In the later years of Gwent it feels almost impossible to create something that feels NEW, so it is satisfying to create something fresh that is ALSO strong enough that I pushed it upwards of 2550mmr on multiple seasons! I know that in putting this out the deck may lose effectiveness, as I’m going to highlight its weaknesses, but I just feel it’s the right thing to do. If you want something totally out-of-the-box look no further. I’ve adjusted the deck for this season (feb25) and am 5-0 in pro first day of the season.

Intro to gamelan:

In a nutshell- MAKE IT TO ROUND 3.

This is the central concept, as your round 3 finishers are essentially unbeatable and you will win 90%+ of games in this situation. The downfall is being 2-0’d, which the deck is designed around avoiding.

R1:

strangely enough, YOU PLAY GN R1 from red or blue coin. Ideally You set up GN generally by using blightmaker/fisher onto another blightmaker. On turn 2, GN is safe to play. Then with GN played you’ll begin shuffling the Albrich to the top, you can also do this onto novice if albrich is in hand. Using a deck manipulator card to set up a safe target is FINE, albrich will be MIN 24 (can be 30+) pts TRUST ME.

On red if you don’t find anything to do this, try to play Ciri and possibly maxxi early to try to get the draws you need and check your deck order,

you’ll select golem with summoning circle, which is worth 13-14 points. Always put the circle on the RANGED row adjacent only one unit. You must make the judgement of when you want it to be pulled out of the deck, in r1 or r2. If you can’t win r1, then save it to defend the bleed r2 and play ciri r1. Remember, you just have to make it to r3.

R2:

if you won r1 , congrats, the game is now in your hands. You can play ciri and bleed with leader if you’d like depending on the matchup, as you can usually keep your card. Just save an agent for r3 so you can zeal the doadrick.

Being bled, you are on the ropes. Hopefully you have put yourself in the position to have snowdrop+leader and golem is still coming out. If you stick ciri and circle r1 you have 21pts carryover into r2, which should make the 2-0 very difficult. use anything you can to stay alive without using the reveal cards or doadrick. Lydia is a great card to have in hand to help defend, with so much sk out there playing freyas into blightmaker is massive.

R3:

dodrick will cycle Albrich r3 against the top of the deck (also the bottom) as you will be thinned to one card. This is essentially an 10pt/turn engine and more with snowdrop. Maxxi will also proc albrich r3 so I try to save her for it. Then jam reveals 2nd and 3rd to last and self destroy with vilg last on a mage assassin or spawned golem. Each of the final plays is often around 30 points which makes this nearly unbeatable in a shortish round.

Situational card Tips:

Strays can be used in r3 to proc albrich: keep bronze as last card in deck and albrich in hand, shuffling back albrich on deploy. (also fine to use r1 to fix a brick for GN)

Against a deck with vilg or Matta, you’ll need to play an assassin from hand to correct the deck (unless vilg pulls out an assassin in which case the thin is corrected)

You’ll struggle against greedy MO decks like 3x sabbath, as you lack control. Symbiosis is another example of a dangerous matchup, you need to get them to commit heavy r1 and stack your own carryover as they will play to zero r2 if they win r1.

In the case of summoning circle is answered with bear or heatwave, this 0 to -5 pt play youll need to use that to win r1. Your doadrick won’t work as intended in r3 so bleed hard with snow+leader and use doadrick to get value off snowdrop. Your reveals will show either albrich or golem. (generally this is good enough as even golem is a good payoff)

This deck will take a while to get used to so try not to forfeit if you make a mistake. it is really fun once you start pulling it off, give it a try and let me know how you like it on Reddit!