Let's play cards. Gwent wouldn't be bad.

Back in White Orchard, I had no interest whatsoever in Gwent. I don't really like digital card games in general; representing game concepts as cards feels bland, to me. But in the doldrums of Witcher 3's levels 5-10, when I was putting off some story quests and everything else was too high-level for me -- Gwent was something to do.

Thus began several hours of Gwenting: learning how to build a good deck, discovering surprising and disruptive mechanics, following quests for competitive play, and eventually, hunting down every last Gwent-able NPC.

At first, getting into Gwent was a little frustrating: losing because my cards were bad, and being unable to get better cards ... because I was losing. Buying cards from vendors is expensive, in the early-game economy, and there just aren't that many opponents that the starter deck can compete with. I watched innkeepers and merchants place 10-strength cards and hero cards, use a Commander's Horn to double their strength, use cards with the Muster ability to collect their brethren; the numbers were just impossible for me to match.

But through quests and determination (and selling some monster organs to afford more cards), I scraped my way up the Gwent ladder. And what started as a way of earning experience points became a surprisingly deep minigame all its own. I still remember the first time I saw the Scorch card, and learned that placing strong cards early could make them vulnerable.

Personally, I'm still very fond of my Northern Realms deck. (I really like Foltest's ability to clear weather, and using the spy cards to build up a huge hand.) But all of my decks are powerhouses now. My only regret is that I've won at Gwent so much, that I can no longer win random cards; I already have all of them.

All of that said, Gwent still feels more like a diversion than a standalone game to me. It's something for Geralt to do inbetween monster-hunting and fetch-questing. Which is why I was excited to learn that Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is supposed to be getting some story-driven content, when it finally leaves beta.

Progress: Let's just say that I finished the Gwent tournament, and then collected all the main game's cards, well before I'd saved Ciri.