If you have been reading my articles then you know that I am an avid follower of the Witcher Card Game, Gwent. I have played throughout their Closed Beta and Open Beta rigorously and have a few articles on the game. Finally, after more than 1 year, Gwent has officially launched with its Homecoming.
Gwent Homecoming is CDProjek Red’s reboot of the Closed Beta and Open Beta versions of Gwent as the game is entirely different. Although the game plays the same with the same 3-round rules, the cards act and play differently. Even the deck building has different set of rules.
Gone are the days of locking 4 golds, 6 silvers, and other bronze cards in a deck. Now, a deck comes with a set of 165 Provisions and minimum 25 cards with each card having its own Provisions. You can have as many sets of Golds in your deck and any number of 2 sets of a Bronze as long as the total Provisions equal to 165.
Other than that, the game is still the same where you build your army or remove your opponent’s army to have the strongest or highest point at the end of the round to win the round. Win 2 out of 3 rounds and you win the game.
Each card is balanced around Provisions; as stronger cards have higher Provisions (as high as 13 Provisions) while low value cards might have a low Provision (lowest at 4 Provision). Each Leader is also different as their power balance revolves around the number of Mulligans you have in a game.
For instance, a Leader with a strong ability like the Ursuper has 0 Mulligan while a Leader with a lower ability power like Eredin has 3 Mulligans. This gives the developers some incentive to balance cards in the game by tweaking the numbers (cough cough Eithne).
So what’s the review of Gwent: Homecoming? Although it is a totally new experience playing the game, it still closely resembles the old Gwent. You still play one card per turn and you still have to win 2 out of 3 rounds to win the game which is what drew me to Gwent initially. There is a difference in deck building and abilities in the game like Orders or Artifacts but the core of the game is still there.
Fortunately, CDProjek Red is kind enough not to wipe our collection from the previous game but did mill all the cards in order for us to craft the game we want in the new game (I have a full collection of non-premium cards from the milling). The card crafting and milling are the same as the previous Gwent except for some cards from their Single Player Throne Breaker: The Witcher Tales game. (Review coming soon.)
Of course, it is not flawless as there are various problems with the game. One of it is the introduction of a new card type, Artifacts, which can only interact with Artifact removal cards. Gwent is known to be a game of interactions where you interact with the units on the board with other units or spells. Artifacts, on the other hand, can only be removed and cannot be interacted. Most of the Artifacts provide long-term value and in some games you will simply lose when you do not have any removals for the Artifact.
There are also other small problems with the game like the tutorial and also the card rarity indication but overall the game is a blast to play. It is a new horizon to explore and I will keep playing the game to see how good it will be. The game is out for a week and you can find it on https://www.playgwent.com/en.
Hope to see you on Gwent building armies and going to war. Until next time, E’er y gloir!
