Hi I've been playing since Beta. This is what I think about GWENT:
This is What's Brilliant: The food cap system. Oh what an elegant solution to the the problems that so many other card games have. For example the Sihil card can single handedly win a round on its own. Even if artifact destruction is all over the meta, what's the harm of tossing it in knowing that maybe it might steal a round or two every now and then? Basically I'm saying that in a vacuum Sihil might be considered generically good, in anyone's deck. So generically good that it may have become an auto include card. Except for one thing. It costs 15 food supply from your deck. Let's stop and ponder whethe batantly overpowered or generically good Hearthstone cards such as Dr. Boom or Sylvanas Windrunner would have ever been a problem had THAT game been so clever as to implement a food supply system the way that GWENT has. Even MTG has certain rush decks and control decks that are absolutely UNBEATABLE if you pick the wrong deck to play against them with. This is because there is limitless card quality allowed when building decks. Players simply throw all their best cards into a pile and press play. In GWENT, you have to decide, much like the owner of a sports team, you have decide who your star players are going to be, and who your role players and backups are going to be. It is brillaint. It is literally the best thing about GWENT.
Beta vs Homecoming: I prefer Homecoming because in Beta, there was too much whizz bang pow poof going on from Deploy effects.Trying to guess when to use a Scorch for example just felt hopelessly imprecise. In fact too much of the time the entire game would boil down to who could draw and play all their Gold cards and who could guess when the right moment was to use their Scorch. It was too simple. All the strategy bottlenecked around Gold Cards and Scorch. HC is better in every way. It IS slower and more plodding. But this is the FIRST SET!!! These are LITERALLY the BASIC CARDS!! ANd as Basic card designs go, they are all BEAUTIFUL to look at, interesting and generally BALANCED. Remember some card games have literally given up on anything resembling balance. But GWENT is not one of those and I love it!~ These current cards are a wonderful foundation for more flashy and weird cards to be released later on down the line.
The UGLY: MTXs in this game are just terrible. CDPR you have one of the most iconic videogame characters in history, Geralt. And you've not centered any of your MTX around him, whatsoever?!?! Like, what are you thinking? ! And I've seen Geralt in a bathtub inside of OTHER games... so why the hell can't my commander be Geralt in a bathtub inside of GWENT? In fact, why can't my battlefiend skin be Yennefer's bedroom, Triss's bedroom, or the prison cell where Geralt was being interrogated? IHow about that castle where the dragon was blowing everything up?? mean, what's more SWAG than that instead of generic dreary battlefield grey, vs generic dreary battlefield brown?! I know you didn't plan on Geralt being a commander, but it's kind of silly NOT to have him as one. Same goes for Yennefer and Triss. It's downright negligent not to. IMO.
Anyway this is the most rewarding game to play. When I lose I feel like it's my own damn fault. Not RNG. Not like in Hearthstone where he who spends to most money has the most powerful deck. As a beta tester I have tons of cards. But sometimes I just win games with the most basic cards there are. Because people lexpect gold bombs, but then if that gold bomb never arrives they end up holding onto removal and counters for too long and then you can win anyway. There is a lot of other nuances that I really love about this game. The game designers are brilliant! Anyway I rate GWENT a 8/10. Only an 8 because the MTX are bad and you guys need another set featuring flashier cards. But for right now the foundation is incredibly solid. Stick with it CDPR. The quality of this game will speak for itself in the longrun.
This is What's Brilliant: The food cap system. Oh what an elegant solution to the the problems that so many other card games have. For example the Sihil card can single handedly win a round on its own. Even if artifact destruction is all over the meta, what's the harm of tossing it in knowing that maybe it might steal a round or two every now and then? Basically I'm saying that in a vacuum Sihil might be considered generically good, in anyone's deck. So generically good that it may have become an auto include card. Except for one thing. It costs 15 food supply from your deck. Let's stop and ponder whethe batantly overpowered or generically good Hearthstone cards such as Dr. Boom or Sylvanas Windrunner would have ever been a problem had THAT game been so clever as to implement a food supply system the way that GWENT has. Even MTG has certain rush decks and control decks that are absolutely UNBEATABLE if you pick the wrong deck to play against them with. This is because there is limitless card quality allowed when building decks. Players simply throw all their best cards into a pile and press play. In GWENT, you have to decide, much like the owner of a sports team, you have decide who your star players are going to be, and who your role players and backups are going to be. It is brillaint. It is literally the best thing about GWENT.
Beta vs Homecoming: I prefer Homecoming because in Beta, there was too much whizz bang pow poof going on from Deploy effects.Trying to guess when to use a Scorch for example just felt hopelessly imprecise. In fact too much of the time the entire game would boil down to who could draw and play all their Gold cards and who could guess when the right moment was to use their Scorch. It was too simple. All the strategy bottlenecked around Gold Cards and Scorch. HC is better in every way. It IS slower and more plodding. But this is the FIRST SET!!! These are LITERALLY the BASIC CARDS!! ANd as Basic card designs go, they are all BEAUTIFUL to look at, interesting and generally BALANCED. Remember some card games have literally given up on anything resembling balance. But GWENT is not one of those and I love it!~ These current cards are a wonderful foundation for more flashy and weird cards to be released later on down the line.
The UGLY: MTXs in this game are just terrible. CDPR you have one of the most iconic videogame characters in history, Geralt. And you've not centered any of your MTX around him, whatsoever?!?! Like, what are you thinking? ! And I've seen Geralt in a bathtub inside of OTHER games... so why the hell can't my commander be Geralt in a bathtub inside of GWENT? In fact, why can't my battlefiend skin be Yennefer's bedroom, Triss's bedroom, or the prison cell where Geralt was being interrogated? IHow about that castle where the dragon was blowing everything up?? mean, what's more SWAG than that instead of generic dreary battlefield grey, vs generic dreary battlefield brown?! I know you didn't plan on Geralt being a commander, but it's kind of silly NOT to have him as one. Same goes for Yennefer and Triss. It's downright negligent not to. IMO.
Anyway this is the most rewarding game to play. When I lose I feel like it's my own damn fault. Not RNG. Not like in Hearthstone where he who spends to most money has the most powerful deck. As a beta tester I have tons of cards. But sometimes I just win games with the most basic cards there are. Because people lexpect gold bombs, but then if that gold bomb never arrives they end up holding onto removal and counters for too long and then you can win anyway. There is a lot of other nuances that I really love about this game. The game designers are brilliant! Anyway I rate GWENT a 8/10. Only an 8 because the MTX are bad and you guys need another set featuring flashier cards. But for right now the foundation is incredibly solid. Stick with it CDPR. The quality of this game will speak for itself in the longrun.
