Tempest Hype

Lots of hype this week, not the least of which involves the fact that GenCon is only a week away.  I'm hoping to grab the Five Tribes expansion, and spend hours in the Paizo room and at the Hex Booth.  Speaking of Hex, Armies of Myth Officially Launches today (barring any last minute bugs).  All the information on this patch, which includes extended art and chest opening, is on the link above.  With the chests, we're going to get a new surge of equipment to try out in the Arena, so between the new set and equipment combos I'll have some more frequent articles coming up with my thoughts on that.  Prophecy and Shift look very fun, and getting a new array of champions is also exciting.  

The other big news was Guild Wars 2 finally started up their Elite Specialization teasers this week again with what looks like the Tempest... and oh does it look awesome.  

It looks from the picture like they'll be getting a Warhorn, which I'm perfectly fine with thematically.  Main hand swords would be awesome for people with the time to craft Bolt, but since I'm not one of those people, I'll just try to save up for the Tempest Warhorn skin instead.  Full information on this specialization, including skills and play-style, should be coming out later this week.

The last of the Big 3 games that I play, League of Legends, is also not-so-gently nudging me with the Gangplank rework, pirate skins, and the Burning Tides event, which will feature the Bilgewater Map reskin of the Howling Abyss.  ARAM is basically all I play anymore (I haven't even done my ranked matches yet this season), so any excuse to break out a specific champion makes me happy.  CLG is also doing well in the last half of the split, winning an incredibly close game against Cloud 9, while TSM seems to have inherited their second-half slump.  The last week before playoffs is this weekend, and I plan on celebrating the end of my night audit job watching CLG dismantle Dignitas and Team 8.  Don't let me down (they'll let me down).

Last little plug for an indie game I picked up last week: Guild of Dungeoneering on Steam.  It's a dungeon-explorer RPG with a card-based battle system and neat little stick-figure aesthetic.  I'm about two-thirds of the way through, having just unlocked the last tier of champions.  I rushed to the Troubador, which is really fun to play.  My personal problem with roguelikes and games with perma-death is I always grow a bit too attached to the characters, so now I'm stuck with either using my Troubador and risking him dying or sending my mid-level guys instead, which probably can't handle these stupid dwarves.

I'll have a full wrap-up of the Armies of Myth patch for Hex later in the week, along with some screens of all the awesomeness I find in my chests.  Hopefully they'll have some people data-mining the chest data for equipment and alternate art cards.  

Heart of the Wrathwood

I've come to the conclusion that there are two types of cards I will always love in Hex.  The first is cards that transform your cards into other random cards, and the second is cards that randomly create a specific type of card.  Reese was one of these cards for me, and I'm very happy I picked up my playset while they were around 400-500 platinum.  Strength aside, the reason I like these cards is that with every new set, the cards themselves actually change since there is a greater pool of cards for them to transform into or generate.  My Reese before Armies of Myth has a strong array of Robots to create, but after the set gets released I might get blessed with a Charge Colossus or Mechanized Demoloisher during my end step.  Either way, the odds of it being a 0/0 Tower Hulk are that much lower.

Maybe you're not big on the robotic side of life though.  Perhaps you view this legion of mechanical monstrosities as an affront to nature, and to correct this imbalance you want to spread the glory of the natural world as far as it will spread.  Those arrogant dwarves and their misplaced hubris!  They are treading where they ought not, and will soon feel the inexorable might of the WRATHWOOD!!!!!

Heart of the Wrathwood is a bit more expensive than Reese, and requires you to really commit to Wild Shards before you can play it.  But when you do you'll have a very formidable finisher.  Heart of the Wrathwood has Attack and Defense values equal to your permanent resources.  That means every shard you play will only cause it to grow more magnificent.  Fist of Brigadoon may be Invincible, for for the same cost you can grow your own bigger troop.

"That's all well and good," you may be thinking.  "But a simple Murder will cut the Heart at the stump, sending it to the graveyard."  This is true, but as your Heart dies, his presence lingers on the field in the Seed Pods he disperses.  Now these troops are the weakest of weak, comparable to that of an untrained Battle Hopper.  But the Seed Pods are a bit different, each one acting like a mini Plant Garden.  Over time these Seed pods will accumulate seed counters.  Once they have three, they transform into another random Plant.

This means that to get your random Plant engine online, you'll need a little patience.  Just as Reese needs to tunnel for a few turns to get the random-robot generation online, the Seed Pods need a few turns on the field to charge up before they achieve their ultimate destiny.  Unlike Reese who is safe underground, the Seed Pods are extremely vulnerable on your field.  Heat Wave or Extinction will clear them all from the field.  Though this will still be card advantage for you since they will have spent two cards on your one Heart, it's still super-frustrating.  Cards like Oath of Valor or Monsuun might offer your some counterplay to these effects, but since your Hearts won't show until mid-to-late game anyways, the Seed Pods should act more as a ticking time bomb that your opponent has to deal with before they evolve into more dangerous flora.

So what sort of plants are there that you can get?  Well the dream scenario is having one of them transform into another Heart of the Wrathwood, capable of dropping even more Seed Pods should it meet the same timely fate as the first.  Any of the Plant Garden Trio are up for grabs, like the 9/9 Vine Goliath, which can lock down opposing troops as you swing in.  Wrathwood Master Moss is a solid result as well, itself needing to effectively die twice before it is fully off the field.  Briar Legion isn't bad if you can get multiple copies (assuming transforming counts as it entering play for the +2/+2 to proc; otherwise it could die instantly if you haven't played another during the game).  There are even some off-shard plants like Dementia Daisies and Rose Lion.  

As of right now, there are only 15 distinct Plant troops, and Seed Pod can't turn into itself which leaves you with just over a dozen options.  But one of the great things about this card and cards like it is that as more Plants are introduced into the game, the number of different troops you could get from your Seed Pods increases, giving you quite a bit of mileage out of it.  

Armies of Myth was scheduled to release today (Tuesday, July 14) but was delayed due to a bug.  Hopefully it releases this week so I can do some drafts over the weekend.  Otherwise I'll have to squeeze them in while packing for GenCon.  

Gauntlet Throwdown & Limited First Impressions

A metric ton of information got dumped on us recently for the new Hex set.  Not only will the Armies of Myth patch feature Chest Opening and Extended Art, but we'll also be getting Gauntlet Tournaments, which are similar to Asynchronous Tournaments from Hearthstone.  The downside is that for Sealed Players you can't actually net any packs by going undefeated.  You play until you hit 5 wins or 3 losses, then collect prizes based on your wins.  Five victories earns you six boosters, while any other scenario nets you boosters equal to the number of wins you earned.  This means that unless you sell your packs (or the contents of the chests from those packs), you won't be able to "go infinite."  That's a small quibble compared to this patch basically giving me everything my little heart desires though.

The full card spoiler is out as well, with about 250 new cards to use and abuse.  I'd eventually like to do a full set review (obligatory eye roll), but for now I'll give my initial impressions on limited for this format, which from my understanding will be entirely done with Armies of Myth packs.  Now one larger point I think I should make is on reserves cards with the new Gauntlet Sealed, which uses one-game matches.  This means you don't get to bring your Vandalize in game 2 against your opponent's Syyn, which is a shame since there's a lot of nice situational cards that might not merit a spot on your opening forty but can be absolute blowouts against the right deck.

Quick Troops can gain prophecy buffs
while in your deck, making their surprise
appearance even more deadly.

One of the things I think will be overlooked is the number of Quick Troops in this draft format.  Quick troops can be particularly nasty since you reveal next to no information during the turn you plan to play them.  Having any resources up could make your opponent think twice about attacking with important troops they want to keep alive.  Many of the Quick Troops aren't exactly the hardiest, Snarling Ambusher being a fine example at a 3/2 for 3 resources.  But that three attack points will allow it to trade with many things early on.  And if you're fortunate enough to give a Quick Troop a Prophecy buff from a card like Nightsky Stargazer, a surprise speed bump can become a game changer.  

One of the things people are particularly worried about are the Spiderlings, due in large part to the frustrations with Xarlox int he Frost Ring Arena.  Now 1/1 troops with unblockable are undoubtedly annoying, particularly when your opponent gets them for free.  However, having played more than a few games with Booby Traps, I know how dicey relying on your opponent to draw them can be.  Sometimes your opponent will have a dozen in their deck and not draw a single one while your life is slowly chipped away by a Phoenix Guard Messenger.  Other times your opponent will draw them the instant they get put in (and if you're like me you instantly feel guilty for your fortune).  The upside to the infested player is that they won't lose their entire draw with Spiderling Eggs like they would with Booby Traps.  The bad news is that this means several eggs could trigger in a chain reaction of skittering menaces.  Now this isn't the end of the world, since a few cards can deal with these spidery threats pretty handily.  Though these cards might be too narrow to merit main deck status.

There's also a question of how deep in the infestation strategy to you go?  While a dedicated Spiderling Deck with Painbringer and Brood Baron would be interesting, it's a strategy that seems more likely to be abused in Draft than Sealed.  Many of the effects that produce Spiderling Eggs are tacked onto cards people will play based on the strength of the card outside of the Eggs they provide.  Parriphagy is expensive, but effective removal that could net you a few spiders if the game goes long.  Nazhk Webguard has decent defensive stats for a 2-drop, and becomes more valuable at messing up combat the more eggs you get into your opponent's deck.  Hatchery Priest on the otherhand has very poor stats to justify including it into the deck unless you are dedicated to the archetype, and Incubate does nothing to the board at all when it is played.

Finally we have removal, which is one of the first things I think people should look at when analyzing a new limited format.  For Blood, the most straightforward removal is the aforementioned Parriphagy, though at five resources the cost can be very prohibitive if the format is fast.  Rot Cast is solid 2-cost removal action for early drops, and doesn't discriminate Artifact Troops the way Murder did.  Taint on the other hand is all of the narrowness of Atrophy with none of the sweet, sweet card advantage.  I wouldn't be against using it if the situation called for it, but when the best case scenario is a 1-for-1, I won't feel good about it.  I suppose Merciless Culler is removal as well, though the Battle Hopper generation of past sets isn't present in Armies.  Sacrificing a Spiderling might make this guy not awful, but at the end of the day you still just have a 3/2.  Shadowblade Assassin has a lethal shift that should not be overlooked either.  This ability can be important for Necrotic decks, which will likely gravitate towards Blood-Diamond, and also provide a good chunk of Swiftstrike options to pair with.

Speaking of Diamond, they probably have the most interesting removal of any of the shards.  Pride's Fall is good (and cheap) for taking down the biggest and baddest of your opponent's troops, but will do little against a tempo rush.  Etherealize transforms a troop or constant into a 1/1 Phantom.  Unfortunately it's basic speed, so instead of being a combat trick, the best you can hope for is nullifying your opponent's strongest dude if you have aerial presence.  In dire straits it could give you a finisher if the ground is clogged, or a chump blocker for a turn if things are particularly grim.  Inflict Doubt is a dicey uncommon that acts as a cheaper Inner Conflict if you have more guys than they do.  If you have troop generation this isn't too bad, and it seems that Ruby-Diamond could be a decent shard combination to do this if you get some combination of First Blood or Veteran Raider.  Martyr (a rare) transforms a troop into a Monument of the Martyr, which will either allow you to swing through for the win or sacrifice one of your troops to have an on-board pump (I see this seeing some play in Constructed).  And finally Stinging Ambush is a decent reserves card against opposing Phantoms and Spiderlings, but not terribly effective against beefier fare.

I fully expect a Shakespearean Play
dungeon stage now.

For Ruby (and they have buffet of removal), Bombwright and Boomsmith are both four cost dwarves that can oust low defense troops, Boomsmith once for 2 when he comes into play and Bombwright every turn for 1.  Bombwright will likely be good for chewing up Spiderlings and Phantoms though potentially underwhelming against other decks.  Fiery Indignation is quality removal (with excellent artwork) that can ping something for 2 early game or roast something for five later in the game, when you have a 5-drop on the field.  Lunge is a cheaper version of Adrenaline Rush that only gives +2 Attack for the turn instead of 3, though that will likely be enough to topple whatever you're trying to kill.  Scorch is in the same boat as Taint and doesn't even have the courtesy of being a Quick Action (I wouldn't mind trying it out in my Kindling Skarn deck though).  Skewer is much better: 3-for-3 at Quick Speed that can bolt your opponent if you manage to snipe a low-defense utility troop like Windspeaker.  Staggering Blast is a reserves option against Spiders and a potential finisher for a speedy deck.  Volley of Arrows is incredibly expensive and situational, but it can be a stalemate breaker in a clogged board.  Tribal Warfare is a windmill slam, capable of gunning down every one of your opponent's troops in a single turn.  Playing with Fire is a unique pick that could really pressure your opponent on a curve or not do a single thing.  You have to draft/build around it, and in Draft that is much easier to do, but if you have a good chunk of 5+ drops in your deck it's worth considering.

For Sapphire, you have a couple options for dealing with raw damage but little for dealing with utility.  Cripple isn't bad if you plan on flying over your opponent but it doesn't deal with any toughness attached to that troop.  Incubation Webs is a quality removal card, particularly for control decks since it will serve you better the longer the game goes, providing the chance for chump blockers/win conditions every turn thereafter (if the Spider Eggs get shuffled in every turn it's even better against Prophecy).  Windspeaker is a bit like Wind Whisperer from Shards of Fate, though requires Sapphire-Diamond to start shutting opposing troops down every turn.  Suffocate is expensive for a Countermagic, and the extra eggs probably don't justify the cost, but if you have enough Quick Troops to justify passing with four resources up it might be worth considering.

Wild has more tricks than removal, but there are a few cards of note.  Predatory Prey is expensive as hell, but can remove a big troop of your opponent and give you two extra power on your attack in.  Return to the Soil is very strong if you can find a target for it, which may be a little more difficult without Construction Plans and Pterobots making the rounds, but the raw card advantage should give you strong consideration for including it in your Sealed main.  Stinkhorn Soup is a very nasty combat trick that readies and makes Lethal one of your troops for the turn, though unless you have decent defense or swiftstrike it's pure card disadvantage.  Vine Lash is good against Flight decks from the reserves, but is likely too narrow for Gauntlet Sealed.  In the rares there are some dinosaurs, Carnasaurus and Crocosaur, that can fight when they enter play, but require a heavy Wild threshold investment if you want to play them on curve.  Scorn of Oberon (another rare) can be a blowout in the right situation.  Quick Speed reversion, artifact destruction, or constant destruction is probably enough to at least justify the cost, but the ability to do two or even all three for only three resources is very enticing.

Overall I think there are some very strong removal options for many of the shards, and it will be interesting to see how they fare with the new mechanics of the set.  I'll be back next week with some card reviews, and maybe an update on Guild Wars 2 or Offworld Trading Company (which I snagged during the Steam Sale this week).  Have a great weekend!

Anana's Avenging Phantoms

There is one card from Armies of Myth that popped out at me the moment I saw it: Golden Avenger.  Now on the surface it's just a bulky mid-range flight troop, a hero of mysterious allegiance from another plane of existence.  But when he dies this noble hero leaves behind his Mask, which can be used to transform another troop you control into the Golden Avenger.  

Something about this card just seems right from a design standpoint.  First off, he doesn't seem ridiculously broken.  A 4/4 for 5 with solid stats isn't going to destroy the meta (at least I don't think so.... I haven't played PvP constructed much).  There's also plenty of counterplay for the Mask since it's a basic action: you can use discard effects to get rid of it from your opponent's hand, kill the troop in response to the Mask being put on it, or just straight up counter it.

And yet, there is an alluring quality about this card, that if abused properly could devastate the Vampire Kings and Angels of Dawn that your opponent relies on to carry the game.  It's clearly a limited powerhouse, and will definitely be fun in highlander/singleton/Elder-Zakiir-Highlander, or whatever version of the "fun" format Hex eventually gets.  But it's also the sort of card I'd love to take into the Proving Grounds to troll around with (if you got gold for losses....).  At the very least it's the sort of cards I'd like to play against my friends, so in the off-chance I snag four copies of it, I'd like to get a deck going.  

Now since the first half of this card is pretty straightforward, the only thing there is to "abuse" is the Mask.  To ensure your avenging days continue you need to have a troop on the field when the Avenger bites it.  Normally if you're just looking for troops to get churned out you want something along the lines of Worker Bots or Battle Hoppers.  Wretched Brood isn't bad for pumping out future Avengers, though Golden Avenger doesn't have Lifedrain, so you might risk killing yourself with Brood if you don't put in countermeasures to prevent that.  Bertram in a Sapphire-Diamond Worker Bot deck doesn't sound like too bad of an idea either.  Sapphire also has a good chunk of cagey utility troops like Phoenix Guard Messenger that don't penalize you if your opponent kills them before they can put on the mask.  Humans also have lots of Rangers that generate troops when they enter play, giving you many options for transformation.

But the deck I want to run is a bit more thematic, and uses a new champion from Armies of Myth: Madame Anana.  This Necrotic spiritualist requires Blood and Diamond threshold to work her dark magic, but for three charges she allows any troop under your control to leave behind a Phantom when it dies.  Now as of writing this Anana isn't available in the client, so I can't test her, but I assume since both effects trigger off of the Avenger dying that they will both happen when he is killed, giving you both the Mask and a 1/1 Phantom to conveniently place it onto.  You can also use Minion of Yazukan and Xentoth's Inquisitor, two difficult troops to fully eliminate from the board, and ones that can repeatedly die to Anana's ability once they are enchanted with her charge power.  Here's a sample list I'd like to tool around with:

Anana's Avenging Phantoms

Champion: Madame Anana

4 Golden Avenger

4 Minion of Yazukan

4 Xentoth's Inquisitor (Brutality)

3 Crackling Rot

4 Extinction

3 Inquisition

4 Repel

4 Solitary Exile

2 Oath of Valor

2 Zombie Plague

11 Blood Shard

11 Diamond Shard

4 Shard of Retribution

For reserves options I'd probably run a sacrifice engine to get around cards like Inner Conflict or other cards that hobble, but don't outright kill opposing cards.  Born to Die is thematic, but not particularly effective, though it could be a win condition if you get a rotation of Phantoms going strong with Minion deaths.  Hopefully in the upcoming weeks we'll get some news about an Armies of Myth release date.  In the mean time I'll be feverishly grinding Arena matches until I have one of every promo card (3 more to go).  

Card images from HexTCG Database

Skitter Along

While some of Hex's races have dedicated keywords like Inspire or Prophecy to capture their flavor, others have more loosely defined mechanics.  One of these mechanics for the Shin'hare and Dwarves was the ability to churn out Worker Bots and Battle Hoppers.  Despite their similarities, these glorified chump blockers were designed to be played in very different ways: the Dwarves used their defensive robots to construct even greater robots, while the Shin'hare was fine sacrificing their creations for the sake of power.  

Much like the Dwarves and Shin'hare, the Vennen have a particular fondness for breeding Spiderspawn.  Xartaxis, Biship of the Azure Fang was one of a handful of cards designed to abuse these web-slinging menaces.  He has a passive ability that is active when you have two Sapphire threshold, granting all of your spiders the ability to draw a card whenever they damage to an opponent.  This can be an incredibly potent ability in a control deck, to which Sapphire and Blood are a natural fit.  But until now your options for getting Spiders on the field were a bit limited.  Luckily, Armies of Myth are bringing Spiders back in a big way, and one that is sure to leave a lasting impression on your opponent.

The Vennan are cold and calculating, unlike their uncontrolled Orcish "relations."  Where the Orcs want to pound you into dust immediately, the Vennen are interested in the long game, and their way of troop reproduction is much more nefarious.  Several of the Vennen in AoM create Spider Eggs which get shuffled into their opponent's deck.  When the opponent draws one of these eggs or the egg is send to the graveyard directly from the deck, the eggs hatch, creating an unblockable Spiderling for the venerable Vennen player.  

Exarch of the Egg is one such card, shuffling two Spider Eggs into the opponent's deck whenever a Vennen comes into play (including itself).  It's also a 1/3 Lethal troop for only two, which are decent stats for the low price of two mana.  Playing multiples of the Exarch in succession sets you up for a Spider explosion in the late game.  Runeweb Infiltrator is another layer of eggs, creating two whenever it deals damage to an opponent, which shouldn't be too hard since it comes equipped with Flight as well.  If you are dedicating yourself to the egg infiltration strategy, Hatchery Cultivator will help enable you, doing the same thing for Eggs that Ritualist of the Spring Litter did for Battle Hoppers.  

These unblockable menaces make a perfect match for old Vennen like Xartaxis, but the grand-daddy of Spider Lords is Phenteo the Brood Priest.  This Legendary Vennen can exhaust to shuffle three eggs into each opponents deck.  But these aren't just any eggs.... they're Terrorantula Eggs!  If you are unfamiliar with the Terrorantula, you probably don't know the keyboard-to-forehead inducing rage that is the Xarlox fight of the Frost Ring Arena.  It can be an incredibly frustrating fight since you start the game with three Terrorantula Eggs (actually, Broodlord Eggs, but functionally similar) in your deck.  If you have the misfortune of drawing one, or of the enemy using one of the myriad of mill effects in their deck, you have to tangle not with a miniscule Spiderling, but with a 5/5 behemoth that devours one of your troops when it enters play!  

While several have complained about how overpowered the spider egg infestation strategy is and how aggravating the Xarlox fight is, the Terrorantula murdering a troop and putting you on a four-turn clock is the real threat.  While the 1/1s are nothing to sneeze at, they can at least be dealt with by the likes of Heat Wave or another mass-removal action.  Infesting a deck is setting the control player up for later on.  It allows them to sit on reactionary cards, keeping all of their resources up for quick actions while they periodically receive a stealthy attacker on their field.  I'm not a huge fan of decking strategies, and I'm certainly not a control player, but the vennen offer a fun and interesting take on both, and I'm definitely looking forward to giving them a try in sealed and draft.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Long time, no Hex article.  Part of the reason is that there hasn't been much to write about.  In a few short days Shattered Destiny will be six months old.  Aside from Hex's first expansion and the Frost Ring Arena, there has been little in the way of game updates, which is concerning since many of the features of the game that really make me want to play (dungeons, character creation, double back) seem ages away.  Waning enthusiasm aside, a new card set is always enough to pique my interest, and the recent glut of spoilers make me optimistic that the set will be launching within the next few months, at the very least be playable at Gen Con (if Hex will be there this year).

The three new keywords in this set are Allegiance, Shift, and Prophecy.  You can read about all these keywords here, but today I'm going to focus in on Prophecy and the Coyotles, who seem to be heavily associated with it.  Now in the first two set these prescient pups took a back seat to their Ardent allies, the Humans and Orcs.  While they got their fair share of cool cards, the next two expansions are going to focus on the Coyotle, alongside the Necrotic, Vennen, and Elves.

Prophecy is a keyword mechanic that functions similar to cards like Spirit Dance and Shrine of Prosperity, which allow you to invest in the cards that are still in your deck, making them stronger when you draw them.  Prophecy is much like that, strengthening the cards in your deck.  Troops get beefier, Actions get cheaper, and resources gain extra charges.  Lanupaw, Prophet of Fate is one of the Unique Coyotle, and the queen of prophecy in the set.  When you play her, she buffs the next action, resource, and troop in your deck, and as you reap the rewards of her visions, she becomes stronger.  One interesting aspect of Lanupaw is that she requires three different thresholds to play.  Multi-threshold cards won't necessarily be making their debut in Hex with Armies of Myth, since The Triumvirate was possible to summon in Shards of Fate.  But Armies will be your first chance to open them from packs and include them in your deck.  And these multi-threshold cards aren't just restricted to cards of legendary rarity.  

Dreamsmoke Mystic is an uncommon that requires both sapphire and wild threshold.  While many of the Coyotle Prophecy cards will buff cards in your deck, others like the Mystic can be used to dig through your deck to find them and get them out more quickly.  One of the more interesting multi-threshold cards is Brown Fox Scout, which will likely become a staple of the constructed format.  Brown Fox Scout is ostensibly boring: a 3/2 troop for two resources, requiring sapphire and wild threshold with no evasion or combat abilities.  What makes the scout unique is that while it is the top card of your deck, it will reveal itself to you and allow you to play it directly from the top of your deck to the field.  While this already combos well with prophecy cards that make your troops bigger, the icing on the cake is that Brown Fox Scout is a Quick Troop, meaning you can play it during an opponent's attack to screw up their combat, or at the end of your opponent's turn, denying them the ability to use basic actions like Extinction or Crackling Bolt to kill it.  You also don't lose a draw when you play the Scout, making it a free troop in many ways, so long as you have the resources and threshold to play it.

Some prophecy effects are powerful enough for you to build around their effect by themselves.  While Lanupaw and many others have Prophecy effects that give moderate buffs, Indigo Dreamwalker can cause the next card in your deck to be played for free.  This could create crazy situations with huge actions like a turn-five Citadel of Adamanth or a free Zodiac Divination with resources available to play the cards you just drew.  Even Escalation cards are strong with Dreamwalker, since in addition to having their resource cost stripped away they get shuffled in to hopefully be drawn again.  There aren't any reliable ways to know what the topmost action of your deck will be, but nonetheless the Dreamwalker will be an incredibly fun card to play in Highlander formats where zany, expansive cards can easily be played.

There's a few dozen spoilers for Armies of Myth out already, with more getting previewed every week.  Hopefully we'll have a rough release date in the next week or so, and I'll get a chance to draft the Coyotle myself.  It would also be nice to get an update on Mercenaries & Chest Opening, but at this point I will take what I can get.  The Armies of Myth patch will also bring about Extended Art, though instead of being tied to the doubleback feature it will be a gold sink for Frost Ring grinders.  I'll post my thoughts about that next week, along with a closer look at Shift, which seem to be an ability tied to the Necrotic.  

In the mean time, keep watching the main site and forums (or reddit) for spoilers.

Ruthless Ritual

A few of my friends gave Shattered Destiny draft a shot during the Feast of Abundance, and I realized it had been a while since my last official strategy article for Hex.  So to remedy this I thought I'd take some time to discuss a limited archetype I've had some success with: Blood-Sapphire Bunoshi.  The archetype is pretty accessible for newer players, since there tends to be a good stream of the cards that go well with Bunoshi later in packs during Booster drafts.  Popular recommended archetypes like Dwarves or Humans can be very hit or miss depending on the table you get and the packs you open, where Bunoshi doesn't care too much about getting robots to assemble construction plans or having all your troops be the same race.

To start with I should probably talk about the champion a bit.  Bunoshi the Ruthless is one of the five champions released with Shattered Destiny, so if you haven't played the game since early in the Beta he might be new to you.  The Shin'hare warlock has a 3-cost charge power that requires you to sacrifice a troop to give another troop a permanent +2/+2.  In Shin'hare decks that use Bunoshi, you'll likely be sacrificing your disposable squadron of Battle Hoppers to him to make one of your bunnies gigantic.  Unfortunately precious few Shin'hare troops have evasion abilities to make good use of the buff, and though the Battle Hoppers are expendable, several other Shin'hare cards can actually give them effective combat stats.  Bunoshi's Wild counterpart, Fuzzuko, is often more effective in Shin'hare swarm strategies, since he buffs every troop on your field instead of a specific one.

What makes Bunoshi appealing is when you manage to benefit from both sides of the ability: sacrificing one troop to make another stronger.  Losing a troop sucks any way you slice it, but there are quite a few cards that you won't mind killing off for the Bunoshi buff.  Darkspire Priestess and Punisher are two such cards in Blood, since they have a shot of searching up more Darkspire cards upon death.  Shroomshaw is another solid option, since he'll generate more little guys for you to sacrifice if you can survive to hit six or nine charges.  In Sapphire, you have Phoenix Guard Messenger, a cheap flight troop that can swing in for damage early and draws a card upon death.  At uncommon you also have Mentor of the Song and Mentor of the Grave, which transform into solid actions and return back into your hand when they hit the graveyard.  There are also several troops with strong abilities that trigger when they enter play.  Troops like Buccaneer and Charge Bot are nice additions to this deck since you still get a slight bonus even if you are forced to sacrifice them, or they can become powerful threats if you feel compelled to use Bunoshis ability on them.  There are quite a few rares that make good Bunoshi fodder too, such as Xentoth's Inquisitor, Minion of Yazukan, and Xartaxis, which makes his own Spiderling to sacrifice (or buff depending on the board state) and fits the shard combination you are aiming for perfectly.

Blood and Sapphire also contain some excellent targets for a permanent +2/+2 buff due to their abundance of evasion abilities.  There's a score of Flight troops like Phoenix Guard Enforcer and Giant Corpse Fly that can grow to game ending size with the Bunoshi buff.  If you're worried about opposing flight troops ruining your plans another good target is Tormented Ritualist, which becomes unblockable (and a 3/1) whenever you gain a charge.  Making a giant lifedrain troop can also ensure you don't lose a race with your opponent.  Paladin of the Necropolis is a great pick up for Bunoshi decks, though he tends to command his own life gain archetype with Diamond cards like Spearcliff Pegasus.  Giant Mosquito is a more common Lifedrain target for Bunoshi, since a 3/3 with Flight and Lifedrain attacking as early as turn three can be very difficult for anyone without a removal spell to manage.  If you're lucky enough to open one in Shards of Fate, Corrupt Harvester might be the best target outside of rare and legendary troops for you to combo with Bunoshi.  He already comes equipped with a solid body, lifedrain, and built in evasion.  Making him a 5/5 can put the game out of reach for your opponent, particularly for decks which rely on defense-based removal like Crackling Bolt to deal with threats.

In Sealed, Bunoshi can be just as effective.  One of the best ways to counter an archetype that dumps buff after buff onto a single troop is a simple removal spell like Inner Conflict or Murder.  Unlike in draft where the early removal you pick up often dictates which shards you focus on, in Sealed it tends to be spread out over several shards, forcing you to make difficult decisions when it comes to which removal actions you want to use.  Maybe you run your two Crackling Rot and Survival of the Fittest in a Blood-Wild deck... but those can be pretty situational.  Maybe instead play the Solitary Exile and Boulder Toss... but both of those are double threshold.... hm, maybe Blood-Ruby instead?  And this is where Bunoshi can shine, since he can turn any troop from zero to hero with every three charges, meaning that your opponent's limited removal spells become all the more precious.  One downside is it's often more difficult to get multiple Darkspire troops in Sealed, or to focus on troops that like to die.  But if you open a good chunk of evasion troops and some guys you don't mind sacrificing, it might be worth letting your ruthless side show.

Here's a sample list for this archetype to use as a reference point while drafting or analyzing your sealed pool.

Champion: Bunoshi the Ruthless
1 Darkspire Priestess
1 Giant Mosquito
1 Grave Nibbler
1 Shroomshaw
2 Phoenix Guard Messenger
1 Brood Creeper
1 Buccaneer
2 Darkspire Punisher
1 Mentor of the Song
1 Moonmonk (Rage/Flight)
2 Tormented Ritualist
1 Wretched Wrangler
1 Charge Hulk
1 Corrupt Harvester
1 Phoenix Guard Enforcer
1 Xartaxis, Bishop of the Azure Fang
2 Crackling Rot
1 Murder
1 Murmurs from the Void
9 Blood Shard
7 Sapphire Shard
1 Shard of Cunning

Normally the weekend means Frost Ring Arena time for me, but this Saturday is Tabletop Day!  So unfortunately Hogarth and his bodiless pike.... friends... will probably get the back seat treatment while I'm trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.  Now that more people from the Kickstarter seem to be drifting back into the game and checking it out, I'll focus on doing strategy articles more frequently.  If any readers have a suggestion for an draft archetype or a deck idea they'd like me to write about, feel free to leave a comment.  Enjoy the weekend!

Card Image Links from HexTCGBrowser

Emperor Thaurissan & Hex Dungeon Encounters

Though I never really got into Hearthstone, I've watched several Youtubers run through the Naxxramas Dungeon and most recently the first wing of the Blackrock Mountain Adventure.  Back when Naxx was released Hex backers, who at that point were devoid of any PvE content, had a mixed reaction towards Hearthstone's version of it.  On one hand Naxx mirrored the dungeon crawl Hex players had envisioned from when the game was first released with thematic bosses, unique cards, and enticing loot drops.  On the other it seemed devoid of the customization that Hex promised with its PvE experience, such as the ability to equip items to a champion to alter existing cards in your deck.  

One of the major differences between Hearthstone and Hex is that Hearthstone allows players to vacillate in their overall dungeon strategy by building decks specific to the encounter.  Unlike Hex where the deck you choose for the Frost Ring Arena is locked in from the start and has to run through a gauntlet of opponents by itself, in Hearthstone you can choose a different deck for each encounter.  This means that dungeon bosses can have very specific strategies and prompt the players to uncover and build a specific counter to them.  

Blackrock's Emperor Thaurissan is one such encounter.  Thaurissan's hero power deals an absurd 30 damage to the enemy for only two mana, though he only gets to use the ability if a troop that begins play on his side of the field dies.  This changes the dynamic of the encounter so much that a general strategy won't often work.  If this were Hex, a traditional Blood control deck would find their Extinctions pretty useless and be forced to deal with the opposing troop threat piecemeal.  Here's an example of a Budget Deck guide that Bog Otter came up with which demonstrates the very specific nature of the encounter and his approach to it.  (If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, Richie's channel is definitely worth a follow as well)

This mechanic of keeping a particular troop alive is similar to one that was hinted at in an interview Cory did when discussing the Kraken dungeon.  In one of that dungeon's encounters the town mayor is under the spell of a witch, and if the players manage to keep him alive by the end of boss fight they gain a reward.  This makes the "don't kill troop x" mechanic act as more of an achievement than a prohibitive feature of the encounter, one the players may deal with before proceeding as opposed to one they must deal with.

Hex likely couldn't get away with making these prohibitive encounter features too prevalent in their dungeons, since a single stack of sixty (minus the Mercenary tag-in) is required to navigate several encounters in one go.  If there are encounters that require mass reversion and troop destruction to a level that you are almost forced to run Extinction and Filk Ape, you threaten to lose the customization aspect of Hex that makes it so appealing.  However if the encounters are too submissive in the challenge they present and a dominant deck like Gore Feast can easily stomp through without having to adjust, the encounters become much less engaging.

The Frost Ring Arena demonstrates some of the troubles that come with balancing what the game demands of the player in deck construction.  While each encounter is certainly thematic, it is difficult to build a deck that specifically counters everything the Arena could throw at you.  Modifying a deck that has trouble against War Bot might tempt a player to include more artifacts than they might otherwise include, while an encounter like Zoltog might demand a card like Heat Wave to deal with the onslaught of Orcs.  As such a player could be pulled in several different directions when trying to improve their deck upon looking at their loss screen.  This problem is exacerbated by the randomness of the opponents you face in the FRA (since you might build your deck to better deal with War Bot and never actually encounter him) and the very nature of some of the champion abilities (two free Guardian Angels in a row, eh Avenging Angel?).  All of this makes getting a Perfect Tier or Perfect Clear seem more reliant on luck than individual skill, which is by and large something strategy games should want to avoid.

Perhaps FRA shouldn't be exemplary of future Hex dungeons in this particular aspect, since these dungeons will be using player customized characters, more linear dungeon progression, and other features like the Might System that could alter the overall gameplay.  Now that Hex players have a taste of PvE, it will be interesting to watch it evolve and gradually conform to our expectations as the Beta progresses.  But while so much attention is focused on the AI, which is still the most pressing issue for PvE, it shouldn't siphon attention away from creating engaging and challenging content. 

Swoop: My First Magic Deck

This is a series of articles where I talk about the best and most iconic decks or cards I've ever run in a number of card games, from Magic to Pokémon to Duel Masters and even Yu-Gi-Oh!  In addition to the overall strategy, I'm going to use these articles to explain how I became involved with the TCG and gaming community.

I'm not sure anyone forgets their first Magic deck.  Usually because that first deck gets modified and tweaked and reverted back to its original state over such a long period of time that it leaves a lasting impression.  And Magic itself has had such an impression in my life that it always stuns me how close I came to simply not buying my first deck back in the summer of 2001.  I had finished up my first year of high school and was bored ever since the local Pokémon scene had dried up.  Most of the money I had from delivering papers was invested in that game, but I had little reason to continue since I had no reliable way out of the city to any of the larger tournaments.  My parents refusal to support my hobby by taking me to Buffalo or Erie for tournaments was a point of adolescent consternation.  

There was a sports card store called Two Guys that opened the previous year on Water Street in Fredonia.  Western New York winters made getting to Fredonia was impossible for me, but when the weather was warmer it was only a thirty minute bike ride from my home in the neighboring city of Dunkirk.  That summer I started putting up flyers asking people if they were interested in starting a league, and every week I would come back and check the blank sign up sheet and ask the store owners asking if there was any interest, to no avail.  This usually happened on the weekend where some of the college kids were playing Magic, and they'd often prod me to pick up a deck and play in a tournament.

I was skeptical about picking up Magic though.  I didn't really have enough money to support two games, and I was still hopeful that the Pokémon scene in the area would be revived, or I could magically coerce my mom or dad to take me to a large tournament in Columbus or Pittsburgh and prove I was good enough to make a habit out of competition.  I was also aware of how long it would take to get competitively good at Magic, which would be my goal if I started the game up.  Starting from scratch and wrangling the cards for a respectable Pokémon collection had taken a while and Magic, which started five years earlier in 1993, had about ten times as many cards to collect.

But it also seemed Magic could actually congregate a crowd to play it, and there were some familiar faces among them.  Two people I recognized from the Pokémon League during its heyday, Eric and Justin, both picked up Magic that summer and had suggested I play.  There was also Josh Raynor, who I met from the High School Envirothon Club (2nd place champs in 2003, suck it Falconer).  That August, with both the summer and my hopes of a revitalized local Pokémon scene waning, I reluctantly bought an Apocalypse Theme Deck named Swoop and signed up for FNM.  

Some of the people that showed up early for the tournament ran me through the basics of how to play my deck, which was a Blue-Green Fliers deck with lots of bounce spells.  Coming from Pokémon it was easy to transition to Magic, though the ability to play spells and activate abilities during your opponent's turn was slightly vexing to me as Pokémon had nothing similar to this.  Though I was confident I had at least grasped the basics, I didn't have any illusions about winning with my store-bought precon.  The terms archetype and metagame were already in my dictionary from Pokémon, and I knew how poor preconstructed decks were in comparison.  I figured at least some of the people at the tournament would have a competitive deck, particularly the people that had their name written in thick black marker on the white wall near the counter conspicuously labeled FNM WINNERS.  Only three names appeared there: Rick Near, Doug Wilson, and Mike Innace.  There were near thirty people in the pungent, humid room filled with card tables and lawn chairs, and I had the misfortune of drawing Doug Wilson as my first round opponent.

Doug was playing a Domain deck (five-color deck) which was popular in the metagame at the time.  Standard consisted of Masques Block, Invasion Block, and 7th Edition, which had just recently come out.  Invasion Block was a multicolor themed block with a cycle of tri-colored dragons, whose names I slowly came to know and fear through their Charms and Lairs before ever knowing what the Legendary Creatures attached to them actually did, a feature of discovery that was sadly only present that summer where I was completely ignorant to the lore of the game.  Domain decks used cards that were stronger the more colors and basic land types you had access to, and the headliner of the Doug's deck was Draco, a massive 9/9 flying Artifact Dragon that he could squeak out for a paltry six mana.  I was utterly smashed by it in the overall match, though in one of the games (matches were best-of-three) I was able to cast Aether Mutation on Draco and put sixteen 1/1 Saprolings onto the field, a play which a kid piloting that theme deck for a first time can only dream of.  I cannot say for sure if I managed to steal that game off of him or if he calmly played a Teferi's Moat the following turn.  In either case, I had managed to turn a few heads with that play, and against Doug Wilson, one of the greats according to the Wall of Fame.  I had resolved that next week I would be slightly better, and would improve every week until my name was on that wall.

The Swoop deck itself wasn't overly hard to modify.  From games I played against people the following weeks I realized that I could scrape a few wins by simply applying pressure and trying to win quickly before my opponent could play a creature that outclassed mine.  If they spent a large amount of mana I could just Repulse it back to their hand and repeat my attack.  Getting a turn two Gaea's Skyfolk always gave me hope in the game, and I tried to search for other creatures that were cheap and efficient in lieu of the giant dragons, which were expensive both in terms of mana and money.  This was essentially what I had done in Pokémon and Haymaker decks over the previous three years.  I knew I couldn't ever afford a playset of Charizard or Blastoise so I focused instead on Electabuzz and Hitmonchan.  

Entering FNM was $5 and you got your choice of Booster Pack when you entered, so I would often trade any of the rares I had for cards I needed for my deck.  One card I wanted to scoop up four copies of the second I knew it existed was Questing Phelddagrif, because in addition to being a 4/4 for four mana with an array of abilities, he was a goddamn winged hippopotamus.  This required me to add white mana to my deck, which was easy thanks to the multiple mana fixing options in Invasion Block.  It also allowed me to run my one Meddling Mage, which I figured was a good card (and therefore, untradable) because it had a nickname.  Questing Phelddagrif also has one of the most beneficial secret abilities a card can have against the wave of newer players that started Magic that summer: a giant wall of text.  Inexperienced players can read power and toughness, and occasionally keywords like Flying and Trample, but when their opponent plays a card like Phelddagrif that has three different abilities that don't do a whole lot on their own, it's simply too taxing to try to understand it.   "Yeah, okay, it can get flying and does some bullshit where I gain life.  Is it my turn yet?"  

The bane of my existence for two months.

The deck also gave me a couple copies of Kavu Chameleon, which was actually a decent card against some legitimate decks.  Masques Block was still in Standard for a couple months until Odyssey came out.  This meant that for two months I played Magic while Brainstorm and Dark Ritual were legal in Standard.  With this sort of degeneracy, its surprising that a mill deck was the most played deck at the store.  This is essentially the nightmare deck for newer and casual players, Blue-White Control filled with Counterspells, massive creature removal with Mageta the Lion, and Story Circle, which just stopped your attacks in its tracks.  It was the infuriating embodiment of control: it would sit back, counter or kill everything you tried to do, and Millstone you to death.  Kavu Chameleon was surprisingly effective against it though, since he couldn't be countered and could change his color for a single green mana to get around Story Circle.  Plus he was a 4/4 for five, which in dirty peasant terms is a pretty good deal.  It was never enough to actually beat the Story Circle-Millstone Deck, but it had the same effect my Aether Mutation did against Draco that first week.  It made the experienced players concentrate on the game, and treat a kid with a dozen packs and a precon like a dark horse that might actually take the game if they let their guard down.

TCGs don't favor the peasant, and I knew from Pokémon that I didn't just need a plan for a deck, but an overall strategy to acquire cards and keep this hobby going.  The Standard Format in Magic rotated every year, which meant that when Odyssey became legal that autumn, Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy would all rotate out.  In another year the entirety of Invasion Block would rotate out, my Pheldagriffs and Skyfolk with it.   Odyssey would then be the oldest set in Standard.  I decided to focus on the rotation for that following year, getting a respectable collection of cards from drafting Odyssey Block.  It might take a while, but eventually I would be the one playing the Story Circle-Millstone Deck since I would have access to those rares.  In the meantime I would play the best and cheapest deck I could scrape together using whatever commons and uncommons I managed to draft as a base.  As it turns out, Odyssey was an extremely complimentary block for this strategy, and a cheap deck soon emerged that would carry me through the following year of my Magic career.