The Witcher 3 : wild Hunt contains an optional tease bet on called Gwent, which is tied to one of the longest and most unmanageable secondary coil quests in the plot – Collect ‘Em All .
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The Skellige Faction
Are you a veteran Gwent player looking for data on the Skellige faction introduced with Blood and Wine ? Our rake and Wine usher will help you collect it, beat it, and win with it .
This three-page article, part of our The Witcher 3 : wild Hunt guide and walkthrough, will take you through building an easy-win pack of cards and using it effectively. Page 1 covers basic Foltest pack of cards construct and use. Page 2 details some hot Gwent tactics. last, Page 3 provides some broad tips for mastering Gwent .
note that Gwent as it appears in The Witcher 3 : wild Hunt and its expansions is not the lapp as in the standalone passing, Gwent : The Witcher Card Game. If you ‘re looking for help on the latter, see our Gwent : The Witcher Card Game template .
Although The Witcher 3 has a hell of a difficulty curve, one of the most unmanageable challenges for new players is mastering Gwent .
There ‘s an in-game tutorial that will teach you the basic rules, which you can view at any fourth dimension by opening the Gwent menu in-game if you skipped through it during early missions .
so let ‘s skip a rehash of that and start with six basic tips on collecting a deck, then go on to more detailed strategies .
How to build a decent Gwent deck
- Commit to Gwent lyfe
Gwent is a deck building game, so if you want to succeed, you need to do the legwork. You need to take every opportunity to collect new cards and fill out your deck before you face tough opponents. There are missable opportunities to obtain powerful cards you can’t get anywhere else. You need to role play Geralt as a Gwent fiend, chasing NPCs across the landscape shouting “Gwent, anyone? Gwent? Gweeeeeeent?” and interrogating every merchant on the possibility of a game. Find a new town? Look for Gwent opportunities. About to leave a region? Look for Gwent opportunities. See a character with a name? Ask them about Gwent. Be unbearable. Your ultimate goal should be to collect every single Gwent card in The Witcher 3. - Buy every Gwent card you can
Some merchants will sell you Gwent cards, especially innkeepers. Check with every single merchant; if they have a store, see if they will sell you a Gwent card. One of the most vital of these is the innkeeper at White Orchard; if you haven’t got the cash, go out and fill in every question mark on your map, and rob every single house, until you can afford the cards. If you upset a merchant so you can’t buy cards from them, restart your game. This is why we maintain multiple saves, people. - Play every game of Gwent until you win
The cards you win are sometimes random, sometimes set, but every Gwent match, except some story ones, will reward you with a card. You have to win every single unique Gwent match, everywhere, to collect the whole set. Bet one gold and keep trying till you succeed – or just reload your save after a loss, if you can bear the wait. - Do the Gwent quests as soon as you can
Some of the characters included in Gwent quests can die. Play Gwent with them as soon as you possibly can, in case you carelessly off them making story decisions. Most of their cards are recoverable, but not all – and there’s at least one card that isn’t available except during one particular mission. - Don’t despair if you can’t win the tutorial match first try
Even if you buy cards and arrange your own deck, the game forces you to use set cards. It can be very hard to win. Don’t worry. Finish the match and then have another go with your customised deck. - Don’t despair if you can’t win against the Nilfgaardian Nobleman
This guy is deliberately overpowered to show you the error of your ways re: not taking Gwent seriously. He is supposed to scare you into trying harder from here on in, before you miss opportunities by being slack. If you follow my advice below you’ll get him after a few turns; just keep trying and hoping for good luck with your draw, and his draw.
With that out of the room, let ‘s talk tactics and strategies .
Foltest is dead but his legacy lives on. In Gwent. Image from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.
How to win Gwent matches with a beginner’s Northern Realms deck
There ‘s no one single way to win Gwent matches, but in the begin, there ‘s a identical simple deck you can build towards that will get you through most early matches. I call it Foltest 2 .
Foltest 2 is a Northern Realms deck that relies on the extra ability of the second Foltest Leader poster, which you can purchase from the host in White Orchard. This ability will cancel weather effects. The theme behind this build is to remove all upwind cards from your deck, except possibly one clear Weather card, to give you a much higher prospect of being cope decent attack cards, such as your cute stock of Heroes .
In the early on sections of the crippled, NPCs lean heavily on weather cards to change the naturally of battle. Building a identical fleshy fire line up of merely one calling card kind – melee, ranged, or siege – will normally cause the AI to play the match weather card to try and ruin your day. Keep build on that compass, wait for the final possible moment, then use Foltest 2 to clear the weather effect, hopefully securing your victory .
This approach relies on you being able to front at least one decent attack group so you can lure the enemy into casting a weather enchantment on it. I say one, preferably than two, because keeping two attack groups in your pass in the early stages is identical difficult – all your cards are a act crap. Which brings us to :
Stacking your Gwent deck
You only need 22 Unit cards ( including Heroes ) to play a match, plus whatever extra cards ( weather effects, Commander ‘s Horn, Scorch, Decoy ) you fancy. You can bring more, but every card you bring lowers the chances of your drawing a better one .
To elaborate : if you bring 26 cards to a peer, including four cards with low attack might, you may draw all four of those low-powered cards, when you could have had four better cards. Why would you want that ? Clear them out .
In my Foltest 2 deck, I do n’t ever carry weather cards ; that way, I never draw a useless Biting Frost when I need just one bantam attacker to win the final examination round. This happens regularly, because I have tricked the AI into using all its best cards early on by throwing a beat .
Throwing rounds
One of the most authoritative tactics to master in Gwent is throwing a round. You can afford to lose one circle if you can win the other two, and it ‘s much easier to win the other two if your adversary has used up all their best cards. This is specially effective in the early sections of the game, when everyone has lots of bad cards, and NPCs frequently leave nothing but weather cards for endgame .
If you have some mediocre cards in your trace, chuck ’em out there alone and trick your enemy into piling on their best cards, then throw the round by passing. You ‘ll have your best cards in substitute while they ‘ll be left with three acerb Frosts or whatever – which you can smack with Foltest 2, if you need to. Chances are you wo n’t .
You can throw either the foremost or second round depending on your scheme and the foe ‘s tactics. ( Remember that Northern Realms get an extra calling card when they win a round ; if the enemy is besides running a Foltest deck, this can be devastating. )
A more advanced deck
Northern Realms cards are by far the most coarse in the early part of the game, so Foltest 2 is easy to grow initially, but it besides develops into a very powerful deck as you continue. Its key strength is Bond : cards that double their fire power when they combine – exponentially, when in groups of more than two. Look for Catapult, Crinfrid Reavers Dragon Hunter, Blue Stripes Commando. Combine with neutral cards like Commander’s Horn and Dandelion for sensational multipliers .
Northern Realms besides favours siege weapons, and you can put together a capital solicitation, which is useful with another of the Foltest particular abilities when you graduate past Foltest 2. The Dun Banner Medic is besides a fantastic card thanks to its Medic ability ; more on that curtly .
On this page I ‘ll talk about some of my front-runner tricks in Gwent, and how to counter specific enemy decks .
How to use Scorch
Scorch is an fabulously utilitarian particular menu. When played, it kills the highest graded menu ( s ) on the circuit board, transporting them to the discard pile. Keep a single Scorch in your hand, and use it to take out the key units in your foe ‘s line-ups, either when they ‘ve played their big gun, or for maximal humiliate, after they ‘ve passed and are convinced in a gain .
note that Scorch does not affect Hero cards, and will besides wipe out your cards if they are the lapp strength as those you ‘re aiming for. Never play Scorch if you have the most brawny cards on the dining table – including those with artificially inflated fire world power due to Commander ‘s Horn, Dandelion and Bond .
You can use Scorch to take out huge numbers of cards ; if the enemy has four or five cards with an attack exponent of six, and you have n’t put down anything higher, do n’t wait for them to play an eight or ten ; use Scorch and take out all of those nasties at once, sacrificing you own cards with a might of six if necessary .
besides watch out for the Villentretenmerth tease ; it has a melee assail ability of seven, which is nice on its own, and a Scorch random variable. If the enemy melee force is ten-spot and above, it will take out the enemy ‘s strongest melee menu ( mho ).
How to counter Scorch
There are three ways to combat an enemy who relies on a nasty Scorch storm in endgame ( fair like you do ). The first is to trick them into using it early. Say you have two Crinfrid Reavers Dragon Hunter cards, and you want to Bond them and use a Commander ‘s Horn. Scorch will knock that right out. Why not play your exclusive sling rather ? Enemies love to Scorch Catapults. And now they have wasted their Scorch card, which can not be retrieved by any means. very few enemies carry two .
The second way to counter Scorch is to list heavily on Hero cards, which are unaffected by Scorch, until you can lure the enemy into using it on something of middling value .
The third way to counter Scorch is to use medical officer cards to retrieve what has been lost .
Using Commander’s Horn
Commander ‘s Horn is absolutely essential in belated matches. Collect them. Love them. Keep them with you at all times. Remember they do n’t work on Hero cards .
Try to save your Commander ‘s Horn function for the end of a round, to prevent the AI responding efficaciously to this threat. The exceptions to this predominate are when you ‘re trying to trick the AI into throwing a round, or when you want a bum victory after it has already thrown a turn .
Dandelion, found only as function of the tournament in Triss ‘s secondary pursuit lineage, acts like a Commander ‘s Horn for melee units merely. It is wholly unique. very special. very worth the feat. Medic that shizzle .
How to use Medics effectively
More like “ is there any way to use Medic inefficaciously ? ” unfortunately the answer is yes, therefore listen up :
First of all : you should never play a Medic in the first turn unless you have been Scorched, because you waste its exponent : Medic alone retrieves cards from your discard batch. Second of all : be mindful that Medic can not retrieve Special ( upwind, Commander ‘s Horn, Scorch, Decoy ) or Hero cards. Once they ‘re gone, they ‘re gone .
With that in beware : medic cards are fantastic. If you have used a card with Bond in attack one, and you abruptly turn up its partner late in the game, you can retrieve the first one and play them both. You can get back a foolish mistake. You can shove equitable one more unit into a Commander ‘s Horn tune. It is excellent all round .
Combining Medic and Bond to counter Scorch
Oh yeah, we ‘re getting fancy now. How ‘s this : you play two cards with Bond, possibly with a multiplier on top of that. The foe, quite sanely, uses Scorch on it. But it was all a cunning trick ! You immediately play two Medic cards, retrieving the Bonded pair, knowing that the enemy can not scorch it now. How d’ya like them apples ? Answer : they do n’t like it one bite. This makes me very happy .
Countering Muster and Medic
When you first start coming up against Monsters and Scoia’tael decks, it is terrifying. These decks are heavy with Muster cards : when played, they pull every matching menu out of the players deck, and put it into looseness .
The key thing to remember hera is that Muster cannot pull from the discard pile. Try to trick the foe into using its Muster cards early on, and then throw the round. boom ! They ‘re all gone, and it has very small left to draw on .
The Monsters pack of cards has three freestanding Muster families, which makes it particularly dangerous, as you ‘ll face a Muster in every beat, if you ‘re doomed, and the Leader abilities that provide free Commander ‘s Horn mean things get room out of pass. Later in the game you will be brawny enough to survive one Muster attack ; trick your enemy into using two Muster families in your hurl turn, then exponent through the last Muster attack with Scorch ( specially effective on the Crones ) or high powered cards .
The Scoia’tael pack of cards besides makes manipulation of Muster. It is less terrify, but this deck besides has several Medic units. The combination is a repugnance, but you can apply the same tactics .
Using Spy cards
If you face a very baffling enemy, it ‘s worth trying a Spy approach. Stack your deck with Spy cards, and trick the enemy into playing a crowd of cards, while you refill your hand. Throw the inaugural round, and power through the adjacent two .
Depending on how unintelligent your adversary is, and whether you have some low powered cards to sacrifice in between spies, you may be able to get the AI down to so few cards that it will throw the second attack no matter what, which is hilarious .
If your enemy is bright enough to throw the first round off about immediately, why – succeed it ! Thanks for the easy round, newb. then go balls out on the adjacent one, since you only have one more round to win .
Countering Spy decks with Decoy and Medic
The Nilfgaardian deck is fully of Spy cards, and on those rare occasions you meet an AI who knows how to use them, they will hand you your arse on a platter. Do n’t break your control condition pad in frustration : stack your pack of cards with Decoy cards. When the enemy plays a Spy, play a Decoy, then play the Spy yourself. If you ‘re golden, they ‘ll run out of Spy cards before you run out of Decoy cards .
In the second gear round, you may want to use a Medic card to retrieve any particularly good Spy cards you could n’t get with Decoy ( Thaler, for case, is decidedly worth retrieve, and both Sigismund Dijkstra and Vattier de Rideaux are not bad ) to grab even more cards. Trample your Spy-favouring enemy. It ‘s about amusing how cursorily this punctures them .
I have three concluding notes on Gwent for your attention .
1. The AI is stupid
Gods save me from always having to play Gwent against a actual human, when I have trained against a foolish automaton. The AI merely identical rarely figures out what tricks you are using against it. If it does, good have another sound ; it identical likely wo n’t do it again, even if it gets the cards. This is why we save before every match .
When the AI does get clever, its identical, very occasional flashes of bright cunning ( pretending it has run out of Muster cards, for model ; throwing out a champion to lure you to commit and then throwing the round, for another ) are like lightning : hit like a short ton of bricks, but over very quickly, and improbable to strike again .
You can use the AI ‘s stupidity against it. If you lose a couple because the AI used its drawing card ability, why, switch to the drawing card with the ability to cancel drawing card abilities. The enemy will be baffled ; it can not adapt to this turn of events. Remember : Gwent is a single-player puzzle, not a survive game .
2. There are better builds in your future
Northern Realms : Foltest 2, the deck I suggest using, is a fine, flexible build up which you can use to win right through all the Gwent matches available in Act One ( except the High Stakes quest ) with a spot of luck and doggedness. The lapp goes for the tactics I ‘ve mentioned here .
however, there may be better plans when you have enough cards to make them work. Why not try running your own Muster, Spy or Medic-and-Muster pack of cards ? possibly you want to focus on Agile decks combined with weather cards ? possibly person will find a use for Morale cards outside of the first three matches ? ?
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This guide is equitable a bunch of ideas to get you into the game and get you thinking about it ; you ‘ll need lots of high powered and neutral cards, a well as an understand of varying tactics, for the High Stakes quest and the toughest opponents .
3. I am rubbish at card games and yet I am the lord eternal of Gwent
If I can do it, you can do it. just look at me use Spies to trick this Skellige ridicule into using up a bunch together of cards before throwing the orotund and trampling him with my hand of 13 ( one card supernumerary for Northern Realms cabal wins ) packed with Commander ‘s Horn cards, twin Medic cards, a bang-up bind set up, three Hero cards, an hand brake Scorch and defense against all weather cards. Owned !
