The Telltale Stark

This article contains Minor Spoilers for the First Episode of the Telltale Game of Thrones video game and for the song of Ice & Fire series.

You may have first heard of Telltale Games through The Walking Dead series.  These games are essentially visual novels, where you are asked to make decisions for characters at certain points in time, often under the pressure of a timer.  Aside from the occasional quick time event, your "success" or "failure" often comes down to the consequences of these decisions.  I was never a huge fan of The Walking Dead so I passed on picking it up, but when I heard there was a Game of Thrones version coming out earlier this month it caught my interest.  The genre had finally been meshed with subject matter I could really get behind, and after the first chapter, I wasn't disappointed.

The game is broken down into six episodes which are released periodically to form the entire story.  During the first episode you take control of three characters related to the Forrester House, bannermen to the Starks during the War of the Five Kings which occupies the majority of the second and third books of the series.  Gared Tuttle, squire to Lord Gregor Forrester is serving alongside the Stark army when he is forced back to Ironrath, the seat of House Forrester, with a grim message for his Uncle Duncan, the castellan.  Gared is a young man of humble beginnings, relatively unskilled at swordplay but knowledgeable of combat from his time as squire.  Much of the swordplay and "combat" is concentrated in his storyline.  

However fans of Game of Thrones should know the tension in the series doesn't always come at the edge of a sword, but at the tip of a tongue.  Balancing diplomacy and deceit among a cast of characters that each have their own agenda is part of the political intrigue in GoT, and to play is first-hand got my heart racing.  While Gared's decisions often revolve around loyalty and honor, the duplicitous nature of Westeros politics takes precedence in the other two characters of the first episode.  

Ethan Forrester is the third son of Lord Gregor, but is forced into the role of leading the house in his father and elder brother's absence.  He is surrounded by competent men who each have their own opinions on the best form of leadership, including the diplomatic Castellan Duncan, the stoic Maester Ortengryn, and the stubborn master-at-arms Ser Royland.  Who you choose to take council from in critical moments will shape the young leader, and there are plenty of critical moments for Ethan and House Forrester as he tries to navigate his family through a sea of shifting alliances.

Mira is called before Cersei & Tyrion in King's Landing.

Ethan's older sister Mira is handmaiden to Margeary Tyrell, the betrothed of King Joffrey Baratheon.  While Ethan has the backing of his ancestral family lineage behind his decisions, Mira is in uncharted territory at King's Landing.  There are eyes and ears everywhere, and several characters have something to offer her... if she can trust them.  Her mother writes to her hoping she can pull some strings with Margeary to benefit House Forrester in these troubled times, but from the onset of her storyline it becomes apparent that task will be nowhere near easy.  Within minutes of adopting Mira's character she is called before Queen Regeant Cersei Lannister to vouch for her family's loyalty to the crown.  Cersei hurls volley after volley at Mira in quick succession, all in the presence of Margeary and Tyrion Lannister, Master of Coin.  It's one of the most tense moments in game, and the part I most want to replay for fear I may have inadvertently pissed of the wrong person, without even being fully aware of it.  So much is said in the sideways glances and the silence between decisions that even when I'm pretty sure I emerged unscathed, I'm left with doubt.  You may know if your answers pleased Cersei from the prompts in the upper-left of the screen, but what does Margeary really think of how you handled yourself?  Or Tyrion?  And what of your fellow handmaiden Sera, is she to be trusted?

One of the criticisms I've seen in the forums of the first episode is that none of your decisions bear consequential fruit right away.  The episode's thrilling end is the same regardless of your decisions, though with five more episodes to come, it's certain the choices highlighted at the end will affect the story in the future, such as Ethan's punishment for a man accused of thievery.  Even innocuous decisions such as whether to pocket a key weigh on my mind.  What implications could this have down the road?  Will I encounter some door I can't open without it?  Will someone notice the key is gone and suspect me or treachery?

An early concern I had about the game was that it would shoehorn in popular characters from the show just for the sake of having them in there.  However the retinue in King's Landing weaves itself perfectly into the personal plot of the Forresters, without detracting from the main plot set forth in the books.  The voice acting is solid and adds to the tension if you're a fan of the television adaptation, since you know the wrong word at a particular moment could mean a beheading (or debearding).  If you're concerned that the story will be mired in King's Landing and Ironrath, worry not.  There are still two more playable characters in the overall series that haven't been introduced, including the exiled Asher Forrester in Essos, where Daenerys Targaryen is becoming a rising star in Slaver's Bay.  There's also good reason to believe we'll be seeing the Night's Watch of The Wall, though more than that I won't say.

I picked the game up on sale over Steam, and I'm really eager to play the second episode, slated to release in January, in the hopes of finally seeing some of the consequences of my decisions.  Fans of the show to consider this game, particularly if they enjoyed The Walking Dead or visual novels, though those unfamiliar with Game of Thrones might be lost a bit regarding some of the more important events in the game.  The first episode clocked in around two-and-a-half hours for me, and with five more to go that means a full playthrough will be the better part of a day.  

And We'll Never Beat Royals

A few weeks since its release, one of the dominant draft archetypes to emerge from Shattered Destiny is humans, thanks in no small part to the addition of Sir Giles Rowan, the new Ruby Champion.  If you manage to get a single Ruby threshold, you can spend four charges to target a troop.  That troop and every troop that shares a trait with it (Race, Class, Robot, Pet) gets a permanent +1 Attack boost, including troops outside of play in your hand, deck, or graveyard!  This is a strong effect to be sure, but it does force you to try to keep most of your troops within a particular race to make the most of it.  While I've seen Giles in Orc and Dwarf decks as well, he gets truly scary when combined with Humans, since their troops tend to be a little on the weak side, but excel in the utility they bring to decks.

Take an unassuming card like Shield Trainer.  Though he was the bane of Burn in triple Shards of Fate draft from his inspire ability, he was quickly outclassed by larger troops, with little ability to trade with other troops once players reached four or five resources.  With Giles power he grows to a 2/1 just by being another human, which greatly increases the number of troops he can trade with.  While this meager buff may not sound impressive, keep in mind this effect is just what is happening to your support crew.  The main hitters in your deck will get this permanent power boost, which makes them more threatening on an aggressive draw and better to trade with problematic troops in you're behind.  Daring Swordsman becomes more daring, winning fights with even the meanest of Squirrels; the Phoenix Guard Aeronaut can finally chew up the the 2/4 Flight troops that clogged the skies in Set 1; and Sword Trainer can sharpen the skill of your late game guys even more.

Aside from overall power, there are additional pros that come with drafting humans.  Unlike Dwarves, which can quickly fall apart if you don't get enough cards to support it, Humans tend to be more forgiving of dipping outside of their race.  Since you won't be assembling construction plans or firing a Volcannon, you can afford to take an Arena Regular or Goreseeker to round out your curve (if the class matches, these troops will also benefit from Rowan's ability).  Humans also have a greater pool of removal to choose from.  Diamond and Ruby both have strong removal options in Shards of Fate, and Sniper of Gawaine will often be a 3/2 when he hits the field, giving you greater range for taking down your opponent's men (sorry Wreckasaurus... not today).  

Some of the cons associated with humans is, more than the other races, you have to pay attention to your threshold when you draft it.  You'll likely be Diamond as one of your main shards, with Sapphire and Ruby as support.  This can be tricky to juggle if you don't see any fixing, so it's often good to make sure you have a core deck of two shards that can win even if the third type is absent.  Also, even though Humans are deep, it is an incredibly popular archetype, meaning you'll likely be fighting tooth and nail in the third pack for an Inner Conflict or Ruby Pyromancer while the Wild and Blood players happily scoop up their Murders and Boulder Brutes later in the pack (in my experience, good Blood and Wild cards tend to go later in 2-2-1 than they have in Triple Set 1).  My main caution would be don't try to force Humans if it doesn't look open.  How will you know if it's open?  A general rule of thumb is to look for Royals.

If you are at pick three or four and there is still a card with the word Royal in its name, that's a good sign that Humans are open.  I'll use my last draft as an example.  My first two picks were an Agent of MOLE and an Electroid, and I was perfectly happy to punch face with robotic fists for three rounds, Kismet willing.  But pick three came around and a Royal Valkyr was still in there.  Despite some solid robot support also in the pack, I scooped up the Valkyr, being a strong signal that the guy passing to me was not in Humans (the first pick was likely the rare, which could have been a Jags for all I knew, so you can't glean much from that).  Pick four was a Royal Herald, which may not be enough to get many people to abandon their first two picks, but combined with the Valkyr was enough to abandon my second pick (I could still run the Agent) and run Humans.  Herald is a perfect card for the deck: indispensable threshold fixing early game (when you need it most) and can usually poke in for a few points of damage while your opponent is tunneling, or will be traded early after you've gotten a useful ability out of her.  One of the problems with inspire troops is you are often reluctant to block with them so that you can keep abusing their effect.  After turn four, the Herald becomes a 3/1, which adds more potential to alpha strikes if she has survived that long.

Other Royal troops to look out for around this time is the Royal Enforcer (a 5/5 with steadfast in tri-shard decks), Royal Cutblood (a fragile 3-drop that is nonetheless incredibly difficult to race if your opponent cannot kill it or you can protect it), and Royal Diplomat, which might be my favorite uncommon in Shattered Destiny.  The Diplomat is just so devastating to play against, and has seemed to cause my opponents fits when it hits the field.  With Gems and Rowan's pump he is a 4/4 Steadfast-Swiftstrike-Flight, which is incredibly difficult to play around.  He resists a large chunk of conditional removal and can single-handedly stop your opponent's assault.  I managed to snag one in pack two alongside a Sword Trainer in pack three.  In one game I played Augmented Awakening on the Trainer which had died earlier in the game (now a 5/4 post Rowan/AA) and played the Diplomat on the following turn making it a 9/4!  That's the kind of diplomatic power John Kerry dreams of.

There are other beefy bodies you'll want to be on the lookout for.  Bastion of Adamanth is really good at locking down your opponent's biggest troop to push through some damage.  Wounded War Hero doesn't look all that impressive, but if you get him out on the first turn he can quikly snowball out of control.  Town Crier is a card I was dubious about initially, but the draw ability can win you the game in some situations, and his stats look much better with the extra point of attack.  Removal is somewhat limited in the first two packs.  Crackling Bolt and Meek are the most frequently seen cards, though Boulder Toss (if you can snag one) and Adrenaline Rush are equally powerful options.  After that you should focus on threshold fixing through the uncommon shards or Herald (Immortal Tears if you have to), and rounding out your curve.  Pack three can be rough depending on how you open, but between the three shards there's usually a good pick somewhere in there (the Royal rule applies here too, if you're lucky enough).  Prioritize good, cheap removal and inspire/evasion troops.  Shards of Fate and Adaptable Infusion Device can be godsends if you're feeling iffy about your fixing, though the Shards of Fate doesn't provide you with the ever important charge for Rowan, so exercise caution.  Benjamin is also a bomb in the human deck that could reasonably be passed to you within the first few picks.  Getting him online early could lead to insurmountable card advantage.

Here's the full draft deck for reference so you can see what a Human deck might look like.

Champion: Sir Giles Rowan
Shards (17)
8 Diamond Shard
5 Sapphire Shard
2 Ruby Shard
1 Shards of Fate
1 Shard of Innovation
Troops (18)
1 Royal Valkyr
1 Launchpad Specialist
1 Royal Diplomat (Flight/Swiftstrike)
1 Bastion of Adamanth
1 Phoenix Guard Aeronaut (Swiftstrike)
1 Subterranean Spy
1 Town Crier
1 Sword Trainer
1 Prophet of Wren
1 Chimera Guard Outrider
2 Royal Herald
1 Agent of MOLE
1 Imp Hoodlums
1 Phoenix Guard Trainer
1 Phoenix Guard Scout
1 Reactor Bot
1 Arena Regular
Actions (4)
1 Augmented Awakening
1 Ruby Lance
1 Meek
1 Diamond Aura*
Artifacts (1)
1 Adaptable Infusion Device
*I'm pretty sure I didn't start Diamond Aura, but I can't for the life of me remember the 40th card and I know I boarded it in frequently.

Next week I'll be doing a State of the Game article and (hopefully) video to overview the year of Hex and what we can expect from the game this winter.  If I actually get a couple days off, I'll try to stream a draft if I get a chance since it was requeste.  Also make sure you log in to the game between now and January 4th for your chance to get the Holiday Sleeves.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Card Images from Hex TCG Browser

Shattered Destiny Release Weekend Primer

Shattered Destiny is officially out for Hex!  Kickstarter Backers have received some free boosters to get a jump on their collections, and new items are available from Shattered Destiny chests on the Wheels of Fate, including sleeves, alternate art cards, PvE cards, and equipment!  In addition to all that, this weekend (Friday through Monday) there will be special promos given out for players who participate in Draft and Sealed queues, which will use Shattered Destiny boosters exclusively!  

If you plan on participating in a release tournament, here are some requisite links you'll want to check out to get caught up if you haven't logged in since the patch dropped Tuesday:

• Shattered Destiny Release Tournaments: Overview of the tournaments and prize payout, as well as the alternate art cards to participants and winners.
• Shattered Destiny Card List: All of the nearly 250 new cards found in Shattered Destiny, as well as five new champions available for deck construction.
• Known Issues Thread: Compiled forum post featuring all the bugs that have come up with the latest patch, including card specific bugs you should be aware of for limited play.

Even with the patch a few days old, there are already quite a few articles discussing card evaluation, strategy, and deck construction from various fan sites (Five Shards in particular has a very in-depth card review).  You can find links to these in the Hex subreddit or in the Strategy Forum on the official message boards.  Since the patch launched I've jumped into a handful of drafts utilizing the new general format (2-2-1).  Though drafts and sealed events this weekend will use only Shattered Destiny boosters, I thought I'd give returning players who maybe haven't logged in for a while an overview of some things they can expect from Shattered Destiny so as not to be at too great a disadvantage this weekend.  This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list, but some general tips and early impressions I've gathered from the time I've had to test the cards first hand.

1. Removal is much different in Shattered Destiny.

In Shards of Fate, players wouldn't hold too much attachment to their troops since an Inner Conflict, Repel, or Murder could easily nullify even the bulkiest of beaters.  In Shattered Destiny, the removal is much more number focused.  Diamond in particular has much worse options than it did in Shards of Fate, having to rely on Meek as their only common removal action, which won't be able to oust anything truly threatening.  Two of the best common removal actions, Crackling Bolt and Crackling Rot, are defense based and won't easily be able to deal with anything that has a particularly sizable rump, such as Bastion of Adamanth.  When you venture into the uncommons and rares, you get more general removal like Immortal Decree and Dishonerable Death, though these come with a high resource investment though, so don't rely on them for stopping your opponent's early aggression.  

One of the keywords featured in Shattered Destiny, Lethal, makes up for this a bit.  Cards like Killblade of the Milky Eye and Lethal Weapons are common cards that use the ability, which will allow the Letahl troop to destroy any opposing troop it damages.  This can be effective for punching through damage or forcing your opponent to hold back a big troop.  This makes evasion all the more important when facing off against decks that have cards like this in their arsenal.

2. Tri-Shard decks are more viable, and sometimes encouraged.

With the lack of threshold fixing in Shards of Fate players would often have to resign themselves to choosing two shards and sticking with them.  Shattered Destiny offers much more options for splashing a third shard into your deck with the cycle of uncommon Dual-Threshold Resources and cards like Immortal Tears that can search up a standard resource from your deck.  Getting the uncommon Resources later in a draft can be tricky, particularly the Shard of Innovation since both Dwarf and Human players have reason to take it.  Humans is at the front of the line among archetypes that most encourage you to spread into a third shard.  Uncommon troops like Royal Enforcer and Royal Valkyr can be devastating if you can manage your resources, and the Vanguards of Cerulea and Gawaine are solid troops to fall back on if you aren't super confident going full tri-shard and simply want to splash the third, relying on two main shards to get you through the majority of your games.

3. Familiarize yourself with Tunneling cards and costs.

One of the general things you want to do to prep for a big limited tournament is to familiarize yourself with Quick Actions and effects.  This lets you prepare for combat tricks and removal spells your opponent can play (given the resources they have available) so you can plan your attacks and plays effectively.  In Shattered Destiny, you not only want to familiarize yourself with Quick Actions, but also with tunneling troops.  This way, when your opponent sends something under on turn two you'll go from "That could be anything!" to "Okay, that could be one of a handful of troops."  There are about two dozen tunneling troops spread across four shards (every one but Diamond) and a few artifacts.  Most of them take between one and four turns to pop out from underground, and each of them will be able to attack the turn they emerge.  Prepping an attack or defense can be even more difficult with the effects that trigger when some of these subterranean saboteurs emerge from underground.  The Launchpad Specialist can give an allied troop +1/+1 and Flight when it emerges, and the Wakizashi Ambusher, which can eighty-six a troop with less defense than its power.  Additionally, cards like the Ambusher and Grave Nibbler can get stronger that they would have been when a troop above ground dies.  What might be a reckless attack by your opponent could really be a scheme to make their underground troops more powerful when they emerge.  The effects vary from shard to shard, so knowing what your opponent could have underground is incredibly important to your overall strategy.  

One other thing to note is that you can't seem to choose the order you want troops to emerge from underground.  This was frustrating to one of my opponents who tried to time a Launchpad Specialist and Excavation Hulk.  The Specialist emerged first and failed to use its ability, followed by the much less happy 4/4. 

4. Expect to see new Champions.

One of the things that caught me off guard in my first draft was how strong some of the new champions are.  The Shin'hare in particular are truly terrifying, with the Wild-based Fuzzuko giving all your troops a +1/+1 boost for five charges and the Blood-infused Bunoshi sacrificing a lesser troop to give another a +2/+2 boost for three charges.  Both of these effects are permanent, and put the buffs from previous champs you might be familiar with (like Palamedes) to shame.  There is also a renewed focus on champion powers through the number of cards that gain you extra charges or trigger effects whenever you gain a charge.  Charge Hulk and Inductocopter Bot, as well as an entire set of Crackling cards are just a few of the cards you can use to give your champion some extra mojo.  You might need these extra charges to afford some of the more expensive, but powerful charge powers, such as Daughter of Stars, which at the steep cost of ten charges will return every opposing troop to your opponents hand, giving you an opening to attack through for the win. 

5. You might deck yourself... or your opponent.

Milling was a bit of a wonky strategy in Set 1, usually requiring you to play cards that had little impact on the board outside of their mill effect like Twisted Fate or Spawn of Othuyeg.  In Shattered Destiny, there are some sizeable troops that can help you survive while you slowly chew your opponent's deck away.  Dementia Daisies and the Neophyte of Xarlox can play defense and resist most removal actions while also taking chunks away from your opponent's deck.  Murmurs From The Void is an expensive constant that can act as hard removal for a troop by bouncing it to the top of the deck and then forcing your opponent to discard the top five cards from their deck.  All of these cards could easily find their way into a Sapphire or Blood Sealed Deck, a much slower format than draft.  Drafters can harness the power of these mill effects and build around them with Typhoon Galleon, an uncommon troop that gets stronger whenever a card enters an opposing graveyard, be it from the battlefield or the deck.  Nin the Shadow is also still available as a champion for players who want to dedicate themselves to a draft strategy.

Of course, you'll want to have some luck on your side as well.  There are 18 legendary cards hiding in Shattered Destiny boosters, and more than a few are insanely powerful, including three dragons that can quickly end the game if not dealt with.  Good luck this weekend with your drafts, sealed pools, and the Wheels of Fate spins you will inevitably pour your hard-earned gold into!

Card images from Hex TCG Browser.

Groundswell

Lots has been written about digital design space in games like Hearthstone and Hex.  Games like this not only streamline the tedium of upkeep costs that games demand (like remembering mandatory effects at the end of the turn or maintaining the game state in accordance with the rules), but they also allow cards to interact with the game in ways that they traditionally can't, adding a whole new element of strategy.  The seminal example of this can be seen in the MTG card Fauna Shaman.  It's one of a number of cards in MTG where you get to search your deck for a specific type of card (in this case a Creature card) and put it into your hand.  The benefit of a card like this is you can run a wide array of creatures and use the Shaman to search up the card that you need when the time is right.  A problem arises in a physical setting though, since there is nothing from preventing your opponent from simply picking up their deck and getting any card they want without adding the clause "reveal it" to the effect.  While this solves the problem, it adds a dimension to limited search effects like these where your opponent always has to know what you got to ensure you aren't cheating.

Digital games get around this drawback inherently since the rules are arbitrated by an independent system.  Oakhenge Ceremony in Hex has a similar restriction of only being able to select a troop from the top five cards of your deck, but doesn't require you to reveal it.  You can't choose a non-Troop card because the game won't let you.  Interestingly, there are still a few cards that  require you to reveal what card you chose (Careful Rummaging and Guardian Angel) despite there not being a need to do so.  I imagine this is a conscience decision by the design team, though there may have been mind games involved in trying to guess what card your opponent drew if they just gained four health off their Guardian Angel and passed the turn.  However this isn't the only instance present in Shattered Destiny that demonstrates the advantages that come with working in a digital design space, and each of them is a reason for skeptical MTG players to give the game a try.

One such card is Arborean Rootfather, which got an overhaul from the version we saw in August, now featuring a sort of reverse-cycle effect where it goes back into your deck at a permanent cost reduction.  Not only is this a cool mechanic (that I'd like to see repeated in the future) but cost reduction like this is impossible to replicate with physical cards.  In Limited this effect is particularly strong since having a 7-drop in your opening hand can be a bit of a drag on your tempo.  But with all the tunneling chewing up 2-cost abilities, you'll be free to shuffle this back into the deck without losing too much time or board presence on your second turn.  when you draw it again it will be at a much more reasonable 5-resources.  Archon of Nulzaan does something similar to this, but in reverse, where you can pluck a different version from your deck to abuse various gem setups.  Since the Archon is a rare, you likely won't get to play too many tricks with this ability in Limited, but in Constructed he can become a pretty unique finisher for any kind of deck.  Mimeobot is another card that plays the reshuffle game, selecting a troop in your hand and making replicas of it to shuffle back into the deck.

There are also cards that can give you information that your opponent has without them knowing.  Looking at an opponent's hand is generally something that they will know when it happens.  Cards like Inquisition have effects similar to this included in the text, so you'll know when your opponent has seen a combat trick or removal spell.  Subterranean Spy is a card where that knowledge is less apparent, though there are definitely signs (like threshold) that let you narrow down the tunneling candidates, particularly in limited where the common and uncommon cards are much more frequent.  Canyon Scout has a much more restrictive benefit of only being able to see your opponent's underground troops (which are generally hidden face-down), but uses the effect while in your hand, which means it's much more difficult to get a tell when your opponent knows not to swing into your Fissuresmith.  The covert tactics of secretive information gathering makes me incredibly hopeful that we get to see some serious spy mechanics in the future.  

That whole set feels much more dynamic than the first, perhaps because it is releasing all at once rather than in bits and pieces.  Shards of Fate was an excellent introductory set, but most of the cards were used to establish what the shards and factions typically do.  Shattered Destiny fleshes out that world even most by expanding upon existing archetypes like Humans and Dwarves.  Emergent archetypes like Dinosaurs and Zombies may see play with the addition of the enablers Savage Lord and Izydor, and decks that revolve around a specific card like Booby Trap and Briar Legion get Agent of MOLE and Briarpatch, changing the overall approach of decks the utilize those cards.

There's also plenty of cards that generate random effects as well.  Zakiir headlined my last article, but more have been added.  Reese can churn out random robots at the end of every turn, as well as fundamentally change any effect that would put a lowly Worker Bot into play, making him and Eurig an interesting team.  Teapot of Prosperity can offer a cost reduction to a random array of cards in your deck, while Jovial Pippit can turn a dead card into something else that requires the same threshold.  There are plenty of random effects in this set, but the most game changing might be Eternal Drifter, which gives you the charge power of a random champion along with compliment of charges that you had throughout the entire games. Even if you get something somewhat lackluster, you still get a 6/6 body for six resources, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Shattered Desinty launches Tuesday, August 9th.  To celebrate CZE is holding a release weekend from Friday-Sunday featuring promotional cards to players that participate in Sealed in Draft tournaments.