Update 4.0 Patch Notes

[Burza46]

Check out the full list of changes coming to GWENT with Patch 4.0! For those wanting to hear some background on the decisions you can check out our Developer patch Overview.

These cards with reworked abilities will have full mill value for 3 days:

• Avallach
• Lambert: Swordmaster
• Devil's Puffball
• Vran Warrior
• Feast of Blood
• Alp
• Slave Hunter
• Master of Disguise
• Dimun Corsair
• Summoning Circle

Changes:

• Improved visuals of Versus Screen.
• Improved visuals of Leaders (shader, lighting, selected textures).
• Improved gameboards shader with shadows support
• Improved audio mix throughout the game.
• Since transition from Season of the Dryad to Season of the Cat new Rank transition table applies.
• Ranked Progression matchmaking can now be toggled from Rank 25 and above.
• Bleeding existing keyword tooltip changed to: Status that damages this unit by 1 on its turn end. Note: Bleeding turns can accumulate, 1 turn of Bleeding cancels out 1 turn of Vitality. Bleeding ignores armor.
• Assimilate existing keyword tooltip changed to: Boost self by 1 or specified amount whenever you play a card that is not from your starting deck.
• Harmony existing keyword tooltip changed to:
• Boost self by 1 or specified amount whenever you play a Scoia'tael unit on your side whose primary category is unique among other allied Scoia'tael units.
• The music on the Main Menu has been temporarily changed to celebrate the Iron Judgment expansion.
• The number of Coins in the Syndicate money pouch is now displayed as a single number, rather than as a fraction.
• Improved fluidity/smoothness of causing board reactions
• Loading into each match should now be smoother
• Icons for Reward Points, Ore and Meteorite Powder have been updated.
• Reward Points are now represented by a key.
• Casual matches will now unlock at rank 25

New Features:

• Equip any Ability with any Leader skin for each Deck, so long as the factions of the Ability and skin match, or the skin is Neutral.
• We've introduced a new Deck Creation flow focused on Abilities, with suggested card synergies for each Ability given in a new 'Tips & Tricks' section.
• The log-in screen now shows an animated version of the expansion's key visual.
• Loading screens now show full screen artwork with hints at the bottom of the screen.
• A tooltip is shown for the Syndicate money pouch on mouse roll-over, or when selecting the Leader with a gamepad.
• New board (Ship gameboard) with clickable elements
• Re-introduced armour into the game
• New element: Metal Hammer (with positive and negative versions of the VFX)
• New status: Defender
• Added a possibility to skip FTUX/Tutorial for new users.
• Multiple anti-aliasing options have been added to Settings for PC.
• Introduced Daily Login Rewards that allows to claim one reward every day. The latest available daily reward must be claimed before a new day can start.
• Added a button for clearing queries in the search box in the Deck Builder.
• Introduced XP Boost indicators for currently active events in the: Welcome screen, Main Menu and Outcome Screen.

Gameplay:

Neutral

• Aguara: True Form primary category changed to Beast.
• Avallac'h ability changed to: Deploy: Spawn and play Biting Frost, Impenetrable Fog or Torrential Rain.
• Devil's Puffball ability changed to: Poison an enemy unit. Deathblow: Damage units adjacent to it by 3.
• Duda: Agitator damage changed from 2 to 1.
• Duda: Companion boost changed from 2 to 1.
• Eskel: Pathfinder power changed from 4 to 6.
• Lambert: Swordmaster ability changed to: Deploy: Damage an enemy unit and all its copies by 2. Power changed from 5 to 6. Provision cost changed 8 to 9.
• Shupe: Hunter one option changed from Deploy: Boost all units in your hand by 1 to Deploy: Gain Resilience
• Shupe: Knight one option changed from Deploy: Gain Resilience to Deploy: Boost random unit in your hand by 2.
• Summoning circle ability changed to: Deploy: Create and play bronze unit from any faction. Provision cost changed to 6.
• Vigo's Muzzle Tactic category removed.
• Zoltan Scoundrel power changed from 1 to 4, provision cost changed from 15 to 10.

Monsters

• Arachas Swarm ability changed to: Order: Spawn a Drone on the allied row. Charge: 5. Whenever you play an Organic card, Spawn Drone on a random allied row.
• Alp ability changed to: Deploy: Give an enemy unit Bleeding for 4 turns.
• Arachas Drone named changed to Drone.
• Arachas Nest and Behemoth tooltips tweaked so they will say, they are spawning Drones instead Arachas Drones.
• Feast of Blood ability changed to: Purify and damage an enemy unit by 3. If you control a Vampire, also give it Bleeding for 3 turns.
• Forktail provision cost changed from 6 to 4.
• Glustyworp power changed from 3 to 6.
• Griffin provision cost changed from 7 to 5.
• Ice Giant provision cost changed from 7 to 6.
• Slyzard power changed from 4 to 5.
• Vran Warrior ability changed to: Whenever you destroy a unit, boost self by 1.

Skellige

• Dimun Corsair ability changed to: Zeal. Order (Melee) Give an enemy unit Bleeding for 2 turns. Cooldown: 2. Whenever you play a Ship, decrease Cooldown by 1.

Northern Realms

• Mobilization (former Henselt's ability) can no longer be used when there are no valid targets on the player's side

Scoia'tael

• Call of the Forest boost changed from 2 to 1.
• Isengrim's Council ability changed to: Look at a random Dwarf, Dryad and Elf from your deck, then play one and boost it by 2.
• Category changed from Tactics to Nature.
• Mystic Echo provisions changed from 15 to 14.

Nilfgaard

• Added Soldier category to following cards: Damien de la Tour, Cahir Dyffryn, Sweers, Nilfgaardian Knight.
• Imperial Formation ability changed to: Order: Boost an allied unit by 2. Charge: 4 Once all Charges have been exhausted, move a Soldier unit from your deck to the top.
• Master of Disguise ability changed to: At the end of every allied turn, boost self by 1 if there is a Locked enemy. Provision cost changed from 8 to 4.
• Slave Hunter ability changed to: Assimilate. Deploy: Damage an enemy unit by 2. Power changed from 1 to 3.
• Slave Infantry power changed from 5 to 4. Provision cost changed from 7 to 5.

Syndicate

• Bloody Good Fun profit changed from 3 to 4.
• Congregation provision cost changed from 6 to 5.
• Eventide Plunder profit changed from 3 to 4.
• Keeper of the Flame tooltip tweaked to better reflect its ability.
• Novigradian Justice provision cost changed from 11 to 12.

Game Fixes

• Outdated voiceovers introduced in previous patch have been fixed, missing postprocess for several characters has been added.
• Fixed an issue whereby Regis: Bloodlust could target allied units with his ability.
• Numerous tooltip fixes and improvements.

 

[CorruptedSIime]

Good job on continuous replacing unique abilities with generic ones.

 

[InkognitoXI]

Amazing, based on the impact of Iron Judgement we might just stay in the horrible Fran Tier 0.5 state.
If the expansion does not change everything, well ...
Let us just hope the new expansion majorly powercreeps the entire game to the point of that not being the sorry state the game could end in ... which I have doubts about.
Based on the fact that Poison does not even care about armor one might say Fran actually got buffed overall, rather than nerfed.
Now why were the Tier 0 Foltest and Igor combo nerfed and not just buffed instead ?

Apart from that I like a lot of changes to non-toxic decks, especially the Avallach rework.
It looks like I need to gather a few scraps to craft him (finally an actual reason to play offensive weather again (outside of Greatswords)).

 

[4RM3D]

Casual matches will now unlock at rank 25

^ Lot of players are going to be happy about this.

 

[Javis99]

portal dont changed?

 

[Imm0rtaleflame]

Okay cool. I'll definitely play again.

I ask myself questions though.
why Master of Disguise? An unique high value bronze card. You cold make tier 3 deck out of it... Usurper is stronger
Slave Hunter, another card you could put in the deck and wait for an opportunity. He could do 9+ for 5prov and win the game. He wasn't autoinclude. (they said the reason for change, he wasn't seeing much play) You could play those 2 cards using Create, with a bit of luck, to have the jackpot winning fun, maybe. I don't like this change. Will it make Assimilate more upper tier2-ish or tier 1?
I can't see how Avalach was limiting as he wasn't even played by now, but okay I'll trust game designers on that.
----
The Bug Spawn Guy looks like the most overplayed sy card in the game right now.
Morkvark (and other today revealed golds too) really cool card.

I love Defenders. I suppose you can lock them... So smells like Usurper lock tier1 meta being played by 60% of players. I didn't read patch notes tho, just the video.

 

[KenLBlack]

^ Lot of players are going to be happy about this.

Agreed. I originally didn't think this would be a big deal when they changed it last patch to rank 7, but to my surprise there were many times I wanted to try a new deck out on casual first....even with the realization that one can't go down a rank. (You may not go down a rank, but you can lose pieces of the portrait in a rank, so trying something on casual is important!)

 

[Battlebop]

For a second you where getting my hopes up that you where reviving witchers when i was reading the changes to eskel but no, looks like all of the witcher cards will forever stay unplayable anyways i love the majority of the balancing you have done but please show witchers some love!

After all its called GWENT: the witcher card game

 

[Pacifixer]

No nerfs to ST??? I smell disaster!

 

[InkognitoXI]

No nerfs to ST??? I smell disaster!

Enough that some could claim they did not do absolutely nothing about them ... although the changes do not amount to anything noteworthy, not even a little.

 

[The911Punk]

Enough that some could claim they did not do absolutely nothing about them ... although the changes do not amount to anything noteworthy, not even a little.

-1 provision to Francesca and they expect it to fix the situation. I was expecting a change in provision cost for Waters of Brokilon, but I guess we'll have to wait two more seasons or so for them to realize it has to be changed.
They're too concerned with releasing new cards every three months, so the balancing team doesn't have enough time to test everything and make proper changes

 

[InkognitoXI]

-1 provision to Francesca and they expect it to fix the situation. I was expecting a change in provision cost for Waters of Brokilon, but I guess we'll have to wait two more seasons or so for them to realize it has to be changed.
They're too concerned with releasing new cards every three months, so the balancing team doesn't have enough time to test everything and make proper changes

Uh, you also lose 1 point on Call and 1 provision on Justice ... sooo you just replace a 6p with a 4p and mull it away and do not care any further.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

No nerfs to ST??? I smell disaster!

Mystic Echo (Francesca) lost 1 provision and 2 out of the 3 cards that were played with her were also nerved by 1. That might not be a heavy hit, but nonetheless was a nerf.

Also, with all the new cards the meta will be shaken up enough that nobody might say what exactly happens. The odds for swarm decks rising are pretty high in my opinion and I'd expect Francesca to do rather badly against those.

 

[deckard_kaine]

No nerfs to ST??? I smell disaster!

Well, Francesca got triple nerf:
- her provision bonus (- 1);
- Novigradian Justice (+1 p);
- Call of the Forest (- 1 boost).
However, these nerfs might not suffice.

 

[Pacifixer]

Mystic Echo (Francesca) lost 1 provision and 2 out of the 3 cards that were played with her were also nerved by 1. That might not be a heavy hit, but nonetheless was a nerf.

Also, with all the new cards the meta will be shaken up enough that nobody might say what exactly happens. The odds for swarm decks rising are pretty high in my opinion and I'd expect Francesca to do rather badly against those.

2 provisions and 1p boost is no nerf, it is spit in the face of those who expected the balance team to do their job.

If new cards aren't overtuned enough to completly reshape the meta, Harmony will dominate again.

 

[InkognitoXI]

Mystic Echo (Francesca) lost 1 provision and 2 out of the 3 cards that were played with her were also nerved by 1. That might not be a heavy hit, but nonetheless was a nerf.

Also, with all the new cards the meta will be shaken up enough that nobody might say what exactly happens. The odds for swarm decks rising are pretty high in my opinion and I'd expect Francesca to do rather badly against those.

Except that Francesca kind of swarms herself and poison only gets better with armor not stopping it.
The only good nerf to Fran is that I do not have to see that skin as often, just the ability (and honestly there is no skin that I dislike as much as Fran's leader skin and her movements).

 

[deckard_kaine]

Good job on continuous replacing unique abilities with generic ones.

Well, I guess Master of Disguise...

[puts on shades]

... disguised himself as a Garkain.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

Except that Francesca kind of swarms herself and poison only gets better with armor not stopping it.
The only good nerf to Fran is that I do not have to see that skin as often, just the ability (and honestly there is no skin that I dislike as much as Fran's leader skin and her movements).

Not except, that is exactly the point of it. With more swarm decks, people will include more anti swarm cards, which will definetly hurt Francesca.
And poison is only worth it, if it can kill a large target. But if the enemy has a lot of small cards or engines poison will become useless and Francescas damage cards might not get through the enemy armor.

And additionally if Defenders work as I expect them, they will counter poison pretty hard. As soon as the enemy uses poison on a card, play a defender on the same row and the second poison effect can't be applied to the old target anymore and you need 2 more poison cards to kill the defender first.

 

[InkognitoXI]

Not except, that is exactly the point of it. With more swarm decks, people will include more anti swarm cards, which will definetly hurt Francesca.
And poison is only worth it, if it can kill a large target. But if the enemy has a lot of small cards or engines poison will become useless and Francescas damage cards might not get through the enemy armor.

And additionally if Defenders work as I expect them, they will counter poison pretty hard. As soon as the enemy uses poison on a card, play a defender on the same row and the second poison effect can't be applied to the old target anymore and you need 2 more poison cards to kill the defender first.

Poison cards are so overstated that killing a 2-3 is already breaking even though.
Defenders are large targets for Poison, of course Defenders add the potential that players that picked up the game 4 hours ago can easily be outplayed, but Fran is straightforward enough to make up for that in most other cases anyways.
If you hold your defender simply so you can potentially get the opponent to waste one of their practically free poison charges you are already doing something wrong.
The only exception is the Fisstech addict, given that his spawns are actually very small and float into a decent amount of coins (and the opponent has to deal with both first).

Edit: There is also all the new Dwarf support, which Fran can abuse with double Novigradian Justice, which already obsoletes all other ST leaders for that type of deck.

 

[DRK3]

"Casual matches will now unlock at rank 25"

Im surprised they annouced this so... casually, not even a mention on the dev stream, only a small note on patch notes.

It's a huge deal, there were several threads about it last month. And they've gone from one extreme to the other, rank 25 i think its reached in the blink of an eye, i would expect something more in between like rank 15.