Howdy, I recently started playing gwent and I am wondering how I should be spending the resources the game gives me. For card crafting I can just check what the meta is once i have a large enough collection, but what I am really interested in is which card kegs I should be buying. So far I focused solely on Monster Kegs, but I know next to nothing about how luck and expansions factor into card opening.
Lately I have been finding more and more duplicates and my questions would be:
-What number of unique cards would be optimal to stop at? From previous experience, opening packs just hoping for epics or legendaries is a wasteful tactic, should I stop once I have every rare card in a faction?
-Do faction kegs contain cards from all expansions?
-If they do, is there absolutely no point for a new player to be buying non-faction kegs?
-What do I use the green dust for apart from making cards look pretty?
-Do you get your money back for cards that get nerfed?
-Is there a particularly favored strategy that has a low cost, yet high success rate I should be gravitating towards?
Thanks in advance.
By buying faction kegs (focusing on one or two factions you like), you will more quickly be able to generate quality decks using that faction. But you will never acquire neutral cards beyond those that come in the starter decks. On the other hand, by buying ultimate kegs, you will get fewer duplicate epic and legendary cards. You are correct that ultimately, you will use scraps to acquire most legendary cards because of the infrequency that they appear in kegs. However, every duplicate becomes one more card to purchase with scraps.
Faction decks do contain cards from all expansions; but that doesn’t make ultimate kegs irrelevant. I think you are correct to switch factions after getting all rare cards — at least until you get a good sized bronze collection.
As to your question about low cost strategy, no top tier deck is particularly cheap, but there are very competitive decks that are cheap — using a variety of strategies. I would look for bronze cards that have high but achievable ceilings and build around them: monster swarm with bone talismans; NR boost with Lyrian Scythemen; NG assimilate with duchess’ informants, imperial informants, and experimental remedy; NG with viper witcher mentors; SK with many high return bronze units are only a few examples.
Of course, you will want gold units in your deck as well. Long term, you will reach a complete collection using fewest scraps if you wait to buy cards with scraps until you have enough scraps to complete your collection (this gives fewest duplicates from kegs). But this is a very slow process and requires building your deck around cards you own — many of which will not be ideal. And weak decks make earning rewards slower.
Most people therefore use scraps to craft decks. I strongly advise avoiding complete crafting of the latest meta deck. The meta changes with every release of new cards. Rather, choose good core cards that you expect to be useful in a variety of decks. A card like Oneiromancy is always going to be good. Yghern and/or Ozzrel are useful across monster archetypes and different metas. On the other hand, Viy is highly specialized, still a possible target for a further nerf, and very likely to eventually be power crept. Keltullis is an interesting and very strategic card, but one that is again specialized demanding a very precise supporting cast. It may be more enduring than Viy, but is still very restrictive — and hard to pilot. It is fine to pick a meta deck as a model, but I would only craft those cards that I think will remain useful if the meta changes, and find substitutes for others.
So, if I want to play monsters and I look at team leviathan gaming’s latest meta list, I see 3 monster decks: Arachas Swarm, Carapace, and Viy.
Viy totally revolves around the one card, Viy, which I do not consider a durable investment. Moreover, it demands lots of tutors. While one or two tutors could be useful, it is unlikely any other deck will ever use more than two. I would not pursue this deck.
Upon examining carapace, I notice it is a Keltullis deck. Now Keltullis is a very gimmicky and fussy card; I wouldn’t look to craft it immediately. Ciri Dash is not a bad card, but without protection, will almost always be locked or destroyed and is expensive at 10 provisions. Although she presently seems to only be used with Keltullis, she seems sound enough to be valuable in other decks — if she can be protected. Unless I can look at cards I own and see a clear way to keep her alive for the turns before she triggers (unlikely for a beginning player), I would not craft her. Maxxi is a good consistency card, but will never make or break a deck; I would not waste resources on her at this point. And I would not buy a stratagem. The advantage even a good stratagem like Crystal Skull just doesn’t offer that much improvement over tactical advantage that I would give up a good gold card for it. The other gold cards in the deck (oneiromancy, heatwave, Yghern, cave troll, ozzrel, wrath, nithral, beast, phantom, and parasite) are all useful across many decks and should be considered. But if I’m on a budget, I don’t want to craft them all. So I would look for cards that are most impactful. Oneromancy is only impactful if I have good cards to draw from my deck, so I ought to get some good cards first. A defender like cave troll is always useful, but it’s better with something to defend. Ozzrel is already owned from my starter set and Yghern plays for a lot of points. But how much do I lose if I substitute a card like Old Speartip asleep which I already own? Similarly, I might consider what removal I already own in place of parasite, heatwave, wrath. I probably would buy Nithral, Beast, and Phantom. But at this point, I realize that without the signature Keltullis card, my deck will not bear much resemblance to the meta deck — perhaps I am better off building Arachas Swarm.
So what would I do with Arachas Swarm? The theme of this deck is to generate lots of units and then to boost them — while keeping enough control to contain my opponent. And most of the spawning and boosting is done by bronze cards! So looking at gold cards, I begin with those that directly support spawning or boosting. Triss is generally used to play an extra boost or swarm card. She is expensive and inconsistent; hence not used in a lot of decks. But I have found any card that anytime I can effectively play two cards in one round, it is not bad. Triss I would not mind crafting. Whispess is similar, but summons a card you already have in deck rather than creating a new one. And while several organic cards are excellent, unfortunately, bone talisman is not organic. But organic cards are used in many decks, and it is not bad to have a tutor for them. I would probably buy only one of Triss and Whispess — which one is kind of a toss up. Yennifer of avenger berg is maybe the biggest boost card in the deck. But because she also boosts opponents, her net value is not always high. And she is very specialized, virtually useless in other decks. I would look for an alternative. Dol Dhu Lokke provides two spawn as well as another chimera — a very valuable card in this deck. And it is a card I like in lots of decks — I definitely want it. It is available in one of the way of the witcher reward trees if you prefer not to spend scraps. Finally, Arachas behemoth spawns and boosts. It seems like he is rarely used elsewhere, but even without the boosting, he plays for sufficient value to be helpful. I would buy this. I would look for reasonable substitutes for other gold cards — although buying some tall removal might be worthwhile if I don’t already have it.
This has become a very long post. I don’t know if my strategy is optimal. I offer it as an option.