I would argue that the game takes VERY little skill, other than the BASIC understandings of the game, like knowing when to pass, when to bleed, not losing on even, trying to save your golds until you need them, not making idiotic plays, just basic stuff.
With that said, is Gwent actually skillful, or just a game that decides who wins based off of who goes first/second, RNG, bad/good matchup, not drawing your golds and your opponent draws theirs and vice-versa, having or not having certain cards at a particular moment, going against a deck that's just better or worse, your opponent having cards that are more broken than yours or that just put out more points, etc?
There's just a lot of stuff involved with playing Gwent that's just out of your control, very circumstance based. Sure, you have your high ranked players of in game, but what "skills" allows them to be high ranked, other than the basic understandings that i mentioned?
Even in Gwent tournaments where you can see your opponents deck, it takes even less skill, because i know what to expect, and can easily play around it or counter you. So if Player A knows what to expect from player B, and has favorable matchups against him, and wins, does that mean player A out-skilled or is better than player B?? Or does it just mean that player A had advantages over player B that was out of his control, given the decks and specific cards?
That's why i've always thought there could never be a definitive 'best player' in Gwent, given all these circumstance factors. Sure, you'll have players that always perform good in tourneys and may when a few of them, but that comes down to deck building and matchup. And deck building does take skill, but i'm talking about gameplay.
What are your thoughts on this?
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/wuyqf6/is_gwent_a_skillful_game/