Dance Dance Evolution

Hey everyone.  I took a week off for GenCon, and in that time there's been a storm of new information surrounding Hex, including a new Content Patch, a Gamescom interview featuring PvE information, and Shattered Destiny Drafts and Starter Decks at GenCon.  I'll be starting off with another decklist this week and finish by giving away another Draft/Pack Code.

Dance Dance Evolution

For those of you that haven't played the randomness that is Hex Highlander (100 cards minimum, maximum of one copy of each card), I will let you know that a turn five Spirit Dance is a blessing.  Highlander is all about long, drawn out games, and both Spirit Dance and Dream Dance let you invest in the future, making all your troops that much better.  The current 60-card version of the Dance Deck was initially made by a friend in alpha.  His version featured a full compliment of Spirit Dances and Dream Dances alongside very cheap cards that shuffled troops back into his deck: The Ancestor's Chosen, Pack Raptor, Verdant Wyldeboar, and Replicator's Gambit.  It seemed a crime to me that Wild Root Dancer was not included, so I made some minor adjustments to make the deck a little more viable against the current meta.  It probably won't win you a tournament any time soon, but it's really fun to play the handful of times you can get it to work.

Champion: Running Deer
4 The Ancestor's Chosen
4 Pack Raptor
4 Moon'airu Sensei
4 Wild Root Dancer
4 Buccaneer
3 Eldritch Dreamer (Prime Sapphire of Mind)
2 Battle Beetle (Prime Wild Orb of Empowerment) 

3 Dream Dance
3 Spirit Dance
2 Yesterday
2 Incantation of Transcendance

4 Shards of Fate
10 Sapphire Shard
11 Wild Shard

If Hex had a DDR mini-game in one of their dungeons, it should definitely involve the three Dances: Dream Dance, Spirit Dance, and Wild Root Dancer (technically, Incantation of TranscenDANCE is an honorary fourth "dance").  My inner Bard wants Wild Root Dancer to have a Mega-Form that he transforms into if you manage to play him with both Dance effects on him, or maybe just an achievement of some sort if you manage to make him Dance enough times.

Back to the actual deck though: one of the big changes I made to my friend's deck is reducing the number of Dances to three of each.  The Dances don't immediately effect the game when you play them, so you don't really want to draw more than one copy early.  Luckily, after one Dream Dance you can discard the extra dances once you start chaining troops to the draw-discard effect.  Having multiples in your opening hand can be rough though since what you really want to be seeing is the Chosen and Raptors. 

Ancestral Specters & Moon'airu Senseis become even stronger at churning through your deck after a Dream Dance, though one of the problems this deck has is that the client doesn't allow you to choose the order of "enters play" effects.  As of now, a Moon'airu Sensei with Dream Dance will have you perform the Dance's effect before the troop's normal effect: you draw, discard, draw; as opposed to the preferable draw, draw, discard.  This is a minor grievance though, and one that you will surely forgive once you play the stronger Spirit Dance to transform those same utility dorks into resource-free 3/3 bunnies and 4/4 fliers that immediately replace themselves.  Your other "enters play" troops are Buccaneer (which is almost an instant 4-of for me with the limited card pool) and Battle Beetle, which can give your troops a +5/+5 bonus the turn it hits the field (+7/+7 with a Spirit Dance).  As an alternate path to victory, you can drop an Incantation and play Yesterday to return all of your Dream Dance/Card Draw troops to your hand, then transform the massive Incantation and ship over your opponent's field to finish him off.

One of the problems the deck has is mass troop removal.  Most of your early troops only have 1 or 2 defense, meaning a Sorrow or Heat Wave can chew enough card advantage out of you to negate any quality you might get from the Dances.  Part of the reason I didn't include Stargazer in the list is because it's often just another early guy that dies to these sweepers.  The threshold can also be difficult to manage, particularly when you want to play a Wild Root Dancer into an Eldritch Dreamer, the latter of which is an excellent target for permanent Attack & Defense buffs, but some of the new shards in Shattered Destiny should help that out.

One of the strengths of this deck is that it can play very aggressive if you get a fast Pack Raptor/Root Dancer draw--never underestimate the power of a bulky Swiftstriker--or it can play for the long game, where you grind out card advantage and quality through Dances while amassing a collection of cheap, efficient troops for you to dump back on the field after a well-timed Yesterday.  The combo of Yesterday + utility troops will also let you experiment with different builds and also expands your reserves options: Manti Elder Druid can revert Soul Marble and Living Totem, Glimmerglen Witch or Sensei of the Wounded Petal grant you early life gain against aggressive decks, and Shrine of Prosperity is a cool addition that might aid you against protracted matches.

Gamescom PvE Update

Cirouss was able to talk to Cory at length about PvE, including an extensive look at the Kraken's Gold dungeon.  The video features an overview of several of the fights in the dungeon, demonstrating the unique challenges the player's deck will face as they are forced to adapt to different enemy strategies.  Additionally, through the might system and card specific to PvE, your deck will be changed permanently as you progress through the dungeon.  The Sea Hag, one of the earlier bosses, can apply a debuff to your troops that remains on those troops during your next encounter, even if you defeat her, making future battles more difficult.  To counteract these detriments, you will also gain Might Powers as you progress, which provide special bonuses to your deck.  The Might Powers are based on your class, and vary from dungeon to dungeon, so a Warlock will not only have a different abilities at their disposal than the Warrior in the Kraken's Gold dungeon, but will also have a whole new set of powers in another dungeon.  The variety of challenges, combined with the variances in bonuses will make Dungeons a challenging puzzle for even seasoned CCG players to solve.  

Full bullet-points from the video compliments of Aswan_Jaguar in the subreddit, as well as the video in its entirety below:

Gen Con 2014 & Shattered Destiny Info

Gen Con was a blast this year.  In addition to getting to play with some Shattered Destiny Cards, I got to talk to Cory about the nature lore and races of Hex and how elements like art, music, flavor text, and card mechanics all work together to bring the world of Entrath to life.  I'll have a full article about my experience at Gen Con and the interview next week.  For those of you who are interested in the information on Shattered Destiny you can check out the Shards & Sockets and Tunneling articles on the main site.  I'll also do giveaways for some extra copies of the GenCon deck sleeves I was fortunate enough to snag in the coming weeks.

Vennen Music

Shapiro posted a theme from the Vennen to Soundcloud recently.  The music resonates of a cryptic underground cathedral, which immediately makes me think of Scarlet Monastery from my WoW days.  I'd like to see some of these themes over the cities of the Underworld factions since we've seen updated version of the Ardent cities.  Have a listen!

Patch v0.9.3.015

A small content patch launched this past week which featured the addition of the Tutorial, a feature that alongside the Starter Trials will help ease new players who are unfamiliar with TCGs into Hex.  There were also several bug fixes and quality of life changes in this patch as well.  You can read the full details of the Patch Notes on the main page.

As the summer wraps up we have a lot to look forward to right around the corner: the Shattered Destiny launch, the transition to Open Beta, trading (hopefully), an interface update, and hopefully not too far in the distance the first bits of playable PvE content trickling into client.  In the meantime you can sate you Hex hunger in the draft queue with a free Draft/Pack Code.  For your chance to win, just comment below (or in the subreddit) with the gem combo you would socket into Arborean Rootfather, one of the cards previewed this past weekend.  Remember to include your In-Game Name in you post so I can add you and send you the code if you win.

Until next time...

Hex: Patch v825 Review

Patch v825 has been released.  You can read the full patchnotes here.  As with the last patches, I will be doing a first impressions review of the new cards and features

Left unchecked, Te'talca and her
High Cleric form can quick end the game.

The big addition to this patch outside of new cards was the introduction of deck sleeves.  This is one of the features of Hex I didn't think I would enjoy as much as I do.  In cardboard TCGs I almost exclusively buy solid colored sleeves, but the ones available in Alpha look very sleek, and I suddenly find myself very excited for the Kickstarter rewards.  King Tier backers (like myself) get Spectral Lotus sleeves, which I can't wait to see in all their glory.  There is also a new visual effect for socketed cards in this patch, which makes good use of the new card layout.  This shows off all the things they want a single card to be able to do, particularly with the Doubleback and Card Modification options.  While the gems do look nice, it is sometimes difficult to see them on the new cards frames, however in the few Proving Grounds games I've played, I can generally tell at a glance.

Gameplay changes saw this patch break Zombie Plague, but fixes a bug with Xenototh's Inquisitor that caused its resource cost to not increase when it returned to your hand.  This kept it from being played in the most recent HexTCGPro tournament, leading to a swarm of Mono-Ruby Aggro decks taking down the field.  Zombie Plague being down for the time being is disappointing.  The patch had a rewording on the card, where the original creature was voided and replaced with a zombie instead of being reverted and transformed into a zombie.

On to cards though.  There's five new ones this time:

Bird O' Plenty

The Bird will probably find some home in a combo deck, if it does at all.  Its cost is too prohibitive for it to be a reliable counter for aggressive decks, and Crush troops should ignore most of this troop's effectiveness.  I imagine it could see play in a Ruby-Sapphire deck, where you Ragefire it constantly to cycle through your deck and find more Ragefires, which is cute, but I imagine most decks want a decisive finisher.  In limited he's a pretty annoying blocker if you get to him.  He's still as easy to shut down since Murder/Atrophy/Inner Conflict are all active at common, and he's a lot to invest in for a card that won't actively win you the game.  He is a glorious tropical bird though.

Te'Talca, Orc Gladiator / Te'Talca, High Cleric

Ruby has been panned for having a subpar selection of cards.  Patch v825 might change that, particularly with the inclusion of Te'Talca.  Not only is she an efficient finisher in the Mono-Ruby decks, she's also a good, beefy point removal character for the aggressive decks.  4/4 stats allows her to pick of a lot of popular troops like Xentoth, Root Leaf Dancer, Wrenlocke, and Xarlox.  Her flipped form will end games: Removing the strongest blocker, transforming her, and beating with an army of lower cost troops.  Wild-Ruby might enjoy her as well, the only problem being how threshold intensive most of the Wild cards have been.  In draft she's a bomb, and possibly on the top ten list of cards you want to open.

Spawn of Othuyeg

The deck destruction strategy has never been particularly savory for constructed.  Spawn will likely be a backbone of this in early attempts to build it.  The phrase "if this guy connects X times" is the calculation most people do when determining how effective he is.  The truth is, if you can protect Spawn for five or six turns, you might as well protect a 2/2 flier and pressure your opponent's life total.  Limited however is a different story, where the 40-card decks can let Spawn can get out of hand quickly.  He's a live draw in late games, where one or two attacks can finish off someone's deck when you're getting the full five.

Kindling Skarn /Burning Skarn / Hellfire Skarn

If Kindling Skarn didn't transform, it would still be a perfectly fine card for an aggressive deck.  The 1/1 early drop combined with Quick Actions like Burn make the Skarn very difficult to block.  Transforming him into the 2/2 version is probably as far as you can reliably go in the Mono-Ruby decks, at which point he can dominate the battle field and end games.  One of the reasons you should like Skarn is that he lets you maintain pressure on the board with overcommitting into an Extinction.  He also encourages decks that run a small number of early, high-impact troops and burn spells, which is how traditional Sligh/Red-Deck-Wins operates.  The early men drop the opponent down into single digits, with burn to close the gap to zero.  If anything Kindling Skarn is hindered from the limited card pool for Actions in Ruby.  Trying to combo around him probably isn't the greatest idea since he is very fragile, but a Sapphire-Ruby tempo deck with Peek, Ragefire, and Time Ripple can definitely abuse him.  Wrenlocke also fits into this model of deck that wants to play a lot of actions, so it's something to watch in the upcoming weeks.

Puck, Dream Bringer

The mono green decks that ran rampant in the early meta have subsided a bit.  The most explosive draws you could get involved Howling Brave into Chlorophyllia into Fist of Briggadon.  Puck doesn't allow you to trick a Fist into play on turn 3, but just about any other 6 drop is fair game with him.  Battle Beetle and Jadiim are definitely fair game, and even Wrathwood's cost doesn't look as prohibitive with the extra bit of mana ramp that Wild now has.  Puck's also a 2/2, so he can even lay a beatdown when he needs to.  Threshold is again the most prohibitive feature of Puck.  Te'Talca would be an excellent addition to decks with Puck if it wasn't for competing Threshold costs.  As is, Puck only really makes a relatively weak deck more consistent.

One lats note on the patch is that Trial of Faith was included in the visual Card Files.  It seems to have Ancient Sentinel's old portrait though, so it might just be a placeholder.

Hex: Patch v824 Review

Today I'll be going over the latest patch from Hex, currently in alpha.  You can view the Patch v824 Breakdown and Update Notes here.

Probably the biggest thing about this patch is the new card layout.  The new card layout is much better for viewing gems, and especially for viewing rarity and faction.  The Card Modification/Doubleback features haven't been implemented yet, but that's probably where you'll find the collector's numbers, which is the only information lost from the old layout (not that it meant much at this stage).

Most of the general changes are quality of life changes: card manager remembering decks, overlapping text on abilities such as living totem.  One of the major changes is cards getting discarded to the correct graveyard.  If I remember correctly discarded cards went the graveyard of the controller of the effect, so you would Inquisition them and the card would go to your graveyard.  This actually effects gameplay, since Uruunaz can resurrect things from your opponents graveyard when he hits, so this is a pretty important fix for decks that run him and cards that interact with the graveyard. 

For gameplay updates, there's a fix to Lixil where her Uniqueness works as intended. There are rarity changes to Shield Trainer and Kraken Guard Mariner: these two cards basically swapped names, so the rarity changes at this stage is likely just to ensure one card shows up as often as it should in limited.  Archmage Wrenlocke had its correct text back: he draws cards when a spell resolves. This is important for understanding his interaction with cards like Chimes of the Zodiac (one of the three new cards released this week), where the copied spell will also draw you a card.

Chimes of the Zodiac

Speaking of new cards, we got some awesome ones this week.  Chimes of the Zodiac is a pretty broken effect, automatically doubling every action you take.  At seven cost, it will require you to build around it, but if it sticks, it will quickly turn the game.  I've already mentioned how powerful it is with Archmage Wrenlocke.  Even innocuous cards like Peek with Wrenlocke/Chimes puts you four cards up, two of which are trained.  Blood Control decks also have excellent options for copying like Life Syphon and Terrible Transfer for massive life gain, so even outside of control decks this card has potential to see some play in control decks.

Inferno 

Inferno is one of those cards you either hate on principle or will hate through experience.  A lot of people give Red Mages (specifically Red Deck Wins) flack in MTG, and it's not entirely unjustified: when the deck performs, it is incredibly difficult to stop, and often there will be nothing your deck can do if these sort of decks do what they need to do.  Often these decks will manage to get their opponent down into "burn range," where the other player has stabilized and is about to reap the rewards of card advantage.  Every so often, the fire gods will smile and tuck some direct damage safely on top of your deck.  While I imagine Ragefire will be more rage-inducing than Inferno since it can actually deal with opposing troops, Inferno has the potential to end the game on its own (though in which direction, no one can be sure).  People may not like cards like this, since it really does tilt the game more towards the luck side of things, but they have to realize that the person playing this card is also taking the risk it not only won't live up to the price tag for the damage swing it offers, but it might actively do nothing but kill them.  One thing this card does do is create pressure.  Often versus RDW, the opposing player will know when they are in the danger zone: when they can no longer wait on better value for Extinction than the lone Savage Raider constantly two-ing them in the face every turn.  They have to start playing fast and loose because their opponent might just have a bunch of burn in hand.  Inferno creates this board state, though in fairness I think Blood Decks can easily deal with Inferno with the plethora of life gain they have at their disposal, which I suppose is unfortunate for those few men who just want to watch the world burn.

Zombie Plague

I was honestly not expecting this card anytime soon, mostly because I imagine it to be a coding nightmare.  If Spirit Dance is still having problems, I can hardly imagine how reliable slowly infecting enemy troops, removing the, reverting them, transforming them, and putting them into play under control of another player would be.  Surprisingly I haven't encounters any weird affects with Zombie Plague in the Alpha yet, which is extremely promising.  As for the card itself, it is very good, and perhaps the most important card for the current metagame, where Xentoth's Inquisitor is dominating the metagame.  Zombie Plague neuters one-toughness creatures like this while giving you men in return.  Even if this only makes one guy it will be worth the cost, but it also scouts the deck and weakens finishers.  My early impression is that this card will be extremely important in the Blood Control mirrors, which is a shame because those are the decks that are running Xentoth's Inquisitor anyways. 

Zombie Plague is also one of those cards where the functionality of it can be a flavor-breaker.  Take Briar Legion, Rune-Ear Commander or Honeycap for example.  Now these cards get stronger based on the game state, but in the deck they have no stats.  Zombie Plague will immediately kill them when it finds them even if they would be stronger if they were in play.  Now this isn't a bad thing, and it doesn't make the card inherently broken, but Zombie Plague (and many Hex cards) seem designed from a very flavorful standpoint.  Zombie Plague is slowly infects the enemy, turning the weak into minions of your own and weakening the strong.  But the problem is these would-be strong troops just happen to be weak based on the game rules while they are in the deck.  Even if Rune-Ear Commander would be a 4/4, he's powerless in the deck (I believe he's also still bugged to die if Uzume tutors him up, which happened in a game of mine), and instantly becomes a zombie.  What this does it gives decks whose big creatures are printed with large Attack and Defense an advantage against Zombie Plague, for no reason other than functionality.  And functionality is perfectly acceptable reason to have a card work the way it does, but it does break flavor.  It's something the game, and player, has to do to work properly, but it's important to minimize this aspect in moments where this functionality will cause the person on the receiving end to roll their eyes and mutter "that's dumb," and I think Zombie Plague will be getting its fair share of eye rolls.  Also, like Blood needs any more help ;)

Overall the takeaway from this patch is that control decks are probably stronger, and the cards are much more legible, especially in limited where it is much easier to see you rare and legendary cards in sealed.  By my count there are still quite a few cards to go before they have their full PvP Set 1, though there were comments that the set would likely not contain the number they had at the onset.  I imagine they would still want to balance the shard so they each have an even number of cards though, so it will be interesting to see what gets added over the next few weeks: Ruby has five less cards than Blood for example, and Sapphire has more cards at legendary rarity than the other shards.

Until next time. 

Hex TCG: Patch v823 Review

Going to ignore most of the balance changes and give some opinions on the newest cards.  You can read the full patch notes here.

New Cards

 

WrathwoodColossus

Once a deck gets to the point where it can cast Wrathwood Colossus, the deck has inevitability.  The card itself has everything you want for control/ramp: a gigantic 9/9 body with crush (read:evasion) the life gain makes it near-impossible to race against, and short of Inner Conflict, it just doesn’t die.  Problem is, Fist is bigger and also doesn’t die.  Wrathwood probably fits better into multishard decks, such as Blood-Life (possibly Sapphire), where Extinction allows you to buy enough time to get Wrathwood on the field, and possibly return Wrathwood for the follow up if the board is late and cluttered.  This strategy would work better if Wrathwood was more moderately tuned: replace the nines with fives or sixes and it’s much more attractive.  That said, Extinction/Wrathwood style decks still give you a good way to stem the tide of aggression while giving you options in the late game against control decks.  In limited, he’s a bomb, though dependent on the speed of the metagame he may not be as big of a push towards green.

Lixil,the Deathless Gem

I think most people will tunnel vision on the second ability without realizing Lixil is a perfectly average card with threshold fixing, which will be very important in an early metagame of Hex with only one or two sets out.  The threshold search can activate the Major on a Protectorate Defender or assure a Spearcliff Cloud Knight/Eldritch Dreamer hits the following turn, all while maintaining pressure.  In five-color decks where you actually want the Invincibility on, she goes hand in hand with Midnight Shepherd and Extinction.  Perhaps the Necrotic will have this Pentashard theme throughout their card development, though I’m almost upset Lixil isn’t a Human since she might fit in a Triumvirate deck.  In limited she’s very solid.  Though you more than likely won’t be turning on the invincibility, the fixing allows you room to play a little looser with threshold in your curve.

AdabtableInfusion Device

I like this card a lot in the pentashard decks, and possibly in the two-three shard artifact decks.  Pterobot, Rocket Ranger, and Research Librarian come online much faster with this guy.  Late draw is nice as well obviously.  In limited it’s one of those cards that let you feel better about splashing a third shard or playing a little loose with threshold requirements, but because it cycles so slowly, though I’d probably only add it to decks that have enough patience and pressence (read: bomb) that allows you to safely pay four to cycle it throughout the course of the game.

Bone Warrior

Bone Warrior wants to be a 2/1 so bad.  If it was, it might have enough presence to make you want to reanimate it again.  It’s good at stalling out draft games, though eventually evasion men will outweigh the cost of reanimating him again and again.  Props on the style points though.

Servantof Shathak

The average aggro deck usually has about 10-12 different non-shard cards in it, due in part to the consistency needed in the first few turns of the game.  Control decks and toolbox decks are much more flexible with one-ofs and two-ofs, especially if they have tutor effects.  That said, this card will slowly become better and better as the card pool grows larger, and more flying men and tempo effects are propagated.  Sapphire is already very strong on that front with bounce effects and counterspells, and Servant of Shathak will likely be a staple.  In draft he provides a very swift clock in the early game, though since most successful draft decks should be able to deal with a 2/2 flier, he needs more support to merit a pull to Sapphire, since he will have a massive bulls-eye in the early game.

Splinterof Azathoth

In draft he will rule the mid-game skies while providing an important hiccup to any answers your opponent will try to invest in.  The three threshhold looks dicey, but he’s actually a decent six-drop if you have two up to use his ability.  That said, the ability to play him on turn four allows you to maintain aggression and make full use of his ability, which doesn’t outright counter, but buys you time.  I’m actually curious how much play this thing will see in constructed.  He’s a pretty bulky tempo dork, though in a deck that’s trying to abuse air superiority he’s legitimately scary.  He’s also a decent card for protecting a combo as it’s about to resolve, or any spell that is imperative to resolve in a control mirror.

BriarLegion

Briar Legion has no evasion, but subsequent plays make it bigger and bigger as the game progresses, so if you have ways to return multiple copies from your graveyard to play, or Replicator’s Gambit, though there are probably better (or at the very least cooler) things to replicate.  That said, 4/4 are legitimate threats, and you only need to hit the second one before these guys become very cost efficient.  This is one of those cards that will be much better in draft than sealed since picking upwards of three is more likely.

BriarpatchConjuror

When I first read Briarpatch Conjuror, I thought she shuffled herself into your deck with counters and the Briar Legions she created stayed.  I’m kind of relieved it works this way, since Briar Legions can get out of hand once you draw enough.  Problem is your opponent will be drawing cards too, and I’d rather me creating a critical mass of creatures via Crash of Beasts than a single Briar Legion.  In limited this card is perfectly fine.  A few activations will put enough in your deck to make them legitimate threats, and the deck is small enough that you will see them more consistently.  I’d still rather have Ancestor’s Chosen, but ramming an increasing horde of gigantic monsters on the field is right up Wild’s field.