So, i wanted to post on the infamous 'Gwent is uninstalled sadly' thread, but it seems to have been locked.
I didnt actually uninstall it, but i'll stop playing it for the short/medium term, maybe until the next expansion comes, around November or so.
That 'skill beats luck' tagline the game STILL uses got stuck in my mind... What they dont say is 'skill beats luck, but not metadecks'.
Took me awhile to figure this out, but one of the things i miss from Betas is not having a better winrate, but feeling i can still beat netdeckers with weirder decks, through skill and strategy.
Now decks are more streamlined but also more resilient. I'll explain with these last 2 seasons metas: Foltest and Dijkstra decks were incredibly powerful, had a higher ceiling than current meta's NG hyperthin and SC Francescas, but were easier to counter, these current decks have almost no weaknesses, it's play it safe to the extreme, not to mention extremely boring.
Finally, the game is extremely slow, most of the playerbase is terrible, including pro rank players (in gwent Betas, all pro players were at least decent). The meta is more balanced than last month? Probably yes, but at the cost of fun, since it's probably the most boring meta in HC, which makes it painfully frustrating to play.
The playerbase is dwindling(im near top 500 in rank 6, WTH?), but im not jumping ship like the masses - like i said, i will return with the new expansion, those are always exciting even if they also bring imbalance. Maybe it will be the mobile launch that saves or breaks Gwent, but i dont really have high hopes that that move will improve the game and please the current players, we'll see.
(EDIT) Forgot to mention, the decision to lock casual mode beyond rank 7 is probably the worst decision CDPR made this year, and it has some fierce competition, it's probably causing a lot of players to leave. I can play it but now the matchmaking on that mode is also worse, with also tons of metadecks.