General glossary[]
Artifact: These cards do not give any points (have no Power value) but can have various effects. They cannot be damaged by regular cards (except by Heatwave and Shupe: Hunter).
Bleeding (strategy): Forcing your opponent to play more cards than necessary. Often used in round 2.
Bronze cards: Cards with Common or Rare rarity, and a bronze border. You can use a maximum of two copies of a bronze cards in your decks.
Card Advantage (CA): When you have more cards in hand than your opponent, it's called card advantage.
Control (strategy): Strategy where the objective is to remove or lock opponent's card to prevent him from using a bigger combo.
Control (as in card descriptions): A card is "controlled" when it is present on your side of the board.
Draw: Move the card on top of your deck to your hand.
Dry Pass: A dry pass is when you pass without playing any unit. This is used in round 2 to force the opponent to play a card without using one, potentially granting you Card Advantage.
Engines: Cards which are able to generate points over time.
Gold card: card with epic or legendary rarity, and a gold border. You can only use one copy of each in your decks.
Keg: Can be bought from Shupe. Contains 5 cards.
(Meteorite) Powder: Currency used to turn normal cards into premium cards.
Mill: Strategy where you are trying to empty opponent's deck to get card advantage. Or: Destroying a card in your collection to get scraps and meteorite powder.
Ore: Currency used to buy Kegs.
Pass: This action is possible when you don't play a card and don't use any abilities. When you pass, you can no longer play during the round. Learn more.
Premium (cards): Animated cards. Provisions: This is the cost of a card you have to pay to put it in your deck. Decks have a maximum total value of 150 (plus a value added by the leader ability).
Proc(cing): Originally the acronym for 'Programmed Random Occurrence'. Now refers to triggering a card's described effects, such as Intimidate, Assimilate, Harmony, Thrive, etc.
Reset: Restore a unit to its base power (boost if damaged, damage if boosted).
Reward Point: Currency you can use in the Reward Book. Learn more.
Round: A game of Gwent ends when someone wins 2 rounds. A round ends when both players have decided to pass or when they have no card left in hand. On round start, each player draw 3 cards. Seasonal (Gamemode): Special gamemode with special rules. Learn More.
Specials: These cards can affect other cards but do not stay on the board. They often have sub-categories such as Tactic, Spell, Warfare, Alchemy..
Stratagem: Card available for the player who start the game. Default Stratagem is Tactical Advantage.
Swarm (strategy): Swarm decks want to put as many units as possible one the board and use row or board effects to boost them all.
Tempo (strategy): In Gwent, the concept of tempo is to be able to put a lot of points on the board with very few plays. This is used to get Card Advantage or to force the opponent to pass early.
Turn: A turn starts when your opponent has decided to end his turn. A turn is considered "played" when you play a card from your hand.
Units: Cards with points (Power value) on them, they contribute to increasing your score.
Witcher Trio: Eskel, Lambert and Vesemir cards or Letho, Auckes and Serrit cards.
Abbreviations[]
While browsing the subreddit, you may encounter some people using abbreviation. There's a lot to design some cards that may not be listed below.
AQ: Arachas Queen
CC: Crimson Curse, name of the first expansion
CoC: Curse of Corruption (Neutral card)
DJ: Djikstra (Syndicate Card and Leader)
G:Yrden, G:Aard, G:Igni, G:Axxi, G:Quen: Refers to the Geralt cards
IJ: Iron Judgment, name of the third expansion
META: Most Efficient Tactic Available - Usually refers to current best deck
MO: Monsters faction
MoO: Merchants of Ofir, name of the fourth expansion
NG: Nilfgaard faction
Nova: Ciri: Nova (Neutral Card)
NR: Northern Realms faction
(x)p: Can either refers to points or provisions. The later is more common.
PFI: Poor Fucking Infantry (Northern Realms card)
RnR: Ragh nar Roog (Neutral Card, Row effect).
RP: Reward Point
R1, R2, R3: Refers to Round 1, 2 and 3
SC: Summoning Circle (Neutral Artifact)
SK: Skellige faction
ST: Scoia'tael faction
SY: Syndicate faction
TA: Tactical Advantage, name of the default Stratagem
Keywords[]
Those words appear in card descriptions. You can right-click any card in-game to have detailed descriptions of those keywords.
Adrenaline: Trigger this ability if you have specified number or fewer cards in your hand.
Ambush: These cards are played face down and will be revealed under specific conditions. The owner can manually reveal it but the effect will be different.
Armor: When a card with armor receives damages, it will lose armor points before losing health points.
Assimilate (x): The unit is boosted by x (default 1) if the player uses a card that is not in their starting deck. The starting deck does not refer to the deck you receive on joining GWENT or the set of starter cards. The starting deck means the deck you are using to play the current game. Imperial Diplomacy and Bribery are Tactics you can use to ensure (mostly) that Assimilate procs, since the cards created by these tactics are from the opponent's faction. The exception would be mirror matches or when your opponent is NG and you spawn a card which happens to be in your opponent's starting deck as well.
Banish(ed): Card is entirely removed from the game. Does not count as being destroyed.
Barricade: Ability triggers if the unit has Armor.
Berserk (x): Triggers ability whenever the unit's base power is equal to or less than x points.
Blood Moon: At the start of the owner's turn, give a random unit in this row Bleeding (2). If the unit is already Bleeding, damage it by 2 instead (row effect/hazard).
Bloodthirst (x): Triggers if the opponent has x damaged units.
Bonded: Triggers a specified ability if another copy of this unit is on the battlefield which you control.
Cataclysm: At the start of the owner's turn, split 3 damage randomly between units in this row (row effect/hazard).
Charge: The number of times an Order ability can be used. Only cards with Charge: X can gain additional charges.
Coin(s): Cards from Syndicate faction can earn coins [for paying Fees and Tributes] and other cards will be able to spend them. You may possess a maximum of 9 coins. At the end of the round, the number of coins a player has is divided by two [reduced by half] (rounded down) when carried over into the next round.
Conspiracy: Trigger this ability if target unit has Spying status.
Consume: Destroy another card and boost self by the value of the card destroyed. If the target is in the graveyard, Banish it instead.
Cooldown (x): Card(s) will be able to use its [Order or Fee] ability again after x turns.
Counter (x): When the condition is met, reduce the counter by one. Triggers an ability when it reaches 0.
Create: Spawn one of three randomly selected cards from the specified source.
Crew: Trigger specified ability of a unit if it is between two Soldiers.
Deathblow: Triggers an additional ability if the card kill another one.
Deathwish: Triggers an ability when the card is moved to the graveyard.
Deploy: Triggers an ability when the card is played (as opposite from "Summons").
Devotion: A bonus ability if your starting deck contains only faction-specific cards [no neutral cards].
Discard: Move a card from your hand or your deck directly in the graveyard.
Disloyal: This card is played on the opposite side of the battlefield.
Dominance: Triggers when you control the highest unit on the battlefield.
Dragon's Dream: At the start of the owner's turn, when timer expires, damage all units in this row by 3 (bomb row effect).
Drain: Damage a unit and boost self by the amount damaged.
Duel: Unit deals damage equal to its power to another unit. Other unit do the same to the first unit after that. Repeat until one dies.
Echo: At the beginning of the round, move this card from the graveyard to the top of its owner's deck. Give it Doomed (See Status).
Exposed: Ability triggers when unit lose its Armor.
Fee (x): Spend the specified number of coins to trigger the ability.
Fog: At the start of the owner's turn, damage the lowest power unit in this row by 2 (weather or row effect/hazard).
Formation: If a unit is played in Melee row, gain Zeal. If played on the Ranged row, boost self by 1.
Frost: At the start of the owner's turn, damage the highest power unit in this row by 2 (weather or row effect/hazard).
Harmony (x): This unit is boosted by x (default 1) when a card with a new primary tag appears on your side of the battlefield. Primary tags are: Human, Beast, Gnome, Elf, Dwarf, Dryad...
Heal: Boost the card until its power is equal to its base power.
Hoard (x): Triggers ability when you have x coins or more.
Initiative: Trigger this ability if using this card is the first action of your turn.
Insanity: The card can use a fee ability by damaging self instead of using coins.
Inspired: Triggers an ability if the card [unit's] current power is higher than its base power (=boosted).
Intimidate: Boost the card by 1 or the specified amount whenever you play a Crime card.
Lock: Status that disables a unit's abilities.
Melee: Ability can only be used while on the Melee row.
Order: An ability triggered manually by the player. Cards with Order cannot be used for 1 turn after being placed on the battlefield.
Patience: At the end of your turn, if Order is not used, permanently increase the card's specified value by 1.
Profit (x): Gain x amount of coins. You may possess a maximum of 9 coins.
Purify: Remove all statuses from a card.
Rain: At the start of the owner's turn, damage 2 random units in this row by 1 (weather or row effect/hazard).
Ranged: Ability can only be used while on the Ranged row.
Resupply: Boost by one each time you play a Warfare card.
Resurrect: Play a card from the graveyard.
Reveal: Show a random card to both players, then hide it back in the hand or deck.
Sabbath: Trigger this ability if at least one of your rows has a total of 25 or more points.
Seize: Steal a card from the opponent. The card will be moved to the same row (Melee or Ranged) it was present on the opposite side of the battlefield.
Spawn: Add a card to the game.
Spring: An ability triggered manually by the player only when the card is face-down. Cards with Spring are flipped over after use.
Storm: At the start of the owner's turn, damage all units in this row by 1 (row effect/hazard).
Summon: Card moves automatically to the battlefield from hand or deck (does not count as "Played" and does not trigger "Deploy" effects).
Symbiosis: Whenever you play a Nature card, Spawn a wandering Treant in a random allied row and set its power equal to the number of units with Symbiosis you control.
Thrive: Boost this unit by one each time you play a card with a higher value.
Timer (x): Reduce the value by one at the end of each turn. Trigger an effect once it reaches 0.
Tribute: On deploy, you can choose to spend the specified amount of coins to trigger an additional ability.
Veteran: At the start of the second and third round, increase the base power of this unit by 1.
Zeal: An Order ability can be used on the same turn the card is placed on the battlefield.
Status[]
Status can be removed by Purifying the unit. They are also visible when you right-click a card on the battlefield.
Bleeding: This card will lose one point at the end of each owner's turn. Effect stacks in duration and can be countered by Vitality.
Bounty: When a unit with this status is destroyed or banished, opponent gains coins equal to its base power. There can be only one unit with Bounty status on each side of the board at given time.
Defender: When a unit with this status is present on a row, you can't target other units until the Defender unit is killed or Purified.
Doomed: When the card leaves the battlefield (by going into the graveyard or the deck), the card is banished.
Immunity: This card cannot be targeted directly (but will be affected by row/board effects).
Poison: Applying poison to a poisoned unit destroy it.
Resilience: Status that allows a unit to remain on the battlefield at the end of the round, then disappears. Note: Boost and Armor are not carried over to the next round.
Rupture: At the end of owner's turn, the unit with Rupture is damaged with damage equal to its base power, then (if the unit survives) the status is removed.
Shield: Cards with a shield will ignore the first instance of damage. Status is removed after.
Spying: This status appears when the card is not on owner's side of the board. No direct effects but some cards will have synergy with spying cards.
Locked: When a card is locked, the text present on the card will be ignored (Only applies to the battlefield, not the graveyard in cases like Phoenix). Does not affect statuses.
Vitality: Boost the card by one at the end of each owner's turn. Effect stacks in duration and can be countered by Bleeding.
Veil: Status that prevents the unit from gaining other statuses. Note that this does not remove already applied statuses like Locked.