I've just tried my first game of Gwent. Obviously I read up on it first, but there are 2 prime things that are confusing me.
1stly, Advice is, don't have more than 22 cards in your deck. How do I access my entire deck of 26 to choose the 22?
2ndly, My opponent, the journeyman smith at Oxenfurt, playing a Monster deck, made a play which suddenly bought a whole row of 4 or 5 cards into play, boosting his score from about 15 to 45!!! After that, he kept passing. I played all my cards, inc activating my King(which seemed to boost his 'hand' when he did it, but did bugger all to my hand) bar 2 weather ones, thinking I get to choose another 10 for the next round but no, apparently not. Meanwhile he's pulling cards out of thin air it seems. Wtf is going on? How come he gets to play more than 10 cards & I can't? Why can't I get more cards from my 26 deck & If I can, what control keys do that?
Thanx. :)

1. Don't have more than 22 unit cards. You have to have a minimum of 22 unit cards. It is advisable to go over that with special cards (like frost, rain, decoy etc). The reason for that advice is you can select the best unit cards that way and only get those in the random pick. Doesn't apply when all your unit cards suck, though, like in the beginning.

2. Monster deck has the ability to summon cards from his general deck, not his hand, when playing cards with the muster ability. Counter it with frost. You just need better cards.

3. You only get cards at the beginning. Unless you happen to play a spy card, in which case you get 2 extra. A very valuable tactic.

1

When looking at a deck before a match

-left side column are cards that you can add to your playing deck

-right side column cards are your playing deck.

You can add/remove cards from your playing deck by choosing a card and pressing the "e" key . So if you want to remove a card from your playing deck pick a card from the right side column and press the "e" key (you should see the prompt to add/remove the card on the bottom right when you click on a card) and that card should move from the right side column to the left side column. Note that equal cards stack.

2

Different factions have different abilities in terms of "leader card" and even within the same faction there are multiple "leader" cards to choose from. Using the leader card can benefit or hurt your score depending on the card's special ability and the cards that are on the table.

When the game starts each player gets 10 random cards from the playing deck (so if you have 22 units cards and 4 special cards in your playing deck you'll start the match with 10 random cards from those 26 - which is why you should only keep the 22 best unit cards in your deck (plus a few special cards)

Those 10 cards will have to last you the 2 or 3 rounds of the match (there are however cards that when played can give you more cards during the match, look for cards with an eye at the bottom. Note that these cards will go on the opponent side of the table and thus increase his score, not yours. Faction abilities can also give more cards from one round to the next, for instance, if you're playing with the Northern Realms deck you'll get an extra card whenever you win a round )

There are also cards that when played pull similar (like, same name) cards from the deck to the table - that's the card your opponent played, the one that brought forward a bunch of other cards to the table.

You can check out special abilities of your opponent's cards on the table by right clicking on them, that way you'll know exactly what went on when those WTF moments happen.

and sometimes it's useful to simply pass a round, if your opponent already invested heavily. and just like the polar bear said, use frost! the freezing ground card destroyes Monster decks, so put both of those in your deck

You press Esc & then Gwent, before you start to play.

H is the quick key.

Why wasn't I told! Thanks.

Thanx all, top info! I feel much better informed to have another stab now. Hopefully that H key will show me what type of deck I have too.