Ideas to turn Gwent into a board game?

Over the past year, I have tried to make a real life version of Gwent. Link here. The result? A resounding success, except none of my two friends want to play it. Neither of were able to get into Gwent online and the amount of upfront explanation for each deck is a bit overwhelming when there is no AI to do calculations and effects. So, I tried to make a simplified starter deck but that didn't help either. I was thinking about going back to Witcher 3 Gwent to see if that hooks them in, but I was also wondering if I could do something entirely different. A board game with Gwent at its core.

Obviously the first idea that pops up is the OG Condottiere. The board game on which OG Witcher 3 Gwent took inspiration from. This feels like a no brainer. Turn the map into a map of continent, each player gets their own faction deck and in between each round Players can add and remove cards from their decks. I feel like this is the best possible solution, but.

I also want more like the Witcher game where it is more about the character and not factions. I imagined each player can pick one character aka Geralt, Ciri, Yen etc. It feels much more at home to me. I am currently looking at Slay the Spire board game for some ideas and it has been really helpful. Several ideas including each player getting their own pile of cards to build a deck from, turning artifact cards into actual items like potions, and using merchants, inns, etc.

But the big problem is the enemy, I am not sure if it should be player vs player or player vs enemy. Player vs Player is fun when there more than 2 players, but also each battle should be different enough to feel different. If it is player vs enemy like slay the spire, how to design an enemy is completely over my head at the moment.

I am leaning towards player vs enemy design, but I wish I am some ideas how to design enemy battles. What are your thoughts on this? Any suggestions will be helpful.