The Night is Darkest Just Before the Dawn

Quick update for those wondering why my posts have been so haphazard over the past months.  Spring semester of law school was busy (like fall), so I haven't had much time to dedicate to the blog or to Hex.  I've recently carved out some time to play with the Steam Release and Primal Dawn on the horizon.  Hopefully I'll give you some specific character profiles (Human Mage and Shin'hare Warrior) and impressions of Primal Dawn.  Most of the article will probably be shorter until summer and Law Review petitioning is out of the way.  I finally got around to finishing the Warrior Review, which had been hanging over my head and preventing me from posting smaller articles I might have otherwise been able to.

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.  

Respected Achiever

Some quick GW2 news: After a few years of on-and-off playing, I finally got enough achievement points to unlock the Respected Achiever title and the Massive Achievement Chest, along with 15 gold, 10 laurels, 400 gems, and a sexy Zenith Recurve Bow Skin.

I also snagged a Total Makeover Kit out of a Black Lion Chest and used it on my Ranger.  I didn't put too much time into him when I made him, but since I've been playing PvP more often I wanted a cooler look.  Sylvari have some interesting "hair" options.  They're also going to be a big focus in Heart of Thorns, so I might play him more in PvE, though the stigma against Rangers it strong.  Anyways, here he is Sophino Dawnstrider in all his pink flowery glory:

Aside from my dailies I probably won't play too much GW2 in favor of Hex drafts since you get Concubunnies .  I'm still slowly making Mawdry progress too.  I'm also working on a series of articles called Stacks from the Past, where I look at some of the decks I've played in Magic, Pokémon, and other CCGs.

Frost Ring Arena Stream

Hey guys!  Sorry for the lack of updates recently.  I got a glut of updates regarding law school recently and have been focusing most of my blog time on that.  I've also been occupied with a few books that have been on my reading list for a while and the LCS Spring Split (#CLGGoldenAge).  The biggest change in gaming was probably when my buddy Jon picked up Guild Wars 2 while it was on sale for 75% off last weekend.  I hadn't picked up the game in a while, and have been catching up with the Season 2 Living World and leveling my alt characters.

This doesn't mean I've forgotten about Hex by any measure.  I was on the test servers periodically, but my play experience was either slow or riddled with bugs that made it impossible to finish the game (like Eurig constantly activating Construction Plans for zero).  However, I will be livestreaming the Hex Arena tomorrow on my Twitch Channel.  I don't use it often and haven't updated it in a while, so I'll try to be as entertaining as possible and answer any questions for players who've been out of the loop during the Beta or are interested to try the game out.

I'll try to update more often when I have things to... update people on.  I'll probably build some PvE decks once we know more about exactly what equipment is available and what features are coming.  Either way, if you're reading this, thanks for checking in and I'll see you in the Arena!

Potential Intensifies

This weekend is shaping up to be a perfect storm of gaming for me, so this is going to be a more sporadic update from me as opposed to the general Hex strategy article.  Hex is certainly headlining the weekend though.  If you haven't read the official news, you can find it here, but I am proud to announce that I can finally add the PvE tag to the blog.  The short of it is Cryptozoic is opening a Test Server that players currently in the Beta will have access to for the weekend.  The Test Server will be available from Thursday, February 5th to Saturday, February 7th with mirrored accounts that feature your current collections, but with the added bonus of 20,000 platinum and some PvE cards.

If you haven't played Hex since Alpha and want to try out some of the new cards in Shattered Destiny without having to cough up the cash, that 20,000 platinum will easily buy 100 boosters (and maybe a few Primal Packs) for you to tear through.  You won't get to keep the cards you buy during the Test Weekend, but on Saturday at 3:00pm Eastern Time there will be a Free Sealed tournament for those in the Test Server.  Participants will get a Free Constructed Queue Entry Ticket and up to 10 Shattered Destiny Boosters based on the number of wins you manage to get in the tournament.  This is another massive stress test for the Tournament Servers as they look to expand the maximum tournament entry beyond its current 128 players.  

The main reason people will be (and should be) playing is that PvE content will finally be available to test.  Players will be able to build PvE decks and equip gear to their champions.  Gear gives bonuses to certain cards in your deck while they are equipped to your champion.  Each card has between one and three pieces of equipment specifically tied to it, but each champion can only hold six pieces of gear, which adds another strategic wrinkle to deck building in a similar way that gems and socketed cards do.

The last and biggest addition is that participants will get to test out the Frost Ring Arena.  We've been getting bits and pieces of the arena sprinkled in Friday Updates for the past few months, but this will be the first time we actually get to try it out for ourselves.  Hex has warned that this is very much an unfinished version of the Arena, and the new UI and improved AI won't be incorporated.  For those that haven't faced the AI in its current state, it will do random things like play Suppressive Fire with no targets or Bombsmith their own Troop.  It has improved somewhat since Alpha, but it is far from where it needs to be to make PvE an enjoyable experience.

This sort of launch is the best thing Hex could have done for me personally.  I've wanted to test out the Equipment and PvE Cards in Hex for ages, since that is what really drew me into the game, and where I think the game really stands out from other CCGs.  While the MMO part of this MMOTCG has seemed to ebb further and further away, the full deck building experience was cut short with the exclusion of equipment.  Getting to have access to equipment for a weekend of hands on testing will help innovators to find combos that don't exist in PvP, and with the community compiling lists of equipment we see, it will give players something to talk about long after the Test has ended.  I want Hex to take their time with the Dungeons and Raids, particularly the AI, because I want a good degree of polish when this content is officially launched so I can enjoy it without having to worry about getting bogged down by bugs.  But I also want to try this stuff out while it's still broken and tinker with it, so the Test Server option is the best of both worlds for me.

If you don't feel like playing but still want a peek at what's going on with this Frost Arena Test, there's a day long stream from some of the personalities in the Hex community on Wednesday (today) on the HexTCG Twitch Channel.  I will also try to stream the Arena during the weekend if/when I have time on my Twitch Channel.

Guild Wars 2

This past weekend was also a big one for Guild Wars 2.  At PAX they announced the first official expansion Heart of Thorns to be released later this year.  I played this game quite a bit the first year it was out, but gradually phased out of it do to school and lack of people to play with.  My friend recently picked up the game when it was on sale for $10 during the announcement of the expansion, and I've been teaming up to carry his little Asura through the leveling process (which isn't long, and is actually very enjoyable).  I have some Season 2 Living World stuff to catch up on and three more characters to get to 80 (My Elementalist, Mesmer, and Guardian are already there).  It's been a while since I've played, and in September they overhauled the daily system.  You get rewards just for logging in, and only have to do three relatively easy to complete daily quests, so despite the Arena I'll probably be peeking my head in there during the weekend as well.

LCS

While I'm playing in the Hex Sealed Tournament on Saturday I will have the NA LCS on Twitch in the second monitor.  This split is shaping up very well and I'm 2-0 in my Fantasy League, thanks in part to focusing on CLG (3-1) and SK Gaming (4-0) during the draft (first pick Aphromoo baby).  I started following it pretty heavily at the tail end of Season 3, and since I always cheer for the eternal underdog, I'm hoping CLG finishes well.  They have a lot of strong players on their team with the addition of Zionspartan in Top Lane and XSmithie in the Jungle.  CLG fans are wary of being disappointed by a team with unlimited potential but that always finds a way to fall short, though (and it's been said before) this might just be the year.  

The two newest teams to the NA LCS, Team 8 (2-2) and Gravity (3-1), have also been doing surprisingly well, stealing games off TSM (3-1) and Cloud 9 (1-3) respectively in the first week.  Cloud 9 has been performing very poorly this split, though they are facing Team 8 and Coast (1-3) this week, so if they are still the caliber of team from Worlds they should be able to even up their record after this weekend.  Dignitas is another veteran team that has been performing poorly, and it's unlikely to turn around soon.  Their jungler Crumbz stepped down from the team earlier this week, and they face TSM and Liquid (2-2), two very strong teams looking to cement their place among the top teams.  

Matches to watch this week:

Thursday 2/5 Match 4: Roccat (1-3) vs Giants (2-2)

Friday 2/6, Match 5: Elements (3-1) vs SK Gaming (4-0)

Saturday 2/7, Match 2: Cloud9 (1-3) vs Team8 (2-2)

Sunday 2/8, Match 2: CLG (3-1) vs Gravity (3-1)

Full Schedule

I didn't even get into the new chapter of Telltale's Game of Thrones that launched yesterday, which I probably won't get to play until after the weekend.  I also haven't mentioned a few board games I had the opportunity to play recently (Kanban, Archipelago, Fields of Arle), but that requires its own article.  Next week I'll probably have an a reaction to the Frost Arena Test Server.  

Card Images from Hex TCG Browser

Snow-vember

For those that don't know, I live in western New York, and we are absolutely buried in snow right now.  Generally speaking this isn't exactly new for the area, but such a concentrated amount of snow so soon and so quickly is kinda crazy.  The bright side is I don't have a car to deal with, just a ten minute walk to work and back.  In between I'm in full hibernation mode, which means Strategy games and the new Hex Novel that was released this week.

I'm only a few chapters in, but the novel is solid so far.  It's got all the makings of the classic fantasy bildungsroman, with some Great Wolves thrown in.  The novel's apparent protagonists don't appear to be depicted on any cards as of yet, but the peripheral characters include well known humans like King Gabriel and Princess Victoria.  Prince Talysen is also name dropped, brother to King Gabriel and lord of Gawaine, an area heretofore known for its snipers and legionnaire.  I got pretty deep into the lore of Magic too, particularly during Kamigawa Block, so it's always fun to see what sort of mechanics get put to the iconic characters.  However Hex will also be releasing lore not just through flavor text and novels, but through the dungeons and overarching campaign, and with the Frost Arena coming mere weeks after the launch of Shattered Destiny (assuming it is relatively bug-free), lore freaks like me will be rejoicing!

In the mean time I've been fooling around with Civ5 Mods and have decided to give Europe Universalis IV another go, having bought it last year and not really picked it back up due to time constraints (college and LSAT prep).  Now that the controls are becoming a little more intuitive and I seem to have a grasp of the mechanics, I'm planning on an Ironman run as Castille soon (though I know they've been done to death a bit).  I'll probably end up streaming that this weekend when I get some time, as well as a weekend of Hex events during launch weekend December 5-7th.  We still only have about 150 cards from Shattered Destiny spoiled so far, and since the set has over 200, there's plenty of room for meta-changing and theorycrafting gems to emerge during the previews next week.  When the official set launches, you can view all the cards in the set in the card manager by selecting "Show All," a neat feature I might utilize to do a set review when it's patched in.

Outside of that it will be a pretty relaxing week.  Next week I will try to pre-build a few decklists I'd like to test for the upcoming Blood Cup Tournament.  Until then, stay warm!

Quarterly Infodump

Earlier this week, Hex President and draft aficionado Cory Jones went into the forums for a Q&A regarding the Basically-Open-But-We're-Not-Ready-To-Call-It-Open Beta.  Much speculation has been surrounding the next major features for the game, including larger tournaments; Shattered Destiny, Hex's second PvP set; and the Frost Ring, the introduction to Hex's long awaited PvE content.  The thread quickly ballooned and many questions were fielded, resulting in a veritable info-dump and giving us a good idea about what to expect from the Beta as we approach the end of the year.

The next three major content updates according to the Q&A are Shattered Destiny, which is planned for November; Frost Ring/Arena, planned for December; and to many player's surprise, asynchronous Sealed tournaments, also planned for December.  It's important to note that Hex has been reluctant to release specific dates, as there has been a history of missed deadlines that have caused ripples in the community.  As such, it's not unlikely to realistically expect some of these updates getting pushed to the first quarter of 2015 (Shattered Destiny was originally announced to launch in late August).  But reservations aside, these upcoming content updates are fairly sizable steps towards getting the game to resemble what was presented in the Kickstarter.  

Shattered Destiny

A good chunk of Set 2 has been spoiled, and a lot of the cards look awesome and feature mechanics that will change both draft and constructed.  The Dual-Threshold Shards will be particularly key for making three-shard decks viable in the metagame, as well as smoothing out the draws of dual-shard decks.  Cards from Set 1 (Shards of Fate) will find some love with the addition of Shattered Destiny as new strategies will emerge.  The Darkspire Clan will at least double in size with two new cards added to the mix, including the incredibly potent Darkspire Tyrant.  The other Rare and Legendary cards are equally strong, and many come with the quirky charm that Hex likes to inject into their design, evidenced in cards like the menacing Killipede, which can toxify your opponents before the finishing sting!  

This will be a particularly important addition to Hex for a few reasons.  Primarily, it serves to reinvigorate an increasingly stale metagame.  Many of Hex's most ardent players have been drafting Set 1 for the better part of a year now, and Constructed has been tested and tuned evn before then.  While a good portion of the backers are waiting until PvE is in the game to start actively playing, the ones that are as addicted to draft as I am will be coming back in full force when Set 2 finally drops.  There will also be significantly less Set 2 packs given out from the Kickstarter than of Set 1, meaning we'll probably have a better idea of what the market will look like going forward when pricing singles from Shattered Destiny.

Asynchronous Sealed

If you've played Hearthstone or wanted to draft but couldn't commit the three hours to do so, you'll understand the appeal of this feature and why learning that it's being developed and slated to launch soon excites me.  Normal Single Elimination tournaments can run anywhere from ten minutes if you're eliminated quickly in round one, to near three hours if you grind it out to the finals, and that's not accounting for deck construction!  Asynchronous Sealed allows you to compete in Sealed Deck without as much of a time commitment.  You get build and play the deck at your leisure, facing off against other Sealed players until you hit a certain amount of losses or you max out on wins.  At least, that's a rough overview of how it works in Hearthstone.  It's unclear exactly what Hex's Asynchronous Tournaments will look like, though it's fair to speculate prizes will be based on the number of wins you get and that it will cost packs and platinum to enter.  This format could work with either Constructed or Sealed, though not Booster Draft, since playing against the cards you pass is part of the overall strategy.  Additionally, the ability to play tournament matches at your leisure can only open Hex up to more players, including myself, since I've been resigned to drafting almost exclusively on my days off when I don't already have plans (an increasingly rare occurrence).

Frost Ring/Arena

A majority of the information was unsurprisingly pointed at PvE.  The Frost Ring, sometimes referred to simply as "Arena," is planned to launch in December 2014.  Kickstarter PvE card rewards are planned to be distributed upon launch of The Frost Ring.  PvP Champions will be usable in the Arena until "phase 2" (suggesting gated content), at which point Mercenaries will be introduced.  The Might System and player Champion creation will not be introduced yet.  The most important part is that this will be the first chance players get to use Equipment and PvE Cards and the first opportunity, aside from the Wheels of Fate, for players to earn these items in game.  

The chests which have been collecting dust in your inventory stash throughout the summer will finally be accessible as well.  Available inside booster packs, players can open the chests to acquire loot based on the chest's rarity.  Chest loot will likely take the form of PvE Cards and Equipment, but may not be limited to just those.  Like the Wheels of Fate, players might have the opportunity to earn mercenaries or card sleeves.  Players looking to get a jump on PvE can find three cards exclusive to the Wheels of Fate: Air Elemental, Lightning Elemental, and Water Elemental, as well as equipment (two for each card) which can be equipped to your champion in the Arena to grant powerful buffs to your cards.  Each champion has six slots for equipment, and each item is tailored to a specific slot.  Bubble Mail, which will provide a buff to the Water Elemental, is a chest piece.  Since each champion can only have one item attached to each slot, players will have to think carefully about not only which cards they want in their deck, but how they want to coordinate the equipment.  This adds a whole new level to deck-building similar to the gem slots, and scooping up that last piece of gear you need will provide the impetus for completing Frost Ring dungeon runs, which will have two difficulty modes and which Cory guesses will take roughly twenty hours for a casual player to complete.

The Wheels of Fate Elemental Cycle, as well as the current loot available from the Wheels of Fate, will be available throughout Shattered Destiny's launch, rotating with the launch of Sets 3 & 4 sometime in 2015.  A full list of the information from the Cory Q&A was broken down by Yasi in the Hex subreddit.

Rock League - Season 2

In community news, the second season of the Rock League has begun.  Deck construction is restricted to only commons and four uncommons, making it perfect for new players. Players can earn points for up to three matches every week, with tiebreaker points for additional matches.  Boosters and even Primal Packs have been donated by community members as prizes for the top 32 participants.  Players can even earn bonus prizes for playing different champions through the league.  The Rock League will run for four weeks beginning November 3rd.  Information and sign-ups can be found at the link above.

Next week I will tell you a tale of how an Archmage from the academy at Cerulea and a young monk from an isolated mountain pass teamed up to liberate one of the most powerful mages on all of Entrath.  

Until next time.

Firecat Blitz

Hey everyone!  This is likely going to be my last update before GenCon.  I'm looking forward to playing some Hex and earning some Jovial Pippits, along with snagging a few of those custom posters.  If you haven't seen them yet, make sure you check out last week's Friday Update on the main site or Cory's blog, because they look amazing.  There was a glut of information over the weekend from the Child's Play Stream, including promos and interviews.  There were also some new tracks from Michael Shapiro on Soundcloud.  AND I have a deck I've been tinkering around with to share this week.

Firecat Blitz

Most of the decks I have aren't really competitive... they're more fun.  I have a few decks (including the Skarn deck) that I'm trying to make competitive, but I've never really enjoyed super top tier Constructed play (I love me some limited though).  For those times when I don't have enough time to draft but I still wanna get my Hex on I've found myself tinkering around with this deck.

Champion: Poca

4x Bombsmith
4x Cerulean Mirror Knight
4x Buccaneer
2x Archmage Wrenlocke

4x Burn
4x Cerebral Fulmination
4x Ragefire
4x Peek
4x Replicator's Gambit
3x Oracle Song

11x Sapphire Shards
10x Ruby Shards
2x Shards of Fate

So the goal of this deck is to Replicator's Gambit your Blaze Elemental back into your deck to give you an instant 21 damage attack.  Ragefire is an alternate win condition, and if you draw extra Gambits you can shuffle in a Buccaneer or Bombsmith since their "enters play" abilities become much better.  Though this deck is a little kitschy I think Poca-Gambit is a solid little combo on its own since you don't lose any cards when you Gambit a Blaze Elemental (unless they kill the Elemental in response), and you have a very powerful, cheap play that you can topdeck.  This list is about as dedicated to getting the "Firecat Blitz" combo off as you can, and if you pull it off, it's a pretty enjoyable attack phase.

Without threshold fixing, the two Shards of Fate are kind of a necessary evil to ensure you can play the Fulmination and Ragefires while still getting at least a couple cards off of Peek.  This deck is strictly a combo deck: it doesn't have much in the way of generating card advantage like most control decks do, and it doesn't have a way to rush damage that most aggro decks do.  Most of what you can do with generating card advantage will be restricted to Mirror Knight and Wrenlcoke, and most players will focus on killing them on sight if they can.  There actually aren't a whole lot of troops for Mirror Knight to inspire, but if you don't have Gambit he turns Poca into a cheaper version of Wyatt since you Blaze Elementals will instantly net you a card.  The four-resource cost of Wrenlocke also makes 23 resource a bit questionable (I'm always nervous about being stuck at 3), but the rest of the deck is so inexpensive I'm usually fine.  

Wrenlcoke is also the most expensive card in the deck, though if you're having trouble affording them, he's not super necessary for the deck and could easily be replaced with something else.  He's also not a good Gambit target since he's unique, so changing him up to something like Royal Falconer may actually help some draws.

Beta Features

During the Child's Play Stream Event, Ben Stoll (head of PvP) and Cory Jones both sat down for interviews with InfamousNeo & Cirouss.  Vorsa & AswanJaguar in the official forums were kind enough to give the highlights of the interviews.  I will go over a few of the finer points that are coming down the pipeline in the coming weeks, but it's worth checking out the overviews and interviews for yourself.  You can find links to these overviews here: Jones Interview / Stoll Interview.

The next major content releases will be the tutorial, Set 2 PvP, and following that an update to PvE content.  Trading (a send-by-mail version), as well as an improved AI are currently in the works.  The Doubleback feature and Guilds have been pushed further back, likely until after Open Beta.  Regarding Set 2 (Shattered Destiny), it will feature the mechanics Lethal, Skyguard, and Tunneling, the latter of which is a mechanic that is rooted in Hex's digital design space and will have a cool visual effect and thematic tie in.  Shattered Destiny will also build upon the racial themes introduced in set 1, adding cards to Shin'hare, Human, Dwarf, and Orc strategies.  Some of these we've already seen, like Fury of the Mountain God and Cottontail Recruiter.  Shattered Destiny drafts will be mixed format: 2 Set-2, 1 Set-1 and award prizes of comparable distribution: so if you won 3 packs you'd win 2 Set-2, 1 Set-1.

New Champions and Gems will be introduced, possibly with Shattered Destiny, and if not they will be implemented during the next block of sets.  There will also likely be a champion/gem rotation for what is allowed/available in PvP at a particular time.  The "Wild West" PvE/PvP format may incorporate every Gem/Champion option though.  Set 1 (Shards of Fate) and Shattered Destiny will comprise the first block, with Set 3 & Set 4 comprising the second block.  This second block will focus on the other races it seems: Necrotic, Coyotle, Vennen, and Elves.

New Music

Some of you may remember Michael Shapiro from the Massively article back in April where he discussed composing some of the various sounds for Hex.  His Soundcloud was updated over the past month with some new tracks, including a haunting theme titled The Necrotic, which will likely be tied to their Underworld Location, or possibly a Necrotic themed Dungeon.  If you haven't had the chance to check out his page, give it a listen!

Set 2 Previews

The Child's Play Stream also featured 4 new preview cards from Shattered Destiny:

Cockatwice

Lethal was confirmed to equal "when this troop deals combat damage to another troop, it destroys that troop."  This adds a bit of complication to deciding what gems you socket on this guy, since normal evasion rules may not always be better.  Obviously giving it Flight makes sense in Sapphire-Blood, but so does slamming it on the field as a Quick Action to block and kill your opponent's gigantic attacker.  Swiftstrike is equally good, since dealing combat damage first--and in turn, killing them--will keep him immune to whoever he's brawling with, so long as they too don't have swiftstrike.  While the sockets and Lethal are this card's strength, the resource cost and toughness are definitely its weakness.  Five resources for two-toughness is a very dicey proposition, since a Heat Wave or Burn will easily incinerate him.  Despite this, he still appears to be a strong pick in draft, though this could change depending on how plentiful removal is in Set 2.

Born of the Flame 

Let me put on my Highlander hat for a minute, since this card seems designed for the potentially powerful and incredibly wonky big-stack formats.  You could get a Zoltog, Te'Talca, and an Ash Harpy... or you could whiff into a couple of Unmerciful Tormentors and a Royal Falcon (the bird, not the trainer).  This is assuming "token" troops count towards the pool of potential cards this could generate, though if this is the case, you could generate The Triumvirate too.  It probably won't see play in constructed, but it could be a slam in limited: most Ruby guys are pretty aggressive, and even if you get a couple of low-cost guys in the mix, you have a pretty good chance of at least breaking even with your resource investment.

Robotic Rapture

Returning a massive amount of cards from your yard is pretty powerful, and if you are generating a lot of Worker Bots or sacrificing Sapper's Charges and Bottled Vitaes you  will probably have some cheap cards to replenish your field after playing this.  Right now artifacts are relatively tame, but this is a card that will likely be much more powerful as time goes on and more low-cost artifacts are printed.  Charge, Vitae, and Goblin Cooking Pot are probably your best bets as far as abusing abilities.  Pterobots aren't a bad choice either since their cost scales down with the artifacts you have in play, so if you get to 7 on the board that same turn you can generate a small army of 3/4 fliers.  I'm less interested in playing a PvP deck with this than I am in trying this with Bebo in a PvE deck, since his Robot Parts can be generated fairly easily with the extra charges from Vitae and maybe Induction Coil.

Stonetusk

Cost-efficient dudes with drawbacks tend to be hit or miss, and even with Steadfast this guy is asking for a Gozzog activation or... well... anything with evasion.  One thing that does get me excited is this guy is an Iljuni, the anthropomorphic elephant people heretofore (to my knowledge) referenced only in the flavor text of Shrine of Prosperity.  The ornately fashioned Iljuni seem really cool from a design standpoint--it has an Indian/Hindu feel--so I'm happy to see them more prominently featured on a card.  Another interesting point about this card is that it has the Ardent emblem on the left-hand side, traditionally reserved only troops from the Ardent races: Humans, Orcs, Elves, and Coyotle.  This could easily be an oversight, but it might also highlight that some of the "neutral" races are more closely allied with the Ardent or Underworld thematically.  We already know the Shroomkin are closely tied to the Shin'hare (though much to their chagrin), so perhaps we will see some elephant shamans and clerics teaming up with Elves and Orcs in PvE dungeons. 

Pack/Draft Code Contest

Congratulations to Arkios for winning last week's Pack/Draft Code.  I'll add you in game and send you the code.  I'll have another pack & draft code next available after GenCon.  I'll also try to include some pictures meeting the Hex team and hopefully some of the podcasters from Threshold and 2 Turns Ahead (which if you haven't listened to, you should).

Until next time...

Upcoming Streams: July

A quick update on what games I'm playing and what I have coming up as far as articles go.

Faster Than Light

I picked this game up on the Steam Summer Sale.  Needless to say, I'm pretty bad at it (I've only beat the Kestral on Easy Mode), but I've been playing it a couple times through per week whenever I have time.  Like Hex, FTL has Manti so I'm a big fan, but it also has micromanagement and experience and all the good stuff I love.  I might pick up streaming this on my Twitch channel for a few achievement runs (so I don't embarrass myself too much).

Civilization 5

Civilization Beyond Earth is coming out in October, so I want to get my fill of earth Civilization with crossbows and pyramids before I take off into the great beyond.  I've been doing achievement runs with the Brave New World Civilizations I haven't had a chance to play with.  My friend Travis (who recently got the game) and I are planning on doing a "Two-Men-Versus-The-World" scenario where we play against 8 Emperor Bots.  We're having a vote in the WNY Gamers Group for which Civilizations you want us to play.  We'll play the Top 2 chosen.  I plan on streaming this for a few hours Sunday afternoons/evenings.

League of Legends

Doom Bots of Doom were announced, which means that when I'm losing to degenerate power spikes I might actually be happy.  I'm almost exclusively an ARAM player.  I play in provisional Ranked games just to get my flashy border and season skins, but the Howling Abyss is where i make my home.  The Doom Bots have enhanced effects and abilities, though not the best strategy or objective focus that humans do.  Still, I'm looking forwards to trying it out.

Everquest Next: Landmark

Beautiful House from Everquest Next: Landmark
Courtesy of Bellazar

I got into the Landmark Beta for the next seven days, so this weekend I want to monkey around in the game a bit with the world creator to see what it has to offer.  The stuff I've seen about the game leaves me with equal parts mouthwatering anticipation and eyebrow-arching skepticism.  Normally I'd be filling my MMO itch with Guild Wars 2 or Hex, but since Hex doesn't have its MMO elements in, and GW2's new area has been laggy to the point of unplayable for me (the game is still beautiful), I'd rather go Everquest Minecrafting for the weekend.

Hex

Saving the best for last ;) I've been hard at work trying to get the website set up exactly how I want it when I finally convert it from blogger.  Since the mercenary changes there hasn't been too much in the way of news.  There was a large scheduled constructed tournament announcement that revamped the structure.  It costs platinum to enter, but winners get 20 packs and 70K Gold!  Sadly until they enact peer-to-peer trading I'll probably be steering clear of constructed for the time being.  I do have a few decklists I plan on posting to let you guys know a few ideas I'm monkeying around with in my playtesting group.