FIRST STEPS – GWENT for beginners

Overview

Answers to all your questions when you start playing GWENT for the first time.

Topics covered in this guide

If you’d like to watch the vid instead of reading a long guide, you can watch it here:

Here you can find the approximate timeline of topics in the vid (in the guide they are listed in the same order):

1. Arena: What is it? Is it worth going for arena runs? Benefits from Arena. starts at: 00:02:10
2. Golden Ore: What’s it for? What’s the best way of spending it? starts at: 00:03:28
3. Kegs: Which kegs to buy? In what way set kegs are different from fraction kegs? What are the premium kegs? starts at: 00:04:05
4. Scraps: How to efficiently spend scraps? Which cards to craft? starts at: 00:09:50
5. The most important types of cards to go for in the beginning: Scenarios, Defenders, Cards with transformation ability. starts at: 00:12:00 ~ 00:21:10
6. Meteorite powder: What is it? How premium cards are different from basic cards? What does transformation do? starts at: 00:21:10
7. Keys & reward book: How to spend your keys? What to get from reward book? starts at: 00:22:10 ~ 00:32:30
8. Fantastic Five Achievement: How to increase your chances of getting it? starts at: 00:22:30
9. MMR: How is it calculated? What is it for? starts at: 00:32:30
10. Deckbuilding: Some rules of deckbuilding (not a lot in this vid), an example of first changes in Nilfgaard deck. starts at: 00:42:40
11. A battle with a new deck. starts at: 00:51:30

If you are just starting your GWENT adventure, you can use this invitation link to get additional goodies:
[link]

Read about the program on the official GWENT web site:
[link]

Don’t forget to support this guide by liking it)

Arena

What’s Arena?

Arena is available from lvl 10. The participation costs 150 Ore which is really easy to get, so don’t even worry about paying the tuition fee.
There you can build a deck from random cards and experience different cards that you don’t own.

Is it worth going for arena runs?

Yes!

1. When you start your GWENT adventure, it’s extremely important to participate in Arena battles as you get to know different cards from all the fractions. Thus, you will understand which cards you like the most and you will know exactly what to create from scraps. So, none of your scraps will be wasted.

2. Participation in Arena allows you to fight against more experienced players, so you will get to know different tactics and you will understand when you need to pass and when you need to go all-in. Arena allows you to get valuable experience which will be very helpful during your ranked battles.

3. After finishing an Arena run, you get some goodies. If you have lost 3 times and you have no wins at all then you’ll get some gold ore, maybe some scraps and 1 Base set Keg. So, you basically bought a keg, scraps and ore for 150 ore which is pretty even. If you’ll get to higher Arena levels then you’ll get better rewards, so it’s very beneficial.

Don’t underestimate your Arena! Start as soon as it will become available to you!

Golden Ore & Types of kegs

What’s Ore for?

You can either buy an Arena ticket for 150 ore or buy a keg for 100 ore.

What’s the best way of spending your Ore?

At first, you don’t even have access for Arena, so spend everything on kegs. There are different types of kegs, so to spend your Ore efficiently, you need to know the difference between them.

Types of kegs.

1. Fraction kegs.

There are 6 fraction kegs: Nilfgaard, Northern realms, Monster, Skellige, Syndicate, Sccoia’tel.
+ These kegs contain chosen fraction cards from any set. So, you can get cards from the base set and any expansion as well.
– Though, you will never be able to get neutral cards from these kegs.

2. Set kegs.

There are 6 sets: Base, Merchants of Ofir, Iron Judgment, Novigrad (contains only syndicate cards), Master Mirror, Crimson Curse.
+ These kegs contain cards from a chosen expansion. You can get cards from any fraction and neutral cards as well.
– Though, you can not get cards from different expansion, so the number of cards you could possibly get is very limited.

What’re Premium kegs?

Premium kegs contain Premium cards. Basically, animated cards. There is no other difference between Premium kegs and Basic ones. Consider saving your money on this one, cuz basic kegs cost 2 times less than Premium ones. Though, moving shiney is obviously beautiful)

Which kegs to go for at first?

It’s significant to obtain neutral cards as well as fraction cards. Base set contains the most amount of cards including neutral ones. So, at first go for fraction kegs and Base set kegs. I would recommend starting developing 1 deck at first instead of trying to go for all fractions, so spend Ore on as many kegs as you can for your chosen fraction and some Base Set kegs as well. Then you can figure out which kegs provide the best probability of getting new cards.

Also, after the last expansion (Master Mirror) GWENT introduced cards with Devotion ability which works only when you have no neutral cards. If you definitely want to use some of the Devotion cards than neutral cards become less important for you – go for fraction kegs.

Scraps & Which cards to create

Scraps allow you to create cards. You can get them from milling other cards or from reward book (or by spending your real money, but maybe you would like to skip that option).

How to efficiently spend scraps?

There are 4 types of cards: Common (creation/transformation costs 30 scraps/powder), Rare (80 scraps), Epic (200 scraps) and Legendary (800 scraps).

Don’t even spend anything on Common and Rare cards! If you are planning to play GWENT a lot then, after like 80 hours of gameplay, you’ll get all of them anyway just by opening your kegs. You could spend your scraps on Epic cards, but Legendary ones are the real game-changers. Moreover, they have the least probability to drop, so take your time to accumulate 800 scraps and buy something good.

Which cards first to craft?

At first, you might not know which cards will be extremely useful and which will turn out to be a waste of scraps. It’s especially important if you are planning to create only Legendary cards, so you don’t want to spend it at the beginning of the game on something that you are not going to use. Here are some tips to get cards that will definitely be useful to you:

1. Defenders. There are 6 defenders. 1 for each fraction. This type of cards protect the other units on the row, so your opponent can target only your defender if they are using spells, poison, target hits etc. Go for them first.

2. Scenarios. There are 6 scenarios. 1 for each fraction. Scenario is an artefact that spawns useful cards when the requirements are met. Though, you need to consider carefully whether you need Scenario atm. Nilfgaard: a must have! It will be very useful if you have at least 6 Aristocrat cards in your deck (to make the probability of getting 2 Aristocrats high enough). The scenario spawns Thirsty Dame (this card is much more useful than it seems at first) and 2 Fangs of Empire which allow you to destroy any unit without Veil if you poison the same unit with the cards. Scoia’tel: the scenario is useless at first. Try to get other cards which interact with Elven Deadye tokens first. The great card for this is Vernossiel. Also, be sure to have at least 6 Elves in your deck along with the scenario. Skellige: be sure to have at least 6 Druids. It’s hard to get Epic or Legendary Druids at first, so you may want to get the card at later stages of the game. Northern Realms: a must have! Be sure to have at least 6 Siege Engines in your Deck. Niorthern Realms rely on Siege Engine cards a lot, so it will not be a problem. Monsters : You need to have at least 6 units with Deathwish. It’s better to use Scenario along with other Epic or Legendary cards which work with Deathwish units and Consuming ability. For example such a card as Ruehin. Syndicate: a must have! Though, at first, you have no syndicate cards, so maybe consider getting the card later. You must have at least 6 Blindeye cards in your deck.

3. Cards with Transformation ability. You might want to go for Devotion (no neutral cards in the deck) if you are getting these cards. There are 6 of them. 1 for each fraction. Nilfgaard: Usurper Officer. It’s a great card if you have lots of Agents in your Deck (you might want to go for Devotion in this case). Combine with tactical withdrawal leader’s ability. Scoia’tel: Eithne Young Queen. Works great with lots of cards with Symbiosis ability. Otherwise, you can get the card but include neutral cards in the deck as well. Skellige: Harald an Craite. Works great with Devotion and Warriors. Northern Realms: Viraxas Prince. Works great with Devotion and Soldiers. Monsters : Auberon King. Works great with Devotion and lots of Wild hunt Units. Syndicate: Jacques Miraculous Child. Works great with Devotion and lots of Firesworn cards.

4. The cards that do an action if their order is not used. There are 6 of them. 1 for each fraction. Nilfgaard: Urcheon of Erlenwald. Scoia’tel: Dunca. Skellige: Herkja Drummond. Northern Realms: Egmund. Monsters : The Apiarian Phantom. Syndicate: Roderick de Wett.

To figure out which else cards you need for your fraction – play more Arena or ask me a question in the comment section here or in the comment section below the video (I answer there faster).

Meteorite powder

What is it?

Meteorite powder allows you to transmute cards. You can get meteorite powder from reward book, by milling premium cards or by buying the powder for real money.

How premium cards are different from basic cards?

Premium cards are animated, they don’t have any differeneces action-wise or power-wise.

What does transmutation do?

Transmutation changes a card into its premium version.

Keys & reward book

How to get keys?

You can gain more keys by completing contracts, finishing daily missions or completing seasonal missions. Also, you get keys when you progress to the next level.

What to get from reward book?

1. 3 trees in the middle of the main page (with 5 main fraction trees) change every season. If you start playing the game near the end of the season – don’t waste your keys, you probably don’t have time to finish any of these trees, but if you started going for something there – devote to it and get your desirable reward before the end of the season.

2. At first, it’s a smart idea to go for all the chests in fraction trees because you’ll get fraction kegs and thus more cards for your fraction.

3. Story nodes are great. Don’t be scared of the cost. They worth it! Normally, 1 key gives you 50 Ore if you are getting Ore from reward book. After getting 1st Story Node, each next one gives you more gold than mentioned rate, so that’s profitable.

4. If you are expanding a particular fraction – it’s a good idea to finish fraction tree and spend all the Ore you got on buying your chosen fraction and Base set kegs – it will expand your collection of cards for the fraction very fast.

5. If you are getting a leader’s skin for the sake of visuals – then you might wanna preview how this leader looks like on the battlefield. You can do that in your customization menu (after hitting play – you can customize coins, battlefield, leader skins and your deck).

Fantastic Five Achievement: How to increase your chances of getting it?

This achievement is bugged af. There is a chance that it will not drop. But you have more chances if you start getting leader’s skins from main fractions trees and then getting skins from set trees like Crimson Curse tree.

MMR

How is it calculated?

MMR is a sum of 4 highest ratings from all your fractions multiplied by a number less or equal to one. This number is counted as a number of games you have played for the fraction divided to 25. So, if you have played 25 or more games than fraction’s rating is multiplied by 1. If less than 25 – than by a number less than 1.

Important lesson to learn:

You need to build 4 strong decks because the other 2 will not be included in calculating your MMR. So, choose 4 favourite decks and try to get them as powerful as you can first and then you can start building the other 2 decks.

Deck building & Battle

Some basic deck building tips for beginners (note that these tips are not the ultimate solution but these tips may help at the first stages of the game):

1. Try to keep the number of your cards at minimum (25). The more cards you have – the less probability of getting Golden cards or especially powerful ones.

2. Try to have 11 Golden cards (if you have a total number of 25 cards in the deck). Firstly, it’s hard to have more than 11 Golden cards and have strong bronze units that will also be helpful to you. Secondly, if you have less than 11 cards – the probability of getting a Golden card will be lower, so you might get stuck with a bronze hand.

3. If you have a card that needs other cards of Special Primary Category to progress (like Scenario) – then it’s optimal to have 6 of these cards of that Prime Category (the probability then is high enough that you’ll get the amount of the cards you need)

* Primary Category is the first tag word of the card. Examples: Elf, Dwarf, Aristocrat, Specter, Siege Engine, Soldier etc. Scoia’tel cards with Harmony boost themselves while you play a unite with unique Primary Category among all the units on the field.

4. Try to collect cards that can interact with each other and keep fewer cards that rely on 1 particular another card from your whole deck (as you know – the probability of drop is kinda low).

Some basic tips for battling other players:

1. If you have more than 7 cards at the end of 1st or 2d round and some of them are Bronze or you feel like you could get more useful cards – play them even if your opponent has already passed. This way you’ll have 7 cards in your hand and get 3 more at the start of the next round. You’ll still have the maximum number of cards in your hand but the probability of getting better cards will be higher as you got rid of bronze ones.

2. Try to keep your leader’s ability unused till the last round. Lots of beginners use the ability at the start which leads to defeat at the end of the match.

3. In the beginning, all players have Geralt of Rivia – the card that can destroy a unit with 9 or more power. Keep that in mind at the first stages of the game and try to keep your units’ power less than 9 points. Boost units at the end of the round. That’s a great point even later in the game. If there is no way that you can keep all your units weaker than 9 points – try to provoke your opponent by boosting the most useless unit to 9 or slightly higher.

4. Always decide whether you want to keep some cards till later or you are ready to go all-in during your 1st round. For example, if you are lucky enough to get all golden cards at the start – it’s better to lose and keep some of them than go all-in as the probability of getting more Golden cards’ll become extremely low. Also, it’s better to keep a card which interacts with another particular card you don’t have at the moment than waste it during the first round.

5. Try to provoke your opponent to destroy your units at the start by playing cards that you are OK to lose immediately.

6. Try to play units evenly on both rows and boost them on both rows evenly as well. There are cards that can use your overly-crowded row or units boosted only on 1 row against you.

7. Try to keep more powerful units at the sides of your row as there are cards that make your unit hit adjacent ones.

8. Play a lot and don’t be scared of failure. The more you fail – the more rules you’ll create for yourself that will help you in the future.

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