Early last week, the Gwent: The Witcher Card Game closed beta went into greenlight mode, and having been an early sign-up and an old-hand at the game through hundreds and hundreds of hours in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I downloaded it and jumped in immediately. And now, just five days into the beta, I've got my first in-depth impressions of the product at the moment, along with a few suggestions on things noticeably missing.

Here's a snippet from my hands-on impressions:

So far I’ve spent my time specialising in the Northern Realms faction, and have hung onto the deck’s default Leader card: Foltest. His ability allows you to replicate any non-Gold card along with whatever that card is currently showing in terms of strength, but it will also activate whatever that card’s ability is. So, I tend to lean towards the Poor Infantry card which has a base value of 3, but once played it duplicates itself. Then, I try and buff at least one of these cards with the likes of, say, Kaedweni Siege Support which adds 3 strength to any non-Gold unit, a Blue Stripes Scout or two, which adds 4 strength to any non-Gold unit, a Thunderbolt Potion which adds 4 strength to any non-Gold card as well as any other copies of it on the battlefield and, if I'm lucky enough in my drawn hand, add in a Swallow Potion which adds 8 strength to a single non-Gold card and a Commander’s Horn, which doubles the strength of all non-Gold units in a row. So, if by a fluke my now superior Poor Infantry hasn't been attacked throughout any of this process, he should be sitting on 44 strength, and if I then use Foltest’s ability, he’ll replicate the Poor Infantry who will then duplicate itself, complete with all of the above-mentioned buffs, leaving me with at least 132 from those three cards, excluding anything else I have on the battlefield.

It's a powerful strat, but requires a perfect storm of cards and opponent cards to be able to pull off in its entirety. And all the opposition needs to negate it is either Scorch or Biting Frost. Another addition to this strat is to add Adrenaline Rush to your now not-so-Poor Infantry so that he returns should you do it in the first round, or lose a round, in the next round. And already the game is full of complicated, multilayered strats like this, which is beginning to make it very interesting.

Click here for our full Gwent closed beta hands-on preview. And if you're keen on getting into the closed beta, you can still sign up right here.

Are you in the closed beta? What's been your experience so far?