4Game

I was inspired on a lionhart stream to create a new account after playing for over 3 years now. Id like to share my experience and advice with anyone interested. I am a decent player, by no means great. I climb to pro every season but never grind mmr.

i spent my first ranks 30-25ish playing every faction and completing every starter deck reward tree. I prioritized crafting ring of favor ASAP and added it to every deck immediately. its just too good not to. my account name was 1onEven

6 starter decks ranked from worst to best imo… This is from the perspective of a new account with limited access to expand cardpool, regardless of gwent experience.

6: NG. the base deck is built around assimilate and starts you with glynnis in a vanilla geralt meta. just about the poorest starter deck experience. worse if you have no gwent experience and are trying to start with a difficult to navigate archetype. Getting braathens as a reward tree card is a plus. here is what my garbo ng deck looked like. never touched it again after i won 3.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/8a0fd237b3a57b27d8e5c8594c8df3a5

5: Monsters. frost looks fun. its just not. Starting players on a path of developing this archetype is a cruel and unusual punishment. won my games and didnt look back at mo.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/5a57e284c564086aaf2e0f4693af4186

4: SK. I wanted to like sk and started with that deck first. i even spent my first 200 scraps on gerd thinking midrange sk would be a fun build with all the good epic cards you can craft for 200 scraps. ultimately decided i didnt want to develop the deck any further tho.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/035c982b635363a38f847f4ba273fe8d

3: SY. I have this slightly ahead of sk bc the firesworn archetype is slightly more competitive then sk warriors and the cards in the reward tree are some of the best free legendaries. i had fun playing this deck and wanted to flesh it out more, but ultimately never returned to it.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/d1cbf1dbbd326f854d95b6b1d71ec953

2: ST. they start you with pretty decent golds in the tree here. great oak and forrest protector with call of forrest is a very generous start. symbiosis is very strong at low ranks and felt abusive. I wanted to rank this number 1 but alas…

https://www.playgwent.com/decks/aa79cd599b971088feeb91e1fe989477

1. NR. you start off with an easy to pilot deck that wrecks misplays. reward tree cards arent bad at all for a warfare/siege build. anseis is icing on the cake. i went out of my way and crafted raffards vengence and vissegerd for 200 scraps here. they are just such good epic cards to expand on what u already have. i loved playing this deck and switched to inspired zeal as soon as i unlocked anseis.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/fd76ac91e132080b2f7ade9ab03b74a2

…

I played the NR deck until about rank 15 just like that. at that point i had won siege in a keg and the deck just felt unfair to play. i prioritized crafting muzzle and heatwave as my first 2 legendaries. my finished nr deck looked like this by rank 12. it felt bad to cut vissegerd but he just no longer fits.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/52fa5ebd11e34939dbb0805d0f822df6

I finished my rank 12 to rank 2 climb with ST. At this point i revisited the deckbuilder with heatwave and muzzle and some spare scraps. Crafted simlas and was able to put this deck together with 1 spare provision. although it bothered my ocd i just kept climbing so i didnt change anything.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/2040d59ca0f8b3d24f42f931391e58d4

by the time i was rank 2 or 1 i decided to optimize the deck a little better with fauve i won in a st keg, and i crafted council to downgrade call if forrest. upgrading a whisperer to fauve makes the deck feel complete. This is my final version of the deck.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/3537d3619d5369916ed501880d8d6ab6

it was a fun ride!