GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

The easiest method for unlocking this achievement is to invite a friend to a game and just have them let you win. If you need someone to boost this with you feel free to use this solution’s comment section or set up a game session to find someone. Credit for this idea goes to Fonorona.

For your deck just be sure to include plenty of special cards and a few units to get points on the board. Also use the leader Fransesca Findabair to get an extra special card played. Best way to ensure victory is to just have your friend throw away cards by pressing X instead of playing them.

—> The seasonal mode for the Season of Magic (May 30th- June 28th) plays duplicates of each special card played, meaning it is obtainable relatively easily. You would only need to play 8 cards(16 once duplicated) but getting a double card seems quite OP so using more would help. The achievement description says you must win, but there are plenty of reports saying it unlocks with a draw or even a loss. So always finish the game out just in case. Again this is a limited time event!
Thanks to Sir Lagselot for the conformation.

***A new update has made the boosting method the only viable method year round. Now decks must contain 13 units which will make obtaining this online virtually impossible. To boost you want to make a deck with 13 4 provision units and then add as many special cards as your deck will fit and have your partner throw cards away.***

Leaving my original guide intact for now even though it currently doesn’t work. Gwent seems to be constantly changing the rules and we will have to see if this rule gets overturned!
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Below is my original full guide for unlocking this achievement in a match versus an actual opponent.

Just a fair warning, this achievement is probably one of the harder ones in the game as many things can go wrong and a lot of luck is involved. With all that said, I’ve made a deck that can win at least 10-20% of the time depending on the opponents you face.

You have to play 15 special cards which are the cards with the fire icon at the top left. If a game of Gwent goes all 3 rounds you have 16 cards to physically play. As you can see this is where most of the troubles lie.

**With this in mind, you MUST have the game go three rounds and win. Another thing to point out is that if your opponent forfeits or quits it will ruin this achievement for you. While you can’t control what your opponent does, I’d avoid taunting.**

Leader: Francesca Findabair from Scoia’tael faction
This is the leader I went with because her special ability allows you to play a special card from your graveyard. This is extremely beneficial because it not only counts as another special card played, but increases the number of unit cards you can physically play from one to two.

So below is sort of the skeleton of your deck with cards that I would seriously not recommend playing without. If you don’t need explanations I will put my full deck list below under the first spoiler tag. Remember some of the cards in the deck can be traded out but again the ones below are highly recommended to use!

Required Unit cards:
Xavier Moran- Dwarf that gains an extra 2 Attack each time it receives a boost when in the Melee row.

Sage X2- Elves that should be played in the ranged row and every time you use a special card they will receive a boost of 2. These cards are the backbone of this deck since you need to be constantly playing special cards.

Prince Villem- Spy that allows you to play a random gold card from your deck. This one has given me mixed results but can be extremely useful in a pinch. Sometimes you’ll get your dwarf or another special card. If you get a special card out of the deal then this won’t count as one of your 2 played units!

*Johnny or Sarah- Either of these cards would be a nice 5th unit for the deck. It’s up to you but I like Sarah the most because she can boost Xavier for bonus buffs. Either way if you Adrenaline Rush these cards, their charges will carry over to the next round.

Required Special cards:
Royal Decree- Special card allowing you to play a unit from your deck.

Isengrim’s Council- Special card allowing you to pick a dwarf, dryad, or elf from your deck.

Adrenaline Rush X2- Special card allowing you to carry a card over to the next round if not destroyed or blocked. Very useful on round 2 but worthless on round 3.

Necromancy- Consider this as your saving grace if a Sage is killed. Also just an FYI you can indeed use Adrenaline Rush on Doomed cards!

Morana Runestone- Special card that creates a random bronze Scoia’teal card. So this one can produce some amazing results but is completely random. You can get another Sage, which will be your third copy of your main offense or Waylay, which is another special card. So potentially you could get 2 special cards in one here or another powerhouse unit, but this is rather uncommon.

Waylay X2- Destroy a random unit when you have a Sage in play.

Below I will provide the entire deck list in the order Gwent assigned. I went with 20 special cards and 5 units. (At the time of writing, Francesca’s can have 163 provisions so this list is based on that number).



So the strategy will depend on how you opponent plays, but these are the two methods that I have to face the most. Either way the strategy is to pass on the first round after playing 3 cards while maintaining at least a one card advantage. You will LOSE the first round almost always. Remember this is fine since the game must go 3 rounds.

Scenario one- “Lose first round with a card advantage. Round two will have 10 cards while the opponent has 9.” In this scenario they will play two cards and then pass. First card should play either a Sage or Xavier Moran. Second card will be any special card that has you ahead by this time or fairly close. Third card will be Adrenaline Rush to keep your unit for the next round. Use your leader ability if needed.

Scenario two-“^” Rather than the opponent passing after playing two cards they play more or all of their cards trying to 2-0 you. You need to be able to react to this immediately and be prepared. Get ready to have multiple sages and Xavier out for a boosts upon boosts. Again you will need an Adrenaline Rush active by the end of the round for round 3. Use your leader ability as needed.

This is the basic guidelines for winning but each game will be very different. You leaders ability is your ace up the sleeve, so use it how you need it.

Before I go I suppose I should make a list of things that will ruin the achievement or make them much more difficult.

Lose match - Achievement voided.
Round one tie - Achievement voided.
Opponent forfeits - Achievement voided.
Draw too many unit cards and can’t play 15 special cards - Achievement voided.
Enemy is using Usurper Leader - Harder.
Enemy destroys or blocks one of your main units - Harder.
Enemy destroys or blocks multiple main units - Near impossible.

Below is a video of a victory where everything went right. Morana Runestone gave me a sage and I Adrenaline Rushed it from round 2. It’s the start of round 3 from scenario 1. Also I ended up playing 16 special cards this game, so there is a little wiggle room here.

I have never written a guide before because I'm usually the one following them but I recently discovered a possible cheese to this achievement. I did not even need to win a game to get this....

So now that there's a season of magic mode it gives us 2 uses of every special card that is played. I figured MAYBE I only had to use 8 to get over the ridiculous 15 requirement. I mean good luck ever drawing 15 cards in a game, nevermind specials...and then on top of that you've got to win?!

I made a pretty crappy deck with 15 special cards and the minimum number of units as possible. I did my best to make the deck playable at least, but don't worry about that. Just make sure the deck is riddled with special cards.

What I did was this:

- Loaded up a game in season of magic.
- Played to win the game using lots of special cards along the way (I got to play 8-9 by the end of round 3, so since each got doubled I guess that counted)
- I got annoyed with the difficulty of this as I was playing your typical try-hard in this "fun-unranked" mode and I rage quit.

What happened next? The achievement popped. Now this could be a temporary glitch but as you can tell I did not win the game. I was never ahead of this guy in the round I quit, and I'm fairly sure I was not ahead in total score including all rounds. So play at least 8 special cards and quit out. I hope this works for others as it luckily worked for me!