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.