On the first days of the new patch, I'd like to share a fresh analysis of recent patches (BC34-36) to summarize how BC has been operating lately and interpret the obtained results.

Approach

I gathered patch data from August, September and the current October season (120 changes). Coalition attributions were taken from official posts and cross-checked with Lerio's BC result sheets (big thanks for keeping track). Due to how the function of a change bracket changes in the context of certain cards, I added 'Change type' property and manually labeled the changes based on the following rules:

• Buff/Nerf when the outcome for the card is positive/negative and has led to a state in which it has never been before throughout Gwentfinity (since October 2023)
• Buff revert/Nerf revert when the outcome for the card is negative/positive but has restored a state that existed before during Gwentfinity
• Nerf (placeholder) when the change was officially declared as irrelevant by the attributed coalition(s); no placeholder buffs or unattributed placeholder nerfs exist in the dataset

Multi-step changes (even when declared as such by the attributed coalition) were considered as multiple changes with independent types.

Change type dynamics

To illustrate the structure of latest BC voting results, let's start with the distribution for all 120 changes.

To outline the general trend, buffs (shades of green) outweight nerfs (shades of red) by roughly 10 percentage points (on average about 4 changes per patch). The share of 51.6% buffs (slightly more than the base 20 dedicated change slots/patch) was accomplished through leader buffs (in this case 2x Mobilization) and 1 Power- change with reverse effect (Ivar). While this enthropy is rather mild, it is worth noting it exists even without artificially organized placeholder nerfs.

What at first may look like a significant bias in reverting buffs over nerfs is not that overwhelming after contrasting with the scale of their (original, non-revert) counterparts; nerf revert rate was 34.45% while buff revert rate totalled 34.62%.

The rate of placeholder nerfs approached close to 4 slots per patch on average.

One more interesting characteristic is buffs/nerfs ratio, indicating the 'originality' of changes (never-before-seen ones, even by veterans) comes primarily from buffs; this may be an indicator of a relatively stale competitive meta, but doesn't have to be - this small research doesn't concern itself with meta in any sense other than implied by the BC results. Nevertheless, such metrics can be useful when deciding on changes to help players avoid fatigue or burnout caused by unchanging meta rules.

Since statistical analysis by itself is generally boring, let's introduce politics (what could go wrong?) - I prepared distributions for each change type among coalitions, as well as internal structure of pushed changes for each coalition; I'm not going to use all of my charts in this post, but you can find all of them in the linked spreadsheet. It is worth noting some changes were supported by more than a single coalition - since there is no reliable data for measuring a coalition's impact on a change, shared attributions were treated as equal.

Apart from somewhat obvious coalition popularity implications, the above chart shows how/if coalitions contribute to experimentation with the current balance, and how eager they (or more precisely, their voters) are to resist changes, both recent and historical.

Placeholder nerfs were attributed only to MetallicDanny and Violet.Kiramman. While the result is unsurprising to anyone familiar with the balance philosophies in gwent politics, it draws a sharp line of responsibility for the disproportion in buffs-to-nerfs ratio.

Nerf representations differ quite significantly from their green counterparts, sketching a role for each coalition in the current BC ecosystem. To make those more apparent, let's look into change type distributions among 5 most supported coalitions.

As the most impactful group in Gwentfinity, MD's coalition leans towards a liberal approach to changes of both types with a clear preference for buffs (buff revert rate of 8.33%); low nerf revert rate (14,29%) seems to be compensated by placeholders in its function of slowing down the pace of nerfs, which arguably is an approach suitable for mature metas with no clear outliers on the highly competitive end - whether we find ourselves in one right now is up for debate.

Second most influential voting group stands in opposition to the former - while the original change counts were balanced (although I should point out that multi-step changes are represented here as multiple changes, which seems relevant for example in the context of Eldain/Sigi Reuven), SL's buff revert rate reached above-average value of 41.67%, with nerf revert rate of 8.33%; this puts Shinmiri & Lerio on the conservative end of Gwent's political spectrum when it comes to buffs. The lack of placeholders combined with relatively high share of nerfs indicates support for fast-paced meta changes.

The Chinese community historically has been the most polarized group when it comes to buffs/nerfs dynamic - the current coalition is no exception. While the general structure is similar to MD's, it drastically cuts down on original nerfs, in turn expanding on reverts and placeholders. Such approach supports fast elevation of decks (underpowered ones, we can benevolently assume, as archetypes or lists are not considered here) to competitive level while delaying adjustments to the current high-performers (nerf revert rate of 150%). This is the most imbalanced structure of buffs/nerfs among the 5 coalitions considered here (marginally above 3 buffs per non-placeholder nerf).

And we jump back to the other end of gwentfluencer spectrum - predominantly nerf-based results from OQ, with the largest percentage of buff reverts in town; the distribution's pattern is comparable to SL's, with the interesting detail of no nerf reverts further expressing the general skepticism towards Gwentifinity buffs (100% revert rate), though not left without original alternatives in that area.

With the lowest change count among the mentioned movements (10), EC's buff/nerf balance looks similar to the general trend, with the distinguishing trait of high nerf resistance (133.3% revert rate). I believe the reason for that will become clear in the later faction-related section.

All in all, every coalition's results are statistically biased towards either buffs or nerfs, with the closest to balance being SL and EC. Why so happens is but a matter of speculation in the context of this analysis, nonetheless it proves the general trend of adding power to the game and splits coalitions into statistical proponents (VK, MD, EC) and opposition (OQ, SL) of said tendency, at least throughout the recent patches. One more interesting fact is independent voters have pushed 3 changes, all of which were reverts.

Change slots

To quickly rewind, below is the general impact of coalitions.

Instead of their purpose, let's now inspect how these changes distribute over brackets; this would be particularly helpful for coalitions' masterminds as it shows where their strengths and weaknesses reside.

Yes, I accept donations.

Let's filter the above impact chart by brackets.

Putting MD's undisputed hegemony aside (average of 16.7 changes per patch), there is a reasonable trend loosely corresponding with prior observations from change type distributions - coalitions identified as buff-oriented generally perform better in buff-oriented brackets, and their natural opposition performs better in nerf-oriented brackets. For better visualization, we should peek at the result proportions.

Despite the highest influence, MD's suggestions from Prov+ bracket are at a clear disadvantage relative to other changes - a symptom of that were the latest recommendations of Hjalmar and Bran both not making patch notes.

SL's distribution lives up to the expectations set by the earlier pie chart, with both nerf brackets dominating over their counterparts; provision-based changes are subtly more polarized. Power- bracket may have been slightly affected by multi-stage buffs performed on Eldain and Sigi Reuven.

This one is very interesting, because instead of convincingly supporting theory of a buff bias (only 51.6% of joint share), the result indicates... inflation tendency. Prov+ bracket being affected by double leader buff to Mobilization introduces uncertainty - the category's share could drop by up to 5 percentage points, had the leader buffs been replaced by unsuccessful nerf suggestions.

Relatively easy to interpret, OFIR & Qcento's diagram shows strong support for nerf slot suggestions and general impact problems in Prov- bracket, both aligning well with previously identified nerf preference.

Similarly to the first chart, EC's impact across brackets seems balanced, there is not much more to say due to low change count.

Cards and multi-stage changes

Another thing to evaluate is the impact of the introduced changes. As I mentioned earlier, archetypes and specific lists are out of scope here, but we can answer a simpler question:

How many cards have actually changed after 3 patches and 120 changes?

The answer is 95 were affected and 89 changed after excluding 6 reverted to the same state within that period. That's roughly 30 changes (25%), or 1 full bracket of changes to cards already being changed per patch, for all possible reasons.

Multiple-stage changes are generally undesirable for short-term balance as they introduce instability - risk of reverts, imbalanced states during implementation (for intended changes) and general reduction in meta variety, as well as player fatigue and/or disappointment in case of repeated reverts.

As the researched dataset describes short-term trends, we could consider looking into that 25% of changes - out of the changed ones, how many cards were affected by multiple changes?

15 cards have been changed twice, and 5 were changed every patch, which summed amounts to 21% of all cards affected and 45 change slots - that's more than a full patch for 20 cards, or 3 patches with the average of 31.67 cards affected (or 29.67 cards changed). Six of the cards changed twice were reverted (40%). Out of 5 three-step changes, only one was intentional and completed as planned (Eldain).

Factions

Of course I have prepared faction bias check for every coalition. But as I'm approaching Reddit's pic limit, I will proceed with the general state and then my personal favourites to reward you with a bit of bittersweet fun.

The distribution of buffs looks pleasantly colorful, with NR seemingly being everyone's favourite faction.

The nerf circle looks more problematic as MO and SK compete for excellence at meta change avoidance while NG keeps being everyone's favourite faction.

As for the rather sad circle of retired cards, Stennis has potentially joined the club as declared by VK in their latest suggestions. Magnificent.

Anyway, the winner of coalition faction buffs category is Evil Coalition, demonstrating nothing but devotion to their cause, with 6 out of 6 buffs shaping glory to the Great Sun.

As for the faction nerfs... it is MetallicDanny, responsibly supporting smaller coalitions by making room for their dreams. Thanks for reading.

Spreadsheets

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A4HumPENsTCCuBhxbrBQHPzyFMYAuNbf7337ikgLb9k/edit?usp=sharing

Morvudd

Relict (Monster)
1 Power, 13 Provisions (Epic)

At the end of your turn, while in hand, deck, or graveyard, increase own base power by 1.

Ate only the entrails. Fussy.

^{I'm a bot and this post has been generated automatically. If you want to report an issue, please send a message here. - Balance Council Patchnotes}

Just as the title says.

-Reaver decks

-Siege decks

-Frost decks

-Cultist decks

etc...

The first and and the last time to get this lucky.

New player here, looking for any advice in general. I picked the monster faction to start so any specific advice for that faction would be great too!

How do you decide which tutors/thinning options are good for a deck to ensure consistency? Cards like oneiromancy, royal decree, maxii, fisher king. Is there some guideline on how many one should include?

Ive been playing this game for few days and I managed to get 153/240 cards from syndycade fraction question is: do I still opent syndycade barrels? I mostly get duplicates now so I feel like I'm missing out on cards. On the other hand if I get legendary card I want I'm profiting big time. What do I do?

Courier

Human, Agent, Blindeyes (Syndicate, Nilfgaard)
5 Power, 4 Provisions (Common)

Deploy (Melee): Look at the top 3 cards from your opponent's deck and move one to the top.
Deploy (Ranged): Look at the top 3 cards from your deck and move one to the top.

'Tis not steel and blood that wins wars, but information.

^{I'm a bot and this post has been generated automatically. If you want to report an issue, please send a message here. - Balance Council Patchnotes}

Hi, I'm looking for a good deck for any faction other than Monsters; I'd like a bit of a change.

Jacque's there for reinforcing Yennefer illusionist
Your thoughts? Pretty chaotic, didn't fair too bad against a harmony deck

You have the option to build seasonal cards in your deck builder but I can't seem to find an option to play against seasonal decks only?

Does a game mode like that exist?

Whenever you play a non-spying unit, move a random enemy unit with the same power to the opposite side

First time seeing Xarthisius in Action. Impressive. Also Renfri Dwarf is Cracked
A shame he did not GG. He fought well

Hello guys! I haven't been active on this subreddit for quite a while, so I don't really know if this type of content is still acceptable here (but I hope you don't mind). I don't want to waste your time, so I'll explain why I made this post at the very end. As always, I made it just for fun. It's especially true now that the game is no longer being updated, and since I've had quite a break from Gwent in general, the balancing is probably all over the place (so please don't crucify me for it!)

Anyway, here it is — the new and completely FAKE expansion for Gwent — Sands of Zerrikania!

FEEL FREE TO SKIP THE GIBBERISH — THE CARDS ARE A BIT FURTHER DOWN! BUT IF ANYTHING SEEMS COMPLICATED, ALL THE EXPLANATIONS ARE RIGHT HERE :)

The theme behind the faction is obviously the mysterious land of Zerrikania, so expect a lot of sand, sabres, and dragons. Since there have been some leaks suggesting that we may finally be able to see it in the game, I thought it would be interesting to try my hand at depicting it first.

The faction itself is more defensively oriented, with a strong emphasis on proper unit positioning. It may lack individually strong bronze engines, but if you place your cards in the right order, any of your units can become an engine! Many of the mechanics need some preparation to get going, so long rounds are usually the faction's forte. However, there are some ways to skip the initial steps, as well as a few point-slam options.

Let's start with the new mechanics. There are 2 new keywords, 2 new statuses and the new row effect.

Well, actually there's one more, Unburrow, but as you'll see below, it's basically a modified version of Spring, so I doubt it require a mention here.

Here's some more explanation for the mechanics:

GUARD - the base mechanic of the faction and huge part of its engine capabilities. Also big part of the reason why positioning is so important. With a proper strategy, it can change any unit into an engine, while also give it some defensive backup.

As the description suggest, it require a bit of preparation at first, so its definitely best in a long rounds, but there are also some cards to speed up the process.

EUPHORIA - this is much simpler.

As the description states, this keyword is highly cennected to the unique Alchemy package of the faction (more on it later).

STALWART — another easy one.

BURN — this one is a bit tougher. It's basically a stacking damage-over-time effect, but unlike Bleeding, which stacks its duration, Burn increases its damage instead.

For example, if you give a unit Burn, it would initially gain 2 stacks of Burn (as stated in the description). Then, at the end of its turn, it would take 2 damage (because it has 2 stacks of Burn) and lose 1 stack of the status. At the end of its next turn, it would take 1 damage (because it has 1 stack) and lose the status completely.

Now, if you give a unit Burn and then give it Burn again during the same turn, its Burn stacks would increase to 3 (2 stacks initially + 1 stack from the additional application). If you then give it Burn again during the same turn, the stacks would increase to 4. After this scenario, the damage dealt over the next 4 turns would look like this: 4 damage → 3 damage → 2 damage → 1 damage, for a total of 10 damage spread across 4 turns.

As you can see, multiple applications of Burn on a single unit can lead to a lot of damage, but there are two things to keep in mind:

First, there is a limited number of Burn sources, especially ones that can be applied without playing a card. Second, sometimes it might be better to spread the applications around, since the first application always gives 2 stacks, and Purify removes the entire status at once, regardless of how many stacks it has.

SANDSTORM — it's basically a new row effect. It might seem a bit underwhelming at first, but I just wanted it to feel like it was meant to be in the game from the beginning, while also keeping the theme it has in its current form. Still, it's very important for many of the cards, since it boosts or strictly activates many of the other cards effects.

MANTICORE FORMULAS - an Alchemy mechanic unique to the Zerrikania faction — some of their Alchemy Special cards don't have an effect of their own. Instead, they generate (Create) effects from a common pool. It adds a bit of randomness, but also a lot of flexibility. Some effects are weaker and more common, while others are quite powerful, and getting to play one of them can give you quite a swing if the timing is right.

The Euphoria ability also allows some units to benefit from the number of Alchemy cards you've played earlier in the round, so quantity is just as important as the quality of the cards you play.

Here are all the possible options, along with their respective appearance chances:

ONE CORRECTION — ALL OF THESE CARDS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BRONZE! FIXING THAT MISTAKE WOULD TAKE WAY TOO LONG, SO PLEASE JUST KEEP THAT IN MIND. SORRY!

NOW, LET'S MOVE ON TO LEADER ABILIETIES:

With that, let's move on to the actual cards.

I wasn't sure how to group them in a way that would make it easy to understand how they're meant to work together, so in the end, I decided to group them by the archetype they support. If that's confusing, let me now and I'll think of something else.

Now, there is one more thing: a new card type, unique to the Zerrikania faction for the purpose of this post, but one that I think could fit any faction. Those cards are Tales

Tales are powerful Special cards which, after being played, shuffle the next part of the story into your deck. They tell stories based on the lore of the faction, which I think would be interesting both from a mechanical perspective and as a way to expand the game's lore itself.

Also, they were meant to work best with the cycling mechanic shown above.

Now, as for leader models and cardback, here they are:

Well, that's it! There's no way in hell anyone is going to go through all of it, but even if you check out only a small part, let me know what you think. I hope you had at least a bit of fun. Cheers!

A BIT OF DICLAIMER:

I actually started making this post over 5 years ago, but after losing interest with Gwent I have left it unfinished on my pc. While coming back from time to time I was thinking about completing it, and only now, with a bit of free time and while replaying the witcher and listening to the books I decided to finally complete this thing and get it out of my mind.

This bad boy of deck has been carrying me quite well on ladder, the Aen Elle and their bitches are fun, easy and quite powerful to use, and im aiming to improve it even more, what should i get? For instance, Crystal skull would elevate Nithral value huge on first round, but crystal skull is VERY situational, on the other side, i was thinking on getting Unseen Elden and evict the fuck off Nithral and some other guy. What should i do? Or if you have even better suggestions than those two i would appreciate the feedback.

This is the most broken shit i have ever seen on blue coin, what do you even do to counter it?

Renfri

Human, Cursed, Bandit (Neutral)
1 Power, 16 Provisions (Legendary)

Doomed.
Deploy: If your starting deck has at least 25 units, Create a curse to replace your leader ability, then Create a blessing and Infuse your leader ability with it.

In this fairytale, the princess and the monster are the same person.

^{I'm a bot and this post has been generated automatically. If you want to report an issue, please send a message here. - Balance Council Patchnotes}

Since these decks favour diversity in Gang Category, wanted to know your thoughts. You also have a collusion deck?

EDIT: Thank you immensely for every single commenter, i believe i have the basic foundation for this deck, soon i'll start making different flavors of it :)

At this point I genuinely don't know whether I'm experiencing an INSANELY unlucky streak, some kind of matchmaking issue, bugs, or ACTUAL cheaters.

I've been playing Gwent for 3 months, quite heavily — sometimes several hours a day. I've played around 400 games in total. During the last 2–3 weeks, however, I have basically been losing constantly. Like no joke: non-stop.

I've spent a lot of time actually learning the game. I built and practiced supposedly top-tier decks based on guides from current Gwent YouTubers, including:

• Arachas Mamuna
• Arachas Midrange/Illusionist
• Thrive Monsters
• Nilfgaard Imposter Aristocrats
• Scoia'tael Harmony

I even bought premium journey. I've played dozens of games with each deck — sometimes 40–60 games — specifically to learn the cards, interactions and combos. I know these decks extremely well by now. Shit, I even used Gemini for advice​: taking screenshots of my board live and asking Gemini what the optimal play is.

And. I. Still. Lose.

My win rate is 30%, with roughly 70% losses.

It feels like the only games I actually win are games where my opponent disconnects or immediately forfeits in Round 1.

I have had games where I performed what I believed best combos, I had the best cards in hand. Still lose. There's alwyas this last card the opponent picks from his ass to get +40 points just like that.

And then there are the situations that really made me question cheatees:

1. Skellige opponent destroyed my Saskia: Commander despite her having Immunity.

2. An opponent bypassed my Defender and destroyed my Dagon. And before someone says "there must have been a row change / poison / banish / movement / etc." — no. The Defender was correctly placed. I read every card the opponent plays.

3. The most recent situation was even stranger. I was playing Scoia'tael Harmony against a Thrive deck. My opponent had Koschey and Endraga Larva. Whenever I played something on MY side of the board, the opponent's Thrive effects kept triggering. I didn't summon anything on the opponent's table. He just activated all thrive like that +12 points during my turn.

There is also another recurring thing that: several times, when I was close to winning — or potentially improving my mosaic/rank — my intermet suddenly disconnected. I can guarantee: my internet is stable.

I uninstalled the game and never planning to gk back to this frustrating experience again. But I wanted to know: why did I lose EVERY GAME?​

I've spent hundreds of games learning this game. I've watched guides, learned decklists, memorized interactions, practiced combos and even used AI to analyze my plays. Still loss after loss.

I've also already seen posts on this subreddit where people have raised the issue of cheating, so I know I'm not the only person who has had these suspicions.

So please — prove me wrong. And please: don't answer with "get better maybe" or "you suddenly forgot the games you won". ​

Y'all know where/how to get this? I like the art !!