Gwentfinity

In October 2023, Gwent turned into Gwentfinity mode. No more new cards are released and meta shifts are done only by Balance Council and influence of creative players who still find yet unexplored possiblities and optimize underrated archetypes.

  • No new cards
  • No new effects/reworks
  • Power and Provision +1/-1 Changes driven by the community each month
  • Still a lot of fun and new decks emerging!

Gwent Meta Snapshots

At the moment of writing this article (2024 June) , there is no quality Gwent Meta Snapshots available, like TLG Gwent Meta Reports (last May 2022), Aretuza Snapshots (last August 2021) or TEB Meta Snapshots (last December 2023) used to be in the past.

The reason behind is gradually decreasing popularity and esports aspect of Gwent, crowned by Gwentfinity announcement at the end of 2022. Snapshots provided by Gwent teams proven to be too much effort and too little reward. 

In spite of the limited number of changes each month, the meta shifts are still considerable and one ‘ultimate’ Gwent Meta Snapshot for Gwentfinity is impossible and would get outdated soon. A team willing to contribute with a really high quality Meta Snapshot right now would have to:

  • Consist of at least one high level player who would play few hundreds of games at top mmrs and get in touch with main ladder picks at the highest MMRs each season
  • Have a webmaster who would provide Snapshot with more functionality and appeal than a random streamer’s decksheet.
  • Be able to real-time update snapshot each season.
  • Have a good grip to effectively promote the snapshot amongst WHOLE Gwent community.

The record of Snapshots which ended at one or two editions because these criteria weren’t met is long.

Another thing to keep in mind: many competitive players left the game or went into casual mode, but even a greater fraction of competitive deckbuilders (TailBot, Saber97, Green-Knight, Wangid1… to name a few). Deckbuilding is more time consuming than playing. Hypothetical Gwentfinity Meta Reports would be able to reproduce ladder state and strength of popular decks, but may differ from really best options due to lack of collective brainpower. 

Deck Sources

  1. Tournaments
    • Gwent Community Masters are a natual successor to official Gwent Esports and aim at keeping the best of competitive Gwent experience. Join Community Masters Discord to get more info and access tourament lineups from current Gwent top right when released!
    • For other tournaments, keep in touch with the community and check out my repository of tournament decksheets.

2. Streamers

    • Check out Gwent streams on Twitch. Some high MMR competitive players who streams (update September 2024):
    • Chosen streamers decksheets worth a look in June 2024 (not only them ofc)
      • Shinmiri2 – the decks higher in the spreadsheet are generally stronger and more trusty.
      • Kerpeten – top quality choice of decks whenever updated
      • my decks – right now its a mix of more and less serious stuff
      • MetallicDanny – ultimate sheet, which also includes snapshot and all-time decks for each leader.
      • Kareem’s Cookbook – juicy decks from competitive player

3. VOD content

    • I learned by myself that the most popular Gwent creators on YT are not necessarily the best to follow by a beginner player who wants to win more games with competitive, well-versed decks. Even if they are big names in the game / community, better check out their current performance via in-game profile. As a beginner you can’t really judge by yourself which deck is serious and which meme or unoptimized. If you could easily ask a player with good scores in the current season on that matter – do it.
Just saw incredible 50+ points Ivo Recruits deck of this known player slapping every opponent in the vod. Ready to climb to 2600 with my new secret weapon! Oh, wait...
    • By the scope of content posted as for June 2024 I can recommend kungfoorabbit channel, where lots of vods from my streams with good clickbait Community Masters 2024 and other tournaments vods are published. 
    • As for June 2024 there is no high MMR player who would upload regularly Youtube exclusive content.

4. Playgwent Deck Guides

  • Decks rated highest usually come from content creators who promote them on Twitch, Youtube or other social media. It is rare to find the gems via Gwent Deck Library; competitive players usually don’t bother to share decks there unless simultanously being content creators.
  • Sometimes a player from the shadows does so well with a homebrew deck that they publish a guide. That’s where we can find real gems, but it is very rare. Last one I remember was with Kordi Shieldwall Nekker; it is almost 1y old at the moment I write this guide. Look how well documented deck performance is in the guide, with a long match record. That’s what a surprisingly successful player enthusiastic about own build would do.
  • Opposite of such gems are players who flood the library with guides, mixing Gwent and poetry, often with catchy titles and sometimes with long deck descriptions.
  • As a rule of thumb usually top positions in ‘Trending Decks’ are solid ones, provided by popular content creators. Then they are followed by less solid and catchy popular creators decks. The upvote tail are decks from less popular content creators and independent players, some of whom share decks as a habit.
  • ‘New Arrivals’ tab is the least useful, usually simply decks from creators who upload most.
  • ‘Top Decks’ are not really ‘top’ when it comes to power, but they are mainly best received decks from top popular content creators in the past. In general people must have achieved decent results with most of those at the time. Even if outdated, they may be a good guideline of what’s underrated and worth more attention in the temporary meta.
  • I don’t recommend using Playgwent library and Youtube as a regular source of ladder decks in June 2024; following Streamers is more reliable. 

5. Other sources

  • Check out Gwent Leader Abilities cycle on leriohub. Each leader ability is accompanied by demo decks. While not updated and focused on showcasing leader abilities rather than maximizing winrate, these decks are a good source of inspiration.
  • In the absence of quality Meta Snapshots it is easier to find a good deck than to evaluate its relative power. Therefore it is always useful to keep in touch with the community. If you are Polish Gwent player I can recommend Gwint Pro Polska server on Discord.
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