Gwent full faction guide
Hey all, I know there are a bunch of tips & tricks guides for gwent, but I haven’t really seen any specific strategy guides for factions other than the north. So, me being in love with gwent, I decided to do a little write-up of my strategies, which could help newbies, and even give veterans some new insights. Note that I’m not going to give lessons in basics, you should know the workings of spies, medics, weather, etc. already. But advanced strategies for blowing the AI out of the water and getting you through the many, many card games are detailed here.
Enjoy the read!
Know thy enemy
First of all, you’re playing against an AI. Unless the REDs release a patch which allows us to play against each other (doubtful), don’t expect smart strategies from your opponent. They have several ‘attack patterns’ which they follow. A couple of things I noticed are summed up below, coupled with a bunch of counter strategies which everyone should know:
- They’ll abuse spies as much as they can: They’ll even trap your spies with decoys and medic earlier spies back to health. They’ll usually also play them in the first round, though this is not a guarantee.
Counter: Well, you should be doing this too. You’ll notice below that all of my decks have 3 decoys. This is simply because decoy is probably the most useful special card of all, but also to allow you to take whatever spy they throw at you (not mysterious elf) and use them against them. This is especially needed for the monster and scoia’tael factions, as they do not have spies themselves (though scoia’tael do have a ton of medics, which they could also possibly sanction to re-use spies in the later rounds, but these are also used for other strategies so… not advised).
- They’ll try to win the first round, but won’t try too hard: A game of Gwent has you needing to win 2 out of 3 rounds. Thus, you can pretty much be sure the AI will try to win the first round, and it’ll improvise the next rounds with its remaining cards. The AI will give up once it thinks it has used too much cards.
Counter: Two ways to go about playing the first round. Try making it waste as many cards as possible (especially horns and weather cards, see further) in the first round. Then give up the first round (this is the preferred tactic with northern).
Second is win the first round, but try it using only your hero cards. Hero cards are basically untouchable, meaning that in actuality, it is also a ‘skip your turn’ card. You’ll have placed a card and gained some flat numerical value without risk of losing it, but you’ll also have done nothing tactical, which, after a few turns, forces the enemy to start revealing his tactics before you have to start doing it (due to card shortage). It’s always better to wait a while before exposing your tactic, otherwise the AI may fuck it up with a well placed weather or scorch card. Also, using your heroes in the first round means you’ll have plenty of tactical versatility (muster, agile, …) in the next (this is the preferred tactic for monster and scoia’tael).
Note that for nilfgaard, you can go either way. You can send out your spies and throw the first round, or you can use your normal attack cards (NOT heroes!!) to win the first round, and revive them in the second round with your medics.
- You can lure out their weather cards: Weather cards can be annoying, but they don’t have to be. AI will usually play weather cards if they have them, of the value of your row for which they have a card reaches around 10.
Counter: So a good way to find out if they do is to place a few losable cards on each row. Good thing is, once they’re played, they’re played and over and done with. Northern doesn’t have to care about weather, because of the awesome clear weather specialty of foltest (note to only use this ability at the END of your turn and wait out all played weather cards…). And once their weather card have been played, you’ve got free game. Same goes for nilfgaard, although they need a clear weather card for it. Playing weather strategies with nilfgaard is too much of a hassle to do it. Might as well just go for clear weather every time. The monster faction needs to worry about biting frost. Maybe. Monsters are mainly close combat. But they are also really good at controlling the weather due to the leader ability. Stick a clear weather card (and another of each type) in your deck to pull out any weather you like at any point in the game. A really powerful ability and good for shutting the enemy down rapidly. Embrace the weather play if you’re playing monsters and only use clear weather on frost if you’re mustering. Otherwise shut the enemy down in the second round with weather of your choice once he’s out of (clear?) weather cards. Scoia’tael are the masters of weather. Any card the enemy plays should play to your advantage do to both the combination of weather and agile placement, and weather and scorch. Scorching works wonders on enemies reduced to 1 point due to weather. Villentrettenmerth and the scoia’tael leader’s scorch ability are great at this. Note that you can keep replaying villentrettenmerth with medics and decoys… Seriously my favorite card of all.
- They’re really dumb at bond, muster and horns: Jup, they are. They don’t really grasp the concept of bond, or their decks don’t often allow it to fully reach its peak. And then they’ll horn them anyway. Often in the first round. Same goes for muster. They’ll often muster in the first round, which is stupid because muster is a really powerful skill, but it’s a one-shot ability, because you can’t muster cards from your discard pile. So if they start throwing muster enemies around in the first round and place a horn on them, just let them and throw the round. It’ll make it impossible for them to have enough remaining cards to win the third round. And any horn they place in the first round, just let them be. At least you’re safe from horns for the next rounds. One-shot abilities like muster, horn and sometimes bond are counter-productive if used in the first round because they leave you in a too weakened state for later rounds, especially if you’re sporting a non-spy faction. Don’t make this mistake yourself.
- They’re actually pretty good (or lucky…) at scorching and messing up your strategy: So you’re building up your bonds or mustering all you can find and suddenly? Scorch. Well… ok? One of their card for three or more of yours. Damn. A situation you find yourself in often enough when playing the better decks.
Counter: Always start your building of a strategy thinking a scorch could come at any time. This means that, if say you want to get your three striped commando’s (4) out, don’t just put them out in plain sight first. No, first throw out e.g. a Vesimir (6), then place one of your commandos. Then continue to try to do other things part of your strategy like placing a horn or playing weather, and only place your remaining striped commandos at the end. This way, when they scorch, they’ll only take away your one higher value - though not as valuable – card, instead of a full series of bonded horned cards. Weather can actually help here… If a weather card is in place, just go ahead and place your bonded cards. They’ll be rather weak, then surprise the enemy at the end with a clear weather!
The same goes for muster. Although, sometimes a built-in fail-safe system exists. Eg, when you muster crones, they all have the same unsafe value of 6, which means they can easily be scorched all at once. However, vampires and arachases (Arachi? Arachas’s?... Them filthy vile spider equivalents.) all have one leading enemy higher than the rest of the muster group, protecting them. If possible, keep the crones for last.
- They’re really bad at decoys: They only use them to capture and re-use spies.
Counter: Don’t forget that you can use them for the same purpose, but as well for re-using medics (not muster…), villentrettenmerth, dandelion (through medics). But also, if you’ve seen you won the round because the enemy passed, and you have way too many points lying on the field, get some back through decoys.
- They have bad decks: Don’t confuse with bad cards, because that isn’t true. They often will have very advanced cards like ciri or ‘mysterious elf’, which you have to go through hell for to obtain. They won’t be shy about playing these advanced cards either, especially villentrettenmerth. That said, as AI’s aren’t well versed in (advanced) tactics, they often don’t really make the most of their decks. And they often have cannon fodder with them as well. If you see a ‘poor fucking infantry’ card or a muster card that doesn’t muster, you’ll already have won. So in that regard, expect a scorch from a scoia’tael deck, but don’t expect three. Expect a weather card, but don’t expect weather cards to be played 2 rounds. Expect hero cards, but don’t expect all of them. That just isn’t happening. Also, the NPC’s often have huge decks with way too may cards for them to actually draw a good one. That’s no good. It’s better to stay around the 22-card minimum and do with the minimum of special cards for your strategy, otherwise you’ll never draw any useful cards in the beginning, and no matter how good your strategy, you’ll not have the cards to execute it.
Well, that’s it for basic strategies which apply to all factions. At this point, you should be ready to win most things, but since we do not just want to win and there is no such thing as overkill, we will be taking a closer look at deck building strategies for maximum effectiveness.
Northern realms:
Leader ability: Clear weather
Special:
Scorch x 2, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 2
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h, Triss
Faction:
Hero: Roche, Natalis, Thyssen, Philippa
Spy : Thaler, Dijkstra, Stennis
Medic: Dunn banner Medic
Bonds: Catapult x 2, Reavers x 3, Commando x 3
Strategy:
This is both a very focused and very general deck. If you want to win at Gwent against the AI, choose northern. You’ll start with this deck, and the core of the deck (spies and bonds) is easily obtainable in game. As you progress through the game, continue to replace your suckier cards with the cards described above. Get the reaver cards, spies, war horns and decoys asap.
PS: I like Triss in this deck because I like Triss. You can leave her out for maximum efficiency, she’s too low a value of hero card to be useful, sadly.
Starting hand: Simple, get as much spies as possible, and at least one decoy.
I think the northern strategy is pretty well known by now (see also various tricks in the know thy enemy disquisition). Use spies to get the card advantage and don’t give a crap about weather because of the leader’s ability (you COULD add another clear weather card, but honestly, that’s a wasted card in 95% of the games). Throwing the first round is usually the smart thing to do. Try wasting as much of the enemy’s potential in the first round. Scorch while your bonds aren’t up yet (the scorch cards aren’t necessary, but they are fun and very destructive if used with proper timing).
The name of the game is biding your time and gaining the card advantage.
Nilfgaard:
Leader ability: Draw from opponent's discard pile
Special:
Clear weather x 2, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 3
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h
Faction:
Hero: Coehorn
Spy: Shilard, Skellen, Rideuax
Medic: Archer support x 2, Siege support
Bond: Young emissary x 2, Impera brigade x 4
Normal: Black infantry archer x 2, Zerrikanian heavy fire scorpion
Strategy:
If you want to hear your opponent whimper because you just keep pulling cards out of your ass no matter what they do, go nilfgaard. Nilfgaard is similar to northern, but has a few key differences.
Starting hand: Same as northern, as many spies as possible with at least one decoy.
The main strategy is the same as northern: gain the card advantage.
Different though, is that nilfgaard has a bunch (5 in total!) of medics, which allows you to recover cards more easily. This means you can be less afraid of scorch, which is a good thing, as your main points will come from 10-value cards with commander horns which are vulnerable to scorch. People might say: well, I think northern bonded cards are better! Well, maybe, but you still need the luck of having the bonded cards in your hand, whereas for nilfgaard, each of the three 10-value cards can be horned to 20 on their own. And the nilfs have bonds too, albeit worse ones. Also, the 10-value cards can be medic’d back on their own and be instantly good again.
Another difference is that their spies are worse (higher values) but honestly, that’s not really going to make the difference in the long run. And if you’re lucky, the AI will play your spy against you and you’ll actually still get some value from it through a horn. I advise doing that, and medic-ing them back later instead of using a decoy on them.
Also, you’ll need clear weather cards instead of having foltest’s leader ability, but that’s not really a problem considering the awesome ability you gain in return. Draw a card from the opponents discard pile. Any card, be that medic, spy, morale, agile, villentrettenmerth, whatever. Any special ability is yours for the taking. It. Is. Awesome.
Also, I have an additional commander horn in the special cards instead of scorches. The reason I don’t have scorches is because you’re more likely to hurt yourself than the other guy (since you use 10-value cards with horns as a main attack). And an extra horn to be sure that you can always place a horn on your 10’s.
You’ll notice that I have little heroes. That’s because I like to stay near the 22-mark, and the idea is to be able to medic and horn your cards, which isn’t possible for heroes.
Play your 10-cards in the first round already because you can just bring them back with medics in the second (and third?) round anyway. This’ll allow you to get a win in the first round while still leaving plenty of options open for round 2. Round 2 then just go all out. Even if you don’t win, the AI will probably need all the cards he’s got, allowing for a draw in the third round due to card shortages, which nilfgaard wins.
Monsters:
Leader ability: Pick any weather
special:
Clear weather, Biting frost, Torrential rain, Impenetrable fog, Decoy x 2, Commander's horn x 2, Scorch
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h, Triss
Faction:
Hero: Draug, Kayran, Imlerith, Leshen
Muster: Arachas x 4, Vampire x 5, Crone x 3
Strategy :
Ahh, monsters… fun to use, sure but… to no avail. When you start playing gwent, this is actually the hardest faction to play against (in my humble opinion) due to the muster. But in reality, it is the faction with the greatest weaknesses… It is vulnerable to scorch, weather and is not able to reach scores of points as reliably as other factions.
Starting hand: Try to get a muster card of each family in your hand (toss any duplicates!!!!), a decoy or two, a weather card, a horn and some heroes (avvalac’h).
The problem is that muster is a one-shot deal. After using it, you can’t use it againand since other factions are able to reach higher point peaks more easily and reliably, you’ll probably win the first round with monsters, but have too few cards left to win the rest of the rounds.
Let’s fix that, shall we?
I feel that the monster faction was MADE for weather. First of all, because the leader ability of choosing your weather at any time is glorious. Time this right and the opponent loses all his carefully built up points. Second, most of your strength comes from close combat, meaning you can use all the torrential rain and impenetrable fog you want. And, even IF you use biting frost on yourself, you can use agile kayran morale and commander horn to still get some points out of it. So don’t be afraid of weather, embrace it. Also, always use horn (and morale, if possible) on your mustered enemies, and if possible, protect them with a higher scorchable card (so that your mustered cards don’t all get wiped out at once…). You’ll also have noticed that I took all the heroes possible. Which is also beneficial for weather play.
I also added 1 scorch. Simply because you just NEED one if them northern bastards start the whole bond thing.
This faction also has only 2 decoys, and is the only one which I allow that for. Why? Because they themselves don’t need it. The decoys are purely for capturing spies used against you (which yennefer can be used for too btw). Monsters don’t have medics or spies themselves, and thus require less tactics of that nature.
So what’s the attack plan? Win the first round as cheaply as possible. Simple enough. Use your weather cards in the first round, and use whatever heroes you’ve got. Don’t use musters unless necessary. Capture any spies used against you, and replace them with an added biting frost. You’ll also need to win the second round, because you won’t have enough cards for a third. In the second, just go all out.
Scoia'tael:
Leader ability: Scorch siege units
Special:
Scorch x 3, biting frost, Impenetrable fog, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 2
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h
Faction:
Hero : Ethné, Saskia, Iorveth
Morale: Isengrim, Milva
Medic: Havekar healer x 3
Muster: Havekar smuggler x 3
Agile: Dol Blathanna scout x 3, Yaevinn, Filavandrell, Barclay Els
Strategy:
This was really difficult to find a working strategy for, because the abilities of the cards seem to be all over the place… Until I saw this being used against me. If you like making your opponent go ‘oh come on!’, this is your deck. You’ll basically be playing guerilla style, which I think is a good fit for scoia’tael
Starting hand: A muster, scorches, weather, medics and whatever else agile/morale/hero you can find.
You’re basically going to run interference the whole match. Anything high the opponent throws at you, scorch it. You’ve got 3 scorch cards, villentrettenmerth and your leader ability. As explained before, if used in unison with weather (setting values to 1), scorch can be devastating. Afterwards, use your agiles for an easy win over the leftovers. The key for scorch is timing. So play out a couple of heroes or something to bide time and gain a few points until the enemy has made its move and then scorch’m to oblivion.
In round one, just like monsters, use weather and scorch to burn the enemy. Use weather-eluding and time-buying cards yourself. In the second round recover any agiles and spies the other guy used with medics/decoys. Use all your remaining offensive in the second round, because there won’t be a third.
Scoia’tael is a difficult faction to win with in comparison to others, but strategically very satisfying to do so.
And That’s it. I hope you enjoyed the read and that you take some Gwent tips out of it, and I hope to play you all online some day J
Cheers!
Hey all, I know there are a bunch of tips & tricks guides for gwent, but I haven’t really seen any specific strategy guides for factions other than the north. So, me being in love with gwent, I decided to do a little write-up of my strategies, which could help newbies, and even give veterans some new insights. Note that I’m not going to give lessons in basics, you should know the workings of spies, medics, weather, etc. already. But advanced strategies for blowing the AI out of the water and getting you through the many, many card games are detailed here.
Enjoy the read!
Know thy enemy
First of all, you’re playing against an AI. Unless the REDs release a patch which allows us to play against each other (doubtful), don’t expect smart strategies from your opponent. They have several ‘attack patterns’ which they follow. A couple of things I noticed are summed up below, coupled with a bunch of counter strategies which everyone should know:
- They’ll abuse spies as much as they can: They’ll even trap your spies with decoys and medic earlier spies back to health. They’ll usually also play them in the first round, though this is not a guarantee.
Counter: Well, you should be doing this too. You’ll notice below that all of my decks have 3 decoys. This is simply because decoy is probably the most useful special card of all, but also to allow you to take whatever spy they throw at you (not mysterious elf) and use them against them. This is especially needed for the monster and scoia’tael factions, as they do not have spies themselves (though scoia’tael do have a ton of medics, which they could also possibly sanction to re-use spies in the later rounds, but these are also used for other strategies so… not advised).
- They’ll try to win the first round, but won’t try too hard: A game of Gwent has you needing to win 2 out of 3 rounds. Thus, you can pretty much be sure the AI will try to win the first round, and it’ll improvise the next rounds with its remaining cards. The AI will give up once it thinks it has used too much cards.
Counter: Two ways to go about playing the first round. Try making it waste as many cards as possible (especially horns and weather cards, see further) in the first round. Then give up the first round (this is the preferred tactic with northern).
Second is win the first round, but try it using only your hero cards. Hero cards are basically untouchable, meaning that in actuality, it is also a ‘skip your turn’ card. You’ll have placed a card and gained some flat numerical value without risk of losing it, but you’ll also have done nothing tactical, which, after a few turns, forces the enemy to start revealing his tactics before you have to start doing it (due to card shortage). It’s always better to wait a while before exposing your tactic, otherwise the AI may fuck it up with a well placed weather or scorch card. Also, using your heroes in the first round means you’ll have plenty of tactical versatility (muster, agile, …) in the next (this is the preferred tactic for monster and scoia’tael).
Note that for nilfgaard, you can go either way. You can send out your spies and throw the first round, or you can use your normal attack cards (NOT heroes!!) to win the first round, and revive them in the second round with your medics.
- You can lure out their weather cards: Weather cards can be annoying, but they don’t have to be. AI will usually play weather cards if they have them, of the value of your row for which they have a card reaches around 10.
Counter: So a good way to find out if they do is to place a few losable cards on each row. Good thing is, once they’re played, they’re played and over and done with. Northern doesn’t have to care about weather, because of the awesome clear weather specialty of foltest (note to only use this ability at the END of your turn and wait out all played weather cards…). And once their weather card have been played, you’ve got free game. Same goes for nilfgaard, although they need a clear weather card for it. Playing weather strategies with nilfgaard is too much of a hassle to do it. Might as well just go for clear weather every time. The monster faction needs to worry about biting frost. Maybe. Monsters are mainly close combat. But they are also really good at controlling the weather due to the leader ability. Stick a clear weather card (and another of each type) in your deck to pull out any weather you like at any point in the game. A really powerful ability and good for shutting the enemy down rapidly. Embrace the weather play if you’re playing monsters and only use clear weather on frost if you’re mustering. Otherwise shut the enemy down in the second round with weather of your choice once he’s out of (clear?) weather cards. Scoia’tael are the masters of weather. Any card the enemy plays should play to your advantage do to both the combination of weather and agile placement, and weather and scorch. Scorching works wonders on enemies reduced to 1 point due to weather. Villentrettenmerth and the scoia’tael leader’s scorch ability are great at this. Note that you can keep replaying villentrettenmerth with medics and decoys… Seriously my favorite card of all.
- They’re really dumb at bond, muster and horns: Jup, they are. They don’t really grasp the concept of bond, or their decks don’t often allow it to fully reach its peak. And then they’ll horn them anyway. Often in the first round. Same goes for muster. They’ll often muster in the first round, which is stupid because muster is a really powerful skill, but it’s a one-shot ability, because you can’t muster cards from your discard pile. So if they start throwing muster enemies around in the first round and place a horn on them, just let them and throw the round. It’ll make it impossible for them to have enough remaining cards to win the third round. And any horn they place in the first round, just let them be. At least you’re safe from horns for the next rounds. One-shot abilities like muster, horn and sometimes bond are counter-productive if used in the first round because they leave you in a too weakened state for later rounds, especially if you’re sporting a non-spy faction. Don’t make this mistake yourself.
- They’re actually pretty good (or lucky…) at scorching and messing up your strategy: So you’re building up your bonds or mustering all you can find and suddenly? Scorch. Well… ok? One of their card for three or more of yours. Damn. A situation you find yourself in often enough when playing the better decks.
Counter: Always start your building of a strategy thinking a scorch could come at any time. This means that, if say you want to get your three striped commando’s (4) out, don’t just put them out in plain sight first. No, first throw out e.g. a Vesimir (6), then place one of your commandos. Then continue to try to do other things part of your strategy like placing a horn or playing weather, and only place your remaining striped commandos at the end. This way, when they scorch, they’ll only take away your one higher value - though not as valuable – card, instead of a full series of bonded horned cards. Weather can actually help here… If a weather card is in place, just go ahead and place your bonded cards. They’ll be rather weak, then surprise the enemy at the end with a clear weather!
The same goes for muster. Although, sometimes a built-in fail-safe system exists. Eg, when you muster crones, they all have the same unsafe value of 6, which means they can easily be scorched all at once. However, vampires and arachases (Arachi? Arachas’s?... Them filthy vile spider equivalents.) all have one leading enemy higher than the rest of the muster group, protecting them. If possible, keep the crones for last.
- They’re really bad at decoys: They only use them to capture and re-use spies.
Counter: Don’t forget that you can use them for the same purpose, but as well for re-using medics (not muster…), villentrettenmerth, dandelion (through medics). But also, if you’ve seen you won the round because the enemy passed, and you have way too many points lying on the field, get some back through decoys.
- They have bad decks: Don’t confuse with bad cards, because that isn’t true. They often will have very advanced cards like ciri or ‘mysterious elf’, which you have to go through hell for to obtain. They won’t be shy about playing these advanced cards either, especially villentrettenmerth. That said, as AI’s aren’t well versed in (advanced) tactics, they often don’t really make the most of their decks. And they often have cannon fodder with them as well. If you see a ‘poor fucking infantry’ card or a muster card that doesn’t muster, you’ll already have won. So in that regard, expect a scorch from a scoia’tael deck, but don’t expect three. Expect a weather card, but don’t expect weather cards to be played 2 rounds. Expect hero cards, but don’t expect all of them. That just isn’t happening. Also, the NPC’s often have huge decks with way too may cards for them to actually draw a good one. That’s no good. It’s better to stay around the 22-card minimum and do with the minimum of special cards for your strategy, otherwise you’ll never draw any useful cards in the beginning, and no matter how good your strategy, you’ll not have the cards to execute it.
Well, that’s it for basic strategies which apply to all factions. At this point, you should be ready to win most things, but since we do not just want to win and there is no such thing as overkill, we will be taking a closer look at deck building strategies for maximum effectiveness.
Northern realms:
Leader ability: Clear weather
Special:
Scorch x 2, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 2
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h, Triss
Faction:
Hero: Roche, Natalis, Thyssen, Philippa
Spy : Thaler, Dijkstra, Stennis
Medic: Dunn banner Medic
Bonds: Catapult x 2, Reavers x 3, Commando x 3
Strategy:
This is both a very focused and very general deck. If you want to win at Gwent against the AI, choose northern. You’ll start with this deck, and the core of the deck (spies and bonds) is easily obtainable in game. As you progress through the game, continue to replace your suckier cards with the cards described above. Get the reaver cards, spies, war horns and decoys asap.
PS: I like Triss in this deck because I like Triss. You can leave her out for maximum efficiency, she’s too low a value of hero card to be useful, sadly.
Starting hand: Simple, get as much spies as possible, and at least one decoy.
I think the northern strategy is pretty well known by now (see also various tricks in the know thy enemy disquisition). Use spies to get the card advantage and don’t give a crap about weather because of the leader’s ability (you COULD add another clear weather card, but honestly, that’s a wasted card in 95% of the games). Throwing the first round is usually the smart thing to do. Try wasting as much of the enemy’s potential in the first round. Scorch while your bonds aren’t up yet (the scorch cards aren’t necessary, but they are fun and very destructive if used with proper timing).
The name of the game is biding your time and gaining the card advantage.
Nilfgaard:
Leader ability: Draw from opponent's discard pile
Special:
Clear weather x 2, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 3
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h
Faction:
Hero: Coehorn
Spy: Shilard, Skellen, Rideuax
Medic: Archer support x 2, Siege support
Bond: Young emissary x 2, Impera brigade x 4
Normal: Black infantry archer x 2, Zerrikanian heavy fire scorpion
Strategy:
If you want to hear your opponent whimper because you just keep pulling cards out of your ass no matter what they do, go nilfgaard. Nilfgaard is similar to northern, but has a few key differences.
Starting hand: Same as northern, as many spies as possible with at least one decoy.
The main strategy is the same as northern: gain the card advantage.
Different though, is that nilfgaard has a bunch (5 in total!) of medics, which allows you to recover cards more easily. This means you can be less afraid of scorch, which is a good thing, as your main points will come from 10-value cards with commander horns which are vulnerable to scorch. People might say: well, I think northern bonded cards are better! Well, maybe, but you still need the luck of having the bonded cards in your hand, whereas for nilfgaard, each of the three 10-value cards can be horned to 20 on their own. And the nilfs have bonds too, albeit worse ones. Also, the 10-value cards can be medic’d back on their own and be instantly good again.
Another difference is that their spies are worse (higher values) but honestly, that’s not really going to make the difference in the long run. And if you’re lucky, the AI will play your spy against you and you’ll actually still get some value from it through a horn. I advise doing that, and medic-ing them back later instead of using a decoy on them.
Also, you’ll need clear weather cards instead of having foltest’s leader ability, but that’s not really a problem considering the awesome ability you gain in return. Draw a card from the opponents discard pile. Any card, be that medic, spy, morale, agile, villentrettenmerth, whatever. Any special ability is yours for the taking. It. Is. Awesome.
Also, I have an additional commander horn in the special cards instead of scorches. The reason I don’t have scorches is because you’re more likely to hurt yourself than the other guy (since you use 10-value cards with horns as a main attack). And an extra horn to be sure that you can always place a horn on your 10’s.
You’ll notice that I have little heroes. That’s because I like to stay near the 22-mark, and the idea is to be able to medic and horn your cards, which isn’t possible for heroes.
Play your 10-cards in the first round already because you can just bring them back with medics in the second (and third?) round anyway. This’ll allow you to get a win in the first round while still leaving plenty of options open for round 2. Round 2 then just go all out. Even if you don’t win, the AI will probably need all the cards he’s got, allowing for a draw in the third round due to card shortages, which nilfgaard wins.
Monsters:
Leader ability: Pick any weather
special:
Clear weather, Biting frost, Torrential rain, Impenetrable fog, Decoy x 2, Commander's horn x 2, Scorch
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h, Triss
Faction:
Hero: Draug, Kayran, Imlerith, Leshen
Muster: Arachas x 4, Vampire x 5, Crone x 3
Strategy :
Ahh, monsters… fun to use, sure but… to no avail. When you start playing gwent, this is actually the hardest faction to play against (in my humble opinion) due to the muster. But in reality, it is the faction with the greatest weaknesses… It is vulnerable to scorch, weather and is not able to reach scores of points as reliably as other factions.
Starting hand: Try to get a muster card of each family in your hand (toss any duplicates!!!!), a decoy or two, a weather card, a horn and some heroes (avvalac’h).
The problem is that muster is a one-shot deal. After using it, you can’t use it againand since other factions are able to reach higher point peaks more easily and reliably, you’ll probably win the first round with monsters, but have too few cards left to win the rest of the rounds.
Let’s fix that, shall we?
I feel that the monster faction was MADE for weather. First of all, because the leader ability of choosing your weather at any time is glorious. Time this right and the opponent loses all his carefully built up points. Second, most of your strength comes from close combat, meaning you can use all the torrential rain and impenetrable fog you want. And, even IF you use biting frost on yourself, you can use agile kayran morale and commander horn to still get some points out of it. So don’t be afraid of weather, embrace it. Also, always use horn (and morale, if possible) on your mustered enemies, and if possible, protect them with a higher scorchable card (so that your mustered cards don’t all get wiped out at once…). You’ll also have noticed that I took all the heroes possible. Which is also beneficial for weather play.
I also added 1 scorch. Simply because you just NEED one if them northern bastards start the whole bond thing.
This faction also has only 2 decoys, and is the only one which I allow that for. Why? Because they themselves don’t need it. The decoys are purely for capturing spies used against you (which yennefer can be used for too btw). Monsters don’t have medics or spies themselves, and thus require less tactics of that nature.
So what’s the attack plan? Win the first round as cheaply as possible. Simple enough. Use your weather cards in the first round, and use whatever heroes you’ve got. Don’t use musters unless necessary. Capture any spies used against you, and replace them with an added biting frost. You’ll also need to win the second round, because you won’t have enough cards for a third. In the second, just go all out.
Scoia'tael:
Leader ability: Scorch siege units
Special:
Scorch x 3, biting frost, Impenetrable fog, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 2
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, Villentrettenmerth, Avvalac'h
Faction:
Hero : Ethné, Saskia, Iorveth
Morale: Isengrim, Milva
Medic: Havekar healer x 3
Muster: Havekar smuggler x 3
Agile: Dol Blathanna scout x 3, Yaevinn, Filavandrell, Barclay Els
Strategy:
This was really difficult to find a working strategy for, because the abilities of the cards seem to be all over the place… Until I saw this being used against me. If you like making your opponent go ‘oh come on!’, this is your deck. You’ll basically be playing guerilla style, which I think is a good fit for scoia’tael
Starting hand: A muster, scorches, weather, medics and whatever else agile/morale/hero you can find.
You’re basically going to run interference the whole match. Anything high the opponent throws at you, scorch it. You’ve got 3 scorch cards, villentrettenmerth and your leader ability. As explained before, if used in unison with weather (setting values to 1), scorch can be devastating. Afterwards, use your agiles for an easy win over the leftovers. The key for scorch is timing. So play out a couple of heroes or something to bide time and gain a few points until the enemy has made its move and then scorch’m to oblivion.
In round one, just like monsters, use weather and scorch to burn the enemy. Use weather-eluding and time-buying cards yourself. In the second round recover any agiles and spies the other guy used with medics/decoys. Use all your remaining offensive in the second round, because there won’t be a third.
Scoia’tael is a difficult faction to win with in comparison to others, but strategically very satisfying to do so.
And That’s it. I hope you enjoyed the read and that you take some Gwent tips out of it, and I hope to play you all online some day J
Cheers!
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