Dear Developers of Gwent,
I have some ideas for making the game mechanics of Gwent more balanced - it involves revising existing cards' abilities/effects to allow for more balanced gameplay between factions. The biggest issue with the current game is its lopsided favoritism of certain factions due to the inherent nature of specific cards and leader abilities which allow for better field swarming and spawning, and/or which introduce leader-locking, hand-locking, and hand/deck buffing, thereby undermining the balance of play unilaterally (think playing Northern Realms vs. Nilfgaard's "Cultists" with its "Prophet"...the game is practically un-winnable in just about every situation due to NR's reliance on Orders, making play restrictive and unsatisfying for many NR players). Instead of focusing on introducing new cards to re-establish game balance, it would be far more cost- and time-efficient to simply edit the card descriptions of each faction's 1-12 power unit cards (and a couple Special cards) to ensure each faction has the following:
1. A 1-power/12-provision round-winning point-swing unit (deck limit of 1 - think "Geralt of Rivia", except instead of limiting its ability to destroying another card of 9+ power, it just destroys another unit card, period, or gains +3 power for every card on the opponent's field with the additional ability of gaining Immunity and Veil if the boosted amount is more than 12 - that way, it doesn't end up being a brick during play, and/or can counter a field-swarm if you end up with a bad hand with no swarming capability - it also cannot be countered by a simple 4-5 provision reset card if the boosted amount is over 12, making it viable for play - the caveats would be that it can't be used to destroy artifacts, locations, or scenarios, and that it cannot gain or benefit from any additional statuses...it would be a good idea to remove "Immunity" as a status for all other cards in the game to be safe),
2. A 4-power/4-provision unit (deck limit of 2) which boosts one other unit of the same faction by 3 points (2 is too little, and boosts of 4+ power often come at the cost of the card's provision level being significantly higher, restricting deck building options for players...it's best to make things simple by having a low-cost unit of 4-power having the ability to boost an ally of the same faction by 3 - enough to ensure the survival of a card in most cases, but not enough that it gives a completely unfair advantage, and the boost cannot be used on Neutral cards, restricting the benefits to faction-friendly units),
3. An 8-power/8-provision unit (deck limit of 1) which allows the user to draw one card from the deck in exchange for discarding a card from hand (this helps with players who end up with a weak hand during a round, but ensures they get enough points from the play to justify having the card in deck - unlike the "Traveling Merchant", which is too weak power-wise to justify in most cases, and unlike other similar cards which grant the opponent the ability to draw a card at the same time, thereby negating the advantage - think "Thaler" in NR),
4. A 3-power/4-provision unit (deck limit of 2) with a Deploy ability to spawn a copy of itself onto the field which has an Order to repeat the Deploy ability once per turn and to Infuse subsequent copies with the same Order (this helps players to set up for a field-swarm, gaining an immediate +6 points on their side of the board, but also gives their opponent time to respond before they can activate the first Order ability - other cards which rely on boosts or deploy abilities to activate a field swarm are either too expensive to succeed or too fast for opponents to react to in most situations, making them inherently unfair - in addition, the unit's limited power of 3 means that even if the entire row is filled with spawned units, the total amount is not enough to guarantee a Round win - with that said...in order to make this viable, the game's "Zeal" mechanic should be done away with completely in favor of "Deploy" and "Order"....Zeal cards are currently too expensive provision-wise to justify playing for some play styles, and practically no different from Deploy in most cases. This applies to relevant leader abilities, as well. Zeal would be an unfair mechanic to retain with this unit. Every faction should have the potential to swarm the field, but that doesn't mean one faction should have more of an advantage over another - that would defeat the whole purpose),
5. A 6-provision Special card (deck limit of 1) that Purifies an enemy unit and Damages it by 7 (this will help with shutting down enemy field swarms and dealing with boosted units with dangerous abilities),
6. Limit ALL factions' leader ability options to the following: a.) Boost a unit by 1 (Cooldown: 1), b.) Boost a unit by 6, c.) Lock an enemy unit, d.) Spawn a 1-power Token per Round and give it Doomed, e.) Damage a unit by 1 (Cooldown: 1), and f.) Damage a unit by 6. (There is absolutely no justifiable reason to have leaders that can lock an opponent's hand and/or leader ability, boost the units in your own hand/deck, interfere with an opponent's deck, or that can instigate an unbeatable field-swarm that an opponent simply cannot respond to - these mechanics are inherently unfair and need to be done away with once and for all.)
7. A 5-power/5-provision unit with a Deploy ability to Damage an enemy unit by 4 (this will help players to keep field swarms in check, as well as counter boost strategies that rely heavily on stacking up tall units. To be frank, units that only do 2 damage are practically worthless in today's meta, and units that do 3 damage are still too restrictive due to their high provision costs. Having a 5-provision card that can do 4 points of damage is ideal for most play styles in today's Gwent.)
8. Restrict ALL deck provision limits to 162.
9. Reduce the provision cost of all Scenarios to 12.
and, finally...
10. Give every current Gwent player 800 meteorite powder for the inconvenience of dealing with a broken game for the past two years. LOL
I know this was a long post, so thanks for reading - despite all my criticisms of the game, I still think Gwent is the most awesome card game out there. Keep it up, you awesome OG's of Gwent!
I have some ideas for making the game mechanics of Gwent more balanced - it involves revising existing cards' abilities/effects to allow for more balanced gameplay between factions. The biggest issue with the current game is its lopsided favoritism of certain factions due to the inherent nature of specific cards and leader abilities which allow for better field swarming and spawning, and/or which introduce leader-locking, hand-locking, and hand/deck buffing, thereby undermining the balance of play unilaterally (think playing Northern Realms vs. Nilfgaard's "Cultists" with its "Prophet"...the game is practically un-winnable in just about every situation due to NR's reliance on Orders, making play restrictive and unsatisfying for many NR players). Instead of focusing on introducing new cards to re-establish game balance, it would be far more cost- and time-efficient to simply edit the card descriptions of each faction's 1-12 power unit cards (and a couple Special cards) to ensure each faction has the following:
1. A 1-power/12-provision round-winning point-swing unit (deck limit of 1 - think "Geralt of Rivia", except instead of limiting its ability to destroying another card of 9+ power, it just destroys another unit card, period, or gains +3 power for every card on the opponent's field with the additional ability of gaining Immunity and Veil if the boosted amount is more than 12 - that way, it doesn't end up being a brick during play, and/or can counter a field-swarm if you end up with a bad hand with no swarming capability - it also cannot be countered by a simple 4-5 provision reset card if the boosted amount is over 12, making it viable for play - the caveats would be that it can't be used to destroy artifacts, locations, or scenarios, and that it cannot gain or benefit from any additional statuses...it would be a good idea to remove "Immunity" as a status for all other cards in the game to be safe),
2. A 4-power/4-provision unit (deck limit of 2) which boosts one other unit of the same faction by 3 points (2 is too little, and boosts of 4+ power often come at the cost of the card's provision level being significantly higher, restricting deck building options for players...it's best to make things simple by having a low-cost unit of 4-power having the ability to boost an ally of the same faction by 3 - enough to ensure the survival of a card in most cases, but not enough that it gives a completely unfair advantage, and the boost cannot be used on Neutral cards, restricting the benefits to faction-friendly units),
3. An 8-power/8-provision unit (deck limit of 1) which allows the user to draw one card from the deck in exchange for discarding a card from hand (this helps with players who end up with a weak hand during a round, but ensures they get enough points from the play to justify having the card in deck - unlike the "Traveling Merchant", which is too weak power-wise to justify in most cases, and unlike other similar cards which grant the opponent the ability to draw a card at the same time, thereby negating the advantage - think "Thaler" in NR),
4. A 3-power/4-provision unit (deck limit of 2) with a Deploy ability to spawn a copy of itself onto the field which has an Order to repeat the Deploy ability once per turn and to Infuse subsequent copies with the same Order (this helps players to set up for a field-swarm, gaining an immediate +6 points on their side of the board, but also gives their opponent time to respond before they can activate the first Order ability - other cards which rely on boosts or deploy abilities to activate a field swarm are either too expensive to succeed or too fast for opponents to react to in most situations, making them inherently unfair - in addition, the unit's limited power of 3 means that even if the entire row is filled with spawned units, the total amount is not enough to guarantee a Round win - with that said...in order to make this viable, the game's "Zeal" mechanic should be done away with completely in favor of "Deploy" and "Order"....Zeal cards are currently too expensive provision-wise to justify playing for some play styles, and practically no different from Deploy in most cases. This applies to relevant leader abilities, as well. Zeal would be an unfair mechanic to retain with this unit. Every faction should have the potential to swarm the field, but that doesn't mean one faction should have more of an advantage over another - that would defeat the whole purpose),
5. A 6-provision Special card (deck limit of 1) that Purifies an enemy unit and Damages it by 7 (this will help with shutting down enemy field swarms and dealing with boosted units with dangerous abilities),
6. Limit ALL factions' leader ability options to the following: a.) Boost a unit by 1 (Cooldown: 1), b.) Boost a unit by 6, c.) Lock an enemy unit, d.) Spawn a 1-power Token per Round and give it Doomed, e.) Damage a unit by 1 (Cooldown: 1), and f.) Damage a unit by 6. (There is absolutely no justifiable reason to have leaders that can lock an opponent's hand and/or leader ability, boost the units in your own hand/deck, interfere with an opponent's deck, or that can instigate an unbeatable field-swarm that an opponent simply cannot respond to - these mechanics are inherently unfair and need to be done away with once and for all.)
7. A 5-power/5-provision unit with a Deploy ability to Damage an enemy unit by 4 (this will help players to keep field swarms in check, as well as counter boost strategies that rely heavily on stacking up tall units. To be frank, units that only do 2 damage are practically worthless in today's meta, and units that do 3 damage are still too restrictive due to their high provision costs. Having a 5-provision card that can do 4 points of damage is ideal for most play styles in today's Gwent.)
8. Restrict ALL deck provision limits to 162.
9. Reduce the provision cost of all Scenarios to 12.
and, finally...
10. Give every current Gwent player 800 meteorite powder for the inconvenience of dealing with a broken game for the past two years. LOL
I know this was a long post, so thanks for reading - despite all my criticisms of the game, I still think Gwent is the most awesome card game out there. Keep it up, you awesome OG's of Gwent!