A Tale of Two Drafts

Spoiler Alert: I love the Coyotle.  When I first laid eyes on Ozawa, Cosmic Elder and Howling Brave, I had high hopes for making a Coyotle theme deck.  Unfortunately, the Coyotle in set one didn't exactly get a bunch of cards that formed a cohesive deck strategy like the inspiring Humans of the artifact obsessed Dwarves.  While the cards are somewhat lacking, the Coyotle champions have very strong abilities, particularly in limited, where Feather Drifting Downriver has what I consider to be one of the most format defining abilities.  I did two drafts recently where I got to run Coyotle Champions.

The first draft I opened a poor pack one and just took a Comet Strike for my collection.  For the second pick I got shipped a Mancubus and figured I'd get to run my boy Flynn again.  Third pick had a Buccaneer and fourth and fifth had a Murder and Brood Creeper, none of three having anything noteworthy in ruby.  I figured I'd just stick to those three shards through the first pack and make a decision on my next pack.  The second pack had a Throat Cutter which I picked up assuming I would still be in ruby for orcs, but to my surprise I was passed a Bird O' Plenty.  At this point I had mostly Blood Cards with only a Ruby Pyromancer and the Mancubus keeping me in ruby.  When the third pick offered a second Brood Creeper, I cemented myself in Blood-Sapphire since it would give me access to Feather and let me fly my spiders in the air to create an small army.  The deck I ended up drafting had an abnormally high amount of repeat uncommons, flying in the face of probability.  I ended up going 3-0 in this draft (6-3 in games, I had to sweat it out every round), the list follows:

Champion: Feather Drifting Downriver

2 Darkspire Priestess

1 Effigy of Nulzaan [Flight]

2 Buccaneer

1 Darkspire Enforcer

1 Giant Corpse Fly

3 Brood Creeper

2 Throat Cutter

1 Devoted Emissary

2 Mazat Ranger [Flight]

2 Boltpaw Wizard

1 Bird O Plenty

1 Sapper's Charge

1 Time Ripple

1 Murder

2 Terrible Transfer

10 Blood Shard

6 Sapphire Shard

1 Shard of Fate

I want to say three things about this deck.  The first is that I think it demonstrates how a pile or unimpressive troops can just win if they can fly over your opponent thanks to Feather and the Flight Gem.  Here are my plays for one game:
Turn 3: Throat Cutter

Turn 4: Murder opposing flier, attack for 3 (TC: 3/2)
Turn 5: Mazat Ranger, Feather: Throat Cutter, attack for 4 in the air (TC: 4/2)

Turn 6: Attack for 10 in the air (TC: 5/2, MR: 5/1)

I didn't even play a Sapphire card in this game, yet without access to the Shard I certainly would not have won the game in as timely a fashion as a did, and there is a good chance I would have lost if my 1 and 2 toughness Orcs could have been ground blocked.  If you look closely (pic below) you'll see that I'm actually only running 5 Sapphire cards in the deck, but access to the Sapphire Shard changes the entire dynamic of the deck.  This is an important lesson when you are looking at draft and specifically when you are trying to hate draft people out of a shard: it's extraordinarily difficult to do with Sapphire.  While you can steal removal and bombs so you don't have to deal with them, you can't hate your opponent out of the Sapphire Gem of Flight and Feather Drifting Downriver.

Second thing I want to point out is the shard count, since it's somewhat unconventional.  10-6, with a SoF.  Normally this would be considered a splash for Sapphire, where among all my cards I only have 5 sapphire symbols, and in the entire game i'll only ever need one sapphire threshold.  I paid for this a couple games where I never saw a second Blood Shard, but having Feather means you need a reliable way to activate the charge power, which means that in a deck like this, where I would otherwise be okay with going 12-5 (I'm actually somewhat motivated with 2 Terrible Transfer), or trying to pare down the Time Ripple for another Blood card to restrict my need for so many Sapphire cards, since I want to reliably get something in the air turn 4 or 5, I want to ensure I hit my threshold reliably early.  My normal recommendation for draft decks is running 17 lands, and counting the threshold symbols to determine which shards you need an extra copy of, or which cards have more double-threshold requirements, or which shard you need earlier.  Maybe you have small Ruby troops but big Wild troops, so you add the extra Ruby Shard to ensure you don't get deprived in the first few turns.  

The third thing about this deck is the different modes of play it has from the two-card combos in it.  Granted you aren't likely to even see multiple copies of most of these uncommons in the same draft, much less manage to acquire the ones that I did, sometimes getting a few sets of four or five cards that have synergy with each other will give you the ability to respond to whatever your opponent is playing in the first game, and let you tweak the deck with your reserves between games.  Here I have a set of seven Orcs that the Throat Cutters pump (Mazat, Darkspire Priestess and Enforcer).  I have a disruption group with the Corpse Fly, Buccaneers, and a Devoted Emissary to replay them for added annoyance (and it is annoying).

Lastly I have Boltpaw Wizard + Brood Creeper for control, reversion, and maybe once in a blue-moon spider mill.  While the Brood Creeper spider army is self explanatory, I feel I may need to explain the Boltpaw more in depth.  I'll start by just exclaiming that reversion is incredibly strong and possibly a bit undervalued in Hex.  Though reversion is attached to a few cards like Polymorph: Dingler and Corrupted Afterlife, in its most straightforward form it only appears on three cards: Reversion, Manti Elder Druid, and Boltpaw Wizard.  Of the three I consider Boltpaw to generally be the weakest since it requires a troop to sacrifice, but having him ready with a Spiderspawn or two on the field can really stall an opponent's attack, and sometimes even their play.  First, it is a direct counter to Auras, which are solid combat tricks.  If you can't Time Ripple the troop in response to a Diamond Aura or a Ruby Aura, you could quickly find yourself in trouble.  Reversion will directly remove the effects of these cards, netting you card advantage assuming you didn't lose a troop in the trade.  It can reset Rage on cards like Thunderbird or Wrathseeker, and can straight-up kill a Honeycap.  It also counters many popular champion abilities like Feather, Palamedes, or Lionel.  My third round opponent had a Feather of his own, and in staring at the Boltpaw with a couple of support troops was often resigned to not using Feather on a few of the turns he might have, since he couldn't attack with his new flying troop since I could revert and block.  I often see Boltpaw Wizard going later than he should in drafts, though this may be a reaction to Blood being comparatively unpopular.  In any case, while the 3/3 body isn't that impressive and you probably need some Battle Hoppers or a Darkspire Priestess to get the most bang for your buck with the Shin'hare Mage, the threat he produces can be game altering.

The second draft started with me abandoning my first pick again, this time a Ritualist of the Spring Litter.  After a somewhat lackluster first pack where I added a Rune-Ear Commander, a pair of Inner Conflict and Adamanthian Scriviners, I had the makings of a weird Diamond-Wild Shin'hare deck, which might be salvaged if I opened Oath of Valor.  Instead I ended up being passed a slew of bulky Wild dudes, including Boulder Brute, Tyrannosaurus Hex, and a Battle Beetle as a first-pick from the third pack.  I found myself with a plethora of playables, so i cut all the Shin'hare except for Rune-Ear Commander.  However during the draft I had planned on playing Monika'shin, and I was desperately searching for a Champion to play.

I noticed I had two Howling Brave and a Wind Whisperer in my deck.  This prompted me to play One Eye Open, a champion who allows you to ready all troops you control for 3 charges and a diamond threshold.  This allowed me to play a turn 3 Boulder Brute off a Howling Brave, since it could add an additional resource to my pool; and also allowed me to tap two opposing troops with Wind Whispered to help push through my massive Wild beasts.  I gemmed my Boulder Brutes for Swiftstrike, which may seem to be a bit of a weird call considering how strong Spellshield is (indeed, one of them was targeted by Inner Conflict in the last round), but the ability to attack with a Swiftstrike Troop and have it up to block the next turn is incredibly strong.  Plus my deck had a fairly sizable number of threats, so I was perfectly content with letting my 4/4 soak up a removal spell if it meant my T-Hex or Battle Beetle got to live.  

This deck ended up going 2-1 with this deck overall (5-2 in games).  I didn't get a screenshot of this deck, but here is roughly the list.  I will note it's not that impressive on paper, but it played strong and really utilized the champion to ramp and then late-game control with Wind Whisperer and the Swfitstrike Squad:

Champion: One-Eye Open

2 Howling Brave

1 Shield Trainer

1 Feral Ogre

1 Kraken Guard Mariner

1 Grim Skull Sorcerer [+1/+1]

1 Wind Whisperer

2 Quick Strider

1 Spearcliff Pegasus

1 Sensei of the Wounded Petal

2 Boulder Brute [Swiftstrike]

1 Protectorate Sorcerer

1 Battle Beetle [Solidarity]

1 Tyrannosaurus Hex

1 Gigantasaur

1 Sapper's Charge

1 Howling Ambush

1 Wild Growth

1 Reversion

2 Inner Conflict

9 Wild Shards

8 Diamond Shards

Overall I'd like the chance to draft around One Eye Open again.  Howling Brave & Wind Whisperer have excellent synergy with him, and I can imagine Stargazer, Concubunny, and Succulent Roostasaur would fit in nicely as well.  I plan on doing an article about Reversion in general, highlighting exactly what it does and some of the game states where it comes in handy for newer players.  I think I gave a decent primer in the first section with Boltpaw Wizard.

Until next time, good luck in your drafts.

A screenshot of the first draft deck... for science.

Chest Rolling & Wheels of Fate

This is just a quick post for those of you that had questions about Chest Rolling & The Wheels of Fate, I made a Youtube video that features me rolling on some chests and explaining exactly what they are and what you can do with them.

• Chests are opened from Booster Packs and Primal Packs.  You receive one Chest per pack.  This includes Booster Packs you open during Drafts, so after every draft you will always have 3 new chests.
• Chests have five rarities: Common (White), Uncommon (Green), Rare (Blue), Legendary (Red), and Primal (Yellow).
• Each Chest contains a random assortment of Loot based on its rarity.  You currently cannot open chests in the Beta Client.  This will be patched in at a later date.
• You will be able to trade Chests on the Auction House once it is implemented.  Not sure if you can just trade them among your friends or guild though.
• In addition to opening Chests, you can roll on them using the Wheels of Fate.
• The Wheels of Fate are located in the store by choosing the "Open Pack" option.
• Rolling on Chests requires an amount of gold based on the rarity of the Chest.  Common costs 1200, Uncommon costs 3100, Rare costs 8500, Legendary costs 30,000 gold.  I am unsure about Primal Chests.
• Gold is generated by playing in PvP tournaments: Sealed, Draft, and Constructed.  I am unsure about the exact gold payout for tournaments, but 1st place for Draft current awards 20,000 gold, and 5th-8th reward 5,000 gold.  Gold will be generated through PvE content once it is implemented.
• You can roll on each chest only once, though many of prizes from the Wheels of Fate will grant you a paid reroll or a free reroll.
• Prizes from the Wheels of Fate include Upgrades to your chest, Alternate Art cards, Deck Sleeves, PvE Cards and Equipment for them, Mercenaries, PvP Cards, Gold, and even Booster Packs.
• Some of the prizes generated from the Wheels of Fate (Alternate Art cards for example) are only obtainable through the Wheels of Fate.
• The prizes available from the Wheels of Fate will change as new sets come out.
• PvE cards, Equipment, and Mercenaries are not currently in the Beta client.  However, you can still see what you've won from the Wheels, including all of your Chests, under the Inventory Stash tab under the Card Manager (their icons will appear).  
• Alternate Art PvP cards will appear in your collection.  They have a Purple Rarity symbol, so if you sort the cards by rarity they should should up somewhere between the rares and the legendary cards.  Here is an example of an Alternate Art card that I won:

Hope this helps some of you wondering what to do with your mountains of gold.  Until next time, may the fates smile on you.

Flynn It to Win It

Two bits of good news: I now have a Bachelor's Degree, and drafts are in full swing!  With the craziness of finals week behind me, I might finally get the chance to sit down and draft a bit more, as well as write more articles on drafts.  Right now there are a slew of them that describe different draft archetypes, as well as individual set reviews.  You can check these more indepth discussions on Hextechs and HexTCGPro.  These are really good resources for a majority of your drafts, and knowing the archetypes and the powerful cards to play around are key to winning.  I'm not going to talk about archetypes as a whole, but instead talk about a specific deck type I half-discovered a couple weeks back.

To start off I should note that the draft metagame, unlike the constructed metagame, is heavily centered around Champions and Gems.  Most of the individual cards are powerful on their own, but many of the best archetypes are enabled by champions that compliment them.  Dwarves is powerful in part because the ability to squirt out a Worker Bot every third resource with Bertram really helps the other cards in the deck, which need an artifact or robot in play to realize their full potential.  Sapphire decks have dominated the air thanks in part to the Sapphire Gem of Flight and Feather Drifting Downriver, which can turn a Boulder Brute or Hellhound into an aerial behemoth.  However surprisingly often in a Hex draft, outside of established archetypes, I rarely consider the champion I will be playing while drafting.  This is something I'd recommend everyone keep in mind, particularly when you are drafting outside of an archetype or just rare-drafting and trying to cobble together a deck that can squeak by the first round.  While a good deal of my losses come from a shortage or flood of resources, or a timely played bomb by my opponent, more then one has come from a champion that turned an average pile of forty into an intimidating force.

Three champions in particular have done this in limited games I've played.  The first was a Blood deck that ran Bun'jitsu and no less than eight Darkspire troops.  Darkspire Prietsess is an intimidating card in the early game, and like most players, rather than swinging blindly into them I held my troops back until I could fly over or just out-muscle them.  Then on turn five he sacrificed two of them and made a 7/5 Abomination, before playing another Priestess freshly tutored up and playing Blood Aura on the Abomination, making it an 8/6 with Lifedrain.  He didn't play a single troop in his deck I couldn't deal with, but the Abomination just sat there and chewed away my board one man at a time, each one bringing him further out of reach.  The second is Fahrny, which combined with a Surge Mechanism & Shrine of Prosperity quickly chewed through my board like a gatling gun.  The deck was less of a Dwarf deck and more of a mono-Ruby good stuff deck, and Shrine + Sniper of Gawaine & Sword Dancer can get out of hand quickly.

Don't let those dashing looks fool you, he'll
steal the game from you in a heartbeat.

The last one is one I got to use in a recent draft, and I want to use this article to talk about him; if you couldn't tell by the title, that champion is Lionel Flynn.  Like the other champions I mentioned, Lionel's power costs 5 charges, giving a single troop a permanent +3/+0.  Five is a very steep charge cost, since often the three & four cost guys will get to use their charge powers earlier, and often two or three times per game.  That means you want to make sure that when you use the charge power it has a game changing effect, as Fahrny/Bun'jitsu will.  Also like these two, Lionel needs a more dedicated strategy during deckbuilding and drafting that champions like Bertram and Feather simply don't need.  So what cards sent me down the path of this roguish gentleman?  Royal Falconer & Mancubus.

Mancubus was my pack-one pick-one, and while there were arguably better cards in the deck, I was tempted to try him out as I had yet to draft him (I also didn't own any copies of him at the time).  If any card needs Lionel to really make it shine, it's Mancubus.  He comes out on turn four, and on turn five you you can pump him to a 5/2, steal their biggest threat, and swing in for five.  There are precious few cards that can withstand the tantalizing gaze of a five-power Mancubus, much less on turn five.    Royal Falconer was gifted to me pick two of pack three, and while the Falconer is fine without Lionel, the pump from Lionel makes his birds of absurd strength.  

Other Ruby cards that were featured in the deck that I used Lionel's ability on were Goreseeker, a Gem-Crazed Berserker with the Ruby Gem of Flames, and Daring Swordsman.  Goreseeker is an absolute house once she gets going, and the +3/+0 puts her well out of stack-block range for most boards.  The Gem-Crazed Berserker did work racing a blue-white fliers deck, beating for 6 unanswered points each turn after he was Buccaneer'd the turn I played him (In fact I'd say Ruby Gem of Flames is the best "thing" to combo with Lionel).  Daring Swordsman swung in for ten after my opponent left only one troop up which I played Mortar Strike on before pumping and beating in.  He then proceeded to stare down an army of men before I found a Ruby Aura to slide on him.  Outside of these cards, I ended up drafting a fairly decent Diamond-Ruby deck.  This was mostly motivated by a Repel and Inner conflict I had drafted earlier, but the pairing also had access to mini pump effects in the form of a pair of Ruby Pyromancers and Noble Citizenry.

I could go into the intricacies of my deck, but I'd rather talk about Lionel since without him, a majority of these games I could not have won.  The race with the Gem-Crazed Berserker and the Mancubus that stole a Cloud Titan were two games I am certain I would not have won had I chose a different champion like Poca or Palamedes.  The 6/2 Goreseeker and 5/2 Daring Swordsman games may have gone my way eventually, but Lionel certainly helped me put them away, and I'd like to take the rest of the article to look at his potential in certain archetypes over other champions. 

Diamond-Ruby
I've mentioned above that this was the deck I drafted, and I feel this is probably the strongest shard combination for Lionel.  Swiftstrike is one of the best mechanics to jam extra power onto, so common cards like Quick Strider become fine targets for Lionel.  The pump spell works in naturally with Inspire Engines or cards like Noble Citizenry.  Some other decent targets for Lionel are Sky'le Griffin, Forgotten Lord, and Shellsafe Sure-Shot.  Diamond also present Inner Conflict for an aggressive removal spell, alongside Repel, which is good for halting early game aggression while you set up a big Lionel.  Diamond Champions are also somewhat lackluster or niche compared to others, which gives Lionel a stronger nod in this archetype.

Sapphire-Ruby
There are two major problems with this combo.  The first is that these are dwarf shards, and while they might value certain cards differently than you, they are not above taking removal or solid troops like Buccaneer away from you.  The second is that playing Feather is arguably always better than +3/+0 a turn later.  While it's certainly unconventional it's not out of the question, though the only Sapphire card that I could see making me consider Lionel would be Eldritch Dreamer: 6 unblockable damage every turn is so difficult to deal with.  Since you'll be fighting Dwarves for removal and DS fliers for Sapphire cards, I'd probably try to snag a Phoenix Guard Trainer.  He will be an important card, since it typically gets picked up in the middle of the pack and you can use it to get some of your other guys off the ground.  One benefit is you have access to the two minor gems with evasion, with the ability to switch out between them in sideboarding.  Gem-Crazed Berserker with Sapphire Gem of Flying is better against Worker Bots, but you can switch out for the Ruby Gem of Flames against DS Fliers.  Hellhound with flying is equally insane.

Blood-Ruby
Blood Ruby is a fine enough deck, mostly because they are somewhat underdrafted in my experience.  The worst fortune that could befall you is if someone drafts a dedicated Orc deck, since you can passively pick up cards like Throat Cutter and Furious Taskmaster without having to dedicate yourself to the archetype.  Corrupt Harvester is actually terrifying with any sort of pumps, and he's high enough in cost for Sword Trainer to boost up as well.  The problem is the Blood Champions are actually pretty good with Blood.  Zared can pick guys off for a little cheaper and Bun'jitsu is actually very solid with enough Darkspire Priestess.  If you do happen to find yourself in an aggressive Orc deck Poca is usually better than Lionel as well.  That said, if you find yourself in Blood-Ruby with a good chunk of removal and solid evasion guys like Giant Corpse Fly and Wailing Banshee, you could do worse than having Lionel lead your way.

Ruby-Wild
This is the second strongest combo for Lionel in my opinion.  Wild wants gigantic troops and Crush synergizes well with Lionel's pump.  A properly gemmed Boulder Brute or Nelebrin Skirmisher can three-shot opponents with a +3/+0 boost, and Wild's compliment of Pump spells to Crushing Blow and Ruby Aura can let you own the combat phase.  Wild also has relatively weak options in the way of champions.  Monika'shin is only a live option if you're in Shin'hare; Kishimoto's pump is temporary (and weaker) than Lionel's; Polonius doesn't affect the board until late, and even then can usually be handled with a lone removal spell.  Running Deer is a good default champion for Wild since if you have good late game she can usually gain you enough life to survive to that point, but Lionel is more proactive in maintaining pressure.  The worst argument for Lionel is that you often won't need the pump if your draft goes properly, but If you plan on going Ruby-Wild from the get go he's one of your stronger options for champions.

Mono Ruby
For mono Ruby decks tend to either go super aggressive with Poca or midrange-control with Fahrny and a slew of Artifacts and some stolen Dwarves to enable it like Elimination Specialist.  I'm actually not against drafting this latter archetype as a way to counter dwarves while staying out of the sapphire fight, since Scrap Welders go notoriously late (this tends to be the ramshackle sort of deck I default to when I rare draft).  While I spelled out a lot of Ruby cards that go well with Lionel, most of them don't benefit from a single shard the way a pure aggro deck or a psuedo Ruby-Artifact deck would.  Surge Mechanism-Ruby decks should almost always go Fahrny, or force Sapphire and go Bertram.

In summary, I think Lionel Flynn fits a very unique position in Hex limited play.  While Bertram or Feather generally tips you off to what sort of deck your opponent is running, Lionel doesn't reveal much at the start of the game.  Combined with the Ruby Gem of Flames, Mancubus, or keywords like Swiftstrike and Crush, the power bonus Lionel nets you can single-handedly swing the tempo of a game in your favor.  So the next time you're in a draft and you see the luscious nipple-rings of the Mancubus, consider what other troops could benefit from a +3/+0 buff and draft around Lionel Flynn!

Until next time, may your drafts be Flynn-credible! 

The Secondary Races: Spiders, Satyrs & Jackals

Fair warning, this is another speculation article, since Beta has been somewhat stymied due to the dreaded middleware bug of 2014. 

I have a confession to make: I'm secretly happy that the draft queues are down.  This is mostly because if they were up, I wouldn't have any of the work that I have for the semester's final papers done.  As is, there's not much to distract me from the end of semester, but my mind is still wistfully wandering away from Saul Kripke and the Great Syrian Revolt and back towards Hex.

Like many Kickstarter Backers, I got four copies of every starter deck, along with a fat stack of boosters.  I opened a small chunk of them at launch, just to get a collection going, and in slogging around the Proving Grounds I began to build up the starters a bit with cards from my collection.  Having drafted each archetype at least once (the first draft pack I opened in Alpha had Zoltog, which led to a very strong Orc deck) it wasn't to hard to find the main commons and uncommons.  If you are like me and didn't back enough to get a playset of every card, and also want to keep a majority of our boosters for draft, you're probably in the same boat when you log in and play a few games, busting out an Shin'hare+ or a Human+ deck.

After a few dozen games versus randoms and the AI, I thought I'd see if I could build a deck for each of the main Hex races.  But the main races of Hex that didn't get starters don't really have the sort of synergy found with the raging Orcs or ingenious Dwarves.  So while draft still glimmers like a mirage in the distance, I thought this would be a good chance to look at some of Hex's non-archetype races and speculate a bit on what we might expect of them strategy-wise in the upcoming sets and in the PvE campaign.  One of the first things that caught me in looking them over was how asynchronous the shard division was among the races:

Ardent

• Humans: Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby
• Coyotle: Diamond, Sapphire, Wild
• Orcs: Blood, Ruby
• Elves: Wild

Underworld

• Necrotic: Diamond, Blood, Sapphire*
• Dwarves: Sapphire, Ruby
• Shin'hare: Blood, Wild
• Vennen: Blood

The Necrotic technically have a troop in Ruby (Shadowblade Lurker) and Sapphire (Windbourne Acolyte) as well for the first set, though their main concentration is in Diamond and Blood.  They do, however, have a Champion with a Sapphire charge ability in Nin the Shadow, so I feel obliged to include Sapphire in their shard divison, though this may grow.  Along with the Coyotle, Vennen, and Elves, the Necrotic missed the boat in Set 1 PvP on having a dedicated strategy that revolves around their them.  In fact most of these races are woefully underrepresented in comparison to the other races.  However the troops that were released in these "secondary races" might have clues to what we can expect in future sets.

The first deck to break this guy better be called High Five.

The Necrotic are actually a good place to start, since they are the Underworld's only avenue of access to Diamond.  There are some cool cards in Blood that already produce Zombies, like Corrupted Afterlife and Zombie Plague, though none of these are directly tied into with the Necrotic.  Thematically the Necrotic seem to have some sentience and agency that Zombies do not, but raising troops from the dead, or at least abusing graveyard resources is something thematically tied to Blood.  One Necrotic Troop in particular that mimics this Reanimate strategy is Midnight Shepherd, which can resurrect a troop every turn if you manage to fetch up one of every threshold.  The threshold requirement also appears on Lixil, the Deathless Gem, granting her invincibility when you reach your domain.  Additionally her "enters play" ability fetches up a resource from your deck and grants you the threshold of that card.  In might not be a coincidence that both of these cards are necrotic.  Since they derive from the humans, they are likely to mimic their living counterparts in the shards that the humans also hold sway in: Diamond, Ruby, and Sapphire.  With the death-centered Blood shards added to the mix, the necrotic have stretched themselves very far across the domain table.  Existentially, their very being seems tied to these shards of the Hex comet:

Amidst the great necropolis where the humans kept their fallen heroes in carefully constructed stone vaults, the Hexing Gems somehow caused the dead to awaken. The risen corpses, who called themselves the necrotic, were the first sentient race on Entrath created by Hex, and their existence and motivations remain mysterious. Fresh necrotic were “awakened” by socketing diamond Hexing Gems in the eye sockets of dead humans, who would arise with no memory of their former lives and an entirely new sentience. 

As such the necrotic may unlock their true potential when all the various shards are brought together into a sort of harmony, and perhaps the Necrotic will be a race that spans all five shards, or that gets bonuses when you play additional shards.  Another mini-theme between a couple of the Necrotic Champions is Lifedrain, which also appears on Corrupt Harvester.  While Lifedrain is certainly not unique to the Necrotic, the "Bleed" mechanic (you lose life, I gain life) could also be a mini-theme that resonates throughout Hex.

The Vennen have the least amount of troops of any of the main eight races of Hex (only five).  All of them exist within the Blood shard, and have moderate resource costs to play.  Their Unique Troop, Xarlox, alongside Brood Creeper, demonstrate an ability to generate Spiderspawns.  Proliferation of a specific type of troop seems somewhat typical of races: Shin'hare have Battle Hoppers and Dwarves have Worker Bots, for example.  Spiderspawn are 2/1 troops, which make them a little more formidable than your average troop generated this way.  Incubation Slave also creates Spiderspawns despite being an Orc, though his existence might be attributed back to the Vennen and their hatred of their Ardent counterparts.  With so little cards to go on and so little threads to work with, it's hard to really surmise anything about the Vennen from current cards other than potentially amassing a swarm of Spiderspawns.  Thematically, they are extremely religious and relish in punishing heretics, perhaps explaining their depiction in the artwork of Inquisition.  Xarlox demonstrates an ability that marries the two: purging heretics (other troops) and generating Spiderspawn, which could be demonstrated in other ways on future Vennen cards.  An interesting and annoying Vennen card might infest your opponent's deck with Spiderspawn, thought this ability might be too heavily entrenched in Sapphire and Ruby now with cards like Sabotage and Reginald.

Elves aren't far ahead of Vennen in terms of numbers, with only six cards to their name, all in Wild.  They have even less cohesion in their tribal strategy than the Vennen do, with no two cards having similar abilities.  Briarpatch Conjurer makes Briar Legions, but this ability seems unique to her, and their Unique Troop Puck isn't stingy about which kind of troops will trigger his ability or be put into play: the bigger the better!  Thematically the elves look and act more similarly with satyrs than of something from Tolkien's Middle Earth, engaging in revelry and creativity.  Much like the Vennen, they are an isolationist race, even among their allies, which might explain why the two are only represented in a single shard.  Philosophically in keeping with their lore and with Wild in general, Elves are a race that wants to dominate the late game. Cards like Wild Root Dancer and Nelebrin Skirmisher are progressively stronger with time, while not necessarily needing the Inspire Engine of Humans.  Personally, something I would love is if Elves had Bards (among other non-playable classes, perhaps) that performed songs that got stronger if you played them on successive turns.  Maybe the Portensio of Avon mercenary is a portent of my bardic dreams coming true in the near future (though I still have to get my hands on a Portensio of my own).

The last race is my personal favorite race, possibly because they remind me so much of the Tauren society in WoW.  The Coyotle have a slightly more extensive list of troops spanning Wild, Diamond, and Sapphire, though these troops are no more cohesive than the Elves are in terms of what they do.  The action Spirit Dance and Dream Dance, both of which feature Coyotle artwork, might indicate a long term deck augmenting strategy for the Coyotle.  Sapphire and Wild are no stranger to deck tinkering, as Pack Raptor and Ancestors' Chosen can attest.  Again I will turn to the given lore on the race to surmise what we might be able to expect in future Coyotle cards.  Perhaps the most exciting one is that the Coyotle have the ability to control the weather, which means we could get Coyotle Stormcallers capable of changing the conditions of the battlefield, generating lightning storms that zap random troops or snowstorms that hamper attack plans (Cory's blog displayed a happy little cloud with happy little raindrops about a month ago, which could be a weather card).  Regarding generated troops, coyotle shamans can summon bestial spirits to attack for them, though lorewise they don't seem to have any utility in this aspect the way Worker Bots or Battle Hoppers might.  There may also be something to the constellation aspect of the Coyotle, now only passingly referenced on Zodiac Shaman.

Perhaps these races will shine more uniquely once PvE content is in, but I also think there is space in the lore and shard scheme for some cool and innovative design around these races for PvP.  Hopefully that design would let a future me draft a Coyotle Weather deck or a Necrotic Domain deck... though a few more days of tournament withdrawal and future me might be forced to draft the seed packets in the garden section of Home Depot (first pick windmill slam Basil).  I guess I can only hope the issues get resolved this weekend so that when I stumble from a paper writing stupor I can bust through my store of draft boosters.

That's all for this week though.  If you have any ideas for what you expect from the Necrotic, Vennen, Elves or Coyotle in future sets or in PvE, or thoughts on their lore, leave it in the comments!  Next week I'll hopefully have had a chance to draft a bit and try out the Wheel of Fate.  Also for those of you who enjoy the Phoenix Wright or Zero Escape video game series, there's a Kickstarter for a game called Exogenesis: Perils of Rebirth you should check out.  

Until next time, remember that we're all just part of one big coyotle world.... man.

Projection of Closed Beta Features

This article is designed mostly to inform people who are new to Hex or have returned to the game after a hiatus in Alpha where exactly the game is in terms of development and projecting what features are likely to be implemented in the Closed Beta over the next few months.  Most of this information comes directly from a blog post from Jones a few months back detailed the features that would be in Open Beta, as well as the InfamousNeo-Jones interview (both of these are good resources in their entirety).  The blog in particular outlines the features that we can expect to be implemented during the Closed Beta for the Open Beta.  I've composed a list of the features from the list of "Open Beta" features that I expect to be implemented or changed over the course of Closed Beta, and in roughly the order I expect them to come in, with further description about what these changes might entail.

Tournaments

I'm loath to include tournaments in this overview since it was obviously a feature that they hoped to have fully functioning for the launch of Beta, but as correcting whatever there currently are with tournaments is taking over a week now, I think it is relevant to include them on a list of "upcoming features."  The three types of tournaments (Constructed, Sealed, and Draft) are also, as of Alpha, only available in 8-man Casual & Competitive variants.  The Casual variant offers 3 rounds of play, pairing you up against players with similar records within that tournament.  Every win you get over the course of the tournament earns you a booster, so going undefeated earns you another draft set.  Semi-Competitive and Competitive queues are single-elimination tournaments that earn you packs based on your ranking at the end of the tournament.  Semi-competitive pays 5-3-2-2 for 1st place through 4th place, and Competitive earns you 8-4 for 1st and 2nd place respectively, so confident drafters can earn more in more competitive queue formats.

While the Casual tournaments demonstrate Swiss-style pairing capabilities in the client, Hex did not have an official tournament that went above this eight-player queue limit during Alpha, and as such larger tournaments are still a feature that is up in the air for Closed Beta.  The HexTCGPro Challenge Series, which has held monthly tournaments within the Alpha since January of this year, were organized outside of the client and handled matchmaking outside of the Tournament area of the client.  Plans for custom private tournaments like these also appear more distant, possibly even post-launch (the interview with Jones by InfamousNeo & JTatta goes into this a bit further).  Specifically with regards to Sealed, Asynchronous play has not been implemented or tested in Alpha.  This style of gameplay would involve you building a sealed deck and then getting paired specifically against people who have also build decks, but not having the time constraints of a Swiss or Single Elimination Tournament, and likely collecting prizes per win as you would in casual events.

During the Closed Beta, Tournaments will be the primary means to get Gold, an in-game currency used on the Wheels of Fate.  Gold will be disseminated through PvE when those features are implemented, and it is uncertain whether PvP will maintain the current ratio of gold distribution throughout Beta and if it will go away altogether once other "Gold Faucets" become available--indeed, this may be the topic of an entirely separate article).  

Auction House

The Auction House was one of the features that was slated to be launched slightly before or simultaneously with Closed Beta.  While it didn't make the cut-off, it appears to be the top priority of the non-Alpha features as noted in the interview.  It is uncertain whether there will be some features of the Auction House which aren't working immediately.  A fully functioning Auction House would have the capabilities to buy and sell cards, as well as anything else that isn't account bound, from your stash (boosters, equipment, mercenaries, chests) for gold or platinum.  Since many players wish to save their boosters for draft and are looking to acquire the last few copies of specific cards for their deck, the Auction House will likely be very active once it is implemented.  Player-to-player trading goes in tandem with the collection redistribution concerns of Auction House, and would likely be seen shortly after it is implemented.

Guilds

Guilds were right behind the Auction House for making the cut for Closed Beta, according to the Jones-InfamousNeo interview.  Guilds are a fairly expansive addition to the game and it appears that when they are implemented (it will likely be the next major feature after the auction house) it will be rolling out in bits and pieces.  One of the features of guilds discussed is a Guild Bank, which has similar logistical constraints with player-to-player trading, and I imagine would likely be implemented in conjunction with Trading in general.  There is also discussion about a Guild Library.

Doubleback

Doubleback card features seem like a deceptively large addition to the game, since it requires a level of card control within the collection heretofore unseen.  The sample doubleback card features the community has seen include achievements specific to that card, badges for having won tournaments, statistics, and an experience bar which you can fill to unlock a foil version of that card.  Putting aside just the amount of components that needs to be put into the game, Collection Management will need to be updated to accommodate the doubleback in order to ensure you are putting the cards you want in a deck in the deck.  As it is when you are selecting a card for a deck you just double click it and it is added, so there needs to be an additional system in place for adding a card to a deck if you want the Buccaneer that won a draft for you. 

Chat

Chat may seem trivial to note, but with the inclusion of guilds and private trades, a reform of the Chat system beyond General Chat and Match Chat might be required for other systems within Closed Beta.

Collection Management

This too may seem trivial since it is mostly in place, but I imagine an upgrade to Collection Management will be required around the time we get Doubleback Features.  As of right now individual cards can be lumped together and the differences between the two are fairly arbitrary, but alternate art versions were separate from the regular version, and upon launch of Beta it was actually possible to use more than 4 copies of card since the alternate art version and the regular Booster version didn't seem to overlap on these restrictions (this may have been changed). 

In-Game Tutorial

Surprisingly, a tutorial is not in the game yet.  This may be because the want to revamp the placeholder AI for the tutorial or make is customized based on the deck that is chosen at account selection.  Players who are new to Hex and unfamiliar with MTG or other similar CCGs (they somehow exist) might be confused and intimidated by the level of complexity it has to offer right out of the gates.  It's definitely a feature that they want for Open Beta, but since I'd wager most players who have backed Hex (the ones that can actually play it) are at least familiar with the basic game play, it seems like something that will come much later in the Closed Beta, and possibly be the last major feature see implemented before the transition into Open Beta.

Treasure Chests

Must...
Get...
Gold...

Chests aren't exactly specified on the Jones's blog, but neither was the Wheel of Fate (though it is very ingrained in pack opening).  Nonetheless, the fact that you can still spin the Wheels of Fate to earn tokens of things that have yet to be implemented in the game (like PvE cards and Mercenaries) might suggest that include opening chests as a feature in Closed Beta.  The Closed Beta Primer suggests that the prizes you can currently earn from the Wheels of Fate are unique to the Wheels and that the cards contained in the chests may differ--and this would likely have to be the case if you wanted to get a Legendary card from a Treasure Chest.

As we move into the weekend, hopefully there will be a fix to the tournaments so that I can draft to my heart's content (I've been so bored this week I'm actually working on final papers).  Once tournaments are fixed and stable you can probably expect the Auction House and Guild implementation to be the focus shortly after, with Trading in conjunction with, or slightly before the Guild Bank feature.  With my mind on finishing up mt final semester and getting a glut of free time around when guilds might first me introduced, I'm debating between starting a local guild or joining up with a larger established one, so if anyone is recruiting let me know and shoot Kyrstrava a friend request ;)

Also if you have any more information of speculation on these features or when you expect them to be implemented, feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time, keep your eyes on the horizon!