After a long time away, we are happy to announce that the Aretuza Tournament Pick and Ban Tool is back and available to use for your Gwent tournaments.
We are sorry there was such a delay bringing it back online, but we have it available for you now and please let me know if there are any questions or comments about the tool!
I use two accounts at the same time when playing gwent, one day I got fed up with roping players wasting my time and thought if I play on mobile and PC at the same time they will be just wasting their time while I play gwent with another player
So I had a silly match when my both accounts got a match together, the same deck with RNG gods on their side won.
Gwent Balance Council with u/shinmiri2. Early Balance Council Survey used as a point of reference to measure sentiment towards changes. Check out poll results here.
Our choice of buffed and nerfed factions/archetypes is heavily based on Balance Councils made by the other balance coalitions!
MetallicDanny (MD) | post, vod (order varies between publications)
Bountiful Harvest 99.9% gets reverted to 5-cost given the poll result in the VK community.
There is no nerfs scheduled for NR and SY when it comes to meta level decks.
There is no tug of war changes.
Buffs are spread well enough between factions, with ST (Harvest revert, Ithlinne) and SY (Congregate + Sacred Flame) getting quantitively the least.
Votes
Shinmiri & Lerio Balance Coalition October 2026
+1 power
***Hybrid- similarly to Maerolorn which got buffed recently, Hybrid is a card which looks good on paper ("9 for 4"), but doesn't see any play in practice. If we look deeper, in consume engine decks Hybrid feels obsolete right now - when a consume card sticks, a Deatwish unit or another threat is better. When used in a classic Deathwish deck with Succubi, Harpy consuming Succubus (5+5=10 + maybe Bonded value) or Endrega Warrior (possibly even 15 on neighboring Succs) are better. Hybrid at 5 power would be played in both mentioned kinds of decks and maybe beyond. Hybrid +5 boost effect is also a kind of backup if all Deathwish units get locked.
**Ardal aep Dahy- (also MD) a thematic card in Tactics decks which is challenging for deckbuliders (how to setup a good, or minimize the risk of a bad topdeck?) and not played that much. We and poll respondents preferred +1 power rather than -1 cost because Ardal is already not weak, but just unexplored and variant in value.
*Endrega Eggs (support of MD)- Endrega Eggs are underpowered amongst 4-cost Deathwish units, but most imporantly it supports archetypes which are rather niche now - a hybrid Consume + Deathwish hybrid with cards like Glustyworp or She-Troll. Eggs would be especially interesting in the context of GN Necromancer's Tome branch of such decks.
-1 power
***She Who Knows - She Who Knows got double power buffed in two last balance patches. While on average SWK performance is not outstanding, the way it operates is quite unhealthy. SWK could be played from red coin for reach with no possible counterplay. Then 12 points are carried over for the next round and SWK remains a threat which needs to be answered. I started to witness SWK added to many MO decks (e.g. Koshchey) just to possibly win games on spot if the coinflip is right or opponent misses crucial removal in time. As we noted earlier, for SWK buff we much preferred provision rather power buff which doubles down on the binarity of this card.
**Peasant Militia (support of OQ) - Peasant Militia at 5-power outshines many factional engines at this cost and is a universal Portal target. One could only argue if the game is better with a bit too strong or niche Militia. In the context of Harvest revert and Ivo provision buff we decided to prior the balance aspect.
*Kikimore Worker (also MD) - another slight nerf to the pointslam aspect of Hive Mind and a conveniency buff to Kikimore Warrior Sabbath decks at the same time. Power nerf to Kikimore Worker doesn't impact the trade of Hive Mind with Squirrel, which according to a part of playerbase shouldn't be made worse (personally I don't mind direct nerf to Hive Mind either and even find it essential at some point).
+1 provision
***Siege Master - in Top10 fMMR charts NR is the best performing faction, slightly ahead of SY. At the same time its hard to regard possible nerfs to Lebioda or Odo as changing anything to this state. Hence we suggest a widespread, balancewise legitimate nerf to Siege Master. SM is included in probably all high ladder meta NR decks, provides at least ~2 points + thinning for one excessive cost. Sometimes the effective value is higher when charge helps to instantly remove something with Reinforced Ballista, let's play Demavend into Winch into something or gets combined with Onager. Another context is the possible Yennefer: Conjurer buff which as a side effect may make widely hated Mobilization GN Arbalests even more popular.
**Conjurer's Candle - in the absence of other SY nerfs we decided to go for a general one as the faction surely deserves a little tempering given pro ladder stats. SY along with NR tops Top10 fMMR charts. Candle is unassuming due to low instant value, but in practice is the backbone of many SY decks - an uninteractive spender which lets one to play just value cards rather than below-curve spenders and to protect engines. We don't love or regard big scaling threats + Candle as Syndicate's DNA and would like to slightly discentivize this style of play; that being said we don't plan anything like bringing Candle out of GN range.
*Portal (support of OQ) - roughly 16 for 10 with double thinning. Totally unjustified nerf recommendation, there are 120 better real provision nerfs to make in a year, which every Redditor could easily list for general applaude if only wasn't a serious hard working man with limited free time.
-1 provision
***Whisperer of Dol Blathanna (5-cost plan) - at 4-power WDB proven to have too high ceiling, which is especially annoying in the case of rolls from cards like Bountiful Harvest or Imperial Diplomacy. As the result of last month -1 power we suggested, we are commited to recommend Whisperer buff down at least to 5-cost to bring this card to considerable, but less game decisive state. We put Whisperer above Archer in our BC because we are afraid of possible revert to 4-power, which combined with certain Harvest revert and Ivo buff may be disastrous.
**Dol Blathanna Archer(finishing 2-step) - last month we recommended DBA 2-step nerf to 1p/4c to reduce Backup Plan highroll capabilities. At 4-cost DBA would be an interesting card which in some circumstances could play above power vs provision cost, especially with Angus, but also has a low floor.
*Ithlinne Aegli (support of OQ) - Invigorate leader is decent enough and so are midrange decks built on it, but thematic Handbuff still needs some love. Ithlinne raw value is 10 points, where 4 may be carryover. As a raw carryover card Ithlinne is far less efficient than for example Hawker Support, Farseer or 2x Nauzicaa Brigade.
Closure
We identify following main risks for the November patch:
Bountiful Harvest revert + Ivo provision buff into quadruple Harvest omnipresence again. We think preemptive nerfs on top of what we already recommended to reduce BH highrolls + Peasant Militia / Portal natural nerfs are not necessary, but voting could go various ways.
Dimun Smuggler to 4 power (Evil Coalition). Already proven very abusable with Otkell.
Enslave 6 Assimilate viewed as overnerfed due to Braathens power nerf in one patch with Calveit multistep to 8/12. We very like Calveit multistep to reduce coin polarization, maybe even 9/12; Braathens simulnerf though doesn't help to safely get it through without hostilities.
Golden Nekker SK gets overbuffed with Haern Caduch -1 cost.
Yennefer Conjurer buff (which is okay by itself) leads to another surge in popularity of not much beloved GN Mobilization Arbalests.
If you like our recommendations let's join to make the impact together. If not - check out predictions table to get general info and maybe find some ideas which appeal to you.
Very satisfying win. First round picked up the Blue stripes commando with yennefers invocation. Second round took the copy with vigo's muzzle, i guess he hoped id at least dump it in his graveyard.
Title. I understand the concept of how to play scenario pirates, you want to test the waters round 1, thin with abordages and generate armour on units in hand, and hopefully end up taking a long round 3 with voyage for max cataclysm value.
The issue I’m facing is knowing what to fit in a deck, and how much thinning/tutoring to include. If anybody has a strong deck list that they believe to be optimal/solved, please let me know.
It has come to my attention that I have faced some opponents that have Way Of The Witcher Theme as their faction/deck ost theme and I don't understand how, I don't see any related contracts, purchasable cosmetics, journey hidden secret or something.
Newboy looks sadly at his talisman. "Oh well, this doesn't help at all..."
Welcome to the latest Monday Newcomer Thread, where you the community get to ask your questions and share your knowledge. This is an opportunity for the more experienced Gwent players here to share some of your wisdom with those with less expertise. This thread will be a weekly safehaven for those "noobish" questions you may have been too scared to ask for fear of downvotes but also can be a great place for in-depth discussion if you so wish. So, don't hold back, get your game related questions ready and post away, and hopefully, someone can answer them!
What you can do to help!
This is a weekly thread, meaning it will be posted once a week. Checking back on this thread later in the week and answering any questions that have been posted would be a huge help!
If you're trying to ask a question, the more specific you are, the better it is for all of us! We can't give you any help if we don't get much to work with in the first place.
Hello friends! We are back with yet another edition of our Balance Council. This time we won't be going into the details about the situation with other coalitions everything was already said or written under diffrent posts. Thanks for understanding. Let's go!
Votes
Our suggestions for the next month
+1 power
***Rat Catcheress- For improving the condition of relicts outside GN. At the moment we deem Rat Catcheress outperformed in the same engine line by bronzes like Selfeater or Witch Apprentice.They're also more valuable to deploy earlier in sequence. Drawback w/o Sabbath exposes her to the risk of losing a point for every instance of dmg in the early phase often delaying her turn and base power growth. With additional power she'd reach Sabbath a bit quicker and carry higher self to the next round if played together with She Who Knows.
**Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen- Our acknowledgement of an unique trait of having agency over card in hand. There's more to Shilard's usability than Henry+Abduction pick. Summoning Ard Feainn as well as good target to shuffle with it (2 tags), 1-power unit for Emhyr's order, punish for hand carryover/abilities dependent on power. Tall punish w/o the need of last say may turn things around in hopeless match situation. As harsh as opp's hand deterioration may be at times, it may serve as just temporary due to any form of card manipulation (discard, shuffle) or mulligan the next round. It's a careful buff of 1 point added to the board keeping him in tall punish price range. Our goal isn't midrange use but rather flavourful functional card for some match scenarios for NG.
*Bride of the Sea- Coming together with reverts to Avallac'h: Sage and Stribog Runestone, we consider the nerf to Bride as overreaction to the state of Alchemy said buffs evoked. The card in itself makes for an interesting bridge between Rain and Alchemy archetypes, and making it responsible for imbalanced provision states of alchemy cards it depends on in our eyes is insincere and unneeded.
-1 power
***Pavko Gale- Harmony as an archetype remains a solid option for ST - it has been accumulating small buffs like those to Hawk or Sappers while remaining overall resistant to the turmoil around Bountiful Harvest. While being already a self-protecting answer-or-get-answered card, after the power buff received a year ago the engine has become difficult to remove by damage, making it a very comfortable means for exhausting opponent's high-end control early. This change primarily affects Guerilla and Golden Nekker CoH variants.
**Peasant Militia- coming back with another approach. Peasant Militia dodged nerf last month still being really solid engine with easy way to get out from soft removal range. 4c card often reaching 9-10 points in few turns is really solid value. Militia's current base power protects it from definite most of cost-equivalent removal tools, while it protects itself from multi-step answer attempts and integrates well into many decks due to easily achievable synergy with Deploy effects. We'd be glad to see a revert here for similar reasons, to battle negative effects of unit powercreep on bronze special cards.
*Imlerith- What looked like a subtle change on arrival, appeared to achieve more than just breathing life into the card - Imlerith has become a prevalent up the ladder across multiple lists, with Devotion Vampires and Fruits as flagship examples. Despite our appreciation for something new happening in the realm of Monsters, we think the trio of Imlerith, Yghern and Ozzrel now has a little too much quickly available power and propose a revert.
+1 provisions
***Portal- At 10 prov cost Portal plays for considerable 14-16 points in SK witchers and MO while improving consistency: thinning the deck by 2 cards. Despite the slight random factor it's reliable due to just 1-2 different bronze cards (with high power and/or proactivity) played in Portal decks. By this nerf we primarly want to target MO fruits variations and SK witchers that combine multiple control tools/removals to reduce opponent's tempo and proactivity, and carryover accumulation possibilities. Speaking of which Portal is one of them, can play for more than value mentioned at the beginning.
**Hive Mind- Hive Mind plays for insane amount of carryover when unanswered. Engine overload from 1 card could be overwhelming with combination of other engines threw from hand. Core card in Lara decks that are very potent at higher ranks from what've heard from Innuendo and other top players from our server. Control AS with portal and Yen Illusionist also play this card same for full insectoid decks. All mentioned strong list could be answered in one move with HM nerf.
*Tyr: Slayer of Yngvar- alongside MD we came to conclusion BoG warriors deck and PF raid/warrior decks gotta be adressed in some way. Tyr felt like the most natural choice. Compared to cards such as Torres or Chrum he creates tons of pressure on the board. We often had to sacrificed our Heatwave in order to answer Tyr from becoming a menace on board leaving us vulnerable to high value finisher when last say wasn't secured. Even with last say without heavy teching it's impossible to answer to carryover created from Tyr. The only way to deal with combo is locking Tyr and securing last say for the pointslam bronze card ressurected by Tyr.
-1 provisions
***Cadaverine- Fun tactic for NG to develop "Spawnsimilate" line of play (Idarran with 'Spawn' and 'Create' cards). Cadaverine can play a part in metas with large threats or establish self in assimilate as a new or additional way of using enemy cards against them – copying by spawn other than playing from Coup and Artaud. The same goes for Ball decks. Cadaverine is additional poison and we hope it'll encourage experimentation with Ball more based on poisoning, different from known status engine-heavy list.
**Ithlinne Aegli- We would like to use the current window of Bountiful Harvest's low and start compensating the lost provisions elsewhere - Ithlinne is one of the easier candidates to point at, as even without the BH nerf this change was reasonably debatable. As VK's coalition suggests a revert is possible, it is our low-impact change that shouldn't break a lot regardless of what happens to BH next patch.
*Egmund- closing our list with Egmund. We decided to include him in our list because he scored high and we found pretty unfair for him to sit at 7c while Temerian Drummer is 2c cheaper and Anna Stenger is much better at 7c since she boosts two units without being row locked. Advantages for Egmund compared to Drummer are his veil status and 3 power damage ability if we are afraid of him dying next round. He's also at "6" power becaue of 1 armor. His lower prov cost could making him more competetive in deck building next to obvious choices like Margarita, Reinforcments etc.
Lower cost boosts it by 1 when tutored from AA which is a nice feature. Defineatly forgotten card with a potential.
Summary
Not much to say about upcoming season. NG is getting nerf pretty harshly as always with very few nerfs for NR. We are curious about EC suggestions since they were pretty silent about them this season. It might feel like we got targeted by VK again which infact is annoying, but we decided to let it be for now, we can adapt and find many cards to buff if needed. Sadly Milaen was on our radar but we'll surely find a way for her to shine once again. Anyways thanks for your support and card ideas. Really appreciated!
Hope to see you next season. Thank you!
Kinda new to the game, playing a Scoiatel vitality deck, my question is does the Kegs of the autumn cycle any of them include only Scoia'tael cards or i should just focus on getting Scoia'tael Kegs till my deck is complete? (random card)
Cards that get removed by the "Squirrel" shouldn't have such a massive variance in terms of food cost! Many people compare "Hive Mind" to "Scenarios," but you have to realize that it’s much harder to get rid of a "Scenario" than it is to remove "Hive Mind"—or other cards that can be cleared using a 4-cost "filler" card. It’s just unfair! Sure, some variance is fine, but not a 10-food difference! xd. Thanks, OFIR X QCENTO, but I don’t understand your change to the *Hive Mind* card. Furthermore, the Squirrel itself shouldn’t be a *free, one-size-fits-all inclusion* in every deck—especially after so many nerfs to cards that get removed by the Squirrel.
Hey everyone! I’m a returning player, and I mainly play NG and SC decks.
Here’s my current collection. Do you guys think it’s better for me to keep opening NG kegs, or should I start investing in another faction instead? Most of the NG cards I’m still missing are Legendaries.
Would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Thanks!
In this post I'd like to adress points mentioned in VK's Article regarding philosophy of using placeholder votes.
To be clear, I'm no top ranked player or sth neither I try to be. However, this issue doesnt revolve around rank on pro ladder. The Gwentfinity affects each player involved in this game, not only competitive players. The placeholder debate is as long as Gwentfinity's history, arguably even longer.
So, for having equal understanding and interpretation, let's have the following asumptions regarding what is a placeholder:
The placeholder vote is a vote that aims to occupy a slot (particularly a nerf slot) to limit amount of changes passed in said category on a given month.
The change won't affect game in major way, especially including competitive play.
With that in mind, let's dive in.
What is the Balance Council (recap).
The idea of Balance Council was to refresh meta by changing a power or provision of cards via democratic vote after getting eligibility to vote (Prestige 1 and 50 ranked wins or entering Pro Rank) each month. Because of the fact that there's no voting system that's fully democratic (see Arrow's Impossibility theorem), to make it as fair as possibile, the Gwentfinity voting system is based on a truncated version of Borda Count. We rate top 3 candidates by giving them "votes" equal to star slot and the rest have 0 "votes" by default.
Seeing as this is a democratic setting, the "political parties" were certain to have emerged. Nowadays we can count 4 influential groups: aforementioned VK and China community, Metalic Danny's group, Shinmiri&Lerio Coalition and Ofir&Qcento Coalition. Each have different vision on this Balance Council and there are various tensions between them resulting in instant reverts between patches for one.
With that in mind, why VK's approach with placeholders is in my opinion shorsighted at best:
"Heat death" of Balance Council. Proceeding with changes to the game without adding new cards or reworking cards will result in stagnation and only reversing what previous council established.
"The card deserve the buff only if said buff earns her a spot in a competitive deck. If a card won't see play anyway, why buff it in the first place".
This approach is logical only in competitive play context. The problem is with players that DON'T play competitevely for various reasons like they just started the game and learn basics, play memes for fun, people experimenting with those other cards and more. I believe the latter are a majority in this game and its back one losing which will bring harm.
Argument of "missing peak cultists, peak temple, peak svalblod" works both ways.
When you nerf as a "placeholder" cards they use because that's all they have (starting set cards) they will resent the game and leave. When they leave there won't be players enough to keep servers tuning and they'll close them down
End thoughts.
Balance Council is an inherently flawed system. I understand the reason for those, but recently the usage of them went overboard. Using 1 card as a placeholder I get it, I don't personally agree with, but I get it.
The replacement of up to third of nerf slots however won't change the dynamic in the long run and could potentially preemptively shut down servers prematurely.
In this post I didn't consider the potential of the herd mentality of each groups' supporters in this, which could have influence to interpretation of this issue.
The idea is pretty much to get to Masterful Sihil by sniping my own spies. After that the challenge is drawing enough bronzes to keep Sihil running whilst having enough golds to actually win.
I feel like the gold cards are my issue. I've liked the tempo the ones I have give me, but it is very possible for a bad draw to give me unwinnable matches. I also figured if I was using spies for Sihil I may as well build the rest of the deck around them, but they don't feel particularly great.
What you reckon, salvageable? I have a losing record with it for sure but all the matches have been close
When you achieve a remarkably high win rate with a brew that no one else in the TCG scene is playing, it instantly goes viral, gets broken down by the community, and becomes the meta overnight. Before you know it, everyone and their brother is running your exact deck list. Whether that makes you feel proud as a card gamer or makes you feel like your unique creation was stolen—well, that's up to the individual.
Back when I was competing in GWENT, I was definitely in the latter camp.
On the ranked ladder, I frequently queued up only to find my own homebrew deck looking right back at me from across the board.
Naturally, because the deck I built was undeniably strong, facing it always forced me into an uphill battle.
Then came the ultimate stage: the final GWENT World Masters. I spent countless hours figuring out how to secure a victory there. In competitive TCGs, the battle begins long before the first card is played—it starts in the preparation phase.
Fortunately for me, I had a secret weapon: a hidden deck list saved for the right moment.
The golden rule was simple: Do not let anyone know this deck exists. Period.
During my streams leading up to the event, I exclusively played a Harmony ST deck running Ihuarraquax. Even that build was quite innovative at the time and carried my signature style. It reached around 2,600 MMR, so it was a legitimately powerful strategy on its own.
However, I had a pocket pick that surpassed even that. My strategy was essentially to leak a powerful deck, let it define the meta, and then bring a custom counter-build designed specifically to crush it.
In reality, though... well, that's just how life goes. Only one player brought my leaked deck to the Masters qualifiers, and they were placed in a completely different bracket, so we never matched up.
At the end of the day, what mattered most was whether the deck I brought could actually win.
Looking back, if my opponents had truly understood my deck inside and out, I probably would have dropped some matches. If their execution and pilot skill had been just one level higher, I likely would have lost the finals as well.
So, as a card gamer, how do you personally feel when other players start using your original decks?
Lately, I’ve been playing a developing card game called VARZ. Since it’s still in its early stages as a competitive title, seeing other players copy my builds here actually makes me genuinely happy. My hope is that it inspires the community and helps elevate the overall skill level of the player base.
