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Gwent is a reimplementation of my favourite boardgame ever: Condottiere. I thoroughly recommend picking up a copy if you wanted to play it irl
photoben-
Gwent is a reimplementation of my favourite boardgame ever: Condottiere
Major source they drew from, for sure, alongside Netrunner. Result was one of the best minigames ever. Sadly, the versions they've done as stand-alone games are pretty boring - added a lot of traditional CCG elements that make it over complicated and boring.
itsbruce
There's a lot to learn and a very wide range of possible play styles, character builds and gear choices. If you play on the easier two difficulty levels you can just hack and slash your way through but it's less satisfying that way (although a lot of people are just there for the story); on the harder difficulty levels, you have be able to put together a coherent combination of gear, build and play style to stand any chance of surviving the boss fights and tougher monsters. There's only one character class, but you can effectively make your character into a mage, alchemist (potions and bombs), high DPS fighter, tank or any number of hybrids. The expansions add even more options. A lot of people find this range of choice very confusing, particularly since the game does nothing to point you in one direction or another in this regard. One argument for starting on one of the tougher two difficulty levels is that you won't progress at all if you don't learn how to make the best out of whatever you have at any stage in the game.
The chance to use what you learned from your first run properly is a major incentive for replays (the other being the major plot-changing decisions you have to make).
Or you could just play Gwent.