while other arenas I get 10 or more legendary cards. I feel that it makes too much of a power difference in decks, especially considering that most of common cards are quite thrashy in this game. I think it would be great if epic/legendary is every fourth or fifth pick with a, let's say, 5% chance for those pick in between to be epic or legendary. I believe that would greatly reduce power difference in made arena decks.
2. Please make collecting daily reward points available through arena - when you really want to play arena, but still you want to get those reward points because you still don't have all the heroes and CC is around the corner, you have to do some ranked to stay on track. It would be really great if you could get first 4 reward points through arena at least (for 6th and 12th round win). I think that would help a bit in arena popularity as well. (NOTE that I never even mentioned rewards for 2 round wins; if those were added to arena it would be too much value just playing arena, so I completely ignored that, as well as any reward points beyond 12th round win).
That's it for now, can't wait for new cards for more versatility in arena!
And I got 12 golds and 12 bronzes in my last attempt (after having gotten similar decks as you 2x in a row, which started to let me think, "so that is how they make money out of Gwent") and still got devoured after just one win, and each time on the very last card of R3. Either I suck (please tell me I don't!) or I just have bad luck whenever trying Arena.
Think when there's just so much RNG and far too many crap bronze cards, Arena doesn't work unless it's balanced. The example above - not only did I have just 4 golds, one of them was a card that let you play one of two random Gold cards!!!!!
Did you guys play Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone DLC? Then you should know what kind of a cruel guy GoD is. Do you remember GoD's ability from Beta timeline? Arena is based on him. That is, you are gambling with GoD. You have plenty of Ores and don't mind wasting 150 ores and putting that as a bet and entering into a gambling zone. The whole concept of Arena is RNG and Gambling and totally luck based. If you are lucky and get good deck and lucky enough to not face 3 better decks in your Arena run, you get HUGE rewards. In the worst case, you get 100 Ores refunded (in the form of a keg) along with some consolation prizes (scraps or ores or even sometimes 40 MP).
Now, I don't understand why people still complain about pathetic deck they get when they know about Arena? What else they expect? When I used to play Arena, I knew exactly what to expect - the worst possible deck - or the best possible deck if I try minic mode. So, if I get good cards, I am happy, otherwise, it was OK. You don't even have to play 3 games. You can just break the contract and get the rewards and leave the Arena. I had got some Legendary Gold cards by completing Arena and many times got 0-3ed due to pathetic deck I got and many times I had just broken the contract as soon as I complete the deck building.
If people can't handle the RNG and is Ore starved, they shouldn't try Arena. If you feel like gambling and just want to junp into RNG well and go for hunting, then Yes. Fixing Arena by making minimum Gold cards is against the Arena's core characteristics. It takes away the thrill of entering into Arena mode.
Now, I don't understand why people still complain about pathetic deck they get when they know about Arena? What else they expect? When I used to play Arena, I knew exactly what to expect - the worst possible deck - or the best possible deck if I try minic mode. So, if I get good cards, I am happy, otherwise, it was OK. You don't even have to play 3 games. You can just break the contract and get the rewards and leave the Arena. I had got some Legendary Gold cards by completing Arena and many times got 0-3ed due to pathetic deck I got and many times I had just broken the contract as soon as I complete the deck building.
If people can't handle the RNG and is Ore starved, they shouldn't try Arena. If you feel like gambling and just want to junp into RNG well and go for hunting, then Yes. Fixing Arena by making minimum Gold cards is against the Arena's core characteristics. It takes away the thrill of entering into Arena mode.
Since even in Arena it is about two people having a match, what exactly is so thrilling about placing your bronze cards against gold cards, about placing no ability 4 strength cards against recharging 6 strength cards, etc?
There is no thrill.
You want clicking on Arena to be gambling? That's fine with me. Let's just get rid of actually fighting matches. The whole mechanic could just be reduced to pay 150 ore (or money) and get either a keg or a better reward. Or at least just show the opponent's deck, so that you don't waste 10 minutes just to realize you never stood a chance from the beginning.
If it's about gambling, there's no need for user interaction. If two users are said to "fight" against each other, they of course BOTH want to stand a chance.
But I didn't just complain, I actually made a suggestion that is in the spirit of total randomness AND equal chances.
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/arena-suggestion.11004172/
I find it so strange that people think this is thrilling. If this level of gambling is so fun then why have the Gwent cards be part of it at all? Why not just pay the ore and then roll some dice to get a reward.
Arena is so disappointing. It was apparently shoved into the game just to give ultra casuals something to do. There is absolutely nothing competitive about it. How can anyone feel good winning in this mode? I mean sure it could be entertaining to some degree playing all those random cards from all factions but when it's over how can winning or losing have any meaning?
I think the word "thrilling" was misleading. I didn't mean it as good thing about Arena. I had always seen Arena as high risk high rng high reward game mode. I never expected a fair game/deck in any of my many many Arena games I played. Whenever I had a lot of ore or felt like I wanted a break for classic mode I had played Arena. Or when I was a new player and wanted to try my luck to get a Legendary card I tried it (with 0 expectation to achieve it). If you see Arena as what it actually is and still accept it, you can play that. If you find that it is too much RNG and utter BS, then you can avoid playing Arena.
All I am saying is, accept Arena for what it actually is and choose to play or not based on your mood and taste.
I know this thread is about a month old, but I'm going to respond to what's mentioned in the opening post in the hope that it can help new players or returning players over the next few days.
Right now is actually an EXTREMELY good/easy time to get the achievement for getting six wins in a single Arena run. The seasonal version works for the achievement and you can win that pretty easily by intentionally clogging up your opponent's side of the board with useless units. Just wait until Round 3 and then start filling their side of the board with spies, units that you force out of their decks, and units you've damaged to low health. The important thing is to not kill enemy units unless you absolutely have to. By clogging up your opponent's side of the board with low health units, you can often force them to pass in Round 3 with two or three cards left in their hand because there's nowhere left for them to place anything.
In addition to all of that, a good rule of thumb is to make a short list of which units have to be used on the melee row, which units have to be used on the ranged row, and which units have effects for both rows (write both the name and a brief description of what the unit looks like). That'll keep you from accidentally misplaying a unit when you're forced to play something that isn't in your hand.
After I started doing all of that, I started winning almost all of my Arena matches. The few losses I've had over the past several days have almost always been because I drew an extremely unlucky hand.
Right now is actually an EXTREMELY good/easy time to get the achievement for getting six wins in a single Arena run. The seasonal version works for the achievement and you can win that pretty easily by intentionally clogging up your opponent's side of the board with useless units. Just wait until Round 3 and then start filling their side of the board with spies, units that you force out of their decks, and units you've damaged to low health. The important thing is to not kill enemy units unless you absolutely have to. By clogging up your opponent's side of the board with low health units, you can often force them to pass in Round 3 with two or three cards left in their hand because there's nowhere left for them to place anything.
In addition to all of that, a good rule of thumb is to make a short list of which units have to be used on the melee row, which units have to be used on the ranged row, and which units have effects for both rows (write both the name and a brief description of what the unit looks like). That'll keep you from accidentally misplaying a unit when you're forced to play something that isn't in your hand.
After I started doing all of that, I started winning almost all of my Arena matches. The few losses I've had over the past several days have almost always been because I drew an extremely unlucky hand.
It's surprising to me that they haven't even attempted to balanced the mode and maybe add a leader board.
Same here, considering that it would be really easy balancing the arena by having each fourth pick be a gold card, so everyone would at least have the same number of those in deck.
Arena was super fun to me up to the point where I learned how much wins I can get with deck I picked and that just killed most of the fun.