Gwent: The Legendary Card Game

• Designer: CD Projekt
• Publisher: No Loading Games
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 14+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4g26XMD
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Experience The Witcher universe in an entirely new way with Gwent: The Legendary Card Game. Inspired by the iconic mini-game from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, this official physical edition brings the strategic, faction-based card game to your tabletop.

In Gwent, two players build decks from factions such as the Northern Realms, Scoia’tael, Monsters, Skellige, and Nilfgaard, each with its own unique set of cards and abilities.

The goal of the game is to win two out of three rounds. The battlefield features multiple rows to which players will deploy their units and special ability cards to battle it out. Players must skillfully bluff, manage their resources, and read their opponent’s moves in order to wisely choose when to push aggressively to win a round — and when to hold back and play for the long game.

In short, the game is a duel between two players, played over three rounds.  In each game, the players must choose a faction and build a deck using cards only from that faction.  Though the rules hide this fact until the end, you can choose only the starred cards from your faction for a beginner’s deck.  (There are about 80 cards per faction in the box – 436 total spread out over 5 factions).  You must have a Leader card in your deck, you can have no more than 10 Special cards, and you must have at least 22 Unit cards.   

Each of the five factions has a different feel – and special ability:

• Monsters – relies of swarms of monsters being played quickly – they are allowed to keep one card in the Battlefield after a round to be used in the next
• Nilfgaard – Uses special cards to deceive or trick the opponent – they win all draws
• Northern Realms – Uses Tight Bonds between cards to make them stronger – they draw a card from their deck after each round that they win
• Scoia’tael – Agile cards have increased flexibility – they can choose who goes first in each round
• Skellige – Uses Bezerkers to make their cards be more powerful – They get 2 random cards from their discard pile played at the start of the third and final round

Once you have built your deck, you shuffle it and then draw 10 cards.  Each player then has the option to twice discard a card and draw a new one from the deck.  After these two mini-mulligans, you are stuck with the 10 cards in your hand for the entire game.  You have to figure out when the best time to play is and when it is more beneficial to pass and save your cards.

A start player is chosen, and on a turn – the active player must either play a card, use their Leader ability or Pass.  Once you Pass, you are out of the current round – your opponent can play as many cards as they like before passing themselves.

When cards are played, they are placed in the appropriate range area (catapult, bow or sword icon).  Many of the cards have special abilities and actions on the card, they must be applied as fully as possible.

Once both players have passed, you resolve the round by tallying up the Strength of all the cards in a player’s area.  The player(s) with the lowest Strength lose the fight and must give up one of their gems.  In general, all the cards played in a round are discarded.  The winner of the previous round starts the next.  If a player loses both of their gems, they lose the duel.

My thoughts on the game

Gwent is a dueling card game that originally appeared as a mini-game within the Witcher 3 computer game.  I’m not overly familiar with the game, but I have kids who have played it, and apparently this physical version holds up to the electronic original.

Theoretically there is some deck-building going on here as you can pick and choose what cards you want to have in your deck.  It seems like you want to have the smallest deck possible as you still only draw 10 from your deck per game, and if you have more cards in the deck, there is a lower probability of getting the best cards to come out.  Also, if you are counting on specific combinations of cards, it is less likely to draw both together with increasing deck sizes.

The card play is fairly clever, and it’s fun to try to work out how the cards will interact with each other.  Thus far, we haven’t really delved much into the deckbuilding part – but they definitely give you enough cards to work with that you can really try to set up your own combinations.  

The hand management aspect of the game is the most interesting part for me.  You only have 10 cards for two or three duels, and you’ll generally know from the start whether you have the ability to draw more cards or not.  Knowing all this – you have to plot your strategy wisely.  How will you stretch your cards out to last the requisite number of rounds?  If you win the first round, do you go all out to win the second or do you try to string your opponent out enough so they don’t have enough cards to win the last?  Do you play your “draw” cards at the start to give yourself the most options?  Or do you withhold those until the end – and surprise your opponent with a newly replenished hand? 

The cards are nice quality – though the actual game text could be a bit larger so that the cards are legible from further away.   I did get a promo that provided some upgraded components.  The “board” that they provide is a simple folded piece of paper.

  It is really unsuitable for play as you can never get it flat and this means your cards will lay all wonky on it.  I’d recommend just using your tabletop. You really don’t need a reminder of the three different ranges for your cards as the cards are already marked for which line they should be in.  The scoring track is also mediocre.  

The box states the game can be played by 1-5 people, but the rules pretty much outline a PvP 2 player game. I’m guessing that there are some sort of cut-throat rules for multiple players, but that information is not to be found within the box.  Curious.  Also, be sure to read closely as it is not well organized.  Why the rulebook wouldn’t tell you in initial setup that there are pre-configured starting decks is bewildering. Instead, it’s hidden in a wall of text about ¾ of the way to the end of the book.  Curious.  And really not a great way to get people to be able to jump into the game and have fun from the start.

Gwent works just fine.  There is a lot of potential here – the card combinations and the deckbuilding should hit a lot of my sweet spots.  That being said, as I don’t have any tie to the game concept (since I haven’t played the electronic game), there is no emotional tie to this otherwise fine game, and thus, no real impetus to pull it off the shelf to play.  If you asked me to play it, I’d say “Fine” – but we’re definitely not using the paper board.  If you suggested something similar instead, I’d say “Also fine”.  I suspect that those familiar with the computer version will look at this with more fondness.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Michael W: There was some significant number of hours spent playing Gwent during the hundreds of hours I spent playing Witcher 3. It is a very clever design and even stood on its own outside of the RPG. But overall, it’s not compelling enough to want to go back to unless asked by someone who really wanted to play. It’s also another case of being too spoiled by having a computer version that does all the math and effects resolutions automatically, which might make the physical play feel slow in comparison.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral/Fine.  Dale Y, Michael W
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4g26XMD