Returning Player – Loving the state of Gwent

Just wanted to write a returning player experience, in case anyone else is interested in coming back.

There were two reasons I left the game:

1. The drastic change from beta. A lot of my favourite ways to play were changed.
2. I didn't like the daily grind requirement to keep up with the card collection. (But I have to say that I have a ton of extra scraps still from when they transferred the collection over).

If I'm completely missing something or anything I should know/look out for please let me know.

I love, love, love the new Journey system (battle pass). I bought the basic premium edition just to try it. Best part about it is how it allows you to choose how often you play for your rewards. I left the game around Crimson Curse expansion when daily grind was still a big requirement. Now with the new Journey system, I feel that I can have long sessions on a weekend and maybe play a few times during the week days and still be able to keep up with rewards. Which is awesome for someone like me.

Side tip if you are wondering about buying the battlepass as a returning player, do it. Because you get new quests everyweek (note they stack so you don't actually miss previous quests if you start late). Which means if you are like me and get back into the game near the end of a journey season, you want to get the pass before you play a lot. If you wait awhile to get the pass, then you have to make up lost play time. Currently I have 16 days left in the journey season and I played for 6 hours since buying the basic pass and I'm at reward level 25. Probably could make it to 50-60 by the end of the next two weeks (If I play a lot).

Getting back into the game wasn't too hard. I netdecked off the main playgwent website (I think the old website no longer exists???) and they have an easy button to load a deck into your collection. It will craft the missing cards if you have enough scraps. Super easy and I love this new feature.

Some players in the early ranks don't GG as often as before. Meh. Also when going for the journey rewards you can create a deck to help get the quest (like all bronze cards that have orders…). It's really funny watching other players at low ranks trying to figure out my strategy (which there is none to win the game) I'm just spamming bronze cards to get the quest and I play my full hand the first round or two. Also (again at the low ranks) some players don't just end the match early when they clearly won. Kinda petty, but I just walk away from my computer waiting for them to Pass for 5 turns…

Card advantage isn't as big of a deal anymore. This is one of the things I liked from old beta. It made every play important. Now it's more about setting up combos. The first round you can play to 4 cards and have a full hand at the last round. Having an opponent go down 2 cards to yours isn't as big of a deal as before. Lots of times I didn't play smart as I thought with a two card advantage I'd for sure win, but a smart player might be able to make up the difference. So just be prepared. The first round you want to go to 4 cards if you are looking for card advantage. If you pass at 5 cards, your opponent will make it back to even cards by round 3.

The new syndicate class is kinda cool. I started with 0 cards from this faction. But now there are Faction specific Kegs!! So it's pretty easy to build up your collection of syndicate if you get the game pass and just buy syndicate kegs for the first 100-200.

Lots of decks use a lot of Gold/epic cards. So you'll probably still have to craft a bit to get a playable deck. If this is an issue for you, just choose one faction to play and get the faction kegs to build up your faction specific collection. The nice part with these kegs is any gold you get will be from that faction. This is what I am doing first then I'll get the expansion specific Kegs later on.

TLDR: Coming from open beta, Gwent is now more about setting up the board and long rounds (card advantage isn't as big of a deal as it use to be and short rounds don't really exist). Journey system is awesome for rewards and real life time balance. Faction specific Kegs are probably what you want to start with first to build back up your collection.