In this week’s Gwentlemen Talkshow we are joined by two special guests - Mogwai and McBeard. Mogwai is a streamer and caster known for his enthusiasm and love of Nilfgaard.
You can find Mogwai at his Twitter or at his Twitch
Our other guest this week is McBeard, a streamer and caster known for being a host of the Commanders Horn Podcast.
You can find McBeard at his Twitter, Twitch, or at the Commanders Horn Podcast
In our latest Gwent event we take the reins as Djenge Frett to help Geralt take the fight against a Phoenix before shortly realizing we’re on the wrong side of this fight and instead defending the Phoenix in the final round. For those of you who are just interested in the wards as quickly as possible, here are the solutions to the Expert version of the challenges.
#1 Treacherous Passage - Your Cards Outvalue Your Opponent’s
#2 Fire And Ice - The Key is to Let Frost Do The Work
#3 Unexpected Ally - Use Geralt’s Reset Timer to Make Your Cards Last the Whole Round
Yesterday saw the first round of matches taking place for Gwent Challenger #2. Four players were left in the dust as TailBot, kolemoen, Freddybabes, and Lifecoach advanced to the semi finals.
Ten different community members made their predictions, in order to try and get a flavour for who was expected to win. These ten were:
While nobody got 100%, many successfully predicted 3 of the 4 matches. Furthermore nobody predicted all of the losers. With that said, the same group of panelists made predictions for the semi finals, and were asked who they ultimately thought would win.
For TailBot vs kolemoen TailBot is once again seen as the underdog, with just 30% of the vote. This was the case in the quarter finals however and he came out on top. With that said, kolemoen efficiently dispatched of Adzikov in the quarters in a clean 3-0. He has a reputation among the competitive players as a powerhouse, and is currently looking unstoppable.
Freddybabes vs Lifecoach is another one sided match-up from our predictions. 80% of panellists think that defending champion Lifecoach will beat Freddybabes. Freddybabes went 3-1 against J0rah, a match-up many felt was going to be a 3-0. On the flipside, Lifecoach 3-0ed GameKing in a match which many expected would go to game 5. With Freddybabes struggling, and Lifecoach’s efficient victories, it’s unsurprising most favour Lifecoach to win.
For the finals the predictions are mixed. The 2 panellists who think Freddybabes will win his semi think that he will go on to win the tournament. The remaining 8 are split, with 4 for Lifecoach and 4 for kolemoen. Nobody thinks TailBot will win the finals, but given his history of coming second, this is maybe not surprising. Lifecoach is a LAN veteran. He is known for being hyper focused, calm, collected, and very competitive. Kolemoen is a new face at LAN, but his dominant performance in the quarters have shown people he might just be unstoppable. It will be a great match for sure, and it looks like it’s anyone’s game.
Overall our panel favour kolemoen and Lifecoach, but as in the quaterfinals, they aren’t always right. Tune in to watch Challenger on the CDPR Twitch channel at 4pm CET to see who will emerge the victor.
This article was written by Francesca “Jaggerous” Jagger. You can find more from her on her YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter.
OtakuMZ unpacks an extensive experiment of data collection surrounding the coinflip and lays out the results for use in the ongoing discussion. Let’s dig in!
The Coinflip is one of the most discussed topics in Gwent and the Gwent subreddit attracts numerous posts regarding ideas to fix it. As with any other card game, there is a difference in win rate (WR) observed by many players depending on who goes first or second. Most games have a system in place that diminishes the advantage (or disadvantage) to an acceptable level. Depending on the CCG you are looking at, reported differences in WR varies. At the lower end, a small percentage seems acceptable, but 10% and above is definitely not. If you believe the voices of the community, the problem is particularly accentuated in Gwent as there is no compensation system in place for the coinflip as some other games possess. Going second and especially being able to play the last card in the game is very important in Gwent. The system of only playing one card per turn enables the player with that “last say” to deliver the final counter, e.g. killing off a pair of buffed Dol Blathanna Protectors with a decisive Scorch in contrast to just one. So how to tackle this debate with hard numbers? Let’s get to it.
The second Gwent Challenger event is happening this weekend, organised by CD Projekt Red. The quarter finals are played this Saturday, with the semis and grand finals taking place on Sunday. With a respectable $100,000 prize-pool, eight challengers will be battling to take home the lion’s share. With the brackets drawn on Thursday, is anyone in for an easy ride? And which match-ups look particularly tough? We’ve taken predictions once again from across the Gwent community to get a feel for who is the favourite in each match-up.
We spoke to a range of people from the community in order to get a broad flavour of how people think these games will go.
Our ten fortune tellers are:
So what did everyone think?
This time around the community seems fairly split in most of the match-ups. TailBot vs Shaggy has 70% of predictions favouring Shaggy. This is interesting considering last time they played, TailBot came out the victor. Shaggy did win the first Gwent Open, but TailBot has earned a number of second place finishes, including the second Gwent Open, and GwentSlam #3. Lamios expects Shaggy to win, saying “Shaggy and TailBot are both great players, but TailBot so far has only played (albeit very well) the most standard meta decks available. Assuming both players play to the best of their ability, Shaggy has the edge simply because he’s a lot more unpredictable.” It is expected to be an exciting and closely fought match. When asked about her prediction, Jaggerous said that “TailBot is known for his smack talk, and I think he’s sometimes seen as the bad guy of tournaments. Because of this, people discount him as a player, but he is very consistent and doesn’t tend to take big risks. Shaggy on the other hand can be a little inconsistent. I think that on average this works out better for TailBot.” Although the panel favours Shaggy, TailBot did win their previous match-up, and this is a set likely to go to five games.
Adzikov vs kolemoen has a 50/50 split in predictions. Both players qualified for challenger via the online qualifier, however Adzikov would have qualified through crown points. Adzikov is the veteran of tournaments, having played in all three GwentSlams and the recent GwentOpen. Unfortunately, he’s been knocked out in the first round every time. He’ll be hoping to break that curse this time around. Merchant predicted Adzikov, saying “his desire to make it past round 1 probably burns with the force of a thousand suns by now.” On the other hand, kolemoen is relatively unknown in tournaments, but within the competitive scene has a strong reputation. ImpetuousPanda said “I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people, he has a very good understanding of the game and makes little mistakes from the games I’ve played against him. Adzikov is still obviously an extremely consistent player, I believe the main decider in this match up will be anything but direct skill(nerves, composure,etc).” So it may come down to tournament experience, and in that regard Adzikov is on top. But he also has a lot to prove given his track record, and it appears this is anyone’s game.
When it comes to Freddybabes vs J0rah the vote is unanimous, 100% in favour of Freddybabes. Freddy is a strong player and is coming off of a Gwent Open win. J0rah on the other hand came second in the first Gwent Open, but seems to have turned away from Gwent since then. Petrify thinks this will be an easy win for Freddy, saying “Freddy has got a walkover versus J0rah since J0rah doesn’t even play Gwent anymore basically.” If this is the case, this will likely be a fairly clean 3-0, but it remains to be seen if J0rah is as inexperienced as people think.
Finally, we have GameKing vs Lifecoach. Both players are seen as titans in competitive Gwent. Both are regularly in the top 5 for the pro ladder, and both have tournament experience. Lifecoach is the defending Gwent Challenger victor. He also hosts GwentSlam tournaments. Competitive Gwent is basically his life. He hasn’t competed recently however, whereas GameKing has played in Gwent Open #2, along with three GwentSlams. Our panel is divided once again for this match up, with 60% for Lifecoach. It seems that vaysh thinks that GameKing’s recent tournament experience will help him, saying “GameKing is actually playing the game, when his opponent is busy showing sushi on stream.” Crokeyz was in favour of Lifecoach, his reasoning being “I’m picking Lifecoach so that he invites me to the next GwentSlam.” In all seriousness, this match-up is so close that panelists are giving arbitrary reasons for their predictions. Both players have strong reputations, and it seems to be anyone’s game.
From our panel, the predictions favour Shaggy. Freddy and Lifecoach. Three of the four match ups seem very divided however, so it’s definitely going to be a good one to watch. You can watch Gwent Challenger this Saturday at 4pm CET on the CD Projekt Red Twitch channel.
This article was written by Francesca “Jaggerous” Jagger. You can find more from her on her YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter.
