I know I am late to the discussion but I just want to add if anyone's still reading, the winter update has really changed Gwent a lot. I used to not care about it but the more I think about, the more I realize how Gwent has changed to the point it is pretty much unplayable to newcomers.Seen from an experienced player with a large card pool, the less randomness, the better, is true. But new/casual players will stop playing if a game is to skill intensive and if a game can only retain the most skilled players it will slowly die.
I have been playing a couple of weeks now, and the first week I was climbing the ladder, but now I'm stock at level 9, meeting decks that have good synergies while mine are just beefed up stater decks. I don't mind loosing games, I understand that I'm new at this game, but not being able to complete daily quests is frustrating.
I fear that @Metales1949 are right that it is gg for Gwent when the next expansion for Hearthstone comes out, and I don't want to invest either money nor time building a collection thinking that.
I started playing Gwent around October last year and started with Eredin frost starter deck. I was lucky to get Iris and Jotunn in first few kegs so built a deck of that archetype with what I could muster and reached rank 19, then milled all cards and built a Brouver weather movement once got beaten badly by such deck and reached rank 20 the first season. Back then rank 20 was at 4250 mmr. And I got Ivoreth avatar that season for reaching rank 20. Felt rewarded and felt good.
Now, with the current state of the game, none of the starter decks are remotely close to being playable. All the viable and popular decks are expensive to build. It seems like the only option for a newcomer is to look up a GM deck and mill all cards to build one if he/she wants to rank high. I hope CDPR is taking notes on what cards should be included for a starter deck to encourage newcomers to play and improve.
Edit: I miss those weather decks.
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