Introduction
In this article I’d review Gwent: The Witcher Card Game Community Patch Janary 2025 generated by democratic voting via Balance Council tool. I’d sketch the situation before the patch, analyze the changes one-by-one and then provide summary and a general review.
Check out the discussion of balance changes on Reddit and for the influencers suggestions before patch check out Vote Map by A_Reveur here.
It was the 6th council we formed Coalition with Shinmiri and published our suggestions on Reddit. I also welcome you to check out ‘Balance Council‘ page on leriohub if you haven’t yet – there is a lot of practical information and my Council philosophy.
Gwent Data
(for why Top500 / Top100 is a better source than Top2500, read GwentData section here, or my comment here).
In spite of Highland Warlord revert to 5-cost, Warriors weren’t the best performing deck on ladder. The differences in winrates are very small – it was another season of decent balance in popular meta.
As SY sample in Top100 is small and high picked winrate may stem from bigger % share of skillful players having this faction in Top4 (indeed the gap between WR vs WR_Top4 is clearly highest here), the NR %wr in Top500 suggest that it was the best performing faction of December 2024 for a mainstream player.
Yet SY and NR were least played at the same time. Is that more of a paradox or correlation? That’s an open question I leave here.
Gwent Ladder Meta Dec 2024 (or what I’ve met around ~2500; haven’t played much last days though):
- Monsters | Arachas Swarm decks, Fruits Midrange
- Nilfgaard | Renfri Tactical Decision w. NG Witchers Trio, Enslave 6 Ivo and micro-Assimilate, Statuses
- Northern Realms | generally not much; Zeal Temple, earlier in the season lots of Engines Shieldwall
- Skellige | Patricidal Fury Warriors
- Scoia’tael | Nature’s Gift Symbiosis Devo and non-Devo, Elves, Precision Strike Dwarves Swarm and Renfri
- Syndicate | Vice and Cove Gangs
Balance Council Results
Nerf Brackets
(++) Change I like a lot
(+) Change I like
(/) Okay
(-) Change I dislike
(- -) Change I dislike a lot
-1 Power Decreased
Renfri (4 -> 3)
(+) Okay, I like power nerf direction more than provision because it makes use of harder bracket and also leaves some deckbuilding freedom for decks like Inivgorate.
Admiral Rompally (4 -> 3)
(/) Nerf to Aristocrats. One could argue Location +1 prov was more proper, but that’s a different bracket and also has downside of limiting already stretched Aristocrats ability to include thematic cards.
Living Armor (5 -> 4)
(/) Yep.
Radovid: Judgment (5 -> 4)
(+) Explanation
Vanadáin (6 -> 5)
(+) Explanation
Prophet (8 -> 7)
(-) Nerf comes from dislike of this card in Midrange NG and to nerf Cultists in general. In my opinion not deserved, Prophet felt balanced to me in spite of high surprise value at times. Now Prophet rather wouldn’t be an option to consider in normal decks.
Nauzicaa Sergeant (4 -> 3)
(/) Seasons change and so does Sergeant power. What does our fragile lives even mean when compared with the everlasting Nauzicaa cycle?
An Craite Raiders (5 -> 4)
(/) Again a card with optimal value in-between. Was little played at 4-power. At 5- is not only strong in Bran decks, but becomes almost a midrange card to include anywhere if lacking better options.
Tuirseach Skirmisher (4 -> 3)
(/) Move to 3p/4c. The upside is less tempo abuse while preserving more provisions to vary a deck running discard package. But there are also a few downsides: +3 to pointslam Tyr, free discard value with Mask Of Uroboros stratagem, can’t run Portal + Discard. We will see how it will work in practice in the next season maybe.
Elder Bear (6 -> 5)
(++) Explanation. The fact that we recommended this change together with Kerpeten&Dauren coalition and it got through is the main thing which makes me happy about this council.
+1 Provision Increased
Imprisonment (14 -> 15)
(/) Imprisonment is a leader ability heavily polarized towards control. Strong Imprisonment may be problematic if takes the main slot in the meta and punish engine play. Nevertheless, Imprisonment was little played leader ability in December 2024 and in the presence of better raw value control leaders in NG (Imposter, Enslave) this change feels justified.
Enslave (15 -> 16)
(–) Enslave has a very strong effect, usually single-handedly decisive in long rounds against engine decks. No balance justification for this change.
Blood Money (15 -> 16)
(-) Blood Money Classical Bounty / Golden Nekker isn’t the main Syndicate pick in ladder meta rn, but still feels quite strong when compared between factions. The leader ability itself also feels decent enough, providing removal value and +1 on every successful bounty play. This change may have a good impact of putting Bounty more into spotlight, but isn’t amazing in the long term in my opinion; reverting it when Bounty comes too strong would block a buff slot.
The Heist (12 -> 13)
(/) Caused by Angus / Vanadain replay abuse. I think Heist nerf is a more limiting path than power nerf to Vana combined with multistep power nerf + provision buff on Angus, but fine.
Coup de Grâce (9 -> 10)
(/) Mixed feelings about this change. While balancewise doesn’t feel bad – Coup ceiling is insane – the Coup provision decrease was done to have more fun, which wasn’t delivered yet in my opinion. Would have been cool to try Coup in some Assimilate Nekker meme this season for example after Anna Henrietta buff. Also Coup is a bit meta dependent card, with more decision-making factor involved than in the case of other Assimilate cards. On one hand it is good that Assimilate which got so heavily buffed in this patch wouldn’t be that oppressive in already good matchups thanks to Coup nerf, on the other Coup may get cut and make Assimilate played on ladder a pointslam deck which undeservedly keeps ‘skillful’ label.
Kikimore Queen (9 -> 10)
(-) This nerf is directed against Kikimore Queen Golden Nekker, where we usually try to get round control and then setup Caranthir into KQ as Golden Nekker topdeck play. This way KQ is triggered 3 times in one turn, playing for very high value already on deploy. The downside of this strategy is high proness to bleeding.
I didn’t find this deck that problematic – surely I assess non-Nekker versions with Sabbath as more binary.
Redanian Secret Service (6 -> 7)
(/) Shin’s idea, which I supported. At 6-cost RSS is awkwardly efficient against statuses, especially locks. At 7-cost RSS would likely be unplayed in my opinion, but for very specific decks. No good cost for this card.
Open, Sesame! (5 -> 6)
(/) While RSS will become barely played in my opinion, Vice after Sesame nerf will get wiped out from ladder meta; no question about it. What is the point of the nerf which ‘kills an archetype” (it kills a deck, and “archetype” part is triggering Acherontia multiple times in one turn to be precise) then? I explained my line many times, the point is not to kill anything (which inevitably happens), but to address Sesame design flaws; check for example: 1 | 2 | 3
Highland Warlord (5 -> 6)
(++) The only non-controversial provision nerf to make this patch.
Primal Savagery (4 -> 5)
(/) Primal Savagery standalone seems balanced at 4-cost. It becomes strong only with Highland Warlords support. This change is meant to specifically hard hit provision nerf Warriors Raids. I think that may be a step too far and would rather like to see for example Brokvar Warrior multi-step change.
Buff Brackets
+1 Power Increased
Yustianna an Craite (5 -> 6)
(++) Necessary revert.
Yennefer: Conjurer (5 -> 6)
(+) Support for damage order NR decks, can be combined with cards lowering cooldown, especially Siege Masters.
Ciri (4 -> 5)
(++) Explanation
Triss: Butterflies (4 -> 5)
(++) Explanation
Lord Riptide (9 -> 10)
(–) Excellent is better than good.
Anna Henrietta (3 -> 4)
(++) Explanation
Roach (3 -> 4)
(-) Roach has to be bigger than Geralt. On a less sarcastic note, Roach at 3 power is indeed pretty much a worse Knickers, but aesthetics are not the main criterion for balancing; Roach is too tempo abusive at 4-power and played only in a few specific decks when at 3-cost (e.g. Renfri Beasts). There is no law of Gwent which says that Roach has to be considerable in every deck, and little does she matter for but win on even scenarios or reaching perfect thinning. Going by straight comparison and ignoring the practical side we can say Roach should be 5 power, because The Flying Redanian is so much superior.
Provision buff is much more proper if any.
Mutated Hounds (5 -> 6)
(/) Okay change. Mutated Hounds can find place in many archetypes outside all-in Poison, for example Cove Gangs or Bounty Nekker.
Kaedweni Knight (4 -> 5)
(/) Mixed feelings on this change. Card was pretty much pointless at 4-power; other bronzes had comparable pointslam value when included in threat overload and Kerack Marine in Devotion NR even better. Not much interesting stuff we get with this buff though, just use with Portal or as a card to summon with Damsel In Distress. Think a good second step may be to provision buff Knighthood.
Illusionist (3 -> 4)
(/) With a possible 4=>5 provision nerf next. The idea is to make R3 strategies relying on Illusionists more viable. Personally I was okay with Illusionists at 3-power and no Ills as main meta decks for the moment being, but surely that’s a valid way to bring some NG spawn decks back into the meta.
-1 Provsion Decreased
Artaud Terranova (13 -> 12)
(-) Terranova is already a strong high-end card, which can be played in small packages with spying rather than full Assimilate. Underserved change; may even start to be run in ladder meta as a “pointslam” card in Aristocrats.
Jan Calveit (12 -> 11)
(/) Optimal Calveit cost for now is closer to 11 than 12 in my opinion. Also Cat_Burger’s idea to buff Calveit to 8-power seems interesting, making Calveit NG a bit better in R1 and less polarized for red-coin. Surely that’s something to do if nerfing JC again.
Fallen Rayla (12 -> 11)
(++) Rayla has rich effect and can support not only all-in Salamander. Overcosted at 12-cost. Good change.
Hemdall (11 -> 10)
(++) Deserved buff,
Braathens (11 -> 10)
(/) Decent card already, but not stable enough to see play in high-competitive ladder decks and a bit overcosted. Okay change.
Artis (11 -> 10)
(++) Buff to interesting and little played card. One could also argue for power increase to make Artis harder to remove, but there are upsides and downsides of both solutions.
Land of a Thousand Fables (10 -> 9)
(++) Explanation
Treant Mantis: Stalk (6 -> 5)
(++) Explanation
Megascope (5 -> 4)
(/) Megascope real cost is between 4 and 5. Very good and stable in some decks (An Craite Greatswords Nekker), unplayable at 5-cost at some other.
Ban Ard Tutor (5 -> 4)
(++) Good buff; much better than power buff direction which would be another nerf to control and solid buff to Runeword.
Summary
All changes ordered by number of votes and attributed to factions and voting coalitions could be found in the BALANCE COUNCIL RESULTS SHEET.
People who like to complain would be more than satisfied with this patch:
- NG is the most hateable faction and should get more popular with Enslave Assimilate buffs.
- Vice netdecks are unplayable.
- Warriors are nerfed hard.
- There are 3 leader buffs and one placeholder.
- Elves Heist got double nerfed.
- Who will even play Secret Service at 7 cost?
- Reverts from silent voters
- Fruits netdeck back in the menu
- … basically can find whatever you want…
At the moment I write this review there is ~250 comments below patch post on Reddit. I also find some aspect of the patch quite concerning:
- Roach/Lord Riptide. The number of votes (4th/3rd) suggest that reverts will persist in the future, while both are natural power nerfs for the next patch. Oscillator confirmed. It isn’t a big issue for local meta, but people who dream about reaching perfect balance would be disappointed; lookup for example my discussion here. It just seems unreal.
- Massive buffs to Enslave Assimilate are an example of what is the main threat to Balance Council in my opinion: taking a Tier 2 deck and moving it towards Tier 1 with multiple buffs to make it see more play. It may seem fine standalone: Enslave Assimilate isn’t played in tournaments, so maybe would tie Aristocrats at competitiveness at best? Probably not even that. Probably wouldn’t even be real Tier 1 because of weak matchup against Syndicate / too much conditionality on copying stuff? So what is the problem?
Here comes the general picture where already known, good deck simply distance self from the weaker and really new stuff. More timid buffs have little chance to see play; why would you try a small subtle buff, when an already figured out netdeck gets multiple buffs? - A few changes ignore basic balance considerations; the main offender here is Enslave leader ability buff. I have no idea why seize 6 ability needs added provision.
Generally not a good patch to start 2025, but Gwent seen a LOT worse things, so let’s just enjoy the game.
I predict that the experience would be better for the competitive than the casual in January 2025. It is very likely that Enslave Assimilate will dominate the ladder in terms of popularity, making it annoying if casuals favorite decks have a bad matchup against this. Competitive will just adapt, make use of strategies hard to copy for Enslave, like for example use of strong Artifacts (Ard Feainn, Ale Of Ancestors, Novigrad). But that’s just a prediction, I may be wrong.
What New To Try?
MO | nothing new; Tatterwing should have good Enslave matchup
NG | all kinds of Assimilate Enslave, both Calveit and Slave Drivers + Magne versions. Reverted Illusionists probably wouldn’t see much play because of mirrors. To beat Enslave: Aristocrats, maybe Enemy Boost.
NR | not a great patch for NR – most popular engine decks are bad vs Enslave 6. If not hunting for fMMR though can try damage engine decks with Yennefer: Conjurer, for example Golden Nekker.
SK | Ulula Warriors with Hemdall, Self-wound with Artis, Reckless Flurry Golden Nekker again.
ST | Treant Mantis: Stalk for fun, Handbuff with Triss: Butterflies, Guerilla Aglais with Ciri, maybe even Summoning Circle trick.
SY | Salamandra with Fallen Rayla + Mutated Hounds; Blood Money Bounty / Nekker with extra provision.
Closure
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this review even if disliked the patch 😉
Happy New Year, and see you on ladder!