Gwent has turned from a small side quest in the Witcher 3 into a massive global phenomenon with its own standalone game. The card game, which revolves around destroying your enemy in a mathematical war, has become such a sensation that it has spawned tournaments, new decks, spinoffs, and plentiful guides.
For those looking to find the best cards (and avoid the worst), it takes searching Skellige, Velen, Novigrad, and other parts of the Witcher world high and low to complete that perfect deck. Here are some of the most useful and best cards for your Gwent domination in the Witcher 3, and some of the most disappointing to avoid at all costs.
10 Best - Cirilla/Geralt
One of the best abilities a card can have is the Hero designation. These cards usually come with huge attack power, and they cannot be removed by the board by other abilities, reduced by weather, or affected by anything else.
Two Hero cards tie for attack power and are a fantastic addition to any deck. Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon and Geralt of Rivia both come with a whopping 15 attack. While they lack an additional ability like many other Hero cards, that high number alone is enough to make sure you save a spot for these two in your stacks.
9 Worst - Triss Merigold
On the contrary, some Hero cards don’t provide much beyond an ability to ignore other cards. The best example of this is Triss Merigold’s card, which comes with only 7 attack power — less than half that of Geralt and Ciri’s cards.
Furthermore, Triss has no ability. A nice guaranteed 7 attack is nice, but with so many Hero cards worth 10 or more (and non-Hero cards that give more than 7 attack plus an ability), Triss just isn’t worth the time. Add to this the fact that her counterpart, Yennefer of Vengenberg, offers the same attack with the Medic ability, and Triss is ready for the archives. This card isn’t necessarily bad, it’s more disappointing.
8 Best - Menno Coehoorn
Most Hero cards provide about 10 attack power, and very few come with additional ability. However, this Nilfgaardian soldier comes packaged with a Medic ability. This puts Menno Coehoorn a step ahead of other Hero cards, giving you the ability to not only add a guaranteed 10 attack to your side of the table, but to bring back another card from the grave as well.
Yennefer of Vengenberg, on the other hand, offers the same ability on a Hero card but with only 7 attack. She’s a great card, but Menno Coehoorn just has that little extra edge that can make any player using a Nilfgaardian deck give him a lot of consideration.
7 Worst - Catapult
A great strategy for a Northern Realms deck is to focus on siege cards with the relevant leader ability. But, these catapult cards can often work against you when you try to implement them into a battle, especially early on.
The crazy-high 8 attack power seems nice, especially since it doubles with two catapults. But, these cards often find themselves as the highest non-Hero cards on the table, meaning they’ll be a fantastic magnet for your opponent’s Scorch cards. These cards are thrown into your discard pile more often than you’d probably like, so it’s best to replace them with some widely-available 10-attack Heros.
6 Best - Decoy
This little mannequin may not look like much (it’s not even sentient), but it is more often than not a deciding factor in who will win a fierce Gwent game. The Decoy card gives the player the ability to pick up one non-Hero card off their side of the table and return it to their hand.
This is often used to steal an opponent’s spy card, allowing you to play it for your own two-card draw. But, the Decoy can also find niche use in replaying a card with the Scorch ability, such as Villentretenmerth. Eliminating your opponent’s best close-combat cards twice can be vital in securing that win, and a Decoy can help you achieve that.
5 Worst - Yarpen Zigrin and his 2-attack friends.
Several cards will tie in this category, including Yarpen Zigrin, the Cockatrice, Albrich, Sweers, Vreemde, Toruviel, Gargoyle, Foglet, Wyvern, and the Endrega. What makes these cards so terrible is that they only provide 2 attack, and offer no extra ability.
While you’re in the early game, these guys can be some of your only options, but by the late game, you’ll be struggling to make room for all the high-attack Hero cards you want to use. These weak cards will quickly find themselves sitting on the sidelines.
4 Best - Mysterious Elf
Anyone who has played their fair share of Gwent can tell you that one of the most important strategies is to play spy cards — characters that are played on the opponent’s side of the board, but let you draw two more cards. Gwent is a game of having as many cards to work with as you can, so spies are essential in ensuring a victory.
The downside to spies, of course, is that they provide your opponent with attack power, and can be picked up by a Decoy and played against you. This is why the Mysterious Elf is such a valuable card. It’s a Hero, so it cannot be retrieved by your opponent and used, and it provides 0 attack power. It’s basically a free draw-2 card with no downside.
3 Worst - Stefan Skellen
On the other end of the espionage spectrum is Stefan Skellen, a spy in the Nilfgaard deck. While the Mysterious Elf card gives the opponent 0 attack and cannot be affected by a Commander’s Horn, this guy provides a whopping 9 attack to your opponent. If they throw a Horn on their Close Combat row, this card will double to a massive 18 attack.
Most spy cards range from about 1 to 6 attack power. With that high 9 attack, Stefan Skellen can easily hand your opponent an easy win. Many rounds of Gwent are won with less than 20 total attack, meaning this guy can be a huge difference.
2 Best - Cerys
Many players will never get to experience the amazing feeling of laying this card down, as it is only available in the Skellige deck. This deck is only used in games with the Blood & Wine expansion DLC. As one of Skellige’s potential leaders (based on what the player decides), Cerys is obviously going to be a powerful card.
But, when this card is played correctly, it can be an extremely massive tidal wave of power. It provides 10 attack power, can’t be affected by other abilities, and summons up to three Shieldmaidens, each with their own 4 attack. Add in the Crach an Craite leader ability to shuffle all of your discard pile into your deck, and you might be lucky enough to play this powerful card twice in one game.
1 Worst - Redanian Foot Soldiers
It goes without saying that these early-game cards are the absolute worst in the game. The Redanian Foot Soldiers, of which the player can obtain two, only provide a single attack point and offer no extra ability. Riordain, in the Scoia’tael deck, also only provides 1 attack, but the Redanians are much more ubiquitous.
Even the PFI cards and the Ghouls in the Monsters deck provide the Bond and Swarm abilities, respectively. The Redanian twins and Riordain don’t even give you this. These cards are pure cannon fodder, and should absolutely not be found in any respectable Gwent player’s deck. At least their card art is cool.
NEXT: Gwent: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Things About The Mobile Version
