Late last year, CD Projekt Red announced it would step back from development of its free-to-play collectible card game Gwent, with new cards continuing to be added in 2023, but the card pool be considered complete after that, and further balance changes left up to the players.
Update 11.10 is the final CD Projekt update, and as Molegion in the overview video explains, "This is the last handmade developer-prepared content update for Gwent, so after this we won't be preparing changes to cards any more. Instead we will be using a system, you can see it in the main menu, it's called balance council."
The balance council allows players of at least Prestige 1, who have either won 25 ranked games in the current season or reached Rank 0, to vote on changes once per month. Each player can choose up to three cards or leader abilities to vote on, and can choose to vote for their power or provision cost to increase or decrease. The choices are weighted too, with your first choice in a given bracket worth three votes, the second worth two votes, and the third a single vote.
Cards or abilities will need to rack up at least 50 votes in a month to be changed, with a limit of 15 maximum changes per monthly bracket—and a minimum of three. The aim is to keep the meta fluctuating to prevent it from becoming too predictable, but not so chaotic that entire decks become worthless overnight.
Presumably the Gwent team is being shuffled over to other projects like the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, in early development following the release of Phantom Liberty, and the game that's definitely not going to be called The Witcher 4, which will be the start of a new trilogy.
Gwent's Version 11.10 update delivers a final round of developer patches, as detailed below.
- Neutral
- Ale of the Ancestors - Now has the Alchemy tag.
- Ciri: Nova - Added new part of ability: Ciri: Nova and Golden Nekker are excluded from this condition.
- Colossal Ifrit - Corrected the tooltip to reflect the ability (the ability targets 3 adjacent enemy units, not the opposite row).
- Golden Nekker - Added new part of ability: Ciri: Nova and Golden Nekker are excluded from this condition.
- Regis: Bloodlust - On the battlefield effect changed to: Banish the top 3 cards from your deck.
- Sangreal - Now has the Alchemy tag.
- Tainted Ale - Now has the Alchemy tag. Can no longer target allied units.
- Crow's Eye - Boost changed from 3 to 4.
- Thaw - Boost changed from 4 to 5.
- Monsters
- Vereena - Boost restriction now only affects enemy units.
- Archespore - Now has the Cursed tag.
- Nilfgaard
- Affan Hillergrand - Ability changed to: Once all leader Charges are used up, Summon self from your deck to a random allied row. If you control at least 4 units with Flanking, play self instead and gain Zeal. Order: Boost all allied Soldiers with Armor by 1.
- Rosa and Edna var Attre - Updated tooltip to reflect that only unique Aristocrats are counted, and that Spawned copies gain Doomed.
- Deithwen Arbalest - Now has Counter: 6
- Northern Realms
- Princess Adda - Ability changed to: Deploy (Devotion): Gain Immunity. The first time a Cursed unit enters the battlefield during your turn, boost self by its base power.
- Radovid: Judgment - Added new part of ability: Order: Damage an enemy unit by 0. Increase this value by 1 for each time you used your leader ability this game.
- Seltkirk of Gulet - Now has the Cursed tag.
- Vandergrift - Now has the Cursed tag.
- Scoia'tael
- Angus Bri Cri - Updated tooltip to reflect that all Elven Deadeyes appearing on your side of the battlefield are boosted (not just those who were Spawned).
- Mahakam Pass - Can now Create any bronze Scoia'tael Dwarves (not only Mahakam Dwarves).
- Pavko Gale - Now has Harmony.
- Skellige
- Otkell - The Deploy ability is now limited to the Ranged row. Now damages self by instances of 1.
- Svalblod - Damage required to Spawn a Svalblod Fanatic changed from 6 to 8.
- Syndicate
- Ixora - Vice requirement changed from 6 to 8.
- Novigrad - Provision cost changed from 10 to 12.
- Game Fixes
- Recommended cards in the Deck Builder once again display their tooltips.
- The Shield VFX should no longer remain on the board in rare cases, after the unit it belonged to leaves play.
- Chort is no longer a common Beast, but an epic Relict!
- Henry var Attre's Spawned cards are now shown in the preview screen.
- Casting Contest no longer disables Grace for bronze units.
- Deithwen Arbalest now only damages one unit at a time when multiple statuses are applied simultaneously.
- Princess Adda and Svalblod no longer react to units moved between rows on the same side of the battlefield.
- Salamandra Mage no longer counts Adrenaline inconsistently when reacting to Tributes.
