Deck Building Guides - Overview & Introduction

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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
  • 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.
Improving the pre-constructed intro deck

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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I am a newbie to this form of Gwent (I played Witcher game Gwent and this is very different) and am really starting to struggle although I have progressed through dumb luck it seems, but half the time I don't understand how the cards are supposed to work individually or together or what half the terms mean and I can't find any easy guide or explanation of them either. It isn't that simple to pick up what they do, how they work together, why does order work sometimes and not others, why do some cards not use their 'deploy' action, where is there some kind of proper, clear explanation of all the terms on the cards because I can't find one. It means half the time I have no idea how to build a deck and how things will work together, and keep getting stomped on now that I have progressed from the very early games, I just can't seem to win no matter what I do! Please could a kindly soul explain or send me some kind of guide on all the card terms, what they mean and how they work together, I don't see how anyone could just 'pick up' how to play the game beyond a very basic, rudimentary form of play which is what I am doing now and I would like to understand and become a better player!
 
Please could a kindly soul explain or send me some kind of guide on all the card terms, what they mean and how they work together, I don't see how anyone could just 'pick up' how to play the game beyond a very basic, rudimentary form of play which is what I am doing now and I would like to understand and become a better player!

It cannot be denied that Gwent's learning curve is quite steep. It takes a lot of time to learn all the terms and rules of the game. There is a glossary for the game, but I find its usefulness in learning somewhat limited - the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If I were you, I would pick one faction you feel comfortable with and slowly learn different styles, terms and strategies. There are also many videos on YouTube that you could use to learn. Just please, please, please - steer away from Mill and Sihil.

One interesting introductory video; there are many more on YouTube:


A glossary with the explanation of all terms can be found here:

 
Thanks! I found the glossary which was quite useful as I didn't know what some of the terms meant at all, I think the game should offer definitions/meanings as a toggled setting when you play so you can check what something might do before you play a card. I have already played against opponents with Sihil which made things impossible but I don't know Mill?
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Thanks! I found the glossary which was quite useful as I didn't know what some of the terms meant at all, I think the game should offer definitions/meanings as a toggled setting when you play so you can check what something might do before you play a card. I have already played against opponents with Sihil which made things impossible but I don't know Mill?
If you right-click on a card (on PC, on mobile i think its hold the touch a few seconds on it), it will show you the card in full screen, and it includes a description of any keywords or status it has.
You can do this whether on the deckbuilder or during a match.
It wont teach you everything, but it should help out a lot in understanding the basics.
 
I have already played against opponents with Sihil which made things impossible but I don't know Mill?
Sihil totally requires certain types of decks — the right deck usually defeats Sihil easily, while other decks have no chance. To defeat Sihil, you need lots of cards that boost — ideally cards that can boost multiple units. Then, whenever an opponent plays a card that places 1 point tokens on your side, you immediately boost them.

Every time Sihil kills a unit (before your opponent uses an order) it grows in damage. So you absolutely need to shut it down before it gets to more than one or two points of damage.

If you don’t have boosts to give, your situation is pretty dire. In rare instances you can use a defender to prevent attacks on 1 power units (but usually Sihil decks carry purify cards). Some cards might allow you to ping your own units (killing the one power cards before your opponent has a chance. But these cards are not common either.

Because of the extreme match-up dependence of Sihil, many of us consider it the most poorly designed card in the game. I hope developers will deal with it soon, but so far there is no evidence that they intend to.
 
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