A complete guide: the goal, three combat rows, card types, weather effects, passing and the fight for two rounds out of three, controls on muta.pro and tips for beginners. Read it — and straight to the table.
Gwent is a duel of decks in the spirit of the "Witcher" universe. Each round players lay units onto the table, adding up their strength, and the winner is whoever has the higher total points at the end of the round. The game runs until two rounds are won: whoever takes two out of three first wins the duel. The main twist is that the cards in hand are not replenished between rounds — this is a game not about strength, but about the ability to manage a limited resource.
Each player has their own deck of a chosen faction. At the start of the game 10 cards are dealt, and before the first round you are allowed to swap up to two unlucky cards for new ones. Each player has three rows on the table: melee, ranged and siege. Who goes first is determined randomly or by a faction privilege.
Players take turns, placing exactly one card onto the table. Its strength is added to the appropriate row, and the total score is recalculated at once.
Your score in a round is the sum of the strength of all units across all three rows. One player's total is compared with the other's.
Instead of a card you can pass. After passing you no longer play cards until the end of the round, but you also don't waste your hand.
When both players have passed, the round ends. The player with the higher score earns the round point; in a tie the round counts as a loss for both.
Your side of the table has three rows: melee ⚔️, ranged 🏹 and siege 🏰. The number to the left of a row is its point sum; the overall round score is the sum of all three rows.
Units are the backbone of combat: each such card has a numeric strength and goes into its own row (melee, ranged or siege). Weather cards hit the whole area: for example, frost brings the strength of all regular fighters in the melee row down to one — for both players at once, until the weather is cleared with the "Clear Weather" card. Special cards boost your units (musician, horn), and heroes are invulnerable to weather and effects.
Since the hand is not refilled over the course of the game, the key decision is where to give up. Sometimes it is better to throw a weak round with passes, keeping your strong cards, and confidently take the next two. Whoever mindlessly dumps everything in the first round often ends up with no cards in the second and third.
Don't dump your strong units in the very first round — the hand won't recover, and you can reach the finale empty-handed.
If the opponent has pulled far ahead, pass early: it's better to give up one round than to lay out half your deck for nothing.
A weather card at the right moment zeroes out dozens of the opponent's points. Save it for an overloaded row.
Remember how many cards are left for you and your opponent. A numeric advantage toward the end of a round often decides the outcome.
A game is largely decided even before the first move — at the stage when you have received 10 cards and are entitled to swap up to two of them. The mulligan in Gwent is not about "getting stronger cards," but about balancing the hand across rows and types. An ideal starting hand isn't overloaded with one row and isn't packed with situational cards that are useless without the right context.
On the left — a balanced hand: strength in all three rows plus a hero. On the right — what's worth swapping in the mulligan: two narrow situational cards.
Clear Weather with no enemy weather out, or a second horn when you have only one row — these are passenger cards. Send exactly those to the mulligan, even if their "strength" on paper is higher than a regular unit.
If all your strength goes into one row, a single enemy weather card wipes out the plan in one go. Keep at least one option in another row, or a hero, in your hand.
A hero, a horn or a large unit from the starting hand is almost never played in round 1. Treat them as money for the finale and don't spend them on scouting.
Although the basic rules are the same for everyone, each faction sets its own handwriting, and understanding the archetype matters more than memorizing individual cards. Some decks win through multipliers (many same-type units under a horn), others through control (weather, removal and spoiling of enemy rows), still others through flexibility and card draw. You need to choose your line in the first moves and play it consistently.
Many cheap same-type fighters in one row, then a horn and bonuses. Such a deck explodes in a single move, but is vulnerable to frost aimed precisely at the overloaded row.
Weather, spoiling, removal of enemy units. It plays off the trade: the goal is not to score more, but to bring down the enemy's total more cheaply than the opponent built it up.
Cards that pull more cards, mending card advantage. Such a deck rarely loses on the number of moves and comfortably reaches the third round.
Noticed the opponent stacking one row for a horn? Hold the weather precisely for it. Against control, on the contrary, don't load one row in advance.
Half a deck for multipliers and half for control is two weak decks in one. Settle on a line and make the mulligan and move order serve it.
To make decisions more precisely than "by eye," it helps to convert everything into a single currency — points per card. A regular unit gives its strength (for example, 5 points per card). A horn doubles a row: if 20 regular strength lies under it, a single horn card brings +20 points. Weather that reduced the opponent's 24-point row to three ones is a trade of your one card for roughly 21 points in your favor.
One card, but a different scale: the horn 📯 adds +16 to its row, frost ❄ cuts the enemy's overloaded row by 22 points. Compare the "output" of cards in points, not by their face value.
A card is valuable not for its number, but for how many points it actually adds for you or takes from the opponent, accounting for the horn, weather and heroes.
A horn on a row of two cards is a weak trade. The same horn on a row of five units turns one card into a double-digit gain.
Frost into an empty row costs zero. Frost into a row where the opponent invested 30 regular strength is the best trade in the game.
A strong player keeps in mind not the current move, but the distribution of 10 cards across the whole game. Rounds in Gwent are not of equal value: the first is scouting, the second is the fork, the third is all or nothing. Decide in advance which cards go into which round, and don't break the plan for the sake of a pretty score on the table right now.
Show minimum strength, force the opponent to reveal themselves. Be ready to give up the round with an early pass if it costs more than your cards.
Leading in rounds 1:0 — you can again throw it cheaply and decide everything in the third on your terms. Trailing 0:1 — this round is mandatory, commit.
There's nothing left to conserve. Enter the finale with the heaviest: a hero, a horn on a full row, a couple of strong units. The winner is whoever kept this reserve.
In the decisive round the goal is to play your card last, once the opponent has already passed. Stall if you know they have fewer cards.
Don't chase a big margin on the table. Winning a round by one point and by forty is equally one point in the game score.