One of the highlights of The Witcher 3 for me was the completely optional, PvE card minigame Gwent. I would spend hours travelling around, searching for AI opponents to challenge and building up my card collection, which turned out to be so addictive it nearly took up more time than the main story quests.

As someone who was looking for their next Gwent fix, I was overjoyed to hear that CDProjekt was working on a standalone version of Gwent. While I had my reservations about whether Gwent could hold up as a PvP online CCG, having played the closed beta I am pleased to report that Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is everything I could have hoped for and then some, even in its current unfinished state.

After a few matches, I could tell the game had moved forward in leaps and bounds from the original version. Each faction has been given a ton of depth in the form of cards with distinctive effects, that encourage various play styles even within a single faction. This is further underlined by the choice of three leaders per faction that can be unlocked, each with unique abilities that combine well with different cards.

The developers have done a fine job balancing cards and mechanics that were once overpowered in The Witcher 3, largely by restricting the effectiveness of high quality cards. Spies now have some downside to their drawing abilities, and there is a limit on how many silver and gold cards you can have in a deck — so no more spamming decoys and spies for an easy win. Since they are silver, powerful special cards like Commander’s Horn and Scorch are limited to one copy per deck, meaning players have to make the most of the bronze cards which make up the majority of their decks.

Gwent has retained the compelling dynamics at its core, requiring a healthy dose of strategy and shrewdness from the player for them to excel. Unlike in Hearthstone, the power does not only lie in the strength of the individual cards that comprise a deck but the player who holds them, in their ability to outwit and manipulate their opponent with said cards. There is far less reliance on RNG than in Hearthstone, so even if you get a bad draw or mulligan, you can still steal victory through smart play. Rounds in Gwent — which take a ‘best of three’ format — are structured so that any one card can be played at any time on your turn, with each player alternating turns. The key here is maximising the value of your cards with combos, so that you can rack up the higher score at the end of the round.

This is where the mind games come into play, and I’m not talking about the Hearthstone card. Gwent is at its most intense when it becomes a battle of wits, each player feeling out the other, trying to anticipate their moves and baiting them into playing cards inefficiently. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence to find myself playing Chicken with my opponent, waiting to see who would blink first and pass the round (meaning they can’t play any more cards), only to find that I - or my opponent — had overextended and left themselves wide open in the following rounds.

Knowing when to pass (thus ending your involvement in the round) is an art in itself. Do I pass now and preserve the slightest card advantage (having more cards in your hand than the opponent), or push on and try to take this round? Do I surrender the battle, in the hope of winning the war? These are the questions players will constantly have to ask themselves, while considering the many factors that can decide the fate of a match. That is why a player’s foresight is so crucial in this game.

This may sound like an uphill struggle for newcomers to get to grips with, and in truth it is. While there is a tutorial that provides a broad introduction, from there players are left at the mercy of a perfunctory matchmaking system that can pit you against seasoned veterans. Newbies are done no favours by the F2P model Gwent has adopted, either: this is understandable for a CCG but it leaves beginners and their starter decks at a severe disadvantage. As such, the first few hours of Gwent can be an extremely frustrating experience as players suffer loss after loss, meaning they earn less rewards and take longer to craft a competitive deck.

An easy solution I can think of is that for the first few levels, players are only matched with other beginners, and they could earn double rewards for each win. It wouldn’t hurt if there were more strong cards available from the start either, and a higher chance of getting rare cards from kegs (booster packs) wouldn’t go amiss.

If and when these issues are dealt with, and after some needed balance tweaks (Northern Realms and Monsters are the strongest factions and see much more play than Scoia’tael and Skellige), there will be nothing preventing players from enjoying Gwent’s chess-like strategy and poker-like deception. I have been hooked on the closed beta since I got my code and expect it to get better and better with further development.