Trying Out New Factions Is heavily Discouraged

[SargonAelther]

I'm sure everyone will disagree with me, but trying out new factions seems incredibly discouraging.

The bottom blue reward page, meant for acquiring some essential cards has win conditions. Training mode pits you against masters and is thus not fit for purpose. Winning against bots and friends doesn't count as a win. Rank is account-wide rather than per faction, so while I may have ranked up with one faction, all my other factions cannot compete at this rank.

So what are my options? Buy a 100 barrels for each faction or wait about a year to get deranked back to 30?

In my opinion rank should be per-faction, not per-account. At the very least the blue starter reward page should scrap win conditions, or add either win, or play 50 times, or something.

 

[quintivarium]

I agree. Once you get beyond about rank 20, it is very hard to win with starter decks. And relying on barrels to get decent cards is very slow. And spending precious scraps outside your main faction also slows overall progress. Changing these conditions from winning to playing (even twice as many games) would be more beginner friendly (and would lessen the pressure to net deck).

 

[SargonAelther]

At this point the only other strategy to completing those blue rewards, or daily faction-specific win quests, is to play at 4AM, get matched with someone on the other side of the globe and hope that they time out. There's about 1 of 20 chance to see that happen per night.

No other reward page requires a win that I've seen, but the training reward page does. What a backwards design. I should have maxed that out when I started playing, rather then focusing on ranking up... Well now I know.

 

[uber_croupier]

I'm sure everyone will disagree with me, but trying out new factions seems incredibly discouraging.

So what are my options? Buy a 100 barrels for each faction or wait about a year to get deranked back to 30?

When I started playing Gwent, I picked SK and grinded same warrior deck until I got to like rank 10. With every few games, I was able to gain new cards to upgrade my deck, to win further. I simply did not play other factions until I could create new synergies. I never net-decked, never purchased barrels, but ranked up eventually by learning new cards played by enemies, taking notes in order to try them or to craft them.

You don't have to be playing the deck in order to understand it. You can understand them by playing against them, and use this prior knowledge for a head start, if you choose to try them in the future. So even if it feel like you're standing in one place with weaker deck, you're still learning mechanics that would otherwise stop your progress on higher ranks - you're not really wasting time, don't think about it that way.

I would suggest buying journeys, not barrels, and spending some time to investigate reward trees that are best to invest, eg. to farm scrolls for gold, like Dana Meadbh's tree, for example. If you do this wisely and grind a little, journeys and research will sufice. Don't try to play by all factions, try to choose a secondary one that you also like, and develop these two until you have ~8 gold cards(perhaps 4/5 legendaries) in each deck. If you like midrange removal decks go ST or SK, if control play NG, greed NR.

Scrap ALL cards from factions you're not playing to craft those legendaries. Might be worth checking legendaries rewards from journeys, to avoid crafting something that you will get from progressing on them.

Hope this helps.

 

[quintivarium]

I also have managed a complete collection without cash purchases. But when I began, the gradient between cards was much less — it was possible to win with suboptimal decks. I am not sure that is still true.

I would discourage ever milling cards (unless they are duplicates). In the long run, it costs more to get them back — although a higher short-term win rate might compensate.

One suggestion to consider is seasonal mode. Some, such as the current one, use no cards from the actual deck you queue. Card collection is irrelevant. Lack of familiarity with cards is a disadvantage, but nothing gets you past that than playing them.

 

[SargonAelther]

Speaking of trying new factions, there is something strange about the Syndicate starter deck. I can duplicate every other deck and then edit it, but I don't seem to own any of the starter cards? If I duplicate it, the copied deck only has 4 cards. Is that a bug or intentional? Do they not give us any Syndicate cards then?

 

[quintivarium]

Speaking of trying new factions, there is something strange about the Syndicate starter deck. I can duplicate every other deck and then edit it, but I don't seem to own any of the starter cards? If I duplicate it, the copied deck only has 4 cards. Is that a bug or intentional? Do they not give us any Syndicate cards then?

I cannot confirm this, but it would not surprise me. Syndicate is faction added in an expansion; for a long time, it did not even have a starter deck.