I mostly liked what I saw.
The 3D leaders looked a lot better than in the first video and in particular Filandravel looks great and absolutly fitting.
And I have to admit that it really feels like Homecoming to Gwent in Witcher 3, with the leaders standing at the side of the board, instead of being placed onto it, which was nice for a couple of leaders but felt weird for quite a lot of them. From what I have seen it feels much more like the leader is the one who commands the forces on the board.
And the whole new board looks pretty great.
As I said, I really like Filandravel and his character is presented exactly as I would imagine him, but Eithne doesn't look that much like Eithne and more like a generic Dryad. And the bow doesn't look like what I expect a Dryad bow to look like at all. Her current design without any direct weapon fits her a lot better to be honest.
The graphic effects all seem cool.
This time we have seen quite a few interesting cards:
- Milaen has a row dependent ability but the effect isn't that interesting, so I hope there will be more interesting ones.
- Pavko Gale just deals 1 damage every turn (except on the first one) to a selectable target, which is makes him a pretty standard engine
- Manticore venom damages 3 apparently choosable cards by 4, which seems pretty strong and not that interesting, but it is a neutral card
- The effect of the Vrihedd Dragoon was moved to the Hawker Smuggler, which confirms that handbuff will still be a part of ST, and I guess that now all Hawkers will be the ones working with handbuff, while Vrihedd will get their own common theme.
- The Blue Mountain Commando got more or less the effect from the panther, but a lot more constricted which leads to the assumption that ST will rely quite a lot on removal
- The Panther is also really restricted and needs either a fitting target or some setup
- Half-Elf hunter became an engine too and requires unrevealed traps on the row, which makes revealing a trap at the right time much more important
- Yennefer has basically the same effect but instead of the player having to choose manually the specific effect, it will be decided by row placement which feels a lot smoother.
While the shown cards seem to be a bit bland at first glance, they are pretty interesting, if you look closer.
We saw a lot of engines, including a gold (silver) one, which ST doesn't have currently. And of the none engine bronze cards, most have some pretty high requirements, which force the player to set up the board in the right way and which allows counterplay.
So, all in all it was a really good video and made me a lot more optimistic than the first one.