Gwent the Witcher card game
Hey lads, maybe you heard the well known card game you may have tried in the Witcher series is becoming stand alone title. Project is currently in open beta stage and i gave it a "few" hours of testing and iam about to share my impressions.
Visual and sound appearance
Graphics, mainly in card game is not the most important aspect, however i believe most of you will agree that once you finnaly have some spare time to have cyber-fun you prefer high quality art, polished graphics and intriguing overall style. Should i compare Gwent to other modern PC card games as Heartstone and TES: Legends the style definetely is my cup of tea. Every card has amazing art work and ussualy multiple voice covers when you play it (Ithlinne says: "When the White frost comes, you shall not eat yellow snow"). Some of cards that are part of trio actually even have three artworks which makes playing trios (cards that work together as group) very satisfying. Card's flavour texts, are very interesting but on more serious note, here for me Heartstone wins with funny ones.
But what makes cards really special is the premium versions. Those can obtained as a drop, or transmuted from ordinary versions via Meteorite Powder. Powder can be obtained through daily rewards, milling spare premium cards or bought for real money. But what is a premium version of a card? Well it is animated and with sound and in most cases very impressive, i have already managed to have my epic cards transmuted to premium version and playing them is very enjoyable! Feel free to watch this Video to get an idea
Rewards
Gemplay is rewarding by itself, but except that progression system is very similiar to what you are used to from other games. Firstly however you will probably want to complete all solo challanges which will reward you not just with with ores used to purchase card kegs, scraps used to craft the cards you need and meteorite powder we mention earlier, but more importantly with legendary leader cards! You only can have one leader card per deck and it is very powerful and can shape rest of your playstyle.
Gameplay
Cards are devided into five rather different factions and also neutral cards.
However cards are also devided by border into bronze, silver and gold, why? One of the biggest advantages of Gwent over Heartstone is that deck can have 25-40 cards but there is a limit on gold (4) and silver (6) cards! This limitation makes game balanced and even if someone spent fortune on card kegs he still has a healthy limitations. Also it is important to mention that gold cards cannot be affected by any effect except of lock which makes them hold on board strongly.
Very specific thing about Gwent is win conditions, match consists of maximum of three rounds and a player to win two rounds wins the match. If you combine this with a fact that you dont draw card each turn, but rather recieve 11 cards at beggining (can redraw 3 at the start of turn) and then 2 cards at beggining of 2nd and 1 card at start of 3rd round (2. and 3. round you only redraw one card) you get very strategy intensive and decision oriented game. Playing cards does not cost anything and you can play only one a turn. There of course is some RNG but in very healthy portion, it is adding more fun and unexpected outcomes then in RNGstone where it almost rendered game unplayable.
Card advantage is crucial! To such a degree that sometimes sacrificing round just so opponent wastes at least one card is often smart thing to do. Very interesting type of cards are spies or unloyal cards, which are played on opponents boards and add power to him in exchange for powerful effect for you.
Another big difference is that your units don't attack, at least not basically. Many units do damage when you play them, or some siege units attack every round but the goal is to harness bigger army/power than you opponent at the end of the turn. Turn ends when both players pass, which usually happens when one of them thinks he has enough of advantage or does not want to sacrifice more cards in the current round.
Last thing to mention is weathers which are special cards that leave permanent condition (for a round unless cleared) on one of three of opponet's boards - for example Torrential Rain damages multiple lowest enemies while Impenetrable Fog damages highest enemy in a row by 2.
Board is devided into 3 parts, melee, ranged and siege some units are limited to be played in certain row, while some are agile.
Verdict
Go and play yourslef, worth trying
I r8 8/8 m8 just kidding, game recieves solid 8.5/10 from me. There have been few visual bugs, also menu and card crafting, deck building interface needs rework. Some combinations seemed OP, however in 2 weeks there have been two balance patches so developers are working hard on bringing this game to perfect condition. From all card games i have tried this one is my favorite.