History VideoGame / GwentTheWitcherCardGame

Gwent was announced at [[UsefulNotes/ElectronicEntertainmentExpo E3]] 2016 with a closed beta begun in October of that year. The closed beta test ended May 22, 2017 and open beta began on the 24th. It had a full release in October 2018 for Windows and for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxOne in December later that year. A standalone single-player Gwent-based RPG called ''VideoGame/ThronebreakerTheWitcherTales'' was released alongside the game.

The end of March 2019 saw the release of the first proper expansion, ''Crimson Curse'', themed around vampires, bringing 101 new cards and an additional leader for each faction. A mobile release occurred in 2019, coming first to [[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iPhone]] with an {{UsefulNotes/Android|Games}} release to follow. Late 2019 the console ports were closed and all users were migrated over to their choice of PC or Mobile.

* ShesGotLegs: The premium animation for Vivienne: Oriole begins with her posed to emphasize her exposed lower half, before shifting into her bird-like form.

* {{Gainaxing}}: Manually shifting Ves's premium card left and right used to generate a notable jiggle in her chest. This was removed sometime after Homecoming.

[[folder:Character/Faction Tropes]]
This section covers the Gwent version of characters, settings, factions and the like. Please visit the Franchise/TheWitcher for other versions.
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'''Overall Tropes'''
* CharacterDevelopment: Evolving cards depict the stories of important characters in the Witcher series, showing the circumstances that lead to each of their rises in power and how they changed for it.
--> '''Auberon King:''' "A stunningly beautiful display, this world. But it heralds naught but the end."
--> '''Auberon Conqueror:''' "I have lived long and seen all, and I am bored with it."
* FactionCalculus:
** Northern Realms: Powerhouse. Their special mechanic (''"Tight Bond"'') increases the power of each card according to how many of each are played. For example, find all three Blue Stripes Commando cards (normally worth 4 points each for a total of 12) can be laid down together for a whopping triple-fold increase in value (three of 12, for a combined level of 36; which can be doubled again to ''72'' if you use the Commander's Horn card). This allows you to get unrivalled points value out of a minimum number of cards. Consequently, the primary weakness of the Northern Realms deck is susceptibility to [[GeoEffects Weather cards]] and [[KillItWithFire Scorch cards]], which can negate the massive power of Bonded cards in a single swoop.
** Nilfgaardian Empire: Subversive. Nilfgaard relies largely on spies and diplomats to reduce the power of the enemy deck sufficiently that they can be beaten in the long-run, sacrificing early rounds to conserve their deck. They have a few strong stand-alone cards, but lack the sheer power of a Bonded Northern deck. Succeeding as Nilfgaard relies somewhat on having a long-term gameplan and hoping that you do not end up fighting your own spies and that your opponent does not introduce a SpannerInTheWorks that upends it.
** Scoia'tael: Balanced. The Scoia'tael have few high-value cards and few ways of multiplying their own strength, but what these cunning guerrilla fighters lack in sheer power or numbers, they make up for in flexibility. Cards with the Agility ability [[BowAndSwordInAccord can fight either in the melee or ranged rows]], allowing them to "dodge" Weather effects and work around the enemy's gameplan. They lack a strong siege section, but have a good number of medic cards that allow them to reuse their destroyed units and reclaim their opponents' spies. They won't be winning games by huge points margis but they are very efficient at using what little strength they can leverage. However if they allow their enemy to deploy their full might against them, then the Scoia'tael will be resoundingly crushed and the dream of the non-human races with it.
** Monsters: Horde. The Monsters are characterized by a deck full of powerful heroes that can consume lesser monster cards to increase their power, and a buttload of low-level monster cards with the Muster ability. Much like Monsters in the real world, they can very easily flood the field and get out of control if you do not keep on top of them. Although daunting, the Monsters do have some key weaknesses - chiefly the Biting Frost card, as all of their powerful and plentiful Muster cards are melee-only, so negating their power negates much of the power of the deck overall. They also have no spies or medic cards to speak of. It's a straightforward deck that relies mostly on brute force with little in the way of gimmicks.
** Skellige: Cannons. Skellige plays somewhat like a hybrid of the Northern Realms and the Monsters, but with a focus on sheer resilience. They have a special ability to mitigate some of the harm Weather effects can do on the deck, a number of cards that can be resurrected by their priests, and strong Bonded showings on the melee and siege sections supported with swarms of ranged units. Skellige is very strong overall, but they are quite reliant on player luck to do well: with no spy or medic cards to speak of and most of their power locked away behind card combinations, some games might be right-offs immediately if you end up with a bad starting hand.
* StoryAndGameplaySegregation:
** Witchers, professional monster slayers, are neutral cards that can be played with any faction, including monsters. On the other hand, the Witcher code states that they're supposed to be [[StealthPun "neutral"]].
** Ge'els is in the Monster deck with the other Wild Hunt characters despite the fact that his biggest contribution to the plot of Witcher 3 is betraying the Wild Hunt to Geralt. This is especially notable since Avallac'h, another Aen Elle elf who doesn't side with the Wild Hunt, reflects this by being a neutral card and not having the Wild Hunt tag.
** Similarly, the Bloody Baron is a loyal Northern Realms card despite the fact that he was a deserter who tried to negotiate with Nilfgaard.
** Several cards are based on Witcher potions and can be used on any unit, even though anyone without Witcher mutations would die if they drank one.
** The White Frost card takes this UpToEleven. In spite of the fact that it is literally ''the end of the world'', it's a neutral card that can be played by any faction, not just the Monsters.
** All of the bronze dwarf cards are Scoia'tael cards, and most dwarf cards have benefits dependent on other dwarf cards in play. Thus, several dwarves are placed in the Scoia'tael deck when they weren't actually members or even if they actually ''opposed'' the Scoia'tael. This includes:
*** Yarpen Zigrin, who considers the Scoia'tael to be just as racist as the humans they fight.
*** Dennis Cranmer, who was captain of the guard for a Temerian Duke, but isn't in the Northern Realms deck.
*** Zoltan Chivay, which is odd since "Zoltan: Animal Tamer" is a neutral card.
*** Brouver Hoog, who is a leader card despite the fact that he decreed that dwarven youths were not to join the Scoia'tael.
*** The latter two examples combined form a ''double'' example of Gameplay and Story Segregation: Zoltan is said to have nothing but contempt for Hoog and his policies but serves under him in-game.
* LighterAndSofter: Compared to the hard M for Mature nature of the source material, Gwent is PG-13 to appeal to a larger audience. In the transition, things had to be toned down. For example, The Redanian Elites have been reigned in, instead of being willing to rape for their country, they will... eat worms.
* SirSwearsALot: Averted to keep the game's rating low. Notably crass characters such as Thaler and Zoltan's parrot, Field Marshal Duda, aren't allowed to [[ClusterFBomb swear every other breath]].
** Vesemir is still too old for this shit, however.
** Clever wording on some taunts allows characters to come across as obscene without swearing.

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'''Nilfgaard'''

* CityOfSpies: Or, more aptly, an empire full of them. The most popular jobs in the Nilfgaardian empire are Spy, Assassin and Courtesan. It's heavily implied that there is a major overlap between all three jobs.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Nilfgaard seems to see its rather nasty habits as a means to an end. That end being a more civilized, ordered, and peaceful world. Everyone else begs to differ, however.
* EvilWearsBlack: Basically every other faction hates Nilfgaard for their spying, treachery, constant warring, and general habit of trying to conquer everything it touches.

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'''Northern Realms'''
* WorkingClassPeopleAreMorons: Portrayed as superstitious and uneducated outside of rare mages and siege engineers.
-->'''Siege Support:''' "You Gotta recalibrate the arm by five degrees."
-->"Do what by the What now?"
** The Church of Eternal Fire has cards that are both Syndicate and Northern Realms. They are the most superstitious, racist, and dangerous faith depicted in the game.

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'''Monsters'''
* TheWeirdSisters: A team of three Crones from the Monsters faction. Depending on the order played, they can increase the size of other troops (spin thread), devour another troops to get bigger (draw out) or deal damage to the opponent's troops (cut off).

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'''Skellige'''
* OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: The cultist of Svalblod can transform into werebears in the middle of a battle rage.

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'''The Syndicate'''
* TheFundamentalist: The Church of the Eternal Fire happily burns elves, dwarves and mages on massive pyres and employs witch hunters. Salamandra is one reason they feel justified in this.
* TheMafia: The Syndicate is made up of three mafia families (Crownsplitters, Cut-ups, and Tidecloaks) plus a few other factions: Salamandra, Blind Eyes, and the Church of the Eternal Fire.
* KingOfTheHomeless: The King of Beggars leads the "Blind Eyes"; a group made mostly of beggars and prostitutes.
* OverlordJr: Whoreson Junior. Nobody even bothers with his actual name, [[spoiler:Cyprian Wiley]], anymore.
* TerroristsWithoutACause: Salamandra seems to have no cause outside of getting money and scaring the pants off all non-magic users.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler:Whoreson Junior]]. As stated in-game: "Greasy Hair, Bloodshot eyes, a mess of underworld tattoos and a grin that'll make your skin crawl. That, dear friends, is the description of a monster worse than most you'll find in any forest or swamp. You'll find no man or beast more repulsive in all Novigrad. Nay... the entirety of the Continent."
-->'''From the Rewards Tree entry:''' [[spoiler:Scholars, philosophers, and religious figures have debated since the dawn of time what can cause a man to become evil. His nature, his upbringing, perhaps black magic or poisons? In Whoreson Junior's case it was a thick leather belt which his father lashed at him for any reason at all... and sometimes even in the absence of one. Years of fear, pain, and humiliation scarred the young Cyprian Wiley. Horrible years for which the people of Novigrad must now pay the price.]]

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'''Scoia'tael'''
* AntiHumanAlliance: A ragtag alliance of elves and dwarves, brought together by a shared hatred of the racist elements of humanity.
* BowAndSwordInAccord: Many of the Scoia'tael's warriors are equally adept at close-quarter combat as they are at archery.
* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: This faction is portrayed either as racist terrorists or just non-humans who want equality for all races, depending on the card. This can cause a lot of dissonance for those familiar with characters from the book lumped in with Scoia'tael due to being an Elf, Dwarf or other non-human non-monster race.

[[/folder]]

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: An important skill is knowing when to stop playing cards and when to allow your opponent to win the current round so you have enough strength remaining to win the game. There are multiple cards that can get you an advantage should you lose the round:

'''Scoia'tael''':
* AntiHumanAlliance: A ragtag alliance of elves and dwarves, brought together by a shared hatred of the racist elements of humanity.
* BowAndSwordInAccord: Many of the Scoia'tael's warriors are equally adept at close-quarter combat as they are at archery.

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* SecondPlayerAdvantage: Uniquely among card games, ''Gwent'' has the player who ''loses'' the opening coin flip be the one with an advantage, since if they're the first to pass, the other player will be forced to go into the next round with card disadvantage. The player who goes first starts the game with Strategic Advantage on the board to compensate, which can be played to boost one of their units by five points, along with getting an extra mulligan before the first round starts.
** Strategic Advantage can be replaced by a handful of other Stratagems in the deck editor, most of which play for a five point difference, but others provide more unique benefits, such as putting a card in your hand at the bottom of your deck and replacing it with a card of your choice from your deck.

* {{Gainaxing}}: Manually shifting Ves's premium card left and right generates a notable jiggle in her chest.

'''Warning: this section may have unmarked spoilers for TheWitcher books and/or games.'''

This section covers the Gwent version of characters, settings, factions and the like. Please visit the TheWitcher for other versions.

* GradualGrinder:
** Northern Realms' Reinforced Trebuchet harms a random enemy unit on the ranged row for 1 damage every turn.
** Yennefer: The Conjurer deals 1 damage to the strongest enemy unit every other turn. If the highest strength on the opponent's board is shared by multiple units, Yennefer hurts all of those units. While the one damage is negligible at first, [[DeathOfAThousandCuts given enough time Yennefer will prove to be a very oppressive presence on the board]].
** Weather effects chip off strength each time the opponent starts their turn.
** The bleeding status deals damage each turn. Similar to Yennefer: The Conjurer, this can become overwhelming when enough units have bleeding and the other side has cards to synergize with it.

Gwent was announced at [[UsefulNotes/ElectronicEntertainmentExpo E3]] 2016 with a closed beta begun in October of that year. The closed beta test ended May 22, 2017 and open beta began on the 24th. It had a full released in October 2018 for Windows and for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxOne in December later that year. A standalone single-player Gwent-based RPG called ''VideoGame/ThronebreakerTheWitcherTales'' was released alongside the game.

* FlavorText: Found on every card in the game, even tokens spawn by other units.

* HumanSacrifice: Ritual Sacrifice triggers all deathwish effects on your side of the board, in its art Brewess is leading the children of Velen to the sacrifice.

* NippleAndDimed: Several cards push the {{Fanservice}} as far as possible but conceal the all-important nipples. A few female vampires, such as Alp, simply [[BarbieDollAnatomy appear not to have any nipples]] despite FullFrontalNudity.

* TheUpperCrass: Imerleth, The "Duke of Dogs", and Whoreson Junior all are upper-class types who chose to be crude and downright vicious despite having noble/wealthy family. Their taunts reflect this.
** Imerleth gets increasingly frustrated/hostile depending on the taunt (all in Elder Speech- high elf tongue!)
** The Duke of Dogs sighs "Have some dignity- [[{{Seppuku}} throw yourself on your sword]]!" and laughs at the opponent.

[[folder:Charcter/Faction Tropes]]

** Vesimir is still too old for this shit, however.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Nilfgaard seems to see it's rather nasty habits as a means to an end. That end being a more civilized, ordered, and peaceful world. Everyone else begs to differ, however.

* TheWeirdSisters: A team of three Chrones from the Monsters faction. Depending on the order played, they can increase the size of other troops (spin thread), devour another troops to get bigger (draw out) or deal damage to the opponent's troops (cut off).

* TheMafia: The Syndicate is made up of three mafia families (Crownsplitters, Cut-ups, and Tidecloaks) plus a few other factions: Salamandra, Blind Eyes, and the Church of the Eternal Fire

* TerroristsWithoutACause: Salamndra seems to have no cause outside of getting money and scaring the pants off all non-magic users.

* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: This faction is portrayed either as racist terrorists or just non-humans who want equality for all races, depending on the card. This can cause a lot of dissonance for those familiar with characters from the book lumped in with Scioa'tael due to being an Elf, Dwarf or other non-human non-monster race.

** Blue Stripes Commandos, the Witcher trio (Eskel, Lambert and Vesimir), and Crow Messenger are examples that pull copies of themself out of the deck.

* GoodGuysWearBlack: Nilfgaard seems to see it's rather nasty habits as a means to an end. That end being a more civilized, ordered, and peaceful world. Everyone else begs to differ, however.

* CreatorCameo: One of the Scoia'tael units, Pavko Gale, is based on and voiced by community manager Pawel Burza. He sometimes cosplays as Pavko for various media outings such as this Studio Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hEPgHDP27Q

* MarketBasedTitle: The game is known as ''Gwint'' in the original Polish, presumably changed during the English localization of ''Witcher 3'' for ease of pronunciation.

''Gwent: The Witcher Card Game'' is a CardBattleGame developed by Creator/CDProjektRed and based on Franchise/TheWitcher universe. It began as a CollectibleCardGame MiniGame within ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'' but had so many players SidetrackedByTheGoldenSaucer that it was expanded and reworked into a standalone version.

The end of March 2019 saw the release of the first proper expansion, ''Crimson Curse'', themed around vampires, bringing 101 new cards and an additional leader for each faction. A mobile release occured in 2019, coming first to [[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iPhone]] with an {{UsefulNotes/Android|Games}} release to follow. Late 2019 the console ports were closed and all users were migrated over to their choice of PC or Mobile.

The three round structure combined with the limited resources at a players disposal forms a duel of each player attempting to field enough units to overpower the other while at the same time, not over-commit and find themselves unable to win.

The board is divided into two rows, melee and ranged. Players are limited to playing one card per turn. On their turn they must either play a card on their turn, discard a card from their hand (the card is not played), or else pass and forfeit playing any more cards for the remainder of the round. New cards are drawn/redrawn at the start of each round. There is a maximum hand size of ten cards per player.

Decks are composed of a minimum of twenty-five cards. In building a deck, a player selects from one of six factions[[note]]Northern Realms, Monsters, Skellige, Scoia'tael, Nilfgaard, and The Syndicate[[/note]] and have a choice of one of six leader abilities per faction, each with a unique powerful ability and differing amounts of Provisions allowed to build a deck with. A suite of neutral cards also exist which may inhabit any deck. You may select any card you own for your deck as long as it matches your faction or is neutral. Your deck must stay within the provision cost set by your leader ability. You may have two copies of any valid bronze card in your deck, but only one copy for gold cards.

There are three card types: units, special cards, and artifacts. Most cards are units, which all have a single number denoting their strength which adds to the player's totals. Special cards affect units on the field or have unique effects such as allowing drawing of new cards during a round. Artifacts work like special cards, however, they remain on the field until the round ends or they are removed by another card's effect. Cards in general have no mana or other resource cost. The exception is Syndicate cards which sometimes require Coins to use special effects. Coins are generated by syndicate cards and leader abilities.

* NippleAndDimed: Several cards push the {{Fanservice}} as far as possible but conceal the all important nipples. A few female vampires, such as Alp, simply [[BarbieDollAnatomy appear not to have any nipples]] despite full frontal nudity.

* TheUpperCrass: Imerleth, The "Duke of Dogs", and Whoreson Junior all are upper class types who chose to be crude and downright viscious despite having noble/wealthy family. Their taunts reflect this.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler:Whoreson Junior]]. As stated in-game: "Greasy Hair, Bloodshot eyes, a mess of underworld tattoos and a grin that'll make your skin crawl. That, dear friends, is the description of a monster worse than most you'll find in any forest for swamp. You'll find no man or beast more repulsive in all Novigrad. Nay... the entirety of the Continent."

** Renew and Hanmarvyn's Blue Dream let you play a card from your or your opponents graveyard, respectively. They also cost 12 provisions, far higher than any faction-specific ways to play with cards in the graveyard.

** Scorch, which destroys the highest unit(s) on the playing field is the prime offender of this. It's gotten to the point that there are message board's dedicated to explaining that if the highest unit is on your side it will be destroyed. To a lesser extent this applies to epidemic which targets all of the lowest unit(s).

** Arachas Queen Monster decks inevitably flood the board with weak tokens, either as fodder for consume or self-destroy effects or row based buffs like Commander's Horn.

** Ge'els is in the Monster deck with the other Wild Hunt characters despite the fact that his biggest contribution to the plot of Witcher 3 is betraying the Wild Hunt to Geralt. This is especially notable since Avallac'h, another Aen Elle elf who doesn't side with the Wild Hunt, reflects this by being a disloyal card.

* SirSwearsALot: Averted. Due to censoring Notably crass characters where Thaler and Zoltan's parrot, Field Marshal Duda, aren't allowed to [[ClusterFBomb swear every other breath]].