Thankfully, @Easha has written a set of comprehensive guides about deckbuilding, how to improve pre-constructed decks and how to build decks on a budget - we are extremely happy that we can share them here with you.
But first, Easha will give you a general overview of intro decks and deckbuilding.
What is an Intro deck?
Every player receives free starter deck for each faction (excluding Syndicate, as this faction was added to the game later with the Novigrad Update) to start their Gwent journey with. While those decks are not very strong, they showcase the faction’s flavour, mechanics and playstyle.
Intro decks can bought for real money in the shop. Upon purchase, a player gets all the cards of the Intro deck added to their card collection. Think of the Intro decks as slightly more fancy versions of starter decks. They contain some more rare cards and are a little more powerful and synergistic. Nonetheless they are not out of reach for new players: As the free-to-play-progress in Gwent is very player-friendly, a player who does not invest money should be able to bring their free starter deck to this power level within short time.
The Limitations of Deckbuilding
Instead of learning how to play the original list we can move on to the improved version right away. All the improvements are made using cards from the starter decks, so you do not have to spend any resources for these adjustments and can update the list before playing your very first match with it.
All of the deck guides are merely pointers to get you started, not step-by-step-guides you have to follow. As soon as you opened a few kegs and find cards that might fit this deck, feel free to include them and slowly work your way towards your own version.
About the Author
Greetings fellow Gwenches and Gwentlemen.
My name is Easha Dustfeather, member of the Lodge of Sorceresses and co-author of the Glittering Girly Gwent Gaming blog. As author of the starter deck guides I already explained how to play the free starter decks provided to every player. With the addition of pre-constructed intro decks for sale in Shupe’s shop, I decided to write a guide for them as well, just like I did for the Syndicate starter pack deck.
It is meant for players who just started the game and decided to buy those intro decks. This guide explains how to improve and use them.
Special thanks to ohsurewalktothesun for providing the deck list links and to Mole for the opinion on Spy decks for new players.
- Intro Deck Guide Skellige
- Intro Deck Guide Northern Realms
- Intro Deck Guide Nilfgaard
- Intro Deck Guide Scoia'tael
- Intro Deck Monster
- Guide to Budget Deck Building
But first, Easha will give you a general overview of intro decks and deckbuilding.
What is an Intro deck?
Every player receives free starter deck for each faction (excluding Syndicate, as this faction was added to the game later with the Novigrad Update) to start their Gwent journey with. While those decks are not very strong, they showcase the faction’s flavour, mechanics and playstyle.
Intro decks can bought for real money in the shop. Upon purchase, a player gets all the cards of the Intro deck added to their card collection. Think of the Intro decks as slightly more fancy versions of starter decks. They contain some more rare cards and are a little more powerful and synergistic. Nonetheless they are not out of reach for new players: As the free-to-play-progress in Gwent is very player-friendly, a player who does not invest money should be able to bring their free starter deck to this power level within short time.
The Limitations of Deckbuilding
- Every deck in Gwent is based on a faction-specific ability. The rest of a deck consists of cards of the ability's faction and/or neutral cardswhich are available to all decks.
- Your deck cannot have a higher provision cost than the base value of 150 and the provisions added by your ability combined. Your deck also must contain at least 25 cards and 13 units.
- You should always try to come as close as possible to the provision cost of 150 plus your ability's extra provisions because more expensive cards are usually stronger. Ideally, you will use precisely as many provisions as your leader allows you to include.
- The deck size is way less restrictive, but you usually want to use only 25 cards. This is because small decks have greater consistency. The odds of drawing a certain card in your deck is the highest if you run the minimum deck size and decreases with the more cards you add. What use is a strong card if you do not draw it? In addition, running more than 25 cards also decreases the average provision cost of each card. To fit in more cards, each of them has to be cheaper provision-wise and is thus weaker. This is another reason why you should stay at the minimum deck size of 25 cards.
Instead of learning how to play the original list we can move on to the improved version right away. All the improvements are made using cards from the starter decks, so you do not have to spend any resources for these adjustments and can update the list before playing your very first match with it.
All of the deck guides are merely pointers to get you started, not step-by-step-guides you have to follow. As soon as you opened a few kegs and find cards that might fit this deck, feel free to include them and slowly work your way towards your own version.
About the Author
Greetings fellow Gwenches and Gwentlemen.
My name is Easha Dustfeather, member of the Lodge of Sorceresses and co-author of the Glittering Girly Gwent Gaming blog. As author of the starter deck guides I already explained how to play the free starter decks provided to every player. With the addition of pre-constructed intro decks for sale in Shupe’s shop, I decided to write a guide for them as well, just like I did for the Syndicate starter pack deck.
It is meant for players who just started the game and decided to buy those intro decks. This guide explains how to improve and use them.
Special thanks to ohsurewalktothesun for providing the deck list links and to Mole for the opinion on Spy decks for new players.
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