9.0 Patch Notes

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Patch 9.0 marks the release of our newest expansion "Once upon a Pyre", but while it definitely steals the spotlight, there are some other changes and improvements coming to the game.

One of them is a widely requested feature to be able to change the look of the "Play" card in the Main Menu, another important one is making the game faster by progressing, even if some visual effects were played and didn't finish yet.

Additionally our developers have a couple of words to say on the topic of new balance changes, and share some insight. Read on that and more in detail below.

Developer comment: First and foremost the main event of this patch is obviously the release of the first expansion of the Price of Power set. To that purpose, we've made a bunch of small changes and adjustments to support it.

The other big event is the long awaited Northern Realms rework! We've decided to move away from design of giving Charges to the profit of the less restrictive and more flexible Cooldown mechanic. Charges as a mechanic stays in the game but from now as a self-contained one.

As a side topic, we keep giving attention to leader abilities to increase the diversity and to give them more identity.
Changes
  • Unranked Standard Mode matches are now shown under Training Mode.
  • Gameplay speed has been improved by decoupling logic and visuals (The game will no longer wait for all card visuals to finish before proceeding further).
  • Search bars no longer require the cursor to hover over them in order to be responsive.
Neutral
Torrential Rain: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Biting Frost: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Impenetrable Fog: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Avallac'h: Sage: Power changed from 1 to 2.

Provisions changed from 11 to 10.

Avallac'h: Power changed from 4 to 6.

Vaedermakar has a new part of ability:

"If you control Scepter of Storms, increase or decrease durations by 3 instead."

Scepter of Storms: Provisions changed from 6 to 5.

Francis Bedlam: Added Bandit category.

Vigo's Muzzle: Added Spell category.

Commander's Horn: Added Warfare category.

Provisions changed from 9 to 8.

Merigold's Hailstorm: Provisions changed from 9 to 8.

Germain Piquant has a new part of ability:

"Order: Spawn a Cow.

Cooldown: 3."
Monsters
Ghoul: Power changed from 2 to 1.

Provisions changed from 6 to 5.

Endrega Larva: Power changed from 1 to 2.

Provisions changed from 5 to 6.

Brewess: Power changed from 5 to 6.

Ability changed to:

"Zeal.

Order: Consume an allied unit.

Charge: 1.

Increase the number of charges by 1 whenever you play a Crone."

Whispess: Power changed from 5 to 6.

Weavess: Power changed from 5 to 6.

Fruits of Ysgith: Provisions changed from 11 to 12.

Kayran: Ability changed to:

"Immunity. Deploy: Consume 3 allied units."

Penitent: Ability changed to:

"Thrive.

Deathwish: Summon a random 7-cost from your deck to this row."
Skellige
Rage of the Sea: Provisions changed from 13 to 14.

Mardroeme: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Sigrdrifa's Rite: Provisions changed from 9 to 8.

Bear Abomination: Added Cultist category.

Hammond: Added Cultist category.

Armored Drakkar: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Eist Tuirseach: Provisions changed from 11 to 12.
Northern Realms
Stockpile: Provisions changed from 17 to 15.

Ability changed to:

"Order: Reduce the Cooldown of 3 adjacent Northern Realms units by 1 and Spawn a Volunteer to their row.

Charge: 3."

Priscilla: Power changed from 5 to 6.

Ability changed to:

"Zeal.

Order: Heal an allied unit by 4 and reset its Cooldown.

Inspired: Boost an allied unit by 4 and reset its Cooldown."

Dandelion: Provisions changed from 8 to 9.

Ability changed to:

"Order: Boost a unit in your deck by 2.

Cooldown: 2

Inspired: At the end of your turn, boost the top unit in your deck by 1."

Damned Sorceress: Ability changed to:

"Zeal. Order: Destroy a unit's Shield then boost self by 2.

Cooldown: 2."

Reinforced Ballista: Ability changed to:

"Formation.

Order: Damage a unit by 1.

Cooldown: 1

Resupply: Reduce the Cooldown by 1."

Hubert Rejk: Provisions changed from 7 to 8.

Ability changed to:

"Whenever you use an order ability while this card is in your deck, remove a counter from it. When counter reaches 0, summon this card from your deck to your Ranged row.

Counter: 10"

Winch: Ability changed to:

"Boost an allied unit by 5 and reduce its Cooldown by 3."

Cintrian Envoy: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Ability changed to:

"Formation.

Order: Look at 3 random cards from your deck and move 1 to the top.

Cooldown: 2."

Foltest's Pride: Power changed from 6 to 5.

Armor changed from 0 to 1.

Ability changed to:

"Zeal.

Order: Damage an enemy unit by 2 and units adjacent to it by 1.

Cooldown: 4

Crew: Set Cooldown to 2."

Cintrian Spellweaver: Ability changed to:

"Order: Damage a unit by 1. Charge: 1.

Gain 1 Charge whenever you play a Mage or a Spell."

Aretuza Adept: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Ability changed to:

"Whenever you trigger Patience, boost self by 1."

Nenneke: Power changed from 4 to 5.

Shani: Provisions changed from 9 to 10.

Ability changed to:

"Zeal.

Order: Summon a bronze Human unit from your graveyard and give it Doomed.

Cooldown: 7."

Thaler: Power changed from 5 to 6.

Ability changed to:

"Formation.

Order: If neither player has passed and your opponent's hand is not full, both players draw a card."

Siege Support: Ability changed to:

"Deploy (Melee): Reduce Cooldown of an allied unit by 1

Deploy (Ranged): Boost an allied unit by 1.

Order: Give an allied unit Zeal."

Battering Ram: Ability changed to:

"Deploy, Crew: Gain Zeal.

Order (Melee): Move self to the Ranged row.

Order (Ranged): Move self to the Melee row, then damage the highest enemy unit by 3.

Cooldown: 2"

War Elephant has a new part of ability:

"Cooldown: 6."

Ves has a new part of ability:

"Cooldown: 3."

Bombardment: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Síle de Tansarville: Provisions changed from 7 to 6.

Runeword: Provisions changed from 4 to 6.

Ability changed to:

"Create and play a Bronze Northern Realm mage and give it Shield."
Scoia'tael
Sage: Name changed to Elven Scribe.

Provisions changed from 6 to 4.

Ability changed to:

"Remove a Counter whenever you play a Special card.

Counter: 3

When the Counter reaches 0, boost self by 6."

Farseer is now a Mage.

Boost changed from 2 to 3.
Nilfgaard
Imposter: Ability changed to:

Order: Lock an enemy unit, then Spawn its base copy in the opposite row and boost it by the number of enemy units with a status on the Locked unit's row.

Courier: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Viper Witcher Adept: Power changed from 3 to 4.

Magne Division has a new part of ability:

Bonded: At the end of your turn, boost self by 1 instead.

Fringilla Vigo now also counts Constructs in addition to Mages.

Provisions changed from 8 to 7.

Anna Henrietta is now Ranged locked.

Developer comment: The point of this change is to allow players to choose to use it or not, similarly to Lippy.
Syndicate
Jackpot has a new part of ability:

Whenever an allied unit gives you Coins, boost it by any excess amount gained.

Passiflora Peaches: Provisions changed from 5 to 4.

Professor: Provisions changed from 11 to 12.
New Features
  • Three new trees in the Reward Book connected to the Expansion.
  • The "Play" card in the main menu now shows the favourite card chosen in the player profile.
  • New expansion "Once upon a Pyre" introducing 26 cards to the game.
Game Fixes
  • Fixed a rare issue where a match could end with a Draw after playing Selective Mutation.
  • Fixed a visual issue where after purchasing Fast Travel the total number of Reward Points displayed could be inflated.
  • Saskia's Elven Deadeye ability will now correctly target Immune units with random damage.
  • Whispess, Weavess and Brewess will now show correct values in the Deck Builder.
  • The Berserk multi-step contract will no longer progress incorrectly with Drummond Queensguard.
  • Coral will now draw first and discard second as announced in the 8.5 Patch Notes.
  • Snowdrop will now prevent players from clicking the Order ability if they have more than 8 cards.
  • Allied units affected by Salamander's Poison ability will no longer boost Thirsty Dame.
 
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Thank you so much to the CDPR. I really appreciate that the update note includes the old value, too.

Wow, there are at least 2 nerfs which didn't cover in yesterday Developer Note -- Eist and Professor were nerfed by 1 provision.
 
Gwent oneiromancy heatwave witcher cardgame.
No changes.
Cooldown: 1 game.

Seriously, Eist and Professor now weaker?????? Really???
Is this a bad joke or what?
 

zargez

Forum regular
Even with just these changes it would be interesting to make new decks. However, as past has shown so many times, balancing and creating balanced new cards isn't exactly the strong suit, so is there going to be blacklisting? Players, factions, leaders, cards - anything will do. Even if it's just for casual, since it just takes too long to first wait 1 - 2+ minutes just to see that it's Nilfgaard, traps or some [...] deck you were not interested in playing in the slightest.

It's just not pretty out there.
 

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This is one of the best patch note I've seen in a very long time, not that it's perfect, but still it is right on track.
I can already see the rich meta incoming.
 
Also consider the changes to be really great. However, I will definitely miss my Dandelion + Vyso + Redanian Archer power charge/boost deck.
A little bit disappointed that the body of Guardian was not reduced to one. So the two new NG bronzes are too autoinclude.
 
Changes and buffs for NG are just sad.

NG playing its only viable wincon? Must nerf it million times to force players to try something else, and there is no need to bother to encourage them in other ways.
SK warriors sitting on top for more than a year? It's ok. Let's just buff other SK archetypes.
 
Why the Larva nerf??? Sure the numbers on it are nutty for a 5p card, but it's a build-around card! It forces you to play lots of units instead of a mix of units and specials! Come on, that's really lame.
 
Why the Larva nerf??? Sure the numbers on it are nutty for a 5p card, but it's a build-around card! It forces you to play lots of units instead of a mix of units and specials! Come on, that's really lame.
To be fair, Larva now costs 1p more, however gets the first trigger for free, making it a lot better in shorter rounds (in a 3 card round 3 it is still worth 8 for 6).
 
I think the Magne Division change is pretty cool.

Some of those nerfs listed (Eist, Professor, and Larva) are deserved, but SK and SY would have deserved more imo, based on what I've seen.

I don't like the weather buffs and pushing weather as a mechanic. I still hate weather, and probably always will hate weather, because of what it used to be years ago -- especially since there is literally no way to get rid of it anymore. Not even positive row effects that could overwrite a negative one.
 
FOR DEVS:
1. Masquerade ball needs to progress with Joachim and Roderick, just limit progression 1 per turn.
2. Between Nithral, Pavko, Rayla, Huitr and Philippe van Moorlehem... SY and NG motors have one single leader ability to get protected against 5p removal.
3. Rience+Rico=15 prov, too many cost for a combo that depends on what rival play.

NR and the others changes are great. Thank you.
 
Finally, some improvements to how animations are handled. Inability to queue the next action until the current animation is finished has bothered me all the time.
 
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"Sigrdrifa's Rife: Provisions changed from 9 to 8." and "Armored Drakkar: Provisions changed from 5 to 4." Meanwhile Farseer is still a meme lol.
In the last 6 months, I don't remember a single person complain these cards were too weak (they were PERFECTLY BALANCED) and now they get buffed... But I guess since they're now making 4 prov cards play for 10 points and 5 prov playing for 10+ points we will have to wait for the next 16 months for all other cards in the card pool to be buffed into this new set of standards (and then they will add 4 prov cards who play for 25+ points and then again the process goes into a loop)... If the game lives that long.
Too bad, I wanted to get that "Mage of the Conclave" tittle in the season of Magic but with these abysmal anti-balance changes (by this I don't mean just the stuff I mentioned above but the entire update as a whole...) I don't think it's happening.
:sleep:
 
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rrc

Forum veteran
So, no one is going to talk about the elephant in the room? Which is how pathetic the epic ST card is? Vanadain is an absolute trash without a rework on Waylay. Why would you want to add two potentially 3 point play in your hand replacing any cards? If Vanadain is locked or removed the two Waylay can very well play for just 6 points in total. Even if Vanadain survives, the Waylay are going to play for guaranteed 6 and conditionally 9. So, in worst and most probably case, you play for 6+3+3 in three turns and in best case 6+9+9; and even the best case is just not worth the risk. it is a super high risk for a minimal reward.

But at least Vanadain will have company from the Cat Witcher Saboteur and stay in the ditch/pit.
 
Thaler: Power changed from 5 to 6.

Ability changed to:

"Formation.

Order: If neither player has passed and your opponent's hand is not full, both players draw a card."

Really? Who possible play that card in not a meme deck?

Isbel of Hagge has almost the same ability, but you can choose the card both players drawed and you dont have the " If neither player has passed" condition. And even this, its only playable in mill decks, and, even in mill decks, a lot of players doenst use that card.

So, in a NR deck, where doenst have mill arhtetype, i cant see people playing that.

I know, i know, someone will say if i draw a card the round will be bigger and some cooldown will trigger. Ok, for 1 provision more i can use mata hurri and its better

the thing is, thaler was almost not played by players, and they change his hability to something even worse. Why? Just change the thaler to "order - decrease the cooldowwn of a unit, charge 3".

Thats the same it was, not playable but doenst change the card to something not playable
 
Why would you want to add two potentially 3 point play in your hand replacing any cards?
Maybe if you just really want to boost your melee Vernossiel (or finishing Isengrim) or get rid of Aeliren that you drew on the last round.
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Order: If neither player has passed and your opponent's hand is not full, both players draw a card."

Really? Who possible play that card in not a meme deck?
If you put the right card on top of your deck and boost it with Dandelion a couple of times. maybe it will make at least some sense?

for 1 provision more i can use mata hurri and its better
Thaler doesn't break devotion.
 
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