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