Gwent’s real problem

I am going to present my opinion about the good and the bad sides of this meta.

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First of all, I would like to give my opinion on a very debated card at the moment, Renfri. In my opinion, this card, although making a lot of points, and somewhat reducing the originality created decks in the deckbuilder, this card in itself, does not represent a design problem. I find it very healthy in the game because the creation of Renfri decks are made in such a way that there must be a lot of thinning to access the overpowered cards, which makes these decks much less draw dependent. It also greatly reduces the answer-or-lose aspect of the meta, as rogbros explained in his article.

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The first 15 days of this meta were for me, a real happiness. The matches were played on the macro knowledge of the players, and I believe there was much less luck deciding games than in the previous metas.

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This was excellent until nilfgaard became much more popular, and that's when the real problems of this meta appeared. How is alright for a card that makes ~30 points by itself to be replayed 3 or 4 times? The rise of this faction really shook up the ladder, by bringing back matchup-based polarization. Against ST or SK, NG has an incredible advantage, though automatically loses against SY.

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In addition, decks based around cards that destroy the fun of whoever is playing against them have appeared. I want to talk about Sihil here, which I think is a major design problem. Why are there still cards that automatically win a game because they make 50 points vs decks that can do absolutely nothing about it, yet can make 1 or 2 points against other decks? Why is this type of polarization accepted? Even worse, why are such cards created?

Also, about last season censer, it is obvious to me that such a card should never have been created. Indeed, it could alone make a swing of more than 100 points, often with surprise effect, and could give advantage to the less talented player, leaving a feeling of enormous frustration to the player who faces him.

Cards of this type should, in my opinion, always have a limit to their points, and not be able to play for and infinite amount.

To give another example, look at the NG card Spotter. CDPR previously tried to fix the problem of this card in a way that keeps its ability intact, but it turns out that the problem is far from being solved.

A few seasons ago, it was not foreseeable that a viable card would make more than thirty points in each game. Thus, the spotter and double cross were less impactful than they are now. So the problem is not the creation of a neutral overpowering card, but the fact that this card makes other cards problematic. The carry over created from cards like spotter are exaggerated with the power creep introduced to the game. If CDPR does not address power creep, then at the very least they must address the cards that abuse that power creep.

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A card like this which steals the opponent's Renfri, creates carry over that is around 60 points. In other words, it wins the game by itself. Also, there is no good way to play around this card. Imagine that your opponent plays Warrit when you have 6 cards in hand during Round 3, and places Renfri on top of your deck. From then on, you have to make a choice, either you decide to do nothing about it, and so you lose your Renfri in this game, or you play Triss to put it in your hand. In this case, you assure your opponent to have another Renfri because you put it in your hand for their leader to use.

To sum up, in my opinion, Renfri is a card that gwent needs, even if it should surely get nerfed, but the problems come from the abuse of certain extremely polarized cards or factions that create polarized matchups.

The polarization of the meta and the anit-fun of some cards needs to be addressed. These are design issues, not balancing issues – not Renfri. Thus, there is no point in adding 1 or 2 provisions to these cards, or taking 2 provisions away from the double cross leader, but a change in their ability needs to be established.