Close Menu
blix.gg
    Newest
    The Dota 2 Heroes That Can Fit Into Almost Any Role in Patch 7.38c
    May 12, 2025
    CS2 Anubis Smokes Guide: Win Rounds with Perfect Utility
    May 11, 2025
    VALORANT and League of Legends Partner with Coinbase
    May 11, 2025
    X (Twitter)
    blix.gg
    • CS2
      • CS2 Predictions
      • CS2 Guides
      • Review of Best CS2 Gambling Sites 2025
        • Review of Best CS2 Crash Sites 2025
      • Best CS2 Betting Sites for 2025
    • Deadlock
      • Deadlock Guide
      • Deadlock News
    • Valorant
      • Valorant Skins
      • Valorant Guides
      • Valorant Leaks
    • Dota 2
      • Dota 2 Updates
      • Dota 2 Tournaments
      • Dota 2 Guides
    • LoL
      • League of Legends Guides
      • League of Legends Skins
    • Games
      • Mobile Games
      • Marvel Rivals
      • Apex Legends
      • COD Mobile
    • Industry
    blix.gg
    Home»News»gwent»Which Gwent faction is more suitable for a beginner?
    gwent

    Which Gwent faction is more suitable for a beginner?

    By Danial "Believe" NauanSeptember 13, 20226 Mins Read
    Share
    Twitter
    Banner

    For those who are not familiar with Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is a collectible card game developed by CD Projekt Red in 2018. There are 6 playable factions and over 1400 different cards. All the cards are from the famous game and book series ‘œThe Witcher’ written by Andrzej Sapkowski.

    This game will tick the right boxes for fans of The Witcher, but more than that, those who previously enjoyed playing other popular card games like Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, and others. In Gwent like in all card games cards including minions and spells are played on the game board(Image 1.1). Additionally, cards could be premium which means with animation(Image 1.2 and 1.3) and standard without the animation. From the overall perspective, Gwent is a very skill-intensive, F2P-friendly game with amazing art and lore.

    This was a small overview of what Gwent actually is, but now I want to focus more on playable factions because it’™s where a lot of new players start to struggle.

    Contents

    • 1 NORTHERN REALMS
    • 2 NILFGAARD
    • 3 MONSTERS
    • 4 SCOIA’™TAEL
    • 5 SKELLIGE
    • 6 SYNDICATE

    NORTHERN REALMS

    Northern Realms is the faction you’™ll play in the tutorial of Gwent. Unfortunately, most of the players will continue to play this faction only because they were introduced to them first. From my point of view, it’™s a big mistake; it may be an inappropriate race for your type of game style. Overall, I agree with the fact that this is one of the easiest races to start with. Mainly because they don’™t have such difficult mechanics, like Nilfgaard or Syndicate. Most of the time Northern Realm cards have simple logistics. Like Order, where you just need to wait one turn before activating that ability, Cooldown, where you need to wait the number of turns before reactivating order, and Crew which triggers additional ability if this unit is between two Soldiers. The majority of Northern Realm decks focus on dealing a lot of damage, saving their units, and playing long rounds. So, the main concept is simple and that’™s why this faction works well for new players.

    Source: CD Projekt RED Source: CD Projekt RED

    NILFGAARD

    Nilfgaard is the faction based on spies and playing opponent’™s cards. It’™s a far more complex option rather than Northern Realms. To win as Nilfgaard you must know your opponent’™s deck at the same level as you know your own. Furthermore, you must know all game mechanics and cards because very often you will be playing cards of your opponent who is playing on other various factions. I highly recommend not to start your journey into Gwent by playing Nilfgaard. If you’™re still new to the game, you should get more experience before trying them. On the other hand, Nilfgaard being so skill and knowledge dependent has made this faction one of the more dominant and stable throughout the past 4 years since Gwent’™s release.

    MONSTERS

    Monsters mainly focus on rough power. They have powerful units with high stats and quite simple mechanics. I could say that it’™s on the same level of difficulty as Northern Realms. Their main abilities are; Deathwish, which triggers only if this minion died, Dominance, which is active when you control the unit with the highest stats on the board, Consume, when you just eat your own minion just to trigger its Deathwish and Thrive, which boosts unit by 1 if you play a minion with stats higher than the minion with Thrive. Even if you haven’™t played a game of Gwent, the main logic of these abilities is easy enough to grasp. That’™s why Monsters are a good option for beginners. Gameplay on Monsters is based mainly on not controlling the enemy board but on boosting your own units. Additionally, they have an option to play short rounds as a result of their high stats monsters.

    SCOIA’™TAEL

    Scoia’™tael is the faction of elven and dwarven rebels who fight a guerilla war against the Northern Kingdoms which is moderately complicated to play. The problem with Scoia’™taels is that they were very unstable during all of Gwent’™s meta. They were either on the top or at the bottom. In today’™s meta Scoia’™taels play a spam type of gameplay, thanks to the latest patch; where some of the cards were updated and now it is viable for them to play as spam elves. But for a long time, Scoia’™taels played with traps and a lot of spells. The trap is a card that is played face down, then flips over when the ability’™s condition is met. It was annoying and uncomfortable to play against such decks considering the fact that there were like 6 different traps with some of them having 2 copies in the deck. The combination of spells and traps made it impossible for opponents to use their removals because traps didn’™t have any stats. Overall, this deck was a big headache to enemies. In conclusion, I could say that new players could try out this faction as their first but there are obviously easier options.

    SKELLIGE

    Skellige is the faction that lives in the islands of the Skellige Archipelago. The main units of this race are pirates and ships. However, in today’™s meta there are a lot of different archetypes of Skellige decks including Alchemy, Pirates, and Witchers. We could classify Skellige as an extremely controlling faction that could easily wipe out your vital minions. Skellige has some cards that can resurrect minions back to the battlefield. Moreover, this race has an exceedingly efficient way to draw cards; by taking one card from the deck and just deleting one from your hand. Allowing you to find cards that you want and get rid of trash minions or spells from your hand. All of those features make Skellige a really mighty faction with a lot of variabilities. Nevertheless, I rank it as a medium level of difficulty, because there is too much for new players to learn to begin playing with it.

    SYNDICATE

    From my point of view, Syndicate is the most complex faction in comparison with those previously described. The main issue for newbies playing this faction is that it has its own mechanic of coins. Most of the Syndicate cards have the Tribute ability; where you need to choose whether or not you want to spend a specific number of Coins to trigger its special talent. Some minions and spells have Profit from which you can gain a stated number of coins to pay your tribute. In Syndicate decks, you will obviously have a precise number of coins you’™ll need to pay for your Tribute, and sometimes it’™s really tough to count all of those money operations. As an example, when I was playing on Syndicate, my last card in my hand which had 9 Tribute but somehow, I only had 8 coins and I couldn’™t trigger its ability to achieve victory. Playing Syndicate means that you need to spend each coin correctly and predict the right number of coins you’™ll need for the final round. This faction is on the same level of complexity as Nilfgaard and in no case would I recommend it for beginners. However, the might and imbalance of this faction are even higher than Nilfgaard’™s, so if you spend enough time to master all of its features it will definitely result in a higher win rate.

    Danial "Believe" Nauan

    You may also like

    By Mad

    Gwent Crafting Guide: Scoia’tael

    September 26, 2022
    By Nastassia "evewi" Nasko

    Gwent Homecoming: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

    May 29, 2022
    By Nastassia "evewi" Nasko

    3 things to miss about the good old days in Gwent

    May 8, 2022
    By Danial "Believe" Nauan

    Best and worst cards of Forgotten Treasures card set of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game

    April 16, 2022
    Add A Comment
    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Recent Post
    The Dota 2 Heroes That Can Fit Into Almost Any Role in Patch 7.38c
    May 12, 2025
    CS2 Anubis Smokes Guide: Win Rounds with Perfect Utility
    May 11, 2025
    VALORANT and League of Legends Partner with Coinbase
    May 11, 2025
    2025 Road to MSI Qualifier Schedule & Ticket Details Unveiled By LCK 
    May 10, 2025
    blix.gg
    X (Twitter) RSS
    • Editorial Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Privacy policy
    • About us
    • Our Authors
    • Join Our Team
    © 2025 BLIX.GG. All rights reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Manage Consent
    To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
    Functional Always active
    The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
    Preferences
    The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
    Statistics
    The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
    Marketing
    The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
    Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
    View preferences
    {title} {title} {title}