Gwent Starting Decks

First to borrow a phrase from Douglas Adams: DON'T PANIC!

Now, the game of Gwent is nowhere near as complicated or complex as it may at first appear. In fact the reason that it feels both complex and complicated is that, when you first start out with it in the Inn in White Orchard your starting decks and cards are so limited that you basically can only play one specific strategy to begin with.

But even that is not an accident - as it is intended to ease you gently into the game and teach you the basics before you fly into the more complicated world of Gwent Combos. Because let us tell you mates, Combos are where you really start to see the impact and potential in the game!

This section is intended JUST to address the starting point of the game and what you have to work with so that this is clear to you. It also allows us to define the cards you get automatically compared to the cards you will eventually collect and with which you will build your Gwent Decks!

So first, the cards that you receive as the starting elements of the game of Gwent...

Gwent Starter Decks

Your first exposure to the game of Gwent will happen in the White Orchard Inn in Temeria. The person who introduces you to what may well end up being an addiction is a rather idiotic Scholar Aldert Geert. He means to teach you the basics as he desperately wants someone - anyone - to play with...

Before you play with him you should purchase the cards that the Innkeeper has on sale - we will consider those to be part of the starting deck since you need them so you can bring the total for your deck up to 22 cards (the minimum required).

Note that the ideal number of cards in a play deck is actually 22, with the idea being for you to build as effective a deck as you can that only contains 22 cards. Specifically your play decks can and should contain the following:

22 Total Unit Cards

10 Special Cards

You can have as many Hero Cards as you can manage without offsetting the strategy available from the Unit Cards (Hero Cards basically count as Unit Cards). You will want a mixture of Special Cards in your deck - Special Cards are Weather effects as well as strategy cards like Decoy, Scorch, and the Horn Card that will double the points for the cards in that category when it is aplied.

After you play the Scholar -- and win -- you will have the following Gwent Cards as the default Starting Decks:

Northern Realms Deck

There area total of four (4) Decks in the game -- Northern Realms, Nilfgaardian Empire, Scoia'tael, and Monsters - and then there is the fifth deck, which we call the Neutral Deck, but that final one is not one you normally build and play from strategically.

That said though, there IS an Achievement / Trophy for winning a match using only Neutral Cards. The important thing to understand is that Neutral Cards can be used by ALL four decks - they do not belong to (are not owned) by ANY of the four.

Deck Building

In the next section of the guide we cover Deck Building - specifically how you do that and from whom you obtain the cards that will make up your decks.

At the start as you can see the deck you have access to is the Northern Realms Deck. As you progress through the story and as you add cards to the other decks - and the Norther Realms Deck - you will be able to refine your strategies and the capabilities of the deck, and experiment with the other three decks - which we recommend you do.

You never know, you may find that the basics for strategy for the other decks appeal to you more. That said, you WILL find that some decks have a slight advantage when they are used against other specific decks - an issue that really only becomes important during the Side-Quest High Stakes, when losing is not an option.

We reveal which decks we used against which in the section covering that quest though, and if you use the same basic strategy as we did, you will not have much trouble with it.

Bear in mind that in addition to being a highly satisfying and fun game to play, Gwent also has a number of Achievements / Trophies in the game.