Gwent: The Witcher Card Game

GWENT: The Witcher Card Game is a competitive card game developed and published by CD Projekt RED, based on the card game mentioned in Andrzej Sapkowski's novels, and an overhaul of the game featured in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It was originally announced on June 13th, 2016. Following an 8 month closed beta, and a 17 month open beta, it was officially released in late October 2018, with a console release following in early December.

The first singleplayer campaign, Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales was released alongside the Homecoming update.

Official statement

 * "I love GWENT — especially when I am winning. At times, I hate it — it’s when I get my ass kicked. GWENT is one of the very few games I play almost every day (I clocked close to 350 hours). Why am I telling you this? It’s because I want you to know that I’m invested and treat GWENT very personally."


 * "I still remember the excitement of E3 2016 when we announced GWENT on PC and consoles. It was a blast! Well received by both you — gamers — and the media, I think we couldn't have had a better opening. And boy... were we naive. Compared to the single player RPGs we had been creating so far, we didn’t realize how different it was to operate and develop a live game at the same time."


 * "A year later, we took GWENT to Public Beta and — again — tons of gamers jumped in and checked it out. We still had a lot to learn. But, as always, we adapted. What we didn’t realize back then was that we also started slowly drifting away from our original vision for standalone GWENT. While fighting with the everyday reality of regular updates and content drops, we lost sight of what was unique and fun about the game. And you played a big role in making us realize that. Thank you for your sincere feedback!"


 * "We have never accepted ‘good enough’ at our company. We have always taken risks and made bold decisions if we believed they would result in a better game. And, you’ve guessed it, we’ve just made one now."

– Marcin Iwiński, CD Projekt RED co-founder

Casual and Ranked


GWENT is a representation of armies clashing on the battlefields of The Witcher universe, where players are the commanders, and cards are their forces. Players compete in fast past duels which consist of skill-based gameplay, and careful deck construction. The game is played over a best-of-three series of rounds, as players unleash their hand by slinging spells and diverse units with special abilities. The aim of the game is to use clever tactics and bluffs to deceive your opponent, and win the round.

Homecoming marks the official launch of GWENT: The Witcher Card Game. It also stands as the biggest update the game has seen to date. Brand new visuals, new and revamped mechanics, more cards, and many other additions await.

A Battlefield reinvented
Homecoming introduces a complete visual overhaul of the board, featuring a brand new, lore-inspired design that’s unique for every faction.

Leaders reimagined
Leaders are now full 3D models commanding the battlefield on your behalf. They come equipped with a powerful ability and determine how many cards in total you can mulligan at the beginning of a match and between rounds.

Progression powered by choice


The Reward Book is a new feature added with the Hoecoming update. Every faction has its own unique reward tree, which allows you to unlock leaders. Each leader also has their own unique tree you can move through. It's up to you to decide your path within a tree. This system empowers you to choose which rewards you want to focus on. Among the rewards are: faction-specific kegs, premium kegs, scraps, meteorite powder, wre, and leader skins. In addition, each tree contains Witcher lore tidbits which are revealed when claiming story nodes, allowing you to build a compendium of the universe lore.

Rank 2.0
You start from rank 30 and progress towards rank 1. Ranks are split into 5 pieces — if you win, you get a piece of a stained glass avatar, if you lose — you lose a piece. Winning three or more matches in a row grants you an additional piece of the avatar. Once you have all 5 pieces, you unlock that avatar. The rank progression is as follows:


 * For Rank 30-26, dropping down a rank isn’t possible.
 * For Rank 25-15, you only drop down a rank if you lose twice in a row.
 * For Rank 14-8, there are no special conditions — the progression follows a linear pattern.
 * For Rank 7-1, there’s a linear pattern of progression, however, win streaks no longer give you two pieces of the avatar.

Updated Level Progression
The overall levelling experience is now faster and the level cap has been decreased from 100 to 60. After that, you get access to prestige — meaning that once you reach the maximum level, you can level up again, become level 1 prestige 1 and gain permanent bonuses!

Two rows, layers of character
Whether through powerful bonuses a card receives when placed on its preferred row, or the Reach mechanic determining how many rows a card’s ability can cover — with Homecoming, where you play your cards has much greater impact on the battle than ever before.

Deck building, rebuilt
Your army must consist of at least 25 cards, but there’s no upper limit. Each unit has a Recruit Cost which represents how powerful it can potentially be when in use, while each army has a Recruit Cap — a limit to how much power it can wield.



New card type — Artifacts
These powerful cards do not directly influence the score when played. They are, however, significantly more difficult to remove from the battlefield, which makes Artifacts and their abilities something the opponent has to plan for.

New ability — Orders
Orders, unlike abilities which trigger automatically when a card is played, can be activated manually, adding another layer of strategy to the game. Will you use it as soon as possible, or wait until a more opportune moment presents itself? The choice is yours.

Flipping the coin flip
In an effort to further balance the game, the player going first gets to exchange an additional card during mulligan and gains Tactical Advantage — an Artifact card summoned onto the board at the beginning of a match.

More to each turn than a single card
Turns don’t end immediately after a card is sent to the battlefield anymore. With more mechanics in play, such as the new Order abilities, it’s up to you to decide whether you’re done for the turn and ready to hand over control to the opponent.

Count your cards before they’re drawn
You will always draw 3 cards at the beginning of each round. There’s a limit of 10 cards you can have in your hand at any point, and any additional cards will be automatically discarded. This may hinder your efforts, but also offers new tactical possibilities for certain strategies.

Same passing game, new level
Similarly to ending turns, passing rounds has also changed. You can only pass if you didn’t use any Order or Leader abilities and didn’t play a card during that turn. However, should the number of cards in your hand reach 0 at any point in the game, you will pass automatically.

GWENT Arena



 * "I’ve been waiting for you. No, no, you don’t know me, but I know you, and your deepest, darkest desires. Look here, it can all be yours. All you need do is sign, just a mark, and you can win it all. Oh, one last thing… there will be others, and you will have to fight for it."

– Gaunter O'Dimm, Gwent: The Witcher Card Game

Welcome to the Arena, a new GWENT mode where fun, excitement and great prizes await. It's a place for players who aren't afraid of changing circumstances and who always expect the unexpected.

In this mode, for a certain fee, you'll sign a contact with a mysterious fellow named Gaunter O'Dimm. You'll then be offered a series of choices, and through these end up with a complete deck of 26 cards. Now the possibilities here are almost limitless. With a little bit of good fortune, you'll draw golds galore, from any and all factions, and in multiple copies. Also, you'll be able to play cards you don't have in your collection, and feel their power in action.

Once you've built your deck, you'll use it to compete against other player who also entered the Arena. Playing combos and using strategies you wouldn't normally employ. Fun, varied decks and strange cards will appear more often. Thanks to his, every game will be quite an experience.

The more opponents you defeat, the greater the rewards that await. The game is over once you have either lost three lives or achieved nine victories. If you're looking for something new and adventitious, but something that's still GWENT at heart, you're in the right place, and in very good hands. So don't hesitate, sign the contact, jump on board and have lots of fun in the unique experience that is GWENT Arena mode.

Practice
Down on your luck? Or simply wishing to try out a new deck? Practice mode allows you to hone your skills against an AI opponent, the Turning Machine. Don’t be fooled though, the Turing Machine may prove to be just as tough as any human opponent.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales


The world stands on the verge of chaos, as the tensions between the power-hungry Nilfgaardian Empire and proud Northern Realms grow. Facing an imminent invasion, Meve — war-veteran Queen of Lyria and Rivia — is forced to once again enter the warpath, and set out on a dark journey of destruction and revenge.

GWENT Masters
GWENT Masters is the official eSports series for GWENT: The Witcher Card Game. Organized by CD Projekt RED, the idea behind GWENT Masters is simple: to elevate competitive GWENT to a professional level, and give gamers the opportunity to officially become the best GWENT players in the world.

The starting point for GWENT Masters is the Pro Rank. This is the eSports oriented side of competitive play, separate from the normal Ranked mode. Pro Rank will be played in seasons, each one lasting for one month. To remain competitive throughout the seasons, players will need to actively participate in the Pro Rank, as well as constantly vary the factions and deck types they use. The top 500 Pro Rank players will retain their top positions, while other players will be demoted by one rank, but will still be able to climb back next season and join the race immediately.

Every Pro Rank season, players will be rewarded with Crown Points accounting for their achievements during GWENT Masters and its events. Players will receive Crown Points for:
 * placing in the top 200 of the Pro Ladder at the end of each season
 * participating in official GWENT tournaments organized by CD Projekt RED
 * and placing in licensed GWENT tournaments not organized by CD Projekt RED.

There are three tiers of official GWENT tournaments. GWENT Open is the entry tier of tournaments, but is by no means a walk in the park. There will be a total of 8 GWENT Open tournaments during each GWENT Masters series. Only the top 8 players with the most Crown Points at the end of each Pro Rank season will qualify to battle it out for fame, glory, and a piece of the $25,000 USD prize pool.

The second tournament tier is GWENT Challenger. Each of the 4 Challeneger events taking place every four Pro Rank seasons will feature a total of 8 competitors:
 * the winner of the previous Challenger
 * up to 4 finalists of 2 GWENT Open tournaments held prior to a Challenger event
 * up to 3 players with the most Crown Points accumulated over the course of the two seasons leading up the Challenger
 * and 2 Wild Card players, invited to the tournament by CD Projekt RED.

And there’s a lot to compete for, as the prize pool for every GWENT Challenger will be $100,000 USD, with the winner also claiming the Challenger winner’s title and ring.

The GWENT Masters series will conclude with GWENT World Masters, the final tier of official GWENT tournaments, sporting a $250,000 prize pool. Most importantly, the event will determine who from the 8 competitors entering the battlefield will become the first ever GWENT World Champion. Participants will include:
 * up to 5 winners of previous Challenger events
 * and up to 7 players with the most Crown Points in the Pro Rank accumulated over the seasons leading up to GWENT World Masters.

Each official CD Projekt RED tournament of the GWENT Masters series will follow the same single-elimination format, with the winner being determined in a best-of-five game series. Ahead of the tournament, each participant must build 4 decks from 4 different factions. No two decks can be of the same faction. Opponents will be able to ban, in secret, a chosen enemy deck at the beginning of each game. Winning decks can’t be used to play another match, while losing ones may be used again or swapped out for another.

GWENT Development History
[Coming Soon]

Trivia

 * GWENT's production name was "SEAWOLF".

Key Art
[Coming Soon]