Gwent

Journey Quests - Week 7 and 8

The seventh week's Journey quests require players to do the following: 

• Boost units 15 times (Regular)
• Kill 15 units (Premium)
• Play 15 cards with Deathblow (Regular)
• Play 10 cards with Veil keyword (Premium)
• Finish 3 matches in any online mode (Regular)
• Win 2 matches (Premium)

The eighth week's Journey quests require players to do the following: 

• Play witchers 15 times (Regular)
• Play 10 Bandit cards (Premium)
• Play 40 unit cards (Regular)
• Damage units 15 times (Premium)
• Win 2 matches without destroying your opponent's units (Regular)
• Spawn 15 units (Premium)

Here are suggested decks for these quests:

• Boost units 15 times - Northern Realms Uprising Boosts
• Kill 15 units and Play 15 cards with Deathblow - Northern Realms Mobilization Draug
• Play 10 cards with Veil keyword - Monsters White Frost
• Play witchers 15 times - Nilfgaard Lockdown Nova
• Play 10 Bandit cards - Northern Realms Royal Inspiration
• Damage units 15 times and Spawn 15 units - Northern Realms Uprising Siege
• Win 2 matches without destroying your opponent's units - Northern Realms Stockpile Nova

Pro Rank Cutoffs:

Here are the key cutoffs for Pro Rank as of September 25 at 1PM CEST.

Top 16	10,229
Top 64	10, 104
Top 500	9,868

Team Aretuza

Video:

Watch TheaBeasty's guide on Monsters Deathwish deck:

 

Player Spotlight: Crozyr

Hi Crozyr. Thanks for allowing us to have this interview with you. How are you and what have you been up to in Gwent? 

Hey! I am doing very well lately, as I am loving both the stream and the game. Currently, I am prepping for this weekend’s top 64 qualifier, but besides that, I have been enjoying playing more experimental / off meta decks over the past couple of weeks.

You just came back a few months ago after finishing your master’s degree. Congratulations on this accomplishment. How long were you away and what was the feeling getting back into the game and into streaming? 

Thanks, I am very happy that I finally went through with it. I had been studying since 2012 (master's studies since 2016) so the master’s degree was overdue. I would have been done sooner but being the Pepega I am, I started streaming in September 2018 and all of a sudden, that felt more interesting to me than studying, especially after getting together with MissLadyJay and being in a long distance relationship with her (I am in Germany and she lives in South Africa!)

However, since I really wanted to be a high school teacher in the long run, I had to finish my studies at some point and decided to take a major break from streaming at the end of last year. It allowed me to focus on my master’s thesis while simultaneously already working part time as a teacher at multiple vocational schools.

In total, I was gone for about six months, but taking the time off was worth it - not just for the sake of my real life ambitions, but also because it allowed me to come back to Gwent with greater enthusiasm than ever - given that there were no papers and no master thesis in the back of my head causing me a to have guilty conscience.

Could you please tell us how Jacques de Aldersberg and the potato became your trademarks and images of choice? 

Everyone always wants to hear about the potato, but barely anyone ever asks for Jacques. Finally he is getting some attention!

Well, to start off, when I was planning my first stream, I knew I wanted to have a cool follower notification. Since I really loved the already existing meme surrounding Alba Spearman’s voiceline “Mashed Potatoes with Thick Gravy” (It is so hilariously random), I started using that in my streams. I remember thinking that it would be funny if once in a while, the voiceline would say “Mashed Gravy with Thicc Potatoes” instead, and edited the voiceline accordingly, realizing in the process that I could also mash it up with all the other voice lines that Gwent has to offer, like Dwarven Agitator’s, Keltullis’, Vilgefortz’, etc… (we have over 300 different variants by now).

During my first stream, people really seemed to like the potato idea and I quickly became Mr. Potato, joined by his brave Potato Knights in chat. Soon after, we had our first potato emote, potato commands in chat and eventually even a potato costume, at which point there was no stopping the potato meme! I always like to say, I never chose the potato life, the potato life chose me.

As for Jacques, there used to be a website on the Gwent wiki that features leaked/unreleased Gwent content. Among the countless unreleased voice lines and unused taunts that you can find there, there was also card art for Jacques de Aldesberg that would, more than two years later, finally be added to the game in the Master Mirror Expansion.

Now, the thing is, Jacques is a time traveller in The Witcher 1! I thought it would be clever to have him as my profile pic way before he was released in the game (Little did I know it would take them two to three years to bring him out) and then blow people’s minds when I actually had the time traveller’s card art all this time before his actual release, basically travelling through time myself.

Sadly, Master Mirror kinda came out right after my hiatus ended and I was still just starting to rebuild a following, so that rather few people noticed what I had done. I still think it was cool though, and also - of course - the art simply looks badass.

You have made quite a few appearances in the top 64 qualifiers. Please tell us about how you climb your way to finishing in the top 64 in a season and then please tell us about the actual experience in playing the qualifiers in the succeeding month. 

Climbing on Pro Ladder is a double edged sword. It feels so satisfying to make a deck work, see the orange number go up and solidify your position in the higher ranks of the ladder. At the same time, losing streaks (and the time commitment that they cause you, since you have to win at least two more games for each loss when you want to climb) can be devastating. I rarely felt as stressed in my life as I did whenever I was at the end of the season and attempted 15 hour grinds, often playing through the middle of the night to gain the last bit of mmr that kept me from the placements I was aiming for.

Ultimately, even though I never qualified for an Open, I still think that it was worth it, - for the feeling of accomplishment alone - and if you learn how to channel the inner zen potato, you can avoid the negativity and focus on your matches one game at a time, beating the tilt!

I had my best qualifier runs during the earlier stages of Homecoming, when I was still entirely focussing on the game instead of uni and work. I was a bit disappointed in my performance in the last top 64 qualifier, but I am really hoping that I will perform better this weekend and hit day two again!

You recently had a subathon last weekend. How did it go? 

It was amazing! Went the full 17 hour maximum I had set for myself, people were super supportive and we even climbed a little. Subathons are exhausting, but when the community is there for you like this, it’s always worth it!

What were the best and toughest moments you had during your subathon? 

The funniest moment of the subathon was probably letting chat decide the toppings of my pizza. The next five subs were allowed to decide on one ingredient each, and ended up with this:

Spaghetti, Kebab, Sauce Hollandaise, Tabasco, and Hot Chillies.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit since I like spicy stuff, but my heightened appetite also led to one of the toughest moments:

Clumsy potato man almost bit off his tongue half way through, so I had to run to the bathroom, bleeding and everything. I survived though, and after a short break, the stream continued.

Besides that, another crazy moment was a viewer gifting 21 subs the second I was going to end the stream at 5am, prolonging it to the full maximum duration I had set for it (ending at 8am).

I had only had three hours of sleep the night before and had been at work since 8am before starting the stream in the afternoon, so it was very exhausting to continue for another three hours in the middle of the night after already thinking the stream was going to end. While I cursed him for this, I am still super thankful for this crazy support! Love you, Sabbath <3 (don’t take this out of context).

What are your thoughts on the new leader abilities? 

I was very excited to see so many new abilities coming to the game when they were announced - not just because it brings a fresh wind to the game but also because: a) Combo leaders were just too difficult to balance around for the devs and b) A lot of the new abilities try to support archetypes that did not have their own leader ability yet, like White Frost with the Wild Hunt.

Of course, with so many new mechanics entering the game at once, there are bound to be some that are imbalanced. Overall, I am quite happy, but it would have been nice of course to avoid a leader like Shieldwall that, while not nearly as overpowered as people made it out to be when the devs first revealed it, still feels very toxic to lose to, since the removal ceiling on duel units is just so insanely high with shield.

However, despite some issues here and there, I was a bit disappointed with the community focusing so much on the negative, since there are so many new cool things to play with! Whether it’s new Mobilization trying to make Cintrian Royal Guards work; Dana, Woodland and Morvran coming back as leader units; or Symbiosis and White Frost as abilities that attempted to help underplayed archetypes, there is a lot of great stuff there that I am looking forward to seeing them being built upon over the course of the upcoming patches.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming Arena rework? 

I was never a big arena guy and I can’t remember when I last played the mode, so I agree that there needed to be a substantial rework. From what we have seen, it seems like that there will be a bit of a higher power floor coming to the average arena deck, which would make it less frustrating to play as you will have a lower chance of playing bricks and overall, your decks will be more synergistic that way.

Historically, the updates that made Gwent feel the best were those that increased value floors in my opinion - whether it was the mulligan update, or buffs to cheap bronze units. Gwent feels at its worst when sitting on a brick - making that happen less often will drastically increase the enjoyment that you feel for the game IMO.

Do you have any message to the Gwent community? 

While there are certainly many issues you can have with Gwent - whether it be bugs, balancing, pro ladder, design philosophy or communication issues - let’s remember that first and foremost, we are here to have fun.

The game isn’t perfect, but coming from someone who has been around since 2016, it certainly isn’t in the worst state it’s ever been in (in fact I enjoy it a lot right now, actually). I would just hope that people could try to focus a little less exclusively on the negative and actually remember what we are here for in the community: to share our passion for a game we love and have a good time. Then, we can still respectfully criticize and make an attempt to change the things that bother us.

Respect goes a long way, whether it's between streamers and viewers, casuals and pros, or Reddit and the dev team. Just as it is true for the game itself, let’s not reduce each other to our shortcomings and failures but try to be less ignorant about the good that we are all trying to do.

Otherwise, if you gave up on each other like from the get go, what would even be the point of having a community in the first place?

Let’s try to work for Gwent’s future in a constructive and respectful way - I want to be optimistic that there are still many great years ahead of us.

Season of the Dryad ends in a few days. Make sure to finish those seasonal reward books and make that final ladder push.

Good luck!