Introduction
One year elapsed since the last, epic ‘Nations of Gwent 3‘ chapter of the cycle got published. We have followed popularity of Gwent in different countries since the first season of Pro Ladder (September 2017) up to August Season of Masters 3 (2021). The data used was restricted to (%) of players on Pro Ladder.
Now its time to update the old graphs and add some new ones. The comments would be restricted mostly to Masters 4 evolution, so if you would like to know more about what happened in earlier periods, have a look to preceeding chapter.
As pictures are worth a thousand words, let’s start with something brand new – pie charts of current (November 2022) and starting (Season 1) state.
Then And Now
War And Ban Impact
A sudden plunge happened in February, which is the month when Russian invasion started (24th Feb) . Nevertheless, overall Ukraine has been most represented on Pro Ladder in Gwent history in Masters 4. In November we observe another drop, which this time may be attributed to bombardment of critical infrastructure… mixing children card game and war feels cringe, so let’s move on.
Russia entered Masters 4 with highest Jan and Feb numbers ever. In about two weeks after invasion, on March 11th, Russians and Belarusians have been banned from competitive tournament play. Moreover, all transactions have been blocked. Assuming that spends are directly proportional to game popularity in a country, it meant instant loss of 25+% of revenue.
While the abundance of Russians dropped by about 2% after the ban, this nation still remains dominant on Gwent Pro Ladder, with community driven Russian Gwent Cups replacing official tournament gameplay.
China After Wangid1's Ruling
After 2020 / early 2021 perturbations (read the China section in the preceeding article), the overall presence of Chinese players remain at the same level. In Masters 4 no player from China played in official events – most competitive Chinese players abandoned Gwent after competitive ruling of Wangid1.
Poland - Masters 4 Competitive Dog
In Masters 4 the fraction of Polish players slightly increased and was very stable. After competitive ban of Russian players, and withdrawal of main Chinese competitors, Poland was the workhorse of competitive Gwent in Masters 4. Gandalf0271 won Gwent Open#2. Four Polish players: kams134, Gandalf, Truzky and Danirai made it to Gwent Masters Finals. Danirai performed best, losing only to Spellingbee in the Grand Final.
Other Countries
As could be seen in pie charts, Gwent is very varied when it comes to playerbase. Perhaps you would like to find similar graph for your own country, which wasn’t mentioned yet. If so, check out graphs pack, where identical plots were made for many other nations. For example, Team White Frost recently came to recognition with Meta Snapshots publications. Let’s have a look at how Vietnamese players fraction evolved on Gwent Pro Ladder.
Sadly nothing spectacular 🙁
Regions
Closure
Hope that this presentation appealed to your curiosity. Don’t forget that Graphs and Sheets Pack is always there if you would like to check out some nations. Stay tuned!