Shattered Destiny: First Wave

Last we heard, Shattered Destiny is slated to come out in August.  So with Hex's new PvP set on the horizon, I thought I'd catch everyone up to speed on that cards that have been spoiled so far from the new set, the features of the set, and the state of the Beta.

First thing I should talk about is the implications of releasing an expansion in Beta.  As of now, the game isn't where they want it to be for for Open Beta.  Several key features are missing, including Guilds, the Doubleback, and Trading (it is a digital TCG after all).  This isn't even mentioning PvE content, which seems like a mirage in the distance at this point in time.  I won't lie that my interest in the game has been waning somewhat with the feature slog we're in.  This winter we were getting the first set rolled out slowly so I would check in periodically to try out some of the new cards.  While I'm still an active drafter, it's been painful waiting for things like trading and guilds to be introduced.  The more things I can do with my local group of friends the better, especially trading.  

Be that as it may, Set 2 will definitely be refreshing for those of us in the game, but there are two big complications with it.  The first is whether or not releasing too many expansions before launch will overwhelm players when they finally get into the game.  I say "too many expansions" since Cory has stated that once they start releasing expansions, they will be churning out new sets every 3-4 months.  If the game isn't officially launched until this time next year--which might be an optimistic estimate if we consider how much is left to get into the game and how frequently they've been implementing new features--that's gonna be 4-5 full sets out for players to have to catch up to.  Unless there is stuff for them to do other than get schooled in the Proving Grounds or Constructed Tournaments by player's who have been in the game since Alpha, it might be overwhelming and push them out of the game.

The other concern is how quickly and efficiently new sets can be patched into the game.  It took a long time for all of Set 1 to get patched into the client, and even longer to work out all the bugs with the cards, not to mention the balance changes that happened along the way.  Shattered Destiny will be untested outside of their Development Team, and will be patched in presumably all at once so that it can be drafted (apparently it will be draftable by Gencon).  While the revenue from these sets might be necessary to get Hex rolling to the point where they can pump out PvE content on a reliable basis, I'm very cautious how much they are pulling away from other areas of development to implement these PvP expansions.  Hopefully my fears will be averted and we will have everything needed to get out of Closed Beta (trading, guilds, doubleback) by or near the time Shattered Destiny releases.  My fingers are still crossed that before the month is up I'll be able to trade.

Anyways, about Shattered Destiny: The two big features they are unleashing is cards that have two sockets for gems, and cards that have Tunneling.  Not much is known about tunneling, though I speculate it might be a version of underground evasion that works similar to flying.  A handful of cards have been previewed from the set already which I'll share below with some of my early impressions on them.  This isn't a formal review, since a card's Constructed and Limited worth depend a lot on what is in the rest of the set, but rather some evaluation on decks that these cards might be good in or how to get the most use out of them.

Heart of Fire

Heart deals one damage to your opponent and all their troops, and makes all your Ruby Actions deal one more damage, a kind of global escalation.  This card has potential with Actions like Heat Wave which deal damage among multiple targets.  The fact that Heart itself can contribute to the cause for board wipe might let you build around it in a Ruby Control deck.  On its own, it's a fine reserves card against Shin'hare and Worker Bots.  The damage increase effect also reads that it increases the damage dealt by the card in each zone.  I'm not sure what this is a portent of (if anything at all), but maybe we'll see cards that can search up an Action based on how much damage it would deal, which would be interesting.

Mentor of the Song

Mentor is an interesting card.  It's just a 2/1 dork, but when it dies it transforms into an Oracle Song.  A control deck doesn't really want a 2/1 for 3, and few run Oracle Song, but against an aggro or midrange deck this could trade with a decent opposing troop and then give you two cards on top of that, giving you an albeit expensive 3-for-1 in terms of card advantage.  Even nicer is that he is at the magic resource number of 3 to trigger some important Inspire effects like Cerulean Mirror Knight and Mentalist.  You can read the official reveal of this card on the HexTechs site.

Jank Bot

I love this card for Highlander.  I have a couple Highlander decks kind of haphazardly assembled at the moment, and each of them would love a Jank Bot (and 49 other cards, since they are all at a sleek 100).  This is one of those extremely efficient cards like Servant of Shathak that forces you to build your deck sub-optimally in order to reap the rewards.  The crazy thing is that eventually there might be enough cards like this that make a huge Jank-Servant deck good enough to be viable.  I mean, read that effect again.  You just get to play three cards for free.  It can get chumped by a Battle Hopper over and over and you're still getting three free cards out of it.  Cosmic Transmorgifier is already one of my favorite casual cards for the randomness it creates and Jank Bot is right up there with it.  In limited you might be able to pull this off depending on how religiously you stick to your shards.  You can scoop him up in any pack and reliably play him since he's an artifact.

Starving Lich

The Lich is an interesting card for two reasons.  1: I have no idea what Lethal does.  2: He has a greater threshold requirement than his cost.  You could sneak this guy out turn two right now with a couple of Adaptable Infusion Devices, but he probably wouldn't be worth it since a 2-defense troop is so easily dealt with.  He seems to want to be played in a deck that sneaks low cost troops onto the field and sits behind a wall of Countermagics and Terrible Transfers to pave the way for him to steal your opponent's soul.  With the number of control decks currently in the meta now, it certainly wouldn't surprise me if Lich finds a way in there.  There's also no telling what sort of threshold fixing we can expect in Shattered Destiny or in sets to come.

Royal Valkyr

Speaking of threshold, Royal Valkyr is another strong example of "Threshold Matters" outside of just getting your cards on the field.  In limited it's a slightly expensive 3/4 for 6, but if you happen to have Sapphire & Ruby threshold as well, it will blast an opposing troop or champion for 3 and draw you a card.  That's very strong, particularly considering in a mixed limited format with set one those shards will feature all the Inspire Troops, and Valkyr is big enough to trigger each and every one of them.  I definitely wouldn't be upset first picking Valkyr and building around it.  In Constructed you probably have better things to do with 6 resources, though it is much easier to generate the threshold in Constructed, and the effect can be powerful if timed right.

Fury of the Mountain God

So Fury of the Mountain God has two sockets, one for Minor Gems and one for Major Gems.  He costs 8, but this cost goes down by 1 every time a troop you control deals damage.  The sockets mean that what he ends up doing is going to vary a lot based on what sort of deck you build.  Maybe he flies and draws cards, or has spellshield and makes Rhinos.  None of these options are bad in limited, and your options for shards to pair are pretty open since your troops will be dealing damage eventually to reduce his cost.  In Constructed you probably want to abuse the second ability.  Fang of the Mountain God and Claw of the Mountain God since the damage they deal to you also counts as damage, making him a strong finished in an Orc deck.  One of the difficulties with him is he's not always a good card to topdeck, particularly after a board-wipe where he might stay at a paralyzing 8 resources.  On the other hand, troops that deal damage to opposing troops also triggers the cost reduction, so Bombsmith can also do double duty of pinging and swinging to get him on the field early.  There could also be a crazy combo deck with this and Elimination Specialist.  Since his ability triggers individually, you could theoretically get the Fury down to cost 0 if you had enough artifacts in play.  This guy seems like a limited bomb with massive Constructed potential, and I'm really eager to see the rest of the double-socket cards.

Scheme

Scheme is an interesting card that creates four extra copies of an Action and shuffles them into your deck.  I am in the camp of players that seldom sees the fourteen or sixteen Ancestral Specters that get shuffled into my deck by The Ancestor's Chosen, so my eyebrow is firmly arched as to how willing I am to pitch a card to populate my deck.  There are definitely toolbox style control decks that run one copy of an escalation card that would make an excellent target for scheme, particularly because if you draw the single copy of these escalation cards you can just play them to get them back in the deck.  One of the drawbacks to running Scheme alongside single copies of cards that are good against certain matchups is that you might have both cards in your hand.  That said, I think Scheme could see reserves play in control mirrors where you may want as many extra copies of Mastery of Time as you can get.  It could also pair well with Eye of Creation or Ring of Fire, or deck that revolve around the effects of a particularly strong action.  Bonus point for a simple name on a unique effect, because I'm sure Sapphire mages will be scheming of ways to abuse this card many sets down the road.

Storm Cloud

Associated Cards: Bittybolt, Splashy, Thunderpuff

Storm Cloud wins the prize for most adorable artwork in Hex so far, which is the honor for a game with Samurai Bunnies.  Storm Cloud is one of those cards that if you don't kill it can generate quite a bit of card advantage.  It's a 0/2 with Flight for 2 that gets a storm counter whenever you gain a charge.  You can sacrifice Storm Cloud to summon one of three "stormlings" at random for every storm counter that was on it.  You can enhance the number of storm counters Storm Cloud gets but enhancing the number of charges you would normally get, so Induction Coil or Shrine of Prosperity will pair well with the Cloud.  The sacrifice ability can only be done as a basic action, so having an oversized Storm Cloud might draw out some removal spells.  But if they don't have removal spells you can snap it for a few stormlings, all of which are 1/1 troops with Flight with sacrifice abilities of their own, though these are not restricted to whenever you can play a Basic Action.  Splashy draws a card, Thunderpuff exhausts opposing troops, and Bittybolt can deal 2 to an exhausted troop.  These effects are somewhat benign on their own, but is you get enough of them you can really rain on your opponent's parade.  Storm Cloud seems pretty strong in limited, and could potentially be strong in Constructed with Air Superiority, making all of you stomlings stronger, though the randomness of which stormlings you get makes it difficult to plan your deck around.  Often times you'll be playing a game of chicken with the number of counters you can safely put on  before snapping him.  This will largely depend on your opponent's board state, but those sort of mini-games will make this card very interesting when played.

That's all for me this week.  I still have some Pack & Draft codes to give away.  Unfortunately last time I tried in the blog I failed to realize I have no way to message that person with their code.  So this time around when you comment add your Keep Name in Hex and I will message you in game with the code if you're the winner.  Feel free to add me in game as well (Keep Name: Kyrstrava).  To enter this time tell be which of the new Shattered Destiny cards you are most excited about and what sort of decks you want to build around it.

Until next time...