Gwent Card Collecting

+-A major element in the game of Gwent is the Collection of rarer cards that you obtain as your prize for beating your opponents. Some of the opponents are of course the targets of the various Gwent Quests, every NPC Gwent player does have a card to give up when they are beaten.

WARNING: At key points you will be given the opportunity to accept either Gwent Cards as your quest reward, or money. DO NOT choose the money! You NEED those cards to complete the Collection!

The following are the NPC's that we have obtained cards from - it may be useful as a Ticklist for you to use as you complete your own Gwent Card Collection...Deeper into this section of the guide you will find my exact path for bought and won cards. That may help you as well when you go through the list of the people you have played or bought cards from if you are missing some still...

Missed Cards? Not!

Prior to the recent game patch (that brings the official game version to 1.05 or above) it was possible to end up missing cards beause you lacked the fundage to purchase them at the time. The Innkeeper at White Orchard is a fine example of that phenomenon...

This is no longer an issue thanks to the patch, which put in place alternate sources for the cards that could previously have been missed. So yeah, that's good!

Missing Reward Card(s)

Be aware that when you play an NPC that you have not played before and win -- then do not receive a reward Gwent Card -- that is not necessarily a bug!

Basically that NPC would have awarded you a card you cannot accept because you already hit the 3-card-limit for the card that they would normally award you as your prize.

This happens when you take advantage of the merchant instant-reload function in the game.

For example one of the first merchants you can purchase cards from is the Innkeeper in White Orchard. She will sell you up to three Decoy cards if you return to her shop twice. So you bought the one you were meant to buy the first time when you purchased the cards she had in her inventory: a Decoy, Catapult, Blue Stripes Commando, Crinfrid Reavers Dragon Hunter, and Foltest Lord Commander of the North

You could then return to her two more times and each time she would have a single Decoy that you could then purchase for the regular price.

When I later played the Merchant at Crow's Perch the first time I played him there was no reward card won because whichever card he had to give me was a card whose limit/cap I had already hit. In that instance if the reward car for them is a random rather than a specific card, you just have to play them again and win to get a different random reward card from them.

Purchased Card Sources

As previously noted elsewhere there are basically three ways to obtain the cards that are required in order to both build great decks, and complete the Gwent Card Collection - and unlock its Achievement. You do this through a combination of buying cards, winning cards by Playing Gwent with NPCs, and obtaining the cards as rewards for quests.

Merchants who Sell Cards

The following merchants sell Gwent Cards... You are going to actually need to buy most (not all as some will be duplicates) of these cards from the merchants / traders / Innkeepers who sell the.

White Orchard

• Innkeeper

Velen (No Man's Land)

• Innkeeper, Inn at the Crossroads

• Merchant, Claywich

• Merchant, Crow’s Perch

• Merchant, Midcopse Village

• Quartermaster, Crow’s Perch

Novigrad

• Innkeeper, Cunny of the Goose,

• Innkeeper, The Golden Sturgeon

• innkeeper, Kingfisher Inn

• innkeeper, Oxenfurt

• innkeeper), Passiflora

• Merchant, Seven Cats Inn

Skellige Isles

• Innkeeper, Arinbjorn

• Innkeeper, Harviken

• Innkeeper, Svorlag

• Innkeeper, Trolde Harbour,

• Innkeeper, Urialla

Card-Rewarding Quests

In addition to obtaining cards by purchase and winning them by Playing Gwent with NPCs you will also get cards as quest rewards. The following list will help you there:

Quests that Reward in Cards

• A Dangerous Game

  This is a side-quest for Zoltan in which you help him out of a financial pinch by assisting in his acquiring some particularly rare Gwent Cards.

  WARNING: It is possible to sabotage yourself here. At the end of the quest Zoltan will give you the choice of having the cards or a big pile of cash as your reward. You need the cards, not the cash. Just saying...

• A Matter of Life and Death

  In theory this is missable since it requires you to play in the Gwent Tourney at the party at the estate during the story line plot where you are working towards freeing the bard Dandelion.

  Just be sure that, when you are doing this quest, and you arrive at the party at the estate, after you have your disguise on, go to the tables and compete in this tourney!

• Gwent: Big City Players

  This one is unlocked after you play Gwent with Vimme Vivaldi. It can also be flagged via some of the Notice Boards in the Novigrad Region. As with the other Gwent-specific quests you are tasked with playing vs four named opponents and winning the game with each. That gets you their unique special cards.

  WARNING: You must complete this quest BEFORE you flag / complete the quest Reason of State because if the quest has not been completed (or even flagged) it will automatically fail when you do Reason of State.

• Gwent: High Stakes

  This is a major turning-point in your Gwent career as it requires your best play to win this tourney. But win it you MUST because it is the ONLY way to get these cards! So save your game often, and if you lose a match, load your save and try again!

  There is some question about whether or not spending the night with Sasha ends up costing you cards - the rumor has been spread that she steals some of your cards in the morning before slipping away. We do not know if this is true or not - we plan to look into it on another play-through and will update this with a note indicating which way it works....

• Gwent: Old Pals

  This Gwent-specific quest can be flagged by playing either Zoltan or Vernon Roche, and is similar to the other quests of its tyoe int hat the goal is to obtain the unique cards from the named NPCs you are required to play to complete it.

  WARNING: You must complete this quest BEFORE you flag / complete the quest Reason of State or the Battle of Kaer Morhen mission because if the quest has not been completed (or even flagged) it will automatically fail when you do either of them.

• Gwent: Playing Innkeeps

  This quest gets flagged after you win the card from the Scholar in the Inn at White Orchard. It requires you to play Gwent vs three specific named Innkeepers and win against all three to get their special cards and complete the quest.

• Gwent: Skellige Style

  This Gwent-specific quest is flagged by Playing Gwent with Ermion the Druid or Crach the Dwarf in Skellige - to complete it you must play Gwent with (and beat) the five named player.

  WARNING: You must complete this quest BEFORE you flag / complete the quest Battle Preparations because if the quest has not been completed (or even flagged) it will automatically fail when you do that quest/mission.

• Gwent: Velen Players

  This one is unlocked via the Notice Board at Crow's Perch. As with the other Gwent-specific quests you are tasked with playing vs three named opponents and winning the game with each. That gets you their unique special cards.

• Nilfgaardian Nobleman

  This is not a quest in the sense that it does not appear in your Quest Journal and you do not flag it as such, but if it were a quest it would appear in the Vizima section of the journal,.

  This just requires you to play - and win - vs. the Nilfgaardian Nobleman in the Emperor's Palace Courtyard in Vizima after the Imperial Audience.

• Shock Therapy

  Completing this Side-Quest left me feeling dirty and in need of a soul-bath, but you have to do it in order to obtain the rare card that is its reward. So there!

Card-Granting Gwent Opponents

In addition to obtaining cards by purchasing them or getting them as rewards from quests, you will also obtain cards as the prize for beating the following NPC Gwent players:

Cards Won by Gwent Victories

• Arachas Behemoth

• Biting Frost

• Celaeno Harpy

• Ciaran aep Easnillien

• Clear Weather

• Cockatrice

• Crone: Brewess

• Dennis Cranmer

• Dol Blathanna Scout

• Dwarf Skirmisher

• Elf Skirmisher

• Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff

• Endrega

• Filavandrel

• Fire Elemental

• Forktail

• Frightener

• Gargoyle

• Ghoul

• Grave Hag

• Griffin

• Hav'caaren Medic

• Ida Emean

• Imlerith

• Impenetrable Fog

• Kayran

• Nekker

• Philippa Eilhart

• Plague Maiden

• Renuald aep Matsen

• Riordain

• Rotten Mangonel

• Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen

• The Siegemaster

• Stefan Skellen

• Toruviel

• Torrential Rain

• Vampire: Garkain

• Vanhemar

• Villentretenmerth

• Vrihedd Cadet

• Wyvern

• Zoltan Chivay

Card Locations - Quick Reference

You can expect to find cards in the following villages, towns, and cities - so if you find yourself in one of them, either hunt the NPCs down or consult the lists above and below!

Gwent Card Opportunities

Okay bear in mind that the results that we get at least for the random cards you can win is certainly going to be different than the ones you get at least with respect to specific cards from specific players. That said though, try to remember that eventually you will get them all so the order is not as important as the getting.

To help you to keep track of the opportunities here is our journey into Gwent, from the start, for your reference. These are presented in the order that they appear in the game as you play.

If you have been following this guide after you beat the Count you will unlock the Achievement Card Collector (15g) Acquire all Gwent cards available in the base version of the game.

* Leader Card -- Each Leader Card offers a specific ability that can be played during a hand once. Often the ability can be highly strategic.

For instance the Leader Card Foltest the Siegemaster offers the player the option of placing a Commander's Horn on the Siege Unit Row effectively doubling the point value of the cards in play there. Foltest Lord Commander of the North instantly clears all weather effects. You get the idea. . .

** When you reach Card 110 this is where you will start to no longer get cards from some of the regular NPCs that you play.

Basically what it is is that each of the non-quest and non-dedicated NPCs seem to have a set of cards they can give randomly. Once you get the quest to this point though, some of them will have card pools that you have already obtained all of the cards in.

When that happens they can't give you a card - they will give you some random stuff instead. This does not mean you have obtained ALL of the cards, it just means you have obtained the ones that THAT NPC can give you....

This happened in the Skellige Isles on the main island and again in Larvik on the smaller eastern island - where I got cards from the merchant, armorer, and the innkeeper but NOT the blacksmith. To repeat, this is normal and not something you need to be worried about...

(1) Note that you can purchase more than one of this card if you return to the merchant / Innkeep and access their store again. You do not need to wait or meditate; simply exit the ship and then re-enter its screen to purchase additional copies of this card up to the limit allowed.

(2) This is the distressed merchant held in the slavers cage at the docks west of the guarded bridge in North Velen. This rescue can be BUGGED. On eof the Level 26 deserters should have a Slaver Key on him as loot after you kill him. If he does NOT - or if the Level 16 deserter despawns, you are bugged and cannot complete the quest or free the Swordsmith - which is a bummer as it means you will also not be able to complete your Gwent Card Collection!

The best advice we can five is save BEFORE you attempt this - if it gets bugged reload and try again. KEEP doing that until you succeed in obtaining the key and freeing the Swordsmith! Then follow him hack to his forge in case he gets attacked. It would suck if he got killed before you got his card, right?

(3) This NPC is part of the Side-Quest called Gwent: Playing Innkeepers - in addition to being able to win a card from him as part of that Side-Quest and the Collection, he sells three cards as well.

(4) This is the Merchant you rescued in the Novigrad alley earlier from the thugs.

(5) This NPC is part of the Side-Quest Gwent: Big City Players. He does not sell cards but he will point you at the next opponent and flag the quest for you.

(6) This NPC is part of the Side-Quest Gwent: Skellige Style. Be sure you complete this BEFORE you begin the Battle Preparations mission as otherwise you CAN lose access to it.

(7) This card is obtained as the reward for the Side-Quest Shock Therapy

(8) This NPC is part of the Side-Quest Gwent: Old Pals. Bear in mind that if you missed playing with Lambert when you met him at the Inn you will have to advance through the story to the point where you have access to Kaer Morhen before you can do so.

(9) These NPCs are part of the Side-Quest A Matter of Life and Death. Bear in mind that this can be missed if you fail to head over to the tourney inside the grounds of the estate before you move the story forward.

(10) These cards are your reward from the Side-Quest A Dangerous Game. Just be sure you pick the cards and NOT the money as your reward!

(11) The NPCs for this are from the Side-Quest High Stakes. Be sure that you save as often as you can and that you win EVERY match. Losing here is NOT an option!

Breaking Down the Numbers

The journey towards completing your Gwent Card Collection is a very long one, filled with excitement and challenge. Well, and numbers. The following numbers are the most important of them so we thought we would share them with you:

• Number of Cards Won: 78

• Number of Cards Quest Awarded: 4

• Number of Cards Purchased: 72

• Cost to Purchase Cards: $1,940 (plus extras)

Clearly that was a lot more involved then anticipated - and there were a LOT more of both bought and won cards than expected. But in the end the rewards were every bit worth the effort in our opinion...

Those rewards include:

• Completed Monster Deck

• Completed Nilfgaardian Deck

• Completed Northern Realms Deck

• Completed Scoia'tael Deck

• Card Collector Achievement (15g) Acquire all Gwent cards available in the base version of the game.

• Geralt and Friends (15g) Win a round of Gwent using only neutral cards.

• All In (15g) Play three hero cards in one round of Gwent and win the match.