I am too not agree on this as I thought every deck is having there own unique features. As monster draws cards from deck NR, NE having spy, medics to counter that part as well well played weather cards are good too.
I am too not agree on this as I thought every deck is having there own unique features. As monster draws cards from deck NR, NE having spy, medics to counter that part as well well played weather cards are good too.
The "removing cards you can't get" logic is flawed, since the original probability assessment is based on 17 independent card draws, and if you precondition with the fact that you already got some in the first round, it's no longer the same situation. As for 125% probability, well that's some bizarre quantum entanglement stuff I guess, since it's not possible otherwise
I think what we can do is this. Discounting the spies you have 20 unit cards and 12 specials. Then you draw 10-2+4+1 = 13 cards. If we split them in the proportion 20:12, on average you'll get 8.175 unit cards and 4.875 special cards, so 8:5. We can try different combinations of the remaining special cards. Note, however, that with 8 out of 20 cards there's just a 40% probability of getting the dragon. You get 50 only with a 3-10 split.
Well, since it's passive, I don't really "use" it. But statistically it's most likely that a 4pt aracha will remain.
Admitting the truth isn't "being magnanimous". I just watched the High Stakes video posted above, and every single round in it conformed with my assumption.
I use my ability and take a 5pt spy from my discarded pile.
Oops I did make a mistake. I forgot that if I go that route I have to calculate all other chances and then add those up to determine the real probability.
So getting 1 scorch type card in 5 tries out of 18 possible cards = 76.63%
And using the absolute worst calculation of 3 scorch cards (no dragon) in a deck of 24 in 5 tries still yields 52% chance which is greater than what he had.
So we are both wrong in our initial calculations. And a 76.63% chance means I should have a scorch card.
More like: after an infinite amount of games you should find that you had a scorch card in 76,63% of the cases. :troll:
But if I am not getting that second siege reaver card then you can't count it as a possibility. You already said I did not get that card.
Yea I corrected that.As for 125% probability, well that's some bizarre quantum entanglement stuff I guess, since it's not possible otherwise
I don't draw -2 cards for the spy. The cards in my deck go down by one. I draw ten cards. I get 4 more from the deck for the two spies and one more for winning the round. That is 15. I guess it's your turn on making a math error.
Do you have to play something? I never got that monster leader card so never seen how it's played. I looked online but no explanation on if you must still lay down some card or not.
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No more like in this one game I have a 76.63% chance of a scorch card and only a 23.37% I don't. So what is more likely?
It still doesn't prevent you from having no scorch card 10 games or 100 games in a row.
But you are pre-supposing that you get a reaver and catapult, and a medic (apparently) in the initial hand, which is not a given and combined together makes it a pretty unlikely situation. In those 5 cards, if you have 3 reavers to pull from, and we limit it to the cases where the only prohibited option is having all 3, we only remove one possible combination out of 8. I admit that it does increase your chances of getting a special card, but not as dramatically as you think.
We do know that you have 2 spies though. So the only "free" cards are the other 13 (let's forget for a minute that you presupposed a certain distribution of them). What I should have done though is to remove the "prohibited" 2 spies from the rest of the pile, making it a 18:12 split. It's different from what you said about removing cards, since you really need those 2 spies, and reavers and catapults are interchangeable, so it's not necessary for you to only consider cases where you get 1 catapult and 2 reavers.
That said, I don't actually mind if you prefer a 4-9 split.
Nope, that's the cool thing about it.
Hello.. Gwent is indeed beautiful game & its addicted too..
So which card set is your favorite & what Basic / Special / Hero & Foltest card you like it most ?
1] Northern Realms Deck
2] Nilfgaardian Empire Deck
3] Scoia’tael Deck
4] Monster Deck
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I am not much into the game yet as I am waiting for Big Patch 1.07 So my choice from what i have...
Set Name - Northern Realms Deck
Foltest Card - Lord Commander Of The North [ Clear Weather Power ]
Basic Card - Dun Banner Medic
Hero Card - Don't Have Any
Special Card - Decoy
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P.S. You may post your strategies too
Nilfgaard fraction. Most powerful due to card draw options, imho.
Disclaimer: I play the german version so every card is translated by me and I do not know the enlish names, please forgive me
My tactcic is to use and reuse card drawing features.
Current deck (still changing and most of the time I adapt to my opponent so it varies everytime):
Leader - Emhyr emperor of Nilfgaard (currently), Later Emhyr the ruthless
Special cards - 1x Good weather, 2x Biting Cold, 1x Dense Fog, 1x Pouring Rain, 2x Decoy, 2x Horn of The Commander, 1x Burn
Hero Cards - Yennefer, Letho, Morvran, Menno, Tibor
Siege Cards - 1x Support, 1x Heavy Firescorpion
Ranged Cards - 2x Heavy Infantry Archer, 2x Archer
Melee Cards - Vezemir, Zoltan, Stefan Skellen, Vattier De Rideaux, Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, 4x Impera Brigade
There will still be more changes.
Strategy:
I play Stefan, Shilard etc. at once. Then I try to win time by using control cards like cold or fog etc. usually I play cold to dump down his units to value 1, then play a hero card. If the setup is perfect he only got melee cards (monster decks!) and then I burn all his cards at once. But this was possible only 2x, usually the AI is smart enough to put 1 card of higher value than the other ones in a row, which is unaffected by a weather card.
Monster decks tend to play vampires imemdiately and Enrinagas, which then block your mass burn by that crab spider siege card or the ordinary value 5 vampire card. The AI usually followws with the crone in round 2. I want to exploit that habit by winning time with controlling units, reusing cards by reviving them or play special cards liek commander horns, even if that is something I usually like to keep till I got my strongest cards out, but well, monster decks rush you with units then use leader ability for commander hiorn or play it directly. And somehow they ALWAYS got 2 burns ready for important cards.
Anyways monster decks aren't that smart in general, Scoi'a Tel and Foltest decks are tougher. For example, monster decks play those 3 sisters with the skull symbol even if you do not have units they could destroy. If that happens I hope I can destroy them instead to draw them by leader ability and use them against my opponent. Again very awesome if I got cold on the field and he swarmed you already with vampires and endrinagas.
In general you want to buy time so your opponent depletes his hand and you can win round 2 and 3 easily. Foltest decks are smarter. They use the exact same strategy I do and it happend that the first moves were shifting draw features to the other field by reusing them witch decoy, till everybody got a 14 to 15 card hand.
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If I reaaaaallly want to win always, I just go northern realms, as I'm most comfortable with those, and the tactics are varied and simple.
But I kind of like the nilfgaard faction better. Draw a card from the opponent's discard pile? yes please! 20 billion medics? Yes please! Ridiculous amounts of spies! Ahhhh yeahhhh. Knee-destroying archers? Huzzah! Overall bad-ass characters? you bet!
Monster deck is fun too! Here comes the horde! But not as effective as tight bond.
And I can't seem to figure out the scoiatel deck, really. Dunno what to do there. I don't touch 'm.
But I kind of like the nilfgaard faction better. Draw a card from the opponent's discard pile? yes please! 20 billion medics? Yes please! Ridiculous amounts of spies! Ahhhh yeahhhh. Knee-destroying archers? Huzzah! Overall bad-ass characters? you bet!
Monster deck is fun too! Here comes the horde! But not as effective as tight bond.
And I can't seem to figure out the scoiatel deck, really. Dunno what to do there. I don't touch 'm.
You know how hard I tried to remember that word? Thank you for naming it and help my rusty TCG brain^^.
I failed with Scoi'a Tel most of the time, because I am used to drawing cards and having card advantage. I suppose one way to deal with the opponent was to use low value cards intentionally (and use hero cards with support icon to increase other cards by 1) and use card destroyers which then won't affect you. But I haven't tested this tactic so far. And I somehow cannot use the tons of healer cards to their max.potential since the best cards in Scoi'a Tel are hero cards and thus unaffected by anything.
What I do as Scoi'a Tel is using cards which can be put either in melee rank or ranged rank to evade weather cards like cold. But in general, I'd really like to have more card controlling variety and more burns and such. Since the AI is using more than one copy of some of the hero cards. Monster decks played 2x Draugs and 2x that Kraken type monster in 1 round.
We need to have the freedom to build a fully customized deck ;P.
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What really ? I think you should keep weather card specially Frost one its really useful against almost every deck. I mentioning Frost coz when you play spy cards most of the times AI is passing or try to get more points in 1st row with more melee cards & horn & this time Frost card is key to your easy victory.
I am keeping 2 Frost, 1 Fog, 3 Decoy, 2 Horn, 2 Scotch
Fog is more useful only against Scoia’tael so you can switch it for 1 More Scotch if you want. Trust me weather cards are game turning cards if you play it properly & that's why I love NR Deck with Clear weather Foltest as I don't have to keep any Clear weather card as well I am always safe against weathers
LSAT (Cringe). Not nearly as bad as the bar exam ...but an awful day none the less. I hope it went well for you. Good advice on Gwent. Most of the points I wanted to make have now been covered. Thus, you shall receive redpoints.
My "best" deck:
Northern realms
Foltest the siegemaster
All Hero cards ( ones cant be affected by weather).
Vesemir
Villantretenmerth
All Seige units apart from except for kaewdweni seiege experts.
All spies
A scorch
A impenetrable fog.
Breezes through even the gwent tournament without having to pick specific cards for different factions.
Northern realms
Foltest the siegemaster
All Hero cards ( ones cant be affected by weather).
Vesemir
Villantretenmerth
All Seige units apart from except for kaewdweni seiege experts.
All spies
A scorch
A impenetrable fog.
Breezes through even the gwent tournament without having to pick specific cards for different factions.
I've posted htis in another thread buuuuuut...
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.
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 3
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, 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, Biting Frost, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 2
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.
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 3
Neutral:
Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, 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, Biting Frost, Decoy x 3, Commander's horn x 2
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!