We gwentlemen can all agree that Rank play in Gwent has been stale lately with the same decks climbing the rank ladder. It has been that way for a while that I decided to play other games while I wait for something different be added in Gwent. Thankfully, the developer answered my prayers and has decided to shake things up by adding the Arena. The Arena is a draft format where you start by picking cards to build a deck and play up to 9 rounds or 3 losses and reap the rewards base on the number of wins.
Gaunter O’ Dimm will greet you to sign a contract at the cost of 150 ore which is a small price to pay for a fun run at the Arena. The highest win which is 9 rounds will reward the player with one Premium Gold Card, and an assortment of other rewards like kegs, ores or meteor powders which is very generous if you are good at it.
Unlike the constructed format of Rank or Casual play where you are limited to one faction, four Gold, and only six Silvers (while the other are bronzes), in the Arena anything goes. A player can draft as many Gold or Silver from all factions as they want as long as they pop up on their screen. Although this means that the Arena will be flooded by a lot of crazy power plays from Golds and Silvers, it comes at the cost of synergies and combos which Gwent relies heavily on. Furthermore, in the Arena a player will be drafting a total of 30 cards which dilutes the deck a lot since the number of cards you draw and the game rounds stays the same
There are times when you might draft a deck that full of synergies and combos but might not draw the cards you need and end up with underwhelming cards instead. The best route in my opinion would be to draft high powered cards or units with removals instead to provide consistency in your games.
Be as it may, I am still excited by the Arena format as wacky things can come up like drafting a bunch of Wild Hunt Drakar, Nekker Warriors and pulling them all out with Henselt. Cards with the Create mechanic will be a good pick since they provide flexibility in certain situations. For instance, the Morana Runestone can create any Silver Scoia’tael card which can provide weather clear through Ida Emean or a removal through Morenn. It could however back fire like providing Pit Trap on any empty board or a Paulie Dahlberg without any dwarfs in your discard pile. This kind of risk or reward play is what is exciting about the Arena.
With that said, I can’t wait to get into the Arena and go crazy with my picks. I have been collecting a lot of ore to pay Gaunter O’ Dimmand and sell my soul to him.
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