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Main Article: 'Gwent?'
Introduction:

What even is Gwent? Well Gwent is a card game, it originated from the videogame ‘Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’ developed by CD Projekt RED and went from a game inside another game, to something that is growing more and more popular, especially in Sheffield. When the cards from the game were released as actual cards to the world, fans took to the closest videogame shops, comic book stores and even online shops like Amazon, to purchase these cards. The card game itself is pretty easy to catch up on as it has basic rules that are easy to remember, it may not be as complicated as other card games like ‘Magic’, ‘Yu-Gi-Oh’ and even virtual card games like ‘Hearthstone’ (Also based of a videogame). “So what’s the big deal?” I might hear you ask, well there’s a tournament taking place, and the developers of the game are even supporting it! The tournament was originally conceived on a Facebook group by a fan named Alister Martin and as more people found this group, it kept growing and growing, it’s around 250 people strong at this point in time of writing, and with a few strong supporters funding and supporting the event, such as the previously mentioned CD Projekt RED. Alister Martin talks to us more about what it is, his tactics and what he hopes will happen in the future to come. 

Main Article:

How did you get into Gwent, what wheeled you in?

Well, it’s all thanks to Witcher 3, the game it’s from, thanks to the games immersive world I got sucked into the parts where you can challenge other NPCs in the game to a duel of Gwent, and because the game is so immersive I felt like I was actually fighting real people. There’s also the fact that there were tournaments in the game too that may have also gave me the idea to start this real version of the tournament.

So, what is the basics of Gwent?

The game of Gwent is between two players and it’s the best out of 2-3 rounds. The playing field you play on is in 3 sections, melee, range and siege. The collection of cards consists of 216 cards, each player has 108 cards and each has it rare cards and its common cards. The cards are all based on people and things in Witcher 3, an example of one of the rare cards is ‘Geralt of Rivia’ which is coincidentally the protagonist you play throughout the ‘Witcher’ Series and so these cards have higher attack points than the common cards. The common cards are made to even the playing field though as they have abilities like ‘synergy’ which is when two cards can join together to increase their attack points. On the other hand, there are cards that aren’t people, such as the catapult, and then there are is the weather type cards that effect the playing field; 'Biting Frost' is used to decrease the attack points of the melee cards, 'Impenetrable Fog' for range cards and then 'Torrential Rain' for the seige cards, and then there is a counter card to these called 'Clear Weather' where it gets rid of these effects.

All of it does seem interesting, do you have any tactics you like to use?
To be honest, I don't really have any tactics, I just do what you have to do in that very moment. Sometimes I may pre-plan a player's moves so that I know how to play my cards. I also find myself using all my weaker cards first, and it usually makes me lose the first round, now this may be a bad thing, but the only reason I did lose is because they used more of their special cards that do way more damage, this way I can go on to win two more rounds with my more special cards whilst they have either less or weaker cards.

You're the head of the Gwent tournament committee? What did you do to get this position?
Well, back when the game Gwent is all based around, 'Witcher 3' in May 2015, I was overwhelmed at how much detail went into the game, immersing me and so this made it way easier to get immersed in Gwent too. So out of the air, I came up with the idea to create a real tournament, a few of my friends were into the game too and were also quite excited about the thought of actually having a tournament based around Gwent. And so I took to Facebook's group feature to create a community based around this tournament, surprisingly no one else was doing this so I was excited to be the first. At first I had based it around my local area, or at least the whole of Sheffield, 1 or 2 people were joining everyday but then one day, CD Projekt RED had shared my group to their entire fan base and I got a flood of people joining the group, most of which who joined were still around my area which is great because I didn't want foreign visitors to have to go through all the hassle of getting here. So in that light, I did see more Gwent tournament groups spawning globally as different companies had their own, mine being the founding farther. CD Projekt RED are quite a fun company and were fully fledged into promoting and sponsoring these tournaments even as going so far to fund apart of it, I was so impressed at how this was growing and never anticipated that this would actually become a thing.

The future is the way to go, what do you want to see happen to what you've created?
Well I have the actual tournament to look forward to! In a months time, I as well as around a 100 other people will be having a massive tournament, and this is only the Sheffield based one, there are 2 more in Britain, one in Glasgow and the other being near Belfast, this having a combination of around 150 people registered, and then there are the a few other ones across the world, it sure is going to be an awesome and fun experience. The prize is not decided yet, but CD Projekt RED have a little input of their own into it, which should be interesting. But one main thing I'm definitely excited for, which I do hope becomes a thing, is a world tournament where the winners around the world face off against each other to see who the true master of Gwent is. And after that, who knows, maybe annual tournaments if CD Projekt RED is willing to back it up again every time.    

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