How to make Gwent not feel like a kick in the balls

I’ve been playing Gwent for about a year now, and like many others I’ve decided to take a break until the game improves from its current state. However I don’t know when that will occur, since the recent patches from CDPR (and subsequent refusal to hotfix anything) have the game moving in a concerning direction.

At the end of the day, most of us play the game to have fun. If we win, great. If we lose, at least it was enjoyable. But these days every win feels like taking a shit (sure you accomplished something, but all you’re left with is a turd in the bowl and an empty feeling inside); and every loss feels like getting shit on (self explanatory).

In order to remedy that, I’ve come up with a list of improvements that try to keep this spirit in mind. The game should strive towards an environment that minimizes garbage interactions/mechanics that make the player feel bad, while still prioritizing player agency and skill.

• De-incentivize Unitless Decks

• How – Increase minimum unit threshold to 15.
  These decks are infuriating to play against and encourage unhealthy mechanics. It’s like playing solitaire, except every time you make a move, someone punches you in the face. The recent buff to Bombs was a concerted move in the wrong direction, which brings me to #2…

• Tone Down (slightly) Control

• How – Make control cards (slightly) more expensive or (slightly) less powerful.
  A player should have to strategize when to use their limited and valuable removal, not mindlessly yeet 6 cards in a row and then plop a Harald Gord down. Control should still be a viable archetype to maintain balance with engines, but it becomes a problem when combined with other mechanics like pointslam (Skellige) or unitless (Madoc/Kelli/ST Precision) with no trade-offs necessary.

• Get Rid of Lockdown

• How – Delete it forever
  Doesn’t matter if lockdown is meta or competitive or mid-tier or garbage. It’s a dumb leader ability that removes fun from the game and passes as an excuse for in-game balancing. It’s the black sheep of leaders, and there are many better NG archetypes that could replace it.

• Get Rid of Deck Manipulation Archetypes

• How – Delete it forever. Rework affected cards
  Doesn’t matter if Mill or Clog etc. are meta or competitive or mid-tier or garbage. Gwent should be about playing your cards optimally and making the best of your hand, not having somebody double Viper Witcher your 1 pt Drone and then BM you. It’s like playing Monopoly and having someone steal your money under the table while you’re playing the actual game. Viper Witcher Mentor is also included in this section. Stupid card. We all know it. Fix it. Doesn’t matter how.

• Reduce Binary Interactions

• How – Many options
  This is a very easy one to throw out there and a tough problem to fully solve, but the current course of doing nothing isn’t correct. Obvious example is Kolgrim, but I won’t get into it since there are a million posts.
  A good example would be Yrden. Either you’re playing against a boost deck and you win, or you’re playing unitless/SK and you lose. I’d like to see a change like “buff base power to 4 or 5, give Adrenaline 2.” The exact change isn’t important, but these are the types of either/or interactions that need to be chased out of the game.
  Another change would be Heatwave/scenario interaction. Extremely binary for reasons we all know. I’d like to see a new mechanic that maybe limits the full effect of scenarios (perhaps artifacts in general). You could call it “Stifle” or whatever, and it could prevent the final instance of scenario from proc’ing. Maybe some 6-8 prov cards for each faction with a decent body, or a with a row effect like “Melee: Stifle. Ranged: Lock”
  This change would also incentivize devotion, and make both sides of the Scenario feel less like all or nothing.

• Buff Unplayable Cards

• How – slight power and provision buffs to unplayed cards
  This is obvious and easy. An intern could do it. No excuse for not doing it. Wouldn’t even have to change card effects, so they can save all of their new ideas for the next expansion

• Incentivize Pro Rank / Faction Loyalty

• How – tiered rewards in pro rank / faction rewards
  Once you get to pro rank, there’s nothing else to play towards. Would be cool to add some kind of tiered system that rewards you for reaching certain tiers. Could even color code it or give each tier a name or some such. Like reaching MMR 9800-1000 is Griffin tier and you get additional keys / powder.
  Could also add a faction flavor to it. Like reach 2500 with SY – reward is transmute 1 SY card at end of season. Or a cosmetic or a badge or something. Specifics aren’t important, but these changes would be easy to implement and refine.

The specifics of each of these proposed changes can be ironed out, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the stuff that feels bad to play. Several of these mechanics have literally chased away players for a season or maybe indefinitely. I believe changes like the ones above would go a long way to help make this game see it’s full potential.