Some Gwent Stories

お久しぶりです。

There is probably a very small subset of people who know me from both research and Gwent. But now I know there is a at least one since I recently got an email from a CS PhD who coincidentally is also a long-time gwent player. This, amongst other things, prompts me to write a aimless blog on Gwent.

A bit of background, in 2020 I played a whole competitive season of CDPR’s Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, this was before I started this website so there is little to remember by on here. But in short I won the first Open Tournament and was a Crown Point leader for the whole season (So you might say that I was one of/ the best player in the world in Gwent during 2020). After 2020 I stepped away due to study and only briefly come back during 2022 to participate in a Chinese Master tournament, after invitation from the community (I also won that tournament and donated half of the winning to chinese Gwent community). Shortly afterwards the game shifted into maintainance mode, after being not profitable enough and the game has since been maintained by the community. Despite that, the game still has a very dedicated playerbase due to its unique mechanics.

Recently last month, I downloaded the game and Played for fun during my spare time again, mostly because a long-time friend from Gwent, Pajabol (Gwent Master 2 Champion), started doing content creation on YouTube and twitch. I was also able to get some efficiency record last month (the highest matchmaking ranking with fewest number of games).

I also decided to stream on twitch starting from the end of this month. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there is a still a huge group of players who would wish to see my stream even after the game is inactive for a while. Having no competitive scene, there is no reason to not dedicate like 2-3 hours a week to stream, even just for releasing pressure. In the end, this game means a lot to a number of people and has by far the most loyal playerbase I’ve ever seen. For some, winning a Gwent tournamnet might be the best moment of their life, since we don’t have a lot of opportunity to say that we are the best at world at anything, let along a game from a pretty famous company.

Recently, a long-time Gwent player Myamon, whom I know even from my high school days, has decided to take a break from the game. The community loses a lot with his departure, which is one of the reasons that prompt me to decide to stream.

“こんにちは、Myamonさん。 グウェントを引退されると聞いて、とても驚きました。 オープンベータの頃からあなたのことを覚えていて、ずっとそのグウェントの実力を尊重していました。 これからの道にも幸運が訪れますように、心からお祈りしています。”

to which he responded

“ありがとうございます。 今のグウェントを続ける理由が見いだせなくて少し離れようと思いました。復帰するきっかけがあれば復帰するかもしれませんし、たまに遊んだりするかもしれません。 あなたのプレイングは最高峰です。ありがとうDemarcation”

I guess that’s one of the unique aspects of Gwent, that you have a very loyal and international playerbase. There are friends/acquitances you make along the way whom, despite you never met, has a lot of story to share together.