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.