^{Contributors: Writing: lordgort & Easha Dustfeather, Review & Editing: SwanDive.}

Welcome to Aretuza Academy's lesson on leaders. After this lesson, you will know about Gwent's leader ability system and how they affect deckbuilding and gameplay.

Multiple Leader abilities for Each Faction

Leader abilities are generally divided by their nature. This is indicated by the shape of the respective ability icon. There are defensive, offensive, utility, card manipulation, and spawning abilities. Some abilities exist to support certain Archetypes (Overwhelming Hunger and Deathwish, Arachas Swarm and Organic cards), while some are simpler and function to add points to the player (Nature’s Gift), or take away points from the opponent (Precision Strike). It’s worth noting that some generally defensive abilities can be used to damage opponent’s units, for example using one charge of Shieldwall on Prince Anséis and removing a high-power unit.

Lastly, a few leader abilities directly interfere with the opponent's plans. In the Nilfgaard faction, Lockdown disables the other player's leader ability for one round.

One Faction, Many Ways to Play

Leader ablities

The choice of leader abilities then allows players to enjoy each faction in different ways. For example, one player may enjoy swarming their side of the board for a payoff in the end, choosing abilities like Deadeye Ambush or mentioned Arachas Swarm, while another player might like setting up their plays in advance and disrupt their opponent’s plans, picking Guerrilla Tactics and the ability to move cards on the board.

Leader skins

Leader skins are decoupled from the ability and purely cosmetic. They can help players enjoy the world of The Witcher by using their favorite characters. In the Skellige faction, for example, a fan of the books might choose Eist Tuirseach, a fan of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt might go for Crach an Craite, and a fan of Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales might pick Arnjolf the Patricide.

Leader abilities and Provisions

Every leader ability adds to a deck's basic recruit cap of 150 provisions. The number of provisions added varies, depending on how strong the leader's ability is. For example, Fruits of Ysgith adds 11 provisions, but Double Cross adds 16 provisions.

The provision system helps keep leader abilities balanced with one another. If an ability is too powerful, the developers can reduce its provision bonus, making it less powerful but not changing its ability. An ability seeing little play can get an increased provision bonus to make them more viable.

Conclusion

In this lesson we covered leader abilities. You have learned how Gwent has multiple leader abilities per faction, how the variety of leader skins helps a wide range of players enjoy Gwent, and how leader abilities affect deckbuilding through their provisions.

You are now ready to take the quiz and apply what you learned. Good luck!

Author

SwanDive

As a big fan of the Witcher franchise, SwanDive is always on the lookout for her next Witcher fix. She started playing Gwent in the Closed Beta for the lore – and stayed for the game and the community. Long an avid gamer, Swan found her passion for CCGs and competitive gaming at the Gwent table. Away from it, Swan is studying for her Master’s degree in English and worked as content manager for Team Aretuza.